The Brag #429

Childrens festival, Aerial spectacles & Zip Circus, Trapeze, Street theatre & lots more For tix & info / www.globalcarnival.com

Band of Brothers ( Tawadros / Grigoryan ) / Dubmarine / Armandito / Frank Yamma w David Bridie / Bandaluzia Flamenco / I Viaggiatori ( Kavisha Mazella ) / Linsey Pollak / Grace Barbe / Mama Kin / George Kamikawa & Noriko Tadano / Shellie Morris / The Picture Box Orchestra / Public Opinion Afro Orchestra / Lotek / Stalker Theatre

Live from New Orleans / Jon Cleary and the Philthy Phew / The Dirty Dozen Brass Band

BRAG :: 429 :: 12:09:11 :: 3

Festival Albums of the Month

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rock music news welcome to the frontline: what’s goin’ on around town... with Nathan Jolly and Steph Harmon

He Said She Said WITH

ALEX FROM BLEEDING KNEES CLUB I like a lot of musicians for different reasons.

I think everyone probably says Kurt Cobain is their biggest inspiration, but it’s true; I was massively into Nirvana. Girls’ debut was everything I wanted to hear on one album; I seriously love that album so much. And everything about Cole from Black Lips is cool.

I also get inspired by a lot of blues music as well as doo wop. My friend showed me the American Graffiti soundtrack a while back, and that seriously blew my mind. There are so many good songs on that soundtrack.

Bleeding Knees Club is just me and Jordan Malane, and soon to be Matt Woods too. I wish we had a crew, a gang of tough leathermen who would walk the streets with us at night, and beat up anyone who came in our paths. Then they would whip their victims with their leather belts and laugh while we all high fived each other.

I never listened to much music growing up, but I always played it. My mum made me learn keyboard when I was like five and I didn’t like it that much, so I quit keyboard and started playing saxophone, which I played for three years in the school band. My teacher was a dick so I started hating sax too, and quit. Then I got

lessons for a year or two, but they just made me do drum rolls and other lame stuff, so that finished. Then after a few years not playing music, my mum made me play guitar, which I actually enjoyed – and now I wish I could still play keyboard and sax as well... Thanks mum. :)

I guess our style is garage, pop, punk? I dunno. We’ve so far only released an EP, which we recorded in the back of a shoe shop on the Gold Coast with our friend Mark Duckworth.

But we were recently in New York recording our debut album, which was produced by Dev Hynes (Lightspeed Champion, Test Icicles, Blood Orange). Our live show is like a herd of

wild giraffes trying to ride the dodgem cars and their heads are too high so they keep getting electrocuted by those wires on the roof.

I’m out of the loop; there are way too many new bands and new albums to keep up with. I guess as band folk we have to overcome some obstacles, like not taking what people say about you or your band to heart, or you’ll commit suicide. If I had my gang of leather men, no one would want to write bad things about us, or they would get whipped. Our local scene is weird. There are some cool new young bands who I like, but a lot of crew are all jealous because we can’t play our instruments and have somehow achieved some level of success, while all these old dudes who are real good at music and have been in bands for ages have done nothing. It’s not our fault, guys.

Who: PVT, The Vasco Era, Juggernaut DJs, Gareth Liddiard, Beni, Joyride, Papa vs Pretty, Lanie Lane, Megastick Fanfare, Oscar + Martin and loads more Where: Changing Lanes Festival @ Devonshire Street and surrounds When: Saturday September 17 More: After-party @ The Standard, 9pm

ESKIES AND ECHOES

PUBLISHERS: Adam Zammit & Rob Furst EDITOR IN CHIEF: Adam Zammit 9552 6333 adam@peergroupmedia.com EDITOR: Steph Harmon steph@thebrag.com 9552 6333 ACTING ARTS EDITOR: Caitlin Welsh dee@thebrag.com 9552 6333 STAFF WRITERS: Jonno Seidler, Caitlin Welsh NEWS: Nathan Jolly, Chris Honnery ART DIRECTOR: Sarah Bryant GRAPHIC DESIGN: Alan Parry SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER: Tim Levy SNAP PHOTOGRAPHERS: Katrina Clarke, Cai Griffin, Ashley Mar, Daniel Munns, Thomas Peachy, George Popov, Nathan Tito COVER DESIGN: Sarah Bryant ADVERTISING: Matthew Cowley - 0431 917 359 / (02) 9552 6333 matthew@thebrag.com ADVERTISING: Les White - 0405 581 125 / (02) 9552 6333 les@thebrag.com ADVERTISING: Meaghan Meredith - 0423 655 091 / (02) 9552 6333 meaghan@thebrag.com GIG & CLUB GUIDE CO-ORDINATOR: Matt Banham - gigguide@thebrag.com (rock) clubguide@thebrag.com (dance & parties) INTERNS: Sigourney Berndt, Louisa Bathgate, Greg Clennar REGULAR CONTRIBUTORS: Simon Binns, Joshua Blackman, Liz Brown, Bridie Connellan, Ben Cooper, Oliver Downes, Alasdair Duncan, Max Easton, Tony Edwards, Christie Eliezer, Murray Engleheart, Max Easton, Mike Gee, Chris Honnery, Nathan Jolly, Alex Lindsay Jones, Peter Neathway, Hugh Robertson, Matt Roden, Romi Scodellaro, Rach Seneviratne, Luke Telford, Rick Warner

What up, Sydney? Kav here from Eskimo Joe, letting all you BRAG readers know that we’ll be swinging by your way to play a series of special shows in honour of our new single ‘Echo’, a heartbreaking journey in which I may or may not say too much... or maybe I haven’t said enough. We’ll be playing the track and a bunch of others on September 22 at The Cube in Campbelltown and the following night at Newcastle University, before hitting up the Enmore Theatre on September 24. Those Northern English lads Frankie And The Heartstrings will be joining us for all shows.

Anyways, gtg, I hear Stu calling me. We’re getting Indian tonight. [May not actually be in Kav’s words.]

LAURA JEAN

Laura Jean has gone electric! At least, she opens her latest album (A Fool Who’ll, which is out now) with an electric guitar, which is something she’s never done before. It’s heresy, it’s witchcraft, it’s an abomination and you can hiss and boo and yell “Judas!” at her when she launches the (excellent) record on November 11 at Petersham Bowls Club.

REWIND

Bananarama, Kool & The Gang, The Straits, Ross Wilson, Human League, Right Said Fred, Mental As Anything. You’re freaking out right now. So are we. It’s called Rewind 80s Festival,

Deep Sea Arcade

EDITORIAL POLICY: The views and opinions expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the Publisher, Editor or Staff of The Brag.

DEADLINES: Editorial Wednesday 12pm (no extensions) Art Work, Ad Bookings Thursday 12pm (no extensions) Ad Cancellations Tuesday 4pm Published by Cartrage P/L ACN 104026388 All content copyrighted to Cartrage 2003 DISTRIBUTION: Wanna get The Brag? Email distribution@furstmedia. com.au or phone 03 9428 3600.

PRINTED BY SPOTPRESS: www.spotpress.com.au 24 – 26 Lilian Fowler Place, Marrickville NSW 2204 Win a giveaway? Mail us a stamped and addressed envelope, and we’ll send your prize on over...

8 :: BRAG :: 429 :: 12:09:11

EXCLUSIVE GIVEAWAY! WIN THE COMPANY OF BLUEJUICE AT THE LAUNCH OF THE STANDARD

“Sydney’s live music scene is rubbish and every venue is closing, damn the man, blah blah blah.” That’s you, that is. Well pipe down, because live music and arts hub The Standard is about to open in Taylor Square (above Kinselas), and has a run of amazing shows coming up. One that we’re especially excited about is the venue’s official public launch this Thursday September 15, where bluejuice will be showing off tracks from their forthcoming record Company, which doesn’t come out ‘til October 28. If you want to take a friend along for pre-drinks with the band, send the conversation starter you’ll be using to break the ice to freestuff@thebrag.com… We’ve got three regular double passes for the runners-up, too!

Please send mail NOT ACCOUNTS direct to this address 8a Marlborough Street, Surry Hills NSW 2010 ph - (02) 9552 6333 fax - (02) 9319 2227

ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE: Stephen Forde : accounts@furstmedia.com.au ph - (03) 9428 3600 fax - (03) 9428 3611 Furst Media, 3 Newton Street Richmond Victoria 3121

bluejuice

OAF TURNS FOUR

Dear Deep Sea Arcade, StepPanther, Betty Airs, Peppercorn, Rockets, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, Mother & Son, The James Manson Blues Band, The Faults and their fans, You’re invited to our fourth birthday party! There will be live music, DJs, free entry and, if you get there early enough, some free drinks! We would love to see you there!

Where: The Oxford Art Factory When: Friday September 23, from 8pm Why: Because you have loved us for four whole years. xox O.A.F.

and it happens on October 28 – October 30 at BlueScope Field in Kembla Grange in Wollongong. Tickets are available now, and summer’s not looking so cruel anymore.

JUST LIKE MUDHONEY

You know that Nirvana band who did that Bowie cover? Well, you can pretty much thank Mudhoney for them. Their debut EP Superfuzz Bigmuff helped the break-through of the Sub Pop label, which in turn allowed them to fund records like Nevermind as well as rubbish

by The Melvins (…swings and roundabouts).

The reason we’re banging on about all this is because Mudhoney are coming to Sydney on December 6 to play The Manning Bar – because the ‘90s are the new ‘60s, and grunge is the new chillwave.

MUCHOS MONTERO

If slow-wave was a genre, Melbourne artist Montero’s lazy, hazy new 7-inch Mumbai

b/w Rainman would be the leading light of the entire slow-wave scene. It’s so slow and dreamy and it takes forever to get to where you already were but didn’t realise. It’s pretty amazing, in summary, and the launch is happening at GoodGod Small Club this Thursday September 15, with Domeyko/ Gonzalez and Erik Omen in tow. $10 on the door, which should leave you some coin for the 7-inch, too.

ELIXIR

Remember in the early days of george gigs, when the brother would do the odd song and you would whisper things about Jeff Buckley and wait for the sister to start singing again?

Well Elixir, Katie Noonan’s new band, is all Katie on the vox, and they’re playing Thursday September 15 and Friday September 16 with The Sydney Symphony Fellowship Quartet at the Sydney Opera House – ‘cos that voice wasn’t made for no pool hall, brotherman.

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BRAG :: 429 :: 12:09:11 :: 9

rock music news

free stuff

welcome to the frontline: what’s goin’ on around town... with Nathan Jolly and Steph Harmon

five things WITH

Inspirations Disney was a huge part of my childhood.

2.

Something about the music just worked so perfectly with the stories that they were telling. When The Lion King first came out, my brother and I had owned the soundtrack on CD for several weeks before we even saw the movie. We knew those songs back to front.

The songs were that good.

Your Crew Maxine and I have known each other 3. for a while, but we have some strong family

1.

Growing Up From the age of about six through to thirteen, I developed this idea for an action film in my head – it revolved around a bunch of kids who are sent back in time to prevent

MCKISKO

McKisko is a lovely solo artist from Brisbane who makes avant-garde pop that can’t be confined to her hometown, so she’s bringing some of it to sprinkle around FBi Social on October 9. She’s launching the followup to her debut Glorio, a 7” called Good Grief, with Emily Ulman and Roller One playing support.

FOO FIGHTERS FUCKED UP

Holy awesomely-mismatched bill, Batman!

Foo Fighters (featuring that guy that used to be in legendary punk/grunge act The Germs) and Tenacious D together? That made a lot of sense – we know their association with each other goes way back (Grohl drummed on their debut record, and The D starred in a Foos clip). But now they’ve added the aptly-named Canadian hardcore band Fucked Up to the bill, which is all happening on December 8 at

CHANGING LANES FESTIVAL

JAMES EDGAR FRANCIS

a nuclear holocaust. It was going to be called Future Warriors and I had it all mapped out.

There would be an epic battle on an oil rig, and the main character was this quiet, brooding kid who got shot in the legs several times with a shotgun without it impacting his ability to kick arse. So yeah, that took up most of my time for a good couple of years. I didn’t get around to learning an instrument properly until I was seventeen, and the dream of Hollywood had well and truly withered.

connections going back hundreds of years; I am partially responsible for a curse that was placed on Maxine’s family back in the 17th century when one of her ancestors spurned one of mine at the altar. We brought Shannon Haritos (bass) and Nicola Ossher (percussion) into the show because when Maxine and I are left to ourselves we just start talking crap Sydney Football Stadium. Now all we need is Belle and Sebastian to be announced and it will make absolutely no sense… Still, it’s going to be incredible; the image Triple M listeners watching Fucked Up makes us happy.

CHANGING LANES & AFTER-PARTY

If you’re walking around Devonshire Street and its surrounds the morning of Saturday September 17, you’ll notice a bunch of attractive young things carrying around instruments and bristling with nerves. Changing Lanes Festival still has tickets available, and features a relatively insane Who’s Who Of BRAG musiccrushes: PVT, Gareth Liddiard, Papa vs Pretty, The Snowdroppers, The Vasco Era, Juggernaut DJs, Lanie Lane, Bleeding Knees Club, Megastick Fanfare, Oscar + Martin,

TV On The Radio

about Angus Stone and Sparkadia, and we never get anything done.

The Music You Make I think we have reworked and reimagined 4. all of these Disney songs to a point where they would probably sound at home on one of our records. We are trying to be funny, while actually trying to do justice to some incredible music. It is not a tribute night in any sense. In between the songs, there is a bit of wordplay, a smattering of social and political satire, and one dick joke.

5.

Music, Right Here, Right Now If I could make a salary from spending all day drinking coffee and thinking about what jeans I was going to wear that evening, I’d quit my job in customer service. But it doesn’t happen that way for 99% of the people who shoot for it. Most of us are just desperately trying to think of ways to convince triple j to play our songs, or hoping one of our videos goes viral on YouTube. It is fun, though. And the people are lovely. If not just frequently drunk.

AKRON/FAMILY

Imagine a cake. Imagine it was the most amazing cake. You couldn’t describe it to anyone, there were too many wonderful things happening at once, but it was the most incredible delicious cake you’d ever eaten. Now imagine if that cake was in your ears. And had a beard. Gross, right? Luckily there’s a non-icing-covered equivalent in the amazingness that is Akron/Family. They’re bring their sweet sounds to The Annandale on Saturday October 1. If you’d like to give your ears a treat just email BRAG with a picture of your favourite baked item.

Akron/Family

Where: Notes, Newtown When: Thursday September 15

Brous, Canyons, Cameras and way too many more to mention when our two typing fingers are already this tired. There’s also some great art and fashion on show by peeps like St Augustine Academy, Jesse Willessee, Ears, Phibs, Syke, Numskull, Beastman and more.

We predict at least one band will finish their set by announcing an ill-advised after-party at their place – the official one happens at The Standard (above Kinselas), and will cost you a fiver with your festival wristband, and $10 without. Meetcha there.

BIG SCARY VACATION 2: LOST IN NEW YORK

Remember a few years ago when Daniel Johns was banging on about doing a series of EPs for each season? Well, Big Scary actually did it, and it was SO great, and now they are releasing their debut album, Vacation, on October 7, and we imagine this will also be quite amazing. They are launching the album at Paddington Uniting Church on October 14.

Carve your name in the pews.

Rope’s End, a monthly night programmed by Sydney blog A Story Never Told, is set for this Thursday September 15 at FBi Social, and the lineup is pretty killer. Melbourne’s The Delta Riggs, and Sydney’s Myth & Tropics, The Go Roll Your Bones and Thieves, are all going to be taking it in turns to jump around making sounds on a raised surface, while you stand facing them awkwardly, in a polite silence punctuated with occasional cheers. Gigs are a weird phenomenon when you break them down like that, huh?

TRIVIA @ THE GAELIC

Tuesday night’s Gaelic Club Music Trivia is about to get a whole lot more smart-arsey and Pavement-y with the news that seasoned and well-reasoned hosts Adam “Wesley” Gregorace & Robert F. Cranny are taking over, to infuse it with esoteric awesomeness.

There are $50 drinks vouchers, new release CD prizes, $10 jugs of Coopers and lots more swag. From 7pm (you can tape Home and Away, quit yer whingeing).

COASTER FESTIVAL

A while ago, Portishead, The National, The Flaming Lips, Bright Eyes, Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, Holy Fuck, Death In Vegas, The Walkmen, Dappled Cities and PVT announced that they’d all be celebrating their status on your personal Top Ten Bands list by playing a set at the boutique-esque Harvest Festival @ Parramatta Park on Sunday November 13. Well. it turns out TV On The Radio, Mogwai, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Seekae and Kevin Devine have made your Top Fifteen, and are flying over to join the party with a bunch of other bands in tow. It’s going to be a pretty incredible day for you – get your ticket already.

Changing lanes is an important skill to learn when driving. Changing Lanes is also a MASSIVE local music festival behing held on Saturday September 17, that will turn Devonshire Street in Surry Hills into an AMAZING hub of art, fashion and the BEST music you’ve ever heard anywhere EVER. PVT, Gareth Liddiard, Papa vs Pretty, Megastick Fanfare, Lanie Lane and at least 43 other artists. Are you excited yet? GET EXCITED! BRAG happens to have a few double passes to give to a few lucky people: if you’d like it to be YOU, just tell which act you’re most excited about. (Bonus points for UNNECESSARY capital letters.)

What: James Edgar Francis & Maxine Kauter perform the songs of Disney, presented by Sydney Fringe

A STORY NEVER TOLD

HARVEST SECOND LINEUP ANNOUNCEMENT

FREESTUFF@THEBRAG.COM

...And if all you really want to do this weekend is get out of Sydney to see some huge Aussie bands, don’t forget Coaster Festival is on this Saturday September 17. John Butler Trio, Drapht, Little Red, Jebediah, Bag Raiders, The Potbelleez, Something With Numbers, Horrorshow, Tim & Jean, One Dollar Short (re-formed!), Gold Fields and a bunch more are hitting up Gosford Showground from midday, and tickets are still available.

After only nine weeks on the market, Tunes For Change’s second release – The Seed Album – has received over 10,000 album downloads, with all proceeds going towards The Seed Fund.

OLD MAN RIVER donated a song to the album – we caught up to chat about the project, the song and what we can look forward to from him in the future.

Why did you want to get involved with Tunes For Change?

Apart from being in a great company with all the amazing talent on this compilation (Nick Cave, Sarah Blasko, The Cat Empire), I really like how this concept is all about community. We’re all tied in together.

Could you tell us about The Seed?

The Seed Fund was originally set up by John Butler a few years back; it’s a nonprofit organisation that aims to support any type of music, both on the artistic and managerial levels.

Your track ‘In This World’ appears on The Seed Album. Tell us about it?

‘In This World’ is the opening track from my second album Trust. It was recorded in Australia, India and Israel, so the title is quite fitting. The production on this track is inspired by a lot of devotional Indian music I like listening to.

What have you been working on since Trust?

I’ve been spending a lot of time in the studio, and writing. One project that’s almost done is a quick covers album I recorded; I’ve been mucking around with a few classics and some odd suggestions people gave on Facebook.

It should be ready by the time I tour with The Tallest Man On Earth in October.

To get your hands on The Seed Album, head to TunesForChange.org and download the release for whatever you think is a fair price! All proceeds go towards TheSeedFund.org

“I sit and drink Pennyroyal Tea. Distill the life that’s inside of me” - NIRVANA 10 :: BRAG :: 429 :: 12:09:11

BRAG :: 429 :: 12:09:11 :: 11

The Music Network

themusicnetwork.com

Industry Music News with Christie Eleizer

Lifelines Married: Music producer Mark Ronson and underwear model Josephine De La Baume, in a star-studded ceremony in Aix-enProvence in France.

Injured: Iggy Pop broke two bones in his left foot during a festival in Romania, forcing the Stooge to postpone a US tour.

Injured: The Bled guitarist Robbie Burbidge broke an elbow in a motorbike crash.

Arrested: Daniel Bedard, 36, after he broke into Celine Dion’s home in Montreal. He was eating her food and about to have a bath when caught.

Died: Laurie McAllister, the last bassist in The Runaways, 53, from complications brought on by asthma.

Died: Tamworth bassist Jeff Dallas, from motor neurone disease.

Died: New Orleans arranger and composer Wardell Quezergue, 81, of congestive heart failure.

He wrote ‘It Ain’t My Fault’ which was sampled by Mariah Carey, and arranged classics like Dixie Cups’ ‘Chapel Of Love’, Prof Longhair’s ‘Big Chief’, and songs for King Floyd, The Meters and Stevie Wonder.

VIRGIN EASES BAGGAGE ALLOWANCE FOR MUSOS Virgin Australia has loosened up its baggage allowance for the music industry. Individuals get 32kg (across three pieces of checked baggage), while an additional 32kg can be bought in advance for $15. Bands can ‘pool’ their baggage allowance across their entourage, but the performers have to be members of certain music associations, the list of which will be announced in the next few weeks – see amin.org.au. The move was initiated after discussions led by The Australian Music Industry Network (AMIN).

AMIN director Denise Foley, also Q Music’s Executive Officer, says Aussie artists could now tour more often and more cost effectively.

“Dealing with high and inconsistent excess baggage charges has been a burning issue across the music industry for many years.

Virgin Australia should be congratulated for having the willingness to not only listen to the industry’s concerns, but actually put in place a system that addresses the problem.

The impact of this new deal for artists will be significant and ongoing.”

And the positive reaction from bands was unanimous. Clint Boge of The Butterfly Effect, who’re about to kick off their tenth anniversary tour, told us, “Virgin’s going to get a lot of custom from bands as a result.

In the past we’ve had to pay up to $1500 in excess baggage, which is a huge amount for a traveling band.” Qantas certainly has a bad rap

from the music community over baggage. Last year, Perth saxophonist Jamie Oehlers set up the ‘Stop Qantas’ “No Musical Instruments Onboard” Policy’ petition, claiming his tenor saxophone was damaged to the tune of $1200 after Qantas made it fly in the cargo hold.

MIPI ANNOUNCES NEW GENERAL MANAGER Music Industry Piracy Investigations’ (MIPI)’s new GM Vanessa Hutley began this week. The lawyer previously worked at Microsoft for over a decade as Director Of Intellectual Property. Hutley emphasises that music creators should be compensated adequately for their work. “Education and engagement across other creative industries, government, consumer advocates and commercial partners are critical. I look forward to engaging with all of these groups and continuing this productive dialogue.”

MOSHTIX FESTIVAL REPORT 83.7% of punters believe that attendances at festivals are declining because of rising ticket prices. 41.6% think that the “experience” has worsened. 52.7% reckon there are enough festivals in Australia, and 27.2% believe there are too many. These figures were revealed in online ticketing agency Moshtix’s inaugural State of Festival Market Report. Conducted with CoreData, it polled 2,949 respondents.

In other findings, 56.3% preferred to watch a favourite act in a pub, while 23.4% opted for festivals. The lineup is the most important factor in deciding whether to attend a festival, and most are happy to pay more for food and beverages if it improves the environment. Many are annoyed by behaviour of other patrons.

Adam McArthur, CEO of News Ticketing, says that the report showed that there is potential for growth for festivals, but that promoters needed to stay connected to their audiences. “The research uncovered three key findings,” he says.

“Firstly, what consumers are and aren’t willing to pay when it comes to attending festivals.

Secondly, opportunities for promoters to evolve their festivals and maintain a relationship with their key audience. And finally, how the festival experience has changed for consumers over the last five years.”

PJ HARVEY WINS MERCURY FOR SECOND TIME PJ Harvey became the first artist to win Britain’s Mercury Prize for a second time. Her war-themed Let England Shake beat Adele, Tinie Tempah, Elbow, Ghostpoet, Everything

Everything, Anna Calvi, Gwilym Simcock, James Blake, Katy B, King Creosote & Jon Hopkins and Metronomy. Her first win was Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea in 2001. When Harvey collected her £20,000 prize, she recalled that her first win fell on September 11 ten years ago. She’d watched the attacks on TV in her room before the awards, “and as a result, felt detached from [that win].”

AIR AWARDS: NEW VENUE, NEW CLUB CATEGORY After two years at the Forum Melbourne, the sixth Jagermeister Independent Music Awards will be held at the smaller 500-capacity performing art space Revolt in Kensington on Wednesday October 12. The space will allow for an exhibition of Australian independent artists, and this year also sees the addition of a new category: Best Independent Club Release.

Other categories cover independent/dance, electronic, independent artist, hip hop/urban and hard rock/punk. Performers announced so far are Adalita, Seekae, Emcee Illy, Emma Louise and Calling All Cars. More info at www.ausindies.com

ANOTHER ADELE CHART MILESTONE Adele is the first artist ever to score three million album sales in the UK in the same calendar year. Her 21 album is the third best seller by a British female, following Leona Lewis’ Spirit (3.03mi) and Amy Winehouse’s Back To Black (3.29m)

SECOND ROUND OF BIDDING FOR EMI The second round of bidding for EMI was to have started late last week, and it is becoming increasingly clear that EMI CEO Roger Faxon’s desire to sell the company as a lump ain’t gonna happen. BMG Rights Management is only interested in EMI’s publishing business.

US private equity firm TPG Capital will dispose of EMI “in separate pieces.” Warner Music and Universal Music know they’d face huge regulatory issues if they tried to buy EMI as a single unit. Apollo Global Management, which owns American Idol owner CKX, is also in the running. The consensus among UK business analysts is that EMI will fetch £2.4 billion (AUS $3.65 billion). But will it? The financial markets are so turbulent that bidders might drop off early.

What could also hit the price is the squabble in America over a clause in its 1976 Copyright Act. Artists are claiming a termination clause allows them to take back ownership of their tracks after

THINGS WE HEAR * My Chemical Romance sacked drummer Michael Pedicone after he was caught stealing from the band, and confessed to police. * AC/DC’s Phil Rudd opened his own restaurant in New Zealand, ‘Phil’s Place’. * Sydney thrashers Mortal Sin join the Thrashfest Classics European tour this November/December, with Sepultura, Exodus, Destruction and Heathen.

NoiseArt Records releases their Psychology Of Death there on November 18. * ACMA is about to announce who gets the full-time community radio licence in Bankstown and Auburn. On 2007, it took away the licence from Bankstown City

Radio for not representing community interests. In the running are Bankstown City Radio, Bankstown Auburn Community Radio, Flame FM and Bankstown and Surrounding Areas Community Radio, which is a Shiite Islamic station. * Joe Hansen of Grinspoon told the Townsville Bulletin that when he moved to Coffs Harbour, he had to sneak in through the back entrance to the local Woolworths because fans would freak out. “It was really awkward when I wanted bread, because I couldn’t go to [the baker] Brumby’s!” * The Australian leg of Raggamuffin 2012 has been scrapped, but will be returning in 2013. Darwin’s first Vibes Music Festival on September 10 has also been axed. * 1970s US blandos The Bellamy Brothers have apologised for claiming that Britney

We has internets!

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35 years, or 56 years for songs recorded before 1978. This mess is still to be sorted out, but it adds uncertainty to EMI’s future revenues.

AMRAP LAUNCHES AIRNET Amrap has launched AirNet, which allows community radio broadcasters and listeners to interact with musicians online. AirNet pages are embedded into station websites and social media pages including Facebook. When a track is being played, AirNet searches the web and shows up the act’s photos, Wikipedia entries and videos to stream. See amrap.org/airnet

AMP ANNOUNCES FIVE AMBASSADORS The Australian Music Prize (The Amp) has announced this year’s five ambassadors: Goyte, Heidi Lenffer of Cloud Control, Kram of Spiderbait, Catherine Britt and Phrase.

MEGADETH SONG USED IN KILL THREAT A nutter who made a terrorist threat requested that an internet station play Megadeth’s ‘Killing Is My Business… And Business Is Good'. David J. Lefever, 44, of Appleton, Wisconsin was arrested after he boasted in the chat room of The MeltDown show on HardRockRadioLive that he was about to go on a killing spree. The Megadeth song was “good music to go postal and kill a bunch of people to.” The show hosts played it while they called the cops.

CONCOURSE TO OPEN Willoughby City Council’s new entertainment complex The Concourse will be opened on Saturday September 17 by NSW Governor Marie Bashir. Attending the launch will be its patrons Angry Anderson, Bob Hawke, soprano Yvonne Kenny, arts practitioner Renée Goossens and author Matthew Reilly.

The complex, in the heart of Chatswood, includes a 1,000 seat concert hall, a 500 seat theatre, studio space, rehearsal rooms, the Civic Pavilion (a 506 square metre corporate and event space), a 5,000 square metre public library, an open space and an outdoor urban screen. See theconcourse.com.au.

WINERY FINED OVER CONCERT Bimbadgen Winery, in NSW’s Hunter Valley, was fined $90,000 by the NSW Land And Environment Court, after it tried to cram in more punters for a show. Tickets for B-52s’ A Day On The Green in 2009 were in such demand that the winery made some extensions without approval from Cessnock Council.

Spears’ producer Dr. Luke copied the title of their 1979 hit ‘If I Said You Had A Beautiful Body Would You Hold It Against Me?’ for Spears’ single ‘Hold It Against Me’.

Dr. Luke sued them for defamation. * Eric Levin, one of those who launched Record Store Day to spark sales at indie retailers, might have to close his store in Atlanta, Georgia. Meantime Missing Link in Melbourne changed management, and The Muses in Adelaide has become online only. * Reggae artist Jah Cure had his black music awards Mobo nomination for best reggae act stripped, after organisers discovered that he served a jail sentence in 1999 in Jamaica for armed rape. * A book on the family of Austrian classical music genius Gustav Mahler claims that he is distantly related to Beyonce Knowles.

PREMIER ARTISTS AGENCY & FOOTSTOMP MUSIC PRESENTS

GLENN RICHARDS (AUGIE MARCH) DAN LUSCOMBE (THE DRONES) performing songs from SUNSET STUDIES to GLIMJACK PLUS special guest MIKE NOGA T H U 8 S E P _ M U L L U M C I V I C H A L L _ M U L L U M B I M B Y _ N S W T I C K E T S : W W W. O Z T I X . C O M . A U T H U 1 5 S E P _ L I Z O T T E S _ D E E W H Y _ N S W T I C K E T S : W W W. L I Z O T T E S . C O M . A U F R I 1 6 S E P _ L I Z O T T E S _ N E W C A S T L E _ N S W T I C K E T S : W W W. L I Z O T T E S . C O M . A U S AT 1 7 S E P _ L I Z O T T E S _ K I N C U M B E R _ N S W T I C K E T S : W W W. L I Z O T T E S . C O M . A U T H U 2 9 S E P _ B R A S S M O N K E Y _ C R O N U L L A _ N S W T I C K E T S : W W W. B R A S S M O N K E Y. C O M . A U F R I 3 0 S E P _ N O T E S _ N E W T O W N _ N S W T I C K E T S : W W W. N O T E S L I V E . N E T. A U S AT 1 O C T _ H O T E L G E A R I N _ K AT O O M B A _ N S W T I C K E T S : W W W. H O T E L G E A R I N . C O M DEBUT ALBUM GLIMJACK OUT NOW WWW.GLENNRICHARDS.COM.AU _ WWW.FOOTSTOMPMUSIC.COM _ WWW.PREMIERARTISTS.COM.AU _ WWW.SONYMUSIC.COM.AU

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GOLDIE

The Alchemist By Bridie Connellan

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his morning I woke up, and I know it sounds really fucking gay as fuck, but just being here and fucking looking around and looking into what we have – like, this is beautiful. It’s fucking unbelievable that we can fucking actually be this person that we are. We can actually get up and change our lives. I can be inspired because being inspired is about resonance, it’s about fucking resonating with what’s around me – it doesn’t mean I’ve got to go and fucking hug trees.” For a man who went from graffiti artist to DJ to producer to rapper to actor to mentor to life auteur, Clifford Joseph Price, AKA Goldie, is brazenly crass but no less stirring when describing the last time he felt truly fucking inspired.

Price is the golden-grilled guy who cultivated UK drum and bass in the ‘90s. He’s also the guy who played the criminal Terry in Bowie’s Everybody Loves The Sunshine, ‘Bad Boy’ Lincoln in Snatch, the “after yeww” gold-toothed betrayer of Robbie Coltrane in The World Is Not Enough, and Angel Hudson in EastEnders. He’s the man UK reality TV just can’t stop reinventing, the DJ who plays a set every weekend in a different country, and the UK celeb that every UK celeb wants spinning at their do. But for a man with a tumultuous past – an upbringing spent between foster homes, an initially-failed reunion with an alcoholic mother, death and divorce and Björk in relationships, an infamous history of cocaine addiction (and the rest) and, most recently, the life imprisonment of his 23-year-old son on murder charges – Goldie has every reason to direct anger and general contempt towards the world. Luckily, he has a little friend called Bikram. Literally.

“Yoga is the best thing in the world. I’ve been doing it for a year and three months and I’m doing my teaching training next week with Bikram himself – he’s a good friend of mine,” he declares. Impressed and ‘yeahboi’-ing over this interviewer’s appreciation of a good utkatasana and the difficulty of attaining padangustasana, Goldie is off on a rave, detailing the five-day routine he rolls and the studio he has planned in which to “mend people”. “It just makes us appreciate how humble we really are – and while everyone’s struggle is different, it’s one physical struggle minus the presence of ego,” he says.

“I speak to Bikram quite a lot about this; it’s about finding something, and it’s reinvented my life. I think it’s very important for my development in terms of what I’ve been through, you know, with all of my… issues.”

Goldie paved more than a few breakbeat roads in the electronic drum, bass and jungle scene of the early ‘90s: releasing his first studio album Timeless in 1995 on his newlyfounded record label Metalheadz, practically inventing audio timescale-pitch modification (or ‘timestretching’, when the speed of a sample or track is changed without altering the pitch), and now claiming sales of more than 2.5 million records worldwide. But despite an ongoing magnetism for trouble and a spiralling addiction to “whatever”, drugs and self-destruction came to a rude halt seven years ago when Price badly broke his left leg in a waterskiing accident, almost destroying the limb irreparably. Goldie saw a chance for change in a US organisation called the Hoffman Institute, who describe themselves as a methodology of “infused teaching” and “an

“Whether I’m playing music for kids half my fucking age or whether I’m casting fucking gold into a fucking mould or whether I’m painting or stretching a canvas, it’s all the same shit to me; it’s all the same alchemy.”

eight-day intensive residential course of personal discovery and development.” Goldie is all praise: “You know most people go to rehab. I went to the Hoffman,” he laughs. “It’s not for everyone, but my issues are really deep-seated scars. The two issues I’ve always had to deal with are being misunderstood, and abandonment.”

“I think music was my saviour, always. It was always music – music was a very resonant thing from a very early age,” he says, rehashing a tale he recounted at a TEDX lecture in the UK. “I was eight years old and I was finishing paperwork with the matron because I’d just had two years in a really fucked up foster relationship that didn’t work, and I remember I was locked in this playroom and I saw a gramophone with ‘The Logical Song’ by Supertramp on the record deck, that really peachy-coloured 45. I was just playing this record over and over again and I had this kind of interference with music, in that I was actually conscious with it. I remember them actually dragging me kicking and screaming away from the gramophone.”

Price is unnervingly honest. Casually dropping comments like “without having any parents, music was like my mother and father,” he fronts an abrupt British candour that obviously stems from the long-ago decision to wear his heart and beats on his sleeve. “This is impermanence, is it not?” he demands. “I mean you have to understand that nothing is permanent, that this is evolution and it’s about being human about it. The ego makes us hold on to things – that’s why old drunken men talk about the past as much as they do. It’s an experience that I’ve had, it’s an experience that I’ve been blessed with. I think the abuse and all that, it just allows me to go on.”

Last year Goldie teamed up with Prince Harry and Buckingham Palace to film a tele-documentary,

By Royal Appointment, in which young musicians from a similar background as Goldie were given the kind of mentoring opportunities he was always denied. “Being involved in that documentary was probably one of the most important things, because it’s [a situation] where you trade richnesses for wealth, you trade the wealth of experience for meaning, understanding,” he explains. “At my age… this is a golden era of understanding.”

On September 19, Goldie turns 46. An age of understanding? Perhaps. An age of complete life perception and resolution of individual identity?

Certainly not. “You’re never going to work out who you are. It’s one of those things like Bikram says – you’re always trying for something but you never do it. You just try. You might get good at it, but you’re still trying,” he says. “You know, the one thing that I have worked out is that I’m an alchemist. I’ll take whatever shape or form with whatever material, and I’ll work with that, you know – the application of a medium to a surface.

I could be anything. So whether I’m playing music for kids half my fucking age or whether I’m casting fucking gold into a fucking mould or whether I’m painting or stretching a canvas, whether I’m looking at a score or conducting music or mentoring or doing graffiti on a fucking handball court, it’s all the same shit to me; it’s all the same alchemy. D’you know what I mean?”

As ever, Goldie is keeping busy with a handful of remixes, with a flashback for Calvin Harris and a potential re-record of Timeless being this week’s overachievements. But with less ‘never say die’ and more Buddhist mantra in the pioneer’s mindtank, this consistently reincarnated soul is still accepting the challenge of his life. “It was never going to be easy. Before this life, I think someone or something great in the universe said, ‘Right, he’s been ‘ere before, he never learnt that last time he was here, I tell you what: this time we’re sending ‘im back, let’s tie his hands behind his back, make him not be able to play an instrument, but let him love music to death. Let’s see if he can work his way out of this one.’”

What: Fabriclive.58: Goldie is out now Where: Garden Party @ Chinese Laundry When: Saturday September 17, from 3pm

“I stuck my dick in this game like a rapist They call me Slim Roethlisberger” - EMINEM 14 :: BRAG :: 429 :: 12:09:11

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Elixir Gently Does It By Thomas Bailey

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final gig in Sydney, and then we went into the studio and recorded the record live.”

pring has absolutely arrived,” gushes Katie Noonan, from her two-acre property on the edge of a rainforest an hour northwest of Brisbane. “It’s an incredible day today – lots of bird-life, beautiful noises and blue skies!”

Katie and her older brother Tyrone were brought up in a household in which music was a part of the fabric; she’s worked with him and her mother, and is married to her saxophonist. “No matter who I’m performing with, I have to have an emotional connection,” she states emphatically.

“To make music, it needs to come from a special place. With my band, I love and trust those guys, and I need to feel that in order to feel safe and make music and share music and intimate lyrics with people. So for me, [performing] with family makes perfect sense, because I love and know them so deeply. That intimacy makes for great music-making.”

Noonan is considered one of Australia’s finest vocalists, and she’s been all over the musical landscape throughout her career. She teamed up with her brother Tyrone in the ARIA awardwinning pop band george, she’s sung with her mother, world-famous soprano Maggie Noonan, and she’s recorded an album of Lennon/ McCartney compositions. But amongst jazz aficionados, she’s best known as the lead singer of trio Elixir who, after a massive nine years since their debut, have finally released their sophomore LP: First Seed Ripening.

“Elixir has always essentially been this lovely side-project of mine that I’ve dipped in and out of,” she explains, of the gap between records.

“About a year ago I really felt that call to go back and make this more a priority.” Comprising Noonan, her husband and saxophonist Zac Hurren, and Melbourne guitarist Stephen Magnusson, Elixir has always been inspired by the written word. Their self-titled debut featured the work of Brisbane poet Martin Challis, and First Seed Ripening similarly exhibits Elixir’s literary leanings. “I was commissioned by the Queensland Poetry Festival six years ago to set the writing of any Queensland-born writer to music,” recalls Noonan. She chose the work of highly regarded and heavily awarded poet

Thomas Shapcott. “This record is obviously inspired by Thomas’ work; I was intensely attracted to it. It’s all about beautiful and intimate moments between lovers, and between parent and child.”

Right around the time that Noonan was discovering Shapcott’s writing, Magnusson joined the band, and inspired Noonan and Hurren to write new music which would penetrate the inner meanings of the lilting poetry. “We really worked on our vocabulary as a trio,” explains Noonan. “The actual writing

The Singing Skies All’s Fair In Love And War By Luke Telford

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he Singing Skies is the stage name of Kell Derrig-Hall, a musician with a quietly impressive pedigree in the recent history of Sydney’s experimental music scene. He formed a quarter of the passive aggressive post-rock outfit Piano Get Small, and spun gauzily impressionistic soundscapes as half of duo Moonmilk with longtime partner Lia Tsamoglou, AKA singer-songwriter Melodie Nelson. So it must have come as something of a surprise for those familiar with his past work to discover his first solo record, Routine And War, to be a collection of delicate, conventionallystructured songs. “I was always writing songs anyway,” he says quietly, shying out of the shifting sun under a slanted beer garden umbrella. “[But] for a long time I was interested in music that didn’t tie itself down like that, and just sort of explored the different ways that you could create space and meaning.”

Much of the appeal of playing experimental music comes down to the way it challenges one’s perceptions of what music is and how it should be listened to. But Derrig-Hall’s shared exploratory excursions in Moonmilk gradually became overly familiar, piquing the music’s translucent, alien appeal. “A lot of that stuff sounded pretty similar, and I felt like what I was doing was starting to assume a really set

shape,” he explains. “I got to this point where I stopped listening to any music at all except for a few singers, which is kind of ironic. I was drawn to singers that were able to do a lot with their voice and with their delivery and with their lyrics, and stopped listening to any kind of weird music at all.”

This fascination with perspicacious vocalists – he names Bill Fey, Leonard Cohen and Townes Van Zandt – will make sense once you’ve spent time with his solo work. Routine And War is a record whose protagonist is deeply unsettled by his place in the world, though determined to geld his apprehension by articulating it. “When I really started writing this stuff, we were in the middle of a war,” he says. “By going about my day-to-day business, I felt I was a part of pushing other people down, and a part of something that was, on the whole, quite an insensitive and inhuman thing. I couldn’t see a way to engage myself in the greater scheme of things that sat well with me… It’s not a good thing to start thinking about,” he laughs. “You write really grim songs, and then you get stuck.”

Haunted though he may sound on record, he’s in very good company. Violist Biddy Connor and songwriter Laura Jean Englert breathe phosphorescent life into the arrangements, which were put to tape

by Underground Lovers’ producer Simon Grounds in his Melbourne home. Throughout, Derrig-Hall is tacitly ushered by the unerring presence of his partner Lia, whose vocal reassuringly supports his – except on the final track, ‘When The Others Have Gone’; a meditation on the transience of love, and easily one of the most beautiful Australian songs written this year. “I was thinking about the passing of time and that kind of thing,” he says of the song. “It’s really about me and Lia, I think. I’m just talking about finding a space to be with her where we can both have some kind of a buffer from things. It’s about wanting that real connection with someone to be around when the other things in your life might come and go, and slip and fall away.

I suppose you do have that connection with some people, and it’s normally only a handful of people in your life. It was just a reflection on how important those relationships are.”

What: Routine And War is out now With: The Maple Trail Where: The Red Rattler, Marrickville When: Friday September 16

process of [First Seed Ripening] was fairly accelerated, because I really made the decision to focus on Elixir. We had one writing session at Bundanon, Arthur Boyd’s property near Nowra in the Southern Highlands. When he died, he left his property as an artists’ retreat, and I’ve been there a number of times – I wrote my record with The Captains there.” The band travelled down to Melbourne for their second writing session, alternating between the actual writing process and trying their new stuff out live at intimate venues throughout the city. “The process was quite exhilarating. We played one

Fresh off a recent national tour opening for the American jazz legend Ron Carter, Elixir are looking forward to launching their serene new record. “The idea with this album and with these concerts is to create a gentle, warm, and welcoming type of intimate haven,” Noonan reveals. “It’s like being held by a lover, or being cuddled by your mum. It’s to create a special moment that’s peaceful, and quiet, and gentle.

So yeah – gentle is the main word!”

What: First Seed Ripening is out now Who: Elixir with the Sydney Symphony Fellowship Quartet Where: The Sydney Opera House – Studio When: September 15 & 16

Glenn Richards Fighting The Fatigue By Mike Gee

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lenn Richards moved to Hobart earlier this year, to escape the hustle and bustle of Melbourne for something a little more laid-back. And the time away has done him good; the Augie March singer is ready to hit the road with buddies Dan Luscombe and Mike Noga from The Drones, performing songs from a canon that encompasses Augie March’s four albums and Richards’ 2010 solo set, Glimjack.

“Part of the reason for coming over here [to Hobart] was for the songwriting,” Richards says.

“While I liked writing for the Glimjack record, I wasn’t overly concerned about it being the strongest of songwriting. For the next thing I do, I want the songwriting to be as strong as possible, and that meant getting away from Melbourne... And that’s worked – and I’ve been writing in a really pleasing way.” And what can we expect from this writing? “To my mind, it’s another Augie March record at this point. That was always the plan, if everybody was able and willing and wanted to get back to it.”

Like his music, Richards is complex and emotional – and as he talks it becomes obvious that, like all sirens, Augie March exacts a toll for the pleasures she offers. The band decided to take an extended break in 2009 after completing touring commitments for their fourth album, the commercially successful (but least critically lauded) Watch Me Disappear. Richards was probably the album’s greatest critic, declaring himself unhappy with both the mainstream Disappear and its predecessor, Moo, You

Bloody Choir. Much of the problem for the songwriter was that production of those two albums was a community project, compared with the first couple which he controlled; and there’s little doubt the sound and feel is different, lacking the intimacy of Sunset Studies and Strange Bird.

But there were other reasons, too. “You can’t force anything,” Richards says. “You can look at the touring side of it, and the fact we got over to the US quite a bit. That takes it out of you, and you lose your love for music; the last thing you want to do after touring is think about music.

The long break has served its purpose and shaken off a bit of the fatigue.” Richards is no fan of performing night after night; it’s repetitive, and it drives you insane. “I don’t see any point in lying about that,” he says. “You still put in the effort, and it’s great when you enjoy it, but it’s still repetition... The clever acts remedy that by changing the game and playing by their own rules – and that’s what we didn’t do. We went and released a terribly over-produced record – Watch Me Disappear – for a band like us. A lot of the mystique and enigma were eliminated from the process; we lost the curiosity factor, and people dropped off.”

The wear, tear and disappointment of the process is evident in his voice. “Fatigue,” he says, “isn’t something that’s spoken about when it comes to touring bands, but it plays a big part in decision-making at album time. It becomes all too easy to agree with people who should keep their ideas to themselves, but you’re too exhausted to have any ideas yourself, so you’re a bit more open than you should be. If you reach that point, you shouldn’t make a record – you should take a holiday. A long holiday.” Whether Richards heeded his own advice is debatable; after all, he did make a solo album in the interim, albeit with a bunch of mates in a pretty looselimbed way. But he sounds quite happy with the way things are turning out; in a way, Glimjack helped him purge Watch Me Disappear. “What’s strange is to be doing press now, as the record came out a year ago,” he says. “I’m not sure I did a lot when it first came out, not that I was too worried. I was just doing what I should be doing: making records.”

Who: Glenn Richards & Dan Luscombe performing songs from Sunset Studies to Glimjack, with special guest Mike Noga Where: Lizottes, Dee Why / Brass Monkey, Cronulla / Notes, Newtown When: September 15 / September 29 / September 30

“Load up on guns and bring your friends It’s fun to lose and to pretend” - NIRVANA 16 :: BRAG :: 429 :: 12:09:11

Richard In Your Mind Morning People By Amelia Schmidt

R

elaxing in dappled sunlight on the porch of his Blue Mountains home, Richard Cartwright is appreciating the wonders of nature and the quiet benefits of being out of the big smoke. “We moved here in January,” he bubbles happily. “I’ve had a really busy week but it’s all finished, and I’m just sitting on the porch and it’s really sunny and there’s cockatoos being annoying.”

It’s basically how I imagine him when I listen to Richard In Your Mind’s latest album, SUN; there are at least five songs that reference sunlight in the title and the themes, meandering through genres and styles with that signature RIYM psychedelic-pop-licious touch laced through the whole thing. Cartwright’s previous landing pad was in the heart of Sydney’s inner west; a party house that was staffed and stabled by friends and collaborators almost constantly. The move to the mountains left its mark on the album, and Cartwright believes it will affect his band’s future work as well. “We did most of the album in Annandale, but we did a few more of the drums and a lot of the vocals in the mountains,” Cartwright says. “There is some influence – especially the song ‘Mountainhead’, which is about this sort of change, and wondering whether or not it’s a good idea to go up into the forest when things get a bit hectic and strange. I think probably the next album will be the one [most influenced by the move]. Maybe we’ll suddenly start sounding like Cloud Control?” he laughs.

day, where whatever you’ve been worried about the day before is gone and you’re a bit cleansed. I love being warmed by the sun in the morning and drinking a tea. That’s usually when I feel like it’s a good time to be playing guitar or writing lyrics or being inspired, I guess, and the sun sort of provides that backdrop. It’s often a force of hope in our songs. When things get bad, you can wait for the next day, you can always start again. You can get cosmic into life and death and the cycles of the universe,” he says. “In a big cosmic space sense, as a band and as people, we’ve always been interested in science and nature and space, and the sun is what we revolve around. It’s a theme that’s always been thought about and sung about many times by many people.

“We’ve always had at least three songs per album where if the sun isn’t in the title, it’s certainly one of the main [themes]," Cartwright says. "We’ve always been writing about the sun, so this is almost a selftitled album. It’s a very important thing, the sun.”

What: SUN is out now on Rice Is Nice Where: GoodGod Small Club When: Friday September 23

SUN sort of leaves off where last year’s AMPnominated My Volcano ended – but despite the influence and awesome permanent addition of Brent Griffin (SPOD) to the band, the new record is far from a move towards the electronic. “I think it’s the opposite of going more electronic,” Cartwright laughs. “We’ve still got heaps of music that isn’t on the new album, because we still love playing with sounds. There’s almost an ambient electronic album that we could maybe put together, if we put a bunch of work into it. But the new album has gone far more organic-y and more band-y.”

“The sun is often a force of hope in our songs. When things get bad, you can wait for the next day, you can always start again...

It’s a very important thing, the sun.”

The album’s cohesiveness is another development; where some listeners may have wished for more continuity on the eclectic My Volcano, lovers of RIYM’s diversity may wonder whether they’ve settled down a little with this new LP... “Your next album is often a reaction to your last one, and we loved the erratic nature of My Volcano but with this one, SUN… we wanted to make an album that sounded a bit more like one thing. Other people will say it’s still full of crazy, but for us it has a vibe flowing through it. It’s a bit shorter and maybe a bit less epic,” he explains.

“It’s a bit more of an album that people put on that’s pleasant to listen to – not like, ‘Oh you’ve got to get ready to listen to this album.’ [SUN] is more of a soundtrack to a time. That’s the idea.”

The kaleidoscopic cover artwork fits perfectly not only with the album’s thematic focus on the sun, but also the decision to release it on vinyl; it looks like a record cover from the ‘60s. And the format decision also had an effect on the music. “Because we’re popping this one on vinyl, we really thought about it as two halves. We really put a lot of effort into the tracklist in that regard.” It’s been a sort of kaleidoscopic recording process, too, after SPOD and other band members headed on adventures overseas. The mixing of the album was actually done by Griffin in New York, and vocals and drums were tracked during intermittent visits to the mountains. “I’d spend a day with Pat [Torres] doing drums, a day with Jordy [Lane] doing guitar, a day with Conrad [Richters] doing bass and synth,” Cartwright says.

The album even features guest vocals from kyu singer Alyx Marwood, a friend of the band. “She just came over one day and we said, ‘Have a go on this!’, and we started going through the songs that weren’t quite finished – and she really brought a bunch of stuff to life. It’s been really wonderful to have her input; she’s just amazing at music and has a beautiful voice.”

But if the process was kaleidoscopic, the theme is simple: just that big bright sun of ours. “I think I’m a morning person,” Cartwright reflects. “I love getting up early as the sun is rising with a fresh BRAG :: 429 :: 12:09:11 :: 17

The Panics Don’t Fight It By Max Easton

T

he Panics have traced a strange career trajectory from their beginnings in Perth almost a decade ago. Discovered and signed by Paul Otway and Jules Douglas from the Happy Mondays (heads of Little Bigman Records) in 2001, The Panics quickly became community radio darlings, the quiet and steady acclaim they found for their first two LPs always seeming slightly at odds with their big-name label bosses. However, it wasn’t until they left Little Bigman for Brisbane’s Dew Process that things really took off for the five-piece, with their ARIA-winning Cruel Guards spawning one of the most recognisable Australian singles of 2007 in ‘Don’t Fight It.’

“You get lucky occasionally with a song like that,” front-man Jae Laeffer reflects. “To get a big sing-a-long was a bit of a gift. We’d been touring for a while and the first big festival slots we did were like, ‘Wow, people really have a favourite song of ours!’ You’d look out at these crowds with all kinds of people singing along, and it was a very powerful thing – and once you get a glimpse of being able to create that feeling amongst a group of people, you start making a bunch of goals based around

BABY ANIMALS DIESEL JEFF LANG ASH GRUNWALD JEFF MARTIN (CANADA) THE VOICE OF THE TEA PARTY

FOLK UKE (USA) CATHY GUTHRIE & AMY NELSON

ABBY DOBSON CHAIN THE BREAK BRIAN RITCHIE (VIOLENT FEMMES) & MARTIN ROTSEY, ROB HIRST & JIM MOGINIE (MIDNIGHT OIL)

SNOWDROPPERS SARAH MCLEOD (THE SUPERJESUS) KIM CHURCHILL WATUSSI THE FLOOD TIM CHAISSON (CANADA) THE BREWSTER BROTHERS BONDI CIGARS PERRY KEYES BAND DOM TURNER & IAN COLLARD CHASE THE SUN ANNE MCCUE BAND

(USA) BUSHWALLA RAY BEADLE BAND SPOOKYLAND BOATS OF BERLIN PAUL GREENE (CANADA) COLIN MOORE ASHLEIGH MANNIX HAT FITZ & CARA ROBINSON STEVE EDMONDS JASON WALKER BAND THE MICK HART EXPERIENCE

MORE THAN 80

steaming

blues acts Check our website for details of great new camping options

www.sydneybluesfestival.com.au PHOTOGRAPH: DANNI NIX

18 :: BRAG :: 429 :: 12:09:11

recreating it, just to have some more of that.

It’s really addictive.”

From their chart-crossing hits to the sleeper ballads on their lesser-known records, The Panics have always found a unique balance between walking their own sonic path and tipping the hat to their influences – but Laeffer is wary of just how fine that line is. “It’s all about a choice,” he begins. “There are a lot of these bands that we might get compared to or that we aspire to be like – whether that’s a band like the Triffids or whoever – but you don’t want to be living off the coat-tails of bands who were around quite a long time ago. People have done certain things and they can influence you, but they’ve probably done it a lot better than what you could.

You have to find something that’s yours and is unique, and go in that direction. The only reason I’d shy away from being like my influences is because they’ve already done it, and I want people to eventually look back at my band and be influenced by us because we had something of our own that was unique.”

For Rain On The Humming Wire, the follow-up to Cruel Guards, The Panics uprooted themselves from their Melbourne home to head overseas, a move that’s long been an Australian band’s rite of passage. Trapping themselves in the backwoods of New York state, they made their own studio and set about recording over four weeks with no access to the outside world. “We were out in Woodstock, we didn’t have a car, we were right out in the forest at the side of a disused train line in an old church,” Laeffer explains. “It was a beautiful thing, and we created an atmosphere and an environment to work in that suited us. Instead of working nine-to-five, we’d wake up the producer when we had an idea at any time during the month, and eventually we had people working all over these different parts of the church. We’d have our drummer set up with a huge amount of percussion stuff down in the corner and you wouldn’t see him for five days ‘cos he’d be working on that, or you’d have another guy recording backing vocals in some room above the church,” he says. “And when people ran out of an idea briefly, that’s when you stopped, lit a fire and drank a can of Bud.”

“Instead of working nine-to-five, we’d wake up the producer when we had an idea at any time... When people ran out of an idea briefly, that’s when you stopped, lit a fire and drank a can of Bud.” Laeffer describes himself as broaching similar thematic territory regardless of where he and the band are geographically; songs of departure, return and the losses in-between run throughout Rain On The Humming Wire as they have throughout the band’s discography. “I look back on songs and realise that I often return to themes,” he admits. “There are parts of this world and places I’ve lived which I just want to write about, even if the songs are just about waking up and looking outside the car window. I find certain beauty in different places I’ve existed…

Whether that appeals to people, I don’t know, but it’s just something I keep coming back to – and sometimes it takes being in different parts of the Earth to look back and see the romance in that.”

A recent resurgence in the appreciation for bands like The Go-Betweens, The Triffids and The Church have resulted in an appreciation for the common sounds that those bands have left in acts like The Panics – sounds which Laeffer reserves a degree of fondness for himself. “[They] had something which had a certain romance to it,” he muses, “but it had an Australian feel too, which is hard to put your finger on. I’m not sure exactly what it is, but it comes out somewhere between a mix of lyrics that are talking about an environment that we can all identify with, and maybe a certain guitar sound that has slowly been worked by that kind of two- or three-guitar band that has become quite prominent in Australia in the last couple of decades. I don’t know what it is, but you know it when you hear it – and it’s a great feeling to get that on record.”

What: Rain On The Humming Wire is out now on Dew Process With: Georgia Fair and Avalanche City Where: The Metro Theatre When: Saturday September 24

Something With Numbers Something About Ukes By Rick Warner

I

t’s been almost two years since Jake Grigg was in Australia for an extended period of time, but the vocalist and songwriter is finally back on the Central Coast getting reacquainted with the rest of his band. After a self-imposed hiatus, Something With Numbers are back in a room together, writing some new music. “We all decided that we needed a little bit of time off,” Jake says, addressing the lengthy pause between releases. “Originally we were just going to have a year off, do some travelling, hang out.

But I ended up living in America and playing music over there.”

While the other members of Something With Numbers got engaged or pursued mountainbiking careers, Jake took off to Los Angeles to put time into another project – the band Maniac with Shawn Harris (ex-The Matches). And the time abroad has done him good. With a new obsession (the ukulele) and a renewed focus on his songwriting, he’s found a little clarity. “I think this time around I’ve learnt my lessons,” he says, referring to SWN’s past, releasing radio-friendly pop. “I’ve just stopped giving a fuck, I’m just making music – that’s what I’ve learnt. I can’t be over-thinking it, I can’t be worrying about how people are going to react to it, or if it’s going to have any longevity. I just got hyper-involved with it, [and] I’ve learned in this last couple of years, through writing music with Shawn, that if it’s a good song, people will listen to it and if it’s not, they won’t.”

When we were growing up and starting to play music, they were the first band that broke out of the Central Coast. We were like, ‘Oh my god, these guys have a song on the radio. They’re on the TV!’ They were our idols, you know? For them to get back together, it’s going to bring back some feelings.”

But One Dollar Short aren’t the only thing coming out of retirement. For their first show in almost two years, Something With Numbers are delving deep into the archives. “There’s a song called ‘Barnacles And Stripes’,” Jake says hesitantly. “It was one of the first songs we’ve ever written... I refused to play it for ten years because I hate it,” he sighs, “but I think that we might play it at Coaster.” Well, Jake, you’re locked in now.

With: John Butler Trio, Drapht, Little Red, Jebediah, Bag Raiders, The Potbelleez, Horrorshow, One Dollar Short, Gold Fields, Ball Park Music and heaps more Where: Coaster Festival @ Gosford Showground, Gosford When: Saturday September 17

“I’ve just stopped giving a fuck, I’m just making music – that’s what I’ve learnt. I can’t be over-thinking it, I can’t be worrying about how people are going to react... If it’s a good song, people will listen.”

Although the writing of the band’s new album is still in its infancy (Jake’s only been back in Australia for about a month), you can expect the forthcoming Something With Numbers LP to shy away from slick studio (over-)production.

“It’s going to sound more like a live record, I think,” he explains. “I just love bands that you can listen to on record and automatically just picture yourself in the crowd right at the back, and you can already see it. I feel like with all of our previous stuff, it’s a recorded ‘song’ – but I just want that live vibe.” Grigg plans to write all of the new songs on ukulele first, which he’ll later transpose to full band arrangements. “I’m addicted to that instrument. Seriously, I can’t leave the house without it in my hand – I walk around with it. So I mean, if [the new songs] sound good live on a ukulele, then I think we’ll have no trouble.”

Grigg’s praise for the tiny Hawaiian chordophone doesn’t carry through to Pearl Jam frontman, Eddie Vedder, who just released a solo album with only uke accompaniment. “Yeah, when I heard about that I was pissed off. I was like, ‘Fuck that guy! I want to do that!’” he jokes. “It’d be so fun to do a ukulele record. The tour costs would be nothing. You don’t have to carry anything. You can just sit there and smoke cigarettes and play ukulele. It’d be the best time of your life.”

While the solo ukulele tour might still be way off for Jake, he seems happy with his new life in Los Angeles. With a nurturing music scene full of low-key monthly residencies for bands and artists, there’s a sense of camaraderie that he says is missing in Australia. “The L.A. scene is much more welcoming. People have open minds and just love music. Like, I know that Sydney does as well, but in a different way. Every [L.A.] band we meet are really nice. Everyone becomes friends – a real community… I’ve never really had that in Sydney,” he says.

Something With Numbers are scheduled to play the Central Coast’s Coaster Festival later this month, with a diverse lineup including Drapht, Little Red, Bag Raiders and John Butler Trio; a varied group, which Jake is more than happy with. “You can’t just cater for the rockers,” he laughs. “When I was growing up, I wouldn’t listen to anything except pop punk – nothing else in the world. If it wasn’t fast and poppy, I would not listen to it, I’d think it was all shit. Nowadays, I think a lot of people listen to everything. That’s a good thing.” Also on the bill are Central Coast icons, One Dollar Short, who are coming out of retirement for the show. Jake predicts mayhem.

“I think they’ll have the biggest crowd of the day.

BRAG :: 429 :: 12:09:11 :: 19

arts frontline

free stuff email: freestuff@thebrag.com

arts, theatre and film news... what's goin' on around town and more...

five minutes WITH SMC[3] AND

SPRINKLES

expressed myself artistically on a surface was when I was about four years old. Being a “big boy” I had decided I could venture to relieve myself of a Number Two unassisted. However the dashing age of four has its pitfalls, one of which is a severe lack of height. Needless to say everything “missed” and ended up on the floor. My unshackled creative spirit then decided that the bathroom in its bleak/clean condition needed immediate redecorating and so, with fearless determination, proceeded to cover both myself and the walls in what Mum now describes as one of the worst things she’s ever had to clean up in her life. I “shit” you not.

SMC[3]: I used to be obsessed with writing my name in wet cement with a stick. Or my dad’s motorcycle oil on my hands, on the carpet.

The arty bits of this year’s Changing Lanes festival are just as exciting as the music, if not more – after all, do PVT have a giant rotating pyramid that will be covered in original art in front of your very eyes? Probably not.

We pinned down two of the artists who are involved in that project, Movement Stax: mono-monikered men of mystery, Sprinkles (pictured above) and SMC[3] (who is also the creative director of the project).

When did you first pick up a pen/pencil/ paintbrush/mum’s lipstick/mark-making implement of any kind?

Sprinkles: If you want to know the actual and absolute truth without any word of a lie... According to my mother the first time I

POLITICALLY INCORRECT VOL. 1

What’s your favourite colour?

Sprinkles: Purple. I find it to be one of the most emotionally versatile colours you can work with in terms of setting the tone of a piece or creating atmosphere. However I also believe that to be true of a lot of other colours.

Purps is just a rad colour.

SMC[3]: Black. Black-hearted raven witches.

What piece of art do you wish you’d made?

Sprinkles: The first mark anyone ever made in rebellion to anything. Perhaps long since forgotten or even unknown, but to have been the spark that ignited global unity under a single rebellious artistic ideal…! Holy crap.

SMC[3]: Dr. Who’s Tardis. Live in a phone box, and go anywhere, any time in the universe. what?...

What piece of art has gotten you in the most trouble?

Sprinkles: Definitely the first tag I ever did anywhere at school – in woodwork, with a spray can I had just stolen from the paint room.

SMC[3]: A collaboration I did with [fellow artist] Konsumterra: a stencil of a girl with spread legs, with Happy Meal characters between her legs, on timber. It was sold at the illegal laneway exhibition Not Lane Down, bought on the spot, paid for, and taken. The buyer tried a dodgy deal, then tried to beat us with our own art piece! The last scene of that exhibit was us, running down an alley, chased by a psycho, swinging porn, and junk food!

If you could pretty up any surface in Sydney, what would it be?

SMC[3]: I would smash all the imaginationless stainless steel and glass buildings going up in Sydney at the moment, into pyramid prisms to trap architect/designer/ owners! You make Sydney shit! That’s why we paint it!

Sprinkles: I do it already every day, you just need to look around to see.

What: Movement Stax at Changing Lanes 2011 With: SMC[3], Sprinkles, Beastman, Houl, PHIBS, Konsumterra, and loads more Where: Devonshire St and surrounds When: September 17 More: changinglanesfestival.com

BELVOIR & GRIFFIN 2012

Two announcements last week from two of our absolute favourite theatre companies – nothing major, just their entire 2012 seasons… Belvoir’s includes the Noel Coward classic Private Lives with Toby Schmitz, Death of a Salesman starring Colin Friels, and a slew of impressive boldface names including Lucy Guerin, Benedict Andrews, and Force Majeure. Check out belvoir.com.au for the whole shebang.

And Griffin, not to be outdone, is staging the brutal Aussie classic that made David Wenham a star – The Boys – and the return of Paul Capsis’ autobiographical play Angela’s Kitchen, in amongst their customary schedule of new, inventive and left-field local work. See griffintheatre.com.au for the full list.

All But Won

It’s been just over 23 years since Eddie Murphy’s outlandish stand-up comedy show RAW made it to the Australian circuit.

And it’s been nearly 28 since Robin Williams’ Throbbing Python of Love escaped from its cage, sending audiences into fits of hysterical laughter. It’s time to relive those stitch-inducing moments in comic history with Politically Incorrect - a compilation of some of the best standup and musical comedy of the last few decades. Apart from Eddie and Robin, the 20-track CD features other comedy heavyweights such as the Monty Python crew, Kevin Bloody Wilson, Eddie Ifft and Peter Cooke & Dudley Moore. We’re giving away ten of these babies for you to get your jaw muscles aching and tears streaming. If you want to get your hands on one, email us and quote your favourite moment in Eddie Murphy’s RAW.

AMPERSAND LAUNCH

The wonderfully curious and curiously wonderful Ampersand Magazine has just released its fourth issue, From The Heart Of The Forest to the Edge of the Road.

Themed around outskirts, wildernesses and wastelands, it features contributions from Senator Bob Brown, playwright Tommy Murphy (Saturn’s Return), drummer Stella Mozgawa (Warpaint), Nick Coyle (Pig Island) and My Darling Patricia. The launch party, hosted by Jennifer Byrne and featuring

readings from Murphy, Coyle, and others, is next Tuesday, September 20, at the State Library Ballroom at 5pm.

FIRSTDRAFT 25

Artist-run intiative and gallery space Firstdraft are celebrating their 25th anniversary with a fundraiser this Wednesday September 14. Up for auction will be works

by Del Kathryn Barton, Ben Quilty, Brown Council, Agatha Gothe-Snape (a limited edition print collab with Big Fag Press), Nell, Joan Ross and dozens more. Hosted by Nick Coyle (him again!) and Charlie Garber of Pig Island, it’s on from 6pm at Firstdraft Gallery, 116 Chalmers St, Surry Hills.

SAM SIMMONS TOUR

Former zookeeper, current goat-tattoo owner and recipient of far too many wittily-named comedy awards Sam Simmons is bringing his show Sam Simmons and the Precise History of Things to Sydney next month. Already this year Precise History has been nominated for best show of the Melbourne Comedy and Edinburgh Fringe festivals and won Best Comedy at the Adelaide Fringe – so we’re not saying you should go just to heckle him.

Go because it will be amazing. Catch him at the Factory Theatre between October 18 and November 12.

Captured

SYDNEY FRINGE PICKS

It’s that of year again – Fringe is upon us and there’s so much going on that we don’t know which way to look. You’ll need to hit up the website (thesydneyfringe.com.au) for full details on venues and tickets, but there are several events we’re keeping a special eye out for. Check out the “guerilla art fair” Artcore this Thursday September 15; comedy from Genevieve Fricker and Michael Hing at the Factory Theatre all this week; musicand-film collab project Captured (more on that later!), the light installations and live art at The Night Garden in St Peters this Friday, Beauty and the Beast: An Evening of Disney Songs at Notes this Thursday; and new Australian play All But Won from September 20.

COMEDY @HOMEBAKE

Homebake Festival’s icon-stacked music lineup shows that the hiatus the festival took last year was just them gearing up to becoming a bigger event than ever, and the Homebake Comedy Stage is backing up their renewed approach in a big way. The stand-up lineup this year contrasts with the heavyweight music program, leaning towards up-and-comers more than longestablished comics – not including headliner Tim “Rosso” Ross. You can also catch hot young things Smart Casual, Daniel Townes, Matt Okine, Ronny Chieng, Rhys Nicholson, Dave Eastgate and Anthony Salame, You can rock and LOL at The Domain on December 3 – tickets on sale now from Ticketek and Oztix.

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TiNA - IT'S COMING...

Keep an eye out for our massive This is Not Art coverage in a couple of weeks’ time, but for now here are some highlights to whet your appetite: the National Young Writer’s Festival is back, as is the Lawrence Leunghosted Spelling Bee; the Sunday Zine Fair will happen on October 2; you’ll be building “dream cities” at Critical Animals, saving the world one Treasure Hunt at a time at Electrofringe, and feeling fine about the end of the world at Crack Theatre Festival’s End of Days Dance Party Featuring The Last Prom. Stock up on sleep and Red Bull – it’ll be a corker.

FBI SOCIAL

Social’s having a particularly arty week, starting with Outspoken #10 this Wednesday September 14 – featuring not one, but three internationally touring poets performing live on stage, including Canadian Slam Champion Shane Koyczan, with visuals

by Optic Soup and some local and interstate performers as well. Then two days later, Pot Luck joins the Sydney Fringe Digital Arts Program to present the aforementioned project Captured, which paired six filmmakers with six Sydney bands.

Friday September 16 will see all six resultant films being screened in the space, plus live sets from participating bands Lime Cordiale and Bon Chat Bon Rat.

John Waters “Children Like Me!”

By Alasdair Duncan

T

he legendary John Waterss – The Pope Of Trash to his fans – has a decades-long decades long legacy legacy of producing some of the filthiest and funniest films in America. Next month, he rolls into Sydney to present double bills of some of his favourite cultlt flicks for local fans of the odd and obscene. bscene.

AD: I loved your movies Hairspray spray and Crybaby when I was a kid d because of the humour and the colour, and didn’t realise until il I was older how subversive they ey were...

John Waters: I guess that’s whyy they work, and why they did cross over.

Nobody was preaching – a child d could get them, an adult could get them, and yet they had ideas in n them that were anything but mainstream. eam.

People didn’t seem to mind the e things I was pushing in those movies, though, because they were so joyous.

AD: Hairspray in particular had ad such a radical message, wrapped pped in up such a sweet package.

JW I agree! Nobody seemed to o notice that two men were dancing cing together and singing a love song, ng, or that Penny liked black guys and d that was encouraged. Those aren’t things that families in middle America might have necessarily embraced at the time. I’m thrilled that Hairspray was so successful though – I think it’s the only really radical movie I’ve e ever made.

JW: I thought it was good. Theyy had to reinvent it to make it successful. sful.

That’s why the movie of The Producers didn’t work as well, because they did the play again. n. They changed Hairspray and it worked ed – they made a broad, big-budget et Hollywood movie, and it worked. d. It had the same message as before, ore, and the dancing was great. I thought ought it was good.

AD: I saw some photos online ne recently of you doing a public c appearance with Justin Bieber er – what was that all about?

IV

E

A W AY

JW: I did a TV show with Justin n Bieber in London, and afterwards, rds, he drew my moustache on while le all

G

John Waters photo by Greg Gorman

AD: What did you think aboutt the remake of Hairspray that came me out a few years ago with Zac Efron on – did you like it?

the paparazzi pa aparazzi stood around and and took shots. I’m a huge fan.

AD: Wow – would you go as far as W to say you’re a Belieber?

JW: Oh O yeah. When he stuck his head out o of the screen in that 3D movie [Never Say Never] and shook his hair ha at the audience, I levitated. ated.

I’m all for him.

AD: Filmmakers are obsessed Fi ed with 3D at the moment – what’s your take on o it?

JW: Well, W let me tell you this. I never watch TV – the only shows I’ve e ever followed followe were The Wire, Peewee’s ee’s Playhouse and Howdy Doody – but Playho I was recently given a gift of a flatscreen, screen 3D TV. I didn’t know what hat to do with w it, and I figured the only thing it would be good for would d be watching watchi porn, so I went out to o buy some DVDs. I found that there are really only two 3D porn moviess you o can get ge – a gay one and a straight aight one. I bought them both, for whoever hoever wanted to come over.

AD: I can’t say I’ve ever c experienced 3D porn – what’s experi ’s it like?

JW: It’s like you’re right there in n the room roo with them. If you like big breasts, breast they come right out at you.

3D was wa made for porn!

AD: Given that you let Justin G n Bieber Biebe touch your moustache, e, will you let le fans touch it if they ask?

JW: I generally say no. I don’t like g ike it when people always ask me for a hug, either – I mean, I’m happy ppy to take pictures with people, but ut I don’t want to be hugging anybody, w ody, much less strangers! They rarely ely ask to touch my moustache. If I know someone well, or if I’m on s n live television and the audience is big televis enough, enoug maybe I’d say yes. If itt will sell enough books ... en AD: So S if the money’s right, all inhibitions about the moustache inhibit ache go out ou the window.

JW: It’s like a lap dance! If the reward’s reward big enough, I’ll do it.

AD: So S I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but Robert Crumb umb recently recent pulled out of an Australian stralian visit because a small but vocal b cal

I’m the first to admit that my movies are obscene. At midnight, when y re smoking you’re you gp theatre, they y may y not be obscene, obscene, but in a pot in a movie theatre, courtroom at ten in the morning, they’re obscene!

conservative conse ervative group threatened threatened to protest protes ...

JW: Are A you serious? I love Robert obert Crumb, Crumb I think he’s a great, great eat artist, and he’s appreciated all the way to the top levels of the art world.

What does he care if one or two wo crackpots don’t like him? It sounds crackp unds to me like he must have just gotten otten a better offer from somewhere!

AD: Have people ever picketed H ed you?

JW: I’ve I’v come up against a lot of censorship, and police have busted censo usted up screenings of my movies. I mean, scr I’m the first to admit that my movies are obscene.

At midnight, when ob n you’re smoking smoki pot in a movie theatre, e,

they may m not be obscene, obscene but in a courtroom at ten in the morning, courtr ng, they’re obscene!

AD: I heard you were planning ng to make ma a Christmas movie with Johnny John Knoxville – is that still till happening? happe JW: I’m I’ still trying to make it. t.

Independent films used to cost Indep ost five million dollars, which used m ed to be thought of as very inexpensive, tho ensive, but there’s no such thing as an th inexpensive independent film inexp m anymore.

I’m trying, but I mean, anym ean, I’ve got g a million ways to tell stories. storie AD: Wow, so maybe this is itt for W you as a a filmmaker?

JW: Well, W I’ve made an awful lot of Well movies, movie so it’s not like I haven’t had the chance to express myself. I’d like ch tto o make ma another movie, but if I didn’t ever, that wouldn’t be the worst thing. mean, of course I want to make one, I mea but I do other things. I have so many outlets. I want to make this Christmas outlet movie, though, because I’ve never movie made a children’s movie before, and I think it could be a highly commercial proposition. Children like me! propo What: John Waters selects Double Features From Hell Where: The Playhouse, Sydney Opera House When: Friday October 21 to Sunday October 23 More: sydneyoperahouse.com.au

MISFITS Series Two DVD Package

I

f you’ve ever seen an episode of the British sci-fi-comedy-drama Misfits you most likely spent the hours after glued to your television or computer screen, doing terrible, illegal things to get the whole series RIGHT NOW. And if this is all news to you, you and your screen have got some solid catching up to do - think Trainspotting meets X-men meets Heroes.

WIN!

The acclaimed second series has just been released as a totally legal double-disc DVD package and BRAG have five copies to give away. If you want to get your hands on one, tell us the name of the character who can become invisible.

Email freestuff@thebrag.com BRAG :: 429 :: 12:09:11 :: 21

Pablo Francisco [COMEDY] He’s the voice By Peter Neathway

A

s I wait for Chilean-American comic Pablo Francisco’s voice to come down the phone line at any moment, it seems a cruel irony that my voice is failing, croaky after a morning coffee. See, Francisco is a vocal superstar, a sound FX man-machine capable of impersonating more Hollywood stars than would fit in your average Oscars ceremony; of live-beatboxing his own dance track as background music in his techno club routine whilst yelling (over his own beatbox soundtrack) as two characters, and dancing.

It’s made him a rock star in live shows, an international hit and a viral internet sensation with over 40 million YouTube views.

[THEATRE] Turning chaos into compelling theatre By Simon Binns

Francisco also credits the internet with expanding pop culture knowledge, and it’s an area he knows well. After a stint on MADtv in the nineties and a Comedy Central special in 2000 exposed him to the US public at large, it was finally viral internet success that spawned Francisco’s global following. “It was basically a [in his Movie Trailer Guy voice] time warp. One man, went to the Internet, he just time warped all the way through,” he intones, riffing on his most famous bit.

Despite his huge fan base and legions of new converts to Francisco’s vocal talents, he insists his gift is nothing superhuman. “Some people say, you have the gift to do this, and that it was given to you, but we all have the same gift,” he says. “As long as you commit to that gift I think everyone can do exactly anything that anybody else can do. That’s why, when some people come to the show and they say ‘I wanna be a comic’, I say ‘Go for it’. Just, ah, there’s some simple rules; don’t sleep with the waitstaff and don’t talk crap about other comedians.”

The Black Lung was founded in 2006 by Wright and Thomas Henning. After pulling together a pool of talent that included Davies and other young Melbourne performers, the group set to work. And work, and work. “We generated an insane amount of material,” recalls Wright.

“Including remounts, we made about 20 productions in the first year of being together, and all of it we made without applying for a grant, never having a space, never applying for rights, never having insurance.”

Gareth Davies

Francisco hints at honing his own gift since an early age. “Yeah, you know like, we all have that one person in the family that uses sarcasm to get the point across. I would use impersonations. I would use Chris Rock to make sure that my brother would pay me my money,” he recalls; then as he shifts gear into Chris Rock, the effect over the phone is incredible. He shifts energy, voice, timing, tone, everything. It is like I’m talking to Chris Rock.

“What’s the deal going on with Alfred? He cannot pay Pablo his money. What’s the deal with that?”

A core tenet of the company in this early stage was a mutual frustration with what they saw as stagnation in the major theatre companies.

“What was happening on the main stages… the last thing it was was exciting,” says Davies, explaining that in response, the group made work for themselves. “A big part of it was we wanted to feel excited ourselves and to feel inspired… and not care what was happening around us. There was lot of sound and fury.”

The result was an anarchic, visceral style of performance that immediately engaged audiences, and saw the company win a slew of awards, before eventually being invited to undertake a residency at the Malthouse Theatre. The main stages that they were raging against quickly came knocking. “We incorporated ourselves into the professional reality and really tried to pick it apart from the inside out,” says Wright.

As well as creating a lot of buzz around Melbourne as a company, the group started to receive lot of attention as individuals, something that Wright attributes to the type of performer that their style of working created.

“Because of Thomas Henning’s way of working, which was just recklessly charging ahead and a certain degree of improvisation, you ended up with a number of performers who were pretty prepared to fall and fight to stay afloat, which is a pretty exciting thing to watch,” Wright says. Certainly Davies has made a name for himself with performances that succeed because they seem to teeter so close to total disaster.

Which brings us to Mr Glamour, a work that the pair find difficult to describe without giving too much away. “It’s a determinedly... character piece about one man trying to define his reality, and the void between him and the people watching him,” tries Wright; Davies adds, “and the horrible realisation that he shouldn’t be there and people shouldn’t be watching.” When he was writing the play, Davies wasn’t sure if it would ever be performed, but Wright recognised something remarkable in its fragility. “There’s a feeling reading it, as there often is with great plays, where you feel the character starts to speak outside of the person that’s writing it,” Wright explains. “There’s a kind of vomitation that’s happening of this thing crawling out of the person’s head. That’s what's exciting about it.”

And where does Francisco find the funny?

“Well, if it’s funny to you in the shower – because that’s where it usually all comes out, in the shower – or at four o’clock in the am, or in a room with people and they laugh, in front of your friends and they laugh too, that’s where you know when it’s funny.”

What: And They Called Him Mr Glamour Where: Downstairs @ Belvoir When: September 15 until October 9

What: Pablo Francisco Where: Enmore Theatre When: Friday October 7

Mr Glamour - Gareth Davies photo by Heidrun Lorh

T

homas M. Wright and Gareth Davies are well known to Sydney audiences. Wright, who you may also know as one of the journalists in the award-winning film Balibo, was last seen on our stages singing his heart out as Baal at STC. Davies seems to have barely left Belvoir in the past three years, making several trips up and down the stairs between the two theatres and most recently seen in Benedict Andrews’ adaptation of The Seagull.

But their Melbourne-based company, The Black Lung Theatre And Whaling Firm (of which they form one third), has not been quite as active interstate. That seems to be changing, with this month alone seeing them perform a new show in Brisbane before travelling back to Sydney to premiere And They Called Him Mr Glamour – Davies’ solo show under Wright’s direction – in Belvoir’s intimate Downstairs theatre.

I croak through my first question, asking Francisco what he does to warm up his stage super-voice. “Oh usually basically just go [throat-clearing cough] and maybe a cup of coffee, that should do it,” he says, softly spoken and super casual. The chilled-out disposition is unexpected. On stage, Francisco drips with sweat as he frenetically motormouths through dozens of characters, scenarios, voices and sounds.

Francisco’s voice is a weapon and his ammunition is pop culture, with which he can easily cross borders comically. He’s big in Sweden, selling 26,000 tickets on a recent 16 show tour, and 20,000 tickets across nine cities in Scandinavia. “We all watch television, we all watch the news and we’re pretty much on the same planet.” he says of the apparently non-existent language barrier. “Music’s the same, the same relationships between human beings are the same, so that’s basically I think why people relate.”

And They Call Him Mr Glamour

Summer of the Seventeenth Doll

[THEATRE] Looking at an Aussie classic with brand new eyes By Simon Binns

Belvoir, and more specifically Neil Armfield, has been a large part of this success, “[He’s] been very kind to me,” says Stone, who first worked with the acclaimed director on the epic Scorched; the role earned her a nomination for Best Supporting Actress at the Sydney Theatre Awards. With the pair coming 22 :: BRAG :: 429 :: 12:09:11

together once again for Armfield’s first show at Belvoir since retiring as Artistic Director, they have now worked together four times.

The latest collaboration sees Stone take on the role of the youthful Bubba in Ray Lawler’s classic of Australian drama, Summer Of The Seventeenth Doll.

A script which, in its time, legitimised Australian playwriting, The Doll is perhaps now best known as an HSC drama text. It tells the story of the two canecutters, Barney and Roo, who for the past 17 years have left the Queensland canefields each winter and spent the off season with their female counterparts Nancy and Olive in Melbourne.

The year the play is set is different, though, with Nancy out of the picture after having made the unforgiveable decision to get married. Olive tries to convince her friend Pearl to take Nancy’s place; unsurprisingly, this transition doesn’t go smoothly, and the play follows the gradual breakdown of this 17-year tradition.

For Stone, who studied the text in high school herself, it’s been an eye-opening process getting to know the writing again. “For most people who’ve read it at high school, there’s a sort of natural disdain because you had to do it for homework… and until we did the first reading I didn’t get it properly. But to hear it and to see it performed, it’s an incredibly beautiful play,” she says, before going on to explain how the Steve Irwin-esque slang

Dan Wyllie & Yael Stone

somehow transforms when it comes off the page. “It seems so hokey, all the kind of Australian stuff, but it doesn’t in the hands of good people.”

“Good people” is an understatement. The show brings Robyn Nevin straight back onto the Belvoir stage after her sell-out season as Ana in Neighbourhood Watch. She’ll be accompanied by Susie Porter and Dan Wyllie, who have been regular faces on our screens and stages for years.

With such a stellar cast surrounding her, and a classic script in hand, Stone has found being in the rehearsal room with Armfield for the fourth time around as rewarding as ever. “It’s a big deal to work with him,” she acknowledges.

“I hope I don’t lose sight of how special that is.”

What: Summer of the Seventeenth Doll Where: Upstairs @ Belvoir When: September 24 – November 13 More: www.belvoir.com.au

17th Doll photo by Heidrun Lohr

L

ast year, Yael Stone got a lot of press attention when she performed alongside Geoffrey Rush in Neil Armfield’s final production as artistic director of Belvoir, a restaging of his 1989 hit Diary Of A Madman.

There were many questions asked of her, and while some were related to the challenge of performing opposite one of Australia’s theatrical legends, there was a lot of attention focused on the cute human interest story of her shaving her head for the role. As the story was told, and retold, Geoffrey Rush paid for a wig of her own hair to be made so that her TV commitments wouldn’t be hindered by her performance. “People really want to bang on about the wig,” she cringes. “I’ve worn it professionally once.” However, while this may have been her first introduction to the wider press, Stone has been a known quantity in the Sydney theatre scene for some time.

With performances for just about every major company in Sydney, and a variety of TV roles, she has been working consistently for the better part of a decade. “I’ve been very lucky… it’s been a beautiful five years and I’m still quite surprised to be paid,” she says with a smile.

MOONSHAKES Every Tuesday / Bands & DJS / FREE ENTRY!

6TH SEPT Raw Africa A collection of afrobeat / african psych inspired sets by members of Djanimals, Domeyko Gonzalles, Decoder Ring, Whip Cream Chargers and others.

13TH SEPT Daisy M Tully Sooners Alex Fox

20TH SEPT Astral People Presents

Winter Coats James Domeyko Virgo Rising.

27TH SEPT Moon Holiday Fox Giraffe Season $5 Jack n Coke / $5 Vodka / $4 Boags Draught Facebook.com/moonshakes

www.theflindershotel.com.au, 63 Flinders St BRAG :: 429 :: 12:09:11 :: 23

Arts Snap

Film & Theatre Reviews

At the heart of the arts Where you went last week. Photos by Cai Griffin

s and misses on the silver screen and the bareboards around town.

■ Theatre

TRANSPARENCY Until September 17 / Seymour Centre The social issue of rehabilitation versus punishment of criminals is an interesting and ever-present debate. Views range broadly, from those who see criminals as victims themselves who need help, to those who consider the crimes they commit too heinous for their personal wellbeing to be of any importance. The ‘Law and Order vote’ is a constant go-to for politicians, and tougher sentencing laws are rarely far away from the lips of any talk back radio host, or the pen of a tabloid journalist. These questions become even more complicated when the offenders involved are juvenile.

When two-year-old Jamie Bulger was murdered by two ten-year-old boys in England in 1993, it sent shockwaves throughout the world. The question of what to be done with the offenders was rigorously debated. Should they be punished for their crimes, or treated as children who were unaware of the severity of their actions? The result was that the boys were detained until the age of 18 when they were released with new names, in the hope of living peaceful lives as rehabilitated citizens. Transparency explores what life might be like for one of those child killers, living happily under a new identity with his wife, who is starting to think about having a baby.

PICS :: CG

clare martin slab city

Suzie Miller’s writing is mostly strong, eloquently bringing to the fore many of the questions that are clear in this situation. Glenn Hazeldine has found a good balance between the impending threat and the broken child that exists in the main character of Simon.

01:09:11 :: Australian Centre for Photography :: 257 Oxford St Paddington

Street Level

Henry Florence ■ Theatre

AFRICA

With Chris Franklin

Wharf 2 / Until September 17 It’s been ten years since ‘Bloke’ came out – are you still a bit surprised that it did as well as it did?

Fuckin’ oath - I never thought my mother would buy it!

Do you ever get recognised as “the ‘Bloke’ guy”?

All the time, and I still just get recognised as the ‘Bloke’ guy – even when it was in the charts, I was always recognised as the ‘Bloke’ not ‘Chris Franklin’.

Do you enjoy a good pie and singlet combo?

Isn’t it normally a pie & beer combo? But yes, the singlet is on – to catch the sauce.

I

f there’s one thing Australian audiences love, it’s a novelty song. From Joe Dolce's ‘Shaddap You Face’ in 1980, to Denis Leary’s 1993 Hottest 100-topper ‘Asshole’, to Chris Franklin’s 2001 double-Platinum Meredith (‘Bitch’) Brooks parody, ‘Bloke’ – a curse-studded giggle at a loveable stereotype set to a tune is guaranteed to storm up the ARIA charts.

‘Bloke’ appears on the new compilation Politically Incorrect, alongside guaranteedto-offend choice cuts from Monty Python (‘Sit On My Face’), Robin Williams (‘Throbbing Python of Love’, anyone?), Eddie Murphy, Lewis Black, Heath "Chopper" Franklin (no relation), Kevin Bloody Wilson and old-school serial offenders Peter Cook & Dudley Moore.

BRAG decided to see what Franklin is up to, a decade after he stormed the ARIA charts with his laconic tribute to his bogan brethren.

24 :: BRAG :: 429 :: 12:09:11

This production, the Seymour Centre’s first produced fully in-house, shows a commitment to new Australian work and thought-provoking stories, and deserves recognition for delivering both.

What did you do with your Platinum record?

It’s still hanging on the wall in the lounge room. EMI decorated the award with VB and Winnie Blues – which, I must admit, I have had to smash the glass in poorer times for a cigarette!

What are you up to these days – still doing stand-up? What’s the stand-up scene like on Magnetic Island [the Townsville-adjacent island where Franklin is now based – population about 2000]?

Yes, I am still doing stand-up and still a labourer by day, as per the song. There is no stand-up scene – it’s non-existent on Magnetic Island. As is the nightlife scene.

What: Politically Correct is out now on Warner

■ Comedy

THE INTERNATIONAL COMEDY GALA Just For Laughs at The Opera House / Saturday September 3 It’s not every performer who can receive a standing ovation before a show, but John Cleese is not just anyone. As the icon of Fawlty Towers and Monty Python fame took to the Sydney Opera House stage as host of The International Comedy Gala – which showcased all the Festival’s top acts, shy of Dylan Moran and Margaret Cho – some audience members were already on their feet.

Unusual, yes, but it turns out that this was the entirely appropriate response.

More on Cleese later.

First up Russell Howard, one of the UK’s biggest comedians, showed his experience on big stages. Leaving no space for quiet, Howard stormed through a highly energetic, physical and crowd-pleasing set. Wil Anderson, a local flavour inclusion, built off Howard’s energy and then some. A tight set in tight jeans, the man in black hit a rolling punchline stride, with two longer bits on needs versus wants (is a Babycino a need?) and a brilliantly executed premise on the expense of international flights – which Wil likes to earn back in movies, drinks, nuts, eye masks, headphones….

It took the gala crowd a moment to shift into gear with Louis CK’s frank, honest approach (although no adjustment was necessary in his Sunday solo as an adoring audience witnessed close to two hours of the virtuosic CK). In loose jeans, New Balance sneakers (“I lie on the bed looking at my new sneakers”), and black unfitted tee, Louis looks every bit the daggy dad – image is irrelevant to him. In a world full of designer comedians, he’s just damned funny and that’s enough. The last comedian that floored me with such brilliance was Daniel Kitson. Viva Louis.

The gala’s penultimate guest, Demetri Martin, employed a ‘penultimate’ joke in his Sunday solo show: “This show is brought to you by Penultimate, the second-best pen you’ll ever use.” In his gala set too, Martin dropped more genius one-liners like they were hot.

There are two sides to the story that Africa tells, and they relate to the two stories that inspired the work. The first is that of child neglect, the stories of children with dysfunctional parents that intermittently appear in our media. The other side is that of child fantasy, inspired by the true story of three German children who, one New Year’s Eve, packed their things and got on a train to the airport with the plan of flying to Africa – before being noticed by a policeman because they were wearing snorkels.

Africa combines these two stories, telling the tale of two sisters and a best friend, who escape the despair of their domestic reality by living out their fantasy of travelling to the foreign, seemingly perfect land of Africa – where children are in charge and no one is ever lonely. The story is told from the perspective of the children, who are represented here by puppets. We see the adults in the play through their eyes, not our own.

My Darling Patricia has absolutely nailed the fantasy side of the play. We quickly become emotionally attached to the three puppet children, as they are delicately manipulated by the incredibly skilful trio of puppeteers (Sam Routledge, Clare Britton & Michelle Robin Anderson), and from the first shot on a ‘70s TV of an African savannah and a yawning hippo, the pure escapism around the magical continent of Africa is palpably alive on stage.

The child neglect side of the story is less well articulated. Clare Britton and Bridget Dolan’s remarkable set that allows for such fantastic movement by the puppeteers doesn’t seem quite filthy enough to do justice to the neglectful homes that inspired it.

Nevertheless, this is an accomplished, unique work from one of Australia’s most exciting theatre companies. See it.

The final guest, Martin Short, despite good stage chops, failed to hit the mark.

A key device was banter with his pianist who might as well have been tinkling in the key of flat, because it didn’t work.

Reviving the memory of Bin Laden’s death for a song about his murder would presumably be a hit in North America but was irrelevant to Australians, and a tad outdated.

Henry Florence

Peter Neathway

Then Cleese returned to close. Credit where credit is due, Cleese deserved that standing ovation at the opening, for his body of work to that moment, and declining credit from every moment forward. Reading all night from autocue (ok, yes, he’s 71), his entertainingenough opening employed some wellcomposed scripted A/V gags to explain that he’s in the third year of his Alimony tour, repaying a $20 million divorce settlement debt, and that he hates his ex-wife, and her divorce lawyer.

Cleese eventually approached no- or negative-credit status, for his part in a debacle of a sketch series throughout – which ultimately ended the whole show with that ribald and predictable pay-off, oh it’s not a woman, it’s a man, as Cleese was wed to a new Aussie ‘bride’. This is after his first stage bride, a young Australian-Asian lady, wouldn’t sign a pre-nup and stormed off screaming at Cleese in a bit of madeup-sounding ‘Asian’. Cleese’s clincher, “Well, at least I won’t have to worry about child support,’ felt like a line that a witty new American writer would end a parody of a bad sketch with. Wump wump wump waaaahh. Two-thirds of the Cleese experience was like experiencing a deteriorating elderly loved one soil themselves. You wish you could erase it from your memory, and it really stinks.

BRAG :: 429 :: 12:09:11 :: 25

News Bites

OXYGEN BAR

The Night Noodle Markets

GOOD FOOD GUIDE 2012

There’s been a lot of headwear flying around Sydney this week, with the Sydney Morning Herald’s Good Food Guide 2012 announcing the big winners of the year. Porteño’s tattooed BBQ kings picked up two hats and Best New Restaurant in their first year, while their more casual upstairs offering Gardel’s nabbed Favourite Bar. City eatery Sepia scored their third hat, making them one of only five three-hatted restaurants in the state, and also managed to take home the coveted ‘Restaurant of the Year’. Surry Hills’ Longrain fought their way back into the two-hat club, while Golden Century and Bodega took a downwards tumble. Debutants District Dining, Felix and Duke

BRAG'S WEEKLY GUIDE TO FOOD

came to the party too, all nabbing their first-ever hats.

CRAVE FESTIVAL

Just another reminder: the whole of October will be a month of mouthwatering deliciousness, with the Crave Sydney International Food Festival coming to our shores. With literally hundreds of events happening around the city, you’re sure to find something to satisfy even the snobbiest of foodie friends. From Hyde Park’s Night Noodle Markets, to dinner with lions at Taronga Zoo, to hands-on cooking classes with some of Sydney’s best chefs, Crave pretty much have it wrapped up. You can even get a special app to help you plan your time around the festival. Hello food baby, goodbye summer bikini body…

Before you scoff at the idea of paying for air, think about this: when was the last time you got to breathe in pure oxygen, delicately scented with jasmine, eucalyptus or coconut?

Apparently it’s great for hangovers, frequent fliers and stress in general, with numerous users reporting overall health and wellbeing improvements after a hit.

Let's face it, it’s at least a healthier habit than your usual hangover-McMuffin combo, and at only $1 a minute is well worth a lookin. Sydney's first Oxygen Bar has just launched in the Harbourside Shopping Centre in Darling Harbour, and is open from 10am 'til late, seven days a week.

JESTER SEEDS

Scruffy students and artsy grunge types alike, rejoice!

Another small bar has opened on King Street in Newtown, and it’s called, cryptically, Jester Seeds.

With a menu boasting Korean-style kalbi tacos, "broken" potatoes and marinated beef rump, most items are priced at levels that even the tightest Art History major could cough up for. An impressive cocktail list is sure to get the night started, and outdoor seating and an upstairs arts space complete the picture. It’s open Tuesday–Sunday, located at 127 King Street.

Shenkin

Café Corridor Fresh New Bar. FRESH COCKTAILS. SPIRITS. WINE. IMPORTED & LOCAL BEERS, LEAFY DECK. LIVE MUSIC. COMFY COUCHES. LUSCIOUS FOOD.

LAID BACK

53 Erskineville Road Erskineville NSW 2043 (02) 9550 5511

One of Sydney’s only Israeli cafés offering up traditional and contemporary breakfast, lunch, drinks and desserts.

Relax outside with our al fresco dining, or stay warm.

stay classy DINNER 7 NIGHTS corridorbar.com.au.

153A King st. Newtown 26 :: BRAG :: 429 :: 12:09:11

Family owned and open 7 days a week from 6am-5pm.

Eyes On The Pies More Than A Filling By Benjamin Cooper

W

hen you’re next wandering the streets, with that particular pang for something hot and tasty, hold the tears: the Inner West is serving up a gamut of pie options. Once the domain of the rough-and-ready, a glut of innovative chefs and bakers are rising early and staying up late creating tasty pastry-cased fare – soon you may find yourself pie-ing at every meal and every occasion, if recent events are any indication. Newtown residents may have recently seen Pie Face actually open its back room up for a series of gigs and DJ sets, which store owner Ronny Ruhlmann suggests may become a regular Sunday afternoon fixture: “Pies are about more than football stadiums, and we’re in Newtown – what can I say?”

Just down the road, Janet’s Pies (283 King St, Newtown) was recently reclaimed as an independent business by owner Janet Smallman from franchise Jesters. It’s very likely that you’ve previously hooked up with Janet’s goods, with the arresting flavour-heft of the pepper steak pie ($5.95) frequently serving as the addendum to many Newtown evenings. More traditional options, such as the aforementioned peppery fellow and the Mexican beef pie, are scoffed at by the discerning customers who flock there late at night for the specialty pies (all around the $5 mark). The pumpkin, fetta and coriander throws down some deliciously sweet flavours, but it’s a knowledgeable mate’s suggestion of a Thai broccoli and potato pie that converts even this carnivore. The vegan dish has a cheeky flash of chilli, and is consumed en masse on Friday and Saturday nights, sating the hungers of goths and yummy mummies alike.

When in Woolloomooloo, consider visiting the fine old train carriage that houses Harry’s Cafe De Wheels (Cowper Wharf Roadway, opp. Finger Wharf). Forgoing my usual hot dog, I resolve to grapple with the Tiger Pie ($5.70), named after founder Harry ‘Tiger’ Edwards. Admittedly there’s not a whole lot of zing in the curried beef, but like much of the menu from this Sydney institution, it’s bloody filling – hours later I’m walking with a slight lean, still stuffed with the masses of mashed potato and mushy peas piled atop the gravied dish.

Sarah Martin and John Shawyer of newbies The Pie Tin (1a Brown St, Newtown) are an innovative couple who have a finger in, ahem, all the pies. Want a Boston baked beans, chorizo, tomato and scrambled egg pie ($5.80) for dinner?

If not, maybe it’s time to try the BBQ Riverine Beef with green peppercorn sauce (also $5.80), whose infinitely tender crust melts into a flood of sauce. Sarah and John choose to focus on the artisan elements of baking, shaping the savoury and sweet options on offer completely by hand.

Standing at a respectful distance from the glass cage housing The Apple Pie That Ate Newtown ($6.50/massive slice with thick dollop of cream), I can only admire the cheekiness of one excited local called Linda who advises that “They put a whole box of apples in, and not one calorie comes out!” Further sweet treasures abound, with the Oreo Pie sitting pretty alongside the Grasshopper Pie (each at $6.50/slice), which has a choc-biscuit base supporting a swirl of marshmallow laced with crème de menthe. When I comment on the striking intensity of the flavours to Sarah, she shrugs: “What a lot of people don’t realise is that [with the sweet pies] we’re doing something very different to baking cakes. Cakes have a lot of air in them.”

A baking tour par excellence necessarily involves a quick stop at Bourke St Bakery (633 Bourke St, Surry Hills). These good-natured (and goodlooking) folk are hard at work baking treats throughout the day for a line that curls around the corner. There’s definitely appeal to the chicken, sweet potato and pickled lime pie ($5) but eschewing citrus, I shuffle my mouth on over to the beef brisket ($5.30). Disappointingly, the

pastry is unable to hold shortly after purchase, leaving me in the gutter with a lap full of red wine sauce and mushrooms. Never mind, BSB, we’ll always have the pork and fennel sausage rolls.

Last stop is an inspection of the alleged Best Pie in Sydney. Black Star Pastry (277 Australia St, Newtown) has done well in the awards department of late (Best Pie, TimeOut Magazine Cheap Eats 2010/2011) for its lamb shank and red wine pie, and it’s not hard to see why. Creator Christopher Thé braises lamb shanks for four hours in a red wine sauce before assembling the pies. Three hours after purchase, following an extended period hidden in my jacket, this simple concoction is still held together within its soft shell; and inside the understated package are such a range of glorious flavours that it seems entirely appropriate to heap attention and praise on a notso-humble pie.

Pie Society THE PIE TIN 1a Brown St, Newtown Specialty: The baked bean, chorizo and scrambled egg pie; all their sweet options.

Price: $6.50 Web: thepietin.com.au Contact: 9519 7880

BLACK STAR PASTRY 277 Australia St, Newtown Specialty: Lamb shank and red wine pie – and the Ginger Ninja. (Not a pie, but cute!)

Price: $6 Web: blackstarpastry.com.au Contact: 9557 8656

BOURKE STREET BAKERY Surry Hills, Alexandria & Marrickville Specialty: Try the beef brisket, red wine and mushroom concoction.

Price: $5 Web: bourkestreetbakery.com.au Contact: 9569 3225

JANET’S PIES 283 King St, Newtown Specialty: Spaghetti bolognaise pie (everyone’s two favourite meals together at last!), and the Thai broccoli and potato pie.

Price: $5 Contact: 9557 2565

HARRY’S CAFÉ DE WHEELS Woolloomooloo, Haymarket, Ultimo, Tempe & more Specialty: Drown your pie in mash, gravy and mushy peas. Enough said.

Price: $5 Web: harryscafedewheels.com.au Contact: 9357 3074

ADRIANO ZUMBO Manly Patisserie / Rozelle Cafe Specialty: Apart from those macarons?

The red chicken curry pie: subtle, rich and soft, in knee-bucklingly good pastry.

Price: $7.50 Web: adrianozumbo.com Contact: 9810 7318

DINKY DI PIES

Rose Bay, Bondi Junction, Surry Hills, Pyrmont and King Street Wharf Speciality: Sounds Aussie as it gets, but Dinky Di comes from a long tradition of French bakers, so expect nothing but the snobbiest snacks.

Price: $7 Web: dinkydipies.com.au

Main photo courtesy of Harry's Café De Wheels

BRAG EATS

BRAG EATS food review

THIRSTY?

THE ROXBURY

[GLEBE] AMERICANA MENU+MUSIC TRIVIA

T

eam BRAG has converged on The Roxbury for what will be the first of many Wednesday evenings, to kick some arse at music trivia and sample the new Americana-styled menu at the same time.

Custom-designed for the young professional (read: lazy uni student) who wants a good meal without having to pay through the nose for it, it certainly does what it says on the tin.

There’s a selection of traditional mains like schnitzel and rump steak, but we’re being adventurous so we decide to hit up a selection of Cajun and Creole-inspired starters which turn out to be so delicious that we just don’t know what to do with ourselves.

Not only is the food fresh, but it’s freaking great and arrives quickly. Within minutes, we’re fighting over the Tequila and Chipotle Chicken Wings ($9), particularly because the ranch dipping sauce they come with is so good that we’ll be mopping it up with our chips later. It’s followed by the spicy and gorgeously presented Warm BBQ Chicken Salad with homemade Poblano dressing ($15) which is housed in cute iceberg lettuce leaf cups and marks the first and last time we’ll be using

HUNKY DORY SOCIAL CLUB

cutlery this evening. What we realise very early on in the piece, as we try to answer trivia questions with meat-stained hands, is that we’re in the midst of a rarity; a pub that serves vibrant food with attention to detail, but doesn’t shortchange you with tiny portions.

Any of these starters could satisfy most hungry people, and two is enough to floor you. Case in point, the unbelievable Chorizo and Haloumi Puppy ($13, pictured above) – fried cheese and sausage stuffed into a bread roll with creamy sauce: what a combination!

– which comes stacked with fat fries and is a meal all by itself.

While we’re not looking, the lovely man behind the menu slips us a Charlie Sheen ($8) aka Cocktail Of The Year. Served in a jam jar and so named because it’s ‘full of booze and ice’, Charlie is a delicious blood-orange slushie that packs a serious punch. (After two of them, one of the less well-rested members

215 OXFORD STREET DARLINGHURST 'What Happens At Hunky Dory Stays At Hunky Dory'

of our team nearly falls into a catatonic state.)

Being diplomatic, we also mow through the flavoursome Veggie Stack (pictured left) and a mix of dumplings ($10 – we recommend the Vietnamese Beef and Duck & Plum), by which point we’re self-pityingly stuffed… and also somehow winning trivia at the same time. Run

by Jono Watkins and a friendly crew, Modern Musicology’s easily the best music trivia we’ve seen in Sydney for ages: a good spread of eras, hilarious categories like ‘Band or Horse?’, decent prizes and a super-casual sharehousecouch vibe. This is the best combination we’ve seen in months; come for the chow, stay for the trivia. You certainly won’t go home hungry... but you probably won't beat o=ur team.

– Jonno Seidler Where: The Roxbury Hotel, 182 St Johns Rd Hours: Wednesday trivia kicks off at 7pm Web: roxbury.com.au

Ingredients: 40ml Jack Daniels Single Barrel, 20ml Dolin sweet vermouth, 10ml Poire William, and a dash of whiskey bitters.

Method: Stir all ingredients in Boston shaker over ice; strain over triple frozen ice ball.

Glass: Cocktail rocks.

Garnish: Sliced pear fan windmill.

Best drunk with: a gentleman friend during: the apocalypse while wearing: a fabulous suit and listening to: Tom Waits.

free stuff

THE PIE TIN

L

▼

et’s be honest – everyone loves a good pie. It’s in our DNA as proper Australians, after all. And with pie shop franchises breeding across the city like hormonally-imbalanced rabbits, it’s nice to see an independent outlet bucking the mass-produced trend. The Pie Tin in Newtown not only creates artisan classics and gourmet pies, they also offer a pleasant place to enjoy your meal, with an outside dining area and an emphasis on fresh, seasonal recipes. We have three $10 vouchers to give away for lucky BRAG readers – just tell us what your favourite pie filling is.

Fri 23rd Sept The Vanguard Sydney Sat 24th Sept The Basement Sydney Sun 25th Sept Lizotte’s Newcastle Sat 29th Oct The Clarendon Katoomba

Our food is honest, pure and real.

uth-wateraning Authentic lmo ls and le vegan fa adfeme grille ats Fresh, wholesome, additive free ingredients Blending street food with ar t and music is what keeps people coming back time after time.

Sabbaba

10pm; Open Mon-Wed 11am-1am; 7am Fri ; am -12 Thu 7am Weekends 10am-12am

is a ful y licensed venue.

www.facebook.com/sabbaba www.sabbaba.com.au Sabbaba Newtown 146 King St Newtown Tel: 95198084 Sabbaba Bondi Beach 82 Hall St Bondi Beach

Sabbaba Bondi Junction Shop 1/71-91 Spring St Bondi Junction

Sabbaba Westfield Sydney Shop 5010/77 Castlereagh St Sydney

BRAG :: 429 :: 12:09:11 :: 27

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EXCLUSIVE ALBUM PREVIEW F E AT U R I N G

BLUEJUICE WITH GUESTS: MILLIONS + STEP-PANTHER

THUR 15TH SEP 28 :: BRAG :: 429 :: 12:09:11

S AT 1 7 S E P O F F I C I A L A F T E R PA R T Y FEATURING

PLUTO JONZE + MYTH AND TROPICS + ALISON WONDERLAND + F.R.I.E.N.D.S + JOYRIDE

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BRAG :: 429 :: 12:09:11 :: 29

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

ALBUM OF THE WEEK LAURA MARLING A Creature I Don’t Know Virgin/EMI

Laura Marling turns 22 in February, but has shown more artistic and personal growth over three albums than most can hope for across an entire career. If 2008’s Mercury Prize-nominated Alas, I Cannot Swim was about being 18 and 19, and being in love, full of youthful enthusiasm, 2010’s I Speak Because I Can was a far darker affair, written by a young woman on the cusp of adulthood, staring responsibility full in the face and never wavering.

It’s rare that we get to watch the formative years of a timeless artist; just four years into her career, the mind boggles at what lies ahead for Marling.

On Creature, Marling branches further out, experimenting with rhythm and instrumentation, and revisiting favourite themes such as the burden of womanhood, artistic inspiration (‘The Muse’) and the contradictory personalities of love (‘Night After Night’). Her greatest strengths are her voices, both actual and narrative: her singing voice

INCUBUS

BEIRUT

If Not Now, When?

Epic/Sony

The Rip Tide Pompeii/Remote Control

Incubus, what have you done? Those of us who grew up with you, from the pumping nu-metal of S.C.I.E.N.C.E through to the sun-kissed love jams of Morning View, always knew you had a sensitive side, the same that resulted in ‘Drive’ and ‘Summer Romance’. And that was cool, man, even alt-rock dudes have got to have a little heart – BUT SWEET JESUS, A WHOLE ALBUM OF BALLADS!?

What on earth was your management thinking when they let this one through? Never have I heard a record from a band with so many talented players who do so little. What’s the point of nicking the bass player from The Roots if you’re only going to make him play root chords? As an Incubus fan from the beginning, I tried so hard to like this; ‘They’re just messing around, the riffs will come back soon.’ But they never do. It’s a terrible moment when Incubus throw in the towel and become full-on Dad Rock.

Granted, Brandon Boyd still has a great voice, but that isn’t enough to stop this thing from drowning.

Uninventive guitar lines from Mike Eizenger, a rhythm section on autopilot and songs that go for seven minutes and manage to be less interesting than the song that went for thirteen (‘Aqueous Transmission’ from 2001 – and six of those minutes were the sounds of river frogs croaking). There’s no backbeat, there’s no excitement and even Jason DeRulo has more exciting ballads than ‘Friends And Lovers’. If there was anything to pick up the pace, and remind us of when Incubus hired Limp Bizkit’s DJ to supplement amazing metal riffs with drill sounds and machine guns (‘Nebula’ from 1997), I’d be all for it. But there isn’t. I am so embarrassed.

Not Now, Incubus. Never.

When he released his evocative 2006 debut Gulag Orkestar, Zach Condon was a baby-faced trumpeter with a voice that belied his 19 years, and a gift for burnished, bittersweet horn arrangements that belied his total lack of grizzled Eastern Europeanness. He’s slowly, shyly easing himself free of that gorgeous yet limiting old-timey vibe – keeping one foot in that world even as he makes every record the tiniest bit more contemporary.

The collision of dignified, elevated pop writing and sweetly freewheeling arrangements recalls the more polished moments of Sufjan Stevens’ last few records. There are also some lighter, more interesting touches to the music which add a little sonic levity to songs that are otherwise in danger of drowning under their own gravitas – ‘Santa Fe’ trips along on an endearingly tinny keyboard and drum tick, the title track plays with an echo filter for a nice sense of space, and ‘Vagabond’ twists up in itself beautifully like a taffy-pull machine, folding time-signature changes and jaunty piano up with a pretty harpsichord motif.

Straight on from the underdeveloped, mildly-dreary single ‘East Harlem’, ‘Goshen’ arrives and shows it how heartfelt understatement ought to be done; swap out the horns for a pedal steel and it's practically alt-country.

Condon’s aloof phrasing is shifted just slightly from stately to swaying, as he croons “You never found it home / You’re not the girl I used to know”.

It’d be easy for the orchestration to descend into lazy emotional shorthand, but Condon’s increasing willingness to dial it back shows us that he’s too good for that.

The Rip Tide is an intimate LP that sounds less like distant locales and eras, and more like itself.

Jonno Seidler Caitlin Welsh

is rich and lilting, full of character and expression, while the latter flits between subjects and continents with consummate ease, but always remains the voice of a strong woman attempting to engage with the world.

What is remarkable is the extent to which her singing voice can deliver on behalf of the narrative voice; it manages to be both wise beyond her years and full of girlish whimsy. Comparisons can be made – Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen – but not once does she sound like she’s merely regurgitating a better class of songwriter. Rather, Laura Marling is right at home in their company, and deserves to be there.

Hugh Robertson

BLITZEN TRAPPER American Goldwing Sub Pop An ‘American Goldwing’ sounds like the kind of twowheeler that cuts swathes throughout the territories, arrogantly paying neither mind or mention to its fellows.

Blitzen Trapper’s fifth studio offering is similar only in the bravado of its 'Happy Days’-era cover art, depicting a cocky biker challenging potential tourists from an abandoned road.

The Portland five-piece delve into versions of alt-country and pop quite unlike previous forays; songs at once dripping with sentiment, yet held together by the restraint offered by external engineers – Tchad Blake (Tom Waits, The Black Keys) and Gregg Williams – for the first time. The album opens with the kind of stomp and rattle that’s almost mandatory now that Blitzen Trapper are loved by critics and bar room brawlers alike. Principal songwriter Eric Earley muses and mumbles, warning against the perils of travelling with ol’ ‘Fletcher’, while noting elsewhere that we “might find it cheap / but you’re never gunna find it free”.

Yessir – we have arrived in the land of pedal-steel and dust.

Very few songs are memorable merely for an easy hook or epic chorus.

Instead, Earley and co. entreat us to lean in for a closer look, immersing us in tales of listless, lost lovers and pining astronauts. It's his knack for and commitment to songcraft that separates Earley from many of his peers. And where Ryan Adams’ best work with The Cardinals is marked by his skewing of country music to incorporate tales of speedballing and fighting, Earley shows none of Adams’ self-pity and mired apathy, opting instead for a celebratory tone even as he draws on the regret and isolation of the displaced cowboy.

Songcraft ain’t a dirty word ‘round these parts any more.

Benjamin Cooper

Royal Headache RIP Society Question: can an Australian act put out a record on which the production values can be loosely described as ‘garage-rock’ or ‘lo-fi ’ without garnering comparisons to Eddy Current Suppression Ring? ECSR seem to have this style sown up, but the secret truth is that Royal Headache’s debut album squeezes more melody, attitude and emotion into its 26-and-a-bit minute running time than ECSR have captured through their impressive career.

30 :: BRAG :: 429 :: 12:09:11

Strange Mercy 4AD/Inertia

Openers ‘You Are All I See’ and ‘Hanging On’ are arguably the best tracks on the album, resting firmly in that arena of haunting, graceful compositions in which repressed memories of lost love are gently stirred. Sound and space duel perfectly in both songs, with Grossi’s operatic intonations playing a heartfelt complement to the gentle harp arpeggios and synthetic undertones, and creating a perfect storm of soulful lamentation. ‘Playing House’ sees Grossi teaming up with Tom Krell of Brooklyn R&B act How To Dress Well.

This sensual duet is a body-movin’, body-lovin’ number that epitomises everything great about the new R&B movement; the sanguine baritones of Grossi and Krell blend beautifully.

But the rest of the album delves into more abstract territory, both melodically and emotionally, and slightly loses its grip as a result. It’s not that there is any less significance in the tragic love ballad of ‘High Priestess’, the skilful instrumentation of ‘Ivy’, or the anthemic ‘See Thru Eyes’ – they’re just emotionally opaque by comparison, and thus harder to relate to.

You Are All I See finds Active Child honing his abilities as a singer, a songwriter and a composer. The album starts well out the gate before sadly losing momentum halfway through – but while it might not come first, you'll still love it for trying.

Digby Woods

Opener ‘Never Again’ sets the frenetic pace and tone of the record, but anyone can plug into a laptop and make this kind of murky punk noise. What makes Royal Headache stand out is that these are pure pop tunes, filtered through a lo-fi sheen that serves the songs rather than acting as a distorted, tape-hiss mask for the band’s flaws. Vocalist Shogun is the perfect frontman for this group; his rawyet-pitch-perfect voice infuses each song with a heartfelt, sweet honesty. This is another reason Royal Headache stand alone; theirs is heart-on-sleeve music, romantic and a little damaged.

there is no experimental fumbling, and they never veer into pastiche.

There are numerous reference points on display (including the required ‘Be My Baby’ drumbeat of ‘Wilson St.’), but Royal Headache’s sound arrives fully formed;

Australian album of the year?

Definitely maybe.

The record isn’t perfect (the two instrumental tracks only serve to showcase how vital Shogun’s vocals are by omission), but their ability to ceaselessly cram hooks into every corner of the album makes it deserving of numerous spins. ‘Honeyjoy’ is the standout track, undeniably infectious and decidedly un-punk – which probably means it will be the song that Royal Headache and their fans disown in a month or so.

Nathan Jolly

ST VINCENT

You Are All I See Vagrant Following from his ambitious, if slightly underwhelming, Curtis Lane EP in 2010, Active Child (AKA Los Angeles singer-songwriter Pat Grossi) returns with his first full-length effort. Here we find an unmistakable refinement of Grossi’s signature harp-based choir-pop sound, in which he further incorporates a melange of current musical trends, from post-dubstep to nu-R&B.

INDIE ALBUM OF THE WEEK ROYAL HEADACHE

ACTIVE CHILD

It’s always difficult when you’re a talented multi-instrumentalist who just so happens to be utterly weird. Such has been a consistent challenge for St. Vincent’s Annie Clark, emerging out of the wings of Sufjan Stevens’ touring band to tout her own unique brand of strange over the course of two records and some rather beguiling live performances.

The issue for Clark was never a shortage of ideas, but rather how to take all of the stuff inside her perfectly angular cranium and turn it into something that still had currency after all that online fawning died down. With Strange Mercy, she’s finally done it. Boasting better-structured songs, meatier hooks and a discernible jump in vocal performance, the record announces Clark in a way her other work never could. From the sexy, free-wheeling guitar riff that rips a hole through opener ‘Chloe In The Afternoon’ through to the funk-fuzz stomp of ‘Surgeon’, it really is the sound of a renewed and revitalised woman flexing her chops.

Not that Clark has given up her freak-flag entirely. ‘Surgeon’, which begins conventionally enough, happily descends into wonderful messes of synth noise that border on the hysterical, while odd timings and rhythmic tricks abound in the first half of the album. The best thing is that rather than having to be the only focus across thirteen songs, Clark can arrange songs which help carry her instead; the cheeky disco of ‘Cruel’, the Boosty-Collins bass chorus in ‘Neutered Fruit’ or the garage punk of ‘Northern Lights’.

Unafraid of the kind of hook that was always there (but that she previously wrapped in intrigue), Clark sings out and sings loud – and the results really do speak for themselves.

Jonno Seidler

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

ABE VIGODA - Crush GIRLS - Father, Son, Holy Ghost NEON INDIAN - Era Extrana

AZURE RAY - Hold On Love ANDREW BIRD - Noble Beast

live reviews What we've been to see...

HELP SAVE TONE - Wed 7th -

GALLERY BURLESQUE Fringe Festival edition Songs

ROYAL HEADACHE

GoodGod Small Club / Repressed Records September 2 / September 4 Sure, there were whispers, but it’s hard to say it didn’t come as a shock when Sydney’s Royal Headache sold out their album launch a week in advance. After two years of quiet murmurs from the underground, Royal Headache have thrust themselves into the broader picture – and with two over-capacity shows in three days, those murmurs have become screams.

The fervour at the GoodGod show was almost scary; the crowd’s febrile energy was like a scene from a Sex Pistols documentary. From the moment the first chord hit, the front row snapped into action, collapsing over the lip of the stage before being dragged back up and torn over outstretched arms to the middle of the pulsing pit. Shogun, the band’s unassuming frontman, struggled to howl his vocals as he was passed around the crowd throughout the set, a miserable sound mix making the night an endeavour fuelled by volume and emotion. Loud, fast and frantic, it was indisputably fun, but with such an energetic crowd the band's finer side was obscured in the cataclysm.

It was their Sunday instore at King Street’s Repressed Records where the hype was undeniably qualified. With the sound in check and an observant rather than participatory audience, their perfect powerpop songwriting came to the fore. Royal Headache’s balanced brand of punk may bridge the rough edges of The Saints with Radio Birdman’s melodic sensibility (they would have solved a lot of arguments in 1977), but it was more than just funloving Buzzcockian punk: it was fucking hypnotising. Pacing like a man possessed on ‘Psychotic Episode’, Shogun’s unusually soulful vocals were filtered into a lo-fi blur amongst the ragged and frenetic guitar work, and the band’s sudden halt and return on ‘Girls’ was genuinely heartstopping.

There’s a reason why people are so excited about Royal Headache, and it’s more than just an appreciation of such an artfully exciting mix of sounds; it’s the second coming of something Sydney needs.

They’re a band who cares so little about the trimmings that they debuted new tracks at the album launch of their debut. There is no press kit, no acknowledgement of an album cycle; they’re just releasing what they love. And with the reception that one weekend in Sydney gave them, the love for their music is not going unrequited.

SONGS

Tone Thursday September 8 Tiger Choir are a young group from Hobart who are trying to be too many things to too many people. They certainly mean well enough, but with a sound that seems to swing between the aesthetic of every popular triple j act of the last four years (see: Oscar + Martin, The Drums, Gypsy & The Cat), a drum machine that doesn’t sit at all well with their live drummer and some pretty subpar mixing, they’re not pleasing many tonight. When they find their own sound, they’ll be something to witness, but right now they’re nothing too remarkable.

Also, someone forgot the volume control – their set is double the decibels of the headliners.

Like their support, Songs are having a bit of an off night too, but it’s mostly beyond their control. Tonight’s meant to be the big debut of their new band 2.0 after the first lot vamoosed and left bassist Ela Stiles and guitarist Max Doyle without anyone to kick out the jams. Their new backing guitarist (and Songs’ tunes really do rely on the interplay of guitar sounds) has gone and had his baby born – completely unprofessional – which leaves them one man down, and with Ela losing her voice.

Despite all that, they power through a bold set that’s made up almost exclusively of new material from their forthcoming sophomore album. But while the music is fresh and new, nobody has any idea what they’re listening to. Half of this stuff matches the driving minimal psych aesthetic they championed on their debut, particularly new single ‘Heavy’, which brings back all kinds of Bait-ShopIn-The O.C. vibes with its insistent bass pulse.

Unfortunately, Songs rely on a gradual build up of tension based on repetition, and that’s something Max can’t do by himself when his wingwoman is sick and his other axeman unavailable. Some of the tracks plod without going anywhere and become a bit same-y, but others fare a lot better. The inclusion of keyboardist Jules Ferrari is welcome, particularly as she backs Stiles up with harmonies that match the minor-key sentiment of the music perfectly. But it’s not the best set from Songs, and even Max acknowledges that: ‘Come see us next time when we’re better.’ Sounds like a plan to us.

- Thurs 15th -

Dome Home 5

WET HAIR (IOWA), NAKED ON THE VAGUE + ‘HEAD’

- Fri 16th -

COLOURED STONE ‘Black Boy National Tour’ with special guest Yung Warriors

- Sat 17th Golden Cage presents

GUTI Live! / ARG (Desolat) w ROBBIE LOWE, JAVI SAMPOL, JADED AND JAMES PETROU, GARTH LINTON

By Jonno Seidler

By Max Easton

BRAG :: 429 :: 12:09:11 :: 31

The Minor Chord The all-ages rant bought to you by Indent.net.au and Eva Balog

Remedy More than The Cure since 1989 with Murray Engleheart

BIG BOX OF CAN

Of all the anniversary editions, this is probably the most heartening and surprising. To mark its 40th birthday, Can’s hugely influential masterpiece of intangible musical magic Tago Mago will be rereleased in November, with an extra disc of live stuff from 1972. Furthermore, each of their 14 albums will be part of a vinyl box called The Lost Tapes, which should arrive in March. It will include a previously unreleased live album, and we’re guessing it won’t be cheap.

ROYAL HEADACHE REIGN The long awaited debut slab from Royal Headache is really something to get excited about. It’s a killer. They did an instore at Repressed Records in Newtown last Sunday that went over in a huge way.

In fact, the album's been the store’s biggest seller by anyone, local or OS, ever. The vinyl, CD and mp3 are available from www.repressedrecords.com

360

Another week is upon us at The Minor Chord and, like always, we bring you news of the best all-ages gigs going on in and around Sydney – including the announcement of a new under-18s urban festival this December: Breakout.

Featuring Melbourne’s 360, Marvin Priest and Afro Jack, as well as the premier dance god Armin Van Buuren and L.A.'s party rock outfit LMFAO, the new festival has the mission statement of providing underage fans access to the hottest new dance and urban acts. The lineup has yet to be fully released, but already with some of the newest and ‘heritage’ dance outfits on the bill, we're predicting a sell out. Breakout is hitting the Hordern Pavilion and Byron Kennedy Hall on December 2.

As some of you may be aware, the annual Sydney Fringe Festival commenced on September 9 and runs until October.

The festival is a great opportunity to help celebrate the performing arts, be it theatre, comedy, dance, visual arts or music. Visit thesydneyfringe.com.au for information on tickets and to view a whole range of other activities and musical events for the allages crowd, but here’s our pick: for those of you who may remember Peter Combe and his famous advice “Wash your face in orange juice”, here’s an opportunity to see him live and reminisce. Peter Combe will play on September 24 at the Sidetrack Theatre on Addison Road.

Coloured Stone are one of the oldest Australian Indigenous bands still actively touring and releasing new material, and with two ARIA nominations it’s not hard to see why. The band will be headlining a show at Wentworth Avenue’s Tone, playing with Karnage and Newcastle’s The Last Kinection, who are hands down one of the most innovative and exciting hip hop crews going around. The family affair features one half of RnB duo Shakaya, whose vocal prowess resonates expansively during any TLK set. Take Ball Park Music

this opportunity to pop into Tone too, as they recently announced their impending closure – it’s a venue usually reserved for the 18+ crowds, and a rarity to watch history on stage. Tickets for the show are $30 plus booking fee, and the show starts at 5pm on Friday September 16.

On the same weekend, US hardcore act My Children My Bride are playing at St Johns Hall in Sutherland with locals Azlock, For All Eternity, Above the Fallen and more. Tickets for September 17 are selling fast and available from Oztix.

Ice Cube hits our shores this week – he’s performing on Sunday September 18 at the Enmore Theatre. Here’s hoping he drops some old-school NWA tracks!

Drapht will be playing alongside a lineup of hip hop delights like Muph & Plutonic, Thundamentals and Layla & Dazastah this Friday at the ever-illustrious Enmore Theatre. Thundamentals just released their sophomore album Forevolution – a stellar LP that really shows the talent and future of Australian hip hop.

Finally, a heads up; Boy and Bear have announced a second show at the Enmore Theatre on November 6. The Sydney five-piece were featured last week at BIGSOUND, Australia’s biggest music conference, highlighting their phenomenal rise in the year since they were showcased at the same conference – a level of success that sees the guys selling out the first show and fast approaching a second sold out Enmore gig. Playing with Boy and Bear will be Melbourne’s Ball Park Music and The Paper Kites. Tickets are on sale now through the Enmore Theatre and ticketek.

That just about wraps it up for this week, but do remember to tune in to FBi radio 94.5fm each Wednesday at 5pm to hear about some all-ages picks from the team at The Minor Chord. You can also email us at theminorchordradio@gmail.com if you have any info on all ages events, be they musical, artistic or of any other vein of fantastical fun for the under-18s.

ALL-AGES GIG PICKS ONGOING TIL OCTOBER 2

Sydney Fringe Festival Various venues

FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 16

Coloured Stone, Karnage & The Last Kinection Tone Drapht, Muph & Plutonic, Thundamentals, Layla & Dazasta Enmore Theatre

SATURDAY NOVEMBER 5 & SUNDAY NOVEMBER 6 Boy & Bear, Ball Park Music & The Paper Kites Enmore Theatre

Send all ages listings & info to theminorchordradio@gmail.com 32 :: BRAG :: 429 :: 12:09:11

EARTH VS THE FLYING HAT BAND

Here’s an interesting slice of metal prehistory. There’s a very limited split LP out

by Earth and The Flying Hat Band. We're not talking about Earth, the Seattle-based doom metal act of modern times, but the real deal, before they changed their name to Black Sabbath. Like most acts in the late '60s, Earth were more a blues-driven entity back then, and these are tracks from a demo session that include a version of Carl Perkins’ rock’n’roll standard ‘Blue Suede Shoes’, which an early Sabbaff later did on one cringe-worthy occasion. The Flying Hat Band? They were more in the hard(ish) rock vein from the get-go, despite the dumb hippie name, and featured future Judas Priest guitarist Glenn Tipton. Like we said, it’s just a historical thing.

AFTER THE RAIN REISSUE

Muddy Waters’ Electric Mud was one of the great collisions of musical genres, where Chicago blues met the psychedelic funk of Sly and The Family Stone. Traditional it wasn’t, but great it unquestionably was, with Muddy sounding more intimidating than ever. The follow-up, After The Rain, has been out of print for ages, but is being reissued next week. It’s not quite as sex-beating as Electric Mud, which all the straights wildly condemned but is still a fine thing.

MORE RAMESSES

Despite our previous rantings, Electric Wizard offshoot Ramesses haven’t really stood the test of time – that is, repeated listens. Their power just seems muted or buried or something. But two new offerings might change that; Possessed By The Rise Of Magik and Chrome Pineal, which is three new recordings plus a handful of live tracks recorded in Denmark in 2007.

‘WHY BOTHER’ OF THE WEEK

There’s more talk about a Sabbath reunion and a new slab. Us? We don’t care. Why get excited about being subjected to something that’s just going to be about your heroes trying to recapture past glories – an impossible task – when those glories previously just happened without any forethought or effort? And if anyone seriously thinks that a new recording from these guys is gonna be even remotely a patch on say, Paranoid or Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, they’ve obviously got wildly different wants, needs and desires to us.

LOUTALLICA: CLIFF-APPROVED

This is interesting. We’re well aware that Metallica’s Cliff Burton came from a wide-open musical place that transcended metal alone, but British author and master metal commentator Mick Wall argued in a recent column that Burton would have been quite comfortable with the teaming of Metallica and Lou Reed, as it was the late bassist who had a thing for the Velvet Underground and spread the word of their greatness to Hetfield and co. Pretty cosmic, huh? The world’s first visual taste of the Reed and Metallica venture will be offered on the BBC’s Later With Jools Holland on November 8 and 11.

Metallica

ON THE TURNTABLE On the Remedy turntable is Rare Earth In Concert. If memory serves, Rare Earth were the first white act ever signed to Tamla Motown, and has actually stood up pretty well over the years. It’s a sort of tribal-soul-meets-hard-funk thing, with grabs of Prince circa-Purple Rain. Also spinning is Link Wray’s Three Track Shack, which is a comp of three albums he did in the early seventies, and is a million trillion miles from the surf punk garage sound the guitarist is best known for. It’s actually closer to The Band. It’s the sound of the distorto-guitar vet moving from the beach to a cabin in the woods. For real.

TOUR AND INDUSTRY NEWS Feel Presents is once again putting their shoulder to the wheel for Sydney’s innercity music scene of the eighties and early nineties, with a series of shows entitled On The Street in conjunction with the Sydney Fringe. Last week at the Sandringham featured The Lighthouse Keepers, while The Ups and Downs played at the Annandale. On September 16, the Sando will host the return of the original lineup of the mighty feedtime with Useless Children and Three Toed Sloth. Then on September 17 at the Manning Bar it’s The Hummingbirds plus The Laurels and Where’s Jerome?

And finally on September 23 at the Sando it’s The Moffs and The Frownin’ Clouds.

Tickets for all shows can be purchased from www.feelpresents.com The Misfits return in December as part of the tour for their soon-to-be-released new record, The Devil’s Rain. They’ll be playing at Manning Bar on December 1.

Dysfunctions, BUNT and Ruby Wilde are at The Townie on Saturday September 17.

Alice Cooper will be at the Enmore on September 26.

Mudhoney are also doing a Meredith sideshow in Sydney. On December 6, they’ll be playing at Manning Bar at Sydney University.

The Harvest Festival already includes Portishead, The National, The Flaming Lips, Holy Fuck, The Family Stone, Mercury Rev, Death In Vegas and The Walkmen. Now the lineup has been further boosted with TV On The Radio and Remedy faves Mogwai. The Sydney date is November 13 at Parramatta Park.

On September 30, Melody Black launch their debut album, Love Your Demons, at the Annandale.

Send stuff to remedy@ozemail.com.au by 6pm Wednesdays.

Pics to art@thebrag.com www.facebook.com/remedy4rock

PRESENTS

SAT

17 SEP 8PM 18+

THE HUMMINGBIRDS + THE LAURELS + WHERE’S JEROME?

SAT

24 SEP 9PM 18+

+ (USA)

(USA)

+ DROID SECTOR + GILSUN

MON

26

ALBUM LAUNCH

(USA)

SEP 7PM

((USA)

18+

SAT

1

OCT 8PM

(USA) (U

JACK LADDER

OCT 8PM

MONO

(JAPAN)

¶

+ NO ANCHOR + SLEEPMAKESWAVE

18+

FRI

A NIGHT WITH

14 OCT 8PM

AESOP ROCK & KIMYA DAWSON

18+

(USA)

OCT 15 – THE BOROUGHS FEATURING NEW YORK DOLLS (USA) + THE STRAIGHT ARROWS + BOVINES (HAMISH & BRAD FROM THE VINES) + FAIT ACCOMPLI + BLOODY LOVELY AUDREY + THE SALVAGERS OCT 21 – JAMIE KILSTEIN (USA) // OCT 22 – AGENT ORANGE (USA) + THE CELIBATE RIFLES + LOS CAPITANES + THE TURPS // NOV 5 – THE MAD MAD MUIR MUSICAL TOUR FEATURING INFECTIOUS GROOVES + CYCO MIKO PLUS SPECIAL ST 6-PACK // NOV 11 – THE CASUALTIES (USA) + TOPNOVIL + THE RUMJACKS (NOTE NEW DATE. TICKETS PREVIOUSLY PURCHASED ARE VALID FOR THE NEW DATE) DEC 1 – THE MISFITS (USA) – ON SALE SEPT 14TH // DEC 6 – MUDHONEY (USA) – ON SALE SEPT 15TH

ENTRANCE POINTS TO CAMPUS

TO CITY / BROADWAY

FOOTB

I

MANN

ING RD

RD

RN AVE EASTE RD TO CITY

MANNING

AV E

SITY

UNIVER

VICTORIA PARK

MAIN QUAD

LAWNS

GRAFFIT

FRONT

E RD

SCIENC

OVAL

RIDGE

FOOTBRIDGE THEATRE

LEADER CHEETAH BELLES WILL RING ELLESQUIRE (BIG VILLAGE) MEGASTICK FANFARE HEY FEVER FESTIVAL GUINEAFOWL TOUCAN EBB ‘N FLO BRACKETS

LIVE & FREE

PARRAMATTA RD

TUNNEL

TA RD

MAT

RA PAR

SEPTEMBER 15TH

Coming Soon

+

SAT

8

+ NICK TOTH + BENTLEY

;/<9:+(@ 74

& The Dreamlanders

18+

RU CL

BRAG :: 429 :: 12:09:11 :: 33

snap sn ap up all night out all week . . .

mum

anberlin

Acts: The Walking Who, The Ruminaters, The Solomons, The Otchkies, Panama, Little Napier, Toy + MUM DJs. Sell it to us: Tattoos and shabby hair. Cheap beers and concoctions in teapots. Bands and DJs playing party jams. House party vibe and springtime.

We don’t sell around here, buddy – we hug.

The bit we’ll remember in the AM: “Between the teapots and all the cheap Carlton Dry, I must have it backwards, cause I think the bands were playing in the crowd most of the time and I am pretty sure the DJ went from Wu Tang then The Kills then Fleetwood Mac.” Crowd specs: Open house!

Wallet damage: $15 Where: The World Bar, Kings Cross When: Friday September 16 and every other Friday

:: Enmore Theatre :: 118-132 Enmore Rd, Newtown 9550 3666

owl eyes

PICS :: KC

01:09:11

It sounds like: Bands and DJs playing unpretentious party jams in a converted terrace with heaps of outdoor space … sounds like a house party!

PICS :: GP

party profile

It’s called: MUM

the gangsters' ball

PICS :: KC

01:09:11 :: GoodGod Small Club :: 53-55 Liverpool St Sydney 9267 3787

royal headache

PICS :: GP

03:09:11 :: The Metro Theatre :: 624 George St City 92642666

01:09:11

:: The Metro Theatre :: 624 George St City 92642666

:: KATRINA CLARKE S : TIM LEVY (HEAD HONCHO) POPOV :: OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHER :: THOMAS PEACHY :: GEORGE NS MUN IEL DAN :: MAR LEY :: CAI GRIFFIN :: ASH NATHAN TITO

34 :: BRAG :: 429: 12:09:11

young revelry

PICS :: AM

architecture in helsinki

PICS :: KC

02:09:11 :: GoodGod Small Club :: 53-55 Liverpool St Sydney 9267 3787

02:09:11 :: Beresford Upstairs :: 354 Bourke St, Surry Hills 9357 1111

snap sn ap

bonjah

PICS :: KC

up all night out all week . . .

calling all cars 02:09:11

PICS :: CG

03:09:11 :: Oxford Art Factory :: 38-46 Oxford St, Darlinghurst 93323711

:: Oxford Art Factory :: 38-46 Oxford St, Darlinghurst 93323711

guinness live thursdays It sounds like: A great night out for lovers of home-grown Aussie music and Guinness!

Acts: The Guinness Talent Ambassador, blues and roots artist Ash Grunwald, and our four talented finalists from around Australia.

Sell it to us: Over 100 bands entered the competition but just four made it to the Grand Final. These amazing musicians will be battling it out to score a gig at the Guinness Arthur’s Day event in Dublin alongside Scissor Sisters, Stereophonics, Paloma Faith and Calvin Harris. What a ticket!

The bit we’ll remember in the AM: The delicious Guinness and the astounding musical talent we have in Australia that The X Factor is yet to find!

Crowd specs: Guinness lovers, music lovers, lovers of all things Irish, Irish expats from Sydney’s eastern suburbs, and those who just want to have a good night out!

Wallet damage: Well, it’s strictly invite-only, but be one of the first five people to email freestuff@thebrag.com and a double pass is all yours!

Where: The Gaelic Theatre, 64 Devonshire St, Surry Hills When: 7pm Thursday September 15

frenzal rhomb

PICS :: GP

02:09:11 :: The Metro Theatre :: 624 George St City 92642666

the living end 04:09:11

PICS :: KC

pot luck @ fbi social :: Enmore Theatre :: 118-132 Enmore Rd, Newtown 9550 3666

PICS :: CG

party profile

It’s called: Guinness Live Thursdays Grand Final

02:09:11 :: Kings Cross Hotel :: 248 William St Darlinghurst 2010 9331 9900

:: KATRINA CLARKE S : TIM LEVY (HEAD HONCHO) POPOV :: OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHER :: THOMAS PEACHY :: GEORGE NS MUN IEL DAN :: MAR LEY :: CAI GRIFFIN :: ASH NATHAN TITO

BRAG :: 429 :: 12:09:11 :: 35

g g guide gig g

send your listings to : gigguide@thebrag.com

pick of the week

MONDAY SEPT 12 ROCK & POP

Bernie The Observer Hotel, The Rocks free 8.30pm Dirty Carpet Disco Band, Gian Arpino Opera Bar, Sydney free 5pm In Pieces The Orient Hotel, The Rocks free 8pm Jericco Annandale Hotel $13 8pm Nicky Kurta, The Swat DJs Opera Bar, Sydney Opera House free 8.30pm Shivon Coogee Bay Hotel 9pm Zoltan Gasworks Nightclub, Albion Hotel, Parramatta free 6pm

SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 17

JAZZ PVT

Devonshire Street, Surry Hills

Changing Lanes Festival: PVT, Def Wish Cast, Gareth Liddiard, Lanie Lane, Beni, The Vasco Era, Juggernaut DJs, The Snowdroppers, Papa vs Pretty, Bleeding Knees Club, Megastick Fanfare, Oscar & Martin, Kira Puru & The Bruise, Daily Meds, Skryptcha, Bingethinkers, Spooky Land, Big Scary, Cameras and more $27.50 (FBi supporters) - $33 (+ bf) from 12pm

Official After-Party: The Standard, Level 3 of Kinselas at Taylor Square Pluto Jonze, Myth & Tropics, Alison Wonderland and more $5 (with wristband) – $10 from 9pm

Kate Miller-Heidke

James Miller Trio 505 Club, Surry Hills $10 8.30pm Rob Eastwood Dee Why RSL Club free 6.30pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK

Matt Gerber, John Chesher, Rebecca Fielding, Peter Jones, Zoe Vaughan, Russell Neal Kellys On King, Newtown free 7pm Songs On Stage: Stuart Hale, Swifty Jaxon, Leanne, Hawkins, Shadows at Play, Steve England, Carolyn Woodorth Springwood Sports Club free 7pm

TUESDAY SEPT 13 ROCK & POP

Aaron and Maurice D’Abruzzo The Basement, Circular Quay $10 (early bird)–$20 9pm Alloway Brass Monkey, Cronulla 8pm Anatta, The Gilbert Gantry Union, Willtricity, The Corellians Sandringham Hotel, Newtown $8 7.30pm Andy Mammers Duo Maloney’s Hotel, Sydney free 9.30pm Ben Finn Duo Mean Fiddler, Rouse Hill free 6pm Dan Spillane Coogee Bay Hotel 9pm Dirty Youth, Driverside Airbag, Bandintexas, All’s Follow Valve Bar, Tempe 7pm Gemma The Observer Hotel, The Rocks free 9.30pm Herman’s Hermits (UK) Lizotte’s Restaurant, Dee Why $60–$102 (dinner & show) 8pm I’m With Stupid O’Malley’s Hotel, Darlinghurst free 9.30pm In Pieces Orient Hotel, The Rocks free 9pm Jager Uprising: New South, Kristen Adams, Four Litre Friday, Nudist Colonies of the World Annandale Hotel $8 7.30pm Jamie Lindsay Northies, Cronulla free 7.30pm Johnny Casino Sandringham Hotel, Newtown free 8pm Lauren LaRouge The Vanguard, Newtown 8pm

Luke Dixon Summer Hill Hotel free 7.30pm Muso’s Club Jam Night Bald Faced Stag Hotel, Leichhardt free 8pm Outlier Scruffy Murphy’s Hotel, Sydney free 11pm Shane Flew Dee Why RSL Club free 6.30pm The Study Gaelic Theatre, Surry Hills free 7pm Trial Kennedy, Strangers, I Am Giant Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Beach free 8pm Whole Lotta Love Led Zeppelin Celebration: Jeff Martin (Canada), Steve Balbi, Simon Meli, Natasha Stuart, Zkye, Joseph Calderazzo Enmore Theatre $79.90– $129.90 7.30pm

JAZZ

Paul McNamara Trio 505 Club, Surry Hills $10-$15 8.30pm Peter Head The Harbour View Hotel free 8pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK

Carolyn Woodorth Blaxland Tavern free 6.30pm Daniel Hopkins Taren Point Hotel free 8pm Russell Neal Cat and Fiddle Hotel, Balmain free 6.30pm Songwriting Society of Australia Concert: Gavin Fitzgerald, Renate Nguyen, Ken Stewart, Paul McGowan, TAOS Coach & Horses Hotel, Randwick

COUNTRY

Beccy Cole Notes Live, Enmore 8pm Tabasco Tom & Doc White Artichoke Gallery Cafe, Manly free 7.30pm

WEDNESDAY SEPT 14 ROCK & POP

Adam Pringle and Friends Sandringham Hotel, Newtown free 8pm Daisy M Tully, Sooners, Marf Loth, Alex Fox Flinders Hotel, Darlinghurst free 8pm Dave White Experience Coogee Bay Hotel 9pm Kasey Chambers The Basement, Circular Quay $34–$38 7pm The Listening Room - Open Mic The Vault, Windsor free 7pm Matt Jones The Observer Hotel, The Rocks free 8.30pm

OMG Scruffy Murphy’s Hotel, Sydney free 10pm Safari Suits The Orient Hotel, The Rocks free 8pm Songs on Stage Performers Competition Dee Why RSL Club free 6.30pm Steve Tonge O’Malley’s Hotel, Darlinghurst free 9.30pm Strip!, feat ex BNO from Scruffy’s Gaelic Theatre, Surry Hills free 8pm They Call Me Bruce Maloney’s Hotel, Sydney free 9.30pm Tuesday Night Live Beach Road Hotel, Bondi free

JAZZ

Jazzgroove: Felucca, Matt McMahon Trio 505 Club, Surry Hills $8 (member)-$10 8.30pm Peter Head The Harbour View Hotel free 8pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK

Kogarah + Live Contest: Alan Watters, Reginald the Safety-Dancing Goat, Carolyn Crysdale Kogarah Hotel free 7pm Songs On Stage: John Muncke, Starr Witness, Emmy-lou, Narelle Lewis, Jess McAlister, Russell Neal Dee Why RSL free 6.30pm

THURSDAY SEPT 15 ROCK & POP

Andy Mammers Harbord Beach Hotel free 8pm The JD Set: Art vs Science, Kate Miller-Heidke, Patience Hodgson, Purple Sneakers DJs Upstairs Beresford, Surry Hills $30 (+ bf) 8pm Beauty & The Beast: Maxine Kauter & James Edgar Francis Notes Live, Enmore 8pm Birds of Tokyo, Boy In A Box Metro Theatre, Sydney $59.90 8pm Bluejuice, Millions, Step Panther, Splash Mountain DJs The Standard, Darlinghurst $20 8pm Blues Society Finals Live at the Wall, Leichhardt $15 8pm Burning Violet Bridges, The Salvagers, Tigertown, Andy Golledge, Frank Sultana The Vanguard, Newtown 8pm Camden, Fanny Lumsden Gallery Bar, Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst free 8pm

“The finest day That I ever had Was when I learned To cry on command” - NIRVANA 36 :: BRAG :: 429 : 12:09:11

g g guide gig g

send your listings to : gigguide@thebrag.com Craig Woodward Toxteth Hotel, Glebe free 8pm Crossroads Gaelic Theatre, Surry Hills free 8pm Dome Home 5: Naked On The Vague, Wet Hair (USA) Tone, Surry Hills $10 6pm Elevate Scruffy Murphy’s Hotel, Sydney free 10.15pm Elixir, Katie Noonan, The Sydney Symphony Fellowship Quartet The Studio, Sydney Opera House $50 8pm Glenn Richards, Dan Luscombe, Mike Noga Lizotte’s Restaurant, Dee Why $23–$65 (dinner & show) 7pm Greg Byrne Toxteth Hotel, Glebe free 8pm The Hamish White Rock ‘n’ Roll Band, Winter Station, The Guppies, Taylor King Valve Bar, Tempe 7pm Hot Damn!: Resist The Thought, Feed Her To The Sharks, Electrik Dynamite, Never See Tomorrow Spectrum, Darlinghurst $12 (guestlist)–$15 8pm James Reyne The Basement, Circular Quay $25 (+ bf)–$73.80 (dinner & show) 8pm Johnny Rock Coogee Bay Hotel 9pm The Living Chair Bull & Bush Hotel, Baulkham Hills free 9.30pm Montero, Domeyko/ Gonzalez, Erik Omen, DJ Shesh Besh Goodgod Small Club, Sydney $10 8pm Muso’s Club Jam Night Carousel Hotel, Rooty Hill free 8pm The Potbelleez, Guineafowl Rock Lily, Pyrmont free 8pm

Rope’s End: The Delta Riggs, Myth & Tropics, The Go Roll Your Bones, Thieves FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel, Darlinghurst $12 8pm Safari Suits Orient Hotel, The Rocks free 9pm School of Rocktapus!

The Roxbury Hotel, Glebe $22-$25 8.30pm Speakeasy The Whitehouse Hotel, Petersham 8pm The Trews (Canada), Joel Leffler, Ninth Pillar Brass Monkey, Cronulla $19.90 7pm Vanity Scrufy Murphy’s Hotel, Sydney free 10pm Whole Lotta Love Led Zeppelin Celebration: Jeff Martin (Canada), Steve Balbi, Simon Meli, Natasha Stuart, Zkye, Joseph Calderazzo Enmore Theatre $79.90– $129.90 7.30pm Yolanda & The Stolen Boys, The Lockhearts, Godiva Annandale Hotel $10 8pm Young Romantics Lansdowne Hotel, Chippendale free 8pm

JAZZ

Lionel Robinson Dee Why RSL Club free 6.30pm Peter Head The Harbour View Hotel free 8pm Ray Beadle 505 Club, Surry Hills $10 (member)-$15 8.30pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK Allon, Daniel March, Peter Miller-Robinson

The Empire Hotel, Annandale $10 8pm Glenn Whitehall Edinburgh Castle Hotel, Sydney free 7.30pm Kirk Burgess Sackville Hotel, Balmain free 7pm Matt Toms The Marlborough Hotel, Newtown free 8.30pm Mick Raven & Darren Wombey Excelsior Hotel, Glebe free 7.30pm Nikki Thornburn Artichoke Gallery Cafe, Manly free 7.30pm Starr Witness, Andrew Denniston Red Lion Hotel, Rozelle free 7.30pm

FRIDAY SEPT 16 ROCK & POP

031 Rockshow Scruffy Murphy’s Hotel, Sydney free 10.30pm 50 Million Beers Rose of Australia, Erskinville 8pm Angels of the Tattoed Generation Lewisham Hotel 8pm Arabesk, Bukhu Notes Live, Enmore $20 7pm Barnstormin Engadine Tavern free 9.30pm Birds of Tokyo, Boy In A Box The Roxy Theatre, Parramatta $43 8pm Coloured Stone, Yung Warriors, The Last Kinection, Kevin Kropinyeri, DJ Mr Duke Box

Tone, Surry Hills $30 (+ bf) all ages 5pm COUNTERFEIT: One Hit Wonders - The Little Little Band, Red Room, The Healers, Sodomiser, The Pullaparts, Telafonica, Red Now Tiheno, MC Tofu, through a glass, Darkly, Handsome Sons, C*NT, The Junkyard Advisory, Kylie Walker & Josh Shipton, The O’Neders, Harry’s Angels, Rex Havoc, Mystic River, Art Rush Town Hall Hotel, Newtown free 7pm The Cracks, The Dead Heads, Whiskey Indian November, Jeff Drake Upstairs Beresford, Surry Hills 5pm The Darker Half, Aeon Of Horus, The Seer Live at the Wall, Leichhardt $15 8pm Devine Electric, Mad Charlie, Vanity Riots Lansdowne Hotel, Chippendale free 8pm Don Walker, Loene Carmen, Roy Payne Annandale Hotel $30 (+ bf) 8pm Elixir, Katie Noonan, The Sydney Symphony Fellowship Quartet The Studio, Sydney Opera House $50 8pm Endless Summer Beach Party The Marlborough Hotel, Newtown free 10.30pm Flamin’ Beauties Mortdale Hotel free 8pm The Flood Brass Monkey, Cronulla 8pm Friday On My Mind - A Tribute to Vanda and Young The Basement, Circular Quay $28 (+ bf)–$38 9pm

LI

VE

Z JA

Elixir Grandpa’s Stag Night: The Shooter’s Party, The Fabergettes, Thee False Swamis, The Go-Gettes, DJ Goldfoot The Vanguard, Newtown 7pm Grinspoon, Strangers Rock Lily, Pyrmont free 8pm Grover The Loft, Darling Harbour 8pm Hue Williams Avalon Beach RSL Club free 9pm Jack Nash, Slamdance, Headrush, Incredibly Strange Creatures Valve Bar, Tempe 6pm James Reyne Rooty Hill RSL Club $30–$60 8pm John Field Duo Harbord Beach Hotel free 8pm Killer Sydney, The Understatement, Bridges, Aftermath, As Chaos

Unfolds St James Hotel, Sydney $10$12 9pm Kimbra, Husky, Fire! Santa Rosa Fire!

Metro Theatre, Sydney $28.70 sold out 8.30pm Long Live Bon: Angry Anderson, Dave Gleeson, John Swan, Mark Gable, Mark Evans, Paul De Marco, Steve Edmonds, Dai Pritchard Selina’s, Coogee Bay Hotel $50 (+ bf) 8pm Mad Season Bull & Bush Hotel, Baulkham Hills free 9.30pm Mum: North East Party House, I Know Leopard, Surprise Wasp, Bloods, Bud Petal, Dumbsaint, Alps, MUM DJs The World Bar, Kings Cross $10 8pm No Dice Paradise: Sooners, Elizabeth Rose, Post Paint,

Z

CARL MORGAN

wed

14 Sep

(9:00PM - 12:00AM)

thu

15 Sep

(9:00PM - 12:00AM)

fri

16 Sep

(5:00PM - 8:00PM)

(9:15PM - 1:00AM)

SATURDAY AFTERNOON

SUNDAY AFTERNOON

(4:30PM - 7:30PM)

sat

17

SATURDAY NIGHT

Sep

sun

18 Sep

(4:30PM - 7:30PM)

SUNDAY NIGHT TUESDAY 20TH OF SEPTEMBER

(9:00PM - 12:00AM)

(8:30PM - 12:00AM)

NIMA, THE GRAND HOTEL, NEWCASTLE NSW WEDNESDAY 21ST OF SEPTEMBER

505, SURRY HILLS NSW THURSDAY 22ND OF SEPTEMBER

THE LOFT, DICKSON ACT BRAG :: 429 :: 12:09:11 :: 37

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

Trial Kennedy

Hattie Carroll, Tank, Lone Wolf, No Dice DJs, Tokyo Denmark Sweden DJs, Great Job! DJs Oxford Art Factory $8 8pm Nova Tone Customs House Bar, Sydney free 7pm Oh What A Night Campbelltown RSL $45 7pm On The Street: feedtime, Three Toed Sloth, Useless Children Sandringham Hotel, Newtown $22 (+ bf) 8pm Otis Redding 70th Birthday Celebration: Johnny G & the E-Types Dee Why RSL Club 8pm The Owls, The Walking Who Gallery Bar, Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst free 8pm Pete Hunt Chatswood RSL Club free 8pm Pot Luck: Lime Cordiale, Bon Chat Bon Rat FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel, Darlinghurst $10 8pm Powderfinger Show Heathcote Hotel free 9pm Reckless, GJ Donovan Orient Hotel, The Rocks 5pm free-$5 Rock Steady: Mad Charlie, Devine Electric, Vanity Riots Lansdowne Hotel, Chippendale free Skyscraper Vineyard Hotel free 9.30pm Sonny (Singapore) Orange Grove Hotel, Leichhardt free 8pm Stewart Says, Jenna Murphy Excelsior Hotel, Glebe free 7.30pm The Sweet Jelly Rolls Artichoke Gallery Cafe, Manly free 7.30pm Talk Back Radio Kro Bar, East Leagues Club free 8.30pm Think Big Engadine RSL & Citizens Club free 8pm The Trews (Canada) Old Manly Boatshed $18.40 8pm Trial Kennedy, Dangerous!, The Dead Love Fitzroy Hotel, Windsor free 8pm The Wharf Sessions Wharf 1, Sydney Theatre Company, Walsh Bay free 10pm

JAZZ

SIMA - Sydney Fringe Festival Series: Eddie Bronson Band, Mosaic, Colours of Kenya, Waters of Kenya The Sound Lounge, Seymour Centre, Chippendale 7.30pm Sirens Big Band 505 Club, Surry Hills $15 (member)-$20 8.30pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK Adam Fisher, Brett Gedge, Frank Calabria, Zachariah Sayed, Carolyn Woodorth

Ryans Hotel, Thirroul free 8.30pm Cafe Carnivale: Bandaluzia Flamenco Eastside Arts, Paddington $22 (member)–$28 8.15pm Jane Rutter Lizotte’s Restaurant, Dee Why $43 8pm Kirk Burgess Panthers, Wallacia free 7pm Krishna Jones The Belvedere Hotel free 7pm LJ Chatswood RSL free 5pm

SATURDAY SEPT 17 ROCK & POP

031 Rockshow Beach Palace Hotel, Coogee free 11pm 2 Of Hearts Brighton RSL Club, BrightonLe-Sands free 8pm The Big Exo Day: The Almost (USA), TedAshii, Trip Lee, Pro, This’L, KB, Stan Walker, Tigertown, New Empire, Reggie Dabbs (USA), Graveyard, Seasons, Revival Ashore, Vices, Nazarate Vow, Jonnday, Drawing North, Capree, Samantha Kate, Jake Nauta, Kappa, Luke Robinson, Kids and Cousins Parramatta Park $42.50–$45 12pm Bright Young Things, She’s So Rad Gallery Bar, Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst free 8pm Bryan Adams (Canada) Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House $100.15–$141.40 7pm sold out Carbon Copy Peachtree Hotel, Penrith free 9pm Ceara Fox Duo Riverwood Inn free 8pm Something With Numbers

Changing Lanes Festival: PVT, Def Wish Cast, Gareth Liddiard, Lanie Lane, Beni, Mikelangelo & the Tin Star, The Vasco Era, Juggernaut DJ’s, The Snowdroppers, Papa Vs Pretty, Tuka, Gay Paris, Bleeding Knees Club, Megastick Fanfare, Oscar & Martin, Kira Puru & The Bruise, Daily Meds, Skryptcha, Bingethinkers, The Last Kinection, Splash Mountain, Spooky Land, Big Scary, Cameras and more Devonshire Street, Surry Hills 12pm City Riots, Collective Sounds system, Dirty Little Rebels, Kato Upstairs Beresford, Surry Hills 6pm Coaster Festival: John Butler Trio, Drapht, Little Red, Jebediah, The Potbelleez, Bag Raiders, Something WIth Numbers, Horrorshow, Tim & Jean, One Dollar Short, Gold Fields, Ball Park Music, Andy Bull and more Gosford Showgrounds, Gosford $94 (+ bf) 12pm Creedence & Beyond Blacktown RSL Club free 10pm Crotchet Crooks, Jackie Onassis, Macnaught, The Faults, Madame Wu, Bark One, Filthy Creatures Annandale Hotel $10 (+ bf) 7pm Damo Suzuki and the Holy Soul with Gareth Liddiard and Cec Condon, Machete Moon, Nhomea, DJs Goodgod Small Cub, Sydney $12 (presale)-$15 8pm Deepend, Diamond Eye, Sunset Riot, Iron Jack Lansdowne Hotel, Chippendale free 8pm Flamin’ Beauties Royal Hotel, Springwood free 9.15pm Funpuppet Eastern Suburbs Leagues Club, Bondi Junction 8.30pm

Glenn Whitehall Duo Engadine Tavern free 9.30pm Harry James Angus, Roscie James Irwin The Vanguard, Newtown 8pm Hopsin & Swizz, Kid Crisher, NJE Electric Elements Crew Live at the Wall, Leichhardt $30 8pm Hue Williams Ettalong Hotel free 8pm Jimmy Barnes Penrith Panthers, Evans Theatre $56.50 (+ bf) 8pm The Joe Kings, Ming Kings, Montpellier FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel, Darlinghurst $12 8pm Longriders Bike Show: Jupiter Menace, The Lingering Throats Bull & Bush Hotel, Baulkham Hills $10 11am all ages Mahalia Barnes Lizotte’s Restaurant, Dee Why $43–$85 (dinner & show) 8pm Mainline Carousel Inn, Rooty Hill free 9pm My Children My Bride (USA), For All Eternity, Above The Fallen, Azlock, Enthrone, The Ocean, The Sky St Johns Hall, Sutherland $23.50 (+ bf) 12pm My Children My Bride (USA), For All Eternity, Deliverance We Pray Agincourt Hotel, Ultimo $15.30 (+ bf) 8pm Mystery Guest Coogee Bay Hotel 10pm Oh What A Night - A Musical Tribute to Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons North Sydney Leagues Club, Cammeray $40 8pm OMG Scruffy Murphy’s Hotel, Sydney free 10.30pm On The Street: The Hummingbirds, The Laurels, Where’s Jermone Manning Bar, Sydney University, Camperdown $30 (+ bf) 8pm Otis Redding 70th Birthday Celebration: Johnny G & the E-Types, DJ Stevie G Brass Monkey, Cronulla $29.60 (+ bf) 7pm Professor Groove & the Booty Affair, Clarity The Basement, Circular Quay $22 9pm Psychopathic Metal Festival: Spent Case, Alaska, Days Gone By, Born Of Chaos, Abacination, Insizer, War of Attrition, From Death Rill Rebirth Lewisham Hotel 5pm Public Opinion Afro Orchestra, The Liberators, Gian Arpino Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst $25 (+ bf) 8pm

Red Raw Excelsior Hotel, Glebe free 7.30pm Rob Henry Duo Harbord Beach Hotel free 8pm Rufus, Bon Chat Bon Rat Caringbah Bizzo’s 8pm Skyscraper Kingswood Sports Club free 8.30pm Stormcellar Pendle Hill Inn free 9pm The Trews (Canada) Notes Live, Enmore $19.40– $43.90 (dinner & show) 7pm Trial Kennedy, Dangerous!, The Ivys, The Dead Love Mona Vale Hotel $18.40 8pm The Volatiles, Sativa Sun, Rek N Ruin, The Dirty Surfin Bastards, Dead Gang Valve Bar, Tempe 6pm Williams Bros Trio, Jimmy Bear Orient Hotel, The Rocks free 4.30 free-$5 Yuki Kumagai, John Mackie Hernandez Cafe, Darlinghurst free 7.30pm

JAZZ

Blue Moon Quartet Supper Club, Fairfield RSL Club free 7pm Continuum Sax, Sydney Chamber Choir Independent Theatre, North Sydney $20 (student)–$48 7.30pm Peter Head The Harbour View Hotel free 5pm Tina Harrod Jazz Band 505 Club, Surry Hills $15-$20 8.30pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK

Andrew Denniston Terrey Hills Tavern free 7.30pm Balmain Bush Dance Sydney Secondary College Rozelle Campus $8 (student)–$17 8pm Benn Gunn Manly Leagues Club free 8pm Muddy Feet The Belvedere Hotel free 9pm The Nevilles The Marlborough Hotel, Newtown free 10.30pm Ted Nash Picton Hotel free 8pm

SUNDAY SEPT 18 ROCK & POP

Asami Loves You Mars Hill Cafe, Parramatta $10 8pm Bryan Adams (Canada) Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House $100.15–$141.40 8pm sold out Bryen Willems Westmead Tavern free 3pm Dead Marines, Alex Legg Camelot Lounge, Marrickville $20 7.30pm Don Walker, Roy Payne Lizotte’s Restaurant, Dee Why $38–$80 (dinner & show) 8pm El Duende, The Gloom Chasers, Dale Caldwell and Ben Fink, Datson/Hughes The Red Rattler Theatre, Marrickville $15 6pm Fox, Brackets, Albatross Tone, Surry Hills $10 6pm Get Stoked On It: Wake The Giants, Critics, Chasing Amy, Soapbox Summer, Call The Shots, Sunsets, Ghosts On Broadway, The Playbook, Cupid Against Venus, Some Time Soon, As Rockets Fall, Strive For Normality Annandale Hotel $15 (+ bf) all ages 11am

Highly Strung Kro Bar, East Leagues Club free 6.30pm Hue Williams Ettalong Beach Cabana free 12pm Hunter & Suzy Owens Band Marrickville Bowling and Recreation Club free 4.30pm Jezebel Kro Bar, Bondi Junction free 8pm Jonah & the Wailers, The Elementals The Basement, Circular Quay $25 (+ bf)–$73.80 (dinner & show) 8pm Kira Puru & The Bruise The Vanguard, Newtown $25 (+ bf) 6.30pm Kirk Burgess Duo Peachtree Hotel, Penrith free 6pm Mojo, Lonesome Train Orient Hotel, The Rocks 4.30pm free Rumble in the Quad Lansdowne Hotel, Chippendale free 6pm Satellite V Botany View Hotel, Newtown free 7pm School Of Rock Showcase Valve Bar, Tempe 12pm Spangled Mistress Brass Monkey, Cronulla 8pm Spenceray Coogee Bay Hotel 7.30pm Thompson Gunners Riverstone Sports Hotel free 2pm To Kill A Sunrise, Judge Our Hearts, Past Is Practise, How To Survive A Bull Fight, Rose From Ruins, Pointless Suffering, Sundown Valve Bar, Tempe 4pm Zoltan Harbord Beach Hotel free 8pm

JAZZ

Ali Penney & The Money Makers Bald Rock Hotel, Rozelle free 6pm Blues Sunday: Mark Hopper Artichoke Gallery Cafe, Manly free 3pm Monks of Cool Mars Hill Cafe, Parramatta free 2pm The Peter Head Trio and Friends The Harbour View Hotel free 4pm Rick Fensom Waverley Bowling Club free 3pm The Subterraneans Town Hall Hotel, Newtown free 7pm Yuki Kumagai, John Mackie Cronulla RSL free 12.30pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK

Carolyn Woodorth Palm Court Hotel, Corrimal free 2pm Helmut Uhlmann Hotel William, Darlinghurst free 6pm Matt Jackson Pontoon, Sydney free 2pm Mauritian Magic: Jalsa Creole (Mauritius) Riverside Theatres, Parramatta $22 (member)–$28 3.30pm Michael Peter The Belvedere Hotel free 5pm Pete Hunt Oatley Hotel free 2pm Shane ManKenzie Cohibar free 2pm

COUNTRY

Balmain Goes Bush Country in the Heart of the City: Doug McIntyre Cat & Fiddle Hotel, Balmain free 3pm The Slowdowns Sandringham Hotel, Newtown free 4pm

“I wish I was like you easily amused Find my nest of salt, everything is my fault” - NIRVANA 38 :: BRAG :: 429 : 12:09:11

gig picks up all night out all week...

RES EATEST PLEASU O OF LIFE’S GR MARRYING TW

Exclusive giveaway to bluejuice’s album preview Check pg. 8 for details

SATURDAY SEPTEMBER ER 17

The JD Set: Art vs Science, Kate MillerHeidke, Patience Hodgson, PSDJs Upstairs Beresford, Surry Hills $30 (+ bf) 8pm

Coaster Festival: John Butler Trio, Drapht, Little Red, Jebediah, The Potbelleez, Bag Raiders, Something WIth Numbers, Horrorshow, Tim & Jean, One Dollar Short, Gold Fields, Ball Park Music, Andy Bull and more Gosford Showgrounds, Gosford $94 (+ bf) 12pm

bluejuice, Millions, Step-Panther, Splash Mountain DJs The Standard, Darlinghurst $20 8pm Montero, Domeyko/Gonzalez, Erik Omen, DJ Shesh Besh GoodGod Small Club, Sydney $10 8pm

FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 16

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Beauty & The Beast: Maxine Kauter and James Edgar Francis perform the songs of Disney Notes Live, Enmore 8pm $23.40-$47.95 (with dinner)

ND MUSIC GREAT FOOD A Y

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Public Opinion Afro Orchestra, The Liberators, Gian Arpino Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst $25 (+ bf) 8pm The Trews (Canada) Notes Live, Enmore $19.40–$43.90 (dinner & show) 7pm

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Elixir, Katie Noonan, The Sydney Symphony Fellowship Quartet The Studio, Sydney Opera House $50 8pm Kimbra, Husky, Fire! Santa Rosa Fire!

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Lizotte’s Newcastle 31 Morehead St Lambton

W W W. L I ZOT T E S.CO M.AU BRAG :: 429 :: 12:09:11 :: 39

40 :: BRAG :: 429 :: 12:09:11

BRAGâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s guide to dance, hip hop and club culture

brag beats + club guide + club snaps + columns

The Herd

Guti

Ladytron

Joakim Sydney-Bound For RA X

BRAG :: 429 :: 12:09:11 :: 41

dance music news

free stuff

club, dance and hip hop in brief... with Chris Honnery

FREESTUFF@THEBRAG.COM

he said she said WITH

Xxxx

NICK SABINE AND PAUL CLEMENT FROM RESIDENTADVISOR.NET

Nick Sabine

W

e developed Resident Advisor to create a platform to showcase and discuss the music we were, and still are, passionate about. We were inspired by the freedom of creativity in web publishing, and its lack of geographic boundaries. In the beginning our audience was primarily Australian, but we felt there was an opportunity to provide the RA service to a wider audience. It took years to get everything in place, but it was worth it.

The core RA team hails from all over the world – Sydney, London, New York, Dublin, Tokyo, Berlin, Paris – so our inspirations differ, depending on where we’ve all lived and the parties and artists in those cities.

And obviously everyone has different music tastes. It makes for a great soundtrack in the office each day – you’ll be just as likely to listen to a new Chicago house album as you are a New York disco edits EP or a dark industrial German-inspired techno mix.

The RA family has involved a lot of dedicated people over the years – especially Sydneysiders. RA now has offices in London and Berlin, over a hundred active writers and contributors, and is read by more than one million unique visitors a month. The family has grown somewhat, but I feel like the essence of RA is very much the same as it was ten years ago.

Our concept for the RA X series is to bring together artists who have been influential in electronic music over the past decade, and have each of them curate one of the ten events. By having an unannounced headliner/curator, each event becomes less about a single big name and more about the music as a whole – and of course, celebrating ten years of Resident Advisor.

In my view, one of the most significant changes to music recently has been the globalisation of information. Through digital platforms like Twitter, Facebook and RA, the international electronic music scene is far more connected than it was a decade ago, for both artists and fans. With relative ease and at minimal cost, aspiring independent artists have an opportunity to connect with an international audience, and fans can gain insight into music, cultural and creative trends in different countries. Transcending these geographic borders means localised music scenes can very quickly have a global influence.

Who: Joakim, Robag Wruhme, Simon Caldwell and X (a secret headliner) Where: RA X @ Civic Hotel When: Saturday September 17

premiered on BBC Radio 1 last week, plus his cover of Joni Mitchell’s ‘A Case Of You’ (a live favourite) and four new tracks, details of which have yet to emerge. But a little bit of mystery only adds to the anticipation, doesn’t it?

Eminem

MIKE SIMONETTI

The man behind the renowned record label Italians Do It Better, international DJ/producer/ tastemaker – consider him an all-round emblem of general hipsterdom – Mike Simonetti recently released a new EP, Capricorn Rising, which includes the single ‘The Third Of Storms’ (which features Sam Sparro). It’s been described by my man Ewan Pearson as “The sort of thing Michael Mayer would play on a Kompakt beach party and you’d have a little hug and an existential blub with whoever was standing nearby” – alright Ewan, you’ve been warned about making up words… blub yo’ ass off the page! Simonetti is of course bringing his vast and eclectic record collection to GoodGod Small Club this Friday September 16 for a four-hour set, where he’ll mix an array of classic rock and esoteric dance with considerable panache and imagination. Support comes from Andy Webb and Steele Bonus, with presale tickets available through Resident Advisor.

THE HERD

There are some parties that you just know are going to go off. The right tunes, a good-looking crowd, and all the fairy bread you can eat. While we can’t promise fairy bread, we can promise great music and good lookers in abundance when The Herd party down on Saturday September 17 at The Metro Theatre, in celebration of the release of their fifth studio album, Future Shade. BRAG has a couple of double passes to give away – if you want one, just email us with what you’re bringing to the party.

JEDI MIND TRICKS

One of the more critically-acclaimed groups in the underground hip hop milieu, Jedi Mind Tricks (‘JMT’) jet into Sydney to perform at The Factory Theatre at The Enmore on Thursday December 8. Throughout the group’s history, JMT has collaborated with rap veterans including GZA, Kool G Rap, 7L & Esoteric, Sean Price, Ras Kass and R.A. The Rugged Man, and have sold over 400,000 albums worldwide – all of which were released independently. JMT are at present preparing to drop their seventh studio album, Violence Begets Violence, through fiery frontman Vinnie Paz’s own imprint, Enemy Soil.

They’ll be supported by veteran Philadelphian duo Outerspace, who have recently released their seventh LP, My Brother’s Keeper. Tickets are currently available online.

The Rapture

TURN OF PHRASE

EMINEM AND LIL WAYNE TOUR

Hip hop icon Eminem is touring Australia, and will perform a colossal show at the Sydney Football Stadium on Saturday December 2 along with special guests Lil Wayne and Australia’s own Hilltop Hoods, with additional acts still to be announced. A 13-time Grammy winner who has sold over 80 million albums worldwide, Eminem was recently dubbed the “king of hip hop” by the ever-imaginative Rolling Stone. For anyone fearing that the king’s best days may be behind him, USA Today said of his slot at this year’s Lollapalooza festival, “Eminem is in a league of his own. Rhymes raced from his throat like soldiers charging into battle … this show would accept no compromises.” Tickets for Eminem’s first tour of the country since 2001 go on sale this Tuesday September 13 at 2pm, from www.ticketek.com.au

TENSNAKE CLUB SHOW

After a bit of what Future Classic call “arm twisting and encouragement” (knowing the FC lads, you can translate that as ‘coercion via rusty chainsaw’), Tensnake has managed to be lured away from the Parklife festival tour long enough to commit to a Sydney club show for Adult Disco at the Civic Underground on Sunday October 2. The Hamburg native produced one of the biggest anthems of 2010, ‘Coma Cat’, a cut that tore through Ibiza en route to the top of the UK pop charts, before appearing on arguably the crème de la crème: Tony E’s notorious ‘Yoga Workout’ iPod playlist. But far from being a one track wonder, Tensnake has also remixed Little Dragon, Aloe Blacc, Hercules & Love Affair, Azari & III and even Australian outfit The Swiss.

He’s also recently released a brand new single, 42 :: BRAG :: 429 :: 12:09:11

‘Something About You’, which was hailed by Pulse Radio’s Sonia Taylor as “a tasty slice of nu-disco infused house”. Presales are available online for this one, and as it’s being held on the Sunday of the October long weekend – a typically large affair – it may be a wise decision to ensure your attendance in this fashion.

JAMES BLAKE EP

From hugely-hyped album releases to a hugelyhyped set at Splendour In The Grass, Englishman James Blake has been one of 2011’s MVPs. And he ain’t done with yet, as news has filtered through that Blake will release a new six-track EP on October 10 called Enough Thunder. The EP will feature Fall Creek Boys Choir, the much feted collaboration between Blake and Bon Iver which was “formed in the spring over email”, and

One of the leading forces in the Aussie hip hop scene, Melbourne wordsmith Phrase, aka MC Harley Webster, has recently released his third album, Babylon – an LP that’s been described as a “garage stomper with rockabilly guitar twists”. “To me, ‘Babylon’ means a place of beauty and getting to a better point in life. That’s what the record represents,” offers Phrase of his upcoming album, which includes an eclectic cast of guests like Jimmy Barnes, You Am I’s Davey Lane and Sparkadia’s Alex Burnett. As is customary in the music business, Phrase will be embarking on a national tour to supplement the album’s commercial availability, and will perform a headline show at the Oxford Art Factory on Saturday October 15.

RAGGAMUFFIN HIATUS

McManus Entertainment announces today that the popular reggae festival Raggamuffin will be taking a break in 2012, but promises to be back bigger and better than ever in 2013. Promoter Andrew McManus says, “We are concentrating on building the New Zealand leg of Raggamuffin into a massive two day festival. With 30,000 people attending the New Zealand shows in previous years, we are looking to double this in coming years. This growth will enable us to return to Australia in 2013 bigger and better than ever.”

Before you commence with the trans-Tasman conspiracies, McManus Entertainment also added that to satisfy the Aussie fans of reggae and Caribbean music, they will be announcing a theatre tour with several of the Raggamuffin acts in the coming weeks. They foreshadow that the shows will “provide a unique and exciting experience to see some of reggae’s finest in a live and intimate setting.” You can rest assured we’ll keep you updated with this theatre tour as details emerge.

THE RAPTURE PLAY FUTURE MUSIC 2012

There’s nothing like planning ahead, and there’s no doubt that Future Music run a tight ship. Such platitudes aside, we can reveal that Future Entertainment have confirmed The Rapture as the first act for Future Music Festival 2012.

The New York outfit released their third LP, In The Grace Of Your Love, earlier in the year through DFA Records, produced with Philippe Zdar of Cassius fame. While Future were intending to wait a little longer prior to making the announcement, Rapture frontman Luke Jenner divulged the information in a recent interview with triple j, and Future have subsequently confirmed that he was speakin’ the truth. We’ll probably have to wait a bit longer for the other Future Music 2012 announcements – unless any more headliners slip up in interviews, that is...

WAY-2-FONKY & BLUNTED PRESENT

“Sounds of New York”

THURSDAY 20TH OCTOBER 2011 SUPPORTED BY

OXFORD ART FACTORY 42 OXFORD ST (LIVE)

PAPER PLANE PROJECT

TICKETS: $40 + B/F VIA MOSHTIX TIME:DOORS OPEN 8PM LATE

FRENZIE KATO

BRAG :: 429 :: 12:09:11 :: 43

dance music news

free stuff

club, dance and hip hop in brief... with Chris Honnery

FREESTUFF@THEBRAG.COM

five things WITH

DAVID HORNE

Growing Up My first childhood memory 1. of music would be dad playing his collection of dusty old blues and rock records every Sunday morning. Luckily for me, dad had pretty good taste, which I would like to think has been passed on from one generation to the next...

Inspirations Inspirations. There are 2. many for me, but if I have to narrow it down to one person it would be Beck. A man who walks his own path in his endless number of creative endeavours, and does what he does really well.

Your Crew Shout out to the Flinders 3. crew who play with me week in, week out. These legends are Cleric Apton, Charlie Chux, Rad Chillard, James Badd and Angelo Cruiseman.

The Music You Make I tend to lean towards to the more 4. weird obscure pieces of music out there.

A lot of the stuff I’m digging and playing at the moment comes from people like Axel Boman, Ivan Smaghee (and his It’s A Fine Line stuff), Get A Room!, Dr Dunks, Rub N Tug, Love Fingers and Alexis Le Tan. And I must say I’m continually inspired

GUTI by local selectors including Radge, Steel Bonus, Shunji, Jingle Jangle, Senor Simon, Canyons and Graz, who always seem to pull something new out of their trusty record bags.

Music, Right Here, Right Now I think Sydney is really starting to turn 5. a corner; new bars and venues with more

up, which can only be a good thing. And it’s exciting to see bands like Ghostwood, Mesculin Feminin, Virgo Rising, Erik Omen In Atlantis and Donny Benét starting to get some recognition around town.

Where: The Flinders, Darlinghurst When: Every Saturday night

open music policies are starting to open

The Argentinian-born, German-based Guti is bringing his hypnotic dance party to Australia, playing at Tone on Saturday September 17. His record label might be called ‘Desolat’, but his jazzy beats and blissful synths certainly point to anything other than bleakness. Don’t believe me?

Then you’d better clear your schedule and get yourself down there. If you need an extra push, BRAG are giving away two double passes, for you and a friend to get in on the action. If you wanna get your mits on one, tell us your favourite Guti mix.

Ro Sham Bo

PUBLIC OPINION AFRO ORCHESTRA

They say size isn’t everything, but they’re usually lying; Melbourne collective The Public Opinion Afro Orchestra are indeed a testament to the pleasures associated with being big. One of Australia’s largest bands, they’re currently touring in support of their new 7-inch single ‘Mr Clean (Pts 1 & 2)’, and will play Oxford Art Factory this Saturday September 17 with support from The Liberators and DJ Gian Arpino. The seventeen-strong ensemble enjoyed a watershed year in 2010, with breakthrough performances at WOMADelaide that resulted in worldwide support through Gilles Peterson’s BBC Radio 1 program. Their debut album Do Anything, Go Anywhere was also nominated for an ARIA Award. The group returned to the studio before emerging triumphantly for a set at this year’s Byron Bay Blues & Roots Festival, and they’ll again be showcasing their distinct take on the Afrobeat genre when they throw down at the OAF.

The Public Opinion Afro Orchestra

RO SHAM BYE

Marcel Dettmann

CHINESE LAUNDRY THIS OCTOBER

Chinese Laundry has revealed its October program, which features several club heavyweights. The definite highlight is two of Berlin’s finest, Marcel Dettmann and Ben Klock, going clickto-click for several hours of pulsating, sweaty techno on Saturday October 15. To round off the month, you have marathon man and stalwart of the prog scene, Argentina’s Hernan Cattaneo, playing a five-hour set on Saturday August 29. The previous night, electro/ breaks proponents Evil Nine will be representing, with other drawcards appearing throughout the month including Jody Wisternoff (formerly of Way Out West), Doctor Werewolf and Mark Dynamix. As with all Chinese Laundry events, the usual advice is to arrive early; entry is cheaper and the lines are shorter before 10pm. The exception is the Dettmann/Klock event, which is a daytime garden party that will kick off earlier in the afternoon.

44 :: BRAG :: 429 :: 12:09:11

ANTHONY ‘SHAKE’ SHAKIR

Seminal Detroit techno pioneer Anthony ‘Shake’ Shakir is heading down under for the first time in October, and will play in Sydney at the new venue The Spice Cellar at Martin Place, which is set to open its doors shortly. The self-described “invisible man of techno” has frequently referred to himself as the janitor of Juan Atkins’ Metroplex Records, though he now admits that much of his invisibility is his own doing. As for his music? Shakir’s tracks prefigured plenty of contemporary electronic music trends, fro m wonky to the modern disco edit, and showcase a live ‘hip-hoppish’ approach to crafting electronica. He has also recorded on Mo Wax as part of the first Urban Tribe project alongside Kenny Dixon Jr (aka Moodymann), Carl Craig and Sherard Ingram. Shakir is notoriously unafraid of

playing hip hop and pop music in his DJ sets (he once sampled the B-52’s), but you can also expect a serious dose of straight-up Detroit techno come Saturday October 28.

Presale tickets are available now through Resident Advisor.

FBI’S NORTHERN LIGHTS WINNERS ANNOUNCED

From more than 200 entrants, FBi Radio has whittled down the possible contenders for its inaugural Northern Lights competition, and last week announced the winners as… [drum roll please] Oliver Tank, who recently signed to local label Yes Please and has an EP due out in October, and Rainbow Chan, who released her debut EP, Brushed Upon With Rose, in May. The pair will embark on a trip to Reykjavik for the Iceland Airwaves festival to

The ever-popular all-rounder Andrew Levins has announced the demise of Ro Sham Bo, the much-loved DJ collective he has performed in alongside Jimmy Sing, Moriarty and Toni Toni Lee for over five years. From the horses mouth: “Since forming in 2006, Ro Sham Bo has pushed new club sounds from all over the world in many different states (of Australia, and of mind). We’ve supported some of our favourite artists, ran some ridiculous parties and hosted Ro Sham Bo Sunset on FBi Radio every Tuesday night for four long years. But now it’s time to say Ro Sham Bye.” The time and place for the last goodbye is this Saturday September 17 at GoodGod Small Club, with the festivities commencing at 10pm and expanding over the entire venue after midnight.

There’ll also be a special, one-off Ro Sham Bo menu on offer at the venue’s restaurant The Dip, which is of course Levins’ new venture. And in the spirit of making Ro Sham Bo’s final fling a night to remember, entry to the whole shebang is free.

meet musicians, set up various collaborations and hopefully kickstart their career. FBi Music Director Dan Zilber reflected, “This competition has allowed FBi to extend what we do – discovering new talent and exposing it to a wider audience – to an international level. We think playing at Iceland Airwaves, collaborating with international musicians and being in Reykjavik during one of the world’s most vibrant music festivals will be an invaluable experience for these guys.”

BRAG :: 429 :: 12:09:11 :: 45

The Herd Future Shades And Current Affairs By Nils Hay

I

t’s been a big few days for The Herd’s Shannon Kennedy, aka Ozi Batla; having just released their fifth album, Future Shade, the band have returned from touring in Queensland and are recovering ahead of a trip to WA. And after ten years on the circuit, Ozi Batla feels that The Herd’s live shows are the best they’ve ever been. “We’ve worked a number of new songs into the set, and that keeps you on your toes,” the MC explains, when asked how they keep it fresh. “Jane [Tyrrell, singer] and Toe Fu [guitar] are taking a bit more of a lead role in some of the tracks, so it’s been enjoyable for me to just sit back and watch them do their thing.” And fans of the older material won’t been disappointed, either. “With some of the older tracks, we’ve flipped them up a little bit. We’re always trying to alter them in some way. to breathe new life into them.”

It’s been three years since their previous record, Summerland, and close to two since the beats started flying around for the follow-up – a lengthy album process that Kennedy puts down to a number of things. For starters, he and fellow Herd members Urthboy and Unkle Ho all put out solo releases in the past three years – and his Astronomy Class side project also released their debut. But beyond personal projects, the creation of Future Shade was a deliberately more drawnout process. Recording wholly for the first time in their own Sydney studio, the band had more opportunities to build intricacy into their tracks, and greater freedom to go back, revise and edit.

The final result, in his opinion, is The Herd’s most polished release to date. “There’s something to

be said for smashing things out fast and keeping the energy and vibe that you get when it’s still really immediate in your mind, but often there’s something that you’re not 100% happy with,” he says. “I don’t think we’ve got any of those on this record.”

Future Shade retains The Herd’s eclecticism – and while it may not be as much of a hip hop record as some of their past releases, genre isn’t an issue that plays on Kennedy’s mind. “It’s most definitely down to the strength of the tracks and how they fit together with everything else; that’s the main consideration,” he explains. “I don’t think that as The Herd we’ve ever really focused on making this particular genre or that particular style of song. It’s always been about the strength of the music.”

The group’s ideology hasn’t altered either. While the latest release features a number of more personal, introspective tracks, the band resolutely refused to shy away from tackling bigger issues.

The trick lies in successfully combining the two. “We’ve definitely tried to balance doing something really immediate about current affairs and writing something that was a bit more universal, that would have a broader message.”

Having debuted at #22 in the ARIA charts, there is little doubt that the message is getting through.

“We’ve tried to focus on what the feelings and ideas were behind an issue, rather than just hammer away at it.”

The music may change and evolve, and as the band members age and begin to work on

bands and in rock bands – that’s what I grew up with. I love to be with people. So why not? If they are lovely people and good artists, why would I not make music with them?”

“I make music 22 hours a day,” Guti continues. “My studio is in my house, so I’ve found a way to get my workflow really fast. My piano is always on; my Maschine is always on. Normally I wake up and play piano for some hours to get in the mood, and then I play right up until deep into the night.

Sometimes I’m making music for days and my manager has to come to pull me out of the bubble, because I have a gig and I’ve completely lost track of the time.”

A relentless collaborator, Guti’s willingness to work with those around him has bolstered his solo work with a range of co-productions with Detroit and New York’s hottest – Ryan Crossan, Shaun Reeves and Soul Clap, to name a few. “People ask, ‘Why do you make so many songs with different people?’ I’m a musician, I grew up playing in bands, in jazz 46 :: BRAG :: 429 :: 12:09:11

Where: The Metro Theatre When: Saturday Sepember 17

A Different Space By Alasdair Duncan

Made By Magic By Matthew Cowley

W

What: Future Shade is out now on Elefant Tracks

Ladytron

Guti

ith a string of successful singles on a who’s who of the best house music labels – Wolf + Lamb, Desolat, Crosstown Rebels, Cadenza and Defected – Guti is one of the emerging names at the vanguard of a house and deep house revival the world over. The Argentinean-born, German-based artist is hitting Australian shores for the first time this week, on the back of his recently-released record Patio De Juegos – an album which Guti reflects on as a happy accident, a result of his dedication to creating constantly. “The album was just made by magic. It’s not like I went to the studio and said, ‘I want to make an album’.

I like to make music all the time; I’m always making music on tour. It wasn’t until last year that I had 50 songs and I gave them to (Loco) Dice, and he was like, ‘I think we have an album here.’

different projects, priorities may shift – but one of the driving forces behind The Herd’s music remains the same: “As far as our commitment to speaking out about issues that we feel strongly about, it hasn’t changed at all.”

His upcoming release on Gadi Mizrahi of Wolf+Lamb fame’s cooler-than-thou vinyl-only sub-imprint Double Standard is a prime example of how Guti’s collaborative tendencies allow him to be so prolific. “My next record is going to be on Double Standard, with Deniz Kurtel and Gadi Mizrahi. We made this record two years ago in New York. I wouldn’t say we are famous now, but at that point not even our mothers knew about us – we were just three kids in a big studio in New York.

We made the two songs in a couple of hours and it was beautiful, but the songs sort of died there,” he tells me. “Recently, Gadi calls me and he’s like, ‘Man, I’m listening to these songs, I think they’re beautiful. What are we going to do with them?’ We talked and he said, ‘Let’s do it just vinyl, 300 copies, just for collectors.’ So we did this really beautiful special artwork and special vinyl – and now I’m at Desolat, I know how much WORK it is to release a vinyl compared to a digital file.

And I’ve learnt that vinyl is forever. I think it’s super important to keep releasing some records [on vinyl], even if it’s just special ones.”

When he’s not in the studio, Guti has been earning his stripes as a globetrotting electronic music performer. But thanks to a tight community of fans, promoters and fellow musicians, he never feels out of place. “If you play with your friends, and the sound system is good, it’s cool,” he says. “At this point I would say I am actually enjoying every show – I’m very lucky to feel like this. It doesn’t matter if I’m playing in Amnesia to 30,000 or I’m playing for 200 people in a club for some people in Germany; for me it’s the same, as long as I get energy from the people”.

What: Patio De Juegos is out now on Desolat Where: Golden Cage presents Guti @ Tone, Surry Hills When: Saturday September 17

adytron are the last word in dark, glamorous electro pop, but when it came time to start work on their fifth album, the UK band were itching to make a change. Now it’s here, Gravity The Seducer is still instantly recognisable as a Ladytron record, with lush waves of sound, propulsive beats and vocals that alternate between sweet and menacing – but if you listen carefully, you’ll start to hear the warmth of live instrumentation coming to the fore. “Before we set out to write the album, we decided that we wanted to make something that was very different from the last,” keyboard player Reuben Wu tells me. “We didn’t want to make an album that was outwardly electro – we just wanted to make the best music we were able to write, whatever that turned out to be.”

L

Seducer is a more restrained listen, with a sense of menace humming just beneath the sweet melodies and droning instruments. According to Wu, the fact that the band stayed at home to record it played a part in the new sound, too. “We recorded in a studio in the countryside in Kent,” he says. “In the past, we’ve flown to places like L.A. and Paris to record our albums, and our routine is different – we’ll wake up in a hotel, then go back there and head out at night to DJ somewhere or go out partying, then get a couple of hours sleep in the hotel before heading back to the studio.

The stereotype of what it is to be in a band, pretty much. This time, it was a little bit more civilised – we mostly live in London so we could go home when we finished a recording session. It definitely shaped the sound of the album in a big way.”

A big part of that, Wu tells me, was the band’s desire to extend themselves, and use instruments they would not have in the past.

“We wanted the instrumentation to occupy a different space than before, [different] from the sound we’re known for,” he says. “We put down the KORG, and play an electric organ instead.”

The band found if quite easy to get their hands on a broad range of instruments. “The studio where the band recorded the album had an inhouse organ, as well as a selection of stringed instruments, and Helen [Marnie, vocals and synths] had a harp lying around that she brought into the sessions,” he continues. “There were a few pedals I’d picked up along the way that we’d never used on an album before, so we were able to patch some of the instruments through them to produce completely new sounds.”

Earlier this year, Ladytron released a Best Of collection, celebrating a decade of making music together. I ask Wu how he feels about this milestone, and he replies in a characteristically humble fashion. “It feels pretty good,” he says.

“Obviously I’ve nothing else to compare it to in my life, but it’s been an incredible experience.

We’ve seen the world, we’ve changed a lot as people, and you can definitely hear those things coming through in the music. We came to a point where we decided to release that Best Of after four albums, and not many bands get to do that – not many bands are lucky enough to have the longevity and the support that we’ve had over the years, not just from the industry, but from the fact that wherever we go in the world there’s always an incredible welcome waiting for us. It’s incredible to have that kind of support.”

Where Ladytron’s last album, Velocifero, had a sense of urgency and a frantic pace, Gravity The

What: Gravity The Seducer is out September 16 through Nettwerk/Shock

Joakim Nothing Gold Can Stay By Alasdair Duncan

F

rance’s Joakim Bouaziz, founder of the Tigersushi label, is a master of dark disco and electro, and his brand new album Nothing Gold will be out at the end of the month.

Joakim is heading to Sydney for ‘RA X’, a night put together for the Sydney-born electronic music site Resident Advisor, who are celebrating their tenth year with a series of ten parties in ten cities around the world – each curated by a top-secret headliner.

AD: You’ve said that your new single, ‘Forever Young’, was inspired by the feeling of being in the strange place between youth and middle age. Can you tell me more about that?

JB: When I was 20, I didn’t like people who were 30 and older because I thought they were a bit depressing, giving up on many things – very far from the romantic ideals they had when they were younger. I’m very distant from that now, but I’m trying to remember what it is that I didn’t want to become when I was young, and think about why it is that I do certain things now.

AD: What other singles can we expect from the record?

JB: One’s coming out just after the album – ‘Find A Way’ – and there will be remixes from Slow Club and Punks Jump Up, as well as a few others.

‘Nothing Gold’ will be the next single after that.

AD: You’re coming down to Australia for a few DJ sets this month. What can we expect from them?

JB: I never really plan my DJ sets, but I can tell you that at the moment there’s a lot of very big house and techno. A few years ago maybe I was playing more disco, but since a few months, I’ve been getting right back into techno. I also really like some of the post-dubstep sounds that are out there. I like when the dubstep guys try to do house music and it comes out sounding all weird, like Ramadanman.

I’m still playing a lot of disco records, though, and there are quite a few edits that I’ve done for myself that I’m going to play. I’ve done a mix for triple j – I don’t know when they’re going to play it, but for once, I put mostly new stuff in that mix. Usually I put in a lot of older songs, but that mix should give you a fair idea of new stuff I’ve been digging.

What: Nothing Gold is out September 30 through Inertia Who: Joakim, with Robag Wruhme, Simon Caldwell and a secret headliner Where: RAX @ Civic Hotel When: Saturday September 17

AD: I hear a bit of a ‘70s or ‘80s soft rock influence on Nothing Gold. Is that the kind of music you were inspired by when you made it?

JB: Soft rock – I’m not sure. I wanted a sound that was very precise, so I spent a lot of time mixing the tracks. Also, I wanted to slow things down a bit, because when you slow things down you have more space for sound and more space for music and singing, space to write songs. That’s what I really wanted to do with this album – write songs that you could sing along to.

AD: Can you tell me about the gear you use?

JB: I’ve been buying a lot of analogue synths and analogue outboards for years, old things from the ‘80s and even further back. Right now, I work with mostly analogue instruments, but at the same time I don’t want to make music that sounds too old-school. I don’t want to make retro-sounding records; I like to use old instruments, but make new sounds with them. For instance, I have synths that were very popular in the ‘80s and were used on a lot of Depeche Mode records, and when I use them, you can really hear that sound coming through. I like to challenge myself – I like to push myself to use the synths so that they sound like something else.

“ Right now, I work with mostly analogue instruments. I like to use old instruments, but make new sounds with them. I like to challenge myself... Whether you’re a musician or a painter, your tools define a lot of things.”

AD: Do the instruments you use ever dictate the direction of the songwriting?

JB: Of course. In a general way, I think the instruments are very important in one’s work.

Whatever kind of artist you are, whether you’re a musician or a painter or whatever, your tools define a lot of things.

AD: I really like Nothing Gold’s title track – it has a real Italo disco sound, like a Lindstrøm & Christabelle track. Are you a Lindstrøm fan?

JB: I’m a fan, but I didn’t hear his record with Christabelle, and he’s not necessarily someone I think of when I record music. I know he also uses a lot of old synths like I do, and I think he has the same way of working that I do. I was speaking recently with Todd Terje, who told me that Lindstrøm’s studio is a lot like mine, so I guess that’s one reason for that. That song was very much inspired by Carly Simon – I was very much obsessed with her song ‘Why’, I listened to it a lot when I was in the studio, so I guess it inspired a lot of the album.

AD: Your remix of Severed Heads’ ‘Dead Eyes Opened’ is still one of my favourite remixes of all time. Do you have any more on the way?

JB: Actually, I have two remixes that I did this summer that still aren’t released. I don’t know when they’re coming out. They were both for Belgian bands, but I’m not sure I can tell you who…

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BRAG :: 429 :: 12:09:11 :: 47

Deep Impressions Underground Dance And Electronica with Chris Honnery

Flowers And Sea Creatures

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auded by electronic producer/ tastemaker Ewan Pearson as a “proper, superb album”, the self-titled debut of Montreal-based duo Flowers And Sea Creatures (comprised of Graham Baxter and Athens-born Kosta Megalo) will be released on Ben Watt’s Buzzin’ Fly imprint at the end of September. Pearson was apparently so impressed when he first heard the Flowers And Sea Creatures single ‘A.M.’ earlier in the year that he got on the ‘blower’ to Watt and asked if he could craft a re-edit. Pearson ended up assisting with additional production and mixing of the album, alongside Fred Everything and The Revenge. Fusing pop, electronic and deeper atmospheric influences, this is a release that’s generating considerable pre-release hype which is pretty difficult to resist – particularly when online reviewers have compared it to the likes of Junior Boys and Radiohead. If that isn’t enough to pique your interest than you are far more phlegmatic than I; and if you are interested in checking out Flowers And Sea Creatures, and you haven’t yet wrapped your ears around ‘A.M.’, get to it!

So, you’ve heard about the Subsonic Festival lineup then, right? Technophiles should be well aware that Apparat, Frivolous, Alexkid, Minilogue, Phil Kieran and Max Cooper et al will be performing in the idyllic surrounds of the Barrington Tops Mountain Valley reserve in the first weekend of December, in a festival designed for those who may be slightly unsatisfied with the large-scale inner city events Sydney is renowned for. Subsonic is a different beast altogether – I urge you to check the website and speak to people who have attended Subsonic in ‘09/’10 for a vivid description of what the event is about.

As for the main attractions, Apparat will be playing an exclusive Sydney show with a live band to coincide with the release of his upcoming album, The Devil’s Walk, which will be coming out September 27 on Mute Records (and EMI in Australia, I believe).

Conceived during a trip to Mexico last year with Telefon Tel Aviv’s Joshua Eustis, the bulk of the material for Apparat’s latest LP was laid down in a makeshift studio in the small town of Sayulita, and completed with the assistance of Patrick ‘Nackt’ Christensen (formerly of electro-goth outfit Warren Suicide).

Moving on from Apparat, I’m also particularly keen to see Frivolous and Minilogue performing outdoors in the beautiful world heritage site. Frivolous is renowned for a unique live set which has previously been witnessed at Mad Racket, replete with unusual set-ups and live sampling. Having released a new album on Luciano’s Cadenza imprint earlier in the year, it will be interesting to see whether Frivolous’ set has been influenced by his encounters with the flamboyant microhouse poster boy. (In my opinion, Frivolous’ best album remains Midnight Black Indulgence.) And anyone who needs reminding of Minilogue’s quality need only listen to Sebastian Mullaert’s benefit mix for Japan, Move The Wave To Your Heart, released earlier this year through Tokyo’s Mule label. While the mix takes a while to warm up, it slips into overdrive in its second half when Mullaert begins mixing in his own productions from Minilogue. Subsonic

LOOKING DEEPER

Adultnapper

SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 17

Robag Wruhme, Joakim and ?

The Civic Underground

MONDAY 3 OCTOBER Adultnapper Favela

SATURDAY OCTOBER 28 Anthony ‘Shake’ Shakir The Spice Cellar

FRIDAY DEC 2 – SUNDAY DEC 4 Subsonic Music Festival Barrington Tops

Festival tickets are moving fast from the official website – grab yours post-haste and begin looking forward to one of the most anticipated events on the Sydney techno calendar.

The Munich-born tINI, a highly-touted lady of the underground techno scene who has been an integral member of the Desolat family (think Loco Dice, Martin Buttrich et al if that drew a blank) since ’09, is gearing up to release her debut album, Tessa, on, you guessed it, Desolat.

Known for sophisticated variations on house mores, tINI’s debut LP purportedly adds a "spaciousness and urban gleam" to her signature sounds. (Make of that what you will.) “For me, a song is like my very own diary,” tINI stated in relation to her production ethos. “My way to express my feelings in that very moment: from absolute joy to deepest melancholy.” A mixture of restrained club grooves and more ‘straightup’ minimal house, Tessa is recommended listening for the true techno cognoscenti – you know who you are.

Deep Impressions: electronica manifesto and occasional club brand. Contact through deep.impressions@yahoo.com.

48 :: BRAG :: 429 :: 12:09:11

Soul Sedation

Soul, Dub, Hip Hop & Bottom-heavy Beats with Tony Edwards Soul Sedation goes live every Wednesday night on Bondi FM (88.0 or bondifm.com.au). Tune in 10pm 'til midnight to hear a deep and soulful selection of the tunes covered here, and plenty more that I don't have room for. he new Katalyst record, Deep Impressions, has landed on the Soul Sedation desk and, as per usual, it’s high-grade shit. This, his third album, is something of a return to the producer’s (and indeed hip hop’s own) roots, in that it’s heavily sample-based. This approach differs somewhat from its predecessor (What’s Happening?), which saw Katalyst use a diverse group of guest vocalists and craft an album of songs, many of which were amazing but could only be vaguely identified as hip hop (‘Bladewalker’, which featured Adalita, springs to mind). On the first listen of this new record I’ve got a lot of love for the sparse, raw and heavy tune ‘Beware’ – the best example of sample based construction and a deep and profound aesthetic (think Freddie Cruger). ‘Time Ticks On (ft. Hau)’ brings an unmissable Aussie flavour to the album; the vocal somehow sounds like it’s falling apart, but is super tight at the same time. Long-time Katalyst collaborator Stephanie McKay’s multiple contributions literally bring tears to the eyes (is there a more soulful singer recording today?). ‘The Clapping Song (ft. Coin Locker Kid)’ – a re-interpetation of Shirley Ellis’ ‘Clapping Song’ from way back in ’65 – is a lot of fun, and the track most likely to nab radioplay with its crossover appeal. ‘Prince Of Cool (ft. Jane Doe)’ is another worthy, deep and soulful joint that shines late in the record, and wouldn’t have been out of place on the recent SBTRKT album, Katalyst playing around with that flavour-of-the-moment future synth sound. No doubt I’ll come back to this record over the coming weeks when I’ve had a chance to run through it a few more times.

T

Hermitude have dropped their new tune ‘Speak Of The Devil’, which will be on their impending full-length due out in February next year. The duo’s live appearances over the coming months will take in the Subsonic Music Festival on the first weekend of December (in Barrington Tops – four hours north of Sydney), and the following Friday they’ll blow up The Standard, one of Sydney’s newest (and most promising) live performance spaces.

It’s worth tracking down the new record from the newest Stone’s Throw signing The Stepkids. The Connecticut trio’s debut selftitled album sounds like twee + indie + soul + psyche and jazz all rolled up into one – sort of like if the Platinum Pied Pipers were a bunch of hippies from Connecticut. It’s not going to be to everyone’s taste (golden age hip hoppers, for example, might well pan it), but there’s some appeal there, even if it’s a little hard to pin down. That release is out now.

To local touring news, and East Coast DMC champion Rob Swift (X-ecutioners) is rolling through town for an intimate show at Tonic Lounge. A turntablist and producer of the highest order, Swift split from his X-ecutioner buddies in 2005, but has continued to be prolific as a recording artist under his own name. He’s also spent time in the studio with Large Professor, Supernatural, Mike Patton and Linkin Park. It goes down this Friday September 16.

Big Daddy Kane comes to Australia for the first time next month. The Brooklyn emcee was around for the early days of hip hop, rubbing shoulders with the likes

Big Daddy Kane

ON THE ROAD FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 16 Rob Swift (X-ecutioners) Tonic Lounge

SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 17 The Herd + Sietta Metro Theatre

Public Opinion Afro Orchestra Oxford Art Factory Goldie Chinese Laundry

THURSDAY OCTOBER 6 Booker T. Jones Metro Theatre

THURSDAY OCTOBER 13 Electric Empire Upstairs Beresford

SATURDAY OCTOBER 22 Musica Tumbalong Park

Liberators + Afro Nomad The Basement

SATURDAY OCTOBER 29 London Elektricity Arthouse Hotel

FRIDAY DECEMBER 9 Hermitude The Standard Hermitude

of Grandmaster Caz of the Cold Crush Brothers, and he was a member of the Juice Crew with Marley Marl. We’re talking late‘80s B-boy breaks here, folks. Kane will be re-living that era in hip hop, mic in hand, with local supports from Paper Plane Project (live set), Mike Who (hope you caught his triple j mix a couple of weeks back?), Frenzie and Kato. It all happens at Oxford Art Factory on Thursday October 20.

Tan Crackers Soul Club returns to Tonic Lounge on September 24. You’ll hear rarities across the soul/funk/jazz spectrum from DJs Gian Arpino, Alexander Demitriades, Tom Tutton and Mark Kinetic Egan. And on this occasion the crate-diggers are joined by special guest and NY expat Ari Roze, whose production output you’ll find on Mighty Highness records.

This Saturday is a big one across the city: The Herd and Sietta drop bombs at the Metro this Saturday night, both parties behind fresh new albums on the Elefant Traks label. UK DnB figurehead Goldie takes over the Slip Inn for an afternoon Garden Party (3pm-10pm) with support from Reload, Rollers Music and King Lee, which will be rammed. And just to add further flavour to the mix there’s an Afrobeat showcase at the Oxford Art Factory, as Melbourne’s Public Opinion Afro Orchestra fly in for a night of African funk grooves. Really killer bunch of options there – should make for a few sore heads come Sunday morning.

Send stuff for this column to tonyedwards001@gmail.com by 6pm Wednesdays. All pics to art@thebrag.com BRAG :: 429 :: 12:09:11 :: 49

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

club pick of the week Joakim

SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 17

Civic Hotel, Sydney

RA X: Joakim,

Robag Wruhme, Simon Caldwell, and a secret headliner

$30 (+ bf) - $40 (on door) 10pm MONDAY SEPTEMBER 12 Collingwood Hotel, Liverpool Fuego A-Gee, Don Juan, C-Bu, K-Note $10 9pm Gasworks Nightclub, Albion Hotel, Parramatta Nobby Grooves $10 9pm Hotel Chambers, Sydney Mambo Monthly $10 9pm Kinselas Hotel, Darlinghurst House Party Doug James, DJ Marc Us free 10pm Lansdowne Hotel, Chippendale Monday Jam Danny G, Felix, DJay Kohinja free 5pm Middle Bar, Kinselas, Darlinghurst Flavours Trey, Troy T, Mike Champion $20 9pm Scubar. Sydney Crab Racing 7pm The World Bar, Kings Cross Open Mic Jazz 16 Tacos free 7pm

50 :: BRAG :: 429 :: 12:09:11

TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 13 Establishment, Sydney Rumba Motel DJ Willie Sabor and Friends 6pm Scubar, Sydney Backpacker Karaoke 8pm The Trademark Hotel, Kings Cross Coyote Tuesdays free 8pm Vault Nightclub, Scruffy Murphys Frat House DJs free 11pm The World Bar, Kings Cross Pop Panic Chappers, James Lillicot free 8pm

WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 14 Bank Hotel, Newtown Girls’ Night DJ Sandi Hotrod free Beach Palace Hotel, Coogee Palace Uni Night DJs free 9pm

Cargo Lounge, Sydney Menage a Trois 5pm Goodgod Front Bar, Sydney Special Moments free 8pm Home Nightclub, Sydney I Heart Unipackers DJs Ivy, Sydney She Can DJ Final $23.50 5pm Lansdowne Hotel, Chippendale Frat House Friend DJ, Friend of Friend DJ free Marlborough Hotel, Newtown Student Nights DJ Moussa free Scubar, Sydney Schoonerversity 3pm Shelbourne Hotel, Sydney Sincopa free 7pm Theloft, Sydney Piano Man 6pm Tone, Surry Hills Gallery Burlesque DJs $22 7.30pm The World Bar, Kings Cross The Wall Secret International Guest, Glovecats, Pops, Sushi, Ella Locha, Brizz free 7.30pm

THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 15 Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Drop Nick Toth, Bentley free 8pm Cargo Lounge, Sydney Thursday’s I’m In Love! $5 5pm Darlie Laundromatic, Darlinghurst D&D’s Beat Kitchen Dave Fernandez, Dean Dixon 6pm Greenwood Hotel, North Sydney Tenzin, Cadell, Zannon, DJ K-Note free 8pm Ivy, Sydney Ivy Live 5pm Lansdowne Hotel, Chippendale Indie Warhol DJ Skar, Young Romantics, Dali’s Angels free Penrith Panthers Drapht, Muph & Plutonic, Thundamentals, Layla & Dazastah $34.70 (+ bf) 8pm Q Bar, Darlinghurst Hot Damn $12-$15 8pm Scubar, Sydney $5 Everything Thursdays DJs Star Bar, Sydney Thirsty Thursdays 8pm The loft, Sydney Thursdays at Theloft Nad, Stu Turner, Mr Belvedere The World Bar, Kings Cross Propaganda Shag, Urby free (student)–$5 9pm

FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 16 ARQ Sydney DJs free 9pm Arthouse Hotel, Sydney RnB Superclub $20 9.30pm Bank Hotel, Newtown DJ Paul Master free The Bank Nightclub, Kings Cross Addiction 9pm Beach Palace Hotel, Coogee Aqua Friday 6pm The Burdekin, Darlinghurst DJs 9pm Candys Apartment, Kings Cross Liquid Sky Pretty Young Things, Stressless, Webs, Nightmare, Hoodlmz, Karma Coma, Worimi 8pm Cargo Lounge, Sydney Good Fridays Rogers Room, Ember, Bangers N’ Mash, Kid Crookes, Docey Doe 5pm Chinese Laundry, Sydney Funktrust DJs, Def Tonez, Mike Big FX, Kit Kut, Steve P, Fernatik $15-$20 10pm

Sietta

Cohibar DJ Jeddy Rowland, DJ Mike Silver free Enmore Theatre Drapht, Muph & Plutonic, Thundamentals, Layla & Dazastah $32.20 (+ bf) 8pm Goodgod Small Club, Sydney Mike Simonetti (USA), Andy Webb, Steele Bonus $20 10pm Greenwood Hotel, North Sydney DJ Cadell 5pm Gypsy Lounge, Darlinghurst Warp Speed Various DJs 9pm Home Nightclub, Sydney Sublime DJs Hotel Chambers, Sydney Jump Jive & Wail Limpin’ Jimmy & the Swingin’ Kitten free 9pm Hugo’s Lounge, Kings Cross Rat Pack Bambalam free (member) 8pm Jacksons On George, Sydney Mexican Independence Day Party Resident DJ’s free Kit & Kaboodle Supper Club, Kings Cross Falcona Fridays Falcona Agency DJs Marlborough Hotel, Newtown Resident DJ’s free Nevada Lounge, Darlinghurst DJ Hayden free 6pm Oatley Hotel We Love Oatley Hotel Fridays DJ Tone free 9pm Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst Friday I’m In Love Late Night DJs free 12am Pontoon, Sydney DJ Nic Philips free 9pm Q Bar, Darlinghurst Hellfire DJ Jay, Sveta, Jack Shit, DJ Tokoloshe, Karl Anderson $25 9.30pm The Ranch Hotel, Eastwood Mis-Conception Day Party Tenzin, Goodwill, G-Wizard, Joey Kaz, Troy T, Black Diamond, Hearts, Ajay free 10am Scubar, Sydney Jagermeister Fridays DJs Shark Hotel, Sydney Pulse8 Jono, Guest DJs free Shelbourne Hotel, Sydney Mixtape free 6pm Space, Sydney Zaia Savvy, Edo, D’Kutz, Em-Tee, Ming, Ace, Flipz, DJ Sefu, MC Suga Shane, Arbee, Suae, Pulsar, Askitz, Jinkang vs Tezzr vs Rhe3, MC D 9.45pm

St James Hotel, Sydney Club Blink DJs 9.30pm Theloft, Sydney Live at Theloft Grover 6pm Tonic Lounge, Kings Cross DJ Rob Swift, Mike Who $15 Trademark Hotel, Kings Cross Eve 9pm Vault Nightclub, Scruffy Murphys DJs free 11pm The Watershed Hotel Bring On The Weekend!

Mudrckets free The World Bar, Kings Cross MUM North East Party House, I Know Leopard, Surprise Wasp, Bloods, Bud Petal, Dumbsaint, Alps, MUM DJs $10-$15 8pm

SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 17 Annandale Hotel Crotchet Crooks, Jackie Onassis, Macnaught, The Faults, Bark One, Madame Wu, Filthy Creatures $10 (+ bf) 7pm ARQ Sydney Dance Dance Dance $15$25 9pm Arthouse Hotel, Sydney AN21 & Max Vangeli $25-$30 (+ bf) 9.30pm Artichoke Gallery Cafe, Manly iPod Music Ric’s Mix free 7.30pm Bank Hotel, Newtown Beth Yen, D*Funk free The Burdekin, Darlinghurst DJs 9pm Candys Apartment, Kings Cross Big Guns Disco Volante, Zomg! Kittens!, 2Busy 2Kiss, Dirty Cutlery, Sherlock Bones 8pm Cargo Bar, Sydney The Institute of Music DJs Chinese Laundry, Sydney Garden Party Goldie (UK), Reload, Rollers Music, King Lee $35 (+ bf) 3pm Chinese Laundry, Sydney Groove Terminator, Brown Bear, Jared De Veer, Chris Arnott, Faf, Robbie Cordukes, Jake Hough, Sam Roberts, Samrai, Mike Hyper, A-Tonez $20-$25 10pm Civic Hotel, Sydney RA X 6 Joakim, Robag Wruhme, Simon Caldwell Cohibar Yellow Sox Indie Night DJ Brynstar, Mudrockets free Goodgod Small Club, Sydney Ro Sham Bo Retirement Party!

Home Nightclub, Sydney Homemade Saturdays DJs Hugo’s Lounge, Kings Cross Saturday Night 8pm Ivy, Sydney Pure Ivy Saturdays Sam La More, Cadell, Robbie Santiago, Liam Sampras $20 6pm Jacksons On George, Sydney Ultimate Party Venue Resident DJ’s free Kit & Kaboodle Supper Club, Kings Cross Kitty Kitty Bang Bang Kristy Lee, Liz Bird, Miss Gabby, Cassette (NZ), DJ Playmate 8pm Marlborough Hotel, Newtown Resident DJ’s free Metro Theatre, Sydney The Future Shade Tour The Herd, Sietta $28.60 (+ bf) 8pm Nevada Lounge, Darlinghurst DJ Hayden free 6pm Pontoon, Sydney DJ Phil English, Nobby Grooves free-$10 8pm Q Bar, Darlinghurst Girlthing’s 3rd Birthday Party Ben Lucid, Cunningpants,

club guide

club picks up all night out all week...

send your listings to : clubguide@thebrag.com Sweet Distortion, Nugget $15 9pm Scubar, Sydney Every Saturday DJs 3pm Shark Hotel, Sydney Pulse8 Jono, Guest DJs free Shelbourne Hotel, Sydney MJ, Drew Mercer free–$10 9pm Space, Sydney Masif Saturdays Toneshifterz, Bloweapon, Steve Hill, Suae, Pulsar, Nik Fish, Amber Savage, Arbee, Hardforze, Peewee, Matrix, Xdream, Cadell, Charlie Brown, Tony Shock, VLN, Mike Hyper, Tezzr, Joey V 10pm The Standard, Darlinghurst Changing Lanes Festival Afterparty Pluto Jonze, Myth & Tropics, Alison Wonderland, Joyride, F.R.I.E.N.D.S 8pm St James Hotel, Sydney SFX DJs 9pm Sydney International Regatta Centre, Castlereagh DefQon.1 Glove Cats, Max Gosford, Filth Collins, Auto Claws, Ben Collins, Beans, Swindle, QPill, Derail, Pop The Hatch, Harmonik, Tommy Four Seven, MSG, Ritchie Jay, Matt Aubusson, Azza, Marcotix, Kierra Jade, Abuse, Substance (NZ), Dyllan Griffin, Alex Up, endymon, Tommyknocker (Italy), Catscan, The Viper, Kasparov, Decipher, Shinra, Spellbound, Antrax, Juggernaut, Convict, The Saint, Vanth, Spiral, MCD, Dillytek DJs, Nathan Bennett, Deeplex, Kazuki, Alterior Motivz, Vazard, Delete, GMT, Eddy Virgin, HSB, Kraver, Coona, Germ,

Nik Import, Kid Finley, Ar-bee, Miss Platinum, Nasty, Noisecontollers (Netherlands), Technology N Tuneboy, The Prophet (Netherlands), Brennan Heart (Netherlands), DJ Zany (Netherlands), Nitrouz, Toneshifterz, Karpe-DM, Josh Lang, Alex Kidd (UK), Shock:Force, Wragg, Fausto, Matrix, Steve Hill, Cantosis, Arbor, Nomad, Hard Forze, X Dream (Germany), Micky D, DJ Cryptic, VLN, Bexta, Dexi, F&E, Friends & Enamiez, Losty, Technoboy, DJ Zany (Netherlands), Crypsis, Ran-D, The Tuneboyz, Nik Fish, Audio Damage, Luke Spellbound, Suae, Pulsar, Toxic, Horror, DJ Hektic, S Dee, Shallow Nation, Requ13m, Bad Pauly, Vaein, Studio-X $135 (+ bf)–$210 11am Theloft, Sydney Late at Theloft Mike Who, Disc Jockey Hansom, Devola, Murray Lake free Tone, Surry Hills Guti, Robbie Lowe, Javi Sampol, Jaded & James Petrou, Garth Linton $20 (presale)-$30 9pm Trademark Hotel, Kings Cross Voyeur Discokid, Charlie Brown, Phil Lake, Six Fingers Vault Nightclub, Scruffy Murphys DJs free 11pm The Watershed Hotel Watershed Presents…

Skybar The World Bar, Kings Cross Wham! Nick Thayer, Wax Motif, James Taylor, Adam Bozzetto, E-Cats, Astrix,

Mattt, Mat Formosa, Adam Ance, Richie Carter, T-Bo, Bentley, Daigo, Say Whut?! $15-$20 9pm

Nick Toth

SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 18 ARQ Sydney Amazonia 9pm Bank Hotel, Newtown DJ Kitty Glitter free Cargo Lounge, Sydney Stick It In 3pm Fake Club, Kings Cross Spice Simon Baker, Murat Kilic $20 4am FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel Himan (France), Frames, Adrian Gidaro free 12am Hugo’s Lounge, Kings Cross Sneaky Sundays Resident and Guest DJs 8pm Jacksons On George, Sydney Aphrodisiac Resident DJ’s free Kit & Kaboodle Supper Club, Kings Cross Easy Sundays Stu Turner, NAD, Mr Belvedere, Murray Lake, Pat Ward 6pm Oatley Hotel Sunday Sessions DJ Tone free 7pm Scubar, Sydney Sundays at Scubar 3pm Star Bar, Sydney Star Sundays 7pm The Watershed Hotel Afternoon DJ’s Mudrockets free The World Bar, Kings Cross Dust James Taylor, Alley Oop! 8pm

L2 Kings Cross Hotel

The World Bar, Kings Cross Propaganda Urby, Chappers, Dan Bombings, Teen Spirit DJs free (student)–$5 9pm

FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 16

WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 14 The World Bar, Kings Cross The Wall Secret International Guest, Glovecats, Pops, Sushi, Ella Locha, Brizz free 7.30pm Ivy, Sydney She Can DJ Final Alison Wonderland (Sydney), Amber Savage (Sydney), Claire Morgan (Sydney), Dj Femme (Melbourne), Gabby (Sydney), Helena (Sydney), Leah Mencel (Adelaide), Minx (Sydney), Rachel Andrews (Melbourne) and Sarah Robertson (Gold Coast) $23.50 5pm

THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 15 Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Drop Nick Toth, Bentley free 8pm

Metro Theatre, Sydney The Herd, Sietta $28.60 (+ bf) 8pm The Standard, Darlinghurst Changing Lanes Festival Afterparty Pluto Jonze, Myth & Tropics, Alison Wonderland, Joyride, F.R.I.E.N.D.S 8pm

Enmore Theatre Drapht, Muph & Plutonic, Thundamentals, Layla & Dazastah $32.20 (+ bf) 8pm

Tone, Surry Hills Guti, Robbie Lowe, Javi Sampol, Jaded & James Petrou, Garth Linton $20 (presale)-$30 9pm

Goodgod Small Club, Sydney Mike Simonetti (USA), Andy Webb, Steele Bonus $20 10pm

SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 18

The Ranch Hotel, Eastwood Mis-Conception Day Party Tenzin, Goodwill, G-Wizard, Joey Kaz, Troy T, Black Diamond Hearts, Ajay free 10am

The Spice Cellar, Sydney Spice Simon Baker, Murat Kilic $20 4am Drapht

SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 17 Chinese Laundry, Sydney Garden Party Goldie (UK), Reload, Rollers Music, King Lee $35 (+ bf) 3pm Goodgod Small Club, Sydney Ro Sham Bo Retirement Party! Ro Sham Bo free 10pm

www.fbisocial.com

Wednesday 14 Sept

Thursday 15 Sept

OUTSPOKEN #10

Rope’s End

8pm $20

8pm $12 door $11.25 oztix

6pm FREE

8pm $11.25 oztix

Shane Koyczan

featuring

‘Captured’

Ming Kings

Screening Night

+

(Canadian Slam Champion)

Ken Arkind (USA) Jive Poetic (USA) Randall Stephens (Vic) Alia Gabres (Vic) Alana Hicks (Syd) Visuals: Optic Soup DJ: RR Diner

The Delta Riggs +

Myth and Tropics +

The Go Roll Your Bones

Friday 16 Sept

Saturday 17 Sept

The Joe Kings

Six Sydney filmmakers have been paired with six Sydney based musicians/bands to shine a digital spotlight on the Sydney music scene. +

+

Lime Cordiale

Thieves

Bon Chat Bon Rat

+ Live to air broadcast!

Montpellier (Bne) Late Night Saturday Midnight - 3am

Himan (Fra) +

Frames +

Adrian Gidaro BRAG :: 429 :: 12:09:11 :: 51

snap snap

wham!

PICS :: NT

upall allnight nightout outall allweek week...... up

hot damn

PICS :: SW

03:09:11 :: World Bar :: 24 Bayswater Rd Kings Cross 93577700

the wall

PICS :: NT

01:09:11 :: Spectrum :: 34 Oxford St Darlinghurst 93316245

31:08:11 :: World Bar :: 24 Bayswater Rd Kings Cross 93577700

02:09:11 :: World Bar :: 24 Bayswater Rd Kings Cross 93577700

It’s called: The Public Opinion Afro Orchestra It sounds like: Fela Kuti jamming with Jay-Z Acts: The Public Opinion Afro Orchestra, The

Liberators, DJ Gian Arpino Three songs you’ll hear on the night: ‘Mr Clean’ (the new single); ‘Future Africa’ (single from last year); ‘Open and Close ’ (our one Fela Kuti cover) And one you definitely won’t: ‘The Lion Sleep s Tonight’ Sell it to us: The Public Opinion Afro Orche stra bring some more hard-hitting Afro-funk to the dancefloors of Australia and beyon ‘Mr Clean’ (out in September through HopeStreet d with their new release being released on 7” vinyl, and follows up from Recordings). This track is the ARIA-nominated album Do Anything Go Anywhere and the sold-out 12” featuring South African rapper Tumi.

The bit we’ll remember in the AM: Powerful music, lyrics and dance from a massive 17-piece band. You’ll especially remem ber the dancing…

Crowd specs: Bring your dancing shoes!

Wallet damage: $25 Where: Hotel Gearin (Katoomba), Oxford Art Factory (Sydney) When: Friday September 16 (Katoomba), Saturd ay September 17 (Sydney)

the exchange hotel

PICS :: CG

strike 02:09:11 :: The Exchange Hotel :: 34-44 Oxford St, Darlinghurst 93601375 52 :: BRAG :: 429: 12:09:11

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mum

party profile

public opinion afro orchestra

31:08:11 :: Strike Bowling :: 122 Lang Road Moore Park 1300 787 453 :: KATRINA CLARKE S : TIM LEVY (HEAD HONCHO) OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHER CHY :: GEORGE POPOV :: PEA MAS THO :: NS :: DANIEL MUN :: CAI GRIFFIN :: ASHLEY MAR NATHAN TITO

BUY A DRINK… BOWL FOR FREE $6 MINIMUM SPEND. CONDITIONS APPLY. PLEASE SEE WEBSITE FOR DETAILS.

ALL DAY SUNDAYS AT STRIKE KING STREET WHARF, DARLING HARBOUR MONDAYS FROM 5PM AT STRIKE CHATSWOOD MONDAYS FROM 5PM AT STRIKE ENTERTAINMENT QUARTER, MOORE PARK FIND US ON

BRAG :: 429 :: 12:09:11 :: 53

snap

cube

PICS :: KC

upall allnight nightout outall allweek week...... up

03:09:11 :: Forbes Hotel :: 30 York St Sydney 92993703

mike simonetti

PICS :: NT

propaganda

rabbit hole

It’s called: Picnic presents Mike Simonetti (Italians Do It Better [US]) It sounds like: The seas parting? The Secon d Coming? A very good idea? It also may bear a sonic and physical resemblance to the best party you’ve ever been to, in, like, forever.

Acts: Mike Simonetti, head dude of Italians Do It Better, NY (though Mike is from New Jersey and he’s very proud of that!), Andy Webb and Steele Bonus Three songs you’ll hear on the night: War –‘Galaxy’; The Backwoods – ‘Breakthrough’; Sylvia Love – ‘Extraterrestrial Lover’ And one you definitely won’t: John Cage –‘4’33”’ Sell it to us: What about if we work with the universal unease of feeling like you’re missing out if you don’t come ? Yes, let’s work with that…

The bit we’ll remember in the AM: Happy thoughts. All the other kind will be long gone!

Crowd specs: You, me, and everyone we like.

Wallet damage: $20 presale through reside ntadvisor.net; more on the door. Let your wallet do the thinking!

Where: GoodGod Small Club, 55 Liverpool St, Sydney When: Friday September 16

PICS :: GP

party profile

01:09:11 :: World Bar :: 24 Bayswater Rd Kings Cross 93577700

nick warren

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03:09:11 :: Tone :: 116 Wentworth Ave Surry Hills 9267 6440

mark instinct

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03:09:11 :: Chinese Laundry :: 111 Sussex St Sydney 82959958

theophilus london

PICS :: AM

02:09:11 :: Chinese Laundry :: 111 Sussex St Sydney 82959958

31:08:11 :: Oxford Art Factory :: 38-46 Oxford St, Darlinghurst 93323711 54 :: BRAG :: 429: 12:09:11

:: KATRINA CLARKE S : TIM LEVY (HEAD HONCHO) OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHER CHY :: GEORGE POPOV :: PEA MAS THO :: NS :: DANIEL MUN :: CAI GRIFFIN :: ASHLEY MAR NATHAN TITO