Issue 1373 by X-Press Magazine

X-Press â&#x20AC;&#x201C; First on the street, Wednesdays

www.xpressmag.com.au

X-Press â&#x20AC;&#x201C; First on the street, Wednesdays

www.xpressmag.com.au

X-Press â&#x20AC;&#x201C; First on the street, Wednesdays

THIS ONE’S FOR CHRISSY

A GHOST OF A CHANCE

In memory of Chrissy Amphlett, The Divinyls Tribute Show will raise funds and awareness for Breast Cancer Care WA at Metro City this Friday, June 7. Get on down for Chrissy Amphlett, RIP an all-star tribute to Ms Amphlett, featuring members of V-Capri, The Jets, the Jimmy Barnes Band and more, plus a special guest appearance from Tom Tapping, who will front his superstar Aussie Rock line-up. Doors open at 8pm. Tickets are $25 (plus booking fee) from oztix.com.au, or from Star Surf Hillarys and 78 Records. For full details head to breastcancer.org.au.

IN A TRICE

We almost missed out, but thanks to a huge furore from his faithful fans, hip hop exponent Obie Trice will be adding Perth to his fast-selling string of Australian dates. The Hangover Tour lands at The Deen on Wednesday, June 26. Head to the Obie Trice Australian Tour Facebook page for ticket information.

British singer and producer Ghostpoet, known to his parents as Obaro Ejimiwe, hits The Bakery on Thursday, September 12, with support from Oscar Key Sung. Known for his intricate, slipper y wordplay, Ejimiwe is a street poet in the classical sense, whose insightful take on everyday life elevates the mundane into the artful. For more info and tickets, hit up nowbaking.com.

AWARD WINNING TUNE?

Songwriters should get cracking on their entry for this year’s WAM Song Of The Year 2013, open until July 22. If you’ve got an original song, you could win a mammoth amount of goodies under 16 different categories, with the grand prize winner taking out $3,000 cash and recording time at Albert Studios in Sydney, along with a huge string of other nice things. Go to wam.asn.au/ for more deets.

VICE VERSO

Having traversed the world off the back of their well received EP, Verso, local indie-popsters Lacey are finally back in the old home town, and they’re launching their new single, Fire’s Out, this Friday, June 7, with able assistance from Frighteners, Tired Lion and Wiseoaks. Doors open at 8pm.

Following the sad passing of Yothu Yindi’s frontman, M. Yununpingu, his family have issued the below statement.“We are heartbroken. We honour him as the first Yolnu principal and the champion of community teacher-based bilingual education. He has devoted his life to reconciling the different peoples of this nation. His songs say it all. He was an inspirational Yolnu intellectual who ignored barriers and found a way for people to work together. We have a deep hope that his loss could result in a greater effort to make organ transplants available to remote Indigenous people and the establishment of a scholarship for Indigenous bilingual scholars in his name.” The former Australian Of The Year died at age 56 after fighting kidney disease for several years. RIP.

OH BOY! Ghostpoet

MINISTER OF SOUND?

Obie Trice

YOTHU YINDI’S FRONTMAN PASSES

The former leader of the Greens, Bob Brown, is rumoured to be playing a DJ set with Rok Riley at The Bird next Wednesday, June 12. Going under the monker ‘DJ Bbob Brown’, no one is actually 100 per cent sure that this is the real thing or not, but we’re gonna go check it out in any case. A gig to encourage people to enrol to vote ahead of September’s federal election, the $5 cover charge will be waived if you check your enrolment is up to date or enrol at the door. Support comes from Ben M vs Ben Taffe, Kate Mullen vs Da Witt, DJ Hott Robb vs Dan Dalton and Ash Hendricks vs Hamish Rahn. For more head to facebook.com/ djbobbrownyeh.

Rainy Day Women - last year’s grand prize winners

BIG LITTLE MAG LAUNCH

Australia has a new glossy mag just for kids, edited by Australia’s youngest magazine editor - the 10 yearold Luca. BIG Kids Magazine will feature the work of children and contemporary artists (dancers, painters, singers, sculptors, actors, film-makers, writers) from all over the world, retailing at $15. The mag is having an official launch this Thursday, June 6, at Chrissie Parrott Arts, 4 Sussex Street, Maylands. Luca will be giving the opening address.

WARM THOUGHTS FOR SHARON JONES

Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings have had to postpone their tour and the release of a new LP, Give The People What They Want due to health problems. Sharon Jones has been diagnosed with stage-one bile duct cancer, but is expecting a full recovery due to its early detection. She will be having surgery soon and is New Zealand ’s premier drum ‘n’ bass ac t, hoping to get back on the road shortly after. We wish Shapeshifter, are jetting across the Tasman to show her a speedy recovery. Australian club kids how it’s done. You can get a load of their new album, Delta, at Metropolis City on Saturday, August 17. Tickets from Oztix.

SHIFT IT

Infectiously enthusiastic local pop purveyors Boys Boys Boys! are finally bringing out a second album, the unerringly accurately titled We Are Excited About Everything. The LP makes its debut at The Bakery on Friday, June 14, with support from Boom! Bap! Pow!, 44th Sunset, Echo Kid and Wasabi Peas. Tickets are $10 plus booking fee from nowbaking.ocm.au, or $15 on the door, but they’re sure to go fast!

Boys Boys Boys!

TAKE YOUR MEDICINE

Fresh from State Of The Art, the excellent Usurper Of Modern Medicine take the top slot on the bill this Saturday, June 8, at The Bird, topping a pyramid of power that includes Rokwell & Groom, Doctopus and DJ Jo Lettenmaier. Entry is $10 from 8pm.

Lacey

MAJOR NEWS

Boomtick have announced the line-up for their midyear Major Bass event. Lady Waks, CRNKN, SLYNK, DNGRFLD, Bezwun and The Barons Red will all be on hand to make sure the night keeps cranking, while Tapeheads, Tom Drummond, QWERK, MR eD, Dead Easy, 4by4 and Easy P will be working the mini silent disco. Tickets are on sale now from Moshtix.

Sharon Jones

Usurper Of Modern Medicine Photo: Michael Wylie

Shapeshifter

ROUND ABOUT MIDNIGHT

Midnight Juggernauts, true to their name, have announced a massive nationwide tour to support their new album, Uncanny Valley - their first major release in three years. Catch them at Bunbury’s Prince of Wales Hotel on Friday, September 6, and Capitol on Saturday, September 7. Tickets are on sale now through Oztix.

Lady Waks

8 11 12 14 17 19 20 21 22 23 24 27 28 29 30 31 32 35 36 38

Reactions/Comp Thing Flesh: The Chemist/ Love Junkies Music: Laura Marling/ Killing Joke Music: The Beards/ Andrew Stockdale New Noise Eye4 Cover: Spanish Film Festival Eye4 Movies: News/ Haunted House Eye4 Movies: Fast & Furious 6/ Still Mine Eye4: Arts: Jesus Christ Superstar/ WA Roller Derby Arts Listings Feature: Urban Central Salt Cover: P-Money Salt: News/ South Rakkas Crew/ Jack Beats/ John Digweed Salt: Tensnake/ Thundercat Salt: Club Manual Salt: Club Scene: Mantra Scene: Live: State Of The Art Festival Tour Trails Gig Guide Volume

COVER: The Chemist launch their debut LP, Ballet In The Badlands, on Saturday, June 15, at The Bird. Full story on page 11. SALTCOVER:NZ’s P-Money is back with a new LP made in New York and a tour that will see him playing Villa this Thursday, June 6. www.xpressmag.com.au

Midnight Juggernauts

MORGAN’S FREEWHEELING

Congratulations to Perth singer/songwriter Morgan Bain, who has been awarded $10,957 as part of the State Government’s Young People And The Arts grants program to assist under 26 yearolds to par ticipate in arts and cultural Morgan Bain activities. Scarborough, MLA Liza Harvey, last week announced Bain as the winner of the Distribution & Marketing category. It will enable him to tour in support of his self-titled EP in Victoria, NSW and Queensland. “I’ve been fortunate to have built a solid following in WA,” Bain stated, “so this grant will certainly give me the opportunity to build new audiences over on the East Coast.” In the meantime you can catch Bain opening for Ash Grunwald (with The Living End’s Scott Owen and Andy Strachan) on Saturday, June 8, and the Fly By Night Club on Sunday, June 9. 7

Send your name, address and daytime phone number to win@xpressmag.com.au with the name of the competition in the subject line or enter online at www.xpressmag.com.au. Snail mail entries can be sent to Locked Bag 31, West Perth 6872. Entries close 4pm Monday. By entering you agree to X-Press Magazine’s Terms and Conditions, which can be found online. All competition entries will automatically enable you to become an X-Press subscriber! No details will be given to a third party.

Print and Digital Editions Publisher/Manager Joe Cipriani Editorial

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Managing Editor Bob Gordon: editor@xpressmag.com.au Fashion Editor Emma Bergmeier: fashion@xpressmag.com.au Dance Music & Features Editor Jo Campbell: danceeditor@xpressmag.com.au Local Music & Arts Editor Travis Johnson: localmusicarts@xpressmag.com.au Gig & Event Guides Co-ordinator guide@xpressmag.com.au Entertainment Services Co-ordinator / Competitions win@xpressmag.com.au Photography Callum Ponton, Stefan Caramia, Daniel Grant, Sammy Granville, Matt Jelonek, Denis Radacic, Emma Mackenzie, Guang-Hui Chuan, Max Fairclough Contributing Writers Henry Andersen, Ashleigh Whyte, Nina Bertok, Shaun Cowe, Derek Cromb,Chris Gibbs,Alfred Gorman,George Green,Alex Griffin,Chris Havercroft, Joshua Hayes, Brendan Holben, Coral Huckstep, Rezo Kezerashvili,Tara Lloyd, Adam Morris, Andrew Nelson, Chloe Papas, Tom Varian, Ben Watson, Jessica Willoughby, Miki Mclay, Morgan Richards, James Manning, Joe Cassidy, Shane Pinnegar For band gigs and launches - plugyourgig@xpressmag.com.au

Advertising

OLE!

The 2013 Spanish Film Festival runs from next Wednesday, June 12 to Sunday, June 23 at Cinema Paradiso. The 16th Spanish Film Festival, presented by Estrella Damm, will delight audiences with the best of Spanish and Spanish-speaking Latin American Cinema. Win one of five double passes! E DOWNLOAD TH P QR READER AP ING! AND GET WINN

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Sales and Marketing Manager Keeley Warren-Langford - advertising@xpressmag.com.au Online Marketing Keeley Warren-Langford - advertising@xpressmag.com.au Music Services / Musical Equipment / Bands / Record Labels Dez Richardson - musicservices@xpressmag.com.au Entertainment Venues / Live and Dance Music Promoters Tim Milroy - entertainment@xpressmag.com.au Lifestyle Development Manager Natasha Bederson - eye4@xpressmag.com.au Agency / Movies / Education / Sponsorship Keeley Warren-Langford - advertising@xpressmag.com.au Classifieds Linage classifieds@xpressmag.com.au

Girl From The South

MUD

Head Office Salon

HEAD TURNER

This week we’ve teamed up with Head Office Salon to offer a makeover sure to turn heads. This ultimate Production 9213 2854 winter makeover package includes a cut, colour, treatment and blow dry worth $350! Jump online to Production Co-ordinator Uli Mauersberg production@xpressmag.com.au enter. The winner must claim the prize before July 5 this year on Tuesday-Thursdays only. Snip snip. Art Director

Dwight O’Neil

Design + Production

art@xpressmag.com.au Andy Quilty, Anthony Jackson, Kasia Mazurkiewicz

Printing Rural Press Printing Mandurah

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CAB AUDITED CIRCULATION: 38,000 OCTOBER 2011 – MARCH 2012

Deadlines EDITORIAL General: Friday 5pm,, Eye4 Arts: Thursday 10am, Comp’ Thing: Monday Noon,, Salt Clubs: Monday 5pm , Local Scene: Monday Noon,, Gig Guide: Monday 5pm ADVERTISING Cancellations: Monday 5pm, Ads to be set: Monday Noon Supplied Bookings / Copy: Tuesday 12 Noon, Classifieds: Monday 4pm

HELLO HALO

AnchorBay Entertainment is set to release the eagerly anticipated Halo 4 Forward Unto The Dawn on Bluray and DVD on June 19. Based on the recordbreaking fourth instalment of the multi-billion dollar video game series, this is the first ever full-length live-action feature film for the Halo franchise. From the writers of TV’s Spartacus: Blood And Halo 4 Forward Unto Sand and Smallville, Halo The Dawn 4 Forward Unto The Dawn stars Tom Green, Anna Popplewell (The Chronicles Of Narnia series), Daniel Cudmore (the Twilight series, X-men The Last Stand) and Enisha Brewster (Footloose). We have five copies to give away.

WARRANTY AND INDEMNITY

Mud

THE INTERNSHIP

The Internship

Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson, who last teamed in The Wedding Crashers, are analogue fish-out-ofwater in a digital world, in The Internship, out next Thursday, June 13. They play two 40-something friends who get laid off from their jobs. Convinced they’ve gone about managing their careers entirely wrong, they resolve to become interns at Google to start anew. Hijinks ensue when they must compete against wily, fresh-faced 20-year-old candidates half as old and twice as smart, for highly-coveted positions at the internet giant. It’s a brave new world for this old school duo, whose time-tested skills are pitted against their opponents’ high-tech savvy. Win one of five doubles!

TRAITOR OR FREE SPEECH ADVOCATE?

Published by: Columbia Press Pty.Ltd. A.C.N. 066 570 803 Registered by Australia Post. Publication No PP600110.00006 Suite 55/102 Railway Street, City West Business Centre, West Perth, WA 6005 Locked Bag 31, West Perth, WA 6872 Phone: (08) 9213 2888 Fax: (08) 9213 2882 Website: http://www.xpressmag.com.au Advertisers and/or their agents by lodging an advertisment shall indemnify the publisher, and its agents, against all liability claims or proceedings whatsoever arising from the publication. Advertisers and/or their representatives indemnify the publisher in relation to defamation, slander, breach of copyright, infringement of trademarks of name of publication titles, unfair competition or trade practices, royalties or violation of rights or privacy and warrant that the material complies with revelant laws and regulations and that its publication will not give rise to any rights against or liabilities in the publisher, its servants or agents. Any material supplied to X-Press is at the contributor’s risk.

From the director of the critically acclaimed drama Take Shelter comes the all-star thriller Mud. Two teenage boys, Ellis and Neckbone, find a strange man (Matthew McConaughey) hiding out on an island in the middle of the great Mississippi river. Describing his involvement in fantastic scenarios and claiming that vengeful bounty hunters are coming to get him, the stranger says he is planning to escape with the love of his life, Juniper (Reese Witherspoon), who is waiting for his signal in town. Skeptical but intrigued, the boys agree to help him in his noble and exciting quest. Co-starring Sarah Paulson, Michael Shannon, Sam Shepard and Joe Don Baker, Mud was nominated for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. WIn one of five double passes to see Mud at Luna Leederville.

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Alex Gibney’s We Steal Secrets: The Story Of Wikileaks details the creation of Julian Assange’s controversial website, which facilitated the largest security breach in US history. Bradley Manning, the brilliant, troubled young soldier who downloaded hundreds of thousands of documents from classified US military and diplomatic servers, revealing the behind-the-scenes workings of the government’s international diplomacy and military strategy. In seeking to expose abuse in the corridors of power, Assange and Manning were undermined by forces within and without, as well as by their own human failings. We Steal Secrets: The Story Of Wikileaks is a riveting, multi-layered tale about transparency in the information age and our ever-elusive search for the truth. Win one of 20 double passes!

We Steal Secrets: The Story Of Wikileaks

X-Press – First on the street, Wednesdays

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X-Press â&#x20AC;&#x201C; First on the street, Wednesdays

The Chemist

The Love Junkies

Ballet Ache

THE LOVE JUNKIES Maybe They’re Born With It

The Love Junkies kick off their national tour with a launch for the debut album, Maybelene, at Mojos on Saturday, June 8, supported by FOAM, Mudlark and Flowermouth. BOB GORDON reports. Sunday was some day for WA music. State Of The Art was a right celebration of local music and The Love Junkies, among many others, certainly looked like they were enjoying themselves. “We had a ball,” says bassist/vocalist, Robbie Rumble. “All-ages shows are always a blast. Kids are far more excitable than adults at these things, possibly due to the lack of all-ages shows in Perth.” Having been at it for a couple of years, The Love Junkies’ just-released debut album, Maybelene, contains a fair dose of their live swagger. Was this what they wanted to convey of the band on the debut album? “Diversity maybe,” Rumble clarifies. “The album is very up and down. Maybe (we wanted to convey) that we’re not just a grunge band, trying to make a career from regurgitating In Utero. That said, we recorded the album a long time ago. It doesn’t feel like the best representation of the band anymore, but I guess that’s just me as a songwriter being bored and sensitive. “The new material, which I hope on releasing a lot sooner than this album, is where my head is at. But, it’s all still very exciting.” The ambitions of the band at the time of recording may have been a little more modest than now, but Rumble certainly feels good about the results, and similarly about producer, Alan Brey. “I think we achieved what we set out to at the time,” he says. “It’s a big sounding record. Dirty, but a little shiny. Raw but still holding on to its pop sensibilities. It’s a break up album, so it did it’s job of sewing up the wounds and washing the blood off my hands. We’re still very proud to call it our first album. “Alan is a great guy. Very chilled, and is super easy to work with. He has an ear for tones so a lot of the record’s sound was captured live instead of being manipulated later in the digital world. He had

a real laidback style of producing, and let you figure out things yourself, as opposed to the old school ‘his way or the highway’ method.” Not surprisingly, there’s been an evolution in chemistry and playing dynamic from when The Love Junkies first formed until now. “We’ve all grown as players since we first started, which means we’re more confident and relaxed when performing,” Rumble explains. “Fuck up’s aren’t frowned upon so much anymore; now it’s just a part of the hilarity of playing. We’ve all become better songwriters, so there’s been more input from the boys when we’re piecing something together, instead of me getting around on my high horse, barking instructions. “As things get more serious, we seem to be having more fun and I think that’s got to do with being such good friends. We’ve known each other for a long time now, so neither of us can be bothered with bullshit. If there’s a problem, it’s out in the open and dealt with because there’s more important things to be focusing our energy on.” Some positive triple j Unearthed attention late last year was soon followed by the NME proclaiming The Love Junkies as one of the five Australian bands to watch in 2013. It’s nice to get those kinds of endorsements when you’ve pretty much been heads-down getting on with it. “It was a big pat on the back,” Rumble notes. “Really, it’s what we’re all working towards at the end of the day. Perth, although proud to call it home, is still a country town in the grand scheme of things. Having your name projected nationally is an amazing thing, for it gives you more of a reason to save up your pennies and travel around the country with your band. “The NME thing still puzzles me (laughs). That blew my mind when I saw that. Very cool.”

IS IT FETE?

The Fete de la Musique is a free music event to be held on Saturday, June 22, from 2pm at Subiaco’s Palms Community Centre. A free showcase featuring music from all cultures, Fete de la Musique will be a family friendly event and musicians interested putting their hand up to play an acoustic set can email culture@afperth.com.au.

You Am I

A BREW FOR YOU

Determined to celebrate two decades of hard-rocking excellence in fine style, legendary Australian band You Am I are re-releasing their first three albums in glorious vinyl. Sound As Ever, Hi Fi Way and Hourly Daily will be pressed on beautiful, heavy duty 180gm vinyl and wrapped in gorgeous gatefold sleeves in a jealousy-inducing limited edition package. And because You Am I have always produced music worth drinking to, they’ve partnered up with Young Henry’s Brewers to produce Brew Am I, a signature pale ale. Both will be available from mid July; head to youami.com.au for the music and brewami.com for the hootch.

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The Chemist play a hometown launch for their debut LP, Ballet In The Badlands, on Saturday, June 15, at their spiritual home of The Bird (supported by Mudlark and Damien Crosbie), before touring nationally with Abbe May. CHARLIE MURRAY chats with singer/guitarist, Ben Witt. It was a long time coming, then the time came. The Chemist put 2010 on notice with two EPs that saw them wallpaper the airwaves nationally on triple j and wear a hole in the floor of the East Coast with a swathe of gigging and tour supports. A debut album loomed, but for reasons best known to anyone but the band or their followers, it didn’t emerge until March of this year. Titled Ballet In The Badlands, it’s grit-pop of sorts, fronted by a young man who, in another life, might be Tom Waits’ nephew. “He goes by the name of Benjamin,” explains singer/guitarist, Ben Witt. “Since an early age he has been primarily occupied with music, perhaps to the detriment of his personality, broader intelligence, financial position and general hygiene. “He put together the collection of songs on this album with the aid of some close pals. Also, a photographer friend of his, who once worked a strawberry farm, strongly advised him to always sanitise your strawberries before consumption, so he has tried to do so ever since.” Not normally one to talk of himself in the third person (the question was phrased for him to do so) Witt’s songs are full of characters with everything and nothing to lose. People who can click their fingers in time and stuff. “Well there’s Buzz Cut Joe who was last seen dancing drunk with a wooden axe, the Lord forgave him for all his sins but never for his Stetson hat,” says Witt, listing the people who protagonise his works. “Randy K likes cocaine and white shoes. Let’s see... there’s a song about a man made of stone who gets loose in an attempt to rectify this and there’s a number about an atypical human spawned from a dirty test tube in an underground lab. Then there’s your classic-boy-gets-punched-bygirl scenario when I was pretending to write b-sides for Blood On The Tracks. Sometimes a character can be a more interesting and facilitating way of articulating an idea.” There’s a fair bit of darkness in many of the songs. Where does a young beachside-raised man find such a dark place? “I’m not too sure,” Witt considers. “I don’t think you can find it on Google maps, though. But uh, I think everyone has spent a period of their time stapled to a couch with a mist in their brain forest... to borrow from the locals. I guess some of these songs came from the couch but I think it is also a result of the type of harmony I’m attracted to. The chords made me do it.” From song titles to subject matter, beards to banter, Witt seems to have a healthy sense of the absurd. Not that he is aware of, though... “I don’t think there is that much absurdity on the record,” he counters.“Maybe there is? I’m not entirely sure what is absurd in music and what isn’t. I guess I probably like it because its fun and thought provoking. I love hearing a well sung folk song with one human and an acoustic guitar too, though. I’m not sitting at home with Pink Flamingos stuck on replay or anything.” Witt began playing guitar as a youngster, and by age 15 was busking with Ivan Zar and gigging regularly at the Perth Blues Club and other venues. He eventually went to WAAPA, where he

met his bandmates, combining the rawness of his early playing environment with the polish of conservatorium training. The Chemist as a band project a combination of the two. “I’ve always liked the way it feels to play blues,” Witt says, “it feels good. So I try and incorporate that feeling into something that isn’t a blues band. I use to try and disguise my appetite for blues, but I can’t deny it. It sounds sick and feels good.” Ballet In The Badlands was released almost 18 months after it was completed. By the time of its released the band had already moved on internally, but Witt has been able to re-appraise its content and creation, both in his mind and on the stage. “It’s kind of like stepping away from a big painting,” he says, “you’re not focussed as much on detail and you can see the whole picture. With that perspective I’m aware of the things that worked and the things that sucked. “I can also reflect on the creative head space at the time and see how it was restrictive in some ways. It’s all necessary in development, though. I’ve since learnt more, abandoned fear, matured a bit and chilled out. The band has also since taken up pilates and super-foods, which I think has improved morale. “In the live context, I don’t think we mirror any arrangement exactly like on the record. There are some intros, outros, extended sections, new musical passages etc. There’s also a piano ballad with double bass and pedal steel on the record that we now play as a full band.” Musically, anything is possible, with members also featuring in the likes of HamJam, Savoir, Shy Panther, MMHMM and The Growl. At State Of The Art on Sunday, The Chemist performed a new song called ToothAche Tune, a more angular, jazz-aligned piece featuring changing time signatures and obtuse percussion. Could a change in direction be in the offing? “Yeah, it’s about something irritating, stuck in your head,” Witt notes. “But yes, this is the direction the music is heading. Frenetic has been the word we’ve thrown around. Like walking into a dog pound and you’re being barked at from all angles. Its kind of inspired by Beefheart, but it’s not constantly atonal or anything. “I don’t want to shy away from musicianship like I would’ve when I was younger. I don’t want to sound like a huge rock band ‘rockin’ out’. I want to be a weird little noisy combo. Straight up beats and riffs can seem kind of catatonic after a while, which doesn’t really matter if there is great spirit behind it. But yeah, as pretentious as it may sound, I’m trying to make the new stuff like a Kurt Schwitter’s collage or a Rauschenberg piece. Where its kind of a dirty, textured mash of things. There’ll be elements of jazz, garage, blues, African rhythm, Chicano, noise, noir, whatever. “It may reference electronic music for its rhythmic inventiveness but then replicated with hand percussion to keep it organic. Some frenetic relief numbers will be thrown in also, so you can persevere through the final collection. I’m aware that to a lot of people, that sounds like horrible horse shit (laughs).”

ANYTHING IS POZIBLE

Empire

FUNDRAISER ART AUCTION SPIEGEL’S EMPIRE

The Help The Homeless Art Auction will be held at Fremantle Town Hall this Saturday, June 8. Works from the following artists will be up for auction: Warhol, Picasso and Dalí lithographs, original works by the late Elizabeth Durack, Arthur Russell and Kenneth Jack and Fremantle artists Geoffrey Wake, Julie Podstolski, Trish and Stewart Scambler, Jo Darvall, Robyn Varpins, and Susie Marwick. The Starlight Hotel Choir, a choir made up of homeless or at risk of being homeless members, will perform at 5pm. Registrations will be held from 3.30pm; auction starts at 5.30pm.

THE CHEMIST

Spiegelworld will be pitching the dazzling spiegeltent at Crown Perth for Empire, an outrageous night of circus, cabaret, variety and burlesque showing from Thursday, July 11. A 90-minute theatrobatic adventure, Empire features emcees Oscar and Fanny; the seductive Gorilla Girls; the Ethiopian foot juggler Black Flintstone; French duo, Lime Green Lady and Carrot Man who beautifully and sensuously balance each other, the Half Naked Asian Dude Wearing Pigtails and more. Tickets go on sale this Friday, June 7, via Ticketek.

Local muso Steve Tallis has some big plans for his first LP in six years but needs some help with the cash flow and is thus asking for fans to pledge some financial assistance via Pozible. He’s planning to make two LPs, including a blues and gospel solo album with collabs featuring Skip McDonald, Evan Jenkins, Hans-Aage Deberitz, Phil Bradley, Reg Zar, Gary Ridge, Neil Sparkes, Ray Pereira, Kerri Simpson and Thierry Levasseur to be mixed and produced by Skip McDonald (Little Axe) in London. The second LP will be a band album of all original compositions. Go to pozible.com/project/23330 to pledge. Steve Tallis 11

The Chemist

The Love Junkies

Ballet Ache

THE LOVE JUNKIES Maybe They’re Born With It

IS IT FETE?

You Am I

A BREW FOR YOU

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The Chemist play a hometown launch for their debut LP, Ballet In The Badlands, on Saturday, June 15, at their spiritual home of The Bird (supported by Mudlark and Damien Crosbie), before touring nationally with Abbe May. CHARLIE MURRAY chats with singer/guitarist, Ben Witt. It was a long time coming, then the time came. The Chemist put 2010 on notice with two EPs that saw them wallpaper the airwaves nationally on triple j and wear a whole in floor of the East Coast with a swathe of gigging and tour supports. A debut album loomed, but for reasons best known to anyone but the band or their followers, it didn’t emerge until March of this year. Titled Ballet In The Badlands, it’s grit-pop of sorts, fronted by a young man who, in another life, might be Tom Waits’ nephew. “He goes by the name of Benjamin,” explains singer/guitarist, Ben Witt. “Since an early age he has been primarily occupied with music, perhaps to the detriment of his personality, broader intelligence, financial position and general hygiene. “He put together the collection of songs on this album with the aid of some close pals. Also, a photographer friend of his, who once worked a strawberry farm, strongly advised him to always sanitise your strawberries before consumption, so he has tried to do so ever since.” Not normally one to talk of himself in the third person (the question was phrased for him to do so) Witt’s songs are full of characters with everything and nothing to lose. People who can click their fingers in time and stuff. “Well there’s Buzz Cut Joe who was last seen dancing drunk with a wooden axe, the Lord forgave him for all his sins but never for his Stetson hat,” says Witt, listing the people who protagonise his works. “Randy K likes cocaine and white shoes. Let’s see... there’s a song about a man made of stone who gets loose in an attempt to rectify this and there’s a number about an atypical human spawned from a dirty test tube in an underground lab. Then there’s your classic-boy-gets-punched-bygirl scenario when I was pretending to write b-sides for Blood On The Tracks. Sometimes a character can be a more interesting and facilitating way of articulating an idea.” There’s a fair bit of darkness in many of the songs. Where does a young beachside-raised man find such a dark place? “I’m not too sure,” Witt considers. “I don’t think you can find it on Google maps, though. But uh, I think everyone has spent a period of their time stapled to a couch with a mist in their brain forest... to borrow from the locals. I guess some of these songs came from the couch but I think it is also a result of the type of harmony I’m attracted to. The chords made me do it.” From song titles to subject matter, beards to banter, Witt seems to have a healthy sense of the absurd. Not that he aware of, though... “I don’t think there is that much absurdity on the record,” he counters.“Maybe there is? I’m not entirely sure what is absurd in music and what isn’t. I guess I probably like it because its fun and thought provoking. I love hearing a well sung folk song with one human and an acoustic guitar too, though. I’m not sitting at home with Pink Flamingos stuck on replay or anything.” Witt began playing guitar as a youngster, and by age 15 was busking with Ivan Zar and gigging regularly at the Perth Blues Club and other venues. He eventually went to WAAPA, where he

ANYTHING IS POZIBLE

Empire

FUNDRAISER ART AUCTION SPIEGEL’S EMPIRE

THE CHEMIST

LAURA MARLING The New Naive

The enigmatic Laura Marling has just released her fourth album, Once I Was An Eagle and will soon venture to Australia on a tour that will bring her to St Joseph’s Church, Subiaco, on Friday, July 26. HUGH ROBERTSON reports. Music 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 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. “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 “naïve 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 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

Laura Marling 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. “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.

KILLING JOKE

Killing Joke perform at the Rosemount Hotel this Sunday, June 9, supported by Fear Of Comedy. BENJAMIN COOPER speaks with vocalist, Jaz Coleman.

If Needs Be

Jaz Coleman has got a lot to say. The frontman of post punk act, Killing Joke, has been building up steam as he waxes lyrical on topics ranging from bee pollination to his contempt for Bono. It’s when talk turns to his home country that he gets particularly direct. “I really don’t like going back to England at the best of times,” he says. “There’re a number of very good reasons why I haven’t lived there in a quarter of a century. The country I grew up in was so different. What it has turned into is an abomination that I can’t stand.” Killing Joke started in 1978 in London, the outlet of Coleman and guitarist Kevin ‘Geordie’ Walker. A year later they released their debut EP, Turn to Red/Almost Red, on their own Malicious Damage label. The EP caught the attention of legendary BBC DJ John Peel, and twelve months later the band were picked up by E.G. Records (King Crimson, T-Rex). From their inception the band were noted for their aesthetic – the sound urgently bled through the speakers, suggesting the space and darkness that would become features of later genres of industrial and metal music. Their album art and the images projected during live shows attracted notoriety due to their shocking and inflammatory nature. The founding four members of the band – Coleman, Walker, Martin ‘Youth’ Glover and Paul Ferguson – were reunited at the 2006 funeral of former bassist, Paul Raven. In 2010 the gang of four recorded together for the first time in 30 years, producing the album Absolute Dissent, which was followed by last year’s MMXII. “Killing Joke – for us, anyway – has always been about having something to process the dreadful trends that occur around us,” Coleman

Killing Joke 12

says. “We honestly use the band as a place to debate and argue about the things that we’ve noticed. We knew from the start that our music never had that much commercial appeal. I knew it’d be a struggle that went on for many years, because the advent of MTV culture in the 1980s was never going to have much to do with us.” The direction of popular music in the next decade saw Killing Joke’s star rise. Many of the bands of the Seattle scene – including Nirvana and Soundgarden – cited the Englishmen as influences. “It wasn’t really until grunge kicked on that the phone started ringing. Just to be clear, though, we’re definitely not bitter about our lot. There have certainly been a lot of laughs. If you’re an artist you can stay in bed all day, if you feel like it,” Coleman laughs. Killing Joke’s Singles World Tour has taken them through Europe, and across North America. The exhausting schedule included 12 shows in 14 days, so it’s interesting that Coleman is resoundingly upbeat. “Well, that’s got a lot do with how I’ve been occupying myself. I’m on an island in Thailand, and I’ve been eating really well and doing a lot of exercise. It feels really good to bash a boxing bag sometimes. The good bit about the boxing is it means you’re ready to throw a few punches at a crazed stage invader, if needs be.” The band is focused on a single task when they take to the stage. “The whole spirit of Killing Joke is about bringing contentious perspectives onto a common ground. We might have changed, but what we do is still so close to the street that when we all start pulling the fragments come together. Humans now have too many options, and Killing Joke brings people together to create a critical force.” X-Press – First on the street, Wednesdays

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THE BEARDS

Beard Scenes Inside The Goldmine The Beards want you to grow a beard. Bassist Nathaniel Beard is the world’s most outspoken beard advocate and he’s been busy planting seeds in Europe’s chins to spread global beard revolution in the lead up to their shows at Capitol this Friday, June 7, and Bunbury’s Prince Of Wales on Saturday, June 8. TOM VALCANIS reports. Nathaniel Beard is quietly fuming underneath his luscious, double arrowhead beard. Chatting while he catches five spare minutes in London, he can still taste bitterness in and around his beard. Two Sundays ago, the band played the Bearded Theory Festival, placed on the outskirts of Derby in the UK. The problem was that it lived up to its name. It was bearded only in theory. Only one other band on the bill sported a (singular) beard – a member of The Men Who Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing. “Well they can be blamed for that then,” Nathaniel says, disrespectfully.“I can certainly blame them for that. For only having one beard.” The festival itself had beards maxed out to 11; either home-grown or something less organic tacked on. The Beards actually fit in for the first time, bewildering Nathaniel. “It was a strange festival because it had a bit of a beard theme. It was weird because for one day we weren’t a novelty band. Normally people are surprised when they see us at a festival – ‘What! This band’s only

“I have noticed on the streets in the European cities we’ve visited so far there seems to be a lower rate of beards than in Australia and North America. It’s concerning and it certainly makes me want to do more work to bring Europe up to speed.”

singing songs about beards!’ – for me, when we were on stage we were just like a regular band.” Did it deflate their spirits a bit? “Oh, we don’t care what they think,” Nathaniel declares. “We think beards are great.” Europe doesn’t. Of late, Nathaniel and the band have not just unfurled hair across the UK, but Germany and Holland. It’s irked him and his bandmates. “There’s been a good ratio of bearded people in the audience - most people have a beard or a fake beard in the audience and it’s hard to see a clean shaven face,” he cheerfully reports. His mood quickly darkens, though. “I have noticed on the streets in the European cities we’ve visited so far there seems to be a lower rate of beards than in Australia and North America. It’s concerning and it certainly makes me want to do more work over here to bring Europe up to speed.” Shows are one thing, but he’s talking about a particular brand of hair-raising evangelism. Nathaniel has publicly stated he wants everyone in the world to have a beard. Before I can ask if it’s too lofty an ambition, he snaps, “Yes I do.” “I think it’s the right level of ambition,” he says confidently.“You don’t want to dilute your dreams. If you set out to do something, you don’t want to compromise on what that goal is. I personally will not rest until every single person in the world has a beard.” Even women? “Even the women and the children and all the animals as well,” he declares. “But we’re focusing on humans first.” His first great (human) breakthrough came at Brighton, UK’s Great Escape festival. “There were very few beards in the audience but I think we convinced many people to grow beards,” he says. “There were many children in the audience and we convinced them to grow up and grow a beard. I see all children as a potential beard.

The Beards Once they reach the right age, they’ll remember what they learned in their youth.” Punters at Beards shows immediately feel the fervour the Beards have for beards. They’ll praise the bearded and hold the clean shaven up as targets for boos and hisses. Nathaniel would ideally make examples of them on stage, but he “doesn’t like getting that close to beardless people.” “I am concerned that someone whipped up in a frenzy from our propaganda might just hurt the guy or something. We don’t want to destroy the guy’s face; we just want to put a beard on it. “We still cultivate an atmosphere of shame so that anyone without a beard feels guilty. We tell them that shame is perfectly natural, and it’s just their body telling them to grow a beard.” The Beards write songs about beards; it’s all they sing about. It’s all they’ll ever sing about. They’re currently writing their fourth album and it’s predictably in tribute to beards. Nathaniel felt uneasy about releasing another set of songs about beards, fearful they might have tapped the well of bearded creativity dry.

“We have a lot of ideas coming in,” he affirms. “It turns out that having a beard provides an unlimited source of inspiration. We’ve got a power ballad about beards, an electro-rock song called There’s A Bearded Man Inside Me, we’ve got a sort of ‘60s pop kind of song which is called Strokin’ My Beard, and we’ve got a burster of a track called All The Bearded Ladies. “I want to tell you right now that it’s not a parody song of Beyoncé’s All The Single Ladies. We don’t delve into the realm of parody songs, we think that’s for someone else to do. We write original songs about beards.” Nathaniel’s ‘beard revolution’ has no intention of stopping. Outsiders might think there’s a sinister bearded underground poised to take over. It’s far less insidious than the unbearded envisage. “There’s not a secret bearded society,” Nathaniel explains. “There’s just a bearded society, and we’re not hiding from anyone. Anyone can join the bearded society by growing a beard. Of course, this will just soon be known as society.”

and the forgiving landscape. “You feel like people who are living in a shack with next to nothing have as good a quality of life as millionaires living on the beach,” he says. “You could fall asleep under a tree here, and it would be a nice tree with a nice view!” If Stockdale has found contentment in his personal life, he also seems to have found it in music. His old band, the gnarly blues rock outfit known as

Keep Moving is a big, sprawling album, featuring everything from heavier, psychedelic rock tracks to more laid-back acoustic jams. The songs are immediately recognisable as Stockdale compositions, but the atmosphere is a lot more relaxed than either Wolfmother album. Take a song like the acoustic Suitcase as indicative of this new approach. “I really love playing that song,” Stockdale says. “It’s got a really relaxing quality to it. I’ve found that I really like writing songs without expectations placed on them,” he says. This freedom in part came about because Stockdale produced the songs himself. He’s spent a lot of time in big LA studios with big producers, he says, and there’s a certain highpressure mentality that goes along with that. There’s a right and a wrong way to do things, a feeling that the decisions made in the studio will determine your success or failure. “That’s how we walked into the first Wolfmother record,” he says, “that’s how I learned to be in a studio.” Since then, it’s fair to say Stockdale has… chilled out. Much of Keep Moving was made in his home studio, and he states that the sessions were all about capturing the energy of playing live. “Going into this, we thought to ourselves, ‘let’s be spontaneous’,” he says, “‘let’s set up some lights and some incense and dress up in some cool clothes, let’s be actors in our own movie and make it up and break the rules’.” This set-up, which conjures up visions of Russell Brand’s Aldous Snow in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, made for a far more fun and creative recording experience. “We had a massive producer lined up to do this record, re-record it and do it properly,” he continues, “but I just said to my manager, I’ve got to be completely honest with you, my dream is to self-produce this and put it out as Andrew Stockdale. Luckily they gave it the green light.” With the imminent release of Keep Moving, Stockdale feels he’s landed on his feet as a solo artist. “With the old Modular thing, where the idea was that you’d make a record for three months, you go on tour, you take a break and then you make another record,” he says, “you’d have to be creative, stop being creative, and then be creative again.” He was no fan of this approach. “I feel now like I can be creative all the time, continuously,” he says.“All our gear is set up right here. I could start writing the next one right now. I feel like I pretty much already have. I feel like recording music is a continual part of life, and I’m just like… I’m at one with it, you know? Songwriting and recording should be a continuum.”

“I’ve seen a lot of bands who’ve continued with only one guy from the previous line-up, and there are a lot of expectations placed on that guy. “I don’t want to be that guy, and I don’t feel like I am that guy, so I stopped being that guy.” Wolfmother, went through various line-up changes over the years, reaching the point where the singer decided to go it alone. His new album, Keep Moving, is a line in the sand – it features members of various past Wolfmother line-ups, but is credited to Stockdale himself. Andrew Stockdale “I’ve seen a lot of bands who’ve continued with only one guy from the previous line-up, and there are a lot of expectations placed on that guy,” he says. “I don’t want to be that guy, and I don’t feel like I am that guy, so I stopped being that guy, you know what I mean?” The level of expectation attached to a solo album is different, Stockdale insists. “When we started Wolfmother, we were really happy that had a sound and a style,” he says. “We had fat Shedding the Wolfmother name, Andrew Stockdale has released his first we guitars and cool drum fills and I was singing in a register and things seemed to gel. That sound solo album, Keep Moving. In the lead up to his shows on Thursday, June 20, high became Wolfmother – that was the brand, and that at The Bakery; Friday, June 21, at the Fly By Night Club and Saturday, June was what people expected.” In recent times, the idea of writing songs 22, at Bunbury’s Prince Of Wales, he chats to ALASDAIR DUNCAN. in the trademark Wolfmother style lost some of its lustre. “I’ve moved on,” Stockdale says. “I don’t want Andrew Stockdale has found his happy place. “Byron Bay is a very inspiring part of the to be a slave, creatively speaking. I don’t want to go He’s sitting at his house in Bangalow, just world,” he says of the North Coast hippie enclave. into a record thinking, well, the songs need to have outside Byron Bay, looking out at the rolling “It’s just ridiculously inspiring – you could create so these certain ingredients in order for them to work. hills and feeling an overwhelming sense of much art and so much music continuously here.” I don’t need to pull out my big red stamp and go, contentment. He thrives on the nurturing qualities of the area, ‘bang, this is a Wolfmother song’.”

ANDREW STOCKDALE Lone Wolf

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MONNONE ALONE Together At Last The Lost And Lonesome Recording Company

IRON & WINE Ghost On Ghost 4AD Remote Control

As Samuel Beams’ beard is becoming less ragged, his music is also becoming more manicured. The simple, sparse acoustic tales have now morphed into smooth full band arrangements. This is taken one step further on the fifth Iron & Wine album, Ghost On Ghost. Beams stated that he wanted to move away from the ‘anxious tension’of his most recent albums, and while Ghost On Ghost is a bit more loose in its feel, it does sound sonically like Kiss Each Other Clean. Where there is a shift is that Beams moves away from his penchant for penning tales of death and disappointment. Such is the esteem of Beams’ writing that he is backed on Ghost On Ghost by members of Dylan’s band. These seasoned musicians allow Beams to move away from his folk leanings at will, as he explores his soulful side from the get go with brass a-plenty lacing Caught In The Briars. There is the soft rock of The Desert Babbler that pushes Iron & Wine into the 70’s AM radio vibe in which they are obviously comfortable. The song that shows the biggest shift from Beams anxiety heaving past is the upbeat Grace For Saints And Ramblers that comes replete with handclaps and joyous backing vocals. Some punters may miss the dark acoustic melancholy of early Iron & Wine records, but Ghost On Ghost proves that Beams and company have plenty to offer during this next phase of their evolution.

KIERAN RYAN Kieran Ryan

BUCHANAN Human Spring

Spunk/Coop

Independent

The Lucksmiths were considered by many to represent to ‘sound’ of the Melbourne music scene for over a decade. Their clever turn of phrase, spritely melodies and down to earth approach made them the kings of the cardigan for many both in Australia and abroad. Since they pulled stumps it is bass player Mark Mononne who has been in the most demand. When he is not being a gun for hire in Still Flyin’ or Darren Hanlon’s band (amongst others), he treads the boards as Monnone Alone. Together At Last is a chance to hear the results of his time in the studio. When pressing play on opener, The Westerly Whip, you could be forgiven for thinking that you had stumbled across an old undiscovered Lucksmiths recording. The drums are flamboyant, the guitars jangly and Monnone’s vocals are distinctly Australian yet tuneful. There are plenty of fine moments, including where My Overdue Library Fines has Monnone playing up to his bookish charm Monnone Alone go some way towards filling the immeasurable void left by the demise of the Lucksmiths. Together At Last is a light-hearted and likeable collection of tunes that sees Monnone as highly credentialed with guitar and voice as he is has proven to be with four strings. _ CHRIS HAVERCROFT

Run Faster, a triple j favourite of 2012 and easily one of the standouts on this debut LP, is how you might remember Australian band, Buchanan. Human Spring, their debut album, is doused in all the uplifting alternative-pop-rock substance one could hope for. Led by the talented Josh Simons, Buchanan specialise in clear vocals tangled in and amongst powerful driving drums and guitars that deftly avoid becoming obnoxious and retain a sense of understated force. Title track, Human Spring, masters this recipe to perfection. The album is also speckled with lighter songs such as For Tonight We Rest (Leaves). Vocal harmonies add depth to already existing subtleties and comforting echoes, which delicately fill the song in a steady build, long before any electric guitars come in. Human Spring was produced by Catherine Marks (Foals, Interpol) with the help of Tim Cross (Mike Oldfield), mixed by Andy Baldwin (Bjork, Midnight Juggernauts), and mastered at Abbey Road by Geoff Pesche, who’s worked with the awe-inspiring likes of LCD Soundsystem and Radiohead. It’s a solid effort from Buchanan, who have clearly isolated their anthemic indie-rock sound and called it their own, in a powerful and tonally varied debut.

Kieran Ryan formed a duo with his cousin and had one highly lauded album as Kid Sam. The Melbourne chap has now appeared out of nowhere with little to no fanfare to release his first solo record, the self-titled Kieran Ryan. With there being four years since Ryan’s last batch of songs were unleashed on the public, he certainly doesn’t run the risk of being accused of being prolific. The songs here appear as though they have been laboured over and don’t fall into the trivialities of boy meets girl. Out Of Africa highlights this as Ryan takes just under four minutes to document the history of mankind. Building A Snowman is an epic tale. It is a tune that is more tortoise that hare, with the melody being almost as understated as the sparse instrumentation. Ryan’s voice is at the fore, sounding wounded and quizzical while it draws the listener in and leaves them wanting. Tunes don’t come much better crafted than this. Ryan favours the ballad as his preferred vehicle whether singing about murder or child preachers on this ambitious debut. He’s a new breed of crooner who excels in cerebral low octane pop. _ CHRIS HAVERCROFT

_ KATIE DAVERN

CHRIS HAVERCROFT

QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE Like Clockwork Matador/Remote Control

Like Clockwork is a welcome reminder that no one does stoner rock quite like Queens of the Stone Age can. While this record brings in yet another line up change for the Josh Homme-led outfit, it seems the crew assembled for Like Clockwork has paid off for the desert rock ambassadors. Guest collaborators including Sir Elton John, Trent Reznor (who they’d hoped would produce the record) and Alex Turner of Arctic Monkeys bring fresh perspective here, but long time collaborators such as Mark Lanegan and Dave Grohl appear, well, like clockwork. True to form, the record is awash with the sludgy, viscous basslines that throb and ooze their way into your system in only the way a Queens Of The Stone Age song can. Six records down the line, Queens have moved from the full throttle, testosterone fuelled vibes that powered the masterpiece Songs For The Deaf, and past the radio readiness that was Era Vulgaris into a new stone age altogether. This album is far more reflective and raw; Homme lays it all out with weary honesty. His vocals are at their smouldering, mournful best on If I Had A Tail, while lead single, My God Is The Sun, is frenetic, pushing along with full voltage energy, killer riffage and ploughing bass lines; but there is an unfortunate, underlying sense of going through the motions here, almost as though someone had reminded them they needed a loud and proud banger in amongst the grandiose melancholia. Perhaps not their strongest effort to date, but the fragility and well-layered complexities make for a compelling return. _ MARISSA DEMETRIOU

PRIMAL SCREAM More Light Ignition/Inertia

Very few bands so far into their career make albums as evocative and diverse as More Light. Primal Scream’s last two albums had moments of brilliance but they were lacking as an overall experience compared to the group’s best work. More Light is truly a return to form. It’s been five years between the release of Primal Scream’s 2008 album Beautiful Future and now, and almost a year and a half of that time was taken up touring their landmark 1991 release, Screamadelica. It was during this period of revisiting the past that the band began taking steps towards the future. However, if anyone’s hoping for an album that pays homage to their breakthrough record, More Light is definitely not it. Over 70 minutes, More Light is an intense, euphoric, aggressive, stimulating journey. It’s like every other Primal Scream album in that it doesn’t sound like any other Primal Scream album. Opener, 2013, is an epochal eight-minute mini-symphony driven by distorted horns and electronics. It finds Bobby Gillespie spitting out the most biting and political lyrics he’s sung since XTRMNTR. Social observation, indignation, isolation and alienation are a recurring lyrical theme through a lot of the songs, especially in Culturecide and Tenement Kid. Invisible City has a similar groove to a lot of the tracks on Beautiful Future. It works well in loosening the mood at the album’s halfway point. Robert Plant adds his distinctive voice to Elimination Blues, his second appearance on a Scream album after playing harmonica on Evil Heat. After all the intensity, It’s Alright, It’s OK feels like a burst into the light. It sounds like the step-sibling of Screamadelica’s Movin’ On Up and closes More Light on an upbeat note.. _ MICHAEL HARTT www.xpressmag.com.au

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The Body - 2013 Spanish Film Festival

REEL INSPIRACIĂ&#x201C;N The 2013 Spanish Film Festival will be held from June 13 - 23 at Cinema Paradiso, Northbridge. For screening info and tickets go to lunapalace.com.au.

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Theatre Historian Ivan King and Volunteer Sandra Martin with the Museum of Performing Arts 40000 item

HEY HEY IT’S 40K

The Museum Of Performing Arts recently acquired it’s 40 000th item of memorabilia, an old marionette originally used by West Perth’s Nutshell Puppet Dave Callan Theatre. The museum’s collection is staggering assemblage of items from WA’s performing arts history. The next exhibition, Ladies of the Chorus, The Melbourne International Comedy Festival runs from July 8 - September 27 and focuses on the Roadshow is all set to roar into town later this month chorus girls who formed the backbone of so many for a brief season at His Majesty’s Theatre. This year’s live performance troupes in the early 20th century. lineup includes Ronny Chieng, Daniel Towns, Nikki The museum is located downstairs at His Majesty’s Britton, the UK’s Justin Moorhouse and Dave Callan. It Theatre, and entry is by gold coin donation. runs from June 20 -23; head to comedyfestival.com.au

RIBALDRY ON THE ROAD

A HAUNTING WE WILL GO

Doctor Haze’s Incredible Maze is an interactive theatre experience like few others: a kind of haunted house pastiche filled with physical effects and live actors whose sole aim is to scare the living hell out of you. It’s on for one night only this Saturday, June 8, at Replants in Fremantle. Head to eventrbrite.com. au for session times and tickets.

THE EMPIRE NEVER FELL

Continuing to pander to Perth’s love affair with the spiegeltent, Spiegelworld brings their sell-out show, Empire, to our city from July 11. A 90 minute mashup of cabaret, comedy, circus, variety and burlesque, all shepherded by MCs Oscar and Fanny, it’s essentially a super-concentrated intravenous dose of Fringeworld delivered all in one hit for maximum effect. Tickets go on sale at noon this Friday, June 7. Head to empireaustralia.com for more details.

TWELVE OF THE BEST

This Friday, June 7 sees the opening of Take 12 at the Fremantle Arts Centre. The exhibition is comprised of a series of short videos written and performed by local youth and inspired by 12 contemporary pieces from the Fremantle Art Collection. The videos were produced with help from artist Poppy van OordeGrainger, filmmaker and comedian Aaron McCann and Blue Forest Media. The exhibition runs until September 22 - go to fac.org.au for more info.

Darcy James Argue - Photo by Ben Anaman

WHO ARE WE TO ARGUE?

Ridiculously talented and dynamic composer Darcy James Argue is bringing his signature style and his big band, Secret Society to The Bakery on Friday, June 15. Known for his ability to seamlessly weave together traditional jazz motifs with the vibrant energy of modern music, Argue is employs the currently in vogue steampunk aesthetic to excellent and exciting effect in his music. Tickets are available from nowbaking.com.au.

OUR GLORIOUS REGIME

Perth’s own rebel literature journal, Regime, has put out the call for submissions for their third edition. The editors are seeking the best and boldest poetry, performance writing and short stories that they can find, so if you think you’ve got something that fits the bill, shoot over to regimebooks,com.au. Submissions close on June 30.

Mexican Suitcase - 2013 Spanish Film Festival

CONTINUED FROM COVER... The Spanish Film Festival is now in its 16th year, and is yet another milestone on the increasingly jampacked and authentically excellent Perth cultural calendar. Coming hot on the heels of the French and German film festivals, the Spaniards have arrived with a veritable armada of exciting and challenging films and a bona fide classic from one of the all-time cinema greats. The opening night film, A Gun in Each Hand, is a comedy portmanteau of six hilarious vignettes chronicling the lives of a group of fortysomething men as they struggle to acclimate themselves to the changing gender roles within Spanish society. Directed by Cesc Gay and with an all-star Latin American cast, this light and funny film looks to be the perfect opener. The Body is a Hitchcockian thriller about a woman’s corpse that goes missing from the morgue and the detective who, quick to suspect the dead woman’s husband, is led down a dark, almost supernatural path into a mystery from the past. Produced by the same team behind the chilling horror film The Orphanage and directed by Oriol Paulo (2013 Goya Awards nominee for Best Director), this picture promises an edge-of-your-seat experience not to be missed. A Spanish/French co-production and based on real events, Operation E tells the story of a family of coca farmers in Columbia, who’s world is turned upside down when members of the Communist guerrilla faction FARC appear and hand them a sickly child in need of care. When the family attempt to get the child treated in town, social services take him away. When the FARC return, looking for the child, the family are in a race against time to re-locate him, in what promises to be a tense docu-thriller. Screening in the documentary category of the festival is The Mexican Suitcase which tells the amazing story of an American filmmaker who comes in possession of an old suitcase which was filled with around 4,500 negatives for photos taken during the Spanish Civil War by photojournalist pioneers David “Chim” Seymour, Gerda Taro and Robert Capa. Director Trisha Ziff couches her analysis of the war through the cameras of these brave men whose haunting photographs are accompanied by beautifully relevant musical choices by the film’s co-producer, Michael Nyman. Natalia Beristáin’s debut feature and winner of Best Picture at the 2012 Morelia International Film Festival, She Doesn’t Want to Sleep Alone is an 20

unsentimental drama which follows the character of Amanda, who finds her inability to sleep alone assuaged by a string of casual lovers. Her life is changed when she is called upon to care for Dolores, her alcoholic grandmother who also suffers from dementia. A mutual understanding forms between the two and they are able to forge a relationship across the generation gap and change each other’s lives forever. Se in Peru and based on Claude Chabrol’s 1994 film L’enfe, Dark Heaven begins as a romance between tailor Toño, and drama student Natalia when she commissions him to make costumes for an upcoming play. Events take a darker turn however when Natalia’s ex-boyfriend returns and joins her theatre troupe. Winner of the People’s Choice Award at the 2012 Lima International Film Festival this troubling drama look like a promising debut from film critic Joel Calero. It appears to be the year for award winning debut features. Carmina or Blow Up is the first film for director Paco León and a smash at the Spanish box office. Winner of the 2013 Festival of Spanish Cinema Best First Film Award, this outrageous mockumentary revolves around Carmina (whom León claims is based on his mother) who confesses to camera how she staged the ‘perfect break-in’ at her tavern in order to secure an insurance payout. León’s own family and friends (playing themselves) offer support in this vulgar but hilarious comedy. The closing night offers an exciting opportunity to see surrealist master Luis Buñuel’s 1970 classic Tristana on the big screen. Starring Catherine Deneuve, as Tristana who is taken in by Fernando Rey’s penniless aristocrat, Don Lope, who immediately beings to take advantage of her. Enter Franco Nero as Horacio, the painter with whom Tristana falls in love. The film is a rich and dark love story which explores sex, politics and religion in Buñuel’s revolutionary style. This masterpiece is an absolute must see. The Spanish Film Festival always offers a veritable cornucopia of extremely exciting films that Perth audiences would otherwise miss during a regular cinema season. Spanish filmmakers especially embrace genre in a very unique way which makes for extremely exciting cinema. As winter has set in and the Hollywood blockbusters start screening across the country, it is important to engage with foreign cinema as a panacea to the mainstream. So go check it out. _ LIAM DUNN

A Haunted House

A HAUNTED HOUSE Gravely Unfunny

Directed by Michael Tiddes Starring Marlon Wayans, Essence Atkins, Cedric the Entertainer, Nick Swardson, David Koechner Even fans of the increasingly unwatchable Scary Movie franchise may find this cheap and overly familiar effort from co-writer and star Marlon Wayans difficult to stomach. In an extended and largely pointless riff on the Paranormal Activity films, Wayans is Malcolm, a fairly typical example of the kind of emotionally stunted protagonists common to these things. Our hero thinks that his life will be an endless succession of home cooked meals and sex on demand when his girlfriend, Kisha (Essence Atkins) moves in, but gets a shock to the system when his longed-for domestic utopia doesn’t eventuate. He’s even more put out when a troublesome poltergeist starts making their lives difficult, which leads him to enlist the aid of a string of eccentrics, including a racist security specialist (David Koechner), a gay psychic (Nick Swardson) and gangster turned priest (Cedric The Entertainer). Eventually, the film stops. That synopsis sounds disjointed, but it’s nothing compared to the actual film, whose emaciated narrative exists only as a framework to hang some jokes off of. The characterisation is limp, the stakes non-existent, the pacing and structure turgid. Wayans and his co-writer, Rick Alvarez, have

created not so much a script as a checklist, and when they tick every box on it, they roll the credits, regardless of whether the ‘story’ is done or not. The final result is a string of vignettes with little in the way of connective tissue. There’s no internal logic, no consistency, no baseline reality against which to measure the weirdness. It really is a remarkably inept piece of writing. And that would be fine if the jokes worked. The only real measure of a comedy is whether or not it makes the viewer laugh, and in all honesty there are a few chuckles to be had here. Wayans is a charismatic performer and has a decent sense of timing and delivery when he’s not just trying to shock, and veterans like Koechner and Cedric can do a lot with thin material. The problem is that the film almost always goes for the low-hanging fruit; it’s wall to wall dick and fart jokes, rarely going for anything more complex or rewarding than a gross-out laugh, and reliant on tired stereotypes that range from the overused to the outright offensive (Swardson, we’re looking at you). If A Haunted House has any saving grace, it’s that it never has any pretensions above its station – it knows exactly what it is, and seems comfortable with that. It is significantly higher up the food chain than almost anything produced by Jason Friedman and Aaron Seltzer (Vampires Suck, Epic Movie and the like), although that’s damning it with faint praise. However, its limited charms are certainly not worth the price of a movie ticket. It’s a rental at best. _ TRAVIS JOHNSON X-Press – First on the street, Wednesdays

Fast & Furious 6

FAST & FURIOUS 6 Diesel Motors

Directed by Justin Lin Starring Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Dwayne Johnson, Luke Evans If 2001’s The Fast And The Furious, a modestlybudgeted action-thriller (that borrowed most of its stencil from Kathryn Bigelow’s Point Break) starring then newcomers Vin Diesel and Paul Walker, was the introvert pupil feeling his way around, then this year’s Fast & Furious 6 is the kid well and truly out of their shell, convinced he’s loved by all, and ready at the drop of a hat to put on a show for anyone and everyone. Though they’ve gotten away from the somewhat serious, inconspicuous tone of Rob Cohen’s original cop vs. crim caper, the Fast & Furious films of recent years all retain the same welcome ingredients: fast, hot cars; plenty of muscle; and the themes of camaraderie and brotherhood. And this latest sequel, the ‘less’ serious of any installment in the long running series (in fact, it’s so ridiculous it makes the original look like Lorenzo’s Oil), is no different. But in addition to showing off a few cool-looking muscle cars and having Vin Diesel and Paul Walker hug it out once a reel, director Justin Lin (who has been onboard the series since #3) seems determined to shift into a higher gear with this latest sequel. Instead of simply offering up the same bag of tricks, Lin - equipped with a bigger budget than he had on the last film; no doubt the result of Fast Five chalking up something like a trillion dollars, give or take a dollar, at the box-office - fills the thing with some of the most eye-popping, clap-deserving stunt

sequences ever laid down on film. Forget whatever else is in the film, there are three or four scream-good action moments in this film that will have audiences yahooing with glee and that, dear friends, is enough to warrant the admission price alone. Equipped with much of the same cast of the last film, including action kingpin Dwayne Johnson, Fast & Furious 6 sees the crew heading to London where, in exchange for full pardons on past crimes, they agree to help the cops (namely Hobbs, played by Johnson) bring down a crime syndicate, led by devious Brit Owen Shaw (Luke Evans). Hobbs sparked Dominic’s (Vin Diesel) interest- and his crew, including former cop Brian, played by Paul Walker; Tyrese’s jive-talking playboy Roman, Ludacris’s quick-quipping gadget-man Tej, and Sung Kang’s kindly, crafty Han, from the getgo - by simply waving a photo in front of him. As such, the big guy’s not in the UK to catch a crook so much as he is determined to come face to face with a ghost (his supposedly dead girlfriend Letty, played by Michelle Rodriguez, is outed as an active member of the bad guy’s crew) and find out why she faked her death... if she did. There’s three of four other subplots fighting for screen time too, and quite honestly, none of them much make a lick of sense, especially when slapped together. Lin won’t have to try and top himself with Fast & Furious 7; not because there won’t be one (of course there is! And this one sets it up beautifully!), but because he’s taking a well earned rest from the series. Instead, responsibility will fall to Australian moviemaker James Wan, of the Saw franchise. The boy, particularly after this bravura sequel, has his work cut out for him. _ CLINT MORRIS

Still Mine

STILL MINE

Grey Skies Over Canada Directed by Michael McGowan Starring James Cromwell, Genevieve Bujold, Campbell Scott, Julie Stewart, Jonathan Potts The grey dollar is getting bigger, a fact that becomes obvious when you consider the sheer number of films aimed at the older demographic that are quietly released and make a tidy profit before disappearing from the screens, often without even being noticed by mainstream (i.e. 18-35) audiences. To the likes of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and Quartet we can now add this meditation on the challenges of ageing with dignity, which had awards liberally thrown at it in its native Canada. Working from a true story, writer and director Michael McGowan tells the story of Craig Morrison (James Cromwell, seen in everything from Babe to LA Confidential), a self-reliant farmer approaching the end of his life who must rise to a new and more difficult challenge than he has ever faced before when his wife, Irene (Genevieve Bujold), begins to develop dementia. Realising that the house where they have lived together for so long is too much for them to handle, the octogenarian Craig takes it upon himself to build, by hand and from scratch, a smaller, simpler home for them to live out the rest of their days in. Of course, being an independent and irascible sort, he eschews getting any building permits until as late in the game as www.xpressmag.com.au

possible, which brings him into conflict with the local bureaucracy, in the form of building inspector Rick, (Jonathan Potts). Help, albeit often exasperated, comes from his lawyer (Campbell Scott), his now adult children, who come around to the idea that getting their elderly parents to accept living in a nursing home is an impossible task, and his neighbour, Chester (George R. Robinson). This is a gentle and deliberately paced film, a collection of moments rather than a propulsive narrative. It also veers more to the sentimental side of the equation than, say, Michael Haneke’s Amour, that other recent look at the tribulations of senescence. Still, it’s hard not to become emotionally engaged with the Morrisons’ story as Craig, unflappably confident that the woodworking skills bequeathed him by his shipwright father will see him through, gently butts heads with the more sober - perhaps more realistic? - minds about him. Cromwell and Bujold share an easy, comfortable chemistry, and its not hard to buy into their onscreen relationship. McGowan also makes excellent use of his beautiful seaside, locations, which help instil the film with an elegiac and meditative tone. However, it’s that tone and the film’s slow pace that will likely drive away younger audiences; Still Mine is a work that requires patience. While it’s unlikely to set the box office afire, Still Mine is certain to do well within its natural demographic, as well as those who appreciate a slow amble as much as a quick sprint. _ TRAVIS JOHNSON 21

WA ROLLER DERBY Prayer Of The Rollergirls

Jesus Christ superstar

JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR ARENA SPECTACULAR Perth Arena Friday, May 31, 2013 Big, bold, bombastic and faintly blasphemous, this latest iteration of the old Webber/Rice rock opera makes its way to Perth for an incredibly brief and highly sought after series of shows. The demand for tickets certainly indicates that there’s still an audience for this singalong version of the Gospels, but after some 40-odd years, does it still deserve one? Unreservedly, yes. Part of the appeal of Jesus Christ Superstar is the way it frames the story of the crucifixion in terms contemporary to the production. What that means for a 2013 production is a show that is steeped in the visual iconography of the Occupy Movement and the Arab Spring and filtered through the sensibilities of the information age. Background data about the show’s milieu is presented through tweets , headlines and tickertape scrolls. Jesus (Ben Forster, who won the role on a British reality show) is presented as more of a political dissident than a messianic figure, and his followers throw Molotov cocktails and bear placards emblazoned with revolutionary slogans, while garbing themselves in hoodies, cargo pants and keffiyahs. It’s heady stuff, only occasionally crossing over into gaudiness and poor taste - most notably when Andrew O’Keefe’s Herod, in a sequence designed to parody Deal Or No Deal, drops an Eddie Maguire reference that was stale before it even left his mouth.

The cast is uniformly excellent, and in general the quality of their singing more than compensates for any shortcomings in the acting department. Melanie C’s Mary Magdalene is portrayed as a dreadlocked urban feral, while Jon Stevens colours his Pontius Pilate as a contrasting mix of the imperious and the humane. It’s Tim Minchin’s turn as Judas Iscariot that’ll attract the most attention hereabouts, for fairly obvious reasons; not only is it the meatiest role in the production, but Minchin also has a certain home field advantage when it comes to performing for Perth crowds. His Judas is a complex figure, motivated not so much by jealousy as frustration and political differences with Jesus. Minchin’s performance all glaring eyes and hunched shoulders - is great. Surprisingly, it’s his singing that is occasionally not up to scratch, his voice becoming reedy in the reaches from time to time - though perhaps that’s entirely in character. For all that, he’s easily the most notable element at play here, effortlessly standing out from the pack. There are very few worthy criticisms that can be elevated at the show. It is, as has usually been the case for a few decades now, working off a truncated version of the original script, and there have been a few lyric changes that will annoy purists, who may also compare it unfavourably with both Norman Jewison’s 1973 film adaptation and the 1992 Australian production that featured John Farnham, Kate Ceberano and Angry Anderson, but that’s likely more from an entrenched sense of nostalgia than anything qualitative. This is the crucifixion for the 21st century, and it’s a good one.

This Saturday, June 8, sees Bout Of Thrones take place at the Kingsway Indoor Stadium, where WA Roller Derby’s home teams, The Electric Screams and Sonic Doom, will go head to head in the first of three home games. We spoke with WA Roller Derby away team captain Shelley ‘Dayzee A’Dare’ McLean about the increasing popularity of the sport. In the past four years, WA Roller Derby has gone from a scrappy startup to one of the dominant leagues on the West Coast. “We were the second league to start up in Perth,” explains Shelley McLean, aka Dayzee A’Dare. “And we are now one of the largest membership bases in WA, which is very exciting. There are two home teams and we also have two travel teams - an A and a B team. The two home teams are Sonic Doom and The Electric Screams, and they’re the two teams that will be playing this weekend. The A travel team is The WARDs of the Skate, and the B travel team, of which I am the captain, are The WayWARDs.” The league’s rapid expansion speaks to the growing popularity of the sport. Although its roots go back as far as the 1930s, modern roller derby as a concept is only a little over a decade old. As Mclean tells us, “It’s basically a full contact roller skating game in which two jammers have to ass the hips of four opposing blockers in order to score points.” At the moment, the sport is primarily female dominated, although more and more men’s leagues are popping up. Still, don’t expect the balance of power to shift any time soon. “We just had out first official bout against Perth Men’s Derby,” McLean tells us. “And the girls beat the boys by over a hundred points.” M cLean chalks up roller derby ’s popularity to it’s inclusive, all-welcome mentality - “We’re a sport which attracts all different body types, age groups, fitness levels.” - and a can-do ethos that appeals to a very wide demographic. “It’s got a bit of a punk rock aesthetic because,” she tells us. “Rather than being part of a traditional sporting structure, it’s very much DIY - you start your league and your run it yourself, which means it’s more accessible to a wider range of women.” Roller derby is also responsible for many women engaging with a more active and healthy

WA Roller Derby lifestyle, something which the state government has taken notice of. “We recently were awarded a grant by Healthways WA. We have been surveying thousands of derby girls around Australia and particularly in Perth and we discovered the amazing physical and mental health properties of roller derby, so we received a grant, which is great recognition for us as a league and helps us get taken more seriously rather than being seen as a novelty, which is nice. It’s nice to see our athleticism being recognised.” _ TRAVIS JOHNSON

_ TRAVIS JOHNSON

X-Press – First on the street, Wednesdays

VISUAL ARTS Secrets of the Afterlife: The Western Australian Museum This collection of over 100 Egyptian artefacts from the British Museum collection - including two mummies! - explores ancient attitudes to life after death. The exhibition runs until September 22. Go to museum.gov.au for more.

Plans: Melody Smith Art Gallery This exhibition by 25 year old Perth artist David Ledger explores the work and ideology of architect Bruno Taut. Ambitiously complex, this series of paintings sits at the intersection between landscape and architecture. It runs until June 25. Go to melodysmithgallery.com for more. Van Gogh, Dali and Beyond - The World Reimagined: Art Gallery of WA The third exhibition in AGWA’s MoMA Series promises to be one of the most fascinating. This extraordinary show encompasses 134 works from 96 artists, including Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Cezanne, Richard Long, Frida Kahlo and more, tracing the development of modern art in the 20th Century. The exhibition runs from June 21 - Dec 2. Go to artgallery.wa.gov.au for further information.

THEATRE/DANCE/ PERFORMANCE Swan Lake: His Majesty’s Theatre The renowned St Petersburg Ballet Theatre presents Tchaikovsky’s beautiful and moving ballet, Swan Lake, and such has been the demand that additional shows have been announced. The season now runs from July 31 - August 8. Tickets are available from ticketek.com.au

FESTIVALS Perth Winter Arts Season: Various Locations Nine years in, this annual celebration of wintry wonder shows no signs of slowing down. Over 200 events are planned, encompassing film, comedy, cabaret, opera, literature, dance, music and fine arts - there’s something for everyone. The season runs until Augist 31. Head to perthwinterarts.com.au for Secrets of the Afterlife - Gilded mask, more information. Ptolemaic-Roman period, first century 16th Spanish Film Festival: Cinema Paradiso BCE-first century CE, Egypt.© Trustees of the Presented by Estrella Damm, this celebration of the British Museum best cinema that the Spanish diaspora has to offer is a feast of filmic treats for the discerning cineaste. Over Made To Remember: Art Gallery Of WA A beautifully considered display of significant 20 films are on offer, ranging from the opening night Indigenous objects from the State Art Collection. satirical comedy A Gun in Each Hand by Cesc Gay to With a diverse selection of works including glass Luis Bunuel’s surreal classic, Tristana. The festival runs and ceramic objects, textiles and clothing, as well as from June 12 - 23. Head to lunapalace.com.au for examples of traditional sculpture, Made to Remember tickets and session times. encourages dialogue about the place of an object not only in Indigenous art and culture, but in the broader Supanova Pop Culture Expo: Robinson Pavillion, Claremont Showgrounds Australian context. Runs until June 30. Let your geek flag fly at Australia’s premiere gathering of sci-fi, fantasy, comic book and animation Year 12 Perspectives: Art Gallery of WA An exhibition of works from the best, brightest, and obsessives! Featuring a baffling array of stalls, kiosks most creative graduating high school artists in the and displays, exhibitions and demonstrations, along with the ever popular cosplay competition, this a state. Runs until June 30. From War to Remembrance - A Living History of the weekend where everyone gets to unleash their inner child. Guests this year include Margot Kidder RSL: The State Library of WA An exhibition on the history, goals and activities (Superman), David Hasselhoff (Knight Rider, Baywatch), of the RSL in Western Australia, encompassing art Karl Urban (Star Trek, Dredd) and Alan Tudyk (Firefly, installations, interactive displays, archival photographs Suburgatory). It runs from June 28 - 30. Head to and objects, film screenings and guest speakers. It supanova.com.au for details. runs until June 30. Revelation Film Festival: Luna Leederville, Cinema Paradiso, Luna on SX Now & Then: The John Curtin Gallery Presenting works from Brian Blanchflower and Perth’s very own celebration of rebel cinema is not Paul Caporn, two of Western Australia’s most too far away now, having spilled the banks of its acclaimed artists, this exhibition includes both former home at The Astor and now spreading across recent efforts and earlier pieces drawn from the three venues. A whole host of the edgiest, most Curtin University Art Collection. The result is a experimental and downright outré films from every fascinating look at how two distinct styles have far-flung corner of the globe will be on offer, as well developed over the past 40 years. The exhibition as the best local content and the RevCon academic runs until July 7. Go to johncurtingallery.curtin. program. It all happens from July 4 - 14. Head to revelationfilmfest.org for details. edu.au for further information. Driving Miss Daisy: His Majesty’s Theatre Before it was a beloved and award-winning film by Bruce Beresford, Driving Miss Daisy was an acclaimed stage play by Alfred Uhry, and it’s in that form it comes to our city this month. Angela Lansbury is Miss Daisy, the spirited Jewish woman who develops a deep friendship with her chauffeur, Hoke, played by James Earl Jones. The season runs from June 8 - 19. Head to daisyonstage.com.au for tickets and session times.

Driving Miss Daisy - Boyd Gaines, Angela Lansbury and James Earl Jones. Photo by Matt Watson www.xpressmag.com.au

THE X-PRESS GUIDE TO EVERYTHING URBAN to ADVERTISE: EYE4@XPRESSMAG.COM.AU TOASTFACE GRILLAH Tucked away in Grand Theatre Lane in the CBD - and isn’t Perth’s laneway refurbishment project coming along just beautifully? - Toastface Grillah wins points not only for having one of the best As the days grow shorter and the nights grow so names in restaurant history, but serving up simple very much colder, we take a look at the Perth bar but hearty fare that does more to help you combat and dining scene to let you know who’s brewing the windchill factor than a quintuple layer of animalup the best delectable delights to put a fire in themed onesies. The kitchen here specialises in traditional American cuisine and soul food, and as your belly. their name suggests, they have a great line of toasted sandwiches - the comfort food of the gods. ACE PIZZA A new arrival in Highgate, ACE Pizza joins the growing number of small restaurants and eateries that are dominating to Beaufort St drag. Coming from the minds behind Cantina and El Publico, you know that the team here aren’t going to do anything by halves, and the menu goes well beyond bog-standard pizza and garlic bread to present a board of fare that rewards the adventurous.

WINTER WARMERS Fuel For The Furnace

DAILY PLANET The latest addition to Perth’s favourite pop culture empire, Mount Lawley’s Daily Planet provides a place for the famished bibliophile or film connoisseur to chow down when they’re done blowing all their money next door at Planet Books or Planet Video (an all too common occurrence!) As of now, the cafe’s all day breakfast menu has been attracting praise, proving once again that there’s never a wrong time for bacon.

Daily Planet MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE This acclaimed small bar’s rooftop location on William Street in Northbridge puts the brave drinker right up in the grill of the winter weather, which is a perfect way for the whiskey connoisseur to live out their Toastface Grillah Toastface Grillah Humphrey Bogart fantasies. For those who desire a warmer welcome, having Flipside Burgers attached WINTER SUPPER CLUB below means that filling, stick-to-your-ribs fare is From now until the end of Winter, on the last Friday of every month, the Perth Town Hall plays host to the never far away. Winter Supper Club, presented as part of the City of Perth Winter Arts Season 2013. A veritable bevy of street food vendors transform the place into a vibrant winter market, complete with live music and entertainment JAMIE’S ITALIAN and a host of dining options. Head to perthwinterarts.com.au for more information. Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver’s foray into the Per th dining scene attracted initial interest ACE Pizza simply because of the ow n e r ’s f a m e, b u t EZRA POUND since then diners have When the rain starts coming down in sheets and discovered that the the car or the bus stop is too far to even consider venue’s adherence to wading to, duck down Perth’s favourite side alley to the simple principles see what their crack team of mixologists are serving of good food, attentive up. In colder weather, hot buttered rum is a perennial service and reasonable Jamie’s Italian favourite on the menu, but bar manager Adam prices make it one of Giuffre’s recent experiments with mulled cider means the best popular dining there’s more than one gullet-toasting concoction pots in town right now. A limited reservations policy Winter Supper Club ready to tempt your tastebuds. means one should come prepared to wait for a table.

X-Press – First on the street, Wednesdays

FIT TIPS FOR WINTER Snap Fitness is a recent hi-tech addition to Perth’s CBD. With 24/7 access, personal trainers and 35 individual group fitness classes to choose from each week including spin, it’s a one stop shop for getting buff, or at least warding off the love handles. The gym itself is decked out with cardio and pin loaded equipment and a techy suspension weight training system developed by the Navy Seals called TRX. Club manager Vicky Thompson Wales took some time out from the gym to offer us some tips to get motivated and stay healthy throughout the colder months.

The spin studio Getting sick with cold and flu is quite common this time of year. How can exercise help with warded off illness? Exercise is scientifically proven to improve your immune system, which will naturally boost your body’s defence against common colds and flu this winter. Exercise also increases highdensity lipoprotein (HDL) which in turn decreases triglycerides and cholesterol (two types of fat found in your blood stream).

Personal training at Snap The key to this is to set some realistic and achievable short, mid and long term goals. Keep it fun and enjoyable. A personal trainer is an invaluable source when you need guidance; this ensures you start on the right path.

What are some of the most common mistakes people make when taking up an exercise plan? A common mistake is not tailoring the plan to their specific needs, often people follow plans written for other people or generic plans often found A lot of people can’t be bothered exercising. in magazines. How easy is it to alter that attitude once you get started? Winter is a pretty hard time to stay motivated. What This is a mental battle that everyone ways can people be inspired to stick to it? must overcome; some find it easier than others. Keep it fun, and partner up with a friend or The key is finding a motivation from deep within family member. Having someone there to compete and focusing on this when the going gets tough. against can add a different motivation and social aspect. With every training session this gets easier, exercise releases endorphins which improve Any tricks of the trade you can share with us for mood state. Seeing results and feeling great = looking and feeling your best without have to work altered attitude. out for hours everyday? Yes, you can exercise little and often What sort of exercise would you suggest for throughout the day. For example, sitting (correctly) people who have never really exercised before on a core stability ball whist watching your favourite who just generally want to get a bit fitter and program and doing exercises with the family during shed a few kilos? commercials.

Snap’s weights VICKY’S EXPERT ADVICE Breakfast – eating the right food at the start of your day not only wakes up your metabolism but sets you up for the day ahead. Rehydration – This is so important to maintain throughout the day. Exercise – make it a frequent occurrence in your diary and keep it fun. When setting goals make sure they are realistic and achievable. Exercise increases the release of endorphins, which increases mood state. Sleep well – this is the body’s natural state of repair. Good healthy diet - eat plenty of fruit, veg and snack on whole foods (i.e. nuts). Beware of sugars as well as fats. Plan your week, make time to exercise and prepare healthy meals. If you are going to be naughty, do it in moderation and just prior to exercise. www.xpressmag.com.au

The workout zone

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X-Press â&#x20AC;&#x201C; First on the street, Wednesdays

It’s been a while since we last heard from Kiwi producer P-Money.Turns out he’s been plugging away at a new album while based in downtown Manhattan. LACHLAN KANONIUK gets the low-down. P-Money is nested in his East Village apartment, just before his Antipodean homecoming tour to launch his star-studded new LP, Gratitude. His Kiwi accent undiminished by his newfound New York residence, he recounts the starting point of the album’s winding journey. “I would say it was somewhere around August-September last year was when I really made the absolute decision – ‘cool, I’m gonna do this album, it’s going to be a compilation of different artists, and I need to get it done by a certain date,” he says. “Musicwise I already had beats, so I had some things to choose from. That helped define the sound.” Gratitude marks a return to fundamental hip hop values, enlisting the vocal talents of Talib Kweli, Mobb Depp’s Havoc, Monsta G, Freddie Gibbs, Blaison Maven, Jamall Bufford and plenty more. Moving to New York was a motivated decision to become absorbed in the city’s rich hip hop history. “I guess it was a deliberate move when I moved here, to be in the mix with hip hop and other genres of music. New York is the hub, and I wanted to be a part of that. Just being in this environment, hearing other people’s music and just being closer to that underground hip hop movement. I’m working with [record label] Duck Down, and that’s their area of expertise. It’s just got me back on that vibe of making rap beats for straight up hip hop – not for radio or the dancefloor. Just good stuff for the rap fans to listen to.” Though the history of hip hop is both rich and expansive, P-Money has narrowed his scope to the classic era of east coast rap. “It definitely harks back to the commonly referenced era of the ‘90s New York sound, pioneered by guys like Pete Rock and DJ Premier with Gang Starr. They’re the dudes that I always listen to. That sample-based stuff, chopping up records. That’s always a reference point for a lot of the stuff that I do, particularly with this album.” All genres of electronic music are more susceptible to the follies of trend, hip hop not excluded. But Gratitude manages to avoid any current trend alignment – a deliberate move on

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P-Money’s behalf. “I’m a music fan, so I’m always aware; I like to stay in touch with what’s happening. I felt this album didn’t stick with any particular trend, but I felt that it’s cool music and there are people out there that miss the sound, that still dig the sound, and they would really dig the record. I guess it was a deliberate move against the trends. I’m aware of what’s going on, but this is its own thing and hopefully it stands up on its own.” One of the first tastes from Gratitude came in the form of The Hardest, a collaboration with iconic rap duo M.O.P. “With that particular song, when we first got in touch with M.O.P. to see if they were interested and had to send the track first and foremost so they could hear what I was pitching to them. Then they liked it and said they could do the track. I wanted to record in person, so we got together in a studio near where I live in Soho,” P-Money reveals. “They were down to do that, and they’d written the bones of it then finished the rest off in the studio. They’re absolute legends in my mind, I’ve been listening to their music since I was a kid. So it was interesting just as a fan to see how they work. I just wanted them to do what they do, they’re known as one of the hardest, most hardcore, rap duos of all time, and I wanted that on the song. And they definitely brought it.” Despite being away from his homeland for the course of a year, P-Money has been keeping track of New Zealand’s hip hop scene.“It’s as strong as ever. In some ways it’s enjoying a second renaissance, definitely in the underground side of things. There are artists who have embraced the current music industry model where they can record themselves and distribute it online without the need for any major label infrastructure,” he beams. “I’m watching these kids and some of them are rising to the surface and translating it into real albums that people can purchase. Home Brew is the perfect example, where they did their thing online then at clubs and venues around the country, then within a two year span they’ve had a huge album. There is a whole flock of kids coming up who have seen that example and thought, ‘Cool, we can do that ourselves.’ And that’s really encouraging and great to see.”

» P-MONEY » THURSDAY, JUNE 6 @ VILLA

SOUTH RAKKAS CREW PUMPIN’ MUSICS

Force Majeure is seeing off the original Ambar with a bang, bringing the Mad Decent-affiliated South Rakkas Crew to town for their last night before the venue relocates. Dennis ‘D-Rakkas’ Shaw speaks with JOSHUA HAYES. Shaw has been on an extended international tour, which started February and has most recently taken him through parts of Asia like Cambodia, Taiwan and Vietnam for the first time. “Before that I was in the studio for about three months, four months straight and was just creating songs and putting them out,” he says from Hong Kong. He’s just played a wellreceived four hour set, which had been scheduled for just ninety minutes. Which isn’t all that surprising, considering his approach to spinning. “It’s about the club; it’s about being a DJ and responding to the crowd and just rocking the house,” he says, when asked what Perth punters can look forward to.“I expect to go everywhere; electro, all the new cutting edge stuff, moombahton, dancehall obviously, old school hip hop. I’m gonna go all over the place and make the party jump.” Shaw spent the months leading up to his international tour releasing music to build excitement – and when the tour finishes, he’ll be working to clear the backlog of music he wasn’t able to complete. “As soon as I get off the road I’m back and on it,” he says. “That’s the whole idea of this tour, is just to get all this out of the way so I can just get in the studio and work, you know? That’s what I really want to, just get back in the studio and start pumping music back out as much as possible, as quickly as possible.” His next project is likely to be a new single and remix EP, Pumpin Music – a collaboration with Jamaican dancehall acts Monsta Twins and Flexx of T.O.K., in keeping with his origins.“Dancehall is my birth; I was born in Jamaica, so almost everything I do, I hear dancehall on it, and it’s the easiest and most accessible

Evol Intent

BASS IN YO’ FACE South Rakkas Crew

Bass Agenda Volume 3 is shaping up to be a big ‘un at Villa next Saturday, June 15. Poland’s tech/ dubstep producer Xilent will be joined by three-piece, Atlantabased junglists, Evol Intent, and Need For Mirrors, otherwise known as Joe Moses and Emilio Dimitri of Metalheadz and Shogan Records fame. Local support will come in the form of VLTRN, Darren D, Dart and emcees Xsessiv, Stylee and Bear. Tickets are just $30+bf via Moshtix.

thing for me,” he says. “But I’m definitely up to doing whatever, recording with whoever, as long as I think the sound is cool.” It’s an approach Shaw has taken throughout his career. He met Alex ‘Alex G’ Greggs through Toronto’s local music scene, and the pair eventually moved to Florida and formed South Rakkas Crew. Their partnership blended the yin of Greggs’ pop sensibilities with the yang of Shaw’s hard edged dancehall sound. Shaw and Greggs parted ways in 2010, and Shaw has continued on with South Rakkas Crew. “It hasn’t really changed at all. We’re still moving forward; it’s just about cutting edge music with our flavour, which is the whole dancehall or Jamaican influence,” he says. “What Alex contributed to South Rakkas Crew was more of a pop flavour, maybe, more polish, but with the last couple of things I recorded, like Go Hard Go Home, had a real pop and commercial edge to it… So I can’t even say that that element is missing. “We’ve just been doing it for so long, I think The Funk Club Crew South Rakkas’ flavour is South Rakkas’ flavour. It’s not really conflicting. In the beginning it was me pushing more on the hard edged stuff and him pushing more on the pop stuff, and then it coming together the way The Funk Club crew are planning their 10 year reunion, to be held at the venue where it all began - upstairs at it did, but at this point it just is what it is.” the Leederville Hotel. On Friday July, 12 the Funk Club House Band and past members will be bringing the party with Charlie Bucket and the other local DJs who » SOUTH RAKKAS CREW regularly performed at the club throughout its ten year » FRIDAY, JUNE 7 @ AMBAR history. Tix are $20 - door sales only.

FUNKY REUNION

JACK BEATS

JOHN DIGWEED

Alternative beat producers Jack Beats recently signed to Skrillex’ OWSLA imprint, releasing two acclaimed EPs last year. One half of the duo, Beni G, has a few words with TOM KITSON.

John Digweed’s name was synonymous with the spread of progressive house throughout the naughties. Having embraced the entrepreneurial spirit of early rave culture, he’s gone on to set up his own label, Bedrock, which he and fellow house head Nick Muir still produce under. JO CAMPBELL asks him a few qs ahead of his Perth visit.

CARELESS LOVE

Making a name for themselves in London’s dance scene is fitting rewards for the lads behind Jack Beats. Neill Dailly aka DJ Plus One and Beni G put out their Careless and Somebody to Love EPs in 2012, cracking the international scene in the process. Their big basslines, mechanical musical aspects and featured vocalists have stood them apart in the dense and broad electro-house scene, their tune Careless featuring Takura racking up nearly 400,000 views on YouTube. With a brand of forward thinking tunes, the duo have grown from their UK rave origins to make music representing a variety of interests. Beni G grew up in London while Neill hails from Edinburgh, and the two came together in the English capital as likeminded, prodigious talents. “We met through DJ competitions in the UK, both quite into the technical sides of DJing; like scratching,” Beni says. “We were producing music separately, and then a few years back we decided to finish off a track together. We worked out that the end result was a lot crazier than what we had been doing by ourselves, and from there it clicked.” The beginning of the Jack Beats project, so named as to form the illusion that it’s one person and not a duo, just to keep things interesting, was purely accidental, according to Beni. “Nothing was planned, we just sort of jumped in the studio and played with sounds, ideas ad tempos,” he says. “It came naturally really, and then we started doing stuff which became 4/4. “We started releasing music four or five years ago when the blog scenes were huge,” he says. “We were lucky to run off the back of that. A lot of the blogs used to post our stuff, which got our music accessible to everyone worldwide on the Internet.” With a busy run of upcoming international and festival dates, the duo have just 28

Bezwun

MAJORLY BASSY

The local support lineup for Saturday, June 29’s Major Bass has just been announced. DNGRFLD, Bezwun, Tom Drummond, QWERK, MR eD, Dead Easy, 4by4 and Easy P will be backing up Russia’s first lady of bass, Lady Waks, CRNKN and Slynk. DNGRFLD’s most noted influences are A. Skillz, Noisia and Jack Beats while Bezwun pushes ghettofunk with solid breakbeats, soul and groove. Tix are $38+bf through Moshtix.

Sid Pattni

ALPHA PATTNI

Local producer Sid Pattni has just released his latest single, Mr. Alpha. Out on Monocarpic Records, the single is the follow up his debut EP, Le Vidé, which reached Bandcamp’s top 10 in its first week and received loads of radio airplay. Mr. Alpha features local lyricist, Whisky Winter is accompanied by remixes from Indian Summer, Ta-Ku and SWICK and Lewis CanCut. Check it.

HEAVEN SCENT

Jack Beats taken a month off to recuperate before the chaotic northern summer begins, spending some time “cracking on” in the studio. Beni says he’s been glad to have some time for himself. Beni says the time spent touring provides the inspiration to keep doing what they do and remain current. “The main things we bring to our sets come from ideas we have being out on the road,” he says. “We always test out our new stuff live, and we’ve been playing some trap in our sets for the last few years, which is just starting to get big in America. We find that always works in terms of getting the crowd up. “Being in all sorts of weird and wonderful places gives you so much inspiration you know; one minute we’re doing a show at Fabric in London and the next we’re in Santa Monica California, or New Zealand. We just can’t help but feel blessed for the job we have.”

» JACK BEATS » SATURDAY, JUNE 8 @ VILLA

You still keep up a hectic tour schedule. How many gigs/ countries have you been to so far this year? I’ve done around 48 gigs so far this year, taking in Chile, Argentina, Peru, Brazil, Mexico, North America, Spain, Greece, Hungary, UK, Amsterdam, Israel, Jordon, Russia and Romania. I feel great - I love what I do and get to play some of the best parties around the world on a weekly basis. Sasha gave you you’re first big break at Renaissance and since then you guys and your Northern Exposure series has defined progressive house sound. Are you planning to reunite again? At the moment there are no plans to do any gigs together as both of us are very busy with our solo projects. We played together for so many years that it’s nice to have a break and work with some different people. You’re onto your 14th Bedrock compilation. How do you go about selecting tracks for that? I go through hundreds of tracks from producers as well as contacting some of my favourite producers to try and get and good mixture of new talent alongside established artists. I road test all the tracks to make sure they all work well on the floor and will stand the test of time. You started out in the days of acid house. What do you think of current dance music culture? I think back when it started nobody had any idea that it would grow into this massive scene that would spread around the world. It wasn’t run by business men back then and had a very organic feel about it. There was always a risk that parties would get shut down and DJs were not booked etc. These days

John Digweed the production levels at events are incredible with stadium size events that will give major bands a run for their money. I think if you’re 18 years old now, going to an event like Ultra or Electric Daisy Carnival, you would have your mind blown by the experience. That’s not to say that the experience at the start of the scene was any less mind blowing for people’s very first rave. I feel lucky that I’ve been there right at the start and seen it grow. Thatcherism promised entrepreneurialism for all and you’ve successfully adopted that ethos. Is the party still the most important thing to you or do you view what you do as a job? I think my love of music as a young boy and desire to share my love of music turned into a career. I spent many years earning very little money from playing out, but I didn’t care because the buzz of DJing was payment enough. As the scene grew, I grew with it and my experience as a DJ from the early days helped me climb the ladder and turn into a career. Giving 100 per cent at each event is the most important part of my work. I’ve worked very hard to get where I am today but never forget my roots and the fans that support me. Looking back, what have been the main highlights of your career? The Renaissance residency was huge for me as it was the club that really gave me a stage to shine on, The Twilo residency in NYC was a huge step for Sasha and me to take on and people thought it was going to fail. It was great to prove people wrong and have an amazing five years in the best club in the world.

» JOHN DIGWEED » FRIDAY, JUNE 7 @ VILLA X-Press – First on the street, Wednesdays

TENSNAKE

FINDING AN ESCAPE You may not know the name Tensnake, but you almost certainly know his disco-house hybrid hit, Coma Cat. Since finding himself in the spotlight, the Hamburg native has toured the world and crafted more remixes than you can count. ALASDAIR DUNCAN reports. When Marco Niemerski’s aka Tensnake’s 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 finish it; almost two years,” he 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 uplifting euphoria – even the moodier ones, like the beautiful and spooky Congolal, can bring on a great rush of endorphins. “That’s definitely 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

Tensnake 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.”

» TENSNAKE » FRIDAY, JUNE 7 @ THE BAKERY

THUNDERCAT SECOND COMING

Los Angeles bass guitar virtuoso Stephen ‘Thundercat’ Bruner is touring Australia to promote his highly anticipated second album, Apocalypse. He speaks with JOSHUA HAYES ahead of his Perth show, which will see him performing with former Mars Volta drummer Thomas Pridgen and keyboardist Dennis Hamm. Bruner grew up in a musical family – his father Ron played drums with The Temptations – and he began playing the bass guitar at four years of age. By sixteen, Bruner was playing with thrash band Suicidal Tendencies, along with his brother, Ron Jr, who followed in his father’s footsteps to become a drummer. Bruner would go on to collaborate with the likes of Erykah Badu (he toured Australia last year as part of her live band), and Flying Lotus, and is currently working with artists as wide-ranging as Kimbra, Wiz Khalifa and Odd Future’s The Internet. He formed a particularly close friendship with Flying Lotus, leading to the Brainfeeder boss producing and releasing Bruner’s debut, Golden Age Of Apocalypse. The album was one of 2011’s most critically acclaimed, blending jazz, electronica, soul and hip hop into a futuristic sound that was full of incredible musicianship, yet never took itself too seriously. Apocalypse is the product of the same creative process – Bruner writing and recording music constantly, and then sitting down with Flying Lotus to mould disparate bits and pieces into a cohesive album. “I haven’t really stopped creating music up until recently, just to get a handle on the touring, establishing my name as a touring artist also, but I’ve never felt comfortable not working on music,” Bruner explains. “There wasn’t a ‘first album’s done, okay, now it’s time to work on the second album.’ It was kind of like ‘there’s still a whole lot more music people haven’t heard that I want them to be able to hear.’” On Apocalypse he pushes himself even further, dabbling in spacey soul on catchy lead www.xpressmag.com.au

Thundercat single Heartbreaks + Setbacks and deliriously cheesy disco funk on Flying Lotus collaboration Oh Sheit It’s X. It also has reflective moments like album closer A Message for Austin, a dedication to his frequent collaborator, pianist Austin Peralta, who passed away last year. “Me and Lotus, when we sit down together, we try to be in the same moment at the same time and figuring what makes sense, you know? He may hear something a certain way, and I may hear something a certain way, but we try to come to an agreement on it as quick as possible,” Bruner says of the pair’s collaborative process. “Something he would approve of, and I’d be like ‘really, you approve of that?’ But then as soon as he said that that was something he approved of, I would literally try to wrap my mind around why and move faster and why it should be finished and get the idea done,” Bruner continues. “And even with him, it’s like, I would express something to him, like ‘this song means this much to me, and I can’t do this album without this song’ and he would be like ‘I see what you mean’ and he would find the way it makes sense, so it’s kind of one of the magical things about how me and Lotus work. We try and stay in tune with each other in real time.”

» THUNDERCAT » SATURDAY, JUNE 8 @ THE BAKERY 29

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THE COURT

WEDNESDAY 05/06 Amplifier – Harlem Wednesday’s ft Genga The Bird – Fly South Club Red Sea - Cheek Groove Bar (Crown) – 5 Shots The Good Shepherd – Dope Mustang Bar – DJ James MacArthur Newport Hotel – Angry Buda, Tom Drummond & DJ Helena The Village Bar – Village People Wednesdays

FOREIGN EXCHANGE

Llama bar - Arkuna Club The Velvet Lounge – Mudlarks and Friends Chilling #1 ft Graceful Sun Moths/ Hayley Beth/ Nora Zion/ Man The Clouds

THURSDAY 06/06 Club Bay View - Dj-Vi Son Eve Nightclub – Retro Thursdays Mustang Bar – DJ Phat Pat

Kobra Kai

Gregor Salto

Newport Hotel – DJ Tim from Mills The Bakery – Dans Les Arbres The Beat (downstairs) - Fantasy Thursdays The Craftsman – Fiveo The Grand Central – Roger Smart Villa – P-Money The Beat Nightclub – Fantasy Thursdays – Afro Night

FRIDAY 07/06 Ambar – Force Majeure ft South Rakkas Crew Amplifier - DJ Jamie Mac The Avenue – DJ Lokie Shaw The Bakery – Lil Jabba & Cashmere Cat Brass Monkey – Vicktor/James Ess Bar Open - Control Capitol – Retro Mash ft Jamie Mac Capitol (Upstairs) – Retro Mash w/ DJ Roger & The Great RV The Carine - Az-T Geisha Bar – Foreign Exchange Gilkisons Dance Studio - Breach & Route 94 Gingers Nightclub - Mondo Groove Bar (Crown) – DJ Crazy Craig The Grand – Jinx Project Lakers Tav – Grizzly and Friends Library – Dorcia Metro Freo - Death Disco DJs Mojo’s Bar – Fishermans Style Mullaloo Beach Hotel – Kenny L Mustang Bar –DJ James MacArthur Newport Hotel – DJs Tom Drummond & Tahli Jade, Sardi & Evan Rocket Room – Howlers ft DJ Frank N Bean The Saint – Mikeee Sovereign Arms - ANG3L Tiger Lils – Paul Malone, Adam Kelly, Alex Koresis EVE nightclub - Timomatic Scarborough Sportsmans Club – ITS MY PARTY The Aviary (Birdcage) – Tomás Ford The Aviary (Rooftop) – Paradise Paul /Troy Division The Beat (downstairs) - Play The Shed – DJ Glenn 20

GEISHA

MULLALOO BEACH HOTEL

Villa – John Digweed Whale & Ale - DJ Spinback Shape Bar – Rinse and Repeat ft Pussymittens/ Genga/ Benny P/ Ol Wright/ Gravy

SATURDAY 08/06 Ambar - Japan 4 Amplifier – Pure Pop – DJ Eddie Electric The Avenue – DJ Jon Ee Beat Nightclub (Upstairs) Canvas Brass Monkey - DJ Peta (downstairs)/ DJ Jewel (upstairs) Capitol – Death Disco DJs Capitol (Upstairs) – Cream of the 80’s Empire Bar – James Shipstone/ Miggy Geisha Bar – Dark Beat The Generous Squire – James Nutley The Library - DJ Victor / DJ Riki Metro City – Seven Deadly Sins Metro Freo – DJ Wazz/Ben Carter Metro Freo (Upstairs) – I Love 80s 90s Mullaloo Beach Hotel – Kenny L Mustang Bar – Rockabilly DJ Sovereign Arms – The Jinx Project Tiger Lils – DJ Bojan, Benjamin Sebastian The Aviary (Birdcage/Rooftop) – NDORSE Paradise Paul /Troy Division The Craftsman - Madam Montage The Court – DJ Flex/DJ TimBee The Grand Central – Jay Mackay The Saint – Az-T The Shed –DJ Andyy Villa – Jack Beats ft Qwerk, Dngrfld, Get More 133 Aberdeen St – Get Weird with Branchez + DJ Butcher EVE Nightclub – Traffic Light Party ft DJ Crazy Craig SHAPE – BIG APE Old Man Jumper Party Flyrite Nightclub – Family PICA Bar – Tomas Ford’s Crap Rave Party

SUNDAY 09/06 Amplifier - The Animal House: Cowboys & Indians

Branchez Club Bayview - DJ Vicktor Connections – Jodie Harsh Eve Nightclub –DJ Slick / Migi / Francesco. Empire Bar – DJ Victor/ DJ Riki Groove Bar (Crown) – HI-NRG Metro City - Dash Berlin ft Marlo Mustang Bar – DJ Rockin’ Rhys / DJ James MacArthur The Avenue - DJ Ben Renna

The Aviary (Rooftop) – Aviary Rooftop Sessions ft Andy Bull Live/ Anton Franc/Charlie Bucket/Troy Divison/ Lightsteed The Court – Heaven & Hell The Aviary (Birdcage) – Rooftop Sessions NDORSE The Aviary (Rooftop) – Ben Sebastian/ Zel

X-Press – First on the street, Wednesdays

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VELVET

CLUB RED SEA

WEDNESDAYS

THE NEWPORT

THE SWITCH

SHAPE BAR

IN THE THIS WEEK P-Money & David Dallas Thursday, June 6 @ Villa

Hedkandi ft Gregor Salto/Henton/James Ess/Ace Basik Vs Paul Scott Friday, June 7 @ Geisha Bar

Branchez (NYC) & JD Traffic Light Flirt Butcher (Bris) Party! / DJ Crazy Craig Saturday, June 8 @ 133 Saturday June 29 @ Eve Aberdeen St

COMING UP

John Digweed Friday, June 7 @ Villa

Force Majeure ft SOUTH RAKKAS CREW (FLORIDA) Kid Kenobi & SWICK (MEL) FLAVA Fortnightly Friday, June 7 @ Ambar Friday/ 14 June @ Ambar Fridays Friday, June 7 @ Metro Timomatic! / Plus DJ Bass Kleph City Crazy Craig Saturday, June 8 @ Eve Friday/ 14 June @ 133 Aberdeen St Tensnake ft Sepalcure/ Jimmy Edgar Jack Beats Friday, June 7 @ The Saturday, June 8 @ Villa Jeff Mills Saturday, June 15 @ Bakery Geisha

Coolio Club Show Saturday, June 29 @ Metro City MAJOR BASS ft LADY WAKS/CRNKN/SLYNK and for the first time at Villa, the MINOR BASS SILENT DISCO with an all-star Boomtick cast! Saturday, June 29 @ Villa

Lil B A$AP Rocky Sunday, June 16 @ The Sunday, June 30 @ Bakery Metro City Goldfields Friday, June 21 @ BLISS N ESO Metro Freo Wednesday, July 10 @ Saturday, June 22 @ Metro City Amplifier

Tensnake

TENSNAKE FT SEPALCURE/ JIMMY EDGAR FRIDAY, JUNE 7 @ THE BAKERY

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Jungle Shakedown Friday 21 June @ Ambar

ALT-J Saturday, July 27 @ Challenge Stadium

The Upbeats ft T’Dodge vs N1/ Terrence & Phillip/ Rexop Friday 21 June @ Geisha

Passion Pit Sunday, August 4 @ Villa

Hook N Sling ft DJ Kenny L/Jus Haus/ John Paul/Slick Sunday, June 24 @ Mullaloo Beach Hotel Allday Saturday, June 29 @ Amplifier

SUPAFEST ft T.I./50 Cent/Waka Flocka/ Akon/Ne-Yo/Young Jeezy/Mindless Behaviour/DJ Unk/ Kevin McCall/DJ Nino Brown/Dizzy Doolan/ Phinesse Postponed date TBC

MANTRA Rosemount Hotel Saturday, June 1, 2013 Melbournian lyricist Mantra smashed it at the Rosemount last Saturday, even to the point of facilitating a marriage proposal on stage when a punter asked his girlfriend the big question. Luckily, she accepted. Supported by locals Bryte, Creed Birch and Rob Shaker (who also got vocalist Sarah Pellicano and rhymer Bitter Belief up on stage for a couple of posse numbers) and Melbournian Bam Bam, Mantra and DJ Flagrant impressed with a cranking set filled with agile feats of hip hop wordsmithery.

» PHOTOS BY MATT JELONEK

Mantra

Jessie, Estelle

Anna, Tash

Jack, Trey

Glen, Tara

Emma, Matt

Kate, Maddie, Karlos

STATE OF THE ART

The Love Junkies

Dave Hole

MOJO’S

Abbe May Photography By Michael Wylie

Timothy Nelson

Wednesday, June 5, brings a night of sheer musicality and crazy antics hosted by The Whistling Dogs, with Jeff’s Dead and Steve Andrews will support. $10 at the door. Thursday, June 6, Matt Gresham gives it his all at Mojo’ s with Michael Triscari supports. Entry is $20 from 8pm. Friday, catch Earthlink, Future Sounds, Rasta Fyah and Poppa George - $10 from 9pm. Saturday, June, 8 The Love Junkies finally release their debut album, Maybelene, at Mojos, with FOAM, Mudlark and Flowermouth helping them to release it. Tickets are $11 + booking fee from oztix.com.au. $15 on the door. To win two tickets, email mojos@coolperthnights.com with LOVE JUNKIES in the subject line.

INDI BAR

Day Of The Dead

This Thursday, June 6, it’s Bex’s Open Mic Night, and it’s time to give back to everyone that makes it the awesome night it is! Cole Clark have donated one of two acoustic guitars and the good folk at Stolichnaya have thrown bottles of Stoli vodka to give away. Each week a bottle of vodka and a Cole Clark t-shirt is up for grabs with the grand prize drawn each quarter

SWALLOW BAR

Taking their name from the sharply-dressed French jazz fans of the ‘40s, the Zazou, this Perth-based outfit take inspiration from Django Reinhardt and add a touch of their own musical voodoo. The repertoire encompasses both instrumental and vocal numbers, with classic gypsy-jazz tunes and a choice selection of contemporary numbers. Catch Voudon Zazoo this Sunday, June 9, from 5pm.

Bob Evans Perth Concert Hall Precinct Sunday, June 2, 2013 It was a lazy Sunday Afternoon with a new chill in the air. Something felt new as the Concert Hall precinct basked in brilliant sunshine. It could have been the music, but ‘now’ would be a better way to describe the abundant lineup that made up the second State Of The Art music festival. Adding an extra prescience to the Welcome To Country was Fitzroy Xpress, who played a sterling set to a still-building crowd then got immediately into a van to drive to a gig in Port Hedland. That’s Western Australian right there, people! And while you got the feeling that many folks had made their own trek down south or somesuch for the WA Day Long Weekend, numbers at the event slowly grew all day. It’s a big area, in and around the Perth Concert Hall, but even as a few sparse spots appeared according to the flow of foot traffic to various stages, there was always a feeling of agreeability in the air and, for that matter, admiration of the WA acts that were performing. Whether that was the lesson in western blues from Dave Hole and Chain inside the Concert Hall, tribal oddments suffused in the pop rock of Cow Parade Cow, Timothy Nelson and violinist HayleyJane Eyre’s gently humorous and eminently likeable set over at the Riverside Stage (good luck with that WAAPA audition, by the way) or Day Of The Dead

Grace Woodroofe unveiling a new bass player and painting the spaghetti western by way of blue washes of surf music, a short walk between stages provided a near continental drift of styles and genres. Grace Woodroofe played an exquisite set down by the Riverside. Along with a Stratocaster, she mesmerised her audience with older songs such as Transformer, newer material in Eliteless and even a version of Linda Ronstadt’s Ooh Baby Baby, all of it played with heart and old soul. Over at the St George’s II stage Mmhhmm’s electronic grooves were winning over a small legion, notably one snake-hipped young hipster boy into paroxysms - he should hereby declare himself their Fanclub President. The very welcomed Schvendes performed to a reverent few in the large, inner climes of the Concert Hall. It must have been hard to play to that kind of number in that sort of surrounding, but their songs such as Small Mercies, Sweet Graves and Turn Out Your Lights were well suited to its grandeur. The Riverside Stage often saw performers we can now describe as elder statesmen take to the boards away from their well-known bands. Both Bob Evans and Kav Temperley exuded great charm and a real sense of showbiz, shedding light on old tunes and clearly performing in order to entertain the very young and the reasonably old. And yes, there was plenty of both. Meanwhile Usurper Of Modern Medicine were whacking it out of the precinct, not so much

44th Sunset showbusiness as shoutbusiness. It was great to hear that racket soar down the Terrace. 44th Sunset followed, full of exuberance, but perhaps a little too outwardly moody due to the unfortunate sound glitches they battled under. Still, by the time they aired the triple j favoured Caesar, the going was good all ‘round. As Abbe May proved her mastery of both stage and (new) genre in the Concert Hall, The Chemist revelled in the full concert production on the main St George’s stage. It was all going on outdoors at this point, with subsequent sets from the diverse closing triumvirate of The Weapon Is Sound (hot damn!), Sons Of Rico and ever popular warhorses Gyroscope amping up the celebrations nicely. Meanwhile Karnivool were closing the Concert Hall in mighty fashion, leaving it to the Riverside Stage to bring the night to a polar opposite turntablist ending with the work of the one and only Greg Packer. An estimated 5,000 people turned out for State Of The Art, an encouraging number. When you consider though, that up to 40,000 people head to AFL games in Perth each weekend, it’d sure be nice to reach some of those folks too in an event that is basically an all-ages lightning carnival of the best of WA music. See you next year, punters.

YA-YA’S

There’s a fantastic week of live music lined up for you! Kicking off on Friday, June 7 with the highly anticipated launch of Riley Pearce’s debut EP We Are Fools, it’s bound to be a great night with a real party atmosphere! Tracksuit take to the stage on Saturday to celebrate the launch of their new single Shining Star. To top off this trifecta: Wil Wagner, frontman of the Smith St Band, is playing a solo show from 6pm on Sunday!

MULLALOO BEACH HOTEL

After a packed out Sunday Sesh last weekend, The MBH ain’t ready to cool down. In fact, this venue is raging War On Winter. Head down this Friday night for the fortnightly Flaunt Party for your chance to enjoy some great summer drink specials, and win some fantastic summer prizes. Enjoy the mad tunes from DJ Kenny L, and don’t forget to fyour Uni card for your free drink.

_ BOB GORDON

Flower Drums

THE BIRD

Rachael Dease, Schvendes 32

Gyroscope

Karnivool

This Friday, June 7, catch Flower Drums, Mt Mountain and Braves - three relatively new bands on the block do their thing! $5 entry from 8pm. On Saturday, June 8, Usurper of Modern Medicine are returning to Perth with new songs and new band members, plus support from Rokwell and Groom, Doctopus and Jo Lettenmaier. $10 entry from 8pm. On Sunday, June 9, Lucidity Presents Our House, a dance special featuring $TARKS, Courtney Cox and Mike Midnight. Entry is free from 6pm. Then on Tuesday, June 11, it’s a night of solo performances with The Tawny Rajah (Dylan Szymkow - Thee Gold Blooms), Clinton Oliver (Gunns) and introducing Jase Shaw (Thee Gold Blooms). Entry is free from 8pm. X-Press – First on the street, Wednesdays

The Volcanics

THE VOLCANICS

Local old school rock and roll demons The Volcanics set their new single, Get A Move On, loose at The Rosemount Hotel this Friday, June 7, with support from The Shakeys, The Wishers, Loose Lips and The New Invincibles. We caught up with singer John Phatouros.

What’s your writing process like? Not always, but generally we write together, all together. We bring ideas to the studio and most of them we lay on the table and work on the ones we like the most. It’s cool; everyone does that together, there’s a certain fulfilment and peace in your soul when you have been involved in the song’s composition. How did recording go? Recording was a lot of fun. We had a great time and are looking forward to putting it out around September or October. We recorded it here in Perth at Yoyo Studio with Kenny Watt, then in Sydney at Albert’s. Wayne Connolly mixed it. We had Rob Younger come over and produce it. It was great to work with Rob, Kenny and Wayne.

How did you guys get started? We had a common interest in Australian rock and some of What does the future hold? The immediate future for the band is about getting this single its history. Actually we liked it a lot, so we just started jamming and - and album soon - out there as much as we can. Citadel are gonna put writing and playing and haven’t looked back since. it out for us, so hopefully that may help it along a little. We’ll play shows over east promoting it and hopefully after that arrange some dates in How would you describe your sound? Our sound is totally Australian. We don’t sound like an Europe and Japan. We’re writing songs now that we want to record, so American or British or European or anywhere else band. I’m sure after that we’ll be wanting to start on the next album.

THE SONG, NOT THE SINGER

Entries for the WAM Song Of the Year are now open. One of the most prestigious prizes available to Western Australian musical talent, each year the contest awards over $30 000 worth of prizes across 16 categories. Last year saw Rainy Day Women take the top slot for Sleigh Bed, while such local legends as Dilip ‘n’ the Davs, Sheryn Brinks, The Sixth Extinction also scored plaudits. This year it could be... well, you? Entries close on July 22. Head to wam.asn.au for more details.

Bury the Heard

BURIED TREASURE

Prog rock proponents Bury The Heard headline at the Rosemount Hotel this Thursday, June 6, with able assistance from Tashi, September Sun and Legacy of Supremacy. Doors open at 8pm, entry is $8.

FOOL FOR LOVE

Puck

Riley Pearce launches his new EP, We Are Fools, this Friday, June 7, at Ya-Ya’s. Also along are Edie Green and Helen Shanahan. Doors open at 7:30pm, entry is $10 plus booking fee from moshtix.com.au

I DON’T GIVE A...

SHINE ON YOU CRAZY DIAMOND

Puck play The Rosemount Hotel’s 459 bar this Thursday, June 6, with support from Back Birds and Turin Robinson. Doors open at 8pm, entry is $5.

Tracksuit Trigger Jackets

ITCHY TRIGGER FINGERS

Trigger Jackets bring the rock to The Mustang Bar this Thursday, June 6, riding the wave of enthusiasm for their recently released album, Skinny. Joining them will be Dead Glorious and Adam Livingston of Emperors doing a solo show. Entry is free.

Tell the Shaman

SHAKE IT UP

Riley Pearce

Tracksuit are popping the top on a giant can of party at YaYa’s this Saturday, June 8, to celebrate the release of their new single, Shining Star. Catch them alongside The Morning Night, Sun Orchestra and Helen Shanahan from 8pm. Tickets are $10 on the door and include a free download of the single.

EMERGING TALENT

The City of Nedlands Youth Advisory Council are seeking young musos to participate in a project under the aegis of the Emerge: Youth Art Awards. They’re chasing “laid back, acoustic bands” to perform at an art exhibition, and application forms are available from nedlands. wa.gov.au. It’s a paid gig, and entries close on Friday, June 14.

06/06/2013 Tracksuit Shining Star Single Launch @ Ya-Ya’s 07/06/2013 Riley Pearce We Are Fools EP Launch @ Ya-Ya’s 07/06/2013 The Volcanics Get A Move On Single Launch @ The Rosemount 08/06/2013 The Love Junkies Maybelene LP Launch @ Mojo’s 15/06/2013 The Decline Showertime in the Slammer Music Video Launch @ The Rosemount 21/06/2013 Violet Scene Loaded EP Launch @ Ya Ya’s 27/06/2013 Flash Nat And The Action Men If This Is Love EP Launch @ the Elephant and Wheelbarrow 28/06/2013 The Devil Rides Out Ugly Creatures EP Launch @ Amplifier 29/06/2013 White Oak and Stuyvesant EP Launch @ The Rosemount

The best up and coming bands that the Central Music Institute of Technology has to offer will strut their stuff at The Rosemount Hotel on Wednesday, June 12. Get down to the new sounds by Black Stone From The Sun, Tell The Shaman, Found Trinity, Impending Lights, Digital Uproar, Mentok Commandz U, Castellan, Cate N’ Ollie and Greyscale. Doors open at 8pm, entry is $8. www.xpressmag.com.au

X-Press â&#x20AC;&#x201C; First on the street, Wednesdays

The Beards, June 7

The Red Paintings, June 28

LIL B 16 The Bakery NORTHLANE THE BLACK ANGELS 6 Amplifier 17 Capitol KORA HAPPY 19 Capitol MONDAYS ANDREW CANCELLED STOCKDALE KATE MILLER- 20 The Bakery 21 Fly By Night HEIDKE 5 St Joseph’s Church 22 Prince Of Wales GOLD FIELDS 6 Mandurah 21 Metro Freo Performing Arts 22 Amplifier Centre MUNICIPAL 7 Albany WASTE Entertainment 21 Rosemount Centre Hotel 8 Margaret River THE Cultural Centre SUPERJESUS 21 Amplifier P-MONEY/ 22 Amplifier DAVID UNKNOWN DALLAS MORTAL 6 Villa ORCHESTRA SOMETHING 23 Rosemount Hotel FOR KATE PINK 7 The Astor 25,26 & 28 Perth THE BEARDS Arena BEN OTTEWELL 7 Amplifier (GOMEZ) 8 Prince Of Wales 26 Mojos BILL ODDIE D AT SEA 27 Astor Theatre 7 C5 Freo ALLDAY 8 Amplifier 27 Newport Hotel 9 YMCA HQ 29 Amplifier THE RED KILLING JOKE PAINTINGS 9 The Rosemount 28 Rosemount Hotel ASH COOLIO GRUNWALD 29 Metro City 9 The Bakery A$AP Rocky 30 Metro City

THIS WEEK

LA DISPUTE 6 Amplifier 7 YMCA HQ ESKIMO JOE 9-10 Moore And Moore,Fremantle FEAR FACTORY 11 Metro City BALL PARK MUSIC/EAGLE & THE WORM 12 Metro Freo ENGLEBERT HUMPERDINCK 13 Crown Theatre YOU AM I 13 Astor Theatre (sold-out) 14 Astor Theatre JONNY CRAIG 17 Amplifier A DAY TO REMEMBER/THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA/ DREAM ON DREAMER 18 Metro City SAINT VITUS/ MONARCH 21 The Rosemount STEREOPHONICS 23 Metro City JAMES BLAKE 26 The Astor ALT-J 27 Challenge Stadium BLEEDING THROUGH 28 Amplifier BABYSHAMBLES 31 Metro City

GEORGE BENSON 21 Riverside Theatre ANDREW STRONG:THE COMMITMENTS 22 Metro Freo THE SMITH STREET BAND 22 Rosemount Hotel 23 Prince Of Wales, Bunbury BERNARD FANNING 25 Astor Theatre JAPANDROIDS 26 The Rosemount THE WHITLAMS/ WASO 30 Perth Concert Hall

SEPTEMBER

MANHATTAN TRANSFER 1 RegalTheatre FAT FREDDY’S DROP 5 AstorTheatre THE CAT EMPIRE 7 Red Hill Auditorium MIDNIGHT JUGGERNAUTS 6 Prince OfWales Bunbury 7 Capitol AMANDA PALMER &THE GRANDTHEFT AUGUST ORCHESTRA 8 AstorTheatre COLD WAR KIDS PARKWAY DRIVE 14 Metropolis 2 Capitol JUNE Fremantle VILLAGERS JULY 15 & 16 Capitol 2 Fly By Night EMMA LOUISE FOALS FIDLAR 13 Prince Of Wales 22 Metro City 3 The Bakery CLAIRY BROWNE 14 Fly By Night RIHANNA & THE BANGIN’ BARDO POND 15 Amplifier 24 Perth Arena 4 The Rosemount RACKETTES THE TEARAWAYS ONE DIRECTION DON MCLEAN 4 ARTBAR 14 459 Bar 15 Prince Of Wales, TOKIMONSTA 19 Perth Concert 28 & 29 Perth Arena 5 The Bakery Hall Bunbury

www.xpressmag.com.au

Pink, June 25 - 28

XAVIER RUDD/ DONAVON FRANKENREITER/ NAHKO & MEDICINE FOR THE PEOPLE 28 3 Oceans Winery,Margaret River 29 Fremantle Arts Centre

OCTOBER SOILWORK 8 The Rosemount RICKY MARTIN 12 Perth Arena AMORPHIS 16 Capitol THE BREEDERS 31 The Astor ENSLAVED 31 The Rosemount

NOVEMBER FLEETWOOD MAC 22 Perth Arena SUPAFEST (T.I/50 Cent/Waka Flocka/Akon/ Ne-Yo/Young Jeezy/Mindless Behaviour/ DJ Unk/Kevin McCall/DJ Nino Brown/ Dizzy Doolan & Phinesse) Date TBC Perth Arena

DECEMBER TAYLOR SWIFT 11 Perth NIB Stadium BON JOVI 12 Perth Arena

Mignight Mules, Wednesday at The Rosemount

WEDNESDAY 05.06 BAR 120 Felix THE BIRD FLY SOUTH Mmhhmm Cambouroghini Leon Osborn Francis Kills BRASS MONKEY Sugar Blue Burlesque CARINE Open Mic Night Chris O’Brien CLAREMONT HOTEL Acoustica CROWN PERTH (LOBBY LOUNGE) Alcatraz Trio GREENWOOD Bernardine ELLINGTON JAZZ CLUB Horizon Art Orchestra Tom O’Halloran Night Cap Sessions GROOVE BAR (CROWN) 5 Shots INDI BAR Belle Harvey Little Bird Tash and James Edie Green HALE ROAD HOTEL Fenton Wilde LUCKY SHAG Howie Morgan MOJOS BAR The Whistling Dogs Jeff Strong Steve Andrews MOON CAFÉ Going Solo Sean O’Neil Mind Canary Rabbit Island MUSTANG BAR Envy NEWPORT Newport Wednesdays & RnB Heaven Angry Buda Tom Drummond DJ Wot Evs PADDO Ella Brothers’ Luncheon

Finders, Friday at The Swan Basement

ROSEMOUNT Midnight Mules Aztech Suns Coronal Sky Andrew Smith Cyclone Tess ROSE O’GRADYS David Fyffe UNIVERSAL Retrofit VILLAGE BAR Village People - Open Mic YAYA’S Fresh Jams The Southwicks Oh White Mare The Stokies

THURSDAY 06.06 BEAT NIGHTCLUB (DOWNSTAIRS) Fantasy Thursdays BELGIAN BEER CAFÉ Jean Proude THE BIRD EGGS PRESS #9 ZINE LAUNCH Eggs Press #9 Zine Launch BRASS MONKEY Rhythm Bound Karaoke BRIGHTON Open Mic Night Rob Walker BROOKLANDS TAVERN Celebrations Karaoke CROWN PERTH GROOVE LOUNGE Dr Bogus DEVILLES PAD Rock’N’Roll Karaoke DUNSBOROUGH TAVERN Open Mic Night ELLINGTON JAZZ CLUB Ben Falle Reunification Night Cap Sessions ELEPHANT AND WHEELBARROW 5 Shots INDI BAR Bex’s Open Mic Night LUCKY SHAG James Wilson MOJOS BAR Matt Gresham Michael Triscari

Belle Harvey

BELLE HARVEY

LITTLE BIRD,TASH AND JAMES EDIE GREEN WEDNESDAY, JUNE 5 INDI BAR

Pending The Silence, Friday at Beat

MOUNT HENRY Neil Henry NEWPORT HOTEL Rubadub Tiki Bar Oopen mMic Nnight Nightlife ROSEMOUNT Legacy of Supremacy September Sun Bury The Heard Tashi ROSIE O’GRADYS (NORTHBRIDGE) Bill Chidgzey ROSIE O’GRADYS (FREMANTLE) Clayton Bolger PRINCE OF WALES Nitro Zeppelin SETTLERS TAVERN Acoustic Open Mic Night Claire Warnock SOVERIGN ARMS David Fyffe THE BAKERY Dans Les Arbres THE BOAT Jen De Ness THE COMO Courtney Murphy THE GATE Greg Carter THE SHED Mystery Men UNIVERSAL Off The Record YA YA’S Feyek The Winter Nights Trash house

FRIDAY 07.06 ALEXANDER BAR Neil Adams BALLY”S BAR Free Radicals BALMORAL Mike Nayar BAR ORIENT The Reggae Club BEAT NIGHTCLUB (UPSTAIRS) Pending The Silence It All Ends Here Let The Evil Go East Drown The Faith BRASS MONKEY Chris Gibbs BROKEN HILL HOTEL Nat Ripepi C5 FREMANTLE Residence CAPITOL The Beards Little Bastard Will Stoker & The Embers CLAREMONT HOTEL Fnkd Up Fridays CURRAMBINE BAR Robo Mosquito ELEPHANT AND WHEEL BARROW Daren Reid & The Soul City Groove

ELLINGTON JAZZ CLUB Hank Marvin - Gypsy Jazz Groove EMPIRE BAR Howie Morgan GREENWOOD Greg Carter THE HIGH ROAD HOTEL Envy THE HIGH WYCOMBE HOTEL Dr Bogus HYDE PARK HOTEL Acoustic in the Courtyard Ricky Green INDI BAR Vdelli LEGENDS BAR Damien Cripps Duo METRO FREO Frat House Fridays MERIDIAN ROOM (CROWN PERTH) Local Heroes MOJOS BAR Earthlink Future Sounds Rasta Fyah Poppa George NEWPORT HOTEL Pump Karaoke DJs: Sardi & Evan PADDO Easy Tigers OSBOURNE PARK HOTEL Plastic Max PARAMOUNT NIGHTCLUB Flyte PINK DUCK LOUNGE Glen Davies PLAYERS BAR Three Corner Jack ROSEMOUNT The Volcanics Single Launch The Shakeys The Wishers Loose Lips The New Invincibles ROSIE O’GRADY’S NORTHBRIDGE Billy & The Broken Lines SAIL AND ANCHOR Howie Morgan Duo SAIL AND ANCHOR (UPSTAIRS) NightShift THE SAINT Jonathon Dempsey THE SHED Fun House 7TH AVENUE BAR & BISTRO Midnight Rambler SWAN BASEMENT Finders The Skin We Live In Defy The Leader Let The Evil Go East To The Depths SWAN LOUNGE Salv The Midnight Collective Lizzie Lambie Heath Marshall

X-Press – First on the street, Wednesdays

Deadline Monday 5pm. The Gig-Guide is a service to advertisers listing all LIVE MUSIC. All inclusions are at the discretion of X-Press. Email guide@xpressmag.com.au

Kids With Wolves, Saturday at The Swan Basement THE BAILEY BAR AND BISTRO Hi-NRG THE BAKERY Tensnake Sepalcure , Sepalcure & Jimmy Edgar THE BOAT The Organ Grinders THE BIRD Flower Drums Mt Mountain Braves UNIVERSAL Nightmoves THE SHED Fun House, DJ Glenn 20 VICTORIA PARK HOTEL Jonathan Dempsey WOODVALE TAVERN Slim Jim & The Phatts YA YA’S Riley Pearce Edie Green Helen Shanahan

SATURDAY 08.06 AMPLIFIER D at Sea Chasing Ghosts Millie Tizzard BAILEY BAR Gary Fowlie BAKERY Thundercat BALMORAL Retrofit BEAT NIGHTCLUB (UPSTAIRS) CANVAS BEAT NIGHTCLUB (DOWNSTAIRS) Severtone Pending The Silence BELGIAN BEER CAFÉ Mike Nayar BOAB TAVERN James Wilson CIVIC HOTEL BACKROOM Breaking Orbit Opia Further Earth ELEPHANT AND WHEELBARROW Timeout ELLINGTON JAZZ CLUB Hank Marvin - Gypsy Jazz LNG Presents Ben Falle HOTEL ROTTNEST Adrian Wilson INDIAN OCEAN BREW CO Shawne & Luc FLYING SCOTSMAN Under The Influence Andrei Maz GOSNELLS HOTEL Astrobat GREENWOOD Pretty Fly GROOVE BAR (CROWN) Switch

www.xpressmag.com.au

Friday Friday Travis Caudle Timothy Nelson, Sunday at Travis Caudle FlyNewport ByNight Night The Fly By

INDI BAR Matt Gresham LAKERS TAVERN Celebrations Karaoke LEISURE INN Slippery When Wet MOJOS BAR The Love Junkies Album Launch Foam Mudlark Flowermouth NEWPORT HOTEL Kizzy Gravity Karaoke with Steve Parkin DJs : Tahli Jade & Tom Drummony PADDO Cheeky Monkeys PARAMOUNT Felix THE SHED Huge RAILWAY HOTEL Tall Poppy Syndrome AbandonEarth The Skinny Kids The Moonwhores ROCKET ROOM Kickstart ROSEMOUNT Kobra Kai (NSW) Gorilla Tactics Freqshow DJ Defyre ROSIE O’GRADY’S FREMANTLE Flavor SWAN BASEMENT Corpseflesh Bloodklot Chainsaw Abortion Nails Of Imposition SWAN LOUNGE Bianca Leigh Darren Guthrie Siragusa Blues The Jackdaws Kids With Wolves THE BIRD Usurper Of MordernModern Medicine Rokwell and Groom Doctopus DJ Jo Lettenmaier THE SHED Huge UNIVERSAL Soul Corporation XWRAY CAFE Jennifer Hardy and the First Fleet Brendan Gaspari YAYA’S Tracksuih The Morning Night Sun Orchestra Helen Shannhan YMCA HQ (AFTERNOON) Gone By Morning Nameless Fear Align Divided Opine The Skin We Live In (EVENING)

Fear of Comedy, Sunday at The Rosemount

Dawn Of The Leviathan Let The Evil Go East Illuminator Exanimis Mr Chance Defy The Leader

SUNDAY 09.06 BALMORAL Andrew Winton BROKEN HILL HOTEL Adrian Wilson THE COMO Astrobat ELEPHANT AND WHEELBARROW Daren Reid & The Soul City Groove ELLINGTON JAZZ CLUB Gavin Kerr Quartet featuringtg Mel Crothers FLY BY NIGHT Stage Fright Open Mic Night INDI BARsSecret Show KALAMUNDA HOTELnSue Johnston NEWPORT HOTEL Tim Nelson BORC 19th Key Ascending Fall Locomojo Olly Swords Misty Mountain Black Stone from the Sun SpaceManAntics SilverHills Lucidity DJ Tom Drummond3 PADDO Matt Cal Trio PORT KENNEDY TAVERN Scott Nelson QUARIE BAR & BISTRO Better Days ROSEMOUNT Killing Joke (USA) Fear Of Comedy SWALLOW BAR Voudou Zazou THE BAKERY Ash Grunwald THE GATE Greg Carter

SOVEREIGN ARMS Craig Ballantyne THE SHED The Healys Blue Hornet UNIVERSAL Retriofit YA YA’S Will Wagner YMCA HQ D At Sea Chasing Ghosts Millie Tizzard

MONDAY 10.06 BRASS MONKEY WireBirds ELLINGTON JAZZ CLUB Trinity College Jazs MOJO’S BAR Open Mic Night YA YA’S Big Tommo’s Open Mic Night

TUESDAY 11.06 BRASS MONKEY Open Mic Night CRAIGIE TAVERN Open Mic Night ELLINGTON JAZZ CLUB Steve Barrs LOBBY LOUNGE (CROWN) Ruby’s Groove KALAMUNDA HOTEL Open Mic MERRIWA TAVERN Celebrations Karaoke MOJOS BAR The Big Splash Heat MUSTANG BAR Danza Loca Salsa Night PERTH BLUES CLUB Diamond Dave and the Doodaddies ROSEMOUNT Quiz Meisters Trivia Night THE BIRD The Tawny Rajah Clint (Gunns) Wails YA YA’S Battle Of The Planets One Armed Scissor Freqshow Nevsky Prospekt

Midnight Collective

THE MIDNIGHT COLLECTIVE SALV, LIZZIE LAMBIE HEATH MARSHALL FRIDAY, JUNE 7 SWAN LOUNGE

MUSIC GEAR & TECHNOLOGY FOR HIRE 24 CHANNEL PA FOR HIRE 4K Double three way. Foldback. Contact Justin to discuss your project. Excellent rates 0433 675 658 MUSOS WANTED AA! - DIAMOND EYE SEEKS DRUMMER!! an exciting opportunity to join our estab original, hardrock/metal band, with infl from Kiss, Zepplin to Metallica, Pantera. Ready to launch new album recorded in LA with Grammy winning Producer. If you have talent, flash and balls, pro attitude and drive we want to hear from you!!! Greg 0412 807 796 DRUMMER WANTED FOR COVER BAND Dedicated and exp. Technically sound. Allrounder with strong funk infl. Alanis, Pink, Adele and similar. drummerauditions@ hotmail.com E X P E R I E N C E D B A S S P L AY E R S e e k s established work ing cover band. Also willing to do fill ins. Contact 0413 779 964 or lfilgoni@hotmail.com OPEN MIC NIGHT every Thursday night at Indi Bar. Just call Bex on 0404 917 632. OPEN MIC NIGHT @ THE CRAIGIE TAVERN Tuesdays from 8pm. Solos, Duos, Trios, Originals and Covers. Contact Paula or Ceelay 0420375670 or openmiccraigie@hotmail. com PUNK ROCK DRUMMER WANTED Must be serious and innovative. Infl: Foo Fighters, The Offspring and Rise Against.. Call Zen 0433 056 548 RHYTHM GUITARIST, BASS, DRUMMER & SINGER WANTED For cover/original rock band. In Perth area. Must have own gear and transport. Contact Nate 0413 901 893 THE CROOKED CATS Seeking bass player and keys. Gigs waiting. Contact via Facebook or call 0448 436 491 or 0438 604 529. VOCALIST WANTED Male Preferred for Funk/ Soul/R&B cover band. Contact 0423 429 363 PHOTOGRAPHY PROJECT PHOTOGRAPHY Promo photography, studio, live, location. Mike Wylie 0417 975 964 www.projectphotography.com When its time to ice the cake... PRODUCTION SERVICES * L I G H T I N G * A U D I O * S TA G I N G * w w w. n i g h t s t a r l i g h t i n g a u d i o . c o m . a u w w w. n i g h t s t a r l i g h t i n g a u d i o . c o m . a u www.instandt.com.au www.instandt.com.au 9381 2363/ 9444 6651 CD & DVD MANUFACTURE Check out our latest CD & DVD specials online at www. procopy.com.au 9375 3902 M AT R I X P R O D U C T I O N S AU S T R A L I A Lighting, staging, sound systems, smoke machines, night club FX, intelligent lighting, strobes & mirror balls, crowd barriers, video projectors. 9371 1551 MUSIC VIDEOS Professional video production company with years of experience. Recent videos for Kill Teen Angst, Project Mayhem and more. We have storylines ready to shoot or bring us your own. Special $1699 (save almost $1500). One time offer - first artist to book only. www.ZuluMedia.com.au for details

Edited by T R AV I S J O H N S O N

RECORDING STUDIOS ALAN DAWSON’s WITZEND RECORDING STUDIO Prof quality albums or demos, large live room, experienced engineer, analog to digital transfers, mastering..Alan 0407 989 128 or Jeremy 0430638178 www.witzendstudios.com ANDY’S STUDIO International multi award winning songwriter / producer. No band required. Broadcast quality. A songwriter’s paradise. Ph 9364 3178 AVALON STUDIOS BIBRA LAKE One of Perths best equipped studio. Record to analog tape or digital, Avalon pre amps,Neumann mics,the latest and best universal audio, plug in’s for digital recordings. All styles of music, $55 per hour call Tony 0411 118 304 email avalonstudios@bigpond.com BANDS! - UNLOCK YOUR SONGS’ POTENTIAL +FREE APPRAISALS. UK Producer, 40,000+ hours studio experience. 20 yrs in London with bands and songwriters.Kicking arrangements,great studio and the ability to really listen will give your material the edge you need. Call Jerry on 0405 653 338 or visit www.jerichomusic.com.au GOLDDUST Production Mixing, recording and composition. Leederville $70 p/h. 0408 097 407 POONS HEAD MASTERING Analog mastering at its best. Clients include Mink Mussel Creek, Jeff Martin, The Panics, Pond + The Floors. World class facility. World class results.www.poonshead.com 9339 47 91 RECORDING MIXING MASTERING PRODUCING Fremantle location.Call Pete Kitchen Cooked Records. Ph 0407 363 764 / 9336 3764 REVOLVER SOUND STUDIO Ph 9272 7505. www. revolverstudio.com.au SATELLITE RECORDING STUDIO www. s a t e l l i t e r e c o r d i n g. c o m 0 4 1 9 9 0 8 7 6 6 ProTools..17 Years exp TONE CITY RECORDING STUDIO Professional recording & mixing. Clients include Abbe May, Pond, Felicity Groom & The Silentís. Ph: 0409 297 362. REHEARSAL STUDIOS AAA VHS REHEARSAL ROOMS Great facilities,great vibe & great price!!! Unit 5 /16 Peel Road, O’Connor. Phone 9418 5815 or 0413 732 885 BIGBEAT SOUND STUDIO Clean rooms, all new PA systems, air-con and good parking . Willetton Ph: 0425 698 117. PLATINUM SOUND ROOMS Professional rehearsal rooms,airconditioned,quality PAs mob 0418 944 722 V I S I O N R E H E A R S A L Pe r t h’s p r e m i e r rehearsal facilities. Visit www.visionstudios. com.au for all info. East Vic Park. Email rehearsal@visionstudios.com.au or call 0432 034 122 TUITION ***GUITAR LESSONS*** Perth’s ultimate guitar studio. Beg-adv, all styles and levels including bass. Cliff Lynton Guitar Institute. Mt Lawley 9342 3484 / www.clifflynton.com BASS LESSONS Rock, funk & jazz. Tony Gibbs 9470 6131 GUITAR & KEYBOARD TUITION (BeginnersProfessional) One on One lessons. Free guitar trial lesson. Burswood Ph 6460 6921/ 0415 238 729 www.gvkschoolofmusic.com.au To advertise in Classified call 9213 2888 or email musicservices@xpressmag.com.au

Send your Volume News to musicservices@xpressmag.com.au

HEAL THE WORLD

Kimbra

BANDS FROM THE BUSH

The Triple J Unearthed National Indigenous Music Awards competition is on again! For the second time, the radio station known for finding the country’s best unsigned acts is on the search again for the new sound in Indigenous music. Since taking out the inaugural award in 2012, beguiling songstress Thelma Plum has inked a record deal with Footstomp Records, released a debut EP titled Rosie, scored a performance slots at this year’s Byron Bluesfest and is now on a national tour supporting Emma Louise, so there’s no doubting this is one serious potential career starter. Unsigned indigenous acts can upload their tracks for judging via triplejunearthed.com. The winning band will be announced on July 11.

Fancy using your music to change someone’s life for the better? What if we told you there was potentially $50,000 in it for you too? In a nutshell, that’s what the Vanda & Young Songwriting Competition is all about. This u n i q u e c h a r i t y f u n d ra i s i n g songwriting competition is the largest of its kind in the world. It supports songwriters with fantastic prizes and uses the power of music to help people with developmental disorders such as Autism Spectrum Disorder, Rett Syndrome and Angelman Syndrome and disabilities such as Cerebral Palsy, Down Syndrome, Dyspraxia and Spina Bifida. All you have to do is submit your song and a $50 entry fee (all of which goes to charity). This year’s judging panel includes Adalita, Kevin Mitchell, Kav Temperley and many more, and with previous winners of the competition including Kimbra and Megan Washington you know you’re in good company. Entries close on June 21. Hit up vandayoungsongcomp.com for full entry deets.

DISCOVER NEW MUSIC

Looking for some new music recommendations? Spotify has added a new ‘Discover’ feature for its website-based music player, which users can click on to find the latest recommendations Spotify has to offer. The recommendations include new songs, albums and artists based on which artists users follow as well as what their friends are listening to. Spotify is also rolling out ‘Audio Preview’, which lets users click and hold on any of the songs they see on the Discover page to get a short preview of what they’ll hear if they play the entire track. The ‘Discover’ and ‘Audio Preview’ features are launching first on Spotify’s web player but will roll out to the mobile and desktop apps over time. Check it out at spotify.com.

USE THE NUFORCE

It’s all good and well to drop some serious cash on a pair of high quality over ear headphones if you’re going to use them in the studio exclusively. But what if you really want to make your dollar go further and use those same headphones with your smartphone? In the past, it couldn’t be done - even if you did manage to get your headphones to plug into your smartphone jack the quality reaching your ears wouldn’t be much better than the wimpy earbuds your phone came with. Thankfully, the solution is as simple as NuForce’s new Mobile Music Pump, a tiny amp that connects to the headphone output of your MP3 player, iPhone, etc. Finally you can start experiencing the higher level of performance your headphones were always capable of. Tune in nuforce.com.

NuForce Mobile Music Pump

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