28.10.15 Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture
Melbourne / Free / Incorporating
A DAY O N THE GREEN
MATCHING MUSIC WITH YOUR WINE
CULTURE TIM ROGERS SPEAKS OUT
EVENT MUSIC VICTORIA HALL OF FAME
Issue
112
2 • THE MUSIC • 28TH OCTOBER 2015
THE MUSIC 28TH OCTOBER 2015 • 3
4 • THE MUSIC • 28TH OCTOBER 2015
THE MUSIC 28TH OCTOBER 2015 • 5
Music / Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture
Waukee Taukee
Milwaukee Banks
Milwaukee Banks have announced they’re sealing the deal with Dot Dash, and Remote Control Records will be distributing their album Deep Into The Night. To go hand in hand with that, they’ll be touring the east coast from late next month.
Josh Pyke
Rhiannon Giddens
Zoo Twilights Taronga Zoo and Melbourne Zoo have announced their programs for this season’s Twilight shows. Acts like Birds Of Tokyo, John Butler Trio and Josh Pyke will be playing both zoos, plus a bunch of other artists doing just single zoo shows. Albert Hammond Jr
Hammond It In Acclaimed musician and long-serving member of The Strokes Albert Hammond Jr has announced a four-date run of shows in Australia in Feb, his first appearance in the country since before the release of his latest album, Momentary Masters, back in July.
6 • THE MUSIC • 28TH OCTOBER 2015
Buzzcocks
Arts / Li Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture
So Built
Built To Spill
Venerated US-bred indie heroes Built To Spill have added to their impending journey to Australia for next year’s Golden Plains festival with a trio of standalone headline sideshows up and down the east coast in March.
BLUE IN THE FACE Bluesfest have announced another slew of sideshows. Melissa Etheridge, Tedeschi Trucks Band, City & Colour, The Decemberists, Rhiannon Giddens, Nahko & Medicine For The People and more will be playing headline shows in March while here for the festival.
77 Buzz Off UK punk band Buzzcocks have announced their 40th anniversary Australian tour, which will complement their appearance at Golden Plains. They’re hitting up Aussie cities from mid-March before they make their way to NZ.
The position Kangaroo Island’s Southern Ocean Lodge came in the Conde Nast Readers Choice top 100 hotels list
THE MUSIC 28TH OCTOBER 2015 • 7
Lifestyle Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture
What’s In The Cabinet
Kitchen Cabinet
The Kitchen Cabinet returns to ABC 28 Oct, 8pm with relaxed conversations between Annabel Crabb and the now treasurer Scott Morrison. Expect to be exposed to not only his political life, but his personal tales too.
Effie – The Virgin Bride
Shamir
Effed Up Effie’s getting married in Effie – The Virgin Bride. See her gain a husband and lose a cherry in one night, with music, dancing and multimedia. The spectacular travels around the country to Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane and Sydney in February/ March 2016.
Dream On, Dreamer
Quality Soulitude Post-hardcore band Dream On, Dreamer have announced a tour late Nov, following the release of Songs Of Soulitude. Any fan that pre-orders the album will be entered into the draw to win the chance to host a show for each city.
8 • THE MUSIC • 28TH OCTOBER 2015
e / Cultu Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture
Take For Granted
John Grant
US singer-songwriter John Grant has announced he will be doing limited Australia shows alongside his appearance at Golden Plains. Supporting recent release Grey Tickles, Black Pressure, Grant will be gracing Melbourne and Sydney.
THURSDAY 29 OCTOBER SINGLE LAUNCH
HEY FRANKIE MONDEGREEN JAMIL ZACHARIA
FRIDAY 30 OCTOBER EP LAUNCH
SUICIETY
MAMMOTH MAMMOTH THE HIDDEN VENTURE BOXTHORN
SATURDAY 31 OCTOBER
Laneway Sideys Laneway has announced a whole bunch of sideshows for those who are not into festivals, unable to go to the fest, or wanna catch their fave bands twice. The list includes Shamir, Beaches, Chvrches, DIIV, Tobias Jesso Jr and more.
HALLOWEEN
FOREIGN BROTHERS SUNDAY 1 NOVEMBER
BRISTOL CAIRO BALTER VADA GUESTS TBA
MONDAY 2 NOVEMBER RESIDENCY – OPENING NIGHT
WONDERCORE PRESENTS JAZZ PARTY $10 BEER JUGS ALL NIGHT
TUESDAY 3 NOVEMBER RESIDENCY – OPENING NIGHT
NAFASI – EP LAUNCH
Tommy Tiernan
Tommy Is A Gun Following a recent guest appearance at the Just For Laughs Sydney All Star Gala, Irish comedian Tommy Tiernan will return with his Out Of The Whirlwind show to Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney and Perth from mid-April next year.
1 The number of Australian Hotels to make Conde Nast Readers Choice Top 100 Hotels List
MYA WALLACE OLIVER PATERSON BEAT PROJECT
WEDNESDAY 4 NOVEMBER RESIDENCY – OPENING NIGHT
STELLAFAUNA DANIKA FIEU
COMING UP SOME TIX AVAILABLE THROUGH MOSHTIX:
LUNA DEVILLE SINGLE LAUNCH – NOV 5 UP UP AWAY 7” LAUNCH – NOV 7 KAURNA CRONIN ALBUM LAUNCH – NOV 8 RUTS DC (UK) – NOV 14 EVEN XMAS – DEC 19 & 20 VOYAGER // LEPROUS (NOR) – FEB 6
THE MUSIC 28TH OCTOBER 2015 • 9
Lifestyle Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture
Hey, LISTEN
Simona Castricum
Music org/project LISTEN, founded by Evelyn Morris, is putting on their first ever conference on 31 Oct & 1 Nov. Diverse speakers will be tackling an array of challenging topics through the lens of music and feminism, including Simona Castricum and The Music’s own Stephanie Liew.
Emma Donovan
MoreME AWME has revealed speakers and delegates Steve Symons, Sarah Howells, Emma Donovan and more for the event, 12–14 Nov. Guests are experienced in festivals, labels and booking agencies with the common goal to strengthen the music network. Ngaiire
Dallas Frasca
Falls Additions This one’s for the ticket holders! Falls Lorne, already sold out, have added huge names to their bill, yet again. Expect to hear the aural delights of Ngaiire, Harts, Ainslie Wills, The Wombats, City Calm Down and heaps more. 10 • THE MUSIC • 28TH OCTOBER 2015
Cure What Ails Ya A new boutique festival is gracing Riverview in Tatong 20 – 22 Nov, featuring bands such as The Delta Riggs, Dallas Frasca, REIKA, Amistat and loads more. You can also get your posi vibes through the yoga and art classes or workshops running over the weekend.
e / Cultu Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture
Creasey’s
Joel Creasey. Pic: Ed Purnomo
Halloween Party
Now in its fifth year, Joel Creasey returns to Athenaeum Theatre to host his annual Halloween Party on 31 Oct, featuring comedy legends, drag queens, real housewives and celebrities. We have tickets up for grabs. Enter at themusic.com.au/win.
Brian Skerry: Southern Right Whale Diver
Whale Of A Time Ocean Wild is brought to the stage this week when Brian Skerry appears at Hamer Hall on 29 Oct, sharing his stories, research and stunning underwater photography.
Fred Pessaro
Some #SpookyBands gold: The Heebie Bee Gees (@alienmagicman) The Boo-Tang Clan (@MJGWrites)
Fred Faces The Music Noisey’s Editor in Chief, Fred Pessaro, has been announced as Face The Music’s latest international guest speaker. He joins Editor of Rolling Stone Australia, Mathew Coyte and writer Brodie Lancaster in a discussion exploring music journalism.
The Rolling Bones (@chili_p_me) The ABBAdook (@jaredshroyer) Guns ‘N Rosemary’s Baby (@Jarmadillos)
THE MUSIC 28TH OCTOBER 2015 • 11
Music / Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture
We Flawless
BeyDance. Pic: Theresa Harrison Photography
BeyDance offers dance classes based on the routines and songs of Beyonce. They’ve got a student showcase coming up, to be held at Union Theatre, 30 Oct from 7.30pm. Tickets through Trybooking.
The Flaming Lips
Flamin’ Yeah The Flaming Lips have announced they’re playing a one-off Melbourne show at Palais Theatre on 8 Jan, while they’re Down Under as part of MONA FOMA and Sydney Festival.
Died Pretty
Dinky Di Canadian jazz star Diana Krall announced she’s bringing a full orchestra to Australia on her album-titled Wallflower tour. She will be kicking off the tour in late Jan.
Dying They haven’t toured the country since Big Day Out 2009, but beloved Aussie group Died Pretty have announced two headline shows in Sydney and Melbourne next March to coincide with their appearance at the A Day On The Green event. Diana Krall
12 • THE MUSIC • 28TH OCTOBER 2015
Arts / Li Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture
Shoppin’ & Choppin’
Luckiest Productions and Tinkerbox Productions present musical comedy, Little Shop Of Horrors. It’ll be gracing all major cities around Australia next year, starting mid-Feb.
Little Shop Of Horrors. Pic: Jeff Busby
Joanna Newsom
Dive Deep Having just been announced on the 2016 Sydney Festival line-up, Joanna Newsom has announced a string of headline east coast shows this coming January in support of her brand new album Divers.
James Chance & The Contortions
Contorted Sounds Punk and jazz-blues-funk fusion artist James Chance tours Australia this Jan for the first time as James Chance & The Contortions. Picture funk rhythms, channelled through punk rock. THE MUSIC 28TH OCTOBER 2015 • 13
Music
WOMEN, WINE & SONG A Day On The Green is bringing some country-tinged music to some prime country locales, and Paul Kelly and Kasey Chambers tell Steve Bell that there’s some serious history to this line-up.
F
or anyone with even a passing interest in countryinfluenced singer-songwriter fare the impending A Day On The Green bill of Paul Kelly, Lucinda Williams, Kasey Chambers and rising star Marlon Williams should have you absolutely salivating with anticipation. From a purely musical standpoint it’s a line-up of indubitable length and breadth, covering three countries, numerous genres and many styles of delivery and composition. Then introduce that heady mix to the gorgeous winery surrounds and picnic festival atmosphere inherent with the A Day On The Green franchise and it’s a formula for good times and great music, no matter which way you spin it. Nominal headliner Kelly is still touring on the back of his excellent project Paul Kelly presents The Merri Soul Sessions — which found him taking a vocal back seat whilst showcasing the skills of bandmates such as Vika & Linda Bull, Dan Sultan, Clairy Browne and Kira Puru — and he’s just as excited about reuniting this crew after a length sojourn as he is joining his accomplished tour mates.
Kasey Chambers
14 • THE MUSIC • 28TH OCTOBER 2015
“I’m looking forward to it very much,” he smiles. “Firstly it will be good to get back with the Merri Soul gang again, because the first couple of times around went really well and it’s such a fun show to do. A Day On The Green is like a mini-festival really — like a day-long festival — and the Merri Soul show works really well as a festival show; we’ve only done it a couple of times at a festival, at Byron Bay [Bluesfest], so that’ll be good. Apart from that the line-up of Lucinda, Kasey and Marlon Williams is a really good one too — it’s a really strong bill, with lots of great women singers and songwriters on the bill too. I think it’s fantastic. “It’s diverse musically but some of the songs on the Merri Soul record are what I’d call ‘country soul’, and Marlon’s got a lot of that too, so it all ties in. We’re going to try and work out a song that we can all do together to finish the night off.” Chambers for her part seems even more thrilled, primarily because she’s rejoining two of her biggest inspirations on the road. “I’m so keen for this tour, I’m so excited!” she gushes. “I would have paid to be on this tour, the fact that I get paid for it is just wild. Lucinda Williams and Paul Kelly seriously are my two favourite artists of all time — Lucinda’s always been my biggest role model in music, and Paul Kelly’s always been my biggest Australian influence in music, so I’m pretty stoked. I’m like a little kid waiting for Christmas!
It’s a really strong bill, with lots of great women singers and songwriters on the bill too. I think it’s fantastic. “I’ve done a few [A Day On The Greens] over the years and they’re always great shows. It suits me really well, because there’s a real family atmosphere — even though we’re in a winery! It’s got that vibe and I love playing that sort of thing, I reckon it’s the closest you can get doing outdoor shows where you still get that real inside intimate vibe. Often you’ve got to go for one or the other and it means you have to give up something to have the other one, but I find with A Day On The Green that the vibe is so much like you’re hanging out in your lounge room and just chilling with people but it’s like
a big outdoor festival as well. You kinda get the best of both worlds, which is pretty cool.” Kelly is also a veteran of numerous A Day On The Green forays and is equally fond of the concept. “They’ve always been good, and it works well because people like going and it’s all ages,” he offers. “I guess for me the main thing is variety when you’re playing — you wouldn’t want to do theatres all the time, or you wouldn’t want to do bars or clubs all the time, or you wouldn’t want to do festivals all the time either. Keeping it mixed up for me is the main thing. A Day On The Green is like an event to me — people make a bit of an effort. It’s not just getting out of your house and catching a tram or something, people get to get out to the country and make a day of it.” Given the nature of their respective music — especially Chambers and Kelly who have
A Day on The Green Crowd Bimbagden Winery Pic: Peter Sharp
Paul Kelly Presents The Merri Soul Sessions
spent the bulk of their careers circumnavigating Australia plying their wares — it’s no surprise that they’ve crossed paths many times already. “We got to tour a little bit really early on back when he did the Uncle Bill record [1999’s Smoke], his first bluegrass album, it was awesome,” Chambers chuckles. “I got to open up some shows for him all around Australia, then we sang a bit together on a few things as well — I was just blown away, a bit star struck. I’ve been lucky enough to get to know him a bit over the years as well, so the star struck thing goes away to a certain extent, but every now and then I might be hanging out with him or something and I’ll just go, ‘Holy shit! That’s Paul Kelly!’ Then I’ll be, like, ‘Just don’t think about it! Don’t think about it!’ but he also makes you forget that you’re in a room with Paul Kelly too because he’s such a normal guy, just such an easy guy to be around.” And both Kelly and Chambers are pumped to reacquaint with Lucinda Williams, whom they justifiably hold in high esteem. “I spent a bit of time with her a couple of years ago when I was in LA doing the A To Z shows, she came along to a couple of nights and we went out to dinner afterwards,” Kelly tells. “We know each other and I’m looking forward to catching up with her again. She’s such a fine songwriter.” “I’ve been so lucky too with Lucinda because one of my first tours in America was opening up with Lucinda for five weeks, I was like, ‘Fuck, this is just the best thing
that’s ever happened to me!’” Chambers giggles. “It was so awesome! It was on her [2001 album] Essence tour and she had such a great band, and it was honestly just like five weeks of free tickets to see Lucinda Williams! I was, like, ‘Fucking hell, my life cannot get any better!’ I was so stoked, I couldn’t believe it. “And I was so lucky too because she got me my first gig in Nashville playing on a songwriters’ night with her, and a couple of other gigs where she was doing guest spots and gave me a couple of songs and got me up with her. It makes such a huge difference when you have someone like her supporting you — it means such a lot in towns like that — so it was pretty amazing.”
GOTTA HAVE SOUL It’s been over a year since Paul Kelly unveiled The Merri Soul Sessions, and he professes to having enjoyed the experience immensely. “I didn’t really know what to expect,” he admits. “I just evolved this idea of doing a record with different singers, and I didn’t quite know how that would turn out. Then the record turned out well, so we decided to put it on the road and that had its own logistical dramas with everyone’s busy schedules, but we managed to fit in two tours earlier in the year. It gets a really good response from audiences so it’s really nice to be able to revisit it again. “It’s another way of doing records for me — I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to do something like this. I think I want to have a lot of voices on my records from now on — maybe not to the extent of Merri Soul, but perhaps making records with at least a couple of songs sung by other singers. I think it breaks it up — I’m finally figuring out how to do things after 35 years in show business! I think my voice works really well for certain things, but other times I think, ‘That would be better sung by someone else’. And it’s fun writing for other voices — I think that’s what I enjoy about it.”
When & Where: 6 Dec, Rochford Wines, Yarra Valley
THE MUSIC 28TH OCTOBER 2015 • 15
Credits Publisher Street Press Australia Pty Ltd Group Managing Editor Andrew Mast National Editor – Magazines Mark Neilsen
Music
Making A Mark
Editor Bryget Chrisfield Arts Editor Hannah Story Eat/Drink Editor Stephanie Liew Gig Guide Justine Lynch gigs@themusic.com.au Senior Contributor Jeff Jenkins Contributing Editor Steve Bell Contributors Annelise Ball, Sarah Barratt, Sophie Blackhall-Cain, Emma Breheny, Sean Capel, Luke Carter, Anthony Carew, Oliver Coleman, Daniel Cribb, Cyclone, Guy Davis, Dave Drayton, Simon Eales, Guido Farnell, Tim Finney, Bob Baker Fish, Cameron Grace, Neil Griffiths, Brendan Hitchens, Kate Kingsmill, Baz McAlister, Samson McDougall, Tony McMahon, Ben Meyer, Fred Negro, Danielle O’Donohue, Josh Ramselaar, Paul Ransom, Ali Schnabel, Michael Smith, Dylan Stewart, Kane Sutton, Simone Ubaldi, Genevieve Wood, Evan Young, Matthew Ziccone Interns Dylan Van Der Riet, Hannah Blackburn, Elizabeth Watt, Lillie Siegenthaler, Brad Summers, Samuel Wall, Xavier Fennell, Emma Dempsey Senior Photographer Kane Hibberd Photographers Andrew Briscoe, Dina El-Hakim, Holly Engelhardt, Jay Hynes Advertising Dept Leigh Treweek, Tim Wessling, Zoë Ryan sales@themusic.com.au Art Dept Ben Nicol Felicity Case-Mejia vic.art@themusic.com.au Admin & Accounts Loretta Zoppos, Jarrod Kendall, Leanne Simpson, Bella Bi, Niall McCabe accounts@themusic.com.au Distro distro@themusic.com.au Subscriptions store.themusic.com.au Contact Us Tel 03 9421 4499 Fax 03 9421 1011 info@themusic.com.au www.themusic.com.au Level 1, 221 Kerr St, Fitzroy VIC 3065 Locked Bag 2001, Clifton Hill VIC 3068
— Melbourne
16 • THE MUSIC • 28TH OCTOBER 2015
Dylan Joel’s first album is high on instrumentation and low on feature spots. He explains to Rip Nicholson that he wants to make a statement. wanted to make my mark. ‘I’m here and I can do this on my own,’” declares Joel. “I really felt like, being that it was my debut album it’s so easy to get an amazing vocalist to sing the hook or get a whole bunch of feature artists that everyone knows. For me, I wanted to sing my own hooks and show people what I can do and make my statement.” A rapper, songwriter and guitarist out of Melbourne, Dylan Joel started his career in 2012, dropping the radio-hit single Leveled and winning triple j Unearthed’s Pyramid Rock comp. The momentum he gained rolled into That’s Good, a mixtape album high on guest performances. This time around Joel preferred to keep to himself to prove he could introduce his debut album with the least amount of help. Co-produced by Cam Bluff, Authentic Lemonade is freshly squeezed cool musicianship unlike anything else being stocked on the shelves. “By the time the album was threequarters of the way through being written I realised the majority of the songs were based around the idea of just being yourself, being genuine and the importance of staying true to who you are,” says Joel. “I thought what’s something in the world that is like an item or a product, that is something more commonly found to be an overproduced and inauthentic copy and something for
“I
which it’s harder to find a more authentic version and I realised, ‘Oh! Lemonade.’ It’s always stocked and overproduced, a real confectionary item and you can rarely find a really good, freshly squeezed lemonade. “So many people have helped me on the album as it is, which makes it hard to really say it’s all mine. But, at the same time, I really wanted to put my whole self into it,” he added. Authentic Lemonade makes for a refreshing opus from the young MC whose only album collaboration comes with renowned spitter Mantra featuring DJ Izm (Bliss N Eso) on the cuts for his second single Swing. “I only want to put features on songs if they’re actually going to create another element to the song that I can’t. And for most of the songs it didn’t feel like they necessary needed that. That was where with Swing I felt that this needed extra peeps on it, this is a posse track! It needs some of my homies... They’ve both been huge idols to me.” With Authentic Lemonade now out, Joel is gearing himself up for a decent-sized national tour and, coming off a Seth Sentry support slot, he’s more than ready. “I’m just excited to do us. Seth has been saying on tour how much of a positive vibe we bring and that’s kinda our thing, we want to make music that people can really take home, they can leave the night feeling enlightened. I’m really hyped for that man, really excited just to play to whoever comes.”
What: Authentic Lemonade (Warner) When & Where: 30 Oct, The Workers Club; 13 Nov, Howler
THE MUSIC 28TH OCTOBER 2015 • 17
Theatre
Frontlash Jolly Rogers Tim Rogers’ response to the latest attacks on Adam Goodes proves once again what an all-round upstanding gentleman he is.
Courtney Love Another week, another accolade for Courtney Barnett. This time she cleaned up at the Independent Music Awards then played Madison Square Garden and performed on America’s CBS News.
Lashes Nay To That
Despite the awful name and the awful artwork, Naytronix has delivered one of the year’s best in Mister Divine. Chindie* pop at its finest. [*chilled indie]
Courtney Barnett acceptance video. Pic: Lucinda Goodwin
Backlash Hospitalised
One of friendships suffered a nasty fall while in NY at CMJ, and The Beautiful Girls’ Mat McHugh has cancelled his solo tour after being diagnosed with spinal injuries.
Jobs stinks
New films died a death at the US box office this week - no one cared for the new Vin Diesel, the latest Steve Jobs biopic or yet another Paranormal Activity film. No surprises, really...
It’s Grim Down South Is South Yarra station gonna get an upgrade? Hey, the Northside got to be the hip side; at least give the southside a workable train station. 18 • THE MUSIC • 28TH OCTOBER 2015
psychological cost. But Barbra, out of any other celebrity, her need for control is actually part of her character: ‘I’m gonna produce my own films and I’m gonna direct them, and I’m also going to star in them, because I can do that.’ It’s very powerful, and it’s great that a woman had that kind of nouse and strength and ability to do that, and to say a big fuck you to everyone.” In this sense, Buyer And Cellar, Flanders reckons, displays an aspect of the fame game that’s lost these days. “If you look at the younger stars, they have to be very agreeable, and be pleasing to everyone, whereas back then you could be niche. Like, Barbra made her break playing the wise-cracking, not-so-pretty, oddly gorgeous Jewish girl from Brooklyn... I can’t imagine Jennifer Lawrence being like that. Now you get cast on how many Twitter followers you have.” Flanders and director, Melbourne’s Gary Abrahams, make a breakout combo, transitioning to the mainstage from several years of cutting edge independent work. “I think he’s pushing me,” Flanders says. “Every actor, every artist, wants to try and get to a new thing every time. This is feeling like a new thing for me, and I’m working really hard. We’re going for it. Like, really going for it. Like, if we can pull this off, it’ll be great!” He bursts into laughter. There’s a bit of a murmur surrounding the show worldwide: ‘What would Barbra say if she saw it?’ “It really is, like, rock-em, sock-em, like, really hit that joke hard,” Flanders reflects. But, he adds, “It’s certainly not a play that solely demonises or lampoons, or makes Barbra look stupid. You get a very- I hope, and I believe, if I can do it right - a very fleshed out version of, ‘maybe she’s a bit this, and a bit this,’ because, like all of us, she’s a very complicated person.”
The Basement Scene
Ash Flanders goes into the basement as Barbra Streisand’s personal shop assistant in Melbourne Theatre Company’s Buyer And Cellar. He chats to Simon Eales.
T
he idea behind having a basement is that you can keep stuff down there you don’t need right now, like gardening equipment and your Ab Swing Pro. It’s about convenience. Someone who does basements better than most, though, is Barbra Streisand. In her wonderful coffee table tome, My Passion For Design, a pictorial journey through her greatest lifestyle accomplishments, Streisand shows off her personal basement paradise: a real shopping arcade decked out with clothes, shoes, homewares and furniture. It’s a remarkable place, and it was only a matter of time before someone wrote a play about it. Jonathan Tolins’ one-man Buyer And Cellar debuted Off-Broadway in 2013 to a rapturous response. This month, it comes to the Melbourne Theatre Company with Ash Flanders, award-winning co-creator of Melbourne’s schlock-theatre outfit Sisters Grimm, playing Alex, an out-of-work actor who gets a job tending to Streisand’s underground wonderland. For Flanders, Barbra’s basement is an amazing and symbolic lair. “It’s basically a look at celebrity and how we all create our funny little worlds,” he says. “If you had the resources to make your world completely hermetically sealed, would you do it?” “You hear stories all the time,” he continues, “you know, Prince can only eat behind a curtain because he doesn’t want to be seen eating. These people are very talented and all these things come at some sort of
What: Buyer And Cellar When & Where: 30 Oct - 12 Dec, Fairfax Studio, Arts Centre
THE MUSIC 28TH OCTOBER 2015 • 19
Music
Food For Thought When Bryget Chrisfield sits down with You Am I’s Tim Rogers and Rusty Hopkinson she hears they’re friends with Rocket From The Crypt, they’ve shared Ryan Adams’ “great coke” and were distracted by “how handsome” Wayne Gordon is while recording their new album at Daptone Records.
T
heir sound check finished early. Tim Rogers and drummer Rusty Hopkinson are relaxing on a couch inside The Croxton’s band room. Hopkinson is empty-handed, but Rogers nurses a stubbie. “We’re pretty notorious for quick rehearsals as well,” Rogers observes. Bassist Andy Kent comes in, smiles, looks in the fridge and then leaves the room. You Am I are performing at tonight’s relaunch of The Croxton and Hopkinson recalls
Ryan Adams did have some great coke that night, but then he started to talk...
a brag-worthy gig experience from this venue pre-renos: “I came here when I was living in Melbourne in the early ‘80s, about 1984 I think, and saw Sweet or Suzi Quatro — one of the two. I saw both of them that year, one of them was at The Croxton. I was a little punk rocker at the time, too, so I remember thinking I was gonna get my head punched in, basically [laughs].” You Am I’s tenth album, Porridge & Hotsauce, was recorded at Daptone Records in Brooklyn and Hopkinson casually explains, “I’ve sorta worked for them for a while and, yeah! The studio’s just there and they’ve always said, ‘If you ever wanna use it, come use it.’” Rogers admits that prior to booking in studio time at Daptone, You Am I’s “impetus started going” when they found themselves “socialising with each other and forgetting about making 20 • THE MUSIC • 28TH OCTOBER 2015
records”. “And then Russ said, ‘Hey, look, there’s a weekend [available] at the studio and how about it?’” Hopkinson swoons over “a nice old 8-track tape machine” they recorded on at Daptone, adding, “It was really just cool to stand in that room and make music.” The band started recording the day after they landed and Rogers enlightens, “You know, traditionally, we went out and smashed it a bit when we arrived, and we felt really, really intimidated. And then as soon as you’re in a room, and you’re plugged in and you look at each other, and you think, ‘Ah, we’ve been doing this for 23 years, that’s right. One, two, three, four — bang’...” “It’s kind of a long way to go for it not to work,” Hopkinson admits, which cracks Rogers up. The drummer continues, “So we were sweating on it a little bit at the start and it sort of all came together, and it was a lot of fun and quite successful, in the end.” Hopkinson singles out some of the guests You Am I recruited for this album: “Stevie [Hesketh] our fifth member you could say — our keyboard player, fifth member of just about every band in town, ha ha — played some keys and then some of The Wolfgramm Sisters sang on it so it’s nice that there was all these friends.” “Not one stranger, I think,” Rogers stresses. “Just within the kind of extended family.” He attributes this to the fact that You Am I have “25 years of playing” under their belts before clarifying, “But it’s not really that extended, because they’re probably 30 people around the world that are in the gang and now that Russ and Andy are looking at overseas stuff and releases; it’s people that we’ve been dealing with from ten or 20 years ago and I’m not quite sure we’ve been lovely to everyone, but I think we’ve been ok with most people we had relationships with.” This scribe’s often wondered: Do bands get warned, before they hit the stage, that they may not be about to perform to a full house? “I refuse to listen,” Rogers illuminates, “but you get a feeling; you know, when you’re going to a club in the country and the car park’s pretty empty. “If you’re gonna let crowd numbers get to you to that point where you’re not going to enjoy yourself — it’s a wasted opportunity to have a good time. I think the best show we’ve ever played in our lives was at this joint, a ballroom in Cleveland; it’s the one I feel the most affectionate about. We had a big gig the night before in Philadelphia with The Strokes — a big ol’ night — and we’re all driving to the gig feeling shithouse... The point is: We had more fun than we did in Philadelphia the night before. Ryan Adams did have some great coke that night, but then he started to talk... If you worry about whether there’s gonna be a full house in New York or not, it’s sort of missing the point of it.”
What: Porridge & Hotsauce (You Am I Records/Inertia) When & Where: 29 Oct, Barwon Club, Geelong; 30 Oct, Hallam Hotel; 31 Oct, Village Green, Sunbury; 1 Nov, Ulumbarra Theatre, Bendigo; 4 Dec, 170 Russell
THE MUSIC 28TH OCTOBER 2015 • 21
22 • THE MUSIC • 28TH OCTOBER 2015
THE MUSIC 28TH OCTOBER 2015 • 23
Film
Other Rom-Coms Leslye Headland, the writer and director of Sleeping With Other People, tells Cyclone about the issues faced by women in the film biz.
A
merican writer/director Leslye Headland has a new movie, Sleeping With Other People - touted as “a rom-com for the Tinder age”. It cleverly subverts a frequently polarising genre. But can Headland defy Hollywood’s gender bias? Headland has seemingly advanced rapidly. The New York “film nerd” actually hails from a theatre background. She made her directorial picture debut with 2012’s cult Bachelorette, adapted from her own play - attracting Will Ferrell as producer, plus such stars as Kirsten Dunst and, from Oz, Isla Fisher and Rebel Wilson. She’s also gigged as a screenwriter. Premiering at Sundance, Sleeping With Other People centres on Jake (Jason Sudeikis) and Lainey (Alison Brie),
I do think directing is considered a male art form. I just don’t think people trust women to direct movies.
both commitment-phobes, who, having had a one-night stand in college, serendipitously reconnect years later in NY. Sleeping With Other People has been marketed as a “romantic comedy”, but it’s a wonderfully dysfunctional one - When Harry Met Sally-meets-Shame-meetsTrainwreck. “I think this is a romantic comedy for people who don’t really have an affection for the romantic comedy drama,” Headland agrees. “But, then, at the same time, if you do like those movies, you can still enjoy it. That’s my goal - to subvert and celebrate different genres at the same time.” Bachelorette taught Headland “to let go of what I thought the movie was gonna be”, encouraging her actors’ improvisation. Headland had already cornered Sudeikis (Horrible Bosses) for Sleeping With Other People when she hired Brie, unrecognisable from her role as Gertrude “Trudy” Campbell in Mad Men. The pair’s chemistry was evident during a read. “I think that you just gotta go with your gut,” Headland says of casting. “It was a no brainer for me. I was, like, 24 • THE MUSIC • 28TH OCTOBER 2015
Yeah, this is it. This is what it sounds like, this is who they are - this is the story I want to tell with these two people falling in love.” However, most revelatory is Adam Scott, the Parks And Recreation actor who previously appeared in Bachelorette. He portrays Lainey’s regular shag, and “a creep”. “You don’t even really think of him as the bad guy in the movie,” Headland laughs. “But it was very difficult to find somebody who was willing to play someone so shitty - a lot of actors just don’t wanna come across as unlikeable. They certainly don’t wanna play someone who has no charisma... He loved that.” The film world’s gender imbalance goes beyond the oft-failed on-screen Bechdel Test. Female directors, like actresses, are afforded fewer opportunities, and are paid less. That devaluation extends to male-authored reviews, which are notoriously sexist when it’s a ‘chick flick’. But, as Nancy Meyers recently told New York Magazine, Hollywood’s women, “don’t want to sweep the gender issue under the rug anymore”. “I’m definitely in the minority of female directors,” Headland says. “I literally have had things green-lit. I think a lot of it is just that I don’t wait for someone to say it’s ok to do something. I just start doing it. Everyone’s like, ‘Oh, I guess she’s making that movie...’ I really rally people. I really try to get movies off the ground. But I gotta say that I don’t disagree with the gripe. Because I don’t think it’s a reflection on who I am or my ability as a director that most of the guys who I came up with either on the festival circuit or who went to NYU [New York University] with me are now making studio films and I’m not. I don’t think that it’s a mistake, or a coincidence, that my films usually come out very divisively on the review side: how the films will test really positively, but the reviewers will always be split on them. There’ll be people who champion it - whether they’re men or women and then people who just go, ‘What the fuck was that?’... The other thing is that I talk about sex, I talk about gender roles. I don’t mean to, because all of my heroes are men (laughs). I’m just ripping off Woody Allen!” Headland rues that a female filmmaker’s work is critiqued on its content, not technical proficiency. A (fresh) female perspective is discredited. “Even my hero Quentin Tarantino in this [Bret Easton Ellis] article [in The New York Times] was a little bit dismissive of Kathryn Bigelow winning an Oscar for The Hurt Locker. He’s sort of saying, I guess it was cool that a woman made a war film. It’s really bad!” Female directors are deemed a risk - in a business based on risk. The inequality is entrenched culturally. Headland concludes, “I do think directing is considered a male art form. I just don’t think people trust women to direct movies.” Regardless, Headland is shopping another film, and she’s pursuing TV opps. Yet Headland remains involved in theatre, currently writing a play. “It’s really a great place for me to just try some different things.” And this auteur imagines a brighter future for Tinseltown’s female creatives. “I’m a little bit positive about it. I think things will change. There’s a really great conversation happening right now. We may not see it in our generation, but I think it will affect the next generation of female filmmakers, and that will be so exciting to see.”
What: Sleeping With Other People In cinemas 29 Oct
THE MUSIC 28TH OCTOBER 2015 • 25
Tim Rogers
Culture
Comments On Social Media? Cowardly Outraged by the shocking abuse that retired AFL player Adam Goodes received following the announcement of him becoming the new David Jones ambassador, Aussie singer and fellow ambassador Tim Rogers has hit back at the haters as the You Am I frontman speaks exclusively to The Music.
Adam Goodes
“W
hen the discussion and opinions around Adam started up and there was the inference that it was racially based. To continue to boo, or start it up in ‘deference’ to political correctness… well, my little tiny opinion is that you’re a fucking idiot,” Rogers said. “No, it is NOT the same as booing other players or that Adam’s sublime playing style douses him as a ‘flog’. By participating in the derision of a player who has spoken about years of verbal abuse based on his culture… well, I bloody well believe him. “I’ve had things shouted at me for years about my voice, my ponciness, my face, but nothing that digs up heritage, history, culture. So how the HELL could I pass comment on what Adam’s derision made he and his family feel? When he said it cut deep, I believe him. And want to learn. And stay the frig away from social media because that shit is toxic.” As a passionate AFL fan his whole life, Rogers recalled watching Goodes when he first competed in the sport. “I’ve watched Adam play since he first started, and my only reticence to unlock a tirade of love to the man was that he played for Sydney and not North Melbourne. His grace and sleek power was akin to my favourite ever sportspeople. A mix of almost balletic poise and perpetual forward motion (forgive me, I’m no journalist). His extraordinary gait whilst surging forward appeared at times mocking to an opposition supporter. Making a twenty yard power run in the forward flank appear effortless. His style brought out in me, as an opposition supporter, a rare mix of dread, anticipation, and awe. His celebration of goal in the game vs Carlton was one of the times I felt that footy has not lost its way in the ‘big
My little tiny opinion is that you’re a fucking idiot.
26 • THE MUSIC • 28TH OCTOBER 2015
game’. It was beauty, rage, culture, history and future. Many fans who did boo Goodes during the back end of the 2015 season claim they did so simply because he played on a rival team and that it wasn’t a racial action. However, Rogers believes those who continued to boo after Goodes publicly expressed he was hurt are enabling the problem. “Wilfully stirring a pot with no recognition of the recipe is hopelessly ignorant,” he said. “Again, as a middle class convict whose history is mercifully free of oppression, conflict, widespread massacre, abandonment and displacement, what the bloody hell would I know. So when Adam — or others of far higher intelligence and candour than me — declare a belief, I’m gonna listen, and think, and then keep listening.” Rogers went on to call out those who sent a tirade of abuse online. “’Comments’ are reactions. I trust the word spoken as I trust the flame from wood burning. There are those who sit near the fire and complain of its heat, others warm in it. But while those come and go, the fire ebbs in its own time. The Australia I know is of Barry Humphries, Uncle Jack Charles, Sidney Nolan, Ray Ahn, Percy Grainger, Jim Krackouer, Richard Flanagan, Waleed Aly, Trevor Jamieson, Wayne Schimmelbusch, Helen Razer, Chrissie Amphlett, Emma Donovan, Rennie Ellis, Marieke Hardy and Breaker Morant. And a long bar tab of other heroes of mine. Comments on social media? Cowardly.” When asked what it meant for Rogers to stand alongside Goodes as a DJ ambassador he quipped, “I didn’t think I was an ambassador, I was asked to model.” He added, “And as it had nothing to do with my music, I’m very happy to get work and contribute to my family. “However, if I am an ambassador, I would take that badge off and stand beside Adam as a man, as a person. I am not fit to tie his bootlaces (until he joins North and I resume as their strapper...) but I have a recurring dream of having a kick-to-kick with him. At this particular time in this absurd life, the truth is I only said yes to doing the ad when they said Adam was in it. I knew then I was safe. He’s that kinda’ man.”
THE MUSIC 28TH OCTOBER 2015 • 27
INDEPENDENT MUSIC AWARDS WINNERS All things indie were recently celebrated at The Independent Music Awards, and here are the winners in full of awards from the night:
Music
She Got It
Best Independent Artist Courtney Barnett
Best Independent Album Courtney Barnett — Sometimes I Sit & Think, & Sometimes I Just Sit
Murray Cook
Banoffee (aka Martha Brown) was flown by Big Boi’s team from New Orleans from New York to see Outkast’s last show after they heard her track Got It on Twitter. Bryget Chrisfield also learns she reckons her dog’s gay.
Best Independent Single Or EP Courtney Barnett — Depreston
Breakthrough Independent Artist Of The Year #1 Dads
Best Independent Hip Hop Album Seth Sentry — Strange New Past
Best Independent Country Album Frank Yamma — Uncle
28 • THE MUSIC • 28TH OCTOBER 2015
P
erched on a bench seat on Corner Hotel’s rooftop, Banoffee (aka Martha Brown) was born to stand out with her platinum blonde locks and authentic red tartan Galaxy bomber jacket. Brown has a welcoming presence and it’s endearing to discover her black Labrador is called Igby (after Kieran Culkin’s character in the 2002 film, Igby Goes Down). “I reckon he’s gay,” she tells of her dog. “Have you heard the song Eli by Arthur Russell? It’s a song about a putzy dog, it says, ‘I don’t know why nobody likes him,’ and we always sang it to Igby as a puppy, because we thought it was really cute. And then one day I was just like, ‘You know what? You’re a little Arthur Russell-esque.’ And then he was into men and I was like, ‘You’re just Arthur reincarnated’.” Brown went to a Steiner school where it was compulsory to start learning how to play an instrument from Year Three. She chose viola. “I used to wanna be in the symphony orchestra; you know, I thought that that was my shtick,” Brown shares. Although she was “first viola in the orchestra”, Brown confesses she didn’t enjoy practising. “My dad used to bribe me with chocolate,” she recalls. Although she’s tried to “put some viola into the Banoffee stuff”, Brown admits “it hasn’t sounded right”. “A lot of the stuff that I do I end up having to play all on laptops live,” she
laments. “So it would be nice to bring out some instruments and interact with the electronics that are going on. Sometimes I get asked, ‘Did you write the backing track?’ and I’m like, ‘Oh, yeah! I made that!’ or I’m like, ‘That happened live, it’s just that it’s all electronic’.” Banoffee’s music incorporates a very strong visual aspect and Brown acknowledges, “I’m super lucky that a lot of the people that I respect the most in the industry, I’ve found and connect with and that’s just, like, luck. And I’m really grateful for that.” Brown’s cousin Alice Glenn has directed all of her music videos so far. “She’s a busy girl,” Brown says of Glenn, who not only runs No Lights No Lycra, but also Schoolhouse Studios in Collingwood with Brown’s sister, Hazel. While in New York for CMJ last year, Brown received a call from the head of Big Boi’s creative team who had heard her track Got It on Twitter. “[He] flew me to New Orleans and I stayed in a hotel with Big Boi, it was very funny - same hotel, different rooms,” Brown divulges. She got to see Outkast’s last show, which she describes as “amazing”. Had Brown been on home soil when she received the call, she reckons things would’ve turned out differently. “If someone contacted me and said, ‘Hi, I’m the chief of Big Boi’s creative team, meet me at this cafe for a coffee,’ I’d be like, ‘Yeah, sure mate. Pull the other one’; And there was.” So are there any plans to collaborate with Big Boi? “Oh, I think our music’s too different, but...”
What: Do I Make You Nervous? EP (Dot Dash/Remote Control) When & Where: 30 Oct, Howler, 17 Nov, Former Royal Women’s Hospital, 28 – 1 Jan, Falls Festival, Lorne; 13 Feb, St Jerome’s Laneway Festival, Footscray Community Arts Centre
TV
Taking On Manson To read the full interview head to theMusic.com.au
He may have had all eyes on him when he starred as Renly Baratheon in Game Of Thrones, but Gethin Anthony’s latest project has presented an entirely new set challenges. Kane Sutton gets the lowdown
A
t the time of Gethin Anthony’s character Renly Baratheon’s untimely death midway through Game Of Thrones season two (if you haven’t watched it by now, you obviously don’t care), the series was averaging close to four million US viewers per episode and thriving. It propelled Anthony into the spotlight and when the opportunity came to star as US criminal and cult leader Charles Manson in new TV series Aquarius, he jumped at the chance, although he was admittedly taken aback. “I got sent a script and my wonderful representatives were like, ‘I think you’re gonna like this!’ I was doing theatre in London and I was on my way to rehearsals and I kind of read the script on the train and then was like, ‘Oh, whoa, I need to read this properly!’” he laughs. “I got home and read it again and I was just really struck by it. I kind of thought, ‘Who’s going to be stupid enough to try and play Charles Manson?’” While plenty has been documented about Manson around the time and after he and the members of his “family” were convicted of several chilling murders, Aquarius takes place prior to the spree,
focusing on Sam Hodiak (David Duchovny), a homicide detective who goes undercover to track Manson and the “family”. As such, Anthony, who wasn’t born until close to two decades later, was given plenty of homework. “The basics were there - biographies I could read, which I did - especially stuff about his life before 1967; where he grew up, what his relationships were like with people, that was really important. Then there was the side of it - watching videotapes of him, but more specifically listening to his voice from around the time the show was taking place; there’s a studio recording of him speaking to the studio engineer, and that was really helpful to try and help find a dialect for our version of him.” The abundance of research Anthony had to undertake helped him come to terms with how Manson came to be so influential to his eventual “family” members. “By [Manson’s] own testimony he said he read the book How To Make Friends & Influence People, and that he listened to pimps in prison about how they managed to get people to do what they wanted them to do... You add all these things together, it helps as an actor to understand the character.” The show has been praised for its strong ‘60s vibe. For Anthony, it’s the costumes that he gets a kick out of. “Us actors, we love a good garment... and our costume designer is incredible at sourcing these incredible pieces that feel really authentic. Sometimes they were, like the denim you’d sometimes wear was definitely old. And then there was the music... We were sent music to listen to and I actually bought a vinyl player so I could listen to it on vinyl, just a small way you can get something from it, you know.”
INDEPENDENT MUSIC AWARDS WINNERS Best Independent Blues & Roots Album C.W. Stoneking — Gon’ Boogaloo
Best Independent Hard Rock, Heavy Or Punk Album King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard — I’m In Your Mind Fuzz
Best Independent Dance, Electronica Or Club Single Hayden James — Something About You King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard
Best Independent Jazz Album Barney McAll — Mooroolbark
Best Independent Classical Album Australian Brandenburg Orchestra — Brandenburg Celebrates
Best Independent Label Milk! Records
What: Aquarius On DVD and Blu-ray 26 Nov
THE MUSIC 28TH OCTOBER 2015 • 29
Music
Melbourne Zoo Twilights Announced
Fun In The Sun
The Melbourne Zoo Twilights is back for 14 shows across Friday and Saturday evenings starting 29 Jan and running through to 12 March inclusive. The 2016 program once again serves up a diverse line-up of music, from countrytinged twangs, to sweet honeyed folk, nostalgic scented hits to modern pop bangers, old time croons to straight up rock n’ roll. Acts include excited to welcome American pop princess Belinda Carlisle, with three decades of pop hits along with local ‘80s new wave heroes,Pseudo
Melbourne Zoo Twilights
Rising indie rock powerhouse Mac DeMarco explains to Steve Bell the difference between a rock show and an art gallery (hint: it’s about letting your hair down).
T Echo both making their Zoo debut. Swedish indie folk artist José González and the John Butler Trio will be bringing their guitar skills to the season. Folk sweethearts The Waifs will take you on a journey of broken hearts and roads travelled. The Zoo Twilights fighting extinction theme continues, after a successful year of developments with the Eastern Barred Bandicoot and in 2016 the season’s proceeds will once again go towards saving this little marsupial. In the past twelve months sixteen Eastern Barred Bandicoots have been successfully released into their new home on Churchill Island in Phillip Island Nature Parks. Tickets to all shows include full access to the Zoo before the show begins.
30 • THE MUSIC • 28TH OCTOBER 2015
hese days Canadian-bred, New Yorkbased garage rocker Mac DeMarco seems to personify perpetual motion more than the ‘slacker’ tag he’s been burdened with by some, what with his seemingly endless touring regimen and propensity to release new music at a frightening clip. In his mind, however, he’s just following his dreams (and his love of warm weather and beaches). “It’s going to be so much fun,” he gushes of his impending Australian visit. “Your summer is the perfect time to tour, because I get to skip my winter — I haven’t had a real winter in three years, it’s amazing!” Since his last summer sojourn the notoriously laidback DeMarco dropped miniLP Another One, the touring cycle for which seems to have ushered in a new era of professionalism. “We spent a lot of time this summer rehearsing, because we have a new member — my old friend Jon [Lent] from my hometown is playing keyboard now,” he explains. “It was nice actually because usually we just practice once and then go, ‘Okay, let’s go learn these songs onstage at a show!’, so there’s a grace period of the first couple of weeks where we just have no idea how to play the songs. But this time we went
out knowing exactly what we were doing which was nice — we can’t really do the whole ‘practice onstage’ thing much anymore, it wouldn’t go over well at the big shows we play. “[The stuff from Another One] meshes well for the most part. There’s a couple of downtempo songs which I think is nice because choosing songs from Rock And Roll Night Club (2012), 2 (2012) and Salad Days (2014) the live set was pretty much all the fast songs from those three records, plus maybe a couple like Chamber Of Reflection that people want to hear. But it’s nice to do these slow songs and kind of cut them in the middle — it makes for more of a movement throughout the setlist. It’s not just one vibe the entire time.” DeMarco has become renowned for the festive party atmosphere he fosters onstage, something he considers part of his job description. “When I’m doing records I’m at home and I’m usually alone for days and days and days, and it’s kind of like a reflective, meditation vibe for me — I’m just focussed on one thing, I’m not picking up my phone or looking at the internet, I’m playing my instruments,” he offers. “I’ll see my girlfriend and that’s about it. Then with the live thing we bring those songs to the stage, but we’ve never been the kind of band to do the robotic perfect rendition — we’re super-sloppy, none of us really know how to play out instruments that well. But that’s the thing, for me it’s about representing the songs but also about us enjoying ourselves and the audience enjoying themselves and making a connection. The stuff in between the songs matters a lot too — it’s not an art gallery, it’s a rock’n’roll show and it’s supposed to be fun.”
When & Where: 28 Dec-1 Jan, Falls Festival, Lorne; 3-5 Jan, 170 Russell
THE MUSIC 28TH OCTOBER 2015 • 31
Answered by: Zech Walters, Eze Walters and Bowen Purcell
Sum up your musical sound in four words? Honest, relatable, energetic, cinematic.
How did you get your start? We were getting ready to head to Africa, for a mission trip. To help raise funds we started busking in our hometown Yarrawonga. After arriving back we wanted to go on a road trip around Australia, but we knew we needed money so after a running a few ideas back and forth we decided on busking, simply because we all played music. As we were busking in Sydney we began to see huge crowds gather round us, some people coming back specifically to see us!
You’re being sent into space, no iPod, you can bring one album – what would it be? Zech: John Mayer – Continuum. Eze: Bon Iver – For Emma. Bowen: The Beatles’ White Album. Greatest rock’n’roll moment of your career to date? We had a gig at Northcote Social Club. We really went all out; we had glow sticks, UV and strobe lights. At one point we stepped away from the mics and just let the crowd sing back to us. That was one of the most amazing feelings we’ve ever had.
Why should people come and see your band? Because we are there for the same reason you are: to enjoy music. We aren’t up there thinking we are the best, because if you weren’t there, we wouldn’t be… So that means that if you come to our gig you’re the best, and everyone wants to be the best! When and where for your next gig? 30 Oct, Max Watt’s; 1 Nov, Northcote Social Club (under-18s matinee show). Website link for more info? woodlock.com.au
In Focus
We all had a discussion and decided that we would pursue this as a career which has led us to where we are today.
Wo o d l o c k Pic: Woodlock
32 • THE MUSIC • 28TH OCTOBER 2015
Music
Hippie Days Are Here Again After unexpectedly meeting an old friend in the main street of Nimbin, the seed for Leisure Panic! was planted, as Dan Kelly explains to Chris Familton.
T
hat jump-off point where a musician realises they’ve found the starting point for a new album can often be a difficult one to find. For some it’s a moving target, for others it’s a spark that keeps disappearing and reappearing in another form. For Dan Kelly it involved a scrapped album and a return to the drawing board before a chance meeting set him on course toward what would become his new album, four-and-a-half years later than he expected. “I wrote a song called Baby Bonus when I was minding a friend’s place up in the hills behind Nimbin and it was the first song where I thought I might base the record around a series of stories set in that region. I’ve gone to Northern New South Wales since I was a kid. Once I’d written that one I went back to a few other ones and adjusted the lyrics a bit. I often have placebo lyrics in place until I can come up with an interesting story. After that I ended up framing it with that and a bit about my travels in a metanarrative, not exactly what happened to me. It’s written between the lines, in the lemon juice. The lateral life I’ve lived which has involved a bit of searching and all that. That song set it off, with a chance meeting with a friend in the main street of Nimbin who had just had a baby and I took on the role of a hippie woman in the song. Then I recorded some songs in a mud brick studio in Brunswick which is a cold-climate hippie kind of vibe. There’s a bit of hippie stuff to the record,” admits Kelly. One recurring tool in Kelly’s songwriting style is the use of place names which give his songs geographical context. On Leisure Panic! a list of native Australian birds is also recited - it transpires that Kelly has a fascination for landmarks and the natural world. “It is something I do and maybe it’s something I’ve inherited from playing a lot of Paul Kelly shows.
There’s a bit of synaesthesia like where you see colours as sounds.
I’m fascinated by beaches and mountains, I studied environmental science when I was a youngster and I like the way they translate into sounds. There’s a bit of synaesthesia like where you see colours as sounds. I do tend to place songs. I probably do tend to always write the same kind of song, hopefully improving it and giving it variation. It’s like some kind of mystical Japanese art where I’m incrementally delving into and expanding this one style I’ve been doing for a long time. I change the musical styles a lot but I do work variations on a theme which often involves naming a town or a spot. I do make things up though - there is a reference on the album to Strawberry City, fuck knows what that is, it just sounds good! The real and the unreal is all kind of interwoven, I really enjoy that. Most of the place names are real, places I’ve been and where stuff has happened.” Each Dan Kelly album takes a different tact to those that preceded it. Even if his compositional style riffs on the same theme he places the songs in different musical worlds, from his early solo work with The Alpha Males through to the dreamier soulful drones of his latest album. “The first record was influenced by things like Pavement and the more aggressive music I grew up listening to like Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and Jesus Lizard. I was living with The Drones and we were all getting into music together and they played in the band so I was really keen to do that stuff. We reformed recently and it was super energetic and lots of fun. I do find it hard to sing over that stuff though as I don’t have a mega rock voice and those guys were rocking. The next record delved into this tropicalia clean tone, more clangy Sonic Youth adventure music. The third one I wanted to do a Dylanesque surrealistic ramble of words. This one I wanted to be more meditative even though live it is still a bit crazed and spastic rock. It’s more soundscape-based. I definitely wasn’t in a rush to make another punk record, though the next one might be. One of the challenges of this was to play less and make it sound bigger.”
What: Leisure Panic! (ABC/Universal) When & Where: 31 Oct, The Gasometer Hotel
THE MUSIC 28TH OCTOBER 2015 • 33
Music Victoria Awards
Hall
f Fame
Ahead of the Music Victoria Hall Of Fame Awards, Michael Smith looks back on some of the nominees’ careers.
Bill Armstrong
A
s he approaches his 86th year, Bill Armstrong remains as passionate about the recording of music as he was when he was running arguably the most important independent recording studio in the country. That passion began a long time before those halcyon days. “I grew up listening to the radio and would have liked to have played the piano,” Armstrong remembers. “I don’t know that was ever a possibility, but I mixed with jazz musicians and they all wanted to hear themselves so I built a cutting machine and a friend of mine built an amplifier for me where I could record onto a disc in my house, and that’s when I got involved with recording, cutting a disc onto an acetate, which you could then cut at 78rpm and play back with a regular pickup. That was in the mid-’40s.” Armstrong has literally lived through every development in recording technology. Born in 1929, he was still in his teens when he built that disc-cutting machine. “Though I called it Armstrong Studios it was the rec room in my parents’ house... By 1956, I didn’t have a studio but I had equipment that I could go to locations - good mics and good stands and a tape machine - and record. It wasn’t until I built my own studio in 1965 that I actually had my own place.” Before he built Armstrong Studios, he worked for W&G Records. In 1965 he was asked to manage Telefil in St Kilda, at the time the largest commercial recording studio in Melbourne. “And it was after that that I opened up my own studio, in December 1, ‘65.” Originally housed in a singlefronted terrace house in South Melbourne, Armstrong’s was where The Easybeats recorded the backing track for She’s So Fine and Johnny Farnham recorded Sadie. By the time Armstrong moved the studios to a much larger building in Bank Street, some 80% of all the hit records being made in Australia were being recorded at Armstrong’s.
The sound reproduction was pretty good, and it was portable, though it weighed 25 kilos.
Bill Armstrong
34 • THE MUSIC • 28TH OCTOBER 2015
In 1974, it became Armstrong Audio Videos (AAV): “Phillip Adams... the Managing Director of The Age approached me, having bought a company called Video Tape Centre... with the idea to move the Video Tape Centre into my building and create an audio/ video situation. But I was still running audio operations for two years and then I left and ran SBS Radio for 11 years in Sydney and Melbourne and then I was one of the licensees who set up EON FM. After six years we sold that to Triple M in Sydney. Then I got back to my love of recording jazz and I’ve got a jazz label, Bilarm Music.”
The Seekers
“I
hawked our W&G record around London till I wore my desert boots out,” The Seekers’ double bassist Athol Guy points out, recalling the days before their UK first single was released. “No one wanted to know... World Record Club asked us to cut an album and then a second album, and our albums with them really started to take off because of the television appearances. And then of course EMI bought the World Record Club, so those songs became part of their catalogue, but then I’ll Never Find Another You took off.” The Seekers had had something of a dream run. Within a few months of Guy and acoustic guitarists Bruce Woodley and Keith Potger deciding to invite aspiring jazz singer Judith Durham into the group, The Seekers had recorded their debut album, Introducing The Seekers, for W&G, released in November 1963; appeared on the biggest TV show of the day, Graham Kennedy’s In Melbourne Tonight; and had scored a job providing the entertainment on a cruise ship bound for London, leaving March 1964. When they got to London, they found that not only did they have a manager but they already had bookings. Guy had sent a copy of the album, some press shots and a black and white kine (a predecessor to the video) of their IMT performance to The Grade Organisation, then the biggest entertainment agency in the UK. “I got a telegram the day before the boat docked that said, ‘Welcome to the United Kingdom.
We look forward Palais Theatre to seeing you in London. Next Tuesday you will be on the BBC Today Tonight program.’ Eddie Jarrett was looking after us... he had us audition for Sunday Night At The London Palladium within four weeks of our arriving in England. I think we were on television nearly every week in the first six months that we were in England... Then of course we met up with Tom [Springfield], who brought us I’ll Never Find Another You.” Since no major label would sign them, Jarrett and Springfield set up their own production company, recorded the single and leased it to EMI. Pirate radio stations broadcasting outside UK territorial waters broke the single that topped the UK chart in 1965. The Seekers were voted NME’s Best New Group of 1965 and performed at Wembley Stadium as part of the NME’s AllStar Poll Winners concert. Their theme song for feature film, Georgy Girl, was nominated for an Academy Award. Their third tour of Australia, in 1967, saw them perform to an estimated 200,000 people at Sidney Myer Music Bowl, the largest concert audience in Australian history.
Palais Theatre
“I
t’s part of the Victorian fabric really,” says Neil Croker, CEO of the iconic St Kilda Palais Theatre and the venue’s booker. “It’s fabulous.” And a grand old lady she is, designed by architect Henry E White back in 1926 to be one of the largest and grandest picture theatres in the Southern Hemisphere. Opening its doors 11 Nov the following year, it was still going strong when a seemingly innocuous feature film from the US, Blackboard Jungle, hit its screen in 1956. “The Palais was a live performance venue from the day it opened,” Croker points out. “Although it opened primarily as a cinema, it was normal in that period that as well as seeing a movie in a big theatre, you would get a whole live performance, so the Palais was built with a big stage and there was a resident full-time Palais orchestra from 1927 all the way through to the mid-1950s. So when you bought a ticket for a movie, you’d
have at least 45 minutes of live music with the orchestra playing hits of the day and perhaps some variety acts, excerpts from musicals - then you’d see your movie. Then really, from the mid-’50s onwards, with the advent of television, going to movies dropped off, screening movies became less important and the focus was more on live performances. And remember, the Victorian Arts Centre was not open at that stage, so in stages the Palais became the home to what became the Australian Ballet and the Australian Opera as well as contemporary performances. Of course when the Arts Centre opened, things dropped off again because it lost that sort of ‘high art’ stuff and reinvented itself as a venue focusing on contemporary performance.” With a seating capacity of 2896, the largest seated theatre in the country, the art deco Palais is included on the Victorian Heritage Register. “The acoustics are staggering. People who know acoustics much better than me... just rave about the acoustics.” Croker’s own background is in directing and the promotion and managing of international touring artists, among them AC/DC, Dire Straits, Carole King and Michael Jackson, as well as productions of Riverdance and Steel City. He also managed the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. He took up the position at the Palais eight years ago, the Palais having, as he puts it, “been allowed to fall into a state of some disrepair and was not being utilised very much. The year before, it had done around 20 shows - we now do around 100 a year... So it’s been a beautiful eight-year experience for us to really revitalise the theatre and it’s a core part of the national performance scene again.” The Palais has hosted many a memorable performance - the first Melbourne concert by The Rolling Stones, for instance, touring as support to America’s Roy Orbison; The Beach Boys; Tom Jones; Lou Reed and even Bob Hope - as well as, on the ‘high art’ end of things, Dame Joan Sutherland in The Merry Widow and Anne Woolliams’ production of Swan Lake.“There were great concerts too by Bette Midler, Shirley MacLaine, Peter Allen, Joe Cocker,” Croker recalls. “One of the real highlights in the ‘70s for the Palais, it was where Jesus Christ Superstar was staged in Victoria. There’s hardly probably a prominent Australian musician who hasn’t played at the Palais at some point. In the last eight years since we’ve been looking after the theatre there have been a lot of highlights, but Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan have been real big highlights.”
When & Where: 20 Nov, The Age Music Victoria Awards Hall Of Fame Concert, Palais Theatre
Stan Rofe
Stan Rofe with Lonnie Lee, Johnny Devlin and Johnny O’Keefe
Legendary 3KZ disk jockey Stan Rofe passed away mid-2003 yet his story lives on in the white noise. Remembered by many for his music shows in the ‘50s and ‘60s, Rofe is noted as playing the likes of Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, The Temptations and more before it was cool to do so. Beginning his radio career with minimal training at Bill Roberts School Of Broadcasting in 1952, his first job was in 1953 at 7AD in Devonport, Tasmania. Less than six months later he was back in Melbourne for his first radio job in his home city, as midnight to dawn announcer on 3AK. From there Rofe spent the subsequent years rising through the ranks of radio across many Melbourne stations, including 3KZ (where he had his popular shows Holiday Hit Time and The Platter Parade), 3UZ, 3XY and 3DB. His role even managed to expand beyond the airwaves, where he would compere shows across Melbourne from Festival Hall to Preston Town Hall. All this despite Rofe initially admitting he didn’t know what he was doing with DJing, but he has been credited as the first person to play rock’n’roll on Melbourne radio. His influence carried through to artists he championed, such as Johnny. Rofe’s presence on the airwaves was an important one for many Melbournians tuning in.
THE MUSIC 28TH OCTOBER 2015 • 35
Eat / Eat/Drink
High Tea
Emma Dempsey susses out some places to get that fancy finger food experience. Hotel Windsor - 111 Spring St, Melbourne
Fancy Nance
Madame Brussels’
Fancy Nance - 21 Daly St, South Yarra High tea, Adriano Zumbo style. Sweets like panna cotta and macaroons are served first; savouries finish the 90minute gastronomic experience. There’s the I’m So Fancy menu ($65) - with 12 courses you will roll out the door; the less intense Pretty Flamingo ($45); or the traditional scone and tea/coffee experience (Sconti, $15). Glutenfree and vegetarian-friendly options are available. 36 • THE MUSIC • 28TH OCTOBER 2015
The real high tea deal. You even get an etiquette handbook that tells you how to hold a teacup and where to place your napkin. Feel like a high-flyer as you sample French pastries, freshly baked scones and much more. The afternoon affair costs upwards of $69... but, hey, you’ll feel like royalty for a few hours.
Garden Party - Level 3,
Nova Deluxe at Cinema Nova - 380
59 Bourke St, Melbourne
Lygon St, Carlton
Melbourne’s answer to high tea on heat. Hilarious, ridiculous and utterly fabulous, daaarling. Eat daggy (in the best way) old-fashioned sandwiches like curried egg and cucumber or pickles and ham. Enjoy a fruity ‘Double D’ cocktail and get elegantly (or not so elegantly) shitfaced with your BFFs in the afternoon. $48 will be enough to give you hours of multiple LOLs.
Really want to do the high tea thing but can’t be effed making small talk with the person you’re with? Cinema Nova has you sorted. High tea at the movies. See a flick, have a drink, eat some yum things and sit on a sofa while you’re at it. $45 gets you admission, a glass of champers, Pimms or tea and a few nibblies like cake and sandwiches.
/ Drink Eat/Drink
Hot Spot Cadbury Treat Street For the residents of Glen Iris, Halloween just got a whole lot sweeter! Cadbury is hosting a street party, and is inviting each and every Melburnian to its fangtastic celebrations - whether you’re a Halloween fanatic, or just a plain chocaholic. Every year the Halloween spirit on Maitland Street has been nothing short of spectacular, gradually capturing the attention of the Marketing Head of Cadbury. This year the confectionery company has decided to support the neighborhood’s unmatched
spooky atmosphere by teaming up with locals and hosting a Cadbury Treat Street. From 4.30 - 6.30pm, the street will come alive on Halloween with live entertainment, a community BBQ and plenty of your favourite Cadbury treats. Lillie Siegenthaler
Applejacks It’s a Kiwi cider - but the twist is that it’s been cut with 42BELOW vodka. Dun-dunn. So what you get is a not fizzy, less sweet cider with a kick (that’s the vodka part; there’s about half a shot in each bottle). This is not a mixed drink for babies (note: we are aware that no mixed drinks are suitable for actual babies). It’s a daytime drink, a nighttime drink, a spring and summer drink. The killer combo bevo is available from all good bottle shops in two dry apple flavours: the Pippin Dry and, for the real ginger lovers out there (if your feelings towards ginger are negative or indifferent just stay away; this one will have you feeling like ginger spice is coursing through your veins), the Ginger Jive.
Check Out
Holiday Eats
Packin’ Picnics For Cup Day Cup Day is fast approaching, and the stresses of picking the right horse, to getting your suits tailor made, or finding the right fascinator to complement your frock can turn into one big cloud of panic. And then there’s the food and drink; but fear not, we’ve some suggestions for what to put in your picnic basket for the big event. Being a formal occasion, snacks like blue cheese tarts topped with roasted cherry tomatoes could be the perfect bite size treat to keep your energy high, but not so heavy that they’ll weigh you down. These are expensive ingredients and will show other punters that you’re betting the big bucks. Another crowd pleaser is vegetable rice paper rolls. Just roll up some cucumber, carrot, bean shoots (or whatever veg of your liking, really) and a side dish of peanut sauce, and then wash it down with some gin mixed in with bitter lemon and a teaspoon of fresh lime juice over some ice to refresh you throughout the course of the day. You’ll need to keep hydrated because all that shouting at horses is going to make you, well, hoarse. Finally, another easy-but-fancy snack is mixing some olive oil with paprika, curry powder, cumin and then adding mixed nuts. Plain nuts are for plebs, let’s be honest. Hannah Blackburn
THE MUSIC 28TH OCTOBER 2015 • 37
Indie Indie
Junor
L-FRESH The LION
Young & Jacksons
Larry Maluma
EP Focus
Single Focus
Melbourne Cup Focus
Album Focus
Answered by: Steven Ondarch
Single title? Get Mine (ft. Parvyn Kaur Singh)
Answered by: Michael Sanelli venue manager
Album title: Ulemu (Respect)
What’s the song about? The song is about smiling in the face of hardship. It’s about claiming yours regardless of what’s thrown your way.
For the Melbourne Cup long weekend, what special events do you have planned? We have entertainment from Friday night through to Cup Day. Use our new TAB facilities to put on all your Melbourne Cup bets.
EP Title: Fluorescent Connections How many releases do you have now? Just the one. Fluorescent Connections was my debut EP release. More in the works! Was anything in particular inspiring you during the making? I kind of blocked everything else in the world out, delved deep into my weird mind and my flow-state did its thing. Some substances and experiences definitely had a huge impact on my mind-state throughout. What’s your favourite song on it? Secluded Pluto. The EP is a journey and the step of the journey that is Secluded Pluto happened magically. We’ll like this EP if we like... Boundary-pushing, free-minded psychedelic experiences you haven’t felt before. If you’re open to new experiences you should love it. A mixture of the vibes of Kid Cudi and The Underachievers. When and where is your launch/next gig? Fluorescent Connections ‘little-mini’ tour recently started with our warehouse party. Next, 30 Oct, The Small Ballroom (under18), Newcastle with Ivan Ooze. Sydney, and a few Melbourne dates including 6 Nov, Tuka’s Corner Hotel LDTE show. Website link for more info? onepagelink.com/junormusic
38 • THE MUSIC • 28TH OCTOBER 2015
How long did it take to write/ record? The song took a few weeks. It started with Damn Moroda sending through a sample of the beat, then I crafted the lyrics over a period of time before we went to recording. Is this track from a forthcoming release/existing release? This is the first single from my next album, which will be first album I release as part of the Elefant Traks roster. What was inspiring you during the song’s writing and recording? The real experiences mentioned in the song actually happening either just before or during writing. The line “tell me to go home but I come from here” typifies that. It all added to my fire. We’ll like this song if we like... You like music to bounce to that also has a message. Do you play it differently live? This song bangs when my band plays it live. The intensity lifts. It’s definitely a movement song. When and where is your launch/ next gig? I’m touring this single nationally in October, November and December. I’ll be performing a brand new set with my team, featuring a few new songs from my next album.
Will you have any food or drink specials? Waygu burger and 4 Pines deal for $30. Meat platter, $39. Sliders and beer paddle for $30. Lots of share plate options. Are you encouraging punters to dress up for your event? No. What will be a sure bet at your event? Cold beer. Any tips for the Cup? Come to Y&J’s before and after the Cup, it’s a safe tip.
Where did the title of your new album come from? I understood what respect meant very early in life because I come from where people respect each other no matter what. How many releases do you have now? Ulemu is my 12th album although I am calling it my ‘debut’ for a very good reason. How long did it take to write/ record? I think Ulemu (Respect), Zambian Lost Tapes ‘84 - 85 took more than a couple of years. I know that one of the Zamrock tracks was recorded before 1984. It’s been a long time coming. Was anything in particular inspiring you during the making? I get my inspiration from the almighty every time. I remember at the time Zimbabwe was just about to be independent. Love for children, respect for all people always play a part in my writing. What’s your favourite song on it? Ulemu (Respect). It’s a very simple, happy song about respect for one another no matter where you come from. When and where is your launch/ next gig? I will be on the road to SA and QLD then VIC over summer. Be on the look out for my name or face. I will be in your town soon. Website link for more info? larrymaluma.com.au
Music
Leeds United
“We’re coming to kick the shit out of Australia.” They may be fighting words, but Pulled Apart By Horses guitarist James Brown is being anything but confrontational, as Dylan Stewart finds out.
T
he Leeds four-piece that goes by the name Pulled Apart By Horses had their most recent taste of life Down Under during this year’s Soundwave festival, but are pumped to be returning for their own headline shows - four shows in three cities over four nights - but then, “Sleep’s the enemy,” guitarist James Brown says laughing. “If you sleep, you’re a loser. If you’re in a different country it’s too exciting to sleep. You want to go out and meet people after the show, then go swimming in the sea. Of course, if we were in England we’d probably sleep all day and all night, but I don’t think we’ll be sleeping on this tour.” A year has passed since they released third album, Blood. “By the time we’d written those songs and recorded them,” Brown explains, “those songs had been around for a year as well. So to us, those songs are practically two years old now. They’ve definitely aged and we’re all really proud of them, but it’s weird because it’s been so long since we actually wrote and recorded them. “We’ve already started the next record. We’ve begun writing and demoing and it’s going a bit quicker than it normally does. So the game plan - aside from the fact that we
never usually have a game plan - is that we’re going to play some new stuff. We fucking love touring Australia, so we’ll probably play a few songs off each of our albums as well as two or three new ones to see if Australia think they’re complete shit or not.” One thing that Australians won’t have to judge so critically is the band’s on-stage presence. “I’m sure it’s got something to do with nervous energy and ADHD and being impatient, but when we get on stage everything seems to change; it’s like all this stuff just comes out. As soon as we get on stage this thing just happens and we all go fucking mental.” The four members have an innate ability to read each other’s cues on stage, a skill no doubt learned through their long friendship. It’s a skill that stretches beyond the stage and into their everyday lives. Even when they’re not doing band stuff, they can be found hanging out together, drinking and watching bands in their hometown. “The music scene in Leeds is thriving at the moment. Obviously it’s one of the things that helped to propel the band when we started out in the early days and now there are loads of bands in Leeds so it’s awesome. “Kaiser Chiefs were a massive Leeds band during the indie phase that was happening at the time, but now there are lots of folk musicians and electro artists alongside the rock bands who are doing great things.”
When & Where: 30 & 31 Oct, Ding Dong Lounge
Goodbye... And Thanks For All The Fish Michael Smith
Longtime staff writer Michael Smith departs The Music after 25 years and says goodbye. All I’d ever wanted to do was write and play music and my brief “pop star” career, courtesy a mid-‘70s glam rock band from Adelaide called Scandal, provided me my entrée into the field by interviewing my musician friends for the long-gone newsagency Melbourne-based weekly, Juke, and fortnightly Sydney-based RAM, which eventually led to a job with Sydney’s The Drum Media. After sporadic appearances in Melbourne street press, fast forward to April 2006; the owners of Inpress, brothers Craig and Leigh Treweek and their partner Julius Larobina, took over The Drum Media and it became part of a national concern, Street Press Australia. Then in August 2013, Inpress - along with its sister publications in Sydney, Brisbane and Perth - became The Music, and you should all know the rest. So there you go. After 25 years, which has seen me working under five successive editors and play in a dozen bands, I find myself a few months shy of that age Paul McCartney wrote that dreadful song people are bound to greet me with way too often next year. When asked to rabbit on about having been at the magazine for 20 years, Craig estimated I’d probably pounded out eight million-odd words. It’s probably past 11 million by now. So it’s time to concentrate on finishing the books I’ve been writing out of school hours the past 19 years now that I have a literary agent, and get back to being a bass player. Thanks to everyone who made this story possible. It’s been quite a trip!
THE MUSIC 28TH OCTOBER 2015 • 39
OPINION Opinion
Bryson Tiller
O G F l ava s
I
Urban And R&B News With Cyclone
t’s blockbuster season in urban music, with much-anticipated albums like Raury’s All We Need dropping. Yet Bryson Tiller from Louisville, Kentucky, has taken the industry by stealth, his debut TRAPSOUL rocketing up the US charts to #11. Tiller disclosed to Billboard that a year ago he was sleeping in his ride, while juggling jobs. A laptop artist who ‘sing raps’, he built his profile through SoundCloud (a fan coined the ‘trap soul’). R&B should welcome a new commercial male star — and possible foil to Tinashe. Sure, The Weeknd has moved in this direction, and Miguel’s avant’n’B is crossing over. But the controversial Chris Brown remains rap’s go-to cameo R&B guy (why is Trey Songz neglected?). Tiller is repping a new guard. However, he’s closer to Drake than Fetty Wap, 2015’s other trap phenom. Indeed, nothing on TRAPSOUL is as obviously anthemic as Fetty’s Trap Queen, Tiller preferring
Macbeth
M o d e rate l y H igh b ro w
I
n which we look at Macbeth. Wank And There. I said it. It seemed that Theatre no sooner than Hugo had hung up Foyers With his hat (or crown, Dave Drayton as it were), walked from the stage and wiped the cake from his face, that Michael Fassbender plucked it from the rack and strode, a wreck, into cinemas around the country.
Visual Art
40 • THE MUSIC • 28TH OCTOBER 2015
Littered with mishaps and tragedy of lore, superstitious types will never utter Macbeth in a theatre (and theatre types are superstitious — why else would you wish an actor to break a limb, or spit three times before heading on stage?), instead opting for the aliases of The Scottish Play and Harry Lauder. If you do happen to call the play by its actual name (like that should be such a crime) there are, like with hiccups, a number of remedies to cancel out the bad luck. According to Schott’s Quintessential Miscellany you can spin three times; spit over your left shoulder; utter aloud a truly rude word; or declaim a line from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Not wishing to court bad luck, I employed all three having requested a ticket to the afternoon screening of Macbeth at Dendy, though I cannot vouch for their effectiveness. Barely had I finished explaining to fellow cinema-goers that I had had a most rare vision, a dream past the wit of man to say what dream it was, when an employee wearing my hocked gollie as goatee ungraciously escorted me from the premises. Tragic indeed.
subliminal bass. Still, the Southerner reveals the influence of UK nightbus (at least James Blake) in addition to T-Pain. Let Em’ Know contemporises Ginuwine’s ‘90s output with Timbaland. Coincidentally, Timbaland — busy lately producing music for the hit TV show Empire — is behind the single Sorry Not Sorry. Otherwise Tiller has, similarly to Fetty on his eponymous LP, relied on relatively obscure beatmakers — such as The MeKanics (Meek Mill). The sci-fi glitch of Don’t (with chopped ‘n’ screwed vox) was masterminded by Dope Boi Beatz. Tiller even goes drill for Rambo. His most panoramic (and Weeknd-y) song is Right My Wrongs. If there’s a zeitgeist R&B album this summer, TRAPSOUL is it.
Full Band Heavy Metal Karaoke
The Heavy Shit
T
oo old for this shit? Never! It just takes Hard Rock longer to recover. I’m 38 with a typical With thick headbanger’s Chris Maric neck from a youth spent doing dumb shit that makes chiropractors rich. Last week at Frankie’s in Sydney I was with a bunch of my long time mates (who are all well into their 40s) to rally around one who
Metal And
OPINION Opinion
had recently lost his dad. A typical drinking session was going fine until the Full Band Karaoke started up and our grieving mate, who used to sing in a very prominent ‘90s death metal band, got up and belted out Ace Of Spades so well that it took the backing band by surprise. This also put said friend back into gig mode and his demands for us all to get mashing couldn’t be ignored. Cue 20 minutes of four middle-aged men in plaid shirts and one late 30s guy in a T-shirt (and the only one with long hair) going off down the front while the Tuesday night Martin Place white collar crowd looked on in bemusement — fuck them, ha ha. Anyway, it concluded with the full version of Master Of Puppets and we went off into the night. Needless to say we all suffered bang-overs the next day and, as I write this three days later, it’s still pretty stiff. Out of practice? Sure. Old? Sure. But fuck it was fun. And it also showed me that metal is still the cure for everything. Our friend left the bar beaming with all of his troubles left on the back burner. It was a beautiful thing... It’s something that the greater population still doesn’t want to acknowledge, admit to or even consider. How many interviews have you watched with both bands and fans saying that metal has seen them through the toughest of times? Their Darkest Hour, as it were. I’m not on a mission to convince outsiders of the healing power of metal; I honestly don’t care what they think. We all know what it does to us and it was great to see it happening in real time too! The music that is apparently linked to youth suicides has prevented so many more. That’s a touchy subject and we all know our music is the easy scapegoat when no one wants to dig any deeper than surface level. The sheer amount of touring going on this month is proof that metal is alive and well and I’ve seen more happy faces at gigs than anywhere else. It’s not like a sporting event where people feel crushed if their team loses and the winners rub their faces in it. No one goes to a gig and says, “In your face, support band!” That’s why they are called support bands; we are here to hold each other up. I’ve been to pop, indie and hip hop gigs and none of them have the communal affair that a metal show can create. Some hip hop shows have been downright hostile. I think in nearly 25
years of going to shows I have seen two fights; both have been between friends who kissed and made up with beers and more banging in a matter of moments. That quote about music being the soundtrack of our lives is completely true, and our noise can be everything. Ugly, dark, abrasive, etherial, emotional, beautiful and purely primal. But above all it’s more than just music. It’s our lifeline, our therapy and our identity.
THE MUSIC 28TH OCTOBER 2015 • 41
Album / E Album/EP Reviews
Album OF THE Week
My Disco Severe
Temporary Residence
★★★★½
The legacy of Melbourne trio My Disco is as surprising as it is enduring. Their deliberate, methodical abdication to metronomic, punishing rhythms and monotonous syllabic utterances has stripped rock and punk of all its’ flamboyant flesh, leaving a gargantuan flayed beast in its wake. The term math rock doesn’t even touch the calculated precision with which Ben and Liam Andrews and Rohan Rebeiro dissect and reassemble their agitated soundscapes. It is colossal rock in its basest form — from the sparking fury of EP Language Of Numbers to the self-flagellating Cancer, scorched-earth Paradise and buoyant Little Joy, this is music as played by the Gods — aloof, all-pervading, overpowering, destructive. This still doesn’t prepare anyone for the desolate brutality inherent in fourth longplayer Severe — another cruelly apt album title. Rebeiro’s drums are immense, evoking a feral, tribal netherworld in relentless scope, a death march slowed 800% yet raising the stakes on ruthless inevitability. The scarring scree of Andrews’ guitar smears distortion on the likes of Successive Pleasure. King Sound is pitch-tar nihilism — a death-knell chord, followed by tinnitus-itch feedback, a lengthy silence, and intensely dark lurch into life. By the time the rifle-roar of ominous closer Careless belts by, Severe has severely tested the most resilient of discerning listeners, yet this bruising effort is nothing short of spectacular. Brendan Telford
Palms
Roots Manuva
Crazy Rack
Bleeds
Ivy League/Liberation
Big Dada/Inertia
★★★★
★★★★ It might be just their second album but these guys are veteran Sydney musicians, with frontman Al Grigg and drummer Tom Wallace hailing from fondlyremembered noughties’ outfit Red Riders. With that pedigree, it’s not surprising these guys know how to pack one wicked guitar line after another into their poppy slices of garage rock. But, where Red Riders were generally crisp and polished on record, for Palms they’ve strapped themselves in and turned the distortion to 11. Despite that, they still have very few problems getting the sunny melodies to shine through. The distortion may mean the overall production’s a little fuzzy for some and, at barely 30 minutes in total, the album could seem a little short. However, the rapid-fire run-time is symptomatic of just how
42 • THE MUSIC • 28TH OCTOBER 2015
tightly constructed the songs are. Tracks like first single Bad Apple and brilliant rocker Sleep Too Much barely waste a moment but still convey a sense of a journey taking place. The acoustic No More is probably the least effective moment here midway through, but it launches into a fantastic back end. In My Mind delivers blistering guitars in spades while closer Dreamcatcher takes its time unleashing a massive chorus that’s easily the album’s highlight. The whole shebang has a ‘90s pub-rock feel but that sense of nostalgia just elevates Palms into the top echelon of Aussie guitar bands. Paul Barbieri
A voice of London rap for two decades, the artist also known as Rodney Hylton Smith (no wonder he gave himself the Roots Manuva moniker) has dropped his first LP in four years. Bleeds is pretty much what anyone with a passing knowledge of Manuva might expect. Slow, grimy jams with his dulcet baritone dropping lyrics with precision. There’s no sign, however, that Smith is relying on his past glories. Tracks like the claustrophobic Crying are immediate in their sound, with minimal samples, muffled beats and introspective lines like “Trying to come to my senses / With a sixth sense that don’t make no sense.” He opts not to fill Bleeds with guests, instead backing his proven ability and the production duties of Four Tet, Adrian Sherwood and
British wunderkind Fred. This confidence proves to be wellplaced on Don’t Breathe Out, throughout which Barry White’s Honey Please, Can’t Ya See drifts in and out and lends a Bon Iveresque quality to the track. At 12 tracks and 41 minutes, Bleeds doesn’t overstay its welcome. There are elements of light scattered throughout the primarily dark record, such as on Cargo. Stepping Hard is the album highlight. Reverb on the vocal line, a so-bass-it-will-stainyour-pants chorus refrain and an occasional piano note are the stuff that reminds you of why Roots Manuva is a name to be revered. Dylan Stewart
EP Reviews Album/EP Reviews
British Sea Power
Cheatahs
Dinosaur Pile-Up EL VY
Mythologies
Eleven Eleven
Return To The Moon
Sea Of Brass
Wichita Recordings/[PIAS] Australia
Double Cross Records/ Cooking Vinyl
4AD/Remote Control
★★½
★★★
★★★
★★★½
British Sea Power have been on the fringes of the modern postpunk revival for 15 years now, and this latest LP is perhaps their strangest yet. Essentially a revisiting of their own favourite hits from their career, the band here is accompanied by one of Britain’s more accomplished brass orchestras. While this could be a fascinating and interesting twist on the Greatest Hits package, the result is a somewhat frustrating listen. The ambition of the album is admirable, but the songs themselves sound weighed down by the brass, rather than elevated. Such a misstep is a small one for a band willing to take such risks however.
For a band touted as having incendiary live shows and be pushing guitar music to the limits, Londoners Cheatahs play on heavily familiar touchstones on second LP Mythologies. Melding paisley pop (Channel View) to shoegaze (Red Lakes (Sternstunden)) via languid space rock (the decent Freak Waves) watered-down motorik psych (the aptly named In Flux), there isn’t much here to surprise or excite. But apart from the occasional spike of aggression colouring the swirling edges (Colorado) and flight of fancy (? (Murasaki)), this is a well-made wash of noise without much lasting effect.
Eleven Eleven has a heavy grunge sound, no shortage of intense guitar riffs and shouty vocals from vocalist Matt Bigland. Opener 11:11 comes in with aggressive riffs complemented by heavy drum work. Bad Penny and Willow Tree explore mental health and toxic relationships, with honest lyrics, while Anxiety Trip is a rollercoaster of emotions and earth shaking riffs. Might As Well is a refreshing with its alterative sound - not as heavy as previous tracks. The only downside is that by Anxiety Trip, the album loses its spark as the songs begin to sound the same, leaving you wanting to skip the rest.
It takes time to get into this side-project from Matt Berninger and Brent Knopf. Berninger’s baritone drawl is synonymous with the harmonic histrionics of The National, while Knopf’s clever sonic twitchings mine more sinuous, art-rock fare with Menomena. But there is an inherent playful shirking of the shackles on Return To The Moon that warms after repeat listens. Whether it be the elastic fun of the title track, the ebullient funk of I’m The Man To Be, the ‘80s space sway of Paul Is Alive, or the surprisingly dark spike of Sad Case, EL VY is a worthy diversion.
Shock
Brendan Telford
Andrew McDonald
Brendan Telford
Aneta Grulichova
More Reviews Online Astral Skulls Contact:Light
theMusic.com.au
Here We Go Magic Be Small
You Beauty Illywhacka
THE MUSIC 28TH OCTOBER 2015 • 43
Album / E Album/EP Reviews
Escape The Fate
Guy Garvey
Hate Me
Courting The Squall
Eleven Seven/Sony
Universal
Jeffrey Lewis & Lois Bolts Manhattan Rough Trade
Lo Carmen Everyone You Ever Knew (Is Coming Back To Haunt You) Independent
★★★½
★★★
★★★½
★★★½
Reinvigorated by the addition of six-stringer Thrasher Gruft, Vegas boys Escape The Fate have released their most uncompromising album to date. But those expecting a barrage of heavy from start to finish will be disappointed: the pendulum swings both ways on Hate Me, ranging from banger Les Enfant Terribles to the Top-40s pop of album closer Let Me Be. Emotionally charged walls of sound are abundant throughout, while dive-bombing, harmonic-pinching guitar solos give the band a new, metallic edge. Live For Today kicks off with a Rammstein-stomp, and Alive wouldn’t be out of place on a Godsmack record. Buckle-up, this is a wild ride.
Barely a year from their sixth album and three months off the Lost Worker Bee EP, here’s Elbow’s Guy Garvey’s debut solo offering which won’t scare anyone into thinking the band’s days are numbered. The title evokes a sense of defiance or rebellion, but Courting The Squall is unhinged from Elbow’s melancholia. It’s awash with jazzy flourishes, rickety instruments picked up from relatives’ musty lofts and a comfortingly fatherly plod down the hallways as he mumbles and dances to himself. Many of these homely songs feel like they should have been on Build A Rocket Boys but without the jagged bluster.
Singer-songwriter and comic artist Jeffrey Lewis’ latest album is a charming portrait of Manhattan. The lifelong New York resident is an overt participant in these observations, continuously appealing to our innermost fears. “Please don’t be myself from the future,” he sings about a nightmare-plagued neighbour on Sad Screaming Old Man, while Outta Town finds him in a similar moment of vibrant vulnerability. However, it’s during the album’s quietest moments that Lewis delves into his truest self-examination. “It hurts to know I can’t have the perfect things I don’t want,” he sings on Thunderstorm, as we’re reminded just how sneakily profound this man can be.
The key word would be the ‘Haunt’. Because that’s what Loene Carmen does. Through a pedal steel’s heat-haze the voice is wispy, lost in the moment. In sometimes dream-like southern gothic landscapes, there’s melancholy, longing, and loss but an unease you’re never quite getting the whole story. The mirror’s reflection of I Cut My Own Hair is one of Tennessee Williams’ damaged heroines, as directed by David Lynch. Those Green Eyes may “have seen everything”, but you still want to look into them. Intriguing, as ever.
Cameron Cooper
Mac McNaughton
Ross Clelland
Roshan Clerke
More Reviews Online Maples Two Worlds
44 • THE MUSIC • 28TH OCTOBER 2015
theMusic.com.au
Jesse Davison Lizard Boy
Listen to our This Week’s Releases playlist on
THE MUSIC 28TH OCTOBER 2015 • 45
Live Re Live Reviews
Robbie Williams @ Rod Laver Arena. Pic: Andrew Briscoe
Megadeth Festival Hall 19 Oct
Carlton Dry Independent Music Awards @ Meat Market. Pic: Lucinda Goodwin
Megadeath @ Festival Hall. Pic: Clinton Hatfield
Megadeth are blazing a new trail since the departure of drummer Shawn Drover and guitarist Chris Broderick. The popularly rumoured Chris Adler of Lamb Of God has now taken the drum throne and contributed some ideas to the upcoming Megadeth album Dystopia. Guitarist Kiko Loureiro was a young prodigy who studied under the famous Brazilian musicians Pedro Bueno and Aldo D’lsep. It appears that Dave Mustaine and Dave Ellefson have crafted their most ingenious line-up possible. Megadeth deliver a formidable setlist. Multimedia is used heavily in the set, and there are animations across wide LED screens. Megadeth blast straight into Hangar 18. This is one of the money songs, and what follows
It appears that Dave Mustaine and Dave Ellefson have crafted their most ingenious line-up possible. is an onslaught of thrash riffing and high intensity laser lights. During the 18-song set there were quite a few standout songs. She-Wolf is played fast, the heavy bass lines of Ellefson providing a brilliant platform for the head-to-head guitar solos of Mustaine and Loureiro. Adler plays the back catalogue of Megadeth with ease. It is easy to tell the audience response to Adler is welcoming. Robbie Williams @ Rod Laver Arena. Pic: Andrew Briscoe
46 • THE MUSIC • 28TH OCTOBER 2015
Jonty Czuchwicki
Robbie Williams
Carlton Dry Independent Music Awards @ Meat Market. Pic: Lucinda Goodwin
The Paper Kites @ 170 Russell. Pic: Jay Hynes
Sweating Bullets is played loosely, like a drunken party jam. Tornado Of Souls meanwhile (one of the most technical Megadeth tracks) is played effortlessly with dual traded guitar solos between Mustaine and Loureiro. Symphony Of Destruction proves to be a highlight of the show. The riffing is instantly recognisable - it’s a song that shows why Megadeth are up there with the best. Megadeth close the show with a trio of hard-hitting songs. Peace Sells is an anthem that defined the band’s image as a group with alternative sentiments. Mustaine then throws in new song Fatal Illusion which is set to appear on the new album Dystopia before finishing the monster set with Holy Wars... The Punishment Due.
Rod Laver Arena 22 Oct We don’t need the words of encouragement flashing on the screen to tell us to scream and cheer at the top of our lungs for the one and only Robbie Williams. The born entertainer confidently struts on to the stage and shouts out, “Let me entertain you!” It’s the perfect song to begin with as we get acquainted with the charismatic larrikin. A huge screen illuminates the backdrop and we get to see all the live action from every angle of the arena. Williams’ flirtatious personality comes alive as he breaks out his cocky dance moves on the stage catwalk with plenty of crotchgrabbing for Rock DJ. Williams keeps things fresh as he serves up some of his cheeky poems like Hello Sir and welcomes his support band Lawson back to the stage to help reminisce about his Take That
eviews Live Reviews
boy band days with a few old favourites including Back For Good. His Melbourne brothers Tim Metcalfe and Flynn Francis join him with acoustic guitars in hand as Williams dedicates a brand new song called Motherfucker to his son Charlie - although perhaps his threeyear-old may have to wait a while to listen to the expletive-laden lyrics. The family man brings up his daddy Pete for a father/son duo of Better Man and shares a special moment. After showing us his
He continues his mischievous behavior and invites a female audience member to jump into bed with him on stage. sensitive side, Williams makes a quick change into a skirt to let it all hang out and of course can’t help but flash his bum to the audience a few times. He continues his mischievous behaviour and invites a female audience member to jump into bed with him on stage - but not before confirming she is indeed over the age of 18. He goes out with a bang with an epic cover of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody to raise energy levels to the highest point of the show. His entire band join him for the heartfelt Angels and some impromptu karaoke of Frank Sinatra’s classic My Way. Williams proves to us that he’s still got that swing when he’s winning at the top of his game. Michael Prebeg
Carlton Dry Independent Music Awards Meat Market 22 Oct
With Dylan Lewis on beer-fuelled hosting duties, a clutch of solid musical performances from some beloved local acts, and a downright charming keynote speech from none other than the original Red Wiggle Murray Cook, it’s all-in-all a relaxed and collegial night for the artists, fans and industry folk who’ve crammed into the Meat Market’s hangar-like space for the tenth annual Independent Music Awards. Brisbane chanteuse Hannah Shepherd (aka Airling) appears purple-lit beneath the arcing sound-and-lighting rig, to kick off proceedings with a sultry and soulful rendition of her single Stallin’. Thereafter Lewis welcomes the audience and takes care of some housekeeping, which basically consists of showing off the new ink on his forearm, and asking that everyone stay seated throughout the ceremony, “unless you really need a wee or a spliff”. Cook’s speech charts his own musical weaning on The Beatles and The Monkees, his admiration of independent Australian artists and labels in the 1970s and 1980s, and The Wiggles’ later determination to retain business and creative control over their artistic output. It’s highly engaging stuff; it’s also oddly thrilling to hear the Red Wiggle in grown-up mode dropping an S-bomb. In addition to being the tenth anniversary of the awards it’s the 20th of AIR (Australian Independent Record Labels association) itself, and former executive Julie Owens (lately a Federal Labor MP) is on hand to reminisce about the early days, recalling among other things a gaffe involving AIR’s
distinguished independent music charts and the title of a foul-mouthed TISM song. The proceedings are punctuated by musical performances from Brisbane juggernaut Dead Letter Circus, who put a full set’s worth of grunt into one song, While You Wait. John Butler also turns up with an acoustic rendition of 2007’s Better Than, but really it’s just filler, and feels like it; he has stepped in at the last minute for singer-songwriter and Pitjantjatjara man Frank Yamma - the winner of tonight’s gong for Best Independent Country Album with Uncle - who is on his way to Alice Springs for some sorry business following a death in the family. Melbourne indie darling Courtney Barnett predictably cleans up in the major categories. In light of these well-deserved accolades, Lewis’ unkind albeit tongue-in-cheek allusion to a doubtful physical
It’s also oddly thrilling to hear the Red Wiggle in grown-up mode dropping an S-bomb. resemblance between Barnett (who is not present) and comedian Chris Lilley doesn’t go down all that well. Luckily Melbourne’s own early-Prince clone Harts is waiting in the wings to shred a killer rendition of his single Breakthrough and ensure that the evening ends on a high note. Tim Kroenert
The Paper Kites, Patrick James 170 Russell 23 Oct
With a classy vibe Patrick James, joined by a band first up, delivers the utterly lovely Covered In Rain delights early, while Kings & Queens sees James on the keys singing this tranquil beauty all alone. All About To Change brings some Americana to the house, while Message evokes plenty of cheers and whistles from attentive punters. Finishing the set with California Song, James clearly channels his own joy during the extended jam at the end, facing the band for a decent rock out, then flashing big smiles to the crowd in closing. The Paper Kites open their sold-out hometown leg of the twelvefour album tour with the poignant beauty Electric Indigo, featuring lead guitarist Dave Powys’ most elegant guitar riff. Beloved old-school track A Maker Of My Time evokes ecstatic squeals from the mostly-female crowd, while the broody Bleed Confusion gets plenty of singalong crowd support. Picking up on this vibe, frontman Sam Bentley is determined to prove wrong the critics who tell him, “Melbourne is too cool to sing along.” “That is not my Melbourne,” says Bentley. “I think in every Melburnian is a little voice who wants to sing.” Proceeding to organise the crowd into separate harmony parts for Bloom, Bentley helps the accused Melburnians defy all critics by singing out loud and proud. A request to ‘shush’ for the next quiet song Neon Crimson is made (provoking loud crowd-wide shushing), allowing all to best hear singer Christina Lacy’s ethereal vocal harmonies throughout this luscious piece of folk. A vintage cassette boombox placed on
THE MUSIC 28TH OCTOBER 2015 • 47
Live Re Live Reviews
More Reviews Online theMusic.com.au/ music/live-reviews
Rhye @ Foxtel Festival Hub Gareth Liddiard @ National Gallery Of Victoria The Field @ Foxtel Festival Hub GL @ The Gasometer Hotel Noire @ Shebeen Bandroom The Fall @ Foxtel Festival Hub
stage brings the ‘80s back for driving rock number Revelator Eyes, while slow-burning blues track Too Late adds some smoky romance. Last track Featherstone again gets the Melburnians singing crowd-wide harmonies to finish. Beautiful as ever, The Paper Kites sure helped every little Melbzy voice that wants to sing let it rip loudly tonight. Annelise Ball
The Paper Kites sure helped every little Melbzy voice that wants to sing let it rip loudly tonight.
glory. Foolish sets the dancefloor completely alight as the crowd rocks out in joy, celebrating all things shitty and #yuck about love. Despite being utterly charismatic performers, Baker and James reveal themselves as cute-as dags deep down, as they fret about their melting eye make-up and question whether or not the crowd has eaten any bananas today. After confessing they keep forgetting the Gasoline lyrics, punters are happy to sing this winner loudly, giving Baker a little downtime to prowl about the stage on her hands and knees. An extended intense rock-out on Lovers 2 sparks a near riot before sexy as hell Damn Baby closes out this most
Alpine @ Corner Hotel. Pic: Clinton Hatfield
Alpine, Darts, Tiny Little Houses Corner Hotel 22 Oct
7:00PM
MIDNIGHT COWBOY
OF THE NIGHT
THU 29TH OCT
IN THE HEAT
Alpine’s Christian O’Brien and Ryan Lamb stand among early punters watching Darts opening the sold-out Shot Fox single launch. Lead singer Ally Campbell-Smith’s sweetly intense vocal amidst the garagerock crashings on Aeroplane makes for compelling listening. Tiny Little Houses cut brooding figures, singing their broken hearts out next. Lead singer and guitarist Caleb Karvountzis is quite captivating; he sings with his head down,
48 • THE MUSIC • 28TH OCTOBER 2015
keeps his eyes closed and channels a deeply melancholic vibe. Sweet track Soon We Won’t Exist goes down beautifully before Karvountzis slings on an acoustic guitar for their selfdeclared “weird country song” Every Man Knows His Plague; And You Are Mine. Despite the creepy title, it’s actually a hip-swinging winner with the ladies on the dancefloor. The party vibe continues with Easy, inspiring Karvountzis to flash his first smile of the night towards the cheering crowd. New EP title track You Tore Out My Heart promptly takes the pace right back to more familiar slowburning heartache, but it’s so raw, honest and beautiful that
nobody minds at all. Then boom, Alpine blow the lingering deep feels away with opening track Need Not Be, before co-lead singer Phoebe Baker suffers a shoe-related wardrobe malfunction in the very first minute. Flinging her boots off, she’s let loose alongside colead singer Lou James to dance freely in all their jump-suited
magnificent set. So foolishly attracted to you Alpine, you #1 babes of Australian indie-pop. “Flinging her boots off, she’s let loose alongside co-lead singer Lou James to dance freely in all their babeing jumpsuited glory.” Annelise Ball
7.00PM
FRI 30TH OCT
A TIME
7.00PM
THE GREAT ASTOR
SPOOK-TACULAR
ONCE UPON
SAT 31ST OCT
IN THE
WEST
Arts Reviews Arts Reviews
Mistress America
The Experiment Festival Merlyn Theatre, Malthouse Theatre to 24 Oct
★★
Mistress America Film In cinemas 29 Oct
★★★½ Noah Baumbach’s latest Mistress America is another addition to the director’s oeuvre that explores real relationships uncommonly seen on film: in this case that between two soon-to-be stepsisters. That it’s exciting to see a movie with two relatively unknown, or at least not necessarily commercially recognisable, female leads, is disappointing, but it’s those leads in Lola Kirke and Greta Gerwig and their rapport that holds this film together from its flimsy precedent to its exaggerated climax. The climax comes too late to really be satisfying, a public moment of would-be-but-isn’t catharsis. But there’s also moments of wit (punchy one-liners! Relatively minor characters making funnies!) and grace, the story of a college-aged writer (Kirke) meeting her soon-to-be sister (Gerwig) and mining her for material hitting sometimes close to home. There’s potential to explore that question of creativity: ‘Who really owns our stories?’ as well as the ethics of dramatising someone else’s life narrative, but it’s only skimmed over, in favour of illuminating characters that are fascinating but also painfully, and refreshingly, flawed. It’s a question of identity: who we are, who we could be, who we are in the process of becoming? It’s also unreservedly feminine, thanks to the touch of co-writer Gerwig, eschewing the idea that audiences need a male lead in order to be interested. We don’t. And Mistress America is just one example of a film flourishing because of that lack.
The Experiment is a monodrama based on Mark Ravenhill’s 20minute monologue from 2009 of the same name. Here, the monologue performed by guitarist Mauricio Carrasco is stretched over 60 minutes as it is fragmented by sections of experimental guitar composed by David Chisholm and audio-visual projections designed by Matthew Gingold. The work aspires towards a poetic reflection on utilitarian ethics. What would you
The Experiment. Pic: Shane Reid
sacrifice for the greater good? The life of a child? The narrator is directly confronted with these questions when his own child is experimented upon. But his mind is not to be trusted as memory becomes slippery and identity fluid. The monologue is performed in a committed monotonous drone, a deliberate choice as if to alienate us further from the identity of the narrator or the trustworthiness of his memory. However, this also leaches whatever tension that may have existed in the original text. The guitars are set up in contraptions as if they were the brutalised subjects of the experiments. Carrasco makes them screech and scream in cruel, discordant tones. However, the music is more tediously scientific than particularly discomforting. Even as The Experiment moves between various modes of performance, the work remains monotonal and little is revealed about the subject matter it is attempting to reflect upon. Oliver Coleman
Hannah Story
THE MUSIC 28TH OCTOBER 2015 • 49
Comedy / G The Guide
Wed 28
Julien Wilson ‘B For Chicken’ Quartet: 303, Northcote
The Go Set: Ararat Live (Red Room), Ararat Little Adventures + JE Wheeler + Louise Love: Bar Open, Fitzroy
Lachlan Bryan & The Wildes
20th Anniversary of Oasis ‘(What’s The Story) Morning Glory?”: Barwon Club, South Geelong
The Music Presents
Toni Swain Band + Chris Wilson: Bella Union, Carlton South
Dan Kelly: 31 Oct The Gasometer Hotel
Muddy’s Blues Roulette with Dan Dinnen: Catfish, Fitzroy
Mumford & Sons: 12 Nov Sidney Myer Music Bowl Face The Music: 13 & 14 Nov Arts Centre Melbourne The Rumjacks: 19 Nov The Bendigo; 20 Nov Barwon Club Geelong The Preatures: 28 Nov The Deck Frankston & The Westernport Hotel Phillip Island; 29 Nov The College Lawn Prahran & Portsea Hotel Mew: 3 Dec Max Watt’s A Day On The Green ft Paul Kelly & Merri Soul Sessions: 6 Dec Rochford Wines Yarra Valley Lachlan Bryan & The Wildes: 5 & 7 Nov Caravan Music Club Bully: 10 Dec Howler Father John Misty: 10 Dec Forum Theatre BØRNS: 5 Jan Corner Hotel Halsey: 6 Jan Forum Theatre Elliphant: 7 Jan Howler
Witchgrinder + Atomic Riot: Cherry Bar, Melbourne The Harlots: Ding Dong Lounge, Melbourne Beginners’ Class with Melbourne Ukulele Kollective: Edinburgh Castle Hotel (6pm), Brunswick Meals: Evelyn Hotel, Fitzroy Mellow-Dias-Thump + DJ Snug: Ferdydurke, Melbourne
‘Taker Or Leave’r Taking to the stage with a handful of guitars, ‘80s synths and a drum machine, Whitaker is set to celebrate the release of I AM AN ANIMAL. Check their retro electro folk at Shebeen Bandroom, Saturday with Scrimshaw Four and Amistat.
The Waifs + Mia Dyson: Geelong Performing Arts Centre, Geelong
The Tote (Upstairs), Collingwood
Darling Hotel, Collingwood
Thirsty Merc: Northcote Social Club, Northcote
Tash Sultana + John Cashman: The Workers Club, Fitzroy
30th Anniversary of Kate Bush’s ‘Hounds of Love’ with Jennifer Kingwell: Howler, Brunswick
Thu 29
Checkerboard: Lomond Hotel, Brunswick East
Burt Bacharach: Palais Theatre, St Kilda Housemate Of Mine + Kevin Murphy: Retreat Hotel, Brunswick Quattrofunk: Revolver Upstairs, Prahran Wine, Whiskey, Women feat. Ali E + Baby Blue: The Drunken Poet, West Melbourne
Josh Rennie-Hynes + Jordan Bailey: Babushka Bar, Bakery Hill Vibraphonic Orchestra + Sugar Fed Leopards + Beatrice: Bar Open, Fitzroy
Delusions of Grandeur feat. Josh Novak + Daisy Spratt + Jess Holt + Zack Grace: Mr Boogie Man Bar, Abbotsford Carus Thompson + Yanto Shortis Band:
You Am I: Barwon Club, South Geelong Vaudeville Smash. Pic: Yana Amur
Oh Wonder: 7 Jan Northcote Social Club
Favored Nations + Running Touch: Bended Elbow, Geelong
Ali E
4th Annual Beach Yacht Party with Baro + Charlie Threads + Marcus + more: Boney, Melbourne
Django Django: 8 Jan 170 Russell Shamir: 4 Feb Howler
Club Catty feat. Secret Valley + Michael Ceratops + The Pool Boys: Catfish, Fitzroy
Port Fairy Folk Festival: 11 – 14 Mar Port Fairy
Mon Shelford: Charles Weston Hotel (Front Bar), Brunswick
A Day On The Green ft Hoodoo Gurus: 12 Mar Rochford Wines Yarra Valley Steve Earle & The Dukes: 18 & 19 Mar Melbourne Recital Centre
Smash The Scale
Bluesfest: 24 – 28 Mar Tyagarah Tea Tree Farm
The wait is over for Vaudeville Smash’s single, Richter Scale. This Friday night at Northcote Social Club, the launch will take place for the funk experts, and they’ll be joined by The Do Yo Thangs and Sex On Toast DJs.
The Selecter: 25 Mar Corner Hotel
Whitaker
Kylie Auldist: Cherry Bar, Melbourne Next feat. Acrasia + Finders + The Weight Of Silence: Colonial Hotel, Melbourne Lehmo: Comic’s Lounge, North Melbourne Canned Heat + The Sensational Hurricanes + Charlie A’Court: Corner Hotel, Richmond Gumbo Club with The Blues Bash All-Star Band: Ding Dong Lounge, Melbourne Hey Frankie + Jamil Zacharia + Mondegreen: Evelyn Hotel, Fitzroy
Wine, Whiskey, Women The Drunken Poet is hosting Ali E, alongside Baby Blue this Wednesday night for their Wine, Whiskey & Women evening, where they promise to host to female singer songwriters every Wednesday night.
Colette R + Merve: Ferdydurke, Melbourne The Shifties + Bristol Cairo + Wild Meadows: The Old Bar, Fitzroy Songwriters Club with Ash Naylor + Lisa Crawley + Nick Batterham: The Toff In Town, Melbourne Chelsea Bleach + Wet Lips + Alex Lahey: 50 • THE MUSIC • 28TH OCTOBER 2015
DJ School: Gin Lane, Belgrave The Gooses + Jurassic Nark + Sauce Sauce Sauce + Little Shock: Grace Darling Hotel (Basement), Collingwood The Conclusions + Holy Pablito + Old Etiquettes + Louis Spoils: Grace
Northcote Social Club, Northcote The 3 of a Kind Recital: Revolver Upstairs, Prahran Neil Diamond: Rod Laver Arena, Melbourne
Gigs / Live The Guide
She’s The Driver
Suzannah Espie + Toni Swain Band: Caravan Music Club, Oakleigh Patrick Wilson: Catfish, Fitzroy
The Getaway Plan: Chelsea Heights Hotel, Aspendale Gardens
Reverence Hotel (Band Room), Footscray Lucid Planet with Mushroom Giant + Arakeye + Battlesick: Revolver Upstairs, Prahran
Contrast + Parading + The Citadels +
The Grapes: Wesley Anne (Band Room), Northcote
Sat 31
Ungus Ungus Ungus + Headphones Jones
At The Gates: Corner Hotel, Richmond Pulled Apart By Horses + Captives: Ding Dong Lounge, Melbourne
Lost Deso Lost Tapas in St Kilda are hosting She’s The Driver for the launch of their upcoming album Kill That Sound this Saturday night. If you can’t make that, catch them supporting The Superjesus at Corner Hotel, 13 Nov.
Zeon
Tequila Mockingbird + The Charge + Ice on Mercury + The Big City: Elephant & Wheelbarrow, Melbourne Suiciety + Mammoth Mammoth + The Hidden Venture + Boxthorn: Evelyn Hotel, Fitzroy The Amy Winehouse Show feat. Atlanta Coogan & The Little Big Band: Flying Saucer Club, Elsternwick Tonic with Castles + Scotty Pesticide: Gin Lane, Belgrave Reika + Chase City + The Deloraines + The Shakes: Grace Darling Hotel, Collingwood You Am I: Hallam Hotel, Hallam
Exotica feat. Mondo Kain: Spotted Mallard, Brunswick
Banoffee + HTML Flowers + Alice Ivy + Air Max ‘97: Howler, Brunswick
The New Savages: The B.East, Brunswick East
Switch + Miguel Angel + more: Loop, Melbourne
Maggot Fest Night One feat. Eskhaton + Whitehorse + Contaminated + Teuton + Faceless Burial: The Bendigo, Collingwood
Playful Sound + Jnett: Lounge, Melbourne
Candice McLeod + Blue Child: The Drunken Poet, West Melbourne Robert K Champion: The Fitzroy Pinnacle, Fitzroy North Captain Cleanoff + The Kill + Weedy Gonzalez + Uncle Geezer: The Old Bar, Fitzroy Ben Salter: The Post Office Hotel, Coburg Toffsy Turvy with Tranter + Trendyfriends Crew: The Toff In Town (Stage Room), Melbourne
Woodlock + Young Vincent + Neighbour: Max Watt’s (formerly The Hi-Fi Melbourne), Melbourne Steve Lucas + Karly Jewell + Motor Man: Mr Boogie Man Bar, Abbotsford Laura Jean: National Gallery of Victoria, Southbank Vaudeville Smash + The Do Yo Thangs + Sex On Toast DJs: Northcote Social Club, Northcote
Ryan Downey
People Under The Stairs feat. Amin Payne + Winters + Jackson Miles: Boney (Downstairs), Melbourne
Chet Faker + Silicon + Awesome Tapes From Africa + Cleopold + Otologic: Sidney Myer Music Bowl, Melbourne The Funkalleros: The B.East, Brunswick East
The Ocean Party + Cool Sounds + Robot Fox: The Eastern, Ballarat East
The Go Set: The Loft, Warrnambool
Jane McArthur: Wesley Anne (Band Room), Northcote
Awesome Tapes From Africa + The Senegambian Jazz Band + Gordy Zola + more: Boney, Melbourne
Favored Nations + Running Touch + Godwolf: Shebeen Bandroom, Melbourne
Kingswood + Magic Bones + Singles: The Grand Hotel, Mornington
The Getaway Plan: Werribee Plaza Tavern, Hoppers Crossing
Lorikeet + The New Pollution + Kinder + Pink Harvest: Bar Open, Fitzroy
Mosaicz: Shadow Electric, Abbotsford
Kim Salmon & The Surrealists + Loose Tooth + Girl Crazy: The Gasometer Hotel, Collingwood
Kodiak Galaxy + Bloodhounds On My Trail + Wise Child: The Workers Club, Fitzroy
Fri 30
Join Zeon for a fun-filled night of catchy and foot-stompin’ original tunes when they play Elephant & Wheelbarrow in St Kilda. They’ll be supported by MooseJaw Rifle Club and Knot O’ The Gate.
Alex Burns: The Drunken Poet, West Melbourne
Taipan Tiger Girls + Bonnie Mercer + Evelyn Morris + Mod. B: The Tote (Band Room), Collingwood
Go Van Go + A Gazillion Angry Mexicans + Two Headed Dog + Lieutenant Jam: Yah Yah’s, Fitzroy
Catch Some Zees
Good Tidings He Brings Ryan Downey will be releasing his new album Tidings Wednesday, and in celebration he will be playing Grace Darling Hotel this Sunday alongside Rob Muinos and Alanna Eileen.
Hozier + Rhodes: Palais Theatre, St Kilda Postscript + The Beggars Way + All We Need + Jason Lives + The Shorts:
Lo! + In Trenches + Forstora + Old Love: The Old Bar, Fitzroy 10CC + Abbey Stone: The Palms at Crown, Southbank The Riptide Movement + Slip On Stereo: The Prince, St Kilda The Sunset Club + Dark Fair + The Loveless + Chores: The Public Bar, Melbourne Maggot Fest 6 - Day One feat. Hank Wood & The Hammerheads + Low Life + Power + Bed Wettin’ Bad Boys + more: The Tote, Collingwood L-FRESH The LION: The Workers Club, Fitzroy
+ Victor Cripes + Merime: Bar Open, Fitzroy The Go Set: Barwon Club, South Geelong Halloweeen with Bruce Milne + DJ Emma Peel: Belleville, Melbourne Lost Weekend feat. Jamie Tiller + Andreas + Myles Mac + CC:Disco! + Chico G + more: Boney, Melbourne Daiton Family Halloween Party with Psychedelic Coven DJs: Catfish, Fitzroy Anathema + Mark Kelson: Corner Hotel, Richmond Pulled Apart By Horses + Heads Of Charm + Horace Bones: Ding Dong Lounge, Melbourne Momentum Halloween Show with The Coretet: Evelyn Hotel, Fitzroy Raised By Eagles + Lost Ragas: Flying Saucer Club, Elsternwick “What’s The Story Morning Glory” played in full by Shakerfaker + Whales: Grace Darling Hotel, Collingwood Philadelphia Grand Jury + High-tails + Little Shock: Howler, Brunswick The Murlocs + Crepes + Sewer Side + Desert Mules: Karova Lounge, Ballarat Miserable Little Bastards: Labour In Vain, Fitzroy Tarerer Showcase feat. Archie Roach + Neil Murray + Andy Albert & The Walkabouts + more: Lighthouse Theatre, Warrnambool Natiruts + Nattali Rize: Max Watt’s (formerly
THE MUSIC 28TH OCTOBER 2015 • 51
OPINION Opinion
Howzat!
Local Music By Jeff Jenkins THE BATTLE OF NEVERMORE As a boy in Ballarat, Ade Vincent was exposed to Edgar Allan Poe’s classic poem The Raven in a Halloween episode of The Simpsons. “I remember being captivated by the story,” Ade tells Howzat! “And it stayed with me. I suspect that my eight-year-old mind was possibly more taken with Homer than the words of the poem, but a spark was fired and I have found myself returning to it regularly.” Snatches of The Raven have appeared in songs by Ade’s band, The Tiger & Me, and now, for his first solo album, he has set the poem to music. It’s a tale of love, loss, madness... and a talking raven. The poem, which is in the public domain, was first published 170 years ago. “I love everything about it,” Ade says, “from the narrative to the mechanics of the poem - the rhythm and sound of the words. It’s a wonderful poem to read aloud; the structure and sound of each line is fantastic.” A favourite line? “It’s hard to narrow down, but I’ll put forward, ‘Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore.’ The tension is at breaking point here, but I also feel there’s a sliver of
52 • THE MUSIC • 28TH OCTOBER 2015
hope and optimism in the line.” Ade’s re-telling of The Raven is riveting - a compelling song cycle. The Raven album is released this week, coinciding with Halloween. Ade is now hoping to launch a stage production. Meanwhile, The Tiger & Me are playing at the Gasometer on 3 Dec. EVERLASTING LOVE What’s the greatest Australian single of the ‘60s? For Howzat! it’s hard to go past the genius of The Real Thing. But you could just as easily argue for Friday On My Mind, The Loved One or The Masters Apprentices’ Undecided. The authors of a great new book, 100 Greatest Australian Singles Of The ‘60s ($29.95, Melbourne Books), take the easy way out, refusing to rank the singles, preferring to list them in alphabetical order. It’s a remarkable roll call, and David N. Pepperell and Colin Talbot have
Ade Vincent some terrific tales to tell. There are some annoying spelling mistakes (Glenn Shorrock is written as Shorrack, Colleen Hewett is referred to as Hewitt, and MPD drummer Danny Finley is mistakenly listed as Findlay), but if you love Australian music, this is essential, as is the four-CD compilation released by Festival Records. The launch party is a special live gig at Memo Music Hall on Sunday afternoon. P.S. Men At Work’s Who Can It Be Now? hit number one in the US 33 years ago this week. HOT LINE “They say redemption sometimes comes at the darkest of dawns” - Russell Morris, God Loves A Sinner.
Gigs / Live The Guide
The Hi-Fi Melbourne), Melbourne Gallie + The Originals: Memo Music Hall, St Kilda
Tribute to Wes Craven feat. The Creptter
Champagne Internet + Phil Para: The Prince (Public Bar), St Kilda
Maggot Fest 6 - Day Two feat. Crazy Spirit + Oily Boys + Dawn of Humans + Ripped Off + Kromosom + Orb +
Chet Faker. Pic: Brendon Davies Philadelphia Grand Jury
We’re Doomed Philadelphia Grand Jury are returning to the stage with their brand new single Crashing & Burning Pt II, alongside their anticipated second album Summer Of Doom. You can catch them this Saturday night at Howler.
Can’t Fake It
You Am I: Village Green, Sunbury
The Built On Live tour is here at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl this Friday night. Chet Faker will be gracing the amphitheatre and lawn with his smooth tunes.
Children + Morth + Prophetess + Zyphoid + Kill TV: Mr Boogie Man Bar, Abbotsford Halloween Party with Tequila Mockingbyrd: Musicman Megastore, Bendigo BNR Halloween Rave with Spank Rock + Jensen Interceptor + Glass Mirrors + Peruw + more: Northcote Social Club, Northcote
more: The Tote, Collingwood The Crimsonettes + Luna Ghost + VHS Dream: The Workers Club, Fitzroy The Getaway Plan: The Workers Club Geelong, Geelong
James Reyne
The Late Show feat. Ransom + Mat Cant + Paz + Lewis CanCut + more: Revolver Upstairs, Prahran
Greg Dodd & The Hoodoo Men + White Lightnin’: Spotted Mallard, Brunswick Heavy Metal Halloween with Omega + Espionage + Haunting The Chapel + Direblaze: The Bendigo, Collingwood The Basics: The Bridge Hotel, Castlemaine The New Savages: The Drunken Poet, West Melbourne Pugsley Buzzard: The Fitzroy Pinnacle, Fitzroy North
Sun 01 Claude Hay: Catfish (Front Bar), Fitzroy Ryan Downey + Rob Muinos + Alanna Eileen: Grace Darling Hotel, Collingwood
Summer Sunset Series feat. DJ AK: Jardin Tan, South Yarra John Dowler’s Vanity Project: Labour In Vain, Fitzroy John Doe & The Shallow Graves + Off To Battle + Ativandal: Mr Boogie Man Bar, Abbotsford
Public Possession + Len Leise + Hysteric + Andee Frost + Tom Moore: Shadow Electric, Abbotsford Whitaker + The Scrimshaw Four + Amistat: Shebeen Bandroom, Melbourne
Jemma Nicole + Clarke & White + The Serra + Neighbour: Whole Lotta Love, Brunswick East
Rat vs Possum + DJ Ara Koufax + Simona Castricum + LA Pocock + more: Howler, Brunswick
Hozier + Rhodes: Palais Theatre, St Kilda Batpiss + Anchors + Sweet Gold: Reverence Hotel (Front Bar), Footscray
Lounge Leopards: Wesley Anne (Band Room), Northcote
Make It Reyne James Reyne is playing a special Melbourne Cup eve show at Corner Hotel on Monday night. He posted on his Facebook that he’d been trying to secure this Cup Eve date for three years, so you know it’ll be quite the occasion.
Dan Kelly + Jess Ribeiro + Ben Ely: The Gasometer Hotel, Collingwood
Woodlock + The Black Harrys + Tommy Castles: Northcote Social Club (Under 18s/2pm), Northcote PJ Harvey Tribute feat. Ali E + Dark Fair + Alysia Manceau + Ladie Dee + Bonnie Mercer + more: Northcote Social Club, Northcote The Dead Salesmen Duo + Birahny Lawrence: Reverence Hotel (Front Bar), Footscray Summer Series #3 feat. Jesse Rose: Revolver Upstairs, Prahran Brian Henry Hooper + Daniel Tucceri: Robarta, St Kilda The Hornets: Spotted Mallard, Brunswick
Gvrlls + The Arbiter + Spectral Fires: The Old Bar, Fitzroy
10CC + Abbey Stone: Ulumbarra Theatre, Bendigo
The Porkers + Toe To Toe + Nancy Vandal + more: The Prince, St Kilda
Cisco Caesar + Jo Meares & The Honeyriders: Union Hotel, Brunswick
Dia De Muertos/Day of the Dead: The B.East, Brunswick East
THE MUSIC 28TH OCTOBER 2015 • 53
Comedy / G The Guide
One Last Kiss feat. Apart From This + Summer Blood + Cosmic Kahuna + Grim Rhythm + Hound + Weedy Gonzalez + Sweet Gold + Jud Campbell + Feeling Dave + Gareth Lindsay + Three Headed Fool: The Bendigo, Collingwood
Moon + The Birdcage: The Tote (Band Room), Collingwood
L-Fresh the LION. Pic: Clare Hawley
MC Frontalot: The Workers Club, Fitzroy
Broozer + Old Love + Nous + Borrachero + Roundtable + Merchant: Yah Yah’s, Fitzroy
Maggotfest with Bed Wettin’ Bad Boys + Orion + Yabbies + Death Church: The Curtin, Carlton
Deep Purple’s ‘’Machine Head’’/ Bad Company played by Raw Brit: Yarraville Club, Yarraville
Dan Warner: The Gasometer Hotel, Collingwood
TUE 03 Klub MUK: 303, Northcote
The Basics + Magic Bones: The Grand Hotel, Mornington
Busy Kingdom + Reika + Beautiful Beasts: Cherry Bar, Melbourne
Big Smoke + Luke Brennan + Dominic Bryne: The Old Bar, Fitzroy
NAFASI + Mya Wallace + Oliver Paterson Beat Project: Evelyn Hotel, Fitzroy
Matt Walker & The Lost Ragas: The Post Office Hotel, Coburg Elwood Blues Club: The Prince (Public Bar), St Kilda Public Bar Comedy: The Public Bar, Melbourne The Sunday Set with DJ Andyblack + Haggis: The Toff In Town (Carriage Room), Melbourne Volume 8 feat. Mal Webb + Kylie Morrigan: The Toff In Town, Melbourne Down The Rabbit Hole with Nigel Last: The Toff In Town (Carriage Room), Melbourne Loose Tooth + Palm Springs + Wet Lips: The Tote (Front Bar), Collingwood Adam Martin + Swim Season + Travis McCarthy: The Workers Club, Fitzroy
The Three Kings: Labour In Vain, Fitzroy
Feeling Fresh
The Go Set + Donnie Dureau: Northcote Social Club, Northcote
After recently releasing his album Get Mine, L-Fresh The LION is on the road, hitting up The Workers Club, this Friday night, with special guest Philly.
Cup Day Mass feat. Jaala + Dianas + Cool Sounds + Jimmy Chang: Northcote Social Club, Northcote
Open Mic Night: Yah Yah’s (6.30pm), Fitzroy MON 02
Celery Ham + Jade Zoe + Lady Banton + Lady Erica + Lotus Moonchild + Mamacita Bonita + more: Howler, Brunswick
Clowns + Hard-Ons + Ecca Vandal + Cosmic Kahuna + Horrible People: The Bendigo, Collingwood
Badshah: 170 Russell, Melbourne
Fat Joe: La Di Da, Melbourne
B3 Breakout: 303, Northcote
KISS Tribute+Tribute Band: Mac’s Hotel, Melton
Dec McKinnon & The Knockabouts + Good For Wednesday + King Richard: The Old Bar, Fitzroy
Dennis Ferrer + Todd Terry: Alumbra, Docklands Quick Bites Comedy with Greg Fleet: Boney, Melbourne
Sugar Fed Leopards
The Black Sorrows: Caravan Music Club, Oakleigh
Cup Eve with Boogs + Spacey Space + T-Rek + Chiara Kickdrum + Elisabeth Dixson + more: Revolver Upstairs, Prahran
Plastic feat. I Killed The Prom Queen + Masketta Fall + I, Valiance + Maefire + Pridelands + Villa Morta + Day Break + Coastline: Colonial Hotel, Melbourne Brian Mannix + Scott Carne + David Sterry + Dale Ryder: Commercial Hotel, South Morang James Reyne + Sean Kelly Trio: Corner Hotel, Richmond Clowns + Batpiss + Mesa Cosa + Cosmic Kahuna: Ding Dong Lounge, Melbourne
Also Dragons + You and Your Friends + Morpheme + Dada Ono: The Workers Club, Fitzroy Sons Of Lee Marvin: Tramway Hotel, North Fitzroy You Am I: Ulumbarra Theatre, Bendigo The New Melbourne Jazz Band: Village Green Hotel, Mulgrave 2AM Slot with Witchgrinder: Yah Yah’s, Fitzroy 54 • THE MUSIC • 28TH OCTOBER 2015
Darius: Northcote Social Club, Northcote Waifs & Strays: Onesixone, Prahran
Absolutely Live - The Doors Show: Cherry Bar, Melbourne
Sugar Fed Leopards are stripping back some of their tunes, allowing the vocal harmonies to take over at Wesley Anne this Saturday night, for a free show from 8pm.
Sako Polumenta: Max Watt’s (formerly The Hi-Fi Melbourne), Melbourne
Loose Joints with Babicka + Midnight Tenderness + Rory McPike + Tuscan Prince + DJ Camov + Woz + more: Boney, Melbourne
Catfish Comedy Cup Special with Tom Gleeson: Catfish, Fitzroy
Sugar Rush
Sandy Brechin + Ewan Wilkinson: Spotted Mallard, Brunswick
Back To The Eighties + Joyride: Eddies Poolroom & Bar, Moorabbin Jazz Party Band: Evelyn Hotel, Fitzroy Russell Morris + Helen Ryder: Flying Saucer Club, Elsternwick 10CC + Abbey Stone: Frankston Arts Centre, Frankston David Guetta + Benson + Ivan Gough: Hisense Arena, Melbourne
Todd Terry + Sandy Rivera + Franky Rizardo: Peninsula, Shed 14, Docklands
Sime Nugent: The Post Office Hotel, Coburg Taste of Indie Tuesday: The Prince (Public Bar), St Kilda Can You Take This Photo Please? with Justin Hamilton + Judith Lucy + Denise Scott: The Toff In Town, Melbourne
Kodiak Galaxy
Fleetwood Mac: Rod Laver Arena, Melbourne Bonsai: Royal Hotel, Sunbury Luke O’Shea + Damian Howard: Spotted Mallard, Brunswick Hard-Ons + Sheriff + Join The Amish + Rise Of The Rat: The Bendigo, Collingwood Twelve Foot Ninja: The Croxton, Thornbury The Basics + Benny Walker + William Crighton: The Gasometer Hotel, Collingwood Spermaids + Camp Cope + Bodies: The Old Bar, Fitzroy Jon Toogood: The Post Office Hotel, Coburg Baauer + Loudpvck: The Prince, St Kilda
Galaxy Of Sounds Dreampop, surf-gaze band Kodiak Galaxy are on a bill with Bloodhounds On My Trail, Wise Child and DJ QP at The Workers Club this Thursday night.
Pow Pow Kids + Feeling Dave + The Yabbies: The Public Bar, Melbourne Solitaire x 6AM At The Garage feat. Friendships + Wabz + Ju Ca + River Yarra + North Pollard: The Toff In Town, Melbourne Call It In with Instant Peterson + Dylan Michel + Eaton Mess: The Toff In Town (Carriage Room), Melbourne feedtime + Nun + The Bunyip
Cup My Balls Four feat. The Spinning Rooms + TTTDC + River of Snakes + My Left Boot + The Ruiner + Digger & The Pussycats + Grindhouse + Drifter + Wet Meal + Sun God Replica: The Tote (Band Room), Collingwood
THE MUSIC 28TH OCTOBER 2015 • 55
56 • THE MUSIC • 28TH OCTOBER 2015