The Music (Melbourne) Issue #200 by TheMusic.com.au

02.08.17 Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture

Issue

200

Melbourne / Free / Incorporating

the underground issue

body mods and biohackers the truth about polyamory

fantastic bands and where to find them

also inside: education feature

Find out what you could create at SAEâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Open Day. Our studios will be in action, equipment ready to try, student exhibitions on display and your future mentors ready to inspire.

THE MUSIC • 2ND AUGUST 2017 • 3

PRESENTED BY ARTS CENTRE MELBOURNE AND BANK OF MELBOURNE, IN ASSOCIATION WITH CURATOR SOPHIA BROUS

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4 • THE MUSIC • 2ND AUGUST 2017

Unpredictable pop maverick Kimbra joins the Supersense line-up, showcasing all that is most striking about her prodigious vocals alongside her electronic production prowess. #SUPERSENSE Media Partner

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THE MUSIC • 2ND AUGUST 2017 • 5

Music / Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture

Last Chance Tash

Tash Sultana

Tash Sultana has announced a six-date tour running through November to December, after which she’ll tuck herself away to focus on her debut LP and won’t be on a stage again until late 2018.

Where and when? For more gig details go to theMusic.com.au

Luke Million

Back On George After having to pull out of the just gone Splendour In The Grass, George Ezra said to his Australian fans he’d come back and he’s stayed true to his word, announcing an east coast tour for next March.

Sounds A Million Bucks Adelaide producer Luke Million has recruited Mookhi and Nocturnal Tapes for his just announced headline tour, kicking off on 1 Sep. The shows will coincide with the release of his upcoming EP, Come Together, due out 25 Aug.

George Ezra

5 The number of AIR Awards won by AB Original as they dominated the event

6 • THE MUSIC • 2ND AUGUST 2017

Alex Lahey

Every Day’s Lahey Day After dropping her latest single, the powerhouse that is Alex Lahey has announced that her debut album, I Love You Like A Brother, will drop 6 Oct. A national tour to coincide with release kicks off on 4 Oct.

Arts / Li Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture

Credits

Publisher Street Press Australia Pty Ltd

Acolyte

Fifty Shades Of Black

Melburnians Acolyte continue to unleash singles from their Shades Of Black EP, and their third, Space And Time, has just received the video treatment. To support the release, the band are embarking on a seven-date tour in September.

Group Managing Editor Andrew Mast

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Sucker Punched BIGSOUND are delivering the ol’ KO with their second artist announcement. We don’t know how they coerced so many talented artists into one space, but the likes of sleepmakeswaves, WAAX and Confidence Man will now also be playing live at the conference in September.

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Shonen Knife

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Japanese pop-punkers Shonen Knife will be returning to our shores in September, with original member Atsuko now back on bass.

THE MUSIC • 2ND AUGUST 2017 • 7

Music / A Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture

Good Citizen

Canberra rapper Citizen Kay has dropped the news that his new LP, Belly Of The Beast is coming out 25 Aug. On top of that, Kay will head around the country in September and October to launch the album.

Citizen Kay

Justin Townes Earle

Hitting The Towne Justin Townes Earle is leading the charge for this year’s Out On The Weekend festival, which takes place on 14 Oct at Seaworks. Other artists announced to perform include Son Volt, Traveller and All Our Exes Live In Texas.

Cloud Control

Me: [drapes tablecloth over raptor’s head] Velociraptor: [falls asleep] Me: good bird. @TheOtherLucille

8 • THE MUSIC • 2ND AUGUST 2017

RACKETT

Arts / Lif Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture

[ Formerly The Hi- Fi Bar ]

Bird Is The Word

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THE MUSIC • 2ND AUGUST 2017 • 9

skin

deep Welcome to the 21st century, where all it takes to become a better human is a small medical procedure. Meow-Ludo Disco Gamma Meow-Meow tells Sam Wall about the rise of the cyborgs.

Pic by v Hannes Wiedemann

10 â&#x20AC;˘ THE MUSIC â&#x20AC;˘ 2ND AUGUST 2017

The Underground Issue

ver since humanity first took shape in the primordial soup we’ve been piercing and painting and chipping away at ourselves in the hope of improving on nature’s design — usually with something a little different to Michelangelo’s David in mind. In 10th century Imperial China the upper classes starting breaking and binding their feet to achieve the perfect teensy tootsies, with horrifyingly effective results. In Victorian England rearranging your innards with a corset was par for the course and If you didn’t have a couple of duelling scars across your cheeks around the same time in Germany then you were clearly boring and a coward. The Bopoto sharpened their teeth to points, while the Mayans glued gems to theirs like a bunch of early-naughties Nellys. To this day the Padaung women in Myanmar start wearing their neck-stretching brass coils at around five years old. Here at home, several Indigenous nations practised penile subincision (seriously NSFW), and no matter where you’re from, if you’re a Jewish lad you’ve likely met a Mohel. Dyed hair, piercings from bow to stern, dripping in ink with a stretched bottom lip — people like to mess with their rigs. But throughout history, our obsession with ‘extreme physical revision’ has been, for the most part, aesthetic, ritualistic or sexual. While that’s still true, this is the 21st century, and there are new reasons to remake what your mama gave ya. Gaining popularity and attention over the last few years, grinders and body modders are trying to redefine what it means to be human, improving themselves with implantable cybernetic devices; everything from magnetic fingertips to subdermal biometric readers.

Grindhouse Wetware

Science Party candidate for Grayndler Meow-Ludo Disco Gamma Meow-Meow is the mind behind BioFoundry, a Sydney-based “community lab for citizen scientists”, and is one of Australia’s most vocal proponents of so called “biohacking”. He’s also a selfconfessed cyborg. He has several implants, though the one that gained him the most notoriety is the Opal travel card he had put in his hand back in June. The 10x6 millimetre chip is a prototype from Seattle-based start-up Dangerous Things, and allows Meow-Meow to tap on with a tap of his hand. Meow-Meow and his fellow biohackers see these kinds of experiments as the next step in human evolution, though of course, not everybody agrees. “I’ve copped heaps of flack over my implants, ‘Oh, you got an Opal card implanted in your hand,’” mimics Meow-Meow with a laugh. “And the fact those people are even having that conversation is a good thing. Mission accomplished. I got people to speak about emerging technology that I care about.” That technology is still surprisingly grass roots. While larger companies work on comparable projects — “things like contact lenses that can do AR overlays” — anything that’s actually going to get under your skin, for the next few years at least, will probably come from one of two places according to Meow-Meow. “There’s Grindhouse Wetware, with Tim Cannon,” says the biohacker, “and then you’ve got Dangerous Things, with Amal Graafstra. They were the first ones that have really been popularising this. Before then there was nothing. There was like, cat and dog microchipping. Even if people came before they didn’t do enough to make anyone know what they were doing.”

It’s pretty traumatic to get it done. I’m not gonna lie, that would be way past a lot of people’s point of, ‘I’m ok with getting this thing put in. Meow-Meow informs us that the biggest difference between the two companies is in their power sources. “Everything that Dangerous Things does is inductively powered. This is really important because it guides the way that their technology goes. Everything that Tim Cannon does, Grindhouse, is powered by batteries. Now, batteries are dangerous, but they allow things to be a lot more high powered. You can have one LED blinking underneath your skin with an RFID [radio-frequency identification] field, right. When you have batteries, you can have a crazy ring of five [lights] that last for years.” With stories like the woman whose headphones exploded on a flight to Melbourne last March, power over stability seems like a tough call to make. “And you know, you’ve got Samsung Galaxy Note S7s exploding everywhere, obviously your mind immediately goes to, ‘Lithium-ion battery, aren’t they the ones that explode?’” says Meow-Meow. “So there’s some pretty big risks. If you have a device explode underneath your skin you are well fucked.” A couple minutes spent YouTubing ‘battery explosion’ and we think he might be right. But to be fair, just a handful of the phones actually exploded and only 35 handsets in total were found with the issue, which is around 24 faulty devices per million sold — a number anomalous enough to trigger a total recall. If

THE MUSIC • 2ND AUGUST 2017 • 11

The Underground Issue it’s your handful that explodes, those numbers probably won’t be too comforting - but then, it’s nothing Tim Cannon isn’t risking himself. If you Google ‘biohackers’, one of the first things you’re going to see is a picture of the Grindhouse Wetware founder with something that looks roughly the size of a second gen iPod implanted in the underside of his forearm, usually with about 12 stitches up the side. It’s the Circadia, and it collects ‘round the clock biomedical data — the 1.0 model reads body temperature, but the next generation will hopefully add blood glucose, blood oxygen, blood pressure, and heart rate data. The applications are easy to see, particularly for the chronically ill who need to regularly track their vital responses, but the size would likely put off your average consumer. “Not anymore. It’s tiny now,” shares Meow-Meow excitedly. “I’m not too sure how much I’m supposed to say about it, but there’s a new Circadia coming out and it’s a lot smaller. But this is the world of early adopters and prototypers. Amal’s first VivoKey [a bio-ID chip with security, cryptography, and payment applications], I felt it in his arm man, it stretches all the way across his wrist — the thing was huge. He must have given himself ten or 15 stitches to be able to put this thing in. At least. But you know, he’s the alpha tester. He made this, so he has to test it first. So he did, and it works, and then he miniaturised it and now it’s the size of my Opal implant.” While Meow-Meow agrees the lifestyle isn’t for everyone, he does say the VivoKey might be the “chuck away your wallet” implant to bridge the gap between body modders and the general tech community. “It’s got two-factor authentication on chip, it can do PGP decryption for keys,” he shares. “If everyone allowed you, you could put your Medicare card, your passport, your driver’s license, every reward card and credit card in existence — anything you would carry you can put on there and have room to spare. And that suddenly makes life real easy. “Only thing is, they’re working on, Amal’s working on making the technology smaller and easier to insert because at the moment you actually need to get stitches. I think that’s a bit of a barrier for people. If it’s a needle they’ll get it, if it’s stitches they probably won’t. When I got my Opal card and my flat NFC [near field communication], the flexNT — it’s pretty traumatic to get it done. I’m not gonna lie, that would be way past a lot of people’s point of, ‘I’m ok with getting this thing put in.’ So where do you go to get ‘borged? It seems unlikely your family GP would be willing to put a magnet in your tragus, and it sounds like something that requires a sterilised environment and a professional touch. 12 • THE MUSIC • 2ND AUGUST 2017

... Obviously your mind immediately goes to, ‘Lithium-ion batter y, aren’t they the ones that explode?’

“Professional body mod practitioners,” shares Meow-Meow. “So basically a piercer. But you want a fucking high-quality piercer. I get all mine done by Joeltron, and Joeltron is one of the most highly respected members of the body mod community in Australia. And he’s also a hardware hacker. “He’s got a piercing store between Oxford Street and Kings Cross. It’s not a dirty little back alley by any means, but it’s still, it’s not like it’s in the CBD. I haven’t got a beautiful hospital with white walls and white laminate everywhere and some sexy nurse coming in giving me anaesthesia. It’s rough. But professional, I want to highlight that. It’s one of the most professional things I’ve ever been to. He’s got maybe even more aseptic techniques than my doctor. “Everyone, all the grinders — and most of them do, not all of them — need have serious respect for the people that allowed all this to even be possible,” Meow-Meow adds, “because no doctor or nurse in Australia is going to put a microchip inside you.” It makes sense that the body mod/ hacker communities would take care of their own, though it does drive home the need for smaller tech. Comfort once a device is actually installed aside, getting what qualifies as surgery in a piercing joint is going to be a stretch for most, and downgrading it to a quick jab would certainly be a step forward. But with clear willingness for selfexperimentation and a strong DIY ethos so prevalent in the movement it raises the

question of whether people are trying to self-cyborg, without professional help. There are enough rough home job tattoos around to make us think someone would be down to try. “I haven’t encountered it. I think there’s quite a high barrier to entry, technologically. It’s not like you can just whip something up in your house and inject it in without being pretty switched on about, how to use a scalpel that’s aseptic, what material do you encase it in? “These devices are pretty high tech, you can’t just whip out an NFC chip from eBay and stick it under your skin. Your body’s going to reject it. Just the plastics they work with are fucking expensive to make them biocompatible. And there’s huge commitment to safety. No one wants to get bacterial infection underneath their skin, that’s bad news. I’d say I’d be more worried about people getting piercings and tattoos than I would about these types of body mods. Because when you start asking questions you get really readily welcomed into a community that has your safety as its number one priority. ‘Cause they don’t want it to get shut down. So they band together, and with all these things you get these tiny little niche communities, they’re all looking after each other.” While members of the community putting chips, magnets and LEDs in each other has some serious sci fi vibes, it’s not quite William Gibson’s cyberpunk vision just yet. But with people like Elon Musk hinting at “a closer merger of biological intelligence and digital intelligence”, Meow-Meow says the Sprawl might be closer than you would think. “The coolest stuff is going to be when we get neuralink stuff from Musk. That’s going to be next level. At the moment a lot of this stuff is kind of cool, but a lot of it I would equivalate to almost novelty. “I’ll get slammed for saying stuff like this,” continues Meow-Meow. “Everyone’ll go, ‘Bullshit, bullshit, pie in the sky, it’s never going to happen.’ It’s you know, less than five years away; really early stuff. We have monkeys that can do stuff with brain-computer interfaces.” That might sound like a pipedream, but you can watch videos of monkeys typing and driving wheelchairs using tiny electrodes implanted in their brains right now — advances that are going to have a pretty major effect for those with impaired mobility. “The thing is, how invasive is the surgery? How permanent? Can you upgrade it? Those are the questions that everyone will be asking. But there’ll be early adopters potentially, with this stuff, really soon. Maybe not next year but not much further than that.”

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THE MUSIC • 2ND AUGUST 2017 • 13

The Underground Issue

suffering in secret Australia is gripped by a secret epidemic of high-functioning addiction, with millions estimated to be suffering some form of habit across the country. Maxim Boon discovers this nationwide crisis.

“I

remember when the doctor first prescribed them, he was so casual about it. Like it was something he did all the time, no big deal.” Martin was first prescribed the common but powerful sedative Zopiclone in 2012, when a severe asthma attack left him with persistent, anxiety triggered insomnia. “Sleep is something you just can’t go without. They say you can go three weeks without food, three days without water. Try going more than a couple days without sleep. It’s torture, complete torture.” Like many high-functioning addicts, Martin did not fit the assumed stereotype.

14 • THE MUSIC • 2ND AUGUST 2017

He was in full-time employment, married, and was seemingly in control of his faculties. He turned up for work, paid his bills, continued to see his friends and family. But every night he would sink ever deeper into a dependence on powerful prescription sleep medications, and as his tolerance grew, the lengths he would go to to maintain his habit became increasingly extreme. “When my GP finally questioned how long I’d been on them, I’d already trebled my original dose. I started going to multiple doctors’ surgeries to keep up a supply, and when that became difficult I bought them online. I refused to accept responsibility. I was fucking furious at the doctor who prescribed them in the first place, but wouldn’t acknowledge how I’d let things get so bad. I mean, I knew things had gotten out of control, but I still didn’t think of myself as an ‘addict’.” Martin wasn’t alone in that opinion. In Australia, most people’s impression of addiction comes from the country’s hugely visible ice and alcohol problem. As can be found on the streets of most major Australian cities, the gaunt faces of ice addicts, marked with sores, teeth rotted, has created a vivid misrepresentation of addiction, as something which is easily seen and limited to those living on the fringes of our society. Addiction appears deliberate, reckless, and entirely damnable. Even the derogatory slang we use to talk about ice users — “meth heads” — reveals how we’re more likely to react to addicts with contempt rather than compassion. However, the reality is that substance abuse is extremely common, particularly in urban centres where access to illicit substances is easy. Recreational use can quickly spiral into full-time dependency, but the stigma of addiction is often the greatest hurdle for high-functioning addicts who keep

Ice is being used in ever y city and countr y town in Australia. their drug problem secret out of shame. The death of Heath Ledger from an accidental prescription drug overdose in 2008 and Philip Seymour Hoffman in 2014 from a Heroin overdose, offer two cautionary examples of how addiction can take root amongst even the most seemingly successful communities. Alex was a promising medical student the first time he tried ice. Using it only occasionally for several years, his use spiralled out of control when it became an integral part of a relationship. “It became part of a pattern, where intimacy was only possible if we were intoxicated. It was right at the end of that relationship that I started to use during the week, to avoid the come downs, which had become pretty brutal. It made no sense to me at the time to go through this horrible withdrawal just to go through it all again days later.” Alex is now in recovery, but it took losing his job and acquiring several chronic health issues to make him want to get clean. Francis McLaughlin, founder of Queensland-based recovery centre The Health Retreat, says Alex’s story is a familiar one. “High powered professionals are amongst the most at risk. The real issue is stress — performance anxiety and the pressure to deliver. This leads to psychological issues like depression, but these are rarely identified and managed. In the past, alcohol was the main crutch people used, but now with the availability of drugs like ice, and the social and sexual sides of those substances which seem to tackle feelings of depression and low self-worth, we’re finding more and more professionals using heavily. It’s actually cheaper to buy meth over alcohol. It’s a crisis on a massive scale. Ice is being used in every city and country town in Australia — we’re talking millions of addicts nationwide.”McLaughlin says meth has many attractive attributes for high-powered professionals. “I’m generalising here, but you find that a lot of intelligent people use meth, because the performance you get in that first six months to 12 months is quite astounding. But then, of course, the downside is terrible. I’ve treated lawyers, doctors, senior executives, footballers, government workers. The biggest crisis in Australia’s meth epidemic isn’t the kind of addict we see on the street. It’s the addicts that are hidden behind closed doors.”

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THE MUSIC • 2ND AUGUST 2017 • 15

The Underground Issue

along came poly Think polyamory – romantic relationships with more than two people – is just a sexual kink? Think again. Blake Burrows gets an eye-opening crash course in the emotional nuances of polyamorous relationships.

avid never explicitly came out to his friends or family as polyamorous. David didn’t even really feel comfortable using the term polyamorous until recently; until he found that the poly community was more accepting and inclusive than he ever could have imagined. “I just never put my lifestyle into a box,” he tells me, simply. “The same way you probably don’t necessarily consider yourself a member of the monogamous community, I never thought it was strange or unusual for me to want to have more than one partner at a time. It never struck me as weird.” David is, by his own admission, pretty lucky. He is a man with bountiful reserves of self-confidence, and has been graced with that all too rare gift of kind, understanding parents. When he finally did get around to telling them that his friend Jim was, well, not a friend but a partner, which meant yes, he was dating Jim and Michael at the same time, they asked the questions he knew they would ask. They asked him if Jim and Michael got jealous; if they ever hung out together, the three of them; if they used timetables to fairly divide their time. But those queries out of the way, David’s parents got down to the uncomplicated business of loving their son, and last Christmas day they invited Jim and Michael over for dinner. When I started writing this article, the aim was to focus on people with alternative lifestyles — to pen a deep dive expose about

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kinks and sexual double lives. I imagined that I might head along to a swingers club, or eavesdrop in on a three-way discussion between polyamorous partners, and I planned for my piece to be filled with steamy revelations and other varieties of filth. If you want to read a piece like that, there are lots of them online. In fact, the mainstream media’s approach to polyamory has been defined almost universally by a kind of hysterical curiosity, and many of the longform pieces about the end of monogamy have been written as though reporters are penning tracts concerning the end of Rome. Indeed, even the more progressive publications are guilty about writing about polyamory as though it is a kink, or some bizarre new sexual revolution. Which, David stresses, it is absolutely not. “Polyamory doesn’t even necessarily denote sexual relationships,” David says. “It just means having more than one romantic partner at a time. Some polyamorous people have multiple platonic relationships. So this view of polys as like, crazy fucked up sex perverts is just totally off the mark. That’s just not the way it works.” David tried monogamy for a little while. He didn’t much care for it. “It just really doesn’t make sense to me,” David explains. “I mean, it made sense when humans had a life expectancy of 30-something — when we’d get into relationships with the understanding that both partners would be dead within a decade. But humans have outgrown that lifestyle. There’s no reason for us to live like that anymore.” David practices a non-hierarchical form of polyamory, which means he rejects the idea that what we generally refer to as “romantic” love is somehow more important or valuable than “platonic” love. His love for his parents, his friends and Jim and Michael is not subdivided into ranks of worth, and he does not see life as a process of quantifying feelings that are by their very

This view of polys as like, crazy fucked up sex per ver ts is just totally off the mark. nature unquantifiable. Some of the new friends David has made in the poly community are similarly non-hierarchical — but some are not. Some have multiple sexual and romantic partners who frequently meet, others have multiple sexual romantic partners who do not. Some are in open relationships; they have a single partner that they date, but they are not sexually monogamous. And that is the nuance that a lot of the mainstream discussion about polyamorous relationships lacks. Polyamorous people can’t be discussed as a singular, categorizable entity in much the same way that monogamous people can’t; the same way you can’t write a searing expose that aims to capture the lived experience of everyone in the world whose favourite colour is blue. David initially thought it might be daggy to head along to poly meet-ups — kind of like heading along to a Star Trek convention, or meeting up with fellow fly fishermen. “I mean, it’s not like you’re gonna have tonnes to talk about just because someone else is poly,” he says. “It doesn’t work that way.” But now, to his surprise, David has found his people. “It’s a nice feeling, really becoming part of the community,” he says. “It feels good.”

THE MUSIC • 2ND AUGUST 2017 • 17

The Underground Issue

when the fic hits the fan Shipping? Wincest? OTP? This is the bizarre lingo of erotic fan fiction. Timothy Potter gets his reading specs steamed up with a few filthy page turners.

f the namesake of Eminem’s global hit single Stan hadn’t overdosed on sleeping pills and driven his car off a bridge with his pregnant girlfriend in the boot, where would we find him today? Would he still be the obsessive fan who became a trailblazer for a uniquely 21st-century mode of fandom? Would he have kept the same phone numbers and pagers in the hope that his idol might eventually make contact? Would his Anger Management tour T-shirt still fit him, and if not, would the exposed inches of his protruding beer-belly bother him? He’d be in his mid-to-late 30s by now, probably with at least two kids, both in their teens. The weathered, leaky tattoo of “SLIM” scrawled across his broad chest (maybe with a crude stick ‘n’ poke caricature of daughter ‘Bonnie’ over his heart), would be a familiar sight for his YouTube followers, streaming another of his barely coherent political rants. Stan’s come a long way since the cassettes he once recorded for his 24/7 obsession. And yet, in more ways than he’d dare admit, he’s exactly the same. But if Stan was, in fact, looking up from hip hop hell, he might take some comfort in knowing his legacy has been immortalised in fandom vernacular. Interchangeable as a noun or a verb, “Stan” has become the shorthand for those who take their adoration past the point of reason, often considered a portmanteau to full-blown stalking. It can be a badge of honour, particularly when a fan wants to truly boast the depths of their unwavering commitment. It can also be flipped as a cuss, to shame the stans of

18 • THE MUSIC • 2ND AUGUST 2017

daggy artists: “She is such a Ja Rule stan, it’s embarrassing.” (Of course, nobody deserves the ignominy that Ja Rule stans have endured in 2017, particularly after his involvement in the unmitigated dumpster-fire that was Fyre Festival. So let’s go easy on them, if they still exist at all.) If Stan was around today, I’d like to think his near-death episode jolted him into taking a less destructive path. He might have abandoned his damaging lifestyle choices, stopped cutting himself, started treating his girlfriend better. He might have even managed to stash away enough cash to afford a VIP meet and greet pass, allowing him to finally come face to face with the object of his fanaticism. Backstage, deep within Comerica Park in Downtown Detroit, in a dimly lit locker roomcum-green room and flanked by security, nerves are getting the better of Stan as, at last, he approaches Eminem. Dazed by the hot fug of emotions swirling through his head, ead, as if on a kind of involuntary auto-pilot, he goes in for a hug. Slim, startled but warmed d by the embrace, signals the ol’ ‘circled thumb and forefinger’ over Stan’s shoulder to his bodyguard indicating all is fine. He shoos the heavies out of the room so he can an have a long-awaited solitary moment with his #1 fan. “Sorry. It’s just that I’m s-s-so nervous to o f-f-finally meet you,” Stan stutters. “Me too man, I’ve got the hometown crowd jitters myself,” Slim responds, wn. steadying Stan’s clammy hands with his own. “Just breathe...” he whispers gently as he tilts Stan’s chin up. The two pause, looking into each other, held in a perfect, unspoken ntly moment of clarity. Without a word, Slim gently guides Stan’s lips to his own... Welcome to the fucked up world of erotic fan fiction. This is but a taste of this bizarre literaryy llel genre, a universe of alternate endings, parallel

worlds, one true pairings (or OTPs to those in the know) and endless, often sexually audacious possibilities. Fan fiction has been a storytelling outlet for longer than you might guess. Shakespeare’s star-crossed lovers, Romeo And Juliet, might even be cited as a very early example, inspired by the Arthur Brooke play The Tragical History Of Romeus And Juliet, written some 40 years before The Bard’s famous tale of woe. While it’s true that not all fan fiction authours are quite in Shakespeare’s league, this model of hero worship was once considered an entirely legitimate form of expression. It seems sometime between the late 16th century and today, noses have been turned up to these adaptations, once deemed creative, now ‘cringeworthy’. Consequently, many pre-internet examples may be lost to landfills and dusty attics. But since the dawn of the digital age, thousands of budding fan fictioneers have flooded the internet with their various juicy odes to pop stars, boy bands, celebrities and socialites. The diversity of fans is reflected in the diversity of fan fiction available online, and most tastes are catered for in sites like archiveofourown.org and fanfiction.net. Real life A-listers, characters from TV shows, films, anime, manga, theatre and even video games are the subjects of fan-made fictions, both erotic and more wholesome. But for too long these writers or “fanfickers” have been getting a bum rap. To those on the outside of fervent fandom circles, they can be considered frighteningly obsessive, lacking in originality or just plain creepy. py But more often than not, theyy are just j misunderstood. There are, however, some heartening

The Underground Issue

standard bearers for fickers done good. For example, erotic romance writer EL James, author of the Fifty Shades trilogy, who started out writing stories inspired by Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series. James, listed as one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in 2012, made her splash into the fanfic universe under the dubious pen name “Snowqueen’s Icedragon”, penning titillating erotica and Ic self-publishing global bestseller Fifty Shades s Of Grey as an e-book. The novel and its O subsequent instalments were widely panned s by critics, but while James may not need to b clear her mantlepiece for a haul of literary c a awards anytime soon, she certainly isn’t s struggling to fill the space under her mattress w with the earnings she has made from sales of o over 125 million copies globally. On the more intellectual end of the scale, tthere is Eliezer Yudkowsky’s well-regarded ffanfic opus Harry Potter And The Methods Of R Rationality, which takes a far more cerebral a approach to fan fiction. Yudkowsky favours tthe term ‘parallel universe’ to describe her w work’s connection to the original, using JK R Rowling’s beloved wizards to teach readers a lesson in cognitive thinking. The work im imagines Harry to be brought up by Oxford U University biochemist Michael Verres-Evans, w who teaches Harry science-based learning b before the youngster heads off to Hogwarts to develop his magical skills.

While we’re on the topi ever wondered what topic, woul have happened if Harry would ended up with Hermione? You’re not alone. So do many thousa thousands of fans who have “shippe the two — the term “shipped” wh non-romantically used when linked ch characters are thrust into a tryst by their fickers. Also very popular in the fanfic world is the shipping o of brothers Sam and Dean Winchester from Supernatural, a kno pastime known as ‘Wincest fic’. Maybe your OTP (one true pairing, or your heart’s m most desired coupling of characters) co could be Agents Mulder T X-Files, otherwise and Scully of The “Scu known as “Sculder”. Is David Fo Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jestt just a casu casual Sunday read for you? Then The Subspa Subspace Emissary’s Worlds Aura Conquestt by AuraChannelerChris may you’v been looking for. be the fanfic you’ve Coming in at over 4 million words and 220 chapters, the work is inspired by none other Sup Smash Bros (who than Nintendo’s Super knew Mario was a muse?). m And in case you were wondering, that’s that almost eight times the size of Wallace’s spra sprawling masterpiece. But no crash cou course in fan fiction would be complete without addressing those truly top shelf delicacies. Strap in people, things are about to get straight up pornographic. Archive of Our Own (also known as AO3) has a *cough* leg over the very popular fanfiction.net, as it allows fans to post content as explicit as they dare, so long as it is clearly labelled. According to a statement issued by JK Rowling’s publisher Christopher Little, she is flattered by the many thousands of fan fiction pieces scribed in her honour, but when it comes to explicitly filthy reimaginings of the boy wizard, she warns, “If young children were to stumble on Harry Potter in an X-rated story, that would be a problem.” A sage warning, but it’s done little to cool the passions of countless fan-fickers who have conjured stories about Harry, Hermione, Ron, Draco, and just about every other obscure witch, wizard, house elf and goblin in the canon, all stroking their wands and stirring their cauldrons to obscene levels. There’s even a Potterotica podcast. Another important sub-genre, Slash fiction — same-sex attraction in existing heterosexual characters (or ‘femslash’ for female to female) — has been considered important in shifting traditional narratives away from heteronormative relationships, and exploring romantic and sexual plotlines that would be immediately stifled in the

If young children were to stumble on Harr y Potter in an X-rated stor y, that would be a problem. mainstream. It’s proven to be a form of therapy that’s being increasingly recognised as an important outlet for those processing their own sexuality. Writers of slash story lines can delve into their own personal feelings of same-sex attraction anonymously online, helping develop their sexual or gender identity while expressing themselves creatively. So, whether it’s a means of expression towards self-actualisation, an outlet for your latent thirstiness, or a means of earning millions of dollars, fan fiction is so much more than just the ramblings of superfans. Meanwhile, in Detroit... Slim opens the locker room door and walks out. He smooths a cap over his shaved head and removes the smirk from his face with a wipe of his hand. Without missing a beat, he marches over to his first position under the stage as the lights dim and the crowd roars. The opening gong of Ass Like That rebounds around the field. He leaves Stan in the locker room under the stage. Still gasping for air, Stan is still in disbelief of what happened. ‘Has Slim left already?’ He reclines on the sofa, hair tussled and a trail of sweat mapping the nape of his neck down to the keychain attached to the rear of his belt. Short of breath, he clutches the Anger Management tour T-shirt near his throat, heaves three times, then rips the shirt off and tosses it across the room, liberating his heaving, sweaty bust. Looking down, he is hypnotised by the letters rising and falling on his chest. He traces his wet fingertip along the letters. S-L-I-M...

THE MUSIC • 2ND AUGUST 2017 • 19

The Underground Issue

fantastic

bands and where to

What’s more exciting than finding a new fave band? One that lodges in your chest cavity and fires off every synapse in your brain. There’s a lot of acts out there, good and bad, but the ones that can floor you with a chord and revive you with a syllable are few and far between. Here are a few bands that we think have been cutting through the white noise recently.

Horace Bones

Horace Bones Horace Bones are named after the main character from 1970 schlock horror film I Drink Your Blood, about a band of LSDcrazed, satanist hippies who roll into a town and terrorise the local folk. But don’t let that bother you. Since 2015, Horace Bones have been unleashing their filthy, vicious, raw, surf-rock vibes on Melbourne audiences. In their first year they toured the country four times, committed “two members to the hospital, twice”, and released their first EP Son Of The City. They not only play together, but they all live together, too. Who knows what

20 • THE MUSIC • 2ND AUGUST 2017

LSD-crazed satanist hippie shit goes on in that house!? The launch of their single Stranger Danger in May filled the upstairs of The Tote with thrilling, snarling menace. Lead singer Oisin Kelly prowled half naked around the room and flailed maniacally, convulsing with the moshpit. There was so much intensity in the room that the walls were sweating and a growling cover of The Human League’s Don’t You Want Me was the punk-cherry on top. They might play loud and belligerent surf rock’n’roll, and claim to be your worst nightmare, but secretly they’re really nice guys. (Shhh, don’t tell them I told you!) Horace Bones’ second EP is coming out in October, which no doubt means more gigs. Kate Kingsmill

Sons Of Rico

find them Sons Of Rico Why this band isn’t one of the bigger poprock outfits in the nation, and making a name for themselves overseas as well, is just one of those great mysteries of modern music. Forming in Perth in the mid-2000s, the band released their superb debut album Reactions in late 2010. They topped this record in every imaginable way in 2013 with the fantabulous-but-truly underappreciated gem of a second album In Rico Glaciers, which straddles the line between pop and rock to shimmering perfection, with superbly crafted songs, old school-but-crystal clear production and a superb performance on guitar and vocals from main man Alex MacRae. The band have since relocated to Melbourne and gone through some fairly major line-up changes. But last week saw the release their new EP Cool Change, which just showed Sons Of Rico still truly define the term ‘underrated’. Rod Whitfield

The Underground Issue

Kaiit Gracing the soul scene with her scaldinghot vocals and ice-cool exterior is absolute queen, Kaiit. There’s no time to sleep on this local songstress — with the combo of her delicious voice and jazz-soaked R&B beats, she’s set to melt even the hardest of hearts in Melbourne and beyond in the blink of an eye.

Winterplan

Kaiit

For a tasty treat of what this neo-soul sister is all about, check out her latest release, Natural Woman. It’s a track boasting bite and bliss well beyond her years, and is accompanied by a minty-fresh video clip to set the vibe into red-hot overdrive. She’s been hitting up Melbourne’s favourite local music hubs, such as Gallery at Ferdydurke, for some spicy solo sets, but heads to The Gasometer Hotel on 11 Aug with a live band to help elevate her huge new tracks to the next level. With a captivating stage presence and an astoundingly effortless vocal delivery, she possesses a poise onstage that’s truly hard to come by. This girl is destined for big things, so get yourself some tickets and come kick it with Kaiit!

by ‘80s European electronica (New Order, Kraftwerk), modern synth sounds (Ladytron, The Knife) and the fragile world around them, Winterplan are producing thrilling pop music that’s the ideal soundtrack for our coming dystopian future. Having released their criminally overlooked debut album Fight/Flight in 2015, Winterplan returned this year with follow-up EP Rigamortis. Released independently in June, the medically themed seven-track EP is spearheaded by the brooding European synth thumper, Rigamortis. Described by the band on their Facebook page as a “rumination of human frailty and finality”, the EP is a pulsating collection of icy soundscapes and synth-heavy premonitions, highlighting Winterplan’s evolution as a band. Displaying a newfound maturity in their songwriting and a knack for catchy arrangements, Winterplan have positioned themselves well for a crack at becoming Australia’s next big electronic act. Tobias Handke

Natasha Pinto

Winterplan If you’re a fan of moody, European-influenced synth-pop then look no further than local quartet Winterplan. Comprised of friends Dave Tran, Jules Boyle, Clara Tran and Pip MacKay, Winterplan are a dynamic live act that’s been making electrifying music together for a number of years. Influenced

The Burnt Sausages There are plenty of reasons to take up music; artistic expression, stardom, rebellion. You want to make new friends, or meet hotties with bodies. Maybe you just like dragging amps all over town for minimal fiscal reward — the motives are endless. That’s why, when people buy their first secondhand Chinese Strat knock-off and stumble through the opening chords of Wish You Were Here with (rock)stars in their eyes, it can be easy to forget that deep down music is entertainment. The Burnt Sausages will never ever have that problem. When Snagz, Johnny Charcoal and Tina Tongs took up their instruments/ utensils, donned their homemade sausage costumes and coined “BBQ punk”, they created something special. Their live show is pure drama, with back-up dancers, costume changes, saucy pom-poms and explosive choreography. An homage to a Hunters & Collectors classic, Throw Your (Bread) Arms Around Me, reveals the epic love between Bread, a dude dressed in a giant foam slice of Coles’ white, and Snagz, who delivers her lines with a gleefully contorted face. They count into each song with a “bun, bun, bun, two, three, sauce” (did we mention the puns? There are puns), before electric drums kick in on Tina Tongs’ GrillMaster (keyboard) and Johnny Charcoal knocks out rough’n’ready riffs on his giant plastic fork. They’re dags, dressed as snags, and they put on a fucking show. Sam Wall

The Burnt Sausages

THE MUSIC • 2ND AUGUST 2017 • 21

beneath the

skin Adam Traves

Tattooing has become well and truly mainstream, but it’ s an art form with a lot of homophobic baggage. Now, queer artists are reclaiming the art form for the LGBTQI community. Maxim Boon meets the tattoo pioneers leading the charge.

etting a tattoo is an intense experience. The shrill whirr of the needle and the sharpened pain as it drags across skin; the smell of ink and blood like a sweet-metallic musk in the air; the throbbing warmth of inflammation and endorphins, the coiled, hair-trigger high of adrenaline. It’s a cocktail of potent sensations, but beyond these physical responses, there’s a deeper, intangible aspect to getting inked. It’s an act of emotional, psychological, some might even say spiritual vulnerability, an expression of self that reveals a candid glimpse of something private and personally profound. There’s a uniquely intimate exchange between artist and client, a lowering of defences, an invitation to bear witness to parts of ourselves that even our closest confidantes might not be

22 • THE MUSIC • 2ND AUGUST 2017

privy to. For the queer community, tattooing has become an increasingly important rite of passage, a means to express their most authentic identity and bring parts of themselves that exist in the abstract into the physical world. But, as Newton tells us, in the physical world, every action has an equal and opposite reaction. The same seems true of the zeitgeist. As the gaping, grasping, pussy grabbing horror of this golden age for demagogues threatens and undermines diverse communities, aspects of queer culture have rebounded into the mainstream. Little known and historically stigmatised quarters of queer society, particularly members of the trans community, have found themselves popularised, drawn from the fringes and welcomed into the spotlight. But popularity and acceptance are two different things. Transfolk gaining prominence in the public eye is, of course, a positive thing, as it has increasingly normalised and humanised the transgendered and intersexed. Celebs like Orange Is The New Black star Laverne Cox, former Olympian and inexplicable Republican Caitlyn Jenner, and writer and son of Cher, Chaz Bono, have demystified the trans identity in a globally reaching way. But they have also given it a sheen of “unclockable” showbiz

glamour, projecting a false impression that the fight for equality and recognition is a fait accompli. In America, the gulf between the haves and have-nots of the queer community is stark. While transness, queerness, and gender fluidity has been commodified by mainstream media, LGBTQI rights to simple everyday dignities, such as having access to public bathrooms according to personal gender identities, accessing medical services related to transitioning, or choosing pronouns on official documents, are still subject to conservative, heteronormative legislation, discriminating on a State by State basis. Right-wing media peddle demonising attacks on “deviant” queers, as fashion editorials package in-flux gender identities as must-have “transversal” accessories. President Trump can reject the brave service of thousands of trans servicemen and women with a few casually tossed off tweets; meanwhile, former One D-er and cis-male heterosexual Zayn Malik can claim to be gender fluid because he sometimes borrows his girlfriend’s pea coat. Right now, being queer is cool. Just so long as you’re the right kind of queer. For tattoo artist Zero, founder of queer tattoo studio Crucible Tattoo, these polished and over-simplified depictions of queer culture can be a problematic

The Underground Issue

misrepresentation. “How queer people think of themselves is often very multidimensional, and I feel that in terms of reclaiming the body and reclaiming a sense of pride in oneself, that complexity is very consistent among the queer clients I meet,” he explains. “But if you look around a city like Melbourne, you’ll see a more heterosexual crowd, a more mainstream crowd, outwardly adopting those markers, getting heavily tattooed. So, that’s where you get a sense that there are, or have been, gatekeepers there for queer bodies to feel comfortable or respected.” The tattooist profession is one that comes with plenty of baggage. Historically seen as a part of biker, gang and prison culture, in the recent decades tattooing has done a full 180, becoming entirely mainstream, with Australia amongst the most liberally inked nations in the world. But during its transition from underworld subculture to high street pop culture, tattooing has retained a strong leaning toward hyper-masculine, hetero-centric, homophobic attitudes. Zero, who is a trans man, opened Crucible Tattoo in the Melbourne suburb of Kensington in response to the casual discrimination he experienced working in the tattoo industry. “For years, in the tattoo shops I’ve worked in, the kind of derogatory talk I’d hear would be about sexuality, gender, race, jokes about HIV, people who are positive, jokes about transgendered people, about sex workers. I just felt like, that’s my family, you know? That’s my home,” he shares. “There’s no overlord in

tatting. There’s no big boss or unions or caucuses. There’s nothing, no collective within the tattoo industry that’s monitoring the way artists relate to their clients and if they’re being discriminatory in the workplace. It makes calling out that kind of talk really difficult.” And it’s not just queer clients that Zero’s shop protects. Queer artists, who may not have been able to access apprenticeships in safe spaces, are being nurtured at Crucible. One of Zero’s stable of queer tattooing talent is Adam Traves, aka Disinhibition. His bold, in your face yet playful designs have earned him a huge following, particularly on Instagram where he has over 35,000 followers. “Queerness doesn’t abide by the rules or have any rules. Queerness is about being an individual,” he says. “For me, I see queerness as something that is more expressive, inclusive, more open minded and individualistic. There is no cookie cutter mould for queerness — it’s an identity free of expectation.” This ethos is writ large in Traves’ body of work, with some designs broadly exploring ideas of otherness and antiestablishment rebellion, with others connecting more explicitly with sexuality and queer counterculture. “When I was younger, I wanted to be seen as something more, an outsider. I wanted to change myself because I didn’t feel like I belonged — in my own skin, or society. I found myself going down a road of intentionally not belonging, or making myself look different to empower that difference, to celebrate the fact I was different,” he explains.

It’s a visible symbol to the world that you are who you are and you don’t give a fuck. “Queer clients have a different perspective on the art they adorn themselves with. It speaks to their identity. Your body, gender, sexuality, have all been things that you’ve fought for and been forced to consider. It’s an empowering moment when you get something that represents who you are, in a permanent visible way. But it’s also a visible symbol to the world that you are who you are and you don’t give a fuck.” There’s also an artistic benefit to the thinking behind Crucible and other similar queer studios. Making the tattoo shop a more inclusive, welcoming environment helps clients open-up, share more comfortably with artists and play a more active role in the development of designs that honestly express their individuality. “In my experience, queer people learn to relate to their bodies in a very different way to a heteronormative lens,” Zero suggests. “The way that we come to terms with our bodies, come to terms with the way we use our bodies, I feel like, for us to indulge in tattooing is a way for us to engage with those ideas. And certainly, I’ve found that the ideas that clients come with, their personal concepts that go into sculpting their bodies, are far richer and more meaningful because they’ve come to a space where the artists can relate to their experiences. We can relate about our childhoods, our ambitions, our love lives, our sex lives. We are connected by that shared experience.”

THE MUSIC • 2ND AUGUST 2017 • 23

Music

Frontlash New Rick & Morty

Hooray For Bollywood

This will never not be a frontlash.

Bye July The drought is over! Go forth Dry Julyers, fill your cups, drink deeply and responsibly.

Got The Grooves Like Parker

Lashes

Tame Impala might be on hiatus but frontman Kevin Parker’s still no slouch, he’s just remixed one of the new singles from Mr Jumping Jack Flash himself, Sir Mick Jagger.

Kid Rock

Backlash Dr G Yunupingu

Vale to the noted indigenous musician who lost his long battle with illness.

Senator K Rock

“The democrats are ‘shattin’ in their pantaloons’ right now…and rightfully so!” – Direct quote from the campaign site of possible US senate candidate, Kid Rock.

Oil Spill

There’s been another incident of somebody booby trapping Melbourne’s bike paths with spilt oil. Seriously, who and what the fuck?

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After a previous project fell though, band leader Andy Williamson (“The Skipper”) tells Cyclone he still hopes The Bombay Royale’s music will be used in a legit Bollywood movie.

elbourne’s beloved cross-cultural band The Bombay Royale have recorded three imaginary Bollywood movie soundtracks over eight years. But their latest, Run Kitty Run, is on another planet. It’s sci-fi, Bollywood-style. The 11-piece collective - whose most recognisable members are band leader Andy Williamson (“The Skipper”) and joint vocalists Parvyn Kaur Singh (“The Mysterious Lady”) and Shourov Bhattacharya (“The Tiger”) - will launch Run Kitty Run at Max Watt’s, fresh from playing Splendour In The Grass’ World Stage. “We’ll certainly be performing the full album, or every song from that, plus some of our older stuff,” Williamson says. They’ve secured retro-glam troupe Sugar Fed Leopards to support. “It should be a banger!” Williamson formed The Bombay Royale circa 2010 to pay homage to Bollywood’s classic musical flicks in multicultural Melbourne. “When we first started the band, we actually did play old Bollywood music. We were looking at scores from old Bollywood films and playing bits of them.” The Bombay Royale fused India’s classical, folk and pop with Western rock, surf, funk, lounge, cosmic disco and new wave - their lyrics

in Hindi, Bengali and English. “The original Bollywood soundtracks are exactly that - they’re a crazy masala. They just take stuff and play with it.” The Bombay Royale officially premiered with 2012’s You Me Bullets Love conceived as a soundtrack to “some sort of 1970s Bollywood spy thriller”. They’ve maintained that cinematic approach with Run Kitty Run sci-fi providing the “landscape”. “It’s not like we have an entire narrative to a film. It’s more of a looser sense of various storylines that we’ll play around with.” Williamson recalls that it took a couple of years for local punters to ‘get’ The Bombay Royale, but international audiences instantly discerned their novel cool. They’ve played Glastonbury and next, they’ll join Hungary’s fabled Sziget Festival on an island in the Danube. Alas, the band is yet to perform in India, where they command an enthusiastic fanbase due to their music being synced for the mega Sony PlayStation game Far Cry 4. “We’re a big band and, in some ways, it’s the hardest place for us to go because it’s so hard to make it viable,” Williamson despairs. It’s “the big unticked box”. And he hopes The Bombay Royale’s material might eventually be used in a legit Bollywood movie - a previous such project falling through. “Ironically, there’s no one really in India doing what we do, in a way in terms of that big band sound. So we do seem to be in a bit of a one-horse race right at the moment. I’d love to see a band from India doing something like we do - a big, bombastic, cinematic band with horns and so on. It’d be awesome.”

What: Run Kitty Run (HopeStreet Recordings) When & Where: 4 Aug, Max Watts; 2 Sep, Theatre Royal, Castlemaine; 28 Sep, Hawthorn Arts Centre

In Focus The

Mercy Kills Pic: Rom Anthonis

The 2017 Melbourne Guitar Show promises “three floors of fretted-instrument fun” with panels, seminars, workshops, exhibitions, demos and performances by outstanding guitarists such as Steve Hackett (the original Genesis guitarist), Bob Spencer (Skyhooks, The Angels), Abbey Stone, Diesel, Fiona Boyes and Nick Johnston. You can also catch electric performances at Melbourne Guitar Show’s Whammy Bar across the weekend and that’s where The Mercy Kills (local legends you’d swear hailed from The Sunset Strip in Hollywood!) will be killing it on the Sunday arvo. Don’t miss Melbourne Guitar Show at Caulfield Racecourse, 5 & 6 Aug. THE MUSIC • 2ND AUGUST 2017 • 25

26 • THE MUSIC • 2ND AUGUST 2017

Education Feature

A Fresh Approach To Study With the security of a double degree behind him, there really is nothing to stop L-Fresh The Lion from achieving his musical aspirations. He shares with Jessica Dale how he managed it all.

or L-Fresh The Lion, there was never any question of not studying through to university. While many would know him for his music and songs like 1 In 100,000, Survive and Get Mine, the Western Sydney rapper also has a law and arts double degree under his belt. While music was always a part of his end goal, L-Fresh knew it was smart to have a plan just in case it didn’t pan out. “Some people say it’s good to put all your eggs in one basket because it means you’re really passionate about something and it means you’re not kidding yourself,” explains L-Fresh. “I come from the school of thought of, ‘You can do that, but who’s to say you can’t be smart about it as well?’ I don’t gamble. I’ll take risks but I’m not gambling like that. “First and foremost, [the degree] gives me a sense of freedom and security. I feel like I’ve got nothing to lose. I’m at a point where I’m like, ‘You know, I can do whatever I want.’ And if it fails I’ve got a law degree to fall back on. Literally nothing to lose,” he shares further. “And then, on another level, it’s given me a way to think about how I approach music, and a consciousness of how I deal with people, how I interact with people, and what to be cautious of and all that sort of stuff. It gives me a practical purpose as well.” L-Fresh The Lion also believes it’s important to give back when it comes to education. During his time at university, he also worked part-time in community development and empowerment, “working with youth workers and then working with some of the toughest people straight off the street”. Now, his focus remains strong, and L-Fresh regularly takes part in workshops and community development programs that aim to empower the next generation. “Personally, it’s a way of giving back. But it’s also one of those things that’s like, ‘What’s the point of doing what you do if you don’t have something to share?’ For me, it’s all about sharing.” As busy as he was studying at university while maintaining part-time work, L-Fresh The Lion still found time to pursue his musical career and he reassures students that it is possible to do both at the same time. “There’s just so many benefits of studying and doing music. And in terms of that challenge that young people have with time - like, ‘Am I going to be time short?’ - you

If music’s your passion and your hobby outside of your study, you’re going to put it all into the music anyway. Hanging out, partying, all that stuff - that can come later. prioritise,” he says. “If music’s your passion and your hobby outside of your study, you’re going to put it all into the music anyway. Hanging out, partying, all that stuff - that can come later. If you really want to kill it, time management, personally, should not be an issue. And that comes from a guy who studied a double degree, worked part-time and did music full-time.”

THE MUSIC • 2ND AUGUST 2017 • 27

Education Feature

Addressing Needs Abbey Road Institute gives you all the skills, outlines Communications Officer Samantha McPherson.

What kind of courses do you offer? We offer the Advanced Diploma of Sound Production, an immersive course taught by a diverse team of industry professionals and expert music producers. This is a fulltime, intensive one-year course that provides you with all the skills necessary to go on to a successful career as an audio engineer or music producer. From October, you will also have the option to design your own education pathway with all new, flexible part-time study options available for the first time ever. Do you offer practical on-site learning or more of a theoretical base? We offer a hands-on, practical education, with theoretical learning put into practice

studio time to record, mix, master and work on their own personal music projects. Students are mentored in a collaborative teaching environment, with classes kept small to ensure individualised attention. While traditional providers are slow to react to change, we address the needs of the industry by creating more flexible and highly skilled producers - through teaching everything from the classic workflows of analogue desks to the newest methods of in-the-box style digital studio technologies. What kind of social activities do you offer? The opportunity for students to network with industry partners and among themselves to form, record and mix solo artists and bands. With onsite access to our exclusive recording facilities, there are continual opportunities to develop and refine a professional working portfolio showcasing the students’ production skills, while recording their own projects or those of friends. Do you offer job opportunities, internships, or other ways to help students get ahead? Abbey Road Institute is the only educational provider owned by a major music company (Universal Music Group) and providing an education created and taught by industry professionals. We offer our students a number of exclusive internship, work experience and industry engagement opportunities. These have included opportunities at Australia’s top recording studio, Studios 301; in addition to The Studio In The City, The Croxton, working on film soundtracks, at Melbourne Music Week, on various community radio stations and more. When and where is your next Info Day/Open Day? Abbey Road Institute Melbourne is opening its doors to all potential students on 26 Aug. This is your opportunity to see demonstrations of the best music technology available, meet our students and learn about the Abbey Road Institute student experience, meet leading Australian music producers and hear their insights on the Producer Panel, and find out why Abbey Road Institute is the global music industry’s preferred education partner. 26 Aug, 1/135 Sturt St, Southbank, 11am - 3pm. Website link for more info: abbeyroadinstitute.com.au

on real industry equipment from day one. Abbey Road Institute is a purpose built facility that contains two fully equipped commercial grade recording studios, a recording space and two editing suites; but focuses the training around every student having access to their own individual audio production workstation, every day, for every class. Students also have extensive access to all facilities outside of class hours for further practical experience. What makes you different to other educational institutions? Abbey Road students have considerable

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When & Where: 26 Aug, Open Day, Abbey Road Institute

Education Feature

Gaining Confidence In the lead up to SAE Institute’s open day, we spoke to Melbourne graduate Becki Whitton about her time there from 2015 - 2016. What course did you study and why? I decided to study a Bachelor Of Audio after I released an album that I had mixed myself — I’d been composing music just using numerous layers of my own vocals and I was frustrated that I couldn’t make the mixes sound as clean and flawless as I wanted. Why did you choose to study at this particular institution? Haha, well, actually, I picked SAE because they had this scholarship opportunity — I was really cocky and thought I would definitely get it! I didn’t get it — some other people in my year were better at audio starting out, but I attached myself to them and learnt heaps.

Becki Whitton

recorded sketches into lush, fleshed-out songs. Give us the quick resume version of what you have done since finishing studying. I work at Deluxe Mastering, doing a bunch of mixing and mastering and helping out my boss (Andrei Eremin). I’ve been engineering for indie labels like Spirit Level and TEEF, who always release amazing local artists, and I released an LP of my own this year, Twin Earth, on Provenance. Any advice for anyone looking to study at this institution? This advice is for women and gender non-conforming people specifically who want to study audio: the music industry needs your skill and insight. Learning about the technical details of recording, production, mixing, and mastering at university is a good way to gain confidence and start your career.

SAE Melbourne Campus

When & Where: 5 Aug, SAE Open Day, SAE Institute

What’s the one piece of advice you got during your time there that you still follow today? One of the biggest takeaways for me was to always try to work on projects that you’re genuinely inspired by and make sure that each artist you’re working with knows the respect you have for the music they’re making. How did your course prepare you for the real world applications of what you studied? The aspect of my career that I love the most is writing songs for myself and for other artists, and the technical skills taught to me through my degree are so useful in translating roughly

THE MUSIC • 2ND AUGUST 2017 • 29

Education Feature

Understanding Music And Sound It all starts with a friendly audition and interview says Melbourne Polytechnic’s Manager Of Performing Arts Department Andrew Gannon. What kind of courses do you offer? Our courses range from Certificate IV to Masters Programs. The Bachelor of Songwriting and Music Production: A music artist’s degree for emerging songwriters and music producers. Bachelor of Music: a performance centred degree to develop skills and awareness in the global spectrum of music. Certificate IV, Diploma and Advanced Diploma of Music Industry include Music Performance, Business, Sound and Music Production and cater to all pursuing their career. In our friendly audition and interview, we discuss your goals and options.

What makes you different to other educational institutions? In every course, we have full-time staff who are well known and active within various contemporary music scenes, who release records, win awards and perform regularly. Our lecturers practice what they teach and are available for advice and help outside of class time. Facilities are specialist and available for use after hours including excellent performance and recording spaces with industry standard lighting and sound. Around 300 students enrolled ensures opportunities for collaboration and forging networks for creativity and work. What kind of social activities do you offer? All of our courses are regularly involved in performances and events in venues around Melbourne. Student Life and Media (SLAM) run student activities throughout the year such as mini-workshops, product tastings, free breakfast, free BBQ lunches, scavenger hunts, live music with our students, market stalls from many community organisations, and plenty of free giveaways. Band Slam is an annual Band competition and in addition, we host a songwriters competition. Cafeterias and student lounges are located on each campus. Do you offer job opportunities, internships, or other ways to help students get ahead? Our courses ensure students develop skills to be freelance music industry professionals and include regular guest workshops. You can be involved in events including the Stonnington Jazz and Glow festivals, Fringe festival and also, at a variety of venues around Melbourne such as the Elsternwick Hotel, Revolver, The Workers Club, Bennetts Lane Jazz Club, Bar 303 and Wesley Anne. Students complete industry related activities as a work placement often selecting an industry mentor. We regularly recommend students for various work opportunities. When and where is your next Info Day/Open Day? 20 Aug, Melbourne Polytechnic Preston: Building G (and the stage in courtyard) 77 St Georges Road, Preston VIC 3072 from 10am - 3pm. In addition, we conduct information sessions every Tuesday 4pm - 5pm at our facilities at Fairfield and Prahran. Melbourne Polytechnic Fairfield: Library Building Q, 101 Yarra Bend Road Fairfield. Melbourne Polytechnic Prahran: Building K Level 3 28 St John St Windsor.

Do you offer practical on-site learning or more of a theoretical base? Our learning is practical and includes one-to-one lessons, band rehearsals, composing, songwriting, recording, mixing, mastering, performing, and creating events. At least half your hours in class are related to performing and music/sound practice. In addition, we include practical studies in software such as Pro Tools, Sibelius, Ableton and Logic. Other areas include revenue streams for music artists, marketing principles and approaches to management of music careers. There are theoretical components to understand music, sound, and our culture.

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Website link for more info: melbournepolytechnic.edu.au

When & Where: 20 Aug, Open Day, Melbourne Polytechnic

THE MUSIC • 2ND AUGUST 2017 • 31

Education Feature

Inspire, Motivate And Guide Australian Institute Of Music is Australia’s biggest music, management and performing arts school, with continual reinvestment in the organisation, says Brand Manager Emma Hart. What kind of courses do you offer? Undergraduate programs - Bachelor of Entertainment Management, Bachelor of Performance (Dramatic Arts), Bachelor and Diploma of Music courses in Audio, Arts Management, Composition & Music Production, Contemporary, Music Theatre, Classical.

performing, entertaining, producing, managing and more. Founded in 1968, we’re Australia’s biggest music, management and performing arts school. Being not-forprofit means we’re always reinvesting in the institute. Our facilities include performance theatres, production studios/suites with state-of-the-art equipment. Our educators are industry experts and many graduates have gone on to work for Sony, Disney, Universal, Paramount and Warner Music. What kind of social activities do you offer? AIM delivers endless opportunities to form life-long friendships. Both Sydney and Melbourne campuses have an active student presence who look after student well-being and promote an overall feeling of inclusivity and belonging. Sydney’s AIM Student Association (ASA) organises fun events for students such as Jam Nights, providing opportunities for students to get together and perform at local venues. Similarly AIM Melbourne Student Association (AMSA) holds Live Lounge sessions. Do you offer job opportunities, internships, or other ways to help students get ahead? Absolutely! Our far-reaching network of relationships provides a solid foundation for delivering unique learning experiences and opportunities built on internship arrangements, alumni career progression, current staff connections and more. Many of our AIM graduates have gone on to work for the likes of Sony, Disney, Universal, Paramount, Warner Music, Sydney Opera House, Ministry Of Sound, ARIA and APRA AMCOS to name just a few! When and where is your next Info Day/Open Day? AIM Melbourne: 5 Aug, 120 King Street, 10am - 3pm. AIM Sydney: 12 Aug, 1 - 55 Foveaux Street, Surry Hills, 10am - 3pm. Register to receive an Open Day program closer to the time: aim.edu.au/events/2017/aim-open-day Website link for more info: aim.edu.au

Postgraduate programs - Graduate Certificate of Arts Management, Graduate Diploma of Arts Management, Master of Arts Management, Graduate Certificate in Music, Graduate Diploma of Music and Master of Music. Short Courses - Performance: Vocal Skills, Keyboard/ Drum/Guitar Skills. Composition/Production: DJ, Ableton, Logic Pro, Pro Tools, Songwriting, Music Production For Songwriting Do you offer practical on-site learning or more of a theoretical base? Each course varies on practical learning versus theory and all undergraduate courses are full-time at either the Sydney or Melbourne campus. What makes you different to other educational institutions? At AIM, we don’t just teach - we inspire, motivate and guide rising stars towards successful careers in the world of singing, dancing, acting,

32 • THE MUSIC • 2ND AUGUST 2017

When & Where: 5 Aug, Open Day, AIM Melbourne

Discover your artistic voice Bachelor of Fine Arts → Acting → Costume → Design for Performance → Properties and Objects → Staging → Technical Theatre and Stage Management

Vocational Diplomas → Live Production and Technical Services → Musical Theatre → Specialist Make-up Services → Stage and Screen Performance

Master of Fine Arts → Cultural Leadership → Design for Performance → Directing → Voice → Writing for Performance

Applications now open Info Night, 16 Aug 6–9pm apply.nida.edu.au

Higher Education provider ID: 12052 CRICOS: 00756M | Registered Training Organisation ID: 90349

THE MUSIC • 2ND AUGUST 2017 • 33

Education Feature

The National Institute of Dramatic Art

Staging, and Technical Theatre and Stage Management; Master of Fine Arts: Cultural Leadership, Design for Performance, Directing, Voice, Writing for Performance; Vocational Diploma: Live Production, Musical Theatre, Specialist Make-up, Stage and Screen Performance. Do you offer practical on-site learning or more of a theoretical base? All NIDA courses are practice-based yet provide a balance between academic learning and opportunities to put knowledge into practice as students explore the creative challenges of the industry. Our students also have the opportunity to work with high profile guest artists, as well as gain valuable experience through industry placements.

Answered by: James McGrath — Communications Executive What kind of courses do you offer? Higher education courses in the dramatic arts. Bachelor of Fine Arts: Acting, Costume, Design for Performance, Props,

inLanguage Boutique Answered by: Sara Chandler Head Teacher What kind of courses do you offer? We run Italian, French and Spanish courses for adults in Melbourne. We have classes for complete beginners all the way to advanced and conversation, and everything in between! What kind of people would these courses suit? Our courses are suited to anyone looking to learn a language. Whether it’s for travel, connecting with family, exercising your brain or even for a hobby! They are fun, engaging and focused on speaking. What makes you different to other educational institutions? We use modern teaching methods to get the best results for our students. We have

34 • THE MUSIC • 2ND AUGUST 2017

What makes you different to other educational institutions? The National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) has an enviable reputation as Australia’s leading institution for dramatic arts education and training. For almost 60 years, we have been a hub for Australia’s performing arts sector, bringing leading artists and industry professionals together to develop the next generation of creative leaders.

the most up-to-date texts, we teach in the language and have a lot of extras online! Do you offer job opportunities, internships, or other ways to help students get ahead? We offer private classes, intensive courses and conversation classes. We are connected with different schools around the world since many students like to keep on studying while on holiday. We also have many online resources. When and where is your next Info Day/Open Day? Term 4, starting the week of the 9th of October, 2017 Website link for more info: inlanguageboutique.com.au

What kind of social activities do you offer? The Student Council of NIDA (SCON) organises and runs social events and engagement opportunities for our students. Do you offer job opportunities, internships, or other ways to help students get ahead? Students have the opportunity to work with industry professionals during their training, as well as gain valuable experience through industry placements. When and where is your next Info Day/Open Day? NIDA will open its doors for a night of insight into its impressive array of higher education courses, staff and facilities, with Info Night on 16 Aug, 215 Anzac Parade, Kensington, 6 — 9pm. Register your attendance in advance as places are limited: nida.edu.au/form/forms/nida-info-night2017-registration-of-interest Website link for more info: nida.edu.au/courses

Produce.

Perform.

Manage.

OPEN DAY Melbourne

05th August 2017

120 King Street, Melbourne VIC 3000

(03) 8610 4222

Sydney

12th August 2017

1-55 Foveaux Street, Surry Hills NSW 2010

(02) 9219 5444

10am to 3pm CRICOS Code: 00665C

Provider No: PRV 12050

Album / E Album/EP Reviews

Album OF THE Week

Lance Ferguson Raw Material Warner

★★★★½

He’s been the face of the Melbourne soul scene for the past decade — and active for more than twice that long — but it’s taken until 2017 for Lance Ferguson to put the final touches on the first record under his own name. And what an ambitious, fun project it is! Ferguson began by recruiting some of the country’s finest musicians, pulled from bands like Hiatus Kaiyote, The PutBacks and his very own The Bamboos. He recorded a dozen tracks with them, cuts filled with soulful grooves and funky twists. Not afraid to throw in strings, or guest vocalists such as Kylie Auldist and Fallon Williams, Raw Material released on its own would sit neatly as a more uptempo companion to Ferguson’s Her 12 Faces release (recorded under his Lanu moniker). Ferguson then handed a vinyl copy of each of his recorded tracks to a different producer (think Katalyst, One Above, US production duo Javelin and Toronto MC Clairmont The Second, who each received one cut each), to use as a template to sample for their own production. Released as a double act, you could listen to the first record as a hands-in-the-air-like-you-just-don’t-care party playlist, the second record as the logical next chapter in Ferguson’s glittering career, or go one-for-one, exploring just what’s possible when you combine a vinyl record and some hella-talented musicians. Dylan Stewart

The Creases

Saskwatch

Tremolow

Manual Override

Liberation

Grow Yourself Up

★★★

★★★★

Although the title of their debut album — a term used to describe a wavering musical tone — is perhaps used to symbolise the Brisbane band’s experience of highs and lows since their 2013 beginnings, it’s also an accurate representation of the release. The first four tracks — Answer To, Everybody Knows, Is It Love and At Last You Find — are particularly good; they’re cool, catchy, retro, nostalgic and showcase the band’s unique sound. Joe Agius makes a good frontman — he’s charismatic and possesses quite a talent for melody. The album wavers just a little with tracks like Point and Impact that the band already released in 2015 and 2016 respectively, though picks up again towards the end. They’ve managed to work with some pretty big names in

If your idea of Saskwatch is horned-up soul music, you might find yourself double taking through Manual Override. Moments such as opening one-two punch December Nights, with its meandering flute line, and Then There’s You are equal parts eclectic and sultry. It’s an approach that serves The Avalanches well, and there are more than a few similarities with the dance music pioneers to be found here. Singer Nkechi Anele’s vocal line is much more prominent than it has been in the past, Renoir a perfect example of how her lyrics are given space to shine. Her vocals are more subdued on North Terrace, the muffled instrumentation more akin to The xx than contemporary soul singers like Kylie Auldist.

Australian music like producer Malcolm Besley (Northeast Party House, City Calm Down) and members of Saskwatch, Dorsal Fins and Hollow Everdaze, who perform brass and strings on the album. Another highlight, Were Young features backing vocals from Melbourne singersongwriter Ali Barter. The Creases are a young band full of potential, and Tremolow undoubtedly reflects that. Madelyn Tait

Despite the different direction, Manual Override never suffers from the band holding back; rather, Saskwatch are focused on creating an indie-pop album filled with lush choruses (see album highlight Finger Painting) and a generous serve of rawness around the edges. If there’s a weak spot, it’s the treble-heavy combination of Anele’s voice, high-pitched guitar chords and snare drum on Gemini. Despite a clever strings arrangement, when combined with a pithy keyboard line the track is a challenge, but one that — at just three minutes — is fleeting and not reflective of the record as a whole. Dylan Stewart

36 • THE MUSIC • 2ND AUGUST 2017

EP Reviews Album/EP Reviews

Flynn Effect

Black Cab

Fountaineer

Dead Cross

Obsidian

Akira Interstate 40

Greater City, Greater Love

Dead Cross

Independent

Ipecac

1825 Records

★★★½

★★★★

★★★

★★★★

Australia is absolutely awash with high-quality alternative heavy rock and Brissie fourpiece Flynn Effect only add to that canon. Setting this band apart, however, is the soulful singing of Tomina Vincent. She really does reach to the corners of her soul and summon all of her emotions in the delivery of her heartfelt lines on Obsidian. Check out her work on Gone and ballad-esque The Fight for proof. The music is sometimes dark and heavy, sometimes soft and wistful, sometimes symphonic and bombastic, but always compelling.

After recently trying their hand at live soundtracking Akira at The Astor Theatre, Black Cab return to Neo-Tokyo, which serves as the inspiration for this album. Comprised of 25 tracks, Akira offers cyberpunk escape into futuristic fictions and dystopian unrealities with a soundtrack of darkly glittering electronica that reflects the influence of kosmische. Groomed for imaginary soundtrack perfection, Akira is at once evocative while also filled with darkly dramatic motifs that are woven into the album’s fabric. The perfect soundtrack accompaniment for those moments when you are engaged in mortal combat with tentacled monsters and artificially intelligent robots.

Bendigo is pretty significant to Kieran Daly and brothers Anthony and Francis White, who make up indie pop rock trio, Fountaineer. Their latest album, Greater City, Greater Love is a bit of a tribute to their country hometown and its slow transition into a bigger city. It’s a distinctly Australian sounding album, from the footy metaphor in album opener Sirens to the mention of Heath Ledger in The Cricketers - a song inspired by a painting by Australian artist Russell Drysdale, that hung in the White’s childhood home. Sonically it has that blue-collar Aussie rock sound too, modernised by synths and processed beats. Greater City, Greater Love is a fantastic album from start to finish.

In promotional material surrounding Dead Cross, drummer Dave Lombardo and vocalist Mike Patton have (understandably) been dominant topics of conversation. But, the deus ex machina for the group’s debut is really bassist Justin Pearson’s other outfit The Locust. Like The Locust, Dead Cross specialise in blistering, hardcore aggression funnelled through unconventional angles at high velocity - 80% of the record’s cuts barely skate past two minutes. But with Patton, Lombardo and guitarist Michael Crain in tow, that mission statement finds new stretches of speed, intensity and weirdness. It’s a rewarding album for all concerned.

Guido Farnell

Madelyn Tait

Matt O’Neill

Obsidian is another exceptionally strong Aussie rock release. Rod Whitfield

More Reviews Online Naomi Punk Yellow

theMusic.com.au

The New Yorks I Wish I Was You, But That’s Just Me

Listen to our This Week’s Releases playlist on

THE MUSIC • 2ND AUGUST 2017 • 37

Live Re Live Reviews

LCD Soundsystem @ Margaret Court Arena. Pic: Joshua Braybrook

LCD Soundsystem, Andee Frost Margaret Court Arena 26 Jul

LCD Soundsystem @ Margaret Court Arena. Pic: Joshua Braybrook

Two Door Cinema Club @ Festival Hall. Pic: Clinton Hatfield

38 • THE MUSIC • 2ND AUGUST 2017

Two Door Cinema Club @ Festival Hall. Pic: Clinton Hatfield

Tonight’s crowd look like extras from T2 Trainspotting on a big night out. As we take our seats, venue staff are cleaning up a vom in the stands (it’s a bit early for that, wouldn’t you think?) and Melbourne DJ Andee Frost is in the mix, wearing a gorgeous Vivienne Westwoodstyle Pharrell hat with feather trim. His selections are funky (as always) and set the scene for LCD Soundsystem. James Murphy arrives on stage preceded by at least eight backing players (that we can see). Those in the seated section ponder whether or not to stand and dance for LCD Soundsystem’s swaggering opener Yr City’s A Sucker, during which Murphy casually plays tambourine before flinging it in percussionist Pat Mahoney’s direction. But we’re catapulted to our feet the millisecond song two kicks in, because Daft Punk Is Playing At My House and Murphy plays (more) cowbell. Murphy’s voice perfectly replicates this song’s every nuance live and is even better the second time around; they played their ‘final show’ at Madison Square Garden in 2011, which was then released as a five-LP box set titled The Long Goodbye: LCD Soundsystem Live At Madison Square Garden, remember? Meh, no one cares, we’re just rapt to have them back. LCD Soundsystem are all substance, no pretence, and Murphy rocks a white tie-dyed T-shirt that even the most slender of teens would struggle to pull off. Nancy Whang’s outfit of shiny, billowing blue jumpsuit and gold stilettos is everything — she quite simply oozes cool and we totally wanna be her as she effortlessly navigates her

consoles and adds essential flourishes. The robotic undercurrent of Get Innocuous! calls to mind Out Of Control by The Chemical Brothers and this song’s cacophonous breakdown threatens to blow our faces off. It certainly blows our minds and

I don’t often get in the face of old people and tell them what to do... but let’s rename this place! if you were tripping you could be forgiven for making a mad dash to first aid after thinking this intensification of sound was in your own head — the song’s a total mind-fuck (“You will normalise/Don’t it make you feel alive”). “We’re very happy to be here,” Murphy enthuses. “We’re gonna play a couple of newer songs tonight and this is one of them.” What follows is American Dream, a slow jam that features the lyrics, “You took acid and looked in the mirror”. A noticeable amount of punters dash out of the arena for a toilet/ drinks break during this song. Murphy compliments us because he doesn’t see any smartphones out. When that distinctive Tribulations bass line kicks in we’re putty, especially during this song’s spectacular cranking guitar solo. Pat Mahoney’s stage-left drum kit is angled inwards so that Murphy can grab a stick and bash away at it to add percussive touches as he so desires. When Murphy introduces the band, he turns to his left, pointing out, “and Pat just fucked off!” They’re missing a drummer for a second, but

eviews Live Reviews

then Mahoney returns just in the nick of time for Someone Great, which features skittish beats and glockenspiel echoing the chorus melody. There’s a lot of swaying with eyes closed during this truly beautiful song: “When someone great is gooooone!” We wonder whether Murphy will go there with the renaming Margaret Court Arena controversy and he certainly does: “I don’t often get in the face of old people and tell them what to do... but let’s rename this place!” Home follows, incorporating what we detect as a cheeky Kookaburra Sits In The Old Gum Tree riff inclusion at song’s close. Murphy apologises to the fans who find themselves in limited-view seats due to the massive speaker stacks he explains that his band require, encouraging them to “make friends” and squish in with strangers in better seats. “I’m gonna go pee and then we’ll be back... you can pretend it’s an encore if you want to,” Murphy announces before main set closer New York, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down. A follow spot illuminates and Murphy looks up towards the ceiling and remarks, “Oh, shit! There’s a person up there operating a light! Hi!” Various band members shield their faces as the blinding light takes them by surprise. Back out on stage for their encore, Dance Yrself Clean starts slowly and Murphy’s exaggerated delivery of this section makes us suspect he harbours a secret desire to be a musical theatre star, but once the song takes flight we’re transported directly to the rave cave. Then the relentless All My Friends keys are like stabs to the heart (strings): “If I could see all my friends tonight” — such wistful bliss. Wandering up the aisle toward the exit, we overhear punters asking each other,

“What time do you have to get up tomorrow?” Geez, we are getting old! Bryget Chrisfield

Two Door Cinema Club, Last Dinosaurs, The Creases Festival Hall 25 Jul Brisbane alt-rockers The Creases have been blessed with the duty of getting the early arrivals warmed up, and they don’t waste any time getting to it. Bassist Aimon Clark rocks back and forth swinging the tail of his coat to the band’s psych rock tones and Oasis vibes. Frontman Joe Agius’s raspy vocals throughout provide a punchy start to the evening, and triple j hit Impact ends their energetic set on a cosmic high.

Alex Trimble’s vocal talent is next level, nailing the chorus of Je Viens De La in a falsetto that never waivers. “We are the Venga Boys,” singer Sean Caskey jokes as We Like To Party fades out of the PA and people scream out the iconic party anthem. Last Dinosaurs are cheeky, and, coated in a sea of pink smoke, kick off with Take Your Time. Caskey and bassist Michael Sloane share birthdays tonight and without further ado, a (very messy) rendition of Happy Birthday takes place. What a way to have a birthday! This set is full of funky riffs, ‘80s synth, highly energetic dance tunes, jokes and

a really unique stage presence. A mash-up cover of Modjo’s Lady (Hear Me Tonight) and Calvin Harris’ Slide goes down a treat for what is a super funky, mid-gig boogie down. An intense strobe light party so ferocious it’s almost hard to look at begins as Irish rockers Two Door Cinema Club make their dramatic entrance with Cigarettes In The Theatre. The band are accompanied by tall LED structures surrounding the back of the stage. They project various colours, shapes and graphics that move to the beat and change with every song, creating the prime environment for a vigorous dance party. Covering songs old and new, they focus mainly on 2010’s Tourist History to the immense pleasure of their fans. People are dancing in their seats, waving their drinks around, hugging their friends and grinning from ear to ear. The atmosphere is infectious to say the least. Frontman Alex Trimble’s vocal talent is next level, nailing the chorus of Je Viens De La in a falsetto that never waivers. “This is the best fifth birthday ever,” exclaims guitarist Sam Halliday (whose birthday turns out to be tomorrow) after another group singalong. What are the odds? The charismatic, eccentric and ever so talented Irishmen wrap-up a killer encore with fan favourite, What You Know — packed full of strobes, laser lighting and crazy graphic panels — proving that the Irish sure know how to throw one vibrant party.

More Reviews Online theMusic.com.au/ music/live-reviews

Father John Misty @ Melbourne Recital Centre Asgeir @ Forum Theatre The Lemon Twigs @ The Curtin Banks @ Forum Theatre Sigur Ros @ Margaret Court Arena Our Golden Friend’s Midwinter Moon Party @ Catfish Stormzy @ Forum Theatre Keith Sweat @ Palais Theatre

Emily Blackburn

THE MUSIC • 2ND AUGUST 2017 • 39

Indie Indie

A Man Called Son

Lloyd Spiegel

The Blue Hotel

Have You Heard

Melbourne Guitar Show Focus

EP Focus

Answered by: Simon Pearlman

What was the best piece of advice you were given when you first started learning guitar? The thing we love about our favourite players is that they’re a one of a kind. Learn their tricks, learn their style... but be yourself.

Answered by: Ally Said

When did you start making music and why? Weaned on a steady diet of The Beatles and Neil Young as a kid, I was fascinated by songwriting and recording techniques. Early songs were written at the age of 17 on a piano subsequently ruined by rats. Sum up your musical sound in four words? Serene Atmospheric Jangly Rock If you could only listen to one album forevermore, what would it be and why? Laughing Stock by Talk Talk. The story of this band is compelling. They began in the early ‘80s as New Romantic/Duran Duran pretenders to the throne. Their albums grew increasingly sophisticated, complex and moving. Greatest rock’n’roll moment of your career to date? Many moons ago, I was the drummer for Brisbane synth-rock band Genshen. At one gig, over-excited and dehydrated, I fell off my drum stool and was wedged between the floor tom and cymbal stand. The singer had to hoist me up. Why should people come and see your band? Because we’ve finally struck the balance between song/banter ratio. Most importantly, our bassist (Stefanos Koroblitsas) has exquisite taste in hats. When and where are your next gigs? 6 Aug, Evelyn Hotel. We’ll be playing with One Way Radio. 8.30pm start. $7 at the door. Website link for more info? facebook.com/amancalledson

40 • THE MUSIC • 2ND AUGUST 2017

What’s your fave guitar/amp/pedal set up? I’m a simple guy. I like my Cole Clark FL2EC-BLBL straight through the PA with nothing between it but a BOSS loop. Makes soundcheck easy. If you could jam with one person, who would it be and why? Son House. I often feel like my music takes twists and turns and takes me a long way from what I started out wanting to be. I figure Mr House would sort me out. If money wasn’t an issue, what guitar would you buy and why? I’m more about nostalgia than equipment. I would love to own BB King’s first Lucille. Just to look at it. Not sure I could bring myself to play it. When and where can we catch you at the Melbourne Guitar Show? 5 Aug, Mezzanine stage, solo show, 12pm; 5 Aug, Mezzanine stage, Nick Charles Blues & Roots Show, 2pm; 6 Aug, Winner’s Circle workshop room, Lloyd’s Cole Clark Showcase/Clinic, 11.30am. Website link for more info? lloydspiegel.com

EP Title? Stand In Gold How many releases do you have now? This is our first release. We are very excited to be launching our debut EP through Leadlight Records. Was anything in particular inspiring you during the making? As everything is cowritten, inspirations seem to overlap. We write and make music from whatever is significant at the time. What’s your favourite song on it? Loose Change took a while to fully form but once it did it definitely became a favourite. We’ll like this EP if we like... We’ve been told our sound is sort of ‘90s, but there’s hints of everything from Stevie Nicks to The xx. It’s music for people who are into music. When and where is your launch/next gig? 4 Aug, Wesley Anne. From 8pm with special guests Dogood and Murklins; it should be an excellent night! Website link for more info? leadlightrecords.com/artists/the-blue-hotel/ the-blue-hotel-epk/

OPINION Opinion

Howzat!

Local Music By Jeff Jenkins A Five-Star Parade When Daddy Cool and RRR legend Gary Young heard Sarah Carroll’s new album, Star Parade, he cried. That’s a five-star review in anyone’s language. Deserved, too, because Star Parade is a roots music tour de force. Sarah’s superb songwriting swings from poignant to playful, with the result being soulful and sassy. Sarah loves making music with her family - the album features her sons, George and Fenn. “At the Grace Emily [in Adelaide], a lady told me that the way I looked at them on stage made her wish she’d had kids. Wow. It’s such a blessing, which I’ll never take for granted.” Sarah also loves driving, and the album is loaded with car references, including the delightful Heaven Is My Holden With The Windows Down. “I actually drive a Subaru wagon,” Sarah confesses. “It belonged to my late brotherin-law, and I’m loving the lack of contact with the RACV.” She still misses her Holden, however, a ‘79 HZ Premier wagon, which caught fire in her brother’s driveway. Sarah, The Ukulele Queen of the Bellarine, is part of Ukulele Utopia at this weekend’s Melbourne Guitar Show at

Caulfield Racecourse, appearing alongside The Thin White Ukes, a ukulele Bowie tribute, featuring music journalist Michael Dwyer. Sarah denies she’s a geek when it comes to musical instruments, though she does own five ukes and six guitars, and she loves the ukulele’s “pretty little voice, its percussiveness, and the fact that jazz chords are much easier to play on it”. Sarah is a “lifer”, an artist who will always be making music. One of the new songs, Lived Your Life Twice, is filled with advice. So what’s the best advice Sarah could give a young artist? “Maintain your self-belief, and always be respectful to your bandmates, sound engineers, publicans and punters. Take time to prepare for gigs, and eat and drink wisely and well. Look after your equipment, including voice, hands and ears. And be ready for anything!”

Sarah Carroll

Hip Hip Great frontman, questionable politics ... Angry Anderson turns 70 on 5 Aug. Adams 1, Albo 0 Speaking of politics, Herald Sun music writer Cameron Adams shot down Labor leader wannabe Anthony Albanese who tweeted that Client Liaison “jumped the shark” when Tina Arena joined them at Splendour. “You’re too old for this snobby indie shit, Albo,” Adams fired back. Hot Line “I learned early on that everyone I love will leave” - Sarah Carroll, Blue Eyes Cause Me Pain.

THE MUSIC • 2ND AUGUST 2017 • 41

OPINION Opinion

Dance Moves

Lana Del Rey

O G F l ava s

Urban And R&B

Urban music has its disruptive outliers — like Tyler, The Creator (aka Tyler Okonma) and, yes, Lana Del Rey. Both News With have cultivated transgressive personas, musical fluidity and figurative lyrics. Coincidentally, they’re recasting Cyclone themselves as hip hop hippies with their latest albums, Flower Boy and Lust For Life, respectively. Okonma has long disavowed any hip hop labelling, rather extolling Joy Division and chillwave as influences. Nonetheless, the Californian is considered rap’s #1 enfant terrible with his horrorcore themes, misogyny and homophobia. Now 26, Okonma implicitly comes out on the self-produced — and reflective — Flower Boy in tracks like Garden Shed. It’s Okonma’s lightest album sonically, too — mostly being all cosmic-jazz. Lust For Life is Del Rey’s most ‘street’ album yet. She duets with The Weeknd on the euphoric title track. But Summer Bummer, co-produced by Boi-1da, is avant-trap featuring A$AP and buzz Atlantan Playboi Carti. Significantly, Lust For Life is Del Rey’s first political missive — her “modern manifesto” — as Trump’s regime threatens to destroy her hazy melancholia, existentialism and nostalgic Americana. The defiant God Bless America — And All The Beautiful Women In It uses gunshots percussively.

Business Music

DJ Normal 4

When Your Club Needs A Boss With Paz

utch label Dekmantel is coveting the future of dance music producers, looking at all four corners of the globe. Their effort to cover a spectrum of styles is championed by the reintroduction of breakbeat production in the form of German artists DJ Normal 4 and Bufiman. The dudes at Dekmantel just released Bufiman’s Peace Moves EP: four tracks including the title track, two remixes and freaky disco

42 • THE MUSIC • 2ND AUGUST 2017

SW Sued

number Graffiti Moves. The breaks are all true to classic ‘90s pop/dance music, but its updated wavey synths add to the excitement and relevance for production that’s prevalent in 2017. DJ Normal 4 adds his breakbeat spin to Peace Moves, making it a 2am jam, discerningly for a basement dancefloor. DJ Normal 4 came onto my radar when I heard his VibemixX for Alphonse’s Glint AM on the Especial label. The future of broken beats is in safe hands at the UK-based (pun intended) label Nervous Horizon. The label’s co-head TSVI just recently released a big stash of dancefloor edits, mainly heard in his mixes including the Wax — 10001B (Panamax remix) (TSVI edit) and the barnstorming Oneohtrix Point Never — Nassau (TSVI tropical edit). He went on to help deliver the track Paradise 660 with NH label mate and co-head Wallwork. It is the top feature from Volume 2 of their Various Artists release on the NH label. Volume 2 continues to evolve the blueprint for the broken beat/techno/jump up production that the label is known for; snappy staccato snares that follow tribal drum patterns, kicks that break the four to the floor repetition and sprinkles of rave cries, sirens and chants.

OPINION Opinion

New

ith some exceptions, the Currents past decade of house and techno has With Tim felt like a slow exhalation: lots of great music being Finney made, but with a lingering and accumulating sense that the great stylistic strides, the truly shocking or innovative maneuvers, are now behind us, and what’s left to producers is largely to offer tributes to the past festooned with smart, but increasingly subtle, accents. I’m not sure whether SW.’s debut album (called, with appropriate inscrutability and finality, The Album) really deviates from the above course, but it certainly feels more novel and distinct to these ears, in a manner perhaps comparable to Shed’s work in the late ‘00s. It’s difficult not to want to secondguess this feeling: SW.’s “trick”, if you will, is to cast a fairly wide net in term of strict stylistic affectations while tying his various interests together within a coherent sonic sensibility, so in a sense the appeal here is all “accent”, all about the producer’s subtle deviations from expectations as he works off and from familiar templates. I can’t discern much information about SW. other than that it is the moniker of Berlin-based producer Stefan Wust, so my sense of the producer’s strategy is largely inferred from the sounds he offers on The Album. The sensibility at work is one I’m tempted to describe as “’90s deep”: ranging from the humid, misty drum and bass of opener Untitled A1 to the driving warehouse thump of Untitled B3 to the moody downtempo rhythms of Untitled B2 and the eerie, expansive Detroit techno of Untitled C2 (yes, they’re all titled like that), SW.’s work is united by three things. On the one hand, an irrepressible percussive friskiness (A1, together with the slowly coalescing rainforest percussive workout of Untitled A2, recalls the early work of Mouse On Mars). On the other, a lustrous sense of depth and surround-sound lushness that reminds me of Monolake’s most greenhouse-friendly early tracks (Lantau, Macau) and also of the sense of spiritual nourishment attained by DJ Sprinkles on his best and most expansive remixes. Synth patterns swirl and glow with spectral beneficence, especially on the spacey beatless ambient workout of Untitled C3, but it’s not just a melodic or textual effect: the near-jazzy cymbal-tapping deep house of Untitled B1 derives a similar sense of amniotic, cradling comfort from its

intricate percussion as much as from its birdsong canopy. It’s not all comfort-food: B3 offers more than enough rave-ready energy, while Untitled D2 is handclap-filled techno easily stern enough for a late ‘90s Jeff Mills or Richie Hawtin DJ set. But even here, there’s enough of a sense of layering and refinement, not to mention rhythmic unpredictability, that these moments feel of a piece with the album’s gentler stretches - it’s as if these tracks not only are a deep house producer’s gestures towards peak-time techno, but are intended to be perceived as such. Midway between the hard and the gentle is the closer, Untitled D3, an energetic but elegant percussive workout that deftly coordinates the space between drum’n’bass, broken beat and techno by the simple expedient of not acknowledging it. The last time anyone offered such a graceful post-genre exercise in rhythmic dexterity, it was Canadian duo Graze with their 2013 self-titled debut EP, an underrated gem which completely failed to garner the attention it deserved. Let’s hope SW. suffers a different fate.

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“My PPCA cheque goes straight back into helping me make more music, whether it’s picking up another bit of studio gear, some wacky new instrument or by simply affording me time to put other things aside and experiment.” Paul Dempsey Registering is free and essential, so contact PPCA now.

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THE MUSIC • 2ND AUGUST 2017 • 43

Comedy / G The Guide

Wed 02

Bohjass: 303, Northcote

Morning Morning + Plastic + The Democratic People’s Republic of Surf: The Tote (Upstairs), Collingwood

Comedy Big Time feat. Claire Hooper + Matt Stewart + Alex Ward + Danielle Walker + more: Howler, Brunswick

Shane Nicholson: Ararat Live, Ararat Miles Recommends + Jess Parker &The Troubled Waters + Thongbirds: Bar Open, Fitzroy

Raised By Eagles

The Music Presents Vera Blue: 8 Aug Tap House Bendigo, 11 Aug 170 Russell, 12 Aug Wool Exchange Geelong; 10 Sep, 170 Russell Raised By Eagles: 18 Aug The Workers Club Geelong; 19 Aug The Croxton; 16 Sep Caravan Music Club Oakleigh; 17 Sep Torquay Bowls Club Sarah McLeod: 23 Aug The Workers Club Ali Barter: 25 Aug The Workers Club Geelong; 1 Sep Theatre Royal Castlemaine; 8 Sep Corner Hotel Dan Sultan: 1 Sep Wool Exchange Geelong; 2 Sep Forum Theatre Mew: 12 Sep Max Watt’s At The Drive In: 28 Sep Festival Hall Caligula’s Horse: 30 Sep Max Watt’s Mono: 10 Nov Max Watt’s Alt-J: 7 Dec Sidney Myer Music Bowl

Ben Avery

Nestor Torres: Bird’s Basement, Melbourne MellowDias Thump: Boney, Melbourne Rebecca & Billy’s Singalong Society: Caravan Music Club, Oakleigh The Crookeds + Neon Queen: Cherry Bar, Melbourne Cousin Tony’s Brand New Firebird + Press Club Band + Girlatones: Evelyn Hotel, Fitzroy The Ten Tenors: Hamer Hall, Melbourne Comedy Big Time feat. Alex Ward + Matt Stewart + Stuart Daulman + more: Howler, Brunswick Matty T Wall: Hume Blues Club, Fawkner Lomond Acoustica feat. Kelly Auty + Boris Conley + Mandy Connell + Claire Patti: Lomond Hotel, Brunswick East

Ben There Done That Edinburgh Castle will be playing host to Ben Avery this Saturday, where he’s sure to allure and intrigue with his poetic storytelling. Check out Avery in all his glory and get in before he drops his debut album.

Leo Rondeau + Dave Garnham: Retreat Hotel, Brunswick Wine, Whiskey, Women feat. Tori Forsyth + Celia Brandolini: The Drunken Poet, West Melbourne

Frontwomxn Fundraiser Pt. 2 feat. Culte + Mio + Shemaiah Kaye + Syd Mackey + Sault: The Workers Club, Fitzroy

Reuben Stone + Liv Cartledge: The

Trivia: Wesley Anne, Northcote

Dan Dinnen: Lomond Hotel, Brunswick East

Thu 03

Disco Volante feat. Doakes + DJ Hoops + more: Onesixone, Prahran

Kickin The B at 303 feat. PSIPHI: 303, Northcote

Shane Nicholson: Spotted Mallard, Brunswick

Anna Smyrk

Montaigne + I Know Leopard + Alex The Astronaut: Karova Lounge, Ballarat

Queen - It’s A Kinda Magic: Athenaeum Theatre, Melbourne Manorism + Cloud Castles + The Nicoteenagers: Bar Open, Fitzroy

Crooked Colours

Just Friends feat. Rini: Big Mouth, St Kilda

Wipe It Off

Nestor Torres: Bird’s Basement, Melbourne

Before embarking on a national tour in September, alt-folk musician Anna Smyrk is first ducking down to Charles Weston for a cheeky free gig. Catch the critically acclaimed singersongwriter this Thursday.

Death Disco feat. Resident Kiti: Boney, Melbourne Sarah Occhino: Catfish (Front Bar), Fitzroy Sweethearts: Cherry Bar, Melbourne Josh Pyke + Kyle Lionhart: Corner Hotel, Richmond Real Friends + Columbus + Harbours: Evelyn Hotel, Fitzroy

Gasometer Hotel (Upstairs), Collingwood Sarah Mary Chadwick + Mia Schoen + Dan Cross: The Old Bar, Fitzroy Junior Fiction: The Tote (Front Bar), Collingwood

44 • THE MUSIC • 2ND AUGUST 2017

Fed Square Live with Au Dre + Rya Park: Federation Square, Melbourne The Pretty Littles: Grace Darling Hotel, Collingwood

Vera Good Crooked Colours are continuing the promo for their latest offering, Vera, and next up is Corner Hotel. Muto will be joining them this Saturday and Sunday, adding to their long list of top notch tour support.

Gigs / Live The Guide

Harmony Byrne: The B.East, Brunswick East

All Ages Show with Real Friends: Arrow On Swanston, Carlton

The Five Star Crooks + Supa Suplex: Matthew Flinders Hotel, Chadstone

Charging Stallion + Elusive Haze + Rhysics: The Bendigo, Collingwood

Sectape + Cecil Turbine + Pipsy: Bar Open, Fitzroy

The Bombay Royale + Sugar Fed Leopards: Max Watt’s, Melbourne

Two Tale + Out of Character + Colour Fires + Carl Karst: The Brunswick Hotel, Brunswick

Son of a Gunzel: Bar Open (Front Bar), Fitzroy

The Monaros + Meerkat Cherry: Mr Boogie Man Bar, Abbotsford

Nestor Torres: Bird’s Basement, Melbourne

Josh Cashman: Northcote Social Club, Northcote

Mike Callander: Boney, Melbourne

Train: Palais Theatre, St Kilda

Day Din: Brown Alley, Melbourne

Frequency with Mendo: Pawn & Co, South Yarra

Shane Nicholson: Caravan Music Club, Oakleigh Justin Yap Band: Catfish (Front Bar), Fitzroy Fan Girl

Fanning The Flame With a unique combination of indie, pop and “none of your business”, Fan Girl continue to climb the ranks with a supporting slot for American rockers Minus The Bear. Make it your business to see them at Max Watt’s, Sunday.

Jon Toogood: Cherry Bar, Melbourne

Grinspoon + Hockey Dad: Pier Bandroom, Frankston

Teeth & Tongue + Loose Tooth + Gregor + Venetian Blinds: The Gasometer Hotel, Collingwood Yeevs: The Gasometer Hotel (Upstairs), Collingwood Fleetwood Mac Tribute: The Grand Hotel, Mornington

Hobo Magic + Bloodnut + El Colosso + Carcosa: The Old Bar, Fitzroy James Reyne + Ollie Brown: The Palms at Crown, Southbank The Citradels + The Fainters: The Post Office Hotel, Coburg

Bootleg Rascal

Josh Pyke + Kyle Lionhart: Corner Hotel, Richmond Megan Sidwell + Iain Archibald + Luke Austen: Ding Dong Lounge, Melbourne Runk + Deadmedic + Unlucky + The Trepids + Matt Murray & The Durry Busters: Evelyn Hotel, Fitzroy Lazertits + Shrimpwitch + Suss Cunts + Dumb Punts + Gonzo + Crystal Myth + The Mighty Boys + Rhysics: Grace Darling Hotel, Collingwood Jack Ladder & The Dreamlanders + Emma Russack: Howler, Brunswick Syndicator + Body Mechanic + Grand Wizard Kano + Object of Desire: Joey Smalls, Brunswick

The Babe Rainbow + Bananagun + Parsnip: The Curtin, Carlton

Crooked Colours + Muto: Karova Lounge, Ballarat

Hannah Cameron + Broads + Grand Salvo: The Gasometer Hotel (Upstairs), Collingwood

The Leggy Rascals Before Bootleg Rascal head over to the UK and Europe, they’re embarking on a seven-date tour here in Oz to please all their local fans out there. Come Saturday, the four-piece will be tearing it up at Northcote Social Club.

Liam Linley + New Band + Closet Straights: The Old Bar, Fitzroy Foggy Notion + James Ramsay: The Post Office Hotel, Coburg

Matty T Wall: Pistol Pete’s Food n Blues, Geelong

Georgia Fields + Phia + Sarah Belkner + Tiaryn: The Toff In Town, Melbourne Hey Baby! + The Jumpkicks + Sophisticated Dingo: The Tote (Upstairs), Collingwood Verge Collection + Jess Locke + Hugh Fuchsen: The Workers Club, Fitzroy Tammy Heider: Wesley Anne, Northcote Grinspoon + Hockey Dad: Wool Exchange, Geelong Leavings + Chores + slimbillgates + Make More: Yarra Hotel, Abbotsford

Fri 04 Montaigne + I Know Leopard + Alex The Astronaut: 170 Russell, Melbourne The Montgomery Brothers + Ollie McGill + Danny Ross: 303, Northcote

La Dance Macabre with Brunswick Massive: Rainbow Hotel, Fitzroy Dean Lewis

Ride That Wave Dean Lewis continues to make Waves with his music, having recently featured on the hit TV show Riverdale. Lewis will be heading to Howler this Sunday with PLGRMS to promote his new EP.

1st Birthday feat. The Trembling Wilburys: Satellite Lounge, Wheelers Hill Alleged Associates: Smokehouse 101, Maribyrnong Geoff Achison & The Soul Diggers + more: Spotted Mallard, Brunswick Wolfpack + Motovilikha + Murderballs + Rusted Tongues + Stoned To Death: The Brunswick Hotel, Brunswick Shout At The Devil + Still Twisted + Maskara: The Central Club, Richmond

Lost in Province feat. Various Artists: The Prince, St Kilda Mesa Cosa: The Tote (Band Room), Collingwood Steve Smyth: The Workers Club, Fitzroy The Adele & Amy Songbook with Bloom: Thornbury Theatre (Velvet Room), Thornbury The Blue Hotel: Wesley Anne, Northcote Dany Maia: Wesley Anne (Front Bar), Northcote The Council + Forklift Assassins + The Interceptors: Whole Lotta Love, Brunswick East

The Babe Rainbow + Bananagun + Parsnip: The Curtin, Carlton Checkerboard + Max Teakle & his Honky-Tonky Friends: Lomond Hotel, Brunswick East

Miss Whiskey: The Drunken Poet, West Melbourne

Miles & Simone: Major Tom’s, Kyneton

THE MUSIC • 2ND AUGUST 2017 • 45

Comedy / G The Guide

Jeffers Limit + Erin Will Be Mad + Lewis Coleman: Yarra Hotel, Abbotsford

Sat 05

Autumn Mary + Grace King + The Mercy Hour + Four in the Morning: 303, Northcote

Warped + The Chops: Gin Lane, Belgrave Maureen + Bitch Prefect + Hachiku + Bloody Hell + Liz Mitchell: Grace Darling Hotel, Collingwood Motley + Lady Lash + Krown + Avii + Outsiders + Von Voddy:

The Moonee Valley Drifters: Retreat Hotel (Front Bar), Brunswick

Thug Mills + Bitumen: The Post Office Hotel, Coburg

1st Birthday feat. Raw Brit: Satellite Lounge, Wheelers Hill

Death Grips: The Prince, St Kilda

Tomato Tomato: Spotted Mallard, Brunswick

Brendan Welch + Freya Hollick + Jemma Rowlands: The Toff In Town, Melbourne

Stokavski: Bar Open, Fitzroy

Brewtality 2017 feat. Blood Duster + Buffalo Revisited + IN:EXTREMIS + Vicious Circle + The Ruiner + Battletruk + Seedy Jeezus + Hadal Maw + Hobo Magic + Blunt Shovel + Join The Amish + Coffin Wolf + Cosmic Kahuna + The Archaic Revival + Stabbitha & The Knifey Wifeys + Malcura + Smoke Witch + more: The Tote, Collingwood

The Willie Wagtails: Bar Open (Front Bar), Fitzroy

Localles + Press Club Band + Amir: The Workers Club, Fitzroy

Nestor Torres: Bird’s Basement, Melbourne

Steve Smyth: The Workers Club Geelong, Geelong

The Electric Blues Collective: Catfish (Front Bar), Fitzroy

The Peep Tempel + Gold Class + RVG: Theatre Royal, Castlemaine

The Melbourne Guitar Show feat. Matty T Wall: Caulfield Racecourse, Caulfield North

Greenville + Fingerbone Bill: Union Hotel, Brunswick

Georgia Fields + Phia: Baby Black Cafe, Bacchus Marsh

Localles

Ras Jahknow + Revolution Incorporated: Baha Tacos, Rye

Zombie Motors Wrecking Yard + Pegbucket + O.D. Tommy Dogs: Cherry Bar, Melbourne

Miles Recommends

Balajo: Wesley Anne, Northcote

Keep It Localles

Shane Nicholson: Wonthaggi Workmans Club, Wonthaggi

Localles are taking their grunge pop on the road to promote the release of their EP, Not A Contender. The five-piece will be blasting through the speakers this Saturday at The Workers Club.

Josh Pyke + Kyle Lionhart: Wool Exchange, Geelong Dear Seattle: Yah Yah’s, Fitzroy Amiko + Anti-Violet + Wasterr + Wives: Yarra Hotel, Abbotsford

Horse Bazaar, Melbourne Fountaineer: Hotel Shamrock, Bendigo Dean Lewis + PLGRMS + Mt Warning: Howler, Brunswick

A 1000 Miles Miles Recommends, aka Melburnians Des Atkinson and Lou Cadell, will be bringing their own brand of indie folk-rock to Bar Open this Wednesday. Jess Parker & The Troubled Waters and Thongbirds will be supporting, so make a night of it!

Jack Druce: Club Voltaire, North Melbourne NQR + Ekranoplans + Grups: Coburg RSL, Coburg Crooked Colours + Muto: Corner Hotel, Richmond Green House + Mona Bay + Three Wise Monkeys: Ding Dong Lounge, Melbourne Slaves + Awaken I Am: Evelyn Hotel, Fitzroy Summer of Love 50th Anniversary with The Substitutes: Flying Saucer Club, Elsternwick

46 • THE MUSIC • 2ND AUGUST 2017

The Jim Cuomo Trio: Jambo Bar & Cafe, Footscray

Hanksaw: Surabaya Johnny’s, St Kilda Zen Robotic + Leipzig Lab + Peter Nigido + Swansea Hit & Run + more: Tago Mago, Thornbury

Winfield: Karova Lounge, Ballarat

Brewtality 2017 feat. Buffalo + Blood Duster + Desecrator + Dreadnaught + Internal Nightmare + more: The Bendigo, Collingwood

Pete Murray + Ben Wright Smith: Lighthouse Theatre, Warrnambool

Afternoon Show with Black & Blue: The Brunswick Hotel, Brunswick

Sammy Owen Blues Band: Lomond Hotel, Brunswick East

China Beach + Children Of The Sun + The Lovely Days + The Burbs: The Brunswick Hotel, Brunswick

Ill Nino + Terror Universal: Max Watt’s, Melbourne

Hollow Everdaze: The Curtin, Carlton

The Teskey Brothers: Meeniyan Town Hall, Meeniyan

The B Benders + Stephen Kennedy: The Drunken Poet, West Melbourne

Renee Geyer + Bonnie Anderson: Memo Music Hall, St Kilda

La Bastard + The Sugarcanes + Baby Blue + Spiral Perm: The Gasometer Hotel, Collingwood

Black Betty + Sheeza Goer + Man City Sirens: Mr Boogie Man Bar, Abbotsford Bootleg Rascal: Northcote Social Club, Northcote Charm of Finches + William Alexander: Old Church On The Hill, Bendigo Genesis Revisited with Steve Hackett: Palais Theatre, St Kilda The Montgomery Brothers: Rainbow Hotel, Fitzroy Picture Perfect + Busy Kingdom + Dole Cheque: Retreat Hotel, Brunswick

Cascades + Goodbye Enemy Airship + Dim Unit: The Gasometer Hotel (Upstairs), Collingwood Nucleust: The Loft, Warrnambool Laura Palmer + The Cutaways + Joe Guiton & The Suicide Tuesdays + Body Parts + Caveman Disco: The Old Bar, Fitzroy Afternoon Show with Naked Waste + The Lowdowns: The Old Bar, Fitzroy James Reyne + Ollie Brown: The Palms at Crown, Southbank

Kisstroyer + Sisters Doll + War Pigs: York on Lilydale, Mt Evelyn

Morning Morning

Noon & Night Jack Robbins and Almo Troup of Morning Morning are bringing their shenanigans to The Tote this Wednesday, marking the beginning of their residency. For their first week, Morning Morning welcome Plastic and The Democratic People’s Republic Of Surf to the stage.

Gigs / Live The Guide

Sun 06

Steve Hackett: 170 Russell, Melbourne Jess De Luca: 303, Northcote

Jazz High Tea with Nostalgique: Arts Centre Melbourne, Melbourne Australian Chamber Orchestra: Arts Centre Melbourne, Melbourne Adam Simmons’ Origami: Bar Open (Front Bar), Fitzroy

Dean Lewis + PLGRMS + Mt Warning: Howler, Brunswick

Dr Crask & His Swingin’ Elixir Band: Junktion, Kew

Matty T Wall: Labour In Vain, Fitzroy Moreland City Soul Revue: Lomond Hotel, Brunswick East Minus The Bear + Fan Girl: Max Watt’s, Melbourne

Coast Busters + Will Coyote & the Blacklights + Holly Joyce + Closet Straights: The Old Bar, Fitzroy

Afternoon Show with Time Robb + Palm Springs: The Old Bar, Fitzroy Damon Smith: The Post Office Hotel, Coburg

Kayboku + Groze + DJ Myxamatosis: Horse Bazaar, Melbourne Julia Johnson + James Fahy: Open Studio, Northcote

Charles Jenkins: Retreat Hotel, Brunswick Jazz Jam Sessions: Wesley Anne, Northcote

Death Grips: The Prince, St Kilda White Vans + Pale Heads + Rathead: The Tote (Front Bar), Collingwood

Tammy Haider

Matt Katsis: The Westernport Hotel, Phillip Island Jack Ladder

Lostkeyz + Blyolk + Kirklandd + Boy Graduate: The Workers Club, Fitzroy Matinee Show with The Story Model + Zak Fleisher Band + Youth in Asia + The Magic Marshmallows: The Workers Club, Fitzroy Gypsy Fire feat. Matthew Fagan + Romana Geermans: Trinity Brighton Uniting Church, Brighton The T-Bones + Chris Wilson: Union Hotel, Brunswick Hollow Heart + Oceans To Athena + Frontier Season: Wrangler Studios, West Footscray Louis Valentine + Team Love + Kev Walsh: Yarra Hotel, Abbotsford

Climbing The Rungs Jack Ladder and his trusty band The Dreamlanders are heading Melbourne’s way following the release of their new single, Susan. Ladder will be showcasing the new music at Howler this Friday.

Mon 07

Jam With Tam Dream pop singer-songwriter Tammy Haider is jumping into a mini-residency this Thursday, the first of two nights over two weeks. Haider will be playing some tunes off her upcoming album (as well as some oldies) at Wesley Anne.

Jam Night with Yarra Banks: 303, Northcote

Tue 08

Australian Chamber Orchestra: Arts Centre Melbourne, Melbourne

Make It Up Club feat. Koukatsuani + Emah Fox + Makeda: Bar Open, Fitzroy Jobim played by Joe Chindamo: Bird’s Basement, Melbourne

Kardinal + Kumar Shome & The Punkawallahs: Bar Open, Fitzroy

Matinee Show with Georgia Fields + Phia: Old Castlemaine Gaol, Castlemaine

Slutfest feat. Oh Deanna + Lazertits + Emah Fox + Face Face + The Second Sex + The Girl Fridas + more: Bella Union, Carlton South

Miss Whiskey: Rainbow Hotel, Fitzroy

Uncomfortable Science with Lachlan Mitchell: Boney, Melbourne

Afternoon Show with Ten Gallon Head: Retreat Hotel, Brunswick

Sandy Hsu + Chitra Ridwan + Dear Matilda + Tali Mahoney: Evelyn Hotel, Fitzroy

Drunken Kong: Brown Alley, Melbourne

Whiskey Dram + Victor Cripes: Reverence Hotel, Footscray

Matty T Wall: Flemington & Kensington Bowling Club, Flemington

The Wendy Stapleton Trio: Royal Oak Hotel, Fitzroy North

Jerry Seinfeld: Hisense Arena, Melbourne

Tomato Tomato: Caravan Music Club, Oakleigh The Johnny Can’t Dance Cajun Band: Catfish, Fitzroy

Lost Ragas: Spotted Mallard, Brunswick

Cherry Blues with The Three Kings + DJ Max Crawdaddy: Cherry Bar (2pm), Melbourne

Afternoon Show with The Delvenes + Hannah Francis & The Fake News + OhSoSoho: The Brunswick Hotel, Brunswick

Dave + Baker’s Eddy: Cherry Bar, Melbourne The B# Big Band: Copacabana, Fitzroy Crooked Colours + Muto: Corner Hotel, Richmond Slaves + Awaken I Am: Evelyn Hotel, Fitzroy A Man Called Son + One Way Radio: Evelyn Hotel, Fitzroy Jerry Seinfeld: Hisense Arena, Melbourne

Cash + Picture Perfect + Bear Kick: The Brunswick Hotel, Brunswick Kevin Falkenberg + The Stetson Family: The Drunken Poet, West Melbourne

Steve Smyth

Last Exit To Melbourne Seemingly on a never-ending European tour, Steve Smyth is taking a quick breather and sneaking down to The Workers Club to pump out tunes new and old. Bask in the Sydney native’s bearded glory this Friday.

Mitch Power + Friends: Retreat Hotel, Brunswick Vera Blue + Thandi Phoenix: Tap House, Bendigo OXJam feat. Miles Recommends + Jess Parker &The Troubled Waters + Thongbirds: The Brunswick Hotel, Brunswick Teeth & Tongue: The Old Bar, Fitzroy

Shag Rock + Sleeping Lessons + The Hemusans: The Gasometer Hotel (Upstairs), Collingwood So Freshtival with Dr Phil Smith + Flex Mami + more: The Gasometer Hotel, Collingwood

The Jim Cuomo Trio: Bar Oussou, Brunswick Diamonds Of Neptune + GOD$: Evelyn Hotel, Fitzroy

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