11.05.16 Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture
Brisbane / Free / Incorporating
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117
2 • THE MUSIC • 11TH MAY 2016
THE MUSIC 11TH MAY 2016 • 3
DS THE INDUSTRY THE THE DJS THE GIGS THE XES THE ARTISTS THE F S THEMUSIC.COM.AU NDUSTRY THE LOCALS GIGS THE PRODUCER THE FESTIVALS THE G FANS THE BANDS THE S THE INDUSTRY THE L HE DJS THE GIGS THE ES THE ARTISTS THE FE NDUSTRY THE LOCALS GIGS THE PRODUCERS THE FESTIVALS THE GR ANS THE BANDS THE I OCALS THE BLOGS TH PRODUCERS THE CLUB STIVALS THE GROUPIE HE TOURS THE FANS T THE BLOGS THE ENCO THE CLUBS THE REMI OUPIES THE ALBUMS NDUSTRY THE LOCALS CALS THE BLOGS THE RODUCERS THE CLUBS TIVALS THE GROUPIES HE BLOGS THE ENCOR THE CLUBS THE REMIX OUPIES THE ALBUMS T DUSTRY THE LOCALS T
STRY THE LOCALS THE B S THE PRODUCERS THE FESTIVALS THE GROUP THE BANDS THE INDUS INDUSTRY THE LOCALS 4 • THE MUSIC • 11TH MAY 2016
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The Music MMS 2016 NSW.indd 1
9/05/2016 12:16 PM
THE MUSIC 11TH MAY 2016 • 5
Music / Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture
Flying V
Having graced stages here recently in support of Sheeran and Elton John, and just days away from releasing his third studio album The Wild Swan Irishman Foy Vance has outlined his own headline Australia tour in September.
Foy Vance
FRI 27 MAY
STAND UP COMEDY
FT. CAL WILSON & DAVE O’NEIL
Eddie Perfect. Pic: Julian Kingma
SAT 28 MAY
THIS IS HIP-HOP TOUR
FT. BONE THUGS-N-HARMONY & MORE
SAT 4 JUN LENNON
FRI 10 JUN THE RUBENS
FRI 17 JUN
WILL SPARKS
MON 20 JUN
STEEL PANTHER
SUN 3 JULY
RUPAULÊS DRAG RACE
TUE 12 JUL TOTALLY 80ÊS
FT. MARTIKA, BERLIN, LIMAHL, KATRINA, PAUL LEKAKIS & MORE...
THUR 6 OCT
MAYDAY PARADE
FRI 14 OCT L7
FRI 28 OCT BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE
SUN 30 OCT
Beastly Eddie Perfect’s new organic, free-range comedy The Beast is set to tour Australia, with runs starting Sydney in July, and heading to Melbourne in August, before finishing in Brisbane in September.
Strip Off
STEVEN WILSON
FRI 4 NOV
Melbourne’s Jack The Stripper have announced that before heading for Europe – as well as finalising album number two – they will take their chaotic hardcore around Australia in June and July for the Nibiru tour.
VENGABOYS
18 & 19 NOV ARJ BARKER
(07) 3325 6777 TICKETS & INFO GO TO: EATONSHILLHOTEL.COM.AU EATONSHILLHOTELPAGE 646 SOUTHPINE RD EATONS HILL
6 • THE MUSIC • 11TH MAY 2016
Jack The Stripper
Arts / Li Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture
Classic Metal
After appearing on Soundwave Festival last year Finnish metal mavens Apocalyptica are bringing their metal and classical fusion tunes to Australia for four shows this September, showcasing their latest record, Shadowmaker.
Apocalyptica
The Aristocrats
What Do You Call It? The Aristocrats are heading to our shores for a national tour this October. The threepiece supergroup, who sit at the pinnacle of the instrumental rock/fusion scene, will visit Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.
245.1 Karnivool
Journey To The East Having just wrapped up a surprise run of shows throughout Western Australia, Aussie rock heavyweights Karnivool have announced they’ll be hitting the road yet again next month for a headline east coast tour.
MILLION
The number of times songs from Drake’s Views were streamed in the US during its first week of release.
THE MUSIC 11TH MAY 2016 • 7
Music Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture
Re-Enter
Having toured Australia just last year, UK favourites Enter Shikari have announced they’ll be heading back this September for a string of shows, where they’ll be joined by fellow English outfit Hacktivists and Sydney band Stories.
Enter Shikari
Philadelphia Grand Jury
The Jury Is In Philadelphia Grand Jury will be kickin’ it this May on a karaoke tour of Australia. The So You Think You Can Philly Jays? tour in Brisbane this May, with the Philly Jays creating little karaoke bars wherever they go. Flume
For all gig and event details check out theMusic.com.au. Flume Ahead of his hotly anticipated second album Skin, our brightest Australian electronic export Flume has announced a colossal set of arena shows later this Nov/Dec as part of a larger world tour.
8 • THE MUSIC • 11TH MAY 2016
c / Arts / Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture
Willie & Josh
Willie Watson
Heading to Australia this July for the Bello Winter Music, US artists Willie Watson and Josh Hedley have announced they’ll be teaming up for a string of joint-headline shows throughout the east coast during the trip.
Thelma Plum
Monster Tour Singer-songwriter Thelma Plum has been hard at work writing the follow-up to her last EP, Monsters, but before recording she’s announced the huge ten-date Unromantic Breakups tour with a full band in June/July.
Emerging Writers’ Festival
Out The Come The Emerging Writers’ Festival – Australia’s premier festival for new and emerging writers – has announced its 2016 program, the first under new Artistic Director, Michaela McGuire.
10 Hard to believe, but it’s been that many years since Grant McLennan of the Go-Betweens passed away.
THE MUSIC 11TH MAY 2016 • 9
Music / Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture
JMC Academy Open Day
JMC Academy’s Open Day is on this Saturday. Head along for the run down on a range of courses in creative industries from Audio Engineering and Film and TV production to Contemporary Music Performance and Game Development.
JMC Academy
Rolling The biggest and best of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival are coming to the Gold Coast for an epic comedy road trip. Catch Bob Franklin, David Quirk, Jess Perkins and more at The Arts Centre Gold Coast 13 May.
David Quirk
theMusic.com.au: breaking news, up-to-the-minute reviews and streaming new releases
10 • THE MUSIC • 11TH MAY 2016
Real Scream Brisbane veterans Screamfeeder have unveiled plans to release a new track ahead of another full-length album later this year. The track is set for an epic launch at The Zoo on 8 July.
Screamfeeder
Talk Big Superstar physicist Brian Cox is headed to Australia to talk about the little things. His presentation, A Journey Deep Into Space, lands in Brisbane this August to address the Big Bang, origin of life and all things science.
Brian Cox
Arts / Li Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture
Get Stonesed
Stones Corner Festival is on at Stones Corner Hotel 29 May. As well as 20 craft beer and cider stalls and 15 food trucks there will be performances from The Badloves, Taxiride and more.
Tyrone Noonan
Shouldn’t #TedCruz have been forced to carry his unviable campaign to term? @FullFrontalSamB
Get Digging Get your mitts on rare, used and obscure wax at the Brisbane Record Fair this 14 May. The unique event is spread across The Boundary Hotel and The Rumpus Room this month. THE MUSIC 11TH MAY 2016 • 11
Music
Supersized Rubens Uppy Chatterjee sits down with The Rubens to talk life after topping the triple j Hottest 100, their faces painted on a huge wall and why bands are better off moving to Melbourne. Cover and feature pics by Cole Bennetts.
“T
his is the fucking sickest thing that has ever happened to us.” We’d say the same thing too if our faces were painted in widescreen on the side of a huge building — by the infamous Scott Marsh no less — the viral Australian artist behind the now legendary Kanye Loves Kanye mural. Yep, the same one that incensed the highly-strung rapper so much he ordered for it to be removed. “I’m worried about the big dicks that’re gonna be drawn on it. They’re gonna be huge,” Scott Baldwin admits. “I didn’t know it was [Scott Marsh] doing it until just recently. I thought it was an awesome idea and it was just really cool that we were gonna get a mural done. It’s a really insane thing that you never really think will happen. The fact that it is [by Marsh] is quite a big deal I guess! Thanks to you guys!” frontman Sam Margin says with a nod. When we suggest that Kanye might even cop a look just to make sure it’s not of him again, we’re met with ominous “oooooh”s from the rest of the band: Elliott Margin, Zaac Margin and Will Zeglis, all leaning in conspiratorially around the picnic table. It’s been nearly three months to the day since the indie rockers found out they topped the Hottest 100 this Australia Day. Hindsight is important — so does this feel like the “rise to success” that veteran rockers talk about decades into their careers? “It’s hard to digest, but we were aware of how amazing it was. I think touring and playing shows... although you have amazing experiences, I guess you probably don’t take it all in until you have that kind of hindsight. Even something like Splendour In The Grass, you walk off stage and it was amazing, and you know how big a thing that was in your career, but I guess touring and slowly growing, it’s hard to have sort of perspective,” Sam explains. Baldwin reckons it’s all about keeping the momentum going. “If you’re sitting around, it doesn’t take long for you to feel like you’re not successful, do you know what I mean? If we don’t have shows coming up, we feel like, ‘oh geez, what are we doing?’” When we ask what sort of opportunities the band have had presented to them since, the boys chatter away about the time
their hometown’s mayor wanted to give their “mayor-al thanks” in recognition of the band’s success. “Our hometown always wants us to do a gig, that’s one thing that always comes up for me. I think the major wanted to give us a key or something...” says Baldwin. “Nah, the mayor wanted to do some kind of ceremony,” pipes up Elliott. “I don’t think it was a key — I think we made that up. We didn’t do it ‘cause it sounded weird to us.” Cutting their teeth on Sydney live music staples like Candy’s, The Lansdowne Hotel and World Bar, The Rubens now find Sydney’s situation dire. As we turn the conversation to Marsh’s recent Casino Mike mural — complete with Penfolds wine, a kebab and a clock that reads 1:31am, which only half the band have seen — Sam leans forward to speak, having been quiet for a few minutes. “I live in Melbourne now and I think the contrast between Sydney and Melbourne is so stark. The attitude towards culture and music are completely different when it comes to the government,” Sam describes unhappily. “Here it seems like it’s about money, everyone’s just trying to make money, whereas in Melbourne there are so many late licenses, so many live music venues, they support it because they realise it’s so important. Here, it’s embarrassing. It’s pathetic.” His brother Elliot jumps in — “I think the grossest part is that it started because of all the alcohol-related violence, the one-punch kind of stuff, and you look at it and see what measures they’ve taken and the fact that casinos are exempt from all these laws just makes it just... gross. How dare you use that [as an excuse to make the laws]?” “It’s just sad for music,” says Sam. “Like, you guys are a music magazine, it’s sad for bars and nightlife in general but for the music scene, it sucks. I don’t know where bands are actually gonna get their break now.” “Melbourne,” Baldwin says deadpan. “Honestly. I would move to Melbourne,” Sam says, a little exasperated. “If I was in an up-and-coming band, I would not wait around in Sydney for them to get over it.” It’s good news, then, that the band is well past that stage; soon they’ll be playing their biggest shows to date nationally. They’re going for a bigger production this time, with “cool lighting, fireworks, all that stuff” in the cards. “We wanna get some special guests and stuff too, just because we did tour so recently. Our last tour wasn’t that long ago, so I think we’re gonna change a couple bits, get a couple of people in there to do some things,” Sam is tight-lipped. “We’re still trying to lock them in, but maybe a hip hop artist, maybe a female singer, we’re still talking to people.”
Here it seems like it’s about money... whereas in Melbourne... they support it because they realise it’s so important. Here, it’s embarrassing. It’s pathetic.
12 • THE MUSIC • 11TH MAY 2016
Hitting A Wall And if money were no object, who would they be inviting then? “Kendrick,” the band agree almost unanimously. Before the band head out though, they’ve got a few European shows to knock off as well as a slot on The Great Escape in Brighton, UK. Plus, they’ve just returned home from the US. “It’s just different, we have smaller crowds and it’s like being back at the beginning. We play a certain type of show in Australia where we don’t have to work for the crowd, I guess, then you get to America and you really gotta work,” espouses Sam. “And it’s cool, we’ve had a really good time doing it and the shows sold out and stuff. It’s just such a big country with so many radio stations and so much work to do.”
Baldwin adds, “It’s weird, after the show in New York for example, I spoke to a few people and they were blown away by the fact that they were a couple of metres away [from us]. But then there’s the complete polar opposite where they don’t really know who you are.” In terms of goals, the band has a few things in their sights: First, “Europe. Heaps more Europe dates.” “Selling out shows in the Europe and UK,” say Baldwin and Zaac. Second, “Make another record. Much more quickly this time,” Sam says. “We have a few songs written for it and we need to work harder, but we’ve got a good direction.” The world looks to be at their fingertips. But for now, The Rubens are gonna head to their personalised mural, “wait ‘til people notice us and go ‘yep, that’s still us’”, and take a shit-ton of photos before it’s defaced with dicks.
When & Where: 10 Jun, Eatons Hill Hotel; 11 Jun, The Tivoli
This was, quite literally, the biggest cover shoot undertaken by The Music. Usually we just shoot an act in a studio somewhere. Occasionally we do things on location, but nothing of this scale involving a giant mural. The Rubens artwork was painted by Scott Marsh, who you may remember from such murals as Kanye Kissing Kanye and Casino Mike. “It was a lot of fun, a pretty tight deadline but we got it all done in two days. The Rubens were a real nice bunch of guys,” Marsh says. “It’s all a matter of me drawing it all up in one day, layer by layer. I draw it and start from a pinkyorangey-yellowy background, then I build it up with spraypaint and brush it at the end.” Enter The Rubens, with the complete cover image photographed by Cole Bennetts. “We had 48 hours to do it and we had to battle rainstorms, towing a 1.8 ton scissor lift to the location,” Bennetts recalls. “We ended up having to shoot at five in the evening. Because daylight savings is over, I literally had ten minutes of light to get the shot. 48 hours of build-up – and I had ten mins to get the shot.” It took a lot of people to get us to the amazing finished product, so our thanks go to: Artist Scott Marsh scottmarsh.com.au Photographer Cole Bennetts colebennetts.photoshelter.com
Sponsors Ironlak ironlak.com AIM aim.com.au Kennards Alexandria kennards.com.au To see the whole making of video of the mural, Shazam the cover. THE MUSIC 11TH MAY 2016 • 13
Opinion
Why I Write Songs About Politics Power And Race
M
y name is L-FRESH The LION. I am a musician. I was born and raised in south-west Sydney. I rock a turban and a beard. I have been making hip hop music since age 14. And I am about to release my second album BECOME via Elefant Traks. Those who are familiar with my music sometimes refer to it as political. Though it is true that I often write about issues that pop up in politics, I don’t consider myself a political rapper. Others say that I use my music as a way to share my insights on racism in Australia. And while I do have songs that talk about race, I wouldn’t say that the main purpose of my music is to share my experiences with racism. Yet these two characterisations are commonly used when people refer to my music. Straight up, in regards to racism, I wouldn’t write about
it at all if I didn’t have to experience it so much. And to talk about racism means there must be a conversation about politics, as racism only exists where power is prevalent. Now with that said, I don’t intentionally set out to make music focusing just on these particular concepts. I don’t sit in the studio and say, “Ok, today I’m going to make a political song or a song about racism.” I strive to make music with a purpose. And my purpose is to make you move physically, mentally, spiritually and emotionally. If you look past the surface, most of my music goes beyond discussions around politics, power and race. It speaks to my life, the stories that have formed it and the cultures that have influenced it. 14 • THE MUSIC • 11TH MAY 2016
Since day one, my story has had a connection to social justice. I wasn’t even aware of it until my parents taught it to me. My Sikh ancestors have left behind an enormous legacy in the area of human rights. My history books are lined with countless inspiring stories that positively changed the course of mankind. It’s why Sikhs were brought into this world: to stand out and stand up for the principles of equality, justice and freedom for all. When I became conscious of the legacy I was brought into, I had a choice to continue it or let it go. I decided to put my head down and learn as much as possible so as to strengthen my roots before aiming for the sky. Then came hip hop. My introduction to hip hop music was via Tupac Shakur. First it was his voice that captured me. Then it was his stories and the way he expressed them. He spoke about what it was like to be black in America. Reading about his journey led me to his mother’s, which is one of resistance and revolution. Afeni Shakur, who most recently passed away (rest in power), taught me about the Black Panther Party and the Civil Rights Movement. From there I understood the connection between the battle for freedom and hip hop. You ever wonder why hip hop is so in your face, honest and passionate? Now you know. It has race politics, power and the fire of revolutionaries raging deep within its heart and soul. If you fast-forward to the present day, you’ll find that spirit still very much alive with black Americans demanding justice in the face of ongoing systemic racism. The Black Lives Matter movement is in your face because it has no other choice. Black people are being locked up and killed by police in huge numbers. The fight for freedom isn’t a thing of the past. It’s here now. We’re not immune to it here in Australia either. Black people in Australia face similar issues. Systemic racism has been ongoing since day one of Britain’s invasion of this land. They set up a society that was to their own benefit at the exclusion of everybody else. If you weren’t white, you were deemed as lesser. That started with black people and then extended to everybody who came to this country with weird sounding names. The legacy of the White Australia Policy is alive and well in Australia’s current refugee policies. The language of dehumanising refugees has been so effective that many Australians readily turn their heads away to look past the blatant human rights abuses committed by our own government. These are Australia’s current battles for freedom. I carry the legacy of my ancestors and I’m conscious of the heart and soul of hip hop music. I write songs about these issues, not simply because I choose to, but because they lie at the foundation of what I do. They are a part of my story. My story is an Australian one. And Australia’s story is very much about politics, power and race.
What: BECOME (Elefant Traks/Inertia) When & Where: 9 Jul, Bello Winter Music Festival
Music
There’s No ‘I’ In Modern Baseball Personal loss, lifestyle changes, tumult within; it hasn’t been an easy path on the way to Modern Baseball’s new album, Mitch Knox finds out from members Brendan Lukens and Jake Ewald. Pic by Kane Hibberd.
M
odern Baseball have come a long way over the past few years. Not just in the figurative/ artistic/personal sense - although, yes, in those ways too - but in the literal, geographic, world-beating sense. Having just wrapped an ebulliently received, sold out tour of Australia, the ascendant, earnest indie-punk quartet are now only days out from releasing their fiercely awaited third studio full-length, Holy Ghost. Although it’s been a relatively short road to date, it’s not exactly been a smooth one. In case you haven’t seen the engaging, insightful short documentary Tripping In The Dark, covering the Philly indie-punk heroes’ origin tale and journey over the past few years, it’s important to understand how close the band came to falling apart on the way to album number three (among other things, Ewald contended with the death of his grandfather, while Lukens took steps to address his worsening mental health), and why it was so crucial for the men who made it to get it all down in song. Indeed, even their Australian tour was imperilled when its original plan, for late last year, was postponed in service of Lukens seeking treatment for his recently diagnosed bipolar disorder - but they were all necessary setbacks to achieve the sense of wholeness the band is clearly experiencing now. “We wanted to document this record,” Lukens explains of the impetus for filming the documentary. “Before we went into it, it felt like it was going to be something really important to the band’s career, or life... and we cancelled a lot of shows, and we had a lot of just up-in-the-air questions being asked, so we felt like doing
So we were both losing a big chunk of ourselves and, like past records, trying to figure that out.
something that incorporated our past, present and future would kind of, you know... lay it out all out.” Laying it all out is essentially woven into the DNA of Holy Ghost, arguably the band’s most confessional record to date. But, beyond its lyrical content, the album’s overall framework is a structured, considered affair, inspired as much by OutKast’s seminal double album SpeakerBoxxx/The Love Below as a sense of trepidation over getting the record’s flow right. “In the early stages of the record, we talked about doing a SpeakerBoxxx/Love Below kinda thing, but the main reason we were talking about doing that was, with [2012 debut] Sports, [2014 follow-up] You’re Gonna Miss It All, the EPs - like, all the crap prior - I remember trying to figure out the You’re Gonna Miss It All track listing, and it took forever,” Lukens says, with mild exasperation. “So this was really good, because this was, like, Jake had a story he clearly wanted to tell, and I had a story I clearly wanted to tell, and the themes were very similar ... It was just way easier.” “I think another part of it is that we’re big into vinyl,” Ewald offers. “So it’s very important for us to think of records in terms of an A-side and a B-side.” To that end, both ‘sides’ of Holy Ghost frequently feature vivid imagery and real world locales and narratives, essentially a charting of young men in a war of understanding with their own emotions in the wake of very different, but equally challenging, personal loss to arrive at a place of peace, or at least hope for a better tomorrow. Lukens’ loss, meanwhile, was admittedly less tangible, but still significant - a loss of self - after the musician found himself at risk of losing his bandmates and best friend before giving up alcohol and weed as well as seeking treatment to care for his mental health. “I think we both lost something very important to us; Jake with his grandfather, I gave up a lot of my lifestyle... so we could be friends,” Lukens laughs, before straightening: “So we were both losing a big chunk of ourselves and, like past records, trying to figure that out, but I think this time we both wanted to dive a little bit deeper. I definitely feel like we’re coming into our own.” Despite its tumultuous roots, Holy Ghost is ultimately an album of triumph; a high watermark for a band that has consistently outdone themselves with every new release over the past four years, and - for fans and Modern Baseball’s members alike - it feels at last as though the success they so clearly deserve is finally within their reach. “I’m really excited for us to start growing, like, as a whole, as a band, sonically, and moving forward sonically, and starting to write all our parts together all the time,” Lukens enthuses. “Like, us practicing these Holy Ghost songs, we’re like that, where, admittedly, every other time we practice songs, we’re relearning songs - I’m saying relearning because we were literally relearning; we’d have to relearn them from scratch - and I feel with Holy Ghost, everyone was on the same page.”
What: Holy Ghost (Run For Cover/Cooking Vinyl)
THE MUSIC 11TH MAY 2016 • 15
Music
The Rebirth Of Cool When YAK’s frontman Oli Burslem and bassist Andy Jones sit down with Bryget Chrisfield, she discovers they got fined for cracking beers on the streets of New York, purposefully piss each other off in the recording studio and have not yet met Jack White. Photos by Kane Hibberd.
T
wo thirds of YAK - frontman Oli Burslem and bassist Andy Jones - settle around a table and we pour a jug of beer into three pots, I know, right? Doesn’t Burslem look like a young, hot Mick Jagger! Well, in the flesh, his face is so incredibly animated as he tells stories - ginormous eyes darting about and a lip-reader’s dream mouth - that he’d be a shoo-in if they were auditioning for a new Mulligrubs face. He’s not here today, but when
My definition of cool is someone who’s not affected by their surroundings and doesn’t try to be anything else except for themselves around any situation.
you clap eyes on YAK’s drummer, Elliot Rawson, you’ll swear he’s related to Jack White (he’s not). YAK’s No EP, produced by Pulp’s Steve Mackey, was released on White’s Third Man Records late last year. So have the band been to Third Man HQ in Nashville? “No, I’d like to,” Burslem admits. And have they met Mister White? “Never met Mister White, no... I’d love to meet him, it would be nice to go down there, but it’d also be nice to go to Tenerife and have a nice holiday. But we need to focus on ourselves.” Jones offers, “If it happens it happens.” While Jones has a calm presence, Burslem buzzes with natural exuberance. The frontman rearranges his bucket hat constantly, taking it off and placing it on the table in front of him and then putting it back on his 16 • THE MUSIC • 11TH MAY 2016
head. “I don’t think we feel like we deserve to be here,” he mentions, sincerely. “I mean, the majority of our lives we’ve been told we’re shit at everything, d’ya know wha’ I mean? So this time I feel like we’ve been given this opportunity and we shouldn’t take it for granted, and we should do everything we can.” The dudes are definitely not scenesters, even though they certainly look the part. “I enjoy going to the local pub and just having a chat with some old dudes, or whoever,” Burlsem chuckles. “That’s my thing.” Burlsem also has zero care factor as to whether or not he’s viewed as “cool”. “My definition of cool is someone who’s not affected by their surroundings and doesn’t try to be anything else except for themselves around any situation. You could drop Andy in Africa and I’m sure he wouldn’t change.” Jones laughs while Burlsem adds, “Me? Probably I would.” YAK live are dangerous. You don’t know whether you’ll escape without being smacked in the face by a guitar fragment, but wouldn’t give up your front-row posi even if someone held a gun to your head. “It’s not just the band,” Burslem stresses. “It’s the band and the people who watch it, and the combination of the two makes it really exciting.” Such was the case at the back-to-back YAK gigs we attended at CMJ in New York last year, the first as part of an NME showcase at Santos Party House, the second at Mercury Lounge. We discuss the Mercury Lounge gig and Burlsem recalls, “I got in a bit of an argument at the second show - with the sound man. I think I said something along the lines of, ‘You should be ashamed of yourself’.” Jones pipes up in Burslem’s defence: “He was a bit shite, wasn’t he?” The band didn’t manage to catch any shows by other artists while at CMJ but Burslem suddenly remembers, “We got that fine for drinking booze on the street!” Jones confirms, “Yeah, we got done.” Burslem: “But I haven’t paid it.” To Jones: “You’ve paid.” Jones defends, “Well I did, ‘cause I thought [in the] future - coming through [US Customs].” Some trepidation preceded clicking the mouse on “play all” of our personal watermark stream of YAK’s debut album, Alas Salvation; just ‘cause it’s so difficult to capture the essence of great live bands on record. But YAK have worked out how to get the best out of their performances in the studio: “Gettin’ angry, pissin’ each other off,” Jones laughs. Case in point, recording standout album track Curtain Twitcher. After feeling like they were “a bit complacent” in the studio, Burslem confesses, “I was getting more and more pissed off... then we started getting a bit agro. And I was starting to piss off Elliot, the drummer, ‘Come on!’/’No, you’re out of time’/’No, I’m always right!’/’Whatever, I’m always right’/’You’re always right’.” Jones contributes, “There was a certain anger in the room.” “And then we did another [take] and it was like, ‘FAAAAAaaaa,’ and I’m like, ‘Oh, that’s it! Perfect. Got it!’” Reflecting on this ‘technique’, Burslem observes, “I think Steve [producer] was a bit, ‘Eh? What’s happening ‘ere?’”
What: Alas Salvation (Octopus Electrical/Kobalt)
MAY WED 11
PUNK POETS - FREE IN THE BEERGARDEN WITH LAURA MARDON - BEER AND BURGER DEALS
FRI 13
AMPED UP - BATTLE OF THE BANDS
SAT 14
HIP SELECTA - DJ SETS FROM AIRLING, THE CREASES, GOOD BOY & THE NINJAS - FREE IN THE BEEGARDEN
SUN 15
PLAVI ORKESTRA & S.A.R.S TRIFFID ROOTS - FREE IN THE BEERGARDEN WITH SHUKURA CHAPMAN & DJ SARAH HOWELLS
WED 18
PUNK POETS - FREE IN THE BEERGARDEN WITH ADAM NIGRO - BEER AND BURGER DEALS
FRI 20
TRIFFID YOUNGBLOOD - THE BEATS EDITION W/ GEORGIA MAE, CAPRE & QUINTESSENTIAL DOLL
SAT 21
CLIENT LIASON & GL - SELLING FAST
SUN 22
TRIFFID ROOTS - FREE IN THE BEERGARDEN WITH LISA CRAWLEY (NZ) & DJ SARAH HOWELLS $15 FLAME GRILLED MEATS OF THE WORLD - PIMMS CARAFES & JUGS OF BEER MON 23
BASEMENT W/TURNOVER & BREAK EVEN - SELLING FAST
WED 25
PUNK POETS - FREE IN THE BEERGARDEN WITH JODIE LAWLOR (FLANGIPANIS) - BEER AND BURGER DEALS
THU 26
CHERIE CURRIE (THE RUNAWAYS) W/DIVA DEMOLITION & SMOKING MARTHA
FRI 27
SAHARA BECK W/SLIP ON STEREO & GABRIELLA COHEN
SUN 29
TRIFFID ROOTS - FREE IN THE BEERGARDEN WITH OLD SEMIEL (MOULDY LOVERS) & DJ SARAH HOWELLS $15 FLAME GRILLED MEATS OF THE WORLD - PIMMS CARAFES & JUGS OF BEER MON 30
CLARE BOWEN & SPECIAL GUESTS - SOLD OUT
TUE 31
CLARE BOWEN & SPECIAL GUESTS - SOLD OUT
JUNE WED 1
STATE OF ORIGIN #1 - LOUD AND PROUD - FREE ENTRY - ALL WELCOME FRI 3
THE ATARIS & COLUMBUS
SAT 4
RADIO BIRDMAN & VELOCIRAPTOR - SELLING FAST
SARAH HOWELLS PRESENTS
TRIFFID ROOTS F R E E E V E R Y S U N D AY F R O M 1 – 8 P M I N T H E B E E R G A R D E N
$15 FLAME GRILLED MEATS OF THE WORLD PIMMS CARAFES & JUGS OF BEER WWW.THETRIFFID.COM.AU | 7 STRATTON ST, NEWSTEAD TICKETS - WWW.OZTIX.COM.AU THE MUSIC 11TH MAY 2016 • 17
Music
Phone Sex “So... What are you wearing?” asks Will Blackburn of Flowertruck to Jacob Knauth of Major Leagues while Brynn Davies mediates.
“C
an we play ‘fuck, kill, marry?’ Is that ok to publish?” laughs Jacob Knauth. “I’ve already got the answer if it’s Flowertruck,” Will Blackburn says. We’re on a conference call — Blackburn and I in Sydney, Knauth in Brisbane. The plan is to do something a little different for this interview; the bands are going to interview each other. The boys sound very similar over the line which is an issue when transcribing, and Blackburn cheekily taunts “Don’t worry, I do a great Jacob impersonation,” with “I do a great Will impersonation,” coming from Knauth. Fuckers.
Major Leagues
All of those activities, once again, in interpretive dance. So the answer is... ME ME ME!
Flowertruck
“I haven’t been told much about this. So... What are we doing? I walk around with no idea generally, so it’ll be ok,” says Knauth after we’ve established that no, ASIO aren’t listening on our conversation and yes, the interview will be written up instead of the recording being published. We have a free run. Anything goes. So, naturally, we jump right into life’s biggest mysteries. “Will, what happens in the afterlife?” “Well, at the end of the day, I guess there is, is it the great gig in the sky? Well, eventually we’ll all be there, just moshing to some anthemic heavenly tune,” Blackburn answers. “[Prince and Bowie] can finally collaborate.” 18 • THE MUSIC • 11TH MAY 2016
Blackburn’s turn. “Jacob... what are you wearing?” There’s a brief pause before “Aw, well, um, let me explain to you my entire dress code.” All you need to know is that we didn’t get a rundown of a battered pair of boxers. But he does have chicken remnants on his clothes. “Ah, perfect, business casual and deep fry!” enthuses Blackburn. They banter on for a bit about the benefits of wearing and/or bringing chicken to parties and nightclubs, before Knauth moves on with a hypothetical: “Everybody in your band is sick, and you still have to play a show; What would you do?” “Oh, ok, well firstly I definitely wholeheartedly believe that I carry the band Flowertruck anyway, and we were actually just going to call it ‘Will Blackburn & His Meat Puppets’ but, you know, Flowertruck had a bit more ring to it. I’d have to pull out my go-to entertainment weapon which is reinterpreting the songs of Flowertruck through interpretive dance.” Brilliant. It should be a thing. “They’d have to try and figure out which [song] it is when actually I’m just gyrating and stuff!” Songs that won’t require interpretive dance — just plain old hip thrusts and the shopping trolley — will play when the bands head off on their May tour. “We’ve just started making [a tour soundtrack]. Lemme just pull it up... Turns out my Spotify account has been transformed into the Major Leagues Spotify account, so it makes it really public when I’m listening to the new Carly Rae Jepsen album,” admits Knauth. “No way, that is such a banger, that album. No joke, nice,” exclaims Blackburn. It comes highly recommended by both band members. Also on the Flowertruck/Major Leagues Tour Playlist is “Apart from Flowertruck... ha ha... Big White, Terrible Truths, Totally Mild, Gunns, Whitney, Frankie Cosmos, Alex G, Hinds...” Tallying up a full 17 songs thus far. “You’re totally encouraged to add to it,” says Knauth to Blackburn. “Oh, wait, it’s my turn, sorry!” jumps Blackburn. A few more facts come to light: when Knauth is in Sydney, Blackburn is going to take him to a “Gorgeous, gorgeous Blac — I mean you’re in the chicken game, so I understand m the b benchmark — little spot, great atmosphere, vibes, house hous music, called Red Rooster. I’m resurrecting it in m my mind.” A random dude from Oporto in Newtown will be a member of Flowertruck’s interpretive dance squad, squa chosen from his audition that saw him “Jump up on the bench and just gyrating... basically doing ‘The Will Show’.” Knauth’s ‘fuck, kill, marry’ question wraps us up. “This is going back to the gig where everyone else is sick, so I’m just gonna fuck me, marry me, kill me, it’s gonna be great. All of those activities, once again, in interpretive dance. So the answer is... ME ME ME!” says the star of The Will Show.
When & Where: 14 May, The Foundry
Music
Reinventing The Organ
Though Cookin’ On 3 Burners have been around since 1997 they don’t seem to be burning at both ends given their recent success in France, Jake Mason tells Brynn Davies.
G
oogle Cookin’ On 3 Burners and a particular phrase, “Hammond Organ Trio” pops all over the shop. You’d be forgiven for picturing the band as three middle-aged dudes rocking out on identical wooden organs. “The ‘Hammond Organ Trio’ is actually [a] classic combination of instruments, which is the Hammond organ, guitar and drums,” explains Jake Mason, fresh off the plane from Melbourne. “[The music] kinda hails from the jazz era of the ‘50s and ‘60s. It’s a classic kinda sound which we’ve developed into funk and soul - we’ve taken that mould and reinvented it how we wanted to.” The band didn’t go so far as to reinvent the Hammond organ trio sound so much as someone reinvented Cookin’ On Three Burners. The Melbourne blokes were contacted by French producer Kungs: “It’s actually K-oong, by the way, I think you pronounce it. I’m not super up with my French pronunciation,” who took on This Girl as a remix. “He did a little mock up of his idea using just our track, and sent it to us saying ‘Hey, what do you guys think, would you be cool with me doing a full blown remix?’ We talked and sent him the stems and that’s how the remix came about.”
Credits Publisher Street Press Australia Pty Ltd
From humble beginnings, the song hit #1 on the French charts and lasted for two weeks. “We definitely had some involvement [in the creation of the remix]. It wasn’t like we just woke up and the internet kind of surprised us,” he laughs, “Although I do have to say that while we were doing this we had no idea it would catch on quite like it did, so it was a pretty big surprise to see it racing up the charts. It’s nice to be in both worlds without being in any world.” The video clip accompanying the tune has accumulated 4,745,971 views at the time of writing. There’s lots of adolescent teenage love, sex, and the glaringly white moonscapes of Aegean volcanic islands. “How can we top a video that’s in, is it Milos in Greece? With these beautiful beaches, I don’t think we can top that,” he says of the prospect of a clip to go with the original tune. “It’s almost like a different song. I like both of them, it’s like ‘Who’s your favourite child? You can’t say that,” he jokes. The band also collaborated with Tex Perkins [The Cruel Sea] on The Writings On The Wall, and he’s joining them for their upcoming tour. “Tex has always been on that wishlist. Growing up listening to [him], I was pretty starry-eyed with the request. There was a small [fan boy moment] that I had to keep under wraps.” In terms of plans to turn the group into an electro act: “If we can still keep doing what we do, and have a link and reach out to the younger generation so to speak - that makes me sound so old, doesn’t it? - but then that’s great! We’re definitely not going to turn ourselves into a dance act, but through these collaborations that’s our mission to reach more people.”
When & Where: 20 May, Blues On Broadbeach; 21 May, Woolly Mammoth
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— Brisbane
Music
Surface Paradise Emily Lubitz of Melbourne indie-folk outfit Tinpan Orange tells Steve Bell that sometimes happiness is only skin deep.
T
heir music has always had a somewhat grandiose quality to it, but on their fifth album Love Is A Dog Melbourne indie-folk darlings Tinpan Orange have expanded on this aspect of their existence even further, crafting a beautiful, lush soundscape to house frontwoman Emily Lubitz’s warm lyrics and vocals. Helped once more by her husband Harry Angus (of The Cat Empire fame), who co-produced the album, Lubitz explains that they attempted to harness the band’s innate synergy in the live realm while in the studio crafting the album.
when we’re playing together. We really wanted to just capture that, that feel of us playing together, and that would sometimes require a few takes to get right. Plus we were so busy [with our lives] — my brother had a baby and I had my second baby, Harry was touring a lot with his band — that really, on paper, this album shouldn’t have been made, but we were very determined. We love the band and we felt that there was place for another album to be made.
... a lot of the songs have this feeling of the downside of good things. “I think Harry has a lot to do with the musical direction — he’s kind of our MD, although Alex also comes up with some string arrangements and stuff like that. All of that was really live but we rehearsed and made sure that we were prepared so that when we got to the studio it came out right.” From a lyrical perspective Love Is A Dog examines the illusion of happiness, although Lubitz concedes that this wasn’t entirely intentional. “I guess we noticed after the fact — it wasn’t intentionally trying to write a concept album or anything — but a lot of the songs have this feeling of the downside of good things,” she muses. “Like the downside of loving someone too much, or the downside of wealth and privilege. I was reading [F Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel] The Great Gatsby at the time of writing a few of the songs and I was interested in how you can have that world of real wealth yet no one seems to be really happy, and those ideas crept into the album.”
What: Love Is A Dog (Independent) When & Where: 17 May, Old Museum
“We wanted to create a separate world in the feeling and in the sound, and we did that — I think there’s a kinda thread through the album that links [the songs] together in some kind of musical, sonic, vibey kinda world,” she reflects. “I don’t [know] what or where it is but it’s a place we created, and that was a real aim. Other than that I think we just wanted to record our songs in a really live and honest way, and that’s it. We didn’t want to reinvent ourselves too much, we just wanted to be honest. “Sometimes we’d take a long time to get the right sound, and also the right take of us playing together. We really wanted to capture that feeling of us playing together — myself and my bother Jesse and Alex Burkov, who plays violin, have been playing together for ten years, so there’s a lot of instinct and intuition we share 20 • THE MUSIC • 11TH MAY 2016
Funding opportunities for The Music industry edition.
Pre-order now. THE MUSIC 11TH MAY 2016 • 21
Frontlash
Music
Rudimental As Anything UK powerhouses Rudimental shook Riverstage with a stunning show at the weekend; see our gig pics and review in the Live section.
Grateful Burdon
Grrrl Power The Foundry will host Australia’s second-ever Girls Rock! music mentoring program for ages ten to 17 this September.
A Rose With Any Other Band
Lashes
The reviews for Axl Rose’s first performances with AC/DC are in the bag, and it’s safe to say he’s silenced several critics this week.
Rudimental @ Riverstage. Pic: Bobby Rein
Backlash
Bustin’ Makes Us Feel Good No, there was no ghost at the recent Good Life Festival, and especially not of one “Lucy Jane McConnel”, whom records (or lack thereof) show to have never existed, much less fallen to her death at the Showgrounds. Myth busted. Next.
Insult To Injury, Eventually Spare a thought for our friends down in Victoria who had planned on attending the Maitreya Festival, axed a couple of months back – they’ve just been told after a six-week silence that they won’t be getting refunds.
Disappear Completely, Please We get it, you don’t like Radiohead. And you’re so special and interesting because of it. The rest of us will be fine listening to A Moon Shaped Pool to drown you out, though. 22 • THE MUSIC • 11TH MAY 2016
Chris Familton talks with 74-year-old rock ‘n’ roller Eric Burdon about the blues, his musical legacy and the song that knocked The Beatles from their no.1 slot. he Animals’ first single House Of The Rising Sun was the one that catapulted them into living rooms across the UK, and right from the start Eric Burdon had belief in the song. “I did know, instinctively, that it would serve the purpose we had in mind. We were opening for one of our heroes, Chuck Berry, on a UK tour and we wanted something that would stand apart from any of his material, or anything that we were doing normally. We recorded it on a day off, after hauling our gear on the train into London. We did one take and that was the record,” recalls Burdon. “We knew it was good but we didn’t know it would displace The Beatles from the number one slot in America! Nobody could have predicted the instant and huge success of that record. It’s still cited as an influence on young musicians starting out today,” he says, proudly. For all its success there was also a downside — the group’s first personnel change. “The only sad part is that everything happened so quickly; they just put Alan Price’s name for the arrangement credits. Their excuse was that they couldn’t fit all of us on the record, and not to worry, they’d sort it out afterwards, but the afterwards never came. As soon as Alan Price received the first check, he quit the band.”
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Casting an eye through the long list of songs that Burdon has made famous, it begs the question about which ones hold the most meaning for him — personally or as a result of their popularity. “Don’t Bring Me Down is a record I’m still very proud of and of course, you mentioned House Of The Rising Sun,” says Burdon. “But the one that may hold the most meaning is We’ve Got To Get Out Of This Place, as it has meant so much to soldiers, from Vietnam up through the latest conflicts. It’s the one Springsteen said influenced everything he ever wrote. It’s hard not to feel proud of something like that.” “The blues have always been the foundation of everything I do and all of the music I love,” states Burdon. It’s the everpresent form that first inspired him to start singing, caused him to explore psychedelic and funk variations in war and the sound he keeps coming back to. “It meant a lot to me when I was a teenager in wartorn Britain and it does today. It’s the sound of liberation from oppression and it was born of slavery. It’s the real thing now and it was then,” he stresses. That idea of the living blues has been Burdon’s creative cornerstone, and his passion for it shows no sign of diminishing anytime soon. “Approaching 75, I have come to realise that one’s love for the music only deepens. Also, knowing that many of the great bluesmen continued playing into old age makes me feel unashamed to do the same. It’s carrying a worthy tradition forward. The word ‘retirement’ is not in my vocabulary. As Leonard Cohen says, ‘I’m slowing down the tune,’ but as long as I have a voice, I will always use it to speak my mind and sing from my heart.”
When & Where: 21 May, The Events Centre, Sunshine Coast; 22 May, Blues On Broad Blues Festival, Gold Coast
Music
Take It Or Leave It
Ivan Ooze is a rapper driving his own lane, turnt up with a heightened sense of confidence after being encouraged by the biggest hip hop act the world has ever known. By Rip Nicholson.
“T
o just keep doing what I’m doing,” expresses Ben Townsend aka Ivan Ooze after his support for Wu-Tang Clan at Brisbane’s Riverstage had the Clan telling the Melbourne-based MC to stick to his guns, fuck the hate. “Don’t let anyone’s opinions fuck with your head. Stay on your own track because you never know, like, I never expected something like that to happen after the Wu-Tang set because I’ve been on other tour supports and that stuff never really happens. “I remember when I was rapping I looked to my left and saw them all watching and that freaked me out. I was like, ‘Holy shit, I’ve never seen other artists watching me,’ and when I went back after the set they said that was dope and they liked what I was doing,” recalls Townsend. “They respected what I was doing because it was different and said to keep continuing that.” In March, Townsend dropped his latest mixtape ‘93 KFC Rotisserie GOLD, a volatile tracklisting of finger-lickin’, fast-paced raps over a selection of trap-style beat-downs that ends brilliantly on the Willy Wonka’s Pure Imagination sample. Much like Townsend’s approach to his hip hop, you can either take it or leave it, a sentiment that’s all in the name, he explains.
“In 1993, KFC were the first to serve rotisserie chicken and have it advertised on TV and it was known for being packed with heaps of flavour, it was new and people would grow to love it. People who hadn’t tried it before went and tried it and they really liked it. I named my mixtape that because I wanted to be be like, ‘Ooh, you haven’t tried this shit yet,’ and if you don’t like it, pffft, but if you do like it then it’s sort of like a whole new and different style of rap that you’ve never heard in Australia before.” While on the Wu tour, aside from taking Ghostface Killah Ugg boot shopping, and co-recording a track Bills with the legendary rapper, Townsend observed the command RZA had on stage, leading the Wu-Tang experience with complete control. “When I was watching how RZA commands most of their shows, the way he talks and interacts with the crowd and when you do that that’s what draws in their attention. So, when you talk to [the audience] you have to be confident and know what you’re saying and doing and they are going to respect you for it. So it sort of makes you the leader in what the fuck’s happening,” Townsend reckons. “So I’ve made that into my stage show now and working in what aspects we are going to involve in the set and making them as solid as you can. Pretty much everyone in my show has an input into what goes down. Plus, I have written out a game plan and practised how we go about shit and it’s looking pretty good. And I think that’s why the [Groovin The Moo] set was so good.”
What: ‘93 KFC Rotisserie GOLD (Independent) When & Where: 19 May, Black Bear Lodge; 20 May, Agenda Nightclub, Toowoomba
Ivan Ooze’s
To p 5 Mixta pes
Seeing as Ivan Ooze recently dropped his own mixtape, we asked Ivan Ooze to nominate what his top five mixtapes were:
Spark Master Tape The #SWOUP Serengeti
Get Busy Committee Uzi Does It
Mr. Mutha Fuckin’ eXquire Kismet
A$AP Rocky LIVE.LOVE.A$AP
Capital STEEZ AmeriKKKan Korruption Reloaded
THE MUSIC 11TH MAY 2016 • 23
Pic: Terry Soo
Hound
Answered by: Lucas When did you start making music and why? Sometime in 2012, three-quarters of us got together. The why was somewhat centred on post-punk aspirations, but the truth of the matter is that we were just really fucking good at drinking together. Sum up your musical sound in four words: Black sheep tortures pop.
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If you could only listen to one album forevermore, what would it be and why? Fuck me dead, you’re killing me here. Alright. My iPod reckons I’ve listened to Heroes by David Bowie more than any other album, so I’m going to just run with that. Greatest rock’n’roll moment of your career to date? Supporting Killing Joke. We are all fans, and all the other fans at the venue not on stage seemed to actually like us, which was basically all the validation we could ever ask for.
What’s in the pipeline at the moment? About to have a film clip released to hopefully generate some awareness of our brand new EP, but then straight back to the studio to record another two EPs for release this year as well. It’s a hectic schedule, but what else am I going do with my time, right? Why should people come and see your band? We’ll play ourselves into a broken heap and then talk your ears off about anything you want after the show. When and where for your next gig? 13 May, The Bearded Lady.
THE MUSIC 11TH MAY 2016 • 25
Eat / Drink Eat/Drink /Drin
Although it missed its original opening date of May The Fourth, the force is strong with the Death Star Canteen and it’s still on track to open in less than a month. Brynn Davies finds the sandwiches she’s looking for with owner Glenn Morris. There’s an Eddie Izzard sketch that depicts Darth Vader in the Death Star’s canteen: Vader and an unwitting canteen volunteer battle over a tray and an order for penne all’arrabbiata. What Glen Morris — owner of Glen’s Espresso — took from the sketch was the idea that behind the scenes, in between battles, the Death Star must have had a canteen. “This was one of the many random ideas I tossed up,” explains Morris. “[The Death Star Canteen] just stuck with me as something that people would really get a kick out of, and Star Wars is just one of those things that gives people permission to just be a big kid for a while and enjoy something innocent and awesome. I kept waiting for a responsible grown-up to tell me it was a stupid idea, but no one did and six months later here we are.” Morris admits his dark secret: “I’m a ‘casual’ fan. To be honest the
Eddie Izzard take on it was what inspired me — the idea that in the background these guys have to eat, drink and go to the toilet just like the rest of us. You don’t see much of that in the films,” he laughs. “Having said that, the passion that people have for Star Wars is an amazing thing and I am very conscious that we are dealing with 26 • THE MUSIC • 11TH MAY 2016
something that people love.” A di to t Morris, M i According stormtroopers love nothing more than chowing down on a big sandwich — which is exactly what he’ll be serving up. “A big hunk of sourdough with some slow-roasted meats, cheeses, fresh veggies and gourmet homemade sauces,” he says. They’re also whipping up a brekky menu, soups, salads, sweets and “a damn fine penne all’arrabbiata”. The Death Star Canteen is also environmentally conscious: all produce is ethically sourced, with organic, fair trade coffee, free range meat and eggs as well as using “as much bio packaging as I can”. “Businesses have a huge impact on the environment but often seem to escape the sense of responsibility we are all meant to feel as individual citizens,” he reflects.
“The tricky thing is that at its heart this is also a really good heart, CBD cafe that has to appeal to your average punter as well as Star Wars fans. For that reason the decor is ‘understated hipster Star Wars chic’. Or something like that.” The Death Star Canteen is still under construction, missing its original opening date on 4 May (ha ha). “... We’re waiting for the building we’re in to install some infrastructure before we can open. I explained how important May the Fourth was, but to no avail. June 1 [is the official opening date], to be confirmed. It’s looking like a pretty crazy shebang [for the opening]. Costumes, comedy, music, live theatre (Shakespearean adaptations of episodes four, five and six, apparently) and much else. All in a place that seats 30.”
THE MUSIC 11TH MAY 2016 • 27
Theatre
In A Field Of Flowers
Releases
This Week’s Releases
Daffodils
Karl Blau Introducing Karl Blau Bella Union/[PIAS] Australia
A likeness to her father meant family members opened up to Rochelle Bright, and the story they told has gone from the backyard to the stage. Words by Dave Drayton.
L-FRESH The LION BECOME Elefant Traks/Inertia
Paul Dempsey Strange Loop EMI
Yak Alas Salvation Octopus Electrical/ Kobalt
28 • THE MUSIC • 11TH MAY 2016
“B
eing a Kiwi, and I think Aussies are similar too, we don’t talk about anything,” says Rochelle Bright, before offering a single, sheepish huh. Then a laugh. “And particularly that generation, that generation of the ‘60s, they don’t talk about anything. I was very lucky — unfortunately, my dad passed away; it’s been over 20 years now — and because I look a lot like my father a lot of family would always tell me things about him and tell me stories. There was more openness to talk about my dad, and as a storyteller you keep asking questions all the time.” The story that emerged was a remarkable one, a fated meeting of two generations in a daffodil field down by the lake in Hamilton, of love young and old. It wasn’t just the oral reminisces from which Bright built her play; archival film footage of Bright’s parents’ wedding, travel photography by her father, love letters he wrote to her mother, and the hits of New Zealand indiepop both informed and feature in Daffodils. “My dad was quite a good amateur photographer, so one of the big things in the ‘60s and ‘70s a lot of New Zealanders would go on big what we call OEs — which is basically ‘overseas experiences’ — and
they would go on these cruise liners to Europe and see all the sights. And my dad took a lot of photos, which we use as slides, and they’re quite awesome, and a lot of the show’s quite inspired by those images; they’re not random shots, they were quite evocative shots of each of the places they went to, and my dad also wrote a bunch of letters to my mum, so this combination of images, letters, and talking to my mum, and the songs themselves, in combining that together that the show came.” The production proved a hit in Bright’s native New Zealand, has been picked up for a feature film adaptation (which Bright is at this moment writing), and will travel to Australia and the UK this year. Bright says that while some of the music (a collection of NZ artists that spans Crowded House to The Mint Chicks, reinterpreted by Stephanie Brown and performed by a live three-piece band) that drives the work proved unfamiliar to international audiences at February’s Australian Performing Arts Market, the love story transcended boundaries. “You never have any idea how a work will translate, and particularly because it’s based on real people and their real life, so it’s a very authentically Kiwi story... But I think there’s something about that way of growing up from the ‘60s onwards that parallels between working class rural families in Australia and New Zealand — which is why I think we share so much of our music together. “It’s quite a heartbreaker,” Bright concedes, “so at the end of the day, I think the love story connects universally.”
What: Daffodils When & Where: 18 - 22 May, Visy Theatre, Brisbane Powerhouse
Dance
The Final Ferry Ride Expressions Dance Company are about to re-enact their own death. However, as Artistic Director Natalie Weir tells Paul Ransom, the return of When Time Stops will really be a paean to the fragile glory of life.
When Time Stops. Pic: Dylan Evans
T
here is something entirely appropriate about the fact that Natalie Weir’s dance work When Time Stops begins with a frozen moment; namely, a picture. As she recalls, “I saw this painting by Arnold Bocklin that inspired the composer Rachmaninoff to write Isle Of The Dead. It’s a picture of the ferryman rowing [a soul] across to the island to set it free. I thought that was a beautiful notion and I started thinking about the times we might remember at the moment of our death.” When it debuted in 2013 When Time Stops won over punters and pundits alike and it remains one of Brisbanebased Expressions Dance Company’s most loved works. Its remount this month, like its painterly wellspring, has an air of metaphoric design. “As a small company we don’t remount that often but this was something I felt strongly that I wanted to bring back,” Weir explains. “It’s been beautiful to come back to because, y’know, hindsight is a great thing.” Given that the work begins with a woman on her death bed, hindsight is very much at the core of the piece. As she lies in extremis she remembers, among other things, her first kiss, a potential car accident and a woman being resuscitated. “It’s not depressing. It’s actually quite beautiful,” Weir insists. “It’s not about death, it’s about life well lived. A life where the woman has loved and been loved. I see it as more poetic, maybe even romantic.” Mortality is always going to ring bells with audiences, (even if they’re not fully fledged existentialists). As Weir says, “It’s such a great big juicy concept.” More than that though, it allows significant latitude for the audience. “I wanted to approach it kinda like a painting,” Weir adds. “There are things you can see that are real but also, like when you goes to view a more abstract painting, you bring some of your own personality to the work. So yeah, I’ve left space for people to make up their own ideas.”
I started thinking about the times we might remember at the moment of our death.
As the work’s creator and the Artistic Director of Expressions, Natalie Weir gets to exercise a privilege that her central ‘character’ does not. She gets to go back and revise outcomes. However, the 2016 version of When Time Stops will not radically depart from its 2013 original. Some cast changes have necessitated choreographic tweaks but the most notable update comes in the form of the 12-piece ensemble, Camerata Of St John’s, playing a revised score live on stage. Indeed, composer Iain Grandage has augmented his Helpmann Award-winning original music, and Weir has made the players more visible. “They’re on stage and moving throughout the work, so they’re quite integrated,” she reveals. “They’re not only expected to play beautifully but walk and play at the same time. So that does change things a bit but they respond to the dancers and the dancers respond to them.” Combined with the work’s ‘life flashing before your eyes’ motif, Grandage’s string-driven score is designed to stir. “The score is very emotional, with that soaring violin and haunting cello. It’s a work that tries to make people move and think and feel,” Weir elaborates. “It’s beautiful, physical and sad, but also happy.”
What: When Time Stops When & Where: 20 — 28 May, Playhouse, QPAC
THE MUSIC 11TH MAY 2016 • 29
Music
Oils Are
Oils It seems like it doesn’t rain it pours – just days after news emerged that Peter Garrett was working on a solo album, there was even bigger news from all things Midnight Oil related – the band revealed that they will be back for a run of gigs in Australia and globally sometime in 2017. The band posted a short and sweet statement on their Facebook, writing, “We wanted you to be the first to know that the five of us are planning to do some gigs in Australia and overseas during 2017. It will probably be at least the end of this year before we know exactly where or when...” After disbanding in 2002, the classic Aus rockers briefly reformed in 2005 and 2009 to perform both WaveAid and Sound Relief respectively, but the band have been largely inactive since 2002’s Capricornia album and tour.
30 • THE MUSIC • 11TH MAY 2016
Different Strokes
The creator of Project Montreal, Ryan Wyatt, is a jazz guitarist who doesn’t listen to jazz, hand wrote sheet music for his album for a 52-piece orchestra, and isn’t an actor in his spare time, Brynn Davies finds out.
F
or someone with a degree in jazz guitar from Queensland Conservatorium Of Music, Ryan Wyatt doesn’t sound like he likes jazz. “I mainly grew up listening to sort of alternative rock. Later in life I got a little bit interested in electronic music. I never really listened to jazz a great deal,” he admits. Rather than encourage him to play Miles Davis in smoky bars, university sent Wyatt in an entirely different direction — smack bang into electronic composition. “By the time I’d finished studying I just wanted to play around with all these different sounds and textures as opposed to just studying harmony,” he laughs. “The whole time I was studying I was listening to music that eventually found its way onto the record, bands like Radiohead.” A background in music theory solidified by his classical training enabled the young Brisbanite to diversify and experiment with sonically strange combinations. Basically, he’s recorded an acoustic album, melded it with electronic synth rhythms and featured the 52-piece Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, all under the influence of Van Dyke Parks
— the legendary Grammy-winning arranger and music icon who’s worked with Brian Wilson, The Beach Boys, U2, Randy Newman and Ringo Starr. Wyatt sounds like he was a pretty ballsy uni student when he “just tracked [Parks] down to ask him about arrangement and music composition”. Did he have any qualms about cold calling such an icon? “I just thought, like, ‘what’s the worst thing he can say? No?’ If that’s the worst thing that can happen, it’s not hurting anyone by asking a question,” he meditates. Bluster and blow seems to have served him well when making his debut, Patterns, especially when it came to organising the orchestra. “To have such musicians of that calibre, you’re just sitting in the studio watching them knock it out like oh my god. When you’re...having to produce the Prague Philharmonic and you’re sort of pretending to know what you’re doing, talking to the conductor and the control room and briefings and stuff...Yeah, a bit of faking it ‘til you make it!” Patterns’ unity comes from the philosophy behind it: “Using things that don’t necessarily go together was one thing I was quite into compositionally. It was like a Picasso idea – taking ideas which are from two different areas and mixing them together, trying to create tension and capture that relationship between two things that don’t necessarily fit,” Wyatt explains. So after ditching jazz for electronics and an acoustic guitar, is he planning on sticking on his current path? “I’m definitely interested in doing film work.”
When & Where: 22 May, The Brightside
Music
Monkey Business Aussie rock staples The Living End took a dangerous approach when recording their new album — one that resulted in some conflicting feedback at first. Frontman Chris Cheney tells Daniel Cribb all about the “daunting task”.
It’s just not what you’d expect from us; there’s no solo in the middle...
T
he Living End have been such a prevalent influence on the Australian music scene since the mid-’90s that it can be a bit hard to believe that frontman Chris Cheney has spent the better part of the past five years living in LA. The shredder fell in love with the US when he flew to New York for three months in 2010 with his family to write the band’s last effort, The Ending Is Just The Beginning Repeating, and things took off from there. “After that, we just thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be good to try base ourselves overseas for just a couple of years or three years, four years,” Cheney begins from his Californian abode. “It’s sort of still a temporary arrangement; we’re just kind of playing it be ear at this point,” he adds. There’s no shortage of opportunities over in the States, which is why he’s probably spent so much time there. Regularly taking advantage of the smorgasbord of gigs available at any one time, he caught The Damned at iconic venue The Roxy a few nights earlier. “I actually play in another band, The Jack Tars, over here which has got Captain Sensible from The Damned in it and Slim Jim Phantom from Stray Cats and Mike Peters from The Alarm, so it’s sort of weird being in a band with those guys when you grew up listening to their music.” It’s a similar relationship between The Living End and their longtime Aussie heroes Cold Chisel, which sparked the flame that turned into new album Shift. After a studio collaboration in 2014 with Jimmy Barnes, the band joined him around the country for A Day On The Green, which is when their seventh LP came to life through a means completely foreign to them. “We were doing A Day On The Green and there’s so much time in between — they’re only weekends those things — so we just thought we might as well jump into a studio during that time and just throw some ideas around and not really put any pressure on as far as having to have songs; just get in there and press record, which is a pretty daunting task. “I’ve always had songs to bring in and we’ve always wanted to be prepared, so there was a certain danger by doing that that it would be a failure and that we would come out with nothing.”
It was because of that creative shake-up that some of the material on the new album is a little different to what fans may be expecting. While upbeat rock number Monkey saw a return to their roots, follow-up single Keep On Running received some mixed reviews from fans on social media. “For The Living End to release a song like Keep On Running, I think a lot of people were just like, ‘What the hell is happening,’” Cheney explains. “It’s just not what you’d expect from us; there’s no solo in the middle, there’s no overly energetic slapping bass. Even though we’ve done lots of things, I think people forget we have a pretty diverse range of tunes and albums over the years. “There was just an initial kneejerk reaction I think, people wondering what the hell we were doing with a full string section and it’s a very pop kind of melody, but I’m quite proud to go out with a song that people don’t expect. What’s the point of coming out with something that’s just The Living End by numbers, it just doesn’t excited me.” Gearing up to head home for the band’s first headline run in five years, Cheney cast his eye on local talent as they chose tour supports; a exercise that proved an inspiring process and will see The Living End on their toes as they sweep across the country in June. “I’m really excited by all those bands like The Smith Street Band, Royal Headache and The 131s; they all just seem hungry, edgy and everything that I love and I find it really inspiring. “I’m sort of making sure I’ve got my shit together for the tour because I know that [support bands Bad// Dreems and The 131s] are going to be forces to be reckoned with. There’s just bands out there that are no bullshit; just laying it down and they’re damn good, they’re not hiding behind anything, it’s just raw rock’n’roll — how it should be.”
What: Shift (Dew Process/UMA) When & Where: 10 Jun, The Tivoli THE MUSIC 11TH MAY 2016 • 31
Music
Gnarly Twin Peaks are making their maiden voyage to Australia, and singer Cadien Lake warns Anthony Carew they’re bringing the “motherfuckin’ rock ‘n’ roll”.
“I
lost my voice yesterday,” croaks Cadien Lake James, 21-year-old frontman for Chicago garagerockers Twin Peaks. “It’ll be alright, though. This just happens a couple of times a year, because I’m not an actual singer. I just happen to sing ‘cause I feel like I have to. I’ve had a couple of freaky dreams about losing my voice. But, shit, if I do lose my voice entirely, I’ll just run with the Bob Dylan shit. Out here on the road, you’ve gotta be able to roll with the changes. When shit comes up, you’ve gotta be able to wing it.”
Out here on the road, you’ve gotta be able to roll with the changes. When shit comes up, you’ve gotta be able to wing it.
James is winging it, conversationally: handling the interviewing phone-call while crossing the border into France. Having come of age on the road, James and his bandmates are so conditioned to constant travel that the original idea for their forthcoming third album — Twin Peaks’ self-professed “back porch record” Down In Heaven — was to record it in motion. “We were going to have a mobile studio, drive it around the States, and then record in different places,” James says. “But, once we got into the logistics of that, it started to feel too daunting.” The opportunity to travel was, at the beginning of Twin Peaks, a huge motivation for the band to begin. Growing up in Chicago, James’ family rarely travelled, but when his older brother, Hal, was playing drums in Smith Westerns, the younger sibling watched with envy as his 32 • THE MUSIC • 11TH MAY 2016
brother suddenly got to see the world. “I remember when my brother was in [Smith Westerns], and they started doing well, and they were travelling to Japan and Europe, I was like: ‘Oh, shit! That’s fucking cool! I hope I can do that some day!’” James remembers. It was such sibling admiration that inspired James to pick up a guitar in the first place. “I always wanted to be like my older bro,” he says. “And he played in bands, so I played in bands. That was a big thing, playing with him and bonding with him through that.” In seventh grade, James and his future Twin Peaks partner-in-crime Jack Dolan started the first of a run of high school rock bands. They were 16 when Twin Peaks began in earnest, and recorded their debut LP, 2013’s Sunken, while still in school. “By the time we started getting to the end of high school, that’s when we really decided to do this,” James recounts. “By then, my brother was in a band that was touring around the world, and that was a big influence on us. Seeing people around you, people from where you come from, being able to do the damn thing, that was inspiring for us.” Drawing inspiration from The Black Lips, their goals for Twin Peaks were somewhere between simplistic and idealistic. “We just wanted to be a rock ‘n’ roll band and go fuckin’ play a bunch of fuckin’ rock ‘n’ roll shows around the fuckin’ world,” says James. “When we did our first tour, it was just a bunch of basement shows and warehouse shows, going around the West Coast of the States. We had a fuckin’ blast, just playing midnight, 1am, 2am, at all these places, these sweaty little basements. At the time, that could’ve been it. We could’ve just kept doing that, stayed in that zone, and been totally happy.” Instead, with their second album, 2014’s Wild Onion, serving as a breakout, Twin Peaks have barely left the road since, profile on-the-grow all the while. They’re set to arrive in Australia for their first local tour, and already have some sense of expectations. “Dune Rats, who we’ve played with a couple of times — they’re some real fuckin’ gnarly dudes — are from there, so it must be a cool place,” James says. The tour comes ‘presented by’ Budweiser, and will find the shows being filmed. “It feels a little bit weird, being a sponsored tour, but it’s okay,” James says, “I just don’t like to feel like I’m whoring myself out, and I feel like we’ve done a pretty good job of avoiding that” With Twin Peaks’ upward mobility, the band feel like they’re often navigating where they came from with where they’re at. But, even though they sometimes take a misstep — “once we played in an ad agency, in their office, that was just the most sterile shit ever” — James is confident the band’s heart will remain in the right place; couched in their initial ambitions. “We still come from a DIY oath,” he says. “Nowadays, we almost only play clubs, it’s rare we get to ever do a DIY gig. But whether we’re playing for ten people or 10,000, it’s all still the same premise: we show up and play some motherfuckin’ rock ‘n’ roll, man. You’ve got to bring the motherfuckin’ rock ‘n’ roll.”
What: Down In Heaven (Community Music Caroline)
“One of the most important voices in Australian hip hop” Channel V
Featuring the tracks ‘Get Mine’ & ‘1 in 100,000’ as heard on triple j OUT ON FRIDAY 13 MAY ON ELEFANT TRAKS / INERTIA DELUXE 6 PANEL CD + DIGITAL
See l-fresh.com for exclusive bundles
THE MUSIC 11TH MAY 2016 • 33
Indie Indie
Matty T Wall
Felicity Lawless Have You Heard
When did you start making music and why? When I was about six or seven on my family piano. It was my way of making sense of the world and freely expressing myself. Sum up your musical sound in four words? Rock folk gypsy world.
B
lues found it’s origins in the African American slave culture on the Mississippi River Delta and chugged slowly through the decades into the hearts of soul, R&B, jazz, bluegrass, country, rock ‘n’ roll and pretty much any genre that employs blues scales or draws influence from its modal forms. For Perth guitarist, songwriter and bandleader Matty Wall, it’s all about the emotion at the heart of the genre for his debut album Blue Skies [Hipsterdumpster Records]. “There is a bit of a theme of attraction; love, complication and loss running throughout the songs — very blues. The moods go from being very bright and lively, to dark, brooding and even spooky,” he says of the release. “Well, this is my long-overdue adventure into the type of blues that I love. After hooking up with a serious rhythm section [Jasper Miller and Stephen Walker], gigs came on thick and fast and we soon found ourselves playing many national blues festivals,” he says He describes his sound as “modern blues guitar music that kicks your ass”, with the album sounding “loud — very loud and glorious guitar tone. Caused a bit of a problem in the drum mics but sounded incredible in the room. Hopefully I have managed to capture that on tape! “Blues has to be about feeling, first and foremost. Being comfortable plays a big part in this. However, there were some parts and solos [during recording the album] that required a few tries to get right.”
When & Where: 21 May, Blues On Broadbeach Festival; 22 May, Milk Factory
34 • THE MUSIC • 11TH MAY 2016
If you could only listen to one album forevermore, what would it be and why? The Cat Empire’s self-titled... because it makes me feel excited to be alive and touches on every emotion. Either that or my own, as creating it healed my soul.
When and where for your next gig? Blues on Broadbeach, 21 May, Victoria Park. Website link for more info? felicitylawless.com
Greatest rock ‘n’ roll moment of your career to date? Having a bunch of people sit down and start meditating in front of me during my gig in a bar in West End. Though it wasn’t the biggest show, it was definitely a unique achievement. Why should people come and see your band? Because it will stimulate the senses and elevate the soul. It will change your perception on music and life.
Gemma Kirby Single Focus Single title? Coal Train. What’s the song about? Cheeky wordplay to make coal mining sexy in a song, and this is my interpretation. How long did it take to write/record? The writing process took me just over two coal runs (one hour). After combining this defiant attitude with snarling guitar riffs and menacing tones we got the track laid nine months after. Is this track from a forthcoming release/ existing release? Existing release, Semi Precious, my debut album. What was inspiring you during the song’s writing and recording? As this song was a dare that my work mates challenged me to write, I incorporated real scenarios that mining folk could relate to (like avoiding downtime), and non-miners just think I’m being naughty.
We’ll like this song if we like... It’s relatable if you’re a truckie. It’s fun and will have you up dancing from the first bass riff. Do you play it differently live? We play this track the same as on the album, but I do drop the F-bomb to replace “hit that bloody bench”. Website link for more info? gkofficial.com
Indie Indie
Simi Lacroix
Quintessential Doll
Innocent Eve
Have You Heard
Single Focus
Single Focus
Answered by: Josh Coxon
Answered by: Steph Linsdell.
Answered by: Rebecca Olsson
Single title? Beautiful Violence.
Single title? And We Sang
What’s the song about? It references Hans Christian Anderson’s The Little Mermaid and Slavic folklore Rusalka. It’s about the violence of heartbreak and revenge.
What’s the song about? It’s about growing up on the land and getting through tough times as a family by singing songs together.
When did you start making music and why? Simi Lacroix began early last year as a way for me to compensate for what I saw as a lack of fun and frivolity in my life and the lives of others. Sum up your musical sound in four words? Shiny, lush, creamy, ecstatic. If you could only listen to one album forevermore, what would it be and why? Tough question but I’d probably go with Steely Dan’s Aja. That album has had a profound effect on my life. More importantly it’s simply brilliant songwriting and musicality — a real renaissance album. Greatest rock’n’roll moment of your career to date? I don’t really have one, yet. There was a bit of an “I’m not worthy” scenario backstage when I supported Neon Indian — nice fella! Why should people come and see your band? Because it’s different to anything else going on around town and we all know variety is the spice of nice. When and where for your next gig? 12 May at The Foundry. Its a free event celebrating Fortitude Valley retail institution I-Life Factory. Website link for more info? facebook.com/ SimiLacroix
How long did it take to write/record? The melody came to me pretty quickly. I spent about a year working on the song’s production, though. As a self-taught producer, I’m really proud of the quality of the production I’ve achieved. Is this track from a forthcoming release/ existing release? This track is a taste of what’s to come from my forthcoming EP. Beautiful Violence is a deliberate shift in my sonic direction compared to my earlier material. It’s darker and more aggressive. What was inspiring you during the song’s writing and recording? I was reading a lot of gothic literature. I wanted to use poetic language to tell the story. I think poetry is as important as the music in creating a certain mood for a song. We’ll like this song if we like... Songs that are haunting yet aggressive with syncopated beats and cool harmonies. Do you play it differently live? The live version has a longer intro because I start with live looping some haunting vocals and violin parts. I then pick up my guitar and sing while triggering samples. When and where is your launch/next gig? 20 May, The Triffid.
How long did it take to write/record? I worked on the lyrics, melody and chords over a few weeks. We took it to the studio a few months later and our producer really changed up the tempo and energy of the song. Is this track from a forthcoming release/ existing release? And We Sang is being released from our debut album Temporary Balms What was inspiring you during the song’s writing and recording? It’s a really reflective song about how we grew up, how we endured those tough times on the farm and learned so many life lessons that we take with us into our adult lives. We’ll like this song if we like... Songs that give an honest account of life, hardship, perseverance, family. Do you play it differently live? We usually perform as a duo, so we have acoustic guitar, bass line on keyboard, stomp box and tambourine... A lot of noise for two gals!! When and where is your launch/next gig? Broadbeach Country Music Festival, 18 & 19 Jun Website link for more info? innocenteve.com.au
Website link for more info?: www.facebook. com/quintessentialdoll
THE MUSIC 11TH MAY 2016 • 35
Album / E Album/EP Reviews
Album OF THE Week
YAK
Alas Salvation Kobalt
★★★★½
There are very few bands out there that truly belong on stage. YAK is most definitely one of them. So how do they fare without the visual element? Immediate squally feedback promises much. Enter indecipherable ranting that sounds megaphone-enhanced. Then the guitar sounds that close out opener Victorious (National Anthem) call to mind that evil laugh at the start of Feel Good Inc (Gorillaz). Hungry Heart follows with an intro that evokes The Peep Tempel’s Carol (win!), but then the arrangement deviates ad infinitum like a derailed rollercoaster. And just when you feel like you have YAK aurally figured out, Use Somebody incorporates a Led Zeppelin-esque riff. We dare you to try and tap your foot to the royally fucked up and disjointed Take It as this song explores a more delicate side to frontman Oli Burslem’s vocal. These songs exhilarate because they’re completely unpredictable; it’s hard to imagine YAK ever playing one of their tracks the same way twice. Particularly album highlight, Curtain Twitcher, during which Burslem actually sounds deranged. This album doesn’t lack humour (see lyrics: “Wide-eyed philistines, they’re a joke”) and Smile is regal, more like something Nick Cave would produce. Then there’s a whiff of The Strokes in Doo Wah. You’ll come out the other end of YAK’s debut with a smile on your dial akin to a first-time crowdsurfer returning to the mosh. Bryget Chrisfield
L-FRESH The LION
Paul Dempsey
BECOME
EMI
Elefant Traks/Inertia
★★★½ L-FRESH The LION’s second effort BECOME is full of selfaffirmations that are likely to resonate with people from all walks of life. That doesn’t mean that race and politics are glossed over, though. Over dark Metro Boomin bass hits, L-FRESH describes the everyday racism he experiences on Be Cool. “They tell me to go home but I come from here/I can see it in their eyes they don’t want me here,” he raps on Get Mine, which doubles as a mission statement. The most political song of the album is Never Alone. Calmly didactic rather than preachy, L-Fresh walks us through the lives of important figures in his people’s history and the struggles they endured. On BECOME, L-FRESH comes across as a human first and a Sikh-Australian second, not defined by his experience but still affected by it. But he’s made of tougher stuff than to let it stop him rocking the mic. John Papadopoulos
36 • THE MUSIC • 11TH MAY 2016
Strange Loop
★★★★½ One of Australia’s most respected and intimidatingly talented songwriters of the 21st century returns with his second solo record, and it’s captivating. Since the release of Elsewhere For 8 Minutes, Something For Kate’s 1997 debut, Paul Dempsey has inspired countless imitators, none of whom have been able to combine his complex lyrics with his soaring vocals. Strange Loop, while centred on Dempsey’s folksier persona, is exhibit A. Dempsey worked alongside with engineer/producer Tom Schick (Ryan Adams, many more) in creating Strange Loop, playing with instruments, amps and the various tools and toys left behind by Wilco in their Chicago recording studio, The Loft. Nothing can take away from Dempsey’s vocals. While
most of us could only dream of writing a line like “So we sit and stare/at the floating hands/ of the geniuses floating past us everywhere” (Idiot Oracle), it barely rates a mention, such is the beauty that resides elsewhere on the record. Paired with his raw, emotive voice, it is a weapon sure to strike at the heart of any listener. Strange Loop proves that when armed with an acoustic guitar, Dempsey can be as powerful as any electrified SFK moment. Morningless, with its brutal baritone saxophone, is an exception, but – in true Dempsey fashion – it’s delivered with heat and precision too. Dylan Stewart
EP Reviews Album/EP Reviews
Ocean Alley
Modern Baseball Gordi
Twin Peaks
Lost Tropics
Holy Ghost
Clever Disguise
Down In Heaven
Independent
Run For Cover/Cooking Vinyl
Hey Alfalfa/Liberation
Community Music/Create/ Control
★★★★
★★★★½
★★★★
★★★
It’s not often that a record transports you to a particular place and time in your life – Ocean Alley’s Lost Tropics floated me back to the cliffs of Uluwatu. Deep, stoned-out guitars drenched in reverb haze in and out of semi-consciousness, the languid pace of Partner In Crime wraps you up in warm sensuality. The forgettable nature of songs such as Millionaires comes from their simplicity – the ABC song structure and one-drop reggae rhythms of the band’s branding are best when stirred up with a little heaviness in Fly On The Wall, the upbeat hook of Holiday or the playfulness of Jellyfish. You’ll smell sex, wax and salt when you give this a spin.
With their third studio full-length Holy Ghost, Philly pop-punk darlings Modern Baseball have achieved their greatest success to date - and all it took was overcoming some of their biggest challenges to get there. Split into two distinct halves - the first six written by co-frontman Jake Ewald, the final five by his counterpart, Brendan Lukens - the album is a profoundly personal, heart-wrenchingly candid and musically mature expression of a band who, despite their already significant acclaim, are just coming into their own. But for those who have charted their progress since 2012’s Sports, it should come as little surprise that they’ve knocked it out of the park.
Gordi’s debut EP is simply a breath of fresh air, both sonically and thematically. Hailing from Sydney via regional NSW, the 22-year-old employs ponderous lyrics and layers-upon-layers of vocals against a rich palette of drums and breezy electronics. Excluding the rather overt similarity to Peter Gabriel’s Come Talk To Me on Can We Work It Out, the EP is light of touch with youthful thoughtfulness rippling through, like the lyric on the brilliant Nothing’s As It Seems: “Paint your face on with a smile, and say to them don’t worry.” If London Grammar made you excited about new music, so will Gordi.
Chicago revisionist twangers Twin Peaks kick off their third album with a corker, the stunning Walk To The One You Love. It captures everything ebullient about the quintet the sunny-yet-blasted blues swagger, the ‘60s pop lyrical sensibility, the raucous offkilter group backing vocals, the slanted and enchanted auxiliary instrumentals. The album is a languid variation on this crooked-grin-and-eyes-at-halfmast theme, although nothing truly captures the opening gambit’s heights (although glamgrower Keep It Together goes close). This is an album content to live in its own hazy sphere, and drag you in with it.
Tara Johnston
Brendan Telford
Brynn Davies
Mitch Knox
More Reviews Online Hatebreed The Concrete Confessional
theMusic.com.au
Digitalism Mirage
Jameszoo Fool
THE MUSIC 11TH MAY 2016 • 37
Album / E Album/EP Reviews
Kvelertak
Mark Pritchard
Vera Blue
The Living End
Nattesferd
Under The Sun
Fingertips
Shift
Roadrunner/Warner
Warp/Inertia
Universal
Dew Process/Universal
★★★½
★★★
★★★★
★★½
Never one for the purists, Kvelertak’s collision of punk and black metal was a bizarrely euphoric phenomenon on debut back in 2010. The follow-up failed to capitalise on their breakthrough, but Nattesferd opens with the adrenaline overdose of Dendrofil For Yggdrasil, before easing into some comparatively easy, proto-metal rockers, a possible signpost to Kvelertak’s future as they discharge many of their finest riffs to date. Despite the retro direction, vocalist Erlend Hjelvik clearly shows no intention of giving up his black metal style howling, which should make for some wild times down in the front row.
Under The Sun is an interesting new project from Mark Pritchard. It’s a gentler record that attempts to slow things down and examine the details, the small loops and quiet moments that usually hide in the gaps of his broader work. Everything feels fragile, from the pastoral melancholy of Give It Your Choir (with Bibio, natch), to the half-speed stripped-back Cocteau Twins-esque You Wash My Soul with folk singer Linda Perhacs, to the Bjorkish collaboration with Thom Yorke, Beautiful People. Despite Pritchard’s healthy sense of curiosity (perhaps because of it), there’s no unifying idea to tie everything together, and it hurts an otherwise charming album.
Celia Pavey aka Vera Blue has come a long way since only recently appearing as a hopeful on The Voice. Thank goodness the Sydney alternative folkster didn’t stray down that more commercial path because her sultry, haunting EP would never have sounded as good or as interesting. Reining in Gossling, and Thom and Andy Mak (Boy & Bear, Bertie Blackman, Silverchair), the youngster explores the inherent folk lilt in her voice in singles Hold and Settle, then dips it in thick electro sounds in Fingertips and Turn before the more simple Patterns, without compromising the fragility of her unique sound.
It’s been five years between drinks for one of Australian rock’n’roll’s most-loved trios, The Living End. Having spent their 20-plus years shifting from punky upstarts to veritable A-listers, Shift is just that; a change of direction. The problem is, it’s hard to know which direction that is. The record, while featuring a number of solid moments - see the ballady Keep On Running and sturdy rockby-numbers Up The Junction - lacks any consistency in voice. Occasional guitar flourishes keep things interesting, but opener One Step gets the album off to a very poor start and TLE struggle to right the ship from there.
Christopher H James
Carley Hall
Matt MacMaster
Dylan Stewart
More Reviews Online ShockOne In This Light
38 • THE MUSIC • 11TH MAY 2016
theMusic.com.au
Pikelet Tronc
Listen to our This Week’s Releases playlist on
eviews Live Reviews
Vance Joy @ Riverstage. Pic: Bobby Rein
Vance Joy, Holy Holy Riverstage 30 Apr
Rudimental @ Riverstage. Pic: Bobby Rein
Vance Joy @ Riverstage. Pic: Bobby Rein
Rudimental @ Riverstage. Pic: Bobby Rein
Rudimental @ Riverstage. Pic: Bobby Rein
The Drones @ The Triffid. Pic: Stephen Booth
The weather has held off long enough after a drizzly day to dry out the sloping grounds of the Riverstage, as people amble through the gates with blankets and bits. It’s always a joy to catch some live tunes outdoors and this place is one of the best to do so, hemmed by the Botanic Gardens and the cliffs along the Brisbane River beyond. After a humble entry the lilting melodies of Melbourne’s Ainslie Wills ring out over the early gathering, and despite being the first batter up she makes an immediate impact. She and her two players bust out the keyriddled Hawaii and atmospheric Never Know What To Say, as well as a collaboration piece with Big Scary/#1 Dads’ Tom Iansek called So Soldier. All showcase her powerful voice that flips between firm and fragile with ease. She finishes with upbeat radio favourite Drive and some gracious words. Since releasing their debut last year, cross-city, cross-band fusion Holy Holy can do no wrong. The Timothy Carroll and Oscar Dawson-fronted five-piece find themselves playing to a decent crowd out in the open, but it’s a far cry from the intense, intimate sold out shows they’ve headlined in the past 12 months. But after an extended intro to History and If I Were You they make their lyrical and musical gravitas felt. Outside Of The Heart Of It and You Can Not Call For Love Like a Dog are note-perfect, and when the boys pay homage to Prince’s passing with Nothing Compares 2 U (written for Sinead O’Connor), their work is done. Before Vance Joy makes it on stage a huge cry goes up at the fall of a backdrop, revealing his moniker. If an inanimate object can get that kind of response what will the man himself yield? By the time the Melbourne troubadour joins his players on stage under the
glow of his name, the crowd is on its feet to greet him under a light sprinkle of rain. But no drizzle is going to dampen the sunny vibe that fills the parkland when massive single Mess Is Mine plays, followed by Red Eye and Winds Of Change, the latter, he tells us, vetoed years ago by
As an effervescent fizz of fireworks rains down, a few thousand people roar their appreciation at one of the nation’s new favourite sons. his sister who said “Yes, you could play that for people who don’t love you.” It’s that kind of self-deprecating storytelling that sheds light on the fact that the lanky dude in his late 20s is actually a bit of a dork. It’s a revelation, along with the on-point falsetto in Straight Into Your Arms, Play With Fire and Georgia, that obliterates the cynicism; that voice and assured guitar and uke plucking rebuke twee aspects embedded in his commercia presence. A rousing and faithful turn of Riptide paves the way for the set closer, a brassy cover of Paul Simon’s You Can Call Me Al, before VJ returns from a brief duck out the back for My Kind Of Man and the forever anticipated Fire And The Flood. As an effervescent fizz of fireworks rains down, a few thousand people roar their appreciation at one of the nation’s new favourite sons. Carley Hall
THE MUSIC 11TH MAY 2016 • 39
Live Re Live Reviews
Rudimental, Jess Glynne Riverstage 7 May
It’s a beautiful night to attend the Riverstage, and as Queensland’s cooler months are now approaching, tonight is the beginning of a more comfortable season for enjoying outdoor live music. Rudimental have returned to Australia to show off their back catalogue of endless eclectic pop hits, headlining shows around the country. Brisbane is first cab off the rank for their tour, which sees British artist Jess Glynne support the group. With backing singers and musicians pumping up the crowd, Glynne quickly appears from left of stage, donning an impressive chequered pant suit and strutting side to side during her gospel-inspired track Ain’t Got Far To Go. Glynne’s signature optimistic pop perfectly sets the tone for tonight’s antics,
The drum and bass gets the picnic blanketlain families on their feet. performing hits such as Don’t Be So Hard On Yourself, Hold My Hand, and You Can Find Me. Performing a set with complete flawlessness, Britain’s pop girl-wonder gets the crowd keen to boogie — that’s why we are all here right? Although it’s a modest crowd at this early hour, Glynne’s presence brings the few to the front of the mosh pit, releasing that built-up excitement we all feel between support and headline act. For her first performance in Australia,
40 • THE MUSIC • 11TH MAY 2016
Glynne hits it out of the park and will undoubtedly be returning before too long. Since last touring Australia with good mate Ed Sheeran late last year, Rudimental return, having already gauged their audience and are clearly keen to take it up a notch with their live production. With a stage absolutely littered with musical instruments, the group open up their set with a performance of their own reggae dub-smash mash-up, steel drums included, slowly moulding the chaos into just one of their many hits, Right Here. The drum and bass elements of the track light up Riverstage, getting even the picnic blanket-lain families up on their feet. With the group’s insane endless array of energy and excitement about their own music, and with every member simply losing their shit after every drop in the songs, it becomes seemingly difficult to compose oneself. Although the band’s energy is spectacle in itself, it is a shame the group didn’t bring with them as many performers as they did on Sheeran’s tour, making the crowd lose interest pretty quickly in some of the more mellow songs of the evening’s set. The group tie off the set with their unmistakably signature and ridiculously catchy tune Waiting All Night, with the crowd roaring a chorus undoubtedly being heard in South Bank and beyond.
The Drones, Harmony The Triffid 6 May
Harmony’s lead singer and guitarist Tom Lyngcoln is clearly someone who feels a lot, and has found the perfect way to express everything that writhes and rages inside him. Lyngcoln’s soul-bearing, throat-shredding howls are offset by three women who sing beautifully stirring back-up vocals on his beastly power ballads. About halfway through the band’s thrilling set, Lyngcoln hands his howling Fender Jaguar to the nearest of these, urgently loosens his belt and
Australians all let us rejoice, for we have Feelin Kinda Free.
Drones for the introduction to Harmony, it’s hard not to be concerned that their opener will upstage them. But the moment The Drones launch into Private Execution, the menacing, pulsating opening track from their recent album, Feelin Kinda Free, the notion of this band being upstaged by anyone immediately seems
The Drones @ The Triffid. Pic: Stephen Booth
Georgia Corpe pulls down his pair off baggy blue jeans, revealing... another pair of baggy bluejeans. He then pulls off his green checkered flannel, revealing... a red checkered flannel. All the while, the band around him rages on. It’s hard to tell what it means, but it’s pretty exciting to watch. With rock’n’roll now well into its 50s, it is rare for a band to feel so exciting and unpredictable, but Harmony has found a way. With all gratitude to The
ridiculous. Taman Shud is still frenetic and funny, but frontman Gareth Liddiard seems deadly serious as he spits bile all over its oblique beat. The three backup singers from Harmony join in on the bruising and brilliant break-up ballad, To Think That I Once Loved You, and hang around to elevate the jet-lagged and paranoid Then They Came For Me. An especially sinister I See Seaweed moves like a slowmotion tsunami before crashing
eviews Live Reviews
into its towering choruses. It’s good to see that the band has enough faith in the newer, weirder stuff, and fans’ ability to digest it, to not feel the need to drag out Shark Fin Blues. In fact, the only preHavilah song tonight is Six Ways To Sunday, unless you include their cover of Kev Carmody’s River Of Tears, which is a truly transcendental closer. Despite the number of times they’ve reached its searing, dissonant crescendo over the last decade, nothing about tonight’s monumental version feels rote. Watching The Drones play River Of Tears is just about the most powerful live music experience a person can have. There is simply no one else like Gareth Liddiard and his band. Despite, or perhaps because of, all his pointed criticisms of the state of our country, Liddiard makes this writer proud to be Australian, if only because our strange country has produced such an incisive and singular artist. Australians all let us rejoice, for we have Feelin Kinda Free. Joel Lohman
Hinds, The Creases, Tempura Nights The Foundry 7 May Local four-piece Tempura Nights are sporting a fill-in drummer tonight but it doesn’t impede their focus, their cruisy indie-rock hardly breaking into a gallop early on with the sultry tempo suiting them perfectly. Focal point Alice Rezende is deadpan but charismatic as she bounces away to the music, the band’s sound seeming a tad darker and moodier in places than usual, but old faves Mr Tone and catchy closer R.I.P. CHIX still bring plenty of their trademark melody and pop nous.
The main support slot has been billed as “special guests” tonight but burgeoning Brisbane four-piece The Creases soon make an entrance — augmented by a fifth member on keys and other embellishments — and they immediately seem relaxed and confident, armed with a bevy of cool tunes that they reel off like a conveyor belt. Guitarists Joe Agius and Jarrod Mahon take turns holding the vocal reins and complement each other well — their vocals abetted by perfect band harmonies and even Harriette Pilbeam from Babaganouj for the last few tracks — and while staples like Static Lines and Point go over well it’s the Britpop-infused new single Impact they close with that really gets feet moving. There’s a sense of hedonism-tinged anticipation in the air, as if everyone’s wondering whether Madrid garage sensation Hinds can
unrelenting vocal hooks over the perfectly ramshackle music, the bratty Walking Home seguing into a cover of Dead Ghosts’ When It Comes To You — which they transform into a seductive torch song — before upping the ante again with the contagious Chili Town. The cultural divide and language barrier that initially stilted between-song communication melts away as the pace rises, the gang unleashing the stomping Easy and the memorable Bamboo in quick succession, their easy camaraderie spilling into the whole venue. These young rockers clearly have an implicit understanding of the punk and garage form already, and when they finish the set with a run of killer tunes in San Diego, Garden and Castigadas En El Granero and then return for an awesomely off-kilter rendition of Thee Headcoatees’ Davey Crockett it’s clear that they’re the real deal.
More Reviews Online theMusic.com.au/ music/live-reviews
The Goon Sax @ Grand Central Hotel
Steve Bell
It’s like we’re at a sloppy house party. really bring the party as their mythos and fun-addled music would suggest, and they start slowly out of the blocks with relatively sombre early tune Warning With The Curling (which features guitarist Ana Perrote rocking a kazoo for the duration), but soon surge through Trippy Gum and a run of rollicking garage tunes from their debut album Leave Me Alone — Fat Calmed Kiddos and besties anthem Warts — and it’s like we’re at a sloppy house party, the vibe one of total bonhomie. Indeed it seems fun is the main prerogative as Perrote and fellow guitarist Carlotta Cosials trade THE MUSIC 11TH MAY 2016 • 41
Arts Reviews Arts Reviews
Jim Jefferies
Much
Much Ado About Nothing
Ado About Nothing Theatre Playhouse Theatre, QPAC to 15 May
Jim Jefferies Comedy Brisbane Entertainment Centre, 29 Apr
★★★★½ Tonight, Australia’s own Jim Jefferies voiced why he truly is the “Rosa Parks of cunt”. US comic and mate of Jim’s Forrest Shaw opens up, opining on fatness, junk food and drink driving while South Australian comic Amos Gill was nothing short of hilarious before the main course, with brilliant spiels on nightclubbing featuring scoop-neck, gym junkie wankers, “scoopies” and annoying drunk women reserving Sally to play the handbag sherpa for the “squad”. LA-based comic Jim Jefferies comes out to lights, smoke and Metallica - somewhat dismayed at the hoopla, admitting all this was unnecessary for a bloke who’s half drunk and is just gonna chat a bit. It’s a show of freewheeling hilarity ranting on topics from porn to war and claiming all films should end in cumshots to the face - resulting in Jefferies miming a leper wanking off Jesus on the cross. Jefferies rips poor hecklers through the evening, including kicking a guy out for lying about obtaining a free ticket and lambasting another for his poor fashion choice (and close seating choice). Jefferies admits he’s shit at almost everything but is good at this (comedy - or shutting down fuckwits) proclaiming that hecklers are bowling to Bradman. Over two hours later, he closes by answering tweets, not such a great idea in hindsight. Poor Reni, the hot girl who tweeted, gets propositioned and Jefferies closes by doing an old Oscar Pistorius skit that includes him crawling across the floor reaching for the gun safe and bouncing off on his blades in chase. Rip Nicholson
42 • THE MUSIC • 11TH MAY 2016
★★★ Regardless of the title, opening night for one of William Shakespeare’s most endearing love stories was anything but “about nothing”. Queensland’s Theatre Company’s Jason Klarwein made of this tale a memorable laugh. A tryst of contemporised performances by Tama Matheson as Don Pedro, Hugh Parker as Benedick and (steal of the night) Christen O’Leary as Beatrice with her unsheathed wit thrust outwardly
in brash, ocker strokes of comedy - led a cast not soon to be silenced as they begin a run of shows at QPAC’s Playhouse. After the second act, the tone of the modern paintjob is realised when the interior rotates to exterior providing a rendition of Outkast’s Hey Ya! to which the cast proclaims “Ice cold!” Perhaps the loudest roar of laughter is delivered after the midway interval opens to the night constables Dogberry (Liz Buchanan) and Verges (Megan Shorey) rocking beats in a golf buggy, their bantering of numerous malapropisms over the play’s meddlesome notings. These, such shallow fools, as Borachio described them, brought breadth of comedy to new heights in this interpretation of Much Ado About Nothing. Adding to this, the fourth wall is broken and the audience brought in, with near misses from golf swings. But overall it is the courtship dialogue between Beatrice and Benedick that wins us over, both inside the story and on this production’s stage. Rip Nicholson
“THE SINGLE BEST SHOW I’VE SEEN IN THE MANY YEARS I’VE VISITED BIRDLAND” The New York Times
LISA FISCHER & GRAND BATON
After four decades performing with icons like Mick Jagger and The Rolling Stones, Tina Turner, Chaka Khan, and Nine Inch Nails, Grammy® Award winning vocalist Ms Lisa Fischer is stepping into the spotlight at last.
FRIDAY 10 JUNE 2016, 8PM ONE NIGHT ONLY |CONCERT HALL, QPAC BOOK NOW QPAC.COM.AU |136 246 PRESENTED BY QPAC PART OF QUEENSLAND CABARET FESTIVAL 2016 PHOTOGRAPHER DJENEBA ADUAYOM
THE MUSIC 11TH MAY 2016 • 43
Comedy / G The Guide
Wed 11
The Belligerents
Dead End Girl Birthday Party with Beth Lucas + more: Crowbar, Fortitude Valley Open Mic Night: Solbar, Maroochydore Gotta Get Over the Hump with Various Artists: The Bearded Lady, West End
DMA’S: 27 May The Zoo
The Music Presents
Violent Soho + DZ Deathrays + Dune Rats: The Tivoli, Fortitude Valley Punk Poets In The Beer Garden with Laura Mardon: The Triffid (Beer Garden/6pm), Newstead
DMA’S: 27 May The Zoo Elizabeth Rose: 10 Jun Elsewhere; 11 Jun The Foundry The Rubens: 10 Jun, Eatons Hill Hotel; 11 Jun The Tivoli Jack The Stripper: 2 Jul Crowbar; 3 Jul The Lab sleepmakeswaves: 13 Aug The Triffid
Thu 12 KLLO + Seavera: Black Bear Lodge, Fortitude Valley The Alley + Jen Mize: Brisbane Jazz Club, Kangaroo Point Conchillia: Brooklyn Standard, Brisbane Adam Harpaz: Cafe Le Monde, Noosa Heads Dangerpenny + Trapdoor + Nowhere Else + Belrose: Crowbar, Fortitude Valley Lima Manu: Mick O’Malley’s, Brisbane Tay Oskee: Solbar (Lounge Bar), Maroochydore Ghost Audio + Reud Mood + Regular Band: The Zoo, Fortitude Valley
Remi
Belli Up Local groovers The Belligerents are heading back home as part of their Before, I Am single launch tour. They’ll hit the stage of The Foundry 13 May, with Waax and Leo supporting. Tomorrow People + JSQZE + DJ J-Tok + more: Chardons Corner Hotel, Annerley
Darling James + Machine Age: The Milk Factory Kitchen & Bar, South Brisbane
Fear Like Us + Blueline Medic + Run Squirrel + Deafcult: Crowbar, Fortitude Valley
Violent Soho + DZ Deathrays + Dune Rats: The Tivoli, Fortitude Valley
Friday Acoustics with Ash McIntyre + Luke Thomas + Shane Collins: Crowbar, Fortitude Valley Love Cannons + The Maslows + Blaire + Dylan Leigh Davis: Currumbin Creek Tavern, Currumbin Waters The Urban Chiefs: Irish McGann’s Hotel, Roma Som De Calcada: Lock ‘n’ Load Bistro, West End
Remi Automatic
Brown Sugar: Logan Diggers Club, Logan Central
Hip hop it-boys Remi will be at The Foundry, 19 May, as part of their For Good single launch tour. The duo are fresh off their Groovin The Moo slot, and Man Made Mountain will support.
Conchillia: Miami Marketta, Miami
Dubarray + Nick Wallaki: Solbar (Main Stage), Maroochydore
Foxy + DJ Benny: Cafe Le Monde, Noosa Heads
44 • THE MUSIC • 11TH MAY 2016
The Stained Daisies: Royal Mail Hotel, Goodna
Ocean of Zero + Hurricane Death + Descent + Coffin Birth: Beetle Bar, Brisbane
The Wet Fish: Buffalo Bar, Brisbane
Chronolyth + Misguided + Holistic + Undermine The Supremacy: Wharf Tavern (The Helm), Mooloolaba
Flowertruck
Peter Thornley: Mick O’Malley’s, Brisbane
Fri 13
Maggie Britton: Brisbane Jazz Club, Kangaroo Point
Ball Park Music + Mid Ayr + The Phoncurves: The Zoo, Fortitude Valley
Freaky Friday 13th Party with Peach Fur + Timber Bones + Crown The Humble + High Tide: Miami Tavern, Miami
BB & The Kings: Solbar (Lounge Bar), Maroochydore
Tay Oskee: Black Bear Lodge, Fortitude Valley
Amped Up: Battle of the Bands: The Triffid, Newstead
The Meeting Tree: TBC Club (The Bowler Club), Fortitude Valley Hound + Deluso + spacecowboy4005: The Bearded Lady, West End Kenta Hayashi: The Billabong, Kuranda The Belligerents + WAAX + Leo: The Foundry, Fortitude Valley
Flowertruck Sydney four-piece Flowertruck have only just finished their Dirt EP tour and Major Leagues have just dropped Dream States. What better time for a garage-pop co-headline tour, which you can catch at The Foundry 14 May.
Gigs / Live The Guide
The Ninjas
Dream Thieves + Hemingway + House Of Giants: Solbar (Main Stage), Maroochydore
Summer Flake: Sonic Sherpa (In Store/ 5pm), Greenslopes Mzaza: Studio 188, Ipswich Loving The Alien with June Low + Angharad Drake + Wild Horse Mountain + Willow + Pale Earth: The Bearded Lady, West End
Fist & Cast The Ninjas are set to play with recently reunited ‘90s Britpop staples Cast who are headed to our shores for the first time ever. The two groups will perform play with at The Triffid, 19 May.
Sat 14
I Set My Friends On Fire + Awaken I Am + Bay Harbour: The Brightside, Fortitude Valley Major Leagues + Flowertruck: The Foundry, Fortitude Valley
Sun 15
Acoustic Set with The Miserichorde + Rick Fredrick: Crowbar, Fortitude Valley
Bart Thrupp + Ruby Gilbert: Solbar (Lounge Bar), Maroochydore
Lima Manu: Mick O’Malley’s, Brisbane Mike Elrington: Royal Mail Hotel, Goodna
ROI + Project Montreal + Sam Kirby: The Brightside, Fortitude Valley
Conchillia: Solbar, Maroochydore
DJ Scorpio + Selecta Watson: The End, West End
Castlecomer: The Bearded Lady, West End
Client Liaison
Eurovision Final Party: Beetle Bar, Brisbane Nick Wallaki: Black Bunny Kitchen, Alexandra Heads Anna & Jorden: Brewski, Brisbane Brass Roots Live: Brisbane Jazz Club, Kangaroo Point
Martha Baartz Quintet: Brisbane Jazz Club, Kangaroo Point Massroom + Nato: Cafe Le Monde, Noosa Heads
Valerie: Cafe Le Monde, Noosa Heads
Tinpan Orange: Old Museum, Fortitude Valley
Hip Selecta: DJ Sets from Airling + The Creases + Good Boy + The Ninjas: The Triffid, Newstead
Benefit for Spencer P Jones feat. Sixfthick + Vegas Kings + Pur Purpose + Evil & The Jerks + Kellie Lloyd + The Dangermen: Beetle Bar, Brisbane
Reilly Fitzalen: Boardriders Coolangatta, Coolangatta
Ger Fennelly: Mick O’Malley’s, Brisbane
M83 + Japanese Wallpaper: The Tivoli, Fortitude Valley
Best of Demos feat. Horizontal Falls + Gloss + Tracks + Roadhouse: The Zoo, Fortitude Valley
Chris Flaskas: Black Bunny Kitchen, Alexandra Heads
Blues On Broadbeach: Broadbeach, Broadbeach
Gypsy Romp with Greshka + Cigany Weaver + Zvonsky: The Milk Factory Kitchen & Bar, South Brisbane
The Sunny Coast Rude Boys: Alexandra Headlands Hotel, Alexandra Headland
The Strums + El Bravo + Deeds: Black Bear Lodge, Fortitude Valley
The Stiltskins: Lock ‘n’ Load Bistro, West End
Tinpan Orange
Liaise For Days Client Liaison’s World Of Love tour starts its three dates in Queensland, 20 May at Elsewhere. Also hitting The Triffid 21 May and Solbar 22 May, the tours features support from Melbourne duo GL.
Conchillia: Cardigan Bar, Sandgate Totally Unicorn + Walken + The Pinheads + Shutup Shutup Shutup: Crowbar, Fortitude Valley
I Set My Friends On Fire + Awaken I Am + Bay Harbour: The Lab (All Ages), Brisbane
Dangerpenny + We Are Servants + Beat Around The Bush: The Brightside, Fortitude Valley
The Beards + Guests: Dalrymple Hotel, Garbutt
Triffid Roots feat. Shukura Chapman: The Triffid, Newstead
Remi + Sampa The Great: The Foundry, Fortitude Valley
Trainspotters feat. Summer Flake + Thigh Master + Blonde Tongues: Grand Central Hotel, Brisbane
Plavi Orkestar + S.A.R.S: The Triffid, Newstead
Eluveitie + Valhalore: The Zoo, Fortitude Valley
Tue 17
Fri 20
Jake Bristow: Lock ‘n’ Load Bistro, West End
Ivan Ooze: Agenda Nightclub, Toowoomba
Wed 18
Sera + Jakarta Criers + The Reversals + Fieu: Beetle Bar, Brisbane
Brisbane Big Band Festival 2016: Brisbane Jazz Club, Kangaroo Point
Vera Blue: Black Bear Lodge, Fortitude Valley
Kold Creatures + Dirty Brew + Twin City Riot + Upon a Falling Empire: Currumbin Creek Tavern, Currumbin Waters
Brisbane Big Band Festival 2016: Brisbane Jazz Club, Kangaroo Point
The Urban Chiefs: Irish McGann’s Hotel, Roma M.E. Baird: Junk Bar, Ashgrove Pauly P: Lock ‘n’ Load Bistro, West End Silk: Logan Diggers Club, Logan Central One Eyed Pilots + Rick Barron: Mick O’Malley’s, Brisbane
Orange You Glad Tinpan Orange’s Love Is A Dog tour will grace the stage of Old Museum, 15 May. Along with Jim Lawrie, the Melbourne trio will astound audiences with their soulful blues and roots styles.
Rufus + Bob Moses: Riverstage, Brisbane The Radiators + The Badloves + The Koffin Rockers: Roma Bungil Cultural Centre (Auditorium), Roma Bub-Kiss: Solbar (Lounge Bar), Maroochydore
Emma Pask: Brisbane Jazz Club, Kangaroo Point Sounds of Sunday feat. Waxhead: Broadbeach Tavern, Broadbeach Massroom + Khan Harrison + The Flumes: Cafe Le Monde, Noosa Heads Seas of Valoria: Crowbar, Fortitude Valley
Thu 19 Ivan Ooze: Black Bear Lodge, Fortitude Valley
Cat Power: Brisbane Powerhouse, New Farm Blues On Broadbeach: Broadbeach, Broadbeach
Brisbane Big Band Festival 2016: Brisbane Jazz Club, Kangaroo Point THE MUSIC 11TH MAY 2016 • 45
Comedy / G The Guide
Bootleg Flyers + Murphy’s Pigs: Mick O’Malley’s, Brisbane
The Wet Fish: Buffalo Bar, Brisbane
Massroom: Cafe Le Monde, Noosa Heads
Motez: Oh Hello!, Fortitude Valley
A Wilhelm Scream + The Decline + The Gifthorse + Greyface: Crowbar, Fortitude Valley
Broken Leg + Psychedelic Porn Crumpets: Ric’s Bar, Fortitude Valley
Hanny J + Emmy Hour + Lachlan Hicks: Crowbar, Fortitude Valley
Crescent City Players: Royal Mail Hotel, Goodna
Client Liaison + GL: Elsewhere, Surfers Paradise
Mar Haze + The Perries: Solbar (Main Stage), Maroochydore
Cleveland Blues: Grand Hotel, Bundaberg
Favourite Son: Solbar (Lounge Bar), Maroochydore
Diesel: Jupiters, Broadbeach Eastwood: Lock ‘n’ Load Bistro, West End
Forevr + Yuuca + Sydney 2000 + Pull-Out Kings: The Bearded Lady, West End
One Sound: Logan Diggers Club, Logan Central
Marquis Hawkes: The Brightside (2pm), Fortitude Valley
Signature Duo + Steve Williamson: Mick O’Malley’s, Brisbane
The Medic Droid: The Brightside, Fortitude Valley
Cookin’ On 3 Burners
Dillion James: Royal Mail Hotel, Goodna
Eric Burdon & The Animals + Kevin Borich: The Events Centre, Caloundra
The Brains Trust: Solbar (Main Stage), Maroochydore
Texas BBQ
Jack Hudson: Solbar (Lounge Bar), Maroochydore
Cookin’ On 3 Burners, possibly Australia’s best Hammond Organ trio, will be joined by the legendary Tex Perkins for a show at Woolly Mammoth 21 May with velvet-voiced soulstress Stella Angelico supporting.
Rick Dangerous & the Silkie Bantams: The Bearded Lady, West End
Awaken I Am
Fiery Awakening Brisbane-based punk rock quartet Awaken I Am are taking to The Brightside with experimental metalcore band I Set My Friends On Fire as main supports for the American crew’s Aussie tour this 14 May.
Dream Thieves + The Badlands + Fire & Whistle Theory + Hemingway: The Zoo, Fortitude Valley
Watch Your Step feat. DJ Paulo + Coco Brown + more: Black Bear Lodge, Fortitude Valley
The Screaming Jets: Villa Noosa Hotel, Noosaville
Ryan Delaney: Black Bunny Kitchen, Alexandra Heads
Columbus + Pandamic: Wharf Tavern (The Helm), Mooloolaba
Brisbane Big Band Festival 2016 + Various Artists: Brisbane Jazz Club, Kangaroo Point
Sat 21
Blues On Broadbeach feat. Eric Burdon & The Animals + Diesel + The Bamboos + Cookin On 3 Burners + Tex Perkins + Back in Blue + Bondi Cigars + The Three Kings + Shaun Kirk + Owen Campbell + Greg Dodd & The Hoodoo Men + Blue Shaddy + The Lachy Doley Group + Chase The Sun + Mason Rack Band + The Blues Preachers + Nick Barker & The Heartache State + Alex Hahn & The Blue Riders + Geoff Achison & The Soul Diggers + Felicity Lawless + more: Broadbeach, Broadbeach
The Wet Fish: Alexandra Headlands Hotel, Alexandra Headland Laceration Mantra + Eternal Rest + Demon Reich + Kaustic Attack: Beetle Bar, Brisbane
The Beards
Sneeky Picnic + Th’Fika + Until Home: The Milk Factory Kitchen & Bar, South Brisbane Client Liaison + GL: The Triffid, Newstead Big Bad Echo + Cassette Cathedral + Yaurout + Age Champion + Whalehouse: The Zoo, Fortitude Valley Cookin On 3 Burners + Tex Perkins + Stella Angelico: Woolly Mammoth, Fortitude Valley
Sun 22 Don McGlashan: Black Bear Lodge, Fortitude Valley
Dangerpenny
Temtris + Dirty Brew + Twin City Riot + Kold Creatures + Devonian + Massic: Chardons Corner Hotel (Back Room), Annerley Archetypes + Glass Ocean + Valhalla Lights + Yes Sir Noceur: Crowbar, Fortitude Valley
Todd McKenney: The Events Centre, Caloundra Shining Bird: The Foundry, Fortitude Valley
Bursting The Stubble
My Leonard Cohen with Stewart D’Arrietta: The Judith Wright Centre, Fortitude Valley
The Beards’ Farewell tour hits Queensland this week, with the hairy rockers going around one last time before hanging up their combs. Gladstone Entertainment Centre 11 May is where it all begins.
46 • THE MUSIC • 11TH MAY 2016
My Leonard Cohen with Stewart D’Arrietta: The Judith Wright Centre, Fortitude Valley
DJ Jasti + DJ Nixd + Barry Charles: Cafe Le Monde, Noosa Heads
Tired Lion + The Hard Aches: The Brightside, Fortitude Valley
Triffid Young Blood #2 with Georgia Mae + Capre + Quintessential Doll: The Triffid, Newstead
Ocean Alley: The Foundry, Fortitude Valley
AudSox + Jake Fox + Tyson + Luate: Currumbin Creek Tavern, Currumbin Waters The Screaming Jets: Hamilton Hotel, Hamilton Foster & Allen: Kedron Wavell Services Club, Chermside Inkaza: Lock ‘n’ Load Bistro, West End Mantra Trio: Logan Diggers Club, Logan Central
No Penny Dreadful Local up-and-coming enemies of the peace Dangerpenny are headlining a massive show at The Brightside 19 May. Joining the alt-indie-grunge-rockers are Pablo, Beat Around The Bush and We Are Servants.
Gigs / Live The Guide
Ivan Ooze
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Ooze The Man Alt rapper Ivan Ooze is currently out on his ’93 KFC Rotisserie Gold tour, and it’s about to hit Queensland in a big way. Starting at Black Bear Lodge on 19 May, he’ll have support from the always energetic Midas.Gold. Conchillia: Black Bunny Kitchen, Alexandra Heads
Client Liaison + GL: Solbar, Maroochydore
Maja Puseljic: Brewski, Brisbane
In2nation: Solbar, Maroochydore
Brisbane Big Band Festival 2016: Brisbane Jazz Club, Kangaroo Point
ROI + Project Montreal + Sam Kirby: The Brightside, Fortitude Valley
Blues On Broadbeach: Broadbeach, Broadbeach
My Leonard Cohen with Stewart D’Arrietta: The Events Centre, Caloundra
DJ Solafreq + Chris Flaskas: Cafe Le Monde, Noosa Heads
Matty T Wall: The Milk Factory Kitchen & Bar, South Brisbane
De Nada: Crowbar, Fortitude Valley
O Rappa: The Tivoli, Fortitude Valley
Sammy & The Baristas: Lock ‘n’ Load Bistro, West End
Triffid Roots feat. Lisa Crawley: The Triffid (2.30pm), Newstead
Ger Fennelly: Mick O’Malley’s, Brisbane
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Mon 23 Foster & Allen: The Events Centre, Caloundra Basement + Turnover + Break Even + Arrivals: The Triffid, Newstead
Tue 24 DZ Deathrays
Foster & Allen: Empire Theatre, Toowoomba The Mojave Trio: Lock ‘n’ Load Bistro, West End
Violent But Deadly
Basement + Turnover + Break Even + Kings At Heart: The Lab, Brisbane
13 May at The Tivoli is where you can catch Brisbane rockers Violent Soho, as they tour the country for their Waco tour. They’re bringing DZ Deathrays and Dune Rats along for a mammoth show.
THE MUSIC 11TH MAY 2016 • 47
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