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2 • THE MUSIC • 17TH SEPTEMBER 2014
THE MUSIC • 17TH SEPTEMBER 2014 • 3
themusic 17TH SEPTEMBER 2014
“OVERALL THIS ALBUM STRUGGLES TO FIND A COHESIVE VOICE AS WHOLE WORK.”
#056
INSIDE NEWS A Day On The Green Laneway Fest
win
Tig Notaro Crooked Colours
THE LOWDOWN ON ALT-J’S NEW RECORD [P20]
Adore Delano The Others Every Time I Die Lucky Oceans
THIS WEEK
WE HAVE TEN DOUBLE PASSES TO GIVE AWAY TO SEE TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES. HEAD TO THEMUSIC.COM.AU/WIN FOR YOUR CHANCE TO WIN
Red Bull Flying Bach Last Night Rottofest
FEATURES The Preatures Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs Tchami
“THAT REALLY GOT UNDER MY SKIN. I REALISED THAT I WAS REALLY VERY ANGRY ABOUT IT.” A GRUMPY BILL BAILEY PREPS FOR HIS AUSSIE TOUR [P17]
DMA’s Joe Bonamassa Gareth Liddiard The Vines Bill Bailey
live
THE LOVE JUNKIES @ BIGSOUND LIVE. PIC: FREYA LAMONT
Interpol
ALBUM U2 Alt-J Misy Higgins Step-Panther Tweedy
“THE AUDIENCE IS COMPLETELY ABUZZ WITH ENERGY AND EXCITEMENT AND, SOMEWHAT RARELY AMID A SEA OF INDUSTRY SERIOUSNESS, A SENSE OF GENUINE FUN.” WE HEAD OVER TO BIGSOUND 2014 [P22]
Bearhug
LIVE BIGSOUND ShockOne
THE GUIDE OKA Eat/Drink Q&As Gig Guide
4 • THE MUSIC • 17TH SEPTEMBER 2014
feature
“WHEN I SAY BIGGER I’M TALKING ABOUT WIDER, I’M TALKING ABOUT MORE WIDESCREEN, MORE EPIC.”
THE MAN BEHIND TOTALLY ENORMOUS EXTINCT DINOSAURS, ORLANDO HIGGINBOTTOM GIVES US A TASTE OF HIS NEW RECORD [P12]
CREDITS PUBLISHER
Street Press Australia Pty Ltd
GROUP MANAGING EDITOR Andrew Mast
THIS WEEK THINGS TO DO THIS WEEK • 17 SEPT - 23 SEPT 2014
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EDITOR Daniel Cribb
ASSISTANT EDITOR Cam Findlay
MUSO EDITOR Michael Smith
ARTS AND CULTURE EDITOR Cassandra Fumi wa.arts@themusic.com.au
GIG GUIDE Justine Lynch wa.gigs@themusic.com.au
CONTRIBUTORS Aarom Wilson, Adam Germano, Adrienne Downes, Amber Flynn, Andy Snelling, Annabel Maclean, Athina Mallis, Bailey Lions, Chantelle Gabriel, Christopher James, Claire Hodgson, Eli Gould, Emilie Taylor, Gareth Bird, James Hunt, Jeff Kit, Jeremy Carson, Joseph Wilson, Josie McGraw, Jessica Tana, Kane Sutton, Kershia Wong, Kitt Di Camillo, Liv Gardner, Lukas Murphy, Luke Butcher, Mac McNaughton, Marcia Czerniak, Mark Neilsen, Matthew Tomich, Michael Caves, Natasha Lee, Rachel Inglis, Rebecca Metcalf, Rob Nassif, Renee Jones, Ross Clelland, Scott Aitken, Simon Holland, Steve Bell, Tess Ingram, Tom Birts, Taelor Pelusey, Zoe Barron.
PHOTOGRAPHERS
The Academy – Amplifier Bar’s mid-week night dedicated to all things hardcore and punk – had its last hurrah last week. Fear not though, Last Night has wrangled together Perth’s best in punk and party bands and DJs and have been given free rein to bring it heavy and loud. The best part? It’s very Thursday. Dream On Dreamer are headlining the launch this Thursday night, with Aveira Skies, Vice Versa and Idle Eyes in tow. Doors from 8pm.
Rottofest 2014, the sixth annual weekend festival of comedy, film and music on Rottnest Island, is happening this weekend from 19-21 Sep. This year’s headline comedy acts features Donnell Rawlings, John Safran, Troy Kinne and more, while the music boasts Andy Bull, Panama, Coin Banks, New Navy , Woodlock, Rainy Day Women and others. Tickets are still available from Ticketbooth.
Ebony Frost, Elle Borgward, Jacinta Mathews, Paul Bartok, Ashley Westwood, Kieren Chew, Rhys Machell, Ted Dana
ADVERTISING DEPT Mark Neal mneal@themusic.com.au
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ART DEPT David Di Cristoforo, Eamon Stewart, Julian De Bono wa.art@themusic.com.au
ADMIN & ACCOUNTS Loretta Zoppos, Niall McCabe, Jarrod Kendall, Leanne Simpson accounts@themusic.com.au
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CONTACT US Tel 08 9228 9655 info@themusic.com.au www.themusic.com.au
After 2013’s sell-out shows in Sydney and Melbourne, Red Bull Flying Bach has returned to Australia to complete its first national tour. The WA leg promises to shatter the boundaries between classical and urban art forms, fusing the elegant masterpieces of visionary 18th century composer, Johann Sebastian Bach, with the unrestricted and explosive dance style of four times world champion breakdance crew, Flying Steps. The event takes place this Friday and Saturday at the Crown Theatre, with tickets available from crownperth.com.au
1/205-207 Bulwer St, Perth WA PO Box 507 Mount Lawley WA 6929
see
PERTH
national news news@themusic.com.au REMI
TIG NOTARO
MONEY WELL SPENT MEET THE TIG
One of the USA’s most prolific, respected and in-demand stand-up comedians, Tig Notaro, whose #1 2012 album, Live, garnered a Grammy nomination, is returning to Australia. She performs 6 Dec, the Regal Theatre, Perth; 9 Dec, the Athenaeum Theatre, Melbourne; 11 Dec, The Tivoli, Brisbane and 13 Dec, the Enmore Theatre, Sydney.
GET MORE CROOKED
Capricious is the first single off the forthcoming second EP from 2014 Laneway Festival winners Perth indie-electronic trio Crooked Colours, and they’re taking it out on tour with special guests Paces and Stoney Roads DJs. Catch them 10 Oct at the Northcote Social Club, Melbourne; 17 Oct, Players Bar, Mandurah; 24 Oct at Oxford Art Factory, Sydney and 25 Oct at Alhambra Lounge, Brisbane; and 31 Oct, The Bakery, Perth.
ADORE PARTY FOR OZ
American television personality, singer, drag queen and YouTuber Adore Delano, known to his mum as Danny Noriega, is bringing his wickedly outrageous new album, Till Death Do Us Party, and more to Australia, playing Villa Nightclub, Perth, 28 Feb; GH Hotel, Melbourne, 4 Mar; The Hi-Fi, Brisbane, 5 Mar; and The Hi-Fi, Sydney, 6 Mar.
THE DEEPEST POP
Vancouver, Canada’s pop-rock four-piece Marianas Trench, named for the deepest part of the world’s oceans, east of the Marianas Islands in the western Pacific, return to Australia for their second tour on the back of their most recent album, 2012’s Ever After, recently re-released in a deluxe, expanded edition. They play 1 & 2 Nov at the Corner Hotel, Melbourne; 4 Nov at The Zoo, Brisbane; 5 Nov at Metro Theatre, Sydney and 6 Nov at the Astor Theatre, Perth.
SASHA AWAY
Legendary producer and pioneering DJ Sasha makes the top 10 of DJ Mag’s annual poll year after year, has had residencies in the world’s best clubs, and has remixed the likes of Thom Yorke, Ladytron and M83. The Grammy-nominated Welshman returns to Australia, coming to Chinese Laundry, Sydney, 1 Nov (arvo); The Met, Brisbane, 1 Nov (evening); The Court Hotel, Perth, 2 Nov; and Prince Bandroom, Melbourne, 3 Nov.
LANEWAY ON WAY
From its humble beginnings as a festival in the Melbourne CBD thrown in “a colourful backstreet alley” back in 2005, Laneway Festival has grown into a festival experience that now takes in Singapore and New Zealand as well as five Australian cities. The full festival line-up will be announced 2 Oct, but you can now jot in your diaries that Laneway 2015 hits Brisbane Showgrounds, 31 Jan; Sydney College Of The Arts, 1 Feb; Footscray Community Arts Centre and The River’s Edge in Melbourne, 7 Feb, and Esplanade Reserve and West End in Fremantle, 8 Feb.
SO IT BEGINS
Geoffrey Rush, Sam Neill and Miranda Otto lead a stellar cast in Simon Stone’s directorial debut The Daughter, which began the production phase last week. The Daughter is a contemporary portrait of family love, dysfunction, deception and denial, inspired by Stone’s award-winning re-imagining of Henrik Ibsen’s The Wild Duck. Stone’s adaptation of The Wild Duck won him the 2011 Helpmann award for Best Play and the Sydney Theatre Award for Best Mainstage Production and Best Direction, so we should be expecting big things here.
WATCH OUT FOR THE REGINA GEORGE IN SHEEP’S CLOTHING. WATCH OUT FOR A @KATYPERRY FEUD. 6 • THE MUSIC • 17TH SEPTEMBER 2014
The shortlist of 2014 Carlton Dry Global Music Grant nominees has been announced. Last year, the $50,000 grant was awarded to seven-piece garage-rock gang King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, which funded their tours of the USA, Austin’s Psychfest, and shows in Canada, China, Iceland, Netherlands and the UK. This year, the nominees include Fractures, REMI, SAFIA, Saskwatch and The Smith Street Band, who have been shortlisted in recognition for their remarkable achievements over the last 12 months and their potential to achieve great things overseas. The winner is to be announced on 8 Oct.
CHEAP TRICK
TRICKSTERS
Veteran rock’n’rollers The Angels and Cheap Trick co-headlining a national tour next year. They play 13 Feb, Forum Theatre, Melbourne and 19 Feb, Enmore Theatre, Sydney, as well as a run of A Day On The Green concerts, joined by Baby Animals, The Superjesus and Choirboys, being: 8 Feb, Kings Park, Perth (without Choirboys); 14 Feb, Rochford Wines, Yarra Valley; 21 Feb, Bimbadgen Winery, Hunter Valley; and 22 Feb, Sirromet Wines, Mt Cotton.
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#"/% 0' '3&26&/$*&4 THE MUSIC • 17TH SEPTEMBER 2014 • 7
local news wa.news@themusic.com.au OKA
EVERY TIME I DIE
NINE LIVES
BIT OF THIS, BIT OF THAT
Having just returned from a run of successful shows in the UK and Canada, the OKA crew are ready to entertain Australian audiences once again with their concoction of sounds - an irresistible blend of inuences spanning house, big beat, reggae-dub, roots, jazz and world music. They hit Mojos, Fremantle, 24 Sep; Prince of Wales, Bunbury, 25 Sep; Settlers Tavern, Margaret River, 26 Sep; Indi Bar, Scarborough, 27 Sep; and Railway Hotel, Fremantle, 28 Sep.
FRED’S HOME
HEAD & HEART
BYRNING DOWN THE HOUSE
COMING WITH THE TRUTH
Widely travelled Canberra-based singersongwriter Fred Smith has stepped for his biggest challenge yet – fatherhood. That’s focused his songwriting to things closer to home. The result is his new album, Home, the perfect excuse to get out and tour. Smith plays Fremantle Town Hall, 28 Nov.
Perth isn’t shy when it comes to showing love for Irishman Jason Byrne, forcing the ever-wild comedian to put on a second show at the Regal Theatre, in addition to his 24 Sep date. Byrne is trotting out his new set, You Name The Show, so get physical with him 25 Sep – tickets for both performances on sale now.
Ŝē ē
Newcastle based Alt-Rockers Hey Lady! have just released their new single My Head, My Heart and are preparing to grace stages across the country for a run of National tour dates. Catch their innovative guitar work and edgy hooks at Mojos, Fremantle, 21 Nov; and 459 Bar (Rosemount Hotel), 22 Nov.
You best be quick if you want to snap up the limited tickets available for Paloma Faith’s ďŹ rst ever Aussie tour. The dazzling UK songstress will bring her whole bag of tricks to Palais Theatre, Melbourne, 5 May; QPAC, Brisbane, 8 May; Sydney Opera House, 10 May; and Concert Hall, Perth, 16 May. These dates are in support of the Londoner’s third record, A Perfect Contradiction, an top ďŹ ve hit Down Under.
HEART TO HEART
Sonic Sessions sees Australia’s best musicians open up to Grammy Awardwinner Lucky Oceans in an intimate series of concerts that blend music and conversation. The ďŹ rst artist to join Lucky Oceans this year for a chat and a jam is Katy Steele (pictured), aka Little Birdy, while Vikki Thorn and Donna Simpson from The Waifs and Stray Sisters will also be sharing their ups, downs and inspirations. Catch the action at the inner courtyard of the Fremantle Arts Centre, 7 Nov.
SLEEP TIGHT
Ahead of their Bedtime For Democracy Australian tour, which kicks o very soon, punk legends Dead Kennedys have announced supports who will be joining The Bennies in warming the stage for their shows; Chainsaw Hookers and Leeches will do the honours at Capitol, 11 Oct.
PRE ORDER NOW STORE.THEMUSIC.COM.AU
8 • THE MUSIC • 17TH SEPTEMBER 2014
Evergreen hardcore stalwarts Every Time I Die are back again, and more alive than ever, as they prepare to bring their mathy slabs of madness to Australian shores in support of their boundary-pushing new record From Parts Unknown. With them is TouchĂŠ AmorĂŠ, whose current release Is Survived By has also had praise heaped on it from critics and fans alike, and the two bands come to life 14 Jan, AmpliďŹ er Bar, Perth; 16 Jan, Corner Hotel, Melbourne; 17 Jan, Manning Bar, Sydney; and 18 Jan, The Zoo, Brisbane.
local news wa.news@themusic.com.au JOHN ROBERTSON
AVERIA SKIES
ONE FOR ALL
Following a huge run of sell-out shows at Edinburgh Fringe Festival this year, The Dark Room is a live-action video game is coming to the State Library of WA on 24 Oct. Performed by stand-up John Robertson, this is a surreal, incredible show for anyone who’s ever touched a video game, seen a video game, or has done neither of these things and is willing to be thoroughly disturbed.
LEND ME SOME SUGAR
TAKE TO THE SKIES
Following their first successful headlining tour, Aveira Skies packed out shows for the release of their debut album released in April. Now they plan to do it all again with their The Rise Of A New Breed Australian national tour. The melodic metalcore group with be tearing across the country with the likes of Life Pilot, This Fiasco and Bury The Fallen, as well as making an appearance at FiestaA-Cielo in NSW. Catch the chaos at Elliot Street Bar, Bunbury, 10 Oct; The Beat Nightclub, Perth, 11 Oct; The Melville Main Hall, 12 Oct.
You’re all probably aware by now that cult-like Detroit-bred singer-songwriter Rodriguez he will be touring Australia this October and November. You’re probably also upset that his two Perth shows have sold out. Well. We’ve got good news: The enigmatic musician and subject of 2012 Oscar-winning doco Searching For Sugar Man has added a third and FINAL Perth show to the mix! Make sure you’re ready. The singer-songwriter plays the new show at Kings Park on 11 Sep. Tickets from the usual outlets.
GURUS COME HOME
The official Listen Out After Party has been announced and is taking place at Flyrite as part of their Parker Sunday night on the 28 Sep. A very special guest is to be announced soon, and ond of the headline Listen Out artists joining the party for an exclusive club show. Tickets available from Moshtix.
THIS IS A TRIBUTE
More than three decades ago, a young group of Perth musicians got together as Le Hoodoo Gurus, determined to take on the world. All original and present members of the Hoodoo Gurus are gathering at Scarborough Amphitheatre, 30 Nov, to perform their new set, Be My Guru. Special guests Ratcat, Jebediah and British India will be joining them on the day.
STRENGTH TO STRENGTH
Melbourne alt-rock five-piece Inventions are hitting the road in support of their new self-titled EP and their new video for single Shadows. Catch ‘em in action at Rosemount Hotel, 8 Oct; Indi Bar, 9 Oct; YaYa’s, 19 Oct; YMCA HQ, 11 Oct.
During an illustrious career spanning more than two decades, Christine Anu has amassed a multitude of achievements spanning across music, theatre, dance, film, television and children’s entertainment. Now she brings a soulful performance in Rewind – The Aretha Franklin Songbook to WA for the first time. Anu’s tribute to the queen of soul can be seen at the Ellington Jazz Club on 17 & 18 Oct.
Revivalfest is all about spreading awareness and building support for Perth’s promising hardcore/metalcore scene, and as such, they’ve managed to put together a solid lineup. Aveira Skies, Finders, Life Pilot, To Catch A Fox and 8 other bands will be spreading themselves out across two stages at the Melville Civic Centre, 12 Oct from 2pm. Get down there and support your locals.
IT’S OFFICIAL
PATENT THAT
THE MUSIC • 17TH SEPTEMBER 2014 • 9
music
FREEDOM OF TASTE The Preatures take on pop with their debut album. Isabella Manfredi and Jack Moffitt proudly tell Hannah Story that yep, they like Katy Perry. Pics by Cybele Malinowski.
O
n the Tuesday morning that The Music sit down with The Preatures, Sydney is all blue skies. It’s unfortunate that the interview couldn’t take place over a schooner in a sunny beer garden (it’s a little too early in the day), but conversation flows easily nonetheless, even without the pint. Frontwoman Isabella Manfredi and guitarist Jack Moffitt “prattle on”, but in a paced way, pausing to umm and ahh. They interject midsentence, speak over one another, but not in a mean way, instead like old friends telling a story they both know a little too well. Manfredi is comfortable in an oversized denim jacket that emphasises her petite figure, while Moffitt is clad in a hoodie and just-out-of-bed mop top hair. They both fidget, Moffitt more than Manfredi, using exaggerated hand gestures to emphasise a point.
And the groove that Tom [Champion, bass] and Luke [Davison, drums] started playing…” Moffitt cuts in, “It was kinda built around, I think, a Cure song, and now that I’ve said that people will jump on saying, ‘They ripped off The Cure!’… It just had this insistence that I think we were all really drawn to, as much as we were absolutely petrified by how different it was to everything we’d really been playing around with up until that point. We played around with it and Izzi was so quick about the song, she just leapt on it, and I think that carried it the whole way through. Izzi took the song away and wrote it around these core ideas that were all still really new.” “It was an evolving pattern of work that we were
But the song was met with what Manfredi at first terms “resistance” from their inner circle. Moffitt maintains, “we were so confident and happy with it, it kind of felt like it was worth the risk. If it fell flat it was like what difference does it make?” Manfredi adds, “And we weren’t anybody, we didn’t have anything to lose so it wasn’t like if we got rejected by triple j it was a big deal, we’d just go back and keep writing.” “It wasn’t so much resistance, it was more hesitation from our team and people around. The friends that we played it to loved it, they were like, ‘Oh, this is great,’ but there was a bit of hesitation that it might not be right for triple j and that it might be too poppy and too clean. There was a big resistance against the cleanness of the track because the big trend at that point in time was a lot of lo-fi, a lot of garage, very distorted, the more distorted you were the cooler you were, so for us to then turn around and go, ‘No, we want to do something that’s quite minimal and clean,’ it was a risk. We were at risk of seeming, what’s the word? I want to say schlager.” The single found its home on the radio alongside the garage and the lo-fi. For the album, Manfredi and the band – Moffitt, Champion and Davison, and guitarist Gideon Bensen – decided to pursue the pop aesthetic further. Now the album as a whole is looking to find its place as part of an undercurrent of femaledriven Australian pop being released this year: think the disco influences on The Jezabels’ The Brink or Washington’s new “simplistic” lease on songwriting.
“WE WEREN’T ANYBODY, WE DIDN’T HAVE ANYTHING TO LOSE.”
“There was something in the mix that day,” says Manfredi in the tone of someone about to tell a ghost story. We’re talking about writing Is This How You Feel?, The Preatures’ breakout hit. The song features on their debut album Blue Planet Eyes, and was the starting point for a new musical direction for the band. One of the last two songs they wrote for the EP of the same name, the single reached #9 on the Hottest 100, won the Vanda & Young Songwriting Competition, and picked up Best Song at the FBi SMAC Awards. It’s quite the benchmark and it set the five-piece ablaze; they plunged headfirst into the pop world and after seven weeks in the studio have come out with a ten-track album awash with catchy hooks and clean instrumentation. “I remember the date,” she continues. “It was the tenth of January. The boys were playing around; we had an EP of a couple of tracks and we didn’t really have anything that felt like a single. At the time I was listening to like Cat Power, the new Cat Power record Sun, which was new at that point, and Metronomy, we’d been listening to Here We Go Magic, a bit of Prince because he came and toured, a bit of Roxy Music, and Chairlift, and it just felt like there was something happening. And I didn’t know quite what it was, coming from a band that had been mostly into a lot of, I’m going to call it dirgey rock, we’d taken ourselves quite seriously up until that point, let’s just say. And then it just felt like there was this kind of sparkle of pop in the air and bands were kind of playing around with disco and more late ‘70s, early ‘80s sounds, and I really liked that. 10 • THE MUSIC • 17TH SEPTEMBER 2014
establishing for ourselves without realising that we’d stumbled across a really great energy for the band. We figured it out on reflection but at the time it was like, ‘We don’t know what this is, it’s new for us, it’s exciting, and it’s absolutely scary, let’s just roll with it and see what happens.’” For Manfredi, a fledgling songwriter, the song sketched a path forward for her. “It’s a very emotional song, but because it was a certain style of song that I’d never attempted before, I’d never really tried before to write a pop song in that sort of genre, and it taught me that sometimes the best thing you can do for a song is not care about it that much.”
“This record is really about us, and me in particular, trying to write pop songs and write to a pop structure,” says Manfredi. “So a lot of the songs are short, they’re quite classic structures. If you listen to the songs they’re intro, verse, bridge, there’s a lot of pre-chorus, I’m right into the pre-chorus with this album. That’s not to say that that’s our manifesto for life. We were pretty intent on making a record that was direct and had a lot of immediacy in every track. It’s not Kurt Vile or The War On Drugs, songs that go for seven or eight or nine minutes, even though they’re fantastic; that’s not what this record is. It’s a record that is meant to be consumed, it’s a record that is meant to be very present.” Moffitt says the decision to go in that direction wasn’t met by any resistance within the band. “It was, ‘This is what we’re doing right now.’ And that might not be the same on the next record, it might be totally different. The shift from the EP to this record happened in a year...That’s the shedding of a particular mentality of writing. I think we’ve really enjoyed as a band cutting away all the excessive bits of what it means to be a band… If you want to be the best projection of what you are inherently you have to be honest with yourself. I think this whole process for [Izzi] as a songwriter and for me from a production point of view, has been like, ‘What’s the most honest thing about any of these songs? Let’s just go for that.’
Manfredi says she wrote about her relationship with music: “I usually spend my time talking to some voice in my head.” She wasn’t writing about her relationships with others or about her quite outspoken political views (don’t you recall the ‘F*** Abbott’ shirt that caused such a furore last year?).
who I am as a person. It’s just the way it is. I don’t hide what my political leanings are because I don’t see the point in doing that, just because I’m a musician who makes pop music. I don’t think it has to reflect in the music, though I hope one day it will. But I don’t want people to think that if they come to a show or if they listen to a record that they have to have the same views as I do. I mean, we don’t even have the same views within the band about politics, and that’s natural, that’s good.
“There’s not a lot of that stuff, and that’s a mark of the fact that what I was really trying to do with this record is get my head around writing pop music and figuring out who I am as a songwriter. And that’s quite different to
“But if people ask me what I think then I’m going to tell them – why wouldn’t I?”
And it just happened to be the pop thing, or the shortness of structure, and not giving ideas too much time in the sun if they didn’t really warrant it. And then the ones that did really let us move forward.” It’s pop music about pop music for the sake of pop music. It’s pop music that was made possible by the recognition that there’s now what Manfredi is calling a “freedom of taste”, where people can create music “that has a bit of more of a sense of humour about it”. “You’ve got more people going, ‘No, well I like Katy Perry.’ I like Katy Perry, and I don’t mind a bit of Taylor Swift either, that’s just me, that’s my make-up. And I also really love Nick Cave and The Cramps and that’s okay, that doesn’t make me a bad person, it just means I have varied taste.”
WHAT: Blue Planet Eyes (Mercury/Universal)
THE POETRY OF IT Although she was influenced by singer-songwriters, Manfredi says she was studying poetry when she was writing for Blue Planet Eyes. “It taught me really simple rhythm, rhyme, meter… My favourite poets are Margaret Atwood, Elizabeth Bishop, Christina Rossetti, Sylvia Plath and maybe Charles Bukowski. I really like stark, modern, acerbic writers… I have a great love of lots of types of poetry and writing, but I don’t like flowery, embellished, overwrought writing. I’m just not that sort of person and I’m like that in life. I like people to just tell me what they think, how they feel, and I love people who will just look you in the eyes and just talk to you. And I want to do that with songwriting at the moment, that’s where I’m at. I feel that’s what pop is about anyway. You sit down and you write something that is really clever and you’re really happy with it and you’re really proud of yourself and then you try and put it into the music and it’s not right for the song, the song just sheds it… People just try and overcomplicate things so much and really simplicity is a lot harder in a lot of respects because you have to deal with being unoriginal. People don’t want to confront that… I think what I’m doing right now and what the band’s doing is we’re just finding our place as entertainers, as musicians, and as a band.”
music
HUMAN REPETITION Many do bangers better than Orlando Higginbottom, but if there’s some confetti handy, the man behind Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs will still let it off. He leaves the headpiece on the mantle to talk party with Benny Doyle.
A
lthough he’s still making appearances at the hottest events in Europe and finding himself inside “flame-throwing, giant mechanical [spiders]” (in front of 70,000 at Glasto no less), Orlando Higginbottom is currently in a period of downtime. On a break from the “crazy” schedule that followed his breakout 2012 Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs debut Trouble, the Oxford lad is right now at the heart of a follow-up record, playing sporadic DJ sets almost as a way to get out of the studio on the weekend. The 28-year-old will extend this recording/performing cycle for us fine folk when he visits for Listen Out. Higginbottom won’t be touring his “precious and special” live show, singing on the mic or packing his trademark headpieces, but he does promise to try and wear some nice clothes for us, “and if I get my hands on some confetti I’ll let it off ”. He also confirms that he’ll be putting in some studio time locally, though he refrains from telling us who he’ll be working with, leaving us to linger with the intrigue. “You work with people and sometimes it turns into something, sometimes it doesn’t,” Higginbottom shrugs. “But I’ve got some great friends down in Australia. I’m coming a little bit early and I’m leaving a little bit late so I’m going to be getting stuck into whatever is going on in Sydney and Melbourne.” However, Higginbottom will admit that he’s going for a “bigger” sound with his next record, though he uses the descriptor a little differently than we probably would. “When I say bigger I’m talking about wider, I’m talking about more widescreen, more epic. Not necessarily in the sense of banging,” he laughs. “There are people who do bangers a lot better than me, but that’s not my goal. My goal is to write a great song.” Creating the kinda ridiculous TEED moniker, and all the subsequent performance bells and whistles, after becoming sick of staring out at dancefloors filled with po-faced blokes in backpacks, the redesigned jungle vinylist has quietly become a house music revelation, injecting colour and identity into everything he does while humanising a style of music that many view as 12 • THE MUSIC • 17TH SEPTEMBER 2014
being without personality. This was obvious throughout Trouble, a forward-thinking record that Higginbottom agrees holds a timeless quality. “Just before Christmas I listened to it again for the first time really since I finished it, and apart from a few production ideas I’m happy with it,”
was the ease which TEED took to the full-length format – something many dance producers have issues with – which really allowed him to make a jurassicsized footprint on the electronic scene as a whole. “I wouldn’t say it’s any harder in electronic music than playing in a band to make an album,” Higginbottom reasons. “You have to be quite [brave], your material has to be flowing the right way and then it’s a possibility, but it’s difficult for everybody to put together nine or ten tracks, or 14 tracks, and have it really work as a whole. You’re giving something to people – you’re saying this is a real body of work – and obviously
“HE ALWAYS SAYS, ‘WHY DOES IT HAVE TO REPEAT SO MUCH?’ AND I THINK HE’S GOT A GOOD POINT.” he admits. “It’s not what I’d make now but I’m happy that it’s honest; it’s a bit more honest than anyone gave it credit for. Those are songs that I was writing about my life – that’s still not a big part of electronic music. It’s kinda traditional songwriting in that sense so I’m proud of it, I think it’s a good first record; hopefully though my second album can be a lot better.” That assertion we don’t doubt. But it
this has taken me two years to make so please sit down for an hour-and-a-half and listen to it.” His individual success has also made his father, Edward – a choral professor and musical director at the University of Oxford – very proud, though he has no idea about the context of that greatness. “I am his only experience of anything clubby and electronic; he doesn’t know anything about it,” Higginbottom chuckles. “But I grew up making music with my dad so he knows [and likes who I am] as a musician – we share a lot of interests musically. He trusts that what I do is half-decent – he’s always very complimentary – but he always says, ‘Why does it have to repeat so much?’ And I think he’s got a good point.” WHEN & WHERE: 28 Sep, Listen Out, Ozone Reserve
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THE MUSIC • 17TH SEPTEMBER 2014 • 13
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PROMESSED YOU A MIRACLE
Go Deep (a single off her last great album, The Velvet Rope). He’d then premiere an original tune, Promesses (featuring London vocalist Kaleem Taylor), on A-Trak’s Fool’s Gold, followed by an EP also entailing Shot Caller.
Who exactly is Tchami? Cyclone probes the French newcomer about his “future house” – and his choosing to wear clerical attire.
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ombine Daft Punk’s eccentricity and Justice’s religious imagery with soulful house and deep bass and you have the latest French electronic star – that mysterious DJ/producer Tchami, AKA Martin Bresso, who wears a priestly collar. Bresso has made a huge impact in a short time with his “future house”. But, Bresso insists, he isn’t a dogmatic musical missionary. “My mission, if I had one, would be to stay true to myself. It’s that simple. I want to keep my music evolving
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and explore new musical territories, so I just hope to keep it relevant.” The Parisian, who acquired the name Tchami while travelling somewhere in Africa, maintains his mystique in interviews, requesting they be done by e-mail. “I don’t feel mysterious with my biography [but] I understand curiosity,” he says. “‘Tchami’ is my first project as an artist. Everything that happened before led me to who I am today.” Oddly, there is a Martin Bresso credited on Lady GaGa’s ARTPOP… At any rate, ‘Tchami’ captured cyber house kids’ attention in 2013 with his Daft Punky remix of Janet Jackson’s
Beyond that, Bresso’s antecedents remain murky. He began DJing on vinyl but doesn’t say when. On SoundCloud, Bresso has a “tribute” to Chicago legend Marshall Jefferson’s mid-’80s piano house classic Move Your Body and he deems it important that fans (and other DJs) know the history of the music. “But don’t misunderstand me; I’m all about breaking the rules also.” Bresso has touted his music as “future house”, but it’s more a philosophy than a sound, per se. The DJ concedes some have misunderstood what he meant by the term. “It wasn’t meant to be a ‘genre’. Basically, ‘future house’ is about making house music blended with something that doesn’t exist in this genre yet. That’s why I called it future house.” Perhaps the biggest question is why Bresso, who recently uploaded a mix titled Confessions, styles himself as a minister. “It’s just the way I am and I wanted to show a spiritual side – in the largest possible way – with my music. And I love the outfit.” Bresso, who last aired Untrue, is open to recording an album – “if I feel I’d have the maturity to do so”. He’s not necessarily a purist, either. Bresso supported the EDM mega-star Skrillex mid-year and will tour the US with him next month. “Skrillex has been doing big things for years now and he also has an underground and open mind – which is fully compatible with today’s music scene. I think he started to play some of my songs and I guess he wanted me spinning on some gigs with him.” WHEN & WHERE: 19 Sep, Ambar
BE PREPARED Newtown’s DMA’s have swiftly ripped through the scene like wildfire, becoming the “next big thing” virtually overnight. Ben Preece attempts to unravel the mysterious success so far with guitarist Johnny Took.
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s The Music calls Johnny Took, he’s at home in Newtown cleaning the toilet, a revelation not too many aspiring rock stars would admit to in a hurry. And that goes a long way to explaining just what DMA’s are about – there isn’t a lot of bullshit within the minds of these three youngsters. DMA’s emerged late last year armed with debut single, Delete. A self-titled EP quickly followed, as did another killer single, Feels Like 37, and were equally embraced by all, eventually leading to full houses on tour and spots on the country’s biggest festivals. “It’s what we’ve been wanting from our first release. It’s still got our kinda sound to it; we recorded and mixed the whole thing ourselves so it’s not too far from all the demos we’ve done at home. Bands can lose the plot a bit if they jump into using a producer too early or if they change something that isn’t, you know, broken.
of noise, delays and overdriven guitars. We don’t think about it too much though and I can understand why people think it has that British sound to it. And Tommy’s voice definitely resonates from some of those early ‘90s guitar bands. The group that I hang around with are all into Primal Scream and The La’s and Oasis and Pulp and all those kind of bands.”
“There are so many different vibes and attitudes that you take when you write a song. You sit there and you’re writing and you might want a song that can be like a folk tune almost and normally the vibe that comes, comes after the production aspect. I’ve written songs for DMA’s that has ended up on a Little Bastard album, the only difference being there are violins and mandolins going on instead of loads
DMA’s next release is a 7” featuring two brand new songs – Laced and So We Know. “It kinda has moved quickly but it moved really slow at the start there. We were
14 • THE MUSIC • 17TH SEPTEMBER 2014
writing together and we didn’t feel like there was any rush to play live and we weren’t releasing stuff, we were just happy playing demos for our mates in our bedroom and working our own production. We didn’t feel a rush at all; before we had management or had a label, me and Tommy realised we had a fair few songs and some were a little bit better. We’re talking about two-and-a-half years. So that’s the reason, I feel, when things do start to move quick, that we can be prepared. It’s been a hectic year and you can often tell when bands are working, the output slows down a bit. So we’re prepared for that. “I’m not too sure what’s coming next though. We’re just going to keep writing and writing and doing these live shows and I’m really excited to see where we’ll take it in the New Year. Personally, I’d love to do an album. I feel like we have lots of tunes and it’s something I’ve been wanting to do for a while and we’re ready for it, you know?” WHEN & WHERE: 25 Sep, Mojo’s Bar; 26 Sep, Amplifier Bar; 4 Jan, Southbound, Busselton
STILL BLUE With 16 albums, a stack of collaborative projects under his belt, 25 years’ experience as a pro musician and still only 37, Joe Bonamassa is stretching the envelope, Michael Smith discovers.
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he most “English” of American hard blues guitarists, it’s been a dozen years since Joe Bonamassa released a completely original album in 2002’s So, It’s Like That. Of course this prolific musician has pumped out eight solo albums as well as a deluge of live releases and collaborative albums with singer Beth Hart and Black Country Communion, along the way to his latest, Different Shades Of Blue. A true “touring animal”, regularly playing a good 200 shows a year in various parts of the world, Bonamassa decided to take his time preparing material for the new album, and find the right people to bring out the best in his songwriting.
“Some came to me by referral, some by reputation,” he explains of writing with James House, whose CV includes songs for Dwight Yoakam, Jerry Flowers, and former Babys now Journey keyboards player Jonathan Caine. “[Producer] Kevin Shirley kind of put the whole thing together for me and made sure we were with the right cats, you know, with the soulful cats that write good lyrics. I mean I need help writing lyrics sometimes, but, yeah, there’s not a schlep among ‘em, you know, and they’ve all written big tunes. “Co-writing’s like goin’ to a dinner party. You’ve
gotta bring a cold appetiser or a bottle of wine – you’ve gotta come in with somethin’ – and you start with an idea, or come in with something that’s maybe halffinished or whatever, and that kind of gets the gears goin’. Then I knew that once I got the songs into the studio with Carmine Rojas [bass] and Anton Fig [drums] and Reese Wynan [keyboards], like, the band was gonna do its thing. It’s an entity unto itself.”
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Over a year, Bonamassa accumulated some 20 songs, discarded five before going into the studio, ditched three more during the sessions and came out after nine days’ recording at Studio At The Palms in Las Vegas with Different Shades Of Blue. “It doesn’t take very long to record blues-rock,” he suggests. “I mean it’s all live and spontaneous, it’s all done with a very kind of ‘in the moment’ feel… I don’t wanna be in the studio any longer than I have to. It’s very sterile. It’s like goin’ to an ear, nose and throat guy.” And for all the magic captured in the studio, it’s in the live context that Bonamassa really thrives, as evidenced by the plethora of live CD/DVDs he’s released in the past decade, three this year alone – Rock Candy Funk Party Takes New York – Live At The Iridium, showcasing another quartet project, Rock Candy Funk Party, he’s been playing with; in concert with Beth Hart filmed at Amsterdam’s famed Carre Theatre; a four-disc CD package Tour De Force: Live In London – and Bonamassa will be filming the band’s performance of Different Shades Of Blue at NYC’s Radio City Music Hall in January. WHAT: Different Shades Of Blue (Independent) WHEN & WHERE: 21 Sep, Perth Concert Hall
THE MUSIC • 17TH SEPTEMBER 2014 • 15
music
ONE AND THE SAME Some musicians find solo shows daunting. For Drones vocalist Gareth Liddiard that’s not the case, Kane Sutton finds out why.
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he Drones’ songwriter-frontman Gareth Liddiard is definitely a chill kinda guy. Having just got back from a tour through Europe three weeks ago, he’s been enjoying his time mellowing out and getting back to basics. “I’m just writing tunes, really,” Liddiard begins. “I’ve just been chilling out over the past few months. The tour was really good, we had a great time – it was one of those tours where everything just went off without a hitch. All the shows had their
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own crazy vibe, a bit of zing. It was spectacularly good.” A hard-working man on stage with the band, Liddiard is setting himself up to head back to his hometown of Perth for a one-off, intimate solo show. Since releasing his debut full-length solo alubm, Strange Tourist in 2010, Liddiard solo shows have been rare and scattered, but after playing a string of shows on the east coast, the desire is back. “Like any kind of music thing you do, it’s all about enjoying it, and the more you do it, the better you become at it. It’s challenging; it’s doing stuff I’ve never done before. That was the whole idea behind
the solo record; it was just guitar and voice, and I’d never done that before... I figure while I can remember how to play the songs, I’ll go to Perth and do a gig there too. I get to see all my buddies and my family, so it’s great. I’ll be staying down in Freo too, which is where all my mates and I stayed after we finished high school, so it’s basically just going to be good being back at home.” While still a challenge, performing solo holds no fear for Liddiard. He’s mentioned several times before that his one-man performances are essentially The Drones minus the band, and that keeps him together. “When I’m trying to write a song, I’m just trying to write it. I’m not making stuff to fit certain outcomes – the best outcome is that I end up with a song and it’s not crap. I practice a fair bit, but that’s mainly just to get all the words straight and the chords straight. You wouldn’t know, it still sounds like I’ve just rolled out of a gutter or something,” he laughs, “but a lot of practice does go into it. Because when you fuck up by yourself, it’s a huge clanger compared to being in a band. I don’t worry about it, if it happens it happens, and you can’t pretend it didn’t because everyone saw it, so you just get on with it.” The good news for Liddiard is the recent tour and solo shows have meant working on new songs, and because the band and the individual are one and the same musically... “We’ve leased a studio building for a year in Melbourne, and we move into it on October 1st. We’ll be putting all our recording stuff and our music gear in there and just start jamming and see what we come up with, so a new Drones record is definitely on the way.” WHEN & WHERE: 20 Sep, Rosemount Hotel
WICKED RECLUSE At times measured and at others manic, The Vines’ Craig Nicholls is older and a little wiser. He talks Hannah Story through making their sixth record, Wicked Nature.
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t 37, The Vines’ Craig Nicholls, dressed in a red Adidas jacket, fringe falling in front of his eyes, speaks in frenzied half-sentences, before pausing for a moment, then launching right back into the thick of it. Still when he notices what seem to be almost like triggers, he becomes measured, self-aware; he doesn’t go into detail on certain subjects in fear that he’ll get “too emotional”, although he mainly seems glad – glad to be sharing his music with others again, despite the fact that by modern standards he’s a bit of a recluse. His subject matter is anti-technology: “I won’t drive a car, mobile phone, computers, I want none of it, and it has kind of left me on the outside.” How do people contact him without a phone or computer? “They don’t. I’m very much a lone wolf. I go out and I see bands sometimes, I know people from bands, but very much I’m on my own. It’s kind of weird, but it’s always been like that.” After the departure of Ryan Griffiths, Hamish Rosser and Brad Heald in 2011-12, it seemed like the end of The Vines. Instead, Nicholls recruited two new musicians, and long-time Vines fans, Lachlan West on drums and Tim John on bass. The end product of the reformation is their first independently released record, Wicked Nature. “It was a double album – the first one we did with Paul McKercher 16 • THE MUSIC • 17TH SEPTEMBER 2014
in 12 days, that’s 12 songs in 12 days; the next one we did with Lachlan Mitchell, we did ten tracks in five days, so that was pretty cool, going in on Monday and on Friday night having the finished album.” The legend goes that the album was finished by the end of 2012, yet now it’s September 2014, and the record has only just hit the market. “I think it’s the management’s fault. Without pointing fingers or naming names, but yeah, it’s kind of ridiculous how quickly it was done. I can’t even talk any further about it, I’ll get too emotional.”
And so The Vines live on: “We’re gonna do some tours; I think we’re maybe gonna go to England later in the year. There’s nothing that’s in concrete, but I think there’ll be [a gig] in Sydney in about a month hopefully. It should be really exciting. “There is a rich history there. And I’m not necessarily ashamed or proud of it. It’s all been real. Ever since I started in the band, the whole nature of things, you grow up in school and you get pressure, no one’s going to help you make it in a band, no one wants to, so you have to kind of fight for it. When you believe in it, you fight for it, you get success or whatever... I knew starting out, it’s not like we were the Backstreet Boys, there’s a different kind of mentality. Some people do whatever they’re told to get fame or attention – not trying to diss the Backstreet Boys, I think they’re great – but we’ve done it our way, that’s all I can say.” WHAT: Wicked Nature (Independent)
FAME NO SPUR Much-loved for his roles in iconic television programs like Spaced, Black Books and Doctor Who, it’s Bill Bailey, stand-up comic, that’s up for discussion with Cyclone.
“I
feel an immense fondness for Australia because it was the first countries that I performed in outside of the UK,” enthuses Bill Bailey (in fact, ‘Bill’ is a nickname; he was born Mark). “The reaction I got was so encouraging – I never forgot that.” This visit Bailey, his comic approach one of befuddled and tripped-out rumination, will premiere Limboland. The show’s theme is (self )-perception and the slippage between what’s conceived and the reality – or, as Bailey puts it, “this gap, almost a transition, a sense of weightlessness, between how we imagine our lives and how they actually are, and how we imagine the world
and how it actually is.” Indeed, Bailey is seeking ‘the greater truths’. “It’s not too much of a New Agey mindfulness, ‘cause there’s a lot of jokes along the way!” When Bailey toured his last show, Qualmpeddler, he was feeling “grumpier” than of old – especially about politics. “The spur for that was an interview that I had on TV where I was referred to, and introduced as, ‘Bill Bailey, celebrity’. That really got under my skin. I realised that I was really very angry about it (laughs). I guess it’s really a bit of a realisation about the nature of fame and how people perceive me, and then comparing myself to the
sort of people who’ve achieved celebrity – these kinda reality show stars and people who are desperate for fame. There was a certain sense of pride which made me feel very angry about that – ‘Don’t cast me into the pit with these people!’ I suppose there’s maybe a bit of vanity, let’s be honest. You think, ‘Well, surely I’m not just some fame-hungry twerp!’” Regardless, Limboland is ‘more reflective’ than Qualmpeddler. “The stories and the anecdotes and the themes and the jokes are all based around me – my own experience of things not quite turning out how you imagine them.” That said, Bailey feels “anguish”, if not outright anger, over the “lurch to the right” in Europe and Australia – and, yes, that comes up in Limboland. (Bailey, a natural history buff, is notably frustrated by climate change deniers.) “You think, ‘Oh no – this is a backward step. Why has this happened?’”
comedy
Bailey is also a muso and will show off his latest unusual acquisition, a musical Bible custom-made by an Australian, in Limboland. “I like to look at new musical genres – I like to explore them.” He found ‘fresh’ inspiration at the recent Reading and Leeds Festivals in the ‘hip’ electro outfit Chvrches. “They sound like a band from the ‘80s and so I thought, ‘Wow, hang on, there’s something here,’” Bailey explains. “I’m working on a song actually, a new song, based around that which is [saying]: ‘The ‘80s, I hated them the first time around – not again!’” Best of all, Bailey, who once assembled a Kraftwerk tribute band called Augenblick, will do a Krautrock version of Miley Cyrus’ Wrecking Ball – “which,” he quips, “seems to go down very well.” WHAT: Bill Bailey: Limboland WHEN & WHERE: 1 & 2 Oct, Perth Convention And Exhibition Centre
THE MUSIC • 17TH SEPTEMBER 2014 • 17
do other things or whatever”, there was a point when Kessler and Interpol frontman Paul Banks decided to reconvene. Considering former-bassist Carlos Dengler (whose departure was announced on the band’s official website in May 2010) contributed to the songwriting and recording of Interpol, was there a sense of relief when new songs began to take shape in his absence? “The very first day, [Paul] was like, ‘Maybe I should start with the bass because I sing to bass melodies’ – that’s what he’s always done so it was no surprise. But I was like, ‘Oh, cool! Yeah, it makes sense,’ and then he picks up the bass and right away we make great headway with a few songs on the record. And we’ve never been that fast at doing things. So, um, I think when that was happening it was more like, ‘This is exciting,’ than sort of a relief… When I think back to rehearsals, when something new and exciting comes about you’re just excited – it feels as if you just took some drugs or something, you know?”
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POLE POSITION One of the first records Daniel Kessler purchased (aged nine) was Our Favourite Shop by The Style Council. Bryget Chrisfield needs no further convincing that music has always been “life and death stuff ” for the Interpol guitarist.
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nterpol’s guitarist Daniel Kessler is seated opposite wearing a crisp, collared shirt that looks freshly ironed. He arrived in Byron Bay just yesterday, but has already been on a bike ride and hit the beach twice. Kessler stumbled upon “a big dog walker’s beach”, which made him wish for his own canine companion: “I was just sayin’, ‘You know what? I kinda just wanna rent a dog for, like, an hour,’ and I was saying that to some of my guys in the crew who were with me. And today I was actually walking by the ocean, when I was just by myself, and this woman who had been, you know, throwing the ball or playing catch with the dog – this dog all of a sudden, like, abandons her and just comes up to me, drops the ball and it basically shifted gears to me. And I couldn’t believe it! I mean, in the best of ways I was like, ‘I am actually renting a dog right now’,” he laughs disbelievingly. “‘Cause it was actually making me very, very happy at that moment, to be: ‘This is all I wanted yesterday and then today this is what’s happening!’… Those moments are the best kind of moments, for me, when I go on tour.”
The guitarist has a dorky, infectious laugh and wheezes when he really guffaws (kinda like Eddie Murphy in Beverly Hills Cop). He’s one cool cat, which is supported by the fact that he grew up in Europe until he was about 11 years old. Kessler credits his two older brothers with introducing him to “pretty obscure bands”. “I mean, they also had good taste and I can safely say that. You know, my first musical memory is probably, like, The Jam – my brother was in The Jam fan club. I remember seeing them on Top Of The Pops. And The Specials – not the music, I was too young, under six – it was more about their look: I was fascinated by that. I was, like, five years old, but, I mean, I was living in London at the time. “But then, you know, The Style Council, Our Favourite Shop, was one of the first records I ever bought. I was pretty young I was like, haha, nine, which is crazy to say. But I do remember that very clearly, because I lived in 18 • THE MUSIC • 17TH SEPTEMBER 2014
a small village in France and there was no record store. So for me to buy I record I had to really make that decision in advance, go the 30 minutes to the closest record store and buy it.” Kessler’s brothers also dressed the part, back when they didn’t sell the ‘rockstar look’ at Jay Jays. “Wearing Doc Martins in France in the early ‘80s, it was dangerous! Like, people would steal shoes from you. But my brothers were very young and were so life and death about music, it was like a religion. I think that had a very lasting effect on me. I think of my brothers as a big influence.” A waiter shows up at our table and Kessler orders sparkling water and “the catch of the day” (snapper) with Asian vegetables on the side. Interpol toured their self-titled fourth studio album “a lot” and Kessler says the band didn’t feel pressured to make another album. After taking most of 2012 “to
Banks writes all of the vocal melodies and lyrics for Interpol and Kessler praises, “He’s one of those guys who can write a thousand different melodies for one song, and it’s about choosing which direction you wanna go in and what you wanna say… He really does it carte blanche and it’s always a really great pleasure when you get somewhere that he’s happy with. And there’s certain songs probably, or certain moments, where I’m like, ‘I’m crazy about that vocal,’ maybe more than others, but there’s never been one where I’m like, ‘I don’t like that,’ you know?… And it’s, like, if I really didn’t like something I think I would say it, ‘cause it’s your music: it’s like, ah, life and death stuff [laughs]. If it’s really something you’re not feeling – and plus you have to play it every single day – you need to pipe up.” Kessler says that El Pintor track Same Time, New Story almost became a b-side until Banks added some flavour
“WHEN I THINK BACK TO REHEARSALS, WHEN SOMETHING NEW AND EXCITING COMES ABOUT YOU’RE JUST EXCITED – IT FEELS AS IF YOU JUST TOOK SOME DRUGS OR SOMETHING, YOU KNOW?” in his absence. “I just remember walking in the studio the morning after Paul had been working that night and the engineer playing back to me what Paul had recorded, and hearing the bassline and a vocal,” he recalls, “and it was one of those great moments where I was just like, ‘I would never have imagined this in a million years!’… I just remember everyone was dancing around the studio, because I was really in love with it, like, right away.” Despite the band’s personnel changes, Kessler stresses, “I think this record sounds like an Interpol record and I think people can identify that right away… I mean, the songs do start with me, but I feel like they do belong to all of us, you know. They’re not Interpol pieces of music until we all touch it and move it into a certain direction and we all feel that they are ready for a presentation.” WHAT: El Pintor ([PIAS] Australia)
THE MUSIC • 17TH SEPTEMBER 2014 • 19
ALBUM OF THE WEEK
★★★★
album reviews
MISSY HIGGINS
ALT-J
Eleven/Universal
Infectious/Liberator
Taking on Australian music icons when not far from being one herself, Missy Higgins has embarked on an unusual but rewarding journey for her latest album, comprising entirely covers of Something For Kate, Dan Sultan, The Angels, Slim Dusty, Paul Kelly, The Drones and more. Rather than take her experiment down a worn path, Higgins digs beyond the more well-known favourites of her chosen homages. It’s a smart decision; with her very distinct, raw vocal she’s able to offer a bare but commanding slant on obscure picks from our rock and pop flagbearers.
The dreaded second album. An Awesome Wave was so lauded there was even more pressure on Mercury Prize-winning alt-J when creating their follow-up. This Is All Yours is inherently reactionary. Pop conventions, in particular the energy and wordiness, have taken a backseat to soundscapes, hazy repetition and through-composition. Crudely put, there is no Breezeblocks.
OZ
There are inevitable and obvious standouts on OZ. Higgins’ lush symphonic rendering of The Drones’ guttural Shark Fin Blues is arguably the best on the album. She manages to retain Gareth Liddiard’s bleak resignation but her sparse arrangement of piano and uplifting strings injects a sliver of hope into the murk. There’s no escaping Chrissy Amphlett’s
This Is All Yours
pout seeping into a stark version of the Divinyls’ Back To The Wall and Higgins certainly doesn’t shy away from doing so, nor does she meddle too much with Iva Davies’ bombast in Icehouse’s Don’t Believe Anymore. Other covers offer treatments just as fascinating; You Only Hide takes Something For Kate to a sweeter place, Everybody Wants To Touch Me oozes the same sensuality Paul Kelly instilled it with, as does The Blackeyed Susans’ Curse On You. Higgins has made these muchloved tracks sing with a bold, new voice yet with a deft touch that enhances without ever staking an egotistical claim. Carley Hall
The references to the Japanese city of Nara, where deer roam free in one of its park,s is a metaphor for freedom. Look, yes, it’s pretty pretentious, and this is not an album that is understood at first listen, or even second. What was at first alienating and disjointed becomes beautiful and complex at times, though even then, it is at times more bizarre, or dull, than good. It’s contradictory and contrasting, but makes the most sense in order, each piece a counterweight to the next. There are the mesmerising
U2
STEP-PANTHER
Island/Universal
HUB/Inertia
A freebie via iTunes for album U2’s number 13 (or so) was quite the move for Apple – way to clear stormy (i)Cloud stolen nude pix press. The price tag guarantees initial interest, but thankfully there are decent tunes to back up the gimmick. Thematically the album is a band looking back to the Ireland of their childhoods, evoking sounds and influences like opener, The Miracle (Of Joey Ramone), all the way through Cedarwood Road (frontman Bono’s boyhood haunt) to a quote from iconic Irish poet Seamus Heaney to end the album’s liner notes. Dedications to the grand B’s wife (Some For Someone) and mother (Iris [Hold Me Close]) also feature; however the former’s classic ballad form is the better of the two.
Step-Panther’s debut self-titled album was a mixed bag that pegged them as a band still finding their feet and throwing paint to see what might stick. Three years on, they’ve evolved from a short attention span garage-rock band with too many ideas to a ‘90s alternative rock-flavoured trio with plenty of good ideas and the ability to shape and execute them.
Songs Of Innocence
Things get a bit more interesting with Volcano (almost early ‘80s in its approach, albeit a bit slower), and Raised By Wolves also taps into an echoey narrative that old-school fans and their lost 20 • THE MUSIC • 17TH SEPTEMBER 2014
★★★ vocal ostinatos of Intro, the unfolding beauty of Arrival In Nara, the strange groove of Every Other Freckle. Some miss the mark, like the terrible approximation of a Red Hot Chili Peppers track, Left Hand Free. Centrepiece, Hunger Of The Pine is the best track on there and marks the beginning of the stronger half of the album, hitting the perfect mix of subverting expectation and delivering on it. Warm Foothills is another highlight, sensual and delightfully playing with vocal octaves. The Gospel Of John Hurt recaptures the magic of An Awesome Wave with its forward motion, but overall this album struggles to find a cohesive voice as whole work. Amorina Fitzgerald-Hood
Strange But Nice
★★★ mullets will appreciate. Danger Mouse pops up for production for almost half the album but his boldness isn’t overt until latter tracks Sleep Like A Baby Tonight and This Is Where You Can Reach Me Now. This Is Where’s pseudo-sci-fi mini bridge is proof the old dogs still try new tricks and definitely deserved a spot higher in the playlist, while closer, The Troubles, slow burns just enough. Trainspotters will notice that single, Invisible, spectacularly debuted at the Superbowl and Jimmy Fallon’s first Tonight Show, hasn’t reappeared here for some reason. Liz Giuffre
Frontman Stephen Bourke has honed his songwriting and learnt what to leave out of a song. His lyrics, singing and guitar playing all benefit here from an economical approach. From the Weller-esque ringing chords in Candy In The Sky to the Tony Iommi metallic riffing on User Friendly, there’s a central figure to nearly every song that gives it a definable sound. That’s not to say they’ve lost their sense of fun and musical adventure. Songs still take sharp turns without any indication but the changes feel right and fit perfectly.
★★★½ Taken as a whole, Strange But Nice is Step-Panther taking you on a guided tour of their (or at least Bourke’s) world of music where a sci-fi Weezer collides with The Bats and Sonic Youth remixes The Clean (Something Must Be Done). At its best the album contains absolute gems like Parallel, possibly the finest song they’ve written, with its cascading guitar riff and bittersweet melancholic chorus, or Zombie Summer’s back half, which circles repeatedly on itself. A couple of songs pull the album’s batting average down but overall Step-Panther have taken a great leap forward on their second full-length. Chris Familton
albums/singles/eps
★★★½
JACK LADDER & THE DREAMLANDERS Come On Back This Way (feat. Sharon Van Etten) Self Portrait/Inertia Jack Ladder’s low, Cavey voice is back and at its best, contrasted brilliantly by ‘80s synth work and reverberated guitars. The lyric is sublimely sinister and this reviewer is going to find himself obsessed once again. Great stuff after a lengthy time away.
ARIEL PINK Put Your Number In My Phone 4AD/Remote Control Ariel Pink’s written hundreds of songs, and he’s released another corker here. Sunlit and soft guitar work with stretching chord progressions lie behind Pink’s British psych-pop vocal influence, and it makes for a great tune in the lead up to summer.
AIRLING
ANTISKEPTIC
BEARHUG
Love Gracefully
Stare Down The Ocean
So Gone
Pieater/Inertia
Independent
Spunk
Through her Airling moniker, Hannah Shepherd delivers on the promise that her former band Charlie Mayfair, though a popular live act, never reached on record. Love Gracefully is intimate, lovely and beautifully restrained. This is late night music, with sparse loops and affecting vocals. First single The Runner has some ‘90s chill-out mix electronica vibes, propelled by Shepherd’s voice and aided by an ambient mix. Throughout Love Gracefully – particularly on delicate and sparse closer Ouroboros – you feel that Shepherd is holding something back emotionally, which gives the record a sense of wistful, guarded dignity and leaves you wanting more.
It’s been a long time coming, but Melbournites Antiskeptic are back. Six years is a long time to go between albums and, while the production of the record is definitely up to modern standards, the songwriting feels deliciously high school – opting for washed out distortion and actual guitar leads for atmosphere over looped synths. Only two original members of the band remain, but the band’s definitive sound of chunky alt. rock riffs, slamming rhythms and razor sharp vocal prowess that made them huge in the noughties is still as powerful as ever.
Sydney’s Bearhug take things into new sonic territory on So Gone, the follow-up to last year’s Over Easy EP. Gone are the clean, jangling and relatively unassuming songs. In their place are 11 tracks that fizz with layered, distorted guitars in the vein of Dinosaur Jr, Sonic Youth and a lively The War On Drugs. Bearhug’s breezy way with melody is still intact making So Gone sound alive with wistful and melancholic undercurrents and frayed edges courtesy of Owen Penglis’ (Straight Arrows) recording/mix. This swerve of the indie rock highway makes for a damn fine detour.
Independent The song may sound a little generic, but this local poprock quartet are talented, showing plenty of promise and could very well be on their way to breaking into commercial status. It’s good to see that sort of thing happening in Perth.
WHITE OAK & STUYVESANT Let You Down Independent Soaring vocals and a solid guitar hook make this rock track a catchy hit from the get-go. Their upcoming single launch looks very promising. Kane Sutton
Bailey Lions
Chris Familton
Madeleine Laing
MORE REVIEWS themusic.com.au/reviews ★★★★
CALM COLLECTED Nothing Like The Movies
★★★½
★★★★
★★★½
TWEEDY
VARIOUS
Sukierae
Dead Man’s Town: A Tribute To Born In The USA
Anti-/Warner Enigmatic Americana mainstay Jeff Tweedy (Uncle Tupelo, Wilco) has finally released a solo album, a fascinating foray into hitherto uncharted waters. Tweedy doesn’t deal in half measures, so naturally Sukierae is a 20-song double-album of poptinged indie singer-songwriter fare, coloured with country licks, soul flecks and tinges of folk and blues. It’s a calm and assuring selection of songs, with enough variety in mood and construction that it never lags or feels tonally repetitive. An old-fashioned double-album of two halves with completely different vibes, the first seems more studio-oriented and atmospheric, while the second uses space as a weapon.
Lightning Rod/Cooking Vinyl Ever imagined what The Boss’s 1984 smash, Born In The USA would sound like if given the same acoustic treatment he’d afforded Nebraska two years earlier? The album’s dozen songs are stripped of rock bombast and all survive with integrity intact – highlights include Justin Townes Earle’s rendition of Glory Days, Trampled By Turtles’ I’m Going Down, Nicole Atkins’ Dancing In The Dark, Low’s I’m On Fire and Joe Pug’s Downbound Train, but it mainly serves to remind how great the actual album is.
The Ellis Collective – Carry David Bridie – Take The Next Illusionary Exit Joe Rafidi – Phases Emilie Simon – Mue Adam Cohen – We Go Home Busdriver – Perfect Hair Client Liaison – Client Liaison Nikki Lane – All Or Nothin’ Slow Magic – How To Run Away
Steve Bell
Steve Bell THE MUSIC • 17TH SEPTEMBER 2014 • 21
live reviews
SHOCKONE, BEATSLAPPAZ, WUKI, DISTRO, PHILLY BLUNT, MONO LISA Ambar 12 Sep Admissions first: it’s been a while since this reviewer’s last visit to Ambar, a night that ended up with the loss of important material possessions and sanity. Friday night proved to be a good re-entry point, with a range of styles on show for the sixth birthday of local all-in dance night, Force Majeure. It wouldn’t be an Ambar night without a few little twists, though, and the offer of two on-the-button
SHOCKONE @ AMBAR. PIC:
underground acts – and one surprise guest – was too much for a whole lot of people. A pretty eclectic crowd filed in and down the stairs as Mono Lisa and Philly Blunt both lay down the mood with some high-energy sets. Both did their best to cover as much ground as possible; split between shuffling rave kids, hipsters, gym dudes and a few more little niches, reading the crowd was obviously the main focus. Philly’s set bounced around through bassdriven house and slow, funky grooves in equal measure. UK-based Distro amped up the night a bit with a set packed full of dirty garage and wonky, broken techno sounds. The Bristol producer produced what was probably the weirdest set. Turning I Whip My Hair Back And Forth into a synthy jam and 22 • THE MUSIC • 17TH SEPTEMBER 2014
Bitch Don’t Kill My Vibe into a bassy banger were smart moves. Continuing the theme of “everything goes”, Wuki brought a reputation for genre-bending with him as well. Specialising in Detroit techno and footwork, Wuki’s set was one continuous dance competition, with the floor filling out. Generous amounts of breaks and trippy footwork tracks kept everyone on their feet. Like Distro, Wuki has a penchant for morphing pop samples into weird, spacey noises. As for the surprise act, well, there’s probably no one more fitting to celebrate a WA club night than ShockOne. The local producer-cum-d’n’b legend obviously wanted to keep it lowkey tonight, and his set reflected that. Foregoing the heavier side of his music, ShockOne focused
their deep, heavy set provided just enough boost to make it out into the dawn and back home, smile on face and keys still in pocket. Cam Findlay
BIGSOUND LIVE Fortitude Valley 10 & 11 Sep Sydney trio Step-Panther bring the fun to kick off the car park stage outside The Brightside. They emit a stream of ragged but catchy indie-rock, veering towards the punk end of the spectrum minus any hint of nihilism. They profess to being shy but happy to yarn with anyone who feels inclined to buy them a beer, and after their killer intro to BIGSOUND Live this year only a tight-arse would begrudge them this smallest of pleasures.
DMA’S @ BIGSOUND LIVE. PIC: FREYA LAMONT
more on carrying the vibe of his predecessors, even throwing a few loungey numbers in for good measure. Big bass, as usual, was the order of the night, though, and like the international guests he pounded the sound system with the most thumping sounds he had. The eventual dawning on the crowd that, yes, this was in fact ShockOne was definitely a highlight of the night; watching people dance harder once they realised was priceless. Once again, ShockOne was set on mixing up the angles, and he leapt from beat to beat with grace. While a couple of holes appeared here and there, his set was almost consistent. Beatslappaz were perfectly placed to finish off the night, throwing out a breaks-heavy set that seemed to confirm the way the entire night was going. Without letting up the energy too much,
grooves and filthy rock of hirsute, howlin’ hero Steve Smyth take hold of the lower extremities and create a magnetic field of attraction around the stage. Over the course of his sweat-inducing set, Smyth proves to be more than a one-trick pony. Late standout Shake It (which gets a simply massive response, it must be said) demonstrates his talent for a touch of discord and quasicrooning interspersed with deep grooves and metronomically precise, thundering percussion. There’s a lot going for Melbourne’s Teeth & Tongue. They’ve got a solid sound, a frontwoman with a lot of charisma, and just enough praise and support to give them the momentum needed to move forward. However, during this performance their songs never reach much beyond the point
BAD//DREEMS @ BIGSOUND LIVE. PIC: FREYA LAMONT
WA trio The Love Junkies hit hard, like a much-needed punch to the throat, with their grunge-tinged rock, the songs scuzzy and leery but rife with hooks and innate melody. They play with a conviction that shouts how much they love what they’re doing and “screw any industry validation”, but seem to be converting copious fans to the cause regardless. The impassioned performance of Jesse Davidson goes a long way in leading his band toward a successful set. The three-piece turns four part way through to step up their game, and when they announce the arrival of their standout Ocean, the sound of a hushed but heartfelt “yes!” among the front rows says it all. It’s instantly impossible to avoid letting out an involuntary “Yeeeeessssss” as the seedy
of ok and tonight that’s just not enough to do the job. Even a couple of years ago the prospect of Adelaide miscreants Bad//Dreems killing it at an industry showcase like BIGSOUND would have seemed incongruous. But tonight they grab the conference by the throat and shake it for all it’s worth with a set of assured and crafty rock’n’roll. By the time they finish their showcase, people are still streaming in but no one is leaving, which speaks volumes by itself. There has been some serious buzz building lately around Sydney-bred outfit Spookyland, aka Marcus Gordon and the people who understand Marcus Gordon’s insane brilliance well enough to help him translate his songs to a full-band setting. It would be disingenuous to say
live reviews they’re likely to be everyone’s cup of tea - but those who are into it are super into it. For their part, the band make good on the promise they show so strongly on paper, especially during recent breakthrough The Silly Fucking Thing. The alluring voice of Felicity Groom carries the greater weight of her four-piece band through much of their set. There is not a great deal of stage presence happening but it still works somehow. The pieces certainly add to more than their parts, and a degree of musical chairs amongst the players only heightens the effect. And if all this wasn’t already enough, there’s an anti-Tony Abbott song to lend a little extra enthusiasm to the proceedings. Perth’s Usurper Of Modern Medicine deliver an inventive take on the three-piece combo of bass, keys and drums. Their progressive leanings don’t rely solely on the all-too-troden archetypes, but rather venture out for the better. They go as far as mixing in elements of trip-hop, through a joyous
layering of vocal samples, and the result is a great success. Though there is good reason for the hype that has encircled DMA’s in recent times, tonight the world-beating Newtown natives are using their BIGSOUND opportunity to demonstrate exactly how much they’re capable of beyond merely copying and pasting (sorry) the world-beating Delete. The audience is completely abuzz with energy and excitement and, somewhat rarely amid a sea of industry seriousness, a sense of genuine fun as the band treat us to compositions both new and familiar with the ease and confidence of hardened vets. By this point Queensland crowds are all too familiar with the youthful brilliance of Thelma Plum, but few are likely ready for such a strong stage presence. Her shortened and anaesthetised version of Father Said delivers all new levels of complexity, however, it’s still not enough to keep the busy Elephant Hotel crowd form their incessant chatter.
After a short delay due to apparent technical difficulties, humble troubadour D.D Dumbo takes to the Alhambra Lounge’s stage in front of a heaving mass of interested parties, from industry bigwigs to curious bystanders. He’s an undeniably innovative musician, an expert in the arts of restrained beauty and stillness as well as hip-enthralling grooves and impassioned vocals. With a knack for loopy oneman theatrics like Dumbo’s, who even needs a band? Bringing the rave and closing out the night are Perth-based trio Crooked Colours. These guys are all about the party – enticing the crowd in with introspective and delicately crafted lows before letting loose on any one of the abundance of synth-heavy bass drops. Their energetic stage presence and gritty electronics live up to the name they’re quickly creating for themselves and all in all, did not disappoint.
numbers pack in for Kingswood’s headlining set at The Brightside. They’re well oiled and they’ve got all the moves, so easy to see why they’re having so much success but at the end of it all they never really deliver anything worthy of a long-term cherished memory. Mitch Knox, Steve Bell, Jake Sun, Ben Marnane Read the full review online at theMusic.com.au
MORE REVIEWS themusic.com.au/reviews/live
There’s little doubt that they’re the biggest name band of the night, so it’s no surprise that the
arts reviews
SIN CITY 2: A DAME TO KILL FOR
SIN CITY 2: A DAME TO KILL FOR Film
In cinemas 18 Sep
★★★★ Straight up – if you liked the first Sin City, expect the
same thing, but some of the actors have changed. Which is okay because Josh Brolin is a great replacement for Clive Owen as the young Dwight. This movie has had a variety of responses in ratings and reviews but it should be seen for what it is – good old-fashion Frank Miller noir. It’s an old tale so nothing good is meant to be said. The world is a horrible place. Men are awful. Jessica
Alba is fantastic in the film, and the continuation of her weird relationship with the dead Bruce Willis is great. The title story, A Dame To Kill For, is probably referencing the most enjoyable and bizarre characters of Rosario Dawson and Eva Green who steal the show. Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s Johnny is a gambler and performs one of the greatest clichéd dark power play moments.
Don’t expect it to be better, don’t expect it to be worse. It’s a film about style and the separate stories are put together nicely. The film is non-linear, with parts set after the first film and others set before. This isn’t a film for everyone but if you liked the first one don’t listen to what people say, this film is damn fun. Matthew Ziccone THE MUSIC • 17TH SEPTEMBER 2014 • 23
24 • THE MUSIC • 17TH SEPTEMBER 2014
the guide Answered by: Stuart Fergie Best record you stole from your folks’ collection? My parents were given Dreadlock Rasta – Bob Marley as a housewarming present. What a score! First record you bought? I had to wait till high school to buy my first turntable, and you got a free record with it. I chose Low End Theory – A Tribe Called Quest.
OKA
Record you put on when you’re really miserable? It’s Whitelabel remixes of Kash Kali and Chicane, an epic sunrise mix of positive goodness. Always takes me back to when I really got into electronica, just makes me happy. Record you put on when you bring someone home? Home Again – Michael Kiwanuka. Always brings the good vibes in the room. Respect every time. Most surprising record in your collection? Humphrey B Bear singalong album... yep, ha ha ha. Had to get it in the collection. Last thing you bought/downloaded? The last tunes I downloaded were by Brisbane artist Jordan Rakei, Franklin’s Room. So beautiful and soulful. When and where are your next gigs? Wed 24 Sep, Mojo’s Bar; Thu 25 Sep, Prince Of Wales, Bunbury; Fri 26 Sep, Settlers Tavern, Margaret River; Sat 27 Sep, Indi Bar; Sun 28 Sep, Railway Hotel Website link for more info? okamusic.com
THE MUSIC • 17TH SEPTEMBER 2014 • 1
eat/drink
ADD SOME FLOWER
vinegar and tea. This Northeastern European and Asian lovechild has a tangy, slightly bitter taste and is one of China’s most popular choices for herbal tea.
AMERICAN ELDERBERRY
We’re not trying to going all hippie on you, but with spring in the air, we thought we might celebrate by becoming floral flavour connoisseurs. Words Taylor Yates. Illustrations Sophie Blackhall-Cain.
NASTURTIUMS
CHRYSANTHEMUMS
Available in bright colours like red, orange and yellow, this one makes us feel like a kid in a candy shop. But you know, with less candy, and more… petals. Native to Peru, this bloom’s a bit of the spicy side, and has a similar taste to watercress. PS. Its name is Latin for “nose twist”!
Nicknamed “mums” by gardeners around the globe, chrysanthemums sport petals in all shades between red and white, and are often used as a garnish in salads,
Most commonly used in jam, the berries and flowers of American elderberries are the only edible part of the plant – pretty much all the rest of it is toxic. With their tart taste, you can also use them in cocktails and to make wine. Risky and delicious.
DANDELION (TARAXACUM) French for “lion’s tooth” and most commonly used as herbal tea, they’re likened taste-wise to spinach – but watch out, they get bitter as they mature. Never fear though, every part of the flower is usable, and when’s it not masquerading as a tea, it’s often found in food, medicines and dyes.
HIBISCUS ROSA-SINENSIS Vibrant red in colour, hibiscus rosa-sinensis has a citrus-y taste with a hint of tartness. Traditionally used in tea, the leaves are commonly used in salads and are rich in vitamin C. They can also be steeped and blended to a paste to make a shampoo for dandruff – yeah, you could say this one’s a bit of a multi-tasker.
POISONOUS MUSHROOMS When you’re done eating flowers, (we’re not judging you… much), you’re probably wondering what else there is to eat in your front lawn. You might be a bit strapped for choices, but definitely try to avoid these mushrooms: Deathcap mushroom/Amanita phalloides (who would’ve guessed) – which will most certainly kill you. Galerina – which often gets confused with the magic mushroom variety (psilocybe subaeruginosa) but is much more toxic, with some species proving to be lethal if ingested. Agaricus xanthodermus/Yellow-staining mushroom – which looks like a normal mushroom, but is full of bad news (ie. causes gastrointestinal upset), which wouldn’t be very fungi at all.
26 • THE MUSIC • 17TH SEPTEMBER 2014
the guide wa.live@themusic.com.au
FRONTLASH
LIVE THIS WEEK
CLOWNING AROUND
Clowns guitarist Joe Hansen found himself on Channel 7’s Million Dollar Minute last Wednesday, taking home $26,500 for his Melbournebased hardcore band.
ONE MAN SHOW
ON TOP OF THE WORLD
WAYWARD DAUGHTER
One of Australia’s most celebrated contemporary songwriters and the driving creative force behind The Drones, Gareth Liddiard, is to perform an intimate show at the Rosemount this Saturday, with support from Cam Avery.
With his third album Utopia dropping on in June, 360 has created a unique world of hip hop. He brings his national tour to Perth this Saturday at the Astor Theatre. Hopsin, PEZ, Miracle and Lunar C support.
Presented by the West Australian Ballet, La Fille Mal Gardee follows the life of ‘50s rural Frenchwoman, Lise. It’s showing now at His Majesty’s Theatre, with the last performance taking place this Saturday night.
A WORLD OF PAIN
HEAR THE RAW (POWER)
TRIP THE LIGHT FANTASTIC
Rock n’ rollers The Painkillers are set to work up punters once again with material from a new EP, Garage Sale Girl. Catch the action this Saturday night at Mojo’s, with top supporting acts in tow.
Showing that you only need a little to make a lot, Lionizer are the two-piece that could. Catch them at Mustang Bar on Thursday; Camel Bar, Geraldton, Friday and Saturday, and Newport Hotel on Sunday,
AZ20, a night celebrating 20 years of RTRFM’s experimental program, Ambient Zone, is happening Sunday at The Bird. Boundaries will be pushed by Furchick, Sacred Flower Union, Craig McElhinney and more.
BIGSOUND We’re still recovering from the epic musical overload that was BIGSOUND Live in Brisbane, but have already put next year’s dates into our calendar.
BEST FEST Indie label UNFD has revealed cryptic plans for a new heavy music festival called Unify. Hopefully it will make it over to WA.
JOE HANSEN
BACKLASH FINAL WORDS
Legendary Channel 7 reporter Denis Cometti will retire when his contract expires in 2016. TV will never be the same.
HIS PEOPLE
THE FINGER EXPERIENCE
PACKS A PUNCH
YOU TOO
Kim Moyes, member of electronica act The Presets, plays a huge show at Metropolis Fremantle this Saturday. The energy will be pulsating, with support from Motorik Vibe Council and Linda Marigliano.
Sticky Fingers are back in the country after a two-month tour of Europe, and play the Bakery this weekend to support their album, Land Of Pleasure. The Saturday show’s sold out, but tickets are still available for Sunday night.
Based on the life story of Geoff rey Narkle, King Hit mirrors the lives of many Aboriginal people of his generation. Catch the inspiring story at The Courtyard, State Theatre Centre from this Thursday until 4 Oct.
Like it or not, the new record from U2, Songs Of Innocence, was downloaded into your iTunes library upon its release. Perhaps iTunes should take the same approach with Nickelback’s next record.
CORE VALUE SETTING THE TONE
SICK CHILD
MASTER OF THE ART
Doom/shoegaze trio Skullcave launch their debut single Acid Tone at Four5Nine Bar this Saturday night. Supporting will be the likes of garage rockers Apache, grungers Black Stone From The Sun and Bad China.
Childsaint are set to launch their new EP, Sick, at The Bird on Friday - the quartet promise to whip up some expansive soundscapes that’ll give you some feelings. Support comes from Dream Rimmy and Delay Delay.
The Doug Anthony Allstars had a huge week performing at the Regal Theatre last week, and they’re leaving their mark with an original art exhibition running at the Perth Cultural Centre daily from now until 16 Oct.
Apple revealed the iPhone 6 last week. For a company who claimed others were ripping off their ideas, the new release sure seems to follow trends set by other developers.
FOR MORE HEAD TO THEMUSIC.COM.AU THE MUSIC • 17TH SEPTEMBER 2014 • 27
the guide wa.live@themusic.com.au
ALBUM FOCUS
HAVE YOU HEARD from start to finish and full of emotional and upbeat indie-folk songs layered with in-depth lyrics on losing loved ones, trying to stay alive and cats.
of ideas I’m playing with. Was anything in particular inspiring you during the making? Camp Doogs/exploring different styles and melting them together. Trying new things.
Greatest rock’n’roll moment of your career to date? Keeping a journal of the cleanliness of public toilets on the road from Adelaide to Newcastle while on our first national tour. Or playing main stage at Hyperfest.
What’s your favourite song on it? Heavy Blissers Vol 2
SACRED FLOWER UNION Answered by: Dan Griffin Album title? Afternoon Reflectors Where did the title of your new album come from? Lazy afternoons when everything around is just chill. How many releases do you have now? Eight on the web on various blogs, all pretty lo-fi , I’m yet to record a ‘real’ album.... How long did it take to write/ record? No idea! Three to four months? All my releases are kind of stream-of-consciousness a la Mark McGuire/sun Araw, so in a way I don’t really have albums, more editions
Will you do anything differently next time? Next two releases are worlds apart. One is a beats mixtape and the other is really ambient and textural... I record using my phone so maybe I’ll try real recording afterwards? When and where is your launch/ next gig? Next is RTR Ambient Zone 20th birthday party, 21 Sep, The Bird, and then some cool shows but they’re not announced yet so I gotta keep it on the down low till then ;) Website link for more info? sacredflowerunion.bandcamp.com
LIONIZER Answered by: Bailey Lions How did you get together? I was jamming in another band and Vez came over and made me a sandwich. We’ve since moved onto burritos, but the bonds of sandwiches cannot be broken. Sum up your musical sound in four words? Ballistic, energetic, surprising, fun If you could support any band in the world – past or present – who would it be? The Front Bottoms, Against Me!, or Amanda Palmer You’re being sent into space, no iPod, you can bring one album – what would it be? Reconstruction Site – The Weakerthans. Solid
PERSONAL BEST RECORDS
Why should people come and see your band? We’re fun and awkward and you might find the next great ‘Screw you, I’m awesome’ song to send your ex. When and where for your next gig? We play the Mustang Bar on Thursday 18 Sep – it’s the first show of our September tour. Website link for more info? lionizer.bandcamp.com
EP FOCUS
bring someone home? Below The Bassline – Ernest Ranglin, ft Monty Alexander on keys. Heavygrooving Jamaican jazz. All class.
BAND OF FREQUENCIES Answered by: Shannon Carroll Best record you stole from your folks’ collection? They had a few original pressings by New Orleans funk masters The Meters, but Rejuvenation is the one. First record you bought? Sesame Street Fever, the muppet disco record, including such hits as C Is For Cookie featuring the Cookie Monster promoting “Disco disco dancing cookies”... Record you put on when you’re really miserable? Music Makes Me Happy – OKA Record you put on when you 28 • THE MUSIC • 17TH SEPTEMBER 2014
Most surprising record in your collection? Paul Hogan Narrates Peter And The Wolf is definitely worth a listen “for your pleasure and edification…”. Last thing you bought/ downloaded? Flying – Garth Stevenson. He scored the Australian film Tracks and I loved it so much I bought his latest album. When and where are your next gigs? 18 Sep, Mojo’s Bar with Simon Kelly and Jordan McRobbie; and 21 Sep, Indi Bar with Simon Kelly
CHILDSAINT Answered by: Chloë McGrath EP title? Sick How many releases do you have now? This is our first! (Unless you count the first amalgamation of Childsaint’s unofficial bedroom demos). Was anything in particular inspiring you during the making? The heat. We recorded in (producer) Rob’s house over the summer. There was lots of beer and sweat, and taking breaks on the front porch watching the sun set – that’s definitely inspiring. What’s your favourite song on it? Bury Me – we had a lot of
fun with it and I think it turned out better than we anticipated. We’ll like this EP if we like... Sharon Van Etten, Warpaint, Kurt Vile, Batrider, lo fi and sad grrls. When and where is your launch/ next gig? Our EP launch, 19 Sep at The Bird (yay!) Website link for more info? facebook. com/childsaintband
201 QUEEN VICTORIA ST NORTH FREMANTLE, WA PH: 08 9335 2725 | www.theswanhotelfremantle.com
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SUPPORTING ORIGINAL MUSIC SINCE 1989
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the guide wa.gigguide@themusic.com.au
THE MUSIC PRESENTS CARAVANA SUN: SEP 12, Pier Hotel, Esperance; SEP 13, Boston Brewery, Denmark; SEP 14, Rosemount Hotel DMA’S, THE CREASES: SEP 25, Mojo’s Bar; SEP 26, Amplifier Bar
RADIO BIRDMAN: NOV 9, Rosemount Hotel THE SMITH STREET BAND: NOV 29, Rosemount Hotel THY ART IS MURDER: DEC 17, Capitol; DEC 18, YMCA HQ
COURNTEY BARNETT: SEP 26, Fly By Night BLUEJUICE: SEP 26, Capitol THE DECLINE: SEPT 27, Amplifier Bar MISSY HIGGINS: OCT 16, Crown Theatre; OCT, 18 Bunbury Regional Entertainment Centre BALL PARK MUSIC: OCT 24, Astor Theatre; OCT 25, Settlers Tavern, Margaret River
ONGOING:
GIGNITION: Upcoming band showcases 4-8pm last Sunday of each month at The Railway Hotel BEX ‘N’ TURIN’S OPEN MIC NIGHT: 8pm-late every Tuesday at Rosemount Hotel
GIG OF THE WEEK ANDY BULL: 19 SEP THE BAKERY
WED 17
Trivia: Albion Hotel, Cottesloe Randa & The Soul Kingdom: Balmoral, East Victoria Park Open Mic Night with Shaun Street: Carine Glades Tavern, Duncraig Adrian Wilson: Citro Bar, Perth
COURTNEY BARNETT
Songwriter’s Night + Ben Merito: Clancys Canning Bridge, Applecross
CLUB GUIDE
FRI 19
Tchami + Terace + Drifter + Paul Scott + City Kid + Parakord: Ambar, Perth Kim (The Presets) + Motorik Vibe Council: Parker Nightclub, Northbridge DJ Neil Viney: Public House, Perth Dave + DJ Ben Sebastian: The Aviary, Perth
SAT 20
Maiko + Luke P + Rob Sharp + Various DJs: Geisha Bar, Northbridge
Trivia: Como Hotel, Como Decoy Duo: Crown Perth (Lobby Lounge), Burswood
Kim (The Presets) + Motorik Vibe Council + Linda Marigliano: Metropolis, Fremantle Zel + Dave + Genga: The Aviary, Perth Critical Sound feat. Kasra + Enei + Mefjus: Villa Nightclub, Perth
SUN 21
Manteca: Ellington Jazz Club, Perth Steve Nieve: Fly By Night, Fremantle Trivia: Herdsman Lake Tavern, Wembley Howie Morgan: Lucky Shag, Perth
Butch: Bob’s Bar, Perth
Julius Lutero + Bartlett Bros + Joe Pule + Siobhan Cotchin: Mojo’s Bar, North Fremantle
Dj Ben Sebastian: The Aviary, Perth
Timothy Nelson + Amber Fresh: Moon Cafe, Northbridge
Habitat Rooftop Party feat. Butch + Richard Lee + Darren J + Houshed + Nathan Francis: The Stables Bar, Perth
Easy Tigers + Madam Montage: Mustang Bar, Northbridge Newport Wednesdays + DJ Bliss: Newport Hotel, Fremantle Dove: Paddington Ale House, Mt Hawthorn Surroundings + Statues + Winterfold + Hollow Ground: Rosemount Hotel, North Perth DJ Anton Maz: Rosemount Hotel (Beer Garden), North Perth White Avenue + King Crime + Union + Penance + The Fruity Whites + more: Rosemount Hotel (459 Bar), North Perth Steve Nieve: State Theatre Centre, Perth Open Mic Night with Greg Carter: Swinging Pig, Rockingham Damien Leith: Swings Taphouse, Margaret River Chance Encounters feat. Tornado Wallace: The Bird, Northbridge
Adam Hall & the Velvet Playboys: The Laneway Lounge, Perth Trivia: Vic, Subiaco JC5: Ya Ya’s, Northbridge
THU 18
Last Night feat. Dream On Dreamer: Amplifier Bar, Perth
Jamie Munslow-Davies + The Hounds + Lumpy Dog + Bad China + Black Stone from the Sun: Rosemount Hotel (459 Bar), North Perth Night Signals + Necter + Howling Bones: Rosemount Hotel, North Perth Adam James: Rubix Bar & Cafe, Perth
Karaoke: Brass Monkey Hotel, Northbridge
Comedy @ Settlers feat. Troy Kinne: Settlers Tavern, Margaret River
Siren Song Enterprises: Brighton Hotel, Mandurah
Shot Down From Sugartown: Swallow Bar, Maylands
Karaoke: Brooklands Tavern, Southern River
Claude Hay + Ragdoll + 1,000 Years + The Date: Swan Basement, North Fremantle
Trivia: Captain Stirling, Nedlands Open Mic Night + Various Artists: Clancys Fish Pub, Dunsborough Jack & Jill : Crown Perth (Lobby Lounge), Burswood Rock n Roll Karaoke with Magnus Danger Magnus: Devilles Pad, Perth Open Mic Night with Kris Buckle: Dunsborough Tavern, Dunsborough Sam Anning Quintet: Ellington Jazz Club, Perth Beacy’s Got Talent + Various Artists: Fly By Night, Fremantle Damien Leith: Friends Restaurant, Perth Greg Carter: Gate Bar & Bistro, Success Noiseworks + Mark Seymour + Danni Stefanetti: KalgoorlieBoulder Racing Club, Kalgoorlie Howie Morgan: Lakers Tavern, Thornlie James Wilson: Lucky Shag, Perth
Fat Sparrow + Nic Brown + The Prefix: The Bird, Northbridge Jessie Gordon Trio: The Laneway Lounge, Perth Nathan Gaunt: The Northshore Tavern, Hillarys Dave Robertson Duo: The Odd Fellow, Fremantle Trivia: The Saint, Innaloo Priority One + At The Space Jam + Ascending Fall + Figure 23: Ya Ya’s, Northbridge
FRI 19
Ladies & Gentlemen, The Songs of George Michael with Anthony Callea: Astor Theatre, Mount Lawley Various Artists: Balmoral, East Victoria Park Various Artists: Belgian Beer Cafe, Perth Various Artists: Belmont Tavern, Cloverdale
Band of Frequencies + Simon Kelly & The Big Bamboo + Jordan McRobbie: Mojo’s Bar, North Fremantle
Damien Leith: Boab Tavern, High Wycombe
The Fix: Moon Cafe, Northbridge
Frenzy + DJ Misschief: Brighton Hotel, Mandurah
Lionizer + Being Beta + Radio In Motion: Mustang Bar, Northbridge
Various Artists: Brooklands Tavern, Southern River
Open Mic Night with Chris Kinna: Peel Ale House, Halls Head Sticky Fingers: Prince of Wales, Bunbury
Vicktor: Brass Monkey Hotel, Northbridge
DJ Boogie: Clancys Canning Bridge, Applecross Zarm Duo: Clancys Fish Pub, City Beach
YOUR NIGHT STARTS HERE. DOWNLOAD THE MUSIC APP NOW AT THEMUSIC.COM.AU/APP
30 • THE MUSIC • 17TH SEPTEMBER 2014
the guide wa.gigguide@themusic.com.au A Dead Man’s Dance feat. The Isolites + Rumskull + more: Devilles Pad, Perth
Sticky Fingers: The Bakery, Northbridge
Various Artists: Dunsborough Tavern, Dunsborough
AZ20 feat. Sacred Flower Union + Furchick + Craig McElhinney + more: The Bird, Northbridge
Grace Knight: Ellington Jazz Club, Perth
Howie Morgan: The Saint, Innaloo
The Spread + Lewis Moody: Ellington Jazz Club, Perth
Renogade: The Shed, Northbridge
TinyClub feat. Mak & Pasteman: Flyrite, Northbridge
MON 22
Rodriguez Jr + Shadow Brothers + Various DJs: Geisha Bar, Northbridge
Various DJs: Brass Monkey Hotel, Northbridge
Chris Gibbs: Gosnells Hotel, Gosnells
Trivia: Clancys Canning Bridge, Applecross
Various Artists: Herdsman Lake Tavern, Wembley
Song Lounge: Ellington Jazz Club, Perth
Woodlock: Hyde Park Hotel, North Perth
Wide Open Mic: Mojo’s Bar, North Fremantle
DJ Grizzly + Various Artists: Lakers Tavern, Thornlie 360 + Hopsin + Pez + Miracle + Lunar C: Metro City, Northbridge Katy Steele: Mojo’s Bar, North Fremantle Karaoke: Newport Hotel (Two Sparrows Bar), Fremantle Madam Montage: Newport Hotel, Fremantle Grant Hart: Rendezvous Grand Hotel (Lobby Bar), Scarborough Project Redlight + Energy Comission + Them Sharks + Suburban & Coke + The MDC: Rosemount Hotel (459 Bar), North Perth Savoir + Catlips + Morgan St Sound System + The Move + more: Rosemount Hotel, North Perth
Trivia: Rosemount Hotel, North Perth
MEG MAC: 20 SEP, AMPLIFIER BAR Dream On Dreamer: YMCA HQ (All Ages), Leederville
SAT 20
Japan 4 + Miss Demeanour + Tee EL + Mo’Fly + Philly Blunt + Meet Mark: Ambar, Perth Meg Mac + Rainy Day Women: Amplifier Bar, Perth 360 + Hopsin + Pez + Miracle + Lunar C: Astor Theatre, Mount Lawley Various Artists: Balmoral, East Victoria Park Various Artists: Brass Monkey Hotel, Northbridge
Karaoke: Newport Hotel (Two Sparrows Bar), Fremantle Felix: Paramount Nightclub, Northbridge Parker Saturdays + Various DJs: Parker Nightclub, Northbridge Teachings In Dub feat. The KBI Sound System: Railway Hotel, North Fremantle
Big Tommo’s Open Mic Variety Night: Ya Ya’s, Northbridge Breakfast with The Limelights Jazz Trio: Clancys Fish Pub, City Beach Dave Mann Collective: Clancys Fish Pub, Dunsborough Various Artists: Como Hotel, Como Various Artists: Dunsborough Tavern, Dunsborough
Domenic Zurzolo: Rendezvous Grand Hotel (Lobby Bar), Scarborough
Music Rocks the Fly By Night + Various Artists: Fly By Night, Fremantle
Gareth Liddiard + Cam Avery: Rosemount Hotel, North Perth
Hernan Cattaneo: Geisha Bar, Northbridge
Skullcave + Black Stone from the Sun + Pat Chow + Bad China: Rosemount Hotel (459 Bar), North Perth
Various Artists: Gosnells Hotel, Gosnells Various Artists: Kalamunda Hotel, Kalamunda
Gunshy Romeos: Rosie O’Gradys, Fremantle
DJ Squinty: Brighton Hotel, Mandurah
Rottofest 2014 feat Andy Bull + Panama + Coin Banks + Woodlock + Rainy Day Women + Deja + Bootleg Rascal + Our Man In Berlin + Lyall Moloney + Micah + NDorse + Paradise Paul + New Navy + Angus Dawson + more: Rottnest Island, Rottnest Island
Death Disco feat. Slumberjack: Capitol, Perth
The Gypsy Minions: Sail & Anchor, Fremantle
New Navy: Causeway Bar, Victoria Park
Tiki Taane + Optimus Gryme: Settlers Tavern, Margaret River
Steve Parkin: Clancys Canning Bridge, Applecross
DJ Peas: Swallow Bar, Maylands
Spy Glass Gypsies: Mojo’s Bar, North Fremantle
Bare Bones #6 feat. Jacob Diamond + Lynda Smyth: Swan Basement, North Fremantle
Rock Scholars: Mojo’s Bar, North Fremantle
Howie Morgan: Sail & Anchor, Fremantle Sticky Fingers: Settlers Tavern, Margaret River Ragdoll + The Date: Swan Basement, North Fremantle Wall of Noise #3 + Various Artists: Swan Hotel, North Fremantle Andy Bull + Angus Dawson + The Peppermint Cloud Club: The Bakery, Northbridge Childsaint + Dream Rimmy + Delay Delay: The Bird, Northbridge Kelly Read: The Boat, Mindarie
Deep Sea Disco + DJ Swami Adima: Clancys Fish Pub (Red Room), Dunsborough Decoy: Crown Perth (Groove Bar), Burswood Various Artists: Dunsborough Tavern, Dunsborough Grace Knight: Ellington Jazz Club, Perth DD Soul feat Chelsea Cullen: Ellington Jazz Club, Perth
Flava: Rosie O’Gradys, Fremantle
Siren & Assassin: Leisure Inn, Rockingham
Angus & Julia Stone + Vancouver Sleep Clinic: Perth Concert Hall, Perth Gabriel Iglesias: Perth Convention & Exhibition Centre (Riverside Theatre), Perth Bex & Turin’s Wide Open Mic: Rosemount Hotel, North Perth Rich King Matthews + Kat Wilson + Elkwood + Matt Cal + Three Tales: The Bird, Northbridge
Lionizer + Being Beta + Radio In Motion: Newport Hotel, Fremantle
Aaron Gwynaire + The Umbrella Heads + The Woods + Sweet Side Effect: Ya Ya’s, Northbridge
Lionizer + Being Beta + Radio In Motion: The Camel Bar, Geraldton
Joe Bonamassa + Claude Hay: Perth Concert Hall, Perth
Toby: Freemasons Hotel, Geraldton
Arcadia All-Nighter + Various DJs: Ya Ya’s, Northbridge
SUN 21
The Get Down with Charlie Bucket + John Safari + Klean Kicks: Rosemount Hotel (Beer Garden), North Perth The Limbs + The Government Yard + The Heavenly Creatures + DIET: Rosemount Hotel (459 Bar), North Perth Gang of 3: Rosie O’Gradys, Fremantle Sunday Sessions with Jane Germain + Ian Simpson: Settlers Tavern (Verandah / 3pm), Margaret River
Various Artists: Hyde Park, Perth Frenzy: Leisure Inn, Rockingham
Swollen Members + Madchild: Amplifier Bar, Perth
Various Artists: The Highway Hotel, Bunbury
Greg Carter: Leisure Inn, Rockingham
Various Artists: Balmoral, East Victoria Park
Soundclash DJs: The Odd Fellow, Fremantle
Damien Leith: Mandurah Bowling & Recreation Club, Mandurah
Various Artists: Belmont Tavern, Cloverdale
Sunday Sessions with Randa & The Soul Kingdom Duo: Swallow Bar, Maylands
Various Artists: Brooklands Tavern, Southern River
James Bosley: Swan Hotel, North Fremantle
Boom! Bap! Pow!: Clancys Fish Pub, Fremantle
James Sherry + James Bosley: Swanbrook Winery (2pm), Henley Brook
Braves + Thee Gold Blooms + Luke Pallier: Ya Ya’s, Northbridge
The Lake & The River + Santa Muerte + Kites + Paper Walls: Mojo’s Bar, North Fremantle
Hunting Huxley: The Bird, Northbridge
Sticky Fingers: The Bakery, Northbridge
Miss Burlesque (WA) Semi Final + Various Artists: Fly By Night, Fremantle
The Painkillers + Catbrush + Python + Aborted Tortoise + Emu Experts + Donny Rat: Mojo’s Bar, North Fremantle
Trivia: Clancys Fish Pub, Fremantle
Mexican Bingo hosted by Lolita + Tonto: The Odd Fellow, Fremantle
Lionizer + Being Beta + Radio In Motion: The Camel Bar, Geraldton
Crush + DJ Glen: The Shed, Northbridge
Perth Blues Club feat. The Chess Set + The Riddum Shakers: Charles Hotel, North Perth
Eloise Ashton + Jacob Diamond: Moon Cafe, Northbridge
Robbie Jalapeno & His Fabulous Band of Bureaucrats + The Midfield Legends + Watch with Mother: The Odd Fellow, Fremantle
Various Artists: Gosnells Hotel, Gosnells
Brett Hardwick: Last Drop Tavern, Warnbro
TUE 23
Open Mic Night + Various Artists: Brass Monkey Hotel, Northbridge
YOUR NIGHT STARTS HERE. DOWNLOAD THE MUSIC APP NOW AT THEMUSIC.COM.AU/APP
THE MUSIC • 17TH SEPTEMBER 2014 • 31
32 • THE MUSIC • 17TH SEPTEMBER 2014