The Music (Sydney) Issue #192

07.06.17 Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture

Issue

192

Sydney / Free / Incorporating

THE DOCUMENTARIES AT SYDNEY FILM FESTIVAL GIVING A VOICE TO THE FORGOTTEN // SFF PUNK IN FILM // TV ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK // VIVID BETH ORTO N

MUSIC VENUE | COCKTAIL BAR | DINER TUES 6

JOHN SAFRAN AUTHOR TALK

WED 14

WED 7

FRI 16

WHITE TREE BAND

TAASHA COATES

THUR 8

SAT 17 & SUN 18

SOLD OUT

FREE ENTRY

GREEN MOHAIR SUITS + THAT RED HEAD

(THE AUDREYS)

I AM WOMAN

CAB SASQUATCH PRESENT

FRI 9

THU 22

FT MURRAY COOK (WIGGLES), MORGANA (NITOCRIS) PIP HOYLE (RADIO BIRDMAN

SOUND + VISION A DAVID BOWIE CABARET

CROOKED FIDDLE BAND

CARUS THOMPSON

SAT 10

FRI 23

THE RADIATORS

CHRIS CAIN (USA)

SUN 11 (doors 12.30pm)

SAT 24

+ CANNIBAL SPIDERS

+ EIGHTBALL JUNKIES

THOMAS OLIVER (MATINEE)

SUN 11 (doors 7pm)

SCABZ

+ HUNCH, DUNHILL BLUES, BEAST & FLOOD

TUE 13

TERRY SERIOS HALF TRUTHS + CHARLIE OWEN (TEX, DON CHARLIE) + OH REACH

42 KING ST NEWTOWN W W W. TH E L E A D B E L LY. C O M . A U 2 • THE MUSIC • 7TH JUNE 2017

+ NATHAN GUANT

2 BIG SETS, NO SUPPORT

THE SAFFRON BURLESQUE CLUB BURLESQUE + VARIETY

SUN 25

DANIEL CHAMPAGNE + TIM WINTERFLOOD

THE LADIES NETWORK CURATED ART DISPLAY

THE MUSIC • 7TH JUNE 2017 • 3

4 • THE MUSIC • 7TH JUNE 2017

BASEMENT

THU 8TH 8PM

BASEMENT

FRI 9TH 9PM

PUNK VACATION V

SANCTUARY NIGHTCLUB PRESENTS:

FEAT: “BIG RAT STU” SUPPORTED BY MANY SPECIAL GUESTS

BASEMENT

SAT 10TH 8PM

ROCKSTONE ROOTS AND DEF JAM SYD PRESENTS:

SOUNDS OF THE GHETTO

LEVEL ONE

SYD DEF JAM MEETS ROS ROCKSTONE AND FRIENDS

SAT 10TH 10PM

THE ESSENCE ENTERTAINMENT PRESENTS: LEVEL ONE

FRI 9TH 10PM

HIP HOP SHOWCASE

BASEMENT

WITH JOHNIEPEE, POINT BLANK, PRIMITIVE, SAIF, JAMARZONMARZ, SAM.RAP, NJE AND MANY MORE

SUN 11TH 5PM

SANCTUARY JUNE 10

SYDNEY’S BEST ALTERNATIVE CLUB WITH BEST ALTERNATIVE DJ’S, PRESENTED BY S.H.E. AND PERSONALLY RECOMMENDED BY IAN ASTBURY OF “CULT”

SYDNEY METAL MEET UP PRESENTS:

ALE & RUM X

METAL MEAT UP, METAL PLAYLIST, METAL KARAOKE AND LOADS OF ALE AND RUM!!!

NO QUARTER ENTERTAINMENT PRESENTS

STONE DEAF SUNDAYS WITH “METAK” SUPPORTED BY “VULTUROUS” , “COSMIC ART” AND MANY MORE

COMING UP

Thu 14 June: 8pm Basement: “Pänik” and “reaper” presents Metal Mayhem at The Valve Bar with support from “Acrolysis”, “Snöw Leopard”; Fri 16 June: 8pm Basement: The Elements of Tech And Bass presents night of Drum And Bass/Jungle feat: Ozzo, Trireme, Thierry D, Ekzik, Dilbert, MC’s Mecca and Jay Smith; 10pm Level One: Let’s Get Stupid presents: Freeform Only feat Count & Won with support from Sc@r, Ross Fader, TelepathyT; Sat 17 June: 8pm Basement: Deaf To All But Metal presents Metal Matriarchy with “Temtris”, “Web City Limits”, “Dawn”, “The Dirty Earth” and DJ’s Natriz, Kate Gardner, Bettie Bandit Garry Grim, Tain; 10pm Level One: Drop Zone presents Rave Of Origin featuring DJ S3RL & Dave PSI, Telepathy & Vendetta 7, Breadmaker & Royals, Konverterz & Toniq, Ross Fader, Sc@r, Catzyez hosted

by MC Nightwizard and MC Weasal; Sun 18 June: 5pm Basement: “The Desert presents Winter Sound with support from “Rogue Company”, “Rightful Loners”, “Swine Fever”

SECRET SOUNDS PRESENTS

AND THE BLACK FINS

SAT 28 + SUN 29 OCT | THE FACTORY W/ SAHARA BECK factorytheatre.com.au

ON SALE NOW

bernardfanning.com

BRUTAL DAWN / ALBUM OUT NOW

THE MUSIC • 7TH JUNE 2017 • 5

Music / Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture

The D-Files

It’s never too late to start your 2018 gig planning, and to make it easy for you David Duchovny has announced an east coast concert tour for February in support of his second album due later this year.

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

Didirri

Leading With Blind There’s no slowing down for indie-folk act Didirri. After a sold-out headline show recently, he has announced a full east coast tour of Australia come this July for his latest single Blind You.

Dan Sultan

Hey Girlhood

Wet Lips

With the announcement of a second studio album titled Girlhood, The Preatures are setting off on a national tour to match. It all begins this September.

Later Alligator The Preatures

6 • THE MUSIC • 7TH JUNE 2017

Wet Lips have pushed back the release of their debut LP to 30 Jun, but have shared a new song See You Later and announced some east coast tour dates kicking off late June through August for ya.

David Duchovny

Arts / Li Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture

Credits

Publisher Street Press Australia Pty Ltd

Sad Kanye

Splendour In The Arts

It’s almost Splendour time!

As usual the green fields of North Byron Parklands will be transformed into a 600 acre gallery, with Splendour Arts showcasing installations, crafts, projections and more, including a large blow up Sad Kanye.

‘Trump is the Fyre Festival of presidents.’

Damn Dan Dan Sultan will be playing 11 shows throughout the month of September with his full band, in support of his upcoming album, Killer, due on 28 Jul.

– Brooks Wheelan @brookswheelan

Group Managing Editor Andrew Mast

National Editor – Magazines Mark Neilsen Arts & Culture Editor Maxim Boon

Gig Guide Justine Lynch gigs@themusic.com.au Contributing Editor Bryget Chrisfield

Editorial Assistant Sam Wall, Jessica Dale Contributors Anthony Carew, Ben Nicol, Brendan Crabb, Carley Hall, Chris Familton, Daniel Cribb, Chris Maric, Christopher H James, Cyclone, Daniel Cribb, Dave Drayton, Dylan Stewart, Guido Farnell, Guy Davis, James d’Apice, Liz Guiffre, Mac McNaughton, Mark Hebblewhite, Matt MacMaster, Matt O’Neill, Melissa Borg, Mitch Knox, Neil Griffiths, Mick Radojkovic, Rip Nicholson, Rod Whitfield, Ross Clelland, Sam Baran, Samantha Jonscher, Sara Tamim, Sarah Petchell, Shaun Colnan, Steve Bell, Tanya Bonnie Rae, Tim Finney, Uppy Chatterjee Photographers Angela Padovan, Cole Bennetts, Clare Hawley, Jodie Downie, Josh Groom, Hayden Nixon, Kane Hibberd, Munya Chawora, Pete Dovgan, Peter Sharp, Rohan Anderson, Simone Fisher Advertising Dept Georgina Pengelly, Brad Edwards sales@themusic.com.au Art Dept Ben Nicol, Felicity Case-Mejia, Alex Foreman Admin & Accounts Ajaz Durrani, Meg Burnham, Emma Clarke accounts@themusic.com.au Distro distro@themusic.com.au Subscriptions store@themusic.com.au Contact Us PO Box 2440 Strawberry Hills NSW 2012 Suite 42, 89-97 Jones St Ultimo Phone: (02) 9331 7077 info@themusic.com.au www.themusic.com.au

— Sydney Major Leagues

League Of Legends Garage-pop quartet Major Leagues have announced an epic national tour in conjunction with the release of their latest single (and forthcoming album title track)Good Love. The tour kicks off in August for a nine-date run.

THE MUSIC • 7TH JUNE 2017 • 7

Music / Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture

One For The Honey

For a regular hit of news sign up to our daily newsletter at theMusic.com.au

Spenda C

The fierce posse of women behind Hot Brown Honey are raising the roof of Sydney Opera House when their award-winning show returns the stage from Wednesday.

With everything from hip hop politics, comedy and dance there’s something for everyone.

Aesop Rock

Hey Big Spenda Kicking off in June through September, renowned bass music and trap DJ Spenda C is shaking up the walls of venues across Australia with a national tour. The tour comes alongside his debut album Bone Collector out this July.

2

Rock Around The Clock After a painful six year wait, Australia finally gets blessed with the presence of US rapper Aesop Rock since his last tour in 2011. The tour powers through the country late September.

Scott Bond

Crashing The Party

The paltry amount of Australian acts that were in the most recent ARIA Top 40 Singles Chart.

8 • THE MUSIC • 7TH JUNE 2017

Iconic club brand Gatecrasher is making its return to Australia in August. Co-founder and international DJ Scott Bond will be bringing his talent to The Return Of The Lion tour, along with a slew of other techno aficionados.

Hot Brown Honey

Arts / Li Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture

The Village People

The Old Fitz Theatre plays host to Penelope Skinner’s bright, charming and revitalising The Village Bike. The season kicks off this Wednesday.

Frontlash

Still Keeping Sydney Open

Keep Sydney Open have announced that they’ll be holding a festival in Kings Cross in July across a heap of venues, taking the lockout fight to another level.

The Village Bike

We [heart] MCR Anna Of The North

So many good feels with the massive One Love Manchester show set up in the wake of the attack following the Ariana Grande concert.

Lashes

We’re Lovin’ It

Chicken Big Mac AND Cheeseburger Shaker Fries? Maccas for the win.

The Lovers Throne

Keep Sydney Open rally pic by Josh Groom

The debut album Lovers from Anna Of The North has been announced for early September and in addition she has announced two Aussie tour dates in August for Melbourne and Sydney.

Backlash

What In The World…?

The US pulling out of the Paris accord, London terror attacks, a massive bombing in Afghanistan – it’s been another one of those weeks where you wonder just what the fuck is going on with the world.

A Weak Stream Holy Moly

Holy Balm

Wonky house trio Holy Balm have announced launch shows in support of their newly released 12” remix LP Activity Mixes. They bring the noise to Melbourne and Sydney early July.

Is streaming to blame for the lack of Australian artists in the ARIA top 40 Singles Chart? Surely there are more than enough good local tracks around to fill out more than two spots in there.

ONJ Olivia Newton-John has been diagnosed with breast cancer for a second time. We wish her a speedy recovery.

THE MUSIC • 7TH JUNE 2017 • 9

HOPE AMIDST THE RUINS OF ALEPPO

Sydney Film Festival

NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH In our world of tweet-sized politics and clickbait headlines, documentary makers are filling the information gap by chronicling difficult truths in heart-stopping detail.

Stephen A Russell explores the hard hitting docos headlining the Sydney Film Festival.

T

he waves of despair can come thick and fast when watching the nightly news or pouring over the morning paper. Pierced by persistent dog whistles from populist politicians going for the low blow for maximum effect, compassion and understanding seem in short supply and the real human cost sidelined as the ever-decreasing news cycle chews up and spits out the most complex stories in favour of the latest social media scandal. Numbness follows.

It’s against this white noise that the documentary form not only excels but also reveals the humanity beyond the headlines, giving a voice and a face to the people fighting to retain their dignity, their liberty, and even their lives against unimaginable odds. Opening with the fraught ground of Warwick Thornton’s Southern Cross-examining We Don’t Need a Map, this year’s Sydney Film Festival (SFF) line-up is packed with powerful examinations of the issues that trouble our contemporary times most. From the fate of our dying oceans in Karina Holden’s Blue to the new frontier of cyber security and the disruption of game-changing leaks in Laura Poitras’ incendiary profile of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, Risk, this year’s SFF program celebrates uncompromising truth in the age of “alternative facts.”

The Last Men In Aleppo

From Brexit to Trump to One Nation, the plight of refugees fleeing war and persecution has become a convenient political bogeyman. But just how easy is it to demonise when witnessing the daily trials of those who, clinging to what little is left of home, choose to stay behind?

Unflinching in its look at the reality of survival, director Feras Fayyad’s Last Men In Aleppo, one of SFF’s most-startling docos, follows the fate of four “White Helmets” - the name given the men who have chosen to stay in the war-torn Syrian city to pull survivors from the rubble of shelled buildings. The impossibly brave volunteers run towards disaster amidst Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his Russian supporters’ devastating aerial bombardment, putting their lives at risk every day to help their fellow citizens.

For me this story is about human values, about a fatherhood, brotherhood and friendship Speaking via Skype from Berlin, Fayyad, who has himself been imprisoned and tortured by Assad’s regime and now lives in Turkey, says it was his duty to show the world what the White Helmets face. “They have to tell their story and we need to document these crimes against humanity, because the victims, they don’t have this voice.”

Stark as the fate of the predominantly Muslim population living in this chaos is, with one rescuer crying out to know when support will arrive from neighbouring Arab nations, Fayyad was at pains to show the vague shreds of normality that remain. There are stolen moments of funfairs and footy matches during tenuous ceasefires. White Helmet Khaled dotes on his kids but wrestles with sending them away while Mahmoud, even as he continually puts himself in danger, frets constantly about his younger brother and fellow rescuer Ahmad. “For me, this story is about human values, about a fatherhood, brotherhood and friendship,” Fayyad insists. “This is the main drama,

Chauka Please Tell Us The Time

the inner conflict between responsibility to their family and their moral responsibility as a citizen.”

It took four months to win the trust of the men he and his crew follow into danger, with all of them disheartened by the inaction of the international community. Fayyad hopes that at the very least Last Men In Aleppo may encourage more countries to open their arms to refugees who have fled but have still found no sanctuary. As for the White Helmets? “Everything pushes them to leave, but in the middle of all that, they ask each other, ‘where are we going to go?’”

LIMBO ON MANUS As a politically active and passionate supporter of Kurdish rights in Iran, journalist Behrouz Boochani was subjected to constant threats and sectarian violence, narrowly avoiding a swoop that saw many of his colleagues imprisoned.

Fearing for his life, he fled in 2013, but the navy intercepted the boat he boarded in Indonesia, bound for Australia. Boochani has now spent four years detained on Manus Island, where he has reported on tragedies including the murder of Reza Barrati.

It’s the Australian people’s right to know what their government is doing in their name in this prison

Captured on his smartphone and worked on in unison with Netherlands-based Iranian-Dutch filmmaker Arash Kamali Sarvestani, the at times despairing though also strangely meditative Chauka Please Tell Us The Time - named after a local bird with a distinctive call and symbolic meaning for Manussians - reveals a grim reality close to home.

“It’s the Australian people’s right to know what their government is doing in their name in this prison,” Boochani tells me from the Manus detention centre via WhatsApp. “Cinema has the power to change, and I don’t mean that this movie will change policy, but it might change people’s views about refugees.”

As with Fayyad, Boochani wanted to focus on the human story. “The people in this prison are the same as you. Some of them are fathers and they have wives. They can understand love, they listen to music and they’re worried about their families. The problem is that people

in western countries are looking at refugees who are victims of terror as the same as terrorist groups like ISIS.” For many of the refugees on Manus, the promise of a deal with the United States was a beacon of hope dashed by the election of President Donald Trump. Languishing in limbo once more, Boochani says Trump has emboldened the right in Australia and given license to the government, “to destroy us.”

With Chauka attracting attention to their plight from media outlets all over the world, Boochani hopes they will be harder to ignore. “I only have three options - kill myself and finish this life, accept living in PNG where I won’t have any future or stay here and resist, to achieve freedom in a safe place one day.”

THE MUSIC • 7TH JUNE 2017 • 11

Sydney Film Festival

Governments think that heritage and Aboriginal culture is a thing of the past

LIVING HERITAGE Tyson Mowarin has had it up to here with distant politicians and their broken promises passing judgement over Aboriginal rock art. His rousing documentary Connection To Country, commissioned by NITV and debuting at SFF, takes in the sweeping majesty of Western Australia’s Burrup Peninsula and details successive waves of industrialisation, pushed by mining companies, that are scarring the sacred land.

“I wanted to show Australia what heritage means,” Mowarin says. “Governments think that heritage and Aboriginal culture is a thing of the past, but you know what, it’s very much alive today.”

One thought-provoking moment notes that churches that have stood for 100 years are often asserted more cultural value than rock art that has stood for millennia.

“These sites are older than any world monuments like the pyramids or the Great Wall of China, but it’s pretty easy to get permission to destroy them,” Mowarin states.

Connection To Country details the struggle to protect them and some ingenious ways to share their beauty

with the world, including artists digitising rock art and turning it into immersive virtual reality experiences. Mowarin hopes the SFF platform will reinforce the messages that Aboriginal culture is here to stay. “We’re a sovereign people but the government has taken ownership of our sites and destroyed them. Our heritage isn’t something that government has given to us, it’s been here way before any government came to Australia.

// WHAT: Sydney Film Festival

// WHEN: 7 - 18 Jun

Connection To Country

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THE MUSIC • 7TH JUNE 2017 • 13

Sydney Film Festival

GREATEST LOVE OF ALL Legendary documentarian Nick Broomfield chats to Anthony Carew about how he was determined to depict the late star in an honest and raw light.

The more time I spent learning about her, the more I fell in love with her.

F

or a generation of filmgoers, Nick Broomfield is the English guy holding the boom. The 69-year-old documentarian inserts himself into his own films, quite literally: he’s forever shown walking in front of the camera, bumbling his way into the frame, mic in hand. For critics, Broomfield is a doorstepper and a muckraker, but his presence can be disarming. His twin portraits Aileen Wuornos: The Selling Of A Serial Killer (1992) and Aileen: Life And Death Of A Serial Killer (2003) are about his relationship to his subject, and 2014’s excellent Tales Of The Grim Sleeper finds this elderly British man heading into the crack-blighted Los Angeles neighbourhoods that the LAPD had abandoned. When Broomfield made a series of commercials for Volkswagen, in 1999, he even played on this trope: even when selling cars, he was holding a boom mic.

But for his 28th feature - in a long, chequered career that’s crossed paths with Heidi Fleiss, Courtney Love, and Sarah Palin Broomfield removes himself entirely from the film. Whitney: Can I Be Me? is a surprisingly tender portrait of the late singer Whitney Houston, without any of the provocations in his studies of Kurt Cobain, or Biggie & Tupac.

“I didn’t know that’s how I was going to feel until I was making it,” says Broomfield, from his adopted home of Los Angeles. “The challenge was to get Whitney’s soul into the film. To me, the answer quickly became to have her talking as much as possible, so that it felt like she was telling her own story.”

Broomfield was interested in making a film about Houston - who died in February of 2012, at the grim end of a downward, drug-addled spiral - because “she was the first black female crossover artist who was really successful. There was her and Michael Jackson, and their ends were, in a way, not dissimilar.”

Whitney: Can I Be Me? is built from 100 hours of concert footage, shot by Rudi Dolezal during a 1999 tour, 100 hours of newly-shot interviews, and a wealth of archival footage from ‘80s TV interviews to the trainwreck 2005 husband-and-wife reality show Being Bobby Brown. “I found it a tiring, exhausting work to make,” Broomfield says.

The filmmaker was wracked by sleeplessness throughout the editing, becoming “haunted by [his] subject”, obsessed with a ghost.

“The more time I spent learning about her, the more I fell in love with her,” Broomfield confesses. “I think that happened to lots of people. You can see that the bodyguard in the film, he’s completely in love with her. There was a lot to love. She was a kind, caring, charismatic, funny person, who also looked amazing and had

14 • THE MUSIC • 7TH JUNE 2017

this incredible voice... I was surprised that she was such a funny person; that she had this amazing comedic timing and an incredibly infectious laugh. She was a completely different person to this Clive Davis [peddled] image of the impeccably groomed ingenue. Her friends called her Nippy. She was very mischievous. I found her story much more moving than I ever expected.”

Broomfield saw this story as being, like anyone’s life story, “a tale of the central relationships” in Houston’s life. Yet, those key figures - her mother Cissy Houston, long-time best friend/assistant/ companion Robin Crawford, and husband Bobby Brown - weren’t interviewed by Broomfield. Instead of trailing after them with a boommic, hectoring them to talk, Broomfield cut them out entirely.

“I don’t think you could make a really honest, revealing film with the estate on board,” Broomfield says. “The estate are a group of people who lived off her when she was alive, and continue to want to live off her now that she’s dead. I don’t know the estate, but I think in no small part they’re responsible for a lot of the misconceptions about Whitney. I was very happy to have nothing to do with them.”

The director is sure that one day a big budget Whitney Houston biopic will be on the cards. But, for now, he’s hoping that Whitney: Can I Be Me? can redress the public perception of her; being a reminder of the great talent that blossomed before her ignominious end.

“I’m hoping Whitney is warmly received in Australia, because the last time Whitney herself was in Australia, it was a pretty tough time for her,” Broomfield says, evoking her disastrous 2010 tour. “She was mocked towards the end of her life, she was humiliated. A lot of the things that have come out about her have been so critical of her. But when you have a great artist, you want people to be able to remember their essence, too.”

//WHAT: Whitney “Can I Be Me?”

//WHEN & WHERE: 7 Jun, Event Cinemas George St; 9 Jun, Dendy Newtown; 15 Jun, In Cinemas

THE MUSIC • 7TH JUNE 2017 • 15

Jubilee

Sydney Film Festival

SMASH IT UP Anthony Carew takes at look Derek Jarman’s iconoclastic punk odyssey Jubilee and how the ‘fuck you’ spirit of that musical movement changed cinema.

P

unk and cinema are, by this point, old bedfellows. Not a film festival passes without a smattering of rockumentaries about back-in-the-day, forgotten cult bands, and ageing musical heroes; there a whole sub-genre of documentaries I like to call ‘New York When It Was Cooler’. But, in assembling the program strand ‘Smash It Up: Celebrating 40 Years Of Punk Rock 1977-2017’ for the Sydney Film Festival, programmer Richard Kuipers looks not at the films looking back, but, largely, those that were made in the moment.

Punk and cinema went hand-in-hand, in fact, from the very start. In 1977, the queer painter and experimental filmmaker Derek Jarman, looked to capture the anarchic, rebellious spirit in the air.

He summoned the obnoxious Jubilee, whose title refers to the Silver Jubilee of Elizabeth II. In an impish, ridiculous narrative conceit, Elizabeth I and Ariel the sprite from The Tempest travel 400 years into late-20th-century England, where Elizabeth II now rules over a dystopian apocalyptic hellscape filled with punks.

Jubilee, in turn, is filled with figures from the early punk movement (Jordan, Toyah Willcox, Adam Ant, Siouxsie Sioux) and Rocky Horror Picture Show alumni (Richard O’Brien, Nell Campbell). It’s a film conversant in queer and trans culture, with a spirit of violence uprising in which the figures of insurrection are women and gay men, their victims largely men. The result is an episodic, freewheeling, makingit-up-as-he-goes-along mess, Jarman issuing a provocation to staid Britain, a nation obsessed with looking back on its glorious history bound for a grim future.

Jubilee went on to become, only, the most cult of cult films; its queerness, full-frontal nudity, and shambolic narrative consigning it to the most shadowy of midnight-movie houses. Many of the people involved, and within the scene, denounced it, but the fact that Jubilee ruffled feathers only emboldens the work. If Vivienne Westwood couldn’t handle its queerness, and its portrait of punk-as-music-biz fashion cut close to home, then the film summoned a real spirit of rebelliousness; not out to profit from punk, but to both capture its spirit, and hold up a mirror to it.

Smash It Up matches Jubilee with another film of the era that was unrepentantly obnoxious and grotesque: John Waters’ Desperate Living. By 1977, The Pope Of Trash was onto his fifth film, having pushed the limits of bad taste with such future classics as Multiple Maniacs and Pink Flamingos. There’s little tying Desperate Living to the punk movement, be it in the UK or the US, despite Kuipers’ delight at the film’s first screening in Baltimore coinciding with the release of The Sex Pistols’ God Save The Queen. But any chance to witness Waters’ iconic grotesquerie on screen (“Come on, daddy! Fuck me! Glow little inchworm!”) can’t really be faulted.

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The US punk movement — which most would consider kicked off before the UK’s, in the New York of Suicide and The Ramones — is represented by Penelope Spheeris’ 1980 documentary The Decline Of Western Civilization. In the first film of a trilogy (1988’s The Decline Of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years was a hilarious catalogue of ridiculous hair-metal excess; 1998’s The Decline Of Western Civilisation Part III a grim portrait of homeless youth), Spheeris turned her camera on the budding punk scene of Los Angeles.

Compared to the ‘punk spirited’ films elsewhere in this program, The Decline Of Western Civilisation is the straightest work here. It’s a catalogue of LA hardcore bands, both talking and performing: Germs, X, Black Flag, and the Circle Jerks. Spheeris saw this flourishing, DIY scene as being overlooked by American culture at large, and her doc was a simple attempt at redressing the imbalance. The picture’s residual power, these days, is as time-capsule for a scene four decades gone.

No punk collection could avoid films by Julien Temple. Temple has made movies about The Clash (Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten and The Clash: New Year’s Day ‘77), the Glastonbury Festival (um, Glastonbury), Dr Feelgood (Oil City Confidential and The Ecstasy Of Wilko Johnson), and Madness (The Liberty Of Norton Folgate). But he’s most famous for making a run of movies about The Sex Pistols.

It started with 1979’s The Great Rock’n’Roll Swindle, the self-parodying recounting of the band’s rise from the perspective of their manager/ svengali Malcolm McLaren; this lurid rumpus a smirking riposte to the age-old punk notion of ‘selling out’.

Temple got the band back together — as interviewees — in 2000’s The Filth And The Fury, with erstwhile singer John Lydon, who’d refused to take part in The Great Rock’n’Roll Swindle, taking centre-stage. If any event marked punk’s official enshrinement into middle-age, it was the sight of Lydon, once the sneering manifestation of the movement’s cultural sedition, weeping on camera.

The Music will be hosting a post-screening panel exploring Jarman’s Jubilee and the rise of Punk in Australia, at 8pm 12 Jun at The Hub, Sydney Town Hall.

//WHAT: Jubilee

//WHEN & WHERE: 12 Jun, Event Cinema George Street; 17 Jun, Dendy Newtown

Moonshine free + live music

THU 8th JUNE

SONS OF THE EAST + Tyne- James Organ

FRI 9th JUNE

BETTY & OSWALD + sundown state

SUN 11th JUNE FREE

8PM

KING TIDE HOTEL STEYNE

Hotel Steyne

FRIDAYS VIBES AND STUFF

75 the corso, manly www.hotelsteyne.com.au |@moonshinebarmanly

THE MUSIC • 7TH JUNE 2017 • 17

Sydney Film Festival

FINGER ON THE PULSE Emerging writer and director Daniel Monks talks to Samuel Leighton-Dore about how a new generation of filmmakers are changing the way disability is portrayed on screen.

I

I think it’s incredible and I’m very grateful to Sydney Film Festival for their progressiveness.

f this year’s Sydney Film Festival program is any indication, the Australian film industry is finally beginning to take diversity seriously; in a way that transcends mere tokenism or minority allocations and suggests a real undercurrent of structural change to local funding and festival systems.

Aside from a notable focus on Indigenous cinema, a big part of SFF’s renewed endeavour to amplify diverse voices has arrived in the form of the Screenability initiative, presented in partnership with Screen NSW and the NSW Department of Family and Community Service. Three feature films and three short films will be screened as part of the new platform.

For emerging actor, writer and director Daniel Monks, the chance to screen his first feature film, Pulse, at this year’s festival represents increased accessibility to an industry famously marked by gatekeepers and seemingly insatiable eligibility quotas.

“I think in the long term, [Screenability] will breed a wealth of fresh, necessary and challenging stories on our screens from people in our society who haven’t had the platform to share their stories,” Monks voices from Los Angeles, where he’s one of this year’s nominees for the prestigious Heath Ledger Scholarship.

“It will help to reinvigorate our screen industry. I think it’s incredible and I’m very grateful to Sydney Film Festival for their progressiveness.”

According to Screen Australia’s groundbreaking 2016 study on diversity in Australian television drama, the disability community remain to be the most underrepresented on screens; making up 18% of the Australian population but only reflected in 4% of our onscreen characters.

“Often, these representations are not authentic to real lived experiences of people with disabilities,” Monks adds. “The film and television industries have been inaccessible to people with disabilities - both in front of and behind the camera.

“I so admire Screen NSW’s boldness and courage in creating this initiative, which has no precedent, and was born out of their recognition of an inequity within the industry and their desire to do something tangible to rectify it.”

“The impact it has had on my career so far, and the careers of all of the Screenability participants.”

18 • THE MUSIC • 7TH JUNE 2017

Pulse, which Monks has been writing since he graduated from Australian Film Television & Radio School back in 2009, is a simultaneously raw and empowering take on the rarely addressed intersection between sexuality and disability. With subtle nuances of science-fiction, the film explores the troubled inner-monologue of a young gay man with a physical disability as he struggles to reconcile pioneering medical science with the beauty ideals he’s been held captive by for so long.

“Historically the sexuality of disabled people has either been denied, suppressed or quite literally neutered and to this day, we find the societal perception of people with disabilities to be frequently anything but sexual,” Monks says.

“The overwhelming stereotype of the meek and feeble disabled person, the ‘Tiny Tim’, has been perpetuated, and I find the more we present multi-faceted, complex disabled people on our screens, the more it will challenge this limited perception and the more we as a minority will be humanised.”

Along with his film partner, Stevie Cruz-Martin, who shot and directed Pulse, Monks is decidedly optimistic about his future in the film industry, juggling several upcoming projects which will see him refocus on sharpening his acting chops.

“It’s my greatest passion,” the multi-talented Monks tells me.

And it would seem his optimism hasn’t been misplaced. In a sign that audiences are already relishing Sydney Film Festival’s diverse 2017 program, both sessions of Pulse have sold out.

//WHAT: Pulse

//WHEN & WHERE: 14 & 16 Jun, Dendy Newtown

Sydney Film Festival

FURRY FRIENDS

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In light of Sydney Film Festival, Guy Davis chats to South-Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-Ho about the inspiration and underlying messages of his latest work.

ew stories will tug the heartstrings and moisten up the tear ducts like that of a good-hearted child and their non-human BFF, whether that bestie is an animal or a fantastical creature.

And while Okja, the latest venture from inventive, idiosyncratic South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-Ho, has such a relationship at the heart of its narrative, there’s a lot more going on in this tale of good intentions, moral relativism, profit margins, public image, ethical eating and sweet-natured, genetically-engineered pig-creatures.

The latter is actually the title character of Okja - one of 26 “super-pigs” designed by the multi-national Mirando Corporation (any similarity between the company name and Monsanto is probably no coincidence at all) as a potential solution for an impending global food shortage.

Raised for 10 years in rural Korea by young Mija (newcomer An Seo Hyun), Okja is a friendly and loving companion, clearly capable of reasoning and feeling. But Okja has caught the eye of Mirando’s head honcho Lucy (Tilda Swinton), who wants to bring the giant animal to New York City as an example of the company’s successful methods.

(And maybe something a little more sinister.)

So Mija sets off on an epic quest to save her friend, crossing paths with a wild array of characters along the way, including Jake Gyllenhaal as a celebrity vet who’s compromised his principles by selling out to Mirando, and a gang of animal liberationists led by Paul Dano who aren’t afraid to play rough to protect their four-legged pals.

Fans and admirers of The Host and Snowpiercer, perhaps the best-known films of Director Bong (as he’s commonly called), will recognise the filmmaker’s approach in Okja, which is the Closing Night feature at this year’s Sydney Film Festival - radical shifts in tone that would cause whiplash if another director attempted them, but feel strangely smooth and natural here; actors taking their supporting characters to dizzying heights (it’s always fun when Gyllenhaal lets

Okja

his inner weirdo out to play); a larger-than-life central concept that unexpectedly enables bracing uncomfortable truths to come to the fore.

But for Director Bong, it all began years ago on the streets of Seoul when he spotted an odd-looking but appealing animal. “It was huge, but it looked very shy and introverted,” he says. “It had a cute face. At that moment, I made up my mind to make a movie. That was the beginning of the inspiration for Okja. Later, when I was preparing the movie Snowpiercer, it became a scenario, and I made sketches: a little girl and a strange animal.”

Swinton recalls seeing “a tiny pencil drawing” of the pair when she and Director Bong were heading for the airport after the Seoul premiere of Snowpiercer, in which the Oscar winner played a memorable supporting role. And over the years, she remained intrigued by the direction the project was taking. (Indeed, she is credited as one of the film’s executive producers.)

“It happened very naturally, whenever we’d hang out, over dinner, wherever we were together, we would talk about Okja,” says Dooho Choi, Director Bong’s long-time producer. “This whole notion of capitalism and greed was very much a part of the discussion...this idea of the two faces of capitalism. There is one trying to gloss over the brutality behind it, putting sort of a ‘happy face’ marketing on it; and one that is no-nonsense, believing that money is all that matters.”

While this theme and others run through Okja, Director Bong says that at its heart the film is relationship-driven. “Okja is ultimately a story about the relationship between animals and humans,” he says. “All of my films have different stories, and some might share common themes, but as a storyteller, I want to explore new worlds.

Some have commented that my film structure is like the game hide and seek. For example, a story about looking for the killer in Mother; a daughter in The Host; the engine in the front of the train and the creator, Wilford, in Snowpiercer. I think Okja has a similar storyline - Mija looking for Okja, her best friend. That is the biggest part of the story. This girl Mija, raised in the woods, has never been to the city, has never seen the real world. She is the representation of purity. And now, here she is in this world, looking for her friend.”

Okja is ultimately a story about the relationship between animals and humans.

//WHAT: Okja

//WHEN & WHERE: 18 Jun, State Theatre & Event Cinemas George St

THE MUSIC • 7TH JUNE 2017 • 19

TV

Mister Niche Guy Ronny Chieng is back on the Australian scene with his new show, Ronny Chieng: International Student. He shares with Guy Davis why it’s important to share stories from all walks of life, no matter how niche they may be.

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ulturally speaking, we’re increasingly living in a world full of niches, a place where very specific stories can find their audience. Nevertheless, for some storytellers the feeling persists that the tale they’re compelled to tell may be too niche. The multi-talented Ronny Chieng felt that way for a while when creating his new seven-episode ABC sitcom Ronny Chieng: International Student. Then he snapped out of it.

“Interesting stories are niche stories,” says Chieng.

“I think the nicheness of the story and the characters only increases the interest. Like Breaking Bad — who can

relate to being a chemistry teacher who makes meth?

And, no, I’m not comparing International Student to Breaking Bad.” You totally are, Ronny. “Yes, I am.”

No meth is manufactured in Ronny Chieng: International Student but, hey, it’s pretty good anyway — a smart and silly comedy drenched in collegiate hijinks and pop culture references that follows the adventures of Ronny Chieng (played by Ronny Chieng), who travels from Malaysia to study law at an Australian university and finds himself acting as “a bridge between the international students and the local culture” while sorting out his own identity and future.

“I was looking for a story I felt only I could tell, or that 20 • THE MUSIC • 7TH JUNE 2017

only I was in a position to tell,” says Chieng, who was born in Malaysia and studied law at the University Of Melbourne before shifting into showbiz (including standup comedy, screenwriting and a role on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah).

“Something unique and original, and going through my experiences and memories, I just felt like being an international student in Australia — as specific as that is — was kind of a story that hasn’t really been spoken about but is one that has been experienced by a lot of people.

“I would talk to my friends about it, and people would study in a foreign country for three years or so and then go home. And they would say those years were like a dream, it was so ethereal. I wanted to capture that a bit.”

Interesting stories ‘are’ niche stories... I think the nicheness of the story and the characters only increases the interest.

A dream or a nightmare? “A balance, really,” says Chieng. “That’s what life is — ups and downs. And that’s why it’s not just about Asian people in Australia, it’s a story about growing up. Part of the story I wanted to tell was coming here as 18-year-old kids and entering adulthood, making decisions for yourself for the first time and thinking you’re old enough to do stuff when actually you don’t have the experience to do so. You feel so sure of yourself because you’ve entered this next phase of your life. But no one really knows what they’re doing at that age.”

Chieng developed International Student through the ABC’s Comedy Showroom initiative, a program designed to incubate and nurture screen projects by local comedic talent, and he praises it for giving him the opportunity to find his voice in a new medium after years of success as a stand-up.

“The pilot of this series was the first TV writing I’d ever done, and it was a pretty major undertaking,” he says. “So it was invaluable. Figuring out a universe for your show is one of the toughest things there is, and making the pilot [for Comedy Showroom] and seeing it allowed us all to see what we wanted, and then we could write the next six episodes. If they’d ask me to write all seven at once I would have screwed it up.”

What: Ronny Chieng: International Student When & Where: 9pm Wednesdays, ABC

THE MUSIC • 7TH JUNE 2017 • 21

SYDNEY FILM FESTIVAL MUST SEES

Music

Behind The Bravado

78/52 Director: Alexandre O Philippe Synopsis: An in-depth exploration of the shower scene from Psycho, in all its 78 cuts.

Catch if you’re into: Rapid edits and jagged string-sections, Elijah Wood’s creepy eyeballs, cinematic grammar.

CALL ME BY YOUR NAME Director: Luca Guadagnino Synopsis: Summer 1983, an Italian villa.

A teenager’s queer sexuality awakens when he falls for his father’s new research assistant.

Catch if you’re into: Bookish adolescent boys, Armie Hammer’s carved-granite form, Guadagnino’s A Bigger Splash.

A FANTASTIC WOMAN Director: Sebastián Lelio Synopsis: The life and times of a transgender singer in Santiago.

Catch if you’re into: The divide between on-stage and off, dramatic use of colour, that bald guy who just played Neruda, Xavier Dolan’s Laurence Anyways.

22 • THE MUSIC • 7TH JUNE 2017

Down the line from LA, where he’s between tours with Pond and Mac DeMarco, Kirin J Callinan gives Chris Familton an insight into the creative process behind his new album Bravado and why it took four years to complete.

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irin J Callinan is something of a modern day renaissance man, who revels in stretching creative boundaries. Bravado takes a different kind of maximalist approach, combining brash, over-the-top EDM synths with Callinan’s trademark effect-laden guitar playing, answerphones, didgeridoos, whistling and that voice that recalls the orotund tones of Scott Walker, Matt Johnson (The The) and Alan Vega (Suicide).

“I wanted to make the same record again and explore the same ideas and the weirdness I’d created but push it further.

In the past, there was this moody, kind of violent, shadowy, industrial murkiness with all these spiritual ballads. I wanted those electronic sounds that were previously industrial and threatening to now be inclusive and fun. The ballads were previously more poetic and self-serious.

I wanted the new ones to have a more heightened sentimentality and be more inclusive and accessible,” he stresses.

“I kind of hated this record and didn’t feel motivated to finish it,” recalls Callinan, when asked why four years have passed since he released his debut solo album.

“The truth is that the vast majority of this record was made in 2014. The songs were written then and they haven’t changed much since mid-2015. I guess what did change was my perspective.

I was able to flick a switch and love all the things I hated about it and see it for what it was and understand its beauty and humanity and the truth in its ugliness, bombast and bravado.”

Callinan was encouraged to finish the album when “a bunch of different guests, who made cameos on the record, heard what I had and wanted to be part of it.”

Some collaborations such as Jimmy Barnes were happy accidents that he pursued. “I emailed Jimmy and told him I was a fan of his music and particularly his scream. I didn’t hear back for months and eventually, I landed in LA and in my inbox he’d sent me a bunch of WAV files of him screaming and I worked it into the song which was cool!” enthuses Callinan.

“I already have a completely crystallised view of what I want the next album to be. I’m going to start work on it in Las Vegas where there is absurdity, amorality and the idea that there is no good or bad, just wanton desire.

It’s a strange place with a mix of families, tourists, gambling, prostitution, extreme wealth and poverty, the desert and bright neon lights.”

“No matter what people say about Bravado, it’s original and singular which is more than can be said for a lot of things. I’ve been excited and validated by the response to it so far. It’s nothing new for me to be divisive. If they like it or hate it, who gives a fuck.”

What: Bravado (EMI) When & Where: 10 Jun, Oxford Art Factory; 23 Jul, Splendour In The Grass, North Byron Parklands

TV

Metal Is The New Black Hilarious, humanising and harrowing Netflix original series, Orange Is The New Black, is returning for its fifth season on 9 June and Uppy Chatterjee spoke to Jessica Pimentel (the tough Maria Ruiz) on that season four cliffhanger.

Jessica Pimental with co-star Selenis Leyva

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nown for its racially diverse, emotionally rich ensemble cast, one of the inmates of Litchfield Penitentiary is the thickskinned, semi-villainous (at least in the series’ most recent season) Ruiz, the leader of the Spanish Harlem group of women who, as it turns out, is just as impatient to watch season five as you are.

“We left at this very high tension place... We all wanna see how it unfolds, even though we know what’s gonna happen, we wanna see the performances, we wanna see the shots, we wanna see how the make-up looks on, you wanna see it all go down in one piece,” she says in her Sydney hotel, comfortably curled up in a huge armchair.

Ruiz was one of season four’s antagonists — in addition to psychopathic prison guard Thomas Humphrey — and instigated a number of brutal attacks on fellow inmates, including branding a swastika on privileged goodgirl-gone-bad Piper Chapman (Taylor Schilling). Pimentel herself seems nothing like the caustic Ruiz, but she explains that’s not all true.

“Every character you play is a piece of you — you have to bring your experience to your character. There’s a piece of Maria in me — that tough chick that will hold her ground, but then you also see in the first four seasons that Maria’s very funny, she’s very intelligent, she’s very caring, she loves her family so much, she’s extremely loyal.

“Maria took a turn for the dark side in season four, but I think it was with good reason. She lost her one beacon of hope and when someone has nothing, nothing to live for, they become the most dangerous person in the room.”

Away from Orange Is The New Black, Pimentel is a lover of heavy metal and the guttural lead singer of her band Alekhine’s Gun, namechecking bands like King Diamond, Metallica, Warzone and Slayer as heavy bands

Every character you play is a piece of you — you have to bring your experience to your character.

that got her love for metal burning. Her partner is Swedish metal band Meshuggah’s drummer, Tomas Haake, who she tagged along with on their recent Australian tour. We gush about how they met at an afterparty like we’re two teenage girls at a sleepover.

“We just started talking, and it was not a flirtation-vibe, it was just like — wow, we really connected! Two people just sharing ideas and spilling guts and telling stories that no one knows, and we just talked the whole night and it was awesome. And we thought we’d be really good friends and we maintained very loose communication — and it turns out I was going through a break-up and he was going through a break-up and we were both very respectful of that. I didn’t know that it was an option even [to date]”, she says, getting coy all of a sudden. “And he never gave off that vibe either. It was really a spiritual connection and mental connection first.”

She ponders for a moment, sounding less like Maria Ruiz than ever. “When your new love’s mum says she’s never seen him so happy in his whole life, that really is a beautiful thing to hear.”

What: Orange Is The New Black When & Where: 9 Jun, Netflix

THE MUSIC • 7TH JUNE 2017 • 23

Povo Pattinson

It’s a bloody tough life being a Hollywood heart-throb, and if anyone knows what a curse this tainted existence is, it’s poor ol’ Robert Pattinson. The Brit actor and sparkly skinned star of the Twilight franchise is doing his best to shake the stigma of being an undead dreamboat by taking on some roles that have required old mate Rob to slum the shit out of his life – or so he reckons, at least.

In preparation for his starring role in heist thriller and Cannes Film Festival hit Good Time, Pattinson went full method, telling News Corp in a recent interview about the depths of depravity to which he sunk to truly inhabit the mind of a man on the fringes of society. The only problem is Pattinson’s definition of rock bottom is actually like most regular millennials’ lives.

“I literally lived in the same basement apartment in Harlem. I never opened my curtains and I didn’t change the sheets for the entire time I was there, for those two whole months.” Sheets on the bed for two months – who could possibly conceive of such a horror… *ahem* definitely not us.

“I only ate tuna the whole time. I probably have mercury poisoning now because I ate it out of the tin. That’s all there was in the apartment: tuna, hot sauce, and Nespresso capsules.”

NESPRESSO CAPSULES. Well there you have it ladies and gents – in hell, there will still be capsule coffee machines. Thank fuck for that.

24 • THE MUSIC • 7TH JUNE 2017

Music

Beth Is More

Beth Orton chats to Anthony Carew about Rajasthani music, vocal techniques and her carefree new album.

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he last time Beth Orton performed at the Sydney Opera House — where she will play for Vivid LIVE — it was in 2005, as part of the Leonard Cohen tribute show Came So Far For Beauty. “I was stepping on stage with Nick Cave and Emmylou Harris, and the entire atmosphere was on the stage,” the 45-year-old recounts.

“It was extraordinary to be playing such a beautiful venue, but there was such a charged feeling among the performers.

That’s my most strong memory of being in Australia.”

In January, Orton forged another vivid musical memory: she and her husband, American folkie Sam Amidon, went to the Jaipur Literature Festival, where they collaborated with local Rajasthani musicians. “We got picked up at the airport in Delhi, driven for five hours, that’s real proper being-somewhere-else; every sight, every sound, every smell is heightened,” she says. “And, then, meeting the band, spending two days rehearsing with them; I’m singing with them, they’re singing with me, but we don’t speak the same language — it was just a lot of smiles, and nods, and facial expressions — and it doesn’t really come together until we’re on stage.”

In such collaboration, Orton leans on advice that the late folk-soul legend Terry Callier offered her when they first sung together on a cover on her 1997 EP Best Bit:

“I’m going to try and sing like you, you’re going to try and sing like me, and we’ll meet somewhere in the middle.” “I didn’t know what he was talking about!”

Orton laughs in recollection. “I just sort of nodded ‘okay’, I was so such a beginner. But then we did it, and our voices did meet. And I’ve used that idea, in my mind, so many times since. It’s this sense of joining these two voices and making this third sound. I do that when I sing with my husband, and I’ve done it in the years since.”

When younger, Orton struggled with timidity when collaborating, but of recent she’s “embraced” the fact she’s a novice, and grown “more unafraid”. This played out on her most recent LP, Kidsticks (2016), which she made with Andy Hung of Fuck Buttons.

The album was seen as being Orton’s ‘return’ to electronic sound, 20 years after her breakout Trailer Park, but she didn’t see it that way.

“I don’t see it as circling back at all,” Orton says. “I see it as a big step forward.

Or sideways, or up, or down. It’s not a return to the past. I don’t think I’ve ever made a record like it. It was more experimental than anything I’d ever made. I didn’t set out to make it thinking I’d try something I’d done before, it was more the opposite, to try something I never had... I felt freer, less careful. What this new record created in me was the sense that I can do what the fuck I want, right now, quite frankly. It’s not to prove anything, it’s not an ego thing, it’s just more interesting that way.”

When & Where: 13 Jun, Vivid LIVE, Sydney Opera House; 16 Jun, Canberra Theatre Centre

Music

Double Trouble Anthony Carew sits down to an international three-way call with Dustin Tebbutt and Lisa Mitchell ahead of their Distant Call tour.

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iven Dustin Tebbutt and Lisa Mitchell share members of their backing bands, it makes sense that the two are embarking on a collaborative tour. But, though they know each other from around the traps, they’re not, yet, the best of pals. “In terms of actually bro-ing down, we haven’t actually spent that much time together,” Mitchell laughs. “We know each other from around Sydney, but, at this point, we’re more penpals, really.”

We’ll be doing a few covers together, and jumping on each other’s tracks.

Fittingly, on a three-way rock-interview conversation, Tebbutt and Mitchell aren’t in the same hemisphere; Tebbutt in the studio in Sydney, Mitchell at her grandmother’s house on the Scottish coast. Mitchell has, notably, just played a show in Manchester, the day after the tragic terrorist attack rocked the city.

“We arrived on the day that the explosion happened,” Mitchell recounts. “We were staying close to the venue.

We just heard sirens from outside, we had no idea what was going on, we didn’t have any news reports coming in. I saw police gathering out the window outside. It was totally terrifying. But it wasn’t until we woke up the next day that we discovered that 22 people had been killed.

Of course, the mood in the city was pretty sombre. We weren’t sure that we were going to be able to play our show... sometimes promoters just cancel everything when things like this happen.

“I really wanted to play,” she continues. “Especially for people who’d bought tickets to our show, it would’ve felt horrible to just cancel it. When awful things happen, music can be such a wonderful vehicle for being able to process feelings... I’m super glad that we played. It felt like the right thing to do.”

Tebbutt, in contrast, is alone in the studio, in the middle of psyching himself up for vocal takes (“after this, I’m going to have a whisky, and then I hope I’m good to go”), and working on new recordings. As with his debut LP, First Light (2016), the bulk of which he wrote while living in Sweden, Tebbutt wrote much of the record in the Far North. “I did a bunch of writing in Scandinavia and the Netherlands, and came back with a lot of material that I really cherish,” he offers. “So, I’ve been spending the last little while piecing them together, and they’re starting to form into a bit of a body-of-work, but I’m not exactly sure how I’m going to release it.”

Tebbutt wonders, now, if writing in faraway countries hasn’t become “a bit of a crutch for [him]”, but Mitchell -who was living in London when she wrote her 2016 album, Warriors — sees the liberation in a situation that “allows you to step away from who you are in that place, to get out of your own head, to forget yourself.”

In turn, Tebbutt and Mitchell have called their collaborative tour Distant Call, evoking both the distance and longing in their music, and in the build-up to the tour thus far. “Our own sets are going to be interwoven, throughout the evening, so it’s not really a double bill,” says Tebbutt. “And, during that, we’ll be doing a few covers together, and jumping on each other’s tracks. We haven’t really figured out all the logistics yet, because all of this has been done over the internet, and in our minds.

We haven’t had a chance to actually rehearse yet.”

They have, however, collaborated on a track, covering RÜFÜS’ Innerbloom; with Mitchell recording her vocals in Berlin, and the version bringing the tenminute banger but to a sombre four minutes. “When you strip away the production, the song is really beautiful,” says Tebbutt. “When we started recording the demo, it really quickly went to a place that was really inspiring.”

The pair are looking forward to bringing this dreamtof collaboration to fruition, and sharing the burden on stage. “It’s actually pretty rare to be working with another artist like this,” Mitchell says. “As the songwriter, in the ‘artist’ role, it can be a situation where you’re in charge of all these decisions. This way, it feels like someone else is on your side.”

“There’s definitely been times,” Tebbutt furthers, “as I’ve been doing this thing as a solo artist, like at a festival set, which is this goal that you’ve been working so hard to get to, and when you’ve reached the point where you’re actually doing it, and you’re on stage, sometimes you feel really alone. Like, you’ve got this team around you, and they’re all really good friends, but they’re not in there as much as you are, and it’s quite hard to share that moment. From our point of view, as artists, it’s nice to have someone else sharing that role.”

When & Where: 10 Jun, Factory Theatre; 11 Jun, Cambridge Hotel, Newcastle

THE MUSIC • 7TH JUNE 2017 • 25

SYDNEY FILM FESTIVAL MUST SEES

Music

Fantastic Voyage

LAST MEN IN ALEPPO Directors: Feras Fayyed & Steen Johannessen Synopsis: Aleppo’s volunteer corps of White Helmets go out in the wake of bombings to dig out survivors.

Catch if you’re into: Vibeke Lokkeberg’s Tears Of Gaza.

‘90s rap giant Coolio’s coming to town with Salt N Pepa, Vanilla Ice and Color Me Badd.

He talks to Cyclone about why he doesn’t do trends.

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TASTE OF CHERRY Director: Abbas Kiarostami Synopsis: An upper-class Tehrani drives around the Iranian countryside, trying to find someone who’ll bury him after he commits suicide.

Catch if you’re into: Iranian cinematic parables, shots of people driving in cars, Jafar Panahi’s The Mirror.

WOLF & SHEEP Director: Shahrbanoo Sadat Synopsis: In a remote mountain village, groups of children play-act as adults: gossiping, swearing, smoking, and bartering bride prices.

Catch if you’re into: Hana Makhmalbaf’s Buddha Collapsed Out Of Shame.

26 • THE MUSIC • 7TH JUNE 2017

he Compton, California rapper Coolio (aka Artis Ivey, Jr) was one of hip hop’s first major crossover stars. His Gangsta’s Paradise — featuring R&B singer LV — was 1995’s top-selling single and won a Grammy. “Weird Al” Yankovic even parodied it.

Over 20 years later, and Ivey is an in-demand nostalgia act. He’ll return to Australia as part of June’s I Love The 90’s Tour with Salt N Pepa, Vanilla Ice and Color Me Badd. The international franchise has been so successful as to expand into cruises Stateside, with the inaugural Ship-Hop happening in 2018. But Ivey maintains that he “transcends” old school rap. “I’ve always felt like I’ve made timeless music,” Ivey says from his Las Vegas base. “I never write trendy songs and use a lot of trendy words — I don’t do that so that, when the song gets a little older, people will be like, ‘Oh, that was a long time ago, nobody don’t talk about that no more.’ The kind of things that I talk about, people will be talking about for the rest of their lives.”

Rapping in the late ‘80s, Ivey joined the notable WC And The Maad Circle. He then inked a solo contract with Tommy Boy Records. The West Coaster broke through with the G-funk Fantastic Voyage from 1994’s It Takes A Thief. But today Ivey is synonymous with Gangsta’s Paradise — recorded for the Dangerous Minds movie,

but also the title track of his second album. Borrowing from Stevie Wonder’s Pastime Paradise, the song universalised gangsta rap.

Ivey subsequently hit the studio with Aussie popster Peter Andre — guesting on his ‘urban’ single All Night, All Right alongside Warren G. “It came out pretty good,” Ivey says, pausing. “To tell you the truth, I can not remember not one second of that! It’s gone from my memory, for some reason.”

Yet Ivey’s urban-pop manoeuvres prompted a backlash. Despite charting highly with the classical-sampling C U When U Get There from 1997’s My Soul, he lost his deal.

Still, Ivey landed acting roles — cameoing in Batman & Robin. He participated in reality TV shows. And he’s branded himself as a credible celebrity chef, his speciality “ghetto gourmet”. Ivey hasn’t necessarily put music on the back-burner. This showman tours consistently. He performed at 2012’s Falls Festival. (“It was real cool.”) In January Ivey aired Kill Again, a #BlackLivesMatter anthem exposing the reverberations of gang culture and police brutality. “It was just something that I wanted to bring some attention to, that’s all,” he says. Though Ivey has touted an EP, he’s non-committal about future album projects. “I’ma kind of play it by ear for right now. The market is overcrowded with bombs. There’s a lot of wack music out there — and there’s some good music out there... A lotta people don’t make albums. I think that the time of the concept album is probably over. But I may or may not do another album.

I can’t really say at this point. I’m just doing what I feel.”

When & Where: 9 Jun, Qudos Bank Arena

Music

Safer Haven

Belle Haven’s David De La Hoz chats to Rod Whitfield about why they’ve had to drop the ‘nice guys’ tag ahead of their upcoming tour.

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here is often an uncomfortable downtime for bands in between the completion of an album and its actual release. For Melbourne posthardcore five-piece Belle Haven, due to circumstances and the actions of other people out of their control, this has been taken to absolute extremes for their soon to be released sophomore album You, Me And Everything In Between, as frontman David De La Hoz explains from his home in M-town.

“In our case, we’d finished the record in December 2015,” he reveals, “So it’s been a little while.” So that’s a year and a half?

“Yeah,” he confirms, “Our mixing engineer decided to put us on the back-burner and delay the process a heck of a lot, so we had a pretty negative experience there, and unfortunately it’s bled some poison into the relationship we had with the guy. But that’s the way of the music world sometimes.”

In fact, this, and some other similar incidents that have occurred in the band’s recent history, has signalled a subtle but definite change in attitude in the band, and in the way they approach their everyday management and activities, and this is reflected in much of the new album’s content.

“We’ve always been known as ‘Oh Belle Haven, they’re really nice guys’,” he says,

“And we love that, and we want to continue with that always, but it’s started to work against us over the past 18 months. We were so nice that people would lie to us, use us, trick us, steal from us, and we would just keep it to ourselves. It got to the point where one of our friends, who we employed to shoot a music video for us, legitimately tried to take our money and run.

That was a massive turning point for us, it made me very angry, coz I’d known that guy for years.

These things have just changed the way the band works.”

In what way? “We still strive to be nice people, but with this record, it’s a statement, that says ‘we’re nice, but don’t cross us.’ This whole record was a way for us to change the way we view these situations.”

De La Hoz also wants other bands to be able to learn from the negative experiences that Belle Haven has had, that there are some serious charlatans out there in the music industry and in everyday life, and to protect yourself at all times. “Hopefully other bands can read these interviews or listen when I’ve spoken about it, and really take it on board that their craft, their creative babies are special and not to be tampered with,” he says with conviction.

The band and their fans very much hope that those times and incidents are behind them, and now they are set to finally release the album and head out on tour. “Yep, we’re ready to go and we are so excited!” He enthuses, “We’ve never really done a headline tour, this is a new world for us and to have Melbourne sell out already, it’s just crazy.”

SYDNEY FILM FESTIVAL MUST SEES

HAPPY END Director: Michael Haneke Synopsis: A bourgeois French family, living in blithe wealth in the face of a wave of European immigrants, harbour a host of dark secrets.

Catch if you’re into: Haneke’s Benny’s Video/Code Unknown/Caché/etc.

HOLY AIR Director: Shady Srour Synopsis: A luckless Nazarene fatherto-be comes up with a get-rich-quick scheme: selling bottled ‘Holy Air’ to Christian tourists.

Catch if you’re into: The marriage of mafia and religion,deadpan humour, Elia Suleiman’s Divine Intervention.

I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO What: You, Me And Everything In Between (Greyscale) When & Where: 10 Jun, Factory Floor, Sydney

Director: Raoul Peck Synopsis: A documentary on James Baldwin, the poet laureate of the Civil Rights movement.

Catch if you’re into: Archival footage, Spike Lee’s When The Levees Broke: A Requiem In Four Acts.

THE MUSIC • 7TH JUNE 2017 • 27

OPINION Opinion

The Heavy Shit

William Dobell

Moderately Highbrow Visual Art Wank

A

irBnB is a remarkable thing; previously it would have taken years of training, hard work, and And Theatre enough seasickness medication to sink a ship for me to find myself in the house of multiple Olympic Foyers With medalist and sailor, Nathan Outteridge - and yet that is where I spent the weekend (and though I drunk plenty of Dave Drayton schooners, I sailed none).

Unsurprisingly located on the water, what was surprising was the proximity to Dobell House, Sir William’s home and studio. The three-time Archibald winner (prepare your paints, entries close next month) took the country’s top portrait prize for his paintings of artists Joshua Smith (1943) and Margaret Olley (1948), and surgeon Dr Edward MacMahon (1959).

His portrait of Smith, appropriately titled Portrait Of An Artist, was particularly controversial. His drawn face, tall neck and hands stretching towards surrealism caused two unsuccessful entrants to attempt a lawsuit on the grounds that the caricatured nature of the painting rendered it ineligible for the competition.

Thankfully good taste prevailed, Justice Roper stating: “The picture in question is characterised by some startling exaggeration and distortion, clearly intended by the artist, his technique being too brilliant to admit of any other conclusion.”

The Heavy Shit In London

Bryson Tiller

O G F l ava s

U

Urban And R&B News With Cyclone

rban music reinvents itself by bringing in fresh and often idiosyncratic influences.

Occasionally this misfires - or the artists are too ahead of their time. In 2009, futurist producer Timbaland united with the late Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell for the album Scream - epically fusing blues, grunge and electro’n’b. Rock critics loathed it - as did grunge fans, many simply hostile to hip hop (similar cultural outrage accompanied Jay Z’s sampling of Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit for Holy Grail). Known for tortured introspection, Cornell did reveal an incongruously aggressive masculinity in songs like Part Of Me. But, then, he’d already recorded a savage rock cover of Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean.

28 • THE MUSIC • 7TH JUNE 2017

Hip hoppers have long been fascinated by grunge. D12’s Proof cut a dark track entitled Kurt Cobain (with Lana Del Rey’s later cohort Emile Haynie) for 2005’s Searching For Jerry Garcia. KiD CuDi has even made a grunge LP, Speedin’ Bullet 2 Heaven. In fact, grunge’s nihilism, and textures can be discerned in those new urban genres of chillwave, cloud rap and trap.

Bryson Tiller broke out with 2015’s innovative debut TRAPSOUL - the single Don’t going viral. The Louisville, Kentucky singer collaborated with Timbaland on Sorry Not Sorry. He’s now stealthed his second, True To Self - ostensibly “more upbeat”. Actually, Tiller hasn’t messed with his formula of subliminal beats and skewed (mostly R&B) samples. However, he’s sought different producers - notably Boi-1da and T-Minus (the standout Something Tells Me) from Drake’s circle. Unfortunately, Tiller’s trap soul is today ubiquitous - and indistinguishable from that of Drizzy and Trey Songz. Is it finally time for electrogrunge?

OPINION Opinion

Metal And

H

ello from me over here Hard Rock With enjoying the Euro summer!

Chris Maric A big thank you to all those individuals, bands and all you other people who have donated thus far to the Heavy Metal Truants charity ride!

Carl and I have a very long way to go still so if you feel like helping us help the kids, please send whatever you can via justgiving.com/australiantruants The campaign overall is nudging its target of 666,666 pounds, which is an incredible feat for a bunch of ratbags from the music industry! The press coverage has been great, in the UK the BBC did a story on a group of the riders taking part in a cycle sweat class - which wasn’t a particularly pretty sight - but the message got through and overall donations had an increase in the days following.

I’ve turned old while away, the day this column comes out is my 40th birthday so send your sympathies my way via a couple of beers in the form of a donation!

I would sincerely appreciate it, as would the charities! As you read, I’m probably half way to Luton on day one of our three-day ride northwards.

After the ride, I don’t plan on doing any exercise for the rest of the month other than some hand to mouth action of consuming many pints of beer and a lot of walking as I take in as many bands as possible across three different festivals! The UK’s Download Fest looks excellent this year with Aerosmith, Anathema, Code Orange, Dead Label, Devilskin, Devin Townsend Project, Orange Goblin, Prophets Of Rage, and a stack more all doing their best rain dance to make sure it doesn’t turn into another Download like it was last year!

Then over in France, Hellfest looks absolutely sensational with many of the major bands from Download making another appearance - Aerosmith, Slayer, Sabaton, Five Finger Death Punch and more. One of the forefathers of proto-metal, Deep Purple are headlining along with Aerosmith and Linkin Park.

There is also a huge amount of underground bands playing like Ghost Bath, which is brilliant for discovering new stuff and how I learned of MGLA last year. The magical Igorrr will be a highlight as will seeing Emperor and Wardruna! So many old school legends are playing too - Hawkwind,

and Pentagram!!

If that wasn’t enough, the next weekend in Copenhagen, the Copenhell festival takes place in the city’s beautiful harbour and, well, if I want to see Slayer for the third time I can as they are headlining with all the other big bands on the previous two!

SOAD, Prophets Of Rage, FFDP, Alter Bridge, and more.

But the real gems are to be found with acts like Myrkur and Batushka who would be mesmerising to see. Black metal with Gregorian chants and Russian lyrics anyone?

I’ll phone home again while I’m over here with two columns due during the month so expect lots of updates about the world’s premier metal festivals, the Golden Gods Awards and more pleas for donations.

Anyway, here at home, there are a stack of international tours on the board that reach up until December now that Paradise Lost will be in town as well as Anathema.

I hope both bands aren’t assaulted by the heat too much coming from oop north in Yorkshire hehe.

Be good, go to local gigs, there’s always plenty of them!

FILM FESTIVAL Submit your short environmentally-themed films before 31 July for your chance to be selected to screen at the Footprints Ecofestival on Sunday 27 August.

There are loads of great prizes up for grabs, such as: vouchers for photography equipment, bicycles, movie tickets and more.

ENTRIES CLOSE 3 1 J U LY 2 0 1 7 More information at: footprints@innerwest.nsw.gov.au or call (02) 9367 9381 www.innerwest.nsw.gov.au/footprints-films

THE MUSIC • 7TH JUNE 2017 • 29

Album / E Album/EP Reviews

Album OF THE Week

Kirin J Callinan Bravado

You get the feeling Kirin J Callinan almost enjoys keeping his audience off balance, slightly unsure of his intent.

Even his look suggests an eccentric danger, but comes with an obvious wink. Meanwhile, his music has shifted from the frequent serrated shards of guitar that came with his first album, Embracism, to often electronic styles showcasing a croon that is sometimes Iggy Pop, sometimes kd lang.

But before you dismiss him as a curiosity, listen to his album’s range - and the artists who want to associate with him on this record.

Those with a sense of the ironic like Weyes Blood and Mac DeMarco make sense. But yes, that is Neil Finn leading a choir of himself and his offspring on Family Home. For another spin, ‘70s avant-garde jazz/funkist James Chance is aboard for the angles of the apparently improvised Down 2 Hang. And that scream that cuts through Big Enough - crikey, it sounds like no less than Barnesy. Oh wait, it is.

Last through to the sleek and modern kinetic pop of the title track, and realise there is a real craftsman at work here. You can’t fool us, KJC - you’re an artist, even when appearing to take the piss.

Ross Clelland

Siberia/EMI

★★★★

Phoenix

London Grammar

Ti Amo

Truth Is A Beautiful Thing

Glassnote/Liberator

★★★★ French music has become awesome in the last ten to 15 years, in myriad genres. And then there’s Phoenix.

Happily defying genre classification — although fitting very loosely and a little uncomfortably into the pop spectrum, given what pop music has become in recent years — Phoenix effortlessly create ubercatchy music that simply cannot fail to turn a frown upside-down.

Ti Amo is an enigma, in that it is so bright, fun and breezy, but so full of substance at the same time, it’s brimming with savvy songwriting nous.

It can be enjoyed on many levels, from blasting out of the speakers as you cruise down the beach on a warm summer’s day, to in a room alone with headphones on, shutting out the rest of the world. Such is the aura it creates. In an era 30 • THE MUSIC • 7TH JUNE 2017

Dew Process/Universal

★★★★

where mainstream pop music is plumbing ever-deepening cesspits of conveyor-belt inanity, this record is the sweetest and freshest breath of air imaginable.

It’s not difficult to imagine it popping up on swags of peoples’ ‘Best Albums of 2017’ lists.

Rod Whitfield

Any conversation about London Grammar’s new album must surely begin and end with Hannah Reid’s voice.

Exhibit A: lead single Rooting For You, whose melody spans Reid’s incredible range, from the opening deep-chest murmur, via her soulful mid-range to the delicate head-note arpeggios of the chorus. At the same time, there’s no doubting the collective effort the UK trio bring to the table. There’s plenty of well-placed texture, from Dan Rothman’s reverb-heavy guitar trills on Big Picture to the skittering percussion and solemn piano arpeggios of brood-pop psalm Leave The War With Me. The arrangements throughout are minimalist and atmospheric, employing strings, keys and highly disciplined dynamics to carve spaces

within which Reid’s voice can reverberate. The evocatively titled Bones Of Ribbon skids along on an insistent skein of hi-hat and syncopated snare, while the synth-and-piano combo of the title track form a stoney cocoon in which Reid strikes a prayerful pose. It’s been four years since debut LP If You Wait; by turns warm, earnest and sublime, Truth Is A Beautiful Thing has been worth the wait.

Plump for the deluxe version and you’ll get an extra seven tracks, including a fragile-sounding acoustic demo of Rooting For You, and a slow-burning live take on The Verve’s Bitter Sweet Symphony.

Tim Kroenert

EP Reviews Album/EP Reviews

Jim Lawrie

Tora

Slacker Of The Year

Take A Rest

Barely Dressed/Remote Control

Lustre

Sufjan Stevens, Lady Antebellum Bryce Dessner, Heart Break EMI Nico Muhly, James McAlister Planetarium 4AD/Remote Control

★★★★

★★★★

★★★

★★

Jim Lawrie’s 2015 record, Eons, was one of the finds of that year, a record of emotive storytelling straight from the sad bastard playbook.

So, despite the trepidation of what may lie in his follow-up, it’s with great relief that not only does Slacker Of The Year have a more musical depth to it than Eons, there’s less sad bastard and more cautious optimism. He follows the Kurt Vile approach to contemplative vocal delivery, where each song is given ample time to breathe and guitar lines room to expand, proving once again why he should be considered one of this decade’s finest songwriters.

Byron Bay four-piece Tora finally bring out a deliciously produced debut album with crispy synths and hypnotic vocals that delight the senses.

Frontman Jo Loewenthal’s vocals are delicate in Love Life before Grace Pitts’ gorgeous vocals bring Bridges to life.

Mercury and Dope awaken the senses with sensual synths and dreamy lyrics, while single Another Case teleports into another dimension with its funky bass. Towards the end of the eager 15-track album, the chillwave sound becomes a little repetitive, however, the blend of synths and electronic beats will keep any chillwave fan satisfied and grooving into the night.

Jim Lawrie’s 2015 record, Eons, was one of the finds of that year, a record of emotive storytelling straight from the sad bastard playbook.

So, despite the trepidation of what may lie in his follow-up, it’s with great relief that not only does Slacker Of The Year have a more musical depth to it than Eons, there’s less sad bastard and more cautious optimism. He follows the Kurt Vile approach to contemplative vocal delivery, where each song is given ample time to breathe and guitar lines room to expand, proving once again why he should be considered one of this decade’s finest songwriters.

After a year hiatus and a solo project, Charles Kelley reunited with fellow band members to create a soulful seventh studio album.

Ballad Big Love In A Small Town is beautiful with its deep lyrics and graceful vocals from the trio while This City brings back the country vibes with its banjos and acoustic guitars.

Lady Antebellum are slowly drifting away from the strong country sound and sounding more mainstream, however, their album lacks a showstopper track, and the album just feels like it flows from one average song onto the next. Where is that spark of the 2009 smash hit Need You Now that got hearts racing and tongues wagging?

Dylan Stewart

Dylan Stewart

Aneta Grulichova

Aneta Grulichova

More Reviews Online Big Thief Capacity

theMusic.com.au

All We Are Sunny Hills

Listen to our This Week’s Releases playlist on

THE MUSIC • 7TH JUNE 2017 • 31

Live Re Live Reviews

Goldfrapp @ Carriageworks. Pic: Peter Dovgan

Goldfrapp, Xavier Dunn Carriageworks 2 Jun

Goldfrapp @ Carriageworks.

Pic: Peter Dovgan

San Cisco @ Unibar Wollongong.

Pic: Jodie Downie

San Cisco @ Unibar Wollongong. Pic: Jodie Downie

Nick Murphy @ Sydney Opera House.

Pic: Clare Hawley

Nick Murphy @ Sydney Opera House.

Pic: Clare Hawley

32 • THE MUSIC • 7TH JUNE 2017

Somehow, it wasn’t quite the expectant buzz of seeing an artist after some years’ absence. Perhaps this was due to the gig - held in the perfectlyfrayed industrial surrounds of Carriageworks’ big hall - being billed as a Vivid Festival ‘Event’, meaning that there were a number of people present that were there more to be seen than to be entertained. Or maybe it’s just the slightly nervous way the world is currently is, with heavier than usual police presence, including a couple of those friendly black Labradors, making people a little subdued.

But Xavier Dunn was pleased to be here, even playing to a sparsely filled room while most loitered outside sampling the street food vans. So excited as he bounced behind his workstation, occasionally strapping one of them old-timey electric guitars, he actually ran out of songs before his time was up - so quite neatly improvised one on the spot. “Thanks Sydney, you rocked!” OK, sure.

The eponymous Alison Goldfrapp and her modern-style band - impossibly stylish women behind a couple of platforms with banks of synths, along with more traditional human bass and drums, and even sporadic outbreaks of keytar - crank up right on the dot of 9pm (yes, welcome to Sydney...). The sound fills this quite grand highroofed space, and you wonder how NSW’s sell-everything-thatisn’t-nailed-down-and-a-fewthings-that-are government hasn’t yet flogged the site off for apartments.

In a glorious alfoil silver suit, rather than the more sombre ensembles she’s apparently been sporting recently, Ms Goldfrapp commands the stage. A voice breathy against big beat drums,

then an arched-back Florencelike whoop, and that Morricone whistle to open Lovely Head.

Galactic backdrops spun around and flooded light over her.

The dilettantes often seemed to be asking “Do you know that one?”, as they

Ms Goldfrapp commands the stage. appeared not to know there’d been songs since the huge neon blast that is Ooh La La, including recent return to form Silver Eye - although its pumping Systemagic is a highlight. That unfamiliarity might have been why things never completely busted out, although the early appearance of T.Rexy stomp Number 1 and the main-set closing Ride A White Horse threatened to. Well before the 10.30 curfew, it felt like a disco toward the end of the night, rather than a party all the way through. Alison declares Sydney “so nice, and warm, and clean”.

Maybe that’s the problem.

Ross Clelland

San Cisco, Thelma Plum UniBar 3 Jun Having moved on from her solo acoustic origins to a more fleshed-out pop sound, Thelma Plum entrusted her rich vocals to smooth over this transition seamlessly - and to incredible results. Prone to waving her arms in time with her dreamy tunes, Plum naturally vibed along with each song as her percussionist and keys/guitar player helped to expand these mellow and heartfelt tracks.

This beautiful escapism was

eviews Live Reviews

broken up by Plum when she emphatically asked her audience to “imagine someone you hate” (for her, it was her ex) while she played her track Around Here.

The Brisbane artist wrapped up to a buzzing crowd, plenty of whom knew the words to How Much Does Your Love Cost?.

Playing under festive, stringed LED lighting, San Cisco glowed in every sense of the word. Their set was sprinkled with enthusiastic “awws” and

San Cisco worked very hard to ensure this euphoric atmosphere lasted the entire night and it paid off spectacularly. “ahhs” from punters who would almost instantly recognise what song was about to be played next. Kicking off with Did You Get What You Came For?, the Fremantle group’s third album The Water featured heavily in their set. Drummer Scarlett Stevens and guitarist Jordi Davieson bounced off each other well all night as they swapped vocal roles - the LED lights shined especially bright on whoever would be singing lead.

The sky blue backdrop with fluffy clouds topped off the dreamy aesthetic that comes with their unique blend of quirky indie-pop.

Audience enthusiasm, while loud and high pitched, built to a crescendo when Snow and Too Much Time Together closed the main show to punters, some of whom were now on each other’s shoulders. Their encore set starting with an acoustic version

of Waiting For The Weekend and finishing on RUN - was an extra wild ride of dancing and singing. With a huge emphasis on fun and enjoyment, San Cisco worked very hard to ensure this euphoric atmosphere lasted the entire night and it paid off spectacularly.

and Murphy was surrounded by the audience. Even the band made a semi-circle around the middle of the stage, enhancing everyone’s view of Murphy. It was like watching a show in the iPhone camera’s panorama

Ben Nicol

Everyone was up dancing in the pillars to the catchy guitar riffs and sensual verses.

Nick Murphy Sydney Opera House 1 Jun Walking into the Sydney Opera House on this Thursday night was a lot more mystical than usual.

Sydney city was lit and shining bright for the yearly Vivid lights festival. The venue did not only light up on the outside for everyone to see but also on the inside as Nick Murphy took to the stage. There was no ease in for the crowd from that moment as he began with intense drops, loud screaming and flashing bright lights. From this intense beginning, the stage went completely black before he came back in with his popular track, Gold.

For the next tune on the “Chet Faker” journey, he brought us back with his track 1998.

He played the original song but amended it with some signature “Nick Murphy” grooves. The new and improved drop glowed with this intense and authentic drum rhythm, which sounded lush with the layered synth sounds.

The light box above the middle of the stage kept the audience mesmerised; during every song the light box lit the stage up with new effects. At this point, it was shooting lasers! These lasers reflected onto the wall behind Murphy and his band like a disco ball would, creating this hectic image to match the soundscape for Weak Education from the Nick Murphy Missing Link EP. It was almost as if the stage sat in the middle of the crowd

mode, as when Murphy moved around the stage, every eye was able to follow his funky dance moves and hypnotic vocal rounds. Murphy invited Marcus Marr on stage for their track The Trouble With Us. By this point, everyone was up dancing in the pillars to the catchy guitar riffs and sensual verses. When Murphy danced along for track Talk Is Cheap it was as if his feet were gliding across the floor in his moonwalk-esqe groove.

He brought the tempo down for the standout of the show, a track called Driving Too Fast. He managed to mesmerise with his harking falsetto mixed with the silence of only his voice with the grand piano. The build up was spine-tingling as syncopated claps from band members created an erupting climax.

He ended with an extended version of Stop Me (Stop You) and although he faced some technical difficulties, he managed to pull through and make a humble exit, leaving the crowd wanting more.

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

Nai Palm @ Sydney Opera House Air @ Sydney Opera House The Preatures @ Sydney Opera House Donny Benet @ Oxford Art Factory Bill Callahan @ Sydney Opera House Richie Hawtin @ Sydney Opera House The Necks @ Sydney Opera House

Sara Tamim

THE MUSIC • 7TH JUNE 2017 • 33

Arts Reviews Arts Reviews

with a mysterious and possibly magical lineage.

It’s a pleasingly optimistic approach for a 21st-century superhero movie to take, especially considering that Wonder Woman’s counterparts, Batman and Superman, have been more grim and glum.

Gadot’s supporting appearance alongside characters in Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice hinted at something a little less dour, and Wonder Woman, enjoyably expands on that.

The story begins 100 years ago on the hidden island paradise of Themyscira, where a community of women live in harmony but diligently prepare for a battle. In their mythology, Ares, the god of war, is always waiting for his chance to pit mankind against itself in eternal battle.

Could it be Diana, taught by her regal mother (Connie Nielsen) to be wise and just, but also trained by her warrior aunt (the fierce Robin Wright) to kick a whole lot of butt? She’ll soon find out when American fighter pilot Steve Trevor (Chris Pine, terrific) crash-lands in the sea surrounding the island, he brings word of “a war to end all wars”, better known as WWI. Diana travels for the first time to the outside world to restore peace by destroying the god of war. As she discovers by accompanying Steve, the whole thing is messier and more complex than she first imagined. But she also discovers that there’s nobility and goodness in humanity and it’s worth fighting for.

It’s a truly engaging trajectory for a character, and even though it’s been seen before in numerous superhero stories, Wonder Woman presents it with a winning degree of heart and soul (not to mention a cheeky sense of humour and a charming romantic flair).

Thank Gadot in large part for that — her physicality, both lithe and strong, makes her convincing as a defender and protector but the passion and compassion she conveys are superpowers all their own.

Wonder Woman

Baywatch

Wonder Woman Film In cinemas now

★★★½ If you believe the hype, DC Comics superhero Wonder Woman has a much tougher task than simply saving the world in her first solo big-screen adventure — she has to boldly blaze a trail for every other female hero short-changed by a system that has relegated them to the sidelines.

Don’t worry.

She’s up to the task.

Directed by Patty Jenkins and starring Gal Gadot in the title role, Wonder Woman doesn’t buckle under the burden of high expectations.

It may not be a game-changer in an artistic or dramatic sense but it delivers big, broad-stroke entertainment that’s thrilling, touching and thoughtful.

The title character — better known as Diana — is a powerful warrior

Guy Davis

34 • THE MUSIC • 7TH JUNE 2017

Baywatch Film In cinemas now

★ Despite what the stars of the original 1990s TV series and the new film adaptation would have you believe, nobody really likes Baywatch.

No, what people tend to like is the idea of Baywatch — sun-drenched beaches, sparkling water and good-looking, curvaceous people whose jiggly bits are barely covered by red swimsuits.

Venture any further than the opening credits, and you’ll realise there’s nothing worthwhile to explore.

And for the makers of the Baywatch movie, that provided both a challenge and an opportunity.

Sadly, however, the makers of the Baywatch movie pull off the impressive feat of trying too hard while not trying hard enough.

Here’s a movie that wants to have it any number of ways — it’s an action-adventure buddy movie! It’s a raunchy gross-out comedy! It’s poking fun at the show while paying tribute to it! — but can’t get any of its approaches right.

And I know one shouldn’t judge Baywatch by the usual metrics, but if 21 Jump Street and its sequel are the gold standard of this type of thing, this crass, clumsy movie is tin. Actually, more like tinfoil.

Its comedy is 90% boorish and bullying. Its action is lacklustre. Its star power, such as it is, is problematic.

Heck, it even makes the sun, sea and sand look dull and drab.

For mine, Baywatch has one good idea, and it’s one that it never makes the most of.

It’s that Mitch Buchannon (Dwayne Johnson), head lifeguard at Emerald Bay, sees himself and his team of lycra-clad lifesavers as the local enforcers of the law, despite the area’s police and politicians regularly reminding him that’s not the case.

While Johnson’s act hasn’t grown stale — not yet, at least — his trademark swagger isn’t tough enough to let him walk away from duds like Baywatch totally unscathed.

Guy Davis

THE MUSIC • 7TH JUNE 2017 • 35

Comedy / G The Guide

Vera Blue

Wed 07

Alex The Astronaut

Vivid presents Molotov Comedy with Katie Burch + Tom Cashman + Cam Duggan: B.E.D. Bar, Kings Cross

Command Q + Eliza & The Delusionals + Kinder DJs: Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Beach Hot Mess: Camelot Lounge, Marrickville Sarah Blasko: City Recital Hall, Sydney

The Music Presents Horrorshow: 16 Jun ANU Bar Canberra; 17 Jun Enmore Theatre; 7 Jul University Of Wollongong; 8 Jul Bar On The Hill, Newcastle Orsome Welles: 30 Jun Factory Theatre; 1 Jul The Basement Luca Brasi: 1 Jul Metro Theatre

Deadly Sounds with Various Artists: Eora Theatre, Chippendale The White Tree Band: Leadbelly (formerly The Vanguard), Newtown Live & Local feat. Anton Lewis + Daniel March: Lizottes Newcastle, Lambton Waves feat. Gold Fields + Commandeur + Hazlett + Moza + Peta & The Wolves: Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst

Bello Winter Music Festival: 6 - 9 Jul Bellingen

Creatures of Leisure + The Knots + Bleeding Gums + Gosh: Rad Bar, Wollongong

Two Door Cinema Club: 21 Jul Hodern Pavilion

M-Phazes: The Argyle House, Newcastle

The Lemon Twigs: 22 Jul Oxford Art Factory Sigur Ros: 25 Jul Hodern Pavilion Vera Blue: 28 Jul The Academy Canberra; 29 Jul Metro Theatre; 31 Aug UniBar Wollongong; 1 Sep The Beery Terrigal; 8 Sep Bar On The Hill Newcastle Dan Sultan: 28 Sep The Academy Canerra; 29 Sep Bar On The Hill Newcastle; 30 Sep Metro Theatre

Dean Martin’s 100th Birthday Tribute feat.

Grant Galea: The Basement, Sydney

Hotline Sing Alex The Astronaut will be given her space to shine when she supports Dustin Tebbut and Lisa Mitchell Saturday night for their collaborative Distant Call tour. She will be sharing the stage at Factory Theatre for their unique mixed set.

Daniel Champagne: The Commons, Hamilton

Sydney Comedy Festival Encore Showcases: Comedy Store, Moore Park

Furnace & Fundamentals: The Soda Factory, Surry Hills

Carb on Carb + Prizegiving + Video Breezy + Passive Smoke: The Phoenix, Canberra

Marshall Okell: Frankie’s Pizza

By The Slice, Sydney

The Double Up Lounge with +DJ Dan Phelan: The Stag & Hunter Hotel, Mayfield

The Prince Tribute: The Soda Factory, Surry Hills

Ben Aylward + Michael Plater + Carl Redfern + Rebecca Bastoli : Gasoline Pony, Marrickville

Catherine Traicos: The White Horse, Surry Hills

Adrian Cunningham Quartet: Venue 505, Surry Hills

At The Drive In: 29 Sep Hodern Pavilion

Vivid Music presents Tom Stephens: Golden Age Cinema & Bar, Surry Hills Kojey Radical + Gaika + Cassius Select + Kimchi Princi + Body Promise: Hudson Ballroom, Sydney

Vintage & Custom Drum Expo: 8 Oct Factory Theatre

The Virgin Bride with Effie: International Convention Centre Sydney (ICC), Sydney

Alt-J: 9 Dec ICC Sydney

Punk Vacation V feat. Big Rat Stu + more: Valve Bar (Basement), Ultimo Vivid LIVE presents Greg Coffin Trio: Venue 505, Surry Hills

Remi

The Bootleg Beach Boys: Laycock Street Theatre, North Gosford

Scabz

Scabby Knees Rock’n’roll and alcohol are the prime ways to celebrate the long weekend. Those who get the pleasure of Monday off, your Sunday night bender is covered when hard-rock trio Scabz tear up Leadbelly.

Thu 08

Killing Heidi + Iluka + Eliza & The Delusionals: Metro Theatre, Sydney Remi + Sampa The Great: Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst The Violent Monks + Kimono Drag Queen + Mesmeriser + Feeling Dave: Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst Songs On Stage feat. Russell Neal + Pauline Sparkle + more: Paddington RSL, Paddington New Venusians + Colourfields + Elke & The Jandel: Rad Bar, Wollongong

Get Lit Longtime pals Remi and Sampa The Great are joining forces with a co-headline this Thursday night. The Fire Sign tour hits the walls of Oxford Art Factory for a brutal night of pure hip hop talent.

Tomas Ford: Smiths Alternative, Canberra

Vivid presents JR’s Jazz Jam: B.E.D. Bar, Kings Cross

Aldous Monroe + Alex Guthrie + Nic Malouf: Staves Brewery, Glebe

Simple Stone + Valen + James Davis: Vic On The Park, Marrickville

The Songs of Patsy Cline with Michelle Little: Camelot Lounge, Marrickville

Live & Originals feat. Charli Rainford + Nikita Rolleston + Naomi Nash: The Louis (formerly Lewisham Hotel), Lewisham

Fri 09

Sarah Blasko: Canberra Theatre Centre (Playhouse), Canberra 36 • THE MUSIC • 7TH JUNE 2017

I Am Woman - A Celebration of Female Voices & The Messages They Bring with Various Artists: Leadbelly (formerly The Vanguard), Newtown

Aversions Crown + Boris The Blade + Alpha Wolf: The Small Ballroom, Islington

Sarah Blasko: Anita’s Theatre, Thirroul

Gigs / Live The Guide

Conway: Enmore Theatre, Newtown

Bad//Dreems

Aversions Crown + Boris The Blade + Alpha Wolf: Factory Theatre, Marrickville George Michael Relived: Foundry 616, Sydney

Low Down Riders: Gasoline Pony, Marrickville Cath & Him: Harbord Beach Hotel, Freshwater

Gutful Trouble Gutful is the latest release from the rock maestros in Bad// Dreems and they’re bringing the booze and the boogy down to Metro Theatre. Get loose Friday night when the four-piece kick off their national tour.

Vivid presents Aston Martinis: B.E.D. Bar, Kings Cross

The Kava Kings + Elke & The Jandel + Tay Plain: Heritage Hotel, Bulli Kit Bray: Hotel Brunswick, Brunswick Heads The Virgin Bride with Effie: International Convention Centre Sydney (ICC) (Pyrmont Theatre), Sydney

I Love The ‘90s feat. Vanilla Ice + Salt N Pepa + Color Me Badd + Tone Loc + Coolio + Young MC: Qudos Bank Arena, Sydney Olympic Park

Dragon + Dexter Moore: Lizottes Newcastle, Lambton

Mark Cashin & The Lil’ Hussys: Bateau Bay Hotel, Bateau Bay

Clive Hay: Lynwood Country Club, Pitt Town

Brown Sugar: Marble Bar, Sydney Bad//Dreems + The Creases: Metro Theatre, Sydney

Pirra: Bowra Hotel, Bowraville

Tall Hearts: Miranda Hotel, Miranda

Born Jovi: Towradgi Beach Hotel (Sports Bar), Towradgi

Far Away Stables: Red Rattler, Marrickville

Sounds of the Ghetto feat. Various Artists: Valve Bar (Basement), Ultimo

Aversions crown

Kings Of The Castle Prepare your body for a very brutal start to the weekend when Brisbane metal act Aversions Crown kick off a co-headline with Melbourne’s Boris The Blade. Factory Theatre gets the wrath of it all this Friday night.

King Tide Jellybean Jam: Revesby Workers (Infinity Lounge), Revesby TMG (Ted Mulry Gang): Rooty Hill RSL (Tivoli Showroom), Rooty Hill

The Hard Aches + Muncie Girls + The Football Club: Cambridge Hotel, Newcastle West

The Bootleg Beach Boys: South Sydney Juniors, Kingsford

Mahalia Barnes & The Soulmates: Camelot Lounge, Marrickville Borneo: Captain Cook Hotel, Paddington Cover Me Crazy: Castle Hill RSL (Terrace Bar), Castle Hill M-Phazes: Chinese Laundry, Sydney

Katie Noonan + Karin Schaupp: Street Theatre, Canberra

High Tide Seven members make up the indie-rock outfit King Tide and they’re all hitting the stage at Hotel Steyne this Sunday evening. Prepare your mind and body for the week ahead with some of their feel-good soul.

The Black Sorrows + Vika & Linda Bull + Colin Hay + Mental As Anything + Deborah

Johnny Cash The Concert: Walk The Line feat. Daniel Thompson + Stuie French: Sutherland Entertainment Centre, Sutherland Vivid LIVE presents KLP: Sydney Tower Eye, Sydney Prince: 1958 - Forever with Purple Doves: The Basement, Sydney Ploughshare + Monoceros + Yoko Oh No + A.B.X Obitt: The Basement, Belconnen Tom Blake Trio: The Beach Hotel, Merewether

Sydney Comedy Festival Encore Showcases: Comedy Store, Moore Park Chase City + Little Coyote: Coogee Bay Hotel (Selina’s), Coogee

Marshall Okell: The Stag & Hunter Hotel, Mayfield

Food Court + Shearin’ + The Marquis: Rad Bar, Wollongong

Best of You - Foo Fighters Tribute Show: Bull & Bush, Baulkham Hills

Lolo Lovina: Camelot Lounge (Django Bar), Marrickville

Kuki + The Factory Four: The Soda Factory, Surry Hills

DJ Sam Wall: Manly Wharf Hotel, Manly

Carb on Carb + Oslow + Prizegiving + Make More: Beatdisc Records, Parramatta

Dune Rats + Tired Lion + Pandamic: Cambridge Hotel, Newcastle West

Los Tones + Bad Bags + Crocodylus: The Phoenix, Canberra

The Iron Horses + I Am Apollo + The Night: LazyBones Lounge, Marrickville

She’s The Driver + Anatomy Class + Breizers: Bank Hotel (Waywards), Newtown

Molly & The Krells + Crash & The Carpenters + Japanese Death Machine: Brighton Up Bar, Darlinghurst

PM Fridays feat. Luude: Proud Mary’s, Erina

Harrison Craig: Laycock Street Theatre, North Gosford

The Crooked Fiddle Band + Cannibal Spiders: Leadbelly (formerly The Vanguard), Newtown

#5 Blues Drive + Freddy Spence & The Clients + Andrew Mov: Brass Monkey, Cronulla

Dibby Dibby Soundsystem + Coolhand Luke + DJ Benny Hinn: Play Bar, Surry Hills

Somatik + Russ Dewbury + DJ Graham Mandroules + Fernando Aragones: The Newport, Newport

Megan & The Vegans + Brother Be + City & Sea + Indie Kid Callum: Janes Wollongong, North Wollongong

The Dirty Earth + Swamp Road + The Dark Clouds: Bald Faced Stag, Leichhardt

Beach Ballin’ feat. +Halfway Crooks: Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Beach

Gypsies of Pangea + Cambio Sun + Izzy: Petersham Bowling Club, Petersham

Reckless + Natasha Duarte: Orient Hotel, The Rocks Remi + Sampa The Great: Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst

Jonval + Ruby Run + Zerrin + The Henry Fjords: The Bridge Hotel, Rozelle The Fossicks: The Chatswood Club, Chatswood

Hip Hop Showcase feat.

Johniepee + Primitive + more: Valve Bar (Level One), Ultimo Pals: Vic On The Park, Marrickville Dead Language + Jamatar: World Bar, Potts Point

Sat 10 Sarah Blasko: 48 Watt St, Newcastle The Black Sorrows + Vika & Linda Bull + Colin Hay + Mental As Anything + Deborah Conway: Anita’s Theatre, Thirroul Vivid presents Animal Ventura: B.E.D. Bar, Kings Cross Bangers & Thrash 2017 feat. Various Artists: Bald Faced Stag, Leichhardt Your 2000s with Various DJs: Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Beach Johnny Cash The Concert: Walk The Line feat. Daniel Thompson + Stuie French: Blue Mountains Theatre, Springwood Hendrix & Heroes feat. Steve Edmonds: Brass Monkey, Cronulla

THE MUSIC • 7TH JUNE 2017 • 37

Comedy / G The Guide

Los Tones + Crocodylus + Los Pintar: Brighton Up Bar, Darlinghurst

The Ians + The Kaemans + The Wrst + Cable: The Phoenix, Canberra

Chase City

Remi + Sampa The Great: Cambridge Hotel, Newcastle West

Clowns + Night Birds + Rort Menace + Wavevom: The Small Ballroom, Islington

Vulgargrad: Camelot Lounge, Marrickville

Muzzy Pep + E4444E: The Stag & Hunter Hotel, Mayfield

Chris Gudu: Camelot Lounge (Django Bar), Marrickville

Sloom + Wawawow + SCK-CHX: Town Hall Hotel, Newtown

Peter Combe: Canberra Theatre Centre (The Playhouse), Canberra

Slumberjack: Towradgi Beach Hotel (Waves), Towradgi

Next Best Thing: Club On East, Sutherland

Sanctuary Club with Various DJs: Valve Bar (Basement), Ultimo

The Matchbox Tribute Show: Colyton Hotel, Colyton

Metal Meet Up Monthly with Various DJs: Valve Bar (Level One), Ultimo

Al Jackson + Dustin Ybarra + Matthew Broussard + Megan Gailey: Comedy Store, Moore Park Sydney Comedy Festival Encore Showcases: Comedy Store, Moore Park Sounds Of Swing: Corrimal Hotel, Corrimal The Bootleg Beach Boys: Dee Why RSL, Dee Why Alan Cumming: Enmore Theatre, Newtown Dune Rats + Tired Lion + Pandamic: Entrance Leagues, Bateau Bay

The Black Sorrows

Bandaluzia Flamenco: Venue 505, Surry Hills

Chase City + Little Coyote

You & You Are: Vic On The Park, Marrickville

When Friday finally comes around and you’re looking for a party, look no further than Selina’s. The dance-punk rockers of Chase City are providing tunes to pop and lock it toward the weekend.

Jed Zarb: Wallacia Hotel, Wallacia

George Michael Relived +Various Artists: Heritage Hotel, Bulli

Rats DJs + Tigerilla + Fossa Beats + Hood Rich + more: Proud Mary’s, Erina

The Virgin Bride with Effie: International Convention Centre Sydney (ICC) (Pyrmont Theatre), Sydney

The Citradels + The Jim Mitchells + Nick Nuisance & The Delinquents + Sun Sap: Rad Bar, Wollongong

The Radiators + Eightball Junkies: Leadbelly (formerly The Vanguard), Newtown

Jimeoin: Ramsgate RSL, Sans Souci

All Our Exes Live In Texas: Lizottes Newcastle, Lambton DJ Stuart B: Manly Wharf Hotel, Manly Boombox with K-Note + Troy T + Trey + Various DJs: Marquee, Pyrmont

Tears Of Joy Blues and soul masters The Black Sorrows join the fifth annual APIA Good Times tour this Friday night at Enmore Theatre. Head down early and catch the likes of Deborah Conway and Mental As Anything.

The Hard Aches + Muncie Girls + The Football Club: Metro Theatre, Sydney Brendan Schaub: Metro Theatre, Sydney Matinee Show with Brendan Schaub: Metro Theatre, Sydney The Weight Of Silence: Miranda RSL, Miranda Australian Foo Fighters Show: Oatley Hotel, Oatley Songs On Stage feat. Russell Neal + Paul McGowan + more: Orange Grove Hotel, Lilyfield

Sun 11 Vivid presents Kool Vibration: B.E.D. Bar, Kings Cross Beers, Bands & Banter feat. Totally Unicorn + Dear Seattle + Corpus + Blue Velvet + Junkhead + Stumps + more: Bald Faced Stag, Leichhardt Live Baby Live: The INXS Tribute Show: Bateau Bay Hotel, Bateau Bay

K Groove: Revesby Workers (Infinity Lounge), Revesby

Lost Tropics + Pacific Avenue + This is Hill Town: Brass Monkey, Cronulla

Darren Johnstone: Rooty Hill RSL (Corona Terrace), Rooty Hill

Pretty City: Brighton Up Bar, Darlinghurst

Mal Eastick + Milena Barret: Sir William Wallace Hotel, Balmain Katie Noonan + Karin Schaupp: Street Theatre, Canberra Boo Seeka: The Area Hotel, Griffith The Music of Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath & Deep Purple with Peter Northcote: The Basement, Sydney Bleach It Clean + Chud + Cockbelch + Wesley & The Crushers: The Basement, Belconnen

VIVID Sydney Rooftop Party with Boy George + Kate Monroe + Beth Yen + Mark Dynamix + Rodd Riches + more: Cafe Del Mar, Sydney Dustin Tebbutt + Lisa Mitchell + Alex The Astronaut: Cambridge Hotel, Newcastle West Rumours - A Tribute to Fleetwood Mac: Camelot Lounge (Django Bar), Marrickville

Killing Heidi

The Lamplighters: The Beach Hotel, Merewether Blueprint feat. +Olivier Giacomotto: The Bridge Hotel, Rozelle

Elevate: Orient Hotel, The Rocks

Julian Jeweil: The Burdekin, Darlinghurst

Kirin J Callinan: Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst

Food Court: The Chippendale Hotel, Chippendale

Shiv-R + Snuff + Harbour: Factory Theatre (Fuse Box), Marrickville

Tomas Ford’s Crap Music Rave Party: Oxford Art Factory (Gallery Bar), Darlinghurst

Abbalanche - The Australian ABBA Tribute Show: The Cube, Campbelltown

Headline Heidi

Afternoon Show with Paul Hayward & his Sidekicks: Gasoline Pony, Marrickville

Shows on Stage feat. Hannah Matysek: Paddington RSL, Paddington

Harrison Craig: The Glasshouse, Port Macquarie

Toot: Gasoline Pony, Marrickville

One Hit Wonders + Janet Seidel Quartet: Penrith RSL (Castle Lounge), Penrith

It’s amazing when old favourites tour again, and that’s whats happening with Aussie rock legends Killing Heidi. For the first time in a decade the Hooper siblings are headlining Metro Theatre this Thursday.

Dustin Tebbutt + Lisa Mitchell: Factory Theatre, Marrickville Belle Haven + Ambleside + Deadlights: Factory Theatre (Factory Floor), Marrickville

Vivid Music presents Greta Now: Golden Age Cinema & Bar, Surry Hills The Autumn Hearts + Lennie Tranter & the Bagism Revelation: Grand Junction Hotel (The Junkyard), Maitland

38 • THE MUSIC • 7TH JUNE 2017

The White Bros: Pittwater RSL (Distillery), Mona Vale Mary’s House Party #4 with Ganz + Dune

Ministry of Sound feat. Peking Duk + Sandy Rivera + Kinder + DJ A-Tonez + Kormak + Jennifer Jennifer + Bruno Who + DJ I-Dee + DJ Eko + more: The Ivy, Sydney DJ MK-1 + Paper Parade + Laura Stitt + DJ Gian Arpino + Lady Red: The Newport, Newport

Gigs / Live The Guide

Mon 12

The Crooked Fiddle Band

Dynamis Trio: Foundry 616, Sydney

Sons Of The East

Frankie’s World Famous House Band: Frankie’s Pizza By The Slice, Sydney

Songs On Stage feat. Russell Neal + Michelle Benson + Paul Ward + Kenneth D’Aran: Gladstone Hotel, Dulwich Hill Songs On Stage feat. Russell Neal + Michelle Benson + Paul Ward + Kenneth D’Aran: Kellys on King, Newtown VIVID Ideas - Feedback: A Music Conference for Young People feat.

Hermitude + Lisa Mitchell + Ngaiire + Johann Ponniah + Monique Rothstein + more: Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA), The Rocks Craig Thommo: Orient Hotel, The Rocks

The Rising Sun

Night Birds + Topnovil + Blind Man Death Stare + Batfoot: Rad Bar, Wollongong

Sons Of The East pride themselves on their rowdy and raucous live shows. Make up your own mind when they bring their perfect mix of sundry folk melodies to Hotel Steyne Thursday.

The Black Sorrows + Vika & Linda Bull + Colin Hay + Mental As Anything + Deborah Conway: Canberra Theatre Centre, Canberra The Bootleg Beach Boys: Canterbury Hurlstone Park RSL, Canterbury Idiio: Captain Cook Hotel, Paddington Curve Ball 2017 feat. Safia: Carriageworks, Eveleigh Heaps Gay for Vivid Sydney: The Kaleidoscope feat. Holy Balm + Alice Ivy + Miss Blanks + more: Factory Theatre, Marrickville Khan + Desert Kingdom + Moustache Ant: Frankie’s Pizza By The Slice, Sydney Bernie Hayes: Gasoline Pony, Marrickville Fish Fry + Pow Wow: Grand Junction Hotel (The Junkyard), Maitland Seven Suns: Heritage Hotel, Bulli The Citradels + Sun Sap + Nick Nuisance & The Delinquents: Hotel Hollywood, Surry Hills

Wildcatz + Ed & Astro: Orient Hotel, The Rocks

If post-apocalyptic parties and battle scene climaxes sound like your kind of thing, check out The Crooked Fiddle Band as they fill up the walls of Leadbelly with their unique noise. It all goes down Friday night from 7pm.

Tue 13 Vivid presents Adam Pringle + Friends: B.E.D. Bar, Kings Cross

Jordan Ireland

Hot Damn! Reunion with +Hot Damn DJs: Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst

Open Mic Night with Champagne Jam: Dundas Sports Club, Dundas Songs On Stage feat. Russell Neal + Pauline Sparkle: Gladstone Hotel, Dulwich Hill

McCauleys Raiders: Penrith RSL (Castle Lounge), Penrith The Revivals: Pittwater RSL (Distillery), Mona Vale

The Laugh Stand with Dave Jory + Jacques Barratt + more: Harold Park Hotel, Forest Lodge

Bic Runga: Sydney Conservatorium of Music (Verbrugghen Hall), Sydney

Songs On Stage feat. Stuart Jammin + Jenny Hume: Kellys on King, Newtown

The Humm: The Beach Hotel, Merewether 70s British Invasion: The Bridge Hotel, Rozelle Prok & Fitch: The Burdekin, Darlinghurst Julian Jeweil + Prok & Fitch: The Grand Hotel, Wollongong Spike Flynn & The Open Hearted Strangers: The Merton Hotel, Rozelle Pleased To Jive You + First Gulf War + Jedbrii + Cultured Pelican: The Phoenix, Canberra

The Hillbilly Goats: Laurieton United Services Club, Laurieton

Alby Pool & No City Limits: The Stag & Hunter Hotel, Mayfield

Matinee Show with Thomas Oliver + Stephanie Grace: Leadbelly (formerly The Vanguard), Newtown

Dr Farquhar + Marshall Okell: Towradgi Beach Hotel, Towradgi

Killer Queen: Lizottes Newcastle, Lambton

DJ Alex Mac + Billie McCarthy + DJ Meem + Orly: The Newport, Newport

Marty Simpson: Oatley Hotel, Oatley

Katie Noonan + Karin Schaupp: Joan Sutherland Performing Arts Centre, Penrith

Scabz + Hunch + The Dunhill Blues + Beast & Flood + Good Pash: Leadbelly (formerly The Vanguard), Newtown

Vivid LIVE presents Laura Marling: Sydney Opera House, Sydney

Hey Diddle Diddle

Purple Rain Celebrating the release of Jordan Ireland With Purple Orchestra, Jordan Ireland and his cronies bring their luscious psilocybininspired sound to 107 Projects.

Dive deep into the lessons of soft origami and drift on a river of purple nonsense Friday night.

Terry Serio + Oh Reach: Leadbelly (formerly The Vanguard), Newtown Co-Pilot: Orient Hotel, The Rocks Vivid LIVE presents Beth Orton: Sydney Opera House (Concert Hall), Sydney The Little Jokers: The Bear Bar, Haymarket

The Hard Aches + Muncie Girls + The Football Club: Transit Bar, Canberra City Dune Rats + Tired Lion + Pandamic: Uni Bar, Wollongong

DJ Judge Jules + DJ Andrew James + DJ Trent Ruckus: Manly Wharf Hotel, Manly

Stone Deaf Sundays with Metak + Vulturous + more: Valve Bar (Basement), Ultimo

Sheppard + Reece Mastin + No Frills Twins: Metro Theatre, Sydney

DJ Owen Penglis: Vic On The Park, Marrickville

All Ages Matinee Show with Forever Ends Here + Young Lions + Yours Truly: Metro Theatre (The Lair), Sydney

Evie Dean: Wallacia Hotel, Wallacia

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THE MUSIC • 7TH JUNE 2017 • 39

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40 • THE MUSIC • 7TH JUNE 2017