December Issue
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2 0 1 8 : t h e y e a r t h at wa s Who topped our polls of the year’s best? The Offspring talk us through their classic Smash album
The nice and naughty list of Christmas movies and albums
Drag Race royalty Shangela and Sasha Velour spill the T
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The Music
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December
The Music
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December
Credits Publisher Street Press Australia Pty Ltd Group Managing Editor Andrew Mast National Editor – Magazines Mark Neilsen Group Senior Editor/National Arts Editor Maxim Boon Editors Daniel Cribb, Neil Griffiths, Sam Wall
Warning: This article might get a bit list-y.
Assistant Editor/Social Media Co-Ordinator Jessica Dale
I
Editorial Assistant Lauren Baxter
t’s that time of year when those of us who keep lists (go back to the Feb edition of this column for more details) get to unleash the results of those lists that we’ve kept for the preceding 12 months. As with 2017, I found myself listening more and more to songs of artists I like over albums, but there was definitely a trio of standout albums for me this year: Courtney Barnett’s Tell Me What You Really Think, Alice Ivy’s I’m Dreaming plus Cash Savage & The Last Drinks’ Good Citizens. I’m not alone here, as Barnett’s album has also taken out the title of our Album Of The Year as voted by The Music staff and contributors in our annual Writers’ Poll. While all three of these albums are local, they aren’t the only local albums that have made my personal top ten of the year. Other local long-players that impressed are Ryan Downey’s Running, The Goon Sax’s We’re Not Talking, Lowtide’s Southern Mind, Cool Out Sun’s self-titled debut and Hope Downs by Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever. There’s also local representation in multi-national outfit Superorganism, whose self-titled set also ranks as one of my favourite ten albums of 2018. Rounding out that ten is a solo album by Everything But The Girl’s Tracey Thorn, a beautiful alt-pop treaty known as Record. For me there were two standout songs of 2018: Native Tongue by Mojo Juju and This Is America by Childish Gambino. Both powerful songs accompanied by equally powerful videos. Both songs also topped our Writers’ Poll — well ahead of any other competition this year. Rounding out my top song choices of the year was much harder and really can’t be contained to a mere ten. It was a stunning year for locals dropping cracking standalone tracks. To name but a few, may I recommend: Lionel — Slagatha Christie; Twin — VOIID; Sunlight — Emerson Snowe; Thankful — Candy; Star Surfer IX — The Gametes; Mr La Di Da Di — Baker Boy; Don’t Call Me — Sweater Curse; Enough For Now — Flowertruck, Scream Whole — Methyl Ethel, Familiar Five — Marcus Marr and, of course, Dancing — Kylie Minogue. It was also the year that former Moloko member Roisin Murphy came back with a vengeance and released a string of disco stormers. If you aren’t familiar with them, get looking now. Coming in close behind on the party front is Lizzo’s Boys — how is this US artist not a superstar yet? Other internationals with great tunes this year include Little Simz (Offence), Idles (Danny Nedelko), Graham Coxon (Walking All Day), Generationals (It May Get Bad…), Neneh Cherry (Kong), Brockhampton (1998 TRUMAN), Slaves (Cut And Run), Shopping
Gig Guide Henry Gibson gigs@themusic.com.au Senior Contributors Steve Bell, Bryget Chrisfield, Cyclone, Jeff Jenkins Contributors Nic Addenbrooke, Annelise Ball, Emily Blackburn, Melissa Borg, Anthony Carew, Uppy Chatterjee, Roshan Clerke, Shaun Colnan, Brendan Crabb, Guy Davis, Joe Dolan, Chris Familton, Guido Farnell, Donald Finlayson, Liz Giuffre, Carley Hall, Tobias Handke, Mark Hebblewhite, Kate Kingsmill, Samuel Leighton Dore, Joel Lohman, Matt MacMaster, Taylor Marshall, MJ O’Neill, Carly Packer, Anne Marie Peard, Michael Prebeg, Mick Radojkovic, Stephen A Russell, Jake Sun, Cassie Tongue, Rod Whitfield Senior Photographers Cole Bennetts, Kane Hibberd Photographers Rohan Anderson, Andrew Briscoe, Stephen Booth, Pete Dovgan, Simone Fisher, Lucinda Goodwin, Josh Groom, Clare Hawley, Bianca Holderness, Jay Hynes, Dave Kan, Yaseera Moosa, Hayden Nixon, Angela Padovan, Markus Ravik, Bobby Rein, Peter Sharp, Barry Shipplock, Terry Soo, John Stubbs, Bec Taylor
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Courtney Barnett cover photo by Kane Hibberd. Kendrick Lamar cover photo by Ian Laidlaw.
The Music
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(Answers On A Postcard), Ezra Furman (Suck The Blood From My Wound), Gwenno (Tir Ha Mor), Young Fathers (In My View), tUnEyArDs (Heart Attack), Suuns (Watch You, Watch Me)... this list could go on, but you get the drift, it was a good year for songs. Hands down the best local live act I witnessed this year was Nice Biscuit. However, plenty of the acts already mentioned above also provided exciting gigs to back up their recorded music (Barnett, Downey, Cool Out Sun, Snowe, VOIID, The Goon Sax). But mention must also be made of soon-to-everyone’s-favourite A Swayze & The Ghosts as well as Tape/Off and The Merindas. And without doubt the best international was US soul singer PP Arnold. She is back for more gigs this month — DO NOT MISS OUT. Also don’t miss out on New Zealand’s Wax Chattels when they return in February, their BIGSOUND showcase was this year’s most intense. And if anyone brings Fortune Shumba back in 2019, lock yourself in for one helluva joyful experience. Away from music, TV bought joy in the form of British shows Killing Eve, The End Of The Fucking World, Detectorists, Mum (not to be confused with banal US sit-com Mom) and Bodyguard. Locally, it’s hard to go past Nanette but there was also Mystery Road, Romper Stomper, Riot, The Great Australian Bake Off and Hard Quiz. The US delivered the jaw-dropping final season of The Americans as well as Barry, Insecure, Santa Clarita Diet, The Good Place, Atlanta: Robbin’ Season, Better Call Saul, Last Week Tonight, Full Frontal, Halt And Catch Fire, Tig Notaro’s Happy To Be Here, The Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina and You’re The Worst. And, let’s not forget UK/ US hybrid Trust, Wellington Paranormal (NZ) and Deutschland 86 (Germany). All that TV viewing left little time for films, although Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Lady Bird and Annihilation impressed. But not as much as notyet-screened-outside-film-festivals Holiday. Hopefully the the unnerving Swedish film gets picked up for distribution here in the new year. Please read on for more lists as we unveil the full results of our 2018 Writers’ Poll. All staff and contributors lists will appear in their entireity online late December.
Andrew Mast Group Managing Editor
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Our contributors
This month
19
Shit We Did: Movember
21
Guest editorial: Australian Venues Association’s Maz Salt
22
The Music Writers’ Polls 2018 24
Artist Of The Year
25
Hannah Story is an arts and culture writer and
42
Soccer Mommy, Dead Letter Circus
44
Toto
45
Xmas gifts: shoes
46
Xmas gifts: alcohol
48
Xmas gifts: audio
50 52
The best (and worst) Xmas albums and films
Pic
Album Of The Year
How not to spend New Year’s Eve The Music staff share their horror stories
Song Of The Year
26
Live Performances Of The Year
The Arts
TV Show and Movie Of The Year
28
57
The year in film, TV and arts
The year in numbers
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58
Pic: Josh Groom
Circus Oz’s Rock Bang
s
Pic: Sam Jone
Fleetmac Wood
Good Things The Offspring, Dashboard Confessional
38
Brendan Crabb Brendan Crabb has been freelancing for The Music for nearly a decade, interviewing many major names in hard rock, metal, classic rock
Your Town
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34
2018: It wasn’t all bad
‘Bachelor Editor’.
junkie. Follow him on Twitter @JarOfTripsis.
27
32
AN.TV, where she is informally known as the
tragic, Manly Sea Eagles fan and podcast
56
Sasha Velour and Shangela Laquifa Wadley
Music, she also currently writes for PEDESTRI-
and more along the way. He’s also a cricket
Sydney Festival Highlights
The Big Picture Live shot of the year
editor from Sydney. Former Arts Editor of The
Brendan Crabb pictured with Parkway Drive’s Winston McCall
The best Boxing Day film releases
: Pooneh Ghana
Hannah Story
14
Editor’s Letter
Surviving the summer Our top tips for beating the heat
62
Josh Groom Josh has been shooting live music since 2011 for several publications, both print and online, but primarily Street Press Australia’s The Music, formerly Drum Media. Based in Syd-
63
ney’s Newtown, he is also an award-winning
Summer festivals
64
Of Tokyo, Born Lion, The Snowdroppers and
Your gigs
66
This month’s local highlights
68
The end
70
Summer suds and summer jams
40
The Music
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director and editor, who has worked with artists including Angus & Julia Stone, Birds The Rumjacks.
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The Music
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december
Friendship band PlayStation Classic
WA artist Stella Donnelly’s massive national run, supported by Alice Skye, finally hits the east coast this 1 Dec. The Finally Made Some Friends band tour is Donnelly’s first national tour where she’s brought along her full live band.
Viva la Vivid Following a huge tour last year, US rockers Living Colour are returning to Australia this 15 Dec to perform highlights from their 1988 debut album, Vivid, plus a special encore of their hits. The New York outfit are due to hit most major cities.
Play day Sony’s teeny tiny PlayStation Classic is out Dec 3. Less than half the size of the original PlayStation, the pint-sized console comes with 20 cripplingly nostalgic titles from the era, including Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy VII and Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee.
Beth heads New Zealand indie rockers The Beths wowed crowds with their BIGSOUND appearance this September and now they’re back for a run of headline shows from 19 Dec. They’ll be supported by fellow NZ locals and 2018 BIGSOUND alum, Miss June.
Iliza Shlesinger
Living Colour
Here’s looking at you LA-based comic Iliza Shlesinger hits our shores this month with three performances of her latest comedy special, Elder Millennial. The tour includes an appearance at AAMI Just For Laughs Sydney and starts this 4 Dec. The Beths
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T h e s ta r t
Stella Donnelly
Boat Show
Boxing Day releases
Need a dark room to chill in, post Chrissy? Head to the cinema! Ralph Breaks The Internet
Jess Locke
Get it WA-born rockers BOAT SHOW are heading out on their massive end-of-year run starting 30 Nov. It’s your last chance to catch them in 2018, the I Don’t Get It tour will be the band’s last east coast dates for the year.
Sarah Silverman and John C Reilly reprise their roles as loveable misfits Ralph and Vanellope for Ralph Breaks The Internet. This time the pair are out of the arcade and onto the world wide web, where the drag races are gritty, the dark net is a slum, and the Disney Princess are oddly self aware. For anyone who fell in love with this odd couple of digital BFFs during their first wrecking outing, this is the update you’ve been waiting to install.
Gravy train
Holmes & Watson
Paul Kelly is kicking off the festive season with some special Making Gravy shows this month. The Aussie icon will be joined at concerts ‘round the country by some huge hand-picked local names including Alex Lahey, Mojo Juju and Angie McMahon.
Just when you thought the fruit couldn’t hang any lower, Will Ferrell and John C Reilly, stars of Talladega Nights and Step Brothers, have reunited for Holmes & Watson. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s most enduring characters have just days to solve a murder in
Locke’n’roll
Buckingham Palace, or the next person to die will be the Queen. Shenanigans of the most anachronistic kind ensue, indubitably my
Jess Locke’s only just wrapped up supporting Tiger Jaw around the country but her own headline tour, celebrating her recent 7” comprising My Body Is An Ecosystem and Nothing At All, starts up in Melbourne, 5 Dec.
dear reader. Expect fun, dumb, post-Chrissy screen action.
Aquaman
Although the DC cinematic universe has been a pretty consistent source of disappointment, early indicators are strong that things might be better down where it’s wetter, under the sea. Jason Mamoa takes the lead on Aquaman’s first standalone film, which looks jam-packed with kingly soul-searching and trident fights. Aquaman’s screen time in Justice League was a little more surly surf bum than defender of the oceans, but maybe the tide has turned? Paul Kelly
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Ooze company Following his massive sold-out regional run earlier this year, Melbourne rapper Ivan Ooze is ending 2018 with a bang, playing a headline stint for recent single Deserve. The east coast tour kicks off 7 Dec.
ARIA Award Winners 2018 With the ARIA Awards just gone, here’s who won on the night: Apple Music Album Of The Year
Ivan Ooze
Amy Shark – Love Monster Best Male Artist
Gurrumul – Djarimirri (Child Of The Rainbow) Best Female Artist
Amy Shark – Love Monster Best Dance Release PNAU – Go Bang Best Group
5 Seconds Of Summer – Youngblood Breakthrough Artist
Ruel – Dazed & Confused Best Pop Release
Amy Shark – Love Monster Best Urban Release
Rabbiting on What happens when you cross Peter Rabbit with Game Of Thrones? The mildly traumatising 1978 movie Watership Down, that’s what. This Netflix-made CGI reboot looks a little less nightmare-inducing. Find out for yourself from Christmas Day, 25 Dec.
Hilltop Hoods –
Clark Griswold (feat. Adrian Eagle) Best Independent Release Gurrumul –
Djarimirri (Child Of The Rainbow) Best Rock Album
Courtney Barnett – Tell Me How You Really Feel Best Adult Contemporary Album Vance Joy – Nation Of Two Best Country Album
Kasey Chambers & The Fireside Disciples – Campfire Best Hard Rock/Heavy Metal Album Parkway Drive – Reverence
Best Blues & Roots Album Tash Sultana – Flow State
Best Original Soundtrack Or Musical Theatre Cast Album
Jimmy Barnes – Working Class Boy: The Soundtracks Best Children’s Album Justine Clarke –
The Justine Clarke Show!
App of the month: Relaxing Puzzle Box
TOP time Twenty One Pilots arrive in the country this 7 Dec in support of their recently released fifth studio album, Trench. The US duo have a run of arena concerts scheduled for Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.
If you’re looking to while away a few hours teasing your brain, this bundle of four beautifully designed puzzlers from game developer Maciej Targoni, aka Rainbow Train, is just the ticket. Each is unique and engaging and you can get the lot in the Apple App Store for $4.49.
Apple Music Song Of The Year 5 Seconds Of Summer – Youngblood Best Video
Dean Lewis – Be Alright Best Australian Live Act 5 Seconds Of Summer – Meet You There Tour Best International Artist
Camila Cabello – Camila
Music Teacher Of The Year
Scott Maxwell (Grant High School, Mount Gambier)
Up Left Down
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Sh*t we did With Maxim Boon
Movember Finally, society has found a productive use for the upper lip! Once a year, men all over the world allow their follicles to let their freak
Royce Da 5’9”
flags fly (from the gob up, at least) sprouting
Inching up US rapper Royce Da 5’9” lands Down Under for his firstever Aussie headline tour this 14 Dec. As well as his extensive solo work, the Detroit hip hop artist has collaborated with some of the biggest names in rap, including Eminem, Dr Dre, Diddy, Logic and J Cole.
Podcast of the month: Dear Joan & Jericha Watership Down
God help anyone seeking advice from Julia Davis and Vicki Pepperdine’s gloriously offensive creations, antagonistic agony aunts Joan and Jericha. The pair combine decades of experience in “female sexual health, psycho-genital counselling and sports journalism” to guide their audience through life’s little pickles.
a mighty movement of moustaches during the month of November. And not just for the sheer virile heck of it, either. It’s perhaps a problematic side-effect of male pride, but us blokes don’t talk enough about the intimate particulars of our health. As a result, potentially fatal yet treatable illnesses, such as testicular and prostate cancers, take the lives of thousands of men every year. Back in 1999, to try and tackle the stigmas that were causing such needless deaths, a group of young men from Adelaide (yes folks, we Aussies bloody invented Movember!) hit upon the idea of using a month-long mogrow to drive awareness and raise money. And in the two decades since it first started, “Mo Bros” - aka, those taking part in Movember – have collected millions of *insert foreign currency of your choice here* and the Movember movement has become one of the most successful NGOs in the world. So, what more reason did I need to join the cause? Time to start sprouting a new soup strainer, me thinks.
The Verdict It’s important that I preface this report with a few facts about my lousy Anglo-Saxon genes. I am not a hairy man. In fact, I would go so far as to say I am one of the least hirsute gents on god’s green earth. When that comes to the business of beard growth, I suffer from a condition I like to call “Terminal Boy Face.” I am well into my 30s and still regularly get asked for ID. Even for things that don’t require ID – that’s how cherubic my childlike mug is. So, even attempting this altruistic odyssey into the world of facial hair may have turned out to be a biological impossibility. But hey, y’all! Turns out that given time – plus a daily regimen of lip massages – I can (kinda) grow dat mo! I also grew a few dollars to boot, as well as more than a few Insta followers (moustached Maxim is quite the thirst trap). If, as some style soothsayers predict, we have indeed reached the tipping point of peak-beard, humanity may well be entering a new facial hair epoch: the golden age of the ‘tache! And if that’s the case, well, everything’s comin’ up Boon. Twenty One Pilots
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Seeking an equitable solution in the world of copyright protection With APRA AMCOS and PPCA coming together to form a new copyright protection services body that is due to launch next year, Australian Venues Association’s Maz Salt examines why the association was formed in protest.
T
commercial radio, and Australia should be both proud of its accomplishment and wary of multinationals that want to change it. Out of the combined $470 million that was collected by APRA AMCOS and the PPCA in the 17/18 financial year as specified in the respective annual reports, a substantial portion was collected on behalf of global record companies that own copyright to commercial music and is transmitted via royalty arrangements offshore. A large percentage of venues in Australia play and support local, underground and unreleased music in addition to music from countries where copyright ownership is difficult to ascertain. If we are paying large fees for copyright we want to make sure that it is being directed to the right place, not simply to large record companies. There are also questions about equity — PPCA currently charge some venues according to the price of a meal. We would also ask why the rates differ so wildly from barbershops, to retail businesses, to pokies venues, to cafes, bars and nightclubs. Pity the business that has multiple sides to one shop — APRA and PPCA want to charge different rates for different activities within the same business. You would go to a barbershop for a haircut but why do people go to a nightclub? The music is critical, but don’t forget socialising for a range of subcultures and the fact that we are already paying the DJ or the band to perform what is predominantly original music. Paying APRA AMCOS or PPCA so they can pay the artist seems ridiculous, particularly when they can’t say with any clarity or confidence that the fees we pay for a specific event or a specific venue are going to the artist they are charging us for! There are lots of discussions about minimum rates for artists to ensure a living wage and the AVA would love to be a part of that discussion, but we feel that making APRA AMCOS and PPCA more accountable is critical to that dialogue — both separately and together as the OneMusic joint venture. What it comes down to is the price of shit. The reality of this discussion is that where a venue can pass that cost on it will. We are all aware of the image that venue owners can have (‘Mercedes-driving house-owners’ was one great slur made on social media this week) but not all operators are rolling in buckets of cash; hospitality has one of the highest rates of failure in small business. It’s an extremely rewarding but tough gig. Many of the people you see with successful venues have spent a lifetime working on both them and other venues that may not have been successful to get where they are. In reality, operators will have to pass on these additional costs to the artist and the touring agency or pass them onto the consumer. In the case of a venue that doesn’t feel that it can ask that from its demographic, it will wear the cost. If it’s passing it on to you via ticket prices and surcharges then you lose, if it’s passing it onto the artist they lose and if the venue wears the cost we all lose as it will only provide further barriers to live music in Australia, and who in their right mind wants to see that?
he Australian Venues Association (AVA) was formed in early 2018 by a group of concerned Melbourne venue owners. It now represents a raft of venues from restaurants to festivals, cafes, live music venues, nightclubs and small bars. It is a not-for-profit and everyone involved so far is a volunteer. We hope to grow into an industry-wide body that can represent our members’ interests in a range of fields, but the impetus around the formation was both the current and proposed (under a new joint venture called OneMusic) fees charged by APRA AMCOS and the PPCA for copyright protection services in Australia. If you use copyright music in your venue you need a licence from the authors of that music. APRA AMCOS define’use’ as “anything from playing the radio, turning on a TV in the reception area, copying music from one device to another, streaming music through an iPad, piping music through your phone system, using a background music supplier, organising a concert and more”. Currently, this is collected through two different companies; APRA AMCOS and PPCA. The new OneMusic joint venture, set to launch in mid-2019, looks to bring into place a new fee structure that integrates APRA AMCOS and PPCA’s current fee models for venues. One case study we have looked at sees fees for a local 200-capacity Melbourne nightclub reportedly increase from a negotiated rate of $28,000 to $100,000 a year. For some venues, this new fee could be more than rent and liquor licensing combined and is of course just as important to the success of the venue. It could very easily lead to nights closing, venues closing and live music events slowing down. There are historical grievances around these aforementioned agencies that we would love to have clarified but remain unanswered. “Where’s the money?” probably sums it up best. None of our members dispute that there is a right to collect on behalf of copyright holders, indeed many of the venue owners we represent also are registered with APRA AMCOS as copyright owners and are musicians of long-standing tenure. The picture is a lot more intricate than the ‘venue owners trying to rip off impoverished musicians’ rhetoric that APRA AMCOS and the PPCA would have you believe. The AVA has therefore formed a committee that includes songwriters as well as venue owners in an attempt to establish an equitable solution founded on common ground and mutual respect. Much of the music that is commercialised in this country has its beginnings in the local pub, small bar and local festival circuit long before it becomes commercially exploited. Musicians put in years and years of dedication to honing their craft but for all of the successful artists emerging, there are also plenty of pretty quiet gigs that are supported by the passion of the venue owner. The critical infrastructure needed to support a diverse music ecology includes small venues, large venues, festivals, artists, education, community radio, artist managers and recording studios, as well as labels and
“We feel that making APRA AMCOS and PPCA more accountable is critical to that dialogue.”
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2018
Wr i t e r s ’ Polls Art i s t
o f
The Music annually takes a deep dive into the minds of its contributors to find out what made their year. The votes have been cast, the results tallied and 2018’s best and brightest can finally be revealed. By Hannah Story.
t h e
1 Childish G a mb mbino
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C
estrangement care of Instagram Stories, and it only made us like her more — for both her unabashed persona and her slick rhymes. Meanwhile, her appearance back in June on Zach Galifianakis’ Between Two Ferns web series managed to upstage Jerry Seinfeld himself. Courtney Barnett is the only Aussie in the very top spots, but it only seems right that she be up there after she copped our Album Of The Year title — and have you seen her live shows? Still, she’s joined by four other Aussies to round out the top ten: Amy Shark, Baker Boy, Mojo Juju and Gang Of Youths. Baker Boy and Mojo Juju both could be higher — their music drawing on their Indigenous heritages has been almost explosive, forcing people to sit up and pay attention. Meanwhile, Gang Of Youths are one of the most hard-working bands on the live scene this year, backing up the praise for last year’s Go Farther In Lightness. Amy Shark finally gets the acknowledgement she deserves for her huge ARIAwinning debut Love Monster and will in all likelihood be taking out (if not a top five placing) next year’s Hottest 100.
= 4 . Dr a k e
=4. J a n e l l e Monae
co
3 . C o u rt n e y B a r n e tt
onsidering the huge cultural impact of This Is America, of course The Music’s writers voted for Childish Gambino as their Artist Of The Year. On top of that, he released the Summer Pack EP as a digital download, gifting us with two bonafide summertime jams. His cancelled Australian tour was one of the most hyped of the year, and the rescheduled dates abroad are expected to be some of Donald Glover’s last under the Childish Gambino moniker — that fact certainly had punters scrambling to lock down their tickets. Outside of the musical world, Glover starred as Lando Calrissian in Solo: A Star Wars Story, all as details continue to emerge about his Guava Island film project, which also features Rihanna. Then the world’s sassiest, wittiest rapper Cardi B came in hot at #2: while her debut studio album Invasion Of Privacy only came in at #6 on the Albums list, there’s been so much hot tea coming from Cardi B it’s impossible to ignore her this year. After having a very public brawl with fellow rapper Nicki Minaj in September, Cardi let us all in on everything building up to the
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6. Kanye West, 7. Amy Shark, 8. Baker Boy, 9. Mojo Juju, 10. Gang Of Youths
2017: Kendrick Lamar, 2016: David Bowie, 2015: Courtney Barnett, 2014: FKA twigs. 2013: Lorde, 2012: Tame Impala/Frank Ocean, 2011: Gotye
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fter losing out in the 2015 The Music Writers’ Poll to Tame Impala’s third record Currents, Courtney Barnett’s grittier second album, Tell Me How You Really Feel, has finally taken its deserved place at the top of the pack. It’s also the first time the Aussie has nabbed the top spot since the aforementioned Tame win. Another moment: it’s the first time a woman/band with a woman in it has taken the top spot since 2010 when Arcade Fire won for The Suburbs. Interestingly, aside from Tame Impala — and it could be argued that band really is just Kevin Parker — it looks like solo dudes are usually The Music writers’ jam for #1 (see: Kendrick in ‘17, Bowie in ‘16) since 2011. So it’s incredibly cool to see a young woman top the list, especially solo. Tell Me How You Really Feel has all the hallmarks of a great Australian album, Barnett’s wordy, witty songwriting, delivered mostly in a lackadaisical drawl, interrogating uncomfortable topics like violence against women and bullying online. While lead single Nameless, Faceless dropped in February, then the full album in May, it felt particularly of its time when in June, young Melbourne comedian, Eurydice Dixon was tragically murdered in a local park. Inspired by a Margaret Atwood quote, Barnett sings, “I wanna walk through the park in the dark, men are scared that women will laugh at them. Women are scared that men will kill them.” The whole record is ripe with moments of emotional clarity and Barnett’s skill as
both a shit-hot guitarist and a songwriter are on show, the music taking on more of the darkness and almost garage elements of her live sets. Tell Me How You Really Feel is an artist’s statement, sometimes boiling over with anger on say, I’m Not Your Mother, I’m Not Your Bitch, before turning back to the careful study of life’s minutiae on City Looks Pretty. The Presets and DZ Deathrays are the only other Aussie artists to join Barnett in the top ten, at #3 and #7 respectively. The Presets’ electro-dance is some of the best in the country, if not in the world right now, while DZ’s heavy but very fun music is only getting better with every record. Continuing the run of solo women starting with Barnett, Janelle Monae and Kali Uchis join her as #4 and #5, with Cardi B and Florence + The Machine taking the powerful female artist count up to five in the top ten, which gives us a 50-50 split for maybe the first time. That’s not to say the rest of the top ten is dude-heavy: you’ve got dream-pop duo Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally, Beach House, skewing the list even more in favour of young, extremely talented women. We’d be amiss to not talk about Parquet Courts at #2, the NYC indie band that so speaks to an Australian temperament — it’s the kind of laidback, but weirdly high energy music that helps them fit with our existing surf-garage-rock scene so seamlessly. Finishing up the list is Kanye West. It’s not his strongest album, but it’s still got bite.
3. The Presets
4 . J a n e ll e M o n a e
5. Kali Uchis
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Past winners
6. Cardi B – Invasion Of Privacy, 7. DZ Deathrays – Bloody Lovely, 8. Florence + The Machine – High As Hope, 9. Beach House – 7, 10. Kanye West – Ye
2017: Kendrick Lamar – DAMN., 2016: David Bowie – Blackstar, 2015: Tame Impala – Currents, 2014: Chet Faker – Built On Glass, 2013: Kanye West – Yeezus, 2012: Tame Impala – Lonerism, 2011: Bon Iver – Bon Iver, 2010: Arcade Fire – The Suburbs, 2009: Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest
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Childish gambino
This is america
he 2018 Writers’ Poll Song Of The Year is super noteworthy because of the high representation of people of colour in the top five — that’s four out of five artists. This Is America, of course, topped the list by a wide margin and is one of the most politically charged anthems of the last decade. Childish Gambino addresses both gun violence and racial discrimination in the United States in an incredibly confronting way both in the song and in its incredibly impactful video clip. It’s undoubtedly the video clip of the year, as Gambino draws upon viral dance crazes and historical cultural stereotypes including the Jim Crow caricature to confront police violence against black Americans and the horrors of racially motivated mass shootings. The whole thing is aching to be unpacked and makes a statement about what it is we are willing to look past in order to live without guilt, to avoid our history. It’s followed by an equally powerful Indigenous Australian anthem in Mojo Juju’s Native Tongue: a song the artist describes as about self-empowerment and reclaiming culture. It also so happens to be groovy as hell. It forces you to consider the relationship between this country and its First Peoples and the ongoing discrimination experienced by them, enacted in paternalistic policy, or say, ignoring the Uluru Statement from the Heart.
Song Of The Year is also a really interesting category because it’s made up of six women — not including Sweater Curse, a band which also has a woman in it. That ratio is a super exciting one, featuring Janelle Monae’s smooth Make Me Feel, plus includes a stack of Aussies in Mojo Juju, G Flip, Courtney Barnett and Laura Jean. That’s just over a half-half local to international split in the top ten (well, technically 11 as there was a tie for tenth), not taking into account the presence of Troye Sivan on 1999. Didirri was the other Aussie in the mix at the pointy end. Talking viral videos, Drake’s In My Feelings has to get a mention — it turned into an internet meme challenge thanks to comedian Shiggy’s pink tracksuited dance, with the new Queer Eye guys and Will Smith giving it a crack. Drake then took some of his favourite examples and dropped them into the clip. Interestingly, Drake’s vote was split with God’s Plan also garnering a few votes and even Nice For What. Barnett too had multiple votes for different songs, with Charity and Hopefulessness also getting some nods. The Music Writers’ Poll is not complete without a walloping of punk, thanks to British rockers IDLES, and a pure dose of pop, which Charli XCX & Troye Sivan’s nostalgia feast, 1999, delivers. Its video clip is also a contender for top video clip of the year. The song is fun, pure and simple, and if you don’t like fun, that’s your problem.
2. Mojo juju
3. Janelle Monae
=4. G Flip
=4. Drake
Native Tongue
Make Me Feel
About you
In My Feelings
The Rest
Past winners
6. IDLES – Danny Nedelko, 7. Courtney Barnett – Nameless, Faceless, 8. Sweater Curse – Can’t See You Anymore, 9. Laura Jean – Girls On The TV, =10. Charli XCX & Troye Sivan – 1999, =10. Didirri – Formaldehyde
2017: Lorde – Green Light, 2016: Beyonce – Formation, 2015: Kendrick Lamar – King Kunta, 2014:, FKA twigs – Two Weeks, 2013: Daft Punk – Get Lucky (feat Pharrell), 2012: Tame Impala – Elephant, 2011: Gotye – Somebody That I Used To Know (feat Kimbra)
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1 Kendrick Lamar
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ur live act list is super diverse, showing that our writers’ pool is super diverse — just as it should be. But of course the winner is Kendrick Lamar, our Artist Of The Year for 2017. Seeing Lamar live is the kind of visceral experience any devoted hip hop head would sell their left foot for. And we’ve just gotta be grateful he even deigned to bring DAMN. down this way. Being in a stadium or Splendour where the entire crowd is singing along to 2018 Hottest 100 Winner HUMBLE., and being able to watch Lamar, possibly the best rapper of the ‘10s, at the height of his powers, is a privilege.
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2. Grace Jones, 3. Aldous Harding, 4. Bob Dylan, 5. The Killers, 6. Panic! At The Disco, 7. Queens Of The Stone Age, 8. The Bronx, 9. Pink, 10. Mogwai
2017: Patti Smith, 2016: The Cure, 2015: Blur, 2014: Bruce Springsteen & The E-Street Band, 2013: Bruce Springsteen & The E-Street Band, 2012: Radiohead
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festival they could, as well as SXSW. It’s all an impressive effort and altogether stands as testament to the power of their live sets. Gang Of Youths are joined in the top ten by a stack of others from across genres — from the heavy music of Parkway Drive, to the indie/alternative of Alex Cameron and Emerson Snowe, the melodic punk of Luca Brasi and the snarling rock of Drones offshoot Tropical Fuck Storm. It’s no surprise that our writers enjoy brutal rock music — the type of shows where you can hurl yourself into a mosh — considering the category’s previous winners: mostly Violent Soho and Nick Cave/Warren Ellis projects. Only Carmouflage Rose represents hip hop/ rap this year, but he can easily hold the genre up on his own, delivering unique performances at mid-range festivals and small venues, with just his excellent debut EP Taste in his arsenal.
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ho else could win Best Aussie Live Performance but Gang Of Youths? They’re easily the hardest-working band in the business and gained the most votes from our writers by far. They kicked off the year doing the festival rounds, before headlining Splendour In The Grass, playing the NRL Grand Final — befuddling some sports fans who had no idea who they were — and finally ending the year with a huge sellout national tour, breaking venue records along the way. They’ve even found time for US and European excursions, playing just about every summer
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Folk singer-songwriter Aldous Harding breaks up the nostalgia-fest, the 28-yearold’s more intimate live shows an excellent counterpoint to the massive venues the rest of our top five can captivate. She’s on her own here in our top ten: the acts making up the rest of the top ten — Panic! At The Disco, Queens Of The Stone Age — can all command large venues, but that closeness a smaller venue affords is part of what makes her live shows feel so special. Whether you caught her in Melbourne or Sydney, or at Laneway Festival, there’s no denying Harding’s more understated singer-songwriter talent and the way she can move a crowd.
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Historically The Music love a big act — a retro(ish) act playing a kind of once in a lifetime show: see 2017 winner Patti Smith, 2016 winner The Cure and even 2015 winner Blur. That’s not saying all those names aren’t still current, just that they reached the peaks of their powers maybe a few years ago (don’t @ me). They’re still worth seeing, it’s a huge bucket list thing and often they’re still incredibly talented, the kind of seminal artists who broke an entire genre, which honestly probably explains the high standing of everyone from Grace Jones to the obvious Bob Dylan to even The Killers this year. Jones at 70-years-old still puts on an unrivalled R&B show, while Nobel Prize winner Dylan, at 77, is someone you’d be a fool to miss. Sure, The Killers don’t have that kind of longevity, but they did define the sound of indie-rock in the ‘00s and, for some reason as late as March 2018, their 2003 hit single Mr Brightside was still in charting in the UK.
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Kira Puru’s groovy pop is some of the best in the country right now — it’s fun and fiery and sizzles on stage and, if you thought you could keep your hips in check at one of her shows, you’ll be very quickly found wrong. Meanwhile Courtney Barnett’s rock music is at times guttural, taking on a garagey bend as she wails on her guitar and lets her clever lyrics speak for themselves. She took out Best Aussie Live Performance back in 2015 and it’s only a matter of time before our Album Of The Year winner does it again.
The Rest
Past winners
2. Parkway Drive, 3. Kira Puru, 4. Courtney Barnett, 5. Alex Cameron, 6. Emerson Snowe, 7. Luca Brasi, 8. The Presets, 9. Tropical Fuck Storm, 10. Carmouflage Rose
2017: Midnight Oil, 2016: Violent Soho, 2015: Courtney Barnett, 2014: Violent Soho, 2013: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, 2012: Dirty Three, 2011: Grinderman
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Possibly the most dominant subtext running through our top ten is how often we hide our truest natures. Maniac, easily the most A-List laden show of this year’s winning crop, saw Jonah Hill and Emma Stone star in Patrick Somerville’s dark comedy wrestling with the complexities of mental illness. The Haunting Of Hill House took the ghost story trope into new, psychologically sophisticated territory to explore the ties that bind and the hurts that fracture a family with a tragic past shrouded in secrecy. The BBCmade Bodyguard delivered a taut, politically incisive window on the threat of extremism through the lens of unresolved emotional trauma, while Killing Eve, another BBC success featuring a powerhouse performance by Sandra Oh, also used counter-intelligence as a vehicle to look at the yin and yang of empathy vs sociopathy. BoJack Horseman and Better Call Saul — no strangers to this annual review — both brought their A-game to the TV party again this year, while Big Mouth hit
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t’s the golden age of TV, so they say. And since we’re all spending so much time with the ol’ gogglebox, it’s probably not drawing too long a bow to say our watching habits could be a kind of litmus test for the psyche. So, what do the telly triumphs singled out by our writers reveal about the minds behind his mag? Well, that we’re all a bit afraid. But if that sounds a tad bleak for a rousing review of the year’s best bingewatching, we’d beg to differ: millions of years of evolution didn’t make us a bunch o’ scaredy-cats for nothing. Fear keeps us alert, keeps us alive, and keeps us honest. And it’s those finer fear factors that can be found percolating through many of this year’s highest ranking shows.
the “it’s funny cos it’s true” bullseye, ep after ep after ep. But it’s our eclectic top three that seems to reveal the most about what anxieties might be praying on our collective minds at present. The Handmaid’s Tale, starring the irrepressible Elisabeth Moss, continued to feel terrifyingly prescient in a world riven by political divides, while Donald Glover (the king of this year’s poll results) showed us how to see the funny side of struggle, making lightning strike twice for dramedy Atlanta’s second season. But it’s a newcomer to this year’s top ten that takes the crown, with a show that took existential terror and spun it into comedy genius. The Good Place, helmed by Kristen Bell, William Jackson Harper and Ted Danson, is a heaven-sent sitcom about what might be waiting for us in the great beyond. It seems we’re a bit preoccupied with what comes next, but at least we’re headed there with a smile on our face.
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Past winners
2. Atlanta, 3. The Handmaid’s Tale, 4. Big Mouth, 5. Better Call Saul, 6. BoJack Horseman, 7. Killing Eve, 8. Bodyguard, 9. The Haunting Of Hill House, 10. Maniac
2017: Stranger Things, 2016: Stranger Things, 2015: Game Of Thrones, 2014: True Detective, 2013: Breaking Bad, 2012: Breaking Bad, 2011: Breaking Bad
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ing films in Australia this year. Add to its smash success and cultural import a script that is actually good, plus the thirst appeal of Michael B Jordan, and you’ve got yourself The Music ‘s Movie Of The Year. But our writers are also into big heart-wrenching musical dramas, which explains #2 and #3 — Bohemian Rhapsody and A Star Is Born. It’s no surprise a collection of music writers would froth over a Queen biopic, but the performance of Rami Malek alone earns its place at the top of our list. Meanwhile, Bradley Cooper’s directorial debut with his remake of 1937 film A Star Is Born exposed us both to Cooper’s singing voice and to Lady Gaga’s impressive acting chops. Still, our love of blockbusters and musical dramas doesn’t mean we don’t appreciate an auteur film: In Bruges director Martin McDonagh’s confronting and discomfiting Three Billboards Outside
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urns out The Music’s writers are into Marvel movies. Who knew? Looking at our top ten we love a bloody fantasy/superhero story, starting with Black Panther, before big-upping Avengers: Infinity War and Deadpool 2 (the latter’s first film topped our poll back in 2016). Black Panther is of course #1 and is also the most culturally significant, an allblack superhero movie and the first Marvel flick to be helmed by a black director in Ryan Coogler. Black Panther broke box office records and became the highestgrossing film by a black director and, as it stands, sits at #3 on the list of top gross-
Ebbing, Missouri, rounded out the top five, while Greta Gerwig’s first film Lady Bird was at #6. Both films were nominated for plenty of Oscars this year, including Best Picture, but only Three Billboards... won, thanks to the strength of Frances McDormand and Sam Rockwell’s performances. While Three Billboards... tackled homophobia, racism and sexual violence, Lady Bird took a more subdued view of the world — it’s a feminine approach to ‘00s/’10s mumblecore movies where Saoirse Ronan and Timothee Chalamet start to come of age, but where the focus really is on female friendships and the relationships between mothers and their daughters.
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Past winners
2. Bohemian Rhapsody, 3. A Star Is Born, 4. Avengers: Infinity War, 5. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, 6. Lady Bird, 7. Deadpool 2, 8. Solo: A Star Wars Story, 9. Sweet Country, 10. Annihilation
2017: Blade Runner 2049, 2016: Deadpool, 2015: Max Max: Fury Road, 2014: The Grand Budapest Hotel 2013: Gravity, 2012: The Dark Knight Rises, 2011: Drive
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2018: the Year in Numbers
It’s hard to believe, but the end of 2018 is very much in sight. As you’ve seen, our writers have sharpened their pencils, put on their thinking caps and put together their ‘Best Of’ 2018 lists. So, just how much goes into those lists? We’ve tallied the votes, as well as asked the team why they picked their number one, to look back at the year by numbers.
1
My number one was...
Sam Wall Vic Editor
My number one TV show was…
84
TV shows voted for
68
Adventure Time
The final season flooped my heart.
Movies that we loved
Jessica Dale Assistant Editor/Social Media Coordinator
My number one artist was… Gang Of Youths Gang Of Youths have gone from strength to strength this year, which includes opening for the Foo Fighters on their US tour, launching their own festival, and breaking venue records across Australia - and they deserve of success and accolade they get.
Mark Neilsen National Editor - Magazines
My number one film was… Three Billboards
3
Outside Ebbing, Missouri
From the time the trailer dropped with
The number of billboards that made it into our top films of the year
Frances McDormand dropping the swears, you knew this film was going to be one hell of a ride. The trailer was so funny and initial thoughts it was a comedy soon gave way to a very stirring, emotional experience on witnessing the film. Nothing is black and white in the movie, you think you know who to root for, but then something shifts and not everything is as clear as before.
Lauren Baxter Editorial Assistant
My number one song was… Normal People Never ones to stick to the conventional, Fucked Up’s Normal People is a genredefying, post-punk anthem with indie-rock
352
T he number of gigs our wri t ers vo t ed for
hooks that sound as familiar as they are original. It twists through different sonic narratives in its attempts to make sense of this thing called life and calls for dancing, moshing, singing, thrashing and everything in between.
167
T he number of in t ern at ion a l gigs t h at m ade our wri t ers t op fiv e shows of t he y e a r
Daniel Cribb Editor
My number one international gig was… Pink Everything just worked, and that has to
be attributed to how hard working Pink
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T he number of swee t, swee t Aussie gigs t h at could h av e been # 1
and her team are. The band was tight, the backing dances were on fire and Pink didn’t miss a beat. It was mind-blowing watching her fly around the entire arena while nailing soaring vocal lines.
Neil Griffiths Editor
336
albums t hat made it in t o t his y e ar’s final lis t
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Individual songs t hat were vo t ed for
Art is t s t hat could have t opped t he y e ar
My number one Australian gig was… PNAU I caught PNAU at Splendour this year and it was easily one of the biggest highlights all weekend. The colours! The lights! The sounds! Nick Littlemore losing his shit on stage! PNAU’s live show is a 100% must see event for any fan of live music.
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Josh Groom Carriageworks, 16 June 2018 St Vincent delivered just two performances of this spectacular solo outing in Australia. Here’s our review of the first of those incredible nights, from Macquarie Wharf in Tasmania.
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nnie Clark, aka St Vincent, paces on stage in a puce leotard with matching pink stiletto boots, balancing gingerly as if she’s walking a tightrope. “I’m not anything at all”, she repeats with opener Now, Now and given how long she’s taken to appear on stage it almost feels like an apology. Regardless of the reason for the delay, her timbre is so startling and so pure that none of us seem to mind. Her body language is stiff and isn’t matching up with the force and power of her vocals, making us wonder if she might actually be lip syncing. She proves any suspicions wrong with each of the next three songs, as the curtain is drawn to reveal a new microphone and higher level of vocal power so that she’s arching across the stage in a graceful semicircle of degrees. She must also have a veritable rainbow of guitars back there because with each song she’s also handed a new custom St Vincent (Ernie Ball) guitar in a wildly fluorescent colour. With The Strangers she’s still moving through something sinister but her vocals are as clear as glass and the sound is so pulsing, so resonant that it would be no surprise to look back and see Trent Reznor at the sound desk. Cheerleader sees Clark now fully alive and present in her body; “I’ve seen America with no clothes on” she yells as she shreds furiously into her guitar, her black bob splaying like nunchucks. When the backdrop of a screaming female vampire face is revealed, she calls to the audience, “I know the whole world is on fire right now but we’re down here and there’s always something to dance about, right?!” before launching into a steely rendition of Digital Witness. With that she seems to let go of a certain psychic weight, turning a corner and taking her performance to another level. She’s also exploring a number of concepts through the multimedia element in this performance; perceived success, toxic politics, female submission. After a costume change, she reappears and launches into Pills, which is by far the most moving, complex and satisfying of the songs in her set. What we are witnessing here is the slowly grinding mechanism of an artist working through her demons on stage. With Smoking Section she delivers the devastating finale. Tonight’s performance is fragile and triumphant and sees Clark proving her complexity, questioning everything and working through considerable discomfort to ultimately embody the type of power she’s so desperate to see more of in the world.
Amanda Laver
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Shangela: And because we are in and out of drag on RuPaul’s Drag Race, as much as it would be nice to think we have this Superhero persona where no one’s gonna clock us if we’re Clark Kent, if you see what I’m saying. Oh honey, no! They clock us no matter what we’re wearing, no matter how big my shades are. The fans will still find you! But that’s also amazing, to be honest. I think Sasha and I have very similar experiences while we’ve been on this journey to discover who we are as performers and as people. And right now I think I’m living my most valid truth, which is being in drag. And being Shangela has really helped me conquer this barrier of fear I always had as a boy, going into auditions, to read for roles. When you’re a drag queen, honey, you can’t have a lot of fear. You get so accustomed to people whispering or turning to look or whatever, so you lose a lot of that self-consciousness and learn how to live your most authentic truth. Which for me is in a pair of heels and wig.
Thank you for coming to Australia, I know Aussie Drag Race fans feel very lucky to have you here. Of course, you’re both
hugely successful in the States, you’re TV personalities, so you could probably get
away with not coming out to countries as
far-flung as Australia. So, why is it that you still choose to tour your live performances so widely around the world?
Shangela: Well firstly, we are just so thankful to have fans around the world and the best way to connect with them is to come to where they are. The other part’s a little selfish. I grew up in a little town called Paris, Texas. And when I was a kid I would see planes flying over my house and I’d look up and think, ‘One day that’s going to be me on there.’ So now, to be able to travel the world, it’s an amazing feeling to know that those dreams I had as a kid have come true. I mean, it’s a real hustle, I’m not gonna lie. Right now, I’m on a 170-city tour - this is city 107. But we just do our work and have the energy to keep going because we are getting to live a dream, you know. It’s what we love to do and we’re so thankful for that.
Shasha: In fact, I think we construct personas for ourselves that can live fearlessly. Our drag is our armour, it’s our protection. Shangela: Halleloo!
mance on the season 9 finale has become the stuff of Drag Race legend, especially
the now iconic “rose petal ruveal.” What is the secret of the perfect lip sync stunt?
Practice, for a start! I practiced with the rose petals over and over in my hotel room. I only had a very small number of silk rose petals to work with, so I had to scrabble around on my hands and knees after every rehearsal and stuff them back into that wig! So practice, that’s important. But also, anything you do in a lipsync - as with any kind of performance - has to tell a story. What you’re wearing, how you move your face; everything, including the reveal moment, has to come from the emotions you’re trying to convey. That’s my idea of the perfect lip sync.
Shangela, your ascent as a drag star is
unique in that you went on Drag Race just a few months after getting into drag. You
had to learn a lot of your craft in the public
gaze, already a celeb. How has that influ-
Shangela Is Shook tours from 1 Dec Sasha Velour: Live & In Colour tours from 9 Jan
enced you as an artist as your career has gone from strength to strength?
Sasha: And as much as we love being on TV, looking fabulous and doing fabulous photoshoots where we’re perfectly styled, drag is at its best when it’s live, when it’s happening in real time. And it’s not just about performing. It’s also about meeting people, getting to swap stories and learn about people and laugh with them, in person, face to face. Even as terrifying as we look up close!
Shangela: It put a greater responsibility on me. And to be honest, I put that on myself. Because I was so new when I walked onto the set of RuPaul’s Drag Race season 2, I was new, but I didn’t feel it. The thing is, if you look at me on season 2, what I saw was, ‘Oh honey, she came to win! I am a professional! There is no way I ain’t taking that $20,000 home!’ But then seeing the show when it aired, I was like, ‘Oh, honey. Oh no.’ And even being there, on that first challenge, I suddenly realised there was a lot I had to learn! But I knew I could work hard, and I knew that I could chase something if I wanted to badly enough. So I made it my mission to catch up, and catch up fast. Because being the girl who failed twice on Drag Race, I didn’t want that to be my legacy. So I got it together, I asked a lot of questions, I watch a lot of videos. I became, truly, a professional!
Before you were Shangela and Sasha,
you were DJ and Alexander. Now, of
course, the world knows you almost exclusively by your drag alteregos.
Do you still feel a separation
between your two identities, in and out of drag?
Sh an ge l a
Shasha: I honestly don’t think of myself as divided entities anymore. It all feels like a fluid spectrum depending on how corseted or covered in sequins and makeup I am. The truth is, that always in my life I was trying to create an existence where I would get to express this Velourian side of myself. I just never imagined that doing it on this scale would ever be possible. Many of us who grew up in the ‘90s, no one was telling us that we could be successful as cross-dressers. So I tried to be an actor and
The Music
Your winning lip sync for the crown perfor-
Sasha, since winning the
show, you’ve delivered
some truly stunning looks
through collaborations with
incredible independent design-
ers, especially from your native
New York. Why have you made collaborawinning Drag Race queen?
Sasha: Drag is a collaborative art form. It has to be a reflection of a whole commu-
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Vel o
“L
et’s change the motherfucking world!” This was the rallying cry ofRuPaul’s Drag Race season 9 winner Sasha Velour as she accepted her crown after one of the most thrilling finales in the juggernaut show’s herstory. And without question, the motherfucking world has most definitely been changed by drag. The hit reality show’s influence has propelled the art form to the highest heights of the pop culture zeitgeist. From the ever-growing list of catchphrases
nity. For most of my drag career before Drag Race, I was mostly solitary in all my efforts. And drag has also been, at times, a way for me to process and deal with very personal sadness and trauma. There were times in my early drag career when it was the only thing that gave me any optimism. It’s always been something that has given me hope and joy, but since winning the show, I’ve been able to share that joy through collaborations. So, I wanted to make my reign a celebration of the Brooklyn drag scene and all the amazing designers and artists who are part of that. And the way in which I collaborate with people, it’s a true exchange. So everything I wear still feels very Sasha Velour.
ha
RuPaul’s Drag Race royalty, Sasha Velour and Shangela Laquifa Wadley, are headed to Australia in the next couple of months with two brand new solo extravaganzas. Maxim Boon met the pair to talk world fame, “ruveals”, and being a professional. Halleloo!
act in boy roles, I tried to be a graphic designer and get my artistic juices satisfied that way. But this way - being Sasha - feels like the ultimate culmination of my whole life, of all my passions, as a performer, as an artist, as a person.
- “Halleloo!” “Miss Vannnnjie,” and “Back Rolls?” to name only a few - to the veritable dictionary of drag-speak that has entered common parlance - YASSS KWEEN, you can tell the children, this is how it is done hunties, because the library is open, ockurrrrrr? *Tongue Pop* - the global popularity of the multi-Golden Globe-winning show has made international megastars of its alumni. And fortunately for Drag Race fans (and let’s face it, who isn’t?), the show’s stars are more than happy to bring their talents to the people, no matter how far away they are. The Music caught up with two of Drag Race’s most idolised divas ahead of their upcoming solo sojourns Down Under.
Sas
Life’s a drag
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What a wonderful world Let’s face it — it’s been another muvva-fudger of a year, with enough human misery and ecological horror to send even the most optimistic of us into an existential tailspin. But before you smash a handful of Valium and lock yourself away in a bunker somewhere, take heart, dear reader: 2018 wasn’t all bad. Here are a few uplifting reasons why it was a glasshalf-full kinda year. Illustrations by Felicity Case-Mejia
emember back in December 2016, when we all collectively breathed a sigh of relief and thought, ‘Well, thank fuck that year from hell is over. Phew! It’s gonna be nothin’ but plain sailing from here in out, you guys.’ Oh, what poor, damn fools we were. Between escalating climate change, white supremacists, Manus and Naru, #MeToo, the alt-right, ScumMo, and the endless sushi-train of steaming poop that is Trump’s White House, 2018 has kept up the trend of soul-crushing FML that’s been the idee fixe of the past three years. But as earth completes another lap around the sun, we at The Music are refusing to give in to the dread. We’ve scoured the year’s feel-good stories so you can see out 2018 with a just lil’ bit of hope.
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New Zealand’s First Baby’s debut at the UN
Ezra Miller’s Playboy shoot
The Wentworth by-election
With the shocking revelations of the scale of sexual abuse being wielded by Hollywood’s power brokers, most notably by movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, a dark secret of the entertainment elite was brought to public light. But as the patriarchal status quo was toppled, we saw a shift in the previously entrenched culture of discrimination that not only empowered women but also those existing outside the heteronormative. While Ezra Miller, star of Justice League and Fantastic Beasts, is by no means the first actor to openly discuss sexuality, the 26-year-old became a symbol of a change in the movie industry by posing for the cover of Playboy magazine, with an accompanying interview discussing gender-fluidity and polyamory. Given recent attacks on the trans community, from both President Trump and closer to home Aus PM Scott Morrison, Miller offers an A-list level rallying cry for tolerance and open-mindedness when it comes to gender identity and sexuality.
We don’t think it would be hyperbole to say that Kiwi Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is one of the most inspiring political figures in the world today. Not content with being the first world leader to give birth while in office (not to mention her progressive politics and the unparalleled diversity of her cabinet), she also made history in September by being the first leader to bring their baby, Neve Te Aroha, to the United Nations General Assembly. Ardern appeared with her three-month-old daughter in the New York-based hub for global diplomacy before giving a wonderful speech at the Nelson Mandela Peace Summit.
After being ousted by his own party, former PM Malcolm Turnbull resigned from parliament precipitating a by-election in his constituency of Wentworth. Formerly a steadfastly safe seat for the Liberals, the local election became a litmus test for the nation’s political yen, denied the chance to elect the newly installed PM Scott Morrison after an internal coup that saw yet another leadership spill. Despite some uncertainty in the immediate wake of election day, as postal and absentee votes were hurriedly collated, independent candidate Kerryn Phelps was declared the new member for Wentworth, joining the Lower House crossbench in the largest official byelection swing against a government in Australian political history. The significance of the win has been seen as a microcosm of the same anti-right backlash witnessed in the US, offering a reassuring sign that public sensibilities have not succumbed to the populism that has seemed such a conspicuous force in recent geopolitics.
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Elon Musk sends his car into space
It’s been far from a flawless year for ol’ mate Elon Musk. The man who might well be humanity’s best hope for becoming a multi-planet species has made a few questionable choices in 2018, from smoking the whacky-tobaccy on camera with Joe Rogan to starting several wincing scandals with a triggerhappy Twitter finger. But this is a feature about the good stuff of 2018, so we’re going to focus on what could arguably be the most perfect balancing act between being a baller and nerd ever accomplished. In February, as a demonstration of the launch capacity of Space X’s Falcon Heavy rocket, Musk launched his very own Tesla Roadster into a billion year orbit around Mars. With a mannequin in the driving seat wearing one of Space X’s cool AF space suits, live footage of the car beginning its epic journey was relayed around the world (literally). Not only was this a feat of amazing engineering, it was also done with such whimsy and dorky humour it will ever be simultaneous one of the cleverest and dumbest things every accomplished by humankind.
A year of marriage equality in Australia There has never been a more nail biting use of boring data analysis than during the eternity-seeming five minutes David Kalish of the Australian Bureau of Statistics kept the nation on the edge of its seat before finally revealing the landslide victory for same-sex marriage equality in November last year. The right for same-sex couples to marry was made law by December and in the past year, scores of couples have tied the knot, finally given the equal dignity to have their relationships recognised. And because
we’re a tiny bit partial to the odd soupcon of schadenfreude here at The Music, it was also satisfying to see the backlash against former PM Malcolm Turnbull, who despite putting the LGBTQIA+ community through the humiliation of the NO campaign, attempted to take credit for marriage equality on Twitter on the anniversary of the result. Sorry, not sorry Mal.
The Trump Blimp As demagogues go, Donald Trump has given satirists plenty to work with. The tangerine skin, the pursed sphincter of a mouth, the fairy-floss combover, the teeny-tiny hands — there’s plenty for caricaturists to ham-up. But one unignorable piece of protest art emerged in 2018 that perfectly captured another of Trump’s most odious qualities: his childlike penchant for temper tantrums. The giant inflatable blimp in the shape of a baby-Trump, complete with diaper, first took to the skies over London, when the American president made his first official state visit to the UK. But it has since floated around the world, drifting above protest marches across America and beyond. Expect to see a lot more of the Trump baby blimp in 2019.
Ethnic, cultural and gender victories in the American Midterms
While we may not be directly involved with American politics, the globally reaching consequences of Donald Trump’s chaotic term in office has had the world on tenterhooks. So the Midterm Elections, which were viewed by many political commentators as a crucial referendum on Trump’s ability to lead the land of the free, still had many of us Down Under rapt with anticipation. The results were not just a partisan victory for the Democrats, who not only took back the House of Representatives but also several key Governorships, they were also a stunning victory for women of colour and minorities. Several historic, defiantly progressive firsts were achieved, including the youngest woman and the first two Native American women ever elected to Congress, and the first openly gay Governor.
BDE
They may be just three little letters, but they represent something of a very much larger scale: big dick energy. The social media phenom began in late June when Ariana Grande tweeted (and then quickly deleted) about former fiance Pete Davidson’s substantial dong. Now, in the year of #MeToo, a story about male genitals sounds a little tone-deaf. But BDE is not merely a matter of anatomy, but rather a state of mind. It describes someone with confidence without cockiness, charisma without self-centeredness, and animal magnetism without sexual entitlement. Best of all though, BDE has nothing to do with gender — or in fact the size of a penis. Twitter was abuzz with suggestions of women with lashings of BDE, including the likes of Serena Williams, Rihanna, and Australia’s own Cate Blanchett. It might seem strange that the male appendage could be used as a feminist totem, but for many, it was an appropriation that really captured the empowerment and defiance of a post #MeToo world.
Hannah Gadsby conquers the globe
In March 2017, Hannah Gadsby announced her intention to retire from stand-up comedy with a swansong show enigmatically titled Nanette. Those who saw it during its premiere season at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival left the show shellshocked. After a typically joke-laden intro, Gadsby took her final show in an extraordinary direction, unleashing a furious rebuke to toxic masculinity and the patriarchal discrimination that has impacted the lives of women, LGBTQ-
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IA+ folk and other minorities for decades. The show was instantly declared a masterpiece, picking up the coveted Barry Award at MICF, followed by the Best Comedy Show Award at Edinburgh Festival. A massive New York season followed, released by Netflix as a comedy special, sending the kudos of Nanette into the stratosphere. For many, Gadsby’s words were an expression of unflinching defiance in a climate when many people are living in fear and uncertainty. There are many extraordinary moments in Nanette, but one quote that perhaps best captures its ferocious spirit is this: “There is nothing stronger than a broken woman who has rebuilt herself.” Here here.
The spider-man of Paris In late May, a sunny afternoon in Paris took a nearlydisastrous turn when a four-year-old child managed to scramble over the railing of a balcony on the fourth story of an apartment building. The toddler dangled high above the concrete paving slabs below, as horrified bystanders looked on expecting a tragedy to unfold. But then, something miraculous happened. 22-year-old Mamoudou Gassama sprang into action, scaling the outside of the building in mere seconds to rescue the child from what would have been an almost certainly fatal fall. The incredible incident was captured by multiple mobile phones, and stories of the man dubbed “the spider-man of Paris” quickly made headlines around the world. Following the rescue, Gassama left the scene, with no expectation of reward or accolade. However, once tracked down by the media a few days later, the Malian immigrant was granted French citizenship by President Emmanuel Macron in recognition of his extraordinary act of heroism.
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You can never have too much of a good thing
“I
t’s been a long time, I’ll do my best to remember.” The year was 1994 and according to lead guitarist Kevin “Noodles” Wasserman, The Offspring were “just trying to figure out what we were gonna do with our lives and how long we could make this punk rock thing happen”. “We never really thought we’d make a living doing it,” he remembers of the time. “It was just what we loved doing for fun... It was something you might get away with for a few years but it certainly wasn’t going to be a career. But we didn’t care, we still loved doing what we were doing. We loved touring on weekends and summer vacations and playing the odd local gig during the week so we thought, ‘Let’s make another record.’” That record was Smash and as time would come to tell, it was the record that changed everything for the band. Now as it approaches its 25th anniversary, the iconic ‘90s outfit are heading Down Under to play it in its entirety. Here we go track by track with Noodles to find out why “you gotta keep ‘em separated”.
Time To Relax
Smash hits Almost 25 years ago, Epitaph Records released what would become the best-selling independent album of all time. Lauren Baxter travels back to 1994 with Kevin “Noodles” Wasserman to find out how The Offspring made Smash.
Return to The Places Dashboard Confessional’s Chris Carrabba speaks to Rod Whitfield about preparing to revisit 2001’s The Places You Have Come To Fear The Most.
“John Mayer [not that one] is a voice-over artist and we wanted to get somebody to give commentary in between songs and so we hired him to come in and do a lot of this intro and you know just kind of cheesy, like introducing lounge acts in between the songs. It was really humorous to us and got people to hopefully pay attention that another song was coming.”
Nitro (Youth Energy) “You know, which is really the intro to the record. We wanted something that started off with a drum roll and then just straight into heavy guitar, bass and drums; uptempo, punk rock sounding stuff. The riff in the intro is real simple. Almost like a Chuck Berry double stop on speed kind of thing. But also something we thought the kids would sing along to. It’s pretty straightforward structure-wise.”
Bad Habit “Bad Habit‘s just a fun one right? Really kinda about a guy... You know, freeway shootings were a big deal back then, in like the early ‘90s, and most of them were indiscriminate — people just shooting from car to car when they went into a road rage. They didn’t call it road rage so much yet, it was really just shooting, random shootings on the LA freeway. And Dexter was a very slow driver and he would get in the fast lane and he would either be writing songs or going over his school homework and forget about how fast he was going or how slow he was going really. So people would be ripping around him all pissed off. And I’m the guy who’d be getting pissed off. I’m the guy who drove like a maniac, screaming and yelling at all the slow morons in the fast lane, so...”
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ock bands have long celebrated some of the pivotal albums of their careers with dedicated anniversary tours, playing their most iconic records end to end in celebration with their audience. And that’s exactly what Dashboard Confessional are doing when they perform at the debut Good Things Festival. The American alternative/ acoustic rock outfit will play their crucial second album, The Places You Have Come To Fear The Most, in full for Aussie fans. Vocalist and co-founding member Chris Carrabba is well aware of the potential for disappointment that this creates between the band and hardcore fans devotees of the record. “Let me put it this way, I felt very relieved to find myself proud of the songs,” he laughs, “I know it’s a tall order, for some people this is a very important record, they’ve listened to it many, many times and they still may
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Gotta Get Away “Gotta Get Away was probably, I guess, one of the slower ones on the record, little bit more of a rock beat, but those drums definitely sound reminiscent of TSOL, who were a band we were big fans of. We kind of got the inspiration from them. I don’t think there’s any secret there for anyone who knows both bands. But the main riff of that song actually came from an older song that we had done called Cogs that we did in the mid-late ‘80s; one of the earliest tracks we had ever done. It was really fast and kind of choppy, the first song Cogs was, and it didn’t really have any flow or anything and so once we kind of came up with that drum beat and then worked the main riff into the chorus structure, it went a lot more smoothly.”
Genocide “Dexter started experimenting with different tuning so we actually changed the tuning on the guitar there a little bit so we could do some open drone notes. It’s a real simple chord structure for the most part. Starts off with a three-chord kinda thing and then we add a few more chords later [laughs] but the way he kind of did the droning chords with C F G tuning of the bottom strings was interesting to me and fun. It’s also got, well, certainly a heavy, angry meaning to it, but it’s also got that sound I think as well.”
Something To Believe In “That was one of the few songs that I don’t think we played when Smash came out, we never really played that one. I don’t know why. It wasn’t one of the most popular. Smash being our third record, at the time we had to cut something. We were ready to play all these songs but that was one we hardly, until recently when we started doing Smash in its entirety for anniversary shows, we never really played that live. We had to all relearn how to play that one. It’s a fun song, I love that song. I always did. But not one that ever got its due. It’s kind of an odd song to be playing live and also I don’t think people are as familiar with it. You know, from there we go straight into Come Out And Play and everyone loves that one.”
Come Out And Play “When I first heard [the “keep ‘em separated” part] for sure, I knew it was Blackball doing it. That’s our friend Jason McLean. We call him Blackball because he was just a fan, he would come to shows and scream at us to play Blackball off our first record [laughs]. He was a one-hit wonder every time he’d show up to the show, that’s all we could hear, so we started calling him Blackball; a lot of his friends still call him Blackball too. But Dexter was writing that one and that one changed — I didn’t hear that line until we were in the studio. The structure of the song we had together, the Middle Eastern riff, and I thought that was all really cool. Then I heard
listen to it many times. But I don’t listen to it, I mean I play some of the songs from it, but I don’t listen to the record. I’ve got to make sure, first and foremost, I’ve got to hope that I instinctively connect to what they connected to and then deliver that. “It’s more important to get the chords right,” he adds, laughing again, “which I will, maybe not today, but I will!” Of course, this begs the question, has he or will he be listening to the album itself in the lead-up to this tour? “I haven’t listened to it yet, at this point,” he admits. “I’ve just played them, and probably wrong! I’ve just been playing them and playing them, and kind of letting the nuances of however they feel right now be what the songs should be. Probably in a week or so I’ll actually go back and listen and find out just how flatly wrong I am.”
As the brand new Good Things Festival looks to breath life back into the heavy music festival scene, The Music is lacing up our Dr Martens in preparation. Hitting Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane this month, we know it’s going to be “all good baby baby”. the tagline “You gotta keep ‘em separated” and I thought, ‘Oh man.’ I thought it was funny, I didn’t think it was going to be the hit that it was.”
Self Esteem “Self Esteem was a little bit more of a sleeper hit than Come Out And Play. Come Out And Play comes out and grabs people right away I think, whereas Self Esteem just kind of grew on people over a longer period. So that’s why we always end with Self Esteem and it really gets the crowd going. “I wasn’t a big fan of the song when we were first doing it, I think because of the tempo and to me, it just seemed kind of, well, you know when you are rehearsing it just as a band instrumentally, you don’t really hear everything. Once we got in the studio, it really started to come together. We started off with the intro instead of doing the ‘blah blah blah blah ‘it was just an acoustic, playing the guitar really, and that was too reminiscent of Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit really and so we thought, ‘What can we do?’ and Dexter was like, ‘What if we just did this?’ and we all went in and did the gang vocal on that and then I thought, ‘Ok, that’s got something that makes people listen right away.’ To me, again, super funny and kinda nonsensical. The whole song is pretty tongue-in-cheek but also relatable. I’ve had these big muscle-bound dudes up front with their arms laying over the barricade singing along that they’re just a sucker with no self-esteem [laughs]. That always kind of cracks me up.”
It’ll Be A Long Time “I don’t remember much about this. This is another one that we’ll throw in from time to time. I love this song, it’s a great song. One of the barn burners that’s definitely more uptempo and in your face. More aggressive. I think it’s a great song, plenty to sing along to. Still got plenty of melody I think.”
Killboy Powerhead “We had a friend who hipped us to The Didjits and we dug it and we were looking at this record and going, ‘Ahh maybe it needs something... Maybe it’s a little light as far as songs.’ We had really 12 songs if you don’t count Time To Relax as a song, so we wanted to add one more and we just decided to do it. It’s a fun riff, we never even asked the guys if we could do it [laughs]. We never asked The Didjits, Rick is the guy who wrote the song, Rick Sims, it’s his band. So when we finally met him, he just came in and was kinda just really just amused at the whole situation. I’m glad we didn’t ask him and he said no and [laughs] I think he’s probably glad we didn’t ask him and he said no too.”
What Happened To You?
toured with. Voodoo Glow Skulls as well back in the day, we played with them a bunch. And going back further we loved The Specials and stuff like that. There was always ska happening in the punk scene. I think for a band to do just ska can maybe, it’s such a defined style of music that it can really kind of... It can become monotonous sounding if that’s all you’re playing, but I think to throw a song in here or there can really add flavour. We all felt that way.”
It’s all good With so many good things at Good Things, here are our pick of some of the other acts on the bill.
Babymetal
So Alone “So Alone was just a quick one that we wrote. There’s not really much to the song, it was really just kind of like a venting of aggression. Very punk, in your face for sure.”
Not The One “Not The One was kind of a little trippy. We started working with some effects for the first time. We don’t use a lot of guitar effects to lay and things like that and Dexter had this idea for this riff that was really kind of drenched in delay that drove the song and then he also had the idea for the lyrics on that one about you know, ‘Hey [laughs] don’t blame us! Let’s blame the generation before us for fucking up the world.’ God, poor kids today, they’ve really got it — the world’s way more fucked up. It’s kind of ironic, ‘We’re not the one, don’t blame us,’ but at the same time, if we’re not helping to make it better we’re part of the problem still.”
Unabashed J-pop precision meets unrelenting headbanging, few bands have shaken the metal world as much as BABYMETAL. While one of the original members Yuimetal has recently left the group, this is one act not to be missed. All we know is that when we grow up, we want to be in BABYMETAL.
Smash “Smash was just the one to kind of tie it all in. I always think of Smash as straightforward, vintage Offspring sound. You know, uptempo, something you can sing along to, little bit of guitar riff in there along with the heavy bar chords and palm-muted driving guitar bass and drums. I think it was one of the last ones written for the record and we were kind of getting an idea of how to tie this all together. We wanted something that, we didn’t want — like the next record we went with, Ixnay On The Hombre [laughs] — long, not easy to say. With this record we just wanted one word, that kind of just, ‘Argh!’ you know. One word that sounded like ‘argh’ and Smash was it.”
The Offspring tour from 5 Dec.
Ecca Vandal
If you’ve never come across Ecca Vandal, we don’t know what to tell you other than you’re missing out. Get down early and witness this fiercely original blend of punk, hip hop and
Check The Guide on theMusic.com.au for more details.
soul and don’t say we’ve never done anything for you.
“We always called it the ska song and really that was inspired by our friends in Operation Ivy and Rancid, who later we
Dropkick Murphys
And even some the songs that have been played regularly in the live set over the past 17 years or so will have to be revisited and possibly re-learned in their original form and with their original arrangement in order to appease the fans still hooked on their original incarnations. “Of course,” he says. “Some of those songs have been in the set for a long time, and what’s been fun has been going back to the original versions, because songs evolve. In fact, they must evolve, we play live all the time, we play hundreds of shows a year.”
Never been to Ireland? Get a dose of Celticpunk hospitality by way of Massachusetts
To read the full stories head to theMusic.com.au
Dashboard Confessional tour from 5 Dec.
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as the entire mosh is put in a collective headlock by Dropkick Murphys. Beers will be hoisted high and then consequently spilled before we ship up to Boston. Whoa-oo-oh.
W H Y
D O N ’ T
YOU...? Pic: Ben Cope
On the eve of their Australian tour, as well as the impending 40th anniversary of Fleetwood Mac’s Tusk in 2019, The Music asked remix project/ dance party Fleetmac Wood’s Roxanne Roll to highlight some of the Tusk tracks in their set.
Tusk
For our Smooth Sailing remix of Tusk we combined four versions of Tusk that are found on the deluxe reissue, teasing out the USC marching band at the beginning and moving through various alt versions. There’s something medieval about this rabble-rousing track. I worked on this remix the week after the 2016 US election result and I channelled the feeling of rebellion and people power into this one with the extra percussion and drum solos. There’s a wild energy and a sense of fun that was a brilliantly unexpected move after Rumours.
“It’s all about getting people dancing at our parties and this remix really gets people on the floor.”
Sisters Of The Moon We like to focus on feminine power in our sets, which is often missing in dance music culture. Stevie Nicks is a force of nature in this disco shawl stomper with a bewitching groove. We play my Roxanne Roll remix, which includes a sample from the live version on the 1982 Mirage Tour, which surpasses the album version. Hunt it down on YouTube.
Sara
Check The Guide on theMusic.com.au for more details.
Each lyric of Sara is like a chapter heading in a Fleetwood Mac bio - a cryptic clue to be unravelled seductively. Cathartic to the max, Stevie Nicks works through the pain of multiple break-ups, betrayals and a daughter that never was? Considering all this disappointment, it’s surprising how sensual this track is... “U ndoing the laces.” To me, this actually feels like a duet, where Mick Fleetwood’s delicate, con-
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sidered drums almost answer her call - ecstatic and buzzing with sexual tension. Sara entrances you with a hypnotic groove that is both soft and heavy. Mixed emotions, extreme loss and an acceptance of - this is the life you lead when you live within the castle walls of Fleetwood Mac. Drowning in a sea of love, where everybody wants to drown... We play a few different remixes of this song and it’s on our to-do list to make more.
Storms
Fleetwood Mac wrote so many hits and potential hits that they literally couldn’t fit them onto records (hello, Silver Springs ). Maybe tensions were particularly high between Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks when it was Storms ‘ day/week/month in the studio - it feels like this song was given less attention, or perhaps the simplicity is intentional? It’s understated and almost tearful. I wanted to turn the sadness into an uplifting, joyful moment without losing the drama. It’s all about getting people dancing at our parties and this remix really gets people on the floor.
Brown
Eyes
One of our all-time favourite Christine McVie tracks, beautifully layered harmonies over a hypnotic beat make this perfect for the first twirlers on the dancefloor. The alt version with Lindsey Buckingham and Peter Green on the Tusk deluxe edition is a must listen.
Fleetmac Wood tour from 21 Dec.
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Unholy night Ah, New Year’s Eve. A hallowed day on the Gregorian calendar, where folks come together from all around the world and celebrate the year that was by getting as cooked as humanly possible. The only silver lining to making a boob of yourself on last hoorah of the year is that we’ve all been there and everybody has their own horror story to bury (or share).
“Don’t drink the Banana Wine”
M
y worst NYE was also my first NYE, when I was about 15. My mum let my sister and I go to this Corey Worthington-esque rager at this giant house on the condition that we only drank the two alcopops that she gave us. I was super pumped and had bought this little tuxedo from Oxfam. I looked the biz. We got there and I drank my two passion pops, but that only gave me a taste for more liquor. I managed to bum a few drinks until I just went rogue and started drinking
whatever dregs of alcohol I could find. Eventually, I found this bottle full of yellowy liquid that was labelled “Banana Wine”. It tasted fucking vile but I began chugging away about half a litre of it until one of the older guys yelled “Dude stop! That’s the bong water!” I went from mildly buzzed to totally catatonic in about five minutes, spewed all over my second-hand tux. The take away from this: don’t drink the Banana Wine.
“I thought there were ghosts”
I
was out in the city somewhere, and I’d had a pretty hectic cocktail of — let’s just say, “substances” — that ended up being pretty speedy and pretty hallucinogen-y at the same time. At the end of the night, with the sun coming up, I got lost inside a big abandoned school, and because I was still so mashed I thought there were ghosts haunting the place. So I was wandering around with a fire extinguisher trying to cover the ghosts
with foam to spook ‘em out of there. I was absolutely head-to-toe doused in all this fire retardant dust when I walked out onto the street to continue my odyssey home. Still quite worse for wear, I started talking to this dude who I eventually realised was a priest. Had a lovely conversation but didn’t realise that I had followed him straight into a church and taken a seat in the front row of a service. I left after two minutes.
“I told my mum that my friend had gotten the dog stoned”
A
nd as is customary at this festive time of year, we’ve kept things in the fam, trawling the murky depths of The Music staff’s NYE shame for your vicarious delectation — although, for legal reasons (or something) we’ve (barely) concealed their true identities. Dive into these true tales from the five patron saints of New Year’s done wrong.
I
was at my parent’s place and my dear friend had been sneaking off the whole night to go and have a cheeky one behind their shed. He came back and our little Border Collie had obviously stayed up way too late with the rest of us so the poor little thing’s eyes were super red. He kept falling asleep with us until eventually he jumped up and my mum noticed his bloodshot eyes. So for some reason, I told my mum that my friend had gotten the dog stoned, which
is definitely not the happiest way to celebrate the New Year seeing as how pissed off my mum got. It’s been probably about four years now and my mum will not believe the truth or forgive our friend for what he supposedly did.On some deep level, I think she’s still carrying a very heavy grudge against him for something he didn’t even do.
“I was just pushing vomit into the carpet”
I
was probably 19 and I was working that night at a Woolworths bottle shop. I finished my shift at 11 pm and then got changed and rushed over to a party. I got there and everyone was definitely already drunk. So I thought “I gotta play catch-up!” and I smashed six cans of Smirnoff Double Black in a row very quickly and I still wasn’t drunk. But then I was really drunk.The rest of the night was a blur. I recall passing out
on a front lawn — someone’s front lawn, no idea whose — and sleeping on a trampoline for a bit. I got home and it was early morning, so I went to my bedroom to crash but ended up throwing up all over the floor. I tried to clean it up until mum came in and found me and just said: “Go to bed, you’re making it worse.” I was really just pushing vomit into the carpet.
“Crowd-surfing to Africa by Toto”
A
local DJ called CC Disco, who I’m really good friends with, was having a crazy house party one year in a backyard. Loads of people there and the theme was “Neon And Glitter”. So lots of people were covered head to toe in glitter wearing neon yellows and pinks and purples. Very intense. A good friend of mine was crowdsurfing to Africa by Toto.Was quite a big night but eventually, we realised there were only five of us left at the party and we didn’t
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know whose house it was. Then at ten in the morning, we also remembered that we had tickets to the Summer Days festival which started at 11. We left said party covered in glitter, in neon colours and without any sleep and went to Summer Days at ten in the morning and carried on New Year’s well into the midnight of that night. The longest 48 hours of my fucking life.
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Pic: Shervin Lainez
Kicking goals Nashville singer-songwriter Sophie Allison, aka Soccer Mommy, tells Joel Lohman she’s just doing what comes naturally.
W
hen we talk on the phone, Sophie Allison of Soccer Mommy sounds flustered. She’s in the process of moving from her family home in Nashville into her own place. “I’ve been running back and forth from my parents’ house,” she says, “trying to get internet set up and all that fun stuff.” Since releasing her excellent studio debut album Clean earlier this year, Allison herself has been all over certain sections of the internet, often in “women in rock” think-pieces. Does she feel like she’s part of a movement or scene? “I feel like I have friends in the music industry,” says Allison, “just people I’ve met or toured with. I’m just writing songs like anyone else is. I don’t feel like my songs are driven to empower any particular group. I think they’re just what I like to write and what I experience in my life. I definitely see similar artists I get grouped with a lot of the time but they’re mostly artists I’ve never listened to or people I don’t know. Some are people that I love.
Roll up, roll up! As Brisbane’s Dead Letter Circus unleash their latest effort, frontman Kim Benzie tells Brendan Crabb about being proud exponents of “sissy metal”.
I don’t think anyone feels like we’re all working together to make a movement.” In Allison’s 21 years of life, rock has been superseded by hip hop and EDM as the dominant musical force. Does she ever wish she lived in a more rock-friendly time? “I guess sometimes I think maybe I’d be making more money or I’d be more popular if I lived in a time period where rock was big,” Allison says. “But I love a lot of the music that’s coming out now, and I think there’s still a lot of great rock music. I don’t really care if it’s the biggest thing in the world personally. I like the time period I grew up in. There are definitely things I hate about 2018, especially in America. But yeah, I don’t know if I would like living in any other time period any better.” Another shift in Allison’s lifetime is that distinctions between genres matter less than ever before. Allison — who’s been known to cover both NSYNC and Dixie Chicks — says she’s glad this purist mentality has mostly died out. “I think that allows people to have broader taste and experience more good art,” she says. “Because good art isn’t in one genre — you can find it anywhere. I think having broad taste makes you a more complex person and makes you connect with different types of people, than if you just liked rock or pop, you maybe wouldn’t connect with.” Despite being a musical omnivore, she reckons she’ll stick to her own musical lane — though not due to lack of interest. “I don’t know if I could write in a different style,” says Allison. “I think the way I write comes out the way it comes out. But I don’t know. I would love to be able to make a different style, but I don’t know if creatively it’s something I can do.” Another generational change reflected in Allison is her willingness to talk about mental health. She regularly tweets
dudes... It’s probably fucking torture for them
ed writing songs about, being about relation-
to have to sit there and listen to it for 40
ships, interactions and your own state, your
minutes,” he chuckles. “I think someone just
own vibration. That’s why we went with the
called it ‘sissy metal’. I think was the best term
self-titled album as well; because we thought
we ever heard. I can’t remember the whole
it was a return to the themes of where
thing, but we kept that term with us for ages.
we began.” On previous records, the group has taken
That was the best one, someone going, ‘This
a strong ethical stance regarding issues such
Australian sissy metal.’” The new album — recorded over a six-
as fracking. Despite the 24-hour news cycle
week period at Studio Circuit, Gold Coast — is
and social media readily providing plat-
their first set of all-new material since 2015’s
forms that many artists are willing to utilise,
chart-bothering Aesthesis. “This album has
some musicians, especially stateside, seem
no screaming, so it definitely qualifies as
reluctant to openly reveal a political stance,
sissy metal,” Benzie laughs. “We don’t have
for fear of potentially alienating sections of
any breakdowns in the songs, that could be
their fanbase. “I found with the music, having two
another thing.” devotees
albums pretty much all about, one about,
embrace it or not, Dead Letter Circus brims
‘Let’s awaken together,’ and the one where, ‘I
with the melodic sensibilities, ethereal atmo-
see you there awake, let’s hit the streets and
spherics and towering riffs that won them
march together.’ Like a call-to-arms, and hav-
legions of fans elsewhere. As 2017’s The End-
ing people come along and sing these songs.
ead Letter Circus vocalist Kim Benzie
less Mile, whereby the quintet re-imagined
But the second that you might do a political
takes The Music ‘s call during that
songs from their career in an acoustic and
post on your Facebook, or support Sea Shep-
you just said that you hate about musicians.’
oft-anxious limbo period for an art-
strings-laden setting drew near completion,
herd, like [something] as passive as that; give
That, ‘I hate it when musicians get into poli-
ist. Namely, their new self-titled album (and
Benzie happened upon a burst of creativity
money to the people that are trying to save
tics.’ So people get really offended.
fourth full-length of all-new original material)
that led to thenew LP arriving “a year ahead
whales from Japanese whalers, you’ll get
“I don’t really have any kind of emotion
is completed, and they’ve been living with it
of our normal schedule”. His “seed ideas” were
some dickhead on there saying, ‘Mate, just
about it because you can’t really get angry
for an extended period. Now the Brisbane
fleshed out with assistance from bandmates,
stick to the music.’
about people expressing themselves. It’s
melodic prog alt-rockers are awaiting its
who could scarcely believe their frontman
“When people come to like ten of your
more of a fascination of, like, ‘How did you
release, including the inevitable feedback
already had dozens of songs in development.
shows you become acutely aware of the
even come to that conclusion?’... And it’s like,
This fruitful period for the singer even-
shape of their head,” the vocalist laughs. “You
‘Where do you want to see passion in other
On that front, what’s the worst review the
tually spawned a change in tack as a lyricist.
look at the profile pic and you’re like, ‘Fuck-
people?’ We don’t really change any of our
singer can recall the band receiving? “When
“We sort of spent a couple of albums in real
ing hell dude, you have been in the front row
behaviour because of it, definitely not. And
we go overseas, we quite often get lumped
political revolution mode, I guess. And this
for the past three years, singing the words to
we’re not scared of it, it’s just a fascination
[with], like, we get sent to super heavy metal
one kinda swung right back to what we start-
a song which is pretty much everything that
of the human condition that people react
D
from fans and critics alike.
Whether
grizzled
metal
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about her experiences with body dysmorphia. “I think it’s a defence mechanism for me personally [laughs], like, joking about it. I don’t know if it really helps, to be honest. I think it’s better than not being able to tell anyone you have an issue. But I don’t know that it fixes any of my problems. I think it can be helpful to other people, to see artists they like talking about it. If they’re struggling with body issues or depression or anxiety. I think it can be super helpful to see someone else be open about it, especially if you’re not being open about it with people around you.” As someone with young fans, does it feel important to help normalise body image issues? “I never really think about, like, having a fanbase [laughs]. It just doesn’t feel that natural to think, ‘I should say something for my fans.’ Like, I’m just a normal person. I just tweet when I’m thinking about it a lot and it’s weighing on my mind. Just like I might write a song if I’m bottling something up.” Humility and frankness are part of what makes Allison’s work so appealing. She’s not trying to be the voice of her generation. She just wants to figure out how her new modem works.
No place like home Forty years into their career LA poprockers Toto have been catapulted back into the zeitgeist courtesy a Weezer cover, and guitarist Steve Lukather tells Steve Bell about embracing the madness.
Soccer Mommy tours from 30 Dec.
Pic: Ian Laidlaw
If you are suffering from any of the issues that have been discussed or need assistance, please contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636.
in certain ways to it. You’re like, ‘Wow, I never thought that dude would say that.’ I couldn’t imagine many people I know steering away from it because then I guess that would
I
t all started with a joke. A Weezer fan begging the coverloving LA alt-rockers to record a version the ‘80s classic rock hit Africa by Toto, the quest gathering enough critical mass that the band finally acquiesced and put a version up online (only after posting a version of Rosanna — Toto’s other big ‘80s hit — first). Soon Weezer’s version of Africa went gangbusters, reaching the top of the iTunes sales and alternative airplay charts, and Toto’s massive resurgence was up and running. Their return might have been driven by some semblance of modern irony, but to Toto, it’s no less than completely triumphant. “The last couple of years have been amazing, man!” gushes founding guitarist Steve Lukather. “We got back together in 2010 to help our brother Mike [Porcaro — bass] — who we sadly lost because of his battle with ALS, which sucked — and that was fun so we said, ‘Do you want to do it next year?’ and I blinked and we’re going into 2019, so it’s been nine years back together and it just keeps getting better and better every year.” “And then this Africa thing took off and the memes and videos and the jokes and TV mentions and the Weezer cover — it’s amazing! Our streams have jumped up to 10 or 12 million a month now, and we’re over half a billion streams on all of our catalogue. And young kids are showing up at our shows, so the cross-promotion of Toto and Weezer really worked, which is a win-win for both sides and I’ve never even met these guys! “It all just happened by accident, so then we thought, ‘Why don’t we do one of their songs for fun?’ and that worked too — they got a big hit record after ten years in a dry spot and our stock went through the roof, so everybody won!” Toto’s return cover of Weezer’s 2001 single Hash Pipe sounds remarkably
Check The Guide on theMusic.com.au for more details.
almost be like selling out, wouldn’t it? The modern sense of that would be [being] too scared to do things because you’re offensive. That’s playing it way too safe.”
D ead Letter Circus (BMG) is out now. Dead Letter Circus tour from 29 Nov.
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vibrant but remains an odd choice given that — aside from the obvious drug connotations — it’s lyrically about a trans prostitute working the streets of Santa Monica. “We kinda did it in our own way just like they did our song in their own way, and now I’ve actually become a Weezer fan,” Lukather continues. “We listened through a heap of their stuff and some things popped out and some were more obvious, and I know what the lyric to Hash Pipe is about — I lived near Santa Monica, I’ve seen this shit.” “But we took a light-hearted approach and I made some crack about the fact that I was smoking hash before those guys were even alive — that was a throwaway line that the press got hold of — which really propelled things. But we loved the groove and we thought musically we could do more with that song than say, Beverly Hills, which is more of a clichØ for us as we live there. It was meant out of respect and love and not as a piss-take.” Which is apt, because Toto purportedly thought Weezer were taking the piss when they heard about the Africa cover. “Well at first we were, like, ‘Wait a minute man, are these guys going to do us or what?’, but when we heard it we actually thought it was really good,” Lukather chuckles. “They did it on a dare or a joke — they’ve done other old songs too — and we just thought it was another cover, we never thought it would blow up and I don’t think they did either. I never would have called this in a million years, it’s just like one of those, ‘What the fuck?’ moments, but in a good way.” “Now we’re pulling big crowds again all over the world and at festivals like we’re doing down in Australia. We get to play in front of a younger audience, and sure they know the Africa song and they know Rosanna and Hold The Line, but there are a few other songs where they’ll go, ‘Wow, I didn’t know that was you guys,’ or, ‘These guys are really good!’, like they’re coming from a different place — we’re not just the Africa band, we’ve got a lot of other shit in our wheelhouse.”
Toto tour from 30 Dec.
Festial pics: Josh Groom, Claudia Ciapocha, Markus Ravik, Simone Fisher, Bianco Holdernes, Jodie Downie
Stomping grounds
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Headed to a festival this summer? Well, that kind of goes without saying. But before you dash to the doof, make sure you’re properly kitted out, and when that comes to footwear, you can’t go wrong with any of this quartet of shoe sensations from our friends at Vans and Dr Martens. Strap in folks.
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Fest essentials: 2.0 Welcome to 21stcentury camping! Make your tent a home away from home with these must-have outdoor gadgets.
Handpresso Wild Hybrid Never be without your caffeine fix
Powertraveller Powermonkey Extreme
Lumix DMC-TS5 Tough Camera
with this portable coffee maker.
Keep your devices alive and kicking
Love the mosh pit but don’t want your
with this rugged solar charger.
phone mangled? Problem solved.
$240 | powertraveller.com
$199 | shop.panasonic.com
$130 | handspresso.com
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Christmas
Spirits
The festive season is upon us, so it’s time to let your hair down and enjoy a tipple or two. We’ve paired some of the world’s top brands with our favourite indie distilleries, so you can enjoy a glassful of worldclass quality with a uniquely Aussie, boutique twist.
Q.O
Be Of Good
cheers
Before you knock back the same old same-old, why not give these original cocktails a try. The Melb our ne Mule A refreshing take on a classic that’s oh so Melb. In a tall glass, pour 1 nip Melbourne Moonshine Apple Pie Shine over ice. Add a generous squeeze of fresh lime juice and top-off with Matso’s Ginger Beer, chilled. Serve with a lime wedge.
D
(Left to right) Melbourne Moonshine Memo Gin (700ml RRP $70) Melbourne Moonshine Apple Pie Shine (700ml RRP $75) Absolute Vodka Original (700m RRP $40) Kahlua (700ml RRP $35) 666 Pure Tasmanian Vodka (700ml RRP $60) Broken Heart Quince Gin (500ml RRP $70) Cointreau (700ml RRP $47).
Quincey S lo ans A sharp and sweet short sipper. Pour 2 nips Broken Heart Quince Gin and 1 nip Cointreau into a cocktail shaker over ice. Add a squeeze of lemon, a splash of fresh grapefruit juice and 1-tsp agave nectar. Shake, strain and serve in a chilled short glass with a large ice cube and a lemon twist.
D
Cor pse Revolver More hair of the gods than hair of the dog. Pour 1 nip Mebourne Moonshine Memo Gin, 1 nip Cointreau, and 1 nip Melbourne Moonshine Sweet Tea Shine into a shaker over ice. Add a generous squeeze of lime and a dash of bitters. Shake, strain and serve in a chilled martini glass with a lime twist.
D
Espresso Mar tweeni Is it dessert? Is it a drink? Is it both? You decide. Pour 2 nips Absolute Vodka, 1 nip Kahlua and 2 nips cold-brew espresso into a shaker over ice. Shake, strain and pour into a chilled martini glass. Over a spoon, pour 1 nip Baileys Irish Cream, float 1 tsp whipped cream on top and garnish with dark chocolate shavings.
D
Kamikaze Cosmo So damn refreshing, it’s to die for. Pour 1 nip 666 Pure Tasmanian Vodka and 1 nip Cointreau over ice into a tall glass. Add a generous squeeze of fresh lime, fill halfway with cranberry juice and top off with ginger ale. Serve with a lime twist.
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Sound advice Christmas is kicking down the door and we all know what that means: it’s time to crack out Michael Buble’s seminal yuletide album, Christmas. And since the Canadian crooner’s dulcet tones deserve only the finest delivery, we’ve selected some top audio tech that will ensure you end the year on a buzz, instead of listening to one.
Nura Nuraphone Arthur C Clarke believed that any sufficiently advanced technology would be indistinguishable from magic. We believe that in less understanding times the Nuraphone would have gotten somebody burnt as a witch. These spellbinding headsets automatically adapt to your unique, personal hearing using a self-learning engine, so every song sounds custom-made for you. $499.99, nuraphone.com
Sennheiser MOMENTUM True Wireless
Audio-Technica ATH-M50xBT Headphones
If you like to move it while you shake it, MOMENTUM True Wireless might be ear buds for you. Since hitting the market recently, anyone with something to say on the subject has come to the same conclusion: Sennheiser’s MTW set the standard for untethered, high fidelity sound. They also come with a nifty, magnetic charging case and an easy to use app.
Expanding once again on their bulletproof ATH-M50s, Audio-Technica have released the ATH-M50xBT model, capturing their long-proven signature sound while adding Bluetooth capability. The sleek design of the M50xBT’s predecessor has only been enhanced by going wireless and the 40-hour battery life means they’re never going to leave you hanging.
$499.95, en-au.sennheiser.com
$379, audio-technica.com.au
Audeara A-01 Headphones
Audio-Technica AT4033a Microphone
Designed by both doctors and engineers, Audeara knew exactly what they wanted from their A-01 Headphones: clarity over volume. A-01s perform a medical-grade audiogram to test your hearing and then pump out tunes based on the evaluation. The Australia-owned company claims you’ll find notes you never knew you lost, and they’ve got a 60-day guarantee to back it up.
When the fine people at Audio-Technica redeveloped their AT4033 model microphone they took a guaranteed home run stuck an A+ on it. Since then the AT4033a has been much-lauded for its versatility, well-designed suspension cradle and for consistently capturing clean, quality sound at a fraction of the price you would expect.
$349, au.audeara.com
$599, audio-technica.com.au
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Enjoy KahlĂşa Responsibly
Yuletide yawns and seasonal sanity wreckers
An avalanche of albums The Christmas music market is a billion-dollar industry that’s unfortunately usually more naughty than nice. Here’s our round-up of this year’s musical stocking stuffers. William Shatner - Shatner Claus
Bring a second pair of reindeer print undies, because you’ll shat-ner your pants laughing when you listen to this record from Captain Kirk and friends!
Ladies and gentlemen, the most wonderful time of the year is finally here. A time where Christmas ham enthusiast and competitive bon-bon player Donald Finlayson sacrifices his mind and body to investigate the best and worst of Holiday media.
Engelbert Humperdinck - Warmest Christmas Wishes Fine seasonal ballads from a man who changed his perfectly normal name to Engelbert Humperdinck.
Eric Clapton - Happy Xmas -BUH-NUH-NA-NUHNUH- If your old man’s a baby boomer -BUH-NUHNA-NUH-NUH- Then get him this album for Christmas -guitar solo- IT’S ONLY $22.99 BABAH!
Jessie J - This Christmas Day When your featured guest on a Christmas album is Philadelphia’s Boyz II Men, you know you’re in trouble as an artist.
The Monkees - Christmas Party The latest release from one of the many “Oh, they’re still around?” bands from the ‘60s. Worth it just for the jovial Alex Chilton cover.
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The Tracking Crew - Asquithmas We’ll explain the title so you don’t have to waste time Googling it. Asquith is a suburb in Sydney located on the Upper North Shore.
Mark Vincent - The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year Every Christmas tune that Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin ever covered, re-recorded by a man who wishes he did it first.
Samantha Jade - The Magic Of Christmas A Christmas album from that woman who was on The X Factor Australia once. You can listen to it, or not. Up to you.
David Campbell - Baby It’s Christmas Every Christmas tune that Michael Buble ever covered, re-recorded by a man who wishes he was Michael Buble.
John Legend - A Legendary Christmas Like Newman from television’s Seinfeld, there’s no denying that this album certainly is very merry. Stevie Wonder kills it on the harmonica on the opening track too.
Film failures of the festive season For whatever reason, the cinematic works of the holidays are either complete horseshit or total gold. Here are five of the absolute worst.
Christmas classics Not all festive flicks will turn you into a Grinch, here’s five of the best: Home Alone
Daddy’s Home 2
Once upon a time, we lived in a world where the word “daddy” wasn’t always preceded by the phrase, “Please choke me harder.” It was once a warm term used by children to lovingly refer to their real fathers, but thanks to the septum-pierced teens of the modern world, daddy is just another ordinary word that’s lost its way, much like the term “dingleberry”. A formulaic seasonal romp featuring an all-star line-up of Hollywood goblins like Mel Gibson (who visibly struggles to hold back the racial slurs), Will Ferrell, John Cena and Mark Wahlberg, the gang’s all here - but the continued lack of an appearance from my main man Vince Vaughn feels like a missed opportunity. Given that the cast and crew surely would have objected to the idea of Christmas being exposed to his dark, mountain troll aura, his absence is understandable.
Grumpy Cat’s Worst Christmas Ever
Call the RSPCA, call PETA, call Garfield and tell him we want him back because this paw-ful film is truly a travesty. Professional “She’s so awkward!” actress Aubrey Plaza provides the voice of Grumpy Cat, an ancient meme that was only funny to people who may have found a car after mowing their lawn. Aside from just how crap the film itself is, the real horror of Grumpy Cat’s Worst Christmas Ever is that it was actually quite profitable for the slave-traders that made it. So now that Hollywood can turn any meme into a Christmas shitfest, you have to wonder what we’ll be force-fed next holiday season. If it’s something like ‘A Very Harambe Christmas’ I’ll be riding Santa’s sled into oncoming traffic.
Shrek The Halls
After the emotional trauma that was the Halloween-themed Scared Shrekless, the mouth-breathers at DreamWorks Animation have once again brought back the scariest ogre since Vince Vaughn for Shrek The Halls. After Donkey discovers that Shrek is oblivious to the meaning of Christmas, he decides that it’s time for the nontheistic neo-pagan ogre to finally accept the spirit of the
holidays into his giant green heart. How appropriate that the inhabitants of Shrek’s swamp are oblivious to the existence of Jesus because I’m sure the studios of DreamWorks Animation are completely devoid of God’s light too. Perhaps they were cast into eternal darkness for creating 2004’s Shark Tale? Ask your local priest. Shrek The Halls is an ideal film for negligent parents who need to distract their ratbag son “Brayden” so that mummy and daddy can hit the pipe behind the clothesline before Crimbo lunch.
Christmas With The Kranks
Starring reformed cocaine trafficker Tim Allen as the grinchy Luther Krank, the film revolves around the exploits of the titular Krank family as they attempt to skip the holidays while battling boy scouts and their Christmas lightobsessed neighbours. Allen’s performance is as wooden as a Nutcracker doll, with his hollow, soulless eyes crying out for a distant past spent on the set of Home Improvement alongside a young Pamela Anderson (God bless). Between this and The Santa Clause, it’s clear that Tim Allen was trying to sculpt a future for himself where kids left out power tools and nose candy for him on Christmas Eve. Christmas With The Kranks? More like Christmas With the Wanks.
A movie that funded a roughly fifteen-year bender for Macaulay Culkin, the original Home Alone is the Christmas gift that keeps on giving. Grab some eggnog and enjoy.
Die Hard German terrorists with Fabio haircuts battle a bare-foot cop inside a skyscraper on Christmas Eve. An endlessly quotable film featuring Bruce Willis at his cheekiest, you’re gonna love it.
Bad Santa With company like Bad Teacher, Bad Moms and Bad Grandpa, we under-
Star Wars Holiday Special
Unsurprisingly, the only Star Wars film that George Lucas refuses to fiddle with is complete balls. And that’s coming from the man once who re-released The Phantom Menace in 3D. This infamous musical TV special sees the rebels gathering on Chewbacca’s home planet to celebrate the non-denominational Wookie holiday “Life Day”. Aside from several bizarre scenes of hairy Wookie romance, an air of mystery surrounds the nature of Mark Hamill’s appearance. Caked in a mask of carbonite makeup, poor Hamill looks like a wax statue of Tom Petty here. Urban legend’s say that this could’ve been to cover up scars from his 1977 car accident, but we may never know. Perhaps this will be released to the manchild market one day after Lucas is laid to rest in a CGI coffin.
stand if you’re a little sceptical of this choice. But trust us, Billy Bob Thornton’s Bad Santa rules.
A Charlie Brown Christmas A charmingly warm cartoon from the ‘60s featuring Snoopy and friends, it just wouldn’t be Christmas without Charlie Brown or Vince Guaraldi’s golden jazz piano soundtrack.
Love Actually The one romantic comedy that everyone can agree on, Love Actually ‘s all-star cast and endearing script make it the perfect holiday movie to watch with that special someone.
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NOW OPEN OFFICIAL DR. MARTENS RETAIL STORE AND WEB STORE DRMARTENS.COM.AU
Sydney Festival January is almost upon us. So, as our planet clocks up another spin around the sun and world says ‘G’day’ to 2019, it can mean just one thing for Sydneysiders: it’s festival time, baby! For his third Sydney Festival offering, Festival Director Wesley Enoch is once again laying on a mercurial mix of theatre, art and music imported from every corner of the globe, with circus and cabaret emerging as a particularly important tentpole of his programming. Audiences can expect a cavalcade of thrilling experiences, from home-grown spectacles like Circus Oz’s Rock Bang and Peter Rix’s disco-burlesque Pigalle, cheek by jowl with international wonders like the indomitable bearded beauty Le Gateau Chocolat (pictured).
Sydney Festival plays from 9 Jan
The best of the 2019 Sydney Festival
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Schaubuhne Berlin & Complcite Beware Of Pity Two of Europe’s most dynamic theatre troupes, led by director Simon McBurney, tell an unnervingly prophetic tale about a world stumbling into political chaos. Expect a production as technically audacious as it searingly relevant. From 23 Jan at Roslyn Packer Theatre
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Dancenorth Dust The world is fractured by ovpposing ideologies, and yet all of us have a shared humanity and the right to equal dignity. This politically powerful, visually breathtaking new work of dance wrestles with this stark duality. From 9 Jan at Carriageworks
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Legs On The Wall The Man With The Iron Neck Drawn from the personal experiences of aerialist and theatre maker Josh Bond, this profound piece of physical theatre, with script by Ursula Yovich, explores the trauma and resilience surrounding suicide amongst young First Nations men. From 23 Jan at Sydney Opera House
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Geoff Sobelle & Beth Morrison Projects Home Home is where the art is in this uplifting exploration of what it means to belong. From an empty stage, a house rises up before the audience’s eyes, becoming a grand party, and the whole of Sydney is on the guest list. From 9 Jan at Roslyn Packer Theatre
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The Chat This dark comedy, devised and performed by ex-offenders, explores the realities of Australia’s criminal justice system. Created by former parole officer JR Brennan, this is theatre as both therapy and thesis.
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From 16 Jan at Carriageworks
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Shanghai Mimi Inspired by the Americana-infused world of 1930’s pre-war China, this world premiere season is a sumptuous mix of cabaret, nostalgia and jazz, evoking the flamboyant night clubs and exotic opulence of yesteryear. From 10 Jan at Riverside Theatres
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On the B of the Bang Otto and Astrid Rot, the art-rock iconoclasts behind Die Roten Punkte, have come a long way since their tragic childhood, orphaned by a train (or was it a Lion?) Maxim Boon meets the pair as they prepare to share their explosive life story, with a little help from Circus Oz, in new show, Rock Bang .
relatives, the parentless pair headed to the heartland of Germany’s contemporary art scene, arriving in Berlin on a particularly special November night in 1989. “By coincidence, we arrived on the day the Berlin Wall came down,” Otto shares. “But we thought that was just what Berlin was like,” Astrid adds. “We thought there must be a party like this every night. People just pulling walls down all the time, you know. Otto was only nine. He was very excited” Since those tender years — growing up in a squat in the bossom of Berlin bohemia before discovering the music of Bowie and forming their own band — this iconoclastic brother and sister have come a very long way. With Otto on guitar and Astrid on the drums, Die Roten Punkte have played all over the world, even supporting the legendary Amanda Palmer and her Grand Theft Orchestra (that’s no joke, they really did support them. “On the tour bus, I got to sleep on top of her drummer, but I don’t think I picked up any of his skills,” Astrid sensationally reveals. “I mean in the bunk beds, of course. They’re like little sandwiches. And he was the bread, and I was the Ham. I think Otto was the Tomato. I can’t remember who was the mustard.”) But none of their past ventures compares to their latest spectacular. Rock Bang will bring the Rot’s unique story to life in a music-filled “rock opera” biopic. And for a narrative with so many highs and lows, it seems particularly apt that the production will also feature the eye-popping acrobatics of Melbourne-based troupe Circus Oz.
“Usually, the way we write a song is that someone has an idea, and then someone else yells about it, and then the other yells louder.”
Co-created and directed by the company’s Artistic Director Rob Tannion, the show is part rock-concert, part-comedy, all-action, with the daredevil physicality of Circus Oz’s talented performers cheek-by-jowl with the headbanging hijinks (and dysfunction social skills) of Otto and Astrid, who will also be debuting a few as yet undisclosed circus skills of their own in the show. For Die Roten Punkte, working with the “bendy people” of Circus Oz has been a career high: “This is the best show we’ve ever made,” Otto beams. In fact, such is the idiosyncratic creative process shared by the Rots — “Usually, the way we write a song is that someone has an idea, and then someone else yells about it, and then the other yells louder, and then when someone gets tired, Astrid wins the argument and that’s how we make a song,” — the pair are convinced that Circus Oz is the only company capable of such an audacious collaboration. “It’s really amazing, actually. No one else would work with us,” Astrid says. “But we’ve finally found the right combination of people who can put up with Otto and me.”
Circus Oz and Die Roten Punkte present Rock Bang, from 10 Jan at Riverside Theatres, part of the Sydney Festival.
Pic: Andrew Wuttke
I
nterviewing German art pop-rockers Otto and Astrid Rot, aka Die Roten Punkte, is a bit like being on a rollercoaster blindfolded: you might not have a clue where you’re headed, but it’s one hell of a thrill-ride all the same. Inexplicable icons of Berlin’s underground music scene, the pair bear a striking resemblance to Australian comedians Clare Bartholomew and Daniel Tobias, albeit caked in enough greasepaint and bright red lipstick to make Kurt Weill blush. Astrid strongly denies any Aussie connection: “Who is this Clare? I don’t know anyone named Clare,” she insists, before offering me a vegan doughnut. Before I can accept, both Rots have launched, full tilt, into their rubber-ball repartee, not so much finishing each other’s sentences as leapfrogging the full-stops altogether. Fans of their previous outings, or their self-titled web series Otto Und Astrid, will be familiar with their trademark combo of deadpan zingers, frenemy callbacks, wide-eyed cluelessness and punk cliches. Most recently, Astrid snatched headlines across the country after being featured in The Weekend Age’s Day On A Plate column, revealing the gut-busting number of calories it takes to power her rock-n-roll lifestyle. Unsurprisingly, my conversation with the pair is nothing short of batshit – in the best possible way. Imagine if Jonny Rotten, the Emcee from Cabaret, and David Hasselhoff got together to make a children’s TV show. This dynamic duo would be the hosts. With accents thicker than sauerkraut, the orphaned siblings begin sharing their extraordinary backstory — a tale tinged with tragedy, but absolutely dripping in surreal humour. “We grew up in a small outer suburb of Berlin,” Astrid explains. ”It’s like out in the woods somewhere,” Otto interjects. ”And very sadly on my 12th birthday, we were on our way to the zoo when our parents were killed.” Astrid begins. ”By a Lion,” Otto finishes. ”It was a train, Otto.” ”I thought it was a Lion?” ”No, it was a train.” ”I thought it was a Lion jumping from a train?” These conversational bumper-cars set the tone for our chat. And in less endearing hands, this might be frustrating for a hapless journalist. But the whipsmart dynamic between the pair — a shtick they have honed over more than a decade on the comedy, fringe and music festival circuit — is addictively entertaining. Astrid’s withering, throwaway putdowns of her long-suffering bruder, and Otto’s childlike zeal and unflappable need to please, are underpinned by a quintessentially Mittel-European earnestness. There’s a subtle double-hinged quality to their banter; somehow openly mocking the affected seriousness of the rock establishment and arthouse avant-garde, while still preserving a clear affection for both cultural touchpoints. Otto and Astrid tell me more about their unconventional upbringing, and it’s a ripper of a yarn that would likely make Lemony Snicket jealous. Fleeing evil
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Y e a r i n fF i l m By anthony Carew
A Quiet Place
W
ith superhero movie fatigue reaching peak levels and streaming service originals popping out from every corner of the industry, Anthony Carew wraps up the best and worst of this year in movies. When your old pal Film Carew was watching Venom, I was thrown into the throes of an existential crisis. Of the 350+ movies I saw this year, there were far worse films: the climactic contractual obligation of the witless Fifty Shades franchise, the horrifyingly tone-deaf/laughless I Feel Pretty, the lame generic-
thriller-in-internet-threads Searching and the grotesque IPreviving car crash The Predator all leap to mind in ‘Nam-like PTSD flashbacks. But there was something about filing into a 10am opening-day Venom screening that felt like being trapped in some cinematic groundhog day: watching not just another instantly forgettable superhero flick, but another filmed-entertainmentproduct planned as the first part of a whole new multi-movie marketing ploy (this time, *deep sigh of resignation*, Sony’s Marvel Universe). That existential dread — making me question every decision that led up to watching Venom at 10am on opening day, taking fucking notes — came from cumulative comic book fatigue, the culmination of a decade watching men in costumes crack wise and save the world. If this has become blockbuster cinema’s default mode, do I really want to stay a slave to the grind? Do I really want to be watching the tenth reboot of Spider-Man on my deathbed, trying to remember which actor came in between Tobey Maguire and Tom Holland? Luckily, cinema, as an artform, is a multifaceted creature: ever-evolving, forever different things to different people. Depending on your viewpoint, in 2018 the movies were either in peak form or undergoing crisis, the changing landscape provoking both possibility and panic. Even Netflix is no longer simply some villainous monolith out to sully the sacredness of cinema: the streaming giant, in coming for that prestige picture corner, granted Alfonso
Cuarún’s glorious memoir-in-tracking-shots Roma a release in (selected) theatres. If you’re the kind of person who haunts selected (selected) theatres, then 2018 didn’t have to be the year of Venom. It could be the year of Custody, Xavier Legrand’s masterwork of mounting tension; a jaw-dropping debut in a year of incredible debuts, the year’s best films surely including Meryem Benm’Barek’s social excoriation Sofia, Isabella Eklüf’s blackhearted-peoplein-sunlit-surrounds pic Holiday, and Boots Riley’s bonkers socio-satirical black-comedy Sorry To Bother You. At the other end of the spectrum were old friends in familiar fine form. There’s sheer delight in watching a filmmaker do what they do well, be that Wes Anderson’s bittersweet obsessive fussiness (Isle Of Dogs), Franñois Ozon’s psycho-sexual hijinks (Double Lover), Gaspar Noé’s way-OTT bad trip fetishry (Climax), or Paul Thomas Anderson’s Master-ful framing and direction of actors (Phantom Thread). 2018 was also a great year for fans of horror at its most stylised and ridiculous. Nicolas Pesce’s Piercing was a lurid nocturnal cocktail of psycho-sexual body horror, De Palma-styled ersatz kitsch, and giallo OST cues. Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria remake was a 152-minute Eastern Bloc tone poem that peaked with a hysterical occultist-ritual-as-moderndance climax. Panos Cosmatos’s Mandy was a neon-lit descent into Jungian purgatory with Nic Cage chewing scenery and Júhann Júhannsson wielding a mighty Custody
Y e a r i n tT Vv B y G u y D av i s
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ou get what you pay for, they say. And when it comes to television nowadays, that applies to both the consumer and the creator. The small screen has been attracting talent of a higher and higher calibre on both sides of the camera in recent years and budgets are similarly skyrocketing. This applies primarily to streaming services and pay-TV, however. Despite the free-to-air networks trying their damnedest to make lightning strike multiple times when it comes to scripted drama (in the last few weeks, no less than three knockoffs of the tear-jerking success story This Is Us have premiered), their shows aren’t really central to the conversation that much these days. Having said that, national broadcasters ABC and SBS continue to show commitment to telling Australian stories, sometimes to good effect (Safe Harbour was both taut and timely), sometimes not (Dead Lucky. Well, they were half right with that title). Confession #1: I watched maybe ten minutes of Nick ‘The Honey Badger’ Cummins’ exploits on Ten’s The Bachelor Australia before exclaiming, “Fuck this for a joke,” and never tuning in again.
So it’ll mainly be the likes of the major streaming services that’ll be covered here, although there are some exceptions — for instance, SBS had the rights to Atlanta’s second season, and Donald Glover and his crew exceeded the high standards set by the show’s distinctive debut, with episodes like the haunting Woods and the unnerving Teddy Perkins (FUCKING TEDDY PERKINS) serving as forceful reminders of Atlanta’s unique energy and style. Atlanta was far from the only series to not succumb to the sophomore slump — the metaphysical mind-fuck Legion continued on its merry way, its season-ending denouement flipping the script for David Haller (Dan Stevens), transforming the powerful psychic from potential superhero to something a little more morally murky. And the animated Big Mouth went to extraordinarily candid lengths to depict the trials and tribulations of puberty in gross, glorious and hilarious detail. Big Mouth co-star John Mulaney was one of the stand-up comedians whose work was show-
The Deuce
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cased on Netflix in 2018 — his special Kid Gorgeous demonstrated that he’s moving ahead in leaps and bounds as a raconteur and observer (likening the Trump presidency to “a horse loose in a hospital” was a masterstroke). Dave Chappelle scored a killer one-two blow with his unflinching Equanimity and The Bird Revelation, which frankly addressed his own, uh, problematic past takes on sensitive issues without sacrificing his own potency and honesty. And Adam Sandler, of all people, delivered the goods with his surprisingly funny and touching 100% Fresh — his tribute to his friend, the late Chris Farley, is worth the subscription alone. Confession #2 (and this may be a dealbreaker for some of you): I have yet to watch Hannah Gadsby’s Nanette. I know, I know. I’m waiting for the hype to die down. Speaking of Netflix, I know movies are the purview of my colleague Anthony Carew but feature films made for and making their debut on the streaming service. Well, that’s my beat, Jack. So may I recommend a trio? Green Room ‘s Jeremy Saulnier continued to distress with his gripping, disquieting Hold The Dark. Indonesian actioner The Night Comes For Us was, not to put too fine a point on it, fucking berserk. And if you’re in the market for something astonishingly tense, cue up Calibre. Try to know as little as possible going in — and thank me later. You probably won’t need further tension after Calibre, but the six-part UK series Bodyguard — with Game Of Thrones’ Richard Madden excelling as an ex-soldier with PTSD thrust into a conspiracy reaching the highest levels of British politics
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drone-laced score, and Lukas Feigelfeld’s Hagazussa was the cinematic equivalent of ambient black-metal, all dread-inducing ambience and airy atmospherics. As for Ari Aster’s Hereditary, well: Hail, Paimon! A much more tasteful horror flick proved one of the year’s big unexpected hits. John Krasinski’s A Quiet Place treated its kinda-silly monsters-who-hunt-by-hearing premise with an almost religious reverence. Its opening act, which takes place entirely in silence, made for one of cinema’s great collective experiences: shaming a popcorn-movie audience into quietude, the whole crowd daring not to make a crunch. The flipside to this — and the anti-Roma, release-wise — was Alex Garland’s surrealist sci-fi head trip Annihilation, a Kubrick- and Tarkovsky-influenced sight-and-sound spectacle that Australian audiences had to watch at home on Netflix, even though it was clearly built for the big screen, and for a collective headfuck. But if that experience felt like some depressing symbol of cinema’s demise, new ways to consume films were revealed, too. Tsai Ming-liang’s The Deserted marked the first — but surely not the last — auteur VR movie, the Taiwanese legend’s particular quirks (long takes, minimalism, decaying buildings, boredom) now verily engulfing willing/able participants. Experiencing something so simple as a rainstorm in Ming-liang’s VR world felt like cinematic ASMR, tactile and evocative — and made for an experience so transcendent that the film-critic racket felt like pure joy, not Venom-ous suffering.
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t has been a difficult year inside the theatre industry. Late last year, anonymous complaints about assault, discrimination, and abuse crept out of the woodwork and carefully, vaguely into the press. We heard about rehearsal rooms where women felt unsafe; we heard about onstage groping. We heard about verbal abuse, and about the ways that those who report bad behaviour are punished for it. In the Australian mainstream media, we watched Eryn Jean Norvill — who never asked for this — sit calmly as the eye of a storm, upended by Geoffrey Rush’s defamation charge against the Daily Telegraph, who had labelled him “King Leer” after Norvill made an anonymous sexual harassment complaint against Rush following their shared scenes in a 2016 Shakespearean production. We watched Australian theatre luminaries — director Neil Armfield, actors Helen Buday Robyn Nevin among them — insist that there was no culture of harassment, no power imbalances, on our stages. But most tellingly, Norvill identified a generational divide in which behaviour is deemed acceptable, or tolerable, and what is not. You can find a similar generational line in the solidarity-showing #IStandWithEJ hashtag that filtered across social media, too: those rising in ranks to support Norvill were our next generation of theatre talents, our independent theatre leaders. Perhaps our new establishment. The best of Sydney theatre in 2018 embodied the spirit of Norvill and her supporters: weaponising anger, injustice, and silence into beauty, art, and moments of human connection. The theatre is a place to
The Haunting Of Hill House
— has plenty to offer. And The Terror, a tale of 19th-century sailors wrestling with madness and monsters (literal or metaphorical — you make the call!) in the ice-bound Northwest Passage is a bona fide masterpiece of slow-burn. Well, terror. Confession #3: I kinda liked the ending of Sharp Objects. For mine, the binge-watch of the year may have been The Haunting Of Hill House, a ten-episode adaptation of Shirley Jackson’s classic novel that reimagined the story’s characters and events, transforming it into a tale of prolonged, pronounced fragility, instability and pain — a legacy that must be confronted and exorcised. Splendid performances from an excellent cast and superb craftsmanship from filmmaker Mike Flanagan made this a limited-run series that delivered delicious jump scares but, more importantly, conjured up a melancholic mood that lingered and, yes, haunted. I’ve missed some, haven’t I? Hey, there’s a comments section around here somewhere. You know what to do. The Harp In The South
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Saint Joan
understand who we are, and who others might be. The best of the year showed us just that. There was The Harp In The South, a new Australian epic based on Ruth Park’s classic trilogy. Adapted for the stage by Kate Mulvany, an artstic polymath, the two-part theatrical event placed several generations of women front and centre. As Surry Hills gentrified around them, as men tried to destroy them, they held firm to themselves, their ability to love, and their courage to dream. It was romantic, it was sweeping, and it was some of Sydney Theatre Company’s best new work in years. STC also gave new, urgent, complex life to older women of history and the stage in Top Girls, Saint Joan, and A Cheery Soul : all shows that place women in the centre and ask us to reckon with them and their lot. And they debuted Lethal Indifference, Anna Barnes’ one-woman show about intimate partner violence. Emily Barclay carried a deeply affecting show about the ways abuse grows and erupts into irrevocable damage. It was arresting. Controversial public figure Catherine McGregor’s story turned poetic onstage in Still Point Turning. And Nakkiah Lui changed Australian theatre forever with Blackie Blackie Brown, a stunningly rigorous comedy about reconciliation and revenge. Belvoir took us to the Torres Strait Islands in January with My Name Is Jimi and My Urrwai, two essential works of Australian playwriting helmed by superstars of charisma: Jimi Bani and Ghenoa Gela. It presented the first Australian show with all-Asian leads, Single Asian Female. The Hayes Theatre painted complex portraits of communities like Darlinghurst Nights, In The Heights and The View UpStairs, and reminded us to fight convention with the gloriously arch Cry-Baby, which made a star out of its two lead actors, Christian Charisiou and Ashleigh Rubenach, and a talent to watch from Alexander Berlage, making his directorial debut. And in Evie May, we saw a delicate new Australian musical with a queer female love story at its centre. Griffin Theatre Company demanded our attention, and our consciences, with the full-on explosive play, Kill Climate Deniers. The company’s Good Cook. Friendly. Clean reminded us that older women are Australia’s population most vulnerable to homelessness; The Almighty Sometimes, by astonishing new Australian playwright Kendall Feaver, asked us difficult questions about mental illness. And Nick Coyle’s The Feather In The Web smashed open the ugly reality of love with hilarious, surreal results. Sydney Theatre is finding new stories and new people to tell those stories. The more it does this: the more it embraces first nations and immigrant voices, the more it produces stories by women and the queer and trans populations, the more it diversifies, the richer it becomes. We must shift what it tolerated, accepted, and desired. We must embrace the new and exciting, and let go of the old and tired.
VANS.COM.AU
Thandi Phoenix. Pic: Jordan Munns.
NYE In The Park Following on from the success of 2017’s inaugural event, NYE In The Park returns to Victoria Park in Camperdown. It offers a unique escape from the overcrowded drama of New Year’s Eve in the CBD and promises a night of live music across two stages, dancing, gourmet street food and affordable drinks in a spacious, relaxed setting, topped off with an enormous midnight fireworks display (sure there’s no Harbour Bridge, but really, how much more can you do with the old coathanger and fireworks?). Helping you ring in 2019 will be The Presets, The Jungle Giants, Confidence Man, Thandi Phoenix, Hot Dub Time Machine and many more.
Sunpocalypse now
The days are getting longer and hotter and we couldn’t be happier. This month we’ve got seasonal survival tips for heliophobes, summer beers to toast while you roast and some fresh tunes to go with them.
Summer lovin’ having a blast
Illustration by Felicity Case-Mejia
Sam Wall would go to literally any lengths to avoid breaking a sweat. He takes a look at some foolproof ways to survive the coming summer.
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he summer forecast is in and it’s mostly words like hot, dry, record, blackouts and El Nino. From the looks of things we’ve officially cooked it — Global Warming is real and The Big Sweat of ‘18/’19 is rolling in. While we’re not really the sort to salute the sun at the best of times here at The Music, we do understand the impulse. Too much of a good thing can kill you though, so if you want to see another autumn it’s worth taking a few preventative measures.
Mela-NO-mate
Wearther it out
Follow the winter
Melanoma’s nothing to giggle at. It’s the fourth most common cancer in Oz, being edged off the podium by breast, prostate and colorectal cancers, and the ultra-violent ultraviolets Down Under ensure we’re consistently tied with NZ as the top location for new cases worldwide. Melanoma Patients Australia reckon it kills someone in Australia every five hours, which is pretty wild when they also say “more than 90% of melanoma cases can be successfully treated with surgery” if detected early. With that in mind, if you want to legitimately survive the sunpocalypse you should get yourself checked. It’s 2018 so there’s even a couple apps for that. Miiskin keeps a running photo-diary of all your spots and dots to monitor dangerous changes and SkinVison goes a step further, offering risk assessment and access to dermatologists for a professional opinion. It never hurts to remember your Desiderius Erasmus and Slip Slop Slap either.
Mad Max might get around the end times dressed head to toe in four-inch-thick leather, but then the man’s not named for his level head. Dude would be dead from dehydration and sour crotch waft long before The Humungus ever started monologuing. We’ve established that melanomas aren’t so flash, so you’re not going to want to rock a singlet either. Luckily, a Japanese company called Haruyama had the right idea a few years back. Their ‘New Ice Suit’ caused a lot of online chatter when it first popped up, mostly from articles lightly teasing the company for designing a business suit with hidden pockets you could line with frozen gel packs. The world just wasn’t ready for the NIS it seemed, but when the mercury’s been pushing 40 for three days straight, we think the folks wearing tailored chilly bins are going to be the ones laughing. Of course if we’re really staring down the heat death of humanity what you’re going to want is a Zetex entry suit — the big silver spaceman get-ups emergency responders wear if there’s a chance they’re going to be totally engulfed in flames. Those bad boys will keep your bacon from sizzling in up to 1,093®C heat. Plus you get to look like the alien from The Day The Earth Stood Still. The 1951 original, that is. Nothing you wear’s going to make you look like Keanu Reaves.
If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. Walk down the hallway and exit your home. Call a car to the airport. Get on a plane and leave the heat behind, if it’s the heat you can’t stand. And if that is your game-plan, make sure the plane is headed dead south. According to a report by BBC Focus, of the ten coldest places on Earth the top four are all camps in Antarctica — with Dome Fuji coming in hot at -93.2®C. At those temperatures you need to breathe through a snorkel that runs up your sleeve so your body warmth can take a little starch out of the air. There is a good chance you’ll need at least a bachelor’s to hide out in an Antarctic research facility, however, so if you aren’t the academic type the first place to get a look in outside of the deep south is Mount McKinley in Alaska at number five (-73.8®C). Russia and Greenland snag a couple spots apiece after that before Canada rounds out the list with Snag, Yukon, where you can enjoy weather in the -60s. If you don’t have pick-up-and-go money, pubs often have air conditioning as well.
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Summer suds The mercury is rising, y’all. And what summer scorcher would be complete without crackin’ a cold one or two (or three)? So, if you’re pondering what your go-to thirst-quencher should be this sunny season, we reckon you can’t go wrong with these beery beauts. Bottoms up!
Sam’s summer jams Sam Wall plugs some local tracks to fill the gaps in your sunny season playlists.
Body Type – Ludlow Young Henrys Newtowner
Matso’s Mango Beer
Matso’s Ginger Beer
You don’t get to be one of the nation’s top breweries without knowing your shit, and Young Henrys can back-up their coast-tocoast appeal with impressive silverware. Their Newtowner has just won Best Independent Craft Beer at this year’s ALIA Awards, as well as runner-up for Best Draught. With this in your stubby holder, you know you’re in good hands.
Visitors to Matso’s brewery in Broome have often referred to its Mango Beer as “the tropics in a bottle”. And they’re not wrong – it’s an easy drinking, sessionready beer with full fruit aromas and a sweet dryness to finish. It’s the perfect way to bring you back to ‘Broome Time’ all year ‘round. It’s best served nice and cold, straight from the esky.
Born in the remote Western Australian town of Broome, this zesty, refreshing beer was brewed to reward the locals after a day in the hot Kimberley sun. Now it’s shared across the country, and not just at the end of a hot day. At 3.5% ABV, Matso’s Ginger Beer is designed for all occasions. Enjoy it over ice or as an uplifting mixer with your favourite spirit.
(Do You Believe In Karma?)
Although Ludlow is technically from way back in 2016, it’s still jangly, garage-pop gold. It’s easy to forget it’s only been a two-year wait for the outfit’s debut EP and this polished rerecording that opens Body Type’s six-track release stands a clear marker of just how far they’ve come in such a short time.
Polish Club – Clarity Everybody needs a big, bright
rocker
to
get
pumped to every now and again and Polish Club are usually happy to oblige. The Doc Marten definitely fits on their latest single Clarity anyhow. David Novak’s fat power chords buzz over his choppier fretwork while John-Henry Pajak pummels his kit and presumably everyone wears a leather jacket.
Byron Bay Brewery Hazy One Pale Lager
Kaiju Krush Tropical Pale Ale
Panhead Quickchange XPA
Mountain Goat Summer Ale
An ice cold lager is a timeless summer go-to, but this one brings some extra flavour to the style. Take in the fruity and floral aromas and enjoy a bitter bite balanced by the biscuit-like malty notes. It’s a perfect combo of fresh and fruity with a rich, yeasty haze, that’ll maintain its freshness all summer.
With a super-clean malt profile, this soft and fruity brew delivers a deluge of tropical flavours to the desert island of your mouth! And for those beer aficionados who are looking for some craft creds, this summer ale boasts hops from both sides of the equator, sourced from the US, New Zealand and Australia.
This light as a feather refresher comes courtesy of Quickchange’s smooth malt base, delivering a delicately delicious blend of hops with hints of tropical fruits and citrus. And because sometimes you don’t want liver brought to a standstill, the XPA’s ABV 4.6% is as easy on the stomach as it is on the palate. This is a true taste of summer that you can enjoy all season long.
Many summers ago, Mountain Goat had two hotweather staples that could only be found on tap at the brewery: Skipping Girl and Goldilocks. They soon realised that this style of beer should be enjoyed all year round and a summer legend was born, low on bitterness and full of fruity, crisp characters.
The Music
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Crocodylus – My Baby Taking their rough and ready psych-surf sound, slowing it down, stripping it back, and pumping in some harmonica for good measure, Crocodylus have never made for such cruisy listening as on My Baby. The result is simple but undeniably catchy. Extra points for the extremely cute dance routine in the clip.
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Sunnyside
upside
The Offspring. Pic: Sam Jones
When the sun’s beating down and the thermometer’s whistling there’s no point just shvitzing the day away. Summer means festivals, so peel yourself of that pleather couch, assemble the squad and make the most of the season at these top tier good times.
Good Things What’s the vibe: Heavy-set new kid on the block swings for the fence.
Big dog: The combination one-two punch of Offspring and Stone Sour. Be
still my classic ‘90s heart.
Show stealer: WAAX will peel your face off and you’ll thank them for it.
Cherry on top: Seminal Offspring album Smash in full. Seriously ‘90s heart,
The Offspring. Pic: Sam Jones
Vera Blue. Pic: Neil Kryszak
Festival
calm the fuck down.
When & Where: 8 Dec, Parramatta Park
Festival Of
The Sun
What’s the vibe: Sun’s out fun’s out, sun up ’til sun down, at
When & Where:
13 — 16 Dec, Sundowner Breakwall Tourist Park
MIA
well up there but Vera Blue’s ridiculous recent tour sets her firmly at the top of the heap. Show stealer: A beachside party saluting the summer sun? We’re thinking CLYPSO is going to make some new friends. Cherry on top: It’s not often you get an opportunity to party in a budgie smuggler (at least not in public).
Anderson Paak. Pic: Lucinda Goodwin
the Sundowner.
Big dog: Tkay Maidza, Winston Surfshirt and Pond are all
Lost
Paradise
What’s the vibe: All the doof, none of the dirt.
Big dog: MIA, Tash Sultana, Joey Bada$$, The Kooks.
Everyone’s a big dog at LP.
Falls
Show stealer: CLEWS for sure. Or maybe Genesis Owasu. Actually Wallace
is pretty good too. Please don’t make us choose. Cherry on top: Lost Paradise basically sidelines as a spiritualist retreat. So, you can get a yoga workshop in before brekky and then whip it ‘round to PNAU after dinner. When & Where: 28 Dec — 1 Jan
Festival
What’s the vibe: Have you never been to
Cardi B. Pic: Jora Frantzis
Falls? Brah. Braaaaaah, You gotta sort that out. Big dog: Anderson .Paak, Toto, Dizzee Rascal, catfish & The bottlemen — the list goes on. Show stealer: There’s plenty of strong competition here but our gut says West Thebarton are going to be on a lot of post fest playlists. Cherry on top: What more do you want you greedy bugger? When & Where:
31 Dec — 2 Jan, The Farm Byron Bay
Day
What’s the vibe: “Baby, you’re a
fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiire wooooork!”
What’s the vibe: What if we made it… Bigger?
Big dog: It doesn’t come much bigger than
like that.
Show stealer: Thandi Phoenix. My Way is
Big dog: They’ve got Cardi B and Migos. I said I like it Show stealer: It’s not really a hot tip at this point but Alice Ivy steals every show. Cherry on top: It’s day one of the year so you can set the bar high, nice and early. When & Where: 1 Jan, The Domain
ringing in the new year with The Presets
going to go off.
Cherry on top: The outdoor dancefloor
means you can catch the pyrotechnics without skipping the show. When & Where: 31 Dec, Victoria Park
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The Presets
Field
Nye In
The Park
Your town
W her e B lues, B BQ & Cult u re Meet...On t he Cent ral Coas t, NSW
.
1-3 March 2019 MT PENA N G EVENT PARK - K ARIONG, central coast,NSW
R.L. Boyce
2019 artists
VIKA & LINDA BULL
& dom turner (Usa)
(VIC)
BEN WATERS & DEREK NASH (UK) (Usa) the west coast rhythm & blues revue with june core, Bob welsh, aki kumar & randy bermudes
three kings Mal eastick spirit BAND HUSSY HICKS BLUES19-TWENTY The DARREN JACK BAND STEVE EDMONDS QUARTET the buddy knox blues band MINNIE MARKS GAMBIRRA MOB ghost road & the
(vic)
(QLD)
Jesse redwing sunday family funday Kid’s u12yrs
owen campbell
The Bourbon Street
Gloombusters BIG SKY MOUNTAIN
LENY’S GIRL & School of rock
T 4THE H
free
w w w. g i r r a k o o l b l u e s . c o m . a u Under the B I G TO P
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•
december
limited tickets
For the latest live reviews go to theMusic.com.au
Sampa The Great
“The birthday festival was a raging success… the organisation, the venue, the curation and the positivity of the crowd were all excellent and a bright light in the ever-evolving Australian festival calendar.” – Mick Radojkovic
FBi Turns 15 @ Manning House. Photos by Simone Fisher
Community radio station FBi celebrated its 15th
birthday in style, with a huge all-Australian line-up
celebrate local music, arts and culture.
Body Type
fair wack of them were Sydney locals to boot to
Party Dozen
across three stages and, just like their playlists, a
Hoodoo Gurus
You Am I
Eskimo Joe The Superjesus British India
The Getaway Plan Scott Darlow Sunday January 27th ie Westport Park, Port Macquar0
Saturday January 26th Shoalhaven City Turf Club
ketmaster.com.au | 136 10 tic | au m. co rs. sta ern th ou es rth Tickets and show details at unde House | 02 6584 6011 e | 02 6581 8888 or The Beach ilable in person at Glasshous Port Macquarie tickets also ava
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Reviews
Valve 871 George street, Sydney City
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The Music
•
December
This month’s highlights
Bold gold
Eliott
After turning heads at BIGSOUND and then touring Europe with Dean Lewis, Eliott is ready for her own headline run with debut EP, Bold Enough. The mononymous multi-instrumentalist performs at Oxford Art Factory this 8 Dec.
Here comes Phanta Claus
Elefant Traks has been around 20 years now and to celebrate they’re throwing a series of massive shows around the country. Head to Factory Theatre this 8 Dec to party with The Herd, Okenyo, L-FRESH The LION, Jayteehazard, Astronomy Class and heaps more.
Jackie Brown Jr
Okenyo
Long-term pachyderm
JB high five
Body hype After an already massive year Body Type dropped their debut self-titled EP back in October. Now they’re taking it on the road and their hometown is at the Lansdowne Hotel 14 Dec. Party Dozen, Okin Osan, e4444e are supporting with Gusher DJs on decks.
Body Type
Indie rock’n’soul band Jackie Brown Jr are finally swinging back homeward on their Over Abroad tour. The release is their debut EP and Timi Temple and The Hundy Pers are going to help them launch it at The Chippendale on 7 Dec.
Phantastic Ferniture
Christmas is coming (a smidge) early with Phantastic Ferniture’s Xmas Extravaganza this 20 Dec at Metro Theatre. The sevenband line-up will also feature I Know Leopard, Jade Imagine, Annie Hamilton, Baby Beef, Narla and Georgia Mulligan.
New yeeeeahs eve Bloods
If you’re keen for something a bit heavier than champagne to ring in the new year head to Crowbar Sydney this 31 Dec for Brissy punk rockers WAAX, devilish Melbourne rock’n’rollers Pagan, mythical local party animals Totally Unicorn and Sydney post punks Corpus.
Bloody summer
The Music
WAAX
Bloods are playing a series of Summer Kick Off Parties in honour of their latest album Feelings this month, the first of which is right here in Sydney with Georgia June and Moody Beach. Catch them 8 Dec at Union Hotel.
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SYD FEST 19
“[AN] ALLURING ALCHEMY OF JOY AND WISTFULNESS” NPR
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the best and the worst of the year’s zeitgeist
The lashes Front
Back
Pic: Stepanka Cervinkova
So DAMN. good
Line-ups dressed-down
The great Gadsby
Vale
Trump Thump
Sco No
Two American artists
The Aussie music industry
If one artist could be said to
Looking back on the year
We reckon this one will be
FFS Canberra. Yet another
of colour captured the
saw a surge in activism tack-
have captured the global
that was is a chance to
making the yearly round-
leadership spill saw Australia
resilience and the defi-
ling the dearth of female
imagination, it would have
reflect on the greats who
up of the backlashes for a
get yet another Prime
ance of their generation
acts on our biggest festival
to be Aussie comedian
left us. RIP travel-hungry sto-
few years to come. Donald
Minister. While many of us
with astonishing power in
stages. This was perhaps
Hannah Gadsby. And yeah,
ryteller Anthony Bourdain,
Trump remains the world’s
breathed a sigh of relief
2018: Kendrick Lamar with
most potently captured by
we know we’ve already sung
Marvel’s marvel Stan Lee,
biggest dumpster fire, deny-
this didn’t end up being Mr
a historic Pulitzer Prize win
Instagram account @line-
her praises in this issue, but
visionary physicist Stephen
ing climate change, shutting
Potato Head Peter Dutton,
for his album DAMN. and
upswithoutmales, exposing
she made The Lashes four
Hawking, and the incompa-
borders, and proposing arm-
we’re not sure Scott
Childish Gambino with his
inequality with an immedi-
times this year for a reason.
rable queen of soul, Aretha
ing school teachers instead
Morrison is much of
extraordinary anthem This
ate, visual sucker punch.
Sorry, not sorry.
Franklin, and so many more.
of increasing gun control.
an improvement.
Is America.
The final thought
You shall be missed.
What will you be taking away with you from 2018 — the dark cloud or the silver lining?
A
Words by Maxim Boon
nother year, another step closer to the apocalypse. Amiright!? The ticktock tick-tock of the doomsday clock has felt especially deafening this year. But let’s look on the bright side: between climate catastrophes, North Korean missiles, and alt-right demagoguery popping up here,
The Music
•
there and everywhere, it’s kind of a Christmas miracle that the world isn’t a smoking, irradiated cinder floating through the cosmic abyss already. But of course, it wasn’t just world-ending calamities that confronted many of us in 2018. There have been more than a few long nights of the soul to survive as well. The Silence Breakers, as they were defiantly dubbed by Time magazine, set the year off on the path to change as women bravely came forward with their stories of abuse, as horrifying for their ubiquity as they were for their content. Revealing an entrenched culture of sexual trauma, not limited to but certainly thriving within the entertainment industry, the inspiring courage of the #MeToo movement has held up a magnifying glass to the normalisation and tacit enabling of behaviours that should never have been tolerated, let alone accepted as the status quo. Yet, before a victory must come a battle, and the voices of many victims, both at home and abroad, have been smeared with accusations of attention seeking or self-interest. And it’s these barefaced refusals of responsibility that have characterised another phenomenon of the past 12 months: 2018 was a year of audacious brinkmanship. We saw it in our political arenas, when Liberal Party infighting led to yet another leadership spill in which a power tussle robbed the electorate of its
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voice — although as the Victorian state elections have recently proved, the vox populi cannot be indefinitely silenced. We saw it in the face of overwhelming evidence, with denials of climate science even as extreme weather events became increasingly disastrous. Or across the pond, with the backward logic that more guns will reduce the senseless American pastime of school shootings. And we saw it with the fate of millions — even billions — of people, pitted against the flippant antagonisms of a few childish, name-calling tweets. But again, there’s perhaps a silver lining to be found around these desperately dark clouds. In the face of all this, a year of political and social upheaval has also revealed many examples of tenacity and resilience, fearlessness and resistance. The students of Stoneman Douglas High School; nine-year-old Queenslander Harper Nielsen; Christie Whelan Browne and Eryn Jean Norvill; Dr Kerryn Phelps; Dandyman; Hannah Gadsby: these are just a handful of the heroes we earned in 2018. For every affront to human decency, there has been a compassionate response proving hope is never lost. Humanity, for all its flaws and weaknesses, is capable of such heart-swelling strength and uncowed, resolute solidarity. And it’s this immutable truth that I intend to take with me into 2019. I urge you to do the same.