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X-Press – First on the street, Wednesdays

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X-Press – First on the street, Wednesdays

NOWHERE LAND

Tenniscoats

The organisers of the deliciously secretive This Is Nowhere festival, to be held next month, have been teasing us with little nuggets of information and artist announcements for months. This week saw another exciting reveal of two new artists; Japanese outfit Tenniscoats and oft-reclusive prog-folk wierdos Holy Sons (the side-project of Grails’ Emil Amos). Both artists have released internationally acclaimed work, and this is a oneof-a-kind, rare opportunity to see them – and the 30+ other national and international artists on the lineup. It’s all a-happening on Sunday, October 14, at UWA’s Somerville Auditorium. Presale tickets are available through all the usual outlets.

DJ Havana Brown

HAVANA IN THE BIG HOUSE

If you haven’t heard of DJ Havana Brown yet then you’ve been living under a rock. The sassy DJ is one of the most successful lasses in the industry, holding down three weekly radio spots and having developed a cult following with her weekly sets featured on Radio FG France and Crave compilations.

She’s supported Lady Gaga, The Pussycat Dolls and Rihanna on tour and has played VIP parties and concerts including the official Grammys After Party in LA. Now, Brown is back in town on Saturday, September 29, for a full live at Metro Freo, to kick off the venue’s 20th anniversary celebrations. Head to Oztix and Moshtix for tickets now.

CUBAN CLUB IS COMING

Perth’s premier New Year’s Day event Cuban Club will return for its seventh instalment and for 2013, it’s all about the garden party. Think cucumber sandwiches, rolling lawns, sipping Pimms, indulging in cupcakes and celebrating in the sunshine, all down by the Swan River.

It’s all happening on Tuesday, January 1, at The Flying Squadron Yacht Club in Nedlands. Tickets go on sale from 9am on Thursday, October 4, and you’ll be able to make your mind up as to whether you’d like to go when the full artist line-up gets released this Sunday, September 23.

What we can tell you though is that your ticket will include Pimms on entry, Corona, Bulmers on tap, freshly shucked oysters, a fresh seafood basket, chicken and beef skewers and more. For more info, head to lloydevents.com and mellenevents.com.

Mark Ronson

SUMMADAYZE IS HERE

The Woohoo Revue

SAUCY SONGS

Sassy brassy ensemble The Woohoo Revue are heading west to dish up some of their crazy, up-tempo, fiddle-filled tunes at the Wave Rock Weekender and for a one-night-only show at Mojo’s. A performance that promises to be a sexy, sweaty hoedown showcasing their romantic rambunctious musical style, The Woohoo Revue always deliver good times and bad hangovers. Joined by Ensemble Formidable, an electro-swing collective who absolutely bring the mayhem on stage, it’s sure to be an unforgettable night.

Catch the action at Mojo’s in Freo on Friday, September 28. Tickets on sale now through Heatseeker, or grab them on the door.

The full lineup is out! Just in case you missed it, lock in Sunday, January 6, at the new venue of Patersons Stadium in Subiaco for Summadayze 2013. It’s a killer line-up with British big-beat pioneers The Chemical Brothers (DJ set), M.I.A, Dutch DJ and producer Fedde Le Grand, English producer Mark Ronson (DJ set), New Zealand pop princess Kimbra, German house duo Booka Shade, trance maestro Eddie Halliwell, AN21 & Max Vangeli, Detroit producer Carl Craig 69 (live), Maya Jane Coles, Disclosure (live), Erol Alkan, UK DJ Fake Blood, Swedish producer Adrian Lux, Breakbot (live), Scottish producer Hudson Mohawke, drum machine extraordinaire Araabmuzik, electro pop duo Icona Pop, Scuba, Aeroplane, Jesse Rose, Danny Daze, Trouble & Bass star AC Slater and more to be announced.

Pre-sale tickets are on sale now and all tickets will be available from tomorrow, Thursday, September 20, through Ticketmaster. Get to it.

WHOPPING CELEBRATIONS

WAAPA are celebrating their 26th birthday with a gala celebration and performance from award-winning percussion ensemble Defying Gravity.

Joining them will be Japanese percussion superstar Kuniko Kato, and artist lauded internationally for her intelligent musical technique, virtuosic ability, and elegant live performances. The showcase will also team up with legendary director Gary France and Papuan New Guinea drumming master Iain Robbie. The Defying Gravity birthday celebration showcase will be held on Thursday, September 20, in WAAPA’s music auditorium. Tickets are on sale now from waapa.ecu.edu.au.

Kuniko Kato

Gomez

ASK AND YE SHALL RECIEVE

8 Reactions/ Comp 11 Flesh 12 Music: Clare Bowditch 14 Music: Beside Lights/ Crossfaith 15 Music: Chiddy Bang/ Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros

Perth, you demanded it, and so it shall happen.

When British lads Gomez announced a tour earlier this year that missed out on Perth and Adelaide, y’all were not happy. And, your temper tantie paid off, ‘cause Gomez have just announced two brand spankin’ new shows in our fine city. It’s all happening in only a few weeks time, with a show on Saturday, October 6 at Fly By Night, and Sunday, October 7 at The Rosemount. Tickets are selling like crazy already, so snap them up now through Heatseeker and all the usual outlets.

16 Music: Gyroscope 17 Music: Yeasayer 18 New Noise 21 Eye4 Cover: The Domnicks 22 Eye4 Music: The Domnicks/ News/ Movies: Beasts Of The Southern Wild/ Arbitage 23 Eye4 Movies: Ruby Sparks/ Lifestyle 24 Eye4 Arts List/ Movies: Lore/ Bait 3D 25 Eye4 Art Stories 27 Salt Cover Story: TZU 28 Salt: Cover Story/ Jack Beats/ News/ Black & Blunt 29 Salt: Friction/ Club Scene/ Fritz Kalkbrenner 30 Salt: Club Manual/ Scenery/ Das EFX 33 Scene: What’s On Feature 38 Scene: Live 40 Scene: Pub Blurbs/ Pub Scene 41 Scene: Local 42 Tour Trails 44 Gig Guide 46 Volume Cover: Perth Fashion Festival runs from today, September 19, ‘til Tuesday, September 25 Salt Cover: TZU’s fourth album Millions Of Moments is out this Friday, September 21, through Liberation. They play Bar 120 on Friday, October 5, and Amplifier on Saturday, October 6 www.xpressmag.com.au

Voltaire Twins, Beaufort Street Festival

BEAUFORT STREET BOOM

The Beaufort Street Festival is always a cracker, and looks to be bigger than ever this year, with a massive four stages at the Flying Scotsman, James Squire Bar, on Clarence Street, and on Beaufort above Walcott Street. The awesome musical lineup was announced on Monday, and here’s the rundown: Anton Franc, Arts Martial, Bastian’s Happy Flight, Big Old Bears, Cal Peck & The Tramps, Cow Parade Cow, Deep River Collective, Emperors, Empire, Leure, Lucy Peach, Meg Mac And The Squeeze, Natalie Gillespie, Odette Mercy & Her Soul Atomics, Oz Big Band, Patient Little Sister, Penny King, Pimps of Sound ft. Milly James, Sam Perry, Solomon Pitt, Sonpsilo Circus, Stereoflower, Sun City, The Arsonist, The Brow Horn Orchestra, The Chemist, The Community House Band, The Love Junkies, The Stoops, The Weapon Is Sound, Those Wretched Horses, Voltaire Twins and Will Stoker And The Embers.

The festival will be held on Saturday, November 17, hit up facebook.com/TheBeaufortStreetFestival for more details.

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with Melissa Erpen... 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 & 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 Annabel Maclean: danceeditor@xpressmag.com.au Local Music & Arts Editor Jennifer Peterson-Ward: localmusicarts@xpressmag.com.au Gig & Event Guides Co-ordinator Melissa Erpen - guide@xpressmag.com.au Entertainment Services Co-ordinator / Competitions Melissa Erpen - win@xpressmag.com.au Photography Callum Ponton, Stefan Caramia, Daniel Grant, Sammy Granville, Matt Jelonek, Denis Radacic 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, Travis Johnson, Rezo Kezerashvili,Tara Lloyd, Adam Morris, Andrew Nelson, Chloe Papas, Daniel Parkinson, Tom Varian, Ben Watson, Jessica Willoughby For band gigs and launches - plugyourgig@xpressmag.com.au

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YAY FOR PARTY

Eiffel 65

Dear X-Press,

EIFFEL 65

Congrats on turning 27! Just wanted to say I had a super time at Amplifier on Friday night, Cow Parade Cow were fantastic and I think it was Zeke (the guy who was doing a bunch of scratching?) who also started to get the d-floor pumping. Well done on throwing a grand party for all the local folk and managing to get the footy on the big screen as well, snaps for X-Press!

The ‘90s is continuing its conquest to relive its musical glory days with the announcement of another reunion tour. After S Club, Aqua and the Vengaboys, we knew there was something missing - Eiffel 65! Playing five shows across the country, the euro-dance trio are also joined by ‘90s dance act N-Trance. Enter now for your chance to win a double pass to their show at Metro Freo on Friday, September 28.

Much love, Tika, Maylands

DISGUSTED

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Paul Oakenfold

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PAUL OAKENFOLD

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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

ON THE ROAD

Starring Garrett Hedlund, Kristen Stewart, Sam Riley, Kirsten Dunst, Amy Adams, Steve Buscemi and Viggo Mortensen and directed by Walter Salles, On The Road is based on the seminal beatnik novel by Jack Kerouac, about a young man who sets out to travel the roads and railways of America. We have 10 double passes to the opening night of this film on Friday, September 28, at Luna Leederville, kicking off at 6.30pm. The screening will then be followed by a special panel discussion. Get your entries in now.

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.

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DOWNLOAD THE QR READER APP AND GET WINNING!

I am writing in to say that you should really do something about Chris Brown’s new tattoo.

What the fuck was he thinking? Regardless of whether it’s supposed to represent some sort of Mexican celebration, it’s revolting. People are still supporting Chris Brown and his music, does anyone even give a shit that he’s abused a woman?! And now, he’s a got a tattoo which looks like an abused woman?! Sort ya shit Chris!

Tamryn Macardi Via Email

TRANCE ELEMENTS

This is the second edition of Trance Elements for 2012 and the next element to embrace in the series is, water. Each disc follows its own path, jammed full of goodness but flowing ever so smoothly from the more progressive tip right up to the banging end of the spectrum. Get your entries in quick for your chance to score one of three albums we’ve got up for grabs.

PERTH ROLLER DERBY GRAND FINAL

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WARRANTY AND INDEMNITY

In the build-up to the release of Paul Oakenfold’s Four Seasons album in November, the most successful DJ in the world’s exclusive appearance at Villa will bring his full Four Seasons audio and visual production down under. It has been three long years since Paul Oakenfold last graced our shores. We have one double pass to what is going to be a knockout show at Villa Nightclub on Saturday, October 6.

Get in now for your chance to win tickets.

Hey X-Press,

This is it derby fans, the night of nights – the Roller Derby Grand Final. Your favourite teams will go head to head, will the Sundaes destroy the Mistresses or will the Mistresses wipe the floor with the Sundaes? We have five double passes to the bout up for grabs as well as a deck of exclusive Perth Roller Derby collector playing cards. Enter now to be in the running to win this awesome prize.

Wheatus

WHEATUS

Wheatus’ debut single Teenage Dirtbag cracked the Top 40 BBC Official Sales Chart for a second time in March of 2011 and this year again in April, 10 years after it’s debut at #2 on the same chart. With a new line-up, Wheatus are set to bring the house down at Metro Freo on Thursday, September 20. Get your entries in now for your chance to win a double pass.

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X-Press – First on the street, Wednesdays

KNOCK KNOCK WHO’S THERE?

COO COO CA-CHOO

Everybody ’s favourite cheeky c o m e d i a n R u s s e l l B ra n d i s bringing the lols down under on his I Am A Walrus tour, and will be the debut comedy act for the new Perth Arena. You may know him from such career highlights as his own comedy show, making out with Alec Baldwin, stroking the furry wall and writing about his sex addiction. Tickets are going to sell like overly-warm hotcakes for this one, so get on it fast; presale are happening through Ticketek from now til Thursday, September 20 and general sale tickets are on sale from Tuesday, September 25.

Don’t miss the lauded longhaired larrikin at Perth Arena on Sunday, December 2.

Russell Brand

DO YOU WANT TO DANCE

RUMBLING TO A HALT

Originally set to take place in the Perth State Theatre Underground on Saturday, September 29, the Rumble In The Underground festival has been postponed until mid next year. Ticket holders are advised to get in touch with BOCS to obtain refunds.

Sir Cliff Richard is still reelin’ and a-rockin’, and will be celebrating his 54th year in the biz with a series of Summer Live concerts around Australia. Lauded internationally for over 100 hit singles like Living Doll and Please Don’t Tease, appearing in musicals and showing no signs of letting up on touring, Richard is a legend in his own right. The remarkable Richard will be performing at the Swan Valley Sandalford Estate on Saturday, February 23, with tickets on sale this Friday, September 21 through Ticketek.

RETRO-FUTURISM FLOATING OUR WAY

Tigertown

HEAR THEM ROAR

Sydney six-piece Tigertown have been busy felines this year, recently announcing the release of their new EP, Before The Morning, placating fans with new single Morning Has Finally Come, and now, announcing a national tour promoting all of the above. The band’s new material promises to be just as enticing as last year’s release Lions And Witches, with stunning vocal harmonies, colourful percussion and an undeniable indie charm. The group will play two shows in Perth at Ya Ya’s on Thursday, October 18, and the Norfolk Basement on Friday, October 19, with tickets available on the door.

Local party starters {move}, I.C.S.S.C, Good Company and Rhythm.Repeat & Humm are bringing a super sick dance party to Ambar on Thursday, November 22, from 9pm. Eglo Records collective will be taking over the home of the underground with neuroscientist and analogue wizard Sam Floating Points Shepherd bringing his genre-less productions to the party alongside one of RinseFM’s most celebrated and diverse DJs, Alexander Nut, and the one and only Queen Fatima who will be enlightening d-floor goers with her exquisite voice. Stay tuned for more deets. Yeow, this is a biggie.

Reverse Grip

GET A GRIP

GETTING BRUTAL

Perth death metal dudes Make Them Suffer released their debut record Neverbloom on Roadrunner Records to rave reviews. Now, the lads are set to take it on the road for a national tour, showcasing tunes from the record and their previously released EP Lord Of Woe. Joining the lads will be Oceano who are making their debut trip down under for the tour all the way from Chicago. It’s all happening on Thursday, November 22, at The Academy, at Amplifier. They’ll also play YMCA HQ on Friday, November 23, for an all-ages show. Local band Saviour and Melbourne’s Boris The Blade will also be on support duties. Tickets are available through Moshtix from this Friday, September 21, at 9am WST.

Canadian mad dogs Reverse Grip are bringing their sleazy riffs and dangerous attitudes to kick start their first Australian tour in support of their debut album Hunger For Chaos. Lead singer Dru Broda is already pumped about the forthcoming tour, getting warmed up for the crowds down under in Japan right now. “The shows are fuckin’ wild so far, man,” he says. “The Japanese fans are eating it up - they love rock’n’roll. We’ve been rocking non stop on this tour and can’t wait to get to Australia!.” The lads play the Rocket Room on Friday, October 5. Doors open at 7.30pm and bands start at 7.45pm. The Sure Fire Midnights, Stone Circle and Nymph Honey are on support duties. Check it.

ENCHANTING LULLABIES

Loren Kate

OH, MAMA

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Mama Kin

Jeff The Brotherhood

BROTHERS IN ARMS

VIVA MR VEGAS

The Reggae Club is pretty excited about presenting the Aussie launch party of reggae-dancehall star Mr Vegas’ new record, Sweet Jamaica, which will take place this Friday, September 21, at Bar Orient. There will be a live Skype in by the one and only Mr Vegas and live sets from DJ Ray, DJ Calvin and Rasta Mick as well as The Empressions, Mumma Trees and Sista Che. It’s all happening from 8pm ‘til 1am.

AROUND THE GLOBE WITH SAMPOLOGY

Following the release of his debut record Doomsday Deluxe in June and his highly successful Super Visual Apocalypse tour across the country, AV DJ extraordinaire Sampology is coming back as part of his forthcoming Around The Globe national tour in celebration of the single of the same name. The single features the vocal stylings of reggae and dancehall UK vocal don Serocee. Sampology touches down in town on Friday, October 12, at The Manor, for his Perth leg of the Around The Globe DJ tour. Stay tuned for ticketing deets.

Nashville duo Jeff The Brotherhood are coming to Australia for the Big Day Out festival next year, and have just announced a bunch of sideshows country-wide. The indie rockers, known for their penchant for memorable sing-a-long songs and high impact, high energy live shows, are keen as to be all inclusive in their musical brotherhood. Jeff the Brotherhood will be doing one Perth show at Mojo’s in Freo on Sunday, January 27, with supports still to be announced. Tickets are on sale from this Friday, September 21 onwards through Heatseeker and all the usual outlets.

HAY THERE

Off the back of releasing new album I Love Hate You this Friday, September 21, Sydney-based one man blues explosion Claude Hay is heading our way for a tour including shows at the Velvet Lounge on Friday, September 28, with Morgan Bain and Junior Bowls; Sunday, September 29, at The Fly By Night; and Monday, October 1, at the Perth Concert Hall, where he will support guitar legend Joe Bonamassa. Tickets from the respective venues.

PERTH BLUES CLUB

20 Flight Rock It’s an institution and it’s quite an achievement within. The Perth Blues Club is celebrating it’s 20 birthday with a big party at it’s spiritual home,The Charles Hotel, next Tuesday, September 25.

On board to commemorate and celebrate is the Pugsley Buzzard Band, brining on rapturous doses of piano-based Harlem stride, New Orleans funk, jazz, barrelhouse blues, boogie woogie and modern improvisation.

A host of top local blues players will be along play a song or two, including John Meyer, Lindsay Wells, Chelsea Gibson, Pete Romano, Mark Constable, Dave Hole, Richard Roberts, Matt Taylor, Kat Kinlay, Jason Smith, and Sue Bluck.

They will be joined by a star-studded PBC House Band featuring Bob Patient, Wayne Freer, Dave Brewer and Billy Rogers.

All musicians, members and friends of the Perth Blues Club are invited to celebrate.

Doors open at 7.30pm. For more details head to.perthbluesclub.com.

Jae Laffer

Singer-songwriter Loren Kate has been flying under the radar recently, getting reacquainted with nature in the South Australian bush.

But, she’s ready to emerge, and is doing so with a huge tour of our fine state’s SouthWest. Brimming with energy, soul, and a stunning voice, Loren Kate’s natural talent and accompanying multi-instrumentalist band are sure to leave you spellbound. Kate will be performing eight shows throughout the state, starting with a house concert in Nannup on Wednesday, October 3, then heading to Bridgetown, Bunbury, hitting Freo on Sunday, October 7 at the Kidogo Arthouse, then Maylands, Denmark, Northcliffe, and finishing up at the Nanga Festival on Saturday, October 13 and Sunday, October 14. Full details can be found at facebook.com/lorenkatemusic

Lovely Freo songstress Mama Kin has been working hard on new album The Magician’s Daughter, slated for release early next year.

But, in the meantime, she’s going to give us a little taster with three WA shows featuring new songs, old songs, and promoting brand new single, Was It Worth It. Mama Kin’s vocal prowess is undeniable, and her new tunes promise to experiment with theatrics and lush arrangements. Be some of the first to experience the stunning new sound at the Town Hall in Nannup on Friday, October 19, Clancy’s Pub in Dunsborough on Saturday, October 20, and Mojo’s on Sunday, October 21. All shows will feature support from Lucy Peach, with tickets on the door.

The Knocks. Yep. That was the joke. More importantly, New York duo The Knocks are coming down under for their debut Australian tour. These guys (B-Roc and Jpatt) have toured with the likes of Dragonette, Sleigh Bells, M.I.A, Big Boi and Chromeo and have written and produced for the likes of Katy Perry, Ellie Goulding, Rihanna and more. They’ve even been called the northern hemisphere’s version of Bag Raiders. The lads touch down here on Sunday, December 2, playing a secret location which will be revealed closer to the date. Stay tuned for more deets.

What do you do if your band spends five years growing from acclaimed indie artists into having its name up in lights? Well if you’re Birds Of Tokyo you burn it all down and you start all over again.

It’s therefore apt that the group’s first new music in over two years is a four-song EP called This Fire.

The EP provides an early taste of the new Birds Of Tokyo full-length album which is currently nearing completion and is scheduled for release in March 2013. This Fire will be released as a download, CD and limited edition 10” vinyl on Friday, October 5.

In December last year blues/rock juggernaut The Growl locked themselves and a stack of old recording gear into a derelict and deserted loft above the streets of Perth city. With the roof literally coming down around them they set about recording their debut album. Eight months later the first single is ready to be released.

Confusingly titled Cleaver Lever, the same name as their debut EP, the track embodies the evolution of The Growl’s sound. Although an official release date for their LP hasn’t yet been announced, the boys are inviting local music lovers to help them launch Cleaver Lever at Villa on Friday, October 19.

Locals Felicity Groom, Maurice Flavel and Band will all be there in support.

Pugsley Buzzard, Perth Blues Club 20th A big congrats goes out to indie pop wunderkids San Cisco who’ve inked an international record deal with Fat Possum and RCA Records. The Fremantle based group are the very first Australian band to sign to Fat Possum Records, joining the esteemed roster of The Black Keys, Youth Lagoon, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Friends and heaps more rad outfits. If that weren’t exciting enough, the debut album from the four-piece is also slated for release in Australia on November 23. Fans won’t be kept waiting long with the first taste of the record to hit radio waves in early October.

Much-loved local singer/songwriter Jae Laffer, of The Panics fame, is looking to record a brand new solo album – awesome, right? But, he needs your help. Dollars unfortunately don’t grow on trees (though we really wish they did) and making a record costs money. See where we’re going with this? Laffer has set up a Pozible campaign, and is calling for fans and music-lovers to support him financially. Here’s the way it works: you donate as much or as little as you can, Laffer makes a sexy new album, and we all win. Speaking of winning – every donation will get you a little somethin’ somethin’ – depending on the amount you’re able to contribute, you could get anything from a signed record, to your name in the liner notes, to a pre-show hangout with Laffer and the band. Rad! So, dig as deep as you can or forego a few coffees this week and throw some dollars at this great project. Simply head to pozible. com and search ‘Jae Laffer.’

Homegrown indie rockers Beside Lights are going to get you beside yourselves with excitement this weekend with a massive show at C5. Supported by rad dudes Stillwater Giants and featuring a rare solo performance from Perth songstress Shameem, this is a local lineup that cannot be missed. It’s happening this Friday, September 21 at C5 in Fremantle, with tickets through Ticketmaster, Oztix or on the door if there’s any left.

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CLARE BOWDITCH Happy Days

Clare Bowditch has just released her new album, The Winter I Chose Happiness.

She performs at the Astor Theatre on Saturday, October 20.

People are generally too busy these days to contemplate happiness.

It seems most of us feel that we are, or that we are not, and move along. For her new album, however, Australian songstress, Clare Bowditch, decided if it is indeed possible to choose to be happy. Across 11 songs, the notion of happiness is contemplated in words and evoked by music and is, despite, being about a seemingly singular subject, a fascinating examination.

The erudite Bowditch has a rare talent for discussing her artistic works within the context of the wider world and has been a popular guest on the ABC’s Q&A as well as many music industry panels across Australia. While creating this new album, she has also inaugurated Big Hearted Business, a mentor programme and featured in the drama series, Offspring.

As ever, it seems there’s plenty to do and plenty to be happy about.

No! I think we can operate on adrenalin for a really, really long time. I’m talking years and year and years, pushing ourselves towards a goal that we think means something. And then each of us in our life, whatever age, whatever stage, we hit some personal challenge that makes us rethink what matters to us and whether or not we fit into the equation at all.

So in the case of the boss... I’ve worked in corporate environments when I was in university and I always had the knowledge that I didn’t belong there. I was too soft for it. I couldn’t hit the quotas that were at the expense of relationships. My theory is that we work harder and we work stronger when we are unified by a common goal that actually means something. The goal of just making money for the boss was never of interest to me. I think the real human being, at some stage, always peeks through. And that’s when you get these dramas called midlife crises or nervous breakdowns or acute depression, grief,

By BOB GORDON or any of those walls we hit. Or for some people it’s just being stuck in poverty, just not being able How does it feel to have this LP out? They always to make their living.

Really, my theory after all these years is seem to arrive three or four months after the that it brings us to a place of vulnerability and it’s date initially intended...

I know! And there’s the two years in vulnerability that we come to know the truth beforehand when you’ve been writing it. For me of ourselves and we come to create good art. Art there’s always like a year of ruminating and songs that matters.

Fuck, that was quite a spiel! I just went popping up, then a year of editing and recording and working out what makes sense and how to tell on there. Sorry! the story well. It’s almost like by the time I get to you, nowadays, I almost feel really relaxed because I’ll never fit that on the fridge...

No, Jesus (laughs). it’s done and it is what bit is and I’m so happy with it. That’s about all I can do, not it’s everyone else’s baby.

I’ll use the word ‘odyssey’ because we hear the word ‘journey’ too much these days...

We sure do, don’t we? That’s fine.

Well it’s appropriate that you’re happy with it...

Isn’t it!

In your odyssey, as you pursued happiness, You wrote a very heartfelt letter to go along you had a bad back injury. I believe you had to with the album. I showed it to my girlfriend and lay down to record your vocals?

Yeah, I had a chronic back injury. I had it made her cry.

Oh my gosh! My heart just leapt. How my first experience of true, inescapable, ongoing beautiful! Was it my story that started off with my pain. I’m a woman who happily gave birth to my twins with not a Panadol. I don’t normally trip to the doctor? respond this way to pain, but with this back injury Yes, there’s some universal truths in there. If it was like, ‘give me the fucking endones’. Anything there was an ‘80s-style t-shirt for this album (laughs).

That was a really new and humbling it would say ‘Choose Happiness’ or, simply, experience. There was two weeks where I was ‘Choose Yes’.

(Laughs) Yes it would be something like really stuck in la-la land and another three months that; it definitely has that energy. You know, there’s recovering. this lady named Stephanie Dowrik, she’s an author.

She used to do a column for Good Weekend when In the midst of a pursuit of ‘happiness’?

That’s right and that’s the grand irony.

I was a teenager. She wrote a book in 2005 called Choosing Happiness; I remember seeing that title in That’s what I love about being an artist, that a a bookshop and feeling quite affronted. Stephanie theme comes to you and you live it, but it’s never always struck me as someone with incredible what it looks like. It’s like every grand adventure. integrity, so it wasn’t your usual self-help pap, Every trip to Europe. Every major relationship; really. I didn’t think it was very realistic to think they’re never what you think they’re gonna look that you could choose happiness at that stage but like in the end. They always have all these masks I got the book anyway because I was curious, like on them. And for me part of the mask was me wanting to write myself off, think, ‘can I really everyone else.

It really started for me, back then, a finish this album? What have I got to say that’s discussion in my head about the possibility of worth anything?’ Marty and my friends were choosing happiness, but it wasn’t until the last cooking meals for me all these months, with me couple of years, when I was really confronted running my little empire from my bed, realising with the question. When the topic came up I that there’s an answer to everything. Marty was like, ‘come on, give me something tougher [husband] set up a mattress on the ground in the please, universe’. I didn’t know if you could create studio for me, set the mic up and there we were. substantial art around the question of happiness. We got it done.

That’s because I think I was dealing with a world where somewhere in my head there was a You sure hear the word ‘happy’ a lot the album, monochrome description of what happiness but there’s many layers and flavours. The meant. I’ve come to some conclusions from the single, Thin Skin, is quite moody, but it’s simply writing and creation of this album. floating somewhere else within the tide...

That song popped up pretty intact. It’s It’s probably not something you could rush into again about vulnerability, but it’s about choosing for fear of writing something that came across to be who you are. So the 20 per cent of the like those fridge magnet philosophies people population who say they are acutely sensitive, who feel affected by the news in ways that like to post on Facebook.

That’s right (laughs). But you know stops them being able to sleep, this, for me, was there’s something to be said for cliches. They’re something that for a lot of my life I was ashamed usually clichés because they’re true, but when I of. It was something that I wanted to be rid of and look for a one-liner, I look to [Sufi poet] Rumi. I look it felt like this burden. Then I came to a realisation to poets. I look to Leonard Cohen. I look to people somewhere along the line that I’m very fortunate who have a way of talking about the questions to be able to feel that deeply. That still, into my 30s, or these realisations that includes human beings. I’m someone who can feel. It’s about accepting Where it’s not, ‘we must be robots and we must who we are and being brave with it.

That is why in the filmclip we’re in the feel this way’. For me, it was more about aligning myself with beauty, think, ‘okay is it about things middle of editing now, it features a dozen people, that bring joy? Or things that bring misery? Where one at a time, jumping on a trampoline with an extremely slow motion camera and taking off their do I want to stand on that scale?’ clothes. Baring all. I couldn’t think of something It’s probably not something people take time more frightening. I didn’t do it, I refrained. I saved to consider in what we often call this fast- the world from that (laughs). But these people paced world, where everyone’s bosses like to who were so willing and happy and interested in challenging themselves to do that. I talked to say, ‘happy? Irrelevant. Just get on with it!’...

(Laughs) Yeah, what the fuck? Get on one girl during the making. She said, ‘every year I’m going to do something that scares the shit out of with the job! me and this year it was your clip’.

I love that. There’s nothing that makes And there’s no time to stop and smell the roses. me happier.

Do people even use that phrase anymore?

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Clare Bowditch

“When the topic came up I was like, ‘come on, give me something tougher please, universe’. I didn’t know if you could create substantial art around the question of happiness. That’s because I think I was dealing with a world where somewhere in my head there was a monochrome description of what happiness meant. I’ve come to some conclusions from the writing and creation of this album.”

Let’s Get Happy Together and Cocky Lady whistle of dixie and speakeasies. The segments of dixieland treatments of the songs between the tracks seem to tie it all together, as though there’s 11 chapters but it’s one book...

I’m so glad you said that because we spent so much time on the details of how to thread the stories and sounds together. We want our artists to be complex but we live in a world that tells us that we should be the same thing. That in order to have a successful career in today’s world we have to fit a certain mould.

And we never have. We’ve always just written albums that are always speckled with views of the story. The thinking that goes behind this for me is that one of the most miserable times in history was between the world wars. And yet in that space, this music came out. That song, Let’s Get Happy Together, the one cover, is a Louis Armstrong song. For me that was period in time where they accepting they were losing their friends, they don’t know if they had a tomorrow; so let’s get happy together. Let’s go sing and dance and live anyway.

That’s what really inspired me and then I heard The Royal Jelly Dixieland Band, a gang of seven boys in their early 20s who play on the album.

I heard them do a version of Beyonce’s Single Ladies and it blew my mind. I thought, ‘we must have them on the album’. It was a year in the making, working out how we could tie it all in.

You Make Me Happy also featured in Offspring as part of your ongoing role. Was the song initially written for the show or for the album?

When Offspring invited me on the show, they discussed me specially contributing some music to it as well. I wanted to write something new for it because the character Rosanna, although she dresses a bit like me and looks a bit like me (laughs) that we were quite different. She musically has a different feel to me, I think. That’s my vibe anyway.

So I started reading a script and there was a scene

where Nina and Patrick were struggling with their love affair. I sat down at the piano and the song just literally came out complete, there it was. The song was written and I knew it was for Offspring. And it’s really a song about questioning co-dependence, ‘you make me happy’. Can anyone really make us happy, that’s the question I ask as an artist, but the song itself was pretty plain. This is about that stage of a love affair. Because it fit in thematically, we did a version, although slightly different, for the album.

The curious thing is that I’ve been making music since I was 16 and I’ve never had a single that charted like that one charted. And it still makes me laugh, to think that you can still be having firsts, this long into your career.

You toured with Leonard Cohen prior to writing and recording this album. There’s an infinite sadness about him, but a wry humour and charm and the music is all so damn enjoyable. Does he, in some ways, encapsulate your quest?

Well he inspired and continues to inspire me with his work, his personality, who he is, greatly.

People talk of mentors and to watch great masters perform, there’s no greater joy. It’s a gift that he is giving his audience. Early in his career he was criticised for being too morose, but if you actually see him in person, you get an sense of who he is the kindness, the gentleness and the resilience that he has and it’s bloody inspiring. He is someone who has actively searched his whole life for happiness.

He only has to say a few words and they stick with you forever.

There was one morning we were having a chat and I asked, ‘Leonard, do you believe in God?’ And he said, ‘believe in God? I don’t believe in God. I know God’. I asked what he meant and he told me a story of how, at 62, he finally got the peace he had searched his whole life for. If that’s not a fucking example of someone who didn’t give up then I don’t know what is.

X-Press – First on the street, Wednesdays

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13

Beside Lights

BESIDE LIGHTS

Stepping Into The Spotlight Perth’s new pop/rock sensation Beside Lights are making their long awaited return to WA this Friday, September 21, performing at the new C5 bar (upstairs at Metropolis Fremantle). JENNIFER PETERSON-WARD gets the lowdown on the highpoints of an exciting 2012 thus far from bassist Brad Vellacott.

Despite having formed only 18 short months ago, local buzz band Beside Lights are taking the Australian music scene by storm with their quality songwriting and well-crafted pop/rock tunes.

“We have been very lucky to do some of the things we have over the last year or so,” begins bassist Brad Vellacott.

Between per forming at this year ’s Canadian Music Week in Toronto, supporting The Vines at the Astor Theatre, releasing their debut self-recorded, produced and mixed EP, and facing the judges of smash hit reality talent contest, Australia’s Got Talent, you’d be right in assuming the quintet just never stops.

“2012 is going to continue being very busy for us with a variety of different shows coming up,” Vellacott says. “We are very busy writing and demo-ing a bunch of new songs to hopefully build an album. There is no official release date for an album but we have recently tracked two songs at Sumo Sound Studios with producer Fraser Cringle [We Are The Emergency].

We are so happy with how they are sounding and they should be released in the next month or so, we are really excited to show everyone.

“Obviously we will be knuckling down to get an album ready, but we sure hope to organise some tours and decent support slots for the upcoming summer season.”

With over one million hits on YouTube and more than 10,000 fans across Facebook and Twitter, the buzz of excitement surrounding Beside Lights’ every musical move can partly be attributed

to their use of social media to connect with their ever growing fanbase.

“Adrian [ Wilson, Frontman] regularly puts videos up on YouTube singing covers, which is a great way for people to hear songs they love and also direct them to our page where they may find something new to love. Through the use of social media we have gained a surprisingly loyal following from both our home turf as well as international followers,” Vellacott says.

Despite their strong online presence, it is in the live arena that Beside Lights truly shine.

“It has been a while since we played a show in Perth, and we are really excited to be able to headline our own show since the release of our EP,” Vellacott says. “It’s going to be really interesting to see how our fanbase has grown and how the demographic may have changed. But most of all we’re just going to be stoked to play up onstage in front of people who are there to see us.”

Crossfaith

CROSSFAITH Core Values

Japanese metalcore outfit, Crossfaith, are part of the Soundwave lineup at Claremont Showgrounds on Monday, March 4. SHANE PINNEGAR reports.

You may not expect Japan’s premiere metalcore vocalist to cite Green Day as his pivotal influence, but Kenta Koie, lead singer of Crossfaith, does just that when asked at what moment he realised he wanted to become a musician.

“I decided to be a musician in 2004 and the reason is, I went to Summer Sonic Festival [a two-day festival held consecutively in Osaka and Chiba, with the line-ups alternating between the two venues], you know? Which is the biggest music festival in Japan. I watched Green Day and it really changed my life, and then I decided to start it then.”

An unusual influence for a Metalcore star, one would suggest, but Koie is adamant.

“I listened to hardcore, like Slipknot and Underoath and many bands, but usually Green Day!” Crossfaith have taken the metalcore genre and expanded it in progressive directions over the course of two albums and two EPs, including the use of electronics and strings.

“We don’t want to be the same as others, so, yeah. Evolving… we started Crossfaith in 2006 and at first we covered Killswitch Engage and Slipknot. The other band members really love psychedelic trance and dubstep, drum’n’bass, break beats. I mean, this music scene makes many similar bands, you know what I mean? We just don’t want to be the same as everyone else.”

Calling from a friend’s house in Tokyo, Koie insists that Crossfaith’s decision to sing in English rather than Japanese was a conscious decision, and they have been embraced by the fervent Japanese rock and metal scene.

“Many teenagers are fans of metalcore in Japan,” he says. “I have listened to overseas music and I don’t listen to Japanese music as well. I need to improve my English more better because we want to sing all over the world. Our first overseas tour was last year and so when we can speak English, we can speak English not well. Right now it’s a little bit better, but we need to improve our English skill.”

Professing that the band are, “so stoked, really excited to play at Soundwave,” Koie suggests that the band will probably be playing most of their latest EP, Zion, and “also we’re going to play all the old stuff,” on their first tour down under, despite being relatively unknown in this country.

“Maybe we’re first band [to play on the day] for Soundwave and yeah, many Japanese bands want to tour in Australia and my dream will come true.”

First though, there is several months of touring booked through Europe, where they have received a “nice reaction from many overseas people.

So many Japanese bands want to go touring overseas but we’re the first band to tour in long, long time in overseas tours. Maybe since [‘80s metal band] Loudness.”

With a closing question as to the Meaning Of Life for him, Koie doesn’t hesitate.

“Rock music is a… I can’t explain with words. My pleasure, no - rock music is my life. Yes, that’s it. “ 14

X-Press – First on the street, Wednesdays

Edward Sharpe And The Magnetic Zeros

EDWARD SHARPE AND THE MAGNETIC ZEROS Off The Rails

After an exhaustive two year-plus promotional run for 2009 debut Up From Below Los Angeles collective Edward Sharpe And The Magnetic Zeros returned earlier this year with their long-awaited follow up, Here. JENNIFER PETERSON-WARD caught up with accordionist Nora Kirkpatrick ahead of their performances at the Belvoir Amphitheater on Friday, October 12, and Saturday, October 13.

A pack of tribal-painted, feather-bedecked bohemians, Edward Sharpe And The Magnetic Zeros had a big debut with the hit Home, from their 2009 album Up From Below. However, after an exhaustive promotional run for that album, the eclectic ensemble embarked on a tour through the American Southwest with London folk group Mumford & Sons and Nashville bluegrass ensemble Old Crow Medicine Show. Their transport? A 1,500-foot-long vintage streamlined 1948 California Zephyr train.

“It’s probably the most fun thing I’ve ever done in my life. You know, it’s what you dream about as a kid ‘When I grow up I want to play music all day and travel the world on an amazing train’,” says accordionist Nora Kirkpatrick.“But it also came with a lot of responsibility to bring the music to the people. It couldn’t just be this

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purely indulgent thing for us.”

As the members of the three bands mingled, their bonding was recorded for a now-critically lauded documentary, Big Easy Express, which was released on DVD just last month. “We’re so happy with how it turned out. There wasn’t anything in there we didn’t want to be in there. I think it got the overall colour without zooming in on the individual crayons,” Kirkpatrick says.

The bands were also inspired musically as they began work on new albums, with Edward Sharpe And The Magnetic Zeros being the first to release new material in the form of sophomore LP Here released back in June. “I feel like we were on this prolific high from the tour which was reflected in the number of songs we came up with,” Kirkpatrick says, revealing that the tunes which didn’t make the final cut are currently being re-worked for their next album which may be ready as soon as early 2013. “Here is a very mellow record, all the songs are quite slow. Whereas our next one is going to be really rambunctious. They will go really nicely together as a pair.”

The American trekkers will be teaming up with Mumford And Sons once again for a massive Australian and New Zealand tour this October. “We can’t wait to go on tour with them again! Although we both play different types of music, we both have a love of old folk songs. Beyond our shared musical influences we all just get along so well. We all make each other laugh and we’re all such good friends,” Kirkpatrick says, not discounting the possibility of an official collaboration in the future. “We’d love to work together on something someday but it’s so hard with label stuff and just finding the right time.

Maybe one day.”

Chiddy Bang

CHIDDY BANG

Opposites Attract Fresh Philadelphia rapper/producer combo, Chiddy Bang, are headed to our shores next month on the Parklife line-up, unleashing their new album Breakfast to our yearning ears.

JENNIFER PETERSON-WARD chewed the fat with Chidere ‘MC Chiddy’ Anamege ahead of their performance at Wellington Square on Monday, October 1.

Having made a name for themselves chopping and dicing the likes of MGMT, Sufjan Stevens, Passion Pit and Radiohead, hip-hoppers Chiddy Bang took a big risk in releasing a virtually sample-free official debut.

After a selection of mixtapes and EPs, Chiddy Bang finally released their first full length album, Breakfast, in March this year, and the album’s title has a definite purpose.“We called it Breakfast because it’s our first full album, and we wanted to suggest that there are more musical meals to come - you’ve got lunch, you’ve got dinner, there are so many possibilities,” Chiddy explains. “Our other albums [2009’s Swelly Express, 2010’s Air Swell and 2011’s Peanut Butter And

Swelly] all have the word ‘swell’ in them and we did initially want to incorporate that into the title but we also creatively wanted a new start. But it’s definitely a tradition I want to bring back.”

Breakfast comes two years after the duo’s single Opposite Of Adults, which samples MGMT’s Kids, exploded onto the internet along the way racking up nearly 20 million views on YouTube. Yet the pair decided not to include the smash hit single on the debut full-length release. “We made Opposite Of Adults when we were fresh out of college in 2009, it’s very old to us and we wanted to make a brand new start and really keep it fresh,” Chiddy explains.

“Nothing we’re coming up with now matches that song musically and we didn’t want to throw it on the album just because it did well. We wanted everything on the album to match and to have come from the same period.”

It was this desire to defy expectations which spurred on the duo during the recording process for the album. “Being successful isn’t just about selling millions of records,” Chiddy attests.“You need to look for other ways to express yourself and embrace all avenues.”

One such avenue for the talented twosome is their joyful live shows, which ooze swagger and energy all at once.“The live show is basically Noah on drums and I’m on the mic just giving the people the energy. It’s dope,” Chiddy says.

Punters who rock up to their set at Parklife can also expect to see Chiddy rattle off some freestyle rap, an art he perfected when he set the Guiness World Records title for the Longest Freestyle Rap last year. “It was our manager’s idea. He said it would be good for me. I started rapping at like 11am and finished up at about 9.30pm. It was also a good personal challenge for myself,” he concludes. “I’ve always liked to do a freestyle rap at some point in our live show. I usually ask for topics from people in the crowd and just start with that. It’s a great way to get people pumped.”

15

GYROSCOPE Rock And Recovery

Gyroscope finally hit the stage again at The Benefit Show For Dana, a fundraiser to raise money to help Dana Vulin’s family with medical expenses, legal fees and rehabilitation costs after her assault earlier this year. It happens at the Rosemount Hotel this Saturday, September 22, with support from The Scotch of St. James and Boston & Chevy. BOB GORDON catches up with Dana’s cousin, Gyroscope guitarist, Zoran Trivic, who has a cruel tale of his own.

For some 15 years now, if ever there was a band that kept on runnin’ up that hill, it’s been Perth’s own Gyroscope.

The last 12 months or so, however, have been oddly quiet for a band that has never stopped.

“Yeah it’s has been a little unusual, to be honest,” notes guitarist Zoran Trivic. “A definite lack of live shows, which if I think back to a few years ago we were probably complaining of playing too many shows and not having enough time off.

“We would have had nearly enough time off to write and record Chinese Democracy Part II by now.”

In that time, drummer, Rob Nassif, has been hard at work running the Hen House Rehearsal

16

“Dana has had to work so hard at her recovery over the last six months.

She is improving all the time too, but I think that she and her family know that the road to recovery will a long one.”

Gyroscope Studio, while bassist Brad Campbell is getting an online floristry business off the ground. Vocalist Dan Saunders has been doing some home renovation.

Unfortunately,Trivic hasn’t been so upwardly mobile, emerging from a motorcycle accident in May with two broken legs. It’s all been about recovery.

“I was out for a ride on my motorcycle just

like any other day,” he recalls, “except on this day as I was coming down Beaufort Street, a young guy in his car didn’t see me and pulled out on me. I ate the bitumen and the side of his car pretty hard, but luckily my legs and my leather jacket took most of the impact.

I broke both my legs - my left leg in, like, four places, and ended up having a knee reconstruction on my right.

My bike died at the scene, but luckily my leather jacket survived.

“In all seriousness, I know how serious motorcycle crashes can be, and I consider myself very lucky to still be around. I spent three weeks in the hospital, a couple of months in a wheelchair and another six weeks or so on crutches.

“Since then it’s been full-time rehab work physiotherapy, hydrotherapy, a lot of cycling and gym work. I just started walking again a couple of weeks ago and I’m now focusing pretty hard to get back on stage.”

Trivic’s injuries resulted in the initial postponement of The Benefit Show For Dana, a fundraiser for his cousin, Dana Vulin, who is recovering from burns to 60 per cent of her body after an intruder broke into her home in February, doused her with methylated spirits and set her alight.

A court trial awaits for the alleged attackers.

Dana, meanwhile, is battling onwards and upwards.

“Dana has had to work so hard at her recovery over the last six months,” Trivic notes. “She is improving all the time too, but I think that she and her family know that the road to recovery will a long one.

She has been so strong throughout all of her surgeries and rehab. I think she’s definitely inspired a lot of people along the way.

“I also think she’s been really overwhelmed by all of the awesome people out there that have been keeping an eye on her and praying for her.”

After an unusually quiet spell the Gyroscope lads are keen to get on with the business, but are also aware that rushing things for the sake of it is not the way to go.

“Firstly, we should probably to make a rule that no members are to ride motorcycles,”Trivic laughs.

“At this stage it’s hard to tell. We have a couple of song ideas here and there, but as much as I’d love to get back in the studio to write and record, it takes all four of us to be on the same page to make that rock’n’roll chemistry-type-thing happen.

“I think the band has been together now for around 15 years, and we’ve never wanted to repeat ourselves, or just go through the motions of writing, recording and touring. So it may take some time for us to kick our own arses and get back on the horse.”

Given that it’s been ages since Gyroscope have played, plus the very worthy reason for the show, it’s an understatement to say the band are looking forward to Saturday’s gig.

“We are frothing at the mouth to play live again,” Trivic says. “It’s why we make music. We would have played close to 1,000 live shows by now, but this Benefit Show that we have put together for Dana will be one of our most meaningful and important shows.

And, hopefully, one of our most memorable.”

X-Press – First on the street, Wednesdays

YEASAYER Bloodletting

Rumoured to be here in next February, Yeasayer have just released their new album, Fragrant World.

ALASDAIR DUNCAN chats with vocalist, Chris Keating.

Yeasayer’s new album, Fragrant World, is far darker than anything they’ve released before.

Its predecessor, Odd Blood, was filled with buoyant, psychedelic songs that tested the outer limits of electro pop, R&B and indie rock, swirling the sounds all together like finger paints until they were just one bright mess of primary colours. It was difficult to listen to a song like O.N.E., for instance, without feeling stirrings of joy from deep down inside you. Fragrant World is no less rich an album, but it’s a little darker and a little stranger.

It’s not an album for dancing with your arms aloft so much as it is one for listening on headphones in quiet, cold contemplation.

Recorded in a couple of different studios in Brooklyn, Fragrant World represents the next step in Yeasayer’s ongoing fascination with merging the old and the new, classic analogue synths with new and strange bits of studio tech.

“There’s some classic stuff on the album, like some of the synthesisers that were used on the early Chicago house records, the SH-101 and stuff like that,” singer Chris Keating says. “There’s some early analogue technology, the ARP synthesiser and stuff like that. We combined those things with a lot of new software, new sampling technology and some time-stretching stuff.”

On Odd Blood, some of the vocal harmonies were recorded with band members singing through a fan; Fragrant World sees them manipulated through programs like Melodyne to the point where they’re twisted and unrecognisable.

While Yeasayer tour with drummer, Cale Parks, they still don’t have a full-time drummer, allowing them to draw rhythms from less conventional sources. This certainly accounts for a lot of the arresting, stick-in-your-head rhythms on Fragrant World.

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Yeasayer

“We’ve been playing mostly new stuff, so it’s kind of a challenge, because no-one knows it. Sometimes I feel like I want to walk offstage and kill myself, because no-one knows what the hell any of the songs are.”

“Not having a permanent drummer allows us to work with different drummers on different songs, which is pretty fun and exciting,” Keating says. “I might hear a rhythm in my head walking down the street, or hear a sample of an interesting drumbeat then try to build something around that.

I like creating structure, using sequencers and drum machines and things like that, to play around and come up with different rhythms, then seeing if a drummer can actually play those parts.”

Inevitably, our conversation leads towards the darker tone of Fragrant World. It seems the relatively sinister vibes on Fragrant World may reflect the band’s collective state of mind when they were writing the songs.

“Probably, yeah,” Keating say after a pause. “I noticed after a while that it sounded a little darker, a little more sinister. Perhaps that’s because of the subject matter we were delving into.” I press him for specifics, but he hesitates.“Maybe the darker

tone was a conscious thing in opposition to the lighter tone of the last album,” he says. “In general, I think we try to be conscious of what’s going on.”

Speaking of darker subject matter, the gorgeous track, Henrietta, has a curious background.

“Basically the song was inspired by a report I heard on the radio, about this woman from the 1950s,” Keating says. “Her name was Henrietta Lacks, and she was a sort of medical anomaly, because she had a very aggressive form of cancer, and when some cells were removed from her body while she was being treated, they were found to keep multiplying, and keep living. Her genetic material and her cells were used as a basis for a lot of 20th century medical experiments. The polio vaccine that Jonas Salk came up with was the product of her cells. It’s an interesting story.”

A chilling, beautiful track, which builds to a moment in which the instrumentation drops away and Keating sings, ‘oh Henrietta, we can live on together’ as a chorus of ghosts harmonise with him. It sounds like a love song sent out beyond the grave, maybe even a love song from the cancer cells to their host, although Keating doesn’t find those theories appealing.

“It’s really neither,” he says. “It’s just a jumping-off point to use a real-life story as a metaphor. It’s basically using a reference as a way to communicate something larger.”

He’s similarly vague on the origins of Reagan’s Skeleton, another of the Fragrant World’s more surreal tracks. “It’s inspired by a dream about the rotting corpse of Ronald Reagan coming out of the grave, along with all of his zombie cabinet, and dancing around like Thriller. It’s just kind of a humorous image, making fun of a deified American icon.”

Yeasayer have already started touring on the album, though in the early stages of release, the fans are as yet unfamiliar with the material. “We’ve been touring them for the last few weeks,” Keating sighs. “We’ve been playing mostly new stuff, so it’s kind of a challenge, because no-one knows it.

Sometimes I feel like I want to walk offstage and kill myself because no-one knows what the hell any of the songs are. We play a few old ones, but we’re trying to get the new ones tight, even if people aren’t aware of them yet.”

Unsure of what to say, I offer that it’s always a leap of faith playing unfamiliar songs to an audience who want to hear the hits and ask which of the new songs have been going down the best.

“It’s hard to tell from song to song,” Keating says. “In general it doesn’t matter that much, I guess. We’re having fun playing the new songs, even if it’s nerve-wracking. Older ones feel safe, because we’ve played them so many times. It’s exciting for us to play new material.”

17

CLARE BOWDITCH The Winter I Chose Happiness

AMANDA PALMER AND THE GRAND THEFT ORCHESTRA Theatre Is Evil

Island/Universal

Inertia

Very likely a contender for ‘Australia’s Sweetheart’ status, Earlier this year, when cabaret Clare Bowditch ponders the chanteuse and Dresden Doll, pursuit of happiness on her Amanda Palmer, took to new album, a poignant and crowd-funding site, Kickstarter, to finance her next album; her fans obliged by dumping hopeful little opus.

Such was Bowditch’s commitment to her $1.2 million in her lap.

The resulting album, Theatre Is Evil, makes pursuit that even when a back injury rendered her good on its million-dollar expectations, taking every pretty much incapacitated, she managed to record single ounce of Palmer’s experiences and infusing them much of her new album while lying down on the into her music. It results in one hell of a theatrical roller- studio floor. It doesn’t seem the best frame of mind or coaster ride that holds attention from beginning to end. body to embark on a self-imposed mission to discover The overall mood of the album feels a bit if being happy is a matter of choice, but it’s all part of broken and battered, but that’s part of its charm. It’s the fascinating slings and arrows contained herein.

In regards to the question posed, Bowditch filled with literate tales of excess, sadness and lack of substance, but while Palmer rarely covers new ground clearly chooses ‘yes’ across 11 songs offered here.

– her narratives are still generous with details about There’s speakeasy feels on Let’s Be Happy Together, fucked up mental patients and bland rich kids – her and the appropriately titled Cocky Lady, to beaming stories here are more focused than before, and frankly smiles on The Big Happy and You Make Me Happy a whole lot more interesting. For example, on Smile (featured recently as part of Bowditch’s guest role on (Pictures Or It Didn’t Happen) Palmer passes judgment TV’s Offspring).

Even the more winsome likes of Thin Skin on a world viewed through the grainy lens of Instagram, while Trout Heart Replica draws parallels between the and Your Love Walks With Me offer uplift in the midst of moodier instrumentation. Dedicating a whole album killing of a fish and a doomed relationship.

Assured, well crafted and occasionally to the pursuit of the choice to accept happiness is one transcendent, the album is a worthy expansion of thing, it’s another to not only rein it in from being a Palmer’s varied catalogue and standalone joy in itself. one-trick-pony but to create such a multi-layered suite While Palmer’s shtick is not for everyone, if of songs both in mood and musical feels. Even so, it is her sound is to your taste, then Theatre Is Evil will prove Bowditch’s blissful voice, however, that is the hero in this happy sandwich. Smile! a rewarding collection.

Now, about that horn section... _BOB GORDON _JENNIFER PETERSON-WARD

MENOMENA Moms

HUNTING GROUNDS In Hindsight

Spunk

Redcat Sounds

‘No idea where we are from’, sings Michael Belsar, ‘it’s clear where we are going’. It’s a pretty obvious statement, chanted like a mantra over the whirlpool synths of In Hindsight’s opening track. Hunting Grounds shot to national attention as Howl when they won Triple J’s Unearthed High competition. Since then the Ballarat sextet have ditched much of their garage grit and replaced it with a futurist sheen. The guitars are down, the synths are up and the whole sound is better for it.

The name change from Howl to Hunting Grounds came out of necessity (there is an American band called Howl) but it also serves as a neat divisor between the band’s early success and their new sound. The first few tracks of In Hindsight read like a manifesto; “this is what we sound like now.”

The album’s strongest moments, however, are in its middle ground, tracks such as All Eyes and In Colour where the band’s teenage abandon seeps into their new synthetic world – gnashing guitar punk obscured by gleaming synths. Full credit to keys-man Galen Strachan, whose subtle ingenuity provides most of the album’s standout moments.

Where the band goes from here will be interesting, but In Hindsight is already an excellent statement from a band that deserves to be taken seriously.

P o r t l a n d ’s M e n o m e n a are not your average pop experience. For over a decade they created layered and sometimes obtuse songs with baritone saxophone regularly used as the focal point. Last year saw founding member Brent Knopf leave the group to focus on his solo project, leaving Justin Harris and Danny Seim to write an album about the women that birthed them.

Moms has Harris writing songs that are shaped by growing up with a single mum and an absent father, while Seim cogitates on the woman who died when he was a teenager. While there is the potential for Moms to spend 50 minutes wallowing in self-reflection it is a far more enjoyable listen that the premise would suggest.

The pair have held back on the saxophone for this outing but there is no shortage of sounds being packed into Moms. Handclaps, Flute and a multitude of strings rear their head but it is the fuzzed guitars, prominent keys and bold beats that impact.

The lyrics are no slouch either as Harris offers lines such as ‘Heavy are the branches, hanging from my fucked-up family tree’.

Trimming the fat to a duo, Menomena have made a fairly direct album by their standards, but Moms still has enough going on to significantly mess with your head.

_HENRY ANDERSEN

_ CHRIS HAVERCROFT

THE TOOT TOOT TOOTS Outlaws

JEFF THE BROTHERHOOD Hypnotic Nights

Spooky Records

Melbourne outfit, The Toot Toot Toots, have come out all guns blazing with their latest concept album, Outlaws.

There’s no doubt a lot of effort and creativity was put into this and the result is quite brilliant.

It’s a running story that follows two main characters - Ted Buchanan, a complete nutter, summoned to kill new arrival, Eli Rayne because he stumbled across a big chunk of gold. Like all good spaghetti westerns, the rest is about senseless killing for revenge.

There are several really well written, ballsy and bloody catchy songs in this release, with a sound akin to the likes of Tom Waits, Johnny Cash and even a touch of Rammstein.

Opening track, Ol’ Ted’s Habits, gives the impression of what you will be in for. Western style ‘twangy’ guitars before Danny Eucalyptus’ unique gravelly vocals kick in, making it obvious that he’s going to tear you a new one by the end of the album.

Fools Gold (worth a Youtube) is a finger-clicking, toetapping piece of brilliance, Let It Rip (the gun fight scene) features outstanding trumpet arrangements and the final track, Fare Thee Well Jesse, will leave you swinging your fist while singing ‘la-da-de-de-de-deee’ (in a very manly way).

With these outlaws heading out West for Rock-It in a few weeks time, this reviewer is sure tongues will be wagging _ BRIAN NEWNHAM 18

Warner

Yes, Jeff The Brotherhood’s debut full-length was produced by Dan Auerbach o f Th e B l a c k K e y s. Ye s, Auerbach deemed rather plainly that the band are “the next big name in showbiz.” And finally, yes, brothers Jake and Jamin Orrall sound infectious enough and sing enough about smoking meat, drinking booze and general tomfoolery that it’s hard to slag on them, because few would pass up the opportunity to have a night out with these two.

Yet the big name associations and longing to share in the spotlight should only serve as background noise. For at its heart, the originality of Hypnotic Nights is so lacking that the record cannot push itself above being just that - background noise.

Tracks such as Mystic Portal II and Hypnotic Mind bounce along casually and inoffensively enough, but there’s nothing on these tunes which can sustain themselves longer than any recent Weezer releases.

There’s some token psychedelic guitar work on Region Of Fire, which does little more than pander to an audience which never would’ve paid the band attention otherwise.

And the plodding sway of Leave Me Out is so faceless that it’ll likely have every person at the party wondering if it’s a different, equally mundane band.

_ JOSHUA KLOKE X-Press – First on the street, Wednesdays

KASEY CHAMBERS & SHANE NICHOLSON Wreck & Ruin Essence/Liberation

Au s t ra l i a i s n’t re a l l y brimming with people that could be called country music royalty, but Kasey Chambers would have to be one of the few who could lay claim to the mantle. A rare artist who is one of the first invited to Tamworth each year as well as regularly having found herself on mainstream radio. Regardless of her considerable solo standing, Chambers sounds at her most comfortable when making albums with her husband Shane Nicholson.

The couple escaped the daily humdrum of raising the kids and watching daytime TV to settle into a cabin in the Hunter Valley to write Wreck & Ruin before hastily recording the tracks in Chambers brothers studio. The results are fresh and anything but laboured with the pair keeping their hearts firmly entrenched in traditional country music sounds.

Five years since their first album together Chambers and Nicholson push even further into the roots territory than their debut. There is some tidy bluegrass and country moments with even the gospel of ‘Til Death Us Do Part thrown in for good measure.

Wreck & Ruin may be a labour of love for Chambers, but like the last effort with Nicholson, don’t be surprised to see this one grow legs, sell a bunch and show those in the charts who is boss.

_ CHRIS HAVERCROFT

SETH SENTRY This Was Tomorrow Inertia

After four anticipatory years, Seth Sentry fans can breathe a sigh of relief because his debut record is finally here.

This Was Tomorrow has just dropped with a bang, complete with trippy album art that was surely drawn in a hazy phase of genius.

Known for 2008 single, The Waitress Song, and a couple of high-profile collabs (360, Pez) Melbourne MC Seth Sentry took his sweet time writing and recording this record, produced by the esteemed DJ Matik.

The record kicks off with Campfire, a song that sets the tone with its anti-establishment sentiment and an unexpected synth line that somehow works. Hospitality is a song that will surely become an anthem for bartenders and waiters everywhere, with lyrics like, ‘customers complaining like I give a fuck’. Dear Science takes listeners on a tongue-in-cheek musical journey in which Sentry informs science that it has ‘let him down,’ and wonders where his hover board is. Like many Aussie hip-hop artists, Sentry also writes about his own experiences and disenchantment with the world and ‘the man’, and it’s this ability to relate that fans will love.

Though there’s a few tracks on this record that are sub-par (Room For Rent) and the best tunes are those that have already been released as singles (Float Away, My Scene), This Was Tomorrow is witty, well-produced and endearingly relatable.

Atoms For Peace – Default (XL Recordings) Around two years ago, fans of Radiohead and Red Hot Chili Peppers were delighted to find out that Thom Yorke and Flea had begun jamming together, alongside renowned producer Nigel Godrich (sometimes referred to as the ‘sixth Radiohead member’). That was two years ago, and was about all that came from the project until now, with the dream team surprising music lovers last week by releasing a brand new single under the moniker Atoms For Peace and suggesting a full-length album for release in 2013. Sonically, Default is a lot closer to the Radiohead end of the group’s spectrum, with Yorke’s unmistakable haunting croon combined with a use of electronic samples following on the same trajectory charted on The King Of Limbs and The Eraser. While it’s not quite the experimental excursion some fans might have been hoping for, at the end of the day, Default is a quality track which hints at exciting things to come for the sideproject supergroup.

Missy Elliot Feat. Timbaland – 9th Inning (Atlantic) Hootie Hoo! Get ready to shake yo booty like its 1993 because Missy “Misdemeanor” Elliott has dropped a new single, 9th Inning, which is also the first taste of her new album (supposedly it’s going to be called Block Party) due for release before the year’s end. On this new tune Missy has again teamed up with super producer Timbaland, and the duo gives us what we’ve come to expect – rhymes, flow, cleverness and style. They proclaim that “2012 there’ll be no games” for good chronological measure, but this is pure old school Missy.

Beth Orton – Magpie (ANTI-) Although it’s been six years since Beth Orton released a single new tune into the big wide world, listening to the recently released Magpie (the first single from upcoming album Sugaring Season) it’s clear the British chanteuse hasn’t spent the interim period indulging in any kind of experimentalism. But that’s not necessarily bad thing – Orton has made a name for herself with lovely, artsy-yet-easy-listening tunes and Magpie sits comfortably alongside her back catalogue. Featuring Orton’s languid vocal and a beautiful, cosseting chorus, the tune is warm and soothing and also corresponds with a beguiling film clip directed by frequent Sigur Rós collaborators Arni & Kinski and styled by renowned avant-garde costume designer Hrafnhildur Hólmgeirsdóttir.

Violent Soho – Tinderbox (I OH YOU) Young Brisvegas band Violent Soho shot to fame after signing an international deal with Thurston Moore (of Sonic Youth Fame)’s Ecstatic Peace label back in 2009 which culminated in their single Jesus Stole My Girlfriend making it to #21 on the US charts. Freshly signed to red-hot stable I OH YOU (home of buzz bands including DZ Deathrays, Snakadaktal and Bleeding Knees Club), Violent Soho have forgone the studio sheen of their 2008 debut We Don’t Belong Here on Tinderbox, the first single from a forthcoming double a-side 7”. Recorded with Lindsay Gravina (Rowland S Howard, Magic Dirt) the tune is a tight little grunge rock ditty which meditates on the fact that it’s ‘sometimes just heaps hard to say things, ya know?’ We know. _JENNIFER PETERSON-WARD

_ CHLOE PAPAS

PONY FACE Hypnotised Independent

Pony Face’s second album, masterfully produced by Casey Rice, starts with more than a whiff of Dinosaur Jnr. But then weird bursts of Yamaha break up the ‘90s alt-rock sound and everything goes a little off-kilter, triggering memories of the band’s debut, Stars Are Bright, but twisting it into something weirder and wilder.

The first half of the album is killer, but it’s hard to go past the entrancing third track, Alabama, which sits a single chugging chord and gradually revs up like a rusty engine discovering krautrock.

Despite its structural confinement, the song achieves a wonderful vastness, with the lyric, ‘I’m so sorry, Alabama’, speaking to a whole state as much as it speaks to a single girl.

The dense layers of the music are peeled back for the album’s slower, quieter, Side B, triggered by the drowsy instrumental, Lady Land. The hand-onheart Hypnotised rolls into the droney, spaced-out Cicadas as if they were a single epic track, despite the contrast between Simon Bailey’s warm vocal and a bizarre spoken word cameo from Mark Ferrie. Kris Ermond’s drums make a triumphant return for the final track, Stripper. It’s still gentle compared to the album’s fiery beginnings but pulls us further into the seedy, swampy world the album conjures up.

Hypnotised cements Pony Face as one of those bands you crave to hear in a live setting after a single listen to their recorded material. _ CHRIS GIRDLER

THE MOLES Instinct Flydaddy Records

Q: Is this is the greatest record ever made by an Australian?

A: Equal parts Van Dyke Parks, valium and the sound of a car stalling at a Kings Cross intersection, Instinct packs nine miniature songs into 23 minutes, each perfectly fractured and unlike anything before or since.

You could call it pop, but there’s seldom a verse repeated; you could call it proggy, but none of the songs crack three and a half minutes. It distills the wide sprawl of the psych-pop imagination (think The Left Banke, Something Else-era Kinks) into a world after grunge; naivety and nostalgia are suddenly made self-aware, disdainful and austere, with nothing done to excess.

The signifiers are there – brass, organs, tambourines- but everything is rent asunder.

Recorded with a skeleton crew of ring-ins after his band disintegrated, Richard Davies’ songs fold into themselves, fading out on obscure mantras (‘hey!/ hey!/I trust you’) or ceasing on a dime.

O ve r t h e c o n f u s i o n , D av i e s c o o s threats, non sequiturs and panic, distinctively double-tracking himself in a frail whisper and a croak which can be unsettling (Eros Lunch 1963) or devastating (‘watching the night/obliterate’), but always supremely effective. So, probably. _ALEX GRIFFIN

www.xpressmag.com.au

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X-Press – First on the street, Wednesdays

The Domnicks launch their debut album, Super Real, at Mojo’s this Saturday, September 22, with help from The Floors, Custom Royal and DJ Charlie Bucket. BOB GORDON chats with vocalist/guitarist, Nick Sheppard.

www.xpressmag.com.au

It started out as a few laughs at a party and went on to become a solid, working band. The Domnicks have now released a debut album, Super Reel, the follow up to 2009’s Hey Rocker EP. But while the EP was perhaps the sound of a bar band in the studio, Super Reel raises the bar. The original intent, however, is still there. “We got together for the pleasure of it and we still do it for the pleasure of it,” says vocalist/guitarist, Nick Sheppard. “To be fair, it’s not buying anyone a house, so the motivation behind the band is still the same. But I guess we’re five years down the track now so the understanding between the four people in the band is greater.

“If you play for Chelsea Football Club, at the top level of your game every week, week-in/week-out, you know that if you pass the ball 20 metres up the pitch Lampard will be on the end of it. There’s an innate understanding you get from playing anything often. I think our innate understanding of each other has grown in the time since we made the last record.

“We’ve been able to widen our scope, I think. And we have a stronger synchronicity. We have that sixth sense is going on. It’s not something that you really notice but it’s just something that aids the songwriting and the playing.

I don’t think that the EP is a one trick pony, there’s quite varied styles on that but this one kind of takes that idea and pushes it further.”

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The Domnicks Featured within the album’s 12 tracks are some well chosen covers, in Robert Parker’s Let’s Go (Where The Action Is), Billy Thompson’s Black Eyed Girl and Bobby Bland’s I Wouldn’t Treat A Dog (The Way You Treated Me). It’s not just filler, they’re there for what they bring to the bigger Domnicks picture.

“We consciously put some of the covers on this record that we’ve been doing in the band live because we felt that they’re covers that represent us as well as our own songs,” Sheppard says. “They might be covers, but we’re not a Top 20 band. They’re done because we love ‘em, not because people know ‘em. I think the sound of the album is bigger, definitely.”

Infamously, The Domnicks is the pairing of ex-Cortinas/Clash Mark II member Sheppard (who was in many bands before and since) and ex-Stems/ Someloves/DM3 honcho, Mariani. Rhythm section Howard Shawcross and Mario Frisina have played in scores of noted Perth bands, among them The Elks, The Jackals, The Calhoons and DM3. Sheppard notes, however, that pedigree means nothing if it doesn’t work.

As it is The Domnicks is all about rock’n’roll chemistry, with a mutual love of soul music thrown in. That comes to the fore on the new album, with stronger grooves and guitar interplay aplenty.

“That’s the understanding,” Sheppard say sagely.“It’s the magic art of weaving. The more you play together, especially onstage in front of people, the more that comes into play. I think me and Dom have always had very sympathetic styles. We always found it very easy to play together. And it just gets better with time.

And the bass and drums, Marz and Howie, are just as important to the band as me and Dom. It’s about how those four people play and what works when those four people play.

“It always has worked. One of the things you come to understand as a musician when you get older is sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.

You can put the best players in the world together but there’s no chemistry. The great thing about this band is

that the chemistry is there but what you do with that chemistry is what I call finding the line of least resistance.

You work the seam that you all fit into. The way that me and Dom play together would be unlike the way either of us would play with anyone else.

“The magic bit, the indefinable bit, is the fact that it works and it brings us both great joy. That’s the important bit for us.”

Even so, the band’s aspirations and ambitions have clearly evolved. What was once a gig-and-beers operation is a proper going concern at this point.

Tellingly, the change in focus came about through the act of songwriting itself.

“Once you start writing your own songs then things change,” Sheppard says.“I think all bands should start by playing covers, personally, because I think it’s a great way of finding out what you’re all like. I don’t mean you should do it for five years, like the Rolling Stones did before they wrote their first song, but it worked for them so why knock it? But, it’s a great idea of you’re gonna get in a room with three guys that you’ve never played with before, to bring a bunch of songs in and see which ones work. Without having to analyse it, you’ll know.

“But once you start writing your own songs you’d be remiss, I think, not to want the best for them.

It’s like kids, you want them to have a good education.

You want a song to have a life of its own. You wanna get it out there. I’m not so much ambitious for me, I’m ambitious for the craft.”

Following the album launch The Domnicks have gigs penned in over east, as well as two shows in Japan. Beyond that it seems it’s pretty much about getting together and getting on with it.

“To be honest, whatever level of success you can achieve these days in what’s laughably called a music industry, to me the most important success that you can have is to be able to play music with people like the guys that I play with. To get that amazing release and joy from it, that’s the success that I get from it.”

Beasts Of The Southern Wild director Benh Zeitlin

BENH ZEITLIN The Beastmaster

His first feature film, the gorgeous and deeply moving Beasts Of The Southern Wild, is one of the breakout critical darlings of the year, having drawn awards at both Cannes and the Sundance Film Festival. But for the New York-born Benh Zeitlin, the film began life as a kind of love letter to his adopted home state, Louisiana.

“It’s very much inspired by living there,” he confirms. “When I was making the film - or writing the film, rather - I’d been in a car accident and had to leave Louisiana for a while, and a lot of the inspiration came from being homesick and just wanting to write a story to celebrate what it was that draws people to Louisiana.

“It actually started as a story about this town, The Bathtub,” he continues, referring to the film’s key location, a ramshackle shanty town located on the edge of a vast levee. “Just kind of the idea of this place holding out at the edge of the world as their land was disappearing. As I was working on that and researching that, I was also working on my friend Lucy’s [co-writer Lucy Alibar] play, Juicy And Delicious, and the two stories kind of came together in a way. They had this kind of resonance with one another.”

Zeitlin’s Louisiana isn’t just a place, though; it’s also, if you’ll pardon the cliché, a state of mind - one that encompasses a fierce sense of independence and a wild streak of individualism.

“It’s an extremely fearless place,” he tells

us.“It really values community, and it values culture and celebration over a lot of the things the rest of the country is obsessed with. Louisiana, to me, has it right about what’s important in life. I think that the culture of The Bathtub is one where freedom is of ultimate importance. And not just freedom, but the preservation of a unique culture and a unique way of life. Their independence is very much a part of their culture, and I think that they’re aware that their way of life can only exist in the place where they are, and when that place comes under threat, staying on that land and maintaining that culture is as important as saving your life.”

In order to capture that elusive feeling, Zeitlin chose to use mainly non-professional actors in his cast, including the vibrant Quvenzhané Wallis as Hushpuppy, the film’s young hero, and Dwight Henry, a baker by trade, as her mercurial father, Wink. That choice brought its own distinct challenges.

“It’s a lot more preparation time,” he explains. “When you work with non-professionals, you need to do a lot more groundwork in terms of getting the characters into a place where the people on the film are able to get where they need to in order to play the role.

“We spent a lot of time doing interviews.

I would go to the bakery and be with Mr Henry on baker’s hours; from when he started baking donuts until when he started selling them in the morning.

We’d just talk about our lives, and a lot of those interviews came into play, both when directing the scenes and when writing the role.” _TRAVIS JOHNSON

UNCOVERING TALENT

Revival Hill owner Catherine Hill

VIEW FROM THE HILL

Inspired by her love of vintage design and influenced by a childhood bought up behind her parents furniture shop, Catherine Hill decided to ditch her day job as an accountant for a new venture, to open up shop on Edward Street in Osborne Park. Revival Hill is the newest addition to Perth’s collectable furniture scene, offering a hand-picked selection of mid-century, international, vintage pieces for discerning homes and businesses. Revival Hill’s stock is primarily mid-century Danish but also features unique pieces from England, America, France and Australia. Hill single handedly hand picks her stock from around the globe, is chief restorer and runs the retail shop by herself. Hill is inviting vintage lovers to join her at the Grand Opening of Revival Hill from 10am this Saturday, September 22, where visitors who come early can expect coffee, sweet pastry treats, the chance to win gift certificates for the store and a door prize. For more details click over to revivalhill.com.au.

FROM THE SEA

This October, Tura New Music will present the inaugural Sounds Outback (…to Reef) Festival against the backdrop of the stunning land and seascapes of the Ningaloo Coast World Heritage area, including the Cape Range National Park and the Ningaloo Reef. A series of concerts will be presented at significant locations from Friday, October 5, to Sunday, October 7, featuring worldclass musicians and sound artists including Stephen Pigram, Etica Quartet, Defying Gravity Percussion and Jon Rose. For more information please contact Tura New Music on (08) 9228 3711 or info@tura.com.au.

RADIO STARS

The Perth Centre for Photography is inviting all photographers to enter UNCOVER 2012, an annual showcase award for photography series which aims to discover and exhibit new Australian talent. Set up to support, encourage and nurture emerging photomedia artists, UNCOVER finalists are selected by a group of industry leaders in contemporary photographic art; and their series screened at the Northbridge Piazza on opening night. The winner receives a free exhibition space at PCP in 2013, professional photographic printing, exhibition catalogue design and printing, promotion and assistance towards the exhibition planning and installation. For more information click over to pcp.org.au.

A work by UNCOVER 2011 winner Jeremy Blincoe

RENAISSANCE MAN

If the musical world has polymaths, then Richard Egarr surely is one. One of the world’s finest keyboardists, the British musician also conducts his own band, is a noted historian and educator, an accomplished entertainer and anecdotalist, and an enthusiast of all things musical.Now,Egarr is heading our way to direct the Australian Chamber Orchestra in music from the beginning of the Baroque to the start of the Classical period – including the works of Vivaldi, Handel, Mozart and more. Egarr and the ACO play the Perth Concert Hall on Wednesday, October 10. Tickets are available through BOCS.

BARD ON THE BIG SCREEN

Three iconic Jacobean plays staged at Shakespeare’s Globe theatre on the Southbank of the Thames, London, are to be screened at Cinema Paradiso as part of the 2012 Globe On Screen series.Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well starts the season on Friday, September 28, while Much Ado About Nothing and Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus continue the season from Friday, October 19, and Friday, November 2, respectively. For full session listings click over to lunapalace.com.au.

Contemporary music students from the Western Australian Academy Of Performing Arts are set to take the stage of the Subiaco Arts Centre for Radioactive, a high-energy celebration of chart toppers from the ‘50s right up to today. Runs from Thursday, September 20 ‘til Saturday, September 22. For more info click over to waapa.ecu.edu.au.

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Arbitrage

ARBITRAGE

The Gere And Now Directed by Nicholas Jarecki Starring Richard Gere, Susan Sarandon, Tim Roth, Brit Marling, Laetitia Casta, Nate Parker Written and directed by Nicholas Jarecki, Arbitrage is a morality play veiled as a murder mystery. Richard Gere is the bad guy, a troubled hedge-fund manager named Robert Miller. With his million-dollar smile and designer suits, he’s gotten away with a lot - and may continue to doing so. He’s cheating on his wife (Susan Sarandon), is embezzling funds to cover-up a $420 million dollar shortfall that would bury his company, and moreover, has just fled the scene of a crime in which his mistress (Laetitia Casta) was killed.

Everything is crashing down around Miller and yet, he manages to somehow avoid yanking out the surrender flag. But with a nosy cop (Tim Roth) inching closer to the truth behind the aforesaid accident, and Miller’s own daughter (Brit Marling) discovering dad’s dastardly deeds in business – which damages their relationship considerably – it won’t be too long before the ageing sport is down on his knees, beginning to be forgiven for his sins.

There are a few actors that just piss presence. Bruce Willis is one, Kevin Costner is another, and Richard Gere – he’s bladder full of it. It’s that smile and sparkle that have made Gere one of today’s most endurable and most easily likeable screen idols. Whether its syrupy but easily entertaining fluff like dollar-dazzling-dame duo Pretty Woman and An Officer And A Gentlemen, morbidly heavy fare like

Internal Affairs, Mr Jones and Unfaithful, or absolute tripe like Runaway Bride and Final Analysis, the guy’s excessive coat of charisma, combined with an effortless ability to command attention, always adds an extra star to a films critical score. And it’s the same deal here – Gere doesn’t crunch. Nor spur a stall.

Jarecki’s film – sort of a mesh of Presumed Innocent and Wall Street (in other words, it’s one for those who like to use their heads on occasion even in the confines of a darkened theatre) – plays a lot better than most of the efforts in Gere’s back catalogue though, because it’s story is as tight as it’s star’s Saturday night date.

Gere’s the standout here, giving an enchantingly evil performance as a successful man on the brink. And he’s surrounded by an equally apt supporting cast, with Susan Sarandon her dependable best as the wife, and newcomer Brit Marling a scene-stealer as Miller’s grown daughter, now working with her father in the financial world.

It’s an excellently performed affair.

Jarecki’s script isn’t to be discounted; those with a keen interest in the ups and downs of business, in particular just how easily things can fall apart or go down the tube, will find something of interest here. In addition, that ‘thriller’ element – the tragic accident that quadruples the lead character’s problems – amplifies ones interest factor.

Gere does make a habit of picking projects that have noticeable issues - which might explain why he’s not a regular fixture at the Oscars but you’ll be hard pressed finding flaws here. This is a very, very decent film, and undoubtedly one of the best films Gere has made in quite some time. _CLINT MORRIS X-Press – First on the street, Wednesdays

Ruby Sparks

RUBY SPARKS

A Manic Pixie Dream Directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Fari Starring Paul Dano, Zoe Kazan, Elliott Gould, Chris Messina, Annette Bening, Antonio Banderas When he was 19, Calvin Weir-Fields (Paul Dano) wrote a novel which took the literary world by storm.

But 10 years later, he’s still staring at a blank piece of paper he inserts daily into his vintage typewriter (yes, he’s really that hipster), waiting for lightning to strike twice.

On the advice of his therapist (Elliott Gould), Calvin undertakes a writing exercise to write a page about someone who would like his dog. To his surprise, Calvin takes to the assignment, writing about a wide-eyed, scarlet-tressed woman he sees in his dreams. Something about her inspires him, and he writes more and more. The dreams are so vivid, the woman seems real, and the more he writes about her, the more real she becomes. Little things start showing up around Calvin’s home: a woman’s razor, a bra, underwear. Then one morning as he is dashing out the door, there is Ruby Sparks (Zoe Kazan) purporting to be his girlfriend and offering to take his dog for a walk.

It is these early scenes which offer the most entertainment and genuine whimsy of the film, which was written by Kazan (granddaughter of revered director Elia Kazan) and directed by husband and wife team Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, who shot to fame off the back of the equally twee Little Miss Sunshine.

As the film progresses we learn that although Calvin initially believes he’s suffering from

some kind of mental breakdown, he actually isn’t seeing things: Ruby is really there, in the flesh, and other people can see her, including his doubting older brother (Chris Messina), hippie mother (Annette Bening) and her lover (Antonio Banderas), which leads to expectedly awkward situations.

It’s a marvellous idea for a film, and Kazan’s clever screenplay makes the most of some very intriguing plotting. An anti-romantic semicomedy in the vein of Annie Hall Stranger Than Fiction, Juno and (500) Days Of Summer, Ruby Sparks is clever but could benefit from losing a few of its more darling notions.

Ultimately, the best thing about Ruby Sparks isn’t its gimmicky script. It’s the constant performance of Dano, who shifts, scene-by-scene, from moments of misery to ebullience and back to misery again. Having previously worked with directors Dayton and Faris on Little Miss Sunshine (he played the sullen Nietzsche-reading teenager Dwayne), he’s clearly comfortable under their direction which helps his character transcend some of the more clichéd scenes in the film.

In comparison, Kazan’s Ruby suffers from a surfeit of adorableness (she’s like Zooey Deschanel on steroids) and unfortunately the film doesn’t entirely follow through on all the ideas thrown up in the early scenes. Instead of finishing with a bang it peters out, but this existential yarn is still fresh and funny enough to justify taking two hours out of your life.

Interestingly enough Dano and Kazan have been romantically involved since long before this film came to fruition and it is perhaps this palpable chemistry which makes it impossible not to fall a little bit in love with Ruby Sparks. _JENNIFER PETERSON-WARD

One Fell Swoop

ONE FELL SWOOP Tribe Mentality

Ambitious and innovative, WA’s own One Fell Swoop will open this year’s Perth Fashion Festival with what promises to be an awe inspiring showcase at the Perth Town Hall tonight, Wednesday, September 19.

Ahead of the festivities, EMMA BERGMEIER caught up with Daniel Romanin, one half of the duo behind this forward thinking local label, to find out exactly what he and business partner Nikolina Ercig have planned. Bookings via Foxtix.

“We’re right on that crucial deadline,” an exhausted Romanin explains in the lead up to Wednesday evening. “You always wish you had more time but sometimes it’s nice not to because you don’t get to fuss over a decision, you just have to make it there and then.”

Being decisive, adventurous and having a strong point of view (that doesn’t always match up with what everyone else in the industry is doing) is something which sets One Fell Swoop apart from the rest, and, along with their sophisticated design sensibility, is perhaps one of the main factors contributing to their ongoing success. Now in its eighth year, One Fell Swoop has evolved considerably since its inception, and has finally found its niche.

“There is this thing a lot of young designers want to do immediately after they finish studying, which is show everybody everything they can do, and that doesn’t necessarily translate to sales or desire for the product,” reflects Romanin on the early years of One Fell Swoop.“Five seasons ago we skipped a season and we re-branded the label and consolidated all of our ideas and what we wanted for our target market and to project to the world. Nina and I sat down with each other and spoke about faults and positives and allocated each other the jobs we excel at. It ended up being a really positive thing because we now work as www.xpressmag.com.au

a unit, there’s no distinction between our ideas and whatnot. After the restructure we started from scratch and that’s why our silhouettes have become a lot more accessible in design. ” While most designers will be showcasing their spring/summer looks at the forthcoming Perth Fashion Festival, Romanin and Ercig plan to buck the trend and present a mix of looks from their 2012 collections - An Illusive Tribe - blending autumn/winter with spring/summer.

“Normally Perth Fashion Festival shows spring/summer, so what we decided to do was to select a story from our spring/summer collection but mainly debut our autumn/winter; which is good for us because we normally work with one concept for the whole year. There’s so much that you can do when you develop a concept; It’s disjointed to stop at summer then come up with a totally different concept for winter. So what we did with An Illusive Tribe initially is sourced our inspiration and concept at the start of the year and we began draping and selecting fabrics.

That first summer collection reflects more on the idea of kinship, ritual and purity. So it was light and feminine with soft draping with a colour palette of white, nudes and pinks and very little black, if none at all. It was about kinship between women and a sisterhood idea.

Through developing that idea further we reflected on the idea of a woman in solitude, being more sensual, darker, powerful and seductive for autumn/winter.

“We start with manipulation - draping and twists and unusual and abstract forms that we create with fabric. Then we put these manipulations on the body and start to create garments around it.

Sometimes we create something we really love but know won’t sell, so we might make one or two pieces like that but pair them down and break down the elements from the more intense garments and spread them over other garments. The ultimate decisions about what we sell and what we produce is through feedback from our friends and seeing what people are wearing day to day.”

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Tricking The Depths: Bivouac, Northbridge Martin E Wills’ latest solo exhibition features a mashup of science-fiction inspired landscapes and streetart characters, exploding as a colourful vista full of unpeeling meat-men with bouffant hair, all dodging sinister holes in the ocean floor. Runs ’til Oct 1.

THEATRE/DANCE

VISUAL ARTS

Here & Now: Lawrence Wilson Gallery, Nedlands Here & Now is the Lawrence Wilson Gallery’s inaugural annual exhibition of early-career, contemporary Western Australian artists. Features work by Tom Freeman, Ben Kovacsy, Clare Peake and Jacob Ogden Smith. Runs ’til Oct 6.

Small Change: Free Range Gallery, Perth How is change illustrated, recognised and read? This is the question Perth based artist Maria Hildrick aims to answer in Small Change, a new body of work which explores the concept of change through a series of diptychs. Runs ’til Sep 19.

Spinifex: People Of The Sun And Shadow: John Curtin Gallery, Bentley This exhibition celebrates the 15th anniversary of the Spinifex Arts Project, established as part of the documentation process of the Spinifex People’s Native Title claim. Runs ’til Oct 12.

The Tempest: Murdoch University Drama Workshop, Murdoch Young Perth-based Theatre Company The Revellers present a unique interpretation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest.Season runs Sep 21-29. Bookings via revellers.com.au.

Hair: An Exhibition Of Fine Art & Taxidermy: Paper Mountain, Northbridge Through an array of intriguing mediums, such as taxidermy, illustration, pelt preservation and installation, young artists Tessa Maloney and Sarana Haeata explore the curious and fascinating world of hair. Runs ’til Sep 20.

Mechanically Speaking: Linton & Kay Galleries, Perth Internationally acclaimed Queensland artist James Corbett presents spectacular metal sculptures of unrivalled detail utilising antique car parts. Each of his ‘creatures’are infused with personas, defying the conditions of rigid metal. Runs ‘til Oct 4.

2012 Photographic Commissions Exhibition: Council House Foyer, Perth Professionally renowned photographers Toni Wilkinson and Juha Tolonen’s photographs capture the essence of our city at a particular moment in time. Runs ‘til Nov 30.

The Spiritual Endeavours Of An Unctuous Prawn: Kidogo Arthouse Gallery, Fremantle An exhibition of ink drawings by Thomas Moore born of frustration with the contemporary western attitude that favours security over freedom. Runs ’til Sep 20.

Picasso To Warhol: 14 Modern Masters: Art Gallery Of WA, Northbridge Picasso To Warhol: 14 Modern Masters features over 120 works by 14 of modern art’s most iconic artists including Matisse, Picasso, Pollock and Warhol. Runs ’til Dec 3.

Anthropomoflora: Smart Space, Northbridge An exhibition exploring our reflections in the world of flowers by mixed media artist Jessica McCallum and Pictures Of The Floating World: Melody Smith Gallery, Carlisle photographer Kim Evans. Runs ’til Sep 23.

Suspended in pigment and linseed oil, Woody Enid Twiglet & Libby Edwards: Teach Me Photo, Perth Mellor’s large scale atmospheric paintings are Libby Edwards Photography and the designer exploration of mark making and abstract materiality behind Enid Twiglet join forces to explore the body as much as that of light, depth and movement. Runs in photography and embroidery. Runs from Sep 21 ’til Oct 13. ’til Sep 23.

FRAME: The Bird, Northbridge An insight into the world of creative driven skaters FAC Print Award: Fremantle Arts Centre, Fremantle Features works by emerging and established artists, that love op-shoping, and take their cameras showcasing the best in Australian printmaking. Runs everywhere they travel, capturing the cities they skate and the scenes that encompass their lives and ‘til Nov 8. friendships. Runs ’til Oct 17.

Pearth: Little Creatures Brewery, Fremantle Perth street artist Hurben’s third solo show promises 2012 Black Swan Prize Exhibition: Linton & Kay to be a strikingly poignant critique of the hypocritical Gallery, Perth Some of Western Australia’s and Australia’s finest culture of Perth. Runs ’til Sep 26. and most creative artists will be on display in SEETHiNGS: Victoria Park Arts Centre, Victoria Park September as finalists in The Black Swan Prize for This eclectic, highly creative exhibition features the Portraiture and The Black Swan Prize for Heritage. work of 17 young artists, including sculptures, paintings, Exhibition runs from Sep 21 ’til Oct 1. jewellery, photography and installation pieces. Runs ’til Not The Way Home: Buratti Fine Arts, North Sep 28.

Fremantle A group exhibition featuring the works of 13 of The Passage South: Emerge Art Space, Mt Lawley Iraqi born artist Ayad Alqaragholli’s new exhibition The Australia’s best contemporary artists who travelled Passage South, features silicon bronze sculptures and together into the Australian desert and created paintings inspired by the varied and often poignant artworks in response to the arid environment and stories of human suffering and oppression in the Middle desert landscape around them. Exhibition runs from East. Runs ’til Sep 28.

Sep 28 ’til Oct 25.

Yonder: PICA, Northbridge Yonder is an exhibition brings together an Australian and international group of 14 artists who share the wistful desire to know “what’s over there.”

These artists, who hail from near and far, offer contemporary perspectives on mobility in an era of unprecedented voyages. Runs ’til Oct 21.

Boy Gets Girl: Heath Ledger Theatre, State Theatre Centre, Northbridge Boy Gets Girl is a psychological thriller that discovers what happens when a bad date turns into a stalker.

Season runs Sep 15-30. Bookings via BOCS.

Tinkertown: Blue Room Theatre, Northbridge Fresh from its Melbourne debut, Perth playwright Nathaniel Moncrieff’s black comedy is a heart-warming tale of murder, car chases, alcoholism, bad parenting and yaks, and features a musical score by local songstress Felicity Groom. Season runs Sep 27-Oct 13.

Bookings via blueroom.org.au.

Art In Action: Art Gallery Of WA, Northbridge See the art of the Picasso To Warhol: 14 Modern Masters exhibition brought to life through drama, comedy, music and movement. Season runs Oct 10-Nov 7.

FASHION

Perth Fashion Festival 2012: Various A seven-day extravaganza showcasing an eclectic mix of 160 labels, 100 models and more than 100 talented West Australian designers across 50 events from Sep 9-15. For more info on events click on over to perthfashionfestival.com.au/events.

Popsicle: Northbridge OnWilliam retailers celebrate the Perth Fashion Festival with Popsicle – a series of fashion related events that pop-up throughout Northbridge including featured in-store designers, student showcases, studio classes, pop up shops and more! Runs ’til Sep 25.

rue du Chat qui Pêche 2012 by Julie Podstolski Paris En Hiver: Elements Art Gallery, Dalkeith Fremantle artist, Julie Podstolski, braved the snow, fog and wind, taking to the streets of Paris during the early hours in winter during trips to the French capital over the past year. The resultant culmination of her dedication and passion will be displayed in the form of stunningly detailed drawings in colour pencil. Runs ’til Sep 28.

Wesley Quarter Live Fashion Shoot: Wesley Quarter, Perth Perth shoppers will be given an exclusive look into what takes place in a real-life studio fashion shoot.

This key event features a first look at the latest men’s and women’s fashions from 15 of Wesley Quarter’s top national and international retailers. Runs Sep 21 at 1.30pm and 4pm.

Chic Model Search 2012: Wesley Quarter & Forrest Place, Perth Judged by a high-profile panel of industry experts, wannabe models will take to the runway at the Wesley Quarter on Sep 22 for the Semi Final of this year’s Chic Model Search. Those guys and gals who make it to the final will battle it out at the Final on Sep 23 at STM Fashion Central, Forrest Place.

BAIT 3D

Serving A Porpoise Directed By Kimble Rendall Starring Xavier Samuel, Sharni Vinson, Julian McMahon, Phoebe Tonkin, Lincoln Lewis, Alex Russell, Martin Sacks, Dan Wyllie

Lore

LORE

Adolescent Odyssey Directed by Cate Shortland Starring Saskia Rosendahl, Kail Malina, Nele Trebs, Andre Frid, Mika Seidel Australian director Cate Shortland follows up her stunning debut, Somersault, with this ambitious and complex German-language historical drama.

In the closing days of World War 2, Hannelore - Lore for short - (Saskia Rosendahl), a teenage girl, flees Berlin ahead of the Allied advance, along with her mother (Ursina Lardi) and four younger brothers and sisters. Her father, a highranking Nazi officer, knows that they will not be well treated by the victors. After her mother surrenders to the occupying forces after hearing of Hitler’s suicide, Hannelore must lead her remaining family to her grandmother’s house in Hamburg. Doing so takes them across a landscape as desolate and danger as any post-apocalyptic science fiction spectacle.

For such a difficult and confronting subject, it’s certainly been a big year for WWII and Nazi drama, with Lore following on the heels of In Darkness and Wunderkinder. It’s also an unusual topic for a sophomore effort, ambitious beyond the typical scope of Australian drama. Happily - if such an adjective can be used when speaking about such a dour piece of cinema - Shortland handles the difficult material with assured dexterity. Indeed, Lore is the Australian submission for this year’s Best Foreign Language Oscar - the last time we had horse in that race was for 2009’s confronting Samson And Delilah.

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At its heart, Lore is a coming of age story - a narrative about Eros set against a Thanatos backdrop. Lore is on the cusp of womanhood, and her character and ideals will be tested, not only by the milieu she finds herself in and the responsibilities she must shoulder, but by the demands of her own changing biology. Those two avenues of challenge come together in the form of Thomas (Kai Malina), a mysterious refugee that Lore and her siblings encounter during their cross-country journey. A young man, he is a figure of tentative lust for Lore but he is also, apparently, Jewish. Lore, raised under Nazi ideology, has been taught to despise his kind, and those opposing drives are the thematic and dramatic core of the film.

Shortland also deserves kudos for managing to maintain a difficult tonal balancing act. On the one hand, she manages to engender sympathy for a Nazi family, a subset of humanity that is acceptable cinematic shorthand for “flatout evil.” On the other, she never wavers from the darkness at the heart of the story and its setting.

The moral territory we’re in here is difficult, but not complex; evil is committed by humans, and even the basest and most repugnant ideologies are created and enforced by people. Further, those ideologies can be challenged, even changed, by experience and circumstance.

Lore is a confronting and unsentimental experience, one that eschews tugging on the heartstrings, instead cutting right to the beating pump. It’s not just a great Australian film, it’s a great film, period. Be sure to make time for this one. _TRAVIS JOHNSON

Australia ships back a couple of it’s thriving exports, and revives the directing career of a local steady, for this hokey but entertaining ‘Jaws-in-aSupermarket’ corker. Directed by musician cum filmmaker Kimble Rendall (Cut), and featuring the recognisable mugs of recent Hollywood hires Julian McMahon and Xavier Samuel, Bait 3D is a genre effort that’s unquestionably ‘fin’ on characterisation and plot, but certainly not without some fun, imaginative death scenarios and a plethora of effects work.

Set within a supermarket (and it’s neighbouring underground car-park) on the coast, Bait ponders the often-asked question “Shit mate, what would you do if this Coles suddenly overflowed with water and a giant 12-foot-shark started swimming through the door!?”.

The Australian/Singapore co-production, which is more concept than creation, is a bit of enjoyable fluff that splashes about in the so-bad-it’s-good terrain that so many films in this genre do. You know the type? Most of the dialogue in them are usually frightful, plot points are insolently ridiculous, the money shots are cheap, and the content alone could never be any match for the model behind it – in this case, a 12-foot shark stalks a group of people stuck in a waterlogged underground supermarket. But what works for Bait 3D, keeping it from sinking to the anchor of D-grade Piranha knock-off territory, is the effective, sardonic and wink-wink script by Russell Mulcahy, a man whose done more for ham than Don’s.

Mulcahy, who gave Australia one of its most famous ridiculously B-monster movies in ‘80s classic Razorback, is a perfect match for the high-concept project, serving up equal lashings of daggy dialogue with fierce but also fun (and funny) death sequences. He and director Kimble Rendall, the musician cum filmmaker who made his feature debut in genre stab Cut about a decade ago and has since spent most of his time working the second-unit cameras on other people’s work, clearly went into the thing knowing what kind of movie they wanted to make – something teens

Bait 3D would check out, with a half spiked bottle of Coke, via a multiplex late session.

The creatives have made a film for a specific target audience, and as that, it delivers.

Forgetting the critics that’ll lament them from synopsis onwards anyway, those behind Bait have welcomingly substituted the substance in favour of silly scares and, in this case, a freezer room full of sea-creature-ravaged body parts. And that, my 15-year-old video-game playing friend tells me, is all they want. Bait 3D also has a fairly unique concept, and that might help draw in a broader segment outside the main demo.

Xavier Samuel, definitely on his way to becoming more of a presence in Hollywood following his stint in the recent Twilight movie, Eclipse, makes for a likeable tween hero; Sharni Vinson is an easy to champion heroine, while the elder statesmen of the group, McMahon, as one of the better written and more interesting characters, and Martin Sacks, still regarded as one of Australia’s most underrated performers (largely because he’s been stuck in series television for the better part of his career), add – dare I say – ‘class’ to what’s unarguably a fairly waterlogged affair.

It’s merely a tadpole when compared with some of the other fish in the cinematic sea, but Bait – shot effectively in 3D – still rightfully earns a spot within the tidal wave of sea-monster fare that’s kept kids cashless and cacking themselves since the days of It Came From Beneath The Sea and Attack Of The Crab Monsters. _CLINT MORRIS X-Press – First on the street, Wednesdays

FREMANTLE ARTS CENTRE PRINT AWARD 2012 Prints Charming

The Fremantle Arts Centre Big Weekend Of Print and annual Print Award will run from September 22 ‘til November 8. The Print Award exhibition opens and winners will be announced this Friday, September 21, whilst the Big Weekend of Print will take place over a series of events between September 22-23.

More information can be found by visiting fac.org.au, or by calling the Fremantle Arts Centre on (08) 9432 9555.

The Fremantle Arts Centre’s annual Print Award is one of the oldest running celebrations of Print Art in Australia. Now in its 37th year, the exhibition received over 290 applicants, and will showcase the work of 60 artists from across Australia. Simone Johnston, coordinator of the Print Award, spoke to X-Press about the quality and breadth of this year’s exhibition.

“It ’s really varied this year to be honest... this year particularly we’ve got a really wide spread of artists from around WA, Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia, NT, ACT, Tassie, and Queensland, so there’s a really diverse display of works,” says Johnston.

“I think [print] is becoming more frequently used – a lot of the artists that are exhibiting this year are actually working across media, so there’s kind of working within the world of print making and print media but they’re really kind of pushing the boundaries of what is considered to be a print, or what is considered to be a type of print process.”

Held in conjunction with the opening weekend of the Print Award exhibitions will be the Freo Arts Centre’s Big Weekend Of Print.

This weekend will celebrate the world of print art with a series of performances and forums run by Melbourne artists and FAC residents Joel Gailer and Michael Meneghetti.

In par ticular the two will exhibit their work Performprint, a 10-hour endurance piece of one-hour performances that include large-scale printing, live human-branding, revving Harley Davidsons, a band playoff between Masonik and Beer Fridge, and outdoor

Linka by Simon Hogan

Liz by Alex Spremberg

SPINIFEX: PEOPLE OF THE SUN AND SHADOW Culture Mapping

projections.

“It’s a really full on endurance based performance exploring print and masculinity and ego, and how that translates through print and video... it’s going to be a really interesting display to see what they do with it – we’re all kind of intrigued to see how it pans out with some of the props they’ve started experimenting with!” Johnston says.

With this type of work happening, it is safe to say that any preconceived notions of print art should be checked at the door before entering the Print Award exhibition or Big Weekend Of Print. “I think the breadth and quality of the works selected for the exhibition demonstrate how the medium is evolving technically,” Johnston says. “There’s a lot of really contemporary processes in the show, and there’s also some that are kind of really beautifully traditionally made and crafted.”

“There’s not really two that are similar in anyway, in terms of the actual approach, even works that have got a similar medium that has been used or a similar process that has been used, they’ve kind of taken that and run with it in a different direction.” _LEAH BLANKENDAAL

Spinifex: People Of The Sun And Shadow is a free exhibition on show at John Curtin Gallery, Bentley, until Friday, October 12.

Look at a conventional map of the Great Victoria Desert and you will find little else but a sparse plain. Drop in on Spinifex: People Of The Sun And Shadow at John Curtin Gallery, and you will see desert maps of a different kind. The show brings together 58 paintings surveying the 55,000 square kilometres of Spinifex country. The works span 15 years with the earliest from 1997, when Spinifex artists were compelled to document their country as part of their milestone native title claim.

Now together for the first time, the works conjure a firm sense of Spinifex people, law, and country.

“Each work sings, each work has its own value and its own dialogue, which holistically creates a beautiful show,” exhibition co-curator Carly Lane says.“I guess you could say it’s Spinifex country in its entirety.”

There is a sense of life pulsing through the paintings, manifesting in the recurring Western Desert symbols such as snakes, footprints, trees, paths, and concentric circles. Lane says the artists portray the land as a life-giving place through their depictions of birth sites and water holes. The title of the exhibition refers to the Spinifex ancestral spirits who protected the Nullabor Plain from rising sea levels thousands of years ago. As well as ancestral stories, the artists have painted their individual relationships with the land. These ties

were physically severed when the British atomic testing in 1952 forced most Spinifex people to move away.

The native title claim is central to the story of Spinifex Art Project’s beginnings. Two native title paintings were created in 1998 as knowledge maps celebrating Spinifex custodianship of the land.

They were integral to the claim, which was ratified in November 2000. The native title paintings, being at the heart of the project, are fittingly displayed in the central gallery surrounded by other collaborative works. Lane says their position in the exhibition was important not just because they played a legal role, but because they mapped Spinifex country for the first time. They lie horizontally to reflect that most Spinifex art is made on the ground.

Collaborative paintings are integral to the Spinifex art community and while there can be up to 10 artists working on one painting, individual styles are foregone to create a harmonious, universal expression.

Lane explains there are cultural rules governing who can paint with whom: “Collectively, there are shared stories between the genders, but often husbands and wives paint together.”

The use of bold acrylic is also a key attribute of Spinifex art and shows the artists’ embrace of contemporary mediums to depict ancient stories. “It’s pretty modern even though it harks to old stories and old relationships. The way that these artists document culture and their lived experiences is pretty dynamic,” Lane says.

Aside from acting as a cultural expression, Lane explains that the Spinifex Arts Project has given artists the opportunity to foray into the commercial art world.“The Spinifex People have had a lot of history of visually telling stories and this easily transfers into a fine art realm.” _CORAL HUCKSTEP

Short Message Service by Benjamin Forster

YONDER

Going The Distance A mix of 14 national and international artists share the wistful desire to know ‘what’s over there’ in group exhibition Yonder, in The Perth Institute of Contemporary Art’s Westend Gallery until Sunday, October 21.

It is basic human nature to want to know what’s over yonder, to want to see if the grass really is greener, and to seek out new experiences and places. That’s the idea that curator Jasmin Stephens explored when creating Yonder, an exhibition featuring work from artists around the world, focusing on the themes of mobility and tying in the past with the present.

Stephens explains that the need to explore is something that we can all relate to. “I think that this desire to know what’s ‘over there’ is a very elemental, philosophical kind of idea,” she explains. “It’s found in all cultures, it’s absolutely key to a lot of contemporary culture – for example, video games – and I think that artists particularly fall under the spell of yonder.”

Stephens says she drew from personal experience when conceptualising the exhibition. “After living in Sydney for many years, I decided that rather than focusing on one city and the large institutions in that city, that I wanted to actually work as a curator across several cities,” she explains.

When expanding on the idea, Stephens became focused on the ever-changing world of media.

“I was looking at the way in which the art world and the art market is becoming more global, and the feeling that artists needed to think more proactively in order to take advantage of international opportunities,” she says. www.xpressmag.com.au

The exhibition features work from 14 artists based around the world – Perth, Melbourne, Adelaide, Singapore, London and New York. “The need for artists to have a more international outlook and to cultivate an international perspective is one of the themes of the show. Mobility is something that I’m interested in, and what the exhibition looks at is the way in which travel and residencies and collaboration internationally is being incorporated into artists’ practice,” Stephens says.

Just like the newspaper world, art has steadily become more digitised since the advent of the Internet and an increasingly technologically dependent world.

Stephens clarifies that this is an important part of the Yonder project. “One of the characteristics of the exhibition is that it spans very traditional material like clay, video, drawings, and then it includes very recent materials like, for example, digitised text,” she explains, citing one piece in particular: “There’s an artist in the exhibition called Ben Forster, where in order to access part of the work, you actually send an SMS to the work with your phone, and it then messages you back.”

When asked if there are any pieces in particular that gallery patrons have been drawn to so far, Stephens cites the work of Simon Faithfull, another artist who has adapted to the new media environment.

“Simon is an artist who is residing in Berlin, and what he’s doing is, he is sending drawings through – we have a printer in the gallery, which is dispatching the drawings. This is part of a 12-year project that he’s been doing, where, wherever he is in the world, he dispatches live visual drawings. So our gallery attendants are pinning up the drawings on a large map of Berlin that we have in the gallery, after locating where the drawing was made using a phone application which was created by the artist.” _CHLOE PAPAS 25

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X-Press – First on the street, Wednesdays

B E A T S ,

B A S S

&

B U Z Z I N G

E L E C T R O N I C A

A P O C A L Y P T I C

B E A T S

After releasing their third record Computer Love, Melbourne crew TZU decided it was time to take a break. But now, having reignited the flame to make music, Joelistics, Countbounce, Paso Bionic and Yeroc are back together again and their fourth record Millions Of Moments is due out this Friday. ANNABEL MACLEAN chats with Joelistics (Joel Ma) about their new,“darker” record.

“My name is Persephone and I am a user of Chronos”. This is the opening line to TZU’s mini graphic novel which accompanies their forthcoming concept record Millions Of Moments. “I’m a comic fan and I’ve been collecting comics since I was a kid and still now even though I’m an adult, I’m collecting comics,” Joel Ma says down the line from Melbourne, speaking of the comic.

“I always wanted to write one, we wrote a lot of songs for this record which were quite strange and we needed to tie the songs together so we came up with a concept and a story that connected all of these little stories and the story is about a girl who becomes addicted to a drug which is a time travel drug [Chronos] and she keeps inhabiting the consciousness of people throughout time periods in Australia and I really saw it as a film and then I was talking to an artist friend of mine and he was like ‘we should make a comic’ so the one you received is the first chapter of a longer comic and that’s just for that song Beginning Of The End.”

CONTINUED ON PAGE 28

www.xpressmag.com.au

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SUMMADAYZE HEATING UP

TZU The comic is supposed to give listeners an idea of the feel of the record which Joel thinks is a lot darker and more melancholic than previous TZU material.“I wanted also to give this idea that the album is a soundtrack to a really long story,” he adds.

“TZU has a reputation of being a feel-good band and we still feel good but we just wanted to bring some dark shit to the table.”

TZU’s “feel-good” signature sound doesn’t come through on the group’s latest single Beautiful which brings drum’n’bass to the table, something which the crew haven’t previously delved right into.

“You had a ‘what the fuck’ moment,” he says, agreeing with the comment that their new album sees them explore different, more electronic sounds. “We knew we were going to do that for a lot of people who are familiar with our music but that’s what we wanted to do.

“My favourite artists - Radiohead, The Beatles, all these great bands - were not afraid to really throw a monkey wrench into the mix and just go ‘we’re not just what you think we are or what we’ve been’ and so we did it. One could argue that in the commercial world of music it’s not the smartest thing to do because usually a band will find a formula and they’ll stick to that formula and drill it until they’re old men and hopefully rich but not TZU, no sir, we take that model and we smash it with a hammer! (laughs).

“It’s more light and shade than we’ve ever played with before and when it goes dark, it’s really dark and when it’s personal, it’s really personal. We just tried to turn everything up and I guess for us, on a comparative Australian music level, we’re very excited and happy for Australia hip hop which is our old genre to be where it’s at but we were always the kind of problem child of that scene and we just totally disregarded trying to fit into any genre… we all like music which is progressive and is experimental in pushing the boundaries. We also really like pop music and we really like hip hop music so we really try and bring all those influences together. The main aim for TZU is to be as unique as possible, like not to blend into a sound or a genre but to stand out!”

Having started the writing process for the record in a warehouse in Coburg, Melbourne, back in 2010, the lads didn’t initially get together with the idea of creating another record; it was merely for the enjoyment of being back together and doing what they love. “We got back together as a group having all had a lot of different life experiences and wrote music without the aim of releasing a record or writing radio singles,” he says.

“We really just got together to enjoy making music together and just purely for the creative act and then over time we listened to what we’d made and we were really excited by it.

We started working on the tracks and songs and Countbounce and I started to put down a lot of lyrics and vocals for the songs so it was a really slow build and it was one that we spent as much time talking about and getting concepts for as playing or writing if that makes sense. There’s a lot of thought put into this record.”

Currently working on a new live show, Joel says punters can expect to hear old tunes and new material on their upcoming national tour to celebrate the release of Millions Of Moments. “We’re sort of frantically getting our new show together and incorporating visuals and incorporating as much stuff as possible,” he says. “The nature of TZU now is that the other members have babies – there’s a lot of dads in the group now so their time is short, when you’ve got kids, you don’t have as much time to devote to your music career and traipsing around the country. The new show is equally as energetic and awesome and we’ve now got all this other stuff to play with as well.”

» » » » »

TZU MILLIONS OF MOMENTS [LIBERATION] OUT FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 21 FRIDAY, OCTOBER 5 @ BAR 120 SATURDAY, OCTOBER 6 @ AMPLIFIER

The full lineup is out! Just in case you missed it, lock in Sunday, January 6, at the new venue Patersons Stadium in Subiaco for Summadayze 2013. It’s a killer lineup with British big-beat pioneers The Chemical Brothers (DJ set), M.I.A, Dutch DJ and producer Fedde Le Grand, English producer Mark Ronson (DJ set), New Zealand pop princess Kimbra, German house duo Booka Shade, Eddie Halliwell, AN21 & Max Vangeli, Carl Craig 69 (live), Maya Jane Coles, Disclosure (live), Erol Alkan, UK DJ Fake Blood, Swedish producer Adrian Lux, Breakbot (live), Scottish producer Hudson Mohawke, drum machine extraordinaire Araabmuzik, electro pop duo Icona Pop, Scuba, Aeroplane, Jesse Rose, Danny Daze, AC Slater and more to be announced. Pre-sale tickets are on sale now and all tickets will be available from this Thursday, September 20, through Ticketmaster. Yeow!

Heavyweight Sounds is coming back. Head honcho of legendary drum’n’bass label Hospital Records is returning down under to headline the next instalment of Heavyweight Sounds. He is the one and only Tony Colman, also known as London Elektricity. Joining him will be Dynamite MC and Audioporn Records’ new maestro Xilent who has been smashing the charts with his latest Ultrafunk EP as well as a stream of huge remixes. T’Dodge, N1, Terrence & Phillip and MCs Stylee and Seeka are on support duties. It’s all happening on Friday, November 2, at Metro City. Tickets are $40 plus booking fee and are available from Moshtix now.

BACKYARD BEATS SAY HEY SAM

The Backyard Project is Perth’s greatest online EDM initiative and it’s back again with Bird On The Wire, broadcasting live from Geisha. Down on the decks will be Darci Bromac, Germany’s Don Fermano who will get the d-floor ripping with his techno, deep and minimal house and funk, swing and house beat-maker Baden M. Headlining the night is Melbourne DJ, producer and record label owner Hey Sam who has released tracks through Vicious Recordings, OneLove and more. It’s all happening this Friday, September 21, at Geisha. Get on down from 10.30pm!

BLACK & BLUNT

Not only a bona-fide living legend, Niall Dailly is still getting down, if you’d pardon the pun. Along with his boy Ben Geffin, the UK duo are always knee deep in project after project, blazing a trail with every turn they take. RK chats to Dailly about their forthcoming visit down under and the challenges of living, touring and trying to bust out an album or two.

Micah Earnshaw (Black) and Philly Blunt are Black & Blunt and if you’ve been out on the town or to a dance music festival in Perth, chances are you’ve danced to their bootilicious beats. ANNABEL MACLEAN chats with one half of the duo, Philly Blunt, about how they go started, the Bootleg Brothers and getting married.

“We always seem to have our feet in other projects – that’s basically our background,” Dailly begins.

“And a lot of what has happened for us came out of our turntablist competitions.” Dailly was DJ Plus One from the Scratch Perverts and Ben Geffin was a founding member of The Mixologists. “Around 2001 we stopped competing and guys like A-Trak and Craze just got into the clubs on the back of what we’d done in competitions,” he says. “There was this move then from hip hop into drum’n’bass but for us it never became a full time thing.”

Describing it as a “strange experience”, it was around 2006 that the duo turned over a new leaf. “We got a really solid taste for house music,” Dailly says. It was something that made sense. We heard what the Dubsided guys were doing with house; we really liked the way hip hop and house was moving together. It sort of just came together for us over a few beers.

“Everything sort of just led up to it. Of course, we worked hard to develop it and we’ve been pretty lucky. The long and short is that during the last two years we’ve spent writing an album, we’ve dropped a couple of singles here and there.

We also plan on doing a few remixes in between but the album is basically going to be an album in two parts.”

Now, it’s all coming to a head. “We looked at the way some guys were releasing and we thought about doing it that way,” he continues, speaking of their forthcoming record. “So we’ll 28

Brooklyn MC Big Daddy Kane is coming to town.

If you don’t know Big Daddy Kane, know this: he’s undisputedly defined the term ‘lyricist’ in the world of hip hop. He became good mates with Biz Markie in ’84 and went on to co-write some of the Biz’s best known raps and eventually became important members of the Queens-based Juice Crew. Kane has had several accolades, including a Grammy, and also received a VH1 Hip Hop Honour in 2005. He’s a powerful figure in the rap game and has collaborated with some of the best. Kane plays The Rosemount Hotel on Thursday, October 11.

Tickets are $50 plus booking fee and are on sale now from Heatseeker.

ELEKTRIC SOUNDS

JACK BEATS MIXOLOGISTS

LONG LIVE THE KANE

Chase & Status

TWICE THE ORIGIN NYE FUN

Origin NYE has just released a ripper lineup for this coming New Year’s Eve bass music festival which is now a two day event over Sunday, December 30, and Monday, December 31, at the new venue Fairbridge Village down in Pinjarra. On the massive bill for two days of bass bomb madness is Chase & Status (DJ set), Knife Party, Gaslamp Killer, Ed Rush, ShockOne, Pearson Sound, DMZ (Coki & Mala), Goldie, Brookes Brothers, Wilkinson, Marky & Stamina, Sigma, Delta Heavy, Metrik, DC Breaks, Skism, Gemini, Inspector Dubplate, Jakes, Mensah, Dodge & Fuski, Bar9, Distance, Dark Sky, Ben Ufo, New York Transit Authority, Pariah, XXXY, Om Unit and more to be announced. Pre-sale tickets are on sale now from TheBigApe.com.au and first release tickets go on sale on Tuesday, October 2, from TheOrigin.com.au. Head there for all info on transport, accommodation and camping.

TEARING IT UP

Jack Beats release two smaller albums a few months apart.”

Careless (featuring Takura) will give you a taste and is already available as part of the first full EP out on OWSLA. This adds to their already highly regarded releases on imprints Cheap Thrills and Deconstruction.

Claiming it’s a nice feeling when they feel the positive attitudes from producers and fans alike, Dailly also admits it is wholesome getting respect for being more than just a technical DJ. “It’s not necessarily competitive or about playing against anyone else; it’s competing with yourself,” he says.

“I still get pretty fired up when I play; people pay a ticket price and they want to have a good time.

“I want to enjoy it too; performing is always going to be inside us – we can play a lot of different things from different places. It has to do with representing what we’re about… In terms of the philosophy of our music, it is really engrained in what we do. I say that because even though being a part of turntablism is sort of a bygone era, the way technology has gone, it has taken us to places we couldn’t have imagined. We’re just about rocking a really good party and exposing our music to the people who care.”

» JACK BEATS » PARKLIFE » MONDAY, OCTOBER 1 @ WELLINGTON SQUARE

“It’s been two or two and a bit years now,” Philly Blunt says, speaking of how long his and Micah’s project Black & Blunt has been smashing speakers at festivals and clubs about Perth. “We’d both been residents at Ambar for ages and mates and we were both writing tunes separately and decided to do something together and then yeah, it came out pretty good and we liked working together so we just decided to make our separate project. Instead [of doing] just a collaboration tune, we just decided to run with it and that’s been going pretty good, mostly breaks-y and a bit of electro stuff.”

Recently, Blunt has been getting on the mic during their DJ sets, and although he says this may occur at their forthcoming set at Parklife 2012,he usually has to be “pretty drunk to do it”.But, getting on the mic is just one part of the duo’s new live show which they’re experimenting with a bit more, having first showcased it at local drum’n’bass trio The Substance’s EP launch at Villa recently.“That was a really good night,” he says.

“Up until then, we’d been sort of DJing back to back when we play together but we’ve been talking for ages that we want to do something a bit more. That was actually the first time we showcased it, like a live thing. So I was doing live samples and edits and chop ups and then Micah was doing most of the DJing but that was really good.”

In order to showcase this new direction, the boys are going to be a bit more “picky” with the gigs they choose to play. “We’re taking - not a step back I guess - but we’re just going to be a bit more picky and doing a few of the bigger shows around so we can sort of showcase that side of stuff instead of just doing lots

Black & Blunt of club shows.”

Aside from DJing about town with partner in crime Micah, Philly Blunt is also involved with regular Ambar nights District, Force Majeure and Bootleg. Bootleg has been going strong since Blunt partnered up with Ben Mac (the other half of the Bootleg Brothers)to start the night roughly six years ago.“Ben and I were working together at Kosmic Sound and I had the idea for a night where we just play all bootlegs and mash-ups and just really party fun stuff,” he says of how Bootleg kicked off.

“Back then, dance music was sort of taking itself a little too seriously so we just wanted to have a big party, like cheesy tunes for the girls and that kind of stuff [and] we got the night started at Ambar… we called ourselves The Bootleg Brothers.”

And, if that’s not enough, Blunt has recently finished his single Let Me See Those Hands which is out on Kid Kenobi’s Klub Kids imprint. He’s also finished remixing a tune for Sydney DJ and producer Kraymer and is working on a remix for a tune by local lads Sun City. “I’ve got a couple of collaborations with vocalists from here and over east,” he adds. “I am actually going back to Sydney because I’ve got a record label called Grits N Gravy which we do slower, ghetto funk and moombah and that sort of stuff. I run it with a guy in Sydney called D-Funk and he’s been over a few times.

We do a quarterly party at World Bar in Sydney so I’m back over in September for that and then the wedding in October and honeymoon.”

And, as for the honeymoon, it’s going to be all about eating and drinking. “We’re going to Hunter Valley in New South Wales actually so a couple of nights in Sydney going to some good restaurants and living it up and then chill out in the Hunter Valley and drink a shitload of wine and relax,” he concludes, not without a hint of excitement.

» BLACK & BLUNT » PARKLIFE » MONDAY, OCTOBER 1 @ WELLINGTON SQUARE X-Press – First on the street, Wednesdays

FRICTION

FRITZ KALKBRENNER

RESISTANCE IS FUTILE Brighton based DJ and producer Friction, aka Ed Keeley, was voted into the Drum & Bass Arena Hall of Fame last year and so cemented his place into the annals of the genre, but ANDREW NELSON finds out that he’s not resting on his laurels and is aiming to make the trip to these shores a memorable one.

The career of Friction has been on an upward trajectory since he started to attract attention with his three deck wizardry and released his debut single Critical Mass (as Kinnetix) back in 1998 but over the last 12 months he seems to have switched into overdrive to burst into the public consciousness. Paradoxically though, his feet seem firmly on the ground and the Shogun Audio boss is humble when discussing his position as one of the prominent players at the moment.“I’ve worked really hard to try and get where I’m going and any props that I get, it still doesn’t get old, it feels great to be embedded within this scene,” he says, reflecting down the line from his studio in the UK, grabbing a quick 20 minutes in between his hectic schedule.

“Just being an artist, coming off the back of about 15 festivals this summer and being able to turn up and play to thousands and thousands of people; that was my dream. Just playing to anyone; that was my dream. Being paid for doing the job I love, so having my music out there and having that released, I just love it all and doing everything I do, I don’t want it to stop.”

The primary factor which has contributed to his emergence from the underground and into the public eye is his to the controls of the BBC Radio 1 drum’n’bass show, replacing the legends that are Fabio and Grooverider. They’re pretty big shoes to fill and Keeley is confident, but not complacent, that he can make the show his own. “I’m really pleased with the radio show,” he says.

“I’ve tried to push as much brand new music as possible, just really focus on the music and play the best tunes. I’m never going to have Fab and Groove’s banter but loving turning up every week and doing the show.”

WEEKEND BUSINESS

HERE TODAY

Living in the shadow of a superstar brother is yesterday’s news. For German DJ and producer Fritz Kalkbrenner is an absolute hero in his own right. Piping down the line from his base in Berlin, he tells RK about life with his brother Paul, a love of literature and mechanical watches as well as what he’s been up to in the studio.

Friction Keeley is also the boss of Shogun Audio, the respected label that, since 2004, has released work from the likes of Commix, D-Bridge and Alix Perez, many of whom featured on last year’s excellent Way Of The Warrior compilation and so has the credentials required to source and evaluate only the prime tracks for his show.“I try and keep everything fresh by constantly looking for new music from other artists,” he says.

“I’m blessed and fortunate to have the record label that I have so I’m very in touch with everything that’s new and I just try and make sure I’ve got the music to interest and excite people.”

Keeley is also heading our way to showcase some of those tracks and the good news is that over the coming months a release of his own looks to be on the cards.“I have been in the studio non-stop any time I can get in here,” he says. “With touring and festivals and stuff, its crazy but I’m embedded deep into this album project at the moment which will be due for release hopefully early next year.”

» FRICTION » SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 22 @ VILLA

“I got into music around the time I was 17,” Kalkbrenner begins. “By that time, my brother Paul had already produced and been a DJ for some time. He was actually nice enough to lend me his equipment which for me was an opportunity to learn and play around.”

Maybe for his brother, it was a chance to get a curious younger brother off his back too.

Regardless, the German claims he didn’t really have a higher purpose. Music was his calling as it turned out but it was never guaranteed. “I’ve liked a lot of things in my life,” he says. “Literature, watches, a lot of things but music for me was a natural process and basically the way things just happened.”

It hasn’t hurt him being from Berlin either, given that after perhaps two decades it still remains the highly regarded European spiritual home to electronic music.“It is one of the strongest, if not the strongest scenes, in the world for this kind of music right now,” he proudly proclaims.

“In my country, we are very proud of that.

The great clubs, parties everything – there is a lot of business involved around the music too and we’re all a part of it. Everywhere in the world from London, to Paris and to Ibiza – things are growing and getting better and better.”

So after delivering the seminal Here Today, Gone Tomorrow LP in 2010, the producer returns in 2012 with Still Travellin’, again on Berlin’s respected Suol imprint. “I think the album is coming

Fritz Kalkbrenner out in October,” he says of his forthcoming record.

“It’s something I’ve worked on for quite a long time and using a lot of different ideas. With the album finished, I feel like I have all this spare time in the studio now, to be honest!”

While Kalkbrenner doesn’t give much away about the sound behind the album, he describes his influences as those coming mostly around the time of the late ‘60s and ‘70s. “It’s music like soul, funk, jazz, and of course, there is the early house stuff from Chicago and Detroit as well. Most of the time, I feel I am influenced by music that touches and moves me. That’s really it, I don’t find it hard to get influenced by music I have to say.”

Finally, he shares a moment of excitement about his upcoming shows down under. “I’m doing a number of shows over there; in fact, the set that I’m playing right now is completely live; I basically work as a live musician and do interpretations of my own tracks,” he says. “They are split into individual arrangements and sequences and that makes it quite a lot of fun. I hope to bring a really good show to Australia – along with maybe five pairs of socks and some t-shirts.”

» FRITZ KALKBRENNER » SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 22 @ GEISHA

Dan, Hannah

Eve Nightclub Saturday, September 15, 2012 Last Saturday night went down in true style at Eve as Australia’s own DJ and producer and now host of Channel [V]’s The Weekend, Grant Smillie, and singer-songwriter, DJ and MC Lady Lauryn warmed up the crowd as part of The Weekend National Tour.

Photos by Matt Jelonek

Jon, Ashwyn

Sabina, Amy

Alyce, Fiona

Cherie, Hollie

Viola, Aurora, Min, Dragana

Hayley, Serena, Ashleigh www.xpressmag.com.au

Jacqui, Ashleigh 29

BIG APE

NOM DE STRIP

SHAPE

Doctor P

WEDNESDAY 19/09 Blvd Tavern – Dub Step Captain Stirling – Fiveo Clancy’s (Applecross) – Upbeat – DJ Andy Connections – DJs Joby /JJ /Rueben Eurobar – Wild Wednesdays - DJ iPod/ Ben Pettit Flying Scotsman – UniQue DJs/ DJ Bones/ DJ Moflow Flying Scotsman (Defectors) – Beaufort Bop ft DJ Anton Maz Gold Bar–DJ Adroc Hipe Club – DJ Roger Smart Leederville Hotel – We Love Wednesdays ft DJ Slick Llama Bar – Jo 19 Metro Freo - Rapture Mustang – DJ Giles Newport – Newport Wednesdays

Shape - The Lick ft Commix Sovereign Arms – Lokie Shaw The Deen - DJ Zelimer/ DJ Viper/ DJ Benny/ T– Zone 1 The Queens – Wriggle on Villa - The Circus Showcase ft Doctor P/ Cookie Monsta/ Funtcase/ Slum Dogz YaYa’s – DJ Paul Burgess

THURSDAY 20/09 Clancy’s (Canning Bridge) - DJ Wrighteous Claremont Hotel- DJ Fiveo/ Jimmy Thorne Club Marakesh – DJ Simon Cottesloe Hotel – DJ Shots/ DJ Andy M Empire Bar – Halo/ DJ Bojan/ DJ Ben Sebastian Eve Nightclub – DJ Tony Allen Flying Scotsman – Cowboys & Indie

Commix

30

Kids DJs Leopold Hotel – DJ Riki/ Roger Smart Library - Dorcia Llama Bar – Danni Boi/ Charlie Bucket Mint Nightclub – DJ Simon Barwood Mt Henry Tavern - DJ Matty J Mullaloo Beach Hotel - DJ John Paul/ DJ Slick Mustang – DJ James Newport - Urban Swagga Paramount – DJ Johnny Boi/ DJ Jordan Players Bar – MASH South St – DJ Castasia/ Dpad Swinging Pig – DJ Simon The Avenue – Jon Ee The Carine Tavern – Punchy & Juicy/ Little Nicky The Causeway – Jaymie Franchina The Craftsman – Roger Smart The Deen – DJ Flex/ DJ Nano/ DJ Surge/ DJ Don Migi The East End Bar - The Prestige ft Az-T The Queens – Kapitol The Whale & Ale – Josh Tilley The Whistling Kite - DJ Gareth Tiger Lils – Paul Malone/ Adam Kelly Velvet Lounge – Descent Woodvale Tavern – DJ Melvin

FRIDAY 21/09 23 Irwin Street, Perth - Syrup ft Kit Pop/ Zeke/ D.Y.P/ Saxon/ Boy P/ Ol Wright/ Starks/ Elcue/ Oni Ca$h Ambar – Bootleg: Sneaker Party ft Spenda C/ The Bootleg Brothers (Philly Blunt & Ben Mac)/ Genga/ 4BY4/ Riot Class Amplifier – DJ Jamie Mac Bar 459 - DJ Smurf Blvd Tavern – DJ Andy/ Tommo/ Conan/ Luke Boheme Bar - DJ Majiika Boulevard Tavern – DJ Andyy Broken Hill Hotel – DJ Nick Alexander Brooklands Tavern - DJ Misschief Mel Capitol (Upstairs) – I Love ‘90s Carine Tavern – Greg Packer/ MC Assassin Clancy’s (Canning Bridge) - DJ Boogie Claremont Hotel – Jon Ee Club Bayview – Amnesia ft Fendi/ Axon/ Fellis Como Hotel – DJ Gazz Eastern Hotel – DJ Munch Empire Bar – Lockie Shaw Eve Nightclub – DJ Dannyboi/ DJ Az T Flawless – DJ Ryan Flying Scotsman – DJs Jo19/ Rok Riley/ Armee Flying Scotsman (Defectors) - Back To Mono DJs Geisha - Bird On A Wire ft Darci Bromac/ Don Fermano/ HEY SAM/ Baden M Ginger Nightclub – Rondevoo Fridayz Gosnells Club – DJ Now Hipe Club - DJ E-Funk Honey Lounge – DJ Curlee/ Drew Green Lakers Tavern – Fresh Fridays - DJ Dooey Left Bank – DJ Frankie Button Library – DJ Sneaky

AMBAR

FRAT HOUSE FRIDAYS

Little Creatures Loft – Marine Beats Llama Bar – Jim Pearson/ Jehan/ Ben Edit/ DJ Cee Merriwa Tavern – DJ Real McCoy Metro City (Solace Bar) – DJ Slick Mint Nightclub – Club Retro ft Chris McPhee Mullaloo Beach Hotel - DJ John Paul Mustang – Swing DJ/ DJ James MacArthur Paddy Hannans – Crazy Craig Paramount - DJ Johnny Boi/ DJ Jordan Players Bar – Sugar Queens Tav – DJ Rueben Rocket Room – Extreme Aggression ft DJ Cain Sail & Anchor - Balcony Beatz/ DJ J-MAC Sovereign Arms – Dylan Hammond The Avenue – Dale Ingvarson The Beat Nightclub - Limbo Reunion 2012 ft DJ Nick Alexander/ Colin Clark/ JJ/ Greg Packer/ Craig B & Maze/ Marnie Kent The Carine – Mind Electric/ Little Nicky/ Az-T The Causeway – Jus Haus?

The East End Bar – Az-T The Generous Squire - DJ Anaru The Queens – DJ Rueben The Saint - DJ Emmanuel The Shed – DJ Glenn 20 The Whale & Ale – Josh Tilley Tiger Lils – Paul Malone/ Adam Kelly The Vic - DJ Giles The Wembley Hotel – Abstar Windsor – DJ Riki and Ray Victoria Park Hotel – DJ Giles Ya-Ya’s – Hero DJs ft Pup

Little Creatures Loft – Marine Beats Liquid Nightclub - DJ Klar55/ DJ Stevie M Llama Bar – DJ Reuben/ DJ Melvin Malt Super Club – Fiveo Metro City (R&B Lounge) - DJ Slick/DJ Ruthless/DJ Soso/DJ Brett Costello Metro Freo – DTuck/ Ben Carter/ DJ Wazz Mint Nightclub – Pop Life ft DJ Aaron/ AJ Mullaloo Beach Hotel – DJ Danny Mustang – Rockabilly DJ/ DJ James MacArthur Niche – Frankie Button/ Cee/ Jonny Zimber Norma Jeans – DJ Darren Oxford Hotel – DJ Sequeria Paramount- DJ Cornflake / DJ Jordan/ DJ Johnny Boi Queens Tav - Gareth Richardson Rocket Room – DJ Perry South St Ale House – DJ Jay Sovereign Arms – Rockwell The Avenue – Jon Ee The Bakery - Octave One The Boheme – DJ Sneakee The Brighton (Upstairs) – Micah/ Kill Dyl/ eSQue The Causeway – Rhys Johnson The Clink –Az-T The Cornerstone – Dylan Hammond The Craftsman – DJ Shortz The Deen - DJ Birdie/ DJ JJ/ DJ Tony Allen The East End Bar - Fiveo The Generous Squire – On Tap ft DJ Freeds The Honey Lounge - Steffi The Saint – DJ Anaru The Shed –DJ Andyy The Wembley – Lokie Shaw The Whistling Kite - DJ Craig The Velvet Lounge - Open Decks Sessions! v4.09 ft Stoitzy/ Dusty/ DJ Ambar – Japan 4 ft Blaze Tripp/ Buda/ Filthee/ Trenty/ Hatchet Philly Blunt/ DNGRFLD/ Tee EL The Vic – DJ Kristian Amplifier – Pure Pop ft Eddie Electric Tiger Lils – DJ Bojan/ DJ Ben Sebastian Basement On Broadway – DJ Ricky Victoria Park Hotel – DJ Melvin Boheme Bar – Carte Blanche DJs Villa - Friction/ MC Linguistics Broken Hill Tavern – DJ Roger Smart/ Windsor – DJ Ray Matt Richards/ Ben Dallin Woodvale Tavern – DJ Real McCoy Capitol (Upstairs) – Cream Of The ‘80s Ya-Ya’s – Hero DJs ft Pup ft DJ Ryan Capitol – Death Disco Clancy’s (Canning Bridge) - DJ Dood Claremont Hotel – Fiveo/ J.V.R Club Bay View – Fiveo Captain Stirling – DJ Jay Eastern Hotel – DJ Munch Claremont Hotel – DJ Double Dee Empire Bar – DJ James Ess Clink – DJ Tony Allen Eurobar – Roger Smart/ DJ Raci Empire Bar – CB3/ DJ Riki/ DJ Vicktor Eve Nightclub – DJ Crazy Craig/ DJ Euro Bar – DJ Flex Don Migi Eve Nightclub – Angry Buda/ DJ Slick Flying Scotsman - Under The Influence Flying Scotsman – Nathan J/ Nizbet/ DJs Pasha/ Chris Flying Scotsman (Defectors) - Fore DJs Flying Scotsman (Defectors) – Eclectic Gilkisons - Electrified H i g h R o a d H o t e l – D J S i m o n Picnic H i g h W y c o m b e – D J M a t t Mint - Chris McPhee Mustang – DJ Rockin Rhys Hipe Club – DJ E-Funk Paramount – Glo/ DJ Slick/ DJ Benny Honey Lounge – DJ Saxon/ Sardi Indi Bar – The Freakz/ Thomas Ford/ C/ DJ Matty S Players Bar – Electro House Battle Pimps Of Sound Library – MKT ft DJ Riki/ DJ Vicktor Rocket Room – Coyote Ugly Sovereign Arms – Josh Tilley and more

SATURDAY 22/09

SUNDAY 23/09

METRO FREO

Hey Sam The Avenue – Az-T The Causeway – Lukas Wimmler The Cott – Cott Sessions The Kiosk – DJ Cinder The Saint - DJ Anaru The Shed – DJ Tony Dee

MONDAY 24/09 Bar Orient - DJ White Label Broken Hill Tavern - DJ Mario Tavelli The Deen – Plastic Max/ The Token Gesture The Paddo – DJ John Paul The Shed – DJ Andyy

TUESDAY 25/09 Bar Orient - DJ Lyndon Eastern Hotel – Jon Edwards High Road Hotel – DJ Matty J High Wycombe – DJ Ricky Hipe Club – DJ Roger Smart Players Bar (Norma Jeans Bar) – Stevie M Victoria Park Hotel – DJ Melvin

X-Press – First on the street, Wednesdays

METRO FREO

SHOCKONE

NEWPORT

VILLA

IN THE THIS WEEK:

Challenger Ready ft Benny P v Micah/ Bezwun v Dead Easy/ Marko Paulo/ The Circus Showcase ft Doctor P/ Cookie Philly Blunt v DNGRFLD/MR eD v Bob Noceros Monsta/ Funtcase/ Slum Dogz Saturday, September 29 @ Ambar Wednesday, September 19 @ Villa The Lick ft Commix Wednesday, September 19 @ Shape

Havana Brown Saturday, September 29 @ Metro Freo

Winter Wonderland ft Ruby Rose/ Bootleg: Sneaker Party ft Spenda C/ The Bootleg Brothers (Philly Blunt & Ben Grant Smillie/ Audageous/ Gav Trotter Sunday, September 30 @ 221 St Georges Mac)/ Genga/ 4BY4/ Riot Class Terrace, Perth Friday, September 21 @ Ambar Bird On A Wire ft Darci Bromac/ Don Ferry Corsten/ Shogun Fermano/ HEY SAM/ Baden M Sunday, September 30 @ Villa Friday, September 21 @ Geisha Phoenix Long Weekend Party Limbo Reunion 2012 ft DJ Nick ft DJ Francesco/ DJ Slick/ DJ Birdie/ Alexander/ Colin Clark/ JJ/ Greg Packer/ DJ Don Migi Craig B & Maze/ Marnie Kent Sunday, September 30 @ Eve Nightclub Friday, September 21 @ The Beat Nightclub Parklife ft Chairlift/ Modestep/ The Syrup ft Kit Pop/ Zeke/ D.Y.P/ Saxon/ Boy Presets/ Nero (live)/ Passion Pit/ Plan P/ Ol Wright/ Starks/ Elcue/ Oni Ca$h B/ Justice (DJ set)/ Robyn/ Benga (live)/ Friday, September 21 @ 23 Irwin Street, Rusko/ Wiley/ Labrinth/ DJ Fresh (live)/ Perth Flume/ Alison Wonderland/ Lee Foss/ Jack Beats (live) and more Japan 4 ft Blaze Tripp Monday, October 1 @ Wellington Square Saturday, September 22 @ Ambar Lars Open Decks Sessions! v4.09 ft Stoitzy/ MC Monday, October 1 @ The Den Dusty/ DJ Filthee/ Trenty/ Hatchet Saturday, September 22 @ The Velvet TZU Lounge Friday, October 5 @ Bar 120 Friction/ MC Linguistics Habitat ft Monkey Safari Saturday, September 22 @ Villa Friday, October 5 @ Geisha Octave One TZU Saturday, September 22 @ The Bakery Saturday, October 6 @ Amplifier Electrified ft Danny Gilligan/ Paul Robertson/ Remarc & Grimm/ Solar Seth Sentry Blaze/ Rinski/ Jason V/ Terrance & Phillip/ Saturday, October 6 @ The Rosemount Hotel Hutcho and more Saturday, September 22 @ Gilkisons Paul Oakenfold Saturday, October 6 @ Villa

COMING UP

High Wolf Thursday, September 27 @ PICA Bar Das EFX/ Black Sheep Thursday, September 27 @ The Civic Hotel Break-A-Holics Anonymous: Vinyl Night ft Marty McFly v Tone/ BAA (Micah/ Ben Mac/ Fdel)/ Wish v Oli/ Nyquist Freqs Friday, September 28 @ Villa

Seth Sentry Sunday, October 7 @ The Norfolk Hotel Rudimental Thursday, October 11 @ Ambar Big Daddy Kane/ Clandestien (SBX)/ Leonidas/ Adam Crook/ Charlie Bucket Thursday, October 11 @ The Rosemount Hotel

The Aston Shuffle Can’t Stop Now Tour Friday, October 12 @ Villa Downlink Friday, October 12 @ Shape

The Court Street Party ft Wynter Gordon/ Kitty Glitter/ Nino Brown/ Skarlett Saramore/ Dan Murphy Saturday, November 3 @ The Court

Fresh Produce: Double Trouble ft Lemon Lime n Love Town/ Benny P & Genga/ 4by4/ The Tapeheads/ CK RUCKUS v StrangerThanDigital Friday, October 12 @ Ambar

Smoke DZA/ LV/ Jesse Boykins III/ Shigeto/ Melo X/ Raaghe/ Savior/ Zeke/ Rok Riley Saturday, November 9 @ The Bakery

Bombs Away Friday, October 12 @ Eve Nightclub

Prefuse 73/ Teebs Saturday, November 17 @ The Bakery

Emalkay Saturday, October 13 @ Shape

Stereosonic ft Tiësto/ Avicii/ Calvin Harris/ Example/ Carl Cox/ Major Lazer/ Laidback Luke/ Martin Solveig/ Dash Berlin/ Markus Schulz/ Diplo/ Sander van Doorn/ Infected Mushroom/ Chuckie/ Flux Pavilion/ Mr Oizo/ Porter Robinson/ Loco Dice/ Bassnectar/ JFK MSTRKRFT/ Excision/ Adam Beyer/ Aly & Fila/ Caspa/ Datsik/ Joris Voorn/ Bingo Players/ Tommy Trash/ Simon Patterson/ Gesaffelstein/ Ørjan Nilsen/ Dillon Francis/ Foreign Beggars/ Zedd/ Brodinski/ Krewella/ Nina Kraviz/ Van She/ Alvin Risk/ Destructo/ MaRLo/ Treasure Fingers/ Bart B More and more Sunday, November 25 @ Claremont Showground (TBC)

This Is Nowhere ft Jimmy Edgar/ Ikonika/ Slugabed/ Salva/ D’eon/ James Ireland/ Move Crew/ Rok Riley/ Travis Doom/ Jo Lettenmaier Sunday, October 14 @ Dolphin Theatre & Lawrence Jackson Court, UWA Nadia Ali/ Jason Creek/ DJ Kenny L Friday, October 19 @ Metro City Japan 4 ft Nick Thayer Saturday, October 20 @ Ambar Matrix & Futurebound/ Smooth/ Phetsta Friday, October 20 @ Villa THEEsatisfaction Saturday, October 20 @ The Bakery Jay Sean Thursday, October 25 @ Eve Nightclub Madlib Medicine Show ft Madlib/ J Rocc/ Egon Saturday, October 27 @ The Bakery Into The Limelight DJ Competition Saturday, October 27 @ Villa Challenger Ready: Halloween Dress-Up Party ft FTW v Benny P/ Blend v DNGRFLD/ Marty McFly v Tee EL/ Black & Blunt/ Marko Paulo v Oli Saturday, October 27 @ Ambar Heav y weight Sounds f t London Elektricity/ Dynamite MC/ Xilent and more Friday, November 2 @ Metro City

Speakeasy ft Northeast Party House Friday, September 28 @ Villa

SATURDAY,

Sets On The Beach ft lineup TBC Sunday, December 2 @ Scarborough Beach Amphitheatre Perth Dance Music Awards Sunday, December 2 @ The Court Mr Grevis Wednesday, December 12 @ Mojos Breakfest ft Krafty Kuts/ A.Skillz/ DJ Yoda/ Lady Waks/ The Nextmen/ Jaguar Skills/ Specimen A/ Pyramid/ Marten Hørger/ High Contrast/ Spy/ Camo & Krooked/ MC Wrec Wednesday, December 26 @ Belvoir Amphitheatre Origin NYE ft Chase & Status (DJ Set)/ Knife Party/ Gaslamp Killer/ ShockOne/ Pearson Sound/ DMZ (Coki & Mala)/ Goldie/ Brookes Brothers/ Ed Rush/ Wilkinson/ Dillinja/ Marky & Stamina/ Sigma/ Delta Heavy/ Metrik/ DC Breaks/ Skism/ Gemini/ Inspector Dubplate/ Jakes/ Mensah/ Dodge & Fuski/ Bar9/ Distance/ Dark Sky/ Ben Ufo/ New York Transit Authority/ Pariah/ XXXY/ Om Unit and more TBC Sunday, December 30 & Monday, December 31 @ Fairbridge Village, Pinjarra

Sets On The Beach ft lineup TBC Sunday, January 13 @ Scarborough Beach Amphitheatre

SEPTEMBER 22

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The Knocks Sunday, December 2 @ Venue TBC

Summadayze f t Chemical Brothers (DJ Set)/ M.I.A/ Fedde Le Grand/ Mark Ronson (DJ Set)/ Kimbra/ Booka Shade (live)/ Eddie Halliwell/ AN21 & Max Vangeli/ Carl Craig 69 (live)/ Maya Jane Coles/ Disclosure Live/ Adrian Lux/ Erol Alkan/ Breakbot (live)/ Fake Blood/ Hudson Mohawke/ Araabmusik/ Icona Pop/ Scuba/ Aeroplane/ Jesse Rose/ Danny Daze/ AC Slater/ Stafford Brothers & Timmy Trumpet/ Bombs Away and more TBC Sunday, January 6 @ Patersons Stadium

FRICTION

@VILLA

‘90s Party ft Snap!

Saturday, November 3 @ Villa

Big Day Out ft The Bloody Beetroots/ Crystal Castles/ Kaskade/ Pretty Lights/ Nicky Romero/ Morgan Page/ Sampology and more Monday, January 28 @ Claremont Showground

Friction

Sets On The Beach ft lineup TBC Sunday, March 17 @ Scarborough Beach Amphitheatre

DAS EFX

STILL DIGGITY DOING IT American hip hop veterans Das EFX are touring Australia along with Native Tongues members Black Sheep. JOSHUA HAYES speaks with Andre Weston, aka Krazy Drayz, about how the group developed its famous stiggety style, and what’s keeping them busy these days.

The pair – Skoob, from Brooklyn, and Drayz, from New Jersey – met and began collaborating while studying in Virginia in the late ‘80s. “Because we were in Virginia going to school, we had to basically come up with our own style. We only heard New York rap music in the holidays when we went home or someone from home mailed us a tape,” Weston says.

“We didn’t even realise how different our style was from everyone else at first. We knew the iggedy was ours and the content, but flow and look was ‘normal’ to us. Meaning most kids in the hood were wearing timbs and cohart and a few had dreads. We just brought that look to the mainstream.”

They famously entered a talent competition being run by legendary duo EPMD and, famously, came in at second place. They may have lost the $100 prize but a record deal offer from the group more than made up for this. Das EFX’s debut album, 1992’s Dead Serious, achieved platinum status and boasted the classic single We Want EFX. However, their style was quickly seized on by other artists – even Jay-Z dabbled in the “iggity” flow, pre-Reasonable Doubt – and it was soon relegated to a passing fad. The group continued to release albums, experiencing diminishing critical and commercial returns. That being said, they continue to influence acts today – notably Das Racist, who have said their name is a homage to Das EFX. “In the beginning we weren’t too happy with other acts trying to sound like us… [But] I love the fact that we could be an influence to other acts… now,” Weston says, laughing.

Although the duo is touring together, they’re not currently working on a new Das EFX album. “Hopefully in the near future we can start on

Das EFX this long overdue album,” he says. “I feel bad for us and the fans because we’re missing out on a great experience.”

Weston is, however, working on a solo album, Showtime, which will be released later this year. He describes the album as an “all boom bap style” release, featuring artists like Smif N Wessun.

He has also just released a free mixtape, Full Time Hustle, which he describes as more experimental. “[It’s] a little more risky in terms of beats and song topic. It’s not what you would expect from Das EFX,” he says of Full Time Hustle.“But that’s why it’s a Krazy Drayz solo project, because I have a ton of music which push the envelope and might be a little too out there for my Das fans.”

In the meantime, they’re bringing 20 years of experience entertaining hip hop heads to town. “[Fans] can expect a great show and a lot of energy.

We come from the school of rocking the crowd and making them feel like they are in the show,” Weston says. “We call our shows a party because we want our fans to leave the venue like ‘Drayz was talking and rhyming with me’.”

» DAS EFX » THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 27 @ THE CIVIC

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YOUR GUIDE TO WHAT’S HAPPENING IN oCTOBER

NEW WAR The Good Fight Having developed a reputation for their brooding live performances, indie rock outfit New War’s recently released debut LP showcases an outfit packed with potential and huge ambition. JENNIFER PETERSONWARD catches up with frontman, Chris Pugmire, ahead of their first WA appearance at boutique event This Is Nowhere on Sunday, October 14, at the Somerville Auditorium.

Melbourne four-piece New War are one of those bands about whom a lot of fuss is being made in certain quarters of the music press. Having already earned a name for themselves as one of the east coast’s best live acts, the talented ensemble recently released a stunning debut album that has served to prove they deserve each and every accolade they’ve garnered thus far.

Comprising US-born Chris Pugmire, Melissa Lock, Jess Shepherd [best known as member of Melbourne outfit Sir] and Steve Masterson [ex-Bird Blobs], the outfit formed several years ago

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following the dismantling of Pugmire and Lock’s previous group, Shoplifting.

“I’m from Seattle,” says the softly-spoken Pugmire, from his Melbourne home. “Mel and I were in this band in Seattle but she had lived here [Melbourne] before and was quite keen to move back so we thought we’d move here. Mel and I had played in a band with Steve before and they both knew Jess through friends. It all just fell together.”

Having spent the last three years performing regularly on the east coast, the group’s first release came in the form of 2011’s Ghostwalking 12”, which is now followed by their debut self-titled LP, released last month through Sensory Projects.

Produced by legendary Melbourne mainstay Lindsay Gravina [who’s previously worked with the likes of Magic Dirt and Rowland S. Howard], Pugmire says their “vision” for their debut release was to create something that would reflect their enigmatic live sound.

“We didn’t want it to sound fussed over or cut and pasted,” he says. “We’re not just a recording project, although we do enjoy that process. We’re a band that plays a lot of live shows – that’s our main thing.”

Local audiences will be able to witness New War’s acclaimed live show when they visit Perth for the first time later this year to play at This Is Nowhere.

“None of us has ever been to Perth so we’re excited to see that part of Australia and there are some really great acts on the line-up we’ll definitely be checking out,” Pugmire concludes.

“We’re going to play the best show we possibly can. We’re perfectionists when it comes to our live show. It’s not shambolic or whatever – we’re pretty focused on stage. Basically, if you’ve heard our record it’s not going to sound radically different live.”

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Nevermind, they’ll be back at Murray St Mall

78 RECORDS Moving Right Along 78 Records traded for the last time at 914 Hay St Perth last Sunday, with the staff now gearing up for the big move to the Murray St Mall.

Lots of emotions were felt on the day, but the mood was one of celebration of good times shared and no doubt more to come.

“It was really good,” says 78s mainstay, Dayvid Clark.“I mean, we should be sad, end of an era and all that bullshit but we just all shared a few classic stories about our times as punters and as staff at that location and continued our planning and excitement towards the new store.

“A bunch of customers that have been with us for the last 41 years came in and reminded us that they’d been to every other location prior to 914 and how much they’re excited about the next installment of 78 Records. The nostalgia stories trickled through, the most classic probably being the time Geoff ‘Hud’ Hudson [original owner] seemed quite concerned as large amounts of plaster fell from the ceiling whilst hundreds of kids moshed to Jebediah as they christened the legendary upstairs stage back in ‘96.

I guess I felt a little sad, but more so retrospectively on an industry that we witnessed thrive at the turn of the last century which meant a three-storey record shop could operate in little ol’ Perth.”

With a long-standing business like 78 Records, customer loyalty is an important part of the whole ethos. Clearly the regular customers love the store and the store seconds that emotion. “ Yeah, there’s dudes that come in religiously every week, these people are seriously amazing and supportive,” Clark says. “Sometimes I think they should be behind the counter teaching us about music. Even the people that pop their heads in once a year, these people come into the store and go out of their way to remind us of their memories and what part of their life 78 Records has played a role. Murray has a tight schedule on Saturday’s but manages to make it in every week at 11am to tell us about the footy news, so I’m hoping he continues to come visit, not that he ever buys anything (laughs).”

The reasons for the move are several. The 78s folk had wanted to get out of the West End of the CBD for a few year; with mining companies and high end retail moving in, rent prices have risen and the building was cut up for subletting.

“And let’s be honest,” Clark adds, “we stand out like a sore thumb compared to our neighbours.

The opportunity to move back to the centre of the city, where it all started for us back in 1971, was too good an opportunity. There’s no record stores in the malls anymore so hopefully we can bring back some racket at the new joint.”

Doug looking for hidden treaures 34

With a new premises comes new opportunities and plans. Some things in the works can’t be confirmed as yet, you’ll just need to watch the space at 255 Murray St. “Being back in the hub of the city means opening for late night trading on Friday nights again and over the coming months we’ll further talks about using our rooftop and alley for live performances,” Clark says. “I’d even like to get a small bar licence, too, but I guess there’s a bunch of red tape to get through, but fingers crossed the Perth City Council take a tip from our east coast friends and don’t make it too difficult for us to entertain punters once again.

“Other than that we’ll be making sure we keep the 78 Records ethos and hopefully celebrate our 50th birthday at 255 Murray St.” _ BOB GORDON

78s

Sign o’ the times

Chiara and Bianca X-Press – First on the street, Wednesdays

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PENCIL THIS IN With a plethora of musical treats on offer throughout September and October there’s really no excuse for bored nights at home in front of the telly. Here’s a few of our top picks for the coming months…

IN THE INDUSTRY

Local metal heavyweights Sensory Amusia and Inanimacy are gearing up to help industrialstrength metallers Fear Factory showcase tunes from their recently released album The Industrialist at Capitol on Sunday, September 30. Get your tickets from Oztix or by calling 1300 762 545.

NORFOLK NECESSITY

Nine years after Carus Thompson’s first live album, Acoustic At The Norfolk, catapulted him onto the roots music scene, the singer-songwriter has released a stunning follow-up, Acoustic At The Norfolk Volume II. Recorded live in January this year in his home town of Fremantle, and with many of the same crew as the original record, Thompson has again captured the energy and atmosphere that makes his live shows so memorable and timeless. Having moved to Melbourne not long after the original Norfolk’s release Thompson is heading back to WA to launch the new live album over two special shows at the Indi Bar on Friday, November 2, and – you guessed it – the Norfolk on Saturday, November 3. With fellow WA expat Leena as special guest to open these two shows are set to be crackers!

FOLK FORAY

Heading to our shores for a four-date tour in October is Benoit Pioulard, the moniker of U.Sbased Thomas Meluch, a multi-instrumentalist singer-songwriter firmly grounded in the folk scene. On his first Australian tour, Meluch will perform a series of cinematic, acoustic indie-folk tunes, both soothing and theatrical in nature. The gig will also feature WA experimental duo Matt Rosner and Adam Trainer as Gilded, who will be launching their album Terrane. Support on the night will be from Stina and Christopher Cobilis performing as a duo, plus Kynan Tan playing alongside Cycle 440. This will all go down on Sunday, October 7, at The Bird, with tickets cheap as chips at $10 on the door.

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RIPE FOR THE PICKING

Set to take place outdoors in the beautiful surrounds of the Fremantle Arts Centre, All Fruits Ripe is Perth’s newest reggae jam happening on Saturday, October 27.

Featuring the talents of Jamaican ensemble The Original Wailers – whose mission it is to keep the memory and spirit of Bob Marley himself alive – as well as rising New Zealand stars Tomorrow People and much-loved Aussie roots outfit Blue King Brown, the ingredients are here for what will be a special spring evening filled with great music, good times and a vibe to match. This is one evening of positive vibrations that can’t be missed!

Pre-sale tickets are just $64 +BF through Oztix.

HOT AND HEAVY IN THE THEATRE

This October marks the return of dynamic fourpiece Hot Chelle Rae, winners of the 2011 American Music Award for ‘Best New Artist’, for their debut headline tour on Australian shores. Ahead of their arrival, two venue changes have been made offering avid fans a chance to get up close and personal with the boys. Originally scheduled for the Challenge Stadium their show on Thursday, November 1, will move to the Astor Theatre. There is no change to the show date. Current tickets, both general admission and reserved seating, will be valid for general admission entry to the Astor Theatre without the need for exchange. Previously announced support act Cher Lloyd will still be performing. For further ticketing details go to livenation.com.au.

The Radiators

(STILL) READY TO ROCK

It was only a couple of short weeks ago that Stephen Malkmus was raving to X-Press about Aussie rockers, The Radiators. The good news for fans old and new is that the band are returning to WA for shows this month.

Catch their classic rock’n’roll sets on Friday, September 21, at the Charles Hotel (with support from Nakedflame, Sick n Tired, Wayne Green’s Phantoms), Saturday, September 22, at The Boulevard Tavern in Joondalup (with Nakedflame, Sick n’ Tired) and on Sunday, September 23, at the Ravenswood Hotel (with Wayne Green’s Phantoms). Tickets from the respective venues.

Blues Control

BLUES BROTHERS

Hailing from East Pennsylvania, US duo Blues Control are one in a million! Lea Cho (piano/ keyboard) and Russ Waterhouse (guitar/keyboard/ tapes) create music that sounds both familiar and like nothing you’ve ever heard before. They take a creative approach that renders traditional genres and musical boundaries useless with terms such as new age, psychedelic, stadium rock, experimental and jazz fusion all being thrown in the mix at once. While that might sound like a headache the result is something very organic, listenable and soulful. Don’t miss their debut Perth performance at PICA Bar on Thursday, October 11.

Support comes from Craig McElhinney, Brendan McGrath, Eleventeen Eston, Leaving and DJ Ben Stewart. Tickets are on sale now through Oztix.

THEESATISFACTION GUARANTEED

Following their appearance at the Melbourne Festival, Stasia Irons and Cat Harris-White, collectively known as funk-psychedelic Seattle duo, THEESatisfaction, have announced a Perth show at The Bakery on Saturday, October 20. Support comes from Savoir, Raaghe, Ben Taaffe & Ben Mifflin and DJ Claude Mono.

Presale tickets ($20 plus booking fee) are on sale now from nowbaking.com.au.

THEESatisfaction

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SUBI FARMERS MARKET

SATurday

EVERY SATURDAY: Whether you are doing the weekly shopping, picking up a specialty gourmet product or enjoying a delicious breakfast listening to live local music you’ll find exactly what you’re looking for at the Subi Farmers Market. A little slice of the country in the city, this Saturday morning market emphasises organic, biodynamic and sustainable practices, with seasonal produce sold direct from the farmer. It’s simply the natural way to shop.

THE MUSTANG BAR

ADDRESS: 46 Lake Street, Northbridge

ADDRESS: Subiaco Primary School 271 Bagot Rd, Subiaco PRICE: Free

PRICE: Free entry all night

CONTACTS: subifarmersmarket.com.au / 0404 874389

CONTACT mustangbar.com.au / info@mustangbar.com.au / (08) 93282350

ROCKET ROOM

SUNDAY

COYOTE UGLY & ROCK LEGENDS: Coyote Ugly and Rock Legends: every Sunday. Sexy girls up on the bar and rock‘n’roll live on guitar. A themed Sunday session with a wicked sense of fun and entertainment, including sexy dance routines and live rock music. Rocket Room’s Coyote Ugly promotes a sensible behaviour code. Happens every Sunday.

SEPT 30

13TH BIRTHDAY BASH: The Mustang Bar celebrates 13 years of live music on Sunday, September 30, kicking the night off with Peter Busher & The Lone Rangers and the one and only DJ Rockin’ Rhys, followed by Easy Tigers with DJ James MacArthur till late. Jim Beam Black promo girls from 8pm-11pm with some great prizes to be won. Happening on Sunday, September 30

THE EAST END BAR & LOUNGE

SEPT 30

SILENT DISCO: Happening on Sunday, September 30, from 8pm ‘til 1am.

ADDRESS: 189 High Street, Fremantle PRICE: $10 presale. $15 on the door

ADDRESS: 174 James Street, Northbridge PRICE: Free Entry from 8pm til 9pm. $15 from 9pm til midnight.

CONTACT rocketroom.com.au / (08) 9227 9599

CONTACT : (08) 9335 3331 / theeastendbar.com.au / audiovaultevents.com.au

CIVIC HOTEL st

ALL MONTH th

Mon 1 MC Lars with 10 past 6 and Faim / Fri 5 In The Den - Blindspot, 10 past 6, Alex the kid, The de Niros, Truce/ Sat 6th In The Den - Armada Vale, Define My Addiction, This Other Eden / Fri 12th In The Den –The Decline / Fri 12th In The Backroom – House of Shem / Sat 13th In The Den – Eris / Sat 13th In The Backroom - Prescient Band ADDRESS: 981 Beaufort St, Inglewood

OCT 14

OKTOBERFEST 2012: Celebrate Oktoberfest exclusively in the Inglewood Hotel s Verandah Bar. German Sausage Sizzle provided with a ½L stein that you get to keep and a refill of Weihenstephaner Beer. Games and prizes for best dressed, festive music and a lot of laughs. Happening on Sunday, October 14.

ADDRESS: Cnr 5th Ave & Beaufort Street, Mt Lawley

PRICE: Entry fees range from $5 to approx $20

PRICE: $30 per person. Book your ticket on (08) 9370 5511 or buy them at the bar.

CONTACT : CIVICHOTEL.COM.AU

MULLALOO BEACH HOTEL

INGLEWOOD HOTEL

CONTACT: inglewoodhotel.com.au / (08) 9370 5511

SEPT 21

FINALS FOOTY PARTY: Dress up as your favourite footy character and you’re up for a prize for best dressed. Watch the massive Friday Night Prelim clash between the Swans and the Pies. Get your photo taken with the gorgeous Miller’s Girls. Live DJ entertainment, Door Prizes, Drink Specials. Finals Footy is just heating up! Happening on Friday, September 21.

AQWA

OCT 1

PRICE: Free entry.

SLIMEFEST: Embark on a slime filled under the sea adventure as you explore over 12,000kms of Western Australia’s coastline in just one day at AQWA. Follow the slime signage trail to discover who eats, sleeps and covers themselves in slime then count the number of golden AQWA shark coins floating in the giant tube of slime to win!

There are also the huge sharks, the tunnel, DANGER zone and more! Runs from Monday, October 1, ‘til Sunday, October 14 ADDRESS: Hillarys Boat Harbour, Hillarys PRICE: Slimefest included with entry $20 conc. $28 adults

CONTACT : (08) 9401 8411 / general@mullalloobeachhotel.com.au

CONTACT : aqwa.com.au / bookings@aqwa.com.au / (08) 9447 7500

ADDRESS: 10 Oceanside Promenade, Mullaloo

AMPLIFIER CAPITOL

SEPT 22

BRITISH INDIA TOUR: British India are heading our way for their I Can Make You Love Me Tour which will showcase their new single and film clip for I Can Make You Love Me. Happening on Saturday, September 22.

ADDRESS: 383-393 Murray St, Perth PRICE: Tickets on sale via Oztix and all usual outlets

YA YA’S

OCT 18

TIGERTOWN TOUR: Leading on from the success of their debut EP in 2011 and standout track Lions And Witches earlier this year, Sydney’s Tigertown have revealed their stunning new single Morning Has Finally Come accompanied by a striking video clip and a string of dates throughout October to celebrate the release of their forthcoming EP Before The Morning. Happening on Thursday, October 18.

ADDRESS: 147 James St, Northbridge PRICE: $15 pre-sale tickets through tigertownband.com. $20 on the door.

CONTACT :ya-yas.com.au / adam@ya-yas.com.au

CONTACT : amplifiercapitol.com.au

THE BEAT NIGHTCLUB

SEPT 28

PADDINGTON ALEHOUSE

OCT 20

SPILT CITIES Build/Rebuild EP LAUNCH: Heavily influenced by ‘90s indie rock bands like Modest Mouse and Built To Spill, as well as progressive, folk and grunge of the last several decades, Spilt Cities strive to make music that can be both melodic and loud. Join them with Foxes, Only Hope and Celebrator for their debut EP launch.

Happening on Friday, September 28.

OKTOBERFEST 2012: Come celebrate The Paddo’s 5th annual Oktoberfest. There will be DJs and MCs all day plus loads of great prizes to be won. What’s your favourite food accompaniment to beer? There will be an authentic German menu on offer throughout the day Hurry only limited tickets remaining!!! Last year’s sold out in record time. Happening on Saturday, October 20.

ADDRESS: 234 William St, Northbridge

ADDRESS: 234 William St, Northbridge

PRICE: $15 (Includes EP)

PRICE:: $20 +BF through Moshtix

CONTACT : facebook.com/thebeatnightclub / 0487 6000 60

CONTACT : benr@paddo.com.au / paddo.com.au / (08) 9242 3077

VIC PARK HOTEL

SEPT 29

FREMANTLE ARTS CENTRE

OCT 27

AFL GRAND FINAL: Catch the 2012 AFL Grant Final over three screens. Happening on Saturday, September 29.

ALL FRUITS RIPE: A Reggae Jamm featuring The Original Wailers, Blue King Brown, Tomorrow People and more. Happening on Saturday, October 27.

ADDRESS: 605 Albany Highway, Victoria Park

ADDRESS: 234 William St, Northbridge

PRICE: Free

PRICE:: $64 +BF through Heatseeker

CONTACT : victoriaparkhotel.com.au / (08) 9361 1063

CONTACT DETAILS: offworldproductions.com.au

THE FORREST CENTRE

SEPT 30

WINTER WONDERLAND: Legs 11 Events presents Winter Wonderland! This glamorous party is a not for profit event for the charity Sunlight of Dawn to build an Orphanage in Cambodia. Party for change as you dance under snowfall all night with DJs Ruby Rose and Grant Smillie! Happening on Sunday, September 30.

ADDRESS: 221 St Georges Terrace, Perth

HIGH ROAD HOTEL

OCT 31

AFL GRAND FINAL & HALLOWEEN PARTY: Catch the AFL Grand Final on Saturday, September 29. Head down to the Halloween Party on Wednesday, October 31.

ADDRESS: 361 High Road, Riverton PRICE: Free

PRICE: $90 +BF through Moshtix

CONTACT : info@legs11events.com.au / legs11events.com.au / 0412 403 899

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CONTACT : highroadhotel.com.au / (08) 9457 0477

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DEFEATER Dear Wesley

Massachusetts hardcore outfit, Defeater, perform at Amplifier on October 3 and YMCA HQ (allages) on October 4, supported by Blacklisted. ZOË RADAS reports.

Defeater’s body of work – comprising two fulllength albums, an EP and a single – has been heralded as something which doesn’t just employ concept to create mood, but uses this complicated narrative to comment on issues which affect all the onion skins of community.

Their storyline orbits a New Jersey family living in the post World War II period, and chronicles the emotional upheavals of its characters and the societal commotions they endure over time. Defeater’s Australian fans will be treated with the live experience very shortly, with the Massachusetts hardcore five-piece arriving in Australia in a few weeks to tour their double record of 2011, Empty Days & Sleepless Nights.

“Before the band was even set in stone there was just the first record written instrumentally, and then we talked about what the record should be about,” says vocalist Derek Archambault, down the line from Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

“It was definitely planned. Jay [Maas, guitar] and I both agreed that it should be a fictitious concept record loosely based on whatever I wanted.”

From this beginning the discography began to unfold, and an alter-world was fleshed out. “Everything about Defeater is trapped within this storyline and timeline and these characters,” Archambault says.

It doesn’t mean the band’s sound is limited, though, despite the expectations a listener might hold for this particular genre.

Countless reviewers mark Defeater as being at the top of their game, and even out of reach to their musical peers because of their experimentation in mixing acoustic ballads and heavy metal.

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“I’m not really the best judge of hardcore bands because I don’t really listen to a lot of it anymore, but I listen to ‘90s hardcore,” Archambault says. “There’s a lot of great bands doing a lot of great things. They’ve all coincidentally become our friends, so I might be a little biased.”

“It’s incredibly flattering when, you know, some kids come up to us and say, ‘Hey, I’ve got this Defeater-inspired tattoo’, or ‘Your record’s influenced my life in this way’, or just to sit and talk about how somehow our little shit band has been able to change them in some way... I don’t pay attention to that stuff online but it means the fucking world to me when it happens in person.”

The problem with a particular genre’s definition, and its stigmas or otherwise, is obviously something Archambault feels he has to address as it becomes clear he doesn’t like some of the language I’m using (even though it feels neutral enough).

“I feel like stuff gets lumped in,” he explains. “The more metal leanings of hardcore and metalcore, I feel like that is really stagnant, but I don’t think that we really sit in that. I feel like with hardcore, there’s always something keeping it fresh and new. There’s all these bands coming up that take something old and give it a new spin.”

Defeater (Photo: Eric Levin) Disciples of the band are a particularly zealous species, with an impressive collection of truly gorgeous fan art up on Instagram and Twitter. Archambault says he doesn’t spend a lot of time on social media, but loves what he sees at shows.

“It’s incredibly flattering when, you know, some kids come up to us and say, ‘Hey, I’ve got this Defeater-inspired tattoo’, or ‘Your record’s influenced my life in this way’, or just to sit and talk about how somehow our little shit band has been able to change them in some way,” he says pointedly. “I don’t pay attention to that stuff online but it means the fucking world to me when it happens in person.”

Included in ‘that stuff online’ is Facebook, so Archambault can’t say which of his bandmates recently posted a status update quoting Chicago performer, Wesley Willis. He does, however, explain a bit about the man and it seems to reflect his interest in those people who sit outside convention.

“Wesley Willis was a schizophrenic man who recorded songs on a shitty little Casio

keyboard and a tape recorder. He turned into this huge cult phenomenon and toured and then he passed away. I played a festival with him. He got a lot of shit. People kind of made fun of him, they kind of weren’t really laughing with him a lot of the time. He wrote music about rock ‘n’ roll and McDonald’s.”

Willis’ material was released on Jello Biafra’s Alternative Tentacles label, and Archambault makes a point of saying that “the people putting out his records actually believed in him.”

When the band get back from Australia the plan is to begin the writing process again, and then record in Maas’ new studio. In addition to playing guitar with the band, Maas is a highly respected producer and mixer.

“We’ll record everything with Jay, and it’s going to take who knows how long? We get to work at our own pace, so that’s what’s nice. We don’t have to answer to anyone at a studio, we don’t have to like, practice or write for months and months and months and then just go try bang it all out.”

X-Press – First on the street, Wednesdays

EARTH

LOON LAKE

Margins / Original Past Life The Rosemount Hotel Saturday, September 15, 2012

Stillwater Giants / Rainy Day Women Amplifier Saturday, September 15, 2012 Melbourne dudes Loon Lake shot to the top of playlists country-wide last year after releasing insanely catchy single In The Summer – and have been going from strength to strength since. Along with two rad local bands, the quintet performed their first Perth headlining show at Amplifier on Saturday night – and man, it was a doozy.

R a i n y D a y Wo m e n k i c k e d o f f proceedings, drawing quite a significant crowd considering their timeslot and piquing the interest of early punters with their well-formed indie-rock tunes. Shoeless and chilled, the four-piece seem to have perfected that Perth-band knack to appear utterly relaxed yet still put on an excellent show.

Much-loved quartet Stillwater Giants were up next, amping up the crowd from chord one with their infectious surf-rock tracks and high-energy delivery. The four lads have built up quite the local following over the past year or so, and managed to pack out the room. Songs like Give Into Me and Not Like The Others went down a treat, and as a whole the set was top-notch.

And then, the main event. Frontman Sam Nolan took to the Amps stage and kicked the set off solo with Heart Stomper, an angsty acoustic track that proved to be the perfect opener, showcasing Nolan’s phenomenal, earnest vocals and encouraging the crowd to sway and relate to relationship woes. The rest of the band joined Nolan onstage throughout the song, then launched into better-known tracks; cheeky tune Bad To Me, last year’s In The Summer – plus a bunch of songs from their new EP that, while lesser known, were still lapped up by the crowd.

Look Lake’s live delivery is absolutely first rate; their musicianship is solid, energy levels elevated and the atmosphere they create is undeniably awesome.

www.xpressmag.com.au

Loon Lake (Photo: Stefan Caramia) Sam Nolan has perfected the art of stage banter, easily chatting and riling the crowd about everything from the footy to the beers. Towards the end of the set he asked if there were any requests, and after a whole lotta hollerin’ from punters and a quick search for lyrics on Nolan’s phone, the group launched into The xx’s Angel, delivering it perfectly.

Unlike many who have graced the Amps stage, Loon Lake barely even left the stage for their encore, and launched straight into Cherry Lips - and damn it got sweaty in there – the crowd lost their shit, shook their sexy hips, and worshipped the hell out of the five lads on stage. Many assumed that Loon Lake would leave it there, but they had one last offering; a magnificent, mind-blowing cover of The Darkness’ I Believe In A Thing Called Love. All three guitarists absolutely shredded, and Nolan could give Justin Hawkins a run for his money – his rendition was impressively pitch-perfect right down to the falsetto wails. Absolutely awesome. Loon Lake are a band that you simply can’t miss live. _CHLOE PAPAS

Seattle-based drone merchants Earth draw a diverse crowd. Great music transcends subcultural boundaries, as evidenced by the sight of members of the metal nation rubbing shoulders with some of the hipster elite, all gathered together to be transported by Earth’s distinctive, highly cinematic soundscapes.

Original Past Life, the current project

by Radarmaker alumni Adam Trainer, opened proceedings. One of the more interesting aspects of the night was seeing how three different outfits make their way across broadly similar genre territory. Trainer and associates are more freeform than their stagemates, and their set was reminiscent of an extended, loose jam session. Their music is ethereal and melodic, with sinister, rolling drums punctuated with sci-fi beeps and eerie howls. It’s intricate and involving, and if it does occasionally lapse into repetition and self indulgence, that’s largely forgivable.

Melbournian instrumental act Margins took the tone of the night to an even darker place with their slow and menacing groove. Their work was tighter and more structured than the opening band, with just a hint of Tex-Mex flavour to their stuff - imagine a Spaghetti Western written by Nick Cave in one of his more biblical moods, and you get the idea. It’s red sky music, foreboding, brooding, and

apocalyptic, and judging by the number of CDs they moved, they struck a chord with the crowd.

Earth set a shocking precedent in music history by starting their slot 10 minutes earlier than advertised, launching into it with minimal fuss. Dylan Carson, the creative engine of the group, may be an artist by dint of his execution, but he’s a workman in his approach, refreshingly down to earth and self-effacing. After the initial cheers when the band mounted the stage, the room settled down, each member of the audience on a very personal musical trip.

With almost two decades worth of music to draw from, Carson and his collaborators were able to deliver a show that was at once both diverse and yet tonally consistent. His earlier stuff received warmer response than more recent work, but that’s an indication of crowd familiarity, not musical quality.

Earth’s latest album, Angels Of Darkness, Demons Of Light II got a good look-in, with the haunting Multiplicity Of Doors being the standout, but old favourites such as The Bees Made Honey In The Lion’s Skull also got an airing.

And yet, despite the quality of the music, the crowd was beginning to thin noticeably, with more than a few punters retreating to the beer garden for some respite. Earth are a great band to listen to, but not necessarily a great band to watch; the lack of vocals, muted crowd reaction, and minimal interaction makes their live performance a strangely inert affair, and many customers voted with their feet. Ultimately, while it’s easy enough to recommend their music, the same cannot be said of their show. _TRAVIS JOHNSON

Earth (Photo: Guang-Hui Chuan)

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27 YEARS YOUNG Indie darlings The Ghost Hotel, Boom! Bap! Pow!, Rainy Day Women and Cow Parade Cow, and DJs Gran Calavera, GET MORE, Zeke and Q-BIK helped us spread the good times, tunes and beats across Amplifier and Capitol for our 27th birthday last Friday evening. Here’s to 27 more!

Photographs by Denis Radacic

Amy Rose & Jayga

Jarred & Max Gibbo & Rowe

Ben, Nicky, Darryn & Nat

Emma, Brett & Axe

INDI BAR

This Wednesday, September 19, OKA are back to rip up The Indi Bar with what is sure to be another sell out show and a night of didgeridoo, bamboo flutes, and bangin’ tunes. Saturday, September 22, catch Tomas Ford live and in the flesh. Ford is king of the d-floor and the master of crowds.

Helen Shanahan

FLY BY NIGHT

Local lass Helen Shanahan will be launching her much anticipated album Driftwood at The Fly By Night on Friday, October 5. The eight track album is a culmination of Helen’s observations and musings in recent years translated into lyrics which ride the sorrow of love and life and draw the listener into a heartfelt world of story and melody. Having supported the likes of Matt Corby and Passenger in recent years, Helen’s star is definitely rising. Tickets are $26 +BF from (08) 9430 5976

DUCKSTEIN BREWERY

Celebrate Oktoberfest 2012 in the beautiful surrounds of Margaret River at the Duckstein Brewery. On Saturday, October 20, from 10am ‘til 5pm, there will be a range of tasty food and German games to keep you entertained, while Blue Shaddy, Travis Caudle and DJ Damon Rollins will provide the perfect soundtrack. Tickets are $35 +BF and on sale now from heatseeker.com.

Group discounts are available and there will be bus transfers available to get you there and home safely.

Hit up facebook.com/DucksteinBreweryMargaretRiver for more deets.

YA YA’S

Come on down this Wednesday, September 19, and see some up and coming local music from Lunar Inverse, Golden Slums, Artillery Road and From The Dunes. Friday, September 20, The W*H*O*R*E*S will launch their new EP. There are two free passes up for grabs so simply email adam@ya-yas.com.au with ‘The W*H*O*R*E*S’ in the subject line!

RAILWAY HOTEL

This Saturday, September 22, catch the rock‘n’roll combo of Axe Cane, Wicked Wench, In The Now and Nightshift. Doors open 8pm, $5 entry or $10 with an Axe Cane CD.

MUSTANG BAR

Support original music this Thursday, September 20, with much-loved grunge rockers The Love Junkies.

Support comes from Deep River Collective and DJ James MacArthur.

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Rainy Day Women

THE PADDO

Oktoberfest at The Paddo is back again for its fifth year on Saturday, October 20, from noon ‘til 6pm! See The Paddo transform into its very own Weihenstephan German beer hall. DJ Riki, Roger Smart and James Ess will be on stage all day plus there will be our famous strongest guy and girl competition. They will also have a fully authentic German food menu available plus The Paddo’s own sexy beer wenches will be serving you ice cold Weihenstephan half steins all day for only $10. Pre-sale tickets are $20 +BF from paddo.com.au.

MOJOS BAR

Saturday, September 22, hot on the heals of their fantastic single launch, The Domnicks are planning a massive night of music to celebrate the release of Super Real, their first full length CD. With support from Custom Royal, The Floors and DJ Charlie Bucket, this is sure to be another huge night out! Mojo’s is giving away double passes to this show so simply email mojos@coolperthnights.com with ‘Domnicks’ in the subject line!

Gran Calavera

The Ghost Hotel

Boom! Bap! Pow!

Cow Parade Cow

THE BROKEN HILL HOTEL

Sunday, October 7, from noon ‘til late dress up in your Oktoberfest outfit for a day of fun and games, including competitions, live music, food stalls and much more. Tickets available now from Moshtix or the venue.

ROCKET ROOM

A Haunting On Ravenswood are a new post -hardcore sensation who will be chilling you with their dark breed of atmospheric sounds and haunting melodies. Check them out at the Rocket Room this Friday, September 2011, supporting the Still Water Claims on their farewell show. Kicks off 8pm.

ROSEMOUNT HOTEL

This Wednesday, September 19, the Rosemount Hotel sees Dave, Mourning The Collector, Catlips and Trojan John hit the stage in the main room from 8pm. Entry is just $8. To win a double pass to this show email win@rosemounthotel.com.au with ‘Win’ in the subject line.

X-Press – First on the street, Wednesdays

SEAN O’NEILL Hanging In There

Moving on from his previous project with his band Hang On St. Christopher, young folk troubadour Sean O’Neill has joined the lone ranger ranks to produce a thought-provoking and bold debut EP Moving In Time, which is set to be released next Thursday, September 27, at The Bird. Jennifer Peterson-Ward reports.

As Sean O’Neill attests, the thinking behind his decision to part ways with his Hang On St. Christopher cohorts was relatively simple. Already the main songwriter for that band and facing the dilemma that “organising rehearsals for seven people sucks”, at the tail end of 2011 the talented troubadour decided to take centre stage.

Kicking it solo style has also given O’Neill the creative freedom to explore the more esoteric crevices of his talent without other players nixing his ideas.“The use of space and ‘free’ time was very important in a few of these songs. I didn’t want any ‘beats’ in any of these songs. I just wanted the music to feel like it was floating through air,” he says. “Over the last year I have really gotten into a lot of ambient music. Especially pieces like Brian Eno’s Music For Airports and works by Eluvium. I have also been listening to a lot of experiential composers like Nico Muhly and Phillip Glass who have opened up numerous doors as to what could and should make up a piece of music. The film score from Tree Of Life has also changed the way I write music.”

While anyone who has seen O’Neill perform live in the last few months may be familiar with the tunes on the EP, the troubadour says listeners can still expect something new. “I’ve played all these songs live before. But most of them have been recorded in completely different ways to how they are normally played live. I’m a big fan of using the recording studio to my advantage and doing a lot of overdubs,” he explains.“At the end of the day, what is the point in the recording studio if you just want to play all the songs exactly how you play them live?

Why not just record a live album and save yourself a lot of money?”

Sean O’Neill

Sean O’Neill Listeners can experience the EP in its entirety later this month when O’Neill launches the album with aid from “a few horn players, Pete Evans on drums and Kynan Tan on his laptop processing my guitar and vocals”. As the local mainstay attests, this will be the last chance for fans to experience his live show for a little while.

“A week after the launch I’m heading to Europe for a while.

So I won’t be doing another gig in Perth for at least six months. I’m going to do some shows while I’m over there and write my next two releases. The first one is going to be a musical accompaniment to someone who is travelling through Europe. The second project I am going to be working on is a concept EP where I will choose around six paintings from the Prado museum in Madrid and write a piece of music for each painting. These will mainly be pieces by the Spanish painter, Goya. Over in Europe I plan to write, play and listen to as much live music as humanly possible,” he concludes. “I think every person from Perth who is serious about their music, or any art form, should really get out of this small town, at least for a little while, and see what interesting things other people are doing around the world.”

Where did the title of the EP come from? It popped into my head and then I realised it was a burger from Grill’d? Oops. I’m sure they won’t mind. Someone told me there is a movie with the same name too. I liked the name too much to change it though; it seemed to fit so well.

What were the main influences - musical or otherwise - when writing the record? We’re lucky enough to live in Perth and I spent a lot of time just before winter came riding round the river and taking in as much of it as I could. A lot of people have told me my music has a ‘happy neon summer vibe’ and I suppose I love to channel that into the music. Like a celebration of long summer nights, backyard shows, cool beer and it being too hot for anyone to do anything but chill out and have a good time.

Sacred Flower Union

SACRED FLOWER UNION New kid on the block Sacred Flower Union is gearing up to launch his new EP Field Of Dreams this Friday, September 21, at the Velvet Lounge.

First up, people may know you from the now defunct Clean Living - how is the Sacred Flower Union sound different? Sacred Flower Union is almost exactly the opposite and yet it is the music I always wanted to make. High energy, yet relaxing with some noise music influences. People have been dancing at shows which is the highest praise I could receive.

Did you have a particular vision for Field Of Dreams? Field Of Dreams was produced as if experiencing four distinct yet linked dream states with more of a dream pop feel than the earlier split with leafy suburbs. I think the tracks are quite short and each one tends to go off in its own direction, just like a dream.

SIMON SAYS

It’s been a long time since Our Man In Berlin have released any new tracks, so in anticipation for an EP Launch in December they’re releasing a new single Song For Simon at Mojo’s this Friday, September 21. Support comes from Sidewalk Diamonds, Warning Birds and 44th Sunset.

YOUNG AT HEART

Having spent most of this year slaving away in a basement in the hills of Perth, indie duo Mulder are set to gift listeners with the fruits of their endeavours at their launch for new EP Young at The Bird this Friday, September 21. Support comes from Sprawl and The Bosons.

PARKS AND RECREATION

ARIA award winning indigenous songwriter John Bennett and upand-coming soul/pop/country chanteuse Ulla Shay will join forces for an afternoon of musical goodness at Kings Park this Sunday, September 23, kicking off from noon. www.xpressmag.com.au

What can punters expect from your EP launch? Hopefully it will be a night of great new age psychedelic music. Mental Powers, Electric Toad and Mayor Dadi are playing and they’re all awesome for very different reasons. Mental Powers are always pushing boundaries live and are a crazily tight band with great sounds.

Electric Toad are an amazing party band channeling the spirit of Ween (in a perth-centric fashion), and Mayor Dadi are a crazy catchy rhythmic kind of awesome. They’re playing at This Is Nowhere, they are just that good! I’m also playing and I’m a bit psychedelic disco apparently.

You’re also launching the EP in Sydney - what was the thinking behind trekking over there? I’m off to Sydney as I had so much fun over there last time (earlier this year).This time I’m playing a much larger venue with some really awesome bands so it is equal parts exciting and nerve wrecking.

Your launch is being presented by the RTR Livewire Fresh program - how important was it to you to gain this support in the lead-up to your EP’s release? Community radio is a really engaging and important tool for giving a voice to members of the community that can act as a catalyst for wider engagement.

Stations like RTR are really boss because they are non-discriminatory in there support and basically are willing to give anyone a chance.

I’m stoked they chose to support the CD, its a real honor given the crazy amount of music submissions they receive. I think it says a lot about the commitment at RTR towards engagement and support for the local arts scene, not only as a station but also as a place for development and enrichment of culture for all.

ALOHA SUMMER

Smell the flowers, feel the sun, sway like a palm tree. Spring is here and summer is peeking around the corner, so get your best Hawaiian threads ready because Cow Parade Cow, Runner, Electric Toad and Zealous Chang are hitting The Bakery this Friday, September 21 for Aloha Bakery. In addition, DJs Jack Quirk (Perth) and Matt Sav (Apricot Rail) will be spinning tunes and there’ll be fruity Hawaiian drinks available! Sahweet.

FORD FOCUS

To celebrate the return of our local electronic cabaret hero Tomas Ford from the Edinburgh Fringe, the fine folks from the Indi Bar are throwing a “little” party this Saturday, September 22, with help from live drum and bass monsters Pimps Of Sound, electro-hip hop giants Freaks Of The Nature and party monster DJ Rex Monsoon. Ready yourself for Tomas Ford’s Cabaret Explosion.

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Russian Circles, September 30, The Bakery

THIS WEEK RUFUS WAINWRIGHT 19 Riverside Theatre

THE CIRCUS SHOWCASE FT. DOCTOR P/ Slumdogz, Funtcase, Cookie Monsta 19 Villa

WHEATUS 20 Metropolis Fremantle

MYSTERY JETS 20 Capitol

CLAUDE HAY 28 The Velvet Lounge 29 Fly By Night Club SIX60 29 Metro City HAVANA BROWN 29 Metropolis Fremantle SHIHAD 28 Amplifier 30 Mojos Bar WAVE ROCK WEEKENDER (Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks, Tim Rogers, Shihad, and more) 29 - 30 Wave Rock Caravan Park RUSSIAN CIRCLES / EAGLE TWIN 30 The Bakery FEAR FACTORY/ SENSORY AMUSIA/ INANIMACY 30 Capitol

OCTOBER

JOE BONAMASSA/ CLAUDE HAY GRIGORYAN 1 Perth Concert Hall PARKLIFE (The Presets, BROTHERS Nero, Passion Pit, Plan B, 20 Mandurah Performing Arts Centre Rusko, Tame Impala, Chiddy Bang, Robyn, and more) 1 Wellington Square NEKROMANTIX KUNIKO KATO 2 Rosemount Hotel 20, 21 & 22 WAAPA DEFEATER / BLACKLISTED Music Auditorium 3 Amplifier 4 YMCA HQ OH MERCY GIAN SLATER 21 & 22 The Ellington 4 Settlers Tavern 5 Norfolk Basement 6 The Bakery HOPELESS SETH SENTRY 4 Studio 146 Albany 21 Amplifier 5 Prince Of Wales 23 YMCA HQ 6 Rosemount Hotel 7 Norfolk Hotel THE RADIATORS/ KELLY CLARKSON / THE WAYNE GREEN’S FRAY 5 Challenge Stadium PHANTOMS REVERSE GRIP 21 Charles Hotel 5 Rocket Room 22 BLVD Tavern LOREN KATE 23 Ravenswood Hotel 5 Red Mill Store Bunbury 7 Kidogo Arthouse Fremantle THE RUBENS/ NEW GODS BRITISH INDIA 5 Capitol 22 Amplifier 6 Prince Of Wales 7 Newport Hotel HANSON / MATT TZU 5 Bar 120 WERTZ 6 Amplifier 22 Metropolis 7 Prince Of Wales GOMEZ Fremantle 6 Fly By Nightclub 7 Rosemount Hotel GYROSCOPE HYPERFEST (Bluejuice, Seth 22 Rosemount Hotel Sentry, Grey Ghost,, and more TBA) 7 Midland Oval XAVIER RUDD BENOIT PIOULARD 25 Goldfields Arts 7 The Bird Centre Kalgoorlie THE AMITY AFFLICTION / THE GHOST INSIDE / ARCHITECTS 7 & 8 Metropolis Fremantle CANNIBAL CORPSE / XAVIER RUDD DISENTOMB / ENTRAILS 26 Esperance Civic Centre ERADICATED 28 Albany Entertainment 9 Capitol Centre STEEL PANTHER/ THE ART 29 Fremantle Arts Centre 11 Metro City 30 Caves House Yallingup PAUL CAPSIS SOLA ROSA 11 Artbar 26 Indi Bar BIG DADDY KANE 28 Clancy’s Dunsborough 11 Rosemount Hotel 29 Amplifier TIM ROGERS THE EASTERN 11 Clancy’s Dunsborough 27 Clancy’s 12 Fly By Nightclub HIGH WOLF 13 The Rosemount 27 PICA Bar MUMFORD & SONS / JULIA STONE EDWARD SHARPE & THE 28 Astor Theatre STEPHEN MALKMUS & THE MAGNETIC ZEROS / WILLY MASON JICKS 12 & 13 Belvoir Amphitheatre 28 Rosemount Hotel SOUND OF SEASONS AARON GOLDBERG 12 Metropolis Fremantle 28 & 29 The Ellington 13 Amplifier Bar KATIE NOONAN & KARIN 14 YMCA HQ SCHAUPP DAVE WARNER’S FROM THE 28 Winthrop Hall UWA SUBURBS 29 Mandurah Performing 13 Charles Hotel Arts Centre

SEPTEMBER

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Seth Sentry, October 4-7

Something For Kate, October 27 & 28, Fly By Night

SOUND OF SEASONS JOSH PYKE EVAN DANDO / JULIANA 8 Artbar HATFIELD 12 Metropolis Fremantle CHARLIE MUSSELWHITE 13 Amplifier 22 The Rosemount BAND 14 YMCA HQ COUNT BASIE ORCHESTRA 8 Fly By Night TRIPOD 14 Perth Concert Hall 9 Quarry Amphitheatre SOUTHBOUND (The EVERCLEAR REFUSED Flaming Lips, SBTRKT, Best 14 Capitol 9 Metropolis Fremantle Coast, Beach House, Boy & DON WALKER JOHN WAITE Bear, Coolio, The Vaccines, 14 Fremantle Arts Centre 9 Metro City Bombay Bicycle Club, First THIS IS NOWHERE (Tortoise, GEORGE MICHAEL Aid Kit, Hilltop Hoods, Hot Xiu Xiu, Grails, The Bank 10 Perth Arena Chip, Maximo Park, Millions, Holidays, HTRK, Puro PROGFEST (Ne Obliviscaris, Totally Enormous Extinct Instinct, High Tea, New War and more TBA) Dinosaurs, Angus Stone, 10 Civic Hotel and more) Ball Park Music, Cosmo 14 Somerville Auditorium and DAN SULTAN / LEAH Jarvis, Django Django, FLANAGAN surrounds The Hives, Jinjo Safari, 10 The Bakery KARISE EDEN Lisa Mitchell, Matt Corby, 11 Fly By Night Sharon Van Etten, Two Door 16 & 17 St Joseph’s Church MATCHBOX TWENTY Cinema Club and more ) Subiaco 11 Perth Arena 4 & 5 Sir Stewart Bovell Park TIGERTOWN SWAMP THING Busselton 18 Ya Ya’s 11 Fremantle Arts Centre 65 DAYS OF STATIC 19 Norfolk Basement ELTON JOHN 5 The Bakery TODD MCKENNEY 12 Perth Arena SUMMADAYZE (M.I.A, 18 & 19 Astor Theatre SIGUR ROS Fedde Le Grand, Mark 13 Belvoir Amphitheatre WE ALL WANT TO Ronson DJ Set, Kimbra, BEN FOLDS FIVE 18 Prince Of Wales Booka Shade Live, Eddie 14 Fremantle Arts Centre 19 The Bird Halliwell, AN21 & Max THE BEARDS / THE 20 Indi Bar Vangeli, Carl Craig, 69 Live, SNOWDROPPERS CLARE BOWDITCH Maya Jane Coles, Disclosure 15 Prince Of Wales 20 Astor Theatre Live, Erol Alkan, Fake Blood, 16 Settlers Tavern PAUL HEATON Adrian Lux, Breakbot 17 Rosemount Hotel Live, Hudson Mohawke, 21 Fly By Night 18 Indi Bar Araabmuzik, Icona Pop, SHELLAC WASHINGTON 25 Rosemount Hotel 16 & 17 Quarry Amphitheatre Scuba, Aeroplane, Jesse Rose, Danny Daze, AC Slater, NICKELBACK / JACKSON TINPAN ORANGE Stafford Brothers & Timmy FIREBIRD 25 Bakery Trumpet, Bombs Away and 17 Perth Arena 26 Fly By Night more) PREFUSE 73 & TEEBS LEB I SOL 6 Patersons Stadium Subiaco 17 Bakery 26 Chares Hotel SANDI THOM JEFF MARTIN LISA MITCHELL 10 Fly By Night 22 Friends Restaurant 26 Astor Theatre NIGHTWISH DEEP SEA ARCADE 27 Prince Of Wales 20 Metropolis Fremantle 23 The Rosemount BASTARDFEST(Astriaal, STEREOSONIC (Tiësto, Avicii, WEEZER Fuck I’m Dead, Desecrator, Calvin Harris, Example, Carl 23 Perth Arena and more) Cox, Major Lazer, and more) BIG DAY OUT (Red Hot 25 Claremont Showgrounds Chili Peppers, The Killers, 27 Civic Hotel JOHN WILLIAMSON Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Vampire ALL FRUITS RIPE (The Weekend, Band Of Horses, Original Wailers, Blue King 30 Quarry Amphitheatre THE SAINTS Kaskade, Animal Collective, Brown, Tomorrow People) 30 Fly By Nightclub Against Me!, 360, Foals, 27 Fremantle Arts Centre B.O.B, Sleigh Bells, Jeff THE LIGHTHOUSE TRIO The Brotherhood, Off!, 27 & 28 The Ellington Grinspoon, Jagwar Ma, SMASH MOUTH JOHN WILLIAMSON Delta Spirit, Everytime I 27 & 28 Metropolis Fremantle 1 Quarry Amphitheatre Die, House Vs Hurricane, SOMETHING FOR KATE JUSTINE CLARKE Alabama Shakes, and more) 27 & 28 Fly By Night 1 Astor Theatre 28 Claremont Showgrounds NATURAL NEW ZEALAND GREENTHIEF MUSIC FESTIVAL ( 27 Rocket Room Shapeshifter, Kora, Ladi6, 28 Prince Of Wales Trinity Roots, David Dallas, ST. JEROME’S LANEWAY 29 Newport Hotel P-Money & More) FESTIVAL 2013 (Line-up ROCK IT (The Black Keys, 1 Red Hill Auditorium TBC) John Butler Trio, Birds Of RUSSELL BRAND 9 Venue TBC Tokyo, The Panics, Lanie 2 Perth Arena GLADYS KNIGHT/ MARCIA Lane, Last Dinosaurs, Royal THE KNOCKS HINES Headache, Graveyard Train, 2 Venue TBA 10 Kings Park Botanic Garden Brothers Grim, The Toot SIMPLE MINDS / DEVO / THE CELTIC THUNDER Toot Toots, and more) CHURCH / MODELS 16 Perth Arena 4 Kings Park & Botanical 28 Joondalup Arena DAVID HASSLEHOFF Garden HARRY JAMES ANGUS 17 Capitol KASEY CHAMBERS/ SHANE ED SHEERAN/ PASSENGER 28 Fremantle Arts Centre NICHOLSON THURSTON MOORE 23 Challenge Stadium 5 Albany Entertainment 30 Rosemount Hotel CLIFF RICHARDS Centre 23 Sandalford Estate 6 Civic Centre Esperance NORAH JONES 7 Goldfields Arts Centre 24 Riverside Theatre 8 Mundaring Weir Hotel HOT CHELLE RAE / CHER JLO LLOYD 6 Perth Arena 1 Astor Theatre LAGWAGON/ THE SMITH KARMA COUNTY SOUNDWAVE 2013 1 Clancy’s Fish Pub Fremantle STREET BAND (Metallica, Linkin Park, 5 Prince Of Wales BILLY BRAGG Blink-182, A Perfect Circle, 6 The Rosemount 2 Astor Theatre The Offspring, Paramore, MISSY HIGGINS CARUS THOMPSON Garbage, Slayer, Cypress 8 Fremantle Arts Centre 2 Indi Bar Hill, Bullet For My Valentine, NICKI MINAJ / TYGA 3 Norfolk Basement and more) 8 Perth Arena AT THE GATES 4 Claremont Showgrounds PRIMAL SCREAM 3 Capitol GLENN SHORROCK/ ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT 11 Astor Theatre WENDY MATTHEWS/ DOUG PARKWAY DRIVE 3 Metro City PARKINSON 19 Challenge Stadium THE LIVING END 14 & 15 Quarry Amphitheatre REGINA SPEKTOR 1-7 Rosemount Hotel 19 Belvoir Amphitheatre EMMYLOU HARRIS JEFF MARTIN 6 Perth Concert Hall 21 Clancy’s Dunsborough JOE LONGTHORNE / ONE DIRECTION 22 Mojos Bar MELISSA MANCHESTER 23 Indi Bar 28 & 29 Perth Arena 7 Regal Theatre

JANUARY 2013

DECEMBER

FEBRUARY

NOVEMBER

MARCH

SEPTEMBER

X-Press – First on the street, Wednesdays

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Graphic Fiction Heroes, Wednesday at Paddo

WEDNESDAY 19.09 BALMORAL Andrew Winton BAR 120 Felix BRASS MONKEY Sugar Blue Burlesque CLANCY’S CANNING BRIDGE Simon Marks & Jay Howie CLAREMONT HOTEL Open Mic Night GREENWOOD Bernardine GROOVE BAR (BURSWOOD) 5 Shots HALE ROAD TAVERN Fenton Wilde HYDE PARK HOTEL Rock Scholars INDI BAR OKA LUCKY SHAG Howie Morgan MERIDIAN ROOM (BURSWOOD) Courtney Murphy MOJOS BAR Justin Walshe Trio Gilbert Whyte Mike De Velta MUSTANG Flash Nat & The Action Men PADDO Graphic Fiction Heroes Red Embers Jason Ayres PADDY HANNANS 5 Shots ROSEMOUNT Dave Mouring The Collector Catlips Trojan John ROSIE O’GRADY’S (NORTHBRIDGE) David Fyffe

From The Dunes, Wednesday at Ya Ya’s

THE BROWN FOX Courtney Murphy THE MOON Luke Dux Zanda Merman Peter Bibby UNIVERSAL Strutt YA YA’S Golden Slums Artillery Road From The Dunes Lunar Inverse

THURSDAY 20.09 AMPLIFIER Jeru The Damaja BELGIAN BEER CAFÉ Chasing Calee BRASS MONKEY Rhythm Bound Karaoke BRIGHTON Open Mic Night BROOKLANDS TAVERN Celebrations Karaoke CAPITOL Mystery Jets CLANCY’S CANNING BRIDGE Our Latin Thing CLANCY’S FREMANTLE Beleza Samba Nitro & Sanchi Mitch Becker COMO HOTEL Courtney Murphy DEVILLES PAD Rock ‘N’ Roll Karaoke DUNSBOROUGH TAVERN Open Mic Night ELLINGTON JAZZ CLUB Juliana Areias HIGH WYCOMBE HOTEL Chris Murphy INDI BAR Bex Open Mic Night

LUCKY SHAG Nathan Gaunt MARKET CITY TAVERN Tom Little Tao Boiz Nathan Mayers Jamie Heawood MOJOS BAR The Arsonist Piano Donkey Lilt Fools Of April MUSTANG BAR The Love Junkies Deep River Collective OXFORD HOTEL Johnny Taylor PADDY HANNANS Dr Bogus ROSEMOUNT Avastera Colour The Sky Here Come The Cavalry Lights Of Berlin ROSIE O’GRADY’S (FREMANTLE) Clayton Bolger ROSIE O’GRADY’S (NORTHBRIDGE) Neil Colliss SOVEREIGN ARMS Fenton Wilde SWAN LOUNGE Coastal Kicks Woody & The Bullfrog Heather Gray THE BOAT Jen De Ness THE BROOK Open Mic Night THE GATE One Trick Phonies UNIVERSAL Off The Record VELVET LOUNGE Old School Goth WOODVALE Damien Cripps Duo YA YA’S Stray Dogs Of Athens Mr. Chance Spilt Cities Super Games

FRIDAY 21.09

Cow Parade Cow

ALOHA BAKERY COW PARADE COW RUNNER ELECTRIC TOAD ZEALOUS CHANG FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 21 THE BAKERY

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7th AVENUE Midnight Rambler ADMIRAL Steve Hepple AMPLIFIER Hopeless Foxes Tikdoff Agitated Losing Grip BAILEY BAR Mod Squad BAKERY Aloha Bakery Cow Parade Cow Runner Zealous Chang MmHmmm BALLYS BAR Anderson BALMORAL Mike Nayar BELMONT TAVERN Electrophobia BENTLEY HOTEL Sophie Jane

A Haunting On Ravenswood, Friday at Rocket Room

BLACK BETTYS Everlong BRASS MONKEY Acousticone BROKEN HILL HOTEL Nat Ripepi CAPTAIN STIRLING Jack & Jill CARINE Pop Candy CARLISLE HOTEL Reload CHASE BAR One Trick Phonies CIVIC HOTEL James Teague Thee Gold Blooms Lucy Peach Lilium Stargazer CLANCY’S CITY BEACH Our Latin Thing CLANCY’S DUNSBOROUGH Needing Cherie CLANCY’S FREMANTLE The Feral Swing Cats With Pete Busher COMO HOTEL Trevor Jalla CORNERSTONE Nicki Rose Trio CRAFTSMAN 5th Avenue CROWN CASINO Decoy DEVILLES PAD Rocket To Memphis Les Sataniques DUNSBOROUGH TAVERN Aido & Tina EAST 150 Chris Gibbs EDZ SPORTZ BAR Ali Towers Duo ELLINGTON JAZZ CLUB Harry Mitchell Trio Gian Slater and Jamie Oehlers Astrid Ripepi & Solomon Pitt EMPIRE Howie Morgan FLY BY NIGHT CLUB Motown Soul Night GREENWOOD Greg Carter HERDSMAN Sugarfield HIGH ROAD HOTEL Clayton Bolger The Damien Cripps Band HIGHWAY HOTEL Northern Muse HYDE PARK HOTEL Nathan Gaunt Welcome To Loco Applebite Cypher Kuillotines INDI BAR Vdelli INDIAN OCEAN BREW Ben Merito KALAMUNDA HOTEL New Vintage KULCHA Tabas.Co LEGENDS BAR The Organ Grinders M ON THE POINT 2Che

MARKET CITY TAVERN Tamika Andrew Bond METRO FREO Besides Lights Still Water Giants Shameen MOJOS BAR Our Man In Berlin Warning Birds Sidewalk Diamonds 44th Sunset MOON & SIXPENCE Soul Corporation MUSTANG BAR Adam Hall & the Velvet Playboys Cheeky Monkeys NEWPORT Party Rockers NORFOLK BASEMENT The Llammas Tide The Gypsy Howls Jacob Diamond PADDO Simon Kelly PARAMOUNT Flyte PEEL ALEHOUSE Cargo Beat PRINCESS ROAD TAVERN The Flying Piranhas PRINCIPAL B.O.B QUARIE BAR Dirty Scoundrels ROCKET ROOM Still Water Claims Afraid of Heights Listening for Triggers We Run With Wolves A Haunting on Ravenswood ROSE & CROWN Tod Woodward ROSEMOUNT Something Brutal Psychonaut Mhorgl Memoria Goat Thaddaeus Helta Skelta Warthreat The Shakeys Negative Reinforcement Creatures ROSIE O’GRADY’S (FREMANTLE) Spyce ROSEY O’GRADY’S (NORTHBRIDGE) Neil Colliss SAIL & ANCHOR Howie Morgan Childs Play SOUTH ST ALE HOUSE Robbie King Karaoke SPRINGS TAVERN Greg Carter Karaoke SWINGING PIG Better Days Greg Carter THE ALEXANDER Julius Lutero THE BIRD Mulder THE BOAT Deuce THE BROOK Dean Anderson THE GATE Smoking Section THE SAINT Emmanuel

X-Press – First on the street, Wednesdays

Listing deadline is Monday 5pm. GO TO www.xpressmag.com.au /PLUG YOUR GIG and plug away!

The X-Press Guide is a Perth metropolitan service for advertisers listing tours, live, dance and arts events.

All inclusions are at the discretion of X-Press Magazine. The one entry system will update our print edition, website and App

Mulder, Friday at The Bird THE SHED Kickstart THE VIC Jen De Ness TIGER LILS Paul Malone Adam Kelly Alex Koresis UNIVERSAL Nightmoves VELVET LOUNGE Sacred Flower Union Mental Powers Electric Toad Mayor Dardi VICTORIA PARK HOTEL Ivan Ribic WANNEROO TAVERN Matt Angel WOODVALE TAVERN Dr Bogus YA YA’S The W*H*O*R*E*S The Scotch Of Saint James FOAM

SATURDAY 22.09 ADMIRAL One Trick Phonies AMPLIFIER British India BALLYS BAR Dove BALMORAL The Recliners BAILEY BAR Lush BAR 120 Flyte BELGIAN BEER CAFÉ Mike Nayar BLACK BETTY’S J Babies BLVD TAVERN Jason Baker The Radiators BRIGHTON 10 Past 6 Michael Triscari Band BURSWOOD (PRIZE DRAW STAGE) Switch CLANCY’S CANNING BRIDGE 3’s a Crowd Funk Duo CLANCY’S FREMANTLE Black Milk Bruno Oliver Booth Heathcote Blue COMO HOTEL Howie Morgan DEVILLES PAD The Johnny Hammond Explosion ELLINGTON JAZZ CLUB Freddie Grigson Quartet Gian Slater & Jamie Elise Lynelle EMPIRE James Ess FLY TRAP Dora The Extruder GREENWOOD Pretty Fly HIGH ROAD HOTEL Dr Bogus HYDE PARK HOTEL Legacy Of Supremacy Living Dying The Bransom Tramps Kim Louise INDI BAR Tomas Ford

KULCHA Paul Gioia LAKERS Jukebox Bandits LANGFORD ALEHOUSE Die Hard Karaoke LEOPOLD HOTEL Steve Hepple LOBBY LOUNGE (BURSWOOD) John & Shaun Sandosham LYNWOOD ARMS Mustangs M ON THE POINT Rhythm 22 MERIDIAN ROOM (BURSWOOD) Courtney Murphy MOJOS BAR (ARVO) Rock Scholars MOJOS BAR (EVE) The Domnicks Custom Royal The Floors MOON & SIXPENCE Grand Theft Audio MUSTANG The Rusty Pinto Combo Aftershock NEWPORT Kizzy Gravity NORFOLK BASEMENT Joe Macc Sparklehause SugarDaddy Dixon Lady Carla PADDY HANNANS Decoy PARAMOUNT Felix PEEL ALEHOUSE Overload QUARIE BAR Electrophobia RAILWAY HOTEL Axe Cane Wicked Wench In The Now Ligthshift ROCKET ROOM Kickstart ROSEMOUNT Gyroscope The Scotch Of Saint James Boston & Chevy ROSIE O’GRADY’S (FREMANTLE) Flavor ROSIE O’GRADY’S (NORTHBRIDGE) Damien Cripps Band SAIL & ANCHOR Retriofit T-Mac SEAVIEW HOTEL Open Mic Night SWAN BASEMENT Beerfridge Silver Lizard Dreg Squad SWINGING PIG Greg Carter Tandem THE BOAT 11:11 THE BROOK Mojos THE GATE Dirty Scoundrels THE SHED Huge

www.xpressmag.com.au

Friday Friday

TravisFriday Caudle James Teague, at Travis Caudle FlyCivic ByNight Night Hotel Fly By

Tomas Ford, Saturday at Indi Bar

PINK DUCK LOUNGE BAR Kevin Conway PRINCIPAL Dove QUARIE BAR Double Take QUEENS TAVERN Big Al & The Deacons RAILWAY HOTEL SUNDAY 23.09 Oka 7TH AVENUE ROSEY O’GRADY’S Good Karma (NORTHBRIDGE) BALLY’S BAR Neil Colliss Greg Carter Vince Donnelly BALMORAL SAIL & ANCHOR Chasing Calee Mike Nayar BLVD TAVERN SOUTH ST ALE Annabelle HOUSE Ryan Dillon Scott Ruthenberg SOVEREIGN ARMS BRIGHTON Ivan Ribic John Reed BROKEN HILL HOTEL SPRINGS TAVERN Sophie Jane Chris Murphy STIRLING ARMS BROOKLANDS Stu McKay TAVERN SWAN LOUNGE Greg Carter David Saunders CAPTAIN STIRLING Scott Ruthenberg Christian Parkinson Essie CARINE SWINGING PIG Threeplay Adam James CLANCY’S Simon Kelly DUNSBOROUGH THE BIRD The Aunts Zeks CLANCY’S Antelope FREMANTLE Hayley Beth The Zydecats THE GATE CLAREMONT HOTEL Better Days Sunday Driver THE SAINT COMO HOTEL Howie Morgan Trio Adrian Wilson THE SHED ELLINGTON JAZZ The Healy’s CLUB Blue Hornet The Blue Monk Quartet UNIVERSAL Retriofit EMPIRE VICTORIA PARK CB3 HOTEL HIGH ROAD HOTEL Damien Cripps Glen Davies WOODVALE TAVERN HIGH WYCOMBE Free Radicals HOTEL X-WRAY CAFÉ The Organ Grinders INDIAN OCEAN BREW The Charisma Brothers CO Retriofit KALAMUNDA HOTEL Bernardine LAKERS TAVERN Jamie Powers LAST DROP Peter Ashton M ON THE POINT A Bit On The Side MOJOS BAR (ARVO) Rock Academy MOJOS BAR (EVE) Robo-Ant Misty Mountain The Ron Pollard Quintet Hunting Huxley MUSTANG BAR The Continentals NEWPORT Tim Nelson Pugsley Buzzard OCEAN VIEW TAVERN Deuce PADDY MAGUIRES Brett Hardwick PEEL ALE HOUSE Shaun Street PIG & WHISTLE One Trick Phonies UNIVERSAL Nightmoves WANNEROO TAVERN Carbon Taxi WHALE & ALE Thomas Crane WOODVALE TAVERN Renegade

YMCA HQ Hopeless The Others No Regrets Dying Sun Cabin Fever

MONDAY 24.09 BRASS MONKEY Nathan Gaunt ELLINGTON JAZZ CLUB Chamber Jam GROOVE BAR (BURSWOOD) Courtney Murphy MOJOS BAR Wide Open Mic Night MUSTANG BAR Marco & The Alley Cats THE DEEN Plastic Max & The Token Gesture YA YA’S Open Mic Night

TUESDAY 25.09 ELLINGTON JAZZ CLUB The Carl Mackey Quartet LUCKY SHAG Ben Merito MERRIWA TAVERN Celebrations Karaoke MOJOS BAR Paper Plains Brayden Edwards Rhys Watson Mai Barnes Yiannos McStavros PADDO Simon Kelly PRINCE OF WALES Open Mic Night SETTLERS TAVERN Open Mic Night THE BROOK Greg Carter Karaoke TWO ROCKS TAVERN Jump For Joy Karaoke

Gyroscope

THE BENEFIT SHOW FOR DANA

GYROSCOPE

THE SCOTCH OF SAINT JAMES BOSTON & CHEVY

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 22 THE ROSEMOUNT HOTEL

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MUSIC GEAR & TECHNOLOGY GUIDE DANCE CLASSES BELLYDANCE CENTRAL STUDIO CLASSES Free class Fri 5th October. Special fun beginners courses. Term 4 starts Mon 8th October. For brochure, info & free class invite shaheena@iinet.net.au 0409 511 125. www.bellydancecentral.com.au MUSOS WANTED BASS PLAYER WANTED For Aussie Rock Tribute. Dedication & reliability a must. Ph 0409 370 900.

BASS PLAYER WANTED For REDSTAR. Must be professional & have good gear. Ph Tony: 0411 118 304.

BASS PLAYER WANTED Four working 4 piece Blues Rock Band. Ph: 0412 231 126.

DRUMMER WANTED Established hard rock original band Wicked Wench is looking for someone who can come to practice 2x’s a wk in Ozzy Prk & do gigs. Hard hitting w/ great skills req. Check out the music 1st www. facebook.com/wickedwenchband Email: Steve at sophiamariesmanager@gmail.com DRUMMER WANTED For new Per th based stoner Rock/Metal band.

Influences BLS, Machine Head, Down. www.myspace.com/project61XX19. Ph 0412 417 301.

FEMALE SINGER WANTED For elite rock cover band, 18 - 30 years old covering acts such as Pink, Avril, Katy Perry & anything from todays current hits. Professional attitude, Expirience prefered, Osi Park rehearsals & available for weekend gigs. For audition Phone/Text 0414189441 or check us out on facebook @ Three-Corner Jack.

MENU MUSIC/TOTAL HITS CD SAMPLER Interested in hearing YOUR music played in WA cafes and restaurants? Total Hits & Menu Magazine are launching a 2nd compilation CD. The cost to be involved is only $1,000 +

GST and you will be featured on a CD that is distributed to cafes and restaurants around WA, profiled in Menu Magazine, featured on www.westcoastcafes.com.au, featured on www.totalhits.com.au and get 50 copies of the compilation CD. Call 9430 6007 or email us at info@eyersrocket.com.au to get involved.

OPEN MIC NIGHT every Thursday night at Indi Bar. Just call Tash on 0458 095 364.

OPEN MIC NIGHT Every Tuesday night at the Craigie Tavern 8-11pm. Call Corey for bookings 0431 448 235 SINGER WANTED 18-30 yrs old to join elec tric Blues Rock Band. R ing Wes 0405 455 133.

VOCALIST REQUIRED Tumultum, original hard rock/metal band require melodic vocalist. Jesse: 0449992907 WANTED LEAD VOCALIST/FRONT MAN 40+ We’re specifically looking for a Mike Love sound-alike for an upcoming Beach Boys experience. Ph 0430 615 287.

PHOTOGRAPHY PROJECT PHOTOGR APHY Pr o m o p h o to g ra p hy, s t u d i o, l i ve, l o c a t i o n .

Mike Wylie 0417 975 964 www.projec tphotography.com When its time to ice the cake...

PRODUCTION SERVICES * L I G H T I N G * AU D I O * S TAG I N G * www.nightstarlightingaudio.com.au www.nightstarlightingaudio.com.au 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 MATRIX PRODUCTIONS AUSTRALIA Lighting, staging, sound systems, smoke machines, night club FX, intelligent lighting,

strobes & mirror balls, crowd barriers, video projectors. 9371 1551 PA HIRE Vox P.A’s and Funktion-One concert systems. Beat any quote. 9307 8594/ mob 0404 410 020. perthconcertsound.com.au.

PA HIRE, PRO SYSTEM, FULL FOLD BACK Experienced operator. Optional light show.

Fidelity sound on 0404 331 320.

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 118304 email - avalonstudios@bigpond.com GOLDDUSTCONSTRUCTION.COM Pr o d u c t i o n , m i x i n g, r e c o r d i n g a n d composition for your music. Unique award winning skills to take songs from ideas to finished mixes or to fulfill the potential in existing ones. Located in Subiaco. $60 p/h.

Andrew 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 R E CO R D I N G M I X I N G M A S T E R I N G PRODUCING Fremantle location. Call Pete Kitchen Cooked Records. Ph 0407 363 764 / 9336 3764

REVOLVER SOUND STUDIO Ph 9272 7505. www.revolverstudio.com.au SONGWRITERS! - UNLOCK YOUR SONGS’ POTENTIAL +FREE BAND 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 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 TUITION ***GUITAR LESSONS*** The Guitar Specialist. 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 DRUM LESSONS All styles, all ages. WAAPA prep. Modern techniques & rudiments, Beginner to advanced. Ph: 0413 172 817.

SINGING LESSONS Learn a technique that actually works! The method used by over 120 Grammy award winners. Certified Speech Level singing instructor. Call Simon 0431335495.

STAGESCAPE M20D DIGITAL MIXER Smart Sounds

This week Volume takes a look at Line 6’s StageScape M20d Digital Mixier, the world’s first smart mixer for live sound.

Earlier this year Californian company Line 6 sent tech-heads and gear aficionados across the globe into frenzy. Known for their innovation in the field of guitar and amp modelling, the company announced a bold step in the direction of live sound with the announcement of the StageScape M20D. The StageScape M20D takes things to a whole new level with a big, colorful 7-inch touch-screen which displays an array of mixing functions that are usually spread all over a typical mixing board. This gives users interactive control over every part of their show, and intuitive interaction with EQs, effects, feedback suppression (and more) makes mixing a breeze – even for novices!

In a nutshell, the StageScape M20D is a digital mixer that features on-board 32bit DSP to provide parametric EQ, multiband compression, smart mixer feedback suppression and a variety of effects on every channel, as well as four global effects.

The mixer can be connected to the other elements of the system via Line 6’s proprietary L6 Link networking protocol, or conventional line outputs and it’s also capable of 24-bit multi-track recording t o U S B d r i v e , S D c a r d o r c o m p u t e r.

Perhaps one of its most attractive – and innovative – features is it’s use of ‘autosensing’ technology, which means the mixer 46

Line 6’s StageScape M20d

knows when a user has plugged something in (such as a microphone, an instrument, or a speaker) and sets up the channel accordingly, offering a menu of effect and processor presets to get up and running quickly. Routing signals, adding effects, and even setting up monitor mixes is as effortless as playing connect the dots.

Users can even run a soundcheck while their band isn’t playing as well as mix remotely via iPad. To speed things up even more, users can select one of the professionally crafted DSP presets for their channel and save and recall a huge number of your own presets!

For example, a vocalist could simple plug in their vocal mic and select a vocal effects preset; the StageScape M20d will then configure a custom chain of processors specifically for vocals, ready to tweak to perfection.

Setting up a stage mix is easy too – all a user needs to do is simply plug in all their sound sources and speakers, and the StageScape M20d will automatically recognise what’s plugged into it. Too easy.

For anyone whose work takes them into the live sound arena, this unit – which Line 6 calls “the world’s first smart mixing system for live sound” – is worth a look.

Music Link Australia is currently stocking the StageScape M20D so click over to musiclink.com.au or call 1300 130 653 for full specs and details.

X-Press – First on the street, Wednesdays

www.xpressmag.com.au

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X-Press – First on the street, Wednesdays