The Brag #484

END OF TOUR PARTY/ ARIA NOMINATED

+ JAPE (IRE) + SWIMWEAR

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FEATURING ALEX WILSON ON PIANO “the most exciting and intoxicating live acoustic performers on the planet.”

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rock music news welcome to the frontline: what’s goin’ on around town... with Nathan Jolly

on the record WITH

GOSSLING

The First Record I Bought: Celine Dion’s The Colour Of 1.

My Love. I remember pretending to be Celine and reaching for those high notes. My brother was disgusted by my purchase and gave me a Radiohead album for Christmas to try and change my taste in music.

The Last Record I Bought: The last two albums I 2. purchased were Passenger’s

The First Thing I Recorded: I think I’d been songwriting 3. for about six months, so I had three or four tracks under my belt. My brother had a friend with some recording gear, so

EDITOR: Steph Harmon steph@thebrag.com 02 9552 6333 ACTING ARTS EDITOR: Dijana Kumurdian dee@thebrag.com 02 9690 2731 STAFF WRITERS: Alasdair Duncan, Benjamin Cooper, Krissi Weiss NEWS: Nathan Jolly, Chris Honnery

ADVERTISING: Ross Eldridge - 0422 659 425 / (02) 9690 0806 ross@thebrag.com ADVERTISING: Les White - 0405 581 125 / (02) 8394 9027 les@thebrag.com GIG & CLUB GUIDE CO-ORDINATOR: Conrad Richters - gigguide@thebrag.com (rock) clubguide@thebrag.com (dance, hip hop & parties) INTERNS: Natalie Amat, Siobhan Graham, Charis Lynn, Tanydd Jaquet REGULAR CONTRIBUTORS: Benjamin Cooper, Alasdair Duncan, Christie Eliezer, Murray Engleheart, Andrew Geeves, Chris Honnery, Nathan Jolly, Anna Kennedy, Sheridan Morley, Jenny Noyes, Hugh Robertson, Rebecca Saffir, Romi Scodellaro, Jonno Seidler, Rach Seneviratne, Roland K Smith, Laurence Rosier Staines, Luke Telford, Rick Warner, Alex Sol Watts, Krissi Weiss, Caitlin Welsh Please send mail NOT ACCOUNTS direct to this address 8a Marlborough Street, Surry Hills NSW 2010 ph - (02) 9552 6333 fax - (02) 9319 2227 EDITORIAL POLICY: The views and opinions expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the publisher, editors or staff of The BRAG. ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE: Stephen Forde : accounts@furstmedia.com.au ph - (03) 9428 3600 fax - (03) 9428 3611 Furst Media, 3 Newton Street Richmond Victoria 3121 DEADLINES: Editorial: Wednesday 12pm (no extensions) Artwork/ad bookings: Thursday 12pm (no extensions).

Ad cancellations: Tuesday 4pm Published by Cartrage P/L ACN 104026388 All content copyrighted to Cartrage 2003 DISTRIBUTION: Wanna get The Brag? Email distribution@furstmedia. com.au or phone 03 9428 3600.

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12 :: BRAG :: 484 :: 15:10:12

THE STANDARD TURNS ONE!

Take The Bronze from Buffy, mix it with The Bait Shop from The OC, and you basically have The Standard. If you missed the first 12 months’ worth of impressive gigs there (from Fucked Up to Simple Plan to Oh Mercy), then the perfect entry into this wonderful world comes via their first birthday party, featuring all of our favourite bands: Papa vs Pretty (YouTube their version of ‘Purple Rain’), Fishing, Palms, Shady Lane and Falcona DJs – oh, and free drinks for early-comers, if that’s your kinda thing. Thursday October 25, Level 3 of Kinselas in Taylor Square; $10 entry and free drinks if you’re earlyish.

PUBLISHERS: Adam Zammit & Rob Furst EDITOR IN CHIEF: Adam Zammit 9552 6333 adam@peergroupmedia.com

ART DIRECTOR: Sarah Bryant GRAPHIC DESIGN: Alan Parry SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER: Tim Levy SNAP PHOTOGRAPHERS: Nohmon Anwaryar, Katrina Clarke, Ashley Mar, Daniel Munns, Thomas Peachy, George Popov, Pedro Xavier, Sam Whiteside COVER DESIGN: Sarah Bryant

Intentional Living. It was recorded in Melbourne at multiple studios with multiple producers. I wanted to work with as many producers as possible so that when the time comes for me to record an album, I’ll know who I gel with the best and what recording process I enjoy the most. The EP includes the single ‘Wild Love’, which I co-wrote with Dann Hume. Overall the record has a country-goth

DAPPLED CITIES AT BEACH ROAD

When it gets to this time of year and you can feel the sun slowly bathing this shadowy city in warmth and optimism, the natural reaction is to want to be a) by the beach and b) by the beach listening to Australian indie pop, because such a genre was made for such a location. Luckily, all this is happening this Wednesday October 17 at Beach Road Hotel in Bondi, when Dappled Cities play a free show – because you can’t put a price on art, maaan [NB: Not the band’s actual reason for the pricing structure]. Dappled Cities, you’ll always be fly to us.

COSMO JARVIS

“Cosmo Jarvis? He’s that guy who did the ‘Gay Pirates’ video on YouTube, yeah?” Well, yeah – but just because a million people watched that video online doesn’t mean the rest of his secretly-better catalogue should live in its shadow. For example, his excellent new single ‘Tell Me Who To Be’. Or his entire third record Think Bigger. Cosmo was out here very recently: you may have caught him playing at the teeny tiny Newsagency in Enmore, and if you loved it – or have had numerous friends explain the entire gig in laborious detail to you – then you’ll know not to miss his Falls Festival sideshow at The Annandale Hotel on January 2, tickets for which are on sale right about now.

DEXYS SIDESHOW

Dexys Midnight Runners were named after the pep pill Dexedrine, and the late night trips the band used to make to stock up on them (just as Silversun Pickups were named after a bottle-shop run in Silverlake) – and if you Google pictures of the Scottish group in their pre-‘Come On Eileen’ days, they totally look like the kind of chancers you’d score pills from in a bleak industrial city.

Hopefully the lads have straightened up by now, because they’re heading Down Under to play Harvest Festival on November 17 and The Enmore Theatre on Wednesday November 15, and we frown upon such deviant behaviour. Also, their single ‘Come On Eileen’ is not to be taken as advice. Tickets on sale now.

The Record That Changed My Life: 5.

The record that set me on the path of being a singer-songwriter was Damien Rice’s O. Upon hearing ‘Volcano’, I instantly fell in love with his sensitivity and gut-wrenching voice. Then when I got my hands on the album I listened to it over and over from beginning to end. I found it so incredibly powerful and inspiring. His voice paired with his lyrics had a huge impact on me.

If I’m ever feeling unmotivated or blocked as a writer, I lie on my bed listening to O, and the reasons I want/need to write music all come back to me.

With: Arrested Development, Jinja Safari, Matt Corby and more What: Cockatoo Island Film Festival – Concert Series Where: Island Life & The Precinct Nightclub @ Cockatoo Island When: October 25–27

Fires, Sharon Jones and The Dap Kings, The Black Seeds and Unknown Mortal Orchestra.

Tickets still available; festival goes from December 29-January 1 at the Glenworth Valley; no hat, no play (not an official rule). Check their website for full details.

AGAINST ME!

Against Me! have announced January 22 show at The Manning Bar, so you can catch them twice on their Big Day Out tour. It’s their first Australian shows since Tom Gabel became Laura Jane Grace (which is a great name to pick) and yeah, there’s no delicate way to tip-toe around mentioning such a massive life-shift – but who said we were trying to tip-toe? We’re more into throat-shredding screams. Tickets on sale now.

Blink-182

MORE FALLS

The Falls Music & Arts Festival just announced a whole mess of additions to their alreadybursting-with-awesomeness lineup. Here they are in seductive yet sensible alphabetical order: Bertie Blackman, DJ Nu Mark Toy Set, Jaguar Skills, Loon Lake, Oh Mercy, Rodrigo Y Gabriela, San Cisco, The Jungle Giants.

Comedy: Felicity Ward, Jason Byrne, Luke Heggie, Matthew O’Kine, Nazeem Hussain, Ronny Chieng, Sammy J & Randy. They join Angus Stone, Boy and Bear, Coolio (yup!), Cosmo Jarvis, Hot Chip, The Flaming Lips, The Hives and loads of others. It happens Dec 28-Jan 1 in Lorne (Vic), and Dec 29-Jan 1 in Marion Bay (Tas). Lorne has sold out, so it’s time to book a cheap flight and go (technically) overseas for the New Year.

MORE HOMEBAKE

You had us at Blondie, Homebake. Then you totally had us with the likes of Hilltop Hoods, Tim Minchin, Kimbra, Angus and Julia Stone (playing separately, post-divorce), Birds Of Tokyo, The Saints and Daniel Merriweather.

And now that you have added Tame Impala, Last Dinosaurs, Parachute Youth, Hermitude, Seth Sentry, Hey Geronimo, Sticky Fingers, Underlights, The Griswolds and Lime Cordiale, you have us in a maid’s uniform, peeling grapes, and preparing breakfast in bed for you, even though we hate it when the sheets get crumbs all through them. December 8 at The Domain.

Tickets still available.

MORE PEATS RIDGE

Peats Ridge’s massive second round announcement, in truncated form because it is massive (see earlier in sentence): Luke Slater, Tijuana Cartel, Electric Empire, Theo Parrish, Clairy Browne & the Bangin’ Rackettes, GAUDI, Hey Geronimo, The Tongue, Young Magic, Wild Marmalade, Skryptcha, The Griswolds, Ganga Giri, The Liberators, Sensient, Current Swell, All The Colours, The Delta Riggs, Winter People, The Crooked Fiddle Band and many more join the likes of John Butler Trio, Friendly

BLINK AND YOU’LL MISS IT...

“So I’ll see you with another guy who pretends not to hear you when you cry,” sings Mark Hoppus on Blink-182’s magnum opus Enema Of The State, an album that saw the band briefly take over the universe with the perfect blend of dick jokes, undeniable pop smarts and sweet, romantic songs – and then more dick jokes. After eight years of doing other stuff, Blink-182 are returning to Australia to do standup/play songs, hitting AllPhones Arena on February 20 before playing the massive Soundwave on February 24. Tickets to the sideshow go on sale this Thursday October 18 via Ticketek.

Play ‘Apple Shampoo’! Play ‘Carousel’!

Xxx

Papa vs Pretty

The Last Thing I Recorded: 4.

My last recording was an EP:

vibe, with some Ennio Morricone influences.

Gossling photo by Liz Mcleish

All The Little Lights and Harry James Angus’ Little Stories. Both incredible lyricists and storytellers.

Because that genre of songwriting doesn’t come easily to me, I’m always impressed by artists who can create such intricate stories.

Both Harry and Mike (Passenger) have amazing voices, too. Mike’s in particular gives me goosebumps every time.

he set up a session and I got to record two songs acoustically; the engineer was able to give me a copy of the recording on cassette tape at the end of the day. I can remember getting a taxi home feeling pretty proud of my first efforts in a recording studio. The taxi driver was especially chatty and asked what I’d been doing with my day – then of course he made me play the tape in the car.

So my first critic was a taxi driver in Melbourne. I think he gave me 3 out of 5 stars.

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rock music news

free stuff

welcome to the frontline: what’s goin’ on around town... with Nathan Jolly

FREESTUFF@THEBRAG.COM

THE GRISWOLDS

five things WITH

LEAH FLANAGAN

Growing Up The Music You Make I grew up in a fairly non-musical family, The last album I made was with 1.

4. but both of my parents and my nana are very producer Steven Schram in 2010 in much music appreciators, so I was always listening and singing along with their albums and the radio. It was a healthy dose of ABC, and Darwin’s HOT 100!

Inspirations So many artists inspire me, from local 2. musicians like Liz Stringer, Paul Kelly, Tim Rogers and Suzanna Espie to international acts like Norah Jones, Ray LaMontagne, Calexico and Corinne Bailey Rae. When I first heard Tom Waits’ record Raindogs, it really changed the way I thought about music. Writer Sam Wagan Watson is also a huge inspiration to me, and we both enjoy working together – we are both Tom Waits addicts, too.

Your Band I’m incredibly lucky to play with so many 3. talented musicians and to have them want to work with me. My core band is made up of Tom Jones on bass, Matt Earl on drums and Dylan Hartas on guitars. All of our musical tastes are similar, but also so diverse, which means we are constantly evolving as a band.

We all met gradually over the years through playing and touring, but we do owe a lot to a little music festival in NSW called Nymagee.

I trust them 100 per cent in the arranging process, and helping me turn my little acoustic tunes into something bigger and better.

Tame Impala

SWOOP, THERE IT IS

Them Swoops are currently scribbling out ‘Swoops’ on all their merch and writing ‘Swedes’ over the top to become thematically aligned with Tokyo Demark Sweden and Argentina, the other two acts they are playing with at FBi Social this Saturday October 20. The three bands are doing a tri-states tour in their respective home cities (Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne), which is a fairly big undertaking, so come along and support them/bring them snacks/let them crash. $12 on the door.

Music, Right Here, Right Now The Australian music scene is an 5. incredibly exciting scene to be involved in at the moment. So many great artists are breaking through to mainstream in Australia and internationally, and there are so many platforms to get your music out to new audiences. I have just recently moved to Sydney from Darwin, and love the fact that I now get the opportunity to see all the touring and local bands that I love for the first time.

With: Dan Sultan, Dead Marines Where: Rock For Recognition @ The Factory Theatre When: Friday November 9 More: Rock For Recognition aims to promote the need for recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the Australian Constitution; for more information, visit antar.org.au

a fake, what do you love him for?”) when The Frames play The Concert Hall at Sydney Opera House on March 25 next year. They’ll be joined by Lisa Hannigan, who provides the pretty, girly vocals on both of Damien Rice’s unassailable records. Shit’s gonna get Irish.

Tickets on sale now.

DAP-SWING

You think you’ve got soul, baby? Well, Sharon Jones is laughing at your bold proclamation, and she is nudging her backing band, The Dap-Kings, who are also sniggering at how little soul you actually have – which is of course quite unfair, because when you made such a brash claim you didn’t know you’d be within earshot of one of the most-revered

COCKATOO ISLAND CONCERT SERIES

The Cockatoo Island Film Festival Concert Series – part of the inaugural film festival – is taking place on the island at two special pop-up venues. The Island Life main stage sees Arrested Development playing as part of their 20th Anniversary Tour, on Thursday October 25. On the following night, Friday October 26, Bluejuice and Jinja Safari will be touching down, and Saturday October 25 plays host to Matt Corby and Sures. In the Precinct Nightclub, the second venue, Halfway Crooks are mixing it up on the Thursday, Gossling and Future Classic DJs are playing on the Friday, and the Saturday boasts Saskwatch with DJ Huwston.

We have three VIP double passes to both Arrested Development and Bluejuice’s shows – which will also get you exclusive access to The Precinct. To score a prize, let us know which band you’d like to see, and which song of theirs you’ll be singing along the loudest to.

soul singers in history. Sharon Jones And The Dap-Kings play Sydney Opera House on January 4; tickets range from $49–$79, and are available now.

TOKYO SHOW. GO.

Birds Of Tokyo were named after the fact that there are barely any birds in Tokyo, which sounds like one of those band-name jokes that runs away from you before you can say, “We were gonna pick something cooler, an element or something science-y, we swear.” The Perth world-beaters are back with a new EP, This Fire, and will be playing songs from it at The Annandale on December 7 before waking up, smashing a Powerade and hot chips, and playing their Homebake set the following day.

Sarah Blasko

BLESS THIS METRO

PYRAMID RAWK

Fun pyramid fact: the earliest pyramids were referred to as Ziggurats, which sounds like the coolest kids show ever. Fun Pyramid Rock fact: the four-day festival, which takes place on Philip Island, has just finalised its massive lineup, with Tame Impala added to an already epic cast of 360, Anti-Flag, Beni, Children Collide, Gossling, The Amity Afflication, The Cribs, The Smith St. Band, Van She, Urthboy, Kate MillerHeidke and way too many other acts to fit into this space. Tickets are still on sale, which is good news for those of you whose current New Year’s Eve frontrunner option is Channel Nine’s re-airing of Uncle Buck.

TIN SPARROW

Tin Sparrow’s new single ‘The Beast’ is the most aptly-named release since the Maroon 5 record Overexposed; it’s a massive-sounding beast which draws you in with four-part harmonies, only to club you with its ominous undertones. The song is also the first taste of their forthcoming third EP which isn’t due till March 2013, so if you wanna hear material from it earlier, say October 26, then get along to The Standard and bootleg the show (don’t bootleg the show).

JORDIE LANE

Jordie Lane has just released his new single ‘Fool For Love’, and in the words of your uncle who

It’s been almost half a year and scientists are still unable to make out any of the lyrics to Lisa Mitchell’s ‘Spiritus’, despite its melody being so catchy that there are currently hundreds of versions being approximated every time the radio plays it (which has been a lot). The entire second record, the adorably titled Bless This Mess, has the same buoyant, gleeful feel as lead single ‘Spiritus’, which should come across a real treat live at her Metro Theatre show this Friday October 19.

OH HAI JEALOUSY

The Gin Blossoms’ classic ‘Hey Jealousy’ is the perfect power-pop song: bleak, defeated lyrics set against the most driving, jangly pop since R.E.M. got into The Byrds. More than that, though, they have two near-perfect power-pop records. The titles, New Miserable Experience and Congratulations, I’m Sorry, pretty much set the tone for what to expect lyrics-wise. Amazingly, they never made it to Australia in the ‘90s, despite being played on our radio approximately ten times an hour since 1994. They are making up for that now, with a show at The Hi-Fi set for February 9. Tickets go on sale Friday October 26, and you should buy those two albums, too.

GLEN HANSARD WITH THE FRAMES

“So, what happens when the heart gives up, but the body goes on living?” asked Glen Hansard of The Frames (who, despite winning an Oscar for the remarkable ‘Falling Slowly’ from the lovely film Once, are still a criminally under-heard band). They will be posing this question among others (e.g. “C’mon, the guy’s

BLASKO ON OXFORD

Sarah Blasko’s fourth album I Awake (the first not to feature her face on the record cover, instead choosing to opt with a piece of outsider art she randomly saw on a station wall in Stockholm) keeps getting referred to as being ‘orchestral’ just because it happens to feature an orchestra on some tracks. It’s really not (unless you call Odyssey Number Five ‘orchestral’): it’s simply a brilliant and natural progression from her last three albums, and the first that she’s produced by herself. From October 18, Blasko is setting up an album installation on the corner of Palmer and Oxford Streets, and will be performing there on various evenings until the album is released on October 26. All the details will be drip-fed via her Twitter account, and you better believe she’ll have the entire album, as well as a short film, playing on loop throughout the week – so just pop in whenever, really.

“There was a boy. He loved alone, made of whispers and cobbled stone” - BERTIE BLACKMAN 14 :: BRAG :: 484 :: 15:10:12

Xxx

likes talking about how he cooked six different types of meats at his BBQ over the weekend, “it’s an absolute cracker” (accompanied by a bit-too-hard shoulder punch). It’s rollicking, slinky and laconic, and kinda reminiscent of The Badloves. Remember The Badloves? Well, Jordie Lane is the new Badloves, so stop going on about how you miss The Badloves so much.

He’ll be launching the single on December 15 at Notes in Newtown.

Melbourne, and it is definitely time for a new one. Live, my music is always changing; it depends on my lineup and the type of show it is. For these run of shows I have a larger band, and I’m excited to be playing a bunch of new tunes.

Sydney indie pop fun-peddlers, and our local answer to Vampire Weekend, The Griswolds are on the verge of releasing their debut Heart Of A Lion, an EP packed with upbeat anthems and choruses filled with those infectious “Oh! Oh! Oh!”s. They won triple j Unearthed’s Parklife Sydney comp this year, and were an Unearthed Featured Artist last month, with the title track remaining on high radio rotation and getting heaps of plays online as well. We know you want to check out their live show; to win one of two double passes to their EP launch at The Standard this Friday October 19, tell us the name of the film the band took their name from.

Drawing

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The Music Network

themusicnetwork.com

Music Industry News with Christie Eliezer

ELECTRONIC MUSIC CONFERENCE PLANS UNVEILED Is it time Australian dance music had an organised, dedicated body to represent and lobby for the industry? This will be discussed at next month’s inaugural Electronic Music Conference (EMC). Neil Ackland, EMC’s founder, thinks that with collaborations like Rihanna with Calvin Harris, and Radiohead with Four Tet, Pearson Sound and Burial, “it’s clear that electronic music is very much at the forefront right now.” Branding itself as the Asia-Pacific’s first conference dedicated to electronic music, EMC has unveiled its program.

Part of ARIA Week, it will be held on Tuesday November 27 and Wednesday November 28 at Doltone House, Jones Bay Wharf in Sydney.

The program includes Nova's Grant Smillie interviewing the world’s #1 DJ Tiësto on stage.

Some of the US’s leading figures, including Ultra Music founder Patrick Moxley, Hard Event’s Gary Richards and BPM’s Steve Levy

Lifelines Suing: Former Hollywood Undead singer Aron “Deuce” Erlichman is charging his former band with assault and battery, claiming they beat him outside a club.

In Court: The battle between Britney Spears’ family and her self-proclaimed ex-manager Sam Lutfi gets more interesting.

He’s suing her mum Lynne for defamation and breach of contract after she published her book Through The Storm. Lufti also wants Brit to testify over several alleged incidents: the time her dogs found a stash of crystal meth which left residue in the carpet that her kids played on, and the contract she signed guaranteeing him a slice of her fortune.

In Court: A Moscow appeals court released punk band Pussy Riot’s oldest member Yekaterina Samutsevich, 30, but ruled that the other two would serve the remainder of their two-year jail term in a Russian prison colony.

In Court: Elton John lost his defamation case against The Times. In June, the paper ran an article, ‘The Secrets Of Tax Avoiders’, in which it was claimed that Elton used Patrick McKenna as his accountant, who avoided tax. In another article, they admitted that the singer never used McKenna. But the High Court ruled that the articles had not libelled him.

Died: R.B. Greaves, who had a hit in 1969 with ‘Take A Letter, Maria’, 68, of prostate cancer.

Died: Queensland-based, US-born bluesman Wiley Reed, 68, in hospital.

will be talking about America’s EDM explosion.

EMI’s London-based Senior Vice President of Insights, David Boyle, gives EMC2012 an exclusive presentation delving into the latest Australian and international dance music trends, based on research of over 750,000 music fans.

International acts including Diplo and Tommy Trash will also predict the sector’s future; the names behind Stereosonic, Future Music, Parklife, Big Day Out and Rhythm & Vines (NZ) will debate the festival landscape; and promoters and musicians from the underground will discuss their issues. Branding is a key to dance music success: Sol Republic’s CMO Seth Combs, Droga5 CEO Sudeep Gohil, CUB Brand Partnerships Manager Andy Vance and Sound Alliance CEO Neil Ackland will explain how to pitch your product and attract sponsors. Grant Smillie, Vicious’ John Course and Lorne Padman and Global PR’s Anthony Colombi will outline how to crack radio. For the full list of speakers, panels and activities, go to electronicmusicconference.com

THINGS WE HEAR *New carry-on rules by Virgin Australia allow musos who are members of music associations to bring on board instruments 85cm in length and 34cm in width and 23cm in height – which includes most violins, trumpets and flutes. *Mumford & Sons landed six singles at the same time in the US Top 100 – a milestone not achieved since The Beatles did it 48 years ago. *Bassist Jake Tarasenko has left Boy And Bear after two years to “pursue other interests.” Meanwhile, Stone Sour brought in Johnu Chow to replace Shawn Economaki. *Triple M Sydney’s ‘car for comment’ contest offers Alan Jones’ former chauffeur-driven Mercedes S Class for a weekend to a listener who mentions The Grill Team on another station. Meanwhile, a uni student with $100 in the bank managed to stuff $42,800 in various denominations down his jacket during Perth Nova’s $50,000 Cash Grab comp. *Smash Mouth’s tour has been pushed to March; promoter Big Apachee gave no reason. *New years day’s Field Day festival will announce its lineup this Tuesday October 16 on triple j. Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs confirmed some weeks back. *Among those that Nine Network is talking to to replace Keith Urban on The Voice: Coldplay’s Chris Martin, Lenny Kravitz, and Rob Thomas of Matchbox 20. *The word going round is that America’s Guitar Centre has struck a deal with Allans + Billy Hyde’s receivers Ferrier Hodgson. The Age reported last week that rival Australian

JAGER: INDIE LABELS NOMINATED The Jagermeister Independent Music Awards’ new category, Best Australian Independent Label, announced its five nominees. Chosen by 100 AIR label members, they are Sydney hip hop collective Elefant Traks (Herd, Urthboy, Hermitude), I Oh You (DZ Deathrays, Bleeding Knees Club, Snakadaktal, Violent Soho, City Calm Down), Jazzhead (Joe Chindamo, Mike Nock, Trichotomy), Inertia Recordings (Bamboos, Dappled Cities), and Stop Start Music (Ball Park Music, Hungry Kids Of Hungary, Millions, North East Party House).

The awards will be held in Melbourne on Tuesday October 16.

FULLER TO BID FOR EMI ASSETS?

Will Simon Fuller – the man behind the Idol TV format, and one-time Spice Girls mentor – end up with some of the EMI labels that Universal had to ditch in Europe to get its EMI buy-out through? These include Parlophone, Chrysalis, Mute, and the catalogues of Pink Floyd, Kate Bush and David Bowie. Fuller has teamed up with Island Records founder Chris Blackwell and a consortium of financiers and tech companies to make a reported £350 million bid for 60% of the ditched assets. Universal won’t reveal the success of bids until early 2013. Warner Music Group is also interested, especially in Parlophone’s roster, which includes Coldplay, Kylie Minogue, Blur and Tinie Tempah. Sony and BMG Rights Management are in the mix too, and a number of larger independents are working with private equity firms to get hold of various indies.

DEW PROCESS GETS GOSSLING Dew Process has signed Melbourne’s Gossling, aka Helen Croome, who is currently getting triple j juice with ‘Wild Love’. After releasing her first EP in 2009, she increased her profile through 360’s ‘Boys Like You’, the household-known Woolworths jingle ‘Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday’, and festival appearances.

Dew Process’s Paul Piticco says, “Helen is one of those rare birds, where her personality and warmth make her wonderful music make all the more sense.”

AMP REVEALS LONGLIST The 8th Australian Music Prize has identified 230 albums of 2012, with the judges having released to 130 so far. Of these, 26 have been identified as official entrants. They include those by Hilltop Hoods, Dirty Three, The

Bamboos, Missy Higgins, Urthboy, Deep Sea Arcade, Children Collide, Hermitude, Liz Stringer, Jess Ribeiro & The Bone Collectors (Ribeiro admits “I was just about to quit making music forever”), Grand Salvo, DZ Deathrays, Alpine and Catcall. For the full list, see australianmusicprize.com.au. Meanwhile, Renee Geyer and manager Cath Haridy have been added to the AMP’s list of patrons.

HAVE YOUR SAY ON SYDNEY Moves are afoot by the City of Sydney to develop a new Cultural Policy. They want your input in shaping it, including telling them what you value most about Sydney culture. Go to sydneyyoursay.com.au/cultural-policy, or email them at creativecity@cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au

GOTYE: BIGGEST SELLING DIGITAL TRACK IN USA Digital sales in the United States are growing, with digital track sales hitting the one billion mark for the first time in the first nine months of this year. Gotye’s ‘Somebody That I Used To Know’ (featuring Kimbra) is the top-selling song, with scans of nearly 6.5 million units.

Two others, Carly Rae Jepsen’s ‘Call Me Maybe’ and Fun’s ‘We Are Young’, had over five million scans a piece. Album sales fell 4.4% to 218.4 million units in the same period, fuelled

by CD sales down to 129.7 million units from 151.6 million in the corresponding period last year. Digital album sales went up 15.3% to 85.5 million. Adele’s 21 from last year remains the best selling album of the year (it sold four million in 2012, bringing its total sales to 9.85 million). Second was One Direction’s Up All Night, with 1.25 million.

We has internets!

www.thebrag.com Extra bits and moving bits without the papercuts 16 :: BRAG :: 484 :: 15:10:12

retailer Gallin’s made several attempts to buy Allans + Billy Hyde, and US presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s Bain Capital wanted to buy its parent company, Australian Music Group. The Age also reported that the National Australia Bank lost $48 million from the chain’s collapse. *Creed frontman Scott Stapp reveals in his memoirs that during a drug binge in the penthouse of Miami’s Delano Hotel, he hallucinated that cops were about to crash through the door. He tried to crawl over the balcony and fell 40 feet, fracturing his skull and breaking his hip and nose; he was lying there for two and a half hours before his “guardian angel”, rapper T.I., showed up.

“He immediately took care of the situation and saved my life.” Meanwhile, Former Kiss drummer Peter Criss says in his new book that he almost offed himself in 1994. An earthquake which killed 57 and caused $20 billion worth of damage also half-destroyed his apartment. He had a bag with $100,000 in cash. Remembering he was once worth $12 million, he put his gun to his mouth and almost pulled the trigger. Then he thought, ‘I’m going to fucking die in some shithole apartment – Jesus, I don’t believe you’re going to take me this way.’ *Ataris singer Kristopher Roe had a meltdown in Asbury Park, New Jersey, smashing his guitar into the kit, yelling that the drummer “was failing tonight.” *Belles Will Ring’s gig this Saturday at the Vanguard, playing their Crystal Theatre album in full, looks like it will be their last for “a very long time.” *Bow Wow is being chased for $284,000, for a Ferrari that he leased in 2008.

OXYGEN MUSIC GROUP LAUNCHES IN SYDNEY A new label, studio, publishing, video, management and artist development house called Oxygen Music Group (OMG) launched in Sydney last week. It was set up by industry veteran Vicki Gordon, long-time champion of the independent and Indigenous sectors. “The industry has changed dramatically over the last decade with the dominance of reality TV and talent shows,” Vicki says. “I think the pure foundations for creating music have somehow been lost along the way.” Songwriter/producer David Simon will oversee talent development and management. OMG signed management to Altyian Childs and female pop-rock band Baby Grand, and is also involved in the development of a new Indigenous owned and operated record label. See oxygenmusicgroup.com for more.

WARNER OWNER BUYS INTO DEEZER Len Blavatnik, head of Access Industries and owner of Warner Music Group, has invested $130 million into the 20-million track music subscription service Deezer. This will accelerate Deezer's global roll-out to 76 new countries, increase local content in each territory by up to 50%, and update its services. Deezer connects users with their friends to access their music libraries, allows them to submit their playlists to Deezer editors to be featured to its two million subscribers, and links music libraries with local concerts. CEO Axel Dauchez said, “Deezer is on the right track to becoming the leading digital music service worldwide, and representing 5% of the music market by 2016.”

E HIFI 1300 TH COM.AU THEHIFI.

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This Week

Blood Red Shoes (UK)

SE LL IN G

LE SA CT ON26 O

CA NC EL LE D

FA ST

Just Announced

Gin Blossoms (USA)

Gomez (UK)

Sat 9 Feb

Fri 19 Oct

Alt Rugby Commentary

Fri 4 Jan

Sat 20 Oct

Jed Thian

SE LL IN G

FR EE SH O W

FA ST

Coming Soon

Fri 26 Oct

District 7 Fest Feat: The Getaway Plan Leb I Sol (MKD) Tuneboy, + More

Sun 28 Oct

Sat 27 Oct

Sat 3 Nov

All Allocations Exhausted FA ST

The Living End

O PE NE R AL NI BU G M HT

Thurston Moore (USA)

SE LL IN G

Wed 21 – Tue 27 Nov

Mahalia Barnes & Prinnie Stevens Sat 10 Nov

O U T

N O W

w w w. b e r t i e b l a c k m a n . c o m

Omar Rodriguez Lopez Group (USA) Sat 1 Dec

Modern Artillery Fri 23 Nov The Living End Tue 27 Nov

The End Is Just The Beginning Repeating Sat 24 Nov

Turbonegro (NOR)

65daysofstatic (UK)

Maximo Park (UK)

Thu 6 Dec

Wed 2 Jan

Thu 3 Jan

FA ST

THE BRAND NEW ALBUM Feat BOY and MERCY KILLER

State of Emergency Thu 22 Nov The Living End Mon 26 Nov

SE LL IN G

POPE INNOCENT X

White Noise Wed 21 Nov Roll On Sun 25 Nov

Marduk (SWE)

Crystal Castles(CAN) Kerser

Sat 12 Jan

Thu 17 Jan

Sat 2 Feb

An Evening with The Hoff (USA) Fri 15 Feb

ENTERTAINMENT QUARTER, BUILDING 220, 122 LANG RD, MOORE PARK, SYDNEY

BRAG :: 484 :: 15:10:12 :: 17

Fossil Fuel

By Krissi Weiss

LAST DINOSAURS

T

here’s nothing quite like a triple j Unearthed win to help a band set sail – but even then, sustained success isn’t certain. Brisbane’s indie-pop four-piece Last Dinosaurs have managed to ensure some semblance of longevity through the oldfashioned word of mouth that comes simply from playing damn good music. The band’s latest tour is quietly selling out across the country, and will follow their second tour of Europe and the US – and their debut album, In A Million Years, entered the charts in the Top 10 earlier this year.

Singer and guitarist Sean Caskey is getting excited for their upcoming European tour, reminiscing on some of the pivotal moments of their last trip. “When we played in Paris, there was this stereotypical Parisian attitude,” he begins. “They enjoyed us and they would clap a lot after the songs, but during the songs I was looking at girls rolling their eyes and I was like, ‘What the fuck is going on?’ …but then they’d clap heaps. I was genuinely confused.

Amsterdam was nuts though, we had no idea what to expect. We played at this day festival in this building, and everyone was off their faces and it was just the best. I really wanna go back there again this time, for obvious reasons.”

Coming from the enthusiastic and dedicated – yet extremely cliquey – Brisbane scene, Europe was a sort of reassurance to the band that they were on the right track. “It’s interesting,” Caskey says. “In Brisbane, and even throughout Australia, [playing] is extremely fun, we just try to make it as fun as possible, whereas in Europe we’re trying to win over a crowd. They don’t know the songs at all. It’s refreshing to play to an unknown crowd and win them over.

When we play in another country and people come to see just us, it makes us realise we’re actually doing something right.”

The support that the band has enjoyed now stretches far beyond the triple j network; festival spots, rave reviews and opening slots for Foals, Matt & Kim and Foster The People all add to the industry enthusiasm. “It’s awesome.

Like, Russell [Lissack] from Bloc Party saying nice things about us – that’s insane, it’s weird,” he says, referring to Lissack’s infamous Tweet earlier this year: ‘Can’t stop listening to @lastdinosaurs album’. “There are all these things that we can’t believe. It’s hard to explain.”

Still, it took the band a long time to release their debut album, and Caskey is brutally honest about why. “I was just fucking lazy for, like, a whole year,” he admits. “I just didn’t do anything. We’d written hardly any songs that year and we realised we needed to put our heads down. 80% of the album was written in the last six months before recording, which is strange considering we used to write songs once every three months, if that. We had the option to record the album earlier, overseas as well, and there’s no reason why it would’ve been worse – but I’m glad we made the decision to hold off and write some more bangers, so to speak. The album was gonna be [produced by] Eliot James [Bloc Party, The

Rakes] – well, that was the idea, but we just didn’t have the songs back then.”

Writing doesn’t stream out like an emotional tap for Caskey, but while he finds it difficult sometimes, he’s starting to approach any writer’s block with the simple notion of Just Do Something. “I write most of the music for Dinos, but when I write a song I’ll send it to the guys and if they like it, we’ll start playing it,” he says.

“Quite often, they don’t like the songs – usually I can tell because no one responds to the email,” he jokes. “Nah, it’s not totally like that, but because I find it really hard to write in the first place, if I do have something in my head I’ll just record it regardless. Like the last song I wrote was a country song, which I’ve never, ever done before; I don’t even listen to country music. It was swung [swing rhythm], with a slide guitar using a perfume bottle. I just went with it because if I wasn’t doing that I’d just be doing nothing. The other guys actually really like that one, but we can’t play it, obviously – it’s country.

But I’m just gonna keep doing whatever feels right, so that at least when it comes to the next album we’ll have a heap of ideas.”

In A Million Years ended up being a local recording, co-produced with an engineer Last Dinosaurs love in a space that they adore: BJB Studios in Surry Hills. The process was calmer as a result, and the band could use all the equipment they were accustomed to – an option that wouldn’t have been available had they recorded overseas. “It was comfortable, we had amazing accommodation, and JP [Jean-Paul Fung] is a kick arse producer,” he says. “We had the mentality that if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. It was such a good thing, it was the best experience, and because it was in Sydney we could take all of our gear and were able to be at home, in a way.”

The process was also a lot more structured than the band expected. “We broke down the songs completely and then built them back

up again, which was a painstaking process,” Caskey admits. “Effectively, we’d recorded the entire album [as demos] before we wrote the album, and JP definitely co-produced it, working on a lot of the structures with us. We wrote a song a day, and by the end of the day we’d have it recorded. When we went into the studio, we knew exactly what everyone was doing and we’d have a schedule that was crazily precise. From even just an engineering perspective, JP is one of the best engineers.

He is so technically proficient, I can’t say enough good things about him.

“We are all extreme perfectionists, so we work well together,” Caskey continues. “But the four of us can almost never come to an agreement on things, so he was there to help us come to a point where we were happy with every song.”

What: In A Million Years is out now through Dew Process With: The Jungle Giants and special guests Where: The Metro Theatre When: Saturday October 20 (sold out) / Friday November 9 (all-ages) More: Also playing Homebake festival, alongside Blondie, Kimbra, Hilltop Hoods, Tim Minchin, Something For Kate, Sonicanimation, DZ Deathrays, Tame Impala and more, on Saturday December 8 at The Domain

“Welcome to my department of deception. This is where I catalogue my lies” - BERTIE BLACKMAN 18 :: BRAG :: 484 :: 15:10:12

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When triple j hit Last Dinosaurs with the news of their Unearthed win, Caskey had been

concentrating his efforts in another successful Brisbane band, The Cairos, and using Dinos as a side project. The win came as a complete surprise – and, more importantly, the support from the youth network has continued. “They don’t have to do what they’re doing, but they are,” he says, with genuine gratitude. “When they called us up for the Unearthed feature, Dinos was [just] the band I practiced in once a month. There was no reason they needed to call us up for that, and it was just crazy, it started so many things for us. They’ve really kicked us off and they keep us going. It feels like they’re our parents or something. Just in the way they’ve done so many, well, not favours, but they have the power to guide you and it’s an honour that they picked us.”

“It’s refreshing to play to an unknown crowd and win them over. When we play in another country and people come to see just us, it makes us realise we’re actually doing something right.”

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BRAG :: 484 :: 15:10:12 :: 19

Bertie Blackman No Mercy By Krissi Weiss

W

orking her way up the grassroots ranks as a singer-songwriter in the late ‘90s and early ‘00s, Bertie Blackman had to earn her stripes, and has changed her sound more than once; her folk-inspired debut Headway feels unfathomably acoustic when played next to her latest release, Pope Innocent X (P.I.X.). Blackman’s 2009 album, Secrets And Lies, won her an ARIA for Best Independent Release, but its follow-up has seen the songbird evolve her approach to writing and production even further, far outstripping the straightforward processes of the past. Spiky pop, pointed storytelling, and light and shade all merge harmoniously on P.I.X., an album that speaks of the harsh realities of life, while taking the audience into an otherworldly place, space, and time.

“This record is essentially just childhood stories of mine,” Blackman says, a bundle of charm and sincerity when we speak. “Some stories come from places of complete truth and some come from places of imagination, but they are certainly all parts of me.” Lead single ‘Mercy Killer’ is described as a “playful confession”, in which Blackman admits she once deleted a text

from someone else’s phone, and describes it as the most regrettable action of her life. Surely, I suggest, she’s done worse than simply deleting a text? The question is met with a slightly diabolical chuckle. “Well, I’ve stolen heaps of stuff – but as far as writing a song about stealing stuff, I dunno…” she ponders. “I liked exploring the idea that I destroyed a little part of someone’s life. I interfered with someone’s life and never told them about it, and that’s not just about simply deleting a text. It says more about me as a person at the time and the issues I was dealing with.”

That sort of honesty in art can be a dangerous thing; loved ones can teeter between wanting desperately to be a part of an artist’s work, while at the same time examining each song for signs of betrayal. “My family are definitely used to it,” Blackman says. “They don’t take any of it personally. Songs are always about more than one person, too. There are parts of people’s stories that you can take for your own and make into a song. With a song and a story you can’t flower things, in case someone’s feelings are going to be hurt.”

While the album was recorded in Melbourne with producer François ‘Franc’ Tétaz (Gotye, Architecture In Helsinki, Sally Seltmann), the sketches and skeletons of each track were created in Chicago, where Blackman had escaped to for a stretch. “A really good friend of mine lived in Chicago and she was like, ‘Come and stay, I’ve got a spare room,’ so I did,” she explains. “I really wanted to get out of Australia and stop listening to the radio and stop having people hassling me about what the next record was gonna be. Also, this record being the first record under a record label [released through Universal] created a different type of expectation, and a new world. I’m used to being independent and answering mostly to myself.”

“I guess I’m more unpredictable than the other artists [signed to Universal]. I do like to rile people up a little bit. That’s just my personality... I don’t like to make it all business; I like to share parts of myself.”

One of the artsier members on the major label’s roster, Blackman has enjoyed playing within the world of the major machinery, and is determined to continue creating relationships and connections rather than simply becoming yet another product. “I guess I’m more unpredictable than the other artists – that comes from speaking to [the label], not from me thinking that. I don’t want people to think that I put myself on some sort of pedestal,” she clarifies. “I do like to rile people up a little bit, though – especially working with new people. I have a Navajo statue that I bought in Wisconsin that has crazy black hair and is missing a leg and has these crazy wooden eyes. I kept sending a photo of that creature to Peter Karpin, the head of Mercury, like every week, to hassle him about finding a producer: ‘This guy’s coming to get you!’ That’s just my personality. It’s [about] giving yourself out so people get to know you.

I don’t like to make it all business; I like to share parts of myself and not just go in there going, ‘When is this happening? Why aren’t you doing this for me? Ra, ra, ra!’ You have to build relationships with everyone you’re working with, like one big family. You’re all working towards the same thing.”

Blackman has appreciated the label process so far, but the reality is that she’s done it before on her own, and she’s not afraid of the idea of having to do it that way again. Even on a major label, she is still the true definition of independent. “I have existed without them before. I’m not scared of them, I’m not trying to prove anything – [but] after years of doing that, I’m confident in the art that I make.”

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What: Pope Innocent X (P.I.X.) is out now on Mercury, through Universal With: The Flaming Lips, Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, Best Coast, Beach House, Maxïmo Park, The Hives and loads more Where: Falls Festival in Lorne, Victoria (December 28-January 1, sold out) and in Marion Bay, Tasmania (December 29-January 1)

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Kingfisha Finding What Fits By Krissi Weiss

T

he members of Kingfisha are no strangers to the intricacies of band life.

Hailing from a host of various other quasi-successful and almost-realised Brisbane groups, Kingfisha appear to have found a project within which they finally feel at home.

The reggae/dub scene in Brisbane’s West End is at saturation point but somehow Kingfisha have risen to the top of the heap, appreciating their local audience without simply relying on it. Extensive festival appearances and old-fashioned hard work have resulted in a widespread appreciation for their unique take on what is, at its core, a rather ridged genre.

With a self-titled debut in hand, Kingfisha are heading south, more focused than ever. “It’s definitely all gone up a notch with the release of the album,” singer and guitarist Anthony Forrest says. “We’ve been playing festivals for the past three or four years, but we’re getting better slots now, better festivals, and the album seems to have been really well-received.”

It’s not easy standing out as a reggae band. To those that haven’t been put under the genre’s spell, the song structures appear formulaic and overdone – like country or blues – with little in the way of sonic diversity. Kingfisha

have managed the difficult task of appealing to both indie/pop and pure reggae fans through their skill and heart. Forrest’s buttery voice is emotive and confessional, while the rhythm section of drummer Dave Bell and bassist Shannon Green expertly delivers complex and super-tight cadences. Andrew Stephens’ guitar and Jason Leca’s keys and samples add melodic texture and extra depth, for those on the fringe of reggae appreciation to enjoy.

“If a song doesn’t stand up in the rehearsal room with a solid chorus and verse, then it doesn’t get taken any further,” Forrest says.

“It’s probably the real point of difference in this band. We love reggae, we love the rhythms, and although we have influences from New Zealand bands we’re right into the old Jamaican and European dub scene. Then we just try to put our take on it, and do it as honestly as we can.”

While Kingfisha take every opportunity given them with regard to touring and festival slots, most members are family men now. Forrest discusses the new era of being on the road: “We mostly just tour on the weekends now, and just fly in and out,” he says. “A couple of the other guys have kids as well, so we spend some time away as a band – go to work, so to speak – and

2002, Xiu Xiu have enjoyed the support of a particularly ardent fan base. “In many ways, we’ve always been a touring band, and for as long as we’ve existed there’s been this constant interaction with people around our music,” Stewart says. “After eight or nine years you become friends with the people who’ve supported you all the way through; you become close, and it forms a real sense of community.” Does that mean that Stewart feels most comfortable on the road? “I’m not sure that I feel comfortable anywhere,” he answers. “I mean, there’s always the chance that something bad might happen. But we have good people with us and around us, and it’s nice to be able to trust people and form that bond.”

The band has achieved significant critical acclaim over a diverse decade of music.

Amongst a host of online awards, this year’s ninth studio album Always was awarded five stars by British staple The Independent. But it’s the approval of the band’s highly skilled peers, like Deerhoof’s Greg Saunier who produced Always, which inspires Stewart the most. “We’ve done four records with Greg now, and I’m still blown away by the guy. He’s unbelievably creative and insanely hardworking, plus he has this incredible amount of technical knowledge when it comes to the actual engineering of the record,” Stewart says. “I think the most important thing for us is that he has known the band since the beginning, and knows our songs and understands the context.

The singer-songwriter is articulating his vulnerabilities when writing, but the statement also reveals the darkness that he readily admits is enveloping him at the moment. Rarely are artists as forthcoming, bordering on confessional, when engaging with the music press as Stewart is when we speak, and it’s a forthrightness that extends to his fans: just two weeks before our conversation, Stewart – an open sufferer of depression – posted on the band’s website an excruciatingly long and complex missive explaining to the public that he was at one of his lowest points.

What: ‘Piece Of The Puzzle’, from their selftitled album, is out now on Uppercut Records Where: Rock Lily @ The Star When: Thursday October 18

“It’s tremendously comforting to have that confidence in Greg,” he continues. “He can say ‘This part isn’t working – let’s get rid of it’, and I’ll do a sneaky listen back and know that the right call has been made. A year and a half working on a record is so incredibly stressful, so it’s great to have another person to bounce ideas off, and to do all that external stuff with. Like I said before, it’s nice to be able to trust people. I live in absolutely no fear of anyone fucking up our music. The only reason our music could be ruined is if it was due to a shortcoming on our part, when it came to the aesthetics.”

O

n the day I speak to Angus Stone, the lineup for this year’s Homebake has just been released. He and his sister Julia are both playing at the festival, but they will be doing so separately – a first for the siblings. “Yeah, it’s strange isn’t it?” he says.

“I saw the poster – it had both our names, and they had to emphasise that we’re not playing together. It will be funny to see what time slots we get.” It would be a cruel fate indeed if the festival organisers had pitted the Stones against each other in opposing slots, forcing fans to pick a side. “Julia and I like to have a good laugh about things, and that would definitely be something to laugh about – although I’d prefer it if I could get her to come on with me for a song and hang out, and vice versa.”

When Angus and Julia play live shows together, the pair will often alternate taking the lead between songs. But now that he’s touring as a solo artist in support of his new album, Broken Brights, Angus no longer has that luxury. “The first show I played was in my school hall, back on the Northern Beaches,” he says. “I walked out and the whole hall was just packed, it was a sea of people. I stepped out, and as soon as I picked up a guitar and started playing, all the fear of being alone flew over my head. That happens with me with everything when I start playing music.

One thing I do miss a lot is that when I was playing shows with Julia, she’d take her turn to play a song and I’d be able to kick back and pour myself a drink and have a smoke or whatever… I was part of the crowd as well, looking from the outside in. I really like that side of playing with Julia. It’s cool, because you’re just hanging out.”

Angus has spent a lot of time on the road over the last few years, both with Julia and as a solo artist, and many of the songs on Broken Brights were inspired by a trip he and his band took through Europe. “One of the most powerful memories of that time is a trip we took to Denmark, visiting a place called Christiania,” he says. “It’s a commune, a city within a city, and they answer to no one. They have their own ways and their own law. You go in there and it’s wild dogs running around, little kids in packs running amok, guys selling big blocks of hash on the street, skate parks, little shanties by the lake. It’s very free in a lot of ways, but there are dark undercurrents…” he pauses. “When we went back to sound-check, I started hitting these simple chords, and then words started coming out – and that became the basis for the song ‘It Was Blue’.”

Both Angus and Julia have released solo albums this year (By The Horns is actually her second), but fans need not fear: the pair already have another collaborative album recorded and ready to go. “We’ve actually got a record that’s just sitting there,” Angus tells me. “It’s sleeping. We recorded it a little while ago, and then afterwards we asked ourselves if we wanted to put it out.

We decided to try something new, to trust our instincts and just go with it. But yeah, it’s an incredible bunch of recordings. Every now and then I listen and think, ‘Woah, I can’t wait for this to come out.’”

With: Julia Stone, Blondie, Hilltop Hoods, Kimbra, The Saints, Sonicanimation, Something For Kate, Tim Minchin, Kimbra and more Where: The Domain, Royal Botanic Gardens When: Saturday December 8

When asked what he’s expecting of Xiu Xiu’s upcoming Australian spring tour, Stewart says he’ll be spending a lot of it indoors. “It’s great touring with Angela [Seo, bandmate] because she’s a super aggresive player. I play a lot harder than I would otherwise, but that also means that I have to spend ages practicing.

Still,” he says, “it’s incredibly fun.”

What: Always is out now With: Rites Wild and Absolute Boys Where: Goodgod Small Club When: Wednesday October 17

“As the orange eye of the sun starts to wink the light undone, fortune’s wheel shakes and turns to the beating of the dark” - BERTIE BLACKMAN 22 :: BRAG :: 484 :: 15:10:12

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This openness is unsurprising. Since the band’s debut EP Chapel Of The Chimes in

Age is often a contributing factor to a band’s demise, but as Forrest explains his reasons for departing past projects, the longevity of Kingfisha becomes clear. “We’ve all played in other bands that have had momentum,” he says. “We’ve toured hard and then we’ve all

Go It Alone By Alasdair Duncan

The Sent Down Boy By Benjamin Cooper

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hated each other. Suddenly you’re just about to drop an album, and you do not want to be together anymore. That level of finding what works, keeping everyone happy, enjoying yourself as much as you can while having enough breaks is hard.”

Angus Stone

Xiu Xiu

amie Stewart is not your average guy.

In 2010, the San Jose native donated a cup of his own urine to raffle off as a fundraiser for the flood-damaged Chicago label Graveface Records (Octopus Project, Black Moth Super Rainbow) – other bands signed screen-printed tour posters or CDs. With a reputation derived from such antics, as well as his electric live performances, it seems surprising when the frontman of experimental pop group Xiu Xiu tells me, “I basically get discouraged really easily.”

then come back to our families and have our lives back here. It’s a really good balance.” So gone are the days of wasted weeks on tour?

“I’ve been there and it was fun,” he laughs. “But if I kept on doing that I wouldn’t be very healthy.

You can’t go down that path forever.”

Gypsy & The Cat A Whole New Trip By Alasdair Duncan ypsy & The Cat’s second album, The Late Blue, will come as a surprise to many fans – at least, they’re hoping it will. Their debut album, Gilgamesh, was loaded up with sweetly melancholic synth-pop songs, featuring the kind of hooks and choruses that couldn’t help but propel them onto commercial radio. The album’s success elevated the band to headliner status, but left lead singer Xavier Bacash feeling uneasy. “You hear buzz bands now who get a feature album somewhere – like a big website – and then a week later, nobody’s listening to them,” he says. “I felt that with our first record there were people who liked one or two songs, and that was it. Thinking back on our old songs, something like ‘Time To Wander’ feels very forced to me now, like it was trying too hard to be a pop song.” Bacash sees Gypsy & The Cat as an album band, and their new album, The Late Blue, as a reflection of that – even if it may be a little confronting.

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The Late Blue is a rambling, psychedelic album of shifting time signatures and trippy instrumental arrangements – its closest counterpart may well be MGMT’s Congratulations, which saw a similarly-lauded synth group shake off their pop past and get weird. When it comes to understanding the album, it probably helps to start with the influences that fed into it; Bacash began writing songs for record while he was delving into the spaced-out art rock of bands like Pink Floyd, The Zombies and Spacemen 3. A life-long Beach Boys fan, he also found himself drawing on the loopier, weirder side of their music. “We were just trying to experiment, because pop music’s a little bit boring at the moment,” he says. “I was listening to those guys, and a lot of Neutral Milk Hotel – I like Jeff Mangum, his lyrics are very honest.”

control. You’re trying to pump the tyres up as much as you can.”

Gypsy & The Cat are all set to hit the road to promote The Late Blue, with a tour that takes in Future Music, a festival they first played two years ago. “I loved playing Future,” Bacash says.

“We played the first year they’d started putting bands on – it was just a dance festival with DJs in the years before that. We played on the same stage as MGMT and Tame Impala and Mark Ronson, so it was great company to be in, great to meet those guys – MGMT and Tame Impala especially, because our mixing engineer is their mixing engineer. The festival’s always rammed, people are always up for it, so yeah – it’s a really good festival!”

What: The Late Blue is out through Alsatian Music, through Universal When: Thursday November 8 Where: The Metro Theatre More: Also playing Future Music Festival on Saturday March 9 at Randwick Racecourse, alongside The Prodigy, The Stone Roses, Bloc Party, The Temper Trap, Psy and loads more.

Live instrumentation is a big part of The Late Blue, something else that came from listening to so much ‘60s and ’70s music. “On the first record we didn’t have any live drums,” Bacash explains.

“We played bass and acoustic and electric guitar, but it was predominantly synth and programmed drums with those other live elements sprinkled through. The new album will sound to you like a full band because it is.” Bacash and production partner Lionel Towers recorded live drums, and tried to make them sound like they’d come from vintage records. “We were also playing around with song structures like The Zombies,” he says. “We like the idea of having three and four songs in one – it feels like a journey. There are a couple of songs on the record that feel like journey songs; they just keep moving, and while you know you’re in the same moment, the same song, things are obviously changing. We were trying to experiment with that.”

“‘Time To Wander’ feels very forced to me now, like it was trying too hard to be a pop song. [With this album] we were just trying to experiment, because pop music’s a little bit boring at the moment.”

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When I tell Bacash that I’ve been listening to the new album in preparation for our interview, he starts quizzing me immediately: what did I think?

Was it weirder than I was expecting? I tell him honestly that I’m really enjoying it so far, even if it sounds so radically different from their first – which I loved at the time and still do. He feels that The Late Blue may be confronting to fans who know the band best for tracks like ‘Time To Wander’ and ‘Jona Vark’, but he’s fine with the implications of that. “‘Bloom’ and now ‘Sorry’ are the first tracks that people have gotten to hear from the new album,” he says. “It’s funny, because they’re the two pop songs of the record, and they’re not even that poppy. They’re accessible, but that’s about it … and the rest of the record sounds nothing like them.

“We’ve gone independent now and started our own label,” he continues. “We’re trying to have a bit more control over the growth, as well as creative control. It’s kind of counterintuitive when bands get too big too quick.” He brings up Gotye as an example of this phenomenon. “If I was him – and this will probably sound really stupid to some people – I would have tried to stop ‘Somebody That I Used To Know’ dead in its tracks after it went #1 in a couple of countries. I would have tried to stop the momentum. When you get too big, there’s nowhere else to go from there.” I venture that, at a certain point, songs like that can take on lives of their own, but Bacash disagrees. “When you’re touring a lot and doing lots of appearances on Jimmy Kimmel or whatever to promote that song, it’s still in your BRAG :: 484 :: 15:10:12 :: 23

Jinja Safari Island Life By Alasdair Duncan

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t’s been a huge year for Jinja Safari. The starry-eyed folk pop group completed an international tour and capped it off with a triumphant Splendour set, but it’s the little things they recall the most fondly. “When you’re in the middle of touring, there’s so much going on that you can almost miss the fun stuff,” singer Marcus Azon says. “You spend all your time in airports and sound checks, and it starts to become a rhythm, but then later, you start to think back on all insignificant things you did along the way – the highway rest stops and things like that. Those are the parts we remember the most.”

One such experience in Canada really stands out in Azon’s mind. “We did this stop at a waterfall, and we all just walked up and had our own little space. We put some music on, looked up at the waterfall and walked up this shallow riverbed. I put some Dave Matthews on and at that point, everything seemed to make sense.”

Jinja Safari’s next gig is at the inaugural Cockatoo Island Film Festival, a weekend of music and movies in the middle of Sydney Harbour. Azon is quite stoked to be returning, even though his first gig on the island, several years ago, took something of a surreal turn. “When we first started this band, a friend of mine got a gig organising some percussionists for a UK band called The Tigerlilies,” he explains. “They were playing this gig on Cockatoo Island, and they needed eight percussionists dressed as convicts playing rhythms on jail bars… It was all very dark, gothic gypsy folk. The four of us, minus Joe [Citizen, bass], we all went out there and just hammered away on the bars, played some polyrhythms. Alister [Roach, percussion] actually had to do a solo song, so the only member of our band who has had very little prior singing experience got up there and sang solo – but he really nailed it.”

Over the past year, Jinja Safari have toured Australia with a fine selection of local bands, everyone from Miami Horror to Boy & Bear. Support slots like these are an essential part of a young band’s career, and Azon tells me that they learned a lot from the various headliners.

“You pick up little tricks from the guys who are a bit older and wiser,” he says. “It’s like at school – you see the kids who are a couple of grades above you who can do cooler tricks on their BMX, or little extra tricks on the half-pipe. [As a band] you watch what they do, how they interact with the audience.”

Touring with Boy & Bear taught Azon some tricks about modulating his vocals and bringing out the quiet bits in songs, while sharing a stage with Art Vs Science had, well, the opposite effect. “They’re such contrasting sorts of music, and the fact that we can get on both bills is awesome,” he says with a laugh. “It was early on in the life of the band, too.

Our set is always evolving and changing. We’ve got some pretty mellow songs that don’t work on an Art Vs Science tour, then some more driving songs that would get us in trouble on the Boy & Bear tour.

We all got told off a couple of times but, you know, you live and you kind of learn, you tone it down a little bit.”

“People assume that we must be a bunch of hippies sitting together in a little cottage making Afrobeat, but it’s really just like any other electro band: it’s just us plugging away on our computers.”

Anticipation is high for Jinja Safari’s debut album – the band’s last release, Locked By Land, collected their early EPs). “It’s going to happen sooner rather than later, I think,” Azon says.

“We’ve separated the wheat from the chaff, and we’re into the mixing phase now, so I think we’ve found a collection of tracks we’re all really happy with.” A fair chunk of the record came together while the band were touring overseas. “Touring takes up a fair bit of time, and if you’re playing to smaller crowds you start to wonder if it’s worth all the travel, so we set ourselves a challenge to put songs together on the road. Pepa [Knight, keys] had just gotten these plug-ins for Pro-Tools – some were samples of sounds from East Africa and some were ‘60s Abbey Road drum samples – so he put a series of instrumentals together as we travelled, then gave them to me to record some lyrical ideas.

“When we got back, we Frankensteined it all together and came up with five new tracks that we could slip into the collection we already had.”

Of these, he reckons three are good enough to actually make the album. “That probably sounds a bit contradictory to the way we’re portrayed and the sound you hear, which is very organic,” he says. “I don’t know. When people listen to our music, they hear this kind of silly folk-y, jungle-y sound and assume that we must be a bunch of hippies sitting in a little cottage making Afrobeat, but it’s really just like any other electro band: it’s just us plugging away on our computers.”

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With: Bluejuice Where: Island Life @ The Cockatoo Island Film Festival – Concert Series When: Friday October 26 More: The Concert Series runs from Thursday October 26 – Saturday October 27, and also features Matt Corby, Arrested Development, Gossling and heaps more; head to cockatooislandfilmfestival.com

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Los Campesinos!

Close To Chaos By Benjamin Cooper

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fter forming at Cardiff University in the Welsh capital in 2006, English group Los Campesinos! have gone from strength to strength. They’ve grown from their original trio to a seven-piece beast with an enviable live reputation, and released a handful of EPs and three studio albums, including last year’s Pitchfork-endorsed Hello Sadness. Yet they’ve never ventured to Australia before, making next month’s tour for Harvest Festival seem a little overdue.

2012 has been a period of hectic touring for the band, who pride themselves on their hardworking ethic – but they reckon it’s about time they had a summer holiday. Maybe even two. “This year really has been intense,” says Gareth David, the group’s vocalist, glockenspielist, and principal lyricist. “We’ve just finished up a pretty busy stint of touring, and at the moment I’m taking ten seconds to try and put my life in order before we go on a Spanish tour. Actually, do I even need to take time out to contemplate Spain? Isn’t that over-thinking the whole thing a bit much? It’s Spain, right? It’s warmer!” he laughs. “The point is we’ll have a great time, enjoy what little remains of the summer, and then go back to America. And then finally come to Australia for some real fun.”

Everyone wants a piece of the band at the moment, with Los Campesino!’s latest album release perfectly timed to take advantage of both the European festival season and the American summer touring circuit. But countless transatlantic flights throughout the year have taken their toll. “As soon as we get off one plane, we’re right back on another. This particular Spanish trip is a little bit out of the blue because we thought our period of touring was finished. But it turns out our manager was made quite a good offer… It’s frustrating because you’re never really able to plan anything in advance, and you do exist in quite a stop/start mode – but by no means am I complaining,” David says, waving aside the looming spectre of the misunderstood artist. “It’s a great life, and to be part of a world that means I can make music the priority is just an absolute dream. I guess wanting to be in the one place for more than a day is just greedy,” he laughs.

It’s a world away from the heady days of 2006, when all the band had was a demo tape, a MySpace account and a handful of high energy, twee-pop punk songs (anybody who likes the sound of that but didn’t hang at Purple Sneakers all through 2008 should YouTube ‘My Year In Lists’ right now). There was an increasingly curious online following, and word had begun to spread south to London about the manic, exhilarating and verbose live shows they’d been performing in union halls and student clubs around Cardiff. Sure enough, live favourite ‘You! Me! Dancing!’ was swiftly seized upon by BBC Radio 1, with the increased exposure earning them the support spot on Broken Social Scene’s British tour in August of that year. Just months later they were snapped up and signed to British independent label and house of cool, Wichita Recordings (Les Savy Fav, Simian Mobile Disco), which launched them on an ongoing odyssey of gigs that spanned time zones and continents.

“If we rehearse too much, we play terribly.

We’re much better on a wing and a prayer, when everything sounds very close to chaos, and everyone’s wondering what is going to happen next.”

Although Australian fans have been beckoning the band for some time, David seems surprised that they are actually making the trip at last. “We’ve gigged all over the world, and it’s been mentioned on numerous occasions, when we’ve all been sitting around, that Australia is the one place we thought we’d never get to tour. Problems kept coming up with scheduling, or we’d be booked into some shows in the States already, but then Harvest made us this awesome offer. We’d have been fools to refuse.” Are the band excited to be touring at the start of the Australian summer? “To be perfectly honest, the thought of the Australian summer terrifies me! You do know we’re English, right?” he says with a laugh. “Seriously though, it’s going to be great. We just have to remember to be social because we usually take any chance to be writing or recording, purely because we enjoy it so much and it’s what we want to be doing with our time. I’m sure Sydney will find a way to distract us somehow.”

After covering so much ground already, David tells me that Los Campesinos! are only now starting to hit their stride. “It’s funny – even though we’ve been playing some shows recently, we’ve not actually had much chance to rehearse,” he admits. “But we’re sounding great! We’ve got a bunch of shows coming up across the States, and it feels good to be heading to Texas and California in such good shape. There’s something about that familiarity between us all that makes us comfortable enough to take risks, because we know it will be anchored at some point. We’re the kind of band that if we rehearse too much, we play terribly; we’re honestly at our worst when we’ve had heaps of prep. We’re much better on a wing and a prayer, when everything sounds very close to chaos, and everyone’s wondering what is going to happen next. If we can just keep them on the edges of their seats, well, we’ve done our job.”

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What: Hello Sadness is out now With: Beck, Sigur Rós, Grizzly Bear, Ben Folds Five, Santigold, Beirut, Cake and more Where: Harvest Festival @ Parramatta Park When: Saturday November 17

T H I S

W E E K

A T

T H E

PRESENTS

A MONTH OF FRIDAYS FRI 19 OCT

CA N YO N S SOFT WAR + W E E K LY R E S I D E N T S

MODULAR D J S

Presents

SAT 20TH OCT

FURNACE&THE FUNDAMENTALS LIVE

+ HOBOPHOBICS + FALCONA DJS

FRESH CUTS

‘CASUAL CUTS WITH LUKE AND STEVE FROM UPPERCUT DELUXE’

GIVEAWAYS – HAIR GREASE & GOODTIMES + DJ ROCKABILLY SURF GARAGE SET

SUNDAY 21ST OCTOBER 2PM FA C E B O O K . C O M / B E A C H R O A D H O T E L BRAG :: 484 :: 15:10:12 :: 27

arts frontline

free stuff email: freestuff@thebrag.com

arts, theatre and film news... what's goin' on around town and more...

five minutes WITH

DR BROWN

up to the absurdity of Behaves, Because and Becaves, is being brought to Sydney by the Tamarama Rock Surfers this month.

(Also, make sure you Check out his hilarious Channel4 series Comedy Blaps on Youtube.

You won’t regret it.)

How did you get into comedy?

I wanted to be funny.

Why “silent clowning”?

It was an accidental discovery. When I first started doing comedy gigs I found that people were laughing in the first ten seconds when I wasn’t saying anything. Then I was able to push ten seconds to 30 seconds, and then one minute, then five, then ten and so on, until I discovered that I could spend an entire hour on stage without saying anything, and people were still engaged and still laughing at what I was doing.

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Is it true that sometimes not speaking is funnier?

It depends.

Why’s the new show called Befrdfgth? Is it because you ran out of “be-” words?

I can’t answer that.

What’s the weirdest thing you do in this new show?

I can’t say. I don’t want to ruin it. But what is a bit different about this show is that I’m a bit less aggressive towards my audience and more loving instead. I no longer want to fight them, nor myself.

You’ve been praised for your physical comedy. What can audiences expect this time?

Just silliness and complete stupidity at times, and lots of fun. Just being a total idiot and not caring about being good, or other stupid shit that keeps us from just chilling out, having a good time, and not taking everything (including ourselves) so seriously.

Hopefully that transfers to the audience.

Are dudes with beards just funnier (especially with their shirts off)?

No. How do you respond when people say you’re the American Mr. Bean?

I don’t respond. It’s not within my power nor is it my responsibility to help people define or categorise what I do. That being said, I used to watch a lot of Mr. Bean growing up, and I loved him. I still think he’s hilarious.

Who’s the funniest person ever?

Loads of my friends who don’t do comedy.

They’re super funny and the ones from whom I steal all my humour – and then feed it to strangers.

What: Dr Brown’s Befrdfgth Where: The Old Fitzroy Theatre, Woolloomooloo When: Friday October 19 and Saturday October 20

A classic tale of revenge and tragedy, first performed in Greece in 431BC, Medea continues to be one of the most arresting pieces of dramatic literature. Kate Mulvany and Anne-Louise Sarks have appropriated the story – of a woman who kills her two sons to get revenge against her cruel husband, who left her to marry a princess – for a contemporary audience, stripping away the historical elements of the myth to make it a story about an ordinary family in an extraordinary situation.

It stars two young boys, Joseph Kelly and Rory Porter, who give an astounding performance of Medea’s ill-fated sons.

To win one of two double passes for the 5:15pm performance on Sunday October 21 at The Belvoir Theatre, just tell us the name of your favourite classic-to-modern adaptation.

SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED

A classified ad reads: “Wanted: Somebody to go back in time with me. This is not a joke. You’ll get paid after we get back.

Must bring your own weapons. I have only done this once before. Safety not guaranteed”. Naturally, magazine writer Jeff Schwensen (played by Jake M Johnson) wants to investigate. He takes with him intern Darius (Aubrey Plaza) and Arnau, a biology major, and the three of them embark on a journey to save loved ones and discover the secrets of time travel, apparently held by grocerystore stock-guy Kenneth (Mark Duplass).

The film has already proved to be a huge indie hit in the States, so to get your share of the action – and win one of five double passes – tell us about the weirdest classified ad you’ve ever seen.

DELICIOUSTOWN

Get excited, foodies! For one night only George St will be closed to all those pesky cars and buses, and be transformed into a giant urban dining room as the finale to Art & About. A Moveable Feast will give you the chance to sample foodstuffs from Sydney’s brand-spanking new fleet of food trucks, including tacos from Cantina Mobil, pork buns from Tsuru, and veggie burgers from The Veggie Patch. Plus there’ll be short films screening and tunes from Sydney rockers Dog Trumpet and the Future Classic DJs. Get down to George St (between Bathurst and Park Sts) on Friday October 20 from 7:30 till midnight to partake in tasty goodness. Yummers.

Byeong Doo Moon, I Have Been Dreaming To Be A Tree

HARVEST ARTS

Art is awesome (is it a surprise that we think so?), but it’s even more awesome when it’s everywhere. Well, that’s how Harvest festival is describing its epic arts lineup, which on November 17 will litter the whole of Paramatta Park with plenty of creative goodness, including cabaret and vaudeville (tell me you won’t enjoy that while you’re day drunk), erotic fan fiction readings, a comedy picnic and rock‘n’roll stunts.

Some standouts on the bill are London neocabaret electropop duo Bourgeois & Maurice, burlesque superstars from Coney Island Trixie Little & Evil Hate Monkey, and the return of weird and wonderful festival favourites The League Of Sideshow Superstars (which includes a “man with iron skin”, a sword swallower, an escapist, and a clown). Be bored between bands no more, and get your tickets from harvestfestival.com.au

COCKATOO ISLAND FILM FESTIVAL SARAH SILVERMAN RULES OK

She may have gone viral (and won a freaking Emmy) for singing about “f**cking Matt Damon”, but the most outrageously funny woman alive (aka Sarah Silverman) has a hell of a lot more to say than that. She’s bringing her sardonic, no-holds-barred act Down Under for the first time next month, so prepare yourself for jokes about bedwetting, bigotry and growing up Jewish, more than likely set to ridiculously catchy tunes. She hits the Sydney Opera House on Friday November 30 and you’d better be up early to nab tickets from 9am on Monday October 15, because this one’ll sell out. We're gonna go watch The Sarah Silverman Program now. sydneyoperahouse.com.

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The Cockatoo Island Film Festival features the biggest competitive international film program ever brought to our humble shores. The inaugural event runs from October 24–28 and screenings will be held in purpose-built digital cinemas on scenic treat, Cockatoo Island.

The acclaimed opus The Master will open the festival – director Paul Thomas Anderson will make an appearance! – and Sundance star Four Suns, Cannes FIPRESCI-winner In The Fog and American indie-hit Smashed are also screening in competition, along with many, many others.

Prizes for Best Feature, Best Documentary, Young Filmmaker Of The Year and more will be awarded, and there are a bunch of special events, including masterclasses with renowned director Peter Weir and composer Burkhard Dallwitz. For info and tickets head to cockatooislandfilmfestival.com

SEX!

Did that get your attention? Good, because Performance Space’s SEXES is Sydney’s festival of visual and performing arts exploring perspectives on sexuality. There’ll be two brand new full-length performances, live art, erotic readings, dirty movies, and even a danceathon

SCULPTURE BY THE SEA

It’s back, baby! The outdoorsy arts favourite of Sydneysiders old and new, Sculpture By The Sea returns for its sweet sixteenth year. There will be over 100 works from Australian and international artists lining the glorious Bondi to Tamarama coastal walk. This year’s exhibition features several Sculpture By The Sea debutantes including Australian duo Rachel Couper and Ivana Kuzmanovska, American Rico Eastman and Dutch environmental artist Karin van der Molen, as well as works from internationally renowned artists Sui Jianguo, Sir Anthony Caro OM and Ken Unsworth AM. So start charging those camera batteries because it’s launching Thursday October 18 and runs until Sunday November 4.

(which may or not involve nudity – the press release didn’t mention it, but here’s hoping), all happening at Carriageworks between October 25 and December 1. Things to look forward to are Whelping Box, a brutal physical comedy; the SEXES exhibition, comprising 17 contemporary artists; and a show in which a middle-aged woman will apparently defy our expectations of everyday life... Hit up the website for the full, sexy program: performancespace.com.au

SNAP HAPPY

Everyone thinks they’re a photographer these days – I mean, just check your Instagram feed. Well, Monster Children’s annual Photo Competition is back, and believe it or not, they actually give a shit about your food photos and what you saw on your American holiday. This year’s categories are lifestyle, action, travel, students, and girls (?), and snappers have a chance to win $20,000 and have their photos featured in the mag. Plus, if you post your entry on Instagram with the hash tag #mcphotocomp, you could win huge prize packs from Monster

Children and streetwear giant OBEY. Entry is only five bucks a piece, and for all you ramen-eating students, it’s free. Entries close Monday October 22. monsterchildren.com

WE LOVE OUTDOOR CINEMA

Daylight Savings happened, which means that you lost an hour of sleep, but gained a world of balmy, summer evening activities like backyard cricket, beach hangs and, I don’t know… tandem bike rides or something. Anyway, one thing we’ll enjoy for certain are The Beresford’s Summer Movie Nights, which will screen old faves and cult classics for free every Monday from October through to March next year. There’s a new theme each month, and of course October’s is Scream-O-Vision: a tribute to spooky staples like Beetlejuice, Little Shop Of Horrors and Young Frankenstein. Next month offers the best in moustachioed leading men and December’s all about films you’ve already seen (or at least should have). Grab a seat and a $5 Heineken at The Beresford in Surry Hills every Monday from 7pm.

More deets at merivale.com.au.

Xxx

r Brown is a man of few words, or at least he is when he’s on stage.

You couldn’t really call it stand up since he’s not saying anything, and since ordinarily stand up comics don’t pull dudes out of the crowd and get them to perform a dual striptease. Nevertheless, Dr Brown (aka Phil Burgers) has been praised for his Buster Keaton-meets-Mr. Bean physical comedy and his bizarre sense of humour, getting four-to-five star reviews from critics all over. His new show, Befrdfgth, the follow-

MEDEA

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LAWLESS

Right-hand Man By Charlie McDenis

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ohn Hillcoat likes to refer to Nick Cave – a key collaborator on all of his movies, including his latest, the stylish gangster epic Lawless – as “The Master”, and it’s easy to see why. Not only is Lawless the third screenplay Cave’s written for Hillcoat, but he’s also compiled a brilliant, haunting soundtrack for the film. Sharp-eyed Cave fans might even spot him making a cameo appearance, too.

“Yes, I am actually in Lawless,” Cave admits, smiling. “There’s a scene in Chicago at the very start with a dead gangster in a car – well, I’m the dead gangster.”

A gripping tale of outlaws who make moonshine in the backwoods of Virginia during Prohibition, Lawless is based on Matt Bondurant’s novel The Wettest County In The World, which is the true story of the extraordinary exploits of his grandfather Jack and his two great uncles. Hillcoat was hard at work filming The Road – his brilliant adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic masterpiece – when a colleague suggested he read Bondurant’s book.

“I was actually doing the scene with Robert Duvall in The Road, and in the middle of nowhere and I got a call about this book that I had to read,” says Hillcoat. “I did read it and it was fantastic. I was looking for a gangster film to do, because I love genre films, but I couldn’t find a new take on it. And then I was told about this book, which was from the perspective of the people who created this kind of Al Capone-style gangster clan, but in the backwoods.

So I gave it to my right arm – my friend and collaborator Nick Cave.”

When Hillcoat passed it on, Cave was also immediately struck by the material. “The book is amazing – it’s a stone classic of American literature,” says Cave. “[It] had an original idea in that it was really about the foot soldiers, the worker bees, that create the very beginning of the whole process of this wave of corruption that goes up and up into the cities. And that’s the territory that most filmmakers make films about – the glamorous side of the whole thing. And here was this really beautiful book about the workers, and that seemed new and interesting.”

Hillcoat’s film is influenced by some of the classics of the American gangster genre: Brian De Palma’s Scarface, Arthur Penn’s Bonnie And Clyde and Sergio Leone’s Once Upon A Time In America. Although he was born in Australia, Hillcoat was inspired by growing up in North America, where he spent his time watching gangster movies whenever he could. “What I’m fond of with those films in particular is that they had really strong filmmaking and characters and performances, which

Shia LaBeouf in Lawless seems to be excluded from certain genres now,” Hillcoat says. “Gangster films nowadays are more about pure action, not characters. So it was a special treat to have such rich characters, and a story that deals with the consequences of violence – there is a lot of material in that.”

The Bondurant Boys were outlaws who ran a restaurant in Franklin County, Virginia – dubbed “The Wettest County In The World” because of the amount of illegal booze produced there during the Prohibition era – which was a front

for their moonshine operation.

Shia LaBeouf plays the youngest Bondurant, the ambitious, business savvy Jack, who is shielded from the violence but desperately wants to earn the respect of his older siblings.

When the Bondurants’ bootlegging business is threatened by the arrival of a corrupt special deputy (Charley Rakes, played by Guy Pearce), the family refuses to back down and a brutal war breaks out.

Lawless is, at times, graphically violent, but Cave believes that Hillcoat’s direction is never

Lawless director John Hillcoat on set with Mia Wasikowska

gratuitous. “I didn’t have that much interest in when it was actually set; it was more the flavour of the book that took me,” he says. “I loved the kind of classical love stories that were involved in the story and the excessive violence, and those two things coming together are what really kind of titillates me.

“I’m not that interested in violence per se in films,” Cave continues. “A lot of it is very tedious and boring, but there is something in the way that John deals with violence that I find really exciting, right from his early movies that no one even knows about. It’s very brutal, very quick, it’s all over very fast but it leaves a huge mess behind, and that’s what excites me.”

For Hillcoat, working closely with Cave is an organic experience, different to the process of a lot of Hollywood films.

“Film is such a delicate balancing act of so many elements,” Hillcoat says.

“Nick is the sole writer [often scripts go through several different writers] and then it goes to the cast and it evolves in rehearsals, and then Nick comes back in at the end with the music. So there’s an extra kind of connective tissue there that for me is really special, because most films aren’t allowed to have that.”

Cave supervised the music for Lawless, forming a band that including himself, Warren Ellis, Martyn Casey, George Vjestica and David Sardy – collectively known as The Bootleggers – as well as country and folk legends like Emmylou Harris and Ralph Stanley.

“We didn’t want to make a worthy Americana-style soundtrack,” Cave explains. “It’s been done very well in things like O Brother, Where Art Thou, so we wanted to stay as far away from that as possible.”

“We started thinking about modernday songs and creating an aural illusion by doing a bluegrass/hillbilly version of them, and then stretching the tone,” Cave says. “I think that this is actually a very modern film in a way, because Prohibition still exists, and it still fails, with the so-called war on drugs and all of that stuff. So there was a kind of gleeful idea of fusing modern-day concerns, such as a Velvet Underground song about taking speed and amphetamine like ‘White Light/White Heat’, and doing it in a kind of bluegrass, authentic American style that seemed to pull the present back to the past in a very pleasing way.”

What: Lawless is in cinemas now.

C

an you design yourself the perfect mate? One who’ll be totally awesome and nice to you, and who won’t screw you over? These are questions that go way back – all the way back to 1662, in fact, when Molière first staged his comedic play The School For Wives (L’école des femmes) at the Palais Royal in Paris. Though the original is about a middleaged creep who grooms himself the perfect wife (from when she’s four-years-old, eew), playwright Justin Fleming has adapted the work for Bell Shakespeare to make it relevant for our equally-creepy internet generation. Directed by Lee Lewis and starring John Adam and Harriet Dyer, it’s a hilarious train-wreck love story filled with arrogance and naivety. The show’s in town from October 23 – November 24 before it tours the country, so make sure you check it out while you can!

Like a proverbial bouquet, you can catch one of three double passes for the performance on Sunday October 28 at 5pm. Just email your creepiest, internet love story to freestuff@thebrag. com.

WIN!

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S AY W EA IV G

THE SCHOOL FOR WIVES

Medea [THEATRE] Little Boys Lost By Rebecca Saffir Rory Porter in Medea

stories, fairytales, that have nothing to do with who we are as people, as a society – but that’s not true. Even just in the last five years, there have been so many horrible stories of parents taking the lives of their children. But also, separate to the horror and the drama of Medea, I was really interested in the energy and truth of children on stage. So this story, which really hangs on the death of these children, felt like an interesting opportunity to put their journey and energy at the forefront of a show.

Is it predominantly the boys’ story, or is Medea very present as well?

It’s very much the boys’ story. We are in their bedroom with them for the whole show – they don’t leave the stage. We see Medea as our boys do: she’s a human being, a real woman, who ends up doing a horrific thing. And that’s so important because otherwise this story has nothing to do with us in Sydney in October 2012. If she’s just evil then we can just dismiss her and her actions and not think about it. For me, that’s a cop out.

A

s a founding member and now Artistic Director of Melbourne-based The Hayloft Project, Anne-Louise Sarks has written, performed, dramaturged and directed a slew of punchy, full-on rearrangements and explorations of classic and canonical texts; The Suicide, The Only Child and Thyestes have all made it to Sydney shores, with Sarks wearing one (or more) of many hats. Now, she’s teaming up with writer Kate Mulvany, actor Blazey Best, and young boys Rory Porter and Joseph Kelly, to tell the story of Medea, the legendary Greek character who slays her children to revenge her husband’s infidelity.

This new and confronting adaptation is told through the eyes of the children in what are, unbeknownst to them, the final hours of their lives – and it is the beginning of an enduring mythic legacy.

And why Medea?

We like to think these myths are distant

They say you should never work with animals or children. How has the process of working with kids been?

I love it. It’s completely different to any other project I’ve ever worked on, but it’s been such a delightful challenge. Learning how to speak to the boys and introduce them to this world of theatre and acting has been fascinating. There’s so much we take for granted that those boys don’t know yet. It’s also been so much fun. You’d think Medea would be a horrible world to be in every day, but actually, from the kids’ perspective, it’s just another day that is full of games and stories and jokes. I’ve had a ball playing with them: play is absolutely what it is! Also, we have two fish in our show, so we are really testing that theory...

What: Medea Where: Belvoir St Theatre, Surry Hills When: Until November 25 More: Tickets from $32 from belvoir.com.au

Killing Them Softly [FILM] Andrew Dominik’s Crisis Of Masculinity By Dee Jefferson

“A

merica’s fucked up. It really is. In a way that they don’t even realise. Umm, and I guess that I was feeling that way when I made this film.” New Zealand-born, Australianbred director Andrew Dominik is speaking on the eve of his latest film’s Australian release, and off the back of a good decade working in America, where he made The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford. His third feature, Killing Them Softly is a down-and-dirty crime caper set in the ganglands of New Orleans.

An adaptation of George V. Higgins’ 1974 novel Cogan’s Trade, it subverts expectations of the genre to make a much larger comment about America generally, and its approach to money.

“I mean, I just liked [his novel] initially on the basis of the plot and the characters and stuff like that,” says the director. “And part of my attraction to it was that it was dealing with financial insecurity, and I had my own financial insecurity at the time – I needed the money! And in America at that time, all anyone was talking about was the economy. It just struck me that this was a story about an economic crisis, and it was an economic crisis in an economy that was supported by gambling – which is sort of what the American economy is supported by. And it was due to a failure of regulation, because they hadn’t taken care of the cause of the problem the first time round. So it happened again, and then when they had to clean it up, they had to deal with not only the problem itself, but also the perception of the problem. Essentially what we were watching was a political situation, but it was just done at the base level of capitalism, which is crime. All the parallels just seemed, you know, too good to ignore.”

Like Dominik’s debut, the Eric Bana-fronted Chopper, Killing Them Softly mixes crime and

violence with comedic overtones. “There’s a lot of comedy in the book,” says the director, but he admits that he’s made it more explicit. In exploring the dynamics of the GFC, he adjusts Higgins’ original criminal food chain: instead of one mob boss at the top of the hierarchy, we have a committee of faceless, gormless bosses who have to be upwards-managed, office-style, by mob enforcer Jackie Cogan (played by Brad Pitt). “The comedy gets a bit balder once Jackie has to negotiate the politics – the higherups who are never seen, and then haggling over the cost of everything,” says Dominik.

“In the movie, [Jackie] has to deal with a lot more incompetence above him, and he’s more concerned about having to deal with the people who he kills. He’s always trying to avoid having to do the dirty work.”

With three films about men of violence now under his belt, Dominik admits, “I guess my view of human nature is pretty bleak. The values that I see vaunted in a lot of movies – I don’t see much evidence of them in actual life.” But he also sees his films as more about male insecurity than violence. “[This movie] is as much a portrait of destroyed masculinity as it is about a financial crisis or anything else,” he argues. “It’s a film about men, and about how men organise themselves – and the difficulties they have dealing with stuff.”

As he departs, Dominik is keen to point out that his next film is, in fact, about a woman: a highly anticipated adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates’ fantasy Marilyn Monroe epic, Blonde.

“No violence!” he says defiantly, before pausing and acknowledging with a laugh, “Well, maybe a different kind…”

What: Killing Them Softly is in cinemas now

Gallery Burlesque [CABARET] A Very Bawdy Birthday By Natalie Amat

I

t all began with a delicious pin-up photography project called Better Than Cheesecake. Four years ago, Onur Karaozbek created Gallery Burlesque, which was first housed at the Gaffa Gallery before moving to Tone, finally settling into The Standard earlier this year. The kinky collective has been bringing the finest in neo-burlesque performance art, music and photography to Sydneysiders ever since, and now they’re celebrating the only way they know how – with a killer, knees-up party.

Sydney has proved a bit of a tough nut to crack for solo performance artists, as putting on shows can be a pretty pricey endeavour.

Karaozbek’s solution was to curate group exhibitions in various Sydney hotspots. “To spice things up I decided to create a variety night full of music, visual art and burlesque,” he tells me. The first show had an interesting lineup, with “old-school magic man Rod from Sydney Show Boat, and the wonderful Kitty Van Horne with a burlesque routine.”

This month, Gallery Burlesque is kicking it old school with a fabulously decadent 4th Birthday Bash, promising what Karaozbek insists will be, “The biggest and best burlesque party Sydney has ever seen” featuring more than 15 performers, such as buxom beauties Lulu, Defy, Danica Lee, Holly J'aDoll, Rita Fontaine, Betty Grumble, Herbie Strangelove, Sheena Miss Demeanour and many more. “Looking at the line-up, I sort of realised I might have overbooked this thing… but hey, it’s a party

after all!” So what can punters expect from the bash, besides some of the greatest neoburlesque in town? “[We’ve] got cakes, huge disco balls, a star from the past, ladies dancing to Prince’s ‘Cream’, sing-a-longs, phat beats, a puppet, ponies… and many more! You just have to be there to experience it all.”

It hasn’t all been feathers and silk over the last few years, but the tough times have brought the Gallery Burlesque family a little closer. “I had times when I didn't pay my rent so I could pay performers, and with such gestures I have gained a new kind of family. I have learned that acting as a community is better on every level than pretending to be a burlesque business.”

Gallery Burlesque has put on some dazzling themed nights that have proved exceptionally popular, such as the Harry Potter Parody and the Tim Burton Tribute Night. When it comes to selecting themes, is it something done in consultation with performers, or is it all up to the boss? “In the beginning it was more based on variety nights with loose themes, booking performers based on their own creations. In recent times I started to curate and direct the concepts and overall themes, working closely with performers that have the knowledge and understanding of the topics that I choose.” But there was one theme that got away. “I am a total Star Wars nerd, but the brilliant Russall S. Beattie of The Vanguard fame tackled [the theme] first with great success, and with much respect he will have it forever, and I’ll keep it in my dreams. We

are a small community in Australia, and my view is to respect each other’s work and not try to poach each other’s concepts.”

With such a push for originality, Karaozbek must have some exciting themes up his sleeve for the future. “Taking things one step forward will be the Tarantino vs. Rodriguez Experience that I will put on in 2013,” he explains, “where I am writing/scripting all the acts and cutting/editing the music to it,

including short flicks and puppeteers.” Keep your ear to the ground for details of a possible The Bride vs Cherry Darling number...

What: Gallery Burlesque 4th Birthday Bash Where: The Standard When: Sunday October 21, Doors at 7PM More: Tickets for just $30, from galleryburlesque.com

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Xxxx

Xxx

You’ve adapted a lot of classic texts.

What is it about the telling of these stories that is important or interesting to you?

These stories are so rich for us as theatremakers, full of incredible characters and questions. I keep returning to them because they offer so much to delve into and they get straight to the core of humanity (“what it is to be human?”), which is the domain of theatre, I believe.

What about the development of the script: was it locked in before rehearsals?

Not at all. It’s been constantly evolving through rehearsals, which frankly, when working with kids, is a little scary. But that is the nature of new work. We are still shaping it and finding out what’s essential for our story, even this week as we open and as the season continues. I like to work that way – collaboratively with all the artists in the room.

Brad Pitt In Killing Them Softly

SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE, JUST FOR LAUGHS & ADRIAN BOHM PRESENT Just For Laughs is back at Sydney Opera House in its second incarnation, set to challenge those smug Melbournians to the title of best comedy festival in the country. 2011’s lineup, including Louis C.K., Margaret Cho and Demetri Martin, was impressive enough, and this year’s list – headlined by Parks And Recreation’s cheeky Aziz Ansari – is a combination of veterans like Drew Carey, crowd-pleasers like Noel Fielding, and newcomers like 30 Rock-writer Hannibal Buress. Aziz already brought us to the brink of asphyxiation with his solo show (we saw him on the weekend, suckas), but you can still catch a plethora of local and international comics until October 22. We asked some of the program's highlights about what to expect, and answers ranged from roasting, to PowerPoint, to balls-out free speech.

Dave Gorman Squirreling Dervishes By Benjamin Cooper

I

Bill Burr Breaking Burr By Michael Brown

B

ostonian comedian Bill Burr – besides having one of the most downloaded comedy podcasts in the world and doing cult-appeal overtime as gun-for-hire Kuby on Breaking Bad – confesses that he’s thrilled, but surprised, that he is coming to Sydney for Just For Laughs this month.

“I am absolutely shocked – the power of the internet. I know that I have a podcast and people write in from Australia, but the fact that people that far away would even remotely care about what I am doing is really inspiring,” he says. A devoted AC/ DC fan, Burr says, “I’ll probably blow most of my money buying all those TNT albums, the ones they didn’t have here.” Burr is such a fan that he’s also the proud owner of a Gibson SG guitar, famously played by Angus Young. “Yeah – if I could play half as good as it looks I would be able to play music instead [of doing comedy]."

Not to discredit Burr’s musical ability, but it’s unlikely his guitar could ever eclipse his stand up. One of the hottest comics of the moment, Burr is frequently spoken of with the same reverence as one of last year’s Just For Laughs headliners, Louis C.K. Burr has just released his third special, You People Are All The Same, following the lead of the likes of Louis and Aziz Ansari by releasing it exclusively online for just five bucks. This means there are no ads, says Burr, and no censorship, which were burdens of his previous TV specials. “They would bleep it. It sounded like a truck backing up.”

Aside from his recurring role on Breaking Bad, Burr has scored parts in Bridesmaids' director Paul Feig’s new film The Heat, alongside Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy, and in the Al Pacino and Christopher Walken film, Stand Up Guys.

Still, he says, it’s stand up for him all the way. “Those actors work, man – that is a job.

Stand up is easy, I sit around all day in my pyjamas playing guitar and drums, and then I go down to the club and I work for like

20 minutes. I’m totally happy just being a stand up comedian, so all that stuff is gravy.”

Burr’s Monday Morning Podcast has generated a legion of fans for his takeno-prisoners, stream-of-consciousness monologues. A firebrand of free speech, Burr has oft been called on to defend his rants. A swell of public offense is something that more often than not occurs when a comedian's work is taken out of the context of the performance environment, Burr says, a phenomenon that's escalating with the use of smart phone cameras in comedy clubs. To sail home his point, Burr displays a beautiful moment of what is now often used to describe his thinking: uninformed logic.

“You know people like loud guitar music, right? If all of a sudden you start playing that during some sort of religious service, it’s immediately going to be offensive, but the recording was from some guy in a rock club. That guy, alright, the guy in the rock club, doesn’t owe the people at the religious service an apology. The person who played the music, who uploaded it, does.” I’ll take that to mean that Burr and his friends in comedy reserve the right to rock out – and if you don’t like it, don’t record it.

What: You People Are All The Same Where: The Playhouse, Sydney Opera House When: Thursday October 18 – Saturday October 20, 8.45pm

Jeff Ross

t’s been almost a decade since British raconteur and comedian Dave Gorman set off on the journey that was to become the popular stage show, DVD, and Sunday Times bestselling book project, GoogleWhack Adventure. Though it sounds like it refers to a deeply private act committed in front of a computer screen, the term actually refers to the process of entering of two words into the search engine to obtain only one result. Gorman was alerted to the existence of this phenomenon when a fan pointed to the presence of a “googlewhack” on his webpage, and it’s to the world’s great benefit that following Gorman’s journey, the term “francophile namesakes” has become comparably commonplace.

Before the show’s debut at the 2003 Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Gorman had a quite simple aim: to grow a beard and write a book, so people would take him more seriously. The extension of this thinking was that having a beard and having people take him more seriously would allow him to mature, leaving behind the childish ways of his past. Gorman says he was probably overdue for this radical change in direction. “I’ve got three brothers who are all military, so right from the start I was perceived as being a black sheep within the family.

The ridiculous part about that was that I was actually the one following my family’s background and comfortably going exactly in the direction of the middle class.” He didn’t consider joining the military in his quest for maturity and respect?

“Tough choice: join the military or travel around the world a few times...” he deadpans back without hesitation.

bit more impressive. “I actually performed [GoogleWhack Adventure] at the Sydney Opera House back in 2003. We ended up having a two-week run, selling it out every night, which is great for my mum because she can tell her friends about her son David. She does neglect to mention that I played in the smallest room, but it doesn’t seem worth it to inject a dose of reality into the situation. This time I’m in one of the big rooms, which is a bit more stressful. Importantly, it’s a bit more impressive for mum, and that’s all that really matters,” he says.

Gorman admits that the show, which mixes lecture-style PowerPoint (bulletpoints included) with anecdotes about the characters and towns he encounters, doesn’t sound like a comedy show. But, he insists, “shows which sound like comedy shows are often crap.” And it’s likely Gorman’s show isn’t, because it sold out 28 performances at Edinburgh Fringe. “Obviously with a PowerPoint style you can’t go to any little comedy club, because very few of them have the space for a 15-foot screen. So you have to have a particular kind of space, and some people might think it’s a bit more cerebral, but all stand-up is cerebral: the laughs are made up in your head!" For him, the most exciting part is "when you’ve been working away, like I have, and you start off a show with a leap into the dark. That ten minutes before you walk on stage, and all you can think about is wanting to be on. That’s what I look forward to.”

What: Dave Gorman’s PowerPoint Presentation Where: The Opera Theatre, Sydney Opera House When: Sunday October 21, 6.30pm

Gorman is performing his solo show, Dave Gorman’s PowerPoint Presentation, for Just For Laughs 2012 – and although he’s appeared at the Sydney Opera House before, this time around it’ll be a

I

magine if you could say anything you wanted about anyone at all, and get paid for it. No, I’m not talking about Alan Jones.

Imagine people actually liking you, too. Well if that’s called a roast, then American comic Jeff Ross is the Roastmaster General.

If you can believe it, it’s a real title, bestowed upon him by a secret-sounding society called The Friars Club, an exclusive group of comedians, actors and celebrity-types who regularly gather at their New York headquarters for good company, a good time, and occasionally a good roast (kind of like a toast, only with the heat turned all the way up).

Ross has hosted the last ten Comedy Central Roasts, held annually at The Friar’s Club, including those of Pamela Anderson, William Shatner, Donald Trump and Charlie Sheen. The latter’s roast was particularly brutal – after admitting that maybe he wasn’t quite as great as he thought he was, Sheen sat in the roasting throne while Ross unleashed: “You’re the black sheep of a family responsible for three Mighty Ducks movies,” said Ross, adding, “Charlie, if you’re

32 :: BRAG :: 484 :: 15:10:12

winning, this must not be a child custody hearing.”

“I sort of think in insults, I can’t help it. It’s a struggle right now to even be serious.”

For a country obsessed with cutting down tall poppies, it’s a surprise that this now-classic comedic form hasn’t taken off in Australia.

But don’t worry, Ross will show Sydney how it’s done. “My goal here is to try to find out if people from Sydney have a good sense of humour, so I will try speed-roasting volunteers from the audience.” But surely people are scared of being picked on? “Oh no, never. Everyone loves to be the centre of attention, even when there’s a target on their forehead.”

But Ross admits that he wasn’t always so sure of himself. “When I first started roasting people, it was a lost art, like… uhh, jousting or… journalism.” He jabs me with a goodold journalism barb and I laugh – honestly laugh – for a bit. He’s got me, and I enjoy it.

It’s a bit thrilling and a bit painful, like licking a 9V battery: it’s not quite right, but you want some more.

I admit to Ross that I’m a little bit nervous about the insulting power he’s wielding.

It’s a very specific skill, and one that has seen Ross become the master on all things roasted. Not only is he the Roastmaster General and a Comedy Central regular, but Ross has his own TV show The Burn, which pokes fun at the news, popular culture and celebrities, and he’s even published a book called I Only Roast the Ones I Love: Busting Balls Without Burning Bridges. “Roasting is my train of thought at this point,” says Ross.

At Just For Laughs, Ross will be joined by a team of quasi-degenerate comedy cohorts in the dirtiest of club shows called The Nasty Show. “The Nasty Show is a place for adults. There’s no babies allowed at The Nasty Show,” says Ross. “If you’re the type of person that’s easily offended, or the type of person to groan or roll your eyes, please don’t buy a ticket. If you are the type of person that laughs at themselves, and life, or just needs a laugh perhaps, or just wants to get their boyfriend or girlfriend in a sexy mood, then I would say some good, old-fashioned alcohol and sex jokes are the answer.”

What: The Nasty Show, hosted by Jeff Ross With: Dom Irrera (USA), Tom Gleeson, Rhys Nicholson and Big Jay Oakerson (USA) Where: The Studio, Sydney Opera House When: Thursday October 18 – Sunday October 21, 9.45pm For tickets and more info on Just For Laughs, visit jfl.sydneyoperahouse.com

Jeff Ross photo by Maxime Cote.tif

I Only Roast The Ones I Love By Michael Brown

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Arts Snap

Film & Theatre Reviews

At the heart of the arts Where you went last week...

Hits and misses on the silver screen and the bareboards around town.

■ Film

Gerard Elson ■ Film

LAWLESS

SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED

In cinemas now Lawless is only John Hillcoat’s fifth feature in a career of 24 years. Until now, his career has been characterised by rigorous, uncompromising productions like The Proposition (2005) and Ghosts... Of The Civil Dead (1988). Even his largely forgotten “colonial madness” thriller To Have And To Hold (1996) seems like the work of a restlessly self-challenging sensibility.

angelo kehagias: other worlds

PICS :: PX

But Lawless… not so much. Backdropped by the lush forests of Franklin County, Virginia circa 1931 – two years before prohibition was repealed in the United States – it zeroes in on the Bondurant brothers, Jack (Shia LaBeouf), Forrest (Tom Hardy) and Howard (Jason Clarke), a close-knit fraternity of moonshine pushers whose pugnacious selfsufficiency has endowed them with folkloric status in the local community. The arrival on the scene of Special Deputy Charlie Rakes (Guy Pearce), a venal ring-in from Chicago, threatens the brothers’ hitherto untroubled operation. But as Forrest intones, “Bondurants don’t lay down for nobody.” Given Lawless was scripted by Hillcoat’s friend Nick Cave, you’d better believe there will be blood.

04:10:12 :: MART Gallery :: 69 Reservoir St Surry Hills

Originally titled The Wettest County In The World after the lyrical source novel by Matt Bondurant, Lawless has compromise on its breath like a rotgut swiller might cheap whiskey. Another version of the film was taken up two years ago, but was dropped when its financers decided an elegiac gangsterWestern hybrid might prove too risky a venture. A shame, not least for how Lawless finds Hillcoat and Cave in working-stiff mode, with Hillcoat’s usual visionary command of tenor and thematic complexity mostly MIA, along with Cave’s poetic embellishments.

Great performances (including Jessica Chastain and Gary Oldman in supporting roles) and a foot-stomping soundtrack of anachronistic covers reworked in bluegrass style, ensure Lawless at least holds appeal as a blander, blunted Bonnie & Clyde. It’s a solid-enough B-movie, but coming from Cave and Hillcoat, registers mostly as a disappointment.

In cinemas October 18 As we left the screening of Safety Not Guaranteed, with cheesy smiles on our faces, a critic friend pointed out that it’s been a good year for time travel movies.

Even as Rian Johnson’s stylish Looper spurs online brawls about the plausibility of its narrative logic, here comes a lowbudget indie excursion that also revolves around a time-travel plot and feels as smart and original as its big-money counterpart.

Darius (Aubrey Plaza) is in her early 20s and lives at home with her father, trying to hide her apathy as she applies for waitressing jobs while putting up with the standard mistreatment in her internship at Seattle magazine. But a pitch meeting turns up an interesting assignment – a classified ad from a man seeking a partner to go back in time. Hyper-cynical reporter Jeff puts his hand up and he, Darius and shy, resume-stacking fellow intern Arnau (Karan Soni) go on a road trip to find out exactly how crazy this time traveller is.

The performances, across the board, are quietly wonderful. Mark Duplass invests time traveller Kenneth with a deadlyserious determination that overcomes the odd choice to write him like a crackpot doomsday-prepper. And anyone familiar with Plaza’s deadpan-misanthrope schtick from Parks And Recreation will see plenty of April Ludgate in Darius, particularly the way she acts as a foil for the obliviously goofy, earnest Kenneth (similar to her rapport with Chris Pratt). But there’s a raw streak to her, and to all three main characters, that sees the possibility of time travel become not just a cool idea, but an emotional crutch. Safety Not Guaranteed is not a sci-fi film, it’s a story about losing and rediscovering your ability to have faith in others, and your capacity to be surprised by the world, no matter how old and jaded you think you are.

Caitlin Welsh

See www.thebrag.com for more arts reviews

WITH

L

PICS :: PX

paul gilsenan: dark side of a softy

Street Level

ocal artist Nell is the Siouxsie Sioux of the Sydney art scene: she’s got a balls-out rock‘n’roll attitude (umm, figuratively), with a style to match. Nell works in all traditional art-making mediums, from painting and photography to sculpture and tapestry, as well as playing in a band and recently collaborating with über-cool designers Romance Was Born on an AC/ DC-inspired T-shirt. Up next she’s hosting MCA Artbar’s Halloween edition, and we asked her for a sneak peak into how she’s going to trick and treat us.

04:10:12 :: 107 Projects :: 107 Redfern St Redfern

Arts Exposed What's in our diary...

PAUL KELLY: STORIES OF ME Saturday October 20 The State Theatre

Paul Kelly

I don’t know about you, but when the festive season approaches and the heat of the lingering summer threatens to become oppressive, I throw on Paul Kelly’s Christmas ballad ‘How To Make Gravy’ – and more often than not it degenerates into a sentimental, beer-swilling sing-along. But, I mean, of course it does! Everyone loves Paul Kelly; it’s just bloody un-Austray-yan if you don’t. The singer-songwriter has been an icon of Aussie music for nearly 40 years, writing over 350 songs (many of them lasting hits) as well as original soundtracks to awardwinning films like Lantana and Jindabyne – and his new studio album, Spring And Fall, comes out this week. New documentary, Paul Kelly: Stories Of Me, features rare archival footage, never-beforeseen performances, interviews with band and family members, testimonials by other famous types, and footage of Kelly speaking candidly about his life and career. There’s only one screening per city, and seating is limited, so get tickets before they sell out from paulkellythemovie.com.au 34 :: BRAG :: 484 :: 15:10:12

Describe your rock‘n’roll aesthetic.

I guess I have never grown out of that thrill of going to see a band, dancing like crazy with a bunch of strangers and going home with a T-shirt (or in the ol’ days, a playmate!).

Besides, rock‘n’roll directly engages with sex and death (literally, lyrically and aesthetically), and I have always loved that the name “AC/DC” is used as a colloquial synonym for bisexuality and, by extension, for in-between places.

What’ve you got in store for us at Artbar?

Are you going to spo-o-o-ok us?

Yeah a bit of spook, and expect zombies, fairies, dancers, some old lovers and heaps of noise. My Artbar is centred around good, clean fun, balanced out by a whole lot of dirty fun, too!

Are you going to be busting out ‘Monster Mash’ on the night?

I just love ‘Monster Mash’ and songs of that ilk and era. But for this Halloween Artbar I’ll be channeling Poison Ivy from The Cramps.

Plus there’s an undercurrent blowfly theme to the evening (think The Human Fly).

NELL Nell, Some Of The Things I Am

What’s your favourite thing about Halloween?

When I lived in L.A, I liked that the houses that didn’t dish out the candy were smothered in toilet paper. That’s what I plan to do to the MCA: but with blowflies, meat trays and toilet paper.

My Artbar will give an Aussie twist to American notions of horror.

What else have you got coming up?

I’m making a children’s book with Art & Australia, doing a neon commission for a private home that I’m really excited about, and putting on a solo show at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery in mid-next year that I’m planning to call Gravest Hits (after The Cramps’ debut album).

What: MCA Artbar curated by Nell Where: Museum Of Contemporary Art Australia When: Friday October 26 from 7pm More: mca.com.au/series/artbar

“… TAUT, BITING AND EXTREMELY FUNNY ...” THE AUSTRALIAN

THE SCHOOL FOR WIVES

THE PERFECT WIFE. OR IS SHE?

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Album Reviews What's been crossing our ears this week...

ALBUM OF THE WEEK The Ages’ is a typically irreverent yet bang-on example of Kelly lyricism: “You walked into the ball dressed by St Vincent DePaul, with that shy, serious smile.”

Spring And Fall Gawd Aggie Records/Universal Multi-instrumentalist, self-professed “mongrel” memoirist and bona fide national treasure, Paul Kelly is a troubadour so prolific that he’s become part of the Australian psyche.

With his latest record Spring And Fall he sought to “take a stand on behalf of the ALBUM”, and the result is a chronicle that encompasses love found and lost, memory, and aging. He collaborates again with nephew Dan Kelly, with J. Walker (C.W. Stoneking, The Whitlams) on production duties.

Spring And Fall is simply stunning. It’s a glorious way to while away an afternoon.

Although each song is strong enough to stand alone, the album is most rewarding when listened to in its entirety. The songs blossom when they flow on from one another, with lushly layered instruments adorning the arrangements, from harmonica and dobro to violin. ‘For

THE PAPER KITES Young North Independent You are driving along a curvy road down to a beach on the South Coast. Your passengers all have long, dirty blonde hair.

Middle-back-seat has feathers around his neck. Everyone is smoking weed and no one cares what time their barista shift starts tomorrow morning. You are listening to The Paper Kites EP, Young North.

Packed with all the do-do-do's and la-la-la’s you need for your Sunday surf adventure, the indie/ folk outfit kick things off with the melodic track ‘A Maker Of My Time’.

It’s sweet and easy, but maybe a little too easy – by track five, I’ve forgotten track one, and track three sounds just like it. Throughout Young North, the follow-up to 2011’s debut EP Woodland, The Paper Kites’ sound is very familiar, like you’ve heard their songs before – possibly on car ads and insurance plan commercials. They’ll get stuck in your head, none more so than ‘Leopold Street’, which made me reminisce on the glory days of Gelbison.

The harmonic vocals carry this EP from start to finish, both male and female voices meeting together for a tantric class on unisex melodic meditation. The lyrics match the earthy, hippy aesthetic of the band, but verses like “Sweet daisy chain around your neck, through your hair, in the sun” (on ‘Kiss The Grass’) seem a little on the nose.

As an EP, Young North is simple and sweet, and only as repetitive as five songs will allow. But if they don’t mix things up a little by the time they get to a full album, The Paper Kites might be left with too much room to do too little damage.

Erin Bromhead

But don’t worry, he’s not all dappled sunlight and love. Mournful melody and gentle harmonies are woven together on ‘Time And Tide’, and ‘None Of Your Business Now’ is a heartbroken rendering of a breakup. Rounding out the album is ‘Little Aches And Pains’, a song about being “old and creaky”, and even as he leaves us, Kelly is still wryly observing, “Disabled we’re born and disabled we die. Is that a cliché? I’ll make it one.”

Spring And Fall is probably the closest thing you’ll get to a concept album from Kelly, who wears maturity and experience well: “I don’t count my losses now, just my gains.”

Natalie Amat

URTHBOY

GREEN DAY

BREAKBOT

Smokey’s Haunt Elefant Traks

¡Uno! Warner Music

By Your Side Ed Banger

Having launched a successful solo career to run alongside his long-standing membership as an eighth of hip hop collective The Herd, we’ve watched Urthboy go from strength to strength, both as an MC and as a songwriter.

It seems an age since the runaway success of single ‘We Get Around’, but on Smokey’s Haunt, Urthboy shows that he’s still got the knack for original lyrics and fresh beats.

The guest roster practically beams off the CD cover, but there are surprisingly few fellow rappers among his talented bandwagon of collaborators. One such guest star is Alex Burnett of Sparkadia, whose vocals lend a tender touch to ‘The Big Sleep’; a beautifully told tale inspired by the recent story of a woman who passed away in her home, but was not found until several years later. It’s on tracks like this, and on modern-romance-gone-wrong number ‘Hey Dianne’ (ft. Bobby Flynn), that it becomes clear Urthboy is one of the gifted few who can craft poignant rhymes that not only have an enviable flow, but can keep you engaged in the story without resorting to flashy beats or corny choruses to reel you in.

Second single ‘Knee Length Socks’ injects some cheeky humour, as Urthboy recounts his early party days at his older brother’s Brit-pop nights; meanwhile, lead single ‘Naive Bravado’ is a perfectly balanced track – Daniel Merriweather’s smooth RnB vocal stylings equalises one of the darker offerings on the record.

Smokey’s Haunt is everything you’d expect from one of the honchos of the Elefant Traks family: stylishly produced hip hop with enough lyrical depth to keep your mind ticking while your head bobs along to the beats.

In the blur of early ’90s pop-punk, Green Day were the bolters, the “kids most likely” from the Berkeley, California punk scene and its attendant venue: the legendary Gilman Street. They made a couple of records, had several sing-along breakout hits, and since then have been filling stadiums. Yet in the intervening years, Green Day have become a rigid imitation of the band they once were. ¡Uno! plays like a selection of B-sides offering no real standout track, with the worst offenders being enthusiastically corny. From the pedestrian Mike Ness-ness of ‘Nuclear Family’ to the Good Charlotte-style new wave of ‘Kill The DJ’ to the anthemic sweetener ‘Oh Love’, Green Day seem to go through the motions of album-craft in the hope they’ll catch lightning in a bottle one more time like they did with Dookie back in ’94. But instead it seems they’ll continue to bob for that Platinum apple: ¡Uno! will be followed by ¡Dos! and ¡Tre! in coming months.

All Green Day really need to do is hang out and be Green Day and count their money. Why not put three records out in six months?

Put out seven. If you’ve got the material, hang it out there – but to pretend ¡Uno! is anything other than a tiresome dawdle through familiar territory would be a disservice. This is a paint-by-numbers album from a band that has seen better days. ¡Uno! treads the same path of revved-up pop punk that they have always travelled, but it does so in a way that undermines all the great, snotty, downstroke punk Billie Joe Armstrong had a knack for making. Age has wearied Green Day, and the years condemned.

It’s hard to believe that this is Breakbot’s debut album – this cheeky Parisian punk has been around the traps since everyone fell in love with his sassy remix of PNAU’s ‘Baby’. Ably backed by his friends Irfane and Ruckazoid on vocals, By Your Side is a 14-track jaunt along the anxiety-free French Riviera.

Many artists can go through drastic musical changes in a matter of months, but Breakbot’s Thibaut Berland has really stuck to his guns.

The album features ‘Baby I’m Yours (feat. Irfane)’, which was released as a single more than two years ago.

It slides effortlessly into his 2012 debut though, moulding beautifully with the aesthetic of By Your Side as if Breakbot had planned this whole thing all along, the cunning bastard.

Berland isn’t really pulling any muscles in this album, but it isn’t his intention nor duty to do so. He was a pioneer of this throwback discotheque sound when it started to emerge a few years ago, and he has firmly established his niche in the Ed Banger cocoon. Ruckazoid gives the album some soulful pizzazz (‘Why’ is a highlight), and Irfane complements Breakbot’s gorgeous slow jam electro with his distinctive oddball croon (‘Another Dawn’ and ‘The Mayfly And The Light’).

But Breakbot’s versatility and talent emerges in the instrumentals: album opener ‘Break Of Dawn’ is a slammin’ sunshine ditty with all the funky bass jabs and synthetic French house strings you could ever need, while ‘Programme’ is a more measured, audacious ‘90s cop show-flavoured jam.

If we described music in colours, this album would be all red, yellow, blue. And by no means is that a bad thing.

Marissa Demetriou Rob Wilson

Die Young Two Bright Lakes The second album from this Adelaide/ Sydney duo is all about matters of the heart. Die Young is a more solid collection than 2011’s Iconography, the music rooted in an uncluttered, glitchy dubstep that gets a little warmth from some smoochy, RnB-heavy vocals. Marcus Whale’s soulful, sometimes desperate tales of young love and heartache dominate, with the exception of ‘Soul Hologram’, a two-minute instrumental bridge of ambient wash.

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Behind all of the vocal gymnastics and ‘say it ain’t so, boy’ attitude is a sinister slant on teenage crushes, with feelings of possession and obsession bleeding through on tracks like ‘Missing’, in which Whale coos “I’ll be so close/I could almost kill you”.

Travis Cook’s icy, clipped beats are in keeping with the lyrics’ deceptively sharp edge, culminating in the beautiful, sometimes brutal sound of two broken hearts beating as one. If you’re going to capture those emotion-fueled teenage years honestly, it has to be a bit pained, right?

If Whale and Cook’s first album proved that the duo gelled despite (or maybe because of) their geographical distance

THE CACTUS CHANNEL Haptics Mistletone It could be considered somewhat unusual that The Cactus Channel, a young band from Melbourne, make music that seemingly belongs to decades well before their time. Their music has been described as ‘car-chase funk’, and the album opener ‘Emanuel Ciccolini’ certainly backs this up: immediately it’s clear that this tenpiece means business.

All three opening tracks will whip you up into a frenzy of finger snapping grooviness. It’s not until ‘Budokan’ that things slow down to an almost reggae tempo – Augustus Pablo and Booker T & The MG’s spring to mind.

Things get slightly psychedelic on ‘Tom Has Ideas’, as the saxophone bleeds through some trippy organ chords. You could be excused for feeling as though you’re being transported to another time and place (and involuntarily ingesting some hallucinogens to help with the journey).

The horn jam that comes in at around the three-minute mark of ‘Boss Cat’ sounds like it's about to drop into the Rocky theme. And that’s the whole point – it’s movie soundtrack music, and it’s timeless. On ‘Under The Birdcage’, think of The Doors circaLA Woman with its structure and progression (the organ sound and the track’s production have something to do with that too), before the song ends with a lonely Spaghetti Western guitar strum. Hot Teeth, the album closer, is a 12-minute epic that bolts out of the gate but slowly winds to a crawl of vibes, saxophone, bass and staggered drums.

The Catcus Channel pay homage to an era and genre of music, with a tight album that would sit proudly alongside the innovators.

Scott Nicolson

Rachitha Seneviratne

INDIE ALBUM OF THE WEEK COLLARBONES

Paul Kelly by Leon Morris

PAUL KELLY

from each other, Die Young’s revelation is that they are even more potent when they then collaborate with those outside of the Collarbones club. Some of the album’s strongest tracks feature guests, and are stacked at the start. The stunning ‘Hypothermia’ has Guerre cutting through trance beats and a top-form Whale cry with some atmospheric pitch-shifted vocals; its accompanying video clip is well worth the watch too, unless you're at risk of having seizures.

Die Young is invigorating; it embraces pop and accessibility to really connect with the listener, without losing any of the duo’s left-field appeal.

Chris Girdler

OFFICE MIXTAPE And here are the albums that have helped BRAG HQ get through the week...

MARTHA WAINWRIGHT - Come Home To Mama PAGEANTS - Dark Before Blonde Dawn THE MUSIC - The Music

MOON DUO - Circles RICK ROSS - The Black Bar Mitzvuh

BRAG :: 484 :: 15:10:12 :: 37

Remedy More Than The Cure Since 1989 with Murray Engleheart

CROOKED RAIN, CROOKED PAIN

There are nights when the mere thought that Steve Marriott could have stepped in to front AC/DC after Bon Scott passed away keeps us safe and warm.

Rock history is littered with such “what if” moments, and the latest involves perennial Marshall stack hugger, J Mascis, who has revealed that he was approached not once but twice by Kurt Cobain to join Nirvana as second axeman. What a game changer that would have been. If Nirvana fans thought that their Kurt was the poster boy for not giving the remotest of fucks, our J – particularly 20 years back – would have shrugged and monosyllabled that attitude to a whole other level.

EARLE’S PEARLS

Steve Earle is not only doing a bio but also another novel. According to the New York Times, the three main touch points of the memoir will be meeting his hero Townes Van Zandt, Earle’s dark days (which culminated in his infamous and much “celebrated” prison term), and ultimately the road to redemption, that began with the ground zero effort, Train A Comin’. It should be a corker of a read as we’ve long felt that Earle was and is far better and more engaging on his feet and in conversation than in any musical capacity. The novel will be no less gripping for those same reasons, and will deal with what his publisher has described as the tale of “a runaway slave who survived the battle of the Alamo.”

CELEBRATION DAY

The release of Led Zeppelin’s 2007 reunion show in London, under the name Celebration Day, is going to be as big as the phenomenal interest there was for tickets to the original event. It’ll be available in no less than eight different formats, which must be some sorta record for these kind of things. There’s the double 16-track CD; a digital release; a double CD and Blu-ray edition; a double CD and DVD; a triple slab of vinyl; a deluxe twin CD, Blu-ray, and DVD package with bonus material including the full dress rehearsal at Shepperton Studios; a deluxe double CD and DVD set with the rehearsals; and finally something called “Blu-ray Audio”.

Enemy, Albert King and Procol Harum, along with former bridesmaids Heart, Kraftwerk, Joan Jett And The Blackhearts, The Paul Butterfield Blues Band and The Meters. Albert King was, for us, the king of the three blues kings, so we’re very pleased about his inclusion – but the thought of inducting N.W.A and Public Enemy (whose anti-establishment efforts made The Sex Pistols seem like blubbering royalists) is just plain funny.

MOGWAI WILL NEVER DIE The mighty Mogwai are doing the remix thing again. This time it’s based on Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will, and titled A Wretched Virile Lore. It’ll be out in November, and with the redo of ‘George Square Thatcher Death Party’ by Justin Broadrick of Godflesh fame, it's a fave already.

REFORMED AND REPLACED

The Replacements are (but maybe that should be “were”) back together very briefly, for a good cause. Paul Westerberg and Tommy Stinson joined forces to record a 10-inch EP to assist with the medical expenses of guitarist Slim Dunlap, who suffered a stroke in February. Drummer Chris Mars reportedly didn’t want to know about the get together, but a Replacements reformation proper might have gotten a few steps closer due to Westerberg and Stinson’s teaming. “After playing with Tommy,” Westerberg told Rolling Stone, “I was thinking, ‘All right, let’s crank it up and knock out a record like this’. I’m closer to it now than I was two years ago, let’s say that.”

MOTÖRHEADPHÖNES

HORIZONTAL ACTION

Not sure how long it’s been out but the other day at the Glebe Record Fair we picked up a 7-inch of Psycho Surgeon’s classic ‘Horizontal Action/Wild Weekend’ single. No, not the original with the actual abattoir blood on the cover, but a reissue on the excellent Crypt label which, headed up by Tim Warren, has been the home of garage punk for as long as we can remember. It’s a gatefold pack with cool interviews by the likes of the alwayson-the-money Craig Regan, including rare pics. Very great and we’re guessing very limited.

NOMINEES WITH ATTITUDE

The nominees for induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame are, as always, kinda interesting, this year including Rush, Deep Purple, N.W.A., Public

We recently picked up a great new pair of headphones, which reminded us of the new dimension good cans can bring when listening to stuff like Hawkwind.

After all, it was Lemmy himself who once advised us that the optimum manner by which to experience Space Ritual was through a set of headphones while sitting in the dark. Now the Lemmster and co. have gone one further, with Motörhead introducing their own line of headphones in November to allow fans to get in touch with their inner tinnitus. “There’s so much drum-and-bass stuff out there and that’s fine,” guitarist Phil Campbell told Music Radar. "These are for people who like listening to mid-range stuff.”

ON THE TURNTABLE On the Remedy turntable is Ascent by Six Organs Of Admittance, the astral rocktripping unit fronted by Ben Chasny (formerly of our beloved Comets On Fire). 6OOA haven’t really nailed us previously; too much fluff and not enough stuff, basically. We appreciated their intent but something always seemed to get lost in the translation.

But no longer. Six Organs draws from the same Hawkwind-meets-MahavishnuOrchestra cosmic psych firestorm of Comets, which is really no surprise as it’s a virtual reunion effort. More please – soon, and on a larger, ongoing scale.

TOUR AND INDUSTRY NEWS

Xxxx

The Bald Faced Stag in Leichhardt is hosting the Under The Southern Cross metal festival on January 26 with Killrazer, Darker Half, Daemon Foetal Harvest, Mercyful Fated (nope, not a typo, they’re from Melbourne), Earth (Melbourne again), Devine Electric, Summonus, Rampage,

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Red Bee, DepriVation, New Blood, Trollgasm, Exekute and Paralysis.

Rose Tattoo and Steve King’s hot new and very loud band Stand Alone will be raising the roof at the Bald Faced Stag on Friday November 16.

Send stuff to remedy@ozemail.com.au by 6pm Wednesdays.

Pics to art@thebrag.com www.facebook.com/remedy4rock

THURSDAY 25 OCTOBER 2012 LV L 3 , 3 8 3 B O U R K E S T S U R RY H I L L S

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PUB TRIVIA ON STEROIDS

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FRI 19 OCT

SOSUEME The Griswolds Ep Launch With

The Belligerents, Edens March Kristy Lee, Isbjorn

OCTOBER 27th SNAP - RYTHM IS A DANCEPARTY 31st TOM BALLARD’S LISTENING PARTY NOVEMBER HUNGRY KIDS OF HUNGARY 1st 2nd STICKY FINGERS BRITISH INDIA 3rd

SAT 20 OCT SUN 21 OCT THU 26 OCT OPEN TIL 3AM COME VISIT US AT FACEBOOK.COM/THESTANDARDSYDNEY

TICKETS ON SALE NOW AT WEARETHESTANDARD.COM.AU BRAG :: 484 :: 15:10:12 :: 39

snap

northeast party house

PICS :: KC

up all night out all week . . .

06:10:12 :: Upstairs Beresford :: L1 354 Bourke St Surry Hills 8313 5000

ac presents some girls

06:10:12 :: The Big Top :: 1 Olympic Drive Milsons Point 9033 7600 :: NOHMON ANWARYAR :: S : TIM LEVY (HEAD HONCHO) OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHER :: DANIEL MUNNS :: THOMAS PEACHY :: GEORGE POPOV :: KATRINA CLARKE :: ASHLEY MAR :: IER SAM WHITESIDE :: PEDRO XAV

party profile

steel panther

PICS :: AM

It’s called: AC presents Some Girls It sounds like: An all-girl line-up performing The Rolling Stones!

Who’s Playing? Bonney Read, Iluka, Laura Zarb and Eirwen Skye.

Sell it to us: It’s called ‘Some Girls’ after The Rolling Stones hit of the same name, and celebrates 50 years of The Rolling Stones, performed by an allfemale cast! These talented young ladies all come from a range of musical backgrounds and are sharing the stage for one night only to put their spin on the classic hits of Jagger and Richards. From sweet singer-songwriters to a grungy all-girl rock band, there’s something for everyone on this tour through the Stones’ chapter in rock‘n’roll history.

The bit we’ll remember in the AM: That those chicks know how to rock‘n’roll.

Crowd specs: Everyone's welcome (as long as they rock out).

Wallet damage: $15 Where: The Vanguard, Newtown When: Thursday October 18

live reviews What we've been to see...

VELOCIRAPTOR, PALMS, THE DEAD HEADS Goodgod Small Club Thursday October 4 Short, fast, fun and loud was the theme of the night – well, that and BYOT (Bring Your Own Tambourine). The crowd was a stew of washed-out denim, paisley, and quirky hats, with some serious moustache action to be spotted amongst the beers and cocktail jugs of the Danceteria.

With a screech of feedback, “just five good blokes” The Dead Heads were off with ‘When I’m Dead’, from their album Go Ape Shit! Their garage-band sound was distorted and fuzzed-out, with enough rhythm to keep things moving, and the tambourine player had moves that would make Napoleon Dynamite jealous.

Next on stage were “male emotional rock band” Palms, the Sydney indie pop-rock supergroup born from the ashes of Red Riders, who played a string of tight, catchy tunes that had the audience discreetly nodding along. After ‘The Summer Is Done With Us’, they finished their set with the screaming triumph of crowd-pleaser ‘Love’, which elicited the most response from the artfully dishevelled crowd.

Palms may have dropped the tambourine ball, but it was picked right back up again by the irrepressible Velociraptor, who took

the stage to launch their much-vaunted mini-LP World Warriors. They were boasting a lighter lineup than usual (shared DZ Deathrays members were off on parallel tour duties), but if the warm-up stretches were any indication, we were still in for a ridiculously high-energy experience. Various musicians gathered on stage like bees to a honey pot, and there was some serious booty shaking to ‘Girls On Film’ before they’d even picked up their instruments.

The six ‘Raptors that were present launched into jangly surf-rock number ‘Hey Suzanne’ before the screaming collective effort of ‘Riot’, which echoed the vocal stylings of The Hives and had the crowd screaming right back at them, as various band members jumped off stage to be swallowed up by the enthusiastic punters. With a cry of “It’s all falsetto from here!”, they played ‘The Walk On By’, which whipped us all into a bopping frenzy.

Velociraptor are of The Ramones’ school of ‘no-song-over-three-minutes’, and every track starts with an enthusiastic count-in, but they’re not trying to re-invent rock’n’roll – they’re there to make sure you have as much fun jumping around to stupidly catchy songs as they do. All in all they were obnoxious, bratty, and ridiculously enjoyable. Even at half strength, Velociraptor manage to make a lot of noise.

Natalie Amat PHOTOGRAPHER : ASHLEY MAR

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WEEKEND DELEGATE PASSES NOW AVAILABLE ONLINE

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BRAG :: 484 :: 15:10:12 :: 41

snap sn ap up all night out all week . . .

It’s called: The Griswolds – 'Heart Of A Lion' EP launch Sounds like: MGMT, Yeasayer, Group Love, Reptar, Darwin Deez.

Who’s playing? The Griswolds, The Belligerents, Edens March, Kristy Lee and Isbjorn.

Sell it to us: The Belligerents are gonna be naked and buying everyone drinks all night, as well as putting on one hell of an amazing show! Both The Griswolds and The Belligerents were recently winners of the triple j Unearthed Parklife competition, and The Griswolds have been added to both the Peats Ridge Festival and the Homebake lineups! So get down to The Standard to catch these bands in a more intimate environment.

The bit we’ll remember in the AM: Remember to buy the morning after pill, because our synth player Robbie has a split personality (which we’ve endearingly named Hank), and he can impregnate men and women with just eye contact.

Crowd specs: Postmodern tranny midgets, and more hipsters than a General Pants staff meeting.

the paper scissors

PICS :: KC

party profile

the griswolds

06:10:12 :: The Standard :: 3/383 Bourke St Darlinghurst 9660 3100

Wallet damage: $12 Where: Sosume @ The Standard When: Friday October 19

PICS :: TL

rock n roll alternative markets

kittens

PICS :: TP

07:10:12 :: Manning Bar :: Sydney University Manning Rd Camperdown 9563 6000

wasted years

PICS :: SW

29:09:12 :: Spectrum :: 34 Oxford St Darlinghurst 9331 2956

04:10:12 :: Metro Theatre :: 624 George St Sydney 9550 3666

:: NOHMON ANWARYAR :: S : TIM LEVY (HEAD HONCHO) OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHER :: DANIEL MUNNS :: THOMAS PEACHY :: GEORGE POPOV :: KATRINA CLARKE :: ASHLEY MAR :: IER SAM WHITESIDE :: PEDRO XAV

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totally enormous extinct dinosaurs

PICS :: AM

dappled cities

PICS :: AM

29:09:12 :: Q Bar:: 34 Oxford St Darlinghurst 9331 2956

04:10:12 :: Oxford Art Factory :: 38-46 Oxford St, Darlinghurst 9332 3711

BRAG :: 484 :: 15:10:12 :: 43

g g guide gig g send your listings to : gigguide@thebrag.com

pick of the week

Xiu Xiu (USA), Absolute Boys, Rites Wild Goodgod Small Club, Sydney $28 (+ bf) 8pm

JAZZ

Lisa Mitchell

FRIDAY OCTOBER 19

Simon Redeschi, Ian Cooper, Bob Barnard Blue Beat, Double Bay $25 (+ bf) 7pm Tricia Evy (FRA) 505 Club, Surry Hills $10 (conc)–$15 8.30pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK Brett Winterford, Time Ireland, Damien Lane The Newsagency, Marrickville $15 8pm Folk Club: Achoo! Bless You, The Falls, Fanny Lumsden Gallery Bar, Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst free 8pm

THURSDAY OCTOBER 18 ROCK & POP

Metro Theatre, Sydney

Lisa Mitchell, Alpine, Danco $43.70 7.30pm all-ages MONDAY OCTOBER 15 ROCK & POP

The Belle Havens, Corpus, The Khanz, Skull Squadron, Go Away Everyone, Wires, Dune Buggy Attack Squadron Annandale Hotel $5 6pm

JAZZ

Doig Big Band 505 Club, Surry Hills 7.30pm Latin Jazz The World Bar, Kings Cross free 7pm Monday Jam: Danny G Felix The Lansdowne Hotel, Chippendale free 9pm Rob Eastwood Dee Why RSL Club free 6.30pm

TUESDAY OCTOBER 16

Botany View Hotel free 7.30pm Reality Bites, The Jerks, Old Spiced Boys The Three Wise Monkeys, Sydney free 9pm Songwriters AssociationOpen Mic Bald Faced Stag, Leichhardt free 7pm Taking Berlin, White Ocean Avenue, Meza, 11:11,Chasing Ora, Swingsets, The Cleanskins, Shadow Republic, Carmeria, Retina, Winter’s End, Junk,Chrome Pigs, Thunder Thief Annandale Hotel $15 12pm Vocal Chords Concert Series, Live From Mars Mars Hill Café, Parramatta $10 8.30pm

JAZZ

Jazzgroove: Panichi Big Band, Dave Jackson Quartet 505 Club, Surry Hills $8 (conc)–$15 8.30pm Shane Flew Dee Why RSL Club free 6.30pm

ROCK & POP

Adam Pringle and Friends Downstairs, Sandringham Hotel, Newtown free 8pm Icehouse, Zuzu Angel Dee Why RSL Club $60 8pm JP Trio Scruffy Murphy’s Hotel, Sydney free 10pm Jurassic Lounge: Lime Cordiale, Fanny Lumsden and the Thrillseekers, Cassian, Peats Ridge DJs The Australian Museum, Sydney $14 5.30pm Nick Van Breda, Fliner Stokes

WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 17 ROCK & POP

Albatross FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel free 1pm Archer, Max Savage Lizottes’s Restaurant, Dee Why free 7.30pm Attack Of The Romantics!

Part Deux: Lanterns, Rascals & Runaways, Billy

Shears and Dave Jenkins Jnr, Mall St, Mike Stand, DJ Mullet, young Romantics DJs Café Lounge, Sydney free 7pm Captain Keen’s Joy Machine, Olivia Jean Hucker, Kay Proudlove, Maurice Jones Valve Bar & Venue, Tempe 7pm Dappled Cities, Jape (IRE) Beach Road Hotel, Bondi free 8pm Dappled Cities The Loft, University of Technology Sydney, Ultimo free 5pm Dereb The Ambassador Macquarie Hotel, Sydney free 8pm Flyte The Orient Hotel, The Rocks free 9pm Gang Of Brothers Rock Lily, The Star, Pyrmont free 7pm Icehouse, Addicted Personality Dee Why RSL Club $60 8pm The Lonely Boys Scruffy Murphy’s Hotel, Sydney free 11pm Mark Hopper Artichoke Gallery Cafe, Manly free 7.30pm Mike McCarthy, PJ Wolf, Erin Marshall The Vanguard, Newtown $18.80–$53.80 (dinner & show) 8pm Musos Jam Night Bald Faced Stag, Leichhardt free 8pm The New Worlds, George Jackson, Daniel Watkins Cat & Fiddle Hotel, Balmain $15 (conc)–$20 8pm Terry Halliday Dee Why RSL Club free 6.30pm

Alt-J (UK) Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst sold out 8pm Amali Ward FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel $15 8pm Bernie Hayes Sandringham Hotel, Newtown free 8pm Geppetto, Annaliese Szota Camelot Lounge, Marrickville $20 7pm The H.P Coronados Harold Park Hotel, Glebe free 7.30pm Hot Damn!: The Swellers (USA), Endless Heights Spectrum, Exchange Hotel, Darlinghurst 8pm Idylls, At Dark, Dark Horse, Mother Eel The Square, Haymarket $10 8pm The Imaginarium: Triangle The Factory Floor, The Factory Theatre, Marrickville $10 7pm Jay Sean (UK), Elen Levon, Faydee The Cube, Campbelltown $49 (+ bf)–$99 8pm all-ages Kingfisha, Leisure Bandits Rock Lily, The Star, Pyrmont free 7pm Left Or Right (NZ), Bloody Lovely Audrey, Bones Bones Bones Valve Bar & Venue, Tempe 7pm Lounge Sounds Artichoke Gallery Cafe, Manly free 7.30pm Mumford & Sons (UK), Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros (USA), Willy Mason (USA) Sydney Entertainment

Centre, Darling Harbour sold out 7.20pm Musos Jam Night Carousel Hotel, Rooty Hill free 8pm One Wild Night Scruffy Murphy’s Hotel, Sydney free 10pm Out Sold The Orient Hotel, The Rocks The Phonies, Big Village Guests Macquarie Hotel, Sydney free 8pm The Rubens, Sures, Black Lakes Metro Theatre, Sydney $28.70 7pm all-ages Some Girls – Rolling Stones Tribute: Iluka, Laura Zarb, Bonney Read, Eirwen Skye The Vanguard, Newtown $15.80 8pm Strangers, King Of The North Lansdowne Hotel, Chippendale free 8pm Sugar Army, Emperors, Fait Accompli Goodgod Small Club, Sydney $18.40 8pm The Woods Themselves, Nathan Roche & The Wentworth Avenue BreezeOut, Man & Woman The Union Hotel, Newtown free 8pm Zeropoint3 Gallery Bar, Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst free 8pm

JAZZ

The Bonnie J Jensen Quintet feat. Graham Jesse Blue Beat, Double Bay $20 (+ bf) 7pm Hammerhead 505 Club, Surry Hills $10 (conc)–$15 8.30pm Lionel Robinson Dee Why RSL Club free 6.30pm Peter Head Harbour View Hotel, The Rocks free 8pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK Mark Wilkinson The Basement, Circular Quay $20–$70 (dinner & show) 7pm

FRIDAY OCTOBER 19 ROCK & POP

Antonio Paul, Sabotage, The Khanz The Forbes Hotel, Sydney $10 8pm Australian Nickelback Show Blue Cattle Dog Hotel Motel, St Clair free 8pm Axolotl, Penelope Austin, Jordan Sly, Kristy Lee

Upstairs Beresford, Surry Hills free 6pm Black Diamond Hearts, Conrad Greenleaf Rock Lily, The Star, Pyrmont BrainAid: Little May, Louis London, Conics Hermann’s Bar, University of Sydney, Darlington $15 7.30pm Brother Funk, The Loveless Children, Georgia O’Connor, Charlie Gradon The Roxbury Hotel, Glebe $12 8pm Crave Sydney: Captain Obvious Hyde Park North, Sydney free 9pm Coerce, Totally Unicorn Sandringham Hotel, Newtown 8pm The Darkened Seas, Oxblvd, Moonlight Cowboys Lansdowne Hotel, Chippendale free 8pm Dave Graney and The MistLY, The Holy Soul The Red Rattler Theatre, Marrickville $21 8pm Elliot the Bull Burdekin Hotel, Darlinghurst 8pm Fallon Bros Customs House Bar, Sydney free 7pm Fender Benders Matraville Hotel free 8pm Flamin’ Beauties Mortdale Hotel free 8pm Gomez (UK) The Hi-Fi, Moore Park $55 (+ bf) 8pm Grails (USA), Tangled Thoughts of Leaving, Dumbsaint, Secret Birds Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst $35 (+ bf) 8pm The Griswolds, The Belligerents, Edens March, Kristy Lee, Isbjorn The Standard, Surry Hills $12 (+ bf) 8pm The Headliners Springwood Royal Hotel free 9pm Josh Pyke, Jack Carty Lizotte’s Restaurant, Dee Why $53–$95 (dinner & show) 8pm King Tide Brass Monkey, Cronulla $25.50 7pm Kira Puru & The Bruise, Mere Women, The Peep Tempel The Vanguard, Newtown $15.80 8pm Lisa Mitchell, Alpine, Danco Metro Theatre, Sydney $43.70 7.30pm all-ages MUM: Bec & Ben, Sea Legs, Captain Of The Push, The Peep Tempel, King Colour, MUM DJs The World Bar, Kings Cross $10-$15 8pm Need You Tonight – Celebrating INXS: Sam Joole, Sarina Jennings, Justin Hazlewood, Curtis

Gomez

“I notice your eyes have southerly shoals. Could they guide me back home if we connect the folds?” - BERTIE BLACKMAN 44 :: BRAG :: 484 : 15:10:12

g g guide gig g send your listings to : gigguide@thebrag.com

Alt-J

Argent, Jonathan Linden, Ross Middleton The Basement, Circular Quay $25 (+ bf) 7.30pm No Beef Patty, No Beef Patty with Stu and Friends Artichoke Gallery Cafe, Manly free 7.30pm Original Sin INXS Show Ettamogah Pub, Kellyville free 9pm Pat Capocci Combo Town Hall Hotel, Newtown free 9pm Pineapples Punch, Swamp Fphat Jangles, Shadows at Play, Paraplule FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel $10 8pm Polyfox, Yes I’m Leaving, King Tears Mortuary, Teen Ax Black Wire Records, Annandale $10 7pm all-ages Powderfinger Show Penrith RSL free 9pm Rip it Up Eastern Suburbs Legion Club, Waverley free 8pm Roots Spectrum, Darlinghurst $10 8pm Secret Headliner, Made In Japan, Flagfall, Driffs Annandale Hotel $10 7.30pm THEESatisfaction (USA) Goodgod Small Club, Sydney $39 7.30pm Tiger & The Rogues, Limited Head Space, Barefoot Band, Crossing Red Lines Sydney Livehouse @ Lewisham Hotel $12 8pm Ugly Bitch, Liberation Front, Kahn Of K, Gravity Takes Over Valve Bar & Venue, Tempe 7pm Vanity Scruffy Murphy’s Hotel, Sydney free 10.30pm The Workinghorse Irons, The Casino Rumblers The Bald Faced Stag Hotel, Leichhardt 8pm

JAZZ

Afro Nomad The Mac, Surry Hills free 8pm Alister Spence Trio The Sound Lounge, Seymour Centre, Chippendale $10 (student)–$20 8.30pm Kriola Collective Camelot Lounge, Marrickville $20 7.30pm La Viejoteca: Chirimeros, DJ Angel Montoya Blue Beat, Double Bay $20 (+ bf) 7pm The Pinks 505 Club, Surry Hills $15 (conc)–$20 8.30pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK Eli Wolfe, Dan Crestani, Kat Neto Mars Hill Cafe, Parramatta $10 8pm

SATURDAY OCTOBER 20 ROCK & POP

3 On A Tree Oatley Hotel free 8.30pm 3 Way Split Moorebank Sports Club, Hammondville free 9pm Altitude Scruffy Murphy’s Hotel, Sydney free 10.30pm Antonio Paul, Enerate Exchange Hotel, Darlinghurst $10 8pm Australian Nickelback Show Bradbury Inn free 8.30pm B-Massive, P. L. Williamson Gallery Bar, Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst free 8pm Belles Will Ring, Knievel The Vanguard, Newtown $19.80 8pm Bno Rockshow RG McGees Hotel, Richmond free 9pm Brothers In Arms: A Tribute To Dire Straits Brass Monkey, Cronulla $25.50 7pm Caulfield, Cast to Stone, Sierra The Lair, Metro Theatre, Sydney $15 4.45pm all-ages Cletus Kasady, Courage for Casper, The Volts, Craig Hansen The Roxbury Hotel, Glebe $12 8pm Contraban Notes Live, Enmore $15.15 7pm Counterfeit Tribute Night – Bowie vs Byrne: Rex Havoc Band, Psycho Oddity, Michael Fridge, Wand Erection, Mineral Turpentine, Stationmasters, Urban Guerillas, Jules Backman & Dave Philips, Duchamps Child, Sex In Mexico, Dan Hopkins, TRIP, Snakes & Zed, JHTZ, Bella Voltaire Town Hall Hotel, Newtown free 7pm Dirty Deeds – The AC/DC Show North Ryde RSL Club $18 8pm Face Command, Rica Tetas, Billy Goat and the Mongrels, Guthrie, The Peep Temple, Alley Cat DJs The Lansdowne Hotel, Chippendale free 8pm

Finn Teagardens Hotel free 8.30pm Foreday Riders, Andrew Reid, Sally King Duo Cat & Fiddle Hotel, Balmain $15 (conc)–$20 8pm Furnace & The Fundamentals, Hobophonics Beach Road Hotel, Bondi free 8pm Garcon Garcon, Readable Graffiti Brighton Up Bar, Darlinghurst $10 8pm Kingswell, Vivienne Kingswood Rock Lily, The Star, Pyrmont free 7.30pm Kittens: Kittens DJs Spectrum, Darlinghurst 8pm Last Dinosaurs, The Jungle Giants, Die Happy Metro Theatre, Sydney $21.99 8pm all-ages Lee Ranaldo (USA), Pony Face Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst $58.30 (+ bf) 8pm Life Beyond, Fortune Falls, Mayfall, Incendia Throne Sydney Livehouse @ Lewisham Hotel $12 8pm Marlow, Neotokyo, Ape BC, Gods of Rapture Annnadale Hotel $10 (+ bf) 7.30pm Modtoberfest: Jan Stark’s Soulsville, The Mayday Dreamers, The Pop Guns, Bad Vibrations, The Auskas, Pierre L’Chat, Mick Horan, The Cider Striders, Deedee Rude & The Crimpelnes Valve Bar & Venue, Tempe 1pm Number Station, I Am Apollo, Bright Young Things, Liz Bird Upstairs Beresford, Surry Hills free 6pm The Rubens Mona Vale Hotel $18 (+ bf) 8pm Triple Treat: Tokyo Denmark Sweden, Argentina, Them Swoops FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel, Darlinghurst $10 (+ bf) 8pm Whiplash Festival: Mnemic, Caliban (GER), Unearthly, Arsames Sandringham Hotel, Newtown 8pm

Yuki Kumagai, John Mackie Well Connected Café & Wine Bar, Leichhardt free 7.30pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK Gilbert Whyte Artichoke Gallery Cafe, Manly free 7.30pm Sally King Rozelle Markets free 10.30am Soul and Sound Mars Hill Café, Parramatta $10 8pm

SUNDAY OCTOBER 21 ROCK & POP

After Thirteen, Annie McKinnon, Guns & Girl Valve Bar & Venue, Tempe 5pm Chucks Wagon Botany View Hotel, Newtown free 6pm Continental Robert Blues Party, Kevin Bennett Rock Lily, The Star, Pyrmont free 8.30pm Grace Knight, Colin Lillie Lizotte’s Restaurant, Dee Why $39–$81 (dinner & show) 8pm Hinterlandt, Jamie Hutchings The Vanguard, Newtown $15.80–$50.80 (dinner & show) 8pm Hunter & Suzy Owens Band Marrickville Bowling Club free 4.30pm Husky Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst $22 (+ bf) 8pm

Matt Stillert, Barefoot Alley, David Almon The Lansdowne Hotel, Chippendale free 7pm The Metropolitan Orchestra Leichhardt Town Hall $25 3pm all-ages The Righteous Prannies Downstairs, Sandringham Hotel, Newtown free 4pm SBS Presents A Tribute to Willie Dixon: The Violent Loves Rocks River Boat, Darling Harbour $35 (conc)-$45 11.45am Screaming Sunday Annandale Hotel 12pm The Siren Tower Brass Monkey, Cronulla $14.30 7pm Suite Az, DJ Kitsch78 Rock Lily, The Star, Pyrmont 2pm Sunday Blues Jam: Mark Hopper Artichoke Gallery Cafe, Manly free 8pm U2 Elevation Acoustic Show The Orient Hotel, The Rocks free 4.30pm Vibration At Valve Grand

Final Valve Bar & Venue, Tempe 1pm

JAZZ

The Best (and Worst) of Queenie van de Zandt 505 Club, Surry Hills $29 (conc)-$34 7.30pm Peter Head Trio & Friends Harbour View Hotel, The Rocks free 4pm Sunday Arvo Jazz Harold Park Hotel, Glebe free 3pm

COUNTRY

Phillip Bauer, Marlon Deaton, Marty Edwards North Sydney Leagues Club, Cammeray $30 (+ bf) 7.30pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK

2 Voices: Carmen Smith, Diana Rouvas Camelot Lounge, Marrickville $35 6.30pm Dan Hopkins, Gene Fehlberg Rozelle Markets 10.30am Phoenix And The Twins Oatley Hotel free 2pm Husky

wed

JAZZ

Abuka Rozelle Markets free 11am Blue Moon Quartet Supper Club, Fairfield RSL Club free 7pm Clave Contra Clave The Roundhouse, UNSW, Kensingston $30 (+ bf) 7pm Entropic The Mac, Surry Hills free 8pm Manins/Muller/Nock/ Dewhurst Quartet 505 Club, Surry Hills $20 (conc)–$25 8.30pm Masha’s Legacy The Red Rattler Theatre, Marrickville $15 (conc)-$20 7.30pm all-ages Nic Jeffries with the Killarny Heights HS Big Band Lizotte’s Restaurant, Dee Why $24 8pm Peter Head Harbour View Hotel, The Rocks free 5pm Sirens Big Band The Basement, Circular Quay $15 (+ bf) 7.30pm Tina Harrod Quintet The Sound Lounge, Seymour Centre, Chippendale $15-$25 8.30pm Witch Fight, Spaceticket, Plight Of The Mystical Dugongs, Unknown To God The Square, Haymarket $10 8pm

17 Oct

(9:00PM - 12:00AM)

thu

18 Oct

(9:00PM - 12:00AM)

fri

19 Oct

(12:00PM - 2:00PM)

(5:00PM - 8:00PM)

SATURDAY AFTERNOON

sat

20 Oct

(4:30PM - 7:30PM)

SATURDAY NIGHT

(9:00PM - 1:30AM)

(9:30PM - 1:30AM)

SUNDAY AFTERNOON

sun

21 Oct

(4:30PM - 7:30PM)

SUNDAY NIGHT

(8:30PM - 12:00AM)

BRAG :: 484 :: 15:10:12 :: 45

gig picks

up all night out all week...

THURSDAY OCTOBER 18

Dappled Cities

Alt-J (UK) Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst sold out 8pm Kingfisha, Leisure Bandits Rock Lily, The Star, Pyrmont free 7pm Mumford & Sons (UK), Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros (USA), Willy Mason (USA) Sydney Entertainment Centre, Darling Harbour sold out 7.20pm The Rubens, Sures, Black Lakes Metro Theatre, Sydney sold out 7pm all-ages

Last Dinosaurs, The Jungle Giants, Die Happy Metro Theatre, Sydney $21.99 8pm all-ages

MUM: Bec & Ben, Sea Legs, Captain Of The Push, The Peep Tempel, King Colour, MUM DJs The World Bar, Kings Cross $10-$15 8pm

Lee Ranaldo (USA), Pony Face Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst $58.30 (+ bf) 8pm

THEESatisfaction (USA) Goodgod Small Club, Sydney $39 7.30pm

Triple Treat: Tokyo Denmark Sweden, Argentina, Them Swoops FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel, Darlinghurst $13.30 (+ bf) 8pm

SATURDAY OCTOBER 20

SUNDAY OCTOBER 21

Belles Will Ring, Knievel The Vanguard, Newtown $19.80 7pm

Husky Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst $22 (+ bf) 8pm

Sugar Army, Emperors, Fait Accompli Goodgod Small Club, Sydney $18.40 8pm

TUESDAY OCTOBER 16

Bec & Ben

FRIDAY OCTOBER 19

Jurassic Lounge: Lime Cordiale, Fanny Lumsden and the Thrillseekers, Cassian, Peats Ridge DJs The Australian Museum, Sydney $14 5.30pm

Axolotl, Penelope Austin, Jordan Sly, Kristy Lee Upstairs Beresford, Surry Hills free 6pm

WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 17

Gomez (UK) The Hi-Fi, Moore Park $55 (+ bf) 8pm

Dappled Cities, Jape (IRE) Beach Road Hotel, Bondi free 8pm

Grails (USA), Tangled Thoughts of Leaving, Dumbsaint, Secret Birds Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst $35 (+ bf) 8pm

Xiu Xiu (USA), Absolute Boys, Rites Wild Goodgod Small Club, Sydney $28 (+ bf) 8pm

Belligerents, Edens March, Kristy Lee, Isbjorn The Standard, Surry Hills $12 (+ bf) 8pm

Xiu Xiu

The Griswolds, The

DITION ITED E ER IM L E H D’ BE BUY T DIO RE ‘FBI RA CRAFT BEER !

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$1 FROM E DONATE ACH BEER IS D T O FBI THANKS TO OUR RADIO. BREWE YOUNG HENRY’S RS !

WED 17TH OCTOBER

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SAT 20TH SEPTEMBER

LUNCH BREAK

PINEAPPLE PUNCH

TRIPLE THREAT FEATURING:

SWAMP FPHAT JANGLES SHADOWS AT PLAY PARAPLUIE

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ALBATROSS

1PM // FREE // BROADCAST ON FBI 94.5

CLUB CAB SAV PERFORMANCE, COMEDY, ART, DANCE & FILM 8:30PM // $10 AT THE DOOR

THURS 18TH OCTOBER

AMALI WARD MISS LITTLE JORDAN MILLER 8PM // $15 + BF FROM OZTIX // $15 AT THE DOOR level 2, kings cross hotel 46 :: BRAG :: 484 : 15:10:12

8PM // $10 AT THE DOOR

THE DUB SHACK LAUNCH PARTY FEATURING

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on the record WITH

FUNK D’VOID The First Record I Bought: The Last Thing I It was Geno by Dexy’s Recorded: 1.

4.

Midnight Runners. I watched Balance Series 022 has just them on the British pop program Top Of The Pops. I loved their look (I think Luciano Vagabundo took their inspiration from them!)

The Last Record I Bought: Shur-I-Kan and Lisa Shaw’s 2. collaboration ‘Find The Way’ on

come out – it’s my instalment for the revered mix CD compilation.

I’m really proud of what I did and I hope it stands the test of time, which is the vibe I was looking for when I chose the tracks. CD1 sounds like me DJing in a club; CD2 is more for the afterparty.

Large Music. I love her voice and it’s gold on this one. I’m a huge fan of both artists – propa deep hoose!

The Record That Changed My Life: 5.

Rhythim Is Rhythim’s ‘Nude

3.

The First Thing I Recorded: I was lucky – my first band member was the professor of music technology at Glasgow University, so he taught me everything about midi and how to connect a studio, sound, etc.

The first record we released was called ‘Kiss The Baby’: it sounds a bit murderous now, but we liked it at the time!

Photo’ – Derrick May’s seminal Detroit techno classic. It changed my life, it made me search for this sound and to try to make my own stamp in electronic music from that moment on. Timeless inspiration!

With: Balance 022: Funk D’Void is out now on Balance Music, through EMI Where: Chinese Laundry When: Saturday October 20

The Aston Shuffle

THE ASTON SHUFFLE

Foot-stomping, synth-tapping electro duo The Aston Shuffle have just released a new single, whose title ‘Can’t Stop Now’ emphasises the band’s momentum in the local – and worldwide – electropop scene.

A regular on veteran party-king Ministry Of Sound’s annual compilations, the Canberra dudes’ emotive summertime dance jams sound like a blissfully hung-over Bloody Mary enjoyed at dawn on a lilo somewhere in Ibiza.

Well that’s what we think, anyway. Decide for yourself at their new, revamped show on Saturday October 20 at The Standard. To win one of three double passes, just tell us the name of your favourite Ministry Of Sound party classic.

TIM SWEENEY Jimmy Edgar

Supreme tastemaker Tim Sweeney – the man behind the online radio show Beatsinspace – is playing a Sydney show for HAHA at Marrickville Bowling Club on Saturday November 24. Also known for his close ties with NYC’s DFA label, Sweeney’s sets traverse a broad range of quality electronic music, spanning disco, house and techno, and always throw up a few peachy tunes that you will never have heard before (and in all likelihood will never hear again). One can measure Sweeney’s stature in the electronic music community by the number of quality guests that have dropped by his studio over the years – for Sweeney, having the likes of Michael Mayer or Cosmo Vitelli stop in for a guest mix is a fairly standard affair. HAHA residents Dean Dixon and Dave Fernandes will also be performing on the night, with tickets available online.

Azealia Banks

DOMINO ANNOUNCE MOTION SICKNESS

JIMMY EDGAR WAREHOUSE PARTY

This Friday October 19, Astral People are hosting a “secret” (wink) warehouse party featuring prodigiously talented producer Jimmy Edgar. Edgar is renowned for a live show that showcases Detroit-infused future funk, drawing on influences as diverse as Kraftwerk, Prince and Egyptian Lover. His sound melds elements of electro, RnB, jazz and soul, with plenty of creative enterprise, which has led to him remixing the likes of Detroit electro duo Aux 88 and Machinedrum. Edgar has also chalked up solo releases on labels like Warp, Hotflush, Pokerflat and !K7 over the course of a hugely impressive discography (which is to say nothing of his career in fashion photography). Support will come from Albatross (playing live), Charlie Chux, Frames and Astral DJs, with the party a BYO affair. Tickets are available online for $30.

48 :: BRAG :: 484 :: 15:10:12

Domino Records have announced a compilation, Motion Sickness, which collates remixes of tracks from their impressive artist roster, courtesy of some of the foremost figures in the club milieu. Taking its name from the opening track of the excellent recent Hot Chip album, the 20-track selection features Daphni (aka Caribou) reworking Hot Chip, Carl Craig’s classic Grammy-winning remix of ‘Like A Child’ by Junior Boys, Joy Orbison’s rendition of Four Tet’s ‘Love Cry’, and Theo Parrish’s take on About Group. Remixes of Tricky and Juana Molina from Maya J Coles and Reboot respectively also demonstrate Domino’s welcome willingness to venture into club terrain, while Mike Simonetti’s “rare as hen’s teeth” take on Devonte Hynes’ Blood Orange project, and the lost classic that is the Alan Braxe and Fred Falke remix of Test Icicles’ ‘What’s Your Damage?’ also feature.

Domino will release Motion Sickness as a double CD on December 3 – and I’d say it will make a damn good stocking filler for anyone who knows their shit, sonically speaking.

YOUSEF

“Liverpudlian-Egyptian house” DJ, producer, club promoter, record label owner – lets just call him a club entrepreneur, shall we? – Yousef returns to Sydney to play The Goldfish in Kings Cross on Saturday November 10.

An acid-house aficionado, Yousef launched Circus Recordings back in the bleak winter of ‘08, naming it after his renowned monthly Circus party in Liverpool, which has hosted heavyweight honchos like Laurent Garnier and Luciano over the years. Yousef’s standing in the club scene is reflected in the labels he has released on: Carl Cox’s Intec, Nick Curly’s Cecille, Nic Fanciuilli’s Saved and Sven Vath’s up-and-coming Cocoon label, which released ‘Come Home’, Yousef’s apparent piece de resistance. Yousef’s upcoming tour coincides with the recent release of his second LP, A Product Of Your Environment, which has been described as a “catchy” album that has “evidently been constructed according to the laws of pop music”.

FMF 2013: THE PRODIGY, STONE ROSES, PSY ET AL

The Future Music Festival consistently trots out a gargantuan lineup that caters to partygoers of all sonic dispositions. The lineup for 2013 continues that trend – think big, bigger still, then think Megalodon big (Megalodon being an allegedly extinct species of shark that is regarded as one of the largest and most powerful predators in vertebrate history). So, roll call time: The Prodigy, The Stone Roses, Dizzee Rascal, Bloc Party, Azealia Banks, Rita Ora, Boys Noize, Hardwell, The Temper Trap and A-Trak will all be performing. Additionally, international sensation and K-Pop posterboy PSY, whose ‘Gangnam Style’ video proved an unlikely source of inspiration – and post-victory celebration – for Chris Gayle and the West Indies cricket team at the recent 20/20 world cup, will also represent. What about some techno? Well, glancing further down the lineup, below a certain Timmy Trumpet, lurks details of the Cocoon Heroes arena, where techno titans Sven Vath, Richie Hawtin, Ricardo Villalobos, Seth Troxler and Magda will all be throwing down. Future Music Festival 2013 is slotted for Saturday March 9 at Randwick Racecourse. First release tickets go on sale this Thursday October 18.

DOUSTER @ CAKES

Having wooed crowds at Coachella with an eclectic set spanning house, bass, electro, ghetto and raaaaaave(!) sounds, emerging French producer Douster will headline Cakes at The World Bar on Saturday October 20.

Though still only in his mid-20s, Douster has garnered international notoriety courtesy of releases on labels like Mad Decent and Sound Pellegrino, and remixes for the likes of Crookers, Rusko, Yolanda Be Cool and Kid Sister. Cumbia, bass, dancehall, Euro-house beats (and off-kilter samples from randomlypicked YouTube clips of African kids singing) populate Douster’s productions, with the Frenchman espousing a unique, visual-based creative approach, claiming to see “colours and pictures in my head when I hear music”.

What a tripper.

PHOTEK DROPS KU:PALM

Drum’n’bass and jungle icon Rupert Parkes, aka Photek, has announced details of Ku:Palm, his first album in five years, which will be released through his own Photek Productions label on October 23. The UK veteran pioneered innovative strains of DnB in the ‘90s, and has recently been picked up as an influence by both the UK bass community and LA beat heads alike. “I had to take some time out for a few years as I just didn’t feel like my music fitted in, I was like a square peg in a round hole,” Parker says, in relation to his absence from the scene.

“Then the last few years completely changed, there’s a real freedom and excitement in bass music once again.” This shift has prompted Parker to return to the production fray and craft what he thinks “Might well be my favourite album to date”.

BRAG :: 484 :: 15:10:12 :: 49

dance music news

free stuff

club, dance and hip hop in brief... with Chris Honnery

FREESTUFF@THEBRAG.COM

five things WITH

SKASE A.K as a culture, and especially in Australia at the moment. Acts like The Daily Meds and Thundamentals blow my mind and push me to create something original and impactful.

Your Crew Mothership is my crew; we come from all 3. over Sydney. The trust, drive and dedication within it make me so proud as an artist.

Mothership includes Broken Thought Theory, High Noon, Madame Wu And Elise Graham, Ruthless, Hometeam, Bay Side Wreckers, and the amazing Cassandra Braslin.

The Music You Make I strive to make music that makes people 4. think, music that every culture in Australia can bump (not just the white people). Music that evokes discussion, and of course is fun and makes you feel good. PBX makes some of my beats, and both him and DJ Prolifik, as well as myself, spend a lot of time mixing. I want my music to stay around for a while.

Music, Right Here, Right Now Sydney’s hip hop scene is incredible to 5. me, and more than anything, it really feels like

Growing Up My childhood made me humble. I was 1. very quiet when I was young. Hip hop gives

Inspirations Firstly, my family: love inspires me always.

2.

Secondly, Tupac Shakur: he changed my life,

me a voice to say whatever I like, but I’m very careful with the words I put into music, which comes mostly from my youth.

he was a genius, and he gave me direction. I think every Pac fan will know what I’m saying; I feel like I owe him a lot. Thirdly, hip hop

a family. There’s a lot of love and respect in this city at the moment. As well as Daily Meds, I really like Kade MC, and the MCs on my album such as EaRelevant, State Advanced, Curtis C, DLB and Madame Wu are so good. Sometimes I feel like the luckiest kid on Earth.

What: The Poet is out on October 25

HOME BREW: YOUNG GIFTED & BROKE

Henry Saiz

Leading New Zealand hip hop group Home Brew, made up of MC Tom Scott, MC Lui Tuiasau and producer Harry “Haz Beats” Huavi, will headline a Young Gifted & Broke label showcase at the Civic Underground on Thursday October 25.

The first NZ hip hop outfit to top their hometown charts since Scribe back in that sun-kissed spring of ’03, Home Brew recently dropped their debut self-titled double album, a “no-holes barred” release which addresses a broad range of themes spanning self-discovery, depression, broken homes, relationships, materialism, and life in the lower socio-economic bracket. Next wave artists @Peace, Team Dynamite, Suff Daddy and Team Vibenation will also represent, with support from DJ Substance.

RAYZED HOODZ NUFF SAID Sydney-based hip hop group Rayzed Hoodz are gearing up to release their debut album entitled Nuff Said next month, a 17-track LP that is the result of 11 months work split between four different producers. Nuff Said

Diafrix

DIAFRIX

It’s getting a little warmer, and now that daylight savings has kicked in, you’re probably looking for some great summer tunez to boogie down to. Well Melbournevia-Africa twosome Diafrix described their sound to us as “dope rhymes and good music,” and they’re the perfect place to start if you like your Oz hip hop slick yet danceable. The duo are launching their new album Pocket Full Of Dreams on Saturday October 27 at Goodgod Small Club.

We’ve got double pass double vision; to score one, tell us what your favourite thing about daylight savings is.

features contributions from a lengthy roster of guest artists from around the globe, including Canadians Snak The Ripper, Jaclyn Gee and Nova Rockafeller; Americans Germfree, Grindtime CEO Madd Illz, Madness and Rone; and Australia’s own Nutkaze. Nuff Said follows on from the former triple j Unearthed finalists’ As We Were Mixtape.

EMC CONFERENCE

Renowned artists Tiësto, Diplo and Tommy Trash are among the first speakers to be announced as part of the inaugural Electronic Music Conference (EMC), which will be held at Jones Bay Wharf in Sydney on November 27 and 28. Part of the new ARIA Week program, the two-day conference will see artists, managers, record label representatives and media from all over the world discussing the Australian dance music industry. “ARIA is proud to be supporting EMC, an industryfirst conference that truly reflects the growing profile of dance music in the Australian market and, which will form a key part of ARIA Week celebrations,” declares ARIA CEO Dan Rosen.

Presale tickets are available online.

MC Tuka

NICK WARREN + HENRY SAIZ @ IVY POOL CLUB

Following on from the poolside romp featuring Hernan Cattaneo and Fritz Kalkbrenner, Chinese Laundry is again returning to the opulent confines of Ivy Pool Club on Saturday December 8 for an international doubleheader, this time featuring Nick Warren and Henry Saiz. Both artists have compiled recent editions of the esteemed Balance mix compilation series, and should complement each other well. Warren made his mark as half of Way Out West, while Spanish DJ and producer Saiz broke through on the production front via his remix of Guy J’s ‘Lamur’ a few years back. With summer in full swing, the party will run from midday, with presales available online.

EGLO RECORDS: FLOATING POINTS, ALEXANDER NUT & FATIMA

The Sydney leg of the debut Australian tour of Eglo Records artists Floating Points, Alexander Nut and Fatima is slotted for Oxford Art Factory on Friday November 23. The venerated London-based label doesn’t have a clearly identifiable sound, traversing hip hop, house, soul and experimental frequencies in its output (so far). One of the label’s bosses, Sam Shepherd, aka Floating Points, has been 50 :: BRAG :: 484 :: 15:10:12

behind some of the most endearing club tracks of recent times, starting with the sensual slo-mo ‘dim the lights, baby’ house of ‘Love Me Like This’ (which was likened to a cross between Flying Lotus, The Field and Daft Punk), and culminating in last year’s celebrated double EP, Shadows.

The other half, Alexander Nut is known as one of the UK’s most reputable freestyle DJs and radio personalities thanks to his Saturday slot on Rinse FM. Meanwhile Fatima possesses one of the most distinct voices in the biz, which she has showcased on two EPs on Eglo. First release tickets are available for $35.

MC TUKA ALBUM LAUNCH @ BANG!

Following on from the success of lead single ‘Just To Feel Wanted’, Thundamentals’ MC Tuka will launch his second solo album Feedback Loop next month with a run of shows that includes a performance at Bang! @ The Annandale Hotel on Thursday November 22. ‘Just To Feel Wanted’ is described as possessing a “catchy, almost Gnarls Barkely feeling,” a suitable harbinger for an album that will showcase a broad sonic palette. The second single, ‘Die A Happy Man’, features The Herd’s Jane Tyrell and has been praised for its “Moroder-esque synths and swirling symphonies to raw rock dynamics and … charming, nostalgic head-nodding”. Tickets available via oztix.

Jimmy Edgar Doing It For The Kids By Miki Mclay

“I

get bored really easily, that’s what it comes down to,” future-funk superstar, photographer and artist extraordinaire Jimmy Edgar muses, with a self-deprecating laugh. The Detroit native – now based, depending on the day, in Berlin, New York or his hometown – is a singular entity. Renowned for his creative spirit, and enamoured with all strands of media (fashion photography, graphic design, and his one true love, music), the cosmic wild child’s CV is gloriously extensive, with this year alone seeing the reinvention of his live show, the release of his third LP, Majenta, and a slew of groundbreaking collaborative works.

With a history in music that extends to 2004, Edgar’s releases span a remarkable array of labels: Merck, the canonical Warp Records and, most recently, Paul Rose (aka Scuba)’s bassoriented Hotflush. “I guess it’s just mutual friends, really,” he says, self-deprecatingly. “With Hotflush, I ended up meeting Paul one day through Travis [Stewart, Machinedrum] and we were just talking about music and stuff. I offered to send him music and he was interested in it. It just kind of happened randomly. To be honest, I wasn’t really a fan of Hotflush – I didn’t know anything on it.”

surprising to some people because I’m a musician, but I’ve always considered myself a visual artist.

Even with music, through the way that I create and think about it.”

One place where the auditory and the visual intersect is in the revamped live set assembled in the wake of Majenta’s release, which Edgar is bringing down to Australia for a string of club shows. “It was really important for me to translate those sounds into colour and light,” he says. “The LED performance was really an incredibly simple way of translating those rhythms [into] light and colour. Technically, there are LED lights that are synchronised to the music and I run programs that are sort of like a drum machine but with lights, I guess.” Majenta’s second track may be titled ‘This One’s For The Children’, but we have a sneaking suspicion that Edgar’s upcoming tour is bound to be an adultsonly affair – in the best kind of way.

With: Albatross (live), Charlie Chux, Frames, Astral DJs Where: Secret inner-city warehouse When: Friday October 19

Edgar’s drive to create comes as naturally as the other, umm, urges he tends to sing about on singles like ‘Sex Drive’ and ‘I Wanna Be Your STD’. “When I get home and get back into the studio, I end up working non-stop, ‘cause travelling keeps me from that. People ask me this all the time, and I never know what to say.

It’s just the way that I live: I like working all the time. Some people like working during the day and then resting at night, some people like working at night and resting during the day. I like working all the time.”

“Working in solitude is terrible, to be honest.

I’ve pretty much done it my entire life. You have to work with other people to make something really amazing happen.

It’s just a fact.”

Jimmy Edgar photo by Bethany Shorb

Majenta is another bold and provocative work from the artist, and it was finished in what he acknowledges was a particularly short space of time, resulting in an exceptionally honest and revelatory recording. “With every album there’s a different process for me. Colour Strip, which was done almost ten years before, was also made really fast but with a different recording process.

I tend to like to finish everything in two weeks – but with Majenta all the tracks were started [a while ago] but they were all finished quickly, so that’s why you see this big path of transition throughout the album.” The themes that run through the record are very much indicative of where his head is at these days. “It’s pretty much my transitional album,” he explains. “I think some of the overtly sexual stuff was kind of leftover from my album before, XXX [2010], and so I feel like it’s just sort of a progression. I’ve already written about, and made a lot of art about, things like sexual tension. I’m on a path moving on from that kind of thing.”

This year has also seen him working closely alongside the legendary Machinedrum, Ninja Tune darling Emika, and plenty of others – a process he finds endlessly fruitful. “Working in solitude is terrible, to be honest,” Edgar admits.

“I’ve pretty much done it my entire life, always working alone, always a one-man job. There’s something to be said for when you have to work with other people, exchanging ideas. Even when you’re working with people you don’t necessarily get along with; to make something really amazing happen out of those situations... Even with photography and film, those things are impossible to do alone. It’s like being in a band: you have to work with other people to make something really amazing happen, because you’re not always gonna do something incredible on your own. It’s just a fact.”

Edgar has previously spoken of the wide variety of influences that colour his work as a musician and artist, with themes of sexuality, supernature and, particularly, synaesthesia all being synthesised into Majenta. The end result is a cerebral and thoroughly realised piece of work that sounds equal parts dark and dirty. “Something I always tell people about myself is that I’m a visual person – I always think in a visual format,” he says. “It may be BRAG :: 484 :: 15:10:12 :: 51

Major Taylor

Douster

The Travelling Music Martial Arts Guy Tip By Andrew ‘Hazard’ Hickey

Let Them Eat Cakes By Benjamin Cooper

P

roducer and house music innovator Douster doesn’t really care about the critics. “I like it when people write about my tunes, but most of the time they really don’t get what the tune was about,” he explains from his home in Lyon. “I don’t think any of my tunes are worth analysis. They pretty much speak for themselves.”

The Frenchman first attracted international attention back in 2009, with the release of his Triassic EP on Argentine label ZZK; the sparse beats laid the path for a musical experience akin to a descent into video game hell.

Needless to say it was an interesting shift for house music. “I actually had my first gig DJing as Douster in Buenos Aires in 2006, and I really enjoyed it. I’ve always liked mixing a lot of different musical styles in my sets, switching tempos and stuff, which I was able to do in that space,” Douster says, explaining how his groundbreaking style emerged. “When I came to Europe it was more about doing a straight two-hour house set. At the end of the day, I like being able to do both styles of performance!”

concept of a DJ has changed, as there’s a lot of people producing music with a computer, which allows people to showcase production through their DJ set too.”

A recent trip to West Africa helped Douster develop another new skill set, too. “I’ve actually just come back from Burkina Faso, where I was involved in a workshop for percussionists.

We did a lot of music and it was an incredible experience,” he says. “Being on location is really different from just watching YouTube clips of weird stuff online. I really connected with the people I met there, and I’ve come back with a lot of inspiration for my next projects.”

Where: Cakes @ The World Bar When: Saturday October 20

All styles will be on show this weekend when he heads to Cakes at The World Bar, where he’ll be mixing up the hip hop and bass stylings of his youth with some tasty new house and classic rave. The influence of hip hop is particularly strong for Douster, from the title track from Triassic to 2010’s reggaeton hit single ‘Bad Gal’, featuring Swedish pop queen Robyn.

“French hip hop is mainly the music I grew up with,” he says. “It’s the music that made me want to start making music, so it definitely has a significant influence on my sound, in terms of the way I use vocal samples and have simple yet efficient beats. I actually started making house music when I realised it was exactly the same process as the one for making a rap beat – the tempo is just different.”

R

alph ‘Major Taylor’ Darden is one of those larger-than-life personalities; a Chicago native, by way of Philadelphia, who’s lived the life of a working DJ and musician for almost two decades. An important part of the club scenes in Philly and Chi-Town for years, Darden had a hand in the rise of both the Hollertronix and Mad Decent crews, working alongside Low Budget (aka Low B) and Diplo. A musician first and foremost, he navigated through a number of local bands in the late ‘80s and ‘90s – primarily post-punk and hardcore – before becoming a fully-fledged DJ. “I was always into hip hop, but I kind of accidentally became a DJ because of my love of reggae.

I just wanted to play roots and dub reggae.”

Becoming friendly with local DJs and learning the tricks of the trade, the next thing he knew he was overseeing his own club nights, playing hip hop, reggae, and whatever else he saw fit. “I can’t claim credit for it, but I was definitely one of the first DJs in Chicago to do a genre-less night, and to take the hip hop turntablist element and apply it to other sorts of music. It was one of the many building blocks that contributed to the Hollertronix movement, and Low Budget meeting Diplo.

The whole thing worked out really nicely.”

Sydney is all set to receive Major Taylor, Low Budget and Dirty South Joe (of Mad Decent), who’ll be bringing the beats to a warehouse party in Marrickville this Friday night. “I’m so excited to DJ with Low Budget.

He’s a really, really good friend of mine, and when he decided he was done with the whole ‘backpacker hip hop’ thing, he and I connected – and I was the one who kind of brought him into this world. It was like, ‘Fuck just playing hip hop, you can play whatever you want! You have the skills to do it!’ – which eventually led him to doing the whole Hollertronix thing.”

But this all pales in comparison to his ultimate goal: “I really want to DJ in Antarctica – so if any of you out there have any connections to Antarctica, holler at Major Taylor.” If this

A purveyor of music without genre limitations, Major Taylor is proud to spread the vibes wherever he can. “For me, genre was never a thing; for me it was always good music and bad music. When you’re a kid and you want to identify with things, you’re like ‘I’m a punk rocker’ or ‘I’m a hip hop kid’. But as I got older I let that shit go, and now I just love music.

I don’t care whether it’s Indian club music or some reggae, as long as it’s good. That’s all I care about.”

With: Low Budget and Dirty South Joe, supported by Sammy Bullet, Luny P (Flip DJs), Jamie What and more Where: Jawn Control Party @ Spaceport-One Warehouse, Marrickville When: Friday October 19

The Aston Shuffle Embrace The Chaos By Alasdair Duncan tells me. “It’s a pretty big statement to make, and we certainly put our careers and reputations on the chopping block, but people have really stayed with us. I guess the key thing is the sincerity, which is still there in everything we do – it’s there in the productions, and it’s there in the live show as well.”

As we speak, The Aston Shuffle are all set to embark on a national tour in support of their brand new single, ‘Can’t Stop Now’. The first taste of their upcoming second album, the track has a dreamier and more melodic sound than anything that has come before, and Freeman says it’s a possible indication of where their music might be heading from here.

“It’s hard to describe what you’re doing with your music and how it comes out, but I guess that song is a good indication of where our heads are right now,” he says. “For us, it’s all about making really good hooks that translate across radio and festivals and clubs, but that also have that emotive pop sensibility. We like to cover all those bases, but yeah – the new songs are sounding a lot more rich and a lot more textured, so that’s kind of where this new album is headed.”

I

t’s been a pretty momentous year for Canberra electro duo The Aston Shuffle, what with the release of their debut album, Seventeen Past Midnight, and the launch of their regular Friday Night Shuffle show on triple j. For the guys themselves, though, the most significant 52 :: BRAG :: 484 :: 15:10:12

achievement in recent times has been getting their live show out on the road. “At a certain point, we decided we had to make the transition from being fun-loving, carefree party dudes to putting on a really big, complicated live show with a bunch of equipment,” producer Mikah Freeman

Freeman tells me the second Shuffle album is in its final stages, and will likely see a release in the early part of next year. “It’s getting close, and there’s definitely a light at the end of the tunnel. The writing’s been done, the music’s pretty much there; it just needs to be produced and finished.” The duo have drafted in a series off guest vocalists for the release, although as of now, they don’t want to say who. “There

are some really strong Australian artists, and a couple of overseas artists as well. It’s sounding really good. In the back of your mind, when you’re making tracks, I guess you tend to think about how a crowd might react to them, and I think people will be really into this new stuff.

The new album is Aston Shuffle, but taken up a few notches. It feels like one big party.”

After spending so much time in the studio, The Aston Shuffle are definitely excited to be on tour once again, hitting the road with their revamped live show. “We’re going to play three or four brand new songs that nobody’s heard before,” he says. “We road tested them just recently and they did really well, so it instilled a lot of confidence to keep us moving forward on them.

“For the first part of a tour you’re really quite nervous; you don’t want anything to go wrong, so you don’t really relax into it until about halfway through,” he says. “At that point, if something breaks down you’re not freaking out about it anymore, you’re just moving on to the next thing. At a show of ours recently, all these girls rushed the stage and it turned into chaos – but it felt really good just to embrace that.”

What: ‘Can’t Stop Now’ is out now through EMI Where: The Standard When: Saturday October 20 More: Playing Harbour Party NYE alongside Ricki-Lee, Marvin Priest, Luciana and more, held on New Year’s Eve at Luna Park

xxx photo by xxx

When we speak, Darden is already in Australia; he’s spent the past two weeks soaking up Melbourne. Quite literally, too – he’s fallen in love with surfing during his maiden trip Down Under, and wants to keep learning (he admits he’s “terrible” at it).

Already a student of Brazilian jiu-jitsu, he’s also keen to learn Judo in Japan and Muay Thai in Bangkok, where he’s heading after the Australian tour. “I’m a man of many interests,” Darden explains, in a major understatement.

Ultimately though, all of these experiences feed back into his songwriting. “I’m just on this travelling-music-martial-arts-guy tip right now, and I want to write about the whole experience.”

Douster began making rap beats in his bedroom as a 14-year-old, but swiftly dispels any of the mythology attached to his story, emphasising instead the importance of process and technology: “Well, as a teenager I was never that much of a DJ. It was more about scratching and caressing the breakbeats for hours alone in my room, [because] at that time I really didn’t want to share those intimate moments spent with my crossfader in front of a crowd. I was really fond of watching hip hop DJs because there was so much technique involved in mixing two records; they’d have to be beat juggling and everything else... Nowadays with the technology we have, you can basically mix with whatever – iPad, laptop, vinyl.” Has this technology changed his role as an artist?

“Look, it really doesn’t matter to me as long as the music’s good,” he says. “I think that the

dream becomes a reality, Darden will be following in the footsteps of fellow globetrotter DJ Spooky, who trekked to the uninhabited continent in 2009. “There goes my chance to be the first, but at least I can be one of the few. It’d be nice to stand in a place and be like, ‘I’m the greatest DJ on this continent right now!’”

Deep Impressions Underground Dance And Electronica with Chris Honnery

Luke Slater

Xxxx

T

he fifth album from the man behind the Pokerflat and Dessous labels, Steve Bug, has been out for over a week now, and is a must for fans of brooding, atmospheric electronic music soundscapes.

Entitled Noir, the aptly named LP emits such a dark, cinematic sensibility that some may describe it as a concept album. My description is far more interactive, though slightly clunky – I invite readers to conjure up an aural imagining of the soundtrack to a film noir flick that also evokes the sci-fi ambience often apparent in the work of Jeff Mills and Carl Craig. Fittingly there are three direct references to the film noir genre among the ten tracks comprising Noir, from the 1945 (apparent) classic The Spiral Staircase, to the more obscure Somewhere In The Night and The Seventh Victim. (The Spiral Staircase synopsis on IMDB reads as follows: “A serial killer is targeting women with ‘afflictions’; one night during a thunderstorm, mute Helen feels menaced” – a perfect first date flick, no?) With just the right balance between (relatively) club-oriented tracks and subtle exercises in more restrained electronica, Noir is a triumphant release that really hits the mark as an immersive ‘listening’ album. Bug elucidates, “I think a lot of albums in dance music are not convincing as albums – more of a collection of tracks than a coherent whole. If I had worked longer on the album, I probably would have replaced even more of the dance tracks

LOOKING DEEPER Tim Brüggemann aka Turmspringer

SATURDAY OCTOBER 20 Losoul One22

SATURDAY OCTOBER 27

Turmspringer, Felix Da Cat, Phil Smart Subsonic Halloween Boat Party

SATURDAY NOVEMBER 17 Troy Pierce FACT Boat Party

TUESDAY JANUARY 1

Luke Slater The Abercrombie Hotel

with listening tracks.” It is in fact the slower, more down-tempo tracks that set Noir apart from Steve Bug’s previous albums, with Bug adapting his proven production aptitude to fit slightly different moods, from the guitar licks(!) on ‘Poison Of Choice’ to the immaculately paced, Detroit-influenced ‘Those Grooves’ – a track that trumps anything Carl Craig has done in recent times.

Dancers and sofasurfers alike will revel in Noir, an album in which Bug manages to maintain his high standards as a producer while also demonstrating a more versatile range of sounds than he ever has before. For that reason, there’s a strong argument that this could be his best album to date.

Subsonic’s annual Halloween Harbour Cruise returns on Saturday October 27 for a celebration of “necrotech” featuring a headline triple bill of German underground heavyweight and Subsonic Music Festival favourite Tim Brüggemann (better known for his output as Didier De La Boutique and Turmspringer), Lisbon’s after-hours king Felix Da Cat (not to be confused with a certain House Cat), and Phil Smart. A mainstay in Berlin’s underground minimal techno and house scenes who has released on the Get Physical label, Brüggemann regularly spins as half of Turmspringer at the Berlin techno “casualty ward” that is Golden Gate nightclub – an intimate venue that holds a reputation as the final stop for people who party till they can party no more.

Brüggemann is also the driving force behind Tonkind records, a Berlin-based label that has released tracks from previous Subsonic headliners like Philip Bader, Nico Stojan and Alexkid. There is also a hefty support cast of local DJs set to perform over two levels, with the party slotted to run for a rather epic 8.5 hours (from 1:30pm–10pm). Presale tickets are on sale through Resident Advisor, and aspiring dancers should note the “Fetish Freaks And Fantasy Tweaks” costume theme, which will be strictly (k’tsh, k’tsh!) enforced.

And just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water… The summer season is upon us, which means promoters can move out of the lugubrious confines of the club and onto Sydney Harbour – and that’s exactly what the FACT crew have planned on Saturday November 17, when Troy Pierce will headline their summer launch boat party. Growing up in a quiet farming town in Indiana, Pierce became one of the key players in the explosion of minimal techno in the early ‘00s, and was one of the most recognisable figures on Richie Hawtin’s Minus label. However Pierce left Minus recently as part of a mini-exodus with Magda and Marc Houle, as the trio decided to start up their own label, Items & Things. It is through this forum that Pierce will release his upcoming material. For any greenhorns not overly familiar with Pierce – you are excused, as he has been relatively quiet over the last few years – his imposing discography features some wonderful releases that he has put out as Louderbach with Gibby Miller, along with remixes of The Knife, Cassy and Depeche Mode, and he was also responsible for the inaugural Resident Advisor Podcast many moons ago. “I like making and playing weird music for weird people,” Pierce is on the record as saying – as good an invitation as any you will get to check him out. Hit www.fact-worldwide.com for more details.

Deep Impressions: electronica manifesto and occasional club brand.

Contact through deep.impressions@yahoo.com BRAG :: 484 :: 15:10:12 :: 53

club guide send your listings to : clubguide@thebrag.com

club pick of the week Douster

THURSDAY OCTOBER 18 Annandale Hotel Bang! The Tongue, Ellesquire, MC Rapaport free (early bird)–$10 7.30pm The Cool Room, Australian Brewery, Rouse Hill We Love Thursdays Alex K $10 8pm Greenwood Hotel, North Sydney Greenwood Thursdays Resident DJs free 8pm Kit & Kaboodle, Kings Cross Resident DJs free 8pm Q Bar, Darlinghurst Hot Damn Hot Damn DJs $15-$20 9pm The Roxbury Hotel, Glebe Prolifik $10 7.30pm Sapphire Lounge, Kings Cross Rewind Resident DJs 8pm Strike Bowling, Chatswood The Alley DJs free 8pm Trademark Hotel, Kings Cross Swag Resident DJs $10 9pm The World Bar, Kings Cross Propaganda Propaganda DJs, Spice Cube DJs free (student)-$5 9pm

SATURDAY OCTOBER 20

FRIDAY OCTOBER 19

The World Bar, Kings Cross

Cakes

Douster (FRA), Go Freek, Astrix Little, Nukewood, Manjazz, Kid Koma, Deckhead, D*Funk, Tokoloshe, Nat Noiz, Oakes & Lennox, Dean Swinney, Genevieve Collier $15-$20 8pm MONDAY OCTOBER 15 Scruffy Murphy’s Haymarket Mother Of A Monday DJ Smoking Joe free 8pm The World Bar, Kings Cross Latin Jazz DJs free 7pm

TUESDAY OCTOBER 16 Establishment, Sydney Rumba Motel Salsa DJ Willie Sabor free 7pm Scruffy Murphy’s, Haymarket

54 :: BRAG :: 484 :: 15:10:12

We Love Goon Tuesdays DJ Podgee, DJ Smoking Joe free 8pm Trademark Hotel, Kings Cross Coyote Tuesday – Back To The 90s Resident DJs $10 8pm The World Bar, Kings Cross Jam Cristof & Ali, Andy & Mike free 8pm

WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 17 Epping Hotel DTF Resident DJs free 8pm FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel Albatross free 1pm The Ivy, Sydney

Salsa At Ivy DJ Dwight ‘Chocolate’ Escobar free 7pm The Lansdowne Hotel, Chippendale Frat House Wednesdays Mean Dartin, Camo, Ra Bazaar free 5pm The Marquee, The Star, Pyrmont Assembly Wednesdays Van She Tech 8pm The Ranch, Epping Hump Wednesdays Resident DJs free 8pm Sapphire Lounge, Kings Cross Cream Resident DJs 8pm The World Bar, Kings Cross The Wall Swiss Dub vs Filth Collins, Hydraulix, Get Rad, Pablo Calamari, The Brothers Grimm, Taylor Wolf, Lights Out, Crux 8pm

Abercrombie Hotel, Broadway Totally Barry Bad Barry DJs free 9pm And, Bondi Junction Start:Cue Launch Party Lee M Kelsall (USA), Adam Proctor, Alister Hearnshaw, Ross ‘Bravo’ Ashman, Tommy Rutherford, Andrew Dyson, Pedro Santos, Rickstar free 9pm Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Modular Fridays Canyons (DJ set), Softwar free 8pm Chinese Laundry, Sydney Bass Mafia Downlink (CAN), Autoclaws, Sam Scratch, Empress Yoy, Vertigo, Axe Soydas, Embi, Rit Locus $15$25 10pm Civic Underground, Sydney Volar Volar DJs 10pm Cohibar, Darling Harbour Gimme Five Candidate free 9pm The Factory Theatre, Marrickville Seth Sentry, Greg Ghost, Mr Hill & Rahjconkers $25 8pm FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel The Dub Shack Re:Launch Party Jahdan Blakkamoore (USA), Kakhand, Mogz N Kye, Basslines, Foreigndub $15 (presale)-$20 11.59pm Goodgod Small Club, Sydney Nina Las Vegas, Cassian, What So Not, Linda Marigliano $10 (+ bf) 11pm Home Nightclub, Darling Harbour Home Fridays Pee Wee Ferris, MC Suga Shane 8.30pm The Island, Sydney Harbour S.A.S.H On Sea N/A, Gabby, Matt Weir, Ben Korbel & Declan Lee, Kerry Wallace sold out 8pm Ivy Poolclub, Sydney Moonshine Cassian, Alley Oop, Shivers, Toni Toni Lee 9pm Nevada Lounge, Darlinghurst DJ Hayden free 6pm Oatley Hotel We Love Oatley Hotel Fridays DJ Tone free 8pm One22, Sydney Dance Café – The Melbourne Invasion Mike Sveta, Chris NG free (early bird)-$10 9pm Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst

Friday I’m In Love Resident DJs free 11.30pm Oxford Art Factory - Gallery Bar, Darlinghurst Deadbeat & Hazy, Broken Thought Theory, Bustacap, Prolifik (DJ set) free 8pm Q Bar, Darlinghurst Teen Spirit: 90s Halloween Party Teen Spirit DJs $10 9pm Secret Inner City Warehouse, Sydney Jimmy Edgar (USA), Albatross, Charlie Chux, Frames, Astral DJs $30 (+ bf) 9pm Soho, Kings Cross Soho Fridays AGWA Army Party Nukewood, Skinny, Jack Bailey, Ben Morris, Goodfella, Pablo Calamari 8pm Space Nightclub, Sydney Zaia Resident DJs 9.45pm Spaceport-One, Marrickville Jawn Control Party Lowbudget (USA), Dirty South Joe (USA), Major Taylor (USA), Sammy Bullet, Luny P, Flip DJs, Trent Hardwood, Bes, Jamie What $20 6pm The Spice Cellar, Sydney Garry Todd, Andy Webb, Pink Lloyd, Dreamcatcher $10 10pm Trademark Hotel, Kings Cross LIVE Fridays Presents Clover Love Ziggy, J smooth, Willi, Nems, A Styles 9pm The World Bar, Kings Cross MUM Bec & Ben, Sea Legs, Captain Of The Push, The Peep Tempel, King Colour, MUM DJs $10-$15 8pm

SATURDAY OCTOBER 20 Abercrombie Hotel, Broadway Strange Fruit Strange Fruit DJs free 9pm Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Falcona Saturdays Furnace & The Fundamentals, Hobophonics, Stoney Roads DJs free 8pm Garcon Garcon, Readable Graffiti Brighton Up Bar, Darlinghurst $10 8pm The Burdekin Dugout, Darlinghurst EK Volume 002 Party Lisse, Jeremiah, Hubert & Walsh free 10pm Candys Apartment, Kings Cross Big Guns Resident DJs 9pm Cargo Bar, King St Wharf Kick On Resident DJs free 6pm Chinese Laundry, Sydney Funk D’ Void, PQM, Jeff Drake, Vengeance, A-Tonez, Samrai, Whitecat, Georgia, Victims, Raulll, DJ Rubz $15$25 9pm Club 77, Darlinghurst Starfuckers Starfuckers DJs 10pm The Cool Room, Australian Brewery, Rouse Hill Saturday Nights At The Brewery DJ Koffee 8.30pm Establishment, Sydney Sienna G-Wizard, Troy T, Lilo, Joey Kaz 8pm FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel Hands Up! Staggman, Clockwerk free 11.30pm Gladstone Hotel, Chippendale Reload! Subaske, Juzlo, Pop The Hatch, Bruxism, TeeFreqs, SFL, Mazza, Hostis, Templar Sound System, Dialectrix, Sarm, D-Tech, Spex, Brinks $5-$10 9pm Goldfish, Kings Cross Musik Matters Lee M Kelsall, Ben Ashton, Johnny Gleeson, Alan Thomas, Matt Cahill $20 6pm

Goodgod Small Club, Sydney Pelvis $5 11pm The Green Room Lounge, Enmore Vinyl Solution DJ Nic Dalton free 7pm Inner City Rooftop, Sydney E.1. Launch Party with Lower East Cozzy D (UK), Lee Brinx (UK), Samron, James Petrou, Gabby, Chris Valan. Sam Roberts $45 (+ bf) 12pm Ivy, Sydney Ivy Saturdays Minx, Rob K, Jeff Drake, Baby Gee, Starjumps, Georgia, Max Bon De Veire $20 8pm Nevada Lounge, Darlinghurst DJ Hayden free 6pm Nevermind, Sydney Esta Noche Alex Taylor, Stephen C, Dan Salter $10$15 10pm One22, Sydney Charades Losoul (GER), MSG, Antoine Vice, Pharley, U-Khan, Mesan $25 10pm Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst Saturday I’m Pregnant Resident DJs free 11.30pm Secret Warehouse, Sydney The Unknown Warehouse Party V2.1 Bex Meli, Jesse, Adriano, Danny Falzon $20$30 8pm Space Nightclub, Sydney Masif Saturdays Resident DJs 10pm The Spice Cellar, Sydney Chris Tietjen (DE), Murat Kilic, YokoO, Kali $25 10pm The Standard, Darlinghurst The Aston Shuffle, Clubfeet, Lancelot, Movement, Jordan F $12 (+ bf) 8pm The World Bar, Kings Cross Cakes Douster (FRA), Go Freek, Astrix Little, Nukewood, Manjazz, Kid Koma, Deckhead, D*Funk, Tokoloshe, Nat Noiz, Oakes & Lennox, Dean Swinney, Genevieve Collier $15-$20 8pm

SUNDAY OCTOBER 21 Abercrombie Hotel, Broadway S.A.S.H Sundays Losoul (GER), Shaun Broughton, Jaded, Chris Zeus, Matt Weir, Kerry Wallace $10 2pm Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Sunday Sessions Uppercut Deluxe, Garage Rockabilly DJs, DJ Omar Varts free 6pm The Beresford Hotel, Surry Hills Beresford Sundays Resident DJs free 3pm Hugo’s Lounge, Kings Cross Sneaky Sundays DJs 8pm Ivy Poolclub, Sydney Marco Polo Alison Wonderland $15 (presale) 1pm Kit & Kaboodle, Kings Cross Easy Sundays Resident DJs 8pm Oatley Hotel Sunday Sets DJ Tone free 7pm Q Bar, Darlinghurst Daydreams Daydreams DJs 4.30am Sapphire Lounge, Kings Cross Sapphire Sundays Resident DJs 8pm The Spice Cellar, Sydney Spice After Hours Murat Kilic $20 4am Trademark Hotel, Kings Cross Sinister Sundays Jack Bailey, Steve Frank, Pat Ward, Tigerlily, Thieves, August, Matt Ferreira free 10pm The World Bar, Kings Cross Soup Kitchen Space Junk, Happy Hobo, Ethan Winzer, Hunt, Manjazz, Oli free 7pm

club picks up all night out all week...

WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 17

THURSDAY OCTOBER 18

The Marquee, The Star, Pyrmont Assembly Wednesdays Fear Of Dawn, Wolf 8pm

Annandale Hotel Bang! The Tongue, Ellesquire, Jackie Onassis free (early bird)– $10 7.30pm

The World Bar, Kings Cross The Wall Swiss Dub vs Filth Collins, Hydraulix, Get Rad, Pablo Calamari, The Brothers Grimm, Taylor Wolf, Lights Out, Crux 8pm

Jahddan Blakkamoore

SATURDAY OCTOBER 20 Chinese Laundry, Sydney Funk D’ Void, PQM, Jeff Drake, Vengeance, A-Tonez, Samrai, Whitecat, Georgia, Victims, Raulll, DJ Rubz $15-$25 9pm

The World Bar, Kings Cross Propaganda Propaganda DJs, Spice Cube DJs free (student)-$5 9pm

Goldfish, Kings Cross Musik Matters Lee M Kelsall, Ben Ashton, Johnny Gleeson, Alan Thomas, Matt Cahill $20 6pm

The Tongue

The Spice Cellar, Sydney Chris Tietjen (DE), Murat Kilic, YokoO, Kali $25 10pm

FRIDAY OCTOBER 19

Goodgod Small Club, Sydney Nina Las Vegas, Cassian, What So Not, Linda Marigliano $10 (+ bf) 11pm

Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Modular Fridays Canyons (DJ set), Softwar free 8pm Chinese Laundry, Sydney Bass Mafia Downlink (CAN), Autoclaws, Sam Scratch, Empress Yoy, Vertigo, Axe Soydas, Embi, Rit Locus $15-$25 10pm The Factory Theatre, Marrickville Seth Sentry, Greg Ghost, Mr Hill & Rahjconkers $20-$25 8pm FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel The Dub Shack Re:Launch Party Jahdan Blakkamoore (USA), Kakhand, Mogz N Kye, Basslines, Foreigndub $15 (presale-$20 11.59pm

Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst Deadbeat & Hazy, Broken Thought Theory, Bustacap, Prolifik (DJ set) free 8pm Secret Inner City Warehouse, Sydney Jimmy Edgar (USA), Albatross, Charlie Chux, Frames, Astral DJs $30 (+ bf) 9pm

The Standard, Darlinghurst The Aston Shuffle, Clubfeet, Lancelot, Movement, Jordan F $12 (+ bf) 8pm

SUNDAY OCTOBER 21 Abercrombie Hotel, Broadway S.A.S.H Sundays Losoul (GER), Shaun Broughton, Jaded, Chris Zeus, Matt Weir, Kerry Wallace $10 2pm

Spaceport-One, Marrickville Jawn Control Party Lowbudget (USA), Dirty South Joe (USA), Major Taylor (USA), Sammy Bullet, Luny P, Flip DJs, Trent Hardwood, Bes, Jamie What $20 6pm The Spice Cellar, Sydney Garry Todd, Andy Webb, Pink Lloyd, Dreamcatcher $10 10pm

Chris Tietjen

‘Strange’ and ‘Shut it Down remix’

BRAG :: 484 :: 15:10:12 :: 55

snap

sash sundays

06:10:12 :: The Spice Cellar :: 58 Elizabeth St Sydney 9223 5585

PICS :: AM

carlos zarate

PICS :: AM

up all night out all week . . .

dj eric wareheim & dj douggpound

PICS :: TL

07:10:12 :: The Abercrombie Hotel :: 100 Broadway Ultimo 9211 3486

jacques lu cont

PICS :: AM

07:10:12 :: The Abercrombie Hotel :: 100 Broadway Ultimo 9211 3486

07:10:12 :: The Greenwood Hotel :: 36 Blue Street North Sydney 9964 9477 :: NOHMON ANWARYAR :: S : TIM LEVY (HEAD HONCHO) OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHER :: DANIEL MUNNS :: THOMAS PEACHY :: GEORGE POPOV :: KATRINA CLARKE :: ASHLEY MAR :: IER SAM WHITESIDE :: PEDRO XAV

56 :: BRAG :: 484 :: 15:10:12

oxford art factory

PICS :: KC

sounds on sunday

PICS :: AM

05:10:12 :: Chinese Laundry :: 111 Sussex St Sydney 8295 9999

06:10:12 :: Oxford Art Factory :: 38-46 Oxford St, Darlinghurst 9332 3711

FREE BOWLING WITH EVERY DRINK SOLD!

ALL DAY SUNDAYS AT STRIKE KING ST WHARF THE PROMANADE, KING ST WHARF, DARLING HARBOUR

$6 MINIMUM SPEND. CONDITIONS APPLY. PLEASE SEE WEBSITE FOR DETAILS.

FIND US ON

BRAG :: 484 :: 15:10:12 :: 57

snap

propaganda

PICS :: DM

up all night out all week . . .

fbi social

PICS :: KC

04:10:12 :: World Bar :: 24 Bayswater Rd Kings Cross 93577700

spice cellar

PICS :: AM

06:10:12 :: FBi Social :: Kings Cross Hotel 248 William Street Kings Cross 9331 9900

05:10:12 :: The Spice Cellar :: 58 Elizabeth St Sydney 9223 5585

the cool room

PICS :: NA

It sounds like: Sex in the future, where every thing is controlled by technology (watch Demolition Man to find out what we’re talking about).

Acts: Jimmy Edgar (US), Albatross, Charlie Chux, Frames and Astral DJs. Three songs you’ll hear on the night: Jimmy Edgar – ‘I Wanna Be Your STD’, Frames – ‘Master Of Time (Sneak’s Timeless Dub)’, Albatross – ‘Knokke' And one you definitely won’t: Frames – ‘Maste r Of Time’.

Sell it to us: It’s Jimmy Edgar’s Live LED Show in a warehouse, and it’s BYO. Need we say more?

The bit we’ll remember in the AM: You’ll proba bly still be kicking on at that time.

We don’t even want to know what you’ll be reminiscing about in this state...

Crowd specs: Good people.

Wallet damage: Earlybirds are long sold out.

Try remaining tickets from Moshtix – $30–$35 (+bf). your best to get one of the last Where: Like Astral People on Facebook to find out the secret location...

When: Friday October 19, from 9pm

04:10:12 :: Australian Brewery :: 350 Annangrove Rd Rouse Hill 9679 4555

jon convex

PICS :: AM

party profile

astral people present secret warehouse party

strike

PICS :: AM

06:10:12 :: Chinese Laundry :: 111 Sussex St Sydney 8295 9999

05:10:12 :: Strike Bowling Bar :: 22 The Promenade Sydney 9276 7100 58 :: BRAG :: 484 :: 15:10:12

:: NOHMON ANWARYAR :: S : TIM LEVY (HEAD HONCHO) OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHER :: DANIEL MUNNS :: THOMAS PEACHY :: GEORGE POPOV :: KATRINA CLARKE :: ASHLEY MAR :: IER SAM WHITESIDE :: PEDRO XAV

Wednesday October 31st

HEAVEN & HELL COMPLIMENTARY ADMISSION IN COSTUME

FEATURING

G\b`e^ ;lb KiXj_YX^j I\[`Xc

MAIN ROOM FEATURING

Winner take all

$5000

Sexiest Costume Contest

HARBOURSIDE ENTRY VIA PIRRAMA RD, PYRMONT 61 2 9657 7737 | MARQUEESYDNEY.COM | TABLES@MARQUEESYDNEY.COM FOLLOW US: FACEBOOK.COM/MARQUEESYDNEY TWITTER.COM/MARQUEESYDNEY

The Star practices the responsible service of alcohol.

The Star Pty Limited ABN 25 060 510 410

Artists, creatives and big-thinkers, this is your opportunity to create a TV commercial for STUDIO, Australia’s arts & entertainment channel.

Watch your idea come to life and you could win $10,000.

Go to STUDIOTV.COM.AU. Entries open until 31 October 2012.