29.06.16 Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture
Issue Iss u ue
145
Melb Me lbou ourn r e / Free / Incorporating
THE
tour
PARKWAY DRIVE
AND
AND
festival LEAPS & BOUNDS
tour
WILLIE WATSON
2 • THE MUSIC • 29TH JUNE 2016
THE MUSIC 29TH JUNE 2016 • 3
4 • THE MUSIC • 29TH JUNE 2016
Wesley Anne - Bar • Restaurant • Etc -
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R O O & W I N E - $ 1 1 .9 9
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Emily Wurramara 8pm, Band Room, $15
P O T & PA R M A - $ 1 5 S P O N S O R E D BY M O U N TA I N G O AT
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THE MUSIC 29TH JUNE 2016 • 5
Lifestyle Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture
Mountain Giants
Canadian psych-rock powerhouse Black Mountain will be returning to our shores this October. The band will hit up Yours & Owls Festival before touring their new album IV around the country.
Black Mountain
5 The actual number of housemates in The Young Ones household as was recently revealed by the director, after over 30 years of everyone believing it was only four.
Amazing Singer Aussie songwriter extraordinaire Alex Lloyd is heading out on his own later this year, as he’s announced a huge national tour this September and October. He’ll be showcasing favourite tracks from his new solo retrospective, Acoustica.
6 • THE MUSIC • 29TH JUNE 2016
Alex Lloyd
Grouplove
e / Cultu Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture
Credits
Publisher Street Press Australia Pty Ltd
That’s A House Of A
Hands Like Houses
Group Managing Editor Andrew Mast
Different Colour
National Editor – Magazines Mark Neilsen
Canbernian alt-rock exports Hands Like Houses recently rocked it supporting The Big Ass and Equinox tours. Now they’ve announced their own headline jaunt ‘round Oz for February 2017, the Colourblind tour.
Olympia
Editor Bryget Chrisfield Arts Editor Hannah Story
Gig Guide Justine Lynch gigs@themusic.com.au
Amy Schumer
Editorial Assistants Brynn Davies, Sam Wall Senior Contributor Jeff Jenkins
Schu In
Bigger Than Big The 15th annual BIGSOUND festival and conference has unleashed its massive lineup ahead of the Brisbane event this September. The mammoth festival will feature Sampa The Great, Loose Tooth, Alex Lahey, Olympia and heaps more.
Actress and unstoppable comedic talent Amy Schumer has announced that she will be performing in Australia live for the first time this December as part of her 2016 stand-up world tour. Ngaiire
Contributors Bradley Armstrong, Annelise Ball, Paul Barbieri, Sophie Blackhall-Cain, Emma Breheny, Sean Capel, Luke Carter, Anthony Carew, Uppy Chatterjee, Daniel Cribb, Cyclone, Guy Davis, Dave Drayton, Guido Farnell, Tim Finney, Bob Baker Fish, Cameron Grace, Neil Griffiths, Kate Kingsmill, Tim Kroenert, Pete Laurie, Chris Maric, Fred Negro, Danielle O’Donohue, Obliveus, Paz, Sarah Petchell, Michael Prebeg, Paul Ransom, Dylan Stewart Senior Photographer Kane Hibberd Photographers Andrew Briscoe, Jay Hynes, Lucinda Goodwin Advertising Dept Leigh Treweek, Zoë Ryan, Brad Summers sales@themusic.com.au Art Dept Ben Nicol, Felicity Case-Mejia vic.art@themusic.com.au Admin & Accounts Loretta Zoppos, Ajaz Durrani, Meg Burnham, Kathy Zhu 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
Grouplove In support of their highly anticipated third studio album, Big Mess, US outfit Grouplove have announced they’ll be heading to Australia this August for two massive shows in Sydney and Melbourne.
Worth A Listen Listen Out Festival is back again in 2016, with one of its biggest line-ups yet. Among the huge list of acts are the likes of RUFUS, A$AP Ferg, Anderson Paak & The Free Nationals, Ngaiire and heaps more.
Level 1, 221 Kerr St, Fitzroy VIC 3065 Locked Bag 2001, Clifton Hill VIC 3068
— Melbourne
THE MUSIC 29TH JUNE 2016 • 7
Lifestyle Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture
Yours Is Calamine
On the back of their respective new releases, Ella Hooper and Gena Rose Bruce are joining forces on a joint tour this July. They’ll be performing together under the new moniker of The Calamine Sisters.
Ella Hooper & Gena Rose Bruce
Love Of Heights
Montaigne
Montaigne has announced the release of her debut fulllength Glorious Heights 5 Aug as well as a national tour. The Because I Love You tour includes 12 dates throughout September and October.
Big Scary Ahead of their third studio album Animal, Melbourne duo Big Scary have announced their first headline tour in about three years. The tour will on 30 Sep before moving ‘round the nation until 15 Oct.
Big Scary
8 • THE MUSIC • 29TH JUNE 2016
e / Cultu Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture
Calling For Helpmann
The Helpmann Awards is upon us once again, with the best in Australian live performance being recognised and celebrated. Among the nominees for their shows around the country include Prince, Flight Facilities, Matilda The Musical and heaps more.
Matilda The Musical
Come Up To The Lab Plutonic Lab is celebrating the release of his new album, Deep Above The Noise, with a national tour this September. His first album in 11 years, he’ll be playing all around the country until early November.
BAR
WEDNESDAY 29TH JUNE
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COFFIN CAROUSEL HYPNO SEX RAY DARCY FOX LANA LUNACY SATURDAY 2ND JULY
Plutonic Lab
Heavy Alloy Ufomammut have announced that they are teaming up with fellow metal giants Monolord for a co-headline tour. It’ll be the first time in Aus for both bands as they thrash their way around the country together in October.
1 The number of seasons that will exist for Martin Scorsese and Mick Jagger’s TV show Vinyl, after the drama was axed by HBO.
CITY SHARPS LITTLE HOUSE GODZ ROCK MONSTER GUILTY AS CHARGED SWAMP DONKEY SUNDAY 3RD JULY
THE DANDY JONESTOWN MASSACRE SUBURBAN PROPHETS CAMAMITY LANE TRIUZ AFTER WORK HAPPY HOUR FROM 5PM
$5 DRINKS WED, THURS & FRI 160 HODDLE ST ABBOTSFORD
Monolord
THE MUSIC 29TH JUNE 2016 • 9
Music / Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture
Sydonia
Looking A Little Grainy
Sydonia is getting reading to hit the road once again in July, gearing up for one of their biggest tours yet. They’ll be playing new tracks off their upcoming third album, including new release Eyes Of Sand.
Tash Sultana
The Night Is Bright & Full Of Wonder White Night will return to the streets of the CBD in 2017 on 18 Feb, and it has been announced that the international event will also be expanding to include the inaugural White Night Ballarat 4 Mar.
Hanging Gardens Hitting the scene in December is the inaugural run of The Pleasure Garden. The fresh festival has already drawn acts like The Cat Empire, Tash Sultana and The Opiuo Band, with more to be announced. Paterson
MIFF Cannes
theMusic.com.au: breaking news, up-to-the-minute reviews and streaming new releases
10 • THE MUSIC • 29TH JUNE 2016
The 65th Melbourne International Film Festival, 28 Jul – 14 Aug, will be screening The Handmaiden, The Neon Demon, Paterson, and 27 other films that debuted at the Cannes Film Festival last month.
Arts / Li Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture
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THE MUSIC 29TH JUNE 2016 â&#x20AC;¢ 11
Music
Life After Delonge Mark Hoppus tells Neil Griffiths why Blink-182 are back. For good this time.
“T
om. Is. Out.” That was the email sent from Tom Delonge’s manager to his fellow Blink-182 band members at the end of 2014 , just a week before they were set to finally get in the studio together to record a new album. For the second time in ten years, the co-founding member of the seminal punk group had split, leaving fans to assume this really was the end. But now, over a year later, the San Diego-founded group are set to release their seventh studio album, California; the first record without Delonge and the first to feature new recruit and Alkaline Trio frontman, Matt Skiba. “Everybody in the band is really happy, everybody is really proud of the album, everybody is excited to play music,” Hoppus says. “When we were recording the album, we were so stoked on the recording process and the songwriting process and everybody’s enthusiasm and everybody having ideas and pitching in. All hands were on deck. I couldn’t have asked for a better writing process.” Following Delonge’s departure in January last year, Hoppus and drummer Travis Barker had to make a big decision about the future of Blink-182. With a show already booked for March, they made the call to bring in Skiba (a friend from way back) simply to honour their commitment to the gig. The response by fans at the show was enough for Hoppus and Barker to decide that the future of the band included Skiba. “It was really Skiba or no one else, he was the only one that we talked about,” Hoppus explains. “He has such a great voice and such a great temperament and so talented and such a great guitarist that it just seemed like the perfect fit from the first time we that we even started talking about it. Matt was very gracious to fill in with those shows and it just meshed immediately.” The three got in the studio earlier this year with renowned punk producer John Feldmann and the result is an album that emphasises what Blink-182 is all about - fast, catchy, punk music. Hoppus agrees that California could fit perfectly between the band’s 2001 album Take Off Your Pants & Jacket and their career-defining untitled record released in 2003. “I think that’s a fair assessment,” Hoppus says. “I think that [California] really goes back to all the stuff that we love about Blink-182 and have been trying to do for the past ten years. I think that it pulls from old Blink, I think it pushes Blink forward. I think that’s probably
I think that [California] pulls from old Blink, I think it pushes Blink forward.
the best assessment of where it should sit in the timeline.” Hoppus, Barker and Delonge all agree that untitled is their best work, but the 44-year-old bassist believes California “stands even” with the acclaimed work. “Untitled I’m really proud of because we pushed ourselves to be different and pushed ourselves to do different ideas and this one I feel we did the same thing. But we also went back to what Blink is all about. “I hold these records with equal pride, I think.” In the last year, Delonge has been adamant that he never quit the band and even denied a press release sent from the Blink camp announcing his departure was true. Since then, the Angels & Airwaves singer has diverted his focus to his multimedia company To The Stars. Shortly after Skiba’s inclusion in
the band was confirmed, Delonge released a statement hinting that he does have a future in Blink-182. Most recently, he announced that he has rekindled his friendship with Barker and has even suggested that they are talking about recording and touring together. Hoppus claims this is all news to him. “I don’t know what [Delonge] is talking about because I haven’t spoken with him at all about recording and touring,” Hoppus says. “I’ve spoken with Tom one time since 2014 and it was totally genial enough and it was fine. But it’s not something that we’re even talking about.” Outside of Blink-182, Hoppus keeps himself busy with several projects. Not only
does he run his own clothing line, Hi My Name Is Mark, but has also produced albums for a number of fellow punk acts including Fall Out Boy, New Found Glory, Motion City Soundtrack and Paws. From 2010-2012, Hoppus starred on his own music talk show Hoppus On Music, which also featured comedian Amy Schumer who has since gone on to become one of the biggest stand-up acts in the world. He laughs at the suggestion his show put her on the map. “Amy is deserving of all the success that she has. She’s so talented and so funny and so smart that it would be stupid of me to take any credit for her success,” he says. “She blessed my TV show with her talent, so you know, she’s great. “In the future, I’m open to a bunch of different ideas, but right now everything is focused on Blink. I have my clothing line that I run and I do the podcast when we have time to do it. I look forward to doing other producing and songwriting stuff outside of Blink-182, but this is really my focus and my passion and what I love to do with my time.” Blink have just kicked off a US tour in support of the new album and while he hopes to come to Australia in the near future, Hoppus admits that it all comes down to when Barker is ready to board a plane, who has been resistant to fly since a fatal plane crash in 2008 that killed four passengers and left Barker with burns to 65% of his body. “We are looking into and Travis is looking into the possibility of taking a boat from LA to Australia, which is a very long trip, but it’s something that we are looking into,” Hoppus says. “Hopefully we can make it work.” Blink-182 last toured Australia in 2013 and though only he and Delonge took the flight over (with fill in drummer Brooks Wackerman), Hoppus says it would be unlikely that could happen again. “I don’t know, because that was a very unique case where, you know, where Travis was hoping to get on the plane and obviously as it got close to be time for the tour he came to Tom and I and said ‘Hey, look, I’m not ready to fly’ and we totally understood and got Brooks to fill in at the last minute. “I think booking a tour and planning on having a different drummer might be a little different.” Following their tour plans, Hoppus is adamant that the band will get straight back in the studio to make up for lost time, given that California is the band’s first album since 2011. “I think the idea would be to get back in and record more, yeah, for sure,” he says. “That’s the process of touring and recording. We want to have music out more often than every five years that’s for sure.”
What: California (Vagrant)
A Timeline 1992 Tom Delonge and Mark Hoppus form Blink-182 with Scott Raynor
1995 Band release debut album Cheshire Cat
1998 Travis Barker joins the band following the departure of Raynor
1999 Blink-182 reach global fame with third LP Enema Of The State which sells 15 million copies worldwide
2003 Blink-182 drop the untitled album, considered not only as a turning point for the band musically, but their best work to date.
2005 Blink-182 announce an “indefinite hiatus” after Delonge splits from the group
2009 Blink-182 take to the stage together at the Grammys to announce the band is getting back together
2011 Band release sixth LP Neighbourhoods - their first album since reforming
2015 Blink-182 announce Tom Delonge has left the group for a second time. Matt Skiba joins the band months later
2016 Band to release California their first in five years and the first to not feature Delonge
THE MUSIC 29TH JUNE 2016 • 13
Music
Life Is A Highway After drilling some holes into his first electric guitar and painting it purple, Willie Watson discovered Neil Young, which saved him from “really terrible metal music”, he tells Bryget Chrisfield.
W
illie Watson last graced our shores as part of the Gillian Welch/Dave Rawlings Machine cross-country juggernaut that culminated in that Dream A Highway show, which showcased every possible incarnation of the exceptional musicians assembled for this tour. “That was a lot of fun and I got to do a solo thing there, too,” Watson recalls of the final show on this run. Up there on stage solo with his obligatory ten-gallon hat, Watson dazzled us with a selection of songs including one particularly memorable humdinger, which can be found on a Joe Bussard compilation called Down In The Basement.
I don’t wanna be one of those uptight folkie people that won’t let [my daughter] listen to the radio.
“A version of Keep It Clean by Charley Jordan [was] on there and that was the first time I heard that,” he reveals of this crowd favourite. On how he usually sources his material, Watson offers, “Folk singers from the ‘60s are a really good resource, people like Pete Seeger”. When asked whether he usually finds out where the songs he covers sit historically, Watson confesses, “Not extensively, no. I’m not really a historian like that. It’s not that important to me to learn every little detail about where a song comes from... Sometimes I do look into it a little bit.” A former member of Old Crow Medicine Show, Watson admits he was unsure which direction to take with his music after he “split” from the band until he wound up “on stage solo one time” and “it just sort of 14 • THE MUSIC • 29TH JUNE 2016
took off from there”. When told he’s a natural when it comes to onstage banter, Watson shares, “In the early days of Old Crow Medicine Show, we played on streets a lot. So we’d go out and [do] a lot of busking. And you really have to pick that skill up pretty quick if you wanna get people to stop ‘cause, you know, you’ve only got about maybe ten seconds of their attention if they’re walking by on a street corner, and sometimes if you’re not playing a song you’ve gotta be saying something. So you figure out how to talk to the people pretty fast when you’re out on the road like that.” He has a six-year-old daughter and Watson says the pair “both really like listening to Sia”. “I don’t wanna be one of those uptight folkie people that won’t let her listen to the radio and only lets her listen to, you know, Woody Guthrie,” he continues. “That would just be ridiculous.” When he actually sings to his daughter, Watson tells, “There are some kids songs that I sing to her: The Grey Goose, I sing Froggy Went A Courtin’ to her on a daily basis. When she’s going to sleep, um, Somewhere Over The Rainbow, A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes from Cinderella,” he laughs. When he was a young pup, Watson says he listened to “anything that was on the radio in those days”. “When I first started developing my own taste, the first thing that I was ever really drawn to was — you know, this is probably when I was, like, nine and ten — Roy Orbison; I really liked Roy Orbison,” the 36-year-old musician continues. “My grandmother had this cassette tape of the greatest hits of Roy Orbison and we’d listen to that and, I dunno; I liked his songs and I used to try and imitate his voice. And then after that I kinda got into, like, the metal scene for a couple years.” It was in “sixth grade” that Watson began listening to “really terrible metal music”: “I was really into Guns N’ Roses and so at that point I kinda liked electric guitars.” The first guitar Watson ever owned was purchased for him by his grandmother “at some garage sale”. “I don’t think it was even really playable,” he recalls. Once Watson “got serious and started taking a few lessons”, an Alvarez, which is an his parents forked out for “an acoustic guitar” that he had “for years”. “I did have an electric guitar as well,” he explains, “but I don’t know that it was that much use, really. I think I drilled some holes in it to make it look different and I painted it purple.” Watson hits our shores this time around as one half of a joint headline tour with Josh Hedley. If he ever fancies teaming up with an Australian artist for a tour down the track, we suggest CW Stoneking would be a good fit. Is Watson familiar with our very own blues singer-songwriter? “Oh, yeah, I absolutelyy know who he is,” he enthuses. “Where I like to buy a lot of my clothes here in LA; it’s a place called Mister Freedom and Christophe Loiron, who is the owner and designer for that brand, is a huge fan of CW Stoneking. I didn’t realise he was Australian... I think we should do some shows together sometime, that would be great.”
When & Where: 15 Jul, Caravan Music Club; 16 Jul, Meeniyan Town Hall; 17 Jul, Northcote Social Club
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THE MUSIC 29TH JUNE 2016 • 15
Film
Becoming An Adult Richard Linklater, writer and director of Everybody Wants Some!!, talks to Hannah Story about the moment where “your adult meter starts ticking”.
Y
ou’ve seen a movie written and/or directed by Richard Linklater. The highlights reel: independent classic Slacker, described by Kevin Smith as an inspiration for Clerks; cult ‘70s high school film Dazed & Confused; the gorgeous Before... trilogy, starring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy; the Keanu Reeves rotoscope sci-fi, A Scanner Darkly; the 12 year coming of age project, Boyhood, for which Patricia Arquette won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress; and now “companion piece” to Dazed & Confused, 1980 college baseball film Everybody Wants Some!! Linklater’s latest sees Jake, played by Blake Jenner, arrive on campus at the house he now shares with the Southeast Texas Cherokees baseball team in the days prior to his first semester in college. The film follows the team over the course of three days, as the young adult men
Guys have a way of zoning out other things that are maybe more meaningful: feelings and connections and personal pasts and emotions.”
practice baseball, banter, bicker, chase women and quickly foster an easy camaraderie. It’s a movie that depicts a particular kind of male friendship, one we rarely see drawn out so vividly on screen. “On this movie I think [male friendship] was something I was definitely exploring,” says Linklater. “You know in college you all live together - girls’ dorm, boys’ dorm - I had basically 17 roommates in these two houses, there were 18 of us. And I was like ‘Wow, that was the last time I was such in a male [environment].’ So I was examining the ease of it. Something about men can come together in a fun way, it’s very kind of cooperative often. 16 • THE MUSIC • 29TH JUNE 2016
“In fact that’s how it was making the film - the guys came together really quick and there wasn’t anybody on the out. Everybody was cool and they really got along well. It’s fun. I think everybody was there for a good time, kind of appreciative... Guys are good at that - come together with a common goal: ‘Let’s win the game, let’s win the election, let’s win.’ Guys have a way of zoning out other things that are maybe more meaningful: feelings and connections and personal pasts and emotions, and they can throw all that aside and just focus on having fun, focus on drinking, focus on winning the game, and it’s kind of fun to put all that other stuff aside. Guys do that better than anyone, that’s why they tend to dominate for better and mostly for worse in this world. If we had an all-women government that would alright by me.” In Dazed & Confused, Linklater was offered the opportunity to grapple with his teenage years, growing up in Texas in the 1970s. In Everybody Wants Some!!, the 55-yearold, who studied at Sam Houston State University in Texas, where he too played baseball, “was trying to deal with my college years, y’know, what it was like to be young at that very point in time”. He admits that “there’s a bit of me in all of the characters”. “The more farther away I got from it the more interesting it started to be. You look at your own past - it’s very autobiographical, I was in college at that moment, blah, blah, blah - I was starting to think it was a pretty fun time to have been in college. Culture’s really changed a lot. “Culturally I look back [at the late ‘70s/1980] and I go - I think a lot of other people do too - when you think about it, in the US, it was kind of the end of a certain generation, there was a lot of optimism in the ‘70s, compared to today. College was very inexpensive, weed was going to be legal any second, it was progressive, it was a pretty cool time, a pretty raunchy time. Pre-Reagan/Bush era, pre-AIDS, pre-, you know a lot of pre-s.” But no way would Linklater want to go back to being 18 years old, particularly not back to first young adult love, the blossoming of which we see for Jake in the film. “Too much anxiety, too much, y’know, stuff to be a young person ever. What [Everybody Wants Some!!] meant to me, is the first time I sort of acknowledged myself as far as like: ‘Ok, these were my decisions, I was an adult.’ That’s what the film’s about: your adult meter starts ticking for the first time at this abo phase of life... I was less conflicted about this phase of my phas life. I started accepting my life. ‘That’s who I am, those are decisions I’m making,’ you live with it. But I wouldn’t want the d to go back to it. “You’re kind of becoming who you are at that stage. You’re not experienced but you’re certainly who you’re going to be to some degree. I don’t have much nostalgia for it - it’s a messy time. I associate more heartache, pain, y’know all that stuff, [it] feels more real as the love part. The love part is fleeting and wonderful, the pain and the aftermath kind of hangs around a long time. One more reason not go back to that time.”
What: Everybody Wants Some!!
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THE MUSIC 29TH JUNE 2016 • 17
Music
Reckless Driving As metalcore sensations Parkway Drive embark on their next adventure, vocalist Winston McCall and Brendan Crabb share some bush tucker.
A
s early DVD documentary footage indicated, and death-defying Vice Grip video recently reiterated, Parkway Drive are fond of the odd spot of risktaking and other assorted escapades. The moniker of their upcoming regional jaunt, the ‘All Aussie Adventure Tour’ (derived from an online competition) was inspired by the accident-prone TV comedy favourite. Has the Byron Bay outfit experienced any Russell Coight-like mishaps on tour? “What, jumping off a bridge and landing on a boat?” frontman Winston McCall jokes. “Probably the nastiest one we did, which was not
is literally the primary passion in our lives. We really care about creating this music and creating a moment on stage every time we play. Sacrificing a lot of the time by going and doing crazy crap, to the point where the show is secondary... You don’t have the energy to play properly when you get on-stage. The thing that makes me most psyched now is less the surf that we’re going to get on the tour, and more the show itself.”
We don’t have any plans of stopping, unless we’re forced to.
Considering their upcoming itinerary, a more professional approach seems mandatory. Post-regional run, Parkway Drive return to Europe for “pretty much the biggest shows we’ve ever played”, including prominent slots on major summer festivals like Leeds and Reading, and Germany’s none-more-metal Wacken Open Air. “We’ve had our share of interesting situations, for better or worse, that we’ve had to deal with over the band’s existence, and it’s one of those things where we just roll with it as we go. Luckily we’re all still friends, we all care about each other on a level that isn’t just, ‘You’re the guy next to me playing the music, and that’s it.’ I think there’s more passion about what we do now than there has ever been in the band’s existence. And we don’t have any plans of stopping, unless we’re forced to. So anything that pops up, we’ll simply just work it into our lives... But that being said, we’ll see what happens if anyone has kids,” he chuckles.
When & Where: 30 Jun, The Cube, Wodonga; 1 Jul, Bendigo Stadium; 2 Jul, Geelong Arena; 3 & 4 Jul, Chelsea Heights Hotel
intentional, was when we had the habit of jumping off things into water, we decided the best way to do it was make sure that our roadies tested the water first. So we’d make them jump off in front of us. We did a massive cliff jump in Sydney, made our roadie on his first day jump off. He couldn’t do it properly, landed on his back, ended up having to go hospital the day of the show, and retire from the tour.” Although the band remains based in their hometown, a domesticated existence seemingly doesn’t beckon yet. “It’s more the fact we give a shit about playing on stage far more now than we did in the past. Back in the day, we’d do the kind of thing where you’re playing like eight songs, and no real concept of this being anything other than a fun tour. [Now] this has become something that 18 • THE MUSIC • 29TH JUNE 2016
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THE MUSIC 29TH JUNE 2016 â&#x20AC;¢ 19
Music
Frontlash Dance Royalty
Absolutely Fabulous
We just had to look in the program to learn more about the stunning dancer who particularly features in Nederlands Dans Theater’s Sehnsucht. And it came as no surprise to discover his name’s Prince Credell – suitably regal.
Get Ya Skates On The open-air skating rink in Fed Square looks so pretty! It’s just a pity we’re petrified we’ll break a limb.
Lashes
Footy Tipping
Reclink Community Cup. The only footy match that attracts music lovers every single year. Congrats, Rockdogs. Better luck next year, Megahertz.
Reclink Community Cup. Pic: Yana Amur
Backlash Glasto Envy
So word has it that some of this year’s Glasto highlights included Alex Turner busting some serious moves while Tame Impala played Feels Like We Only Go Backwards, The Bee Gees’ Barry Gibb joining Coldplay on stage for a Staying Alive cover and James Blake recruiting Vince Staples and Bon Iver to guest during his set. We’ll get there one day!
Uk Not Ok Brexit. But moreso those people who spent their entire weekend banging on about it.
Bring Back “Chad Bear”! The Bachelorette (US) sorely misses this season’s ‘villain’ Chad Johnson.
20 • THE MUSIC • 29TH JUNE 2016
Brendan Maclean’s fabulously pop, extravagantly queer EP became the number one Australian record on iTunes a few hours before he squealed about it with Brynn Davies.
A
t 6am this morning, Brendan Maclean’s phone started buzzing off the hook. His EP Funbang1 dropped on iTunes today and “of course I preordered my own album. I clicked the charts and there it was in the top ten”, he gushes, hands flailing. He burst into The Music’s office around lunchtime giddy and excitable after drinking champagne all morning, joking that despite being the number one Australian album on the international charts (debuting at number four), he’s just below Beyonce “where I should be”. A “very queer and very camp” record, Funbang1 is a 27-minute feast of bangers, exploding with sass, huge pop hooks and a taste of Maclean’s side-splitting bitch-snipes, which you’ll note in On The Door — he’s honest, and this sets him apart more than anything else he does to pave his own way. “I believe in humour in music. Australia needs a little bit of humour in our pop music; it’s so serious and calypso and you know, ‘I’m drugged at a club’ vibe at the moment,” he illustrates. The track in question was written for featured vocalist Amanda Palmer during Sydney Festival: “We were in the Spiegeltent and her phone would just blow up every day like ten minutes before she went on, and I was like ‘So that’s gotta be management
or PR right?’ But it turned out to be all of her friends and industry people and festival people wanting to be on the door. And I just turned to her and was like ‘Just tell them they’re on the door minus four,’ and she was like ‘What the fuck did you just say? That’s a song.’” At 28, Maclean has seemingly avoided any semblance of the mundane — from his first gig as a stilt walker at Luna Park, before six years as a presenter on triple j, and then nabbing the role of Klipspringer in Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby. But he owes his “slow burn” success to two things: the new media environment and his mentors. “I had a bit of luck with Paul Mac and Stupid — that was the first thing I took to Paul — I slid an iPad under his door because I couldn’t get him to listen to it!” he laughs. If you’re ever in a bad mood, follow Maclean on Twitter. Those who already follow him have contributed much to this recent success: “Worry more about [your fans] and less about what Sony or Universal thinks of you, because Sony or Universal aren’t going to buy your records,” he states. “Yes it’s awesome that this independent record is on the charts, but I look at things like being queer, never being playlisted on triple j in ten years, never being programmed for a major festival, and this is the number one album for an Australian today. It’s just breaking down the music industry idea that there’s a way to do it. The truth is, the music industry has changed and I just keep laughing now, like, it’s so clear that it’s changed! Why can’t you see that?! Why can’t everyone see that it’s not about a label any more, it’s not just about a radio station!”
What: Funbang1 (Independent)
THE MUSIC 29TH JUNE 2016 â&#x20AC;¢ 21
Lit
An Illusion Of Control Melissa Broder talks to Hannah Story about writing So Sad Today: Personal Essays to survive.
I
t is 5pm in Los Angeles when Melissa Broder leaves the house. “I’ve been feeling kind of weird today for some reason,” she says. Today is one of those days “when I’m just like ‘Oh, everything’s shit, it’s all over, it’s all done for me, I suck’”. She is talking to The Music about her collection of essays, So Sad Today, named for the formerly anonymous Twitter account she started in July 2012. The collection, endorsed by Best Coast’s Bethany Cosentino, traverses Broder’s struggle with alcoholism, drug abuse, anxiety and depression, her open marriage, fetishes, romantic fantasies, and her difficulty with her body and gradual, erring self-acceptance and connection
If this can’t exist anymore, at least I can create something from it, y’know, so that it’s not just gone.
with others. It is a collection that is as wry and funny as it is raw and honest, Broder capturing existential angst, lust and obsession, and all of our attempts to simply be okay with ourselves. “I write because I have to,” Broder says. “It’s the thing that kind of keeps me alive. With my prose it is a way, when I feel like I am powerless over the world, when I feel specifically powerless over my mind, writing the prose is a way to have at least an illusion of control over the narrative. “[I write] to survive stuff. To survive life. And to maybe have a chance to feel okay within myself. I think I write as a way to kind of survive myself and my abundance of constructive or destructive energy.” Broder describes anxiety and depression as her 22 • THE MUSIC • 29TH JUNE 2016
“wiring”: “I would love it if something would give me that permanent okayness in the world, I want that; that’s all I’ve ever wanted in my life is to be guaranteed to feel okay, that permanent peace of mind. But I kind of learned over time through trying like a gazillion different things that nothing outside me will really give that to me.” And Broder has tried a gazillion things to find that okayness, from New Age spiritualism, to drugs, to alcohol, to romantic obsessions with other people. Those romantic entanglements into which she threw herself — some conducted partially or entirely online — are a rich place from which to write, illuminating the blurred lines between the real and unreal, between lust and love. “For me, it’s not always the person so much as the fantasy that really was in some ways saving my life. We feel we need it. We create these fantasies for a reason, I think, and that’s because some element of reality was too difficult for us. These fantasies are really these coping mechanisms and they can be really beautiful and really real for us, and really sustaining, and they can be even more real than the person I think.” When a fantasy becomes “unsafe”: “no longer a beautiful, warm place for me to go inside my head”, it becomes necessary to withdraw. To “surrender” these fantasies, Broder says, “The pain [of maintaining the fantasy] has to be worse on some level, or more final, than the intoxication of that potential. “The point though is to mourn,” Broder advises, by crying, by not denigrating the other person, by cutting off contact, and then “turn[ing] it into art because that gives me a renewed meaning”: “If this can’t exist anymore, at least I can create something from it, y’know, so that it’s not just gone. “ So then, if not escaping in substances or other people, what is a healthy way to practice selfcompassion? “I take a lot of actions to kind of stay afloat: I go to therapy, I have a psychiatrist, I check in with a mentor, I create, I run, I take psych meds, [there’s] other things as well that I do and they’re all really important, so I guess I do a lot of self-care. But seriously when I hear the word self-care I think it’s like ‘Buy yourself some flowers or some shit,’ and I’m just like ‘No, that’s not going to fucking work. I can’t fool myself by buying myself flowers.’ “For me it’s more I kind of put up these — when children go bowling, they’ll put these mats in the gutter so that the ball doesn’t go into the gutter, so the ball like weaves back and forth as its going down the lane, it weaves left and right but it can’t fall in the gutter. And I think like if I have any forms of self-care, that’s what it is. It’s like that I put these pillows in the gutter for myself so that I can’t — I’m always weaving all over the road, but it makes it hard to fall into a ditch, or it makes it hard to fall into the gutter, because I’ve kind of set up these sort of protections, in the form of people I care about and trust and just the work I’ve done on myself and continue to do on myself.”
What: So Sad Today: Personal Essays (Scribe)
Music
Entire Concepts
Chris Emerson gives Brynn Davies the low-down on his collaboration with Toto and Skrillex and writing a narrative about the What So Not project.
C
hris Emerson is one of those friendof-a-friend type of guys, which tends to happen when you both grow up on Sydney’s Northern Beaches. “[I’m from] Dee Why,” he laughs, “the hood of the Beaches.” After splitting from fellow Peninsula producer Harley Streten last year, Emerson has pushed the What So Not project in his own direction, landing feet firmly first as a solo act. “In terms of producing by myself, that was definitely a daunting thing because I had to work very, very hard across probably the last five years to get myself to a level where I was completely confident in my own ability,” he explains. Although Emerson seems like a confident, chilled out guy on the phone — articulate, open and extremely amicable — his honesty about becoming plagued by self-doubt is an endearing attribute that reveals itself throughout our chat. We finally have a reason What So Not’s hotly anticipated collaboration with Skrillex and Toto hasn’t dropped. “It’s definitely not curled up and died, I just haven’t finished it,” he confirms. “To be honest — and I’ve never told this to anyone except here, right now — I was so daunted by what we created in that room that I needed to get my skills up significantly so that I could create all that the song could
be. Those guys are some of the most phenomenal musicians I have ever worked with in my life. I think I’m about ready to come back into it and make something of it.” Before the Toto project comes off the back burner, he’s getting set to release the follow up to 2015’s Gemini EP. “Funnily enough, there’s a significant amount of songs in there now that it could almost be called an album, but I’m not going to call it an album,” he reveals with a laugh. Impatient fans will have to hold on a while longer — What So Not’s debut record won’t come about until he finishes the “narrative” he’s writing — a kind of musical autobiography and mythology. It’s a concept that seems to go hand in hand with a lot of dance acts — think Daft Punk and Gorillaz. “I mean, what’s the point?!” he impassions. “What’s the point if it’s not going to really mean something? It’s gotta be more than a song; you gotta create entire worlds, you gotta create entire concepts.” At the moment he’s taken to jotting down a literal tale about “where I’ve been and where I am right now”: “I kind of funnily enough wrote my own narrative. I ran out of the shower with this entire melody and chord pattern in my head and then just sang it in my phone, jumped back it the shower, ran to the gig, and then the whole way to the gig I suddenly had this whole narrative as well. I wrote this sort of, like, this whole story out in my notes in my phone... It’s going to be the title track for the next body of work, so it should come out around about the time I’m in Australia.”
Election Watch
In the lead-up to the election we thought we’d highlight the major parties’ stance on a few issues. This week we look at their plans for the National Broadband Network (NBN).
Liberal $46-56 billion Continuing with fibre to the node (FTTN) network, currently being rolled out across the country, to be completed by 2020.
Labor $49-57 billion Changing to fibre to the premises (FTTP) network, but committing to using upgraded versions of Telstra and Optus’ hybrid fibre coax infrastructure. To be completed by June 2022 to two million more homes than the Coalition plan. Committed to upgrading premises already serviced by FTTN.
Greens
When & Where: 7 & 8 Jul, The Prince
Changing to FTTP network, installing new fixed wireless towers. No costing, expected end date release.
THE MUSIC 29TH JUNE 2016 • 23
Indie Indie
Baby Blue
Festival Of Voices
The Fall Of Troy
Have You Heard
Have You Been To
Just Visiting
Answered by: Rhea Caldwell
Answered by: Tony Bonney, director
Answered by: Thomas Erak
When did you start making music and why? I’ve always had a guitar but never believed in myself enough to finish a song or perform until about a year ago. I play music because it is the best thing in the world. Right?
Why should punters visit you? We are a niche festival in Tasmania that celebrates the human voice in all its forms and diversity — from choral and sacred music, to gospel and a cappella, and contemporary artists and singers.
Why are you coming to visit our fair country? Kangaroo meat. Also, music, love, money, fear, ego, sun, an airplane, Lost, Chris Lilley, Jonah, Takalua and fate. Also, you guys call motorcycle gang members bikies, which makes them sound so cute.
What’s the history of the event? It started in 2004 to bring people to Hobart in winter and remains one of Tasmania’s key and longest running winter festivals.
Is this your first visit? We played Soundwave and a couple sideshows back in 2008. So it’s been a while.
Sum up your musical sound in four words? Shameless, garage, folk, surf... If you could only listen to one album forevermore, what would it be and why? Ziggy Stardust because it’s the best. Greatest rock’n’roll moment of your career to date? Getting a band. Why should people come and see your band? Because we’re a good time, we love one another and we play shamelessly honest songs.
Any advice for first timers who want to visit the event? The festival provides 140plus events over 16 days, from concerts, workshops and installations — so plan your time and stay warm.
When and where for your next gig? Next duo gig - The Drunken Poet this Wednesday 29 Jun!
Who’s performing this time around? Meow Meow, Tripod, Ngaiire, Stonefield, Abbe May, Jamie McDowell & Tom Thumb, Lady Sings It Better, Shane Howard & Yirrmal, Taasha Coates, Singh & Blanes, The Broads.
Website link for more info? babybluemelbourne.com
Do you have any plans for the event in the future? That’s a secret! When and where for your next event? 30 Jun — 17 Jul, Hobart & Launceston. Website link for more info? festivalofvoices.com
How long are you here for? Three shows in five days. We’ll play as many notes as possible while we’re here. Also, possibly our new album. What do you know about Australia, in ten words or less? Kangaroos, koalas, Chopper. Also great people. Any extra-curricular activities you hope to participate in while here? Would love to go to Uluru, swim in the ocean, hold a koala. But mostly, eat kangaroo (or feed one). What will you be taking home as a souvenir? Lucas’ Papaw Ointment and sand. Where can we come say hi, and buy you an Aussie beer? 5 Jul, Max Watt’s, Melbourne; 6 July, Manning Bar, Sydney; 7 Jul, Max Watt’s, Brisbane. Website link for more info? thefalloftroy.com
24 • THE MUSIC • 29TH JUNE 2016
Music
Out Of The Darkness
Mat McHugh thought he’d never perform again after sustaining spinal injuries at the end of last year. Bryget Chrisfield finds him inspired and “appreciative” to be back out on the road.
M
at McHugh’s last solo tour was cut short after the singer-songwriterproducer discovered he had a ruptured disc in his neck and a chipped bone in his back, which required immediate surgery. “You go out on the road and you decide, you know, ‘I’m gonna give this album [away] for free and hopefully this tour will make enough to cover my rent until I figure out what to do next,’ and then, three shows in, it’s happened,” McHugh recalls. “It was just, like, ‘Oh, man.’ It was just a dark time for a little bit there. So coming out of that, like, the darker it goes, when you actually come out into the light it just seems so much nicer and brighter so, yeah! It’s definitely been a big emotional — and kinda spiritual and everything — journey for the last six months, that’s for sure. But in that regard, the [current] tour can’t go wrong; even if two people come every night [laughs].” His injury followed “just a full-on year” for McHugh. “I had about 12 months where I was just — I don’t wanna say stressed, ‘cause that sounds like a bit of a wanker-y thing to say about playing music, but it was two albums in a year that I made by myself in a dusty, old, freezing garage, like, two winters in a row.” Now that he’s back out on the road, McHugh observes, “To me, it’s almost like my
first tour I’ve ever done, you know? Because I thought a few months ago that I was never gonna actually do a tour again... I’m just so appreciative that I actually even get the chance [to perform].” Describing driving long distances as “a necessary evil” of touring, McHugh jokes, “If I clocked up all the hours I’ve actually spent in the car — and all the miles driving — I’d been very afraid, I reckon.” McHugh puts this driving time to good use, however. “In my normal life, having a five-year-old and a bunch of other shit to do, you know, you’ve gotta find that time. So driving is kind of nice in that way; you can daydream.” He’s never been one to “sit down and think, ‘I’m going to write a song’,” and McHugh admits, “I generally have the idea and almost can hear a song finished before I even pick up an instrument. And then I have to kind of learn how to play it, basically.” McHugh believes that artists who have “super-long, super-creative, super-fulfilling lives... just kind of keep going and develop a monumental body of work and an important, kind of, cultural contribution”. “Where I’m at, it’s like, I feel like the tip of the iceberg compared to what’s possible,” McHugh contemplates. “I think everyone, as artists, kind of comes in and out of commercial parts of their careers where it’s kind of like they’re just doing their thing and the light comes in and shines on them for a minute, and then the light shines on somewhere else... And that’s where the value is; as opposed to just, like, trying to run around in circles so the spotlight lands on you. Because then you’re not creating anything, you’re just trying to be popular.”
POLICE
CAMERA
ACTION
Here are some recent examples of acts that crossed the thin blue line while recently filming music videos.
Stillwater Giants The Perth band were pulled up by police who issued a fine for being on the water in an unregistered boat while filming a clip for single Montage.
The Bon Scotts The video for their single Main Street features graphic footage of the violence at the Coburg race rally, which the band shot themselves.
Mystery Band Two men are to appear in court next month after being caught by police in possession of an unregistered firearm while filming a music video for an as yet unidentified act in Sydney suburb Marrickville last week.
What: 30 Jun, Sooki Lounge; 1 Jul, The Workers Club Geelong; 2 Jul, The Toff In Town; 3 Jul, Pier Hotel
THE MUSIC 29TH JUNE 2016 • 25
B a n o f fe e
To celebrate the release of her new single I’m Not Sorry and its accompanying music video, Banoffee is touring nationally before she hits the international scene. Banoffee creates electro-pop songs that incorporate powerful lyrics, soft vocals and mystical beats. You really need to head to Roxanne Parlour on 1 Jul to catch one of The Music’s fave artists before she goes global.
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Theatre
Demanic
unacknowledged and unrequited homosexual love... The key to the Othello. Pic: Prudence Upton character, says Ozucelik, is a degree of humanity. “In the early days people certainly attempted this portrayal of Iago as evil incarnate, a subhuman, deviltype character. But I think he is very much human, driven by human passions and human drives, human feelings. Coupled with this idea of him being Yalin Ozucelik tells Dave human, it doesn’t Drayton how a more human mean that he’s a Iago makes for a less good or decent human. He ends up being quite nasty. But I think that’s fuelled by some stupid Othello. deeper passion and emotional drive than just evil. He definitely knows what it is to fear or aving barely started rehearsals as to love or to feel envy, those sorts of things, Iago, Yalin Ozucelik could really use so I think that makes for a richer character, a hanky. He and the rest of the cast and in his soliloquies you get a sense of that. in Artistic Director Peter Evans’ upcoming “In some ways he’s very intelligent, he’s production of Othello (starring Ray Chong a very good manipulator and a very good Nee in the titular role) for Bell Shakespeare improviser, essentially. Intelligent as he is, are a ways off getting the third act of there’s also a strange sort of pettiness, or Shakespeare’s tragedy up on the floor, but foolishness, because as clever as he is he’s Ozucelik’s been struck down by a bout of not this exceptional mastermind, maybe he flu doing the rounds of Sydney. “It’s a bit thinks he is, but he’s actually not; actually, he annoying just at the start of our rehearsals has to work quite hard. Sometimes he has a to be under the weather, it’s not easier when bit of luck on his side, and that makes him you’re not feeling too well. In some ways it’s more human, but it also makes everyone perhaps better that it happens now than later else seems less idiotic. Because one of the in the middle of the run.” things that can happen if Iago is superThe middle of the run, which starts July intelligent and he’s got everything worked out in Orange before snaking around the country, and is so easily able to manipulate Othello wouldn’t be until somewhere around late particularly, then Othello comes across August, perhaps during stints in Perth or as foolish and the scale of the tragedy is Hobart. But Ozucelik is no stranger to long lessened. If Othello is not as foolish, if Iago productions, having played Poins in Bell’s has to work particularly hard to make it four-month long production of Henry IV in happen, it’s all the more real in the minds 2013, and a six-month tour back with La of Othello, of the audience, and the tragedy Boite’s production of Margery & Michael is greater.” Forde’s Milo’s Wake in 2002 — at the time it was the longest national tour ever by a Queensland production. “Every show is different, though of course, and the role What: of Iago is quite a big one,” says Ozucelik. Othello There’s no shortage of theories proposed When & Where: for the incentives that drive Iago’s scheming 12 — 23 Jul, Fairfax Studio, Arts Centre — jealousy, fear, a toxic combination of ego and near-psychopathic indifference, an
One For The Roadies
Roadies
H
If you’re a diehard Almost Famous fan, then you’re going to fall for director Cameron Crowe’s latest behind the curtain drama series Roadies (viewable in Australia on Stan). Here are three things you need to know: It’s a fictional story, but it has been drawn from Crowe’s firsthand knowledge – as a young lad he trooped after big shots around America like The Eagles and Led Zeppelin, much like young William in Almost Famous. The second episode is actually written by Winnie Holzman, the American dramatist, screenwriter and poet. There are a string of real-life artists appearing on each episode supporting the fictional headline band: The Head & The Heart, Reignwolf, Lindsey Buckingham and more.
THE MUSIC 29TH JUNE 2016 • 27
LEAPS AND BOUNDS FESTIVAL WHAT A LEGEND! In honour of Deborah Conway being a Living Legend we asked some of the performers paying tribute to the singersongwriter at The Gasometer Hotel on 10 Jul to tell us what they really think of her.
Vika & Linda Bull
Rebecca Barnard
Clare Bowditch
I’m so happy for Deborah to see all these singers doing her songs. I love her as a songwriter and a friend. It’s an honour to be part of the show.
I adore this woman. She is one of our finest songwriters and I am honoured to be a part of this show.
REQUESTS FROM ANGIE AND STEPHEN We got Angie Hart and Stephen Cummings to write to each other to request the songs they’d like to hear at their respective By Request sessions. Hart performs 3 Jul at Some Velvet Morning. Cummings takes the same stage on 7 Jul. Angie Asks Stephen Dear Stephen, Well, I really want to hear She Set Fire To The House, but I suspect you have been asked for this song many times already and will play it anyway. With that in mind, if it is not too painful a chore, I would love to hear you play these songs:
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We are excited to be performing at the Deborah Conway Living Legends show as part of Leaps And Bounds Festival because we first took notice of Deborah when she was in Do Re Mi singing Man Overboard and thought ‘Wow, what a voice!’ Fast forward 30 years and she is still a strong presence in the Australian music industry and her songwriting has proven that she is constantly evolving, getting better and better with age and we have been lucky enough to have sung backing vocals on three of her albums. We adore her.
Speak With Frankness – I love the musical ground that you tread. Your lyrics are always refreshingly unusual, but perfectly put, sitting on a crafted bed that you make sound effortless. This song is both melodically and rhythmically the kind of thing that I’m talking about. If I haven’t said that enough in the past, I apologise. You have always been such a staunch supporter and mentor to me – perhaps I felt that you didn’t need to be told. Shaped Like Love – I remember when Spiritual Bum came out. I was living in St Kilda and a book you had written, Wonder Boy, was also released around the same time. It sat on the shelves of my favourite bookstore on Fitzroy Street. You were obviously owning this town and I thought that was a pretty great benchmark to look towards. Push It Up All Fall Down – Lovetown was a big album for me, as I’m sure it was for most of us. It made me feel sophisticated for ‘getting it’, even though I really didn’t understand what the songs were about.
Anyway, I’d better get back to preparing for my show. Please don’t pick anything too obscure when you serve me with your request list in return. Go easy.
1 – 17 JULY
Caroline Kennedy My brother first played me Do Re Mi’s Man Overboard when I was about 16. I couldn’t believe it and immediately made him play it to me again. The suburbs were dreamily boring then, as they may still be. It was street cricket, skateboarding on the footpaths and long summery evenings punctuated by mainstream radio floating out car windows. Deborah Conway’s voice broke into that reverie for me in a really dramatic way, her singing tone was so insistent it was like a part of my thinking was activated upon hearing it. She said the words penis envy and talked
about shaved stubble on the sink. These were things I knew existed in the world – after all I’d seen men shaving and I’d heard adults joke about psychoanalysis – I was just surprised that this stuff had ended up in a pop song. I’d not yet listened to The Slits or The Raincoats, so Deborah’s voice was it for me at that time. She was singing about stuff that I had thought of, but had assumed was the sort of thing you never mentioned. Her doing that was a door opening onto a kind of palace of themes. For me it was the start of an opportunity, and a way to think about and write songs, that began in one moment.
Stephen Asks Angie Basically I love Angie’s breezy, slightly kooky voice and persona and have always been a fan of her summery sugar-pop. I have sung with her on numerous occasions, and like all good singers she just opens her mouth and doesn’t think too much about it. She’s a stylish dresser and I’m probably a bit scared of her. Probably if you think of all the singers that followed her, she has influenced a stack of the new folk-rock girls.
SHREDDING TIPS FROM HIGH TENSION High Tension headline Skate Rock for All Ages at Fitzroy Bowling Club on 7 Jul, sharing the stage with Horrible People and Folkie & The Punk. We asked Karina Utomo and Lauren Hammel of High Tension to teach us how to shred. 1. Never listen to the haters for questioning your desire to shred. Always give it your best try — fall like a champion and rise like a skate lord. 2. A practical way to build your confidence is to practice without the presence of any bin lords/the potential of unwanted attention. ie. try Melbourne Museum at night with a pack of like-minded learners for safety in numbers and falling over together. Once you’ve achieved your desired level of confidence, simply skate everywhere! 3. Bring an esky full of snacks and beverages to reward yourself for coming up with innovative new tricks. 4. Self-incentive and self-reward will get you doing an ollie over the bins in no time.
5. Some companies use racist artwork and artwork that is degrading to women — don’t buy it. There are so many great companies making ripping decks, support them instead. 6. If you want to learn to drop in, grab some pads and your tallest skater mate who knows how drop in. Have them stand on the ramp and hold their hands. Put your front foot on the bolts and go for it. Keep trying until you don’t have to hold hands anymore, then high five one another and go grab yourself a snack because now you can drop in, you little shreddog! 7. Blast Propagandhi in your headphones – if you see the person you like, bust out a hardflip in front of them, offer to buy them a burrito and a milkshake from the kiosk and they will want to be your mosh mate until the end. 8. While you’re at it – create a playlist on your smartphone or listening device with songs that make you feel cool when you’re having a shred. Be your own Tony Hawk! 9. Some suggestions to get you started: Holy Moses, Outright, Bridge Burner, Napalm Death, Carcass.
So Ordinary Angels is first. Then Open Up Your Heart And Let The Sun Shine and Lonely. THE MUSIC 29TH JUNE 2016 • 29
EAT/DRINK
Eat/Drink
SOUNDS TASTY Leaps & Bounds Festival is taking over Melbourne for the fourth time this July, bigger and better than ever. The festival boasts the best in music, art, and culture, and with more than 300 events taking place at over 50 venues in seven suburbs, you’d better get to know the local eats if you want to get the most out of the 17 days. Here are a few of our faves.
Sparrow’s Philly Cheesesteaks — Catfish, 30 Gertrude St, Fitzroy One of the official venues for Leaps & Bounds, Catfish itself is home to Sparrow’s Philly Cheesesteaks, the purveyors Melbourne’s most comprehensive Philly cheesesteak menu. Boasting nine styles of American sub, full of perfectly grilled beef (or smoked tofu), that come with onions, cheese in a specially made bun unique to Sparrow’s. Along with chilli cheese fries, chicken wings and desert pretzels, it’s the perfect way to fuel up during the festival.
239 Johnston St, Abbotsford While Abbotsford’s Shadow Electric plays host to a sea of food trucks during the festival, escape the lines and crowds at the secluded Rita’s Kitchen on Johnston Street. A classic Italian affair, Rita’s is pizza and pasta all the way. With authentic flavours, surprising twists on old favourites and all-round deliciousness, it’ll satisfy those mid-fest hunger pains. Check out the prawn linguini and the Spinner pizza for some classy eats at fair prices.
I Love Pho 264 — 264 Victoria St, Richmond If you want quality, quantity and dirtcheap prices, I Love Pho 264 is the way to go. A five-minute walk from Corner Hotel and Great Britain Hotel, I Love Pho 264 offers an affordable and atmospheric meal out for anyone
Rita’s Cafeteria —
looking to take in the Richmond side of Leaps & Bounds. Plenty of Vietnamese favourites are on the menu, but it’s the classic soup of rare beef and delicious noodles that keeps the locals coming back.
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Easey’s — 3/48 Easey St, Collingwood Anywhere that boasts a rooftop bar inside a retired train definitely warrants a look in, but Easey’s is so much more. Hop on board the Collingwood hotspot and make a V-Line straight for zone 3, where Easey’s Burgers will get the hunger train moving. Check out the stacked Melbourne Madness and the succulent Changz Chicken Sanga, or customize your order with heaps of additions including mac and cheese, chilli con carne and beer-battered dim sims. That’s not sides either — dimmies in the burger!
Industry
Talking To The People
One of Talk The Talk Music Conference’s panelists, Remi Kolawole, informs Bryget Chrisfield that it’s important to keep a few people around that you trust enough to tell you, “That’s wack”.
H
e’s one of the panelists at the upcoming Talk The Talk Music Conference and Remi Kolawole admits that he enjoys “talking to the people” in this way and sharing his knowledge. Kolawole recently made himself available for “a face-to-face with some upcoming musicians at Groovin The Moo, talking about what they can expect from the music industry”. “We’d try to help ‘em out and give ‘em advice that they can choose to take or not to take,” he shares. “It’s something that myself and Sensible J like to do a fair bit.” When asked whether he can pinpoint exactly what it was that helped him get a foot in the door with his own music, Kolawole replies without hesitation, “Oh, yeah, a hundred per cent it was meeting [Sensible] J... the whole learning curve was all through J.” And in Kolawole’s experience, musical development accelerates through collaboration. “That’s where you grow the most,” he stresses, “whether it’s just because of the fact that you’re way out of your depth — it makes you go home and try as hard as you possibly can — or whether it’s because you’ve got someone who’s, like, walking it through with you; teaching you indirectly just by having their own style of making music.
“The most important part is having a trust system with a select few people who you know have read the same books as you and can actually tell you, ‘That’s wack’, or, ‘I know you can do better, go and do it’.” He’s fortunate enough to have “a lot” of mentors in his life and Kolawale encourages, “You’ll find your mentor, I believe, when you are ready, you know what I mean? Like, when you want that mentor, when you’re willing to accept that knowledge in yourself. “I’ve met people in the last year — last few days — that are younger than me, maybe have not been as experienced as me, but [they] have totally blown my entire mind just by the way that they approach life and how they approach music, you know. So it’s just about being ready to accept someone into your life that can add some sort of perspective.” Given that this conference is open to young people from the age of 12, we ask Kolawole whether he had musical aspirations this early on. “I played classical piano up until I was about 16,” he reveals, “which kind of sucks for me, because I love piano but I was, you know, taught to play the classical route, which doesn’t speak to a child. If someone had told me I could play Stevie Wonder, then I definitely would have done that.” Based on this experience, Kolawole recommends anyone in a similar position should not “feel obligated” to “do the norm”. “You can go and find whatever artist you like and see if they’ve got piano in their tracks and, more often than not, they will,” he suggests. “You can go on YouTube and type in ‘Stevie Wonder — All I Do How To Tutorial’ and that will teach you how to do it.” So is Kolawole planning on revisiting piano? “Very recently that’s definitely speaking to me, a lot, is trying to get back in and play the keys,” he confesses.
When & Where: 5 Jul, Phoenix Youth Hub
Roadies, Roadies Everywhere
Liz Thomas, co-founder of equipment rental service Everywhere Roadie, gives us the spill on renting gear (and a helping hand!) from other musicians.
Making touring more affordable and accessible Flying heavy gear and van and back line hire is beyond many artists’ budgets, and unnecessary if you’re playing smaller scale pub gigs. Everywhere Roadie can arrange flexible and cheap delivery and collection, sourcing gear in the same suburb as your gig and making even regional towns and areas accessible.
Making some cash on the side Everywhere Roadie provides a service where musicians, techs and engineers can make some extra cash off their gear and skills by supplying other musicians. Gear hire is affordable, at roughly $20-50 per day, with the lender setting the fee.
Building Networks The service isn’t just about hiring gear, Members of Everywhere Roadie have the ability to follow, rate and review each other and build important connections locally, nationally and even globally.
THE MUSIC 29TH JUNE 2016 • 31
OPINION Opinion
Katy B
O G F l ava s Urban And R&B News With Cyclone
T
he first half of 2016 has already brought a flux of ‘event’ urban albums, the finest Beyonce’s Lemonade. As such, other releases have been sidelined. Many reviewers ignored Elliphant’s Living Life Golden, though possibly because she’s signed to the controversial Dr Luke’s Kemosabe Records... Poor Elli. So what deserves more love?
Moderately Highbrow Visual Art Wank And Theatre Foyers With Dave Drayton
I
Harlem rapper A$AP Ferg has followed A$AP Rocky with a ‘musically ambitious’ sophomore in Always Strive & Prosper. DJ Mustard’s Strive (with Missy Elliott) is piano house(!). But the Chuck D-blessed Beautiful People is very Age Of Aquarius. Still, Ferg hasn’t shed his Trap Lord title, with bangers aplenty (cue: New Level). Regardless, it’s more adventurous than Drake’s Views. Last year Brit dance soulstress Katy B enjoyed a
n which we dedicate another column full of words to books emptied of them. A few weeks back in this very column I made mention of two works that each comprise blank libraries: the all white books of Wilfredo Prieto’s Biblioteca Blanca, and the all blue books of Library, by Chinese art collective Polit-Sheer-Form Office. I have another to add to that list, Wafaa Bilal’s 168.01, which is currently on display at Canada’s Esker Foundation. By the middle of the ninth century the largest library in the world had been amassed at the Bayt al-Hikma, or House Of Wisdom, in Baghdad. Four centuries later, as the Mongols laid siege to the city, the library was stripped bare and the books were plunged into the Tigris River to form a makeshift bridge for the army to cross. Legend has it that after a week in the water, or 168 hours, all knowledge had been drained from Wafaa Bital the pages. Like Prieto’s library, Bilal’s is all white, but it won’t remain that way. Each week volunteers unpack, catalogue and shelve donations made in the form of books from a wishlist compiled by the College Of Fine Arts at the University Of Baghdad, whose library was looted and destroyed in 2003. Each donation replaces a blank book in the library. Donations are accepted until the end of August, when the exhibit closes, whereupon all books will be delivered to the University of Baghdad.
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UK #1 with KDA’s Turn The Music Louder (Rumble) alongside Tinie Tempah. Yet, inexplicably, her third album Honey has flopped. The Rinse FM star returns to her club roots with upfront production from the likes of deep houser Kaytranada. The single Who Am I - a Diplo-helmed pop duet with the reascendant Craig David - is admittedly average. Finally, Zayn, formerly of One Direction, has dropped one of 2016’s best R&B albums! Mind Of Mine topped the charts nearly everywhere, but its success hasn’t been sustained. Sometime Frank Ocean producer Malay supplies illwavey grooves, but most revelatory is Zayn’s soulful delivery. Beyond the subversive power ballad PiLlOwT4lK are subliminal R&B numbers like iT’s YoU and rEaR vIeW - somewhere between Trey Songz and The Weeknd. Zayn, of British-Pakistani heritage, also sings the Sufi-inspired fLoWer in Urdu. Love.
The Heavy Shit Metal And Hard Rock With Chris Maric
W
here do I begin - theres so much to say it will take a couple of columns to do it. The last column was written the night before I set off the Heavy Metal Truants Bike Ride to Download Fest - let’s start there. Two-hundredand-seventy-five kilometres over three days doesn’t sound all that bad until you realise its more like two days as the first and last are kinda half-days and the bulk of it
OPINION Opinion
was done on day two 140 kilometres! A few hours into the ride I realised how tough it was going to be as the city soon gave way to the rolling and sometimes punishing hills of the countryside. We stopped for rest breaks every 30 kilometres or so and proceeded to jam as much energy in our faces as possible. Salty chips, bananas, energy powder, nuts and carbs, lots of carbs. The metal brotherhood among us quickly became apparent as groups of riders formed packs to encourage each other, and a few riders had bluetooth speakers blasting out the metal to all around them. We left London to the sound of Motorhead’s (We Are) The Road Crew. Most cool. Arriving in Luton at the end of the first day, some of the riders made a beeline to the bar, I don’t know how, one drink and I’d have been on my arse immediately. Speaking of my arse, it was rather brutalised by the seat. Gel padding in both shorts and saddle still didn’t offer
much support and I was reminded of that the next morning when we took off at 7am and my butt got tenderised like a rump steak for the next ten hours. Breaking the back of the ride on break three of five for the day, we were all relieved when we knew most of the miles were behind us. Finishing the day in Leicester and at a much nicer hotel, we bonded over dinner and beers and realised we only had another 40 kilometress to go in the morning. Heading off on the final day, we gather for photos and Iron Maiden’s secondin-command manager has to bow out to get to France to watch them perform at Download Paris that evening. For abandoning us he is tasked to wear the gloves of shame, which are pink and have pretty tassels on them and he must take a photo wearing them on stage with the band. He sends back a shot of him wearing them on Nicko’s kit a few days later close enough. The first 24 kilometres of the final day were the toughest yet as we climbed the hills that then lead into the valley to Donington Park where the festival is. Regrouping three kilometres out, we know this is the end and, while we are all wrecked, we kinda don’t want it to be over either. We gather around and have a shot of Jack in honour of Lemmy and jump on the bikes one last time entering the festival grounds the way we started, to the sounds of (We Are) The Road Crew. A hero’s welcome was given to us by the charities and hugely relieved we gather for photos, grab our shit and enter Download. By the time we change into new clothes, grab beers and sit (on much more comfortable chairs) the heavens open and proceed to turn Download 2016 into an epic mud bath for the next Xx three days. Next week I’ll give you the lowdown on Download and also tell you how absofuckinglutely awesome Hellfest was! Till then, my donation page for Heavy Metal Truants is still open if you wish to donate: justigiving.com/ chrismaric.
Melbourne Prize for Music 2016
Entries now open Prize pool over $130,000 Open to Victorian residents only Two new categories Open to all music genres Entries close 11 July 2016
For information please go to melbourneprize.org
Melbourne Prize for Music 2016 Outstanding Musicians Award 2016 Beleura Award for Composition 2016 Distinguished Musicians Fellowship 2016 Development Award 2016 Civic Choice Award 2016
Supported by the State Government through Creative Victoria and Patrons and Partners. Committee for Melbourne is a founding supporter
THE MUSIC 29TH JUNE 2016 • 33
Album / E Album/EP Reviews
Blink-182
Album OF THE Week
California Vagrant
★★★★
Blink-182 fans everywhere have asked many questions in the lead-up to the seminal pop punk band’s first album in five years, but none more prominent than this: Can they go on without founding member and co-frontman Tom DeLonge? Whether you miss DeLonge or loathe him, California answers that question with an emphatic ‘yes’. While the album is undoubtedly led by Mark Hoppus, new recruit Matt Skiba does more than just serve as a fill-in in DeLonge’s absence. Skiba’s perfectly placed harmonies and back-ups are not only a welcome addition to the music, but help swerve the band towards slightly new territory. Opening track Cynical is a perfect taste of the album - fast, catchy, loud. California could easily fit in Blink’s catalogue between Take Off Your Pants & Jacket and their self-titled effort. Tracks such as She’s Out Of Her Mind and The Only Thing That Matters recall Enema and Dude Ranch days, while heavier efforts such as No Future and San Diego prove that they can be taken seriously and still make dick jokes. Hoppus and Travis Barker sound like they’ve had a weight lifted off their shoulders following years of just simply talking about a new album. Hoppus’ vocals have never sounded stronger and Barker’s work on songs such as Los Angeles and California show why he’s one of the most sought after drummers in the world. Blink-182 are well and truly back. Neil Griffiths
Liz Stringer
Bat For Lashes
All Of The Bridges
The Bride
Vitamin
Parlophone/Warner
★★★½
★★★½
Over the course of her lengthy solo caree, Melbourne artist Liz Stringer has become one of the most respected singersongwriters on the national scene, her natural talent with words and melodies further augmented by a tireless work ethic and clear love of performance. Despite the inherent Australian tone of her work so far, for her fifth long-player All The Bridges Stringer decamped to Type Foundry Studio in Portland, Oregon to work with lauded producer Adam Selzer (The Decemberists, Fleet Foxes, M Ward). She enlisted two previously unknown local musicians - Luke Ydstie (bass) and Ben Nugent (drums) - and unleashed her smoky voice upon a series of classic ‘70s- and ‘80s-sounding tracks which at times bring to mind what
With sweet, hopeful strings, Natasha Khan, aka Bat For Lashes, opens the story arc of The Bride with I Do to explore the nuptial notion of waiting to be rescued or made whole by another. Ultimately her fourth album is a character-based concept record – sequenced with the flow of a film or novel – that is forced by the tragedy of screeching wheels in Honeymooning Alone to choose self-love and independence over codependency. At the height of the fallout amidst Sunday Love, driving rhythms are punctuated by bright electronic and harp flourishes, and the drama of Khan’s ever-present breathy vocal underlines the bride’s current emotional state. The listener is following not only her grieving process through the tracklist – Never Forgive The
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Chrissie Amphlett fronting The Heartbreakers may have sounded like. Among this strong batch lead single Anyone is a compassionate ode to friendship and loyalty, If You Mean It drips with pedal steel-laced melancholy, Protecting Myself is a snarled look at the culture of greed (atop an almost Pat Benatar bedrock), and Keep On Keeping On is a Springsteenesque blue collar narrative. These world-weary ruminations are heartfelt but never earnest, the considered, well sculpted lyrics suiting the laidback country-rock vibe perfectly. A Steve Bell
Angels plunges into a hymnlike wallowing before joy and gratitude explode through the discordant string samples of vocal highlight Close Encounters – but most importantly her personal and spiritual journey. It takes guts to produce a record of such thematic ambition, and Khan has pushed her dreamy alternative musical soundscapes to another level too. What may be lost in the immediacy of her previous records (and particularly singles) is gained through accompanying literary and visual elements – a whole world in which to perhaps explore your own beliefs, in a hugely imaginative way. Tyler McLoughlan
EP Reviews Album/EP Reviews
Witch Hats
Metronomy
Deliverance
Summer 08
Behind The Beat Records
Because Music/Warner
Cash Savage & The Last Drinks
Hey Geronimo
One Of Us
Chugg Music
Crashing Into The Sun
Ghostly International/Mistletone Records
★★★½
★★
★★★½
★★★★
Melbourne’s Witch Hats’ third album, Deliverance is a consistently impressive encapsulation of the evolution the band have shown across their records. There’s plenty of dark, lurching rock’n’roll with howling dirges and claustrophobic angst. The bass is deep and heavy, anchoring the songs as they stagger off into Stooges protopunk, and nihilistic post-punk. The key is the melodies that still burn a hole in the gothic, swampy vibe. They’re firmly in the realm of The Clash, The Drones and The Gun Club yet they’ve dug their own hook-laden hole and decorated it with all manner of dark pop and bruised, gutter-punk blues.
Like your mate’s once fascinating older brother who’s miraculously managed to make a three-year degree last 12, Metronomy’s Joseph Mount seems to be maturing in stasis. His decision to essentially go solo for this fifth record makes for a denser sound, full of self pitying fame-weary codswallop with few reminders of the genius that made 2011’s The English Riviera such a perfect indie-tronica confection. Beastie Boys turntablist Mix Master Mike on Old Skool scores cool points, but Mount’s almost megalomaniac control over every other element results in an album of rare charmlessness.
Cash Savage trades in gothic and roots-based rock’n’roll that swings from funereal folk to surging widescreen workouts. There’s more range on One Of Us than previous albums. Run With The Dogs has a War On Drugsstyled pulse, Sunday Morning is a dirty, banjo-led folk song, Empty Page is an eviscerating scree of desperation and distortion akin to Swans. Across the ten songs the one common factor is Savage’s bruised and burnished voice, slung low to a growl or thrown skyward in a curdling howl. The success of One Of Us comes from its ambitiousness and Savage’s ability to harness its disparate styles and shape them into a cohesive and compelling album.
With five members, four songwriters and four singers, Hey Geronimo’s debut album could have ended up a mess. And it is – a damn fun rainbowexplosion-type mess of retro mod-bop and tongue-in-cheek disregard for indie conventions. There’s a marching band of nods to Sgt. Pepper’s psychedelics, Beach Boys and Small Faces harmonisation, and even a few Ocean Alley vibes. There’s constant surprises in stylistic twists laid effortlessly into up-tempo movers and shakers – even a spiralling outro to the title track that leaves you expecting the churning refrain of Pink Floyd’s One Of These Days. But this album has no time for darkness – it’s all miniskirts.
Chris Familton
Brynn Davies
Mac McNaughton
Chris Familton
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Grace FMA
THE MUSIC 29TH JUNE 2016 • 35
Album / E Album/EP Reviews
Diesel
Oh Pep!
Americana
Stadium Cake
Liberation
Barely Dressed/Remote Control
Tracy McNeil & The Good Life
Orb
Thieves
Flightless/Remote Control
Birth
SlipRail Records
★★½
★★★½
★★★½
★★★★
Given the musical style of Diesel and the universal adoration for many of the original songs filling Americana, it’s a surprise to see it fall. Diesel easily inserts his playing influence into the music, but seems to remove something greater from each song also. Ring Of Fire no longer has the stern, dry and stiff-lipped charm of the Cash meeting a sweet backing harmony, the same way that Bruce Springsteen’s Born To Run aches for a burning chorus. Though the honky tonk rock of Rag Mama Rag is a pleasant change, it’s ultimately not enough to redeem the album.
Stadium Cake is the first fulllength record by Oh Pep! - the Melbourne duo Olivia Hally and Pepita Emmerichs - and judging by its quality there’ll be plenty more where this came from. It’s disappointing that they’ve simply been branded as a ‘folk/pop’ duo, although given their eclectic, yet unashamedly accessible - and sometimes saccharine - sound, it’s somewhat understandable. Angus & Julia Stone, this ain’t. Textured layers of considered percussion and string sections bounce around beneath Hally’s vocal line, and although at times the results can weigh a listener down, the contagious, effervescent nature of Oh Pep!’s sound never allows you to fully go under.
Tracy McNeil showed flashes of brilliance on her previous album Nobody Ever Leaves and she’s taken that one step further with a more consistent set of songs on Thieves. There’s a laidback smooth quality to McNeil’s music that recalls US west coast FM rock of the late ‘70s, with warm harmonies, swaying guitar lines and a general uplifting quality, even in her darker moments. CSNY and Fleetwood Mac fuse in a gentle Americana sound as McNeil sings of love, heartache, loss and distance via styles that range from the crazily catchy Paradise to the atmospheric epic White Rose. There’s a new sense of maturity and confidence to McNeil’s writing that finds her expanding her songwriting palette with rewarding results.
Birth is a fuzz-drenched journey fuelled by unabashed Black Sabbath worship.There’s a dash of resemblance to Steppenwolf, The Wytches and Led Zeppelin here as Orb stitch together thundering riffs with classic rock sentiment and hooky, affected vocals on the psychedelic fivetrack opus. Cowbells plaster a John Bonham-style drum groove on Reflection and the 16minute voyage Electric Blanket shows Orb have integrated progressive and contemporary takes on psych into the musical conventions that were created alongside the ‘birth’ of heavy metal. It’s groovy, nonchalant, and whether tongue in cheek or oblivious to the fact, still quietly ingenious.
Mark Beresford
Dylan Stewart
Jonty Czuchwicki
Chris Familton
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36 • THE MUSIC • 29TH JUNE 2016
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Live Re Live Reviews
Ali Barter @ Margaret Court Arena. Pic: Lucinda Goodwin
The Rubens, Mansionair, Slum Sociable, Ali Barter Margaret Court Arena 25 Jun
The Rubens @ Margaret Court Arena. Pic: Lucinda Goodwin
The Rubens @ Margaret Court Arena. Pic: Lucinda Goodwin
The Rubens @ Margaret Court Arena. Pic: Lucinda Goodwin
Total Giovanni @ Reclink Community Cup. Pic: Yana Amur
38 • THE MUSIC • 29TH JUNE 2016
Regurgitator @ Reclink Community Cup. Pic: Yana Amur
Melbourne’s own grunge pop star Ali Barter opens the night, getting the crowd pumped with clever lyrics and her Tori Amosstyled vocals. She’s supported by a full band and dances facing them when she’s not singing. Barter wraps up her set with Hypercolour, which combines the dreamy grunge-pop and retro synth elements that are this songstress’s signature sound. Second hometown act Slum Sociable are up next. This quartet gets the audience up and dancing with their alternative, self-described “washed out jazz hop”. The band stand in a line — bass, vocals, guitar and drums. Frontman Miller Upchurch doesn’t stop grooving or playing the tambourine for a second despite being confined to his mic stand. There’s a shaky patch when they play a few new tracks, but they finish strong with bluesy, jazz number All Night. The lights dim and Sydney trio Mansionair hit the stage in a sea of fog as we cheer. This is their last night on the tour. Mansionair provide a genredefying mix of electronic, soul and indie-rock just to name a few. Frontman Jack Froggatt’s voice is mesmerising as it floats on top of the heavy dance beats, atmospheric synth and guitar. Froggatt throws his whole self into the performance with those Peter Garrett dance moves. Fan favourites include their Like A Version cover of Future Islands’ Seasons (Waiting On You) and hugely popular first single Hold Me Down. The Rubens storm on stage to the sound of a remixed national anthem. They stand, basking in the roar of the crowd before launching into The Day You Went Away. Their elaborate
Sam Margin’s arrogance is palpable as he stalks across the stage, stands at the photography barrier and even lights up a cigarette.
light show, the band’s polished performance and added horn section befit a stadium show. Frontman Sam Margin’s arrogance is palpable as he stalks across the stage, stands at the photography barrier and even lights up a cigarette during Hold Me Back. Seth Sentry is introduced to the stage for My Gun and he brings an awesome blend of aggressive rap over blues rock. This is followed up by a guest appearance from Barter, who joins Margin on vocal duties for Paddy. “I’d like to make a toast,” Margin says, beer in hand. “To everyone in the audience who voted for this next one in the Hottest 100, because it fucking won!” The arena erupts with frenzied excitement as Hoops starts. This excitement carries over to the final song Cut Me Loose. Margin winds up crowdsurfing in a blue inflatable boat. After he’s ferried back to the stage, Margin pops a bottle of champagne and sprays it over the crowd. Dearna Mulvaney
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Reclink Community Cup Elsternwick Park 26 Jun
It’s that time of year again when we head on over to Elsternwick Park with our dogs and footies to have a beer while watching the sporting battle of the year: Megahertz (made up of local community radio legends) versus Rockdogs (some guys and girls that play instruments) for the coveted Reclink Community Cup. The first half is a bit of a whitewash with Rockdogs somehow defying all odds and managing to kick the ball in the right direction to develop a sturdy lead over the down-butnot-out Megahertz. For the halftime entertainment, local discotinged, electro-pop superstars
Tim Rogers joins [Regurgitator] for I Sucked A Lot Of Cock To Get Where I Am and it’s a defining performance for the passionate Rockdog.
Total Giovanni take the spotlight. Ditching the disco chic in favour of outfits that make them look as if they’re doing a Hey Hey It’s Saturday skit, the band embrace the spirit of the match and sound as raw and aggravated as they ever have on a stage — the results are perfect. But then it’s time to get off the pitch to finish the bloody match.
The third quarter debatably sees the most action, with streakers joining in the match for a solid few minutes of play, a sausage sizzle set up in the left half of the Megahertz 45m zone and those straight-up legends kicking a few solid ones (a comeback, perhaps?). Unfortunately, in the final quarter, both sides struggle to make any real progress on the scoreboard and Rockdogs are victorious. The crowd give the Dogs their well-earned cheers (even though on the inside they know it’s like putting a child’s painting from school on the fridge even though it’s not that good). With the sun down and the temperature following suit, Regurgitator take the stage and the field turns into one big celebration. The band mix their old with their new stuff and deliver a set in straight-up rock’n’roll mode. Littered with guest appearances, Tim Rogers joins the lads for I Sucked A Lot Of Cock To Get Where I Am and it’s a defining performance for the passionate Rockdog. Polyester Girl and Kong Foo Sing are notable but it’s the final moments when the group are joined by esteemed journalist/ that bloke from Channel Ten, Waleed Aly, slashing riffs on guitar for ! (The Song Formerly Known As) and an anthemic cover of Prince’s Purple Rain (together with Rockdogs leading man Dan Sultan) that bring down the house. It all ends with Sultan giving a well-deserved-yetegotistical hoist of the cup and like that it’s time to go home and wash the dog. Bradley Armstrong
Phil Jamieson, Tim Smyth Shebeen Bandroom 25 Jun
Sydney upstarts Royal Chant are a mixture of garage-rock and ‘90s nostalgia that have everyone paying attention thanks to frontman Mark Spence. As the band deliver surging and melodic alternative tunes, it’s Spence who steals the spotlight. The American’s hilarious banter has the crowd chuckling while he slowly undresses, ending the performance in just his jocks and The Flash t-shirt before tackling bassist Ryan Stuart to the ground in a hail of feedback. Local Melbourne act Tim Smyth & HolyTrash follow with an entertaining set of melodic alternative-rock numbers channelling former Aussie underachievers Motor Ace. Smyth begins things solo before HolyTrash join him for a lively showcase of rock-pop, with their latest single My Imagination the standout. Casually strolling into the crowd with acoustic guitar in hand, the room suddenly falls silent as Phil Jamieson covers Meredith Wilson’s Till There Was You (made famous by The Beatles). Wearing a black suit — minus the tie — Jamieson appears relaxed and in good spirits for the last-ever musical performance at Shebeen Bandroom. Without a solo record to his name, Jamieson spends the evening rolling out Grinspoon covers for his adoring fans. Sweet As Sugar, Bad Funk Stripe and Repeat are given a softer edge before Jamieson launches into his quadrilogy of wedding songs. Comeback starts things off and is followed by the harmonica-featuring Better Off Alone. Neither song gives off wedding vibes until Jamieson slips in a cover of Bryan Adams’ classic Heaven, although surprisingly only a
few in the crowd seem to know it. Jamieson has always been a charmer and tonight is no exception. In between songs he ponders Brexit, discusses the unfortunate demise of Shebeen and calls out a punter for wearing a flat cap. He’s a seasoned performer who’s gone from rockstar to mature crooner
Wearing a black suit — minus the tie — Jamieson appears relaxed and in good spirits for the last-ever musical performance at Shebeen Bandroom.” and has the air of someone who’d be at home playing Vegas casinos belting out the hits. Swapping the acoustic for an electric guitar on Black Friday, Jamieson is joined by Royal Chant’s bassist Stuart and frontman Spence on the drums for the final few numbers. Together the three turn No Reason into a country anthem while adding a dash of reggae to More Than You Are. Just Ace ends Jamieson’s wedding quadrilogy and invites a singalong before an extended jam of 1000 Miles ends things on a high, Jamieson doing his best to cement his position as one of Australian music’s most endearing personalities. Tobias Handke
THE MUSIC 29TH JUNE 2016 • 39
Live Re Live Reviews
The Living End Bad// Dreems, The 131’s Forum Theatre 23 Jun
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Brandy @ Hamer Hall
Forum Theatre is packed to the brim with anticipation for Australia’s punk rock masters, The Living End. Kicking things off for tonight’s sold out show is Melbourne punk outfit 131’s who do a great job of warming up the staunch crowd. Lead singer Luke Yeoward looks like he’s straight out of London’s Camden Town: bright red mohawk, tatts and chains. It’s an explosive mix of pop melodies and punk rock riffs and the heavy influence of the headliners is apparent throughout this opening band’s set.
Monkey as we jump around like we’re back in high school. The Living End are explosive in their performance and it’s easy to see why this band has attracted a deafening buzz around them for decades. New songs from their latest album Shift are interwoven through a thunderous set of classic, road-hardened hits. You don’t need to be a fan to know which songs are the new ones; they stick out not only in sound but also in crowd participation. New track Staring Down The
and West End Riot. Cheney leaps onto Owen’s bass and belts out a guitar solo while balancing up on the instrument. Back behind the mic, Cheney teases the crowd with a version of Born To Be Wild before cutting it at the chorus. “No, we’re not doing it!” he says and finishes the set with one more chorus of West End Riot. We’re blown away, not for the first time and hopefully not for the last. Maxine Gatt
The Living End @ Forum Theatre. Pic: Yana Amur
Ngaiire @ Northcote Social Club The Paper Kites @ Athenaeum Theatre Naked @ Grace Darling Hotel Strip Strip Hooray! @ Forum Theatre The Bennies @ Max Watt’s
Cheney leaps onto Owen’s bass and belts out a guitar solo while balancing up on the instrument.
Kyary Pamyu Pamyu @ Festival Hall Garage-punk quartet Bad//Dreems stumble onto the stage with their loose antics and pub-rocker attitude, which proves a sharp contrast to their tight instrumental work. Even though lead singer Ben Marwe’s harsh diction is unclear at times, he makes up for it with the way his vocals bend around the alternative riffs. They sound like a rough version of The Clash with some ‘90s Seattle rock elements blended in. The lights dim and we hear a guitar lick from the shadows, which sets off frantic cheers and flailing limbs. Through the haze of smoke, Chris Cheney jumps out and runs straight to the mic, busting out recent single
40 • THE MUSIC • 29TH JUNE 2016
Barrel is a modern and evolved take on their signature sound. We soak up the new stompin’ tunes and rock out to the enormous hit catalogue in full nostalgic singalong mode. All the favourites such as All Torn Down, Pictures In The Mirror, White Noise are thrown in and Cheney’s non-stop riffage mesmerises. The powerhouse trio rips out Second Solution and the crowd turns into a frenzied singalong, while Scott Owen jumps up onto the ridge of his double bass, mid-song, and strums from this new angle with ease. We go mental for Prisoner Of Society and sing a whole chorus without Cheney having to chime in. All good things must come to an end and we lap up the twosong encore, How Do We Know
Franky Walnut, The Beards Corner Hotel 25 Jun It’s all about facial hair tonight at pro-beard activists The Beards’ sold out Farewell Tour gig at Corner Hotel. Beardless John Williamson wannabe Franky Walnut provokes waves of rising testosterone early with ‘classics’ like As Australian As and Three Word Review (ie “piece of shit”). A six-foot-five, bald-headed, long-bearded punter called Chris is pulled up on stage to provide backing vocals, yet Chris’s big guns and barrel chest makes Walnut immediately regret his choice. In closing, Walnut storms off stage after inciting everyone to heckle Chris, call him a wanker and tell him to get fucked. The Beards raise the
eviews Live Reviews
vibe immediately with a ‘sophisticated’ first set, entering to classical music and dressed in top-hatted white tie attire, with a roadie serving VBs on a platter. Emotions run high early with beard anthems Born With A Beard and Damn That’s A Nice Beard. The beard love’s so intense that Chris jumps back on stage, simultaneously terrifying and upstaging lead singer Johann Beardraven. Some mutual beard-stroking between Chris and Beardraven soon lowers the tension. With arms slung across manly shoulders and beers raised high in the air, deep voices join as one on The Beard Accessory Store, culminating in Beardraven sculling his VB and tipping
Beards before exiting via an unsuccessful stage-dive straight to the ground. Nathaniel Beard reprimands a non-bearded punter for “not paying attention”, to which said punter responds by swinging drunken emotional punches. Fortunately, Chris calms him down by extending generous beard love to the beardless with a warm bro-hug. You Should Consider Having Sex With A Bearded Man and If Your Dad Doesn’t Have A Beard, You’ve Got Two Mums take the show out with keytar and saxophone hijinks and frequent, emotionally charged key changes. Goodbye and good beard, The Beards: no other band has selflessly done more to advance the pro-beard agenda than you. Will you be shaving it all off when it’s over?
With arms slung across manly shoulders and beers raised high in the air, deep voices join as one on The Beard Accessory Store.
Annelise Ball
the dregs on his head. No Beard, No Good finishes the ‘sophisticated’ first set with Beardraven busting out an epic sax solo, most likely only good because he has a beard. The Beards change costumes for the less sophisticated second set, with drummer John Beardman Jr looking more comfortable in his blue wifebeater singlet. After I’m In The Mood... For Beards, bass player Nathaniel Beard pulls up punter Kieran to be awarded Best Beard Of The Night. He’s given a signed photo of The
The Bamboos Cherry Bar 23 Jun There are not a lot of reasons to leave the house during a Melbourne winter, even fewer when a dreaded arctic blast decides, in its foulness, to throw wind, rain, and everything but the kitchen sink at you. However, the promise of an evening with the lusty soul sounds of The Bamboos, who tonight celebrate their tenth anniversary with Kylie Auldist and her spectacular voice, is enough to draw this writer off the couch and out of hibernation. A “Full House” sign is lacquered above the leatherclad bouncers and those foolish enough to turn up without tickets leave disappointed. As sublime DJ Vince Peach spins all things soulful, snatches of conversations are overheard, almost all of which entail one fan telling another about their first time seeing or meeting a member of The Bamboos. On the stroke of 10pm, The
The entire night has that magical feeling of accidentally hopping a fence and landing in the coolest house party of all time.
Bamboos begin the process of turning the dancefloor, and eventually the entire building, into a bain-marie. The superfans (and there are a lot of them) line the stage and refuse to budge an inch as the lady of the hour, Auldist, glides onto the stage. Rats from 2013’s Fever In The Road plunges the crowd headlong into a deliciously groove-filled set. On The Sly is a slinky kiss-off, as loosening hips and sandwiching pelvises bump together in harmony. The Bamboos themselves play with enviable vigour and, under the watchful eye of bandleader Lance Ferguson, look like they are maybe, just maybe, having even more fun than the pulsing crowd. As a collective of disgustingly talented individuals, they keep things moving along
with precision while never feeling rushed. After over a decade together, The Bamboos continue to be a melting pot of creativity and a delight to watch. The charisma emanating off the stage is intoxicating and, by the tail-end of the set, the crowd is drunk on it (and maybe on the beer, too). Like Tears In Rain is a late stage favourite and sees Auldist’s golden voice kicking arse and taking names, as the sweaty masses are a mash of limbs and happy faces. Those unable to get anywhere near the dancefloor have started their own dance parties towards the end of the bar, a couple even use the infamous Cherry Bar bathroom corridor as their own personal runway. It’s a joyful scene, joyful enough to forget that soon we will all be heading back into the cold. The Bamboos could have sold out a bigger venue twice over, but by keeping it small the entire night has that magical feeling of accidentally hopping a fence and landing in the coolest house party of all time. Tonight, Auldist cements her status as Melbourne’s high priestess of soul, and is completely deserving of her fastapproaching divadom. Madison Thomas
The Beards @ Corner Hotel. Pic: Joshua Braybrook
THE MUSIC 29TH JUNE 2016 • 41
Arts Reviews Arts Reviews
Skylight
Everybody Wants Some!!
Skylight. Pic: Jeff Busby
Theatre The Sumner, Southbank Theatre to 23 Jul
★★½
Everybody Wants Some!! Film In cinemas
★★★★ Richard Linklater is a remarkable filmmaker, carving a long multifaceted career of quality, unique, character-focused, experiential, experimental independent cinema. This year sees his spiritual sequel to one of his best films, Dazed And Confused.Everybody Wants Some!! is set in Texas, 1980, and follows a college baseball team and their rowdy hijinks over the weekend before fall semester begins. Few capture a moment in time like Linklater. Like Dazed And Confused, he provides a snapshot of youthfulness at a time of cultural change, a nostalgic lens that also captures contemporary youth culture. Linklater masterfully goes deeper here than the predecessor in period focus, developing an engrossingly authentic look, feel and sound. The soundtrack particularly is an infectiously awesome period mixtape. His character focus is also sharper, centring almost exclusively on an ensemble of entertainingly layered men, deconstructing team dynamics and the brotherhood of college. It’s also an excuse to relish in his love of baseball. Much like Dazed And Confused, the cast is full of talented up-and-comers; many feel set for a solid film career. Glen Powell, Wyatt Russell, Tyler Hoechlin and Juston Street offer few excellent, authentic character performances throughout, while Blake Jenner shows depth (despite a blank face), proving a perfect freshman protagonist. Everybody Wants Some!! is an energetically fun nostalgia trip which will only improve with age.
David Hare’s writing is extraordinary in its stamina. At twoand-a-half hours, Skylight, directed by Dean Bryant, is a sharp, sustained interrogation of privileged politics as two people who once knew each other intimately realise they now inhabit vastly different worlds and attempt to tear each other down. Kyra (Anna Samson) walked out on Tom (Colin Friels) after his wife discovered their sixyear affair. She now lives in a poor part of town, teaching
at a disadvantaged school, but is tracked down by Tom’s son Edward, played by Toby Wallace who seemed a little stilted at first but grew into the role in his second scene. Tom, strangely enough, appears at Kyra’s doorstep that same night, with a mind to rekindle their romance now that his wife has passed away. Unfortunately, the story between the lovers comes across as an empty vessel to facilitate a political discussion. There is very little chemistry between Samson and Friels, no tension in the space between them. A slow-moving first half ends with the couple reestablishing their intimacy. The conversation, while politically engaging, felt contrived, smothered by heavy British accents to indicate class differences. The production itself was very smooth, though Mathew Frank’s composition, while beautiful, is somewhat jarring in an otherwise starkly naturalistic play, marking the passing of time between scenes with a sudden wave of sound. Dale Ferguson’s set is the hero of the production, a breathtaking, towering apartment block that speaks of the other, fascinating lives that surround Kyra. The attention to detail is wonderful, from the chair next to the telephone to the snow drifting in through a broken window on the floor above. And Matt Scott’s lighting complements the space perfectly, particularly the astoundingly natural look of the apartment’s corridor. Skylight felt didactic and overly long. Fiona Spitzkowsky
Sean Capel
THU 30 JUN 7:30PM
SPACEBALLS + UHF WED 29 JUN 7:30PM
42 • THE MUSIC • 29TH JUNE 2016
THE ACT OF KILLING + THE LOOK OF SILENCE
FRI 01 JUL 7:30PM
SNOW WHITE & THE HUNTSMEN + THE HUNTSMENT
Arts Reviews Arts Reviews
Independence Day: Resurgence
The Events Theatre Merlyn Theatre, Malthouse Theatre to 10 Jul
★★★
Independence Day: Resurgence Film In cinemas
★★★½ Independence Day was one of the biggest, most entertaining 1990s spectacles, with benchmark effects, action and fun that has been endlessly imitated. After two decades, director Roland Emmerich returns with a sequel. Twenty years since the 1996 invasion, Independence Day: Resurgence sees Earth recovered, prospered and enhanced with alien technology. However this may not be enough to stop a bigger, more threatening oncoming alien invasion. Independence Day felt standalone. Its initial impact, iconography and entertaining ‘90s fun are hard to match. Though franchise is king in modern cinema, and this sequel works through detailed world-building and mythology focus, while not as visually impactful, there is plenty more to experience, particularly the aliens and technological enhancements. Original characters also return in interesting places, along with some intriguing new ones. There’s shallow depth (like the original), the plot is convoluted and not all subplots land (Judd Hirsh), but the spectacle, drama and humour remain true.Many original cast return, bringing their best. Jeff Goldblum is mesmerising as always. Bill Pullman is underused but effectively unhinged. Best of all, Brent Spiner (basically a cameo in the original), fleshes out the eccentric, not-sodead Dr Okun to great comedic, touching effect. The new cast is mixed, with Liam Hemsworth bringing natural charisma, partially filling Will Smith’s void (unlike bland Jessie Usher). Independence Day: Resurgence is grandiose dumb entertainment that should enthrall cinema-goers.
The Events, from Scottish dramatist David Greig, is grim. Catherine McClements recently seen as Tess Du Pont in the ABC’s The Beautiful Lie - plays Anglican minister Claire. Genial, progressive and inclusive, she hosts a multicultural choir - “one big crazy tribe”. Yet they’re targeted by a disgruntled white male adolescent shooter (Johnny Carr). He’s only ever referred to as “The Boy”, being a cipher. As survivor, Claire
The Events . Pic: Pia Johnson
needs to understand why he did it, testing her faith and relationship with life partner Katrina. Weighing in are various associates, authorities and randoms - all, confusingly, enacted by Carr. Claire’s therapist says the killer is not “evil” but “empathy-impaired”. The Boy himself rants/chants, “I kill to protect my tribe from softness.” This production, with Clare Watson’s direction, features rotating community choirs both performing and serving as a Greek chorus (tonight it’s Expressive Women with Shaking the Tree). The Boy’s ‘music’ is... rave - so much for PLUR (peace, love, unity, respect). Greig wrote The Events in response to 2011’s Norwegian massacre by white supremacist Anders Breivik. The play is obviously painfully topical following the atrocity at Orlando’s Pulse nightclub. Alas, Greig’s well meaning, if occasionally sardonic, work ultimately becomes just another scrambled (meta-)commentary. But McClements shines - as do the choristers. Cyclone
Sean Capel
THE MUSIC 29TH JUNE 2016 • 43
Comedy / G The Guide
Mark Lanegan Band
Wed 29
Zoe Ryan
Bohjass + Bitter Almond: 303, Northcote Ruth Rogers-Wright: Bird’s Basement, Melbourne
Mellow-Dias-Thump with Various DJs: Boney, Melbourne Muddy’s Blues Roulette with Toni Swain + Big Daddy Roy Pain: Catfish, Fitzroy Skronkadoodledoo: Cherry Bar, Melbourne
The Music Presents
Dada Ono: Evelyn Hotel, Fitzroy
The High Learys: 8 Jul Korova Lounge, 9 Jul Ding Dong Lounge
Fraudband + The Curse + Daytime: Grace Darling Hotel (Basement), Collingwood
Jack The Stripper: 16 Jul The Workers Club, 17 Jul Wrangler Studios
Festival of Fully Baked Ideas with David Quirk: Howler, Brunswick
Jack Garratt: 20 Jul 170 Russell
Thomston + Glades: Hugs & Kisses, Melbourne
Mark Lanegan Band: 22 Jul The Croxton Beach Slang & Spring King: 24 Jul Corner Hotel James Blake: 27 Jul Margaret Court Arena sleepmakewaves: 6 Aug Max Watt’s, 7 Aug Corner Hotel Bob Evans: 13 Aug Howler Dead Letter Circus: 19 Aug 170 Russell Liz Stringer: 17 Sep Howler, 18 Sep Beechworth Town Hall, 21 Sep Ararat Live, 22 Sep Sooki Lounge, 25 Sep Caravan Music Club Gregory Porter: 30 Sep The Croxton
Shirazz + DJ Matt Frederick: Jack Daniels Barrel House, Melbourne Accidental Bedfellows + Suzette Herft + Soloman & Lacey: Lomond Hotel, Brunswick East
Zoe Stardust Singer-songwriter and guitarist Zoe Ryan is taking over the front bar of the Wesley Anne every July Friday starting this week. Fans of her work fronting The Dandy Lion can expect original folk-pop and unique twists on classic favourites.
The Bennies + Clowns + Axe Girl + Renegade Joe: Mynt, Werribee Brooke Russell & The Mean Reds + Megan Cooper: Some Velvet Morning, Clifton Hill Wine, Whiskey, Women feat. De’May + Baby Blue: The Drunken Poet, West Melbourne Mike Noga + Howl At The Moon + Low Talk: The Gasometer Hotel, Collingwood Laura Jean + Stina Tester & Cinta Masters: The Old Bar, Fitzroy
Thu 30 Kickin The B at 303 feat. Cookin’ On 3 Burners: 303, Northcote The Bennies + Clowns + Axe Girl + Keggin: Barwon Club, South Geelong Starman - A Show with the Music of David Bowie feat. Sven Ratzke: Bennetts Lane, Melbourne The Paul Simon Songbook played by Joe Chindamo: Bird’s Basement, Melbourne Aurora Melbourne 2016 feat. Jayskullo + I Know The Chief + Great John Himself + Various DJs: Brown Alley, Melbourne
The Cut n Run Big Band: Spotted Mallard, Brunswick Minton’s Playhouse Sessions with Robert Simone Big Band: The B.East, Brunswick East The Sign of Four + Scourge + Harbinger + Bury The Kings + Legerity: The Bendigo, Collingwood Reel Tapes + Blood Orange + Blake Everett + The Puddle in the City: The Brunswick Hotel, Brunswick
SET MO
The Sugarcanes + Vince Peach + Pierre Baroni: Cherry Bar, Melbourne
Tragic Earth
World’s End Stress Melbourne hard rock four-piece Tragic Earth have released their debut album Hatred And Tolerance, and will be launching it at the Brunswick Hotel this Friday alongside Mojo Pin, Warbirds and Pegbucket.
30/70 + A Brother Scratch + Pataphysics + Chasr + Raw Humps + Acid Slop: The Toff In Town, Melbourne
44 • THE MUSIC • 29TH JUNE 2016
The Seven Ups + The Purple Tusks + The Ivory Elephant + Creeks: Evelyn Hotel, Fitzroy Freestyle Fursdays with The Etikats: Gin Lane, Belgrave Matthew Colin + The Pocket Pair + De’May + Luke Brennan: Grace Darling Hotel, Collingwood Festival of Fully Baked Ideas with Demi Lardner + Harley Breen: Howler, Brunswick Furnace & Fundamentals + The Immortal Silver Cornet Band + Lance Ferguson: Jack Daniels Barrel House, Melbourne The Flaming Mongrels: Lomond Hotel, Brunswick East Mojo Juju: Northcote Social Club, Northcote
The Night’s Comfort Sydney duo SET MO will be throwing down deep house all night Saturday night alongside resident DJs of The Prince to celebrate their new track Comfort You – a collaboration with Melbourne’s own Fractures.
Four Lions: Retreat Hotel, Brunswick
Poppongene + Dannika + Leah Senior + Chips Calipso: The Tote, Collingwood
3181 Thursdays with Sam Gudge + James Steeth + DJ Ollie Holmes: Revolver Upstairs, Prahran
Woody Pitney + Rowena Wise + Lachie Ranford: The Workers Club, Fitzroy
Mat McHugh: Sooki Lounge, Belgrave
Karnivool: The Croxton, Thornbury All Ages Show with Parkway Drive + Make Them Suffer + Visioner: The Cube, Wodonga Masco Sound System: The Curtin, Carlton
OPINION Opinion
Howzat!
Local Music By Jeff Jenkins Kiss My Brass Jack Howard is not one to blow his own trumpet - unless he’s on stage. Jack is always up for a gig. And many of the singers he’s performed with over the years are part of a special show he’s doing at Memo Music Hall on 9 Jul called Epic Brass! Jack and his five-piece horn section will be performing the horn hits of Hunters & Collectors, Midnight Oil, The Saints and many other Aussie acts, joined by a stellar line-up of singers, including Sean Kelly, Ron Peno, Steve Lucas, Fiona Lee Maynard, Paulie Stewart and Penny Ikinger. Jack, a member of Hunters & Collectors’ Horns Of Contempt, explains: “I had the light-bulb moment late last year. I’ve been involved with so many great bands as a trumpeter and brass arranger but it took a while to realise that I could put a good show together out of all that experience.” Will we get to hear Jack’s big band arrangement of Holy Grail? “Hmmm,” he muses. “I’m trying to avoid the obvious. It might turn up sometime. The more exciting thing about this show for me has been discovering some great obscurities.”
What’s your all-time favourite horn song? “Probably The Saints’ Swing For The Crime.” Jack grew up in a musical family. “Mum and dad were closet musos. Dad was a beautiful, Bing Crosbylike singer and mum played the piano and recorder. Both my sisters played piano, and my half-uncle, Leslie Howard, is a world-famous concert pianist.” Jack got his start in the Brunswick Municipal Band, playing the flugelhorn alongside his dad. “There was nothing hip about Brunswick in 1970,” he smiles. But Jack never looked back. Has he ever met a brass instrument he can’t play? “Yes,” he laughs. “I can’t be trusted on tubas or trombones.” Jack plays a Bach Stradivarius 43. “Have done for 30 years,” he says. “Trumpets don’t last forever, but, unlike a footy team, they’ll never let you down.”
Jack Howard
Big Ben Ben Lee is crowdfunding a new album called Freedom, Love & The Recuperation Of The Human Mind. “The album is about the secret path of spirituality that occurs hidden within our everyday lives,” Ben explains.
Hay Day Happy Birthday to Colin Hay, who is 63 today (29 Jun).
Hot Line “The heat of the summer is never made to stay” - Tracy McNeil & The GoodLife, Ashes.
THE MUSIC 29TH JUNE 2016 • 45
Comedy / G The Guide
John Lee Hooker Celebration + The Three Kings + Rattlin’ Bones Blackwood + Danny Walsh Banned: Cherry Bar, Melbourne
Pitt The Elder + Fear Like Us + Daybreak + Tired Breeds + Sweet Gold + ill Capone: The Bendigo, Collingwood
Lurch & Chief: Corner Hotel, Richmond
Tragic Earth + Arcane Saints + Warbirds + Pegbucket: The Brunswick Hotel, Brunswick
Georgia State Line + David Comsa: Edinburgh Castle Hotel (Front Bar), Brunswick
Hoopers Crescent
Leaps And Bounds + Mere Women + Ouch My Face + Mares + Jem & Lara: Evelyn Hotel, Fitzroy RuPaul’s Drag Race: Festival Hall, West Melbourne
Hoopers Crossing Brunswick collective Hoopers Crescent will be experimenting with their catchy as hell noisepop for the first three Tuesdays in July at The Workers Club. Starting this week, they will be joined by friends Swank and No Sister. Nick Cocklin + Brendan Lloyd: The Drunken Poet, West Melbourne The Great Outdoors + Gregor + Blank Statements: The Gasometer Hotel, Collingwood Mere Women + Palm Springs + Karli White: The Old Bar, Fitzroy Red Wine & Sugar + Slated: The Post Office Hotel, Coburg Jacky Winter + Vandal Eye + Still Mess + Sex Cassette: The Tote, Collingwood Junor + Nico Ghost + Matthew Craig: The Workers Club, Fitzroy
Yesterday Once More: Classic Carpenters with Dami Im: Frankston Arts Centre, Frankston Zerodent + Avoid + The Pigeon Holes + Polo: Grace Darling Hotel (Basement), Collingwood
Karnivool: The Croxton, Thornbury
Sat 02
Aunty Donna: Athenaeum Theatre, Melbourne
Kooyeh + El Moth: Bar Open, Fitzroy
Analogue Attic Showcase ft. Albrecht La’Brooy: Boney, Melbourne
Leaps & Bounds Festival: Opening Party with Little Brown River Band + Jon Von Goes + Mick Thomas + Peter Lawler + Angie Hart + Charles Jenkins + Jemma Rowlands + Ayleen O’Hanlon: The Gasometer Hotel, Collingwood
Elvis - Songs from the ‘68 Comeback Special + The Knave & his Chilli Dog Big Band: Cherry Bar, Melbourne
Leaps And Bounds + Chris Russell’s Chicken Walk: The Old Bar, Fitzroy
Greenthief: Ding Dong Lounge, Melbourne
Absolutely Live - The Doors Show + Sabotage: Corner Hotel, Richmond
Poppongene
Festival of Fully Baked Ideas with Nath Valvo: Howler, Brunswick The Tarantinos + The Immortal Silver Cornet Band + Lance Ferguson: Jack Daniels Barrel House, Melbourne Sunny D 1st Birthday + Darcy Fox + Coffin Carousel + Hypno Sex Ray: Mr Boogie Man Bar, Abbotsford Friday Nights at NGV feat. The Goon Sax: National Gallery of Victoria, Southbank Teeth & Tongue + Sui Zhen + Karli White: Northcote Social Club, Northcote A Million Dead Birds Laughing + Hollow World + Zeolite + Blunt Shovel: Reverence Hotel, Footscray Banoffee: Roxanne Parlour, Melbourne Colour of Sound feat. Vini Vici: Royal Melbourne Hotel, Melbourne Nicky Bomba: Sooki Lounge, Belgrave
Emily Wurramura + Charles Maimarosia: Wesley Anne (Band Room), Northcote
Pop Genes Wednesday night marks the second installment of Poppongene’s mini-residency at the Tote. Poppongene is the solo project of dreampop musician Sophie Treloar, originally from Byron Bay. She’s joined by Dannika, Leah Senior and Chips Calipso.
Coda Chroma
Fri 01
Sleazy Listening ft. Arks + Richard Kelly + Hysteric + K. Hoop: The Toff In Town, Melbourne
Slumberhaze + The Mystic Tip Rats: Baha Tacos, Rye
Poprocks At The Toff + Dr Phil Smith: The Toff In Town, Melbourne
Bullhorn: Bar Open, Fitzroy The Big Survive Haa Sixth Birthday Spectacular + Various Artists: Bella Union, Carlton South All Ages Show with Parkway Drive + Make Them Suffer + Daywaster: Bendigo Stadium, West Bendigo The Hornets: Big Huey’s Diner, South Melbourne Slowcoaching + Fountaineer: Boney, Melbourne Breakage: Brown Alley, Melbourne Brooke Russell & The Mean Reds + Megan Cooper: Burrinja Cafe & Bar (The Skylark Room), Lysterfield
Four Sides Of Indie Coda Chroma and Saltwood will be joined by Mandy Connell Trio and Mayfair Kytes as part of Leaps & Bounds. The night will range from indie-folk to post-rock and jazz on Sunday at Bar Open.
Pearl - The Janis Joplin Story: Caravan Music Club, Oakleigh DJ BigTall Max: Catfish, Fitzroy
46 • THE MUSIC • 29TH JUNE 2016
The Music Of James Brown + Rev Funk & The Horns of Salvation: Spotted Mallard, Brunswick
Robbie “Rocket” Watts 10 Year Anniversary feat. +I Spit On Your Gravy + Destrends + Aberration + The Poppin Mommas + The Dukes of Deliciousness: The Tote, Collingwood Bern Carroll: The Westernport Hotel, Phillip Island Ceres + Max Quinn’s Onomatopenis + Jess Locke: The Workers Club, Fitzroy Mat McHugh: The Workers Club Geelong, Geelong
DJ Borris B: Edinburgh Castle Hotel, Brunswick Leaps And Bounds + Spaceman + Jack & Neil + Bears + Zig Zag: Evelyn Hotel, Fitzroy All Ages Show with Parkway Drive + Make Them Suffer + Athena’s Wake: Geelong Arena, North Geelong Yesterday Once More: Classic Carpenters with Dami Im: Geelong Performing Arts Centre (Costa Hall), Geelong Mother’s Ruin feat. Rattlin’ Bones Blackwood + Victor Cripes: Gin Lane, Belgrave JDJX + Werny + Kayne: Grace Darling Hotel (Basement), Collingwood
Andrew Roberts: Tuxedo Cat, Melbourne
HIStory - Michael Jackson Tribute: Her Majesty’s Theatre, Ballarat
Zoe Ryan: Wesley Anne (Front Bar), Northcote
Festival of Fully Baked Ideas with Ivan Aristeguieta: Howler, Brunswick
The Surreal Estate Agents + Seth & The Beautiful Chains + Colin Kucera: Yarra Hotel, Abbotsford
DJ Set with Oscar Key Sung: Jack Daniels Barrel House, Melbourne
Gigs / Live The Guide
Guilty As Charged + The Rock Monsters + Swamp Donkey + Little House Godz + City Sharps: Mr Boogie Man Bar, Abbotsford
Eliza & The Delusionals + Autumn Mary + The Attractor Beams: Whole Lotta Love, Brunswick East
Coffin Carousel
Eliza & The Delusionals: Musicman Megastore, Bendigo
Mon 04
Slumberhaze + Pretty City + Kid Radio: Northcote Social Club, Northcote
Parkway Drive + Make Them Suffer + Void Of Vision: Chelsea Heights Hotel, Aspendale Gardens
Twisted Willows: Penny Black, Brunswick
Leaps And Bounds + Frida + Tetrahedra + Leeroy James + DJ Ryan WIlson: Evelyn Hotel, Fitzroy
The Weight Of Silence + Evolution Of Self + Zelorage + Future Corpse + Cyprus + Feast of Crows + This Life I Live: Reverence Hotel (Band Room), Footscray
Rolling Mass + V/A + Hyde + Shaquille McNeill + Tahnlord: Northcote Social Club, Northcote
Slumberhaze: Shebeen Bandroom, Melbourne
Duke Dumont + Special Guests: The Prince, St Kilda
Election Day Blues Party with Various Artists: Spotted Mallard, Brunswick
Parks Department + Water Bears + Barcelos + Jack The Fox: The Workers Club, Fitzroy
The B.East’s 4th Birthday feat. The Bombay Royale + The Meltdown + more: The B.East, Brunswick East
Dead Fun
T.H.U.G. + Plan Of Attack + Bulldog Spirit + Those Rat Bastards + The Rogues + Impact Zone + Special Guests: The Bendigo, Collingwood
Sunny D Promotions are celebrating their first birthday by putting on comedy, burlesque and acts like Coffin Carousel, at Mr Boogie Man Bar as part of the Leaps & Bounds Music Festival this Friday.
Brooke Russell & The Mean Reds + Megan Cooper: The Bridge Hotel, Castlemaine Planet of the 8’s + Swamp Moth +
The Ocean Party + The Ancients: The Post Office Hotel, Coburg Set Mo: The Prince, St Kilda
Spaceman
Mat McHugh + Riley Pearce + Zac Saber: The Toff In Town, Melbourne Hits + James McCann + New Vindictives + Cable Ties: The Tote, Collingwood A.D.K.O.B. + Owen Rabbit + Special Guests: The Workers Club, Fitzroy Boom Crash Opera: The Workers Club Geelong, Geelong
Galactic Palms Fremantle’s Spaceman have been busily chipping away, refining their sound, and have arrived with their debut LP Palm Haus. They will be playing their spacey, lo-fi take on pop at Howler on Tuesday.
The Bennies + Clowns + Axe Girl + Bombs Are Falling: Village Green Hotel, Mulgrave Ellery Cohen + Wolf & Willow + Alison Ainsworth: Wesley Anne (Band Room), Northcote Sienna Wild: Yah Yah’s, Fitzroy Claws & Organs + Dark Fair + Being Jane Lane + Miss Miss: Yarra Hotel, Abbotsford Pearl - The Janis Joplin Story: Yarraville Club, Yarraville
Sun 03 Long Holiday + The Quarters: The Brunswick Hotel, Brunswick
Coda Chroma + Saltwood + Mayfair Kytes + Mandy Connell: Bar Open, Fitzroy
The Best of the Eagles: The Capital, Bendigo Performing Arts Centre, Bendigo
Parkway Drive + Make Them Suffer + Ocean Grove: Chelsea Heights Hotel, Aspendale Gardens
The Ramshackle Army: The Drunken Poet, West Melbourne
The Three Kings + DJ Max Crawdaddy: Cherry Bar, Melbourne
Lachlan Duthie + Templar: The Gasometer Hotel, Collingwood
Foreign Brothers Pres. Momentum + Core-Tet: Evelyn Hotel, Fitzroy
Four Lions: The Golden Vine, Bendigo Leaps And Bounds + Strathmore + Del Lago + Suburban & Coke + Trash Bears + New Low + The Suicide Tuesdays + Tiger Can Smile + Hyder Seek + Heath Anthony + Jay Wars: The Old Bar, Fitzroy
Leaps & Bounds Festival - Shake The Tree feat. The Breadmakers + The Pink Tiles + The Mexican Music Man: Fitzroy Victoria Bowls Club, Fitzroy North The Jim Mitchells + Baked Bean + Traffic Island Sound: Grace Darling Hotel, Collingwood
The Tarantinos + The JC Little Big Band + The Immortal Silver Cornet Band + Lance Ferguson: Jack Daniels Barrel House, Melbourne
Tue 05 Glass Animals: 170 Russell, Melbourne Make It Up Club feat. Sean Baxter + Rafel Kaczmarek + Feet Teeth + Boyz XIX: Bar Open, Fitzroy Leaps And Bounds + Glasfrosch + Special Guests: Evelyn Hotel, Fitzroy
Dandy James Town Massacre + Suburban Prophets + Calamity Lane + Triuz: Mr Boogie Man Bar, Abbotsford
Tom Tom Tuesday feat. Spaceman + Jimmy Chang + Pastiche + Motte: Howler, Brunswick
The Bennies + Clowns + Axe Girl + Strangers In Town: Musicman Megastore, Bendigo
The Fall Of Troy + Closure In Moscow + Meniscus + Osaka Punch: Max Watt’s, Melbourne
Unplugged Live feat. Dan Kelly: National Gallery of Victoria (Ian Potter Centre), Southbank
Leaps & Bounds Festival: Songs & Stories - Songwriters in the Round: The Gasometer Hotel, Collingwood
Melting Pot feat. Reuben Stone + Sarah-Rose + Rich Davies + Lauren Glezer + Tom Tuena + JMS Harrison: Northcote Social Club, Northcote
30/70 + Blydvs + Entro + Raaghe: The Toff In Town, Melbourne
Anna: Revolver Upstairs, Prahran Temporalcast feat. Cale Sexton + Kangaroo Skull + Chiara Kickdrum + Jamal Amir + more: Shadow Electric, Abbotsford
APRA AMCOS Performance Reports Workshop + Various: The Tote, Collingwood Hoopers Cresent + No Sister + Swank: The Workers Club, Fitzroy The Moulin Beige + Various: Wesley Anne, Northcote
Indenpendence Day Party with Cisco Caesar + Sugarfoot Ramblers: The B.East, Brunswick East Being Jane Lane + Thrasher Jynx + Dear Jane + Slow Job: The Brunswick Hotel, Brunswick Leaps & Bounds Festival feat. Georgia Fields + Phia: The Gasometer Hotel, Collingwood Elwood Blues Club All Stars: The Prince (Public Bar), St Kilda Beaut #6 with Nigel Last + Gavin Campbell + Luke Agius + Post Percy + Salvador Darling: The Toff In Town, Melbourne Garry Gray & The Sixth Circle + Marilyn Rose & The Thorns + Los Dominados: The Tote, Collingwood Elk + Mammoth + Miller: The Workers Club, Fitzroy Forever Son: Wesley Anne (Front Bar), Northcote
Harmonick
Our Place 4Dverse is throwing Mi Casa Su Casa this Sunday, a relaxed winter event showcasing an eclectic mix of local musicians like electronic loop pedaler Harmonick, Dane Blacklock, Zikora and heaps more.
THE MUSIC 29TH JUNE 2016 • 47
It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.
And we know everyone. On sale now. Go to store.themusic.com.au to get your copy today. 48 • THE MUSIC IC • 29TH JUN JUNE 201 2016 6