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“Individually, each element is promising. Together, they’re a mess. It’s a theme that carries on across the album.” - Matt O‘Neill reviews SHAPESHIFTER’S DELTA (P28)
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When we got back to our hotel there was a queue of women outside. It was very pleasurable.”
“We get more salacious daytime soap than nuanced inspection of behavior and emotion under pressure.” - Simon Eales reviews HERDING CATS (P32)
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NEVER STOP DEVELOPING Pushing the sonic envelope for the better part of a decade, Alesana’s latest concept album, A Place Where The Sun Is Silent, shows the North Carolina sextet in a new light, with pop, orchestral and acoustic elements. Australia stands to be one of the first countries in the world to hear that latest body of work live, with the Americans performing Wednesday 7 August, Amplifier, Perth; Friday 9, The Evelyn Hotel, Melbourne; Saturday 10, Lilydale Showgrounds, Melbourne (all ages); Sunday 11, Factory Theatre, Sydney (licensed/ all ages); Wednesday 14, Billionaire, X&Y Bar, Brisbane, and Thursday 15, Studio 454, Brisbane (all ages).
THIS WEEK’S RELEASES EMPIRE OF THE SUN Ice On The Dune EMI
CLOSURE OPENING UP
Josh Pyke
SIGUR ROS
KVEIKUR XL / Remote Control
MIDNIGHT JUGGERNAUTS
Uncanny Valley Siberia / Remote Control
THIS WILL MAKE YOU HAPPY Lovable Sydney troubadour Josh Pyke is getting to The Beginning And The End Of Everything with his fourth studio record, a full-length he calls “his most personal release to date”. Catch Pykey when he performs Saturday 17 August at The Corner, Melbourne; Thursday 22, The Small Ballroom, Newcastle; Friday 23, Enmore Theatre, Sydney (all ages); Saturday 24, UniBar, Wollongong; Thursday 29, Kings Beach Tavern, Caloundra; Friday 30, The SoundLounge, Gold Coast; Saturday 31, The Tivoli, Brisbane; Thursday 5 September, Prince of Wales, Bunbury; Friday 6, Fly By Night, Fremantle, and Saturday 7, The Astor, Perth, with up and comers Patrick James and Olympia supporting the songwriter on all dates. Head to The Guide on theMusic.com.au to pick up tickets to the event nearest you and let the stories of Josh Pyke soothe your soul. Proudly presented by Street Press Australia.
LET’S GET WEIRD SURFER BLOOD
Pythons Warner
Lamb Of God
SHEEPS TO THE SLAUGHTER
APP IT UP CAT EFFECTS Size: 16.6MB What it does: It’s official – the catvolution is meowing its way around the world. This app lets you ‘kittify’ your images, allowing cat lovers to squeeze as many felines as they can into one picture. Why it’s essential: It’s hilarious and slightly adorable. Platform: IOS 4.0
EATS ON TOUR BEN WRECKER FROM HOTEL WRECKING CITY TRADERS
It’s a good day to be an Australian metal fan, for later this year you’ll be getting a rather serious double helping of the hard stuff, with American wild men Lamb Of God partnering up with Swedish djent masters Meshuggah to pound our country into the ground. Check out two of the best metal bands on the planet at the following dates: Friday 20 September, The Tivoli, Brisbane; Saturday 21, UNSW Roundhouse, Sydney (licensed/all ages); Sunday 22, Festival Hall, Melbourne (licensed/unlicensed); and Thursday 26, Metro City, Perth. Tickets go on sale this Friday, 14 June.
ADDED FLAVOUR Having just signed on the dotted line with ABC Music, Aussie troubadour Ben Salter is now setting his sights to the stage, announcing a national tour to celebrate the release of his new EP, European Vacation. Just like those American scamps The Griswolds back in the ‘80s, Salter made his way across the Culture Continent, although his time was better spent than Clark and his family, with the songwriter using his five months away to write, perform, collaborate and take as much from the entire experience as possible. Hear his trip come to life through music when he plays Friday 12 July, The Spotted Cow, Toowoomba; Thursday 18, Cafe Le Monde, Noosa; Friday 19, Black Bear Lodge, Brisbane; Sunday 21, Mojos Bar, Perth; Thursday 25, Worker’s Club, Melbourne; Friday 26, Petersham Bowls Club, Sydney; and Saturday 27, Front Gallery, Canberra.
EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN It’s been in the works for a little while now, but finally we’re ready to be treated to the swaggering rock sounds of Melbourne foursome Royston Vasie. All stomping riffs and on-point lyrics, the band have already supported some big names such as Ben Kweller, Manchester Orchestra and Afghan Whigs, but will be making the spotlight their own when they play their own headline shows up and down the east coast with support from Cabins. Catch them both when the bands kick off their tour Friday 5 July at Alhambra Lounge, Brisbane, followed by Saturday 6, The Northern, Byron Bay; Friday 12 and Saturday 13, Brighton Up Bar, Sydney; and Saturday 20, Ding Dong Lounge, Melbourne.
WHAT IS YOUR STAPLE MEAL WHEN ON TOUR? Falafels with liberal amounts of chilli. Hotel Wrecking City Traders touring nationally. Check The Guide for dates.
THIS SHOULD BE OUTLAWED It’s the first ever tour for roaring Atlanta party metallers Attila, so make sure you witness when they rip apart venues with Sydney’s very own hardcore heroes Hellions. Friday 9 August, Hot Damn! Road Trip, Wollongong; Saturday 10, Loudfest, Brisbane (all ages) and Thriller, X&Y Bar, Brisbane; Sunday 11, Factory Theatre, Sydney (licensed/all ages – with Alesana); Tuesday 13, The Basement, Canberra; Wednesday 14, The Karova Lounge, Ballarat; Thursday 15, Next, Melbourne; and Saturday 17, Mordialloc Metal Hardcore Fest, Allan McLean Hall (all ages). Tickets are on sale Wednesday 12 June.
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If you’ve seen Tim & Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!, then you know all about the trials and tribulations of one David Liebe Hart, so get excited and get freaky because the ultimate puppet master is bringing his band to our shores for a run of dates. Old school punk jams with leftfield subject matter, Liebe wants you to strap on your hands-free headset and tightly attach your fanny pack for a night of ‘Salamae-zing’ brilliance. Check it out: Friday 4 October, Crowbar, Brisbane; Saturday 5, Hermann’s Bar, Sydney; Sunday 6, Yours & Owls, Wollongong; Friday 11, Northcote Social Club, Melbourne; Sunday 13, Amplifier, Perth.
Currently trucking around Europe with American posthardcore heartstarters Dance Gavin Dance, Melbourne’s Closure In Moscow are returning home next month to apply the final coat to their long-awaited second record, Pink Lemonade, and to keep the machine well oiled they’ll also be playing a limited run of capital city shows up and down the East Coast. Check the technical five-piece out when they play Thursday 4 July, Black Bear Lodge, Brisbane; Friday 5, GoodGod Small Club, Sydney; Saturday 6, Transit Bar, Canberra, and Saturday 13, The Toff In Town, Melbourne.
BOW DOWN TO THE SOUND Through hard work and a commitment to their craft, Canadians Obey The Brave have already made a legitimate dent on the global metalcore scene and now, after hitting more than 20 locations globally over the last two years, the band are finally ready to bring their punishing show Down Under. Tour dates as follows: Saturday 17 August, Bang, Melbourne; Sunday 18, Mordialloc Metal & Hardcore Fest, Allan McLean Hall, Melbourne (all ages); Tuesday 20, Pot Belly, Canberra; Wednesday 21, The Vault, Newcastle (all ages); Thursday 22, Hot Damn, Q Bar, Sydney; Friday 23, Studio Six, Sutherland (licensed/ all ages); Saturday 24, Thriller, X&Y Bar, Brisbane, and Sunday 25, Tall Poppies Studios, Brisbane (all ages). Tickets are on sale Thursday 13 June.
RAISE THE ROOF Swervedriver fans brace yourself. In a world first, the loud and proud Oxford quartet will be playing their landmark debut Raise in its entirety live on stage. Twenty-two years following the release of the record and these tracks don’t sound tired in the slightest, with their smooth mix of brash, angry guitars and swirling pop aesthetics continuing to influence rock bands around the globe. The band will hit a limited number of capital cities, playing Thursday 26 September, The Zoo, Brisbane; Friday 27, Metro Theatre, Sydney; Saturday 28, Corner Hotel, Melbourne; and Thursday 3 October, Rosemount, Perth.
LIGHT IS A PLACE It’s hard to believe that Floridian rockers Anberlin have only been around for ten years, such is the volume of their output, consisting of six albums during that stretch. However, the band are not letting the occasion pass without some celebrating, and are excited to announce they’ll be returning Down Under with some brand new tracks and a couple of OS supports in the way of The Maine and William Beckett. Get ready to sing your little heart out when the guys perform at the following dates: Wednesday 4 September, The Hi-Fi, Brisbane; Thursday 5, Coolangatta Hotel, Gold Coast; Friday 6, Panthers, Newcastle (licensed/all ages); Saturday 7, The Hi-Fi, Sydney (licensed/all ages); Sunday 8, The Palace, Melbourne; Wednesday 11, Metro, Fremantle. Pick up your tickets from Friday 14 June.
Paul Kelly
THE MAN WITH A THOUSAND STORIES Few songwriters are as revered in this country as the inimitable Paul Kelly. The 58-year-old has written some of Australia’s most iconic tunes and last year’s album, Spring And Fall, shows that the bloke’s still got it. In a treat for fans, Kelly will play that record in full, plus a collection of favourites, on his next tour, and with special guest Urthboy supporting on all dates (excluding Geelong) these shows are positioned to be some of the most memorable seen in 2013. Get along to Sunday 28 July, Brolga Theatre, Maryborough; Tuesday 30, Gold Coast Arts Centre; Wednesday 31, Lake Kawana Community Centre, Sunshine Coast; Thursday 1 August, QPAC Concert Hall, Brisbane; Monday 5, Civic Theatre, Newcastle; Wednesday 7 Playhouse, Geelong; Thursday 8 and Friday 9 Recital Centre, Melbourne; Sunday 11 Regent Cinemas, Ballarat; Tuesday 13 and Wednesday 14 Recital Hall, Sydney; Saturday 17 Anita’s Theatre, Wollongong; Sunday 18, Llewellyn Hall, Canberra; and Thursday 22 Regal Theatre, Perth. Pre-sale tickets are available now through Live Nation, with general admission stubs released to the public this Friday 14 June.
FAMILIAR FACES Bring Me The Horizon
MIDDLE FINGERS UP With their last two albums topping the ARIA charts, it’s clear that Aussie metal fans don’t mind a cheeky bit of Bring Me The Horizon. And no doubt they’re going to be a heap more popular with news of an impending headline tour with an all international bill of brutality including Americans Of Mice & Men and Japan’s Crossfaith. The three acts play the following licensed/all ages shows: Saturday 5 October, The Marquee, Brisbane; Sunday 6, Hordern Pavilion, Sydney; Wednesday 9, Festival Hall, Melbourne; and Saturday 12, Challenge Stadium, Perth. Tickets go on sale Friday 14 June.
Melbourne trio The Basics are emerging from the wilderness to perform a run of East Coast shows later this year. Since they stepped away in 2010 a lot has happened. Drummer Wally De Backer has done fairly well for himself under his sort of well-known guise Gotye, Tim Heath has been working on films and Kris Schroeder has been keeping himself busy with bouts of malaria – all fun and games, really! But all that is the past and The Basics, right now, are the present. The Ingredients & Leftovers tour dates are Thursday 12 September at The Spiegeltent, Brisbane; Thursday 26, Theatre Royal, Castlemaine; Friday 27 and Saturday 28, Northcote Social Club; Thursday 3 October, Transit Bar, Canberra; Friday 4, Oxford Art Factory, Sydney, and Sunday 6 as part of the Caloundra Music Festival on the Sunshine Coast.
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TIX AVAILABLE THRU MOSHTIX: MANGELWURZEL (MONDAYS IN JUNE) KOOYEH (TUESDAYS IN JUNE) KALACOMA (WEDNESDAYS IN JUNE) CELADORE – FINAL SHOW (JUNE 21) TULAHLAH – EP LAUNCH (JUNE 28) KIRKIS (JUNE 29) THREE’S A CROWD (MONDAYS IN JULY + AUGUST) ANIMAUX (THURSDAYS IN AUGUST) SLEEPMAKESWAVES (JULY 6 + 7) VELMA GROVE – ALBUM LAUNCH (JUL 19) GREY GHOST (JUL 20) THE GOOD SHIP – QLD (JULY 27) ALESANA – USA (AUG 10) GUTTERMOUTH – FINAL AUS TOUR (AUG 17)
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INDUSTRY
NOTHING SMALL ABOUT IT This July, Smalltown welcome the originator of techno, Juan Atkins, into the Australian dimension. Joining him will be Funk D’Void, the guy who carried techno in the ‘90s, and Phil Kieran, who has delivered a variety of passionate concepts over the years – the 2005 punk beats collaboration with Martin Corrigan in Alloy Mental and his solo debut, SHH, in 2009 were confident leaps into unchartered territory. Check out the show at Brown Alley on Friday 12 July.
TAKING A STAND
Tyler, The Creator
POLICE SHUT DOWN EARLWOLF INSTORE Tyler, The Creator and Earl Sweatshirt’s Sydney in-store appearance was shut down by police after thousands of people tried to pack into a clothing store. Held at George Street’s Culture King store last week, the store has apologised to fans who missed out on seeing the Odd Future members – including Jasper Dolphin. “We were excited when Odd Future approached us about hosting an in-store,” they said. “We’re big fans of their music and stock Odd Future Clothing in our stores. We’re very sorry to the fans who didn’t get to meet Tyler and the guys before police shut it down.” The crowds packed out the top and bottom floors of the store and the queue to get in went for two blocks. Touring under the joint Earlwolf title, once again the rappers have had controversy follow them around the country. Collective Shout, a group against the sexualisation of women, lobbied the tour’s venues to cancel the shows and have Tyler’s visa revoked. Tyler’s lyrics have often courted negative attention as they depict rape and violence against women. Their voices were joined by Federal Liberal MP Alex Hawke, who said in the House Of Representatives, “The grave concern I have is that this so-called ‘art’ promotes extreme violence against women, including murder, rape, genital mutilation and many other vile misogynist lyrics.” The tour was promoted by Mushroom Group’s Frontier Touring. The company’s Chairman Michael Gudinski was unavailable for comment.
INDUSTRY NEWS Sony has become the first company to launch a substantial cross-platform marketing campaign for a streaming service in Australia, with Music Unlimited making a play for market share. One of the original services to launch in Australia, Music Unlimited has been largely overshadowed by the entry of services like Spotify, Rdio, Mog, Deezer and Songl. Even more services, including those from Google, Apple and locallyowned Vu are expected to be rolled out this year.
Abbe May
APRA AWARDS AIRING Acts playing at this year’s APRA awards have been announced and include Architecture In Helsinki, British India, Jessica Mauboy, Lior with Gian Slater, Georgi Kay with Robert Conley, and Abbe May with Sam Ford. APRA’s flagship event will be broadcast exclusively on MAX on Wednesday 26 June at 8pm along with encore presentations on Thursday 27 June at 9am and Monday 1 July at 6.30pm. It features exclusive interviews from the red carpet and backstage, as well as a wrap up of all the award winners.
MORE THOUSANDS Fresh from the bands’ killer live set at the inaugural Stone Festival at ANZ stadium and a Wednesday night residency at Melbourne’s Cherry Bar, Ten Thousand now perform at the Newmarket Hotel (Bendigo) on Friday 19 July and the Espy on Saturday 20.
PLAYING SPOONS
MIDNIGHT SURGE Taking cues from low-end house, lush beat work and the local ambient electronic scene, Sydney duo Cosmo’s Midnight have created a sound that is uniquely their own. To celebrate their new EP, Surge, they’re hitting the road. Catch them at Rats at Brown Alley on Saturday 29 June with Oisima.
The rescheduled tour from Madchester legends Happy Mondays has been cancelled after the band’s management and local promoter KillRockStar Big Dog Entertainment failed to come to a “mutual agreeable solution”. It was due to start last week. Brisbane hip hop festival Sprung will expand to Melbourne this year after two years of solid growth. Promoter Greg Connors told theMusic. com.au, “We’ve either had really good line-ups or we’ve jagged it two years in a row.” This month will see the launch of Nurlu Jalbingan, the inaugural Professional Music Business Program for Indigenous Artists & Managers, which will take place in Broome. Co-founder of iconic Sub Pop Records, Jonathan Poneman has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease. Sydney hardcore outfit Hellions have joined the UNFD roster after forming from the breakup of The Bride, who were themselves previously involved with the company. New South Wales avant-pop outfit Shining Bird have signed with Spunk Records, with their debut album due in September/October this year. Spunk have a deal in place with Universal’s new Caroline label services division. American-based Wind-Up Records have snapped up another Australian act, with Melbourne-based Strange Talk signing a worldwide deal – outside Australian and New Zealand – with the label. American metalcore outfit August Burns Red has signed with Shock Records for the release of their next record, Rescue & Restore. Melbourne artist Paul Yore is likely to be charged with child porn offences after police raided a St Kilda exhibition. After community opposition to Yore’s installation, which allegedly depicted sexualised children, police raided the Linden Centre for Contemporary Art seizing several of Yore’s works.
ROCK RITUAL Leaps & Bounds Music Festival presents Morning Ritual Sleeps In – a series of weekend gigs at midday, held at Copacabana. There’s The UV Race and Early Woman on Saturday 6 July, Super Wild Horses and Terrible Truths on Sunday 7, Beaches and Ausmuteants on Saturday 13, Nun and Eastlink on Sunday 14, and Ooga Boogas and Exhaustion on Saturday 20. Entry’s only $5. The inaugural Leaps & Bounds Music Festival kicks off on Friday 5 to Sunday 21 July.
QUICK AS A FOX Little Fox hits the road in support of her brand new, enchantingly dark single Anniversary. With a solid run of shows up the East Coast with Melbourne band Buchanan to promote the new single, Little Fox comes to the Curtin Bandroom on Thursday 18 July and the Workers Club on Saturday 20.
Show Off Services’ Ashley Sambrooks will launch a new online-exclusive publicity group later this month with partnerships in place with international agencies. It has working partnerships in place with London digital publicity agency Whiteboard Publicity and Los Angeles artist development company The Planetary Group. Melbourne pranksters turned Sony boy band The Janoskians have come under attack for a video they filmed in Denmark where they simulate masturbation in public places, including over a baby. Little Britain actor Matt Lucas branded the video “repulsive”.
Beaches
Grinspoon have announced that The Snowdroppers will be joining the 2013 Black Rabbits Tour as main support at selected shows, including the one at the Corner on Friday 9 August. Opening proceedings on the night will be Dave Larkin Darwin Theory.
MICK AND MONO Goblin
GOBBLIN’ IT UP Italian prog masters of cinematic horror Goblin will come to Sydney for the first time ever to perform their legendary horror classics Suspiria, Dawn Of The Dead, Deep Red and Roller. Across the course of a career that has spanned three decades Goblin have become masters of a musical style full of drama, suspense and atmosphere. Catch them at Billboard on Sunday 14 July with special guest Miles Brown (The Night Terrors).
FOALS KICKIN’ GOALS Having sold out their a couple of shows in their upcoming Australian tour, including one at the Palace on Friday 27 September, Oxford rockers Foals have announced a second show at the same venue on Thursday 26. They’ll be supported by Alpine.
MELLOW OUT TO MELI Simon Meli and his band The Widowbirds will take their rootsy rock show around Australia in July. The national Moment In The Sun tour will give Meli’s fans a chance to catch his live shows with his band who have been touring for the past few years. The tour stops off on Sunday 28 July at the Northcote Social Club.
From the dark undergrowth of The Dirty Three and the shadowy leaves of The Tren Brothers comes the explorative audio of Mick Turner. Turner has just been announced as the support act for Japan’s instrument legends Mono on their upcoming Australian tour. Catch the show at the Hi-Fi on Sunday 23 June.
SHE AWAKES Accompanied by her long time band, Sarah Blasko will travel to regional Australia, stopping by Byron Bay for a special performance at the sold out Splendour In The Grass festival. See Sarah Blasko at the Eastbank Centre (Shepparton) on Tuesday 30 July, the Capital (Bendigo) on Wednesday 31, Wendouree Centre for Performing Arts (Ballarat) on Thursday 1 August and Lighthouse Theatre (Warrnambool) on Friday 2.
Ash Grunwald’s first original song recorded with Scott Owen and Andy Strachan from The Living End, The Last Stand is an activism song with a powerful voice. As part of the upcoming national tour, Grunwald will be screening a mini-doco shot at Tara and the Condamine, revealing footage of the medical, environmental and social havoc being wreaked on these communities by CSG fracking. See the shows this Saturday at Torquay Hotel; Thursday 27 June at the Corner; Friday 28 Prince Bandroom and Saturday 29 at the Westernport Hotel.
GHOSTING After more than five years of regular performances, independent releases and high rotation airplay on triple j, Nicholas Roy’s music has recently found its way onto the big screen with what is becoming a popular Australian cult movie, The Sunset Six. Roy’s song It’s All My Fault is the feature track of the movie. July sees Roy unleashing a new single, the infectious pop gem Ghost. He launches the single at the Northcote Social Club on Thursday 18 July with Jac Stone.
DREAMY SHADOWS An album for dreaming is how Lenka describes her third solo release, Shadows. To celebrate she has announced a run of East Coast tour dates, set for October. Shadows is a beautiful, captivating collection of peaceful, introspective numbers that are both calming and thoughtful topped with Lenka’s sweet dulcet tones. First single taken from the album, Heart To The Party, is a buoyant hand-clapping track. Catch Lenka at the Workers Club on Saturday 26 October.
SEE THROUGH GLASS Glass Towers’ debut album Halcyon Days, is an exploration of the band’s youth, but this time from the perspective of a young man standing on the doorstep of adulthood. Along with the news of the band’s debut album comes the announcement of their largest national headline tour to date. Opening the proceedings is young Sydney songstress Jordan Leser. Her serene voice can be heard across the album and features on the recent single Halcyon. They perform at the Toff on Saturday 17 August.
TREAT ‘EM MEAN When the lovely folk from the City of Yarra’s Leaps & Bounds Festival asked The Meanies if they’d like to take part in the festivities they of course said, “Fuck yeah!”. They got to choose their venue, and so the gig will be held at the Tote, where they started some 24 years ago. This generation’s Tote-lovin’ Meanies would have to be Batpiss so they’re playing too, along with Geelong punks The Kremlings and Jan Juc fuck ups The Dipsticks. It all happens Friday 12 July.
DEAD ART Dead Arm, the single from Sydney-based trio No Art‘s upcoming 7”, is a deceptively simple sea-song with haunting depth. Check them out when they play this Friday at Public Bar with Infinite Void, Naked Maja and Halt Ever and this Saturday at the Gasometer with Duck Duck Chop, Yolke and SeeSaw.
Kerri Simpson
FUNDRAISER FOR CHRISSY
Recognized as New Zealand’s biggest dubstep export, Truth wil bring the party to the Mercat Basement on Saturday 6 July, taking it back to the good old days when dubstep was underground. Supports come from Affiks & A13, Arctic, 2Fuddha, Baddums and Gingus.
For Our Hero are back with a brand new record, titled Young Wolves. This time around, the boys are here with a more focused offering, closely nursing themes of intense and audacious hunger. For Our Hero perform at Next (Colonial Hotel) on Thursday 22 August and Wrangler Studios on Saturday 24 (all ages) with guests Forever Ends Here and Call The Shots.
A nation mourned at the passing of Divinyls frontwoman Chrissy Amphlett. Now on Saturday 29 June some of this town’s best female rockers will salute Australia’s first lady of fierce at the ‘it’ venue of the New West, The Yarraville Club, with all monies raised going to MS Australia. Grace Knight, Jane Clifton, Fiona Lee Maynard & Her Holy Men, Rebecca Barnard, Kerri Simpson, Los Dominados, Neon & Venom, Pony Girl & The Outsiders plus MC Lucinda Cowden will be burning up the stage with the best of the Divinyls and channeling the woman who wasn’t afraid to show her uncensored self in a world of demure female expression.
WHAT A RIPPER
TODD IN TOORAK
CLUBBIN’ TONIGHT
New Zealand fastcore band Shitripper are about to head out on tour supporting Richmond, Virginia thrash metal heavyweights Municipal Waste as well as playing their own sideshows in Australia before releasing their new album, Brain Defect. See them play Public Bar on Friday 21 June and the Old Bar on Saturday 22, as well as supporting Municipal Waste at the Corner on Sunday 23.
Todd Rundgren has announced that his previously advertised Melbourne show at Bennetts Lane on Thursday 18 July has now been moved to Trak in Toorak on Friday 19. The show is part of a trio of Melbourne dates that Rundgren will perform including a show at the intimate Caravan Music Club on Saturday 20 and the Corner Sunday 21.
Polo Club are back with a bangin’ new EP titled Live For Tonight. The title track is the first single, and was just released, while the EP is due out at the start of July. This EP showcases a more refined spin on their jaunty hip hop style. They take it around the country on tour, stopping by Fitzroy Town Hall (PUSH FReeZA ) on Thursday 11 July and Workers Club on Friday 19.
AIN’T IT THE TRUTH
12 • For more news/announcements go to themusic.com.au/news
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SUNDAY 16 I To Eye – an exhibition of work by artist David Burrows, a collection of portraits intensely staring at you. Burrows is exploring the experience of eye contact with a stranger. MARS Gallery, exhibiting to Sunday 30 June. Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge – seen The Great Gatsby and now have a hankering from more Baz Luhrmann? Indulge in a shower of Baz Luhrmann films as the Astor puts of a back-to-back screenings of two thirds of the Red Carpet Trilogy: Romeo and Juliet and Moulin Rouge. The Astor Cinema, 2pm.
MONDAY 17 Live Poetry – poetry is best received when performed by the human voice come and see Coral Carter, Julie Watts, Jackson and Indigo Eli (Adelaide) perform poems from their new books. Crow Books, 7pm.
King Kong Fem Beling
WEDNESDAY 12 Farwell My Queen – a film directed by Benoît Jacquot, about the court of Marie Antoinette in the lead up to the French revolution. With Diane Kruger, Léa Seydoux and Virginie Ledoyen. Exclusive to Cinema Nova. Distance – a play written by Daniel Nellor and directed by Chris Tomson, about an estranged couple with a distant teenage son. Performed by Margot Fenley and Kevin Hopkins. La Mama Theatre, 6.30pm, to Sunday 16 June
THURSDAY 13 Dark MOFO – inspired by seasonal winter solstice rites, this arts festival celebrates the dark through large scale public art, food, music, light and noise. A series of events will take place at MONA in Tassie, if you havn’t seen (one of the best galleries in Australia) head down. The Red Queen which is Mona’s next major exhibition will open Tuesday 18 June at midnight. The festival runs, MONA, to Sunday 23 June. After Earth – how do you guarantee a good fatherson on screen chemistry? Simply by getting an actual father and son to play the lead characters! Will and Jaden Smith star as the only two surviving humans after a crash landing on a planet human abandoned 100 years ago. That planet….was EARTH! National release, playing is all major cinemas.
CITY OF SHADOWS The Melbourne Cabaret Festival, now in its fourth year, will run from Wednesday 26 June to Sunday 7 July. Motown royalty and founding member of The Supremes, Mary Wilson will headline the Opening Gala of the Festival on Wednesday 26 June. Highlights of the 2013 festival include the London sensation Spanky who returns with a new show called Dead Bitches, Yana Alana will present Between The Cracks and Tara Winton. The Closing Gala will take place at Ormond Hall on Sunday July 7 and present a sampling of acts from across the Festival and beyond as Melbourne’s cabaret community. The MCF runs across 16 venues, with 150 performers in 150 perfromances, “Life is a cabaret, old chum, come to the Cabaret”
FRIDAY 14
SATURDAY 15
By Their Own Hands – a play created and performed by Benedict Hardie and Anne-Louise Sarks. Based on the ancient Greek myth explored through contemporary dialogue and raw narration. Part of the Neon Festival, Opening, MTC, 7.30pm, to Sunday 23 June.
King Kong – a timeless love story, featuring a cast of more than 40 actors, singers, dancers and circus performers as well as a team of puppeteers who will bring to life one of the most technologically advanced puppets in the world – a one-tonne, sixmetre tall silverback gorilla. Regent Theatre.
The Baby Shower – a play that follows a deliberately barren spinster and her bull terrier love child. The show involves shadow puppetry and is written and performed by Donna Jackson and features a 20 voice choir for the soundtrack. Courthouse Arts, 7.30pm, to Sunday 16 June. Carmina Or Blow Up – a film staring, the uncouth Carmina Barrios in a documentary style of her life as a 58 year old tavern manager in Seville. Barrios is director Paco León’s mother. Part of the Spanish Film Festival, Palace Cinema Como, 6.30pm
Melbourne Fringe Forum Series: Publicity – one of the forums run by the Melbourne Fringe in the lead up to the fringe. This forum focuses on publicity for your shows with members of the online media, print and radio. Arts Centre, 6.15pm.
TUESDAY 18 Meet The Film Maker: Pure Sound: The Gyuto Monks of Tibet – a documentary that explores the lives and beliefs of the Guko Monks in their North Indian monastery. It follows unique stories of those who aspire to be monk and several senior elders some who were among the Tibetan exile in 1959. A Q&A will follow the screening with executive producer Maureen Fallon. Nova Cinemas, 6.45pm.
Anh Do: The Happiest Refugee Live – a live show based on the best selling book by comedian Anh Do. The book is taken one step further with Do revealing personal photos and visuals as he tells the story of his family. Arts Centre, 8pm. Vanguard – a three new works from the Australian Ballet, this is a contemporary triple bill with choreography by George Balanchine, Wayne McGregor and Jirí Kylián. Arts Centre, State Theatre, 1.30pm and 7.30pm, to Monday 17 June.
Farwell My Queen
AUDIO ENGINEER RADIO
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[FEATURES FEATURES] Celebrating the re-release of their much-loved first three albums with a national tour playing two of them, You Am I have reached the point, after 20 years, of just revelling in each other’s company. Ross Clelland plays fifth wheel as Tim Rogers, Andy Kent and Russell Hopkinson mostly chat amongst themselves about simply enjoying what they have before Rogers shares some thoughts on the best moments of his life: “70,000 Saturday nights with your mates”.
YOU AM I KIDDING You Am I are celebrating their 20th year as a band with a tour. Michael Smith geeks out about what makes them national treasures. Where other bands might have a few trite lines expounding their philosophy, achievements or hits on community radio as their website biography, You Am I are introduced as “a revered grouping of men playing amplified music in the rock and roll style,” by one J Arthur Oswald Esq, musicologist and “fellow dilettante”. Oswald Esq is addressing an equally fictitious colleague back in the Old Dart named ‘Aubrey’, explaining that You Am I have “existed as a unique entity outside of mainstream acceptance, yet still managed to forge a successful career with the sturm und drang of their live performance, a songwriter with a propensity for lyrical and melodic ingenuity, and a series of recordings that have always sounded like a band trying to do what they want to do.” You Am I, whose first incarnation surfaced in December 1989 (although this was only the end of their first year together, they’d already changed their rhythm section), are the only Australian band outside the mainstream to see three successive albums debut in the ARIA charts in the top spot: 1995’s Hi Fi Way; 1996’s Hourly, Daily; and 1998’s #4 Record. The band also had two albums – Hi Fi Way and Hourly, Daily – voted into triple j’s Hottest 100 Australian Albums Of All Time and it is these that they will perform in full around the country. Soon after the release of their debut album Sound As Ever (1993), Tim Rogers and bass player Andy Kent were joined by drummer Russell Hopkinson, the trio eventually becoming a four-piece with the addition of guitarist David Lane from The Pictures in 1999. It is this manifestation of the band you’ll see at their upcoming shows.
veryone should have that one band. The one you play to a potential new partner to see if you’re musically compatible. And the one you play after they’re gone. The one you whoop and charge your glass to when they come on the pub jukebox. The one you sing along loudly to with the car window open, as you tap out the rhythm on the steering wheel as you drive over that “…Glebe Point Bridge”.
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For many, that band is You Am I. Two decades since the release of their debut album, they are revered, not just for their mere survival, but the fact that they are still a vital, working, just plain goddamn wonderful rock’n’roll unit. Over the years, the three individuals of the band have become four but, as they cram into the room, they somehow fit together like that jigsaw you never quite got around to finishing. Bassist Andy Kent now wears the manager’s hat as well. There’s always that feeling you’re getting tested a bit as you talk to him, but then Kent gets more cheerful in his blunt honesty as he goes. Russell Hopkinson is the affable one. He’s got the stories, the collection of vinyl from bands you’ve never heard of and the in-jokes. Even though he’s now been in the band for over a decade, Davey Lane still has a touch of the new guy who lucked-in about him. He gives more cheek now (“Yeah, I played their records to death when I was, what, about ten…”), he’s more the younger brother who’s come home with the hot girlfriend. And then there’s Tim Rogers: Gangly rockstar incarnate. And yet, taking the piss out of the pose at the same time. One moment velvet-jacketed theatrical luvvie, then passionate defender of the faith. Hard-drinking man, then almost misty-eyed getting sentimental about the band, the music and his family. You know, kinda like a You Am I album. They’re probably the best – and maybe the worst – at working out just why they’ve retained such affection, from an audience and between each other. “We’re like the smalltown boy
made good,” offers Rogers to start. “Got a chance to make a lot of mistakes – often in public – and to do some good things, but a lot of not-so-good things that we learnt from. And somehow got through.” He adds a typically self-deprecating kicker: “Maybe more like ‘smalltown numbskull makes good, in spite of himself’.“ There’s a crooked grin. The national tour that will see them play their second and third albums – the equally towering Hi Fi Way and Hourly, Daily – seems part celebration, part congratulation and part reminiscence of a time past. And maybe just because they can. Mr Kent provides the practical explanation: “Any number of festivals had come forward and asked us to do something like this for whatever reason, whatever album. But it was never quite right. Now we think we’re at a point where we’re enjoying each other’s company so much, and the 20-year thing, and we can do it properly ourselves rather than selling it to someone else.” They’ve put some thought into these album-in-full shows. But not too much. “It’s going to be You Am I slick, not Opera House slick,” laughs Hopkinson. “It’s not for chin scratchers. We want to see people dance, and/or stand back and hug the person they’re with.” “It tends to be the case that when You Am I try to overcook something, we absolutely overcook something – so we’ll rein ourselves in,” adds Rogers. “Our knowledge and experience have come together here. We’re all products of it. Rusty’s work with record labels, Andy managing the band and the financial stuff, Davey and my relationship maturing…” he smirks. “We just couldn’t have done this whole thing ten years ago; it would have just had to go through so many other middlemen.”
involved with American record companies and such, people were always trying to secondguess what we were doing – doing demos, people talking about ‘song construction’ and bullshit. Before that it was just the three of us, and we’re back to that now.” Kent: “Once you hit that point of getting successful, some people just expect to get more and more successful. And when it doesn’t happen, they can’t get their head around it. We’ve gone up, gone down, up, levelled out. There’s a lot bands who were our peers who got that bit bigger and then had the fall, and don’t even exist anymore because they didn’t know how to cope with it.”
just about every band of renown from The Rolling Stones and The Who, through to The Strokes and Oasis, is not what defines with them. The singer is polite even as he corrects you: “It’s not about the supporting, meeting those people – yeah, it’s nice and all – but, fuck that! To me it’s about putting out the best rock’n’roll we can, and having wonderful experiences between us.” Or, as Rusty puts it: “That’s for the civilians to be impressed by. Playing at (London’s) 100 Club – that’s the music-nerd heaven to us. I’m there going, ‘(Sex Pistols’ drummer) Paul Cook sat and played on this spot. The Pretty Things came here.’ Our greatest achievement? Our friendship. Or maybe our ability to retain hair?” Rogers chips back in: “At the heart of it all, would be knowing we’d end up back at someone’s house, or someone’s hotel room, just blagging on, gettin’ loaded. It’s 70,000 Saturday nights with your mates. Those are the best moments of my life,” he pronounces. And you believe him. “Success to me is getting a good sandwich, going home to my partner in St Kilda. I’m looking forward to making the next You Am I record – that we can be together and do that, that’s as great as it can get.”
The outsiders’ view of You Am I would probably count their successes differently. The band having shared stages with
Hopkinson takes up the thought: “We’re, er, ‘selfcontained’ now, maybe. That cottage-industry thing is kind of what a band has to be these days. And it’s basically just an excuse to hang out with each other.” This handling the whole enterprise in-house is recalling a simpler time for the band, before ‘success’ screwed with You Am I a bit. “Thinking back over, some times were good, and some times weren’t,” Rogers explains. “I am happy and grateful that people still want to hear these records. And the mythology of them. “These records are special to us, it was kind of the last time we could run our own race,” he goes on. “The next couple of years
SOUND AS EVER
WHO: You Am I WHEN & WHERE: Wednesday 3, Thursday 4, Saturday 6 and Sunday 7 July, Forum
MUSIC
[FEATURES FEATURES]
PLAYTIME STARTS NOW London five-piece Toy have, in three years, won over British audiences in true psychedelic kosmische pop hero style, and bassist Maxim ‘Panda’ Barron tells Mitch Knox it’s made the band more grateful than ever for their friends.
iPA
iPA
NHA D E NC
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“We’ve known each other for about six years now. When we first moved to London, when we were 18, we met them when we were just going out, and we became really good friends, and we’ve stayed good friends – we see each other all the time,” Barron says. “Just from going out and partying and hanging out, basically. They helped us along. It’s nice when your friends support you. But we’ve got some other friends in London now who are really good that we’re trying to do the same for. It’s just nice to show support to your friends.
“It’ll be a fun time, man. Hopefully it’ll blow a few people’s minds. We really enjoy playing live, and when you play live it’s a bit different from the record. It’s heavier and faster and a different sound, in a way, all joined up in a wall of noise that should be epic and sound really cool.”
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to some Australian bands,” he says. “We like a lot of Australian bands as well, so hopefully people feel the same when we go over there.
WHO: Toy WHEN & WHERE: Tuesday 18 June, Corner Hotel
NHA D E NC
t seems the members of Toy are hard not to like, and that likeability is translating into big things. Everywhere they go, people are singing their praises as the relatively young band moves from success to success, including their well-received self-titled debut, which dropped late last year. The organist for post-punk icons The Horrors, Rhys Webb, even singled them out as his favourite band for 2012. But, because they’re good mates, Toy’s bassist, Maxim ‘Panda’ Barron, says they don’t feel any pressure following the rather public endorsement.
“It definitely helps when your mates are in a good band and they think that your band is cool and they want to help out. When we started, we kind of played for us, and for our friends as well – it was just a fun kind of thing for us. I guess the more nerveracking thing is when you’re outside of that, and you end up doing something like the Vaccines tour, where the crowd aren’t necessarily your friends or people that you’d think would get it.” “The Vaccines tour” of which Barron so casually made mention is in itself an achievement, and not one they achieved through any kind of nepotism, having played in front of a crowd 20,000-strong at the famed O2 Arena just this past month. “It’s the biggest show that we’ve ever done,” Barron enthuses. “It was a really fun thing to do. It was really cool. It was nice to play to lots of new people, you know. We kind of didn’t know whether it was going to work on a larger scale – we haven’t played stages that big before – but it actually worked really well. It was really good on a big stage. The O2’s kind of like a big dark arena, so it’s kind of like playing into space – you’re spacing out a bit. It was really cool.” It should not come as a surprise then that Toy’s music translated in front of an arena crowd, given their style of layered, dynamic psychedelic rock flourishes stronger the more atmosphere it is allowed. Though is psychedelic even the right word for it? “It’s kind of a loose term, I think,” Barron muses. “There are lots of things that we like about psychedelic music, and we like making things that sound kind of … I guess you could say ‘psychedelic’, but it’s not really the aim to make it psychedelic, I think it’s just to make it kind of … weird, I think is a better term. Weird rock. Well, we like a lot of that kind of music, and I think that it’s the closest thing you could compare us to. A lot of bands that get called psychedelic rock, and I guess we like quite a few of them, you know?” Weird rock, it could be argued, is possibly even less explanatory a term than psychedelic. But as far as Barron is concerned, it suits Toy’s needs to a T. “We’re experimenting with some weird stuff, like … theremin, and lots of weird sounds and stuff, as opposed to just straight-up playing guitar,” he explains. “I guess it’s the key to making something that sounds kind of otherworldly, and makes it feel kind of historic. It makes it feel a bit weird. And with experimenting … well, we’ve just been in the studio the last couple of weeks making our next record. We’ve been doing a lot of experimenting with all kinds of different stuff that makes weird noises, which is cool. We’ve gone back in with the same producer [Dan Carey] we had for the first record. We’ve got four more tracks to do and then we’ve got another record on our hands, which we’re really excited about.” As if they weren’t accomplished enough. Still, the second, as-yetunfinished album capitalises on Toy’s strengths as a live act in a way that their debut could not. “We did the first one really quickly – we tracked it in about five days – and this one we played all live together in the same amount of time, but we’ve been given a bit longer to kind of explore different stuff; we’ve had more time to add those couple of touches, and had more of a chance to experiment,” Barron says. “I think the feeling of the song is portrayed through everyone playing together – you get swells, and it feels more like one entity, and I think it gets across a bit more. It’s a nice, accurate, honest thing – the thing we like doing best is playing live, so it works better doing it like that. And Dan is really good at capturing that live, amazing magic that you get from playing together.” Australian audiences will get to experience that magic, too, as the band make their first trip Down Under courtesy of the recently initiated Bulmers Underground movement, which sees the cider maker inviting up-and-coming British bands to Australian shores. As expected, Toy has friends in this corner of the world, too. “We’re really looking forward to coming over,” Barron says. “We’ve actually got some friends in Australia, who I think are going to DJ for the whole tour. Just a couple of friends of ours, and there’s a couple of bands out there that we’ve met and are now friends with. We’re really looking forward to it. No one in the band’s been before, so we’re really excited about it. We don’t really know what to expect.” Regardless, Barron is confidently hopeful Toy’s tunes will resonate with local audiences as they have with their British fans, not least of all because, for them, love is most definitely a two-way street. “I think there’s a lot of good bands and a really good music scene in Australia, and I think that we’ve kind of got similar traits, maybe,
For more interviews go to themusic.com.au/interviews • 17
MUSIC
[FEATURES FEATURES] FIVE MINUTES...
TO BEARD, OR NOT TO BEARD Catching up with singer Johann Beardraven and guitarist Facey McStubblington after The Beards’ heavily populated showcase at The Great Escape in Brighton, UK, Bryget Chrisfield is scolded for plucking stray chin hairs and therefore tampering with a potential beard.
WITH ANGELIQUE ROSS
adelaide novelty act The Beards go down swimmingly at The Great Escape in Brighton, UK. When Johann Beardraven, The Beards frontman, introduces songs bearing titles such as You Should Consider Having Sex With A Bearded Man, hearty laughter fills Jubilee Square. Band members make beelines for hirsute spectators in order to stroke their beards, which prompts the following question during our post-set interview in the media hub: Can you describe the feeling of having your beard stroked? Beardraven offers, “I’d probably describe the feeling as outstanding.” When asked to compare said sensation with that of someone playing with the hair on one’s head, Beardraven announces, “I don’t care for the hair on my head. It’s very subsidiary.” Facey McStubblington (guitarist/John Goodman lookalike) goes one louder: “The time spent stroking any other part of my body could be better spent stroking my beard.”
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If an actor were to play you in a movie who would it be? If Steve Buscemi played me in a red wig, I would die happy. What’s the most cringe-worthy thing you have seen on stage? At a late night cabaret show, an old man dressed in nothing but a string of fairy lights was telling obscene jokes. Where is the weirdest place you’ve seen a performance? A performer on a bus seat that was welded to a 20-metre high metal pole hovering over, and then into, a small murky dam. What was the first play you saw? I think it was A Midsummer Night’s Dream performed outdoors in a garden filled with candles and fairy lights. If you weren’t a performer what would you be? A piano restorer. WHAT: One False Move WHEN & WHERE: Thursday 20 to Saturday 29 June, NICA
THE DUDE FOOD VAN LAUNCH
“You don’t understand that we’re all about the beard,” Beardraven emphasises. “Any other thing – whatever! Not interested. Beards, everyone.” Surely the fairer sex is exempt given that we can’t really cultivate chinwarmers. “Well, we don’t really subscribe to that,” Beardraven scolds. “My grandmother has a very good beard.” You’ve gotta pluck out the odd stray. “But that’s exactly the same as shaving,” Beardraven chastises. “Don’t pluck, ladies!” What if it’s just the one? “No!” he insists. “That’s the start [of a beard], you know?” Considering The Beards are in the middle of their first world tour, how many beards have been looking back at them on foreign soil? “More than we probably anticipated,” Beardraven deduces. “I think maybe a lot of people over here just happen to have beards anyway.” On which country boasts the highest percentage of beardos in the audience, the singer ponders, “I dunno. The Berlin show would’ve been pushin’ 70 to 80 percent, I reckon. It was quite bearded.” McStubblington jokes, “There was only three people there and two of them had beards, so that increases the percentage,” and there’s laughs all ‘round. Both Beardraven and McStubblington confirm that every member of The Beards holds a current passport containing a picture of their bearded self. Did any of them have to apply for new passports? “Ah, a couple of us did, yeah, and burnt the old ones,” Beardraven explains. McStubblington, as he’s prone to, takes this even further: “And every other photo of anyone without a beard.” It’s game-on for Beardraven. “And I burnt my father as well. He had his chance to grow a beard.”
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“Yeah, he had MORE than enough time,” McStubblington agrees. How long did Beardraven give him? “Oh, it
The Dude Food Van will be launching in the beer garden of the Brunswick Hotel on Friday 14 June. It’s all about food from the heart for people who love to treat their tastebuds. With an appreciation for quality produce, The Dude Food Van delivers the best by keeping it simple and not taking any shortcuts.
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WE’VE GOT FOUR DOUBLE PASSES TO NEW MODULAR SIGNING MOVEMENT’S FEEL REAL SINGLE LAUNCH AT DING DONG ON THURSDAY. To enter this and check out heaps more head to the Inpress Facebook page.
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would’ve been – what?” He looks to McStubblington for back-up. “At least two hours,” the guitarist giggles and Beardraven continues: “Yeah, he had heaps of time. It’s a poor attitude and we’re here to change attitudes.” McStubblington jumps in with, “And that’s the only way to change an attitude is just to burn it,” before Beardraven adds, “Yeah, to kill a man! Well, we will go to whatever length necessary to make sure that people grow beards.” On whether they have any clean-shavens on the payroll, Beardraven enthuses, “Oh, yeah, absolutely! But that’s because we don’t like to tell a bearded man what to do. If we’ve got a bearded sound guy or a bearded tech working for us, it doesn’t feel right for him to do our bidding so we always like to employ cleanshaven…” McStubblington interrupts: “As underlings.” “Yeah, exactly. So our business is like a structure for how we see our Utopian society eventually becoming: The Beards on top and everything else below it… There’s this certain thing that exists called The Bearded Code and that’s all about lookin’ out for your fellow beard.” McStubblington declares, “Actually now we’re on that, Johann Beardraven, singer for The Beards: Your beard looks awesome. Great job.” “Thanks, man, so does yours. Wow, we really have good beards! Golly!” McStubblington concurs: “Yeah, we really do. You should see them, reader of this article.” Beardraven teases, “We do actually have beards. We’re pro-beard. We like beards. We are for beards not antibeard.” McStubblington stresses: “Don’t make that mistake. We don’t want the message to get confused.” “It keeps me awake at night,” Beardraven proclaims. “Like, after we’ve done a gig, which seemed to go quite well and everyone had beards, I’ll be back in the room and I’ll be lying awake thinking, ‘Did they really understand how pro-beard we were? Would they have maybe walked away not knowing whether we were for or against beards?’” What about if a member of The Beards’ audience decided to grow a beard post-gig, but then shaved out of habit the following morning! “That’s a big concern and that’s why we are on this planet to
make sure that people grow beards.” McStubblington cracks open another can of Red Stripe. Where did that tinnie come from? “Oh, it actually came out of my beard!” He’s on fire. “It’s an excellent cooling mechanism.” Writing lyrics about beards is one thing, but how does one ensure the instrumental accompaniment also stays true to the beard? “Are you kidding? That’s easy,” McStubblington claims and then Beardraven clarifies, “The beard really guides us in that respect.” There’s no release date for a new album as yet. “It’s a work in progress,” Beardraven reveals. “We’re still in the writing phase at the moment and, I gotta tell ya, some of this new material is groundbreaking. Like, there’s one track where we just scream the word ‘beard’ for a good 40 minutes and, you know, it’s the future of music obviously.” So how many songs is it exactly that The Beards have penned, about beards, to date? “Oh, it’s hard to say,” Beardraven contemplates. “When we first started writing songs – we had beards, obviously we had beards, but they weren’t as good as they are now. And because we were new beardos, I guess we just didn’t know as much about beards as we know now, and so I think that comes across in some of the early work. [The songs] show that we like beards but we’re not really living the beard at that point.” “And that’s what it’s all about: we’re method musicians,” McStubblington contributes and then Beardraven’s off again: “As our beards have gone on to become longer, our songwriting has in turn become beardier and therefore better.” McStubblington: “Last year we would’ve written upwards of a thousand songs and they’ve all just been awesome.” Beardraven opines, “The public’s not ready for the level of beardiness that we have.” WHO: The Beards WHEN & WHERE: Thursday 13 June, Pelly Bar, Frankston; Friday 14, Theatre Royal, Castlemaine; Saturday 15, Hi-Fi
COOKIN’ WITH GAS After what can be modestly described as the tumultuous events following The King Khan & BBQ Show’s last appearance in Sydney, Mark Sultan (aka BBQ) tells Chris Yates he is keen to write another, less controversial chapter for the duo this time around.
peaking from his on-again/off-again home of Berlin, Mark Sultan says he is babysitting Khan’s children, evidence that the relationship is well and truly back on track. The drama that surrounded the breakup of the band following the debacle of Vivid Live at the Sydney Opera House in 2010 caused a massive rift between the two – they didn’t even speak to each other for two years.
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The short version is that Khan’s personal hero Lou Reed invited The King Khan & BBQ Show to perform at Vivid Live at the Sydney Opera House. During the first show Khan started a food fight and totally pissed off the fuddy duddy Opera House institution, and after being reprimanded followed it up the next night by throwing his guitar in the crowd, resulting in Khan being thrown out and banned from the Opera House for the duration of the festival, forcing him to vent his rage on the internet. Sultan says the online fallout from the event caused much more bad blood than the debacle itself. “There was one thing that was posted which caused a lot more of a rift between me and Khan,” Sultan says. “It was a fake interview somebody did with me. It was a guy after a show in Korea and he wanted to have a beer with me, and this guy writes this interview with me
using words I don’t use, like ‘jackass’ for example – the little words he’s using is not how I talk. That caused problems between me and Khan, he was like, ‘I can’t believe you said this about me!’ and I’m like ‘I don’t think I said this!’ Like I didn’t say he was an alcoholic because quite honestly that was not the problem that was going on. It’s just shit like that – it really bothered me. It just made our friendship more difficult and a lot of that shit was the reason why we didn’t even talk for two years. At that point we were so riled up because people were coming up to me like, ‘Mark, do you know what Khan said about you?’ Now that we’re friends again we talk and we’re both like, ‘I didn’t say any of that’. It took two years for us to talk normally again.” With a sold-out American tour recently behind them, there’s a good chance that our shows this time around will be incident-free, at least enough to focus on the incredible throwback garage these two do when they get together. Sultan continues to release a lot of music under his own name and a swag of pseudonyms, including four albums in 2012, all of which he downplays as of little interest to anyone, even his anticipated new album with his band The Ding-Dongs which is ready for release.
There is, however, no immediate plans for a new album from The King Khan & BBQ Show, although that could change if we’re lucky. “I think we will, we just haven’t had time,” he says regarding returning to the studio. “We have been talking about recording new stuff but we don’t want to rush it. I think the main goal with us getting back together this quickly was to play shows. The first few shows we did were in Europe and we were like ‘should we even be doing this again?’ but it went great and then the US shows were fantastic and so we know the live thing is okay. We’re really just looking at tying everything up and making up for all the shit that we caused last time we were in the area.” WHO: The King Khan & BBQ Show WHEN & WHERE: Tuesday 11 & Wednesday 12 June, Tote
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PLUCKED FROM MEMORIES Something For Kate’s Stephanie Ashworth makes no apologies for being a hard taskmaster when it comes to choosing tour setlists. Nic Toupee gets the skinny on the band’s six-year break and Paul Dempsey’s powerful memory banks.
omething For Kate ended a six-year hiatus in 2012 with the Leave Your Soul To Science album putting to bed speculation that the stellar career of one of Australia’s most successful independent rock bands had reached a quiet conclusion. With the third single from the album, Star-Crossed Citizens, released this week, the band have embarked on an extensive Australian tour from Cairns to Castlemaine. This tour is the band’s first ‘real’ opportunity to showcase the album to fans around the country, something which bassist and vocalist Stephanie Ashworth is genuinely excited about. “The first tour we did last year was only quick – a couple of cities only in venues which were not especially large,” she says. “We thought that we’d wait until the album had had time for the album to be out, for people to get to know it, before we did the larger tour; give them a chance to get to know the songs. We find that people have a different relationship with the songs – there’s something to be said for letting the songs sink in, I think.”
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He and I ended up moving to New York for two years – but there was always a commitment to coming back and making more SFK records. We can tell people weren’t expecting it, because it’s being called a ‘comeback album’,” she laughs. “When really Clint and I were both saying to Paul ‘excuse me, hello, another solo tour?’ We did have to tap him on the shoulder and say ‘that song you’ve just written, that’s going to be for Something For Kate’.” WHO: Something For Kate WHEN & WHERE: Friday 14 June, Forum; Saturday 15, Corner Hotel; Saturday 27 July, Splendour In The Grass, North Byron Parklands
With over ten albums in the bag including B-sides and compilations (quite a feat considering the six year break), Something For Kate suffer the same dilemma as any successful, prolific band: how to choose the back catalogue for their upcoming tour. Ashworth is relishing the chance to rifle through the archives – she is happy to stare into the face of the past without fear or embarrassment. “I really enjoy the process of going through our records and deciding which songs we should play again and why,” she says. “There is usually a particular reason some songs are chosen and not others.” Ashworth holds the seat of power over the setlist, and sometimes is open to democratic debate – sometimes otherwise. “There are times where I’m not fun and can be stubborn about my choices,” she admits. “There are so many moods and atmospheres we want to convey in one evening. We need to make sure there are enough tracks from EPs and singles, enough B-sides. The fans want to hear the obscure songs, the B-sides. Actually, for some reason there is a lot of attention paid to our B-sides – so much so that we put out a double album of them. They seem to resonate for people. For us, they are the songs which are quite often a bit interesting.” Songwriter Paul Dempsey lets Ashworth and SFK drummer Clint Hyndman make the decisions, choosing to stay out of the Great Setlist Debate. “The setlist is something myself and our drummer preside over,” says Ashworth. “Paul is happy to be told. For him a lot of the emotional labour is in writing the songs, so when it comes to touring them he’s happy to let us do the setlist and to let go a bit.” So is prising the B-sides out of the memory bank, playing that obscure track made for some compilation years ago – the fourth track from that very first EP – all part of the, er, fun of collating the Something For Kate setlist? Certainly it must be tempting to get a sneaky autocue set up just in case there’s a recall malfunction on stage? “No way! I’d get too much shit from the other band members if I ever used an autocue,” Ashworth laughs, horrified at the thought. “And Paul has an incredible memory, so it’s really only me who lets the team down. I have to intensely rehearse and get my head around the final batch of 40 or 50 songs.” So far she has been lucky but still lives in fear of that fateful moment when something crucial will escape her on stage. “It is definitely my big nightmare,” she confirms. “It happens to Paul very occasionally in his solo shows. He was telling me he did one solo show on his recent tour where one guy came all the way from Mexico and wanted to hear a particular song, so Paul knew he really had to do it. But four lines into the first verse he completely blanked. Luckily, the guy started singing the lines and so he quickly picked it up again.” Whilst fans perusing the band’s Facebook might find Dempsey’s backstage ‘shotgun karaoke’ clips, where he plays various improv covers, the band have been mulling over one particular song – and have decided it won’t make it to the tour’s playlist: their recent cover of Divinyls Pleasure & Pain. “I’m a huge Divinyls fan,” Ashworth says. “We recorded Pleasure & Pain as a B-side a couple of months ago and I really enjoy Paul’s interpretation of those lyrics. Then this terrible sad news of Chrissy [Amphlett]’s passing... Like most people I am still quite shocked and I don’t know that playing it feels appropriate. For us it’s almost too soon, too fresh. So I don’t imagine we would play it live on this tour.” Preparing for this tour comes hot on the heels – or at least so it feels to the band – of the album’s recording and release. “The whole process was bizarrely quick,” Ashworth says, comparing the record time (pardon the pun) it took to create Leave Your Soul To Science to previous albums. “We had traditionally spent four months or more making records – for the record before this one we relocated to Los Angeles for four months – but for this one, we were in Texas for five weeks in total. In fact we were still mastering the album when the first single was about to go to radio! The way things are done these days is so different. We had four years off but the industry has changed so quickly. We were already in rehearsals, working out how to play the album live, getting our heads around how translate all those keyboards to the stage versions when our first single was already on radio,” she says. The band’s hiatus was long enough to seem perhaps permanent – certainly it caused ominous speculations to arise – however Ashworth pulls the dark rug from under these nasty thoughts, revealing a cause far more benign. “We finished our contract for Sony after writing five albums in a row with no break, so we thought ‘hell, let’s take a break!’ Paul wanted to do a solo album, and we thought it would be a good time to take a break and then come back. Paul made his solo album, and then ended up touring it for about three years or something – it did better than he thought so he toured for longer.
For more interviews go to themusic.com.au/interviews • 19
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HERE COMES THE FL0OD Shattered with fatigue from their current US tour, but still not missing a beat, Atsuo of Japanese psych-rockers Boris tells tales of endurance and solitude to Christopher H James. The multitalented Samina Khan translates.
ESSENTIAL TOUR ITEM THELMA PLUM
elirious.” Not “fine,” “good,” or “ok,” delirious is apparently the way Boris’ drummer Atsuo feels as he embraces the flat out goneness that can only be experienced by having just played 26 dates in the last 30 days, coast-to-coast and back again across the US. “Being completely exhausted is the best way to be,” he professes. “You perform better because you’re not distracted by extra thoughts. All you need to do is perform live everyday; that’s how you’ll be. America’s so big, the drive is long, and even if we’re back at the hotel we don’t get to sleep for extended periods of time.”
“D WHAT ITEM MUST TRAVEL WITH YOU ON TOUR? My toothbrush, obviously! Thelma Plum is touring nationally. Check The Guide for dates
SPOILER ALERT – GAME OF THRONES – in the last episode everyone is run over by a truck. John Lurie (@lurie_john) delivers the spoiler to end all spoilers.
DISCOVER THE MAN BEHIND...
If it’s true that there’s no rest for the wicked, then all three members of Boris must have done some truly terrible things in their past lives. Performing both drums and occasional vocals, Atsuo arguably has the hardest job of all, as a recent medical trial in the UK found that one hour of drumming burns 400 to 600 calories, whilst 90 minutes of drumming could propel even a 30 year veteran of the trade’s heartbeat to 190 beats a minute; a feat requiring ‘extraordinary stamina’ according to the project’s top doctor. “Oh man,” Atsuo admits. “They do tire you out, those drums. Oh, but I don’t know. Personally I don’t feel like I’m hitting drums, it’s more like dancing… or maybe swimming. Like I’m swimming through air, I guess that’s closer. I don’t really think of myself as a drummer.” It’s a level of exertion a soccer professional would expend during an English Premier League game. Fortunately for England’s top footballers, they only play once or twice week, not six nights out of seven. “You need to take an appropriate amount of care,” Atsuo advises. “Make sure you don’t just crash out at night. Take a shower, or take a bath before going to bed. If you don’t put in the little bits of care, the long tours become near impossible.” Hmm, bad news for aspiring drummers wishing to ride the Led Zeppelin-esque rollercoaster of rock’n’roll hedonism; spend less time draining the mini-bar and more time picturing yourself swimming through the air appears to be the way seems to be.
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It’s not just their marathon gigging however; Boris’ superhuman work ethic can be evidenced by their almost industrial scale output. Their veritable warehouse of a back catalogue consists of 18 studio albums, half a dozen collaborative albums with other artists, a handful of live albums and a few EPs to boot. Despite having already recorded and released one album this year – the limited edition but blissfully excursive Präparat – in all likelihood there’ll be more to come. “We start recording for a new album once we finish the Australia tour, and we’re organising that now. We’re usually either touring, recording or making new songs; like a continuous cycle,” Atsuo confirms.
Despite their vast body of work, little is known of Boris’ three individual members. Winston Churchill once described Russia as a “riddle wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma,” but had he been alive 50 or so years or later and been a frustrated music journalist rather than a wartime Prime Minister, he might have been talking of Boris. They keep their family names a closely guarded secret and communicate only in Japanese; natural enough since it’s the only language they know. Atsuo handles nearly all interviews, so that Takeshi and guitarist Wata, whose frozen-in-time youthful elegance is often the focal point of the band’s press shots, remain enigmatic figures. Their music – characterised by a unique sound made of rock, metal, drone and shoegaze, all oozed into a psychedelic hotpot that’s always different yet distinctively their own – can be a tricky entity to fathom, especially with nothing more than unofficial internet translations of their lyrics which give little indication as to what they’re actually about. A pivotal moment in Boris’ development arrived in 2000 on the album Flood. While the band remains notorious for their excursions in extreme volume – so much so that during their last trip to Perth, The Bakery’s management took the unprecedented step of closing the main room doors to contain their volcanic din – this release featured an abrupt shift, containing gentle, almost ethereal passages. “We performed Flood at a festival in Japan last year, and the response was amazing,” Atsuo enthuses. “Usually, our performances in America, Europe, and Australia are part of a tour, after we release an album, and so all the songs end up being from this album. Flood was released long before we started performing outside Japan, so we wanted to play some older songs that our fans wouldn’t otherwise hear in our usual album release tours. That’s why we had a two day residency show in America, where our fans could hear some older songs, and we’ll be performing Flood [in full at the Rosemount in June.]” Perhaps not the ultimate Boris’ statement, but certainly the first of their works that could be described as ‘beautiful,’ it was a seminal landmark on a journey that broadened their fan base from metalheads with exotic tastes, to indie kids and the post-rock crowd. Yet despite these accomplishments, recognition in Japan has remained elusive. Wondering why, I ask
Atsuo if he feels misunderstood in the land he calls home. “It’s not like having popularity in America or Australia would generate interest amongst Japanese people,” he points out. “We just made the songs that we like, and it so happened that they were embraced by American, European and Australian audiences. And it just so happened that Japanese audiences didn’t quite embrace us. Of course, we have fans in Japan too.” The life the band members have chosen to pursue has sometimes left them standing on the edge of Japanese society with its traditional culture of conformity, as illustrated by Atsuo’s decision to become vegan. “There are many vegans amongst musicians, and when we collaborate together, I just thought I’d make a gesture to get rid of any walls between us,” he illustrates. “It’s something I started for the music. And now, you know, of course I like animals too.” These days he’s often made to eat alone or at home. “I can’t really go out to a restaurant in a group of just anyone in Japan. In both American and Australia, it’s very possible to have people of differing values or ideologies sitting around one table and eating together. But in Japan, the atmosphere is that unless you share the values, you can’t join the table.” “It’s like they’ve all been brainwashed,” he expands resignedly. “Don’t have ideologies,” or something like that. I think Japan is full of complications. It’s really twisted; beyond twisted. Like the music scene and the music business, the structure and atmosphere is completely different to any other country. I think it’s a distinctive country; very distinctive.” Shut out by sections of Japanese society, accepted abroad although almost no one speaks their tongue, the overriding positive for Boris has been the elation they’ve given to fans through their immense works. Atsuo politely thanks me and says he’s looking forward to visiting Perth, where no doubt he and his comrades will once again demonstrate that music is the only universal language. WHO: Boris WHAT: Präparat (Daymare Recordings/Inoxia) WHEN & WHERE: Wednesday 19 June, Corner Hotel
ANIMATION FIXATION Melbourne International Animation Festival Executive Director Malcolm Turner gives Kate Kingsmill the lowdown on the qualities that animators need to have, the aims of the MIAF and some methods he uses in choosing what to include in the festival.
he alchemy of great animation is actually the result of the animator’s peculiar, patient ability to sit in a room for days, weeks, months and years – drawing, moulding clay, moving sand, or stitching to create endless images that become moving pictures. “One of the other things that animators need, too, is a certain sort of imaginative honesty,” says MIAF Executive Director Malcolm Turner. He cites Koji Yamamura, one of the feature animators at this year’s festival, as a perfect example. “If you look at a film like A Child’s Metaphysics, what is that really?” says Turner. “It’s just a whole bunch of strange little, slightly surrealist imaginings, strung together, one after the other, and then connected in some way. And then you think, ‘That’s a great idea, I wonder why I didn’t think of that?’ It’s something that so many adults surrender to a degree, or have it squeezed out of them by the process of growing up. But it’s something that almost every kid has. And most of us lose that somewhere along the way. What is that? Where does it go?”
T Munch 150 is part of the series The Exhibition: Great Art On Screen about Norwegian artist, Edvard Munch. Filmed at the Munch Museum & National Museum in Oslo, Norway. Screening from Saturday 13 July at Cinema Nova.
MIAF is full of the work of people who somehow haven’t lost it. Turner oozes endless enthusiasm for the world of animation, and MIAF’s role in it. “One of the things that
20 • For more interviews go to themusic.com.au/interviews
film festivals have to do is they have to make a really, really serious effort to contextualise whatever particular art form it is they’re celebrating. Otherwise we run the risk of being giant YouTubes and there’s no real future in that. We need to offer something that’s unique and something that goes a lot of extra miles towards celebrating and contextualising the art form. So things like doing the conferences and symposiums and things are a really, really major part of that mission.” Inspiring people is “a really big part of what MIAF’s about”, says Turner. “Just as the best writers are often the people who are able to just put into words actually really simple and humble and common and sometimes scary truths, so do animators.” Turner spends three to six months of the year exploring international festivals, film schools, distributors, producers and film boards for material for the MIAF, and he also receives around 1000 submissions for the MIAF every year. He and his team go through an overwhelming amount of animated films to make the final cut, so a thorough, sometimes brutal decision making process is necessary. Top of his list is that the films that make the cut need to make good use of the properties of animation. “The kiss of death for any film in the submission process
is if I look at it and go, ‘Hmm, why didn’t they shoot that live action, that would have saved them so much time!’ If I find myself asking that question, it’s never going to get in. One of the really interesting things about animation is that people think they know animation, because on one level they do. People think Walt Disney, or Pixar or gaming. And all of those things are animation, but there’s an enormous world and international community of people that use a whole range of animation tools, not just computers but clay and coloured sands, and still people drawing and all the rest of it, to actually just make short films. People don’t realise just how many people are involved in doing this, and how serious they are and the fact that it qualifies as a standalone art form. And that’s the core mission of MIAF, and it’s what I’m most passionate about presenting.” WHAT: Melbourne International Animation Festival WHEN & WHERE: Thursday 20 to Sunday 30 June, ACMI Cinemas
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FULL CIRCLE Hipster rapper. Social media giant. Cyclone scores some time with Mr Positivity himself, Lil B, in anticipation of his tour Down Under.
verything that goes around, comes around. California’s Brandon McCartney, recording as both Lil B and The BasedGod, has taken the New Age rap of PM Dawn and the sociallyconscious messages of the Native Tongues and mixed them with Drake-like rumination – and some silly fun. Is it a coincidence that PM Dawn’s main MC was a Prince Be – and that they had a hit with Reality Used To Be A Friend Of Mine? Mind, not since KRSOne with his Temple of Hip Hop has one urban act so cleverly transformed the music culture into a self-help philosophy-cummovement. McCartney has even published a book about his ‘Based’ lifestyle: the e-mail-inspired Takin’ Over By Imposing The Positive! But KRS-One never ventured off into ambient music...
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Embarking on his first Australian tour, the eccentric McCartney has agreed to last minute interviews after weeks of spurning requests. He has good reason to be wary of the media – but more on that later. For now the Internet phenom is “very excited” to touch down in Oz – “my home away from home.” “I hear you’re having some wild natural disasters out there,” McCartney says a little too brightly for one who promotes positivity. The rapper/ producer isn’t besieged by latent self-doubts. He can out-floss the best of ‘em. In interview, Kanye West, supposedly rap’s biggest ego, actually lauds others. Yeezy’s bombastic declarations are often really self-motivational strategies – dude puts it out there so he has to deliver. However, McCartney freely refers to himself as a “legend”. So sincere is the MC that it isn’t hard to go with his flow – even when he occasionally lapses into stream-of-consciousness. Importantly, McCartney is altruistic, his music “for the people”. And he’s “taking it to that next level”. There’s no sign of irony.
affirmative MC is reluctant to conduct interviews. Though McCartney has conquered social media, he’s also fallen victim to its darker side. Journos necessarily chase the soundbite in the Twitter age. Context be damned. Interviews are about provocation. Ironically, McCartney, while a sensational rapper, is anti-sensationalism. Cynicism jars. He’s still discomfited by an earlier exchange with another journo. “They were very, very off – they were asking me weird questions about other rappers. It was very distasteful on their part... It’s like, Why are you talking to me about some other rapper?” Why, indeed. WHO: Lil B WHEN & WHERE: Thursday 13 June, HiFi
McCartney hails from Berkeley in the San Francisco region. The city is home to Quannum’s Lyrics Born. It’s also a hyphy hotspot. McCartney is a product of his environment – harmonising with, not reacting to it. “I definitely think I’m a part of it. This is a beautiful place to raise a family, raise some kids – you know if you just wanna be around everybody ... You can be yourself out here. There’s not as much over-the-top judgement. There’s a lot of people who are being themselves out here.” McCartney started out as a teen in the Bay Area outfit The Pack, signed by Too $hort to his Jive imprint Up All Nite. They blew up with 2006’s sneaks homage Vans. These days McCartney primarily works solo, forging an alliance with Soulja Boy. McCartney is prolific. He’s cut something like 3000 songs, many scattered online. He shoots videos. Plus he has his own ‘cooking dance’. McCartney’s 2011 Lil B mixtape I’m Gay (I’m Happy) rocketed into the R&B/Hip Hop Chart. Last year his BasedGod album Choices And Flowers cracked the New Age Chart, building on the buzz of 2010’s ambient Rain In England. Lest there be any casual slippage, ‘Lil B’ is distinct from ‘The BasedGod’, McCartney says. “Lil B is the trendsetter – rapping and just going very hard at being himself, doing what he wants to do, saying what he wants to say. The BasedGod is the composer, the producer. The BasedGod is the one that is better than Lil B – [he is] who Lil B aspires to be.” McCartney insists that what are regarded as Lil B albums are mixtapes. “I have not had my official album release yet,” he states. “Even I’m Gay, which was critically-acclaimed and was on Billboard, that was not my album. I’m just getting people in store for what I do have coming. My album is gonna definitely change the world. So I wanted to just kind of get the world ready for me.” That Lil B debut is in the pipeline, but he isn’t hurrying. “I’ve been working on it for at least five years now – four to five years, well, maybe three to four years – and I’d say it’s under 50 per cent done, under halfway.” Nor is McCartney ready to unleash a long-canvassed rock album. “People are dying for it, but I can’t force that kinda music. I don’t wanna fake anything. It has to just come to me. It’s just gotta be 100 per cent authentic.” McCartney is eclectic but, asked to cite his favourite artists, he’s overwhelmed. McCartney is “a big fan of Pink Floyd”. And he listens to mainstream rap. “I love Lil’ Wayne.” (In fact, they’re allies – McCartney turned up on Weezy’s Sorry 4 The Wait mixtape.) But, really, McCartney appreciates anything. McCartney perplexes the hip hop contingent – and the wider music media. He belongs to a new generation of rappers who are divisive largely because they’re so unorthodox. (Mac Miller is another.) But McCartney has prompted cultural debate, especially with I’m Gay (he’s not). Homophobia is entrenched in hip hop, emanating from old anxieties about masculinity – and virility – in African-American communities, as well as conservative Christianity. The ‘F’ word is still used as a missive by one as ostensibly ‘liberal’ as Azealia Banks. Nonetheless, West and A$AP Rocky have lately challenged such homophobia. Odd Future soulster Frank Ocean came out. Yet none proffered a work entitled I’m Gay, says McCartney. “I definitely think I’m a revolutionary with the human rights, the love, the progression of the human race as a whole... You never, ever seen an artist that had enough respect to do what I did. I titled the mixtape I’m Gay and it went against everything – fans, anybody. I said that and I did that and I put it out there. I didn’t ask for any opinion. I just put it out there and I did that myself to help the world – and I’m extremely happy about it. I can go to sleep every day knowing I’ve done stuff that nobody else has done. I changed rap. I changed rap music. America after Lil B will be a great place. The United States after Lil B will be great.” McCartney is pleased that his music (and semiotics) is the subject of intellectual discussion generally (initially Rain... confounded critics). “I think it should be intellectualised because it’s complex. This music is very well thought out – and it’s made for smart people.” McCartney has inevitably been embroiled in, not so much as beefs with rival rappers, as squabbles. Game had a go at him, and he’s sparred with Joey Bada$$. It’s possibly because of this that the
For more interviews go to themusic.com.au/interviews • 21
ANSWERING THE CALL Marius de Vries’ little black book came in very handy for the makers of King Kong. Danielle O’Donohue talks to the popular composer.
t isn’t just the size of the beast that is supposed to impress viewers when new musical King Kong opens in Melbourne this month. While the Global Creatures robotic animal is by all accounts pretty incredible, the musical score, written and curated by British producer and composer Marius de Vries, has some shock value all of its own. For a start there are the names attached to the score; Robert Del Naja from Massive Attack, Sarah McLachlan, French dance duo Justice, Guy Garvey from Elbow, and The Avalanches. Considering the roll call of famous musos de Vries has spent studio time with, surely it was just a matter of going through his little black book.
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WHAT ALBUM IS ON HIGH ROTATION WHEN YOU ARE ON TOUR? The Clean’s Anthology was going around a lot last week, but Mac DeMarco’s new one, Bossa Ye Ye, is my favourite new record.
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“These are people I have existing relationships with. That helped build a certain level of trust in a situation that could otherwise have been alarming. I ended up doing the translation,” de Vries says of his job slotting his famous guests’ work into a musical theatre context. “It’s a generous gesture and it must breed a little bit of insecurity to hand over one of your pieces of music into someone else’s hands to put into a show where you don’t really know the context. I’m very grateful. You’re used to these people writing in the context of an album, the storytelling instinct isn’t quite as far to the front of the mind. It’s been wonderful actually seeing how they respond to the challenge without bending
WHEN & WHERE: Saturday 15 June (opening night), Regent Theatre
Hall & Oates, Michael Jackson, Earth, Wind & Fire, Huey Lewis & The News, Todd Rundgren and Prince: the one thing all their influences have in common is the decade of the ‘80s. Vaudeville Smash love the
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veryone was saying, ‘Have you heard this? They’ve ripped you off!’ And it does sound a lot like our song Dirty Old Man (Come Inside),” Lucchesi admits. “[But] it’s good for us! The fact that they’re bringing back the disco it means that for once in our life we may be playing what the cool kids like! Rather than just doing our own thing in our own little world! The thing is, we’ve got quite a diverse range of influences. And we’d be unable to just stick with the one. Because we write a lot of stuff and a lot of stuff actually gets not used for the band because it doesn’t quite fit. However, if it sits on the fringe and we like it enough, it will join the Vaudeville Smash library. On the album we’ve got a song called Honeymoon, which is this ‘50s doo-wop sounding thing, and then we’ve got quite a retro disco sounding song with Devil Says, and then we’ve got a more Cars sounding pop song with Don’t Say A Word, so there’s quite a difference between them. But I do think it all works.”
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When Daft Punk released their single Get Lucky from Random Access Memories, Marc Lucchesi from Melbourne five-piece Vaudeville Smash was inundated with messages. Kate Kingsmill finds out why this ‘return’ of disco suits the band just fine.
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Taylor Swift feat. Ed Sheeran Everything Has Changed
But you try and contain that so it’s all about polish now.” While his production resume contains names as wildly varied and acclaimed as Massive Attack and Rufus Wainwright to Delta Goodrem and David Gray, de Vries has also worked with Aussie film-maker Baz Luhrmann on the music for Moulin Rouge and Romeo + Juliet, projects that also recontextualised music already familiar to audiences. “The experience of doing Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge with Baz was very influential. He’s got a wonderful musical imagination and fearlessness when it comes to things. I think we learned a lot from each other. It was thanks to him that I had the opportunity to get up to that sort of behaviour on the screen, as much as it is to Global Creatures that I’m getting the opportunity to do it on the stage.”
STAMPING THE TILES
Splashh touring nationally check The Guide for dates.
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De Vries has flown into Melbourne for the last few weeks of rehearsals. “It’s too late for any huge changes but having said which you never really know what you’ve got until you get it up and running on the stage... it’s only when you see it in the theatre when all the different creative departments come together that you really get a sense of how everything works. Some pieces get shorter or longer or faster or slower. There are still some tricks like that that you can do.
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what they do too far.” Though everything about the musical has been kept strictly under wraps to make sure audiences are suitably spellbound when they first catch a glimpse of the mechanical beast, there’s been a little bit of music filtering through to the internet. The thrilling glimpses promise a very modern electronic score that links to the past through songs such as The Avalanches rework of the old Arlen and Kohler classic Get Happy. “Sometimes we’ve kept a contemporary sonic language but kept the original orchestrations the same and sometimes we’ve really bent the songs to fit in. I think when one of your first gestures is created by an act like The Avalanches you know you’re going to get stylistic collisions. They were among our first collaborators and they very much encouraged that.”
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sounds of that decade. But they take their favourite te bits and add their own flavour. “I don’t want to just be a copycat band of the ‘80s stuff,” says Lucchesi. “We want it to be our own thing. And while Dancing For The Girl does sound a little bit like a Lionel Ritchie/ George Michael/Bee Gees song or whatever, if you put it back-to-back it doesn’t sound like it at all. It’s got modern production, we use loops quite often, we use modern synths in many cases, as well as the retro ones, and it sounds like us. And I think that has a lot to do with Dan’s production and the sounds we used, and also my voice and Dan’s harmonies.” Of the five members of Vaudeville Smash, three are brothers (guitarist Nic Lam and keyboardist James Bowers are the non-related members). Mark’s brother Luca plays bass and their drummer brother Dan also produced the bulk of debut album, Dancing For The Girl. It’s an appropriate title considering Lucchesi got into music to impress girls. “I did, actually,” he admits. “And I daresay if you ask a group of a hundred musos why they got into music I’d say most of them would say the same thing. You learn to do it for other reasons after a while, but definitely in
the beginning just playing in your high school band and seeing the reaction of the fairer sex, that was pretty cool. It definitely made me practice more!” Since playing their first gig in 2009, Vaudeville Smash have been consistently killing it live, their high energy show an impressive mix of showmanship and serious musicianship. But after trying to capture that live vibe with their first two EPs, they realised they wanted to do something different for their debut long player and create a “sonic feast”. “We were definitely going for that slick, well-played pop sound. Your recorded stuff shouldn’t be like the live show. If you’re a good live band, the live show should always be better.” WHO: Vaudeville Smash WHAT: Dancing For The Girl (Independent) WHEN & WHERE: Friday 14 June, Corner Hotel
FLYING LOW Them Swoops frontman Dave McGann explains how they’re taking the slow road to North American stardom with Kate Kingsmill.
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n the year and a half since Them Swoops have been a band, they have never quite had their timing right. Just when the nation’s youth broadcaster latched on to their Phoenix-sounding track Work Around It and put it on rotation, not only did their drummer leave the band but their new management decided the track needed to be remixed in the States. “That just held up everything,” tells guitarist and vocalist Dave McGann. The Them Swoops experience has been a little bit unconventional. “We didn’t plan on it, but it’s just the way it sort of happened.”
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Being played on national radio but not having the band members to play shows, as well as being unable to release any more tracks because they were being remixed by Mark Needham in LA, the band lost momentum. In the lead-up to the launch show of their debut EP Glimmers, McGann doesn’t sound nervous or excited, he sounds defeated and bored. “It just feels a bit funny that all we’ve got to show for the last year and a half is four songs. We know we’ve got so much more but it’s all being saved for an album. We’re wanting to get started on the album, we just want to do the same old thing that everyone wants to do.” Recently, Them Swoops have recalibrated as a fivepiece and have been playing more shows. “In the last eight months or so we’ve done heaps of playing
22 • For more interviews go to themusic.com.au/interviews
around on tour, just accepting whatever comes our way. We’ve done a fair bit of interstate stuff, and it feels like we’ve put in the hard yards now,” he says. Before that, “We weren’t really positioning ourselves as a live local band, I guess,” says McGann. Instead, Them Swoops were focused on getting management and looking to the American market. “I’ve stayed in bands in the past where we didn’t have management or a good network of people around us and it’s really easy to go nowhere. Unless you’re that band that just has everyone on your side and you’re smashing out shows and you’ve got hundreds of people coming to every show like King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard or like Little Red back in the day. We were rarely playing shows so we needed the help.” The co-management deal they signed has helped position them in the States, where they’ve landed on the influential ‘alternative’ radio station Alt Nation, which has been responsible for breaking bands like Phoenix and Foster The People. “You can never overlook your local market or what local radio does, but maybe a whole bunch of radio stations might pick it up over there, and it kind of feels good to have that behind it. Like, this Friday I’m having a Skype phone call with Salt Lake City x96 Radio at 4am, they’ve just added one of
our songs to their playlist. So it feels like it could go that way. I might have a lot of late night Skyping.” Like Tame Impala and Temper Trap before them, Them Swoops might well be the next Aussie band starting with ‘T’ to infiltrate the American market. “I’m not really sure how the American thing will translate to any success here,” says McGann. “I might come back with my tail between my legs in three years when I’m a failed rock star.” In the meantime, he is handing out flyers for this weekend’s EP launch, for which he has convinced pre-Little Red band The Greasers to reform. “I’m super excited,” he says. “Hopefully it will translate to people coming down just to see that.” WHO: Them Swoops WHAT: Glimmers (+1 Records) WHEN & WHERE: Saturday 15 June, Northcote Social Club
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MASTERS OF REALITY “When making the first three albums we were sober. We couldn’t afford any drugs,” Black Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler enlightens. Wes Holland also learns the band’s radio call-out the first time Sabbath graced our shores was a masterstroke: “When we got back to our hotel there was a queue of women outside. It was very pleasurable.”
he idea of a “new Black Sabbath” album with Ozzy Osbourne at the helm is a difficult concept to get one’s head around. A whole legion of Sabbath obsessives, young and old, have spent much of their lives smashing the eight records the band released in the ‘70s to death. No one ever saw a proper comeback album on the cards and yet here we are 35 years later with 13. What’s more, only moments after becoming one of the first people in the world to hear 13, this scribe scores the added bonus of going toe to toe with one of rock’s great bassists: Geezer Butler.
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In town playing some of their first shows outside the UK since reforming with Ozzy (well, minus drummer Bill Ward who sadly couldn’t get his contract sorted with the band), Sabbath’s Australian gigs coincide with the new album being announced. And so a handful of journalists and record label people are invited to a pre-release album preview sandwiched in between Sabbath’s two Melbourne shows. We are shuffled into a back room at the Park Hyatt, have our phones confiscated and our persons scanned with metal detectors before taking our seats. We all sit in a circle. Led in by a couple of bodyguards, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Ozzy Osbourne enter the room – outrageous! They look fantastic. Osbourne semi-coherently mutters something along the lines of, “We hope you enjoy listening to it as much as we enjoyed making it.” It’s a great record and we feel very privileged to have heard it in a situation such as this. An hour or so later, the opportunity arises to thank Butler for letting us experience 13 so long before it’s even released. “It’s probably the first time we’ve heard it, too,” the bassist admits. “We’ve still got three songs we put down [that] none of us have even heard since we recorded them. We left it to our producer Rick Ruben to choose the tracks for the album.”
And what about memories from the first time Sabbath played in Australia: a headline slot at the legendary Myponga Festival in South Australia? “I always remember the women,” Butler confesses. “I remember we did a radio show and put the call out: ‘If there’s any girls listening come to our hotel rooms’. When we got back to our hotel there was a queue of women outside. It was very pleasurable.” WHO: Black Sabbath WHAT: 13 (Universal)
THE GUIDE
1000s OF GIGS AT YOUR FINGERTIPS
There’s a theory circulating that every time Ruben heads into the studio with a ZZ Top, an AC/DC or a Black Sabbath, the producer hands them a copy of their own best record, says “make it sound like that”, and walks away. After speaking with Butler, however, it’s pretty apparent that Ruben’s approach with 13 was very hands-on. “There was a lot of tension this time with the producer. If we wanted to moan about something, we’d get together and say, ‘God, I hope he knows what’s he’s doing!’” he laughs. But surely Ruben’s involvement only helped the process? “Yeah, he was a great influence on the album. We’d bounce ideas off him. He only had a couple of things that he didn’t like that we were doing. I remember on one song he said, ‘You can’t do that, you sound like Van Halen! That’s not Sabbath.’” It must be weird for them, though. The last time the Ozzy-era line-up was in the studio they were recording Never Say Die (1978) – a poor record that capped off a pretty disastrous period for the band. Did it feel like 1978 again? “No, thank God – 1978 was when the band was splitting up and we were just going through the motions,” Butler shares. So, then, what was that moment like when you re-grouped for the first time in such a long time? “It just felt right,” Butler reflects. “It was like putting your old shoes on or something – it just comes naturally. There’s no ego or anything like that in the band.” The night before this interview, Black Sabbath played in Melbourne and debuted a brand new track, Methademic (a 13 bonus track available with the deluxe CD). It sounded great, but what goes through the band’s head when putting up a new song against classic old material such as Snowblind and Into The Void? “It’s always weird when you’re doing brand new songs. I know people come to hear Iron Man, Paranoid and War Pigs. With the new stuff, people are just going to stand there and listen to hear what it’s like. I’ve noticed we’ve been doing [new single] God Is Dead since we’ve been in Australia and every night it gets more and more of a good response.” Black Sabbath fans are legendary. Does Butler know what it is about Sabbath that conjures up such passion from fans? “You’d have to ask them,” he deflects. “I suppose because it’s like a club. We’re not rammed down your throat. We’re not on the radio. Our music still maintains that sort of underground feel to it. We’re not frightened to sing about subjects that other people steer well clear of. It’s like speaking to real people.” Butler has always written most of Black Sabbath’s lyrics. He’s also said that this is one of the first Sabbath records he’s made in a sober state since the very early period of the band. “Funnily enough, when making the first three albums we were sober,” he stresses. “We couldn’t afford any drugs. It was the ‘70s and we were all broke. We couldn’t even afford the instruments we were playing back then. It took years for us to see any money. We never used to do drugs while we were recording, we’d do them while we were at home or something. It wasn’t until Volume 4 [1972] that we started getting into drugs.”
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Those three albums are incredible, too. Black Sabbath (1970), Paranoid (1970) and Master Of Reality (1971) is one of the great runs in rock’n’roll history. Butler’s fond of that early material, too: “The first song on Black Sabbath is probably the best thing we’ve ever done. I’ll never forget the crowd reaction when we played it for the first time in a little pub in our hometown, Birmingham. The whole place freaked out. You could see the confusion on people’s faces. Just an incredible feeling.”
For more interviews go to themusic.com.au/interviews • 23
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WINNING STREAK It helps to be close to your bandmates when you’re spending a lot of time on the road, and as Tigertown frontman Chris Collins tells Sky Kirkham, it’s hard to get closer than family.
NO CHIKO. NO GOOD
fter writing their latest single, What You Came Here For, Tigertown took off to a studio in the Blue Mountains to lay down the track (plus a forthcoming EP). It was the first time that they’d recorded in a studio, and according to Collins the biggest advantage was that it let them approach the songs like a live set.
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“It was the first time that we’ve recorded as a whole band, as a five-piece,” he says. “And so it was totally different. Because all of our other recordings have really been bedroom recordings, just mucking around for ages in a small space, where with this one we all set up together, played together, so it was a bit more old-fashioned. The phallic, fish and chip shop fave the Chiko Roll in under threat as Australian manufacture, Simplot is in talks due to unsatisfactory financial returns. The sexed-up ads of the ‘70s saw a generation of teenage boys wish the Chiko Roll was part of their anatomy. It does seem though that the fast food world might move on without grabbing a Chiko.
“I think for all of us at the moment, the highlight is touring. Even when we were in the studio, what we were trying to do was to recreate how we sound on tour. I think we’ve realised that’s really our strength at the moment. So as much as we could, we played and recorded the songs together. Over the last year we’ve done so many live shows and so much touring that we’ve started to feel like a real band, and we wanted to capture that.
NEW CLUB NIGHT
From Saturday 22 June, the Palace Theatre will be opening its doors on Saturdays for Melbourne’s newest club night, Anyway. The team behind the Anyway brand are proven purveyors of quality nights and their occupation of the Palace is sure to deliver sweetness. Check their Facebook page for a full run down of what’s coming up.
GOING TO Opening night of King Kong
CHECKING OUT Assistant Editor – Samson
WATCHING The Shining (Extended Version) this Saturday at the Astor – first time ever shown in Australia
READING David Bowie: The Man Who Changed The World by Wim Hendriske
EATING Brown’s Raspberry Drops
DRINKING Monteith’s Black
24 • For more interviews go to themusic.com.au/interviews
“Touring with family is definitely the easiest option,” he laughs. “We’ve all gotten used to fighting with each other when we were seventeen, so we’ve definitely got that out of our system.” Chris and Charlie went back to their roots for a recent support slot on Bob Evans’ national tour, stripping their songs down and performing around the country as a two-piece. “It was interesting for Charlie and I,” he comments, “because that’s how Tigertown started, it was just the two of us, doing gigs like that. It was going back to how things used to be, but we realised how much our music had grown since then, and so approaching our new songs as the two of us took a little bit of thinking about. “It was encouraging for us to realise that the songs still stand up with guitars and two voices, because that’s
what we always want to do. For me, that’s the symbol of a good song: one that sounds good on an acoustic guitar.” Collins is heavily influenced by pop music and says that, lately, he’s been thinking about what makes a good pop song so powerful. “Michael Jackson is my main guy, and it was almost like every song was a movie. It created imagery and made you feel something. If you can create music that makes people feel things, I think that’s the magic. Pop writers create these long-lasting songs – songs that stay with people – we’d love to do that in Tigertown, make the sort of music that really lasts.” WHO: Tigertown WHAT: What You Came Here For (Independent) WHEN & WHERE: Thursday 13 June, Beav’s Bar, Geelong; Friday 14, Bridge Hotel, Castlemaine; Saturday 15, Bella Union
In her latest work, By Their Own Hands, Anne-Louise Sarks attempts to take an age-old story and reframe it, challenging pre-existing narratives, as Sarah Braybrooke discovers.
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Comparing her latest work, By Their Own Hands, to post-colonial history, in it Sarks and her collaborator Benedict Hardie have gone back to the Oedipus story to look at it from another angle, one which enables new voices to be heard. “I do a lot of work with classic texts [like] ancient Greek plays. What I try to do with those pieces is to take a story that everybody has a bit of a sense of, and then reframe it. It’s a way of trying to understand: what else is there in these stories for us?” For the duo, telling a story everyone knows is a chance to challenge pre-existing narratives, rather than starting
from a blank slate. “That’s why Oedipus is perfect for us,” Sarks says. “I think in some kind of survey it was [named] the play that everyone knows best ... that’s an interesting place to start a theatrical investigation.” Sarks’s own first encounter with the play was when she was at university in Sydney; she saw a production of the Seneca by iconic Australian director Barrie Kosky. “It was so visceral and intense, and quite overwhelming at the time. I sort of wish i could see it again now. That would be quite a different experience ... it was one of the first plays which challenged what a theatrical experience could be, for me.” The Hayloft Project have had previous success with modern takes on ancient texts, including their acclaimed 2010 production of Thyestes. Hardie and Sarks go way back and have worked together many times before, but this is the first time they have co-written, co-directed and co-starred in a piece, in a process which Sarks describes as ‘insane’: “It felt like the hardest thing to do next, and for that reason it felt like the right challenge.” Sarks is clear that despite its heritage, the show it is an entirely new work. “By Their Own Hands is actually consciously not following Sophocles’s structure, it’s
not just a new version of that play.” They originally intended for the show to include material from all three parts of the Oedipus trilogy: Oedipus The King, Oedipus At Colonus and Antigone. But as they began work on the first part, they found themselves seduced by it to the point that they ended up concentrating all their energy on it. “The material is so rich that the more we went into it the deeper we ended up inside it, and the less time we had for other things.” WHAT: By Their Own Hands WHEN & WHERE: Thursday 13 to Sunday 23 June, Neon Festival, MTC Lawler Studio
PAINT IT RED With the labours of half a decade laid to rest and a national tour about to kick into momentum, Trash McSweeney regales Justine Keating of his trials, tribulations and all that makes The Red Paintings tick.
LISTENING TO Disclosure – Settle
On the road, the band’s very much a family affair. Collins and his wife, Charlie, the founding members of Tigertown, are joined by their siblings and it turns the tour into what Collins describes as ‘almost a family holiday’.
MOTHER OF ALL STORIES
heatremaker Anne-Louise Sarks often find herself wondering about the smaller characters. The supporting roles, background figures, and off-centre parts in some of our most famous stories; people who are never given the spotlight. Like Jocasta, the mother of Oedipus: “In the Sophocles [version of the story], or even in the Seneca, she is present but she doesn’t have much to say. She understands what is going on and exits, and then kills herself offstage. For me, that’s not very satisfying,” Sarks says. “I want to understand what it’s like for her to go though all of that. That’s the mission.”
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“There’s a definite vibe [to live recordings]. It is different, but it’s sort of one of those things you realise that you can’t even pinpoint or describe how it sounds different: it’s
a feeling. And the best thing about recording like that is that you all instantly know at the end of a take if that was the magic take or not, because you’re all in it together.”
he release of the first full-length album by orchestral art-rockers The Red Paintings was no mean feat. It was, however, a long time coming – five years, to be exact. Frontman Trash McSweeney poured his heart, soul and something close to $200,000 into the creation and completion of The Revolution Is Never Coming, and while the result was nothing short of epic, those five years were full of hard knocks for the dedicated McSweeney.
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at the most opportune moment; McSweeney was just about to give the album the flick – it had just taken so much from him. Prompted by an invested friend, McSweeney gave Colstrum a chance, and together they had one last try. Evidently, that perseverance paid off, as McSweeney expresses; “I guess that’s lucky that I was able to finish the album with someone like him, because I definitely feel the energy of the two people in that mix and that mix was perfect for what I wanted to achieve.”
“I put all my time into this album. I put my whole life on the line; my girlfriend left me, stupid shit happened because I was just so relentless with the sound and what I wanted to achieve, but you need to do that in art I think,” McSweeney explains.
What started out as the visions of one man being realised progressively extended beyond personal successes and advanced into a project almost entirely reliant on its followers. McSweeney recalls the early days of the band and the inability to complete a fulllength album in the past due to a lack of understanding by co-operators. On paper, The Revolution Is Never Coming is inherently a product of McSweeney’s ideas alone, but the funding and participation of fans contributed greatly to the completion of not just the album, but the stage shows that have become such a highly-regarded staple of The Red Paintings.
The relationships lost and the less-than-desirable financial situation he found himself in were only just snippets of the drastic changes McSweeney went through during the rigorous recording process. Unhappy with the state of the music industry in Australia and with the added intention of reaching a larger audience, McSweeney relocated from Brisbane to Los Angeles, which is where he got to working with Brian Colstrum (Rob Zombie, Alice In Chains). This partnership came
McSweeney aims to “build stage shows that are a metaphor of the message of the song”, and for
the upcoming tour of You’re Not One Of Them fans volunteer their talents as painters as well as their bodies to be human canvases in order to create a unique, theatrical metaphor. Even with all the intensive planning that goes into these convoluted performances, there’s still no guarantee as to what the outcome will be – all that is up to the participants, to which McSweeney brightly comments, “It’s a fragment of time that fits the moment, that’s why it’s so magical! Every Red Paintings show will never be the same, because you never know what that person is going to paint, what their actions are going to be onstage, how they’re going to react, are they going to get over-emotional... It’s just part of the experience.” WHO: The Red Paintings WHAT: The Revolution Is Never Coming (Bird’s Robe/MGM) WHEN & WHERE: Saturday 15 June, Espy
25
DESIGN
[FEATURES FEATURES]
PICTURE PERFECT Liza Dezfouli talks to French graphic designer, So Me of Ed Banger, who is travelling to Australia as part of Ed Banger’s tenth birthday party celebrations. Jealous much?
am talking through my nose,” So Me says on the phone from Paris. A heavy cold takes nothing away from his adorable French accent. French graphic designer/photographer Bertrand Lagros de Langeron, aka So Me, leads a brilliant life. He is one of Ed Banger’s creative team, Ed Banger being an electronic house/dance music label established by DJ/ producer Pedro Winter (Busy P), formerly of Daft Punk. So Me got involved with Ed Banger quite naturally since he’d already been working with Daft Punk. “I’ve been very lucky so far in my field of work,” So Me says. Constantly in demand, as well as working with Ed Banger, So Me designs clothes for a label called Cool Cats and directs music videos, winning a MTV European award in 2005 for his work on the Justice single, We Are Your Friends. “My life isn’t going out or partying every night,” So Me reckons, despite admitting that when he’s not working he’s ‘sleeping a lot’. “Partying is fun but it’s not the core activity.”
“I
So Me has just compiled a book of photographs, Travaille. Famille. Party (Work. Family. Party), documenting ten years of Ed Banger. The book’s release ties in with a raft of tenth birthday party hi-jinks: a compilation album release (Ed Rec Vol X), a massive dance party in London, then parties all over the globe culminating in Sydney. Photographing the label’s activities is something So Me does constantly, so he had plenty of images at hand. “I always wanted to use the Ed Banger structure to do a book one day, a book that contains unseen work.”
CIRCUS
Creating the book meant sticking with one project for much longer than So Me’s used to. “I like to do things and go quick; switch from one thing to another,” he admits. So Me shoots whatever takes his fancy, all on film. “I found that I really enjoyed shooting film. I like the texture. There is a big thrill when you develop them, a big surprise. It’s just an interesting process.
I am always happy to do that process again.” Isn’t it time-consuming? “Yeah, but I’m in no rush!” Unlike his photography, So Me creates his graphic design digitally. Who or what are his inspirations when it comes to graphic design? “’60s and ‘70s graphic design,” he answers. “Illustration was involved a lot then. People don’t draw so much now. I draw more than my contemporaries.” So Me doesn’t have personal projects on the go because he’s doing what he wants to do already. “I’m directing music videos, designing clothes, creating covers for albums; I’ve always been happy with what I do.” Any ideas for the future? “I don’t really have plans. I’ve been going with the flow. I’ve just finished the book, and I’m now working on a record label cover.” Any personal highlights from the last ten years? “It’s hard to pin down,” he says. “A lot of travelling, people meeting, but it’s hard to define one moment.” Can you better all this for a creative life? Don’t think so. WHAT: Ed Rec Vol. X (Ed Banger/Because/Warner)
CRANKIN’ IT Instead of slowing things down after returning from the US, Circus OZ is doing the opposite and stepping it up instead, Kai Johnson-Peady tells Simon Eales.
fter an epic tour of the US, Circus Oz return with their stripped-down acrobatic rock-out, Cranked Up. The show slots in before the company focuses on moving into their new Collingwood headquarters later in the year. Kai Johnson-Peady, an aerial specialist who hails from Albury and joined the troupe last year, is pretty stoked to be back in town.
A
“All through the States we got really good responses, from our five weeks in New York to snow towns in the West like Cedar Falls… It was so good discovering new places and people, but it can be a long haul and it’s always good to come back to a home crowd.” Cranked Up is essentially the same show that toured, but amped. “We’re stripping it down, re-working a lot of the acts, deconstructing and, in a sense, cranking it up - trying to make things bigger, better, tighter. We’ve also got a couple of new ensemble members this year, so it’s a matter of integrating their own personal characters and skills into the show and just trying to improve what we can skill-wise.” The training in the lead-up to this kind of show is all about drilling skills and synching team members. “We have a schedule written up at the end of every week for the next week, with all the stuff that needs to be worked on. Some weeks we’ll focus more on the first half, or the second half, or specific group acts that are a little bit behind the other ones, and there’s always a time during the day where we get an individual session to train our own stuff.” For JohnsonPeady that usually involves work on the teeter-board, essentially a giant wooden seesaw. “We do both the Korean teeter-board and what we call the Run-up Push, where you’ll have someone run up and land on one end, launching a person into somersaults from the other. It’s definitely become a speciality of mine.”
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26 • For more interviews go to themusic.com.au/interviews
The dizzying heights involved, while always a feature in circus, fit well into the main stylistic influences on Cranked Up. “The whole show is set in a construction
world and it did stem from that very iconic shot of all the workers sitting up on the steel girder on the New York skyline.” Characters, costumes and set all create the aura of progress and remarkable physical achievement associated with early 20thcentury America and that classic shot by Charles C Ebbets, New York Construction Workers Lunching On A Crossbeam, gets a direct reference with trapeze artists swinging from their own stratospheric steel girder. Skyscrapers and the circus seem to both cause a sometimes nauseating vertigo. “The whole danger element is one of the things I feed off,” Johnson-Peady admits. “Once a trick becomes a bit comfortable it becomes a bit boring. I’m like, ‘what’s next?’, so I can have a bit of that adrenaline and a bit of that fear.” In Las Vegas, Circus Oz came up against the strip’s eight, read it, eight resident Cirque du Soleil shows. But as Johnson-Peady tells, the locals especially seemed to appreciate the injection of antipodean flavour. “After talking to a few people, and even a few Cirque people, they were all saying how refreshing it was to see something a bit different. We try not to take ourselves too seriously and we have the freedom to muck around on stage, which can sometimes go a bit out of hand,” he laughs. ”But other times it goes really well. A lot of it is improvised, covering up mistakes and bouncing off one another.” WHAT: Circus Oz: Cranked Up WHEN & WHERE: Wednesday 19 June to Friday 14 July, Birrarung Marr
27
SINGLED OUT SINGLE OF THE WEEK
WITH STEPHANIE LIEW
CHARLI XCX Take My Hand Warner Taken from Charli XCX’s second album True Romance, Take My Hand features glorious bleepy-bloopy noises among joyous synth chords with a heavy bass end. The real magic of the track is the way Charli XCX enunciates her words: squeaking “take my hand”, croaking “let’s go oouuut” – dragging her vowels like cigarettes – sulking “why you gotta go to sleep?” and chirping “let’s dance!” in fuzzy harmonies. It makes you feel like everything’s blurry around the edges, the aural equivalent of dilated pupils, and the music and lyrics perfectly capture that happy, stay-up-all-night feeling.
MILEY CYRUS We Can’t Stop Sony There’s a trend: Mainstream artists trying to escape the rigid rules of the Hit Pop Song and trying to be a little different. Despite the masses lapping up Cyrus’s effort, there’s something off about it. The low, pitch-shifted chant of “it’s our party, we can do what we want” over piano and “oooh”s, distracting barks of “hey!” and “oh!” scattered liberally, and a weird hybrid of R&B melody, piano ballad and electro dancefloor banger all in one makes it a rainbow spew; a mish mash of too much. As for the lyric “la da di da di, we like to party, dancin’ with Miley” – and into the bin goes this one.
BASTIAN’S HAPPY FLIGHT
ALBUM OF THE WEEK
[REVIEWS REVIEWS] a l b u m
CRYSTAL FIGHTERS
EMPIRE OF THE SUN
Universal
Capitol/EMI
There aren’t too many modern bands that can list “txistu” or “txalaparta” on their instrumental repertoire. Both are traditional folk instruments from Basque country and underpin the concept of Crystal Fighters’ electronic/Spanish folk fusion. The British band have created a unique sound that is an eclectic combination of funk, tribal, folk and electronic pop. Cave Rave is the second album release from the band and follows the 2010 distribution of Star Of Love.
Recorded in the buzz overdose that is New York city, Empire Of The Sun’s new offering, Ice On The Dune, sees frontman Luke Steele and beat aficionado Nick Littlemore tighten their creative grasp on the imagined world of the Empire the pair collectively inhabit. Admittedly, there are no slap-in-your-face breath-takers like 2008’s Walking On A Dream, but the pair have tried to re-capture and re-invigorate the magic that made their debut so successful.
FHTTS’s take on electronic and melodic metal’s progressed since their debut, The Beauty Of Falling, with their clever yet stealth-like strategy of integrating electronic influences below dominant guitars and thrashing drums. Comparisons with fellow Aussies Parkway Drive are as inevitable as they are consistent, yet justified, since throughout Savage Seas the similarities are obvious. But that’s not to say that Savage Seas is a disappointment; far from it. The album’s “savage” all right – nine tracks of such relentless speed and energy it’s easy to sweat just listening to the damn thing. Lead single Memory Of You is a bona fide metalcore track with a memorable guitar solo before Andrew Vanderzalm’s bellowing voice takes over. The unkindly titled Fuck Melbourne has enough whirling guitars to satisfy all, while Buried Alive, one of the best tracks, has a synth-driven mid-section and a roaring bassline that kicks along as Vanderzalm howls. Take Me Back is another pick as the easy drum pattern pounds to Vanderzalm’s crisp vocal. There are enough breakdowns, electronic stabs, furious drums and wellwritten lyrics scattered throughout Savage Seas to make this savage enough to feed anyone’s appetite.
Audiences and critics alike have been expecting big things from Crystal Fighters after their debut created a stir with the ‘endless summer’ vibe it radiated. The band have described Cave Rave as more holistic and less experimental than Star Of Love. However, from a listener’s perspective, Cave Rave is more of the joyous, feel-good pop that was so highly celebrated the first time around. Although this genre is nothing new in the music world, Crystal Fighters have breathed new life into it by taking the basic ingredients (namely synths, grooving beats and uplifting harmonies) and injecting high-energy Basque rhythm and percussion.
The grandiose, string saturated Lux opens the album, heralding the second coming of the Emperor. Composed with the help of Cirque Du Soleil strings maestro Henry Hay, the track plays like the victory theme to some Mongolian warlord’s recent conquer. A simple guitar and chord progression introduces DNA, before Steele’s haunting vocals descend over the top, like dark storm clouds, creating a heavier trance-pop sound. The saccharine synthed Concert Pitch straddles ‘80s inspired BPMs, while staying true to Steele’s halting, breathy vocals. The ‘70s disco buzz gets a workout on Awakening, while I’ll Be Around puts the brakes on the beat – instead enchanting with a whispered vocal from Steele that’s carried and strung around a faint synthboard beat. Disarm amps up the mystic vibe, allowing Steele to showcase his range a little more, with the heavyset verses counterbalanced by the light synth-drenched choruses. It is here the Empire is at their addictive best – where a first listen simply isn’t enough to satisfy. Steele and Littlemore keep the psyched-out trance-lite groove going in Old Flavours, an instrumental-heavy track that’s interspaced with delicate sighs and yawns.
Stuart Evans
Claire Moore
FEED HER TO THE SHARKS Savage Seas Independent Think Triple M and Melbourne’s cock-rock radio station probably springs to mind. As far as Feed Her To The Sharks (FHTTS) are concerned, Triple M’s better defined as Mad Melbourne Metalcore (or Modern Melodic Metal as the band’s previously stated). Either description’s apt as Savage Seas is as mad as anything released this year.
Cave Rave
The tracks on Cave Rave that feature these unique, high-tempo percussion elements, such as Wave and Love Natural, are clear standouts – they are exceptionally energetic and infectious. That being said, the entire album boasts punchy and charming production, successfully bridging continents, genres and time. The lyrics are hopeful and quaint throughout, enticing audiences to “bathe in sunlight” (LA Calling) and “separate the truth from the things we know” (Separator). Crystal Fighters’ music may not necessarily challenge listeners, but it certainly is creative and flippantly gratifying.
Ice On The Dune
Don’t let the repetitive arc of the first single from the album, Alive, fool you. The Empire are back, in all their grandiose glory. Natasha Lee
Hooray... Independent
The title a misnomer, this attempt at a heartfelt song drags on for over six minutes (both the intro and fadeout run for at least one minute). We’re off to a bad ‘80s ballad beginning; the cheesy synths are there, and if they busted out a sax it wouldn’t be surprising. There’s a shift at the chorus, where everything is balanced, but that doesn’t last long once falsetto cuts through to bring it back down. Despite strains and grunts, you don’t believe the soulful mourning the vocals try to convey.
ILLY
LITTLE BOOTS
THE NATIONAL
On & On
Nocturnes
SHAPESHIFTER
OneTwo/Warner
On Repeat Records
Ministry Of Sound/Universal
Remote Control Records
Illy dropped his new track by asking fans to tweet over and over the hashtag #OnAndOn to ‘unlock’ the song; gotta recognise the guy’s ability to hype up his audience. On top of that, On & On is a damn decent track. The main players (aside from Illy’s chillyet-tight vocal flow, of course) are drums and keys, mostly staccato with matching picked guitar a step underneath. The chorus, with its multi-layered male and female vocals, is ripe for singing along to. It’s a feel-good party track, but it’s got sincerity to it.
Little Boots by name and little boots by nature, apparently: Victoria Hesketh, or Little Boots, which was the nickname she was given because of her petite feet that Hesketh kept as a stage name. Nocturnes, produced by Tim Goldsworthy, is her second album and it drops four years after her debut, Hands. This electro-pop songstress from Blackpool has escaped the British pop scene and now splits her time between London and LA.
One of the greatest live acts in drum’n’bass, Shapeshifter have nevertheless always had difficulty delivering a consistent album. Their diverse stylistic palette, coupled with the marked contrast between their live concert set-up and electronic studio work has almost always ensured that their albums have been uneasy shufflings of drum’n’bass, reggae, soul and metal punctuated by the occasional highlight. Only 2009’s live-instrumentsonly The System Is A Vampire really came close.
The National have only been on the popular scene for a few years since the breakthrough of Bloodbuzz Ohio, but this band has been working hard for 14 long years. Their sixth album Trouble Will Find Me creates an even flow between the deep, emotionless-yet-powerful vocals of Matt Berninger and the smooth guitars of the Dessner brothers. One could call The National a band of brothers: made up of two sets of brothers (one set, identical twins) plus vocalist Matt Berninger. This album comes after a long tour of their successful High Violet.
FAIRCHILD Dancer
Independent Adam Lyons’ soft, androgynous vocals beautifully complement the atmospheric swirls of: cloudy synth keys; deep, echoing drum strikes; and the ringing of guitar strings in this piece of hovering, cinematic postrock. An insular world is created, and producer/mixer Catherine Marks (Foals, Editors, The Killers) has to be commended. Dancer feels like it’s all building up to the final minute, and that suspense is so satisfying.
COTTON SIDEWALK Do Something Independent It’s a real shame that the most memorable part of this song is also the most irritating: the last syllable of the “do something” chorus line is stretched into 15 notes. Excessive, really. Other than that, listening to this song is like revisiting the late-‘90s Aussie, country-leaning, rock-pop scene. And not necessarily for the better.
28 • For more reviews go to themusic.com.au/reviews
Released on her own On Repeat Records label, Hesketh went her own way after experiencing some conflict with her previous label. Little Boots is almost like an underground-pop artist in that her songs are a bit too electro for commercial stations yet also uphold a standard pop structure. Throughout Nocturnes, piano is ever-present. You can imagine Hesketh writing her songs on a piano and then electrifying them later. Opening track Motorway is about Hesketh putting her tiny shoes to the pedal and fleeing by car in the wake of a hand-drum solo. Some of the songs on this album – such as Confusion, during which Hesketh sings, “Everything’s changed/You’re not the same/ Who can I blame?” – hint at a bad break-up in the life of Little Boots. Broken Record is a bit more pop than electro and her diction in the chorus carries the beat. Shake is the strongest song on the album, with a pulsating beat that places you in the club.
Delta
Delta would appear to be another misstep. Potentially, their worst. With their fifth album, Shapeshifter have thrown caution to the wind and delivered their most experimental release to date. Unfortunately, their experimentation largely feels unfocused and ill-considered. Opener, Monarch, for example, slams massive breaks in between smooth jazz soloing and underneath ill-fitting vocal melodies. Individually, each element is promising. Together, they’re a mess. It’s a theme that carries on across the album. Giving Up The Ghost features cringe-worthy heavy metal guitars. In Colour sounds a bit like David Guetta tackling dubstep.
Little Boots sounds a bit like Robyn, but without the sassy attitude. Her music is very safe and doesn’t really take you by surprise. However, she is true to her genre and, as a pop artist, actually doesn’t make songs to please the crowds. Instead she makes songs to please electro fans.
It’s not a complete disaster. There are some surprising rewards buried within Delta. Diamond Trade, for example, is Shapeshifter’s debut foray into the indieelectro of acts like The Presets and works surprisingly well. For the most part, though, Shapeshifter’s fifth album is disposable. Not so much because it offers a different sound to their previous records, however. Rather because their songwriting hasn’t developed in proportion to their ambition. Really, Delta’s experimentation would be irrelevant if the band had delivered sufficiently crafted songs. Unfortunately, everything feels half-complete and slapped together.
Annie Brown
Matt O’Neill
Trouble Will Find Me
Carrying on from their previous album, Trouble Will Find Me is darkly beautiful and somehow takes you down and brings you back up again. First single Demons is a dark-spirited confession, with Berninger sounding like a mix between Nick Cave and Ian Curtis. Graceless is where the tempo picks up to become the fastest it’s going to get on an album by The National, with a panicked snare drum. This Is The Last Time offers up some of Berninger’s best raw and honest lyrics: “Jenny, I’m in trouble/Can’t get these thoughts out of me”. The National could sometimes be misunderstood as band of doom and gloom, but the genius thing about this band is that they make sad sound so great, and it somehow makes you feel happy. It’s the darkness of The National that gathers a sense of honesty. Some days when you’re just feeling a bit dissatisfied with life, The National really hits the spot. This is a band that makes intelligent, mature, honest indie rock that goes down like a straight whiskey after a long day. Annie Brown
a l b u m [REVIEWS REVIEWS]
MORE ONLINE... THEMUSIC.COM.AU
CITY & COLOUR
The Hurry And The Harm Dine Alone On Dallas Green’s fourth record under his name-play moniker City & Colour he well and truly distances himself from his hardcore past, The Hurry And The Harm looking forward with sound and substance. It still has those trademark ‘glass half empty’ lyrics such as the title track’s opening verse “Everyone/Wants everything/ No matter the cost/We’re longing to live in a dream”, but overall the music here suggests confidence and pride, and with a crack band of session musicians roped in for the Nashville recording sessions, including Jack Lawrence (The Dead Weather) and Bo Koster (My Morning Jacket), it couldn’t sound more exciting. For all this assurance, though, there’s still a journey taking place. Listening to the wistful air of Paradise and robust first single Thirst, it’s as though Green is continuing to discover his voice – trying to take it to places unknown. For fans to be a part of that growth through song is genuinely thrilling. And compared to 2011’s Little Hell, the tattooed 32-year-old seems to allow a glow to radiate from this music, although the lyrical content might suggest emotions otherwise. The tracks on this record are full and brimming with instrumentation throughout, but even when the album sheds a few layers during songs like Two Coins and Take Care, string accompaniments still lie comfortably within the structures and electric guitar solos stand tall without overpowering. With The Hurry And The Harm, Green has truly found the flow, voice and soul of City & Colour. A stunning, well-rounded album that holds you close from the outset and never lets you go. Benny Doyle
QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE ...Like Clockwork Matador/Remote Control Full disclosure: this reviewer did not like what he heard when he first put on the long-awaited sixth studio fulllength from sons of the desert Queens Of The Stone Age. A craving for high octane rock meant that the subtleties of the record were ignored, foolishly it must be said, and the twisted intricacies of the ten tracks did not register. For ...Like Clockwork is a slow burner. It’s a rock record of the more refined variety. And if you take it on its own merits, rather than holding it comparatively to Queens’ early-noughties output, you’ll soon find yourself sinking into the sludge and sex, sniffing the chemical fumes as you disappear into oblivion. Keeping the hooks and songwriting smarts of Era Vulgaris (2007) and letting it simmer with the haze of 2005’s Lullabies To Paralyze, Josh Homme uses that unmistakable high-register croon to full effect, offsetting the swampy blues rock that fills this album to give a hint of light in what is otherwise a claustrophobic listen. That “robot rock” element of the band is no longer a dominant factor. You still hear it, yes (If I Had A Tail, My God Is The Sun), but it’s more about the journey – I Appear Missing the perfect example of how this record can drive you into the dark horizon. And as for the much vaunted Elton John guest spot on Fairweather Friends... it all makes complete sense when brought to life in audio.
VAUDEVILLE SMASH Dancing For The Girl Independent Just from its name, Vaudeville Smash’s album Dancing For The Girl calls to mind the Deniece Williams track Let’s Hear It For The Boy from the Footloose soundtrack. The band take their name from an Italian karaoke machine that was around in the ‘80s, which makes perfect sense upon the realisation that the three brothers in Vaudeville Smash – Marc, Dan and Luca Lucchesi – grew up in a house with walls that often reverberated with the sound of their dad singing Italian and Spanish folk songs. The quintet is rounded out by two friends of the Lucchesi brothers and together they call to mind outfits such as Huey Lewis & The News and Prince. A contemporary ‘80s disco-inspired album, Dancing For The Girl is like stepping into classic cult movies such as St Elmo’s Fire and The Breakfast Club, with this album acting as the perfect soundtrack. While it’s easy to get lost in Dancing For The Girl’s nostalgia, the impressive musicianship of Vaudeville Smash is always on display and stunning, intricate harmonies feature on Ghouls and Honeymoon. A feast for the ears that is mainly upbeat and a joy to listen to, it doesn’t shy away from darker subject matter such as infidelity (Don’t Say A Word), the joy of finding love after heartbreak (I Got A Feeling) and the morning after the night before (Time).
...Like Clockwork shows that Queens are still depraved and drug-drenched. It’s just that these days the boys are taking their hits from a batch far more pure.
The instrumental nature of Dancing For The Girl sometimes overtakes Marc’s dizzying vocals but it wouldn’t have worked any other way. This is how to make an ‘80s throwback album sound current. It’s how danceable music is supposed to be.
Benny Doyle
Maggie Sapet
BLACK SABBATH 13
Universal “By rights (and this coming from a huge Sabbath fan) this album should suck. Thing is, it doesn’t.” Mark Hebblewhite
ELOQUOR
From The Oceans Of Karana Myspherical/Obese “There’s a lot to enjoy with this record; it’s just that some of it is a little obscured.” James d’Apice
THE LOVE JUNKIES Maybelene MGM “This album hardly pushes barriers and the group might as well wear their post-2000s rock influences on their sleeves, but the result is fun enough to largely ignore these complaints.” Andrew McDonald
For more reviews go to themusic.com.au/reviews • 29
[REVIEWS REVIEWS] l i v e Rope as we walk up the stairs that intersect the bandroom. The place is already jam packed so we shimmy over to a sofa at the back – the Curtin’s highlight feature – which thankfully have the effect of absorbing some of the excessive volume. The downside is a peripheral experience of this Doorsy garage rock band that are apparently pretty good, albeit an odd choice for a Saskwatch support.
AFTER THE GIG WE...
Technically, Saskwatch cannot be faulted. The murky mix can’t hide the fact that this band contain some of the most technically proficient musicians in town. But tonight feels soulless. Maybe it is just the wrong venue, despite the band waxing lyrical about how great it is. A band as clean as this needs somewhere you can hear them well. Nkechi Anele’s vocals are almost too big for the space, and their sound definitely is – they even bust the power halfway through the gig. They are clearly putting their back into it, playing big song after song from their debut record, but moving around the room we just can’t find a sweet spot anywhere. The hipsters down the front are dancing but really, the dead snake dream was better.
JUSTIN STREET FROM AIRBOURNE
Kate Kingsmill
WHAT DO YOU DO AFTER THE GIG IS OVER WHEN ON TOUR?
ZOOPHYTE, VIDA CAIN, THE ELLIOTTS
Have a few beers and see what’s going on in the area, which is usually more beers.
NORTHCOTE SOCIAL CLUB: 31/05/13
Airbourne touring nationally from July. Check The Guide for dates.
GIGS GUIDE RULE #90
Don’t sing every word – we came to hear the band, not a punter. RULE #304
Try and not slop your booze all over the place. No one wants beer soaked boots.
FAVOURITE ALBUM ALISTER WRIGHT FROM CLOUD CONTROL
Alpine Pic by Holly Engelhardt
ALPINE, CITY CALM DOWN, ALI BARTER HI-FI: 30/05/13 Daydream material by singer-songwriter Ali Barter provides a sweet opening. The Melburnian babe leads an orchestra of organic sounds naturally synchronising with synths. Her elegant hymns are followed by masculine melodies of City Calm Down. The four young men present a repertoire of electronic epicness. Tricks on a drum machine and raw vocals bring communal light head nodding. Melburnians in large numbers come to admire the well adored Alpine. The appearance of lead singers Phoebe Baker and Lou James is happily received by the audience. Think two times Lykke Li with Madonnaminded moves to imagine the energy of these ladies. Ex-punk bandit, bass player Ryan Lamb adopts the quirky dances tremendously well. The other half of the six-piece prefer a more incognito position. Mellifluous “ooh”s and “aah”s are accompanied by staccato percussion, keys and strings. A Is For Alpine, their latest album, is widely exposed. Older material such as Villages and Heartlove pass by as well. The pretty Baker raises her whiskey glass and James adds a sweet shout out: “You are a lovely home crowd and this is very special.” The last song, Gasoline, is dedicated to their fans – “I wish it wasn’t just the night time!” The crowd responds with a mass rise of the neon sticks provided by tonight’s sponsor. Blessed be America with the arrival of this Australian delegation of dream-popstars!
a copy by way of reward. It’s game on when a courageous couple obliges, demonstrating some fearless pirouettes. More fellows follow and pitch their moves against the mood-swinging melodies. The happy harmonies of Blueprint are contrasted by the melancholy of Beside Itself. Mr Mulholland is an impressive multi-instrumentalist, rockstar, singer-songwriter and performer. His hit I Will Echo could well prove to be a self-fulfilling prophecy, in Melbourne and beyond, after this victorious gig. Gerda van den Dool
SASKWATCH, MONEY FOR ROPE CURTIN BANDROOM: 01/06/13 On Saturday night this reviewer had a restaurant meal of dried anchovies, peanuts, slices of cucumber, rice and a fried chicken leg all on the same plate. Weirdest meal ever. After that there was a strange dream about dead snakes. In between these two things this gig at the Curtin went down. With Saskwatch about to head to Glastonbury, tonight’s gig was a hot ticket, selling out hours in advance. They launched a campaign on Pozible a few weeks ago and were celebrating having just hit their target, and there was anticipation spilling from the overstuffed crowd for the gig, but a totally up-for-it capacity audience couldn’t make up for a strange lack of that soul feeling. A good soul band deserves great acoustics and decent sound, but a hissy top end that sounds like eating chips overwhelms the sound of Money For
First band to open up for Zoophyte are three-piece The Elliotts, donning matching shirts and brimming with enthusiasm. Likeable frontman and band namesake, Robbie Elliott, spends considerable time pogoing about the stage, at times looking as though he may lose control of the wheel. Hopping between bass and synth duties, James Howlett slings his Fender bass low, clearly enjoying the camaraderie of the three, which includes a very Larry Mullen Jr-looking Josh Thompson behind the kit. Unbridled enthusiasm makes up a major part of the trio’s charm, and after getting things going with the mellow Say Something, the boys crank the energy levels with What’s Your Name – a thumping bassline helping pick up the pace. Concluding the set with Stay The Night, the band end on a high note. Vida Cain hail from Perth, supporting Zoophyte hot on the heels of the video release for first single, Only Love Things. Immediately getting down to the business of getting down, Vida Cain play track after track with the minimal fuss of a band whose members have seen and done it all before. Lead singer and guitarist Josh Johnstone is a veteran of the Perth scene and tonight leads the charge, a Gibson SG his weapon of choice. Tracks like Domino are executed tightly, imbued with a real Aussie pub-rock flavour. The band round out their set with the groove-laden Reloader amidst cheering from Perth ex-pats and Melburnians alike. Headliners Zoophyte hit the stage, bringing their stadium rock sound with them. Looking every bit the part as dishevelled rock stars, the foursome open with instrumental noodlings before launching into their brand of uplifting, guitar heavy rock anthems. Let You Go is a set highlight and is played early, its echoing guitar leading into the brash chorus, ideal for drunken audience participation. Floating throughout the crowd all night checking sound levels (but mainly cheering brother and lead singer Cam Lee on) Andy Lee takes to the stage to handle trumpet duties for the more sombre Crusaders, the brass lending a nice timbre to the band’s sound. The set (and evening) standout is a cover of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ I Put A Spell On You, which adds a much-needed dose of sleaze to proceedings and is the perfect way to end the night. Glenn Waller
Gerda van den Dool
EDEN MULHOLLAND, MISS ELM, KATE MARTIN GRACE DARLING: 07/06/13
I don’t have an all-time favourite, but I have a favourite of last year, or maybe it was the year before… anyway, it’s Pure X – Pleasure (2011). I shouldn’t say this, but I didn’t like their new album as much. I actually really like the new album as well, but I don’t like it for the same reasons that I liked the first one. The first one was just so good to chill out to. Cloud Control’s new album Dream Cave will be released in August.
30 • For more reviews go to themusic.com.au/reviews
Before feeding time, there’s the mellifluous melodies of Melbourne singer Kate Martin, who satisfies the crowd with servings of sweet folk songs. Ingredients for her solo performance are angelic vocals and dreamy beats, mixed together well by a looping station. Modelling exuberant fringing and a bright red hairstyle, Miss Elm adds sophisticated spices to the show. The high-pitched voice of frontwoman Erin Harrington is accompanied by pop rhythms, bass, flute and melodica. Time for the main meal on tonight’s menu. After rock’n’rolling with his band Motocade, Eden Mulholland launches his first solo album Feed The Beast tonight and kicks off with those glorious vocals. He is accompanied by dedicated drummer Ricky Birmingham, whose energy brings fire to every single song. Guitarist Geordie McCallum plays shoulder to shoulder with Mulholland as this trio treats the audience with sweet surprises: free albums are pulled out and those who dare to dance are promised
Saskwatch Pic by Andrew Briscoe
live KILLING JOKE
tables and décor that suggests better, older times. Pool accompanies her strong, clear voice with soft guitar, demonstrating her remarkable range in each of her songs. The theme of heartbreak receives a high representation amongst her repertoire with her tune Henry particularly well received. She especially wins the crowd over by exclaiming at the end of the number: “What a dick! You were all thinking it.”
BILLBOARD: 07/06/13 “Good evening, we’re celebrating 35 years of Killing Joke!” Jaz Coleman proclaims, and so begins the onslaught as one of the most influential yet still underrated bands on the planet start with Requiem. There’s a lot of grey hair on display with old punks, goths and rockers turning out to pay tribute to the heroes of their youth, but it has to be said the energy level of the crowd is nowhere near as high as that of the performers. There’s a small knot of diehards slamming away on the floor in front of the stage, but otherwise it’s pretty sedate. On stage it’s a different story, however – Coleman looking lean and mean, in much better shape than on the band’s last visit in 2004. He still has plenty of fire and brimstone left, bellowing out the lyrics to Wardance, shaking, glaring and providing an ominous presence as always. Youth looks like someone’s dad on a summer holiday with his blue Hawaiian shirt and visor, although the “Sid Lives” t-shirt underneath and his tireless pounding basslines and lively stage presence soon counteract this impression. Innovative guitarist Geordie Walker is as cool as they come, casually coaxing scything riffs from his classic gold hollow-bodied Gibson ES-295 without breaking a sweat. Axewound and ex-Pitchshifter drummer Jason Bowld fills in for Paul Ferguson, who couldn’t play on this tour due to tendonitis, and does well, frantically hammering out the tribal, stomping beats that underpin so many of Killing Joke’s apocalyptic anthems. Dedicated to the memory of bassist Paul Raven, Love Like Blood is played early on, when most bands would probably have saved what is arguably their biggest (but not necessarily best) song for the encore. Killing Joke have never been a band to do things by the book, and, of course, that’s part of their appeal. The set is a really powerful collection of songs spanning their long history and the best part is that Rapture, Asteroid, Corporate Elect and The Death & Resurrection Show from their more recent albums are just as good, or better, than their early songs. Not many bands can lay claim to such a feat after 35 years, making this much more than an exercise in nostalgia. As far as the classics go, The Wait sounds absolutely pulverising and Eighties, Whiteout, Change and Pssyche are all highlights, sounding much more menacing live than on the original recorded versions. Coleman is fiery all evening, expressing his pleasure that there was rally here against Monsanto, introducing Eighties with: “Two decades ago it was still a time of hope, we still believed in people like Peter Garrett. What happened there?” and commenting before The Beautiful Dead that “People ask what’s different now from 30 years ago … There’s not as much rebellion, nobody’s got any rebellion left in them, you’re all zombies!” As if to prove his point there’s barely a murmur from the audience in protest. The downside to tonight’s gig is the mix. It’s very bass-heavy, and not in a good way. The sound improves the closer you get to the stage, but it’s pretty dismal behind the mixing desk, particularly through the first half of the set, when loud and distorted bass guitar overshadows the guitar, keyboards and even drums. It’s only closer to the front of stage that the sound is more balanced, due to the direct sound from the backline. The venue dimensions and listening location are always a factor in such things, but some of the fault has to rest with the sound engineer who simply gets the mix balance wrong. It’s a shame when the band are giving it their all and have no control over what the audience is hearing. Killing Joke are working on a new album, so hopefully they’ll be back again. Based on this inspirational performance and their last four albums they‘re not only every bit as vital and relevant as they were in the earlier part of their career, but also still pushing the boundaries and producing some of their best work. James O’Toole
HIGH HIGHS, ALI BARTER TOFF IN TOWN: 06/06/13 Winter is well and truly in the air as Ali Barter takes to the Toff’s stage. It would seem that this, along with it being a Thursday evening, has resulted in the skeleton audience present to welcome her. It doesn’t seem to matter, though – Barter’s solo style suits a smaller audience. Her strong vocals fill the empty space between the stage and the bar, the sombre lyrics not helping to alter the temperature, although the voice delivering them does. We’re treated to originals such as Run You Down, as well as a Foo Fighters cover that Barter attributes to a teenage obsession she just hasn’t been able to kick. Her voice has drawn comparison to many accomplished female artists, both here and overseas, and it’s easy to see why. It’s strong yet smooth, with just enough
[REVIEWS REVIEWS]
Singer/guitarists Kenneth Pattengale and Joey Ryan make up indie-folk duo, The Milk Carton Kids. Ryan makes an early mistake of requesting that the audience “give a hand” to Pool and manages to elicit applause louder perhaps than what he had been expecting. Nevertheless, the duo remain unperturbed and launch into their set, quickly affirming that they are not about to be upstaged. After the first number, Ryan thanks the audience for clapping and remarks, “Everyone should find a job where they get applauded every three-and-a-half minutes”. This is the first instance of the most enjoyable and surprising elements of this show: Ryan is genuinely hilarious, keeping the crowd entertained with absurd banter that seems to focus mainly on made-up histories of English and Latin grammar. While Ryan is the eye-candy, Pattengale is definitely the talent, demonstrating bristling-fast solos and stimulating riffs all the while managing to perfectly harmonise (and sing when it is his turn) with Ryan’s vocals. Their numbers Charlie and Girls, Gather Round are two stellar examples of many songs that create one of the most intimate and delightful gig atmospheres experienced since what this scribe imagines young Dylan’s audiences were treated to.
Killing Joke Pic by Jesse Booher haunting tone to make an emotional impact without taking too much of a toll on the listener. Indeed, the only thing taking a toll tonight is the choice of lighting for the performance. It creates a vibe not dissimilar to a karaoke night – something that really doesn’t suit the calibre of what we’re hearing. The break between performances sees an increase in numbers, enough to now call it a crowd. It’s the usual mix of people welcome at the Toff, the middleaged to teenage, suits to hipsters and everywhere in between. As High Highs take to the stage we’re told that it’s their last show for a month or so, following their stint back in Australia. The music kicks in, starting a gradual end to the evening that could be likened to falling asleep on a rollercoaster. You see, High Highs’ hybrid of electronic and acoustic just seems to inflict a strange dazed energy upon everyone. Every number seems to strive for this balance, which fosters soothing tones while obstructing boredom from creeping upon the weary among us. It might be confusing for those in the front row who are trying to figure out what to do with themselves, but from the other side of the bar it’s a perfect way to ease into the remainder of the week. If anything, the live performance of the band’s debut album Open Season errs a little more on the electronic side when compared to its recorded state, although there’s certainly no discernible loss of quality. The lighting’s better this time, soft enough to create an air of mystery matched to what’s being played. As the end of the night looms, and with it the prospect of the trusty hot water bottle, Phone Call and Dey emerge as this reviewer’s highlights. However, it’s an unrestricted rendition of Open Season that sees us out into the cold, like wildlife staring down the barrel that is a chilly ride home. Jack Needham
MIGUEL ATWOOD-FERGUSON ENSEMBLE HI-FI: 01/06/13 Watching Miguel Atwood-Ferguson and his ensemble is a remarkable experience. Along with a smattering of talented local and international musicians, including members of band Hiatus Kaiyote, the LA native treats the lucky guests to a breathtaking, uplifting performance, one which the attendees might agree could be in the running for Melbourne’s gig of the year. While Atwood-Ferguson is a composer, DJ, arranger and plays multiple instruments, for this performance he shows the audience what he is truly best at – playing the violin. The classically trained prodigy began playing at the age of four. It might be the smell of jazz in the air, but the Hi-Fi bar feels different. The stage looks smaller, the
venue feels intimate. Most of the crowd is gathered on the floor near the stage and on the stairs. They start with a version of John Coltrane’s Living Space, the cruisy, extended introduction builds and builds, and the extent of Atwood-Ferguson’s talent is revealed. Not only has he converted musical classics of all genres into his own work of art, his fingers move up and down his violin at an incredible speed. The show jumps from some laidback Ethiopian jazz from Mulatu, to J Dilla’s Untitled (Fantastic). Guest vocalist Elana Stone replaces Sophia Brous, singing a powerful version of the trippy Tomorrow Never Knows by The Beatles. She’s tiny, but her huge voice is reminiscent of Moloko’s: strong and solid. Dressed in glittery threads and sporting an eccentric haircut, vocalist Nai Palm truly blows the audience away with her presence and her voice. Her cover of Bjork’s Sun In My Mouth is dedicated to her mum, as it’s the anniversary of her death. Initially she sounds remarkably similar to Bjork, but throughout the evening’s performance, elements of her voice are reminiscent of Amy Winehouse, Lauryn Hill and Billie Holiday. The sax solo from Silent Jay gets cheers and whistles from the crowd, as does Simon Mavin’s handiwork on the keys. A woman dancing near the front of the stage spins around, her eyes closed and her arms outstretched. Like many others, she is being completely uplifted by this music. Stone and Palm remain on the stage, their harmonies providing a sweet accompaniment to AtwoodFerguson’s strings as he bounces and jumps in time with the beats. Nai Palm sings Summer Soft by Stevie Wonder, and she looks so deeply engrossed in her beautiful voice she barely notices the crowd. There are songs that are familiar, which sound like theme music for movies and soap operas – uplifting, happy, cute Disney-like moments which raise arm hair and transport listeners to a sublime state. Atwood-Ferguson says, “This is my first time here, and I love it. I want to stay for a whole month.” With the announcement at the end of the show that he will be playing some tunes at Section 8 the following day, as well as hosting a composition workshop, it seems that he would if he could. “I will release my album soon,” he tells the crowd. If the show is anything to go by, it will be a must-have for the collection. Belinda Healy
THE MILK CARTON KIDS, MELODY POOL THORNBURY THEATRE: 06/06/13 The endearing Melody Pool goes down a hit with this seated audience, which seems accustomed to gigs complemented with dinners, large round
After a quick plug to promote the physical albums that you can pay for, and the free downloads of the exact same albums available on their website (themilkcartonkids.com), the boys send the audience off into fuzzy oblivion with their slow ballad Memphis. They end the show to thunderous applause and a standing ovation. While it cannot be denied that the average audience-member’s age is about 65 (Ryan’s own observation is: “Some of you look like you’ve been parents for a long time”), The Milk Carton Kids provide one of those rare examples where you realise that your parents are actually going to better gigs than you. Benjamin Meyer
EARLWOLF PALACE THEATRE: 07/06/13 “What’s up, assholes?” says Tyler, The Creator, greeting the sold-out Palace. Earlwolf, the duo comprising Tyler and fellow Odd Future member Earl Sweatshirt (with Jasper Dolphin and Taco Bennett joining the tour), have just exploded out on stage with French, which sends the crowd mental. It’s the first time any of Odd Future’s subgroups have toured Australia and it’s also Sweatshirt’s first time here (he was still at school in Samoa during the group’s previous tours). More importantly, it’s probably the best of any Odd Future tour so far. The set is a mix of both members’ solo songs, with their few duo songs thrown in. They each provide backing vocals for the other, with Dolphin adding his own and filling a sort of hypeman role, while Bennett provides the music from a laptop. Tyler’s songs such as Yonkers, Domo23 and Jamba have the entire floor area dancing and moshing in equal parts, while We Got Bitches gives Dolphin and Bennett a chance to show off their own rapping and Odd Future’s dumb, party side. The majority of the set comes from Tyler’s solo output (three albums compared with Sweatshirt’s one, to date), which is broken up by Sweatshirt, or group tracks, every few songs. About halfway through the set, Bennett plays the piano sample from Gucci Mane’s Lemonade and the crowd collectively loses it – it’s Orange Juice, one of the older Earlwolf songs and arguably one of the best of all the Odd Future output. Sweatshirt takes over the set for a few songs after this, while Tyler sits and uses his inhaler. We get older songs, like Earl, and a few new songs after Sweatshirt confirms a July release for his album, Doris. Despite his absence over the last few years, Sweatshirt has lost none of his skill and has no trouble flawlessly reeling off his impressive rhymes. Disappointingly though, he doesn’t perform his Oldie verse, despite Tyler and Dolphin’s challenge after they each do theirs. This is one of the few flaws of the show – several songs only get partial renditions because their guests aren’t here tonight. The omission of crowd favourite Radicals is cruel too. Instead, the show ends on Sandwitches. As soon as Tyler gives the signal, the floor erupts into multiple circle pits and the whole room shouts in unison, “WOLF. GANG.” Josh Ramselaar
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[REVIEWS REVIEWS] a r t s WATCHING (MAD) MEN FAVORS S6, E11, TV
This Week On Mad Men: Handsome Dick is many things, but the “sweetest man” he ain’t. With Arnold and Sylvia’s mop-topped son Vietnam-bound, Don does a ‘favor’, soliciting draft-dodging advice from Ted: all the kid needs is a haircut and a pilot’s dream; and oh flow Lindsay Weir’s salty tears. She pays thanks legs spread, only for Sexual-Awakening Sally – herself harbouring a crush on Young Rosen – to catch Her Dad and His Mom in flagrante. Pete’s mother claims she’s been fooling with fruity nurse Manolo, Bob vouches for the carer’s queerness, and answers Ginsberg’s “homo?” question with a resounding “Pete!” In 1968, with TVs-symbolising-alienation/ loneliness in every room, Ted and Nan take their marriage’s tepid pulse; Peggy turns instant cat-lady, unable to lure Stoned Stan ’round to clean up rat blood; and Pete heartbreakingly runs out of cereal.
BREAKING THE TABOO END THE WAR ON DRUGS #BREAKTABOO
How Big Is Thy Weiner?: Weiner mocks crazed Benson conspiracy theories mid-week, then delivers TV’s most awkward-ever declaration-of-love.
“If you can’t control drug use in a maximum security prison, how could you control drugs in a free society?” Screening Wednesday 19 June, Thousand £ Bend. Salmone Pic by Sarah Walker
FAVOURITE EP TRACK MIKKI MICHELLE
WHAT’S YOUR FAVOURITE SONG ON THE EP? Mikki Michelle: Teddy Bear, a song about how a teddy bear got me through a rough time and how childhood innocence lives in everyone in some way. Mikki Michelle launches her Misplaced Memories EP this Friday at the Wesley Anne with Takadimi and Melody Moon on support.
WIN
HELIUM 2013 SEASON The Malthouse Theatre tonight announces a new season of shows under the Helium banner. There are five new shows from Australian independent ensembles, ranging from wild comedies to tragic dramas. Kicking off the season is an all-female cast performing William Golding’s classic tale of violence and power, Lord Of The Flies. Swapping the genders of the cast is set to bring out more humanity within the characters and give an old story a fresh edge. This Is Beautiful is a performance based around the three actors cross examining each others’ faces, bodies and identities as they lay down their prejudices, judgements and their desire to obtain physical beauty. The cast also eat an entire meal on stage. Hey! Yeah! It’s Molly’s Travelling Worm Show! is the story of how rural Victorian town Korumburra is capitalising on Australian tourists’ love for big things. Aussies seem to go gangbusters for oversized things, ie. The Big Banana, The Big Pineapple, The Big Prawn. So in order to bring some cash into town, locals created The Big Worm. Molly takes the audience on a journey into Worm town. Salmoné is the wit-master Oscar Wilde’s cult story of sexual desire. Hilarious and fun, with a gender-bending cast, all to the backing of an ‘80s New Wave soundtrack, City Of Shadows is a show inspired by a police photography exhibition at the Justice and Police Museum. It’s a musical tribute to perpetrators, victims and vicinities of the photographs. The Deets: Lord Of The Flies, Friday 28 June to Sunday 14 July; Friday 19 July to Saturday 3 August; Hey! Yeah! It’s Molly’s Travelling Worm Show!, Tuesday 13 to Saturday 24 August; Salomé, Friday 30 August to Saturday 14 September; City Of Shadows, Saturday 21 September to Saturday 5 October. Malthouse Tower Theatre
HERDING CATS THEATRE
ONE OF TWO DOUBLE PASSES TO SEE BUSTAMENTO AT NORTHCOTE SOCIAL CLUB ON SUNDAY 23 JUNE ALONG WITH A CD TO PICK UP AT THE SHOW. To enter this and check out heaps more head to the Inpress Facebook page.
32 • For more reviews go to themusic.com.au/reviews
Glancing themes of intimacy and perversion, absence and fantasy, Red Stitch’s Herding Cats by UK playwright Lucinda Coxon is an exuberant snippet of the interactions between a minxy office worker, her agoraphobic sex-working housemate, and one of his clients. The woman’s boss is an unseen but important presence. The play is almost a deep exploration of alienation with the potential to spark serious post foyer debate, but its force never seems to really collect itself. The fishbowl effect naturally created by Red Stitch’s small and comfortable space at times makes the direction seem histrionic, and the writing obvious. The cast nail some fun and genuinely skin-creeping repartee, but their talents aren’t occupied for long enough. We get more salacious daytime soap than nuanced
inspection of behavior and emotion under pressure. The play’s specific social taboos are convincingly grotesque, but we know them well and can’t respond with shock and thoughtfulness, as we’re asked.
Pete Campbell’s Punchable-Weasel-Face Watch: Pt 2 Of My Confessions: it’s the world who wants to punch Sweet Pete; my feelings for him are borderline Bensonesque. Sterling One-Liner Of The Week: “I’ve seen blind people juggle, but somehow it seems to be beyond me.” Anthony Carew Screening every Monday night, 5.20pm and 8.30pm, on Showcase
Simon Eales
ARAFAT IN THERAPY COMEDY
Red Stitch Actors Theater to Sunday 7 July
Melbourne performer Jeremie Bracka has updated Arafat In Therapy, his one-man satire on the Israeli/ Palestinian conflict, and it hisses with wit and splendid one-liners. Bracka’s a wicked mimic who takes the piss out of characters from his family, politicians and assorted personalities from his life as an international and UN lawyer. He has a killer ear for detail, nuance and accent, and a campy, energetic talent for inhabiting the physicality of his characters. Having studied Arabic and spent time in Gaza, Bracka is able to joke about both cultures and slips in his ‘we are all brothers and sisters underneath’ message with the device of interviewing two writers, one Israeli, one Palestinian; they are, he says, practically in dialogue with each other. One of his best jokes has Israeli president Shimon Peres wondering if he can claim his inner child as a dependent for taxation purposes.
Foxfinder
RED STITCH ACTORS THEATRE SEASON TWO 2013 The Red Stitch new season features three Australian and one world premiere. There are four new shows, ranging from one couple’s struggle in a world on the brink of crisis to a timely insight into the workings of today’s gutter press. Kicking off the season is Dawn King’s Foxfinder; King is the winner of the most promising playwright at the 2012 Off West End Awards. Foxfinder is set in a dystopian world where farming communities are under fierce scrutiny to maintain production amidst food shortages. Straight is a sharp-witted comedy about sex and relationships, testing the murky boundaries of physical and emotional intimacy. ROAM makes its world premiere at Red Stitch and poses the question: can immersion in internet relationships render real world communication obsolete? Not Safe for Work (NSFW) is a discerning and humorous look at our voyeuristic culture, the sensationalist media and the corrupt values that lie within. The Deets: Foxfinder, Friday 19 July to Saturday 17 August; Straight, Saturday 31 August to Saturday 28 September; ROAM, Friday 11 October to Saturday 9 November; Not Safe For Work (NSFW), Friday 22 November to Friday 21 December. Red Stitch Actors Theatre
The show’s humour, though, could be seen as glib given that Bracka’s team hold the advantage and half time is yet to be called. Joking about tragedy can be subversive and enlightening but it can also serve to distance us, or make us comfortable, complacent even. The audience the night I went was so complacent that the woman next to us was texting throughout the show and people behind were rustling cellophane packaging. Still, as one of Bracka’s characters says, ‘if you haven’t got anything nice to say about anybody, say it in Arabic!’ Liza Dezfouli Chapel Off Chapel (finished)
Arafat In Therapy
music
[COLUMNS COLUMNS]
THE BREAKDOWN
OG FLAVAS
WAKE THE DEAD
POP CULTURE THERAPY WITH ADAM CURLEY
URBAN AND R&B NEWS BY CYCLONE
HARDCORE AND PUNK WITH SARAH PETCHELL
(masterminded by Jermaine Dupri). She’s rumoured to be working on her comeback with (among others) MIA ‘90s R&B guy Stevie J of Bad Boy fame. Expect “raw ballads”.
Beyonce These New Puritans The story goes that, for their third record, Southend Brit group These New Puritans were going to make a Disney pop album performed by classical musicians and featuring an eastern European singer. Then primary songwriter/composer/mouthpiece Jack Barnett soured on the idea. The NME quoted him: “I’ve realised I actually hate pop music. Most people don’t like good music, so there’s no point trying to do something for them.” It’s an interesting quote in light of the band’s new record, Field Of Reeds, which in fact has quite a lot in common with Disney’s musical ‘traditions’. The album might not ape the ‘pop’ of Disney’s tween stars, but Field Of Reeds does aim to provide an experience not unlike the dreamlike romp of Fantasia, Disney’s ambitious and iconic 1940 animated feature. Even the title of the record would slot neatly into Fantasia’s run of compositions – perhaps between Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite Of Spring and Beethoven’s The Pastoral Symphony. Barnett, too, employed European composers – Hans Ek, Philip Sheppard and Michel van der Aa, who’ve all worked in film – to score his vision. Just as Fantasia’s trippy and often dark animated sequences (it’s hard to imagine Disney nowadays depicting skeleton ghosts weaving through the nooses of hanging ropes) seemed to appear imperfect if not deranged from the subconscious, a series of free-flowing figures and scenes that morphed into the next, Field Of Reeds sounds like an engagement with instinct. Take opening track, The Way I Do: single piano notes slowly take bolder forms as barely audible female vocal mutterings find their way into the music, which is inflated and given shape by a brass section halfway through. It’s an ostrich in ballet shoes rising and flexing its wings, a broken stick growing arms bearing buckets of water. An attempt to release some kind of inner world is suggested by Barnett’s recent note on the album, which appears on the band’s website. He states: “With the first album especially, there was a bit of a gap between me and the music. With the last album that gap closed a lot. With this one it has disappeared.” It’s true that little of These New Puritans’ former post-punk industrial buzz-and-beats can be heard on Field Of Reeds. The familiar clipped rhythmic patterns and Barnett’s low drawl make their way onto tracks Fragment Two and V (Island Song), but they bubble up like reminiscences rather than new creations, melting back into the slowly bubbling pot of mutated orchestral forms. In a 2004 essay for the Journal Of The British Forum For Ethnomusicology, academic Charles Carson wrote about the way Disney used its own music and images from years past to induce nostalgia in the parents of young children. Rather than relying on abstract images of fairy tales to remind parents of their childhoods, Disney showed them the Disney versions they grew up with. Carson wrote that the “Disney Experience now references its own version of these tales, versions that have been seamlessly integrated into consumers’ own constructed nostalgic narratives.” The effect is circular: a longing for something produced by the thing creating the longing. The shifting, blurry references to the past sounds of These New Puritans have a similar effect on Field Of Reeds: those beats no longer hark to post-punk bands of yore (though they never did so overtly) but to a more recent past, and for Barnett a more personal past. Barnett is dreaming up his own past from a foreign place. That idea, too, is mirrored by the inclusion of Portuguese singer Elisa Rodrigues. On the website, Barnett writes of Rodrigues: “… she mostly sings jazz but you can hear fado in the way she sings,” referring to the Portuguese genre of the early 1800s. Rodrigues’ appearance lends a kind of false authenticity to the album; a Westerner’s misguided imaginings of a foreign tradition, a dreamed depiction of history; a boat ride through a marionette world of costumes while It’s A Small World plays in half-time overhead. What more could we expect of the contemporary subconscious?
Kanye West’s Yeezus may be the next big hip hop joint, but what is R&B’s most hotly anticipated album? Do we care that Justin Timberlake will drop the second part of The 20/20 Experience in September? The urban-pop phenom has enjoyed double-platinum success with the first volume Stateside, but not in Oz. Such an anticlimax... Timberlake will shortly tour North America with his Suit & Tie cohort Jay-Z. Talking of Hova, there’s been a flurry of activity in Beyoncé’s camp since she came off maternity leave. The traditionally private star screened a self-directed doco, Life Is But A Dream. Queen B has cut songs for ad campaigns, including Pepsi, and covered Amy Winehouse’s Back To Black for The Great Gatsby. Her last album, 4, though adventurous, didn’t click – and sister Solange now has all the cred. However, Beyoncé is in her own league – and she knows it, gauging by the obnoxious ‘single’ Bow Down, which understandably, Keyshia Cole attacked. Beyoncé won’t wrap her Mrs Carter Show World Tour until September, but a fifth album is looming. Oh, and check out the Destiny’s Child reunion number You Changed on Kelly Rowland’s Talk A Good Game. Certainly there’s more buzz surrounding new Beyoncé than new Mariah Carey. Carey’s last two ‘artist’ albums were disappointingly formulaic, She cut Almost Home with StarGate for Disney’s blockbuster Oz The Great And Powerful but it received minimal attention. Carey has even become an American Idol judge to raise her profile. Desperate diva. Carey’s current single, #Beautiful, featuring (and co-produced by) Miguel, hasn’t blown up, but it is an improvement on last year’s ‘90s throwback Triumphant (Get ‘Em) with Rick Ross and Meek Mill
Brit ‘It Girl’ Jessie J will reclaim turf lost to Rita Ora with her sequel to Who You Are out before year’s end. Her latest hit, Wild, courtesy of Dr Luke sidekick Ammo, boasts cameos from rappers Big Sean and Dizzee Rascal. Also returning is Katy B. The London future garage singer linked up with Diplo and Iggy Azalea for Light As A Feather off her free Danger EP. Where next? Katy B is talking of a coming-of-age second album that is “darker” and “sexier” – and maybe poppier. Listen to her single What Love Is Made Of with Geeneus, whom she calls her Timbaland. Kelis is doing a Solange – going indie. She’s signed to Dave Sitek’s fledgling Federal Prism. The TV On The Radio guitarist, who’s produced Santigold, helmed Kelis’ funky new single Jerk Ribs. Kelis, a part-time chef, will apparently offer two albums this year, the first FOOD. She referenced Donna Summer-style disco on 2010’s Flesh Tone. Soul’s most enigmatic acts could yet resurface with LPs in 2013. Ms Lauryn Hill, who’s copped jail time for tax issues, has released the unhewn rap rant Neurotic Society. It’s her first official single in years. The mother of six has touted an album, possibly named The Return. D’Angelo’s third LP, tentatively entitled James River, was reported to be “99 per cent done” by ?uestlove in January. Will we ever hear it? Meanwhile, winter will yield more bespoke soul from GOOD Music’s always reliable John Legend with Love In The Future. On the alt-R&B side, TheWeeknd will follow 2012’s Trilogy collection with Kiss Land, recently premiering the titletrack. Brooklyn rapper/singer Theophilus London, largely eclipsed by illwavers TheWeeknd and Frank Ocean, has been quiet since Timez Are Weird These Days. But he’s contributed the ‘80s electro Morning Kisses to Kitsune’s America 2 compilation. Janelle Monae – her last mega-hit with fun., We Are Young, will present The Electric Lady, led by QUEEN, her duet with Erykah Badu. Finally anticipation is growing for the MKS – MKS being original Sugababes Mutya Buena, Keisha Buchanan and Siobhan Donaghy. They’ve been in the studio with Dev Hynes (Solange). He’s behind MKS’ viral hit Lay Down In Swimming Pools, a corruption of a Kendrick Lamar joint.
ADAMANTIUM WOLF METAL, HARDCORE AND PUNK WITH LOCHLAN WATT
The Smith Steet Band If you saw letlive. when they toured with Deftones a few weeks ago, you would have heard them playing a couple of new songs. One of them was called Banshee (Ghost Fame) and that is the first single to be taken from the Los Angeles-based band’s newest record, the details of which were announced last week. Called The Blackest Beautiful, letlive. have outdone themselves with this new song, and if it is any indication of what the rest of the album will sound like, then this record is going to be a gamechanger for the band. Back in 2011, the group released their Epitaph Records debut Fake History and since then relentless touring, a fierce work ethic and a reputation for a crazy live show has seen them slowly carving their place in the world of heavy music. Pick up The Blackest Beautiful when it drops on Friday 5 July through Epitaph. It really seems like The Smith Street Band are unstoppable. It also seems like I mention something about them in this column every second week, but they really are working that hard and releasing that many albums and touring that much. The newest addition to the band’s discography is set to be a five track 10” EP called Don’t Fuck With Our Dreams, which will be released just in time for their national tour with Cheap Girls and Joyce Manor (on Friday 9 August to be precise). Sticking with their label Poison City Records, pre-orders for the EP are available through the Poison City webstore as of right now. Resist Records have announced their newest release this week, with them taking on Melbourne hardcore act Warbrain. Made up of current and ex-members of bands like Hopeless, Iron Mind and Carpathian, the debut full-length from the band is called Void Of Confusion and will be released on Friday 5 July. After spending the latter months of 2012 writing, Warbrain ended the year in the studio recording their effort. They have already released a track called Evil Eyes that is streaming now through their Facebook page, and preorders for the CD as well as a limited edition colour vinyl are available through the Resist Records webstore. Guttermouth have been an established part of the punk rock movement for over 25 years, but after ten studio albums, the band will be jumping in the tour bus for their last ever tour of Australia. The tour will literally see the band jumping in a camper van and gallivanting from Adelaide and up the East Coast in a farewell tour that will leave 25 years of memories in its wake. The band will be hitting both major and regional areas, with Victorian venues including the Loft, Warrnambool, Saturday 10 August; Ferntree Gully Hotel, Sunday 11; the Barwon Club in Geelong on Thursday 15; the Karova Lounge in Ballarat on Friday 16; the Evelyn in Melbourne on Saturday 17; the Man at Falls Creek on Sunday 18; and Swindlers at Mt Hotham on Monday 19. All shows are 18+ with tickets for all shows on sale now.
Thy Art Is Murder The Hate Across Australia tour finally arrives in town this week. Catch Thy Art Is Murder, Cattle Decapitation, King Parrot and Aversions Crown at the Corner this Thursday 13 June with Internal Nightmare, and on Friday 14 at Arrow on Swanston for an all ages gig with I, Valiance. The USA’s Cattle Decapitation are an absolutely insane live experience – don’t miss it. America’s Lamb Of God and Sweden’s Meshuggah are touring Australia together in September! It will be the first time in Australia for both bands since their stints on 2011’s Soundwave, with Meshuggah having since gone on to release Koloss and Lamb of God Resolution, both last year. Catch them Sunday 22 September at Festival Hall for an all ages/licensed gig. Thanks to Soundwave Touring, tickets go on sale through Oztix this Friday. Off the back of this year’s groundbreaking Sempiternal album, the UK’s Bring Me The Horizon are set to return in October. With fellow 2013 Soundwave alumni Of Mice & Men (USA) and Crossfaith (Japan) joining them on all shows, catch them on Wednesday 9 October at Festival Hall. Tickets go on sale this Friday. Canadian metalcore band Obey The Brave will make their way down to Australia for the first time in August. Melbourne deathcore group Boris The Blade will be supporting nationally. Catch them at Bang on Saturday 17 August, and at the Mordialloc Metal & Hardcore Fest at the Allen Mclean Hall (for which there is currently no further information available) on Sunday 18.
The first four bands have been announced for the Living Death Fest at the Bendigo Hotel on Saturday 21 September. Locals Internal Nightmare, The Seaford Monster, Involuntary Convulsion and Adelaide’s Seminal Embalmment are those first four, with four more reportedly on the cards. Local prog/gothic metal/rockers The Eternal have just released the first single from their forthcoming When The Circle Of Light Begins To Fade album. Titled Beneath These Waves, the track is available as a donation-based download at theeternal.bandcamp.com. Together Alone is the title of the new split EP from Wollongong’s Totally Unicorn and Adelaide’s Robotosaurus. With a streaming track each and a full download available now at monolithmonolith. bandcamp.com, pre-orders are currently being taken for the physical heart-shaped 10” colouredvinyl record. Catch the bands on Friday 21 June at the Reverence Hotel with Coerce and Urns. I Exist are coming to town this weekend to play Saturday 15 June at Bang with The Broderick, Colossus, Mason and Sydney’s Legions. Thrash legends Municipal Waste get here next week! Check them out at the Bendigo Hotel Wednesday 19 June with Party Vibez, Metalstorm and Join The Amish, and again Sunday 23 June at the Corner with Shitripper, Extortion and Sewercide.
It seems like we haven’t heard the last of those Sydneybased posi-punkers Milhouse. The band and their label, Midnight Funeral, announced last week that a live LP is in the works to be released mid-September. Recorded at last year’s Poison City Weekender, if you were there you know how great this record is going to be. Head on over to the Midnight Funeral website to place your order now! Monolith Records have announced the official details regarding the 10” split between Robotosaurus and Totally Unicorn, and boy is it a doozy! The four tracks see the bands moving into heavier and more experimental territory, with the songs being released on some seriously cool vinyl! Called Together Alone, the record is a 10”, heart-shaped record with the pre-order colour being a seriously cool red with white splatter (who doesn’t love 10” of heart-shaped, red and white splatter?). There are a couple of packages available for pre-order over on the Monolith Bandcamp page, but they are flying out the door so get in quick. Also don’t forget that you can catch both these bands at the Reverence Hotel in Melbourne on Saturday 22 June with Urns, and a rare coming-out-of-hiatus appearance by Coerce. Unmissable. Last up for this week, I mentioned a few weeks ago that Bridge Nine Records had announced the new album from Massachusetts’ Defeater. Called Letter Home, the record is set to be released in the US on Tuesday 16 July, with the label announcing that pre-orders for the album are now happening through the online store. At the same time, the band are streaming a new song called Bastards through the same store, giving you a taste of what is bound to be an unmissable album in 2013.
For more opinion go to themusic.com.au/blog • 33
[COLUMNS COLUMNS] m u s i c NY CONVERSATION
INTELLIGIBLE FLOW
BUSINESS MUSIC
TALES FROM THE BIG APPLE WITH TOM HAWKING
HIP HOP NEWS & COMMENTARY WITH ALEKSIA BARRON
WHEN YOUR CLUB NEEDS A BOSS BY PAZ
acts and shooting some of the best music videos to come out of Australia. This gig is a chance to see him play a great venue – and for free, too! Yep, there’s no cover charge. Make sure you check this gig out. Evil Eddie is heading to Melbourne for a show at the Laundry Bar this Saturday 15 June. The Butterfingers frontman started making a solo name for himself with his ditty, Queensland, where he managed to rhyme “back to us” with “gluteus maximus”, a fact that pleased my inner anatomy nerd no end. He’s since released his first solo record, Welcome To Flavour Country, and has been hitting venues around the country. The Laundry Bar show will be free entry, and additional aural entertainment will be provided by Mat Kanso, Yo Mafia! and Leroy Get Busy.
Kirin J Callinan I’m typing this in a Brooklyn backyard that’s been dubbed the #AFK garden for the summer. The backyard in question belongs to my friend Marina, and there’s a certain irony inherent in the name given that the acronym stands for “Away From Keyboard”. The hashtagged moniker is no accident – Marina works as art editor of rather excellent culture blog ANIMAL New York, and her interests lie very much in the field of ‘net art. She’s also the first curator in the world to sell a Vine – she and co-curator Kyle Chayka staged an exhibition earlier this year and under the title #SVAES (another acronym, obviously, this time for Shortest Video Art Ever Sold), and managed to sell three six-second videos for $200 a pop. Instinctively, the idea of selling a six-second video might seem kinda strange and perhaps somewhat silly but, hey, it’s no more inherently ridiculous than selling a urinal with a fake signature on it or a shark in a glass tank. The question of “What is art?” has long since been answered – the more apposite question these days is, “Is it any good?” and the three videos in question were pretty ace, as were the rest of the pieces on show at the exhibition. (You can search #SVAES on Twitter for more information, if you’re interested, or check out Marina’s blog at mfortki.tumblr.com.) The fact that you can sell a Vine as a work of art these days is rather indicative of the way that ‘net-based art is being taken ever-more seriously as an artform. This idea in itself isn’t especially radical – ‘net art has been around for as long as the internet itself, and it was kinda inevitable that it would eventually cross over into mainstream consciousness. More interestingly, the form is also moving away from the idea of being art about the internet, and evolving into being simply another form by which artists can express themselves. (It’s notable that none of the Vines sold at the #SVAES exhibition were especially internet-centric as far as subject matter went.) There are a couple of ‘net art-centric galleries within walking distance of my apartment, both of which have opened fairly recently, and it’s been fascinating to observe the sort of works they’ve had on show. Some ‘net artists certainly still examine internet culture and what the advent of ubiquitous connectivity has done to our society, or plays with the internet itself, but there are other works that have no more to do with the internet than painting has to do with paint – the medium is not the subject matter, and that opens up a whole galaxy of possibility. For instance, New York Conversation spoke to the endlessly fascinating Kirin J Callinan a couple of days back, and a decent portion of our discussion focused on the idea of ‘net-based art – he said that the awesome Way II War video was originally a series of animated GIFs, and the original plan was to simply post all the images on a web page and let people scroll through them while the song played. The clip for Embracism, made by NYC-based Australian expat Cara Stricker, explores similar territory – as the video continues, the footage gets glitchier and more distorted, and it turns out that the glitches come from Stricker altering the video itself to replace parts of its binary code with Callinan’s lyrics. As she explained to VICE recently, “What you’re actually seeing in the introduction is a visual representation of his lyrics as pixels.” This hypermodern aesthetic also permeates his lyrics – he delivers the jarring, “Or on the internet... RIGHT NOW,” line in Embracism for instance, as a way of placing his music very much into the present. Which is pretty much where ‘net art and its correspondent aesthetics are at these days – they’re signifiers of modernism, a common language for the 21st century, and fascinating ones at that.
34 • For more opinion go to themusic.com.au/blog
Grey Ghost Brisbane has Sprung Festival, Sydney has Come Together and Melbourne has… well, nothing much, really. Plenty of brilliant gigs but no true Australian hip hop festival. That’s set to change this year with the announcement that Sprung will be held in both Brisbane and Melbourne in 2013. If you’re reading this, chances are you’ve read the line-up (the announcement date was Tuesday 11 June), but at the time of writing, I don’t have a clue who will be on the bill. Fingers crossed it’ll be an eclectic mix of our best and brightest, with a range of styles and tastes represented. The Melbourne festival will be taking place in October (date to be confirmed) and the pre-sale tickets for the event will become available on Monday 8 July. More details as they unfold. If you’re craving a decent live music fix, this Friday 14 June the Espy has you well and truly covered. Grey Ghost will be playing the Lounge Bar alongside special guests Citizen Kay, Jackson Miles Francoise, Duvz, Amin Payne and DJ Moonshine. Grey Ghost has been kicking goals on every front lately – he’s been performing some killer sets, touring with great
The second EP in Chasm’s 2013 EP series is dropping this Friday 14 June. The first, Diamond Cuts, featured Skryptcha and Rachael Berry, and was an absolute cracker. The new offering, Smoking Aces, sounds just as promising. The featured vocalist this time is exciting up-and-comer Monchichi, who you’ll have heard if you’ve been paying attention to triple j Unearthed in recent times. Smoking Aces will be available from iTunes this Friday, so make sure you set a reminder in your calendar and grab it as soon as it drops. We’ve known for a while that social media are among the powerhouses of Australian hip hop, but few artists have taken advantage of this fact as emphatically as Illy. The Melbourne MC announced last week that he had a new track to drop – but he’d only release it if enough people tweeted with the song’s title in a hashtag (#onandon). Well, it took less than a day (and a crashed website along the way) before enough fans had taken up the call. On And On is now available as a stream on Illy’s website, and it’s the first glimpse of where he’s planning to take his sound for his upcoming fourth album. It’s a cruisy track that features an intriguing staccato beat and a singalongworthy chorus that recalls the instant catchiness of It Can Wait. He’s released it through his own new label, OneTwo, and it looks like he’s gearing up for a big year. Visit illyal.com to have a listen to On And On – or just keep an ear to the radio, where you’ll no doubt be hearing it and plenty more from this young gun.
FRAGMENTED FREQUENCIES OTHER MUSIC FROM THE OTHER SIDE WITH BOB BAKER FISH but I like them’. It’s all about their “nuance and craft” according to Rolling Stone, which means they’ve now learnt how to write a song. “There’s no denying the passion in creation put towards this album”, suggests Loudwire, which means they tried hard. Then of course there’s the things that people feel like they ‘should’ say, like the AU Review with the band “produce an album that is every bit the Queens Of The Stone Age we fell in love with”, which means that they have not progressed in over a decade. Queens Of The Stone Age When I listen to rock music these days all I hear is a lack of ideas. Perhaps I’ve lost the nuance as I’ve tired of the strut, the highly choreographed urgency copied off all the bands that preceded them, the shredding guitars and self-involved lyrics. To these ears all I hear are the same tools, the same techniques, the same approaches all subtly changed to appear new, like lipstick on a pig. Frankly, you can doll up your swine as much as you like, but there’s no way you’ll convince me to slip the tongue in. Occasionally something comes along that shatters the mould, like seeing Swans live for the first time earlier this year at the Corner and being utterly terrified by the pure malevolence, the volume and backwoods tribal experimentalism in the music. At least they, and a few others like Om, Animal Collective, Black Dice and co. are trying to further the genre, to create something new. The best recent example of the dearth of ideas is the way the new Queens Of The Stone Age ...Like Clockwork album has been received. There’s an elephant in the room. And that elephant is a turkey. My impression from scanning the reviews is that people are simply happy that QOTSA finally have a new album out, and this rapturous joy eclipses any care about whether the music is actually any good. Even so, it’s received the kind of sensitive praise that people offer a friend who asks their opinion on a disastrous haircut. “The most interesting rock band around, doing what they do best”, offered one critic, which is a diplomatic way of saying, ‘it’s run of the mill QOTSA
What’s interesting is that all the reviews spend an inordinate amount of time discussing frontman Josh Homme’s near death experience on the operating table, his myriad of stupid guests or fill the first couple of paragraphs discussing him as some kind of rock demigod. It feels like the consensus is: ‘do anything but talk about the music’. Of course after building him up so much, you can’t very well go on and can his album. If you think this album is shit, well then, buddy, the problem must lie with you. Are you a demigod? No? Well clearly you don’t understand genius when it’s marketed to you. Why aren’t more people talking about the elephant? Asking why the music is so middle of the road, so limp? Are you not allowed to ask those questions of rock royalty? What if they’re acting much more like soft rock or dare I say soft pop royalty these days? Because make no mistake, ...Like Clockwork makes Kyuss sound like Merzbow, Foo Fighters like Slayer. Then of course there are the drummers. Dave Grohl is of course renowned for the violence with which he punished the skins in Nirvana. Jon Theodore is probably one of the most innovative drummers in rock with a pedigree that boast The Mars Volta and Royal Trux. Why then are their beats so pedestrian? You’ve got these incredible drummers but you make them play like click tracks? The problem isn’t that the album is boring; they’re entitled to make insipid music if they wish. It’s the media’s peculiar game, or at best collective delusion that’s more worrying, where it’s your job to read between the lines, decode the text and discover the turkey in the elephant suit.
Mike Q
QWEEN BEAT BALLROOM With EDM styles gaining more stage presence around the world, the USA is searching for their own hidden treasures, instances of techniques that make dance music unique to a region or society. Qween Beat Productions are one such posse, a force since 2005 that are now shining through as a grand wrecking crew on universal sound systems. The sound originated in underground New Jersey and New York clubs, but is now celebrated worldwide. Anyone familiar with the NY Vogue movement made famous by the film Paris Is Burning would be well aware that their source of success involves producers, DJs and MCs as much as the visual elements of dancers, choreographers, visual and image editors. The “Qween” of Qween Beat productions is Michael Cox, aka Mike Q, a DJ and producer who is happily presenting the sound now known as “ballroom”. In 2013 ballroom has merged all forms of current production techniques, but Mike Q’s style has found a juxtaposition among UK future beat producers, the gritty street sounds of Baltimore, Philly and Jersey club and could easily fit into a bill that included Detroit house legends or southern bounce hip hop. Having only recently toured Australia with Le1f, Zebra Katz and Njena Reddd Foxxx, the HAM crew are once again putting Mike Q on the 1s and 2s around OZ with another ballroom luminary Rizzla. Their recent mix on Fade To Mind is the starting ground for understanding the audio output of ballroom, how it has formed its own sound signature and its very own DJ techniques. I recently emailed Mike Q for a quick Q&A about himself, ballroom and all the influences. Who locally and globally inspired your current production style? My “production style” is inspired by itself, I take elements from past and present songs and DJs and put that into my music where it fits. Who is responsible for the “flash” sound that appears quite regularly in your production (and that is somewhat the sound of ballroom production)? The sound you might be talking about is called a ‘ha crash’, a sample originally used by masters at work in the ha dance and then just remade and reused over and over. It is a ballroom staple. What record labels support your productions at the moment? Night Slugs, Fade To Mind, Trouble & Bass, Mad Decent, Brick Bandits, LitCity – I could go on. So many good friends on different labels that support. Does ballroom have a competitive side, are there battles? Is there another ballroom crew pursuing production, dance routines and MCs? Ballroom is built off of being competitive. Battling is what happens at balls. It’s what makes them and part of what makes you. Other crews? Yeah, it’s a D-list crew around basically trying to build themselves off my standards with no respect. So I will say no names (no free promo) and don’t seek them out cuz it’s TIYAD and late. Who are you looking to as the future of the ballroom sound? My future, or what I want the future of ballroom sound to be, is just the way it is now. Except maybe a little more out there. It doesn’t need to change, it’s already diverse and hot. I just don’t want it to be one if those genres where a million producers want to hop on and start trying to make and fuck around and kill it like they do every other genre that jumps in the hot seat for now and then is gone in months, NOT HERE. It’s a culture behind this music and people need to know who, what, why, where and how about it. Mike Q and Rizzla will be performing in Melbourne on Friday 21 June at Liberty Social.
arts
TRAILER TRASH
DIVES INTO YOUR SCREENS AND IDIOT BOXES WITH GUY DAVIS
[COLUMNS COLUMNS]
CULTURAL CRINGE ARTS NEWS WITH REBECCA COOK
Costner’s The Postman isn’t an absolute debacle) or they may let their inner demons out to play in ways both destructive and self-destructive (yeah, that’s you, Mel).
After Earth The good and bad thing about this life is that everything is subject to change. Apart from the stuff that’s actually set in stone, nothing is set in stone. And quite frankly, even the natural process of erosion will eventually wear away a lot of the stuff that’s set in stone. That’s science; don’t even try to deny that shit. But science isn’t on the Trailer Trash menu today... or any day, to be honest. Instead, let’s talk about the mutable nature of movie stardom, and how the screen icons we may once have considered infallible can fall from grace in the space of a few ill-advised decisions or poorlyphrased quotes. Now I’m not talking about spectacular flame-outs like Mel Gibson’s here. Someone who selfimmolates in such a fashion does forfeit their right to the A-list for a good long while, although even someone as troubled and troubling as Gibson will probably make their way back from the wilderness if a studio exec finds a way to make a buck or two out of it. No, I’m thinking more about the hubris that a big-name star can display when they’re at the top of their game or have enjoyed success for so long that they perhaps feel untouchable. I mean, I’m vintage enough now to recall a time when it seemed the likes of Gibson or Kevin Costner would never put a foot wrong, that their place in the firmament was well and truly secure. But sooner or later, everyone falls a little – or a lot – out of step with what the public wants. They may make vanity projects that no one is all that keen to see, like a three-hour post-apocalyptic saga about mail delivery (that said,
And even though the concept of the movie star seems to be dying on the vine of late, there are still a few big names around who’ll get the punters in the door by virtue of their name alone. Like it or not, Tom Cruise still has a fair bit of box-office clout, despite the couch-romping, the Scientology and the controlfreak tendencies that once seemed like an excellent study in career management but now seem more like... well, control-freak tendencies. Adam Sandler can still get the green light for just about any project he chooses to develop, it would appear, but if he keeps churning out sure-to-be-utter-shit like Grown Ups 2, that light is going to flicker and fade out, I reckon. Then there’s Will Smith, whose new film, After Earth, opens this week. While the much-maligned M Night Shyamalan is in the director’s chair, this is very much a Big Willie project – the name Smith isn’t seen as much in your average phone book as it is the credits of After Earth. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course. Who doesn’t love a good multi-tasker? But the interview Smith and his son/After Earth co-star Jaden gave to New York magazine apparently didn’t do the duo many favours, with op-ed writers swooping in to poke fun or express bemusement at Smith pere et fils talking up all things “multidimensional mathematical” and “theory of everything”. Yeah, it sounds kinda nutty. (The interview is easily accessible online, so why not go read it when you’re done here?) But I’m reminded of something Ron Howard said about Tom Cruise a fair while back, the gist of which was, ‘if Scientology is responsible for his work ethic and personal drive, more power to it’. Yes, that particular belief system has a lot of negative traits. But speaking as a lapsed Catholic, have you heard about some of the shit that organisation has had going on? Nevertheless, a lot of people draw strength and solace from it. So use whatever gets you through the night (and try not to hurt anyone else while you do so). And if it makes you a rich and famous movie star, well, that’s gravy.
Heidelberg Museum Last year Cringe embarked on a challenge to visit Victoria’s lesser known cultural venues. Last weekend, I took up the mantle again by venturing to the Heidelberg Historical Society’s Museum at an old courthouse in the prime location just next door to the police station and the Magistrates’ Court. The Museum, which aims to document and collect historical artefacts pertaining to the local area, is staffed by volunteers and run out of the wellpreserved 1899 building. This is the real deal; dark wood, binders of yellowing papers managed by old school local history buffs. There are no fancy 3D interactive displays, breakout areas with couches the colour of tropical fruit or dessert cafes run by TV chefs. But if you want to look up old maps or find archival footage/documents of the area then this is the place to be. Architect Walter Burley Griffin is famous for planning the city of Canberra, but he and wife and business partner Marion Lucy Mahony Griffin also designed many homes around Heidelberg, Eaglemont and Ivanhoe. Thus the Museum is currently celebrating the connection by hosting an exhibition on the architectural dynamic duo. A couple of other lesser known facts: Griffin is credited with the invention of the carport, the design of L-shaped floor plans, and for breaking conventions with reinforced concrete. The exhibition charts Griffin’s development as an architect, his training and influences in Chicago (including with the colourful womaniser Frank Lloyd Wright – boy, they don’t make architects like that anymore!) and the competition that brought the Griffins to Canberra. There are photos and drafts of many other iconic Australian buildings and homes designed by the pair including our very own Capitol Theatre. If you’ve never been inside the intricately-designed theatre, which is these days used as a festival venue, you need to take a visit, lie back and stare up at the ceiling – it’s better than a trip
to the Planetarium. In good news, these types of no frills exhibitions run by local volunteers have just scored a major boost. Sixty-three Victorian community groups have received grants to delve and preserve local histories in the latest round of the state government’s Local History Grants Program. Announcing the grants, which total around $350,000, Minister for the Arts Heidi Victoria said the supported projects are from right across the state and will ensure that the legacy of Victoria’s fascinating past is preserved, recorded and shared with the community. “Victoria has a rich and diverse history with significant local collections, stories and important cultural treasures spread across the State,” Ms Victoria said. “In addition to showcasing the places and people who have made Victoria what it is today, the program recognises the work of the passionate volunteers and community organisations who ensure our remarkable history is recorded and shared with future generations.” The projects that received funding this year include developing an interactive digital timeline of the 100-year history of the Queen Victoria Women’s Centre building; the publication of a book of ‘letters to home’ sent by soldiers and nurses from the Pyramid Hill region during the First World War, and the creation of an online database of ‘notable’ people associated with the former City of Collingwood. In brief, speaking of notable types, let’s hope NASA realises that Jaden Smith (After Earth) is actually an actor. They’ve just featured him in a series of public service announcements about the space agency’s earth sciences program aiming to explain how NASA works with scientists to improve our understanding of the planet and better predict the future of our changing climate. In the same vein, watch out for Hugh Laurie delivering lectures to UCLA medical students on rare diseases and Russell Crowe promoting MENSA.
For more opinion go to themusic.com.au/blog • 35
[THE GUID IDE] LAW AND DISORDER Here to protect you from the wild of the city streets, the three-headed beast that is Sheriff will warm your brittle bones with a fiery Saturday afternoon residency at the Tote throughout June. They continue the party this Saturday with special guests Spermaids and over the coming Saturdays with The Berkshire Hunting Club (22) and Wicked City (29).
MARTHA WAINWRIGHT
FANTASTIC FOUR
GIG OF THE WEEK
FRIDAY AND SATURDAY, MELBOURNE RECITAL CENTRE
This Saturday at the Bendigo comes a night for the celebration of uniting together to make all your musical dreams come true. The alternative rockers Dog Whistle Politics shall chill your souls with the splendour of Felix Browns’ voice. MF Jones will bring you the brilliance of their grungy, pop rock. Buffalo Pain Train will use their musical skills to bring you an eventful Black Keys-like style. To end the night Dick N’ Stein will bring their own style of pop transvestite rock.
We were lucky enough to have the lovely Martha Wainwright step into the Inpress office this week to chat about her Australian tour and latest album Come Home To Mama, which deals with the loss of her mother Kate McGarrigle and the birth of her first child, Arcangelo. She also told us the story behind the powerful first single off the album Proserpina and how it was the last song her mother wrote before she passed away in 2010. But now we’re just bragging. You’ll have to wait to view the rest of our chat on theMusic.com.au, but can get your own intimate Martha Wainwright live experience this weekend after Tin Pan Orange warm up her stage.
NIGHT LIGHTS Four smoking hot bands will set the Bendigo alight this Sunday. Verona Lights, Black Fuel, Midnight Alibi and Moonshifter. The pace is set from the word go with this quadruple header of great rock from four bands that have been blowing the roof off gigs all over town. An early start on a Sunday with first band at 7pm.
FLOOR IS MADE OF LAVA Volatile Perth band The Volcanics are heading to the East Coast to launch their new single Get A Move On as a precursor to their new album. They formed in Perth’s back blocks a decade ago with the intention of playing stripped back rock‘n’roll with no hype attached. Joined by fellow Perth act The Wishers, they’ll be unveiling it at the Old Bar this Saturday with My Left Boot and The Wardens and at Cherry Bar this Sunday with Uptown Ace.
DOWN ON THE CORNER
FRONTLASH THE SLOWER THE BETTER The Spotted Mallard is jumping on trend with slow cooking. Dave’s Slow Braised Roman Lamb has been cooked for 48 hours and is yummo! And it arrives on a dish fit for any nonna.
LIZ’S LIST Icehouse frontman Iva Davies’ inclusion on the Queens Birthday Honours list, “For significant service to the music and entertainment industry as a songwriter and performer, and to the community.” And now we know the original spelling of his name is Ivor!
THE MARK OF KANE Miles Kane’s new album Don’t Forget Who You Are is as lean and sassy as its creator. He may be Alex Turner from Arctic Monkeys’ bestie, but you’ll sure wanna remember Kane’s name from hereon in. Plus he’s been writing songs with Paul Weller, who he now also counts among his nearest and dearest. Does that make him The Modson?
BACKLASH LATER SKATERS To the crackhead skater posse crossing Nicholson Street at the corner of Elgin Street who were using their skateboards as bats to hit a tennis ball into traffic: WTF!?
David Bridie & The Pills are playing the second of two free warm up gigs at Tago Mago on this Thursday. This will be final intimate night with Bridie, and his final dress rehearsal, before he begins his Wake Tour. Don’t miss it.
WAZ E JAMMING Waz E James and his band have established themselves as one of Australia more popular pub bands, rocking venues with their own blend of country rock. James brings something new to the table – snapshots of real life, love and lost love, the long road. If you feel like a little more old rockin’ country goodness in your Friday night this week, Waz E James has got it, so come on down to Tago Mago.
Judge Pino & The Ruling Motions are a living tribute to the greats of 1970s Jamaican reggae. They are joined this Saturday at Tago Mago by eight-piece afro funk band The Seven Ups playing a unique Melbourne blend of 1970s Nigerian afrobeat, deep funk and Ethio jazz and topped off by Melbourne’s very own ‘60s rhythm and blues legends The Breadmakers.
SMOOTH STALKER That the Vineyard goes off every Thursday night is becoming one of this town’s worst-kept secrets, and grunge-pop three piece Dear Stalker are thrilled to be returning to one of their favourite late night haunts to get loud with System Of Venus and Angry Mules. The first band is on at 11pm, entry is free and good times aplenty are guaranteed.
CAVING IN
MAMAS APPRECIATION
NOOOOOoooooooo! Did Sir Nick Cave really give permission for his harrowing Black Seeds masterpiece, Red Right Hand to be used in that exy Barossa Valley ad? We know private school educations (actually they’re called public in the UK) can’t come cheap, but what next? Stagger Lee to soundtrack an online dating site campaign?
They gathered like tumbleweed in the badlands of Thornbury and now The Fujiyama Mamas have returned once again to their roots to bring you another Sunday night of rip roarin’ rockabilly fun at Tago Mago. You loved them last time, so what are you waiting for this time? Scoot on over to Thornbury. The fun starts at 5pm.
FOODIE TEARS “I’m totally embarrassed to put my dish in front of the judges.” How about the embarrassment of crying over your “culinary flaw” on national television? Would never watch Masterchef, but the quotes in the ads are priceless!
The Charge will be supporting The Nerve on their down under tour. There’s a grungy vibe to The Charge’s style, but you wouldn’t rate them a grunge band. Same goes for stoner rock. They are undoubtedly influenced by ‘70s classic rock, but there is a modern vibe to them as well. Find out for yourself at the Sporting Globe (Geelong) on Thursday 27 June with Terracotta Pigeons and at the Northcote Social Club on Friday 28 June with Terracotta Pigeons and Gladstone.
BRIDIE’S UPPERS
GET JUDGED
Miles Kane
TAKING CHARGE
The Corner Shop Kids, an acoustic folk trio from the Mornington Peninsula, started three years ago with the focus of raising money and awareness for the homeless and disadvantaged in Frankston. Having played together for a while and with a stack of shows under their belt, the band released their debut EP in April last year and all profits raised go to City Life Foundation in Frankston. Check out the Corner Shop Kids this Friday at the Empress Hotel.
EAT IT UP DUDE The Dude Food Van will kick off its journey on the road in the beer garden this Friday at the Brunswick Hotel and will then run Friday and Saturday nights at the Brunny. The truck’s artwork was hand crafted by my talented TJ Guzzardi. The van will serve quality produce, with the best ingredients, simple design, and without shortcuts.
36 • For more news/announcements go to themusic.com.au/news
QUEEN’S BUSH NAME AND NATURE Formerly a folk artist, Mikki Michelle has always had an undeniable jazz/cabaret undertone. In 2012 she branched out solo, embracing her inner-drama queen and creating a theatre-folk genre, with strong elements of jazz tossed in the mix. She will be launching her new EP at the Wesley Anne this Friday, where she will be supported by the beautiful Melody Moon and stars of the Melbourne International Jazz Festival, Takadimi.
CAPRICIOUS BIRDS There’s an intensity to Waywardbreed’s second album Gathering For The Feast that pulls you in and holds you close. After wandering the world, the band brings their music home with the album, the perfect autumnal release – an idyllic record of haunting imagery and soulful sounds. They’ll be playing at the Spotted Mallard tonight (Wednesday) with support from Ravenswood.
Heading out on the road for the Some Motherfucker’s Gotta Pay tour this month Melbourne indie rockers Kingswood have just announced a second show at the Corner for Wednesday 17 July to launch their new single Ohio. Last week also saw the launch of a Tarantino-inspired spaghetti western ten-minute short film from the band with cameos from Seth Sentry, Sticky Fingers and Thelma Plum. They’ll be supported on the night by Bertie Blackman.
CALLING ALL JUGS The Perch Creek Family Jugband feature five quirky lead vocalists and instrumentation as diverse as the trombone, frailing banjo, washboard, double bass, overdriven blues harp, musical saw, tap dancing and of course, the jug. They’re set to launch their new single Big Things Calling among other new songs at the Workers Club this Saturday with Coral Lee & The Silver Scream and Fraser A Gorman.
LIFT THE BACKSIDE Greg Dodd & The Taildraggers are a blues band influenced by the sound of the Chicago style played by artists such as Muddy Waters, Howling Wolf, Buddy Guy and Junior Wells. The band plays everything from swing blues, slow sleazy shuffles to up-tempo dancin’ blues grooves. Fiery guitar mixed with harmonica melodies is what they are all about. Catch them at the Spotted Mallard this Friday.
BIG CAT AND THE SELF
COMFORT EATER
This Saturday, The Tiger & Me have every intention of both playing well and looking sharp at the Spotted Mallard. To aid in this commendable goal they will be joined by special guests on trumpet and oboe. Also gracing the stage will be the always-stunning vocal trio Aluka, and exciting folk/pop quintet Oh Pep.
A humble and soft spoken musician, Tim Chaisson began performing publicly during primary school in a family Celtic ensemble before embracing his inner songwriter as a teenager and self releasing four albums. The latest of those was Broken Hearted Beat, which had a lot of attentive ears turning eastward. Join him at the Spotted Mallard this Thursday with guest Adam Eaton.
QUOLL DINING The Quolls are like an intriguing musical dim sim. The core is primal rock surrounded by the flesh and muscle of philosophy. The skin, once bitten, will ooze the tell-tale red stuff. Inside are yummy rhythms and scrumptious meaty melodies with a sweet and sour lyrical aftertaste of the human condition. This is what it is like to experience the delicacy of The Quolls. Have a taste this Thursday at the Empress.
TEX OWING Tex Perkins has played a key role in Australian music, with a career that has heralded the emergence of an entirely original yet archetypical Australian sound. Head down to the Substation (Newport) this Friday to join Perkins with his good friend Charlie Owen (previously Australia’s best kept musical secret) and friends for an intimate show.
indie news ANOTHER BUS ROUTE
As the name implies, Howlin’ Steam Train are ragged, relentless, and freakin’ fun. They’re a nice and boozy cocktail of rock, soul and boogie. Travelling up and down the country, they forged a reputation for a rollicking live show. Don’t miss their show at the Spotted Mallard on Friday 21 June with Papa Pilko & The Bin Rats and Rolling Blackouts.
For a taste of psychedelic, rock’n’roll pop, catch Sydneysiders Hailer launching their new album Another Way at the Brunswick Hotel this Thursday and at Bar 303 (Northcote) this Saturday. Delving further than their previous psychedelic mellow sound-scapes, their latest offering delivers a more rhythmic, guitar-driven sound, resulting in an intensity that better reflects what their live show has become known for.
MADE OF LAWYERS
JAGWAR MA – HOWLIN Where did the title of your new album come from? Jono Ma, guitar/production: It’s a lyric in the second track on the album Uncertainty. We just thought the word “howlin’” sort of summed up the attitude of the record. How many releases do you have now? This is our first album. We’ve released three singles with b-sides prior to this. How long did it take to write/record? About a year... Give or take a year. Was anything in particular inspiring you during the making? Nothing in particular other than years of drawing inspiration of other musical adventures. What’s your favourite song on it? That’s a little like picking your favourite child. I used to love The Throw. Now I love Backwards. Will you do anything differently next time? Yeah, instead of mixing it in Berlin in winter, we’re gonna mix it in Barbados or Jamaica. When and where is your next gig? Next Australian gig is Splendour In The Grass with a national tour around that. For more info? facebook.com/jagwarma
Hot on the heels of signing to influential local label Popboomerang, The Solicitors are excited to announce the launch of their debut EP Made To Measure. The band bring a youthful, fresh take on new wave power pop to the table, inspired by the greats and tailored for the modern world. The EP will be launched this Friday at Yah Yah’s with supports from Sydney’s Hailer and The Dark Fair.
BARBED WIRE Melbourne four-piece Outsiders Code will be launching their debut LP Exiled From Birth this Sunday at an all ages show at the Phoenix Youth Centre (Footscray). Joining them will be Legions making the trek down from Sydney as well as local bands Thorns, Frozen Over, Colossus and Torment.
GLIMMERING LAUNCH Them Swoops are releasing their debut EP Glimmers this Friday, featuring shimmering-indiepop singles Work Around It and Too Fast For Love. To celebrate they’ll be playing the Northcote Social Club on Saturday for the official launch with support from Hiding With Bears. Then, rounding out the night with their renowned devil-may-care attitude in a special one-off show, The Greasers will be playing their Night To Night album in full.
PAINTINGS OF WATER Sounding like they’ve barrelled straight out of a classic Tarantino film, Mikelangelo & The Tin Star are all blazing tremolo guitars and thundering drums, inspired by a love of The Shadows, Link Wray and Ennio Morricone movie soundtracks. They’ll be performing at the Bridge Hotel (Castlemaine) this Saturday featuring glamorous songstress St Clare and with support from Dan Waters.
FLESH THERAPIST Melbourne rock musician Marc Welsh has landed back onto the music scene with his debut solo album Press The Flesh after a hiatus which included working as Killing Heidi’s stage tech and fill-in guitarist. He’s launching the album at the Reverence Hotel (Footscray) this Saturday with guests Asylum, Dr El Suavo and DJ Karl H-block.
Melbourne indie rock duo Them Swoops are on the cusp of something bigger with their industry attention and a solid touring record with popular Aussie bands. Their debut EP is just another step in seeing them gain wider attention. Previous singles Work Around It and Too Fast For Love are placed at the front of the EP, but their familiarity doesn’t diminish the pop smarts showcased on these tracks. New single and standout Rollerskates continues their good form and knack for not overblowing their sound as the double-tracked vocals and synths hit the sweet spot. The relaxed remix of Work Around It also sounds destined for radio play. Them Swoops launch Glimmer this Saturday at the Northcote Social Club.
NORSE LADY ROXY Roxy Lavish & The Suicide Cult continue their messianic assault on Melbourne with a show at John Curtin Bandroom this Sunday. The show is for Freyafest, a massive eight-band birthday party extravaganza that runs from 1pm till midnight. The band will take the stage at 6pm to perform songs from their bluesy debut album, Join Us Or Die Alone.
MISS ELM Idle Away
BUG SPRAY
Independent
Nine-piece reggae, soul, dub band Kooyeh feature four vocalists, a four piece horn section and a skankalicious rhythm section, delivering high energy shows that keep the dancefloor buzzing. With the release of their debut album, Soul Cleansing, Kooyeh are playing a Tuesdays in June residency at the Evelyn, this Tuesday with special guests El Moth and Up Up Away.
What’s the song about? Sean Walker, production/percussion: Feel Real is about hesitation, it’s a forward way of telling someone you are interested in them. How long did it take to write/record? We wrote Feel Real two years ago without expecting anything to come of it. We both wrote and recorded the song in one evening. Is this track from a forthcoming release/existing release? Yes, the Feel Real single is out now, and there is a remix package coming on Friday 21 June, featuring remixes from Shadow Child, Morgan Geist and Ta-Ku. Plus there’s more music to follow later this year. What was inspiring you during the song’s writing and recording? We have always been big fans of older soul and R&B tracks, from Stevie Wonder to Aaliyah. When we wrote Feel Real we decided to make the music that we all mutually enjoyed listening to. We’ll like this song if we like... Soul and night time. Do you play it differently live? We actually do, yes. Feel Real is one of the harder songs in our current set to play, mostly because when we wrote it we weren’t considering live performances. When and where is your launch/next gig? Thursday 13 June at Ding Dong Lounge. For more info? movementsounds.com
TEMPORARILY TOOTHLESS Born out of a flat above a particularly shady pawnshop in Brunswick, The Sinking Teeth have cut their teeth playing sets throughout Melbourne flats, clubs, parks, pubs and drainage ditches. Now the band have released the leading single Temporary Living off their forthcoming EP alongside a self-directed video clip and will be launching it at the Workers Club this Friday with Apart From This, Foxtrot and Maids.
DAM ADS
Erin Harrington and her backing band are Miss Elm, who return here with their second EP of cutesy pop. They may have hit paydirt with the beguilingly catchy “dah de dup dup”s on second track Space. It is designed to stay with you, which is cool because the ethereal chorus is actually really great. Elsewhere there are touches of Kate Miller-Heidke and Regina Spektor all over Harrington’s vocals, backed by plenty of quirky instrumentation. Aside from the relative let down of opener Growing Pains, it all comes together in a combination of melody, eccentricity and happy. Baby Song is a guaranteed mood lifter.
MARC WELSH
Press The Flesh sampler Independent Marc Welsh plays nearly everything on his new album, only getting a little help on the drums from Electric Mary’s Venom. The four-track sampler of his new album certainly shows his eclectic eye for subject matter, from a dedication to a Penthouse Pet to the opening track that bluntly spells out how pissed off he is. It does fall a little on the corny side, but it’s fun to hear Welsh rocking out in his tongue-in-cheek ode to Nikita Sage and the tender Sophie’s Song possesses some great songwriting. Marc Welsh will be launching the full album this Saturday at the Reverence.
COLLAGE TURNS TEN
MOVEMENT – FEEL REAL
THEM SWOOPS +1 Records
Singer and multi-instrumentalist Fractures is playing his debut headliner show in conjunction with the release of the film clip for his debut single Twisted. The single showcases his atmospheric voice through lofty yet restrained arrangements, combining electronic and instrumental production. He’ll be launching it on Thursday 20 June at the Toff with a full band joined by Brightly and Toy Boats.
Melbourne four-piece Deaf Wish arrive at the John Curtin Bandroom this Saturday with a six figure light and pyrotechnics show that will surely send you and your future children blind. This unit of self-confessed suburban no-hopers have gained a cult following around Melbourne as they bleed through feedback, noise and emotional abandon. Support on the night comes from Spite House, Deep Heat and Terrible Truths.
Collage is celebrating its tenth anniversary, making it the longest running independent music showcase in Melbourne with over 1000 shows and 4000 individual performances across all genres. The Collage Anniversary show will be held in the Espy Gershwin Room on Saturday 22 June and will feature nine original live acts showcasing the depth, variety and quality of artists that have graced the Collage stage: Virtue, The Twoks, Gretchen Lewis, Zoophyte, Le Belle, Sunday Chairs, Jordan Walker, Hazelman Brothers and Peta Evans Taylor.
WITH JAN WISNIEWSKI
Glimmer
BRIGHT BROKEN BOATS
WISHING FOR SUMMER
SINGLE FOCUS
SORTED FOR EPS EP OF THE WEEK
ALBUM FOCUS
ALL ABOARD
[THE GUID IDE]
STILL SO YOUNG Melbourne band The Stillsons will launch their effervescent second single Feel So Young on Friday 21 June at the Grace Darling. They will team up with the up-and-coming, all female folk group Ravenswood, and the electrifying Rich Davies & The Devils Union to launch it. Feel So Young is a highly-charged track of lost innocence, which taps into the energy and grit of Fleetwood Mac.
MORNING HARVEY Well For Wishes Independent As a debut EP, Well For Wishes is a confident, competent and well-produced exhibition of full-bodied guitar rock. However it sits a little too comfortably within its influences to break any new ground. Having said that, the sheer quality of Don’t Try It and Foolproof show that when Morning Harvey get it right they can be engrossing. The delivery isn’t down on the other tracks but they wander a little too close to generic rock territory. A singular vision, a good singer and a wall of scuzzy guitar will earn you fans but it takes a little more to become great.
BOG BOSS Swamp Moth rises from the murky mists and revives hard rock’s long forgotten masters of the unholy riff at Bar 303 (Northcote) this Friday. Five of Melbourne’s finest purveyors of swagger and groove dig deep to find the best of the rest of late ‘60s and early ‘70s psych and hard rock and proto-metal. Surf stylists Head Honcho will provide support.
SLEEPING AND SPITTING
Krista Polvere will be performing with her band at the Bridge Hotel (Castlemaine) this Friday to promote her second album Reservoir Drive with support from Palace Of The King. You may have also heard her voice on From Little Things Big Things Grow for the National Hesta Super commercial. Her voice was specifically chosen for the job by the author, Paul Kelly.
Stevie & The Sleepers are ready to shake things up with the release of their debut six track EP, accurately titled Shake It Up. Armed with one hell of a powerful voice, Stevie and her sharply dressed band of Sleepers will perform as an eight-piece party posse, filled to the brim with a collection of Melbourne’s finest musicians. They’re launching the release at Ding Dong this Friday with Lamarama and Soul Safari.
SLEEPING TABLETS
FRIDAY FIXING
Smooth acoustic instruments collide with glitchy electronic sequences in folktronica duo Porcelain Pill’s self-titled debut EP. The Melbourne-based outfit consists of cello, acoustic guitar, live looping and sequencing, with male and female vocals. The pair will be launching their EP this Sunday at the Evelyn with supports from Sleepy Dreamers and The Imprints.
Tijuana Cartel’s new attitude seems to have had a positive effect on their musical direction. There is still plenty of the party flavour in the music but there is now a much more serious musicality and a quite sexy theme permeates the live sets. You can catch a glimpse of the new and improved Tijuana Cartel, at the Evelyn this Friday with special guests.
ALLDAY
Loners Are Cool Team Trick/MGM Tom Gaynor may really have an impact as AllDay. His style is infectious – the fast, grounded lyricism really sticks and with big name producers already jumping on board his beats are top-notch too. His voice doesn’t drip with aggression or bravado but captivates in a strangely fragile, Aussie-tinged way. Gaynor is at his best when he confronts his own shortcomings and his challenging upbringing. The storytelling prevalent on Single Mother Song and That Phone Is A Brick could easily seem immature, but Gaynor makes no apologies and finds poignancy in his straight-shooting style. Loners Are Cool is not a bold statement but rather one of contentment and acceptance.
For more news/announcements go to themusic.com.au/news • 37
[THE GUID IDE] i n d i e
news
HAVE YOU HEARD
THE CHARGE How did you get together? Ben Cuthbert, drummer: Via an online ad for a drummer wanted in 2007. I auditioned for what was then a band called Carousel. That changed into The Charge a year later and here we are now! Sum up your musical sound in four words? Rawk, raunch, groove, grit. If you could support any band in the world – past or present – who would it be? Black Sabbath in the ‘70s... what a great era to be a part of and witness, or Alice In Chains in 2013. You’re being sent into space, no iPod, you can bring one album what would it be? Alice In Chains – Dirt. When you listen to that album now it takes you all the way back to ‘92-‘93 when grunge/metal was the new sound and it made you listen back further in time. Greatest rock’n’roll moment of your career to date? Playing Collision at the Corner Hotel at the start of this year! It was a great night and we played our backsides off!
CLOSE TO EXPULSION
GLADWRAPPED ASTRONAUTS
Michael Plater & The Exit Keys will be bringing their particular brand of art-rock, indie-noir to the Reverence Hotel this Thursday. They will be joined by the untethered country punk of the D-Grades, the alternately gentle and savage psychedelia of the Zonks and the shoegazing indie-pop of Ballarat’s Lo-Fi Cowboys.
With the release of their new self-titled EP combined with their arduous efforts of slugging it out on the band scene, the word has gotten around about Plastic Spaceman. They bring their unique sound of blues, funk and rock to the Retreat (Brunswick) this Thursday joined by Michael Yule.
AMERICAN FASHION
THOUGHTFUL ANIMALS
After an electric residency at the Evelyn, Nebraskatak are ready to rock the old casbah once again. Head down to the John Curtin Bandroom this Friday because it’s their last gig before they take a break for a month or so. With a shiny new bassist to add to the line-up, Nebraskatak will be hailing in the colder months with upbeat poppy tunes that you warm you up from head to toe with special guests Kashmere Club and more.
Into The Woods are bringing technicolour pop to the Toff this Saturday for the vinyl launch of new album, Goldentone. Proudly grouped with pop partners Wiley Red Fox and Pensive Penguin, it’s going to be a splendid night of dancing, romance and swinging tunes.
SHALLOW AND MELLOW Hollow Everdaze combine a sense of ruralism with youthful exuberance to create music which is both idyllic and harsh, and will soon be releasing their debut album. Join them at the Tote’s Cobra Room every Wednesday in June for their residency with different supports each week. Tonight (Wednesday) it’ll be Amanita and Tangrams.
ACTIVE TAGGERS Sydney trio Movement build steam from a grain of salt with their seductive nocturnal music. Their debut single Feel Real sets a working blueprint for the band and their shadowy, tender take on dance music – one that could only be born after dark. They’ll be launching the single at Ding Dong this Thursday with Alta and Readable Graffiti.
When and where is your next gig? Supporting The Nerve: Thursday 27 June, The Sporting Globe, Geelong; Friday 28 June, Northcote Social Club, Melbourne.
IN NAME ONLY On Thursday 20 June, Big Yawn will be launching their recorded output at the Tote. The EP is entitled Hash Matters/Lowlite and merges industrial and bellicose electronics with an ominous and disruptive swell of beats and rhythms. The Hash Matters/ Lowlite 7” dually explores sounds both spacious and claustrophobic. Bonnie Mercer, Jealous Husband and Call Me Professor are supporting the launch.
SKINNY DIPPING LOOP PROJECT SPACE & BAR What is your venue famous for? Late nights and big screens projecting the works of Melbourne’s digital media masters. What sets your venue apart from other venues? Free entry for punters to party, and free space for filmmakers, digital artists, designers, animators, awareness campaigns and creative forums. What’s the venue’s most memorable moment? It’s a toss up between Gotye in 2006 (amazing sound, people were literally hanging from the rafters), Mousetrapreplica’s drumming with jelly beans at the last Electundra or when Japanese artist, coder, hacker, sound designer Daito Manabe played his live electro set whilst hooked up to electrodes, creating warped expressions in a show he calls ‘face jackin’’ to an unsuspecting audience. What is your venue doing to help the local music scene? Programming local DJs, VJs, producers, experimental musicians and AV acts who showcase everything but the hits, three nights a week to an audience that gets to see them for free. Sum up your venue in three words: Love for diversity. Upcoming highlights: June: LoopHole presents ‘Precious Things’ – an exhibition of glass sculpture by Laurel Kohut. Friday 24 June: No Fixed Shape – Liquid drum’n’bass featuring David Bass (co-runner of the Too Much! Collective), Danny Dobs, Switchstate, FLIP3K, James Brooke, J-Slyde [with] visuals by Manoeuvre.tv. For more info see: looponline.com.au
Hank’s Jalopy Demons have been particularly active in seedy late night bars, where they have assailed unsuspecting victims with their well-practised and expert renditions of unadulterated rockabilly music, and sometimes cut it with illicit substances such as late ‘50s garage rock‘n’roll and hillbilly. They’re playing at the Victoria Hotel (Brunswick) this Saturday.
NORTHERN GALAXY Backed by delicate piano and guitar, violin, double bass and percussion, with an ethereal voice will take you on a journey through love, loss and excel spreadsheets, The Winter Migration are launching their debut album Rebuild The Universe. They’ll be appearing in ‘mini-orchestra’ mode at the Toff this Sunday, with supports from old friends The Steinbecks, and Emma Heeney (playing a special full-band show).
A LADY’S GUN
FLAPPA DAPPA DO!
For more info see: thecharge.com.au
HAVE YOU BEEN TO
DELAPIDATED DEVILS
Feel the soul vibes as pedigree musicians The Bullettes come together to bring you the oldest gold and latest great soul hits for your dancing pleasure. With roots in ‘60s soul, this band is inspired by the sensational soul mamas and papas from back in the day. Gentlemen grab your suede shoes, ladies get your go-go boots and head down to the B.East this Friday.
Why should people come and see your band? The live show is an extension of our recorded sound, and features full frontal energy that needs to be witnessed.
Swimming head to Melbourne for the first time to launch their debut album Yes, Tonight – a blend of melody and space. The minimal pop trio have launched the album around Australia (to sold-out crowds), while Melbourne and Hobart mark the end of the well-received first tour. The Grace Darling will host the Melbourne launch this Thursday with pop darling Sui Zhen and Brisbane lo-fi five-piece Naked Maja.
GENITALS FOR YOUNG AND OLD Social media has killed the video star. As for radio... well it’s in your car, on your laptop, tablet and iPhone. Support 3CR’s digital future by taking your friends and followers down to the Grace Darling this Sunday. An assortment of talents will be provided including The Clits, The Ancients, Sweet Teens and Beloved Elk. All door moneys will go towards independent BS-free media.
SPITTING PAINT The Quivers were born as a band based upon an ethos of incorporating the essence of ‘90s UK indie psychedelia and infusing their interpretation into the current realm of Australian psychedelic music. The band launch their Let It Rain 7” vinyl this Friday at the Grace Darling with special guests, Flyying Colours and Warmth Crashes In.
APOCALYPSE ON TV Touted as one of Australia’s newest indie supergroups, New Gods have parked themselves in a place where their music will evolve and explore new territories. The public’s first taste of this new sonic exploration came in the form of their debut self-titled EP. See the magic for yourself when New Gods perform at Ding Dong this Saturday, with the awesome Warmth Crashes In and Channel Switcher.
38 • For more news/announcements go to themusic.com.au/news
EP FOCUS
Melbourne new school jazz cats Flap! have barely unpacked their suitcase this year, and with another run of shows up and down the Eastern states, and not one but two European jaunts (including supporting duties for fellow sound fusion extraordinaires The Cat Empire), they’re not about to any time soon. This is your last chance to dance the night away with Flap! before they jump ranks again, so don’t miss out. Dates as follows: Saturday 29 June, Theatre Royal (Castlemaine) and Saturday 13 July, the Hi-Fi.
COTTON SIDEWALK – DO SOMETHING How many releases do you have now? Adam Price, vocalist/guitarist: Mass Transit Radio (2001), Build A Preschool (2006), Evil Versus People (2009), Do Something (2013). Was anything in particular inspiring you during the making? Electric Light Orchestra, the board game Uno, my little brother Nic and playing Mario Brothers with him on the Nintendo (we have to mention Nintendo due to an endorsement we have with them). What’s your favourite song on it? Do Something. We’ll like this EP if we like... ‘70s prog rock, early Radiohead, Weezer and emotional (not just sad emotions, all the kinds of them) pop music. When and where is your launch/next gig? The Evelyn Hotel in Fitzroy on Saturday 15 June with LeBelle, Butterscotch Blonde and Grand Transatlantic. Doors unlocked at 9pm. For more info? facebook.com/cottonsidewalk.
EP FOCUS
SPRING IN WINTER Melbourne band Buchanan have announced a tour in June/July to promote their acclaimed debut album, Human Spring. After the recent kick-off show at the John Curtin Bandroom, the tour is set to make its way down the East Coast and finish up at the Workers Club on Saturday 20 July.
DIVINEY AWAKENS Shaun Diviney has announced his Sex/Games East Coast tour in support of his debut EP of the same name this September. It’s been a long time coming, but a fresh start is about to begin for Diviney. Leaving behind the punk/pop sensibilities of former band Short Stack, Diviney has found his niche of rock music infused with influences of R&B and dance. See him live at an all ages show at Wrangler Studios on Saturday 7 September.
WHAT WE CAME HERE FOR The latest phase for Sydney familial dream-pop collective Tigertown is well underway with a mammoth national tour kicking off, with The Starry Field in tow as main support, and a full add to triple j rotation with the new single What You Came Here For. The tour stops off at Beav’s Bar (Geelong) this Thursday with Indian Red, the Bridge Hotel (Castlemaine) this Friday and Bella Union this Saturday with Kathryn Rollins.
SEXY SWING The Nymphs work harmony like nobody’s business. The Melbourne-based vocal quartet return to favourite haunt the Retreat (Brunswick) tonight (Wednesday) for some front-bar shenanigans, bringing with them their unique blend of ‘40s jazz, ‘50s swing and early ‘60s pop. Get your vintage glam hit for the week and let The Nymphs lift you over that mid-week hump with some sweet vocal action.
CAMPERVAN CREATURES Ross Hannaford is back and fighting fit this month to continue his fabulous third Sunday of the month residency at the Caravan Club with his band Ross Hannaford’s Critters. He’s a national treasure, a unique guitar player and is considered as one of the greatest guitarists in the world.
UDAYS TIGER – DEAD ATTENTION How many releases do you have now? Devin de Araujo, vocalist/guitarist: This is our second EP, the first was called SINNERS. Both were recorded by Neil Coombe at The White Room. Was anything in particular inspiring you during the making? The space we recorded in was very relaxing and professional. Being in the rainforest and working with such an enthusiastic engineer/ producer pushed us to achieve our best. The songs themselves are more developed this time. What’s your favourite song on it? It’s a toss up between Leech, Swathe and Summertime Hit for me. We’ll like this EP if we like... Drums, guitars, noisy music that is dynamically and structurally fresh, with pop conventions buried underneath. When and where is your launch/next gig? Dead Attention EP launch at the Old Bar on Friday 14 June. The line-up includes Damn Terran, Kids Of Zoo and Darts. Good bill, good venue. Why wouldn’t you come! For more info? udaystiger.com
WIPING THE FLOOR
food
Break out the vom bucket and pray for Natasha Lee Lee’s eyes as she’s forced to look at the bad, the badder than bad and the worst of the lot of the food TV world.
TASTE TEST WITH NGV HEADCHEF GABRIEL MARTIN
WHO IS YOUR FAVOURITE ARTIST?
Jean-Michel Basquiat, André Breton or Max Ernst.
WHAT WOULD YOU COOK FOR MONET IF HE WAS STILL ALIVE TODAY? Sole meunière, French technique where the fish cooked in butter, lots of butter.
My Kitchen Rules
Pete ‘activated almonds’ Evans and Manu Feildel take a merry trip across Australia dining at the homes of contestants who think their culinary skills are good enough to turn their living rooms into a quasirestaurants. The contestants are your typical reality showbag of odd-balls: the bitch, the tradie, the mum with too much plastic surgery and the top Aussie bloke. They rate each other on each dining experience, giving one another shit marks as part of their ‘strategy’. But don’t worry, all is right with the world in the end – as our dynamic chef duo get the final say. There is however a soothing sense of schadenfreude as couples who proclaimed they were, “gonna beat youse all”, fall flat on their bogan faces. Great success.
Man Vs Food
Fuck child birth. There’s no greater feeling of accomplishment than devouring a burger bigger than your head with that sense of pride following far outweighing the nausea and tingling in your right arm. Adam Richman puts his body on the line for our viewing pleasure in this remarkable feat of human endurance, pumping kilo after greasy kilo of meat/potato/sugar/butter into his stocky body. Richman truly outdoes himself in an episode featuring the ‘Absolutely Ridiculous Burger’, which contains 88 kilos of beef, four kilos of cheese and takes over a day to make. Richman, who’s a safety-first kinda guy, employs the bellies of 40 volunteers to help consume the monster in the two hours required time, but alas, they only managed to devour 75 kilos of the beast. Vale Adam Richman.
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Nigella Talks Dirty Oh, that voluptuous brunette who once proclaimed that her hubby, art-god Charles Saatchi, told her she had “bigger breasts than Marilyn Monroe”, is already known for her erotic turn of phrase that’s ever so gently massaged with her posh Oxfordeducated accent. Carefully edited by someone with a helluva lot of time on their hands (read: pervert), bits from her cooking show are chopped and changed to make it appear as though the Domestic Goddess is saying corkers such as, “my clam flesh is absolutely addictive”. Admittedly, you won’t learn much about food per se, but it will make you laugh. Out loud, even.
Masterchef
Remember that one-time Masterchef hauled Marco Pierre White’s arse over from England for its The Professionals spin-off series? Yeah, didn’t think so. The show, which arguably jumped the proverbial flame-grilled shark sometime around series three, has been struggling big time in the ratings stakes, The concept, copied from the UK series of the same name, spins a bit of that ol’ razzle dazzle on home cooks, giving them cooking challenges under the bright lights of a massive specially-built television kitchen/warehouse-type thingy. Success rates for contestants is varied: season one winner Julie Goodwin’s now spruiking her mumsie homefood on Channel Nine, while the best season three winner Kate Bracks could do was piss off Buddhists by refusing to call the Dalai Lama ‘Your Holiness’ during a taping with the religious leader.
WHAT MEAL TURNS YOU ON? A meal cooked with attention.
WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE INGREDIENT? Seafood in general.
IF YOU WEREN’T A CHEF, WHAT WOULD YOU BE DOING?
I would certainly be involved with books; love reading, love buying them, love collecting them.
WHAT: Friday Nights At Monet’s Garden, The Gallery Kitchen, Great Hall and Tea Room will be open. WHEN & WHERE: Friday 5 July to Friday 6 September, NGV
FOOD TRIPPIN’ Fuck child birth. There is no greater feeling of accomplishment than devouring a burger bigger than your head with the sense of pride following far outweighing the nausea and tingling in your right arm.”
EATING AROUND THE USA WITH SOFIE MUCENIEKAS AND LLOYD HONEYBROOK
Food Safari
Whoever dresses host Maeve O’Meara needs to step away from the closet. Poor Maeve, with her obtusely mismatched hair and one-size-toosmall garish T-shirts, does the rounds across Australia to sample our multicultural fare. Each episode sees O’Meara focus on one food culture, visiting restaurants and dropping into immigrants’ homes, all the while maintaining a Cheshire cat grin and pretentious air (“You mean you cook the rice? Remarkable!”). O’Meara’s now employed the skills of chef Guy Grossi to co-host her journey through Italy. An odd choice, because Grossi looks more like some kind of shonky compensation lawyer than award-winning chef. Then again, Grossi & Co kinda has a nice ring to it.
We went to In’n’Out Burger and it was exceptional. Very emotional and memorable experience. Two double doubles (animal-style), two fries (animal-style), choc thickshake & a root beer. Best meal yet, hands down. @lloydhoneybrook #whywecamehere #brutal
To check out the mags online go to themusic.com.au/mags • 39
[THE GUID IDE]
HOWZAT! LOCAL MUSIC NEWS BY JEFF JENKINS Sun’s Jeffrey Hoad, who left a Facebook message saying he’d been “crankin’ and lovin’ and laughin’ and haven’t had that much fun listening to a record for yonks”. The sense of humour shines. The working title for the album was “Marc Welsh, Best of the Solos”. “But I figured not everyone remembers when the four KISS members released a solo album and then the best-of came out.” So Marc went with Press The Flesh. “A couple of people have said it conjures up being a bit naughty, but the real meaning, of course, is to network, to get out and get amongst it, and that’s what I want to do with this album.”
Marc Welsh
FLESH FOR FANTASY Where have all the great rock bands gone? That’s what Marc Welsh ponders in Bring Back Aussie Rock N Roll, a track on his debut solo album, Press The Flesh. “Bring back the bands!” Marc sings, name-checking his favourites, including Kings Of The Sun, Hush, The Oils, Fester Fanatics and Massive Appendage. “Bring back TISM,” he pleas, “at least we will have some fun.” Press The Flesh landed in our letterbox with a handwritten note: “Rock & roll from the kids these days seems very serious – zero David Lee Roth! And we’re overrun with derivative singer-songwankers.” Marc humbly calls himself “just a fan of music, who plays. I’m not a musician”. But this is a wonderfully diverse and powerful rock record. And it’s got the thumbs-up from Kings Of The
40 • For more opinion go to themusic.com.au/blog
Like a nervous young man on a fumbling first date, Marc has been working his way south. He started on the Gold Coast with a high school band called the Ultra Deviates (a re-worked version of one of their songs, Apostles Of Destiny, appears on the album). He played Van Halen II so much, he literally wore out the grooves. “It changed me from a bass player to a guitar player – or wannabe guitarist,” he smiles. Marc then formed the acclaimed Asylum, who relocated to Sydney in the ’80s. He documents those days in Sophie’s Song, when they were regulars at the Lansdowne and the Trade Union Club. In the ’90s, Marc found himself in Melbourne in Have A Nice Day, who released two albums on Mushroom. After so many years, what does it feel like finally having just your name on the cover? “Like free beer on a sunny day, poolside, at an eight-star hotel. In Spain.” Marc, who’s also a tattooist to the stars, wears his art on his sleeve – and all over his body. As well as an Asylum tattoo, he’s got KISS and Gary Moore tattoos, a Phil Lynott portrait, and a tribute to Josie Jason. “Josie had it,” Marc says of the Melbourne guitarist, who sadly died of cancer in 2009. “When I first saw The Argonauts, I was
floored.” Marc dedicates Press The Flesh to Josie, and he’s rapt that Argonauts bass player, Kevin Hunt, is part of his live band to launch the album (Saturday at Footscray’s Reverence Hotel). Marc also dedicates the album to Chrissy Amphlett and his Uncle Greg. “I met Chrissy when they [Divinyls] got their young drummer JJ Harris, whom I’d played with on the Gold Coast. I went down to see a few shows in Sydney, which were awesome. I always loved Mark McEntee’s different guitar approach as well.” Marc calls his uncle “the older brother I never had. He was only ten years older than me, a Virgo, like me, sports mad and a larrikin. He loved a drink and loved hot chicks.”
something’’ We went with The Solicitors as it has other connotations aside from the legal ones.”
CHART WATCH Gurrumul and Delta have a top five debut. Bayini (live) GURRUMUL & DELTA GOODREM (number four, debut) Resolution MATT CORBY (eight) Threads Of Silence KARISE EDEN (19, debut) Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow CELIA PAVEY (23, debut) If HARRISON CRAIG (24, debut)
SMASH HIT Great to see Vaudeville Smash’s debut album, Dancing For The Girl, get a five-star Sunday Herald Sun review. They’re launching the album at the Corner on Friday.
STREET LEGAL It’s been a big year for The Solicitors. Just a few months ago, they made their live debut, at the Brunswick Hotel. “It was great to finally get out there,” singer Lee Jones says. Unfortunately, bass player Rob Grasso got punched in the face “by some moron after the show”. “I didn’t think we were that bad,” Lee adds. Obviously not, because The Solicitors were snapped up by Popboomerang Records, who have issued the band’s debut EP, Made To Measure, which is being launched at Yah Yah’s on Friday. The EP includes a cover of The Jags’ power pop gem Back Of My Hand. “I heard it on the radio and thought it was a new record,” Lee says. “At first, I was devastated because this ‘new’ band had pretty much nailed the sound we wanted. Then when I discovered it was from 1979, I thought, ‘You know what, we’re having that!’” As for the band’s name, Lee explains: “A friend said, ‘Hey, you guys always wear suits, you should be called The Lawyers or
Hello STAFFORD BROTHERS (25) You’ve Really Got A Hold On Me MISS MURPHY (32, debut) Overjoyed LUKE KENNEDY (35, debut) Alive EMPIRE OF THE SUN (37) Sheppard EP SHEPPARD (38, debut) Baby Animals make a new start at number 19. Beautiful Noise LEE KERNAGHAN (number 17) Steal The Light THE CAT EMPIRE (18) This Is Not The End BABY ANIMALS (19, debut) Flume FLUME (26) Sharkmouth RUSSELL MORRIS (34)
HOWZAT! PLAYLIST Bring Back Aussie Rock N Roll MARC WELSH Dancing For The Girl VAUDEVILLE SMASH Free PALACE OF THE KING Back Of My Hand THE SOLICITORS I Didn’t Think You’d Care FIONA LEE MAYNARD & HER HOLY MEN
THU 13TH
DANNY WALSH Acoustic from 8.30 pm SAT 15TH
MOOSEJAW RIFLE CLUB Two sets 5 til 7 pm SUN 16TH
JVG GUITAR METHOD Jon Von Goes, Mark Ferry, Ash Davies, Dale Lindray 5 til 7 pm
TUE 18TH
PETER EWING & Acoustic NICKSession BASTERAS from 8.30 pm 197A BRUNSIWCK ST FITZROY 3065 (03) 9417 5955 41
[THE GUID IDE] g i g s
1,000’s of gigs at your fingertips. The Guide at
TOUR GUIDE
SURFER BLOOD: July 24 Corner HAIM: July 25 Hi-Fi
BARB JUNGR: June 14, 15 Recital Centre Saloon
PRESENTS THE BEARDS: June 13 Pelly Bar (Frankston); 14 Theatre Royal (Castlemaine); 15 Hi-Fi SOMETHING FOR KATE: June 14 Forum; 15, 16 Corner
THE KING KHAN & BBQ SHOW: June 12 Tote THE BELLRAYS: June 12 Corner ELEANOR MCEVOY: June 12 Northcote Social Club ALISA WEILERSTEIN: June 12 Melbourne Recital Centre LIL B: June 13 Hi-Fi TIM CHAISSON: June 13 Spotted Mallard THE BLACK ANGELS: June 14 Palace SI CRANSTOUN: June 14 Burwood RSL Club TECHNOTRONIC: June 14 Jett Black Night Club BARB JUNGR: June 14, 15 Recital Centre Saloon MARTHA WAINWRIGHT: June 14, 15 Recital Centre; 16 Memorial Hall Leongatha (Gippsland) HNQO: June 16 Fake Chow (Geelong) TOY: June 18 Corner
NATIONAL MOVEMENT: June 13 Ding Dong THY ART IS MURDER: June 13 Corner; 14 Arrow On Swanston RASA DUENDE: June 13 Melbourne Recital Centre; 14 Montrose Town Centre (Mount Dandenong) FOREVER THE OPTIMIST: June 13 Espy; 14 Barley Corn Hotel; 15 Gertrude’s Brown Couch THE BEARDS: June 13 Pelly Bar (Frankston); 14 Theatre Royal (Castlemaine); 15 Hi-Fi HAILER: June 13 Brunswick Hotel; 14 Yah Yah’s; 15 303 (Northcote) KERSER & RATES: June 13 Karova Lounge (Ballarat); 14 Barwon Club Hotel (Geelong) ANDREW STOCKDALE: June 13 Ferntree Gully Hotel; 14 Hi-Fi; 15 Wool Exchange (Geelong); 16 Pier Live (Frankston) TIGERTOWN: June 13 Beav’s Bar (Geelong); 14 Bridge Hotel (Castlemaine); 15 Bella Union EXPERIENCE JIMI HENDRIX: June 14 Palms At Crown VAUDEVILLE SMASH: June 14 Corner BREAKING ORBIT: June 14 Revolver UDAYS TIGER: June 14 Old Bar WHAT SO NOT: June 14 Can’t Say NO ART: June 14 Public Bar; 15 Gasometer SOMETHING FOR KATE: June 14, 15, 16 Forum THE SINKING TEETH: June 14 Workers Club THE RED PAINTINGS: June 15 Espy THE PREATURES: June 15, 16 Gertrude’s Brown Couch ASH GRUNWALD, ANDY STRACHAN, SCOTT OWEN: June 15 Torquay Hotel KATE MILLER-HEIDKE: June 16 Lighthouse Theatre (Warrnambool) TEXTURE LIKE SUN, ELLA HOOPER: June 18 Toff
UPCOMING INTERNATIONAL BORIS: June 19 Corner JON ENGLISH & THE FOSTER BROTHERS: June 20 Corner KORA: June 21 Espy SHITRIPPER: June 21 Public Bar; 22 Old Bar ARTURO SANDOVAL: June 22 Palais BASS KLEPH: June 22 Levels MUNICIPAL WASTE: June 23 Corner MONO: June 23 Hi-Fi PAUL THORN: June 23 Northcote Social Club; 25 Hallam Hotel HERMITAGE GREEN: June 25 Portland Hotel; 26 Local (Port Melbourne); 27 Star Bar MARK SULTAN/BBQ: June 26 LuWow COOLIO: June 27 Red Bennies MANIC STREET PREACHERS: June 28 Festival Hall OBIE TRICE: June 28 Trak BEN OTTEWELL: June 28 Substation (Newport); 29, 30 Workers Club; July 4 Barwon Club (Geelong); 5 Theatre Royal (Castlemaine) A$AP ROCKY: June 29 Festival Hall CANNABIS CORPSE: June 29 Hi-Fi TY: July 5 Espy DEORRO: July 5 Billboard
CLARE BOWDITCH: August 10 Corner SHAPESHIFTER: August 16 Billboard THE REAL MCKENZIES: August 28 Loft (Warrnambool); 13 Espy; September 1 Barwon Club (Geelong)
GOLD FIELDS: July 12 Karova Lounge; 13 Corner; 18 Eureka Hotel (Geelong)
JAPANDROIDS: August 28, 30 Corner
WED 12 JUNE 2013
Edelplastik + Nicole Chiayi Trio: 303, Northcote The Ambients + Guests: Bar Open, Fitzroy Eleanor McEvoy: Basement Discs (In-Store (12.45pm)), Melbourne Open Mic: Bonnie & Clydes Cafe & Cocktail Bar, Thornbury Vice Grip Pussies + Stone Revival: Cherry Bar, Melbourne The BellRays + The Demon Parade + Them Bruins: Corner Hotel, Richmond Mo’Soul feat. +Revomatix + DJ Vince Peach + Miss Goldie: Ding Dong Lounge, Melbourne NMIT Recitals+Various: Empress Hotel, Fitzroy North Catch Release + Guests: Grace Darling Hotel, Collingwood Eleanor McEvoy + Edna Kenny Trio: Northcote Social Club, Northcote Grizzly Jim Lawrie + Wilderbeast + Big Smoke + Alex Lashlie + The Toot Toot Toots DJs: Old Bar, Fitzroy Roots of Music feat+Tim Walker + The Mere Poets + Goodbyemotel: Revolver Upstairs, Prahran WaywardBreed + Ravenswood: Spotted Mallard, Brunswick Open Mic+Various: Tago Mago, Thornbury Open Mic Night+Various: The Brunswick Hotel, Brunswick Zikora + Claire Patti: The Drunken Poet, Melbourne Collage with Scaramouche + Jenarium Rise Of The New Sun + Copse + Stephan Ward: The Espy (Lounge Bar), St Kilda
42 • To check more gigs online go to themusic.com.au/theguide
COLD WAR KIDS: July 30 Hi-Fi
BLISS N ESO: July 6 Festival Hall
AIRBOURNE: July 19 Whalers Hotel (Warrnambool); 20 Corner
INTERNATIONAL
EVERYTHING EVERYTHING: July 26 Corner
JAMES BLAKE: July 31 Palais
THE BLACK ANGELS: June 14 Palace YOU AM I: July 3, 4, 6, 7 Forum
THIS WEEK
BABYSHAMBLES: July 25 Palace
The Australian Bee Gees Show: The Forge Theatre, Bairnsdale Pink Tiles + Kim Salmon + Wet Lips: The Gasometer Hotel, Collingwood Someone Else’s Wedding Band + Sweet Teens + A Commoner Revolts + Mara Threat: The Public Bar, North Melbourne Alicia Adkins: The Standard Hotel, Fitzroy Sam Lawrence + Tina & Joe + Hugo Bladel: The Toff In Town, Melbourne King Khan & BBQ Show: The Tote, Collingwood Hollow Everdaze + Amanita + Tangrams: The Tote (Front Bar), Collingwood Atolls + Sagamore: The Workers Club, Fitzroy
THU 13 JUNE 2013
Kickin The B at 303 feat. Peter Geoghegan’s Straight Ahead: 303, Northcote Dirty Chapters + Street Fangs + Thrasher Jynx: Bar Open, Fitzroy Tigertown + The Starry Field + Indian Red: Beav’s Bar, Geelong Acoustic Brew: Burrinja Café & Bar, Upwey Andrea Marr & The Funky Hitmen + DJ Vince Peach + Pierre Baroni: Cherry Bar, Melbourne Next feat. Trainwreck + Our Solace + Free World: Colonial Hotel, Melbourne Thy Art Is Murder + Cattle Decapitation + King Parrot + Aversions Crown + Internal Nightmare: Corner Hotel, Richmond Movement + Guests: Ding Dong Lounge, Melbourne
RUDIMENTAL: September 21 Festival Hall FOALS: September 26, 27 Palace
Tarcutta + The Quolls + TK Bollinger: Empress Hotel, Fitzroy North Live Sessions with Howlin’ Steam Train: Ferntree Gully Hotel, Ferntree Gully Swimming + Sui Zhen + Naked Maja: Grace Darling Hotel, Collingwood The Fabric + Up Up Away + Benny & The Dukes: Great Britain Hotel, Richmond Kerser + Rates: Karova Lounge, Ballarat Alison Ferrier + Ruth Lindsay: Lomond Hotel, Brunswick East Rasa Duende: Melbourne Recital Centre, Southbank RocKwiz Rocks Youth Mental Health+Various: Melbourne Town Hall, Melbourne James Teague + Kate Martin + Constantine: Old Bar, Fitzroy The Beards + Little Bastard + Enola Fall: Pelican Bar, Frankston The D-Grades + Michael Planter & The Exit Keys + The Zonks + The Lo-Fi Cowboys: Reverence Hotel, Footscray The Aoede Project + Black Mayday + Speak Digital Water: Revolver Upstairs, Prahran Oscar Key Sung + Guests: Shebeen Bar, Melbourne Tim Chaisson + Special Guests: Spotted Mallard, Brunswick David Bridie + The Pills: Tago Mago, Thornbury Hailer: The Brunswick Hotel, Brunswick Adam Pavitt + Jason Freddi Band: The Drunken Poet, Melbourne Hail Mary + Destroy She Said + Virtue + Forever The Optimist: The Espy (Front Bar ), St Kilda Lil B + Special Guests: The Hi-Fi, Melbourne The Doctor: The Loft, Warrnambool The Dames: The Post Office Hotel, Coburg
Cotangent + Maids + The Maggot Men: The Public Bar, North Melbourne Alora: The Thornbury Local, Thornbury Pretty Strangers + Pretty City + Mallee Songs: The Toff In Town, Melbourne Auto Da Fe + 100 Acre Woods + The House of Light: The Tote (Upstairs), Collingwood Dear Stalker + System of Venus + Angry Mules: The Vineyard, St Kilda Henry Joseph & The Victorys: Thornbury Theatre, Thornbury Anna’s Go-Go Academy: Victoria Hotel, Brunswick Deborah Conway: Wellers, Kangaroo Ground Donnie Dureau: Wesley Anne (Band Room), Northcote Nebraskatak: Yah Yah’s, Fitzroy
Vaudeville Smash + Guests: Corner Hotel, Richmond Stevie & The Sleepers + Lamarama + Soul Safari: Ding Dong Lounge, Melbourne The Corner Shop Kids + Busy Kingdom + Turtle & Fox + Tash Sultana: Empress Hotel, Fitzroy North Tijuana Cartel + Special Guests: Evelyn Hotel, Fitzroy Zelus Trio: Famous Blue Raincoat, South Kingsville The Large Number 12s: Flying Saucer Club, Elsternwick Something For Kate + Courtney Barnett: Forum Theatre, Melbourne Foster & Allen: Frankston Arts Centre, Frankston The Quivers + Flyying Colours + Warmth Crashes In: Grace Darling Hotel, Collingwood The Angels: Lighthouse Theatre, Warrnambool Pheasant Pluckers: Lomond Hotel, Brunswick East Martha Wainwright + Tinpan Orange: Melbourne Recital Centre, Southbank Barb Jungr: Melbourne Recital Centre (Salon), Southbank
Fourteen Nights At Sea + Ceres + Bear The Mammoth + Lucy Wilson: Reverence Hotel, Footscray Breaking Orbit + Sleep Parade + Guests: Revolver Upstairs, Prahran Greg Dodd & The Taildraggers: Spotted Mallard, Brunswick Waz E James: Tago Mago, Thornbury Grouse Party feat. Melodee Maker + Cuteface Killah + Cuz Luv + The Ghaie Sisters: The Bendigo, Collingwood Tigertown + The Starry Field: The Bridge Hotel, Castlemaine Traditional Irish Music Session with+Dan Bourke & Friends: The Drunken Poet (Early ), Melbourne Anthony Young Band: The Drunken Poet, Melbourne Witchgrinder + Sydonia + Bronson + Cold Divide: The Espy (Gershwin Room), St Kilda Baberaham Lincoln + Bella & The Mellows + Little Miss Remembering + Real Now: The Espy (Basement), St Kilda
SI CRANSTOUN: June 14 Burwood RSL Club
FRI 14 JUNE 2013
Swamp Moth: 303, Northcote Thy Art Is Murder + Cattle Decapitation + King Parrot + Aversions Crown: Arrow On Swanston, Carlton Phil Para Band: Baha Tacos, Rye Cookin On 3 Burners + Kylie Auldist: Bar Open, Fitzroy Forever The Optimist + I Confess: Barley Corn Hotel, Collingwood Kerser + Rates: Barwon Club, South Geelong Dan Waters Band: Basement Discs (In-Store (12.45pm)), Melbourne Come Together The Beatles Music Extravaganza + Various: Burrinja Café & Bar, Upwey Spencer P Jones: Cherry Bar (Afternoon), Melbourne Anna Gilkison Trio: Chi Kitchen, Melbourne
Rasa Duende: Montrose Town Centre, Montrose The Twoks + Special Guests: Northcote Social Club, Northcote Udays Tiger + Damn Terran + Kids Of Zoo + Darts + DJ Kezbot: Old Bar, Fitzroy Palm Springs + Tim Neilson: Old Bar (Afternoon), Fitzroy The Black Angels + The Laurels + The Murlocs: Palace Theatre, Melbourne
My Echo + The Union Pacifi c + Firefi ght + Laser Brains: The Gasometer Hotel, Collingwood Initials + I Am The Riot + Angry Seas + Limits: The Gasometer Hotel (Upstairs), Collingwood Tom Carr: The Loft, Warrnambool The Experience Jimi Hendrix Concert: The Palms, Southbank
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43
[THE GUID IDE] g i g s
1,000’s of gigs at your fingertips. The Guide at
TOUR GUIDE BREAKING ORBIT: June 14 Revolver
DAYLIGHT ROBBERY: July 5 Public Bar; 21 Gasometer TRUTH: July 6 Mercat FEAR FACTORY: July 7 Palace GILBY CLARKE: July 7 Northcote Social Club PINK: July 7, 8, 10, 11, 13, 14, 16, 17, August 13, 14, 16, 17, 19, 20, 22, 23, 25 Rod Laver Arena ENABLER: July 11 Bendigo Hotel; 12 Black Goat Warehouse JUAN ATKINS, FUNK D’VOID, PHIL KIERAN: July 12 Brown Alley JONNY CRAIG: July 12 Wrangler Studios; 13 Bang; 14 Pelly Bar (Frankston) LA DISPUTE: July 12, 13, 14 Corner STEVE VAI: July 13 Palais CLOSURE IN MOSCOW: July 13 Toff MICK FLANNERY: July 13 Spotted Mallard A DAY TO REMEMBER: July 14 Festival Hall GOBLIN: July 14 Billboard ONRA: July 18 Howler TODD RUNDGREN: July 19 Trak; 20 Caravan Music Club; 21 Corner SAINT VITUS: July 20 Hi-Fi
NATIONAL GO VIOLETS: June 20 Curtin Bandroom FRACTURES: June 20 Toff BUCHANAN: June 20 Workers Club I KILLED THE PROM QUEEN: June 21 Corner ABBE MAY: June 21 Ding Dong THE MERCY BEAT: June 21 Retreat DELSINKI RECORDS: June 21 Wesley Anne INDIAN SUMMER: June 21 Can’t Say; July 17 Karova Lounge (Ballarat); August 1 Eureka Hotel (Geelong) KINGSWOOD: June 21 Karova Lounge (Ballarat); July 18 Corner KATIE NOONAN: June 21 Substation (Newport); 22 GPAC (Geelong); 23 Toff THE SINKING TEETH: June 21 Retreat Hotel; 29 Reverence Hotel KATE MILLER-HEIDKE: June 21 St Michael’s Church; 22 Capital (Bendigo); 23 at Westside Performing Arts Centre (Shepparton) ROBOTOSAURUS, TOTALLY UNICORN: June 22 Reverence WAGONS: June 22 Corner BABY ANIMALS: June 22 Hi-Fi LURCH & CHIEF: June 22 Toff THE DEMON PARADE: June 22 Ding Dong HORROWSHOW: June 22 Northcote Social Club QMF WINTER WARMUP ft DARREN PERCIVAL: June 22 Queenscliff Town Hall IN HEARTS WAKE: June 22 Workers Club; 23 Phoenix Youth Centre MILLIONS, SCOTDRAKULA: June 22 TBC RECLINK COMMUNITY CUP FT BEASTS OF BOURBON: June 23 Sportscover Arena, Elsternwick Sports Complex TEXTURE LIKE SUN, ELLA HOOPER: June 25 Toff DAN SULTAN: June 26, 27 Toff THE BLACK CATS: June 26 Public Bar; July 4 Gertrude’s Brown Couch. THE JANOSKIANS: June 27 Festival Hall STRANGE TALK, HEY GERONIMO: June 27 Hi-Fi; 29 Eureka Hotel (Geelong) ASH GRUNWALD, ANDY STRACHAN, SCOTT OWEN: June 27 Corner; 28 Prince Bandroom; 29 Westernport Hotel (San Remo) AMALI WARD: June 28 Grace Darling SPRAY N WIPE ft ALPINE, DZ DEATHRAYS: June 28 Espy DCUP: June 28 Can’t Say JEN CLOHER: June 28 Corner
APES: June 28 Workers Club; August 2 Karova Lounge (Ballarat) MIC CONWAY: June 28 Piping Hot Chicken Shop (Ocean Grove); 29 Butterfly Club; 30 Curly Flat Winery (Lancefield) STOCKADES: June 28 Reverence Hotel FRANKENBOK, ABREACT, DREADNAUGHT, HEAVEN THE AXE, KING PARROT: June 28 Yahoo Bar (Shepparton) THE NERVE: June 28 Sporting Club (Geelong); 29 Northcote Social Club TOM PIPER, KRONIC: June 29 Inferno (Traralgon) SPLASHH: June 29 Ding Dong PATRICK JAMES: June 29 Sub Lounge (Hawthorn) COSMO’S MIDNIGHT: June 29 Brown Alley FLAP!: June 29 Theatre Royal (Castlemaine); July 13 Hi-Fi CHRISSY AMPHLETT TRIBUTE ft FIONA LEE MAYNARD & HER HOLY MEN, KERRI SIMPSON: June 29 Yarraville Club THE BREAK: June 30 Caravan Music Club; 31 Thornbury Theatre YOU AM I: July 3, 4, 6, 7 Forum KIRIN J CALLINAN: July 4 Northcote Social Club CLUBFEET: July 4 Corner; 5 Karova Lounge (Ballarat); 6 Eureka Hotel (Geelong) BALL PARK MUSIC: July 5 Forum PAIRS, WIL WAGNER: July 5 Long Play DICK DIVER: July 5 Corner; 6 Bridge Hotel (Castlemaine); 12 Barwon Club (Geelong) BAPTISM OF UZI: July 6 Northcote Social Club BLISS N ESO: July 6 Festival Hall THE UV RACE, EARLY WOMAN: July 6 Copacobana SEJA: July 6 Grace Darling MOJO JUJU: July 6 Curtin Bandroom SOMETHING WITH NUMBERS: July 6 Ding Dong SLEEPMAKESWAVES: July 6, 7 Evelyn Hotel SUPER WILD HORSES, TERRIBLE TRUTHS: July 7 Copacobana POLO CLUB: July 11 Fitzroy Town Hall; 19 Workers Club DEEZ NUTS: July 12 Workers Club PLUDO: July 12 Hi-Fi THE MEANIES: July 12 Tote LIME CORDIALE: July 12 Loft (Warrnambool); 13 Workers Club SWEET JEAN: July 12 Caravan Music Club; 13 Northcote Social Club ESKIMO JOE: July 12 Ormond Hall GOLD FIELDS: July 12 Karova Lounge (Ballarat); 13 Corner; 18 Eureka Hotel (Geelong) ANTHONY CALLEA: July 13 Palms At Crown LAURA IMBRUGLIA: July 13 Tote KIM & BENI: July 13 Survivor BEACHES, AUSMUTEANTS: July 13 Copacobana THE AMENTA: July 13 Bendigo Hotel THE NEVER EVER: July 14 Wrangler Studios NUN, EASTLINK: July 14 Copacobana NICHOLAS ROY: July 18 Northcote Social Club LITTLE FOX: July 18 Curtin Bandroom; 20 Workers Club DAVID BRIDIE: July 18 Loft (Warrnambool); 19 Ararat Hotel Red Room; 20 Northcote Social Club; August 2 Memo (Healesville); 3 Caravan Music Club; 4 Montrose Town Centre CLAIRY BROWNE & THE BANGIN’ RACKETTES: July 18 Caravan Music Club; 19 Corner; 20 Meeniyan Town Hall
FESTIVALS LEAPS AND BOUNDS FESTIVAL: July 5-21 Melbourne SPLENDOUR IN THE GRASS: July 26-28 North Byron Parklands POISON CITY WEEKENDER: September 6, Curtin Bandroom; 7 Corner; 8 Reverence Hotel HITS & PITS FESTIVAL: November 22 Palace STEREOSONIC: December 7, 8 Royal Melbourne Showgrounds
44 • To check more gigs online go to themusic.com.au/theguide
Dave Graney & The Mistly: The Post Office Hotel, Coburg Bag O’ Nails: The Prince (Public Bar), St Kilda No Art + Infi nite Void + Naked Maja + Halt Ever: The Public Bar, North Melbourne Paper Street: The Sporting Club, Brunswick Tex Perkins + Charlie Owen: The Substation, Newport Groove Syndicate: The Thornbury Local, Thornbury The Poly’s: The Vineyard, St Kilda The Sinking Teeth + Apart From This + Foxtrot + Maids: The Workers Club, Fitzroy The Beards + Little Bastard + Enola Fall: Theatre Royal, Castlemaine Alanna & Alicia + Pugsley Buzzard + Carolina Cordeiro + Leni PhilippeJanon: Thornbury Theatre, Thornbury Mikki Michelle: Wesley Anne (Band Room), Northcote The Solicitors + Hailer + Dark Fair: Yah Yah’s, Fitzroy
SAT 15 JUNE 2013
Hailer + Single Men’s Drinking Club + more: 303, Northcote Clowns + Inebriator + Cabin Fever + Kodiak Throat + Flowers For Cops: Aireys Pub, Aireys Inlet Songrider’s Club+Various: Baha Tacos, Rye Agency Dub Collective: Bar Open, Fitzroy Tigertown + The Starry Field + Kathryn Rollins: Bella Union, Carlton South Matt Taylor: Caravan Music Club, Oakleigh Jenny Biddle + Paul Barry + Stephanie Mascetta: Chandelier Room, Moorabbin Zevon & The Werewolves of Melbourne + The Three Kings + Alejandro Adams + more: Cherry Bar, Melbourne
Something For Kate + Courtney Barnett: Corner Hotel, Richmond New Gods + Warmth Crashes In + The Infants: Ding Dong Lounge, Melbourne Mister Sippy: Elsternwick Hotel, Elsternwick The Whorls + Guests: Empress Hotel (Afternoon), Fitzroy North Koala Kings + Tyson Slithers: Empress Hotel, Fitzroy North Grandtransatlantic + Butterscotch Blonde + LeBelle: Evelyn Hotel, Fitzroy Live Sessions with +Quarry Mountain Dead Rats: Ferntree Gully Hotel, Ferntree Gully Bob Starkie + Laura Davidson: Flying Saucer Club, Elsternwick The Angels: Geelong Performing Arts Centre, Geelong The Preatures + Olympia + The Strange: Gertrudes Brown Couch, Fitzroy t:dy t:wns + Evelyn Ida Morris + Kikuyu: Grace Darling Hotel, Collingwood Clinkerfi eld: Great Britain Hotel, Richmond The Junes: Lomond Hotel, Brunswick East Barb Jungr: Melbourne Recital Centre (Salon), Southbank Martha Wainwright + Tinpan Orange: Melbourne Recital Centre, Southbank The Broken Sweethearts + Justin Smith & The Little Colours + Black Tea House: Music Land, Fawkner Them Swoops + The Greasers + Hiding with Bears: Northcote Social Club, Northcote The Volcanics + My Left Boot + The Wardens + The Wishers + DJ Draw 4: Old Bar, Fitzroy Falloe: Rainbow Hotel, Fitzroy Marc Welsh + Dr El Suavo + DJ Karl (H-Block): Reverence Hotel (Band Room), Footscray The You Yangs + The Working Girls + Claws & Organs: Reverence Hotel (Front Bar), Footscray
Post Homo Mixed Tape Launch Vol. 2+Rara + N’Fa + Truth + Friendships + Kwasi + Chronic Sans + Misha Grace: Revolver Upstairs, Prahran Bang feat. I Exist + The Broderick + more: Royal Melbourne Hotel, Melbourne The Tiger & Me + Aluka + Oh Pep!: Spotted Mallard, Brunswick The Breadmakers + The Seven Ups + Judge Pino & The Ruling Motions: Tago Mago, Thornbury
Rachel By The Stream: The Thornbury Local, Thornbury Into The Woods + Pensive Penguin + Wiley Red Fox: The Toff In Town, Melbourne Dreadnaught + Red Sky Burial + TTTDC + Guzoline: The Tote, Collingwood Sheriff + Spermaids: The Tote (Afternoon), Collingwood
FOREVER THE OPTIMIST: June 13 Espy; 14 Barley Corn Hotel; 15 Gertrude’s Brown Couch
Mikelangelo & The Tin Star (feat.Saint Clare) + Dan Waters Band: The Bridge Hotel, Castlemaine Deaf Wish + Terrible Truths + Deep Heat + Spitehouse: The Curtin (Band Room), Carlton Geoff Achison: The Drunken Poet, Melbourne The Red Paintings + Special Guests: The Espy (Gershwin Room), St Kilda Watussi + Kooyeh + Oz Locos + Jose Nieto: The Espy (Front Bar ), St Kilda No Art + Duck Duck Chop + Yolke + Seesaw: The Gasometer Hotel (Upstairs), Collingwood Crowned Kings + Reactions + Term Four + Imprisoned: The Gasometer Hotel, Collingwood Cooper Street: The Loft, Warrnambool The Australian Bee Gees Show: The Palms, Southbank Lamarama: The Prince (Public Bar), St Kilda
Slow Grind Fever+Various DJs: The Tote (Upstairs), Collingwood Ash Grunwald + Andy Strachan + Scott Owen: Torquay Hotel, Torquay Ol’ Timey Music Jam with Craig Woodward & Friends: Victoria Hotel (Afternoon), Brunswick Hanks Jalopy Demons: Victoria Hotel, Brunswick Brian Campeau + Richard Cuthbert: Wesley Anne (Band Room), Northcote Dan Lethbridge: Wesley Anne (Front Bar ), Northcote Foster & Allen: West Gippsland Arts Centre, Warragul Have/Hold + Cavalcade + Toy Boats + Initials + Maximum Wolf: Wrangler Studios, West Footscray Twenty Seven Winters + Matt Bailey + Devotional: Yah Yah’s, Fitzroy
45
[THE GUID IDE] g i g s
SUN 16 JUNE 2013
Ladders To The Moon +Various: 303, Northcote Matt Kelly With Strings + Laura Baxter + Kosta + Klara Zubonja: Bar Open, Fitzroy Ross Hannaford & The Critters: Caravan Music Club, Oakleigh Shannon Bourne + DJ Max Crawdaddy: Cherry Bar (Afternoon), Melbourne The Volcanics + The Wishers + DJ Mermaid: Cherry Bar, Melbourne Something For Kate + Guests: Corner Hotel, Richmond Improv Planet+Various: Empress Hotel (Afternoon), Fitzroy North The Vocal Lotion + Guests: Empress Hotel, Fitzroy North Porcelain Pill + Sleepy Dreamers + The Imprints: Evelyn Hotel (Afternoon), Fitzroy Thomcords + The Marionettes: Evelyn Hotel, Fitzroy
Vincs & Wakeling: Famous Blue Raincoat (Afternoon), South Kingsville The F100s: Ferntree Gully Hotel, Ferntree Gully Foster & Allen: Geelong Performing Arts Centre (The Playhouse), Geelong The Preatures: Gertrude’s Brown Couch, Fitzroy The Clits + The Ancients + Sweet Teens + Beloved Elk + more: Grace Darling Hotel, Collingwood Sarah Carnegie: Great Britain Hotel, Richmond Genevieve Lacey + Marshall McGuire: Kew Court House, Kew
1,000’s of gigs at your fingertips. The Guide at
Si Cranstoun + The Speedsters + The Fender-Benders: Kingston Town Hall, Moorabbin Martha Wainwright + Tinpan Orange: Leongatha Memorial Hall, Leongatha Kate Miller-Heidke: Lighthouse Theatre, Warrnambool Marty Kelly & Co.: Lomond Hotel, Brunswick East Whirling Furphies: Lomond Hotel (Afternoon), Brunswick East Kisstroyer: Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill My Disco: Northcote Social Club, Northcote
Beersoaked Sundays with+Skyscraper Stan & The Commission Flats + Horsemeat + DJ Juke Joint: Old Bar, Fitzroy Steele Saunders: Old Bar (Afternoon), Fitzroy Chris Wilson + Shannon Bourne: Rainbow Hotel, Fitzroy Ribbons Patterns + Toy Boats + Pack Bears: Reverence Hotel (Front Bar), Footscray Collard Greens & Gravy: Royal Oak Hotel (Afternoon), Fitzroy North The Wikimen: Spotted Mallard (Matinee Show), Brunswick
HAILER: June 13 Brunswick Hotel; 14 Yah Yah’s; 15 303 (Northcote)
The Fujiyama Mamas: Tago Mago, Thornbury Jimi Hocking: The Bay Hotel, Mornington Verona Lights + Black Fuel + Midnight Alibi + Moonshifter: The Bendigo, Collingwood Exit Crowd: The Bridge Hotel (Afternoon), Castlemaine The Australian Bee Gees Show: The Capital, Bendigo Performing Arts Centre, Bendigo Lindsay Field + Sam See + Glyn Mason: The Carringbush Hotel (Afternoon), Abbotsford Pugsley Buzzard: The Drunken Poet (Afternoon), Melbourne Charles Jenkins: The Drunken Poet, Melbourne Nudist Funk Orchestra + Dale Ryder Band + Bad Boys Batucada + Ms Butt: The Espy (Lounge Bar), St Kilda King Lucho: The Sporting Club, Brunswick Mountain & Swamp Sessions with+Craig Woodward & Friends: The Gasometer Hotel (Afternoon), Collingwood
Matt Walker: The Post Office Hotel, Coburg Ouch My Face + Bricks Are Heavy + The General + Dead River: The Public Bar, North Melbourne King Lucho: The Sporting Club, Brunswick Sunlark: Wesley Anne (Front Bar), Northcote Roussemoff + Nous + Horsehunter + Jonathon Nokes: The Tote, Collingwood The Large Number 12s: The Standard Hotel, Fitzroy Open Decks + Various DJs: The Thornbury Local, Thornbury The Winter Migration + Emma Heeney + The Steinbecks: The Toff In Town, Melbourne Roussemoff + Nous + Horsehunter + Jonathon Nokes: The Tote, Collingwood Sunlark: Wesley Anne (Front Bar), Northcote
MON 17 JUNE 2013
Lebowskis Present+Reuben Lewis Quintet + The Niran Dasika Extravaganza: 303, Northcote Cherry Jam: Cherry Bar, Melbourne Mangel Werzel + Amanita + Maiko Rum + Dan & Tim: Evelyn Hotel, Fitzroy Songwriter Sessions+Various: Old Bar, Fitzroy Frock: Open Studio, Northcote Phantom Hitmen + Hit The Fan: The Espy (Lounge Bar), St Kilda Fourteen Nights At Sea: The Public Bar, North Melbourne The Stevens + Love Of Diagrams + Full Ugly: The Tote, Collingwood
TUE 18 JUNE 2013
The Alan Ladds: Cherry Bar, Melbourne
Toy + Guests: Corner Hotel, Richmond Sambrose + Lucas Skinner: Cornish Arms Hotel, Brunswick Kooyeh + Demian + Swooping Duck: Evelyn Hotel, Fitzroy Kate MillerHeidke: Geelong Performing Arts Centre, Geelong Irish Session: Lomond Hotel, Brunswick East Auto Luminescent Introduction & Performance by +Harry Howard: Old Bar, Fitzroy Collage with+Kicking Beyond Matter + Since We Kissed + Chapter Ray + Dom Cooley + Pascoe: The Espy (Lounge Bar), St Kilda Anna’s Go-Go Academy: The Gasometer Hotel, Collingwood Ella Hooper + Texture Like Sun + Krista Polvere: The Toff In Town, Melbourne Willow + Velma Grove: The Workers Club, Fitzroy
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SUN 16TH 5:30PM
WHIRLING FURPHIES
(Trans-urban roots reunion !)
SUN 16
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TUES 18
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46 â&#x20AC;˘ To check more gigs online go to themusic.com.au/theguide
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If you were thinking about heading over to Nashville anytime soon with an eye to recording, you might want to consider 16 Ton Studios. Heading into their ninth year in business on Music Row, the studio has become the home of some of the most iconic equipment in rock’n’roll and country music history. 16 Ton’s Studio B now houses the classic API mix console from the historic RCA Studio B building, which was custom built in 1969 by API founder Saul Walker with direction from RCA President, Chet Atkins was, and is still, one of the finest sounding recording desks in the world. With a full complement of vintage 512 microphone preamps, 550 equalisers and 525 compressors, clients will have access to a desk that when uninstalled from RCA, Atkins himself called his own for decades. Studio B now also houses the personal equipment of legendary producer, writer and engineer Norman Petty. Petty’s Clovis, New Mexico studio set the standard for early rock’n’roll, being the space where the majority of Buddy Holly’s hits were recorded, as well as classics from such rock luminaries as Roy Orbison, The Fireballs, Buddy Knox, Waylon Jennings and scores of others. Studio B at 16 Ton has made Norman’s custom Altec, Fairchild and Pultec equipment available for clients. In addition, Petty’s Scully tape machines and vast collection of classic Neumann, RCA, Beyer, AKG and Shure microphones will also be available. Most of this equipment will be made available for the first time in decades.
SOUND BYTES Just so you know, when you’re in Sydney, you can now buy your favourite Motorheadphones from Utopia Records. Produced by John Congleton (Modest Mouse, The Walkmen, David Byrne & St Vincent, Explosions In The Sky) at Cotati’s Prairie Sun Recording Studios, Nightingale Floors is the fifth album from Oakland, California four-piece Rogue Wave. Florida five-piece The Almost cut their new album, Fear Inside Our Bones, completely live over five days in Omni Studios in Nashville with producer Marshall Altman (Tom Morello, William Fitzsimmons). Majorcan singer Concha Buika recorded her latest album, La Noche Más Larga (The Longest Night), with 2013 Grammy Awardwinning producer Eli Wolf at BB&B Studios in Miami and Sear Sound Studios in New York. The Temper Trap aren’t letting the grass grow beneath their collective feet and have been back in the studio, a beachside affair called La Casa Artist Residency in Byron Bay, with LA producer Malay (Frank Ocean). Other recent residents include Julia Stone and Sharon Van Etten. The Grove Studios on the NSW Central Coast has been hosting Grammy Awardwinner UK producer/engineer Peter Henderson (Paul McCartney, Rush, Supertramp) in both their Studios, 1 and 2, recording drums with UK session drummer Chris Whitten for a sample bundle to be included with other drums samples recorded at AIR studios in London and a few other great studios around the globe to be released soon. Perth three-piece The Love Junkies recorded their debut album, Maybelene, at Ampersonic Studios in Leederville, WA, coproducing it with a Canadian producer based in Japan, Alan Brey, Simon Struthers then mastering it at hometown Forensic Audio. Stepping away from the Brazilian music that has been her mainstay for the past 15 years, Melbourne singer-songwriter Diana May Clark’s latest EP, Sunny Daze, is ’60s retro pop, produced by Greg Arnold (Things Of Stone & Wood, Skipping Girl Vinegar), engineered by Dave McCluney at Atlantis Studios, and mixed and mastered in Nashville by Brad Jones and Jim DeMain respectively.
IN THE STUDIO
FYI: MUSIC HISTORY AT 16 TON’S
THIS IS NOT THE END Surf roots bluesician Ash Grunwald has taken his collaboration with The Living End bassist Scott Owen to the next level, also inviting the band’s drummer, Andy Strachan, to join them in the studio. Izzy Tolhurst checked in during a session.
sh Grunwald and Scott Owen, notorious bass-straddler with The Living End, allegedly forged their friendship and founded a musical collaboration over furlongs of soy sausages. As it happens, their respective wives play together in a band with Kram called Mr Cassidy, so social mingling was inevitable. The first fruit of that friendship saw Owen join Grunwald on a track from his most recent album, Trouble’s Door. However, the speedy acquisition of The Living End drummer Andy Strachan to join Owen and Grunwald on their latest endeavour, has resulted in a full collaborative album, which the boys are about to launch an album via a national tour.
A
The project and tour preparation is now in full swing, and following the commercial success of their cover of Gnarls Barkley’s Crazy, the trio have announced that their debut album, titled Gargantua, will be released late June. “It has been a truly fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants expedition,” Grunwald admits of the whole process. Particularly the mere six days this band spent at St Kilda’s Hothouse Studios – which boasts a worldclass Neve console, featuring 24 Neve 1073 mic pres, on which albums by AC/DC, Midnight Oil and Rose Tattoo were recorded – to create the album. Grunwald describes Hothouse as “an Australian Sound City”, referring of course to the documentary directed by Dave Grohl that details the history of Los Angeles’ Sound City Studios. But Grunwald is making specific reference to the Neve 8028 analogue mixing console that the St Kilda studio utilises. Craig Harnath, the longterm owner of Hothouse, also has an overwhelmingly “massive collection of guitars here,” says Grunwald, like a kid in that sort of store. But amidst the multitude of guitars sits a Neumann U47, the microphone apparently manufactured “for the perfect broadcasting of Hitler’s voice”. And it‘s Harnath’s Neumann U47 that Frank Sinatra allegedly sang into when he was here when
IN THE STUDIO
BEHIND THE LINES
Bob Hawke was Prime Minister and he got in trouble for calling that news reporter a ‘two-dollar whore’, a member of the recording team discloses excitedly. Several tracks on the album have already been previously released by Grunwald, including Walking and Breakout, both ‘fist in the air’ songs that have been reinterpreted with Owen and Strachan. And throughout the speedy process, Grunwald says he’s “learnt the value of professionalism. Because I’ll tell you, these guys are as tight as a fish’s arsehole.” But for drummer Strachan, it’s Skywriter, taken from Grunwald’s 2006 album, Give Signs, which speaks most of their experience together. “That song sums everything up for me. The first time we played together was in Geelong and I didn’t know what we were doing… but Ash just said, ‘It goes kinda like this,’ and as he played it we started tracking it, and that’s the final product. name. And while it didn’t gain Grunwalda film credit, his wife was persistent that the song be included on the trio’s album, saying, “Do that Arnie song! It’s catchy, and evil and heavy!” the dreadlocked singer recalls. “Then I realised we really should. And it’s probably one of the rockiest tracks on the album.”
“There’s no bullshit. That’s the whole thing [about] working with Ash – if it doesn’t sound good and if it doesn’t feel good then don’t do it! It’s kind of where this whole project is at; we’re only doing it because it sounds and feels right. We’re not trying to be anything or anyone else, and we don’t think too much about what’s been done in the past, but rather inject what we feel is required to make it different.”
Running through the analogue Neve desk to get that essential warmth, the album tracks have gone through Hothouse’s ProTools HD3 Accel system on Mac Pro with 24 96k inputs and outputs, the digital part of the process allowing for the speed necessary to get the whole thing done in the six days the trio had to deliver the album.
Smack-bang in the middle of the ten-track album, Gargantua is a cover of Black And Blue, a song by seminal ‘70s Aussie act Chain, who Grunwald jokes were “pretty much Australia’s biggest-ever blues band. They were the panel van driving, VB drinking, wife-beater wearing, going to Sunbury in ’73 kind of riffy ‘70s band.”
WHO: Ash Grunwald, Scott Owen and Andy Strachan WHAT: Crazy (Independent) WHEN & WHERE: Saturday 15 June, Torquay Hotel; Thursday 27, Corner Hotel; Friday 28, Prince Bandroom; Saturday 29, Westernport Hotel, San Remo
But perhaps the most enticing track on Gargantua is Last Stand, a song first composed by Grunwald and his regular producer Fingers Malone as a pitch for the latest Arnold Schwarzenegger film of the same
METAL AS IT SHOULD BE Featuring some of the biggest names in the international metal scene, Death Dealer is as much an Australian triumph as it is an international groundbreaker, as Michael Smith discovers.
efore you even look at who’s in the band, check out the recording credits – produced, mixed and mastered right here in Australia at Frontier Studios, set in the southern hills of Sydney. Then look at who by – former Dungeon and currently Empires Of Eden and Paindivision, producer and guitarist Stu Marshall, the studio’s owner/operator.
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“I would say he’s the new guy,” guitarist Ross “Ross The Boss” Friedman (pictured), who first made his name back in 1973 with New York proto-punks The Dictators, went on to form heavy metal band Manowar in 1980, and now joins Marshall in a new collective that goes by the name Death Dealer, exclaims. “He’s somethin’ else, this guy.” “It’s a ‘modern’ studio,” Marshall explains the Frontier setup. “It’s a PC-based studio where I run a lot of analogue mic gear and outboard compressors, and it’s really been a walking in the dark approach for me for about three years to get to a point where I felt comfortable mixing and mastering my own product. I’m running Cakewalk Sonar as a digital audio workstation… and use my ears I guess,” he laughs. “That’s probably the most overlooked part of the process to be honest. A lot of people use plug-ins but I try to lead with the ears first and let them rule the day.” Death Dealer came together through the Internet, but in the most organic of ways, with friends recommending friends recommending people who had inspired them, as Friedman explains. “About sixteen months ago I get a call from [singer] Sean Peck and he goes, ‘Oh, by the way, would you like to play on a song that I did?’ I go, ‘Yeah, sure,’ ‘cause I pretty much never refuse anybody. So he sends me the track and I look up Sean Peck and I think, ‘Wait a minute, this guy’s in the metal business – he’s in the band Cage – and it didn’t go by me that he’s one of the best singers I had ever heard. Next day I get a call from Stu Marshall who tells me he’s working with Sean Peck and I’m his idol and he’d been listening to me forever – ‘you influenced me and you’re one of the reasons I play guitar’. Then Sean calls me the next day
and says, ‘By the way I have a concept for a band – Death Dealer. It’s me – I’m singin’ – Stu on guitar, you on guitar if you say yes, Mike Davis from the Halford band and Lizzy Borden…” And I go, ‘So who’s the drummer?’ ‘Rhino.’ I go, ‘I’m in the band! Thank you.’” Rhino, aka Kenny Earl, had played in Manowar, the band Friedman formed in 1980, though he’d been gone two years by the time the drummer joined. Most of the drums for War Master were recorded at Peck’s home studio in San Diego, California, along with the vocals and some of Friedman’s guitar parts, the rest recorded at his own home studio in New York City, a state of the art ProTools HD setup. Unlike the majority of contemporary guitarists, particularly in the metal scene, Friedman is unusual in not “processing” his sound in any way. “That’s the Ross The Boss way. I have never used any effect pedals on my guitar playing. Pretty much I’m too simple maybe, or too stupid to know what to do with them, or a little bit of both. I’m, like, a guy that just plugs the guitar right into the amp and I get what I get what I get, you know? As far as I’m concerned it comes straight from my heart, through my hands into the amp. That’s me.” Both Marshall and Friedman are ESP guitar endorsees, Marshall a clinician for the brand in Japan, and ESP are currently working on a custom model for him, which he describes as “very aggressive and metaloriented.” As it happens, ESP guitars are in the process of launching their newly labelled E-II guitars with Death Dealer as featured artists of the new product. “I’ve been playin’ those guitars for the longest time,” Friedman explains, “since the ‘80s when they had their origins on 48th Street, Manhattan, on the music row, and they were very, very nice to me and The Dictators. I find them more playable and better constructed than the Gibsons these days, honestly. I’ve never had a guitar from them that isn’t great – fantastic instrument. But I can get my sound out of any guitar. It’s just me – how I play.”
Friedman runs his ESPs into Marshalls – the 5150 or the EVH – as well as an Avid Eleven Rack, which he used on a lot of the album. As to pulling the parts of the album together from recordings made in New York, San Diego and Sydney, Marshall found the process relatively easy, thanks to the calibre of musicianship within the lineup, as he explains. “I’ve had experience with this with my other solo project, Empires Of Eden. I did three albums on my own and I hired singers from around the world to sing, and obviously learnt the hard way that I had to stipulate bit rate and mic technique, brands and pop filters, all these kinds of things or you can end up with horror stories. So [War Master] was very easy. I sent through the specs to the guys; when Rhino was tracking his drums we needed a specific kind of drum mic setup – I like to get quite a lot of mics on the snare, probably more than most engineers – the guys went and recorded and it came together very easily.” War Master by Death Dealer is out now on Steel Cartel Records, available exclusively through Utopia Records in Sydney or online.
To check out the mags online go to themusic.com.au/mags • 47
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MARSHALL HEADPHONES MINOR CYMBALS Cymbals are an integral aspect of any drummer’s sound, so why do we choose the ones we do? I have a preference for old cymbals and am lucky enough to have kept a few. My studio set consists of 13” hats and 22” ride, Zildjians, about 30 years old. They have a mellow sound with just enough ping. I don’t clean them, just wipe the dust off occasionally. Crashes are Sabian AAX 16” and 18”, a bright beefy sound and a good hang, important as you don’t want them to fade too early in the studio. Live Set: I have a small kit (20” x 20” BD 13”x4” snare, 10” and 14” toms) so I like to keep the cymbals in concert; a set of 13” Sabian hats, which are crisp and bright with good sound penetration and a hint of brass, a 20” Zildjian ride (the other one) and two 16” Zildjian crashes. A live kit must be able to cut above and sit below the band’s volume, as required. Live, I want louder cymbals that don’t hang on as much so you get less spill. It’s paramount you have control of your kit at all volumes, so in the end you need to spend a bit of time researching what’s out there and what you want to achieve with your choices. Cymbals can end up being the biggest outlay of the whole kit, and just about all makes have top lines. I like thin cymbals myself and so have leaned towards Zildjian and Sabian, but if you’re a hard hitter playing in a loud band go for a thicker cymbal with a heavier and louder sound (and you will break fewer as well). Jim Finn
Just like your favourite rock’n’roll band, Marshall Headphones Minor earphones (slightly confusing, yes) offer a fantastic listening experience without a whole lot of superfluous bullshit. From the box through to the design and additional extras, all the fat has been trimmed from the Minor, but when you’ve got earphones that do what they do so well, you don’t need a lot of additional frills or fanfare. With a colour palate that holds onto the trademark black, gold and white by which the iconic brand is recognised, the speakers of the earphones provide snappy audio that picks up every element of a track and presents it in complete clarity. Features include a microphone and remote for mobile phone use, a neutral plug adaptor and a one-year premium replacement warranty. But the real hero with this model is the Earclick system.
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CD-R: IN THE STYLE OF STEVE VAI (RIFF AXELERATOR) The boys from Riff Axelerator are at it again. Recently I was asked to review the Joe Satriani instructional CD-R from Riff Axelerator and if you caught that review you’ll recall I saw it as valuable resource material and a useful learning tool for anyone wanting to get into the style of Satriani. This time they’re taking a look at his most famous student – Steve Vai.
With everyone increasingly living their lives via the various media possibilities, from iPads to mobile phones and beyond, the market potential for connecting ears to gadgets was always going to create a plethora of alternatives in terms of headphones/earphones, and here is another option: the Aerial7 Sumo Multi-Device Stereo Earbud, designed in Australia but, perhaps inevitably, manufactured in China. As with the majority of earphones, you’re provided with four different sizes of in-ear gels to accommodate those of us with outsized ear canals down to the daintiest, most petite of potential users, and as someone who regularly uses earplugs in live music situations (there’s only so much more tinnitus this reviewer can deal with after 40 years of standing next to crash cymbals and guitar amps trying to pitch vocals against my bass!), jolly comfortable they are too – mine came in blue – and do a pretty good job of insulating the sound source from external interference.
Initially the Minors seem like they’d have no chance of resting in your ear – they’re far more robust than your typical in-ear speakers. But how they do fit, oh, how they do. In fact, the Marshall’s Minor earphones fit so well it’s like an amplified extension of your ears. And with this comfortable Earclick system, they sit perfectly with minimal pressure.
Many people today see these two greats as bookends to the modern electric guitar vocabulary (so one either side of, say, Malmstein, Eric Johnston and Petrucci). If you see Vai in this light then you’ll benefit from working through the lessons put together by Riff Axelerator. It’s more of the same with riffs based on/inspired by Steve Vai played through a variety of speeds from very slow to really fast so as you master the riffs at the slower tempos you can graduate through the faster ones until you hit top gear, taking your playing technique to another level. Even if you’re an advanced player with already scary chops these exercises can give you, in part, an insight into what makes the Steve Vai boat float.
The cord is pretty average and seemingly gets tied up with even the slightest of movements – even though the design is billed as “tangle resistant” – although it must be said that the gold engraved Marshall cable clip is a nice touch. However, this is a pretty minor gripe for what is otherwise a premium set of earphones that will suit everyone from the ultimate rock pig to the casual music fan.
I actually see advantages in two directions with a style study as presented here. Firstly there are those that like Steve Vai’s playing and want to do that too. For these folks I believe this set of riffs can help open the gate. Alternatively, if your ambition is to develop your own style and voice, then no knowledge is a burden to carry. Hence in these exercises you could find, somewhere, something of a direction pointer.
In terms of dynamic range, the earbud seems to cover the spectrum more than adequately, with plenty of dynamic range – apparently the frequency responses are 20-20KHz, but you’ll have to take the manufacturer’s word on that – whether the sound source is one of those cute antique portable CD players or MP3s on the laptop, mobile or iPad, for which these little jobbies have primarily been developed. More importantly, for a community of listeners who prefer to become part of a dialogue as well, there’s a built-in microphone so you can use it with your mobile of whatever description courtesy the 3.5mm input plug.
Benny Doyle
Steve Flack
Michael Smith
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50 •To check out the mags online go to themusic.com.au/mags