January Issue
Melbourne | Free
AMYL & THE SNIFFERS Plus the top talents set to tear it up in 2018 The must-own summer accessory for 2018
The masked bands setting a batshit trend
Brit comedy megastar Jimmy Carr
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Credits Publisher Street Press Australia Pty Ltd Group Managing Editor Andrew Mast National Editor – Magazines Mark Neilsen Group Senior Editor/National Arts Editor Maxim Boon Editors Bryget Chrisfield, Daniel Cribb, Neil Griffiths, Velvet Winter Assistant Editor/Social Media Co-Ordinator Jessica Dale Editorial Assistant Sam Wall Gig Guide Henry Gibson gigs@themusic.com.au
Shady government cover-ups are nothing to feel hopeful about... most of the time.
Senior Contributors Steve Bell, Ross Clelland, Cyclone, Jeff Jenkins Contributors Nic Addenbrooke, Annelise Ball, Emily Blackburn, Melissa Borg, Anthony Carew, Uppy Chatterjee, Roshan Clerke, Shaun Colnan, Brendan Crabb, Guy Davis, Joe Dolan, Jack Doonar, Benny Doyle, Chris Familton, Guido Farnell, Liz Giuffre, Carley Hall, Tobias Handke, Mark Hebblewhite, Samantha Jonscher, Kate Kingsmill, Tim Kroenert, Matt MacMaster, Taylor Marshall, MJ O’Neill, Ben Nicol, Carly Packer, Natasha Pinto, Michael Prebeg, Mick Radojkovic, Jake Sun, Rod Whitfield
I
managed to catch Errol Morris’ Wormwood — the Netflix docudrama about Eric Olson’s mission to uncover the truth behind his father’s death — towards the end of last year. Strangely, it’s given me hope for 2018. Like many, I was first made aware of Olson’s plight through Jon Ronson’s 2004 book The Men Who Stare At Goats. Here’s a person who has not given up hope of finding justice for his father’s death in 1953. He has spent his entire life dedicated to this cause. The 1953 death involved LSD, a suspected CIA cover-up and a connection to mind-control and germ warfare conspiracies. Interest in the story has ebbed and flowed across the decades but Olson has persisted. And, spoiler alert, at last it looks like Olson may find something akin to closure. And there it is — hope. Over fifty years of tapping away at a seemingly immovable object, Olson is experiencing some movement. Persistence can make change. It’s got me thinking, with the past two years considered so awful (see last month’s editor’s note), maybe things can turnaround in 2018. Or, if not straight away, at least things can maybe turnaround in fifty years time like they did for Olson. Yay, Eric Olson, for giving us a thin thread of hope for the future... Th is month we take a look at what has been a long campaign to change the date of Australia Day. Our very own Jessica Dale investigates what hope triple j’s small step in moving its Hottest 100 countdown might mean for this movement. Also in this issue, our first of 2018, we’re taking a hopeful look at things to come. We have gathered together what we think will be the music and cultural highlights of 2018. Our cover story celebrates Australian acts that we think should break out this year; either someone completely underground ready for their first moment of wider recognition or someone that is top of the ladder in their hometown and ready for national recognition. We’ve also marked out the big album releases that we think could be the ones you’ll be needing in your end of year lists (sorry, but it’s never too early to start thinking about those). There’s also a watch-list of those we think will make waves in the Australian arts scene during 2018, plus a hit-list of movies, TV shows, theatre and art to look out for over the next 12 months. We reckon 2018 could be a pretty sweet year. Here’s hoping.
Senior Photographers Cole Bennetts, Kane Hibberd Photographers Rohan Anderson, Andrew Briscoe, Stephen Booth, Pete Dovgan, Jodie Downie, Simone Fisher, Lucinda Goodwin, Josh Groom, Clare Hawley, Bianca Holderness, Jay Hynes, Dave Kan, Yaseera Moosa, Hayden Nixon, Angela Padovan, Markus Ravik, Bobby Rein, Peter Sharp, Barry Shipplock, Terry Soo, John Stubbs, Bec Taylor
Advertising Leigh Treweek, Antony Attridge, Brad Edwards, Brad Summers sales@themusic.com.au Art Dept Ben Nicol, Felicity Case-Mejia print@themusic.com.au Admin & Accounts Ajaz Durrani, Meg Burnham, Bella Bi accounts@themusic.com.au Distro distro@themusic.com.au Subscriptions store.themusic.com.au
Contact Us Melbourne Head Office Ph: 03 9421 4499 459-461 Victoria Street Brunswick West Vic 3055 PO Box 231 Brunswick West Vic 3055 Sydney Ph: 02 9331 7077 Suite 129, 111 Flinders St Surry Hills NSW 2010 Brisbane Ph: 07 3252 9666 228 Wickham St Fortitude Valley Qld 4006
info@themusic.com.au www.themusic.com.au
Andrew Mast Group Managing Editor
Cover photo by Kane Hibberd
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Our contributors
This month Editor’s Letter
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Making smart the new sexy
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The month’s best binge watching
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Jimmy Carr
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Sh*t we did: probiotic showering
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The 2018 album hit list
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Tonight Alive
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Jamila Woods, The Future Of The Left
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Guest Editorial Boomtick Director Liam Mazzucchelli on festival fence jumping..
Amyl & The Sniffers Plus all the talent set to tear it up in 2018
The music acts to watch in 2018
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Currently working on a web series, pop punk tribute to The Simpsons, his own album and watching an unhealthy amount of television on a regular basis, Dan Cribb also finds the time to be The Music’s WA, SA and Tas editor.
Romper Stomper The controversial movie about Australia’s far-right gets a TV reboot.
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Tiny Little Houses
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Wafia
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Bum bags
The artists to watch in 2018
Howzat!
Dan Cribb
The Arts
Jessica Dale
The best shows of Midsumma Festival
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Film & TV reviews
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Nirvanna The Band
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Nassim
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Jess is The Music’s Assistant Editor and Social Media Coordinator, working across all things print and online. Jess is a regular guest on ABC Radio, occasionally pops up on The Music Podcast With Dave & Neil and likes to follow Pearl Jam around the world.
Change the date The musicians campaigning for indigenous reconciliation
Our essential guide to must-see arts events of 2018.
The New Power Generation
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The big picture
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The bands behind the masks Costumes are taking Aussie music to strange new places.
Australian Prog Rock
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Bryget Chrisfield
Your Town
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Phil Jamieson
Jordan Rakei
The 2018 film, theatre and art hit list
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Belle Miners
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The Music’s ultimate quiz
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Live reviews recap
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The month’s local highlights
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The End
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Bryget started penning live reviews for Inpress (yep, old school) while studying professional writing and editing at RMIT and finds her true happiness when interviewing musical geniuses such as Nikki Sixx, Damon Albarn and Nick Cave.
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App of the month: Mediation Studio The benefits of mediation are well known, but it can be (ironically) pretty stressful trying to master this ancient art. Now you can get your new-year-new-me plans off to the best start with this top-rated app that helps guide meditation noobs with courses crafted by world-class gurus. Aaaaaaand relax…
Parkway Drive
Horizontour Parkway Drive’s ten-year anniversary tour for their goldcertified second album Horizons is upon us. The Byron Bay band hit the road the day after playing UNIFY 2018 (12 Jan) with Sydney band Polaris in tow.
You don’t win friends with salad Music and BBQ are just about our two favourite things, so just imagine our excitement for Meatstock 2018! Tex Perkins is headlining and will be joined on the bill by the likes of Henry Wagons, The Davidson Brothers, Dusty Boots and more. Plus there will be more meat than you can poke a stick at. Get in quick for tickets to events in March and May.
Foo Fighters
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Stream dreams
Gin & Zeus If you like history and drinking then Spirits: A Drunken Dive Into Myths & Legends is your people. Amanda McLoughlin and Julia Schifini mix a new drink biweekly and dig into weird and wonderful myths, legends and lore from ancient Greece to New Jersey.
This month’s best binge watching
Lovesick: Season 3
Formally known as Scrotal Recall, this Brit sitcom about the highs and lows of
Solid gold
relationships centres on unlucky-in-love Dylan, a 20-something who is forced to fess up to his former conquests after being
Foo Fighters’ Aussie Concrete & Gold run kicks off in Perth, 20 Jan. They’re heading ‘round the country with Weezer and alternating local support from Cosmic Kahuna, The Preatures, DZ Deathrays, Clowns and Amyl & The Sniffers.
diagnosed with chlamydia. If only he can track them all down. As relatable as it is hilarious, this surprisingly touching comedy is a little bit of British genius. Airs from 1 Jan on Netflix
Grace & Frankie: Season 4
The masterful pairing of Jane Fonda and Lily Fatboy Slim
Tomlin has spun a series of comedy gold that
Right here, right now Electric Gardens dropped its line-up way back in August, revealing the return of Fatboy Slim along with performances from an army of genre heavyweights. Th is month the party finally kicks off in WA before hitting the east coast.
has found favour with a surprisingly diverse crowd. For this fourth helping of the show, which explores the friendship between two old enemies brought together when their respective husbands leave them for each other, Friends star Lisa Kudrow joins the cast. Airs from 19 Jan on Netflix
Romper Stomper
Set 25-years after the events of the cult film, creator Geoffrey Wright once again plumbs the dark depths of Australia’s right-wing subculture, to reveal just how alive this odious
Overnight post
quarter of Australian society still is. Powerful, violent and relevant storytelling that’s a much-watch for anyone who likes their TV to
Parcels
Parcels are taking a quick break from conquering the world to tour Australia with Datf Punk co-write Overnight this month. They’ll stop in Sydney, Melbourne and Queensland before wrapping up in their hometown of Byron Bay.
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be a sucker-punch of hardcore drama. Airs from 1 Jan on Stan
Read the signs
Podcast of the month:
Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand) wants her daughter’s killer found and she’ll kick every hornet’s nest in Missouri to make it happen. Director Martin McDonagh’s latest deeply touching darkly comic work Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri finally reaches Australia on 1 Jan.
Chasing Ghosts
The likes of Serial and Dirty John may be chart toppers on a global scale, but there are some pretty awesome locally made true crime casts that can definitely hold their own. Th is New Zealand-made six-part doco explores Nicola Cruickshank’s search for her daughter Amber-Lee, one of NZ’s most baffling disappearances. Th ree Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Nicola Cruickshank
Th e Selecter/Th e Beat
High skaciety January’s doubling down on 2 Tone ska pioneers. California legends The Beat and English outfit The Selecter’s co-headline tour is finally hitting Australian stages at the end of more than 40 gigs around the UK.
Miss Blanks
Don’t miss Blanks Stranger Th ings
After nailing sets at The Plot and Meredith, Miss Blanks‘ Diary Of A Thotaholic tour starts in earnest this month. Blanks will hit the east coast with Jesswar and DJ Baby Mama before doing another round with Laneway in Feb.
The deathly Hawkins Netflix has tapped Joss Whedon to produce a Harry Potter series starring Hawkins residents Millie Bobby Brown (Eleven), Gaten Matarazzo (Dustin), Finn Wolfhard (Mike), Noah Schnapp (Will) and Caleb McLaughlin. No word on a release date, but obviously it can’t get here soon enough.
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ReDiscovery
Sh*t we did With Maxim Boon
For all the trekkies who got sucked into Bryan Fuller and Alex Kurtzman’s addition to Federation canon only to hit the season break in November the wait is finally over. Star Trek: Discovery picks back up on 7 Jan.
Star Trek: Discovery
Probiotic Showering This month, it’s not so much shit we did as it is shit we didn’t. When it comes to personal hygiene, most people would agree that a daily scrub is a must. Personally, I just feel plain rank if I don’t hop through the shower of a morning. But science has a different opinion. Every few years, dermatologists pipe up with research that offers the optimum washing routine, and some can be eye-wateringly sparse. Now, if you’re a coal miner or a bin man or you work in a sewage plant, regular washing is non-negotiable. But for the rest of us desk jockeys, bath time should only occur once a week, according to a 2016 study by Dr. Elaine Larson, infectious disease expert and associate dean for research at Columbia University. Daily or twice daily showering only helps the body “aesthetically” according to Larson, and worst still,
Ayla
such a rigorous soaping can not only
Dollgrouse
damage the skin, stripping it of healthy oils, it can also disrupt the balance of the body’s “microbiome” – the good
Brisbane singer Ayla’s EP Let’s Talk Monday drops this 12 Jan, the same day she takes her recent single Porcelain Doll on tour. Ayla will begin her run in her home state before heading to Melbourne and Sydney.
bacteria that help our bodies function. So, we gave the once a week shower routine a crack, to see if the science is worth the stink.
The Verdict To be fair to any dermatologists who might be reading this, this probably wasn’t the best experiment to test drive in the middle of summer. Because (surprise, surprise) not washing for a week when you’re shvitzing your pits off through a heatwave is going to result in you generating some pretty ripe aromas. Apparently, BO is a good indicator of having a healthy amount of bodily flora, so given the stenchy fug I
Two x sighted
managed to cultivate, my friendly bacteria must have been having a fullblown fiesta. But to be totally honest,
Th e xx
Th is month, London indie rock trio The xx are visiting for the first time since 2013 in support of their latest album, I See You. Kelela and Earl Sweatshirt are set to support.
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I’d rather kill off the little suckers and keep myself from making people gag on the bus. Sorry science, but this is one inconvenient truth I’m going to politely ignore.
Festival fence jumping has gone from a harmless rite of passage to coordinated acts of violence and it’s costing the industry (and punters) big Social media coordinated incidents have seen fence jumping spiral into a major crisis for large event producers, and with only minor (rarely enforced) penalties as the main deterrent, many festivals are having to bear the cost of expensive security upgrades to keep their ticketholders safe. Festival Promoter and Boomtick Director Liam Mazzucchelli shares his take on the growing issue.
A
But the cost most don’t consider is the reputational damage to the event brand. Artists, suppliers and stakeholders are all impacted by the negative associations. When touring artists and logistics providers witness this kind of behaviour it leaves a sour taste and reflects poorly on us all; not just the event but the city. Certain cities have become synonymous with fence-jumping and that’s just bad for business. So, what do we do about it? Aren’t the fence jumpers breaking the law? It seems there isn’t a clear answer and while police are often singled out as being the solution, it’s just not that simple. These offenders seem to understand Crowd Controllers have no jurisdictional authority. They’re not deterred by Move On notices, and local government laws often make it difficult to prosecute for trespass. As a deterrent, there needs to be consequences for actions, but jumpers often fall between the regulatory cracks of the criminal code, local government laws and the Liquor Control Act. As a result, we have no clear and measurable punishment for fence jumping, and therefore no effective way to tackle the issue beyond expensive security upgrades. ‘Alcohol-fuelled violence’ was the hot-button issue a decade ago and the industry and its regulators developed strategies which brought about social change rather than just relying on police to mop up the mess. I’m not suggesting ‘jumping’ is as significant an issue, but a similar approach could be taken with an awareness campaign calling out this type of behaviour for what it is, illustrating the wider impacts it has on festivals and their sustainability. Parents; it’s not OK to let your kids jump at festivals. We know most of you know they’re doing it. Friends; don’t encourage your mates. Patrons; don’t let these idiots ruin your day out. Call ‘em out. And for those who still think jumping is an innocent bit of fun or a victimless crime, it’s worth considering just how such activities could, in the worst-case scenario, lead to major incidents. We operate in a new world where festivals and similar events are considered high-risk large public gatherings. The risk management and execution of public safety is paramount, but it also relies on the public cooperating with event organisers to makes sure those precautions work as they’re supposed to. All resourcing should be focused on managing patron safety and experience within the event. Let us get on with creating a great event for the people have purchased tickets.
s we head into the summer season of music festivals, it seems timely the issue of fence-jumping be discussed. What used to be seen as a bit of harmless fun (hell, even considered a rite of passage as a 17year-old) has in recent years become a curse and a blight on our industry; never before have we seen the level of violence, organisation and disruption that’s become so common now. Coordinating themselves on social media and setting out to cause as much mayhem and antisocial disruption as possible, seems to be the fence-jumper’s objective. Not satisfied with a sneaky entry, (WA) events have experienced packs of often violent young men and women who think it’s OK to push over fences and storm the gates en masse, or hurl projectiles with absolutely no regard for any authority or person’s safety. There are many examples over the last three to five years which involve horrific physical and verbal abuse aimed at people simply doing their job. The culture of ‘jumping’ also seems to be just as much about the 10-seconds of infamy jumpers get on social media when they post, rather than actually gaining entry. ‘Jumpers’ show no regard for the ticket purchasing patrons on the other side of the fence. As event producers, we should be able to put a compliant temporary fence around an approved site and focus on providing a safe, well-run event for the patrons who have purchased tickets. A patron is entitled to party safe within a licensed area without the fear of some dickhead smashing into them as they run through the crowd to evade capture, or worse, push a fence panel onto them. Th is potential for physical harm is just one of the real costs, but there are other costs, both direct and intangible, and they’re adding up. The type of organised ‘jumping’ we see today results in the deployment of additional resources to deal specifically with the issue; additional fencing, dedicated fence line and exclusion zone security, container walls, CCTV, insurances, User Pays police. These are just a few examples, but they add tens of thousands of dollars to the cost base. Initially, these costs are borne by the event, but ultimately they flow onto the consumer and are reflected in higher ticket prices. One recent Perth event went from installing 2.2km of fence line in 2016 to 5km in 2017 in total fencing just to protect the site from jumpers. In laymen’s terms, that’s increasing from two fence lines up to five.
“These offenders seem to understand Crowd Controllers have no jurisdictional authority. They’re not deterred by Move On notices, and local government laws often make it difficult to prosecute for trespass. As a deterrent, there needs to be consequences for actions, but jumpers often fall between the regulatory cracks.”
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Smelling the roses with Amyl & The Sniffers Amyl & The Sniffers are out for blood, but lead singer Amy Taylor and guitarist Declan Martens tell Sam Wall they'll settle for an audience where "everyone’s got a mullet". Feature pics by Kane Hibberd.
Check The Guide on theMusic.com.au for more details.
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rom their home-job mullets to their three-chord riffs, Amyl & The Sniffers are a purely Australian proto-punk, pub-rock throwback; bluntly antagonistic, gleefully aggressive and impossible to look away from. "I find the beauty in the filth," sneers frontwoman Amy Taylor on Pleasure Forever, a song packed with coarse, brattish heat that's equal parts '70s Western Sydney and of 21st-century Saint Kilda. It’s not beautiful, but it is irresistible. It takes less than 20 minutes to listen to everything Amyl & The Sniffers have recorded, but since forming in early 2016 they’ve become one of Melbourne’s biggest live draws. Guitarist Declan Martens admits the reaction has been surprising “considering none of it was planned out”. “We didn’t even plan to make an EP,” he continues. “We never planned to be a band. It was just one of those gung-ho things. We never planned to play a gig. “I mean Amy — I reckon Amy probably for months had been planning to make a fucken sick band,” he jokes. “But with me? Nah. I wasn’t expecting even to start another band. None of this has been planned.” You can’t fault the results. Bands plan and god laughs, and making it up on the fly has been working a treat. But with growing exposure and industry types kicking down the door you have to wonder if pressure is mounting for them to refine their approach. “Not really pressure,” says Taylor. “We probably think about it more. Before we definitely didn’t think about it, we just thought, ‘Let’s just put it out.’” Truer words. The genesis of Amyl & The Sniffers’ debut EP Giddy Up — conceived, written, recorded and uploaded in an afternoon by a handful of housemates after work — became a twice-told tale in less than two years. Their second EP Big Attraction, released almost a year to the day after the first, was hard proof it wasn’t a fluke, even if they mostly wrote it because it’s hard to play full shows with just four songs. “It was one of those things,” says Martens. “When we did our second EP those songs were all written just so we could fill out a set that we were getting booked for. And now it’s, like, planned, and [about] how we want our music to sound. I feel a lot more pressure... It used to be like, ‘Whatever you got, we’ll just put it together. We’ll just throw it together and no one’s gonna give a fuck so long as we’re making noise.’” Plenty of people gave a fuck. In three months Amyl & The Sniffers went from a ten-minute, 2am slot at Yah Yah’s — “supporting Dumb Punts, I think it was” — to playing with legendary Runaways rocker Cherie Currie. They’ll start 2018 opening for Foo Fighters, with their debut album slated for mid-year. In between, they were one of the most hotly anticipated and sorely missed acts at BIGSOUND 2017 (more on that later), played Meredith and Cherry Rock, and terrorised the country with Cosmic Psychos. They’ve come up fast. Surprisingly, they don’t feel this has translated to a distinguishable fanbase, as yet, although they’ve developed a pretty close relationship with the fans they do have. “There’s a couple of parents,” says Martens. “But as far as young people go we haven’t really got a fanbase, I don’t think. I’m still waiting for an Amyl gig where everyone’s got a mullet. We haven’t had that yet, but hopefully one day. That’s what I want.” “We got to cut a mullet once,” says Taylor. “That’s my favourite thing, is cutting mullets after a gig,” shares Martens. “And then you see them like next time you play and they’ve changed their haircut.” “Yeah, there was these two blokes that came [to a Brisbane gig],” says Taylor. “One had a mullet and we cut the other bloke’s mullet. And then they came when we played with the
Psychos and they both had hats on. I was like, ‘Boys! How ya doing?’ I took both their hats off and they were bald underneath. I was like, ‘What happened?’ and they’re like, ‘Awww, our bosses weren’t happy’.” If imitation is the highest form of flattery, we’re not sure what somebody asking you to give them your haircut on the spot is. But we’d argue that having people rock your ‘do is a good step towards a dedicated following. “They’re are always wasted, though,” says Martens. “They’re always wasted and they’re goin’, ‘Aw, can you cut me a mullet?’ Yeah, if you can get me scissors.” Fair warning, Martens sounds like he doubles as the band’s hairdresser to some extent, but maybe approach with caution if you’re thinking of commissioning him at the pub. “That bloke looked like he’d just had half a session of chemotherapy,” says Taylor, describing the finished product as “tuppy”. “We got bored of it after three minutes.” “Yeah, at first everyone’s like, ‘Aw, sick!’” says Martens. “Everyone’s getting their [phones] out for their Instagram stories and then after ten minutes of cutting someone’s long hair everyone’s like, ‘Ah, fuck this! I’m going back inside.’” “They’re the best, though,” says Taylor. “One of those blokes, every time we play in Brisbane he chucks his jocks on stage. This one time he chucked his jocks on stage... I chucked ‘em back in the crowd and some old Oi cunt thought it was my undies so he was sniffing ‘em and putting ‘em in his mouth.”
“You get really hot and you slow down, and then it wears off and you’re like, ‘Woop, there ya go. Back into it.’” Another hot tip if you want to make friends at a Sniffers gig: don’t stand in the corner and bob your head. “I don’t know,” says Taylor, when asked how she gets Melbourne’s famously stiff crowds moving. “I like it when people are violent, though.” “I really like a mosh,” agrees Martens, “otherwise I feel like we’re not doing really well, you know what I mean? I think it’s partly — the people who are moshing don’t care how you sound so you can just fuck up as much as you want to. But I think if by the third or fourth song people aren’t moshing, then I’ll sort of tell people to have a go at each other. “But, I mean, we’ve played a Sunday afternoon gig where no one’s moshing and it’s just — you just have to get through it. We’re hungover, everyone else is hungover. I think that’s probably the biggest hurdle for us to come through is knowing that people aren’t going to mosh at certain gigs, you know what I mean? Crowdiness has been going the way of the muscle car the last few years, certainly in Melbourne, and Taylor and Martens both admit they prefer interstate energy — although they mention The Bendigo, The Croxton, The Pier and Old Bar as local faves. “We’ve played Cherry Fest and that was really good,” adds Martens. “There was blood on the stage after the set, which was good.” Ah, anybody they knew? “Yeah, yeah, we knew whose it was, it was a mate of ours.” Taylor mentions an added benefit of coming off stage looking like a bare-knuckle boxer is that it keeps the creeps away. “I was wearing a white top and I got a tram home that night, and this old bloke who was fucked off his face was sitting next to me being like, ‘Do you want to get married? Can I get off the tram with you?’ I lifted out my shirt and I was like, ‘Don’t try me, cunt,’ and he just shut up... It looked like I’d just went and stabbed somebody.” Turns out there’s only one thing more dangerous than Amyl pits and it’s not drunks wielding scissors. The biggest injury to hinder Amyl & The Sniffers to date had more to do with not stretching their knees pre-gig. “I’ve torn the cartilage in it,” says Taylor. “I’ve got to get an operation. I just squatted and I felt this rip in my knee. It was the first song of the set when we played in Brisbane before BIGSOUND and I was like, ‘That fucking hurts!’. But then I just did the rest of the set, stayed out ‘til 3am and then I couldn’t sleep ‘til, like, 7am. I was crying in the backyard of some stranger’s house and I was like, ‘Oh my god, I’m in heaps pain, I’m such a pussy.’ It got to, like, three days and I still couldn’t walk and I was like, ‘I’ve got to go to the doctor.’ “Amy had a viral infection, too,” shares Martens. “It was, like, the worst week of my life,” Taylor continues. Unfortunately, the incident meant they had to cancel the rest of their tour, including their BIGSOUND showcase and two Sydney dates, but it hasn’t hurt their prospects any. As Martens says, “It doesn’t really matter. Keep ‘em keen. Tease ‘em.”
“I chucked ‘em back in the crowd and some old Oi cunt thought it was my undies so he was sniffing ‘em anad putting ‘em in his mouth.” “That was crazy,” adds Martens, a little incredulously. “I talked to the bloke after,” says Taylor, referring to the jocky tosser, “and he was like, ‘Yeah I’ve been wearing them all day skating, they’re so sweaty and disgusting.’ And that bloke just put ‘em in his mouth!... He’s done it twice. I don’t know how he takes ‘em off, ‘cause he’s always wearing jeans. So he must just, like, fucken wedgie himself and break ‘em through the bum. And then whip ‘em up.” “They’re really ripped as well,” says Martens. “I remember the first time he did it and I saw them on stage, I was like, ‘What the fuck?’” “I don’t know what he — like, was I supposed to keep them?” asks Taylor. “I don’t know. If he goes for the third time I’ll keep ‘em. I’ll frame ‘em. But two’s not enough. Anybody can do two.” It’s not just dirty knickers and willingness for a trim that people bring to the party. With a name like Amyl & The Sniffers, and their proud ratbag reputation, it was pretty much guaranteed people would eventually come bearing ‘gifts’ relating to their namesake. “Fucken, like one out of five gigs,” confirms Taylor. “I wish they brought more,” says Martens. “I remember the first time I did it on stage it was our second-ever Sydney gig and they just shoved it right up all of our noses, and then that’s when you realise how hard it is to play on amyl. It’s actually really hard. I’ve learned to play drunk, but I haven’t learned to play on amyl yet.
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Big Attraction/Giddy Up vinyl (Homeless) is out now.
Tearing it up: the acts and artists set to smash it in 2018 New Year’s is more than just a routinely disappointing night punctuated by shitty pyrotechnics, it’s a cultural reset button. The ‘best of’ lists have been tallied, the sales numbers logged and the awards doled out (usually to three or four people). Everybody’s gone home. What’s left is a clean slate, a brand new 12-month vacuum in need of some fresh stars to fill it. Here are a few bright sparks we think might do the job in 2018.
1: Jesswar Queensland Jesswar has ripped through the Queensland music scene in the last 12 months; the Brisbane-based, Fiji-born MC has been kicking goals left, right and center; she’s supported the likes of Seth Sentry and Lady Leshurr and is well overdue for an LP. She’s recently signed to Golden Era Records and her debut single Savage is just as baller as it sounds. As The Music eloquently put in our review of her 2017 BIGSOUND showcase “Jesswar is automatic attitude as fuck. A sawn-off with bodies on it — not seen since MC Lyte.” Truer words were never spoken.
2: Daggy Man Queensland Thomas Calder is a man of many guises, first releasing three superb albums with The Trouble With Templeton. He was awarded the prestigious Grant McLennan Fellowship in late 2014 and spent three and a half months honing his songwriting craft in London, before re-emerging in 2016 under the moniker Daggy Man. The Music picked up on his debut single What You Desire immediately, premiering it exclusively. Not
long after followed his 2017 LP, A Lazy Kind Of Pain, showcasing an unflinchingly raw side of the singer-songwriter. Never one to rest on his laurels, Calder is already teasing new music to be released in 2018.
3: The Beautiful Monument Victoria Just try not to get The Beautiful Monument’s Disorder stuck in your head. The Melbourne group have been busy this year with the release of their debut album and touring around the country. They wowed crowds at BIGSOUND, with one The Music reviewer noting that with their ability to balance “both raw energy and an impressive stage presence, the Melbourne band dig deep”. In a scene that can be set in its ways, The Beautiful Monument are a much-needed change and certain to influence a new wave of acts.
4: The Money War Western Australia WA indie-rock duo The Money War have already established a solid presence in their
hometown, forming from already revered local outfits Rainy Day Women and Warning Birds. With their latest single, Hold On — described by buzz label I Oh You as having “effortless magnificence embedded within” — the pair set their sights on the east coast, embarking on their first Australian headline stint in December. That’s after they caught Meg Mac’s attention earlier in the year and scored an opening slot on her album tour. They are currently recording their debut album, which will be released around April/ May 2018.
5: Dear Seattle New South Wales 2017 saw Sydney band Dear Seattle drop their self-titled EP, dominate their BIGSOUND showcases, support Kingswood nationally, complete their own run of shows AND then be one of the first acts signed to Violent Soho guitarist James Tidswell’s label, Domestic Lala. “A friend sent me Dear Seattle when there was just one song out from the self-titled EP and on the first listen, my jaw dropped,” says Tidswell. “I’ve been to every show since, I’m just smitten.” Dear Seattle are dropping their EP on vinyl in January and are on the bill for some of 2018’s biggest festivals.
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6: Mane South Australia Adelaide-based goth pop newcomer Mane, aka Paige Renee Court, has quickly developed a sound most artists spend a career trying to perfect. The singer builds immersive soundscapes with her haunting and distinctive vocals, which weave through dark electronic sounds; a captivating force channelled into new single What If The Love Dies. Having supported the likes of Ali Barter, City Calm Down and The Temper Trap in recent months, alongside a European/UK tour, we don’t think there’s any risk of the buzz fading anytime soon. With new music just around the corner, you can expect a stack more touring from Mane in 2018.
7: Kaiit Victoria “Prepare for to partake in the two G’s with this one: gluttony and greed. You’ll want to pig out on the lush soul vibes and keep this song all to yourself.” That’s how triple j Unearthed music director Dave Ruby Howe described Kaiit’s track 2000 N Somethin. Kaiit brings together a multitude of influences in her music, including everything
from her Pink Floyd loving parents to a childhood spent between Melbourne and Papua New Guinea. Kaiit will be joining the likes The Avalanches, Kamasi Washington and more at 2018’s Golden Plains festival.
8: All Fires The Fire Tasmania Hobartians All Fires The Fire should have been on one of these lists back when they released their last LP Caves, the polished post-punk gem instead largely ignored on the mainland and followed by a five-year hiatus. Even The Go-Between’s Robert Forster singled them out for possessing “the doom-y, 4AD Records aura of dislocation and imposing landscape”. Their new LP Songs Of The Silent Age is lurking on the horizon and judging by the lead single Wild, you’ll want to keep one wary eye on it.
9: Kardajala Kirridarra Northern Territory Northern Territory outfit Kardajala Kirridarra blew punters and reviewers alike away at their 2017 BIGSOUND showcase, which they crowdfunded over $10,000 to
get to from the Central Desert region of the Northern Territory. Their lyrics are sung in English and Mudburra, a rarely heard Indigenous language, making their music a unique and delightful experience. Their debut self-titled album, which The Music described as “beautiful, expressive, unique, elegant, hypnotic and heartbreaking”, led to them being nominated for Double J Artist of the Year and got them signed to Ground Control Music Management.
Also watch out for: Clea (Qld); Lupa J (NSW); Gnightz (Qld); Ferla (Vic); Nice Biscuit (Qld); Verge Collection (WA); Borneo (NSW); Heavy Lids (NSW); Donny Love (Qld); The Saim (WA); The Southern
10: Lazertits Victoria “Hey there, ho there, do you wanna go there?” Yeah Nah? Then man you better get the fuck out of the way because Lazertits are quickly joining emus and roos in the ranks of Aussie icons that never evolved any interest in backing down. Triple J’s Home & Hosed host Dom Alessio called Boss Bitch “a late contender for the Best Lyrics Of 2016 award” and their fulllength debut in November had all the wit, sarcasm and furious guitar fuzz of the 2016 single nine times over. Catch them live ‘round the country in Jan for the Swim Tits summer tour.
River Band (WA); Belle Haven (Vic); Young Offenders (SA); Hexdebt (Vic); Spotting (Vic); Press Club (Vic); Orion (NSW); No Sister (Vic); Bench Press (Vic); Hot Potato Band (NSW)
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Calling all culture vultures: if you’re on the hunt for the hottest young talents set to soar in 2018, look no further. In consultation with some of Australia’s best arts writers and critics, The Music’s Arts Editor Maxim Boon has cherry-picked a selection of the most dynamic, daring and downright brilliant artists in the country. From the worlds of the visual arts, dance, theatre, comedy, film and TV, this crop of ten bright young things are the names to look out for over the coming year.
1: James Batchelor Choreographer and dancer
For James Batchelor, like many dancemakers, his practice springs from lived experience. It’s this fact that makes his work particularly impressive; in a relatively short career, he’s already amassed a body of work and collaborative credits that have allowed him to develop an impressively honed approach to physical expression. Since graduating from the Victorian College of Art in 2012, he has produced consistently innovative work that explores the interplay between the conceptual and anatomical, for major institutions and companies including Chunky Move, Dancehouse, and Dance Massive. In 2018, he begins his first major international engagement, as Assistant Director of Dance Theatre Heidelberg in Germany.
2: Ghenoa Gela Performance maker
Few young artists can claim to be a polymath with the same variety of skills as Ghenoa Gela, and few are as prestigiously decorated. Within her canon, this proud Torres Strait Islander woman from Rockhampton, Central Queensland, boasts work spanning dance, circus, theatre, comedy and television, and her prize wins include the 2016 Keir Choreographic Award and the 2017 Deadly Funny Melbourne International Comedy Award. Th is month, the Sydney Festival will present one her most high-profile outings to date, with the world premiere of a major new work, My Urrwai, a social and political study of Islander heritage and colonialism.
3: Michael Simms Painter
The Adelaide-born, Sydney-based painter is bringing a new perspective to figurative art with a style that both embraces a contemporary vibe while respecting the technically virtuosic draughtsmanship of the art form’s traditions. While his work includes landscapes, it’s Simms’ portraits that have snared the attention of Australia’s art scene, as well as a series of notable sitters including the likes of Booker Prizewinning novelist Thomas Keneally, actors Esther Hannaford and Genevieve Lemon, and legendary Helpmann Award-winning cabaret performer Paul Capsis. In addition to featuring at exhibitions across Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne, he is also currently a resident artist at Sydney’s Project 504.
4: Kamil Ellis Actor
He may be only 17, but this talented Wiradjuri actor already boasts a CV to rival colleagues decades his senior. He’s a skilled
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dancer, an experienced actor of both stage and screen — his most notable credits include principal roles in the hit shows Nowhere Boys and Cleverman — and a seasoned TV presenter, helming Logie Awardnominated wildlife show Bushwhacked! Hot on the heels of a superb turn as a witch and Fleance in MTC’s much-anticipated production of Macbeth, starring Jai Courtney, Ellis will make his most high-profile theatre appearance to date in October 2018, starring in the world premiere of Albert Belz’s Astroman, for MTC.
5: Maggie McKenna Actor
It’s all too common that fine Australian talents often head overseas to make their careers in more opportunity-rich corners of the globe. And so it was for Maggie McKenna, who was studying acting in LA when a friend persuaded her to audition for the world premiere of what is set to become the biggest Aussie stage show since Priscilla: Muriel’s Wedding The Musical. Making her Australian stage debut in the leading role last November has earned her a slew of rave reviews and laid the foundation for a stellar Australian career. Given her mum is comedy icon and Kath And Kim creator Gina Riley, stardom is in her blood.
6: Mama Alto
Cabaret singer and activist The self-described “gender transcendent diva” is both a bastion of the great heritage of the salon chanteuse and a radically subversive shot in the arm for contemporary Australian cabaret. 2017 has been a watershed year for this songbird, starring in Declan Greene’s hit queer farce The Homosexuals in Melbourne and Sydney, sharing the stage with drag icon Taylor Mac at Melbourne Festival, and delivering an acclaimed tour of their show Torch Songs, picking up a nomination for BroadwayWorld’s Best Actress in a Play, and Artist of the Year at the Globe LGBTI Awards along the way. In 2018, be sure to catch their new show, Queerly Beloved.
7: Daniel Monks Actor and filmmaker
It’s been a huge year for Daniel Monks, both on stage, on screen and behind the camera. His first feature film, Pulse, written, starring and produced by Monk, not only headlined at Sydney Film Festival and the Melbourne Queer Film Festival, but also made its international premiere at the Busan International Film Festival where it picked up the Flash Forward Award — the first Australian film to take out the coveted gong. In live theatre, he delivered a powerhouse performance starring in Matthew Lutton and Tom Wright’s The Real
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And Imagined Life Of The Elephant Man for Malthouse Theatre, and he continues to be a powerful advocate for disabled artists across the sector.
8: Danielle Walker Comedian
When this funny lady won the coveted Raw Comedy National Champion gong in 2016, she had only been dabbling in stand-up comedy for a little more than a year. Th is remarkable achievement is surely a testament to Walker’s innate aptitude for comic delivery. Her giggly shtick is a heady combination of the anecdotal and the downright deranged, which has earned her appearances on the ABC’s Comedy Up Late and Stand And Deliver. In 2018, she will debut her first full-length show, which will tour across the country during comedy fest season and her performance at 2017’s Just For Laughs at the Sydney Opera House is set to be broadcast on The Comedy Channel.
9: Owen Phillips Theatrical Designer
It’s easy to overlook how much set and costume design contribute to the success of a piece of theatre, but every so often as a designer with a truly unique vision emerges whose work simply cannot be ignored. Owen Phillips has consistently proven to be one such visionary with theatrical concepts that simultaneously support the actors on stage while shining in their own right; a talent especially evident in his award-winning staging for Dean Bryant’s wildly successful production of Little Shop Of Horrors, which played Sydney and Melbourne seasons in 2016. Unsurprisingly, major companies have lined up to engage his skills, including MTC, The Production Company, and Darlinghurst Theatre.
10:Jean Tong Playwright
Discovering an artist who is on the cusp of their big break is a thrilling thing, and very few indie productions have left so many in the arts scene as unanimously impressed as Jean Tong’s clever, quirky, and fabulously queer musical comedy Romeo Is Not The Only Fruit, premiered at 2017’s Poppy Seed Theatre Festival. Her theatre thrives in challenging and interrogating social and political issues while disarming them with wit-soaked humour and touching humanity. All these qualities will be on show in her major theatre company debut in May, when her new play Hungry Ghosts is premiered by Melbourne Theatre Company.
Debut albums, engagement parties and proverbs for idiots; it’s all in a day for Tiny Little Houses Melbourne’s Tiny Little Houses are on the brink of releasing their debut album. Uppy Chatterjee caught up with frontman Caleb Karvountzis to find out just what can be expected. Feature pics by Kane Hibberd.
Check The Guide on theMusic.com.au for more details.
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e’re catching Tiny Little Houses frontman Caleb Karvountzis in the middle of his engagement party preparations. His fiance works full time, he explains, so the planning responsibilities have fallen on him. They’re catering for 100 people, but Karvountzis seems pretty relaxed — “it’s very exciting, it’s keeping me busy”. Tiny Little Houses burst onto the scene in 2015 with the single, Easy, off their debut EP, You Tore Out My Heart. The release saw the quartet swiftly snapped up by Ivy League Records, as well as booking behemoths WME. Now the Melbourne lo-fi noise/folk act are inching towards the release of their debut record, Idiot Proverbs, and we ask Karvountzis just what kind of idiot proverbs we’re in store for, given that so many of their recent songs — Milo Tin, Entitled Generation, Garbage Bin — trail the world-weary attitudes of millennials who have been hard done by by those before them. In Entitled Generation, Karvountzis sings, “I’m 25 and still not living out of home/Got two degrees and I’m stuck working on the phone/So, damn our entitled generation... I hear inflation keeps on going through the roof/ But baby boomers got two condos left to spruce/ So, damn our entitled generation.” Depressing maybe, but not wrong. “I think [that first line is] everyone in the band!” he laughs. “Sean [Mullins]’s a music lawyer, so he’s quite a skilled person... But I’ve been living at home and we’re all about 25, and I think we can all just relate with that feeling of not meeting your own expectations and floundering around a little bit. That was the other thing on this album,” he sighs. “I feel like we all got taught... we all got told that ‘you can be Prime Minister and you can be an astronaut if you just set your mind to it’, but it’s just not the reality of how the world is. I think that’s contributing to the world’s [poor] mental health and it’s not a very good way to look at life, to always be aspiring to be something great when [the] reality is that the vast majority of us won’t be something great. And that’s OK and the world needs to continue with people who DON’T aspire to be great, but they’re happy and they’re comfortable with where they are in life. I think that’s something that as a society we need to be more comfortable with: limiting our expectations. “I think that the reason why I write all those songs in that kind of way [is]
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because I do believe it in a lot of ways. I do actually think that we as a generation are, you know, we have it pretty good — we have it pretty bad as well,” he contemplates aloud. Garbage Bin is bleaker still, a song written initially with the late Fergus Miller of Melbourne act Bored Nothing and re-recorded after his passing last year. “That song was pretty personal to me. That one I recorded initially with my friend Ferg from Bored Nothing who passed away and it was pretty bleak already but became more bleak after he passed,” Karvountzis remembers. “When I re-recorded it, I changed some of the lyrics to reflect that, but yeah. There’s just a natural range of emotions — you’re gonna have times when you’re really bleak and down, but there’s always hope. I think that that song sounds weirdly joyous at the
“I think now, most of the album I don’t even really connect with that much because I’m in a really good place and I feel really happy.” same time, because I think once you get something off your chest, then you can feel better about it. That song [is] definitely [that] for me, that when I sing it, and when I wrote it, I got it off my chest and it felt fantastic.” Karvountzis’ astute, though somewhat wry, observations don’t really accurately portray how he is as a person. He’s chipper and excitable when talking about music he’s inspired by (Neutral Milk Hotel, Elliott Smith, Modest Mouse, Weezer) and just one scroll through the band’s social media feeds show a mischievous, meme-loving persona — not the ones flooding your Facebook newsfeed and created by ten year olds these days, but the super-odd, offbeat ones you find trawling the depths of Reddit. He says he loves anything to do with Clive Palmer and Mr Rental. But then one post from October hilariously declares: “no more memes we r a serious band only from now on and u will respect us ok”. It all seems at odds with the jaded, distrustful nature of so many of their tunes, but Karvountzis explains he’s no longer at the place he was when he was writing Idiot Proverbs. “I think now, most of the album I don’t even really connect with that much because I’m in a really good place and I feel really happy. I’m getting married, just everything’s
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going really good. But things can easily just go just as bad on the other end and that’s just the experience of life,” Karvountzis adds matter-of-factly. “It felt like there was a lot of stuff I needed to get off my chest and since writing and recording all those songs, I probably haven’t written for, like, months and months. Only the other week I started writing [again]. Stuff started coming out again.” He describes himself as “not a political person”, but a fly-on-the-wall observer of society. “I’m not trying to make something political and I’m not a political person, but I like to look at society and stuff. I guess that’s what the album’s about — being interested in society and history and philosophy, but you’re not really that much of an intellect but you just wanna have an opinion. That’s kind of where I’m coming from. I don’t really take myself too seriously on it — that’s just kind of what I observe. “I’m not trying to take shots at anybody — more just trying to take shots at myself but through the lens of, like, being caught in the middle of it all. I’m quite a religious person so I see things from quite a religious side, I see things from the secular side, and I feel like I’ve got a fairly good middle ground between both points of view.” Karvountzis and bandmate Al Yamin are of the Jehovah’s Witness faith, meaning they “stay neutral in everything from voting to going to military service”. Christmas, birthdays, Easter and the like are also not traditionally celebrated. When pushed on specific political topics, he adds, “I don’t really pay much attention to politics ... We just stay out of it — it’s none of my business to talk and impose on other people what they do, so I just look at it from afar.” All the while, also watching from afar was Winterman & Goldstein director and the band’s A&R, Pete Lusty, who quickly became obsessed with Tiny Little Houses’ distinct “disaffected youth” writing style and personalities. “When we saw them play the tracks [from Idiot Proverbs] live for the first time it was like watching a whole different band. It really did rock and Caleb had all this personality going on,” says Lusty. “To me they come across like a bunch of misfits. They don’t look like a band and they aren’t really part of a cool scene or anything. Caleb is this skinny indie kid, Sean has metal hair and matching mo, Al and Clancy [Bond] are ‘fully heaps nonchalant’ but are actually really tight and powerful. They each have their own personality and it’s fun to watch. They will blow everyone away!”
Idiot Proverbs (Ivy League) is released 12 Jan. Tiny Little Houses tour from 24 Feb.
The Queensland artist who's letting the air in
Check The Guide on theMusic.com.au for more details.
Wafia is just about to drop her second EP, VIII, which draws inspiration from a simple but crucial source. She shares her process with Joe Dolan. Feature pic by Cole Bennetts.
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ne of the first things you notice about Wafia AlRikabi is just how confident she is in herself. It’s not arrogant or self-aggrandising; it’s a refreshing maturity that is almost unheard of in artists her age. At just 24, the singer is about to release her second EP, VIII, which sees Al-Rikabi experimenting with thematic elements in an incredibly sophisticated and interesting way. “I have to think about my work in terms of conceptual bodies of work,” she explains. “I don’t really know how to make standalone songs or singles — I really like things being packaged in a particular way. Not for any other reason but that it satisfies me.” Speaking on capturing ideas in her music, Al-Rikabi continues, “With my very first EP I was dealing with themes of transition and copper and I really wanted to extend that. I was really drawn to the concept of oxygen for this record. That’s why it’s called VIII: because that’s the atomic number for oxygen. I really wanted to play with themes of intangibility, necessity and transparency. That’s what really weaves the EP together, and every song may sound different to the last, but they are bound together by this concept.”
“It was this whole fascination with music: you can reprint it and you can duplicate it, and all that stuff, but you can’t actually hold it.” Al-Rikabi, who goes by the mononymous stage name Wafia, says that her peers have played a massive part in this remarkable approach to composition. “Initially what drew me to it is that I have a lot of friends who are visual artists,” she says, “and I came to realise that what I make is intangible. I can’t hold it. I can never grasp it. Even my voice isn’t really there, do you know what I mean? It was this whole fascination with music: you can reprint it and you can duplicate it, and all that stuff, but you can’t actually hold it. That was what started everything there, and I feel like the characteristics of oxygen really tie my thoughts together.” It is perhaps this way of thinking that has led to AlRikabi heading into the studio with more hands at the ready than ever before. One such addition, fellow labelmate Ta-Ku, has been on the Wafia train for a while now, but still sings her praises at every opportunity. “She pushes me outside of my comfort zone,” he reflects on their time together. “I trust her a lot and really respect her vision and advice. She’s never afraid to tell you exactly how she feels. It’s so refreshing.” After first collaborating on their track Meet In The Middle, Ta-Ku (real name Regan Matthews), is excited to see where the new EP takes his musician friend. “I’m not sure how audiences will react to the new stuff, but I know they will see many sides to her — musically and lyrically. She’s
not afraid to tell her story even if it means surfacing hurt and buried feelings. I feel many people love her honesty and have similar stories they would like to tell. She’s a brave woman of colour who is passionate about her music and the message that it sends.” Al-Rikabi is just as grateful for her time working with her VIIII collaborators, stating, “They’re looking at it objectively, which I really like. The reason why I adore working with so many people is because I love collaboration, and I just feel like I wouldn’t be working with these people if their opinion didn’t matter to me. Especially in the beginning, I really like to see what a producer does on their first go. After just hearing about what the song is about or whatever, and not influencing their direction too much — because there’s a reason I’m going to them. I trust their taste, so sometimes I need to just let them be so my ideas don’t cloud theirs.” It’s not just her fellow artists that Al-Rikabi has excited; A&R rep Dan Zilber sees just why the singer stands out from the crowd. “She’s so much more than a beautiful voice,” he says. “She has a confidence that is always so impressive, especially because she also has a vulnerability that she finds difficult to hide. For me, that’s Wafia’s project... A story with depth, told with both confidence and vulnerability. And yes, a beautiful voice,” he laughs. “She has this incredible balance between being accessible and having something genuine to say. I think we need more artists who want to say something meaningful, both in the music industry and society more broadly — especially strong, female artists who have a diverse view of the world.” Zilber, who has followed Al-Rikabi’s rise from its early stages, says that her commitment to her own ideas is an invigorating approach to making music. “So much of my job is creative and coming up with ideas that could work for an artist. Th is is the case with Wafia, but she always gives a very strong steer on where she wants to end up with an idea. My role becomes about helping her achieve the thing she can hear or see in her head, not about manufacturing an outcome. There’s never any cynicism about working with her. Her commitment to creating her own narrative, her desire to connect with her audience and her interest in being a pop artist with depth — that’s what makes her stand out.” There’s little wonder as to how Al-Rikabi has amassed the attention of some very high-profile industry names. And though she admits it was intimidating at first, the artist has come to disassociate the people she’s working with from their accolades. “I was working with some people that have won Grammys, and at first I thought ‘oh, I can’t say this, they’ll have a go at me’, but then I went, ‘Wait a minute, thaat actually doesn’t matter. There’s no ego in this room rig ight ht now, we’re on an equal playing field. We all chose to bee h her eree today, Grammy or not.’ “I was going into these rooms with people wh who o were my idols or had worked with my idols, and I was on only ly disaply pointed because I was putting so much emphas asis is o on n them or their body of work prior. When you put thaat much expectation on a person or a collaborator, it’s ineevi v ittaably going to fail. Then my manager said these reall llly important words to me. He said ‘everyone is one son ng away’. That changed my perspective on music essentially ly. ly y Suddenly I didn’t care who I was working with, what theyy had won, who they’ve worked with in the past, it sudde denl nlyy didn’t matter. If we can work together, to deliver a rrea eall llyy great song, that’s all that matters at the end of the daay. y.””
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Al-Rikabi may be a new relatively new face on the scene, but the Bodies singer has quickly acquired a professional standard towards the craft. She’s been writing songs for only four years and yet she already knows when she feels the need to take her hand off the tiller. “At some point,” she declares, “you’ve got to know when to stop adding stuff. I think in the midst of when I’m creating and stuff I can never tell what’s good — objectively, or even what I like. I just get really consumed in it, so sometimes I need, like, a week away from it and then I can come back and say ‘no, this is good’. Otherwise, I tend to overthink. And if I overthink every song or every project I’m never going to put anything out, you know? So sometimes I just have to sit back and just go ‘this is the best I can do’. “I feel like it’s never quite straightforward. I feel like I’m always learning, and every process with every EP has been vastly different than the last. I never go into it thinking I know what to expect, I definitely try to keep an open mind and just trust the process... I think the rule now is just to not hold back anymore, and I feel like this EP has opened the floodgates for me to continue to do that.”
VIII (Future Classic) is out this month.
HOWZAT!
Hot book
Local Music By Jeff Jenkins
2018, do you know what I mean?
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n many ways — too many deaths, too few homegrown hits — 2017 was a dog of a year. But 2018 is actually the Year of the Dog. This century is now old enough to vote and drink. Who knows how it will play out? “I’m eighteen and I don’t know what I want,” Alice Cooper sang in I’m Eighteen. But here are 18 things we want — and expect — in 2018: Kylie’s biggest year yet. She’s turning 50, it’s the 30th anniversary of her debut album, and it’s also 30 years since she became the youngest Gold Logie winner and The LocoMotion became her biggest US hit. Will her rumoured country album arrive? A new prime-time music show, showcasing Australian talent. C’mon ABC, you know you want to. Top 40 radio started in Australia, on 2UE in Sydney, 60 years ago. Here’s hoping commercial radio plays more Australian music this year and we end up with more homegrown hits on the charts than 2017’s record low. Huge 30th birthday celebrations for The Fauves. Comeback of the year? It’s ten years since
It’s 60 years since Australia’s first rock anthem, Johnny O’Keefe’s Wild One. Which Aussie band should cover this classic? Or maybe an album of covers? We’d love to see a few more album reviews in the press. Pick up a newspaper these days and you’ll struggle to find any music coverage.
lation featuring all the Australian recordings, including the unreleased material in the Festival vaults? It’s the 40th anniversary of Cold Chisel’s self-titled debut album. I’m not sure what Chisel have got planned, but Ian Moss and Don Walker are doing their own thing. Mossy has got a fine new solo album, his first
Beeb Birtles —
Every Day Of My Life Some big 2018 milestones: it’s 40 years since Little River Band’s Reminiscing hit number three in the US (“the best 1970s song in the world” — Frank Sinatra) and LRB manager Glenn Wheatley will turn 70 on 23 Jan. Beeb Birtles is the first LRB founding member to write a book. Every Day Of My Life — named after the 1976 single he wrote for the band — is an important book, as LRB’s achievements are often overlooked (six Top 10 singles in America, the first Australian-based band to have a gold album in the US). Howzat! gave Beeb a hand editing the book and it was fascinating to read his account of the LRB name dramas. Some people argue, “Well, they sold the rights, bad luck”. But, as Beeb points out, he never received any financial compensation, nor did he sign any documents relinquishing his rights. It’s an immigrant story, revealing how a Dutch boy named Gerard Bertelkamp became Beeb Birtles.
Kylie Minogue
Ruby Boots
Gabriella Cilmi topped the charts with Sweet About Me, which also won an ARIA for Single Of The Year. She hasn’t released an album in five years, but she’s still only 26, and she’s too big a talent to be missing in action. A box set from Howzat!’s all-time favourite band, Horsehead.
A solo EP from Skipping Girl Vinegar singer Mark Lang. It’s 60 years in August since the Brothers Gibb arrived in Australia. They were here for less than nine years, but their Aussie output was extraordinary, though underrated. How about a Bee Gees compi-
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in nine years. The self-titled set will be out in March. Also in March, Don is releasing a vinyl box set called Blacktop, featuring his three solo albums, two Catfish albums and a live album. There are gems in this catalogue. More venues opening than closing. It’s 40 years since The Triffids formed. Fingers crossed, Jonathan Alley’s longawaited David McComb documentary, Love In Bright Landscapes, will arrive this year. Rick Springfield to finally return to Australia for a tour. His new blues album, The Snake King (no doubt inspired by his good buddy Russell Morris’ blues trilogy), is the best thing he’s done since Jessie’s Girl. It’s 30 years since ARIA started the Hall of Fame. How about another special standalone event this year, to induct multiple acts, including big stars like Rick Springfield, Mondo Rock and Stephen Cummings, as well as some record producers and songwriters? After the triumphant return of Midnight Oil, which Australian band do we want to see re-form in 2018: Silverchair? Powderfinger? Savage Garden? New albums from Missy Higgins, Perry Keyes, Paul Andrews, Ruby Boots, Augie March and Courtney Barnett. And no more sex scandals or bullying. How ‘bout we all just treat each other with respect?
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Hot album
Tiny Little Houses — Idiot Proverbs
Some idiot proverbs: Nothing succeeds like success. Success has many fathers, while failure is an orphan. A house is not a home. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. These may, or may not, be relevant to Tiny Little Houses’ debut album, Idiot Proverbs. This is geeky goodness, recalling classic slacker pop of the ‘90s. They seem to have a good handle on the music business: “And you’re hot until you’re not,” singer Caleb Karvountzis states matter-of-factly in Team Player. Right now, they’re hot.
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What’s in a date? Australia’s present musicians fight to acknowledge a shameful past
For the past few years, the debate around triple j’s Hottest 100 countdown has become as much about the day it’s held on as it is about the music. Jessica Dale looks into the political reaction since the youth broadcaster announced they’re moving the countdown.
“The Arts and Communications Minister was shameless in his determination to use his position to influence the ABC Board.”
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7 November 2017 was a big day for triple j. After years of debate around moving their annual Hottest 100 countdown from 26 January, the youth broadcaster announced that the countdown would now be taking place on the fourth weekend of January in 2018 and 2019. It’s to become known as the Hottest 100 Weekend, with the 2018 event covering the top 100 songs of the year on Saturday 27 Jan and the top 200 the following day. For a lot of people, the Hottest 100 countdown and Australia Day are symbiotic - something that can’t be separated. For a lot of people, 26 January represents a day that couldn’t be further from a celebration. For the broadcaster, they have chosen to separate the two because “the Hottest 100 shouldn’t be part of a debate about the day it’s on”. The decision to officially move the countdown was reached after consultation with a wide range of stakeholders and, eventually, a survey in August asking the triple j community, “How do you feel about triple j’s Hottest 100 being on January 26th?” Of the 64,990 responses received, 60% of people supported moving the date, 39% of people did not support moving the date and 1% had no opinion on the matter. In the weeks following the announcement, there were calls from both sides of the debate, one of the most prominent being from Minister for Communications and the Arts Senator Mitch Fifield. The morning after the announcement, Minister Fifield told ABC’s News Breakfast program, “There are a relatively small number of people who have an issue with the fact that Australia Day is celebrated on January 26,” adding that he had already “made [his] view clear to the ABC” and that he would be “asking the Board of the ABC, who have the ultimate programming and editorial responsibility, to reconsider this”. The Music reached out to discuss these statements, however Minister Fifield was unavailable for an interview but did provide further comments on the topic.
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“The ABC and triple j should not be putting themselves in a position where their programming decisions are seen as making loud political statements. Triple J has pointed to two surveys that they conducted of their listeners, but the ABC and triple j have a broader responsibility than to just one market segment. They have a responsibility to the entire Australian people who render in excess of $1 billion a year to the organisation,” says Fifield. “Poll after poll demonstrates public support for Australia Day as 26 January. The ABC should respect that. The ABC has legislated independence with regard to programming decisions and the ABC Board has ultimate responsibility for these matters. However, I have written to the chair of the ABC to ask that the Board reconsider and reverse this decision. It will be a matter for the ABC Board to determine, but the government’s view is that they ought to recognise the overwhelming view of Australians on this issue.” Equally as vocal in the situation is Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, the Greens spokesperson on Arts and Media, who released a joint statement with Greens spokesperson on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Issues, Senator Rachel Siewert, congratulating triple j on their decision. It reads, in part: “We are aware that Communications Minister Senator Mitch Fifield has asked you to reverse triple j’s decision; we urge the Board to stick with triple j’s decision which was made in consultation with the station’s listenership and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists.” In a statement to The Music, HansonYoung did not shy away from sharing her opinion on Fifield’s comments, saying that “the Arts and Communications Minister was shameless in his determination to use his position to influence the ABC Board”. “Triple j must be applauded for being a part of positive change in our society through heavy consultation with their listenership and much-loved artists featured on the station. It’s the listeners, not the opinions of those in
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parliament, who should be considered in this decision,” says Hanson-Young. “Lauding the Hottest 100 as some kind of Australia Day mainstay is a stretch considering it debuted on March 5, 1989, and didn’t fall [consistently] on Australia Day until 1998. The Hottest 100 is an event to be celebrated in its own right, and triple j should have autonomy over when to broadcast it. “It’s important to note that ARIA winner AB Original’s song January 26, which advocates for changing the date, came in at number 16 in this year’s countdown. A song with such a strong message obviously resonated with hundreds of thousands of Australians, especially the thousands of people who told triple j to move their countdown.” It would be hard not to recognise the significance of AB Original’s January 26 (feat Dan Sultan). The duo, Briggs and Trials, have been forthcoming in their views to not only change the date of the Hottest 100 but also Australia Day. “They said, ‘Hey, Briggs, pick a date’ (okay)/’You know, one we can celebrate’(for sure)/’Where we can come together (yeah)/ Talk about the weather, call that Australia Day’,” they say in the track. The announcement of the triple j move came just the day before the 2017 ARIA Awards, which both Briggs and Trials attended. Their album, Reclaim Australia, was nominated for a slew of awards, and they were also presenting and performing on the evening. “It’s a beautiful tip of the hat and a beautiful baby step towards a very big race, and a very long journey that we’re all a part of,” Trials told Shepparton News of the date change. “And it’s beautiful that we’ve got ears up there that wanna talk and listen and communicate with us.” The Music also reached out to ABC’s Communications department for comment and requested an interview with managing director Michelle Guthrie. Both requests were declined.
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P
rince was a pop maestro, and a pop maestro requires a consummate backing band. For Prince in the ‘90s that was The New Power Generation (The NPG), successors to The Revolution. After participating in Minneapolis’ epic Prince tribute last year, The NPG decided to take their “celebration” of the late musician on the road. Now the nine-piece will hit Bluesfest. The NPG’s music director and keyboardist, Morris Hayes, refers to the collective as “the funk jukebox”. Indeed, The NPG’s Princely repertoire is even more expansive than that of the recently reunited The Revolution, he says, unwittingly perpetuating the Purple One’s traditional inter-band competitiveness. “With The Revolution, when they left, they left with the records they had done. They didn’t have to play NPG music.
Waxing lyrical about the New Power veneration
one of the co-producers with Prince at that time, he threw me a bone. He says, ‘Look, Prince wants to get this track done. Here’s a tape of him playing the piano and he’s just kinda tapping out the beat with his feet, on his boots.’ He said, ‘Just go and arrange the music around what he did.’” Seacer instructed Hayes not to mess with Prince’s ideas. In 1992 Hayes served as bandleader for Prince’s protege/girlfriend Carmen Electra, a pop rapper. He subsequently became The NPG’s keyboardist, replacing Rosie Gaines. Hayes played on Prince albums like Come and The Gold Experience (a personal fave) as the star battled his label, Warner Bros Records. And, with Prince’s (heavy) input, The NPG cut their own LPs. Meanwhile, the posse delivered live. They backed Prince at 2007’s monumental Super Bowl show. Later, Prince and The NPG were joined by a jubi-
The New Power Generation’s music director and keyboardist Morris Hayes shares his rise through the Purple One’s ranks with Cyclone.
“I asked him one day, ‘Prince, what do you think is the thing you do the best?’ He’s like, ‘You know what? Morris, I think, at the end of the day, I’m a poet.” But The NPG had to play Revolution music, because that was all Prince music. And so we had to know a lotta material.” The NPG’s vocalists in Australia will include Gett Off MC Tony Mosley plus guests Tamar Davis and Andre Cymone — Prince’s childhood bestie and original cohort. Prince initially dropped the phrase “the new power generation” in Eye No, the intro to 1988’s acid house-inspired album Lovesexy. He then featured both a band and an anthem by that name in the movie Graffiti Bridge, his eccentric sequel to Purple Rain. Officially inaugurated, The NPG played on Prince’s 1991 ‘urban’ blockbuster, Diamonds And Pearls. Hailing from Arkansas, Hayes entered Prince’s sphere in the mid-’80s. Post-concert in Memphis, Prince’s Revolution entourage caught the muso gigging with his outfit Fingerprint. “They heard the band playing some of their songs and came up afterwards like, ‘You guys play the songs like we do. Everybody else we hear playing our songs, they butcher ‘em — it just sounds terrible.’” Hayes headed to Minneapolis ostensibly to collaborate with The Revolution’s bassist Mark “Brownmark” Brown on his Mazarati vehicle at Prince’s studio hub, Paisley Park. Yet, here, he started from the bottom. “In 1988 I was working at the studio by then as a production assistant, just driving the van and doing whatever.” But Hayes impressed Prince while experimenting with keys parts for The Time’s Shake!, a number on the Graffiti Bridge soundtrack. And he’d cameo in the flick as a member of George Clinton’s troupe. As a (super-)producer, Prince contributed several songs to Martika’s 1991 album Martika’s Kitchen, most famously Love... Thy Will Be Done. However, Hayes finished Don’t Say U Love Me — the production attributed to Paisley Park. “It was funny because [The NPG guitarist] Levi Seacer [Jr], who was
lant Kanye West at the Swedish festival Way Out West for a mega-jam (YouTube it!). “Of course, Kanye is incredible when it comes to what he does,” Hayes notes. “He’s a different kinda cat but, when he gets on the stage, he does what he does. So it’s cool.” Having missed Prince’s first Australian tour with The NPG, circa Diamonds And Pearls, Hayes finally made it here in 2012. “It was amazing,” he recalls. “I actually wanna move to Melbourne. It’s the place where I bought shoes — and Prince complimented me on my shoes.” Nevertheless, that year, Hayes quit. Ever-enigmatic, Prince will always be remembered for his songs, musical chops, showmanship, prolificacy, and aesthetics. But ask Hayes what aspect of Prince doesn’t get enough attention and he cites his “severe” guitar-playing. “I think one of the things we overlook is how many things he does so well,” he explains. “I think it used to kinda bum him out — every time one of these guitar-player magazines come out with the guitar gods, he’s always ranked really low in that! I just never really understood that. It just has to be because he does so much that people sleep on that stuff.” Still, Prince might have answered this question differently. “I asked him one day, ‘Prince, what do you think is the thing you do the best?’ He’s like, ‘You know what? Morris, I think, at the end of the day, I’m a poet. I think I do lyrics best, because I hate bad lyrics, man — nothing bothers me worse than bad lyrics.’”
Morris Hayes of NPG
The New Power Generation tour from 26 Mar and play Bluesfest between 29 Mar – 2 Apr Check The Guide on theMusic.com.au for more details.
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THE BIG PICTURE
Water & Light Ray Collins Be it crashing waves, cresting foams, mighty swells or turbulent currents, for photographer Ray Collins, all things maritime are his muse. The Aussie sea whisperer tells us more about his latest collection. It’s clear to see from your body of work that you share a deep connection with the sea. Where did this fascination with the ocean come from? It’s really all I’ve ever known. My first memories are of the water and it’s been the one constant throughout my life. It’s the essence of pure energy and I turn to it for cleansing and healing. I float in it to think. I submerge with clouded thoughts and re-emerge with clarity. I ride its waves and celebrate. I watch the sun rise over and fall behind it from all corners of the world. Whenever I’m near it, I am home. It’s helped forge foundations of humility, respect, courage and patience — lessons that have carried over to who I am as an artist and more importantly, shaped who I am as a human being. Where did you shoot this latest collection, and how do you achieve just the right interplay of light and water in your images? During the making of this book, I hung harnesses out of doorless helicopters in Hawaii, swam amongst and below freezing north Atlantic seas of Iceland, sailed through the remote and uninhabited island chains of the Indonesian archipelago, documented a once in a decade Tahitian mega swell, and drove for days on end to the desolate reefs and bomboras of Australia’s raw southern and eastern coastlines. Achieving the right composition is a process of constant refinement I guess, I never went into it with a plan or a look. It’s just a reflection of the relationship I have with the water. I’ve found that during the course of documenting waves my work has become a lot more abstract than when I had started. Some images are almost unrecognisable as breaking waves, or even water. People’s first reaction is that it is a mountain or some other solid landscape style image. The perspectives you achieve are breathtaking. How do you capture these dynamic close-ups? Choosing the right lenses for the right conditions I think, and missing a lot of opportunities and moments to concentrate on the harder and more rewarding shot. I rarely use zoom lenses; 90% of my kit are prime lenses — which means the zoom is in your feet (or flippers in my case).
Impetus, 2017
The joy and drama and beauty of the water are very apparent in your photography, but there is a strong sense of the awesome, elemental power of the sea. How do you seek out that balance between beauty and brutality? I merely document what I see. Like all art, it is open to interpretation and as we’re all individuals we all take something different away from it. I want to make people ‘feel’ something. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a pleasant feeling either. I just let the water and light be my guide.
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Water & Light is available now at raycollinsphoto.com
All the world’s a stage After having a beer snatched out of his hand on opening night before his debut outing in the stage adaptation of American Idiot, Phil Jamieson embraced the theatre world to the point where he now calls his Grinspoon stage outfit a costume and incorporates vocal warm-ups into his pre-gig routine. He speaks to Bryget Chrisfield about reprising the role of St Jimmy, which he shares this time around with Adalita and Sarah McLeod.
“S
o I was having, like, a butter chicken at QPAC and I had a beer, for dinner,” Phil Jamieson, who’s reprising St Jimmy for an Australia-wide American Idiot tour, recalls of his debut performance in Brisbane, “and the stage manager literally almost leapt across the table, and grabbed the beer from me, and said, ‘You can’t have any alcohol in your system while you’re on that stage’.” Perhaps said stage manager should also have grabbed the butter chicken, which may not sit well in a pre-show nervous tummy? Jamieson guffaws before countering, “No... Because there’s all these OHS legalities, if I fall off one of the props and I have alcohol in my system they may not cover your insurance. “And I’m like, ‘Oh, okay, well just tell me, you don’t have to wrestle it out of my hands!’ And so, from then, I’ve been pretty dry, like, I didn’t drink during the Grinspoon tour at all, really, because it kinda just became, ‘That’s what I do now,’ because you’re so used to it. Mind you, after the show...” the 40-year-old trails off laughing. “But, yeah! I just kinda got it and it made my performances way better, way more sincere.” Jamieson points out he had to adapt to performing musical theatre as opposed to Grinspoon gigs, particularly “the rules and discipline, and the warming up and warming down, and just figuring out each cast member’s little nuances”. So was he approached to play the role of St Jimmy? After admitting he’d be “terrified at an audition”, Jamieson tells, “I got an email in January, my management were like, ‘This is a bit weird,’ like, ‘Whaddaya think of this?’ I’m like, ‘I would love to do this! I think it’d be a
great challenge for me,’ and I was just kind of flattered to be asked - even thought about,” he laughs. “So I was like, ‘Okay, well let’s do it’. Then I said yes immediately. And then I got to rehearsals in Brisbane and I just immediately was like [shudders]. I was terrified! I had a fair amount of anxiety.” When asked whether his anxiety was choreography-related, Jamieson points out, “I don’t have any choreography, luckily, ‘cause my character is just this villain that floats about; the looser he is [demonstrates zombie-style movements while seated
For the upcoming Australian production of American Idiot, which will tour nationally, Jamieson will share the role of St Jimmy with Adalita and Sarah McLeod (The Superjesus). On this genius casting, the Grinspoon frontman gushes, “I am tremendously excited that Adalita and Sarah are on board for the St Jimmy role. Both are incredible in their own way and will bring a special type of venom to this character. I have been a fan of Adalita since Signs Of Satanic Youth when I bought the EP in a Port Macquarie record store when I
“ While they were all pretty scared of me [laughs], I was scared of them, like, ‘Oh, you guys can sing five-part harmonies,’ and stuff that I couldn’t do.” in his chair] the better. So I can kind of just prance and pose.” We can see why the casting director thought of the Grinspoon frontman then. He laughs, before repeating and acknowledging, “Prance and pose about, which I can kinda do! But I have props and stuff, and marks that I need to hit. But just going into rehearsals and being surrounded by 15 of Australia’s most talented triple-threats is intimidating. And while they were all pretty scared of me [laughs], I was scared of them, like, ‘Oh, you guys can sing five-part harmonies,’ and stuff that I couldn’t do.”
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was a grunge-obsessed 16 year old. We have all toured on and off in various guises together over the last 20 years, and these two amazing females are going to bring a whole other dimension to this production.” During the show’s Queensland run, Jamieson shared the role of St Jimmy with Chris Cheney of The Living End. “We shared notes ‘cause we were there both together, both fairly terrified, ‘Oh my god, these guys are all really good!’” he recalls with a laugh. He was given the opportunity of watching Cheney as St Jimmy during a tech run of American Idiot and recalls, “Seeing it just with no props, no lighting - it was really quite raw and, yeah! Quite an emotional piece; it’s a moving piece of theatre, definitely... It’s funny, it’ll make you laugh, it’ll make you cry.” Jamieson admits that when people first hear about the musical-theatre production of American Idiot they tend to find it “a little bit confusing”. “People are like, ‘It’s Green Day, it’s American Idiot,’ and I’m like, ‘Yeah, but it’s not about Green Day, number one’. So people think, ‘Oh, who plays Billy Joe [Armstrong]?’ No one plays Billie Joe, he just wrote the music,” he laughs. “So it’s kind of getting that across to people.” He then stresses, “Everything’s played live. There’s no orchestra pit, all the band are onstage. So it’s different, but what’s normal in musicals nowadays, you know? Everything’s kind of changed. But, um, I get to play this really fun villain role, which is great. And the cast are amazing, so...” Sitting inside Comedy Theatre in the upstairs bar, Jamieson looks smart dressed in ‘rock formal’ - a crisp, black collared shirt and jeans - and we wonder whether his costume is similar to what he’d wear when
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fronting Grinspoon. “It’s a tuxedo,” he shares of St Jimmy’s threads. “I got in costume yesterday for the first time since March and I’m like, ‘Oh, right, yes! I remember this’.” The Grinspoon singer then admits, “I even think my stage outfit for Grinspoon’s a costume now - I called it a costume [laughs].” On whether his first musical theatre experience informed the Grinspoon tour that followed, the frontman offers, “Short answer, yes”. He then elaborates: “In the theatre world I learnt how to warm up my voice, which I’d never done before. We were doing so many shows in [American Idiot], so I started doing that. ‘Cause in rock’n’roll there’s no real dignified way to warm up your voice, hahaha, and being from the punk-rock world we’re like, ‘Fuck that, we’re not doing that!’ “So it’s kinda embarrassing in rock’n’roll, but in the end I just did it in my hotel room - for Grinspoon - and then didn’t have to do it at the venue. But I felt that protected my voice and I was able to do these shows for Grinspoon, ‘cause they were long - they were 90-minute shows as well - so I was able to sing as well as I possibly could. And it was really important to me to have the same amount of respect and pride that I showed in maybe the St Jimmy role... [I] really took it quite seriously and in this day and age - obviously, now, it’s not 20 years ago. If you do a bad show you’re gonna know about it,” he chortles. “It’s immediate! So I was fearful, but I was confident as well... That’s what I took over was the sense of discipline in musical theatre. Still having heaps of fun, don’t get me wrong,” Jamieson quickly adds. When he initially found out he got the role, Jamieson says he listened to Green Day’s American Idiot record before rehearsals as part of his preparation only to get up there and discover the Broadway version is different. “I’m like, ‘Oh, god, fuck! I’ve done all this preparation’,” he chuckles. When asked whether he had an understudy during his first stint as St Jimmy, Jamieson enlightens, “No!” Would Cheney have been able to cover for him if the need arose? “I think it was good for publicity, sharing [the role], but Chris could do some bits and he couldn’t do other bits, and I could do some bits and I couldn’t do other bits, so there was just no way we could do the whole season. So we ended up - I did about 16 shows he did four or five or something, so I did the majority of them. And then this time around I got the role. I don’t know what happened, I think he must be unavailable.” Or maybe Jamieson just aced it? He winks and then guffaws.
American Idiot tours from 11 Jan.
JORDIE LANE THURSDAY, JAN 25
NATHANIEL SATURDAY, JAN 13
THANDO FRIDAY, JAN 19
INTIMATE, LIVE MUSIC ONE NIGHTERS
BRENDAN MACLEAN
MAYFIELD
SATURDAY, JAN 27
THURSDAY, JAN 18
Bookings chapeloffchapel.com.au 03 8290 7000 #chapelSUMMERSESSIONS #chapelOFFCHAPEL THE MUSIC
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“We’re trying to welcome you into our greasy, oiled-up, disgusting world. Just, be part of it.”
Sometimes the best bands aren’t strictly human Music is universal, so much so that you don’t technically need to be human to make it. Sam Wall meets some sausages and space cuties that put on a sick show.
To read the full story head to theMusic.com.au
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here are a lot of bands in the world. Some are good, some are bad, but it’s rare that they’re genuinely unique. Variety is the spice of life. Control the spice, control the universe. But “band” Phantom Panda Power Wizard Master Smasher know all about that. “Well, we are a bunch of space-travelling Space Cuties from the Panda Galaxy,” explains head Cutie, Starr Panda. “We just come to just Earth when our desire for pasta hits us. We come, we play for pasta (“best carbs in the galaxy”) - and no one ever brings any. It’s really disappointing. And then we have to leave right after the show.” By “leave”, Starr means time and space since PPPWMS are playing at random moments in history as they phase in and out of the continuum. Are they currently in the past? The present? “I have no idea,” he laughs. “That all depends on where you are at that particular time.” More temporally grounded, but no less intriguing, The Burnt Sausages’ origin is all in the name. “It was a travesty, actually,” tells front sausage, Snagz. “We were left on this BBQ, we’d been burnt to a crisp. Horrific. Left behind. No one wanted us, completely unwanted. No one wanted us, that’s the emphasis there, no one. And ah, we were like, ‘Fine. We’ll just lie here, we’re gonna go in the rubbish,’ and luckily this freak gust of wind came in, blew us onto these magic Heat Beads, and we bloody came to life and here we are. We formed a band, yeah? We’re like ‘let’s do it’. And the rest is grease-tery.” Let’s establish something quickly. However you feel about aliens and sausages and their place in the arts, it’s already happening they’re playing some of the most over the top and entertaining shows in town and you can’t stop it. Anybody who wants to write them off out of hand as just a bunch of ETwits and meatheads is just leaving some serious fun on the table. “They can get stuffed,” says Snagz. “We did perform with a particular artist who I don’t think was a big fan of the music, but this artist didn’t actually watch us perform. They just listened to the music and maybe
went, ‘Eeeeeeh.’ It’s like, mate, it’s a combo deal. You gotta look at the whole thing. It’s an experience. Like, welcome to our world. We’re trying to welcome you into our greasy, oiled-up, disgusting world. Just, be part of it. Let yourself go... It’s a picture mate, it’s like a flat picture. No! It’s a picture that jumps out at you and throws stuff all over you and has a smoke machine.” The picture also includes “BBQ punk”, unlimited puns and a rotating cast of backup dancers packing explosive choreography. “We’ve got some regular, amazing, dancing onions and tongs and bread who do come on board the cheese board with us frequently. So they’re bloody legends, they’re great.” PPPWMS switch fancy feet for ‘toons on sheets, projecting classic Bugs Bunny shorts while providing their unorthodox score; “Pretty much everything we’re doing is animated or animatronic or puppets in some way.” For their upcoming album/DVD, however, they’ve had to commission their own animation. “I would love to re-present that music, and those cartoons, to a modern audience. But, you know, Warner Brothers don’t play.” “They had wonderful music already attached - but we put our own little music to it,” says Starr. “And then we presented that with every gimmick you can come up with. We have laser-firing costumes, we have a completely in-sync light show. All our costumes fire lasers and have lights that are all in-sync. Well, I say costumes, like, our ‘faces’ hahaha... We have confetti, we have lasers - I said lasers, we got a lotta of lasers - and we play perfectly in-sync to projected footage, which is everything everybody ever wanted to see.” The display actually snagged Melbourne grind rock legends Blood Duster’s attention, and the Space Cuties working on their recent final shows. “We did their [previous] show as well. That’s when I froze them with CO2. That was really funny. Yeah, they’ve asked for less strobes,” chuckles Starr. “I don’t know what their problem is.” Snagz is a bit confused by the idea of
Burnt Sausages
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working with humans, as well. “Humans have bands? This is the first I’ve heard of it.” She does rattle off a few BBQ punk influences though; The Sauce Pistols, Bread Kennedys, Black Snags. Are there any other snag bands around Oz? “Look, we technically haven’t met any yet,” says Snagz. “Someone did speak to me about starting a BBQ punk band, I shut them down. I said, ‘Hey, that’s our thing.’ Shut them down. So yeah, haven’t come across any yet in Mel-burn, Oz-tray-lia, but you never know what’s around the corner. “[But] it seems like a lot of people are enjoying it,” says Snagz. “Different people from different places, so that’s really good. We still haven’t come across any other sausages, as I said, on any of the circuits. But that’s alright, we’ve got each other to you know, to chat to about that kind of stuff.” PPPWMS, on the other hand, are running into other higher beings all over the place. “We have had a few more aliens rock up,” says Starr. “I wasn’t expecting that. At the last shows, at The Reverence especially. There were some wonderful people in antlers, and they were all spaced-up. That was really cool. And ah, lot of trippers. A lotta trippers are coming to our shows. They like to tell you that’s exactly what they’re doing and it’s like, ‘Ok, phhhah, fuck yeah. How was that?’ [laughs] So yeah, that seems to be our audience. Other space animals, or space creatures, are starting to come, and trippers. And metalheads. We’re attracting a lot of metalheads for some reason.” PPPWMS often get described as metal, which Starr finds confusing, though they “do have big brutal guitars and big fuck-off drums and everything, big base and huge vocals”. We should point out here that their “big fuck-off drums” are actually a giant, kind of terrifying baby-faced spider (“Giggle Muffin? He’s cute as fuck!”). “But then it’s 1960s space lounge, or, I don’t know, bebop. Arabic bebop. German techno. It all just comes out of everywhere. So once you have a listen to it, there’s a lot of stuff going on. A lot of stuff going on. Genre? Not really specific. Which is probably the point.”
Phantom Panda Power Wizard Master Smasher. Pic: Brock Boslem
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The perks of being a wallflower
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ordan Rakei was once the best-kept secret of the Antipodean soul scene. But, now based in London, he’s an international phenom. Indeed, the tastemakers’ fave from New Zealand via Brisbane recently issued Wallflower on the hallowed label Ninja Tune. In September, the humble Rakei and band embarked on a triumphant US tour, performing his dub-reggae, acid jazz, neosoul, broken beat and avant’n’B. “They were the best crowds we’ve ever played to,” Rakei enthuses. “They were really excited... The crowds scream the lyrics.” He’s since headlined Shepherd’s Bush Empire in London (covering Frank Ocean’s Lost with friend Alfa Mist). From late December, Rakei hits Australia for a big “homecoming tour”. The singer, multi-instrumentalist and producer is often described as Australian, but he deems himself a New Zealander. In fact, Rakei originates from Tokoroa on the North Island. He migrated to Brisbane with his family at three years old. In recent years, Rakei has learnt more about his father’s heritage as a Cook Islands Maori. “His culture was partly neglected because he was raised by a foster family,” he explains. “He moved from the Cook Islands at a really young age - at the age of eight or something. He’s a full Cook Islander, but he was raised by white parents because, I don’t know, it just didn’t work out in those days. So we sort of neglected that whole Cook Island culture for most of our lives until we went there on holiday and met all the family and have stayed in touch ever since. But that was only maybe eight years ago.” It turns out that Rakei’s interest in music was encouraged by his dad, who introduced him to artists as diverse as Bob Marley, Pink Floyd, Frank Zappa and even early house. Rakei took piano lessons but, from 11, was cutting hip-hop beats. Eventually, he gravitated towards jazz and soul. A gigging keyboardist in his teens, Rakei made his solo debut with 2013’s Franklin’s Room via Bandcamp, slowly generating online curiosity. Living with profound social anxiety for a long time, Rakei subsequently transplanted to London as a form of exposure therapy. He hasn’t looked back.
It took a trip to London for Kiwi-born, Brisbane-raised Jordan Rakei to realise his potential. Ahead of a return to Australia for his Wallflower tour, the multi-instrumentalist opens up to Cyclone on cultural heritage, Disclosure collabs and confronting his anxiety through music.
Rakei’s breakthrough came when Disclosure approached him to guest on their blockbuster album Caracal (together with The Weeknd, Sam Smith and Lorde). The Brits had a pal who’d caught Rakei play in Oz and raved. He graced the ballad Masterpiece. “I was just a small beatmaker singing over my tunes at that stage,” Rakei recalls. “I went into this session and the first thing they said was like, ‘Hey, we usually make the beat and the singer usually comes in and sings, but we know you make beats. Do you wanna drive this session?’ I was like, ‘What?’ I guess they just gave me confidence to know that I’m on that level. It’s just a matter that they’re famous and I’m not.” Last year Rakei presented a groovy first album, Cloak, thematising his inherent “introspection” and discovery of meditation. He laid down the streetwise track Snitch with REMI, the pair agreeing to a feature swap (Rakei croons on the Divas And Demons single Lose Sleep and cameos in the video). “He’s just this fireball of energy,” Rakei extols of the Melbourne MC. “He’s so genuine. We think about the world in the same way.” Remarkably, the prolific Rakei has released Wallflower just months after Cloak (not to mention an EP under his deep house alias Dan Kye). He liaised extensively with London musicians, including The Invisible’s Dave Okumu. Wallflower’s greatest revelation is the assured Lucid, which, sounding akin to a lost psychedelic Jeff Buckley epic, Rakei posits as his number one song. “I feel like Wallflower’s a bigger progression and more of a bold album than Cloak.” Reconsidering Cloak, Rakei reckons that he wasn’t always on-topic lyrically (“some of the songs were just more about love or whatever”). And so, with Wallflower, he delved deeper into his history of anxiety, the lead single Sorceress cleverly figurative. “I think, when I was more honest with myself, I was writing better music. I’m not trying to overcomplicate anything.”
“I think, when I was more honest with myself, I was writing better music. I’m not trying to overcomplicate anything.”
Jordan Rakei tours from 5 Jan.
Check The Guide on theMusic.com.au for more details.
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Progressive politics Prog is known for pushing the limits and boundaries of what’s possible in music. Ahead of 2018’s Progfest tour, Leprous’ Einar Solberg, Voyager’s Simone Dow, and Alithia’s Tibor Gede open up to Rod Whitfield on applying that same approach away from the music.
Einar Solberg of Leprous
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rogressive rock. Progressive metal. Or, to wrap it all up in one nice, convenient box, the sub-genre known affectionately by its aficionados as ‘prog’. On the eve of Australia’s premier — in fact, only true progressive heavy music festival Progfest — it’s a great time to talk about this fairly divisive and somewhat esoteric genre of music. Having had its true genesis (pun intended) and peak during the ‘70s, the genre has had a renaissance of sorts over the last ten years or so, both here in Australia and also around the world. With prog in a place of good health, The Music chats in-depth with members of three of the key acts making appearances on the 2018 Progfest line-up — Einar Solberg from the festival’s first-ever major international headliner, Norwegian group Leprous; Simone Dow from Perth legends Voyager; and Tibor Gede from Melbourne avant-garde rockers Alithia — to discuss the origins and relative health of the scene, its future and the dearth of women playing in progressive bands. While the Australian progressive music scene is world class in quality, the same is not said of its profile. Outside the echo chamber we call ‘the Aussie progressive scene’, it remains largely unknown in this country and the rest of the world. A good litmus test of this is to ask someone from a long way away what they know of the Aussie scene and Solberg, Leprous’ charismatic singer, fits the bill nicely. He hails from about as far away from Australia as you can get and has only ever visited Aussie shores once. His knowledge of Australian progressive rock and metal is, unsurprisingly and completely understandably, limited. “I know a few,” he states somewhat hesitantly, speaking from his home in Oslo. “The biggest ones would be Karnivool, then of course you have Caligula’s Horse, and Voyager who we toured with last time, Alithia who we just toured Europe with. And that pretty much sums up my knowledge. Unless you call AC/DC progressive rock!,” he laughs. There are many reasons behind this that Solberg is very aware of. “It must be difficult being from Australia and making it into the music industry,” he muses. “Every time you want to go somewhere else in Australia it costs a fortune. Especially the bands from Perth, they’ve got their own city and then the closest thing might be Indonesia, and that’s not a great touring market. “And then there’s the rest of the world; you are so isolated, you have to reach a certain level to ensure that the travel doesn’t have that much of an impact on your budget.”
Gede is in an excellent position to be able to comment on this topic. The Melbourne band has toured and recorded extensively in international markets, as well as Australia, and Gede has a unique take on what the term ‘prog’ means to him. “For me, I think it symbolises two very important things in what’s happening in music today,” Gede explains. “Prog for me is kind of the new punk rock. I talk to a lot of people about it, and a lot of them say that all the new punk, rock and hardcore bands — it’s all very polished now. Punk rock was always about doing something unique, doing something very authentic, something real and without being concerned about the material side of it, whether [or not] you have any commercial success. “Punk rock was always about, ‘Fuck it! We’re going to do what we believe in and what we love and that’s who we are’. Whereas now — and I don’t want to criticise an entire scene or genre — but I’d say prog very much represents that more. It’s one of the most honest scenes you can get now.” He feels that it’s the progressive bands that completely eschew all attempts to appeal to a broad audience in a commercial sense and simply follow their hearts and creative muses. “There is just no commercial inclusivity for this style of music,” he adds. “Nobody cares, people just do whatever the fuck they want to do, and for me that’s punk rock in its very spirit.” As one of a very small percentage of women in progressive music on the festival line-up — as well as the Australian scene and the genre across the planet — Voyager’s co-lead guitar slinger Dow can definitely see an issue when it comes to the amount of females in prog. However, she would prefer proactive responses to this issue. “What I’ve been seeing recently is stuff like — there was a festival where people were getting a bit up in arms because there wasn’t enough of a female representation on the line-up,” Dow explains. “For me, as a woman looking at what goes on, I see a lot of people trying to treat the symptom and not the cause. This whole thing of ‘we need x amount of women on festivals’ and stuff like that; it’s just not the right way of going about it. There just isn’t a 50/50 representation, especially in rock, let’s be realistic. It shouldn’t be a case of ‘we just stuck this band on the bill because they have a woman in the band’. To me, that’s just tokenism.” Gede has more of a broad overview as to why there is a far lower representation of women in the progressive music movement than that of their male counterparts. While we’ve come a long way since those dark times when women were considered men’s property, and weren’t even allowed to vote, he feels there is still a long Simone Dow of Voyager. Pic: Arta Gailume way to go before women have true equality in broader society. “I think the gender imbalance is more across the board in general,” Gede opines. “I think just generally as a community there is still so much work to do to nurture and support and empower women to be involved, there’s still a lot of old-school attitudes around. It’s definitely in the prog world, but I don’t think it’s a prog-specific thing.”
“It shouldn’t be a case of ‘we just stuck this band on the bill because they have a woman in the band’.”
Tibor Gede of Alithia
Progfest tours from 20 Jan.
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Check The Guide on theMusic.com.au for more details.
In 2018, let’s make smart the new sexy While we were busy making stupid people famous, some world-class boffins were hard at it, mastering the universe.
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he Kardashians, Paris Hilton, Donald Trump, Kurt Coleman, Schapelle Corby, Sophie Monk: if there’s one thing Western pop culture can deliver in spades, it’s making stupid people famous. And, what’s more, we’re all to blame. What began as a guilty voyeuristic pleasure has spiralled out of control, becoming a multibillion-dollar industry. We’ve traded our cultural integrity for a toxic obsession, celebrating shameless self-promotion over actual graft and endeavour. Lofting idiots to positions of significant power, we’ve eroded our morals, our understanding of personal worth, and our aspirations; why become a surgeon or an engineer when you be an “influencer”? But while it may be true that in the fickle realm of social media Kim K’s butt can break the internet while the latest scientific advancements often go unnoticed, that’s not to say the pace of our age of discovery is slowing down. So, to do our part to redress this intellectual imbalance, here are just a small sample of some of the most groundbreaking accomplishments mankind’s unsung scientific heroes made in 2017.
Reusable rockets
Quantum computing
Currently, transporting a human into space has a price tag of around $82 million. However, thanks to billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk, that eye-watering cost is set to become a thing of the past. To date, SpaceX has made 20 successful launches and landings of its Falcon 9 rocket, and in the future the craft may also be used for globe-trotting, making any location on earth reachable in under an hour. So, you can look forward to having lunch in Paris and still making it back home to Australia in time for dinner.
Mankind is approaching a new epoch beyond the silicon age. Traditional microchips are fast reaching the zenith of their capabilities, so to ensure future advancements in computer power, quantum technologies capable of billions of simultaneous computations will become commonplace. Microsoft revealed in December a huge investment in the tech, creating its own quantum coding language called Q#. People are probs still likely to use it to search for porn and illegally download Game Of Thrones.
Robotics
Space exploration
Over the past year, robotics has come on in leaps and bounds – literally. Boston Dynamics, one of the world’s leading developers of advanced robots, unveiled the latest version of its humanoid Atlas robot in November, which is capable of acrobatic feats like backflips. Equally impressive, Sophia, built by Hong Kong-based Hanson Robotics, became the first robotic person to address the UN in October and was even granted honorary citizenship by Saudi Arabia. We’ll just have to wait and see if robots end up enslaving the human race.
Many of the world’s greatest minds, including celebrity physicists Stephen Hawking and Bryan Cox, have said that humanity’s longevity depends on humans becoming a multi-planet species. And to this end, in September Elon Musk unveiled a bold vision for colonising Mars. He hopes to start populating the red planet by 2024, although some sceptics have claimed this audacious estimate as unachievable.
Fusion power
Travel
Fusion power is the holy grail for solving the earth’s energy crisis. Several experimental reactors made huge breakthroughs in 2017, with Germany’s Wendelstein 7-X stellarator leading the pack for efficiency. The world’s first fusion power station, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), reached 50% completion in December, with a goal of being fully functional by 2030.
Cars are so last century. The next big revolution in how we get from A to B comes in a vacuum tube and travels at 700km an hour. The “hyperloop” is an experimental vehicle under development that is predicted to totally transform urban development, giving rise to “mega-regions” – sprawling cities over vast regions. And if air travel is more your style, several companies are developing automated passenger drones, with prototypes already taking to the sky.
Artificial intelligence
Environment
Advances in AI are fast reaching a moment of significant transition, moving from the experimental and into practical application. Machine learning is now being used to process data trends and this same tech has been used by NASA to improve its exo-planet hunting Kepler space telescope. AI will also become more attuned to anticipating human needs without instruction, although some scientists fear a potential AI uprising.
Trump may have dumped on the Paris Climate Accord, but there are still some good eggs out there doing their bit for the planet through the power of science. Major breakthroughs this year include advances in solar panel technology making them more discreet, and ground-breaking research into micro-organisms as producers of biofuels, including genetically modified bacteria that can convert CO2, a major cause of climate change, into fuel.
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Nothing but the best
To read the full story head to theMusic.com.au
British comedian, television host, writer, etc Jimmy Carr tells Sam Wall that The Best Of, Ultimate, Gold, Greatest Hits world tour is exactly what it says it is.
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enowned British comedian Jimmy Carr is quick off the blocks. Before we can badger him about his upcoming Australian tour he cottons the name of the mag and sweeps us up in his love of the local tunes. “I’m obsessed by the Australian guy at the moment, Alex Cameron?” says Carr. “That’s the music I’m listening to at the moment. Incredible records. I’ve literally just discovered him. He supported The Killers on tour so I saw him the other night and was just blown away... He sings in character, it’s fabulous. I mean what a guy, and so Australian as well - the voice and the terminology and the ah, I love it.” His own show, once we’ve circled back to it back to it, is of course the very succinctly named Best Of, Ultimate, Gold, Greatest Hits world tour. “I didn’t want any confusion,” expresses Carr. “So I went with
you know, it’s a long, beautiful shaggy dog story. With one-liners, there’s more than 350 jokes in two hours in my show. So you forget them instantly, there’s no way you’re remembering all those jokes. When I went back to do the research for this, to look at my old DVDs and old TV appearances and pick my favourite jokes, I was amazed. I didn’t remember some of the stuff.” There’s pretty clear incentive in marching out yesteryear’s gold. For one thing, you already know it works. But another less obvious benefit for Carr is the freedom of choice. “With every other show, I’ve ever done the audience has picked the jokes. You go out there with like a thousand jokes in preview shows and whatever the audience laugh at, that’s what’s in the show. It’s like, the audience is a genius. The audience regulate comedy. Audiences decide what is and
“The Rolling Stones have been doing this for 20 years. They’ve been knocking out the hits. If they don’t play Paint It Black, you’re very disappointed.” the title that absolutely, it says exactly what it does on the tin... Th is is the absolutely, all the best one-liners. These are the best things over a 15-year career. I suppose it’s being more of an entertainer, I just want people to have a great night.” It makes sense, really. Carr’s style is very much ‘Gatling pun’. After firing off thousands of high-velocity funnies over 15 years, nine tours and god knows how many television appearances, it seems a shame to leave them all sitting in the dust. “Bands have been doing this for years, right? The Rolling Stones have been doing this for 20 years. They’ve been knocking out the hits. If they don’t play Paint It Black, you’re very disappointed. It’s a big hit.” People have claimed that comedy is ‘the new rock’n’roll’ before, but at a structural level there’s a pretty obvious point of difference. Comedy is in many ways about the element of surprise. You’re waiting for the zig and you get zagged. Luckily, the sheer quantity of his work and his rapid delivery work in his favour; “I mean I do one-liners. So no one remembers the jokes.” “A lot of the comedians that I love I’ve watched multiple times,” adds Carr. “Sometimes it’s more difficult with a storyteller. Let’s say if you’re a storyteller, if you’re Billy Connelly and you’re telling a long, shaggy dog story with an end. If you saw that again two weeks later you’d go, ‘Oh you know what, I know what the end of this is. I know where it’s going.’ But you enjoy the journey
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what isn’t funny, and what is and what isn’t acceptable. So the audience always decided. On this one, I decided. It’s my favourite jokes from the last 15 years. These are the ones that still make me laugh... so it’s a joy for me every night as well.” It helps that Carr always leaves a big place in his show for improvisation and audience interact, being especially fond of a bit of heckling. “Asking a comedian to improvise a whole show is like asking a magician to do real magic. But like 20% of the show should be the audience. You should be chatting to people and messing around. “The thing about a live experience is, as opposed to watching something on a streaming service, if you’re doing a live show it should feel like this is special for tonight. Even if some of that’s an artifice. It should feel like, we’re in a room, with people, we’re out, we’ve had a drink, we’re having a laugh. What more do you want?”
Jimmy Carr tours this from 9 Jan.
Drug Alert kits use the same technology as that found in professional screening laboratories, without the need to send them away to obtain result.
Online orders get 15% off, enter coupon code 172682. THE MUSIC
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The 2018 Album hit list 2018 is certainly shaping up to be a great year in music. Here’s the artists you should be looking to for new tunes...
Tash Sultana
The Goon Sax
Major Lazer
(Sony)
(Chapter)
(Warner)
Tash Sultana has conquered the world on the strength of one EP, a standalone single and a few covers. That’s quality over quantity, friend, and this April there’ll be HEAPS of it. That’s when Sultana’s “soulful” full-length debut is slated to drop on Sony, likely dashing everyone else’s ‘Album Of The Year’ hopes.
Up To Anything was hands down one of the best albums of 2016, instantly proving The Goon Sax were much more than just one-third Robert Forster’s kid. We don’t know much about their follow-up, except that it’s being produced by the band with James Cecil and Cameron Bird, of Architecture In Helsinki fame, and it’s out this year. That’ll do for now.
Being a Major Lazer fan has taken some serious patience over recent years. With talk of a new album surfacing in 2015, the electro trio’s fourth album, Music Is The Weapon, is expected to see the light of day in 2018. Four singles including collabs with Justin Bieber, Nicki Minaj and Travis Scott have already been released.
Father John Misty
Alison Wonderland
Schoolboy Q
(Inertia)
(EMI)
(Universal)
The “most self-important asshole on earth” is back at it again. Father John Misty has self-produced this latest album, his third in four years, and promises you can expect bass synth and “spritely BPMs”. There’s no solid release date from Inertia as yet, but since he was already mixing it in July it can’t be too far off.
Alison Wonderland is set to release her long-awaited followup to Run this year, dropping an early taster with lead single Happy Place in November 2017. While release date details have been guarded, Wonderland revealed the forthcoming album will be called Awake and she has worked with QUIX, Lido and Lorde producer Joel Little.
Rapper Schoolboy Q has been a busy man of late, collaborating with Calvin Harris and RJ on their singles while working through his own fifth album. The LA-based artist says his new record will take a step away from previous releases, focusing on his life as a family man beyond the microphone.
Kylie Minogue
Camp Cope
Vampire Weekend
(Mushroom)
(Poison City)
(Remote)
Rejoice! Kylie Minogue is releasing an album in 2018, her first since 2015’s Kylie Christmas. Despite being a smidge inspired by her recent break-up, you can’t keep Australia’s Queen Of Pop down. Minogue’s even said it’ll be “super positive and inspiring”. The first single drops this month on Mushroom.
Melbourne trio Camp Cope will release their second album, How To Socialise & Make Friends, in March this year. Recorded in just a few days, the band have promised a strippedback and raw release. Lead single The Opener captures the band at their fiery best, so you’ve been warned early not to take this release lightly.
Indie superstars Vampire Weekend are set to return with the amazingly titled, Mitsubishi Macchiato. The album will be the first without founding member and guitarist Rostam Batmanglij, but frontman Ezra Koenig revealed that previous collaborations with artists like Kanye West and listening to ‘simple’ folk songs inspired the songwriting process.
Sarah Blasko
DZ Deathrays
The Wombats
(EMI)
(Mushroom)
(Warner)
Mostly formed over two weeks during a residency at Western Sydney’s Campbelltown Arts Centre in late-2016, Sarah Blasko’s sixth album Depth Of Field (EMI) hits shelves this 23 Feb. If you’re keen see the process behind the indie pioneer’s latest, she actually made a doco dubbed Blasko at same time that you can watch on ABC’s iview platform.
February can’t come soon enough for fans of Queensland power duo DZ Deathrays. Bloody Lovely marks the band’s third long-player, with Burke Reid returning behind the desk as the dance-punk duo get louder, brasher and catchier. Teaser Total Meltdown proved an instant earworm and promised big things for the much-loved noise makers.
With members of The Wombats living in Los Angeles, London and Oslo, work on their fourth album, Beautiful People Will Ruin Your Life, has been a labour of love. Main man Matthew ‘Murph’ Murphy revealed the new record is about escaping the party lifestyle and growing up. The David Lynch-inspired opening single Lemon To A Knife Fight dropped last November.
Thelma Plum
The Presets
(Warner)
(EMI)
After Thelma Plum wrapped her Monsters EP, she was kind enough to give us a taste of the debut album she was working on before disappearing to New York to get recording. That was in July 2016 and we’ve been hanging out ever since. We can’t wait to finally throw the finished product on repeat in 2018.
Th ings have been heating up in the world of The Presets lately. The two-piece released new single Do What You Want last year featuring both DZ Deathrays frontman Shane Parsons and Kirin J Callinan on guitar. The punchy tune is a precursor to an album that The Presets’ Julian Hamilton promises will feel like a party.
Middle Kids
Joyride
(EMI)
(Dew Process)
Like Tash Sultana, Middle Kids made an astounding splash with their debut EP. They toured the world, conquered late-night television and even scored the thumbs up from blink-182’s Mark Hoppus. Somewhere in all that they also found the time to get started on their first LP, which you can get your hands on later this year.
Sydney hip hop figure Joyride will release his highly anticipated debut, Sunrise Chaser, in early 2018 after wowing the local scene for years. With singles Kings & Queens and Aunty Tracey’s Cookies already whipping up a frenzy, the muso, DJ and social media personality has already put the scene on notice.
The Rubens (Mushroom) The pressure is on The Rubens to backup 2015’s mega release, Hoops. Slated for release this year, The Rubens teased fans with the release of new bouncy single, Million Man in October 2017 after working with Run The Jewels collaborators Wilder Zoby and Little Shalimar while recording in New York City.
Vance Joy (Mushroom)
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Aussie folkster Vance Joy has already made waves with his yet to be released Nation Of Two, dropping its first two songs Lay It on Me and the harmony-heavy Like Gold. Recorded in part with producer Dave Bassett, Joy travelled across the US while completing his second full-length.
Troye Sivan
Courtney Barnett
(EMI)
(Milk! Records/Remote Control)
Pop idol Troye Sivan is not one to sit still. Between his acting and YouTube videos, the 22-year-old has been teasing out hints he’s been working on his second album via his various social channels throughout 2017. Sivan has posted pics with songwriter Alex Hope, as well as producers Benny Blanco and Cashmere Cat, so here’s to hoping a collab is coming soon.
Her release of this year with Kurt Vile, Lotta Sea Lice, amplified our anticipation for Barnett’s upcoming second album. During an interview with Binaural (Spain), Barnett’s partner Jen Cloher promised the follow-up to Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit will “definitely” drop in 2018. That’s all we got, but it’s on!
Travis Barker (Warner)
Jack White (Sony)
Travis Barker, blink-182’s stickman, has been teasing his second solo album as he readies to return to his hip hop side-project. Barker has named Kendrick Lamar, Lil Wayne, Young Jeezy, Run The Jewels, Wiz Khalifa and The Game among his list of potential collaborators, with the music a major departure from his day job with the poppunk superstars.
The millisecond White’s Servings And Portions From My Boarding House Reach teaser video dropped we collectively lost our shit. The man with the strongest colour palette in music always keeps us guessing and is continuing this trend: strings, fuzzed-out guitar, irate spoken word, jazzy piano - it’s all within the clip. Words including ‘Abulia’, ‘Papillon’, ‘Vache’ and ‘Real Hands’ flash up onscreen - track names, perhaps? Just hurry up and release it, already!
Arctic Monkeys
Marlon Williams
Muse
(Domino)
(Caroline)
(Warner)
Photographer Daniele Cavalli posted some photos on his Instagram account (April, 2017) that got us speculating as to whether Arctic Monkeys had started work on their sixth album. Bassist Nick O’Malley has since revealed during an interview with For The Ride that Arctic Monkeys began work on said album in a “secret location” in September of last year, adding it will be out in 2018. “If it isn’t, we’ve got problems,” he admitted to the motorcycle website.
The first taste from Williams’ upcoming second album, his pessimistically titled duet with Aldous Harding, Nobody Gets What They Want Anymore, is already out there, as is this album’s full track listing. If you’ve attended one of his recent live shows around the country you will have already heard most of these tracks. It’s definitely a departure from the country stylings of his self-titled debut album, and Williams plays keys as well now. Get excited!
Back in August, we interviewed Dominic Howard ahead of the band’s Australian tour announce and he said “...the ball’s rolling as far as, like, getting more tracks together and releasing an album”. If Dig Down, the single they released back in May, 2017 is anything to go by, the outfit are definitely leaning toward the electronic at present. Will it be thematic like Muse’s last album Drones? We’ll just have to wait and see.
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Fighting demons with music Tonight Alive vocalist Jenna McDougall tells Daniel Cribb the path to Underworld was a “scary” experience.
Check The Guide on theMusic.com.au for more details.
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mbracing the calm before the inevitable album release storm, Tonight Alive vocalist Jenna McDougall has been spending some time in Melbourne following the band’s recent run of Australian shows. “I’ve just been trying to get into a good headspace before the end of the year,” McDougall begins. The singer has been spending a fair amount of time at 24Hundred — the merch store attached to their label, UNFD — and even played an acoustic set there alongside some old friends; the perfect format to preview the intimate new subject matter of the band’s new LP, Underworld. “I feel so excited and very much at peace with everything I said and did on the record,” she says. “I look forward to doing it on stage, because I think it brings a fifth dimension into it and I really love the full body experience of a song.” That’s conveyed perfectly via the music video for lead single Temple, which features McDougall thrashing about the screen and giving it everything she’s got. “I feel like that video’s the first time I’ve ever got show my stage self in a video.” “Demons come out through me when I perform, and I like twitching and I like feeling energy leave my body and I’ll do really bizarre moves to make sure that it does.”
It’s a stage presence in tune with what’s being sung about throughout the album; its production and live execution are both therapeutic for McDougall. “I feel a very deep and honest connection with those lyrics, so naturally my body reflects that,” she tells. “In the first line of the song I say ‘I’m intoxicated by my depression,’ and for the first time I was actually like ‘I am depressed, I am so deeply unhappy and I feel so completely trapped in my life right now.’ And just admitting that was one layer off the entrapment for me.” “I was really sick when I wrote that song,” she reveals. “I’ve been dealing with a bit of an eating disorder the past couple of years, because I have allergies to everything, so every food I was eating would give me an allergic reaction. I developed this fear that I couldn’t eat anything without my eczema going nuts and it was already in a chronic state and I couldn’t do anything about it. “That’s part of what I’m talking about in [Temple], which is totally scary to talk about. When we wrote that song, I’d only told one person that I was struggling with that, and that was Whack, because we write all out songs together. It was pretty far out to put it in a song and put it in front of the band, our team and the world; it’s an amazing feeling to work with honesty on that level.” 2017 was a big year for Tonight Alive, with a lot of exciting developments, including signing with UNFD, who will release Underworld the same day the band play Unify, alongside Parkway Drive, The Amity Affliction and more. But there was also some bittersweet news that dropped back in October, as guitarist Whakaio Taahi announced he’d be stepping down from the band to focus on other projects. “I guess [Underworld] is kind of like his last labour of love, and I’m not really sure how it’s going to be moving forward and I’m not really prepared to start thinking about what that’s going to be like, in terms of songwriting and things like that.” There’s a sense of dark urgency around the music on Underworld produced by the duo, but McDougall stresses it’s not a negative record; a statement backed up by the lyrics throughout. “Every time we write a song, I’m very mindful that I’m not saying there’s no hope or that we’re doomed; I really don’t appreciate that type of music or message. “If people truly believe that and they put it out there then that’s one thing, but I’m coming from a self-help standpoint and have been for a long time and I really care about personal development and evolution of the mind and spirit and that’s part of why I always have a silver lining in our songs.”
Underworld (UNFD) is out 12 Jan. Tonight Alive play Unify on 12 Jan.
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A Chi-town education
Chicagoan singer, songwriter and poet Jamila Woods tells Anthony Carew that there’s a world within HEAVN.
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alk to Jamila Woods and you’re likely to hear about Chicago. About the city she grew up in and returned to. About its poetry scene, its literary history and the musical community (Noname, Chance The Rapper, Saba) of which she’s a part. About her work with Young Chicago Authors, a nonprofit organisation working with teenagers in literacy, poetry, performance. About how her debut LP HEAVN is, in many ways, about Chicago. And how, in the face of gun violence and police violence, Chicago remains robust; using art to combat the ills of American society. “It’s natural, when you’re from a place as brilliant as Chicago, that you want to let people know about it,” says Woods. “People are really into Chicago music right now, but I think they essentialise what Chicago is: that it’s a very violent place, that there are these really negative connotations to it. Ever since I was young, I remember writing down that my greatest fear was to be misunderstood. And I feel like a lot of people misunderstand Chicago. I think that’ll always be a part of my work; because it’s where I come from, who I am.” Woods — who’s speaking to The Music not from Chicago but New York — grew up in the predominantly white neighbourhood of Beverly, the eldest of four siblings. They’d choreograph dances together, sometimes to songs they’d make up. Woods grew up singing in choirs, listening to Stevie Wonder, dreaming of being a veterinarian/singer/actor (“a triple threat!” she laughs). Woods went to Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, where she leaned into theatre and Africana studies, before moving back home to Chicago where she threw her-
It’s really fucking easy. Except when it’s not. Ahead of their traditional Australian summer sojourn, Future Of The Left mainstay Andrew ‘Falco’ Falkous tells Steve Bell about reaping handsome dividends (not always financial) from making music his main life pursuit.
self into its theatre scene, hopping between various theatres as director’s assistant, intern or dramaturge. Woods also began making music, playing in the alt-soul duo M&O; she was ‘Milo’, her bandmate Owen Hill was ‘Otis’. When Hill moved away, Woods set about making her own music. At first, she was unsure about being a solo artist: “What I was feeling when I set out making it was a little bit lost and a little bit insecure, questioning whether I was capable of making music on my own.” But a confidence-boosting step came when she decided she was going to record under her given name. “I started to feel, ‘I don’t want to compartmentalise my art anymore’,” Woods says. “I want it to feel like — whatever I’m making, I want it to be clearly coming from me.” Setting out to make HEAVN its own self-contained world, Woods drew on her history with dramaturgy. “I love to think about that no matter what I’m making,” she offers. “Whether it’s the world of a poem I’m writing, the world of a song I’m writing or the world of an album I’m making. I want every piece — whether it’s the album cover, the skits between the songs, the sounds in the songs, the lyrics — to feel as if they’re all cohesive, part of the one world.” Th rough listening to the whole of HEAVN — with its songs about growing up in Chicago, how Jamila got her name, loneliness, Afrofuturism, social activism — Woods believes listeners can get a sense of who she is. “If you took one song out of context, you’d only ever just get a piece of me, but all the songs reflect who I am,” she says. “Obviously, I’m still figuring out who I am, and figuring it out through making [music]. People can contain multitudes. There isn’t just one version of yourself. I’m proud of how, when I listen back to it, it feels very authentic as to how I was feeling.”
Jamila Woods tours from 18 Jan.
Left for the last seven years — welcomed their
so I can write some songs at home for a thing?’
first child, a daughter, into the world, followed
And as it turned out I lost my job — just because
by the pair completely uprooting their life and
my contract ended and they didn’t need me
moving from Cardiff to the thriving metropolis
anymore — a couple of weeks after I got back,
of London.
so I thought, ‘Ah fuck it, I’m just going to buy an
For his part Falkous seems to be taking all
interface and start doing songs from here.’
the tumult in his considerable stride, still striv-
“And obviously it was easier for me
ing to come to terms with life in the big smoke
because I’d used various programs over the
but not letting anything cloud his creativity or
years and stuff so I had a bit of a head start over
mischievous worldview.
just anybody doing it, and because of previous
“There’s been lots of changes recently,” he
bands I guess people were liable to check it out
tells. “We moved to London — myself and Julia
on Bandcamp. Bandcamp and everything is a
— about a month-and-a-half ago for her job,
very rare example of things working very well
so we’ve just [been] settling into London. Have
for a musician — out of all the money I make
you been to London? It’s one of the centres of
they take about 10%, and you know what? It
the world, isn’t it, and sometimes being near
seems kinda fair. How often do you get to say
the centre of the world is great, and sometimes
that in life? ‘Yeah the company made loads of
you can’t be arsed.”
money, but it seems fair. They take 10% of my
Including both of his current outfits, FOTL
money, and it seems right.’ That just doesn’t
and Christian Fitness, Falkous has released
happen. Wherever you’ve got a business —
seven strong albums in the last five years, an
particularly in the creative industries — some
occurrence he puts down to a recent lifestyle
fucking cunt dressed like a pirate is taking the
choice rather than a particularly rich vein of
money that you should make, so for that actu-
songwriting.
ally not to be the case is great.
“Well I didn’t have a home set-up before
“I will say that in the last few years — but
that so I was a bit restricted,” he explains. “It
specially in the last two years, although there
was actually on the last tour of Australia when
may be the odd month or two where it doesn’t
we played Sydney and I remember having a
really work — but it’s usually the case for me
conversation in the dressing room — I think it
that, just after finishing a record, the songs I
was the Factory Theatre, the same place we’re
write for the first two or three weeks after that
playing this time — and I was just faced with
are really bad facsimiles of the ones I just wrote,
going back to the same kind of temp job that
but apart from that I honestly can’t imagine
I’d always go back to in between tours.
enjoying anything more than writing music: it’s
“And that’s not to complain about that
just so much fun. It’s so much fun late at night
because I’ve made some of my best friends
after three beers by myself in the house, trying
here’s been some pretty seismic chang-
T
working those jobs, and I’ve got a perspective
to stop the fucking cat from eating pesto from
es of late in the life of Future Of The Left
on music that you wouldn’t have if you were
a pan, or stood in a room with your friends.”
frontman and wordsmith Andrew Falk-
just in music all the time, but I was faced with
ous. Six months ago he and his Australian part-
that and I just remember saying to Julia, ‘Can I
ner Julia Ruzicka — also bassist in Future of The
set up a desk or something in the living room
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Future Of The Left tours from 10 Jan.
The time is right for another romp through Australia’s dark heart Twenty-five years after Russell Crowe starred in the controversial film about blue-collar Melburnian neo-Nazis, Geoffrey Wright’s Romper Stomper is ripe for a revival. Anthony Carew meets the director and returning lead Jacqueline McKenzie. Director Geoffrey Wright on set with David Wenham and Lachy Hulme
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ith the recent boom in local streaming services, the Australian film & television industry has turned to cannibalising its past to deliver new content, taking to remakes and reboots with a zeal reminiscent of Hollywood. But out of all these series spun from familiar localcinematic titles - Wolf Creek, Picnic At Hanging Rock, Wake In Fright, Chopper - what the new TV series Romper Stomper has, in spades, is cultural relevance. The original 1992 film was director Geoffrey Wright’s response to battles between White Power and Vietnamese gangs in Western Melbourne. But, returning a quarter of a century later, the televisual Romper Stomper gets to riff on the contemporary battles that play out in the mass media: neo-Nazis rebranded as true-blue Aussie patriots, the rising tide of Islamophobia, the right-wing talkback blowhards fanning the flames, and the left-wing activists counter-protesting. “Last year, with Brexit and the rise of Trump, it became obvious that this story needed to be revisited,” says Wright, 58. “I cannot think of another Australian TV show that is more appropriate for the current day. What we present in the series is nothing that you haven’t seen in a million news reports. We’re just getting inside of them.” Where the original film was out “to put the audience inside the bubble of [a neo-Nazi] gang”, the series gets to make good on its own format; to look at its world, of Melbourne in conflict, with race at the centre, from many varied perspectives. “You’re going to get bored of just one point-of-view across six hours, so longform almost obliges that you explore different elements of the story,” says Wright. So, there’s Lachy Hulme as the leader of far right-wing group Patriot Blue, and Sophie Lowe as his seemingly-bland/secretly wicked wife. Toby Wallace, as a young skinhead who rises up the ranks, scans as the series’ breakout star. Nicole Chamoun plays a young Muslim student drawn into the media hysteria, David Wenham as the neo-con shock-jock smug upon his nightly TV pedestal. And a handful of the original cast return: Dan Wyllie now silver-haired, John Brumpton gone full bunker-in-the-bush paranoia, and Jacqueline McKenzie as the upwardly-mobile professional who can’t escape the original film’s past. Over the years, Wright, producer Daniel Scharf, and McKenzie often tossed around the idea of returning to the story. “By the time
we actually set out on production,” McKenzie says, “it’d been something we’d been talking about for 22 years.” McKenzie is talking, in a South Yarra cafe prior to Romper Stomper’s gala premiere, just days after publicly writing about her experience with the film industry’s endemic culture of sexual harassment; but before Russell Crowe would make his car-crash comments on simulated on-screen sodomy at the AACTA Awards a few nights later. “I just wanted to start a conversation,” the 50-year-old says, simply. “Because, we all talk. We’ve all been talking about this for years. Half the time, we’ve been laughing about it: ‘oh, you’re working with such-andsuch, look out, hahaha!’ I felt the need to say something. We need to talk about this, and we need answers. We need this dialogue. I don’t like the idea of naming names, of publicly shaming people. I don’t want to point fingers. What I want to do is discuss how we change this culture that has existed. This is a fabulous opportunity to move forward, and protect ourselves for the future.” McKenzie is, as an interviewee, garrulous and generous. She’s full of ideas for how to change film-sets - completion guarantees being tied to past examples of “disruptive behaviour”, film workers requiring “working with children” qualifications for dealing with child actors - and happy to talk about the #metoo movement, and ideas of greater cultural shifts. But, she’s also there to promote Romper Stomper; the series spun from the film in which she made her debut. “I just remember running, running, running my ass off, up-and-down alleyways in Melbourne,” McKenzie says of the 1992 original. “There was a real sense of camaraderie amongst the actors, a real ensemble. [Because] it was my first film, I didn’t realise how special that was. I thought that all film-sets must feel that way, all directors must work like that.” Having spent years working in studioshot, formula TV-series - “think about those two words: ‘block’ and ‘cover’,” she laughs, of the televisual language, “they’re antifreedom!” - McKenzie is glad to be working with Wright, who still works with his “extraordinary energy”; the camera always moving around actors, through locations (Footscray again features heavily, but the St Kilda foreshore gets a starring role in a pair of series brawls). And, like Wright, she knows that the arrival of Romper Stomper is timely. “I think
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it’s fantastic that we’re telling [this story], that we’re asking these questions,” McKenzie says. “The film, what we were depicting was really fringe. Now, it’s front-row-centre in our society. There’s Charlottesville, that freak [Milo Yiannopoulos] who’s getting way too much air-time right now, travel bans, Trump. It’s not some tiny little group of lost souls with a lot of muscle, it’s part of our cultural dialogue.” Once again, this means that Wright has to answer criticisms of the Romper Stomper story; from those who feel that depicting race-hate and gang violence, even critically, can legitimise its existence. The original film was, famously, denounced by David Stratton, who refused to review it on the grounds that it was “dangerous”. “[That] became a textbook example of how not to treat a film that you’re frightened of, or loathe,” Wright says, even as he sees some of the same arguments playing out, 25 years on. “If you ask [critics] if watching the film turned them into card-carrying fascists, they would say no. But they make the assumption that there are people who could see the film - or now, the series - and suddenly go ‘gee, being a fascist looks like fun, I’m going to do that!’ “There’s a real paralysis in this country,” Wright continues, “in addressing this situation, and the people involved in it. But no one should be scared of having this conversation, of addressing this reality that’s playing out in front of us.”
“With Brexit and the rise of Trump, it became obvious that this story needed to be revisited”
Romper Stomper airs from 1 Jan on Stan. Jacqueline McKenzie as Gabrielle
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MCDOUGALL LANE
B A R K LY S Q UA R E
OPEN AIR CINEMA BARKLY SQUARE
Every Saturday night in December & January Doors open 7.30pm for 8.30pm screening Buy tickets at barklysquare.com.au All proceeds donated to a different local charity each week
B A R K LY S Q UA R E .C O M . AU B A R K LY S Q UA R E
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A bum wrap The biggest fashion trend of the summer is the ‘90s revival, with printed denims, fluoro prints, wallet chains, chunky trainers, baggy rave pants and skinny braces all making a welcome return to the wardrobe. But of all the fashion throwbacks currently on trend, one surprising accessory is enjoying a particularly popular renaissance. Bum bags are this festival season’s must-own swag, so check out these prime examples.
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1. ASOS Scuba Bum Bag, Black & Rose Gold $30 asos.com | 2. ASOS Graffiti Print Bum Bag $21.50 asos.com | 3. Unicraft Boho Fanny Pack, Thai Triangle $27.24 etsy.com | 4. ASOS Lifestyle Double Pouch Quilted Bum Bag $21.50 asos.com | 5. Spiral Bum Bag, Holographic $23.72 asos.com 6. Herschel Supply Co Exclusive Fifteen Camo Bum Bag $55.00 herschel.com.au | 8. Save By The B-Fresh Gear $38.37 etsy.com 8. Mi-Pac Silver Mirror Bum Bag $39.51 asos.com | 9. Skinny Dip Sequin & Glitter Bum Bag $18 selfridges.co.uk
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Gravity & Other Myths
A Simple Space
Anyone who’s seen a show by a juggernaut circus troupe like Cirque du Soleil will be familiar with the grand theatrical wizardry that underpins these eye-popping spectacles. But even without the sequined costumes, extravagant sets and fernickety narratives, circus can still be breathtaking. It’s this art form’s ability to stun even in its rawest, most unadorned form that powers this award-winning show by Gravity &
Other Myths. Seven acrobats dazzle with nothing more than their physical virtuosity in a stripped-back performance that is both intimate and as astonishing as any of its stadium-sized counterparts.
A Simple Space plays from 3 Jan at Arts Centre Melbourne
The best of Midsumma Festival in January
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Panti Bliss & ThisIsPopBaby RIOT The playful and the political collide in this camp drag cabaret revue by one of Ireland’s most iconic performers. Th rough a blend of circus, comedy and song, Bliss and co take on the political status quo. From 31 Jan at Arts Centre Melbourne
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La Mama Theatre Can’t Be Tamed Th is ode to the artist formerly known by Hannah Montana is described by creators Justin Nott and Danni Ray as “a 3am, greened-out D’n’M with Miley Cyrus as your spirit guide.” Shut up and take our money, we say.
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From 24 Jan at La Mama Theatre
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The Midsumma Comedy Extravaganza Hosted by Aussie comedy’s most fabulous queer comic, Joel Creasey, this star studded line-up includes Thomas Jaspers, Steven Oliver, Bobby Macumber, Kirsty Webeck and Melbourne’s grand old dame of drag, Dolly Diamond. 24 Jan at Arts Centre Melbourne
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Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert The Musical The greatest Australian musical of all time turns the ignition once again, as it embarks on a cross-country journey of discovery and drag. Tony Sheldon, David Harris and Euan Doidge star as three drag sisters taking on the outback. From 21 Jan at Regent Theatre
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LaserBeanz Productions KillJoy – Destroy The Fantasy Created by three fierce, feminist firebrands – queer cabaret stars Cat Scobie, Mahla Bird and Amy Broomstick – this fusion of live music, circus and performance art invites its audience to say “fuck you” to the patriarchy.
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From 24 Jan at The Melba Spiegeltent 6.
Cameron Lukey and Don’t Be Down Productions Strangers In Between From the award-winning playwright of Holding The Man, Tommy Murphy’s bittersweet story of emotional conflict and sexual politics brings together a stellar cast led by Logie winner Simon Burke. From 24 Jan at Fortyfivedownstairs
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Film & TV ★★★½
Black Mirror (Season 4)
Black Mirror (season 4) is now airing on Netflix
Reviewed by Guy Davis
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s if the state of the world wasn’t shithouse enough as we stagger blindly towards the conclusion of 2017, the misery is compounded by the news that everyone’s favourite mordant mate, Charlie Brooker, won’t be airing his regular end-ofyear Wipe program, where he casts his eye over the past 12 months and commiserates about the who, the why and the what-thefuck. Brooker claims he’s spread himself too thin with other projects but Twitter, as ever, knew better: “I suspect it might just have been an hour of him pointing at a rolling news channel and screaming” wrote one wit. Still, all is not lost - we still have six new episodes of Brooker’s future-shock anthology Black Mirror dropping on Netflix, just in time to make us all feel thoroughly dispirited about technology that’s as new as tomorrow and human frailty that’s as old as time itself. Uh ... yay? Yeah, yay. For the most part, at least. In this fourth season of stand-alone stories, Black Mirror - mostly written by Brooker
(with the odd assist from a collaborator) but directed by a line-up of helmers including Jodie Foster, The Road’s John Hillcoat and Hard Candy’s David Slade - continues to make one feel unsettled or just plain icky with its probing and occasionally discomforting insights into dysfunctional relationships between humanity and high-tech (which is why we tune in, right?). But the series is also starting to show a little wear-and-tear, it seems, with sequences or even entire episodes repurposing previous Black Mirror bits with only a few alterations to distinguish them. It’s not exactly a deal-breaker that the surveillance-state story Arkangel, in which helicopter parenting is taken to extremes by a concerned mother, lifts bits and pieces from The Entire History of You, or that the harrowing premise of White Bear, among other ideas, is somewhat rehashed for the lurid Black Museum. But the ring of familiarity may disappoint some who’ve come to admire the series’ originality up until now.
★½
Pitch Perfect 3
Pitch Perfect 3 in cinemas now
Reviewed by Anthony Carew
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here’s one moment where Pitch Perfect 3 comes to life; this is so obvious to the filmmakers that it’s repeated twice, first as cold open, then as climax. In the absence of any inspired ideas or reason to exist beyond contractual obligation, yet another lap around the competitive-a-cappella-groups block is, for a sequence, suddenly a spy-movie. Due to plot developments that deliver John Lithgow with a bad Australian accent, the rest of the Barden Bellas are kidnapped and held for ransom on a Bond Villain-worthy yacht. And, so, series leads Rebel Wilson and Anna Kendrick must save the day. Cue Wilson transforming into an unstoppable badass, cutely choreographed fights, and a barrage of explosions. It’s absurd to inject such genre work into the world of Pitch Perfect, but the contrast works. Unfortunately, it also serves as an indictment of the rest of the film. The Pitch Perfects are movies about music for people who actually hate music: its a supposed portrayal of “a cappella” that instead
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delivers mimed versions of studio-slick, effects-thick playback. Running this shtick back for a dispiriting third time is less a case of diminishing returns than flogging a dead horse. Now graduated college, the band gets back together as a form of therapy, to escape flagging careers and lives. They undertake a tour of army bases in exotic Mediterranean locations, and they’re in a contest with three stereotypical outfits - country yokels, a trap duo and a rock group - to win a recording deal with DJ Khaled, whose name is mentioned more times in the script than the word ‘and’, the film burnishing his celebrity brand whilst tarnishing its own. Wilson’s comicriffs are still the sole source of laughs, though there’s at least a running gag of mocking the use of familiar, tired tropes (cheap exposition, the semi-anonymous members of the ensemble, the need for competition and resolution) as they’re happening. It’s nice that the film’s aware of its own cliches, but not so nice that writer Kay Cannon couldn’t think of a way not to employ them.
Guerrillas in our midst Canadian pals Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol admit Nirvanna The Band The Show can be hard to digest at first. But, as Dan Cribb discovers, it’ll only take a few episodes until you’re hooked.
“I
would look at the trailer for this show, and be like, ‘That looks like a bunch of shit,’” tells Jay McCarrol, one half of Viceland’s Nirvanna The Band The Show. It’s nearing midnight in Toronto and only a few days before the show’s second season premieres, but his partner in crime, Matt Johnson, is in the thick of editing. “Jay doesn’t edit,” Johnson begins, with McCarrol relaxing at home on the other end of the conference call. The series follows the childhood friends as they try to get a hometown show at Toronto venue the Rivoli, with each episode playing out an elaborate and convoluted plan, from inadvertently holding up a bank to trying to crash a Christmas parade, all while parodying iconic films and TV shows like Jurassic Park, Home Alone and Daredevil. Initially emerging as a web series 10 years ago, it was brought back to life earlier this year by Viceland. “Our show doesn’t really look like or seem like any other show that people are groomed to enjoy, where it’s easy for them to settle in right away and know what they’re into,” McCarrol says. “I think when people watch our show, and we’re lucky enough to get them for whatever reason, and they start to dig into it a little bit and give it a chance then it’s really rewarding for them.”
“Some of the time that’s where we’re getting our plots from,” he tells. “But other times, we’re trying to force certain things to happen, so that things will make sense. It kind of goes both ways.” “We’re starting to know what we’re getting into when we shoot certain scenes,” McCaroll says. While the storylines and grand plans in each episode are brilliant on their own, it’s McCarrol and Johnson’s onscreen characters and the dynamics between the two that really drives the show. Their real-life friendship is evident throughout and contributes to the natural flow of things, and something they lean on heavily throughout production, with McCarrol quick to state that neither of them are “proficient or elegant writers”. “We don’t really write the show,” he admits. “We write what we think is a good premise...we always end up looking back at a rough cut and saying, ‘Okay, well only half of this is working,’ and, ‘Look at what just happened here with this person on the street. We need to explore that.’ So we go out and re-shoot. You can see that our hair changes a lot if you look closely,” he laughs. The absurdity of their onscreen personas gets amplified in the season two. “Some of that stuff is some of my favourite stuff that we’ve ever done,” Johnson says on an
I go back to over and over and over and over again, in terms of character.” Johnson’s appreciation of Aussie talent stems from his friendship with local filmmaker Dario Russo, the creator of SBS comedy Danger 5. “[Danger 5] is another Australian original that, in my opinion, is really, really excellent.” “Are we just naming Australian things we know, like Tim Tams?” McCarrol asks. “No, no, these are Australian television shows, Jay. Very important,” Johnson responds. The conversation continues, with a recommendation of Russell Coight’s All Aussie Adventures thrown their way before the pair engages in a conversation reminiscent of what you’d see onscreen. “I’m really liking The Deuce right now,” McCarrol says. “It’s not Australian,” Johnson responds. “I thought he just asked if we were watching any shows?” “No, he said Australian shows.” “Well, I’ll just tell him off the record then, The Deuce is a good show. James Franco is exactly how you want him in it.” The turnaround between seasons was lightning fast in comparison to other shows, and while they’re developing praise from the likes of Rick & Morty creator Justin Roiland (“one of the best shows ever made”), they’re not sure where it’ll go. “We don’t really even
“The characters are basically brain dead in many ways, but then they’re experiencing these complex emotions.”
Its guerrilla-style production is one that Johnson used in his first feature film, The Dirties, which won a wealth of acclaim and even caught Kevin Smith’s attention and saw him release it. Part of makes Nirvanna The Band The Show so charming is that loose production style and its hidden camera scenes, but it wasn’t something they initially gave too much thought to. “We didn’t really plan so hard the whole, ‘Oh, we’re going to shoot it with unsuspecting people and weave them into the plot.’ The media likes to talk about it, but with us, it was just the easiest way that we could tell the story, and the funniest way,” McCarrol explains. “You’re in dude,” Johnson adds, referencing a moment in season one where a brief and unplanned conversation with a stranger outside the venue gives the episode the perfect end note.
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episode entitled The Buddy, which finds the perfect blend of character development and hidden camera content. “I think what Jay and I think is really funny is more of the drama,” he continues. “The characters are basically brain dead in many ways, but then they’re experiencing these complex emotions.” Most episodes begin in their apartment, with the duo messing around or coming up with another scheme. “A lot of people would say that’s just what they want to see,” McCarrol states. “We would say that too sometimes, but really what drives it forward is when we can finally come together and tell a compelling story with a good backbone of characters that make sense off of each other.” “You’ve got a good example of that in your own backyard,” Johnson adds. “The first episode of Summer Heights High, Jay and
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know what our expectations are for how the show can grow,” McCarrol admits. “We’re in the middle of shooting [season 3] right now,” Johnson reveals. “I shouldn’t say in the middle of shooting it, but we’ve shot a good portion of it already. “I hope that it doesn’t come out until next summer because I think that’s almost kind of when it needs to. But I don’t know what the plan is for when it will be delivered.” “Every now and then, we pop our heads above water,” McCarrol says, “but for the most part, we’re just a little tiny team making it as best as we can.”
Nirvanna The Band The Show streaming now on SBS On Demand
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Me, myself, and Nassim There’s no rehearsal, no director, and the actor gets the script after they’ve already stepped out on stage. So why are A-list celebs lining up to perform in Nassim Soleimanpour’s plays? Maxim Boon investigates.
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n early 2013, playwright Nassim Soleimanpour found himself sitting on a bench in the park situated next to the Brisbane Powerhouse. Noticing a placard about local wildlife, he began to read. Then, unexpectedly, he started to cry. “I can remember what the sign said almost word for word: ‘I’m a native bird. Please don’t feed me your scraps. Help me go back to nature,’” Soleimanpour recalls. “It really struck me, in this incredibly intense, knowing way; as a playwright, what I had created was such a natural thing, I had written about my native life. And now I realised that I could easily be tempted by the ‘scraps’ — an expectation of confirmation, an expectation of the beautiful sound of hands clapping.” Soleimanpour’s private epiphany proved to be the final chapter of an extraordinary story. The Iranian writer had been denied a passport because he had refused to do a mandatory two-year national service. Unable to leave his own country, in 2010 he wrote a uniquely devised play about his life, that could travel to the far-flung places he could not. As much by necessity as creative invention, this solo play, White Rabbit Red Rabbit, must be delivered using a very specific set of instructions: without any prior rehearsal or direction, a different actor reads the script, which they find in a sealed box on stage, each evening the work is performed. The only additional request is that the actor should prepare an impression of an ostrich. White Rabbit Red Rabbit was an immediate hit, praised for its touching humanity and sharp yet charming humour, attracting a level of international demand enjoyed by very few new plays. By 2013, it had been translated into 15 languages, and had been performed by a roll call of A-list artists including Juliet Stevenson, Ken Loach and Whoopi Goldberg (it’s since been performed by Nathan Lane, Cynthia Nixon, Alan Cumming and Tony Danza, to name only a handful). The play had one final stipulation: at every performance a seat in the front row should be reserved for Solei-
manpour. For three years, that seat, in theatres all over the world, had remained empty. But in late 2012, a medical check-up revealed that the playwright was, in fact, ineligible to perform his national service, and so with a passport finally secured, Soleimanpour travelled to Australia, to see his celebrated play for the first time. “Writing such a play, I had never seen it performed in any way before, so everything that happens in it I had
torical record of Soleimanpour’s former self, but its general architecture — an unrehearsed actor reading an unseen script to an audience — has remained the playwright’s favoured methodology. Now, however, Soleimanpour is not only present for the performances of his latest work, Nassim, he’s a member of the cast. There’s a poetic logic to this proactive new phase in his career. Nassim in some ways can be seen as a sequel to White Rabbit Red Rabbit,
“One of the things my mind does, and I always feel frustrated by it, is that it tries, but never succeeds, to make complicated things simple.” only experienced in my head. Then suddenly, I saw it on stage, and there was an actor who kept saying, ‘My name is Nassim Soleimanpour,’” he recounts. “So that was a trigger in a way. When someone looks you in the eye and starts to speak your own story, you can’t help but have a moment when you simply think, ‘This could be me. I could be an Australian, I could be female, I could be in my late 50s, I could be black or white or Chinese.’ It was a very powerful moment for me. A very touching moment.” Seeing his play for the first time may have been a profoundly affecting experience for Soleimanpour, but it also revealed the work’s limitations to its author. Once only able to experience the world remotely, he was now a global citizen, and this new-found freedom cast his text in an entirely new light. “When I saw it for the first time, I realised that the play was a time capsule. It’s me when I was 27; I was a bachelor, I was living only in Iran. The basic facts remained the same, of course. But it was the past speaking to the future,” he shares. The specifics of White Rabbit Red Rabbit, which continues to enjoy star-studded performances all over the world, may now be a his-
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as it explores more facets of the once absent protagonist’s life. But in a twist of meta-dramatic philosophising, it also reflects its theatrical nature back at itself, to muse on questions raised by the success of its predecessor. “We’re still dealing with a playwright, this is still the core story of the play. However, now we’re dealing with a playwright who has been translated into almost 20 languages, but not his own mother tongue,” he explains. “When there’s a performance of my work and people are celebrating it, of course, I’m proud and very happy that I’m there in the room. But my mum is not there, my dad is not there, my brother is not there. It’s not happening in a language they can even understand. And that for me is a very sad thing.” By his own admission, Soleimanpour is a deep thinker — “My mum is a painter and my dad is a novelist. This is the kind of home I grew up in. By the time I was 16, I’d read most of the Western philosophers” — but he has another aptitude that is equally apparent in his theatre: a keen comic instinct. It’s his ability to artfully marry both the tear-jerking and the side-splitting that has seen some of the
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world’s best comics add their names to the list of luminaries who have offered their services for an evening to Soleimanpour’s plays. During its Melbourne season, Nassim will feature some of Australian comedy’s finest, including The Family Law creator Benjamin Law, playwright and Black Comedy star Nakkiah Lui, stand up stalwart Judith Lucy, and late night news host Charlie Pickering. So, what makes comedy such an attractive resource for Soleimanpour? True to form, it’s a question he’s pondered long and hard. “One of the things my mind does, and I always feel frustrated by it, is that it tries, but never succeeds, to make complicated things simple. For example, I’m in love with shows that make you laugh at the beginning, wander halfway through, and by the end, make you cry. Of course, in practice, it’s never that simple,” he admits. “But comedy is really helpful for breaking the ice with an audience. It’s like going to a party. You cannot just get there and immediately start talking very deeply about why Donald Trump is now the President of the United States. People would think, ‘Oh, God, this guy is so serious.’ So you have to be funny and charming. And then if you want, you can have a drink, you can dance, and then, yes, while you’re smoking on the balcony, you can talk about politics. But not before. So this is where comedy, in the core of it, is very necessary for my shows.”
Nassim plays from 23 Jan at Arts Centre Melbourne.
WELCOME TO SEASON 2018 PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK
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The 2018 hit list Well hello there, culture seekers. It’s time to get your brand spanking new diaries out and start pencilling those key events into your cultural calendar. But if you’re having a tough time figuring out just what arts events are worthy of your patronage, allow us to give you some handy hints. Here are our top choices for the best film, theatre, and art to catch over the coming year.
Films as picked by Anthony Carew
The Favorite
Isle Of Dogs
Director: Yorgos Lanthimos Cast: Emma Stone, Olivia Colman, Rachel Weisz, Nicholas Hoult, Joe Alwyn Premise: In 18th century England, during the court of Queen Anne, two women become rivals for the Queen’s covert affections. Anticipation: Coming off the back of The Lobster and The Killing Of A Sacred Deer, the Greek weird-wave don is as close to a sure-thing as any director. A period-piece based on a real episode of English history, however, is an unexpected next-move.
Director: Wes Anderson Cast: (voices of) Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Bob Balaban, Jeff Goldblum, Frances McDormand, Greta Gerwig, Scarlett Johansson, Tilda Swinton Premise: In a dystopian future Japan where dogs have been quarantined on an island due to an outbreak of ‘canine flu’, a pack of hounds attempt an escape. Anticipation: Nine years after his incredible adaptation of Fantastic Mr. Fox, Anderson —one of cinema’s most distinctive filmmakers— returns to the realm of stop-motion animation.
High Life
Under The Silver Lake
Director: Claire Denis Cast: Robert Pattinson, Mia Goth, Juliette Binoche, Lars Eidinger, André Benjamin Premise: A crew of criminals are sent on a deep-space mission in search of alternative energy sources. Anticipation: Denis has spent most of this century dreaming up her sci-fi opus, and, at $8mil, it’s a sizeable-budget feature for the French legend. Th is is officially her first English-language feature, and past Denis exercises in genre (like the incredible Trouble Every Day) have been plenty memorable.
Director: David Robert Mitchell Cast: Andrew Garfield, Riley Keough, Topher Grace, Zosia Mamet Premise: A man becomes obsessed with the murder of a billionaire mogul, and its connection to LA’s indie-music underground. Anticipation: Mitchell is two-for-two thus far, with the poignant teen-movie melancholy of The Myth Of The American Sleepover and the instant-classic horror of It Follows. So, anticipate accordingly.
Widows Director: Steve McQueen Cast: Viola Davis, Elizabeth Debicki, Michelle Rodriguez, Cynthia Erivo, Colin Farrell, Liam Neeson, Daniel Kaluuya Premise: When a group of criminals are killed mid-armed robbery, their surviving widows band together to finish the job. Anticipation: A remake of a British ’80s mini-series penned by Lynda La Plante seems a strange next step for McQueen, but, five years after 12 Years A Slave, anticipation for the latest work from the video-artist-turned-Oscarwinner will be high.
Theatre as picked by Maxim Boon
Hir Red Stitch Actors Theatre If you weren’t lucky enough to catch Taylor Mac’s monumental A 24 Decade History Of Popular Music when it headline Melbourne Festival last year, I’d wager you probably know someone who did. Needless to say, Mac is a bone fide genius, and that in itself makes an opportunity to see Mac’s work too good to pass up. But if you need more persuasion, this touching coming of age story about the trans experience is considered another Mac masterpiece. From 30 Jan at Red Stitch Actors Theatre
The Children Melbourne Theatre Company The first show of MTC’s 2018 season also promises to be one of its most thrilling. Lucy Kirkwood is perhaps the most talked about British playwrights of her generation, and this Australian premiere production of her latest play, a study of baby boomer guilt imagining a Fukushima-esque nuclear disaster in Britain, will star three of our greatest actors, Pamela Rabe, William Zappa and Sarah Pierse. Quite frankly: MTC, take my money! From 3 Feb at the Southbank Theatre
The Nightingale And The Rose Little Ones Theatre Full disclosure: I’m a seriously committed Little Ones Theatre fanboy. But in my defence, artistic director Stephen Nicolazzo is easily one of the most remarkable artists working in Australian theatre. The company’s extraordinary adaptation of Christos Tsiolkas’ Merciless Gods was a standout highlight of 2017, and if Little Ones’ adaptation of the The Happy Prince is any indication, this upcoming return to Wilde’s gothic universe will be spectacular. From 30 May at Theatre Works
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Visual Arts as picked by Maxim Boon
MoMA At NGV
We Are Here
Gallery collaborations don’t get more world-class than this. New York’s legendary art nirvana, The Museum of Modern Art, is lending Melbourne 200 of its most prized possessions, including works by the greatest artistic minds of the past century; Pablo Picasso, Vincent van Gough, Piet Mondrian, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Jackson Pollock, to name only a handful of the awesome iconoclasts on display. Simply put, this is a once in a decade exhibition.
Explore actual and imagined queer histories, conjured by five outstanding contemporary artists. Drawing from archival material from the State Library Victoria and the Australian Lesbian and Gay Archives, this Midsumma Festival exhibition is both a celebration and a study of the complex, shifting, alive culture of the LGBTQI+ community. Featured artists include Susan Maco Forrester, Peter Waples-Crowe, Peter Lambropoulos, Archie Barry and Briony Galligan.
From 9 Jun at the National Gallery Of Victoria
From 19 Jan at State Library Victoria
The NGV Triennial Although, strictly speaking, this exhibition kicked off mid-December, it’s simply too important an event not to include in our best of 2018 round-up. Th is audacious survey is establishing a major visual art festival for Melbourne to rival that of Sydney’s Biennale, and with its mix of new media, architecture, animation, performance, film, painting, drawing, fashion and sculpture, it’s a truly comprehensive overview of contemporary artistic practice. Best of all, it’s free. Until 15 Apr at the National Gallery of Victoria
EuroVisions: Contemporary Art From The Goldberg Collection
Melancholia Malthouse Theatre I’d usually turn my nose up at the idea of a stage adaptation reimagining a Lars von Trier film; diddling with the vision of a great auteur is rarely a successful gamble. But given that two of Australia’s most ferociously talented theatre makers, Declan Greene and Matthew Lutton, are at the helm, my breath is well and truly baited. Those expecting a live action remake should think again. Th is new creation will likely bear little resemblance to its muse.
Presenting the work of 15 international artists, this exhibition offers a vivid snapshot of leading trends in contemporary art. Prepare to put a spring in the synapses, with a fascinating, and often cerebral combination of “conceptual approaches, innovative thinking, and a sense of history.” But if that’s a bit high-brow to decipher (we know artsy waffle when we see it), expect vibrant, joyful, and thought provoking work across mediums including painting, photography, ceramics and sculpture. From 24 March at the Heide Museum Of Modern Art
From 13 Jul at Malthouse Theatre
Blasted Malthouse Theatre Sarah Kane’s story is a tragic one. Th is astonishingly gifted writer penned only a handful of plays before committing suicide at the age of 28. Blasted is her earliest and most unhinged work, infamously trashed by critics when it premiered in 1995. Th is new production is likely to fare better, with director Anne-Louise Sarks at the helm. Last year she delivered two of the most stellar productions in the country, so this is set to be a jewel of 2018. From 24 Aug at Malthouse Theatre
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Terra Nullis: A Political Revenge Fable In Three Acts Welcome to the dark heart of Australia. Soda_Jerk’s ferocious sample-based film grapples with the savagery of contemporary Australia through a mixture of satire, ecohorror, road movie and pop culture. Tackling the inconvenient truths of Australia’s difficult history, where misogyny, racism, and colonial greed are cultural corner stones, this subversive vision see sexism pecked out by birds, bicentenary celebrations ravaged by flesh-eating sheep, and bike gangs remade into matriarchal powerhouses. From 20 Mar at the Australian Centre For The Moving Image
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Sugar Mountain: Justin Shoulder, Corin, and Tristan Jalleh Part of the beauty of Sugar Mountain is that much of the art presented defies categorisation. And so it is for the latest collaboration between Justin Shoulder, Corin (pictured) and Tristan Jalleh. In a creation that will combine live performance with artistic experimentation across digital and physical mediums, these three boundarybusting artists have barely spilled a bean about what Sugar Mountaineers can expect from this latest venture, except to say that it will be “an assemblage of converging styles, enriched with the intricacies of visual communication.� Make sure you bring along an open mind and a curious spirit.
20 Jan at Melbourne Arts Precinct
New eats on the street
Uncle Tetsu Japanese Cheesecake We don’t wish to alarm anyone, but holy fuckin’ shit Uncle Tetsu is opening a new outlet in Melbourne and our mouths just cannot even deal with the anticipation. If you’re not familiar with this establishment’s light, fluffy, heavenly delights, get ready to have every other dessert ruined forever. They really are that good. Exact opening date is yet to be confirmed, but the Uncle Testu website describes the ETA as “really soon”.
The Falls Fest sideshows to catch
How the Belle Miners struck gold with their debut album New folk, festive folk pop, eclectic alt folk — call them what you will, Belle Miners are still riding the high of their first album release, and Jaime Jackett and Marina Avros tell Carley Hall it’s about time.
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Dry & Tea Are you a bit parched? Are you also in need of a new look? Well you can kill two birds with one stone at the new Dry & Tea opening at Myer, Highpoint. This award-winning Blow Dry Bar-cum-Tea House offers a luxurious experience, with high tea, featuring infusions by T2 and Harney & Sons, served while your hair is perfected using top-of-the-line products from L’Oreal. Utter bliss. .
t’s been a relatively long road but Belle Miners have finally released their debut album and a few years is understandable given the dual nationality of the Australian-Canadian trio. When duo Man & Minx — featuring Aussie Jaime Jackett and Canada’s Felicia Harding — crossed paths with Canadian folk songwriter Marina Avros, it was the musical equivalent of love at first sight. Since combining forces, the trio have mesmerised audiences with their three-part harmonies and, depending on what review you read, “festive folk pop”, “eclectic alt folk” or “new folk” sound. “Felicia said one time if you took ABBA and Crosby, Stills & Nash and they had babies the Belle Miners would be their children,” Avros reveals. The sound that has delighted so many in the live setting since their inception back in 2014 is now literally in the hands of their listeners, with the release of Powerful Owl, produced by JUNO award-winner Joby Baker in British Columbia. But of the ten tracks that grace Powerful Owl, none had the impeccable timing that single Fall In Love With Me had upon its release. Its lush melody and gentle croons unravel a tale of same-sex love and, by complete coincidence, its release coincided with the week our nation went to the polls to vote on the same-sex marriage survey. Not that the group would have shied away from this fortuitous meeting of moments; with Harding and Avros members of the LGBTQIA+ community, coupled with the starkly contrasting fact that Canada has enjoyed marriage equality since 2005, meant the
“There’s just so many more important things than worrying about who’s loving who.”
Twenty Pho Seven Don’t you just hate it when you wake up in the middle of the night craving some delicious, aromatic, rich and filling noodle soup? Well, I’ve got some good news for you: Melbourne has just welcomed its first 24-hour Pho restaurant, at 138 Russell Street in the heart of the CBD. Brought to you by the team behind Hochi Mama, this is a late-night eats game changer. Sorry, 4am kebabs, your days are numbered.
trio were watching closely when the ‘yes’ result was announced. “I was holding my breath for our community,” Avros admits. “I think it was nighttime when I saw [the result] and it was a good end to the day. There’s just so many more important things than worrying about who’s loving who; I mean if it’s not hurting anyone then why would you spend millions of dollars on something that you could spend on helping the homeless, the environment, refugees? You could go on and on about where that money could have been better spent. So it was really great when we found out but, really, it shouldn’t have happened like that in the first place.” On top of their new album, that major political decision will be another thing to celebrate when they regroup for a bunch of shows around the country in early 2018. Jackett (the only Aussie in the group) is looking forward to assuming the role of tour guide. “I’m married to an ecologist as well, so I also take on the nature guide role who picks up the lizards and the spiders and the girls just go ‘eeeeeewwww’.”
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The Kooks Remember being 15 when Sway gave you all the feels? Well, now you can relive that feeling a little older and wiser at The Kooks’ Best Of show. Festival Hall, 3 Jan
Run The Jewels El-P and Killer Mike are heading back to Aus for the first time since 2014. Brooklyn’s Flatbush Zombies along for the ride, too. Festival Hall, 4 Jan
Liam Gallagher You can expect some huge numbers from Liam Gallagher’s extensive back catalogue at his sideshows. Pray for Wonderwall. Festival Hall, 5 Jan
Belle Miners tour from January 3.
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Couldn’t make it to Falls Festival? You haven’t missed all the fun because there’s sideshows aplenty! Here’s just a few we think you should be heading to.
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The Music’s ultimate music quiz
Want to keep playing? Head to themusic.com.au for another 50 questions.
What better way to kick off 2018 than by stretching out the ol’ brain muscle and reflecting back on the year that’s been. We’ve put together a 2017 mega quiz for you to test your knowledge and show off to your mates. Remember, if you Google the answers you’re only cheating yourself (plus, you don’t really need to because they can be found at the back of the mag). Happy quizzing!
Round One Okay, we’re keeping it simple for the first round. Here are some easy ones to kick things off. They’ll earn you a one point apiece. 1.
Macklemore courted controversy by performing which song at the 2017 NRL Grand Final?
2.
Which Glasgow-born brothers and major Australian music industry figures both passed away in 2017?
3.
Which musician was confirmed as nabbing the role of Nala in the live action remake of The Lion King?
4.
Which member of One Direction performed at the 2017 ARIA Awards?
5.
Who released the follow-up to their book, Working Class Boy, with Working Class Man?
6.
Who was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame during the 2017 ARIAs?
7.
8.
9.
Which Aussie hip hop duo won a stack of awards with their album Reclaim Australia? Which Foo Fighters side project surprised Sydney with an impromptu gig in August?
Paul Kelly
Jen Cloher
15. Which Sydney act took out Album Of The Year at the 2017 ARIA Awards?
27. Who called Father John Misty “the most self-important asshole on earth”?
16. Who was dubbed ‘the last rockstar’ in a 2017 documentary about their life and death?
28. Two members of which Brisbane band got engaged this year?
17. Stranger was a huge hit for…
29. Which iconic British album got a special 20th anniversary release, featuring previously unreleased tracks Man of War and I Promise, in 2017?
18. Which international artist spent more of 2017 in the charts than not with their album ÷ (Divide)?
30. Which Australian singer transformed Linkin Park’s In The End into a tribute to Chester Bennington for their triple j Like A Version?
Round Two How’s the noggin’ feeling so far? A little rusty after a too festive, festive season? Give this round a go for three points per correct answer. 19. Which Aussie hip hop act was named a Fellow for Australia’s Youtube Creators For Change program? 20. Which Australian band did The Killers cover in their set at the AFL Grand Final?
32. Which US sitcom star teamed with Ben Lee for a debut collab album? 33. Who is the first artist signed to The Smith Street Band’s Poolhouse Records label? 34. Which legendary artist played her last ever Australian shows in April 2017? 35. Sydney’s Dear Seattle broke through with their track The ___ 36. Who released their debut album titled Dumb Days?
21. Which artist broke attendance records at stadiums across the country during their 2017 Australian tour?
What is the name of Eminem’s new album?
10. Which Australian band were nominated for the 2018 Best Dance Recording Grammy Award?
31. What is the name of PNAU member Nick Littlemore’s other band?
22. Alex Lahey made her US late night TV debut on which show?
37. Which iconic punk act was paid tribute to with a mural in Brisbane? 38. Who declared she “won’t be your future heroine” on her debut album?
23. Which Midnight Oil member tore his hamstring on stage during their Australian tour, leading to him performing the remainder of their shows seated?
39. The Opener is the first single off which band’s forthcoming album?
12. Which Norwegian group broke through with their song Magazine?
24. Australia’s first hologram tour, announced for 2018, will feature which artist?
40. Which band re-released their debut album, A Quality Of Mercy?
13. Which Las Vegas rock group released an album so nice they named it twice?
25. Which Aussie band auctioned off a rainbow drum kit to raise money for charity?
41. Caiti Baker released her debut solo album in 2017, it’s called…
14. The Preatures followed-up their 2014 album, Blue Planet Eyes with…
26. Who did Courtney Barnett team up with to release a collaborative album?
11.
Which Aussie music legend scored his first ever ARIA #1 album this year?
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Jess Locke
The Killers
Ecca Vandal
Stella Donnelly
AB Original
49. Which Australian frontman was supposed to join Me First & The Gimme Gimmes on their Australian tour, only to be replaced at the last moment due to illness? 42. Which guitarist from a prominent Brisbane rock band started a label called Domestic La La Records? 43. 2017 breakout star Alex The Astronaut isn’t just a talented musician, what sport is she also known for? 44. The 2017 action film Baby Driver was based on a film clip, directed by Edgar Wright, for which UK band? 45. Which Australian band was sampled on Kendrick Lamar’s track Duckworth from his 2017 album, DAMN?
Round Three
46. What is the name of the organisation launched by blink-182 founding member, Tom DeLonge?
The final round in our quiz is the one that will earn you the most bragging rights and the biggest points, at five for each correct answer.
47. Which Western Australian artist has been making waves with her tracks Boys Will Be Boys and Mechanical Bull? 48. Which UK ‘90s act cancelled their Perth show just hours out from its scheduled start?
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50. Fountaineer released their album, Greater City, Greater Love, as a tribute to which city?
That’s it, you’ve done it! Now, head to the back of the mag to find out just how right or wrong your answers were. If you’re really keen on showing off your win, make sure you tag us on social media @themusiccomau. We hope you got through without too many arguments…
Check page 76 for the answers
theMusic.com.au live reviews King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard @ Gizzfest. Pic: Xavier Fennell
For the latest live reviews go to themusic.com.au
Gretta Ray @ Making Gravy. Pic: Lucinda Goodwin
Tash Sultana @ Margaret Court Arena. Pic: Monique Pizzica
“‘If you’re a homophobe: you can get the fuck out of my gig… if you’re a racist: get the fuck out of my gig… if you’re transphobic: get the FUCK outta my gig!’” – Bryget Chrisfield Tash Sultana at Margaret Court Arena Pissed Jeans @ Meredith Music Festival. Pic: Lucinda Goodwin
Yelawolf @ Forum Theatre. Pic: Jay Hynes
“Yelawolf wraps paper around the microphone before audaciously lighting it on fire, smashing the flaming microphone into the ground and throwing the remains into the crowd”
Chk Chk Chk @ Summer Tones. Pic: Joshua Braybrook
– Renee Wilson Yelawolf at Forum Theatre
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The Music’s ultimate music quiz answers
This month’s highlights
Round One: one point each 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18.
Same Love George and Malcolm Young Beyonce Harry Styles Jimmy Barnes Daryl Braithewaite A.B. Original Chevy Metal Revival Mansionair Paul Kelly Sløtface The Killers (Wonderful, Wonderful) Girlhood Gang of Youths Michael Hutchence Peking Duk Ed Sheeran
Sunset Sounds
Get down at dusk There’s few better ways to spend a summer’s Sunday evening than in a park watching some great live acts for free, and that’s exactly what Sunset Sounds, held across City of Stonnington’s idyllic parks, has on offer. Saskwatch kick things off on 7 Jan. Nathaniel Willemse
Sounds like summer Iconic Prahran venue Chapel Off Chapel has an awesome line-up assembled for the third season of its Chapel Summer Sessions from 13 Jan, featuring chilled, stripped-back evenings of intimate, soulful music. Headliners include Nathaniel Willemse, Jordie Lane, Brendan Maclean, Mayfield and Thando.
Round Two: three points each 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41.
L-FRESH The LION Midnight Oil Adele Late Night with Seth Meyers Jim Moginie Roy Orbison The Smith Street Band Kurt Vile Ryan Adams Cub Sport Radiohead, OK Computer Gordi Empire of the Sun Josh Radnor Jess Locke Patti Smith Meadows Tired Lion The Saints Ecca Vandal Camp Cope RVG Zinc
LEJ
Pardon my French Wanna wine, dine and dance in the sunshine (not guaranteed, unfortunately) in the lush grounds of Werribee Mansion? Well So Frenchy So Chic In The Park is for you. Artists supplying the tunes include Fefe, Juniore, General Elektriks and LEJ, berets are optional and it all goes down on 14 Jan.
Ego Expo
Street smarts Australia’s largest expo of urban fashion, Ego Expo, is here to celebrate street culture through independent streetwear, 17 & 18 Feb at Shed 14 Docklands. Challenging the idea of the high-fashion catwalk, the See Now, Buy Now Fashion Runway champions the newest seasons of indie apparel, footwear and accessories.
Night moves
Round Three: five points each James Tidswell of Violent Soho Football Mint Royale Hiatus Kaiyote To The Stars Academy Stella Donnelly Placebo Chris Cheney Bendigo
Billy Davis & The Good Lords
42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50.
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If you’re yet to experience one of Melbourne Museum’s Nocturnal events, they’ve once again assembled an aweinspiring line-up for their 5 Jan edition with Billy Davis & The Good Lords, Lossless and The Hello Morning plus DJs. Pretty much as close to being cast in Night At The Museum as you’ll get!
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Melbourne Zoo
Animal magic Zoo Twilights is taking over Melbourne Zoo from late January to early March and their line-up is looking pretty bloody good. Only a few shows are still up for grabs so get in quick, especially for Melbourne locals Cut Copy on 27 Jan.
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the best and the worst of the month’s zeitgeist
The lashes Front
Back
It’s high time
Ash smash
Hang (nearly) over
Water torture
Stop the hot
Star bawls
Time magazine’s coveted Person Of The Year cover was scooped not by one individual, but by a movement of women who have dared to challenge the status quo of sexual abuse in Hollywood, collectively named ‘The Silence Breakers’.
Aussie cricket fans finished off the year on a high by taking back the Ashes Cup with a decisive win over the English team, taking the final six wickets required to wrap a victory at the WACA. Good on ya, fellas!
For anyone who has pulled up dusty on New Year’s Day, this glimmer of hope from British scientists will be welcome news. Professor David Nutt of Imperial College predicts that synthetic booze will be getting us drunk, hangover free, within “a generation”.
Well, it turns out Donald Trump drinks water like a toddler chugging on a sippy cup. Mr President, why are you such a comprehensive creep? Take that question to your special prosecutor and investigate it.
Yes, we know it’s a cliche to whine about the weather, but we are well and truly over all these random apocalyptic heatwaves. We may just permanently relocate to the cold room at the bottlo if it continues, just FYI.
The late, great Carrie Fisher’s faithful canine companion, Gary Fischer, watched The Last Jedi, according to Fisher’s former assistant. The little scamp perked up every time Leia appeared on screen and goddamnit our poor breaking hearts can’t take it.
I
The final thought
t’s that time of year again, when we all get the chance to hit the reset button on life and commit to those personal improvement projects we’re totes gonna stick to for the next 12 months (but, let’s face it, we probably won’t). First, though, we’ve got a choice to make: which new year’s resolutions should we embrace this year? Decisions, decisions. There’s the obvious perennial favourites of course: join the gym, go twice, pay the membership fees for the rest of the year while telling yourself, ‘I’ll deffo go next week’. Give up the grog; have a shitty first day back at work because of your back-toschool blues and forgetting the password for your computer, immediately fall off the wagon by necking a bottle of Savvy-B to cheer yourself up. Buy a juicer so you can go on a “cleanse”, realise that kale and wheatgrass smoothies are utterly disgusting and order Dominos because you can’t be arsed cooking. So, let’s just call bullshit on those options and look elsewhere for resolution inspiration. And it just so happens that there’s a very timely muse: Tash Sultana. At her recent Margaret Court Arena appearance, where she drew a whopping crowd that smashed the venue’s attendance records, the insanely talented musician used her stage time to offer a bit of wisdom on that favourite Aussie pastime, discrimination, with a
What’s my new year’s resolution? I’m taking a leaf out of Tash Sultana’s book
Words by Maxim Boon
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pointed nod to the outspoken bigotry of the stadium’s namesake: “The music doesn’t stop for Margaret Court, that’s for sure... I don’t really have too much of an opinion on someone until I think they’re a dickhead but, hey! Get up with the times, fucking hell! ‘Cause there’s seven and a half thousand people here and I don’t think she’s stopped any of this from happening.” Then, beautifully condensed into three simple rules, Sultana delivered the maxims I’ll be sticking by in 2018: “Number one, if you’re a homophobe: you can get the fuck out of my gig. Number two, if you’re a racist: get the fuck out of my gig. And number three, if you’re transphobic: get the fuck outta my gig!” So there you have it. In 2018, I am resolved to keep prejudice, of every form, the fuck outta my gig. Let’s call out the hate and bile and misinformation that blighted 2017 with postal surveys, sexual abuse bombshells and political point-scoring. Let’s show an absolute and unrelenting intolerance of the intolerant. And let’s keep every hint of discrimination and degradation the fuck out of this gig.
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