October Issue
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T H E F e s t i va l i s s u e Everything you’ll need to get the best from your fest
Our pick of the red-hot buzz acts to catch this festival season
Not sure what fest is your fit? Take our test and find out
Pill testing: is the taboo putting festival punters at risk?
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friday 7 december Flemington Racecourse *All tickets remain valid
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LIC AA 15+
The Go-Betweens iconic album performed live by original band members and special guests
FEATURING Lindy Morrison Amanda Brown John Willsteed WITH Dan Kelly Danny Widdicombe Luke Peacock
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SAT 06 OCTOBER Arts Centre Melbourne, State Theatre
SPECIAL GUESTS Jen Cloher Alex Gow Dave Graney Laura Jean Paul Kelly Clare Moore Rob Snarski Romy Vager
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Performing IN THE FLAT FIELD in its entirety plus extended encore of Bauhaus classics
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WHAT’S COMING UP SOLD OUT
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19 DOM DOLLA
20 TROPHY EYES
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28-31 6-8
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GANG OF YOUTHS
NOV
2 KING PRINCESS
SOLD OUT
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THE LIVING END
NOV
5
OPIUO + SYZYGY ORCHESTRA
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9 PIERCE BROTHERS
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10 THUNDAMENTALS
SUBSCRIBE FOR ANNOUNCES, PRESALES AND SPECIAL OFFERS AT FORUMMELBOURNE.COM.AU @FORUMMELBOURNE #FORUMMELBOURNE The Mus i c MELBOURNE • O c to b e r VIC 3000 154 FLINDERS ST,
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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 Daniel Cribb, Neil Griffiths, Sam Wall
Restoring A Legacy
Assistant Editor/Social Media Co-Ordinator Jessica Dale
A
Editorial Assistant Lauren Baxter Gig Guide Henry Gibson gigs@themusic.com.au Senior Contributors Steve Bell, Bryget Chrisfield, 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, Chris Familton, Guido Farnell, Donald Finlayson, Liz Giuffre, Carley Hall, Tobias Handke, Mark Hebblewhite, Kate Kingsmill, Samuel Leighton Dore, Joel Lohman, Matt MacMaster, Taylor Marshall, MJ O’Neill, Carly Packer, Anne Marie Peard, Michael Prebeg, Mick Radojkovic, Stephen A Russell, Jake Sun, Cassie Tongue, Rod Whitfield Senior Photographers Cole Bennetts, Kane Hibberd Photographers Rohan Anderson, Andrew Briscoe, Stephen Booth, Pete Dovgan, 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
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T H E F E S T I VA L I S S U E Everything you’ll need to get the best from your fest
T H E F E S T I VA L I S S U E Everything you’ll need to get the best from your fest
T H E F E S T I VA L I S S U E Everything you’ll need to get the best from your fest
Special thanks to Volaris Music of Brunswick VIC and DeepPockets.com.au, for supporting this month’s cover art.
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little over 12 months ago we made a decision and one at the time that was against the prevailing tides of the media landscape. We had spent five years looking for ways to restore life to our magazine division. We had tried everything in our powers to return weekly street press to its glory days but as we sat down last October to discuss the ever-diminishing page sizes and revenues, we knew that we had failed; a title change to The Music, multiple format changes and cost-cutting had failed to stem the ever-increasing funds required to retain the magazine business. The positives were the website was flourishing, our podcasts were gaining traction and we had an incredible team of journalists and editors around us. As we sat and looked at spreadsheet after spreadsheet, it was clear that the simplest decision was to cease producing magazines. No one would question that decision. It seemed that newspapers and magazines were announcing their closures on a weekly basis. The arguments for closing were many and contained logic. The arguments against were fewer but contained passion and commitment. We had the credibility and respect of the market and readers who believed in what we were doing. You still couldn’t get a ‘cover’ on the internet and artists still made time to do cover shoots because it was still an honour for them to “grace the cover of the ...”. And we had this incredibly passionate team who continued to push out the highest standard of music journalism in the country for little reward on a weekly basis. We also owed it to ourselves and the street press pioneers before us, to provide a place for music and arts journalism outside of the internet. The digital age has changed our world, but it has also allowed for everybody to become a critic, a journalist and a photographer. But in my opinion, magazines remain the bastion of the best writers, the best critics and the best photographers. When we publish, it has a real cost, it can’t be changed or updated. It lives on until it becomes a bin lining or fire starter, but it does not alter. The decision was made to double down and make one final charge, to increase the quality, to increase the word counts on every article, to shoot almost every cover, to entrust our incredible team to restore our legacy. Twelve months on, we have achieved what we set out to do. As I wandered the streets of Sydney on the weekend after issue one dropped, it felt like a journey back in time as I saw cafes where punters had put their phones aside and again were reading The Music. At that point, I knew we had made the right decision. The discussions about the future of the magazine division still happen every month though, but at least for now they are over pretty quickly. To every reader, to every writer, to every artist, to every advertiser and most of all to our incredible team, thank you for your support.
Craig Treweek Publisher
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Our contributors
This month Publisher’s Letter This month’s best binge watching Shit We Did: Posture Correction Guest editorial: Co-CEO of Green Music Australia Berish Bilander
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Adrianne Lenker
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Hellions
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Otto Wicks-Green Otto has been immersed in the world of heavy guitar music for over 15 years, most notably with Australian band sleepmakes-
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waves, with which he has been nominated for three ARIA awards and a J Award for best
Sunglasses The best Aussiemade shades
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Australian album. Otto enjoys photography, lives a shameful double-life as a corporate consultant and spends the rest of his time chasing massive guitar sounds and elusive moments of decent songwriting.
The Festival Issue Here are out hot tips for breakthrough festival acts this season
Find your festival fit Here’s our easy guide to see which is your perfect festival to attend
The ultimate festival road trip A year on from Spilt Milk’s abandoned trial, what’s happening on the pill testing front? More festival listings than you can poke an inflated novelty item at The Big Picture: Lucinda Goodwin
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Paul Kelly Where poetry and music combine
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Cloves
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Album reviews
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Lucinda Goodwin Lucinda is a Geelong-based music photog-
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The Arts
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The best highlights of Matlhouse Theatre’s 2019 program
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School Of Rock
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Film & TV reviews
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Melbourne International Arts Festival
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Festival style
The Bronx, B Wise
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rapher. A big advocate of homegrown talent, she has been documenting Geelong locals
Your Town
alongside national and international acts for eight years. Her trademark vibrant, crisp and emotive imagery has been nationally and internationally published and exhibited.
Berish Bilander Berish is a musician and Co-CEO of Green Music Australia, a non-profit dedicated to helping the music scene reduce its own
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sleepmakeswaves
Here are the best of your local festivals
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John Butler
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Bill Bailey
Cat Power “It’s my pile of shit”
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environmental impact, and creating leader-
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ship for change. He has toured extensively, releasing several albums with his ensemble Motion, and dedicated his activist life to climate and social justice, fighting back tollroads and working alongside refugee activists to #bringthemhere.
Your gigs
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Howzat!
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This month’s local highlights
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2019 BLUESFEST SIDESHOWS presented by presented by
PRESENTS
PRESENTS
SUN 21ST APRIL 170 RUSSELL
THENER CORDAY IL SUTN H APR 14
R E N n R O C E H e T Y 18 APRIL l l A ne THURSDA o t S
VINTAGE TROUBLE
THE
TH
R E L W O H E TH DAY 24TH APRIL WEDNES
R E N R O C THE Y 25TH APRIL HT URSDA
R E N R O C THE DAY 24TH APRIL WEDNES
BLUESFEST TOURING and GROUNDUP MUSIC presents
E G R O GE TON N I L C &PARLIAMEN FUNKADE T LIC
ON HIS FINAL ALIAN AUSTR TOUR
25TH APRIL
HT URSDAYTHE FORUM
SNARKY PUPPY FRIDAY 26TH APRIL THE FORUM
SATURDAY 27TH APRIL PALAIS THEATRE all acts also appearing at
bluesfest byron bay 2019 bluesfesttouring.com.au bluesfest.com.au
Subscribe to our mailing list: facebook.com/bluesfesttouring The Music
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A Star Is Born
William Shatner
Born to shine Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga star in romantic musical A Star Is Born, about a famous country musician who falls for a small-town singer. It’s Cooper’s directorial debut and Gaga’s first leading role, and it got an eight-minute ovation when it was shown at Venice Film Festival, so get hyped!
All good Brisbane-based singersongwriter WAFIA is launching her new single I’m Good with a tour of the country. She begins her run in Melbourne on 5 Oct, hitting most major cities before wrapping up in Adelaide on 20 Oct.
WAFIA
Button knows In support of his 2017-released autobiography, What Does This Button Do?, Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson is heading our way this month for a special speaking tour. The legendary UK singer’s run starts in Sydney on 18 Oct.
Palm funday Back in Oz and at it again, The Gooch Palms are doing a short tour of the eastern states this month. Beginning in Brisbane on 19 Oct, they’ll also be bringing RAAVE TAPES along for their QLD and VIC shows. Bruce Dickinson
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Within The Wires
To boldly one-man show
Podcast of the month: Within The Wires, Season 3
Even at age 87, Canadian icon William Shatner, of Star Trek fame, is still making headlines. This time he’s bringing his one-man show Shatner’s World down to Australia. His trek begins in Perth on 8 Oct, so be sure to boldly go and grab those tickets.
The first two seasons of Within The Wires were quietly compelling, original and emotional storytelling told through museum guides or relaxation tapes. Things are never what they seem though, and for fans of slow-burn, interesting stories that reward patience, it’s well worth a listen.
Stream dreams
This month’s best binge watching Will & Grace, Season 9
Trophy Eyes
Eyes on the prize
After a successful revival in 2017, Will & Grace
Returning to Australia to support their upcoming LP American Dream, punk rock quintet Trophy Eyes begin their tour in Brisbane before heading to Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne. Their June event in Melbourne sold out in 20 minutes, so grab tickets before their circuit begins 11 Oct.
is back for a second return season of laughs and drama. Last season left the titular characters in existential crises, with the question of their friendship hanging in the air. Join original cast members Debra Messing, Eric McCormack, Megan Mullally and Sean Hayes as they navigate middle age, toxic friendships and trainwreck relationships in their sometimes silly, sometimes poignant quests for happiness. Streams from 5 Oct on Stan
The Man In The High Castle, Season 3
From Atlanta with love
The Philip K Dick-sourced show about Nazis and parallel universes is back with a third sea-
American rapper 6LACK is returning to Australia this year, joined by US duo THEY. and newcomer BOOGIE, in support of his second studio album, East Atlanta Love Letter. His tour begins on 10 Oct.
son. While the first two seasons focused on an alternate timeline where the Nazis won WWII and reigned supreme, the third season looks to give the resistance some hope as they fight for their freedom, and apparently, the fate of the multiverse. Streams from 5 Oct on Amazon Prime
The Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina
Fans of iconic ‘90s show Sabrina The Teenage Witch and the more recent noir teen mystery Riverdale rejoice! The CW have rebooted Sabrina and it’s likely to be darker than ever before, if the brief-but-spooky teaser trailer is anything to go by. Kiernan Shipka (Mad Men) takes on the role of Sabrina, while Lucy Davis (The Office) and Miranda Otto (Lord Of The Rings) will be our new aunts. Streams from 26 Oct on Netflix The Gooch Palms
6LACK
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Jodie Whittaker as Doctor Who
Kesh back
Who, when and where
Despite a minor setback following an injury that caused her tour to be delayed, Kesha is up and at’em for her Australian tour. She’ll be starting in Melbourne on 7 Oct, before making her way around the country.
To celebrate the Doctor’s 13th incarnation, cinemas around the country are screening Jodie Whittaker’s feature-length debut as time and space’s most loveable Gallifreyan this 8 Oct. Catch The Woman Who Fell To Earth at a participating cinema near you.
Kesha
Worth the drive Teaming up with genre legends Killswitch Engage and Thy Art Is Murder, Australian metalcore band Parkway Drive are gearing up for one hell of a road trip with new album, Reverence. Be sure to grab a ticket and headbang to their awesome sound as their country-wide circuit begins 25 Oct.
App of the month: Pokemon Quest If you’re frothing for a Pokemon fix and Go just isn’t cutting it anymore, Pokemon Quest might just scratch that itch. Combine Minecraft-esque graphics with adventures around ‘Tumblecube Island’, and we’re onto a winner. Parkway Drive
Youth club While most acts simply play at music festivals, Gang Of Youths went ahead and made their own. The inaugural A More Perfect Union has a stellar line-up, including Luca Brasi, Jack River, Thelma Plum and Charlie Collins, starting from 28 Oct.
Gang Of Youths
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I Know Leopard
Sh*t we did With Maxim Boon
Boom Following a killer showing at BIGSOUND, “sci-fi ABBA” outfit I Know Leopard are taking their new single, the first from their upcoming album, on the road this month. The Landmine tour kicks off in Brisbane this 19 Oct.
These New South Whales
Burn outs You don’t get more punk than These New South Whales and they’re out to prove it with their east coast No Bridge Left To Burn tour. Teaming up with Party Dozen and Rebel Yell, they begin the mayhem in Sydney on 6 Oct.
Sylvain Sylvain
Posture correction Billions of years ago, when the earth was but a primordial Petri dish, a serendipitous mingling of organic molecules came together to produce the first microscopic vestiges of what we now define as life. Countless aeons passed and little by little, cell by cell, complex organisms evolved, each more honed to thrive in their respective environments than the last. And so the Earth continued on its cosmic journey around the Sun, and save for the odd extinction level event here, the occasional ice age there, life flourished. And then, some 500,000 years ago (give or take), the first hominid species picked up their dragging knuckles and stood proudly on two feet for the first time. Evolution continued to refine this design: straightening the vertebrae, aligning the pelvis, perfecting the human form into one of the most astonishing biological feats in all nature. But like most natural wonders, mankind then went and fucked it all up. With the advent of sedentary office culture, the hypnotised hunch of screen time, and the relentlessly unergonomic reality of just about every facet of contemporary life, bad posture has become an epidemic of the modern world. But how, pray tell, can someone free themselves from bad posture’s iron grip? Well worry not, oh slouching masses. A new trend for posture correcting garments is here. So strap in (quite literally), cos shit’s about to get poised.
Verdict
No bones about it One of the last two living members of The New York Dolls, Sylvain Sylvain’s new biography There’s No Bones In Ice Cream: Sylvain Sylvain’s Story Of The New York Dolls is a must-read for fans of the iconic period in rock they represented. Out 1 Oct.
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They say the first step on the road to recovery is admitting there’s a problem. So with that in mind: hello! I’m Maxim, and I have terrible posture. Like most people, I spend a lot of my working day dolloped in an wonky office chair in front of a screen. The result: I have all the postural finesse of an unmade bunkbed. So, in an attempt to fix this fault, I coaxed my unwilling spine into a posture harness, as advertised/spammed all over social media (damn you, drunk impulse purchases). Promising a straighter gait, wider frame, and even the healing power of magnets (cos that’s a thing apparently), I had high hopes. Hopes that were quickly mangled, much like my back while contorted into a posture corrector that resembled a really bad Leeloo Dallas costume. So, it’s back to slouching for this guy - pass the codein, please.
Green events are the new black, but what does it mean to be sustainable, who’s doing it well, and what’s “green wash”? Major public events are beginning to clean up their act — literally. Green initiatives, driven by changes in public opinion and a greater awareness of the ecological impact, are becoming more common on the nation’s festival circuit. Green Music Australia’s Berish BiIander examines the influence of the trend on the music scene’s biggest outdoor gigs, and what more is yet to be done.
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and, being another single-use container, perpetuate a culture of disposability — something we desperately need to overcome if we’re to successfully tackle campsite litter, let alone overconsumption and climate change. Those that are getting it right, like WOMADelaide and Woodford, are sticking to the age-old waste hierarchy: refuse, reduce, reuse, and only then recycle. That’s because manufacturing new stuff, even from recycled material, is almost always more environmentally damaging than reusing already made products. Australia generates over 60 million tonnes of waste, and while around 60% is recycled, only a small fraction of plastics are recovered. And with China’s recent ban on waste imports, our recycling industry is in chaos. Even if we improve recycling rates (only 7% of new water bottles are made from recycled plastic), there are hidden costs, that can’t be ignored — like the effective slave labour used to drive manufacturing costs down. Sustainability has an ethical dimension. How we treat the planet and how we treat each other are intimately linked. Fortunately, our burgeoning reusable economy is taking off. More and more service providers are entering the market with new technologies to make the transition away from disposables not only possible, but profitable. Take startup We Re-fill, with their profit sharing model, that gives punters access to premium water refill stations — filtered, chilled and sparkling — for a small daily fee. Or, companies like Globelet and Bettercups, that are running reusable cup deposit systems. We’ve developed a social enterprise — the Refill Not Landfill library — to loan festivals bottle stock to give to people who forget to bring their own, while other service providers, like Green Connect and Be Alternative, are doing amazing work to divert truckloads of food waste from landfill. Up until now, the gold standard in sustainable events has been to ‘leave no trace’, but tomorrow’s festivals are looking to go further, putting carbon into soil via compost toilets and biodynamic food, energy back into the grid via solar stages, and forests back into the ground, via annual planting events. The advent of these initiatives couldn’t be more timely. Our planet is warming at a rapid rate, and choking on plastic pollution, from the Arctic to the most remote beaches. As unseasonal fires rage, a new report has revealed that tiny plastic particles are in our drinking water, and scientists predict there’ll be more plastic than fish in our ocean by 2050. Action is needed fast. Although great strides are being made, Australia’s music scene still has an oversized environmental footprint, and crucial sustainability initiatives remain grossly under-resourced. With more funds, green programs could be expanded, new ideas trialled, and massive inroads made in short timeframes. Increased investment would also allow our industry to better measure its impact, and share these learnings widely. Imagine the power of a national strategy on campsite waste that’s informed and implemented by an alliance of festivals. Or even better, the impact the music scene would have on our broader culture, once it cleans up its act. Let’s not forget that for young Australians, attending a music festival is often their first overnight experience outside of the family unit. These first impressions last, and if harnessed successfully, could create a new generation of environmentally conscientious and respectful human beings. As such an important cultural institution, the possibilities for affecting change are vast. Most importantly, we must recognise that the time for talking is well and truly over. As Yothu Yindi sang, “Words are easy, words are cheap. Much cheaper than our priceless land. “
e’ve all been to festivals strewn with rubbish with diesel generators spewing fumes out back and a few thousand cars choking the entrances. Fortunately, green initiatives are on the rise, and if 2018 is anything to go by, the times are a changin’. From plastic free riders, bike valet services and car sharing, to low-energy LED stage lights and exciting new composting solutions, the industry is undergoing a rapid transformation. Artists too, once hesitant about being labelled ‘greenies’, are stepping up to reduce their own footprint, and taking on advocacy roles to see broader societal change. Despite this overall trend, large pockets of the industry are yet to move, and some green initiatives are falling short. If you’re looking for inspiration, or some clues on what to avoid, read on. Sustainability is often divided into four pillars — transport, energy, food and waste. While all are equally important, it’s waste that’s received the most attention of late. For many this won’t be a surprise, given how in-your-face the problem is. Not only is the sea of plastic on festival floors, overflowing bins and trashed campsites downright ugly, it also has a devastating impact on our environment. One of the biggest causes of the mess is single-use products and the throw-away culture that underpins them. Disposable plastic water bottles, cups, takeaway food containers, and cheap abandoned tents all create an enormous headache for organisers. To combat this, a growing plastic-free movement is gaining momentum. On one side of the globe, the world’s largest greenfield festival, Glastonbury, has announced their intention to ban plastic bottles in 2019. Locally, major players including Splendour In The Grass, Lost Paradise and Unify, are committing to action too, banning plastic straws and launching staged phase-outs of bottled water and disposable cups. These actions alone will help save thousands of tonnes of rubbish from being generated. Key industry organisations are taking on leadership roles, introducing green selection criteria for awards, running plastic free events, and in the case of Music Victoria, publishing our advice on ‘how to green your venue’ in their best practice guide. Live music venues, while slower to act, are also beginning to get on board, with Max Watts and The Zoo leading the way with plastic bottle bans. Then there are the amazing musicians who are playing a critical role as ambassadors for change. Over 100 prominent artists have joined our #BYObottle campaign, from industry stalwarts Paul Kelly, Missy Higgins, and Midnight Oil, to up-and-comers Didirri, William Crighton, Montaigne and Clea. Each artist has committed to touring plastic bottle free, amending their rider to ask for jugs or refill stations backstage instead of disposable water bottles. This means they’re not only taking personal action, but demanding higher standards from the venues and festivals they perform at. Some are taking this even further, participating in beach cleanups and promoting ways to cut waste to their fanbase. While plastic free bans are an important and exciting step forward, the temptation remains to simply replace one single-use item with another, like water cartons and aluminium cans in place of bottled water (UK festival, Bestival are using H2O cans next year). If the main game is to eliminate plastic, this strategy makes sense, but take a broader environmental view and one quickly sees the problem — water cartons aren’t easily recyclable, and aluminium has huge embedded energy. Compostable containers are another product that needs scrutiny. There’s no denying they’re a step up from plastic, if separated properly from recyclables and processed in an industrial scale composter. But like aluminium cans, they too have large embedded carbon footprints,
Our planet is warming at a rapid rate, and choking on plastic pollution, from the Arctic to the most remote beaches.
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Guest Editorial
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Get your buzz on
Sure, you may get excited about the headliners, but we here at The Music are pointing you further down the bill to highlight some local acts we reckon will breakthrough this festival season.
Don’t bring me down Anthony Carew spoke to rising songwriter Tia Gostelow about dealing with tall poppy syndrome and living her dream at such a young age.
T
ia Gostelow’s debut LP is, she says, “about the last five years of my life: being in high-school, moving out of home.” At 19-years-old, the Brisbanebased songwriter is coming out the other side of the adolescent experience. And, her experiences gave rise to the record’s greater theme. It’s called Thick Skin, and features tunes amounting to a study of that most Australian of cultural phenomena: tall
poppy syndrome. “I experienced it so much in high school, and it made going to school very difficult,” Gostelow offers. “That definitely gave me a thicker skin and made me a lot more resilient to everything. Now, I can deal with that stuff, I can deal with people not being happy for what I’m doing.” The songs, though, were a product of the feelings that came from wanting to play music, and having friends or members of the music scene “make [her] feel like shit” for doing so. Doubly so once, at 16, her solo career started to take off. “It’s such a shit thing,” Gostelow sighs. “Australians really need to get over this. We need to be more supportive of each other, have more of a sense of community. Whenever anyone succeeds, and they want to talk about it, there’s this compulsion to bring them down, make them feel bad about themselves.” It was the discovery of Taylor Swift and her family’s relocation to Mackay that turned Gostelow’s dreams towards music. She cut her teeth with her own strange version of a teenaged McJob: playing four-hour sets of country-centric covers in local pubs. Over time, Gostelow started slipping her own songs into sets, then just performing
her own music. At 16, she released her first single, State Of Art, which led to her winning triple j Unearthed’s Indigenous Initiative. From there, Gostelow kept performing, writing songs, eventually building up to her debut LP. Its title also evokes those experiences. “You definitely need to have thick skin to be in the music industry,” Gostelow says. She may only be 19, but Thick Skin is the culmination of years of labour which has, finally, led to Gostelow living her longheld dream. And now she’s playing a string of festivals including The Lost Lands, Fairgrounds and Falls to boot. “It’s very surreal,” she marvels. “Especially to be doing it so young. I always thought that musicians were in their late-20s. To achieve this dream already is amazing... I’ve waited for this point in my life for so long, and for whatever reason it’s happening right now.”
Tia Gostelow tours from 13 Oct. She plays The Lost Lands on 3 Nov, Fairgrounds Festival on 30 Nov and Falls Festival from 28 Dec.
WunderKIANd What were you doing at 16 years old? Lauren Baxter speaks with one of Australia’s most young promising voices, KIAN, about navigating the transition to solo artist and creating magic in the studio.
W
hen most kids are worrying about end of year results and what to wear to their formal, Year 10 student KIAN, hailing from Castlemaine, Victoria, was making music. You might recognise his voice singing that epic hook in Baker Boy’s massive track Cloud 9. Or maybe in his own right, as the 16-year-old took out triple j’s Unearthed High competition earlier in the year. “My school
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has been very supportive of my music and have been willing to create action plans around me being away,” he reflects on how school is now factoring into his rise to stardom. “But while I’m not away, I’m at school and trying to catch up to make sure I’m still passing.” A quick catch-up for those who haven’t yet come across the singer; if we made a KIAN-themed mixtape, who would feature? “I can already tell you there would be a lot of rappers and R&B singers,” he appraises. “Frank Ocean, 6lack, J.I.D, Earl Sweatshirt, Travis Scott, SZA, Billie Eilish, Khalid, Rex Orange County, Nas and Joey Bada$$, just to name a few!” Whatever the influence, what KIAN is putting down is earning him fans across the world as he emerges as one of Australia’s most promising voices. It’s no wonder then that he has been popping up at festivals with Baker Boy left, right and centre, but as the summer festival season rolls round, KIAN is getting ready to take to the stage in his own right, having just been announced on the St Jerome’s Laneway Festival line-up. Part of KIAN’s transition to solo act was an epic BIGSOUND showcase last month which he says was “a great opportunity to meet other artists and to create relationships within the industry.” The shows were some of his first solo gigs. “That show being one of my first shows was definitely
Welcome to
After being claimed by Jill Scott as her musical love child with Erykah Badu, Kaiit jokingly describes herself as “this little M&M in a bag” in relation to her ‘other mothers’. By Bryget Chrisfield.
the fam
“I
woke up in the middle of the night — maybe to grab some water, I dunno — and, of course, you know, you gotta go on your phone and just check the things you got — any messages or whatever — and it was, like, a lot of people commenting and liking and following me,” Kaiit Waup recounts of how she discovered one of her musical heroes had Regrammed a segment from her OG Luv Kush Pt 2 video clip. “And then I went onto my Instagram and, yeah! I was getting, like, 200 followers a second!” It was so crazy, I’m like, ‘What is going on?’ And then people just keep writing to me like, ‘Oh, Jilly sent me here.’ I’m like, ‘Who’s Jilly?’ And then, yeah! I soon caught on that, you know, my other mother [laughs] shared my video... shout-out to @realusic; they were the ones that posted my video and Jill [Scott] saw it from there. So much love to them; they’re doing some great things, too.” Scott’s endorsement post claimed Kaiit as her musical love child with Erykah Badu and the Melbourne neo-soul artist observes of the resulting instantaneous exposure boost, “It’s unreeeeeeeaaaaaal! Now a lot of the demographic for my music is in America, which is SO crazy. I wanna go there so bad! I can’t wait to just travel in general though.” You could say that Kaiit literally wears her influences on her sleeves since tattoos of Amy Winehouse and Lauryn Hill decorate the undersides of both of her forearms — one inspirational lady on each arm. “Just having these two strong women by me all the time — and these are women that inspired me and helped me so much in terms of being myself, and creating my own sound, yeah!” she pauses. “So, always gotta have those ladies with me.” She coughs intermittently throughout our chat and Kaiit reveals she was struck down by a lurgy the day after playing the first date of her Live From Her Room tour to celebrate this debut EP release. “Oh my gooooosh,” she says of the Corner Hotel show. “It was, like [exhales, lost for words] — I mean, I’ve dreamed of stuff like that and people singing my words, but not to that extent.” It’s been widely reported that Kaiit owned BIGSOUND 2018 and she was also fortunate enough to grace the Supernatural Amphitheatre stage at Golden Plains earlier this year, which she agrees “was massive”, before adding, “I think the people is what makes it so beautiful”. Kaiit tells us her first-ever festival experience, as a punter, was at that other festival
a different experience to performing with Baker Boy,” he reviews. “But I still treat every show the same and try and have as much fun as possible!” As he finds his own place on the stage, it turns out KIAN still has a soft spot for creating in the studio. “My live show has a whole different energy to what I’ve been doing with Baker Boy for the last year, it’s very vocal based but also is backed up by my killer band who I love. I honestly really love to do both live shows and be in the studio! But the studio is definitely where the magic happens and I love to get creative and try new things.” Back on the stage though, can he point to a live music highlight of his rapidly evolving career to date? “Definitely performing at Splendour alongside Danzal [Baker], Dallas [Woods] and the rest of the Baker Boy crew was incredible and the energy in the tent was nothing like anything I’ve ever experienced! “I’d love to be back there again for my own show and [it] is definitely something on my bucket list I hope to tick off.”
KIAN tours with Ruel from 27 Sep. He plays St Jerome’s Laneway Festival from 2 Feb.
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hosted at Supernatural Amphitheatre, Meredith Music Festival. “I got invited down by — I’ll just say Aunty Meredith,” Kaiit chuckles, “to Meredith Festival, ‘cause they knew that I looooove Noname and she was performing. So they were like, ‘Come down, come check it out!’ It was so amazing, ‘cause I knew that I was playing at Golden Plains at that point so I could check it out. It was really great.” She’ll be heading along to Mullum Music Festival, Strawberry Fields and NYE On The Hill this festive season. We discuss how, frustratingly, there continues to be a lack of diversity represented on festival line-ups and Kaiit stresses, “It’s not like there’s not enough dope female people of colour — you know, creatives and artists — like, there’s soooooo, so many.” She suggests festival organisers should “reach out to community” wherever they’re hosting their festival to determine “whatever the vibe is”. “Check out live gigs and put people on platforms — those that deserve it,” she continues. “Our time has been calling for quite a while now and, yeah. It’s quite pathetic, really.” Born in Papua New Guinea, Kaiit remembers “moving back and forth” between PNG and Australia before her family eventually settled in Melbourne around the time she was “going into Grade Two”. “I was livin’ it hard when we were in Papua New Guinea, so I’m definitely just grateful for the things that I have here and, you know, the platforms that I’m able to be on. And I can express myself freely over here and I’m thankful for that, too.” When asked whether she’s reached out to Scott (or vice versa) since the aforementioned Regram back in August, Kaiit offers, “I mean, I know the lady’s busy — she’s got things to do — and I’m just this little M&M in a bag or maybe, like, a Skittle. But I did give a little DM; I don’t know if she’s seen it or not. But, you know, even not physically messaging her, just, like, thinking about her and saying good things into the universe and just being thankful — I think that’s all she’d want, too.”
Kaiit tours from 11 Oct. She plays Mullum Music Festival on 15 Nov, Strawberry Fields from 16 Nov and NYE On The Hill from 30 Dec.
Check The Guide on theMusic.com.au for more details.
The c-word Taking up space in ‘buzz act’ lists across the country, Lauren Baxter spoke with Western Australia’s newest guitar prodigy, Carla Geneve, about influences, festival vibes and why it’s so important to see female musicians on stage.
T
here’s a 19-year-old from Perth who is conjuring up a lot of talk that involves the C-word. We are talking, of course, about Carla Geneve and key influence Courtney Barnett. In fact, Geneve is even playing a couple of festivals with
Bendigo Autumn Music
Barnett later in the year. “It’s very cool to be compared to her,” she muses with reverence. “She’s a big influence of mine and I love her music and I have done for ages. It’s so cool that I get to play with her as well. I’ve only seen her once, so I’m actually just looking forward to watching her again.” The Fairgrounds Festival line-up, which Barnett and Geneve share, is pretty huge. Speaking on The Music Podcast last month at BIGSOUND, Geneve said she even “shed a little tear” when she found out she would be playing. Geneve played Groovin The Moo earlier in the year and this festival season she’s got dates lined up for Hyperfest, the Summersalt series and Queenscliff, as well as Fairgrounds. How does she find the festival experience compared to the more intimate gigs? “I love the way that when you play a festival, everyone is kind of in the festival mood. It’s great to play intimate gigs and pick a few bands that you’ll be sharing the stage with — I always become really good friends — and there are really great acts when we do local shows or whatever. But it’s so cool to meet people at festivals and watch people that you haven’t seen before. It’s so fun. I love being in the festival vibe mood. The changing landscape of festivals isn’t lost on Geneve though and “equality in gender [representation] is really big for” her. “Growing up as a girl and with my parents taking me to some folk festivals and stuff, I didn’t see many, but when I saw a female performer or a female musician or whatever, it was just so big. It was such a big deal. I was like, ‘Oh my god! I can actually relate to that person.’ I think that in terms of cultivating more female musicians, that having them see girls on stage is the most important thing ever.” And as for “festival bucket list” moments, both as a fan and a musician, Geneve is content. “I probably would have said Fairgrounds actually,” she laughs, “because of the lineup especially this year, it would be awesome. “I don’t know, I do enjoy festivals... I guess I should say I want to go to Splendour In The Grass or something just because it’s so huge but it’s a long way from Perth, so hopefully I get there one day. I just go wherever I end up.”
Carla Geneve plays Queenscliff Music Festival on 23 Nov, Fairgrounds Festival on 30 Nov, Summersalt Series on 13 Jan and Hyperfest on 24 Feb.
What makes your event
promoter in the ;ate ‘80s Oz
stand out from other festivals?
Rock ruled supreme. Then
Bendigo Autumn Music is a new event and
came the gay iconic parties
what excites me most is the location and the
of the early ‘90s, which lead
lineup. The arts precinct of the iconic City Of
to the mega music festivals
Bendigo will be showcased with an interna-
like Big Day Out, Homebake
tional, national and local lineup of artists that
etc. Now boutique events
will descend on this cultural regional capital
are on the rise.
in Victoria. The 2019 event is the first Bendigo
U
nusually, the buzz started when Western Sydney rapper/producer Rich Kwame Amevor — or just Kwame — met his superstar mentor on the Australian festival circuit. In 2016, the then teen found himself freestyling with A$AP Ferg at his Listen Out sideshow — the video going viral. The Trap Lord’s words still motivate him. “On stage, he’d said, ‘You’re gonna be something one day — I’ll never forget that,’” Amevor relates. He ran into Ferg again at a Butter party last December. To his amazement, Ferg recognised him — and reaffirmed his support. “For him to just remember and say that really meant the most to me and, ever since that, I’ve never looked back.” Fast forward to 2018 and the charismatic Amevor is on the road with Tkay Maidza. In May, he guested on Peking Duk’s tour and then, thanks to triple j’s Unearthed program, performed at Splendour In The Grass. Amevor even celebrated his 21st birthday while showcasing at BIGSOUND. As it happens, Amevor’s inaugural festival as a punter was 2016’s Listen Out. “It was the first time that I was able to afford a festival ticket,” he laughs. “So I was like, ‘Man, let’s just do it, to just experience it and say, I’ve done it.’” Now he’s anticipating a huge festival season as an artist, beginning with October’s The Grass Is Greener. Then will come the sold-out Split Milk in Canberra, where he’s billed alongside Childish Gambino (“that’d be crazy if I meet him”) and Festival Of The Sun. Amevor was born to Ghanian parents in Auckland, New Zealand, moving to Australia soon after. Inspired by Kanye West, he initially cut beats. “Once I started building up a bank of instrumentals, it was just like, ‘Okay, what am I gonna do with them? Where am I trying to go with this?’” Next, Amevor tried writing, “what I like to call Dr Seuss rap, which is literally like ‘cat, mat,
to create an “Instagram-
in on the ground level. Take a risk and be part
mable” festival?
of the first years of this event.
All festivals lend themselves Which artist – living or dead – would you
to being Instagrammable
like to have backstage drinks with?
and that’s great, but I think a really wonderful
people and old people, and everybody in
I think some people might laugh at this
festival actually encourages the audience to
between. This promoted diversity brings a
but I’m a huge fan of Aimee Mann. This is
put their gadgets in their pocket and really
safe crowd and good people.
really out of character for me as I grew up
engage with the festival.
listening to jazz and maybe not that easy
How do you go about ensuring your festival
listening music. But now I find a simple song
is a safe space?
is my thing.
Bendigo Autumn Music takes place 25-28 Apr in Bendigo
Rising hip hop star Kwame has already had A$AP Ferg’s blessing. Ahead of his festival appearances this summer, Cyclone found out why the Trap Lord’s words still motivate him.
Is there more pressure
Autumn Music! It’s the perfect chance to get
Glenn Wright Director
“I just do me”
How is the festival landscape changing?
I think it’s a cycle thing. When I started as a
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What are your views on pill testing?
Do you think it has a place at festivals?
I think there is however I must say Bendigo
Bendigo Autumn Music is promoted as an all
Autumn Music will be a family friendly event
ages event and we are working hard to make
and therefore the drug testing would not be
it as inclusive as possible. We want young
an issue either way.
F e st i va l I s s u e
And then there’s... They may not be up the pointy end of the bill, but we guarantee you won’t go home disappointed in having seen these acts.
rat, pat’ — like that kind of rhyme scheme,” he quips. The hip hopper was uncertain of his ability. However, friends advised him to stick at it. Before long, Amevor developed his own mode of expression, deciding that his music should be relatable, but offer different perspectives. By 18, his music crystallised. Today Amevor aims to “build a scene” for listeners. “I feel like that’s how I am as an artist,” he says. Plus it’s what distinguishes an artist from a rapper. Sonically versatile, Amevor appreciates a cross-spectrum of genres. He cites hip hop acts both current (Chance The Rapper, Travis Scott) and classic (Mobb Deep, Naughty By Nature). Amevor also admires experimenters such as Bon Iver, James Blake and Frank Ocean. But, then, he digs the rock Imogen Heap (“funnily enough”) and Paramore. In 2017 Amevor issued an auspicious debut EP, Lesson Learned, with the jazzy single Friends. He recently followed with Endless Conversations, encompassing his festive posttrap hit WOW. Amevor raps about “the struggles” of being an emerging creative while negotiating relationships. “I feel like love is very universal and it was just something that I was pouring my heart into and then kind of speaking things out into the world and seeking answers; opening discussions with people.” Amevor aspires to be a positive, empowering force in music culture. On WOW he raps, “I don’t drink or ever smoke.” But, though articles often highlight his straight-edge philosophy, Amevor isn’t here to preach. “I don’t really make a big deal about it,” he shares. “It’s just not my lifestyle [to drink and smoke]. I just do me, really. I think we should all do ourselves and not really focus on what anyone thinks. As long as you’re doing things that make you feel better, makes you a better person, then that’s all that matters.”
A Swayze & The Ghosts Kyneton Music Festival, ‘Til The Wheels Fall Off Alice Skye
Falls Festival, Bendigo Autumn Music Festival Angie McMahon
Melbourne Music Festival, Festival Of The Sun Approachable Members Of Your Local Community
Loch Hart Music Festival, Jungle Love Festival, Hyperfest, NYE On The Hill Birdcloud
Out On The Weekend Carmouflage Rose
The Grass Is Greener, Spilt Milk, Shakafest, Castaway, FOMO, Hyperfest Yall Summer Fest, Festival Of The Sun, Lost Paradise, NYE On The Hill
Festival Of The Sun takes place 13 – 16 Dec in Port Macquarie
Moaning Lisa
Against The Grain, Spilt Milk, Shakafest Nancie Schipper
Loch Hart Music Festival, Queenscliff Music Festival Pagan
UNIFY Gathering Poppy Rose
Loch Hart Music Festival Samsaruh This That
Psychedelic Porn Crumpets Slowly Slowly
‘Til The Wheels Fall Off, Festival Of The Sun, NYE On The Hill
CLYPSO
Festival Of The Sun, Lost Paradise
Thando
Mullum Music Festival, Queenscliff Music
Drmngnw
Festival, Jungle Love Festival, Bendigo
2 Worlds Festival
Autumn Music Festival
Felivand
The Southern River Band
Jungle Love
Byron Bay Guitar Festival,
Genesis Owusu
Kyneton Music Festival
Lost Paradise
Tyne James Organ
The Lost Lands, NYE On The Hill
FKA Festival, Against The Grain,
Simon Luke Director
Kuren
Lost Paradise, NYE On The Hill, Hyperfest
CLEWS
Grace Turner
Festival Of The Sun
The Grass Is Greener, Falls Festival Beyond The Valley
2 Worlds Festival, Queenscliff Music Festival,
Festival Of The Sun
Kwame plays The Grass Is Greener on 27 Oct, FBI Turns 15 on 3 Nov, Spilt Milk on 17 Nov and Festival Of The Sun on 13 Dec.
Kota Banks
Wallace
Lost Paradise
Hannah Cameron
Mullum Music Festival
How is the festival land-
What makes your event
scape changing?
stand out from other festivals?
Festival Of The Sun is where you’ll see all
Independent Australian
those epic, new and exploding artists that
(and New Zealand) owned
everyone will be talking about way later
and operated music festi-
than FOTSUNners. Camp and party with
vals are definitely starting
3000 like minded legends that just want to
to really see the benefits
be your mates..
in coming together to look out for one another as
What’s improved for your next event?
apposed to the traditional
We are going single use plastic free — we are
cards to the chest attitude.
discouraging all single use plastic for 2018
This gives the smaller fes-
which we believe is a huge first step for any
tivals a more encouraged
camping festival in NSW. We are also launch-
voice in the industry.
ing our E-Can-Nomy which basically is using
Pic: Simone Fisher
How do you go about
ensuring your festival is a safe space?
cans to buy items from merch to food.
Is there more pressure to
Favourite festival
Each festival wants to portray its own unique
punters that relate to respecting one anoth-
‘Do you remember when…’ moment?
style to its audience — photos are a great way
er, themselves and us. Break these simple
My most recent smile moment was Gang Of
to do so and Instagram is cool for this — don’t
rules and you will asked to go elsewhere to
Youths running off the stage looking straight
get to caught up in making everyone look
have your fun. A very high number of first aid,
at me like little kids saying “Can we do one
like they have actually showered in the past
healthcare and social interaction staff and
more song?” – it was like watching a grom ask
12 hours.
care is always a few steps away.
create an “Instagrammable” festival?
for one more wave before having to come in.
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Festival Of The Sun set simple rules for our
Find your festival
It’s festival season, baby! But with so many on offer, it can be a bloody headscratcher working out where to go. That’s why we’ve put together this handy flowchart, so you can find the festival experience that’s right for you.
fit
LET’S START WITH A NICE EASY ONE DO YOU LIKE FESTIVALS ?
E ND O F THE ROA D B UD, WHY’D YO U E VE N DO THIS QUI Z ?
WELL, OBVIOU S LY
OK, WELL HOW ABOU T CAMPING?
N A H T H AT’ S WAY TO O IN TE NTS
ARE WE M O R E LI K E LY TO FI N D YO U I N T H E BU S H COV E R E D I N G LI T T E R O R FRO LI CKI N G I N A FI E LD ?
B UT WO UL D YO U B E WIL L ING TO MAKE A N E XC E P TIO N F O R SO ME THING BIG?
I AL R E A DY SA I D N O M ATE
G E T I N M E N AT UR E
I’VE ALREADY GOT M Y COSTU ME S ORTED PLEAS E
HOW BIG ARE WE TALKING?
H AV E YO U E V E R T R I E D TO G E T G LI T T E R O UT ? N O T H AN KS !
Hometown heroes
The big hitters
Let’s get lost
Movin’ to the country
Alright, alright we heard you. Camping ain’t your thing. You’d rather finish off a day of great music back in your own bed. It’s ok, you don’t have to pretend you’re as young as you used to be. We get it, 10pm hits and that sweet siren song of the sofa is calling. For you, we recommend the hometown heroes. These are the festivals, big and small, that won’t have you straying too far from all your creature comforts, but instead deliver the festive goods in a neat little package, right on your doorstep. They’re the festivals that will save you if you find yourself at home, all dressed up with nowhere to go. They’re the festivals for those of us who have suffered through one too many deflated-airmattress nights or maybe those who have stumbled out of a tent to be greeted by an actual human shit. Yes that really happened. No, we did not identify the culprit.
Chances are, if you’ve got an Australian festival bucket list, these are the events right at the top. They’re the festivals we’ve all heard of, and for good reason. They hit it for six, time and time again. We get that you’re not the biggest fan of camping, but if the crew get together, you’ll grab the Wet Wipes and make it work. Or even take up one of those swanky glamping options. Maybe hire a yurt and pretend you’re Mick Jagger. Attracting (arguably) the biggest names across the country, these are the events (often taking place over the holidays or a cheeky long weekend) that get you hyping up the group chat, stashing booze in all the nooks and crannies of your car (hey kids, drink responsibly) and coordinating group costume concepts. But come on guys, it’s 2018. We’re all more original than Where’s Wally.
Totally man. But for once, it’s all about the destination not the journey. Or maybe... like the destination is the journey. Woah. In any case, we reckon you’d dig these festivals that are all about getting back to nature, embracing visual art and music of the more electronic persuasion. These festivals grab you by the shoulders, urge you to hit the wide open road and sleep under the stars. We’re told costumes are mandatory and eco-friendly glitter is a must. But at the heart of it, it’s really all about selfexpression, embracing what makes us all unique and finding yourself by getting good and lost. Maybe start by throwing off the shackles of your mortal being - whatever you take that to mean - grab your swag, start a vision quest and we promise you will be in for a good time.
Yes, we are gonna eat a lot of peaches. And yes, another source has also confirmed that the water does taste a lot like wine. If those two reasons are enough to get you hitting the road, we think these boutique country affairs will be the perfect fit for you. We get that you too have a hankering for those wide open roads and starry skies, but rather than getting lost, you like the GPS on and the referdex out. These are the niche festivals set in locations that are serene enough for you to live out your own Hakuna Matata while still enjoying all the festival action. Summer festival season is the perfect excuse for a road trip, so why not get off the beaten path and go explore what else Australia has to offer. These are the festivals that will make it worth your while.
Turn to page 40 for our full festival season listings
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Hit the road Jack
Spring has (finally) sprung and there are fests aplenty on the horizon. So, it’s a great time to jump behind the wheel for a longhaul drive with some mates, as is tradition. But forget the three-day spin down the coast. If something’s worth doing, it’s worth doing on a ridiculous, interstate, monthslong scale. Ultimate festival roadtrip, anyone?
1. FKA Festival: 13 Oct Hope Estate Winery, Rothbury, NSW
What better way to ease into a festival binge than with a stacked one-dayer on a winery? A lush venue that’s hosted everyone from the Stones to Fleetwood Mac, this year’s FKA Festival will see Hope Estate Winery hosting Ali Barter, The Jungle Giants and heaps more. Ten-hour, 49-minute drive to: 2. Island Vibe Festival: 25 — 28 Oct North Stradbroke Island, QLD
QLD
Time to get in the deep end with four days comprising over 80 reggae, roots, soul and electronic acts including headliners like Naâman and Ben Walsh. Toss your dancing shoes, they’ll just get in the way on the sandy shores of Minjerribah.
2.
Four-hour drive to: 3. Mullum Music Festival: 15 — 18 Nov Mullumbimby, NSW
NSW
A quick trundle over the border and you’ll find yourself at a four-day, townwide party with an established ‘no hassle’ policy. Get in for the street parade kick off and then catch everyone from Japanese funk lords Osaka Monaurail to local rising stars like Hannah Cameron.
3.
18-hour, 25-minute drive to: 4. Queenscliff Music Festival: 23 — 25 Nov Queenscliff, VIC
The live world premier of the late Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu’s final album Djarimirri with a 16-piece orchestra is worth the trip to QMF alone — although they also have close to 70 artists like Courtney Barnett, Dan Sultan and Bombino on board to sweeten the deal.
6. 1.
One-hour drive to: 5. Meredith Music Festival: 7 — 9 Dec Meredith, VIC
If you’re in the neighbourhood anywhere near early December you’d be mad not to drop by the ‘Sup for Aunty Meredith’s yearly bash. It’s good times and “no dickheads”- and where else are you going to see The Breeders and Nadia Rose on the same bill?
7.
VIC
13-hour, 44-minute drive to: 6. Festival Of The Sun: 13 -16 Dec Port Macquarie, NSW
Better get those dancing shoes back, you’ll need them for Vera blue, Tkay Maidza, Winston Surfshirt and REMI at FOTSUN. The festival has so much going on this year they’ve actually had to start it half a day early.
5.
Four-hour, 20-minute drive to: 7. NYE In The Park: 31 Dec Sydney, NSW
4.
Obviously, quitting a festival road trip before New Year’s is madness, and if you make your way to Victoria Park for the big day you can ring it in it with The Presets, Thundamentals, Confidence Man and more instead of mumbling through Auld Lang Syne in someone’s backyard. Again.
Legend 8.
22-hour drive to:
Hometown heroes
The big hitters
Let’s
Movin’ to
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the country
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8. MONA FOMA: 13 — 20 Jan Launceston, TAS
It’s a big drive, granted, but if you’re going to keep that New Year’s reso to spend 2019 improving yourself, MONA’s the place to start. Brian Ritchie’s latest line-up of bleeding-edge art, music and performance doesn’t drop until mid-October, but he’s never steered us wrong yet.
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Trial and error
Last year, Jessica Dale investigated the cancellation of Spilt Milk Festival’s proposed pill testing trial. Here, she looks back to see where the future of Australian pill testing could be heading.
J
ust on a year ago, the idea of pill testing was thrust into the media spotlight with the announced and then subsequently cancelled trial slated for Canberra’s Spilt Milk Festival. While it wasn’t the first time the subject had come to light, it seems to have been one of its most prominent appearances. In the past few weeks, pill testing has once again become a hot-button topic. Following the death of two festival patrons at Sydney’s Defqon.1 from suspected drug overdoses, everyone from the New South Wales State Premier to artists and music organisations have weighed in on the topic. For our festival issue last year, The Music looked into the Spilt Milk trial cancellation and spoke to experts about what the trial would have meant. Since then, Canberra’s Groovin The Moo has successfully held an Australian first pill testing trial. We look back at the past few years of the Australian pill testing conversation and to see how things have, or haven’t, progressed.
2015
2017
2018
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28 Nov: Twenty-five-year-old Sylvia Choi passes away from a drug overdose at the Sydney leg of the Stereosonic Festival.
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26 Apr: Groovin The Moo’s Canberra festival announces it will go ahead with an onsite pill testing trial. Over 128 people take part in the trial, with 85 samples tested. Two of those were found to be deadly.
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1 Dec: Emergency physician and drug expert Dr David Caldicott calls for pill testing at music festivals in Australia when appearing on ABC’s 7.30 program. Nineteen-yearold Stefan Woodward passes away from a suspected drug overdose at the Adelaide Stereosonic event just four days later.
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15 Sep: Two people die from suspected drug overdoses at Sydney’s Defqon.1 music festival, with a further 700 people treated on site. Following the event, New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian vows to permanently shut down the festival. Festival organisers say they “are disappointed at the number of reported drug-related incidents, we have a zero-tolerance policy in relation to drug use at the festival”, as well as expressing their condolences for the families affected.
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19 Sep: Premier Berejiklian announces an advisory panel to address drug use at music festivals, whether harsher penalties should be considered for drug dealers and how festival promoters can improve safety. Its panel includes Police Commissioner Mick Fuller, Chief Medical Officer Dr Kerry Chant and Chair of the Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority Philip Crawford. The same day, The Canberra Times reports that the National Capital Authority will not allow a pill testing trial to go ahead at this year’s Spilt Milk festival.
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24 Sep: Musicians Peking Duk, Thundamentals, Alex The Astronaut, Flight Facilities and KLP, as well as MusicNSW, Bluesfest, Chugg Entertainment, Good Things Festival and St Jerome’s Laneway Festival join an open letter signed by over 60 NSW artists, festivals and industry organisations calling on Premier Berejiklian to let the music industry be involved in the NSW Government’s ‘Ensuring Safety at Music Festivals’ panel discussion.
2016 ?
?
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15 Feb: The NSW Government refuse to budge on their stance against pill testing, with NSW Deputy Premier Troy Grant speaking on the matter in an ABC Four Corners investigation. “Pill testing will not save a life,” Grant said. 2 Mar: Stereosonic organisers throw their support behind onsite pill testing. “It’s simply about doing anything we can to help reduce risk and increase safety for our patrons,” said founder Richie McNeill. A day later, NSW Premier Mike Baird slams the calls, saying, “There’s a pretty simple way that you know you’re going to be safe — don’t take the pills,” during an appearance on Channel Seven’s Sunrise program. Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews echoes his sentiments the following day. 26 Nov: Adriana Buccianti, whose son passed away in 2012 following an overdose at Victoria’s Rainbow Serpent festival, speaks at the launch for organisation Unharm. “If pill testing was implemented people might not take their drugs,” said Buccianti in a report by news.com. au. “Because no one wants to come out of a festival or nightclub in a body bag if they think their drugs might kill them.”
30 Jan: The Victorian State Government again rejects calls for pill testing following the death of one person and the hospitalisation of more due to a suspected toxic batch of MDMA. Just a month later, Port Phillip Council votes in favour of holding the state’s first pill testing trial in their district.
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22 Sep: Canberra’s Spilt Milk festival gets the green light to go ahead with an onsite pill testing trial.
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12 Oct: Director of Kicks Entertainment (organisers of Spilt Milk) Ryan Phillips appears on triple j’s Hack program to confirm that the trial would not go ahead as relevant “documentation” had not been provided by those running the program.
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3 Nov: The Music investigates the cancellation of the Spilt Milk trial in our 2017 festival edition. “I think on Wednesday the 11th between the promoter and the National Capital Authority and at that meeting, we’ve been led to believe that the National Capital Authority [who own the land Spilt Milk is held on] advised the promoter that they would not get a licence to conduct Spilt Milk with an application of pill testing,” said Safety Testing Advisory Service at Festivals & Events’ (STA-SAFE) member Dr David Caldicott in the interview. “We had provided all of the documentation that was required, not just for the ACT government to persuade them but also the Australian Federal Police, so the documentation that we had provided to everybody was extensive. The promoter was involved in all of the planning phases and therefore had access to all of the documentation, and then on the Thursday announced on radio, without consulting with us, that he didn’t have all the documentation he needed, so we didn’t know anything about it.” Kicks Entertainment referred only to a previously shared Facebook statement when an interview was requested, and the National Capital Authority failed to respond to The Music ‘s requests.
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IF YOU’RE MASSIVELY INTO DIRTY HIPSTER HUMMING MARATHONS, PSYCHEDELIC SAHARAN ROCK, AGGRESSIVE POLISH PUNK BUSKING, THE CITY OF LAUNCESTON, JAPANESE MONKEYS, SECRET BOGAN NIGHTCLUBS, DRAG QUEENS, AND SIXSTOREY HIGH NUDE ART, YOU’LL PROBABLY BE MASSIVELY INTO MONA FOMA TICKETS ON SALE MONDAY 15 OCTOBER MONAFOMA•NET•AU
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Festival season at a glance
NSW
Now you’ve used our handy flowchart to find your perfect festival fit, it’s time to check out our colour coded listings of every major fest in the land.
New South Wales
VIC Victoria
Granite Town: 6 Oct ‘18, Moruya
Subsonic: 30 Nov — 2 Dec ‘18, Monkerai
Tamworth Country Music Festival: 18 – 27 Jan ‘19, Tamworth
FKA Festival: 13 Oct, Hunter Valley
Festival X: 1 Dec ‘18, Sydney
Under The Southern Stars: 26 Jan, Shoalhaven; 27 Jan ‘19, Port Macquarie
Get Your Groove On: 13 Oct ‘18, Bella Vista
Good Things: 8 Dec ‘18, Parramatta
Wingham Akoostik Music Festival: 19 — 21 Oct ‘18, Wingham
Festival Of The Sun: 13 – 16 Dec ‘18, Port Macquarie
This That: 3 Nov ‘18, Newcastle
NYE In The Park: 31 Dec ‘18, Camperdown
Scene & Heard: 4 Nov ‘18, Newcastle
Falls Festival: 31 Dec ‘18 – 2 Jan ‘19, Byron Bay
Newtown Festival: 11 Nov ‘18, Newtown
Field Day: 1 Jan ‘19, Sydney
Mullum Music Festival: 15 – 18 Nov ‘18, Mullumbimby
Parkes Elvis Festival: 9 – 13 Jan ‘19, Parkes
Strawberry Fields: 16 – 18 Nov ‘18, Tocumwal
Grow Your Own: 12 Jan ‘19, Forster
Just For Laughs: 19 – 25 Nov ‘18, Sydney
FOMO: 12 Jan ‘19, Parramatta
Fairgrounds: 30 Nov – 1 Dec ‘18, Berry
Summer Series: 12 Jan ‘19, Sydney
Laneway: 3 Feb ‘19, Rozelle Mountain Sounds: 15 – 16 Feb ‘19, Kariong Secret Garden: 22 – 23 Feb ‘19, Orangeville Silverton Sunsets Music Festival: 1 – 3 Mar ‘19, Silverton Girrakool Blues & BBQ Festival: 1 – 3 Mar ‘19, Kariong Download: 9 Mar ‘19, Parramatta Rabbits Eat Lettuce: 19 – 22 Apr ‘19, Byron Bay Blue Mountains Music Festival: 15 – 17 Mar ‘19, Katoomba Bluesfest: 18 – 22 Apr ‘19, Byron Bay
Out On The Weekend: 13 Oct ‘18, Williamstown 2 Worlds Festival: 20 Oct ‘18, Geelong Happy Wanderer: 2 – 5 Nov ‘18, Benalla The Lost Lands: 3 – 4 Nov,’18 Werribee Friends Of Ours: 3 – 5 Nov ‘18, Tallarook Bruthen Blues Festival: 15 – 17 Nov ‘18, Gippsland Loch Hart Music Festival: 16 – 18 Nov ‘18, Princetown Queenscliff Music Festival: 23 – 25 Nov ‘18, Queenscliff Earthcore: 22 – 25 Nov ‘18, The Wild lands Festival X: 2 Dec ‘18, Melbourne Pause Fest: 6 – 10 Dec ‘18, Melbourne
Bello Winter Music Festival: 11 – 14 Jul ‘19, Bellingen
Mullum Music Festival
What makes your event
wee hours - a very spe-
It’s the funny little boutique music festival
never planned.
stand out from other festivals?
cial little party that was
that happens each year in the Byron Shire,
How is the festival land-
where music takes over the small quirky
scape changing?
town of Mullumbimby. What makes it special
I think there is currently
is that there are no tents, no portaloos, not much security and absolutely no trouble. It’s
room to move and all good
all about music.
events are doing ok. It’s important to have your point
Glenn Wright Festival Director
What’s improved for your next event?
of difference.
is that it doesn’t grow more than the town
Is there more pressure
The best thing about Mullum Music Festival
to create an “instagram-
itself. This year there are some new venues
mable” festival?
an interesting line-up and that works for us.
It’s Mullumbimby, we are kind of in a time
We have never had any anti social behaviour.
always the artist line-up and the fun venues
warp and so I personally am only just getting
Music lovers are good people.
that are updated yearly.
used to a fax.
Favourite festival ‘Do
How do you go about ensuring
There was a funny scene a few years back
By booking diversity and with an emphasis
be fine and in general any test would be ok.
when the venue operators forgot about
on equality. Really your crowd is just a reflec-
We have a lovely crowd.
the piano bar and it kept running into the
tion of the line-up you booked. I try and book
but it’s sustainable growth and comfortable. The most exciting aspect of the festival is
your festival is a safe space?
you remember when…’ moment?
Mullum Music Festival takes place 15 – 18 Nov in Mullumbimby.
Pic: Evan Malcolm
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What are your views on pill testing?
Do you think it has a place at festivals?
Well it’s Mullumbimby, but pill tests would
Legend Legend
Hometown heroes
The big hitters
Movin’ to
Let’s
the country
get lost
ACT
Australian Capital Territory Spilt Milk: 17 Nov ‘18, Canberra
Good Things: 7 Dec ‘18, Flemington
Laneway: 9 Feb ‘19, Footscray
The Grass Is Greener: 27 Oct ‘18, Cairns
Meredith Music Festival: 7 – 9 Dec ‘18, Meredith
FOMO: 13 Jan ‘19, Flemington
ShakaFest: 24 Nov ‘18, Gold Coast
Summernats: 3 – 6 Jan ‘19, Canberra
Pleasure Garden: 8 Dec ‘18, St Kilda
Babylon Festival: 14 – 17 Feb ‘19, Carapooee West
Jungle Love: 29 Nov – 1 Dec ‘18, Sunshine Coast
Falls Festival: 28 – 31 Dec ‘18, Lorne
Brewers Feast: 23 – 24 Feb ‘19, Abbotsford
Festival X: 30 Nov ’18, Brisbane
SA
Beyond The Valley: 28 Dec ‘18 – 1 Jan ‘19, Lardner
Port Fairy Folk Festival: 8 – 11 Mar ‘19, Port Fairy
Good Things: 9 Dec ‘18, Bowen Hills
NYE On The Hill: 30 Dec ‘18 – 1 Jan ‘19, South Gippsland
Download: 11 Mar ‘19, Flemington
Woodford Folk Festival: 27 Dec ‘18 – 1 Jan ‘19, Woodford
Let Them Eat Cake: 1 Jan ‘19, Werribee
Bendigo Autumn Music Festival: 25 – 28 Apr, ‘19 Bendigo
FOMO: 5 Jan ‘19, Brisbane
QLD Queensland
Under The Southern Stars: 19 Jan ‘19, Broadwater; 20 Jan ‘19, Sunshine Coast
Crafted Beer & Cider Festival: 6 Oct ‘18, Broadbeach
Laneway: 2 Feb ‘19, Bowen Hills
Hidden Lanes: 13 Oct ‘18, Fortitude Valley
Earth Frequency Festival: 15 – 18 Feb ‘19, Ivory Rock
Island Vibe: 25 – 28 Oct ‘18, North Stradbroke Island
CMC Rocks: 14 – 17 Mar ‘19, Willowbank
What makes your event
acts you can book — the rest
Unify Gathering: 11 – 13 Jan ‘19, Gippsland Under The Southern Stars: 12 Jan ‘19, Hastings Grampians Music Festival: 15 – 17 Feb ‘19, The Grampians Rainbow Serpent: 26 – 29 Jan ‘19, Lexton
Fairgrounds
Festival
stand out from other festivals?
is about helping audiences
Fairgrounds’ line-up is world-class but the
experience acts in new ways.
South Australia FOMO: 6 Jan ‘19, Adelaide Laneway: 8 Feb ‘19, Port Adelaide
WA
Western Australia Falls Festival: 5 – 6 Jan ‘19, Fremantle
TAS Tasmania
Falls Festival: 29 – 31 Dec ‘18, Marion Bay MONA FOMA: 13 – 20 Jan ‘19, Launceston
experience will make you feel right at home. Is there more
More than just two stages, we have spacious
pressure to create an
grounds, fresh oysters, wine by the bottle, boutique beer, a long-table restaurant, an
“instagrammable” festival?
idyllic camp site, a swimming pool and family-
Fairgrounds takes place on
friendly facilities.
the showground of an historic country town so, fortunately,
Mark Dodds Director/Booker
What’s improved for your next event?
rustic charm is built right in.
We’ve never been so proud of our international
We don’t feel pressure to cre-
line-up, from seminal acts like Billy Bragg and
ate a visually dazzling experi-
The Breeders to up-and-comers like Chicago
ence so much as comple-
rapper Saba and LA songwriter Kevin Morby.
ment the enchanting character of what we’ve
2018’s selection of artisan food and drink will
already been blessed with.
What are your views on pill testing?
Do you think it has a place at festivals?
Our event is one of the safest and friendli-
be our biggest to date, as will our acclaimed How do you go about ensuring
est around, in large part due to our close
As well as twenty and thirty-somethings,
always gladly use any tools at their disposal
It feels like there are more events than ever
Fairgrounds is family-friendly and welcomes a
to ensure the best possible environment for
and somehow less distinctiveness at the same
diverse range of people from babies to baby
punters for years to come.
time. When punters have so much choice, you
boomers. Whether you’re picnicking or party-
need to be unique. There are only so many new
ing, there’s room enough for all to enjoy.
program of artist talks.
your festival is a safe space?
How is the festival landscape changing?
Fairgrounds Festival takes place 30 Nov – 1 Dec in Berry.
Pic: Gabriel Vallido
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collaboration with local authorities. We will
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Luke Bryan @ Rod Laver Arena
Lucinda Goodwin
Capturing ‘the perfect moment’ is a tough gig but seasoned snapper Lucinda Goodwin has got it down to a fine art. We caught up with the festival shutterbug to find out how she manages to catch all the movement, risk and exhilaration that comes with a festival.
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The Big Picture
We hear you fell in love with photography back in 2010 watching photographers scramble around in the photo pit at Falls Festival. What is it about the energy at fests that you love to shoot? I love the sense of community at a festival, everyone is super friendly and looking out for each other. I also love that each festival is completely different. Take Meredith and Golden Plains for example, where punters bring a couch and a six pack into the Supernatural Amphitheatre and spend three days in the sunshine. Whereas at Bluesfest, you spot everyone from Chris Hemsworth to a three-year-old rocking out to some Kim Churchill. It’s also a great chance to catch a bunch of your fave acts, as well as going and checking out some new music. I spend a lot of the time in the pit, standing side-on so I can watch the artist and the crowd. There are certain shows and festival crowds where I’ll spend more time watching what’s going on in the crowd than the artist for sure.
The Run
Crowd @ Pez, Queenscliff Music Festival
Your photographs have a trademark vibrancy behind them, full of movement, risk, exhilaration. How do you go about capturing ‘the perfect moment’? I spent years trying to get a particular style to my images. As a music photographer sometimes your only point of difference is in your editing. With 50 other photographers standing next to you in the pit, it can sometimes be tricky to get a different angle or capture something that everyone else didn’t. I like to capture the emotion of performing on stage, artists are exactly that — artists. They put their heart and soul into their work, and that is the emotion I want to capture. I also like capturing the ‘in-between moments’. The moments when an artist is having a joke with a bandmate, or spots someone in the crowd, these make the best portraittype shots. I’ve learned to read body language over the years and try to predict where the artist may end up next on stage. .
Let’s face it, a lot about festivals these days is all about getting the ‘gram. If you don’t Insta it, were you even there, right? Do you have any pointers for festivalgoers with photographic aspirations? If you don’t Snapchat it, put it on the ‘gram and check in on Facebook, you totally weren’t there! Instagram was two months old back when I went to Falls in 2010, so there was no gram-ing going on! Festivals are a hard slog, it’s not as glamorous as it sometimes seems — with three to five days in a tent, lots of heavy gear and a lot of running around trying to catch as many sets as you can. Then, when you get back to your tent at 1 am, you have another three hours of editing to do. Start small; shoot local shows and smaller festivals to condition yourself. I was lucky enough that I started shooting friends in bands in high school, and Queenscliff Music Festival was a 15-minute drive from my house, so I got a taste for festival shooting at 17.
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What has been the highlight of your photography career to date? Do you have any bucket list shots or festivals you’re yet to snap? I’ve been so fortunate in my short career, it’s so hard to pick highlights. Being able to shoot multiple Falls, Bluesfest and Laneway festivals, and the ARIA Awards are always a highlight because I always leave so inspired and energised. The standouts though are when an artist acknowledges you for your work. I remember getting a heap of messages one day at work because Urthboy was talking about an image I’d taken during an interview on triple j and how it summed up the vibe of the show. In terms of bucket list: getting to the States for Coachella is up there, as well as getting on some tours and doing more behind the scenes type of work.
Potential essentials
Who knows what your summer festival experiences will bring? But whatever the future may hold – and whatever kind of festival you wash up at – this is the kit you won’t want to be without.
The big hitters
the season’s monster events
Movin’ the outback boutiques to the country
This fair country of ours is a beautiful place – but it’s also pretty damn harsh out there too. But worry not,
Maybe you’re braving these behemoths for the first
festival friends. Come prepared and you’ll still have
time, or perhaps you’re a veteran who’s a regular to
1.
a ball while flipping the bird to anything Mama
the circuit’s grandest stomping grounds. Either way, keep it practical, lightweight and durable. Add some
Nature has to throw at you.
1.
swagger with some edgier accessories.
1. Bonds Explorer Socks, Crew Pattern $16.95, bonds.com.au
1. Smoke X Mirrors Soda Pop Collection
2. Brixton Apparel Leonard II Hat
$350, smokexmirrors.com
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$149.95, brixton.com
2. Topo Daypack
3. D r Martens Austin Grizzly, Dark Brown
$250, theiconic.com.au
$199.99, drmartens.com.au
3. Dr Martens, JMW Turner Carthaginan 1460 Pas-
4. Ray-Ban Hexagonal Flat Lens, Brown Clas-
cal
sic Polarised
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$199, drmartens.com.au
4. Paisley Print Satin Bandana, Blue
$275, ray-ban.com
$7.95, au.shein.com
4.
3.
Let’s get lost
the artsy doofs
Hometown the one-day wonders heroes
Leave your boring real world personality at the
Fashion and function go hand-in-hand at one-day
gate and reinvent yourself for a few fabulous days.
fests. Keeping your cash safe while making a style
Get your swag on point and dress to impress with
statement is the name of the game, so pair hip-
a few out of the box accessories. Plus Polaroids
bags with statement sunnies and comfy kicks for a
are back y’all!
1.
1.
1. Polaroid Snap, $199.95 polaroid.com.au
1. The Ridge Carbon Fibre Wallet $158 ridgewallet.com
2. Chuck Taylor All Star OX, Black,
3. Adidas Originals Jeremy Scott Foil Wing Boots
3. Raymond Sunnies, AM Eyeware
4. Fanny’s Pack, No7Angel
4. Herschel Supply Co Fifteen Hip Pack
$130, converse.com.au
$200, adidas.com.au
3.
day on your feet.
2. Le Specs Hey Macarena $59.95, lespecs.com
2.
4.
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$350, ameyeware.com
$22.99, no7angel.com
$50, Herschel.com.au
3. 4.
4.
2.
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W
Ghost writer They say that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but Australia’s long-serving rock’n’roll poet laureate Paul Kelly tells Steve Bell that sometimes changing the creative process proves good for the soul. Nature (EMI) is out this month. Paul Kelly tours from 14 Dec.
Check The Guide on theMusic.com.au for more details.
hen a few years ago Paul Kelly was invited to venture outside his comfort zone and collaborate on a project with classical composer James Ledger, few could have predicted how the experience would soon filter into his own music, nor how routinely powerful the results of this unconventional union would prove. The collaboration in question — 2013’s Conversation With Ghosts — found Kelly and the team creating an atmospheric song cycle using the words of long-departed poets such as Alfred Tennyson, WB Yeats and Emily Dickinson. This left-of-centre approach would eventually open a songwriting portal for Kelly that the singer-songwriter had long assumed to be bolted shut, but which he’s now mining to his heart’s content and consistently hitting pay dirt. Kelly’s beautiful new album Nature finds the legendary songsmith following the Conversations With Ghosts path and putting the words of pre-existing poems to music — five penned by far-flung poets, four stemming from the singer’s own repertoire and the remaining three songs of more conventional construction — with results as strong as anything delivered during Kelly’s long and storied career.
tation. “I love all those poets, but I never know what particular poem is going to jump out at me and become a song,” he ponders. “I know now that there’s a good chance of me trying to write music to a poem, so sometimes it’s just a matter of flicking through the pages of a particular poet or looking up the poems you remember and love and trying straight away to write a song — I find that usually happens either really quickly or it doesn’t happen at all. “I mean there’s lots of Sylvia Plath poems I love but I can’t remember why I thought Mushrooms would be good to make into a song: I know it happened really, really quickly, so it’s probably why I don’t remember! “With And Death Shall Have No Dominion [by Thomas], I’ve known that poem for a long time, and I don’t even know why I tackled that one because it’s a real mouthful to sing. Sometimes it’s like a bit of a challenge, like, ‘I wonder if I can actually make these words fit?’ Some other poems just mightn’t fit a tune, or not that I could find. But still I don’t really know why some poems work for me and others don’t, but I’m very glad to have found a new way to write songs.” Even though some of these poets have long shuffled from this mortal coil Kelly still feels a strong connection to their work, if not the artist themselves. “It’s more to the poem than the person, I guess,” he tells. “It’s something I think about, and there is an argument for not doing it — some people might say, ‘Well why put the poem to music?’ To some listeners, they might hear a poem a certain way and to hear this other version might be jarring to them or might ruin it for them. So I do think about that, but then on the other hand as well they might not like your version of the poem so then they can just not listen to you anymore and go back to the poem. “The strong argument for doing it is that you’re presenting the poems to people who might not have heard them, so it’s a way of shining a light on some of the things I love and giving the poem a new life.” A lot of fuss was rightly made last year when Life Was Fine – his 23rd studio release – became Kelly’s first-ever number one album, but typically the singer deflects praise for the feat to the people around him who helped make it happen. “It feels good of course,” he reflects. “But I felt really good for EMI and the whole team, because that sort of success is really a team success. It’s not really on my mind when I write songs and make records, because that’s kinda out of my control anyway. Songs sort of come at me and then I write them: I know some are going to be more popular than others, but I can’t even pick which ones they are. “But EMI got really excited about Life Is Fine, I could feel it, and that’s their job: ‘We’re going to get this to number one!’ they’d say to me — that’s what they do — so that’s their job and what they try to do for all their records. So my main feeling was that of course I’m happy for myself, but I’m mainly happy for that whole team. And the management team as well, everyone. It’s like winning a grand final.”
“The strong argument for doing it is that you’re presenting the poems to people who might not have heard them, so it’s a way of shining a light on some of the things I love and giving the poem a new life.”
Pic: Cybele Malinowski
“Conversations With Ghosts was the first time I’d ever put poems to music, and up to then I thought that I couldn’t do that — I always had this idea that having the words first would restrict the music and make it run too rigidly — but I was just completely wrong,” Kelly chuckles softly. “With Conversations With Ghosts it was a project for a young classical orchestra — I was working with a classical composer — and I kind of just jumped into it, and by the end of that I realised, ‘Oh, I can put poems to music!’ and that led onto the Shakespeare record [2016’s Seven Sonnets & A Song ] and it’s sort of become part of the way I write songs now — or another way for me to write songs. “It cropped up in the final title song on [2017 album] Life Is Fine, which is a poem that I put to music, and Nature is really just continuing that and taking it a little bit further.” Kelly explains that there’s an intangible essence that drew him to the work of the five poets he unilaterally conspires with on Nature — namely Dylan Thomas, Walt Whitman, Sylvia Plath, Gerard Manley Hopkins and Phillip Larkin — but that even he’s not sure what he’s looking for when searching for a potential new adap-
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Ten years of sleepmakeswaves Recording Love Of Cartography
Ten years on from sleepmakeswaves’ debut EP, guitarist Otto Wicks-Green takes a fond look back the highs (and a few lows) of a decade playing together.
Working with great producers As the album cover suggests, we recorded our first LP ...And So We Destroyed Everything out in a log cabin in the middle of the Australian bush. We worked in the heat of summer with our long-time collaborator Dax Liniere who was pioneering new recording techniques that combined the latest technology with old-school analogue skills. It was a very experimental atmosphere, with this constant sense that anything was possible. Listening back to the record I still hear the spontaneity and the creativity that we poured into every track. Our next two records being crowdfunded enabled us to work with a true recording legend. We instantly hit it off with Nick DiDia and admired his direct and live approach. We were looking to capture the energy we try to deliver live on record, and he felt like the perfect fit. Legend has it that Bernard Fanning walked in while Otto and Alex were tracking the quiet outro of Your Time Will Come Again and was disappointed by how non-heavy and loud it was after being told otherwise by Nick.
Dealing with adversity Pandas
Hoo boy. It has not always been a smooth ride for ol’ sleepmakeswaves. I think I’ll just list a bunch of stuff that’s happened over the years: We saved up cash for years to afford our first proper album recording only to have it all stolen just before recording began. We’ve also had gear, cash and merch stolen from shows on the road by thieving souls. We had a tyre violently blow out on the interstate highway between Madrid and Barcelona. Tim got food poisoning from some beans he ate at SXSW. Kid got gastro on the bus with 65daysofstatic, which was a bad place to get gastro as the toilets have a strict ‘liquids only’ rule. Most recently, Alex got bitten by a monkey while in Indonesia. He’s all good now but feel free to make monkey jokes when you see him on tour.
When the band began we never really thought that we’d get to play in China, let alone that it would become our favourite place in the world to perform. We first travelled over there in 2015, straight after an enormous run in Europe, and we arrived utterly dishevelled and exhausted, hoping for the best but mentally preparing for the worst. We needn’t have worried. Under the thoughtful and watchful eye of our promoter Jef Vreys from New Noise, the experience turned out to be restorative and enriching and wild — from the pandas and outrageously tasty streetside vegetarian BBQ in Chengdu, to our ongoing disbelief at every packed house (especially in Shanghai and Beijing). Special mention also to the dog in glasses quarantine picture on a flight out of Wuhan, causing a risk to the tour as Tim and Otto almost died laughing.
Waiting by the side of the road in Spain
China, its people and its food
Minigolf in Denmark, 2015
Minigolf There was a meme a few years back along the format of “what people think I do, what my mum thinks I do, what I actually do”, and the one for touring in a band was basically waiting in airport lounges and vans for hours. This is mostly true — long stretches of mundanity interrupted by frenzied excitement and occasionally terror. In the moments of mundanity, a favourite pastime is finding the local minigolf course and having a putt, which is made all the better by some contraband beers. One particularly memorable course was somewhere in rural Denmark. We found the most enormous beer can we’d ever seen and hit the links. Amid the excitement I managed to lose the keys to the van, ending the night with a frantic torchlit search (they were in a tree stump).
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sleepmakeswaves tour from 4 Oct.
To read the full story head to theMusic.com.au
‘Deep existential shit’ Ahead of the release of John Butler Trio’s record Home, Anthony Carew had a chat with John Butler to explore why music brings out the best of him.
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hen John Butler was working on his seventh John Butler Trio album Home, he was hoping to marry electronic production with acoustic fingerpicking. “I wanted to create this unique sound that I’d heard in my head, and been wanting to bring out into the world for a long time,” he says. For much of that time, that meant working by himself, away from his band and regular collaborators. All that time alone meant more time to ponder the nature of artmaking, and of the self. Butler was, he says, going through some “deep existential shit”, which holds up in conversation. “Anybody who lives a public life, and tries to keep it real, is going to have some kind of existential landscape to traverse, where what people know you as, which is your name, and who you actually are can be two completely different things,” offers Butler, 43, on a sunny spring morning in Margaret River. “You end up having a bit of a Jim Carrey moment: like, ‘Who am I?’ You end up going deep down that rabbit hole. It’s a worthy rabbit hole, but it’s fraught with psychoses.” “Who am I?” Butler continues, “that’s not something I can answer for you. But it’s a worthy question to ask yourself. Especially when it raises real challenges in staying human, staying real, staying what you define as authentic, or congruent with your life and your morals and who you really are. Somebody can see me, see my physical body in front of them, and not really see me. They see their own projection of who they think I might be.” And project onto Butler people do: he is forever, in the minds of many, the dreadlocked, didge-blowing, “milliondollar” hippy; the ultra-successful patronsaint of Byron Bay’s barefoot buskers. It’s a reductive caricature, especially for someone whose relationship to music is so sincere as to be spiritual. “For me, music is always a part of the alchemist’s journey,” Butler says. “It’s always, first, a journal entry, expressing something in my life in this very intimate way. It’s always going to be a vehicle for healing, within and without.”
“The music is always drawing me out beyond my limits, beyond myself.”
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“Music,” he continues, “brings the best out of me, and helps me to confront the worst of me. I’m thankful for that. I’m really thankful for that.” Through the years, Butler has had countless listeners tell him that his albums have served as salvation for them, gotten them through hard times. It’s something he embraces, but only up to a point. “I want to be there for people like music was there for me,” he says. “But it’s a fine line. You don’t want to turn into some soapbox, self-help guru. That’s dangerous, it’s an uncreative, uninspiring, condescending world to go into as a musician.” The only self-help at play on Home is Butler attempting to help himself; making an album, for the songwriter, always a form of therapy. “Or,” he laughs, “like therapy mixed with dental work. It can be painful! That sounds like I don’t like it at all. But, it’s more like, in trying to bring the best out of you, you suffer, you dig deep. The music is always drawing me out beyond my limits, beyond myself, and that’s going to create anxiety, for sure. But, I think it’s a healthy kind of anxiety. It’s like when you exercise, you strain; when a trainer pushes you farther than you feel comfortable, or you go swimming in the freezing river. It’s painful, it’s uncomfortable, but afterwards you feel real good.” Continuing the employment of metaphor, Butler offers that releasing an album “is like riding a rollercoaster: it’s scary, but it won’t kill you”. In the lead-up to Home ‘s release, he’s feeling nervous and anxious. “It’s such a vulnerable thing to bare your bones to the world, voluntarily,” Butler says. “Especially now. It feels more vulnerable than ever. [Your] first [album], you don’t even think about it. You’re more like, ‘I hope someone listens to this, that’d be great!’ But once you know you do have an audience, you’d be lying if said you didn’t care if people liked it. It’s a very bold move to display your inner workings to the world.”
Home (Family Music) is out now. John Butler Trio tours from 25 Jan.
Check The Guide on theMusic.com.au for more details.
Sticks and stone goblins
Bill Bailey, the self-titled Earl Of Whimsy, talks to Sam Wall about England’s 2,000-year feud with the neighbours and “the absurdity in nationality and nationalism”.
“What is the British way? Who are we? Where do we come from?” Check The Guide on theMusic.com.au for more details.
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t’s unlikely there are many people who can say they’ve been named a nation’s foremost “rock goblin”. For comedian, actor and author Bill Bailey, it’s just one of many colourful labels he’s acquired over the years, falling somewhere between “a martial arts master in mufti” and “a Jedi of juxtaposition”. “Which, I kind of quite like that,” admits Bailey. “’Hobbit on speed’, that was another one. One was, ‘The sort of guy who runs the local drum hire shop.’ Which, is very specific.” Chatting with the affable and articulate humourist it seems reductive to pin his appeal to a beard and an odd haircut, but then even Bailey’s press refers to him as a “straggle-haired polymath”, and the comedian is the first to admit his idiosyncratic style is somewhat of a magnet for hyperbole. “They’re drawn to that,” says Bailey. “They like the visual. We’re a very visualbased society, everything is about how you look and how you are, visually. So yes, I guess that’s what it is. And I’ve toyed with the idea of not having the beard and the hair, but, you know, I can’t be bothered to change it,” he laughs. “I’ve been called all kinds of things, over the years. People have come up with names, and nicknames, and this and that — and, you know, that’s all fine. I just thought, ‘You know what [laughs], sometimes you’ve got to control your own narrative, and you know what? I think I had better think up my own title for myself and call myself that.’” As well as reclaiming his own name, Bailey’s new show Earl Of Whimsy started with the aim of creating “an escapist sanctuary” from England’s current political situation, a lee in the deluge of Brexit chatter following the United Kingdoms’ vote to leave the European Union. “I think there’s been a lot of soul-searching in the last couple of years, in Britain,” says Bailey. “Because it was quite a sort’ve, shock, really. The result of the referendum. I don’t think anyone expected it, on either side of the vote.
“I mean, it’s been quite divisive, in many ways,” he continues. “Because there’s millions of people who voted one way and millions who voted another way, and this is a sort’ve, permanent state of affairs. It’s not very much like an election, where, you vote, somebody gets in and — people who prove to be very divisive, you know, like Trump, he proves to be very divisive. Some people love him, some people hate him — but the electoral process will mean that you can vote him out, you know, eventually. “With Brexit, it’s very much, like, this is almost a once in a generation — well, longer than that. I mean, this is probably the most significant constitutional change we’ve had since the War, the Second World War. So it’s quite a big thing that has kind of dominated the public discourse in the last two years, to the point where you virtually cannot escape it. And to the point some people are driven to distraction with it.” So, at least to begin with, Earl Of Whimsy was conceived as “a bit of a haven from not talkin’ about it” — a chance to be distracted from the state of the world by ‘dismantled
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jokes, crowd singalongs, weird instruments and musical showstoppers’. “Of course,” Bailey says, “inevitably I ended up just ranting about it one night, and I thought, ‘Aw for god’s sake.’ “But I tried to channel that in a good way, like, ‘Well. How can we, y’know, get some good out of this?’ [Which] led to a sort of a conversation, nationally, about what it is to be British; ‘What is the British way? Who are we? Where do we come from?’ “I just became fascinated with this ancient history, this sort of, fractious relationship that Britain has had with Europe over the centuries. And it’s a real revelation to me to see how little has changed,” chuckles Bailey. “You know, 2,000 years and we still mistrust the people across the channel. So we’re a very strange, odd bunch.” Britain’s tumultuous, multi-millennial relationship with its neighbours, capped by Brexit, sounds like thick material for an hour of stand-up, but Bailey’s inspirations often seem more academic than comic. This is the man that wrote a three-minute pub joke in the style of Chaucer. It’s also a
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conversation that has become unavoidable when talking about contemporary England, if only because the referendum seems so unreal, even two years later. “What Brexit has done, is prompted the rest of the world to then pass comment on Britain, and the British, and there’s an enormous number of news column inches have been written about what this is, what the vote is. A lot of it is obviously quite, ah, shall we say mocking? To the point of [laughs] sort of disbelief, bafflement, you know, like, ‘What have they done!?’ hand-wringing. ‘Oh my god, what have they done!? The Brits, they were so steady and now look at ‘em.’ “I guess it sort of made me, not just me — a lot of artists, comedians — it’s done the same thing. It’s sort of made us examine ourselves a little bit and find the absurdity in nationality and nationalism.” “We’re all trying to feel positive [laughs]. Whatever we can find to find positive about it, we will. Because at the moment it’s pretty depressing.” “Anywhere in the world, in a restaurant, if somebody drops a tray, most people in the world will just, like, look away embarrassed and go, ‘Oh, poor guy, dropped a tray of drinks.’ Brits will cheer. They’ll go, ‘Woo-aayyy!’ Like that... It’s like this is the dropped drinks tray of all dropped drinks trays, this is the mother of all dropped drinks trays. This is like, ‘Woo-aayyy! Look what we’ve done, Wa-haow [laughs]. Aargh brilliant! Stick it up ya, bloody Europe.’ So that’s how we get through it really, is to try and laugh at our own absurdity. And hopefully, that will long continue, beyond the point that Brexit will be — people will have forgotten about it, hopefully, at one stage.”
Bill Bailey tours from 4 Oct
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Hit it Life and death Three years on the road with her band Big Thief has been a life changing experience for Adrianne Lenker and as she explains to Chris Familton, she wanted to document and archive her thoughts and emotions through that period on her new solo album A byskiss. Pic: Buck Meek
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made my first solo record when I was 21 and I was so much closer to my influences then. Now I’ve got farther from those influences although I’m more influenced by more things than I’ve ever been,” explains Adrianne Lenker as she ponders the ways in which she’s evolved musically and personally since her 2004 debut, Hours Were The Birds. “I’m 27 now and I feel like there have been so many things that have happened. When I made that record, I hadn’t even met the band and I’ve spent the last three years on the road and they’ve become my family. That in itself has completely changed me. I’ve shed skins. I’ve been so influenced by the music the guys in the band have shared with me and people I’ve met on the road. My heart has been expanding with the challenges and heartbreak and the wounding and mending over that time.” The album was predominately written on the road, something many artists choose to avoid. For Lenker, her muse has a habit of dropping in at any time, and capturing the songs in certain situations can make for a difficult creative process. “Songs are always welcome in my soul but reality sets in sometimes and there are moments when I can’t give attention to a song that’s coming through. That can be so frustrating. Time is so fleeting and with touring, pretty much all of your hours in each day are structured and everything is planned out ahead of time. Writing on the road is about stealing time from myself, finding moments to get lost in my soul,” says Lenker. “That can just be for 20 minutes or a couple of hours or for a day, but there have been so many times when an idea has been forming that I’ve felt really excited about and then we have a soundcheck or a show or a meeting. That’s hap-
pened countless times where I’ve lost ideas that I’ve loved. I also think when it doesn’t form fully, it isn’t meant to be, they’re just stepping stone ideas to get to another thing.” Sonically, there is a clear separation in the sound of the album from the full band elements used on Big Thief recordings. “I had the intention to keep them minimal because I really wanted the acoustic guitar to shine,” explains Lenker. The approach is an effective one, drawing the listener into the intimacy of her performance and the simple details of her songs. “I just sat in front of the microphone and sang and played the songs and recorded them. There was no editing at all and we only added one or two other elements. I was conscious to keep it like that — quiet.” Lenker is known for her astute and sensitive approach to detailing events and the emotional impact they have. On A bysskiss, she again takes a magnifying glass to life experiences but places them in the context of big-picture existential questions. “The biggest theme is the least original thing possible. Life, pain, birth, death, the cyclical nature of things. A lot of it is about questions themselves. The aching bittersweetness of being alive and the inherent duality of everything. What kind of twisted, hilarious or crazy thing brought all of this into being and how insane it is that we are brought into his world and then leave and the only guarantee we have is that we will die and lose everyone that we love. Somehow that’s what makes it so rich,” she says, with a mix of wonder and passion in he voice. “I’m fascinated by the microcosms and explosions that are happening minute to minute within all of us. It’s creating this crazy tapestry that feels extremely gruesome, morbid, gory and bloody and also so delicate and magical and pure. The ocean exists and the most beautiful harmony exists but also war and destruction. I’m constantly overwhelmed by the sensation of being alive. That’s where it’s coming from.”
Chan Marshall ‘s tenth Cat Power LP, Wanderer, is the first not released by Matador in over 20 years. She tells Anthony Carew, “I had to forget these expectations they’d placed upon me, had to forget that they told me my art was no good.”
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n Woman, the lead single from Cat
Power’s new, tenth LP, Wanderer, Chan Marshall — the 46-year-old
who’s forever and always Cat Power — is joined, in harmonising “feat” guest-spot, by none other than Lana Del Rey. It’s not your standard celebrity collab, though, but something born out of touring together, finding friendship and shared identification. “Lana Del Rey showed me the kind of camaraderie I hadn’t felt since the ‘90s,” says Marshall. She helped fortify myself in the idea that my art is ok, that I am ok.” For Marshall, much of the lead-up to Wanderer was dealing with these concerns: having her current-day output compared to past music, and having its worth critiqued. Earlier in 2018, Marshall came to Australia to truly commune with her musical past: performing her 1998 classic Moon Pix, in full, on its 20-year anniversary. The show was at the Sydney Opera House, as part of Vivid LIVE, but the album was made in Melbourne; Marshall spending a hot summer, long ago, recording at Sing Sing Studios in Richmond. The Opera House show reunited her with the original musicians from the recording, chiefly Jim White and Mick Turner of Dirty Three. “Being invited to do this bizarre recollection of material, after having not played it [together] since 1999, was very emotional,” Marshall offers. “It was like giving the girl from 20 years ago something much more precious and much more valuable than a Grammy, or an Olympic gold medal. I was able to give her joy, and prove to her what she always knew: that she would continue on, that she would become a fruitful person, that she would be someone that felt purpose.” Marshall continually speaks of her younger self, the one who made Moon Pix, as a different person. “I found her exploration of protection, through writing songs, so tender and so gentle. I saw how difficult things were for her. I saw how fun-loving she was, and how shy,” she says. “That girl from 20 years ago, she believed very much in artistic integrity. It was the thing that saved her life some nights.”
Abyskiss (Spunk) is out this month
It was a matter of artistic integrity that prevailed over doubts about the worth of Wanderer, and led to Marshall’s divorce with Matador, the mega-indie that had been her label for over 20 years. When she first turned
Check The Guide on theMusic.com.au for more details.
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the album in, Matador refused to release it as it was, telling her it should, rather, resemble “a hit record”. But, Marshall says, “I have no inter-
est in hit music. I’m not a bank. I didn’t go to Harvard Business like they did. I’m an artist.” She still had her doubts, though. Since the release of 2012’s Sun, music had often been sidelined: by health scares, first, then
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motherhood; Marshall’s first child, a son, born in 2015. “Preparing a space for [her] child” came hand-in-hand with preparing a space for her new album; Marshall moving into a house in Miami where she both nested and built a studio space. Recorded while its maker raised a young child, the resulting record is just as personal, fragile, and ultimately triumphant as any Cat Power LP; Marshall feeling an extra sense of triumph from defying the music biz along the way. “[Matador] said the record was no good, and I needed to change it,” she says. “So, for one year, as a single parent who’s working... My emotional state was really up and down, especially regarding business. I had to forget these expectations they’d placed upon me, had to forget that they told me my art was no good. I felt very alone with my child, I felt sad, but I wasn’t a victim. I was fine. I was perfectly fine. I knew they had their own perspective. Maybe there were moments I questioned my
Pic: Rahkela
own work, like maybe this is a pile of shit. But, I was proud of my pile of shit.”
Wanderer (Domino) is out this month. Cat Power tours from 9 Feb.
With Hellions ‘ new “mixed bag” of an album on the way, drummer Anthony Caruso tells Rod Whitfield that the characteristically unclassifiable outfit have “nailed it”. For now.
Pic: Eliot Lee Hazel
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ndefinable Sydney four-piece Hellions are set to release their fourth LP, Rue, and one listen is all it takes to conclude that they have produced an absolute cracker. If you dig frivolous, meaningless pop music, or you only like a genre or two, it might be best to avoid this record. However, if your mind is open and you appreciate bands that regularly step outside the bounds of classification and create music with real depth, meaning and diversity, Rue is absolutely for you. Skinsman Anthony Caruso, speaking from his home in Sydney, is well aware that their theatrical, genre-smashing music and weighty lyrical content may not be for everyone. “Yeah, there’s plenty going on, it’s a bit of a mixed bag, musically,” Caruso admits, “and then lyrically there’s some pretty serious themes. We didn’t go into writing the record with this overall theme, it just sort of accidentally came together during the process. “We just wanted to not let people down, but at the same time stick to our guns and be stoked with what we’ve created. So it’s a little bit of a grey area, we want people to be into it but we also don’t want to write music just for the sake of people liking it, if that makes sense? The end goal though is for people to like it,” he laughs. The record is unlikely to be classified as a full-blown concept record, however there is a strong theme running through the lyrics and imagery of the album, and the former cut nice and deep. Caruso is happy to give listeners an overview of the messages and meanings contained within the grooves of Rue. “It’s kind of broken down to sides,” he begins. “The philosophical side of human beings and the humanitarianism. Humans, there’s kind of two sides to all of us, inside of us and also what we see and what we hear. We’re so exposed to pretty much everyone’s thinking at all times these days, with social media and stuff. “So it all came from that, it’s kind of a reflection of the multi-faceted nature of us as humans.” Lyrically and musically, it’s hard to pin the band down, as far as genre is concerned. It’s not really punk, it’s not
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metal, it’s not hardcore. Caruso agrees, however one thing he is certain of is that, despite the unclassifiable nature of their sound, after spending some time searching they have fully settled on their musical direction and they know exactly what they’re doing and where they’re heading. “Yeah, again it’s a bit of a mixed bag. When we started out, we never really had the intention of being a hardcore band or a metalcore band. Our first record felt like a bit of a demo to us, just putting something down. The second record, we were like, ‘Ok, I think we’re heading in the right direction, but we’re still not really quite there.’ The last record we were like, ‘Fuck yeah, I think we’ve got it!’, and then when we started on this one it became, ‘Oh no, no we haven’t!’” he laughs again. “But now, I really do think we’ve nailed it, it’s been a real natural progression to get where we are now. The thing is though, we always want to be challenging ourselves musically, we want to be putting ourselves in better positions as writers. “So as far as a genre is concerned, maybe it’s more of a ‘rock thing’. If we’re going to go for a very broad term, ‘with pop influences’, I don’t know. Maybe we just have to come up with a specific name for what our music is.” All that said, there are two specific bands that Caruso cites that are of great influence over Hellions’ songwriting, and it all makes sense when you consider the theatrical nature of their sound. “Bands like Queen and My Chemical Romance, they are two bands that we really look up to.”
Rue (UNFD) is out this month. Hellions tour from 13 Oct.
Here comes the sun The clouds are parting, the mercury is rising, and it’ll soon be time to catch some rays. So, you might want to upgrade those facial furnishings with a rad new pair of sunnies. But before you default to the big international brands, don’t forget our homegrown pickings. Here are just a few worth keeping in the frame.
1. Pacifico Optical
4. Le Specs
Once a brand has graced the pages of Vogue, you can bet your bottom dollar they’re a quality label. These handmade sunglasses, featuring the finest quality German and Italian sourced materials, are designed in the heart of Bondi. And if there’s one thing those beach bums know, it’s sun.
If standing out from the crowd is your drug, then Le Specs is your dealer. With edgy updates on classic frames, this 1979launched brand offers super on-trend individuality without straying too far into the realm of WTF. Worn by Lady Gaga and Zayn Malik, they’re also a must for celeb style stealers.
Our favourite: Buckler – Shiraz w. Polarised Blue Lens, Man Of Many Edition $205, pacificooptical.com
Our favourite: La Dolce Vita w. Black Polarised Lens $129, lespecs.com
2. Local Supply
5. Quay
Also hailing from the fine Sydney shores of Bondi, these shades are perfect for those who need their clobber on the sturdier side. Make no mistake, these are extremely well crafted, with a luxury-level finish. But with price-tags under $100, they won’t break the bank if you manage to break your pair.
If you’re looking for a pair of sunnies that can do it all – afternoons at the beach; drives in the bush; brunch in the city; morning commute – then Quay have got your back. Effortlessly stylish designs with modern finishes, they even have untinted frames available for those hoping to rock that geek-chic look.
Our favourite: City BEF2 – Frosted Beige w. Bottle Tint Lens $79.95, localsupply.com
Our favourite: Kingsley w. Navy Blue Finish & Blue Tint Lens $55 from quayaustralia.com.au
3. South Cali So, the name is a bit of a red herring, but we swear, these shmick-AF sunnies are made right here Down Under. For the health conscious amongst you, they have a protection rating of UV-400, and despite their expensive looking finish, they’re some of the most reasonable priced specs on the market.
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Our favourite: Venice – Tortoise Aqua Sea w. Polarised Mirror Lens $49.95, southcali.com.au
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The time for madness Punk rockers The Bronx are eyeing off yet another Australian trek, and vocalist Matt Caughthran informs Brendan Crabb of their plans to bring Halloween to fans Down Under.
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lthough a beloved act on record — last year’s V their latest well-received full-length — Los Angeles punkers The Bronx’s reputation as a high-energy, intense, sweat-dripping live act well and truly precedes them. Devotees likely will not be surprised that none of the group’s onstage hijinks are in any way premeditated, instead remaining strictly in the moment. “That’s the only way to fly really,” vocalist Matt Caughthran explains from his home in Huntington Beach, California. “When you’re on tour, there’s so much routine in everything that you do. It’s like, to make the show a part of that would just be a nightmare. You’re on a schedule for so many different things, and because you’re a human being and you have habits, you fall into patterns, you fall into your own routine, little daily things that you’re doing here and there. So to try to fit the show on a grid like that as well, it’s just never been our thing. The show is when it’s time for madness. It’s time for the unexpected, when it’s time to just let things fly. So 100%, that’s where it all goes down, that’s where the craziness comes from.” Has he engaged in particular antics while performing, only to regret it somewhat upon post-gig reflection? “Oh yeah. I’ve done it a couple of times where... In one of our earlier shows, I got naked and I shouldn’t have done that. It was at the Groezrock festival in Belgium, and for the last song I took off all my clothes. It was just kind of a weird thing,” he chuckles. “I don’t think people were ready for it. But yeah, that happened and after that I was like, ‘Well, maybe
I shouldn’t have done that,’ I kinda freaked people out a little bit.” The Bronx are perennial visitors to these shores, with Australia becoming one of their strongest markets. The vocalist says there won’t be any appearances from their Mariachi El Bronx alter ego this time around, but he’s enthused at the prospect of returning with Melbourne heavy-hitters High Tension and garage-punk crew Private Function in tow. The jaunt will also venture into some regional markets. “I feel like the past couple of times we’ve gone there, we haven’t really been fully able to express ourselves in the manner that we need to in order to exorcise all the demons,” Caughthran says. “We still have a lot of aggression to get out... [So we decided to] come back and play some tiny ass regional shows, play some big city shows, play a crazy Halloween show [in Melbourne], and just get it all out. We’re gonna bring Halloween to Australia, it’s gonna happen. It’s a mission of ours.” Meanwhile, new material from The Bronx also appears to be in its infancy. “Nowadays as a band, you’ve kinda always got to be working... On the three facets of being a musician, which is writing, recording and playing. We don’t know necessarily when we’re gonna go do another Bronx record, I’m thinking sometime next year it’s probably gonna happen. But we’re kinda just starting to get the wheels going on that, and starting to think about writing. “For the past two weeks I’ve been doing a tonne of writing, which is cool. I got through a bit of a block where I wasn’t
really feeling anything creative, broke through and ended up writing probably like six to eight pages full of stuff that I’m really stoked on. So it’s starting to happen; eventually we’ll get there, but that’s a long way’s away. Sometimes my mind operates like a thrift store. I just go in, and I’ll just pull stuff out of fucking nowhere, and be like, ‘Oh, that’s nice.’ So certain lines that I’m coming up with now, to be honest with you, they’re pretty messed up. They seem a little crazy, but that’s how I think I’m going in the right direction. So we’ll see. I can’t give it all [away] right now,” he laughs. “I’ve got to keep you in suspense. But it’s dark; just think about that.”
The Bronx tour from 18 Oct.
Ain’t no fool
“I was surprised more so about just that people really liked it — they accepted it,” Iheakanwa ponders. “I wanted people to know how much I generally care about the song... I wanted to make sure I did it justice, too.” Iheakanwa — who prefers to be called ‘Wise’ — is all about “sincerity”. Indeed, it’s
After the release of debut LP Area Famous and ahead of an upcoming tour, rising Sydney rapper B Wise had a chat to Cyclone about achieving “area fame” and creating “a family of music”.
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James Iheakanwa) recently boldly personalised Red Hot Chili Peppers’ ‘90s
classic Under The Bridge for triple j’s Like A Version. He was apprehensive about his band’s “risky” choice. However, Iheakanwa’s unique imprint not only went viral but also won considerable praise.
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debut, Area Famous, led by such wavy singles as Feel Something and The Key (which the Aussie Khalid producer UNO Stereo helmed). Born to a Nigerian father and an Australian mother, Iheakanwa spent his youth between country New South Wales and the melting pot of Sydney’s south-west. But it was as a hip hop-obsessed teen in suburban Liverpool where he started pursuing rapping seriously, joining the crew K1. Iheakanwa would issue solo mixtapes. In 2015 he generated buzz with his wry track Prince Akeem, produced by Jackie Onassis’ Raph Lauren. “Around that period, I think I definitely want-
he rising Sydney rapper B Wise (aka
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ed to try and start writing an album. I thought that was the go-to thing to do. But, being realistic about it, I don’t think I had much of an audience at that stage. I was still just trying to break songs.” Meanwhile, Iheakanwa signed to Elefant Traks — dropping an EP, Semi Pro. Commencing
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Famous in 2017, Iheakanwa felt uncertain about where his career was headed. He was
The next thing Cloves catches up with our very own Cyclone to discuss upcoming tours, the joy of collaboration and understanding yourself through creativity.
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he Australian soulstress Kaity “Cloves” Dunstan has already been compared to everyone from Amy Winehouse to Bon Iver. Now this ‘Next Big Thing’ is presenting her long-awaited debut LP, One Big Nothing — and, yes, it’s compelling. The quietly ambitious Dunstan was penning songs as a pre-teen. Soon, she began gigging with an older sister in Melbourne bars — Dad acting as manager, roadie and bodyguard. In 2013, Dunstan competed in Season 2 of The Voice Australia, a fact omitted from her label bio. “Now I look back on it, I’m just fine with it,” the charming Dunstan philosophises freely. “For me, it ‘is what it is’ a bit because it’s only a part of who I am now. I was 16 at the time. I kind of grew up in the middle of nowhere. I didn’t know anyone. All I wanted to do was make an album, I’ve always had the same goal in mind. I just thought it would be a nice way for me to get to Sydney and maybe meet some people. [But] since then, I’ve spent five years working my arse off and learning and understanding and trying to be a better artist. I think it’s just everyone has where they start out.” Leaving school early, Dunstan was determined to become a traditional singer-songwriter (her idols include Carole King, Elliott Smith and Fiona Apple). She assumed the boho alias ‘Cloves’ after smoking aromatic cigarettes on a Bali retreat. Dunstan wound up in London, today her “second home”. “I’ve got all my things here now and I’ve got friends here.” (Plus she’s acquired a slight English accent.)
Check The Guide on theMusic.com.au for more details.
in a lull. Iheakanwa settled on cutting a sym-
son.” Iheakanwa considers Time the album’s
bolic coming of age LP and, on Area Famous,
“dark horse”.
he explores growing up with a biracial iden-
Iheakanwa has already had a big year
tity in Australia. The title underscores his early
gig-wise,
aspiration as an MC in south-western Sydney:
an epic tour. He hit Splendour In The Grass.
supporting
Thundamentals
to achieve “area fame”.
Again, Iheakanwa was “a bit worried” because his set clashed with the ascendant Queen-
theme, it’s community. Iheakanwa’s desire is
slander Amy Shark’s. Yet punters rocked up.
that, on listening, fans will understand him
“Splendour was crazy. I think it was one of my
and empathise. “I hope they just take away
stand-out performances this year, for sure.”
the sincerity of who I am and they can find
From October, Iheakanwa will embark
something in any story that I tell; maybe find
on his first Australian headlining dates.
something in the album that they can relate
Live, he transcends hip hop’s generational
to [or] find something that they can gravitate
divide by combining traditional showman-
to and say, ‘I’ve been through that,’ or ‘I’ve
ship with new school energy. “We’re going
experienced that,’ or ‘If I didn’t, now I under-
to definitely have a lot of energy and a lot of
stand that.’ So I just wanted people to kind
vibes.” Iheakanwa will be introducing “special
of delve into my world and get to know the
guests”. But, ultimately, he’s turning his audi-
person that I am — and the person that I want
ences into a mega-squad. “You’re gonna have
more to be. I want people to get more of an
an experience. It’s gonna be a real family
understanding of a multicultural society... A
orientated vibe — by ‘family’, I mean not like
person that they can look at and say, ‘Okay,
‘mums and dads and kids’. I mean like every-
this is a reflection of multicultural Australia
one in the crowd. They’re gonna come not
and how they contribute.’”
knowing each other and they’re gonna leave
Area Famous
deeply
intimate
exchanging numbers. That’s what I’m about.
moments. Time is a highlight — Iheakanwa
So we’re gonna create a vibe. We’re gonna
collaborating with the “amazing” Kaiit, the
create a family of music.”
Pic: Fabien Montique
has
One Big Nothing (Island/Universal) is out now.
on
If Area Famous has an overarching
Melbourne MC/vocalist Jill Scott lately cosigned. “That song was kinda like a personal song about a personal relationship that I’ve had with a person — or it’s actually about two people, but I blended it into one per-
Area Famous (Elefant Tracks) is out now. B Wise tours from 5 Oct.
The Music
In the UK, Dunstan connected with her mentor, Justin Parker — an in-demand writer since he collaborated on Lana Del Rey’s Video Games. “He’s just an incredible talent,” Dunstan praises. “He’s like a classic songwriter, in a way. He wants the song to be meaningful and purposeful. I think that’s really inspiring — and that’s something that I always want, too.” In 2015, Dunstan released an EP of acoustic ballads, XIII. Tracks were synced for Emilia Clarke’s teary movie Me Before You (Don’t Forget About Me ) and The Vampire Diaries (Everybody’s Son ). But, mostly, Dunstan performed solidly — even hitting Coachella (she recently returned to Australia for headline shows and to support The Rubens’ regionally). This enabled Dunstan to tweak her material. In late 2016, Dunstan aired the folksy Better Now — her album expected last year. Yet she needed extra time to refine her craft. During the recording, Dunstan also experienced personal changes — and split from her childhood sweetheart. “It’s been a massive growth for me.” Indeed, One Big Nothing involved self-analysis. “This record was me really trying to understand myself; understand what I wanted to say, what my point was — like, ‘Why the fuck am I here?’ It was just a lot of questioning.” Crucially, Dunstan grappled with her perfectionism. “I think [the album] really took me through a bit of a self-pressure and self-doubt and being super-self-critical and getting super-anxious and feeling really down. It was this process of being too hard on myself and then having to work my way out of that.” As Dunstan learnt more about production, and how to articulate her ideas, she experimented — itself liberating. One Big Nothing finds Dunstan ruminating on the nuances of relationships and social exchanges — her lyrics simultaneously specific and universal. The mood is “kind of happy, sad and everything in between”, she says. “Thematically, it’s quite all over the place. It can be vulnerable and it can be self-assured and then it can be talking about feeling really depressed — like going up and down. It’s about waking up in the morning and not knowing whether or not you’re gonna be having a good day or a bad day, and that becoming quite tiring for you, and that feeling of like, ‘Maybe tomorrow I’ll wake up and I’ll feel better’ — and then you realise that actually you’re still stuck in your same kind of cycle of anxiety.” Dunstan posits that Bringing The House Down — a bluesy jam helmed by super-producer Ariel Rechtshaid — is a “fuck it!” song. Dunstan is currently preparing for a European tour. But, as One Big Nothing rolls out, the star is moving forward. “I’m definitely proud of it, but I’m always onto the next thing. I think that’s just my personality.”
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Album Reviews
Paul Kelly’s work is wonderfully familiar — and even more so with this album. Driven by simple acoustics provided by regular collaborators like Peter Luscombe, Bill McDonald, Ash Naylor, Cameron Bruce and Dan Kelly — and of course, that gorgeous vocal twang — Kelly has put together a songbook built from own his work and also tracks written around poems borrowed from greats like Sylvia Plath, Dylan Thomas and Gerard Manley Hopkins. It’s a bold move in terms of ego, but one that his talent can definitely deliver on. Opener And Death Shall Have No Dominion (borrowed from Thomas) takes the graveside to the campsite, rolling along, repeating the title line like an anthem, supported by Vika & Linda Bull to really bring it on home. A gentle but definite ‘fuck you’ to the grimmest of reapers. A similar sonic sentiment carries to single With The One I Love, dramatised as an old-school criminal trial for the accompanying video (well worth a viewing and features a great cameo by Mojo Juju). Next up is a total shift with A Bastard Like Me (For Charlie Perkins). This tune, originally written by Kelly as a poem inspired by Perkins’ autobiography, captures the indigenous activist’s spark and grit. With the blessing of Perkins’ family, it is both a celebration and educational lesson, all delivered with a bloody good hook. There’s a sweet and funny disdain for humanity in the dreamy With Animals ; while Bound To Follow (Aisling Song) features a soaring refrain from Kate Miller-Heidke, giving a ghostly feel and a nod to Irish folk. Kelly again finds the beauty in the ordinary with Seagulls Of Seattle, a story song
Paul Kelly Nature EMI
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as good as any in his back cat to date; while Morning Storm is just a classic, romantic and sweet love song, delivered without cynicism or underhandedness, just sheer delight at being with another and being allowed to take shelter with them — beautiful. This one is best combined with the stringsupported gorgeousness of The River Song for best results — another lovely ode that celebrates small details. Plath’s Mushrooms gets a sleepy sound, delivered on the bed of Dan Kelly’s airy axe and with plenty of room between verses, inviting those in the know to dust off their old poetry books and examine the minimalist original again. Gerald Manley Hopkins’ God’s Grandeur is at first a bit jarring as Kelly deliberately rushes the lines together, hooked together with a chord structure so simple it almost feels like it’s come from a children’s show. The effect is deliberately ear-catching and almost overwhelming at times — perfectly capturing, upon second, third and fortieth, listen the awe shown in the poet’s original while again, the Bull sisters support and provide some redemption that’s perfectly on point. In the promo for the album, Kelly proudly proclaims that this is an album of mostly short songs, with only one going for more than three minutes (to a self-indulgent four minutes and six seconds). This dedication to brevity makes the album all the more remarkable — a collection with no wasted time but somehow with plenty of room to invite the listener in. Liz Giuffre
Bleeding Knees Club
Cat Power
Last Dinosaurs
Atreyu
Inertia
Domino
Dew Process / Universal
Spinefarm / Caroline
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For their third studio album, Yumeno Garden, Brisbane’s Last Dinosaur boys have done little to alter their output. Erring on the pop side of rock, the album is full of velcro hooks and circular choruses that do an admirable job of lodging themselves into your brain. But the overall effect is one of mild homogeneity, with individual songs not selling themselves so much as they instead paint a sonic spectrum. While intriguing and expansively lush, any subtleties are quickly engulfed like cookie crumbs falling onto a deep plush carpet.
“Who will we leave in our wake?“ is the question that haunts Californian heavy metal outfit Atreyu’s seventh musical instalment. Full of whirring guitars, thumping drums and gritty breakdowns, track after track is explosive and invigorating. Everything erupts for Blind Deaf & Dumb, a vicious, aggressive vent towards an ignorant society before Terrified brings a muchdeserved pause from the noise. The pause is temporary, as Anger Left Behind gives a cathartic release of pent-up rage and Super Hero ties the thematics of life, mortality, and the light that guides us through it all nicely up in a bow.
Fade The Hammer
HHH½ It’s been eight years since two young Gold Coast brats leapt the fence into the limelight. But as quickly as they made a name for themselves, they seemed to drop off the radar. Now Alex Wall’s hit the reset button with a fresh line-up and a fresh take on what the original pairing did best. Wall commands every song with his slightly nasally drawl, and it’s like the vintage Bleeding Knees Club never went away. But in so many ways this is definitely not the same band it was, and that’s a good thing with hindsight. Carley Hall
Wanderer
Yumeno Garden
HH½
On Cat Power’s tenth studio album, Wanderer, Chan Marshall has inadvertently created the perfect soundtrack for any hip cafe that refuses to add milk to your coffee. None of the tracks are horrible but the fact that nothing here will grab you means that the meditative nature of these sadcore tunes does little to justify their inaccessibility. Secret nuggets of lyrical gold may reveal themselves to dedicated listeners eventually, but Marshall has forgotten that good lyrics will only smack you in the face if they’ve been delivered on the wind of a great melody. Sadly those are nowhere to be found on Wanderer.
Nic Addenbrooke
Donald Finlayson
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In Our Wake
Emily Blackburn
For more album reviews, go to www.theMusic.com.au
Parcels
Parcels Because Music / Caroline
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Tom Morello
John Grant
Disturbed
Sony
Bella Union / [PIAS]
Reprise / Warner
The Atlas Underground
Love Is Magic
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Evolution
HHH
If you’re roasting in your beachwear, the last thing you need in a summer anthem is heavy kick drums and club energy. You want music that’s like a gentle sea breeze, refreshing the parts that other bands can’t reach. Enter the leisurely shimmer-funk of Parcels. Everything about Parcels seems contradictory. Barely out of their teens, their understated yacht-rock softly harks back to a genre that ended before they were born. It’d be tempting to finish with some bottom drawer journalistic platitude like “Parcels really deliver this time” — and it looks like I just did.
Tom Morello still rages, and in terms of its scope, sound and sheer energy, this release is another corker. The album features some great collaborators, and with each song, Morello takes a slightly different tack. Opener Battle Sirens (feat Knife Party) roars, soars and then drops that beat; while Rabbit’s Revenge (feat Bassnectar, Big Boi, and Killer Mike) is a more traditional and rightfully angry piece. We Don’t Need You (feat Vic Mensa) is the anthemic protest genre at its best and heavier rock fans should check out Vigilante Nocturno (feat Carl Restivo). An incredible collection.
With every album since Queen Of Denmark, John Grant has blown off traditional band arrangements. Love Is Magic completely shakes off any remaining vestments of indie-pop as Grant deals an album that tries its hand at translating ‘80s electro-pop for our current times. The Numan-esque and Yazoo-style hooks and wobbly solos are a lusciously retro flourish on Grant’s songwriting. All of Grant’s albums are peppered with ballads that really show off some strong writing skills and Love Is Magic is certainly no exception.
Already one of hard rock’s biggest names, a few years on, Evolution ‘s ten cuts incorporate a sizeable dose of balladry to the extent that it may be jarring for some fans. Whether the acoustic flourishes, harmonies and so forth are a concession to new converts or the success of a mainstream hit simply bolstering their confidence to venture into a new stylistic territory, only they may know. But there’s plenty of meat and potatoes for diehards, bustling with earworm melodies, booming riffs, syncopated punches and various electronic touches so we should expect Evolution to dominate charts.
Christopher H James
Liz Giuffre
Guido Farnell
Brendan Crabb
Empress Of
Oh Pep!
Us
Terrible Records / Caroline
I Wasn’t Only Thinking About You
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ATO
The second offering from Empress Of (aka Lorely Rodriguez) is pure electro-pop with crisp vocals and an interesting angle. Opener Everything To Me sets a cool mood of contemporary love. The album holds slower and cheekier moments, including Just The Same, something of an anti-love song, complete with the line, “I want you on top of me like a paperweight.“ There’s the philosophy-with-a-great-beat I Don’t Even Smoke Weed and the Casio-styled feminism of Timberlands to enjoy. The last track, Again, is a real drawcard with a great sonic atmosphere that provides a bed for the vocals and verse. Lovely work, that’s nicely done. Liz Giuffre
Hands Like Houses
Independent
UNFD
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Jodi Phillis’ Becoming, her latest offering, is a folk-pop, experimentally-tinged, Poziblefunded ode to her late parents, love, life and everything in between. Featuring more than a dash of mystical flute, acoustic guitar and piano, it would be easy to sort Becoming into the new-age section of the record store. But ‘60s gospel vocals and Beach Boys-esque cinematic strings add the right point of difference to Phillis’ fifth studio album. Pop hooks and interesting melodies have always been Phillis’ strong point, along with her dreamy voice, and those are the things that shine on this album.
The decade in which Canberra five-piece Hands Like Houses have cultivated their sound, their shows and their general place in among their melodic hardcore peers has been a solid one. But album number four has brought a distinct shift in sound. It’s one that isn’t as instantly likeable because there’s nary a song on Anon. that grabs you by the ears and makes you wonder, ‘What is this?’ And if it does make you wonder, it’s for all the wrong reasons. If Anon. had a colour, it would most definitely be beige. And that’s a shame because this band has been capable of so much more.
Rebecca Nosiara
Carley Hall
Becoming
HHHH The second album from Oh Pep! is the cherry on top of their debut Stadium Cake. The Melbourne duo are back to capture the hearts of their fans with a more mature indie-folk sound and an arsenal of playful hooks that could seduce anyone. Olivia Hally and Pepita Emmerichs’ angelic vocals just dazzle like two stars in the night sky; they are so powerful together but also so beautifully separate. They leave you in awe of their many talents. As artists Oh Pep! have grown into something beautiful that is well worth exploring. Aneta Grulichova
The Music
Jodi Phillis
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Anon.
+++++ +++++ +++++ +++++ DAILY MAIL
THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH
TRIPADVISOR
‘I LAUGHED. I CRIED. I ROCKED!’ JACK BLACK
BASED ON THE HILARIOUS HIT MOVIE FROM 31 OCTOBER HER MAJESTY’S THEATRE SchoolOfRockMusical.com.au The Music
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Malthouse Theatre 2019 Season In the four years since artistic director Matthew Lutton took the reins of Malthouse Theatre, he has made it his business to cement the Sturt Street venue as one of the country’s foremost centres for Australian-made storytelling. And season on season, Lutton has built on this ambition, in scope and scale. Earlier this year, a collaboration with Melbourne-based playwright Declan Greene saw Lars von Trier’s planet-smashing epic Melancholia sublimely spun for the stage. But even by that cosmic yard stick, 2019’s offering is reaching for even loftier heights, including a mammoth five-hour adaptation of Tim Winton’s masterpiece Cloudstreet (details overleaf). But there’ll also be more intimate moments to look forward to, including a cabaret-driven anti-pantomime for next year’s festive season, created by the incomparably fabulous chanteuse extraordinaire Meow Meow (pictured). Expect the best Christmas cracker in town – immaculate conceptions not included – from 7 Nov 2019.
Highlights of Malthouse Theatre 2019 season
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Australian Realness Playwright Zoey Dawson delivers her mainstage debut in this barbed comedy of manners, needling the class and cultural divides that still thrive in our modern society. Offspring star Linda Cropper will be channelling both the bourgeois and the bogan, playing multiple roles throughout. From 16 Aug
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Cloudstreet A cherished classic of Aussie literature, Tim Winton’s tale of the Pickles and the Lambs – two families sharing a rundown house in Perth for two decades – is being brought to life in a five-hour epic, directed by Matthew Lutton. This promises to be the must-see show of 2019.
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From 6 May
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Wake In Fright Playwright Declan Greene has emerged in the past few years as one of the most exciting and talented dramatists of his generation. While he’s perhaps best known for his skills with comedy and satire, this horror-based work reveals a darker side to his storytelling. Zahra Newman stars.
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From 21 Jun
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Barbara And The Camp Dogs Having already played smash-hit seasons at other major Australian theatres, this rock-powered quasi-biopic sees Ursula Yovich become Barbara, a fierce pub singer confronted by the impending loss of her dying mother. Great theatre and great music guaranteed.
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From 7 Feb
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My Dearworthy Darling Celebrated novelist and award-winning theatre critic Alison Croggon has turned her talents to theatre-making in this new play created for Melbourne-based theatre troupe The Rabble. A gripping two-hander, it counterpoints the lives of two women from different eras who both defy the patriarchy. From 2 Aug
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Solaris Scottish playwright David Greig’s awardwinning adaptation of Stanislaw Lem’s cerebral sci-fi thriller has its Australian premiere at Malthouse. Directed by Matthew Lutton, it tells the story of a strange planet, where spacefaring explorers reencounter the ghosts of lost loved ones. From 28 Jun
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MOU960 The Music October Issue Qld and Vic_FA.pdf
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4:23 pm
Drink Responsibly.
n o l l o R ER. M M U S goatbeer.com.au
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Don’t mind doing it for the kids
Stephen A Russell speaks to actor, musician and composer Brent Hill about his leading role in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s upcoming School Of Rock stage adaptation, the challenges of playing the guitar on stage and learning to be a kid again.
F
acing an early challenge to his authority while masquerading as a substitute music teacher, Jack Black’s Dewey Finn whips an a cappella number out of thin air in Richard Linklater’s rabble-rousing musical comedy School Of Rock. “In his heart he knew, the artist must be true, but the legend of the rent was way past due.” Venting after being chucked out of both his band and his apartment by ex-flatmate and actual fill-in teacher Ned Schneebly — as played by the movie’s writer Mike White — it’s a pivotal moment in getting the already suspicious kids on his side. Having watched the movie ten times or more during prep for his time in the not-entirely-dissimilar hairmetal jukebox musical Rock Of Ages, it’s also the scene that most sticks in the mind of actor, musician and composer Brent Hill. He’ll step into Dewey’s frustrated rock star shoes in the Australian premiere of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Broadway and West End-wowing adaptation at Her Majesty’s Theatre in Melbourne. “It’s quite difficult to get that out of your subconscious,” he chuckles. “But I have to make it my own, and I do have a lot of help with 14 original songs from Andrew Lloyd Webber. I mean, that part is fundamentally different.” A fast-rising star in the musical scene, Hill has also toured internationally with Once and gone head-to-head with a giant talking plant in the weird and wonderful Little Shop Of Horrors. The latter attracted the attention of Australia’s main stages, with roles in Eddie Perfect’s Vivid White and Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband following at the Melbourne Theatre Company (MTC). And he appeared alongside “the best actor I have ever seen”, Hugo Weaving in Sydney Theatre Company’s (STC) celebrated The Resistible Rise Of Arturo Ui. “ He’s a master of the craft, and you know how they say, ‘Don’t meet your heroes?’” Hill begins. “Well, I’ve had that experience before and was a little bit more cautious going in this time, but he really blew us all away. He just galvanised the piece and us as a cast, and I’m hoping that after seeing him at work I can do the same kind of thing with the kids on this.” Of course, they also say you should never work with kids or animals, and while there are none of the latter in School Of Rock, there is a rotating cast of 36 youngsters. Three for each role in Dewey’s class of Battle of the Bands-competing mini rockers he intends to sneak out of school, including bass player Katie (Samantha Zhang, Remy Grunden, Tiana Mirra) and drummer Freddy (Kempton Maloney, Bailey Landeg, Ethan Stephenson). “They’re actually the main reason I said yes to doing this,” an undaunted Hill insists. “It’s quite a demanding show because we are literally playing live while trying to focus on the lyrics and the melody too, trying to play your guitar correctly and listen to each other as a band and stay connected. There are a lot of spinning plates and the kids change it up
every night. They come in with a different energy, and that energy is really useful. For us old-timers, it’s really cool.” The buzz from bouncing off of them in rehearsals has been a timely reminder for Hill that it’s ok to be a big kid himself. “The world has taught me that I need to be an adult. You know, mature, but the fact is that I have to remember that freedom you have when you are younger, and that enjoyment of playing, of making silly jokes and not being demonstrative to each other, but just having fun. And you’d think it would be the easiest thing in the world, but it’s actually quite tricky, trying to re-program yourself.” Hill’s childhood love of musicals was sparked by attending community productions of Grease and — oblivious of his destiny to play put-upon florist Seymour in Dean Bryant’s 2016 production — by watching legendary Muppeteer Frank Oz’ Oscar-nominated adaptation of the Howard Ashman and Alan Menken show Little Shop Of Horrors, itself a spin on a 1960 B-movie by Roger Corman. He was thrilled by Rick Moranis in the role he would one day play, as the huge-in-the-’80s star contended with the mutant plant that terrorises him, as voiced by Levi Stubbs. “It’s excellent,” he recalls. “The music is so incredible.” He also tips his hat to David King’s 2003 production of Andrew Lippa’s musical The Wild Party, based on Joseph Moncure March’s 1928 epic Jazz Age poem, that he caught at the WA Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA) no fewer than three times. It was the show that set his heart on going to WAAPA himself, ultimately leading him to Weber and School Of Rock. “The Wild Party made me think, ‘Wow, this is what musical theatre can be.’ It can be this big, swelling, realistic, earnest thing that can really move people. It was so phenomenal that I thought, ‘Ok, musical theatre, I can do this.’” Playing Seymour has been a career highlight to date, but it was also a role that required a huge amount of physical stamina. “I’m very grateful to Dean, because that really got me noticed by MTC and STC, and I’m kinda hoping that Little Shop Of Horrors was harder to do because I was never off-stage in act two, but this new gig is kinda similar, with a lot of high energy singing.” With any luck, the kids will help him out in the energy department, and Hill’s also cycling to rehearsals every day, trying to build up his reserves for the demanding work of the months to come. He never imagined that his constant re-watching of Jesus Christ Superstar on VHS, “like all the cool kids”, would one day lead him to work with Weber. “It’s still kind of melting my brain. I remember when I first saw it I thought, ‘What is this?’ It was so fantastic, and the music is just so electric, excellent, vibrant and alive. And here I am in his newest show. I’m just so grateful, but it’s also bizarre. I’m kind of like, ‘How?’”
School Of Rock is at Her Majesty’s Theatre, Melbourne, from 31 Oct
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“It’s quite a demanding show because we are literally playing live while trying to focus on the lyrics and the melody too, trying to play your guitar correctly and listen to each other as a band and stay connected.”
Film & TV American Animals
HHHH In cinemas from 4 Oct
Reviewed by Anthony Carew
Y
ears ago, Werner Herzog famously declared that, as a filmmaker working in both fiction and non-fiction, he wasn’t into the accountant’s truth, only the “ecstatic truth”. It was a fancy way of saying, really, to never let facts get in the way of a good story, no matter how you’re telling it. Over time, the demarcation between these supposedly-separate modes of movies has dissipated: more documentaries shining a light on their own subjectivity, more dramas inserted into recognisable reality. American Animals is a grandstanding example of a film forcibly confronting audiences with their own acceptance of supposed cinematic truths. It recounts a real-life 2004 heist of a host of rare books from a Kentucky library, both as dramatic recreation starring hot young actors (Barry Keoghan, Evan Peters, Blake Jenner, Jared Abrahamson) and as documentary finding the real-life participants remembering their experiences. Years later, these talking-heads are the most unreliable of narrators, but, then again,
so is the filmmaker, whose dramatisation reshapes the real into whatever works best, cinematically. In its most incisive moments, the players-be they interview subjects or acted characterisations- call the whole thing into question; disputing not just facts, events, or others recollections, but the filmmaking decisions and the way the tricks of cinema manipulate an audience. It’s the work of Bart Layton and furthers the ideas the British director put into play on his debut, 2012’s The Imposter. That film was essentially a documentary, exploring a stranger-than-fiction tale in which a French con-artist posed as the long-lost son of a Texan family. Having teased at the notion of an unreliable narrator last time around, here Layton makes all of this meta-text. By laying it on the table, he forces audiences to question their usual consumption of on-screen ‘reality’. In such, American Animals evokes a different maxim by a great European auteur: Michael Haneke’s assertion that “film is 24 lies per second at the service of truth”.
Big Mouth Season 2
HHHH Airs from 5 Oct on Netflix
Reviewed by Guy Davis
C
o-created by Nick Kroll, Big Mouth made a big impression upon its premiere, with its frank depiction of teen hormones run amok combined with a density of witty one-liners and healthy absurdity (the ghost of jazz musician Duke Ellington, vigorously voiced by Get Out ‘s Jordan Peele, is on hand to offer terrible advice about life and love) and topped off with attitudes towards sex, desire, consent, body image and other fraught issues that are sensible, sensitive and, well, woke without being smug about it. Puberty continues to run roughshod over Big Mouth ‘s young characters in the equally accomplished season two, especially for best friends Nick (voiced by Kroll), who’s a very late bloomer (“I’m like a Tic-Tac with shoes”), and Andrew (John Mulaney), who’s getting taller, broader and hairier by the second, much to the neurotic lad’s chagrin. The girls aren’t having any easier, though — Jessi (comedy writer Jessi Klein, killing it as a comedy actor) is reacting to her parents’ separation by flirting with shoplifting and
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edibles, and even sweet, level-headed Missy (Jenny Slate, possibly the show’s MVP) has an incident of self-loathing, which she overcomes with a well-placed C-bomb. But this is adolescence, when not everyone acts in their best interest, so some deal with an inexplicable attraction to boys with “garbage dicks”, while an outbreak of “boob fever” sends already raging libidos into overdrive (“This is a controversial stance, but I’m pro-boob,” announces Nick). And all the while, the Shame Wizard (voiced by David Thewlis!) is lurking, looking for a chance to make everyone feel terrible about themselves. It’s a painfully, hilariously honest show, but it’s also heartfelt and right-on about the best ways to conduct yourself as a friend, a sexual partner and a human being, with an incredibly deep bench of American comedy talent voicing a cavalcade of characters (fans of Mulaney will be thrilled that the corrupt Chicago cop from his stand-up special Kid Gorgeous gets a workout here).
The Melbourne International Arts Festival
Brace yourself Melburnians, a month-long celebration of worldclass art and performance is headed your way. We caught up with some of this year’s headliners ahead of their MIAF seasons.
3-21 Oct
Acoustic shock
The last decade has seen a rise in the popularity of modern classical music and its influence on other genres, particularly electronic music. One of the leading lights in the scene is German composer Nils Frahm and in a revealing conversation with Chris Familton, he discusses his musical beginnings, his future and the constant flux of his live shows.
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t’s 1:30am on an autumn morning in Berlin and Nils Frahm is ensconced in Saal 3, his studio in the iconic, Funkhaus, a building from the ‘50s that previously housed world-class recording facilities and was home to GDR state radio. “I’m always a professional, always working when I’m not sleeping,” he laughs. “I like the night, it’s perfect for musicians. It’s quiet and inspiring. I’ve been in the studio for four hours and I’ve already unlearned how to speak and so it is civilising to talk a little bit.” It’s been a big year for Frahm, with a heavy touring schedule on the back of his acclaimed All Melody album. He’s about to return to Australia for the first time in four years but don’t expect to immediately recognise songs from the album when he plays them on stage. “All the songs have changed already. I can’t go back to where I started them,” he says, with a note of satisfaction in his voice. “I deconstruct the compositions all the time and build them in a different way. I feel like the songs are ongoing compositions and when the task is to play them again, no one could ask me to play them the same every time. I need to destroy what I did yesterday and redo it today. It needs to be a little bit different each time,” Frahm emphasises. A hallmark of Frahm’s music is his ability to seamlessly blend electronic and acoustic instruments and still retain an organic, tactile and emotionally resonant quality in his work. “It doesn’t matter how something is played, just listen to the music,” Frahm responds, before tracing his fascination with both musical worlds back to the lounge room of his childhood home. “For me, it was a natural connection to electronic music because it was always connected to my father’s hi-fi system. It was highly electronic so that connection between music and electricity was always there for me and wasn’t a separate thing. I was aware that a piano didn’t have a plug and other things did, but I thought a vinyl record player was as exciting as a piano. I liked anything that played music to my ears and made me feel amazing,” says Frahm. “I was always curious about music and I like when I don’t really know how something is made. It can be made by an orchestra, it can be made by a synthesiser or even an algorithm. If it sounds good to my ears, and it all comes out of speakers in the end, I don’t worry. Here in my studio I’m looking at my patch bay and cables one to eight are all microphones and nine to 16 are all synthesisers. They are all the same cables. Even the acoustic piano goes through the same cable as my synthesiser and they come out of the
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same speakers,” explains Frahm, surveying the array of keyboards, pianos and synthesisers around him. The conversation leads to where Frahm first had a strong emotional response to music. Not just hearing it as background music on the radio or in the endless hours of practising scales in piano lessons. “There were some songs that amazed me. ECM released John Surman, the saxophone player who played along to synthesisers and loops. It was something that burnt into my heart,” he recalls passionately. “I was crying to that song when I was a kid, and it had no lyrics or anything. It was just a harmonic motif and the timbre of the synthesiser, together with the saxophone. A truly amazing combination of a real instrument and something alien that I couldn’t understand. I heard many good examples of tasteful blends of those two worlds, even before I recorded anything, so I was very confident that it could be done and I was standing on the shoulders of heroes.” Frahm still has All Melody tour dates stretching into 2019, but what then? He recently released Encores 1 - additional music from the same album sessions, and he hints at but doesn’t confirm that there will be more in that series. For Frahm, it seems like his future is something of a mystery at the moment. “I don’t tend to plan too far ahead. I just want to survive next year and then in 2020 who knows what I’m feeling like doing then. It’s a crazy time in life and I’m meeting a lot of people around me who talk about inspiration and what they want to do in life. I hope by 2020 I’ll be smarter and can imagine something a little wiser than what I’m doing now - being the pop icon who is travelling around the world with tons of equipment and lots of people and playing these silly festivals around each corner.” It’s a revealing and remarkably candid insight into the decisions an artist has to make - the form, timing and responsibility of presenting their art. “I’m totally open for all of this to end, to be honest. I don’t want to be the person who just stops and takes something away from people. I can’t say I’m excited to just finish a tour in two years and then do the next album and then do a huge tour. I don’t know how many years we can go on like this. It’s really crazy man. I’m not dark about the future, I’m excited. but I’m absolutely puzzled.” says Frahm, before returning to the solitude of the early hours, the empty Funkhaus hallways and the cables and synths of his studio.
Nils Frahm tours from 7 Oct.
m e l b o u r n e i n t e r n at i o n a l a r t s f e s t i v a l
Getting to the art of the
matter
Check out these highlights from this year’s MIAF visual arts program From Will To Form
PARALLEL lines
Vox Motus’ Flight is so much more than a three or four-word summary. Ahead of its MIAF season, Joel Lohman speaks to artistic director Candice Edmunds and discovered that although “it might be about two boys travelling from Afghanistan to the UK” the story is a universal one.
C
andice Edmunds - artistic director of Glasgowbased theatre company Vox Motus - is trying to describe their extremely unusual new show, Flight. “As we were making this wretched thing and trying to explain it to our co-producers,” she begins, “we thought when it opened the press would throw us this nice, succinct phrase to describe it. We wanted a three or four word summary of what we’ve made, but it’s never happened. Everyone just says it defies explanation.” Flight, which had a successful run in Edinburgh before making its way to New York, Ireland and now Melbourne, tells the story of two young brothers travelling from Afghanistan to London seeking asylum. Based on the novel Hinterland by Caroline Brothers, the story is an amalgamation of several first-hand accounts of unaccompanied minors in Europe. What makes this adaptation so unusual is its form. Audience members sit in private booths and look at a massive revolving carousel filled with 200 dioramas. “It’s like a 3D graphic novel being slowly unveiled before your eyes,” says Edmunds. Twenty-five people can experience it at a time, each at a different point in what Edmunds calls a “continual storytelling device”. “To me, it’s theatre,” Edmunds says. “The actors are very present, speaking right into your ear through the headphones. I can’t think of it as anything other than theatrical, even though it’s not a live stage experience. We didn’t realise we were making something so unique, but that’s also the joy of it - making something that’s really unusual in the landscape of theatre.” Could this story be told using a more conventional medium? “Oh, for sure,” says Edmunds. “It’s the story of our time - mass displacement of people. I think the unseen plight of unaccompanied children travelling in hope of seeking refuge or asylum could work in any medium.”
The Music
This makes her practice innately difficult to produce, and often even more difficult to describe, she says. “At the time we set out to make it, we were worried no one would buy a ticket because it felt like such an overwhelming and depressing narrative with no easy solution. We felt so committed to telling the story, but what can we do to entice people in? And we thought if we could make the form as interesting or intriguing as possible, then that might help people want to come and experience this story.” Edmunds says the plight of refugees seemed simultaneously overwhelming and underexplored. “It felt like this really relentless front page headline story,” she says. “We just wanted to take it back to being human again. It’s so difficult, the numbers are so big. So really that was the starting motivation: how do we bring it back to something very intimate? At no point in the story do we talk politics, it’s really about these two brothers, their relationship and this journey that they go on. That’s not to say it’s not a political piece, but it’s motivated by really trying to understand an individual’s experience.” Given the turbulent geopolitical reality at present, Edmunds feels presenting this show now is particularly important. “Sometimes in our work, we tell stories that are just wild imagination,” says Edmunds. “That’s what we’re known for. But I think we live in troubling times and it’s important to find ways of having these conversations and the theatre is a great place to have a conversation about a difficult subject. It is important that we use that space to share ideas and talk about what’s troubling us.” So what’s it like having this show about a journey across continents now making its own way to different countries around the world? “There’s kind of a beautiful poetry in that, isn’t there?” Edmunds says with a chuckle. “It’s brilliant for it to be travelling around. We were worried that it was such a European story and we weren’t sure how it would be received. But then it’s opening in New York and we’re hearing all about the border with Mexico and we realise of course it’s a completely international story. Everyone is tackling this issue of displacement and even though it might be about two boys travelling from Afghanistan to the UK, the parallels are immediately applicable, no matter what part of the world we go to.”
This year, the TarraWarra Biennial is exploring how the most ineffable qualities of humanity are physically manifested by artists. And the myriad responses represented – from a three-day-straight whistle, to throwing around liquid bronze – reveal just how complex and mercurial human expression can be.
Until 6 Nov at TarraWarra Museum Of Art
Mike Parr: Kindness Is So Gangster
Parr is an artist who has spent much of his creative life exploring ways to capture his own essence, through a dizzying range of different practices. The most recent incarnation of this long-running Self Portrait Project features a radically innovative approach: creating observational works without using sight.
From 5 Oct at Anna Schwartz Gallery
Steven Rhall: Defunctionalised Autonomous Objects
Flight plays from 5 Oct at Arts Centre Melbourne
Taungurung artist Steven Rhall creates a bold challenge to the Western conception of the gallery. Dismantling and decolonising this space, a series of installations interrogate and defy the very idea that Aboriginal culture and expression can be classified as a genre of art. From 13 Oct at Substation
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Pic: Immy Owusu
2 Worlds Festival The 2 Worlds Festival aims to bring cultures together in a fun, entertaining and interactive atmosphere and is a fundraising event for the Marrma’ Rom Foundation. The Festival will showcase a variety of Indigenous and western performers, art, traditional and not so traditional activities, and Indigenous and modern-multicultural food offerings. Performers on the day include Adalita, Baker Boy, Shane Howard, Tim Rogers, Yirrmal, Immy Owusu and more. The 2 Worlds Festival returns to the Fyansford Paper Mills on 20 Oct.
The other festive season
Is it possible that the body glitter and bucket hat industries are involved in a massive plot to increase profits by saturating the market with music festivals? Either way, fests of all kinds are a bloody joy to attend. With so many to choose from all across Victoria, here are our picks for the ones you should be going ham at.
Beyond The Valley Little known fact, Beyond The Valley was originally named “Beyond The Alley” and took place in a dirty side street in Brunswick. That’s not true, but it’d be funny if it was. Anyway, Beyond The Valley takes place 28 Dec at Lardner Park with The Kooks, Joey Bada$$ and heaps more massive acts.
Alive
Anthrax
Joey Bada$$
The Hills Are Alive has only announced one artist so far, but when that artist is Vera Blue things are looking good. Blue will be joined by a mass of acts and slew of hilarious comedians across the three-day event starting 29 Mar at The Farm.
Download You wouldn’t download a festival! But if you could, it’d be this year’s Download at Flemington Racecourse, taking place 11 Mar. With hard-rock and metal acts like Ozzy Osbourne and Anthrax playing, there’s bound to be headbangers galore.
Under The
Southern Stars
A young little event in its second year (that’s twenty in festival years!), Under The Southern Stars will be featuring such classic Aussie acts as the Hoodoo Gurus, Eskimo Joe and British India and it’s all kicking off 12 Jan at the Hastings Foreshore Reserve.
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Vera Blue
Hoodoo Gurus
Hills Are
Your town
Falls
Festival
Anderson .Paak
It’s Falls Festival. You’ll be in Lorne from 28 to 31 Dec to see Catfish & The Bottlemen, Vance Joy, Anderson .Paak, Toto, Hilltop Hoods, Chvrches, Amy Shark and more, whether we recommend it to you or not. So have fun.
Loch Hart
The Loch Hart Festival is the perfect opportunity to escape the city and try your hand at glamping while hearing great acts like WAAX and IV League. It all takes place in Princeton starting 16 Nov in the heart of the Great Ocean Road.
Cash Savage & The Last Drinks
Festival
Bendigo Autumn
Music Festival
IV Leafue
Making its debut in the Bendigo CBD 25 — 28 Apr, the upcoming Bendigo Autumn Music Festival could potentially feature up to 80 artists and more than 200 performances spread across its four day run. Melburnians are advised to head out and bend it like Bendigo.
Grampians
Music
Festival
What makes your event stand out from
friendly vibe, she invited one
other festivals?
young (eight-year-old) dancer
Grampians Music Festival highlights up and
up to share the stage where
coming Australian independent artists. With
he rocked out for her set.
one stage in the Grampians National Park, no How is the festival land-
clashes and talented indie artists, you’re in for three days of amazing music. We keep our
scape changing?
crowd small for a boutique experience. Big
The responsibility of festivals
mountains, huge sounds.
as social entities is changing. You need to make conscious
Carly Flecknoe Director
What’s improved for your next event?
choices. You need to decide
A well curated line from Friday night’s Best in
what your line up says about
the West night, to Sunday night’s closing party,
your event, how you will look
so you’re in for a musical adventure. We’ve
after the space you inhabit
partnered with Halls Gap Gardens Caravan
and how you provide a supportive community
Park to provide affordable camping packages.
for artists and patrons who attend.
is a safe space?
We have implemented a RESPECT policy
We have introduced our Environmental SusIs there more pressure to create an “insta-
that all artists, patrons, security personal,
Photos are what help to keep memories but
who challenges the principles set out in the
I think if you lose site of the on-the-ground
policy, of respect of personal space, of choice
moment?
experience and replace it with how you are
and of consent, will not be tolerated.
In our first year, the incredible CC:Disco closed
perceived online, you dilute the beauty of
out our Saturday night. Joining in to the family
being at a festival.
tainability, Diversity and Inclusion Policy and
grammable” festival?
RESPECT Policies. Favourite festival ‘Do you remember when…’
Grampians Music Festival takes place 15-17 Feb in The Grampians.
How do you go about ensuring your festival
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staff and vendors must abide by. Anyone
BOSE rock BIGSOUND
and can rock for you
BOSE Professional brightened up the street corners of BIGSOUND this year with an array of eclectic performers making the event accessible to a diverse range of street performers.
D
Sampa The Great
elivered in partnership with Brisbane City Council and BIGSOUND, the Busking With BOSE program integrated the newly released Bose S1 Pro Portable PA System into performances at various locations around Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley. Allowing a pretty tech-savvy music crowd to witness first hand that you can perform like a pro, anywhere, anytime, delegate pass holders and artists were gifted with a super generous deal for the unit as part of their BIGSOUND pass benefits. If you missed out on that offer don’t panic, we’re giving you the chance to WIN your very own Bose S1 Pro Portable PA System. To enter tell us where your music has taken you—and where have you taken it? We’d love to hear about it. Post your photos on Instagram using #SoundLikeAPro and #TheMusicAndBose, plus tag @Bose and @TheMusicComAu to share your story by 12 Oct.
The Pleasure Garden Let’s go ahead and dispel any uncertainty right now. The Pleasure Garden is not a dystopian, cyberpunk brothel, despite its name. It’s actually a wonderful festival that’s bringing the likes of Sampa The Great to our very own sunny Catani Gardens in St Kilda this 8 Dec.
The Lost
Lands
Get ready for the adventure of a lifetime condensed into the convenience of a weekend with The Lost Lands festival on 3 — 4 Nov in Werribee. Designed for families but also suitable for hipsters who just really love the arts, there’ll be something for everyone.
Grampians Music Festival It may be a few letters away from sounding like an event for Grandad, but the Grampians Music Festival, which runs 15 — 17 Feb in the, you guessed it, Grampans National Park will be featuring fresh Aussie talent for the whole family.
Pause Festival Press play on your passion for the creative tech industry and head down to Pause Fest, which runs from 6 — 10 Feb at Federation Square. Brainiacs from companies like Netflix, Amazon and more will be there to discuss the future of the industry.
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NYE On The Hill Go easy on the champers this year you animals, because with acts like The Smith Street Band and Last Dinosaurs, this is one NYE party that you’ll actually want to remember. It runs from 30 Dec to 1 Jan on a hill in South Gippsland, obviously.
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Busking with BOSE. Dan Horne. Pic: Bobby Rein
Big Mountains, Huge Sounds
15-17 FEBRUARY 2019
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Kwame. Photo by Joshua Braybrook.
For the latest live reviews go to theMusic.com.au
“Maidza climbs the stage-right scaffolding once more, stage dives and then crowd-surfs back to the stage.” – Bryget Chrisfield
Tkay Maidza @ Howler. Photos by Renee Coster.
Ten years in the game
and Shane Parsons and
DZ Deathrays The word ‘queen’ gets thrown
around a lot when Tkay Maidza’s name comes up and her Flexin’
tour with Kwame and Arno Faraji
was just more proof that she utterly rules. As if we needed any..
Courtney Barnett @ Festival Hall. Photo by Joshua Braybrook.
If Courtney Barnett played a show
every night from now until the heat death of the universe you’d find
us front and centre at every one. 100%, one of the greats.
“It’s encouraging to see young girls up on adults’ shoulders, wide-eyed and mesmerised, watching Barnett absolutely owning it up there — you can’t be what you can’t see, right?”
@ The Forum. Photos by Jaz Meadows.
Simon Ridley haven’t
lost a step. If you were
at The Forum when DZ
Deathrays rolled in last month, chances are
you’re probably still trying to sleep it off.
“It’s simply not possible to leave a DZ show without at least a solid buzz.” – Madison Thomas
– Bryget Chrisfield
Unknown Mortal Orchestra @ The Forum. Photos by Joshua Braybrook.
Portland psych R&B outfit
Unknown Mortal Orchestra were
kind enough to visit with their lat-
est, Sex & Food, and we are so glad
they did. Let’s hope it’s not another three years between visits.
“Nielson decides to jump off-stage, guitar in tow, and circle the whole venue, signalling his intentions right off the bat.” – Sean A’Hearn
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Howzat! Local music by Jeff Jenkins
Major Keyes: the great Australian songwriter
Milestones and memories Perry Keyes’ Jim Salmon’s Lament (MGM) is out 5 Oct. Paul Kelly’s Nature (EMI) is out 12 Oct.
Five years ago
Dami Im wins the fifth Australian series of The X Factor. Ten years ago
AC/DC release Black Ice, their first
album in eight years. It debuts at
number one in 29 countries, including Australia, the US and UK.
Gabriella Cilmi, 17, dominates the
ARIAs, winning six awards, including Best Female Artist and Single of the
Year for Sweet About Me. The Presets become the first dance act to win
Album of the Year and Best Group. 20 years ago Perry Keyes
Cold Chisel release their comeback
P
erry Keyes recently launched his fifth album, Jim Salmon’s Lament, at Sydney’s Camelot Lounge. As Keyes played one of the new songs, Hyde Park Hotel, Peter Garrett turned to the person next to him and exclaimed, “It’s raining great lyrics!” Keyes is a masterful lyricist. Howzat! has stated there is no better Australian songwriter, which a magazine recently called “an extravagant claim”. But we stand by it. And, of course, Peter Garrett knows a thing or two about great Australian songwriters, being one himself. He has said of Keyes, “Perry is the real deal. Songs from the heart, from the Aussie street. He is a rare talent.” But what makes a great Australian songwriter? As Nick Cave said, “There’s an element to songwriting that I can’t explain, that comes from somewhere else. I can’t explain that dividing line between nothing and something that happens within a song, where you have absolutely nothing and then suddenly you have something. It’s like the origin of the universe.” There are great romantic songwriters — for want of a better word — artists such as Stephen Cummings, Darren Hayes, Deborah Conway, Graeham Goble, Melody Pool, Robert Forster & Grant McLennan, and Family Fold’s Paul Andrews. But who are the great Australian songwriters? They don’t have to be political, but I believe they dare to define the times we live in. As well as Perry Keyes, Howzat!’s list would include Paul Kelly, Don Walker, Ben Lee, Archie Roach, James Reyne, Courtney Barnett, Richard Clapton, The Fauves’ Andrew Cox, Mark Seymour, Missy Higgins, Charles Jenkins, Bernard Fanning, Neil Murray, Tim Rogers, Shane Howard, David Bridie, Mick Thomas and Skyhooks’ Greg Macainsh. Though Missy Higgins covered Keyes’ NYE on her Oz album (“He has these incredible descriptions of the chaos of youth, that moment in your teenage years where everything is a little bit volatile and new and a bit scary and a bit exciting”), Rhythms magazine recently asked: “Why is Keyes still Australia’s best-kept contemporary music secret?” He is the Springsteen you’ve never heard of, depicting “the part of Sydney they don’t show you on the postcards”.
album, The Last Wave Of Summer.
Gough Whitlam presents The Whitlams with the Best Group award at
Keyes lives in the inner-city suburb of Waterloo, and says the ABBA lyric is apt: “Waterloo , couldn’t escape if I wanted to.” The Whitlams’ Tim Freedman calls Keyes “one of the greatest lyricists Australia has produced. He is the Ruth Park of the end of last century’s Redfern. His characters live, and they have all the more impact for not having been spoken for before.” Keyes’ songs have been labelled Sydney-centric, but the urban themes are universal. “For me, it’s very important that the songs aren’t parochial to the exclusion of anyone who doesn’t come from the geography that I’m referencing,” he explains. “In the end, they’re stories about the way people are living.” Asked for his favourite storytellers, Keyes lists Lou Reed, Tom Waits, Chuck Berry and Arctic Monkeys’ Alex Turner, while Cold Chisel’s Star Hotel is the Australian song he wishes he’d written. “It’s got a cool intro and a great punk chorus.” Keyes is also a Midnight Oil fan — he would sneak into their pub gigs when he was 15, so it’s surreal that Peter Garrett now goes to his gigs. “When Peter Garrett came up to say hello it was like meeting the Easter Bunny.” Keyes spent a lot of his early life in hospital after contracting polio at 14 months. “It gave me a dodgy leg, but it helped me in a way. Instead of playing football or riding a skateboard, I sat in my room with my guitar.” And he started writing songs. “It was the only thing I’ve ever done that made me feel like it was something I could do.” Jim Salmon’s Lament is the story of a family Keyes knew when he was growing up, with Jim Salmon “referring to a fish trying to swim upstream to survive”. The imagery is rich and vivid. Big Jim and Jenny honeymoon at a caravan park in Toowoon Bay, live in a town of “front yard mechanics”, and raise two kids, Jimmy and Iris. “She was as cool as Evonne Goolagong,” Keyes sings in Hyde Park Hotel. “I was as straight as the Milkybar Kid.” And Big Jim wears Adidas Rom sneakers and a Larco hoodie. “These are just details that don’t mean a thing,” Keyes claims in the opening track, Let’s Have A Smoke Outside, but, of course, it’s the detail that means everything. “I just want to make my albums like musical movies or musical novels,” Keyes says. “I want to write lyrics so that when you hear the first couple of lines you can see it.”
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the ARIA Awards.
The Masters Apprentices and The Angels are inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame.
30 years ago
Kylie ‘s Je Ne Sais Pas Pourquoi hits
number two in the UK. She is the first artist to have four Top 3 singles from the one album in the UK. 40 years ago
Little River Band ‘s Reminiscing goes to number three in the US.
The “Wild One” Johnny O’Keefe dies of a heart attack, aged 43.
Hot Podcast
Ruck ‘n Roll Sport and music. there’s nothing better. Combine the two and you’ve got the Ruck ‘n Roll podcast, starring Uncanny X-Men’s Brian Mannix and Melbourne’s best footy journo Rohan Connolly, with radio veteran Kevin Hillier doing his best to keep them in line. The chemistry is right, and the comedy is champagne. For those about to ruck, we salute you.
LIVE MUSIC - BOOZE - FUNCTIONS - BEER GARDEN Fri 5th Oct
OD TOMMYDOGS
Thu 25th Oct
SLEEPING GIANT
Sat 6th Oct
THE HARD ROCK SHOW
Fri 26th Oct
BRIDGE THE BORDER
EMBER RAIN
Sat 27th Oct
Thu 11th Oct
Stoned To Death + Zuesifer
Halloween Special Cicadastone + The Spitting Swallows The Nathan Wong Band Green Hollows
Fri 12th Oct
THE DIZZY KIDS
Sun 14th Oct
VOYEUR
Thu 18th Oct
TYLER JAMES
Fri 19th Oct
¨ NTSQUA ¨D KU
Sat 20th Oct
THE BLACK TIDES
Sun 21st Oct
ACE BRICKLAYING
Third Estate + The Love Fish
Yeah, Bad? + Out Of Character The Rest Of Us EP Launch Passion Pop + Maddie Lee Moonshifter + Journals Skyhammer + Silence The Storm
EP Launch Loose End + Stand Tall + Post Pacific
WHOLE LOTTA HELLOWEEN 2
Guns & Posers + Flack Blag + The Shitfits Prime Ministers of the United States Finnspoon + A Gazillion Fighting Foos Featuring members from A-Bomb Whores, A Gazillion Angry Mexicans, BEEF, Cabin Fever, Coffin Wolf, Colour Dazed, Dead Already, Degenerates, Graft vs Host, Hailgun, Out of Towners, Polygamists, Street Fangs + more Costumes encouraged!!
Fri 2nd Nov
WHOLE LOTTA HIP-HOP
Thu 8th Nov
FLASKAS (QLD)
Sat 17th Nov
SHEWOLF
Crooked Thieves + Seddon The Dead Pharaohs
Eater Of The Sky + Moonhunter
Juice Beats + The PROXY (Syd) Oddsox + Revelations (Syd) + guests Album Launch King River Rising + Velvet Bloom
The Mis-Made + CASH Stacy & Harrison
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SATURDAY TH OCT 20
Fyansford Paper Mills, Geelong 12pm-10pm Celebrating Culture—Walking in Two Worlds 10 HIGH FLY * ABOVE THE BIT * ASANTI DANCE THEATRE * ADALITA * ALICE SKYE * ALISTER TURRILL * AYLEEN O ANDRE WARHURST* ANDREA ROBERTSON TRIO * BAKER BOY * Chris Tamwoy * DALLAS WOODS * DRMNGNOW DARREN PERCIVAL * ELLI BELLE * Finnigan August * HOLD//FIRE * IMMY OWUSU * JAMES RIGBY * THE MAES MONIQUE CLARE * MOUNTAIN GREY * PHIA * PHIL & TRUDY EDGELEY * SARAH CARROLL DUO * STEADY STATE MASSIVE SHANE HOWARD & YIRRMAL DUO * TIM ROGERS * TODD COOK * WILLIAM CRIGHTON * YIRRMAL AND THE MILIYAWUTJ Community Event supporting Marrma’ Rom Two Worlds Foundation * First release tickets from $59
2worldsfestival.org.au The Music
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This month’s highlights Son’s out
Liquid courage The VB Hard Yards competition is giving the chance for local bands to support bigger acts on a national run. Claws & Organs, Paper Thin and Being Jane Lane are going on tour this month, kicking off their first date at the Northcote Social Club on 3 Oct with Alex Lahey.
Sonny Smith
Sonny Smith, San Franciscan artist and musician, is gracing The Curtin on 11 Oct with his ‘busted beach-pop’ again, this time in the form of an all-day festival. Joining him are an assortment of local legends like RVG, Terry, Mod Con and heaps more.
Alex Lahey
Sydney Road is getting a brand new live music venue. Stay Gold will be launching this 12 Oct, at the venue formerly known as The Phoenix, with a massive free launch party complete with The Bennies, a DJ set from DZ Deathrays and more.
Rolling through
Katch heat
Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever are in the middle of a huge international tour, which will include Pitchfork Music Festival. Before then, they’re dropping back home to play some shows this month. Make sure to see them at the Corner Hotel on 13 & 14 Oct.
Beloved NZ outfit Katchafire are coming our way again for a five-week run of Australia. The tour swings into Melbourne on 18 Oct when they’ll play Prince Bandroom with support from EarthKry, Digital Afrika and Stick Mareebo.
Katchafire
Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever
The Bennies
Solid
A Swayze & The Ghosts @ Cherry Rock Pic: Joshua Braybrook
Getting hitched If a three-day bus ride with a bunch of rock stars sounds like your thing, then check out A Hitch To The Sticks. Starting on 12 Oct and touring Victoria for two days, the bus ride includes celebrity hitch hikers, gigs from legends like Killing Heidi and Tim Rogers and a rock‘n’roll breakfast.
Cool bus Killing Heidi
The Melbourne Music Bus Tour is back exploring the musical nooks and crannies in the city, from the Australian Music Vault to AC/DC Lane. There’s 12 more guided tours from 6 Oct until March with Melbourne musicologist Bruce Milne and music journalist Mary Mihelakos.
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THU 01 NOV - SOLD OUT
SAT 01 DEC
PSYCROPTIC + ORPHEUS OMEGA
KILLSWITCH ENGAGE FRI 02 NOV
AUNT Y DONNA
TUE 04 DEC
THE ALBUM TOUR
K AMELOT
SAT 03 NOV
WED 05 DEC
FRI 05 OCT
AUNT Y DONNA
10TH ANNIVERSARY TOUR
MON 05 NOV
YAEJI
THU 08 NOV
GARY ÓG
SLEEPMAKESWAVES
THU 06 DEC - SOLD OUT
DEAD KENNEDYS
SAT 06 OCT
THE SUPERJESUS SUN 07 OCT
CHERRY POPPERS
+
SHOWCASE
CONAN BELL WITCH
ROYCE 5’9” USA
FRI 04 JAN
BRENT FA IYA Z
SAT 10 NOV
FRI 19 OCT
SINSAENUM
MR. McCLELL AND’S FINISHING SCHOOL 10 TH BIRTHDAY!
FRI 01 FEB
THE SMY THS
FRI 16 NOV
PERFORM THE QUEEN IS DEAD IN FULL
PRIMAL FEAR + SINNER:
w. DJ ANDREW McCLELLAND & FRIENDS
SAT 20 OCT
APOCALYPSE IN AUSTR ALIA
LIVE IN MELBOURNE
AMENR A
KLEAR
SAT 09 MAR
MICKEY AVALON & DIRT NAST Y
SAT 17 NOV
FRI 26 OCT
CALUM SCOTT
FRI 21 DEC
FOZ ZY
HANDS LIKE HOUSES
SAT 27 OCT - SOLD OUT
FRI 07 DEC
FRI 09 NOV
FRI 12 OCT - SOLD OUT
PETER MURPHY
YAEJI
THE ALBUM TOUR
AUSTR ALIAN REUNION TOUR 2019
SAT 16 MAR
SOILWORK
FRI 30 NOV
VL ATKO STEFANOVSKI TRIO
TIX + INFO
AUSTR ALIAN TOUR 2018
PETIT BISCUIT (FRA)
21 SEPTEMBER
MA X WATTS.COM.AU / 1300 843 443 125 SWANSTON ST, MELBOURNE
THE LIVING END (CUP EVE)
5 NOVEMBER
WITH SPECIAL GUESTS
LISTEN OUT OFFICIAL AFTER PARTY FT FISHER + JORDAN BRANDO
22 SEPTEMBER
THURSDAY GRAND FINAL EVE EVE FT BAG RAIDER (DJ SET) + AIRWOLF
27 SEPTEMBER
WEST THEBARTON DJ JAZZY JEFF (USA)
GRAND FINAL NIGHT FT MORNING MAXWELL & FRIENDS
29 SEPTEMBER
DAMIEN DEMPSEY (IRE)
9 NOVEMBER
6 OCTOBER
HERMITAGE GREEN (IRE)
15 NOVEMBER
KATCHAFIRE (N.Z.)
OSAKA MONAURAIL (JAP)
21 NOVEMBER
18 OCTOBER
SKID ROW (USA)
19 OCTOBER
THE CORONAS (IRE)
22 NOVEMBER
CONSTRUCTION ROCKS
25 OCTOBER
SKUNKHOUR
23 NOVEMBER
MANÇ 88-94 WITH BEZ (HAPPY MONDAYS) (U.K)
26 OCTOBER
ODDISEE & GOOD COMPANY (USA)
29 NOVEMBER
FT BENSON
PRINCE BANDROOM 27 FITZROY ST, ST KILDA
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the best and the worst of the month’s zeitgeist
The lashes Front
Back
The Green Goblin
Xheetos
The Urban Market
Australian roulette
Drunk with nostalgia
Open mic night
Elon Musk appearing on
22-year-old rapper Lil Xan,
We’ve always thought that
Some bloody coconut-head
Following in the footsteps
After being laughed at by
The Joe Rogan Podcast
aka Bam Margera with face
Keith Urban is kind of like
out there has been shoving
of Nintendo’s wildly suc-
the UN following some
was nothing short of a
tats was briefly hospitalized
when an American actor
sewing needles into Woolies
cessful NES and SNES Mini
typically audacious claims,
rollercoaster of emotions.
this month after eating too
tries to play an Australian
strawberries. Fruit lovers
consoles, Sony has also
Trump claims that the gig-
A two-and-a-half hour
many Flamin’ Hot Cheetos.
character in a movie. He’s
across the nation are obvi-
announced an overpriced
gles of the general assembly
conversation filled with
It’s just so silly and amusing
just that Aussie. Anyway,
ously far from happy right
re-release of the original
were being made with him
awkward silences, rumina-
but we wish him a safe and
oldmate Keith is hosting this
now, but our hearts truly
PlayStation. There’s bound
rather than at him. “Are you
tions on the dangers of AI
speedy recovery.
year’s ARIA awards which is
go out to the Aussie farm-
to be a fatality or too as fren-
saying boo or boo-urns?”
bound to be a treat.
ers affected.
zied nerds try to pick one up
and Musk being peer pres-
for the holidays.
sured into smoking a fat one with Rogan.
The final thought
What the fruit, you guys? How getting our five-aday turned into a dice with death.
S Words by Maxim Boon
trawberries: a public menace? According to a lot of Aussie media, yes. Yes they are. So, what turned mother nature’s sweetest treat into a national pariah? If you’re not already well versed in the saga, seriously, where the fuck have you been? Of course, I’m talking about the in-
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cidents of needles appearing in strawbs in recent weeks It started as an apparent case of sour grapes — the revenge-driven vandalism of a disgruntled employee at a strawberry farm. But as another ironically apt horticultural idiom tells us, from little things big things grow. At the time of publication, more than 100 reports of sharp metal objects hidden in fruit, including apples and bananas as well as strawberries, had been reported across every state in Australia. Vandalised fruits have now started turning up overseas, with incidents reported in New Zealand and Singapore. The consequences of the growing crisis have been massive. Thousands of tonnes of fruit have been dumped or flogged at rock bottom prices by desperate producers, threatening some with financial ruin. The government has even introduced new legislation that raises the maximum prison sentence for people caught contaminating food in the hopes it will be a deterrent. It would have to be one serious salty exfruit picker to pull off such a super-villain scaled assault on the fruit industry. Which is why the current consensus is that copy-cat vandals are getting in on the trend as well. Now, I have no problem with viral trends in general. I’ve happily hopped on the popculture band-wagon of many a fleeting fad in my time. Like millions of others, I’ve been shook like Harlem, challenged an ice
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bucket, planked like a pro, done a damn fine impression of a mannequin, and gagged on a ladle of cinnamon, all captured on camera (cos if ain’t ‘grammed, did it even happen?) And there are a whole heap of reasons why human psychology instinctively loves a trend. They make us feel part of something bigger, they’re dumb fun that lifts us out of the humdrum grind of the everyday, and they place us one degree of separation away from people at every stratum of society, from regular Joes to international megastars. But, it’s for many of these same reasons that negative trends — like sticking pins in fruit, or happy slapping, or danger selfies — are so very easy to spread across the world. While most of us are unlikely to start shoving shrapnel into the fresh produce aisle, it’s all but impossible to prevent the handful of people who do decide to follow suit, because at its core this is an issue of censorship and the public good: if the media isn’t allowed to report on a story it’s likely to cause even greater harm. As far as Australia’s strawberry scandal goes, it’s no doubt a traumatic time for those working in that industry, but you also have to admire their resilience. One spokesperson for fruit farmers appearing on ABC’s The Drum recently had a far superior idea: making the new national drink of Australia the strawberry daiquiri. That’s a bit of affirmative action I can definitely get on board with.
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