June Issue
Sydney | Free
SYDNEY FILM FESTIVAL The women rewriting the rulebook of Australian cinema RuPaul’s Drag Race royalty Todrick Hall and Alaska dish the T on the TV megahit
Shining a light on Vivid headliners Solange and St. Vincent
High Tension ‘delving deep down into a realm of rage’
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W ’ AT S N O
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2018 SYDNEY FILM FESTIVAL
Celebrate The 65th Blake Prize with us at a big day of free workshops, films & events!
returns for a fifth year, bigger, better and bolder than ever! Check our website for a full listing.
SUN 3 JUNE 10.30AM - 3.30PM
9 – 17 JUNE
TREE OF LIFE
THE 65TH
BLAKE PRIZE
encourages conversation about spirituality and religion through art. Launch: Sat 19 May
Young refugees perform their own true stories in a symphony of spoken word, music & movement.
12 MAY – 1 JULY
14 & 15 JUNE
DINNER CONVERSATIONS YOU’D RATHER NOT HAVE
Varying views of religion and spirituality will be filtered into a feast, courtesy of Bellbird Dining.
THU 28 JUNE 7-9PM
WWW.CASULAPOWERHOUSE.COM OPEN DAILY GALLERY ENTRY IS FREE!
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TH E DE B UT ALB U M
“ W H AT C O M E S N E X T ”
F E AT U R I N G S I N G L E S H I STORY G ET TO K N OW FEAT. WI N STON S U R FS H I RT LOWK EY FEAT. B U D DY & JAY PR I N CE
OUT JUNE 15 T O U R I N G AU S T R A L I A J U LY /AU G U S T C O S M O S M I D N I G H T. C O M THE MUSIC
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Credits Publisher Street Press Australia Pty Ltd Group Managing Editor Andrew Mast National Editor – Magazines Mark Neilsen Group Senior Editor/National Arts Editor Maxim Boon Editors Bryget Chrisfield, Daniel Cribb, Neil Griffiths
Nothing wrong with a little bit of nostalgia
Assistant Editor/Social Media Co-Ordinator Jessica Dale Editorial Assistant Sam Wall
B
efore we get into what we have in store for readers this month, there’s some space to take a trip back to last month’s issue. Our May issue featured a rivetting interview with PP Arnold by Steve Bell, ahead of the singer’s first ever tour of Australia as a solo artist. The US-born singer, and former Ikette, moved to the UK in the mid-’60s (at the behest of Mick Jagger) and then set about making herself an important, if often overlooked, part of music history. Her initial burst of solo singles included classics First Cut Is The Deepest and Angel Of The Morning, both eventually being over-shadowed by later blockbuster-selling versions. But Arnold may be best known for her part in psych-soul classic Tin Soldier. That’s her you can hear matching killer vocal licks with Steve Marriott on the Small Faces anthem. Over the years Arnold could be heard suppling bv’s for a variety of global hits, from Kane Gang’s Respect Yourself to Peter Gabriel’s Sledgehammer. In the ‘90s Arnold became a part of an iconic moment in rave history as the lead vocalist on The Beatmasters’ massive Burn It Up - a house classic. Her May gigs here were never going to disappoint - she utilised a backing band of Australia’s finest. And, indeed, one of the most stunning soul voices of this lifetime created one of the year’s best nights out. Arnold took us through her ‘60s hits plus tracks from a recently released album of Barry Gibb-produced songs that had sat on a shelf since 1968. Her voice was in top form. If you missed the story in print, hunt it out at theMusic. com.au. If you missed the gig, hopefully she will return to our shores after her next album is released. If you need a starter course in PP Arnold, go google her stunning rendition of The Beatles’ Eleanor Rigby or check out her recent collab with Primal Scream as they tackle Small Faces’ Understanding. You can thank me later. In the meantime, this month you can familiarise yourself with a glut of local talent featured inside our pages. You can wrap your eyes around chats with West Thebarton, Mallrat, High Tension, The Teskey Brothers, Gabriella Cohen and Luca Brasi. And, for those of you who can’t get enough of all things RuPaul’s Drag Race, we catch-up with the show’s eminent choreographer, and scene-stealer, Todrick Hall. Plus, there’s even more… Enjoy.
Gig Guide Henry Gibson gigs@themusic.com.au Senior Contributors Steve Bell, Ross Clelland, Cyclone, Jeff Jenkins Contributors Nic Addenbrooke, Annelise Ball, Sam Baran, Emily Blackburn, Melissa Borg, Anthony Carew, Uppy Chatterjee, Roshan Clerke, Shaun Colnan, Brendan Crabb, Guy Davis, Joe Dolan, Stephanie Eslkae, Chris Familton, Guido Farnell, Donald Finlayson, Liz Giuffre, Carley Hall, Tobias Handke, Mark Hebblewhite, Kate Kingsmill, Tim Kroenert, Samuel Leighton Dore, Joel Lohman, Matt MacMaster, Amanda Maher, Taylor Marshall, MJ O’Neill, Carly Packer, Anne Marie Peard, Natasha Pinto, Michael Prebeg, Mick Radojkovic, Stephen A Russell, Jake Sun, Cassie Tongue, Rod Whitfield, Velvet Winter Senior Photographers Cole Bennetts, Kane Hibberd Photographers Rohan Anderson, Andrew Briscoe, Stephen Booth, Pete Dovgan, Simone Fisher, Lucinda Goodwin, Josh Groom, Clare Hawley, Bianca Holderness, Jay Hynes, Dave Kan, Yaseera Moosa, Hayden Nixon, Angela Padovan, Markus Ravik, Bobby Rein, Peter Sharp, Barry Shipplock, Terry Soo, John Stubbs, Bec Taylor
Advertising Leigh Treweek, Antony Attridge, Brad Edwards, Ben Hyland sales@themusic.com.au Art Dept Ben Nicol, Felicity Case-Mejia print@themusic.com.au Admin & Accounts Meg Burnham, Bella Bi accounts@themusic.com.au Distro distro@themusic.com.au Subscriptions store.themusic.com.au
Contact Us Melbourne Head Office Ph: 03 9421 4499 459-461 Victoria Street Brunswick West Vic 3055 PO Box 231 Brunswick West Vic 3055 Sydney Ph: 02 9331 7077 Suite 129, 111 Flinders St Surry Hills NSW 2010
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info@themusic.com.au www.themusic.com.au
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Our contributors
This month 10
Th is month’s best binge watching
Anthony Carew
15 17
Anthony is a Melbourne-based critic and
West Thebarton Pub rock on a huge and grandiose scale
Pic:
Shit We Did: Line Dancing
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Nicole Millar
Jack Fenby
Editor’s Letter
Guest editorial: Bolster’s Alex Zaccaria
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commentator, and the chief film writer for The Music. He has written the review column Film Carew since 2002, and hosted the radio program The International Pop
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Underground on 3RRR FM since 2000. He
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: S h e Is A p h ro d
Spotify’s Hate Content & Hateful Conduct Public Policy
ite
enjoys balloons.
On taking a big step up
Pic
Sydney Film Festival
Mallrat
The leading women of SFF
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65 years of SFF memories
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Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, City Calm Down
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Okenyo
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Terror Nullius
RuPaul’s Drag Race
The story behind the most controversial Australian film of 2018
The show’s stars on how it went from curiosity to mainstream phenomenom
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Which type of SFF fan are you?
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Luca Brasi
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The Big Picture: Jess Johnson & Sam Ward
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Lea DeLaria
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High Tension
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The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Gabriella Cohen
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Hannah Story Hannah is a Sydney-born arts and culture
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writer, editor and surly bartender living in the UK. She was the former Arts Editor of The Music, and currently writes for PEDESTRIAN. TV, where she specialises in wholesome content and Tinder.
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Album reviews
Your Town Curious collections, winter clothing
D&D The renewed appeal of table-top RPGs
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Alex Zaccaria Co-founder of leading music and entertainment digital agency Bolster, alongside his
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The Teskey Brothers
brother Anthony, Alex was named as one
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Noughties revivial, Indie Con
of B&T’s prestigious 30 Under 30 Entrepreneurs in 2017. He is also the founder of socially
: Nedda Afsari
geared app Linktree and content manage-
Vivid
Pic
St Vincent and Solange lead the way
Scarves
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Your gigs
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Sydney Film Festival’s music program
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Th is month’s local highlights
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The end
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ment platform LNWY.CO.
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Jo Koy
Break it down
WAAX
American funny man Jo Koy is returning to Australia for the first time in six years, with a whistle-stop four-date national stand-up tour. Break The Mold lands in Melb, Syd, Brissie and Perth from 18 Jun.
Get waaxed As icing on their new label deal with Dew Process, support gigs for the likes of Fall Out Boy and festival slots around the country, WAAX are touring nationally throughout the month with their new single Labrador.
Maddie & Mackenzie Ziegler
Step sisters Get the moves from Sia collaborator Maddie Ziegler and her sister/fellow Dance Mom alumni Mackenzie when they touch down on 30 Jun for a series of dance masterclasses, Q&As and meet and greets around the country.
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Ocean’s 8
Columbus
The Presets
Discover Columbus
Stream dreams
Queensland three-piece Columbus are touring the East Coast in support of their album A Hot Take On Heartbreak. New single Care At All is out now and you can catch the trio live from 15 Jun.
This month’s best binge watching Luke Cage
His name’s been cleared and the public love him, but Harlem’s bulletproof hero looks like he’s in more trouble than ever. In season two Luke Cage goes head to head with Bushmaster, a villain who can out-punch the invincible man himself. Streams from 22 Jun on Netflix
Viz kids Aussie stalwarts The Presets dropped fourth album HI VIZ last month and are set to make their glorious return around the country. The electro duo will showcase the new tracks starting from 13 Jun in Fremantle.
Preacher
Cal Wilson, Alice Fraser & Sami Shah
Podcast of the month: ABC Radio’s Troll Play
A priest, a vampire and a hitwoman walk into bar - that’s not a joke, it’s most of the plot for hyper-violent, comic-turned-TV series Preacher. Season three sees Jesse, Cassidy and Tulip resume their mission to give god a
Alice Fraser, Cal Wilson and Sami Shah have had their fair share of trolls. Taking the sting out of the shit people sling online, the three comedians deconstruct their ‘fave’ comments each week to make a panacea from poison. It’s delightful.
sharp piece of their minds. Streams from 25 Jun on Stan.
GLOW Jaala
Spirit journey Following the release of their second album Joonya Spirit, Jaala play four shows around Australia to showcase their unique combination of prog, jazz and soul. Catch the Melbourne outfit from 29 Jun.
Gr-eightness Debbie Ocean is back on the streets and back to her old ways, pulling off the heist to end all heists with partnerin-crime Lou Miller and a team of crack criminals. Catch Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett and Anne Hathaway in Ocean’s 8 from 7 Jun.
Break out the spandex, the Gorgeous Ladies Of Wrestling are back for a second season of heartwarming ass-whooping. Based on the ’80’s real-life, women-only wrestling promotion, the show is a guaranteed 2018 highlight. Streams from 29 Jun on Netflix
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PVRIS
V for Aictory US rockers PVRIS are touring their new LP All We Know Of Heaven, All We Need Of Hell off the back of their recent appearance at Coachella. Beginning 13 Jun, the three-piece play all major capital cities except Perth.
Mystery Road
Phone it in
Whodunnit Down Under
Entries are now open for the fourth annual SmartFone Flick Fest. The only rules are that films must be six-and-a-half minutes or less and shot entirely on a smartphone or tablet. Get yours in by 1 Aug.
The spin-off to Ivan Sen’s award-winning outback crime thrillers Mystery Road and Goldstone is coming to the ABC from 3 Jun. The six-part series, also dubbed Mystery Road, follows Detective Jay Swan (Aaron Pedersen) as he investigates the disappearance of two farmhands.
App of the month: Old Man’s Journey This isn’t your average puzzle game. A tale of hope, heartbreak and regret told through the titular old fella’s wanderings and memories, Old Man’s Journey is beautifully animated, delightfully scored and heartwarming.
Old Man’s Journey
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Rackett
Blast off
Sh*t we did With Maxim Boon
Psych-punk-pop quartet Rackett are aiming for the stars with cosmic new single Space Cadet. As well as several festival appearances, the intergalactic outfit are touring off the back of this track from 1 Jun right through to 28 Jul.
Line Dancing France has ballet, Russia has the Cossacks. flamenco and merry ol’ England Spain has flamenco has Morris dancing. But across the pond, in the wiki-wiki-wild Wild West, there’s just one
Spitting distance
Spit Syndicate
Sydney-based hip hop duo Spit Syndicate kick off a national tour in support of their fifth studio album Orbit, just over a year after the release of One Good Shirt Had Us All Fly. The mammoth tour runs all the way into Jul.
way to get your groove on: line dancing. And just like most things in America, its history is quite a bit shorter than its continental counterparts. While some line dancing historians draw its origins from the influx of various folk traditions found among the US’ colonial pioneers, with some even suggesting the influence of indigenous dance forms as opposing cultures mingled out on the central American plains, the familiar form of line dancing most of us will recognise was actually created in the dappled glitter-ball lights of disco era ‘70s. The “Electric Slide” was perhaps the most definitive four-wall line dance of the decade, set to Marcia Griffiths and Bunny Wailer’s Electric Boogie. But it wasn’t long until country-and-western music became inextricably linked to the dance form.
Senseless Sen the hit show from the creators of The Matrix and Babylon 5, is coming Sense8, tto an end. The final epsiode of the tense thriller in which eight people discover they are telepathically linked to one another airs on 8 Jun.
Also known as boot scootin’, line dancing can be done by just about anyone, regardless of age, gender, or physical ability – there’s even line dancing for wheelchair users, affectionately known as tush pushin’. So, how best to sum-up? It was perhaps those lofty paragons of poetic genius, Steps, who put it best when they summarised line dancing as “foot kickin’, finger clickin’, leather slappin’, hand clappin’, hip bumpin’, music thumpin’, knee hitchin’, heel and toe floor scuffin’, leg shufflin’, big grinnin’, body spinnin’, rompin’ stompin’, pumpin’ jumpin’ ,slidin’ glidin’., here we go.”
The verdict Country music is not my jam, but apparently that doesn’t really matter when you’re this far from Nashville: the floor fillers on the playlist of the one-hour taster session I attended Sense8
included Cotton Eye Joe, YMCA and Macarena (and also 5, 6, 7, 8 because obvs!) Oddly for a pastime from some of the reddest Republican states in America’s conservative heartland, there’s a surprising equity to line dancing; both genders have the same steps
Slick R&R Sli
and there’s no power dynamic worked into the choreography (screw you, patriarchy). And
Slick Rick
Iconi hip-hop artists Raekwon (ex Wu-Tang Clan) and Iconic Slick Rick are bringing their collective power Down Under for a co-headline Australian tour. They play around the country from 1 Jun. coun
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it’s also surprisingly easy to pick up – within about 20 minutes, the whole class is gliding along, scootin’ our boots like we were fresh out of Westworld.
The culture is changing, is the industry keeping up? Digital streaming services have radically shifted the way the world listens to music and the big players are adapting. Bolster’s Alex Zaccaria looks at the issue.
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treaming entered the on-demand music market in the mid-2000s with Pandora, SoundCloud and Spotify. While early adopters proved there was an appetite for this new way to consume music, there was little indication that it would become such a significant game changer for the music industry, both culturally and economically. For decades, music lovers were hell-bent on collecting, whether it was the prestige of owning a first pressing of a favourite record or the pride of having that conversation-starting wall of CDs. Many people insured their collections, having invested thousands; the physical format was king. But fast forward a decade or so, and legal streaming services are not only still going, they’re here to stay. In 2016, global music subscribers hit the 100 million mark, but it wasn’t easy getting there. It took years of consumer reeducation, highlighting the value of the music itself, flaunting the advantages of giant breadth catalogues, free trials on incredible scales and showing consumers how streaming could fit into their daily lives. Spotify has been smashing out interesting features (annual wrap-ups, Taste Rewind and the like) plus consistently refining its paid user experience. Th is month will see significant changes for free users, with an updated app allowing freemium users on-demand access to 15 Spotify-generated playlists including Discover Weekly, Release Radar and Daily Mixes. While ad-supported users still don’t get free rein, they do get on-demand access to some of Spotify’s most powerful playlists. Since launching three years ago, Apple Music has been gaining on Spotify’s numbers, and looks set to overtake its rival’s subscriber figures soon. The two competitors are on a more even keel in Australia. Apple Music has been busy with release-specific marketing efforts in the region, and has also been securing streaming exclusivity on certain releases for set periods. Google’s answer to the music streaming platform, YouTube Music, reported 1.5 million subscribers in its first year. Th is original subscriber service was designed to offer three things: ad-free YouTube access, original video content, and a music app that also allowed access to Google Play; music was only one part of the story. The new YouTube Music service is completely separate from its YouTube video offering (renamed YouTube Premium), revealing a new commitment to focusing on music rather than packaging it as a value-add for video users. Launching a music-focused service is far from a gamble for Google. A recent report by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) found that YouTube was the world’s top music streaming service, revealing that more music is played on YouTube than on Spotify, Apple Music and every other audio streaming platform combined. A whopping 46% of all music streams across top music markets (including Australia) came from YouTube.
But as the channels via which consumers access music have evolved, has the music industry kept pace? The initial emergence of streaming platforms and digital consumerism raised obvious implications for the traditional economics of the music industry. Major artists have, in the past, publically rejected streaming as a damaging influence, with the likes of Thom Yorke, Tom Petty, Dan Auerbach, and Rivers Cuomo, to name just a few, locking horns with Spotify over lost earnings. But the digital frontier is revealing new opportunities for the music industry. Now that Spotify has solidified its product and built up a strong consumer base, the company is upping the ante with its brand offerings within the commercial sector. The newly launched Ad Studio allows agencies to easily create audio ads, with targeting that only Spotify can offer. Spotify set up shop in Sydney last month with a physical ‘Spotify House’ where brands can learn more about connecting with streaming consumers, and it is close to releasing a study about Millennial music consumption habits to support this service. Spotify has also opened-up their API (the Application Programming Interface, which includes the various functions and procedures that users interact with) to allow brands and labels to create interesting integrations, such as such as BIGSOUND Buzz’s auto-generated playlists, and custom playlists for London Grammar fans. Streaming services can offer incredible data to help artists improve their game. For instance, bands can alter their set list, changing up encores depending on their top Spotify song per region. On the flipside, streaming stats are also visible to the general public and artists can use that to their advantage, thanking their fans for reaching milestone streaming numbers and using that as social proof. Just as the sustainability of streaming services has been the result of a long period of adjustment for consumers, those within the industry also need to realise that music streaming has completely changed the culture around music, beyond just a being another distribution channel. Discovery tools and playlisting are putting new artists in the spotlight, not just ones with huge marketing and PR budgets, stretching the discovery window for artists from just their initial campaign period to a long tail sometimes lasting years. Through this, streaming can also act as a wonderful portal to other revenue drivers. Fans can listen to an artist’s top track to figure out if the album is worth owning on vinyl, or decide if they’re going to a gig, and that’s just the tip of a very big, and as yet uncharted, iceberg. This is only the start of the huge impact streaming will have on the industry and culture of music now and in the future.
“In 2016, global music subscribers hit the 100 million mark, but it wasn’t easy getting there.”
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Bolster’s Co-Director Alex Zaccaria will be a guest at the Changes conference in Melbourne, from 4 Jul.
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Is Spotify’s hate content public policy a real time consequence of the #MeToo movement?
Spotify’s Hate Content & Hateful Conduct Public Policy has already caused a lot of conversation in not a lot of time. Jessica Dale looks at the policy and its implications for artists.
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ust over three weeks ago, on 10 May 2018, Spotify announced their Hate Content & Hateful Conduct Public Policy. “We have tens of millions of tracks on Spotify, growing by approximately 20,000 recordings a day. Nothing makes us more excited than discovering and sharing that music. One of the most amazing things about all that music is the range of genres, cultures, experiences, and stories embodied in it. We love that our platform is home to so much diversity because we believe in openness, tolerance, respect, and freedom of expression, and we want to promote those values through music on our platform,” reads the statement. “However, we do not tolerate hate content on Spotify - content that expressly and principally promotes, advocates, or incites hatred or violence against a group or individual based on characteristics, including, race, religion, gender identity, sex, ethnicity, nationality, sexual orientation, veteran status, or disability.” “When we are alerted to content that violates our policy, we may remove it (in consultation with rights holders) or refrain from promoting or playlisting it on our service. It’s important to us that our values are reflected in all the work that we do, whether it’s distribution, promotion, or content creation,” it continues. “At the same time, however, it’s important to remember that cultural standards and sensitivities vary widely. There will always be content that is acceptable in some circumstances, but is offensive in others, and we will always look at the entire context.” As well as building their own content monitoring tool, Spotify AudioWatch, the streaming giant also worked with the likes of The Southern Poverty Law Center, The AntiDefamation League, Color Of Change, Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ), GLAAD, Muslim Advocates and the International Network Against Cyber Hate to help identify what constitutes hate content. “We’ve also thought long and hard about how to handle content that is not hate content itself, but is principally
made by artists or other creators who have demonstrated hateful conduct personally. We work with and support artists in different ways - we make their music available on Spotify and help connect them to new and existing fans, we program and promote their music, and we collaborate with them to create content. While we don’t believe in censoring content because of an artist’s or creator’s behavior, we want our editorial decisions - what we choose to program - to reflect our values. So, in some circumstances, when an artist or creator does something that is especially harmful or hateful (for example, violence against children and sexual violence), it may affect the ways we work with or support that artist or creator.” In the hours following the announcement from Spotify, media attention quickly turned to artists R Kelly and XXXTentacion - whose musical careers are as well-known as the controversies surrounding them. BuzzFeed US reporter Krystie Lee Yandoli was among the first to report that both were to be removed from Spotify promoted playlists. “We are removing R Kelly’s music from all Spotify
WOC movement when Atlanta Arts Administrator Oronike Odeleye started a petition to remove Kelly’s music from Atlanta airwaves and she was soon joined by social justice activist Kenyette Barnes. The campaign escalated past just Atlanta radio stations, calling for Kelly to be removed from streaming platforms and asking venues and corporations to cut ties with Kelly in an open letter published on The Root in April this year. Kelly’s management responded to the claims in the letter, saying in a statement to Variety that, “Soon it will become clear Mr Kelly is the target of a greedy, conscious and malicious conspiracy to demean him, his family and the women with whom he spends his time.” In the days after Spotify’s announcement, Pitchfork reported that both Pandora and Apple Music would no longer promote Kelly’s music through playlists. “We appreciate Spotify for continuing to make R Kelly’s songs accessible to millions of people, although it will stop listing his songs on its official playlists. Spotify is adopting a new ‘Hate Content & Hateful Conduct’ policy. R Kelly never has been accused of hate, and the lyrics he writes express love and desire. Mr Kelly for 30 years has sung songs about his love and passion for women. He is innocent of the false and hurtful accusations in the ongoing smear campaign against him, waged by enemies seeking a payoff. He never has been convicted of a crime, nor does he have any pending criminal charges against him,” said Kelly’s management team in a statement to BuzzFeed News. “Spotify has the right to promote whatever music it chooses, and in this case its actions are without merit. It is acting based on false and unproven allegations. It is bowing to socialmedia fads and picking sides in a fame-seeking dispute over matters that have nothing to do with serving customers. Meanwhile, though, Spotify promotes numerous other artists who are convicted felons, others who have been arrested on charges of domestic violence and artists who sing lyrics that are violent and anti-women in nature. Mr Kelly falls into none of these categories, and it is unfortunate and shortsighted that Spotify fails to recognize this.” “Th is is our first iteration of this new policy. These are complicated issues, and we’re going to continue to revise our Policy on Hate Content and Hateful Conduct,” closes the Spotify statement. “We’ll make some mistakes, we’ll learn from them, and we’ll always listen to you [the customer] as we work to keep building the Spotify platform.” While Spotify says that they “don’t believe in censoring content because of an artist’s or creator’s behaviour,” the policy already has many asking; where will they draw the line?
“While we don’t believe in censoring content because of an artist’s or creator’s behaviour, we want our editorial decisions - what we choose to program - to reflect our values.” owned and operated playlists and algorithmic recommendations such as Discover Weekly,” told Spotify in a statement to BuzzFeed News. The story continued on to say that an undisclosed source close to Spotify reported that XXXTentacion would be treated in the same manner. Following the comments, The New York Times’ Joe Coscarelli shared an email reportedly from XXXTentacion’s team on Twitter, reading that they “don’t have a comment, just a question. Will Spotify remove all the artists listed below from playlists?” before continuing to list artists including Gene Simmons, David Bowie, Michael Jackson, Real Estate and more, alongside accusations made against them. The case of R Kelly’s removal from playlists offers a different timeline than XXXTentacion’s. In July 2017, the #MuteRKelly movement was born in Atlanta, Georgia. The campaign came together as an extension of the Time’s Up
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In Hollywood and throughout the world, the film industry has a history of inequality. Now, that status quo is beginning to shift. Debbie Zhou meets four women - Marta Dusseldorp, Isabella Spagnolo, Anna Lawrence and Stef Smith - who are rewriting the rulebook of Australian cinema. Cover and feature pics by Giulia McGauran.
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hey were dubbed “The silence breakers.” On the cover of Time Magazine, not an individual, but a collective of courageous women were honoured as the 2017
Person of the Year. They had spoken out about their experiences of sexual harassment in the American film industry, and in doing so, destabilised a quid pro quo culture fuelled by grossly entrenched inequality. The damning revelations emerging from Hollywood would send ripples around the world, affecting a groundswell for change in other entertainment industries internationally. For some, this would mean a reckoning. But for women working in many creative professions, it has offered empowerment and an opportunity to feel part of a global movement. This was perfectly displayed at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. At arguably the most high-profile platform of its type in the world, 82 women led by Australia’s own Cate Blanchett, staged an unprecedented red carpet protest on the steps of the Palais de Festivals. Made up of actors, directors and other industry creatives, the 82 women represented the number of films by female filmmakers selected for competition consideration in the Festival’s history., in stark contrast to the 1,866 films directed by men. Sydney Film Festival, however, is keenly aware that major cinema events have a responsibility to champion greater representation. Achieving gender parity in its 2018 competition line-up, alongside a strong focus on female filmmakers in its main programming, this year’s Festival offers a spotlight on the need to continue fostering diversity and equality, both on screen and behind the scenes.
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arta Dusseldorp, widely known for her acclaimed AACTA award-winning performance in ABC’s Janet King, is chairing this year’s Lexus Australia
Short Film Fellowship Jury - where she and her fellow jury members will award four recipients $50,000 to make their next short film. When asked about the impact of the #MeToo and Time’s
and WHITE Up movements on the Australian film industry, Dusseldorp
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Marta Dusseldorp
emphasises the need to look forward to create change. “I think we can never go backwards. That’s the beauty of progressive behaviour - you can’t go back to zero. This is what I love about being a storyteller and being involved with something like the Sydney Film Festival. It’s about humanity, and it’s about courage and resilience and vulnerability,” she says. “These are the qualities that we all muck around in for our lives, and this is what filmmaking, storytelling and television are all reflecting these days. So together, we will dream up this fairer world. To me, it’s really important that it’s not just an army... it has to be a battle and a conversation. To me, it’s common sense, and I’m there to support anyone who hasn’t got the voice. I’ll use the voice that I have to stand up and speak up directly.” Since viewing the short film applications, Dusseldorp is optimistic about what the next generation will bring in levelling out female representation in onscreen storytelling: “I have really loved [the applicants’] intent and commitment. It shows how curious the next generation are. The whole of the Sydney Film Festival is about saying, ‘Tell stories, be a part of the conversation of the world.’ They are way ahead of the world in understanding how we need to be represented, how we need to tell our stories, and how they fit into stories. It’s good to see that everyone is staying true and are in the world of today. We’re in good hands.”
O
ne such storyteller is 22-year-old animator Isabella Spagnolo, whose short film Tied, was selected as part of the Dendy Awards for Australian Short
Films. Her film, co-directed with Stephanie Davidson, follows Clarisse, a secretary at a corporate office whose professional world is shaken when her boss enters with a new piece of clothing - tapping into her secret passion for colourful fashion. Spagnolo wanted to examine the subtleties of communication in the way she animated her film: “We really wanted to create a film that was about expression, and what happens when someone is in a society where that expression has to be repressed. [When we animated this film] it was always about, how does a woman actually move? And how does she actually feel? And if we were feeling these emotions, how would we express that?”... Even though it’s a very romantic sort of film, it’s not about the romance between her and her boss. It’s about this romance between something in herself as well.” As an emerging filmmaker, she is equally hopeful about the changes in the industry, and is excited about playing her part in telling more culturally diverse and female stories on film. “A lot of people don’t realise that animation has such a universality to it. It has possibilities to bring together people from all different cultures and backgrounds,” she says. “So I feel like that’s some-
“We’ve just got to keep pushing and making it happen and being uncompromising about these standards. Because it can only be a good thing.”
thing I want to keep exploring: the language of animation and how we can use it to help people, to create things that can hopefully bring the world a little bit closer together.”
A
ctor Anna Lawrence, who stars in Chocolate Oyster, a new Australian feature-length comedy directed by
Steve Jaggi, has also perceived a shift in the way women interact with each other, as the tent poles of the industry have shifted in recent months. “Being an actor can be very Isabella Spagnolo
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Stef Smith
competitive, and that’s not always a very nurturing environment, particularly if you’re at the beginning of your career,” she explains. “I’ve definitely noticed a change in the audition room - it’s almost this unspoken acknowledgement that we should be supporting each other, not trying to bring each other down.” But Lawrence cautions against the expectation that change will be swift, or that adjustments in the wider treatment of women in the industry will be unanimous. “We have to understand that this was and still is a really deep-rooted part of our industry and it won’t change overnight. This is a period of re-education for a lot of people, and while younger film professionals get it, there’s still the same power brokers running the industry. So partly, change is going to be a waiting game,” she says. “I worry that this movement could be dismissed as a fad or tokenistic. A male colleague of mine said to me recently, ‘Oh, now I know what it’s like to be a woman, because there’s this reverence for female directors and producers now, and it’s harder for men.’ I was like, ‘Mate. No, you don’t know what it’s like!’ And that, to me, is a prime example of someone who sees equality as a trend rather than a movement for lasting change.”
S
tef Smith, producer of Daniel Monks’ heartbreakingly poignant short film Broken, part of Sydney Film Festival’s Screenability program, believes an important
conversation is also opening up about how Australian cinema can offer a more faithful reflection of Australia’s diversity: “People need to see themselves to feel valued, and almost normalised, in a way. But for a lot of queer people, people of colour, people with disabilities, they see what films are out there in the mainstream and think to themselves, ‘Well, where the fuck am I in these? Where am I in this world? In this narrative? I go to the cinema, and I don’t exist.’” In Smith’s opinion, the path to more inclusive storytelling is to make professions within the film industry, both in front and behind the camera, more accessible. “I believe that the times are changing,” she says, “and rightly fucking so. It really is about time. But there’s definitely more that can be done. I’ve always strived, whether I was on-set as a director, or facilitating a production as a producer, to make every single shoot gender equal. So, I would have gender parody productions, and then I would also try to make my production inclusive, particularly behind the scenes. But there is such a negative perception of people with disabilities being on set. It’s like, ‘Oh god, is it gonna slow us down. It’s already so hard. There’s already so much going on. How are we going to do it?’ And you know what? You just fucking have to do it. “So, with everything that’s happening and gender diversity and differently-abled people being seen on screen and things becoming more inclusive, we’ve just got to keep pushing and making it happen and being uncompromising about these standards. Because it can only be a good thing. There’s a film in this year’s festival that has an able-bodied actor playing a disabled character. I am hoping this is the last time I will ever see that.”
The Sydney Film Festival plays at various venues from 9 Jun. Details at sff.org.au.
Anna Lawrence
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LOOKING BACK ON 65 YEARS of the SYDNEY FILM FESTIVAL
THE WATERSHED MOMENTS in SFF HISTORY
Stephen A Russell speaks to the Sydney Film Festival’s first director, David Donaldson, and three long-time subscribers about six and a half decades of movie memories.
We look back on the pivotal years that made the Fest what it is today.
2008:
David Donaldson, the inaugural director of the Sydney Film Festival In 1954, springing out of the 900-strong Sydney University
Sydney Film Festival launches its Official International Competition at the 55th Festival
film society, a 23-year-old Donaldson found himself thrust into the limelight as the director of the inaugural Sydney Film Festival (SFF). The initial program was drawn from the wide array of interests and in a sign of the post-war bridges being built, a strong relationship with Japan was formed during
1993:
those initial years. “They became quite accommodating at
20th anniversary of the Travelling Film Festival.
sending their excellent films to the festival, The film industry at the time was completely controlled by the Americans, We felt we had to strike out on our own to get access to the films you could read about that no one was showing in Australia.”
1980:
Valerie Levy, Paddington Hailing from New York City, Levy moved to town 45 years ago to teach communications at the University of Technology Sydney. “Going to the festival was my retirement gift to
First Ian Mcpherson Memorial Lecture, given by John Gillett, of the British Film Institute.
myself,” she says. “I love the State Theatre, there’s something about that beautiful venue and I love having my reserved seat there so I can get up after a film, go out and come back to the same seat. It’s very luxurious.” She has loved exploring the cinema of Scandinavian countries at SFF, as well as that from the fraught theatre of the Middle East. But while the SFF subscriber ticket allows her to see four movies each day, Levy says two is usually enough. “I’m too old to see that many without
1975: First opening night to feature an Australian film – Sunday Too Far Away by Ken Hannam.
falling asleep! It’s guesswork as to what I won’t mind missing.”
1974:
Jenny Templin, Cronulla A photographer who has snapped the Dalai Lama on several occasions, Templin can’t exactly pin the year she first came to the festival, but it was over 20 years ago when she lived in the inner west. When a friend first suggested they share
The Festival celebrated its 21st birthday by moving all screenings to the magnificent old State Theatre (built in 1921) in the heart of the city.
a subscriber ticket between them, “I immediately fell in love and look forward to going every year.” The films that have left the biggest mark on Templin during that time have been the documentary The Cove, about the slaughter of dolphins in
1970:
Japan, and the powerful hybrid docu-drama The Act Of Kill-
First Australian Short Film Awards.
ing, re-enacting mass executions of accused Communists in Indonesia. “I love being immersed in other people’s realities,” she says.
1966:
Michele Asprey, CBD Attending for almost 30 years, Asprey’s first exposure to SFF came when she quit as a full-time lawyer and found she had a bit of spare time. She was so enamoured by a retrospective
The first year a Festival director travelled overseas to select films (David Stratton).
strand on British noir that she ended up studying for a PhD on the subject. “That introduced me to films I was vaguely aware of but hadn’t looked at in any great detail, so you could say the festival changed my life,” she reveals. “The British equivalent of noir don’t usually have a femme fatale, they are more about homme fatales,” Asprey says, adding that she has been a keen follower of queer cinema at SFF for many years, “Cinema is a very large part of my life and every year I rule two weeks out of the diary and just go night and day.”
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1960: First overseas guest, Paul Roth, producer and author. For the first time the Festival had an ‘official’ Opening Night – the film was Black Orpheus.
6–17 JUNE
ON SALE NOW BAD REPUTATION
UPGRADE
WHAT KEEPS YOU ALIVE
WED 6 JUN 6:00PM DENDY NEWTOWN SUN 17 JUN 6:45PM EVENT CINEMAS GEORGE ST
THU 7 JUN 8:30PM EVENT CINEMAS GEORGE ST FRI 8 JUN 9:30PM RANDWICK RITZ
FRI 8 JUN 6:30PM DENDY NEWTOWN TUE 12 JUN 8:30PM EVENT CINEMAS GEORGE ST
A special Sneak Freak Peek: the local premiere of Aussie genre maestro Leigh Whannell’s (Saw, Insidious) cyberpunk-horror-action-thriller. Winner, SXSW Midnighters Audience Award.
Jackie and her wife Jules are celebrating their anniversary in a lakeside cabin. But something’s very, very wrong. A riveting rural psycho-thriller and SXSW Midnighter selection.
MUG
NICO, 1988
WHITNEY
FRI 8 JUN 6:30PM HAYDEN ORPHEUM CREMORNE MON 11 JUN 3:45PM EVENT CINEMAS GEORGE ST
FRI 8 JUN 8:00PM EVENT CINEMAS GEORGE ST SAT 9 JUN 8:35PM RANDWICK RITZ
The last years in the life of legendary The Velvet Underground singer Nico brought vividly to the screen by Trine Dyrholm (A Royal Affair, SFF 2012; The Commune, SFF 2016).
SAT 9 JUN 6:15PM EVENT CINEMAS GEORGE ST TUE 12 JUN 6:00PM DENDY NEWTOWN
Direct from Cannes, Oscar winning filmmaker Kevin Macdonald’s (Marley, SFF 2012) unflinching and honest portrait of a rare talent, Whitney Houston, told by those closest to her.
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Joan Jett, the kick-ass lead of The Runaways, mega-famous for I Love Rock ’n’ Roll and Cherry Bomb, relates her rockin’ life story.
A bitingly funny satire and Berlinale Grand Jury Prize winner; Poland’s first facial transplant patient awakes to find that – new face aside – it’s his community that’s changed, not him.
LOVE FILM? SUN 10 JUN 12:30PM HOYTS EQ FRI 15 JUN 8:45PM EVENT CINEMAS GEORGE ST SAT 16 JUN 6:15PM DENDY NEWTOWN SUN 17 JUN 5:00PM HOYTS EQ
Crystal Moselle (The Wolfpack, SFF 2015) follows a squad of cooler-than-you New York skater girls as they hang, hit spots and flex on the boys (including Jaden Smith).
SAT 9 JUN 4:15PM STATE THEATRE SUN 10 JUN 12:15PM EVENT CINEMAS GEORGE ST FRI 15 JUN 6:30PM RANDWICK RITZ
A working-class dad must settle a crippling debt in this punchy slice of Australian social realism. Jason Raftopoulos’ impressive first feature debuted at Venice Film Festival.
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JUNE
The cheapest way to book lots of tickets is to buy a Flexipass of 10, 20, or 30 tickets. Share with friends, flatmates, colleagues, the one you love, or just keep it for yourself!
SFF.ORG.AU
“WE WERE SHAKEN BY THE RACISM and MISOGYNY OF MICK DUNDEE” Art collective Soda_Jerk want to spirit an audience away on a whistlestop tour of Australia’s problematic pop-culture. Guy Davis meets the pair behind the controversial “revenge fable” Terror Nullius.
Dan and Dominique Angeloro of Soda_Jerk
ometimes you just need to col-
“S
between disparate moments in time, and
fact that it creates a space for viewers to col-
lectively watch a misogynist get
unlikely alliances between audience mem-
lectively sit through a moment of historical
devoured by a crocodile or a
bers through their shared past experience
reckoning and consider their own complicity
bicentennial celebration ravaged by flesh-
of the same thing. This idea of sampling as
is something that feels important to us.”
eating sheep.”
a means of creating fleeting micro-commu-
And it’s not just the film’s content that
nities of shared experience is the way we’ve
might be considered contentious. Terror Nul-
been thinking lately.”
lius attracted media attention recently when
Yes, Australia, sometimes you do. And Terror Nullius, the latest film from art collective Soda_Jerk, delivers exactly that and more
Having said that, Soda_Jerk also points
the Ian Potter Foundation, the philanthropic
as it reconfigures and recontextualises char-
out that while Terror Nullius is an indictment
organisation that bankrolled the project, pub-
acters, dialogue and scenes from Australian
of certain social and political viewpoints,
licly withdrew marketing support for its pre-
pop culture over the last few decades into
there’s also a lot of love for much of the mate-
miere screening at ACMI in Melbourne. The
a vision dubbed “equal parts political satire,
rial that makes up the film. “Gosh, we have
film’s creators alleged on social media that
eco-horror and road movie”. Or as Soda_Jerk
so many deep feels for Australian cinema,”
the reason behind this was that the funding
itself puts it; “A vigilante fable of social jus-
says Soda_Jerk. “Politically, the film may be a
body found Terror Nullius too “un-Australian”.
tice where the historical forces of oppression
revenge fable, but cinematically it’s more of a
“The whole thing feels like a bit of a rid-
finally get dealt a bit of what they regularly
love letter. There are already so many brilliant
dle,” is Soda_Jerk’s response. “In these height-
dish out.”
Australian films doing the work of interrogat-
ened political times, every organisation and
That notion of a “revenge fantasy”, where
ing and muckraking national mythologies,
their dog is chasing after the countercultural
the fair-dinkum likes of Mick ‘Crocodile’
we feel like our role was really just to try and
glow of political art. But after the initial hon-
Dundee and Mel Gibson experience a bit of
forge these films into a new constellation of
eymoon wears off, the organisation inevitably
brutal payback for unenlightened attitudes
solidarity. To set them in motion together.
starts to worry that their decision is headed
stemmed
“So mostly we are incredibly fond of the
back to bite them. All we can hope is that art-
from a simmering sense
films we sample, with some notable excep-
ists don’t let this institutional risk averseness
of
to
tions like Crocodile Dundee. Rewatching that
impact the kind of work they want to make.”
Soda_Jerk (aka sisters Dan
movie, we were truly shaken by the extent of
Soda_Jerk feels it’s necessary for art
and Dominique Angeloro).
the racism, misogyny and transphobia articu-
to continue to provoke, especially in a time
“It came from a place of
lated by Mick Dundee. The fact that Tourism
when there’s more and more need for discus-
being truly pissed with
Australia recently chose to sink 36 million dol-
sion and dissent. “Wish we could say that it
the state of politics in this
lars into rebranding the country in his image
feels like the resistance is gaining ground, but
country,” they say. “And
is completely macabre.”
on most days it still feels more like having the
and
“Politically, the film may be a revenge fable, but cinematically it’s more of a love letter.”
actions, anger,
according
when you feel powerless
Seeing Mick get his comeuppance is
ground pulled out from under us,” they say.
to effect change, some-
satisfying, sure. But for Soda_Jerk, one Terror
“But at the same time, we feel insanely fortu-
times it can be a powerful
Nullius moment that is particularly effective is
nate to be surrounded by so many incredible
thing to see it.”
a remixing of a pivotal scene in the acclaimed
humans who are bringing the fight, building
And seeing figures so
2001 film Lantana, which now sees a bereft,
their own communities on their own terms,
deeply entrenched in Australian pop culture
weeping Anthony LaPaglia driven to tears by
and looking out for one another. And that’s
refashioned through sampling only enhanc-
audio of journalist and documentary film-
got to mean something.”
es that vision. “We can get pretty crypto-
maker John Pilger “calling out Australia’s
mystical talking about sampling, and how
secret history of brutality and genocide”.
it’s really a form of contemporary witchcraft,”
“The content of the tape is not an easy
Soda_Jerk admits. “The short-story version
listen, but there are also things about the
would simply be that we feel like part of the
way it’s staged that deepens this feeling of
power of sampling is the way that it functions
discomfort,” says Soda_Jerk. “Not everyone
as a kind of glue, forging new connections
will feel the emotion of the scene, but the
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Terror Nullius screens from 7 Jun, part of the Sydney Film Festival’s FLUX: Art and Film program
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National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Jess Johnson and Simon Ward 4 May – 26 August Sarah Contos 4 May – 24 September Jess Johnson Psy Zetta Terra 2018 (detail). Image courtesy of the artist; Darren Knight Gallery, Sydney; Ivan Anthony Gallery, Auckland; Jack Hanley Gallery, New York.
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JUNE
WHICH SYDNEY FILM FESTIVAL FAN are YOU? White-knucklehead
Realist
Haute shot
(horror/action)
(docos)
(fashion & art)
“Does the price of admission include new pants?”
“What’s a ‘red pill’?”
“Clothes maketh the movie.”
It’s not really a night at the cinema unless you work up an
Truth is stranger than fiction, so they say. Scarier, too. And
Fashion’s in vogue this year, with several films taking a
adrenal sweat and chew your nails to the bone. If ghouls
funnier. Hell, there’s so much going on down here in the
peak beyond the veils at the strange, exclusive world of
and ghosties rattle your chain, SFF have a selection of the
real world it’s a wonder people bother with make believe at
haute couture. Meet the people who’ve made an art out of
latest bowel-curdling visions from the world’s best hor-
all. Head down to fest and take a few glimpses at weird and
making clothes, and influenced everything from music to
ror directors.
wonderful reality.
politics in the process.
The Field Guide To Evil
The Ranger
Brother’s Nest
Producers Ant Timpson
On an arctic island at
Vivienne Westwood
and Tim League, the people
the edge of the world,
has had a hell of time
behind cult hit The ABCs
Siberian hunter’s dig for
- “punk, icon, activis”t
Of Death, have taken a
“white gold” - mammoth
barely scratches the
new approach to the horror
ivory. On the forefront of
surface. Directed
anthology. This time they’ve
biotechnology, scientists
by homeless youth,
asked nine celebrated hor-
are more interested in
turned model, turned
ror filmmakers to bring their
the extinct behemoths’
native folklore to life in a
Genesis 2.0
blood, hair and skin.
Westwood: Punk, Icon, Activist
filmmaker Lorna Tucker, this doco takes
series of dark shorts called
Heavy Michael Crich-
The Field Guide To Evil.
ton vibes.
fascinating life.
The secret to successful
With Zuckerberg so
At the 2016 Met Gala,
schlock horror is a good
recently trying to explain
Rihanna stole the show in
villain, a Freddy or a Jason
data scraping to Congress
a resplendent yellow dress
that will rattle around in
there’s probably no bet-
hand-stitched from 27kgs
your dreams. When Chelsea
ter time to catch Moritz
of gold thread and fox fur.
(Chloe Levine) leads her
Riesewieck’s The Clean-
Documentarian Pietra Brett-
punk mates to a cabin in the
ers. Meet the anonymous,
kelly follows the designer,
woods they find their own
Silicon Valley-contracted
unlikely boogeyman - a park
The Cleaners
information sorters that
Yellow Is Forbidden
a fascinating look at a
Guo Pei, who grew up during the Cultural Revolution
ranger who works on a one-
frame your picture of
and helped forge a fashion
strike policy.
the world.
industry in post-Mao China.
Though not really a horror,
Out of the 442 people
An intimate exploration of
this thriller-comedy drips
nominated for an Oscar
the life and legacy of “the
pitch black humour and
for Best Director, only
hooligan of English fashion”,
will have you on the edge of
five have been women.
Lee Alexander McQueen.
your seat. Director Clayton
Amy Adrion talks to
From the humble East End
Jacobson’s follow-up to the
prominent American
to the world stage, Director
much-loved mockumen-
female directors about
Ian Bonhote follows the
tary Kenny follows brothers
their experiences to find
Jeff and Terry as they plan
Half The Picture
out why, at best, only
McQueen
triumphant rise and tragic end of one of fashion’s most
the murder of their dying
half the world’s stories
thrilling and controver-
mother’s new hubby.
are being heard.
sial stars.
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At 65 years young Sydney Film Festival have their selection battened down. Hearts, minds, funny bones, fancies – whatever bit of symbolic anatomy you’re looking to stimulate, SFF has you covered.
Quick-wit
Youth at large
Hip nerd
(short films)
(animated)
(auteur)
“Time is money.”
“Cartoons aren’t just for kids, dude. Have you seen Akira?”
“Four black and white hours of dense Czech symbolism? Fuck yeah, where’s the popcorn?”
Brevity is the soul of wit they say, not that you’d know.
Back in ’36 Disney brought sound and colour to anima-
Cinema is a bell curve. At one end are your pleasant dis-
You’ve already stopped reading to play with a pencil. All
tion and people have been using it to get up deep in their
tractions, with familiar story structures and comfortable
good, Hemingway proved you can break hearts in six words
right-brains and harvest living slices of imagination ever
cliches; something to throw on while the kettle boils. Here
and some of the most ingenious films at SFF barely scratch
since. There’s no limits, though SFF’s selection still swings
at the other end; strange, rich frontiers that reward stamina
the ten-minute mark.
for them.
and scrutiny.
Mud
Untitled Groping Revenge Fairytale
International Animation Showcase
In Writer/Director Shaan-
In the latest visually
Capturing a year of her
diin Tome’s debut short,
stunning, sorta-sci-fi slice
own life while simulta-
Ruby’s secret struggle with
of life from Mamoru
neously displaying how
alcoholism is quickly steal-
Hosoda, spoiled four-
fleeting time is, Amy
ing her tenuous connection
year-old Kun learns to
Jenkins has created
to her son. Unable to seek
accept his new born sis-
something more like a
help and trapped without
ter when she travels back
moving poem than a film.
it, Ruby is caught in a cycle
in time to give him the
Mirai
that can only end in despair.
Christmas Carol treat-
Instructions On Parting
Birth, life and death circle each other like seasons as
Starring Trini King and For-
ment. It’s a guaranteed
rest Goodluck.
heart-warmer.
tive unfolds.
“A woman pitches a tent
Cartoon Saloon have
Dragonfly Eyes is a mad-
on the edge of a forest
quickly built a reputation
man’s undertaking. Xu
and starts to collect men.”
for making poignant, intel-
Bing spent years sifting
Colour me curious. Mixing
ligent animation and their
through 10,000 hours of
the mythic with the mun-
latest Oscar-nominated
Cloud-based surveillance
dane, Director Catherine
flick secures it. It tells the
footage from around China,
Bisley’s Untitled Groping
tale of Parvana, an 11-year-
creating an 81 minute story
Revenge Fairytale in an
old Afghan girl trying to
aesopic middle finger
The Breadwinner
support her family while
Dragonfly Eyes
Jenkins’ intimate narra-
of a disenchanted young Buddhist nun on the run
to the pussy grabbers of
surviving under the oppres-
that will leave you feeling
the world.
sive Taliban rule.
deeply paranoid.
You can get your
Ever wondered what The
Once likened to a Chi-
shorts fix all at once
Jungle Book would look like
nese Rebel Without A
with twelve new tales
without all the anthropo-
Cause, Edward Yang’s
from some of the
morphised animals and
multi-character, multi-
best animators from
man cubs running around?
generational, four-hour
around the world. The
Painstakingly redrawing the
epic about turf wars,
stories are as varied
Disney classic as something
rock’n’roll and sexual
as the style, covering
like a animated nature
everything from
The Pure Necessity
documentary, Belgian video
bashful giants to living
artist David Claerbout has
15th century triptychs.
the answer.
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A Brighter Summer Day
awakening in 1960s Taiwan has been restored in glorious 35mm. Yang’s ’91 opus is a must.
Fast becoming known as one off the nicest guys in Aussie music, Tyleer R ichardso on chatts with h Jessica Dalle abo out Stay, changes to tourringg, and how th he next ten n years of Lucca Brassi loo oks. Pic: Kaane Hibberd isste teni n ng to the op o ening ti titl tlee tr t ack of L Luc u a Brasi’s new al albu bum, m, the h ir fourr th sin fo ince 2011’s de debu butt Ex Exte tended Fami Fa mily ly, it wou ould be easy to no nott re recogn ni e the Ta is Tasssie i pun u k band d . Wi With th it s min inut ute and a ha half lf lon ong instru rument ntt al a , Sttay ccou o ld be eeasilyy mi mist staken n ffor a sle leep epm make kesw wav a es offe of feringg — ssom omet ethi hing ngg t ha h t fr f on ontm tman an Tyler Rich Ri har ards dson o is mo more re than aw war aree off. “That was ki kind nd of li like ke a bbigg gambl ble. e. We rrea eall ly wantted to do aan n in intr tro o fo f r a bi bigggerr to ge t ur we did la last yea ear. We we were re llik ike, ‘Ok Ok,, lett ’s put an intro togget le ethe h r,’” exp xpla l in ns R ich ch-a dson. “We started ar d mu muck ckin i g ar arou ound wit ith h th hat at practice, an nd th then en it came me tto o ba basi sically being that a and wee go gott to t the stu tudi dio o an nd were lik we ke, ‘Leet’ t’s put th this is on th he al albu bum m an and d see if it’s sh s itt or if it ki kind nd of fits.’” Luca Braasii, kn know o n for th heiir en nga gagging live shows ws aand nd brutally ho oneest aalb lbum ums, have fast beeco come m an n Aussie fav avou ouri rite te. Wh W il ie their earl rlyy albums m grew a lo loya yall fa fanb nbas a e, it as was 20 2016 16’s ’s If This Is Alll We’ e’re re G Goi oing ng To Be B that real ally ly ggai ained nation nall aatt tten enti tion on,, wi with th huge
support from triple j (inclu udi ding ng th that at ccovver of Paul Kelly’ y s How To Mak akee Gr Gravy forr L Lik ikee A Versio ion) n) aand nd nattio ona nal supportt sp spot otss wi with th g oups lik gr ikee The Sm mit ith h St Stre reet et B Band. R ic icha hard ha r son so n ha has an iintteres estiing n take on what th he pa past st tw wo ye year arss ha have ve meant nt for both their fanb nbasse and an d th thei eiir fo fort rthc hcom omin ng album. “There’s so o much ch — f ro rom m ou o r end — ther th ere’ e’ss so much nervves and nd ttrepiida d tiion about putting out an ny new mu music, esp pee cial ally ly for this record because I don’tt thi hink nk the first tw two al a bu b ms are very preval allen entt in m ny peoplle’ ma e s ba b ck catalogg ue,” he sh hares. “I ffee eell li like k our band starr te ted,, to o a lo lot off peop pe ople le,, on tthe h last re reco cord rd.. So t h is ki kind d off feels like a lb lbum u num umbe b r tw two, do yo you u kn know w at I mean? Theree’s aalw wh lway ayss su such h a huge pressure on do oin ingg a seeco cond d record, and nd this kind of feels lik ke ou our. r... as much h aas it’ss not, it kind of fe f els likee a seecond reco ord rd, and will for a lot ot of peop ple le. “O Our u first rec ecord caame outt iin n 2011, so that a ’s sev even yearss, an and d baack k then th the songs were lik ike... We haadn dn’tt bbee eeen a ba band nd bef efore, we did idn’ n t kn know ww wha hatt wee w werre do oin ing, g, it was just raw aas. s. ‘Le Let’ t’s wr writ itee faast son ongs about ut drin dr inki k ng.’ That was ba basicallly it. So it ki kind nd of evol olve ved d a lot from m tthe h re,” he sa says y. ys “Any “A ny tou u r si sinc n e th then en, sii nc ncee the laa st reeco cord rd,, haa s be been i nt nteres esti ting ng wat watch h in ingg th he songs that at yyou o see pop opul ular arr l iv i e sl s ow wly become t he h one ness th that at p peo eopl plee don’t real a ly k now any nymo more re, as m muc uch. h. IIt’ t’ss re reall lyy crazyy to wattch ch. Fo F r a lo ong ttim imee a lo lott of ttho hose se songs th that we did on n ttho hose se rrec ecor ords ds w wer eree the bi big songs; you pla layy th that son ng la last s , yo st you u playy that song in the mi m ddle. Now we w don n’t even n play thosee songs live bec e au a see no onee real ally ly knows theem!”” Stay represents a ne new age of Lucca Br B as a i; itt ’ss Richaard rdson’s mo most st vul ulne nera rabl blle wr writ i in it ingg to datee an nd th heem mes o off ma matu turi ring ngg aand nd d llea eavea v ving hi hiss 20 20ss behi hind are p pre reva vale lent nt aacr crrosss th he
albu al lbu bum. m. The past few ye year arss ha have ve o off ffered huge change ch ge for bbot oth h th t e ba band nd aand nd ffor or R Ric icha hard rd-son so n pe perrsonally, wh w o haas re rece c ntlyy com ompl plet eted ed an edu duca cati tion on degreee af afte terr years of w wor orking as a boilerm mak aker er. W hen e ask sked ed if the n neext ten ye year ars off L Lu ucaa Br Bras a i lo look ver eryy differ e entt frrom the h firrst s , R ich hardson on tak akess h is tim i e to conssid co ideer h is res espo ponse. e “That’’s a lott to tthi hink nk abo bou ut. I definiteely thin th ink. k... ineevi vita tabl blyy it w wou ould ld h hav avee to be. Two w of tthe he bboy oys haave k kid ids, s eve very ryon onee ha hass caare r ers outs ou tsid idee of o thee ban and. d. P Pat at’s ’s aan n en engine neer, Da D nny’s ny ’s a p per erso sona nall tr trai aine nerr an and d a ma mass sseu e se and nd a ro oof ofer er, Bu Bussbyy st stud udie iess po poli liti tica call sc scie ienc nce, e, II’m ma teac te ache her; r; we alll ha have ve a ll tthi hiss st stuf u f go goiingg on on.. That ccha hang nges es tthe he d dyn ynam amic,” he re refl flec ects t . “Wee st “W stil illl to tour ur qui u tee a lot ot, bu ut we’ve be been e forrtunate enough fo h tha h t we aare in a position as a band th that we can now pl play ay biggger shows and do festi tiva v ls, and we’ree fortun unat atee en enou ough g that peo opl ple like k d th thee lastt recor ord en enou ough gh that we got to be ab a le to to tour ur sma mart rter e and do things th hat w wee wa w ntt to do do,, do awe weso some me things. I do don’ n’tt kn now o if th thee la last st rrec ecor ord d di did d well we ll ttha hatt we w ’d sti tilll be to our urin ingg th that at o oft ften e , en beca be cau use it was just too ha hard rd. We w wer eree fi fine ne to o do itt iin our earlyy 20 20ss be b caausse it did dn’ n’tt matter, we could do o wh what atev e err we wa want nted ed.. Butt no Bu now ww wee’re lu luck ckyy en enough h tha h t we aare ha re iin n a ha hard rd p pos osit itio ion n tr tryi y ng to ju yi jugg gglee tim gg ime, e, bbutt we can ca n do coo ool st stuf ufff as w wel elll.l.”” “W We neve verr seet ou outt to d do o an anyt ytthi hing ng, and d the fa f ctt ttha h t we gget e to do any nyth thin ng, it’ t’ss just — I say it all the he tim me — the factt tha hatt we gget et to do anything iss a bo bonu nus. If it was over no ow,
we’ sti we’d till ll be so stoked abou ut wh who o we got to meeet m et,, thee places we got to ggo, o, tha hatt people care ca red en eno ough to come and was aste te tthe heir ir ttime and an d mo money ha hang ngin ingg ou outt wi w th us, is ju justt ffuc uckkingg awes esom me! e I guess iit’ t’d d be different nt iiff we sett outt fo se or all these ma mass ssive goals, but w wee just st did didn’ id dn’ n t. We’re reaa ll llyy lu uckyy that it ha hass wo orked d tto th his p point. Un Unti till th thee re reco c rd f lo l ps ps,, anyway an ay,, and th then en nw we’ll be back ck tto o sq squa uare ua re one,” he laughs.. on
Stay (C Stay (Coo ookiingg V Vin inyl yl A Aus ustral alia ia)) is out u thi hiss mont mo nth. h. Luc ucaa Bras Brasii to tour u fro om 11 Aug ug..
“As much as it’s not, it kind of feels like a secoond record, an nd willl for a lot off people.””
Check The Chec e Gu Guid ide e on theMus usiic.c com..a au forr mo fo m re detai etails ls..
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THE BIG PICTURE
Jess Johnson & Sam Ward Terminus
Commissioned as part of the newly established Balnaves Contemporary Intervention Series, Terminus is a bold installation and VR artwork, the first virtual reality piece to become part of the National Gallery of Australia’s collection. The creators of this extraordinary work share the vision behind their many worlds. You work in very different mediums. How did you know that Jess’s 2D, hand-drawn illustrations would translate so successfully into a VR experience? Jess: Simon first saw the potential for them in a VR context. Simon knew my drawings and I was a fan of Simon’s music videos, so we both wanted to find a way for our practices to connect. Simon: Jess’s work is so geometrical and there’s so much potential for movement as well. I’m sure a lot of people doodled 3D cubes in their notebooks and I’m pretty obsessed with those kinds of shapes, so I was really drawn to Jess’s images and could see the potential in them. Why did you want to take your static 2D artworks and transform them into these elaborate universes? J: Scale is a really important element in my drawings. They depict objects and creatures and architectures of scale, in rudimentary ways. But with virtual reality, actually getting to transport the viewer into that world so they can experience that scale for themselves, its just a completely indescribable experience. In addition to being visually stunning, the VR experience is also powerfully visceral, to the point of being almost too intense at times. Was that deliberate or merely a byproduct of translating Jess’s worlds into a VR context? S: It was definitely a conscious choice. We really wanted to push people and play with the kind of physical bending of perception that virtual reality can do. J: In fact, that’s exactly what attracted to us to VR; pushing against peoples’ comfort levels, both physically and psychologically, was something that we were really up for messing with.
Terminus
There’s an interesting intersection in the five VR experiences in Terminus; a sense of these worlds being ancient and yet filled with certain pop culture references, particularly ‘80s adventure movies with a Dungeons And Dragons vibe. Where did this come from? S: There was so much of that kind of world-building in those films, like all those Jim Henson movies like The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth. I love how thorough that process was – you don’t need to know why something is a certain way, because you feel it has a place in that world. J: There are motifs that borrow on certain cultural references, and I think that activates the idea of universality with the audience. The things we remember are usually the things that have most affected us, and memories of the movies we watched as kids usually come with strong emotions attached.
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The NGA presents Terminus, the Balnaves Contemporary Intervention 2, on display until 26 Aug.
Art from the heart You may know her as Litchfield Penitentiary inmate Carrie ‘Big Boo’ Black, but there’s so much more to Orange Is The New Black star Lea DeLaria. The comic chanteuse with an activist’s spirit tells Maxim Boon about staying true to herself now she’s in the mainstream.
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ea DeLaria, aka Big Boo from the Netflix megahit Orange Is The New Black, isn’t easily pigeonholed. You may know her as an actor, but she’s also a sought-after stand-up comic, a jazz musician with five studio albums to her name, and a Broadway veteran. In June, she’ll tour Australia with her all-female band, performing a mix of comedy and jazz, as well as tracks from her recent David Bowie tribute record, House Of David. When she’s not performing, she’s an outspoken activist and a sometimes-controversial political raconteur. She’s also proudly Queer and a self-proclaimed “butch” lesbian who was twice arrested for “open and notorious homosexuality” in the late ‘70s. But if you had to pick one unifying trait for DeLaria’s multi-faceted persona, it might be her gloriously defiant spirit - a quality that has been ever-present throughout her life. Coming out of the closet at a time when being gay was still illegal in every state of the Union, DeLaria faced down the homophobia of America’s conservative patriarchy. Since then, she’s witnessed a major thaw over the past three decades in the way the LGBTQIA+ community is treated in her native US and elsewhere around the world. While this social progress is undoubtedly positive, it can also be problematic, DeLaria says. “My biggest fear is that we’ll become homogenised as we become mainstream. As we are more and more, quoteunquote, ‘accepted by society,’ which by the way I never asked for your acceptance. I’ve always demanded your respect. I could give a fuck about your acceptance, who cares, you know? But as we gain more and more acceptance we need to keep our identity. That’s really important to me,” she shares. “You know when we start talking about the community using the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender bibbity-bobbity-boo jargon, well, I never say it. I don’t do the alphabet soup. I say Queer, because Queer encompasses all. And when you say the alphabet soup, basically you’re pointing out our differences and what that does is perpetuate the infighting within my community. Which is our biggest downfall. If we spent half the time we spent screaming at each other screaming at the powers that be we would’ve had our rights fucking a hundred years ago. You know what I mean? “So, this is what I fear. I hate when I go to a fucking gay pride rally and there’s some faggotty little white bitch queen on stage talking about how ‘We’re just like everybody else.’ That’s when a drag queen walks by with three-foot spangled platforms and opens her butterfly wings. You know, we’re not like everybody else, and that’s a beautiful thing. We should keep our identity, we should be who we are. Demand respect, be yourself, and give me my rights.” Equality has been the ultimate goal of the gay rights movement since the Stonewall riots, driving the years of protest and progress that have followed. But in what could be described as cultural gentrification, the Queer identity has acquired a fashion-
“I just did not want the people behind me to grow up in the fucking horrifying world that I grew up in.”
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able frisson of hipster chic as it has moved from the social fringes and welcomed into the pop-culture spotlight. The Queer community risks losing sight of its subversive heritage by trading authenticity for mainstream appeal, DeLaria believes. There are, however, some heartening examples to the contrary. When it premiered in 2013, Orange Is The New Black — the quirky, uncompromising and unapologetic dramedy about women in America’s penal system — was an instant hit. Without pandering or dumbing down, it offered an often mordant portrait of female prisoners, capturing their individuality, their cultural diversity, their sexual agency and queerness, and perhaps most importantly, their resilience while struggling against a broken system. “It offers a view of what it is to be a woman. Period,” DeLaria says of the show. “All of us women are beautiful. We’re all beautiful just the way we are. We are all beautiful no matter what our size. We are all beautiful no matter what our race. We are beautiful no matter what our biological gender. Women do more than just sit around and talk about whether their ass looks fat in their jeans. And our show shows that.” DeLaria’s character is a firm fan favourite. As a buzz-cut, heavily inked, butch AF inmate, Big Boo is immediately intimidating to the show’s middle-class protagonist Piper Chapman (played by Taylor Schilling). But as the narrative has progressed over Orange Is The New Black’s five seasons, it has revealed Boo as a charismatic, witty, street savvy underdog with a heart of gold. So what’s the secret to capturing such a well-realised, sincere characterisation? “Big Boo is me,” Delaria responds. “It’s fucking me, I’m not acting at all. I’m just me. Big Boo was originally a minor character that was going to have two lines. But Jenji [Kohne, the show’s creator] loved me. The writers loved me. So when they realised that there was no Big Boo, that there was literally no butch, no butch at all — in a women’s prison! That’s just fucking ridiculous — they made the character [more prominent].” The success of Orange Is The New Black has made household names of its ensemble cast. True to her activist’s spirit, DeLaria isn’t about to waste the opportunity. “If you’re successful then you’ve got a much bigger platform from which to do something with your art. And that’s what I do. I’ve always tried to use what I call my power for good. I mean, that’s just been me from moment one. I just did not want the people behind me to grow up in the fucking horrifying world that I grew up in. And I knew that I could affect change with my voice and with my art.”
Lea DeLaria tours from 5 Jun Check The Guide on theMusic.com.au for more details.
valiantmusic.com.au
02 6685 1005 Vintage Guitars t Amps t Vinyl t Hi-Fi In the vibrant village of Brunswick Heads opposite The Picture House
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Rage and reflect
Indonesian born and a bred, Karina with Keira Leonard Utomo chats wit High Tension as a medium about using Hig through which to reflect on this anti-communist purge of nation’s anti-co 1966, and the death of 1965 and 1966 Suharto.
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s we chat to the delicately spoken oken Karina Utomo, it’s almost hard to believe this iss the same voice that leads Melbourne’s heavy metal quartet High Tension. Her family would perhaps tell you a different ifferent story, though. “My mum was reflecting on my birth a while ago and was like, ‘When you were born you came out with h a lot of hair and a big mouth screaming really loud.’ So not much ch has changed!” Utomo laughs. Forming six years ago and experiencing encing several line-up changes since, it seems like High Tension have found their feet in recent years. Power duo Mike Deslandes and Fear Like Us’ Lauren Hammel joined the band on guitar and drums respectively following their last album, 2015’s Bully, and Utomo explains that it’s brought on a welcome change of style le as they delve further into metal than ever before on that album’s m’s follow-up, Purge. The change of direction was inevitable on their latest record, says Utomo, who is fuelled with excitement and curiosity as to how fans might react to their new sound. “We have different methods of stylee and taste in music,” she says, “so all of those things are going ing to fundamentally change the way we write music together er and it’s [a change] that we’ve really welcomed. It feels like playing laying in a new band. At times I feel like this record feels like more of a reset than Bully.” Utomo tells us all four members went into their latest recording with ample confidence, a much h stronger focus and the ability to experiment more, making the progression all the more stimulating. “There are elements ts that will always be a part of who we are musically, but I’m m excited about the realm we’ve entered for this album.” There’s a serious theme to Purge, one ne that is near to Utomo’s heart. “The particular music that hat we’re writing - it requires sort of delving deep down into that realm of rage and reflecting on where that comess from. And for me personally, it comes down to that era.” The era Utomo speaks of is 1965 and 1966 in Indonesia, a time where hundreds of thousands (possibly millions) of people were killed during the anti-communist purge. This subject weighs heavily on the Indonesian born and raised singer. Ultimately, that weight and rage were channelled into poignant songs like Purge’s openingg track Red White Shame, during which she screams powerful ful lines such as, “I am ashamed/How we were fooled/Cannot pull the trigger/No weapon would suffice”. “It’s a reflection of being exposed to the sort of patriotism - growing up in Indonesia and attending tending flag ceremonies,” explains Utomo, “and also building uilding this love for the country that I was born, and grew up, in. Also knowing - later down the track - the deeply negative ve influence of people like [former Indonesian president] Suharto rto and other people in power&#133; It’s somewhat abstract in a couple of verses, but I remember when Suharto died. I was really lly annoyed, because he hadn’t been brought to justice for all thee crimes he had commit-
ted; all the money he’s taken ta from the people and the genocide he was responsible for. “It’s much easier ffor me to write about that particuhave High Tension as a medium to talk lar era and also to hav about it without any ssort of real consequence in terms of risk,” Utomo points out. o “The fact that we exist, the fact kind of in Australia means I don’t have that our music is just ki to be afraid of speaking speakin out on that issue. A lot of Indonesians at present day are not able to speak openly about that particular era, so I think that there is definitely importance [in] covering topics that sshould be talked about... And for this couldn’t get my head out of that realm.” particular record, I could Australia when she was seven years Utomo moved to Au Indonesia again in 1997 as a tween before old then lived in Indones Australia in her teenage years. Still learnsettling down in Australi ing about the implications implication of such a prominent time, Utomo delicately, despite the ever-arising speaks of her home d wrath she feels about a time that still has so many presentday consequences. “I haven’t lived in Indonesia for a number of years, so with the present-day implicaI also feel a bit out of touch t tions, but people are sstill being silenced who speak about says Utomo. “For example, if the govthat particular era,” sa ernment knew you had any affiliation with the Indonesian communist party, or yyou were a socialist sympathiser, or government - like, really just basic kind even against the gove what have you; if there was any hisof political views or w in that era, it would stop you tory of you being involved inv Indonesian society. So you would not from being part of In shadow-puppet master or work for the be able to be a shad government, or be a tteacher. I’m not sure if they still do it, but there used to be a box you’d have to tick to make sure There are all these little things that it didn’t apply to you. y that I didn’t know about until recently, that are still in place, that stop a big chunk of society [from being able] to participate in certain things and just silencing them.” hit the road in June/July to celebrate High Tension hi the release of Purge, debuting at Hobart’s Dark Mofo and touring around the country before finishing up in their It’s on stage where Utomo hometown of Melbourne. Mel feels like she’s most mo present and where all her senses Despite the many years of doing this, are magnified. D she tells us that the thrill hasn’t died down for her. “I still think, ‘Woah, who are these people? Why are ‘Wo they here!? I can’t ca believe they came here to see us!’ It still astounds astound me that people are listening and shows.” coming to show
Purge (Cooking Vinyl) is out this month. High Tension tour tou from 22 Jun.
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In our own time
Digging early graves Anton Newcombe of The Brian Jonestown Massacre hopes Hannah Story isn’t “predestining [him] to death” by asking about their upcoming eponymous album. nton Newcombe picks up the phone in Tampa, Florida,
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with my band. That they work so well from 1990 with the music
jittery from coffee, in the midst of The Brian Jonestown
we play now is kind of cool.
Massacre’s 23-date American tour. Next month, they’re
“To me, I never thought I had this identifiable trait in the
heading down to Australia for 12 shows across the country,
way Bono and U2 have: that ‘Hucka-hucka-hucka’ thing, about
including a set as part of Sydney’s Vivid festival. It’s an intense
his voice. You hear a U2 song and you always hear it. I never
schedule, but one totally in keeping with Newcombe’s frenetic
saw that in my own music, but evidently it exists too in a dif-
pace and unrelenting creative output.
ferent way.”
The Brian Jonestown Massacre and their oft-chaotic live
Newcombe describes The Brian Jonestown Massacre’s
shows are notorious, their erratic (mis)behaviour in the ‘90s and
last record, 2017’s Don’t Get Lost, as “more experimental”, so for
All things good
Pic: Ruari Meehan
pseudo-rivalry with The Dandy Warhols immortalised in 2004
Something Else he wanted to “get back down to brass tacks
Sundance rockumentary Dig!. It’s an unfortunate reputation for
and present what it is that [he does] in a really natural form”. He
a band that, since their formation in San Francisco in 1990, have
started “writing, writing, writing” separating the songs into two
been prolific and ever-changing, their shoegaze-garage-psych
bins — one heart-on-the-sleeve with an almost ‘50s/’60s revival-
sounds enthralling young and old audiences across the globe.
ist sound and the second with more mute space, an “anything
Newcombe laughs when asked about their broad and
goes” experimental approach. He ultimately decided to hire a
enduring appeal, particularly to people so young that they
drummer so he could bounce his ideas off somebody else after
weren’t even alive when the band’s debut studio album,
failing to convince his guitarist to fly to his studio in Berlin.
Methodrone, came out in 1995.
“The bottom line in that part of music is that you don’t
“[It’s funny] considering that I’m 50 years old. Every single
get paid for stuff that you don’t play and I get paid forever
concert we play, people are like, ‘I’m not 21... Is there any way
for my music. If you’re not on the record you don’t make any
you can get me in?’... In some areas people go with their dads or
money from the record.
whoever, their guardians. I think that’s a good thing.”
“I can’t help it that I write hundreds of songs; I’m not gonna
He says taking the whole gang down to Australia “pays for
stop and wait for an imaginary democracy to come up and
itself”, and that he feels fortunate to be able to do so. He drops a
make up some stuff. But I was gonna try to encourage them to
hint about their plans to return Down Under in 2019: “I think next
be part of that process — but it didn’t happen.”
year we’re going to do a crazy show outside of Melbourne, with The Dandy Warhols, in some amphitheatre vineyard thing...”
But what of The Brian Jonestown Massacre: why is 2018 the year BJM finally release an eponymous album?
Still, taking the entire band down our way isn’t inexpensive.
“There’s so many records, if you go so long, why not? It’s
Altogether the band and crew check in 47 pieces of luggage:
just another point of absurdity, it’s like, ‘What? Why is this now?’
“Each one of my guitars costs $1,000 to put on the plane... It’s
That’s basically the reason I did it is because you just asked
ridiculous. Because if you have several it’s almost a better idea to
about it, you made it noteworthy as a concept.”
pay for somebody’s ticket to fly, and they can check them in.” Newcombe will be releasing two BJM records in 2018 on his own A Recordings label: Something Else next month and
Singer-songwriter Gabriella Cohen tells Sam Wall about life on a leaky boat, prophetic songs and the colour of all things good.
Check The Guide on theMusic.com.au for more details.
It almost sounds like a capstone note. “It could be: I hope you’re not predestining me to death or something. You’re like, ‘It sounds like an epitaph...’”
a self-titled album later in the year. The Australian shows are an opportunity for Newcombe to blend songs from those new albums with their earlier work. He’s pleased that his back catalogue “fits seamlessly” with the new songs: “I find it interesting about the music in general — some of the songs that we play are from the first practice that I ever had
Something Else (A Recordings/MGM) is out this month. The Brian Jonestown Massacre tour from 2 Jun.
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Pink Is The Colour Of Unconditional Love (Dot Dash/Remote Control) is out this month. Gabriella Cohen tours from 8 Jun.
Midway through their current European tour, songwriter and drummer Liam Gough talks to Annelise Ball about the key to The Teskey Brothers’ success.
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reen is greedy and blue is shy but Pink Is The Colour Of Unconditional Love, at least according to Gabriella Cohen’s new album. During our conversation Cohen shows high regard for the hue, stating that pink is also “the colour of an instinctual fact” and “of all things good”. “It’s also the colour of the clitoris, which is pretty funny,” shares the singer-songwriter, “and that’s like everyone’s favourite thing. Well, you know, mostly.” The follow-up to her roundly lauded debut, Full Disclosure And No Details, Cohen began work on the album in 2017 with longtime collaborator Kate “Babyshakes” Dillon on a farm in the Victorian countryside. “We had the bulk — well, no, we had the skeletons done in the country,” says Cohen, “because originally we set out to make a 24-track record. We had lots of skeletons done and we thought we were close, but, not close at all, and finished it over a really long, tedious process. But it was fun,” assures Cohen brightly. “Just travelling.” The pair would produce and engineer the bones over an extended road trip that started with a spot on Foxygen’s US tour and rambled through Europe. “I stayed in a family friend’s home in a little remote village in Italy, I stayed there for like a month and worked on the record, and then I did the same in Portugal, and the same — just, like, little hideouts around Europe. It’s not as wanky as it sounds, it was really great.” Along with coastal Portugal and rural Southern Italy, Cohen’s working-holiday hideaways included Mexican cafes, Venice Beach and a boat in England. “The boat in England sucked,” says Cohen. “It was rainy and tiny, and mouldy, and damp. But, you
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ld-school blues and soul bros The Teskey Brothers prove beyond all reasonable doubt that nothing’s impossible if you’re passionate about your music. Releasing killer 2017 debut album Half Mile Harvest after ten years of development as songwriters, musicians and live performers, the four-piece have jumped from weddings, birthdays and pub gigs in the Victorian suburb of Warrandyte to sold-out shows nationally and beyond. The Teskey Brothers are midway through their current European tour when the band’s songwriter and drummer Liam Gough calls from an airport in Dublin to bring us up to speed on the rise of The Teskey Brothers. “We never proactively booked gigs,” he explains. “We’d just get phone calls from people who’d seen us live asking us to play at their birthday, or their pub and we’d do it if we could. We weren’t very organised, but it kept us busy for a long time.” After the release of their fully independent, selfproduced album — recorded in their home studio — the gig bookings escalated quickly into a hugely successful Australian tour, a US tour, plus bucket-list tickers like Meredith Music Festival, Bluesfest and SXSW — the last three in the past six months alone. “It just took time,” says Gough, philosophically. “We needed ten years in the
trenches refining our trade before we felt ready to get off our bums and record something we were proud of. We just might not have been ready seven or eight years ago.” Spotify, a crucial key to their international popularity, would not have been ready for them either. “We sold out our New York show, but had no idea we had fans there,” says Gough. “People told us they’d found our music on Spotify and loved it. Given our sound, some were shocked to find a bunch of white boys from Australia on stage, but they’d come up to us later and say, ‘Guys, you were amazing!’ They embraced us and loved it anyway.” To be so welcomed into the famed traditions of African-American music was a blessing and possibly a relief, particularly given the sensitivities and debate around cultural appropriation. “It’s definitely something in our minds,” says Gough of the potential for criticism. “Yet, we see our music as paying homage to the greats of blues and soul. From the feedback we’ve had, people say we’re contributing something to the art form in a respectful way, rather than copying. It comes from a very passionate place.” Local fans can look forward to their ten-date national run in support of The Teskey Brothers’ forthcoming new single I Get Up, finishing with a hometown show at Melbourne’s Forum Theatre. “I can’t wait to play under those huge gargoyles,” says Gough, sounding pumped about playing this venue in particular. “We’re going
to pull out all the stops on that one, as our Melbourne crowd has been so good to us. It’s going to be a big one.” Only a year or two ago, The Teskey Brothers couldn’t have forseen taking their music to a stage as big as the Forum, especially given the unlikely scenario in which they broke through; namely, without the support of gatekeeper triple j. “Like everyone, we thought it wasn’t possible to be successful without them,” says Gough, frankly. “But we’ve managed to sidestep around them and find support elsewhere. [Melbourne community radio stations] PBS and Triple R have been so good to us, as well as other community radio stations around the country, and ABC Radio has been very supportive too.” For those bands still playing small local gigs, for those who’ve spent ten years developing their music without much success and for those who worry they don’t fit the triple j sound and never will, The Teskey Brothers prove that the doors are still open if you’re dedicated to your music on your terms. “There’s no hurry,” says Gough, sagely. “You can try and rush it, but there’s so many people doing music; you’ve really got to do it for the right reasons to stand out. We never expected to be playing at this level; we were just having fun, we loved it and it slowly began to resonate. That’s the key.”
know, we had no other accommodation. It was Kate’s cousin’s boat, and she was like, ‘Oh, you can live in that.’ So that’s what happened,” she laughs. “We spent two weeks, like, tracking vocals and finishing guitar bits. You couldn’t do anything else.” As far as writing goes, Cohen maintains the songs were mostly completed two years ago, or even earlier. Lyrically, it’s a surprise to hear. The album is full of scenes from, and longing for, LA and Portugal, and when lined up with Cohen’s recent itinerary it’s not a huge leap on first listen to assume Pink Is the Colour Of Unconditional Love is at least in part a road album. “True,” says Cohen. “I was really desperate to get to Portugal to meet someone
over there. But, no, that wasn’t to do with touring. It just happened. And the writing about LA, that was also about, you know, the same human being. But, no. The songs were written in, like, Balaclava in Melbourne, mostly. When I was just dreaming about getting away... It’s like a manifestation of some kind.” Cohen’s missing person is a driving theme in Pink Is The Colour Of Unconditional Love; at times the LP strikes as a collection of love letters to someone living in the wrong time zone, an impression that Cohen doesn’t baulk at (“Thank god,” she laughs). The subject matter makes for a hugely different listen to Cohen’s debut. Cohen’s palette has always been intriguingly flex-
ible, even through individual songs, but the persistent layers of discontented distortion on Full Disclosure And No Details have been washed away. In their place is drawled, bassdriven rock’n’roll, sad-but-groovy bossa nova, Ray Manzarek-esque MIDI noodling and everything in between. The result is much more melancholic than... “Breakup-y,” jokes Cohen, describing the first album. “I guess that was never — the sounds that happen are natural and, yeah, this record was definitely written in love, so I would hope the sounds kind of emulate that, and are less angry and fuzzy.”
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The Teskey Brothers tour from 14 Jun.
Real, real, real, visceral We’re chatting ahead of Clark’s return to Australia, where she’ll be performing just two shows: one at Sydney’s Carriageworks for Vivid, and another at Hobart’s Dark Mofo festival. “It never feels like work coming to Australia,” Clark says. “It just always feels like vacation. It’s beautiful and friendly, and like all this food is organic... It’s just very mellow.” The festival dates are an extension of her one-woman Fear The Future tour, as distinct from the full-band live show she premiered at Coachella in April. She describes the concerts, which chronologically trace and reimagine her work from her 2007 debut Marry Me to MASSEDUCTION, as “more like a theatre piece than a straightahead rock show”. Her plan while between shows is to hit up Sydney Theatre Company, and to “see whatever art is up and around”. But when Clark travels, she says, her modus operandi is to just “eat the food and walk around and drink good coffee”. Th is way of moving through new spaces — “getting to see how people live in all kinds of places, and to meet all kinds of different people” — informs her songwriting. She says it reinforces in “a real, real, real, real, visceral way that human beings are basically all the same everywhere and everybody wants the same things, and everybody wants somebody to love them”. “My favourite thing to do is just kinda watch people. People are fascinating. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of writing about peo-
Annie Clark — you may know her as St Vincent — tells Hannah Story ahead of her two Aussie festival dates that the moral high ground won’t “make your art any fucking better”.
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nnie Clark, who goes by the name of St Vincent, is a reference to Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds’ There She Goes, My Beautiful World: “...And Dylan Thomas died drunk in St Vincent’s Hospital”. To continue the allusions to Cave, Clark sings on the titular song off St Vincent’s latest record, last year’s MASSEDUCTION: “Smilin’ nihilist met/Angry glass half full/ Drinkin’ Manic Panic/ Singin’ Boatman’s Call”. The coincidence is an easy way to start the conversation, which spans from “the intersection of the ridiculous and the dominatrix”, to writers as cannibals, to President Trump: the “disobedient toddler”. She’s warm and giving, immediately rattling off artists she’s enjoyed listening to lately: King Krule, Kendrick Lamar, SZA and Cardi B: “I like her whole vibe. She’s such a breath of fresh air.”
ple or writing about the human condition.” The people Clark sees and encounters often end up in her songs in some way or another — from people she overhears on the subway to passing by someone who “has something captivating about them”. She describes a “blue-collar Chicago tough guy” she spotted on a train years ago, who “basically gave the equivalent of a David Mamet monologue on the train”. It was “completely authentic”, she says, “so human, and so beautiful”. “[You’ll] see people suffering, see people falling in love, see people running down the street screaming at each other or whatever it is. All these things are useful — writers are cannibals; it’s just the nature of the game.” Is it possible to avoid the current, arguably toxic, political climate in the US — say the ‘masseduction’ of fake news — from seeping into her music? Clark says, with Trump’s noxious behaviour getting headlines, and taking up so much “psychic space”, that there’s “no way to shut it out just ‘cause you’re a person walking around the world”. But while she acknowledges that “things about the political climate are gonna come into what I do in some ways, I don’t think I would ever make a quote-unquote political record”. “It really is like a disobedient toddler ruining dinner for everyone. But the election of frankly an idiot was in some ways the natural conclusion of the celebrityworship and capitalism-worship that’s been going on for a long time. And it speaks to the haves and the have-nots, and how that gap keeps getting bigger, and the quality of life for people is not good, because of a lot of greed and a lot of not looking out for your neighbour.” What she’s interested in writing are “human songs about human beings going through life as it is now, and that which
“The cover of my album is an arse.”
Pic: Nedda Asfari
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is topical, yeah, of course”, but says that preachy political albums don’t usually work as an artistic statement. “The quality of the art usually goes down in relation to it being overtly political only because you’re judging it by a different matrix, right? You’re judging it by how long it maligns this that or the other, or makes explicit what it does or does not believe. You’re not judging it on like ‘Is this a good song? Does this move me?’ And shit like that where, like, there’s some assumed moral high ground, that shit just drives me crazy. “Don’t — just don’t. The human condition is suffering and everybody’s just trying to do the best they can, and everybody is afraid and freaked out and wants basically the same thing so just can it with that moral high ground shit, it doesn’t make your art any fucking better.” Instead, Clark’s work is anything but self-serious: her songs combine diverse musical styles and genres, dark and joyful themes, upbeat music with moody lyrical undertones, and the artful with the playful. She says a sense of humour is fundamental to her artistic practice: “You would be surprised how many decisions I make on songs or on videos because they make me laugh, because there’s something in them that’s either absurd or uncomfortable. I don’t know what it is, and I’m not interested in dissecting what it is: I just know that I reacted to it and that it’s funny, it’s ludicrous. “The cover of my album is an arse — that’s like junior-high [Years Seven to Nine] kid stupid, but I love it, and it says it all. It says what it needs to say too. It’s like, ‘Where’s that line between sexy and silly?’... Because that’s definitely the place I was trying to live on this album. I think maybe not as many people try to go to where that Venn diagram intersects, but I’ll go there. I’ll be there at the intersection of the ridiculous and the dominatrix.” With every record — MASSEDUCTION is St Vincent’s fifth — Clark receives evermore critical praise and a higher position in the charts. That kind of attention does matter to her in so much as it allows her to keep doing what she’s doing: “I want to play music for my whole life and if nobody was listening that really wouldn’t be feasible. “I’m so glad about it, in the sense of more people are listening to the music and that means that it’s connecting with people, and that’s really all I wanted to do with this record. [But] who knows when the other shoe’s gonna drop on anything. “I’ve just been lucky to get to have a whole life because I got pretty good at moving my fingers over a piece of wood and steel. I’ve seen the world. I’ve met the most incredible people. I’ve seen things I never thought — I never dreamed — that I would see, and all because I just loved this thing. I hope I get to keep doing that for a long time.”
The secret Aussie history of Solange Before a massive headlining run at the Opera House as part of Vivid LIVE, Cyclone recalls when Solange quietly slipped into Australia nearly a decade ago to record with local indietronic luminaries.
Solange live in Australia 2013. Pic: Josh Groom
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elbourne was seized by an unusual form of Beyonce mania when in 2013, during the Mrs Carter Show world tour, the fur-coated
superstar was snapped posing in hipster Brunswick outside an old weatherboard house. Needless to say, it inspired many memes. That scene later appeared in the film-clip accompanying No Angel from Beyonce’s eponymous “visual album” — ironically intended as a homage to her Houston, Texas hometown. But Queen Bey wasn’t the first Knowles to discover subcultural Melbourne. Her younger sister Solange paved the way, spending the summer
Solange live in Australia 2014. Pic: Clare Hawley
of 2009/2010 working with Aussie cosmic disco goth
New Year’s Day, replacing Kele Okereke. She hung out when
band the Midnight Juggernauts. Solange has generated much buzz ahead of her exclusive
the Juggernauts DJ’d at New Guernica that night.
Vivid LIVE concerts at the Sydney Opera House — tickets sold
This writer quizzed Midnight Juggernauts’ Andrew Szek-
by ballot. The soul auteur attracted a new fanbase with 2016’s
eres about Solange in 2013. “We met her in Paris one time,” he
album A Seat At The Table — a powerful testimonial about
said. “She was writing about how she’s into our band. We met
black womanhood. In fact, Solange presaged the avant’n’B
her and she was like, ‘Oh, yeah, you guys...’ It was like this weird
movement.
kinda thing — ok, this is cool. She was really awesome — and
Today Solange emanates as an elusive figure who, rarely
really into interesting music. She brought up this idea of com-
granting interviews, communicates through her music, videos
ing to Australia to write with us and we were totally into it. She
and social media. As a teen, she served as a standby dancer
came by herself; had never been here — and then was here for
for Destiny’s Child — Beyonce the leader. Solange debuted
a few weeks, just hanging out. We did some session stuff in
with 2002’s endearing urban-pop Solo Star, expressing a frag-
Melbourne and then Vinnie [frontman Vincent Heimann] went
ile pathos on The Neptunes-helmed Crush. Notably, the sing-
to Los Angeles for a bit and recorded some extra stuff there.”
er had writing credits. At 17, Solange married and became a
Alas, the music is yet to materialise, The Juggernauts were
mother. By 2007, she had amicably divorced.
soon distracted by their own album roll-out.
Perhaps inevitably, a reductive mainstream media set
Solange would be dubbed ‘Indie Knowles’. In 2009 she
Solange against her famous sibling. However, Solange decid-
covered Dirty Projectors’ throwback R&B jam Stillness Is The
ed that, as an artist, this freed her from industry dictates. She
Move and, the next year, cameoed on projects from Of Mon-
claimed her creative autonomy with 2008’s trailblazing, if
treal and Chromeo. Teaming with Dev “Blood Orange” Hynes,
slept-on, opus Sol-Angel And The Hadley St Dreams. Though
Solange cut True, an EP of diaspora pop led by the viral hit
revelling in Motown influences (writing with the legend-
Losing You. (It surfaced on Chris “Grizzly Bear” Taylor’s Ter-
ary Lamont Dozier), Solange also explored psychedelic R&B
rible Records.)
and electro-soul influences (she curated samples of Thiev-
In December 2013 Solange triumphantly returned to Aus-
ery Corporation and Boards Of Canada). In the prelude God
tralia, headlining Falls in her own right. There were sold-out
Given Name, Solange alluded to Beyonce: “I’m not becoming
side-shows with the Juggernauts supporting as DJs. Solange’s
expectations/I’m not her and never will be/Two girls going in
odyssey culminated in the critically acclaimed A Seat At The
different directions/Striving towards the same galaxy/Let my
Table, released via her Saint Records. It topped the US charts
star light shine on its own/No, I’m no sister/I’m just my God-
— and Solange won the Grammy for “Best R&B Performance”
given name”. She reiterated this in interviews. Sol-Angel And
with the single Cranes In The Sky. However, another song has
The Hadley St Dreams was a manifesto.
particular geographic, and cultural, symbolism. Borderline (An
In late 2009 Solange slipped into Melbourne to collabo-
Ode To Self Care) samples Aaliyah’s More Than A Woman —
rate with Midnight Juggernauts on what was then reported-
the last single the R&B icon issued from Aaliyah before her
ly her third album. The city already had a secret R&B history.
tragic passing.
Solange’s idol Aaliyah tracked some vocals for her 2001 selftitled album at Sing Sing Studios while shooting the vampire movie Queen Of The Damned. At any rate, Solange joined the Juggernauts at Falls Festival as a surprise vocal guest — triple j’s tweeter, clearly not familiar with God Given Name, referring to
St Vincent tours from 15 Jun.
her as “Beyonce’s little sister”. Solange DJ’d at Summadayze on
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Solange tours from 1 Jun.
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Rug life The winter months are around the corner, so it’s time to start layering-up to beat the cold. And no winter wardrobe is complete without a scarf (or four), so make sure you’re keeping toasty in style with one of these snappy options from our friends at Otto & Spike. You can find these, and a whole heap of other Aussiemade knits, at ottoandspike.com.au
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1: Tee Pee Beanie, $60 2: Nerd scarf, $85 3: Hue scarf, $85 4: Dab scarf, $80 5: Fresh scarf, $90 6: Glovelettes, $35
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VANS.COM.AU THE MUSIC
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JUNE
It’s Millar time From working in a juice store to topping charts, it’s been a crazy ride for Nicole Millar. She tells Carley Hall it’s time to slow down and appreciate.
‘featured artist’ syndrome that seems to trap some, where the artist is at risk of becoming more famous for their guest appearances than their own material. In fact, saying ‘yes’ initially to such opportunities is something the singer encourages others to do. “I’m going to be doing some collaborations with people in the US, because it’s such a good starting point to get your name out there,” Millar explains. “Obviously you don’t want to say yes to everything and be the ‘yes’ person. I was that person at the start and I was saying yes to a lot of things and they all happened to come around at the same time. After that, I just sat back and took a year off collaborating with people and concentrated on my own music. “But it’s a good starting point in someone’s career, because you can go from no one knowing who you are to having a song on the radio and people going, ‘Wow, who is that voice?’” Millar has put “that voice” — her light, breathy trill — to good use on her first full-length release Excuse Me. Reining in the talents of both Dan Farber and Sable, who produced Tremble and Communications respectively, the trio created new ground for the sleek-but-textural 15-track LP. The recording process also gave Millar some new ‘roommates’.
cool having the two different producers from two different EPs come together and work on the one album. I was in this studio in Woolloomooloo and they had three studio rooms — Dan was in one, Sable was in the other and I would walk in between the rooms and say, ‘I like this,’ and, ‘I like that’. I always felt guilty for being so controlling, but it was kind of fun.” Millar hits the road with Excuse Me in June. Although she’s already an accomplished solo star, heading out into the spotlight for her first national album tour is still a big deal. “It is daunting,” Millar deadpans. “With support shows, you have that security blanket. But when people come just to see you, that’s a whole other thing. Pre-tour, I’m
always like, ‘Oh my god, is anyone going to come?’ But I’m going to have so many songs that I haven’t played in a show yet and with the album coming out a couple of weeks before the tour hopefully people can still resonate with them. “Th is album is just the first step of putting more and more music out. I’m excited.”
Excuse Me (EMI) is out this month. Nicole Millar tours from 8 Jun.
“When the Peking Duk song came out I was working in a juice store, so to do music full time and have that as my vincome is pretty awesome.”
Pic: Cybelle Malinowski
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hen electro-pop singer Nicole Millar calls in from Sydney she’s fresh off the plane from New York. And not because of a whirlwind tour or a two-week long recording stint; Millar has been living in the States since the start of the year, penning her debut album and playing a suite of glitzy industry shows. It’s little wonder there’s a tired edge to Millar’s words as she reveals her number one mission since landing on home turf a few hours earlier. “First off was an adventure for a good coffee — you definitely take it for granted,” Millar laughs. Millar hit the public consciousness as the feature vocalist on Peking Duk’s megahit High back in 2014, the guest spot paving her path towards a busy solo career. The period since has included a bunch of tours and huge shows, like 2015’s Splendour In The Grass and with RUFUS for triple j’s One Night Stand. It also yielded two solid EPs that housed edgy, electro gems Tremble and Signals. It’s perhaps a reminder of the pace the modern world moves at these days that Millar, despite her youth, recognises the need to breathe in and reflect on all that she has achieved. “It’s definitely something that I have to work on and I think I’m getting better at it,” Millar reasons. “I feel so grateful that I get to do music as a job. I mean, five years ago when the Peking Duk song came out I was working in a juice store, so to do music full time and have that as my income is pretty awesome. “I think as an artist I’m always like, ‘I haven’t done this yet or I’m not someone who’s touring the world.’ You forget that it’s a process. It’s hard, because I’m always thinking forward to the future and it’s nice to look back and go, ‘Well I’ve played some amazing festivals and reached thousands of people with Peking Duk and RUFUS.’ I forget about that stuff.” Armed with her consistent and quality run of the releases, Millar has fended off the
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“I had about 50 demo ideas that I had written in Sweden and LA and Australia,” she explains. “Then I made a shortlist of the ones that I properly wanted to finish. So we brought in Dan and Sable. It was pretty
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Great southern band
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Ray Dalfsen (aka Reverend Ray), frontman of Adelaide rock collective West Thebarton, tells Steve Bell about the seven-piece’s collaborative songwriting and embracing where you come from. Pic by Kane Hibberd.
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he last 12 months have been a period of immense change for Adelaide rock’n’roll collective West Thebarton. They not only abbreviated their name from the slightly more risque (but eminently memorable) West Thebarton Brothel Party, but the seven-piece also tweaked their lineup and completely realigned themselves in an industry sense, signing new deals with a management group, record label and overseas booking agent in quick succession (all of which so far seem to be paying handsome dividends). But by far the biggest change to the band has been a pronounced sonic shift, best evinced by their excellent new debut longplayer Different Beings Being Different. Still jam-packed with the band’s rabble-rousing suburban anthems, the album found them pairing up with producer Dylan Adams (DMA’S, The Vines) and eschewing their former lo-fi garage tendencies in favour of a far larger and cleaner sound; one that still fully captures the live intensity for which they’ve become so renowned. “It’s really weird, before we went into the studio I really wanted it to sound supergarage-y and that’s the kind of vibe we were going for,” frontman Ray Dalfsen (aka Reverend Ray) reflects. “Then the day before we
“We’re not out to write pop hits or songs that will keep getting us on the radio or anything.”
went into the studio I kinda decided in my head, ‘Nah, fuck it! I really want this album to be huge and really grandiose, it will still be pub rock-y but huge in sound’. “I wanted to show the rawness, and thinking back we’re such a hard-working bunch and honestly we’ve all put in so much blood, sweat and tears into West Theb — but also into other projects — and I wanted to just show that as well. I wanted to kind of make the album reflect how raw and energetic our live show was. “Dylan is such a guru in that regard. I played guitar on it and I’m not a very good guitar player, but all the other guitar players in the band are just so nuts and they really spent ages trying to find all the right sounds and that sorta stuff, so we’re so happy with not just how the whole album turned out but especially the guitars. That’s the ‘novelty’ of the band, I guess, having four guitars in it, but this proves they’re not just for show.” Dalfsen happily attests that the West Thebarton sound has been heavily influenced by Australian artists, ranging from veteran acts like Midnight Oil and Cold Chisel through to more recent contemporaries such as Eddy Current Suppression Ring and fellow South Aussies Bad//Dreems.
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“I grew up listening to heaps of different stuff because of my parents, but then when I was 16, 17, 18, 19 all I listened to really religiously was Australian stuff,” the singer recalls. “And a lot of the other guys are the same — all they listened to was Australian stuff. I’ve got an English mate, actually, and he says, ‘Oh, you Aussies are full of it because all you listen to is yourselves!’ and I always laugh at that but it’s so true, especially of me. “And it’s not just the bands or the artists we listen to which are Australian, I think we take a lot of influence from just Australian things — and South Australian things especially — in general.” Indeed Different Beings Being Different drips with hometown pride — rife with references to local landmarks and customs — yet the results are still completely relatable, regardless of your postcode. The most appropriate comparison would be the parochial zeal of Brisbane rockers Violent Soho, whose guitarist James Tidswell is releasing West Thebarton’s debut on his new label Domestic La La. “We tried really hard to avoid being a cliche or overdo it, but it’s really hard to not wear your heart on your sleeve sometimes when you’re really proud of where you come
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from,” Dalfsen chuckles. “When we were talking to James before we got signed — we were just shooting the shit with him up in Brisbane — one of the things he was talking about was how he has this really big respect for us because we rep where we come from, and obviously they rep Mansfield, where they come from, on their sleeve. And I was thinking for a second, ‘Oh, I didn’t really think we repped where we came from that much.’ “Then it really hit me that when I was sneaking into pubs and stuff watching bands back in the day that they’d be awesome and then they’d piss off over to the east coast, so it really gave me a lot of pride to be in a band that was setting a precedent to stay in Adelaide and really do it yourself, and kind of be proud of where you come from.”
Different Beings Being Different (Domestic La La) is out now. West Thebarton tour from 7 Jun.
With a little help from my friends Chatting with Mallrat (aka Grace Shaw) during the Groovin The Moo tour, Cyclone discovers the rapper/singer would rather be referred to as “the Hannah Montana of wonky” instead of “the Hannah Montana of the rap game” these days. Pic by She Is Aphrodite.
“[Allday is] one of my most important friends, I think - probably my most important friend!”
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allrat (aka Grace Shaw) has long been vaunted as “the Hannah Montana of the rap game”. But the maverick teen rapper/singer is finally shedding her trademark tag with an adventurous new EP, In The Sky. In 2018, Shaw is about wonky pop. Touring with Groovin The Moo, the star is unwinding the day following the Townsville leg. “It’s so fun,” she rhapsodises down a grainy mobile phone line. “We’re having almost like a party. We’re just all at Magnetic Island, at the beach. So it’s really nice.” Shaw appreciates nature and wildlife. She chats cheerfully about observing insects - a hobby. At one stage, Shaw espies a larger winged creature. “Oh, my god, there’s a hummingbird!” she bursts out. “That’s so cute.” Officially, Shaw has transplanted to California where she’s positioning herself to become Australia’s next international ‘cool pop artist’ a la Troye Sivan. Indeed, Shaw, who showcased at SXSW in Texas, now has a US booking agent. In October, she’ll support a mystery act on a North American run. However, before that, Shaw will embark on June’s national headlining tour (and then hit Splendour In The Grass). When she was around five, Shaw encountered a distinctive spider in her family’s backyard. She took this find to a museum, where it was declared a previously unidentified species. The staff asked Grace if they might keep her arachnid overnight. But, noticing the pinned specimens on display, she freaked. “I was like, ‘Oh, my god, no! You can’t do that to my spider. I don’t wanna leave it here.’ They’re like, ‘It’s ok, we won’t pin your spider. But can you leave it here?’ I was like, ‘Ah, ok, just be careful with it.’ We came back the next day to check on it and they’re like, ‘We lost your spider!’” That sounds suss. “Yeah, I don’t really understand how they could lose it,” Shaw agrees. “Who knows? Maybe it was a clever spider and it escaped.” Shaw’s story eventually inspired Baby Spiders, one of her two collabs on Tom “Allday” Gaynor’s 2017 second album, Speeding. In fact, the Adelaide hip hop anti-hero has played a pivotal role in Shaw’s career. As a high schooler, Shaw determined that she wanted to create music after experiencing Gaynor live in her hometown; connecting to his wry millennial persona. Similarly scanning such rapper/ singers as Kanye West, she cut verses over GarageBand beats. Shaw shared a demo with Gaynor’s keyboardist Tigerilla through Facebook. Impressed, he’d produce her 2015 breakthrough, Suicide Blonde. Shaw subsequently dropped her debut EP, Uninvited. The song For Real was licensed for a Google Pixel phone campaign. Gaynor consistently bigs Shaw up in interviews. If initially the Right Now rapper acted as a mentor, then today the pair freely exchange ideas about songwriting - with Gaynor’s approach narrative and Shaw’s more instinctive. They have a formidable support system. “I couldn’t even list all the things he’s taught me,” Shaw says of “Tom”. “He taught me about veganism, which has been really big for me. And judgement of character we learn from each other a lot. Sometimes he has different ideas about people and
then we end up seeing the other person’s perspective... He’s one of my most important friends, I think - probably my most important friend!” Both also belong to a new counterculture of individualistic, fluid and aesthetically subversive Australian hip hoppers. Shaw is inherently post-genre, namechecking anyone from Yeezy to Lana Del Rey to SOPHIE. And, with In The Sky, she’s presenting her most assured work: a bespoke playlist of hip hop, R&B, electronica, indie and pop. “I’m really proud of this EP because I co-produced everything and really put a lot of love and time into it, and learnt so much about songwriting and production and mixing in the process,” she notes. “So it’s a big step up from the last one.” Shaw introduced a folky vibe on 2017’s lead single Better, which was voted #46 in triple j’s Hottest 100 (and commended by The New York Times). Gaynor guests on the glitchy banger UFO, co-produced by Golden Vessel. Shaw’s latest single Groceries carries a boho charm - its hook #peakMallrat. “Usually I say songs aren’t about anything; they’re more about a feeling,” she reveals. “But that one’s just [about] feeling like you have a crush, but you don’t wanna have a crush.” Shaw’s bio still heralds her as hip hop’s Hannah Montana, but it’s increasingly redundant. (For one, she’s now left school.) “I don’t really rap,” Shaw laughs. She proposes “the Hannah Montana of wonky” instead.
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Live, Shaw is accompanied by her perennial DJ, Denim, plus muso pal Tyne-James Organ. Being a vegan on the road can be “tricky”, but she gets by. “Domino’s garlic bread is vegan, believe it or not.” Shaw praises the HappyCow app. “Denim and I love going to new places and trying all the different vegan cafes, it’s our favourite part of tour.”
In The Sky (Dew Process) is out this month. Mallrat tours from 16 Jun.
Check The Guide on theMusic.com.au for more details.
viennapeople.com
Write. Record. Play
ph: +61 414 408 046 THE MUSIC
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Working 9 to 5 City Calm Down frontman Jack Bourke and drummer Lee Armstrong are ready for “the Australian new new wave”, but don’t regard themselves as hip in any way, Joel Lohman discovers. Feature pic by Mclean Stephenson.
Riding the wave When Anthony Carew sits down at the pub with Tom Russo and Joe White from Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, he learns they regret their hasty decision to add a couple of words to their band name.
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uitarist/vocalists Tom Russo and Joe White of Roll-
that has “haunted” them since. “We have the longest, most
ing Blackouts Coastal Fever — two of the band’s three
unwieldy band name you’ve ever heard. Every time someone
songwriters — pull up chairs at Melbourne’s Retreat
asks us what we’re called, we just sigh and end up explaining
Hotel, a pub not far from where the band recorded their first two EPS, 2016’s Talk Tight and The French Press.
the whole story.” The presence of ‘Coastal’ in their band name — and the
Recording debut LP Hope Downs, the band had simple
sunny qualities of their jangly guitars — have led to many
goals: recording in a house, not a studio, they wanted it to
assumptions that the band are surfers. “We’re not surfers, obvi-
sound live with instruments picked up by room mics. It’s an
ously; we’re from Melbourne,” Russo deadpans. A more com-
approach that suits the humility of White’s description of their
mon critical response connects them to a particular strain
sound. “It’s just big bass and drums with jangly guitars over the
of musical Australiana. “We get compared to those big pop
top. We’re not reinventing the wheel in any way.”
figures of the ‘80s: The Go-Betweens, [The] Triffids, Paul Kelly,”
Russo, White, and co-songwriter Fran Keaney have been
Russo says. “Melbourne, and its scene, has a lot of recognition
at this for years. Where Melbourne’s music scene is full of
overseas, so there’s this view that we’re coming from a creative
transplants, they’re very local: Russo grew up in Brunswick,
hotbed. But, because we’ve got sunny guitars, lots of reverb,
White in Essendon. The trio cut their teeth playing together
we get a lot of references to summer. And then, to surfing.”
in “questionable teenage garage bands”, their early-20s spent
The lyrics on Hope Downs don’t scan as particularly
in various short-lived outfits (Aurora, Sports Club, World Of
sunny. “These songs were written during a very disillusioning
Sport). When they formed in 2013 (then known as Rolling
time with the world. It felt like everything was getting weirder,”
Blackouts), they had “as little ambition and direction as in [pre-
Russo says, “like the sands were shifting underfoot.”
vious] bands”, Russo admits.
“We didn’t come at it from this concept overtly, but we
But then Keaney, who started out on drums, switched
created a fake world that all the characters in these songs
to guitar, his previous role replaced by Marcel Tussie. Now the
exist in,” White furthers. “They’re feeling [this] disillusionment
band had a better rhythmic foundation at the back with three
and they all have their own little stories within this world. Call
guitarists out front and “more energy”. The initial goal, White
it a country town, call it whatever you want, but it’s a snapshot
says, was “to make sweet, melodic pop songs — songs in major
of a place, a community, that encapsulates what’s really going
keys, with really bright melodies — that could be played any-
on in the world outside of it.”
time”. The trio were “more disciplined about songwriting” than
“It’s hard,” Russo says, “to tackle these huge political sub-
they’d been previously, Russo says. “We knew what we want-
jects, or the depressing things that are happening in the world.
ed. We always thought of it as ‘happy/sad’, bright melodies
We looked at it from the perspective of these little characters,
with melancholy lyrics, mixing sunniness with darkness.”
looking to find something to hold onto in this really dislocat-
By the time RRR and PBS started to give the band their
ing time.”
“very first spins”, the demeanour among the band’s members
Writing the tunes for the album, the band were embold-
had changed: “We felt confident enough in the songs that we
ened by the deal they signed with Sub Pop. “You know that if
thought, ‘Well, yeah, they should be getting played on the
you write a song you love, it’s going to get heard around the
radio’,” says White. From there, things turned from hobbyist
world, not just on RRR,” White marvels. For a band who started
and ambitious into a bona fide thing: “When things started
with little to no ambition, Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever are
getting played on the radio, and we ended up getting a man-
amazed at where they’ve ended up. “We never expected to
ager, and labels floated interest, we were forced to get more
play overseas festivals, do a live session at KEXP, [or sign] with
professional about it, to take it more seriously,” Russo says.
Sub Pop,” Russo admits. “We had such low expectations start-
On the way, their name ballooned from Rolling Blackouts
ing out, it’s kind of surreal where we are now.”
to Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever to dodge the online threats of a tiny American band of the same name. “We just decided to add some more words; make it sound as absurd and melodramatic as possible,” Russo says, a “short-sighted decision”
Hope Downs (Ivy League) is out this month.
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Check The Guide on theMusic.com.au for more details.
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n a warmer, sunnier morning than you’d typically associate with the band’s shadowy sound, Jack Bourke and Lee Armstrong of City Calm Down sit sipping coffee and juice and discussing their long-awaited new album, Echoes In Blue. Six months have passed since the band finished work on their second album, recorded sporadically between February and September last year. “I feel so detached from it,” says Armstrong, the band’s drummer. “It’s so long ago that we finished it. I had to listen to it last week to make sure I knew what was going on.” So what did he think? “I liked it!” says Armstrong. “Which is a good result. I think it’s pretty different from the first in some ways, but quite similar in others, which is what we set out to achieve.” Bourke, the band’s frontman, elaborates: “We didn’t want to take a complete left turn, but we wanted to highlight some new avenues.” Bourke says the band felt relatively free from expectation while recording the follow-up to their debut, 2015’s In A Restless House. “We didn’t really have enough time between records to get stuck in our own heads about what the next record should be,” Bourke continues. “We just started writing again and everything moved quickly. It seems to me that the first record was successful enough that we’re able to build off it, but it wasn’t so successful that we spent two years touring, not writing songs and had to go back and think, ‘What are we doing as a band again? We’ve got to change because we’re sick of all our songs.’” The process of writing and recording Echoes In Blue was a lot more enjoyable than the band’s debut, largely due to a renewed focus on songcraft, Armstrong says, rather than extraneous sonic details. “We’ve just got to write good songs,” says Bourke, “which seems obvious, but you can get really caught up in having production ideas and putting the cart before the horse. So going through that process this time we were like, ‘Ok, let’s get the songs. We’ll work out how it should sound afterwards.’” Bourke reckons it was important this time around to not let fan expectations influence creative decisions as the band move forward. “I think there’s an element of not being beholden to fans of your old stuff,” he says. “I’m making it for myself, and if I don’t put that first I just won’t make
Evolution of an artist Acting is still her “number one love”, but Zindzi Okenyo tells Cyclone she’s always looking to expand her horizons through music, both here and abroad.
music. I want to make songs that make me feel good. It’s not that I don’t appreciate the people who like our music, you just can’t let that dictate what the band does, because then you’ve lost the reason you’re doing it to begin with.” “If you don’t put yourself first and satisfy what you need,” Armstrong adds, “are you going to want to do it? Why would you? Then you’re just working a nine-tofive job.” Working a nine-to-five job is something the members of City Calm Down know all about, and this is a common topic in Bourke’s lyrics; “The lyrics are my way of working out what’s going on in my life. Which I think in some ways is what’s going on in a lot of people’s lives. A lot of the things I’m singing about are just common experiences: working a job, going home, eating dinner — I’m just exploring the way I feel about my life.”
In their ten years as a band, City Calm Down have seen a lot of different musical movements and genres enjoy their moment in the sun, but Bourke says he’s never felt his band has fit into any of those scenes. “I would not think of us as being hip in any way,” he says. “There are definitely sounds that pop up and are in for four or five years. A few years ago when Tame Impala was blowing up everyone was making psychedelic music. Now it’s that three-piece garage rock, which is great — I like a lot of the bands doing that. But there’s never really been the new new wave. When’s that coming? Because we’re ready [laughs]. We’ve been ready for years for the Australian new new wave.”
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ry”, The Wave’s other numbers are “more vulnerable and more insular”. “When I was first writing it, I was really in a very vulnerable and very real time of change,” Okenyo enlightens. “I suppose, coming from an actor’s background, I’m very interested in how we change and evolve as humans. I’ve always pushed myself into places of going, ‘Ok, if I can express this and go deeper into my artistry, then perhaps that will reach other people.’” She describes this process as “scary”. For The Wave, Okenyo specifically wrote about her anxiety — with songs conveying both “a sense of hopelessness and hopefulness”. The EP title alludes to not only life cycles but also a feeling of being “overwhelmed” and then the release of sharing that with receptive audiences. Above all, Okenyo welcomes the emotional immediacy she can articulate as a music-maker. “I always appreciate it when I see other artists actually go there in an authentic way and expose parts of themselves.” Okenyo’s latest single, 20/20, is accompanied by a raw short film. If, at one point, she seemingly compartmentalised acting and music, they increasingly intersect. Okenyo’s main challenge? Programming. Recently, Okenyo compellingly guest starred in ABC crime drama Harrow. “My career as an actor has been really heavily in the theatre world and theatre is still my number one love. I just love that medium of storytelling. [But] it’s been really great to get into more TV. I loved doing Harrow.” Okenyo plans to visit Los Angeles soon to network. “I’m hoping to get over there and get a manager,” she says. “Again, I’m always looking to expand my horizons and see what the rest of the world has to offer.”
ydney actor Zindzi Okenyo has appeared in major theatre productions, cheerfully presented Play School and starred as Amanda in Channel Ten’s Sisters. But she’s generating her most personal work as the singer, rapper and songwriter Okenyo, with long-awaited EP The Wave. Okenyo grew up in different environments around the country. She was accepted into NIDA and in 2013, Okenyo joined Play School. She also began composing songs after enduring heartache. Inspired by ‘90s neo-soul and the surging avant’n’B movement, Okenyo created buzz with Broken Chest before eventually signing to Elefant Traks. She’s now embarking on her inaugural national headlining tour behind The Wave. “I’m really looking forward to performing to crowds that know me a bit more now, as an artist, and know the songs.” As a queer woman of colour, Okenyo epitomises the new diversity and individualism enriching Australia’s urban music culture. And The Wave will absorb her fans with its intricate electronic textures, even as Okenyo raps more. She co-produced the project with Melbourne’s Lionel Towers, formerly of electro-pop outfit Gypsy & The Cat. Indeed, Elefant Traks’ Tim “Urthboy” Levinson suggested Okenyo try a writing session with Towers. Luckily, the pair hit it off. “It’s been really hard for me to find a producer that actually can translate my ideas. Because I write all the music and write the demos and everything, but I’m not a producer,” Okenyo notes. “Because he understood what I wanted, it was a really great collaborative process.” Last year Okenyo dropped the EP’s anthemic lead single, Woman’s World, introducing her rapping. “Tim listened to some demos that I had written and I was kind of experimenting with rapping. He said, ‘Oh, you’re really amazing at it,’ and encouraged me to go down that path. So I guess I just pushed myself in that direction.” In fact, it was “liberating” to expand on her lyrics. Still, where Woman’s World is “external and proclamato-
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Echoes In Blue (I OH YOU) is out now. City Calm Down tour from 8 Jun.
The Wave (Elefant Traks) is out now. Okenyo tours from 9 Jun.
They call her Mother
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ew reality tv shows have left a mark on the pop culture zeitgeist as indelibly as RuPaul’s Drag Race. Since its modest debut in 2009, there have been ten main seasons, plus three All Stars iterations, not to mention the equally sizeable sister series Untucked, where the contestants spill the T on the backstage drama. In the past nine years, more than 100 queens have shantay’d to international stardom as the show has evolved into a primetime juggernaut, a fact that its many awards, including four Primetime Emmys, can attest to. And at the heart of this global media brand, the original super model of the world, RuPaul, who has certainly achieved his aim of elevating the art of drag into the stratosphere — there’s a reason they call her Mother. But is the mammoth presence of Drag Race culture a deviation from broader heritage drag culture? As the second inductee into the Drag Race Hall of Fame, All Stars 2 Winner Alaska Thunderfuck 5000 (look it up) is uniquely qualified to comment. “Like RuPaul says, drag is the court jester who calls out the absurdity of identity. And in Hollywood, identity is king. Drag will always be an outsider art, but that’s why it’s special and necessary,” Alaska tells The Music. Season five winner Jinkx Monsoon feels that the ‘mainstream’ presence of Drag Race is a “double-edged sword”. “We’re inviting audiences in that don’t have the same history or knowledge that members of the queer community have,” says Jinkx. “I would love to see the fan base educating themselves on LGBTQAI history and culture, to have a better respect and understanding and reference point for the art form of drag.” Musical theatre star and sometime drag artist Todrick Hall says that he will always be a huge supporter of RuPaul and Drag Race for shining a spotlight on queer artists and bringing drag to light. A regularly returning collaborator and guest judge on Drag Race, Hall is the choreographer responsible for the absolutely wig-snatching gag that was the All Stars 3 finale live production number, Kitty Girl. “I think that for decades gay people have been the real magic pixie dust behind a lot of the huge celebrity divas who have made it. I’m talking Madonna, Mariah Carey, Beyoncé, Diana Ross, Cher — [gay] people have been the driving force behind what has made these people the superstars, divas and icons that they are today. But I don’t think that the world was really ready to give people the recognition that they deserved at that time,” says Hall. Terms from the drag lexicon like ‘yass queen’, ‘werk’ and ‘shook’ all came up in a recent survey of the most used teen slang (conducted by Facebook Mes-
Alaska and Jinkx Monsoon
RuPaul’s Drag Race has transformed the art form of drag from a sub-cultural curio to a mainstream pop-culture phenomenon. Alannah Maher speaks to Drag Race royalty, Todrick Hall, Jinkx Monsoon, and Alaska, and takes a deep dive into the worldwide drag obsession.
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senger/YouGov Galaxy and poorly decoded by the Daily Tele). “People think that Vogue [by Madonna] or media leaks from The Real Housewives Of Atlanta are responsible for these pop culture words and catchphrases, but it’s actually the gay men doing their hair and the gay men who are doing their make-up and styling them, teaching them how to walk.” Lady Gaga affirmed this perspective in her much-anticipated appearance on Drag Race in season nine, telling the queens, “Gay men taught me how to be a woman.” “Now that everybody knows who these drag queens are and they are able to go out and make careers for themselves and not be in the shadows of other people, it just is the most beautiful thing in the world and that is why I fan so hard for RuPaul,” adds Hall.
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s the popularity of the show and the showcased queens has skyrocketed, the fandom has intensified. Social media has allowed queens to be targeted with all kinds of attention. For seasoned drag queens, trolling is part of the job, and they have to learn how to dish it and how to take it. Th is kind of attitude has been received with mixed responses by the uninitiated. “Social media has grown right along with the show, so it’s gotten more and more complex and ever-present. The great thing about Drag Race is that the fans pay attention to every detail and are able to interact with
The Boulet Brothers. Pic via Instagram
it. I never had anything as cool as this as a child so I can’t even imagine,” says Alaska. Jinkx Monsoon says social media makes Drag Race stars very accessible to the fan base, and while this propagates a lot of delightful interactions, it also opens opportunities for shadier behaviour: “That’s kind of a tricky thing to balance. Sometimes it’s hard not to engage in negativity, and that’s when the online wars begin. It takes patience and discipline to avoid that. “We all have our strengths and our faults. I want the fan base to be entertained by our art form and critique the work, not the artist,” says Jinkx, musing on what she would hope for fans to keep in mind before leaping to attack queens for their portrayal on the show. “Let the queens read each other, rather than taking it on yourself... I don’t think there’s ever a right time for sending people death threats over something they said or did on a reality TV
being famous as living with a giant firebreathing dragon. Luckily I’m not famous, I’m just popular, so my dragon is much smaller. I don’t have paparazzi outside my house or following my every move — I have lovely fans and admirers who sometimes ask me for a picture at the airport or at Sephora.” As the Drag Race fandom continues to swell in numbers Australia has not been immune, even if our own drag culture is rooted in the comedy and whimsy of Priscilla Queen Of The Desert and Dame Edna Everage rather than the “fishy” pageantry and underground club kids of the US. Aside from Aussie superstar Courtney Act’s turn on season six, local queens like Karen from Finance and Art Simone have gained traction with Drag Race fans, even appearing at RuPaul’s DragCon. The pull of the Drag Race phenomenon means we’ve also been seeing these queens on our screens in advertisements, and not only during Mardi Gras season. In 2016 Art Simone upset conservatives when she took the reigns from Santa to lead Melbourne’s Chapel Street Christmas Parade. As the fandom has grown, it has diversified beyond the exclusively queer audiences it once serviced. RuPaul’s DragCon LA broke attendance records in May this year with over 50,000 people in attendance, including families with children sashaying around in drag. A growing number of these supporters are also straight women. While drag can and has been perceived to be an insulting parody of women both cis and trans (and some of it surely has been), by and large, the show arguably dismantles this, highlighting how the contestants use drag to destroy the idea that femininity equals weakness, mess with gender and reclaim their identities.
ing, alcoholic, asshole aspect that I think is what truly binds all drag queens together — that we live really hard lives.” Yeah, it’s complicated. While the show is an excellent tool for exposure for the art of drag, the Drag Race phenomenon does not always echo out into the broader world of drag in positive ways. Oxxy Moron is a drag queen who works at Bar Pop in Manchester’s Canal Street (the UK’s answer to Oxford Street). She has experienced firsthand how the standards set by Drag Race can “shove the rest of the drag community under the carpet”. “When it comes to drag race, what so many people see is a stylized version of drag. A certain standard which puts pressure on a lot of queens — especially inexperienced queens,” Oxxy tells The Music. “Queens are unique... However, the TV pushes particular icons onto us, which are then applied to less well-known queens. Every weekend I hear, “You look like Adore”, “You remind me of Detox”, etc. It can be nice, and many times it is a compliment. However, as queens we are an individual, not a comparison.” Drag Race is the Olympic standard of drag according to RuPaul. Your local drag bar or drag bingo night simply isn’t serving the same dish. “The pool of queens has grown exponentially since the increase of diverse talent on our screens. But it’s left many seeing a TV show as a main goal,” adds Oxxy. Dragula has emerged as a counter-protest to the polish of Drag Race, searching for “the world’s first Drag Supermonster”. Presented and produced by legendary nightlife figures The Boulet Brothers, the show could be best described as Drag Race with scary contact lenses! Drag Race producers WOW Presents will be premiering the show’s third season in September 2018. The Drag Race “type” not only sets the rules for what kind of drag is acceptable, but who can do drag. The show has given a platform to performers of all varieties of ethnicities, shapes and sizes and aesthetics and personas have ranged from femme or “fishy” queens to the bold and the bald. However by and large contestants are cisgender gay men, or are at least portrayed as that, and the show reinforces the idea that they’re the only people who do drag. Peppermint bucked this trend as the first contestant to openly enter the show as a transgender woman. Other queens have also come out as trans during or after their time on the show. Jinkx Monsoon spoke out about the assumption that being a drag queen automatically makes someone a cis-male out of drag when they came out as non-binary in 2017.
“The great thing about Drag Race is that the fans pay attention to every detail and are able to interact with it.” — Alaska
Oxxy Moron. Pic via Instagram
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Michelle Visage and RuPaul at DragCon 2018. Pic via Instagram
hile many are celebrating the fact that the Drag Race phenomenon is exposing more fans to drag and queer issues, the show has been accused of pushing to be more family-and hetero-friendly. Former contestants have even called out the way the show sugar-coats some of the more loaded content. “I think the show does a great job of exploring the complexities of the art form. [However] I think there are still topics that will not be broached — queens who are sex workers, the pitfalls of drugs and alcohol and ego that come with fame,” explains Alaska. Speaking to season nine star Peppermint for her YouTube channel, season four winner Sharon Needles put bluntly: “RuPaul’s Drag Race says we have charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent — but the show edits out the whole coke-snorting, boyfriend-stealing, cock-sucking, shoplift-
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In the broader drag world drag kings (women who perform as male personas, the literal opposite to drag queens), bio queens or hyper queens (biological women who perform in heightened female drag) and performers of diverse gender identities and sexualities make up the rich tapestry of social critique and gender flipping. The drawcard of Drag Race is not just the typical, juicy reality TV drama (of which there is plenty) but the sheer artistry and heart on show. No other reality series sees its contestants so gruellingly tested in so many skills, in addition to presenting intense stories of personal growth, and workroom conversations about very real issues. Drag Race might not always get everything right all of the time, and it might sometimes put us through garbage — like the Breastworld skit, and let us never forget the eternal dumpster fire that was season seven’s Romy And Juliet. But like so many of our favourite shows and pop cultural treasures, we can still embrace it for all the wonderful things it brings to the table while casting a stern side-eye to its more problematic facets. Drag is here to stay, and it will only get more fierce.
Todrick Hall tours from 10 Jun. The Alaska Show tours from 20 Sep Jinkx Monsoon tours with In The Dark’s Comedy Queens from 24 Aug
Todrick Hall
show that puts a lot of pressure on its participants.” Hall had some thoughts on how queens can weather being in the eye of the Drag Race storm: “I think that you have to be a sound person before you get on this show or before you get this exposure. Everything that you have or any mistakes that you make or any feelings that you have, when you decide to become a public figure, are things that no longer only belong to you, and that’s the price that you pay for auditioning for a show like that,” he shares. “I feel for people like Katya [who recently returned from taking a hiatus at the height of her popularity and the success of The Trixie & Katya Show, to go to rehab] or people like Miss Fame [who stood down from public appearances to maintain her sobriety]; the pressure of the show has become so much for them and the expectations have become so high for them that they’ve had to take a break.” Alaska has her own approach to taming the beast: “[I once] heard someone describe
Album Reviews
While High Tension have flirted with metal for the past two albums (Lapindo from Bully was a pretty decent Kyuss tribute, for example, and most of their output has been summoned from the thrashier side of punk), they’ve finally crossed the threshold with fists flying. Purge is a scintillating listen, a scorching rebuke of the Indonesian anti-communist purge of the 1960s. It feels personal, and lead vocalist Karina Utomo has the band burn through a shopping list of styles in order to find a way to exorcise her rage; thrash (Bite The Leash (Burn)), sludgy riffheavy Motorhead groove (Ular) and even alt-metal (Surrender) — all find a place in Purge. There’s no goal here short of scorched earth and, to that end, they turn off the safety, blasting us with a force hitherto unheard of from a group who are no strangers to noise. New(ish) drummer Lauren Hammel and guitarist Mike Deslandes make their presence known (the latter on desk duties), with a tighter rhythm section and leaner, meaner songwriting. There’s a much greater emphasis on extended build-ups and payoffs, with crankier riffing and more polished production thrown in for good measure. Previous album Bully had a looser feel, a rough sketch of what High Tension were capable of. Purge is a huge step forward. Utomo’s presence front and centre is their ace in the hole, and here she deploys her vicious caterwaul to great effect. Opening track Red White Shame opens with a gothic,
High Tension Purge Cooking Vinyl
★★★★½
Savages-like post-punk riff that is ripped apart by Utomo’s entrance. The initial jagged machine-gun snare attack is a declaration of war as the group stomp through the record with impressive zeal. Their control over pacing is excellent. The Legacy is a ball-tearer that switches deftly between gears, shedding its initial math-y architecture to launch into breakneck-speed rock before finally collapsing into a thumping anthemic monster. They don’t compromise any particular approach by favouring several and they don’t trip over their own shoes. The pressure builds as you make your way through, with Veil and The Stench pushing things to the brink after a midpoint palette cleanser (Surrender). Don’t look for a way out, though. It’s oppressive, only letting up after the monolithic brutality of Rise finally splutters out. High Tension sound like they entered a fugue state while recording this. Purge is miles ahead of Bully, itself a fine take on modern hardcore. The arrangements are bigger and tighter, the fury is white hot and Utomo has never sounded better (or angrier). It’s inspired, it’s exhausting, it’s exhilarating and it’s an awesome example of what can be accomplished when something makes you so angry you just want to make a fucking metal record.
Matt MacMaster
Ghost
Father John Misty
Claptone
Gabriella Cohen
Prequelle
God’s Favourite Customer
Fantast
Spinefarm/Caroline
Sub Pop/Inertia
Different Recordings
Pink Is The Colour Of Unconditional Love
★★★★½
★★★★
★★½
Dot Dash/Remote Control
Somewhere along the way Ghost got less interesting. Who knows what it was — the legal dramas, the unfocused follow-ups to Opus Eponymous, the eye-rolling character changes and maybe even the ABBA cover — but really it just all got a bit naff. Well — Prequelle will have the doubters jumping right back on the bandwagon. Th is album is nothing less than superb; maybe even better than the debut. Slick and melodic, it still rocks righteously. Some in the metal community might baulk at the commercial lunge Ghost make with this record, but these songs will bury themselves in your mind.
After three albums of high budget, lyrically rich singer-songwriter music, Father John Misty’s Josh Tillman is back with even more musings and revelations on God’s Favourite Customer. Much like on Pure Comedy, the piano plays a central role on many of these songs and this album sees the artist finally embracing his own soul without hiding behind layers of irony to deny his vulnerability. If Pure Comedy was Tillman’s sardonic yet ultimately pointless attack on society, God’s Favourite Customer is the slow realization that improving your world first begins by looking within.
Claptone’s style and shtick celebrates a classic era of feel-good house tunes. These 13 songs all get booted out the door by the three-and-a-half minute mark while a green room full of partying guest vocalists take their turn at the mic stand and the spotlight is definitely on the singer, not the producer lurking in the shadows. The brevity of these songs makes for a decent mid-tempo, radio-friendly catalogue, but look elsewhere if you’re after massive drops. Like the album title itself, Fantast is a charming premise that feels not quite finished.
The short critique is this is a great album and you should buy and listen to it. The long version is that Gabriella Cohen’s second album is as good as second albums get. Clearly brought up on a rich and eclectic mix of music, Cohen channels all sorts of influences including The Stones, Stan Getz, Blondie and Widowspeak. Sometimes many of Cohen’s influences will be contained all within the one track. Production is slick, even though it’s very layered DIY. Pink Is The Colour Of Unconditional Love wouldn’t be out of place in the American LA or NY market.
Mark Hebblewhite
Donald Finlayson
Mac McNaughton
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★★★★
Adam Wilding
For more album reviews, go to www.theMusic.com.au
Jack River
Kamasi Washington
The Rubens
Luca Brasi
Sugar Mountain
Heaven And Earth
LO LA RU
Stay
I OH YOU
Young Turks/Remote Control
Ivy League
Cooking Vinyl
★★★½
★★★★
★★★½
★★★★
It might take a few listens if electric acid pop isn’t your thing, but the stories and sounds of Jack River, aka Holly Rankin, are ultimately worth listening to. This album has a way of making you want to sway sadly in the middle of a crowded room due to its melancholy themes yet the backing tracks are decidedly feel-good. Closer In Infinity is poignant, as Rankin tones down the pop elements, singing of the loneliness and loss that probably led to this record. Rankin’s vocal range and the captivating story she has to tell is truly addictive. Reminiscent of Gwen Stefani and Ali Barter but with a psychedelic twist.
Kamasi Washington’s mainstream debut as a solo artist was a gigantic three-disc album: The Epic. For the follow-up, he’s stripped things down to a piddling double album, Heaven And Earth, which feels markedly different, albeit not so much as to feel like a departure for the Kendrick Lamar and Flying Lotus sideman. If anything, Heaven And Earth feels more accessible and the palette has expanded. While still clearly jazzdriven, there’s also a heavy strain of Ennio Morricone’s hallucinogenic textures strewn throughout. The rhythms are notably funkier too. Heaven And Earth is richly rewarding.
LO LA RU is the third album from The Rubens and saw them working with Wilder Zoby and Lil’ Shalimar (who co-produced Run The Jewels 3). The Menangle five-piece expand on the hip-hop and R&B elements they touched on in previous releases and LO LA RU is full of fun, soul-injected rock tracks. Sam Margin’s soulful, expressive voice lifts often simplistic and fairly stripped-back instrumentals to deliver catchy hook after catchy hook. The Rubens set the bar high with their previous album, but make a good attempt to match it with this follow-up LP.
The Tassie godfathers are back at it with Stay, a gripping fourth album filled with relatable tales of empathy, relationships, comedowns, consequences and everything in between. There’s a new tenderness to Tyler Richardson’s vocals — perhaps an influence from the album’s co-producer, Kisschasy’s Darren Cordeux. While throwing in some exciting new elements, Stay is loaded with contagiously feel-good bangers, despite its sometimes-heavy themes. It’s a well-thought-out, stunningly produced album that’s certainly hard to fault. Whatever the reason for the band’s progression, Luca Brasi nail it.
Keira Leonard
MJ O’Neill
Madelyn Tait
Keira Leonard
Nicole Millar
Neko Case
Laura Jean
Excuse Me
Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever
Hell-On
Devotion
EMI Music Australia
Hope Downs
Anti-
Chapter Music
★★★
Ivy League
★★★½
★★★★
What a phenomenal few years Nicole Millar has had. Since dominating the airwaves as Peking Duk’s starlet for 2014 megahit High there has been no hint of the ‘featured artist syndrome’, where a guest-appearance song becomes more famous than the guest’s own, and it’s about time the electro-pop princess pumped out a full-length debut. There’s still a lot of boy talk on the album, but they’re incredibly relatable tales delivered with punchy beats and Millar’s trilling warble. If there’s one thing Excuse Me does well it’s that it takes a chisel to the sleek polish of electro-pop and chips into it to reveal a playful-but-dark edge.
It feels strange that Hope Downs is Melbourne five-piece Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever’s debut, such was the traction gained by their first two EPs — 2015’s Talk Tight and 2017’s The French Press — but their patience has worked to their advantage. It’s allowed them to craft an accomplished album that perfectly encapsulates the rich lineage of jangly Australian guitar pop beginning with The Go-Betweens and continuing down the line to more recent exponents such as Twerps, Dick Diver and The Ocean Party. There’s nary a misstep on this assured collection.
It’s been five years since Neko Case’s last solo album and Hell-On is not just a return, but a bona fide return to form for Case. Despite being aided by a whole slew of admirers — including Joey Burns, Mark Lanegan and Doug Gillard as well as past collaborators Laura Veirs, kd lang and AC Newman — Hell-On is indelibly characterised by Case’s quixotic, sometimes enigmatic, songwriting. Her unique voice is a defining element, too. Equally impressive, though, is the quieter illumination it lends to the nuanced storytelling of the title track. Th is heartfelt work should put Case back on the radar and possibly attract a few new fans to boot.
There are some artists whose genius bubbles away quietly while their peers noisily clamour for some spotlight. Sydney-born, Melbourne-based chanteuse Laura Jean is one such artist. Th is pop folkster has been making very beautiful and interesting music for more than a decade and Jean’s latest is a further extension of her raw talent that could very well be her best work yet. She’s an old soul in a young body, offering captivating observations with her wordsmithery and the way she wraps so much musicality into each moment with minimal instrumentation (see: Press Play and Lick Your Heart). But Jean also knows how to craft a body-mover.
Steve Bell
Christopher H James
Carley Hall
Carley Hall
★★★★
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144 glenayr av, Bondi Beach
JUNE LUNCH Special MONDAY - FRIDAY: 12-3PM BURGER & YOUNG HENRYS: $20 Open 7days | Midday till 10pm
bonditonysburgerjoint.com THE MUSIC
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JUNE
Pic: Odette
TEDxSydney
Exploring the theme on HumanKind, TEDxSydney takes place 15 Jun at ICC Sydney. The propagation of Australian ideas, creativity and innovation will look at what it means to be human and to be kind, featuring speakers including Robobiologist Dr Anjali Jaiprakash, performing writer Miles Merril, YouTube maths teacher phenomenon Eddie Woo and actor Magda Szubanski. Featured performers include Didirri, Kaiit, Odette and more.
Raiders of the lost … Indiana Jones’s nemesis Belloq (look him up) might have been a greasy, idolthieving rat but he said it best; hide any old thing in the sand for a thousand years and it becomes priceless. Some people would prefer you didn’t bury their precious collectables though. Illustrations by Felicity Case-Mejia. Kane Hibberd photographer What do you collect? I collect vintage 35mm slides. Basically peoples lives on film. Shooting slide film was really popular and hit its peak during the ’60s and ‘70s with people documenting different facets of their lives. Shooting slide film on holidays and then boring your friends and family with slide nights was a popular past time. What’s the appeal? Even though a lot of these photos are taken with terrible composition, they document a time and place that can’t be recreated. The fashion, cars, places and memories have been lost to time and it really makes me sentimental about how these people lived their lives and
some of the moments captured are incredible. How many do you have now? I have over 15,000 slides now, I am still constantly scanning them and curating for an instagram account I run called @aslideoflife. What’s your favourite item in your collection? One is a shot of a beach in North QLD from 1972 where a tour bus has just driven right up on the beach. Things like that just don’t happen anymore. Do you ever find yourself having to explain your collection to people? People do think it’s a bit weird that I have photos of people who I don’t know. But I feel like I know them, especially the collections that span multiple years. It warms my heart to see the smiles and how content some of these people are.
The circle of (shelf) life The ‘90s fashion trend isn’t slowing down, so we advise you get these period-appropriate looks down for winter.
Bum bags: A timeless staple of the “Oi mate, you dealin?” look and lifestyle, the hipstery-est among us can rock the bum bag old skool, around the waist. Throwing the ol’ fanny-pack over the shoulder is also a la mode at the mo, so don’t worry if you’re not ready to go full ‘90s tragic just yet.
Coen Laidlaw meter reader What do you collect? VHS What’s the appeal? For me it is for the movies that have been forgotten. The schlocky action movies of the ‘80s and ‘90s that will never be re-released. The B-grade horror and low-budget sci-fi films that will only live on in this format. I love watching these films. I also get a real kick from the trailers, showing other B-grade films that I may never find. How many do you have now? I culled the collection a few years back. It is now contained to three bookcases. I try to abide to a strict one in, one out policy. It sits around the 350 mark. What’s your favourite item in your collection? RAD. It’s a BMX movie from the ‘80s where a small town boy makes good. I would watch it religiously as
a kid. I still watch it regularly. The movie holds up and has a killer soundtrack by John Farnham. Where are some of the places you go to find new additions? It’s only really op shops and garage sales that you come across them now. There is a market for them online, but I don’t really mess with that. Do you ever find yourself having to explain your collection to people? All the time. Most people like to have a browse and will always find some gem to get excited about. But I know in the back of their mind they are wondering, ‘Why are you like this?’ I ask myself the same question a lot.
All the denim: ‘90s style denim overalls - if you want to sound classy, our pommy cousins call them “dungarees” are already making a big comeback with the bohemian demographic of girls who’ve gone through a vintage camera phase. Art bros are best advised to stay away, unless they happen to be farmers or telephone pole workers by day, but that rule doesn’t extend to going double-D. Bust out that denim jacket - stonewash is preferable - and let the people see that good fashion is in your jeans.
Kenneth Smith Post Office (collections) What do you collect? Bricks What’s the appeal? I think they have a beautiful aesthetic and heritage. I often sit and think for hours about the life they’ve lived and the places they’ve been. I think you can learn a lot about yourself from a brick. How many do you have now? I have about 53 really good ones and probably about 16 that I should probably part with. I don’t keep them in a pile though, they are spread out across my apartment. Different bricks go well in different rooms. When did you start? What got you started? I think it was around 2005, I was walking home from the cinema and passed a skip. Amongst the rubble I saw a brick that had ‘CLIFTON’ imprinted on it, which caught my eye as I live about eight kilometres from Clifton Hill. I climbed in and
retrieved it, then decided to take it home. It all started from there really. What’s your favourite item in your collection? A ‘CITY’ brick, fairly common, from Standard Brickworks in Box Hill, founded in 1891, so a very old brick! Its perfectly rounded curve has remained flawless and it is really quite rare to find a used brick in such immaculate condition. Where are some of the places you go to find new additions? I started by simply just collecting the Embossed bricks but after understanding more about brick quality and honing my eye to spot, what I refer to as ‘special bricks’, I’ve found that such examples can pop up literally anywhere!
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Turtlenecks: When it comes to the turtleneck, not all men are created equal. Steve McQueen embraced the neck sock thanks to his action hero physique and charm, while Bob Dylan got away with it because no-one could tell him not to. Everyone else: give it a go. At best, you’ll be a regular James Bond. At worst, a Halloween-party Austin Powers. Either way, you’ll be pretty damn snug.
Roll the dice
Blast from the past
Sam Wall looks into the booming world of dungeons, dragons, and D20s.
Living in the past may not be the healthiest way to live, but what about drinking in the past? Check out these local watering holes.
Frankie’s For those who like their dive bars, you can’t go wrong with this venue. Channelling pure NYC grit, you can smash a pepperoni pie while you down a beer and shoot some pinball. That might sounds like a lot of clichés, but somehow, Frankie’s pulls it off in style.
Hunter Street
V
ideo games have come a long way since Mario first entered arcades as an 8-bit carpenter called “Jumpman” and Luigi was just a glint in Shigeru Miyamoto’s eye. Skip ahead from ‘81 and projects like space pirate epic Beyond Good & Evil 2 are being built on a scale that makes the theory we’re all NPCs (Non Player Character) living in a simulation seem plausible. At the same time, dedicated eSports bars are starting to pop up around the country as tens of millions of viewers tune into what’s quickly becoming multi-billion dollar industry. And, as digital gaming becomes more sophisticated, merging indelibly with the mainstream, publishers Wizards Of The Coast have just logged the most successful two years in Dungeons & Dragons five-decade history. Sounds doofy, but as exciting as it is to run around in somebody else’s beautifully rendered vision there’s still something nice about discovering your own. Gygax is gone and VR is here, but people are more in love with pen-and-paper than they’ve ever been.
Cast resurrection
Golden Age Cinema & Bar Take a to the ‘20s, with deco to die for and an extensive list of classic cocktails. This city retreat also screens Hollywood classics. It’s as close to Gatsby as you’ll find.
Commonwealth Street
Palmer & Co For those in search of the speakeasy chic, Palmer & Co has the right mix of swagger and charm. Cosy into a booth and take advantage of the table service.
Abercrombie Lane
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t’s probably no coincidence that D&D has seen a bump now that Game Of Thrones has put the sex back in swords and sorcery and the Stranger Things ragamuffins are out battling Demogorgons. But further off the beaten track the rise of video-sharing, streaming and podcasts have also created a massive new inlet for aspiring adventurers, and given an audience to the people already playing. According to Wizards Of The Coast, 9 million people streamed D&D games on Twitch just in the US last year, while web series Critical Role has amassed a cool 1.7 million subscribers just on YouTube, with plenty more getting their fix from Twitch or the series’ podcast. That’s with the show following long-form, four-hour sessions of what is essentially group storytelling with more steps. Dungeon Master Matt Mercer and co are all talented voice actors, but that’s still a crazy number of viewers putting in the 15 days, 16 hours and 40 minutes it takes to finish the show’s first season/campaign (or roughly as long as it would take to watch all of Law & Order: SVU). Of course, there are also more accessible series for the time poor. HarmonQuest spawned from the D&D section on Community and Rick & Morty creator Dan Harmon’s podcast HarmonTown and can be binged in an evening. The part-animated, part live-action web series follows
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Harmon and friends’ characters as they stumble ass-backwards through fantastic adventures, with guests like Aubrey Plaza and Elizabeth Olsen dropping in to throw down each episode.
Dispel magic
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his new visibility goes a ways towards dispelling some of the game’s mystique. Standing on the outside looking in at the 50-year accretion of rules, lore and jargon, the whole thing can seem a little impenetrable; inscrutable sects hidden deep underground, thumbing arcane tomes to better divine the results of their cleromancy. It’s hard to keep that mindset watching noted geek Vin Diesel ham it up playing a witch hunter on D&Diesel (a one-off ep of Critical Role). Even before it got a broader media platform Dungeons & Dragons’ latest overhaul of basic rules in 2014 simplified things for newcomers. The current, fifth edition of D&D is much more malleable than the fourth, particularly in battles, rewarding creating thinking and improvisation over rigid application character statistics. The narrative the players build shapes the game’s mechanics instead of the other way around, which means there’s a lot more room to just make it up as you go along.
How do you want to do this?
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he first comment on any article relating to D&D is almost always from somebody looking for an in. Keen to play, no one to play with. If that sounds like you, there are three tried and true responses. First, check with your mates. Even if no one’s played there’s plenty of guides, character generators and assorted materials online that you can fumble through a couple campaigns and get the hang of it over a beer. The second is hit up your local hobby shop, they’re exclusively filled with friendly people who know their shit and can tell you when and where open game nights are around town (probably right there in the shop). Lastly, get on a couple message boards. D&D is hugely popular right now and there are plenty of people out there in the same boat.
Looking to get involved? Exiles Gaming Club in St Peters, Good Games George St/Good Games Town Hall in the CDB can help you set the table.
The naughty noughties! Donald Finlayson takes a step in time through sliding doors to find out what The Year 2000, Round 2 might look like.
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hether you were gettin’ low with Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz or wearing your “Rawr means I love u in Dinosaur” shirt to the I Set My Friends On Fire concert, there’s no question that the 2000s were a wild decade for everyone. And with the predictably cyclical nature of the music industry, churning up the best (and worst) of yesteryear like clockwork every two-decades, there’s no doubt as we inch towards 2020, we’ll soon be reliving some of that noughties madness. Unfortunately, the resurgence can’t all be White Stripes and Arcade Fires. Here’s our daily weather forecast for the upcoming nostalgia storm.
A good day in the retro 2000s revival:
A bad day in the retro 2000s revival:
You wake up: the radio is playing a quality mix of tunes from the latest garage revival and math rock bands. That one decent High School Musical song even sneaks in there at the end. Your roommate has just broken up with the cutest scene-girl in town and he’s suitably bummed. Rumour has it that she spends three hours straightening her hair every morning, oh baby! In the spirit of Andrew WK’s hyper-positive “party hard philosophy” you decide to bring him along to the DIY chiptune show that’s on tonight.It’s a good time for all in attendance, you meet some new friends at the show and everyone shares MSN chat names to stay in touch. Your roommate has really hit it off with the leader of the chiptune band. It’s amazing that she can make such crazy sounds come out of a Super Nintendo. One of your new acquaintances is even trying his hand at producing some grime rap, cool! You tell him about your buddy that produces Eurodance music and suggests they team up. You’re sure it could be the start of something truly beautiful.
You wake up: the radio is playing a block of Tokio Hotel and Metro Station to celebrate the inauguration of US President Pete Wentz. Your roommate wants you to come along to see the first show of his new crunkcore group — $KiTz LEGitZ. He asks if he can borrow seven of the wristbands from your left arm. You sigh, but oblige anyway, knowing that the dude has just broken up with his warehouse raver, crust punk girlfriend. Maybe it was for the best, the relationship really started to crumble as soon as she got into making candles from the mould in her dreadlocks. You decide to go to his crunkcore show anyway just to cheer the guy up. On the way to the gig you happen to bump into a roaming gang of Soulja Boy disciples in the rough part of town. You freeze in terror as the leader of the pack removes a bat from inside the massive tent of his Superman hoodie and looks straight at you. “I’m lookin’ to crack some heads tonight... and it looks like I’ll be starting with YOUUUU!”
for that usage. It can range from simple
meant not only needing to put systems and
models like digital downloads, through
technology in place to deal with that expan-
on-demand streaming to the online use of
sion, but also with establishing offices on the
video or music in text messaging or social
ground in the key markets. We are now pres-
media.”
ent in the US, UK, Europe and Japan, and are currently looking to set up a presence across
What’s the reality of, or process for, chas-
Latin America.”
ing royalty payouts for the indie labels you work with?
How do you see digital recorded music
“Most of the work is in establishing and
market evolving in the next few years?
negotiating the deals in the first place,
Are there any trends that your compa-
which is the most difficult part. Beyond that
ny anticipates?
it’s a matter of processing huge amounts of
“Outside of the continuing globalisation of the
data that capture the usage on each plat-
market into areas like China, India and Rus-
form, and passing the money through to
sia, the big changes ahead are going to come
our label as quickly and efficiently as pos-
from how emerging technology is changing
sible, which in our case is every month.”
the way music is accessed. AI, personalised creation, voice-activated devices, music and
Let’s get digital Head of global digital rights agency Merlin, Charles Caldas gives us the lowdown on digital rights ahead of his keynote speech at Indie-Con Australia Conference.
What’s your background? How did you get
What are a couple of the main ways the
connected/smart cars are all going to broad-
market has changed since you’ve been
en the way music is consumed, which we
at Merlin and what are some of the pro-
hope creates a new set of revenue streams for the labels we represent.”
into doing what you do?
cesses you’ve put in place to adapt to
“Ignoring the failed musician part, I was at
these changes?
Shock for 16 years before leaving to pursue
“The breaking down of the barriers of discov-
What are some of the topics you plan to
an interest in how the digital landscape was
ery has fundamentally changed the market.
cover during your keynote speech at Indie-
changing music. In 2006 I started consult-
Before the emergence of the global digital
Con in Adelaide?
ing for a group of international labels looking
services, consumers in most markets were
“At Indie-Con I’m going to provide an insight
at how they could start an organisation that
limited to radio, TV and retail as discovery
into how the market is growing and how
helped independent labels navigate those
channels. These were invariably controlled by
music is travelling around the world, with
changes and protect the value of their rights,
the largest labels, who had the most money
a specific focus on some of our Australian
which ultimately became Merlin and took
to spend in dominating those channels. The
members. I’m also looking forward to getting
me and my family to London.”
fact that music is globally discoverable via a
back on the ground in Australia to see how
myriad of sources — including social media,
the market is developing and how that is
Can you please explain what digital rights
streaming services, online video platforms
affecting Australian independents.”
are to someone who’s been living under
etc — has created a much more democratic,
a rock?
merit-driven marketplace, which is creating
“In short, it’s the rights an online platform
a market where independents are thriving. I
needs to legally use music on their platform,
think the success of so many Australian artists
and the work Merlin does is to negotiate and
around the world over the past few years is a
define how the labels we represent are paid
good illustration of that. For Merlin, this has
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The Indie-Con Australia Conference happens from 26 Jul in Adelaide.
For the latest live reviews go to theMusic.com.au
G Flip @ Oxford Art Factory.
“He knows how to capture an audience and like all great blues players he just pours his soul into his solos.”
Pics: Munya Chawora.
There was big buzz on Melbourne’s G Flip as she made her debut run of Aussie live shows and she lived up to the hype at her
“Those who bore witness to this show will have bragging rights for years to come.”
– Luke Saunders
Sydney – and very first Australian – show.
— Melissa Borg
Robert Cray @ Enmore Theatre. Pic: Angela Padovan
The US blues legend stopped by Sydney on his way to the Blues On Broadbeach festival and showed he was still in his prime.
Angus & Julia Stone
“Arnold showed tremendous register, moving between fast-paced rocky tracks and slower ballads.”
@ Anita’s Theatre. Pics: Brendan Delavere
— Shaun Colnan
The Sydney siblings stopped in at Wollongong as part of a month-long jaunt around the nation off the back of their most recent album Snow, which saw their gigs selling out all over the place.
“Their tales of love are engaging without ever feeling contrived and help add weight to each track performance.” – Ben Nicol
PP Arnold @ Factory Theatre. Pics: Peter Dovgan
Soul legend PP Arnold made her first ever tour of Australia and her backing band was none other than little old Aussie rockers You Am I.
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1. Bad Reputation
Sydney Film Festival music program must-sees
Rock’n’roll icon Joan Jett gets the rockumentary treatment, talking-heads and archival footage detailing the story of one of the great female trailblazers in rock’s direly-macho early history.
2. Hearts Beat Loud In last year’s Band Aid, Zoe Lister-Jones and Adam Pally start a band as a form of couple therapy. In SFF’s 2018 closing night film, Hearts Beat Loud, Nick Offerman and Kiersey Clemons start a band as a form of father/daughter bonding. If this is becoming some niche micro-genre, that’s dandy: watching stories where people actually play music - not just mime it - holds instant charm.
For readers of The Music who’re also lovers of the music, the vast Sydney Film Festival program holds an array of interesting titles, ranging from standard-issue documentary portraits to harrowing dramas and playful meta-movies. It’s notable for how the cinematic lens has widened, too: these subjects are far from those old familiar rock’n’roll dramas
3. I Used To Be Normal: A Boyband Fangirl Story Fandom is a strange thing: a form of projection, obsession, desperation, and love that says so much about our secular times, capitalism, tribalism, and alienation. All of this comes under the lens - and into the conversation - of local director Jessica Leski, who chronicles four fans of boybands from different generations.
4. Looking For Oum Kulthum 1.
If you love music but can’t stomach another generic rockumentary, the great Iranian visual artist Shirin Neshat sneaks into this section with a self-referential, cinematic meta-text. Here, she fashions a movie about making a movie about the legendary, titular Egyptian singer; getting to examine the vibrant themes of Kulthum’s life and songs without being stuck in the realm of the three-act biopic.
2.
5. Matangi/Maya/MIA Long outspoken and provocative, Maya Arulpragasam is an artist that defies categorisation and bucks convention; something echoed in the title of Stephen Loveridge’s documentary. A life that’s gone from Tamil refugee to marrying a billionaire - with terrorist-chic artmaking, dancefloor bangers, Super Bowl controversy, and Michelle Obama beefs along the way - is one that defies a simple telling.
4.
3.
6. Nico, 1988 The final days of the one-time Warhol muse and Velvet Underground vocalist are chronicled in a biopic starring Danish actress Trine Dyrholm. Anyone who’s seen the 1995 documentary Nico Icon knows how horrifying and grim the terrain is; doused in heroin, oblivion, and weird oedipal vibes. Screen portraits of creative types as drug-addled, self-destructive, shitty parents are plentiful, but are almost always are of standard Great Male Artists. Here, is a portrait of altrock’s original femme fatale, whose celebrated ‘beauty’ bred in her a desperate form of self-loathing. 5.
6.
7.
7. RocKabul Being the first - and only - metal band in Afghanistan can be tough, especially when your members all want to get the hell out of Afghanistan. Australian director Travis Beard has an obvious friendship with the young men of District Unknown, which gives a palpable emotional depth to this on-the-ground/inthe-rehearsal-space documentary.
8. Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda 8.
From a pioneering artist of synth-pop and new age sounds to a beloved, awarded film score composer, Ryuichi Sakamoto has a long and productive history. He’s also one of music’s great conceptual thinkers. Stephen Nomura Schible echoes the aesthetic - and heritage - of his subject in this intimate, oft-domestic documentary.
9.
9. Whitney Last year’s SFF brought Nick Broomfield’s surprisingly tender Whitney: Can I Be Me, now, here’s the ‘official’ doc, produced by Houston’s family and directed by old rock-doc hand Kevin Macdonald (Oasis, Marley, Being Mick). The film’s already found bountiful press for its ‘revelation’ of childhood abuse, proving the appetite for celebrity scandal is eternal.
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AFTRS
This month’s highlights
AFTRS-math
Flan-again and again We’re worried for Flanagan and co. With shows on 28 Jun at Django (Camelot Lounge), 30 Jun at Megan Hall and 1 Jul at Lennox Sessions, John Flanagan Trio just might overdose on bluegrass!
John Flanagan Trio
If you’ve got some spare time and a passion for film, television or radio, then an AFTRS five-day Winter Intensive course might be for you. They run from mid-June through July at AFTRS studios in Moore Park, Sydney. For more info head to aftrs.edu.au
Bake off
Baker Boy
Pan Daijing
With songs like Cloud 9 and Marryuna, Arnhem Land local Baker Boy is one that hip-hop heads will want to keep their eye on. See him spit some bars at Lansdowne Hotel, 9 Jun.
Frame & glory Head down to the Open Frame event at Carriageworks 28 & 29 Jun to catch a double dose of electronic insanity featuring Eliane Radigue and Pan Daijing.
One love
From 29 Jun to 1 Jul Beer & BBQ Festival is taking over The Showring at Moore Park’s Entertainment Quarter, where 60 brewers and Sydney’s best chefs will come together with bands like The Preatures, Holy Holy, Jen Cloher and more.
SAE Institute
Join the rock against bigotry with Love Music Hate Racism. A variety of musical acts from all around the globe, from L-FRESH The Lion to Imbi The Girl, are set to play on 1 Jun at Factory Theatre.
BeerBQ
L-FRESH The Lion
Are you a creative media type that’s considering a career beyond DeviantArt? The SAE Institute campus open day on 5 Aug has interactive workshops on courses including Animation, Audio, Design, Film, Games and Photography. For more info head to sae.edu.au
Beer & BBQ Festival
SAE what?
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I D N BO T S A F1E7-28 JULY tICKETS
from $15 THE MUSIC
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JUNE
the best and the worst of the month’s zeitgeist
The lashes Front
Back
Say can you see?
Cock blocked
We’re a fan-a of Hannah
The Abbott habit
Flippin’ hell
Don’t know Etihad till it’s gone
Childish Gambino, aka the
President Trump will no
Anyone who was fortunate
Tony Abbott sculling a
Steam’s most popular game
Let’s face facts: Infinity War
legendary Donald Glover,
longer be able to block Twit-
enough to catch Hannah
beer with his trademark
last month was House Flip-
was an orgy of super hero
shook us to the core with
ter followers he doesn’t like,
Gadsby’s extraordinary show
dead-eyed stare: a pathetic
pers, the game where you
over-franchising. But Marvel
This Is America, an anthem
a New York judge has ruled.
Nanette live will know that
attempt to get down wit da
can pretend flip pretend
owners Disney don’t give
(and chillingly on the nose
As the top dog in the land
it is beyond powerful. But
yuff, or a desperate cry for
shitholes for pretend cash. Is
two shits about jumping
music video) that could
of the free, blocking would
worry not if you missed
help? He did once infamous-
this a portent of the closest
sharks, as they’ve proved
come to define a generation
infringe constitutional free-
it. Netflix have dropped a
ly sleep through a vital vote
Millennials will ever get to
today by taking over the
of young black Americans
dom of speech.
trailer for the streaming ver-
cos he was shitfaced. Either
owning their own home?
Etihad Stadium in Mel-
sion it is soon releasing.
way, we don’t really care.
Bring on the Matrix already.
bourne, rebranding it Mar-
in crisis.
vel Stadium.
The final thought
Words by Maxim Boon
Just when you thought the Obamas couldn’t get any more super...
S
o, you’ve been the leader of the free world. Now what? That’s a big enough question to figure out under normal circumstances, but for Barack Obama, it’s a conundrum that comes with a steaming heap of Trump smeared all over it. I’d like to imagine that somewhere under Obama Manor, Barry and Michelle have a super-secret superhero super-lair all
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set up. And when Bernie Sanders shines the Obama signal on some conveniently placed clouds, the dynamic former first-duo hit the mean streets of Washington in the Obamamobile, ready to fight super-villains like Aunt Lydia (Sarah Sanders — thank you Michelle Wolf), Dumb and Dumber (Eric and Donald Trump Jr), The Bible Basher (Mike Pence), The Alternative Woman (Kelly-Anne Conway), The Human Hangover (Steve Bannon) and of course, the biggest, baddest baddie of them all, President Cheeto-faced-shit-brained-douche-chill... yeah, we kinda didn’t workshop that last one. Well, that’s a very nice story, but sadly that’s all it is. A story. But holy real-life allegory, bat-readers, the Obamas may have just made a career move that delivers the world the next best thing to two caped crusaders. The pair have signed a multi-year deal with Netflix to deliver a raft of content to the streaming platform, from documentary series to scripted dramas (and yes, I’m absolutely already penning the screenplay for my Barack-as-Batman political satire superhero epic). The Obama’s new company, High Ground Productions will, in the words of Barack himself, “cultivate and curate the talented, inspiring, creative voices who are able to promote greater empathy and understanding between peoples, and help them share their stories with the entire world”. So,
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just on the face of it, that’s one bloody nice mission statement, and I for one will bet my bottom dollar that the shows they turn out are going to be all kinds of inspirational. But, for the more conspiratorially minded amongst you, this might just be one super-savvy superhero tactic, especially when the super-villain you’re trying to take down is a Big Mac munching TV addict. Picture the scene: President Cheeto-faced-shitbrained-douche-chill is kicking back after a hard day of pussy grabbing and destroying the environment. There’s a burger on the way, Melania is chained up like Princess Leah in Jabba’s palace: everything is coming up Trump. He grabs the remote with one tiny, sweat-drenched hand and jabs the buttons with his chipolata fingers. That’s when the trap is sprung. Th rough the medium of televisual manipulation, a captivating show comes on, presented by former Miss Universe alum. It spins a hypnotic yarn about how super handsome, inexplicably orange men with comb-overs are so much sexier when they ban petrol powered cars, nuclear power stations and single-use plastics. And before you can say “Covfefe”, Obama’s gone and saved the world again. Here’s hoping.
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Something to kill time before #BIGSOUND18
CLUES: 1 2 3 4 5 6
Which BIGSOUND 2017 act snagged a UK booking deal with ATC and a label deal with Fat Possum Records? Best-selling author and mother to one of the world’s biggest rockstars is 2018 Keynote speaker Virginia ..... ? How many hundreds of dollars can you save if you book your Purple Pass before July 31? Former NME editor and influential radio host Matt ......... presented a BIGSOUND Special on Apple BEATS 1? Winner of the inaugural Levi’s® Music Prize was Perth-based singer/songwriter ...... Donnelly? ...... the Future of Music at BIGSOUND 2018.
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bigsound.org.au
4 – 7 SEPTEMBER
Book your Purple Pass before 31 July and save $100
Fortitude Valley, Brisbane
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