The Music (Melbourne) Issue #202 by TheMusic.com.au

16.08.17 Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture

Issue

202

Melbourne / Free / Incorporating

“Stand up for the thing that you wanna stand up for.”

TOUR: SARAH MCLEOD

THEATRE: PUSSY RIOT

TOUR: SPIRITUALIZED

2 • THE MUSIC • 16TH AUGUST 2017

THE MUSIC • 16TH AUGUST 2017 • 3

A D R I A N B O H M P R E S E N TS

FROM

community

STRALIA FOR THE FIRST TIME IN AU

the soup

and

JOEL MCHALE

THE MAN WHO INSPIRED

tue 12 september COMEDY THEATRE

THE FILM ‘VAN WILDER’

THU 14 SEPTEMBER COMEDY THEATRE BERTBERTBERT.COM

joelmchale.com

‘A MUST-SEE ACT’ - Daily Mirror ‘BRITAIN’S BEST STAND UP’ - The Sun

STAR OF:

FLIGHT OF THE CONCHORDS HUNT FOR THE WILDERPEOPLE WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS WRECKED

21 & 22 AUGUST comedy theatre rhysdarby.com

2ND SHOW ADDED DUE TO POP

ULA R DEM AND !

TUE 19 SEPTEMBER hamer hall WED 20 SEPTEMBER comedy theatre KEVINBRIDGES.CO.UK

BOOK AT ABPRESENTS.COM.AU

4 • THE MUSIC • 16TH AUGUST 2017

2ND & FINA L SHOW ADDED

250 High st, Northcote Hill 94

Wesley Anne

Bar, Restaurant, Etc.

Thu 17 August

Fri 18 August

Sat 19 August

Sun 20 August

Dirty Lopez and his Sax Mambo

The Jack Earle Big Band

6pm free front bar

$15 // $10 conc 2pm

Anna Smyrk Trio

Losumo

6pm free front bar

Citronella Candles

Co-Ground Folk Show #2 8pm $15

Samassin

8pm $5 band room

6pm free front bar

WEDNESDAYS

TRIVIA with SPARKS 7.30pm

Thursday 24 August

Friday 25 August

Saturday 26 August

Sunday 27 August

Anna Smyrk Trio 6pm free front bar

Losumo 6pm free front bar

Dirty Lopez & his Sax Mambo 6pm free front bar

Unpainted Prospects 4pm $7

Carpenter Caswell + Katie Brianna + The Weeping Willows 8pm $20 (Album Launch)

Samassin 6pm free front bar

$15 Jugs of Coburg Lager Mon - Fri before 6pm

Open from 2pm Mon - Thu, 12pm Fri - Sun 250 High st, Northcote Hill / wesleyanne.com.au /9482 1333 THE

EDINBURGH C AHS TLE OT E L

FREE

ST THU 17 AUGU

IVAN ZAR

WEDNESDAYS

M R S S M I T H T R I V I A , 8PM

6.30PM

ST FRI 18 AUGU

PUB BINGO WITH TREV & SPARKS 7PM

BEER O’CLOCK PAY THE TIME FOR PINTS BETWEEN

6PM-9.59PM

DJ MARNI LA ROCCA

FREE

ST SAT 19 AUGU

GRUMPY FREE UR IGHS &BO NECHIP SALAD DJ’S

MONDAYS

ROO &WINE 14 $

.99

TUESDAYS

$12 BURGERS $12 PIE NIGHT

WEDNESDAYS

THURSDAYS

$12 PARMA

$15 COBURG LAGER JUGS BEFORE 6PM

27 WESTON ST, BRUNSWICK MON-THU 3PM TO LATE

FRI-SUN NOON TO LATE

PLAZZA

W/ THE NEW PIGFACE STRINGBAND

7.30PM FREE

FRIDAY 18 AUGUST

B OA DZ 6PM FREE

DJ D E A D S E T SATURDAY 19 AUGUST

9PM

CHARLES WESTON HOTEL@GMAIL.COM OR GIVE US A BELL ON 9380 8777

Pizza & Bar

THURSDAY 17 AUGUST

9PM FREE BEER GARDEN

6.30PM

JAMES FRANKLIN 5PM FREE

DJ ERNIE DEE 9PM FREE BEER GARDEN SUNDAY 20 AUGUST

BONEY MONSTAR & SPECIAL GUESTS 4PM FREE

MONDAYS ROO & WINE $14.99

WEDNESDAYS $12 PIE NIGHT

TUESDAYS $12 BURGERS

THURSDAYS P OT & PA R M A - $ 1 5

zaight Mondays David Bramble plays the grand 7pm Tuesdays Piano Karaoke w/ Lisa Crawley 7.30pm Wednesdays Open Grand Night 7.30pm Thursdays Trivia with Conor 7.30pm free Friday 18th August Neeko 7pm free Saturday 19th August Kunataki 7.30pm free Sunday 20th August All Day Fritz 4pm free

$ 1 5 J U G S O F CO B U R G L AG E R M O N - F R I B E F O R E 6 P M

L I V E DJ ’ S

W E E K LY

319 Lygon st East Brunswick

9387 6779

681 SYDNEY RD. BRUNSWICK, (03)9386 7580 WWW.EDINBURGHCASTLE.NET.AU

THE MUSIC • 16TH AUGUST 2017 • 5

Music / Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture

Wash Wish

Think Pink

Washington

Not only has Washington just announced an Aussie tour, she’ll also be joined by some of the country’s leading symphony orchestras for the shows, which kick off in September at the Sydney Opera House.

Cult-favourite US muso Ariel Pink will return to Australia this November for a four-date tour in support of his upcoming album, Dedicated To Bobby Jameson, out 15 Sep.

Lastlings

Last Urges Following up the sold-out national run for debut LP, Versus, Lastlings have dropped a new video for Urges and announced an east coast tour. The pair will play four dates through September and October.

ME: sure, but how often do you come across a good peephole? HER: I asked if you were a “people” person ME: ohhh... definitely not @_ElvishPresley_

6 • THE MUSIC • 16TH AUGUST 2017

Something For Kate

Something From Kate Something For Kate have announced a string of dates as part of their spring tour 2017. These are the first Australian club shows for the band in over four years.

Ariel Pink

Arts / Li Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture

Credits

Publisher Street Press Australia Pty Ltd

Feist

Pleasure Cruise

Feist is returning to Australia with a full band in tow for her first shows in five years with an east coast tour in support of her new album Pleasure. She’s here in November and December.

Group Managing Editor Andrew Mast

National Editor – Magazines Mark Neilsen Editor Bryget Chrisfield

Arts & Culture Editor Maxim Boon

Gig Guide Justine Lynch gigs@themusic.com.au Editorial Assistant Sam Wall, Jessica Dale Senior Contributor Jeff Jenkins

Contributors Bradley Armstrong, Annelise Ball, Emma Breheny, Sean Capel, Luke Carter, Anthony Carew, Uppy Chatterjee, Daniel Cribb, Cyclone, Guy Davis, Joe Dolan, Dave Drayton, Guido Farnell, Tim Finney, Bob Baker Fish, Cameron Grace, Neil Griffiths, Kate Kingsmill, Tim Kroenert, Chris Maric, Fred Negro, Obliveus, Paz, Natasha Pinto, Sarah Petchell, Michael Prebeg, Paul Ransom, Dylan Stewart, Rod Whitfield Senior Photographer Kane Hibberd Photographers Andrew Briscoe, Cole Bennetts, Jay Hynes, Lucinda Goodwin

Get The D

The Defenders

It’s finally happening, Netflix’s roster of superheroes are joining forces under The Defenders banner on the streaming service this Friday. Tune in to see Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Iron Fist bust ninja heads together.

Advertising Dept Leigh Treweek, Antony Attridge, Brad Summers sales@themusic.com.au Art Dept Ben Nicol, Felicity Case-Mejia vic.art@themusic.com.au Admin & Accounts Loretta Zoppos, Ajaz Durrani, Meg Burnham, Bella Bi accounts@themusic.com.au Distro distro@themusic.com.au Subscriptions store@themusic.com.au Contact Us Tel 03 9421 4499

Dweezil Zappa

Fax 03 9421 1011 info@themusic.com.au www.themusic.com.au 459-461 Victoria Street Brunswick West Vic 3055 PO Box 231 Brunswick West Vic 3055

— Melbourne

Big Z Dweezil Zappa, son of the legendary Frank Zappa, has announced he will be celebrating 50 years of Frank with a series of national concerts and guitar masterclasses come February. THE MUSIC • 16TH AUGUST 2017 • 7

Music / Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture

These Boots Are Made For Touring

Ruby Boots

Perth singer-songwriter Ruby Boots keeps going from strength to strength, signing with Chicago-based label Bloodshot Records off the back of her European and UK tour. To celebrate, she’s announced headline shows late September through October.

Noname

$122 MILLION

The exorbitant cost of the planned voluntary postal plebiscite on samesex marriage.

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

Be Mere Or Be Square Meredith’s 27th edition will again take place at the Supernatural Amphitheatre from 8 - 10 Dec, and they’ve confirmed a massive 2017 line-up including Noname and ESG, as well as Total Control, !!!, Future Islands, Warpaint and more.

Tim Wheatley

Wheat As Tim Wheatley is heading back to Australia to release his second album Pillar To Post. As well as playing the Gympie Music Muster the alt folk troubadour will play two headline shows in September.

8 • THE MUSIC • 16TH AUGUST 2017

Arts / Li Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture

[ Formerly The Hi- Fi Bar ]

Think Big

The Big Design Market

The Big Design Market is back again this 1 - 3 Dec at the Royal Exhibition Building, with a massive line-up of over 230 designers and taste-makers showcasing their wares this year as well as art installations and creative workshops.

FRI 18 AUG

SMELLS LIKE THE 90’S w. THE PEARL JAM EXPERIENCE + MORE

SAT 19 AUG

THAITANIUM SAT 26 AUG

RICHIE KOTZEN SALTING THE EARTH TOUR

FRI 01 SEP

PEVEN EVERETT USA - LIVE

ScHoolboy Q

SAT 02 SEP

NZBZ

TUE 12 SEP

MEW

THU 14 SEP

ARCTURUS NOR

BLOOD INCANTATION USA

SAT 16 SEP

MAKE THEM SUFFER FRI 22 SEP

AMPON LAMPOON SAT 23 SEP

TEEN VIBES FT. IN STEREO & FAYDEE SAT 30 SEP

CALIGULA’S HORSE

Class Act

TUE 10 OCT

NAPALM DEATH, BRUJERIA, LOCKUP & BLACK RHENO

The full first line-up announce is set to drop soon, but NYE party Beyond The Valley have got the ball well and truly rolling by revealing the first international act for their 2017 edition - ScHoolboy Q.

FRI 27 OCT

MAMMAL SAT 28 OCT

THE ULTIMATE MICHAEL JACKSON EXPERIENCE WED 08 NOV - SOLD OUT

THE MELVINS FRI 10 NOV

MONO

SAT 18 NOV

GZA - THE GENIUS USA - ( WU TANG)

FRI 24 NOV

MISS MAY I

Fringe Festival Drops

“THE SHADOW INSIDE” AUSTRALIAN TOUR

SAT 25 NOV

BABY ANIMALS

Lady Bunny

Australia’s largest independent arts festival, Melbourne Fringe, has unveiled its program, led by drag icon Lady Bunny, Community star Joel McHale and Australia’s adopted son Arj Barker.

SUN 26 NOV

BLACKBEAR SAT 09 DEC

THE HARD ROCK SHOW EXTRAVAGANZA with special guests ELECTRIC MARY & TERAMAZE

TIX + INFO

MA X WATTS.COM.AU 1300 843 443

125 SWANSTON ST, MELBOURNE

THE MUSIC • 16TH AUGUST 2017 • 9

“P

Music

MARCHING TO A D I F F E R E N T B E AT One half of Gold Class, Adam Curley and Evan James Purdey, sit down with Bryget Chrisfield to discuss their rapid career trajectory from a gig debut that resulted in one member getting shingles to gracing the stage at this year’s Primavera Sound. Cover and feature pics by Kane Hibberd.

10 • THE MUSIC • 16TH AUGUST 2017

rimavera, we’re fucking excited,” Gold Class lead singer Adam Curley announces from an outdoor stage at Centre de Cultura Contemporania de Barcelona (CCCB). It’s 3.10pm and the band’s showcase is part of this year’s Aussie BBQ. Even though the energy of Gold Class is better suited to nocturnal time slots in dingy, basement clubs, they well and truly find their groove and this set proves a fantastic advertisement for the band’s Primavera Sound show at midnight (which clashes with Slayer and Death Grips). Fast forward a month or so and Curley sits on an outside table at The Cherry Tree Hotel in Cremorne together with the band’s guitarist Evan James Purdey. The pair sip on water and beer respectively ahead of a busy day posing at multiple photo shoots around Melbourne (first on the agenda: The Music’s cover shoot). One of this scribe’s favourite tracks on the new Gold Class album is We Were Never Too Much, which conjures up regrets over things left unspoken to departed loved ones. “That’s fair,” Curley ponders, before enlightening, “That’s kind of about the end of the relationship that happened right at the beginning of writing the album and it was, you know, not the easiest end to a relationship, I guess. And I think it’s very easy - particularly if you’re someone who is self-conscious of how you respond to things, because you’re made to feel growing up as though you’re being too much, which I think relates to a lot of people, like, not just queer people; that your response to something is too much, too dramatic or too emotional... And I think it was just kind of going back and wanting to say to someone like, ‘We weren’t too much, even though things were hard and really intense’.” When asked whether he finds songwriting therapeutic, Curley allows, “It definitely helps me get my head around stuff,” before admitting, “I sort of hate the idea that you get up on stage and that’s like your therapy session for the day, you know? [laughs]. But I don’t think it even works like that, I dunno; if someone is feeling like they’re getting therapy out of playing a show then I’d like to know how that works.” “l think of it in terms of, like, energy release and not necessarily a mental health session,” Purdey contributes, “but certainly it’s something about an energy catharsis.” “Yeah, man, you play guitar that’s more your thing,” Curley jokes, stressing, “No, I’m just kidding.” Curley, Purdey and Gold Class’s bassist Jon Shub all worked together at The Old Bar, a live music venue in Fitzroy. “I didn’t know Mark [then],” Curley admits of the original Gold Class drummer who wrote and played drums on the band’s second album,

Drum, before new drummer Logan Gibson was trained up for their recent European dates. Purdey contributes. “Even just getting together in the first place, like, there wasn’t even a sense that we could write a song until, you know, kind of two hours later where it was like, ‘Oh, okay, we do click musically’.” So where was Gold Class’s first gig? “The Public Bar. It was part of the Sunday School shows that were happening there, which was pretty cool. So, you know, I think we played with, like, Ciggie Witch maybe?” “I think I went to work straight after the show,” Curley tells. With a little bit of a spring in his step, no doubt? “With having had a panic attack,” he counters, laughing. “A massive, long panic attack onstage. It was like, ‘Cool! Now I feel exhausted and I’ve gotta go to work’.” Curley downplays it a little here, but we revisit the anxiety he felt during that first Gold Class gig later in our chat and the singer confesses he “went to the doctor the next day and had shingles”. But Curley admits “it feels completely different” fronting Gold Class nowadays. “I do feel now like I can imagine what I want a show to be like and work towards making it like that, you know, almost in a way that there’s a sense of control there, I s’pose. Whereas, before, I felt completely at the mercy of people watching and being in the mess of the noise and, you know, also just

being at the mercy of my own kind of feelings around being in front of people... If you have to get up in front of people, it actually intensifies however you’re feeling, tenfold.” On the band’s decision to play more than just the one gig, Purdey offers, “I enjoyed writing with these guys, so that was the big part... As difficult as it can be kinda feeling reserved about communicating an idea to other people; just because you feel awkward, or not sure how it would be received... ultimately it’s rewarding each time.” “You might not realise yourself that sometimes your flaws, or what made you feel exposed onstage, made it good,” Curley muses. “I think that was, like - with the recording, and recording with Gaz - almost part of it,” Curley reflects on the band’s choice of Gareth Liddiard to produce album number two. “Wanting someone who was a strong enough voice who we really respected to be able to say, ‘That take was good, leave it alone,’ you know? Or if you wanna go back and play it perfectly note for note, when actually what you did when it wasn’t perfect was better.” On their debut It’s You set, Gold Class worked with Simon Grounds “more in an engineering sense”, Curley tells. Of Gold Class’s songwriting approach, the guitarist admits, “It’s a process; every song’s its own little encapsulated challenge. So you’ll get to a point where everybody’s just staring at each other, or staring at the floor, or just, like, looking pretty despondent. But then, you know, you get that kind of breakthrough.” There’s a line in Drum’s closer, Lux, which suggests coming to terms with the person you once were: “I no longer answer to the past.” Curley confirms, “Completely... And I think that a lot of the album is about coming to terms with the past and trying to do something with that so that you can become the thing that you wanna become, stand up for the thing that you wanna stand up for, and also just live your life in the way that you wanna live it.” He then points out: “Writing is definitely personal and [about] exploring personal ideas, and feelings, but [it’s] more about then constructing it in a way that is interesting and tells a story, and conveys something else - not just my stuff. It isn’t self-indulgent and I think you can tell when people are being self-indulgent, because usually they don’t have anything to say that’s interesting. And then you have to listen to them sing about, I dunno, their relationships.” Curley suddenly remembers our earlier discussion about the Gold Class song We Were Never Too Much and laughs hysterically, “I shouldn’t say that, because it’s exactly what I’m doing! I’m gonna stop talking now.”

You’re made to feel growing up as though you’re being too much, which I think relates to a lot of people, like, not just queer people; that your response to something is too much, too dramatic or too emotional or... too much of something.

What: Drum (Barely Dressed/Remote Control) When & Where: 30 Dec - 1 Jan, NYE On The Hill, Loch Village

LARGER THAN LIFE When internationally famous music fan Jeffrey “Big Jeff” Johns from Bristol turns up front and centre at multiple shows, you know you’re going places. “How amazing is Big Jeff!?” Gold Class lead singer Adam Curley extols. “He was in Bristol when we first played Simple Things Festival.” Guitarist Evan James Purdey elaborates, “Yeah, which was at one [o’clock] in the afternoon or something and the sun was up, and everyone was really confused as to why we were there. And then there was this, like, enormous man in the front of the room and it was like, ‘Holy shit!’ And that ended up being a great show, like, that was the first show we’d played in that tour.” Curley says Big Jeff’s reputation preceded him, because “other bands in England” told Gold Class about him: “So it was actually kind of amazing to be like, ‘I think that’s Big Jeff!’” The legendary gig addict has been a fixture at Gold Class shows ever since and Curley marvels, “And he even apologised at some point, he was like, ‘I have to go and see another band, so I’m sorry I’m gonna miss your set later,’ and it was straight after watching us play! It was like, ‘It’s ok, we know you have to see other bands as well’. “He wasn’t at the Bristol show on the last tour, so we were a bit sad about it. And then we went to Brighton the next day and he was at The Great Escape!” Curley laughs. “So that’s why he wasn’t at the Bristol show. And then he was right at the front of the Brighton show.” THE MUSIC • 16TH AUGUST 2017 • 11

Music

Rocky Road Iconic Aussie rocker Sarah McLeod explains to Rod Whitfield that itchy feet have led her to kiss a lot of frogs (musically speaking).

nyone who’s followed the career of firebrand Aussie rocker Sarah McLeod, from the mighty Superjesus, through the sojourn with Screaming Bikini, duets with Jeff Martin from The Tea Party, dalliances with electronic music and the various iterations of her solo career, would have noticed that she loves to shake things up, step out into left field on a regular basis and keep things interesting. For herself and her audience. And this is very much set to continue, with the release of her new solo rock record Rocky’s Diner and subsequent tour, which she is doing strictly as a twopiece. She is taking a drummer out on the road with her,

I jump a lot between musical styles. I get bored really quickly.

and doing everything else, guitar, bass, vocals, samples, herself. All at once. It’s a big responsibility and will require much concentration on her part, and she admits to feeling a little toey about it all as the tour gets closer. “I’m excited, and a bit nervous, because it’s a whole different set-up and a whole different way of playing than I’ve ever done in my life before,” she says, while walking her dog in a Sydney park. “I’m trying something totally new, and I know it works because I’ve done it in the rehearsal room and recorded a whole bunch of songs live in the studio, but we’ve never actually played it in front of anyone. “So until the first gig’s out of the way, I’m probably going to feel a little bit jumpy, but it’s exciting because it’s

12 • THE MUSIC • 16TH AUGUST 2017

different, and that’s what’s making me scared! One gig in and I’ll be like ‘yeah, cool!’” So how does it work, and does it take much solo practice on your part? “Oh my god yes!” McLeod says without hesitation, “and normally I hate practising by myself, but I must. The bottom two strings are playing the bass but I’m still able to play the rest of the guitar, play all the majors and minors and all the clean fiddly bits, but still hold down the bass. It’s a bit of a handful. It’s kinda got this ‘60s vibe to the songs, a ‘60s Motown feel, but it’s delivered with this really heavy twist. It’s really cool, but it’s weird.” Ultimately, the enthusiasm for this coming album and tour is veritably flowing out of her. “I’m more excited to play this show than any other show I’ve put together, ever in my life. I just want people to come and see it, tell me what they think and experience it with me.” McLeod realises that the multi-faceted nature of her projects and musical direction may have been an issue for some over the 20-plus years of her career and, looking back, simply puts it down to a short attention span and a proneness to boredom. “I think that there were things that I could have done better,” she admits, “there were years that I lost with a sea of confusion, because I jump a lot between musical styles. I get bored really quickly. In hindsight, it’s probably better to stick with one thing and just get really good at it, but I can’t help myself. I go off on tangents and I waste years doing different kinds of things in different countries, just because I get itchy feet. My brain is constantly searching for musical fulfilment, so I kiss a lot of frogs, so to speak.” She feels confident that those days may be in the past now, however. “I think I’m through with that now, I think I’m back to focusing again, I’m good. I’ve got that all out of my system.” So much so that she already has one eye set on the next step for this new project. “I feel comfortable in where I can take the next record,” she says, “I’ve already got the next record planned, I know exactly what it should sound like, I know what new influences are going to come in to take it to the next level. Whereas before I was just flying song by song. But now I’ve got a plan, and I feel it’s easier to control me!” She laughs. Fans will be ecstatic to learn that McLeod’s original, and probably still best known musical project, is now firmly back in her medium to long-term plans alongside her newest incarnation. “The Superjesus are really feeling comfortable again for me now, and we’ve started writing some new songs. So there’ll be a new Superjesus album, and I think I’m just going to stick with these two projects, and beware of the moon. And I’ll be just fine!” McLeod laughs again. So don’t expect a new Superjesus album to drop tomorrow, but it is most definitely on its way. “Yeah, we’re hoping to get it out by the end of next year.”

What: Rocky’s Diner (Kobalt) When & Where: 23 Aug, The Workers Club; 25 Oct, Pier Bandroom, Frankston; 26 Oct, Sooki Lounge, Belgrave; 27 Oct, Karova Lounge, Ballarat

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PLUS HE A PS MORE AT W W W.NORTHCOTESOCIA LCLUB.COM THE MUSIC • 16TH AUGUST 2017 • 13

Music

Grin And Bear It Grizzly Bear’s Daniel Rossen has a chat to Anthony Carew about the way the music game has changed since their last release.

n a recent interview with Vulture, Trent Reznor opined “when I hear Grizzly Bear in a Volkswagen commercial, it kind of bums me out”, this a symptom of the increasing corporatisation of music. “I understand where he’s coming from,” says Grizzly Bear guitarist and vocalist Daniel Rossen, 35. “It is a little sad that that’s such a reality for so many bands, that it’s one sure way to get a cheque. I feel that, as long as it’s not the most evil corporate empire in the world, then that can be a way for bands like us — who don’t make particularly poppy music — to fund our ability to

We’re not trying to make music for Spotify playlists; I don’t give a shit about that. house and write and record as much as possible, but he found himself feeling like much of his time was spent “beating back the weeds, keeping the wilderness at bay”. And with an “infinite” amount of time to write, Rossen felt as if he lacked something to push against. “Being all by yourself, you can do anything, but that can mean you just do nothing; it’s like you’re paralysed by possibility, and every day can be an existential crisis.” Getting back together in 2016, the band decided if they were going to write together, they’d really write together; their fifth LP, Painted Ruins, finds Grizzy Bear’s most collaborative songs. The record, to Rossen “feels like a rebirth, like a new, somewhat unexpected chapter”, in a band where “you never know if the future is promised”. Coming five years on from Shields, it arrives in a distinctly different climate of music consumption. “Clearly, now, people don’t think of music in an album format,” Rossen offers. “You have to make the thing so that it stands out in a playlist, rather than making a collection of songs to fit into a body-of-work that is your own and is existing in its own world. We’re still trying to make records that way, and we may run up against a bit of a wall because of that. We’re not trying to make music for Spotify playlists; I don’t give a shit about that, and I can’t imagine ever giving a shit about that. I don’t know what that’s going to mean for us in the long run. We’ll see.”

What: Painted Ruins (RCA/Sony)

keep making interesting music. That feels like an okay kind of trade-off. But, I don’t like selling our music for products. I don’t like thinking of our music as a product. That comes up all the time, whether you’re talking about licensing or not. Everything turns into this mad hustle to try and get people to pay attention to you&#133; You end up either touring like crazy, and playing a ton of shows — which can be fun, but is totally exhausting — or you end up licensing your music.” Touring like crazy was what Grizzly Bear did after 2012’s Shields, which led to a lengthy hiatus. Rossen, who had spent his whole life living in Los Angeles and New York City, moved to upstate New York with his wife. The dream was to build a studio in a country 14 • THE MUSIC • 16TH AUGUST 2017

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Frontlash

Music

Brotherly Love When all of the music industry top dogs assemble in one place, you just know that a band is going places. And such was the case for The Teskey Brothers’ fourth soldout show at Corner Hotel last week.

Progressing Nicely

Easy As AB Original AB Original are continuing their hot streak at the moment, earning themselves another couple of gongs, this time at the National Indigenous Music Awards.

Tim Minchin

Lashes

Absolutely flays the postal plebiscite on marriage equality with political satire I Still Call Australia Home(ophobic).

James Norbert Ivanyi shares with Rod Whitfield how the reputation of Australian progressive instrumental is growing overseas.

AB Original

Backlash

Postal Plebiscite

I’m sure you’ve all seen the graphic floating around social media about what $122 million could buy instead of a nonbinding postal plebiscite on marriage equality. Of course we want marriage equality, but this is the wrong way to go.

Coalition Cowards With the whole dual citizenship kafuffle, you can see the different makes of the parties in Parliament. The Greens put their hand up, admit they stuffed up and quit. Liberals and Nationals’ first reaction meanwhile is to head straight for the High Court to challenge.

Trumped Himself For someone who probably deserves a permanent position in Backlash, Trump’s outdone himself this week for not only engaging in a nuclear pissing contest, but failing to condemn white supremacists.

16 • THE MUSIC • 16TH AUGUST 2017

ustralia now has a long and illustrious history in progressive rock and metal music, and in slightly more recent times has become a massive player in the instrumental progressive music scene, whether it be sleepmakeswaves, Plini, I Built The Sky, or Sydney guitar whiz James Norbert Ivanyi. Ivanyi is very excited about what is happening in this country with this style of music, and has felt an upswing of interest in the Aussie scene on his regular jaunts abroad. “Yeah, it’s totally cool, even just chatting to people at the festivals in different countries, they’re really aware of the wave of instrumental music coming out of Australia,” he enthuses, “and I’m really honoured to be a part of that.” He displays his own chops and songwriting prowess to great effect on his recently released EP, Denalavis, and tells us that the reaction to the release has been virtually nothing but positive. “The response has been amazing,” he states, “I haven’t seen any negative things said about it, which is always nice. It’s really gone beyond my expectations. Especially since I’m still feeling the water with these shorter three-track releases, but it’s generally been overwhelmingly well-received, so I couldn’t be happier.”

Ivanyi and his band are about to head on a run of live dates down the eastern seaboard and across to Adelaide, and he feels their recent dates overseas have really played them into good form for this run. “I feel great, I feel ready,” he says. “Obviously we were just in the UK, and we played really well, and had a great reception over there. As a band I think we’re playing and performing better than ever, so I really just can’t wait.” The tour promises an exciting but slightly scaled-back show in terms of personnel, which allows all instruments to breathe and be heard to their fullest extent. “We’re planning something a little different this tour,” he reveals, “we’re going out as a trio, which we trialled in the UK and it worked better than we thought it would. That’s because I really want to strip the sound back to my roots, I always grew up loving single guitar bands, and wanted to try that on this tour. “We’ll have a few guest appearances, different people jumping up on stage in different cities, and we’ll be playing music from all of my releases, and stuff we’ve never played in Australia before.” Ivanyi has punched out a number of shorter EP releases in recent times, and while he has really enjoyed the process of bringing out new music on a more regular basis, there could be something lengthier coming in the not too distant future. “I feel like it’s time to come back and do a fulllength,” he says. “The short ones are good because your audience can hear new music every year, and you can take brand new music on the road with you every time, but I think it’s time to get back to a full-length.”

What: Denalavis (Independent) When & Where: 19 Aug, The Workers Club

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THE MUSIC • 16TH AUGUST 2017 • 17

Woman’s World

Sydney artist OKENYO has been riding high since dropping her powerful new single, WOMAN’S WORLD, and she is backing it up with the release of the official music video. To celebrate, the songwriter has penned a tribute to the female acts inspire her most.

Music

Turning Japanese

Black Cab have created the soundtrack for a Japanese sci-fi film that doesn’t exist yet, Andrew Coates tells Rod Whitfield.

Missy Elliot “I found your Supa Dupa Fly record in my sister’s CD collection when I was 15 and I had no idea how much your strength and individual realness would stick with me right through my life. Strength and power and humour; you got it all and I think of you every time I write.”

Erykah “Thank you for your poetry, your vulnerability and strength. I found you when I was in high school and your truth hit me deep. Whenever I write I am always reminded by you to keep real, speak from the heart and take no shit. Head held high.”

Beyoncé “The busiest woman of all. I’ve loved you since your Destiny’s Child days, learnt all the harmonies as a little kid and now I watch you smash the glass ceiling like the true business woman you are. You’ve planned it, you’ve created it, you’ve made it happen. Big inspiration right there.” Find out who else makes OKENYO’s list at theMusic.com.au 18 • THE MUSIC • 16TH AUGUST 2017

n Melbourne-based dark/indie electronica outfit Black Cab’s new fifth full-length album Akira (which is also denoted with the symbol 明), cofounding member Andrew Coates enthuses, “It’s going to look beautiful, we’ve spent a lot of time on the artwork. We’re getting a thing called an obi strip, which is what those Japanese imports have; the little strip that comes on the vinyl. We’ve purposely done one of those, with the Japanese writing on it. We want people to think this release is some obscure soundtrack from Kyoto or somewhere.” The sound of the record is also strongly influenced by the land of the rising sun. “It’s a different type of album, it’s like a soundtrack of Japanese sci-fi film,” he says, “and we’ve never done a soundtrack before. This was an opportunity to do one, so now we have a soundtrack. Of course, the movie hasn’t actually been made! But we won’t let that get in the way of putting out a soundtrack,” he laughs. When asked whether his band actually intends to make a film around this ‘soundtrack’, Coates offers, “The budget that we have is probably not going to stretch that far [laughs]. If someone wants to produce a Japanese-speaking anime movie around our music, we’d be thrilled!”

Originally much of this music was written to be performed purely for a special one-off show, but it has now taken on a life of its own. “This came out because we were asked to do a live soundtrack to the classic anime movie Akira,” he explains. “We performed it in January at the Astor Theatre in front of about 1,200 people. It was a pretty big deal. We had a live Japanese Taiko drummer playing along, so we thought we might perform it again. “But then the publishing company for the original film — we learned that they were not particularly thrilled with us messing with their soundtrack, so that was knocked on the head. We thought, ‘We’ve done all this music, it’d be great to get it out there’.” In fact, the sounds and spirit of Japan are all over this record. “There’s the sounds of crows from Tokyo streets, there’s spooky spoken Japanese nursery rhymes across the album, there’s Japanese people practising baseball in a Tokyo park — so there’s all this wacky stuff.” The band have a brief run of live dates up the east coast in August to promote the album and plenty else on their plates besides. And fans can expect more new music from Black Cab over the next six to 12 months or so. “There’s a remix of a track called Empire States that’s just been completed by a guy called Richard Norris, that’ll come out in September,” he says. “There’s also a new Cab album coming. It’s probably half finished. That’ll probably come out early next year.”

What: 明 (Interstate 40) When & Where: 18 Aug, Howler

Music

Arrow In The Quiver While putting poems to music for a collaborative project about five years ago, Paul Kelly “unlocked another way of writing”, he tells Bryget Chrisfield.

aul Kelly recently shared a stage with AB Original at Splendour In The Grass to perform their reimagined version of his own Dumb Things about which the Australian icon enthuses, “They’ve given me a little part to play in it... It’s great fun”. As well as being a sought-after collaborator, Kelly has released “various different types of cover records” over the last couple of years including two in 2016: Death’s Dateless Night (with Charlie Owen) and Seven Sonnets And A Song (Shakespearean sonnets put to music). “The last two in particular were more philosophical and meditative,” he details. With his latest Life Is Fine release, Kelly returns with a ‘normal’ record, which he admits was exactly

I always thought that writing the words first would be too restrictive... I was wrong about that.”

what he wanted to do. “I really wanted to return with something completely different: an upbeat band record with lots of harmonies and lots of noise.” An “old photo” of Kelly graces this album’s cover and he tells, “A friend of mine - Steve Young, who’s a professional photographer - asked me if he could take my portrait and he knew I loved swimming... he said, ‘Can I take it in Port Philip Bay, in St Kilda?’... So I just swam around and played around in the water for about 20 minutes, and he took a few shots. And he entered it for a portrait photography competition, which didn’t win anything, but I just had the photo sitting on my computer... Once I decided to call the album Life Is Fine, I

was just trawling through images and I came across that and decided that’s the one we’d use.” The album’s title track is a poem put to music and we’re curious to hear how he found the experience of creating a song around someone else’s pre-existing words. “I didn’t think I could do it,” Kelly confesses. “I always wrote my own words, or always wrote the music first, or generally my songwriting would be more sort of mumbling or moaning a melody... and I was trying to get the words to match those sounds and the music. And I always thought that writing the words first would be too restrictive or would somehow inhibit the music, but I was wrong about that. And I only discovered [this] about five years ago when I was invited to collaborate with an orchestra and the Australian National Academy Of Music, and a modern classical composer James Ledger putting poems to music - and we did that for a show, and recorded it live, and it ended up becoming Conversations With Ghosts; but that was all different poems put to music and that unlocked another way of writing for me, it gave me a key to another room, or it gave me another arrow in the quiver.” Since then, Kelly explains, “I might read a poem and like it and think, ‘I might put a tune to this,’ and that’s what led to the Shakespeare sonnets record that came out last year and, yeah! The title track of Life Is Fine is a poem by an American poet Langston Hughes. I just put music to it, a friend of mine sent me the poem and said, ‘I think you could put a tune to this,’ and that particular poem does read like a song lyric; quite a few of his poems sound like they could have songs to them. So, yeah! It’s been a discovery for me.” A Life Is Fine electronic press kit is available for your viewing pleasure on YouTube and this contains some footage of the incomparable Vika Bull recording lead vocals on album track My Man’s Got A Cold while Kelly’s long-time drummer Peter Luscombe drops a bucket of percussion instruments on the floor to create a rhythmic cacophony. “We wanted to get a really sort of big clanking sound right on the first beat of the bar,” Kelly illuminates, adding that this racket was “kind of inspired by - way back - the Chain song Black & Blue; they’ve got a similar sound going on.” All musicians who play on Life Is Fine are long-time Kelly collaborators: Luscombe, Bill McDonald on bass, Ash Naylor on guitar, Cameron Bruce on keys, and Vika and Linda Bull on BVs. Before going into the recording studio, Kelly confirms he certainly has “the words and the tune and the chords” worked out. “But everyone brings their own things to the table,” he points out, “and songs can change dramatically from how I imagine they might be when the band gets hold of them. So it varies: sometimes I imagine how [a song] will sound and then it sort of ends up close to that, other ones sort of take off in a completely different direction.” Kelly acknowledges he writes songs and makes music “to be surprised”. “So if you get surprised in a good way when you’re working then it makes life enjoyable,” he concludes.

What: Life Is Fine (EMI) THE MUSIC • 16TH AUGUST 2017 • 19

Music

Pop Goes The Wilson NIMA Winners

NIMA winners A.B. Original and Dan Sultan. Pic by Paz Tassone.

The National Indigenous Music Awards (NIMA) were held in Darwin over the weekend, and here are some of the major winners:

Progressive rock hero Steven Wilson tells Brendan Crabb that at the dawn of the century “really ambitious pop music gradually began to fade away”.

Artist Of The Year: Troy Cassar-Daley Song Of The Year: January 26 – A.B. Original Ft. Dan Sultan Album Of The Year: Things I Carry Around – Troy Cassar-Daley New Talent Of The Year: Electric Fields Film Clip Of The Year: January 26 – A.B. Original Ft. Dan Sultan Triple j Unearthed High Indigenous Award: Rebecca Hatch Community Music Clip Of The Year: Save The Water (Ngaba) – Halls Creek Indigenous Hip Hop Project To read the full report, head to theMusic.com.au.

20 • THE MUSIC • 16TH AUGUST 2017

“I

’ve never thought of my music as being particularly difficult music to enjoy. I’ve never thought of it as being particularly inaccessible music,” English singer-songwriter and producer Steven Wilson ponders. “The times have changed, unfortunately, and my music, which might have had a very large audience in the ‘80s is now seen as being on the fringes of the mainstream. But I’m not complainin’ because I do have a very privileged career.” Throughout three decades boasting numerous acclaimed projects (Porcupine Tree, Blackfield, Storm Corrosion), the bespectacled performer has carved a niche and loyal following. Revered within the prog-rock realm, new solo record To The Bone is Wilson’s nod to the forward-thinking pop records of his youth - Peter Gabriel’s So and Talk Talk’s The Colour Of Spring, among others. He says the LP references a great era “when pop music was also extremely ambitious”. “It’s all about the idea of combining ambition with accessibility. There is more of a pop sensibility there, but it’s also something that people will instantly recognise as being very much a Steven Wilson record with a Steven Wilson

sound. I hope.” At what point does he feel accessibility and creative ambition largely became mutually exclusive within the pop world? “I think it’s gradually eroded over the past 25 years or so. There’s no doubt for me that the ‘80s was a high point for that philosophy, that you could be very accessible but without having to dumb your sound down at all. You could deal with very weighty matters in the lyrics, and have very cinematic production, great musicianship. “I think that began to erode as we moved into the ‘90s and there were the movements like grunge and the explosion of electronic music being made in bedrooms. That’s all great, but for some reason, unfortunately, the downside of that was really ambitious pop music gradually began to fade away. There was still some stuff in the ‘90s, the whole Britpop movement... But I certainly feel since the 21st century’s come around, that kind of ambition has almost entirely disappeared from the mainstream. With a few exceptions - there’s bands like Arcade Fire and Radiohead are still around.” In recent years, Wilson has become the go-to guy for remixing beloved records. After initially being enlisted by prog forebears King Crimson and Jethro Tull, he parlayed this into re-imagining back catalogue releases for a broader range of artists, including Tears For Fears, Simple Minds, Roxy Music and Chicago. “I guess I fell into it by accident, but it’s been wonderful because I’ve learned so much also from being able to deconstruct and reconstruct classic albums. It’s a real education. And a lot of what I’ve learned from that you will hear in records like To The Bone.”

What: To The Bone (Caroline)

In Focus DJ

Emma Peel Pic: Tina Smigielski

PBS 106.7FM’s own DJ Emma Peel is kicking off festivities for the free winter music festival, Live N Local, at Acland Plaza’s Crate Digger Record Fair on 19 Aug. Get there early to enjoy a live performance by New Orleansinspired brass combo Horns Of Leroy before a live broadcast of Peel’s Switched On radio show featuring bossa nova, samba, soul-jazz and funk selections that’ll make you get your groove on while digging for fresh slices of liquorice pie. This free, family-friendly, pop-up party runs from 11am – 4pm.

THE MUSIC • 16TH AUGUST 2017 • 21

Supersense

Sophia Brous

SENSORY OVERLOAD Supersense Festival curator and performer Sophia Brous maps out her creative mind for Stephanie Eslake and illustrates where it takes her in her latest project Overground.

e are listening to live music all wrong. At least, that’s what Sophia Brous reckons. The Supersense Festival curator will open the doors to Australia’s underground arts scene this week, challenging our expectations of how music should be seen and heard. “I feel like 70% of the time, a lot of the performances we see are in the wrong kinds of environment,” Sophia says. “All you have to do is quietly disrupt one of the elements — be it the way you enter the venue, the way it’s lit, the way it smells, how close you are to the performance — and you can totally heighten the experience of it.” This is the concept behind Overground — a manifestation of experimental culture featuring about 60 musicians, artists, and multidisciplinary creatives. “It’s about bringing together these artists with different sensibilities to collaborate and create performance contexts.” The New York and Melbourne based singer says we often step into a gig with our own expectations, confining us within our comfort zones and “passively sitting in the audience and receiving entertainment”. That’s why she’s disrupting the Arts Centre Melbourne, enticing us to liberate the venue’s foyers and underground rehearsal spaces. Sophia founded Overground as part of the 2009 Melbourne International Jazz Festival, and it’s since featured more than 200 performers working across genres from jazz to classical and everything in between. “Nothing can replace the experience of being in a room and witnessing live performance,” Sophia says. “That’s the thing I have an addiction to.” Artists will occupy several stages popping up in the lesser-known centre spaces; in a similar fashion to its launch in the Melbourne Town Hall. “We relate to these large, civic venues in such a limited way,” Sophia says. “While we may frequent these spaces, it’s the addition of experimental art that unleashes their true spirits.” As well as curating the festival (working collaboratively with Australian arts organisations Liquid Architecture and NOW now), Sophia is set to take 22 • THE MUSIC • 16TH AUGUST 2017

Rohan Ribiero

Lucy Cliche

Lisa Lerkenfeldt

CHECK IT OUT AT It’s about bringing together OVERGROUND these artists with different sensibilities to collaborate and create performance contexts. Oliver Coates

JG Thirlwell

part in the action when she performs live herself. What should you expect when you see her? Well, even she can’t tell you that. The singer will draw on her improvisatory background as she teams up with cellist Oliver Coates, harpist Zeena Parkins, and double bassist Clayton Thomas to present exploratory soundscapes. She’ll also feature in the Supersense program with her Lullaby Movement: A Song Cycle and The Dream Machine, and says the crossover from performer to curator is simply a matter of mastering her materials. “When you’re engaging with your own work, you are the person building the blocks of all elements,” she says of her creative output. “But when you’re curating a festival, those blocks are spaces and contexts and environments and people. And it’s about creating a conversation between those things.”

Some of Overground’s building blocks come together for the first time — artists who are lauded in their own careers but have never met each other; performers who will take their first steps into the venue. And the effect is “exciting and brilliant — as it should be”. “It creates the breathing ecosystem of Melbourne and Australia, and that’s what I really want to highlight.”

Supersense festival curator Sophia Brous wants you to have an “ecstatic experience”. And with the help of about 60 musicians and artists, that’s what you’re in for. Overground will spread experimental music and culture through the rarely visited spaces of the Arts Centre Melbourne. Help “create the oxygen for the work to be seen and heard” when you join Sophia and experience her top-pick artists such as Ande Samby, a Norwegian vocalist; Felicia Atkinson, an electronic artist and poet from France; United Kingdom cellist Oliver Coates; and Taiwanese electronic artist Fujui Wang.

What: Overground When & Where: 20 Aug, Supersense, Arts Centre Melbourne THE MUSIC • 16TH AUGUST 2017 • 23

Supersense

PHASING OUT Jason Pierce from space rock outfit Spiritualized chats about mortality, growing older and how re-visiting old works inspired his upcoming LP. Anthony Carew explores.

n 2005, Jason Pierce nearly died. Felled by doublepneumonia, his lungs filled with fluid, and his heart stopped beating twice. His kids were brought in to say a final visit. His girlfriend was offered grief counselling. Sales for Spiritualized’s back catalogue went up. But, then, he survived. He suspected that having had a near death experienced, he’d be different. Over a decade on, he admits he’s not. “At the time, the expectation was maybe that I’d come back a better, changed, choose-the-adjective-yousee-fit man,” says Pierce. “But, I came back as very much the same person as I was before.” His last two Spiritualized LPs are touched by struggles with mortality: 2008’s Songs In A&E full of hospital imagery, 2012’s Sweet Heart Sweet Light made during a period where Pierce was undergoing chemotherapy, for his liver. Having come face-to-face with death, it’s not surprising that Pierce says the forthcoming, eighth album for Spiritualized will be, likely, the band’s last. “Every record, to me, feels like I’m running out of time. Like, I’ve gotta finish this quick, because there ain’t going to be many more,” says Pierce. “They get harder to make. And, the reason I said this might be the last one, is that I don’t see me doing this when I’m 60... I set out three years ago, and I said it might be the final record that I’m ever involved in. I wanted to make something that was worthy of being made, and being made by someone my age. It’s a strange quirk that rock’n’roll is essentially a young person’s game. It’s rare that people are allowed to undertaking making an album at my age. It feels like an amazing gift to be allowed to make a rock’n’roll record in my 50s. I don’t think that should be undertaken lightly.” Pierce calls the yet-to-be-titled LP a “big record”: one full of all the orchestral grandeur and rock’n’roll excess that Spiritualized are known for. The recent 20-year anniversary of Spiritualized’s magnum opus, Ladies And Gentleman We Are Floating In Space, has met a run of shows performing that album live; and Pierce cites that record’s match of careful orchestration and freeform noise — and “the power of singing those songs live” — as influencing his new record. “It’s taken a lot out of me,” Pierce says, of the years spent making the LP. When asked what’s been so difficult, he laughs. “Where do you want to even start?” While there’s nuts-and-bolts he can talk of, it’s all a

24 • THE MUSIC • 16TH AUGUST 2017

matter of ambition, ultimately. Not just in constructing a 70-minute hymnal to the power of rock’n’roll, but making sure the LP is worth it. Aspirations of greatness make for quite a burden of dreams. “I don’t think making an album should ever be taken lightly,” Pierce offers. “So many people just knock a record out to get back on the road, to get back touring. I want to make something that joins the dots, that connects back to the magic of making music.” “There’s so much beautiful music out there already. So, to contribute to that, it’s gotta be worthwhile, it’s gotta be able to stand its ground, it’s gotta say something more. I don’t want to sound too pretentious about it. But, if you’re not making something that says everything that should’ve been said, then what are you making?” “When there are people out there — like Patsy Cline and Sam Cooke — that’ve made something more worthwhile, more worthy [than you ever could], then it’s hard to try and work out where to slot within all of that. But, I don’t think it’s a bad thing to try and live up to. There’s nothing wrong with putting that pressure on yourself.” It’s rare to hear a musician speak of their place in the pantheon but it’s in keeping with Pierce’s love of music; his belief in rock’n’roll as religion. “Rock’n’roll is a primitive form of music, and there’s a real power that comes from that. But that primitivism doesn’t mean that it can’t also be amazing,” Pierce proselytises. “There’s a thread, there’s an evolution in rock’n’roll. The beautiful thing about rock’n’roll is that it gets things wrong. When we were kids, we listened to all the American bands that desperately wanted to sound like The Rolling Stones, but when they did, it all got fucked up, and it just came out sounding massively wrong. That’s the way rock’n’roll keeps growing, the way it keeps going forward. “It’s hard to listen to [Spiritualized’s 1995 LP] Pure Phase, from nothing, and understand that music. But, if you hear it through The Stooges, MC5, Sun Ra, John Coltrane, then it makes sense. There’s a thread running through it. If you listen to music like that, then Spiritualized makes sense.”

When & Where: 20 Aug, Supersense, Arts Centre Melbourne

Every record, to me, feels like I’m running out of time. Like, I’ve gotta finish this quick, because there ain’t going to be many more.

Supersense

FIGHT FOR YOUR RIGHT After dodging another jail sentence, political activist and Pussy Riot member Maria Alyokhina discusses the groups upcoming project Pussy Riot Theatre - Riot Days and the crucial message behind it. Anthony Carew dives in.

ast week, Maria Alyokhina got arrested. The 29year-old is best known for her arrest record, having been infamously jailed for “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred” after staging an anti-Putin protest with her punk-band-come-political movement, Pussy Riot. Alyokhina spent 16 months in prison, but since her 2013 release, she’s kept up her activism. Her latest activist incident, staged alongside Pussy Riot cohort Olga Borisova, was a protest at the imprisonment of Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov, who was sentenced to 20 years in a remote Siberian penal colony, in 2015. “As Pussy Riot, we made an action,” says Alyokhina, via Skype from Finland, five days after her arrest. They travelled to Yakutsk, Siberia and set off coloured flares, performing this ‘street action’ above a banner that read “Free Sentsov”. 24 hours later, Alyokhina and Borisova were arrested and faced a court hearing for holding an unauthorised protest, before being released after the judge found errors in the case files. “Officially, the case should go to the court,” Alyokhina explains, of the likely legal fall-out. “It’s not a criminal charge, it’s an administrative charge. But, there’s a new law, that was signed about three years ago, that if you have three of these administrative charges, they can send you to prison, for three years. But we already have so many crazy laws, they can send you to prison for anything, even a Facebook post.” Following their release four years ago, Alyokhina and fellow Pussy Riot prisoner, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, founded independent media outlet MediaZona, as a way of publicising things other Russian news sources never would. “It covers topics like prison violence and police violence, and court [cases] against political opposition,” Alyokhina says. “Since Crimea was annexed, almost all the independent media [in Russia] was crushed. A lot of journalists and editors were fired because they didn’t want to cover the Crimean crisis in the way that the government wanted.” Given the imprisonment of many anti-Putin voices, setting up an alternative news source was, indeed, dangerous. “If you are an activist of any kind in Russia, if you are against this power, anything can happen. You can have a criminal case, you can be beaten, you can go to

prison,” Alyokhina says. “[But], it’s not a reason to stop.” Though Alyokhina is in Finland as she speaks, and travels to other countries to deliver performances and lectures, she’s never thought of emigrating elsewhere. She chooses to stay and fight “this crazy Russian machine”. “It’s my country,” states Alyokhina. “It’s them who should leave. Because they are thieves and they are murderers. They are people who are doing bad things. They shouldn’t represent our country. I believe that we are; an example of another Russia. We are not Putin and his friends.” After coming to Dark Mofo in June - where she talked about MediaZona, the documentary Act & Punishment, and performed a DJ set - Alyokhina will be returning to Australia, arriving in Melbourne for the local premiere of Pussy Riot Theatre - Riot Days. Despite the name, she wants to attest that it’s not theatre. “It’s maybe antitheatre,” Alyokhina says. “It’s not documentary theatre, it’s more of a manifesto. A pop manifesto. It’s our message. A message that we’re speaking in different forms: actions, music, theatre, all of what we have. Underground, on stage, everywhere.” The story in Pussy Riot Theatre is based, loosely, on Alyokhina’s experiences in prison; Riot Days is the title of her forthcoming memoir. But, Alyokhina doesn’t see it as some work of autobiography; or even some ‘official’ tale of Pussy Riot from the members themselves. “It’s not about us, it’s about Russia. It’s about our country. It’s about what is going on here. It’s history,” she offers. “The message which we are speaking, our message, is not only about Russia. This is my story, which wasn’t told before, with all the details of prison life; But, what happened in Russia can happen anywhere. If people do not fight for what they believe, they easily can lose that; Trump was elected because people didn’t go and vote, about half of the population of United States just didn’t vote. And, the Brexit situation happened for the same reasons. This would be a good time for people to rise up, to remind themselves of what they believe. Our history is about that. It’s our story, but it could happen anywhere, to anyone.”

It’s our message. A message that we’re speaking in different forms: actions, music, theatre, all of what we have.

What: Riot Days When & Where: 19 Aug, Supersense, Arts Centre Playhouse THE MUSIC • 16TH AUGUST 2017 • 25

Eat / Drink Food Eat/Drink

FRANKEN “It’s alive!” In an instaobsessed world, even our food is subject to #trends and beauty standards. This can lead to some... interesting... gustatory experiments. Here’s some of the weird and wonderful creations in today’s #foodstagramable culture.

Vege-Don’t. As the trend goes, adding Vegemite to food hasn’t been going well. Remember last year’s horrid Vegemite chocolate disaster? But alas, our mates at Four’N’Twenty have outAussied themselves by creating a Vegemite (and cheese) meat pie. It’s exactly what you’d imagine, the minced meat pie we all love, with a cheesy Vegemiteinfused gravy concoction to mix it all together. Eugh. It’s available to try in Coles supermarkets now if you’re game enough.

Sushi Surgery Doughnuts have always been a favourite, from plain cinnamon to delectable Doughnut Time creations, but often come with the crippling guilt of the sheer amount of crap we just ingested - so long summer body. Never fear, we have the ultimate ‘healthy’ mash-up, Sushi doughnuts. Yep, turn your doughnut dreams into a substantial meal covered in seaweed, rice, avocado and sashimi at Sea Salt Melbourne or vendors at Sydney Fish Market. We’ll take the lot!

Pizzeria Express Facebook

DSP What’s better than a late night Halal Snack Pack you ask? How about a Dessert Snack Pack? Yeah, that’s right, the folks at Pizzeria Express Ringwood have blown our minds with donut-based dessert snack pack assortments featuring Bueno, Aero, Ferrero Rocher and more. Available from 8.30 Friday to Sunday and all night Tuesday to Thursday, we have three words. Take. My. Money.

26 • THE MUSIC • 16TH AUGUST 2017

Indie Indie

The Senegambian Jazz Band

uke Koszanski of The Senegambian Jazz Band discusses the ingredients that went to the band’s self-titled debut. Emily Blackburn finds out more. “The overall theme of the album is the idea of a melting pot, each song has its own kind of flavour and different influence” - that’s how guitarist Luke Koszanski describes African-fusion outfit The Senegambian Jazz Band’s self-titled debut. By building on their repertoire slowly over time, The Senegambian Jazz Band have been able to develop their skills and confidence gradually, and Koszanski credits “the support and opportunity” his band has been awarded by MAV (Multicultural Arts

The Last Exposure

helsea Barnes from The Last Exposure chats about the inclusive and collective nature of their music. Emily Blackburn discusses. The Last Exposure are an alternative rock outfit that are proudly “loud, sassy and full of energy”, says singer Chelsea Barnes. Originally a university project, the quartet quickly grew into something more permanent after they dove into the live scene and discovered a raw passion for it. “We’ve learnt so much going out and experiencing it ourselves and we’ve met and played with incredible people!” Now, with the release of their third single The Boys, recorded by Aussie producer

Victoria) as instrumental in helping the sixpiece find their sound and inspiration. The band’s new album features a mix of original arrangements and some traditional songs, and Koszanski singles out one track, Sarayela, as having &#147;a very powerful sound combined with interesting arrangements while still keeping room for instrumental improvisation.” On mostly choosing to record these songs live at Rolling Stock Recording Rooms, Koszanski explains that “it was a combination of trying to keep as much of the live vibe and feel, but overdubbing where needed, and also adding some extra keys and vocal harmonies.” Post-production was also kept to a minimum to enable these songs to be replicated in a live setting.

What: The Senegambian Jazz Band (Independent) When & Where: 25 Aug, Memo Music Hall; 26 Aug, Boney; 27 Aug, Northcote Social Club

Lachlan Mitchell (Kate Ceberano, The Jezabels), Barnes discusses the threeyear creative process that took it from the stage to the studio. “We’ve been playing the song live for three years... Its themes are important and also relevant right now,” stating that the meaning of the song has changed slightly over the years from the relationships between homosexual and homophobic males to “the ill treatment of anyone at music events, especially women and queer individuals”. “We’re a banner for confidence and selfrespect. We do our best to treat everyone equally and give them the respect that they should be given.” The four-piece are now setting off on tour to celebrate, catch them down the east coast from August through September.

Tami Neilson

Just Visiting Why are you coming to visit our fair country? To sing my lungs out for you beautiful Aussies for the first time with my Hot Rockin’ Band Of Rhythm in Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and Darwin! Is this your first visit? I’ve performed at a handful of festivals in Australia, but this will be my first time visiting Melbourne and Darwin. How long are you here for? I’m doing a whirlwind four shows in four days before heading off to tour Europe, but still hoping against hope that I can squeeze in a visit to Melbourne’s renowned vintage shops! What do you know about Australia, in ten words or less? The sole of my shoe once melted off in summer. Any extra-curricular activities you hope to participate in while here? Exploring Melbourne shops and eateries and also hoping to catch some other acts at the Darwin Festival! What will you be taking home as a souvenir? Sleep deprivation! And hopefully some vintage dresses... and some stuffed kangaroos and koalas for my little boys. Where can we come say hi, and buy you an Aussie beer? 19 Aug, Ding Dong Lounge Website link for more info? tamineilson.com

What: The Boys When & Where: 30 Sep, The Tote

THE MUSIC • 16TH AUGUST 2017 • 27

Album / E Album/EP Reviews

Album OF THE Week

Gang Of Youths Go Farther In Lightness Mosy Recordings/ Sony

★★★★½

From the opening bars of the Thunder Road-esque Fear And Trembling, it’s apparent that there’s something special about the latest offering from Gang Of Youths. What follows are sixteen tracks that are earnest, honest and full of vivid lyricism, backed by a band whose musical ability shines well beyond their years. There are moments of quiet and reflection, with tracks like Keep Me In The Open, Do Not Let Your Spirit Wane and Persevere. There are tracks that are sure to challenge the beloved Magnolia for singalong factor, in the likes of Fear And Trembling and Atlas Drowned. Let Me Down Easy acts as a protest song, a ‘fuck you’ to any form of extremism and a reflection on the horror that struck Paris in the time after the Bataclan Theatre attack. But it’s within the carefully interwoven interludes of L’imaginaire, Le Symbolique and Le Reel that you truly understand the growth the band has endured in the two years since 2015’s The Positions. Go Farther In Lightness will prove frontman Dave Le’aupepe as one of Australia’s foremost songwriters; it’s easy to forget when you’re caught in his rich and considered narratives that this is someone who is still far ahead of their 30th birthday. Listen to Go Farther In Lightness in its entirety; it is phenomenal and deserves nothing less than that. Jessica Dale

Gold Class

Grizzly Bear

Drum

Painted Ruins

Barely Dressed/Remote Control

RCA/Sony

★★★★

★★★

With their new album Drum, Gold Class have cemented and built on their already impressive postpunk sound. Control is the order of the day on the album. The songs feel more strongly anchored, and though the sonic tension is still tightly wound, they approach it with greater poise and an assured management of space and dynamics in the songs. Gareth Liddiard (The Drones) produced the album and he’s replaced some of the instrumental coldness of their debut with a warm and organic production that sounds more like spring than winter. The early singles Twist In The Dark and Rose Blind set the standard for bristling, brooding angular guitar rock but dig a little deeper and there are some other album tracks that really excel. Trouble

On previous albums, one of the beauties of Grizzly Bear was trying to pin down how their music managed to pick you up and transport you somewhere else. It’s bloody tricky. Trying to do so without coming across like a pretentious sycophant is nigh on impossible. But somehow on Painted Ruins, the sum of all the impressive parts doesn’t equal what it should. The elegant production, the stately performances and pretty harmonies are all there, but there are fewer surprises. There is some of the magic spark that made that made Two Weeks so astronomically gorgeous and Knife so beguilingly hypnotic. Here, Mourning Sound is propelled along by a chugging bass line that’s almost dancefloor-friendly. There’s no obvious mourning

28 • THE MUSIC • 16TH AUGUST 2017

Fun rolls along on restrained melodies and gently crashing guitars that sparkle rather than slash. Get Yours highlights the grinding propulsion of bassist Jon Shub — reminiscent of Big Black, Gordons and My Disco, while soaring across it all is singer Adam Curley’s voice, that stentorian howl of angst and poetic declarations as he grapples with the issues of finding one’s place in the world. A phrase from Rose Blind sums up the sound of Gold Class as Curley sings about “hurricanes and ecstasy”. Drum is darkly ecstatic music that sounds both defiant and spirited. Chris Familton

qualities here, but as ever Grizzly Bear’s lyrics are so enigmatic it’s hard to be sure. Neighbors is another highlight; a mysteriously dark beauty that shifts in colour and shade like tropical shadows at sundown (see, we told you it’s hard not to sound pretentious), which is followed by the oddly sinister serenity of Systole. It should set up an epic finish, with Sky Took Hold coming on like an ominous horizon that threatens to storm but never does. Christopher H James

EP Reviews Album/EP Reviews

Thy Art Is Murder

The Ocean Party

Davey Lane

Sarah McLeod

Beauty Point

Dear Desolation

I’m Gonna Burn Out Bright

Rocky’s Diner

Spunk

Kobalt

Capgun Kids

Human Warfare

★★★½

★★★★

★★★

Already a self-assured outfit, extreme metallers Thy Art Is Murder’s confidence has seemingly been bolstered by growler CJ McMahon’s return. Album number four features a somewhat streamlined attack, simplifying structures slightly. The touchstones remain similar, however; Decapitated-infused riffage of Slaves Beyond Death, The Son Of Misery’s Behemothchannelling death metal fury or Puppet Master’s seismic-shifting, pit carnage-inducing beatdown. Perhaps Dear Desolation never quite consistently reaches the considerable heights of that unholy opening trinity, however, moments of overt familiarity aside, their collective bellies are so full of fire they could spit lava.

From start to finish Melbourne’s The Ocean Party provide an encapsulating and calming atmosphere within Beauty Point. With its reverb-heavy guitar, deep, brooding vocals and upbeat dance melodies, the album takes us through the woes of young adult life. From being overwhelmed in Crisis (“All on my own / The walls are caving in”), to the struggle of fighting for your rights and future in Strike (“Spend money to buy your freedom”) the contrast of depressing lyrics and upbeat tones resonates toward the hearts of young Australians and creates a witty, fun album to ponder your own existence over.

Davey Lane is the eternal fan. He pulls together hints and echoes from early Pink Floyd prog through XTC, via some Beatles and even some ‘80s buzzy synths to make terrific pop songs that are absolutely his own. Tracks range from little classicist glories like Taurus All Apart and the layered harmonies of Bound To Break Me, to tangents like Fifteen Years, which starts as stately — if a little ragged — piano balladry, before heading off on wibbly-wobbly waves of spacey psychedelics. Then he hits you with the sincerity of This Is Hell... — honest and without artifice. If you revel in the history of pop music, you’ll love this.

Having busted out some covers of 1960s girl group standards while touring solo recently, The Superjesus frontwoman Sarah McLeod gives in to her penchant for the old school with her first solo album in 12 years. The pint-sized electric lady with the big voice has pared things back to give us Rocky’s Diner, full of musings and admissions, after a three-month stint in New York. While not every track is a corker - the back end in particular seems to flag - it’s nice to hear McLeod allow some vulnerability to soften her normally heady vocals, gently crooning in Rocky’s Reprise, dishing out sultry pouts in Bad Valentine, and gunning it in Hurricane.

Ross Clelland

Carley Hall

Emily Blackburn

Brendan Crabb

More Reviews Online Steven Wilson To The Bone

theMusic.com.au

Everything Everything A Fever Dream

Listen to our This Week’s Releases playlist on

THE MUSIC • 16TH AUGUST 2017 • 29

Live Re Live Reviews

Kaiit, SO Crates, Willy Dynamo The Gasometer Hotel 11 Aug

Vera Blue @ 170 Russell. Pic: Lucinda Goodwin

Thandi Phoenix @ 170 Russell. Pic: Lucinda Goodwin

Lakyn @ 170 Russell. Pic: Lucinda Goodwin

30 • THE MUSIC • 16TH AUGUST 2017

“Why don’t you come over then?!” Willy Dynamo yells warmly into the mic to the groups of punters gathering around the perimeter of the room. A few are encouraged to leg it to the dancefloor, but the remainder seem happy just to kick back and sink into the beats from afar. Dynamo drops a few dreamy, future-soul, electro-R&B beats and, after we settle in, he kicks off with the rapping. “This is all about the pimp stuff and yeah - I’m doin’ that... but it ain’t like that, so don’t get it twisted!” is how he introduces his next song to an amused audience. And it’s essentially Dynamo freestyling over everyone’s favourite guilty pleasure: 50 Cent’s PIMP. Soon after, we’re treated to a track Dynamo tells us was made with one of Melbourne’s favourite producers, Silent Jay, and it’s a winner. With a jazzy, winding synth line and a slow-burning beat, it goes down a total treat. Dynamo also boasts hilarious onstage banter. He’s funny, genuine and comfortable, which is really refreshing. De La Soul and Erykah Badu hits spill out through the speakers and into the already chockers room as punters nod their heads in unison on the down beat, waiting patiently for SO Crates. MC Cazeaux OSLO’s flow is cool and collected. Paired with his deep, mellow voice and composed stage presence, he’s seriously transfixing to watch. Producer Skomes’ beats are melodic, soulful, skilfully crafted and elevated by OSLO’s rhymes, and the end result is consistently fierce. With heavy beats, deep lyrical content and effortless delivery, they make for one damn good duo. KUSH is a killer track

with a laid-back beat, coloured with some lush percussion and a gentle string sample. Although understated, the intricate little saxophone runs and keys samples don’t go unnoticed in their tracks and punters vibe hard to all these subtle musical nuances that make the work of SO Crates so captivating.

Our applause after the last lingering note seems to go on forever. After a beautifully delivered Welcome To Country, queen Kaiit appears casually on stage and is greeted by an ear-shattering reception. There seems to be some sound issues going on right now, but she handles it with total composure, choosing to chat to the crowd about herself until the problems are resolved. 2000 n Somthin kicks it all off and Kaiit delivers this song with an ease and finesse way beyond her years. This girl is the whole freakin’ package. She’s a certified fashion killer, can work the stage without breaking a sweat and has the powerhouse pipes of an angel. There are some vocal runs that leave us all gasping for air and shaking our heads in serious shock at how easy Kaiit makes this whole thing look. Kaiit’s adlibbing is heavenly, as she riffs off her band that features some of the heaviesthitting instrumentalists on the scene. Stir Kaiit’s steaming-hot vocals into the mix and it makes for a glorious, harmonious syncopated potion. “Has anyone been on any dating apps?!” she asks before launching into another song, which is

eviews Live Reviews

essentially an ode to shitty pick-up lines and ridiculous dating expectations. She tells us to yell, “Fuck you!” in the chorus and, of course, everyone obliges because, honestly, who doesn’t love passionately yelling profanities aimed at past failed ‘romantic’ encounters? It’s like a positive group therapy sesh in here for a hot second. Kaiit’s vocals only seem to get better as the night goes and punters lose it when it’s finally time for Natural Woman. The tasty jazz scatting in this one sends the track over the edge. Our applause after the last lingering note seems to go on forever. Visibly moved and humbled, Kaiit thanks her band and the crowd yet again. Rising up from doing low-key weekday shows to selling out The Gasometer Hotel for her very-first single launch is a true testament to all this songstress has to offer: the sultry voice of a jazz crooner, the vibe of a fierce ‘90s R&B dream, painfully relatable lyrics and a fresh flow. Kaiit’s a lovechild of the best of all things soul. Natasha Pinto

Vera Blue, Thandi Phoenix, Lakyn 170 Russell 11 Aug Some may recognise Lakyn from a past season of The Voice, which is something that he has in common with tonight’s headliner. Like many other fellow reality television show runner-ups, Lakyn’s broken away from the mould and reinvented himself. Tonight he plays us new material from his upcoming EP that’s due out in a few months, including latest single View Looks So Good. His faux-fur coat may have seemed like the perfect idea for a winter’s night but things start heating up pretty quickly. Lakyn peels off layers to reveal his new merch: a T-shirt

featuring a print of him eating an Oreo McFlurry. He shares a cover of Mario’s Let Me Love You with a unique arrangement that shows off his beautiful falsetto. Lakyn leaves a lasting impression with his raw talent and he’s only just scratched the surface. Thandi Phoenix fuses her dance-ready anthems with inspired, tribal drum’n’bass rhythms. Wearing shiny pink heart-shaped earrings branded with her name, Phoenix tells us what she’s about: “Do what makes you happy, be proud of yourself and chase what sets your goddamn heart on fire!” Phoenix has an infectious energy as she moves around the stage and enthusiastically taps her drum pads with drumsticks that glow with each beat. She brings it down a notch with a song she tells us is for anyone who’s dealing with the loss of a loved one and sends them strength with a powerful,

Pavey hands flowers out to the audience as if it’s her own rose ceremony for The Bachelorette and we can’t wait to be chosen.

Pavey) surrenders through those magnificent vocals. In her tasselled outfit, she literally glows in the dark beneath her flowing red locks. The song’s powerful chorus kicks in and the stage is illuminated with each tambourine strike as the instrument lights up. “Being able to perform songs from my album for you is pretty special to me,” she says before continuing with Overachiever (a song she reveals is about having a crush on someone and not knowing if you’re having real feelings). Pavey hands flowers out to the audience as if it’s her own rose ceremony for The Bachelorette and we can’t wait to be chosen. As Pavey moves through songs from her intensely personal album, we’re taken on a journey of heartbreak that combines her folk roots with bold electronic production elements. A few special additions include some acoustic tracks from her debut Vera Blue EP Fingertips, Slumberjack’s Fracture (which she features on) and her triple j Like A Version cover of Jack Garratt’s Breathe Life (nails it!). Vera Blue is unstoppable and continues to flourish into the magnificent, empowering artist we know she will become.

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

The Teskey Brothers @ Corner Hotel Poppongene @ Grace Darling Hotel Nucleust @ Evelyn Hotel Starset @ Max Watt’s Major Leagues @ The Workers Club Ministry Of Sound Orchestrated @ Hamer Hall

Michael Prebeg

emotional piano-driven ballad that showcases her soothing, soulful vocals. “Home doesn’t have to be a place,” she shares, “it’s a feeling and some people can make you feel that way. Right now that’s how I’m feeling.” Opening with the first track from her debut Perennial album, Vera Blue (aka Celia THE MUSIC • 16TH AUGUST 2017 • 31

Arts Reviews Arts Reviews

obfuscating the actors, as smoke seeps from the bare floor and walls of the stage; a damp, constant presence that occasionally billows forth in great harassing plumes like some foul animal defence mechanism. Jethro Woodward’s sound design, often more industrial than orchestral, matches it perfectly; the sombrous thud of teeth locking home in mammoth gears over strings that groan and ache like taut cables. Combined with Paul Jackson’s diffuse lighting design, the play is given the hazy discomfort of a dream, and it’s no stretch to see Merrick as a misshapen cog in a callous and dangerous machine. Monks portrays Merrick with tragic dignity, an intelligent and sensitive man - deeply human but rendered alien by his “geography”. Monk himself has impaired mobility on his right side, but as the years pass and Merrick’s affliction becomes more severe he twists his body and face with impressive physicality. Paula Arundell, Julie Forsyth, Sophie Ross and Emma J Hawkins cycle through an array of characters, though they often maintain single and incomplete responses toward Merrick. As a &#145;freak show’ spruiker and head nurse Arundell shows a cold desire not to so much to fix Merrick as make him fit, no matter the suitability of the mould. Forsyth is a font of sympathy that always falls short of empathy, offering kindness without understanding as his mother and another nurse. Ross, particularly in the guise of Joseph’s father and as an actress researching a role in The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, is friendly but unfeeling, doling small but shallow kindnesses. Hawkins sees Merrick’s obvious humanity but lacks the influence to make anybody else recognise it. Each time these four wander from the shadows or the smoke, it adds to the dream-like quality of the play, the familiar rendered foreign over and over. At times they feel like the city’s immune response to this errant, anomalous cell. Among the shifting city and its amorphous population, Merrick seems like the only solid object. At the beginning Arundell appears all in black against a black backdrop, a low glow lighting the hem of the curtain, and offers us the sight of a lifetime - a monster, a Nephilim - warning that we may see fear or sadness or even ourselves in a beast’s beady eye, but not to be fooled. After the inevitable conclusion, as Merrick declares himself homo elephantus, a doomed species of one and evolutionary offshoot of industrial London, it’s distressing how often that advice is heeded. The Real And Imagined History Of The Elephant Man

Wind River

The Real And

Imagined History Of The Elephant Man Theatre At Malthouse Theatre Until 27 Aug

★★★½ The story of Joseph Merrick or The Elephant Man, is one of those rare tales that never really escapes the public consciousness. Here, writer Tom Wright and director Matthew Lutton strip back the known accounts of Merrick’s life - much of which comes from some fairly questionable sources - to reveal the surreal core of living with a disability in a society that values uniformity above all else. Portrayed beautifully by Daniel Monks, Merrick’s upbringing is filtered through the smog and the fog of 19th century London by Marg Horwell’s set design. The sheer curtain is left undrawn, adding a sepia fug without

Sam Wall

Wind River Film In cinemas now

★★★½ With only a handful of screenwriting credits to his name, Taylor Sheridan has established himself as someone with a reliably firm grasp of storytelling, character, and a distinctively lean and tough tone. Wind River sees the former actor making his directorial debut with a crime drama that shares some of the stark and sorrowful aspects of his previous work. It’s not quite as accomplished as those other films — Sheridan is still working on the compelling bleakness Denis Villeneuve brought to Sicario or David Mackenzie’s spare, evocative handling of Hell Or High Water. But he shows an attention to small but telling details and a flair for tension that erupts into violence that’s very promising, and gives Wind River plenty of impact. In the frozen wilderness of the Native American reservation, a young woman’s body has been discovered. Natalie, a Native American teenager, was sexually assaulted and beaten, but it was running for her life in sub zero temperatures that killed her. That means the local coroner can’t label Natalie’s death a murder, which infuriates Jane Banner (Elizabeth Olsen), the FBI agent dispatched to investigate. So she recruits local tracker Cory Lambert (Jeremy Renner) to help her search for clues. Lambert found Natalie’s body, and he has a personal stake in what happened — she was a friend of his own teenage daughter, who vanished a few years earlier. That is indicative of the sadness that pervades Wind River — this is an environment that is literally cold and forbidding, one that can strip away dignity and decency. While Sheridan shoots straight when it comes to the harshness of the land, he’s also got a keen eye for the strength and sensitivity it takes to lead a life of integrity in such a place. That’s especially evident in the character of Lambert, and in Renner’s rock-solid performance. Combine that with the no-nonsense work of Olsen, Wind River is a gripping procedural that packs a hell of a punch. Guy Davis

32 • THE MUSIC • 16TH AUGUST 2017

OPINION Opinion

Howzat!

Local Music By Jeff Jenkins Burn For You Where would the Melbourne music scene be without Davey Lane and Ashley Naylor? They’re the hardestworking men in showbiz, the human jukeboxes, the go-to guys when a band needs a great guitarist. Of course, Davey is an integral member of You Am I and he’s also played with Crowded House, The Masters Apprentices, Jimmy Barnes and The Saints. But Davey is more than just a sensational sideman. Just check out his solo albums, 2014’s Atonally Young and I’m Gonna Burn Out Bright, which he’s launching at the Gasometer on Friday. Davey’s life changed when his dad brought home a copy of Sgt Pepper’s when Davey was just six or seven years old. “I didn’t realise that music could be so colourful and kaleidoscopic,” Davey recently told Clare Bowditch on ABC radio. Though he looks like a rock star, Davey says he was “super awkward, an introverted nerd” at school. “I twigged that my obsession with music was a way I could communicate with people.” Kaleidoscopic is a great word to describe Davey’s music. He makes grand,

eloquent, joyous pop. Think ELO, Queen and The Beatles. The lyrics, however, reflect a darker side. “I was going through times of questioning one’s own existence,” Davey reveals. “One of my biggest failings as a human being is my inability to communicate. I feel I can put into a song things I can’t put in the spoken or written word.” Remembering Tony Howzat! has long been saying that Tony Cohen should be in the ARIA Hall Of Fame. As Nick Cave remarked after Tony’s passing, he’s a “national treasure”. A highlight of working on Molly Meldrum’s life story was interviewing Tony, a kind-hearted, generous and entertaining soul. “I learned a lot from Molly,” Tony told me. “It was one of the best educations you could get, and I’m not just talking about recording. I loved

Davey Lane

Molly’s unforced imagination.” You could say the same about Tony. A label should release a Tony Cohen compilation - it would tell the story of Australian alternative rock. New Sensation Happy Birthday to INXS - they did their first gig 40 years ago today (16 Aug), playing at Tim Farriss’ 20th birthday party. And 25 years ago this week, INXS scored their first #1 album in the UK with the underrated Welcome To Wherever You Are. Hot Line “Let the lovers love” - Sand Pebbles, Lovers’ Love.

THE MUSIC • 16TH AUGUST 2017 • 33

OPINION Opinion

The Heavy Shit

John Bell At Home — Loribelle Spirovski

Moderately Highbrow Visual Art Wank

n which the Archibald serves as a timely reminder of John Bell’s many talents. And Theatre When thinking of some Australian “man or woman distinguished in art, letters, science or politics,” Foyers With one needn’t draw a very long bow for John Bell — actor, director, co-founder of Nimrod Theatre, founder of Bell Dave Drayton Shakespeare, AO, OBEtc — to come to mind. And rightly so. So it was with little surprise that I noticed his likeness (royal in pose, rock’n’roll in attire, staring intensely; beautifully rendered by Loribelle Spirovski) amongst the finalists for this year’s Archibald. Spirovski met Bell through her partner, classical pianist Simon Tedeschi, who has been collaborating on a performance of then-poet laureate Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s epic Enoch Arden (according to Wikipedia a blue print for Tom Hanks’ Castaway) with Bell. The poem was set to music, a recitation for speaker and piano, by Richard Strauss in 1897 and published as his Opus 38. Though the duo performed only a handful of times throughout June and July, the collaboration was captured by the ABC and the complete recording is now available on Spotify. And it’s nice to have the subject of an Archibald finalist reading you your bedtime story.

O G F l ava s

Vic Mensa

Urban And R&B News With Cyclone

hen Vic Mensa (aka Victor Mensah) rocked 2015’s Laneway Festival, even joining Flight Facilities on stage in Sydney, he was poised to become hip hop’s next big thing. Yet the Chicago MC behind the footwork hit Down On My Luck was struggling with mental health issues and self-medicating, he wryly tells OG Flavas. “I had the time of my life in Australia. It was one of, if not the most, fun trips that I ever had. At

34 • THE MUSIC • 16TH AUGUST 2017

Aftermath

the same time, it was like a real moment of excess for me in lifestyle.” After Oz, Mensah gradually reconfigured what was meant to be his debut album — Traffic. Still, he remained visible. Aside from dropping EPs and collaborating with Kanye West, Mensah cameoed on blockbusters by his old ally KAYTRANADA, and our own Flume. Now, having sought therapy, Mensah has finally delivered The Autobiography via Jay-Z’s Roc Nation. Gratifyingly, it’s been granted a significant push here — EMI Music hosting a listening party. Mensah liaised with No ID — the executive producer — bringing those Common-y hip hop throwbacks. But the MC splices in his beloved ‘90s anthemic alt-rock (Homewrecker samples Weezer’s The Good Life, with Rivers Cuomo ad-libbing). However, the album is particularly remarkable for its literary depth, Mensah intersecting his psychic disarray with a wider malaise among African-American men experiencing intergenerational racism. In Heaven On Earth, which drills up Manchester trip-hoppers Lamb, Mensah raps about “the street game” — narrating a homeboy’s murder as himself, the friends and the killer. But it’s his Pharrell Williams-blessed (and very OutKast-y) beat-ballad Wings that is ultimately cathartic.

OPINION Opinion

Metal And

tories, everyone Hard Rock loves a great story and With a good read. If you’re like me, your Chris Maric bookshelves are filled with an array of autobiographies, biographies (authorised or otherwise) and general info about our beloved music genre/s of choice. I’ve even got several editions of the same thing since there are always updates to add. Reading about music is second only to listening to it. Ok, maybe third after watching it too. There are endless amounts of literature out there and seemingly every old school rocker has told their story in book form, especially in the last few years. These are awesome insights into the glory days, although, with some of them, you’ve got to wonder how they even remember those days through the fog of time and clouds of illicit substances. Sometimes though, it’s better to read about things from a totally different perspective. One such perspective you’ll soon be able to see from is via Brian Slagel. If you don’t know his name, you should. Slagel is the founder of Metal Blade Records, one of, if not the first dedicated heavy metal label in the world. This year the label celebrates its 35th anniversary and Slagel is credited with being the first person to release a Metallica song too! Hit The Lights first appeared on Brian’s Metal Massacre demo in June 1982, three months to the day after the band’s first ever show. To say Brian is integral to the metal world is a massive understatement and at the end of this month, a book called For The Sake Of Heaviness: The History Of Metal Blade Records will be released. The foreword has been written by Lars Ulrich and the tome gives amazing insight into the early years of the US and worldwide metal scene, telling how metal rose up to become the massive movement it is and, of course, the pitfalls and good times along the way. Locally, two very integral members of the Australian metal community have also flexed their creative writing muscles of late. Author of the invaluable and incredible Encyclopaedia Of Australian Heavy Metal, Brian Giffin has recently put out his first work of fiction called Aftermath. Featuring loads of cultural references, it’s a post apocalyptic story involving a bunch of ragtag survivors heading into the Blue Mountains

and to perceived safety. A rather timely story given how Trump keeps poking the North Korean bear of late. The cover art of the book was created by Aussie metal icon Rev Kriss Hades. While I was in London I caught up with ex-pat writer Steve Mascord who, if you’re a rugby league fan, you might know as being one of the game’s main journalists. He is also a metal lifer and is the man keeping the Hot Metal website alive. Oh yeah, it still exists, look it up! Steve gave me one of the very first copies of his book, Touchstones, in fact, he cracked open the first box from the publishers to give it to me. An awesome concept, Touchstones deals with Steve’s midlife crisis the only way he knew how; go to a gig and a game each week for a year and document it. It’s very well done and he brilliantly interweaves going to concerts and footy games and shows the total opposing worlds that they are, or just how similar they can be. With winter almost over, there’s still a couple of weekends left to grab something to read on a lazy Sunday afternoon. Enjoy!

RECH O

RDS

seein

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ch.indd

26/03

/2017

THE MUSIC • 16TH AUGUST 2017 • 35

Comedy / G The Guide

Vera Blue

Wed 16

Wily: 303, Northcote

Michel Chion: ACMI (Australian Centre For The Moving Image), Melbourne Elvis: The Gospel Collection with Damien Leith: Arts Centre Melbourne (The Playhouse), Melbourne Bollard + The Fainters + Boyparts: Bar Open, Fitzroy

The Music Presents 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 Vera Blue: 10 Sep, 170 Russell 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

The Round Up with Nigel Wearne + Ayleen O’Hanlon: Bella Union, Carlton South The Elliotts: Big Mouth, St Kilda Gaby Moreno: Bird’s Basement, Melbourne Mellowdias Thump feat. Geezy + Melo Felo: Boney, Melbourne Chase The Sun: Catfish (Upstairs), Fitzroy Performing ‘Self-Titled’ / ‘Nothing Gold Can Stay Gold’ with New Found Glory + Stand Atlantic: Corner Hotel, Richmond Plastic + Sunnyside + National Pleasure + Josh Keys: Ding Dong Lounge, Melbourne

British India

The First Time Get down to Howler this Wednesday to be one of the first hear the new album from British India. Forgetting The Future will be released in September, that gives you nearly a month of bragging rights with your mates.

Cousin Tony’s Brand New Firebird + Talulah + Jeffers Limit: Evelyn Hotel, Fitzroy Ela Stiles + Karli White + Activities of Daily Living: Grace Darling Hotel, Collingwood British India: Howler, Brunswick Gallie + Don Hillman’s Secret Beach + Chris Busietta: Lomond Hotel, Brunswick East Cecilia Brandolini + Myki Jay: Open Studio, Northcote

Morning Morning + Nothinge + Swamp: The Tote (Upstairs), Collingwood

Kelly Brouhaha: Lomond Hotel, Brunswick East

The Cooks + Dave Connor + Gavin Styles + Conococo Phillips: The Tote (Band Room), Collingwood

Brentwood + Andy Hall + Timmy Knowles: Moonshine Speak Easy Bar, Cremorne Tom Vincent Trio: Open Studio, Northcote

Junior Fiction + The Great Outdoors + Girlatones: The Tote (Front Bar), Collingwood

High-tails + No Local + Castilles: Penny Black, Brunswick

Blu-AU feat. Motherslug + Strangers In Town + SNDWNR + The One Times: The Workers Club, Fitzroy

Madeline Leman & The Desert Swells + Freya Josephine Hollick: Retreat Hotel, Brunswick

Open Mic Night with Andrew Grant + Mark Gardner: Whole Lotta Love, Brunswick East

Chasing Lana

Thu 17 $10 + The Wax Eaters: 303, Northcote

CDB

Back For More CDB are back, 25 years after their formation. With a new album, Tailored For Now, the boys are hitting the road again and bringing the ‘90s with them.

Michel Chion: ACMI (Australian Centre For The Moving Image), Melbourne The Deadpans + Hannah Kate + Kaz Garaz: Bar Open, Fitzroy Gaby Moreno: Bird’s Basement, Melbourne YehMe2: Boney, Melbourne In Oakleigh Tonight feat. Jon Von Goes + Joe Camilleri + Rebecca Barnard: Caravan Music Club, Oakleigh DJ Maddy Mac: Catfish (Front Bar), Fitzroy Amy Shark + Fractures + Tommy Castles: Corner Hotel, Richmond

Bristol Cairo + The Shifties + Greg Steps: The Bendigo, Collingwood

Plazza + The New Pigface Stringband: Edinburgh Castle Hotel, Brunswick

Wine, Whiskey, Women feat. Miller + Macalia Eve: The Drunken Poet, West Melbourne

Donald Dank & The Naughty Boys + Kooyung + Fruit Loops: Evelyn Hotel, Fitzroy

Reuben Stone + Dan Vogl: The Gasometer Hotel (Upstairs), Collingwood

Fed Square Live with Emily South + The Louis King Trio: Federation Square, Melbourne

Isadore + Dx Heaven + Darling James: The Toff In Town, Melbourne

36 • THE MUSIC • 16TH AUGUST 2017

Moody Beaches + Yukumbabe + Overtime: Grace Darling Hotel, Collingwood

Cool Runnings For their first-ever Australian tour Chasing Lana are hitting the ground running. In support of their new album Suffocate/ Medicate they will be playing a string of shows up and down the east coast, heading to the Northcote Social Club on Friday!

David Ritchie & The Neighbours + Picket Palace + Swamp + Mondo Bizarro: The Brunswick Hotel, Brunswick Murmurmur + Pup Tentacle + Plastic: The Gasometer Hotel, Collingwood

Gigs / Live The Guide

Boadz

Mothers Temple + The Melting Paraiso UFO: Arts Centre Melbourne, Melbourne My Dad Wrote A Porno: Athenaeum Theatre, Melbourne Mike Elrington: Baha Tacos, Rye Gymnastics In The Seventies + Barcelos + Auntie Leo & The Backstabbers: Bar Open, Fitzroy

Citrus Jam: Bar Open (Front Bar), Fitzroy

The Blues Man Melbourne’s blues sensation Boadz made his solo debut earlier this year and he is bringing the hype to Edinburgh Castle Hotel on Friday. From classic covers to everything new he has to offer; this is one not to be missed.

Destrends + The Burbs + Snake Oil Psychics + The Floaties: Barwon Club Hotel, South Geelong In Store with The Ahern Brothers + Jep & Dep: Basement Discs (12.45pm), Melbourne

Jesse & The Bon-Ton Rhythms + Max Teakle & his Honky-Tonky Friends: Lomond Hotel, Brunswick East John Lee Hooker’s World Today with Hugo Race + Michelangelo Russo: Major Tom’s, Kyneton

Smells Like The 90s feat. rearviewmirror - The Pearl Jam Experience + The Australian Nirvana Show + Alice Remains: Max Watt’s, Melbourne Chasing Lana + Vacant Image + Jarface + Fight The Sun: Northcote Social Club, Northcote The Owls: Penny Black, Brunswick

Davey Lane + The Girlatones: The Gasometer Hotel (Upstairs), Collingwood Lincoln Le Fevre & The Insiders: The Gasometer Hotel, Collingwood The Adele Songbook with Bloom: The Grand Hotel, Mornington The Jim Cuomo Trio: The Merri Clan Cafe, Preston Swim Team + Maureen: The Post Office Hotel, Coburg Sleazy Listening with Winters + Arks + Hysteric + K. Hoop: The Toff In Town (Carriage Room), Melbourne

Deez Nuts

Leo James + Tone + more: Boney, Melbourne Henry Saiz: Brown Alley, Melbourne The Black Sorrows: Caravan Music Club, Oakleigh The Northern Folk + Amber Isles + Odd Souls: Catfish (Upstairs), Fitzroy

Samsaruh + Saatsuma + Aeora: The Gasometer Hotel (Upstairs), Collingwood

Palmerslum + Mannequin Death Squad + Rat Head: Cherry Bar, Melbourne

Sailor Jerry ‘Origins of Originals’ feat. The Owls + The Second Sex: The Golden Vine, Bendigo

Amy Shark + Fractures + Tommy Castles: Corner Hotel, Richmond

Magic Steven + Qwerty + Miles Mum: The Post Office Hotel, Coburg All Ages Show with With Confidence + Seaway + WSTR: The Prince, St Kilda Brooke Taylor + Benny Williams + Kerryn Fields: The Toff In Town, Melbourne Midnight Express with DJ Prequel & Edd Fisher: The Toff In Town (Carriage Room), Melbourne Batts + Jack The Fox + Ariela Jacobs: The Workers Club, Fitzroy

Boadz: Edinburgh Castle Hotel, Brunswick Galata Express + Baba Noir: Evelyn Hotel, Fitzroy Vicky O’Keefe: Flying Saucer Club, Elsternwick

Princes Of Punk

DIM + Second Sight + Asps + Correct Line: Grace Darling Hotel, Collingwood

Deez Nuts are taking their Binge And Purgatory tour on the road. They hit up Northcote Social club on Saturday. A decade on from their formation, the Melbourne locals have the makings of punk-royalty.

Chase The Sun

Lehmann B Smith + Monnone Alone: Tramway Hotel, North Fitzroy Anna Smyrk: Wesley Anne (Front Bar), Northcote Citronella Candles: Wesley Anne (Band Room), Northcote Fortnight Jumbo + Stripping on Sunset + The Midnight Sol: Whole Lotta Love, Brunswick East Body Parts + I Have a Goat + Beaver Damn: Woody’s Bar, Collingwood Pleasure Avalanche + Astral Skulls + Jules Sheldon: Yarra Hotel, Abbotsford

Fri 18 CDB: 170 Russell, Melbourne Unorthodox Jukebox + Clusterfunk: 303, Northcote Supersense Festival feat. Arrington De Dionyso + Dave Harrington Group + Sophia Brous + Leo Abrahams + David Coulter + Ande Somby + Zeena Parkins + Oliver Coates + Waangengo Blanco + Laurence Pike + Kimbra + Keiji Haino + The Master Musicians of Jajouka + Acid

Push Start Live Music Competition: Phoenix Youth Hub, Footscray

Poprocks At The Toff with Dr Phil Smith: The Toff In Town (Ballroom), Melbourne

La Danse Macabre with Brunswick Massive: Rainbow Hotel, Fitzroy

Terry + School Damage + RVG + The Faculty: The Tote, Collingwood

Chris Pickering + Al Carr & the Strong Arm + DJ Adalita: Retreat Hotel, Brunswick

Bitch Diesel + Easy Browns Truckstop Chicken Jam Band + Magpie + The Council + Spiral Perm + Eye Seaweed: The Tote (Upstairs), Collingwood

Kmas + Emily Harvey + more: Reverence Hotel, Footscray

Blues & Beers With a decade of experience behind them Chase The Sun are no strangers to the Melbourne bar scene. They are back on the road again with their new single Ain’t No Love. Hitting up Catfish on Wednesday. Bring your beer goggles!

Black Cab + Toshi Sakamoto + DJ Simona: Howler, Brunswick

Alleged Associates: Smokehouse 101, Maribyrnong Mordl + Gradual: Sooki Lounge, Belgrave Petulant Frenzy Play Frank Zappa: Spotted Mallard, Brunswick Al Parkinson + The Babes: The B.East, Brunswick East

Cosmic Kahuna + Public High + Tony Dork: The Workers Club, Fitzroy Raised By Eagles: The Workers Club Geelong, Geelong Massari + Faydee: Trak Lounge Bar, Toorak Losumo: Wesley Anne (Front Bar), Northcote

Over-Reactor: The Bendigo, Collingwood

Co-Ground Folk Show #2 with Various Artists: Wesley Anne, Northcote

Wolves In Fashion + The Avenue + Run Rabbit Run + Old Etiquettes: The Brunswick Hotel, Brunswick

Headless + Nerve Endings + Amaros + At Second Glance: Whole Lotta Love, Brunswick East

Good Morning + Hexdebt + more: The Curtin, Carlton

Plyers + Pull Out Kings + more: Woody’s Bar, Collingwood

Dave Evans + Dan Warner: The Drunken Poet, West Melbourne

The Murlocs: Wool Exchange, Geelong From Oslo: Yah Yah’s, Fitzroy

THE MUSIC • 16TH AUGUST 2017 • 37

Comedy / G The Guide

Shannon Noll: York on Lilydale, Mt Evelyn

Cold Hands Warm Heart: The Post Office Hotel, Coburg

With Confidence

Sat 19

Beaut XVII/ Light Beaut with Gavin Campbell + Jennifer Loveless + Salvador Darling: The Toff In Town, Melbourne

Sound Dimensions Pt 3 feat. Solid Foundation: 303, Northcote

In The Carriage with Jnett + DJ Neil Stafford: The Toff In Town (Carriage Room), Melbourne

Supersense Festival feat. Severed Heads + Arrington De Dionyso + Ande Somby + Oliver Coates + JG Thirlwell + Waangengo Blanco + Laurence Pike + Sophia Brous + Leo Abrahams + David Coulter + Stephen O’Malley + The Dream Machine + Pussy Riot Theatre + more: Arts Centre Melbourne, Melbourne

Mason + Harlott + Maniaxe + Destruktor: The Tote (Band Room), Collingwood Reaper + No Class: The Tote (Front Bar), Collingwood James Norbert Ivanyi + Dyssidia + Logic Defies Logic + The Omnific: The Workers Club, Fitzroy

Sun + Dom Kelly: Baha Tacos, Rye Camara + Wombatuque + Old Guard of The North: Bar Open, Fitzroy The Willie Wagtails: Bar Open (Front Bar), Fitzroy Von Stache + Chuck + The Burbs + Bound By Hounds: Barwon Club Hotel, South Geelong Euroclub: Australian Eurovision Fanclub Disco: Bella Union, Carlton South Gaby Moreno: Bird’s Basement, Melbourne

Grumpy Neighbour

Matinee Show with The Great Imposter: The Workers Club, Fitzroy

Sydney Slickers With Confidence are heading out on just one Australian tour for the year and they are bringing it The Prince on Thursday. Coming off the back of their debut album release last year, the Sydney locals’ return to home shores is sure to be a big one. Tami Neilson: Ding Dong Lounge, Melbourne

Vicky O’Keefe: Satellite Lounge, Wheelers Hill

Frankenbok + Cryptic Abyss + Annihilist + Internal Nightmare + Vulture Culture: Evelyn Hotel, Fitzroy

Spacey Space: Sooki Lounge, Belgrave

The Blackeyed Susans + Jep & Dep: Flying Saucer Club, Elsternwick Swidgen + Dark Temple: Gin Lane, Belgrave Harry Howard & The NDE: Grace Darling Hotel, Collingwood

Old-Timey Angst

Tiny Little Houses + IV League + RAThammock: Howler, Brunswick

From humble beginnings in a Melbourne bungalow, Grumpy Neighbour are now making waves with their unique brand of steam-punk folk. Be sure to check them (and their exemplary facial hair) out at Charles Weston on Saturday!

The Murlocs + Gonzo + Vertigo: Karova Lounge, Ballarat

Petulant Frenzy Play Frank Zappa: Caravan Music Club, Oakleigh Safari Motel: Catfish (Front Bar), Fitzroy Grumpy Neighbour: Charles Weston Hotel, Brunswick Shannon Noll: Chelsea Heights Hotel, Aspendale Gardens

Sailor Jerry ‘Origins of Originals’ feat. The Owls + The Stiffys + Amyl & The Sniffers: Kustom Kommune, Abbotsford The Happy Lonesome + The Devours: Labour In Vain, Fitzroy HYLA + Bloodhounds On My Trail + Blush Response: Last Chance Rock & Roll Bar, Melbourne

38 • THE MUSIC • 16TH AUGUST 2017

Fraudband + New Estate: The B.East, Brunswick East The Tarantinos + Los Amigos + Sweet Cheeks: The Bendigo, Collingwood

Bambounou: Revolver Upstairs, Prahran

Dirty Lopez & his Sax Mambo: Wesley Anne (Front Bar), Northcote Suburban Prophets + The Dead Pharoahs + Day of Clint: Whole Lotta Love, Brunswick East Helter Skelter + The Black Heart Death Cult + more: Woody’s Bar, Collingwood

Sun 20 Euphonic 2017 feat. Bipul Chettri + Albatross: 170 Russell, Melbourne

Tinsley Waterhouse Band: The Brunswick Hotel, Brunswick Majak Door + Floss + Barefoot Spaceman + Bristol Cairo: The Brunswick Hotel, Brunswick

Girlatones

Raised By Eagles: The Croxton, Thornbury

John Lee Hooker’s World Today with Hugo Race + Michelangelo Russo + Matt Malone: The Eastern, Ballarat East

Laser Brains + Gladstone + As a Rival + Under The Cut + Hammock District: Reverence Hotel, Footscray

Kilter: UNO Danceclub, Geelong

The Dorks + Error Margins + Boyparts + Muscle Mate: Yarra Hotel, Abbotsford

Deez Nuts + Void Of Vision + DREGG + Beerwolf: Northcote Social Club, Northcote

Backwood Creatures: Rainbow Hotel, Fitzroy

Alison Ferrier Band + Roz Girvan: Union Hotel, Brunswick

Hanksaw: Surabaya Johnny’s, St Kilda

The Devil Goat Family String Band + Say Nothing: The Drunken Poet, West Melbourne

Jack Druce: Club Voltaire, North Melbourne

Ash Grunwald: Theatre Royal, Castlemaine

Primitive Calculators + Kollaps + KT Spit : Yah Yah’s, Fitzroy

Purple Revolution - A Tribute to Prince with Andrew De Silva: Matthew Flinders Hotel, Chadstone

Tek Tek Ensemble + Elbury + Shannen James + Leadlight: Open Studio, Northcote

Husky: Theatre Royal, Castlemaine

Southside Twang & Soul with La Bastard + Sid O’Neil + Emilee South: Starward Distillery, Port Melbourne

New Lease feat. CLAWS + Have/ Hold + Castilles: The Curtin, Carlton

Billy Fox: Penny Black, Brunswick

Amy Shark + Fractures + Tommy Castles: Corner Hotel, Richmond

Absolutely Live - The Doors Show: Spotted Mallard, Brunswick

Monique Brumby: Lomond Hotel, Brunswick East

Pearl Jam Ten Celebration: Cherry Bar, Melbourne

Kunataki: Compass Pizza Bar, Brunswick East

School Damage + Leon + Permits: Sound Recordings, Campbells Creek

My Echo + The Lockhearts + Social Haunts + Modern Divide: The Workers Club Geelong, Geelong

Jamaica Jump Up with DJ Mohair Slim + DJ Rick Howe + Pat Powell + more: The Gasometer Hotel, Collingwood Matinee Show with Hollie Joyce + Scraggers + Hots: The Gasometer Hotel (Upstairs), Collingwood Dancing in Outer Space with Positively Positive Party + Leigh Crow: The Gasometer Hotel (Upstairs), Collingwood

Girls Next Door Davey Lane is taking over The Gasometer on Wednesday night, and lo-fi pop 4-piece Girlatones are there to support! Sway along to Share The Love and other retro dance tunes from 9pm.

Gigs / Live The Guide

The Foxy Morons + Ramen: 303, Northcote Supersense Festival feat. Spiritualized + Nazoranai + Overground: A Festival within a Festival: Arts Centre Melbourne, Melbourne

Overground: A Festival within a Festival feat. Acid Mothers Temple + Ande Somby + Arrington De Dionyso + Carolyn Connors + Clayton Thomas + Dylan Martorell + James Rushford + Jannah Quill + JG Thirlwell + Jim Denley + Kane Ikin + Kusum Normoyle + Laura Altman + Laurence Pike + Lucy Cliche + Marcus Whale + Maria Moles + Matthias Schack-Arnott + more: Arts Centre Melbourne, Melbourne The Slipdixies: Bar Open (Front Bar), Fitzroy Electric Mud + Mad Mellow + Foggy Notion: Bar Open, Fitzroy Gaby Moreno: Bird’s Basement, Melbourne

Otira Rouge + Ben Maltby Trio + Isobel Caldwell + Pru Illingworth + Mel Taylor: Open Studio, Northcote

The Meeseeks + The Miyagis + The Orbit Theory: The Tote, Collingwood

The New Savages: Rainbow Hotel, Fitzroy

White Vans + New Band + Spiral Perm: The Tote (Front Bar), Collingwood

Little Georgia + Khristian Mizzi: Retreat Hotel, Brunswick

Tim Guy: The Westernport Hotel, Phillip Island

Pig & Dan: Revolver Upstairs, Prahran

Matinee Show with San Antone + Pamela St + Rourke Puksand: The Workers Club, Fitzroy

Geoff Achison: Royal Oak Hotel, Fitzroy North Majak Door: Sooki Lounge, Belgrave Lost Ragas: Spotted Mallard, Brunswick OxJam feat. Busy Kingdom + Ablaze + Honeybone + more: The Bendigo, Collingwood The Cooks + One More Weekend + Valerie Avenue: The Brunswick Hotel, Brunswick

Huanchaco + Amaru Tribe: The Workers Club, Fitzroy Mike Noga + Jess Parker: Tramway Hotel, North Fitzroy Chris Wilson + Duncan Phillips & The Long Stand: Union Hotel, Brunswick Afternoon Show with The Jack Earle Big Band: Wesley Anne, Northcote Samassin: Wesley Anne (Front Bar), Northcote

Tiny Little Houses

Catholic Guilt + Jess Porter + Cranes Against Clouds: Whole Lotta Love, Brunswick East Afternoon Show with Dandecat + Spiritus + Loose Moose: Whole Lotta Love, Brunswick East Wolves In Fashion + Something Something Explosion + Tom Walker & The Sick Individuals: Woody’s Bar, Collingwood The Tool Time House Band + Efficiency + Magpie: Yarra Hotel, Abbotsford

Mon 21

Bigger & Better

Kunataki

World Taste Sensation Get down to Compass Pizza Bar on Saturday to get a taste of the Latin flavours Kunataki are known for. Bringing a contemporary edge to their sound, the Melbourne locals are sure to make the night a transformative experience. Charles Jenkins: Retreat Hotel, Brunswick Phaedo + Vacant Smiles + The Deadpans: The Old Bar, Fitzroy The Flock + Floss + The Jives: The Workers Club, Fitzroy

Tue 22 Bohjass: 303, Northcote

Rhys Darby: Comedy Theatre, Melbourne

Make It Up Club feat. Sage Pbbbt + Hammers Lake + more: Bar Open, Fitzroy

Amy Shark + Fractures + Tommy Castles: Corner Hotel, Richmond

Samuel Torres: Bird’s Basement, Melbourne Biddlewood + Lena Louise + The Eves + Isabel Campbell: Evelyn Hotel, Fitzroy

Tiny Little Houses are returning home to launch their latest single Garbage Bin at Howler on Saturday. The noise-folk band have come a long way from bedroom recordings in 2014, to now releasing defiant anthems for the 20-something generation.

Losumo

Tom Tom Tuesday feat. Nina Buchanan + Tomb Raver + Correct Line + Dielo Truda: Howler, Brunswick Salad Boys: Labour In Vain, Fitzroy Scarlett Cook + Shiver Canyon: Open Studio, Northcote

Reimagining Burt Bacharach: Caravan Music Club, Oakleigh Leroy’s Hammond Trio: Catfish (Front Bar), Fitzroy The Tarantinos: Ding Dong Lounge, Melbourne Rifle Smile + Jimmy Carroll: Evelyn Hotel, Fitzroy Normie Rowe: Flying Saucer Club, Elsternwick

Housebroken + Steph Mang + Blaire + Apprehensive: The Creators Lounge, Footscray The Little Lord Street Band + Ian Collard: The Drunken Poet, West Melbourne Georgia Spain + Jumpin’ Jack William + Palm Springs: The Gasometer Hotel (Upstairs), Collingwood

The Detonators: Heathmont Bowls Club, Heathmont

Matinee Show with Hidden Spheres + Lobster Theremin: The Gasometer Hotel (Upstairs), Collingwood

The JVG Guitar Method: Labour In Vain, Fitzroy

Dan Lethbridge + Shane O’Mara: The Post Office Hotel, Coburg

Moreland City Soul Revue: Lomond Hotel, Brunswick East

The Sunday Set with DJ Andyblack + Mr Weir: The Toff In Town (Carriage Room), Melbourne

The Boite Millennium Chorus + more: Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre (MCEC), South Wharf

Seance Mystere + Astro Crypt Hell Surfers + Mudhaven + Oceans of Blood: The Brunswick Hotel, Brunswick

Inloeman + Guerilla Funk + Care Factor: The Brunswick Hotel, Brunswick

Down The Rabbit Hole with Nigel Last: The Toff In Town (Carriage Room), Melbourne

Spell-Bound

Patsy Cline played by Tracey Hogue: The Drunken Poet, West Melbourne

The self-proclaimed musical magician Losumo is heading to Wesley Anne on Friday. Known for casting spells through song you definitely won’t mind being spellbound by this electronic powerhouse.

Dom Kelly: The Gasometer Hotel (Upstairs), Collingwood

Diamonds Of Neptune + The Attention Seekers: Evelyn Hotel, Fitzroy Wind It Up with Various Artists: Northcote Social Club, Northcote

Jess Parker &The Troubled Waters: The Old Bar, Fitzroy Now.Here.This with The Mamas + Rogue Wave: The Toff In Town, Melbourne Dave O’Connor + Conor O’Hanlon + Babey: The Tote (Front Bar), Collingwood Matinee Show with Retro Culture + The Cassandras + The Sunday League: The Workers Club, Fitzroy June Jones + Sarah Mary Chadwick: Tramway Hotel, North Fitzroy

Masonik: Open Studio, Northcote THE MUSIC • 16TH AUGUST 2017 • 39