Brag#644

ISSUE NO. 644 DECEMBER 23, 2015

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

MUSIC, FILM, THEATRE + MORE

SYDNEY FESTIVAL 2016 FEATURING:

MEOW MEOW'S

LITTLE MERMAID

ALSO:

40 WAYS TO LOVE YOUR CITY, KATE MILLER-HEIDKE, THE CHILLS AND MORE Plus

ME T Z S UF F R A GE T T E F L ICK E R F E S T DE A D CI T Y RUINS GIRL POOL

JA MIE X X

DIR T Y T HR EE

M A C MIL L E R

G A ME ON

One of 2015's most talked-about indie acts makes the trip to Sydney.

You know there's gonna be good times on his Australian tour.

Warren Ellis reflects on a busy and occasionally tragic 12 months.

Far from selling out, the hip hop prodigy is going on to bigger things.

A ND MUCH MOR E

Australian Institute of Music

Get serious with a Bachelor Degree.

Trimester 1 starts 25th January 2016.

The Australian Institute of Music offers courses in Contemporary Performance, Classical Performance, Audio Technology, Dramatic Arts, Music Theatre, Entertainment & Arts Management and Composition & Music Production.

Visit aim.edu.au to apply now

2015

1l6

REMOTE CONTROL

IBEYI

PEARLS

PURITY RING

HOUNDMOUTH

COURTNEY BARNETT

ALABAMA SHAKES

KING GIZZARD & THE LIZARD WIZARD

THEE OH SEES

SOAK

JAMIE XX

METHYL ETHEL

SASKWATCH

RATATAT

JESS RIBEIRO

SUI ZHEN

BEIRUT

KURT VILE

DEERHUNTER

FAT FREDDYS DROP Bays

Return To The Moon

GRIMES

KING GIZZARD & THE LIZARD WIZARD

ADELE

LEAH SENIOR

JENNYLEE

Ibeyi

Sound & Color

Pretend You’re Mine

Another Eternity

Mutilator Defeated At Last

Quarters!

Oh Inhuman Spectacle

No No No

Art Angels

Sorry I Let It Come Between Us

b'lieve i'm goin down...

Magnifique

Fading Frontier

25

Little Neon Limelight

Before We Forgot How To Dream

Kill It Yourself

Summer’s On The Ground

Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit

In Colour

Secretly Susan

EL VY

Right On!

Paper Mâché Dream Balloon remotecontrolrecords.com

Remote Control logo reimagined by Courtney Barnett, Methyl Ethel, Sui Zhen & Teeth & Tongue

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thebrag.com

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rock music news

the BRAG presents

welcome to the frontline: what’s goin’ on around town... with Chris Martin, Anna Wilson and Tyson Wray

Hordern Pavilion Tuesday January 5

on the record WITH

BLOC PARTY

3.

At Winterland, having seen the song ‘Hey Joe’ on the back and figuring that’d be the same basic song. I ended up buying every Jimi Hendrix album and listening to him obsessively.

The Last Record I Bought 2.

Can I do two? I just picked up the vinyl of Private Dancer (Tina

The First Thing I Recorded I started making recordings when I was 12, recording into the mic of my cassette player. The first track I remember was a cover of ‘Rape Me’ (Nirvana). I would put the record on in the background and sing over it. I don’t think I got the message of the song at the time but I loved the way he sang.

Also, early Dappled [Cities Fly] home recordings from 1997 still make me smile. We really had no idea what we were doing, and the results are hilarious.

4.

The Last Thing I Recorded My latest EP, Low Summer, was

MORE BANDS ARE BREAKING UP

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, Joseph Earp, Anna Wilson ART DIRECTOR: Sarah Bryant PHOTOGRAPHERS: Katrina Clarke, Ashley Mar ADVERTISING: Les White - 0405 581 125 / (02) 9212 4322 les@thebrag.com Tony Pecotic - (02) 9212 4322 tony@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 COORDINATOR: Sarah Bryant - gigguide@thebrag.com (rock); clubguide@thebrag.com (dance, hip hop & parties) AWESOME INTERNS: Elias Kwiet, Joseph Earp, Anna Wilson, Anita Connors REGULAR CONTRIBUTORS: Nat Amat, Prudence Clark, Tom Clift, Christie Eliezer, Tegan Jones, Lachlan Kanoniuk, Emily Meller, David Molloy, Annie Murney, Adam Norris, George Nott, Daniel Prior, Tegan Reeves, Kate Robertson, Natalie Rogers, Erin Rooney, Spencer Scott, Natalie Salvo, Leonardo Silvestrini, Jade Smith, Lucy Watson, Rod Whitfield, Harry Windsor, Tyson Wray, Stephanie Yip, David James Young

The lineup is getting bigger for Newcastle’s The Bands Are Breaking Up festival, a free event headlined by Lincoln le Fevre. Next year’s event will feature ex-Novocastrian Jamie Hay, who will perform material from his solo projects, his most recent endeavour having raised money for the Women’s Domestic Violence Crisis Service of Victoria. Also making a rare solo appearance is Jim Duggan following the split of his band, Initials. The local contingent is represented by Joel Sweetman, Eli Knight and Erin Kidd, who’ll bring distinct tales of life in the Steel City to the mix. These acts will join the first announcement plethora of acts including Lucy Wilson and Jen Buxton, to name a few.

The Bands Are Breaking Up will take place in the gorgeous beer garden of the Hamilton Station Hotel on Sunday January 17.

RIDGY-DIDGE FOR KIDGEERIDGE

Kidgeeridge Music Festival, another of the fine boutique events that happens on the South Coast of New South Wales, has revealed a boom Aussie lineup for its April return.

Making the trip to Milton (three hours south of Sydney) next year will be headliners Dan Sultan and Kingswood, joined by a similarly rockin’ program of festival favourites to ensure two great days out. Those names include The Black Sorrows, Pierce Brothers, Adam

recorded over the last year and a bit. As with the last one, it starts with me making messy beats and clunky dance songs at home, with some crooning over the top.

I enlisted Ned Cooke and Luke Bertoz to flesh out the songs in mixing and production. Initially I was going to release a whole album but I didn’t quite feel the ten songs told the story I wanted, so I split it in two, with the second five-tracker (High Summer) coming out early next year.

5.

The Record That Changed My Life I always go back to Since I Left You by The Avalanches. Until that point, I was sold on indie guitar rock, but the first time I saw them live, I knew I needed to be doing electronic dance music as well.

What: Low Summer out now independently

One of the most celebrated folk artists of her generation, Nancy Kerr, will headline the milestone 50th anniversary National Folk Festival next Easter. Over her esteemed career, Kerr has worked on more than 27 folk albums and been awarded six titles by BBC Radio 2, most recently winning the 2015 BBC Folk Singer of the Year prize. Now, the radical folk music mythologist will bring her distinctive narratives of motherhood, love and conflict to Canberra. Joining Kerr in her performance is her life and musical partner James Fagan, known for his playing of the bouzouki. The five-day event in the nation’s capital will feature music from over 200 artists including the likes of The Little Stevies, Ballpoint Penguins and Doctor Stovepipe. Exhibition Park hosts the festival from Thursday March 24 – Monday March 28.

Eckersley Band, Dallas Frasca, Benny Walker, Chasin The Train feat. Kirk Lorange and Kevin Bennett, Chris Wilson and The Cyril B Bunter Band, Paul Greene and The Other Colours, Josh Rawiri and The Invisible Vibrations and Cameron Little. Kidgeeridge Music Festival runs at Milton Showgrounds on Friday April 22 and Saturday April 23.

You Am I

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.

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THE BRAG

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Newtown Social Club Sunday February 28

STURGILL SIMPSON Metro Theatre Tuesday March 22

LORD HURON Oxford Art Factory Wednesday March 23

SHAKEY GRAVES The Basement Thursday March 31

Nancy Kerr

BLUESFEST WON’T QUIT

Just when you thought Bluesfest couldn’t get any bigger, organisers have added a further ten artists to their 2016 bill. Leading the latest announcement is Modest Mouse, following the release of their 2015 album Strangers To Ourselves. Also included are Graham Nash, Kamasi Washington, Richard Clapton, Elle King, Ash Grunwald, Blind Boy Paxton, Dustin Thomas, Wards Xpress and Raw Earth. They join the likes of Brian Wilson, Taj Mahal, D’Angelo, Kendrick Lamar, The National, City And Colour and Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds. Bluesfest 2016 will go down from Thursday March 24 – Monday March 28 at Tyagarah Tea Tree Farm, just north of Byron Bay.

My Tunes, an exciting initiative overseen and hosted by Giant Dwarf, sees a prominent Australian figure invite one of their favourite musicians to play some songs and answer questions about their life and career. 2016’s first My Tunes event promises to be a doozy, with comedian and provocateur Chris Taylor taking to the stage alongside Tim Rogers, You Am I’s beloved frontman. Rogers will speak about his overstuffed back catalogue, before treating the audience to a set of acoustic numbers. Whether you’re a fan of The Chaser, You Am I, or simply intrigued as to what makes a notable musician tick, then the event demands your attention. My Tunes returns on Wednesday January 20.

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MY TUNES: TIM ROGERS

EDITORIAL POLICY: The views and opinions expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the publisher, editors or staff of the BRAG.

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PARTY IN THE PADDOCK –

Shakey Graves photo by Jarred Gastriech

1.

Enmore Theatre Thursday January 7

TIM DERRICOURT FROM SWIMWEAR Turner) – I just love that mix of heartbroken vocals with mid-’80s soul. Such a good record. But I also grabbed Playmates by Jack Ladder. Such a terrific, weird record. There is nothing else like it.

The First Record I Bought My first album I bought was a lucky accident. I was six and in a cassette store. I thought I was buying ‘Hey Jude’ but when I got the tape home it was full of these wild psychedelic guitar noises that was nothing like I’d ever heard before. Turns out I’d grabbed Jimi Hendrix, Live

FOALS

GOOD NEWS, TOOGOOD GET READY FOR THE GUM BALL

Hunter Valley camping festival The Gum Ball has given us the best Christmas present of all: a bumper lineup for its 2016 return. The long-running boutique event will be back at Dashville in April with a bunch of great acts, led by Oz rock icons You Am I, who are backed at the top of the bill by the growling singer-songwriter Dan Sultan. Oh, and the family-friendly festival is BYO. The first round Gum Ball 2016 lineup also features Jeff Lang, The Cactus Channel, Van Walker’s HeartBrokers, Citizen Kay, Dan Brodie, Bullhorn Suzannah Espie, Polish Club, Caitlin Park, Astro Travellers and The Buzzard Mix. The Gum Ball Music and Arts Festival takes over Dashville from Friday April 22 – Sunday April 24.

Shihad fans rejoice: the band’s fascinating frontman, Jon Toogood, has just announced he will be hitting Sydney for an intimate acoustic show in Marrickville. Performing songs from his massive back catalogue, as well as a selection of covers, Toogood is set to entrance and delight as he has done now for over 25 years. The upcoming show seems set to prove exactly why the singer-songwriter has enjoyed so much success for such a long time.

He will play the Factory Floor on Saturday February 6. thebrag.com

W I T H S P E C I A L G U E S T S L A ST D I N O S AU R S

S U N 3 JA N H O R D E R N PAV I L I O N G L I T T E R B U G F T G R E E K T R AG E DY O U T N O W

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T H E W O M B AT S . C O . U K

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WITH SPECIAL GUESTS

THU 7 JAN ENMORE THEATRE WWW.BLOC.PARTY

WITH SPECIAL GUESTS TIRED

LION

SAT 27 FEB METRO THEATRE SPIDERBAIT.COM.AU

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live & local

free stuff

welcome to the frontline: what’s goin’ on around town... with Anita Connors, Chris Martin and Joseph Earp

on the record WITH

HOLY HOLY

BOFOLK BALLICO recordings, photos, anything with memories attached, I usually hold onto. My first recordings are very hard for me to listen to. Which they should be, I guess. I wouldn’t want to listen to myself at age 17 and think that nothing’s changed.

The Last Thing I Recorded 4.

My most recent recording is my

1.

The First Record I Bought I remember it coming in the mail. Though this is before eBay, so I’m not sure how it was purchased.

But it was an Elvis Presley ‘greatest hits’ CD. I’m not sure why my parents bought it, neither of them being massive fans. But Mr. Presley’s been with me in one way or another since I was about six years old. No matter how far I go, I can always return to an Elvis CD, even a movie.

Last Record I Bought I actually think it was The 2. The

Hedonists’ debut album, Terrible Things. They launched their album last month and I grabbed myself a copy after the gig. I know the guys in the band and their music is tops.

3.

The First Thing I Recorded I started playing guitar when I was about 14. I learned about ten chords and then stopped. I’ve mastered those chords but I haven’t learned anything new. I figured out how to write songs without anything else. I’m pretty sentimental. So

upcoming EP release, Top Five Songs. It’s a collection of five original songs with an acoustic accompaniment. Two guitars, a bass, a bucket, a tambourine and a harmonica. The bucket sounds better than you’d think. We rehearsed for over a month and then recorded the songs live at Impromptu Music in Newcastle. All the songs were recorded live, with no room for error. So when you hear a mistake, it’s intentional, for charm. How do I show sarcasm in print?

Record That Changed My Life 5. The

Frank Turner, Jackson Browne, Bob Dylan and Garth Brooks helped me find my voice. I hope those guys are never in the same room together. But my all-time favourite record is In The Aeroplane Over The Sea

by Neutral Milk Hotel. My friend Spencer showed me the album when I was 16. It grew on me.

And I think it may have been my first exposure to music that wasn’t ‘pretty’, an acquired taste. It was mind-blowing to me that someone could sing like Jeff Mangum and it worked! I spent free periods in high school laying on picnic tables listening to the album on repeat.

PARADISE FOUND

Looking for paradise this New Year’s? We’ve found it. Lost Paradise, the festival held just north of Sydney in the Glenworth Valley, is back next week for another three days of musical extravagance. Leading the lineup are Angus & Julia Stone, Jamie xx, Four Tet, Hot Dub Time Machine, Jon Hopkins, The Jungle Giants and Motor City Drum

We’ve got a double pass to give away to the show. To be in the running, head to thebrag.com/freeshit.

Formidable Vegetable Sound System

Get ready to fall for Louise Love during her one-off Sydney show at The Newsagency. Following on from the release of her critically lauded single ‘Get Back’, a trembling tune dedicated to the art of kindness, Love is set to appear on the Marrickville stage in the New Year. The show will also double up as a launch for her new EP Tantric Shuffle, a self-produced affair that combines dreamy electro work with considered, articulate lyrics.

The Newsagency remains one of Sydney’s most intimate venues, so the opportunity to catch Love in such a unique setting should not be turned down. See Love at The Newsagency on Monday February 1.

Ensemble. It’s a pumping program, to be sure, but it’s not all about music alone – to keep up with the paradisiacal theme, the festival also offers glamping, a shambala tent, and a very alluring feast under the stars (tagged “gastronomy amidst astronomy”).

Head to lostparadise.com.au for details, and then head up the coast from Tuesday December 29 – Thursday December 31.

Fuchsia

FORMIDABLE VEGETABLE SOUND SYSTEM

Keep your ears peeled for this one, because you’re sure to want to veg out to the sweet notes of Western Australia’s Formidable Vegetable Sound System in Marrickville this January. With barely enough time to dust off their boots from playing Woodford Folk Festival over New Year’s, the Freemantle-via-Melbourne four-piece are taking the stage again with their ultra unique brand of ‘ecological electroswing’. It promises to be an energetic performance, filled with quirky mashups of speakeasy-style antique beats with live ukulele wonk, hyperactive horns and the principles of permaculture. Formidable Vegetable Sound System play Gasoline Pony on Tuesday January 5.

NEW LIVE MUSIC SPACE OPENS

BACK FROM A DISTANT PLACE

Psych sorcerers Fuchsia are making their return to the Sydney stage this January. It took the world more than three decades to catch up to the band whose unique blend of psych textures and nuanced acoustic work was perhaps too unique for the mainstream rock press of the time. The face-melting rockers, led by Tony Durant, released only one album during their heyday – a self-titled collection of knotty ballads and surreal soundscapes – yet after a 40-year break, they recently dropped Fuchsia II: From Psychedelia To A Distant Place, a strange, striking work that serves as reminder of the band’s many talents. Their upcoming show at Django Bar – the last before they head off on a European festival tour – promises to be special, so save the date for Sunday January 17.

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Timothy Carroll and Oscar Dawson, AKA Holy Holy, are setting up for a big 2016 to follow their mighty impressive 2015. The Brisbane-based Carroll and Melbourne songwriter Dawson have added a true international flavour to their work, with Dawson doing much of his work from Berlin these days, and Carroll collaborating with him both in person and over the internet. At their sold-out London show, even the famously hard-to-impress Liam Gallagher stepped backstage to compliment Holy Holy on the originality of their sound. Their new single ‘A Heroine’ is but the latest taste, and the lads will launch it at Oxford Art Factory on Friday January 15.

What: Top Five Songs out independently on Friday February 12 With: Isaac Graham, Spencer Scott, The Duke Of Erlington Where: Lass O’Gowrie Hotel, Newcastle When: Friday February 12

GOTTA LOVE LOUISE

Louise Love

head to: thebrag.com/freeshit

Sydney music lovers will be happy to hear that a new live music space has been opened in the Inner West, and it’s all thanks to the guys over at Mammoth Merchandise, who are celebrating their tenth birthday. Since its genesis, Mammoth Merchandise has become more than just a T-shirt printer, working with artists such as Michael Bublé, Jack Johnson, A Day To Remember, Bon Iver, Tkay Maidza, Thundamentals, Northlane and Courtney Barnett on various projects. Now the Mammoth Agency headquarters in Marrickville have been given a makeover to function as a live music space. Currently the venue is planned to be used for agency and label showcases, but soon they’ll hopefully be holding EP and album launches and ticketed gigs as well. Mammoth’s Marrickville home is located at at 22-24 Cook Road. For more info, check mammothagency. com.au.

SUMMER SUNDAYS ON THE SEASIDE

An exciting new initiative from the Merivale group of venues is designed to boost Sydney’s live music scene, with almost 40 of Australia’s finest acts playing over 12 separate Sundays.

The Sunday Sundown events will take place

across three different venues: Coogee Pavilion, Ivy Pool Club and The Newport. Acts include soul/psych/R&B rebels Saskwatch, The Preatures performing acoustically, rapper Tkay Maidza and Ben Lee. A perfect mix of music, booze and summer evenings, Sunday Sundown promises to be a fantastic new addition to Sydney’s cultural calendar. The Preatures kick off Sunday Sundown on Sunday January 3 at the Coogee rooftop. A full lineup of dates, acts and locations can be found at sundaysundown. com.au, with the program continuing until Sunday March 20.

HOTTEST 100 IN THE PARK

As the Hottest 100 turns 26 and comes to terms with life in its mid-20s, why not celebrate your Australia Day at Parramatta Park? There will be barbecues (of course) but the party also boasts a killer musical lineup, with dream-pop darlings I Know Leopard and Aussie indie faves The Jungle Giants spinning their tangled web of songs from the stage. Other artists include Polish Club, KLP and up-and-comer World Champion, so if you like your lineups as varied as they come, save the date and get ready for an Australia Day that you can actually look forward to, free of burnt sausages and bogans wearing flags as capes. A full lineup and more information about the day, Tuesday January 26, can be found at ausdayparramatta.com.au. thebrag.com

BRAG :: 644 :: 23:12:15 :: 9

Industrial Strength Music Industry News with Christie Eliezer

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THINGS WE HEAR â&#x20AC;˘ Was a music execâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s â&#x20AC;&#x153;huntingâ&#x20AC;? accident actually a love triangle gone wrong? â&#x20AC;˘ Which enthusiastic photographer got ticked off for taking pictures of kids at a music festival without asking their parents first? â&#x20AC;˘ Will The Beatlesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; music finally hit streaming services this week? â&#x20AC;˘ Did Deadmau5 really do a runner from hospital while recovering from a lymph node infection to play a Miami show? â&#x20AC;˘ Rihanna is still beavering away on her ANTi album, which was supposedly due out this month. Ri asked Sia for four songs. Sia had offered â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Bird Set Freeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; and â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Cheap Thrillsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; to her (and â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Aliveâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; to Adele) but used them elsewhere when they were turned down. â&#x20AC;˘ Cold Chiselâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Last Stand farewell to the Sydney Entertainment Centre/ Qantas Credit Union Arena before 9,000 people, which they finished aptly with

â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Goodbye (Astrid Goodbye)â&#x20AC;&#x2122; also saw them play â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Itaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; for the first time in 32 years.

Jimmy Barnes urged the crowd to have the place â&#x20AC;&#x153;in tatters before Elton gets hereâ&#x20AC;? and a mosher saved himself a trip to the loo by pissing in the moshpit.

Elton John played the next night, telling the crowd heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d played the venue 34 times and dedicated â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Your Songâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; to Sydney. â&#x20AC;˘ A US medical examiner found Scott Weiland died accidentally from a toxic mix of cocaine, alcohol and ecstasy. â&#x20AC;˘ Live music venue the Banksia Hotel in southwestern Sydney was sold by Public House Management Group to Singaporean investors for $13.5 million. â&#x20AC;˘ 10 million Americans tried to buy 750,000 seats for Adeleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s tour there. â&#x20AC;˘ In the latest Australian certifications, Taylor Swiftâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 1989 went diamond (ten times platinum, or 700,000 sales), Adeleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 25 went seven times platinum, Justin Bieberâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

LIVE MUSIC OFFICE LAUNCHES AMPLIFY

The Live Music Office has started a new pilot program called AMPLIFY, through which the City Of Sydney, Leichhardt and Marrickville councils will support new and existing live music spaces and encourage more gigs in the inner city. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a step to support venues and provide more places where people can go to enjoy live music,â&#x20AC;? Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore said. Also involved in the pilot are APRA AMCOS and MusicNSW. Live music expert Clayton Ries has been appointed to liaise with local businesses and operators of community spaces to point out the benefits of hosting gigs. Contact him at lmpc@ livemusicoffice.com.au.

SYDNEY SONGWRITERS LIVE IN NEWTOWN, ENMORE

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The Newtown/Enmore area is where most of APRAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s highest-paid Sydney songwriters live, followed by Bondi. Newtown/Enmore ranked third nationally in the second APRA Top 30 Postcodes Rankings after Brunswick and Northcote in Melbourne. Bondi ranked sixth, Marrickville eighth and Surry Hills/ Darlinghurst ninth. In terms of genre, Surry Hills/Darlinghurst was ranked top nationally for electronica and dance/techno, third for pop/ rock and alt-rock, and sixth for blues/rock.

Bondi was the top national suburb for urban songwriters.

BREAKING RECORDS

Adeleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 25 has become the fastest twomillion-selling album in UK chart history, hitting the milestone in 29 days. Meanwhile, Norwegian DJ/producer Kygo has become the fastest artist of all time to reach one billion plays on Spotify. He achieved the figure in 12 months after the release of his debut single â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Firestoneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, and has 14 million monthly listeners. And MTV has received the biggest social vote Twitter has ever seen, after counting over 1 billion votes globally for its end-of-year music feature #MTVStars.

DIAMOND VIP PRIZE FOR BOOMERANG CROWDFUNDING

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A few weeks ago we reported a crowdfunding campaign for the Boomerang festival, aiming to take place at Byron Bayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Bluesfest site in 2016 (igg.me/at/boomerangfestival). Among the rewards available for donations are two $7,000 Diamond Visitorsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Packs, for two people each. They include five-day VIP Bluesfest tickets, return flights from your capital city by Virgin Australia, six nightsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; accommodation at The Byron @ Byron Resort, champagne breakfast at Harvest CafĂŠâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Newrybar, a dining experience at the Farm with chef Clayton Donovan, a private grass weaving workshop with Rhoda Roberts, a walk of the country with Arakwal custodians, a backstage tour of Bluesfest and an induction for life into the First Friends of Boomerang.

WANNA WORK AT MUSICNSW?

MusicNSW has a new gig starting in February for an executive producer with a passion

Under The Mistletoe earned its first platinum and The 12th Manâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s The Very Best Of Richie went gold. Of singles, Adeleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Helloâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; turned four times platinum, Macklemore & Ryan Lewisâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Downtownâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; triple platinum, while Rudimentalâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Lay It All On Meâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; and Shawn Mendesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Stitchesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; got their first.

Conrad Sewellâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Who You Lovinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; has gone gold. â&#x20AC;˘ Australiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mostwatched music videos on YouTube in 2015 were Wiz Khalifaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;See You Againâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, followed by Taylor Swiftâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Bad Bloodâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; and Maroon 5â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Sugarâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;. â&#x20AC;˘ AC/DCâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s show at Western Springs Stadium in Auckland before 30,000 people received 27 noise complaints. It was registered at 103 decibels and could be heard six kilometres away. â&#x20AC;˘ Byron Bay band Valhalla Lights have found a new way to release an album.

From January, its 13 tracks will be issued one per month, with two in December.

for contemporary music programming, a broad knowledge of the New South Wales music industry and experience in project and event management. The role oversees the creative development, management and implementation of all MusicNSW workshops, masterclasses, the Indent Tour, Feedback at VIVID Ideas and new projects for 2016. The deadline for applications is Friday January 15.

Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;BRIEN LAUNCHES WHAT A VIBE MANAGEMENT

One-time Soundwave general manager Chris Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Brien has started his own management company, What A Vibe, with Melbourne band Storm The Sky the first signing. The band is already signed for record issues to UNFD. Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Brien can be contacted at chris@ whatavibemanagement.com.au.

SOUNDWAVE DRAMAS REFLECT IN NZ

The crumbling of Soundwave has caused a problem for folks across the Tasman. Westfest Festival, set to be held in NZ on Saturday January 30 and which has shared bills with Soundwave, is â&#x20AC;&#x153;waiting to hear from bandsâ&#x20AC;? before deciding whether to proceed. Late last week, while Soundwave promoter AJ Maddah and the ticket agency Eventopia were handballing who was responsible for refunds, liquidators of the cancelled NZ festival Echo were poking around to see if they could claw back advance monies paid to acts like Disclosure, Jamie xx, The Flaming Lips and Kurt Vile to refund to fans.

Only 50,000 tickets seemed to have shifted for Soundwave 2016, compared to the near 250,000 in 2013 when Metallica, Linkin Park and Blink-182 headlined. Meanwhile, more figures have emerged of Soundwaveâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s debts.

Already, pro audio magazine CX revealed that a Deloitte audit report indicated Soundwave owed $25.8 million to 186 creditors following the collapse of its previous operating company World Stages (which was forced into liquidation in July), while the Australian Taxation Office and Office of State Revenue have claims of $6 million because artist fees were recorded as wages instead of contractor payments. ASIC figures showed that acts still to be paid from past festivals included Soundgarden (owed $2.1 million), Slipknot ($1.6 million), The Smashing Pumpkins ($1.26 million), Marilyn Manson ($588,000), Incubus ($571,000), Slash ($484,000), Judas Priest ($349,000) and Millencolin ($91,000).

BYRONâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S FALLS AND SPLENDOUR INJECT $107M

In its annual performance report, North Byron Parklands stated that its two major festivals, Falls and Splendour In The Grass, generated over $107 million for the economy, $28.1 million (26 per cent) of that for Byron Shire.

This year they also created 196 equivalent full-time jobs, representing 1.79 per cent of Byron Shireâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s workforce. The report said the festivals made no â&#x20AC;&#x153;serious impactâ&#x20AC;? on

Lifelines Expecting: Kate Miller-Heidke and husband/guitarist Keir Nuttall, their first, in May. Expecting: rapper Fetty Wap and reality TV star girlfriend Masika Kalysha.

Expecting: Ian â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Hâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Watkins from Steps and partner Craig Ryder, twins.

Split: Ruby Rose and Phoebe Dahl after two years, due to the stress of a long-distance engagement.

Ill: Poisonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Rikki Rockett will find out next month if his treatment for tongue cancer has proved successful.

Hospitalised: Frenzal Rhomb guitarist Lindsay McDougall for emergency eye surgery.

Injured: after forcing Slaves to reschedule UK dates when he dislocated a shoulder, Isaac Holman dislocated the other one on their first show back while dancing to their intro song.

Sued: MĂśtley CrĂźeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Vince Neil by an investor in his Las Vegas Outlaws Arena Football League, who said he put in US$500,000 from advice given on its finances, only for it to collapse a year later.

In Court: The Cranberriesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; singer Dolores Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Riordan pleaded guilty to assaulting an air hostess on a flight from New York to Ireland, and then three cops who met her after the flight, screaming, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re not going to arrest me. I am an icon.

Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m the Queen of Limerick, I pay my taxes, I pay your wages.â&#x20AC;?

Arrested: Azealia Banks for allegedly spitting on a bouncerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s face and biting her breast after being thrown out of an invite-only party in a New York club.

Died: underground New York guitarist/TV composer Adam Roth, 57, cancer. He worked with Denis Leary, Matt Dillon, ChloĂŤ Sevigny and Natasha Lyonne.

Died: various Northern Rivers musos played the memorial for Brunswick Heads artist Tony Llord, who had a stroke while swimming in the Brunswick River.

flora and fauna, with 3,725 trees, shrubs and seedlings planted in new areas and the Yelgun Creek restoration program completed.

But the Parklands said it was working with authorities to resolve noise issues after complaints (the site has since been fined) and traffic management. Under the current five-year trial (which itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s halfway through), the site can hold ten days of events per year until December 31, 2017 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; one for up to 25,000 people, one for up to 15,000 and one for 10,000. Splendour and Falls take four days each. A third event to be staged at the Parklands has not been announced.

RDIO GOES DARK

After being acquired by internet radio giant Pandora for US$75 million, Rdio closed up on Tuesday December 22. For those who like trivia, its first listener signed up on August 3, 2010 with the first song played being Katy Perryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;California Gurlsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; (feat. Snoop Dogg).

Rdioâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most played song was Bruno Marsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;When I Was Your Manâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, and its most played album was Drakeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Nothing Was The Same.

At one point, Rdio was the biggest grossing music app in Australia and New Zealand.

JULIA JACKLIN SIGNS MANAGEMENT

The Sydney-based and Blue Mountains-raised singer-songwriter Julia Jacklin has signed management to Melbourneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Heartstop Music.

Sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s putting the final touches on her debut album, due mid-2016, and recorded in New Zealand with producer Ben Edwards. Her 2014 EP featured the single â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Santafelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, which earned triple j and FBi attention. Jacklin and her band play Brighton Up Bar on Monday January 18. thebrag.com

BRAG :: 644 :: 23:12:15 :: 11

BRAG SPECIAL

SYDNEY FESTIVAL 7-26 JAN Sydney Festival is celebrating its 40th year in 2016, and its cultural footprint across the city and the country has never been larger. A litany of music, theatre, dance, opera, circus, cabaret, installations and family events will run over 20 packed-out days in January, and for the first time, the festival is expanding to take over the Barangaroo precinct – itself one of the newest additions to the streetscape of Australia’s most active metro.

SYDNEY FESTIVAL 2016 7-26 JAN

While Barangaroo will play host – alongside Darling Harbour – to perhaps the most visible installation art at the 2016 festival, with enormous cardboard architecture being erected by children and adults under the supervision of French artist Olivier Grossetête, the Festival Village is back in Hyde Park as well. Be sure to drop by both

The Famous Spiegeltent and the Magic Mirrors Spiegeltent for some of the best acts on the bill.

Meanwhile, venues around Parramatta will provide a Western Sydney centre for the program, and Granville Town Hall will be home to The Events, a collaborative effort by Belvoir St Theatre, Malthouse Theatre Company and the State Theatre Company of South Australia.

And it wouldn’t be Sydney Festival without some enormous free outdoor shows. The highlight this time around has to be the Summer Sounds In The Domain concert on Saturday January 9, headlined by psychedelic pop masters The Flaming Lips.

We could go on forever about the top picks on the sprawling Sydney Festival 2016 program, but nobody tells it better than the artists themselves. So read on for interviews with some of the biggest names helping celebrate the 40th anniversary of our favourite summer arts and culture festival – and then head to sydneyfestival.org.au to see the full program for yourself. Happy Sydney Festival!

MEOW MEOW’S LITTLE MERMAID <CABARET

to be normal. I think it’s all costume, it’s all pretend. So there’s a freedom in living in a heightened way both on and offstage. It’s very honest, I think.

“I like the profile pieces where you need to be reintegrated afterwards, because the world there is so dark. At the end of Shakespeare there’s often a dance or celebration to bring the audience some catharsis. Something that brings them out in some ritualistic way, that you show or emote for them yourself. You take them with you. The ‘If we have offended…’ speech. There’s something that features through the history of theatre and performance – you want to have taken people on this journey, you want them to be thinking and feeling, but you also don’t want to send them out so disorientated or broken that they can’t engage. The whole idea is to be able to go out again with new strength into the viciousness of the world. I really do think that’s the artist’s job. However light or deep it is, that’s what you want to do.”

Little Mermaid comes with some notable expectations. In addition to Meow Meow’s usual verve and stagecraft is the knowledge that Meow Meow’s Little Match Girl (which began the trilogy that Mermaid continues) won three Helpmann Awards, including Best Cabaret Performer for Meow Meow herself.

It promises to be a rare, dark and enthralling delight, based at least in part on real-world observations and experiences.

“I think you always bring that on,” she says.

“It doesn’t mean you have to physically experience something to perform it. I think across all of my work, that comes out in my songwriting and in the topics I’m interested in. With The Little Match Girl, I was very influenced by a documentary I saw of Oasis, the Salvation Army sanctuary in Sydney for homeless kids. That really influenced a lot of what I was writing. Similarly, I’m feeling very affected by what I’m seeing in the world right now when I think of The Little Mermaid story. You can’t help it. In my offstage life I’ve had a lot of grief in the last few years, and it changes you, of course. As much as I’m super heightened onstage, it’s a super honest performance, and I think you still need to keep it based in craft. You can’t make it all into therapy, to be indulgent in that way.

GREAT EXPECTATIONS BY ADAM NORRIS

I

“Oh, I wish I could give you a quick answer to that, but because it’s an ironic treatment of these vices it actually subverts your expectations of what those vices are,” Meow

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Meow explains as she flings herself into an Uber. “And it’s pretty bleak, I have to say; there’s no pleasure to be had. From the start of the journey, these sisters are prostituting themselves to survive, basically. It’s the capitalist dream. So it’s not a joyous exploration of the sins. It’s a journey that just goes deeper and deeper, and I forget while I’m performing – because I love it so much, and love Kurt Weill’s music – that it is such an intense and political piece. They’re quite intense to perform, because the world vision is so brutal.

Meow Meow has become somewhat synonymous (sin-ominous, perhaps?) with debauched and damaged characters. Damaged not in the sense of being fatally flawed or deranged, but in that there is some shard of their personality that needs redemption or reassurance; something gregarious yet troubled. Though she’s naturally quite a flamboyant figure, you can’t help but ponder her difficulty in slipping into the skin of such creations, and of course, sliding back into her everyday life once the curtain has closed.

“I guess when I’m approaching The Little Mermaid, I’m trying to slip between brutality and sensuality. They’re good ways of getting into people’s hearts. So I couldn’t say I have a favourite sin. I’m just awash with them.”

“I never really step out of my performing skin, I suppose. I think we all perform all the time, and I’m perhaps just more honest about it,” she laughs. “I like performing in that more heightened way, because you’re not pretending

“I’m always trying to provide simultaneous assault of the serious, the light, the beauty, the destruction. And you can’t always guarantee what the audience will perceive as beautiful or ruinous. It’s a juggle. You’re trying to solve the problems of the world in 70 minutes, and you have to come in with grandiose expectations, because what’s the point otherwise? It’s ridiculous, and you’re aware of your ridiculousness. But if you’re not invested, then it is an indulgence. Music is the key all the time, I think. That’s the healing balm.”

What: Meow Meow’s Little Mermaid Where: Magic Mirrors Spiegeltent When: Wednesday January 6 – Saturday January 23

thebrag.com

Meow Meow photo by Karl Giant

t’s quite a splendid affair chatting with cabaret chanteuse Meow Meow. Hers is a seductive wit, and her banter bubbly (with just a touch of decadence). When I speak to the worldtouring artist she is en route to an early-morning rehearsal in preparation for Meow Meow’s Little Mermaid at Sydney Festival, having recently wrapped a long performance run in Boston and now neck-deep in Seven Deadly Sins for the Victorian Opera. It seems there’s rarely a dull moment for Meow Meow, though despite her current proximity to vice, establishing her own favourite sin is no simple task.

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BRAG SPECIAL

SYDNEY FESTIVAL 7-26 JAN < MUSIC

GIRLPOOL IT’S A SMALL WORLD AFTER ALL

BY DAVID JAMES YOUNG

S

ometimes, the medium of interviewing allows one to see a different side of a subject, occasionally contradicting either a public persona or what the subject is best known for. People who play bright, sunny music can sometimes be unfriendly or curt. People who play loud, aggressive music, conversely, can be some of the politest and most considerate folk you’re likely to encounter. What, then, of those who make simple, sweet and yearning music – for instance, Girlpool; the Los Angeles-based two-piece who became one of the indie world’s most talked-about acts of 2015? Truth be told, they’re an accurate refl ection of their music – simple, sweet, yearning, but also a little shy and almost reluctant to let too much on.

Although Girlpool only formed in 2013, their two members – each of whom are scarcely out of their teens – expressed great interest in making music from a very early age. “I played guitar for the first time when I was seven,” says Cleo Tucker.

“I knew from that point on that I had found something that was going to be a huge part of my life. I never wanted to do anything else. Playing music and writing words for it was all that interested me.”

THE CHILLS

< MUSIC

SHOT UP WITH SILVER BY AUGUSTUS WELBY

I

n folk tales, silver bullets are the only weapons capable of combating werewolves and other such sinister creatures. For New Zealand band The Chills, it took a silver bullet to end a near 20-year dearth of recorded material. The band’s fifth album, Silver Bullets, arrived in late October – the long-awaited follow-up to 1996’s Sunburnt (which was credited to Martin Phillipps and The Chills).

practice. “I actually just did what I normally do, which is write the songs and not try and calculate how people will respond to it,” he says.

“But it’s kind of opened the way for the next album. I do intend to push the boundaries a bit more about what my music and Chills music can be. There’s so much that’s gone on in music, and I would like to just do a bit more experimenting with what we can actually do as well.”

The Chills have never been the biggest band in the world, but they were key contributors to the iconic Dunedin Sound of the 1980s. The influence of the Dunedin Sound has rubbed off on such contemporary indie rock linchpins as Real Estate, Twerps and Blank Realm. As a result, plenty of listeners are only just discovering The Chills. The band’s leader and sole remaining original member, Phillipps was aware of this when working on Silver Bullets.

The Chills’ catalogue dates back over 30 years, and there’s a lot of reverence surrounding their output between 1984 and 1992.

When working on material for the new album, Phillipps wasn’t distracted by his earlier songwriting achievements.

“It fits with the old Chills stuff, but at the same time it sounds like it was recorded now, not back in the ’80s,” he says. “And that seems to have worked. This is a really good album to play to show younger people what we do that doesn’t sound like it was recorded on four-track back in the ’80s.”

“Once you’ve done a song or a certain style, you’ve covered that ground, so it makes it harder to come up with something that you really do want to say or a musical direction that you want to follow that you haven’t already done. But that wasn’t really a problem with Silver Bullets, because there are a handful of riffs that have been kicking around for a long time. The bulk of the record was completed in about a year once we had the go-ahead to do the recording.

While the improved recording scenario gives the album a more accessible sonic quality, Phillipps didn’t greatly alter his songwriting

“Pretty much all the lyrics that had been tried over the years got chucked out and it was mostly all new lyrics,” he adds. “So it really did

reflect what I’m thinking about now as opposed to worrying too much about the old stuff.”

Silver Bullets is one of the loveliest sounding releases of 2015, replete with deceptively simply chord progressions, weaving guitar melodies, crisp-sounding guitars and keyboards, and a reassuring vocal delivery. Lyrically, however, it’s not blasé or carefree. A number of songs address fairly solemn themes – the title track is a statement of strength against adversity, while ‘Pyramid/ When The Poor Can Reach The Moon’ is an account of inequality and associated ignorance. A similar compositional juxtaposition has typified much of the band’s career output.

“It’s something I’ve always done, right back to [1986 single] ‘I Love My Leather Jacket’,” Phillipps says.

“That’s about the death of our drummer from leukaemia, but I didn’t want to make a sombre song about it, so I stuck that lyric with a very rock kind of riff. And I’m still doing things like that – trying to find, if not opposites, then things that shouldn’t go together but do go together and create a third sensation or atmosphere.”

What: Silver Bullets out now through Fire Where: Magic Mirrors Spiegeltent When: Wednesday January 13

“My dad was a bass player,” adds Harmony Tividad, the band’s bassist who shares vocal duties with Tucker. “When he realised I was interested in playing music, he showed me how to play and really encouraged me. I sang in choir all through school and I got my first guitar when I was 13. I had piano lessons, too, but they never really stuck when I was a kid.”

Girlpool’s debut album, Before The World Was Big, was released back in June. Coming in at only 24 minutes long, it’s an album that makes great use of its time, fi lling its running length with inventive lyricism and warm, layered vocals atop of lush, intertwining guitars. For a band still in relative infancy – and that’s ignoring Tucker and Tividad’s actual ages – there is a considerable degree of certainty regarding the Girlpool sound already. This, according to Tividad, was an equal and opposite reaction to their rushed – almost gratuitous – first release.

“The start of Girlpool is kind of interesting,” she says. “The first EP that we put out [2014’s Girlpool] was kind of rushed – it was strung together really quickly within two months. We just wanted something to sell at shows, because we’d just started touring. When it came to the first song we wrote for Before The World Was Big, which ended up being ‘Ideal World’ … we actually decided to sit down and properly explore what our sound could be. We had a lot of lengthy conversations about it, and then [aimed to] see how we could refl ect our love of melody and countermelodies in both the music that we were playing and the harmonies that we were singing. There’s been a real change in the way that we make music together, and I think this album refl ects that.”

Everything you hear on Before The World Was Big was performed by Girlpool themselves. They have no studio or session musicians, they have no backing band and they don’t even use a drummer. It’s this stripped-back and almost primitive approach to making music that has fascinated audiences across the world – including Australia, where the band will soon visit for the first time ever. Although some publications have made quite a point of their minimal set-up, Tucker and Tividad insist they were never interested in any outside interference.

“It was a really organic collaboration,” says Tucker. “I think we were drawn to one another purely because we could both see that we really felt passionate and serious about making things, even though we were young. We both believed in the fl uidity of creativity, so I think we were attracted to that in one another.

It’s blossomed into this partnership, which has become really revealing and eye-opening for us.”

Before The World Was Big received some of the most positive critical receptions of the year, with a lot of kudos being awarded for the rapid growth and development of Tucker and Tividad as songwriters and as vocalists. As far as that side of things is concerned, however, the duo have not read a great deal into it – both as a fi gure of speech and quite literally.

Instead, Girlpool have focused on a bigger picture, which is everyday people directly expressing what their music means to them – something that neither member takes for granted.

“It’s funny – I don’t think that I could feel any less detached from the public perception of our music,” confesses Tividad.

“It’s hard to fully understand from the outside. From where we stand, it’s so hard to tell. It feels really nice that people enjoy it and connect with it, but we only really fi nd out about things like that when people come up to us at shows and tell us things like that.

What: Before The World Was Big out now through Wichita/ [PIAS] Where: The Famous Spiegeltent When: Tuesday January 26

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thebrag.com

The Chills photo by Jon Thom

“We’ve had a lot of great stories and nice things said directly to us, and they’re always so thankful – I mean, so are we, of course. We had no expectations when we were writing these songs. We were writing with an end goal of catharsis. We just wanted something out there in the world that we were proud of and meant something to us.”

BRAG SPECIAL

SYDNEY FESTIVAL 7-26 JAN < STORYTELLING

40 WAYS TO LOVE YOUR CITY THE SYDNEY HE’S SEEN BY DAVID JAMES YOUNG

W

arren Fahey has one of the most varied job descriptions you can imagine. Author, broadcaster, songwriter, artist, folklore collector and “recycling unit”, music publisher, roustabout. It ensures he never runs out of conversation topics at dinner parties, but more pertinently, it has seen him amble across the great sweep of Australia for over 50 years amassing a wealth of the stories that shape who we are.

Warren Fahey

Fahey is returning to Sydney Festival with 40 Ways To Love Your City, having featured at the festival’s debut 40 years ago. It’s a little like coming home, though after all this time, no-one is still really sure what to call him.

“People kept trying to put a tag on me,” Fahey explains with a wry chuckle.

“I really must confuse the immigration department, every time I came in and out of the country. They look at me, and sometimes I’ll say I’m a cultural historian, because that encompasses the ‘thing’ I do in history, music, performance – all my projects I do under the banner of ‘cultural historian’, but it’s evolved. I’ve been doing this for 50-odd years nearly, and I do have a unique situation. Largely because I work for myself, I tended to knock doors down rather than knock politely, and that’s the only way you survive.”

You suspect a folklorist would have an appreciation for Australian character like few others, be that the classic larrikin Aussie, the bushranger, the shearer, the sportsperson. With the Cronulla riots decennial having recently passed – and with the dire rhetoric many media sources are now pushing – Fahey has found himself as a particularly vital witness.

With such blunt patriotism at large, such discrimination, fear and apathy mixed in with the decent and hopeful, you can’t help but ponder the path Australia is travelling.

“I think Australia is growing up,” Fahey says. “I also think we have a lot of hiccups in the road. I’m old enough to have seen the migration waves after World War II, and saw Maltese kids and Italians coming to our schools, and I learned very quickly that if I swapped my peanut butter and lettuce sandwiches with their cheese and salami, I got the best deal. I believe that multicultural Australia is a reality, it’s who we are.

But my job is to tap people on the shoulder and remind them of the great debt that we all owe – doesn’t matter if your family came out on the First Fleet or on a leaky boat last week – to remind them of the nuts and bolts of how this country grew up. A lot of that was our

survival against the odds living on the land in the 19th century. Most Australians lived in the bush then, and it contributed to who we are, to our language, to our slanguage, how we dressed, our sense of humour.

“Really, we live in a changing world that’s unfortunately very affected by a very dumbed-down media in most cases. As a small nation, we have to be quite diligent in remembering we’re not just a state of America or part of the UN. We have ties to all these countries, Asia in particular. But we have a very unique culture.

And sure, it’s going to change. Sure, it has to reflect our multiculturalism.

But we have to save all those things that make us individual, especially things like our humour. You can lose it when there’s a ratbag or extreme element. I think anything extreme is going to be dangerous.”

Fahey’s three Sydney Festival appearances will necessarily cover a wide range of suburbs and ethnicities, as he endeavours to identify just who and what comprises the Harbour City. From littleknown tidbits of the festival itself, to the more esoteric aspects of Sydney’s history, Fahey hopes to entertain as much as he might educate.

“They realised I was there at the very first Sydney Festival in 1977, and had put on a series of concerts.

So here am I, in 2016, as a bookend for 40 years.

I talk about Hashfield, Vietnamatta, Parra-doesn’tmatta, the North Snore,

all those things. I’m going to take a bit of the piss, because we enjoy it, but also because it gives us a level playing field. We’re all different, we’re all the same.

We’re all Sydneysiders.”

Fahey remains, as ever, entirely optimistic about where our sunburnt country is heading. If we are indeed moving to calmer waters, it is in no small way thanks to people like Fahey, reminding us of the labyrinth narrative of our past.

“Folklore is a device that we use to signify our individuality as a community and as a nation. I keep coming back to humour, because I’m a great believer that you can throw all the facts and figures in the world at somebody, but if you can make them laugh and understand why we’re different, you can achieve quite a lot. Take for example the Asian immigration into Australia. There are so many stories about that, a lot of it’s not very pretty, but these days we know the Asian percentage of our population has been a terrific contributor to who we are as Australia today.

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“But those stories, even the ugly ones, have to stand side by side with the success stories. One of my jobs is to make people think a little bit more about who we are, where we come from and where we’re going.”

Where: The Famous Spiegeltent When: Saturday January 23 and Sunday January 24

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<[MUSIC/THEATRE]

BRAG SPECIAL

SYDNEY FESTIVAL 7-26 JAN

KATE MILLER-HEIDKE THE FESTIVAL ALL-ROUNDER BY ADAM NORRIS

K

ate Miller-Heidke really needs no introduction. Born fully grown in 1981 in a small, selfsustaining creche on the moon, K-Dawg (as she insists people call her) first came to Earth to enchant listeners in 2000, when folk were too busy worrying about Y2K to feel particularly concerned about some otherworldly voice winning fans and stealing babies. The clue was in the title of her first band, Elsewhere, but despite her astral origins K-Dawg quickly found herself a dab hand at classical performance and pop music alike. With her hooks in three different Sydney Festival events for 2016, it seems a pertinent time to see if she plans to use her telekinetic powers for good or evil, and why Woodford Folk Festival is her spiritual home.

At the forefront of her Sydney Festival features is The Rabbits, a Helpmannwinning opera based on the John Marsden book, illustrated by Shaun Tan. It seems an interesting shift for Miller-Heidke – while no stranger to collaboration, her preparation for this was a process like no other.

“It was radically different. The biggest thing was that I was writing for other

“Early on, John got a blanket green light from Shaun Tan and John Marsden, so I was quite nervous when the two of them came to see the show in Melbourne, nervous that they might hate it. But they both seemed to love it. In fact, John Marsden came back twice, the second time with his entire school, since he’s a principal just outside Melbourne. The stage show of course is necessarily hugely different from the book, but they were both very lovely.”

Miller-Heidke’s other Sydney Festival contributions include a song in Meow Meow’s Little Mermaid, and the digital song cycle The Book Of Sand, composed by Michel van der Aa after the writing of Jorge Luis Borges. The latter endeavour, online now, is a curious project, composed so that no two witnesses will share the same experience. You suspect the Argentinian philosopher/fabulist Borges would be proud.

“Often with songwriting you do try to

access a level of the subconscious, express something that’s just beyond words, beyond the prosaic,” says Miller-Heidke. “That’s what’s magical and special about it. In The Book Of Sand, what you’re describing applies quite literally because it’s a choose-your-own-adventure story.

Each listener/observer can flick between three layers, so no two people will experience the story in the same way. As an artist, I generally am quite literal and I like to be clear. Michel has a completely different approach, which is why it was so interesting working with him.

His music is much more up to the listener – he doesn’t pander at all.

It’s very much where the listener has to come and meet him halfway.”

Miller-Heidke is clearly not one to shy from new challenges and creative forms, and although she still engages with her past material whenever she is onstage – be it

<MUSIC

anti-bullying anthem ‘Caught In The Crowd’ or the haunting ‘Sarah’ – she is also not one to rest on her moon laurels.

“I definitely don’t move in a state when I’m so excited about my old work, not at all. I don’t really think about those songs until I have to be performing or rehearsing them, occasionally reinventing them in some way. With The Rabbits, it’s such a large-scale thing that it was a huge breath of relief to get more than one season, for a start. In our case, we got to have four or five months away from it, working on other things, but all the time it was there mulling away, basically thinking how to make it better. So we ended up cutting it quite radically, and I also wrote two pieces for the Melbourne season.

“I think with my own stuff, I tend to overthink it sometimes. With this, I really found it one of the freest

creative processes that I’ve ever felt.

My brain wasn’t directly involved, I didn’t have to worry what people were going to think if this came from my lips. It was such a different experience. My default position is dissatisfaction, so that’s probably what drives me as well. I’m just grateful that I still feel super busy and challenged, stimulated, and hopefully three years from now my life will still look similar.”

What: The Rabbits Where: Roslyn Packer Theatre When: Thursday January 14 – Sunday January 24 And: Also appearing as part of Meow Meow’s Little Mermaid, Magic Mirrors Spiegeltent, Wednesday January 6 – Saturday January 23 More: Download The Book Of Sand at sydneyfestival.org.au.

DIRTY THREE A SOUNDTRACK TO THE MIND BY AUGUSTUS WELBY attacks here, but there’s a different resonance about them,” says Ellis.

“I got asked to do some for an AIDS charity – Jean Paul Gaultier has this foundation to raise money for research. I went and played a couple of songs with Marianne Faithfull and a ballet dancer, and when you go to a concert there’s a different feeling there now in the audience and onstage. It feels more important to perform and to keep making music and to keep living a normal life.”

This realisation bodes well for Dirty Three’s imminent return to the live stage after a three-year absence.

Ellis, guitarist Mick Turner and drummer Jim White released their eighth album Toward The Low Sun in February 2012, and toured steadily for the duration of that year. In the succeeding years, Ellis has been exceedingly busy with Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, releasing Push The Sky Away in early 2013 before spending a couple of years on tour.

A

t its best, the Dirty Three live show is capable of disrupting the flow of time and taking listeners on a trip through emotional imperfection, culminating in physical liberation. A key feature of the band’s performances is the banter of violinist and de facto spokesperson Warren Ellis. He’s a captivating orator, offering rambling assessments of everything from politics and drug use to titans of popular culture.

When he’s not traversing the globe with Dirty Three or Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, Ellis resides in Paris with his wife and two children, and has done so since the late ’90s. The French capital has been the centre of global attention and sympathy over the last few weeks, following a series

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of coordinated terrorist attacks on November 13 that killed 130 people.

“This year’s been very strange in general, starting with the Charlie Hebdo events in January,” says Ellis.

“Just all around the world, it seems to have been a very strange year.

But the events of November 13 have been very sad and very tragic. Very strange times.”

At the risk of being pessimistic, the future’s not looking much brighter. The vulnerability exposed by such horrifying events tends to catalyse a surge in extreme political conservatism.

“The elections here – they just had the preliminaries and it’s looking

really grim,” Ellis says of the initial support for France’s anti-immigrant National Front party, which has since subsided. “Unfortunately, it feels like it’s just the beginning of things, really.

It seems like we’re just entering into a very sad and strange time at the moment.

“When this sort of thing happens within the city that you live, things change, and that’s what it’s meant to do. It’s interesting – I really want to be here. It’s not entered my mind to leave. I just think, ‘Fuck ’em. Fuck that.’”

Indeed, it’s essential to keep conducting life in a positive manner and demonstrating progressive ideas. “I’ve done a concert since the

“[Dirty Three] has always been a story that’s unfolded as it’s moved on,” he says. “The three of us have all been involved in other things – I’ve been doing The Bad Seeds for 20 years now and soundtrack stuff with Nick for 15 years. We always thought it was in everybody’s interest that it wasn’t a monogamous kind of relationship, in terms of the musicality of the whole thing and the narrative of us as individuals. We’re fortunate that we’re doing different things. When we do a record, there’s never really a dialogue of what’s next.”

While making the most of family time, during the past 12 months Ellis has busied himself with film soundtracks. In the past, he and Cave have composed scores for The Proposition, The Assassination Of

Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford, The Road, Lawless, West Of Memphis and Far From Men. Most recently, Ellis worked solo on the soundtrack for the French-Turkish production Mustang.

Ellis and Cave are both responsible for birthing a unique artistic niche, and with this in mind, working at the behest of film directors could well be a creatively suffocating experience. However, Ellis relishes the opportunity.

“I like that about films, that there are people telling you they don’t like what you do, whereas when you’re in a band it’s very self-satisfying.

Because I’d come in from a band world, it was a slight worry that I’d have to give up my freedom – and in many ways, it made me actually discover a new sense of freedom, because you have to actually throw out ideas that you might really want to hold onto and then you have to start again. You’re forced to take a lot more risks.”

Along with a slew of wonderful film scores, Ellis’ experiences in the world of cinema have positively aided his work with the Dirty Three and The Bad Seeds. “Sitting down to do a film, I’ll make like 40 demos of ideas. In a band, you sit down and do a dozen or something like that. It opened up an approach, particularly with some of the Grinderman stuff and The Bad Seeds’ later stuff, where we worked more in that way of making a lot of ideas and then picking the least obvious ones. It’s just about trying to find a new way to stay in the same game.”

With: Mirel Wagner Where: State Theatre When: Friday January 15 thebrag.com

Kate Miller Heidke in The Rabbits: photo by John Green

“It’s been my ritual to go to Woodford every two years, I’m always pretty greedy about it,” Miller-Heidke sighs.

“I’m going to go to the festival for a couple of days just as a punter this year, but I don’t want to outstay my welcome. I’ll try to mix things up a bit. There’s something really magical about Woodford. For me, it’s the only real ritual in my life, so it’s important for me that I only play every two years. But I’ll definitely be going.”

people to sing, for other voices and characters, so to get inside the brain of a character through music was such a liberating and new experience for me – to tell a story, rather than just endless lyrics about my own tedious feelings,” she laughs. “All of that was a very different process – it was way more collaborative than anything I’ve ever done before. A lot of the creative development happened in a room with Lally Katz, this incredible playwright, and John Sheedy our director, Iain Grandage our musical director. It was very much being a small cog in a larger organism.

Metz There’s No Right Way By James Di Fabrizio

M

etz frontman Alex Edkins is the first to admit his band never expected the outpouring of critical acclaim and subsequent success that followed its thunderous self-titled debut. With that in mind, the Canadians’ humbly titled follow-up, II, isn’t designed to reinvent the sludge-encrusted wheel the three-piece has become known for. There is no big-name producer on the credits, and no half-hearted attempt at a radio-friendly single. If anything, Metz’s second release is even more gloriously messy than their debut. Ultimately, these are musicians chasing a sound that feels right to them – and refusing to compromise in the process.

Metz photo by David Waldman

“I think it was just important to us to stay true to why we do this at all,” says Edkins. “We tried to make something that the three of us would like, and not think about what’s going to sell more copies. That’s really all it was. It was us wanting to almost put blinders on, and not think about the fact that all of a sudden we had quite a bigger audience because of the reaction to the first record.”

As well as blocking out any external pressures that may have been lingering in the rehearsal room, Metz put themselves under a selfimposed songwriting exile over a six-month period, forcing them to take a break from their notoriously hectic touring schedule. The results are manifested in a record that is even more breathtakingly concussive and cohesive than the last. “[We were] going in and working on songs that were better structured than we’d ever done before,” reflects Edkins. “That was a new process.

Before it was always jamming and

jamming, whittling down the songs and arranging them that way. This was different. I think it had its definite pros. There’s a little more melody in there.”

Like a punch to the gut, Metz make music that is immediately visceral.

Buzzsaw guitars and sandpaper vocals grip on for dear life without relent, but for the occasional burst of ambient noise or off-kilter harmony.

It’s a hard-edged interplay between tension and release, as therapeutic for raucous punters to thrash around to as it is for the band to make it.

“I think it’s like having a shrink or something, but for free. It’s good for our heads,” laughs Edkins. One can’t help but recall the now-infamous incident where Metz’s music was, in fact, detrimental to their heads.

Bassist Chris Slorach split his skull open after headbanging straight into his guitar. Not one to cause a fuss, he simply covered the wound with duct tape and finished the set – undeterred by the rock’n’roll cocktail of blood and sweat dripping down his face.

“It’s a huge release for all three of us,” Edkins elaborates. “As far as the band goes, I think it’s a really good outlet for all of our personalities. A lot of the content is often coming from frustration. I don’t think of it as anger, but some of the darker things we’re able to get out of our system.”

With a five-year gap between their live and recorded debut, Metz’s first album was painstakingly crafted, designed to ooze brutality with rapid-fire precision. After all, it takes immense effort to disguise a tightly oiled machine as pure chaos. With II, however, Edkins and co. decided to embrace their ragged edges.

“I’m really turned on by records that have all of the mistakes left in,” Edkins says. “Things where they’re not trying to make a perfect take, or a perfect song; leaving it all there to see. We did that more on this second album than we did on the first one. I think on the first one, we were attempting to get something right, you know?

It’s not that we weren’t holding high standards, but I think our definition of ‘good’ has slightly changed, where the feel is more important than the actual execution. I think it’s one of those things where there is no right way now. Whatever is feeling good, that’s the right way.”

In between bone-crushing tracks of post-hardcore explosions, II is decorated with miniature soundscapes that glue the record together with eerie immersion. Metz have always applied experimental

practices to recorded sound, but it has never felt so fully realised than on their latest album.

“It’s kind of a collage of things I’ve found and recorded,” says Edkins on ambient tracks such as ‘Zzyzx’. “We were helping a friend demolish their house, so there’s the sound of wood snapping and a crowbar pulling out wood planks from the floor. It’s fun to mess around with that and tweak it out; speed it up, slow it down.”

As their career goes from strength to strength, Metz are sticking to their guns, making the music they want to hear. That’s always been the goal, and it most likely always will be.

“It’s always been such a selfish endeavour in some ways. It’s never been about other people,” laughs Edkins again. “It’s incredible that

people connect to it. I just hope people take away the fact that we’re honest, and making something from the heart that we care about a lot. We’re not pandering to any expectation. We’re just three guys doing what they like to do and having the most fun they can doing it. That’s it, really.”

What: St. Jerome’s Laneway Festival 2016 With: Chvrches, Grimes, Flume, Beach House and more Where: Sydney College of the Arts When: Sunday February 7 And: Also appearing at Oxford Art Factory on Wednesday February 10 More: II out now through Sub Pop/Inertia

Dead City Ruins To The Ends Of The Earth By Tegan Reeves much easier to achieve. Wiffen puts this down to Europe’s long-standing heritage of heavy music.

“A lot of bands are from there, and they’ve got huge festivals and there’s a lot more venues to play, so bands can go there and play 20 shows in 20 days, and only have to drive three hours in between shows. Whereas Australia has such long drives, and there aren’t as many places to play, so it’s really hard to keep up appearances and to keep people coming out to the tours. Simply, in Europe they have a lot more places to play and a lot more people to come out. In Australia, a lot of the smaller venues are shutting down, but Europeans have a bit more money to spend on merch, beers are cheap, and it’s always cheap to get into a gig over there.”

Dead City Ruins photo by John Raptis

S

peaking to Dead City Ruins frontman Jake Wiffen, you get the impression these guys might just be the hardest-working band in Australia. The Melbourne hard rockers spend six months of every year slaying it in Europe, followed by six months back in Australia, working seven days a week to fund their next overseas jaunt.

“That’s what we’ve pretty much been doing for the last five years, just working in Australia seven days a week, save up and then go on tour,” Wiffen says. “This time that we’re back we want to do this Homecoming Tour around Australia and then record our third album, and then we’ll do another Australian

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tour to release that. Once you’ve got a new album, the tour cycle starts again – we’ll do a home tour, then a Europe tour, then we will try and get to the States, then you come home for summer and you do another tour.

It just keeps going.”

Dead City Ruins’ current tour includes a number of dates in regional Australia. Wiffen explains that the band doesn’t usually have the time to tour these areas, but made the effort this time around in order to gauge the current state of the Australian hard rock scene.

scene like back home in Australia?’ and really all I can talk about is Melbourne, Sydney and Perth because they’re the only places we’ve played. Playing rural areas is pretty important for me in terms of checking the climate of hard rock in Australia, because you can see if people are coming to shows and if there’s still a bit of excitement about rock’n’roll in those smaller towns.

At one time, these towns were the bread and butter for bands, where they played to crowds that really loved it, and fans made a huge effort to get to those smaller shows.”

“We’ve toured all through Europe, Indonesia and Dubai, but we’ve never done a [regional] Australian tour. People ask me, ‘What’s the

The Australian hard rock/metal scene is a fickle one in comparison to the likes of Europe, where Dead City Ruins have found success

It’s hard not to get the impression Wiffen is slightly dispirited with the Australian music industry and the vast differences that exist between the scenes at home and abroad.

At the same time, he is quick to acknowledge the unique challenges Australia faces.

“Right now, not only in Europe and America, but also Australia, there are some of the greatest bands that I’ve heard in my lifetime. There’s a really strong scene of musicians coming out in every genre, from pop to folk to black metal. The hard thing is, you go to Europe and places like Germany and Sweden and Norway – they have great bands, but they also have a great industry: they have record labels, they have radio stations, they have managers, they have people that are really interested in picking new bands up and supporting new bands and making sure they can get out and tour. Whereas in Australia, we have an industry built

out of triple j, and that seems to be the only thing that gets pumped out to the kids and to the public, and this has an effect on the kind of music that people write, because a lot of upcoming artists think, ‘If I’m going to be able to play shows, then I’m going to have to [play] this certain type of music,’ which is absolute bullshit.

“I think Australia is a hard market for anyone who wants to do something triple j doesn’t think is popular or cool, but I urge every musician in Australia to look further than Australia. There’s a big world out there, there’s a lot of opportunities, and you can’t let mainstream Australian media force you into playing what they want to hear.

Musicians need to get out there and go somewhere else.”

For now, Dead City Ruins will keep doing what they do best – busting their arses touring and recording, with plans to release their new album in 2016. The band has been described in the past as “young broke kids who don’t give a fuck except to play music in front of people”, and this couldn’t be more true today.

“I think touring for five months is equivalent to five years’ worth of life,” says Wiffen. “The ups and downs are crazy – it’s such a roller coaster – but at the same time, we’re all dedicated to doing this, and if you find something in life that you really want to do, whether it’s music or becoming an engineer, it’s going to be a grind, but you’re doing it because you love it.”

Where: Frankie’s Pizza / Captain Cook Hotel When: Sunday December 27 / Friday January 8

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BRAGâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s guide to film, theatre, comedy and art about town

arts in focus

flickerfest

Xxxx

25 years of short film festivities

also inside:

SUFFRAGETTE / ARTS NEWS / ARTS FREE STUFF: P.R.O.M. / ARTS REVIEW / GAME ON thebrag.com

BRAG :: 644 :: 23:12:15 :: 19

arts in focus

free stuff head to: thebrag.com/freeshit

arts news...what's goin' on around town... with Joseph Earp, Anna Wilson and Giulia Brugliera

five minutes WITH

First & Second

W

hat’s the premise behind your short film, First & Second?

First & Second is about grief. For me it was a way of dealing with my own experience of death – prior to writing, I’d had three people from my life pass away in as many months. It was an attempt to speak to those small texture moments that go hand-in-hand with grief, where it’s those unexpectedly ordinary things that can leave you most gutted in a moment – a package addressed to them, someone’s handwriting, a voicemail.

The main characters, Kate and Dan, are old school friends. They say school friends are the closest friends you’ll ever have – do you think this is true?

No, not at all! I don’t have many ties to my school friends today, but there is something about those formative years that makes us feel

KACIE ANNING, DIRECTOR OF FIRST & SECOND

like we have an insight into someone’s basic nature. My film kind of ruminates on that – Kate and Dan are effectively strangers today but they are pulled together by some bond that existed years ago.

The film employs the ‘mystery box’ trope – without giving away what the characters eventually find inside, how important is it as a narrative device?

I didn’t approach the writing with that device in mind at all – for me, it was always about these two characters reconnecting and an unfolding intimacy; the ‘mystery box’ was simply a good story turning point, and one that incidentally had inherent dramatic questions. I’m usually not particularly prone to genre devices, I’m far more interested in starting with character and building drama from there.

You also act in the film – how was your working relationship with your co-star, Julian Shaw?

Julian and I are old friends from AFTRS days, where we both studied directing – so you get the

added bonus of working with another director whose sensibilities you trust, and of being free to have conversations about the script that go to a very personal level. Jules and I share a love of dialogue, so we had many conversations to get the beats right and then opened ourselves up to respond organically as actors. He’s a wonderful friend and a lovely actor – I think a big part of our chemistry probably comes from our genuine friendship.

First & Second will make its world premiere at Flickerfest – are you anxious, excited or otherwise emotional about it?

Pretty nervous! A lot of my other work is comedy and this is my first foray into a straight drama, so I hope people don’t totally misread the subject matter and laugh anyway.

What: First & Second as part of Flickerfest 2016 Where: Bondi Pavilion When: Friday January 8 – Sunday January 17 More: flickerfest.com.au

QUENTIN TARANTINO Q&A

The master of cinematic violence himself, Quentin Tarantino, is set to release his new film The Hateful Eight in Australia from Thursday January 14. The hype around the movie is massive already, and it’s only set to grow with the arrival of Tarantino on Australian shores to help promote the release. As part of his visit, Tarantino is appearing live at an exclusive Q&A event at The Star on Friday January 15. It’s being presented by the newly established People’s Republic Of Movies (P.R.O.M.), and will pay homage to Tarantino’s professed love of Australian cinema by showing two of his favourite ‘Western-ish’ features: Mad Dog Morgan (1976) and The Chant Of Jimmie Blacksmith (1978). After that, there’ll be a Q&A session with Tarantino.

We’ve got a double pass to give away to the sold-out event. To enter the draw, visit thebrag.com/freeshit.

CLEESE AND IDLE IN CONCERT

Untitled by Bill Henson Anthony Lister

LUMINOUS WORLD

This summer, the National Art School at Darlinghurst will feature its latest exhibition Luminous World: Contemporary Art From The Wesfarmers Collection.

Opening free to the public, Luminous World presents a unique opportunity for audiences to engage with a collection of extraordinary works by 51 of Australia and New Zealand’s most revered artists.

In a conversation about light that encompasses properties of the optical experience, these fascinations are embraced by such artists as Laurence Aberhart, Brook Andrew, Bob Burruwal and Nyapanyapa Yunupingu, who bring together a diversity of culture that aims to reveal the role light plays in creating the world around us. Luminous World will show at the National Art School Gallery from Monday January 4 – Saturday February 27.

ARTS AT MOUNTAIN SOUNDS

Mountain Sounds Festival has unveiled the arts program as part of its colossal 2016 event. Now in its third year, the local and environmentally sustainable festival has added an arts program to feature alongside the already impressive cocktail of live music, fashion and food. A huge range of creative platforms will see contributions from local artists Anthony Lister, Sofia Fitzpatrick, Rad Dan, Brent Smith and more. Exhibits of street art, illustration, skate art and sculpture are all covered within the cultural repertoire. Also joining the festival for the first time are Newcastle market organisers Hunt & Gather, furthering Mountain Sounds’ aim of supporting local businesses. Offering up the best of the region, Hunt & Gather will present artisan produce, fashion and one-off wares.

This colourful array will be accompanied by a great range of music from acts like The Jezabels, The Delta Riggs and Art vs Science. Mountain Sounds Festival will dazzle in a day at Mount Penang Parklands on Saturday February 20.

Richard Dawkins

Two of the founders of Monty Python, John Cleese and Eric Idle, have announced an Australian tour. These living legends of comedy will hit all major capital cities with their brand new show, Together Again At Last…

For The Very First Time. “Eric and I had huge fun touring the States in October and now we can bring our show to the friendliest people in the world,” said Cleese on the announcement of the Australian tour. “No one show will be the same and all of them will annoy the politically correct.” In the shows, Cleese and Idle will apparently blend scripted and improvised bits with storytelling, musical numbers, exclusive footage, aquatic juggling and an extended audience Q&A. Expect a whole bunch of silliness at the State Theatre on Monday March 14.

Eric Idle and John Cleese

Witches

BONDI’S NEW BEACH CLUB

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HIS LIFE IN SCIENCE

One of the most influential thinkers of the modern age, Richard Dawkins, will make his Sydney return next year as part of the Sydney Opera House’s Talks and Ideas series. Dawkins, who will be interviewed live onstage by broadcaster Natasha Mitchell, has appeared at the Opera House on two previous occasions. A prominent atheist, author and biologist, his My Life In Science presentation will no doubt get tongues wagging across the country. Richard Dawkins: My Life In Science comes to the Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House on Sunday February 28.

THE WITCHES OF WICKED

The Witches are coming. Performing tunes from a host of witch-related musicals including Wicked, Hocus Pocus and Into The Woods, four of Australia’s finest former ‘witches’ will be backed by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra for two dates next winter. Incorporating clips from films, music and gravity-defying stage work, the Witches – Lucy Durack, Amanda Harrison, Helen Dallimore and Jemma Rix – are ready to cast a spell on Sydney. They’ll be at the Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House on Friday July 15 and Saturday July 16.

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Richard Dawkins photo by James Morgan

A touch of the Italian Riviera is coming to Bondi this summer with Beach Club Aperol, a joint effort from Australia’s favourite new European bevvy, the Aperol Spritz, and the guys over at Bondi’s The Bucket List. The Riviera-inspired club kicked off last Thursday and runs until Thursday January 14 – giving you plenty of time to get there this summer and imagine like you actually made it to the Amalfi Coast this year. Adding to the Italian vibes, Aperol Spritz will be on tap, as well as some local appropriations of the classic like the Popsicle Spritz. The club comes complete with an exclusive Italian-inspired menu from The Bucket List head chef Tom Walton, featuring fresh Sydney rock oysters, house marinated olives with garlic, San Danielle prosciutto share plates served with parmesan grissini, and much more. If you’re not lucky enough to make it to Europe this summer, or even if you are, be sure to get your Spritz on at Beach Club Aperol.

Flickerfest [FILM] Summer Shorts By Tegan Jones

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ustralia’s very own Academyaccredited and BAFTA-recognised short fi lm festival, Flickerfest, is returning to Bondi to celebrate its 25th year. More than 100 shorts will be screened under the stars this summer before the festival hits the road across Australia.

Festival director Bronwyn Kidd talks to us about what we can expect at the 2016 event, as well as some of the stories we can look forward to.

When it comes to the shorts themselves, audiences can expect some incredibly beautiful and diverse entries, both from Australia and overseas.

“It is a big decision-making process, but at the end of the day we’re really looking for interesting, creative stories that aren’t stereotypes and with different worldviews,” Kidd explains. “We want to fi nd stuff that really stands out, which does happen when you have that many entries and get it down to about 110, which are the ones that people will get the opportunity to enjoy at Flickerfest this year.”

“We also have some fantastic indigenous fi lms – a comedy called Nan And A Whole Lot Of Trouble by Dena Curtis; Karroyul

by Kelrick Martin, which is a beautiful fi lm about loss and connection to country and family. There’s going to be an animation

by Adam Elliot, whose Harvie Krumpet won an Oscar. This will be his follow-up, Ernie Biscuit, and it’s an hilarious and really beautiful claymation. Internationally, we have a fi lm from the UK called Oh-BeJoyful, by Susan Jacobson, about a grandmother and granddaughter and a pretty funny day out they have together.”

But Wait…There's More photo by Rob Blackburn

With 25 years under its belt, Flickerfest is now bigger than ever. Not only do emerging Australian fi lmmakers clamber to have their shorts screened, there is also an abundance of entries from the international fi lmmaking community. The festival boasts supporters such as Baz Luhrmann and Cate Blanchett. It’s a long way from Flickerfest’s humble beginnings in the Inner West.

“It started way back in 1991 in the grounds of Balmain High School,” says Kidd. “I think there were eight short fi lms that screened and it grew from there, really. It had a few screenings in the Paddington Town Hall and then it moved to Bondi, which has been home now for a very long time.

“And of course the festival will celebrate 25 years in 2016, which is a very exciting landmark. So it started with a few Australian and international shorts and has now grown dramatically to the point now where we have over 2,300 entries and 52 touring venues. Short fi lm really has grown and been embraced by our audiences across that period.”

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“There’s a wonderful documentary called Let’s Dance: Bowie Down Under, which is all about the making of that music clip and his work with the indigenous dancers.

There’s some really great footage in there that’s never been seen before.

Short fi lm seems to have exploded in popularity over the last decade in particular, which Kidd attributes to several different factors.

“I certainly think the accessibility to technology has been important, so we’re seeing more and more people making shorts. It’s easier now that you don’t have to get your hands on a 35mm camera and go through a really expensive editing process. The digital revolution has certainly increased the amount of short fi lms being made. But I hope that our audiences have grown with Flickerfest, because people know that when they come along they’re going to see a highly curated program full of some incredible independent short fi lms.”

It also seems that short fi lmmakers are able to enjoy a far greater sense of artistic integrity, as well as express themselves in a way that is rare in features or anything

that’s touched by the mainstream studios.

Kidd agrees: “The wonderful thing about short fi lms, of course, is that they’re not dictated by the box office or commercialism – they are truly passionate, independent creations that people are making out of love and a desire to tell a particular story.”

Another important advantage to short fi lms, which will be made abundantly clear during the festival, is their ability to refl ect contemporary issues in a more timely manner. Due to their shorter run times and tighter budget constraints, they offer a sense of immediacy when it comes to burgeoning social and political issues.

“With feature fi lms it can take up to seven years to get a project funded,” Kidd explains. “You may have to go out there and fi nd a lot of backers and you often end up not entirely making the fi lm that you want to make because there are fi nancial constraints and a lot of people have an input. Whereas with short fi lm, you can grab a camera, you can tell a story about a burning issue, you can often raise the

money from a crowdfunding campaign, which is a big way in which short fi lms are made now. And of course there’s that immediacy, which I think is what makes the fi lms really fresh and contemporary.

The Australian fi lm industry itself has been taking off dramatically over the past two decades, and festivals such as Flickerfest prove that Australian cinema is being taken seriously internationally.

“Absolutely,” says Kidd. “I think there’s a real passion for cinema in this country for both making and seeing fi lms. We’re certainly seeing audiences really coming out to support independent cinema, which has been great. We get international guests who come out, including a group from China this year, which is very exciting.”

What: Flickerfest 2016 Where: Bondi Pavilion When: Friday January 8 – Sunday January 17 More: flickerfest.com.au

BRAG :: 644 :: 23:12:15 :: 21

Suffragette [FILM] Fight For The Right By Tom Clift was one of the first countries to give women the vote, now it’s way down the list in terms of how many women are represented [in parliament]. So just because we achieve certain things in certain countries, complacency just cannot be an option.”

Splitting her time between Ethiopia and the UK, Pankhurst works as a senior adviser to CARE International, a humanitarian organisation that focuses primarily on empowering women in the developing world. She’s also the great-granddaughter of Emmeline Pankhurst, the leader of the British suffragette movement and one of the key figures in winning women the right to vote. It’s little wonder, then, that the producers of the film asked Helen to act as an informal consultant.

I

n Sarah Gavron’s Suffragette, set during the early parts of last century, Carey Mulligan plays a fictitious London washerwoman who becomes involved in the struggle for women’s suffrage.

It’s a performance and a story that will no doubt strike a chord with modern audiences. On the one hand, it’s a tale of enormous historical importance in the fight for gender equality, one that has bizarrely gone untold on the big screen until now. But it’s also a

story that feels very much of the present, reminding us of how much further the push for equality has to go.

“We still have so much more to do,” says women’s rights activist Dr. Helen Pankhurst. “I think the film can be part of the reminder of how hard-fought the rights we have gained have been, and how much more we still need to do.

Look at issues such as political representation. Although Australia

“THE MANCUNIAN MISERABILIST GETS A MAKEOVER IN THIS MEXICAN RE-IMAGINING”

When asked if she was ever worried the film might not live up to her expectations, Pankhurst says she was assured by the quality of Abi Morgan’s screenplay. “The minute I saw the script, that fear was laid to rest – there are so many things that in any storyline could be difficult, but I just thought that the balance had been really well held. And in particular, I really

The desire to combine the historic with the personal explains why Pankhurst’s ancestor is largely missing from the film, appearing in only a single (albeit memorable) scene played by the incomparable Meryl Streep.

In this way, Emmeline becomes almost a mythical figure, agitating the authorities and inspiring courage and determination in her supporters.

“I loved the fact that they chose the story of a fictitious person who we could all identify with, rather than do a biopic of a particular person who you’d then be detached from,” says Pankhurst. She’s also full of praise for the cast, particularly Mulligan, who she describes as “just fantastic”.

Pankhurst is quick to point out how rare it is to have a film that is not only about women, but written, directed and produced by them as well. “To have a woman producer [Alison Owen and Faye Ward] and woman director, it’s an homage to the suffragettes and the women’s rights cause. And I hope that people actually go out and see it – I think it’s really important that audiences, if they like the idea of the film, go out and almost vote by being there and showing that we need more films of this kind.”

Beyond seeing the movie, Pankhurst also encourages everyone to support the work of organisations like CARE. “In Ethiopia, I work on issues such

as water sanitation,” she says.

“It’s a really basic one, because it tends to involve women and girls collecting water, and [there’s] poor sanitation, which then means that girls can’t go to school because there’s no latrine and no menstrual hygiene facilities. [We] also work on issues such as early enforced marriage, and changing girls’ attitudes about their options, but also working with the wider society in terms of changing social norms, and with government in terms of how they respond to all of these issues.

“I also work in the UK through things such as the Walk In Her Shoes campaign, which raises awareness of these issues in Ethiopia. CARE Australia does it as well, from March 8-14. It’s a week of fundraising and solidarity with women in developing countries, who still bear the burden of this level of poverty.”

Everyone, Pankhurst believes, has a role to play in the fight for equality. “What is nice and what is needed are people who have the confidence to say that, with any social inequality, wherever it is located, that they will be on the side of naming it and acting positively to address it. Not everybody is going to be a cardcarrying feminist shouting from the rooftops, but I think more and more people are comfortable with saying, ‘Excuse me, but it’s obvious. It’s obvious that there’s a problem here.’”

What: Suffragette (dir. Sarah Gavron) Where: In cinemas Saturday December 26

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xx

Carey Mulligan in Suffragette

“It’s long overdue,” she says of the production. She too is baffled that it’s taken so much time for a film to be made about such a significant piece of history. “There was one series on the BBC in the ’70s,” she adds, referring to the six-part program Shoulder To Shoulder.

“But apart from that, there’s been nothing on this scale. And yet it’s such a colourful, rich, interesting, powerful storyline. It’s bizarre, really, that it’s taken this long.”

loved the fact that it was about the issues. How often do you have a film that manages to balance a grand political context with a personal story?”

Game On

Film Review Hits and misses on the silver screen around town

Gaming news with Adam Guetti

JAN

New Releases

As we welcome in January 2016, we arrive at the time where the wait for your most anticipated titles is at its most painful. But don’t despair, for there are still a few great games you can invest in. You’re probably going to have to bide your time until Wednesday January 20 though, because that’s the day you’ll be able to get your hands on the Ghostbusters level pack for Lego Dimensions (PS4, XBO, Wii U, PS3, 360). With it comes Lego figures of Peter Venkman, the Ecto-1 and a ghost trap, as well as the Spook Central Adventure level.

2016

If you’re after something a little more adult, Thursday January 21 introduces the physical copy of Zombi to both Xbox One and PS4. The game was formerly a Wii U exclusive (known as ZombiU), before eventually being digitally ported to new-gen systems. It’s followed a day later on Friday January 22 by Resident Evil Origins Collection (PS4, XBO, PC). This zombie value meal deal combines a HD remaster of Resident Evil Zero (an old Nintendo GameCube exclusive) as well as the previously released Resident Evil Remaster.

For those of you sick of the undead shufflers, however, why not check out Life Is Strange – an episodic tale with a time-travel twist. All five episodes have been collated into the Life Is Strange Limited Edition (PS4, XBO, PC), which also hits shelves on Friday January 22.

Michael Caine and Harvey Keitel in Youth ■ Film

YOUTH In cinemas Saturday December 26 On the odd occasion, you come across a film that seems like it may, in fact, be genuinely masterful, but there’s a nagging sense that maybe, just maybe, the film doesn’t floor you because it wasn’t made for you. That’s the lingering sense that Youth leaves, a film in which the craft is undeniable but the focal points for the story limit the target market.

to the future, so close you could touch it, while the old look to the past, so very far away. The sense of a wasted past, the focus on men and male relationships and the overwhelming wealth of everyone involved make the film seem very specifically built for peers of Caine and Keitel.

There’s considerable irony in the sense that a film meant to make you focus on the time you have left, and how you spend it, should have you repeatedly glancing at your watch. The twohour runtime feels as speedy as the motorised wheelchairs that crawl around the hotel.

Retired composer Fred Ballinger (Michael Caine) and active filmmaker Mick Boyle (Harvey Keitel) make an annual habit of attending a luxury resort in the Swiss Alps to while away their remaining years. When Fred is asked to conduct his own composition for the Queen, it sparks a shift in his lonely existence that is mirrored in both Mick and the diverse array of guests to the hotel.

But buried within that stretch are moments of utter beauty – Caine’s conducting of the wilderness; the discovery of his motivations for refusing to perform; surprising reveals from both Dano’s struggling actor and Madalina Diana Ghenea’s Miss Universe; and a number of hallucinatory dreams that offer a glimpse of Sorrentino’s considerable imagination.

Italian maestro Paolo Sorrentino has accessed the finest actors of a generation for this exploration of memory, achievement and reflection. Alongside the deeply melancholic Caine and gently witty Keitel are brilliant performances from Paul Dano, Rachel Weisz and Jane Fonda, as well as Alex MacQueen reprising his hilarious, wince-inducing character from the BBC’s The Thick Of It.

Cameos from the soundtrack’s contributors delight; Mark Kozelek (AKA Sun Kil Moon) makes a number of appearances, an artist whose pensive gloominess best reflects the lasting impression of the film.

It’s an odd film from a creative who is only 45. In an exquisite moment, Keitel uses a telescope to explain to a young actress that the young look

Youth is a love song to the hallowed past, and as Nick Cave once said, no good love song is without melancholy. Imperfect, but rewarding for those with the patience.

David Molloy

five minutes WITH

ANDREW KOTATKO, DIRECTOR OF WHOEVER WAS USING THIS BED

W

hat’s the premise behind Whoever Was Using This Bed, your new short fi lm?

The fi lm is based on a short story by Raymond Carver, whose writing served as a foundation for the fi lm Birdman. The premise of Whoever Was Using This Bed is a confronting life-and-death question that is ignited in the minds of an insomniac married couple. The couple are played by two superb performers: the French/ American actor Jean-Marc Barr from The Big Blue and Australian actress Radha Mitchell, whose work I loved in Woody Allen’s Melinda And Melinda.

Finally, wrapping up the first month of the year is the latest franchise to get Lego-fied: Lego Marvel’s Avengers (PS4, XBO, Wii U, PC, PS3, 360, 3DS, Vita). The wait for Infi nity Wars Part I is going to be a long one, so this heroic adventure makes use of the plot from both the original film and Age Of Ultron. You can pick it up for yourself from Wednesday January 27 – no assembly required.

Review: Rainbow Six Siege (PS4, XBO, PC)

Y

ou hear something from around the corner. You’re not entirely sure what it is, but it’s a tight match, so you decide it wise to err on the side of caution and check things out. Before you know it, bullets start flying from the walls and the ceiling above you explodes into a destructive mosaic of tiny pieces. In the blink of an eye you’ve been defeated, and your team quickly follows suit.

It’s a tale perfect for the campfire, but one that isn’t actually all that uncommon for Rainbow Six Siege, a game that tries to operate outside of the standard flavour

RTX Australia

of the month – and mostly succeeds.

This is not a game about gargantuan mechanical robots, unbelievable perks or having a jetpack attached to your back.

Instead, Siege is all about finding the right tactics and strategy as your team of five goes head-to-head with another team of five over a variety of admittedly similar game modes, such as locating and saving a hostage. Gadgets will help you gain a better understanding of your surroundings and enemies, while keeping in constant communication with your squad is crucial.

Unless you have a reliable group of friends, however, finding a group of gamers all utilising microphones can be a difficult process, and one that can actually diminish the overall experience of the final product.

So too a lack of substantially different game modes can make Rainbow Six Siege feel a touch repetitive, but they’re minor blemishes in an otherwise polished multiplayer experience.

Youth Holiday Event:

RTX is a pretty big deal in America – a Pixel Art yearly event deep in the heart of Texas, run Looking for some kid-friendly activities by internet royalty Rooster Teeth. Now the to participate in during the school group is making its first official spin-off holiday break? Then why not head in Sydney. Running from Saturday on down to Randwick City Library what's January 23 – Sunday January 24 at on Thursday January 7 where Australian Technology Park, RTX children enrolled in school years Australia will contain an assortment 7 to 12 can help create game- and of panels, games, parties, live streams superhero-inspired pixel art with and demonstrations for you to dig in the power of Post-it notes. It’s clean, to. Plus, this is your best opportunity to simple, pure family fun, and the best part meet your favourite personalities from Rooster is that it’s totally free for the little ones.

Teeth, Funhaus and Achievement Hunter.

To find out more about the event, just visit Tickets can be bought from rtxau.com. randwick.nsw.gov.au.

on

Review: Just Cause 3 (PS4, XBO, PC)

How much does it draw from the text on which it’s based, and where does it differ?

Every fi lm adaptation is a reimagining of the text on which it’s based. The original story is in essence a darkly funny and very touching dialogue between a married couple. The fi lm expands upon that and incorporates another element, a mysterious phone caller voiced by the wonderful Jane Birkin, who develops a strange connection with JeanMarc’s character.

Is it a straight-up drama, or is there more to the fi lm than that?

People who’ve seen the fi lm have told me that it plays like an intimate American drama from the ’70s, but there’s defi nitely a visual quality to the fi lm that evokes classic fi lm noir. I think it also has an emotionally unnerving and suspenseful quality to it. It feels a bit like a thriller.

When it came to creating the mystery and unsettling atmosphere, were there many fi lmmakers’ tricks you relied on or avoided?

I just tried to be honest in my creative choices. So I guess honesty was probably my only fi lmmakers’ trick! This project had a long development – almost seven years – and we were very lucky to work with Altaire Productions, who backed us all the way. Time gives you the opportunity to really think about every decision you’re making, from writing, to casting, to key creatives. Then you need to just let it all happen on the set. Good fi lmmaking is good collaboration, and I love working with open-hearted and talented people.

What: Whoever Was Using This Bed as part of Flickerfest will mark the fi lm’s Australian premiere, but Flickerfest 2016 where else has it or will it show overseas?

Where: Bondi Pavilion It’s shortlisted for a couple of great international fi lm When: Friday January 8 – festivals, so fi ngers crossed! And I’m really looking forward Sunday January 17 to sharing the fi lm at Flickerfest, which is a fantastic festival with such a diverse selection of fi lms from all over More: flickerfest.com.au the world.

thebrag.com

W

hile open-world classics like Grand Theft Auto try to take themselves relatively seriously outside of their potential carnage and ridiculous ensemble cast, the Just Cause franchise has always been the polar opposite to it all. You want to blow up all of the things? Go right ahead. Need a grapple hook that completely defies gravity? Consider it done.

It’s an attitude that has helped popularise the franchise to great heights, and Just Cause 3 certainly doesn’t rock the boat, choosing to amplify the destruction even more. Take the tweaked grappling hook as a prime example. Now, protagonist Rico Rodriguez can control the tension of the hook, meaning that if you want to, you’re free to attach a tank to a flying helicopter… then tighten the rope to smash them against one another.

The console version does experience some performance issues, but hopefully they’re ironed out quickly, because despite a mindless narrative, Just Cause 3 contains some of the most unabashed video game joy you’ll get all year.

BRAG :: 644 :: 23:12:15 :: 23

BARS BRAG

A Work In Progress 50 King St, Sydney CBD (02) 9240 3000 Mon – Fri noon-2am Ash St Cellar 1 Ash St, Sydney CBD (02) 9240 3000 Mon – Fri 8.30am-11pm The Attic 275 Pitt St, Sydney CBD (02) 9284 1200 Mon – Fri 11am-1am; Saturday 5pm-1am Assembly 488 Kent St, Sydney CBD (02) 9283 8808 Mon – Tue 5-11pm; Wed

– Fri noon-midnight; Sat 5pm-midnight The Australian Heritage Hotel 100 Cumberland St, The Rocks (02) 9247 2229 Mon – Sun 10.30am-midnight Balcony Bar 46 Erskine St, Sydney CBD (02) 9299 3526 Mon 5pm - late; Tue – Fri noon-midnight; Sat 5pm-midnight BAR100 100 George St, The Rocks (02) 8070 9311 Mon – Thu noon-late; Fri – Sat noon-3am; Sun noon-midnight

Bar Eleven Lvl 11, 161 Sussex St, Sydney CBD (02) 9290 4712 Thu 4-9pm; Fri – Sat 4-11pm The Barber Shop 89 York St, Sydney CBD (02) 9299 9699 Mon – Wed, Sat 4pm-midnight; Thurs – Fri 3pm-midnight Basement 33 Basement, 27-33 Goulburn St, Sydney CBD (02) 8970 5813 Mon – Thu 5pm-late The Baxter Inn Basement 152-156 Clarence St, Sydney CBD Mon – Sat 4pm-1am

Bondy’s L1, 16 Philip Ln, Sydney CBD (02) 9251 2347 Thu – Fri 5pm-late; Sat 5pm-late Bulletin Place First Floor, 10-14 Bulletin Place, Circular Quay Mon – Wed 4pm-midnight; Thurs – Sat 4pm-1am deVine 32 Market St, Sydney CBD (02) 9262 6906 Mon – Fri 11.30am-11.30pm; Sat 5.30-11.30pm Frankie’s Pizza 50 Hunter St, Sydney CBD Mon – Fri noon-3am; Sat – Sun 4pm-3am

GASOLINE PONY

Tell us about your bar: We’ve been open for a couple of years now and feel we’ve settled in as a distinctly Marrickville-style spot to meet up and spend time with friends, grab a meal and listen to live music. Whether you sit inside on the comfy couches or in the large open courtyard out back, people have described the atmosphere like “hanging out at a good friend’s place”.

What’s on the menu?

We’ve just released the Gasoline Pony

3.0 Menu – devised by our new chef Don, who has run kitchens in highend restaurants. A variety of unique dishes – a combo of hearty meals, tasty snacks and things to share – cater to all dietary requirements.

Ingredients are sourced locally where possible. People should definitely check out the beef’s cheek shepherd’s pie, the spicy chicken wings with garlic sauce, or the grilled haloumi and zucchini skewers, which come with a shot of chilled watermelon ouzo.

Care for a drink?

Our head bartender Clint has just released a brand new cocktail menu with classic favourites and tasty innovations, like the mango and chilli margarita. Based on a classic tequila/ Cointreau/lime recipe, this drink adds mango and habanero to the mix, and sprinkles chilli into the traditional salt rim. He is always happy to hit you up with a liquor-forward-style cocktail too.

With so many Inner West breweries putting out great beer, we are constantly changing the mix on tap so you can enjoy something new. In the mix are local favourites like Batch, Willie The Boatman, Grifter, Merchant, Young Henrys, Wayward and Yulli.

Australian craft spirits also get a good run with a particularly tasty gin selection.

Sounds: We have live music up to five nights a week, with Tuesday being either open mic or a capella group singing.

24 :: BRAG :: 644 :: 23:12:15

bar bar

OF

ADDRESS: 115 MARRICKVILLE RD, MARRICKVILLE PHONE NUMBER: 0401 002 333 / (02) 9569 2668 WEBSITE: GASOLINEPONY.COM OPENING HOURS: TUE – THU 5-11.30PM; FRI – SAT 3-11.30PM; SUN 3-9.30PM

TH

EK

B R A G ’ S G U I D E T O S Y D N E Y ’ S B E S T WAT E R I N G H O L E S

Gilt Lounge 49 Market St, Sydney CBD (02) 8262 0000 Wed 6pm-midnight; Thu & Sat 6pm-2am; Fri 5pm-2am The Glenmore 96 Cumberland St, The Rocks (02) 9247 4794 Mon – Thu, Sun 11am-midnight; Fri – Sat 11am-1am Goodgod Small Club 53-55 Liverpool St, Sydney CBD (02) 8084 0587 Wed 5pm-11pm; Thu 5pm-1am; Fri 5pm-3am; Sat 6pm-3am Grain Bar 199 George St, Sydney CBD (02) 9250 3118 Mon – Sun noon-late Grandma’s Basement 275 Clarence St, Sydney CBD (02) 9264 3004 Mon – Fri 3pm-late; Sat 5pm-late The Fox Hole 68A Erskine St, Sydney

E E W

Both of us (co-owners Fiona and Elmo) have played in bands for years, so we’re plugged in to the Sydney music scene. In recent times we have hosted Bernie Hayes, Brendan Gallagher, members of the Clouds, Mental As Anything, The Pigs, Oh Willy Dear, The Gadflys, Custard, Another Roadside Attraction choir and many performances by up-andcoming artists and legends in the making.

The main music styles we book in are indie, roots, country, rock/pop, Americana and singer-songwriters, plus various choirs, and the average cover charge is about $5. We believe musicians should always be paid and that live music should be as accessible as possible. People should check out our website, Facebook page or sign up to our e-newsletter to keep up with what’s on.

Highlights: We love keeping it local at Gasoline Pony and providing an authentic Marrickville experience. With delicious food and drink, quality live music and a comfortable environment with a variety of spaces, you won’t find a small bar experience in Sydney quite like Gasoline Pony!

The bill comes to: Beef’s cheek shepherd’s pie and a cocktail comes to $30. A grilled haloumi and zucchini skewer with watermelon ouzo, plus a schooner of beer, is $12.

CBD (02) 9279 4369 Mon 7am-3pm; Tue – Fri 7am-evening The Grasshopper 1 Temperance Ln, Sydney CBD (02) 9947 9025 Mon – Thurs & Sat 4pm-late; Fri noon-late Harpoon Harry 40-44 Wentworth Ave, Sydney CBD (02) 8262 8800 Mon – Sun 11:30am-3am The Lobo Plantation Basement Lot 1, 209 Clarence St, Sydney CBD 0415 554 908 Mon – Thu, Sat 4pm-midnight; Fri 2pm-midnight The Loft UTS 15 Broadway, Sydney (behind 2SER) (02) 9514 2345 Mon – Wed 2pm-10pm; Thurs – Fri 2pm-late Mojo Record Bar Basement 73 York St, Sydney CBD (02) 9262 4999 Mon – Wed 4pm-midnight; Thu, Sat 4pm-1am; Fri 3pm-1am The Morrison 225 George St, Sydney CBD (02) 9247 6744 Mon – Wed 11.30am-midnight; Thu 11.30am-1am; Fri – Sat 11.30am-2am; Sun 11.30am-10pm 11.30am-10pm The Palisade 35 Bettington St, Millers Point 0421 001 474 Tue – Fri noon-2.30pm & 6pm-9.30pm; Sat 6pm-9.30pm Mr Tipply’s 347 Kent St, Sydney CBD (02) 9299 4877 Mon – Sat 10am-late Palmer & Co. Abercrombie Ln, Sydney CBD (02) 9240 3000 Mon – Wed 5pm-late; Thu – Fri 3pm-late; Sat – Sun 5pm-late Papa Gede’s Bar Laneway at the end of 348 Kent St, Sydney CBD Mon – Sat 5pm-12am Ramblin’ Rascal Tavern Basement, 60 Park St, Sydney CBD Mon – Sat 4pm-midnight; Sun 6pm-10pm Rockpool Bar & Grill 66 Hunter St, Sydney CBD (02) 8078 1900 Mon – Sat lunch & dinner The Rook Level 7, 56-58 York St, Sydney CBD (02) 9262 2505 Mon, Sat 4pm-midnight; Tue – Fri noon-midnight The SG 32 York St, Sydney CBD 0402 813 035 Tues – Fri 4pm-midnight; Sat 6pm-midnight Shirt Bar 7 Sussex Ln, Sydney CBD (02) 8068 8222 Mon –Wed 8am-8pm; Thu – Fri 8am-10pm Since I Left You 338 Kent St, Sydney CBD (02) 9262 4986 Mon – Wed 5pm-10pm; Thu – Fri 5pm-midnight; Sat 6pm-midnight Small Bar 48 Erskine St, Sydney CBD

(02) 9279 0782 Mon – Fri noon-midnight; Sat 5pm-midnight The Smoking Panda 5-7 Park St, Sydney CBD (02) 9264 4618 Wed – Sat 4pm-late Stitch Bar 61 York St, Sydney CBD (02) 9279 0380 Mon – Wed 4pm-midnight; Thu – Fri noon-2am; Sat 4pm-2am The Swinging Cat 44 King St, Sydney CBD (02) 9262 3696 Mon – Sat 4pm-midnight Tapa Vino 6 Bulletin Place, Circular Quay (02) 9247 3221 Mon – Fri noon-11.30pm Uncle Ming’s 55 York St, Sydney CBD Mon – Fri noon-midnight; Sat 5pm-midnight York Lane 56 Clarence St, Sydney CBD (02) 9299 1676 Mon – Wed 6.30am-10pm; Thu – Fri 6.30pm-midnight; Sat 6pm-midnight

121BC 4/50 Holt St, Surry Hills (02) 9699 1582 Tue – Sat 5pm-midnight Absinthe Salon 87 Albion St, Surry Hills (02) 9211 6632 Wed – Sat 4-10pm Arcadia Liquors 7 Cope St, Redfern (02) 8068 4470 Mon – Fri 4pm-midnight; Sat noon-midnight; Sun noon-10pm Bar Cleveland Cnr Bourke & Cleveland St, Redfern (02) 9698 1908 Mon – Thu 10am-2am; Fri – Sat 10am-4am Bar H 80 Campbell St, Surry Hills (02) 9280 1980 Mon – Sat 6pm-late; Sun 11am-3pm Bellini Lounge 2 Kellett St, Potts Point 0432 241 556 Thu – Sun 6pm-late The Beresford 354 Bourke St, Surry Hills (02) 8313 5000 Mon – Sun noon-1am Black Penny 648 Bourke St, Surry Hills (02) 9319 5061 Mon – Sat 7am-midnight; Sun 7am-10pm Button Bar 65 Foveaux St, Surry Hills (02) 9211 1544 Mon – Sat 4pm-midnight Café Lounge 277 Goulburn St, Surry Hills (02) 9016 3951 Mon – Thu 5pm-midnight; Fri – Sat 4pm-midnight; Sunday 4-10pm Casoni Italian Bar & Eatery 371-373 Bourke St, Darlinghurst Tue – Thu 5pm-11pm; Fri – Sat 5pm-midnight; Sun 5pm-10pm Central Hotel 42-50 Chalmers St, Surry Hills (02) 9212 3814 Mon – Sat 10am-2am; Sun 10am-10pm

Ching-a-Lings 1/133 Oxford St, Darlinghurst (02) 9360 3333 Tue – Wed 6pm-11pm; Fri – Sat 6pm-1am; Sun 5pm-10pm The Cliff Dive 16-18 Oxford Square, Darlinghurst Wed – Sat 6pm-4am The Commons 32 Burton St, Darlinghurst (02) 9358 1487 Tue – Wed 6pm-late; Thu – Fri 12pm-late; Sat – Sun 6pm-late The Darlie Laundromatic 304 Palmer St, Darlinghurst Mon – Sat 5pm-11pm Darlo Bar 306 Liverpool St, Darlinghurst (02) 9331 3672 Mon – Sun 10am-midnight Darlo Country Club Level 1, 235 Victoria St, Darlinghurst 0449 998 005 Wed – Thu 5pm-midnight; Fri – Sat 5pm-2am Dead Ringer 413 Bourke St, Surry Hills (02) 9331 3560 Mon – Fri 5pm-midnight; Sat noon-midnight; Sun noon-10pm Della Hyde 34 Oxford St, Darlinghurst Mon – Sun 5pm-3am Eau De Vie 229 Darlinghurst Rd, Darlinghurst 0422 263 226 Mon – Sat 6pm-1am; Sun 6pm-midnight The Forresters 336 Riley St, Surry Hills (02) 9212 3035 Mon – Wed noonmidnight; Thu – Sat noon1am; Sun noon-10pm Gardel’s Bar 358 Cleveland St, Surry Hills (02) 8399 1440 Tue – Sat 6pm-midnight Gazebo 2 Elizabeth Bay Rd, Elizabeth Bay (02) 9357 5333 Mon – Fri 4pm-midnight; Sat – Sun noon-midnight Golden Age Cinema & Bar 80 Commonwealth St, Surry Hills (02) 9211 1556 Mon - Sun 11am-9pm Goros 84-86 Mary St, Surry Hills (02) 9212 0214 Mon – Wed 11:30am-midnight; Thu 11:30am-1am: Fri 11:30am-3am; Sat 4pm-3am The Hazy Rose 1/83 Stanley St, Darlinghurst (02) 9357 5036 Wed – Thu 5pm-midnight; Fri – Sat 3pm-midnight; Sun 3-10pm Hello Sailor 96 Oxford St, Darlinghurst (02) 9332 2442 Tue – Sun 5pm-3am Hinky Dinks 185 Darlinghurst Rd, Darlinghurst (02) 8084 6379 Mon – Sat 4pm-midnight; Sun 1-10pm Hollywood Hotel 2 Foster St, Surry Hills (02) 9281 2765 Mon – Wed 10am-midnight; Thu – Sat 10am-3am Hustle & Flow Bar thebrag.com

CRAFT BEER OF THE WEEK Pour it in your mouth-hole... (responsibly).

TERRACE

TINY COCONUT BUBBLES @ BATCH BREWING COMPANY, 44 SYDENHAM RD, MARRICKVILLE The brew: A coconut wheat ale designed to refresh you in this summer heat. It’s got a bit of a piña colada vibe going on, so you get a really nice smooth body with some pineapple aroma on the nose.

More: batchbrewingco. com.au.

105 Regent St, Redfern (02) 9310 5593 Tue – Sat 5pm-midnight Li’l Darlin Darlinghurst 235 Victoria St, Darlinghurst (02) 8084 6100 Mon – Sun 4pm-late Li’l Darlin Surry Hills 420 Elizabeth St, Surry Hills (02) 9698 5488 Mon – Fri noon-late; Sat 4pm-late LL Wine and Dine 42 Llankelly Place Potts Point (02) 9356 8393 Mon – Thu 5pm-11pm; Fri – Sat noon-late; Sun 11am-10pm The Local Taphouse 122 Flinders St, Darlinghurst (02) 9360 0088 Mon – Wed noonmidnight; Thu – Sat noon-midnight; Sun noon-11pm Love, Tilly Devine 91 Crown Ln, Darlinghurst (02) 9326 9297 Mon – Sat 5pm-midnight; Sun 4-10pm Low 302 302 Crown St, Surry Hills (02) 9368 1548 Mon – Sun 6pm-2am Mr Fox 557 Crown St, Surry Hills 0410 470 250 Tue – Wed 5pm-late; Sat 10am-midnight; Sun 10am-10pm The Norfolk 305 Cleveland St, Surry Hills (02) 9699 3177 Mon – Sat noonmidnight; Sun noon-10pm Old Growler 218 William St, Woolloomooloo thebrag.com

Origins: The beer was inspired by our coconut brown ale, the Big Kahuna. We just needed a summer version of it, and this fit right in! The name was inspired by a Don Hoe (the Elvis of Hawaii) song called ‘Tiny Bubbles’. It’s a direct relation to the Big Kahuna, which was initially inspired by a trip to Hawaii.

APEROL SPRITZ COCKTAILS TWO FOR ONLY

Best drunk with: Fun people, while having good conversation.

During: A long hot day.

While wearing: Whatever makes you feel comfortable.

And listening to: ‘Tiny Bubbles’!

0422 911 650 Tue – Sat 5pm - midnight The Passage 231A Victoria St, Darlinghurst (02) 9358 6116 Mon – Sat 5pm-late Peekaboo 120 Bourke St, Woolloomooloo 0403 747 788 Mon – Thu 4pm-10pm; Fri – Sat 4pm – 12am Play Bar 72 Campbell St, Surry Hills (02) 9280 0885 Tues – Sat 5pm-midnight Pocket Bar 13 Burton St, Darlinghurst (02) 9380 7002 Mon – Wed 4pm-midnight; Fri – Sat 4pm-1am; Sun 4pm-midnight The Powder Keg 7 Kellett St, Potts Point (02) 8354 0980 Wed 5pm-1am; Thu 5pm-2am; Fri – Sat 4pm-2.30am; Sun 1pm-midnight The Print Room 11 Glenmore Rd, Paddington 0424 034 020 Wed – Fri 3pm-late; Sat 12pm-11pm, Sun 12pm-10pm Queenie’s Upstairs 336 Riley St, Surry Hills (02) 9212 3035 Tue – Sat 6pm-late & Fri noon-3pm Roosevelt 32 Orwell St, Potts Point 0423 203 119 Tue – Fri 5pm-midnight; Sat noon-midnight; Sun noon-10pm Rosie Campbell’s 320 Crown St, Surry Hills (02) 8356 9120 Mon 5pm-midnight: Tue – Sun 4pm-midnight Shady Pines

$16 NORTON ST

Saloon Shop 4, 256 Crown St, Darlinghurst Mon – Sun 4pm-midnight The Soda Factory 16 Wentworth Ave, Surry Hills (02) 8096 9120 Mon – Fri 5pm-3am; Sat – Sun 6pm-3am Surly’s 182 Campbell St, Surry Hills (02) 9331 3705 Tue – Sun noon-midnight Sweethearts Rooftop 33/37 Darlinghurst Rd, Potts Point (02) 8070 2424 Mon – Thu 2pm-11.30pm; Fri – Sun noon-11.30pm This Must Be The Place 239 Oxford St, Darlinghurst (02) 9331 8063 Mon – Sun 3pm-midnight The Tilbury Hotel 12-18 Nicholson St, Woolloomooloo (02) 9368 1955 Mon – Fri 9am-midnight; Sat 10am-midnight; Sun 10am-10pm Tio’s Cerveceria 12-18 Nicholson St, Woolloomooloo (02) 9368 1955 Mon – Fri 9am-midnight; Sat 10am-midnight; Sun 10am-10pm Vasco 421 Cleveland St, Redfern 0406 775 436 Tue – Sat 5pm-midnight The Village Inn 9-11 Glenmore Rd, Paddington (02) 9331 0911 Mon – Sun 12pm-late The White Horse Hotel 381-385 Crown Street, Surry Hills 1300 976 683 Mon – Sat noon-

midnight; Sun noon-10pm The Wild Rover 75 Campbell St, Surry Hills (02) 9280 2235 Mon – Sat 4pm-midnight; Sun noon-10pm The Winery 285A Crown St, Surry Hills (02) 9331 0833 Mon – Sun noonmidnight

#palacecinemas palacecinemas.com.au

99 Norton St, Leichhardt Open: Mon – Sun, 10am-10pm

Anchor Bar 8 Campbell Pde, Bondi (02) 8084 3145 Tue – Fri 4.30pm-late; Sat – Sun 12.30pm-late Bat Country.

32 St Pauls St in Randwick (@ The Spot) (02) 9398 6694 Mon – Sat 7am-midnight; Sun 7am-10pm Beach Road Hotel 71 Beach Rd, Bondi Beach (02) 9130 7247 Mon – Sat noon-1am; Sun 11am-10pm Bondi Hardware 39 Hall St, Bondi (02) 9365 7176 Mon – Wed 5pm-late; Fri noon-midnight; Sat 9am-midnight; Sun 9am-10pm The Bucket List Shop 1, Bondi Pavilion, Queen Elizabeth Drive (02) 9365 4122 Mon – Tue 11am-5pm; Wed – Sun 11am-late The Corner House 281 Bondi Rd, Bondi (02) 8020 6698 Tue – Sat 5pm-midnight; Sun 3pm-10pm Fat Ruperts 249 Bondi Rd, Bondi (02) 9130 1033 Tue – Fri 6pm-late; Sat – Sun 2pm-late Mr Moustache 75-79 Hall St, Bondi BRAG :: 644 :: 23:12:15 :: 25

Your bar’s not here?

Email: chris@ thebrag.com

MARRICKVILLE SMALL BAR & LIVE MUSIC VENUE

CRAFT BEER, ARTISAN SPIRITS, COCKTAILS

COMFORTABLE ATMOSPHERE, SUNNY COURTYARD

OPEN X-MAS EVE & NEW YEARS EVE!!

115 Marrickville Road, Marrickville Tue-Sat till 11.30pm, Sun to 9.30m.

www.gasolinepony.com

26 :: BRAG :: 644 :: 23:12:15

Beach (02) 9300 8892 Mon – Fri 5pm-11pm; Sat noon-11pm; Sun noon-10pm The Phoenix Hotel 1 Moncur street Woollahra (02) 9363 2608 Wed – Thu 4pm-11pm; Fri – Sat noon-11pm; Sun noon-10pm The Robin Hood Hotel 203 Bronte Rd, Waverley (02) 9389 3477 Mon - Sat 10am-3am; Sun 10am-10pm Speakeasy 83 Curlewis St, Bondi (02) 9130 2020 Mon – Sat 5pm-11pm; Sat – Sun 4pm-10pm Spring Street Social (and Jam Gallery) Underground 195 Oxford St, Bondi Junction (02) 9389 2485 Tues – Sat 4pm-3am Stuffed Beaver 271 Bondi Rd, Bondi (02) 9130 3002 Mon – Sat noonmidnight; Sun noon-10pm

The Angry Pirate 125 Redfern St Redfern (02) 9698 9140 Tue – Thur 5pm-midnight; Fri – Sat 3pm-midnight Bar-racuda 105 Enmore Rd, Newtown (02) 9519 1121 Mon – Sat 6pm-midnight Bauhaus West 163 Enmore Rd, Enmore (02) 8068 9917 Wed – Fri 5pm-midnight; Sat – Sun 11am-midnight The Bearded Tit 183 Regent St, Redfern (02) 8283 4082 Mon – Thu 4pm-midnight; Fri – Sat noon - midnight; Sun noon - 10pm Blacksheep 256 King St, Newtown (02) 8033 3455 Mon – Fri 4pm-11pm; Sat 2pm-11pm; Sun 2pm-10pm Bloodwood 416 King St, Newtown (02) 9557 7699 Tue – Wed 6pm-late; Thu – Sun 5pm-late Calaveras 324 King St, Newtown 0451 541 712 Wed – Sat 6pm-midnight The Chip Off The Old Block 3 Little Queen Street, Chippendale (02) 9318 0815 Tue – Sat 4pm-11pm Cornerstone Bar & Food 245 Wilson St, Eveleigh (02) 8571 9004 Sun – Wed 10am-5pm; Thu – Sat 10am-late Corridor 153A King St, Newtown 0405 671 002 Tue – Fri 3pm-midnight; Sat 1pm-midnight; Sun 1pm-10pm Cottage Bar & Kitchen 342 Darling St, Balmain (02) 8084 8185 Mon – Wed 5pm-midnight; Thu – Sat noon-midnight; Sun

noon-10pm Different Drummer 185 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe (02) 9552 3406 Mon – Sat 4.30pm-late Doris & Beryl’s Bridge Club and Tea House 530 King St, Newtown Mon – Fri 5pm-midnight; Sat – Sun 5.30pm-midnight Earl’s Juke Joint 407 King St, Newtown Mon – Sat 4pm-midnight; Sun 4-10pm Freda’s 109 Regent St, Chippendale (02) 8971 7336 Tues – Sat 4pm-midnight; Sun 4pm-10pm The Gasoline Pony 115 Marrickville Rd, Marrickville 0401 002 333 Tue – Thu 5-11.30pm; Fri – Sat 3-11.30pm; Sun 3-9.30pm The Hideaway Bar 156 Enmore Rd, Enmore (02) 8021 8451 Tue– Thu 4pm-midnight; Fri – Sat noon-1am; Sun noon-10pm Hive Bar 93 Erskineville Rd, Erskineville (02) 9519 9911 Mon – Fri noon-midnight; Sat 11am-midnight; Sun 11am-10pm Kelly’s On King 285 King St, Newtown (02) 9565 2288 Mon – Fri 10am-2.30am; Sat 10am-3.30am; Sun 11am-11.30pm Knox Street Bar Cnr Knox & Shepherd St, Chippendale (02) 8970 6443 Tue – Thu 4-10pm, Fri – Sat 4pm-midnight Kuleto’s 157 King St, Newtown (02) 9519 6369 Mon – Sat 4pm-late; Thu – Sat 4pm-3am The Little Guy 87 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe (02) 8084 0758 Mon – Fri 4pm-midnight; Sat 1pm-midnight; Sun 3pm-10pm Mary’s 6 Mary St, Newtown (02) 4995 9550 Mon – Fri 4pm-midnight; Sat noon-midnight; Sun noon-10pm The Midnight Special 44 Enmore Road, Newtown (02) 9516 2345 Tues – Sat 5pm-midnight; Sun 5pm-10pm Miss Peaches 201 Missenden Rd, Newtown (02) 9557 7280 Wed – Sun 5pm-midnight The Moose Newtown 530 King St, Newtown (02) 9557 0072 Wed – Sat 6pm-midnight Mr Falcon’s 92 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe (02) 9029 6626 Mon – Thu 4pm-midnight; Fri 3pm-midnight; Sat noonmidnight; Sun 2pm-10pm Newtown Social Club 387 King St, Newtown (02) 9550 3974 Mon 9am-6pm; Tues – Fri 9am-8pm; Sat 10am-8pm

The Oxford Tavern 1 New Canterbury Rd, Petersham (02) 8019 9351 Mon – Thu noon-10pm; Fri – Sat noon-11pm; Sun noon-9pm Raven’s Eye 127 King St, Newtown (02) 9557 6429 Mon – Thu 5pm-midnight; Fri – Sat 11.30am-midnight; Sun 11:30am-10pm The Record Crate 34 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe (02) 9660 1075 Tue – Sat noon-midnight; Sun noon-10pm The Royal 156 Norton St, Leichhardt (02) 9569 2638 Mon – Thu 10am-1am; Fri – Sat 10am-3am; Sun 10am-midnight Secret Garden Bar 134a Enmore Rd, Enmore 0403 621 585 Mon – Sun 1am-11pm Soho In Balmain 358 Darling St, Balmain 0407 525 208 Tue – Sun 5pm-midnight Temperance Society 122 Smith St, Summer Hill (02) 8068 5680 Mon – Thu 4pm-11pm; Fri – Sat: noon-midnight; Sun: noon-10pm Thievery 91 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe (02) 8283 1329 Tue – Thu 6pm-11pm; Fri 6pm-midnight.

Sat 11pm-3pm & 6pm-midnight Timbah 375 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe (02) 9571 7005 Tue – Thu 4pm-10pm; Fri noon-11pm; Sat 3pm-11pm; Sun 4pm-8pm Wilhelmina’s Liquid and Larder 332 Darling St Balmain (02) 8068 8762 Tues – Fri 5pm - late; Sat – Sun 8am - late The Workers Lvl 1, 292 Darling St, Balmain (02) 9555 8410 Thu – Sat 5pm-3am; Sun 2pm-late ZanziBar 323 King St, Newtown (02) 9519 1511 Mon – Sat 10am-4am; Sun 10am-12am Zigi’s Wine And Cheese Bar 86 Abercrombie St, Chippendale (02) 9699 4222 Tue 4pm-10pm; Wed – Sat 2pm-late

Alberts Bar 100 Mount St, North Sydney (02) 9955 9097 Mon – Wed 11.30am-10pm; Thu 11.30am-11pm; Fri 11.30am-midnight Firefly 24 Young St, Neutral Bay (02) 9909 0193 Mon – Thu 5-11.30pm; Fri 4-11.30pm; Sat noon11pm; Sun noon-10pm The Foxtrot 28 Falcon St, Crows Nest Tue – Wed 5pm-midnight; Thu 5pm-1am; Fri – Sat 5pm-2am; Sun 4pm-10pm The Hayberry Bar & Diner 97 Willoughby Road, Crows Nest

(02) 8084 0816 Tue – Thu 4pm-12am; Fri & Sat noon-midnight Sun noon-10pm Hemingway’s 48 North Steyne, Manly (02) 9976 3030 Mon – Sat 8am-midnight; Sun 8am-10pm Honey Rider 230 Military Rd, Neutral Bay (02) 9953 8880 Tue – Sat 4pm-midnight; Sun 4pm-10pm InSitu 1/18 Sydney Rd, Manly (02) 9977 0669 Tue – Fri 5pm-midnight; Sat 9am-midnight; Sun 9am-10pm The Hunter 5 Myahgah Rd, Mosman 0409 100 339 Mon – Tue 5pm-midnight; Wed – Sat noon-midnight; Sun noon-10pm Jah Bar Shop 7, 9-15 Central Ave, Manly (02) 9977 4449 Mon – Fri 4pm-late; Sat 9am-late; Sun 9am-10pm The Local Bar 6/8 Young Ln, Neutral Bay (02) 9953 0027 Tue – Fri 11.30am-midnight; Sat 7am-midnight; Sun 7am-10pm Los Vida 419 Pacific Hwy, Crows Nest (02) 9439 8323 Mon – Wed 5pm-midnight; Thu – Sat 11.30am-midnight; Sun 11.30am-10pm Manly Wine 8-13 South Steyne, Manly (02) 8966 9000 Mon – Sun 6.30am-late The Mayor 400 Military Rd, Cremorne (02) 8969 6060 Tue – Wed 5pm-late; Thu – Sat noon-late; Sun noon-10pm Miami Cuba 47 North Steyne, Manly (02 99775186 Tue – Thu 8am-10pm; Fri – Sat 8am-1am; Sunday 8am-4pm Moonshine Lvl 2, Hotel Steyne, 75 The Corso, Manly (02) 9977 4977 Thu 5pm-2am; Fri 1pm-2am; Sat noon-2am; Sun noon-midnight The Pickled Possum 254 Military Rd, Neutral Bay (02) 9909 2091 Thu – Sat 9pm-1am SoCal 1 Young St, Neutral Bay (02) 9904 5691 Mon – Tue 4pm-late: Wed – Thu noon-1am; Fri – Sat noon- 2am; Sun noon-midnight The Stoned Crow 39 Willoughby Rd, Crows Nest (02) 9439 5477 Mon – Sun noon-late The Treehouse Hotel 60 Miller St, North Sydney (02) 8458 8980 Mon – Fri 7am-late; Sat 2pm-late Wilcox Cammeray 463 Miller St, Cammeray (02) 9460 0807 Tue – Thu 4pm-10pm; Fri – Sat 2pm-11pm; Sun 2pm-10pm thebrag.com

out & about Queer(ish) matters with Lucy Watson

I

have an interesting relationship with Christmas. As a queer whose parents are more or less ‘so what?’ about the whole thing, I don’t have much to complain about. My girlfriend is joining me at my festivities, I’m going to hers, the whole thing will be fairly tame and incident-free.

But as a queer who studies and writes about queers, I’m often acutely aware of the way traditions are more difficult for LGBTI folk, even if they’re not so difficult for me. I have my own, largely self-projected problems with big family events, but in the grand scheme of things, Christmas is generally a great time for me to see my family, get a few new pairs of socks, and lay off booze for a few days (my family are not drinkers, so unlike many people’s Christmases, mine is usually one of the more tame times of the year).

Christmas is a time that reminds those whose families have rejected them of that loss. As we all spend time with our families, those who don’t have them are left in the cold (metaphorically – this is Australia in December, after all).

Christmas is also a strange reminder of the way that Christianity still dominates this country, despite its dwindling majority, and the rise of secular multiculturalism. Although much of Christmas isn’t so religious (and arguably more of a celebration of consumer capitalism than Christianity), for some, the painful fact of Christianity’s treatment of queers is unavoidable this time of year.

These next few weeks are a chance to spend time with loved ones. That might be your family, or it might not. Your family might be the people you met over the pool table at the Imperial, or during a care-eokay number at Tokyo Sing Song, or while dancing shirtless at OpenAir. This week I’ve done up an extended what’s on so that everyone can find their queer family over the holiday season.

over the holidays:

Stereogamous This Wednesday December 23, Sing Song is hosting its 23 Tokyo annual orphans’ Christmas, for, as the venue labels it, hospo workers, Newtown ratbags and other social degenerates. If you fit that bill, your family awaits you down in the Marly basement. There’ll be DJ sets from Chestahh, Thomas Loosli, Money For Nothing and Catlyf vs Old Mate.

DEC

On Saturday December 26, you can head to the Red Rattler for Pink Bubble. Featuring Brooke Powers, Lorna Clarkson, Lucy Cliche, Meta Etcetera and more, this should be a chance to shake off any lingering Christmas feels.

DEC

26

Your options for New Year’s Day on Friday January 1 1 recovery aren’t limited. If you ended up sleeping over at The Shift, stick around for Alaska Thunderfuck to bring in your 2016.

JAN

Club Kooky is finally back! From 2pm on NYD at the Red Rattler, it’ll feature all your favourites and a load of good times. Tickets are on the door, so get in early.

JAN

1

If disco music is your thing, Soul Of Sydney has announced its NYD recovery party, at a secret location TBA. Party with the Soul Of Sydney DJs, as well as Simon Caldwell, DJ Naiki, Mike Who and heaps more.

JAN

1

You could also head to the launch of The Sweet Escape – a new regular Saturday night at the newly reopened Imperial Hotel.

Stereogamous are the regular hosts, and they’ll be joined weekly by both performing and DJ guests.

DEC

26

To get another dose of Stereogamous this weekend, catch them again at their regular Teddy Bears Picnic on Sunday December 27 at Harpoon Harry’s.

DEC

27

Alaska Thunderfuck

If you don’t already have plans New Year’s Eve on Thursday 31 for December 31, there are still options! The Shift has its Glitterfest happening, with BP Major and heaps of DJs and drag queens.

DEC

For the Inner West-inclined, Park Beats is happening at Fraser Park in Marrickville, featuring Steve Sonius (Bad Dog), Lorna Clarkson (Down Low Disco) and L’Oasis.

DEC

31

And finally, if you want to get of the city, don’t forget 31 out Tropical Fruits at the Lismore Showgrounds (Northern New South Wales). There are three big parties happening: the New Year’s Eve party, and the New Year’s Day recovery and pool parties. This year’s NYE theme is Superfreaks, and the lineup features several Sydneysiders, including Amanda Louise and Sveta.

Amanda Louise

Xxx

DEC

Lorna Clarkson

thebrag.com

BRAG :: 644 :: 23:12:15 :: 27

Album Reviews

W h a t 's b e e n c r o s s in g o u r e a r s t h i s ye a r. . .

THE BRAG’S TOP TEN ALBUMS OF 2015 What a year it’s been for new music around the world, and in Australia particularly. Our artists have dominated the charts and the critics’ reviews, not only locally but overseas, and you can’t help but think we’re in the midst of a great time for Aussie artistry.

7.

As we look back on the 12 months past, we celebrate all that and more with our Top Ten Albums Of 2015 list, as voted by the BRAG’s extensive team of contributors. And who said the album was dead? Not on this evidence it ain’t.

1.

HIATUS KAIYOTE

Choose Your Weapon Sony “Hiatus Kaiyote have created a modern classic that sounds timeless and cutting-edge at the same time.

The band have not only forged a completely unique sound, but they’ve mastered it.” - James Di Fabrizio

TAME IMPALA Currents Universal

What we said then: “These are the times, people: some of the best Australian music is being made right here, right now. Well, in Fremantle, to be precise. Currents is the sound of Parker dropping his guard and embracing everything he loves about great pop music.” - Paul McBride

8.

What we say now: Can anyone remember the last shitty band that came out of Western Australia? Maybe it’s something in the water. Maybe it’s just the fact that by the time a band can afford to tour to the so-called cultural centres of the east coast, its members have earned their chops in small venues a thousand times over. But while it’d be unfair to say that Tame Impala have put Perth on the map internationally, they’re sure as hell leading the Aussie charge overseas. This is the kind of album that will influence a generation – and we can’t wait to hear what that will sound like.

2.

3.

4.

5.

JAMIE XX

In Colour Young Turks/Remote Control “In Colour is an amazing album. This speckled musical jewel finds the sweet spot between Jamie Smith’s work as arguably the world’s coolest DJ and his day job as a member and producer of The xx.” - Dan Watt

COURTNEY BARNETT

Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit Milk!/Remote Control What we said then: “Barnett has an unrivalled ability to fi nd those proverbial diamonds in the rough, scraping beneath the surface of the seemingly humdrum and inconsequential to reveal something far deeper and rich in character development.”

- David James Young What we say now: Looking back, it’s hard to pinpoint exactly when Courtney Barnett went from the suburban poet drawling about Melbourne trams to a mouthpiece for the masses, seemingly appearing on every second festival lineup and television show. Perhaps Jimmy Fallon did it. Either way, she’s ours, and boy are we bloody lucky to have her.

KENDRICK LAMAR To Pimp A Butterfl y Interscope/Universal

FATHER JOHN MISTY I Love You, Honeybear Sub Pop/Inertia

If hip hop is street poetry, then Kendrick is a modern-day James Joyce, and To Pimp A Butterfl y is his Ulysses. Kendrick breaks through the limits of hip hop as though he was taking a morning stretch, fl ipping genres and vocal styles like a coin. For those who are turned off by excessive expletives, it should be said that you’ll mostly be covering your ears. But the things that Kendrick is rapping about are brutally serious, uncomfortably personal, and when they return as they always must to growing up in the bloody streets of Compton, the frustration is enraging. As such, the swearing isn’t inappropriate or overly vulgar. It’s just the only thing that can be said. - Daniel Prior

What we said then: “Josh Tillman is dead, and in his place we now have Father John Misty. I Love You, Honeybear is a High Fidelity-inspired realisation for a 30-something man about love and relationships. Since his last album, Tillman got married, and this album is a reflection of that – it’s a slightly surreal and dark look at love, wrapped up in beautiful baroque-pop productions.” - Spencer Scott What we say now: Some seven months after the release of his crowning second album, Father John Misty responded to Ryan Adams’ album-length cover of Taylor Swift’s 1989 by covering those recordings himself – and all in the style of Lou Reed. We’re still not sure which of his 2015 projects had a sharper sense of humour, but one thing’s for sure: the world’s a better place thanks to the Josh Tillman wit.

GANG OF YOUTHS

9.

The Positions Sony

What we said then: “Their debut album, The Positions, confirms the band as one of Australia’s most exciting and talented acts. It’s a powerful mix of drum-heavy rhythms, varied instrumentals and raw vocals from lead singer David Leaupepe.”

- Chris Bright What we say now: Gang Of Youths’ early singles hinted at some big talent, but the sheer size of their sound and their stadium-ready melodies still emerged as a pleasant surprise.

The Sydneysiders ruled the roost in the live environment this year, thanks largely to anthemic song after song on their debut LP, and the small stages won’t hold them for much longer.

ROYAL HEADACHE

High Distant And Vague/What’s Your Rupture?

“Royal Headache have worked their high-energy garage rock down to an art. Straight up, their second release High is a churning mass of noise, aggression and compassion – in short, everything punters loved in their debut and more.” - Jade Smith

6.

10.

SUFJAN STEVENS

KURT VILE

Seven albums in, and Sufjan Stevens is breaking hearts like never before. Drawing inspiration from the death of his mother, Carrie, the Detroit-born Stevens revisits some of the most defining moments of his childhood, and speaks to all of us in the process.

It’s not easy listening, but it matters. - Chris Martin

“B’lieve I’m Goin Down… is a more nocturnal and contemplative record than its predecessor, but what the two have in common is how absorbing the songs are. If this album is anything to go by, it’s quite possible that Vile isn’t done outdoing himself just yet.”

- Michael Hartt

Honourable Mentions Because after a big year of music, not all the albums get the attention they deserve.

Here are some other records we loved this year…

Beach House – Depression Cherry Blur – The Magic Whip Bully – Feels Like Chvrches – Every Open Eye City Calm Down – In A Restless House D’Angelo and The Vanguard – Black Messiah Dawes – All Your Favourite Bands Deafheaven – New Bermuda Deerhunter – Fading Frontier Dick Diver – Melbourne, Florida Drake – If You’re Reading This It’s Already Too Late Florence + The Machine – How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful

28 :: BRAG :: 644 :: 23:12:15

Foley! – Ascot Vale Four Tet – Morning/Evening Girl Band – Holding Hands With Jamie Kamasi Washington – The Epic Loma Prieta – Self Portrait Mark Ronson – Uptown Special Natalie Prass – Natalie Prass Rae Morris – Unguarded Susanne Sundfør – Ten Love Songs The Mountain Goats – Beat The Champ The Paper Kites – Twelvefour Unknown Mortal Orchestra – Multi-Love Wavves – V Young Fathers – White Men Are Black Men Too

Carrie & Lowell Asthmatic Kitty/Inertia

B’lieve I’m Goin Down…

Matador

thebrag.com

Tickets now on sale for Red Line Productions season 2016 at the legendary Old Fitz.

It’s big, bold and beautiful.

Tickets available at www.oldfitztheatre.com. Come and see what Red Line have in store. WHY NOT?!

BRAG :: 644 :: 23:12:15 :: 29

thebrag.com/snaps

john farnham

PICS :: AM

up all night out all week . . .

live reviews

What we've been out to see...

gladstone

16:12:15 :: Qantas Credit Union Arena :: 35 Harbour St Darling Harbour

PICS :: AM

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20:12:15 :: Frankie’s Pizza :: 50 Hunter St Sydney

COLD CHISEL, GRINSPOON Qantas Credit Union Arena Tuesday December 15

newcomer Charley Drayton. Together, they gave a metaphorical ‘fuck you’ to any naysayers that tried to dismiss them as old rockers.

Cold Chisel’s latest run of Sydney shows doubled as their latest ‘last stand’, having famously played farewell concerts in 1983 bearing this moniker.

Here in 2015, the same passion, power and fury was present, as the band bid goodbye to the soon-to-be-demolished Ent Cent (everyone always preferred that name) before it’s gone.

Chisel’s shows are an eclectic mix where you can coast along for the subtle ‘Choirgirl’, then enjoy the funk factor on ‘Rising Sun’ thanks to longtime touring saxophonist Andy Bickers.

‘Cheap Wine’ had everyone singing along and hiding the fact they could relate to the ‘rocket fuels’ in the lyrics.

Grinspoon took a break from their hiatus to appear in a pleasant but predictable support slot. They blazed through most of their well-known songs (the notable exception being ‘DC×3’) and fi nished with the INXS cover, ‘Don’t Change’. It had been a short and fi ne rock show, even though it was obvious the crowd wanted to embrace its inner bogan.

Cold Chisel frontman Jimmy Barnes was in excellent singing voice, belting out ‘Standing On The Outside’, and things only grew exponentially from there. Ian Moss’ guitar playing was a real treat, both melodic and off-thescales. ‘Barnesy’ and ‘Mossy’ were a veritable powerhouse along with the fabulous pianist Don Walker and the tight rhythm section, Phil Small and

The longer second half of the show was virtually all killer and no fi ller. There was our unofficial national anthem ‘Khe Sanh’ and ‘Flame Trees’, a virtual hymn that’s known to make hardened men cry.

It was a feast of nostalgia with a setlist inspired by the 1983 shows and a desire to tear down the venue with music.

Chisel also threw in some covers: ‘Georgia On My Mind’ (made famous by Ray Charles), Chip Taylor’s ‘Wild Thing’ and Roy Hamilton’s ‘Don’t Let Go’.

It was fi tting, as always, to fi nish with ‘Goodbye (Astrid Goodbye)’. It had been both a stunning farewell and a jubilant return to a venue that became synonymous long ago with the Chisel name.

Natalie Salvo

PHOTOGRAPHER :: ASHLEY MAR

30 :: BRAG :: 644 :: 23:12:15

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VIEW FULL GALLERIES AT

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LIME CORDIALE, AYLA Metro Theatre Saturday December 19

With the under-18-year-olds penned off in the mosh area, Sunshine Coast singersongwriter Ayla proved a sweet precursor for the night. Showcasing the strength of her songwriting through rich vocal depth and a three-piece band, the rising talent gave a resounding performance of songs like ‘Waiting’, ‘When The World Ends’ and her cover of Hunters & Collectors’ ‘Throw Your Arms Around Me’.

Piercing screams soon greeted Lime Cordiale’s quiet entrance to the stage for their biggest home gig yet, marking the Sydney group’s next phase. The lineup of eight players for the evening, with founding members and brothers Louis and Oli Leimbach front and centre, was celebrating the release of the Road To Paradise EP with shirts undone and a side of disbelief.

‘Hanging Upside Down’ triumphantly rung through the venue, though it saw a battle between the sound levels of vocals, keys and horns.

A few songs down and sound clashes resolved, older tunes ‘Sleeping At Your Door’ and ‘Falling Up The Stairs’ had their chance to shine, filling ears via their respective ’60s surf rock drum loop and slinky trombone. As the band members

FRONT END LOADER, PEG Newtown Social Club Sunday December 20

The four musicians collectively known as Peg must be very good at poker. Though they did admittedly warm up towards the end of their set, giggling at a few mistakes that forced them to start songs over, for the majority of the show they were stonyfaced and distant.

It was a shame, particularly when combined with a distinct hesitancy that infected their Slint-centric brand of rock’n’roll like a disease. Though their performance was certainly not a complete disappointment – there were moments of haunted, fragile greatness scattered throughout the set – their stylised sense of remove was both frustrating and vibekilling; an anxiety-inducing start to the evening if ever there was one.

were enjoying themselves with smiles plastered on faces, blowing kisses and sharing details of mischief they’d heard the younger audience members were up to before the main event, the years of playing intimate venues were proving to have paid off.

The boys’ solid cover of ‘My Friend’ by Groove Armada was next up, served with a dose of irony. Thoroughly enjoyed by the ‘older’ crowd, you couldn’t help but grin at the thought that most in the room were unaware of the classic, being infants when the tune was released.

Regardless, Lime Cordiale’s approach to producing music has held true, and it was clear that the younger members of their fan base are in good hands, particularly when ‘Pretty Girl’ kicked in. With the crowd thumping and their four-piece brass section making wind instruments sexy, the group was in fifth gear and new single ‘Not That Easy’ marked a swarming end to the set.

Chants of “one more song” filled the room before Lime Cordiale managed to exit the stage, confirming the sentiment throughout the crowd that they’ve successfully grown into a new stage of their career – it’s only a matter of time before their following skews a little older and their venue sizes increase again.

Emily Gibb

punk riffs and debauched glam stylings grew increasingly intoxicating with every song, and before long the hyped-up audience descended into a frantic mess of headbanging and fist-pumping. It was fall of the Roman Empire kind of stuff; sweaty and skeezy.

Not even multiple technical issues could stop the sonic onslaught. They had to swap out both a guitar and an amp, and their onstage banter with Henry, their sound technician, reached ‘Who’s on first?’ levels of comic repetition. But the pace didn’t let up for a minute as they skipped and skittered through their back catalogue, and even threw a new, unreleased tune into the mix.

The burden of the show was very much on Front End Loader’s shoulders, then, and there was a palatable sense of expectation as the band took to the stage. But the audience need not have worried, and all concerns that the group would follow Peg’s suit were shattered the moment they sent their first jangly chord out into the room.

That said, the night’s highlight was a deliciously debauched cover of ‘I Want To Break Free’. A shotgun wedding’s worth of overstuffed, anxious beauty, it was grand and yet grainy; rich and yet real.

Even Henry the soundman got involved, singing the guitar solo and transforming it into a series of yelpy ‘waow waows’ in the process. An acquired taste perhaps, but a significant moment in a wholly significant show; a gig with enough power to transcend the very limits of Newtown Social Club’s humble four walls.

Their manic blend of cock rock tropes,

Joseph Earp

NEON INDIAN

titbits from the new album including the singles ‘Annie’ and ‘The Glitzy Hive’, a ridiculously fun retro-inspired dance track.

Oxford Art Factory Tuesday December 15 Neon Indian’s latest output Vega Intl.

Night School has brought them back to Sydney for the first time in years. If you were expecting a repeat of 2011’s Era Extraña tour, you’d have felt like you were watching a different band this time at Oxford Art Factory.

Vega Intl. is a complete departure from their earlier work, but just like Era Extraña, their sound still lends itself to a lot of dancing – albeit with a more ’80s, pan-pipey bent. And while we’re on the subject, frontman Alan Palomo did a lot of impressive footwork sending his curltopped undercut into a spin. For that part of the show alone, it was peak ’80s.

The set opened with some of the tastier

OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHER

thebrag.com

up all night out all week . . .

ELTON JOHN

Qantas Credit Union Arena Saturday December 19 “Burn down the mission,” Elton John sang in an unexpected inclusion to his All The Hits set, “If we’re gonna stay alive”.

It was an auspicious addition for the Qantas Credit Union Arena née Sydney Entertainment Centre. Prior to Saturday night (alright for fighting, don’tcha know) he had commanded the stage here 45 times; his 46th proved the last hurrah before the venue is demolished.

Auspicious for the occasion – the venue will fall, only to rise again phoenix-like in another form – and for John himself.

His career has seen almost as many reinventions as his wardrobe, and for the most part they have been, as his bejewelled jacket reminded, ‘Fantastic’.

In truth, I can’t really be objective about Elton John. As a child, his was the first music I ever identified as an individual sound out in the ocean of music, and so whatever my tastes today, my appreciation for songwriting stems from he and Bernie Taupin’s indelible partnership. Given he maintained a consistent standing ovation at the close of every single number from ‘Bennie And The Jets’ to ‘Crocodile Rock’ 20 songs later, I clearly wasn’t the only long-term acolyte.

There were a handful of criticisms to be

had of course, but given how long John has been entertaining us now, they feel a little mean. At 68 his voice can still utterly transfix you, but it also meant he struggled somewhat through the likes of ‘Philadelphia Freedom’ and ‘Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word’. He could also have lost the synthesised strings and the songs would have been all the stronger.

But when John hits (which is often), it makes for a stunning experience. Hearing ‘Candle In The Wind’ live for the first time is something I’ll never forget; similarly, hearing an absolutely gob-smacking instrumental piece – just John spotlit at the piano, with 13,000 pairs of riveted ears – suddenly turn on a dime into ‘Rocket Man’ was a show-stopper.

We had a full palette of established classics – ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’, ‘Daniel’ and perennial favourite ‘I Guess That’s Why They Call It The Blues’ – as well as rediscovered ones like ‘Tiny Dancer’ interwoven with several unexpected pieces. ‘Believe’ was a surprise, as was ‘All The Girls Love Alice’. But in the end, perhaps my fondest memory of this venue’s final night will be the stirring sing-along to ‘Your Song’.

It may have taken 30 years, but I can finally cross this performance off my bucket list. And oh! Was it ever worth the wait.

Adam Norris PHOTOGRAPHER :: ASHLEY MAR

The room was riding on the guys’ exuberant energy, as we all collectively plumbed the depths of their nostalgic tunes. There were nods to their 2011 output with renditions of ‘Terminally Chill’ as well as earlier work with the tracks ‘Mind, Drips’ and ‘Deadbeat Summer’.

The encore embraced the old with the chill computer noise of Era Extraña’s ‘Polish Girl’. By night’s end we were firmly back in ’80s-’00s crossover land with ‘News From The Sun’ the fi nale.

A bit of the old, a lot of the new – all in all, a fun night and a great performance.

Sarah Little

S :: KATRINA CLARKE :: ASHLEY

MAR ::

BRAG :: 644 :: 23:12:15 :: 31

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SUMMER HOLIDAY GIG GUIDE WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 23

JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD MUSIC The Groovemeisters Lazybones Lounge, Marrickville. 8:30pm.

Free.

ACOUSTIC, COUNTRY, BLUES & FOLK Manouche Wednesday feat: John Maddox Duo Mr Falcon’s, Glebe. 7pm.

Free.

INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS Glenn Esmond Fortune Of War, The Rocks. 5pm. Free.

Mark Travers Orient Hotel, The Rocks.

9pm. Free.

Sugar Jam Open Mic Night Sugarmill, Kings Cross.

8pm. Free.

The Flame Fields Frankie’s Pizza, Sydney.

4pm. Free.

THURSDAY DECEMBER 24 JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD MUSIC Thursdays In Jam feat: El Moro + DJ Av El Cubano Jam Gallery, Bondi Junction. 9pm. Free.

INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS Dave Debs Figtree Hotel, Figtree.

7pm. Free.

Glenn Esmond Macarthur Tavern, Campbelltown. 3pm.

Free.

Glenn Esmond Panania Hotel, Panania.

8pm. Free.

John Milligan The Push Bar, The Rocks. 7pm. Free.

Michael Burton Mr Falcon’s, Glebe.

8:30pm. Free.

Outlier Orient Hotel, The Rocks.

8pm. Free.

Sam Newton Manly Leagues Club, Brookvale. 4pm. Free.

Twin Fires Moonshine Cider & Rum Bar, Manly. 9pm. Free.

Vanessa Heinitz Manly Leagues Club, Brookvale. 7:30pm. Free.

Vanessa Heinitz Duo Coogee Bay Hotel, Coogee. 11:30pm. Free.

ACOUSTIC, COUNTRY, BLUES & FOLK Bones Atlas 32 :: BRAG :: 644 :: 23:12:15

Lazybones Lounge, Marrickville. 8:30pm.

Free.

Oh Carols!

The Gasoline Pony, Marrickville. 7pm. Free.

FRIDAY DECEMBER 25 INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS Emille Theeboom Chatswood RSL, Chatswood. 12pm.

Free.

SATURDAY DECEMBER 26 ACOUSTIC, COUNTRY, BLUES & FOLK Paul Hayward And His Sidekicks Town & Country Hotel, St Peters. 4pm. Free.

JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD MUSIC Let’s Groove Tonight Revesby Workers Club, Revesby. 8:30pm. Free.

INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS AJ Dyce The Push Bar, The Rocks. 7:30pm. Free.

Blake Tailor Rooty Hill RSL Club, Rooty Hill. 6:30pm.

Free.

Dave Anthony Duo Coogee Bay Hotel, Coogee. 8:30pm. Free.

El Vez + Spurs For Jesus Newtown Social Club, Newtown. 8pm. $59.

Glenn Esmond Duo The Greens, North Sydney. 3:30pm. Free.

Jimmy Bear Orient Hotel, The Rocks. 5:45pm. Free.

Manalion + Bears With Guns Moonshine Cider & Rum Bar, Manly. 9pm.

Free.

Paper Hearts Wentworthville Leagues Club, Wentworthville.

8pm. Free.

Party Rock People Penrith RSL, Penrith.

9pm. Free.

Rob Eastwood Panania Diggers, Panania. 8pm. Free.

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

Vanessa Heinitz Fortune Of War, The Rocks. 3pm. Free.

Vanessa Heinitz Duo Coogee Bay Hotel, Coogee. 11:30pm. Free.

Wild Catz Orient Hotel, The Rocks. 10pm. Free.

SUNDAY DECEMBER 27

JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD MUSIC Judy Bailey’s Jazz Connection Lazybones Lounge, Marrickville. 6:30pm.

Free.

ACOUSTIC, COUNTRY, BLUES & FOLK Ivanhoe The Deck, Sydney.

3:30pm. Free.

Paul Hayward And His Sidekicks Town & Country Hotel, St Peters. 1pm. Free.

Singer-Songwriter Showcase Mr Falcon’s, Glebe.

6pm. Free.

PUNK & COVERS

Frankie’s World Famous House Band Frankie’s Pizza, Sydney. 9pm. Free.

Jay Parrino Duo Orient Hotel, The Rocks. 8:30pm. Free.

Live & Originals @ The Corridor Corridor Bar, Newtown.

7:30pm. Free.

Pete Hunt Orient Hotel, The Rocks. 4:30pm. Free.

Steve Crocker Fortune Of War, The Rocks. 5pm. Free.

The Monday Jam The Beresford Hotel, Surry Hills. 6pm. Free.

TUESDAY DECEMBER 29

JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD MUSIC Totally Stringled Lazybones Lounge, Marrickville. 8:30pm. Free.

INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS Live & Originals @ Mr Falcons - feat: Nikki Steinfield + Zech Abbott + Dominique Morgan Mr Falcon’s, Glebe.

7:30pm. Free.

Live Rock & Roll Karaoke Frankie’s Pizza, Sydney.

4pm. Free.

Matt Jones Duo Orient Hotel, The Rocks.

9pm. Free.

Ted Nash Fortune Of War, The Rocks. 5pm. Free.

WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 30 JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD MUSIC Coretet Lazybones Lounge,

Marrickville. 8:30pm. Free.

INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS Blake Wiggins Fortune Of War, The Rocks. 8pm. Free.

Chris Cooke Solo Orient Hotel, The Rocks.

4:30pm. Free.

Glenn Esmond Fortune Of War, The Rocks. 5pm. Free.

Lennox Lust Orient Hotel, The Rocks.

9pm. Free.

Sugar Jam Open Mic Night Sugarmill, Kings Cross.

8pm. Free.

Vanessa Heinitz

Client Liaison

INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS Dave Anthony Macarthur Tavern, Campbelltown. 2pm.

Free.

Dead City Ruins + Archaic Revival + Valhalla Lights Frankie’s Pizza, Sydney. 4pm. Free.

El Vez + Dr El Suavo Newtown Social Club, Newtown. 6pm. $59.

Evie Dean Northies Cronulla Hotel, Sydney. 1pm.

Free.

Glenn Esmond Panania Diggers, Panania. 12pm. Free.

Glenn Esmond Fortune Of War, The Rocks. 6pm. Free.

King Tide + Blackbird Hum Moonshine Cider & Rum Bar, Manly. 9pm.

Free.

Ted Nash Ingleburn Hotel, Ingleburn. 1pm. Free.

U2 Elevation Orient Hotel, The Rocks. 5:45pm. Free.

White Bros Orient Hotel, The Rocks. 10pm. Free.

THURSDAY DECEMBER 31 JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD MUSIC Thursdays In Jam feat: El Moro + DJ Av El Cubano Jam Gallery, Bondi Junction. 9pm. Free.

INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS AJ Dyce The Push Bar, The Rocks. 8pm. Free.

Blake Tailor Kirribilli Hotel, Milsons Point. 4pm. Free.

Harbour Party 2015 - feat: Will Sparks + Miami Horror + Nicky

Night Time + Odd Mob + Torren Foot + Tom Tilley + Combo + Client Liaison Big Top Sydney, Milsons Point. 6:30pm. $119.

Matt Lyon Wallacia Hotel, Wallacia. 8pm. Free.

Nathan Cole Duo Chatswood RSL, Chatswood. 9pm. Free.

Nye With Backy Skank + DJ Nothing

Lazybones Lounge, Marrickville. 8:30pm. $49.

The Villains + The Jethros + The Jethros Towradgi Beach Hotel, Towradgi. 8pm. Free.

The Vinyl Schminyl + DJ Vu The Gasoline Pony, Marrickville. 7pm. Free.

Vanessa Heinitz Duo Coogee Bay Hotel, Coogee. 8:30pm. Free.

Miami Horror

MONDAY DECEMBER 28 JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD MUSIC Sonic Mayhem Orchestra Lazybones Lounge, Marrickville. 8:30pm.

Free.

ACOUSTIC, COUNTRY, BLUES & FOLK John Maddox Duo Mr Falcon’s, Glebe.

7pm. Free.

INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, thebrag.com

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NEW YEAR’S DAY FRIDAY JANUARY 1 INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS Dave Anthony Duo Coogee Bay Hotel,

SATURDAY JANUARY 2 ACOUSTIC, COUNTRY, BLUES & FOLK

Clayton Doley’s Bayou Billabong Lazybones Lounge, Marrickville. 8:30pm.

Free.

Flamin’ Beauties Royal Hotel, Bondi.

9pm. Free.

Paul Hayward And His Sidekicks Town & Country Hotel, St Peters.

4pm. Free.

JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD MUSIC

Coogee. 8:30pm.

Free.

Dave Debs Lord Raglan Hotel, Alexandria. 7pm.

Free.

Hits & Pieces Rooty Hill RSL Club, Rooty Hill. 8:30pm.

Free.

Jared Baca Figtree Hotel, Figtree. 8pm. Free.

Big Swing Band Penrith RSL, Penrith. 2pm. Free.

Soul Nights Revesby Workers Club, Revesby.

8:30pm. Free.

INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS After Party Band Penrith RSL, Penrith. 9pm. Free.

Cath & Him Kelly’s On King, Newtown. 9:30pm.

Free.

Evie Dean Stacks Taverna, Sydney. 3pm. Free.

Hits & Pieces Town Hall Hotel, Balmain. 9:30pm.

Free.

Jimmy Mann The Push Bar, The Rocks. 7:30pm.

One Hit Wonders Revesby Workers Club, Revesby.

3:50pm. Free.

Peter Head The Push Bar, The Rocks. 7:30pm. Free.

Reckless Orient Hotel, The Rocks. 10pm. Free.

Rob Eastwood Castle Hill RSL, Castle Hill. 6:30pm.

Free.

Marty Stewart Orient Hotel, The Rocks. 5:45pm.

Free.

Penny Lane Novotel, Rooty Hill.

6:30pm. Free.

Rob Eastwood Campbelltown Catholic Club, Campbelltown.

6:30pm. Free.

Ted Nash The Belvedere Hotel, Sydney.

7:30pm. Free.

Vanessa Heinitz Fortune Of War, The Rocks. 3pm. Free.

Vanessa Heinitz Duo Coogee Bay Hotel, Coogee. 11:30pm.

Free.

VIP Orient Hotel, The Rocks. 10pm. Free.

Virna Sanzone Foundry616, Ultimo.

The Maccabees

Free.

Rob Henry Orient Hotel, The Rocks. 5:45pm.

Free.

Tara Favell Zest Grill House, Rooty Hill. 5:30pm.

Free.

Vanessa Heinitz Chatswood RSL, Chatswood. 5pm.

Free.

8:30pm. $21.50.

Wavves Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst. 8pm. $53.

Weird Al Yankovic Enmore Theatre, Newtown. 8pm. $95.12.

Whelan & Gover Panania Hotel, Panania. 8:30pm.

Free.

SUNDAY JANUARY 3 ACOUSTIC, COUNTRY, BLUES & FOLK

Finn And Friends Town Hall Hotel, Sydney. 6:30pm.

Free.

Newtown. 7pm. $78.50.

The Maccabees Metro Theatre, Sydney. 7:30pm. $55.

The Monday Jam The Beresford Hotel, Surry Hills. 6pm.

Free.

TUESDAY JANUARY 5 JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD MUSIC Ivanhoe The Deck, Sydney.

3:30pm. Free.

INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS

Agent Orange Factory Floor, Marrickville. 7pm. $45.

Bare Bones + Whisky Smile + Los Hombres Del Diablo + Tijuana Stag Party Frankie’s Pizza, Sydney. 7pm. Free.

Dwayne Elix Penrith RSL, Penrith. 2pm. Free.

Leon Bridges Metro Theatre, Sydney. 8pm. $58.

Lonesome Train Orient Hotel, The

Rocks. 4:30pm.

Free.

Reckless Orient Hotel, The Rocks. 8:30pm.

Free.

Rick Fensom Fortune Of War, The Rocks. 6pm. Free.

The Wombats + Last Dinosaurs Hordern Pavilion, Moore Park. 7pm. $77.

MONDAY JANUARY 4 JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD MUSIC Toro Y Moi

wed

Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst. 8pm. $54.50.

Homecoming - Nick Hampton And Dave Blenkhorn Foundry616, Ultimo.

8:30pm. $16.50.

ACOUSTIC, COUNTRY, BLUES & FOLK

INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS

Gary Clark Jr. Sydney Opera House, Sydney.

8pm. $107.24.

INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS Frankie’s World Famous House Band Frankie’s Pizza, Sydney. 9pm. Free.

Mac Miller Enmore Theatre,

Disclosure Sydney Opera House, Sydney.

9pm. $103.20.

Foals Hordern Pavilion, Moore Park. 5pm. $77.

Live Rock & Roll Karaoke Frankie’s Pizza, Sydney. 4pm. Free.

Young Fathers Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst. 8pm. $45.80.

thu

23 Dec

(9:00PM - 12:00AM)

24 Dec

(8:00PM - 11:00AM)

fri

25 Dec

SATURDAY AFTERNOON

sat

5:45PM  8:45PM

26 Dec

SUNDAY AFTERNOON

sun

27 Dec

5:45PM  8:45PM

(10:00PM - :15AM)

(10:00PM - 1:15AM)

mon

tue

28 Dec

thebrag.com

29 (4:30PM - 7:30PM)

(8:30PM - 12:00AM)

Dec

(9:00PM - 12:00AM)

BRAG :: 644 :: 23:12:15 :: 33

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send your listings to : gigguide@thebrag.com

WEDNESDAY JANUARY 6 ACOUSTIC, COUNTRY, BLUES & FOLK The Weather Station The Famous Spiegeltent, Sydney.

5:45pm. $39.

INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS Django Django Metro Theatre, Sydney. 8pm. $59.90.

Elliphant Plan B Small Club, Sydney. 8pm. $42.

Four Tet Sydney Opera House, Sydney.

9pm. $49.

Mac Demarco + Gum + Kirin J. Callinan Enmore Theatre, Newtown. 8pm. $68.20.

Oh Wonder Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst. 8pm. $42.50.

Sugar Jam Open Mic Night Sugarmill, Kings Cross. 8pm. Free.

Wednesday Night Live - feat: The Ruckus + Colour Cage + Shake Your Blood Frankie’s Pizza,

Sydney. 9pm. Free.

THURSDAY JANUARY 7 ACOUSTIC, COUNTRY, BLUES & FOLK The Weather Station The Famous Spiegeltent, Sydney.

8pm. $39.

JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD MUSIC Jeremy Sawkins Trio + Jeremy Sawkins Trio + Nicky Crayson Foundry616, Ultimo.

8:30pm. $21.50.

INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS Bloc Party Enmore Theatre, Newtown. 8pm. $99.90.

Borns Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst. 8pm. $42.

El Dinero Frankie’s Pizza, Sydney. 4pm. Free.

Halsey Metro Theatre, Sydney. 7:30pm. $50.87.

Kurt Vile & The

Violators Sydney Opera House, Sydney.

9:30pm. $59.

Mac Demarco + Kirin J Callinan + Free Time Factory Theatre, Marrickville. 8pm.

Free.

Truckfighters Factory Floor, Marrickville. 8pm. $30.

FRIDAY JANUARY 8 JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD MUSIC Alan Cumming Sings Sappy Songs!

Magic Mirrors Spiegeltent, Sydney.

5:15pm. $69.

Anna Maria Jopek Foundry616, Ultimo.

8:30pm. $37.50.

INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS After Party Band Revesby Workers Club, Revesby.

8:30pm. Free.

Big Way Out Penrith RSL, Penrith. 9pm. Free.

Fleetmac Wood Presents: White Winged Love Disco The Basement,

Circular Quay.

8:30pm. $24.30.

Fm Belfast + Hermigervill Riverside Theatres, Parramatta. 8pm. $35.

Gnarwolves + Apart From This Bald Faced Stag Hotel, Leichhardt.

8pm. $11.80.

Halsey Metro Theatre, Sydney. 7:30pm. $49.90.

Jack Horner The Oriental Hotel, Springwood. 8pm.

Free.

Power Red Rattler, Marrickville. 8pm. $10.

Ryan Enright Zest Grill House, Rooty Hill. 5:30pm.

Free.

Safari Suits Colonial Hotel, Werrington. 8:30pm.

Free.

Soak Newtown Social Club, Newtown.

8pm. $44.

SATURDAY JANUARY 9 ACOUSTIC, COUNTRY, BLUES & FOLK Archie Roach + My Friend The Chocolate Cake

I M A G I N E B E I N G M A D E TO

FEEL LI KE C RAP J U ST FOR

Sydney Opera House, Sydney.

7pm. $125.

Paul Hayward And His Sidekicks Town & Country Hotel, St Peters.

4pm. Free.

JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD MUSIC Alan Cumming Sings Sappy Songs!

Magic Mirrors Spiegeltent, Sydney.

9:45pm. $69.

The Michael Griffin Quintet Foundry616, Ultimo.

8:30pm. Free.

INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS A Boy Named Cash (Johnny Cash Tribute Show) - feat: Monty Cotton The Basement, Circular Quay.

7:30pm. $19.20.

Blake Tailor Wallacia Hotel, Wallacia. 8pm. Free.

Breaking Orbit + Alitha + Mercury Sky Factory Floor, Marrickville. 8pm. $12.

Cath & Him Wentworthville Leagues Club, Wentworthville.

8pm. Free.

Evie Dean

Penrith Panthers, Penrith. 5:30pm.

Free.

Jack Colwell + Sophie Lowe + Suiix Newtown Social Club, Newtown.

8pm. $15.

Jack Horner Plough & Harrow, Camden. 8pm. Free.

Kick - The INXS Show Penrith RSL, Penrith. 9pm. Free.

Neck Deep + State Champs Metro Theatre, Sydney. 7:30pm. $45.

Nightwish Enmore Theatre, Newtown. 7:30pm. $82.25.

Penny Lane Novotel, Rooty Hill.

6:30pm. Free.

Shy Guys Revesby Workers Club, Revesby.

8:30pm. Free.

Sludgewave + Summons + Witchskull + Arrowhead + Transcending Sea Bald Faced Stag Hotel, Leichhardt.

8pm. $9.80.

The Flaming Lips Royal Botanic Garden & The Domain, Sydney.

5pm. Free.

SUNDAY JANUARY 10

ACOUSTIC, COUNTRY, BLUES & FOLK Ivanhoe The Deck, Sydney.

3:30pm. Free.

Mirel Wagner + Nadia Reid St Stephen’s Uniting Church, Sydney. 6pm. $49.

INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS Fm Belfast + Hermigervill Magic Mirrors Spiegeltent, Sydney.

9:45pm. $49.

Stephanie Lea Penrith Panthers, Penrith. 3:30pm. Free.

Urban Guerillas Hamilton Station Hotel, Newcastle.

8pm. Free.

JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD MUSIC Anna Maria Jopek Foundry616, Ultimo.

8pm. $21.50.

MONDAY JANUARY 11

COVERS The Monday Jam The Beresford Hotel, Surry Hills. 6pm.

Free.

The Spin Drifters - feat: Felicity Urquhart + George Washingmachine + Stuie French + Michel Rose + Clare O’Meara + Andrew Richardson + Hamish Stuart + Garry Steel + Michael Vidale The Basement, Circular Quay.

6:30pm. $18.30.

TUESDAY JANUARY 12 JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD MUSIC Nick Mancini Trio Foundry616, Ultimo.

8pm. $21.50.

INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS Live Rock & Roll Karaoke Frankie’s Pizza, Sydney. 4pm. Free.

INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK &

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 BEING

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H A N D E D.

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JAMES AND NATALIE SLADE FROM YUM YUM

FUTURE CLASSIC ON THE ROOF

FCxMCA, a joint initiative by Future Classic and the Museum Of Contemporary Art, has just announced four more artists for its January and February shows. The lineup includes Brisbane’s Wafia, an up-and-comer who’s perhaps best known for her transcendent cover of Mario’s ‘Let Me Love You’, and will be supported by poetcum-rapper Sampa The Great on Sunday January 17. Meanwhile, the Sunday February 21 lineup includes unhinged house music maestro Anthony Naples and Sleep D, a duo that makes eclectic house and techno music. Those who attend FCxMCA will also be treated to extended viewing hours within the gallery proper.

Growing Up Neither of us are 1. trained or from particularly musical families. We both just got a hold of records or heard older people making music and got hooked!

Inspirations NS: My first love 2. was Ella Fitzgerald. I got given her CD as a freebie when I bought some other album and I didn’t put it down for months. I sat there trying to emulate each track exactly as she did for hours on end.

JJ: To name just one is hard, but I could listen to Sly Stone all day. He pushed so many creative and social boundaries with his music. There’s A Riot Goin’ On, which was named as an answer to Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On, is a classic

example of his creativity – it’s said he played and recorded and overdubbed nearly the whole album by himself.

Your Crew Yum Yum is a duo 3. made up of Jayo James on production and Natalie Slade on vocals. Nat had just arrived back in town and was jamming with people here and there, when a friend of her new flatmate gave her a USB of beats from a guy called Jayo. We met up and jammed a couple times, and before you know it we had our first EP. Since then we’ve maintained the same relaxed approach to it all – we jam together and we’re lucky enough to get to work with other amazing artists like Hau, DanielSan, Tall Black Guy and The Bankrupt Billionaires, amongst others.

The Music You Make And Play 4.

We make soul music in the tradition of hip hop and dub in a DIY fashion. We’ve recorded everything so far at home in Jayo’s lounge room on a borrowed mic.

Our sound has been likened to artists like Belleruche, Quantic and Alice Russell, which is a great compliment. The live show is something that we enjoy the most – Natalie has a great stage presence and Jayo plays as many parts as possible live – MPC-style keys and turntables.

Music, Right Here, Right Now 5.

Sydney isn’t exactly known for its thriving urban music scene but there’s some really fresh artists here dropping killer stuff – Steve Spacek

Slum Village

just dropped the iOS Mixtape; Sampa The Great dropped The Great Mixtape; Sarah Connor dropped her single ‘No Fear’; The New Venusians got a lot of love OS with their single; Katalyst dropped the Guilty Simpson record, amongst others… so we’re in a pretty good place. For us right now, we just dropped a vinyl of our double EP, are getting excited about the Slum Village gig on January 2, plus we’re doing a lot of writing – so good times ahead!

What: Slade Meets Jayo / Spell out now independently Where: Supporting Slum Village at The Basement When: Saturday January 2

STEP INTO SECRET VALLEY

The Hunter Valley’s new home of music, Calais Estate, will welcome a huge lineup for its luxurious event on Saturday February 20. Alongside such attractions as glamping, spa baths, winery tours, à la carte dining and a tipi yoga zone, punters can catch performances from Leftfield, Rone, Luke Vibert, Parra For Cuva and Kid Fiction. Hard to argue with the substance of that. Check secretvalleyevents.com for details and to book.

Wafia photo by Claire Wakeford

SLUMMING IT IN SYDNEY

For one night in January, hip hop, roots-rock and reggae are set to raise the roof at The Basement. Headliners and Detroit hip hop legends Slum Village are on the road with their eighth studio album, Yes!, and theirs is a banger-heavy repertoire, following their work with the likes of J Dilla, Pete Rock, D’Angelo, Black Milk, Kanye West and Hi-Tek. Jamaica’s Conkarah will be there in support, taking to the stage with his fresh approach to reggae, complete with smooth roots, soulful undercurrent and lovers rock vibes. Homegrown rapper Briggs will fill out the bill, alongside beats from Soul Benefits, Wallace, Yum Yum, Frenzie and Adverse. It all goes down on Saturday January 2.

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WHO TANG? WU-TANG

The infamous hip hop outfit Wu-Tang Clan will hit Australian shores next year. One of the most revolutionary rap groups of the mid-’90s, the NY-based Wu-Tang Clan emerged from the underground in 1993 via Staten Island.

Since then, alongside various solo endeavours, the Clan have gone on to release seven studio albums, including their groundbreaking debut Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) through to their latest record Once Upon A

Time In Shaolin, of which only one copy was pressed. While those tunes remain elusive, Wu-Tang will be live at Allphones Arena on Wednesday February 24.

Us got their chops throwing Just This secret loft parties in their hometown of Milan. Tale Of Us play the Greenwood on Saturday February 20.

BOXING DAY AT THE ARGYLE

CLASSICSETC UNDER THE STARS

OK, Christmas Day has its charms. But let’s face it; Boxing Day is where all the action happens. Some people like to spend their Christmas recovery period in front of the cricket. Others watch the yachts sail out of Sydney Harbour on the way to Hobart. But the real party people will be at The Argyle, where a special edition of Argyle Saturdays will get you up and moving again after all that festive turkey. Three of the nation’s hardest-working DJs – Andy Murphy, Piero, Jolyon Petch and Tass – will be there on Saturday December 26 to take care of business.

TELLING TALES

Playing house, techno, pop, nu-disco and even rock, Tale Of Us will have tongues wagging at their Sydney appearance in February. The Berlin-based mixmasters are set to infuse the open-air surrounds of the Greenwood Hotel this February with their genre-bending take on electronic music. Now regular fixtures at clubs like Watergate and Weekend in Berlin, Tenax in Florence, Barraca In Valencia and DC10 in Ibiza, Tale Of

SAN HOLO SHOT FIRST

Christmas songs doing your head in?

CLASSICSetc has you sorted this Boxing Day. Disco meets ’90s house with more than a little dose of the ’00s thrown into the mix at this Taylor’s Social rooftop party, as Kaz James and Kid Kenobi will be joined by the likes of Goodwill, Mark Dynamix, John Glover, and Alex Taylor and Toby Neal. CLASSICSetc takes place on Saturday December 26.

MONIKA FOR MANTRA

Mantra Collective will burst into the New Year at the Civic Underground with Monika Ross announced as the headliner. The Sydney-born techno spinner will return home for Mantra’s first event of 2016, with Ross’ passion sure to translate from her performances at world-famous institutions like Fabric in London and Watergate in Berlin, and over to Sydney’s best basement clubbing venue. Also playing the party are Dan Baartz and Locus Cadre’s own Dan Zina, bringing the broody and experimental techno to the mix. The debauchery goes down on Saturday January 16.

San Holo

Dutch future beats and trap exponent San Holo is making his return Down Under for the second time in the space of 12 months. Following his tour last February – his first run of dates outside his native Holland – Holo has gone on to make his debut in North America and even been added to the Falls Festival lineup in Lorne. After that, he’ll be hopping in the Millennium Falcon (or probably just an aeroplane) and making his way up to play Chinese Laundry on Friday January 8.

BRAG :: 644 :: 23:12:15 :: 35

Mac Miller The Mac Is Back By Matt Innes

U

S hip hop prodigy Malcolm McCormick AKA Mac Miller will be celebrating the New Year in style when heads to Australia for the east coast run of his GO:OD AM album tour.

“I cannot wait – it’s going to be warm and Australia’s one of my most favourite places in the world,” Miller says enthusiastically. “We’re doing a couple of festivals before the New Year, then we bring in the New Year in Australia. I’m really excited to do my own shows and see what the crowds are like. I did a show before in Sydney with Snoop and the crowd went crazy, it was awesome.

“I’m not all the way sure what we’re going to be able to bring but it’s going to be intimate,” he adds. “I’m not trying to be arrogant, but the centrepoint of the show is me, so we don’t do too much crazy production – it’s just based around the interaction between me and the fans.”

“I think I just wanted to try something different,” he explains.

“I’m 23 now; I’m getting ready to settle down, and it was time to link up with a company that could give me more of a global presence and do things worldwide.”

Jamie xx Destined For The Decks By Amanda Sherring

A

s a child, London’s Jamie Smith, AKA Jamie xx, was fixated on the turntables that belonged to his DJ uncle. And while many kids lust after fast cars and fancy toys beyond their reach, the young Smith was in luck – his parents gifted him the set when he was ten years old.

he doesn’t have an answer to certain questions; after all, life isn’t about having the answers to everything. Fun in life comes from the unknown, from discovering things you didn’t know existed. Smith practises this theory – and thrives on it – in his regular hunts for fresh material at his favourite record stores.

“I’d been wanting them for so long,” he says. “I didn’t really know what DJing even was, I just loved the object and I used to play my parents’ records on them. And it was just after they gave it to me that I learnt what mixing was and what DJing was. I never really imagined myself being a DJ at all – I was literally just obsessed with the object of the turntables and how they looked.

There was never the goal to be a DJ – especially onstage in front of lots of people.”

“I just went to a couple of my favourite stores in London the other day and picked up some good stuff. When I go to record stores, I mostly pick up older things rather than new dance music. I got one from Joe Claussell, a disco song called ‘Everyman’, and it’s amazing; I’d never heard it before.

Mostly I’m looking for things I haven’t heard before, but if I come across something that’s been on my list for a long time, I’ll get it. Like Marta Acuna, ‘Dance, Dance, Dance’, which is a ’70s disco record that is pretty hard to find.”

Now well over a decade later, and with the release of his debut album In Colour, we’ve come to love the discoand house-infused beats Smith releases under the Jamie xx name.

Just as his band The xx are known for pioneering a unique brand of pop, the same can be said for Smith’s solo work in dance DJing and production.

“I’m always trying to make something different and that sounds like something I’ve not heard,” he says.

“Something that just makes me feel a certain way while still being interesting. But I’m also trying not to follow trends in dance music – things can sound stale in a matter of months. Just trying to do things… me.”

36 :: BRAG :: 644 :: 23:12:15

“I’ve definitely got them into disco,” Smith chuckles. “And just in general house music. In the UK, house music has become really popular, and now it’s everywhere. But when we were 18, that was my main thing and I just loved house music in general. I used to go [to the clubs] when I was 17 and I didn’t go there to get really messed up, I went there to listen.”

Having grown accustomed to being the observer, Smith soon swapped to the other side of the decks. And while he admits there are things about

“My favourite DJs dance, and it makes you really want to dance too when you’re in the crowd watching somebody else dance,” he says. “It wasn’t exactly the most natural thing for me at the start but when you’re listening to music that you love, you want to dance too and you just have to forget that there are a bunch of other people watching.”

“I think there was a time when I was making a lot more melancholy records, just like mixtapes and my last album before this one. So I think this one functions a little more in the light, getting there and the journey there, rather than dwelling on any sense of darkness.

“Also, as far as stylistically and conceptually, I’m pretty nomadic in that sense where I don’t like to stay in one place a long time creatively. Maybe it’s because I’m young and I’m still fi nding my comfort zone, but I think it just keeps it exciting for me.”

With the Australian tour looming, Miller is clearly excited to get back here to party with his fans.

“Just come ready and bring your energy,” he says. “Get a good night’s sleep before and make sure you’re ready to have an experience.”

What: GO:OD AM out now through Remember/Warner Where: Enmore Theatre When: Monday January 4

It begs the question, does Smith ever wish he could be an audience member at his own show? “No, I think that would be horrible! I can’t watch or listen to [myself on] radio, TV or whatever – it just makes me feel uncomfortable,” he says.

Something Smith finds far more comfortable is sharing the music he loves with the masses. “When I’m doing something new and playing something I’ve never played before, that’s probably the best feeling ever.

And then seeing people react to it – there’s no experience that seems to top that. I’m never sure whether it’s going to work, and then when it does work, it’s great.

“I just want [the audience] to get the same feeling I get when I hear new music that I love and with people that I love. I think that’s what dance music is all about.”

What: Lost Paradise 2015 With: Angus & Julia Stone, Four Tet, Jon Hopkins, Motor City Drum Ensemble and more Where: Glenworth Valley When: Tuesday December 29 – Thursday December 31 And: Also appearing at the Enmore Theatre on Sunday January 3 More: In Colour out now through Young Turks/Remote Control

Mac Miller photo by Brick Stowell

With all the hype that surrounds him, it’s clear that as Smith strives for his music to replicate his identity, he feels the same way about his representation in the spotlight. There’s no act, no persona: he just is who he is. Talking to the BRAG from his home in London at the end of a long run of interviews, Smith answers each question honestly. At times, his honesty comes through in admitting

From his musical beginnings as the lucky ten-year-old who was gifted a turntable, Smith has always harboured had a love for old records.

He played his parents’ vinyl on his first deck, and now he spins records he discovers at clubs, both at home and in tracks he releases. Indirectly, he’s helping fuel a wider love of indulging in the past through vinyl.

More directly, he has passed on his love of records to those close to him – particularly his xx bandmates, Romy Madley Croft and Oliver Sim.

performing he was nervous about – and still is – his many years of observation helped shape the artist he is today.

While signing to a major label can occasionally be a death warrant for an independent artist – at least in the fans’ eyes – Miller says his followers were extremely supportive of the transition, and he was able to maintain essential creative control over the project without interference from the label.

By now, Miller has accumulated an extensive back catalogue of eclectic rap, hip hop, soul and R&B tracks across three albums and multiple selfproduced mixtapes. GO:OD AM sees the Pennsylvanian moving into maturity, writing and producing from a more optimistic perspective compared to previous releases.

Mac Miller photo by Brick Stowell

Since releasing his first fulllength album Blue Slide Park in 2011, Miller has cultivated and maintained a successful career as an independent artist. For GO:OD AM, however, he diverted from his modus operandi, deciding to sign with major label Warner Music as a way of reaching a wider global fan base.

“I thought that when I signed I was going to get a bunch of angry fans saying, ‘Why would you do this?’ but instead my fans seem to really care about me, so I think they were just happy to see me up on my feet and doing things. I didn’t have anyone from the label set foot in the studio, which was awesome. So I really got lucky there and I got the chance to run my own project, because I wouldn’t have signed if it was any other way.”

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club guide g

send your listings to : clubguide@thebrag.com

WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 23

Xxx

CLUB NIGHTS

Bamboo Boogie feat: Harry Sounds + Daniel Lupica + Karim Middle Bar, Darlinghurst. 5pm.

Free.

Lion A’Go Roar - feat: Jah Tung + Ray Jah 45 + Matthew Walker + Rockstone Valve Bar, Agincourt Hotel, Ultimo. 7pm. $10.

Newtown Social Club Christmas Party - feat: Avoid Island + Good Counsel Music + Keyring Jeans + The High Ceilings + DJ Dion Newtown Social Club, Newtown. 7pm.

Free.

Salsa Wednesdays - feat: DJ Miro + Special Guests The Argyle, The Rocks. 8:30pm.

Free.

Sasslife Weekly Secret Garden Bar, Enmore. 7pm. Free.

Sosueme Christmas Party feat: Slumberjack + Mickey Kojack Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Beach. 8pm.

Free.

The Wall The World Bar, Kings Cross. 9pm. Free.

THURSDAY DECEMBER 24 CLUB NIGHTS

Beach Road Christmas Eve Party - feat: Local DJs Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Beach. 6pm.

Free.

Kicks The World Bar, Kings Cross. 9pm. Free.

FRIDAY DECEMBER 25 CLUB NIGHTS

El Loco Later - feat: DJs On Rotation Excelsior Hotel, Surry Hills. 9pm.

Free.

Feel Good Fridays Bar100, The Rocks.

5pm. Free.

Friday Frothers feat: DJ Babysham + DJ Jesse Sewell Side Bar, Sydney.

9pm. Free.

Friday Lite - feat: Victoria Kim Plan B Small Club, Sydney. 10pm. Free.

Harbour Club - feat: Resident DJs The Watershed Hotel, Sydney. 6pm.

Free.

Jam Fridays

Jam Gallery, Bondi Junction. 9:30pm.

Free.

Loco Friday - feat: DJs On Rotation The Slip Inn, Sydney.

5pm. Free.

Scubar Fridays - feat: DJs On Rotation Scubar, Sydney.

8pm. Free.

SATURDAY DECEMBER 26 CLUB NIGHTS

Dark Entries - feat: DJ Daze Valve Bar, Agincourt Hotel, Ultimo. 8pm.

Free.

El Loco Later - feat: DJs On Rotation Excelsior Hotel, Surry Hills. 9pm.

Free.

Frat Saturdays feat: DJ Jonski Side Bar, Sydney.

7:30pm. Free.

Lndry - feat: Doorly + Set Mo + Avon Stringer + Elijah Scadden + Sanger + Offtapia + Persian Rug + Harry Hooper + Tyson Brunn + DJ Just 1 + DJ Eko Chinese Laundry, Sydney. 9pm. $22.60.

Masif Saturdays Space, Sydney.

10pm. $25.

My Place Saturdays - feat: DJs On Rotation Bar100, The Rocks.

8pm. Free.

Pacha - feat: The Mambo Brothers + Kyro + Kormak + Mo’Funk + Matt Nugent + Danny Lang + Fear Of Dawn + Jade Le Flay + Troy T + Deckhead + DJ Just 1 + Mike Hyper + Dollar Bear + Angelkay + Sleak + Scotty Doesn’t Know Ivy Bar/Lounge, Sydney. 6:30pm. $32.80.

Scubar Saturdays - feat: DJs On Rotation Scubar, Sydney.

8:30pm. Free.

Something Else feat: Kaiser Souzai + Highbeam + Aaron Robins + Nick Reverse + Anya + Mattia Antonioli + Roberto Carrano Burdekin Hotel, Darlinghurst. 10pm. $11.

Swarm - feat: DJ Vic Zee + Mookie + Geoff Da Chef + Xenon Valve Bar, Agincourt Hotel, Ultimo. 9pm.

Free.

The Basement Goes Greek + Krazy Kon + Xara Dimitriou + Vasilis Metaxas + Nathan Pylarinos + Dimi K + Adonis The Basement,

38 :: BRAG :: 644 :: 23:12:15

Circular Quay. 9pm. $34.50.

Yours - feat: Beni Presents Boxing Day Special Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Beach. 8pm.

Free.

HIP HOP & R&B

Boathouse Saturdays - feat: Resident DJs The Watershed Hotel, Sydney. 9pm. $20.

Chasm Mr Falcon’s, Glebe.

8:30pm. Free.

R&B DJs By The Greens Marrickville Bowling Club, Marrickville.

4pm. Free.

SUNDAY DECEMBER 27 HIP HOP & R&B

Reign Sydney feat: Def Rok + DJ Delicious + Sefu + Here’s Trouble + Mike Hyper + Helena Ellis + Regz + Mike Champion Marquee, Pyrmont.

10pm. $33.70.

CLUB NIGHTS Countdown To NYE! Valve Bar, Agincourt Hotel, Ultimo. 5pm.

Free.

Courtyard - feat: Carmada + Hayden James + Sweater Beats + Wuki + KLP + Diskord + Stephane 1993 + Nemo Ivy Bar/Lounge, Sydney. 2pm. $53.50.

Escape Sundays feat: Fear Of Dawn Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Beach. 2pm.

Free.

Marco Polo - feat: Cut Snake Ivy Bar/Lounge, Sydney. 1pm. $22.60.

S.A.S.H By Day feat: Mia Lucci + Cantaloop DJs + Cav Smith + Tim Gollan Greenwood Hotel, North Sydney. 1pm. $15.

S.A.S.H By Night - feat: Pepperpot + Toby Neal + Matt Weir + Carla Tarida + Spacie + Mesan + Jay Kay Mistery + Mincey Quincy + Kaiser Souzai Home Nightclub, Darling Harbour.

8pm. $15.

Straight Up Sundays - feat: Cool Hand Luke Middle Bar, Darlinghurst. 5pm.

Free.

Stuart Balfour + Brenny B Manly Wharf Hotel, Manly. 4pm. Free.

MONDAY DECEMBER 28 CLUB NIGHTS Mashup Monday - feat: Resident DJs + DJ Thieves + Recess + OTG + Chivalry + More

Side Bar, Sydney.

8pm. Free.

Cross. 9pm. $10.

WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 30

TUESDAY DECEMBER 29 CLUB NIGHTS Coyote Tuesdays The World Bar, Kings

CLUB NIGHTS Bamboo Boogie feat: Harry Sounds + Daniel Lupica +

Karim Middle Bar, Darlinghurst. 5pm.

Free.

Salsa Wednesdays - feat: DJ Miro + Special Guests The Argyle, The Rocks. 8:30pm.

Free.

Sasslife Weekly Secret Garden Bar,

Enmore. 7pm. Free.

Sosueme - feat: Stanton Warriors + A.Skillz Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Beach. 8pm.

Free.

The Wall The World Bar, Kings Cross. 9pm.

Free.

MaRL Ma RLo o

THURSDAY DECEMBER 31 CLUB NIGHTS

Bar100 NYE Party - feat: Wild Fox + Sass + Risque + Axel P + Stara + Silva + Ivana + Raul Lycan + Alex Nikko + Steve Zappa Bar100, The Rocks. 6pm. $50.

Captain Kirk Wentworthville Leagues Club, Wentworthville. 9pm. Free.

Home Sydney New Year’s Eve 2015 - feat: Brooke Evers + Destroy The Machines Home Nightclub, Darling Harbour. 9pm. $80.

Ivy NYE - feat: MaRLo + Scndl + Tenzin + Ember + Jesabel + Disorder & Hookie + Glover + G-Wizard + Jay Sounds + Trifo + More Ivy Bar/Lounge, Sydney. 8pm. $154.50.

Kicks The World Bar, Kings Cross. 9pm. Free.

Mad Racket NYE - feat: Smallpeople + Simon Caldwell + Ken Cloud + Jimmi James + Zootie Marrickville Bowling Club, Marrickville. 10pm. $55.

New Year’s Eve - feat: Dash Berlin Marquee, Pyrmont. 10pm. $105.50.

New Year’s Eve Rooftop Session - feat: Yousef Museum Of Contemporary Art, The Rocks. 6pm. $299.

New Year’s Eve - feat: Fear Of Dawn + Boswell + Ariane + Jonny Powell + Kato + Mo’ Funk Watsons Bay Hotel, Watsons Bay. 10pm. $124.70.

New Year’s Raveolution - feat: Alex Prospect + Detest + Team Rocket + Sc@R + Cotts + Scatterlie + Blammo + Comrade + Havoc + Napoleon + Jawcep + Showboat + Kader + Geoff Da Chef + Hawk & Napz + Mantelo + Re-Percussion + Jamleon + Iniquity + Echoes Valve Bar, Agincourt Hotel, Ultimo. 8pm. $49.

NYE At The Argyle - feat: Tass + Lavida + Crazy Caz + Chivalry + Minx + Nino Brown The Argyle, The Rocks. 8pm. $60.

NYE At The Bungalow - feat: Mc Sasa + DJ Argie + Tropicana + Cavo Paradiso Bungalow 8, King St Wharf. 6pm. $54.20.

NYE On The Harbour - feat: Yahtzel + Basenji + Elk Road + Nicky Night Time + Porsches + Akouo Cargo Bar/Lounge, Sydney. 6pm. $55.

The Rhythm Of The Night - 90s Dance NYE - feat: Levins + Beni + Ariane + Victoria Kim + Flexmami + G Coo + Matka + Tulett Plan B Small Club, Sydney. 9pm. $28.20.

I Am Wolfpack

The Watershed’s New Year’s Eve - feat: I Am Wolfpack + Eko + Hide And Seek + Indigo Starlight + Jagged Beatz + The Royals The Watershed Hotel, Darling Harbour. 7pm. $99.

Ariane

Yahtzel

thebrag.com

BRAG :: 644 :: 23:12:15 :: 39

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

SATURDAY JANUARY 2

party profile

NYE 2016 @ the argyle

CLUB NIGHTS

It’s called: NYE 2016 @ The Argyle It sounds like: Big room, future house and party jams spun by Argyle residents.

Acts: Minx, Nino Brown, Mike Champion (live), Tass and many more.

Three songs you’ll hear on the night: David Zowie – ‘House Every Weekend’, Yolanda Be Cool & DCUP – ‘Soul Makossa (Money)’, Galantis – ‘Peanut Butter Jelly’.

And one you definitely won’t: Anything by Taylor Swift or One Direction.

Sell it to us: All you need to know is it’s going to be an epic party!

The bit we’ll remember in the AM: Definitely the soundtrack and atmosphere! We know how to throw a good party.

Crowd specs: 1,500 partygoers under one roof!

Wallet damage: $60 (First release almost sold out) Where: The Argyle, 18 Argyle St, The Rocks When: New Year’s Eve, Thursday December 31

Ngaiire

FRIDAY JANUARY 1

Xxx

CLUB NIGHTS

Disclosure

Safia

Beach Please New Year’s Day - feat: Fear Of Dawn Daniel San, Manly. 1pm. Free.

El Loco Later - feat: DJs On Rotation Excelsior Hotel, Surry Hills. 9pm. Free.

Feel Good Fridays Bar100, The Rocks. 5pm. Free.

Field Day 2016 - feat: Disclosure + Flight Facilities + Golden Features + Seth Troxler + Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs + The Avener + Sam Feldt + Set Mo + The Wombats + Halsey + Django Django + San Cisco + Safia + Snakeships + Joy. + Pusha T + Skepta + Ta-Ku + Allday + Young Fathers + Tuka + Ngaiire + Jayteehazard + RL Grime + Boys Noize + Zeds Dead + Daniel Avery + Com Truise + Luke Million + Motorik + Jess Kent Royal Botanic Garden & The Domain, Sydney.

12pm. $145.

Friday Frothers - feat: DJ Babysham + DJ Jesse Sewell Side Bar, Sydney. 9pm. Free.

Friday Lite - feat: Victoria Kim Plan B Small Club, Sydney. 10pm. Free.

Happy Fucking New Year - feat: Alaska Thunderfuck The Shift Bar, Darlinghurst. 10pm. $23.50.

Harbour Club - feat: Resident DJs The Watershed Hotel, Darling Harbour. 6pm.

Free.

Jam Fridays Jam Gallery, Bondi Junction. 9:30pm. Free.

Loco Friday - feat: DJs On Rotation The Slip Inn, Sydney. 5pm. Free.

Scubar Fridays - feat: DJs On Rotation Scubar, Sydney. 8pm. Free.

Sweat It Out NYD Pool Party - feat: Bag Raiders + Yolanda Be Cool + Cassian Go Freek + Danny T Frames + Porsches Ivy Bar/Lounge, Sydney. 2pm. $49.50.

Bag Raiders

El Loco Later - feat: DJs On Rotation Excelsior Hotel, Surry Hills. 9pm. Free.

Frat Saturdays feat: DJ Jonski Side Bar, Sydney.

7:30pm. Free.

I Am Sam Marquee, Pyrmont.

10pm. $23.70.

Lndry - feat: Oliver Dollar + Torren Foot + Terace + Fake Forward + Hausent + Oscar De Lima + Adamwah + Donald Leicester + Offtapia + King Lee + DJ Just 1 + Mike Hyper Chinese Laundry, Sydney. 9pm. $22.60.

Machinedrum Plan B Small Club, Sydney. 8pm. $25.

Masif Saturdays Space, Sydney.

10pm. $25.

My Place Saturdays - feat: DJs On Rotation Bar100, The Rocks.

8pm. Free.

Scubar Saturdays - feat: DJs On Rotation Scubar, Sydney.

8:30pm. Free.

Somatik And Brenny B Manly Wharf Hotel, Manly. 4pm. Free.

Spunk - feat: Underground Sounds Valve Bar, Agincourt Hotel, Ultimo. 8pm. $10.

What Is It! - feat: Slum Village + Briggs + Conkarah + Yum Yum + Wallace + 45 Sessions DJs + Dutty Dancing Crew Factory Theatre, Marrickville. 2pm. $45.

HIP HOP & R&B Boathouse Saturdays - feat: Resident DJs The Watershed Hotel, Darling Harbour.

9pm. $20.

R&B DJs By The Greens Marrickville Bowling Club, Marrickville.

4pm. Free.

Slum Village + Conkarah + Briggs The Basement, Circular Quay. 8pm. $49.80.

Yung Lean + F ishing Max Watt’s, Moore Park. 8pm. $55.10.

SUNDAY JANUARY 3 CLUB NIGHTS Jamie xx + Tornado Wallace + Harvey Sutherland Enmore Theatre, Newtown. 7pm. $73.90.

Marco Polo Ivy Bar/Lounge, Sydney. 1pm. $12.40.

S.A.S.H By Day Greenwood Hotel, North Sydney. 1pm. $15.

S.A.S.H By Night Home Nightclub, Darling Harbour.

40 :: BRAG :: 644 :: 23:12:15

8pm. $15.

Somatik + Graham M Manly Wharf Hotel, Manly. 4pm. Free.

Straight Up Sundays - feat: Cool Hand Luke Middle Bar, Darlinghurst. 5pm.

Free.

MONDAY JANUARY 4 CLUB NIGHTS Mashup Monday - feat: Resident DJs + DJ Thieves + Recess + OTG + Chivalry + More Side Bar, Sydney.

8pm. Free.

TUESDAY JANUARY 5 HIP HOP & R&B Pusha T Metro Theatre, Sydney. 8:30pm. $65.

CLUB NIGHTS Coyote Tuesdays The World Bar, Kings Cross. 9pm. $10.

WEDNESDAY JANUARY 6 HIP HOP & R&B Fat Joe Metro Theatre, Sydney. 8pm. $64.20.

CLUB NIGHTS Bamboo Boogie feat: Harry Sounds + Daniel Lupica + Karim Middle Bar, Darlinghurst. 5pm.

Free.

Salsa Wednesdays - feat: DJ Miro + Special Guests The Argyle, The Rocks. 8:30pm. Free.

Sasslife Weekly Secret Garden Bar, Enmore. 7pm. Free.

The Wall The World Bar, Kings Cross. 9pm. Free.

THURSDAY JANUARY 7 CLUB NIGHTS Ezekiel Ox Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst. 8pm. $11.60.

FRIDAY JANUARY 8 CLUB NIGHTS Bassic - feat: Party Favor + San Holo + Gradz + Beatslingerz + Sippy + Propaganda + Bassline + Squeef + Ebony Chinese Laundry, Sydney. 9pm. $22.60.

Blvd Fridays - feat: G-Wizard Marquee, Pyrmont.

10pm. $13.40.

Brenny B

Manly Wharf Hotel, Manly. 8pm. Free.

El Loco Later - feat: DJs On Rotation Excelsior Hotel, Surry Hills. 9pm. Free.

Feel Good Fridays Bar100, The Rocks.

5pm. Free.

Friday Frothers feat: DJ Babysham + DJ Jesse Sewell Side Bar, Sydney.

9pm. Free.

Friday Lite - feat: Victoria Kim Plan B Small Club, Sydney. 10pm. Free.

Harbour Club - feat: Resident DJs The Watershed Hotel, Darling Harbour. 6pm.

Free.

Jam Fridays Jam Gallery, Bondi Junction. 9:30pm.

Free.

Loco Friday - feat: DJs On Rotation The Slip Inn, Sydney.

5pm. Free.

Scubar Fridays - feat: DJs On Rotation Scubar, Sydney. 8pm.

Free.

HIP HOP & R&B Afrobrasiliana - feat: Phil Toke + Trevor ‘El Chino’ Parkee + Thomas Studdy + Raphael Ramires Brasil + Jon Mcculloch + Paris Groovescooter Play Bar, Surry Hills.

6pm. Free.

SATURDAY JANUARY 9 HIP HOP & R&B Boathouse Saturdays - feat: Resident DJs The Watershed Hotel, Darling Harbour. 9pm. $20.

R&B DJs By The Greens Marrickville Bowling Club, Marrickville.

4pm. Free.

The Boombap Sessions - feat: Cost + Platterpush + Codeks + Lyrical Stylings + Ozi Batla Play Bar, Surry Hills.

6pm. Free.

CLUB NIGHTS Anthony Toomie + Raye Antonelli Manly Wharf Hotel, Manly. 6pm. Free.

Columba Sessions + Oski + Command Q + Korky Buchek + Robustt + Stossington + 6ft Sounds + James Spittaler Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst. 8pm. $28.70.

DJ Bird Red Hot & Blue Penrith RSL, Penrith.

2pm. Free.

El Loco Later - feat: DJs On Rotation Excelsior Hotel, Surry Hills. 9pm. Free.

Frat Saturdays feat: DJ Jonski Side Bar, Sydney.

7:30pm. Free.

Lndry - feat: KLP + Human Movement + Friendless + Daggers + Lachie & Jake + DJ Just 1 + King Lee + Mike Hyper + Ben Nott

B2b Aaiste + Ben Booth + Jake Martin + Lawrence Daffurn + Sam Jepperson Chinese Laundry, Sydney. 9pm. $22.60.

Masif Saturdays Space, Sydney. 10pm. $25.

Mr. Carmack + Keys N Krates Max Watt’s, Moore Park. 8pm. $55.

My Place Saturdays - feat: DJs On Rotation Bar100, The Rocks.

8pm. Free.

Scubar Saturdays - feat: DJs On Rotation Scubar, Sydney.

8:30pm. Free.

Sgt Slick + Mind Electric Marquee, Pyrmont.

10pm. $23.70.

Something Else - feat: Abdulla Rashim + Jordan Peters + Gareth Psaltis + Amateur Humans + Deepchild + Baron Castle + Dave Stuart + James Petrou + Dan Baartz + Michas Dimitris Burdekin Hotel, Darlinghurst. 9pm. $20.

SUNDAY JANUARY 10 HIP HOP & R&B DJ Premier + DJ I-Dee + DJ Samrai Metro Theatre, Sydney. 7:30pm. $54.40.

Sunday Sundown - feat: Tkay Maidza + Juno Mars + Dreems Ivy Bar/Lounge, Sydney. 2:30pm. $20.

CLUB NIGHTS Aden Mullens + Alex Mac Manly Wharf Hotel, Manly. 4pm. Free.

Marco Polo Ivy Bar/Lounge, Sydney. 1pm. $12.40.

S.A.S.H By Day Greenwood Hotel, North Sydney. 1pm. $15.

S.A.S.H By Night Home Nightclub, Darling Harbour. 8pm. $15.

Straight Up Sundays - feat: Cool Hand Luke Middle Bar, Darlinghurst. 5pm.

Free.

MONDAY JANUARY 11 CLUB NIGHTS Mashup Monday - feat: Resident DJs + DJ Thieves + Recess + OTG + Chivalry + More Side Bar, Sydney.

8pm. Free.

TUESDAY JANUARY 12 CLUB NIGHTS Coyote Tuesdays The World Bar, Kings Cross. 9pm. $10.

thebrag.com

SAT 26 DECEMBER SPECIAL GUESTS

MIA LUCCI

STEVE SULLIVAN JAC FRIER RESIDENTS

MESAN

1 0 P M T I L L L AT E

$10 BEFORE 12AM / $15 AFTER 1 9 9 E N M O R E R O A D W W W . S LY F O X . S Y D N E Y

BY DAY

BY NIGHT

Sunday 27th December TERRACE

TERRACE

Mia Lucci Cantaloop DJ's Cav Smith Tim Gollan

Pepperpot ࠮ Toby Neal ࠮ Matt Weir THE DEN Cala Tarida ࠮ Spacie ࠮ Mesan

MAZE Jay Kay Mistery ࠮ Mincey Quincy

THE BOX Hosted by Chien d'Ours

Kaiser Souzai GREENWOOD HOTEL 1pm to 9pm - $15

HOME NIGHTCLUB 8pm to 4am - $15 till 10pm / $20 after $15 all night with SASH by day stamp

www.sash.net.au BRAG :: 644 :: 23:12:15 :: 41

Off The Record Dance and Electronica with Tyson Wray

L

et’s be honest – after spending all of Christmas with your casually racist uncle, you’re going to be looking for somewhere to party hard on Boxing Day, yeah? Well luckily the champs over at Something Else and Welove have cooked up something special, with a headline performance from Berlin natives Kaiser Souzai. The production duo of Markus Kaiser and Alex Souzai have released more than 40 records over the course of their career, spanning everything from heavyhitting techno to synth-laden electronica.

They’ve also worked with the likes of Booka Shade, Super Flu and Nils Hoffmann. They’ll be joined by Highbeam, Aaron Robins, Nick Reverse, Anya, Mattia Antonioli and Roberto Carrano this Saturday December 26 at the Burdekin Hotel.

The Australia debut of the Dekmantel festival has been announced (that’s good)!

But, it’s taking place in Melbourne (that’s bad)! But, all of the international visitors will also be announcing Sydney shows soon (that’s good)! In mid-February you can

snap

VIEW FULL GALLERIES AT

up all night out all week . . .

thebrag.com/snaps

guarantee Sydney sojourns from Omar-S, Mike Servito, San Proper, Anthony Naples and Vakula. In fact, headliners Tale Of Us have already announced one to take place on Saturday February 20 at the Greenwood Hotel. Tasty.

The team at Picnic are kicking off 2016 in style, returning in January with their infamous One Night Stand parties. The concept is simple: one act on the decks all night for eight hours of power. This time around, the soundtrack will be provided by Tornado Wallace. Since first landing on our radar, he’s been elevated to the upper echelons of Australian house stardom with releases on labels such as ESP Institute, Beats In Space, Delusions of Grandeur and Instruments of Rapture. Catch the former Melbourne native (he moved to Berlin earlier this year, so headline shows like this are mighty rare) on Saturday January 16 at a venue TBA. Tour rumour: what’s this I hear about the imminent return of the acid don Recondite?

BEST RELEASES OF 2015 Sa Pa - Fuubutsushi (on Forum) Map.ache - The Golden Age (on Giegling) DJ Sotofett - Drippin’ For A Tripp (Tripp-ADubb-Mix) (on Honest Jon’s Records) Galcher Lustwerk - I Neva Seen / Parlay (Lustwerk Music) Levon Vincent - Levon Vincent (on Novel Sound) Francis Inferno Orchestra - Where Will You Be Spending Eternity? (on Superconscious Records) Suzanne Kraft - Talk From Home (on Melody As Truth) Nusons - Lovecraft (on Undefined) Shackleton - Deliverance Series No. 3 (on Woe To The Septic Heart) Gerry Read - Limp Biscuit Anthem (on Timetable Records) Simoncino - Amazon Atlantis (on Créme Organization) Patrice Scott - Euphonium (on Sistrum) Oneohtrix Point Never - Garden Of Delete (on Warp Records) Anthony Naples - Body Pill (on Text Records) Petre Inspirescu - Vin Ploile (on Mule Musiq) Max McFerren - Monk’s Mood (on Allergy Season) Hunee - Hunch Music (on Rush Hour Recordings) Linkwood - Expressions (on Firecracker Recordings) L Neils - Beta (on Echovolt) The Mystic Jungle Tribe - Solaria (on Early Sounds) Gonno - Remember The Life Is Beautiful (on Endless Flight) Marco Bernardi - Spoken Word Of Lie (on Brokntoys) N1L - Wrong Headspace (on UIQ) Adalberto - Toolbox (on Acidicted)

Saine - Small Remedies (on Fools & Fables) Luis CL - Untitled (on Superconscious) Gavin Russom - Body Minimalism (on Curle) Hugo Gerani - GCR001 (on Good Company) MadderModes - Green Corn Moon (on Millions of Moments) Lee Webster - Soul Replied (on I Used to Sleep at Night) Max McFerren - Sipps (on 1080p) Periskop - Immerse (on Kabalion) DJ Richard - Grind (on Dial) Emile - 1524403342 (on Hidden Hawaii) Flxk1 & Wan.2 - Antitheorie (on Hidden Hawaii) Kasra V - The Persian Prince (on Make Love In Public Places) Vrrs - Benz (on Black Venison) Levantis - Romantic Psychology 1 (on Ninja Tune) iO & Silat Beksi - Dub Ass (on Mulen) Xandru - Intrasi (on CrazyJack) Dresvn - First Voyage (on Honest Jon’s) Viers - Freesia (on Church) Royer - Day Of (on Material Image) Herodot - Duo (on Unanim) Joey Anderson - Invisible Switch (on Dekmantel) Nu Zau - Mult Asteptatul (on Castanea) Diffuse Arc - Teoria De Las Ideas (on Caustica Waveform) Cuthead - Presets of Your Mind (on Sampling as an Art) Grad_U - Surface Variations (on Greyscale) Matthew Oh - Randagio (on Outlaw) Luca Lozano - Gun Fingers (on Hypercolour) Ion Ludwig - Ghost to Coast (on Ugold Series) Amin Ravelle - Valcea (on Tvir)

s.a.s.h by day: h.o.s.h.

PICS :: AM

Alright, it’s time to get self-indulgent. In no particular order (except for Sa Pa’s release being hands down the dance album of the year), if you missed any of these records over the past 12 months, then here’s a mighty fine list to dig into over the silly season:

20:12:15 :: Greenwood Hotel :: 36 Blue St North Sydney 9964 9477

RECOMMENDED DJ T. Jam Gallery

Doorly Chinese Laundry Kaiser Souzai Burdekin Hotel

THURSDAY DECEMBER 31 Smallpeople Marrickville Bowling Club

FRIDAY JANUARY 1

Finnebassen, Lovebirds, Bjorn Wilke + more Café del Mar

SATURDAY JANUARY 2 Machinedrum

Plan B Small Club

SUNDAY JANUARY 3 Mala Civic Underground

Julio Bashmore, Florian Kupfer, Andy Garvey, EK Collective National Art School

SATURDAY FEBRUARY 6

Seven Davis Jr Chippendale Hotel

Catz N Dogz Chinese Laundry

SATURDAY JANUARY 9

SATURDAY FEBRUARY 13

Abdulla Rashim Burdekin Hotel

Hot Since 82 Greenwood Hotel

SATURDAY JANUARY 16

SUNDAY FEBRUARY 14

Tornado Wallace TBA

SATURDAY FEBRUARY 20

Francis Inferno Orchestra Nightmares On Wax, Lefto, Mike Who Burkedin Hotel National Art School

SUNDAY JANUARY 24

Tale Of Us Greenwood Hotel

scuba garden party

PICS :: AM

SATURDAY DECEMBER 26

19:12:15 :: Chinese Laundry :: 111 Sussex St Sydney

Got any tip-offs, hate mail, praise or cat photos?

Email hey@tysonwray.com or contact me via carrier pigeon.

42 :: BRAG :: 644 :: 23:12:15

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