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JAMES JA AMES MARSTERS
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2 • THE MUSIC • 15TH APRIL 2015
THE MUSIC • 15TH APRIL 2015 • 3
CREDITS PUBLISHER
Street Press Australia Pty Ltd
GROUP MANAGING EDITOR Andrew Mast
NATIONAL EDITOR MAGAZINES Mark Neilsen
EDITOR Steve Bell
ARTS EDITOR Hannah Story
EAT/DRINK EDITOR Stephanie Liew
GIG GUIDE EDITOR Justine Lynch gigs@themusic.com.au
CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Bryget Chrisfield
CONTRIBUTORS Alice Bopf, Anthony Carew, Baz McAlister, Ben Marnane, Ben Preece, Benny Doyle, Bradley Armstrong, Brendan Telford, Brie Jorgensen, Carley Hall, Chris Yates, Cyclone, Dan Condon, Daniel Johnson, Dave Drayton, Guy Davis, Helen Stringer, Jake Sun, Jazmine O’Sullivan, Lochlan Watt, Madeleine Laing, Mandy McAlister, Michael Smith, Mitch Knox, Paul Mulkearns, Roshan Clerke, Sam Hobson, Sky Kirkham, Sophie Blackhall-Cain, Tessa Fox, Tom Hersey, Tony McMahon, Tyler McLoughlan
THIS WEEK THINGS TO DO THIS WEEK • 15 APR - 21 APR 2015
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ART DEPT Ben Nicol
The biggest event on the Ipswich community calendar kicks of this Thursday. The sight and sound spectacular kicks off in style, organisers sharing the best vantage points for proceedings, including the Riverlink Shopping Centre. Fashion, food and music will take centre stage for Global Fiesta on Saturday and lunch time sessions will run at City Mall early next week. The highlight? Fire On The River, pictured.
With the 100 year anniversary of the Gallipoli landing nearly upon us, this weekend provides the chance to both honour our fallen heroes and improve your fitness with the second annual Anzac Tour Of Duty Run. Raising money for PTSD and depression-related illness, the run starts at 7am this Sunday in Ann St and winds to Southbank – you can run either the 5.5km or 11.4km course. Get some run in the legs!
ADMIN AND ACCOUNTS Jarrod Kendall, Leanne Simpson, Loretta Zoppos, Niall McCabe accounts@themusic.com.au
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CONTACT US Phone: (07) 3252 9666 info@themusic.com.au www.themusic.com.au Street: Suite 11/354 Brunswick Street Fortitude Valley QLD 4006 Postal: Locked Bag 4300 Fortitude Valley QLD 4006
This Saturday Metal Heart Festival returns to Brisbane for the third successive year, this time holding court at awesome new venue The Triffid in Newstead. Designed to give up-and-coming heavy bands the chance to play at decent venues to decent crowds, this year features three headliners – Heaven The Axe, pictured, Segression and A Breach Of Silence – as well as a massive supporting cast including Azrael, Daemon Pyre, Chainsaw Hookers and many, many more. Get ready to bang that pretty head of yours! BRISBANE
rock
JONSON STREET BYRON BAY FRI 10TH APRIL
JACKSON FIREBIRD THE LOCKHARTS EDWARD THATCH & THE SELVEDGE SAT 11TH APRIL
ZIGGY ALBERTS KYLE LIONHART LOUIS & PATRICK SUN 12TH APRIL
THE OCEAN (GERMANY) & CALIGULAS HORSE FRI 17TH APRIL
OCEAN ALLEY & BLUEBERRY COURT SAT 18TH APRIL
BOOTLEG RASCAL & VINNIE LADUCE SUN 19TH APRIL
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FRI 24TH APRIL
DEAD BEAT BAND FRI 1ST MAY
SLEEPMAKESWAVES SAT 2ND MAY
IN HEARTS WAKE SUN 3RD MAY
THE BEARDS THURS 7TH MAY
KARNIVOOL FRI 8TH MAY
TIMBERWOLF TICKETS AVAILABLE ONLINE WWW.THENORTHERN.COM.AU
THE MUSIC • 15TH APRIL 2015 • 5
national news news@themusic.com.au THE CHURCH
I WILL NOT BE SILENCED
RIGHTS ON FILM
CRUSADE AND BEYOND
Celebrating their 35th year as perhaps Australia’s most prolific yet enigmatic musical ensemble, The Church are taking to the nation’s highways to perform material not only from their latest album, Further Deeper. Now sporting Ian Haug from Powderfinger as counterpoint to founding guitarist Peter Koppes, fronted as always by Steve Kilbey with their longest-serving drummer, Tim Powles in the engine room, The Church play 3 Jul at Factory Theatre in Sydney, 4 Jul at The Triffid in Brisbane, 10 Jul at 170 Russell in Melbourne, 16 Jul at Settlers Tavern in Margaret River, 17 Jul at Prince Of Wales, Bunbury and 18 Jul at Rosemount Hotel in Perth.
It’ll start in Melbourne 7 May, but the whole country will get to experience some of the finest cinematic contributions to the dialogue when this year’s Human Rights Arts & Film Festival takes to the road on a national tour. The program features 31 feature films, 18 short films, 15 forums and five exhibitions, including Australian documentary, I Will Not Be Silenced, the true story of Australian Charlotte Stephen; another Australian film, The Beekeeper, and the 2014 Sundance Candescent Award winning film, Marmato, among the many to screen. In Melbourne, the festival runs 7 – 21 May with screenings at ACMI and Bella Union, and exhibitions at Federation Square among other sites. In Canberra it runs 22 – 25 May at Palace Electric Cinema, in Sydney it runs 26 – 30 May at Dendy Cinema Newtown, in Brisbane 2 – 4 Jun at Brisbane Powerhouse and in Perth 2 – 4 Jun at Cinema Paradiso.
SONG FOR OZ AC/DC
RUBY ROOTS
BOOTS MADE FOR TOURING
BUSTING FOR OZ
They’ve titled her debut album, Solitude, but Ruby Boots won’t be touring the nation alone – or at least not in the eastern states. Fronted by singer-songwriter Bex Chilcott, Perth’s Ruby Boots are playing 15 May at Rosemount Hotel in Perth, 16 May at Maker & Co in Bunbury and 17 May at Clancy’s in Dunsborough, before joining Raised By Eagles to co-headline 21 May at Newtown Social Club in Sydney, 22 May at Howler in Melbourne, and 29 May at Black Bear Lodge in Brisbane. Ruby Boots will also be playing 23 May at Major Tom’s in Kyneton and 24 May at Westernport Hotel in San Remo, but again, on their own, so maybe Solitude is half right for this tour. Proudly presented by The Music.
With a commitment pressed hard by Angus Young himself to ensure ticket prices are fair and reasonable, AC/DC have, as expected, announced that they’re bringing their Rock Or Bust World Tour to Australia in November. The European leg saw 1.75 million tickets sold in just 24 hours, so it’s obvious you’ll have to be quick to bag your tickets for 4 Nov at ANZ Stadium in Sydney, 12 Nov at QSAC in Brisbane, 27 Nov at the Domain Stadium in Perth and 6 Dec at Etihad Stadium in Melbourne. Tickets at $99 and $159 plus booking fees go on sale 20 Apr.
IMAGINE GOING TO PRISON FOR DALLAS BUYERS CLUB. IT COULD BE WORSE, @SCOTTDOOLS, IMAGINE GOING FOR TWILIGHT? 6 • THE MUSIC • 15TH APRIL 2015
Heading over to participate in the Groovin The Moo festivities, Peace have written a song specifically for Australia, which you’ll obviously be hearing at the Moos around the place, but also at their Moo sideshows. Joining Peace on those sideshows 28 Apr at the Rosemount Hotel, Perth, are Rainy Day Women; 30 Apr at Ding Dong Lounge, Melbourne, are Smile; 6 May at The Zoo in Brisbane are Food Court, and 8 May at Oxford Art Factory, Sydney, are Rolls Bayce, presented by The Music throughout.
NIGHT ROCKERS
Melbourne four-piece rock band Kingswood starts touring nationally care of Coopers as part of the Coopers After Dark national food, music and beer celebration. They kick off 28 May, Factory Theatre, Sydney; 29 May, Shadow Electric, Melbourne; 4 Jun, Jimmy’s Den, Perth; 10 Jun, The Northern, Byron Bay; 11 Jun, The Triffid, Brisbane.
IT’S A JUNGLE OUT THERE
They’ve just released the first single, Every Kind Of Way, from their forthcoming as yet untitled second album, along with a cheekily provocative accompanying clip, so now it’s time for Brisbane’s The Jungle Giants to “take it to the streets” and tour it all. The four-piece is hitting 15 May at Howler in Melbourne, 22 May at The Brightside in Brisbane, 23 May at Oxford Art Factory in Sydney, and 29 May at Amplifier Bar in Perth.
local news qld.news@themusic.com.au
FRONTLASH X WANKER
Never watched it once but still stoked that the flogger Redfoo is no longer an X Factor judge and hopefully gone from our TV forever. Why do we continually fete the dregs of American culture?
THIRD TIME’S A CHARM Cool news that Arrested Development is purportedly about to recommence production, with another 17 episodes scheduled to be shot soon. How we’ve missed the Bluth family...
CHAMPAGNE SUPANOVA They say that the geeks shall inherit the earth (or something like that), so get down there this weekend when Supanova opens a can of pop culture whoop-ass on the unsuspecting Gold Coast. Any culture’s better than none...
IT’S ALWAYS 2-222 IN HEAVEN
BACKLASH VALE RICHIE BENAUD
Richie Benaud, owner of the voice which soundtracked countless Australian childhoods and summers, passed away last week. His passion for cricket and seemingly bottomless integrity will be sorely missed.
SIMPSONS SHOCKER Never thought we’d backlash The Simpsons, but their decision to discontinue the DVD release of each series at series 17 bites the big one. What about fans who’ve been buying the box sets for over a decade so they could own the collection?
VIVA LA FRANCES Frances Bean Cobain may be cool as hell, but her recent proclamation that she likes Oasis more than Nirvana means that she either has serious parental issues (surely not) or her ears are painted on.
SCRANTON ROCK
DEANNE SMITH
Showcasing their latest album, Charmer, and the best of the rest, Pennsylvania five-piece Tigers Jaw are heading to Australia for their first visit, playing 15 Jul at Crowbar, and all ager 16 Jul at Mt Gravatt PCYC.
ONE FOR YOU
While on assignment in Kelantan, Malaysia, musician and TV presener Nick Saxon met Rozi, a local master musician born without eyes. In December last year, Rozi’s house was swept away by floods and Saxon decided that he’d raise funds to help Rozi rebuild his lost home. He’s setting off on a national tour he’s dubbed The Pilgrim’s Journey, 23 May at Solbar in Maroochydore, 24 May at The End. More dates from theMusic.com.au.
AVID CONVERSATION Photographer Holger Talinski has put together a pretty outrageous book of cult artist Peaches, with text from the woman herself as well as from Yoko Ono, Ellen Page and Michael Stipe. Titled Peaches: What Else Is In The Teaches Of Peaches, Peaches herself will be in conversation with Australian multimedia artist Kiley Gaffney from 6pm 5 May in Avid Reader Bookshop to launch the book.
ONE FUNNY BETH
MELBOURNE HITS THE COAST
They’ve been tickling the collective funnybone of Australia’s “Paris of the South” for the past month, but now some of the best from this year’s Melbourne International Comedy Festival will be heading north 15 May to take over the Arts Centre on the Gold Coast. Get ready to welcome the banjo-totin’ Anne Edmonds, Canada’s DeAnne Smith, Venezuela’s Ivan Aristeguieta, Nath Valvo and, playing MC, Adam Rozenbachs.
FIRST TIMERS
Doom metal rockers Pallbearer are heading down under for the very first time to play a string of mammoth shows. They’ll be bringing their signature riffs and ridiculously complex melodies to Crowbar, 21 Jun.
BLOOD, SWEAT AND HERE
They formed in 1967 in New York City, a then bold experiment in fusing rock with big, bold brass arrangements. In 2015, Blood, Sweat & Tears are still being powered along by founding drummer and producer Bobby Colomby, having seen more than 150 musicians pass through the ranks over the intervening decades. This year’s model hits Australia to play 3 Sep, Mackay Entertainment Centre, 4 Sep at Eaton Hills Hotel, and 5 Sep at Twin Towns in Tweed Heads.
HELPING HANDS
Deadly melodic death metallers The Black Dahlia Murder have announced their support acts for their upcoming national tour. Joining them 17 Jun at Crowbar will be Aversions Crown and Kyser Soze.
American late night TV’s new favourite stand-up comedian, Beth Stelling, promises “a night that will appeal to devotees of theatresports, storytelling and mordant observational comedy” 5 Jul at Sit Down Comedy Club.
GOING HARD
30 years since their first gig at the Vulcan Hotel in Sydney, Hard-Ons are bringing out a new album, titled Peel Me Like A Egg, the first work with current drummer Murray Ruse. The band play 24 Apr, Crowbar.
ALIEN BOY
Indie rapper and Melbourne local Ivan Ooze has got a new mixtape, The Social Alien and headline tour going on. Stream it online ahead of the show, 30 May, Alhambra Lounge.
TREAS & DRAPL. PIC BY TIM CARACO
THE ‘GURGE FOR ART’S SAKE
Those national treasures known as Regurgitator are finally returning to the stage after two years off to perform at the official launch party 16 – 18 May for First Coat Street Art & Music Festival in Toowoomba, joining L-Fresh The LION on that opening night party, along with a stack of street artists including California’s Madsteez, Holland’s Does and our own Shida, Numskull, Gimiks Born and 30-odd others who will be reshaping the way you see street art. THE MUSIC • 15TH APRIL 2015 • 7
local news qld.news@themusic.com.au
SOLO SALTY DOG
Singer, songwriter and guitarist Ben Salter, fresh from a run with The Gin Club, heads out again, preparing you for the forthcoming release of his next solo album, The Stars My Destination. As well as opening for Counting Crows 12 Apr at The Tivoli, Salter plays 22 Apr at The Junk Bar and 23 Apr at The Bison Bar, Nambour.
IT’S ON TAPE
Forget digital, forget vinyl, Andrew Tuttle is releasing his latest stuff on tape! Launching Slowcation 23 Apr at The Bearded Lady, Tuttle is joined by Feeding Fauna, who are launching a new single, 50 Million To One, in a more conventional mode, and No Magic, while keeping things moving before, after and between sets is American DJ Spencer Clark, aka Blank Realm x Monopoly Child Star Searches.
NOW WE ARE FIVE
Celebrating five years in the business of showcasing live music in Brisbane, The Beetle Bar has a huge line-up joining in to help cut the cake and blow out the candles 15 May. Heading up the Pacific Highway especially for the night are Melbourne’s Spencer P Jones & The Escape Committee, joined by local heroes Mick Medew & The Mesmerisers, Some Jerks, Shifting Sands, Wollongong’s B.R.U.C.E. and, reforming on the night, ‘90s anti-heroes Lewd, with DJ Wolvie Trash keeping up the vibe through the night.
YOUTH GROUP
VINYLISING A CLASSIC
Reuniting for the first time in five years earlier this year, Youth Group are now taking their classic and much-loved album, Skeleton Jar, and performing it in full, along with favourites from right across their catalogue in celebration of the release of Skeleton Jar on vinyl. Proudly presented by The Music, 4 Jul at Black Bear Lodge.
DEATHCORE JAM
Metal group and deathcore purveyors Chelsea Grin are touring nationally to promote the latest album Ashes To Ashes. Expect noise, chaos and metallic fury. With support by Boris The Blade, they play 22 Aug, The Brightside and 23 Aug, The Lab.
MOST REVIEWS DESCRIBE ME AS “SMART” OR “THOUGHT PROVOKING,” BUT RARELY AS “FUNNY.” THIS REMOVES THE PRESSURE
BERLINER BEETLE
Singer, songwriter, poet, artist and queen of the Berlin underground, Mary Ocher is showcasing her debut album, Your Government, and probably slabs of her double-CD anthology of home recordings, The Fictional Biography Of Mary Ocher, in person 7 May at Beetle Bar. Her supporting guests are Jackie Marshall and Sabrina Lawrie.
IT’S PROBABLY JUST IMPLIED, HEY, @HARIKONDABOLU?
FIRST TASTE
I’ll Live & I’ll Die is the single from the forthcoming third album from Melbourne-based Brisbane singersongwriter Dan Parsons and he’s taking it for a trot around the place keeping company with fellow troubadour Steve Grady. The pair calls into The Milk Factory 2 May and The Pacific Hotel, Yamba 3 May.
BAD CUFFS
GET PSYCHED
Multi-instrumentalist, singer/songwriter, recording engineer and producer – Harts took up all these roles when he went into the studio to record his latest EP, Breakthrough. He showcases the EP on a national tour that sees him 10 Jul at The Foundry, 11 Jul at The Northern in Byron Bay and 12 Jul at Broadbeach Tavern on the Gold Coast.
Psychedelic pop-rockers Morning Harvey are playing a one-off ANZAC Day show to launch their new single, Smith Street Swap Meet. Get revved up with sunshine psych, melodic hooks and spiralling guitar lines when the band take to The Triffid on 25 Apr with support from Salvadarlings. 8 • THE MUSIC • 15TH APRIL 2015
After touring the UK, indie rock four piece Bad//Dreems from Adelaide will be touring nationally to celebrate Cuffed & Collared, the first single from the forthcoming album. 27 Jun, Crowbar.
TAKING TO HARTS
ASH FOR BROADBEACH
Fresh from Bluesfest, Ash Grunwald has been added to the monster line-up 21 – 24 May at the 14th annual free Blues On Broadbeach.
DEATH RAP BACK
It’s six years since his last visit, so there’ll be a lot of happy fans now the undisputed underground death rap king, Brooklyn’s Necro, has announced he’s heading over in May. After all, more than 100 million fans hit his website every year. So, the Necro The Terminator tour hits The Hi-Fi, 30 May; and Coolangatta Hotel on the Gold Coast, 31 May.
THE MUSIC • 15TH APRIL 2015 • 9
comedy
A BIT SOFT “I might just start dancing on the street corners for money.” Hannah Story talks to Noel Fielding.
I
t’s 11.30pm in London. Noel Fielding has settled down with a cup of “tea-ora orange” (tequila? Vodka?), because his voice is getting croaky: he talks too much in interviews, he says. His way of speaking is rapid, kind of like the little boy who lives next door to me; he pauses to consider the answer to a question, and then lets fly, words tumbling out with the momentum of a runaway train. He puts on those voices we’d all remember from The Mighty Boosh or Noel Fielding’s Luxury Comedy, sipping on his drink, asking questions of me in return. He wants to know where I live and what I think and how to deal with jetlag: “How do you do it? What do you do? Do you stay up on the plane? Do you take sleeping pills? Do you not? Do you not drink? Do you drink? It’s a fucking nightmare.” He is quick to quip, complaining about
alter ego The Dark Side Of The Moon is in it, his evil twin. And then in the second half I get kidnapped from my own show and I play different characters who have to try and find me. I play a New York Cop and I interrogate the audience. There’s a bit where we take someone from the audience on stage and put them in an animation at the end and they save the show. It’s a pretty big, long rambling show with many facets. Covered all boundaries: animation, standup, sketch, music, narrative, it’s all there, audience participation, improv, we’ve got it all down. Hopefully.
even if you haven’t seen any of my shows. You don’t have to know anything about me to enjoy it. It’ll help if you know what sort of stuff I do, or if you like that kind of comedy. We tried to make it not have to rely on anything from any of the TV shows or anything. There are some characters from the TV shows but they’re pretty archetypal characters.” With that aim in mind, it’s not a comedy show aimed at the types of people who dress up as the Crack Fox or Old Gregg before a Mighty Boosh gig (although there no doubt will be some in the audience, all pink tutu-ed and bushy tailed). “You never really know who your fans are,” Fielding says. “You kind of imagine they’re one thing, but they never are. I do get a lot of young people, weirdly, I don’t know why, but young people seem to like what I do. Maybe young people are quite interested in more conceptual, fantastical stuff. I don’t know why, maybe when you get older you want your own life sort of reflected back at you to prove that you’re alive. “In a weird way, I don’t know, and when I did this tour, there were some older people there and I really liked that. When we did the Boosh, there were kids there, people used to bring fiveyear-olds and stuff, the show was quite rude. But
“I’LL BE LIKE 80, AND MY FANS WILL STILL BE 17.”
the sun in Australia. “I might retire after this tour in Australia. [But] I think it’d be too hot for me. I’m not really into the sun. No place for goths in the sun, it’s ridiculous. I’m gonna get a black umbrella like a parasol. Like Mary Poppins.” “Like a goth Mary Poppins?” “Yeah, Mary Gothins!” He likes the idea of meeting his interviewers after his shows, to give a face to a disembodied voice. It’s a strange thing, he says: I know what he looks like, but he doesn’t know me. “You’re a stalker, essentially.” Noel Fielding is coming out to perform his latest, An Evening With Noel Fielding, in his first Australian shows since 2012. In the meantime he’s put out a second season of Luxury Comedy and put on an art show at Royal Albert Hall, appearing at tribute shows, on panels, and in his regular spot as team captain on Never Mind The Buzzcocks. So what’s this An Evening With Noel Fielding all about anyway? “It’s sort of a weird show. There’s a lot in it. It’s got stand-up in it, and then it turns into a sketch show. My brother’s [Michael Fielding] in it, he plays Naboo in the Boosh, and another comedian called Tom Meeten who’s in Luxury Comedy and the Boosh, he’s very physical. There’s music in it, I wrote some of the music in it with Serge from Kasabian. The second half of it is a story, I get kidnapped. There’s animation in it as well, sort of plasticine animation. The Moon’s in it, The Moon’s 10 • THE MUSIC • 15TH APRIL 2015
“There’s a bit in it where I play a halfman, half-chicken; that’s my favourite bit to do. And then there’s a bit where I play a herbal tea bag and do a whole bit about tea bags. “A lot of the ideas came from my initial standup. I had an idea that my wife, I talk about being married, I’m not, but I talk about being married, and my wife got off with a triangle. And we thought it would be quite funny if my brother played my wife, and then Tom played this guy that she’s having an affair with who is actually a triangle. “What we tried to do: we tried to make it that you could watch it
Julian [Barratt, the other half of The Mighty Boosh] always used to love it when there were really old people there. We did some gigs in Philadelphia and there were these old guys that used to come, they were in a jazz band and they used to come, and they came about three times. “I quite like it when kids come. Kids are quite free though, so when you do quite nonsensical stuff, or fantastical, surreal stuff, kids don’t have much of a problem with that. They kind of go, ‘Yep, I’m with you. What’s happening? There’s a man made of milk? Yep, I’m in.’ Whereas adults tend to go ‘What’s happening now? This doesn’t make sense. What?’ They get trapped in their own logical minds. “I get quite a high ratio of girls, which I’m quite pleased about. Comedy can be a bit laddy, a bit aggressive, especially stand-up. I’m quite proud of the fact: the Boosh, we always had as many women as we did men, probably more women actually than men. I don’t really know many comedians where that’s true. We weren’t really aggressive comedians, we were quite soft. “As I’m getting older my audience are staying the same age, they are quite young. It’s like a science-fiction film where I get older and no one else ages. I’ll be like 80, and my fans will still be 17, it’ll be really weird. I don’t know why that is.
THE GOTH DETECTIVES Noel Fielding and buddy Russell Brand got back together at the end of last year for The Big Fat Anniversary Quiz, a panel show where three teams of UK comedians look back on the year that was (or in this case, the decade). We ask about their relationship. “I sort of have a weird relationship with him where we do work together quite a lot, and we do see each other every now and then. We both do transcendental meditation, so we both meditate together sometimes. We do really get on really well, and we really like each other. “We’re not like bezzie mates. We don’t hang out together in our pyjamas and sleep in bunk beds, but I think a lot of people wish that we did.
There must be something about what I do that attracts young [people]. You know when you’re young, there’s a period where everyone gets into The Doors for about two years. When I was a student I was really into The Doors, and as you get a bit older you don’t really like them as much, but you go through a phase liking certain things when you’re young. I think I’m one of those phases.” Fielding admits that he’s not sure what he’ll be doing after touring An Evening With Noel Fielding, but he rules out a Season Three for Luxury Comedy. Maybe he’ll try and write something that’s not as fantastical. “I’ve tried to write normal stuff,” Fielding says. “It doesn’t really work for me. I’m gonna do it. I’m gonna try and set my next show in the real world. But the problem is I’m not that interested in writing a show and talking about, y’know, I don’t know, work and pizzas and hangovers and blergh, all that stuff, it’s not me, really. You must have something to relate to in your comedy. I always end up becoming quite fantastical and that’s when I feel really excited and stimulated. And I think, ‘Oh yeah, this’ll be good, imagine this.’ “I’ve spoken to the Channel [4] about doing something else, but maybe not a Luxury Comedy… I kind of feel like we did that, and we should do something else now. I’d quite like to do something set in real life. I know that sounds insane, but I
just thought it’d be a challenge for me to set something in real life. But not that you couldn’t have fantastical elements. “I did TV shows backto-back, then a live show, so I kinda wanna take my time and think about what I wanna do next, not just jump into the next thing. I’ve sort of been working solidly for about ten years without even pausing for breath or looking up and I feel like I should maybe chill for a little bit and then think about
exactly what I wanna do next before I jump in, y’know? I’ve been talking to Julian as well a little bit. You never know, we might do something with the Boosh again. There’s options, there’s so many things I could do, so I just wanna make sure I work out what I wanna do before I jump into it headlong first and then spend two years making something. I might go into politics, is what I’m saying [laughs]. I might just start dancing on the street corners for money.”
WHAT: An Evening With Noel Fielding WHEN & WHERE: 27 & 28 Apr, 7 May, QPAC Concert Hall
“We do talk about doing an improvised show for an audience where we just come out and wing it for half an hour, with help from the audience, but we never really get around to it. Maybe we will one day, maybe we wont.” “You could go into politics together.” “Yeah! I actually do mention it in my show, I slightly have a dig at him in my show, but it’s a friendly dig. I don’t think I’m going to be going into politics, funnily enough, that’s not gonna happen [chuckles]. I don’t quite know what’s happening there... Comedians going into politics? I’m not sure.” THE MUSIC • 15TH APRIL 2015 • 11
culture
THE FUTURE IS NOW Thirty years after the world first met enigmatic mad scientist Emmett Brown and his teenage companion Marty McFly in Back To The Future, Christopher Lloyd still can’t believe his luck in being able to bring the 20th century pop culture icon known as ‘Doc’ to life, he tells Mitch Knox.
I
n 1985, at a speed of 88 miles per hour, jamming out to Huey Lewis & The News, pop culture history was made. Back To The Future, starring Michael J Fox as teenage slacker Marty McFly and Christopher Lloyd as his wild-eyed, wild-haired science-genius companion, was an instant hit upon release, spawning two sequels and creating a legion of dedicated fans in its wake. For a trilogy so steeped in specific time periods – 1885, 1955, 1985 and the distant, far-off year of 2015 – the Back To The Future saga has achieved a sense of timelessness, the intangible stamp of being
culture
a “classic”, despite – or perhaps because of – its historical specificity. “I think, for one thing, it’s very much a family picture,” Lloyd explains of the trilogy’s lasting appeal three decades after the original film’s release. “You know, you have Marty with his mom and dad and his brother and sister, and his girlfriend, and you have Doc, who’s kind of an avuncular sort – this crazy scientist/inventor – and becomes very much a mentor. I think Marty’s fascinated by this guy, who comes up with all sorts of odd inventions, and he gets carried away with it, literally, through
time. So I think there’s plenty there for adults, and of course for young people, to involve themselves with.” Lloyd, who was simply “hoping that I would be able to fulfil the role the first day”, never expected Back To The Future’s incendiary success, but acknowledges that as much as Fox’s affable Marty is a crucial part of the film’s cross-generational appeal, so, too, is the warmth and wisdom brought to the table by Doc. And, although he finds the prospect unlikely, he is at least intrigued by the notion of resurrecting the character to chart his adventures with his wife, children and dog, following their departure for destinations and times unknown at the end of Back To The Future: Part III. “I think that if they come up with a Back To The Future IV, we may find out – but I wouldn’t hold my breath, [Back To The Future III] was the end of the story,” Lloyd says. “It’d be interesting to go there and satisfy what Doc and his lady and the two kids, Jules and Verne, what kind of adventures they could have gotten into.” But, even if that never happens – “realistically, it won’t” – Lloyd remains humbled to have been a part of creating such a special character and film series. “There’s a lot of fans I’ve met, young people, who have gone into science … physics or engineering, etc, and it’s nice to know it’s had a very positive effect on many, and that it’s popular. I mean, if I never do anything else with my life, I certainly would be gratified just to have that.” WHAT: Supanova Pop Culture Expo WHEN & WHERE 17 – 19 Apr, Gold Coast Convention & Exhibition Centre
DIG IN
Helping shape genre TV with his role in Buffy, actor James Marsters tells Daniel Cribb the show was terrifying to make at times and, ten years on, still plays a big part in his life.
J
ames Marsters was born to play dark and brooding yet lovable characters on our TV screens, and even more perfect for the role of a vampire, as evident through his heart-winning performance as Spike in seminal cult hits Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel, later going on to play a witch in Supernatural and warlock in Witches Of East End. “You have very great taste in vampires,” Marsters laughs.
surrounding himself with was just a hit.”
Buffy and Angel wrapped up in ’03 and ’04 respectively, and the fact that Marsters and his co-stars are still under high demand at fan conventions around the world is testament to the legacy the show left behind. “It was a magic time. Everybody involved kind of knew it when we were doing it. It just gelled really nicely,” he reminisces. “It was sometimes frickin’ terrifying to make, but I think you don’t want to be safe. A lot of people poured their hearts into those episodes…Joss [Whedon, creator] was asking each of the writers to come up with their worst day: the day that they were humiliated; the day that they hurt somebody for no reason; the day that they regret; the day that keeps them up at night. And slap fangs on top of that, and tell the world.
Speaking of bands, the role of a slick vampire isn’t too far from your classic rockstar vibe, so it’s no surprise Marsters also fronts rock band Ghost Of The Robot, who are working on their fourth album. “98% of the tracking is done, we’re just putting some sweetening on it, and we’ve got to mix it and get it out,” he tells. “I think it is a return to the more energetic music of our first album. Our first album was pretty raw. We did it fast and dirty, and I think there’s a lot to be said for that.”
“I think Buffy was like a good band, and it’s hard to pick it apart. It all worked really well. I think that the actors and the writers that Joss was
It sounds like Marsters’ son, Charlie De Mars, may eventually nudge
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his way to frontman of the act. “I had to jump out of a European tour that we had this summer ‘cause I got acting work in Canada on a TV show. And I thought that I was going to just destroy the tour. My son was like, ‘Oh screw that, I’ll sing your songs.’” Although three singers means less spotlight time, it’s a direction Marsters has wanted from the onset. “One of my favourite things about The Beatles was you never really knew who was singing. And, so when you listen to like a Beatles album, there’s always like a little bit of a surprise, even if it’s subconscious… I’m not saying that we’ll be as good as The Beatles, but I think that’s one of the things that I love about them. I like bands that have more than one lead singer; I think it makes for a more listenable album… My dream is finally being realised – we have three lead singers.” WHAT: Supanova Pop Culture Expo WHEN & WHERE 17 – 19 Apr, Gold Coast Convention & Exhibition Centre
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THE MUSIC • 15TH APRIL 2015 • 13
music
THE WAR ON STUPIDITY Mark Hebblewhite sat down with Napalm Death’s legendary bass player Shane Embury to talk longevity and extremity.
N
apalm Death are more than just grindcore legends: they are a metal institution every bit as important as fellow Brummies Black Sabbath and Judas Priest. For more than 25 years the band have carved an uncompromising and highly idiosyncratic path through the world of extreme metal. Embury however prefers to steer away from superlatives and instead is content to acknowledge it’s been a strange path. “Yeah, it’s been a while,” he chuckles. “But to be able to come and play in Australia with Carcass, who of course we’ve known from the early days, is a real
comedy
honour for us. We’ve toured together before but this one will be special – and we’re going to try and get a certain Carcass guitarist up on stage to play with his old band – so I guess some of you will be interested in that.” Napalm Death have always written their own rules, much to the disgust of some fans who believed the band should have remained onedimensional purists who did nothing but grind as fast as possible. This angst reached its heights in the mid to late ‘90s when Napalm Death (gasp) slowed down and took on board influences from the industrial scene and behemoths like Killing Joke and Swans. As Embury explains,
it was the best of times... it was the worst of times. “On the one hand I think it was something the band needed to do – to explore that side of our sound,” he muses. “It was a time when we realised that it wasn’t just playing as fast as possible that meant you were extreme, and you can see that attitude on the likes of Diatribes and Words From The Exit Wound. I think some of the material we made in that period between say 1993 and 1999 was actually good. On the other hand we as a band did drift a bit from what we were all about. I moved down to London, other stuff was going on with Barney – I think we all drifted apart. By the time we came to do Enemy Of The Music Business I think we’d all had the kick up the ass we needed and that record really brought us back to life.” Embury isn’t lying here. Since that superlative piece of sonic nastiness Napalm Death have been on a 15-year streak, producing album after album of intense grindcore that has never once strayed towards the derivative or one-dimensional. Instead the likes of Utilitarian and Time Waits For No Slave show a band comfortable in their sound but willing to innovate. “We are very comfortable with where we are at as a band. We’re getting a great response for the new record, especially when we play the new songs live. But most of all we are still feeling inspired to do what we do – and what’s more, we’re still enjoying it.” And as for the sets planned for their upcoming Australian jaunt? “We’re going to give you guys a bit of everything,” reveals Embury. “Of course there will be all the really old stuff, some from Apex Predator, but also some surprises people might not expect!” WHEN & WHERE: 19 Apr, The Hi-Fi
AN IMPRESSION
Madcap master of impressions Pablo Francisco is headed Down Under again, this time with a likeminded sidekick, writes Baz McAlister.
H
e’s the Los Angeleno with the chameleonic voice, morphing dozens of times per show into every celebrity from Dr Phil to Arnold Schwarzenegger, but on his next trip to Australia, Pablo Francisco has decided to switch up his live show and tag team with an old friend. “I’m looking forward to getting down there and bringing a new posse of people,” he says. “I’m bringing a gentleman by the name of Steve Kramer on this tour. There’s a TV show we’re working on together, it’s another Pablo Francisco hour-long special but it has cartoons in it so we’re going to try to put the cartoons into the live show too, meld them together. We thought we’d just play around a little and add some electricity.” The Chilean-American comic met Kramer about 20 years ago while they were both working the room at an LA comedy club. “I couldn’t believe how diverse he was,” Francisco says. “He was musically inclined and very funny. I saw a TV show he was on and called him up and said, ‘Why don’t we get together?’ He does super impersonations. It’s good to partner with somebody up there, because comics are addicted to other comics.” Francisco promises more of what audiences love in his next run of live shows. He’ll be poking fun at pop culture phenomena such as Deadliest Catch and Dog The Bounty Hunter, and he’s been working up some brand 14 • THE MUSIC • 15TH APRIL 2015
new celebrity voices. “Well Steve does a good Iggy Lasagna... what’s she called? Iggy Azalea. She’s from the streets. The streets of Australia: ‘Who dat, who dat... dere’s a kangaroo dat.’ And I’ve got Mark Wahlberg: ‘Hey man, what’s the deal man?’” he says, breaking into a perfect take-off of the actor’s style. “He’s heavy-breathing kind of, he’s in every movie. ‘THIS SUMMER, HE’S OUT OF BREATH,’” he says, aping the late and legendary movie trailer voice guy, Don LaFontaine, before diving back into Marky Mark: “‘Hey man, I gotta get to my next movie.’” Francisco was great friends with LaFontaine before he passed away
in 2008, and his voice is so close to LaFontaine’s that he occasionally scores trailer voiceover work now on movies such as The Expendables series – “but they captured his voice so well”, Francisco says, that those gigs are few and far between. “They recorded every single word Don’s ever done, they got the its and thats and thoses and ares and all the vowels, they can just put it all together themselves and pay his wife.” YouTube originally made Francisco the huge star he is, blowing him up almost overnight. “I played the Baltics this year, man, Dracula country, it was absolutely crazy. They put me all the way over there and I sold out. My manager said there are so many places now that want me - Norway Sweden, Germany. YouTube is fantastic.” WHEN & WHERE: 17 Apr, The Tivoli
THE MUSIC • 15TH APRIL 2015 • 15
theatre
COMING UP WITH IT
Playwright Julia-Rose Lewis explains to Dave Drayton the mixed blessing of a frantic personality and how it shaped her debut full-length work, Samson.
“A
lot of people are blessed with a spirit that remains calm, but I’ve got this curse where I frantically chase things until I get them,” explains Julia-Rose Lewis, with a confidence softened by optimism. “I’ve been blessed to go from opportunity to opportunity and be supported by a wonderful network of people in Sydney and in Brisbane. I still feel like I’m figuring out, every day, how to write a play. I think the thing that has helped me get so many opportunities has been my desire to learn, less than my existing skill. I think people can see how engaged I am and how much I want it.”
People certainly noticed something in her. After participating in the Australian Theatre For Young People’s Voices Project: Out Of Place, in 2012 Lewis was writer-in-residence at Brisbane’s La Boite Theatre throughout 2013 and then last year was awarded the Philip Parson’s Playwright Fellowship for Emerging Playwrights by Belvoir for her play, Samson. The play, which has been programmed by both La Boite and Belvoir in their 2015 seasons, grew from a tenminute monologue that started Lewis’ forceful foray into playwriting, written for the ATYP studio. “The main character of that was this
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17-year-old girl called Mia. Her voice was so strong to me and I kept going back to her after writing the monologue, and in many ways Essie, who is played by Ashleigh Cummings, is in one way the driver of the action, and her character was really born from Mia – I wasn’t done with her yet, it felt like she had a lot more to say, she hadn’t finished expressing herself.” Lewis’ passion for writing stories began during her childhood in a town called Maleny some two hours drive from Brisbane. The action of Samson – four friends gripped with grief and contemplating the expanse of life beyond that moment and their town – takes place in a similarly isolated setting. “Where significant events happen to you in your life is where your heart is. The death of my father happened in Maleny and I’ve always had a connection to that place and that influenced why I set Samson where I did, and the isolation speaks thematically to the play. All the young people in the play are islands trying to find a way to bum together and figure it all out.” Lewis credits the kaleidoscopic scope of the play to inexperience, an excited and eager restlessness, and traits of her freneticism, the blessing or curse, are discernible. “I think it’s because it’s my first play, you don’t just come up with an idea for a first play because you’ve been coming up with it, I have been coming up with it for 25 years. It is everything that I haven’t written for 25 years in one. I don’t really know what Samson’s about, but it’s about all these things: grief, joy, sadness, faith, the death of a friend, the birth of a child.” WHAT: Samson WHEN & WHERE: 17 Apr – 2 May, Roundhouse Theatre
STILL KICKING IT 12 years since releasing their first record, and with their seventh release new on the shelves, Funeral For A Friend vocalist Matthew Davies-Kreye tells Kane Sutton he’s still wearing his heart on his sleeve, and “you can either love it or fuck off ”.
“T
it. Growing older, you realise that the good ol’ days are the good ol’ days for a reason.”
Davies-Kreye is adamant that they rarely reflect on past records when writing new material. “Looking back, a lot of the records are varied because of the musical differences by the individuals in the band, and growing up, you do develop difference influences, and focuses change, and you want to try new things. On the other hand, a record like Chapter & Verse is almost like an acknowledgement of being comfortable where you came from, and the influences that made you want to be who you are. Hardcore and punk are massive in my life, and for Chapter & Verse to have that relationship to that music in terms of my own personal point of view, I have a lot of love towards
So how would they actually describe the record in comparison to their previous work? “It’s emotionally heavy. It’s edgy, it’s not cleancut, which is what I love about the record. It’s very much a product of spare of the moment gut feeling and instinct. It is a very instinctual record, and I think that’s what I love about it most, and why I rate it quite highly amongst the records we’ve written over the last 14 years, it’s pretty much in my top two. It’s got
he days of being nervous are done.” Davies-Kreye begins when discussing the recent release of the band’s seventh full-length, Chapter & Verse. “We’ve never been a band that concerned ourselves with feeling fear or anything. I think I achieved every goal I wanted to do – tour with my friends, maybe write a record – I mean, the bucket list was done about 13-and-a-half years ago. For me, I feel very lucky that I’m in a band that tours and gets to visit places like Australia and stuff, and get to meet people on different continents.”
16 • THE MUSIC • 15TH APRIL 2015
that kind of unashamed, bullish, kind of ‘this is my heart of my sleeve’ kind of thing, like, you can either love it or fuck off.” The concept of identity has never really been an issue for Davies-Kreye and the band. “I don’t think it really matters, I think it just depends on what you want to get out of this, what you’re in the band for. Identity is, well, you can do whatever the fuck you want with that...At the end of the day, if your core values as individuals line up – what you stand for as a band in terms of ideology or anything you want to stand for is unified – then finding a connection comes from that, and that’s why punk and hardcore has always been a strong door for us and it’s always been about speaking your mind and not being afraid to confront ideas and speak with an open heart and mind. That’s why Funeral will always fit in that category.” WHAT: Chapter & Verse WHEN & WHERE: 16 Apr, The Brightside; 17 Apr, Shark Bar, Gold Coast
THE MUSIC • 15TH APRIL 2015 • 17
music
SEEIN’ STRAIGHT
360, the alter ego of Matt Colwell, is now ready for his Retopia tour, health issues having forced a reschedule. While explaining his lifestyle change to Rip Nicholson, Colwell suggests reaching out to his nemesis Kerser.
F
rom his third album, Utopia, released last year, Unborn Child has 360 aka Matt Colwell addressing the demons that crossed his path in recent years as one of the country’s most recognisable rappers. His arch-nemesis and former rap battle foe, Kerser, also recently released a single – Let Me Chill – where he illustrates his own struggles along much of the same pathway. “I might reach out to him,” Colwell suggests, “because I can imagine he’s going through some shit and it’s always good when you can talk to someone
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who’s going through the same shit.” These echoes from both MCs highlight the most common mental health issues in young Australians, anxiety and depression, and for those who share an image in the public, add the party life of drugs, sex and alcohol, and it can be a gripping issue to which it becomes harder and harder to hold onto one’s sanity. “When you’re on tour, if you don’t look after yourself for a couple of days you’ll fuck up,” stresses Colwell. “You will hit the wall so hard because you get so run down. You’re performing at night, then you get home at around one or
two AM and you’re pumped full of adrenalin so you can’t really sleep for a couple of hours. You get to bed at about four and sometimes you will have to get up at say six or seven AM to get to the next spot. I’m sober now – I haven’t had a drink for ages – but when I did used to drink on the road that would be the biggest fuck-up you could do because you just get sick and there’s nothing worse than being sick on tour.” Colwell is on a rescheduled round of touring originally slated for January. Colwell insists he’s clear-headed, less jaded and living more in the present this time around, something he’s felt for a while. “Especially [about] girls,” he interjects. “You always think, ‘Oh, they don’t really like me, they just want to be with the rapper.’ It’s always this battle that’s going on and if you are using drugs or on the piss you get completely jaded and your whole perspective gets thrown. So, staying sober and clear-headed is the way you have to go about it. Otherwise, you lose your shit really easily.” For an MC who once described his own lyrics as ‘comical and unintelligent’ Utopia made 360 face his matador head on and now finds the rush in writing about it. Since revamping Early Warning acoustically, Colwell is fascinated with the idea of touring unplugged. “I think when you do an acoustic song you really pay attention to the lyrics. And the way people have been paying attention to Early Warning has been pretty sick, so I was thinking it would be awesome to do a tour doing a bunch of my songs acoustically. I reckon that would be sick.” WHEN & WHERE: 17 Apr, The Triffid; 19 Apr, The Northern, Byron Bay
ANY GIVEN DAY What do you get when you combine some of the best hip hop acts in the country into one giant party machine? One Day, that’s what. Cam Findlay chats to Joyride about the collective.
W
hen you look at the last few years for Horrorshow, Spit Syndicate, Jackie Onassis and Joyride, it seems like the upward trajectory of their respective careers matches pretty accurately. Well, beyond their own talents, there may be another reason for that: the fact that they’ve all been heavily involved in each other’s work, with every member appearing on another artist’s track somewhere along the line. They’ve toured incessantly together as well, so there’s obviously a strong camaraderie between the acts. Which leaves no secret as to why One Day works. “There’s a certain level of comfort that comes from knowing certain people for so long, y’know?” Joyride says. “Before we even did any legitimate One Day music, it was all something that worked because we were mates before the music. We’d all met in different circumstances and at different times, but we had this connection because we’d met at parties or at battles or just like on the streets. And so we had the same kind of direction and the same kind of passion, which takes out the awkwardness of working with someone professionally. It’s like if you play rugby with your mates: you work better as a team because you all know each other and rely on each other. There’s a confidence in that, and that’s how we make music.”
18 • THE MUSIC • 15TH APRIL 2015
While Joyride – who has now become respected as one of the great all-round instrumentalists and entertainers in Australian hip hop music – met the other members of One Day a few years ago, Solo, Nick Lupi, Raph and Adit met at high school in Sydney’s inner-west, and the years have been instrumental in the comfort Joyride describes. They’ve taken it in their stride: last year’s debut Mainline debuted at number two and has been huge since, and the subsequent tour has been going full-pelt since. “You know, it’s something we’ve been planning for years and years, pretty much when we started making waves with all of our solo
projects,” Joyride says. “It was the right time, really. Everyone had a bit of time off, One Day Sundays [their regular show at Factory Theatre] was starting to pay off and we were just like, ‘We’ve been meaning to do this for so long, let’s just fucking do it.’ That was basically it. We already had everything set, we just needed to push it a little bit to get the whole thing rolling.” It’s clear to see that the eclecticism and dynamic edge of Mainline is the result of having so many creative angles in the one project. While the boys all might come from the same town, there’s a distinct difference in the presentation of each act, and the coming together of those turns it into something else. “A lot of the tracks on Mainline came from different periods, like some go back to 2011. It was a lot easier to get them down than we thought, because there was just so much energy. There was a lot of competition – I think everyone was trying to one-up each other, and that’s probably what makes it so good,” he laughs. WHEN & WHERE: 17 Apr, Woolly Mammoth; 10 May, Groovin The Moo, Townsville
THE MUSIC • 15TH APRIL 2015 • 19
ALBUM OF THE WEEK
★★★★½
album/ep reviews
GANG OF YOUTHS
ALABAMA SHAKES
Sony
Rough Trade/Remote Control
The Positions Sydney band Gang of Youths pull out all the stops for their debut album, The Positions. The ten songs found on the record flood well over the five-minute mark, trailing off into one another, lead singer Dave Leaupepe’s songwriting seemingly endless in its inspiration. Rarely does a writer arrive with such a concrete vision for their art, but Leaupepe bursts onto the scene with a powerful story to tell. The press release for this album made waves. “I was in a fouryear relationship with a girl who had a terminal illness and then I made a concept album about it with my friends,” it read. Everything else you could want to know about the story is better found in Leaupepe’s voice. The pain is most obvious in songs like Knuckles White Dry, landing near the middle of the album. It’s the quietest moment
Sound & Color
on The Positions, but somehow manages to be the most raw. Leaupepe sits by the piano and you can here it creak as he sings the lines “If I hear another ‘I love you, get well’ from someone we don’t know or that I didn’t tell, then I swear that I’ll show them a vision of hell; it gets tiresome you know.” This weariness could weigh the album down, but instead Leaupepe writes some of the most empowering sentiments to be found in modern rock music. “Though our pulses never change, I think that we should try,” he sings on Sjamboksa. The band has received many comparisons, but no one else is making music this earnest. Roshan Clerke
MOJO JUJU
So often when artists cast a wide net, the results are a pleasant but scattershot 20 • THE MUSIC • 15TH APRIL 2015
stuff, but maybe just them having more confidence in what they’re about, and what they can do musically. Shoegaze has an almost Motown swing to it with the singer soaring over it. Or it can switch down to the late-night torch song style of Over My Head. Conversely, the previewing Don’t Wanna Fight shows she can still do the heartfelt plea thing. The Shakes are maybe still a shit-hot bar band who you’d like to see just cranking out classic covers at 2am, but Sound & Color is a likely a few steps closer to their becoming more than that. Ross Clelland
Kindred Sony
ABC/Universal
The histories of jazz and blues are never far from Juju’s heart here, yet her own voice and drive are what pushes this album beyond its influences. From the impossibly cool funk of Sugarcoated to the withdrawn, almost bossa novasounding Rain It Down, it’s Juju that holds it all together.
The band has realised some changes were needed. Thus, Sound & Color has them necessarily broadening the palette. Not really risk-taking
★★★½
PASSION PIT
Seeing Red/Feeling Blue Mojo Juju has always been a solo artist. Even when she was fronting the seven-piece Snake Oil Merchants, her voice and craftsmanship was what shone through. Increasingly androgynous in both appearance and vocal presence, her style is no better exemplified than on Seeing Red/Feeling Blue’s opening track, Your Love. The bluesy, jazz-influenced pop song is an enchanting and relaxed doorway into an album that never sits still.
Even allowing they’re a solid musical unit, a lot of the appeal and reputation of Alabama Shakes has pretty much centred around their main weapon: the imposing vocals and presence of Brittany Howard. If unfamiliar, it’s one of those voices that comes straight out of her guts and heart and nails you to the wall. On their debut album, Boys & Girls, that was often enough. Their default rootsy, bluesy influences could work well – such as on breakout song Hold On – but elsewhere some songs could just drift along until the redemption of Howard going all Janis Joplin on their arse, elevating them to something else.
★★★½ collection of styles. In steeping her work in the tried and true songwriting languages of jazz, pop and blues-rock, Mojo Juju is able to avoid these pitfalls, while her voice and lyrical prowess keep everything standing as a conceptual piece. It’s in this way that the album should really heard, for as strong and single-worthy as nearly every track here is, it’s the sum of the parts that is most remarkable. Those looking for entirely new sounds should go elsewhere; those in the mood for damned solid vocal jazz will find much to love here Andrew McDonald
The world has caught up to Passion Pit. By now, the maximalist pop sound they favour saturates the airwaves of youth radio and the heaving masses of festival punters breathe it in like an opiate. So where does Michael Angelakos and his team go from there? They turn it up to 11. Kindred, their fourth studio release, is a super-dense, syrupy, glistening, orgasmic pop behemoth. Angelakos has publicly struggled with mental health issues during his career, and perhaps this is another valiant push against them. It’s almost overwhelming how bright and full this album is, and it’s disarming in its infantile enthusiasm. As with most of his songwriting, it’s only on closer inspection that his lyrics reveal a more sombre agenda, but thematically it’s deftly handled. The level of detail is high, but the overlapping tracks crush them into huge passages of
★★★½ texture and chord progression. A buoyant bass line maintains momentum, while Angelakos’ hyper-manipulated voice is a weapon that squeezes enjoyment out of the listener. Opening track, Lifted Up (1985), is an impressive opening gambit. All the cards are on the table, and rather than build and unfold and push outward, it shoots forward at breakneck speed. You’re on board or searching for another album immediately. It’s uncompromising, but there’s an awful lot to enjoy here. Maybe go listen to a Mazzy Star record afterwards though. Matt MacMaster
album/ep reviews
★★★★
TANGLED THOUGHTS OF LEAVING Yield To Despair Bird’s Robe/MGM This is the kind of event that makes life as a music journalist worth clinging onto. As promising as Tangled Thoughts Of Leaving’s early records and shows were, few could have foreseen just how accomplished and splendidly devastating their latest album would be. Exhausting in places, Yield To Despair brutalises with the weight of Mogwai and mesmerises with beguiling weaves of piano and outrageous peaks of high drama. Tangled Thoughts Of Leaving aren’t just top of the class; they’re educating the next generation.
★★★½
★★★★
DALLAS FRASCA
EELS
Social Family Records
E-Works/[PIAS] Australia
Some call it riff-rock. I call it getting torn a new one. The furious Dallas Frasca returns with Love Army, the third album sure to help the three-piece centred by Frasca build on the reputation built over the past nine years. At times tender (Here All Along, except for the last few bars) and at others devastating (Here All Along’s last few bars and most of the rest of the record), the throbbing riffs pound throughout. Including the flamenco-inspired Corazón En La Seda as the final track is genius. Plenty of layers to Dallas Frasca.
Well-constructed document of occasion illustrating latest incarnation of the idiosyncratic combo, which its equally individual leader – Mark Oliver Everett, better-known simply as E – describes as his band’s ‘soft bummer rock phase’. After past versions as anything from string-based chamber orchestra to hard-rock power trio, this is almost orthodox. Songs are plucked from many Eels eras, but their balance of genuine melancholy undercut with some wit offering up titles like It’s A Motherfucker remains intact, even in these grand surrounds. The best live albums make you wish you were there – this one does that.
Love Army
Dylan Stewart
Christopher H James
Royal Albert Hall
Ross Clelland
★★★★
RAISED BY EAGLES Diamonds In The Bloodstream Vitamin Records On their second album Raised By Eagles eschew some of the ragged country rock moves of their debut and head for classic songwriting territory with excursions into power pop and acoustic balladry. The intimate and explicitly emotional storytelling of Sugar Cane and the warm breezy sway of Honey counterpoints Window Seat’s Ryan Adams/ Tom Petty serenading swagger, the infectious Days Fall and the moving tale of Jackie, complete with Thin Lizzy meets Wilco spiralling guitar riff. In carving out their own niche in the world of alt.country Raised By Eagles should widen their appeal. Chris Familton
MORE REVIEWS
themusic.com.au/music/album-reviews
★★★½
★★★½
★★★
SLUG
SQUAREPUSHER
STEALING SHEEP
Memphis Industries/Shock
Warp/Inertia
Fronting as SLUG, Ian Black’s debut is Ripe and ready for consumption. Black delivers an awkward, angular collision of musical styles to produce a fractured take on artsy indie and post punk that throbs under the influence of funk. The obvious reference is Magazine covering Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin) and drifting into evil Goblin-esque horror soundtrack. The funky goodness of Greasy Mind has the punk funk grind of acts like LCD Soundsystem and The Rapture but with more bounce and grittier attitude. Field Music’s bass player has dropped an accomplished debut with plenty of punch.
Tired of humping threequarters of a tonne of gear to gigs, Squarepusher has stripped down here to a minimal electronic setup with selfdesigned software. Despite the inventory streamlining, Damogen Furies is more typically complex, Squarepusher-esque ultra-rave. An almost live album of sorts, every track was cut in one unedited take, each one a scarcely believable exploration of the logical limits of electronic composition. As accomplished as Damogen Furies is, it lacks those thunderbolts of idiosyncratic genius we’ve grown to expect from an artist who typically operates way out on his own.
Heavenly Recordings/ [PIAS] Australia
Ripe
Guido Farnell
Damogen Furies
Christopher H James
Not Real
Stealing Sheep’s debut showcased the outfit as slightly whacky and weird psychedelic folk types. Here the female UK trio takes the wraps off an album comprised of bright and sparkly electro pop. Their tunes are still defined by finely wrought melodies and luscious harmonies and the ladies still maintain a childishly innocent and cheeky presence. All of this is brought into the context of light electronic arrangements deploying a palette of soft pastels and subtly experimental sounds to create bright, breezy feel-good listening. Cuts like Greed reveal depth and detail just below the seductive gloss.
White Shadows – Secret Of Life Errors – Lease Of Life Earl Sweatshirt – I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside Red Jezebel – Coup De Grâce 4Arm – Survivalist Naked Bodies – Piranha
Guido Farnell THE MUSIC • 15TH APRIL 2015 • 21
live reviews
DARREN HANLON, THE BURNT SAUSAGES, THE GOON SAX The Zoo 10 Apr You can’t help but notice that the configuration of young local trio The Goon Sax is eerily reminiscent of early The Go-Betweens – lanky singer/ guitarist, shorter bassist taking vocal reins at intervals, blonde female drummer – which is possibly partly due to the taller frontman being Louis Forster, direct descendent of Robert. What impresses during the short set isn’t the band’s lineage
THE BURNT SAUSAGES @ THE ZOO. PIC: URBANWILDLIFE
but rather their fully-formed songs and lazily disarming aesthetic. The writing/delivery styles of Forster and James Harrison differ significantly but complement well as they intermittently swap roles, rarely straying from the formula of quiet, catchy jangle pop and wistful, well-crafted lyrics which clearly comes so naturally. The next set opens with three people dressed as huge snags in a massive silver-foil meat-tray prop hidden behind a wall of cling-wrap which they gleefully burst through – this can only be Melbourne ensemble The Burnt Sausages, self-confessed lead purveyors of the ‘BBQ punk’ oeuvre. It’s a barrage of shouty, synth-heavy anthems about all things snag-related, tracks with titles such as Sauce, Total Fire Ban, Get Out Of My Grill and Too Many Onions. They’re joined by a massive 22 • THE MUSIC • 15TH APRIL 2015
slice of bread and a huge pair of tongs and there’s a lot of bad food-related puns flying around – at times the shtick threatens to wear thin, but it’s done with just enough panache and intelligence to pull it out of the fire. Eventually it’s time for Gympie’s greatest ambassador and all-round good guy Darren Hanlon to enter the fray, kicking off with a solo rendition of My Love Is An Ocean Away, his pure diction and free-flowing way with words winning all over from the get-go. He jokes about being back on home turf and channels Violent Soho by dropping in the Gympie postcode (4570 for newbs) before moving onto the existential Folk Insomnia – dishing humour and gravitas in equal doses – before he’s
You Go and a solo acoustic cover of Giorgio Moroder & Phil Oakey’s Together In Electric Dreams to ensure the night finishes aptly with a room full of smiles and camaraderie. Steve Bell
MOBB DEEP, DWIZ OF OZ, FUNDAMENTAL ELEMENTS The Hi-Fi 12 Apr This is the 20th anniversary of the album that made Mobb Deep famous. Before Queensbridge’s nastiest duo take over, Fundamental Elements step out with DJ Johnny Love on the wheels and drop
DARREN HANLON @ THE ZOO. PIC: URBANWILDLIFE
joined by drummer Steph Hughes (of Dick Diver and Boomgates) and double bassist Lyndon Blue and they move onto Hiccups, the sound now fuller and abetted by Hughes’ soft voice which complements Hanlon’s vocals wonderfully. They’re tonight launching new album Where Did You Come From?, and its tunes like Trust Your Feelings (When You Wake) and Fear Of The Civil War stack up nicely against old chestnuts like Happiness Is A Chemical and Punk’s Not Dead. Hanlon remains effortlessly personable and this easy charm illuminates proceedings, a solo rendition of A To Z proving delightful as do versions of I Wish That I Was Beautiful For You, Electric Skeleton and The Chattanooga Shoot Shoot. The strong showing concludes with an encore of All These Things (replete with ukulele), the remorseful When
Rip Nicholson
MOBB DEEP @ THE HI-FI. PIC: TERRY SOO
some of that classic boom bap that has most heads in the building ready to nod to tracks Independent and 6 Feet Deep, the latter off their new EP, The Prerequisite. After a short and sweet set, Brisbane’s hungriest MC, Dwiz Of Oz comes out hard spittin’ fully automatic bars with DJ Immaculate behind him. He does his best to stamp his sincere commitment to the religion of solid hip hop, even if scares the front row. He slams out his set feeling the anxious tension mounting for Mobb Deep and ends by inviting the Grime Connoisseurs and some of his 469 collective to tear up a cypher. DJ SkiBeatz spins the interlude and out of almost nowhere Prodigy and Havoc – Mobb Deep – stroll out and start the show. They open with 2011’s Dead Man Shoes before stomping out tracks off The Infamous
anniversary album, with Survival Of The Fittest and Give Up The Goods and mixing up the setlist with new shit, Say Something, and some forgotten G-Unit club bangers. But for the final show of a long distance tour for two Queens, they look tired. They tear through their set in a routine fashion, though they never miss a beat, snapping bars back and forth, keeping it low on the call-andresponse for “Bris-baane” and feeding punters that solid uncut boom-bap hip hop we grew up on. Havoc provides plenty of warning to hold onto your drinks and your woman because it could get wild when they drop Shook Ones Pt. II to close the night – which may have been true had the house been packed. Still, a dope night.
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Counting Crows @ The Tivoli Marlon Williams @ Black Bear Lodge Jeremy Neale @ The Brightside Michael Franti & Spearhead @ The Tivoli
arts reviews British soldier Gary Hook – fresh out of basic training – has been dispatched with his unit on a peacekeeping initiative to the Northern Ireland capital of Belfast, an urban war zone where bombings and other acts of brutality are commonplace.
‘71
‘71
Film In cinemas 16 Apr
★★★ ★
‘71 is something of a masterclass in building tension and dread that explodes into mayhem and terror. It’s also something of an announcement that its director, Yann Demange (making his feature film debut after some acclaimed TV work) and star, Jack O’Connell, are forces to be reckoned with. As the title indicates, the year is 1971, and O’Connell’s young
On Gary’s first day out, a violent riot separates him from his squad, and over the course of one night the wounded, scared and lost soldier must evade militiamen out for blood while trying to find a way back to his barracks. ‘71 manages to deftly and intelligently explores the various facets of ‘the Troubles’ in Northern Ireland without getting bogged down in politics, all the while crafting a gripping, propulsive thriller. Demange is a genuine talent, handling the shifts in tone and pace with great dexterity. And watching ‘71 back to back with the bruising prison drama Starred Up, it’s blindingly clear that O’Connell warrants the hype building around him. Guy Davis
WHILE WE’RE YOUNG Film
In cinemas 16 Apr
★★★ ½
While the need to hit all the markers one traditionally touched upon to be a fully fledged adult – marriage, kids, home ownership, consistency of career – has either been rendered non-essential or made really difficult, the innate urge to consider yourself grown-up and conduct yourself as such still exists.
and professional frustrations, who get a new lease on life when they become friends with 20-something hipster couple Jamie (Girls’ Adam Driver) and Darby (Amanda Seyfried). Writer-director Baumbach (Greenberg, Frances Ha) occasionally overplays the generation gap aspect for the sake of a laugh – to his credit, the gags are pretty funny – but more often than not While We’re Young deals with self-image and self-awareness, not to mention the pleasures and pitfalls of acting one’s age, very well. Guy Davis
Noah Baumbach’s new film, While We’re Young, explores all of this, and does so with a spry, nimble wit that doesn’t diminish its insight or intelligence. Josh (Ben Stiller striking a fine balance between his trademark neuroticism and something a little more melancholic) and Cornelia (Naomi Watts, who really should be in everything ever) are mid-40s New Yorkers wrestling with minor personal
WHILE WE’RE YOUNG
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24 • THE MUSIC • 15TH APRIL 2015
the guide
MKO
Name/instrument played: Hannah Macklin – vocals, keys, synth How long have you been performing? As MKO, for just over three years. As a professional singer, for around eight years. But I began performing on stage at the age of seven. I can’t imagine my life without it. You’re on tour in the van – which band or artist is going to keep you happy if we throw them on the stereo? Outkast, Stevie Wonder, Georgia Anne Muldrow. Would you rather be a busted broke-butrevered Hank Williams figure or some kind of Metallica monster? I like monsters... but I’m gonna go with Hank Williams. Put in the hard yards, do my thang and earn respect the old-fashioned way. Which Brisbane bands before you have been an inspiration (musically or otherwise)? Regurgitator, Laneous & The Family Yah, Yeo & The Fresh Goods, Superfeather. What part do you think Brisbane plays in the music you make? I went into 4ZZZ this morning to do an interview with Quentin on his Friday morning show. Myka and I were affectionately admiring how grungy the station headquarters are, compared to the ‘shinier’ independent stations of Melbourne and Sydney. In Myka’s words, “Brisbane is a punk city.” It’s not glitzy (some of it tries to be, and it seems weird). It slides under the radar. I think this cultivates some incredible creativity, left-of-centre thinking and a DIY culture; all of which play a big role in my music. What’s in the pipeline for you musically in the short term? I’m currently working on finishing my debut album, which I started writing in New York at the end of 2014. I’m really excited about it and am putting everything I have into making it as perfect and true to my artistic vision as I can. I have very high self-standards! I don’t have a firm release date yet but am aiming for August/September, so there will be that plus an accompanying tour to look forward to. MKO plays The Bearded Lady on Friday 17 April. PIC: Terry Soo
THE MUSIC • 15TH APRIL 2015 • 25
eat/drink steph@themusic.com.au
CHILLI SAUCES
IT’S GETTING HOT IN HERE Lovers of chilli have probably heard about the Scoville scale, which measures the pungency (spicy heat) of chilli peppers or other spicy foods. It’s not exactly that precise because the results are determined by human trained testers, and human subjectivity means one individual’s palate, mouth heat receptors and so on vary from another’s.
Sarah Barratt covers the essential condiments every spice lover should have.
THIS EXISTS... Forget chilli chocolate; everyone’s tried that now. Then you have salted caramel and chilli ice cream, but even that’s not that adventurous a flavour any more. This other chilli-infused stuff, on the other hand... Sriracha This Thai spicy sauce – with the most recognisable bottle from Huy Fong Foods sporting an iconic green lid and white rooster logo – is undoubtedly one of the world’s most famous sauces. Made out of sugar, salt, vinegar, garlic and chilli peppers, it’s a good sauce for those easing into spicy. A law suit was filed against the Huy Fong Foods factory in LA due to ‘odours’ being considered a ‘public nuisance.’ Thankfully, the factory won. Chinese Chilli Oil Also known as Sichuan Chilli Oil, its main ingredients are coarsely chopped dried chilli or chilli flakes, peanut oil. Then it’s flavoured with garlic, peppercorns and spices. This one can get very intense, so be careful spreading it on your noodles or dim sum. Legend has it that the warming, detoxifying power of Sichuan peppers restores the equilibrium of locals. Tabasco Created in 1868 in Louisiana, it is purely Tabasco peppers, vinegar 26 • THE MUSIC • 15TH APRIL 2015
and salt. People love it so much there are now seven different kinds, including habanero and green pepper. They age it in barrels originally used for Jack Daniels Whiskey. Perfect for fries, burgers, or any other type of American fare. Japanese Chilli Powder Otherwise known as shichimi tōgarashi, which means ‘seven flavour chilli powder’, this pint sized pepper shaker packs a punch. It’s a mix of black peppercorns, red chilli, nori flakes, black sesame, poppy seeds, garlic and dried tangerine. There’s also nanami tōgarashi, whose ingredients bring out more of an orange tang. Great for adding to noodles or soups. Chipotle Hot Sauce For a more smoky flavour, there’s chipotle hot sauce, made with smoked jalapenos. Though no doubt spicy, it throws sweetness into the mix as well, so the heat feels rich and bold but not too full-on – perfect for those who are only looking for mid-level hotness.
Anyway let’s leave the science stuff and get down to it: what’s the hottest rated thing? Something called Carolina Reaper from South Carolina, USA is 2.2 million Scoville heat units (SHU) and officially the hottest pepper in the world. Apparently it can induce vomiting and hallucinations (there are videos on the internet that you should probably go watch). Compare that with paprika sitting at 100–900 SHU; jalapeno, gochujang and poblano at 1000–4000; cayenne and tabasco peppers at 30,000–50,000; bird’s eye chilli at 100,000–225,500; and the habanero chilli at 100,000–350,000.
Raspberry Chipotle Sauce: The Tabasco company has combined its Chipotle Pepper Sauce with raspberry puree to make a vinaigrette with a kick. Chile Pepper Shampoo: A fair few hair care brands make this, spruiking the pepper’s ability to penetrate the scalp and pores to stimulate hair growth for those with balding of thinning hair. Capsaicin cream: Capsaicin is the active ingredient in chilli peppers. You’d think people wouldn’t wanna feel that burning sensation on their skin, but apparently some use capsaicin skin cream to relieve pain (joint, muscle, nerve, from arthritis etc). Capsaicin is also used in lip-plumping make-up products; it is thought to increase blood flow and circulation, or just irritate and inflame the lips (just a little, for that perf pout?).
PIC: TARAGUI
CAN YA BEAT THE HEAT? What’s your chilli style? Baby Mouth Delicate palate. Once ate a tiny slice of chilli by accident and had to drink a litre of milk. Mild Mate Loves a bit of spice but can’t withstand much at all. Orders a mild curry and has a real hard time getting through it. Medium Member Has advanced past the ‘mild’ level of meals. Owns at least a couple of chilli condiments/products they use regularly. Strong Soul Has chilli knowledge; can differentiate between the various ‘burns’. Motto is something like, “If it’s not hurting, it’s not hot enough.” Numbed up Seems to be immune to the heat of chilli. While everyone else is teary-eyed from chilli, this person says casually, “Wasn’t hot at all.”
the guide qld.live@themusic.com.au
INDIE NEWS
CHART WRAP
ODDSOME FOURSOME
WORD UP
COUNTRY BOY
Having test driven a bunch of new tunes and revving up some oldies and goodies at Coolangatta Hotel last month, Bootleg Rascal are not back on Sunday at The Bearded Lady to show you a good time.
Melbourne five-piece Tully On Tully are heading up the Pacific Highway to launch their latest single, All These Words, Saturday at The Bearded Lady, with special guests Slow Turismo.
Steve Grady hits us with his EP A Year’s Gone By. It’s melancholic alternative country with a splash of ganjo playing. He’ll be supported by Welsh singer-songwriter Sian Evans on Friday, Skukum Lounge, Ashgrove.
CYCLONE RELIEF
MORE MORRIS
HOOKED
On Sunday The Nook & Cranny in Nambour hosts a fundraiser for victims of the recent cyclone that devastated Vanuatu. Among those playing on the day are in2nation, Bearfoot, Barry Charles, Annie J & Fusion, Matt Stillert and Hope Springs.
Australian Legend Russell Morris will be at the Caloundra Powerboat Club’s Pelican Room on Wednesday. Hitting the height of his fame in the ‘60s, Morris has seen some recent success with Van Diemen’s Land.
Chainsaw Hookers have just released We Want Your Blood and they’re raring to rip it up on stage. They play Friday, Beetle Bar and Saturday, The Triffid, so head on down and support them.
PICK IT GOOD
DANCE WITH DALI
SOUNDS OF AUTUMN
It’ll be a night of picking, bending, tapping and sliding as some of Brisbane’s most talented virtuosos perform at Brisbane Jazz Club on Thursday. Featuring Bruce Woodward, Ravi Welsh, Atienne Bakker and more.
Indie dance/hip hop trio Dali & The Paper Band, direct from Hobart, will launch their new EP, Island, recorded on the remote Bruny Island, off the Tasmanian coast, Friday at Ric’s Bar.
Travelling under his middle name, Packwood, Melbourne artist Bayden Hine is heading up the Pacific Highway to introduce the first EP, Autumnal, from his debut album, Vertumnus, Sunday at Black Bear Lodge.
EXCELLENT
MEET HAYLEY
FORWARD THINKING
Release The Hounds recorded their latest track Sleeping Bags in a desolate old Brisbane warehouse, and rocked the shit out of it. They play Saturday, Crowbar; 23 Apr, Ric’s Bar, Brisbane; 25 Apr, 4ZZZ Carpark, Brisbane.
Produced by Bill Chambers, Even is the debut EP from Brisbane country singersongwriter Hayley Marsten. The first single, Storm In A D Cup, is out now, and she launches the EP Saturday at The Menagerie.
Rust In The Wheat are in the final stages of completing their debut release, and to keep the momentum up, they’re playing a show at The Milk Factory, Sunday.
FOR MORE HEAD TO THEMUSIC.COM.AU
AWAKEN I AM
Queensland quintet Awaken I Am have emerged as surprise top-five debutantes on the Carlton Dry Independent Music Charts, making the week’s highest new entry with their recent full-length effort Shields & Crowns grabbing them the #5 spot on the ladder. Otherwise it was a quiet week across the board, with only two further fresh albums making the cut on the fulllength stakes this week, namely Time Is Now by Rose Carleo (#7) and Everything Ablaze by Belle Haven (#11). In fact, the only other debut this week comes from The Jungle Giants, whose new single, Every Kind Of Way, enters the top 20 tracks for radio play this week at #17. There’s some strong upward momentum from #1 Dads afoot, with About Face hauling it up seven spots to reach #4 this week, while The Delta Riggs’ Dipz Zebazios re-enters the top 20 at #19. Sia’s Big Girls Cry does the same on the singles chart, re-entering at #16, one spot below fellow re-entrants #1 Dads and So Soldier, featuring Ainslie Willis (#15). There’s solid movement here, too, for one Chet Faker — though Talk Is Cheap drops a spot to #4 this week, Gold jumps up six spots to make it well back inside the top 10, at #6. Last week’s top two placeholders on both album and singles ladders — Courtney Barnett’s Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit, and Sia’s 1000 Forms Of Fear on the former, Jarryd James’ Do You Remember and Sia’s Elastic Heart on the latter — remain unmoved from their spots. THE MUSIC • 15TH APRIL 2015 • 27
the guide qld.live@themusic.com.au
ALBUM FOCUS
FLIGHT FACILITIES Answered by: Hugo Gruzman Album title? Down To Earth Where did the title of your new album come from? It was one of the last songs we wrote for the album and it seemed to fit as both a metaphor for the people we work with, and a tonguein-cheek pun for our brand. How many releases do you have now? It’s our first album, but it’s proceeded six previous singles. How long did it take to write/ record? It’s been about eight months of solid work, excluding some of the songs
HAVE YOU HEARD
we started back in April 2013, and previously released singles.
it be and why? Any album by Earth, Wind & Fire.
Was anything in particular inspiring you during the making? We’ve always been inspired by other artists and albums we have listened to our whole lives. In particular those that we have listened to since we started DJing, eg. Mylo, Daft Punk, Chemical Bros etc.
Greatest rock’n’roll moment of your career to date? 15 years ago, the idea of playing to a packed house at The Basement in Sydney was a big deal to me and last year I got to do that while on tour with funk band Kerbside Collection.
What’s your favourite song on it? It’s hard to say. We go through different moods. Right now it’s Heart Attack feat. Owl Eyes. Will you do anything differently next time? Try to balance the writing with seeing friends more often. Something we didn’t do last time. When and where is your launch/ next gig? 10 May, Groovin The Moo, Townsville Website link for more info? flightfacilities.com
THE RAVI WELSH TRIO Answered by: Ravi Welsh When did you start making music and why? In 1989, I had a George Benson album on cassette. I liked how he sang along with his solos, so I did too. His melodicphrasing heavily influenced me when I first picked up the guitar. Sum up your musical sound in four words? Jazz infused world grooves. If you could support any band in the world - past or present - who would it be? It could only be Mr Georgie B.
Why should people come and see your band? I like to think we bring something different to the Brisbane music scene. At the end of the day, it’s better than watching Australian Idol. When and where for your next gig? This coming Thursday (16 Apr) for String Theory at Brisbane Jazz Club. Looking forward to playing alongside some hefty guitar players. Website link for more info? facebook.com/theraviwelshtrio
If you could only listen to one album forevermore, what would
SINGLE FOCUS
SINGLE FOCUS track is being released as a single but you may find it points in the direction of a future release.
TSUN Answered by: Karl S Williams Single title? Indro Chaudhuri What’s the song about? ‘Indro’ is about understanding that you can shape your own reality and therefore embrace or change your engagement with it. How long did it take to write/ record? We had been jamming the main riff for a while but the vocals were elusive. Then one jam it just came quite spontaneously, almost streamof-consciousness. We recorded it very soon after over two days. Is this track from a forthcoming release/existing release? This 28 • THE MUSIC • 15TH APRIL 2015
What was inspiring you during the song’s writing and recording? Experimenting with shorter forms, more dynamic changes and less words. To create a kind of psychedelic raga and through the trancelike riff, inspire a heightened state and understanding of reality. We’ll like this song if we like... Tomorrow Never Knows by The Beatles. Do you play it differently live? We like to have a little jam at the start, kind of like the preface to a raga. I have a new synthesiser so we have some fun with that. When and where is your launch/next gig? 15 May, Elsewhere, Gold Coast; 16 May, The Foundry; 23 May, The Northern, Byron Bay. Website link for more info? tsunsounds.com S U P P O R T I N G
SASKWATCH Answered by: Liam McGorry Single title? I’ll Be Fine What’s the song about? It’s about being angry at someone you care about. How long did it take to write/record? We recorded it in Philadelphia while we were over there to do our album late last year. It was super fun to record. We did it live and pretty raw... it was cathartic, really. Is this track from a forthcoming release/existing release? Yeah it’s from our new album Sorry I Let It Come Between I N D E P E N D E N T
Us coming out 12 Jun via Northside/Remote Control. What was inspiring you during the song’s writing and recording? Friends, being away from home, Karen Dalton, SleaterKinney, Velvet Underground. We’ll like this song if we like... Saskwatch. Do you play it differently live? Yeah quite a bit! When and where is your launch/ next gig? The Zoo, 18 Apr. Website link for more info? saskwatch.com.au
A U S S I E
M U S I C
the guide qld.gigguide@themusic.com.au
THE MUSIC PRESENTS The Beards: Spotted Cow 30 Apr, The Triffid 1 May, The Northern 3 May
San Cisco: SolBar 14 May, Coolangatta Hotel 15 May, The Triffid 16 & 17 (U18) May
Urban Country Music Festival: Caboolture 1-3 May
Supersuckers & The Bellrays: The Zoo 22 May
sleepmakeswaves: The Northern 1 May, The Zoo 2 May
Ben Howard: The Tivoli 28 May
Peace: The Zoo 6 May Groovin’ The Moo: Townsville Cricket Grounds 10 May
WED 15
Karaoke: Alexandra Headlands Hotel, Alexandra Headland Quintessential Doll + Hannah Rosa + Fieu: Black Bear Lodge, Fortitude Valley Trivia: Blue Pacific Hotel, Woorim Daniel Champagne: Brisbane Powerhouse (Visy Theatre), New Farm Trivia: Glenmore Tavern (Sports Bar), Norman Gardens
Jebediah: The Tivoli 12 Jun The Church: The Triffid 4 Jul
Jared Alexander: Carina Leagues Club (Main Lounge), Carina Blues & Roots Open Mic Night with Various Artists: Chardons Corner Hotel, Annerley Vessel Born + Tempest Rising + Red Bee + Let The Number Be X: Currumbin Creek Tavern, Currumbin Waters Stand Up Comedy Open Mic Night + Various Artists: Dog and Parrot Tavern, Robina Karaoke: Glenmore Tavern, Norman Gardens
Trivia: Lawnton Tavern, Lawnton
Trainspotters feat. Big Bad Echo + Houses + On VHS: Grand Central Hotel, Brisbane
Big Jam with Chris Ramsay: Manly Hotel, Manly
360 + Coin Banks + Leva: Harvey Road Tavern, Clinton
Open Mic Night + Various Artists: Mick O’Malley’s, Brisbane
Karaoke: Imperial Hotel, Beenleigh
Little Aztec + Trapped Admirals: Ric’s Bar, Fortitude Valley Open Mic Night + Various Artists: Solbar (Front Bar ), Maroochydore Trivia: Stock Exchange Hotel, Brisbane Urban Sounds feat. Various DJs: The Beer Garden, Surfers Paradise Luna Sands + Electric Zebra + Doom Mountain: The Brightside, Fortitude Valley
Karaoke: Irish Finnegans, Condon Charlotte McLean + Louise Denson: JMI Live, Bowen Hills Des Reid: Loving Hut, Mount Gravatt Karaoke: Manly Hotel, Manly Karaoke: Prince of Wales Hotel, Nundah Martin Moreno + Lance Patrick + G Reilly: Sit Down Comedy Club, Paddington Those Old Soles: Solbar (Lounge Bar), Maroochydore
Trivia: The Fox Hotel, South Brisbane
Trivia: Springfield Tavern, Springfield
Trivia: Vale Hotel (Barra Bar), Aitkenvale
Karaoke: Springwood Hotel, Rochedale South
THU 16
Trivia: Albion Hotel, Albion
The Seven Ups + Kerbside Collection + DJ Paprika: The Bearded Lady, West End
Karaoke: Alderley Arms Hotel, Alderley
Fresh Thursday+ Various DJs: The Beer Garden, Surfers Paradise
Open Mic Night + Various Artists: Balaclava Hotel, Earlville
Funeral For A Friend + Vices: The Brightside, Fortitude Valley
Open Mic Night + Various Artists: Bay Central Tavern, Urraween The Flame Fields + Goldhearts + Smoking Martha + Salt & Steel: Beetle Bar, Brisbane Trivia: Bellbowrie Tavern, Bellbowrie Lia Mice: Black Bear Lodge, Fortitude Valley Various DJs: Bourbon Bar, Surfers Paradise
GIG OF THE WEEK LIA MICE: 16 APR, BLACK BEAR LODGE
Trivia: The Brightside, Fortitude Valley The Bright Files feat. DJ sets by Teen Girls + Jeremy Neale + Jerry Blam + Baseball Fury + Zex: The Brightside, Fortitude Valley
Thundamentals + Baro: The Zoo, Fortitude Valley
Various Artists: Commercial Hotel, Nerang
Trivia: Villa Noosa Hotel, Noosaville
Frenzal Rhomb + The Decline: Coolangatta Hotel, Coolangatta
Luke Vibert: Woolly Mammoth, Fortitude Valley
Various Artists: Coomera Tavern, Upper Coomera
FRI 17
Gigahertz + Hayley Wilson + Jessica Sarah + Counterfeit Umbrellas + more: Albany Creek Tavern, Albany Creek Various Artists: Alexandra Headlands Hotel, Alexandra Headland Karaoke: Anglers Arms Hotel, Southport Chainsaw Hookers + The Wrath + Dark Relic + The Undeadnecks: Beetle Bar, Brisbane Calais + Youth Allowance + Chinatown Car Park: Black Bear Lodge, Fortitude Valley Various Artists: Blue Pacific Hotel, Woorim Various DJs: Bourbon Bar, Surfers Paradise Radiotheft: Breakfast Creek Hotel, Albion Demi Lovato: Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre, South Bank
Various Artists: Ferny Grove Tavern, Ferny Grove Various Artists: Gilhooleys Irish Pub, Brisbane Graham Moes: Habitat Restaurant & Bar, South Brisbane Liquid Revival: Irish Finnegans, Condon Steve Grady + Sian Evans: Junk Bar, Ashgrove Karaoke: Kedron Park Hotel, Lutwyche Various Artists: Kirwan Tavern, Kirwan Le Breeze: Lambert’s Restaurant, Kangaroo Point
About Time: Lock ‘n’ Load Bistro, West End
Teenage Dreams + Josh RH Daveta: Brisbane Powerhouse (Visy Theatre), New Farm The Devil Wears Leigh Buchanan + Leigh Buchanan: Brisbane Powerhouse (Visy Theatre), New Farm
Various Artists: Capalaba Tavern (Arvo), Capalaba
Donavon Frankenreiter + Karl S Williams: The Triffid, Newstead
Nicky Night Time: Elsewhere, Surfers Paradise
Knockoff feat. Various Artists: Brisbane Powerhouse (Turbine Platform), New Farm
Fingerprint: Brothers Leagues Club, Manunda
Jam Night + Various Artists: Capalaba Tavern, Capalaba
The Seven Ups: Eat Street Markets, Hamilton
Toadally Fabulous Fridays + Various Artists: Lawnton Tavern, Lawnton
Open Mic Night + Various Artists: The Four Mile Creek Hotel, Strathpine
Ravi Welsh Trio: Brisbane Jazz Club, Kangaroo Point
Various Artists: Dalrymple Hotel (Sports Bar), Garbutt
Paul Williams + Friends: Brisbane Jazz Club, Kangaroo Point
Karaoke: The Four Mile Creek Hotel (Sports Bar), Strathpine
Hemingway + Garrett Kato + Kommiss: The Milk Factory Kitchen & Bar, South Brisbane
Guttermouth + The Decline + Release The Hounds + The Flangipanis: Crowbar, Fortitude Valley
Graham Moes: Cardigan Bar, Sandgate Romeo’s Apprentice: Carina Leagues Club (Main Lounge), Carina
S U P P O R T I N G
Majestique: Logan Diggers Club, Logan Central DJ LP + DJ Otto: Love Nightlife, Broadbeach Ace DJs: Manly Hotel, Manly Funeral For A Friend + Vices: Miami Tavern (Shark Bar), Miami James Sinclair: Noosa Reef Hotel (Soda Nightclub), Noosa Heads Karaoke: North Lakes Tavern, Mango Hill Double Vision: Prince of Wales Hotel, Nundah
I N D E P E N D E N T
A U S S I E
Green Jam Sessions with Nick Karpin Quartet: QPAC (Melbourne Street Green), South Brisbane Dali & The Paper Band: Ric’s Bar, Fortitude Valley Various DJs: Russell Tavern, Dalby Martin Moreno + Lance Patrick + G Reilly: Sit Down Comedy Club, Paddington Wolfmother: Solbar, Maroochydore Jesse Witney: Solbar (Lounge Bar), Maroochydore Cheap Fakes + Chocolate Strings: Soundlounge, Currumbin Karaoke: Springfield Tavern, Springfield Hanlon Brothers: Stock Exchange Hotel (Rooftop Garden), Brisbane Various Artists: Stones Corner Hotel (T-Bar), Greenslopes Amos Pella: Story Bridge Hotel (The Corner Bar), Kangaroo Point DJ Ritchie: Story Bridge Hotel (Shelter Bar), Kangaroo Point Donavon Frankenreiter: Tanks Arts Centre, Edge Hill MKO + Scraps + Superfeather: The Bearded Lady, West End Various Artists: The Beer Garden, Surfers Paradise Northeast Party House: The Brightside, Fortitude Valley Felicity Groom + Olympia: The Foundry, Fortitude Valley Various DJs: The Four Mile Creek Hotel, Strathpine Blackstreet: The Hi-Fi, West End Ingrid James Duo + Louise Denson: The Lido Cafe & Restaurant, Ascot DJ Nick One: The Milk Factory Kitchen & Bar, South Brisbane Fader: The Plough Inn, South Brisbane Pablo Francisco: The Tivoli, Fortitude Valley 360 + Coin Banks + Leva: The Triffid, Newstead
M U S I C
the guide qld.gigguide@themusic.com.au Thundamentals + Baro: The Zoo, Fortitude Valley Karaoke: Waterfront Hotel, Diddillibah One Day + Briggs + Jayteehazard: Woolly Mammoth, Fortitude Valley Me & Jodie Lee: Wynnum RSL, Wynnum
SAT 18
DJ Indy Andy: Albany Creek Tavern (Creek Bar), Albany Creek
Kid Kenobi + James Sinclair + Notbrothers + DJ Jasti: Noosa Reef Hotel (Soda Nightclub), Noosa Heads
Trivia: Mick O’Malley’s, Brisbane
360 + Coin Banks + Leva: Racehorse Hotel, Booval
Trivia: Pub Mooloolaba, Mooloolaba
Trivia: Mt Pleasant Tavern, North Mackay
The Jimmy Watts Band : Royal Mail Hotel, Goodna
Trivia: The Four Mile Creek Hotel, Strathpine
Various DJs: Russell Tavern, Dalby
TUE 21
Pilot + Pilots + Boss Moxi + Ocean Alley: Solbar, Maroochydore
Trivia: Alderley Arms Hotel, Alderley
Luke Bennet: Solbar (Lounge Bar), Maroochydore
Various Artists: Alexandra Headlands Hotel, Alexandra Headland
Trivia: Allenstown Hotel, Allenstown
The Very: Story Bridge Hotel (The Corner Bar), Kangaroo Point
Trivia: Australian National Hotel, Woolloongabba
The Gonzo Show + Galapogos + The Sea Shall Not Have Them + Modern Strangers: Beetle Bar, Brisbane
DJ Ritchie: Story Bridge Hotel (Shelter Bar), Kangaroo Point
Hey Geronimo + The Bacchanales: Black Bear Lodge, Fortitude Valley Various DJs: Bourbon Bar, Surfers Paradise Two Way Street: Breakfast Creek Hotel, Albion Teenage Dreams + Josh RH Daveta: Brisbane Powerhouse (Visy Theatre), New Farm The Devil Wears Leigh Buchanan + Leigh Buchanan: Brisbane Powerhouse (Visy Theatre), New Farm Karaoke: Brook Hotel, Mitchelton Tommy T-Bone: Brothers Leagues Club, Manunda Karaoke: Camp Hill Hotel, Camp Hill Karaoke: Capalaba Tavern, Capalaba Country Boys: Carina Leagues Club (Main Lounge), Carina Tempest Rising + Red Bee + Let The Number Be X: Chardons Corner Hotel, Annerley Guttermouth + The Decline + Release The Hounds: Crowbar, Fortitude Valley Karaoke: Crowbar, Fortitude Valley The Dawn Chorus: Eat Street Markets, Hamilton Wiwek: Family Nightclub, Fortitude Valley Hurst + Ghost Audio + Pyre & Ice + Rohan: Grand Central Hotel, Brisbane Karaoke: Lawnton Tavern, Lawnton Wandering Eyes: Lock ‘n’ Load Bistro, West End Silk: Logan Diggers Club, Logan Central
Pete Cullen: Habitat Restaurant & Bar, South Brisbane
The Floyd Family Breakdown: The Bearded Lady, West End
Trivia: Irish Finnegans, Condon Trivia: Kedron Park Hotel, Lutwyche
Various Artists: The Beer Garden, Surfers Paradise
LNL Jazz feat. Brett Fowler Trio: Lock ‘n’ Load Bistro, West End
Frenzal Rhomb: The Brightside, Fortitude Valley Karaoke: The Four Mile Creek Hotel, Strathpine
Trivia: Manly Hotel, Manly
Architects + Stick To Your Guns + Being As An Ocean + Stories: The Hi-Fi, West End Hayley Marsten + Bree De Rome: The Menagerie, Kelvin Grove Milk Bar Bars with Fundamental Elements + Verbill + Tailor Made + Nuggy G + more: The Milk Factory Kitchen & Bar, South Brisbane Band Together for Vanuatu feat. Bearfoot + In2nation + Barry Charles + Matt Stillert + more: The Nook & Cranny, Nambour Jezelle: The Plough Inn, South Brisbane Retro Room: The Plough Inn, South Brisbane Metal Heart Festival 2015 feat. Heaven The Axe + Segression + A Breach Of Silence + Azreal + Inhailed + Holistic + The Black Swamp + Undermine The Supremacy + Shifting The Paradigm + Chainsaw Hookers + more: The Triffid, Newstead Saskwatch + Dorsal Fins + Robert Muinos: The Zoo, Fortitude Valley Juno Reactor + Grouch + Orbit + more: Union Jack Hotel & The Jack Backpackers, Cairns Karaoke: Victoria Point Tavern, Victoria Point Various Artists: Wilsonton Hotel (Wright Bar), Wilsonton
DJ LP: Love Nightlife, Broadbeach Various Artists: Manly Hotel, Manly
Craig Shaw: Wynnum RSL, Wynnum
Various Artists: Miami Tavern, Miami
Trivia: Buderim Tavern, Buderim
Slow Turismo + Tully On Tully: The Bearded Lady, West End
Tkay Maidza + UV Boi + Joy. + Catlips + Problems: Woolly Mammoth, Fortitude Valley
Ace DJs: Manly Hotel, Manly
Sweet K: Brothers Leagues Club, Manunda
SUN 19
Ger Fennelly: Mick O’Malley’s, Brisbane
All Our Exes Live In Texas: Black Bear Lodge, Fortitude Valley
Karaoke: Mt Pleasant Tavern, North Mackay
Various DJs: Bourbon Bar, Surfers Paradise Tom Foolery: Breakfast Creek Hotel, Albion
Trivia: Prince of Wales Hotel, Nundah
360: 17 APR, THE TRIFFID
Trivia: Royal Exchange Hotel, Toowong
The Demon Drink: Brewski, Brisbane
Bearfoot: Solbar (Lounge Bar), Maroochydore
Swing Central feat. Brad Leaver: Brisbane Jazz Club, Kangaroo Point
Comedy Night with Various Artists: Stones Corner Hotel, Greenslopes
Fingerprint: Brothers Leagues Club, Manunda
DJ Ritchie: Story Bridge Hotel (Shelter Bar), Kangaroo Point
Sunday Session + Various Artists: Capalaba Tavern, Capalaba
Bootleg Rascal: The Bearded Lady, West End
Midnight Groove Duo: Carina Leagues Club (Main Lounge), Carina Tex Perkins + Charlie Owen: Coolangatta Hotel (Downstairs Bar), Coolangatta Michael Eotvos: Coomera Tavern, Upper Coomera Various Artists: Ferny Grove Tavern, Ferny Grove Traditional Irish Session + Various Artists: Gilhooleys Irish Pub, Brisbane Josh Lovegrove: Habitat Restaurant & Bar, South Brisbane Progressive Tan: Lock ‘n’ Load Bistro, West End Various Artists: Manly Hotel, Manly Karaoke: Manly Hotel, Manly Ger Fennelly: Mick O’Malley’s, Brisbane Blues Jam + Various Artists: Morrison Hotel, Woolloongabba Jodie-Joy: New Globe Theatre, Fortitude Valley Sunday Sets + Various Artists: Noosa Reef Hotel (Irish Garden), Noosa Heads Decked Out Sundays + Various Artists + Various DJs: Royal Exchange Hotel, Toowong Luke Bennet: Solbar, Maroochydore
S U P P O R T I N G
Ella Fence: The Cambus Wallace, Nobby Beach
Trivia: Springwood Hotel, Rochedale South Trivia: Stones Corner Hotel, Greenslopes Brazilian-Backpacker-Uni Night+ Various Artists: The Beer Garden, Surfers Paradise Nigel Jones: The Plough Inn, South Brisbane Ace Frehley: Townsville Civic Theatre, Railway Estate
Margarita Sundays + Various Artists: The Fox Hotel, South Brisbane Napalm Death + Carcass + Extortion: The Hi-Fi, West End Rust in the Wheat + Terence Boyd Thallon: The Milk Factory Kitchen & Bar, South Brisbane Kitty Hawk: The Plough Inn, South Brisbane For The Love Of Music with Jukebox Heroes + Cordeaux + Captain Dreamboat + Celestino + Archetypes + Art of Abduction: The Triffid, Newstead Sunday Arvo Social Jam Session + Various Artists: Waterfront Hotel, Diddillibah Nik Phillips: Wynnum RSL, Wynnum
MON 20
Trivia: Alexandra Headlands Hotel, Alexandra Headland Karaoke: Australian National Hotel, Woolloongabba Trivia: Belmont Tavern, Belmont Jim Jefferies: Cairns Civic Theatre, Cairns Trivia: Kallangur Tavern, Kallangur Trivia: Kirwan Tavern, Kirwan
I N D E P E N D E N T
A U S S I E
M U S I C
THE MUSIC • 15TH APRIL 2015 • 31
32 • THE MUSIC • 15TH APRIL 2015