Brag#608

ISSUE NO. 608 APRIL 15, 2015

FREE Now picked up at over 1,600 places across Sydney and surrounds. thebrag.com

MUSIC, FILM, THEATRE + MORE

INSIDE This Week

THE WOMBATS

The Liverpool lads explore more sounds on their third album.

PAUL MAC

Ten years in the making, his new record is here at last.

ROSS NOBLE FEATURING

LIA MICE

Taking in pop influences from around the world.

THE AMORPHOUS ANDROGYNOUS

A far-out trip through Oz psych.

Plus

DARKC3LL MAGIC AMERICA NEW MUSIC REVIEWS

LANCE PATRICK , DEANNE SMITH, JOSIE LONG, ONE MAN BREAKING BAD AND MORE

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THE NEW ALBUM

•

R E L E A S E D F R I D AY 1 7 A P R I L

ALABAMA SHAKES SOUND & COLOR

COURTNEY BARNETT Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit

Touring nationally April-May

IBEYI The debut album from 19 year old French Cuban twins, Naomi and Lisa-Kainde Diaz, daughters of the late Cuban percussionist Anga Diaz.

Together the twins combine modern pop, hip-hop and electronic influences with the traditional sounds of their father’s Yorùbán culture.

#1 artist to watch in 2015 THE OBSERVER UK

“Awesome and otherworldly.”

STEREOGUM

M O U N TA I N G O AT S

TOBIAS JESSO JR

Beat The Champ

Goon

John Darnielle returns with a new album focused on his love of professional wrestling.

“There’s a Jonathan Richman via Go-Betweens charm… I love it.”

BEAT

“One of the greatest wordsmiths in rock’n’roll “ DOUBLE J

“Wonderfully plainspoken songs, which bring to mind a less snarky Randy Newman or Harry Nilsson, or a more hopeful Nick Drake.”

PITCHFORK

“Little short of wondrous” NME “Gorgeous, subdued delight of a debut” THE GUARDIAN

R E M O T E C O N T R O L R E C O R D S . C O M BRAG :: 608 :: 15:04:15 :: 9

rock music news welcome to the frontline: what’s goin’ on around town... with Meggan Turner and Sarah Basford

songwriters’ secrets WITH KARL

S. WILLIAMS

The First Song I Wrote Songwriting Secrets I don’t recall what the first song If there is a secret, I am yet to 1.

3. was called but it was a kind of folk uncover it. Perhaps it’s better that

the human spirit. Love is one of a few things that I feel transcends all else.

mystical thing over two arpeggiated chords, inspired by ‘The Battle Of Evermore’ by Led Zeppelin. I was a late bloomer musically, so I think I was 20 at the time, locked in a cream college dorm, looking for escape. It probably contained similar references to Tolkien and had about 12 increasingly florid verses.

The Song That Changed My Life 5.

‘Suzanne’ by Leonard Cohen, from

The Last Song I Released The last song I released is 2. called ‘Is This Love?’ The newly released version differs slightly from the album as it has been given some extra special magic from Victor Van Vugt (who has worked with Nick Cave and Beth Orton, among others). It was inspired by the uncertainty of falling in love, because it seemed to me at the time a necessary element of love was the initial fall into uncertainty and casting off a certain amount of caution.

Swedish guitar legend Yngwie Malmsteen will return to Australia this year. The tour announcement follows Malmsteen’s induction into the Swedish Music Hall of Fame last month for his more than 35 years in the industry.

Malmsteen will play Perth, Hobart, Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney and Adelaide, as well as a show in Auckland. He’ll be at the Factory Theatre on Saturday June 13.

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RAISED BY EAGLES

Neil Finn

IT’S ONLY NEIL FINN

With the exception of two shows in 2010 and a set at Meredith Music Festival, Neil Finn will be playing two solo east coast dates for the first time in ten years. Presenting a mix of material from his Split Enz and Crowded House days, as well as some from the Finn Brothers and his three solo albums, Finn will be playing two shows in Sydney and Melbourne in May. He’s set to showcase his talents in an intimate setting, with a mix of acoustic and electric, guitar and piano.

“I find playing solo to be a very free environment where I’m able to explore strange tangents, reinvent old songs, reminisce with friends and lampoon at will,” he said. “I love it.” Check it all out at City Recital Hall Angel Place on Saturday May 30. Tickets for the general public will go on sale at 10am this Friday April 17.

Raised By Eagles have released their second album Diamonds In The Bloodstream and announced some tour dates to support the release. For the last two years, the Melburnians have been creating a name for themselves, playing to packed houses across their home city. Now, they’re venturing out and sharing their music with the rest of the country on a three-date east coast tour. Diamonds In The Bloodstream will be available from Monday April 20, and you can see them playing with Ruby Boots at Newtown Social Club on Thursday May 21.

Kelly Clarkson

KELLY CLARKSON’S SPECIAL DATES

American Idol winner and Grammy Award winner Kelly Clarkson has confirmed that she will be visiting Australia in May. The visit will be in support of her newest album, Piece By Piece. While she’s here, Clarkson will be performing a special one-off show at The Star Event Centre. The show is an exclusive, with tickets limited to 2,500.

Piece By Piece, Clarkson’s sixth studio album, was released in late February to positive reviews. She’ll play on Friday May 8.

Pallbearer

AC/DC COME HOME

The legendary AC/DC will embark on a huge stadium tour on home shores later this year.

Fresh from headlining Coachella, the legendary rockers will bring their Rock Or Bust tour to Australia in November and December. It will be their first tour in Australia for five years.

These will be AC/DC’s first dates on home soil without Malcolm Young, while Phil Rudd will be replaced on drums by Chris Slade. Catch ’em on Wednesday December 4 at ANZ Stadium. Tickets go on sale Monday April 20.

ZUBIN KANGA’S DARK TWIN

Zubin Kanga has announced that he’s bringing his experimental piano concert, Dark Twin, to Australia in May. Experimenting with lo-fi tools such as portable radios as well as more complex instruments, Kanga brings a new

PALLBEARER’S DOOM

Doom metal up-and-comers Pallbearer have announced their very first Australian tour to take place this June. Formed in 2008 and releasing their first full-length album Sorrow And Extinction in 2012, the four-piece from Little Rock, Arkansas released a second album Foundations Of Burden in August last year. They’ve become known for their heavy sound, rich harmonies and ten-minute epics. Pallbearer will take over Hermann’s Bar on Saturday June 20.

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seems like a lot of people are moved by it and that is my goal with all songs. It has been played at a few weddings and inspired a few tears. I feel like this proves that the song has touched on something essential to

YNGWIE MALMSTEEN

ART DIRECTOR: Sarah Bryant PHOTOGRAPHERS: Katrina Clarke, Ashley Mar COVER PHOTO: Rahkela Nardella

AWESOME INTERNS: Meggan Turner, Ayla Dhyani, Sarah Basford

The Song That Makes Me Proud 4.

I am very proud of ‘Is This Love?’ It

his first album. I have very early memories of my parents listening to this song and at the time it really switched a light on for me.

The music was so timeless – it could have been made in some medieval chamber – and the voice was familiar and gentle. This song showed me how much a song (or a poem) could convey aside from the outward meaning of the words. I hold this work in such high esteem and now as a musician I can use it as a source of inspiration and also a standard to aspire to. A song such as this is a well that you can return to drink from at any time. It is always full and sweet.

sound to the idea of piano recital concerts.

Dark Twin showcases duetting with artificially intelligent systems, creating walls of warped sounds and menacing soundscapes. He enlisted the help of some Australian composers, Julian Day, Daniel Blinkhorn and Cat Hope, who will feature in the hour-long recital. See what the fuss is about on Saturday May 9 at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.

MANAGING EDITOR: Chris Martin chris@thebrag.com 02 9212 4322 ONLINE EDITOR: Tyson Wray SUB-EDITOR: Sam Caldwell STAFF WRITERS: Adam Norris, Augustus Welby NEWS: Sarah Basford, Sam Caldwell, Ayla Dhyani, Lauren Gill, Meggan Turner

GIG & CLUB GUIDE COORDINATORS: Sarah Basford, Sam Caldwell, Ayla Dhyani, Meggan Turner - gigguide@thebrag.com (rock); clubguide@ thebrag.com (dance, hip hop & parties)

I don’t – maybe the secret lies in always reaching out for something that remains just beyond your grasp. To me songs come in their own time and in different ways; it’s a process that I feel is sacred so therefore not to be understood or controlled too heavy-handedly.

Mostly I just sit and wait, though.

I feel like I have become better at choosing my moments of receptiveness (so I don’t have to lose too much sleep scribbling in the dark) and also at shaping the song (very gently).

featuring the single

‘Lifted Up (1985)’ Out April 17 kindredthealbum.com

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passionpit

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live & local

free stuff

welcome to the frontline: what’s goin’ on around town... with Chris Martin, Lauren Gill and Sarah Basford

speed date WITH

PEACE IN OUR TIME

JONNY TELAFONE Inspirations I take influences from many 2. different sources. Lately I’ve been loving the English Romantic painter John Martin. Just Google image searching that shit and giving it a good stare. I also love Dante’s Inferno, but I mean it’s a bit much with all that ye olde English. I did find an excellent pulp version of Inferno written by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, which has our hero being led through hell with more recent cool guys like Jessie James and Mussolini, et cetera.

Your Band I work best alone but I do love 3. collaborating with people. Recently Alex Akers of Forces produced one of the tracks on Romeo Must Cry and Lachlan Thomas of TV Colours and Danger Beach produced and co-wrote another.

Growing Up My first memory of music 1. that I really loved was the opening

song of the BBC Narnia series from the ’80s. I love that song, it’s intense and beautiful.

Music You Make When I make music I just 4. The

try and make it good because there is enough shit music already. In the future I may decide to make shit music but for now I’ll keep making the good stuff.

Music, Right Here, Right Now 5.

It’s an odd coincidence that the best music being made right now is Jonny Telafone.

Objectively speaking, my output has been flawless so far. When I come to Sydney the best place for music is the Golden Age Bar and Cinema on the 23rd of April at 9:30pm, when I’m launching my new album Romeo Must Cry.

English alt/psych rockers Peace have been doing the rounds since their latest album Happy People dropped earlier this year. Collaborating again with producer Jim Abbiss, known for his work with Arctic Monkeys, Kasabian and Bombay Bicycle Club, the band has achieved considerable hype. Now, they’re coming to Australia to figuratively rock our faces off in celebration of their album release.

Did we mention that we’ve got the goods to giveaway? For your chance to win one of five double passes to their Oxford Art Factory gig on Friday May 8, head on over to thebrag.com/freeshit. Peace out, people!

Peace

What: Romeo Must Cry out now through Chapter Where: Golden Age Bar and Cinema When: Thursday April 23

Xxxx

All Our Exes Live In Texas

head to: thebrag.com/freeshit

The Phoenix Foundation

xxxx

ALL OUR EXES WILL BE THERE

Sydney folk harmonisers All Our Exes Live In Texas are back in town this week to share their new single, ‘Sailboat’. Elana Stone, Katie Wighton, Hannah Crofts and Georgia Mooney are amongst the most captivating individual voices on the Australian scene, so when they come together as one, it has our hearts all aflutter. Their debut album will land later this year, but in the meantime they’re playing The Basement on Saturday April 18.

Harts

THE DAN PARSONS PROJECT

They say nothing in life is certain but death and taxes. The taxman aside, Dan Parsons is offering his take on reality with latest single ‘I’ll Live And I’ll Die’. To celebrate the new track, Parsons will be hitting the road in May alongside fellow troubadour Steve Grady. It’s all in anticipation of Parsons’ third album release, due later this year and recorded with Robin Waters (Eves The Behaviour, Ella Hooper).

Parsons hits the Live’n’Lounging house concert series, based in Sydney’s south-west, on Friday May 8. He’ll also be at The Junkyard in Maitland on Thursday May 7.

LIKE A PHOENIX FROM THE ASHES

The Phoenix Foundation have an apology to make. The New Zealand rockers have released three albums and an EP since their last visit to Australia, and they feel like they’ve been neglecting their Aussie fans. “It’s been ages, and we’re really, really sorry,” they announce in a humble press release. In order to rectify the matter, the band will return this week and play Newtown Social Club on Friday April 17. And in more good news, the sixpiece will be back again later this year for a full-blown album tour. We forgive you, Phoenixes.

THAT’S THEM BRUINS

After receiving love from near and far for their latest single, ‘Walk A Line’, Melbourne’s Them Bruins have announced that they’re hitting the road for a string of shows. Released in February, the single follows previous cuts ‘Black Widow’

and ‘Outrun The Future’, which have piled on the airplay from Australia to the Netherlands. To celebrate their new single, they’ll play six shows across the country, kicking off in Werribee before making their way up to the Gold Coast. Them Bruins will hit Spectrum on Friday April 24.

I Know Leopard

A BIT OF BIBBY HARTS ON FIRE

Triple j’s latest Like A Version star, Darren Hart – AKA Harts – has followed up his radio success with a national tour announcement. The tour news arrives alongside details of Harts’ new EP, ambitiously titled Breakthrough – not that we would bet against it. The title track is already a favourite on the airwaves, as is ‘When A Man’s A Fool’. Last year, Harts released his debut album, Daydreamer.

The new EP is out Friday June 5, and the launch tour brings him to Moonshine in Manly on Thursday June 25, Newcastle’s Cambridge Hotel on Friday June 26 and Oxford Art Factory on Friday July 3.

SHE HANGS BRIGHTLY

Gather up your stirrups and boots – the She Hangs Brightly event is coming to Sydney this ANZAC Day. The show will host four of Australia’s up-and-coming country rockers – Ruby Boots, Fanny Lumsden, Cookie Baker and Amber Rae Slade – as they play new duets as well as tales of heartbreak and triumph. Ruby Boots will be releasing her debut album this month, as will Fanny Lumsden later this year. Catch the girls at Brighton Up Bar on Saturday April 25.

ONE NIGHT STANDARD

It’s a bumper weekend of good times at The Standard Bowl this week, as the One Night Standard lineups continue with some fine local acts. Blues and roots act Superheavyweights jump into the ring on Friday April 17, while on Saturday April 18 it’s the excellent I Know Leopard. The Nothing’s Shocking night this Thursday April 16 features Raindrop and Yeeves with support from DJ Dog Bradman, while this Sunday April 19 it’s DJ Lou Lou and Benny Vibes.

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12 :: BRAG :: 608 :: 15:04:15

Singer-songwriter Peter Bibby has announced that he’s coming to Sydney this May. Following a run of widely praised SXSW showcases, Bibby will mark his return to our shores with folk ballads from his debut album, Butcher/ Hairstylist/Beautician. He’ll play Newtown Social Club on Thursday May 14 with Dandelion.

Industrial Strength Music Industry News with Christie Eliezer

THINGS WE HEAR * Which producer mischievously panicked a studio owner by musing whether to fill a piano with beer to get a “warmer sound”? * At which Queensland festival were cops called when a woman was seen carrying a knife? No knife was found but they turfed her out anyway. * Robbie Williams has announced he’s coming here in spring. * The Amity Affliction have been nominated for their first international awards, for Breakthrough Artist at the APMAs and Best International Act in the Metal Hammer Golden God celebrations. * A third Groovin The Moo show, Bunbury in Western Australia, has sold out, alongside Bendigo in

Victoria, and Maitland in New South Wales. * After his current Aussie tour, Sydney troubadour Steve Smyth is moving indefinitely to Europe, explaining: “They have a strong culture of music there that I haven’t found elsewhere.” * Chet Faker is raffling two of his platinum record plaques for beyondblue, an organisation that raises awareness of anxiety and depression. Tickets are $10 at beyondblue.chetfaker. com. * New World Artists have signed R&B/hip hopper Gill Bates. * Soho nightclub in Kings Cross quickly deleted a Facebook post after a storm of social media criticism. The post depicted a drink special featuring a seemingly drunk/passed out girl next to two glasses with her legs spread. * Coming out: former Video Hits presenter Faustina

SYDNEY MC WINS HOODS INITIATIVE Emerging Sydney hip hop artist Sarah Connor has won this year’s Hilltop Hoods Initiative. The Hoods and APRA AMCOS have awarded her $10,000 towards the release of her debut solo album. In the same week, Connor was also the triple j Unearthed Feature Artist. The Hoods’ MC Suffa said, “We first became familiar with Sarah when she won Briggs’ ‘King/Queen of the Town’ competition, it was clear to us then that she had a real gift.” Now in its eighth year, the initiative received the highest number of entries to date. Connor also wins legal and career advice from David Vodicka and Media Arts Lawyers, a

‘Fuzzy’ Agolley celebrated her 31st birthday by revealing she was gay … also coming out was Olly Alexander of Brit newbies Years And Years, whose debut ‘King’ hit number one. * Peking Duk, expecting no-one to be there when they were on the early 1:30pm slot at Coachella, were not only surprised to get a big crowd, but reckoned it was the most fun show they’d ever done. * Redfoo will not return as a judge of The X Factor this year as Seven Network goes for a reshuffle. Another of the remaining three judges is also going. * The businessman who bought Warner Music, Len Blavatnik, paid US$75 million for a New York City apartment. * During their visit to Melbourne, KISS will be holding talks on setting up their Rock & Brews franchise.

Zoo York Clothing pack and a Love Police ATM Merch Manufacturing Start-Up Kit (to the value of $500).

AUSSIES ABROAD #1: FIVE ACTS ON VANS WARPED Five Aussie acts will join the Vans Warped tour as it swings through 41 North American cities between June 19 and August 8. They are The Amity Affliction (just back from the US, UK and Europe), I Killed The Prom Queen (making an album to be released in time for the tour), Canberra’s Hands Like Houses, Newcastle’s Trophy Eyes and EDM producer M4Sonic, whose ‘The Fox (What Does The Fox Say?)’ has had 485 million YouTube views.

AUSSIES ABROAD #2: IGGY, AC/DC, 5SOS FOR US AWARDS Iggy Azalea, 5 Seconds of Summer, AC/DC, Hillsong United and Newsboys have been nominated for the Billboard Music Awards (May 17, Las Vegas). The 40 categories are based on sales, streaming, airplay and social media interaction. Azalea has 12 nominations, including Top Female and Top Rap Album, following Taylor Swift (14) and Sam Smith (13). 5SOS are up for Top New Artist and Top Group. AC/DC vie for Best Rock Album against The Black Keys, Coldplay, Hozier and Lorde. Hillsong United and Newsboys are up for Top Christian Artist, and Newsboys’ ‘We Believe’ is nominated for Top Christian Song.

IN HEARTS WAKE LAUNCH CHARITY AUCTION Byron Bay’s In Hearts Wake are launching a huge charity auction to raise money for two non-profit grassroots organisations – Local Futures, which safeguards and renews ecological and social well-being within communities, and the Byron Young Residents Alliance, which offers young people a voice on environmental and social levels. The eBay auction includes rare memorabilia from The Amity Affliction, Architects, Northlane, Enter Shikari, Dead Letter Circus, Stick To Your Guns, Hacktivist and UNIFY Gathering. The auction begins 12pm Friday April 17 at skydancerproject.com.

CHANNEL [V] LAUNCHES NEW WEEKLY MUSIC SHOWS From Monday April 20, Channel [V] will host a new music show for each night of the week at 8pm. Mondays are Independent, Tuesdays are chart hits with Popped, Wednesdays feature new host Bert McCracken of The Used with rock show The Re[V]olution, and Thursdays are global urban show The Connect. The weekend kicks off on Fridays from 7pm with The Big Mix, which includes DJ Generik’s EDM showcase Messed Up from 9pm.

EVENTBRITE’S SELF-SERVICE SEAT TECHNOLOGY Global ticketing platform Eventbrite has launched the Australian ticketing industry’s first self-service reserved seating solution, allowing punters to select seats. Events organisers can use the ‘Seat Designer’ feature to create a seat map to provide priority seating, set optional pricing for each seat, and share seat maps with other organisers. Eventbrite Australia managing director Rachael Neumann said that Australia’s ticketing problems included “lack of innovation, disappointing customer support, and high ticketing fees”, and that her company was offering an alternative.

MORCOS AT COOKING VINYL Janine Morcos has moved from Soundwave to fill Cooking Vinyl Australia’s newly created role of head of publicity. At Soundwave she did tour publicity and ran its in-house 3Wise Records. She has also held the roles of senior promotions manager at Roadrunner Records and Warner Music’s Victorian media manager.

U2’S WINDMILL STUDIOS DEMOLISHED The building that once housed U2’s Windmill Lane studios in Dublin has been demolished and is being turned into apartments and offices. The band worked on early albums like War, Boy and The Joshua Tree there. R.E.M., The Rolling Stones, Van Morrison and Elvis Costello also recorded at the studios.

YOUR SHOT RETURNS TO FIND NEXT BIG DJ Your Shot is back a sixth time to find the next big DJ to play clubs and festivals. You don’t need experience; you get six weeks of DJ training. Winners can play international DJ sets at Snowbombing (Austria), BPM (Mexico), Groove Cruise (USA), VH1 Supersonic (India), Chasing Summer (Canada) or Your Paradise (Fiji), as well as at Stereosonic 2015. See yourshot.com.au for more details.

ANOTHER VENUE FOR SALE Liverpool’s Macquarie Hotel, which showcases live entertainment, is the latest to be put up for sale. Tenders close on May 5. It also has a 24-hour liquor licence.

CERTIFICATIONS: PLATINUM FOR CROWDED HOUSE, TRIPLE J

The Very Very Best Of Crowded House has thebrag.com

Lifelines Born: son, Silas Randall, to Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel.

Engaged: Kendrick Lamar to his galpal since high school, Whitney Alford.

Married: Barry Manilow and manager Garry Kief. The announcement of a year-old marriage surprised 50 guests who had been invited to their Californian pad for a dinner.

Ill: Fred Noonan, drummer for Brisbane’s SixFtHick, has been diagnosed with cancer. Benefits are to be staged in Brisbane and Melbourne.

Ill: Taylor Swift revealed her mother has cancer.

Recovering: US rock band Tesla’s frontman Jeff Keith from a hip replacement.

Investigated: Richie Sambora by LA cops after a heated phone call with ex-girlfriend Nikki Lund, when he allegedly threatened to “dig a hole in the desert and bury” her.

Charged: a 43-year-old man of indecently assaulting a ten-year-old in the toilet and a seven-year-old in the river at NSW’s ConFest music festival.

Charged: Mohamed Hamdin, 24, with groping a 15-year-old on the dancefloor at a YG and TY Dolla Sign show at the Enmore Theatre in January.

Settled: Kanye West has settled a lawsuit by paparazzo Daniel Ramos after he snatched the photographer’s camera from him at the terminal of Los Angeles airport, forcing him to fall on the ground and hurt his wrist.

Sued: Gwar for US$1 million by late singer Dave Brockie’s father William, who alleges they stole his guitars, tried to wrestle the estate from him, and failed to pay his son for his final tour with them. The band rejects his allegations.

Died: founding Lynyrd Skynyrd drummer Robert Burns, Jr., aged 64, in a car accident.

Died: Preston Ritter, one-time drummer with ’60s US band Electric Prunes. After stints as a DJ, a cop, a private investigator and a Christian missionary in Korea, he returned to LA and taught and wrote books on drumming.

picked up its second platinum, and triple j’s Like A Version Vol 10 its first. Of other albums, Ed Sheeran’s X is now five times platinum.

Lee Kernaghan’s Spirit Of The Anzacs and Mark Ronson’s Uptown Special went gold.

Of singles, Milky Chance’s ‘Stolen Dance’ is four times platinum, while Sam Smith’s ‘Lay Me Down’ and LunchMoney Lewis’ ‘Bills’ got their first. Vance Joy’s ‘Georgia’, Pitbull feat. Ne-Yo’s ‘Time Of Our Lives’ and Ariana Grande’s ‘One Last Time’ went gold.

TKAY MAIDZA LANDS UK AGENCY Fresh from playing shows in the United States, rapper Tkay Maidza has signed with Coda Music Agency for the UK and Europe. As a result, she’s been added to the UK’s Great Escape bill next month. At home, her seven M.O.B. shows have sold out. She now plays Groovin The Moo and Charli XCX shows.

LUKE ESCOMBE GOES ON SAFARI Why was Sydney singer-songwriter Luke Escombe seen being photographed in a Redfern back street, wearing a safari suit, holding a chicken and getting attacked by kamikaze mosquitoes? Partly because his new EP Creeper Vine has an “urban jungle” theme. Partly because it was a nod to his ancestors who left Victorian England to plunder the diamond mines of South Africa and do missionary work – including his great uncle Harry, who killed a lion with a cheese knife.

BRAG :: 608 :: 15:04:15 :: 13

The Amorphous Androgynous Cosmic Connection By Michael Hartt

“We’re not against being popular.

It’s not about being more obscure than everybody else, it’s about putting obvious things against obscure things.”

Cobain says he and Brian Dougans tried to go into the making of the album with an open heart and a focus on what works musically and what moves them.

“When it’s heart, it enables you to be in the present because who’s the best and who’s the first, all that stuff’s been done,” he says.

“The West – America and England – will claim to have the sole heritage of the psychedelic history.

You were ether on the bus or off the bus. That had a lot to do with time; who was first and who was local. It was a pre-internet age. A lot of these artists didn’t even get on the bus, they were miles away.

They were in Australasia, for God’s sake! They had no chance.

O

ver the course of their three previous Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble collections, not to mention blissedout albums of their own work and remixes of material by the likes of Oasis and Paul Weller, The Amorphous Androgynous – one of the many guises taken on by UK electronic duo The Future Sound Of London – have shaken off the wellworn clichés of distortion, paisley and going far out (maaaan!) to offer up a far broader take on psychedelia.

Their fourth Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble album, The Wizards Of Oz, sets its sights squarely on the aural delights of the antipodes. As one half of the duo, Gaz Cobain, explains, ignorance played a large part in the album’s genesis.

he loved our Oasis ‘Falling Down’ mix.

mysticism folk to big band orchestral weirdness to cosmic funk”.

“We started joking – ignorantly – that the only thing of note to come out of Australia was AC/DC, Rolf Harris, Olivia Newton-John and a bit of a dubious claim on the Bee Gees. Basically, Tony and another guy who works for Warners, David Laing, started sending us tracks while we were working with this other band. We kind of suddenly started to realise that yeah, the ignorance was fun but actually we didn’t really know that much and after 18 years of doing Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble, it began to get quite interesting why we didn’t know more about this continent.”

As Cobain elaborates: “We’re not interested in being historians.

We don’t claim it’s some kind of definitive psychedelic compilation; there’s hundreds of those. We’re very different from those in that we’re not saying that everything on this is generically psychedelic. What we’re saying is that it’s a Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble and what we’re interested in is actually creating a new psychedelic revolution now.

That’s what we’re interested in. So we’re only interested in carrying forward ingredients that can do something to activate together.

Beginning with Russell Morris’ epochal ‘The Real Thing’, the new two-disc set drifts fluidly, unhindered by preconceptions of time, culture or notoriety. Instead of generic guitar band psychedelia, the album takes in everything from “Eastern

“We started doing some production work for Warner Australia. Tony Harlow, the MD, is a huge fan of Monstrous Bubble, which is why he got in touch with us in the first place;

“If you take the tracks and listen to them individually, you wouldn’t say that they’re generically psychedelic, but the point is, in the mix, they’re grouped together to be a contradiction and surprising. The idea is that it’s a new cosmic space music.”

“There’s no denying that they reacted to the West – the West had a lot of the inspiration – but I’m not interested in that, I’m interested in just great music. So I don’t really care if Molly Meldrum, when he did ‘The Real Thing’, it was two years behind George Martin and Mickie Most. I’m sure he was influenced by those when he found Russell Morris to produce ‘The Real Thing’ in ’69; I can hear the influences. Point being, it’s just a great song.”

Cobain adds, “We’re not against being popular. It’s not about being more obscure than everybody else, it’s about putting obvious things against obscure things to make something that is coherent and speaks to people.”

The producer mentions that there were a number of artists The Amorphous Androgynous had hoped to include on the album – including Terry Britten, Mantis and Stoned Guitar – who, due to factors beyond their control, didn’t

make the final cut. They may, however, figure in future projects, including some possible live appearances.

“I’m talking to Warners about that,” Cobain says. “I might come over with my sitarist. We do DJ performances where I play with a sitarist and a couple of other instruments and I feed them into the desk as a mix.”

Until then, there’s new original Amorphous Androgynous material to work on, as well as a number of other collaborations both ongoing and in the pipeline, including with an Australian artist whom Cobain politely declines to name.

“We’ve done some tracks with Paul Weller, including one on his new album called ‘White Sky’. There’s two tracks on Noel Gallagher’s album that we produced – we actually wrote those as well but he was a bit naughty. We’ve done a remix album with Syd Arthur; a whole album of Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble remixes.

We’re doing some Kooks remixes at the moment as well.

“We try and delight in the whole exotic arrangement in what psychedelia can be now. We’re very interested in now. A revolution, now. It’s not just sound, actually. I come across a lot of people who think it’s about sound; the latest wacky bunch of sounds. It’s not that much either. It’s to do with spiritual linage as well. There’s very much a cosmic connection.”

What: A Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble (Exploding In Your Mind) – The Wizards Of Oz out now through Monstrous Bubble/Festival Records

Magic America Coming On Strong By Matthew Sales

M

agic America are the latest reshuffling of four Melbourne lads who have spent the past couple of years mucking around in an assortment of different rock bands together. Their latest project moves away from the angsty, grunge rock of their youth towards the hazy, textured sounds of contemporary psychedelic rock. Guitarist Andrew Stapleton says it’s a sound that came naturally for the band after many years of jamming and playing together.

One of two brothers in the band, Andrew initially had nothing to do with Magic America in its first phase.

After getting sick of being disturbed by his brother and his mates jamming all night, he decided it made sense to join the group. “Matty [Stapleton] and Ben [O’Sullivan] were actually the first two blokes and then I joined in because I was sick of listening to them play while I was trying to watch TV,” Andrew chuckles.

The siblings work well with each 14 :: BRAG :: 608 :: 15:04:15

You’d think being based in Melbourne would be a good thing for a band, but it can actually be quite a hard place to get noticed among all the other artists trying to make it. It was quite the opposite for Magic America, however, and Andrew says the Melbourne psych rock scene was still very much in its infancy when the band was first conceived.

“When we first sort of started out there was less bands in our genre – psych sort of bands,” he says.

“Recently in the last year or two there’s actually been a lot of psych bands come out of the woodwork and it’s been good for us. There’s now a lot more bands that we like playing with. It makes the gigs a bit easier to play and for the last couple of years it’s gotten a lot better for our scene.”

Magic America got their first taste of success when one of their earlier songs found a following via triple j

Unearthed. “It was one of our earlier songs that we put up on Unearthed and it got a bit of a listen to and a few comments on the Unearthed page,” Andrew says. “That was the first song that ever got any real attention from radio or anything like that.”

The band is now at the stage of adding the finishing touches to its debut EP and is about to launch a first single, ‘Comes And Goes’. “The

EP is pretty much all recorded and ready to go. We’re just adding the finishing touches to a couple of songs, so it’ll probably be about four or five tracks. This single ‘Comes And Goes’ is the first one of them, just to give you a taste of it.”

The recording of the EP went over smoothly, but being a group of perfectionists, Andrew says there are a few minor things about the final product the band wants to change.

“As with anything, you never feel like it’s finished. You always want to go back and change one thing.

Sometimes little things that you notice can piss you off a bit, but this is the closest we’ve been to being happy with our songs and an EP since we started.”

Where: Frankie’s Pizza When: Sunday May 10

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AlabamaShakes_byAutumn de Wilde.tif

“Earlier on when we were in the other bands we used to play stuff that was a bit grungier. We’ve always been rock’n’roll, but I suppose the longer we’ve played together, the more we’ve been interested in textures and pedals and shit like that. We started experimenting a bit more and that sound just came out naturally.”

other, avoiding the quarrelling and bickering that often happens between brothers in bands. Instead, it’s the other band members who end up copping it from Andrew. “Me and him are actually pretty good, we haven’t come across any arguments in the band about the music or anything like that. It’s more so me just telling everyone off in the band.”

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Darkc3ll Love And Hate By Krystle Richardson

B

acked up by a barrage of thundering drum beats and snarling guitar riffs, faces pale and dripping with black, Darkc3ll proclaim: “Hail Satan, God is dead”.

The rising Brisbane-based rockers, who have rhythm in their veins but evil on their minds (and, if you take their lyrics literally, enjoy pissing on Christian graves), certainly have a dark exterior. But what lies beneath?

“The beauty about art is that people are free to create their own interpretations,” says frontman Jesse Dracman. With lyrics like “Burn in hell you fucking priest” and “Fuck your God of lies”, Darkc3ll leave themselves open to some pretty wild interpretations. But as Dracman insists, “I’m not a Satanist. I’m actually a Pisces.”

“We’re horror movie fans, man, we think the devil’s a cool character,” says Dracman. “It helps create a visual interpretation of what we do and it has a lot of impact. I challenge people to read between the lines when looking at the lyrics and listening to the music.”

And what might we find between the lines? “We’re four guys who love having fun, man. What you see onstage is who we are, we let our personalities shine.”

This simple act of joy and selfexpression, sheathed in darkness though it may be, has had a massive impact on Darkc3ll’s growing legion of fans. While Dracman admits he’s still getting used to the word ‘fans’, a spark of something special ignites in his voice when he speaks about them.

“Matt [Postmortem] is a producer by trade, he loves helping bands sound really cool. J-Man [Macabre] loves teaching kids how to play drums and is a universal thinker. Rit [Derelict] is like the silent Buddha man – he doesn’t say much but when he does it’s all pearl.”

“We get people from all age groups coming to us and telling us what a difference we make in their lives. We’re committed to that now.

Especially when you get parents coming to your shows and they tell you they’ve got autistic children who don’t respond to a hell of a lot in life but your music somehow reaches them, and you’re just like, ‘Wow.’ When you think about the rewards in playing music, for me, things like that mean the world compared to making a million dollars or being a rock star.”

But if they’re not sacrificing the neighbours’ cats in their spare time, why such a focus on evil, darkness and the devil in their music?

This acceptance from parents is pretty revolutionary for the broader nu metal genre. Marilyn Manson, Black Sabbath, Korn and

Apart from being a Pisces and not a Satanist, Dracman says he loves comic books, video games, and of course, horror movies. He’s similarly full of love and respect for his bandmates.

even KISS (who seem so tame now) were all once considered to be ruining innocent young minds.

While Darkc3ll haven’t completely sidestepped these kinds of accusations, they’ve found their reception has been mostly positive.

Parents aren’t just allowing their kids to listen to the music, they’re coming to shows, wearing band T-shirts and even getting tattoos.

Dracman believes this strong and personal connection with their fans is what drives the band’s success.

And coming off the back of the 2014 Soundwave tour and with a US tour ahead, Darkc3ll have a lot to be excited about. The latest dates are in support of new EP Devolve/ Destroy, and the boys are “hell excited” to catch up with friends and fans, play with some of their favourite local bands and belt out their new songs.

Speaking of their recently announced US tour, Dracman admits that it’s still pretty surreal.

“Getting on the Soundwave tour was

a pinnacle moment for us, one that we’ll never forget. And now to be able to say that we’re going to the United States of America is the next level for us.”

In Dracman’s own words, it’s “happy days ahead” for the band that makes hate sound fun.

What: Devolve/Destroy out now independently Where: Valve Bar, Agincourt Hotel When: Saturday April 18

Lia Mice Flight Of Fancy By Augustus Welby total transient. “It was my home,” she says. “But I was like, ‘Well, I’m already a stranger in a strange place, so what’s the difference about changing that?’ Except that I had to learn French.

“I’m trying to be less impulsive now.

I’m trying to make plans and things.

I used to not plan like three weeks in advance, and at the moment I definitely have a plan for the next six months. So I’m improving, I think.”

In contrast to Mice’s wandering impulsiveness, before getting stuck into I Love You she conceived a detailed album manifesto. In the document – which was published on her website – Mice stated she would write and perform all the album’s instrumentation alone and try to capture sounds organically rather than generating things digitally. In the end she did slightly deviate from these guidelines.

L

“I was on tour and the tour ended and I was supposed to get on this flight back to New York, which is where I was living,” Mice says. “[But due to] Hurricane Sandy, the flight got cancelled for about a week so I just stayed. I had such a good time during the time that the flight was 16 :: BRAG :: 608 :: 15:04:15

cancelled that I never ended up getting on the new flight.”

I Love You sees Mice move away from the lateral experimentation of 2012’s Happy New Year into a groove-based and melodically focused sound. Likewise, her erstwhile opaque lyrical approach is superseded by a descriptive, personal style. The stylistic shifts are a direct consequence of the move to Lyon, says Mice.

“When you’re somewhere, you just soak it all in; you soak in the sounds, you soak in the lifestyle. All the stories I’m telling in the lyrics, they really happened. I think the sounds – it’s definitely more pop than anything I’ve ever written and that’s because a lot of the music I was getting exposed to here was less discordant and less

edgy. Some people want things to sound really quirky or discordant.

I think if you like something that’s pop it doesn’t have to be a guilty pleasure, it can just be a pleasure.

So I thought, ‘OK, I’m going to free myself to do something and if it’s not dark that’s OK.’ “I always want to challenge myself, to keep my mind really open to reacting to new experiences and reacting to new stimulus,” she adds.

“I travel a lot and it’s nice to have a few days off just to experience and be immersed in something new.”

Mice originally comes from Brisbane, so she’d already undergone a drastic change of circumstances before abandoning Brooklyn for Lyon. Still, she was based in New York for almost six years, which indicates she’s not a

“I had been listening to a lot of ’60s records and it’s so amazing how beautiful they sound. It was like a tape rolling and that was that – there wasn’t much editing. Sounds that come from a real organic place have a bigger range. They sort of mush together in a way and then they impact you in a way. Definitely this new album has a better sound – it’s more dynamic.”

Mice was in Australia for the 2014 Bigsound conference and

she returns this week for a trio of intimate club shows. While a fivepiece band joined her last year, she’s doing the forthcoming shows solo, and also triggering visual accompaniments throughout. This sounds like a handful, but Mice isn’t concerned about her competence.

“I’ve been doing this for a long time,” she says. “Sometimes I have a band but usually I play solo. I used to be a bit daunted by all of the technology, but I’ve got it under control now.

It used to be like the technology was wild and I was trying to train it. Now we have this arrangement. I like collaborating with technology.

Sometimes you make a mistake and it ends up really working out.

“I have samples and I loop my guitar live and I loop the synth live, so I’m sort of building up loops and then shutting them down. Some of the loops are pre-made. I’m not, like, standing there drumming. At a certain point I think a solo performer needs to perform. Sometimes if you’re too stuck behind a table you can lose the aspect of it being a performance.”

What: I Love You out now through Rice Is Nice Where: Brighton Up Bar When: Friday April 17

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Lia Mice photo by Levi Mandel

ocation is frequently mentioned in discussions about music, though its relevance isn’t always clear. However, when it comes to Lia Mice’s latest LP I Love You, the influence of her surroundings is mighty apparent. A couple of years prior to the album’s 2014 release, Mice moved from Brooklyn, New York to Lyon in eastcentral France. The experimental pop songwriter’s new home largely shaped the character of I Love You, but her decision to move wasn’t strategically motivated.

“I didn’t play everything on the album actually,” she says. “I really wanted to get things as live as possible. My first album I made in GarageBand and I would just play a few bars of something and then loop it. The thing is, my basslines are really repetitive, but I had a bass player play it with a drummer and me playing as well so that it would have some freedom and a bit of human error. Then later I did sample the drums and loop them, but I wanted to start from a noncomputer beginning.

“I was like, ‘Well, I’m already a stranger in a strange place, so what’s the difference about changing that?’

Except that I had to learn French.”

The Wombats Electronic Weaponry By Mat Drogemuller

T

he Wombats have a special relationship with Australia. Not only do they take their name from an animal unique to our fauna, but there’s another little thing: we can’t get enough of them. They’ve had five songs in the triple j Hottest 100 so far, with the first single from their new album Glitterbug, ‘Your Body Is A Weapon’, reaching number 25 last year. Before that, in 2011, there was ‘Jump Into The Fog’, as well as three others including crowd favourites ‘1996’ and ‘Techno Fan’.

Since the late 2000s we have watched the Liverpool lads evolve. Their first album, appropriately titled A Guide To Love, Loss & Desperation, was arranged more simply, with most songs revolving around guitar, bass and drums. For their second album, This Modern Glitch, The Wombats changed things up by adding a synth (or four) to most of the tracks, producing a more upbeat, dance sound. Their 2015 release continues that trend, but at the same time Glitterbug represents new territory for the trio.

Bass player Tord Øverland Knudsen says they’re more comfortable now with their adapted sound.

the sounds on the record. We ran that through an amp and loaded up some pedals. We really played around with sounds more than we’d ever done before on Glitterbug.”

The bass sound has evolved over The Wombats’ discography, too, although Knudsen says he hasn’t changed his gear. “The bass was a lot louder in the mix on the first album because it was more of an honest sound,” he says. “There are moments on this album where it comes to life a little bit more.”

Knudsen is known to be a multi-instrumentalist, picking up synths, guitars and bass, but when asked what his number one weapon of choice would be, he remains loyal. “I think the bass. Or my baritone guitar. When we’re recording we all play whatever part that makes sense. If Murph comes up with a part he plays it, for example.

Dan [Haggis] plays all the drums because I’m a terrible drummer and Murph’s even worse than me. I usually do the bass, but apart from that we swap around.”

What: Glitterbug out now through Warner

“On This Modern Glitch we ‘found’ synths in a way, but we didn’t really know how to use them,” he says. “This time around we’ve learnt how to manoeuvre them properly and gone into more detail on using them and playing around with sounds.”

Knudsen attributes their refined sound to experience, labelling their new album as “more professional”. “On This Modern Glitch we had three or four sounds doubling each other and everything was doubled, tripled. This time around we’ve tried to find the one sound that would do the job instead of having three sounds running at the same time. It’s a bit more stripped back in that sense.”

While their second album was recorded in Los Angeles, The Wombats headed back to the motherland to record their latest release, working on demos of the tracks in Liverpool, where they remain based.

“We did most of the stuff there. We spent days making them sound good,” says Knudsen. That explains why The Wombats are credited as co-producers of the album. “If you listen to the demo versions and the final versions they sound pretty similar. The final version sounds maybe 20 per cent better, so a lot of the production work was done before going into the studio.”

Knudsen believes the band took a lot from its experiences recording in LA. “We’ve been doing it for so many years now we’ve picked up some tricks,” he says. But for the final touches on Glitterbug, the trio headed to London.

“The producer we worked with was Mark Crew, in a tiny little studio in London. The first time I came in I was like, ‘Really? This is smaller than my hotel room. We’re going to record here?’ But it was great.”

Innocence, grief and the terror of growing up.

Crew had previously worked with Bastille on their debut album Bad Blood, so it was not the producer’s first foray into synth-laden indie rock.

That was good enough for Knudsen. “If he did Bastille there, I knew it should be OK; that album sounds great.”

Although Glitterbug involved a move away from LA logistically, the city’s influence is still recognisable in the lyrics of the album’s songs.

Lead singer and songwriter Matthew Murphy claims the album is inspired by LA, but to Knudsen the city was initially confronting.

“LA to me is probably one of the strangest, weirdest places in the world. It’s the least realistic place in the world. It’s kind of detached from everything else that’s happening.

“After spending months and months there recording our second album, I started to really like it,” Knudsen says. “I started to know where’s good to go for food and nice bars where you can get to know people. I think it’s a great place to record and spend time.”

Another country with an unexpected influence on the album is Japan, where Knudsen purchased the keyboard that features heavily in tracks like lead single ‘Your Body Is A Weapon’. “I went to Japan and I bought a Roland Juno-60, so that had a big impact on

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Repressed Records 413 King St, Newtown. repressedrecords.com

T

ake a trundle down King Street and past the turnoff to Enmore Road, and you’ll find yourself in a thriving hub of local music. The hottest young Aussie bands are plugging in all week at Newtown Social Club – formerly the beloved Sando – while the next crop are honing their skills across the road at Newtown High School. And where do they get all their inspiration? Just nearby at an indie record store called Repressed Records. The locals know all about its treasures already, but we asked owner Chris Sammut to talk us through some of Repressed’s latest goodies.

It’s always been the secret to discovering great new music: just dig a little deeper.

Sydney’s record stores have always been our favourite places to dig for new tunes, and just in time for Record Store Day 2015 – this Saturday April 18 – the Diggin’ Sydney 2015 guide has landed. It’s a comprehensive guide to Sydney’s independent record stores, put together by Sydney’s independent record stores, to show off their wares. We asked the finest shops in town about what’s in store at the moment, and what they’re looking forward to on the local scene. All that’s left is to get amongst it.

Who’s on the team at Repressed Records?

Me, and Nic who owns R.I.P Society.

You aren’t just all about records – tell us about your collection of merch,

The Record Store

What are you doing to celebrate Diggin’ Sydney and Record Store Day on Saturday April 18?

Loads of exclusive limited edition releases for the day. We’ve been planning a show at Vivid Sydney too so we’ve been pretty stretched, but go to our website and we’ll keep y’all informed!

Loads and loads of new vinyl titles arriving too.

Are there any RSD releases you’re especially excited about?

Metallica’s No Life ’Til Leather demo tape on cassette again!

What are you selling like crazy at the moment?

Dick Diver, Twerps, Broadcast, Courtney Barnett, Royal Headache, Sunday Painters.

If there’s one record everyone should have in their collection, what is it?

Never Mind The Bollocks, Here’s The Sex Pistols! Still.

assortment of Revolve Records has an amazing tent $2 bins. second hand vinyl with very po

255b Crown St, Darlinghurst (entry on Goulburn St). 9380 8223 / recordstore.com.au Who’s on the team at The Record Store?

This is a tricky question.

There are, at last count, 14 sets of keys roaming out there, although only fi ve people are regulars here. At least two sets belong to one of the partners (Rev Dr.) and we’re pretty sure he has lost them both, but that’s OK as he is the not-silent-enoughpartner. Zac (JNR) runs the store during the week and herds the Kato and Ben Fester cats. Josh (Setwun) does the Sunday graveyard and Stephan (pH) has been relegated to back office duties because he bites the customers. Then there’s JMez, Dobolina, Morphingaz and probably a few other sets of keys I have forgotten handing out.

which most of us shopped or worked at BPM Records, which was also in this location from 1999-2003.

BPM started down at 43 Oxford Street in 1996 – we still rock the original JBL 700s from then.

Give us an overview of the history of the store.

We’ve been in our current location since 2003, before

What inspired your creation of the Diggin’ Sydney guide to record stores in Sydney?

What about your personal involvement in the industry – how did you become involved in records?

An old school friend, Megan Connolly (bless), bought me a Shamen 12-inch in year 12, ‘Hyperreal’, which blew my mind. I’d been into (and discovered) the electronic sound at about age eight when I heard the new Doctor Who theme song they rejigged for the fi fth Doctor.

I knew there and then that synths were for me.

Both myself and Phil from the Vintage Record had little black-and-white numbers and then I saw the Diggin’ Melbourne guide designed all sexy-like and I was like, ‘Boom, I’m gonna do Sydney,’ and Rex (Blisterfinger) and Chris (Northside) in Melbs are way into community so they were all over it and now we do it together.

How tightly knit is the retail community around our city?

I’d say it’s tightly unhinged!

We all know each other and see each other around and about and, most importantly, do not see each other as competition. I realised a long time ago the customers were not shopping at one shop.

We’re an industry and it’s great to be fi nally presenting like one with the guide. But yeah, we’re all pretty tight, in a loose kinda way.

Are there any Record Store Day releases you’re especially excited about?

Any of the bastards that actually turn up on time!

Seriously, it’s a total shitfi ght; a stressful, chaotic, awesome shitfi ght!

What are you selling like crazy at the moment?

Turntables. Audio-Technica are killing it.

If there’s one record everyone should have in their collection, what is it?

The Stone Roses – ‘Fools Gold’

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FROM ROCK TO CLUB. ns, Always buying record collectio call Jon on 0402141968.

OPEN:

MON-TUES 12PM-6PM WED-FRI 10AM-7PM SAT-SUN 10AM-6PM

ADDRESS:

SHOP 3/65 ERSKINEVILLE RD, ERSKINEVILLE PH: 9519 9978 / 1800626610

Like us on Facebook Shop online: REVOLVERECORDS.COM.AU thebrag.com

The Record Store photos by juls.org

According to your website, you focus on supporting independent Australian music. What’s great about the local scene?

The diversity and quality of the artists we deal with is always pretty energising for us. People working at a grassroots level keeping a vibrant, relevant music scene.

books and vinyl. Is it an important part of the customer’s experience?

We primarily deal in new and second-hand vinyl, but we also have T-shirts that we like to keep interesting, plus we just got into second-hand books too. We feel it’s all working together really well at the moment.

Beatdisc Records 11/181 Church St, Parramatta. 9891 9330 / beatdisc.com.au The team: It’s a very small operation here at Beatdisc Records.

Employed at the shop it’s just me, Peter, the owner; and Tom, second in command. But we then have what we like to call our Beatdisc family, which includes volunteers, our partners and our most dedicated customers and friends. We couldn’t do it without them.

The history: Beatdisc was opened in the same Parramatta store that we still operate from in August 1995 by original owner Vic. I couldn’t tell you what the first record that sold was, but I’m really happy to say this August we have been selling music for 20 years!

What’s playing in store right now? Father John Misty’s excellent second studio album I Love You, Honeybear.

What is it you dig about the Sydney music scene?

I love that young people are reconnecting to the music scene and buying physical music again, coming along to our all-ages in-store shows and getting behind local bands. I feel like there is growing support for smaller independent artists and there are a lot of passionate and dedicated musicians, promoters, indie label owners, record stores, venue owners and fans out there. This is really exciting to be a part of.

Egg Records 3 Wilson St, Newtown. 9550 6056 / eggrecordsonline.com The team: Baz, lover of power pop.

Stephen, who needs more space to hold his collection, has an encyclopaedic knowledge of most genres. Nic D, legend and lover of all types of music and thinks he knows all the B-sides of the Bee Gees’ singles.

The history: My brother-in-law Ric and I started Egg Records in 2000 in a small store in Newtown but moved to a bigger store a few doors up where we are still today. We deal in new and used LPs, CDs, DVDs and memorabilia. Our aim is to offer our customers an experience of sights and sounds that you cannot get anywhere else. I can’t remember the first record we sold but I think we still have the first dollar from that sale in a box somewhere.

How are you celebrating Record Store Day on April 18?

We’ll have a heap of RSD stock, vinyl imports and we’ve got a lot of unearthed second-hand vinyl going out this week, plus a CD sale! RSD for us is basically an all-day party with some of our favourite people and this year we’ll be doubling the party with the addition of a live in-store show. Kiri (Brisbane), Ted Danson With Wolves (first show in four months) and Blossom McKenzie-King – all-ages show starts from 7pm. It’s going to be awesome.

Mojo Record Bar

What’s the first record you ever bought?

I really don’t remember, but it was probably some Southern Californian punk rock… Bad Religion maybe.

The team: The Mojo team is Frank ‘Dr. Rock’ Cotterell, Jonny Bunt and Dan McManus.

What is it you dig about the Sydney music scene? That there is such an eclectic mix of all types of music.

How important is the independent music network to what you do and our city as a whole? It’s very important culturally to keep things fresh and have new ideas coming through.

How are you celebrating Record Store Day on April 18? We will have a couple of young local bands playing, hopefully lots of the stuff we ordered for RSD will turn up in time and we will also be having some fresh stock of all genres arriving from Japan.

If you were stranded on a desert island and could take one record with you, what would it be? Matthew Sweet – Girlfriend What’s the first record you ever

bought? The Beatles – With The Beatles What’s the best discovery you’ve ever made while digging through record crates? A rare Australian folk psych record called Extradition.

Basement, 73 York St, Sydney. 9262 4999 / mojorecordbar.com

The history: We opened in June 2012 and specialise in new and used vinyl covering local artists, ’60s garage/ psych/beat, rock, soul, funk, blues, jazz and lots more. The first record sold was Lightnin’ Strikes by Lightnin’ Hopkins.

What’s playing in store right now?

Dion – ‘Baby, Let’s Stick Together’ What is it you dig about the Sydney music scene? Considering the lack of support, scratch the surface and you can still uncover great bands. Keep on truckin’ people.

thebrag.com

What’s playing in store right now? Red House Painters.

How important is the independent music network to what you do and our city as a whole? The support of real music fans is vital to our business and the word-of-mouth recommendations we get from people in the scene are worth their weight in gold.

If you were stranded on a desert island and could take one record with

you, what would it be? The Stooges – Fun House What’s the first record you ever bought? The Beatles – With The Beatles What’s the best discovery you’ve ever made while digging through record crates? The Missing Links – The Missing Links, and for 50 cents!

BRAG :: 608 :: 15:04:15 :: 19

Pacific Records

Revolve Records 3/65 Erskineville Rd, Erskineville. 9519 9978 / revolverecords.com.au

Shop 3, 1761 Pittwater Rd, Mona Vale.

8411 2331 / pacificrecords.com.au

The team: The Team at Revolve Records is Jon Ordon, the owner, and working in store is Pete, ex-owner of Creative Vibes, and Gonz, DJ extraordinaire.

The team: It’s a one-man army here but my bestie Grant’s help has been tremendous over the years!

The history: I’ve been wheeling and dealing since the late ’80s but started Pacific Records in 2001. First record I swapped was Iron Maiden’s The Number Of The Beast for S.O.D’s Speak English Or Die LP sometime in 1986. That record blew my head off and it was all go from then on.

What’s playing in store right now? Ty Segall, Thee O Sees, Budos Band, Stan Getz, Dave Brubeck, Black Sabbath, Terrorizer, Beowulf, OFF!, Muddy Waters, Sonny Boy Williamson.

How are you celebrating Record Store Day on April 18? Like I celebrate every other day, sell some records and have a few.

What was the first record you bought?

Iron Maiden’s ‘The Trooper’ seven-inch – Mum hated it until I came home with Venom’s Black Metal LP a few days later.

How do you deal with the challenges of running a record store in 2015, and how does Record Store Day help the cause? It can be hard but RSD certainly helps, it’s such a great initiative! Let’s hope the major labels stop pressing unnecessary releases and leave it up to the indies.

What’s the one record you argue over most?

I don’t argue anymore, every record is a good one!

What’s selling like hotcakes at the moment?

That Dave Grohl dude’s band.

The history: Jon started 25 years ago with Discovery and evolved into Revolve Records in Erskineville over ten years ago. The first records Jon ever sold were a pile of rare obscure vinyl (I’d hate to think what they were) at Balmain Markets when just starting out in the late ’80s.

What’s playing in store right now? Tammi Terrell – Irresistible How are you celebrating Record Store Day on April 18? We’re celebrating Record Store Day! Come in and say hi!

How do you deal with the challenges of running a record store in 2015, and how does Record Store Day help the cause? Jon doesn’t find running a record store a challenge, it’s more a pleasure. Record Store Day brings new record collectors out of the woodwork.

Resist Records

What was the first record you bought? First record Jon bought was a Billy Idol 45, ‘Rebel Yell’ (cringe).

Basement, 294 King St, Newtown. 9557 8771 / resistrecords.com

What’s the one record you argue over most? Jon is open-minded about music and doesn’t argue about records.

The team: Resist is a small operation, there’s myself (Graham Nixon), Mel Kraljevic and Dani Chalmers.

The history: Resist started in 1996 and has since had three different locations, all within Newtown.

What’s playing in store right now?

Pianos Become The Teeth – Keep You What is it you dig about the Sydney music scene? Sydney’s always had a strong music scene. Like any city it has its ups and downs, but there’s a lot of good young bands coming through so that always keeps things exciting.

How important is the independent music network to what you do and our city as a whole? Without the

support of our customers, we wouldn’t be in business or be able to do what it is we do. Unfortunately too many stores close and when they do, everyone talks about how great the store was – however, often it’s too late, so if you want any small business to keep their doors open, get out and show your support.

How are you celebrating Record Store Day on April 18? Other then stocking many of the RSD titles, it’s business as usual for us, nothing fancy going on here.

If you were stranded on a desert island and could take one record with you, what would it be? Gorilla Biscuits – Start Today What’s the first record you ever

What’s selling like hotcakes at the moment? Blues, psych, prog and good classic rock.

bought? INXS/Jimmy Barnes – ‘Good Times’ seven-inch.

What’s the best discovery you’ve ever made while digging through record crates? Face To Face – Don’t Turn Away LP on Dr. Strange (it was later rereleased on Fat).

RECORD STORE DAY SAT 18th APRIL LIVE BAND SPECIAL GUEST DJ’S YOUNG HENRY’S TAP TAKEOVER MOJO RECORD BAR 73 YORK ST mojorecordbar.com

20 :: BRAG :: 608 :: 15:04:15

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The Vintage Record 31a Parramatta Rd, Annandale. 9550 4667 / thevintagerecord.com The team: Well, there’s Tom who used to own Good Groove Records; Joe, who plays in Machine Machine; Michelle, my wife; and me, Phil.

The history: This is our tenth year owning the Vintage Record and we’re still loving it.

Sounds Espresso 268 Victoria Rd, Marrickville. 9572 6959 / soundsespresso. com.au The team: Anthony Skapetis: owner/founder of Sounds Espresso.

The history: Our retro-style café and record store opened in 2014 on Record Store Day, wow! There’s been so many records sold – I think the first record was Nana Mouskouri [laughs].

What’s playing in store right now? Sylvester – ‘Do Ya Wanna Funk’ How are you celebrating Record Store Day on April 18?

Lots of music, lots of talking and lots of fun.

How do you deal with the challenges of running a record store in 2015, and how does Record Store Day help the cause? Just loving the challenge of selling records and showing people and teaching them about records and turntables.

What was the first record you bought? I think it was a children’s record.

What’s the one record you argue over most? Salt-N-Pepa – ‘Push It’ What’s selling like hotcakes at the moment? Hip hop, disco, ’80s, funk, R&B.

What’s playing in store right now?

Axiom – Fool’s Gold What is it you dig about the Sydney music scene? We are getting back to the indie culture I grew up with in the ’80s and ’90s. People are realising the corporate music model is broken.

How important is the independent music network to what you do and our city as a whole?

See previous answer!

If you were stranded on a desert island and could take one record with you, what would it be? Miles Davis – Kind Of Blue.

Perfection on wax.

What’s the first record you ever bought? Pink Floyd – The Dark Side Of The Moon

What’s the best discovery you’ve ever made while digging through record crates? The next one – that’s why I keep doing this.

Utopia Records Lower Ground Floor, 511 Kent St, Sydney. 9571 6662 / utopia.com.au The team: Well, we have the obligatory young good looking guy, the bloke from the Hard-Ons, the Decoder Ring bloke with the out-of-control beard and an encyclopaedic knowledge of thrash metal, plus a couple of randoms including myself.

we have far too many moth boys out there attracted to the flashing lights of the [cough, cough] VIP Lounge; get into some music, you dopey muppets!

The history: We are the sore thumb of the music scene, the red-headed stepchild who always did what they weren’t supposed to do. Utopia has been around since 1978, which we always love to ‘brag’ is two years before either Iron Maiden or the Dead Kennedys released their debut albums.

How important is the independent music network to what you do and our city as a whole? Crucial. I would need the entire mag just to explain the obvious.

What’s playing in store right now?

Archspire – The Lucid Collective. In ten years, everybody will say they were into this.

What is it you dig about the Sydney music scene? Lots of awesome people in lots of awesome bands from old-school metal and crusty punk blokes to Post Whatever You Wanna Call Yourself cool kids doing the skinny jeans thing. Sadly

How are you celebrating Record Store Day on April 18?

Just us and a thousand of our best friends buying records and talking shit. DJs from No Life ’Til Leather and Frankie’s will be supplying the tunes. As usual Utopia will have the ultimate prizes including the Century Venues Golden Ticket worth approximately $15,000.

If you were stranded on a desert island and could take one record with you, what would it be?

Something I have never heard, fingers

crossed I like it…

What’s the first record you ever bought?

With my own money? KISS – ‘Rock And Roll All Nite’, seven-inch Australian pressing in 1975 from Ron Manton’s Ear Gear in Blacktown.

What’s the best discovery you’ve ever made while digging through record crates?

I went to the Glebe Fair several years ago; on my way I called someone who was there and they said, “Don’t bother, there is nothing here.” I went anyway and found a $600 record three records back in the very first crate I looked at, a bargain at $8.

A P R I L 18 , 2 0 15

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BRAG :: 608 :: 15:04:15 :: 23

arts in focus

free stuff head to: thebrag.com/freeshit

arts news...what's goin' on around town... with Meggan Turner, Chris Martin and Sarah Basford

five minutes WITH ROB

You’ve each got differing backgrounds in performance – how well do the likes of magic and musical theatre go hand-inhand?

Magic and music theatre go together remarkably well – for our purposes, at least.

From the beginning Harry and I have been committed to using our disparate talents and interests to our advantage. We have put on shows where I sing and play a little boogiewoogie on the tuba, while Harry does a mindreading act and convinces the audience he’s piercing his own skin with a knitting needle. It’s a weird combo, but we love our separate skill sets, so it works.

Premium Fresh, your Sydney Comedy Festival show, is an improv-style piece.

What should audiences expect, or is it completely unpredictable?

At the top of Premium Fresh we will very politely ask an audience member about their day, and then create an interpretation of the dream they’re going to have that night. It’s based on an old format from Chicago. We

What’s your number one tip for keeping things premium fresh in our everyday lives?

Fibre.

After Sydney Comedy Festival, you’ll represent Australia at the Theatresports World Cup. Do you feel the weight of the nation on your shoulders?

We do now. But really, the whole point of Theatresports is to be incredibly silly and to make people laugh – the World Cup is going to be a perfect excuse to have ridiculous fun onstage with some of the world’s best improvisers. Comedy will be the real winner on the day.

What: Premium Fresh as part of Sydney Comedy Festival 2015 Where: Enmore Theatre When: Wednesday April 22 – Saturday April 25

While all the big-name international comedians are rolling through town for the Sydney Comedy Festival, don’t forget the local talents who keep the scene going all year round. The Laugh Stand is their home – the long-time comedy den at Harold Park Hotel – and the monthly Comedy Gala night is back this month with a bumper lineup. Headlining will be Mick Meredith, the musical comedian familiar to audiences of The Footy Show and Mornings With Kerri-Anne alike. How’s that for a diverse following? Joining the fun on emcee duties will be Gen Fricker, with the former refugee

Umit Bali also on board alongside Greta Lee Jackson, Lee Lewis, Matt Reddy and Ruven Govender. It all goes down on Tuesday April 28.

THE FIRST RULE OF SCRIPT CLUB

Griffin Theatre Company has decided to put a twist on the traditional book club concept, and is introducing a new event – Script Club. Griffin has scheduled four events over the coming months which will rediscover and discuss classic Australian plays.

Discussions will be led by John McCallum, theatre critic for The Australian and senior lecturer in theatre at UNSW. The plays to be

explored include Brumby Innes by Katharine Susannah Prichard, Netherwood by Patrick White, The Golden Oldies by Dorothy Hewett and The Precious Woman by Louis Nowra.

Brumby Innes kicks off the program on Saturday May 23.

HEAR YE, HEAR YE

Gleebooks will this week present Orators, a performance dedicated to the greatest public speakers in history. Orators will celebrate the likes of Cicero, Benjamin Franklin, Noel Pearson, John Adams, Martin Luther King, FDR, JFK, RFK, Teddy Kennedy, Winston Churchill, Barack Obama, Gough Whitlam, Benjamin Disraeli, Abraham Lincoln, Chief Seattle, Paul Keating, Jed Bartlet and even

KATIE POLLOCK DOUBLE BILL

Two plays written by awardwinning playwright Katie Pollock will show at Leichhardt Town Hall in late April and into May. The plays will be directed by Rachel Chant and include Blue Italian, which picked up the Best Drama award from Canberra Festival of One-Act Plays in 2008, and Nil By Sea, which tells the story of a murder that rocks a neighbourhood and begins an intriguing investigation. Blue Italian follows the story of a young woman who sets out on a journey to an unknown destination in the search of meaning and connection. Blue Italian and Nil

By Sea will play from Wednesday April 29 – Sunday May 17.

24 :: BRAG :: 608 :: 15:04:15

It’s that time of year again when the funny kids from the block come around and make you laugh for a few weeks. Yes, it’s none other than Sydney Comedy Festival season. For the third year in a row, the festival will be holding a showcase at the UNSW Roundhouse with some of the freshest up-and-comers in the field as well as some not-so-fresh faces.

Can you actually think of a better way to spend your evening than watching the Sydney Comedy Festival Showcase with your best mate? Look, maybe you can, but that’s not the point. Luckily for you, we’re giving away three double passes to the showcase on Wednesday April 29. Head to thebrag.com/freeshit to win some free shit.

SPANISH FILM FESTIVAL

An internationally recognised event, this year’s Spanish Film Festival is due to tour Australia over the next few months, bringing an extensive collection of hardhitting independent Spanish and Latin American films. Exclusive to Palace Cinemas across Australia, the festival showcases an immense roster of romances, comedies, and combinations of both. The festival will open with Emilio Martínez-Lázaro’s Spanish Affair, a comedic tale that acknowledges cultural differences as it tracks a young southerner who tenaciously seeks to win the heart of a Basque girl. Also on the bill include films like Marshland, The Unexpected Life, I Am From Chile, Blue Lips, El Nino and Easy Sex, Sad Movies, among numerous others. The Spanish Film Festival will be screening at Sydney’s Palace Cinemas from Tuesday April 21 – Sunday May 10.

THE LAUGH STAND APRIL GALA

SYDNEY COMEDY FESTIVAL SHOWCASE

Blue Italian photo by Zorica Purlija

Spanish Affair

anticipate that it’s going to get very weird.

There’s no logic like dream logic, after all.

Yuka 2000 by Miwa Yanagi

LET’S GET LOUD

Coinciding with the 40th anniversary of International Women’s Day, the Art Gallery of NSW has announced a photographic exhibition of women by women. Consisting of nine powerful pieces, the exhibition will contain the works of artists Miwa Yanagi, Yvonne Todd, Anne Zahalka and Rosemary Laing. The photographs showcase femininity in different lights, diverging from mainstream norms.

They offer humour, but also contain subtle, darker meanings. Loud! is the first of many exhibitions that the Art Gallery of NSW will be showcasing in celebration of the 40th anniversary of International Women’s Day. Loud! shows from Saturday April 25 – Sunday July 5. You can also catch a solo exhibition of Rosemary Laing’s work from Saturday July 11.

Jesus Christ – all fantastic public speakers who had the ability to wield enormous infl uence with their words. Starring Bob Ellis, Bill Charlton, Andrew Sharp, Monroe Reimers and Mark Connelly, with Robbie Murphy on keyboard, Orators will be an exciting literary event that analyses the power of words and the way they are communicated. Orators takes place on Sunday April 19.

24 FRAMES PER SECOND

Blue Italian

xxx

H

ow did Mantaur come together?

Harry [Milas] and I met at uni, and started doing Theatresports together in 2011. We gravitated towards each other because we were both newbies and we made each other laugh. After winning the Sydney University Theatresports comp in 2012 we thought we should have a crack at doing some comedy as a duo. As for what the name ‘Mantaur’ actually means, that’s a secret we’ll take to our graves. NB: it’s unrelated to the WWF wrestler from the ’90s.

JOHNSON FROM MANTAUR

Carriageworks is set to bring to life a ground-breaking project, 24 Frames Per Second, by a selection of 24 artists, choreographers, dancers and fi lmmakers.

Commissioning both Australian and international artists, and three years in the making, the exhibition highlights the fundamental core of expression through fi lm, dance and visual arts. Supported by the Australia Council for the Arts in a partnership with Carriageworks, 24 Frames Per Second has been developed to provide Australian artists with the resources and support to create dynamic multimedia installations.

It runs from Thursday June 18 – Sunday August 2. thebrag.com

MARY TOBIN PRESENTS

STEPHEN K

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THE ENMORE THEATRE THU 23 APR - 7:15 PM & SUN 26 APRIL - 6:15 PM THE CONCOURSE, CHATSWOOD FRI 24 & SAT 25 APRIL - 7:15 PM PHOTO: HO JAMES ES PENLIDIS P

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BRAG :: 608 :: 15:04:15 :: 25

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

■ Film

The Salt Of The Earth

THE SALT OF THE EARTH

Black Sea

In cinemas now Having won major awards at the Cannes, Munich and San Sebastian fi lm festivals, and snagging an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary Feature, The Salt Of The Earth has already built a reputation ahead of its Australian release. The documentary follows the story of Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado, tracking the artist through his work in various parts of the world.

The fi lm employs a very self-conscious documentary style in telling Salgado’s story. Directed by German fi lmmaker Wim Wenders, along with Sebastião’s son, Juliano Ribeiro Salgado, The Salt Of The Earth looks not only at Sebastião’s life, but at his relationships with each of these men, and with the documentary itself.

Salgado’s life and work are fascinating and engaging throughout the fi lm.

Wenders chooses to follow Salgado’s life through his work in quite a visceral way, projecting the photos themselves over Salgado’s face as he provides context through commentary. This approach really helps to draw the viewer into Salgado’s experience, and is quite affecting at times, particularly when

moving through his work surrounding famine in Africa. It also provides an opportunity for the viewer to experience a broad range of Salgado’s photography, which is truly breathtaking.

The Salt Of The Earth is a very beautiful film, even while shining a light on some incredibly dark periods in humanity’s recent history. It’s also a very personal story, and seems to show the effect that the brutality inherent in humanity can have – not only on nations, as is depicted through the photography, but on Salgado himself. Salgado’s recent shift to nature-based photography is shown almost as a retreat from this brutality, and an understandable one after what he has seen and experienced.

Louisa Bulley

■ Theatre

Playing at the Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House until Saturday May 16 If you ever wondered what David Williamson would look like transplanted to the Northern Hemisphere, April De Angelis’ Jumpy provides the ghost of an answer. It’s a portrait of domestic ennui and dissatisfaction in middle-class England that is two parts zinger to one part pathos, ladled on late but thick. De Angelis sure knows how to wring a chuckle from the white, theatre-going types whose entanglements she skewers, but talk about low-hanging fruit.

Marina Prior plays Hilary’s best friend, Frances, who goes on holiday with the family and a recently divorced family friend (John Lloyd Fillingham). She treats the

Harry Windsor

Arts Exposed What's in our diary...

At the local pub another disgruntled ex-employee tells him about the treasure, a pre-invasion gift from Hitler to Stalin which never reached Moscow and is waiting to be claimed on the seafloor by those stout enough to do

Macdonald made his name with gripping documentaries like Touching The Void and One Day In September, but his fiction films – the feature adaptation of State Of Play, the Channing-Tatum-ascenturion movie The Eagle – have always felt well made but not quite necessary. Black Sea has its moments, but it’s a film that telegraphs its every move.

Harry Windsor

Giveaway What's been on our TV screens this week enter: thebrag.com/freeshit

NORTHERN SOUL! AUDIO-TECHNICA HEADPHONES! WIN!

D

J culture has come a long way over the last three or four decades. These days, the DJ is the life of the party on dancefloors across the world – but back in the ’60s and ’70s, the humble disc jockey was only just starting to emerge on the mod-influenced nightclub scene in the north-west of England. Northern Soul, the new film by writer/director Elaine Constantine, tells the story of the burgeoning youth culture which would go on to shape songwriting, DJing, design and production for the next generations of young people worldwide. The film stars Elliot James Langridge, Antonia Thomas and Steve Coogan, and is released on digital, DVD and Blu-ray next Wednesday April 22.

Boys Will Be Boys Wharf 2 Theatre, Thursday April 16 – Saturday May 16 Melissa Bubnic’s new play Boys Will Be Boys follows the relentless life of Astrid Wentworth, a currency trader who takes no prisoners on the trading floor. Rake star Danielle Cormack embodies a ruthless Astrid, who decides to mentor a young woman in the high stakes game of finance.

Bubnic has a spade of accomplishments under her belt, including being awarded STC’s Patrick White Playwrights’ Award in 2010 for her play Beached. Her dark style of humour and colourful language makes its return with Boys Will Be Boys.

26 :: BRAG :: 608 :: 15:04:15

Jude Law fights for respect 30,000 leagues under the sea in Kevin Macdonald’s submarine thriller Black Sea, in which a team of downand-out ex-Navy types travel to the Black Sea to salvage gold ingots from a sunken Nazi U-boat. Law plays the captain with a thick Scottish brogue, while Scoot McNairy plays an untrustworthy suit and Ben Mendelsohn a psychopathic Australian diver.

Needless to say, both are playing types they might as well have patented. Only Law is trying something new. He’s bulked up and broadened out, visibly thinning on top.

The script is the inverse of that: it does the job but is never less than glaringly schematic. The exposition comes thick and fast. Made redundant from his gig at a salvage yard in the film’s opening scene, Law talks about sacrificing his marriage, his family, for the job. Cut to his dreary flat on a local estate, and framed pictures of his wife and son frolicking on a beach.

so. Law is bankrolled by a shadowy businessman (The Honourable Woman’s Tobias Menzies) and buys a rickety sub from a Russian yard.

He recruits a crew that’s half Russian, half sons of the Commonwealth, and tensions predictably boil over.

The set by Michael Hankin is simple and effective. The tip of a banister and sliding panels suggest space without having to fill it, and without distracting from the performers, who are uniformly terrific. Pamela Rabe as director coaxes a delicate turn from Turner in particular, but that delicacy is at odds with the broadness of De Angelis’ dialogue. The play careers from farce to drama and back again, but the characters are so clown-like or so repellent that feeling anything for them would be a truly Olympian feat of empathy.

See www.thebrag.com for more arts reviews

Tickets start at $27. For bookings and more information, visit sydneytheatre.com.au.

In cinemas now

His authority is convincing, if ultimately ineffective.

S AY W EA IV G

Jane Turner stars as Hilary, whose marriage is neither happy nor particularly toxic, but who is shackled with a teenage daughter who might just be the most cartoonishly horrible millennial I’ve ever seen on stage or screen. Played by Brenna Harding, best known for the new Puberty Blues, Tilly is relentlessly petulant and monstrously entitled. As such she’s yet another Gen Y character who’s not really a character at all, but a collection of clichés that serve to happily flatten an entire generation.

group to an extended burlesque routine that leaves their jaws on the floor. She’s getting on but has taken up cabaret – it’s a mid-life crisis, geddit? Meanwhile, Tilly’s sex life is going full-pelt, providing more grist for the endless antagonism between mother and daughter.

BLACK SEA

Boys Will Be Boys

To celebrate the release of Northern Soul – and to help you get your fix of today’s musical culture – we’ve got five pairs of the portable yet great-sounding AudioTechnica ATH-SJ11 headphones to give away. For your chance to win, head to thebrag.com/freeshit.

WIN! thebrag.com

Jumpy photo by Brett Boardman

Jumpy

JUMPY

■ Film

BRAG :: 608 :: 15:04:15 :: 27

Welcome to Sydney Comedy Festival 2015

A

pparently the monkeys that run the Sydney Comedy Festival have piled together yet another laugh fest. Apparently they will bring together comedy royalty, emerging comedy stars and some of the funniest comics ever seen onstage in Sydney. Apparently they have worked hard to ensure that there is something for everyone.

Apparently this festival is going to be great…

So they have bunched together some scruffy, dishevelled comics (apologies to the well-coiffed Rhys Nicholson) into some cool venues and promise hours of entertainment. They promise insightful dissertations of our everyday, mundane lives. A reprieve from the rat race, if you may. They promise good banter, great stories and killer sketches. They promise amazing improv and the sort of comedy routines that will leave you with a sore thigh from slapping it so much.

Because apparently, this little artist was not good enough for them. Apparently this guy’s original One Man Hunger Games simply did not have enough laughs in it to make the cut. That somehow I should watch Noel Fielding and Ross Noble and Paul Foot to learn about unique perspectives and amazing stagecraft. That somehow Akmal and Stephen K Amos will teach me how to be… funny. That artists like Ronny Chieng and Matt Okine and Dave Thornton and Nick Cody know how to tell a joke. That the Thrilling Adventure Hour is unique like my show – but in a good way. That Angelo Tsarouchas and Tony Woods and Daniel Sloss bring international appeal and that Craig Hill and Effie and Fiona O’Loughlin know how to entertain. That Penny Greenhalgh and Corey White and Sam Campbell and Sparrow Folk are fresh and new and exciting and to even try and present my show as the Secret Show might have been a bit too traumatic on the unsuspecting audience.

With

Frank The Gorilla

So Sydney, I am afraid you will have to be satisfied with the sort of banana programming those Festival apes are throwing at you and do without original work of art. Maybe I should try a One Man Game Of Thrones Show for next year?

Enjoy it, if you must.

Frank Sydney Comedy Festival 2015 (unsuccessful) applicant

Well bully for them.

ROSS

“To improvise properly, and I think this is a rule of life in general, you have to learn to turn off the part of your brain involved with censorship. The trick is to just go with it.”

NOBLE Freewheeling Funnies

By Adam Norris

WHAT: Tangentleman WHERE: Enmore Theatre WHEN: Friday April 24 – Wednesday April 29

R

oss Noble has been running by the seat of his pants for 25 years now, curly hair streaming in the slipstream, maniacal grin bearing down on the next happily hapless front row. He has developed a reputation for improvisation that is unique even among other comics, and so it makes sense to pry secrets of the trade from him so that we might bottle his humour and sell it on the fringe black market to unscrupulous comedians in dark trench coats and novelty pants.

“It all comes back to the idea of playing,” Noble says in his unmistakable Northumberland accent. “To improvise properly, and I think this is a rule of life in general, you have to learn to turn off the part of your brain involved with censorship. The trick is to just go with it. People talk about creative writing, how if you sit there with a blank page and think you have to write the

28 :: BRAG :: 608 :: 15:04:15

best thing that anyone has ever written, you’ll never write anything. Whereas if you sit there and just write anything at all, whatever pops into your head, it’s better than having nothing.

And that’s sort of true of improvising onstage.

There might be something that you think is a crap idea, but as you work it there might be something fantastical there. Alternatively, it might be a fantastic idea but you don’t get that much out of it.”

He chuckles between mouthfuls of breakfast.

“You see it a lot with newer comics. They don’t necessarily know what their point of view is yet, how they view the world, what their own take is. They’re just thinking, ‘God, I just need to come up with something, anything that might be funny.’ Whereas if you know what you want, it’s easy to process things. You’ll stop thinking, ‘What will these people laugh at?’ and you’ll start to see, ‘This is what I find funny.’”

From a man who is consistently ranked among the greatest stand-up comics in the world, it’s advice most aspiring performers should take to heart. Noble honed his talents by following the same path as so many before; busking before strangers and slowly learning that the trick to keeping your material engaging was to do whatever came naturally.

“Originally I was trying very hard to be slick.

Jack Dee was one of the first comics I saw.

He wore a suit and his material was really sharp, and I thought, ‘Yes! That’s the sort of comic I’d like to be.’ But it just didn’t work for me, because I wasn’t like that as a person.

I’d come from this place of being a street entertainer. I was quite comfortable working the street, which sounds a little suspicious.

I wasn’t there learning in the comedy club, where everyone was a lot more focused. I used to compare quite a lot, but then I found myself doing TV warm-ups, and it was one

of those things where you can’t really stand there and just tell jokes. You have to talk to the crowd, and I really enjoyed it! I found I could do it really well, and so I wandered off down that path. But that whole time I was just being myself.”

Watching Noble perform live is a beautifully bizarre affair, like finding yourself invited to some communal dream. His streamof-consciousness verbosity and audience engagement leads to moments of unpredictable, ridiculous delight, yet you don’t work for a quarter-century in any industry without picking up certain secrets of the trade. 25 years, and the veil is finally lifted; plumbers rarely carry plumbs, falconers are actually using cunning little rabbits strapped to hang gliders, and a quiet audience is not always an unhappy one.

“I think over that time you just naturally become more attuned to things like rhythm,

thebrag.com

LANCE PATRICK US funnyman Gabriel “I’m not fat, I’m fluffy” Iglesias has declared that we are in need of a revolution – a Stand-Up Revolution. So he is sending three of his finest colleagues to fly the flag on his behalf at this year’s Sydney Comedy Festival. The trio in question are stars of the Comedy Channel’s smash hit television series of the same name, and they’re being pitched as “the craziest men in show business” – Lance Patrick, Martin Moreno and G Reilly.

“I don’t know if we’re the three craziest,” Patrick says, “because Gabriel always describes Martin as the craziest man in show business. But I think we’re probably guilty by association. Just hanging out with Martin, we may spend some time in jail.

“G Reilly is more laid-back. His humour is very observational and intelligent, like the things you’re thinking but don’t say. Martin is the crazy one who’ll say the things you probably would never think and never say, because you don’t want to go to a dark place after you die! I think he knows he’s going there already, so he just says it.”

Patrick is one cool customer – if only out of

Heavyweight Humour By Natalie Rogers

necessity. His first foray into stand-up was truly a baptism of fire. “Stand-up is the most terrifying thing that you will ever do,” he says. “I would rather go bungee jumping or skydiving. I would rather do a million other things other than stand-up.”

Only five short years ago, Patrick was happy in his job as an online marketer for the Comedy Channel. “It was fun. I’d get to go on tour with these incredible comedians and we’d hang out, you know?”

Looking back, Patrick admits maybe he had too much fun, because it wasn’t long before Iglesias declared it was time for him to get up onstage and show ’em what he could do. After refusing to help with his material, Patrick says Iglesias chose a sold-out gig of 2,000 people at the Hard Rock Cafe in Orlando for him to make his debut – hardly the ideal scenario for a rookie.

“My nerves were doing OK until I realised that all the other comedians – Martin, Gabriel, Alfred [Robles] and everyone that was out on the road – actually had money wagered on whether I would crash and burn!”

It turned out the joke was on them, because Patrick managed to win the crowd over with his slightly adolescent but perfectly timed quips on life, love and Justin Bieber (you may have seen his pseudo sex tape on our screens in 2013).

“The Justin Bieber video got two million views in two days,” he explains. “It even aired on The Project. My relatives on the Gold Coast called me and were like, ‘What are you doing on TV?!’ and I was like, ‘Really? That’s what gets me on TV down there?’ If people in Australia don’t know me as a comedian, they’ll know me as the guy who had relations with Justin Bieber.”

All jokes aside, Patrick has always had a special place in his heart for Australia – his first visit here was when he was 13. “You guys know how to party. You know how to have a good time. Looking from the outside in, when you’ve had a Prime Minister who held the Guinness Book World Record for chugging a beer the fastest, it’s like, ‘We’ve gotta get down there!’” he laughs. “Oh, and the other day, someone asked who my favourite Australian comedian is, and I said Jim Jefferies and Tony Abbott!”

WHAT: Comedians Of Gabriel Iglesias’ Stand-Up Revolution World Tour WITH: Martin Moreno and G Reilly WHERE: The Comedy Store WHEN: Tuesday April 21 and Wednesday April 22

recognising the different energy levels of an audience,” Noble says. “Sensing that they’re going to get tired any minute now, or knowing that if they’re laughing sort of low-key, it’s not because they’re not enjoying it. You need to just bring them in that little bit more. That makes it sound a little like I’m practising the dark arts there, but ultimately what it still comes down to is playing. Playing onstage and making others who are watching feel like they’re playing, too.”

With a Ross Noble gig almost guaranteed to sell out, his audiences are, well, rather large. Gone are the days of performing on street corners and warming up television audiences, though he doesn’t find the facelessness of these massive crowds offputting in the slightest – if anything, you sense that he is buoyed by this ocean of laughter. Nor is he particularly interested in turning the tide and reconnecting with an intimate audience.

“No. In answer to your question, no,” he laughs. “Every now and again I’ll pop into something. I have mates who have comedy clubs and sometimes I’ll just turn up unannounced and get up. But I also have this TV show in the UK called Freewheeling, where I travel around on my motorbike using Twitter to see where I end up. And with that, sometimes I’ll turn up in people’s houses, or I’ll find myself giving a speech at someone’s wedding. Sometimes there might only be two or three people in a room, and while you know that you’re also performing for the camera, it can still be quite a laugh just one on one. So that kind of fulfils that urge when it’s there.”

While his greatest success remains his ever-evolving stand-up career, Noble has also branched out into film and television; in addition to the hilarious Freewheeling, there is also his celebrated appearances on the perplexingly profound quizzish show, QI. Hosted by polymath Stephen Fry, part of its appeal is watching a panel of comedians trying to develop the funniest joke until one of them explodes.

“You know, you might think that comedy is always that spur-of-the-moment thing,” Noble reflects, “that you get a bunch of comics together and it’s almost combative.

But actually, it’s not. It’s still about playing.

It’s the same as stepping out in front of an audience and treating it as you versus them.

When QI works at its best – well, for me anyway, a lot of people might like just sitting there hearing a load of facts – is when you’re improvising together. You’ll hear something, someone else will follow the idea to some ridiculous conclusion, and then someone else again will pick the ball up and run with it in another direction. It builds and builds. One of my favourite episodes is when I was on with Professor Brian Cox. I was asking these stupid questions about space, and instead of going, ‘You’re an idiot, stop asking me about Ewoks,’ he said, ‘Well, that could happen on this planet and with these conditions.’

“If you’re only interested in the big punchline, well, sometimes you can get a massive laugh and a round of applause, but that’s it. You’ve killed it! That’s why I like that show. It allows you to make believe with others.”

thebrag.com

TAKE K THE H HE

GREAT COMEDY TITLES FROM

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ONE MAN BREAKING BAD WHAT: One Man Breaking Bad: The Unauthorised Parody WHERE: Seymour Centre WHEN: Tuesday April 21 – Saturday April 25 Allen is drawn to the series, given that he’s a Christian and all.

“The show’s synonymous with faith,” Allen says. “It’s the classic story of someone going down a slippery path when they could have made other choices. We look at Walter while he’s still a meek, mild chemistry teacher; he loves his family and he’s diagnosed with cancer. He faces a choice, which he believes is justified. That could be a path we all go down. There are so many times in the show where he could have made a different choice.

There are ‘God moments’ where he would have been taken care of.”

Blind Faith

By Liza Dezfouli Last year, Miles Allen performed his show One Man Breaking Bad at the exclusive Kelvin Club during the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Now, the show is coming our way – but in a different guise. “This year it’s a very different show,” Allen says. “It’s gotten better along the way.

“I’m excited to be doing it; there’s a lot of new material. More impressions, more props. Jesse’s still narrating but it’s been broken up into seasons.”

Breaking Bad features some of the most morally compromised characters on television, especially the protagonist Walter White, a mildmannered chemistry teacher turned meth manufacturer. So it’s curious that

show about Better Call Saul? “It’s a possibility,” he says. “It depends how well this show goes. It’s been very well received by UK audiences. It’s foreseeable that I could do one down the track.”

In particular, Allen is looking forward to performing at the Roxy in Los Angeles in June, as he’s heard the audience will include Bob Odenkirk himself, the actor who plays Saul Goodman. ”I’ve heard he’s very interested in seeing the show. That’s a dream come true!

Saul works in mysterious ways.”

It’s surprising to find a believer in the irreverent world of comedy, where religion is so often a target for humour.

“People are surprised,” says Allen.

“People ask me questions. But I don’t really expect any sort of persecution.

I’m just your generic comedian.”

The comedian explains that one challenge he faces is keeping his voice healthy. “It’s a big challenge keeping my voice from going out. I can start losing my voice very quickly onstage. But I had a brilliant voice coach just before the UK tour and that helped immensely. It’s holding up a lot and is stronger than ever.”

As fans of Breaking Bad will know, one of the charismatic characters from the series now has his own spin-off program. Is Allen planning a

Although he originally intended to become a professional baseball player, Allen found his comedic skills when he changed high schools

as a very young teenager. In reinventing himself, he discovered a gift for mimicry and accents that he’s been developing ever since. “It started with SpongeBob,” he recalls.

“When I finished school and was thinking about finding a normal job, I quickly realised that performing was something I truly love. And I’m not really good at anything else. My parents quickly conceded that this is the best path for me. They’ve been very supportive ever since.”

Constantly surrounded by comic talent on festivals like the Sydney Comedy Festival, Allen says it’s important to avoid becoming envious of others’ success. “It’s an active process to be grateful for what you have. Living in LA, you’re constantly being a business card, showing what you do. I’m guilty of it too. You see your friends getting TV roles sooner than you do. It’s an active process to try not to be jealous. There are standards of excellence you can aspire to, people you can strive to emulate and you can work towards that.”

DEANNE SMITH WHAT: Get Into It WHERE: Factory Theatre WHEN: Thursday April 23 Get Into It

By Christine Lan DeAnne Smith is as personable and charming as she is daring and surprising. A frequent visitor to our shores, the Canadian-American comedian cites food spots Lentil As Anything and Gopal’s in Melbourne as two of her favourite destinations, but her Australian comedy festival tours are significant to her for several reasons. “I feel like I’ve grown a lot as a comedian in Australia,” she reflects. “I feel very attuned to Australian audiences because I developed a lot there.

“When I first started, people would say that I seemed really comfortable onstage. I would joke around and say, ‘Oh, I seem comfortable onstage because I’m equally uncomfortable everywhere, so it doesn’t really matter – put me anywhere and I have the same anxiety and the same issues.’

It’s great to feel like I started off that way, but more and more I’m becoming comfortable onstage and doing comedy has made me more comfortable in the world in general. It really fulfils me on every level.”

As a kid, Smith watched comedy on TV with her dad. “Back then I really liked

Roseanne Barr and Paula Poundstone, and Ellen DeGeneres, of course. I didn’t know that that’s what I would do, but I remember being curious about how anyone ever arrived at that point. My absolute favourite is Maria Bamford.”

like digging into real issues that I have and making them fun. And so the idea behind Get Into It was to challenge myself to be just as hilarious, but even more personal and digging into more real stuff about life and what I find funny.”

Smith started doing stand-up comedy a decade ago. “I did my very first open mic and then I just never stopped,” she says.

“I would say that it’s definitely the one thing that has really challenged me as a person, so it feels like the right thing.

It also brings up all these self-growth things for me, like the first time you have a really bad show you need to decide what you’re going to do with that and how you’re going to overcome that and, you know, keep going. I learn a lot about myself as I’m doing it, even just in terms of things like fear of commitment. I’ve learned to make plans, you know, 18 months in advance because that’s what you have to do with comedy sometimes when booking shows and festivals. And that never felt comfortable to me with anything, but with comedy I can do it.”

Smith is glad that stand-up comedians are increasingly using comedy to address important social issues such as racism, feminism and equality. “I think it’s probably one of the most effective ways of getting a message across, because people are entertained and they’re laughing – they’re likely to have their ears open and want to have their ears open to hear what you have to say.

Smith won the Best Female Stand-Up award at the 2014 Canadian Comedy Awards. Her new show at the Sydney Comedy Festival, Get Into It, will be her most personal to date. “I always like doing personal comedy,” she says. “I

Ultimately, Smith sees comedy’s future as one of diversity. “I feel like there’s more visible and more vocal voices that are not the typical, older, straight, white male voice. I feel like I’ve seen that change in the last ten years.”

“There are always feminist undercurrents or overtones in my work because that’s just how it is. In the past I’ve definitely taken some swipes at racism. I can definitely say that there will some of that this year and stuff about gay marriage, which is kind of a different topic here than it is in Canada where it’s been legal for ten years.”

JOSIE LONG WHAT: Cara Josephine WHERE: Enmore Theatre WHEN: Wednesday April 22 – Saturday April 25 The Shorter Story

By Christine Lan

“This show was a really different writing process to the others I’ve made,” she adds. “I wanted to take more time to see what the show was going to become, and it fed into what was happening in my life as I wrote it, too. I started out doing prototype 30 :: BRAG :: 608 :: 15:04:15

The British comedian started doing stand-up at 14, but pursued it more seriously after graduating from Oxford University. “I have always been obsessed with comedy on TV and live stuff. And I have always been a big show-off! I realised when I was about ten or 11 that all I wanted to do was be a performer, so in a lot of ways I am really lucky to have been so sure so early on. Now I am in a weird position where I can’t imagine my life without it, so I truly hope it doesn’t all go tits up from here.”

These days, Long is one of the UK’s most unique comedy stars. Regularly appearing on radio and TV, she is opinionated, quirky and endearingly genuine, and armed with a fiery political and social conscience.

Indeed, Long draws inspiration from headstrong artists, regardless of their medium.

“I love Joanna Newsom. She has a completely unique voice. She writes these epic albums that are so detailed and wonderful, so incredibly clever and wise. Her lyrics are fantastic poetry. Her album Have One On Me is just awe-inspiring – it’s the most comprehensive piece of art about break-ups and love I’ve ever found.”

Whether asserting her views on feminism or the Conservative Party, Long believes stand-up is an effective means of examining one’s views. “I think humour can be incredibly powerful in changing people’s perceptions about the world around them,” she says, “because when you’re laughing along with something, you are more open to the ideas being presented to you, and stand-up gives you such a

wonderful chance to really share your worldview with the crowd over the length of your show.

“I love comedy as much as I ever have. It’s so exciting, because you are a stand-up for your whole life – it becomes how you interpret and understand your experiences. It’s

always evolving; it’s such a new genre and you see new people coming up and doing wonderful things, and that inspires you to innovate and work harder. I love that you can constantly change your style and write whatever’s in your heart. I fucking love performing.” thebrag.com

Josie Long photo by Giles Smith

Love, family and heartbreak lie at the core of Josie Long’s new comedy show, Cara Josephine.

“It helped me a lot to write standup about old relationships and about my family,” says Long as she reflects on her most personal show to date. “It was cathartic. I started out the show feeling really angry and frustrated and heartbroken, and it felt like through the show, I could move on and make it into something silly and fun. It’s helped me clarify what I think and feel about love and hopefully that’ll be helpful to someone.

versions of the show in January last year, but they were mainly about how incredible my electric blanket is, because it was a chilly winter in England.”

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“EXEMPLARY STAND-UP COMEDY”

“Random, improvised and hilarious…”

+++++ HERALD

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

ALBUM OF THE WEEK THE MOUNTAIN GOATS Beat The Champ Merge/Remote Control

Before Hulkamania ran wild and The Rock asked us all if we could smell what he was cookin’, wrestling was a different beast. In the ’60s and ’70s it was a blue collar and working class event where strongmen fought to get by, and to entertain the children and families in the building. It’s something The Mountain Goats capture perfectly in their new album, Beat The Champ.

The Californian folk rockers deliver a real stone cold stunner of an album.

BRIAN WILSON No Pier Pressure EMI/Universal

From teenage symphonies to the sandbox years, few figures in the history of pop can match the legacy of Brian Wilson. A songwriter responsible for some of the greatest music ever written, it’s admittedly easy to be forgiving of any missteps the troubled Beach Boy makes in his twilight years.

The Beach Boys’ 2012 cash-in reunion album? Fine. His Disney and Gershwin cover albums? Why not? After all, it’s not as if he’s put out an AutoTune-riddled EDM track or anything like that… oh, what’s that? He has? Ah. Well, that’s alright. He wrote Pet Sounds, dude. Pet Sounds!

Despite containing one of the worst songs he has ever done – the aforementioned Sebu Simonian collaboration ‘Runaway Dancer’ – No Pier Pressure still charms, particularly when it puts Wilson in touch with contemporary voices.

Nate Ruess is right at home on the wonderful California dreaming ‘Saturday Night’, while Kacey Musgraves saccharinely croons through the cute ‘Guess You Had to Be There’.

Poor production choices and an inconsistent tracklisting drag the album down. It’s when No Pier Pressure shines, however, that it serves a timely reminder of the greatness of the man who just wasn’t made for these times.

First of all, you don’t need to be a professional wrestling fan to enjoy this

album, although it certainly helps. It’s littered with terms that are certainly inside baseball.

But not knowing what a heel turn is won’t affect your enjoyment of ‘Heel Turn 2’.

Much like pro wrestling itself, the enjoyment comes from the action, the stories and the compelling characters that are created through John Darnielle’s incredible knack for songwriting.

This album is a return to form for The Mountain Goats, who take the concept of the album and run with it thanks to strong instrumentation.

Each song has its own distinct feel that captures its characters, but still retains that signature Mountain Goats charm.

Spencer Scott

BETH HART

DRENGE

WAXAHATCHEE

LOWER DENS

Better Than Home Mascot/Warner

Undertow Infectious/Liberator

Ivy Tripp Wichita/[PIAS]

Escape From Evil Domino/EMI

Beth Hart sounds like someone my mother would like. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Before the rise of One Direction, my mother had decent taste in music.

The last 18 months and change have been extremely kind to Drenge. After a couple of years on the fringe, they have steadily escalated to the top of the British alternative rock food chain. This was especially apparent in the live environment, where their up-to-11 energy has brought them to both sweaty, sold-out clubs as well as some of the biggest festivals in Europe.

Ivy Tripp is US songwriter Katie Crutchfield’s third LP under the Waxahatchee moniker. But even though Crutchfield runs the show, Ivy Tripp regularly slips into full band mode. On a lyrical level, Crutchfield doesn’t strive for a polythematic quality; she’s here to sing about love, heartbreak and longing. This focus allows Crutchfield to zero in on the nuances of attraction and assume a range of contrasting viewpoints.

Three years after Nootropics, Lower Dens have opted for a much more accessible sound on Escape From Evil – one that sounds good while it’s on but is soon forgotten when it ends.

Of course, they’ve arrived at this level at a cost – their recorded material lacks the je ne sais quoi that makes seeing them in the flesh such an entertaining prospect.

While Crutchfield’s not an exceptionally crafty guitarist or far-reaching melodist, Ivy Tripp successfully carries out a variety of stylistic excursions. There’s turbocharged Alanis Morissette power-pop (‘Under A Rock’), Postal Service-like square-eyed emo (‘La Loose’ and ‘Stale By Noon’), fuzzy beach-pop (‘The Dirt’) and stark Cat Power-esque minimalism (‘Blue’). Although the emphasis on stylistic fluidity leads to some less effective manoeuvres (the lolling ‘Air’ awkwardly recalls Blink-182’s ‘mature’ phase), it’s not a fragmented listen. Crucially, unity stems from Crutchfield’s no-polish vocal whine and her suffusing lyrical sentiment.

Hart’s new album, Better Than Home, has a little bit of everything.

There are slow ballads, there are upbeat tunes and there are soft melodies. The overarching introspective tone of the album forces itself upon you at times, making you stop whatever you’re doing and just listen.

Her powerful voice draws the listener in, but on this record she doesn’t make the mistake of overpowering the music itself. She strikes a perfect balance.

It’s clear that a lot of heart was put into Better Than Home. While the lyrics relate specifically to Hart’s personal struggles, the themes are universal and the record as a whole is relatable. There is pain behind a lot of the tracks, but there is also an overwhelming feeling of hope to go along with it.

Single ‘We Can We Do What We Want’ bounds through with joyful exuberance, while ‘Running Wild’ also allows the band to explore a darker, grungier side. It isn’t long, however, before Undertow sinks into the abyss, petering out when it should be riding into the sunset.

It’s the kind of record you listen to when you’re feeling down on the world and need someone to lift you back up again. It’s inspired, it’s brave and it’s uplifting.

It could have to do with the restraints of studio recording, or perhaps a lack of spontaneity and urgency. Whatever the case, we’re left with an album that you just know is going to kick like a mule when they play it in the same room, but doesn’t quite get there on its own accord.

Meggan Turner

David James Young

David James Young

Augustus Welby

INDIE ALBUM OF THE WEEK It’s been a solid four years since Melbourne-based indie band Skipping Girl Vinegar graced our ears with their second studio album, Keep Calm Carry The Monkey.

Their latest release, The Great Wave, holds no new surprises of greatness, bringing upbeat positive musicality and anthemic vocals on the opening track ‘Dance Again’, alongside soft, folk-like laments on ‘Hey Kid’ and ‘Lost In The Heads’.

SKIPPING GIRL VINEGAR The Great Wave Secret Fox

32 :: BRAG :: 608 :: 15:04:15

Ivy Tripp’s narrator is hyperromantic and prone to dazed infatuation. She also understands that one’s love life will never reach a state of enduring bliss, but this realisation won’t stifle love’s dazzling highs or crushing lows.

Highly inspired by lead singer Mark Lang’s recent experience of coping with his wife’s diagnosis of ovarian cancer, the album offers a range of emotional rawness and honesty from start to finish. ‘Hey Kid’ offers a wave of support, lyrically contrasted by a softer bemoan on ‘Here Comes The River’. The record epitomises

the universal, everyday struggle of dealing with pain and unexpected realities, while bringing to the surface the evident human instinct to care for those we love in times of need, be it through empathy or affirmations of empowerment.

Recorded primarily in tin sheds and abandoned halls along the Victorian coast, the fittingly titled The Great Wave upholds a true Australian coastal sound, with rustic surf sounds and uplifting, poignant harmonies throughout.

There’s no doubt The Great Wave will be a touchstone in Skipping Girl Vinegar’s growing career for years to come.

Beach House are still the obvious contemporary comparison, amother female-fronted mid-tempo band mining the dream-pop revival. What makes Lower Dens different is that they use dream-pop to disguise their standard, hooky pop. They also trade in a darker tone for their genre, indebted to the likes of Joy Division and Siouxsie Sioux.

Bandleader Jana Hunter, much like Siouxsie before her, gives each song depth thanks to her emotional vocal delivery. But while the material obviously means a lot to her, it’s doubtful the audience will feel the same. Much like 50 per cent of all current indie albums, the main tools used on the album are synths and reverb, and only a few songs differentiate themselves enough to make an impression. ‘Ondine’ has a solid groove base and a memorable chorus. ‘To Die In L.A.’ and ‘Company’ are the only instances of changed tempo, recalling the krautrock triumphs of past albums.

Finally, ‘I Am The Earth’ gives Hunter enough space to let her melody breath.

The rest are songs indicative of modern indie: pleasant, well made, but forgettable.

Leonardo Silvestrini

OFFICE MIXTAPE And here are the albums that have helped BRAG HQ get through the week...

BECK - The Information DAVID BOWIE - Low GREEN DAY - American Idiot

CHILDREN COLLIDE - The Long Now FRANK TURNER - Tape Deck Heart

Ayla Dhyani thebrag.com

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live reviews

up all night out all week . . .

What we've been out to see...

Enmore Theatre Thursday April 2 There’s an old tale that gets thrown around concerning The Rolling Stones going on tour back in the day with James Brown as their opening act. It didn’t take long at all for the Stones to be demanding the positions swap around. They knew for a fact they simply could not follow what he was doing.

In case you hadn’t guessed, Charles Bradley is the James Brown of this here analogy. The man is not an opener, nosirree. He’s a closer. A deal-sealer. A superstar. It’s obvious from the second he prowls out onto the stage – all eyes are transfi xed on him, and that is where they stay for the hour that he and his exceptional backing band hold court.

It’s an all-encompassing performance, transcending a mere soul/funk revue and becoming a performance where every last scream comes from the highest levels of emotional engagement and response. There’s nothing left once Bradley and co. are fi nished with you. Your jaw has taken up permanent residency on the fl oor and your dancing shoes have had a hole burnt through them. The Screaming Eagle fl ies off into

the night and you struggle to remember life before he swooped in.

Needless to say, Alabama Shakes had their work cut out for them. Not that you’d know it – now nine people strong in the live environment, the band has substantially developed what constitutes its performance. The harmonies are bigger, the layering is more textured and the dynamics can seamlessly cut from a whisper to a shout. Of course, the band lives and dies by Brittany Howard, who still sells every lyric with the utmost conviction – an especially impressive feat given that over half of the set is dedicated to tracks from an album most are yet to hear, Sound & Color.

Howard constantly serves as the band’s saving grace: when the set looks to go out with a whimper following a meagre performance of new track ‘Gemini’, Howard strolls right back onstage and delivers a one-two punch straight to the heart with the unreleased ‘Joe’ and choice Boys & Girls ballad ‘You Ain’t Alone’. Not only do they not play their signature song, ‘Hold On’, they don’t even need to. That’s the kind of performance this is. It might not hit the levels of its predecessor, but it puts up a valiant fight.

David James Young

betty & oswald

PICS :: AM

ALABAMA SHAKES, CHARLES BRADLEY AND HIS EXTRAORDINAIRES

10:04:15 :: Brighton Up Bar :: 1/77 Oxford St Darlinghurst 9361 3379 Sydney Opera House Thursday April 2 An ever-evolving outfit who have counted more than 70 musicians amongst their number over the four decades of their career, the current incarnation of The Waterboys sees bandleader Mike Scott team up with players plucked from across America’s most fabled music cities.

Suave guitar player Zach Ernst hails from Texas, keyboard wizard Brother Paul is a Memphis native and bassist David Hood is from the musical hotspot of Muscle Shoals, Alabama.

It’s a lineup whose roots lie in soul, blues and Americana, befitting the sound of new record Modern Blues, which is characteristically huge in scope and sweepingly romantic, though more heavily influenced by roots rock as well as the swagger and muscularity of The Rolling Stones this time around.

Apart from the youthful Ernst, they’re a seasoned outfit, though wildly enthusiastic throughout. Fiddle player Steve Wickham is particularly animated, high-kicking around stage, while Brother Paul attacks his keys with the zeal of a mad scientist and wears a maniacal grin throughout.

‘Destinies Entwined’ kicks off proceedings in grand fashion and much of the early

ZAC BROWN BAND Hordern Pavilion Wednesday April 1 Almost exactly two years prior to tonight’s proceedings, Zac Brown and co. were performing their first-ever headlining show at Sydney’s Hi-Fi. Sure, they may have literally just crossed the road to the Hordern in the time since then, but figuratively it’s been an extensive journey for the band in that time.

They’ve been picking up kudos from Dave Grohl and Chris Cornell along the way, as well as cementing their reputation as one of the better live acts in their immediate genre – maybe even the best.

It’s certainly a strong argument put forward with the band’s live show. With eight people onstage at any given time, there’s a sense of immediacy and urgency to whatever is being played, even if it’s kicking around in ballad territory. Given, playing in a room like the Hordern means that a few of the players – especially percussionist Daniel de los Reyes – are predominantly seen and not heard. The energy carries throughout, however, and a faulty mix only derails

stretch of the set is made up of material from Modern Blues. ‘Nearest Thing To Hip’ is a stylish lament for a disappearing bohemian scene and ‘Still A Freak’ a statement of defiance and unfashionable optimism, played with real verve.

With lyrics that nod to Elvis, Hendrix and Sun Ra, these are songs that lament past heroes while ranking amongst the most vital and inspired songs Scott has written in decades. One brief, improvised song paid tribute to the recently departed Cynthia Lennon, but for the most part the mood was positively euphoric.

While the new songs were warmly received, the adulation went up a notch for the glorious ‘The Whole Of The Moon’, still the best encapsulation of The Waterboys’ romanticism and Scott’s ability to write lyrics both simple and poetic. A couple of other classics made an appearance, like ‘The Three Day Man’ and ‘Don’t Bang The Drum’, which saw the players pared down to Scott on keys and long-time member Wickham, whose playing was warm and melodic throughout, on electric fiddle.

The encore of the rousing, Celtic-tinged ‘Fisherman’s Blues’ finally brought the crowd – many of whom would have been in their teens when the song was first released in 1988 – to their feet, dancing with unselfconscious joy.

Daniel Herborn

proceedings in a minor way. Tonight is a night of loud sing-alongs and rousing choruses, both of which Brown has in spades. As soon as he leans away from the microphone in ‘Toes’, the entire audience knows to proudly announce that their “ass [is] in the sand”. Same goes for ‘Chicken Fried’, the title of which goes hand-inhand with a loudly sung “cold beer on a Friday night”. It’s all a bit silly, sure, but it’s guaranteed to raise a smile.

The band’s use of covers is at once utterly confusing and wildly entertaining. Four end up in tonight’s set – Led Zeppelin’s ‘Kashmir’, Charlie Daniels’ ‘The Devil Went Down To Georgia’, Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ and Metallica’s ‘Enter Sandman’.

The latter two feel particularly out of place among the cod-reggae of ‘Knee Deep’ or the bluegrass rumble of ‘Whiskey’s Gone’… well, on paper, at least. When they actually kick in, it all makes perfect sense. It sounds great, too. It could well be a greater metaphor for the Zac Brown Band as a whole – it’s all about being in the moment.

David James Young

rodrigo y gabriela

PICS :: AM

THE WATERBOYS

09:04:15 :: Sydney Opera House :: Bennelong Point, Sydney 9250 7111 thebrag.com

BRAG :: 608 :: 15:03:15 :: 33

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live reviews

up all night out all week . . .

What we've been out to see...

BLUESFEST 2015 Tyagarah Tea Tree Farm Thursday April 2 – Monday April 6 Even more so than is usually the case with a festival of this size, this year’s Bluesfest lineup attracted plenty of scrutiny. Early in the piece, the older fans were a little blindsided by all the unfamiliar names on the bill – these supposed new-generation acts like Paolo Nutini, Mariachi El Bronx and Jurassic 5 (even if they aren’t that green after all). Then came the cancellations from Lenny Kravitz, Ben Howard and The Black Keys, which threatened to weaken the headline offerings. Of course, by the time Easter comes around, a weaker lineup this isn’t: the likes of Alabama Shakes have stepped up to fill the breach, ensuring this is yet another successful iteration of Australia’s most widely appealing multi-day festival.

Opening night sees a tremendous trio of homegrown acts – Angus & Julia Stone, Boy & Bear and Sticky Fingers – take Kravitz’s place on the bill, and that’s frankly a better result for everybody. Reggae legend Jimmy Cliff and Counting Crows do the nostalgia dance, while it’s the first of several triumphant sets by powerhouse rock’n’roller Nikki Hill.

graveyard rockstars

PICS :: AM

The heavens crack gradually open on Good Friday, but not before a pounding set

by Beth Hart. One of 2014’s most talkedabout performers, Hart is back with new material, slamming a fist against her chest with every enthusiastic lyric. She’ll be sore by the morning.

09:04:15 :: Frankie’s Pizza :: 50 Hunter St Sydney

Exhibition Park, Canberra Thursday April 2 – Monday April 6 The 49th National Folk Festival was a bright, cloudy, folky-gypsy-reggae, sunstruck and rainy affair with so much dust that every time you blew your nose the results were like a musical Rorschach test. Between the acts themselves and the pinwheeling exuberance of the unending Session Bar, there was also so little sleep to be had that it’s quite likely by the final day I was hallucinating much of what I saw. Did the Lucy Wise Trio really emerge in the thick of the midnight crowd, clad in bedclothes to perform their Infinite Reggae Competition song, ‘Pyjammin’? Were those young children sitting around a market table really taking turns smoking a hookah?

Was that creepy tightrope-walking, nappyclad clown really juggling kitchen utensils in time to John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’?

We may never know. One thing remains indisputable, though – the ‘Nash’ is a festival unlike any other, and it is little wonder that it has inspired such a devout family. Over four evenings, there was a cavalcade of music to whet the most disparate of tastes. From frenzied dancers rocking out to The Bon Scotts, to the sumptuous songwriting of David Francey, this was honestly a festival that had it all (well, most of it. Next year, though, glamfolk-punk is going to be huge).

Like most festivals, the biggest concern was missing someone you’d later regret. In this regard, I would have loved the chance to catch more of Kim Richey’s set. The American performer has a truly endearing, compelling presence, and seems a lovely lady to boot.

Speaking of endearing, Melbourne quartet Oh Pep! delivered several sets of splendid, quietly engaging songs that demonstrated why this band is on such a rise. Each a superbly accomplished musician, the only

fault to their performance was one common to all who performed at the ironically named Majestic tent. The sound at the Majestic went well beyond the odd glitch or temporary unevenness you might expect when changeover times between acts is so swift. Over the course of the festival, entire instruments found themselves silenced, harmonies were excised and muddy sound given reign. This was especially unfortunate given it was one of the larger venues, and many of the notable acts featured here.

There’s no escaping the weather on Easter Sunday wherever you try to hide, but the atmosphere lifts all the same when Gary Clark, Jr. steps onstage. Here is a man whose music and demeanour espouses the coolest of cool, yet even he seems to pause in astonishment at the size of the crowd that’s come to see him in the mid-afternoon.

It’s at least double the number that saw him play last year. Clark makes excellent use of the festival’s always generous set lengths – the bluesman bends and throttles and wails on his guitar until we can take no more.

Xavier Rudd is back for his ninth Bluesfest, joined by his new band The United Nations, with its members carrying the various flags of their homelands onto stage. Rudd is pretty well in tune with the Byron Bay spirit by now, but it’s Watussi who are in tune with the world, drawing on rhythms from the Caribbean to the Mediterranean. Melbourne Ska Orchestra, likewise, are buckets of fun, while Frank Turner follows to a smaller but impressively dedicated crowd. His set is something like a pub/punk sing-along, even on the ‘Glory Hallelujah’ lyric – “There is no God / So clap your hands together” – he’s saved especially for Easter.

Turner has plenty of lyrics that resonate, but none of them move as fast as those by Jurassic 5. Their performance consists of rhythmic overload interspersed with scratch DJ battles and the occasional synchronised dance moves – exactly as much fun as it should be. All that’s left for Monday is to last through George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic’s marathon of funk, or alternatively catch the vibes at Michael Franti and Spearhead’s cultivated Soulshine mini-festival, where an acoustic ‘yoga jam’ morphs into conscious groove poetry over eight hours. Bluesfest is the sound of Byron Bay, and Byron Bay is the personification of Bluesfest. Somehow, it feels like it’s going to stay that way.

Chris Martin

Of these, several were particular standouts.

All Our Exes Live In Texas quickly established themselves as the darlings of the weekend. Each of their performances saw packed-out venues with crowds pressed against doorways trying to catch glimpses of the stage. Their songs (and teaspoons) oscillate from haunting to raucous, and the improvised banter between (and sometimes during) songs was some of the best dialogue you’re likely to find. Gordie MacKeeman and His Rhythm Boys were an astonishingly vibrant quartet, quick to charm any who witnessed them in action. The entire band is a supremely talented bunch, but MacKeeman’s whirring violin and tap dancing skills must be seen to be believed.

Lord, who else! So many acts, so many memories. Stray Hens were outstanding, Gina Williams and Guy Ghouse were able to stun an entire audience into hushed awe, John Bennett and David Hyams gave incredible sets, and The Spooky Men’s Chorale were as beguilingly wondrous as ever. Particular props to The String Contingent for their album launch, and an extra special shout-out to the screeching child who ruined so many precious hours of fleeting sleep.

It’s true; I’m now a National Folk Festival convert. But have no doubt – spend just one evening wandering these brightly festooned paths, and you’ll be spellbound, too.

Adam Norris

mariachi el bronx

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NATIONAL FOLK FESTIVAL 2015

By now it seems the main stage crowds are getting even bigger than last year’s – not necessarily at the expense of the smaller stages, but certainly the weather is pushing people inside the vast tents – and even late additions British India attract a swarm. They’re a hard-rocking replacement for The Black Keys, and encourage plenty of movement in the crowd, to the point where one brave (or should that be foolish?) soul mounts the scaffolding to watch the set from the camera loft. Things are a little more chilled out for Nutini – only a little, mind – and Alabama Shakes cap things off with a solid dose of new tunes.

Some singers make things look easy, but Brittany Howard is the opposite; she strains every inch to deliver a convincing performance from top to tail.

Early starters on Saturday are rewarded by some sunshine to match Steve Smyth’s flannelette growl. Band Of Skulls are on early as well, before Mariachi El Bronx deliver plenty of colour and humour. There’s even a conga line. Not so at Rodrigo y Gabriela, when a packed-full Crossroads tent audience stands with mouths agape and arms aloft at the virtuoso guitarists’ feats of skill and endurance.

07:04:15 :: Metro Theatre :: 624 George St Sydney 9550 3666 34 :: BRAG :: 608 :: 15:03:15

thebrag.com

g g guide gig g send your listings to : gigguide@thebrag.com

WEDNESDAY APRIL 15 JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD MUSIC Kingston Flavaz Valve Bar, Agincourt Hotel, Ultimo. 7pm. $10.

Michael Griffin Venue 505, Surry Hills.

8:30pm. Free.

The Roots & Riddim Club feat: The Errol Renaud Trio + DJ Dizar Play Bar, Surry Hills. 8pm.

Free.

Trish Delaney-Brown Quintet Lazybones Lounge, Marrickville. 8:30pm. Free.

INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS

Dirt Picnic + Restless Leg + Mark Lucas The Gasoline Pony, Marrickville. 7pm. $5.

Justin Townes Earle + Sam Outlaw The Basement, Circular Quay.

7pm. $48.

Mark Travers Orient Hotel, The Rocks. 9pm.

Free.

Muso’s Club Jam Night Bald Faced Stag Hotel, Leichhardt. 8pm. Free.

Nantes Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Beach. 8pm. Free.

Songsonstage - feat: CJ Fairleight + Damien Chan + Guests Olympic Hotel, Paddington.

7:30pm. Free.

THURSDAY APRIL 16 ACOUSTIC, COUNTRY, BLUES & FOLK

Patrick Lyons + The Band Of American Cree + Justin Frew The Gasoline Pony, Marrickville. 7pm. $5.

FRIDAY APRIL 17 ACOUSTIC, COUNTRY, BLUES & FOLK

Darryl Beaton + The D1 Cartel Venue 505, Surry Hills. 6pm. $15.

Queen Porter Stomp The Annandale Hotel, Annandale. 8:30pm. Free.

Blue Eyes Cry + PJ O’Brien Band + Liza Ohlback Camelot Lounge, Marrickville.

6pm. $12.50.

One Night Standard - feat: Superheavyweights Standard Bowl, Surry Hills.

6pm. Free.

The Dirt Track Demons + Dylan Hartas & The Blue Martyrs Lazybones Lounge, Marrickville. 8:30pm. $15.

INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS

JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD MUSIC

JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD MUSIC

Lia Mice photo by Charles Edouard

Holly Wilson Honeysuckle Hotel, Newcastle. 7pm. Free.

Joe Echo Duo Orient Hotel, The Rocks. 9pm.

Free.

Justin Townes Earle + Sam Outlaw Newtown Social Club, Newtown. 7pm. $48.

La Bastard + The Villenettes Frankie’s Pizza, Sydney. 8pm.

Free.

Local Resident Failure Factory Theatre, Marrickville.

7pm. $13.

Muso’s Club Jam Night Carousel Inn Hotel, Rooty Hill.

8pm. Free.

Nothing’s Shocking - feat: Raindrop + Yeevs + DJ Dog Bradman Standard Bowl, Surry Hills.

9pm. Free.

Peter Kaye Revesby Workers Club, Revesby. 12pm. Free.

Short Stack Metro Theatre, Sydney.

6:30pm. $40.

Soak + Jesse Davidson Paddington Uniting Church, Sydney. 8pm. $31.

Songsonstage - feat: Merilyn Steele + Justine Wahlin + Tony Eyers + Ralph Graham Lazybones Lounge, Marrickville. 8pm. $10.

Songsonstage - feat: Mick Hambly + Chris Brookes + Guests Ruby L’otel, Rozelle. 7:30pm.

Free.

The Chosen Few Pendle Inn, Pendle Hill.

7:30pm. Free.

The Dead Maggies + The Bottlers Union Hotel, Newtown. 4pm.

Free.

The Fuzzborn + Sendfire + The Borises Valve Bar, Agincourt Hotel, Ultimo. 8pm. $10.

Brian King & Jody Yates + Keith Scott Chatswood RSL, Chatswood.

12pm. Free.

Dave Carter Royal Crown Hotel, Dudley.

7pm. Free.

Dean Ray South Sydney Junior Rugby League Club, Kingsford. 8pm. $35.

Dee Donavan Revesby Workers Club, Revesby. 12pm. Free.

Eddie Boyd & The Phatapillars + Mar Haze + Laura And The Blackjacks Spectrum, Darlinghurst. 8pm. $10.

Grace Rizzo Revesby Workers Club, Revesby. 12pm. Free.

Grooveworks Revesby Workers Club, Revesby. 12pm. Free.

Harbour Master Fortune Of War, The Rocks.

7pm. Free.

thebrag.com

Afrobrasiliana IV - feat: Trevor Elchino + Thomas Studdy + Raphael Ramires + Walking Fish + Prize Live Perfromance Bateria 61 Play Bar, Surry Hills. 6pm.

Free.

Billie Mccarthy Band + Alice Terry Venue 505, Surry Hills. 6pm. $20.

Freshly Squeezed Fridays feat: Fortay At Large The Annandale Hotel, Annandale. 8pm. Free.

Nicola Milan And The Stray Cat Club Foundry 616, Sydney. 8pm. $21.50.

AJ Orient Hotel, The Rocks.

4:30pm. Free.

Andy Miles’ Big Bad Bravados The Gasoline Pony, Marrickville. 7pm. $5.

At The Hop Belmont 16s, Belmont. 7pm.

Free.

Bandsonstage - feat: Lapis Sky + Cherokee Rose + Paris Hearts Ruby L’otel, Rozelle. 8pm.

Free.

Bill Kacir Chatswood RSL, Chatswood.

5pm. Free.

Black Bird Blue The Belmore Hotel, Maitland.

9pm. Free.

Blake Tailor Quakers Inn, Quakers Hill.

8pm. Free.

Brad Johns Duo Town Hall Hotel, Balmain.

8:30pm. Free.

Cath & Him St George Leagues Club, Kogarah. 9pm. Free.

Columbus Captain Cook Hotel, Paddington. 8:30pm. $10.

Daniel Arvidson Charlestown Bowling Club, Charlestown. 7pm. Free.

Dave Carter Cessnock Leagues Club, Cessnock. 7pm. Free.

Eddie Boyd + The Phatapillars Tattersalls Hotel Penrith, Penrith. 8pm. Free.

Fabulous Rhythm Cats Penrith RSL, Penrith. 9pm.

Free.

Faith No More Tribute Show - feat: No More Faith + Sin 4 Me + Under Night’s Cover + Terrorential Valve Bar, Agincourt Hotel, Ultimo. 8pm. $10.

Gareth Hudson Duo Honeysuckle Hotel, Newcastle. 7pm. Free.

Glenn Esmond Crown Hotel, Sydney. 8pm.

Free.

Grand Theft Audio The Sydney Junction Hotel, Hamilton. 7pm. Free.

Harbour Master Manly Leagues Club, Brookvale. 9:30pm. Free.

Hayden Johns Central Charlestown Leagues Club, Charlestown. 7pm. Free.

Hits & Pieces Wyong Leagues Club, Kanwal. 9pm. Free.

Imogen Clark Town Hall Hotel, Balmain.

5pm. Free.

Jack Horner PJ Gallagher’s, Enfield, Enfield. 9pm. Free.

La Experiment Manly Wharf Hotel, Manly.

3pm. Free.

Lia Mice Brighton Up Bar, Darlinghurst.

8pm. $10.20.

Machinemachine And Lobsterman The Sly Fox, Enmore. 8pm.

Free.

Mar Haze Hotel Steyne Manly, Manly.

8pm. Free.

Matt Bruce

pick of the week THURSDAY APRIL 16

Justin Townes Earle

Newtown Social Club

Justin Townes Earle 7pm. $48.

Pearl Beach Cafe, Pearl Beach. 7pm. Free.

Paper Hearts Colonial Hotel, Werrington.

8:30pm. Free.

Rob Eastwood Campbelltown Catholic Club, Campbelltown. 6pm. Free.

Rose Carleo The Oriental Hotel, Springwood. 8pm. Free.

Saskwatch Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst. 9pm. $20.

Shy Guys Revesby Workers Club, Revesby. 8:30pm. Free.

Songsonstage - feat: CJ Fairleight + Guests Lewisham Hotel, Lewisham.

8pm. Free.

Stormcellar Town Hall Hotel, Newtown.

9pm. Free.

The Beards Metro Theatre, Sydney.

Soak

8:30pm. $25.

The Sphinxes Vineyard Hotel, Vineyard.

9:30pm. Free.

V.I.P. Orient Hotel, The Rocks.

9:30pm. Free.

Vanessa Heinitz Kings Park Tavern, Kings Park. 7pm. Free.

SATURDAY APRIL 18 JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD MUSIC Kava Kings The Annandale Hotel, Annandale. 8:30pm. Free.

Sun Rai + Ben Vanderwal Venue 505, Surry Hills. 6pm. $20.

ACOUSTIC, COUNTRY, BLUES & FOLK

June Low + Hannah Jane The Newsagency, Marrickville.

8pm. $15.

Paul Hayward Town & Country Hotel, St Peters. 4pm. Free.

INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS AM 2 PM The Henry Sports Club, Werrington County. 7:30pm.

Free.

Bon Jovi The Show Penrith RSL, Penrith. 9pm.

Free.

Cath & Him Club Engadine, Engadine.

8pm. Free.

Darren Johnstone

Lia Mice

INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS Rumours: A Tribute To Fleetwood Mac Belmont 16s, Belmont. 7pm.

Free.

BRAG :: 608 :: 15:04:15 :: 35

g g guide g

send your listings to : gigguide@thebrag.com Royal Cricketers Arms, Prospect. 6:30pm. Free.

Dean Ray Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst. 9pm. $34.

Detroitus - feat: SC5 + 4 Stooges + Mother Jones + When The Birdmen Fly Factory Theatre, Marrickville.

7pm. $16.

Dragon Wentworthville Leagues Club, Wentworthville. 8pm. $30.

Eddie Boyd + The Phatapillars Stag And Hunter, Newcastle.

8:30pm. Free.

Endless Summer Orient Hotel, The Rocks.

9:30pm. Free.

Eric Grothe + The Gurus Picton Hotel, Picton. 8pm.

Free.

Evie Dean Novotel, Rooty Hill. 6:30pm.

Free.

Harbour Masters Duo Crown Hotel, Sydney. 9pm.

Free.

Hummingbirds The Belmore Hotel, Maitland.

9pm. Free.

Jack Horner Plough & Harrow, Camden.

8pm. Free.

Jake Folbigg Pearl Beach Cafe, Pearl Beach. 7pm. Free.

Janet Seidel Quartet Penrith RSL, Penrith. 2pm.

Free.

Jed Zarb Ettamogah Hotel, Rouse Hill.

7pm. Free.

Jon Stevens + Rebecca Moore Macarthur Tavern, Campbelltown. 8pm. $25.

Jonathan Jones Orient Hotel, The Rocks.

4:30pm. Free.

Little Egypt Honeysuckle Hotel, Newcastle. 7pm. Free.

LJ Panania Diggers, Panania.

8pm. Free.

Matt Semmens Central Charlestown Leagues Club, Charlestown. 7pm. Free.

Nantes Newtown Social Club, Newtown. 3pm. $15.

One Night Standard - feat: I Know Leopard Standard Bowl, Surry Hills.

6pm. Free.

Rob Eastwood Fortune Of War, The Rocks.

3pm. Free.

Sebastian Thomas Town Hall Hotel, Balmain.

9:30pm. Free.

Tattooed + Convict + Sin 4 Me Carousel Inn Hotel, Rooty Hill.

8pm. Free.

The Chosen Few Kareela Golf Club, Kareela.

8pm. Free.

The Dickies + Nursery Crimes Hermann’s Bar, Darlington.

8pm. $50.

The Loaded Six Strings Manly Leagues Club, Brookvale. 9pm. Free.

The Smooth Groove Revesby Workers Club, Revesby. 8:30pm. Free.

The Snape Brothers Belmont 16s, Belmont. 7pm.

Free.

The Years The Sydney Junction Hotel, Hamilton. 7pm. Free.

Vanessa Heinitz The Belvedere Hotel, Sydney.

7:30pm. Free.

SUNDAY APRIL 19 ACOUSTIC, COUNTRY, BLUES & FOLK

Common Eclectic - feat: Mic Conway + Robbie Long Glebe Town Hall , Glebe.

2:30pm. $20.

36 :: BRAG :: 608 :: 15:04:15

Finn Ruby L’otel, Rozelle. 6pm.

Free.

From Street To Stage - feat: Joe Moore + Olly Brown + Axel Winter + Curtis Finch Soda Factory, Surry Hills.

6pm. Free.

INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS

Ben Fox Trio Orient Hotel, The Rocks.

8:30pm. Free.

Blake Tailor Plough & Harrow, Camden.

8pm. Free.

Crocq Trio Honeysuckle Hotel, Newcastle. 7pm. Free.

Dave Debs Picton Hotel, Picton. 1pm.

Free.

Dean Ray Rooty Hill RSL Club, Rooty Hill. 2:30pm. $35.

Dwayne Elix Penrith RSL, Penrith. 2pm.

Free.

Eddie Boyd + The Phatapillars + Alex Bowen Towradgi Beach Hotel, Towradgi. 3:30pm. Free.

Evie Dean Mosman Returned Services Club, Mosman. 3pm. Free.

Funeral For A Friend Manning Bar, Camperdown.

8pm. $34.

Glam Slam The Sydney Junction Hotel, Hamilton. 7pm. Free.

Gypsy - feat: Various Artist Valve Bar, Agincourt Hotel, Ultimo. 12pm. $10.

John Farnham + Olivia Newton-John Qantas Credit Union Arena, Darling Harbour. 7pm. $115.

Makaylie Honeysuckle Hotel, Newcastle. 7pm. Free.

Max Power Kings Park Tavern, Kings Park. 3pm. Free.

Melody Rhymes The Henry Sports Club, Werrington County. 1pm. Free.

Pat O’Grady The Mill Hotel, Milperra.

12pm. Free.

Phillip Crawshaw Belmont 16s, Belmont. 7pm.

Free.

Rebecca Moore Strawberry Hills Hotel, Surry Hills. 2pm. Free.

Rick Robertson Manly Wharf Hotel, Manly.

3pm. Free.

Rob Henry Duo Nag’s Head Hotel, 6pm. Free.

Songsonstage - feat: CJ Fairleight + Guests Harlequin Inn, Pyrmont. 3pm.

Free.

Steve Crocker Macarthur Tavern, Campbelltown. 2pm. Free.

Swipe Right Sunday - feat: DJ Lou Lou + Benny Vibes Standard Bowl, Surry Hills.

5pm. Free.

Ted Nash Riverstone Sportsmans Hotel, Riverstone. 1pm. Free.

Ted Nash Fortune Of War, The Rocks.

6pm. Free.

The Mighty Surftones Lazybones Lounge, Marrickville. 6:30pm. Free.

Vanessa Heinitz Ingleburn Hotel, Ingleburn.

3pm. Free.

White Bros Orient Hotel, The Rocks.

4:30pm. Free.

JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD MUSIC Baka Beyond Camelot Lounge, Marrickville.

6:30pm. $30.

gig picks up all night out all week...

THURSDAY APRIL 16

The Beards Metro Theatre, Sydney. 8:30pm. $25.

Eddie Boyd + The Phatapillars + Mar Haze + Laura And The Blackjacks Spectrum, Darlinghurst. 8pm. $10.

SATURDAY APRIL 18

La Bastard + The Villenettes Frankie’s Pizza, Sydney. 8pm. Free.

Dean Ray Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst. 9pm. $34.

Soak + Jesse Davidson Paddington Uniting Church, Sydney.

8pm. $31.

FRIDAY APRIL 17 Lia Mice Brighton Up Bar, Darlinghurst. 8pm. $10.20.

Saskwatch Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst. 9pm. $20.

The Beards

Detroitus - Feat: Sc5 + 4 Stooges + Mother Jones + When The Birdmen Fly Factory Theatre, Marrickville. 7pm. $16.

Nantes

Nantes Newtown Social Club, Newtown. 3pm. $15.

The Dickies - Feat: Nursery Crimes Hermann’s Bar, Sydney. 8pm. $50.

Saskwatch

SUNDAY APRIL 19 Baka Beyond Camelot Lounge, Marrickville. 6:30pm. $30.

John Farnham + Olivia NewtonJohn Qantas Credit Union Arena, Darling Harbour. 7pm. $115.

MONDAY APRIL 20 JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD MUSIC Sonic Mayhem Orchestra Lazybones Lounge, Marrickville. 8:30pm. Free.

INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS

Adam Gorecki Orient Hotel, The Rocks. 9pm.

Free.

Songsonstage - feat: Stuart Jammin + Chris Brookes + Guests Kelly’s On King, Newtown. 8pm.

Free.

wed Apr

16 (9:00PM - 12:00AM)

Apr

(9:00PM - 12:00AM)

fri

17 Apr

(4:30PM - 7:30PM)

(9:30PM - 1:30AM)

SATURDAY AFTERNOON

TUESDAY APRIL 21 JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD MUSIC

thu

15

sat

(4:30PM - 7:30PM)

18 Apr

SUNDAY AFTERNOON

sun

19 Apr

(4:30PM - 7:30PM)

Steve Hunter Band Lazybones Lounge, Marrickville. 8:30pm. Free.

ACOUSTIC, COUNTRY, BLUES & FOLK Live And Originals - feat: Mem & The Kindred Spirits + Dom White With Chris Muir + Luke Mahler + Katherine Vavahea Mr Falcon’s, Glebe. 7:30pm.

Free.

(8:30PM - 12:00AM)

(9:30PM - 1:15AM)

mon

tue

20 Apr

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

(9:00PM - 12:00AM)

INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS

Adz & Cookie Orient Hotel, The Rocks. 9pm.

Free. thebrag.com

16th -19TH APRIL

162 ST JOHNS RD GLEBE 02 9660 1591

Live Music SUNDAY 19TH

THURSDAY

Friday

Raindrop + Yeevs + DJ Dog Bradman

HENRY

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ROCK, POP AND COVERS

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FROM 6PM

SUNDAY 26TH

OPEN MIC Saturday + Bad Tooth + Hitting Trees $10 Vodka Redbulls

Leopard

$50 voucher for best performer

FROM 7:30PM with

Drink Specials for performers

DJ Lou Lou

of vouchers to be won

+ Benny Vibes Sunday IN LOFI

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$5 Beers

ON WEDNESDAY’S

FREE ENTRY

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to give away this week!

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DA ILY DRINK SPECI A L S $15 Toohey’s New Jugs $5 House Vodkas WWW.NAGSHEAD.COM.AU BRAG :: 608 :: 15:04:15 :: 37

brag beats dance music news club, dance and hip hop in brief... with Ayla Dhyani and Chris Martin

five things WITH KOSTA

Rampa

ELLIS FROM SUPERBREAK

Growing Up Being of Greek 1. heritage I was exposed to a lot of Greek music – the kind of stuff with a lot of instrumentation such as percussion, clarinet, bouzouki and the like. Then I started to ask for vinyl records for presents from my relatives for Christmas and birthdays. I got lots of Elvis Presley and started choosing out psychedelic rock and even Turkish folk/belly dance was an addition to the collection.

Inspirations Over the years I can’t 2. really say who has inspired me; I always try and look within for inspiration, and it’s pure love of the music that drives me forward. That doesn’t mean I don’t admire other DJs, who are far too many to mention. I do have a network of friends and collaborators with great record collections that are a great source of material and inspiration, such as Brother J’s and Alex D’s collections, which are second to none.

The material served up from these guys, which draws from disco, boogie, ’90s house, golden age hip hop, funk 45s and breaks, all makes up the elements of what gets pushed out of studios these days.

Your Crew Fortunately running 3. my label and DJing is a fulltime job for me; it keeps me pretty busy. Talking to other artist and DJ/producers from

around the world, together with digging around for new music and obscure rarities, takes up a lot of time; then of course there is the production.

4.

The Music You Make And Play If you to come and listen to me play a live set with a dancefloor in mind, it would probably include releases from Rahaan, Essex Rascals, Brown Brothers and of course Superbreak. This is an uptempo disco sound but intertwined with quality house and the occasional boogie bomb. There is no cheese here or anthems, which is a mantra I have always lived by – sure, it might not serve me well as far as getting booked is concerned, but who wants to play tunes they don’t really want to play anyway? I am very lucky to have the opportunity to play overseas where the sound

MARLO IN TOWN

Pacha’s 2015 resident-at-large, Marlo, makes another appearance at Ivy this weekend.

With his party set sure to be boosted by the all-new audiovisual production, Objektophile, the Dutch-born and Australian-based DJ will bring a catalogue of production hits to the

I push is well received and sought after.

Music, Right Here, Right Now 5.

The music scene today is kind of exciting because I came from an era where only a select few were producing and had an opportunity to record and play their material live. These days, it seems everybody is a DJ/producer.

The important thing for me is that these guys have some integrity in their sets and productions, and conduct themselves professionally – that serves the DJ community well.

What: Soul Of Sydney: Frankie Knuckles Tribute With: Phil Toke, Scott Pullen, Danny De Sousa and more Where: Secret Location When: Sunday April 19

Sydney dancefloor this Saturday April 18. As usual, the list of local supports is generous: Glover, Melbourne’s Exis, Dave Winnel, Avon Stringer, Deckhead, DJ Moto, Chris Arnott, Fingers, Jace Disgrace, Jack Bailey, DJ Eko, DLE, Pro/Gram, Stu Turner, Mike Hyper and Chris Fraser.

RAMPA IT UP

Taking advantage of Spice’s all-new home base in Erskineville, Sydney’s own Mantra Collective has joined forces with Spice to put together a night of hard-hitting house and techno music, headlined by Berlin-based DJ Rampa. Co-founder of independent record label Keinemusik, Rampa epitomises the unique and forthcoming essence of house music consistently coming out of the creative hub of Europe. His mindset and ability to think outside the box brings a distinct twist to the spectrum of house and techno. Rampa will be supported by Mantra Collective’s Aboutjack, Whitecat, Antoine Vice and Space Junk, who are established acts in their own right, plus special guest Daniel George. It all happens at the Imperial Hotel on Saturday May 2.

LIFE ON THE LAM

Big room house duo L.A.M, known to community radio listeners via their Big Room program on 89.3FM, are stepping up to the stage once again at Marquee this weekend.

After playing alongside some of the biggest names in global dance, from Dirty South and Calvin Harris to the Stafford Brothers, the L.A.M lads will be back on home soil with the party sounds this Friday April 17.

PURE PARTY BEATS

Fancy a taste of the Swiss sound? Look no further than Chinese Laundry, which is hosting South African expat and now Sweden-based DJ/producer Nora En Pure this weekend. The indie dance and deep house exponent has been beavering away for Enormous Tunes and Tokenish since breaking through in 2009.

Joining her this Saturday April 18 will be Acaddamy, Jeff Drake, Ben Nott, DJ Just 1,

Aaiste, Jordan Deck, Alan Thomas, Kings and Mike Hyper.

RECORD STORE DAY AT PLAY BAR

Wander your way through the right part of Surry Hills on a given evening, and you’ll notice a certain throbbing beat coming from the underground. It’s the sound of Play Bar, always dedicated to spinning tunes the right way: on wax, and like you’ve never heard them before. This Saturday April 18 is Record Store Day, and the celebrations will last well into the night at Play Bar. Mark N, Micky Morphingaz and Benny Hinn will be spinning vinyl live until the clock strikes midnight, taking on a diverse range of sounds from hip hop and dance to rock, funk and boogie. Hey, you might even catch a taste of something uncovered especially for Record Store Day. Wax is where it’s at.

World Wild

Doorly

DO YOU EVEN DOORLY?

38 :: BRAG :: 608 :: 15:04:15

IT’S A WILD WORLD

Just as the days are starting to get cooler and the vehement denials of winter’s imminent approach become less frequent, World Wild has arrived to extend the summer vibes for just a little while longer. Full of surf-pop and gritty synth, World Wild’s new EP, Caribbean Gold, will make you feel nostalgic about summers you probably didn’t even witness.

Reminiscent of the ’80s, World Wild’s sound makes you feel like you’re at a beach party.

It’s light, fun and a little cheesy. To support the release of the EP, World Wild will be heading out on a three-state tour. You can catch World Wild at the Captain Cook Hotel on Thursday June 4.

thebrag.com

Xxx

In honour of this year’s centennial ANZAC Day celebrations, the Spice team is bringing together an eclectic range of artists from all over the world, acknowledging the diversity and unity of cultures through dance music. Headlining the event at Spice’s new home is DJ Doorly. Hailing from the UK, Doorly upholds a strong rep in the industry, having played at all the major festivals across the world, produced remixes for Kanye West, The Prodigy and Dizzee Rascal, and recorded with none other than Grandmaster Flash. Apart from the headliner, Spice will bring a vast mix of sound to the event, with supporting DJs bringing the beats from both Turkey and Australia, including Murat Kilic, Black Angus, Phil Smart, Robbie Lowe, Hakan Henry and Onn. Party on at the Imperial Hotel on Saturday April 25.

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

free stuff head to: thebrag.com/freeshit

Paul Mac photo by Tony Mott

SOUL OF SYDNEY

Are secret disco dancefloors and Frankie Knuckles your cup of tea? The Soul Of Sydney party crew is presenting a Frankie Knuckles Tribute to mark the one-year anniversary of the Godfather of House Music’s death. The tribute event will be an afternoon of disco, funk, garage and early house and will feature the Soul of Sydney DJs and friends, including Superbreak, Phil Toke, Scott Pullen, Danny De Sousa, Terra A and Lloyd Ingram. The party is taking place at a secret location five minutes from the CBD on Sunday April 19. To be in the running for a double pass, head to thebrag. com/freeshit.

360

Paul Mac A Hard-Earned Holiday By Gabbi Johnston

A

fter flying under the radar for almost ten years, Paul Mac has returned with his newest album, Holiday From Me. Since the release of Panic Room in 2005, Mac – Australian electronic pop musician, singer-songwriter and producer – has spent the decade touring, DJing, writing and collaborating on the way to some of his best music yet. However, he has also spent a lot of his time over that period assisting with other people’s music as well. The Sydneysider has taken a particular interest in composing music for theatre and film scores, including for Kath And Kimderella. He’s also toured through Europe with his underground project Stereogamous, and worked with huge Aussie pop names like Kylie Minogue and Sia. It seems a long time since the release of Panic Room, yet Mac began the early stages of Holiday From Me way back while he was recording and touring with Daniel Johns as The Dissociatives. After putting together musical sketches in tour buses and hotel rooms, he started looking for people to collaborate with and began to record demos.

“I ask people that I really like to help out,” Mac says of his creative process.

“Sometimes I come up with a really good verse but no chorus yet, or a good chorus but no verse, so I just invite people I really like to get involved … I guess I don’t work with people I don’t like, or people I think are fake. So I kind of adore everybody on the album because I really believe in them as musicians.”

one of her shows, Mac invited her to record a song, and then another. “I really loved meeting Kira Puru, and now that we’re doing shows together, it’s been really cool to get to know her,” says Mac. “She’s really fresh.”

Mac describes the album as very “break up-y”, as he explored ways to express how he felt about his own break-up during the early stages of the record. When talking to a friend one day, he found himself still hung up on his ex-boyfriend – to which his friend replied: “Why are you so upset? He’s just an idiot.” With that conversation in mind, Mac later met up with Megan Washington and said, “OK, let’s write a song called ‘Idiot’”.

Mac’s collaboration with Brendan Maclean, meanwhile, came about in a more 21st century manner. After meeting on Twitter and catching up for a beer, the two started hanging out and recording demos. One day, while former Faker frontman Nathan Hudson was also in town, the trio decided to write a “gay duet” based on the first night you meet someone at a pub and all the dumb questions you ask them. It’s called ‘Frequently Asked Questions’.

Later on came the suggestion Mac collaborate with Kira Puru. After going to

“It’s like trying different singers, different songs and different angles,” says Mac. “So

Off The Record T

Lucy Monkman AKA Monki has stepped up for the next addition to the revered Fabriclive series. Regarded for her forward-thinking approach to bass music, Monkman regularly champions emerging artists on her show on BBC Radio 1Xtra. “Fabriclive 81 definitely represents my style, high energy with some breaks in there to catch your breath,” she said of the mix. “Everything has a groove.” Spanning 22 tracks, the eclectic mix features productions from the likes of FPI Project, Doctor Jeep and Sly One. It drops on Monday May 18.

What: Holiday From Me out now through Eleven: A Music Company

SATURDAY APRIL 18 Roger West’s Wasted House (In Paradisum), DJ Slyngshot’s Cycles (Yappin), Domenico Crisci’s Ceremony (Eerie) and Call Super’s Fluenka Mitsu (Nous).

Basic Soul Unit

James Zabiela Chinese Laundry Luke Vibert Goodgod Small Club

AFFKT

SATURDAY MAY 2

Hector Burdekin Hotel

xxxy Chinese Laundry

Alex Niggemann Imperial Hotel

German duo Monkey Safari have locked in a return to Sydney. Since forming a musical colla-bro-ation in 2008, the brothers Lars and Sven have risen to the ranks of tech house royalty, having played at every prestigious club from Space Ibiza to Watergate Berlin and Social Club Paris, received praise from Sven Väth, Joris Voorn and Pete Tong, and appeared at about every goddamn festival on the planet. Expect their recent remix of Marc Houle’s ‘Pepper’ to be dominating dancefloors all year long. Catch them on Saturday April 25 at Chinese Laundry.

Local star Cassius Select keeps going from strength to strength.

Having recently gained international attention for his split 12-inch with Tuff Sherm on the Plastic World label, he’s just joined the stable of Unknown To The Unknown for his latest EP The Crooks. Featuring three meticulously crafted cuts, The Crooks highlights the upcoming producer’s penchant for rumbling house and rambunctious two-step.

He’ll launch it on Friday May 1 at Goodgod Small Club with help from Alba, T Mingus and Adrian E.

Yet the question remains: why did we have to wait ten years before Mac fi nally released his next album? “You know, I’m such a perfectionist,” he says. “I thought it was fi nished four years ago, but then I was like, ‘Nah, nah, I’m gonna keep going.’ Then two years ago I thought it was fi nished, then fi nally this time around I thought, ‘Yeah.’ I wouldn’t change a note now. It’s cool, I really love this album. It’s just Paul Mac.”

RECOMMENDED

Dance and Electronica with Tyson Wray he Something Else crew have been knocking it out of the park with their parties this year, and their next one looks set to continue this trend with the announcement of Stuart Li AKA Basic Soul Unit. Fluent in everything from heavy techno to squelching acid and deep disco-tinged house, Li is a regular at some of the biggest clubs in the world, including Panorama Bar, Fabric and Robert Johnson. He’ll be supported on the evening by D&D (Haha Industries) and Trinity (Nighttime Drama/4our), alongside local legends Grand Jete, James Petrou, Whitecat and Dave Stuart. It goes down on Saturday May 30 at the Burdekin Hotel.

this album is way more pumping, way more electronic and techy, but it’s still got my thing over the top.”

Young Marco, DJ Sotofett, DJ Fett Burger Oxford Art Factory

SATURDAY APRIL 25 Julio Bashmore Ivy

Monkey Safari Chinese Laundry Monki

FRIDAY MAY 1

Cassius Select Goodgod Small Club

SATURDAY MAY 9 AFFKT Burdekin Hotel

SATURDAY MAY 16 Ø [Phase] TBA

Edu Imbernon Chinese Laundry

SATURDAY MAY 23 Kyle Hall Imperial Hotel

FRIDAY MAY 29

Carmada Oxford Art Factory xxxy

Tour rumours: praise the Lord! I’m hearing that later this year Sydneysiders will finally see a return of the inimitable house luminary Motor City Drum Ensemble. Oh, and don’t be surprised if you see Maceo Plex visit our shores soon, too.

Best releases this week: holy molym the new album from D.Å.R.F.D.H.S. titled In the Wake Of The Dark Earth (on Field) is one of best full-lengths I’ve heard all year thus far. Other highlights include

Got any tip-offs, hate mail, praise or cat photos? Email hey@tysonwray.com or contact me via carrier pigeon. thebrag.com

BRAG :: 608 :: 15:04:15 :: 39

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

club pick of the week

Jerome Fandor

One Day

Scubar, Sydney. 7pm. Free.

James Zabiela + Robbie Lowe + Andrew Wowk + Garth Linton Chinese Laundry, Sydney.

1pm. $48.20.

Linda Jenssen + Raye Antonelli Manly Wharf Hotel, Manly.

6pm. Free.

Luke Vibert Goodgod Small Club, Sydney.

11pm. Free.

Nervo Marquee, Pyrmont. 10pm. $28.80.

Nora En Pure + Acaddamy + Jeff Drake + Ben Nott + DJ Just 1 + Aaiste + Jordan Deck + Alan Thomas + Kings + Mike Hyper Chinese Laundry, Sydney.

8pm. $22.60.

Paces Goodgod Small Club, Sydney.

SATURDAY APRIL 18

7pm. $17.

Pacha Sydney - feat: Marlo + Glover + Exis + Dave Winnel + Avon Stringer + Deckhead + DJ Moto + Chris Arnott + Fingers + Jace Disgrace + Jack Bailey + DJ Eko + DLE + Pro/Gram + Stu Turner + Mike Hyper + Chris Fraser Ivy Bar/Lounge, Sydney. 9pm. $53.30.

Record Store Night - feat: Mark N + Micky Morphingaz + Benny Hinn Play Bar, Surry Hills. 6pm.

Free.

Sienna Saturdays - feat: Resident DJs The Establishment, Sydney.

9pm. Free.

The House Of Who feat.

Rotating DJs + Levins + The House Of Who + Nacho Pop + Katoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S Wig Shop Goodgod Small Club, Sydney.

8pm. Free.

Venom Clubnight - feat: Dark C3ll + Pink Industrial Whores + Noveaux + Horrorwood Mannequins Valve Bar, Agincourt Hotel, Ultimo. 9pm. $15.

SUNDAY APRIL 19 CLUB NIGHTS

Alex Mac + Graham M Manly Wharf Hotel, Manly.

5pm. Free.

Frankie Knuckles Afternoon Tribute - feat: Soul Of Sydney DJs And Friends

Secret Location, Sydney. 2pm. $10.

La Fiesta - feat: Samantha Fox + Agee Ortiz + Av El Cubano + Resident DJ Willie Sabor The Establishment, Sydney.

8pm. Free.

Pub Dub Club The Annandale Hotel, Annandale. 3pm. Free.

Reggae Sundays Kings Cross Hotel, Kings Cross. 5pm. Free.

S.A.S.H Sundays Home Nightclub, Darling Harbour. 2pm. $10.

Sunday Sessions - feat: Cadell + Tom Kelly + Ocky Goldfish, Kings Cross. 4pm.

Free.

Sundays In The City - feat: Various DJs The Slip Inn, Sydney. 12pm.

Free.

MONDAY APRIL 20 CLUB NIGHTS

Mashup Monday - feat: Resident DJs Side Bar, Sydney. 8pm. Free.

TUESDAY APRIL 21 CLUB NIGHTS

Chu The World Bar, Kings Cross.

9pm. Free.

Metro Theatre

One Day CLUB NIGHTS

DJ Tom Kelly Goldfish, Kings Cross. 9pm.

Free.

Felicity Groom Goodgod Small Club, Sydney.

8pm. $14.90.

The Wall The World Bar, Kings Cross.

9pm. $5.

THURSDAY APRIL 16 CLUB NIGHTS

Pool Club Thursdays - feat: Resident DJs Ivy Bar/Lounge, Sydney. 5pm.

Free.

The World Bar Thursdays The World Bar, Kings Cross.

9pm. Free.

Tkay Maidza - Feat: UV Boi + Joy. Goodgod Small Club, Sydney.

8pm. $15.

FRIDAY APRIL 17 CLUB NIGHTS

Argyle Fridays - feat: Resident DJs The Argyle, The Rocks. 6pm.

Free.

DJ Patsan 5 Sawyers, Newcastle. 8pm.

Free.

40 :: BRAG :: 608 :: 15:04:15

El Loco Later - feat: DJs On Rotation Excelsior Hotel, Surry Hills.

10pm. Free.

Factory Fridays - feat: Resident DJs Soda Factory, Surry Hills.

7pm. Free.

Feel Good Fridays Bar100, The Rocks. 5pm.

Free.

Happy Future - feat: Francis Xavier + Maximus Nice Guy + Cala Tarida + The Streat Goodgod Small Club, Sydney.

11pm. $10.

L.A.M Marquee, Pyrmont. 10pm. $18.40.

Loco Friday - feat: Various Live Bands And DJs The Slip Inn, Sydney. 5pm.

Free.

Max Graham + Losty + Soundbreakers + Jnau + Synergy + Risque + Yannick Home Nightclub, Darling Harbour. 10pm. $25.

Sam Wall Manly Wharf Hotel, Manly.

9pm. Free.

Tkay Maidza - feat: UV Boi + Joy. Goodgod Small Club, Sydney.

8pm. $15.

Wiwek + Spenda C + Ember + In Theory + Telophase + Bluebeard + Ohmage + Forkstab + Stuz + Zodiac Chinese Laundry, Sydney.

8pm. $17.50.

HIP HOP & R&B

2face + Electric Elements Crew + Groundwork + Bustacap + 316 + Bigredcap + Prolifik The Gifted Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst. 8pm. $15.

Nora En Pure + Acaddamy + Jeff Drake + Ben Nott + DJ Just 1 + Aaiste + Jordan Deck + Alan Thomas + Kings + Mike Hyper Chinese Laundry, Sydney.

8pm. $22.60.

Felicity Groom

7:30pm. $39.81.

WEDNESDAY APRIL 15

up all night out all week...

Hustler Fridays - feat: MC Shaba Hustle & Flow, Redfern. 7pm.

Free.

Record Store Night feat: Mark N + Micky Morphingaz + Benny Hinn Play Bar, Surry Hills. 6pm.

Free.

SATURDAY APRIL 18 HIP HOP & R&B

Jerome Fandor + Hau Latukefu + Kimberly Aviso Lazybones Lounge, Marrickville. 9pm. $15.

One Day + Briggs + Jayteehazard Metro Theatre, Sydney.

7:30pm. $39.81.

CLUB NIGHTS

Alex Niggemann + Murat Kilic + Space Junk + Whitecat + Antoine Vice + Aboutjack + Mike Witcombe + Ant J Steep Imperial Hotel, Erskineville.

9pm. $20.

Brooke Evers + Royaal + Venuto + Rees Hellmers + DJ Iko + DJ Seiz + J Reyes + Nick Arbor + Simon Lovell Home Nightclub, Darling Harbour. 9pm. Free.

Cakes - feat: 4 Rooms Of Live Music + DJs And International Guests The World Bar, Kings Cross.

8pm. $10.

DJ Matt Meeler 5 Sawyers, Newcastle. 8pm.

Free.

El Loco Later - feat: DJs On Rotation Excelsior Hotel, Surry Hills.

10pm. Free.

Infamous Saturdays - feat: Live DJs

WEDNESDAY APRIL 15

SATURDAY APRIL 18

Felicity Groom Goodgod Small Club, Sydney. 8pm. $14.90.

Alex Niggemann + Murat Kilic + Space Junk + Whitecat + Antoine Vice + Aboutjack + Mike Witcombe + Ant J Steep Imperial Hotel, Erskineville.

9pm. $20.

THURSDAY APRIL 16 Tkay Maidza - feat: UV boi + Joy. Goodgod Small Club, Sydney. 8pm. $15.

Jerome Fandor + Hau Latukefu + Kimberly Aviso Lazybones Lounge, Marrickville. 9pm. $15.

SUNDAY APRIL 19 Frankie Knuckles Afternoon Tribute - feat: Soul Of Sydney DJs And Friends Secret Location, Sydney.

2pm. $10.

S.A.S.H Sundays Home Nightclub, Darling Harbour. 2pm. $10.

FRIDAY APRIL 17 Max Graham + Losty + Soundbreakers + Jnau + Synergy + Risque + Yannick Home Nightclub, Darling Harbour. 10pm. $25.

Wiwek + Spenda C + Ember + In Theory + Telophase + Bluebeard + Ohmage + Forkstab + Stuz + Zodiac Chinese Laundry, Sydney.

8pm. $17.50.

Taky Maidza

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