The Brag #514

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

five things WITH

JAMES LAW FROM LOVE PARADE Growing Up Every good musical education starts 1. with Peter Combe – ‘Spaghetti Bolognaise’,

Your Band This week we’re launching our debut album 3. King Me, which we will release on vinyl. Purple

‘Newspaper Mama’ and ‘Mr Clicketty Cane’ are timeless classics. We paid tribute to him by putting him in the video clip for our song ‘Touch Fuzzy, Get Dizzy’. As a teenager, I remember discovering dad’s vinyl copy of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. We weren’t allowed to use the record player because dad had (well-founded) fears that we would scratch the LPs to buggery, so I would sneak it onto the turntable when my parents weren’t home. Yep, I was a massive rebel. (I hope dad doesn’t read The Brag…)

vinyl, no less. We recorded it with the motley crew of Robert F. Cranny (Sarah Blasko), Jim Moginie (Midnight Oil) and Jay Whalley (Frenzal Rhomb). The album has hooks and choruses – which is not always a given with indie bands – and clocks in at exactly half an hour. It’s a much better way to spend 30 minutes than with Two and a Half Men. The Music You Make Love Parade was founded on a mutual love 4. of 1960s psychedelia, but over the years we’ve

2.

drifted away from that sound. Today, we’re more straight-up power pop. But mostly, Love Parade is an in-joke that has got way out of hand.

Inspirations Bob Dylan is a musical hero. I bought a cheap CD copy of Blonde on Blonde at uni knowing it was a towering classic, but I didn’t get it on first listen. But, like all great albums, it reveals itself more and more with each spin. His lyrics are at once gobsmacking genius and unadulterated gibberish (e.g. “When the jelly-faced women all sneeze / Hear the one with the moustache say, ‘Jeez, I can’t find my knees’”). We paid homage to him (read: mocked him mercilessly) with our song ‘James Dean Pizza Café’, which rhymes “Julius Caesar” with “pizza”. The Bobfather would be proud.

Music, Right Here, Right Now Although there has been a lot of noise 5. about the closure of iconic pubs in recent years, I believe the Sydney live scene is alive and kicking with a new guard of top venues like FBi Social, The Standard and The Green Room Lounge. What: Album launch with Bambino Koresh, Sleepy and Ten Thousand Free Men and their Families. Where: FBi Social, Kings Cross Hotel When: Friday May 31

FAT FREDDY’S DROP

The High Priests of Antipodean Soul are back! FFD’s new album Blackbird is slated to drop on June 21 and first tastes ‘Clean the House’ and ‘Silver and Gold’ promise more good vibes than a Club X shop. If you’ve got Splendour tickets, lucky you – you’ll be among the first in the world to hear Blackbird played in full. If not, you can catch the sassy seven-piece at the Enmore on August 29 – tickets on sale 9am this Thursday May 30.

EDITOR: Nick Jarvis nick@thebrag.com 02 9212 4322 ARTS EDITOR: Lisa Omagari lisa@thebrag.com 02 9212 4322 STAFF WRITERS: Benjamin Cooper, Alasdair Duncan NEWS: Nick Jarvis, Chris Honnery, Blake Gallagher ART DIRECTOR: Sarah Bryant GRAPHIC DESIGN: Alan Parry SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER: Tim Levy SNAP PHOTOGRAPHERS: Katrina Clarke, Ella Cochrane, Lincoln Jubb, Kate Lewis, Henry Leung, Ashley Mar

UNEARTHED HIGH BACK IN 2013

COVER PHOTOGRAPHER: Ben Clement ADVERTISING: Ross Eldridge - 0422 659 425 / (02) 9212 4322 ross@thebrag.com ADVERTISING: Les White - 0405 581 125 / (02) 9212 4322 les@thebrag.com PUBLISHER: Rob Furst GENERAL MANAGER, FURST MEDIA: Patrick Carr patrick@furstmedia.com.au, (03) 9428 3600, 0402 821 122 DIGITAL DIRECTOR/ADVERTISING: Kris Furst kris@furstmedia.com.au (03) 9428 3600 GIG & CLUB GUIDE CO-ORDINATOR: Mina Kitsos, Katie Davern, Blake Gallagher, Naomi Russo - gigguide@thebrag.com (rock) clubguide@ thebrag.com (dance, hip hop & parties) AWESOME INTERNS: Natalie Amat, Katie Davern, Mina Kitsos, Blake Gallagher, Naomi Russo REGULAR CONTRIBUTORS: Nat Amat, Ian Barr, Simon Binns, Katie Davern, Marissa Demetriou, Christie Eliezer, Chris Honnery, Kate Jinx, Lachlan Kanoniuk, Jody Macgregor, Alicia Malone, Chris Martin, Jenny Noyes, Hugh Robertson, Rebecca Saffir, Jonno Seidler, Rach Seneviratne, Luke Telford, Simon Topper, Rick Warner, Krissi Weiss, Caitlin Welsh, David Wild Please send mail NOT ACCOUNTS direct to this NEW address 100 Albion Street, Surry Hills NSW 2010 ph - (02) 9212 4322 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.

King Khan & BBQ Show

CONVERSE GET LOUD

As we all know, Converse are pretty much the best footwear for navigating the tidal surges of a crowded gig – the more trashed they get, the better they look. So you’ll probably want to fish out your pair for the series of ‘Get Loud’ live gigs that Converse is hosting around the country this June. In Sydney, catch troublemakers King Khan & BBQ Show with favoured locals Palms in support. Best of all, tickets are FREE! Just RSVP swiftly to converse.com. au/getloud.

WHITLEY RETURNS

For a while there, it seemed as though Lawrence Greenwood AKA Whitley may have disappeared from the public eye forever (even his Wikipedia page is gone). But in joyous news, he wasn’t gone, simply on temporary hiatus,

and he’s back as of Monday with a new single ‘My Heart Is Not A Machine’, and new album Even The Stars Are A Mess due on July 5. You can also catch him in the flesh at Oxford Art Factory on Thursday July 18, with Esther Holt in support – tickets on sale now.

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VIDA CAIN HIT THE ROAD

Perth rockers Vida Cain embark on their debut east coast tour this month. The band will be hitting the other side of the country for the first time this May and June to promote new singles ‘Reloader’ and ‘Remote Controls’ ahead of their upcoming debut album, scheduled for release this September. You can catch Vida Cain in Sydney at Scruffy Murphy’s on Tuesday June 4, the Bald Faced Stag in Leichhardt on Friday June 7 and Sabotage Club June 8.

BABYSHAMBLES

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triple j’s Unearthed High returns for its sixth year, in a quest to find Australia’s best high school music act. Our national youth radio station is giving ambitious young songwriters, bands, producers and MCs the chance to win flights to the triple j studio to have a song professionally recorded – plus you get guaranteed play on triple j and the Unearthed website. Winners will also play a gig at their high school alongside Perth four-piece San Cisco – who themselves found success through Unearthed while still at high school. To enter, simply upload an original track to triplejunearthed.com and state which high school you attend – at least half the band members must still be in high school to be eligible. Entries close Monday July 22 so get cracking!

Babyshambles

Brilliant ruin of a man Pete Doherty and his band of sharply dressed enablers are coming out to Australia in July (if he makes it through Customs) and we couldn’t be more excited if it were The Libertines themselves. They’ve got a brand new, long-awaited album in the works, which they’ll be premiering here before they kick off their September UK tour. If you’re a fan of Doherty and his addled, messy, literary ways, then put 9am this Thursday May 30 in your phone, as that’s when tickets go on sale for Babyshambles’ Splendour sideshows, happening in Sydney Sunday July 28 at the Enmore Theatre.

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rock music news

free stuff

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

FREESTUFF@THEBRAG.COM

five things WITH

Daniel Champagne

PETE OF SPIRIT FACES house. Dad had lived and worked in the US in the ‘70s, so he’d listen to a lot of Frank Sinatra, Willie Nelson and Elvis. That whole American songwriter vibe has definitely stuck with me. Inspirations I’ve had some pretty 2. extreme swings in musical phases but there are a few mainstays. Neil Young has always been there for me since my friend Sam played me Harvest when we were about 16. Around the same time he also played me A Love Supreme by John Coltrane. It’s funny because in some ways they’re on complete opposite ends of the musical spectrum, but there’s a purity in each one that really unifies them for me. More recent eye openers have been The Empyrean by John Frusciante and Cosmogramma by Flying Lotus. Your Band Spirit Faces is the moniker 3. I use for my songwriting and

Growing Up I grew up in a little town 1. called Bucketty. It was pretty

sheltered so my musical upbringing started with the stuff my folks played around the

production. The guys who I collaborate with all have other projects, which range from hip hop to doom. I have fun getting people to play stuff they don’t get to play elsewhere. For example, Jack has some insanely authentic

country piano licks in some of our songs that he’d never get to show off in his other projects. The Music You Make Most of the Spirit Faces 4. songs so far have been recorded at Oceanic Studio on the Northern Beaches. I record and mix it all myself, so when I’m working on a record I’ve often got a very specific idea of how I want something to come out. With our new single ‘Moose Mountain Medicine Wheel’ I was listening to a lot of Neil, James Taylor and Willie Nelson, so naturally I wanted big acoustic guitars and piano with lush female backing vocals.

5.

Music, Right Here, Right Now There are super exciting things happening with production-heavy music in Sydney. I saw Ribongia do a set recently that was mindblowing. I’d love to see Zebra Zap do a live show. For songwriters I’m really glad there are places like The Newsagency and The Smallest Gig where people can go to really listen. Where: Brighton Up Bar When: Thursday May 30

DANIEL CHAMPAGNE Folk troubadour Daniel Champagne is launching sophomore album The Gypsy Moon (Volume 1) with an expansive nationwide tour across the country. Which is fitting, given that Champagne describes the album as a “collection of road songs”, documenting the past five years the 23-year-old singer-songwriter has spent on the road touring. Champagne launches the album at The Basement in Sydney this Wednesday, and we have two double passes to give away, each including a signed copy of The Gypsy Moon to be picked up on the door! To win, just email us at freestuff@thebrag.com with your name and a journey you’ve taken “on the road”.

BEACH FOSSILS

Just in time for summer, Brooklyn’s Beach Fossils (spiritual cousins to The Drums indiesurf-pop sound) will make their first ever visit to our shores in September, stopping by The Standard on Friday September 20 – tickets are on sale now via handsometours.com.

KINGSWOOD

Balls-to-the-wall rockers Kingswood got to play with serious guns, wear lettermen jerseys and drive sweet cars for their Grindhouse-inspired short film Some Motherf*ckers Gotta Pay, promoting their new single ‘Ohio’. Go check out the trailer on YouTube (we recommend it) before the full thing drops on June 1. Kingswood are also headed to Nashville shortly to record their debut album, but first they’re taking a quick trip around the country, hitting the Annandale on Thursday June 6 and the Small Ballroom in Newcastle on Saturday June 8. Kingswoodband.com for more.

EVIL INVADERS V

METAL! \m/ Heavy music fest Evil Invaders returns for the fifth time, taking over Manning Bar on June 7 and 8 for all your head thrashing needs. More than 20 bands will take to the stage, including a special performance of classic tracks from seminal ‘70s Australian heavy-psych band Buffalo, including founding member Dave Tice and members of Age of Menace, Australian Crawl and Icehouse. Archgoat (Finland), Sadistic Intent (US), Midnight (US), Vassafor (NZ) and many more are also on hand to beat your eardrums into submission – tickets from thecoffinsslave.com.

FBI SOCIAL

Good times shall abound at the Kings Cross Hotel’s middle level this week, when Love Parade (fronted by BRAG’s former Rock News writer) play some surfy fun power-pop from their brand new album, with Bambino Koresh, Sleepy and 10K in support. Curl up in the

Kingswood

corner afterwards because there’s no point going home – Saturday night plays host to postrock and noise to challenge your brain from Solkyri, SEIMS and Setec. And if you need entertaining earlier in the week, Thursday night sees Oscar Key Sung bringing the good word of nu-gospel to Sydney with Jones Jnr. and Tim Fitz, and there’s comedy and ‘performance experiments’ Wednesday night with Club Cab Sav - fbiradio.com for more.

Van She

Hailer

VAN SHE AT BEACH ROAD HAILER

Psych-rock-power-pop Sydney four-piece Hailer are taking their new pressing Another Way for a trip around the country, stopping at Brighton Up Bar on Friday June 7. Interesting fact – college radio in the US is loving them, with 83 stations around North America spinning their new material. So go see them locally before they bugger off to the States forever.

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Ever ask yourself, ‘whatever happened to Van She?’ Well wonder no longer – they’re back and gigging at the Beach Road Bondi for Sosueme this Wednesday May 29, with Mammals in support. Sosueme have a pretty massive June lined up as well – Cali Swag District are swinging by to teach us how to Dougie, plus they’ll have World’s End Press, Strange Talk, Pluto Jonze, Millions, Hey Geronimo, Remi and Tigertown throughout the month. Closer to home, watercolour-loving eclectic-op quartet Lime Cordiale will take over Hang the DJ on Thursday May 30 with the Bell Weather Department. More at beachroadbondi.com.au.

Ten creative minds. Ten designs. All printed in chocolate. See the latest in 3D printing technology. Hear the inspiration behind the designs. As we open our doors after dark, enjoy great music, food, drinks and delicious fun.

Thursday 30 May 6pm – 9pm Adult $15 Members $12 Online or at the door

Concession $12

Powerhouse Museum, 500 Harris Street, Ultimo Book online at powerhousemuseum.com

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Industrial Strength Music Industry News with Christie Eliezer

THINGS WE HEAR

• Muse sparked an alarm in the English town of Coventry; they were rehearsing special effects for their show at the local stadium and the residents got alarmed when they saw flames rising on the roof. They thought the roof was on fire. • The Klaxons headline a Modular showcase on July 27 at Oxford Art Factory. • The Cat Empire’s Steal The Light hit Top 20 in iTunes in five countries first day of release, and Top 100 in five others. • Airbourne frontman Joel O’Keefe admits he can’t play his own song on Guitar Hero and was bested by his four-year-old nephew. • triple j Magazine has been axed by its publisher and will only be published once

• Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter has revealed how their anonymity because of their masks can backfire. A man ran up a huge bar tab in Ibiza claiming to be him, while scalpers tried to sell them tickets to their own show in London. • All the clubs on LA’s Sunset Strip dimmed their lights for a minute in tribute to The Doors’ Ray Manzarek. A quiet spoken and eloquent man Manzarek loved jazz and once, during an Australian visit, insisted this columnist get him a copy of Dave Graney’s Morrison Show where Jim Morrison disguised himself in a Doors tribute band. He wanted to take it back to America to play it to the others.

WILL 360 DOMINATE APRA AWARDS?

MICHELE PORTO JOINS WONDERLICK

Will 360 lead hip hop’s onslaught at next month’s APRAs? Sixty, whose ma calls him Matt Colwell, and his collaborator Kaelyn Behr of Styalz Fuego, got four nominations. Guy Sebastian, Sia Furler and Timomatic received three. Visit apra-amcos.com.au for the full list of nominees.

Universal Music Australia marketing officer Michele Porto joins Wonderlick Entertainment this week as General Manager – Marketing & Promotion. Wonderlick, set up by Stuart MacQueen and Gregg Donovan, comprises management, a record label (a venture with Sony Music) and a publishing company (with EMI/Sony ATV). Wonderlick has a busy six months ahead with releases from Boy & Bear, Josh Pyke, Airbourne, Grinspoon, The Paper Kites, Marvin Priest, Max & Bianca and Jackson McLaren slated.

Up for Song of the Year: 360’s ‘Boys Like You’, Tame Impala’s ‘Elephant’ and ‘Feels Like We Only Go Backwards’, Guy Sebastian & Ian Barter’s ‘Get Along,’ Courtney Barnett’s ‘History Eraser’ and Mia Dyson’s ‘When The Moment Comes’ penned with Patrick Cupples and Erin Sidney.

NEW VENUE FOR SYDNEY

The Captain Cook Hotel (Cnr Flinders Street and Moore Park Road) has had a makeover and is about to start showcasing original, live music. The venue, established in 1885, has a 150-200 capacity and is now open to bookings from artists, managers, booking agents, promoters and record companies/labels. Bookings will be managed by former ARIA Awards publicist and current NRL entertainment booker Brett Hlywa. Expressions of interest to hello@soundadvice.tv

Ten of the 90 nominated writers are first timers, including Barnett, Georgi Kay, Vandalism & ikid, Seth Sentry, Ivan Gough & Feenixpawl, The Rubens, Clairy Browne & The Bangin’ Rackettes and Alpine. Russell Morris is also up for his first APRA award after his chart comeback this year. Competing for Breakthrough Songwriter are 360 & Behr, DNA’s Anthony Egizii and David Musumeci, Alpine, Seth Marton (Seth Sentry) and Stephen Mowat, and Tjimba Possum-Burns and Danny Ramzan of Yung Warriors.

a year after the June/July issue. Meantime, Roadshow Music (Savage Garden, Killing Heidi) has closed, says The Music Network. • Laneway Festival will make its first appearance in America in Detroit midSeptember. Sigur RĂłs and The National will headline the festival, with a bill including Deerhunter, Flume, Chet Faker, CHVRCHES and Frightened Rabbit. • Former Tame Impala bassist Nick Allbrook left “to try and screw his head back on, and make an attempt to assimilate back into societyâ€?. They farewelled him: “Anyone who saw us during the Allbrook era will know how awesome Nick is, so Cam (Avery) has big shoes to fill, which is fortunate because Cam has big feet.â€?

SONY TO SELL MUSIC AND MOVE DIVISIONS?

Sony Corporation has admitted it has discussed whether to sell off its music and movie divisions. US hedge-fund investor Daniel Loeb, whose Third Point LLC owns around 6% of Sony stock, urged the company to consider it. He believes it would free up capital so Sony could overhaul its electronic business.

SPOTIFY TURNS ONE

Spotify celebrates its first year in Australia by releasing figures. How many Australian subscribers it has remains a secret. But Australians listened to 42.5 million hours of music and over 14 million playlists were created over 12 months. Over 230,000 of these playlists were for travel and holidays, almost 150,000 for exercising, 240,000 about love, 55,000 related to weddings and 65,000 for work. Last week, the service launched the Spotify Charts (charts.spotify.com), which updates the most streamed or most shared tracks on a weekly basis. So who reigned supreme? Daft Punk’s ‘Get Lucky’ came in at #1 with 190,387 plays followed by Passenger’s ‘Let Her Go’ with 114, 138 plays, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’ ‘Can’t Hold Us’ with 108,934 plays and Bastille’s ‘Pompeii’ with 95,669 plays.

SOUND SUMMIT CALLS FOR PERFORMERS, SPEAKERS

Sound Summit, the forum for independent and innovative music, which is moving from Newcastle to Sydney this year, is calling for performers and speakers. The Summit offers showcases, performances, panels, workshops, Q&As and debates. Applications close midnight June 14. Visit soundsummit.com.au for more info.

E HIFI 1300 THO M.AU THEHIFI.C

UNFD TEAMS WITH EQUAL VISION Just Announced

(USA) & No Fun At All

DBSTF Sat 10 Aug

Sun 17 Nov

Coming Soon

UNFD has officially announced its partnership with US label Equal Vision Records. It will distribute their music in Australia and NZ, and relaunch their back catalogue. Equal Vision is home to Converge, Saves The Day, Give Up The Ghost, Coheed and Cambria, We Came As Romans, Circa Survive and Pierce The Veil. This year, UNFD issued Say Anything’s 3-disc set of early rarities and new albums from The Dear Hunter, Eisley and Pretty & Nice. UNFD founder Jaddan Comerford said, “Equal Vision are responsible for some of the most iconic punk and hardcore records of the past 20 years.�

’70S THEME FOR GOLDEN STAVE LUNCH BriBry (IRL)

The Red Paintings

Sun 9 Jun

Fri 14 Jun

Municipal Waste (USA)

HTC & Speaker TV Presents

Sun 16 Jun

Thu 20 Jun

Dappled Cities

Mono (JPN)

Pludo

HTC & Speaker TV Presents

Hardcore 2013

Thu 27 Jun

Sat 29 Jun

Hungry Kids of Hungary

Sat 13 Jul 18+ Sun 14 Jul All Ages

SO LD

O UT

Sat 6 Jul

Saint Vitus (USA) & Monarch! (FRA)

Haim (USA) Wed 24 Jul

Nejo Y Dalmata (PUR) Fri 26 Jul

Airbourne Sat 27 Jul

Fri 19 Jul ENTERTAINMENT QUARTER, BUILDING 220, 122 LANG RD, MOORE PARK, SYDNEY

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The music industry’s luncheon for children’s charities – held for its 35th year on Friday June 21 at Hordern Pavilion – has a ‘Living In The ’70s theme. The theme should make for quite the spectacle as guests have been asked to dress appropriately. Rose Tattoo has been announced as the first act on the bill. Visit goldenstave.com.au for more information.

FEEDBACK ANNONUCES MORE SPEAKERS

Indent, the network for all-ages entertainment in NSW, announced seven more speakers for its Feedback event on June 10. Singer-songwriter and actor Brendan Maclean is the second keynote speaker. Sweetie Zamora (Remote Control Records, FBi Radio) and Samantha Clode (triple j magazine, MusicNSW) will also share their experiences of ‘making it’ in the Don’t Stop Believin’ panel. Claire Collins (Association of Artist Managers), Nicole

Cheek (triple j Unearthed), Greg Morrow (APRA) and Scott Fitzsimons (Street Press Australia) join the Industry Speed Dating event where attendees can ask face-to-face questions. Feedback runs 9.30am-5pm at the Museum Of Contemporary Art (140 George St). Tickets and info at indent.net.au

CAROLINE LABEL SERVICES

Universal Music Australia has set up a new division, Caroline Label Services. The division will provide “a flexible solution� to labels and artists, with tie-ins with Caroline offices in America and Europe. Caroline Australia is based in Melbourne with General Manager Tim Janes and Label Manager George Dalziel leading the pack, while Caroline/ Spunk National Publicist Gabrielle Ryan is based in Sydney. Its initial label partners are Spunk, Popfrenzy, Dine Alone, Cooking Vinyl, Resist and Spinefarm.

I’M ADELE, FLY ME!

Adele’s ‘Someone Like You’ is the best song for nervous flyers because it most effectively calms nerves. According to a Spotify study, that is. Anxiety psychologist Dr Becky Spelman says slow songs with a tempo of 67 beats per minute and harmonies, reduces heart rate and blood pressure. Others include ‘Orinoco Flow (Sail Away)’ by Enya, ‘Paradise’ by Coldplay, ‘Scar Tissue’ by Red Hot Chilli Peppers, ‘Buffalo Soldier’ by Bob Marley, ‘Better Together’ by Jack Johnson, and Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major (‘Elvira Madigan’).

PLUDO SIGNED TO UNIVERSAL’S CTRL-ALT

Emerging duo Pludo signed to Phil Israel’s Sydney based label ctrl-alt Records through Universal Music Australia. It will release their live standout ‘Haywire’ as a single on June 14. Pludo was founded by former Sound Mind singer Anthony Kupinic as a solo project until he spotted Alex Cooper busking in Sydney. Their debut independently-released single ‘Frenemies’ scored national airplay. The act tours through the Hi Fi network from midway through next month.

FBICECREAM

FBi Radio has buddied up with Gelato Messina for a competition. Listeners must invent a new Gelato Messina flavour in FBi’s name – using doughnuts as main ingredient (’cos they’re round like records). Gelato Messina, in Darlinghurst, won Best Eats in last year’s FBi SMAC Awards.

Lifelines Born: son Hendrix to Natalie Bassingthwaighte and Cam McGlinchey. Ill: Pogues guitarist Phil Chevron’s cancer has returned and is fatal. Ill: Judas Priest Rob Halford is in a wheelchair during to a back problem. Investigating: LAPD looking into death threats made against Chris Brown. The person made multiple calls to Brown’s attorney to pass the message on. Suing: Rihanna takes action against British retail giant Topshop for $5 million for selling T-shirts bearing her image without her consent. When she first complained, they offered her $5,000 to shut up. Died: British bassist Trevor Bolder (Bowie’s Spiders From Mars, Uriah Heep, Wishbone Ash), 62, after a four year battle with cancer. Died: Phil Buerstatte, ex-drummer with White Zombie and Last Crack, 44. Died: Steve Hyams, sang with Mott The Hoople in 1977, 62, heart problems. Died: influential house producer Romanthony who performed vocals on Daft Punk’s single ‘One More Time’, at his home in Texas. Died: British bassist Ken Whaley (Ducks Deluxe, Man), 66, long illness.

WE ARE ON THE LOOKOUT FOR ARTISTS AND HUMAN CANVASES JOIN US ON STAGE PAINTING ALONG WITH THE MUSIC OR OFFER YOUR BODY AS A HUMAN CANVAS.

Check out our NEW artist recruitment page on facebook facebook.com/TRPartistpage where we post the latest artworks submitted and the art created on stage during our tours all over the world. For more information, or to submit your art (or your body) to be part of an upcoming show in your city, email artsubmissions@theredpaintings.com theredpaintings.com

facebook.com/TRPartistpage picture by Susan Weingartner

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before loosing it back into the wild, sending it to a figure across the sea. And of course it’s tempting, in the quest for context, to apply this to Marling’s life: she has recently moved from her native England to Los Angeles, thousands of miles across the water, far removed from the life she led. None of that is at all responsible for the content of the album, but that hasn’t stopped people ascribing to her trans-Atlantic move all manner of things. “I wouldn’t say it was people projecting things on to me,” Marling says. “It’s people projecting things on to the record. This was written long before I moved out here, or anything like that. There’s just a lot that you can attach to the imagery that I associate with doves, and birds, and eagles – peace, power, violence – which is why I used it. But [the birds on the album] more represent emotion than they do metaphor.” Marling’s influences have always been more literary than musical. (Although yes, that is a Bill Callahan shout-out in the title of the album.) The pastoral folk songs of her debut are steeped in the language of the Romantic poets – Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron; her second, with its bleak, wintery emotional landscape, takes its cues from the ancient Greek stories Marling was reading at the time; her third album draws much lyrical inspiration from the west coast Americana of John Steinbeck. “It is true that I draw a lot on what I’ve read,” Marling admits. “There’s something about the written word – it’s the plainest way, other than speaking, of communicating something. And if someone does it very well, if someone executes a sentence that’s almost harrowingly well-written, it strikes you on such a level, and rings in your brain.” “It’s a skill I wish I had, and I don’t. And I’m not being pointlessly self-deprecating – it’s such a skill, and I think you’re born with it, that ability to communicate in whatever medium you communicate in. And maybe I was born to communicate in the medium that I do, but I have great respect for those who can do it without the protection of the guitar.” The literary influences continue on the new album, most notably on ‘Undine’, inspired by an old Germanic fable about a water spirit that would lull people in to believing there was no danger in the world, so much so that when they walked into the water to join Undine they drowned because they didn’t remember that they could. In Marling’s song Undine’s power becomes the ability to make her prey ‘naïve’, so that they cannot comprehend the peril they are in. It’s not the only time the concept of naivety shows up on the album, with Marling at various times either taking it on or casting it off, blaming it for causing problems or celebrating its potential. It’s hard to know exactly where Marling leaves the topic on the record, but when asked about it, she has a beautifully poetic answer. “I find naivety an interesting thing,” she begins, “[And] I’ve reappropriated the use of the word ‘naivety’ in regards to myself. I think everybody, at a certain age – it might be in your 20s, or 30s, or even in your teens if you are particularly unlucky – has a stage where they need to mourn their naivety being gone. Their naivety has left them.

usic journalists love context. Context is nearly always the Rosetta Stone to decoding an artist – once you know who they are, where they come from and what has shaped them, you have an ‘in’ into their world, and you can begin to pull on the threads of their life until the whole thing unravels and they are laid bare before you. Sometimes an artist’s context has no impact on their art, but usually that only applies to those ‘artists’ for whom you actually vocalise the inverted commas around them – no one ever asks LMFAO what the metaphorical significance of ‘party rocking’ is, or why they would need to apologise for doing it. Sometimes, though, an artist’s context has little bearing on their art because their art transcends their context. No one really cares anymore whether Johnny Cash actually shot a man in Reno, or whether Bob Dylan really train-hopped from Minnesota to New York as a teenager – the important thing is that they wrote about it, and in that metaphor were able to reveal something to us about ourselves. Musicians don’t get to escape their context 12 :: BRAG :: 514 :: 27:05:13

much anymore. If they achieve any sort of fame they are immediately scrutinised, every detail of their lives picked over for contextual clues. But Laura Marling isn’t your average musician. Once I Was An Eagle is Marling’s fourth album in just five years, a statistic all the more remarkable when you remember she’s only 23. She’s always seemed older than her years, the combination of her assured writing and that deep, rich voice, collecting comparisons from day one to the great songwriters. Joni Mitchell and Sandy Denny from Fairport Convention were obvious touchstones, but there’s always been something about Marling that couldn’t be measured as a sum of her influences, something intangible just off-screen that we know is there, but can’t ever be properly identified. But if that’s a characteristic of Marling’s music, it’s because that’s exactly how her brain works. She often speaks of what she sees as life’s central conflict between ‘love’ and ‘logic’, between the decisions you want to make and the ones you think you should, and that conflict in Marling’s mind has been the core of the conflict on each of her albums.

“Everybody, at a certain age, has a stage where they need to mourn their naivety being gone.” “They call that ‘the sceptic’s view’ in psychological terms,” she says. “That’s my whole kick in life, making peace with reality, and trying to find stillness in chaos. Which is probably why I’ve ended up writing the same story in a different way three albums down the line, because it’s an unanswerable question.” The story, in this instance, is of our protagonist wandering through the wilderness, pestered and exhausted by what Marling terms “naive love”, represented by a bird. But just as our protagonist is ready to abandon hope, the bird collapses at her feet with a broken wing, and our protagonist must save the bird and nurse it back to health

“And maybe people go through life and never have that - which is wonderful for them, lucky fuckers – but you have to face what first appears to be a very grey landscape, a world without naivety is a very cold, plain world. But then I suppose a lot of this record was reappropriating the word naivety. And in my personal life, I found such comfort in the thought of a new naivety when you enter that space, when you realise that nothing you thought you knew was true, and now I know nothing, and therefore I have the potential to know a lot more. “I’ve opened up so many gates of possible knowledge, and that’s exciting. So naivety changed for me from meaning ‘childhood’ to meaning, I suppose, a more appropriate use for it, which is ‘comfortable lack of knowledge’ and potential for influence.” How fitting, given Marling’s love/logic conflict, that she’s found a word that can mean both a lack of knowledge and the knowledge of what you lack. I can’t wait to see what she doesn’t know next. Where: St Stephen’s Uniting Church / Splendour in the Grass When: Tuesday July 23 / Sunday July 28 And: Once I Was An Eagle out now through Virgin

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You Am I Recharged and reissued By Hugh Robertson

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t’s every fan’s wildest dream to be plucked from the crowd and hoisted on stage with their favourite band, to have their special fandom recognised from afar and brought in to the inner circle. But unless your favourite band is full of your friends, it’s probably never going to happen. Unless you’re Henry Rollins – who was a fan of Black Flag before being recruited as their singer – or Davey Lane, who was asked to join You Am I when he was just 18, after posting extremely accurate guitar tabs of the band’s songs on a fansite.

It’s always been a strange dichotomy for Lane, who has for the past 15 years been both You Am I’s lead guitarist and their biggest fan. But with the re-release of the band’s first three records – Sound As Ever, Hi Fi Way and Hourly, Daily – Lane’s dual identities have become intertwined as never before. Because in addition to the work of remastering, Lane has been neck-deep in old cardboard boxes, finding photos and even recordings long-since forgotten by his bandmates. “Even though I didn’t play on those records, I was an aficionado of the band when those

records came out, so it’s nice to be involved a little in the process... It’s a little daunting, but it’s been great to go back and listen to the records, and be reminded how much the songs have morphed over the years‌[and] what the actual harmonies were before we started singing whatever we felt like.â€? Lane is still referred to in press releases as the “new guyâ€?, despite his decade and a half in the band. It’s obviously tongue in cheek but, remarkably, he wasn’t yet part of the band when these three albums were released. I ask him whether, given he’s played most of these songs hundreds of times over the years, he feels a sense of ownership over them. You can almost hear the shrug of his shoulders when he replies in the negative, but after he tells me that some people have suggested he should cede his position to Greg Hitchcock – who was the band’s touring guitarist (though never an official member) during this particularly purple patch – he sounds a little indignant. And fair enough too. “I’ve been playing these songs for 14, 15 years,â€? he says, “So I guess I’m entitled to have a crack at them too, y’know?â€? Lane also reminds me that, except for his own addition, the lineup of the band hasn’t changed in 20 years. “We’re probably better friends now than we ever were,â€? he says. “And fuck, if one of us was to leave, I think it would all fall in a heap. We’ve played together for long enough for it all to mesh, and fuck, I couldn’t imagine playing these songs with any other people.â€?

10 DAYS TO GO

In a serendipitous turn of events, the studio where the remasters are being done is literally next door to the studio Lane has been using to flesh out his impending solo album – the perfect symbol for the way in which You Am I has been a constant presence throughout his life. I ran out of time before I could ask whether Lane feels as though he has been able to establish his own identity as a guitarist, but I get the impression that, even if he felt he hadn’t, he wouldn’t care anyway.

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“If one of us was to leave, I think it would all fall in a heap. I couldn’t imagine playing these songs with any other people.� “It’s funny looking back at the band back then, and thinking that this is a band that I had tremendous respect for, and really looked up to,� he says. “The opportunity to play in this band for as long as I have is something that I never, ever take for granted, and going back to those records, and listening back to all that stuff again just reminds me how lucky I am. And I am lucky. Fuck, I’ve got to play in, in my opinion, the best band in the country, for 15 years.� Don’t be fooled by all these reminiscences into thinking that You Am I have spent 2013 navel-gazing. In fact, Lane tells me somewhat sheepishly, at this point they haven’t even organised a single rehearsal to go over the older stuff. But great things are afoot, with Lane and Rogers starting to throw ideas around for a new album, something they can focus on once this tour is done and dusted. “The last couple of records have had a little more of a pastoral bent to them,� says Lane, “[But] I think this next record will be a snotty, rock’n’roll album. Which is kind of what we’re all into at the moment... When I get drunk and play with [Tim] we’ll inevitably get to the point where I put on Nick Lowe records.�

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But that’s the future – for another couple of months, at least, You Am I get to spend a little more time in their past, and music that has defined far more than the lives of these four men. And no one is more excited than Lane. “There are a few songs on Hi Fi Way that are really unembellished, and are just one guitar, bass and drums. So there might be a couple of moments where I might go and take a little drinks break, and let the classic three-piece lineup take centre stage. The frustrating thing about what I’ve been doing is that I haven’t been able to watch You Am I play for 14 years!â€? What: Enmore Theatre / Panthers, Newcastle When: Friday July 14 (sold out) and Thursday August 1 / Friday August 2 And: Reissues of Sound As Ever, Hi Fi Way and Hourly, Daily out Friday June 14 through Sony Music

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Jack Carty Growing Pains By Chris Martin

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he Predictable Crisis Of Modern Life. As far as titles go, it doesn’t exactly brim with optimism. The new Jack Carty EP – in collaboration with Sydney producer Casual Psychotic – sounds like an early-onset midlife crisis; Carty dealing in his inimitable style with the concerns of identity and direction that we all inevitably face. He’s two albums deep into a promising career as a singer-songwriter, and only in his mid-twenties – so is Carty really overcome with fear about what’s coming in middle age? “Not at all. I just am a fairly concerned person generally – I think I have a fairly high level of anxiety,” says Carty. “I used to fight it, but now I just accept that’s the way I am and in a way that makes me less anxious. So [these] songs… were not written so much from the point of view of being 35 or 40 or whatever… They’re just about anxieties and things that can occur to any adult person at any age, I guess.” The idea for a collaborative record arrived, as these things do, out of chance. A friend’s introduction of Carty to Casual Psychotic inspired an ad-hoc recording session at the

latter’s home studio in Annandale. “We ended up starting work on this song I’d written called ‘Tunnel Vision’, and because it was a fun project to begin with there were really no constraints, no sort of rules about what we were trying to do… We didn’t have any clear idea of what we wanted it to sound like before we started because it wasn’t going to be anything, it was just us having fun.” In its finished form, the EP is tied together by the foreboding words of a narrator; an anonymous newsroom voice dissecting those anxieties of adulthood. Turns out the voice belongs to Carty’s grandfather, Phil Haldeman – a Sydney broadcasting personality with a 50-year-long career behind him. “There’s a whole bunch of production themes that run the length of the record, and there’s also the idea of – we wanted to make it really cinematic in a way, theatrical. I think the narration really helps that happen and creates a frame through which you can look at the songs. It frames them in a certain light which takes them into a bit of a darker territory, and I really like that.”

Dark, cinematic and complex, too; between Psychotic’s production and Haldeman’s narration, multiple layers are added to Carty’s signature sound. Despite this, Carty reckons ‘Reasons to be Afraid’ is his most honest song yet. “I try not to censor myself too much, and when I do it’s not about protecting myself – it’s more about protecting the people around me who I may or may not have written a song about. [On second album] Break Your Own Heart, I didn’t censor anything about myself; I think that record is very self-deprecating. If anything, I think the other characters on that record get the good end of the stick in a funny sort of way, in hindsight, because I was going through a particularly self-loathing period of time. “But having said that, any sort of censorship is still censorship, even if you’re doing it for the right reasons and trying to be respectful to people. And I think ‘Reasons to be Afraid’ – purely by virtue of the fact that it’s a streamof-consciousness rant of what I think – I didn’t have to censor it at all…[if I did] it wouldn’t be as messed-up as it is, and I like that it’s messed-up. It’s a critique of everything – from a source that’s completely unreliable.”

What: EP launch with Dan Parsons Where: Hibernian House When: Thursday May 30 And: Jack Carty & Casual Psychotic Present… The Predictable Crisis Of Modern Life out now on Gigpiglet Recordings

triple j’s Hottest 100 20-year Anniversary With Max Lavergne

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o celebrate 20 years of their Hottest 100 countdown, triple j want you to vote for your favourite songs of the past 20 years. For inspiration, we asked triple j presenter and satirical smartarse Max Lavergne to tell us his 20 favourite songs of the past 20 years.

Shellac – ‘Prayer To God’ This is such a poisonously angry song I 10. don’t know how it could not affect anyone.

NOFX – ‘The Longest Line’ I wish I could tell you I have always been the 1. hip motherfucker whose words you are currently

years, but the way ‘Tender’ oscillates from wistful uncertainty to celebration is pretty special.

reading, but like many teens, I was obsessed with pop-punk. A lot of that shit is indefensible now, but I believe NOFX are a good band, and this is without doubt a humble classic of the genre.

Okkervil River – ‘Black’ I love Okkervil River and this song is such 12. an eloquent and powerful expression of sadness,

Tom Waits – ‘Big In Japan’ I will always love Tom Waits and that’s why 2. I’m allowed to say he’s only released one great

album in the last 20 years and it’s Mule Variations. I wish he made more songs as raucous and gleeful as this one.

Blur – ‘Tender’ It’s hard to pick just one of the great pop 11. songs Damon Albarn has written in the last 20

anger and impotence. I’ve probably listened to it 1000 times and it still gives me a li’l shiver. The Mountain Goats – ‘No Children’ ‘No Children’ is the musical equivalent 13. of flipping off the canyon floor as your burning shitbox car hurtles off the cliff, i.e. VERY rude and exhilarating.

LCD Soundsystem – ‘Losing My Edge’ J Mascis + The Fog – ‘Everybody Lets If I could have written any song on this list it’d Me Down’ 3. 14. be this one. Its genius is obvious – it’s funny and They’d probably hate it, but I subconsciously lump sad (a great combo, writers) and you can stand in a corner and nod your head to it.

every Dinosaur Jr. spin-off into one big catalogue of great songs and this is somehow my favourite.

Neutral Milk Hotel – ‘Two-Headed Boy’ Fuck that last one – THIS is the song I 4. wish I’d written. This is my favourite song ever. In

Cat Power – ‘I Don’t Blame You’ The simplicity and elegance of this song is 15. so perfect for its subject matter and its melody. It’s

November I will piss everyone off by hollering the lyrics as loudly and frequently as I can.

a tiny little masterpiece.

Deerhunter – ‘Little Kids’ 16. Like almost every Deerhunter song, this song 5. is perfect. Beautiful production, terrific melodies, a bunch of great ideas, structurally flawless. Fuck this band.

Fucked Up – ‘The Chemistry Of Common Life’ I understand SOME of what I love about this fucking ridiculously brilliant album but it’s so complex and layered there’s a heap of shit I don’t understand and that’s exciting too.

Royal Headache – ‘Girls’ Silver Jews – ‘Punks In The Beerlight’ As far as I’m concerned, half this list could Most bands write lyrics that are 6. 17 . be Royal Headache songs. (It’s only not because competently decent, a small percentage write that’d be boring and I wouldn’t get paid.) (Just kidding, not getting paid anyway.) This band is everything I love about music and nothing I don’t. This is my favourite Royal Headache song.

7.

Eddy Current Suppression Ring – ‘Memory Lane’ If you play someone this song and they find a reason to dislike it, you can tell by the reason exactly what kind of dickhead they are.

Mclusky – ‘To Hell With Good Intentions’ 8. It sucks how few bands are genuinely misanthropic when sometimes it is ALL you need from music, so praise Satan for Mclusky.

9.

Hot Snakes – ‘Let It Come’ I’m almost definitely wrong, but I imagine that Reis & Froberg wrote this in the Drive Like Jehu days and it gave them the idea to start a punk band. 16 :: BRAG :: 514 :: 27:05:13

garbage and even fewer write lyrics that are good enough to be called poetry. Dave Berman of Silver Jews does. Spoon – ‘Jonathon Fisk’ Any list of the best songs of the last 20 18. years that doesn’t include Spoon is a joke. The White Stripes – ‘Dead Leaves And The Dirty Ground’ 19. The garage rock boom of 2001 made a lot of garbage famous, but with hindsight we know that The White Stripes were the real deal. I would characterise this song as “glum”, which is a powerful emotion. Yo La Tengo – ‘Don't Have To Be So Sad’ 20. Yo La Tengo are capable of writing almost ANY kind of song, but the kind they do better than anyone is warm and intimate. What: triple j’s Hottest 100 – 20 Years When: Voting closes Sunday June 2 More: abc.net.au/triplej/hottest100/ alltime/20years/

Bleeding Knees Club Gold Coast Genuflection By Georgia Woodroffe-Hill

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012 was a massive year for Bleeding Knees Club. After recording their debut album in New York and releasing it to an overwhelmingly positive reception, the two Gold Coast boys embarked on an international tour, which lead singer and guitarist Alex Wall says helped the band hone their skills as musicians. “We have gotten a lot better at our instruments and a lot better at music. Nothing To Do was recorded over a year ago now and we’ve played a show pretty much every week since then, so now we can actually play the music we want to make. “The band has changed a heap. I started off playing drums with Jordan [Malane] on guitar and we travelled and played like that for a while. Then after ‘Nothing To Do’ came out we changed to a three-piece with me on guitar and Jordan on bass and we had a drummer and then we got rid of that drummer and got another drummer, but he quit. Now we’ve got a new drummer who is awesome. I guess when we started we were all down for partying and we still do but it got old after partying every night for three years. Now we’re just hanging out and having fun.” The band’s raw, no-fuss style of rock’n’roll is Wall’s reaction to an overload of dance music. “When I finished high school it just seemed like every band was making dance and electro. No one was just doing hardcore rock’n’roll and all of a sudden there’s all these kids just putting up home recordings

“If I didn’t have my owner I’d probably die because I wouldn’t be able to get food because I’m a dog.”

on the internet of them playing guitar, and then the kids would be like ‘I could do that at home’. “I think it was popular because anyone could do it and you didn’t have to look up to massive rock stars whose songs you couldn’t play because you didn’t have a $500 keyboard. Anyone can play a guitar song.” Those awaiting new Bleeding Knees material may need to be patient for just a while longer, though Alex promises the songs already written will bring more of the same with a spark of maturity. “We haven’t started recording it yet so I don’t know when it will be released but we’ve written all the songs. They’re a lot bigger and I guess they’re similar to ‘Feel’. I think the EP is going to be pretty awesome. The songs just cover a lot of different topics and they’re a lot more mature and musically more advanced than our older stuff.” The latest single ‘Feel’ is an earnest and relatable account of a breakup, and the accompanying video is replete with adorable puppy dogs that double as a metaphor for unhappy couples. “I was in a relationship and my girlfriend was always telling me how to do things and what to do, and it was really frustrating me. Then I didn’t really want to be in the relationship, but it was too hard to get out of it and then it eventually ended and I wanted to be back in the relationship because I felt bad. “The video is as if I am the dog and the owner is the girlfriend and I’m just on a lead getting told what to do. If I didn’t have my owner I’d probably die because I wouldn’t be able to get food because I’m a dog.” What: Play Goodgod Small Club with Sures and Black Zeros When: Friday June 7

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Something For Kate Working Nine To Five By Jody Macgregor

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f you want to know what being a member of a popular Australian rock band is like in 2013, picture Clint Hyndman cutting flowers. The drummer of Something For Kate is at one of the two restaurants he owns and runs in the downtime between recording and touring, sprucing the place up for the day. It’s as far from the stereotypical rock’n’roll lifestyle as you can imagine, but it’s what pays the bills between gigs and it’s also what keeps Hyndman grounded – especially the flower arranging. “It’s work but it’s the hour every week that I really enjoy,” he says. “Rather than employing a florist to do it for me I just go in and do it myself. It’s very calming.” Hyndman started as a restaurateur as a sideline when he bought the Yellow Bird Cafe in 2007, but it became an equal focus when SFK frontman Paul Dempsey’s own sideline as a solo performer took off. “It was that whole thing where we were gonna do another record and then Paul’s record went a lot better than he thought and Yellow Bird went a lot better than I thought,” says Hyndman. “The gap got longer and longer. It’s become my main source of income but now, back out touring again, I’m trying to divide up the time between the two, which is quite hard. It’s definitely how I make my living.”

He’s also excited about TV on the Radio being on the bill, so long as he doesn’t have to follow them again. “One of the Splendours we did we had to play straight after them and no one had really heard of them at that stage, but I remember watching them play and it was like, ‘How are we gonna go on after this?’ It was absolutely amazing.” This tour will focus on their last album, Leave Your Soul to Science, with Hyndman suggesting about half of their sets will be taken up with its songs. SFK have been around for 19 years though, so there’s a lot of material in the back catalogue to squeeze in. Have they considered playing some of their classic albums in full, like You Am I are doing at Splendour? Will we ever see the Echolalia tour? “We’ve actually been talking about it a little bit, because we did one of the supports for The Living End when they played all their seven albums,” says Hyndman. “It was great and I think afterwards Paul and I were talking about it. ‘It would be great to do this, play the whole record!’ We’re coming up to our 20th year next year and there’s talk of doing something like that, whether it be the first record or something like that. Then when I saw the You Am I thing pop up I was like, ‘Ah! They’ve got to it first!’

The tour taking over Hyndman’s life includes a spot on the Splendour in the Grass bill. This year’s lineup has been the centre of the usual back-and-forth among music fans, but Hyndman is definitely impressed by it – one inclusion in particular.

“But yeah, definitely something we are talking about wanting to do. Even with this tour coming up we’re playing four or five really old tracks we haven’t played in ages. It’s been fun playing those again. Rather than look back and cringe you go, ‘you know, these are pretty good songs. We could do this whole album again’.”

“I remember texting Paul in the morning [of the announcement]. I knew we were doing it but I didn’t know who else was playing and I was so excited to see The National are playing the same day we are. They’re one of my all-time favourite bands.”

Where: Metro Theatre with Courtney Barnett (sold-out) / Bar on the Hill, Newcastle When: Saturday June 1 / Thursday May 30

“We’re coming up to our 20th year next year… Rather than look back and cringe you go,‘you know, these are pretty good songs’.”

Way Of The Eagle Flying High By Jody Macgregor

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s a producer, Jan Skubiszewski has worked with Owl Eyes, Daniel Merriweather, Phrase, The Cat Empire, Illy and plenty of others, but his songwriting side has had less exposure. You might be familiar with it from his work as half of Jackson Jackson with Harry Angus, but it’s only recently that he’s gone his own way as Way Of The Eagle. He’s still working with plenty of friends though, like Dan Sultan, who features on ‘Rattlesnake’, the single that’s been getting a flogging on the radio.

song called ‘The International Society of Bad Dancers’ and Skubiszewski says he’s a member. “Yeah, I’m definitely a bad dancer. I move but I don’t know if you’d call it dancing.”

“I really love collaborating with different artists and I find something so special in that process,” says Skubiszewski, “so I wanted to do something that really showcased that. But also when you’re working, producing for artists, you’re very much fulfilling their vision. I wanted something that was my vision and really followed my vibe and particular taste, and this is a great way of bringing all those fantastic artists into the fold but also really pushing my own musicality.”

To make time for Way Of The Eagle he’s cancelled all of his production work for other musicians, clearing room on his schedule to record an EP and an album and then somehow find a way to tour those songs when only some of the musicians will be available at the right time. When he’s taking the time to organise all of this, is he being missed elsewhere?

As well as Dan Sultan, the EP features the voices of Daniel Merriweather and Emily Lubitz of Tinpan Orange (you may also know her from the ‘Dumb Ways to Die’ ad). But what differentiates Way Of The Eagle songs from what we’d hear on their own releases?

“If the right project comes up I’m definitely going to be into it, but at the moment it’s taken a long time to finish all of the different projects I’ve been doing to make time to do Way Of The Eagle, so I feel like I’ve got this precious window of time to work on it. I just want to throw myself into it. Whether people miss me or not? I don’t know, man.”

“I guess I probably like things to sound a little bit more bombastic and a little bit more over the top than a lot of the other artists I work with would be prepared to go,” Skubiszewski says, “so this is a great platform for me to fulfil all of that. I also wanted to make something that made people want to move, want to get up and start dancing. I want every song to have a sense of that real deep groove; even if they’re darker or more emotive numbers I still want that sense of rhythm so people can engage with them and get down, you know?” On the subject of getting down, Skubiszewski is happy to declare that he’s not the most skilled dancer in the world. Jackson Jackson has a

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“I wanted something that was my vision and really followed my vibe and particular taste.”

One other project that isn’t finished is his work with Jackson Jackson. Although getting musicians with multiple gigs on the go in the same room at the same time is like herding cats, Skubiszewski and Angus do plan to work together again at some point. “It’s not over,” he says. “Harry and I have been talking about it. I think with both of our schedules it’s logistically really hard to even get the band to rehearse all that stuff but we’re both really into the idea of continuing it and doing something, so who knows?” What: Rattlesnake EP out Friday May 31 through Sony

A FULL DAY OF MUSIC INDUSTRY GUEST SPEAKERS, PANELS, TAKE-HOME RESOURCES, LIVE MUSIC AND NETWORKING ESPECIALLY FOR 12-25 YEAR OLDS!

VIVID IDEAS MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART LEVEL 6 / TERRACE ENTRANCE (CIRCULAR QUAY WEST SIDE), SYDNEY

MON 10TH JUNE 9.30AM –5PM Featuring: Your MC for the day Dom Alessio (Home & Hosed), Keynote Speaker Urthboy + people from We Are Unified / triple j / Unearthed / APRA / Street Press Australia / R.I.P Society / Pennydrop / GoodGod / Sugar Mountain / Resist Records + bands, artist managers and much more!

TICKETS / $20+BF FOR THE FULL DAY

FOR MORE INFO & TICKETS HEAD TO VIVIDSYDNEY.COM OR INDENT.NET.AU

& His Band ROCKABILLY / SOUL / R & B SENSATION

from the U.K. Shades of Jackie Wilson & Sam Cooke

With Danc Floor e Smith @ Burw field, Marri ood & ckvill e

BOOK NOW! Appearing Smithfield RSL Club • Bookings: (02) 9604 4411 Wednesday 12 June, 2013 Blue Beat, Double Bay • Bookings: (02) 9328 4411 Thursday 13 June, 2013 Burwood RSL Club • Bookings: (02) 8741 2888 Friday 14 June, 2013 The Factory Theatre, Marrickville • Bookings: (02) 9550 3666 Saturday 15 June, 2013

www.fogartyproductions.com.au/ international.htm BRAG :: 514 :: 27:05:13 :: 19

arts frontline

free stuff email: freestuff@thebrag.com

arts news... what's goin' on around town... with Lisa Omagari and Naomi Russo

five minutes WITH

NASHEN MOODLEY

S

o who’s the genius behind the impending Sydney Film Festival? Well, there’s obviously a few geniuses, but we reckon Festival Director Nashen Moodley leads the pack. This year is Moodley’s second year as SFF Festival Director after an 11-year stint as Head of Programming at the Durban International Film Festival. He also currently consults as Director of AsiaAfrica Programs at the Dubai International Film Festival. We caught fi ve with the man who makes the magic happen ahead of opening night. Sum up the SFF experience in 100 words or less. An opportunity to absorb yourself in the best of international cinema in a 12-day whirlwind of fi lms, fi lmmakers, talks and parties. SFF is a chance not just to watch fi lm, but to engage with masters of cinema, along with talented new fi lmmakers. What criteria do you use when considering what fi lms to include? We look for a broad selection representing the best cinema of the last year. At the same time we aim for a geographic and thematic diversity, and also for a balance between established and new fi lmmakers. In the end, we want to show great fi lms

that say something about the world in new and innovative ways. We try to assemble a program with as many entry points as possible so that there is something for everyone. Advice on how to choose what films to see? Be adventurous. Take chances on films from new filmmakers, or films from countries you have never encountered in cinema before. Film festivals are places for discoveries and that’s what I would like to encourage. Why should filmgoers engage the SFF Hub? The SFF Hub @ Lower Town Hall is a great place to experience cinema outside the cinema. It is the place to discuss cinema, to experience installations, participate in talks, listen to great music and, of course, have a few drinks. We really wanted to establish a place for the audience to hang out and interact between screenings, and the Hub is so much more than that. It’s really fun. Three favourite films of all time? I've many more than three favourites, and the list changes very often, but for today: Hana-bi by Takeshi Kitano, Pather Panchali by Satyajit Ray and Magnolia by Paul Thomas Anderson. What: Sydney Film Festival Where: Various venues When: June 5-16 More: sff.org.au for full program

WANGECHI MUTU The Gambler – Las Vegas is Purgatory by Tim Levy

Wangechi Mutu can take fur pelts, costume jewellery and packing tape and make an artwork that gets you thinking. The acclaimed, Kenyan-born New York-based artist creates works that explore the female body and it’s many representations. She works across the fields of collage, drawing, sculpture, installation and video. Her work has been described as surprising and humorous, but it also explores pathos and alienation – she’s got it all. The exhibition will be Mutu’s most comprehensive yet, comprising works from a variety of exhibitions from 2006 to 2012.For a multisensory experience, make sure you don’t miss this major exhibition, hosted until August 14 at the Museum of Contemporary Art. Visit mca.com.au for more information.

CATCHING LIGHT Feminism, heart failure and video games are just a few of the topics being broached by the artist collaborations at Campbelltown Art Centre’s newest exhibition Catching Light. Five established artists have teamed with five

TIM LEVY WINS HEAD OFF LANDSCAPE PRIZE

Yeah, you heard us! BRAG’s very own senior photographer Tim Levy has been crowned winner of the inaugural Head Off Landscape Prize. Levy’s pièce de résistance, The Gambler – Las Vegas is Purgatory, captures a candid moment where a rooftop bather rests without any identifiable disconnection to his present world. Alas, he is the furthest away – he is asleep. “Finding moments like these are rare and often fleeting. Sometimes you can get a couple of images before everything falls apart, but I was fortunate that this guy was totally asleep so I had time to work the shot,” explains Levy. “The nice thing about winning is that people look at your earlier work with slightly more interest. I got into photography for photos like this one – capturing funny, strange snippets of human life and the world that we create.” The work of finalists in the Head Off Landscape Prize is currently on display at Paddington Reservoir Gardens until June 23. For more info visit headon.com.au

EXHIBITIONISTS

Every US president since JFK is coming to the Australian Centre for Photography’s, Winter Season 2013 running from June 1 through August 18. Well, sort of. Images of each US president, JFK to Obama, will be shown in key photojournalist David Burnett’s collection. But that’s not all. The Centre is also presenting Pat Brassington’s A Rebours, the culmination of three decades of photography that explores both the potential of the digital and the tradition of the surreal. As if that wasn’t enough there is a third exhibition, Robert Besanko’s sixth installment of Contemplations – a unique take on the differences between analogue and digital representations. More info at acp.org.au

BONDI FEAST 2013

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INDUSTRY SPEED DATING

Times they are a-changing. We all know it, but how equipped are we to face the new entertainment industry? The Australian Institute of Music wants to help you out, so they’ve gathered some top young industry professionals to host TED-style talks at their upcoming event, TILT. Want more? AIM are also offering industry ‘speed dating’ so you can meet and chat with likeminded professionals. Speakers include live music coordinator for Sounds Australia, Ianto Ware and senior agency manager for Google Rhys Thomas, not to mention host James Mathison. TILT will be held on Friday July 5 from 10.30am-5pm.

If you’re sick of the unrelenting influx of zombies in popular culture of late, and if werewolves are your supernatural beast of choice, listen up! Benjamin Percy, the award-winning author of The Wilding and writer for Esquire, Men’s Journal and the Paris Journal, has meshed the political allegory and the supernatural thriller into one unique page-turner: Red Moon. We’ve got ten copies to give away and we’ve also got one very special signed copy up for grabs too! To win, just email freestuff@ thebrag.com and give us one good reason why (or why not) werewolves are the best subject for a political allegory.

emerging artists to create new collaborative artworks in the fields of installation, sound and video. One such venture, between Wade Marynowsky and Michael Candy involves two robots interacting with the natural world. Expect seagulls, hot chips and catapults. The exhibitions will be on display from June 1 through July 6 and entry is free. More info at isea2013.org

WALLPEOPLE UNITE Like music and art? Sydney is one of 45 cities joining the urban art movement Wallpeople this June. Taking back the streets will be all sorts of artists and the creatively inclined – and that includes you! This year the theme is MUSIC so come ready to express your unique relationship with a song, muso or anything that takes your fancy in the music world. At the end of the day, take home your own creation, or even better swap with someone else. It’s like potluck, only with indistinguishable food products. Head down to Camperdown Memorial Park on June 1 from 12-3pm to make your mark. More info at wallpeople.org

CRATEMAN ON CLEVELAND

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No! It’s a giant Crateman on Cleveland atop Black Penny! The real-life artist behind it? A certain Mr Patrick Indo (Cleo Bachelor of the Year wildcard finalist FYI), who works as a graphic, street and installation artist. His latest exhibition INDO at Black Penny’s gallery space, Blacklisted, demonstrates Indo’s mixed medium practice wherein stencils, spray paints, inks, textas and everyday materials sourced from the streets are used to create art. And then of course there’s going to be said crateman. Indo’s setting out to construct a giant figure made from brightly coloured milk crates who will sit on the venue’s roof. Yes, the roof. The creation process will also be filmed, turned into a time-lapse video installation and shown at the exhibition’s launch. INDO opens at Blacklisted on May 28 and will run until June 4. For more info visit blackpenny.com.au Xxx

Last year, BRAG claimed: “I’d have moved to the Pav this week if I could,” so it’s only natural that our hopes are high as the second ever Bondi Feast fast approaches. From June 16-27, The Bondi Pavilion Theatre will deliver a fortnight of winter merriment with an impressive hoard

of local and international artists spanning over 40 performances. Feast highlights include story telling from the Penguin Plays Rough crew, ’80s Physique Aerobics and a handful of short plays by writers like Lachlan Philpott (Silent Disco) and Kate Mulvaney (The Seed). Tickets and full program available at rocksurfers.org from Friday May 31.

RED MOON! BOOK! WIN!

© 2013 Warner Bros. Ent. All Rights Reserved.

THE GREAT GATSBY

A Star On The Rise By Alasdair Duncan ou may not have seen Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby just yet, but you probably already have a pretty firm opinion about it. In fact, it’s likely you fall in one of two camps: The Great Gatsby is a dynamic and visually-spectacular masterpiece from a visionary director, or The Great Gatsby is a gaudy travesty that lays waste to one of the 20th century’s greatest novels. That’s the effect Baz Luhrmann has – his films are big and bold explosions of colour and movement, laying the melodrama bare and then cranking it up to its maximum setting. His films may be dazzling, but subtle they are most certainly not.

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players,” he says, “and I thought, ‘oh, I can do that, playing piano in a film sounds like fun.’ So I went along and did the audition, and then they gave me some lines and asked if I could read them.” Maclean had never done a film before, so he read the lines as best he could, and was sent off without a word. Needless to say, he felt a bit down. “I felt like I’d screwed up,” he continues, “like they’d never want to see me again, so I sent them the video for my song ‘Practically Wasted’, because that’s just incredible, it’s a really theatrical video clip, and it showcases a lot of the madness and joy that I bring to my live show on stage. After that, I got a little call asking if I could come back in again.”

The Great Gatsby takes the affluent world of 1920s America and turns it into a decadent fantasyland. As Jay Gatsby, Leonardo Di Caprio speeds around in a shiny yellow car, and throws lavish parties with glittering fireworks and flapper girls in various states of intoxication. It’s paean to wealth and privilege, each and every shot crowded with details. Maclean was blown away to find himself in the centre of it all. “It was a stunning production,” he says, “the sets for the film were just beautiful, you really felt immersed in the world. You can’t go wrong with something like that. I think people will be blown away – I think it’s going to be the film of the year and win every award.”

Brendan Maclean shares something of an affinity with Baz Luhrmann. The young singer is prone to grand gestures, writing lyrics that take everyday emotions and experiences and explode them to one hundred times their size. He doesn’t just sing, he performs, and his videos always offer some sort of visual splendour or surprise. Maclean is a life-long fan of Baz Luhrmann’s films, but he never imagined he’d get to perform in one, until the day he auditioned for The Great Gatsby. It was a strange and slightly surreal journey, involving burly tradesmen and butterflies, but it gave Maclean unique insight into the inner-workings of a Luhrmann production.

The call back was a second chance, and Maclean embraced it. “I walked into a room at Fox Studios, and there was a man in a silver suit, with silver hair and a salmon pink tie – it was Baz Luhrmann!” he says. “The guy is my hero – I grew up with his films, I grew up with all the things that surround his films, so yeah, I was a little bit blown away. We spent a long time improvising – he gave me this old telephone receiver thing, and we improvised around the script for about 40 minutes, for the role of Klipspringer.” Like any vulnerable and nervous young actor in an audition situation, Maclean asked Luhrmann if he had a lot of other actors coming in to try out for the part that day – ‘no, I just have one’ was Luhrmann’s reply. “I just started bawling on the spot,” Maclean says. “I had the part!”

Baz Luhrmann is a perfectionist, and no detail of the film was small enough to be overlooked. Maclean discovered this for himself when he arrived on set one day to find himself in the midst of a very unusual debate. “It was so funny,” he says, “I walked on set the first day, and there were like 16 big, muscly tradies in a circle. I was like, ‘what are they doing?’ I looked down, and in the middle of them were little butterflies, little felt butterflies. They were having this manly argument about whether the eyes should be glitter or diamante! There were 16 grown men arguing about butterfly eyes. That’s the level of detail that Baz Luhrmann’s films have – it’s insane.”

G IV EA W AY S

It all began when a friend told him about the film’s Sydney auditions. “They needed piano

“It was a stunning production ... the sets for the film were just beautiful, you really felt immersed in the world. You can’t go wrong with something like that.” ‘Stupid’ was a viral hit, and anticipation continues to grow for his new album, out later this year. His work in Gatsby has given him a taste for film acting, and he has more on the way. “I just did another little part in a film called Tracks, with Mia Wasikowska and Adam Driver from Girls,” he tells me. “We shot that in outback South Australia – we got to play with camels and emus and kangaroos – it was great. But of course, the thing I’m most excited about is Gatsby coming out – I feel like that film is going to explode the world!”

Maclean continues to grow in his primary career as a musician – a few months back, his single

WIN! “WHAT’S HOT?” FORUM & THE ABSTRACTION AND PATHOLOGY

E

xploring the latest in innovative music and sound as part of Vivid Sydney, New Wave: Sound kicks off on June 7 at the Seymour Centre with a forum that asks “what’s hot?” in music. The panel includes Vivid creative advisor Ignatius Jones, composer and member of experimental pop duo Marcus Whale, host of FBi Radio’s ‘Radiant’ program Adam Lewis and more.

Anthony Pateras

What: The Great Gatsby opens in cinemas on May 30.

The forum will be followed by New Wave: Sound – Abstraction and Pathology. The performance will feature three investigations of composed and improvised electroacoustic music from a trio of Australia’s most adventurous composers and performers: Anthony Pateras, Natasha Anderson and Erkki Veltheim.

WIN!

Intrigued? BRAG has two tickets to give away to both the “What’s hot?” forum as well as the Abstraction and Pathology performance, both taking place on June 7 at the Seymour Centre. To win, just email freestuff@thebrag.com with your name and which event you’d prefer a ticket to. BRAG :: 514 :: 27:05:13 :: 21

Late Night Lounge: Eat The Collection [DESIGN] A Delicious New World By Alasdair Duncan

W

hile 3D printing may exist primarily in the realm of cool things you’ve read about on the internet, the technology is rapidly spreading, and its potential applications are far-reaching. The scale stretches from small to vast – scientists at Princeton have just used bio-organic printing to create a working human ear, while Dutch architects are presently working on a 3D printed house. You can even use a 3D printer to create your own arsenal, with engineers in Wisconsin recently uploading the blueprints for a gun that you can make yourself at home. If you want to see the technology in action, Powerhouse Museum are making it happen, with an added, delicious bonus. Their event, Eat The Collection, sees a variety of architects, designers and artists replicating items from the collection – in chocolate form. “We’ve been interested in new ways of fabricating design,” program director Athalie Moedjoko tells me, “and 3D printing is pretty experimental when it comes to food, so we thought it would be great to create an event around that.” The museum acquired a readymade 3D printer from the UK, and set about inviting creative folk to come and play with it. “In the art world, there’s quite a tradition of working with food,” Moedjoko says. “I think people in general are becoming more interested in the idea of how food is produced, and how we eat. We’ve made

our event around that. There are a number of artists who work with food.” As we speak, the museum has just taken a delivery of dark Belgian chocolate for the show. The Powerhouse have invited an array of designers from across different fields to try their hands at the technology. “We have invited about 11 designers,” Moedjeko says, “but they all have backgrounds in CAD and 3D modelling. We have quite a few architects and digital fabricators. Everything the designers have submitted is based on the collection. The designers have looked at the collection and chosen objects that inspire them, and they’ve then mashed them up or made copies or used them as springboards for design.” “We have a great duo from Melbourne, Angela Woda and Monique Brady-Ward,” Moedjeko continues. “They both studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Art in Copenhagen, and they’ve put together a submission inspired by teeth, called Teeth Town. Then you have Chris Bosse, the designer who did the water cube for the Beijing Olympics. He’s done something inspired by coral, he’s done a coral chair.” Some of the works may well be familiar to animation nerds. “There’s a design and architecture firm called AR-MA, who are real whizzes at 3D modelling and digital design,”

Ryoji Ikeda

[VISUAL ART] A Winter Installation of Colossal Proportions By Shannon Connellan

“I

’m a Japanese sound artist living in Paris who uses binary code and online data to generate colossal, audiovisual interactive artworks and tone music.” It’d be a killer opening line for dinner parties – a line one is doubtful the elusive Ryoji Ikeda would ever drop between pre-entrée Merlots. Exhibiting two internationally-celebrated works as part of Vivid Sydney and ISEA2013 at Carriageworks this winter, audiovisual installation artist Ikeda appears to live somewhat of an enviable cosmopolitan life; living in Paris, exhibiting with the big guns everywhere from Tokyo’s Museum of Contemporary Art to London’s Barbican Centre. But apart from where he works and plays, there’s not a whole lot we know about Ryoji himself. “He doesn’t talk about it,” says Director of Carriageworks Lisa Havilah. “He doesn’t give any quotes or do any interviews or really talk about it. So we only have what you can get from other people talking about his works.” Elusive and intriguingly mysterious himself, Ikeda injects this ambiguity into his works, promoting a popular modernist tendency to leave the work as is, explanation abandoned for immediate viewer perception. “It’s not to be understood in the usual way,” says Havilah. “Sometimes when you’re looking at an artwork you have to understand a particular part of art history, you have to know the background to have access to it. This is just left out there.” Carriageworks will play host to the Australian premiere of Ikeda’s large-scale installation, test pattern [No. 5], which converts the bits and bytes of data (from photos, text, film and sound) into binary patterns and barcodes. When all the 0s and 1s are mixed well, the data is fed through five projectors onto a colossal floor screen sitting at 28 metres long and 8 metres wide. Ikeda’s mixing generates a seriously impressive flickering black and white interactive stage, supported by his signature soundscaping.

First installed in France, test pattern [No. 5] is a huge undertaking for Carriageworks. More of his work was recently celebrated in a major

Moedjeko says. “Their work is a reproduction of a teapot, which is the first complex object that was ever 3D modelled. It’s a joke for all of the 3D modelling nerds, because this teapot has been everywhere – it’s been in every Pixar film, and it’s even been in The Simpsons.” And now for the good stuff – the designs will be presented in roughly bite-sized 75mm Belgian

[THEATRE] A Matter Of Life And Death By Alasdair Duncan Angels In America rehearsal

Ikeda’s work features as part of both Vivid Sydney and the long-running ISEA2013 program, an international symposium on electronic art and ideas running June 7-16 in Sydney. Ikeda joins a formidable international lineup, most notably featuring Wikileaks founder and arguable electronic artist Julian Assange, who will address conference delegates and a smattering of the public at the University of Sydney via live video link from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. ony Kushner’s Angels In America may be the defining American play of the 20th century – an epic and sprawling work, it takes on the AIDS crisis, and through this, expands into philosophical questions about the nature of life itself. At seven hours across two parts, it’s also one of the biggest and most ambitious plays you could attempt. Belvoir Street Theatre regular Eamon Flack knew that staging the play was a massive undertaking – six weeks into an eight-week rehearsal period, he’s realised the full scope of what he and his cast are attempting.

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I ask the young director what drew him to Kushner’s play, he replies with a nervous laugh. “Everyone’s asking me this question lately!” he says. “I suppose that, at the centre of it, Angels In America is about how to survive modern times. Right now, in the middle of rehearsing it, my mind is reeling with that question of how to survive. I guess that I was drawn to it because it’s the biggest, most magnificent play that anyone has written in our time. It’s rare for a contemporary play to have the status of this one.” The play enjoys legendary status – it is loved around the world, and was famously adapted as a HBO miniseries several years ago. I ask Flack how he accounts for the play’s tremendous appeal. “Well, the play is just 22 :: BRAG :: 514 :: 27:05:13

incredibly imaginative,” he says, “and those sorts of full flights of imagination are always attractive.” The play’s indelible imagery also plays a part, especially the scenes of diving intervention. “An angel appears to a man dying of AIDS,” he continues. “You don’t get many opportunities to see that.” Though Kushner’s play tackles the AIDS epidemic as seen through the experiences of people in 1980s New York, Flack is adamant that the play is about a lot more than the disease itself. “I’m 33, and I have some memories of the grim reaper ads, and of the impact of those,” he says, “but coming to the play now, the striking thing that Kushner has achieved is to write a play about so much more than AIDS. It starts with this difficult, interesting, awful plague, and then uses that as an examination of history that we’re still living.”

Ikeda’s work tends to send audiences into sensory overload, particularly his own performances. In addition to test pattern [No. 5] at Carriageworks, the artist will be performing in a one-night-only, free concert on June 7 entitled datamatics [ver.2.0], first performed in San Jose in 2006. “datamatics is another work of his which is projected on a vertical screen and he live mixes the data feed,” explains Havilah. “He’s taking live data from different sources on the internet and is live mixing them, which impacts on the sound of the projection you see.”

What: test pattern [No.5] and datamatics [ver.2.0] by Ryoji Ikeda Where: Carriageworks When: June 8 – July 1; June 7 More: carriageworks.com.au

What: Late Night Lounge: Eat The Collection Where: Powerhouse Museum When: Thursday May 30 More: powerhousemuseum.com

Angels In America

exhibition at The Park Avenue Armory in New York City, gaining big ol’ snaps from The New York Times for being a “sublime spectacle”. Havilah is eager for Sydney audiences to become acquainted with Ikeda’s work. “As an experience it’s quite immersive,” she says. “Because the scale of the work is so big, it changes the perception of the scale of yourself. It makes you step outside yourself for a moment because you’re completely in another world, you’re completely in the work.”

Another elusive personality alongside Assange, Ikeda’s true character is yet to be revealed, a genuinely ambitious artist hidden behind a swag of 1s and 0s. He remains to be deciphered, but his works are free for the decoding this winter.

chocolate cubes, and if you’re lucky, you might even get the chance to bite into one.

The HBO miniseries, which starred the likes of Meryl Streep and Al Pacino, made a poignant impression. In spite of this, Flack and his actors, including Robyn Nevin and Marcus Graham, have not allowed themselves to be influenced by the series in any way. “I feel like, when you bring a group of people together to work on a script, it’s inevitable that you’ll arrive at a different place than people have previously,” Flack says. “That in itself is interesting, but also, any attempt to put your own stamp on the script will fail.” Flack is being quite literal when he says this. “It’s like Tony Kushner has put a curse on the script!” he says. “Any time you try to deviate from what he’s written, you end up with your head in your hands wondering why you did it. You end up having to do what he’s written. It’s like those tombs that those poor buggers opened in Egypt, and then they all died. You can’t mess with Kushner’s text – you can only respond as best you can.” Angels In America may be about death, but staging the play has been a life-affirming experience for Flack. “It makes you draw on all those finer human qualities like patience and thoughtfulness,” he says, “but it constantly gives back. By all rights, we should be exhausted and wrecked this far in, but we’re not, because the play is just so generous and rewarding.” What: Angels In America Where: Belvoir Street Theatre When: May 28 – July 28 More: belvoir.com.au

Angels In America rehearsal photo by Brett Boardman

Ryoji Ikeda, test pattern [no.5]

Late Night Lounge: Eat The Collection

Film & Theatre Reviews Hits and misses on the silver screen and the bareboards around town.

Carloto Cotta and Laura Soveral in Tabu

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W E E K

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romantic movies ever made. Gomes avoids Hollywood exaggeration, instead looking to the foundations of filmmaking to elegantly render the pure, brutal melancholia of lost love. Shannon Connellan ■ Film

THE RELUCTANT FUNDAMENTALIST ■ Film

TABU In cinemas now The heart, “the most insolent muscle of the whole anatomy”, proves an impossible beast to tame in Portuguese director Miguel Gomes’ tale of love lost, Tabu. Winner of the Silver Bear at the 62nd Berlin International Film Festival last year, Tabu is a love story told in two parts, revitalising every trick in the early Western cinema book. Bouncing from a dull present to a longforgotten past, Tabu takes a trip from modern day Lisbon to 1960s Portuguese Africa, excavating a painful romance between the feisty, young newlywed Aurora (Laura Soveral) and the adventurous, rugged boy-next-door Gian Luca (Carloto Cotta). Innovative director Gomes takes on this classic Star-Crossed-Lovers tale armed with considerable knowledge of the Western film canon, calling on cinematic conventions popular in the 1920s silent era. Even the film’s title, Tabu, is a nod to a film made by German silent film legend F. W. Murnau (Nosferatu, Sunrise). Shot entirely in black and white, Tabu sees classic Murnau chiaroscuro effects used to glorify ordinary characters, exaggerate dramatic tension and find romance in the mundane. Gomes’ love of early film technique proves a perfect paintbrush to canvas the central love story. After a stagnant, quiet first half of the film set in present day Portugal, Gomes traces memory to Africa in the ’60s in the days before the Portuguese Colonial War began. It’s at the foot of the Tabu Mountain, we’re privy to a wonderfully simple tale of illicit romance set at the heart of a very tense racial climate. Enchantingly acted without dialogue, the second half of the film is driven by the two young lovers; the Portuguese ‘Orlando Bloom’ Cotta as the dreamy Gian Luca Ventura and Cannes favourite Ana Moreira as the intensely whimsical (young version of) Aurora. Cotta nails the part of rugged romantic lead, wistfully staring down the lens and winning audience hearts early by calling animals with a conch shell. Swoon. Heartrending and quietly tragic, Tabu is on-Notebook-par with some of the most

In cinemas now The Reluctant Fundamentalist is a film adaptation of the Booker Prize shortlisted novel of the same name. Directed by Mira Nair (Monsoon Wedding, The Namesake, Amelia), the film centres on a conversation between reporter and undercover CIA agent Bobby Lincoln (Liev Schreiber) and Pakistani university professor Changez (Riz Ahmed) who is a suspect in the disappearance of an American professor working at the same university. Changez details his experiences emigrating from Pakistan to America, which take the form of lengthy flashbacks. Here he excels at an Ivy League College, lands a high-flying corporate job and starts a relationship with a troubled artist (Kate Hudson). Changez embraces and loves his American lifestyle but all of this changes on September 11 when the Twin Towers fall. Changez is met with new suspicion and cruelty, which leads him to reassess the life he has chosen and move back to Pakistan. There is something not quite right about this film. Despite a strong performance from Ahmed and some fine cinematography, it doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be. The central message of the film is wellmeaning, if somewhat overplayed. However, the film tries to take on too much, which results in a very complex situation becoming stereotyped, showing us little of the nuance of Nair’s earlier works. There are really two separate films in play here. One deals with the personal identity politics of Changez’s life up until and closely following 9/11 involving a somewhat out of place indie romance, and the other an intense political thriller where there is a missing man and the constant threat of American violence against local Pakistani students. These two separate strands grind against each other, both in idea and form, and ultimately confuse the film’s meaning. The Reluctant Fundamentalist makes some valid points about hysteria, capitalism and the massive power imbalance held by the West, but attempts to tackle too much resulting in cliché, which ultimately undermines the central conceit of the film. Emma McManus

See www.thebrag.com for more arts reviews

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MCA ARTBAR

ARTBAR photo by Michael Wholley

Friday May 31 MCA Sculpture Terrace, The Rocks The MCA Sculpture Terrace is bringing the party this Friday May 31 to celebrate ARTBAR’s first birthday! Weird Science is the theme of this month’s shenanigans; curated by Sydney artist Keg de Souza and drawing inspiration from Ray Hughes’ novel of the same name, punters can expect all things sci-fi. What’s on offer? Think an inflatable planetarium, screenings from infamous Mu Meson archives, an encounter with Wade Marynowsky’s robots, Diego Bonetto’s test-tube gardens and Justice Yeldham’s unhealthy obsession with broken glass. Not convinced yet? Our spectacular harbour will be lit-up courtesy of Vivid Sydney and there’s no better vantage point to catch all the action. Damn right! Don’t delay on the ticket front, folks. mca.com.au for more.

31st may 8pm free

F A C E B O O K . C O M / B E A C H R O A D H O T E L

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bread&thread

THE DIP HOTDOG COMP

Food & Fashion News with Lisa Omagari and Naomi Russo

Label State tees

They sell over 400 unique tee designs online and now labelstate.com is coming to the streets. A pop-up store at 188 Oxford Street will offer fans the chance to buy shirts in the flesh, including those that feature radio heroes such as DZ Deathrays, Fbi radio and Velociraptor. Want more? Label State’s gonna give you more! A live performance by Velociraptor will be broadcast from the store on June 6. Can’t make that? Make sure you visit between June 4 and August 4 to support the trailblazing Aussie musos and fashionistas. For more info visit labelstate.com

BSB AFTER HOURS

The Bourke Street Bakery crew have been busy of late. Not only have they opened a new Neutral Bay store (19-25 Grosvenor Street) and micro winery at their Potts Point crib, but they’ve designed an After Hours program for June to celebration of all things yeast. The key ingredient in the holy trinity – bread, wine and beer – will be worshipped in a series of Get Cultured events bringing together wine makers, bread bakers, beer brewers and chefs. On Saturday June 1 punters can join BK winemaker Brendon Keys who will talk wild yeast in wine making, on Thursday June 13 Southern Highlands winemaker Tertini will showcase their range and

JANUS LANDS

JANUS, known for their contemporary rustic Italian offerings in the CBD, have opened a new restaurant, bar and bakery in Kings Cross. You can dine all day, and drink all night with a huge fireplace in the new restaurant to keep you warm this winter. If you’re too busy to stop and enjoy a bottle of wine, you can pick up a coffee and pastry from the bakery, but you’d be crazy to pass up an afternoon with their legendary 1 metre antipasto platter. Yeah, we just said 1 metre antipasto platter! Head to 33 Bayswater Road early on Monday to Sunday to pick up a flaky pastry delight, or slow down for a dinner from 6pm.

PHOTOS: ASHLEY MAR

TEE TIME

16:05:13 :: GOODGOD :: 55 LIVERPOOL ST SYDNEY :: 92838792

BALMAIN’S REINVENTED LOCAL

Balmain has a sparkly new local – you guessed it, The Balmain Hotel. After four months of refurb, former West End Hotel has been transformed into a lush pad playing host to good food and good times, vibing on a fun and upbeat party atmosphere. The venue’s reno head honcho Nick Wills believes The Balmain Hotel’s new look pays respect to its historic value while injecting a sense of fun and style into the place. “Although there is no shortage of pubs in Balmain, my vision for The Balmain Hotel is to offer something totally different from the traditional style pub this historic suburb is known for. I want to refresh the established local social scene,” he says. The grub on offer? Casual bistro dining with a menu focused on fusion street food with steamed buns and sliders top of the list. Check out Balmain’s newest kid on the pub block at 74 Mullens Street.

how yeast is used in each varietal, and on Thursday June 20 Centennial Vineyard show us how yeast is used in the creation of sparkling wine. bourkestreetbakery.com.au

Miss Peaches

THE AUSTRALIAN COFFEE GUIDE 2013 It’s an addiction we all nurture – our love for coffee. Whether you’re a frothy cappuccino, no nonsense espresso or your coffee is longer than your commute, we have the book for you. The Australian Coffee Guide 2013 edition has been launched, with a comprehensive guide to the top cafes in our land. The book cuts out distractions like atmosphere, food and ambience and gets to the point: how good’s the coffee? To check out if your favourite haunts made it and find some hidden gems, pick up the no nonsense guide for $10 at a suite of good cafes ’round Australia.

MAMMA’S MEALS

Got the blues? Well cheer up, because coming soon is Miss Peaches – the new restaurant-cum-blues bar that’s the real deal. Miss Peaches’ Southern-style home-cooked meals provide a hearty new foodie haven on the Newtown bar scene, with a lot more gumption (and gumbo) than most. Aside from fried chicken and vintage vinyls, they can also boast upcoming performances by DJ Jack Shit, Hot Grits DJs and DJ Flashback. For food so good you’ll cry and music that’ll have you stompin’ your feet, you can’t go past Miss Peaches. They’re open Wednesday through Sunday from June 5, so get yourself down to Level 1, 201 Missenden Road for the home-cooked meals your mamma never made for you.

LONDON FIELDS

LEVEL 1, THE LONDON HOTEL, CNR UNDERWOOD AND WILLIAM STREETS, PADDINGTON TUE – SAT 6PM-12AM/ SAT – SUN LUNCH

restaurant profile holds down the fort as the venue’s head chef. Oakes brings with him a wealth of knowledge and experience, having earned a Chef Hat during his time as executive chef at Paddington’s The Grand National, while Canavan is also no stranger to the area having headed up the kitchen at Paddington Inn for a number of years. Industry-favourite bartender, Robbie Stowe leads the bar with a cocktail list that focuses on the freshest local produce. Stowe joins London Fields after stints at Hugo’s and Barrio Chino.

The basics: Welcome to London Fields where the food’s hearty and cocktails sweet. Located upstairs at The London Hotel this newbie is Paddington’s latest wine-bar-cum-restaurant hidey-hole perfect for the post-work winter escape. Think

fresh, seasonal produce, genius cocktails and vintage surrounds. Dig in folks! The team: Mrs Sippy’s Ian Oakes has expanded his role to oversee the London Fields kitchen while Michael Canavan

Eye-candy: Ben May designed London Fields and has endowed the venue with vintage industrial glass fluorescent lights and handmade brass menu boards.

parsnip puree, roast spatchcock, proscuitto with sage and soft polenta, and slow cooked pork belly with roast cabbage, pear and cider jus all on offer.

Flavours: All dishes are designed to share with a mix of culinary influences drawing on ten years of experience in the Sydney food scene.

Care for a drink? London Fields favourites include the Feijoa Gin Fizz and Mandarin Crusta.

Something to start with: Think seared tuna, roast beetroot, chickpeas with labneh, eggplant, garlic, lemon with parsley and goats cheese, or spiced cauliflower, almonds, mint, with caper and raisin vinaigrette. The main course: Carnivores rejoice because there’s glazed beef cheek with

Make us drool: “London fields is not a pub, wine bar, cocktail bar or restaurant. It’s all these put together in an incredible space with a fantastic cocktail list and a very approachable wine list which compliments an affordable and very generous menu.” facebook.com/pages/The-London-Hotel Xxxx

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ASTRAL PEOPLE PARTY

OMAR-S (US)

AFRICA HITECH (AU/UK)

JOHN CONVEX (UK)

STUDIO & WESTERN FOYER SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE THE

SATURDAY JUNE 1ST 9PM VIA VIVIDLIVE.SYDNEYOPERAHOUSE.COM

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

ALBUM OF THE WEEK THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN

The result is the band’s most distinctive, accomplished record to date.

It’d be hard to dispute that New Jersey band The Dillinger Escape Plan have become – somewhat reluctant – fl ag bearers for the “mathcore” genre; it’s one that has followed the quintet since the release of debut album Calculating Infi nity over a decade ago.

Opening numbers ‘Prancer’ and ‘When I Lost My Bet’ kick open One of Us Is the Killer with the band’s trademark savagery and erratic dynamics. This is vintage Dillinger, and there’s a comfort in the sense of familiarity present. From there, we see a pretty massive departure with the album’s title track. The anger is there, but it comes in the form of slow, calculated misanthropy rather than a jagged sonic assault – reminiscent of ‘Parasitic Twins’ from their preceding album, 2010’s Option Paralysis.

One of Us Is the Killer Party Smasher Inc./Remote Control

Xxxx Pissed off, technical, unique. It’s everything you love about Dillinger with a new coat of slick professionalism.

Fast, highly technical musicianship mashed together with overwhelming aggression and frenetic dissonance has long been the band’s forte. On fi fth studio album One of Us Is the Killer the group refi ne the elements that have proven crucial to their success, while continuing to evolve and come into their own.

MS MR

THE SHOUTING MATCHES

Secondhand Rapture Sony Music

Saying that pop duo MS MR have attracted A LOT of attention in a very short space of time would be an understatement. After seeing MS MR’s explosive set at Laneway Festival earlier this year, it’s easy to see why. Bold and confident, Lizzy Plapinger (MS) and Max Hershenow (MR) strutted their stuff like they had been performing at Australian music festivals since they could tie their shoelaces, despite it being their very first visit to these shores. Fortunately, MS MR bring all this dazzle and more to their debut album, Secondhand Rapture.

We start to see a melodic edge take shape as we progress, with ‘Nothing’s Funny’ and ‘Paranoia Shields’ featuring arguably some of the catchiest choruses in the band’s discography. The effect

There is a rich and storied tradition of musicians coming together in so-called “supergroups”, to varying levels of success (see The Traveling Wilburys, Monsters Of Folk, NKOTBSB, etc.). Last year Justin Vernon of Bon Iver, Phil Cook of Megafaun and Brian Moen from Peter Wolf Crier/Laarks reformed under their Shouting Matches guise to release their debut album, seven years after playing their first show together.

For her first album in six years, Alison Moyet says she ignored talk of target demographics and eschewed the advert jazz covers normally expected of middle-aged singers. Instead, she teamed up with producer Guy Sigsworth – a musical marriage she likens to that of her time alongside Vince Clarke in Yazoo – and created a set of dance-pop that satisfies even if it sounds as if it’s a decade old.

Melding soul, R&B, funk and DnB sensibilities, there are some truly stand out moments here, although the record does suffer from a slight case of rinse and repeat syndrome here and there – ‘Powerless’ ft. Becky Hill doesn’t stand out anywhere near as much as album closer ‘Free’ featuring the gutsy vocals of Emeli Sandé (who also appears on ‘More Than Anything’).

“Suddenly the landscape has changed,” sings Moyet on opener ‘Horizon Flame’. True, yet the icy electronics backing her wouldn’t have sounded out of place on Madonna’s 1998 album Ray Of Light. Single ‘When I Was Your Girl’ sets Moyet’s familiar androgynous and commanding voice against the fragility of a lyric which recalls a younger, naive past and an expanse of guitars, strings and drums. It’s an accomplished slab of uplifting powerpop but doesn’t exactly sound new.

MS MR have a liking for darker themes, especially so in ‘Bones’: “Dig up her bones but leave the soul alone / Let her find a way to a better place / Broken dreams and silent screams / Empty churches with soulless curses.” That, or a twist on the token love song – ‘Dark Doo Wop’ is the end-of-the-world lovers’ ballad of the album and is captivating with echoes which swirl continuously around the space between your ears. In MS MR’s most recent single, ‘Fantasy’, the duo translate the guaranteed disparity between reality and dreams into a contrastingly uplifting pop hit.

‘Gallup, NM’ is an organ-driven trip down a dusty road to a deadend town, and ‘Heaven Knows’ has ubiquitous Black Keys-esque distortion all over the guitars and vocals – it’s not a bad thing, but it’s not revolutionary either. ‘New Theme’ pulls the organ back in for a bluesfunk fusion that gives a much-needed injection of brevity to the latter end of the album, before ‘I Need A Change’, the least outwardly harsh breakup song in a while, wraps things up. The lyrics still cut like a knife, but it’s damn lovely.

The strings and horns are the main departure from the earlier She & Him discography. M. Ward’s warm arrangements bring a slick groove to Deschanel’s songs, while still letting her mournful voice remain the focus for the ballads (like ‘London’). While she has been handed criticism for being too “twee” or “cutesy” in the past, Deschanel sounds assured on Volume 3, her voice fluctuates with the emotional resonance of the songs, and there is a maturity to her lyrics that elevates them well beyond the realm of trivial and childish.

Grownass Man isn’t pushing musical boundaries, but that was never its intention. It’s just a fun and well-executed ode to the blues, lost love, brews and your crew.

Volume 3 echoes another era – it’s nostalgic but the classic twist is freshened up with accomplished lyrics, youthful harmonies and M. Ward’s production lending the record a golden light. Natalie Amat

The lo-fi buzz of ‘Spoons’ featuring MNEK and Syron is an understated gem that might not have the brash, twostep fury that dominates most of the other tracks, but holds its ground with its restrained, ultra smooth grooves. Elsewhere, ‘Hide’ ft. Sinead Harnett features a sultry horn refrain and a deceptively dark bassline; its insistent throb surfaces just enough to make you feel its presence before giving way to a curiously palatable mesh of garage/soul influences. For all its commercial success, ‘Waiting All Night’ ft. Ella Eyre is undeniably one of the biggest tracks on ‘Home’; the perfect marriage of underground sounds with the bombast and euphoric drama of a truly good pop song. Eyre’s soaring vocals are among the strongest of the well-curated guests on this record. Home is an excellent start for this ‘slashie’ bass music foursome, and they strike the balance of their multitude influences with effortless aplomb. Marissa Demetriou

INDIE ALBUM OF THE WEEK SAVAGES

Silence Yourself Pop Noire / Matador / Remote Control The period where punk crossed over into post-punk yielded some intense, exciting music, and London’s Savages mine that particular vein with gusto. While their sound is a powerful, stark lurch for the jugular, their love of director John Cassavetes helps to place them firmly into the more art-house camp of post-punk. (The fiery single ‘Husbands’ is named after Cassavetes’ 1970 film and the lines of dialogue that open the album are lifted from 1977’s Opening Night.)

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The Minutes Cooking Vinyl

UK outfit Rudimental stormed charts everywhere with feel good hit ‘Feel The Love’ ft. John Newman in 2012, and after a string of equally successful follow up singles, we finally arrive at their debut album, ‘Home’. While there’s a smooth mix of influences at play, the fact they have brought drum‘n’bass back into the spotlight is no mean feat, given that distant relative dubstep stole the show for a little while there.

The result, Grownass Man sounds like Creedence cracked a couple of brewskis with Chet Atkins and then Taj Mahal showed up for the party. As the album’s cover illustrates, it seems like a fun jam project for the three mates – they’re not re-inventing the wheel, they’re just going back to their roots and having fun with it. The album does showcase a different kind of vocal from Vernon though, his voice drops back to a howly, gravelly bluesman and it’s a nice change from the ethereal falsetto, which only creeps in briefly.

Natalie Amat

ALISON MOYET

Volume 3 is She & Him’s most wellrounded, thematically consistent release to date (A Very She & Him Christmas had a built-in theme already so it doesn’t count!). Zooey Deschanel’s husky coo is offset with lush instrumentation and warm production, with M. Ward’s silkier tone as ever providing one of the most interesting layers to the pair’s dynamic.

First single and leading track ‘Hurricane’ was featured on MS MR’s 2012 EP Candy Bar Creep Show, which was released one track per week on Tumblr. ‘Hurricane’ received a ton of triple j airplay and has set the framework for MS MR’s pop brand – an individual otherworldliness that mixes effortlessly with infectious hooks and Plapinger’s crisp, tantalising vocals. Almost all songs perform to this formula, which, admittedly, does begin to feel familiar towards the end of the album.

Katie Davern

Blake Gallagher

Home Asylum Records

Volume 3 Spunk

‘I’ve Got Your Number, Son’ is a jangly piano-driven number with gently chiding lyrics, ‘Never Wanted Your Love’ is all ooohs and rock’n’roll guitar, held aloft by dreamy violin. ‘Baby’ brings in Ward’s harmonies amongst more effervescent oohs, and ‘I Could’ve Been Your Girl’ is a wistful musing of missed opportunity buffeted by swirling strings. A cover of Blondie’s ‘Sunday Girl’ blends the verses in English and French – a sweet touch that ordinarily might drive those not so quirk inclined over the edge, but in the context of the album works wonderfully. ‘Reprise (I Could’ve Been Your Girl)’ brings it all full circle in another cascading flurry of strings.

Enthralling vocals and melodies – equal parts delicate and striking – are all in abundance on MS MR’s cohesive debut album, Secondhand Rapture.

Ultimately, however, the album isn’t watered down – the caustic energy and impressive technicality are still at the forefront of the band’s sound, while allowing a fuller scope and sense of versatility, as demonstrated on the epic ‘Crossburner’.

RUDIMENTAL

SHE & HIM

Grownass Man Middle West/The Planet Company

is that One of Us Is the Killer is the band’s most accessible effort.

Love of indie-film directors aside, Savages mean business. They want their live shows to be an immersive experience, so have laid out some ground rules that include no Instagramming, tweeting or videoing. They probably wouldn’t be too impressed if you updated your Facebook status at one of their gigs either. The album cover art features what looks like song lyrics, but is instead a manifesto of sorts, while the back cover offers the more streamlined slogan, ‘Don’t let the fuckers get you down’. But perhaps the best piece of advice is the inside front cover’s ‘This album is to be played loud in the foreground’.

And then there’s the music itself, full of passion and executed with commanding precision. When Savages are on, they are most definitely on, so the band find some quiet spaces at the beginning, middle and end of their album – a protracted opening sample before erupting into ‘Shut Up’, a quietly menacing two-minute instrumental as a centrepiece and a disarmingly elegant closer that winds down to, of all things, a clarinet solo. In between all of this, it’s less surprising though consistently vital bloodlust that’s given little adornment. Silence Yourself is certainly nothing new, but that doesn’t make it any less magnificent. Chris Girdler

The subsequent two tracks show parallels with Moyet’s synth-pop past, with mixed results. ‘Apple Kisses’ tries too hard and comes off like an attempt to make dubstep for 50-yearolds. ‘Right As Rain’ is a straight-up four-to-the-floor club track that invites an overhaul by some trendy remixer or other. It’s entertaining enough without adding anything extra to the existing catalogue of powerful female voices over squelchy dance beats. It strongly recalls Roísín Murphy’s work with Andy Cato on her 2007 LP Overpowered and that same year’s ‘It’s All True’ by Tracey Thorn (who is, incidentally, another female singer who was attempting to shake off her past as part of a successful ‘80s duo – in her case Everything But The Girl). An accomplished achievement in mature pop, but there’s nothing groundbreaking here. David Wild

OFFICE MIXTAPE And here are the albums that have helped BRAG HQ get through the week... THE NATIONAL - Trouble Will Find Me JINJA SAFARI - Jinja Safari SOUL DEEP - The Story of Black Popular Music

PARQUET COURTS - Light Up Gold STATIK SELEKTAH - Extended Play

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wintercoats

PICS :: KC

up all night out all week . . .

18:05:13 :: Brighton Up Bar :: Level 1/77 Oxford St Darlinghurst 9572 6322

party profile

sydney rock'n'roll & alternative market It’s called: Sydney Rock‘n’Roll & Alternative Market.

It sounds like: A truly rockin’ day out shoul d. Sell it to us: Shop at a multitude of amazing and over three levels: rockin’ new and vintage fashio unique music culture related stalls n; records; jewellery; collectibles; rockin’ and vintage homewares; rock posters; cult movie DVDs and more. A huge and rather awesome entertainment lineup, DJs, Tiki bar courtyard, great food, reasonably priced drinks, kids activities, vintage vehicle display. The bit we’ll remember in the AM: All the unique goods you purchased, the amazing talent you saw and the jam packe d day of fun you had. Crowd specs: All are welcome (under 18s in the company of an adult). Wallet damage: A crazy $5 entry, kids under 12 free. Where: Manning House and Manning Bar, Manning Road, University of Sydney.

local natives

PICS :: EC

When: Sunday June 2, 10.30am to 5.30pm.

lorde

PICS :: KC

15:05:13 :: Metro Theatre :: 624 George St Sydney 9550 3666

18:05:13 :: GoodGod Small Club :: 53-55 Liverpool St Chinatown 8084 0587 :: KATRINA CLARKE :: ELLA S : TIM LEVY (HEAD HONCHO) RY LEUNG :: ASHLEY MAR :: OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHER HEN :: IS LEW KATE :: LEE :: ROXY COCHRANE :: RYAN KITCHING

BRAG :: 514 :: 27:05:13 :: 27

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live reviews

up all night out all week . . .

What we've been to see...

Metro Theatre Saturday May 18

The Hard-Ons are still playing when the news starts spreading. “Bar says no more beer!” meaty men mouth to their meaty mates. The order to stop selling beer cans, according to bar staff, came from “the band”. Either Jello Biafra doesn’t want to duck torpedoed cans all night or he knows that forcing The Metro to revoke the crowd’s beer rights would ignite its anti-authoritarian spirit. No-one trades on that spirit better than Biafra. The Hard-Ons’ set of power pop, thrashy punk and – best of all – their latter-day metal is furious, fun and interspersed with Aussieas anecdotes. Their attitude is the antithesis of Jello Biafra’s punk rock protest music, but well suited to his irrepressible sense of humour. Biafra bursts out wearing a blood-spattered lab coat. It’s no ordinary crowd. The last time Biafra fronted a band here was The Dead Kennedys’ Australian tour in ‘83 and tonight, fans show their love with a circle pit, ceaseless stage-diving and genuine mayhem in the front section. The stage

diving entertains, mainly because most barrel off drunkenly at entirely unworkable angles or try (and fail) to film themselves doing it. The Guantanamo School of Medicine (featuring Andrew Weiss on bass, previously of Rollins Band and Ween) play Dead Kennedys-esque punk mixed with heavy rhythm and blues and jazzy interludes a la Mr Bungle. Not a single song flops and we’re treated to Biafra’s two trademarks: mime and political banter. His stories teem with horrible facts, are delivered with disgusted relish, and provoke an anti-capitalist rage I didn’t know I could still summon. Alarmingly, after all this time, everything Biafra says still seems relevant. There should be a “maximum wage”, he says, for wealth addicts who already earn millions but still need “more more more”. We’re being “marched into the abattoir,” says Biafra, by governments that respond to deficits by “snip, snip, snipping” services for those who need them most. In a seminal moment for me, even as it’s happening, he explains the genesis of 30-year-old DKs classics like ‘Nazi Punks Fuck Off’, before the band erupts into it and Biafra hurls himself off the stage. Love live Jello Biafra and long stand his soapbox! Kate Hennessy

lime cordiale

PICS :: KC

JELLO BIAFRA & THE GUANTANAMO SCHOOL OF MEDICINE, THE HARD-ONS

18:05:13 :: Upstairs Beresford :: L1 354 Bourke St Surry Hills 83135000

underground lovers

PICS :: AM

HING PHOTOGRAPHER :: RYAN KITC

17:05:13 :: Oxford Art Factory :: 38-46 Oxford St, Darlinghurst 9332 3711

PHOTOGRAPHER :: ASHLEY MAR

NEON TREES, NEW EMPIRE Demonstrates developed technical skills incorporating technical fluency? Check. Performs with a sense of personal expression and an understanding of solo/ensemble techniques? Check. New Empire was every HSC music teacher’s dream. Parts memorised to perfection, head bangs on cue and decked out in colour-coordinated navy, black and white we-are-simple-but-oh-so-mysterious attire, they breezed through their 2011 release Symmetry. But even the angelic voice of frontman Jeremy Fowler, who strummed away with force enough to unhinge his suspenders from his skinny jeans, could not draw restless middle-aged eyes away from the hypnotic swirl of a glass of cider and whoops-forgot-to-eat-first banter. Still, jazzy vocal inflections, catchy riffs and sing-along melodies washed down well with the band’s warm harmonies and sugary lyrics. Fowler put it best with the lyrics “...like a train on time” – quite hit and miss. Mostly miss. Spirits sank as the crowd sank spirits and dawdled awkwardly around The Standard. And then, with an explosion of light, Tyler Glenn was unveiled in an appropriately festive fluorescent yellow jacket, chiselled chin turned up at the crowd, silver hair 28 :: BRAG :: 514 :: 27:05:13

Spearing into the anthemic ‘Moving in the Dark’, charisma cascaded through the room and drenched the crowd, who could only manage one response of “Set fire....” in between gawking at the violent brilliance of the light display cloaking Neon Trees. Animated without sacrificing authenticity, the Utah four-piece had the crowd jiving along to ‘1983’, Glenn’s husky tones reminiscent of old mate Jon Bon, as he nailed every note with a golden hammer voice – a feat entirely unaffected by microphone acrobatics. Alarmingly infectious gyrating ensued as Elaine Bradley thundered out on the kit. Then the ratatat beats came to a standstill, replaced by Glenn seated at the Roland, the crowd mesmerised as he flawlessly crooned out ‘How Long Till You Surrender?’ Rhetorical, but confusing nonetheless, as it had been obvious from the first note that Neon Trees had the crowd wrapped around their little fingers. “And if anyone says any shit to you of any kind...” was Glenn’s preamble, before launching into ‘Everybody Talks’ and the chart crushing, stage-shattering ‘Animal’. The verdict? Glenn put it best: “No, I won’t sleep tonight.” Mina Kitsos

storm the sky

PICS :: RL

The Standard Thursday May 16

flung back and both hands gripping the lit-up mic stand.

16:05:13 :: Annandale Hotel :: 17 Parramatta Rd Annandale 9550 1078 :: KATRINA CLARKE :: ELLA S : TIM LEVY (HEAD HONCHO) RY LEUNG :: ASHLEY MAR :: OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHER HEN :: IS LEW KATE :: LEE :: ROXY COCHRANE :: RYAN KITCHING

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the khanz

PICS :: HL

up all night out all week . . .

18:05:13 :: The Standard :: 3/383 Bourke St Darlinghurst 9331 3100

deftones

PICS :: RK

enerate

PICS :: KC

18:05:13 :: FBi Social :: Kings Cross Hotel 248 William St 9331 9900

15:05:13 :: The Beach Road Hotel :: 71 Beach Rd Bondi Beach 91307247 :: KATRINA CLARKE :: ELLA S : TIM LEVY (HEAD HONCHO) LEUNG :: OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHER Y LEE :: KATE LEWIS :: HENRY ROX :: HING KITC RYAN :: COCHRANE :: LINCOLN JUBB ASHLEY MAR ::

emma louise

PICS :: AM

bleeding knees club

PICS :: ALN

15:05:13 :: UNSW Roundhouse :: High St Kensington 9385 7630

17:05:13 :: Metro Theatre :: 624 George St Sydney 9550 3666 BRAG :: 514 :: 27:05:13 :: 29

g g guide gig g

send your listings to : gigguide@thebrag.com

pick of the week RiFF RAFF

FRIDAY MAY 31

LIVE_TRANSMISSION: Joy Division reworked (UK) Sydney Opera House $59.00 7pm Musos Club Jam Night Bald Faced Stag Hotel, Leichhardt free 8pm The Lonely Boys Scruffy Murphy’s Hotel free 8pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK

Daniel Champagne (Album Launch) The Basement Circular Quay $20 7:30pm Gurrumul: His Life and Music Sydney Opera House $69 8pm

HIP HOP

Flatbush Zombies Oxford Art Factory Darlinghurst, $40 8:00pm

THURSDAY MAY 30 ROCK & POP

Sydney Opera House $35 10pm

GoodGod Danceteria Vivid Party ft.

RiFF RAFF,

DollaBillGates, 100s, The DJ Rashad Show $35 10pm

Alex Hopkins Open Mic Night Northies, Cronulla Hotel – Beach Bar 7:30pm Anthems of Oz Orient Hotel, The Rocks Free 9:30pm Balmain Blitz; Lavinia Row, Sean Frazer, Sixplane and more Billboard Scruffy Murphy’s free 10pm Cambo Observer Hotel, The Rocks 8:30pm Cybridian Valve Bar Tempe free 7pm Empire of the Sun Sydney Opera House $59 8pm Jinja Safari Oxford Art Factory Darlinghurst, Sydney sold out 8pm Kaibe, Service Bells, Sons of Alamo, Borneo The Standard Surry Hills $10 8pm Matt Jones Open Mic Night Hillside Hotel, Castle Hill 7pm Michael McGlynn Kirribilli Hotel Milsons Point free 7pm Musos Club Jam Night Carousel Hotel, Rooty Hill Free 8pm Oscar Key Sung FBi Social Kings Cross Hotel $12 8pm Spirit Faces Brighton Up Bar Darlinghurst, $10 8pm The Ghost Inside, Emmure, Antagonist A.D., Hand Of Mercy Destroy Music Metro Theatre $49 6.30pm The Superjesus: The Resurrection Tour The Annandale Hotel $45 8pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK

MONDAY MAY 27

ACOUSTIC & FOLK

ROCK & POP

TUESDAY MAY 28

Another Avenue, Global Language Democracy, HAM Radio, The Catalyst Liverpool Idol Collingwood Hotel, Liverpool $15 7pm Frankie’s World Famous House Band Frankie’s Pizza, Sydney free 9pm

JAZZ

Latin & Jazz Open Mic World Bar Kings Cross free 7pm 30 :: BRAG :: 514 : 27:05:13

San Cisco

Helmett Uhlman Kelly’s on King Newtown free 7pm

ROCK & POP

The Lockhearts Ziggy Pop Tuesdays Brighton Up Bar Darlinghurst $5 8pm

JAZZ

Old School Funk and Groove Night Venue 505, Surry Hills free 8.30pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK Gurrumul: His Life and Music Sydney Opera House $69 8pm

WEDNESDAY MAY 29 POP & ROCK

Horegeous Brighton Up Bar Darlinghurst $5 8pm King for a Day, Senile Sircus, The Carraways Vibrations Valve Bar Tempe $15 7pm

Alex Hopkins Open Mic Night Northies Hotel, Cronulla free 7:30pm Jack Carty and Casual Psychotic Hibernian House $15 8pm Owen Campbell The Vanguard, Newtown $15 6.30pm

FRIDAY MAY 31 ROCK & POP

Australian Played Bull & Bush, Baulkham Hills 10pm Andy Mammers Stacks Taverna, Sydney free

5pm Carl Fidler Observer Hotel, The Rocks free 6.30pm Cambo Observer Hotel, The Rocks 6.30pm Cloud Control Sydney Opera House $35 8.30pm Empire of the Sun Sydney Opera House $59 8pm Jinja Safari Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst $20 8pm Love Parade FBi Social Kings Cross Hotel $10 8pm Mandi Jarry Trio Kirribilli Hotel, Milsons Point free 8pm Ready for the Fall Penshurst RSL, Penshurst $10 7.30pm San Cisco Metro Theatre, Sydney sold out 7:00pm Teenage Hand Models The Standard, Surry Hills $5 8pm The Mis-Made (EP Launch) The Square, Haymarket $12 8pm The Superjesus: The Resurrection Tour The Annandale Hotel $44.90 8pm

8pm Lepers & Crooks The Square, Haymarket $15 8pm Northlane The Annandale Hotel sold out 7.30pm Something for Kate Metro Theatre sold out 7pm Spy Vs. Spy Brass Monkey, Cronulla $25 7pm The Chemist: The Ballet in the Badlands Tour Brighton Up Bar, Darlinghurst $10 8pm The Murlocs GoodGod, Chinatown $10 8pm Tijuana Cartel Oxford Art Factory Darlinghurst $25 8pm

JAZZ

ACOUSTIC AND FOLK

Johnny G and the E-Types The Basement, Circular Quay $25 7.30pm Souled Out Scruffy Murphy’s free 10.30pm

ACOUSTIC AND FOLK

Claude Hay The Vanguard Newtown $13 6.30pm Renae Stone Customs House Bar free 7pm

HIP HOP

GoodGod Danceteria Vivid Party ft. RiFF RAFF, DollaBillGates, 100s, The DJ Rashad Show Sydney Opera House $35 10pm L-Fresh the Lion Brighton Up Bar, Darlinghurst $10 8pm

SATURDAY JUNE 1 ROCK & POP

Back to the 80s Bayview Tavern, Gladesville Free 10pm Belle and The Bone People FBi Social Kings Cross Hotel $12 8pm Brendan Deehan Observer Hotel, The Rocks free 4.30pm Chris Paton Trio Northies, Cronulla free 5.30pm Evermore ‘Hero’ Tour Towradgi Beach Hotel $22 8pm James Fox Higgins Kirribilli Hotel, Milsons Point free 8pm Jordan Leser The Standard Surry Hills $10

JAZZ

Junk The Vanguard, Newtown $10 7.30pm Leisure Bandits Upstairs Beresford Surry Hills free 6pm True Funk Soldiers: The music of Prince The Basement, Circular Quay $25 7.30pm Yuki Kumagai, John Mackie Well Co. Cafe and Wine Bar, Leichhardt free 7.15pm

C.W. Stoneking Sydney Opera House $45 7.30pm Sounds of the South feat. Fight the Big Bull, Frazey Ford, Justin Vernon, Megafaun Sydney Opera House $59 9pm

SUNDAY JUNE 2 ROCK & POP

Cambo Observer Hotel, The Rocks 8pm Kaki King The Vanguard Newtown, $30 7pm Northlane The Annandale Hotel $38 7.30pm Sunnyboys Sydney Opera House $59 9pm

ACOUSTIC AND FOLK

Cass Eager and the Velvet Rope Old Manly Boatshed, Manly free 9pm Elevation U2 Acoustic The Orient, The Rocks free 4.30pm Matthew E White Sydney Opera House Sydney $35 8.30pm Sounds of the South feat. Fight the Big Bull, Frazey Ford, Justin Vernon, Megafaun Sydney Opera House $59 4pm Stormcellar Breakers Country Club Terrigal free 1pm

gig picks

up all night out all week...

THURSDAY MAY 30

Gurrumul

Jinja Safari

Oscar Key Sung FBi Social Kings Cross Hotel $12 8pm Spirit Faces Brighton Up Bar Darlinghurst, $10 8pm Jack Carty and Casual Psychotic Hibernian House $15 8pm

FRIDAY MAY 31 Cloud Control Sydney Opera House $35 8.30pm

Jinja Safari Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst $20 8pm Love Parade FBi Social Kings Cross Hotel $10 8pm

SATURDAY JUNE 1 C.W. Stoneking Sydney Opera House $45 7.30pm Sounds of the South feat. Fight the Big Bull, Frazey Ford, Justin Vernon, Megafaun Sydney Opera House $59 9pm The Murlocs GoodGod, Chinatown $10 8pm

Empire of the Sun Sydney Opera House $59 8pm

Tijuana Cartel Oxford Art Factory Darlinghurst $25 8pm

TUESDAY MAY 28

SUNDAY JUNE 2

Gurrumul: His Life and Music Sydney Opera House $69 8pm

Matthew E White Sydney Opera House Sydney $35 8.30pm

WEDNESDAY MAY 29

Sunnyboys Sydney Opera House $59 9pm Matthew E. White

LIVE_TRANSMISSION: Joy Division reworked (UK) Sydney Opera House $59.00 7pm Daniel Champagne (Album Launch) The Basement Circular Quay $20 7:30pm Flatbush Zombies Oxford Art Factory Darlinghurst, $40 8:00pm

Flatbush Zombies

tue

28 May wed

(9:00PM - 12:00AM) (9:00PM - 12:00AM)

thu

30

29

May

May

(9:30PM - 12:30AM)

fri

31 May (4:30PM - 7:30PM)

(9:30PM - 1:30AM)

SATURDAY AFTERNOON

sat

01 Jun

(4:30PM - 7:30PM)

SATURDAY NIGHT

(9:30PM - 12:30AM)

SUNDAY AFTERNOON

sun

(4:30PM - 7:30PM)

Jun

SUNDAY NIGHT

02

(8:30PM - 12:00AM)

BRAG :: 514 :: 27:05:13 :: 31

32 :: BRAG :: 514 : 27:05:13

BRAG’s guide to dance, hip hop and club culture

brag beats

Robert Delong photo by Myles Pettengill

the upbeats

robert delong

caspa cas pa the dopest ghost

also the herd inside

plus: club guide + club snaps + weekly column âž”

BRAG :: 514 :: 27:05:13 :: 33

brag beats

BRAG’s guide to dance, hip hop and club culture

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

five things

Klaxons

WITH P-SMURF

KLAXONS AT FBI PARTY

Growing Up I grew up with my sister 1. Billie Rose, also part of Daily Meds, in our parents’ record store ‘Scratches Records’ on King St in Newtown. Between there and Erskineville we were exposed to a huge range of music. Some classic tracks on my parents jukebox would have to be: ‘Too Drunk To Fuck’ (Dead Kennedys); ‘Subterranean Home Sick Blues’ (Bob Dylan); ‘Paid In Full’ (Eric B and Rakim); ‘Walk Like An Egyptian’ (The Bangles); ‘Fuck The Police – Live’ (Rage Against The Machine); ‘Mistadobalina’ (Del The Funky Homosapien).

Pegz in my teens, and MCs like Blue, Fashawn, Mantra and Dialectrix now. And straight up, Mute MC, Mikoen and the whole Big Village label.

3.

Your Crew I have just released my debut solo EP ‘The Story So Far’, but the groups I’m in are Daily Meds, Reverse Polarities, Sketch The Rhyme and Big Village Records. It’s been a solid six-eight years making music with most of these people, and I couldn’t imagine working with a better bunch of people. Check it all out at bigvillagerecords.com. au if you know what’s good for ya.

Inspirations The Music You Make Hearing ‘Can I Kick It?’ The lyrics in my 2. 4. by A Tribe Called Quest at solo material are pretty age ten was a life changing moment. No shit, it all began then, carrying that onto Australian hip hop like The Herd, Def Wish Cast and

introspective, but I think they’re still relatable to most people. I’m a mirror, you’re looking at me, every thing’s a little skewed, but it all still

BENI + KIM MOYES

Modular’s Beni and Kim Moyes of The Presets will be joining forces for a national DJ tour that includes a Sydney show at Goodgod Small Club on Friday July 19. Aside from his high profile work in The Presets, Moyes has produced the debut album of former Mercy Arms main man and recent XL signing Kirin J. Callinan, and opened for Thom Yorke at his much hyped ‘secret’ show at Goodgod last year. Meanwhile Beni started out as part of the now defunct Riot In Belgium, before releasing his debut solo album, House of Beni, on Modular Records in 2011. House of Beni featured vocal contributions from the likes of Sam Sparro, Hercules and Love Affair’s Nomi and Mattie Safer, formerly of The Rapture, and there were also production credits to Van She’s Nicky Night Time and that man Moyes. In addition to their upcoming tour, Moyes and Beni are said to be working on new tracks together to be released by Beni later in the year – his first new material since his House of Beni album.

ANTHONY PAPPA

Renowned promoter Darkbeat celebrates a decade in the game with an anniversary bash at Goldfish on Saturday June 22 featuring three headliners: Anthony Pappa, Phil K and Rollin Connection. Darkbeat founder Daniel Banko AKA Rollin Connection is responsible for nurturing the Darkbeat brand since day dot, and he’s recently completed his first commercial 34 :: BRAG :: 514 :: 27:05:13

makes sense. Laid back ‘90s-style hip hop beats, with some double time raps thrown in every now and then. Music, Right Here, Right Now 5. The music scene in Sydney is always changing and growing, but unfortunately venues keep closing and people aren’t going out to see enough live music. I do believe though that all the good shit is just masked by a whole lot of crap. We are in a big city, and there is so much talent and support within it, you just gotta dig. Underground baby, that’s where it’s at.

Modular Records and FBi Radio will join forces to celebrate the community station’s 10 years on air with a ‘What We Do Is Secret’ bash at Oxford Art Factory on Saturday July 27. The event will raise funds for FBi radio and deliver the Klaxons DJing in their only Aussie performance outside of their full-band Splendour in the Grass gig on their first Down Under jaunt in several years. The UK lads have spent the last year working with a number of producers, including The Chemical Brothers’ Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons, as they’ve laid down their much-anticipated third album that’s due to drop early next year. A lengthy DJ support cast will also represent, including Movement, Softwar, Wordlife, Slow Blow and Club Mod DJs. “FBi Radio and Modular are almost the same age. We’ve grown together and shared a love of a lot of the same music and goings-on around Sydney,” Modular’s Stephen Pavlovic said of the harmonious union. “It’s vital to have a launching pad for new and fresh musical, social and cultural ideas. Sydney music (and the city!) is so much stronger and more vibrant thanks to FBi.” Hear, hear. Presale tickets for the What We Do Is Secret romp are now available online.

Magda Bytnerowicz

What: EP Launch at Goodgod Small Club When: Friday May 31 And: The Story So Far EP out now through Big Village Records

mix album, a triple CD collection that is the first release on the recently launched Darkbeat Recordings. Phil K and Pappa are both veterans of the club realm who possess well-deserved lofty reputations for their DJ prowess, and have each contributed classic mixes to the Balance compilations series.

ASTRAL PEOPLE VIVID PARTY

Detroit producer Alex Smith, who records as Omar-S, will headline Astral People’s contribution to this year’s Vivid festivities at the Sydney Opera House Studio this Saturday. Throughout the past decade, Smith has continued to release material prolifically on his own FXHE label, which has also released material from the likes of OB Ignitt and Luke Hess. Omar-S recently released his third fulllength ‘proper’ album, Thank You For Letting Me Be Myself, adding another collection of analogue jams to his bourgeoning catalogue that features cuts such as ‘Here’s Your Trance Now Dance’. Exploratory UK club figure Jon Convex (formerly one half of breakthrough duo Instra:Mental) and the influential Warp Records outfit Africa Hitech (the duo of Mark Pritchard and Steve Spacek) will also be throwing down, along with locals Dro Carey, Alba, Cliques, Gardland, Cassius Select, Preacha, Ben Fester and Parkside, with the party spanning two rooms. Presale tickets are available for $35+bf through the official Opera House website.

S.A.S.H LADIES DAY

Sunday afternoon kick-on S.A.S.H is celebrating the laydeez this Sunday with S.A.S.H Ladies Day. Unfortunately/fortunately (delete according to preference) this doesn’t mean free entry and champagne for XX chromosome owners to get sloshed on – rather, it means a mint selection of female selectors, including Magda Bytnerowicz, Gabby, Gemma Van D, Hannah Gibbs, Matilda Weir and Kerri-Ann Wallace keeping things deep and danceable. Doors from 2pm at the Abercrombie.

dance music news

free stuff

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

FREESTUFF@THEBRAG.COM

60 Seconds WITH

BREACH Growing Up I grew up on rock‘n’roll music 1. that my dad used to play in his car. By age four I knew the lyrics to just about every rock’n’roll tune he played. My parents weren’t musical though. My dad said he used to play drums in a band, though, so maybe he’s got a bit of rhythm. Inspirations I remember hearing Roy 2. Ayers ‘Everybody Loves the Sunshine’ when I was about 15 and that really changed my life. It just hit me so hard. I wanted to make music with that same feel and energy and still do. Your Crew I worked with people like 3. Shy FX growing up, then DJ Die, Clipz, Roni all the Bristol DnB guys. Then I got signed by Gilles Peterson, met people like Claude Von Stroke and went from there. The crew around me are people like Midland, Dark Sky and Dusky. They’re all on my label. Music You Make I play records by my friends 4. The

and people who I’m feeling. In my sets are tracks from Midland, Dusky, Animal Youth, Kink and Deetron - I love playing other people’s records but also play my own and any special edits that I do. The Last Record I Bought: The last record I bought was 5. a test pressing of ‘The Secret Life of Machines’ by Sterac. There are a couple of tunes that weren’t on the repress so I had to get hold of it on Discogs. It’s old Dutch techno from 1994 - I love it. Living in Amsterdam has opened my eyes to a lot of that music; although I bought it when I was living in England! I love the way every track builds and how the album works as whole. Music, Right Here, Right Now 6. It’s amazing. It’s all open. The game’s wide open and that’s pretty fuckin’ dope if you ask me. What: My Lady Rose (boat party) with Route 94 When: Saturday June 1

Omar-S

VIVID & ASTRAL PEOPLE It’s hard to know what’s better, the lineup or the stage, when you consider the big names dropped by Astral People to play their Vivid LIVE party at Sydney’s one and only Opera House. It’s obvious, however, that the event will be unforgettable. On June 1 local and international electronic music superstars will hit the House, for a night of nonstop dancing and music exploration. Included in the killer lineup are Omar S ‘the J Dilla of house music’, UK club sensation Jon Convex and local enigma Dro Carey. Tickets are available at sydneyoperahouse.com, but for your chance to win a double pass and go free, let us know just how sweaty you’ll get at Astral People’s Party.

Röyksopp

Fat Freddy’s Drop

FAT FREDDY’S DROP

Kiwi troupe Fat Freddy’s Drop (FFD) return to Sydney to play the Enmore Theatre on Thursday August 29. The tour will follow-on from their forthcoming album Blackbird, which is due for release next month. FFD apparently explore everything from Ethio-jazz and blues to Detroit techno and soul in their new album, with lead-off single ‘Clean The House’ giving listeners a taste of what’s to come on the prolific group’s next LP. Presale tickets will be available via fatfreddysdrop.com from Tuesday May 28.

RIP ROMANTHONY South Rakkas Crew

Sad news surfaced last week that celebrated American house figure Romanthony, best known to many people as the vocalist on Daft Punk’s 2000 smash ‘One More Time’ – and their not quite as ubiquitous cut ‘Too Long’ – had died earlier this month. Romanthony, whose real name was Anthony Moore, actually passed away on May 7, but it was only recently that the story broke in the media. Romanthony began working as a singer and house producer in the early 90s, and released four LPs, while also overseeing his own label, Black Male Records.

ROBERT BABICZ

SOUTH RAKKAS CREW

Canadian party boy South Rakkas Crew is back in town to headline Dutty Dancing at Goodgod Small Club this Saturday. One of the foremost proponents of the dancehall sound, South Rakkas Crew is backed by Diplo, and is known for remixing Tricky’s entire Knowle West Boy album, transforming it into what The Independent called a “space-disco monster”. South Rakkas Crew will be playing a set of dancehall and reggae jams, with support from DJs Shantan Wantan Ichiban, Nick Toth, Basslines and Luny P. Doors open at 11pm, with entry $15 on the door.

Germany’s Robert Babicz will throw down at Chinese Laundry this Saturday. Babicz is a veteran of the club scene who has been plying his trade since 1993, recording under pseudonyms like Rob Acid, Dicabor, Sontec, Atlon Inc., Department of Dance, Acid Warrior and Pumpgun Pro to name but a few (there are some inspired monikers in that list, aren’t there?). Over the course of his career, Babicz has released regularly on labels such as Kompakt and Systematic, while he’s remixed the likes of Gui Boratto and Sydney’s own electro/acid warrior, Jimi Polar. Babicz shares the bill with compatriot and Systematic main man Marc Romboy.

DEEPCHILD

Rick Bull, AKA Deepchild, will be back in the country this July with his new live show and host of fresh material from last November’s LP Neukölln Burning. The Berlin-based expatriate will kick off a run of shows at Mad Racket on Saturday July 6.

RÖYKSOPP

Scandinavian duo Röyksopp will release the next instalment in the popular long-running Late Night Tales compilation series next month. Röyksopp’s debut album Melody A.M. was released way back in 2001, and was a landmark release that spawned the hit singles ‘Epple’ and ‘Remind Me’, featuring a memorable vocal performance from Erlend Øye, who would later go on to form the Whitest Boy Alive. Röyksopp’s sophomore release was also commendable, with the likes of The Emperor Machine and Jacques Lu Cont remixing singles like ’49 Percent’ and ‘What Else Is There?’ The duo has since released LPs Senior and Junior, which while devoid of obvious singles are still well worth investigating. Their forthcoming Late Night Tales mix collates the German psych-pop of Richard Schneider Jnr alongside tracks from France’s unique F.R. David, XTC, Australian supergroup Little River Band and a cut from Popol Vuh lifted off the soundtrack to Werner Herzog’s 1972 classic cult movie Aguirre, the Wrath of God. Certainly an eclectic tracklisting if ever there was!

BRAG :: 514 :: 27:05:13 :: 35

Robert DeLong Keeping It Moving By Alasdair Duncan

T

he past year has seen a meteoric rise for Robert DeLong. The young Los Angeles-based producer had a hit with his manic, percussion-heavy track ‘Global Concepts’, and followed it up with an acclaimed debut album, Just Movement. The album takes in an array of styles, sounds and textures, from house to moombahton, all of them held together by DeLong’s signature raggedy vocals. DeLong is in great demand right now, travelling the world with his highenergy live show, in which he pounds the drums while manipulating his vast collection of gear. We caught him in a rare moment of quiet, on a trip to a bowling alley with friends. Los Angeles itself is building a reputation as a centre for dance and electronic music. The laid-back atmosphere and the ready availability of cheap warehouse rehearsal spaces make the city an enticing prospect for young musicians – DeLong himself relocated there soon after high school. “Everybody comes through here, so there are always a lot of shows,” he says of the city. “A lot of new DJs come out of here. There’s music of every different genre. I’m not really super involved in the scene, but there’s a lot of cool stuff under the surface here, a lot of stuff that you wouldn’t necessarily expect out of Los Angeles.” DeLong grew up playing the drums, and even studied them in college for a while, before making the switch to electronic music. Rhythm is central to his music, but these days he has a vast collection of gear with a variety of gadgets and gizmos he’s transformed into MIDI interfaces. His bag of tricks includes hacked gamepads and joysticks and even a Wii controller, manipulated so that they make music when he mashes the buttons. “I started messing around with that stuff a while back,” he says. “This was well before I started

“I can’t even describe the adrenaline I get from playing live… It’s very high energy.”

36 :: BRAG :: 514 :: 27:05:13

making music or thinking about an album. I just did it for fun.” The young DeLong found out how to hack gear on the internet, and initially saw it as a challenge. “I just played with it, and over time, I started doing a bit of performing here and there, and the music grew into what it is,” he says. While he wasn’t a huge gaming nerd growing up – a little Tony Hawk was the most that he got into – he had enough gear laying around that an obsession was born. “I started with an old gamepad of mine,” he says, “and I ordered a USB joystick online, and then that was pretty much it. I started messing around with a few different types of software to convert it to MIDI before finally finding one that I liked.” Electronic gear can be pretty fragile – old video game equipment especially so. DeLong is well aware of this, and with all the travelling he’s been doing in recent times, he needs to take good care of his collection. “We travel with backups for almost everything that I use,” he says. “The thing that is the scariest is the computers. I travel with my laptop clutched really close to my chest all the time, just in case! It’s terrifying flying, and watching the airport people tossing the bags around.” Just how many times has this happened recently? A lot, DeLong says. “I counted six airports in six days last week,” he says. “It’s good though, it’s a lot of fun.” DeLong comes from an indie rock background – he played in an indie rock band called The Denouement while in college – and while he inhabits the world of electronic music these days, he continues to put songwriting first. “I think more often than not, my songs will start with a chord progression or a sound or a beat,” he says. “I’ll make a beat on the computer and then work around that. There are quite a few songs on the album, like ‘Few Years Make’ that start on guitar or piano, but I always bring them back to the electronic thing. I spend a lot of time working that way,” he says. “I look at it as training. It really is totally random – you never know why one thing works or why it doesn’t.” In the past, DeLong has cited bands like Death Cab For Cutie and side-project The Postal Service among his biggest influences, and it’s

easy to hear the echoes of both in his music. I ask who else inspires him from a songwriting perspective, and he pauses for a minute. “I listen to a lot of Paul Simon and Talking Heads and David Bowie,” he says. “I really love their music, and I’d say there are a lot of ways that it influences me.” He also goes clubbing a lot for inspiration. “I always try to go out if I’m in a city and something cool is happening,” he says, “although by the look of me, it’s funny to imagine me doing it.” DeLong will soon be in Australia to play Splendour in the Grass, and I ask what

we can expect from those shows. “Well, I have a drum set, a bunch of MIDI gear and gamepads,” he says. “It’s kind of an exciting electro dance party – it’s very high energy. The show is very physically demanding for me – it’s a really good workout. I can’t even describe the adrenaline I get from doing it, though. I just hope people have as much fun as I do.” What: Robert DeLong plays The Standard When: Wednesday July 24 And: Splendour in the Grass, Byron Bay

WAY-2-FONKY AND JOINT VENTURE PRESENT

WITH STRICKLIN & MARCO POLO

THURSDAY 13TH JUNE

$35 + BF (EARLYBIRDS) // $40 + BF (GENERAL RELEASE) VIA MOSHTIX

THE STANDARD

The Herd Join the Party By Jody Macgregor

T

he last time The Herd played a show together it was at Peats Ridge on New Year’s Eve, six months ago. It’s hard to organise a group of eight people and there have been plenty of things to keep them busy since then (Urthboy has been on a solo tour in support of his album Smokey’s Haunt and then had a daughter, for instance). So the Come Together Festival, which they’re playing in June, is literally bringing them together. “There’s been a fair bit keeping us occupied since the break,” says Ozi Batla, AKA Shannon Kennedy, putting it mildly. This won’t be their first time at Come Together. The last was in 2006, when they shared the bill with Regurgitator, Magic Dirt, Augie March and Ratcat, in the days before it shifted from being an Australian music festival to an Australian hip hop festival. “Had a really good reception at that one,” Kennedy recalls. “It’s great that it’s evolved into a purely hip hop festival, something that we probably wouldn’t have seen a few years ago. There’s another couple that have sprung up around the place. Even the big festivals have got really strong hip hop lineups these days. It’s great to see.”

“At least fans know a local hip hop festival’s going to be quality and they’ll get what they pay for.” remember, the idea of a big overseas-act hip hop festival, for some reason they all seem to be slightly cursed. At least fans know a local festival’s going to be quality and they’ll get what they pay for.” The demand for live hip hop at music festivals is obviously there or otherwise it wouldn’t keep showing up in general-purpose festivals. This year El-P played at Laneway and even Soundwave had Cypress Hill. The Herd are no stranger to that job, having been an atypical hip hop act on the bill at festivals like Splendour. “When we started, when we first got on festivals it was a bit of a novelty,” says Kennedy.

Australian hip hop festivals that focus on Australian hip hop, like Come Together and Sprung, do seem to do much better than hip hop festivals here that bring in international lineups. This year Supafest and Movement were both cancelled after being scheduled for the same days in several states, adding to the unfortunate reputation for flakiness and unreliability touring American hip hop acts already have here.

“I think hip hop’s part of the musical landscape now. It’s not as unusual as it was and surprisingly there’s a lot of bands that you meet at these festivals that you wouldn’t expect to be hip hop fans [who are]. I think musos generally are not so concerned about genre; they’re more concerned with the quality of the music. We’ve definitely met quite a few non-hip hop heads who are fans of our music at those festivals.”

“That’s been an ongoing thing for a while for whatever reason,” says Kennedy. “I think it probably falls on the promoters sometimes but also on the artists. Definitely the Australian hip hop fans are pretty suspicious of those international festivals these days. It’s good for both sides when they know that they’re gonna get quality from a local hip hop festival, in some cases they’re more happy to support the local stuff. You’re probably able to see more acts for less and you’re supporting local music as well. I think that’s been a really good development. For as long as I can

Those acts have included Paul Kelly (“that was a big surprise at the time”), Ash Grunwald, who then appeared on an album by Kennedy’s side project Astronomy Class, and one more, perhaps most surprising of all: “Bernard Fanning! He gave us big props once.” What: Come Together Festival at Luna Park When: Saturday June 8 BRAG :: 514 :: 27:05:12 :: 37

Tensnake Finding An Escape By Alasdair Duncan

Y

ou may not know the name Tensnake, but you almost certainly know the sound of his signature hit. With its steel drums and irresistibly catchy hook, the discohouse hybrid ‘Coma Cat’ put him in high demand. Since then, the Hamburg native – real name Marco Niemerski – has toured the world and crafted more remixes than you can count. When his long-awaited debut album arrives later this year, it will surely push him even further towards the mainstream. “It took me a long time to fi nish it, almost two years,” Niemerski says. “It has just been mastered, and I’m hoping it will be out by late September.” If that’s not enough to get you excited, the list of collaborators will. “I worked with quite a few different musicians and singers on it,” Niemerski says, “and I guess now I can say their names. I worked with Nile Rodgers on two songs, which was very exciting for me. I worked with Stuart Price, also known as Jacques Lu Cont, on one track. Jamie Lidell is singing on one. There’s also a singer from Australia, known as Fiora. She has lived in Berlin for about four years, and when we became friends, we planned to do a song together, but we ended up doing six or

seven, and she’s a huge part of the album now. I worked with some really incredible people, that’s for sure.” If there’s one thing that unites Tensnake’s tracks, it’s a sense of uplift and euphoria – even the moodier ones, like the beautiful and spooky ‘Congolal’, can bring on a great rush of endorphins. “That’s defi nitely not conscious,” he tells me. “I would say those happier elements are just in my nature a little bit! I think I just prefer happy melodies and a certain vibe. For me, a track like ‘Congolal’ is not necessarily happy,” he continues. “If you’re sad, it could be a sad song. If I had to choose, I would always choose happy music. It’s easy to play a couple of sad chords and to create a sad song than it is to create a happy song that doesn’t sound cheesy.” It’s often the case that the best club tracks, while not necessarily ‘happy’ in their overall sound or style, can transport you somewhere different, and take you away from the reality of whatever you’re feeling in that particular moment. Niemerski agrees that this is the essence of a really great electronic track.

“That’s always what I try to reach when I’m producing,” he says. “I want the songs to have the potential to take me out of the room – I mean, my studio is a windowless room with no sun and lots of electronic gear sitting around, and if the song can take me away somewhere different, then I think it’s good and it works.” Niemerski is bringing Tensnake to Australia soon for a series of shows that bring together elements of a DJ set and live performance. “My production skills have always been my main focus,” he says. “When I started getting bookings, I would play live sets with just my own songs, but I found that I didn’t have enough new material, so I started doing edits of other people’s music and putting that in there.” Over time, the set became a hybrid of the two. “I’m not at the point where I have huge production or anything,” he continues, “so the show is laptop-based, but I’m bringing Fiora with me to sing. I’m going to present material from my new album for the very first time – I’m probably most excited about that.” What: Plays Terminal Projekt at Vivid Terminal Bar, Overseas Passenger Terminal When: Sunday June 9

The Upbeats Like a Stone Age Man By Jody Macgregor

T

he Upbeats are a DnB duo with all the speedy breakbeats you’d expect of the genre, alongside echoing synths that wash in and out like choppy waves on the tide. But their new album is also full of mysterious noises that sound like someone grinding a car to pieces and maybe a plane falling out of the sky, things that sound like technology failing and being destroyed. Then in comes tribal percussion and a swarm of giant dinosaur insects, replacing those planes and cars, as if you’re hearing the past taking over from a collapsing future. The album’s called Primitive Technique, and that clash of crisp electronic beats with rougher textures is what it’s all about. “We’ve always thought our sound was pretty raw and primal,” says Dylan Jones, half of The Upbeats. “We’ve always liked that aesthetic.”

For the album’s artwork the New Zealand duo hired WETA Digital, famous for doing special effects on the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit films, to create fantasy-themed props and costumes. The video for single ‘Alone’ features a horned shaman dressed in furs conducting an esoteric ritual involving runes and standing stones. It’s a far cry from the spacey or urban visuals you usually get with dance music. “It feels like with drum and bass it gets in a bit of a rut with design and the angles that people push, that anonymous sci-fi thing,” says Jones. “Fantasy’s not too far off that but we thought it was a cool angle to push. Sometimes it helps when we’ve got an aesthetic like that, it helps us get an idea of the music. We can fit an album around that vibe.” A clashing vibe is also part of their working relationship. Jeremy Glenn is the rhythm guy, more likely to be crafting beats, while Jones is the melody guy, who composes a lot of his ideas by playing around on a guitar before bringing them in, sometimes recorded straight onto his phone, for Glenn to hear. “Quite a few of the more melodic things like

Bringing extra live bass riddims to Manning Bar this Friday are fellow Kiwis Kobra Kai, touring their new album Incession (which must be going well for them, considering the amount of expensive musical equipment they smash in the clip for ‘New Swings’, freshly out on YouTube). ‘Alone’ started off with a guitar riff or just a chord sequence. ‘Falling Into Place’ is another one on the album that was just another little chord sequence that eventually developed into a tune. There’s quite a few that Jeremy doesn’t like the sound of, we sort of have quite differing musical tastes sometimes with what we listen to, so it’s good to have him really get into something.” Jones listens to indie rock and guitar bands, while Glenn is into hip hop, soul and funk. Jones sums up their differences as “strengths and weaknesses” that compliment each other, and another of the strengths of a duo is the ability to be in two places at once. “Since the album’s been in the works it feels like we’ve been touring pretty much non-stop,” he says. “Because there are two of us we can split up; Jeremy’s been over in the States – at the start of the year he did a little tour over there – and we’ve both been in Europe for about a month each. We sort of do a tag-team thing over there.” Over here though, in New Zealand and Australia, we get to enjoy the full Upbeats experience. “We try not to split up in some places, especially around home. People kind of expect us to be together. When we play in Oz we like to play together. I think when people see The Upbeats they really want to see the two of us. But in the States and the UK and Europe people don’t really seem to care,” he says. What: Album launch at Manning Bar with Kobra Kai and K+LAB When: Friday May 31 And: Primitive Technique out now on Vision Recordings/EMI

Caspa Bass Head By Nick Jarvis

W

e hear you’ve been spending a lot of time in LA recently – how do you find that, being a Londoner? It’s such a huge difference living in LA compared with London. I really like LA, it’s a great place to be and network if you’re in music or film. I enjoyed my time there and achieved some great things, my sole focus wasn’t just to be in LA and network, it was to be present in the USA and push the sound throughout the country and into places that normal touring wouldn’t permit. At some point this year or early next year I’ll be back to do the same thing, but maybe in a different city. At heart I’m a London boy. What do you think of the massive explosion there since 2007 in the popularity of heavy dubstep, particularly in America? Has it been a boon or bane for your career? Whether it’s heavy, minimal, recycled or re-vamped you have to embrace everything that’s going on around you and realise this change. Whether it’s positive or negative, it makes no difference to me as I always try to move forward and focus on what I’m doing and what I’m pushing. If you can’t embrace change, then you’ll be left behind, it’s as simple as that. Have you found the crowds that turn out to your gigs have been changing in the past few years? For sure, they have gotten younger and there seems to be a lot more of a female presence within the music, which obviously is a positive thing for everyone. The Vine of ‘your first trap tune’ that you tweeted recently gave us a cheeky little laugh – can we take that to mean you’re not a fan of the genre? No, not at all, I’m into what’s going on in the Trap scene and love what Antiserum, Mayhem, Flosstradamus and the rest of the guys are doing and I play a touch of it in my sets. I was just having some fun, like I do

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with everything, that’s just my personality and needs to be taken with a pinch of salt. What’s your daily routine like? Are you a ‘sleep all day, studio work all night’ person? I don’t find it easy to go to bed early, so I prefer to work late, but this then means waking up late! I prefer working in the studio late night as that’s when I feel most inspired – when the city’s asleep. What do you listen to when you’re not producing, or in your downtime? I don’t listen to too much music nowadays, it’s more films, documentaries and my favourite comedy programmes – like Only Fools & Horses and Curb Your Enthusiasm. But when I do listen to music I can listen to anything and everything! Alpha Omega makes use of a lot more vocals than most other dubstep production (and they’re not sliced and diced up) – was that a conscious decision? It wasn’t a conscious decision, it was just about what sounded good to me. It’s the most vocalists I’ve ever worked with so it was a new challenge for me, as the sound is typically more instrumental based. I really enjoyed it and hopefully will get to work with a lot of those artists again on other projects. What’s the next project on your horizon after this Australian tour? The main focus is getting the next single out, which is looking like it’s going to be ‘Reach For the Sky’ feat. Diane Charlemagne, after that I’ll be doing a four track EP on Sub Soldiers, which will be all instrumental based tunes. What: Plays Bass Mafia Garden Party with ShockOne at ivy When: Saturday June 1

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

club pick of the week

Camo, Snillum, Jaimie Lyn free 9pm The World Bar, Kings Cross The Wall Resident DJs $5 8pm

Alex Taylor

Caspa

THURSDAY MAY 30 Bridge Hotel, Rozelle Balmain Blitz $15 7pm Exchange Hotel, Darlinghurst Hot Damn Hot Damn DJs $15-$20 8pm Goldfish, Kings Cross Miami Nights Jay-J & Friends Residency Jay-J, Karl Prinzen, Tikki Tembo, Tom Kelly Free (before 10 pm) 9pm Goodgod Front Bar Dip Hop Levins, Joyride, Elston Free 8pm Ivy Pool Club, Sydney Pool Club Thursdays Resident DJ free 5pm Kit & Kaboodle, Kings Cross Resident DJs 10pm Sapphire Lounge, Kings Cross Rewind Resident DJs 8pm Trademark Hotel, Kings Cross Take Over Thursday Resident DJs $10 9pm Whaat Club, Potts Point Chakra Thursdays Robust, Brizz Free 9.30pm The World Bar, Kings Cross Propaganda Gillex, DJ Moody Free for students/$10 9pm

FRIDAY MAY 31

SATURDAY JUNE 1

Ivy Bar/Lounge Sydney

Bass Mafia Garden Party

Caspa & Dynamite MC, ShockOne

Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Fresh Fridays free 8pm Chinese Laundry Sydney Robert Babicz, Marc Romboy $20 9pm Empire Hotel, Kings Cross Cassette Club DJ Absynth $15 10pm Gay Bar, Darlinghurst DJ Alex Taylor free 5pm Goodgod Front Bar, Sydney Yo Grito! Yo Grito! DJs free 9pm Goldfish Kings Cross Dance With Your Ears AboutJack (Bad Apple), Ben Ashton (Bad Apple), Ben Howard, Heff & Kaiser (Fear Of Dawn), Matt Aubusson (Glitch DJs) $15 9pm Home Nightclub, Darling Harbour The Guestlist $15-$25 9pm

Jacksons On George, Sydney $5 @ 5 On Fridays Resident DJs free 5pm Kit & Kaboodle, Kings Cross Fridays Resident DJs 10pm Marquee Mash Up Fridays Yo Mafia! $20 10pm Oatley Hotel We Luv Oatley Hotel Fridays Resident DJ free 8pm Omega Lounge, City Tattersalls Club, Sydney Unwind Fridays DJ Greg Summerfield Free 5.30pm The Soda Factory, Surry Hills Factory Fridays, 5pm Trademark Hotel, Kings Cross TGIF Resident DJs 10pm Whaat Club, Potts Point Think Fridays DJs 8pm $10-15 The World Bar, Kings Cross MUM MUM DJs $10-$1

Cross The Suite Resident DJs 8pm Soho, Potts Point Usual Suspects Denzal Park, Nukewood, Danny Lang, Mike Rukus, 9pm Sydney Opera House Sydney Astral People Vivid Studio Party Africa HiTech, Alba, Cassius Select, Cliques, Dro Carey, Gardland, Jon Convex, Omar S $35 9pm Scruffy Murphy’s Altitude free 10:30pm The Soda Factory, Surry Hills Soda Saturdays, 5pm The Watershed Hotel, Darling Harbour Skybar Saturdays Resident DJ $20 9.30pm Whaat Club, Potts Point After Dark DJs $10-15 8pm The World Bar, Kings Cross Cakes $10-$30 8pm

SUNDAY JUNE 2

5 8pm

Abe

GoodGod Small Club, Chinatown Dutty Dancing South Rakkas Crew $15 11pm Goldfish, Kings Cross Goldfish Saturdays with Alex Taylor, Johnny Gleeson, Tom Kelly, free before 10pm Home Nightclub, Darling Harbour Homemade Saturdays Resident DJs $20-$25 9pm Ivy Bar/Lounge Sydney Bass Mafia Garden Party Caspa & MC Dynamite, Shockone $43 12pm Ivy Bar/Lounge Pacha Sydney Will Sparks $35 6.30pm Jacksons On George, Sydney Resident DJs free 9pm Kit & Kaboodle, Kings Cross Kitty Kitty Bang Bang Resident DJs 10pm Marquee, The Star, Pyrmont Goodwill $30 9pm Sapphire Lounge, Kings

Abercrombie Hotel, Broadway S.A.S.H Sundays Ladies Day Magda Bytnerowicz, Gabby, Gemma Van D, Hannah Gibbs, Matilda Weir, KerriAnn Wallace $10 2pm The Beresford Hotel, Surry Hills Beresford Sundays Resident DJs free 3pm Gay Bar, Darlinghurst Resident DJ free 3pm Goldfish, Kings Cross Martini Club Straight Up Steve, Tom Kelly, 6pm Kit & Kaboodle, Kings Cross Easy Sundays Resident DJs free 10pm Oatley Hotel Sunday Sessions DJ Tone free 7pm Sapphire Lounge, Kings Cross Sapphire Sundays Resident DJs 8pm The Spice Cellar, Sydney Spice After Hours $20 4am The World Bar, Kings Cross Soup Kitchen The Soup Kitchen DJs free 7pm

SATURDAY JUNE 1

$43 12pm MONDAY MAY 27 Scruffy Murphy’s, Haymarket Mother Of A Monday DJ Smokin’ Joe free 7pm Sydney Opera House Vivid LIVE Karl Hyde (UK) $59 9pm The World Bar, Kings Cross Latin & Jazz Open Mic Swim Team DJs free 7pm Santa Barbara, Potts Point Come Down Mondays Hannah Gibbs, Steven Sullican, Dan Baartz, James Taylor

TUESDAY MAY 28 Brighton Up Bar Ziggy Pop Tuesdays Guest DJs $5 Scruffy Murphy’s, Haymarket I Love Goon Resident DJs free 7pm The Establishment, Sydney Rumba Motel Salsa DJ Willie Sabor free 8pm Trademark Hotel, Kings Cross Coyote Tuesday Resident DJs free 9pm The World Bar, Kings Cross Chu $5 7.30pm

WEDNESDAY MAY 29 Abercrombie Hotel The Nark Collective free 9pm Ivy, Sydney Salsa Resident DJs free 8pm Kit & Kaboodle, Kings Cross The Supper Club Resident DJs 10pm The Lewisham Hotel Garbage 90s Night Garbage DJs free 7pm Whaat Club, Potts Point Whip It Wednesdays DJs:

Gemma Van D

BRAG :: 514 :: 27:05:13 :: 39

Deep Impressions

club picks

Underground Dance And Electronica with Chris Honnery

up all night out all week...

MONDAY MAY 27

Marquee, The Star, Pyrmont Goodwill $30 9pm

SUNDAY JUNE 2

Sydney Opera House Vivid LIVE Karl Hyde (UK) $59 9pm

FRIDAY MAY 31 Chinese Laundry Sydney Robert Babicz, Marc Romboy $20 9pm

Abercrombie Hotel, Broadway S.A.S.H Sundays Ladies Day Magda Bytnerowicz, Gabby, Gemma Van D, Hannah Gibbs, Matilda Weir, Kerri-Ann Wallace $10 2pm

SATURDAY JUNE 1 GoodGod Small Club, Chinatown Dutty Dancing South Rakkas Crew $15 11pm Goldfish, Kings Cross Goldfish Saturdays with Alex Taylor, Johnny Gleeson, Tom Kelly, free before 10pm

Robert Babicz

Karl Hyde

Danton Eeprom

M

y a D s e i d a L

Magda Bytnerowicz Gabby Gemma Van D Hannah Gibbs Matilda Weir Kerri-Ann Wallace Supper set

Tameka Witheridge

arseille-born producer Danton Eeprom is gearing up to release his sophomore album All Dressed Up and Nowhere To Go on the Infine label. Eeprom started out his (musical) life in rock bands, taking an unorthodox route to house and techno as he tried his hand at various sounds and styles. Such eclecticism is apparent throughout Eeprom’s discography, which comprises his vocal contributions on Radio Slave’s 2008 single ‘Grindhouse’, memorable excursions through minimal techno like his 10-minute ‘Confessions Of An English Opium-Eater’ and his quirky output with Ivan Smagghe under the La Horse moniker. While Eeprom runs his own label, Fondation Records, he has not yet used his own stable to release one of his LPs, with both his 2010 debut Yes Is More and his forthcoming album finding their home on Infine. Yes Is More featured collaborations with Chloe and Au Revoir Simone’s Erika Forster, who sings on Eeprom’s cover of Sister Sledge’s disco classic ‘Lost in Music’, a title that doubles as the album’s mantra, reflecting the adventurous musicality that imbues the release. A dapper chap on stage and in his press shots, Eeprom used to perform in a top hat to “fuck around with styles” but has had to find a new look after his beloved hat was purloined by the eccentric folk working at Panorama Bar. “The staff knew that I’d forgotten my hat, but instead of giving it back, they just put it in their office, writing ‘Danton’ and the date that I had left it,” Eeprom informed Resident Advisor. “It’s just on the shelf in the office. When I came back to play again I saw it and said, ‘Hey, that’s my hat!’ They said, ‘Yeah, we know.’ Never asked if I wanted it back. It’s kind of a trophy for them.” After more than two decades of behind the scenes collaboration, two auteurs of the underground club realm, Juan Atkins and Moritz von Oswald, will release their debut collaborative album Borderland on Tresor Records early next month. The pair’s shared production history dates back more than 20 years to when Atkins was the occasional third member in von Oswald’s 3MB project with Thomas Fehlmann, which released an album on Tresor back in 1992. Borderland is described in its press release as “eight sequences, seamlessly blending the styles of both techno masters” to create a series of hypnotic jazzy minimal jams. As I listened to a promo of the album while writing this, I can assure listeners that it is a gem that doesn’t disappoint, and definitely one that fans of both producers, along with the likes of Efdemin and Luomo, ought to seek out upon its release. Never one to sit still, Stefan Goldmann, of German/Bulgarian lineage, has just released a new album, Live At Honen-In Temple, a live recording of Goldmann’s performance in the Japanese city of Kyoto last year, which took place in front of a tiny crowd “while daylight faded into the dark of night”. Those who are familiar with Goldmann’s output should know better than to be surprised at his latest project.

Goldmann has accumulated an immensely varied body of work over the years from a limited edition cassette-only release to writing a bi-monthly column for Berlin techno institution Berghain’s flyer-zine. Listeners can expect a decidedly ambient affair on his live album, as Goldmann traverses beatless soundscapes and showcases previously unreleased material, alongside some of his classic cuts like the chorally-influenced ‘Lunatic Fringe’. Fresh from headlining Mad Racket only a few weeks ago, Ukranian house producer Mikhaylo Vityk, AKA Vakula, will release his new album, You’ve Never Been To Konotop (Selected Works 2009-2012) next month on Firecracker Recordings. The album, named after Vityk’s hometown, features twelve unreleased tracks recorded over the last four years, and will be Vityk’s first album under the moniker Vakula, though he has released LPs under the pseudonyms V and Vedomir. You’ve Never Been To Konotop (Selected Works 20092012) is apparently an eclectic and densely woven release, combining “elements of Ukrainian folk melodies, esoteric cryptic rhythm patterns, field recordings, interludes and overgrown organic effects.”

LOOKING DEEPER SATURDAY JUNE 1 4our ft Trinity Warehouse Party

Omar-S Sydney Opera House

SATURDAY JUNE 8 Chris Liebing & Jeff Mills Chinese Laundry

MONDAY JUNE 10 Alexkid The Abercrombie

Chris Liebing

Deep Impressions: electronica manifesto and occasional club brand. Contact through deep.impressions@yahoo.com 40 :: BRAG :: 514 :: 27:05:13

snap

100% silk

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the nark collective

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up all night out all week . . .

10:05:13 :: Goodgod Small Club :: 53-55 Liverpool St Chinatown 8084 0587

15:05:13 :: The Abercrombie Hotel :: 100 Broadway Ultimo 9211 3486

party profile

astral people vivid party

It’s called: Astral People Vivid Party It sounds like: Astral’s futuristic take on the globa darker sounds from the UK all the way to organ l underground, which explores ic Detroit techno. Acts: Omar- S (US), Africa Hitech (Aus/UK), Jon Convex (UK), Dro Carey, Cliques, Gardland and more.

Three songs you’ll hear on the night: Omar-s – ‘Here’s Your Trance, Now Dance’ Africa Hitech – ‘Out in the Streets’ Jon Convex – ‘Fade’ And one you definitely won’t: Dario G – ‘Sunchyme’…maybe. Sell it to us: This is our debut in the Vivid Live arena. We’ll be bringing our own, distinct flavour that punters have found consis tent couple of years. Expect a leftfield musical exper with our shows over the last ience that will have you dancing in your shoes from doors till close. The bit we’ll remember in the AM: The kick on at Ben Fester’s house. Crowd specs: If you’re into dance music, this is a night for you. Wallet damage: $35 (+BF) at vividlive.sydneyop erahouse.com.

hold me ep launch

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Where: Sydney Opera House. When: Saturday June 1

16:05:13 :: Oxford Art Factory :: 38-46 Oxford St Darlinghurst 9332 3711 :: KATRINA CLARKE :: ELLA S : TIM LEVY (HEAD HONCHO) RY LEUNG :: ASHLEY MAR :: OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHER HEN :: IS LEW KATE :: LEE :: ROXY COCHRANE :: RYAN KITCHING

radio slave

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afrika bambaataa

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18:05:13 :: The Goldfish :: 111 Darlinghurst Rd Potts Point 8354 6630

19:05:13 ::: Chinese Laundry :: 111 Sussex St Sydney 8295 9999 BRAG :: 514 :: 27:05:13 :: 41

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17:05:13 :: Marquee :: Star City Sydney 9657 7737

bass mafia garden party party profile

19:05:13 :: Sydney Harbour ::

dangerous dan & tydi It’s called: Bass Mafia Garden Party. It sounds like: Bass music at its best. Acts: Caspa, ShockOne, Glovecats, Doctor Werewolf, A-Tonez, Kyro & Bomber and more. Three songs you’ll hear on the night: Shockone – ‘Big Bounce’ Caspa ft. Dismantle – ‘Techno Terry’ ShockOne ft. Phetsta – ‘Crucify Me’ And three you definitely won’t: Avicii & Nicky Romero – ‘I Could Be The One’ Dean Martin – ‘That’s Amore’ Madonna – ‘Vogue’. Sell it to us: A party to celebrate two of the biggest bass music albums this year. ShockOne and Caspa will be showcasing their albums to a packed house at the ivy. If you have never been to a Bass Mafia party, expect a sub-heavy system paying homage to double drops while the crowd lose themselves. Great atmosphere, even better crowd.

The bit we’ll remember in the AM: When Caspa drops his remix of Deadmau5 – ‘I Remember’. Crowd specs: Friendly music-enthusiastic partygoers with a need to dance. Wallet damage: Final release $50 at Mosh tix or on the door. (Free Jagermeister Raws for the first hour!) Where: ivy Courtyard. When: Saturday June 1.

the mane event

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sol carnivale cruise 6

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up all night out all week . . .

s.a.s.h 2nd birthday 19:05:13 :: The Abercrombie Hotel :: 100 Broadway Ultimo 9211 3486 42 :: BRAG :: 514 :: 27:05:13

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17:05:13 ::: Chinese Laundry :: 111 Sussex St Sydney 8295 9999 :: KATRINA CLARKE :: ELLA S : TIM LEVY (HEAD HONCHO) RY LEUNG :: ASHLEY MAR :: OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHER HEN :: IS LEW KATE :: LEE :: ROXY COCHRANE :: RYAN KITCHING

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