ISSUE NO. 618 JUNE 24, 2015
FREE Now picked up at over 1,600 places across Sydney and surrounds. thebrag.com
MUSIC, FILM, THEATRE + MORE
INSIDE This Week
GIORGIO MORODER
LOVE & MERCY BRIAN WILSON: THE MIND BEHIND THE MUSIC
The doyen of disco is back with his first album in 30 years.
WA X A H AT CHEE
Katie Crutchfield lands on our shores for the first time.
M A R L ON W IL L I A M S
The latest adopted Kiwi making waves in Australia.
HARTS
Advice from Prince himself has shown Darren Hart the way.
Plus
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rock music news welcome to the frontline: what’s goin’ on around town... with Chris Martin, Lauren Gill and Tyson Wray
songwriters’ secrets WITH
AMY FINDLAY FROM STONEFIELD which has been really beneficial for me. Once I get into a groove, they flow a lot quicker and easier.
Songwriting The Song That Secrets Makes Me Proud 3. 4. I honestly feel that every My proudest song yet
1.
2.
The Last Song I Released ‘Golden Dream’ is our most recent release. It’s the first taste from our new record coming out later this year and we’re really proud of it. The song was a collaboration between ourselves and Kram from Spiderbait, which was an incredible
time we write a song it’s a fluke. Initially, the less we think about it, the easier it seems to flow. We can most definitely hear influences in our writing from whatever music we have been listening to at the time. We generally like to just jam as a band from a small idea that someone brings into our shed where we write. I find it easier to come up with a melody and lyrics after we have the music, however I have recently been focusing a lot more on lyrics in my own time,
is definitely one that we recently wrote for our new album. I’m not sure whether or not it will even make the cut, but lyrically and melodically I have put a lot more thought, care and emotion into the song. I think my proudest song will be forever changing as I grow as a musician and songwriter and I think that probably applies for most musicians. Life and experiences are what make great songs, so I think that the more I live and experience, the better my songs will be.
Ed Kuepper
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: Gloria Brancatisano, James Di Fabrizio, Lauren Gill, Bridget Lutherborrow, Vanessa Papastavros, Jade Smith ART DIRECTOR: Sarah Bryant PHOTOGRAPHERS: James Ambrose, Katrina Clarke, Ashley Mar ADVERTISING: Les White - 0405 581 125 / (02) 9212 4322 les@thebrag.com PUBLISHER: Furst Media MANAGING DIRECTOR, FURST MEDIA: Patrick Carr - patrick@furstmedia.com.au, (03) 9428 3600 / 0402 821 122 DIGITAL DIRECTOR/ADVERTISING: Kris Furst kris@furstmedia.com.au, (03) 9428 3600 GIG & CLUB GUIDE COORDINATORS: Sarah Bryant, Vanessa Papastavros - gigguide@ thebrag.com (rock); clubguide@thebrag.com (dance, hip hop & parties) AWESOME INTERNS: Vanessa Papastavros, Elias Kwiet, Jade Smith, Bridget Lutherborrow REGULAR CONTRIBUTORS: Nat Amat, Prudence Clark, Tom Clift, Keiron Costello, Christie Eliezer, Fergus Halliday, Cameron James, Tegan Jones, Lachlan Kanoniuk, Emily Meller, David Molloy, Annie Murney, Adam Norris, Kate Robertson, Natalie Rogers, Erin Rooney, Spencer Scott, Natalie Salvo, Leonardo Silvestrini, Lucy Watson, Krissi Weiss, Rod Whitfield, Harry Windsor, Tyson Wray, Stephanie Yip, David James Young Please send mail NOT ACCOUNTS direct to this NEW address 100 Albion Street, Surry Hills NSW 2010 ph - (02) 9212 4322 fax - (02) 9319 2227 EDITORIAL POLICY: The views and opinions expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the publisher, editors or staff of the BRAG. ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE: Luke Forrester: accounts@furstmedia.com.au ph - (03) 9428 3600 fax - (03) 9428 3611 Furst Media, 3 Newton Street Richmond Victoria 3121 DEADLINES: Editorial: Friday 12pm (no extensions) Ad bookings: Friday 5pm (no extensions) Fishished Art: No later than 2pm Monday Ad cancellations: Friday 4pm Deadlines are strictly adhered to. Published by Furst Media P/L ACN 1112480045 All content copyrighted to Cartrage P/L / Furst Media P/L 2003-2014 DISTRIBUTION: Wanna get the BRAG? Email distribution@ furstmedia.com.au or phone 03 9428 3600
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5.
The Song That Changed My Life My all-time favourite song and band is ‘Whole Lotta Love’ by Led Zeppelin. I can’t remember the first time I heard it because it would have been when I was a baby, but through my whole life it has been a song I have been inspired by. I always wanted to have a huge voice like Robert Plant that has soul and sass. This song ticks all the boxes for me – a great riff, groove, an insane freak-out section and wailing vocals. I think its soul, craziness and sass sum me up as a person as well. With: Magic Bones, Destrends Where: Goodgod Small Club When: Friday July 3
LATER ’STRAYA
Northeast Party House will play a run of farewell shows before they make the leap into international waters this September. Set to play their first string of dates across the US, UK and Europe from September through November, the dance-pop outfit will bid their homeland adieu with six gigs along the east coast. Having spent much of the year in the studio working on their follow-up to their 2014 maiden effort Any Given Weekend, Northeast Party House will unveil the new material as one last treat before they head off to conquer the Northern Hemisphere. They’ll be at Oxford Art Factory on Thursday August 20.
Newtown Social Club Thursday July 23
AZEALIA BANKS Metro Theatre Friday July 24
WOLF ALICE Oxford Art Factory Friday July 24
YEARS & YEARS Oxford Art Factory Sunday July 26
Laura Marling
TIMERWOLF ON TOUR A NEW KIND OF NOSTALGIA
The Saints’ co-founder and guitarist Ed Kuepper will unveil a wealth of new material when he heads out on his Nostalgia For The New tour next month. After spending the last two years performing ‘by request’ shows, Kuepper will take a break from the familiar and play sets of largely new and unrecorded material along with a selection of classics. He plans to record and release this material before the end of this year, marking his first studio release since 2007’s Jean Lee And The Yellow Dog. And in another interesting twist, Kuepper’s tour will include a three-week-long residency at venues in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. He’ll hit the Factory Theatre on Wednesday July 15, Wednesday July 22 and Wednesday July 29.
COMMITTED TO MEMORY
After breakout performances at Groovin The Moo and Big Pineapple, Timberwolf has announced that he’ll take his live show on the road for a trio of gigs this August. The mini-tour will celebrate his widely praised new EP Flux, which was released at the beginning of May. Since the project’s release, the folk singer has been generating heavy buzz, with singles ‘It Burns’, ‘Fallen Sun’ and ‘Whiskey Jar’ securing slots on the national airwaves. He’ll play Newtown Social Club on Friday August 21.
SURF’S UP AT BEACHFEST
Surf pop legends The Beach Boys will headline a brand new event on Bondi Beach this year, aptly titled Beachfest. It’s a massive coup for the inaugural festival, bringing the ‘California Girls’ hitmakers to share some tunes with the Bondi girls (and boys) instead. However, it won’t be The Beach Boys’ first encounter with the Australian shoreline – they played a concert in North Narrabeen back in 1992, years after name-checking Narrabeen in another hit single, ‘Surfin’ USA’. Joining The Beach Boys on the Beachfest lineup will be The Whitlams, Busby Marou, Kim Churchill and Sahara Beck. The festival will take place on Saturday November 14. Tickets go on sale 12pm this Friday June 26.
Motion City Soundtrack will celebrate the tenth anniversary of their classic album Commit This To Memory with a national tour this spring. Released in June 2005, the emo-pop LP featured tracks like ‘Everything is Alright’, ‘When You’re Around’ and ‘Make Out Kids’. They’ll play the album in its entirety alongside cuts from the rest of their catalogue and material from their forthcoming studio album when they hit five cities across Australia this August. Catch Motion City Soundtrack on Friday August 28 at Manning Bar.
LAURA MARLING DOWN UNDER
UK folk star Laura Marling is returning to Australia this October to play a string of shows. Last on our shores in 2013, Marling is returning in the wake of her fifth studio album in seven years, Short Movie, which dropped in March. The record was self-produced and marks Marling’s movement towards bigger, more electric-feeling music. Be sure to check her out with a full band on Tuesday October 20 at the Enmore Theatre.
Madonna
TURN UP THE VOLUMES
The new Volumes music festival, coming to the Sydney live music epicentre that is Oxford Street, has revealed its debut lineup. Modelled on the success of huge multi-venue events like South By Southwest, Volumes will begin by taking over three venues in Darlinghurst: Oxford Art Factory, The Cliff Dive and Brighton Up Bar. Organisers have made their mark from the outset with a first lineup announcement featuring Jack Ladder & The Dreamlanders, The Laurels, Canyons and many more. Volumes 2015 will take place at Oxford Square on Saturday August 29. Check out thebrag.com for the full list of performers.
A REBEL AT HEART
Madonna will bring her Rebel Heart tour to Australia in 2016. Released earlier this year, Madonna’s critically acclaimed 13th studio album Rebel Heart marked her 11th record to hit number one on the Australian ARIA Charts. The historic tour will see Madge return Down Under to perform live in Australia for the first time in 23 years. Catch her at Allphones Arena on Saturday March 19 and Sunday March 20.
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XXX photo by XXX
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MARMOZETS Years & Years photo by Mike Massaro / Wolf Alice photo by Jordan Hughes
writing experience. I think it has introduced a new era for our band that shows more maturity and depth of what’s to come.
The First Song I Wrote It was a seriously cringeworthy tune called ‘Soon’. I wrote it when I was about 14 years old and yes, it was a teen love song. I did get asked to play it for the old folks at the local retirement home… it must have been suitable for sending people to sleep.
the BRAG presents
“PAUL DANO & JOHN CUSACK “
ARE PHENOMENAL THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
PAUL DANO
IS BRIAN WILSON
ELIZABETH BANKS
JOHN CUSACK IS BRIAN WILSON
AND
PAUL GIAMATTI
LOVE & MERCY
HIS MUSIC SHAPED OUR LIVES. LOVE SAVED HIS. T H E T R U E S T O RY O F T H E B E A C H B O Y S ’ B R I A N W I L S O N
Mature themes, drug use and coarse language
IN SELECTED CINEMAS /IconFilmDistribution.au
JUNE 25
iconmovies.com.au
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live & local
free stuff
welcome to the frontline: what’s goin’ on around town... with Chris Martin, Bridget Lutherborrow and Jade Smith
five things WITH
MARK FARINA: SOL REPUBLIC HEADPHONES
GAVIN BOWLES FROM PICTURE PERFECT discovered bands like The Clash and The Who.
The Music You Make Our sound is kind of a 4. blend of Aussie pub rock and
Inspirations I’ve always been a Green 2. Day fan. They’re flawless live and
punk rock but with our own twist on it. The three of us all share a love of bands like Queens of the Stone Age, The Living End and Shihad. Our live show is all about having fun and putting as much energy into it as possible. We love playing live and we want to make sure everyone who is there is having as much fun as us.
have had an incredible catalogue of songs. I love Elvis Costello too, a brilliant songwriter. And Chris Cheney from The Living End is definitely an influence on my guitar playing. In terms of lyrics, I kind of use songwriting as a cheap form of therapy. If I need to get something off my chest or something has been playing on my mind, it will usually end up in a song.
3.
Growing Up I had a very musical 1. upbringing. There was always music in our house, a lot of Aussie pub rock – Midnight
head to: thebrag.com/freeshit
Oil, Cold Chisel, et cetera. When I was in primary school, I watched a Chisel concert video and desperately wanted to be Barnesy. Then in my teens I
Melbourne indie rockers Darts will be throwing down their best tunes in Sydney this weekend. The Ayres brothers, Angus and Andrew, and their partners in crime – Ally Campbell-Smith, Paige X. Cho and Jessie Fernandez – released their nostalgic debut album, Below Empty & Westward Bound, in May. The record looks back to ’90s alt rock (think Modest Mouse, Pixies, The Breeders) while attempting a stylistic update, and has been some time coming since Darts won a triple j Unearthed contest back in 2009. Darts will arrive at Brighton Up Bar on Saturday June 27.
FILTHY BUSINESS
Regular Friday night staple The Filth is back at the Beach Road Hotel, promising a free party to kick off every weekend. Things get started this Friday June 26 with sweet sounds from triple j Unearthed High 2012 winner Asta. Appearances from Citizen Kay (Friday July 3), Bleeding Knees Club (Friday July 17), Jack Ladder and The Dreamlanders (Friday July 24) and Playwrite (Friday July 31) will follow in the weeks to come. Throughout the next month The Filth will also announce a number of secret gigs, which will only be revealed to Filth faithfuls.
BRIGHTON’S TRIPLE BILL
Bringing the light to Brighton Up Bar this weekend will be the one-night-only funk and psychedelia special, Brighten Up! Local funk outfit Bin Juice have been active since they were schoolboys in socks, and have gone from strength to strength since the release of last year’s Furious
crisis in terms of its nightlife. There are places to play, bands willing to play and (most of the time) people willing to go to a gig. But for some reason, these things have trouble coming together all the time. However, the community of bands and the amount of talent is by no means waning. Where: Lansdowne Hotel When: Saturday June 27
We’ve got a pair of limited edition Mark Farina V8 headphones to give away. To be in the running to win them, head to thebrag.com/freeshit.
George LP and ‘Funk Action’ single. They’ll be joined by Manly favourites Winston Surfshirt and psych rockers Raindrop. In addition, the evening will be soundtracked by the Richard In Your Mind DJs, to get you moving. See it all go down this Friday June 26.
Carmada
xxx
THROWING DARTS
Your Band We’re a three-piece: myself on guitar and vocals, my brother Simon on drums and Cameron [Hill] on bass. Cameron and I went to high school together, we became friends and found out we liked similar music. He came over for a few jams at our house with some other mates. Eventually it became the three of us and we just clicked.
Music, Right Here, Right Now 5. I think Sydney has a bit of identity
For music lovers who appreciate the fi ner things, there’s only one way to appreciate rhythm and melody, and that’s through a great pair of headphones. Well, here’s a high-octane solution. Chicago house, acid jazz and downtempo DJ/producer Mark Farina has collaborated with SOL REPUBLIC to create some great headphones designed for music fans everywhere. The SOL REPUBLIC V8 headphones house V8 sound engines for a bass-rich mix, and they probably go really fast around corners, too.
IT’S CACTUS, JACK
To celebrate the release of their new seven-inch single ‘Cobaw’, The Cactus Channel will be embarking on an east coast tour, landing in Sydney in mid-August. Taking its name from a small town in the gold rush end of the Macedon Ranges, ‘Cobaw’ soundtracks the forest scrub, disused mine shafts and dark lagoons of its namesake. With two LPs and three 45s under their collective belts, The Cactus Channel have made the move to self-produce and self-manage. The instrumentals and funky tunes will stay the same, but things are getting a little darker and edgier than what we’ve all come to know. They’ll prove it at Newtown Social Club on Saturday August 15.
GENA ROSE BRUCE
To celebrate the release of her new EP, Mad Love, Gena Rose Bruce has announced a couple of shows for this July. Bruce has previously supported the likes of Bonjah, Timberwolf and Ben Wright Smith. In 2014, she was awarded second place in the Unsigned Only Songwriting Competition as well as being a Grand Finalist in the International Songwriting Competition alongside Missy Higgins and The Preatures. Bruce will play Brighton Up Bar on Friday July 31.
SOSUEME TURNS EIGHT
Notorious Bondi music night Sosueme is set to celebrate becoming a big kid this July. The doors of the Beach Road Hotel will be thrown open come Wednesday July 1 for a free shindig of local acts and lolly bags. Featuring Carmada, whose track ‘Maybe’ made number 41 on triple j’s Hottest 100 2014, the evening will also see sets from Paces, Furnace and The Fundamentals and Young Franco. Alongside a stellar lineup and special guests, partygoers can expect jelly shots, fairy bread and naked clowns. Obviously.
Noire
BREAKING ORBIT
Sydney prog rockers Breaking Orbit have announced they’ll play a string of shows in support of their sophomore album, Transcension. They’ll unleash their heavy live show on Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide, with cuts from their latest release as well as their debut LP, The Time Traveller. Joining them will be Hemina and yet to be announced special guests. Breaking Orbit will hit The Bald Faced Stag on Saturday July 4.
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NOIRE YOU SEE THEM, NOIRE YOU DON’T
Indie rock trio Noire will be bringing their airy, hypnotic soundscapes to The Cliff Dive on Thursday July 2 to launch their latest single ‘Just Like Honey’. With only three singles to their name, Noire have already headlined a night at No Dice Paradise, supported the likes of Dappled Cities, and achieved solid airplay across triple j Unearthed and community radio stations. The new single proves the young Sydney group know exactly what they’re doing – writing indie shoegaze to soundtrack your experiences of melancholic romance and dancing alone – and are doing it well.
thebrag.com
ReclinkCommunityCup#5080_photo Rod Hunt
Breaking Orbit
The Seymour Centre & Sport for Jove present
Of Mice and Men 9th July —1st 9th—25th JulyAugust spor t for jove.com.au
THE REGINALD SEASON IS AN INITIATIVE OF THE SEYMOUR CENTRE
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Industrial Strength Music Industry News with Christie Eliezer
THINGS WE HEAR * Which punk/metal band was locked out of a studio – and was it due to non-payment or bad behaviour? * Which band is quietly trying to stop an ex-member from playing its hits? * 24 hours after being hospitalised with burns from a London stage accident, was 5 Seconds Of Summer’s Michael Clifford partying at Prince Harry’s fave hotspot, Mahiki in Mayfair? * Did Prince and Stevie Wonder perform a private gig at the White House for President Obama?
* The Imperial Hotel in Erskineville was closed for 72 hours on the weekend by police, who allege bar staff were taking ecstasy before serving alcohol to patrons. Authorities point the finger at Spice Group International, which moved the Spice Cellar dance club from Martin Place to the hotel in late April. * Orana Community Broadcasters Inc began test broadcasts of a new community radio station in Dubbo on FM88.9. * Perth will be the fourth city to get the football charity event, the Reclink Community Cup. On Sunday August 30, musicians (Bandgropers) and community media (Newshounds) will go up against each other AFLstyle at Steel Blue Oval in Bassendean.
CASSETTE STORE DAY HEADS TO AUSTRALIA The global Cassette Store Day will include Australia when it returns for a third year on Saturday October 17. Founded by UK indies Suplex Cassettes, Kissability and Sexbeat in 2013, last year’s event saw Burger Records coordinating US releases and events. This year it’ll be joined by Sydney’s Rice Is Nice, Arch Hill in New Zealand, and Mansions and Millions in Germany. Applications to be a part of Cassette Store Day will open for events, shops and labels from Saturday July 11 at Rice Is Nice’s website and close on September 1. It will be free to list your store or event, with a small admin fee of $5 for labels looking to list an official release.
TAYLOR SWIFT TAKES ON APPLE, ARTISTS GET PAID The Australian Independent Record Labels Association (AIR) joined global outrage over a clause in Apple Music contracts regarding the payment of artists – until Taylor Swift stepped in to save the day. Artists were to receive no royalty payments during the free three-month trial of the new service. Swift’s open letter saying her album 1989 wouldn’t be available on the service during the three-month period, because she objected to artists not being paid, brought about a change of heart from Apple. “Apple will always make sure that artists are paid ... even during customer’s free trial period,” tweeted senior vice president for internet software and services Eddy Cue. “We hear you @taylorswift13 and indie artists. Love, Apple.”
AUDIOPAXX AND KOSHER JOIN FORCES The Kosher agency has taken on fellow Sydney agency Audiopaxx’s bookings while it refocuses on management. Kosher managing director and head agent Jon Debeere spoke of a plan of “looking to the future in building one of Australasia’s strongest talent agencies”. Kosher grew out of tour firm Leibowitz & Weinberg and signed Dutch producer GANZ, electropop act Chela and beatmaker Chiefs. After a merger with Swerve Productions in June 2012, Audiopaxx moved from events to artist bookings, international tours (Klingande, Zeds Dead) and corporate activations (Microsoft, Red Bull). Acts managed included Carmada and Just A Gent.
UNIVERSAL WINS CASE OVER MODULAR’S PAV Universal Music Australia has won its Supreme Court case against former Modular Recordings co-owner Stephen Pavlovic. Late last year it terminated his employment, and emailed him four settlement deeds. ‘Pav’ decided not to sign the fourth and final deed, claiming the agreement was null and void after his separation from Modular Recordings.
APPLICATIONS OPEN FOR THE SEED FUND In its 11th year, The Seed Fund has opened applications to support emerging musicians, artists and arts workers via grants and workshops. The deadline is Friday July 31; visit theseedfund.org for details. This year’s Seed Fund Management Workshop will be held in Melbourne in October. An inaugural fundraising gig and music industry soiree is also due to be held in the same month, while a Pozible campaign is set to run for the month of September. The grants cover assistance 8 :: BRAG :: 618 :: 24:06:15
* A 42-year-old US man who spent $5,000 to get 29 Miley Cyrus-inspired tattoos is getting rid of them (including one of her face) after Miley called them “ugly” and “creepy” in an interview. * The Country Music Association of Australia is polling its members to see if New Zealand artists can also be included in its Golden Guitar awards. So far two-thirds think it’s OK. * Scottish producer Hudson Mohawke let it slip he’s playing Laneway in 2016. * The Veronicas had to scrap a US tour set to begin on the weekend after members of their band couldn’t get work visas due to a ‘technical malfunction’ at the US Immigration Department.
for managers who aren’t earning while they’re setting up a tour or album release, recording artists cutting a track, funding for mentors for a three-day indigenous music workshop in the Northern Territory, and new instruments for asylum seekers.
UK SOLO MEN ENJOY 15-YEAR SALES HIGH
was inspired by her concerns for the Martu people in Parnngurr, in Western Australia’s Pilbara region, who live near uranium mines. In late 2013, Hegarty and Sydney media artist Lynette Wallworth spent time in the community creating multimedia footage for an installation at the Adelaide Biennial, and says, “It was one of the most memorable experiences of my life. The wisdom and radiance of these people is humbling.”
UK MUSIC TOURISTS WORTH £3.1 BILLION Foreigners visiting Britain to attend music events are big business. Last year, 9.5 million ‘music tourists’ generated £3.1 billion (AU$6.3 billion) for the UK economy. According to a report, Wish You Were Here 2015 by trade body UK Music, attendance was at a 39% rise from 2010. Each visitor spent an average of £751 or AU$1,514 (up 13%) and helped maintain 38,238 full-time jobs, a 57% increase from 2012.
Lifelines Expecting: Arctic Monkeys’ Matt Helders and fiancé Breana McDow (the model who appears in three of their videos), with their first child. Hospitalised: Sydney metal band Northlane singer Marcus Bridge needed surgery in Germany for an unspecified medical problem, which forced them to blow out some European festivals.
Male solo artists from the UK are having their best sales on home turf in 15 years, reports the British Phonographic Industry (BPI). Its Artist Gender survey found they have a 38.2% share of sales – nearly four in every ten artist albums purchased in the UK, and the highest this century. This has been primarily due to Ed Sheeran, Sam Smith and George Ezra. Brit acts last year had a 53.5% share of the UK market (a 17-year high) and made up five of the world’s top ten best-selling artist albums.
Ill: Belgian electropop artist Stromae has cancelled all live shows until August, apparently due to “serious secondary effects” linked to an anti-malaria treatment he was taking in Africa.
NSW MUSICIANS SCORE NEW GRANTS
Injured: Pierce The Veil guitarist Tony Perry ended up with three broken ribs, a torn shoulder, a collapsed lung and a broken sternum from a mountain biking accident.
A number of New South Wales acts and organisations have landed themselves new Australia Council grants worth $9.1 million. 273 projects were supported, 20% of them from first-timers, and 20% from regional areas. The 11 from NSW included Little May ($42,685), The Church ($15,486), Super Critical Mass ($32,180), The Crooked Fiddle Band ($10,273), Stuart Hunter ($28,700) and the Australian World Orchestra ($89,738).
ASHLEIGH DALLAS SIGNS TO WJO/UNIVERSAL MUSIC Tamworth country singer-songwriter Ashleigh Dallas has signed with WJO/ Universal Music Australia. Her second album The Other Side Of Town will drop in August. WJO co-founder Will Osland says he admired her music and work ethic from the start, and that her “outgoing and infectious personality makes her a unique artist [and] a perfect fit to the new WJO/Universal Music Australia label”.
EMINEM LEADS DIGITAL SINGLES SALES Eminem has become the first artist to land two diamond-selling digital singles. ‘Not Afraid’ from 2010 has sold ten million digital copies, following on from his Rihanna collaboration, ‘Love The Way You Lie’. The Recording Industry Association of America stated, “Earning a Diamond Award on two separate digital songs is unparalleled.” Eminem also has two diamond-selling albums, The Marshall Mathers LP and The Eminem Show.
DAN BIDDLE MANAGING O’SHEA Dan Biddle’s TCO (Taking Care Of) Artists has taken over Australian management for country music duo O’Shea. They continue to be represented in North America by Jim Morey. Biddle worked O’Shea’s first two albums when he was an exec at Sony Music, and regards them as “quality people and artists with unwavering integrity”. Biddle also manages The McClymonts.
ANTONY DONATES FEE TO WA ABORIGINAL CAUSE Antony Hegarty has donated her fees from Antony and The Johnsons’ two shows with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra at Dark Mofo festival last week to the Conservation Council of WA. The donation
Ill: US comedy team Cheech & Chong cancelled their Australian tour because Tommy Chong has rectal cancer.
Hospitalised: Of Mice & Men frontman Austin Carlile, from a cardiac issue related to Marfan syndrome. Hospitalised: George Michael reportedly entered rehab in Switzerland for substance abuse (his habit of 25 joints a day). Ill: Supersuckers’ Eddie Spaghetti, diagnosed with cancer in his throat. Sued: Beyoncé for US$7 million by her backing singer Javon for allegedly stealing from his song ‘XOXO’ for the track ‘XO’ on her 2013 album. In Court: Courtney Love is trying to stop the release of a documentary called Soaked In Bleach, which claims it gives “a compelling case” to re-open investigations into Kurt Cobain’s death. In Court: Justin Bieber’s former bodyguard Hugo Hesny was sentenced to 45 days in jail after stealing a photographer’s camera in Atlanta last year. In Court: a US appeals court has reinstated a US$10 million lawsuit that claims Justin Bieber and Usher’s ‘Somebody To Love’ copied parts of a song of the same name written by two Virginia songwriters, Devin Copeland and Mareio Overton. A judge last year said the songs were not similar enough. The appeals court had another listen and said they were. In Court: The Monster energy drink company has been ordered to pay the Beastie Boys US$668,000 in legal fees after the band won its claim that its copyright had been infringed when its songs were used in a video.
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LOVE & MERCY Brian Wilson’s War
L
ove & Mercy is a splendid, troubling film for several reasons. It is a tremendous testament to the power and prison of creativity, and does not shy away from the pitfalls of unchecked success. It also features a terrific cast that brings its story to vivid life, with Paul Dano and John Cusack playing the young and old Brian Wilson respectively; Elizabeth Banks as future Mrs. Wilson, Melinda Ledbetter; and Paul Giamatti in particularly unsettling form as Eugene Landy, Wilson’s doctor and insidious warden in later life. Yet the film is at its most effective when producer-turned-director Bill Pohlad pulls back the curtain to reveal Brian Wilson not as The Beach Boys’ eccentric musical savant, but instead as a deeply unstable man at the mercy of demons real and imagined. It is a story spanning 20 years, and as Pohlad explains, creating this world was no simple task.
“I think you have to suspend reality to a degree,” says Pohlad. “You have to really believe that you can do this, and that your vision and the decisions you’re making are right. Otherwise you’re just going to crumble. So you have to get that ego going and assume it’s all going to be OK. Once you start thinking about showing it to other people, though, the reality starts to sink in – ‘Wait a minute, I don’t know what this thing is!’ [Laughs]. “I’ve been living with it for so long, to me it feels really amateurish, almost like a home movie, and I’m afraid everyone’s going to hate it. Even in early screenings when we got a nice reception, there had been so much emotion building up to it that I didn’t really believe it. I thought someone had made a mistake. It wasn’t until our second big screening [when] I started to think that some people might actually like it.”
By Adam Norris
The film swings between two strikingly different periods in Wilson’s life, and it is here that Pohlad found his real connection with the story. On one hand we have Wilson at the height of The Beach Boys’ fame, tucked away in the studio obsessively constructing Pet Sounds, an album that would ultimately be regarded as close to genius, yet at the time was seen as a ponderous mistake. On the other we have Wilson two decades later, crippled by mental illness and a virtual prisoner to his 24-hour therapist, Dr. Landy. It is a harrowing, if no less entertaining account of one of modern music’s great composers, and exactly the kind of weighty film you would expect from the producer behind 12 Years A Slave, The Tree Of Life and Into The Wild. Yet the prospect of Pohlad taking time out to relax with a Fast & Furious-style genre piece seems rather thin.
whole different zone. I haven’t seen any of those Fast & Furious movies, which is more because I haven’t had the chance to get around to it rather than not being interested. For me, it just feels like if you spend years of your life on a project, you want it to be about something, to hopefully have something that reflects in people’s lives. You want something that might stand the test of time, so you can hope, looking back in ten years, that it all still means something.
“Ha, well, there are a range of things to be interested in. You try things on. But I don’t know, that’s a
Since the initial success of Love & Mercy – complete with Wilson’s own seal of approval – there have already been offers for Pohlad to continue with the biopic mantle and undertake the story of some other troubled musician. They are forever in vogue, after all: Ray, All Is By My Side, I’m Not There, the list whirs on. But much as Pohlad continues to admire Wilson’s music, it was the story stripped of the songs – the collapse, despair and renewal – that proved the greatest allure.
“You’ve got to make sure there’s a story there. For me, the fact that Brian had a true, human story beyond the music was what really attracted me.”
“Some things are better left undone. Like On The Road, for example. The effort was there to make that movie over a long period of time and we almost got involved, but to me, it was somewhat foolhardy to take a book like that and try to make a movie of it. It just feels too risky. I also had that little bit of distance from Brian, as I was more of a Beatles fan, which I think made me handle it in a different way than if I had been so close to it. “It’s a tough thing. People have talked to me a lot since I’ve been working on Love & Mercy about that very question – ‘Oh, what about this person, what about that person?’ And because I’m a big music fan, sure, it’s tempting. But you’ve got to
One of the film’s most celebrated strengths is the detail with which The Beach Boys’ recording studio has been reconstructed. We see it on a grand scale – rooms teeming with musicians enthralled to Wilson’s vision – but also stripped back to a single, frightened artist donning headphones to hear the soundscape in his head brought to overwhelming life. Pohlad’s love for this music is clear, yet it is his passion for the forces that shaped Wilson’s songs that gives the film such pathos. You almost suspect that in another life, Pohlad may have become a musician himself. “I think that’s definitely true of a lot of filmmakers,” he laughs. “I think they’re often frustrated musicians. A lot of musicians are also frustrated filmmakers. It goes both ways. For me, it was really the opportunity to recreate that period in Brian’s life, and not just the music, where there are so many different layers, but the actual creativity that was happening at that time. It was something to really wonder, you know, a creativity to stand in awe of. I just loved that. “There were times in this movie, and in producing other films, where I’ve felt that way and got on that roll. Things start happening and you’re feeling so good right there; it’s all coming together, it’s going great, you get a real high from it. Yet Brian was doing that on Pet Sounds constantly! So it’s amazing to feel even just a little bit of that.” What: Love & Mercy (dir. Bill Pohlad) Where: In cinemas Thursday June 25
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“There’s a saying that a director never stops making their movie, they just give up at some point. And though that isn’t entirely true, if I had to go back and reshoot it, there are certainly ideas or thoughts I could still play with. But I think you get to a point where you need to let it go and see what happens.”
make sure there’s a story there. For me, the fact that Brian had a true, human story beyond the music was what really attracted me. Of all of the bands that I’ve loved over the years, Radiohead or whatever, in my mind it would be a bad idea to try and make a movie of them just because I love the music. It has to have a story that people can relate to, and mean something even if you take the music away.”
Waxahatchee Alone, Together By Augustus Welby
W
axahatchee: is it a band or a solo project? It’s hard to tell. The 2012 debut American Weekend featured Katie Crutchfield alone, singing over bare acoustic guitar strums. But while Crutchfield remains the project’s sole official member, on Waxahatchee’s last two records – the 2013 breakthrough Cerulean Salt and this year’s Ivy Tripp – she’s regularly backed up by a full band. Ahead of Waxahatchee’s very first Australian tour, the BRAG checks in with Crutchfield to get some definitive answers.
“[For] Cerulean Salt and Ivy Tripp, I worked with the same two people, which is Kyle Gilbride, who engineered it, and Keith Spencer, who produced it and he’s also my guitar player,” Crutchfield explains. “This record was super collaborative. I wrote all the songs, all the melodies and lyrics and things like that, but as far as all the instrumentation goes, that was all done as a group. So definitely, it felt more like a band and it’s a record I never could’ve made on my own. We worked really well together and it was a really fun project.” Perhaps by virtue of the collaborative gestation, Ivy Tripp journeys from noisy power-pop to computerised emo, fuzzy beach-pop to intimate minimalism. In accordance with the stylistic breadth, the instrumentation and production is more diverse than on previous releases. “I wanted to challenge myself,” says Crutchfield. “Also, Kyle has been recording so much and he has developed a style. Things have changed since when he recorded Cerulean Salt. It’s the same with Keith and I; we had more gear, we had more ideas. I felt it was important that we do something else and challenge ourselves. It felt natural to make something that was grander.”
Crucially, while carrying out a variety of stylistic excursions, Ivy Tripp attains a sense of cohesion from Crutchfield’s unvarnished vocal performances and empathetically engaging lyrics. The 26-year-old songwriter’s willingness to vulnerably present herself is a core part of Waxahatchee’s blossoming appeal. In spite of this, when making Ivy Tripp, she tried to block out thoughts of what would please her listenership. “I took a lot of time from when I was touring Cerulean Salt to when I started writing,” she says. “I wanted to take enough space of not playing shows, just to go back to the solitude of it all and focus on the kind of emotions I wanted to evoke in myself and just really listen to how I was feeling. I honestly think that’s the secret for me to be able to write songs that mean something to people. If I’m thinking too much about trying to do that, I don’t know that it’ll be authentic. “Ivy Tripp was the first record I made where I knew that people were going to be excited about it or want to hear it. When I was making Cerulean Salt, I had no idea that anybody was going to like it. I’ve always had a small group of fans, but nothing like now. So I was definitely conscious of trying to replicate my songwriting process [from] before people were paying attention. And it was easier than I thought it would be.” Indeed, not every song on Ivy Tripp is sad or miserable, but the whole record has an emotively stimulating subtext. Interestingly, although Crutchfield did her utmost to prevent expectations from interfering with her compositional process, she was very aware of what she was working towards. “I always try to write songs in terms of an album,” she says. “I feel like that’s kind of the way that I see things. That’s why I never really make
EPs or short releases. So it’s in the back of my mind always. Even if the songs on paper are nothing alike, I try to string them together and keep them cohesive.” Crutchfield’s album-oriented songwriting approach would explain why the three Waxahatchee records have arrived in relatively quick succession. Nonetheless, she feels no pressure to uphold her reputation for productivity. “That’s a position I would never want to be in, where I am rushing to finish an album. I have some moments that last for months where I am not writing or nothing is coming to me or I don’t have time. I just try to work through it, and there will always
be moments where I have a lot of ideas. I really do try not to beat myself up if I can’t think of things, because people go years and years without writing songs and then make a great record. It’s just part of it.” Since Ivy Tripp landed in April, Crutchfield has been trekking around the US and Europe, joined by her fullforce backing band. However, she’ll be heading down to Australia all alone – well, her mother is joining her – which exemplifies Waxahatchee’s innate malleability. “I’d like to keep Waxahatchee as my solo thing for as long as I do it. I really like having that autonomy
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What: Ivy Tripp out now through Wichita/PIAS With: Ali Barter, Jen Buxton Where: Newtown Social Club When: Friday July 3
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creatively. But I also do have a lot of people who are just really important to my process. The next record I do, what I’m leaning toward is taking a step back from that and doing something that’s more solo. Even if I do a solo record, I will probably collaborate with Keith Spencer on it and I’ll probably still record it with Kyle. But I might take a step back and work more by myself.”
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Whole Lotta Love Celebration Day By Augustus Welby with a lineup featuring vocalists Jeff Martin, Sarah McLeod, Dallas Frasca, Frank Lakoudis and Simon Meli of Sydney band The Widowbirds.
Simon Meli
This is Meli’s sixth year taking part in the onstage Zeppelin worship, and he’s pretty chuffed to be involved. “It’s Led Zeppelin the loudest that you’ll ever hear it, with guys playing it with as much gusto and passion as you would expect from the real thing,” he says. “The State Theatre is no small little pub, so there’s volume, there’s ambience, there’s the architecture, there’s a big lineup of people and they’re all pouring out huge passion for the band. Joseph only gets people involved if they really love Led Zeppelin, otherwise it doesn’t translate. So you’ve got all those people combined walking out onstage year after year and every song is dynamite.”
M
ost rock’n’roll fans would agree that there ain’t nothing like a good live show. We can sit and pontifi cate about the illuminating merits of classic records, but a properly exciting live performance trumps all else. However, as the wheels of time keep turning, an increasing
number of killer bands will retire from the live arena. Led Zeppelin are one such example. While three of the band’s original members are still alive, they’ve adamantly refused to reform. Laudable as this is, it means generations of Zepophiles will never get to witness them at full strength.
This is something Sydney musician Joseph Calderazzo simply couldn’t tolerate, so back in 2003 he conceived the Whole Lotta Love concert. Over the past 12 years, Calderazzo has led an impressive ensemble of musicians in an annual night of Zeppelin celebration. Whole Lotta Love returns this September,
As well as making reference to the legendary British rockers when shaping the sound of The Widowbirds, Meli developed his singing personality with a little help from Zeppelin’s Robert Plant. “When we’re younger vocalists and we’re trying to fi nd out what our strengths and weaknesses
directly referenced the original of that song. But then we did weird things, like the synth part. It’s him flexing his muscles in that regard.”
Musicians from across the Tasman often have a complicated bond with their home country, with the notion of tall poppy syndrome perhaps being even more prevalent than in Australia. “I don’t feel weird about New Zealand,” Williams says. “New Zealanders are funny. Because of our isolation we feel a sense of ownership, and conversely a sense of disownership. We’re pretty sensitive to that. But it’s not really worth thinking about. It’s not gonna change anything. I haven’t experienced anything too bad on that front.”
This puts Meli in the perfect position to relive a handful of Zeppelin originals at Whole Lotta Love. Over the past six years, he’s developed a method for respectfully interpreting Plant’s distinct style. “Being a really massive fan of [Led Zeppelin], I want to give the audience what they reminisce or what they see in pictures and stuff online or in old clips. But I am not Robert Plant, so there will be defi nitely an element of me that will make it not Robert Plant. When I walk out there onstage, I do what comes natural, and some of it’s probably inherent from the things that I watched in their old clips onstage. But it’s not a deliberate thing where I’m putting on a wig and I’m wearing a denim cut-off vest and I’m packing a foiled cucumber in my pants. It is me giving them my best representation of someone who’s a fucking legend.” What: Whole Lotta Love With: Jeff Martin, Sarah McLeod, Dallas Frasca, Frank Lakoudis Where: State Theatre When: Saturday September 5 And: Also appearing at Laycock Street Theatre, Gosford on Friday August 28 and Saturday August 29
Marlon Williams If The Tie Fits By Lachlan Kanoniuk
K
iwi performer Marlon Williams exudes a timeless charisma onstage – a sensibility in performance and aesthetic that invokes uncanny images of the mid-20th century, devoid of any skerrick of contrivance. He’s all collared shirts, dapper jackets, wide brim hats and bolo ties. As we sit down in the beer garden at the Yarra Hotel in Abbotsford, Victoria – where Williams resides upstairs – on a subdued weekday arvo, his civilian attire comprises an army disposal jumper and a cheap snapback embroidered with a weed leaf, the back reading “marijuana”. The release of Williams’ self-titled debut (which is definitely more bolo tie than weed cap) sees the artist arrive fully formed, having honed his craft thanks to a musical adolescence. He developed his impressive vocal talents in his high school choir, before going on to perform in the band The Unfaithful Ways. “At the time I was playing solo gigs here and there,” Williams says. “I knew at some point there would be a time I would be doing my own thing. I don’t know, it doesn’t feel wrong.”
There’s an enchanting disconnect between Williams’ resolute performances and the heartbreaking, at times harrowing subjects of his material. “I know they are emotionally charged songs, so it is a struggle to keep an arm’s length away from them,” he says. “I think for the kind of music I play, that distance is vital for the tragic elements of the songs. That’s the tradition of country music and the blues – wear your tie, deliver the message. “There’s a really good Leonard Cohen poem about how you should deliver poetry – ‘You shouldn’t rant and rave,’ basically to that effect. I try and put as many tears into the song, but then perform it in that way. It came really naturally. When I first started to write songs, that’s all I could really do. I listened to rubbish when I was a kid, like we all did. But I had a firm grounding with The Beatles and Elvis. Dad was always good at throwing stuff in front of me. I started to listen to country music when I was 12 or 13, and that’s when the germination of learning to write songs happened, and that’s how it turned out. I think it was just good timing it happened that way.”
As Williams established himself in his newfound surroundings in Melbourne, he made the trip back to his South Island home of Lyttelton for a series of recording sessions throughout 2014.
Williams’ debut album achieves a mix of staying true to tradition while expressing a voice of its own, particularly via the resplendent take on Billy Fury’s ‘I’m Lost Without You’, which strives for grand melodrama with a cavalcade of strings.
“It was easier, in one way. But there are always more distractions than what I give it credit for. I have this idyllic idea of going home and hanging out with Mum, but I forget I have so many friends there that do like to party.”
“It’s become a specialty of Ben Edwards, the producer,” Williams says. “Over the last few projects we’ve done together he’s been developing a really nice big sound for certain things. We laid down all the bare tracks, then we pretty much
Williams revives the lost art of the cover many times throughout the album, striving for a reverence of song rather than play at familiarity (“They’re all pretty obscure”), which was the standard in the era his music invokes. “It’s really lost its integrity in the eyes of the public because of the rise of singer-songwriters, and people being bored of hearing ‘Dirty Old Town’ down at the pub every weekend,” says Williams. “The folk tradition is obviously so derivative and referential. It’s a really nice thing when I do sing these [more obscure] songs. It’s pretty important to me.”
There’s been a bevy of rich talent, particularly folk-inclined, coming from NZ in recent years, including Williams’ partner, Aldous Harding, who co-stars in the video for ‘Strange Things’. “It certainly overlaps all the time,”
Williams says on the creative aspect of their relationship. “She’s all over my album, I co-produced her album. We’re trying to work out a collaborative album at the moment. We’re both quite funny and standoffish when it comes to songwriting, in a way. Because we know each other so well, it’s too close. She can’t write at all if I’m in the room. But we’ve never tried to write together, so it will be interesting when we try to do that.” What: Marlon Williams out now through Caroline/Universal Who: Marlon Williams and The Yarra Benders With: Laura Jean Where: The Basement When: Saturday July 4
“It’s whispered that soon, if we all call the tune, then the piper will lead us to reason.” - WHOLE LOTTA LOVE Led Zep Celebration 12 :: BRAG :: 618 :: 24:06:15
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Whole Lotta Love photo © Russell Cherry
It only takes a quick listen to The Widowbirds to recognise that Led Zeppelin have played a major role in Meli’s musical development. “Led Zeppelin did shape the way The Widowbirds sound,” he agrees. “It’s OK to say, ‘Yes, we did walk down that trial-and-error path of trying to sound like them,’ but I think we are sounding more like ourselves nowadays. But we do fly the flag for what they did represent.”
are, we do go through emulation of singers that we just fall in love with,” he says. “We want to recreate what magic we’re feeling from them, just through trial and error, working out what style works for you – and for me, it does lend itself exactly down the Robert Plant path.”
Active Child Have Mercy On Us By Shaun Cowe
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t’s a cool, overcast evening in Boston. In the park, a party is going on. Children play soccer in the dying light and the sound of cars and the occasional siren cuts through the air. Sitting at a bench, enjoying his first day off from a gruelling tour schedule across the States, is LA electronic songwriter Pat Grossi, AKA Active Child. The indie/synthpop act has just released his introspective new album, Mercy.
“I put a lot of personal pressure on myself to keep making it bigger and better,” says Grossi. “That was the focus of the album, just to make it much sharper and more professional-sounding, as well as [write] stronger songs. I think some people just stay in the same gear, which is totally fi ne, but for me, I want to grow as an artist, but also as a live show.” With relatively humble beginnings as a touring two-piece centred on guitar and harp, Active Child has grown to a full band set-up in the live environment, as well as taken on a more mature approach to songwriting. “The record is a reflection of the ups and downs of the different relationships I’ve had over the past four years,” says Grossi. “It’s been a couple years since the first record and I wanted to show the different perspectives on love. I think the record has a little bit of everything: more hopeful reflections on the positive sides, and then it gets darker with introspective feelings of regret and guilt. You know, things that have gone wrong.
“It’s a refl ection of my growth as a person and an artist and on the subject of love, which is like 90 per cent of my music. It seems to be something to continually come back to. My manager comes to me sometimes and is like, ‘You know, do you ever write anything else?’ and we sort of laugh about it. But I’m not going to force anything out of myself that doesn’t feel natural.” Considering the subject of love plays such a huge infl uence on Grossi’s music, the obvious question that arises is whether there were any love stories that inspired Mercy. “Almost exactly a year ago I went through a rough break-up with my girlfriend, who I’m back together with now,” he says. “We took some time apart and went through a tough period. I did a lot of the album’s songwriting at that time. I was a little bit lost creatively at that point, but it became the inspiration for the album and the artwork. It all came from how much I need music to make sense of my emotions. That was the idea of Mercy; that whoever was giving me that ability to do that, it felt merciful because I’d feel really lost without that.” With such raw emotional material forming the basis of his work, playing the songs in front of the woman he had written them about was set to be a heart-wrenching experience. Grossi recalls the first time his girlfriend heard the material. “Well, she was at my first show in San Diego and the last song on the
record, ‘Too Late’, is a pretty frank refl ection on that whole experience and it was the song we fi nished with. I could see her in the front row, pretty much gushing, and I lost it too,” he says. “It was a beautiful moment but also sort of embarrassing, because I had like 300 to 400 people in front of me and I couldn’t get the words out of me. It was one of the moments where I couldn’t physically sing anything, I was just playing the chords on the piano and mouthing the words and trying to get it out.” Now the album has been released and the tour is underway, Grossi says his focus is on presenting a polished live show. To that end, he has taken a different approach to booking venues, focusing on seated churches and theatres instead of rock bars. In doing so, he’s noticed a change in how fans consume the music. “It’s been pretty shocking the way that people change their behaviour. Like, a few days ago we played a show in North Carolina in a regular surf rock club and it was loud and people were talking during songs, and drinking and laughing and having a good time, which was fine, but it doesn’t really work well with a lot of the new music. Just the night before we’d played a church in Texas and you could hear a pin drop after every song. There’s definitely a huge change in people’s behaviours.” Turning the conversation to his day off, Grossi admits he desperately needed the downtime. It may seem
unusual, considering Active Child’s tour has just started, but Mercy has required much more jury-rigging for live performance than his previous albums because of its sparse and orchestral production. “I write music and get trapped in it for so long and end up getting a little bit burned out. I really struggled trying to figure out how [the songs] would work in a live setting – for instance, the track called ‘Darling’ is pretty sparse,” he says.
“We rehearsed for a solid eight weeks before the tour, and at this point we’ve only played ten shows and we’re all pretty tired of the music because we’ve been playing it for the last two-and-a-half months straight. I think you have to continually raise the bar – that’s how I feel.” What: Mercy out now through Spunk
Palace Of The King A Right Royal Time By Kelsey Berry “I guess the main thing that we try and achieve out of our live shows, aside from just putting on an energetic rock’n’roll show, is to make each show itself quite unique, not only for the punters but for ourselves as well.” Palace Of The King’s extensive touring schedule over the past few years has incorporated all kinds of gigs, from small headline shows to festival appearances and some highly esteemed support slots for the likes of The Tea Party, The Angels, The Screaming Jets, Kingswood and Airbourne – the latter of which marked Palace Of The King’s first Sydney show. “The first ever time we went to Sydney, we played two shows in one night,” says Harrison. “The first show was supporting Airbourne and straight after that we went off to Frankie’s Pizza to play our own headline show. Because it was our first trip, we had no idea what to expect and what the turnout was going to be like, but because there was so much to do on the night, we didn’t have time to think or stress and it probably worked in our favour.
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f numbers alone are anything to go by, Palace Of The King are proving themselves as a band to keep an eye on. With six members, two EPs, more than 200 live shows and now one album under their belt, the Melburnians have certainly made the most of their short two-and-a-half-year history.
Palace Of The King’s debut album White Bird/Burn The Sky was released last week, and it’s classic rock’n’roll by any definition, with an exploding wall of sound full of
powerful guitar riffs and plenty of soulful hooks. Even the album title itself throws back to the good old days of the past, with the two names designed to represent each side of a vinyl record. Over 44 minutes of the band’s own blend of blues-infused rock’n’roll, choosing a standout track is a challenge, even for the band members themselves. “During the writing and recording sessions, my personal favourite was always the opening track ‘Take Your Medicine’,” says
guitarist Matthew Harrison. “To me, that just felt like the tonesetter for the rest of the album. But now, since we’ve started playing a lot of the songs live, one of the title tracks, ‘White Bird’, has been a really cool one.”
– but having played 200-plus shows, being on the road is nothing new. After spending the past few years driving up and down the coast of Australia, Palace Of The King will head to Europe in October for a change of scenery.
Since forming at the end of 2012, Palace Of The King have barely stopped for breath. They’re currently in the midst of an album tour, which will see them play Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide and Sydney, among other regional cities
“It’s quite a short tour – I think it’s only about three-and-a-half weeks or so, but we’ve got something like 24 shows in 24 days, so no nights off or anything like that. It will be a nice hard slog but great fun I’m sure,” Harrison says.
“We didn’t get on till 12:30 or something like that, but the venue was really packed and we played our longest show to date at that point, if not our longest show even up until now. We literally played everything that we possibly had up our sleeves. That night sort of set the scene for all the following Sydney shows we’ve had.” What: White Bird/Burn The Sky out now through Devil’s Music Where: Frankie’s Pizza When: Saturday July 12
“Alimony, alimony, payin’ your bills when your conscience hits, ya knock it back with pills” - wholelottalove.com.au thebrag.com
BRAG :: 618 :: 24:06:15 :: 13
Pins Walk On The Wild Side By Lucy Rutherford
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ritish rock four-piece Pins’ new album Wild Nights has landed with a splash. “We played at the Lexington in London – that was where we unleashed all of the songs – and we had a girl mosh pit and a bunch of people dancing up onstage at the end, so that’s always a good time,” says lead singer Faith Holgate. The Manchester ladies introduced their brand of hazy indie/garage rock with their first album Girls Like Us in 2013. Their second album, released earlier this month, was recorded over seven days in the Joshua Tree desert studio of Queens of the Stone Age’s Dave Catching, and features much of his large collection of vintage instruments. “He’s got guitars from the past 50 years, things that he picks up here, there and everywhere,” says Holgate. “A lot of that made it onto the record, a lot of vintage guitars and pedals. It was like being kids in a toy shop.” Catching’s contributions aren’t the only new sound for Pins on Wild Nights. “There’s more in the way of vocal melodies and harmonies,” Holgate says. “It’s got keyboard, which is new, and there are other layers of percussion – all the little details we didn’t do on the first album. We’ve also added more of a psych edge. Just tried to be a bit more open, a bit more creative. But we still have the two-minute noisy pop songs.” As the title suggests, Girls Like Us took inspiration from the experiences of the band’s allfemale lineup, and this new album follows on from that. “Overall, there’s a theme of coming of age,”
says Holgate. “Being older and being able to look back on experiences rather than always being in the experience – looking back at the idea of teenagers and how I felt at the time.” Of course, Pins don’t want the gender of their members to be the defi ning factor of the band. “It used to be every single question was about being in an all-girl band,”
says Holgate. “Now, it does still come up but we’re proud to be an all-female band. We’re happy to fi ght the fi ght for women, we just don’t want it to be the only focus. We don’t want it to overshadow the music – we’re just trying to do it in the sense of being equal to male bands. But now people do ask more about the music and the instruments and the sound rather than just what we look like or what sex we are.”
However, Holgate is always happy to appreciate the female musicians around her. “I went to watch Courtney Barnett in Manchester about a month ago – she’s very cool. I like her garage rock element of her music and the way that she delivers the melody. Warpaint – Sophie [Galpin], our drummer, is a very big fan of them; she looks up to their drummer quite a lot.
“I always fi nd it very fl attering when people say they want to start a band because they’d come to see our band,” Holgate adds. “And when there’s younger girls at the shows and they say they feel inspired to do something – not just music, just something creative.” What: Wild Nights out now through Bella Union/PIAS
Harts Breaking Through By Adam Norris listened to stuff I was working on at the time and showed me some of his own songs. He really gave me a lot of confi dence in what I was doing, made me think it was the right thing. He gave me a lot of advice about how to move forward, and things that I didn’t necessarily know, either. Things that I didn’t necessarily want to hear. So, a lot of positivity in moving towards a specifi c direction both musically and personally, which pretty much led to this specifi c EP. From the start he was suggesting I go in a more bluesy direction, a more Hendrix sound. He really helped the direction of this EP, and really helped my career in both an exposure sense and personally.”
S
ome jerk once sputtered the advice, “To thine own self be true,” and generally speaking, it’s a pretty sound philosophy. But the best version of yourself does not develop in isolation; it takes dedication and voracious curiosity, looking beyond familiar comforts to find inspiration in challenge. Singersongwriter and guitarist Darren Hart, better known simply as Harts, has already enjoyed an impressive career, pushing his musical aspirations to a point forever just out of reach. With the release of his latest EP, Breakthrough, the result is somewhat eponymous; his new sound is set to reach a whole new audience, and if raging fame is just around the corner, the man himself seems quite relaxed at the prospect. “To be honest, it does all feel like a normal life to me now,” Hart laughs.
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He has a colourful, somehow approachable speaking voice, and seems quite genuine in sharing his thoughts. “At the start, it was really surreal. But because I’ve gotten used to it after two years straight of recording, releasing, doing press and shit like that, it’s all become more of a reality now. I like it. Making music is still the most fun thing that I can do in the world, so it’s always fun to be talking about the music in different contexts, in interviews and things. “I’ve been really happy with the support that I’ve been getting from everywhere, especially from overseas fans. But you know, I really hate that word, ‘fan’. I’ve been desperately trying to find another word instead, because it doesn’t feel like the right fit. They feel more supportive than just being fans. All of these people who have been
encouraging me to continue, there has to be a better word.” However you style them, Hart’s supporters have been growing at a remarkable rate since his fl edgling days back in 2010. A great deal of this is a result of his tireless work ethic and the strength of his performance, but what really made the public (and media) sit up and pay attention was an unexpected phone call Hart received from legendary performer Prince. Much was made of the pair’s association at the time, but now Hart has some distance from the meeting, he has found the androgynous crooner’s advice as pertinent as ever. “It was amazing, and a big confi dence boost. He basically said he wanted me to come out there, and was I available. He
Hart’s own advice to aspiring musicians comes with something of a caveat. He is happily – almost ecstatically – an independent artist now, after having worked hard at securing a major label deal with Universal, only to fi nd the experience less than overwhelming (“There are all sorts of confl icts that come with these label deals,” he says. “Things are generally a little bit slower”). He is also determined to continue exploring new musical genres and trends to keep the vitality of his work alive. As such, he is quite earnest in not being the greatest model for tricks of the trade. “It’s hard for me to say, since I don’t feel like I’m the one to be giving advice right now. I’ve been around for a while, but I am still building, still honing my sound. One thing I would like to tell musicians is to try and learn outside of your comfort zone. Try to learn as much as you can about other songs, other ways of playing,
and what other attitudes there are towards playing music. “I think a lot of people – especially guitarists – are so comfortable with what they’re doing that they don’t see a need to step outside the box in terms of playing and writing. I sometimes see people who are a little narrow-minded in what they want to create. They have a vision and they have a sound in mind, and that’s awesome; it’s great that they can achieve that. But once they’ve achieved that, where do they go? That’s something Prince told me as well. Learning what’s outside your box gives you more longevity in the game.” On the odd chance you do happen to want to hit up Hart for advice, you can also rest easy knowing that he’s not some distant fi gure onstage; his interactions online are legit. “Yeah, I’m that guy. People ask me questions all of the time over Facebook or Twitter, and I’m always there to answer. It’s cool to be the direct person that they can speak to about that stuff, because at the end of the day, I’m trying hard to be independent and control my own music. I try to stay in charge of that stuff, so it’s nice to interact with people that way.” What: Breakthrough out now through Pavement/Shock Where: Oxford Art Factory When: Friday July 3 And: Also appearing at Moonshine, Manly on Thursday June 25 and the Cambridge Hotel, Newcastle on Friday June 26
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BRAG’s guide to film, theatre, comedy and art about town
arts in focus
Men photo by Sean Hawkins
men brendan cowell’s debut revisited also inside:
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arts news...what's goin' on around town... with Jade Smith, Bridget Lutherborrow and Vanessa Papastavros
OF MICE AND MEN
five minutes WITH
RICHARD SYDENHAM FROM THE DAPTO CHASER Cess Sinclair
M
eet Cess Sinclair, a dog whisperer from Dapto, and one of the main characters in The Dapto Chaser, opening at Griffin Theatre in July. Actor Richard Sydenham steps into the role of Cess to give us his trackside point of view.
Can you introduce us to some of your dogs? Maggie’s Beer Gut, Flea Biscuit, Knee Trembler, Free Beer, Angela’s Legs, Shirt Fronter, Kitty Litter, Pajama Donkey, You Can See Russia, Not Happy Jan, Claudia Sniffer. Do you come from a dog-loving family? 100 per cent… except for my brother Jimmy, he was into goldfish and guinea pigs. We don’t
Peter Kingston by Ann Cape
Held in the stunning Hawkesbury River area, the inaugural St Albans Writers’ Festival will feature a range of Australian authors including Jane Caro, Kate Grenville and PM Newton. Other speakers include Patrick Cook, Nikki Gemmell, Traci Harding, Jean Kittson, Hugh Mackay, Barry Maitland, Michael Robotham, Mark Tedeschi and many more. It’s a great excuse to lose yourself in literature in one of New South Wales’ most gorgeous locations, and it runs Friday September 18 – Sunday September 20.
Why is booking a ticket to The Dapto Chaser a sure bet? Because I am in it! It’s a ripping yarn with great actors, including Danny Adcock from ABC’s The Moodys, and last but by no means least, the Griffin Theatre has a fully stocked bar in the foyer. What: The Dapto Chaser Where: Griffin Theatre When: Wednesday July 1 – Saturday July 25
Sport For Jove, the newly minted resident theatre company at the Seymour Centre, is back with the next show in its 2015 program – and it’s a big one. The classic John Steinbeck novella, Of Mice And Men, is coming to the stage next month as part of the Reginald Season. Steinbeck’s critique is more relevant than ever, addressing how society treats those on the fringe in times of economic and social inequality. Directed by Iain Sinclair, Of Mice And Men will star the likes of Anthony Gooley, Andrew Henry, Anna Houston, Charles Allen and Andre de Vanny. Of Mice And Men is playing at the Seymour Centre from Thursday July 9 – Saturday July 25, and we’ve got two double passes to give away for opening night. To be in the draw, head to thebrag. com/freeshit.
AUSTRALIA’S FAVOURITE BOY
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ST ALBANS WRITERS’ FESTIVAL
What is your clearest childhood memory? My mum letting me spin her globe of the world – Dapto and the universe seemed less flat after that. I also remember my dad coming home from the hospital and telling me my brother Jimmy had been born with a toe missing, but besides that he was perfect.
Of Mice And Men
Cess Sinclair photo by Robert Catto
Cess, what did you want to be when you grew up, and who are you now? A garbage truck driver by morning and a fireman by night. I also wanted to be the inventor of the first fully functional teleportation machine. I did a drawing of the prototype and everything, I just never followed through on it. Now I am a greyhound owner and trainer who lives in Dapto.
know what went wrong there. We love our dogs; they are our heart and soul walking round on four legs.
With the Ginger Meggs: Australia’s Favourite Boy exhibition, Sydney Living Museums is inviting you to get to know the protagonist of Australia’s longest-running comic strip. ‘Resilient’ is an understatement for Ginger Meggs, who’s kept us company for over 90 years through newspapers, books, clothing, merchandise and a feature film. Featuring original strips from all five of Ginger Meggs’ ‘fathers’, from his original creator Jimmy Bancks to his successors Ron Vivian, Lloyd Piper, James Kemsley and Jason Chatfield, as well as a generous collection of memorabilia, the exhibition will be a nostalgic look into Ginger Meggs’ varied and adventurous world. Ginger Meggs: Australia’s Favourite Boy will be running at the Museum of Sydney from Saturday July 25 – Sunday November 8.
Simple Symphony
Broken Heel Festival
Blonde Poison
ANN CAPE ON SHOW
A TRIPLE THREAT
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INTRODUCING EDMOND
A small theatre company with a lot of guts, Two Peas, is bringing David Mamet’s Edmond to life. An impulse visit to a fortune-teller on his way home from work stirs Edmond to abandon his meaningless middle class life, lurching himself into a freefalling quest for self-discovery. This play is a portrait of the everyman, swept away by events beyond his control. Catch Edmond from Wednesday July 15 – Sunday July 26 at the Old 505 Theatre.
BEWARE THE BLONDE
THE ROAD TO BROKEN HEEL
Cult favourite film The Adventures Of Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert is 21 this year, and the inaugural Broken Heel Festival is setting out to cast a rainbow over the Silver City. The festival is open to all Priscilla enthusiasts, from die-hard queens to the drag-at-heart, offering a range of activities such as a Meat Draw, Drag On Drag (playing dress-ups along the main road), Ping Pong and the Let’s Go Shopping Girls Community Market. The Broken Heel Festival is on from Friday September 11 – Sunday September 13, hosted by Broken Hill’s Palace Hotel.
The remarkable one-woman play Blonde Poison is set to premiere in Australia in the wake of international success across the UK and in Los Angeles. Directed by Gail Louw and starring Belinda Giblin, Blonde Poison is based on the true story of Stella Goldschlag, a Jew living in war-torn Berlin. After being betrayed and tortured, Stella agrees to save herself and her parents’ deportation to Auschwitz by becoming a ‘Greifer’ – a catcher for the Gestapo to fi nd and betray Jews in hiding. Credited with being extraordinarily successful through fi nding and capturing around 3,000 Jews, Stella will be explored as a tortured victim turned cruel killer, challenging the concept of right and wrong. Blonde Poison will play from Tuesday July 28 – Saturday August 15 at the Old Fitz Theatre.
STAINLESS STEEN
Back by popular demand, Steen Raskopoulos will return to Sydney with his comedy sketch show, Character Assassin. The news follows this year’s sold-out festival shows in Sydney and Melbourne, and Raskopoulos’ burgeoning success on the international stage. With TV circling and London calling, this may be the comic’s fi nal performance of his solo sketch comedy in Australia for a long time. See him off on Friday July 31 at The Comedy Store. thebrag.com
Simple Symphony photo by Peter Greig
The Sydney Dance Company has announced an exclusive season of works by Rafael Bonachela at the Roslyn Packer Theatre, spotlighting a vast cross-section of the arts community. An evening of dance set to the music of Benjamin Britten, the three-part program Triptych will be presented in collaboration with the Sydney Dance Company, the Australian Chamber Orchestra and with Katie Noonan as a special guest soprano. Triptych will also see the revival of Bonachela’s two most intimate choreographies to date – Les Illuminations and Simple Symphony, which premiered in a sold-out season at the Sydney Opera House in 2013 – as well as a new piece, Variation 10, which will be making its worldwide debut. Triptych opens at the Roslyn Packer Theatre on Friday September 25, with just 12 performances until Saturday October 10.
The Moran Arts Foundation will be exhibiting the work of celebrated Sydney artist Ann Cape at Juniper Hall. The Cape exhibition will be part of a series presented by the Foundation for winners and fi nalists of the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize and the Moran Contemporary Photographic Prize, to recognise and further complement the achievement of such awards. Cape is a painter, sculptor and art teacher, and has been active in the Australian art scene for over 25 years. As a nominated fi nalist in the 2014 Doug Moran Portrait Prize with her portrait Margaret Woodward At Home, the new exhibition will provide Cape with the opportunity to further showcase her work to the public. The exhibition will take place from Saturday June 27 – Sunday July 26.
The Falling [FILM] A Faint Trace By Liza Dezfouli
U
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K director Carol Morley’s latest fi lm, The Falling, examines mass fainting fi ts experienced by young women in an all-girls’ school in the late ’60s. “I wanted to celebrate the phenomena of mass psychogenesis, the mass response,” she says. Although inspired by true events (and in part by Peter Weir’s Picnic At Hanging Rock and Peter Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures), Morley’s fi lm is a fi ctional story starring Maisie Williams (Game Of Thrones’ Arya Stark) as the 16-year-old protagonist, Lydia. “Lots of people have told me after seeing the fi lm that fainting epidemics happened at their school – girls fainting all at the same time,” says Morley. “It happens a lot more than we know. It’s very complex and interesting, and it mostly occurs amongst adolescent girls; it’s common at that age. There is something young women have – what do you call it? Empathy? Connection? They have connected feelings. I wanted to celebrate that power – not attribute it to ‘just hormones’. “In the past, women who experienced mass psychogenesis were subjected to witch trials. They were being punished for being carnal, for being interested in creating potions to cure illness.
“Their communities turned against them and it resulted in genocide of women. It’s the age when young women explore things like the Ouija board. There’s a character, Kenneth – Lydia’s older brother – who’s sort of into the occult. He talks about things like ley lines. He’s a ’60s boy reading philosophical books, he’s into [occultist] Aleister Crowley, and he thinks that maybe there’s a power to the young women.” Morley set her story in a girls’ school at a time when society itself was in fl ux. “I set the fi lm in a single-sex school setting so they don’t have issues with young men, or weren’t around them that much,” says the director. “I wanted to explore that setting without creating that typical old schoolyard, bitchy world. The girls are at a really critical age; they are young women working out who they want to be. “The ’60s themselves were a really adolescent time,” Morley continues. “It was a changing time; society was on the verge of change. We had this amazing technological innovation, sending a man to the moon, yet women still had to wear these big belts to keep their sanitary napkins on. In 1968 the abortion laws were passed in the UK and there were no longer back street abortions,
but it would have still been very difficult to get one. There are lots of representations in film of Swinging London, but most people were still set back in so many ways in this country. I wanted to have a look at the ’60s in a much more internal way.” Morley says audience responses to The Falling have been overwhelmingly positive so far. “This film has touched people, across genders. Female subjectivity is still not represented that much – it’s still strange, so this is a challenging film. It makes you think about your own experiences.”
Playing the lead role, Williams was a wonderful contributor to the film. “Maisie was available to me at 16, which was the right age for the role,” says Morley. And it wasn’t the youngster’s presence in Game Of Thrones that led to her casting. “I’ve never seen Game Of Thrones!” the director says. “I had no concept of the character, no preconceptions. I watched an audition tape and watched a few interviews with her on YouTube. She was really able to step into the character, to bring her to life. “She brings such complexity and
maturity to the role, and Lydia is not quite likeable. Maisie creates a complex representation of what it is to be a teenage girl. As a director, you get possessive over your actors. You don’t want to think they’ve played anyone else!” What: The Falling (dir. Carol Morley) Where: Showing at the Australian Centre For The Moving Image, Melbourne When: Monday June 29 – Sunday July 26
Men [THEATRE] It’s A Guy Thing By Adam Norris “There’s an apocalyptic feeling to the play; everything is sort of kicked into hyperdrive. There’s also a lady character, Hazel, who wrangles them all, in a sense. But in terms of thematic significance, it’s definitely still relevant. It’s actually quite a naughty play, very dark and very funny, but also brings up some serious things. Brendan is a writer full of explorations of the Australian male psyche. Every one of his works is like that, and this being his first, it’s the most potent, where he’s just cramming all of these ideas in. There’s a lot of frustration and confusion around the role of a woman in these guys’ lives. It explores the effect of women and the fear of love.” It is an ambitious, intriguing production that Red Line has undertaken, and Hawkins’ excitement for the play is catching. Right now he seems to be living the dream, having found that subtle balance between management and performance, and for those wishing to follow a similar trajectory, his advice is collaboration.
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years ago (you’d like to think on a dark and stormy night with a sickle moon glimpsed in the sky, but weather rarely has a sense of narrative), Brendan Cowell’s first play, Men, premiered at the Old Fitzroy Theatre. Much has changed since those fresh millennial days – the theatre itself has evolved under the stewardship of various companies, though now seems to have found an invigorated direction with Red Line Productions – but the troubling lessons of the play are as pertinent as ever. Sean Hawkins, Red Line co-artistic director and Sydney Theatre Award-winning performer, is part of the team responsible for bringing Men home. What’s more, he’ll actually be performing in the production as well – clearly, directing a theatre must be a pretty cushy role if he gets to run around acting all the time.
“Ha! Well, running an independent theatre is quite diverse, really,” Hawkins explains, “especially when it comes to day-to-day stuff. I’m the co-artistic director alongside Andrew Henry and Vanessa Wright. We all have very different roles, but lately it’s been a little crazier. Half of my time is divided between rehearsals and the other half is there trying to keep the theatre buzzing. Facilitating late shows, gathering sponsorships, all the way down to coffee dates. This is my first time acting since Howie The Rookie, so it’s really been focusing on the producing side of things for the last six months. Now it’s double the effort – rehearsals at night, management during the day – but somehow you find a way to just get it all done. “We were so busy at the start of the year because we didn’t really have a theatre to operate in. No seats, no lights, no lighting bars, nothing; it
had all been stripped away by the previous owners. I think we had about a month before our first show, and it was all so stressful. And of course we were producing these shows as well, so it wasn’t just a matter of bringing in an outside company. We had to market it, run every aspect of the show, and it’s around then that my hair started to go grey. So things aren’t as bad now! We’ve all had our time of being stressed out, and now it’s time for the fun bits.” When it was first staged, Men proved to be a rather breakthrough success, touring to Edinburgh, New York, and significantly propelling Cowell’s career. Though not without humour, it is quite a dark production, with its focus on the raw material of what ‘makes’ a man. In addition to Hawkins, the production stars Ben O’Toole, Jamie Timony and Cheree Cassidy, and is directed by Jessica Tuckwell.
“We were really keen to have this story told by a woman, from a woman’s perspective,” Hawkins says. “It adds certain interesting layers to this very masculine tale.” But press for any more details and you’ll hit an apologetic brick wall; fundamental to the story is the twist at the end, and Hawkins is cautious not to let too much information slide. “There’s a great twist at the end which we’re keeping quite hushhush since it ruins the play a little bit to know, so as much as I’d like to divulge it, you’ll just have to trust me. The three aspects of the men here are the Penis, the Panther and the Poet. That’s the way Brendan described it. It’s kind of about the breakdown of how these males try and… ha, I’m trying to tiptoe around it all without giving anything away. It’s the breakdown of how these men, these aspects, keep interrupting each other.
“Make sure you’ve got the right team around you. You really have to trust your colleagues, and just know why you want to do it in the first place. If you believe in what you’re doing, then it’s not a job. If you’re doing it for the right reasons, then it’s never work. The big thing is just to start doing it. Start a company, and start putting on plays. There’s no other way you’re going to get your work seen, especially with spaces running out. Sydney lost two theatres in two months, so the city is crying out for performance. Find a space and get a show up. That’s my best advice.” What: Men Where: Old Fitzroy Theatre When: Tuesday June 30 – Saturday July 25
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Theatre Reviews Hits and misses on the bareboards around town
■ Theatre
BATTLE OF WATERLOO Playing at Wharf 1, Sydney Theatre Company until Saturday June 27 Kylie Coolwell’s debut takes place in the James Cook building, in Redfern’s walkups, where the playwright has lived for the past six years. It’s a domestic drama set in a single apartment, though it feels more expansive than that. Renée Mulder’s set is crosshatched; interior and exterior at the same time, and encompassing a kitchen, living room, two bedrooms and exterior balconies. The strip of grass outside the apartment block, from which characters habitually shout up to the balconies, begging to be let in, is located counterintuitively above the central apartment onstage, but the geography of where people are is always clear. Sarah Goodes also played with levels and offstage space in Switzerland last year at the Opera House. Battle Of Waterloo is a much less chilly affair. Inspired by the intimate epics of Tennessee Williams, Coolwell’s portrait of filial ties is less acidic. Where Williams wrote about families destroyed from within, Coolwell’s bunch are combustible but essentially loving – the danger is without.
Luke Carroll stars as Ray, who returns to Redfern after years in jail. His old girlfriend Cassie (Shari Sebbens) and her Aunt Mavis (Roxanne McDonald) are living together peaceably while Cassie completes a degree in fashion design. Cassie’s volatile, substance-abusing sister Sissy (Shareena Clanton) drops in regularly, as does Jack, a young relly who’s adopted the flat as his own rather than go home to his alternately absent or uninterested mother. Into this relative tranquillity come Ray and his sinewy cousin Leon (a very fine Guy Simon), who charm their way into the household despite both women knowing full well that they’d be better off without men around to muck things up. Battle Of Waterloo comes off as simply matter-of-fact rather than strident polemic, but its implications are explicit. Ray brings laughs and genuine affection with him but is undone by a lack of employment and the demon drink, and Coolwell suggests frankly that Cassie ends up both bereft and unburdened simultaneously. Harry Windsor Mother Courage And Her Children photo by Heidrun Lohr
Mother Courage And Her Children
■ Theatre
MOTHER COURAGE AND HER CHILDREN Playing at Belvoir St Theatre until Sunday July 26 Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage And Her Children is set amid the breakout of World War II, following the story of Courage and her defiance in pulling her family through the war.
supanova
PICS :: AM
Directed by Eamon Flack, the Belvoir production begins with Mother Courage and her three children, together and content. She gives each child a virtue – silence, wisdom and honesty – which she believes will get them through the war. Her wishful thinking is short-lived as her proclaimed psychic ability foretells the death of her children. Courage, played by Robyn Nevin, enters the ruins with a cart full of commodities that will feed and house her family. From the onset it is easy to see Courage is impartial towards the fighting and will go to great lengths to earn a living. Nevin’s role is flanked with determination and pragmatism and her small, unwavered frame fits Courage well. Nevin has indeed been primed for this role, playing protective
matriarch Violet Venable in the Sydney Theatre Company’s production of Suddenly Last Summer earlier this year. Courage’s eldest boy Eilif (Richard Pyros) is hungry to join the fighting and is easily coerced by the general (Alex Mengle) to leave the comfort of the travelling clan. Swiss Cheese, Courage’s middle child (Tom Conry) is next to enlist but leaves the fighting to his brother. The wrenching story is mixed with soft ballads performed by several cast members. Set to new music by Stefan Gregory, Yvette the young town floozy (Paula Arundell) sings beautifully and Anthony Phelan as the chaplain performs a harrowing tale. Lena Cruz is a convincing sergeant and Emele Ugavule, as Courage’s third child Kattrin, is beautifully silent throughout the play. The large cast works well among the bejewelled cart and other props on the small Belvoir stage. By the end, one of the lights has fallen off the cart, jackets have fallen off hooks and everyone looks worn, but this play wears it well. Louise Jeckells
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Battle Of Waterloo photo by Lisa Tomasetti
Battle Of Waterloo
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Arts Exposed
Queer(ish) matters with Lucy Watson #InstaPride photo courtesy Instagram @mileycyrus
What's in our diary...
P
ride month is currently happening around the world. Major cities across the Northern Hemisphere are currently celebrating their Pride Weeks – San Francisco, New York, London, Paris, Dublin… it’s a big week for our Northern Hemisphere brothers and lovers.
Artbar Curated By Dara Gill Museum of Contemporary Art, Friday June 26
It’s also a big week for every major corporation that has finally realised gays have money to burn and are worth keeping on side. The commercialisation of Pride isn’t new, or really that surprising, but it is expanding. Miley Cyrus I was in San Francisco for Pride in 2013. The gay capital The campaign has a joyful energy to it, of the world’s close proximity with all these wonderful images of happy, to Silicon Valley meant the entire festival smiling people who have spent the majority was essentially corporate logos on rainbow of their life having their gender identity flags – from Facebook to Dropbox, HP to severely marginalised. #InstaPride does a supermarket giant Safeway; slap a rainbow wonderful job of raising awareness around flag on it, call it ‘inclusive’ (for one month of gender fluidity, and bringing terms like the year), and watch the money roll in. ‘agender’ and the use of gender-neutral pronouns to a huge group of people that It’s becoming ‘cool’ to be LGBT-friendly. may have never come across this before. I recently attended an event held by Westpac’s diversity unit (I came for the free However, at the same time, there’s a booze, stayed for the free booze, et cetera). certain ickiness to it being co-opted by the Corporations are increasingly co-opting likes of Instagram. I have less of an issue identities and identity politics to prove with the campaign being spearheaded they’re inclusive. And while I appreciate the by Cyrus – especially since her recent shiny GayTMs ANZ lets me use, or the free admission of her own gender and sexual booze Westpac gives me to say thanks for fluidity – because I love her, and it’s just being a homo, or the rainbow editions of really hard being a cynical queer all of Nando’s, I can’t help but think that where the time. But Instagram is a corporation capitalism is involved, there’s always an – one that spends a lot of time censoring ulterior motive: my money. people’s bodies, telling us what is and isn’t acceptable for public viewing. And now It’s complex. These corporations make a stale gesture for a brief time during the year it’s trying to show that it’s inclusive and protective of marginalised identities? I call to prove they’re inclusive, in order to keep bullshit. my business. At the same time, the visibility of these campaigns raises awareness These corporations pretend to love us around my existence, contributing in some during Pride, or during Mardi Gras. But small way to easing my existence in this what are they doing for the rest of the year? money-grabbing world. The commie in me Censoring nipples? Forcing employees sees right through to the corporate greed to list themselves as ‘male’ or ‘female’? at the heart of inclusivity, while the diva in Trying to sell me gendered products that me gravitates toward the diamantes of the tell me how to live as a woman, how to GayTM like a Christian to The Light. make myself attractive for men? Producing commercials with happy, nuclear, hetero This month also saw the launch of families? Miley Cyrus and Instagram’s campaign #InstaPride. The campaign is a series of It’s not enough to slap a rainbow over your photos, released on Instagram, showcasing logo and claim that you like me. Because the faces and experiences of a bunch of for the rest of the year, I just don’t see it. people all across the gender spectrum.
At the end of each month, the MCA comes to life after hours with the help of Artbar, an infusion of exhibitions, music, design and live acts that turn the museum into a pulsing piece of performance art. This June, Dara Gill is transforming the MCA into a surreal futuristic space, where artists play with the idea of what our future holds. Partygoers will have the opportunity to explore the future of our digital era through a futuristic dance workshop, a survey-based installation on a tropical island and a lecture on what life will be like in 2050. There’ll also be DJs, themed cocktails and plenty of creative contributions to decorate your night. For more details and to purchase tickets, visit mca.com.au.
this week… Sydney is running its own little Pride Festival, for those of us unable to jet off north. Wednesday June 24 sees Stonewall hosting a night with the original Mardi Gras parade participants – the 78ers. The Pride Art Exhibition is also opening at Tap Gallery. There’s a range of events happening all through the week, mostly in and around Darlinghurst.
MCA Artbar photo by Jacquie Manning
Orange Is The New Black
Also on Wednesday June 24, Goodgod is putting on Orange Is The New Black trivia. Folks, it’s your chance to show off how well you paid attention to Season 3 (or how much you let Ruby Rose distract you). On Thursday June 25, the original home of Homosocial, Secret Garden Bar, is celebrating its first birthday. Featuring sets from Adi Toohey and Marcus Whale, the small bar is set to fill up fast, so get down early – from 6pm. Tokyo Sing Song is set to host an extra special party on Saturday June 27. Catlyf’s Drag Race will showcase the best and worst of the Sydney drag scene, as well as featuring music from the likes of Cunningpants and Wyldstyle (full disclaimer: that’s me).
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Album Reviews What's been crossing our ears this week...
ALBUM OF THE WEEK REFUSED
and distorted voices explodes into vibrant acoustic guitars and wah bass. It takes the familiar comfort of lead single ‘Elektra’ and completely destroys it.
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Freedom Epitaph/Warner
17 years ago, Refused changed the landscape of punk rock forever with the release of The Shape Of Punk To Come, an album that still stands to show what punk music is capable of – which is why the announcement of a comeback album left fans in a state of understandably sceptical excitement. Refused are back from the dead, and sounding more alive than ever.
THE PINK TILES Snax, Spirits, Classic Hits Independent
It’s been said that the most enjoyable books are those that the reader wishes they’d written themselves. In that context, The Pink Tiles write instant pop classics, for theirs are the songs we all wish we’d composed in those emotionally charged, creatively inspired moments in the bedroom of our adolescence. Picking up from where the band’s debut album left off, Snax, Spirits, Classic Hits is five songs of bubblegum pop glory. ‘Work It Out’ is the soundtrack for a work experience placement with the late, great and brilliantly eccentric songwriter/producer/manager Kim Fowley. ‘The Boy I Love’ is a romantic lament for the ages. ‘Cut It Out!’ gets you up and out on the bedroom floor, while ‘Music Industry Event’ augments romantic obsession with a statement of political rebellion: you want us to look like that, but we won’t do it. It’s pithy, but significant, and if more bands took that attitude, maybe the music industry would be a better place. Finally, there’s ‘Blue Rinse’, a cheek-to-cheek slow dance at the end of the night, when love’s still there, but tomorrow will always be another day. The Pink Tiles’ pop party is over, and it’s been the best fun you’ve had in ages. Patrick Emery
Any presumptions that Freedom would just be a rehash of Refused’s previous material are thrown out the window by the second song, ‘Old Friends’. What starts with heavy breathing
The hardcore infl uence out of which Refused were born has been stripped from this album, which will alienate a lot of fans. From children’s choirs and barbershop harmonies in ‘Françafrique’ to massive horns in ‘War On The Palaces’, Refused are trying to redefi ne how rock music does business. But while Freedom is an engaging and interesting record, it still won’t be remembered as Refused’s defi ning moment. The worst thing that a band with such a strong history of not playing by the rules could have
JEBEDIAH
SPRAY PAINT
OH MERCY
Beneath The Skin Universal
Twenty Sony
Punters On A Barge Homeless
When We Talk About Love EMI
Of Monsters And Men’s debut album My Head Is An Animal was released into a climate rife with commercial folk rock. Mumford & Sons had inundated the airwaves with Sigh No More and The Lumineers weren’t far behind with their ubiquitous hit ‘Ho Hey’. More than three years later, the musical landscape has changed, with boy band pop and EDM bangers taking top spots on the charts. Fortunately, Of Monsters And Men have turned a blind eye to these changes, embracing bright sing-alongs and fairytale lyricism as wholeheartedly as they did the first time around. The result is an album that could be deemed predictable, but it’s predictable in the best sense of the word.
We were all so young. And Jebediah were even younger. Back in the mid-’90s, when Perth darlings Jebediah were winning long before hashtags became a way of life, this writer pondered how this music would age. Given the energy and utter youth of it all, I was unsure how well it would last over the years. And those were young years.
There were two kids at high school back in the mid-’80s who carried cans of spray paint, defacing everything from the doors of the school train to the desks in the local council chamber. Those kids were into skate punk and a bit of LA metal, taking little interest in the subliminally subversive Devo or the jarring one-fingered anti-pop salute of The Fall. Had it been different, those kids might have, 30 years later, embraced Austin’s Spray Paint.
After 2012’s bass-heavy, funkfused Deep Heat, Alexander Gow has retreated back to the pensive acoustic indie-pop that defined Oh Mercy’s earlier releases. Fourth album When We Talk About Love is stylistically closest to 2008 debut Privileged Woes, and the lyrics show Gow at his most personal.
The band’s penchant for bigsounding folk rock immediately bares its teeth on opener and lead single, ‘Crystals’, which comprises gallant drum rolls, trumpet blasts and “woah-oh” choruses. These tendencies continue to show up all across the LP, as on the slowbuilding ‘Black Water’, which is sprinkled with driving piano. Like on the debut, the band’s lyrics depict the Icelandic landscape, referencing the sea and the snowy forests. It’s pleasant stuff, but Of Monsters And Men would benefit from expanding beyond their almost formulaic tendencies and unveiling some panoramic folk rock. Lauren Gill
It might not be long at all before there are no pop-punk bands left. The last few years have seen Turnover transition to dream-pop, Title Fight delve into shoegaze, and now Michigan natives Citizen are deviating from their established territory to see what awaits them on the other side.
Everybody Is Going To Heaven Run For Cover/Cooking Vinyl
20 :: BRAG :: 618 :: 24:06:15
Spencer Scott
OF MONSTERS AND MEN
Punters On A Barge, the second Spray Paint record released locally on Homeless Records (after last year’s equally abrasive Clean Blood, Regular Acid), is the type of record that reminds you why punk rock exists, by definition, on the margins. ‘Ian’s Theme’ sets the scene with jagged chords, thrashing beats and atonal vocals; ‘Entry Level Human’ is the pithy dissection of humanity that Devo always wanted to commit to record; the brutal consistency of ‘Polar Beer’ is metaphor for the monotony of contemporary existence; and if George Brandis’ department started accompanying rejections for arts funding with ‘I Hate Your Paintings’, he’d make some unlikely friends.
Sweeping strings accompany softly strummed tales of loneliness and heartbreak to emasculating effect. ‘Let Me Be Him’ is a plea to be another man who might have a better shot with his object of affection, while the pained verses of ‘Iron Cross’ climax with a defiant “I’m a man”. The opening track, ‘Without You’, is a sunny but sad affair that recalls Wild Nothing, and it’s quite the stunner. Gradually building without the need for a chorus, the song’s strength is in its simplicity. Meanwhile, that same simplicity hinders a handful of the album’s mid-tempo numbers; the repetitive hooks and lyrics on tracks like ‘I Don’t Really Want To Know’ and ‘If You Come Around Tonight’ make them accessible on first listen, but somewhat insubstantial on return visits. More successful are the gentle, aching ballads like ‘Lady Eucalyptus’ and ‘Cool Water’.
Good times for a long time. It’s totally possible.
The world isn’t the sugary place some would like us to believe it is, and Spray Paint know just that.
The cathartic strength of these weepy wonders more than makes up for those moments when it all gets a bit beige.
Bob Gordon
Patrick Emery
Chris Girdler
And here we are, some 20 years after it all started, and I couldn’t be happier to say how wrong that theory was. Jebediah have never broken up, but did other things when callings came, and have weathered two decades to emerge upon this year’s 20th anniversary with an air of excitement that rivals the first flash of their extraordinary ride. This release pieces together 20 tracks from those 20 years, and for many they would be regarded as the soundtrack to growing up. Songs such as ‘Harpoon’, ‘Feet Touch The Ground’, ‘Yesterday When I Was Brave’ and ‘Run Of The Company’ seem to these days reveal the intent and maturity that Kevin Mitchell would go on to show in his solo career as Bob Evans. Meanwhile, songs like ‘Jerks Of Attention’, ‘Fall Down’, ‘Leaving Home’, ‘Military Strongmen’ and ‘Teflon’ are just as fun now as they were then.
INDIE ALBUM OF THE WEEK
CITIZEN
done would be to remake an old classic. Luckily for us, Freedom is unlike anything Refused have done before, or will ever do again.
Stylistically, Everybody Is Going To Heaven is far more versatile than its predecessor, 2013’s Youth. ‘Heaviside’ strips their sound down to shimmering postrock guitar and whispered jazz brushes, while ‘Ten’ slithers along a steely bassline before moving in for the kill with a visceral chorus. It’s anyone’s guess as to where the album will take you next – and therein lies its appeal.
Citizen have made an active effort to push themselves into the further reaches of their sound – what was merely glanced upon in songs from Youth is transfixed upon here, marking an important and substantial development. Everybody Is Going To Heaven feels momentous. Admittedly, this direction will not instantly sit well with what people have come to know Citizen for in their time together thus far. What Heaven requires is patience across repeated listens – once it clicks, it presents itself as one of the darkest, smartest and most vital alternative rock records of the year thus far.
OFFICE MIXTAPE And here are the albums that have helped BRAG HQ get through the week... BEACH HOUSE - Bloom MANIC STREET PREACHERS - Futurology CAKE - Pressure Chief
TAME IMPALA - Lonerism ELBOW - The Seldom Seen Kid
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live reviews
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What we've been out to see...
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BAD//DREEMS, MINING BOOM, JODY Goodgod Small Club Saturday June 21 Extensive gigging and touring with the likes of Bluejuice, Richard In Your Mind and Bearhug have given Jody far more experience under their belts than their age would let on. Stylistically, they incorporate aspects of both the garage rock revival of the early 2000s and the homegrown indie-pop boom of the late 2000s, often blending chirpy guitar swagger with hollered, hoarse refrains. It’s sharp, digestible and catchy – it would take the sternest of critics not to soften to Jody’s charm. They do exactly what they say on the tin, and they do it in style. The kids are alright, folks.
tim rogers & the bamboos
When Bad//Dreems frontman Ben Marwe pulls out his guitar, a splatter of blood is spotted across the fretboard. It shows no signs of attempts at cleaning, and it will probably last there forever. That’s the kind of band Bad//Dreems are. They go to the bone in every performance. It’s sneering, it’s loud, it’s defiant. It’s equal amounts punk rock as it is pub rock. It’s a raised fist and a cheeky crowd-surf. It’s an experience that will pry the raging rabblerouser out of the highest order of crossarmed cynic. Songs played from the band’s forthcoming debut get just as much love as the singles, including ‘Caroline’ and ‘Hoping For’. It may well have something to do with the sheer promise that bleeds from these new tracks in the same way those singles did. Nothing, however, can prepare one for the final trifecta the Adelaide natives have in store: ‘Cuffed & Collared’ hits for six, ‘Dumb Ideas’ is a primitive punk barnstormer, and it’s all brought home at Goodgod with some good God – the Melbourne punk variety, that is, with a blistering rendition of ‘My Pal’. It’s a rough-and-tumble joy to behold. Bloody oath. David James Young
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How Melbourne-via-Perth’s Mining Boom sound depends entirely on whether vocalist Paul French is playing guitar or not. If he isn’t, it’s icy and robust synth-driven post-punk. When he is, it brings out a spring in the band’s step, particularly if we’re talking some of the older singles like ‘Telecom’ and ‘PDA’. Perhaps Mining Boom’s strongest trait is the fact they push something substantial and genuinely interesting, regardless of the direction the music itself takes. It’s a shame that Mining Boom don’t turn up
on more bills, really. They’ve far more to offer than most.
19:06:15 :: Metro Theatre :: 624 George St Sydney 9550 3666
Manning Bar Friday June 20 Walking in on a set from The Mis-Made felt like a night at The Gasworks, the fictional venue in Wayne’s World – so much so, you were double-checking to make sure The Jolly Green Giants and The Shitty Beatles weren’t playing as well. This had a lot to do with the lighting, which felt incredibly grandiose at points for a set that started and finished before 9pm. What the music itself – a barroom-ready brew of tough rock with punk edges – lacked in diversity, it made up for with the flair and liveliness with which it was played. Party on, Garth. They were making quips, sculling beers and swearing their heads off before they’d even started with their now-standard opening bracket of ‘Pub’ and ‘Nice Day To Go To The Pub’. The legendary Cosmic Psychos were back in town with some shit on their liver and a loose, boozy hour of rock’n’roll to play. The crossover between demographics meant it was quite literally on for young and old, both heaving toward the front and roaring in approval for the likes of ‘I’m Up You’re Out’. Tonight also marked the band’s first appearance since
releasing Cum The Raw Prawn, and it seemed many were already quite au fait – particularly when it came to the swearjar-filling ‘Better, Not Bitter’ and ‘Fuckwit City’. With over 30 years in the game, the Psychos proved why they’re an institution – not to mention a force still to be reckoned with. Like any act that’s generally associated with narcotics, it’s safe to say that most fans have seen as many disastrous Dune Rats sets as they have triumphant ones. The band’s notoriety has seen these guys build up a reputation as simultaneously one of Australia’s most beloved and loathed indie bands. Not that you’d be at all aware of the latter if you bore witness to the scene laid out when the trio finally took to the stage tonight. With every word to every song screamed back at their grinning faces, the Dunies scrapped and slurred their way through cuts from their selftitled debut, as well as a few earlier favourites and their always joyful runthrough of ‘Blister In The Sun’. Why? Why not? That’s the attitude that’s got Dune Rats to this point – doing what they love and touring with a band they clearly consider to be heroes. Carn the Psychos! Carn the Dunies!
born lion
21:06:15 :: Frankie’s Pizza :: 50 Hunter St Sydney
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The Black Dahlia Murder
Jack Carty
INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS
SATURDAY JUNE 27 Factory Theatre
The Black Dahlia Murder Psycroptic + Boris The Blade + Colossvs 7:30pm. $52. WEDNESDAY JUNE 24 ACOUSTIC, COUNTRY, BLUES & FOLK
Michael Carpenter & The Cuban Heels + The Bob Corbett Band + Amber Rae Slade And The Mighty Big Noise + Not Good With Horses The Vanguard, Newtown. 6:30pm. $20. Mick Hambly Lewisham Hotel, Lewisham. 7pm. Free.
JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD MUSIC Kingston Flavaz
Valve Bar, Agincourt Hotel, Ultimo. 7pm. $10. The Groovemeisters Lazybones Lounge, Marrickville. 8:30pm. Free.
INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS
Babe In The Woods + Black River Bell + Imogen Davies The Gasoline Pony, Marrickville. 7pm. $5. Hidden Candy Frankie’s Pizza, Sydney. 9pm. Free. Machine Head Metro Theatre, Sydney. 8pm. $78. The Big Kahuna Re-Launch Party - feat: Eddie Boyd + King Colour Batch Brewing Co, Marrickville. 6pm. Free. Machine Head
The Walking Who + Day Ravies + Hatch Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Beach. 8pm. Free. Title Fight Factory Theatre, Marrickville. 7pm. $35.50.
THURSDAY JUNE 25 ACOUSTIC, COUNTRY, BLUES & FOLK
Mick Hambly + Chris Brookes + Lauren Valatiadis + Monique Angele + Tim Walker Ruby L’otel, Rozelle. 7:30pm. Free. Ray Beadle + Eddie Boyd & The Phatapillars
Furnace And The Fundamentals The Golden Sheaf, Double Bay. 9pm. Free. Dave White Duo Orient Hotel, The Rocks. 9pm. Free. Glenn Esmond Manly Leagues Club, Brookvale. 7:30pm. Free. Harts Moonshine, Manly. 8pm. Free. High-Tails Newtown Social Club, Newtown. 8pm. $12. Jones The Cat + Sloom + Being Jane Lane + Ivory Drips Valve Bar, Agincourt Hotel, Ultimo. 8pm. $10. Late Night Soda Social - feat: Flatcats + Black Diamond Hearts Soda Factory, Surry Hills. 5pm. Free. Ted Nash Fortune Of War, The Rocks. 7pm. Free. Tequila Mockingbird The Gasoline Pony, Marrickville. 7pm. $5. The Kite String Tangle + Dustin Tebbutt + Joy. Metro Theatre, Sydney. 7pm. $36.05. Tom Buckley Honeysuckle Hotel, Newcastle. 6:30pm. Free. Young Henrys Roadhouse - feat: Jack Carty + Yo Grito DJs! Goodgod Small Club, Sydney. 7pm. $17.
FRIDAY JUNE 26 JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD MUSIC C Major + DJ Crazy Caz + Bernie Dingo Soda Factory, Surry Hills. 5pm. Free. Galapagas Duck Lazybones Lounge, Marrickville. 9pm. $15. Sexy Sunday Jam Bellini Lounge, Potts Point. 7pm. Free. Tim McCartney + Soul Nights
The Golden Sheaf, Double Bay. 6pm. Free.
ACOUSTIC, COUNTRY, BLUES & FOLK
Bobby C Cessnock Leagues Club, Cessnock. 8pm. Free. Frank Sultana And The Sinister Kids + Papa Pilko And The Binrats + Skyscaper Stan The Vanguard, Newtown. 7pm. $15. Gareth Hudson Central Charlestown Leagues Club, Charlestown. 7pm. Free. Louis Baker Kings Cross Hotel, Kings Cross. 8pm. Free. Marshall Okell + The Pride + The Gentle Enemies + Ivy Lewisham Hotel, Lewisham. 8pm. $16.
INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS
Beast & Flood Blackwire Records, Annandale. 9pm. Free. Bill Kacir Chatswood RSL, Chatswood. 5pm. Free. Black Dog Fundraiser feat: Various Artists The Annandale Hotel, Annandale. 7:30pm. Free. Brighten Up! - feat: Winston Surfshirt + Bin Juice + Raindrop + Richard In Your Mind DJs Brighton Up Bar, Darlinghurst. 8pm. $10. Daley Holliday Honeysuckle Hotel, Newcastle. 8pm. Free. Firewall The Sydney Junction Hotel, Hamilton. 9pm. Free. Flowertruck The World Bar, Kings Cross. 9pm. $5. Glenn Esmond Kings Park Tavern, Kings Park. 7pm. Free. Harts Cambridge Hotel, Newcastle. 7pm. $15.30. Jonathan Jones
Title Fight
Orient Hotel, The Rocks. 4:30pm. Free. Machine Head Metro Theatre, Sydney. 8pm. $78. Motor City Ruby L’otel, Rozelle. 8pm. Free. My Disco Goodgod Small Club, Sydney. 8pm. $22.10. Pink Industrial Whores + Ar12 + The Damned Humans + Solaris + Cyndustry Valve Bar, Agincourt Hotel, Ultimo. 8pm. $10. Reckless Orient Hotel, The Rocks. 9:30pm. Free. Roadhouse Rockers Belmont 16s, Belmont. 8:30pm. Free. Rob Eastwood The Push Bar, The Rocks. 7:30pm. Free. Ted Nash The Forbes Hotel, Sydney. 5pm. Free. The Dinlows Modus Operandi, Mona Vale. 6:30pm. Free. The Filth - feat: Asta Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Beach. 8pm. Free. The Gentle Enemies + Marshall Okell And The Pride + Ivy Lewisham Hotel, Lewisham. 8pm. $15. The Royals The Belmore Hotel, Maitland. 9pm. Free. The Tall Grass The Gasoline Pony, Marrickville. 7pm. $7.
SATURDAY JUNE 27 JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD MUSIC Bernie McGann Seymour Centre, Chippendale. 8:30pm. $30. DC Bellamy + Stormcellar Lazybones Lounge, Marrickville. 8pm. $15. James Power Modus Operandi, Mona My Disco
“Oh, let the sun beat down upon my face and stars fill my dream” - wholelottalove.com.au thebrag.com
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pick of the week
The Basement, Circular Quay. 6pm. $15. Sian Evans + Amber Rae Slade The Annandale Hotel, Annandale. 8pm. Free. Tim Walker Ruby L’otel, Rozelle. 8:30pm. Free. Zack Martin Marrickville Bowling Club, Marrickville. 7pm. Free.
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send your listings to : gigguide@thebrag.com
The Milk Carton Kids
Vale. 6:30pm. Free. Sexy Sunday Jam Bellini Lounge, Potts Point. 7pm. Free. Superheavyweights The Annandale Hotel, Annandale. 8pm. Free.
ACOUSTIC, COUNTRY, BLUES & FOLK
Andrew Denniston Petersham Inn, Petersham. 7:30pm. Free. Blues Society Birthday Lazybones Lounge, Marrickville. 9pm. $15. Emmylou Harris + Rodney Crowell The Star Event Centre, Pyrmont. 8pm. $109.90. Journey The Gasoline Pony, Marrickville. 3pm. $5. Matt Semmens Central Charlestown Leagues Club, Charlestown. 7pm. Free. Mojo House Band - feat: Jesse & James Mojo Record Bar, Sydney. 7pm. Free. The Gentle Enemies Commercial Hotel, Parramatta. 9pm. Free. The New Delhi Llamas Ruby L’otel, Rozelle. 8pm. Free.
INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS Lady Like The Golden Sheaf, Double Bay. 9pm. Free. Beat The Freeze - feat: Twin Caverns + Kanyon + Family Values + Daisy + Elmntry 107 Projects, Redfern. 5pm. $5. Christopher Coleman Collective + Cuzn Gut Artspace, Camperdown. 8pm. $15. Dan Runchel & Friends The Belmore Hotel, Maitland. 9pm. Free. Darts + Juliawhy? Brighton Up Bar, Wes Carr
Darlinghurst. 8pm. $14.30. Here Comes The Sun feat: Wes Carr The Basement, Circular Quay. 8pm. $25. Ian Moss Belmont 16s, Belmont. 6:30pm. $40. Motioner Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst. 8pm. Free. Patrick James Newtown Social Club, Newtown. 8pm. $20. Ramshackle + Newbie + Consequential Karma + Styx + Edenfall Spectrum, Darlinghurst. 7:30pm. $25. Steve Edmunds Oaks Hotel, Neutral Bay. 8pm. Free. Talk Of The Town Belmont 16s, Belmont. 8:30pm. Free. The Black Dahlia Murder + Psycroptic + Boris The Blade + Colossvs Factory Theatre, Marrickville. 7:30pm. $52. The Chosen Few Orient Hotel, The Rocks. 9:30pm. Free. The Years The Sydney Junction Hotel, Hamilton. 9pm. Free. Two & A Half Man Honeysuckle Hotel, Newcastle. 8pm. Free. Venom Clubnight - feat: Under Night’s Cover + In Hydes Shadows + Snakebite Whisky + Rainbow Deathray Valve Bar, Agincourt Hotel, Ultimo. 8pm. $15.
SUNDAY JUNE 28 JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD MUSIC
Judy Bailey’s Jazz Connection Lazybones Lounge, Marrickville. 6:30pm. Free. Mo Soul Club Modus Operandi, Mona Vale. 6:30pm. Free.
INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS Bribry + Dodie Clark Metro Theatre, Sydney. 4:45pm. $21.50. Declan Kelly The Golden Sheaf, Double Bay. 9pm. Free. Franky & Johnny Belmont 16s, Belmont. 2:30pm. Free. Kylie Jane Trio Honeysuckle Hotel, Newcastle. 4pm. Free. Mary Cowell Trio + Graham M + Brenny B Side Manly Wharf Hotel, Manly. 5pm. Free. Satellite V Marrickville Bowling Club, Marrickville. 4:30pm. Free. Sludgesplayed Swillfest - feat: Sumeru + Summonus + Holy Serpent + Kaleidoscope Frankie’s Pizza, Sydney. 4pm. Free. Solotude
24 :: BRAG :: 618 :: 24:06:15
up all night out all week... The Vanguard, Newtown. 6:30pm. $25. The Milk Carton Kids City Recital Hall Angel Place, Sydney. 8pm. $55. The Viper Creek Band The Sydney Junction Hotel, Hamilton. 6pm. Free. Urban Guerillas Town & Country Hotel, St Peters. 2pm. Free. We May Fall + At The Gallows + Blacklist + Conscious Alive + Series + Diamond Construct + Lost Without Life + Tormentus Valve Bar, Agincourt Hotel, Ultimo. 4pm. $10.
The Kite String Tangle & Dustin Tebbutt
ACOUSTIC, COUNTRY, BLUES & FOLK
Amali Ward + Victoria Avenue Opera Bar, Sydney. 6pm. Free. Andrew Denniston Red Lion Hotel, Rozelle. 4pm. Free. Andy Baylor & Friends The Gasoline Pony, Marrickville. 5pm. $5. Echo Deer + The Campervan Dancers The Old Growler, Woolloomooloo. 4pm. Free. From Street To Stage - feat: Joe Moore + Various Other Artists Soda Factory, Surry Hills. 6pm. Free. Russell Neal Harlequin Inn, Pyrmont. 3pm. Free. Sunday Courtyard Sessions - feat: Jenna + Zana The Annandale Hotel, Annandale. 3pm. Free.
MONDAY JUNE 29 JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD MUSIC
WEDNESDAY JUNE 24 Machine Head Metro Theatre, Sydney. 8pm. $78. Michael Carpenter & The Cuban Heels + The Bob Corbett Band + Amber Rae Slade And The Mighty Big Noise + Not Good With Horses The Vanguard, Newtown. 6:30pm. $20. The Big Kahuna Re-Launch Party - Feat: Eddie Boyd + King Colour Batch Brewing Co, Marrickville. 6pm. Free. The Walking Who + Day Ravies + Hatch Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Beach. 8pm. Free. Title Fight Factory Theatre, Marrickville. 7pm. $35.50.
Sonic Mayhem Orchestra Lazybones Lounge, Marrickville. 8:30pm. Free.
THURSDAY JUNE 25
ACOUSTIC, COUNTRY, BLUES & FOLK
High-Tails Newtown Social Club, Newtown. 8pm. $12.
Russell Neal + Chris Brookes Kelly’s On King, Newtown. 8pm. Free.
TUESDAY JUNE 30 ACOUSTIC, COUNTRY, BLUES & FOLK
Stuart Jammin + Simon Li Kelly’s On King, Newtown. 8pm. Free. Swing It Tuesdays - feat: The Basement Big Band The Basement, Circular Quay. 6pm. $8.
Twin Caverns
The Kite String Tangle + Dustin Tebbutt + Joy. Metro Theatre, Sydney. 7pm. $36.05.
FRIDAY JUNE 26 Brighten Up! - Feat: Winston Surfshirt + Bin Juice + Raindrop + Richard In Your Mind
DJs Brighton Up Bar, Darlinghurst. 8pm. $10. Flowertruck The World Bar, Kings Cross. 9pm. $5. Frank Sultana And The Sinister Kids + Papa Pilko And The Binrats + Skyscaper Stan The Vanguard, Newtown. 7pm. $15. My Disco Goodgod Small Club, Sydney. 8pm. $22.10. The Filth - Feat: Asta Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Beach. 8pm. Free.
SATURDAY JUNE 27 Beat The Freeze - Feat: Twin Caverns + Kanyon + Family Values + Daisy + Elmntry 107 Projects, Redfern. 5pm. $5. Darts + Juliawhy? Brighton Up Bar, Darlinghurst. 8pm. $14.30.
Emmylou Harris And Rodney Crowell The Star Event Centre, Pyrmont. 8pm. $109.90. Here Comes The Sun Feat: Wes Carr The Basement, Circular Quay. 8pm. $25. Patrick James Newtown Social Club, Newtown. 8pm. $20. Ramshackle + Newbie + Consequential Karma + Styx + Edenfall Spectrum, Darlinghurst. 7:30pm. $25.
SUNDAY JUNE 28 Sludgesplayed Swillfest - Feat: Sumeru + Summonus + Holy Serpent + Kaleidoscope Frankie’s Pizza, Sydney. 4pm. Free. Solotude The Vanguard, Newtown. 6:30pm. $25. The Milk Carton Kids City Recital Hall Angel Place, Sydney. 8pm. $55. Flowertruck
INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS
Live & Originals @ Mr Falcons - feat: Katherine Vavahea + Welcome Stranger + Pat & Kate + Kimberly Robinson Mr Falcon’s, Glebe. 7:30pm. Free.
JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD MUSIC Boogaloo Jazz The Golden Sheaf, Double Bay. 7pm. Free.
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brag beats dance music news club, dance and hip hop in brief... with Chris Martin, Gloria Brancatisano and Tyson Wray
five things WITH
BASENJI
True Vibenation
CATCH THE VIBE
1.
Growing Up My first CD was the single ‘Praise You’ by Fatboy Slim, my first album was Americana by The Offspring and the first live show I went to was Eskimo Joe. I think the only one of these artists I still listen to is Fatboy Slim. I got into music at a late age, but it was definitely dance music that I became the most attached to.
music that I would consider quite different to everything else I have made or even associate with. I want to work a lot harder to make my music conceptually stronger and to bring new ideas to the table. I’m not interested in making the same song again and again. I am really hoping to surprise people with some of my upcoming releases.
2.
5.
Inspirations I think when I heard Daft Punk’s Alive 2007 live album was when I became entirely obsessed with dance music. I don’t strictly listen to (or produce) dance music, but it is a genre that has always perplexed me and continues to surprise me.
Your Band For a while now I have been 3. very close with Wave Racer and Cosmo’s Midnight. We all support each other and help each other out. I’m not sure if we make similar music because we are friends or if we are friends because we make similar music, but either way it works!
4.
The Music You Make And Play Right now I am working on a lot of
Chet Faker
Music, Right Here, Right Now I am really excited with what my management Astral People are bringing to the scene. They continue to impress me with the artists that they bring to Australia from overseas and the local talent they support. Their Vivid show at the Studio was by far one of the best things I have attended recently and I can’t wait for their festival OutsideIn this September. Some Sydney DJs I have enjoyed seeing perform recently are Victoria Kim, RY4 and Baby Face Thrilla – I really respect that they try to bring different music to the Australian scene. Where: Supporting Hermitude at the Enmore Theatre When: Friday June 26
Sydney’s favourite hip hop/producer crew True Vibenation will play a run of dates from the top to the bottom of the east coast. Following the release of their second album On last year, the dudes were booked for their first international tour, playing festival dates in Africa and selling out their first overseas headline show in Maputo, the capital city of Mozambique. The experiences abroad only deepened the vibe, so now they’re backing up on a simply named Africa/Australia Tour to play Mariners at Batemans Bay on Saturday June 27 and Spectrum on Friday July 3.
LOOK AT THOSE MUSCLES
Fresh off the back of his latest single, ‘Unicorns’, Muscles has announced he will head around the country this August. The Melbournebased one-man party machine who made his name with the 2008 track ‘Ice Cream’ will be heading to Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth, playing tracks from his previous records as well as remixes from his upcoming third album. Muscles will take over Goodgod Small Club on Friday August 21. Ice-cream will (probably) not be provided.
THE HORROR, THE HORROR
Hot on the heels of their sold-out North and South American tours, Miami Horror have revealed that they’ll play a run of homecoming shows in August. They’ll be touring in support of their sophomore LP, All Possible Futures, which was released to widely positive
CHET FAKER BENDS THE RULES
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WINTERFEST IS COMING
Get ready to dance those chills away: UTS Winterfest is returning to the University Of Technology Sydney’s Ultimo campus in 2015, with a full lineup announced for the two-stage music festival. The man with the golden voice, Andy Bull, will lead the program, joined by Perth electronic kids Slumberjack and party-starter Just A Gent. The lineup will be spread across UTS’ two bars, The Underground and The Loft. Also on the bill are KLP (DJ set), Indian Summer, Odd Mob, GRMM, Hatch, Tear Council, Owen Rabbit, Housing Corp, Sooreyah and DJ Arthur. Winterfest is coming on Friday August 7.
reviews last April. Since then, the Melbourne synthpop outfit has been enjoying the success, playing shows around the world and most recently unveiling another dancefloor-ready single, ‘Cellophane (So Cruel)’. Miami Horror will arrive at the Metro Theatre on Friday August 14 with Joy., Cleopold and Young Franco.
PHAT PLAY FRIDAY
The reigning DMC champion of New South Wales, Broke, is coming to Surry Hills this weekend to break your mind-holes. The 2014 award is the latest in a long list of accolades for this spinner, whose talents on the turntables must be seen to be believed. The World DMC team finalist from the Invincible Armour
Crew, Dizar, will be bringing the grooviest hip hop, soul, funk and more in support, as will Play Bar’s own Benny Hinn when the venue gets loud this Friday June 26.
GENERIK BEATS
There’ll be nothing generic about the beats this weekend at Marquee. Except, of course, the fact that the man on the decks is Generik himself, who’s broken onto the scene via ‘The Weekend’, a collaboration with Van She frontman Nicky Van She. The producer and DJ Generik learnt his trade at Melbourne clubs Onelove and SuperDisco, but he’s coming to the big city of lights for an even bigger set this Friday June 26. thebrag.com
Chet Faker photo by Mariado Carmo Louceiro
Hotshot producer and songwriter Chet Faker will embark on a final celebration of his multiplatinum, chart-topping album Built On Glass. Touring the east coast, Faker will take to the stage in his biggest venues to date, featuring an expanded band with guests, never-beforeperformed live songs and more. To coincide with the announcement, he’s also just released his latest track ‘Bend’. Catch him on Friday November 6 on the Forecourt of the Sydney Opera House.
Andy Bull
BRAG’s guide to dance, hip hop and club culture SBTRKT
y a d n u S y r e v E
LISTEN OUT 2015
Boutique dance festival Listen Out will return later this year, with the lineup for the 2015 incarnation now revealed. Featuring a range of high-calibre electronic and hip hop artists, this year’s festival will be headlined by Childish Gambino and SBTRKT, and will also feature performances from Joey Bada$$, Alison Wonderland, Odesza, Rae Sremmurd, Golden Features, Dusky, Ryan Hemsworth, ILoveMakonnen, George Fitzgerald, Lido, Hayden James, Client Liaison, Roland Tings, Halfway Crooks and Jordan Burns, with more to be announced. Listen Out 2015 will take place on Saturday October 3 at Centennial Park.
2PM – 3AM HOME TERRACE 101/1-5 WHEAT ROAD, DARLING HARBOUR WWW.SASH.NET.AU
I MAG I N E BE I NG MAD E TO
he said she said WITH
KATO FROM LIQUORICE PIZZA
T
he Liquorice Pizza vinyl market is returning to Cafe Lounge for DoDarlo this weekend. What can you tell us about the event and its reception in the past? This is the second Liquorice Pizza – the first one three months ago was a rousing success (even if I do say so myself), so we thought we had to go in for a second slice, and also it’s great practice spelling the word liquorice. What makes this different from other vinyl markets? Liquorice Pizza is a vinyl market by DJs and collectors, for DJs and collectors. Even though The Record Store is involved in the organisation, the store doesn’t actually sell records there. Not having professional dealers and stores involved means it’s a more friendly, easygoing vibe and you get a different selection of records (and heaps more bargains). Have you made any spectacular discoveries from these kinds of events before? I love to hunt for second-hand records. A significant chunk of the awesome records in my collection have come from these kind of sales. It’s hard to pinpoint one particular record, but I hope this encourages people to come share the love of digging and collecting records – plus, Cafe Lounge is a bar so you can have beers too. I lost a 300-dollar Tame
thebrag.com
Impala record at one of these things recently, so someone got a bargain! You and Ben Fester will be spinning vinyl, alongside open decks curated by The Wax Lab. What’s your top tip for a budding DJ to win over the crowd? Follow your heart and not the herd; think about what makes you want to party and how you can share that with each different crowd you play to. Vinyl actually helps you DJ better because you have limited resources, so you have to think more about how you’re going to curate and present your 100 records and work with the crowd. You can have way more songs on a USB or laptop, but 99.9 per cent of them you didn’t need anyway. How strong is the vinyl DJing scene in Sydney at the moment? Where will it be in five years’ time? It’s definitely on the rise again. There are more and more clubs reopening their turntables to vinyl DJs, but unfortunately this is swimming in the prevailing tide of clubs closing down due to Sydney’s draconian lockout laws. What: Liquorice Pizza Where: Cafe Lounge When: Saturday June 27
FEEL L IKE CRAP JUST FOR
BEING
LEFT
H A N D E D.
Okay, that’s hard to imagine? But being gay, lesbian, bi, trans or intersex is no different to being born left handed, it’s just who you are. So stop and think because the things we say are likely to cause depression and anxiety. And that really is pretty crap. GO TO LEFTHAND.ORG.AU TO WATCH THE VIDEO
STOP t THINK t RESPECT
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Giorgio Moroder The Hitmaker By Tyson Wray Queen), and worked alongside David Bowie, Freddie Mercury, Blondie and Janet Jackson, to name just a few accolades. However, following the so-called death of disco in the mid-’80s, Moroder left the music industry to focus on other artistic endeavours, predominately in the film world. Responsible for some of the most iconic film scores of all time (including Scarface and Midnight Express), alongside soundtrack numbers such as Irene Cara’s ‘Flashdance… What A Feeling’ and Blondie’s ‘Call Me’, Moroder has accumulated three Academy Awards, four Golden Globes, four Grammys and more than 100 gold and platinum records. It wasn’t until Daft Punk tapped him on the shoulder for their prog tribute track ‘Giorgio By Moroder’ on 2013’s ubiquitous Random Access Memories, however, that he re-emerged in the contemporary music industry.
synth pioneer was at the forefront of the disco craze – he produced Donna Summer’s biggest hits of the late ’70s, founded the legendary Musicland Studios in Munich (used by the likes of Electric Light Orchestra, Led Zeppelin and
And oh, did he get singers. Déjà Vu – Moroder’s first album since 1985’s Innovisions – features an extensive
“A lot of these artists I never actually worked with in the studio,” Moroder says. “It’s the new way. Firstly, you create a track with a certain sort of melody and then give it to the singer. In the case with Sia [on the album’s title track], I created a melodic song and then sent it over to her, and she just recorded the top line. I think that’s what they call it now. She gave it back to me two or three weeks later and it was done, all of the lyrics and the vocals, then I just had to mix it. I actually like this method a lot – there’s a lot less responsibility. The overview is a lot more immediate. I can get it all done and decide much quicker whether or not I like it. “The most challenging thing about making an album now is the coordination,” he adds. “You need to find the singers, the lawyers, the management. Sometimes you have to wait months to get a reaction from a singer because they’re travelling around the world and just don’t have the time.” In the ’70s, Moroder was credited with creating the sounds of the future. However, he doesn’t believe this style of producing is possible in 2015. “I’m just trying to make the hits now,” he laughs. “If I knew what the sound of the future was now then I’d be thrilled. These days there’s just no way to make a ‘new sound’. There are just millions out there now. Every day there is a new machine created. Sounds are not going to take you to the future anymore. These days, it’s not just about sounds, it’s about so much more.
“I wanted it to have a modern feel, but I also wanted it to be retro, but not full-on retro-retro. I feel like on a whole it’s a modern record with a touch of the old disco.” Will fans have to wait another 30 years for another solo album? “I don’t think I’ll be writing another album anytime soon,” says Moroder. “I’ve been getting so busy with my DJing.” DJing is another rather coincidental career path for Moroder, one that he launched in 2013 at the age of 73. “I was in Paris at the time and I did a little 12-minute job for Louis Vuitton, and then Elton John asked me to play a very small gig for him in Cannes,” he says. “Then the Red Bull Music Academy asked me to play my very first big show for them, and it was a very successful evening. After that I just kept getting more offers, which is actually when I began to learn how to do it. I’ve mixed hundreds and hundreds of songs in my lifetime. I’ve mixed songs with over 60 recording tracks in them. For me to learn how to mix a little DJ set? That’s a piece of cake,” he laughs. “I’m currently writing the music for a game for Disney. I’ve been offered to be a participant in a musical TV show in Italy. I’m thinking of expanding my DJing, maybe make it more than just about myself – make it ‘Giorgio Moroder and Friends’ and invite some other people and come up with some new ideas. That’s just one of the new concepts I’m currently working on.” What: Déjà Vu out now through RCA/Sony
Oscar Key Sung Selfless Loner By Augustus Welby
I
t’s been 14 months since Oscar Key Sung released his breakthrough EP, Holograms. This was a long enough delay to prompt rumours about the pending arrival of Key Sung’s debut album. But it wasn’t to be, and the Melbourne songwriter/ producer has just returned with a new six-track EP, Altruism. Considering Oscar Slorach-Thorn (as he’s otherwise known) also teamed up with Andras Fox on the collaborative Café Romantica LP last year, perhaps there simply wasn’t time to produce a solo record. However, a busy schedule isn’t the only thing delaying him. “I keep almost making it, then deciding to make it into an EP and then putting songs aside,” he says. “I feel like I’m still improving and coming to terms with what I want to do as an album. I want it to be really good when I do it. EPs are a less high-pressure scenario.” Although he’s just 24 years old, Key Sung’s no novice when it comes to the creation of full-length records. Back in 2009, he released an LP with the experimental electronic group Psuche. The following year, he and fellow Psuche member Martin King broke away to form Oscar + Martin, a fruitful partnership that culminated in the 2011 album, For You. When his focus shifted to Oscar Key Sung in early 2012, he had some specific stylistic parameters in mind. “I wanted everything to have a restraint to it in the arrangements,” he says. “I wanted the elements to be limited so that there would be a lot of focus on bass sounds and sampled voice and then have the main focus be about the feel of things.” The fundamental restraint of Oscar Key Sung’s material doesn’t limit its dynamic scope. Among Altruism’s six
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tracks, the likes of ‘Skip’ and ‘Brush’ edge towards a straight-up pop sound, while ‘Premonition’ and ‘Light’ take a lateral look at R&B and ‘Inside Job’ is an avant-garde instrumental. “I try to not just have five of the same song, but still try to create a thread,” Key Sung says. “Basically there’s an idea I’ve got for the EP and within it there are the levels of extremity. So ‘Inside Job’ is obviously on the exterior, then it kind of gets closer and closer to pop. That’s an aspect of it, but they’re also just the songs I made. If I made one track a certain way, I felt I didn’t need to repeat that idea in the next track. “Something I’m still trying to think about in my solo stuff is spaces – the idea of going from a small room to a large room to an expansive space to an underground/underwater space. That’s what I try to do through the tracks. Rather than adding a sax line, I’ll choose to go underwater for a bit.” Akin to ‘All I Could Do’ from Holograms, songs like ‘Skip’ and ‘Brush’ highlight Key Sung’s knack for writing instantly memorable electro/R&B numbers. While many songwriters would happily sacrifi ce limbs to possess such melodic fl air, pumping out catchy hits isn’t what Oscar Key Sung is all about. “The issues I have with some pop music is that sense of inevitability to the point of feeling a bit like a zombie while you’re listening to it,” he says. “What I really love is pop music that’s active. Even if it is anti-maximal and really basic, it’s doing something that functions in a way you don’t expect it to. To me, when a song comes together and starts to feel real,
it’s about a cohesion between the tone of all the melodies and the intention of the words and the feel of everything. I think pop music should be somewhat meaningful.” With Altruism, Key Sung puts his money where his mouth is. The whole work conveys a dense emotional resonance, which stems as much from Key Sung’s emotively invested vocals and unveiled lyrics as his deft minimalist production. The entire EP is narrated from a solitary perspective, and the lyrics frequently deal with cravings for interpersonal connection. Key Sung says the EP’s core themes are a response to the sorts of dilemmas that arise from social privilege.
“You know when you fulfill a stereotype and it’s scary and you disgust yourself? Say, like me, you’re male and relatively middle class and relatively white; there’s this whole thing of, ‘I’m in a number of positions of entitlement.’ When some of those clichés play out, they become an aspect of yourself that you’re not necessarily proud of. A lot of the perspective of the EP is somebody who doesn’t like the world and can see themselves falling into the patterns they find disgusting in other adults. It’s a coming-of-age thing and feeling like the only way to escape is to be solitary and apart from what everybody else is involving themselves in, because they find it a bit gross.”
In spite of Key Sung’s use of second-person pronouns, Altruism isn’t a purely observational work. “It’s a way of releasing some of the ideas of how people have perceived me in the past, and trying to come to terms with how I perceive myself beyond what they’ve projected onto me,” he says. “Then trying to acknowledge what I have done to them and maybe didn’t intend to – and just because I didn’t mean to, it doesn’t mean I didn’t do it.” What: Altruism out now through Warner Where: Oxford Art Factory When: Saturday June 27
thebrag.com
xx photo by xxx
D
éjà Vu, the aptly titled first solo album from Giovanni Giorgio Moroder in 30 years, almost never happened. In the late ’70s and early ’80s, Moroder was the epitome of musical royalty, and with good reason. The Italian
“After my work with Daft Punk I began to receive offers from record companies again,” Moroder explains as his wife Francisca pours us a cup of tea. “I got three separate offers to make an album – I would’ve been silly not to take up that chance. If I hadn’t received those offers, this record would never have been made. I’m not a singer. If I was, then I could make an album on my costs and my terms and then try and strike a deal with a label. As an artist/producer, I need the singers. Without a record label behind you, getting these singers is almost impossible. I was really happy to sign with RCA/Sony.”
cast of the biggest vocalists on the planet, including Britney Spears, Sia, Charli XCX, Kylie Minogue and Kelis.
club guide g send your listings to : clubguide@thebrag.com
club pick of the week Daedelus
SATURDAY JUNE 27
Goodgod Small Club
Daedelus
7:30pm. $17. DJ Ricky Bonomini The Sydney Junction Hotel, Hamilton. 11pm. Free. DJ Timmy Coffey 5 Sawyers, Newcastle. 9pm. Free. El Loco Later - feat: DJs On Rotation Excelsior Hotel, Surry Hills. 10pm. Free. FBi Click First Birthday feat: FBi Click DJ Crews: Goodgod + Astral People + Picnic + Motorik + Purple Sneakers + Bare Necessities + Body Promise + Foreigndub + Lazy Radio + Thump + Black Vanilla (DJ Set) Goodgod Small Club, Sydney. 10pm. $15. Homemade - feat: Brooke Evers + Royaal + Venuto + Rees Hellmers + DJ Iko + DJ Seiz + J Reyes Home Nightclub, Darling Harbour. 9pm. Free. Infamous Saturdays - feat: Live DJs Scubar, Sydney. 7pm. Free. Le Fruit DJs Goros, Surry Hills. 8pm. Free. Lndry - feat: Stephan Bodzin + Nicky Night Time + Andrew Wowk + Natnoiz + U-Khan + Sarkozy + Sleepy Sang + Louis B2B Rouss + Crux + DJ Just 1 + Here’s Trouble + DJ Eko Chinese Laundry, Sydney. 9pm. $22.60. Murray Lake + Husky Manly Wharf Hotel, Manly. 6pm. Free. My Place Saturdays
Bar100, The Rocks. 8pm. Free. Oscar Key Sung Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst. 9pm. $18.70. Pacha - feat: Tigerlily + Brooklyn + Glover + A-Tonez + Terace + Kyro + Jace Disgrace + A-Game + Moto + Heke + Jade Le Flay + Fingers + Mike Hyper + Just 1 + Elly K + Chris Fraser + Sushi Ivy Bar/Lounge, Sydney. 6:30pm. $38. Recloose + Robbie Lowe + Phil Smart + Michelle Owen + Mike Witcombe + D&D + Alan Thomas + Steven Sullivan + Sam Francisco The Spice Cellar, Erskineville. 9pm. $35. Resident DJ The Kent Bar & Grill, Hamilton. 9:30pm. Free. Sienna Saturdays - feat: Resident DJs The Establishment, Sydney. 9pm. Free.
SUNDAY JUNE 28 HIP HOP & R&B
Seth Sentry + Ivan Ooze The Entrance Leagues Club, 7pm. $36.
CLUB NIGHTS
DJ Timmy Coffey 5 Sawyers, Newcastle. 9pm. Free.
La Fiesta - feat: Samantha Fox + Agee Ortiz + Av El Cubano + Resident DJ Willie Sabor The Establishment, Sydney. 8pm. Free. Picnic Social - Feat: Ray Mang Harpoon Harry, Surry Hills. 4pm. Free. S.A.S.H Sundays Home Nightclub, Darling Harbour. 2pm. $10. Sunday Sessions Oatley Hotel, Oatley. 8pm. Free. Sundays In The City - feat: Various DJs The Slip Inn, Sydney. 12pm. Free.
MONDAY JUNE 29 CLUB NIGHTS
Mashup Monday - feat: Resident DJs Side Bar, Sydney. 8pm. Free.
TUESDAY JUNE 30 CLUB NIGHTS
Chu The World Bar, Kings Cross. 9pm. Free.
+ Anomie + Spirals
7:30pm. $17. WEDNESDAY JUNE 24 CLUB NIGHTS
Retiree + Sui Zhen Goodgod Small Club, Sydney. 8pm. $15. The Wall The World Bar, Kings Cross. 9pm. $5.
THURSDAY JUNE 25 HIP HOP & R&B Yum Yum + Daisy Lazybones Lounge, Marrickville. 9pm. $10.
CLUB NIGHTS
Audiophilez DJs Modus Operandi, Mona Vale. 6:30pm. Free. Number56 - feat: Christian Vance + Baron Castle + More Secret Location, Sydney. 6pm. Free. Pool Club Thursdays - feat: Resident DJs Ivy Bar/Lounge, Sydney. 5pm. Free. The Midnight Swim Sessions - feat: Thomas Studdy Goros, Surry Hills. 8pm. Free. The World Bar Thursdays The World Bar, Kings Cross. 9pm. Free.
FRIDAY JUNE 26 HIP HOP & R&B
Friday Lite - feat: Cache One + Baby Face Thrilla + Victoria Kim thebrag.com
Goodgod Small Club, Sydney. 10pm. Free. Hermitude + Basenji + Jayteehazard Enmore Theatre, Newtown. 7:45pm. $39.95. Hustler Fridays - feat: MC Shaba Hustle & Flow, Redfern. 7pm. Free. Phat Play Friday - feat: Broke + DJ Dizar + Benny Hinn Play Bar, Surry Hills. 6pm. Free. Vent@Valve + Izzy And DJ Maniak + Papa Tear + Otherside + Dolzy + Jygantix + Fluid Notion + Special Guests Valve Bar, Agincourt Hotel, Ultimo. 9pm. $10.
CLUB NIGHTS
Aden Mullens + Husky Manly Wharf Hotel, Manly. 5pm. Free. Argyle Fridays - feat: Resident DJs The Argyle, The Rocks. 6pm. Free. Bassic - feat: Sable + Command Q + Spenda C + A-Tonez + Eddie Shaggz + Elbow Squad + Laprats + Gradz + Jaco Moulder Chinese Laundry, Sydney. 9pm. $17.50. Blvd - feat: Generik Marquee, Pyrmont. 10pm. $13.40. Derriere - feat: Rotating DJs Goros, Surry Hills. 6pm. Free. DJ Matt Meler 5 Sawyers, Newcastle. 9pm. Free. 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.
up all night out all week...
Free. Fridays @ Oatley Hotel Oatley Hotel, Oatley. 8pm. Free. Loco Friday - feat: Various Live Bands And DJs The Slip Inn, Sydney. 5pm. Free. Oisima Goodgod Small Club, Sydney. 11pm. $14. Treble N Bass Manly Wharf Hotel, Manly. 9pm. Free. Tribe Winter Session feat: DJ Mi77enz + Royal Pineapple + Yennad + Lepke + Davey Jones + Zio Miind Nightclub, Darlinghurst. 9pm. Free.
SATURDAY JUNE 27 HIP HOP & R&B
Scotty B & DJ Maniak Play Bar, Surry Hills. 6pm. Free. Seth Sentry + Ivan Ooze Newcastle Panthers, Newcastle. 7:30pm. $35. The Chop - feat: Scotty B & DJ Maniak + Mumbles + DJ Raine Supreme + Benny Hinn + Special Guest Play Bar, Surry Hills. 6pm. Free.
CLUB NIGHTS
Belvedere Winter Ball - feat: DJ Jason Lema + Johnny Gleeson + I Am Sam + L.A.M Marquee, Pyrmont. 10pm. $29. Cakes - feat: 4 Rooms Of Live Music + DJs And International Guests The World Bar, Kings Cross. 8pm. $10. Daedelus + Anomie + Spirals Goodgod Small Club, Sydney.
FRIDAY JUNE 26 Bassic - Feat: Sable + Command Q + Spenda C + A-Tonez + Eddie Shaggz + Elbow Squad + Laprats + Gradz + Jaco Moulder Chinese Laundry, Sydney. 9pm. $17.50. Blvd Fridays - Feat: Generik Marquee, Pyrmont. 10pm. $13.40. Hermitude + Basenji + Jayteehazard Enmore Theatre, Newtown. 7:45pm. $39.95. Oisima Goodgod Small Club, Sydney. 11pm. $14. Phat Play Friday - Feat: Broke + DJ Dizar + Benny Hinn
Play Bar, Surry Hills. 6pm. Free. Vent@Valve + Izzy And DJ Maniak + Papa Tear + Otherside + Dolzy + Jygantix + Fluid Notion + Special Guests Valve Bar, Agincourt Hotel, Ultimo. 9pm. $10.
SATURDAY JUNE 27 Belvedere Winter Ball Feat: DJ Jason Lema + Johnny Gleeson + I Am Sam + L.A.M Marquee, Pyrmont. 10pm. $29. FBi Click First Birthday Feat: FBi Click DJ Crews: Goodgod + Astral People + Picnic + Motorik + Purple Sneakers + Bare Necessities + Body Promise + Foreigndub + Hermitude
Lazy Radio + Thump + Black Vanilla (DJ Set) Goodgod Small Club, Sydney. 10pm. $15. Lndry - Feat: Stephan Bodzin + Nicky Night Time + Andrew Wowk + Natnoiz + U-Khan + Sarkozy + Sleepy Sang + Louis B2B Rouss + Crux + DJ Just 1 + Here’s Trouble + DJ Eko Chinese Laundry, Sydney. 9pm. $22.60. Oscar Key Sung Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst. 9pm. $18.70. Pacha - Feat: Tigerlily + Brooklyn + Glover + A-Tonez + Terace + Kyro + Jace Disgrace + A-Game + Moto + Heke + Jade Le Flay + Fingers + Mike Hyper + Just 1 + Elly K + Chris Fraser + Sushi Ivy Bar/Lounge, Sydney. 6:30pm. $38. Recloose + Robbie Lowe + Phil Smart + Michelle Owen + Mike Witcombe + D&D + Alan Thomas + Steven Sullivan + Sam Francisco The Spice Cellar, Erskineville. 9pm. $35.
SUNDAY JUNE 28 Picnic Social - Feat: Ray Mang Harpoon Harry, Surry Hills. 4pm. Free. S.A.S.H Sundays Home Nightclub, Darling Harbour. 2pm. $10.
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snap up all night out all week . . .
VIEW FULL GALLERIES AT
thebrag.com/snaps
Off The Record Dance and Electronica with Tyson Wray
L
overs of French house music are in for a treat this week. Golden Age Cinema has announced it will be presenting Sydney-exclusive screenings of Eden, a new documentary that goes in depth on the rise of French house music. Spanning two decades, the film revisits the halcyon Parisian house party days (when Daft Punk really was playing in the house), through to the giddy highs of DJing to packed crowds at MoMA PS1’s legendary dance parties. Eden will have five screenings at Golden Age between Thursday June 25 – Wednesday July 1. Visit ourgoldenage.com.au for more details. If you’re the kind of partier who just doesn’t want to say goodbye to the weekend then you’ll be thrilled to hear of Picnic Socials, a new Sunday night soiree at Harpoon Harry run by the legends behind Picnic. Kicking off this weekend, for the next ten weeks from 4pm Picnic will be showcasing some of the best DJs and producers Sydney has to offer, with a few interstate and international guests. All this with drinks a-flowing and food from the Harpoon Harry kitchen. The first instalment goes down this Sunday June 28 with a special appearance from UK disco don Ray Mang. Trust me – the Monday morning hangover will be worth it. Bad news – you know that debut Australian tour from Romanian producer Sepp that was meant to be coming to Sydney this weekend? It’s been cancelled due to visa issues. Major bummer. The Solace crew will still be bringing the party, though, with sets from Aboutjack, Venda,
B_A, Braille and Lachie Simpson. It’s happening at the Civic Underground this Saturday June 27. The Something Else crew have announced that they’ll be getting a visit from American house and techno selector Steven Tang next month. With his productions taking influence from both the house scene of his hometown Chicago and Detroit’s seminal techno origins, over the course of his career Tang has released on the likes of Aesthetic Audio, Machining Dreams, Generator, Eargasmic Recordings, Syncrophone, Smallville and Dolly. He’ll be supported on the evening by Magda Bytnerowicz, OddRob, Benny G, Tom Witheridge, Tech No More, Garth Linton, B&H Smooth and Dave Stuart. It’s on Saturday July 18 at the Burdekin Hotel. Tour rumour: Recondite is dropping his new album in October and a little birdie tells me he’ll be bringing the party to Australia to celebrate. Best release this week: the latest outing from Ricardo Villalobos and Max Loderbauer’s Vilod project has dropped and it’s straight-up smashing. It’s titled Safe In Harbour and you can cop it on Perlon, highly recommend. Other highlights include Morgan Louis’ Only1 (White Material), Dubsons’ The Soul And The Spirit (Algorhythmic), Barac’s Verniana (Pressure Trax), Deepchord & Pulshar’s Undercover (Avantroot), Paxton Fettel’s The Secret Ingredient Is Crime (Apersonal Music) and Lordamercy’s New Guitar New Mars (2000 Black).
Steven Tang
RECOMMENDED SATURDAY JULY 11
Ray Mang
Iron Curtis The Spice Cellar Cristoph Kit & Kaboodle
SATURDAY JULY 18 Steven Tang Burdekin Hotel
FRIDAY JUNE 26 Kobosil Bridge Hotel
SATURDAY JUNE 27 Stephan Bodzin Chinese Laundry Recloose The Spice Cellar
SUNDAY JUNE 28
Harpoon Harry
FRIDAY JULY 3 Jay Daniel Imperial Hotel
SATURDAY JULY 4
SATURDAY JULY 25 Tiefschwarz The Spice Cellar
SATURDAY AUGUST 22
Borrowed Identity Bridge Hotel
Mike Callander The Spice Cellar
FRIDAY 20 SUNDAY JULY 5 NOVEMBER Lapalux Cristoph Home Nightclub
Chinese Laundry
s.a.s.h sundays
PICS :: AM
Ray Mang
21:06:15 :: Home :: 101/1-5 Wheat Rd Darling Harbour 9266 0600 30 :: BRAG :: 618 :: 24:06:15
Got any tip-offs, hate mail, praise or cat photos? Email hey@tysonwray.com or contact me via carrier pigeon. thebrag.com
THE THIRD ANNUAL
BIG CHILL
Fashion Apparel FASHION ACCESORIES FASHION JEWELLERY
30%OFF 12th June - 12th July Excludes Herbal, Body Jewellery and Piercing services
Excludes Herbal, Body Jewellery and Piercing services www.offyatree.com.au
UP TO 70% OFF RRP STOREWIDE TOREWIDE LES PAUL FUTURA SALE PRICE
GIBSON
SALE
$1299
RRP $2199
ZENITH BASS
SALE PRICE PR
RRP $1599
$799
EPIPHONE
MARC BOLAN
SALE PRICE
RRP $15499
$9299
GIBSON
SONGWRITER DELUXE SALE PRICE
GIBSON RRP $5999
MELODY MAKER
SALE PRICE
RRP $1299
$799
GIBSON
$4499
DR-100 All COLOURS SALE PRICE
EPIPHONE RRP $249
SLASH GUITAR
SALE PRICE
60% OFF RRP
$199
EPIPHONE LIMITED STOCK
$160 RIVIERA CUSTOM
SALE PRICE
RRP $1369
$899
EPIPHONE
GIBSON SG ROBBY KRIEGER AGED/SIGNED ..................................................RRP$11999 .. ............................$6999 GIBSON DICKEY BETTS SG VOS .........................................................................RP$8999 .................................$4999 GIBSON LP 59 REISSUE KILLER QUILT.............................................................RRP$14999................................$8499 GIBSON LPM W/MIN ETUNE VS .................................................................RRP$1749 ................................$999 GIBSON LP 50S TRIBUTE (P90) GLOSS WR ....................................................RRP$2099 ................................$119 GIBSON J-200 STUDIO VS .................................................................................RRP$5999 ..............................$3499 EP JOAN SEBASTIAN TRIUNFADORA AN .....................................................RRP$1249..................................$699 EP EXPLORER 1984 EX AW .................................................................................RRP$1299..................................$799 EP SORRENTO 1962 50TH ANNIV NA ...............................................................RRP$1369..................................$799 LP JUNIOR 1957 LTD TVY ....................................................................................RRP$529....................................$299
ANNANDALE 55 Parramatta Rd
9517 1901
The RRP is the recommended retail price as set bby th the Australian distributor of the product. While stocks last. Products pictured are for illustration purpose only. # # !
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www.gallinsmps.com.au