11.10.17 Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture
Issue
210
Melbourne / Free / Incorporating
E C C A B U R S T I N G
O U T
O F
V A N D A L H E R
B U B B L E
T O
P L A Y
F A L L S
Release T w o S t e p s O n T h e Wa t e r
Tour The Bronx
Tour J u s t i n To w n e s E a r l e
2 • THE MUSIC • 11TH OCTOBER 2017
6.10.17
“Many artists take cues from Bowie but she’s the closest thing we have to his audaciously protean vision of pop stardom: a living art project that contains multitudes” -Q
“A career summit. It’s her ‘Lemonade,’ her ‘OK Computer’— whatever reference conveys the urgency with which it demands to be listened to when it drops.” - NYLON
13.10.17 THE MUSIC • 11TH OCTOBER 2017 • 3
CREATED & PERFORMED BY / Susie Dee, Nicci Wilks WRITTEN BY / Angus Cerini, Patricia Cornelius, Wayne Macauley, Melissa Reeves
CARAVAN A DARKLY COMIC LOOK AT LIFE ON THE MARGINS AND THE UNIVERSAL NEED FOR LOVE.
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4 • THE MUSIC • 11TH OCTOBER 2017
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THE MUSIC • 11TH OCTOBER 2017 • 5
Music / Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture
Five Coronas Deep
Irish rockers The Coronas are set to return to Australian shores next month to reacquaint themselves with local fans on the heels of their fifth full-length, Trust The Wire.
The Coronas
Leprous
Rollin’ Prog Progfest has announced the first acts on its 2018 line-up, as well as expanding beyond Melbourne to Brisbane and Sydney. You can catch Leprous, Voyager, Alithia, Orsome Welles and more in January.
Manu Crooks
Parkway Drive
I sexually identify as a microwave dinner because I’m ready in 5 minutes but don’t look anything like my photos. @xLiserx
6 • THE MUSIC • 11TH OCTOBER 2017
Drive Back To celebrate the ten year anniversary of Parkway Drive’s second album Horizons, the Byron Bay band have confirmed a string of headline dates for January next year in addition to their appearance at UNIFY 2018.
Arts / Li Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture
Credits
Publisher Street Press Australia Pty Ltd
Mariah Carey
Big M
Mariah Carey has revealed she will head to Australia next year for a massive headline tour. The US pop superstar confirmed she will bring her #1s tour Down Under next February,, her first visit to our shores since 2014 .
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#1 Crook After killing at BIGSOUND recently, Sydney hip hop maven Manu Crooks has announced his first ever Australian headline shows in November and December.
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Beautiful Synthony
Evanescence
In support of their forthcoming album Synthesis, due out 10 Nov, US rockers Evanescence have announced they will tour Australia in 2018 alongside some of the country’s Symphony orchestras in February. THE MUSIC • 11TH OCTOBER 2017 • 7
Music / A Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture
Good Point
Melbourne five-piece The General Assembly have dropped their full-length debut and also announced a run of shows around the country. They’re set to bring Vanishing Point to The Toff In Town on Nov 16
Sweet As
Caption
The General Assembly
Jamila Woods
Juniore
Sugar Mountain is back next January with another peerless collection of legends. As well as the usual amazing array of art and food there’ll be sets from Jamila Woods, J Hus, Kardajala Kirridarra and Stella Donnelly.
18.78 MILLION
Totally Mild
The amount of tickets issued to live shows, as reported in Live Performance Australia’s recently released Ticket Attendance & Revenue Survey for 2016. 8 • THE MUSIC • 11TH OCTOBER 2017
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Ahead of their support duties for Stevie Nicks’ Australian tour, iconic rockers Pretenders have announced two massive headline shows during their trip Down Under. The band, fronted by Chrissie Hynde, will land in November.
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THE MUSIC • 11TH OCTOBER 2017 • 9
Music
G E T
Ecca Vandal sits down with Cyclone ahead of the release of her debut, self-titled album to discuss how jazz led her to hardcore, why she questioned putting so much of herself in her music and why the album is “for the misfits”.
T
he rising Melbourne hard rocker Ecca Vandal is dropping one of 2017’s most anticipated Australian albums. And, w her fierce, eponymous debut, this future with fe feminist heroine is demonstrating that the pe e personal is political and punk is pop. Vandal is diligently conducting in interviews on that feverish Friday before th AFL Grand Final in Victoria. “How crazy the is it that we’ve got a public holiday?” she la a laughs. Vandal toils non-stop. Aside from w wrapping her album this year, she has played th h Melbourne leg of Laneway and opened the fo Josh Homme’s Queens Of The Stone for Ag After her national headline tour, Vandal Ag Age. w hit the UK then close 2017 by joining will Fa Festival. But today she’s spruiking Fa Falls Ec E c Vandal - its prelude, Broke Days, Party Ecca Nii N Nights, a combustible millennial ‘fuck a au austerity’ banger. There is a long tradition of iconic female m musicians utilising punk for maximum pop ttra tr ra transgression - from X-Ray Spex frontwoman Po Styrene to Nina Hagen and Neneh Po Poly Ch C h Cherry. Vandal’s energetic, contemporary ta is omnidirectional - veering off into hip take h and electro(clash). She’s as defiantly ho hop p po post-genre as MIA, Grimes or Alice Glass. Cr Cr Crucially, Vandal revels in pop hooks, bu without sacrificing punk’s intensity bu but o attitude. “I’m in love with melodic or m music - that’s where it comes from,” she sa Vandal’s hip-hop pal Joelistics has sa says. sa sagely tagged her oeuvre “punk rock/ f fu future dancefloor”. Vandal has a complex heritage. She w born in South Africa to Sri Lankan was e em emigre parents. But, when Vandal was four, th family left South Africa’s repressive the ap p apartheid regime for suburban Melbourne. V Va Vandal fondly remembers the soundtrack to that flux. She was exposed early to Sri Lankan festive music and South African gospel. Later, Vandal latched onto R&B and hip hop, raiding her older sisters’ CD collections. Having picked up various instruments through childhood (and formally learning violin), Vandal successfully auditioned for the Victorian College of the Arts. Ironically, while studying jazz, she discovered hardcore - Washington, DC’s Bad Brains proving transformative. These influences have all bled into Vandal’s sound. “When it came to writing my original music, I didn’t wanna let go of anything,” she says. “I just thought, ‘I wanna be me’.” As such, Vandal’s hybrid is a proclamation of diversity. Still, she’s posited Ecca Vandal as an album “for the misfits”. In 2014 Vandal discharged her first single, White Flag - recording in DIY-mode with her now-regular cohort, Richie “Kidnot” Buxton. At the start of 2016, she stealthreleased an EP, End Of Time - encompassing
the popular Battle Royal. On Ecca Vandal, the singer further explores her own identity and dilemmas. “I guess it’s a portrait of who I am right now,” Vandal ponders. “I wanted to encapsulate all the moods and emotions I was going through over the last year, year and a bit as I was writing this record. The world has really grown dim over the last year, especially. A lot of things have happened politically that I felt very passionately about. But, at the same time, I was trying to write and create in my lounge room. I was trying to work out where I fit in amongst that - you know, how political and how much would I allow myself to get involved with it, or do I just wanna sort of protect myself a little bit? Because, first, as a person who experiences things very vividly and passionately, it sometimes affects me quite negatively. I get very sad and I feel a bit helpless. So sometimes it was a matter of me working out, ‘Okay, how much do I wanna talk about... Do I just wanna be in my bubble?’” Vandal was compelled to pen the Beastie Boys-like Price Of Living (which, astonishingly, features both Refused frontman Dennis Lyxzen and Letlive’s Jason Aalon Butler) as a protest song about Australia’s mistreatment of refugees after viewing Eva Orner’s searing 2016 documentary Chasing Asylum. “It was a massive thing for me.” The album’s most empowering moment is the grunge stomper Future Heroine, which is accompanied by a female-centric video.
“It’s about a death of a relationship,” Vandal reveals. “It was an observational thing - it was actually what a friend of mine was going through recently. Unfortunately, it was due to addiction and things like that [which] really led to the death of this relationship. It was really speaking to her being empowered to go, ‘Well, actually, I’m not gonna settle to be second best’.” Curiously, Vandal conceived Future Heroine on her inaugural writers’ camp - “one of those speed-dating/ songwriting sessions,” she jokes. Travelling to the APRA AMCOS SongHubs in Auckland, Vandal connected with American “heavyweight” Mike Elizondo, famed for his work alongside Eminem. Vandal admits of her SongHubs experience, “Usually, I like those sort of atmospheres, because I’m a very spontaneous person by nature.” Vandal’s buzziest album collaboration will inevitably be with Sampa The Great on Your Orbit. (The track originated when Vandal bunkered down with Darwin Deez in New York.) Currently, Melbourne is attracting international attention for its avant-soul scene - epitomised by Hiatus Kaiyote. However, in the ‘80s, the UK music press salivated over the city as the incubator of Nick Cave and The Birthday Party - gothic punks. Vandal regrets the lack of cross-exchange between dynamic local subcultures. “I’d love to see people not being fearful or scared to collaborate with others from different schools of thought.” After all, that is “where the magic happens”. Vandal has some important champions - Queens Of The Stone Age handpicking her to support their Splendour In The Grass sideshows. “It was amazing,” she raves. “They were very warm and welcoming, and that was really special to see; that they actually came out and watched the set. They were very encouraging. When they saw the set, they said that they really enjoyed it. So that was really special. They’re just typical rock legends, in every sense of the word. Just what you would expect to see is actually what they’re like backstage. You can hear them walking a mile away with all their leathers and chains and boots clinking around in the background! They’re just incredible.” Vandal is soon to make her UK premiere supporting Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes, ticking off her “bucket list” ambition of performing at Brixton Academy. “When I was in London once, I actually snuck in there to see Erykah Badu,” she confides. “I always thought to myself, ‘I’d love to play this room one day’... I’m just so stoked.”
I’d love to see people not being fearful or scared to collaborate with others from different schools of thought.
What: Ecca Vandal (Dew Process/Universal) When & Where: 24 Nov, Karova Lounge, Ballarat; 25 Nov, Corner Hotel; 30 Dec, Falls Festival, Marion Bay; 31 Dec, Falls Festival, Lorne
B R E A K I N G B A R R I E R S Ecca Vandal’s hip hop jam with Sampa The Great (aka Sampa Tembo) is among the biggest revelations on her self-titled album. Your Orbit came about serendipitously. Vandal and her co-producer, Richie “Kidnot” Buxton, were working with Darwin Deez in his Brooklyn, New York bedroom when they heard the beat. Vandal wrote a song. Back in Melbourne, she decided to add another voice. “I thought because this has a particular throwback to that golden era, it has a very East Side hip-hop sound, it’d be great to have an MC on that. And, when I’m thinking about local MCs, the greatest that I could think of is Sampa.” Vandal met the acclaimed Zambian singer, songwriter and MC - who’s lately relocated from Sydney to Melbourne when they performed at Her Sound, Her Story: A Celebration Of Women In Music during 2016’s Melbourne Music Week. The pair shared a ride to the afterparty and Vandal ran Your Orbit by Tembo. “It was just an incredible collab, because I love the fact that two worlds are coming together. She thought that I just did punk-rock music and I thought she just did [hip hop]. Coming together, it’s really cool that we can break down those barriers and those walls and have unexpected collaboration in this song. We really love that aspect of it and to have two females on this song was really cool.”
THE MUSIC • 11TH OCTOBER 2017 • 11
Music
In The Moment Two Steps On The Water’s June Jones tells Anthony Carew that being interviewed can be tough when the music you make is “so fucking honest”. n Salmon, a standout jam on the second Two Steps On The Water LP, June Jones sings lyrics that are impossibly personal, evocative, heartbreaking: “2002, standing on my bed frame/Arms crossed like a vampire, and I fell/Commanding the gay ghost from my body/I attempted an exorcism on myself.” “That’s a very specific memory that I have,” Jones explains. “I can’t remember what part of that song I started writing first, but there came a moment where I realised, ‘This is a song where I’m looking back on my life, and seeing moments of internalising prejudice against your own identity’. That was a really striking incident that I’ve thought about regularly since. It’s such a vivid memory
I
I’ve had forms of mental illness since I was 14 and songwriting is the thing I’ve found most therapeutic for that.
of me trying to expel something from myself, with the aspiration of being something different, more quoteunquote ‘normal’, to what you actually are.” Such confession, candour and queer themes are standard for Jones, who writes songs about “being a trans woman with PTSD”. The band’s line-up marshals the Dirty Three set-up — guitar, violin, drums — into tunes that build from frail to furious, with Jones’ lyrics at the centre of their gathering storms. “They’re really personal,” Jones acknowledges. “When I write a song, I really am by myself. There’s a lot more freedom to be vulnerable. I’m not even thinking about communicating to other people, that’s just a by-product from this process of me talking to myself.” Jones grew up in nondescript Melbourne suburbia (bouncing between Kew and Balwyn), harbouring teenage 12 • THE MUSIC • 11TH OCTOBER 2017
musical obsessions that would have no bearing on her songwriting future: Red Hot Chili Peppers, nu-metal, poppunk. Kate Bush, from whose Hounds Of Love Two Steps On The Water take their name, came later, in Jones’ early 20s. She founded the band, with violinist/vocalist Sienna Thornton and drummer/vocalist Jonathan Nash, not knowing quite how her musical desires would manifest themselves. “I felt like I wanted to start a folk project, but I also felt like I wanted to start an emo, post-hardcore kind of thing,” Jones laughs. “This is my way of doing the two things together. I had no idea if that idea could work, but I feel like what we do does work.” Befitting their songs, Two Steps On The Water serve as a cathartic vessel for Jones. “I’ve had forms of mental illness since I was 14 and songwriting is the thing I’ve found most therapeutic for that,” she says. “When I was in high school, I was agoraphobic and had a tendency towards paranoid thoughts. When I look back on it, I think, ‘Wow, I had such a deeply skewed view of the world.’ I was such a deeply terrified person, from about 14 onwards.” Making music has gone hand-in-hand with personal growth and better mental health; the act of performing carrying pleasing physical associations for Jones. “There’s something about the physical sensation of playing guitar, something between the melody and the rhythm,” she offers. “There’s something about it that’s really grounding. And singing is really calming. And, on top of all that, to be able to write words that are very directly about what I’m feeling in that moment — that can be a really good form of release.” As they’ve self-released a run of records — first the EPs ...In A Shed, Doing ASBESTOS We Can and Having Pop-Punk Feelings In A Country-Western Body, then the LPs God Forbid Anyone Look Me In The Eye and Sword Songs — Two Steps On The Water have played constantly around Melbourne, earning a devoted following by dint of their ultra-emotional live shows. At an early residency at The Gasometer Hotel, the crowd that gathered at the gigs felt like a celebration of the city’s blossoming trans scene. Jones has, since, staged a pair of day-long mini-festivals, in 2016 and 2017, under the name Transgenre, featuring a host (Spike Fuck, Simona Castricum, Pikelet, Habits) of trans/GNC acts, hoping to foster a growing community. In Melbourne, Jones feels like there aren’t many acts that sound like Two Steps On The Water’s emo-folk, but still feels a sense of belonging among bands playing “honest music, music that’s reflecting on personal experience”. She’s hoping her own music can, over time, involve more fiction and storytelling; but, at this point, “saying something very personal, impulsively, in the moment, that’s what [she] feel[s] most comfortable doing”. All that lyrical vulnerability, and music soul-baring, can feel like it’s too much, though, when Jones is asked about her songs in promotional conversation. “Interviews can make me feel like I wish I’d never done an interview,” she sighs. “Sometimes I wish I was in some fucking post-punk band, singing songs about some industrial setting that I’ve never been to. That I could make music without people knowing a thing about [me]. But I’m making music that’s just so fucking honest.”
What: Sword Songs (Independent) When & Where: 13 Oct, Howler; 17 Nov, St Paul’s Cathedral; 22 Dec, Off The Grid, Southbank
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PLUS HE A PS MORE AT W W W.NORTHCOTESOCIA LCLUB.COM THE MUSIC • 11TH OCTOBER 2017 • 13
Music
The Eclectic Light Orchestra Danny Harley, aka The Kite String Tangle, is about to make a return to the stage in a big way with festival and headline performances over the next few months and, as Mitch Knox finds out, it all comes at a time that’s incredibly exciting for electronic music as a whole.
W
ith performances at Brisbane Festival, a support slot for London Grammar and RL Grime, and his own headline tour in October, it’s unsurprising that Danny Harley — aka The Kite String Tangle — is filling his downtime with rehearsals.
It’s kind of like all the gaps are just being filled.
That said, when The Music touches base with the lauded Brisbane producer ahead of his impending burst of live outings, he’s showing no signs of stress. In fact, his most recent weekend of practice was a somewhat relaxed one — “Nothing too crazy,” he says — as he’s implementing a “casual but constant” regimen of rehearsal with “lots of breaks and tasty food, TV shows, all the good stuff”. But his calm and affable demeanour shouldn’t mislead you; Harley works just as hard as he plays and, given a recent quiet spell on the live front, he’s ready and raring to hit the stage once more. “It feels really good to have a couple of months that are really packed,” he explains of his upcoming shows. “I’m going to be playing with a full band; I quite often play solo but lately I’ve been playing with a full band, so I’m 14 • THE MUSIC • 11TH OCTOBER 2017
doing that for all the shows. There’s gonna be a lighting element... it should be pretty cool. I’ve got a few things up my sleeve.” Despite his origins as a one-man show, Harley demonstrates the power of community in bringing such a stage show to life, having found both of his new accomplices through a degree of serendipity. “I did a tour with Dustin Tebbutt in promotion of a single we did together called Illuminate, and then his drummer was this guy, Dave Jenkins, and so I kind of stole him,” he laughs. “He wasn’t using him! It’s fine. “So I stole him, and then Ben [Corbett] is the guy that plays keys for me... I think he just came highly regarded from Dave. But it’s one of those things, like, there’s not too many people floating around; the music community’s pretty tight, so it’s only ever a phone call away of asking someone, ‘Hey, who’s awesome at playing that?’ and usually you’ll get someone pretty quick.” Harley’s time away from the stage should not be mistaken for laziness, either; on the contrary, he keeps well and truly busy as the man behind his own label, Exist Recordings, which is already home to Golden Vessel and Lastlings — who have both showcased at Brisbane’s BIGSOUND festival over the past couple of years — and has its eye set on expanding its ranks in the near future. Something that Harley — and, really, anyone who’s paying attention — has noticed lately, notably at BIGSOUND, is the organic diversification of the “electronic” genre, which has become a catch-all term for an increasingly disparate group of artists who nonetheless feel at least partially connected through their similar performance techniques, if not their sound. “I guess there was a time there where the sound was pretty, like... you could pigeonhole it pretty easily, and you got a lot of similar acts doing that sort of chilled, downtempo bedroom-producer vibe,” Harley muses. “And there was a lot of people [at BIGSOUND] doing a lot of electronic music, but they weren’t similar at all... There was a lot less conformity in those sounds, and it felt like people are making bigger statements now. “But I guess it happens across all genres, and I think, yeah, you can’t really pick it; it’s just who’s hot at that time within those sub-genres... so you’re kinda screwed if your sub-genre isn’t a popular one,” he laughs. But this, too, is slowly but surely changing, as said sub-genres mature and earn more mainstream recognition, Harley concurs — and he seems excited to see where it all leads. “It’s kind of like all the gaps are just being filled, between commercial music, alternative music, indie music, underground music... there’s now, like, a much fuller spectrum. That’s how I see it, anyway. “People consume in a more eclectic manner, I think,” he says. “Much more often you’ll find someone that likes rock and electronic and this and that, whereas it sort of used to be part of your personality, like, ‘I’m a rap guy,’ or ‘I’m a rock guy,’... people [now] just consume whatever’s good, and that’s awesome.”
When & Where: 25 & 27 Oct, Corner Hotel; 11 Jan, FOMO By Night, Festival Hall
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THE MUSIC • 11TH OCTOBER 2017 • 15
Music
Still Matty From The Bronx The Bronx vocalist Matt Caughthran tells Brendan Crabb about the damage broken vodka bottles can do and how he’s hoping Pennywise’s Fletcher Dragge will make it out of Australia alive.
T
he Music converses with The Bronx frontman Matt Caughthran on Australian release day for the punkers’ new record V. Unsurprisingly, his dual feelings of enthusiasm and mild apprehension are palpable down the phone line. “I love the record, but it’s like anything, you spend too much time you can just over-think it and there’s an anxiety that comes along with releasing a record, something that you love,” he reflects. “It’s a tricky thing trying to figure out whether or not you want to get wrapped
It just sounds kind of like a dumpster fire. It’s super-nasty, super-dirty and super-trashy, and that’s what we wanted.
up in that thing about, like, record reviews and this and that. Your tendency is to get involved because you want to know what people think, but sometimes... It kinda ends up fucking with you more than it does anything else.” The infusion of another element to the Los Angeles rockers’ latest offering is also a discussion point for the singer. Namely, guitarist Joby J Ford’s discovery of a talkbox, utilised on a couple of the new cuts. “It’s hilarious, because he’s got to breathe into that little tube on this, like, old Peter Frampton guitar thing... But this record was super-cool that way. Rob Schnapf who produced it, he had all this super-old vintage gear — vintage amps, vintage everything — and it just gave the sound of the record; it just sounds kind of like a dumpster fire. It’s super-nasty, super-
16 • THE MUSIC • 11TH OCTOBER 2017
dirty and super-trashy, and that’s what we wanted.” Complementing this abrasive, sometimes melodic musical approach is its lyrical tack, which the singer admits is “all over the place”. “I was watching a lot of Forensic Files and murder mysteries, Menendez documentaries and the Challenger explosion. The political state of the USA is a mess right now, so there’s a little bit of that in there. A couple of personal songs are on the record, just about... A little bit of depression I battled and a couple of other things in there. There’s some songs about the organised religion thing that’s creeping back up in the USA right now, because of the President and all that stuff. It’s just a weird time to be here. There’s so much technology and there’s so much just awesomeness happening, but then it’s like, we’re moving forward, but we’re moving backwards at the same time.” Despite the 24-hour news cycle and social media readily affording platforms that many artists are willing to utilise, some musicians appear reluctant to openly outline a political stance for fear of potentially alienating sections of their fanbase. “It should be their choice as to whether or not they want to dive in artistically, enter the arena of politics,” Caughthran says. “I get it. I mean, The Bronx isn’t really a political band, but there are certain things that we jump on just because it feels right in the moment. I think there’s definitely spots where people can... People can fake politics too, man. People can write songs about ‘fuck Trump, fuck this and fuck that’ and they can not know what they’re talking about. They could not mean it, they could just be riding along. Politics is personal... I think it’s up to themselves whether or not they want to get involved in that. But if you get involved, mean it. You’ve got to mean what you say nowadays, whether you’re cracking jokes, wha talking politics or whatever. The time for just mindless talk rambling and insincere words is over. It’s time to at least ram stand up, and stand by, what you say.” stan There will be little avenue for misinterpretation or insincerity when The Bronx again bring their high-intensity insin live performances to one of their strongest markets: Australia. Their upcoming jaunt will consist of shows with punk mainstays Pennywise as well as headlining gigs. Caughthran says their Mariachi El Bronx alter ego won’t be joining them this time around, though. “There’s so many [fond memories of Australia]. One specifically about Pennywise was when Fletcher [Dragge, guitar] cut himself open on Soundwave. Fletcher came up on stage while we were playing, smashed a vodka bottle and cut himself open, screamed that The Bronx was the greatest band on the planet, stumbled off into the night and the story continues from there. But that was amazing.” The man-mountain guitarist’s reputation for off-stage antics precedes him. Has he mellowed at all as the years progress? “He’s crazier than ever, man,” Caughthran laughs. “He’s like a fine wine, he just gets better and better with age. There’s that theory that when crazy people get around other crazy people, that it just kind of amplifies the energy. Quite honestly I’m not really sure if we’re going to make it out of Australia alive on this next tour. I’m hopeful, but I’m also very scared,” he chuckles.
What: V (White Drugs/Cooking Vinyl) When & Where: 26 Oct, Corner Hotel; 27 Oct, Forum Theatre
the
with Maxim & Sam
introducing your new podcast obsession does it grind your gears or earn your cheers? new episodes streaming every wednesday
THE MUSIC • 11TH OCTOBER 2017 • 17
Music
Different Perspectives They say that a change is as good as a holiday, and Americana star Justin Townes Earle tells Steve Bell how even a forced change can yield handsome dividends.
S
wiss author and dramatist Friedrich Durrenmatt once sagely opined, “resistance at all cost is the most senseless act there is”, a tenet that US singer-songwriter Justin Townes Earle can readily attest to following the birth of his recent seventh album Kids In The Street. For a full decade the rising star had been crafting his authentic, heartfelt Americana in his native Nashville under his own supervision - with requisitely strong results. Yet suddenly for Kids In The Street Earle decamped to the Omaha studio of producer Mike Mogis (Bright Eyes, Cursive, First Aid Kit) - the first time he’d allowed outside
...I genuinely in a lot of ways did not know what to expect with this record and I won’t say that I was surprised that I liked it, but I was surprised that I loved it.
assistance in the studio - and recorded using hithertounknown local musicians, a move he attributes to his brand new label New West Records. “It was time to try something different, or just somewhere different,” Earle reflects. “But I can’t claim credit for the wanting to go there, it was something that my record label brought to me and then I fought it a bit at first. I do actually trust the people who work at my record label and admire the work that they’ve done in the past, so I decided that maybe it was time to listen and take a little bit of direction from an outside source, which I hadn’t done at any point in my career. “I ended up liking it, although it felt strange doing it. It’s my seventh full-length and eighth release altogether and I’m going somewhere other than where I’ve always 18 • THE MUSIC • 11TH OCTOBER 2017
made records that have done well for me - it kinda goes against everything that we would normally think.” Fortunately, Kids In The Street survived the new process unscathed, the album assured and upbeat and dripping with soul. “I knew what I wanted feeling-wise, but I really went into this record not knowing what to expect,” the singer continues. “And a big part of the making of this record was that I relinquished a lot of control, and the fact that Mike Mogis plays a lot on the record and I allowed him to do all his parts on his own and then send them in. “Usually when I make records I’m there for the mixing process and the mastering process - I’m there the whole time. I wasn’t there for the mixing of this record, so I genuinely in a lot of ways did not know what to expect with this record and I won’t say that I was surprised that I liked it, but I was surprised that I loved it. “[Relinquishing control] is definitely one thing that singer-songwriters especially are kinda heady about, we like to think that our way of looking at our songs and the way that we first envisioned our songs is the way that they have to be sometimes, and I’m guilty of that. I do write songs where I know my part but I definitely have ideas for instrumentation and things by the time I’ve done writing a song. So it was interesting doing it, the nervewracking part was waiting for the mixes but it worked out great. It’s good to be nervous every once in a while.” Lyrically Kids In The Street finds Earle getting nostalgic, regularly touching upon childhood memories and the gentrification of his old neighbourhoods through the prism of third-party perspectives. “I think in all my records there’s some kind of loose thread that runs through them all,” he offers, “and this record is definitely looking at the fact that I’m 35 and I’m old enough to look at a troubled life with something other than anger now and to look at it more from an outward perspective as opposed to an inward perspective. “[It’s a different challenge], especially when you’re looking and trying to understand how it all projects onto everybody around you. I think it’s a lot more difficult than say sorting through my own thoughts of it and my own opinions, and looking at it from a stance other than your own. Trying to speak for other people is a definite challenge.” Kids In The Street also finds Earle dusting off timeworn narratives in If I Was The Devil and Same Old Stagolee, his tip of the cap to the ongoing folk tradition and lineage. “Absolutely,” he concedes. “I think that it’s the same reason that I did They Killed John Henry [on 2009’s Midnight At The Movies]: I see where I gained the most important bits of what I do from generation after generation of artists re-working the same songs and making sure that these storylines didn’t die. So I do think that because I took from that tradition so much that I have an obligation to try and continue that tradition.”
When & Where: 14 Oct, Out On The Weekend, Williamstown; 16 Oct, Melbourne Recital Centre; 20 Oct, Meeniyan Town Hall; 21 Oct, Theatre Royale, Castlemaine
Music
Worlds Colliding
M
issouri-bred veterans Son Volt have been at the vanguard of the burgeoning Americana movement since their inception in the mid-’90s. The band rose from the ashes of alt-country pioneers Uncle Tupelo following their 1994 implosion, with that band’s two co-frontmen Jay Farrar and Jeff Tweedy branching out to form Son Volt and Wilco respectively. In the decades since, Son Volt have stayed true to their roots and released eight powerful albums exploring all manner of traditional terrain, with their most recent effort Notes Of Blue examining the oftoverlooked commonality between the blues and country oeuvres. Even a recent reappraisal of Son Volt’s seminal 1995 debut Trace for re-release purposes influenced Notes Of Blue’s eventual aesthetic. “It did in terms of that I was really looking forward to getting back into playing electric guitar, which is something that I hadn’t done in Son Volt recordings for quite a few years,” Farrar reflects. “Trace obviously had that duality of acoustic and electric guitars and we approached it that way on Notes Of Blue as well.” The album also finds Farrar exploring the distinctive tunings and fingerpicking styles of Delta bluesmen Skip James and
Frontlash Rent Fair If you’ve ever found yourself living on a mate’s couch with next to no notice, give a big fat HOLA for the new laws against dodgy dickhead landlords.
Rent Fair #2 Also, tenants have the right to own pets! Dogs for everyone!
Ban The Bots Next we just need to snag us some of that NSW legislation looking to ban software that automatically buys bulk tickets. Then we can have our dogs and see gigs too. Rick & Morty
Lashes
Ahead of their first ever Australian tour, Jay Farrar of legendary Americana outfit Son Volt tells Steve Bell that he’s no stranger to exploring new vistas.
Mississippi Fred McDowell, as well as looking further afield to the work of UK pastoralist Nick Drake. “I had to learn the [styles of James and McDowell] as I wasn’t familiar with them,” Farrar tells. “I’m at least accustomed to the idea of just starting with either a random tuning or various alternate tunings so the approach at least I was familiar with, but the tunings themselves took me a couple of days to get familiar with. Eventually I was able to get inside of it and find the right expressions and sounds, and for me it felt like a chance to connect with icons and heroes in a tribute of sorts. “Nick [Drake] also had some great, great alternate tunings and I’d always wanted to work with those as well. At first I was looking at maybe doing two different projects — one more folk-based project inspired by English folk musicians — but ultimately I combined it all and felt that there was enough commonality of purpose and aesthetics to all fall into this record.” Farrar’s music has always been so synonymous with the country realms, was the blues a major part of his musical upbringing? “I’d say it was always a component,” he ponders. “The realisation that blues was such an important part of country music was a reason to focus on that and really explore the nexus of where blues and country meet. And they meet quite a lot. Hank Williams was an example there of an artist equally at home in both realms, and that was what I was shooting for and that was the inspiration this time around, trying to find that convergence of blues and country.”
Backlash Mortyfied
People who found themselves lining up at Macca’s four hours before opening time to get a taste of that sweet, sweet szechaun sauce — or paying $$$$ for it online — need to chill out. You’re worse than Redgrin Grumble.
Fake Positive
Pres Trump: “I think one of the greatest of all terms I’ve come up with is ‘fake’.” Not sure what lesser ‘terms’ he’s come up with, but we would love to get that list.
Need My Flix When & Where: 14 Oct, Out On The Weekend, Williamstown; 15 Oct, Corner Hotel
Not super digging the weekly doling out of Star Trek: Discovery and The Good Place. The whole point of Netflix is literally to binge. We can’t watch things episodically, our brains won’t do it.
THE MUSIC • 11TH OCTOBER 2017 • 19
Music
It’s All Gone Pete Tong
H E AV E N Pete Tong chats to Cyclone ahead of his latest experimental endeavour Ibiza Classics about what inspired him, and what fans should expect from the eclectic shows with The Heritage Orchestra.
SENT For untold eons, man has buried its dead. But then along came the space age, and by jingo, if some bright spark hasn’t scienced the shit out of the funeral biz. From next month, those wishing to bid a fond farewell to their loved ones in 21st-century style, can have the dearly departed’s ashes launched into low earth orbit, courtesy of the balloon, before the last remains are scattered into the vacuum of space. Thanks to a couple of industrious and inexplicably morbid students at the UK’s Sheffield University, you can have your ashes cast into the infinite for the very reasonable sum of $1,350. Given that the average Australian funeral costs around $4,000, not only is this a badass way to say see ya later to the universe, it’s also a bit of a bargain! 20 • THE MUSIC • 11TH OCTOBER 2017
T
he British super-DJ Pete Tong has maintained his status as a leading dance music tastemaker over several decades. But now the upfront BBC Radio 1 identity is tapping into clubland nostalgia. Come November, he’ll join conductor Jules Buckley and The Heritage Orchestra to perform Ibiza Classics in Australia. The ‘DJ with orchestra’ micro trend has emerged at a time of hyper-hybridisation and generational flux - attracting the likes of Detroit techno pioneer Jeff Mills, Flight Facilities and Australia’s Ministry Of Sound crew. Tong’s Ibiza Classics concept specifically accentuates the symphonic qualities of classic house and rave anthems. “There’s a lotta love for this music - and the scene has evolved over the last 30 years,” Tong says coincidentally from Ibiza. “I think the desire to just experience this music in new ways is higher than ever and that will account for why people are starting to experiment with this [format].” The Kent soul boy was DJing in the late ‘70s. Today the multi-faceted Tong is most renowned for his various Radio 1 programs and as the founder of FFRR Records. He inspired the cockney rhyming slang, “It’s all gone Pete Tong”. Recently, Tong transplanted to Los Angeles for “a life change” - capitalising on America’s EDM boom.
Tong partnered easily with Buckley’s Heritage Orchestra touted as a “renegade ensemble” - back in 2015. “They’re quite hip guys, they’re not ‘classical’ guys they hate that term. They are modern symphony orchestra guys.” They staged the Ibiza Prom (in tandem with The BBC Proms) at London’s Royal Albert Hall, engaging vocalists Ella Eyre and John Newman. Tong and co subsequently developed it into a touring “arena production”. Last November they issued the UK #1 album Classic House, featuring epic renditions of records by Fatboy Slim, Moby (the Twin Peaks theme-sampling Go), Frankie Knuckles, Inner City, Faithless and Rudimental - plus Rachel’s Song from Vangelis’ Blade Runner soundtrack, as per Paul Oakenfold’s Balearic re-imagining. Tong’s role in Ibiza Classics is that of a DJ, curator and creator director. Live, he provides what can’t be reproduced by the musicians - “the euphoric elements that only exist on the record; some of the studio trickery.” The Australian spectacular will entail a 65-piece orchestra, with Tong hinting at “guest stars”. And, he assures, it’s “very likely” that they’ll air Robert Miles’ dream trance hit Children from Classic House - the Italian’s passing in May prompting emotional social media tributes. “So no worries on that score.” Tong is aware of his peers’ orchestral manoeuvres. But, while respecting Mills’ endeavours as an artistic “extension”, Tong’s approach is more accessible. “What I’m doing I think is completely different because it’s celebrating the whole scene. I’m playing other people’s tracks in a way that has never been done before. So that’s part of the appeal of it. No, I haven’t necessarily checked out people doing what I’m doing - and I don’t really want to, ‘cause I don’t wanna be influenced by that,” he laughs. “But I was among the first to do it, for sure. It’s kind of flattering that other people have effectively copied the idea. Good luck to ‘em!”
When & Where: 3 Nov, Sidney Myer Music Bowl
Tell ya what; you’d be pretty stoked to live in the City of Darebin! It’s Darebin Music Feast time again, with a ridiculously amazing array of events running at venues such as Northcote Town Hall, Darebin Arts Centre and Preston Reservoir Bowls Club from 12 – 22 Oct. Our featured show is Mana (21 Oct, Northcote Town Hall), which means spiritual power, authority and prestige. The event has been produced by Daisy Catterall, winner of the council’s AMPLIFY program, and features Kaiit, Kandere and P Unique (with DJ Mz Rizk) just to name a few. Offering the mic to emerging musicians who happen to be queer, femme, non-binary, First Peoples and Pasifika as well as people of colour, this queer hip-hop night celebrates resilience and is bound to be one hellavu party! Head to musicfeast.com.au for full program details.
Arts
Things That Make You Go
Mmm Art, architecture and the great outdoors combine at the MPavilion, the annual popup venue, this year designed by Rem Koolhaas and David Gianotten, which is hosting events through the summer till 4 Feb, 2018. Here’s a taste of what the space will be offering this month.
22 • THE MUSIC • 11TH OCTOBER 2017
Leopards And Living
The Right To Remain Silent
The latest issue of Melbourne publication Assemble Papers will be launching at MPavilion with the help of musician and DJ Louise Terra from feminist disco band Sugar Fed Leopards. With the ‘Metropolis’ issue focusing the way in which ideas, movements and trends are shaping the lives of those who live in major cities, it’s sure to be a fascinating page-turner. Spinning a mix of good vibes and eclectic bangers to promote the publication’s latest issue, this event is one for both the eyes and ears. And if you like to dance, it can be for the legs, feet, arms and hips too!
Does your life ever feel like the lyrics to a Radiohead song? Are you trapped in an urban sprawl, stuck in a white collar job, a slave to the 9-to-5 grind? It may be time to bring some Zen into your routine. Lucky for you, the MPavilion — or should we call it the OmPavilion — will be hosting a seminar entirely dedicated to the ancient and beautiful practice of meditation, hosted by professional meditation teacher Manoj Dias. Now breathe in through the nose, out through the mouth, and come to the MPavilion for some peace and quiet.
When: 13 Oct
When: every Wednesday in Oct
Arts
Stand Still Already
Imagination Nation
A Bark in the Park and Beyond
Critically acclaimed Albanian artist Anri Sala has gained attention worldwide for his incredible work — which includes animation, photography, video and more. Focusing on the artistic merits of stillness, quiet, and physical intimacy, Sala’s works are grounded in the exploration of memory, history and political context. After the unveiling of a new installation entitled The Last Resort in Sydney, Sala will be coming to Melbourne’s MPavilion to discuss his work before a crowd alongside Shepparton Art Museum director Rebecca Coles.
With global politics in a woefully goofy state, it’s now easier than ever to imagine yourself as a world leader of some kind. Yes, even you! But thanks to the efforts of Singaporean artist Sam Lo, you no longer have to simply imagine yourself in the political hot seat with a finger on the nuclear button. Described as a “giant round of Jenga with western civilisation at stake”, Progress: The Game Of Leaders will be taking you through the trials and tribulations of building an imaginary country from the ground up. A hands-on allegory for first world civilisation that’s sure to stick with you.
In many ways, our dogs live better lives than we do. With a lifestyle that revolves around crapping wherever they please, getting belly rubs and humping random legs without severe legal repercussions, it’s no wonder they’re so happy all the time. And in these trying times, we could certainly all use a little bit of that happiness along with some social interaction with other humans. Bring your dog down to the MPavilion for a tour of Melbourne courtesy of dog walking adventurers Tom and Captain. After all, a dog is the perfect social icebreaker. When: 22 Oct
When: until 15 Oct
When: 15 Oct
THE MUSIC • 11TH OCTOBER 2017 • 23
Indie Indie
Tim Solly
The Stress Of Leisure
We’ll like this EP if we like... Alt-country, folk and Americana music. Think Johnny Cash meets Paul Kelly. When and where is your launch/ next gig? 14 Oct, Wesley Anne. Supported by Andrew Swift and Dearly Departed. Website link for more info? timsolly.com
EP Focus
D
escribed by lead singer and guitarist Ian Powne as “sub-tropical arts school punk wave”, it’s clear that there’s little about Brisbane group The Stress Of Leisure that could be considered normal or uninteresting. Initially a pseudonym for Powne’s home recordings, these days The Stress of Leisure have become a rocking four-piece band with no intentions of ever slowing down. With a new album entitled Eruption Bounce coming out 1 Oct, The Stress of Leisure are more than ready to provide the soundtrack to your next summer. A well-established stomping ground of rock acts like Violent Soho and Screamfeeder, the group recorded the upcoming release with Brisbane producer Darek Mudge at his studio, The Shed. “The album’s recording started in 2015 and finished at the start of 2017,” explains Powne. “We didn’t have any great struggles putting this album together. It’s usually a struggle knowing which song to back, and which to leave out.” For a group that describes their sound as “pineapple-infused”, it’s no surprise that there’s an overriding sense of fun to their latest record. “That’s what ties a lot of these songs together for us. It’s about us yearning for positivity in complicated times. It’s also more songs about buildings, food and the internet.” Planning to launch the album with a gig at The Foundry, 1 Oct, the group are eager to finally share these new songs in the typical mayhem of their live settings. “Pulled Pork is pretty good. One of those songs that emerged quickly and was recorded straight away. Genius set of lyrics which take into account — food fads, politics and phoney nationalism — all at once!”
What: Eruption Bounce (Plus One Records) When & Where: 14 Oct, Northcote Social Club
24 • THE MUSIC • 11TH OCTOBER 2017
EP Title? Waking Up How many releases do you have now? Two. A Life To Dream in 2008 and Waking Up in 2017. Was anything in particular inspiring you during the making? The impending birth of my first child. Nothing like a having a child to make you reassess what you want to achieve in life. Hence the album title Waking Up. What’s your favourite song on it? Rest. Written about my auntie’s battle with cancer and from my uncle’s perspective. A permission song about letting go.
Laneous + Zeitgeist
Amadou Sousa, the living [extension] of the West African kora. Matt Kelly, Brunswick hero (premiering new material). Favourite position at the venue when you’re not on stage? The beer garden. There’s a few secret rooms here worth checking out, too. When are you in residence? 5, 12 & 19 Oct, Edinburgh Castle Hotel.
Gettin’ Comfy Answered by: Mr Zeitgeist What is it about the venue that makes you want to a run of shows there? Edinburgh Castle, Sydney Road Brunswick. Come one, come all. Free entry, support your local, support original music. Same set every week or mixing it up? Zeitgeist + Laneous always reinventing themselves. Improvised soul groove with different special guests each week. Any special guests going to make an appearance during your tenure? Abbey Howlett, the Queen of voodoo vibrations.
Website link for more info? facebook.com/ events/118037848868395
Music
Fundamental Instrumentals
At A Glance: Ashley Davies Sounds like:
Maccas Gets Morty-fied
Instrumental, rhythm and groove, alternative, RnB, rock with some electronica
For fans of: Captain Beefheart, Brian Eno, Burt Bacharach, Talking Heads, Can, Black Cab, Booker T & The MG’s.
A Melbourne-based composer/ drummer and world-renowned session musician with an impressive solo discography, Ashley Davies discusses his powerful new album with Donald Finlayson.
W
ith six albums already under his belt and having performed three theatre shows featuring his own compositions, it’s easy to see why Ashley Davies’ talents as a studio musician are highly sought after in the world of television and film. But far more than just a gun for hire, Davies’ new album entitled Pulse Transit is yet another powerful entry in his career as a solo artist. An album of instrumental music rooted deeply in the joy of rhythm, Davies describes some of the sounds and tempos featured in Pulse Transit. “The tracks shift in rhythm and sound, you are in transit over land, water and time,” waxes Davies. “That is the theme. The only anchor was the metronome at tempo 60 holding the music in some subliminal dwelling.” Although primarily a drummer and guitarist, Pulse Transit also contains many performances by Davies on instruments he is genuinely untrained and unfamiliar with. “On the track Fremantle Doctor, there are marimbas, xylophones, synth brass, drum machines and a great physical two-bar drum groove. It has a great fresh/Bacharach type sound and arrangement to it.” A true musician that’s never afraid to mix it up in a live setting, Davies expresses his excitement for the day he performs these new songs before an audience. “I can’t wait to do this live, I will mix it up! I can cut and paste the whole album and it will stay on the pulse of 60.”
Number of releases: Six releases: Mighty Servant - There’s Life, Ned Kelly, Muscle Drum Music 1 & 2, Burke & Wills, Pulse Transit.
Dream rider item: Books - I like to read.
Current inspirations: A Biography about Nelson Riddle, the book Lincoln In The bardo , Oscar Peterson and Nelson Riddle CD, the film Dunkirk.
Seen regularly at: Northcote Town Hall, The Croxton, Cherry Bar, Caravan Club, Howler, The Union, Labour In Vain.
Ultimate support: Howling Wolf, I saw/heard footage of him playing a club... It really was the true spirit of rock and roll.
Fun fact: Whoppers are the best hamburgers.
What: Pulse Transit (There’s Life Records) When & Where: 20 Oct, Northcote Town Hall
Never underestimate the power of pop-culture – or the dim wittedness of publicity stunts. Rick & Morty fans (or put another way, any living human with a soul) will be well aware that Rick’s favourite condiment is McDonald’s longdiscontinued Szechuan sauce, which the mad scientist waxes lyrical about (while mentally high-jacking an alien prison) in the opening episode of the animated show’s third season. The good people at the American Maccas saw this as a neat opportunity to catch the eye of the afore mentioned cartoon lovers by releasing a limited edition run of the Rick-plugged sauce, for just one day, over last weekend. What they failed to calculate, however, is just how many Rick & Morty fans might rock up, hoping to get their hands on the sweet Szechuan elixir. The answer to that was: a fuck load. Needless to say, when the supply ran out pretty much instantly, the masses who have queued up down the street to get their hands on it were none too pleased. Sit in protests ensued; police were called; chanting commenced. McDonald’s actually caved to the outraged sauce activists. Gallons of the Szechuan sauce is set to flow to the promised Rick & Morty faithful.
THE MUSIC • 11TH OCTOBER 2017 • 25
Album / E Album/EP Reviews
St Vincent’s Annie Clark teaches us a thing or two about what a big, brash and brilliantly articulated indie pop album with plenty on its mind and unwillingness to compromise should sound like in 2017. Los Ageless finds Clark in a playful mood dropping a big, fat, rubbery, electro groove that pops even though lyrically she’s losing her mind over the loss of her lover. The lonesome slide guitar on Happy Birthday, Johnny and the cold and desperately loveless streets of New York capture Clark at her most sincere, tugging on listeners’ heartstrings. Thankfully, this isn’t simply a weepy break-up album. Musically Clarke delivers a wild joyride through a masterful fusion of jazz, rock and electro featuring contributions from artists as diverse as Tuck & Patti, Jenny Lewis and Kamasi Washington. Letting loose a somewhat sardonic sense of humour, Pills delivers a chaotic vision of modern living where the population are all addicted to medication to get through the day. Savior and Masseduction get on some dirtyminded Princely funk. Losing herself in cheeky role play, Clark slips and slides as she grapples with her identity, casting herself as nurse, leather-clad dominatrix, mother and saviour. This is St Vincent at her very best.
Album OF THE Week
St Vincent Masseduction Loma Vista/Caroline
Guido Farnell
★★★★½
Courtney Barnett & Kurt Vile
Beck
Lotta Sea Lice
Capitol/EMI
Colors
★★★
Milk!/Matador
★★★★ While accepting Courtney Barnett’s and Kurt Vile’s styles would complement each other, it seems to have worked so easily. Or maybe it takes real effort for something to sound this casually throwaway. The seemingly offhand but insightful observations of both are present. By turns they’re wry, resigned, occasionally surreal. It’s not just their two laconic voices, there’s also their idiosyncratic guitar playing: off-kilter strummy one moment, wiry-loud verging on grungy the next. That plays off against little flourishes like Let It Go’s limping martial drums. The subject matter is often snapshots of relationships in trouble, or maybe just tired — Over Everything is a morning conversation at cross purposes
26 • THE MUSIC • 11TH OCTOBER 2017
from opposite ends of the house, although Continental Breakfast is a happier ramble on the nature of friendship, existence, cereal, and stuff. Things get mixed up: Outta The Woodwork is recycled from one of Barnett’s early EPs, but giving Vile the lead skews the tentative age-difference doubts of it a different way, while final track Untogether muddies the gender roles as they sing about that girl who kept insisting “to touch my face”, and that frog ‘prince’ you probably shouldn’t have kissed. It’s a record just full of ragged charms. Ross Clelland
Following his Grammy win for 2014’s Morning Phase, Beck is back and wastes no time getting down to business with the opening title track a punchy one-two, all swanky chorus and excitement. It’s the most polished approach he’s taken to date, as was hinted at when Dreams was released as a single earlier in the year, showcasing that a shift outside the realm of an indie stalwart was in the works. Co-produced with Greg Kurstin (of P!nk, Brian Mercer and Foster The People fame) Colors is more focused on pop, super-produced and unabashedly shakes the indie shackles of albums past. Sometimes it works, such as the aforementioned single and on Seventh Heaven, but too often it feels either like a hasty followup album or as if two people’s
inputs are unintentionally at odds with one anotherrather than being complementary. Dear Life and I’m So Free emphasise these points and by the time No Distraction rolls around, one realises the quirkiness and interesting compilations of the past have vanished, and what we are left with is expendable and uninteresting. Beck has arguably done every type of genre under the sun (barring death metal) and received much universal acclaim along the way, Colors unfortunately falls short of expectation. Adam Wilding
EP Reviews Album/EP Reviews
King Krule
High-tails
Fozzy
Life Pilot
The OOZ
A Slight Hi
Judas
Too Hot For Killing
XL/Remote Control
Stop Start
Century Media
Independent
★★★★
★★★½
★★★
★★★½
There’s a quiet brutality to King Krule’s work. Violence is rarely this understated. But beauty need not always be about shiny, gentle, pretty things. It can also be about buzzy, confusing, confronting things. The OOZ is confident, dark, and - yes - quite beautiful. Dum Surfer is the pull track, and one of the album’s more immediate. Monstrous and distorted though the delivery is, this is as warm as it gets in Krule’s world. Lonely Blue is a wounded animal crying at the moon about the injustice of it all. Bermondsey Bosom (Left) is a stunning minute-long mini mood piece. It serves as a refreshing, palate-cleansing punctuation mark for the ooz(e) that surrounds it. Get this.
High-tails’ debut A Slight Hi situates them firmly in the increasingly crowded genre of slangy suburban surf rock. What sets them apart is their crisp, clear production, proclivity for ironic melodrama and the occasional image that catches you off guard. On Sushi Train, one character laments: “The weekends and the weekdays are always the same / Everyday, staring blankly down the sushi train”. Sonically, the scenery is familiar - sun-drenched backyards and suburban beaches, stubbies nearby - but never repetitive. This is no easy feat for an album so interested in representing boredom.
Having long shed the classic metal covers gimmick, Fozzy have gradually shifted towards slick, accessible hard rock with an eye fixed on US rockradio playlists. If you like your riffs (courtesy of perennially under-rated Rich Ward) with a chaser of melody, Fozzy have you covered. Singer Chris Jericho also infuses his considerable energy. It yields some groove-heavy, memorable cuts; the title track and Drinkin With Jesus contain hooks big enough land Moby Dick. Some of the vocal effects and danceable inclinations can be distracting, and there’s a little filler. Three Days In Jail’s guest rapping feels jarring, too. Overall, a solid affair.
This EP is six tracks and just 21 minutes of music, but these Radelaide boys pack as much punch and as many ideas into those 21 minutes as is humanly possible for a band of their ilk. The overriding vibe of Too Hot For Killing is that of extreme, violent punk, hardcore and metal, with walls of frenetic sound coming at you in waves, but this is no one-dimensional noise album. There is real songwriting nous going on here, with subtle use of dynamics, a great example being the relatively slow-burning title track which provides some sweet light and shade amid the fury. Too Hot For Killing is gnarly, nasty, noisy and just plain good.
Brendan Crabb
Rod Whitfield
Samantha Jonscher
James d’Apice
More Reviews Online Kele Okereke Fatherland
theMusic.com.au
The Barr Brothers Queens Of The Breakers
Alex The Astronaut See You Soon
THE MUSIC • 11TH OCTOBER 2017 • 27
Live Re Live Reviews
1
Peter Hook & The Light Corner Hotel 3 Oct
2
3
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Eschewing an opening act, Peter Hook & The Light - featuring his son Jack Bates on bass - filter on stage as Kraftwerk’s TransEurope Express plays over the venue sound system. “It’s been a while since we’ve played this one so bear with me,” Hook says before the joyful odyssey Age Of Consent. The bass throbs during Cries And Whispers as the synths drive the pulsating percussion to its melodic finale. In A Lonely Place broods with intent before Peter Hook & The Light’s stunning first-set closer Ceremony. The second set is a live performance of Joy Division’s claustrophobic second album Closer. Lyrically dark yet full of irresistible rhythms, Hook and co breathe life into this iconic album. Isolation becomes a tectonic dance number, Colony a droning rock’n’roll brainbuster and A Means To An End provides a future glimpse into the New Order sound. Heart And Soul takes things down a notch before Hooky has people grooving during a stunning rendition of Twenty Four Hours it’s clear watching Hook perform that he’s as passionate about this music as ever. Hook barely acknowledges the crowd as he stays in the zone. While lacking the frantic intensity of Ian Curtis, Hooky delivers the lyrics in a similar speak-sing fashion that doesn’t diminish the original arrangements he had a hand in crafting. Guitarist David Potts is front and centre all night and rocks out during She’s Lost Control. Unknown Pleasures is one of the greatest albums of all time and the opportunity to see one of Joy Division’s original members perform it in full is not lost on those in attendance.
People yell out, “Hooky!” all night with the odd, “I love you!” also thrown in as phones are held aloft to capture the action. One pissed-off punter has enough and instructs another during Shadowplay, “Put the fucking phone down!” He
Much to Hook’s amusement, he steps on his son’s lead and forces the band to restart the song. doesn’t. Disorder bristles with cathartic energy, elevated by Paul Kehoe’s sinister drumming. Hook points to the crowd during Insight as Martin Rebelski’s probing synths infiltrate every corner of the venue. Bates stays to the side and out of the limelight, allowing his bass to do the talking during the highoctane Interzone and album closer I Remember Nothing. With both albums done and dusted there’s time for a few surprises. Hooky dedicates the chilling Atmosphere to Las Vegas and Tom Petty before stand-alone single Transmission has everyone dancing “to the radio”. The opening notes to Love Will Tear Us Apart receive a huge roar, as expected, but Hook can’t even make it through the first verse before screwing it up. Much to Hook’s amusement, he steps on his son’s lead and forces the band to restart the song. Hook and co then perform an extended version of this absolute belter of a track, which is a fitting end and Curtis tribute. Ripping his shirt off and throwing it into the crowd as is custom, Hooky then takes to the microphone one last time,
eviews Live Reviews
declaring, “Good night, god bless and for fuck’s sake take care of yourselves out there”. Tobias Handke
Alison Moyet Margaret Court Arena 7 Oct “Yes Vote” money-collecting vollies litter the entrance of Marriage Equality Arena tonight, staying true to Alison Moyet’s promise during her interview with The Music: “I hope we fill the venue up with gayness”. The floor section is seated tonight and there’s a spoken-word intro in the darkness before Moyet and her two accompanists, John Garden and Sean McGhee, walk out on stage. Opener I Germinate, which features the appropriate lyrics, “I’m here,” signals their arrival with aplomb. Moyet wears an elegant long-sleeved, anklelength black dress with slight shimmer and demonstrates fierce, percussive dance moves. The emotion that pours forth through those flawless, husky pipes leaves us in bits. Moyet moves her setlist closer, blaming “old-lady eyesight” and reminds us she wrote Nobody’s Diary when she was just 16 years old. A few rogue members of GA are up dancing, trademark ‘80s sidestepping. Moyet is quick to call out Margaret Court, saying it’s unfortunate there are people like her “who make you feel bad about yourself”. After telling us we’re in for a selection of tunes spanning her 35-year musical career, Moyet says, “I’m hoping that you really love the new stuff best,” before adding, “I tease you! This is something from I don’t know when.” She’s hilariously blunt, but also thoughtful in her banter: “When the world’s really cold it’s just ice and you can absolutely skate above it.” Moyet observes that Only You is “probably the first thing you heard me sing on” and we all sing along with this minimal,
electronic masterpiece. McGhee’s backing vocals are glorious, his beautiful operatic timbre perfectly complementing Moyet’s contralto. While Moyet speaks, she singles out a talkative frontrow punter, chastising, “I couldn’t hear myself through the chatting”, before admitting she realises she’s “brutal”. She goes on to share with us a memory of her late mother, who suffered from Alzheimer’s and couldn’t bear the sight of “the missing ‘u’” (eg in the American spelling of color). The English U follows. After this song, Moyet apologises, “I’ve maligned you incorrectly and I do apologise,” upon the realisation that the chatter she could hear was her own voice bouncing back not the aforementioned front-row punter. A random bloke dances across a row down in GA then back to his seat in the front row, waving his arms in an attempt to get everyone on their feet. He then declares, “This is boring!” The crowd, “OOOoooh”s their disapproval, a dude hollers, “You’re boring, fuckwit!” And then Moyet retorts, “Mate! Mate! Can I tell you something: the set’s got shape, right? It goes to one place, it goes to another - eventually you get to dance. All you’ve gotta do is start with a little bit less beer, have a little bit of respect for the other people sitting here. Mate, if you wanna dance, dance up the back. Go dance at a disco!” Cue mad applause and then Moyet concludes, “D’you know what? Don’t come and see an act if you’ve got no idea what they do, ‘cause it’s just gonna make you look like a twat.” The crowd goes wild, showing their support. All Cried Out is absolutely sublime. Moyet has a “mic change” as opposed to a costume change. Before another slower number, Moyet warns the dance enthusiast, “You might wanna get a drink at this point.” He yells something out. A punter hollers, “Don’t waste your time on him, Alison!” To which she responds,
“I know, everyone tells me not to do that, but, you know, I’m a rucker! What can I tell ya? It’s, like, I love a challenge and I fuckin’ get in there!” Hilarity ensues. “It might take death before people realise this is a classic,” is how Moyet introduces The Man In The Wings. We’re already feeling raw and fragile thanks to Moyet’s vocal, which wrings out our hearts, but then in comes This House and we fight back real tears - she effortlessly leaps octaves and we’re speechless. Right As Rain, a dancier track, sees the heckler from earlier dancing along the front row trying to get everyone up and dancing once more. He dances down the aisle and across another row before security close in on him. “Margaret Court, if she believes god is the great architect then why is she saying that he’s failed?” Moyet declares, referring to herself as “an old matriarch” before presenting her “coming out song”, The Rarest Of Birds. Moyet’s awesome dance moves during Is This Love? take us back to the ‘80s. Most of GA are now on their feet. Moyet tells us she’ll perform a three-song encore so we know what we’re getting. She observes, “I tell you what, you can take the girl outta Basildon...” of her earlier verbal tussles. Punters yell out requests. “I can’t chat, ‘cause I’ve got a job to do... so, you’re gonna get the three that I’ve already planned.” Yazoo’s Don’t Go is our closer and the dance moves get dusted off as we gyrate along to this debilitating classic. Moyet is an absolute star. As we wander through the foyer we notice someone has improved the Margaret Court artwork by attaching a “Vote Yes For Equality” poster across the sculpture’s arm. Moyet would approve. Bryget Chrisfield
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Everclear @ The Croxton Wafia @ Corner Hotel Me First & The Gimme Gimmes @ Corner Hotel
Live Pic credits 1. Lazertits @ The Old Bar Pic: Joshua Braybrook 2. Bitch Perfect @ The Old Bar Pic: Joshua Braybrook 3. Swimteam @ The Old Bar Pic: Joshua Braybrook 4. Peter Hook & The Light @ Corner Hotel Pic: Joshua Braybrook THE MUSIC • 11TH OCTOBER 2017 • 29
Arts Reviews Melbourne Festival
Under Siege
Theatre Arts Centre Melbourne, (Finished)
★★★½ Chinese dance icon Yang Liping’s Under Siege, a mesmerising fusion of ancient history, traditional folk craft and 21st-century invention, is a glorious spectacle. Designer Tim Yip, best known for his Oscar-winning art direction on martial arts masterpiece Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, conjures a world of brutal beauty to tell the story of the bloody clash between ancient warlords Xiang Yu and Liu Bang. Above the stage, a writhing canopy of steel scissors hangs in dense, oppressive masses. These clanking blades are both majestic and foreboding, an expression of power and violence, bending to the iron wills of two mortal enemies. Beneath these metal shards, drifts of blood-red feathers swirl in hypnotic eddies, as the rolling, sweeping motions of the dancers are chased by the echoes of vortices. Like the blades overhead, there’s a duality to be found in this crimson softness, offering both a vision of ravishing grace and a sobering evocation of the blood spilt in the service of empire-building. Choreographer Yang Liping uses every physical resource at her disposal. In the adrenaline-pumping battle scenes, warriors tumble and somersault across the stage, dazzling with a break-neck cocktail of folk
dance, contemporary choreography and daredevil acrobatics. In one especially whiteknuckle sequence, the tortured and bipolar general Han Xin, whose split personality is represented by two performers dressed in white (Xiao Fuchun) and black (Ouyang Tian), toes the line between dance and martial arts. This symbiotic pair spar and tussle, high-kicks and blocked punches counterpointed against the lines of a more refined palate of gestures. There are accents of Peking Opera in the classical delivery of the narration, but these are framed with a thoroughly modern aesthetic, marrying the ancient past to a creative present. The combination of old and new both transforms and informs, imbuing its opposite with fascinating depth. The result is a visually exhilarating thrill-ride of a production that revels in the cartwheeling virtuosity of its cast. Strangely, however, the most powerful moment of this show is also one of its calmest. With another nod to traditional Chinese theatre, the role of Xiang Yu’s loyal-yet-doomed concubine Yu Ji is performed by a male dancer, Hu Shenyuan. However, there is no attempt to disguise his gender, once again offering the subversive via the traditional. There is both a stunning elegance and quiet eroticism in Hu’s supple, spooling lines and also heartbreaking sadness; an island of grace overwhelmed by a sea of endless conflict. This performance, for all its triumphs, was not without its shortcomings, most notably in composer Lao Luo’s stylistically
Under Siege
garbled and disastrously edited prerecorded score — mercifully interspersed with some excellent traditional Chinese music, performed live. This reviewer can only hope this is merely a case of unflattering opening night tech issues, as the rest of this show deserves a soundscape of a vastly superior calibre. Maxim Boon
Backbone
Backbone Theatre Arts Centre Melbourne, (Finished)
★★★★ There’s a popular theory out there that with a bit of dedication and 10,000 or so hours to spare you can become an expert at anything. Whether or not that’s true, it takes much more than time to make being an expert look easy. Michael Jeffrey Jordan didn’t become synonymous with basketball because he got buckets. MJ is a household name nearly 20 years after lacing up his last Air Jordan because when he did his thing he the made world’s next best look ridiculous (also Space Jam). It’s a rare pleasure watching a person that can make the seemingly impossible
30 • THE MUSIC • 11TH OCTOBER 2017
Arts Reviews Melbourne Festival
look like a doddle, so it’s a little shocking that acrobatic ensemble Gravity & Other Myths (GOM) has about 12 of them. The collective are perfectly named, and witnessing them in action will have you scooping your jaw off the floor so often that by about halftime you’ll think, screw it, it can stay down there. When the curtains rise they’re all lying on the floor and it looks like they’ve raided the prop department from The 36th Chamber
backflips. At one point ensemble member Mieke Lizotte is lifted five metres above the stage with a single pole in the small of her back like a victim of Vlad The Impaler. But it’s more than just physically impressive. Director Darcy Grant has said that GOM’s goal was to create meaningful circus. That almost sounds like an oxymoron, but the results are undeniable. To start each action is approached with the mix of unaffected joy and strange ceremony of children at play, carefully pouring sand from the buckets over one another with concentrated solemnity before being dragging through it happily. But as Backbone progresses GOM punish themselves. The ensemble push until they’re noticeably exhausted; breath laboured, muscles quivering. There’s a physical honesty in the performance that builds to an acute tension — they make the impossible look easy and then reveal the inherent fallacy in that. By acknowledging that even Herculean stamina has a limit and then actively vaulting it GOM give their feats an element of risk that feels genuinely dangerous. The ensemble set out to question different elements of strength, and as Backbone finishes with each member holding out their stones in a challenge and offering to the crowd we add strength to the list of things made more beautiful by impermanence. Sam Wall
Of Shaolin — there are buckets laid out in rows, a line of a dozen large stones and poles ranging from arm’s length to about five metres long arranged from smallest to largest. There’s also a rack of clothes and a suit of armour. GOM stand up and begin to move about the stage in a flurry of activity; switching clothes, shifting the props around. Drummer Elliot Zoerner and violinist/keys player Shenton Gregory takes their instruments left of the stage and start playing a few wandering notes. Simple but ingenious, the Helpmann-nominated lighting design casts sharp lines across the stage. It’s playful, kind of like walking in on a slowed down Benny Hill gag. Before long they’re running up each other nimbly as capuchins, stacked in towers standing four people tall. Some fly through the air using each other like swing sets and jump ropes, while others set records for longest handstands and most consecutive
All Of My Friends Were There Theatre Until 11 Oct, Theatreworks
★★★★ A show like All Of My Friends Were There is inherently divisive — eschewing passive theatre traditionalists to create an immersive, proactive experience. However, whether the show is something audience members decide to get behind or not, the piece itself is an astounding display of incredible planning with a wonderful payoff. It’s a kitsch-drenched delight where what happens next is anyone’s guess. Let’s backtrack a bit: The exterior of Theatreworks looks as it ever does (save for a few balloons tucked away in the corners of a side beam.) The crowd gathers at the door to enter the performance and then, suddenly, the people are parted in two. A trickle of bodies go through the front door while the rest of us wait by a tree for further instruction. Suddenly we’re ushered around the corner and through a side entrance while a select few are asked to stay behind. From the outset, this is not your average show. Now, usually I try to steer clear of the dreaded “we” when referring to an audience of a performance, but in this instance it’s apt. As we continue through the night, we’re picked and plucked and placed into new,
All Of My Friends Were There
THE MUSIC • 11TH OCTOBER 2017 • 31
Arts Reviews Melbourne Festival
new, smaller groups of confused Please, Continue (Hamlet) theatregoers — descending further into uncertainty, but never away from entertainment. As we’re led through a labyrinthine production it becomes clear how much consideration has gone into the execution of this show, from the grandest gesture to the smallest detail. It’s elating, overwhelming, startling and surprise, not necessarily in that order, and often all at once. To give away any spoilers would be a disservice to this beautiful concept, but no two groups have the same experience. The climax is utter joy; glitter cannons go off, champagne flows, and the obligatory selfie occurs before we boogie away to the seminal sounds of Kool And The Gang. And so, presumably, the cycle continues the next night. A new crowd, a new route, and a new ending. And this is where the truly incredible nature of the show comes to light. essence than usual: the judge, lawyers and Punters could buy a ticket for every forensic pathologists taking to the stage performance of All Of My Friends Were There are all the real deal, sourced from Victoria’s and come away from each one with a truly legal system. unique memory. Because no one, not even It has often been said that lawyers are the cast and crew, will ever see the same glorified actors, but to see the adage be put show twice. to the test before an audience is incredibly Joe Dolan satisfying. As the prosecution team of Sally Flynn and Rachel Ellyard take on the defence of Julian Burnside and Lucy Kirwan, the inner cog work of a barrister’s mind clicks frantically for all to see. The teams spar back and forth while The Hon Ray Finkelstein resides over the proceedings, and Judge’s Theatre Associate Andrew Yule rebukes the audience Arts Centre Melbourne, (Finished) should they snigger out of turn. The lack of any fourth-wall is the X-factor ★★★★½ that makes this production so phenomenally The theatregoers enter Fairfax Studio to successful. As the authenticity of the the sight of a very convincing facsimile legal jargon reels the punters in, suddenly courtroom. Not the grand, wooden, Law & they are ripped back into reality by being Order type, but rather the white tables and addressed directly and seeing the supporting conference-room chairs of the real thing. players in their yellow shirts emblazoned It’s as close to a genuine trial as possible with “(ACTOR)” across their backs. It’s a without a true conviction - right down to the Growtowskian dream, wherein pockets “actors” making their cases. of discomfort and slow trudges through Please, Continue takes Shakespeare’s the trial remind the audience that this is royal murder mystery Hamlet and does definitely a play. what many have tried and ultimately failed Only three professional actors appear, to do before it, bringing the story into the and their training in the craft shines to an modern world. Instead of some quasi-gritty outstanding degree. The amount that the urban reboot, the story instead simply players have to improvise (there is no script presents the facts to the people. Of course, to the show, and each lawyer makes their this is done with a more professional own case in private - as they would for a
Please, Continue (Hamlet)
32 • THE MUSIC • 11TH OCTOBER 2017
real court proceeding) is utterly astounding. Jessica Clarke’s Ophelia is particularly impressive, as she shakes in fear and anger and repeatedly asks her “jurors” why they are laughing at her. Genevieve Picot adds a great touch to the character of Gertrude as she fingers a cross necklace while on the stand, and the subtle addition that Chris Ryan makes to the titular Hamlet is superb: as the players exit the stage after an audiencelead verdict, Ryan, almost out of sight, cups Burnside’s shoulder in solemn thanks. It’s a tiny, almost unnecessary detail, but it just proves how fantastically well these two professions can play with each other. Every single performance of Please, Continue will play out in an entirely unique fashion. New legal teams will take the case every night, and the verdict is up in the air until the dying moments of the show. With all audience members a potential candidate for the final jury, everyone is given a pad to take notes and to draw their own conclusions. Joe Dolan
OPINION Opinion
Howzat!
Local Music By Jeff Jenkins Undercover Lover Benny Walker is like the freakishly talented footballer who has you buzzing when you see his first game, thinking, ‘This guy could do anything’. Of course, Walker is no first-year player. He’s paid his dues before stepping up to the big league. But just when we had him pegged as a roots rocker, he has evolved into a sophisticated soul man. Walker’s new EP, Undercover, oozes class. He’s forged a strong creative partnership with producer Jan Skubiszewski, who has enhanced Walker’s songwriting, adding atmosphere while showcasing Walker’s most potent instrument — his voice. The American soul greats would be proud to call opening cut, Stay In My Arms, their own. Smooth and seductive, it will have you hitting the repeat button as soon as it ends. A Yorta Yorta man from Echuca, Walker sings about his heritage in Undercover Of My Skin. “I found out when I was just a child that your skin can bring you so much pain,” he confides. The themes are universal, but this is a deeply personal collection. Oh No You Don’t is a powerful piece about dealing with depression, while Ghost is an “ode to all the greedy, power-
hungry, shortsighted people trying to fuck up our world”. This is as strong a set of songs as you’ll hear this year. Walkers plays his biggest Melbourne gig to date this Friday at Memo Music Hall. Catch him before he becomes a superstar.
Benny Walker
Mondo-Mania Howzat!’s favourite job this year — writing the liner notes for Mondo Rock’s The Complete Anthology. Ross Wilson’s voice plus Eric McCusker’s songwriting equals pop genius. It’s ridiculous that songs such as State Of The Heart, Come Said The Boy, Chemistry and No Time didn’t become worldwide hits. The Complete Anthology — two CDs and 30 songs — is out on 20 Oct.
Hip Hip Bee Gees scored their first UK chart-topper 50 years ago this week when Massachusetts hit number one. When they
wrote the song, Bee Gees had never been to Massachusetts.
Barnestorming He could be the hardest-working man in showbiz. Jimmy Barnes really hasn’t stopped since he joined Cold Chisel, releasing 24 studio albums, a stack of live albums and doing countless gigs. And he’s also found time to become a best-selling author, with Working Class Man, the sequel to last year’s Working Class Boy, to be released on 23 Oct.
Hot Line “Am I scared of losing you, or am I scared to be alone?” — Alex Lahey, Lotto In Reverse.
THE MUSIC • 11TH OCTOBER 2017 • 33
OPINION Opinion
The Heavy Shit
Shakespeare
Moderately Highbrow Visual Art
W
e’ve hit the time of the year where theatre companies all unveil their upcoming seasons, Wank And inevitably with a bit of our mate Bill programmed in: both Queensland and Melbourne Theatre companies Theatre are doing Twelfth Night, the former mid-year, and the latter to round out the season, and Bell Shakespeare (obviously) Foyers With bringing a new production of Antony & Cleopatra. Dave Drayton Obviously, Shakespeare’s still worth a few bums-onseats and these annual adaptations ensure that remains the case, contributing endless re-imaginings to the cycle. But these productions aren’t the only way Will stays in our cultural psyche. Filmmaker Jason DeBoer has recently published Annihilation Songs: Three Shakespeare Reintegrations with Stalking Horse Press. The collection is an exercise in anagramming at the level of the word, rather than individual alphabetic units, in a manner similar to Paul Griffiths’ Let Me Tell You, which paints a broader portrait of Ophelia, using only the vocabulary she is allotted in Hamlet, repurposed across 140-pages in a monstrous lexical anagram. Working exclusively with the lexicons of The Tempest, The Two Gentlemen Of Verona, and Hamlet, DeBoer has dis- and re-assembled the words within to create new tales of temptation and violence.
OG F l ava s
Kelela
Urban And R&B News With Cyclone
T
here is growing disquiet Stateside about how, when it comes to black female pop stars, the music biz fixates on Beyonce and Rihanna. But a wave of singer-songwriters — Solange, Kehlani, SZA — are challenging unimaginative comparisons with everbolder auteur-pop paradigms. California’s Jhene Aiko, signed to No ID’s ARTium Recordings, has stealth-released her second album, Trip — always a gamble. At 90 minutes, and with myriad “freestyles”, Trip feels formless — yet it vibes. Aiko
34 • THE MUSIC • 11TH OCTOBER 2017
Machine Head
writes allegorically about journeys — although she’s spoken of taking road trips and experimenting with hallucinogens. The Fisticuffs-helmed single While We’re Young continues the illwavisms of 2014’s debut, Souled Out. However, Aiko also traverses ambient, acoustica, abstract jazz and Erykah Badu-mode beat balladry. Her hero John Mayer plays guitar. More buzz is a deep cut featuring Brandy — Ascension. OLLA (Only Lovers Left Alive) is a rare uptempo groove with Aiko’s boo, Detroit MC Big Sean. Kelela Mizanekristos has been steadily building momentum since 2013 — last airing the Hallucinogen EP. She’s even cameoed on high-profile albums from Solange and Gorillaz. Now she’s unleashed her concise debut, Take Me Apart, on Warp — led by LMK, a fractured R&B banger. Mizanekristos directs old studio allies — DJ/producer Jam City and Arca — plus versatile producer Ariel Rechtshaid (who’s worked with Adele). The influence of the UK underground (garage, grime, FKA Twigs’ post-genre) is apparent. Songs like Frontline combine Janet Jackson’s industrial, Bjork’s hyper-jazz and Yeezus’ visceral electro-punk. Most intriguingly, Mizanekristos shares two writing credits with her The xx tour buddy Romy Madley Croft — one, the floaty synthwave Jupiter.
OPINION Opinion
Metal And
O
ne of the main Hard Rock reasons why I love metal, and I With Chris assume that you do too, is its ability Maric to reflect the world back at us with more reality than perhaps any other genre. Some styles of gangsta rap do too, but are limited in how much of that subject matter effects the world outside of its own microcosm; still it’s very much reality for the people livin’ it, yo. I think I learned more about the state of the world from Max Cavalera growing up than I did from watching the news. Metal has always spoken about subject matter that’s often taboo (or at least controversial at the time of its writing) and has been willing to do so regardless of the ramifications. Apart from the “dodgy occult trappings” (a line I love from an ancient MTV doco on Motley Crue that was used to describe their move from Too Fast For Love into the cheesy Shout At The Devil period) and of course escapism songs about dragons, wizards and whatnot, you’ve got endless songs about the shitty world around us: Fairies Wear Boots, War Pigs, Angel Of Death, most of Chaos AD and Roots too. Even the bands who did sing about mythical stuff give us the odd history lesson, Iron Maiden with Paschendale is but one example. Anyway, my point? In the aftermath of yet another senseless mass shooting in the good old land of the free, Machine Head’s Robb Flynn has stated that he no longer wants to play Davidian live anymore. For those younger MH fans, Davidian is the absolutely crushing opening track off the band’s debut album, 1994’s Burn My Eyes, which has the great crowd-chant line, “Let freedom ring with a shotgun blast”. In the wake of the horrible Las Vegas tragedy, an abhorred and disgusted Flynn understandably doesn’t want to sing that line anymore. The whole song could be seen as one person being overcome with rage and going postal, so I can see his need to remove it from their set, but it’s also such a badass song that maybe he could change some of the words into something else? ‘Let freedom ring from a vodka shot glass’ perhaps? I don’t know. He shouldn’t have to remove one of their most recognisable songs because their country is so messed up. He has been singing about that since the beginning of the band and it’s only gotten worse. “America
has to go through some kind of radical change,” is a sample used towards the end of an album made 23 years ago. A quarter of a century later, that change is needed more than ever. Vale Tom Petty. Another great songwriter and artist has departed into the great wide open and, like so many others, it has come as a shock to the music community and the outpouring of grief from musicians was industry-wide. He is definitely one of the more influential musicians of the last 30 years, even among the heavy hitters. Not every song exists ‘cause of a heavy riff that came before it. On a positive note, Iron Maiden have released another fine beer! This one’s called Hallowed. After the success of Trooper, a rather heavy ale that I enjoyed more than a few of on the Heavy Metal Truants journey, I’m sure Hallowed will go on to sell a tonne too. (Trooper has sold 15 million pints since launching in 2013!) Hallowed uses a Belgian yeast and anyone that’s a fan of Leffe or the 500 other types of Belgian beers out there should be rather excited!
the
with Maxim & Sam
introducing your new podcast obsession
Does it grind your gears or earn your cheers? new episodes streaming every wednesday
THE MUSIC • 11TH OCTOBER 2017 • 35
Comedy / G The Guide
Wed 11
Two Steps On The Water
Bohjass + more: 303, Northcote
Melbourne Festival 2017 presents: In Between Two with Joelistics + James Mangohig: Arts Centre Melbourne (Fairfax Studio) , Melbourne
Mono
The Music Presents
Interplast Benefit Concert with Daryl Braithwaite + Russell Morris + Chris Wilson + Richard Stubbs: Athenaeum Theatre, Melbourne
Mono: 10 Nov Max Watt’s
Pilgrim Age + Counter Culture + Josh Gatt: Bar Open, Fitzroy
Diana Anaid: 12 Nov, World Vegan Day
Me First & The Gimme Gimmes: Barwon Club Hotel, South Geelong
Alt-J: 7 Dec Sidney Myer Music Bowl
The Final Round Up feat. Twin Peaks + Rosie Burgess: Bella Union, Carlton South
sleepmakeswaves: 7 Dec Howler
Mark Fitzgibbon Trio: Bird’s Basement, Melbourne Cass Eager: Catfish, Fitzroy
Stay Sharp Head to Howler this Friday to see Two Steps On The Water launching their new album Sword Songs. Joining them on the night are supports Ouch My Face and Boats.
Cal Wilson: Comic’s Lounge, North Melbourne Longlist Live feat.Ewah & The Vision Of Paradise: Commercial Club Hotel, Fitzroy
The Northern Folk + The Peeks + Domini Forster: The Gasometer Hotel, Collingwood
Rin McArdle + The Flying So High-O’s + Erin Will Be Mad: Evelyn Hotel, Fitzroy
Hannah Blackburn + RAT!Hammock + Mickey Cooper: The Old Bar, Fitzroy
Cracker La Touf + Lovision + Messy Mammals: Grace Darling Hotel, Collingwood
Hush: An Evening of Quiet Music feat. Davey Craddock + Emma Russack + Hachiku + Jim Lawrie: The Toff In Town, Melbourne Moosejaw Rifle Club + Steve Boyds Rum Reverie: Union Hotel, Brunswick
The Offtopics: Cherry Bar, Melbourne Cal Wilson: Comic’s Lounge, North Melbourne Performing ‘Substance’ in full +Peter Hook & The Light: Corner Hotel, Richmond Cass Eager: Dogs Bar, St Kilda
Tiaryn
Yukumbabe + Odd Job + Griya: Yarra Hotel, Abbotsford
Thu 12 Kickin The B at 303 feat. Buttered Loaf: 303, Northcote
Rat Child
Rat Child Wesley Anne, Thursday
Melbourne Festival 2017 presents: In Between Two with Joelistics + James Mangohig: Arts Centre Melbourne (Fairfax Studio) , Melbourne Tim Easton: Baha Tacos, Rye Bones & Jones + Psuedo Mind Hive + Malahdo: Bar Open, Fitzroy
Alex Lahey: Karova Lounge, Ballarat Lomond Acoustica feat. The Boltons + Seth Henderson + Tom Tehovnik: Lomond Hotel, Brunswick East Teenage Bottlerocket + Finley Drumsticks + Stand Your Grounds! : The Bendigo, Collingwood Wine, Whiskey, Women feat. Emily Smith + Natalie Henry: The Drunken Poet, West Melbourne House Hats + Moody Beaches + Yes Yes Whatever: The Gasometer Hotel (Upstairs) , Collingwood
36 • THE MUSIC • 11TH OCTOBER 2017
Tiaryn Edinburgh Castle Hotel, Friday
Casey Bennetto: Bella Union, Carlton South Soul Sacrifice - A Tribute To Santana: Bird’s Basement, Melbourne Robbie Fulks + Liam Gerner: Caravan Music Club, Oakleigh DJ Maddy Mac + PBS DJs: Catfish, Fitzroy Gibberish: Charles Weston Hotel, Brunswick
Zeitgeist Freedom Energy Exchange + Amadou Sousa: Edinburgh Castle Hotel, Brunswick King Groaker + Tom Stevenson + The Great Emu War: Evelyn Hotel, Fitzroy American Legends feat. Various Artists: Fremantle Arts Centre (FAC), Fremantle Yeah Don’t Care: Grace Darling Hotel, Collingwood San Holo + Just A Gent + Droeloe: Howler, Brunswick Shinbone Star Blues: Hume Blues Club, Fawkner
Gigs / Live The Guide
The Convoy + I.RYOKO + Dowser: The Toff In Town, Melbourne Alex Lahey: The Workers Club Geelong, Geelong Culte + Pting: Tramway Hotel, North Fitzroy
Kimba Griffith Trio
Kimba Griffith Trio Compass Pizza Bar, Saturday Saskwatch + Hachiku + Moonlover: Karova Lounge, Ballarat The Austracana Travelling Revue+Carpenter Caswell + Smith & Jones + The April Family + Allan Caswell: Leadbelly, Newtown Joe Geia: Lomond Hotel, Brunswick East Melbourne Festival 2017 presents+Alexis Taylor: Melbourne Recital Centre, Southbank Disco Volante feat. Adam Trace + Marcus Knight + Benny S + Beth Grace + Casey Leaver + Javi Morley + Spacey Space + Tom Evans + Rhys Martin + Rotorcraft + Timothy + Ben Lawrence + Deltoid Curve + Morbs + Salmon Jackson + Yanni Arsenakis: Onesixone, Prahran
Rat Child: Wesley Anne (Front Bar) , Northcote Quarterhorse: Wesley Anne (Band Room) , Northcote
Performing ‘Substance’ in full+Peter Hook & The Light: Corner Hotel, Richmond
Freaky Fleetwood Mac feat. Fleetwood Mac - Anniversary Band: Ding Dong Lounge, Melbourne Crap Music Rave Party with Tomas Ford: Ding Dong Lounge, Melbourne
La Dance Macabre with Brunswick Massive: Rainbow Hotel, Fitzroy Commissioner Bourbon + Ding Dong Death Hole + Yard Duty: Reverence Hotel, Footscray
Brooks Brothers + Trei + Ekko & Sidetrack: Rubix The Venue, Brunswick
The First Baboon Civilisation Trio
The Smirks + Sovereign Stone + Ativandal: Whole Lotta Love, Brunswick East V + Wars + Cold Life: Yarra Hotel, Abbotsford
Fri 13 Mayday Parade + This Wild Life: 170 Russell, Melbourne Melbourne Festival 2017 presents: In Between Two with Joelistics + James Mangohig: Arts Centre Melbourne, Melbourne Beatlemania: Athenaeum Theatre, Melbourne Pugsley Buzzard: Bar Open (Front Bar) , Fitzroy On The Stoop + Cyclo Timik + Eat Pant: Bar Open, Fitzroy Kelsie Rimmer: Barangaroo
Monkey Business Catch some rare vibrations at Wesley Anne on Saturday when The First Baboon Civilization performs his post-bop and jazz-funk as a trio with drums, percussion, sax, guitar, electronics, vocoder and costumes. Free in the front bar.
Rick Price: Paris Cat Jazz Club, Melbourne Saray Iluminado: Richmond Theatrette (upstairs from Richmond Library), Richmond Saray Iluminado: Richmond Theatrette (upstairs from Richmond Library), Richmond Dave Hughes + Lehmo + Brad Oakes: Sooki Lounge, Belgrave Bedroom Suck Records feat. Dag + Ciggie Witch + Biscotti: The Curtin, Carlton
Mates Rates with Junior Fiction + Spiral Perm + Toothbrush: The Gasometer Hotel (Upstairs) , Collingwood Dada Ono + Bones + The Naysayers: The Old Bar, Fitzroy Omahara + Lubulwa: The Old Bar, Fitzroy Melbourne Festival 2017 presents: More Up A Tree with Jim White + Claudia De Serpa Soares + Eve Sussman: The Substation, Newport
Back In Black Friday feat. AC/DShe: Satellite Lounge, Wheelers Hill
Crystal Ignite + Cicadastone + Ablaze + Zenith Moon: Evelyn Hotel, Fitzroy
Zerafina Zara + The Alleged Associates: Smokehouse 101, Maribyrnong
Nina Ferro + Bobby Valentine + Coxy & The Roxy Boys: Flying Saucer Club, Elsternwick
Moreland City Soul Revue
Moreland City Soul Revue Edinburgh Castle Hotel, Sunday
Davey Lane: Grace Darling Hotel, Collingwood Smoke Stack Rhino: Herd Bar , Healesville Two Steps on the Water + Ouch My Face + Boats: Howler, Brunswick
Emily Lawson + Bravo Victor: The Drunken Poet, West Melbourne Luboku + Hemm + Orcha: The Gasometer Hotel, Collingwood
Tiaryn: Edinburgh Castle Hotel, Brunswick
Boutique Wines, Lower Norton In Store with The Woodland Hunters: Basement Discs, Melbourne Finishing School with Andrew McClelland + Leah Collins + Nick Caddaye + Caitlin Kavanagh + DJ Kieran O’Sullivan + Cassie McDonald + DJ Ian + Talia Cain: Bella Union, Carlton South James Morrison: Bird’s Basement, Melbourne Loco Hombres: Catfish, Fitzroy Cal Wilson: Comic’s Lounge, North Melbourne
Max Teakle + Cass Eager & The Velvet Rope: Lomond Hotel, Brunswick East Glam Slam feat. +Appetite For Destruction - Guns N Roses Tribute Show + Poison’us: Max Watt’s, Melbourne Benny Walker + Alice Skye: Memo Music Hall, St Kilda NGV Friday Nights feat. Electric Fields: National Gallery of Victoria (NGV), Southbank
The Hard Aches: Sooki Lounge, Belgrave Vardos: Spotted Mallard, Brunswick Australia’s Biggest Silent Disco with Various DJs: St Kilda Foreshore, St Kilda Zombie Motors Wrecking Yard + Siltman + Long Holiday + Evil Twin: The Brunswick Hotel, Brunswick Custard: The Bundy Hall, Bundalaguah Death Bells + No Sister + TOL + Gene Pool: The Curtin, Carlton Dan Dinnen: The Drunken Poet, West Melbourne Clowns + Pagan: The Eastern, Ballarat East The Owls: The Gasometer Hotel, Collingwood
Lakyn: Northcote Social Club, Northcote
THE MUSIC • 11TH OCTOBER 2017 • 37
Comedy / G The Guide
Spank! feat.Huntly + Millu + Wahe + Yumgod + Brooke Powers + Marcus OK: The Gasometer Hotel, Collingwood
Alex Lahey. Pic: Giulia Gianni McGuaran
Wingspan - Paul McCartney Tribute Show: The Grand Hotel, Mornington
Between Two Ferns feat. Matt Dwellers + Dion + Moskalin x James Phillips + Mitch Bain + Ollie Wilkes x Clare Blake + Gid + Bex xAndre Le Vogue + Ramon: Onesixone, Prahran Boney M: Palais Theatre, St Kilda
The Jim Cuomo Trio: The Merri Clan Cafe, Preston
Fulton Street: Penny Black, Brunswick
Providence + Under The Cut + Body Parts + Sex Pills: The Old Bar, Fitzroy
The Hard Aches: Pier Bandroom (Pelly Bar) , Frankston
This One’s For Ted with +TMG (Ted Mulry Gang): The Sphinx Hotel, North Geelong
Fadeaway + Holographic Moon Society: Railway Hotel, North Fremantle
Melbourne Festival 2017 presents: More Up A Tree with Jim White + Claudia De Serpa Soares + Eve Sussman: The Substation, Newport
Oolluu: Rainbow Hotel, Fitzroy
Genesis Owusu: The Workers Club, Fitzroy Yeo + Lonelyspeck + Take Your Time: The Workers Club Geelong, Geelong Robbie Fulks + Liam Gerner: Thornbury Theatre, Thornbury
Yeo
The U2 Show: Satellite Lounge, Wheelers Hill
Brotherly Love Alex Lahey continues to kick arse with her debut album I Love You Like A Brother. She’ll be at Corner Hotel on Tuesday and Wednesday for the Melbourne leg of her national launch tour with support acts Press Club (Tues), Sloan Peterson (Wed) and Angie McMahon. Melbourne Festival 2017 presents: In Between Two with Joelistics + James Mangohig: Arts Centre Melbourne, Melbourne Beatlemania: Athenaeum Theatre, Melbourne Brian El Dorado + The Tuesday People: Baha Tacos, Rye The Excellent Smithers: Bar Open (Front Bar) , Fitzroy
Yeo + Lonley Speck + Eilish Gilligan Howler, Saturday
Samba Time! feat. Camara + Wombatuque + Old Guard of The North: Bar Open, Fitzroy Saskwatch: Barwon Club Hotel, South Geelong
Andy Grammer + Garrett Kato: Trak Lounge Bar, Toorak Fat Cousin Skinny: Wesley Anne (Front Bar) , Northcote Riflebirds + The Woodland Hunters: Wesley Anne (Band Room) , Northcote Kat O Army + Bronze + Jason Lives + Jimmy Roberts: Whole Lotta Love, Brunswick East GUM + Planet: Yah Yah’s, Fitzroy Zeitgeist Freedom Energy Exchange + Messy Mammals + Bone Woman + Neeko: Yarra Hotel, Abbotsford
Sat 14 Mayday Parade + This Wild Life: Arrow On Swanston, Carlton Process: A Sonic Forum with Various Artists: Arts Centre Melbourne, Melbourne
38 • THE MUSIC • 11TH OCTOBER 2017
9th Anniversary Jesse Younan Tribute Concert feat. Mike Elrington + Mandy Connell + Carolyn Oates + Khristian Mizzi + Someday June + Emad Younan + Jesse Valach + The Great Unknown + Luke Dylan Greenhatch + Girl Friday + Aaron Pollock + Bob Hutchison + Joe Oppenheimer: Bella Union, Carlton South James Morrison: Bird’s Basement, Melbourne Clusterfunk: Catfish, Fitzroy
Osaka Punch + Rival Fire + Majora + City Halls: Evelyn Hotel, Fitzroy Ronnie Charles & The Slick Lix Band: Flying Saucer Club, Elsternwick Z-Star Delta + Daniel Reeves: Grace Darling Hotel, Collingwood Card Houses + Aoi + Fresh Violet + Serein + Latchi x Martiln: Horse Bazaar, Melbourne Yeo + Lonelyspeck + Eilish Gilligan + Alex Yabsley DJ: Howler, Brunswick Matt Glass & The Loose Cannons: Lomond Hotel, Brunswick East ShockOne + Hwls + Godlands: Max Watt’s, Melbourne Melbourne Festival 2017 presents Alexis Taylor: Melbourne Recital Centre, Southbank
Alleged Associates: Smokehouse 101, Maribyrnong Emanuel Satie: Sooki Lounge, Belgrave Greg Walsh: Span Community House, Thornbury Afternoon Show with The Tipplers + White Lightning: The Drunken Poet, West Melbourne Dancing in Outer Space with DJ Manchild + Dj Big Rig: The Gasometer Hotel (Upstairs) , Collingwood Jamaica Jump Up with Jump Up Allstars: The Gasometer Hotel, Collingwood
Kaiit
Melbourne Festival 2017 presents Joep Beving: Melbourne Recital Centre (Elisabeth Murdoch Hall) , Southbank This One’s For Ted with TMG (Ted Mulry Gang) + Busy Kingdom: Memo Music Hall, St Kilda Emanuel Satie: My Aeon, Brunswick
Cal Wilson: Comic’s Lounge, North Melbourne
Matinee Show: She Folk feat. Leah Senior + Georgia Fields + Anna Cordell + Charm of Finches: Northcote Social Club, Northcote
Peter Hook & The Light: Corner Hotel, Richmond
Custard: Northcote Social Club, Northcote
Nightfall feat. Asylum Sisters + Ok Sure! + Katherine Hymer + Zen Robotic: Ding Dong Lounge, Melbourne
Garden + Dandelion Wine + Sangara: Northcote Uniting Church, Northcote
Dear Seattle: Cherry Bar, Melbourne
Out On The Weekend 2017 feat. Justin Townes Earle + Son Volt + Traveller + All Our Exes Live In Texas + The Deslondes + Robbie Fulks + Fanny Lumsden + The Sadies + Joshua Hedley + Raised By Eagles + Freya Josephine Hollick + Davidson Brothers + The Moonee Valley Drifters + Lillie Mae + James Ellis & the Jealous Guys: Seaworks, Williamstown
Wind It Up feat. Kaiit + Various Asses + more Northcote Social Club, Monday
Run Rabbit Run + Tiosav Joy + Jessica Skye: The Loft, Warrnambool Luke Seymoup + Self Talk + Hammock District + Rescue Rabbit + Ed Tripodi: The Old Bar, Fitzroy
Gigs / Live The Guide
Melbourne Festival 2017 presents: More Up A Tree with Jim White + Claudia De Serpa Soares + Eve Sussman: The Substation, Newport Miss Blanks: The Toff In Town, Melbourne Spank HI NRG feat. Man 2 Man feat. Paul Zone + DJ Mad Man: Trak Lounge Bar, Toorak
Son Volt + The Sadies + Sean McMahon: Corner Hotel, Richmond
Afternoon Show with Amarina Waters + Kelly Day: The Old Bar, Fitzroy
Fenn Wilson + Ebony Dilema + George Wilson: Evelyn Hotel, Fitzroy
Louis Valentine + Mia Wray + Ryan Griffith + Finders Keepers + Pete Newmarch Band: The Toff In Town, Melbourne
Cuban Crimewave + Hoi Polloi + Maverick: Evelyn Hotel, Fitzroy Afternoon Show with This Way North + Belle Harvey: Fremantle Arts Centre (FAC), Fremantle
Back 2 Da Future with Delco + Brad Every + Klinke: Warehouse 3000, Carlton
Migos + 6lack: Hisense Arena, Melbourne
First Baboon CIvilization: Wesley Anne (Front Bar) , Northcote
Collard Greens & Gravy: Labour In Vain, Fitzroy
Tim Solly + Andrew Swift + Dearly Departed: Wesley Anne, Northcote
Glenn Skuthorpe Band: Lomond Hotel, Brunswick East
Afternoon Show with Planet Slayer: Tramway Hotel, North Fitzroy Alice Williams + The Dusty Millers: Union Hotel, Brunswick Paul McManus & The Mayblooms: Wesley Anne (Band Room) , Northcote Perolas: Wesley Anne (Front Bar) , Northcote 40 Thieves + Anna Scionti: Whole Lotta Love, Brunswick East The National Evening Express + Them High Spirits + Slim Morrison Band: Whole Lotta Love, Brunswick East
Leah Senior
Le Pine Residency with Zockapilli + Samuel L Jamson: Yarra Hotel, Abbotsford
Mon 16 6lack: 170 Russell, Melbourne Bird’s Basement Octet: Bird’s Basement, Melbourne The Lovely Days + Rory Walker: Evelyn Hotel, Fitzroy Justin Townes Earle + Joshua Hedley: Melbourne Recital Centre, Southbank
Good Folk Leah Senior, Georgia Fields, Anna Cordell and sister-duo Charm Of Finches are coming together this Saturday at Northcote Social Club for She Folk: Songwriters In The Round - an attempt to see how much talent can fit in one room.
Jess Ribiero
ShockOne
Jess Ribiero + 808s & The Greatest Hits + Latreenagers The Tote, Tuesday
Tue 17 Alex Lahey: Corner Hotel, Richmond Tom Walker & The Sick Individuals + Pseudo Mind Hive + The Yeah Bears: Evelyn Hotel, Fitzroy Tom Tom Tuesday feat. Erin Will Be Mad + Porpoise Spit + Hayley Couper + Tragic Carpet: Howler, Brunswick Irish Session: Lomond Hotel, Brunswick East Traveller + The Deslondes + The Rechords: Northcote Social Club, Northcote Tuesday Tribute: Ray LaMontagne+Waz E James: The Drunken Poet, West Melbourne Ro + Kate Martin + Brendan Welch: The Gasometer Hotel, Collingwood Uno Dos Tuesday with The Attention Seekers + The Flock + Floss: The Gasometer Hotel, Collingwood Drama + Deader + Infraghosts: The Old Bar, Fitzroy Jess Ribeiro + No Local + Emma Russack: The Tote, Collingwood
Levitating Churches + Ace Bricklaying + Igoya: Whole Lotta Love, Brunswick East
Matinee Show: Rhythms of Life feat. CaribVic + Alariiya: Northcote Social Club, Northcote
Neon Queen + Winter Moon + White Summer + The Ivory Elephant: Yah Yah’s, Fitzroy
Dylan Joel + Thando: Northcote Social Club, Northcote
The Tarantinos + The Interceptors + High Finance + Suburban Prophets: Yarra Hotel, Abbotsford
Sun 15 The Lagerphones: Bar Open (Front Bar) , Fitzroy Jackie Sannia + Dandycat + Jaydean: Bar Open, Fitzroy Honk: Catfish, Fitzroy
Hannah Cameron + Clio Renner: Tramway Hotel, North Fitzroy
ShockOne + HWLS + Godlands Max Watt’s, Saturday
Adam Ant + Diana Anaid: Palais Theatre, St Kilda Jules Boult: Rainbow Hotel, Fitzroy Afternoon Show with +Jimmy Dowling + Slidewinder: The Drunken Poet, West Melbourne The Magnets + Shania Choir + The Belafontes: The Gasometer Hotel, Collingwood Dumb Punts + The Living Eyes + Department + Culte + Little Elizabeth: The Gasometer Hotel, Collingwood
Morning Show with High Street Bells Choir: Northcote Uniting Church, Northcote The Breakfast Club with The Usual Suspects + more: Onesixone, Prahran Mundane Mondays with The Naysayers + Hollywood Real Thoughts + Buzz & The Pickups: The Old Bar, Fitzroy
Afternoon Show with Mel Taylor + Grand Baxter: Compass Pizza Bar, Brunswick East
THE MUSIC • 11TH OCTOBER 2017 • 39
Sam JINKS Divide (self portrait) 2011 mixed media, 86 x 60 cm, Collection: National Portrait Gallery, Canberra Purchased 2015, © Sam Jinks 40 • THE MUSIC • 11TH OCTOBER 2017
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