Inpress Issue #1152 by TheMusic.com.au

V I C T O R I A’ S 2 N D H I G H E S T C I R C U L AT I N G S T R E E T P R E S S BY 110 C O P I E S

BIFFY CLYRO

INTERPOL MELBOURNE SYDNEY BRISBANE

GIRLS

DESCENDENTS

THE S W O R D BR OA D C A S T EL G U I NC H O GWA R

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JAZZ CITY

THU 9 DECEMBER 5.30pm Free in the Front Bar

MAGIC MOUNTAIN 8.30pm $7 Entry (Band Room) BAND FRI 10 DECEMBER

BLACK SWANS OF TRESPASS

6pm Free in the Front Bar

THE SALLY ISAAC MEMORIAL FUNDRAISER WITH CHICKS 8.30pm $10 Entry (Band Room) WITH PICKS SAT 11 DECEMBER

RONIT GRANOT

4.30pm Free in the Front Bar

GINGER AND TONIC + BLUE NOTION 8.30pm $10 Entry (Band Room)

GOYIM

SUN 12 DECEMBER 4pm Free in the Front Bar

MIX IT UP; CHLOE TWOIG, MELISSA MAIN + HOLLY KIRBY 7pm $10 Entry (Band Room)

Open...MON - THU...from 4pm ‘til late FRI...from 2pm ‘til late SAT - SUN...from 12pm ‘til late

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ISSUE 1152

No.109

WEDNESDAY 8 DECEMBER 2010

BRUNSWICK

Thurs 9 December

Stephen Cummings (Solo) Rockabilly, honkytonk & Chicago blues 7.30pm

GWAR

INPRESS 18 20 20 22 26 27 28 30 32 34 36 40 41 42 42 44

Who’s playing what with Charts; the week’s best and worst in Backlash/Frontlash The Front Line brings you the hottest industry news In The Studio keeps you turned on to your fave band’s movements Foreword Line brings you all the latest tour announcements Those Darlins are garage country punks Meredith Music Festival co-organiser Matt High reflects on the event’s 20-year history Broadcast find working with drummers expensive Interpol discuss the departure of bassist Carlos Dengler Biffy Clyro are ready to make Australia their bitch Descendents are the musical equivalent of Revenge Of The Nerds On The Record rates new releases from Rihanna, The Baseballs and Duffy Metallica just call The Sword when they need a support band Gwar are still on Earth because of the crack cocaine El Guincho thinks all music has a global quality Girls like any music that’s good Monster Magnet’s latest is a return to form

FRONT ROW 46 46 48 48 50 50 51

53 53

56 58 59 59 60 60 60 60 61 62 63 63 74

74 75 75 78 79 80 86 90

Arrested Development re-found fame through reality TV Local Natives just wanna sleep in their own beds Björk liked Robyn’s cover of Hyperballad Peter Combe is still entertaining kids – and their parents Blackeyed Susans want a new gig tradition for Christmas The Field is an old Hard-Ons fan The Resignators are more popular O/S than in Australia Holliava ain’t no Jack Johnson-style hippies Plan your Meredith with full playing times Our LIVE gives you the best of the week’s live music! Gig Of The Week can’t wait for Gorillaz LIVE:Reviews parties with Reel Big Fish Sarah Petchell will Wake The Dead with her punk and hardcore talk Andrew Haug takes us to the dark side in The Racket Kendal Coombs leads the under-18s boardroom in the Department Of Youth Pop culture happenings in The Breakdown Dan Condon blues and roots in Roots Down If you haven’t appeared in Fred Negro’s Pub, your mother probably still speaks to you Jeff Jenkins gets down and local in Howzat! Our Gig Guide fills your diary for the weekend Gear and studio reviews in BTL Find your new band and just about anything else in our classy Classifieds

ADVERTISING sales@inpress.com.au National Sales & Marketing Director Leigh Treweek Victorian Sales Manager Katie Owen Senior Account Executive Nick Lynagh Bands & local advertising Dean Noble Arts, dance & fashion advertising Connie Filidis Sales assistant Kobi Simpson

DESIGN & LAYOUT artroom@inpress.com.au Group Art Director Stuart Teague Inpress Cover Design / Art Direction Matt Greenwood Layout Matt Davis, Matt Greenwood, Stuart Teague

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CONTRIBUTORS Senior Contributors Clem Bastow, Jeff Jenkins Overseas Contributors Tom Hawking (US), James McGalliard (UK), Sasha Perera (UK). Writers Nick Argyriou, The Boomeister, Atticus Bastow, Steve Bell, Alice Body, Tim Burke, Luke Carter, Dan Condon, Anthony Carew, EJ Cartledge, Chris Chinchilla, Jake Cleland, Rebecca Cook, Kendal Coombs, Adam Curley, Cyclone, Guy Davis, Carolyn Dempsey, Liza Dezfouli, Lizzie Dynon, John Eagle, Guido Farnell, Sam Fell, Bob Baker Fish, Robert Gascoigne, Cameron Grace, Stu Harvey, Andrew Haug, Andy Hazel, Andrew Hickey, Joey Lightbulb, Michael Magnusson, Baz McAlister, Keith McDougall, Sam McDougall, Tony McMahon, Count Monbulge, Luke Monks, Fred Negro, Mark Neilsen,

Fingerbone Bill (CD Launch) Bluegrass, ol’ time, hokum blues 8.30pm

Roger Nelson, Danielle O’Donohue, Matt O’Neill, James Parker, Adam Psarras, Josh Ramselaar, Paul Ransom, Leonie Richman, Symon JJ Rock, Antonios Sarhanis, Ingrid Sjolund, Dylan Stewart, Nic Toupee, Rob Townsend, Danielle Trabsky, Dominique Wall, Doug Wallen, Jeremy Williams.

PHOTOGRAPHERS Senior Contributor Kane Hibberd Jesse Booher, Chrissie Francis, Kate Griffin, Andrew Gyopar, Lou Lou Nutt, Gina Maher, James Morgan, Heidi Takla, Nathan Uren.

INTERNS Andrea Biagini

EDITORIAL POLICY The opinions expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the publishers. No part may be reproduced without the consent of the copyright holder. By submitting letters to us for publication, you agree that we may edit the letter for legal, space or other reasons. ©

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Sun 12 December

Hogbelly Morton’s Country Revue Country supergroup plays its end-of-year revue 5pm

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Wed 8. 7:30pm KONVENT screening

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Sarah Carroll, Rusty Rich & Suzannah Espie 5pm

BACK TO INPRESS

This Week In Arts lists the dates that should be in your diary James Blundell and Dave Larkin discuss the ultimate rock’n’roll jam session Riz Ahmed discusses the Chris Morris terrorist satire Four Lions The Menstruum ponders the architectural photography of Luminous Cities Fragmented Fish dives into the world of Tim And Eric Musical director Lee Morgan finds himself in the Lost And Found office Brendan Small celebrates the third season of Metalocalypse being released on DVD

Group Managing Editor Andrew Mast Editor Shane O’Donohue music@inpress.com.au Front Row Editor Daniel Crichton-Rouse frontrow@inpress.com.au Contributing Editor Adam Curley Staff Writers Bryget Chrisfield, Michael Smith

Cultural Cringe dissects the 2011 Melbourne International Comedy Festival Front Row looks at the 2011 French Film Festival programme announcement Film Carew weighs in on Lebanon and Desert Flower We reveal the full first line-up for next year’s Comedy Festival

Sat 11 December

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Thu 9. 6pm Academy of Interactive Entertainment Screenings 9pm MOOD Fri 10. 10pm Grindhouse DJ's Ajax & Lux indie disco cyber gothica GOGO Sat 11. 5pm TRI Duo New Media Performance 11pm Pitch(B):tch Dj's Mo Ichi, Miyagi & Pixelton tough dirty techno Visuals by JemTheMisfit Mon 13 & Tue 14. 7:30pm Footscray City Films Screenings Wed 15. 7pm Northland Design Book Launch

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ON THE STEREO We Mix You Dance Vol 2: Mixed By Purple Sneakers DJs VARIOUS ARTISTS Defiant Nature PURDY Kiss Each Other Clean IRON & WINE Valhalla Dancehall BRITISH SEA POWER Grouplove GROUPLOVE Thunderwing MARC BOLAN & T-REX Mayday JJ SYMON & THE MONOCHROMES Deviant Nature PURDY Betty Blokk Buster Follies REG LIVERMORE Bitches Brew MILES DAVIS

3RRR SOUNDSCAPE Sleep Forever CROCODILES Africa For Africa FEMI KUTI & THE POSITIVE FORCE Brownswood Bubblers 6 VARIOUS ARTISTS The Four Seasons Project BIG SCARY Tango 3.0 Remix EP GOTAN PROJECT Get It Together SOLA ROSA Play All Night NIC DALTON & HIS GLOOMCHASERS Flossanova DUB DENTIST Warriors With Wild Hearts CAITLIN PARK

3PBS TIPSHEET The Bare Bones Session ABBIE CARDWELL & HER LEADING MEN Rockin’ In The Jungle: 1950s American Jungle Songs VARIOUS ARTISTS Defiant Nature PURDY International Rudeboy LOTEK Make A Change MADDSLINKY Kris Needs Presents Dirty Water: The Birth Of Punk Attitude VARIOUS ARTISTS Black Dub BLACK DUB Brownswood Bubblers Six VARIOUS ARTISTS Africa For Africa FEMI KUTI Artefacts Of Australian Experimental Music Volume II VARIOUS ARTISTS

SYN TOP 10 Jesus Came To My Birthday Party THE MIDDLE EAST Say Goodbye THE GREENHORNES Six Gun Johnny MONEY FOR ROPE Walking Far From Home IRON & WINE You’re A Animal JONATHAN BOULET Tangled In This Trampled Wheat THE TALLEST MAN ON EARTH Reverse Now BETTY AIRS Christmas Wrapping The Waitresses SUMMER CAMP The Latke ASHMATIX Marathon TENNIS

GIVEAWAYS There’s no bigger gig in town this weekend than Gorillaz’ inaugural Melbourne performance at Rod Laver Arena on Saturday. Not only is it our Gig Of The Week (check out page 63 for more details), we’re happily driving back from Meredith Saturday evening to catch 2D, Murdoc and the crew in all their glory. To celebrate we’ve got a huge Gorillaz prize pack to give away, containing a double pass to the show and copies of the Gorillaz and Demon Days CDs, the Plastic Beach CD/DVD and Demon Days Live and Bananaz DVDs. It has been a spectacular year for WA soulstress Mama Kin. Following the release of her debut album Beat And Holler, international dates with Gurrumul and the John Butler Trio, not to mention a rollicking nationwide tour with The Cat Empire, the femme fatale of foot-stomping, swampy soul is capping off 2010 with her very own national headline tour. Mama Kin plays the Toff In Town on Saturday – we have three double passes to the show to give away. Melbourne’s indie pop darlings The Little Stevies have returned to Oz with a new album in their pocket and are set to celebrate their homecoming at the Northcote Social Club on Saturday 18 December. We’re giving

FRONTLASH Jon Spencer

BLUES ARE #1 The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion have just announced a second Melbourne show – Espy, Friday 14 January. Presented by us!

BBC-BOMB In the best live-to-air blooper we’ve heard in a long time, British radio announcer James Naughtie this week transposed the ‘C’ and ‘H’ when introducing Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt. Another DJ on the same station, when discussing the incident, did the same thing an hour later.

GREEN DOOR KIDS At last, decent kids’ music. Following Holly Throsby’s new children’s record See, hipster Scottish team Optimo have let kids loose in the studio to cover underground classics like ESG’s Moody, Cramps’ The Way I Walk and The Stooges’ I Wanna Be Your Dog.

BACKLASH

WE IZ IDIOTS We omitted a credit for photographer Stephanie Bailly for her splashy shot of My Disco on the cover of Inpress (Wed 24 November). The culprit has been drowned.

RUBY STRIPS FOR FHM We weren’t terribly surprised to read Ruby Rose has taken her kit off for lads’ mag FHM – what had us puzzled was The Age claiming the shoot “has shattered all the rules for the lads’ mag”.

GILLARD TAKES A LEAK As the world hysterically makes WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange the most wanted person in the world, our PM embarrassed herself during a media doorstop. When asked what laws Assange had broken, Gillard choked.

Email giveaways@inpress.com.au from 5pm Wednesday three lucky readers the chance to win a double pass to get along to check out their three-part harmonies, heartfelt lyrics and unpredictable onstage banter as they showcase new tracks from their forthcoming second album. Following the release last year of Laughin’ And Cryin’ – a record full of country-heavy tunes about bad habits, well-meaning but clueless husbands, ever-expanding beer-guts and, well, Texas – Reverend Horton Heat returns to Australia to play the Meredith Music Festival this weekend. While Rev and his band are here they also play the Espy’s Gershwin Room on Tuesday 14 December and Billboard on Friday 17 December. We have three double passes to the Espy show to give away. Each double pass also comes with a CD. Signed to the iconic Warp label, Broadcast this week bring their psychedelic brand of electronica to Australia for the very first time. Flying Lotus, Grizzly Bear, Atlas Sound and Danger Mouse rank amongst their fans, and the group were handpicked by Simpsons creator Matt Groening for this year’s All Tomorrow’s Parties event in England. They play the Hi-Fi this Thursday – we have two double passes to give away.

WORD UP TO PRIZE WINNERS: Prizes must be collected from Inpress offices during business hours (9am-5.30pm, Mon-Fri). ID is required when collecting prizes. Prizes must be collected within four weeks of the giveaway being published. Please note, Inpress giveaway policy is that winners are permitted one prize per four-week period only.

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THE

FRONTLINE

IN THE STUDIO WITH BRYGET CHRISFIELD

HERE COMES THE FUZZ

Mark Ronson’s Midas touch in the producer’s chair means his services are in constant high demand. Lately the hipster DJ/producer/musician has been holed up in MetroSonic Recording Studios in Brooklyn, NY with Black Lips producing the follow-up to their 200 Million Thousand album, which is scheduled for release early next year. In a video interview on rollingstone.com, Ronson made it clear that he would not be polishing the shit out of the Atlanta quartet’s sound. “I was excited to work on this record ‘cause, for me, I have a tendency sometimes to, like, get obsessive over certain sounds and make everything a bit pristine and I knew that that didn’t really have a place in this project,” he shared. “I was already a fan of the Black Lips coming into it and I didn’t wana fuck up anything that I liked about what they do, you know, their sound and the lo-fi garageness of it. It wasn’t like I was coming in and it was like [slaps his palms together numerous times], ‘Here, I’m gonna clean up the Black Lips!’” The unusual nature of this creative pairing wasn’t lost on the band’s bassist/ vocalist, Jared Swilley, who told Pitchfork of the dapper producer, “He was really into the fuzz tone… It seems like we wouldn’t have a lot in common, but there’s no radical departure from anything,” Swilley stressed. “He just interjected other ideas that we hadn’t really tried. He’s working out different drum sounds or using microphones that we haven’t used before. So it’s been an interesting process… He knows a lot of people that are really good musicians, so it was pretty fun to just have those options.” Ronson released his latest Record Collection offering in September and is set to bring his Mark Ronson & The Business Intl show to our shores as part of the Future Music Festival line-up next March.

FINAL STROKES

We’ve been excited about a follow-up to The Strokes’ 2006 set, First Impressions Of Earth, since news hit that the New York quintet had returned to the studio back in February. A post on the band’s website announced, “This marks their fourth studio LP, working with Grammy award-winning producer Joe Chiccarelli and Grammy awardwinning engineer Gus Oberg in NYC.” Speaking to Rolling Stone recently, the band’s guitarist, Albert Hammond Jnr, detailed of the forthcoming, as-yetuntitled set: “I’m positive that [fans] will be as excited as we are [about it]. We’re all really excited to be stepping into the next chapter. We spent the last six months recording in my studio upstate and we are beyond thrilled with the ten songs we have for this record.” Hammond Jnr’s studio, together with a farm house, is on ten acres of land about 90 miles northwest of Manhattan and it appears the band scrapped material from earlier sessions in favour of producing the tracks themselves (with help from Oberg). If Hammond Jnr says he is “beyond thrilled” with the finished tracks, which are now at mixing stage, our anticipation just exploded.

STRAY IMPALA

After winning the 2010 J Award last week for their debut Innerspeaker set, Perth psychedelic rockers Tame Impala have experienced a hiccup with the early demos for album number two. “I had all these demos, half of the new album, on my iPod, and I’ve got a hole in my bag and it fell out somewhere between Amsterdam and London,” Tame Impala mastermind and frontman Kevin Parker told Triple J. “So I’ve been really freaked out recently that the album’s just going to turn up on YouTube, half finished… Or that it’s just going to come out under some other Dutch band name… So you could begin to hear anything between now and 2011!” Tame Impala were head-hunted by Foo Fighters who requested the band as one of the supports for their massive shows to be held at Milton Keynes Bowl on 2 and 3 July 2011, so hopefully album number two will be ready to sell at that merch tent.

WK FRM HTRK

Melbourne-born, London-based band HTRK played a gig in London in late November to showcase material from their forthcoming album, reportedly titled WORK (work, work). Vocalist Jonnine Standish and guitarist Nigel Yang have become a two-piece after the sad passing of their bassist Sean Stewart in March this year. The presser for the gig, which took place at ICA in London, read: “the HTRK project enters tech-noir terrain compared to previous slow noise audio landscapes.” New York-based artist Conrad Ventur was also on board to design an accompanying installation for the performance. WORK (work, work) comprises 11 tracks with Stewart’s bass parts recorded prior to his death and will be released in 2011 through UK label Blast First Petite. Head to htrk.tumblr.com for some teaser clips with accompanying sounds from the upcoming release.

INDUSTRY NEWS BY SCOTT FITZSIMONS Seabellies’ Melbourne residency ends on a sour note

XMAS CHARGERS

Looking increasingly like the hot present for Christmas this year, P!nk has remained at the top of the album charts for another week with her best of Greatest Hits… So Far, which is currently two-times platinum. Comedy duo Hamish & Andy debuted in sixth with their new record Celebrating 50 Glorious Years released in time for Christmas, whilst The Black Eyed Peas’ The Beginning debuted in ninth – their single The Time (Dirty Bit) returning to the top of the singles chart. Kanye West’s ridiculously acclaimed My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy dropped to 12 in its second week, yet to achieve certification. It has topped America’s Billboard chart though, ahead of Nicki Minaj’s Pink Friday, her career set to launch on the back of her appearances on West’s record. Meanwhile, Short Stack’s This Is Bat Country has been certified gold.

THE VAMPIRE STRIKES BACK The saga surrounding Vampire Weekend’s album cover for Contra has started again, with the band issuing a lawsuit to photographer Tod Brody over the Polaroid portrait shot he supplied the band for their album cover. The band are being sued by Ann Kirsten Kennis, the model on the cover, for $US2 million as she claims she never gave permission for the image to be used. Brody reportedly produced a signed release from Kennis, but she claims Brody didn’t even take the photo. The lawsuit’s unique because while they usually have to be issued in person, but neither the band nor the courts can locate Brody. On his website, Brody has written that he has no comments to make but states, “Ms Kennis’ dismissal of Polaroid and Polaroid film as something reserved for family snapshots indicates a total lack of understanding of the use of Polaroid in the creative community… [the] claim that the photo ‘isn’t a modelling photo, it’s a Polaroid so it must be a family photo taken by her mother,’ is blatantly false and totally ridiculous.” It is unclear what the copyright laws in regards to Polaroid casting shots – prominent during the pre-digital era – exactly are. The summons was issued by email and Brody is obliged to respond by early 2011.

SEABELLIES ATTACKED IN BRUNNIE ST

FRESHLY INKED Experimental project Axxonn has signed with new UK label Arlen, which has sealed distribution deals across Europe and America for their album Let’s Get It Straight. Reportedly the deal comes after Axxonn played a show in London late last year that was attended by scouts. Melbourne act Pets With Pets have signed with Sensory Projects to release their debut album Aquatic – Pixie – Acid early next year. Fashion retail store General Pants Co’s record label Major Label has announced it’s December signings – Sydney’s Kite Club, Perth’s Felicity Groom and New South Wales’ South Coast based The Bungalows. The single label now has 15 tracks from 15 emerging acts in their catalogue. Gossling – AKA Helen Croome – has signed with Native Tongue Music Publishing, her latest EP Until Then, recently. Denver’s Tennis have singed to Spunk, the duo’s debut record Cape Dory to get an Australian release in January.

MOVERS AND SHAKERS Tom Larnach-Jones is leaving his post as the entertainment booked for Melbourne’s Toff In Town venue after almost four years in the position. Finishing in January, Emily Ulman – entertainment booked and publicist for St Kilda’s Prince Bandroom – will take up his role. Alicia Massey has joined Sydney touring, booking, distribution and management agency Troubadour. Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O have renewed they deal with the Today Network for three years, with 2011 set to be the 11th year for the highly successful breakfast radio duo.

INDUSTRY AWARDS PLANNED Industry magazine The Music Network and Peer Group Media have announced that they will be launching an awards event for members of the music industry next year. Covering all aspects of the industry (including publishing, promotions, journalism and festivals) the nominations and voting processes will be conducted by members of the industry, while subscribers to The Music Network will be able to vote.

THE MONEY MAKERS The BRW Entertainer’s Rich List has been announced, with Global Creatures – the production company behind Walking With Dinosaurs – the new number one with $140 million in earnings last year. The Veronicas ($2.4m last year) have fallen off the list whilst The Temper Trap joined it with apparently $2.5m, largely thanks to their royalties from appearing on television advertisement and the popular (500) Days Of Summer soundtrack. Once the authority on the subject, the BRW list has attracted increasing criticism in recent years for its accuracy.

U2 UNDER THE HAMMER All four members of U2 have signed a Fender Electric Guitar currently up for auction at aidarena.com. The proceeds of the sale will go towards Sydney-based charity The Australian Children’s Music Foundation. Bidding closes Sunday 19 December.

Newcastle’s The Seabellies were the victims of an alleged attack from a gang who struck members of the band with sticks and belts last week as they walked along Brunswick Street. The band were celebrating the final night in a month-long residency at the Evelyn Hotel when the attack reportedly occurred. Suffering cuts and bruises, bass plater Eddie Garven needed stitches in his forehead after being taken to hospital. “It was a shame how it all ended but we don’t blame the city,” frontman Trent Grenell told The Age. “It can happen in any city in the world. It was a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.” The band posted photos of Garven’s injuries on their Facebook.

FANS TELL BLISS WHERE TO GO

AUS DJ TRAPS GRAMMY NOM

Bliss N Eso are hoping to harness the wide reach and influence of Facebook to shape their upcoming tour, by allowing fans to vote on the destinations for an upcoming tour. The Sydney-based hip hop outfit stand to gain a lot of free exposure if the concept catches on, as fans will “share” the link to vote on their own personal pages, exposing it to friends and other people from the region they’re hoping to bring the tour to. Early reports on the results saw Wagga Wagga, The Sunshine Coast, Mount Gambier, The Blue Mountains and Sydney the most popular destinations. The band, whose latest album Running On Air debuted atop the ARIA Charts in August, will be playing the Big Day Out tour nationally as well as the Southbound event. Voting is taking place at blissneso.com/vote, which directs you to the Facebook page.

While most news reports have decreed Keith Urban as Australia’s sole 2011 Grammy nominee, announced last week (Best Male Country Vocal Performance for his track ‘Til Summer Comes Around), they have overlooked Melbourne DJ/producer Dragan Roganovic, aka Dirty South. Roganovic has been nominated in the Best Remixed Recoding, Non-Classical category for his reworking of The Temper Trap’s Sweet Disposition with Sweden’s Axwell. It is Roganovic’s second nomination in this category – his remix of Kaskade’s Sorry lost to Benny Benassi back in 2008. This year the local remixer faces off against David Guetta, last year’s winner in the Remix category. No stranger to the awards, with 11 already on the mantle, Eminem has led this year’s Grammy Award overall nominations with ten nods thanks to his album Recovery, including the major categories of Album and Record Of The Year. Other leaders were Bruno Mars who picked up seven nominations, whilst Lady Gaga and Lady Antebellum managed six each.

PUSH YOUR PROFILE The Push are looking for young and emerging DJs, MCs, breakin and hip hop acts for the Push Underground Showcase for next year’s Push Over festival, Sunday 13 March at the Abbotsford Convent. The showcases will be staged in the Push It! Hip Hop Arena alongside headline acts. Applications are being accepted now at thepush.com.au/html/pushit. Meanwhile The Push will present the final instalment of the City Breaks At Signal dance/hip hop jam session for 2010 this Sunday at Flinders Walk.

FILE SHARER SHUT DOWN By putting a stop to LimeWire’s free file transferring service, prosecutors of copyright infringement claims have killed off the company. Customers to the legal paid-subscription services were sent an email last week that stated, “LimeWire Store will cease accepting new customers on November 30, but will remain online through the end of December to allow current subscription holders to redeem their credits.” A statement from the company said, ““As a result of our current legal situation, we have no choice but to wind down LimeWire Store operations. Despite our dedication and efforts, Dec. 31, 2010, will mark the day when LimeWire Store shuts its virtual doors.”

SHOCKWAVES

NOTE TO ROCK STARS

Shock Entertainment has moved offices, and is now based at 369 High Street, Kew, Victoria 3101, the main reception line is (03) 9205 0900. Following their sale to Regency Media in August, the independent label claimed that there would be no lay-offs.

If you’re going to cancel shows and appearances due to exhaustion, best not be spotted out on the town on the night you were meant to be resting. That just won’t wash with either the industry or fans.

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LAST STILL LAST Often looked to as the model that has helped kill off MySpace, music recommendation service Last.fm has posted another loss in its 2009 financial report, but has improved considerably on the previous year’s. Reporting a loss of £2.84 million (AU$4.5 million), it’s a vast improvement on the £17 million ($27 million) of the year before. Revenue grew, but liabilities increased throughout the period. The financial report submitted to the UK’s Companies House showed that advertising brought in £5.4m, subscriptions £1.3m and a little over £600,000 came from affiliate sales. Staff costs – including that of director’s pay – was down from 2008. Last.fm was bought by American television network CBS in 2007 for US$280m.

AMID EDITOR STAYS ON Following the Street Press Australia (Inpress’s publisher) acquisition of the Australasian Music Industry Directory, managing editor Justine Lynch has joined the company from previous owner Immedia to continue to work on the mag. “I’m looking forward to working with Street Press Australia,” she told The Front Line, “and to continue to work on Australia’s leading industry resource.”

Got news? Announcements? Gossip? Unsubstantiated but hilarious rumours? Send them all to frontline@streetpress.com.au.

THE

FRONTLINE

MUSIC IS NOT ENOUGH

In town for U2’s massive arena tour, it wouldn’t be BONO if he didn’t find some time out for other pursuits. This time Australia got the World AIDS Day launch, with the U2 frontman in his finest form, writes SCOTT FITZSIMONS. It’s as if fronting one of the world’s biggest bands wasn’t enough for Paul David Hewson. Under the moniker Bono, Hewson has led U2 – for whom he writes songs and most of the lyrics – to international fame and acclaim and, following their peak of popularity, he’s turned his attention to focus heavily on humanitarian causes and philanthropy. He’s not without his detractors – to the regular citizen he can seem overly self-righteous as he travels the world and preaches from atop his riches – but his influence and ability to attract attention to causes makes him one of the world’s best campaigners. It remains a good publicity stunt for world leaders in public or private office to be photographed alongside Bono. He’s met most of the world leaders that you can think of and Time magazine has listed him in polls like The 100 Most Influential People and People Of The Year, and in doing so Bono has become larger than life – and certainly larger than his band. Appearing at a lot of his events, the rest of U2 are nowhere near as outspoken; almost like a good wife of the president, they’re supportive and quiet while he does his thing. Taking advantage of a photo opportunity and a chance to put their name to a good cause, Prime Minister Julia Gillard and New South Wales’ Premier Kristine Keneally were present at the recent worldwide launch of World AIDS Day, held in Sydney. The Opera House and Harbour Bridge were lit up red to mark the official opening. If the efforts to turn Sydney Harbour red were a little disappointing – 15 seconds of flares and an elegant but mundane parade of yachts – Bono’s performance surely wasn’t. He looked more assured than either of the politicians there, both on the pedestal and then servicing the media scrums’ clambering for quotes and photos. While Keneally was more passionate with the repetition of the line, “because this is a disease that doesn’t discriminate”, Gillard was more ministerial; her calculated and rehearsed delivery at odds with the wind that was undoing her hairdo. But no one came close to Bono, who

forehead and animated breaking through the thread, much to the delight of Keneally and Gillard and polite smiles from The Edge, who, invited on stage following his frontman’s speech, has seen this all before.

Bono: being a pain in the arse does not come naturally

“Just walking on stage I really did think I was in Charlie’s Angels,” he told media minutes later. Citing a “lioness” energy, “You look at these great campaigners at the moment, from Oprah, who’s going to visit your city soon, right through to now at an AIDS benefit, banging the lectern there for other women.” On the difference – or rather the comparisons – between artistry and activism, he said, “They’re kind of the same thing in a way. Art is done by people who don’t know their boundaries or don’t want to know – they don’t want to be put in any kind of box… I am not naturally the kind of do-gooder, I’m not naturally the kind of pain-in-the-arse protagonist for these type of issues. I think in a different life I could have been really lost in my own world. Being an artist strangely, ironically, took me out of myself; took myself out of my arse.”

had the crowd onside the moment he emerged with the line, “I feel like I’m in Charlie’s Angels”, referencing the powerful women he was surrounded by. Scoring laughs effortlessly from the crowd (too easily at times) he really was the star here, the one that everyone wanted a piece of even alongside Australia’s most powerful person.

Two large red ribbons – one each pulled by the elected officials from the plastic stand to trigger the lights – were being held by the group following their respective speeches and with Bono in the middle he toyed with the two ends, his mind obviously ticking over as to how he could spice up the photo. In the end he put it over his

The catalyst, he says, was “listening to John Lennon when I was 11 or 12, listening to Bob Dylan, Bob Marley, Marvin Gaye – these people shaped the way that I and my bandmates see the world and they also whispered this message that things don’t have to be the way they are – you can kick the world into shape or kiss the world into shape. That’s what I got from John Lennon: your voice is as important as any politician’s. That kind of arrogance and megalomania came to me from being an artist and being in a band.” The next question would have been – had his public relations manager not led him away, with more time given to photos than words – when is music not enough? Because despite providing the vehicle to his current position, U2 themselves, with their 22 Grammys – more than anyone else – are not a means to an end. However, travelling the world, public appearances, shaking hands and making speeches looks increasingly like it is.

FOREWORD LINE

NEWS FROM THE FRONT

SNEAKY NYE

Purple Sneakers have assembled a cracking line-up to help you see in the New Year, with a bunch of faves from the hugely popular indie night returning to play until the wee hours. Acts playing the Purple Sneakers’ New Year’s Eve House Party include Kimbra, Alpine, Fearless Vampire Killers, The Frowning Clouds and City Calm Down, with Purple Sneakers DJs, Jane Gazzo, Mafia and Badhorse spinning floor fillers all night. Held across two rooms at Miss Libertines, and costing just $19+BF, this is one of the best ways to see in the new year. Tickets are on sale now from Oztix. The NYE show coincides with the release of Purple Sneakers DJs’ second mix compilation, We Mix You Dance Vol 2. The two-disc set features songs from artists such as LCD Soundsystem, !!!, Warpaint, Washington, Vampire Weekend and Mumford & Sons. The compilation is released 7 January.

OMG! MORE USHER!

After tickets for his third Melbourne concert sold out in a matter of minutes, Usher has added a fourth Melbourne performance, scheduled for Friday 1 April at Rod Laver Arena. Tickets to the fourth and final concert are on sale now from Ticketek.

WEDNESDAY 8 DECEMBER

RESIDENCY

KKS PROJECT UNIVERSITY CHALLENGE ELLA THOMPSON BAND DJ OSCAR

SPARKS FLY

Sparkadia seemed to have vanished after their 2009 Auf Wiedersehen tour, before making a comeback with their new single and surprise radio hit, Talking Like I’m Falling Down Stairs. Having since returned to London to complete their second album, the band have revealed the name of the forthcoming album will be The Great Impression, set to be released on Friday 18 March. To celebrate the release, Sparkadia will commence their four-week tour in March with special guests Operator Please and Alpine – it hits the Hi-Fi on Friday 25 March. Tickets are on sale now from the venue and Oztix.

ENTRY $10, 8.30PM

THURSDAY 9 DECEMBER

PLANET WHEELER FOUNDATION BENEFIT

SLABOTOMY TRAVIS WINTERS RYAN SWEENEY ENTRY $10, 8.30PM

FRIDAY 10 DECEMBER

SINGLE LAUNCH

JUNGAL

SOL NATION AURORA JANE A DJ CALLED MATT ENTRY $10, 9PM

SATURDAY 11 DECEMBER

STAR ASSASSIN CRASH & BURN CONCEPT UNKNOWN SCARMOUCHE ZAC SLATER

ENTRY $20 DOOR, $15 PRESALE THRU MOSHTIX, 8PM

SUNDAY 12 DECEMBER

CHANGING FALLS

ON SIERRA DIE VADER DIE ETHER NAI MAMMALS VS REPTILES MORE TBA ENTRY 3PM, FREE

MONDAY 13 DECEMBER

A DJ CALLED MATT ENTRY 8.30PM $2 POTS!

TUESDAY 14 DECEMBER

RESIDENCY

DAN WEBB WINTERCOATS DJ DINNERBOWL

ENTRY $5, 9PM $10 JUGS!

COMING UP: SAL KIMBER & THE ROLLING WHEEL – ALT-COUNTRY XMAS SHOW (16 DEC) BLACK DEVIL YARD BOSS (EP LAUNCH & XMAS SHOW) (17 DEC) RAINBIRD (18 DEC) ZULU FLOW ZION (EP LAUNCH) (19 DEC) ATM15 XMAS SHOW (23 DEC) KRISTINA MILTIADOU (24 DEC) DAYDREAM ARCADE (26 DEC) BLANKFACE DISTORTION (29 DEC) TRAIDMARC (30 DEC) 12LB (SUNDAYS IN JAN) CAPTAIN STU (3 JAN)

FOLDS NEWS Ben Folds and his band are set to tour Australia in May in support of his latest album, the acclaimed Lonely Avenue, a collaboration with bestselling novelist Nick Hornby released in September. Folds previously collaborated with Hornby on a song for the Folds-produced William Shatner album Has Been. Ben Folds first found mainstream success in Australia as leader of Ben Folds Five, who came in at number three on Triple J’s Hottest 100 of 1996 with the song Underground. From inciting the wrath of Midday Show legend Geoff Harvey (Folds threw a stool at Harvey’s piano on daytime TV, prompting a week-long on-air rant from Harvey), to selling out four consecutive nights with the Sydney Symphony at Sydney Opera House, to penning an ode to his once hometown of Adelaide, Folds has remained part of the Australian popular culture scenery for more than a decade. Folds and band play the Palais on Friday 20 May. Tickets go on sale 9am on Tuesday 14 December from Ticketmaster.

BEAST QUEST

HO-HO-OH MERCY Melbourne’s very own Oh Mercy are setting the bar high this Christmas with a free show to be performed in the front bar of the Espy on Christmas Eve. Fresh from the recent release of new single Keith St, the show will be the first chance fans will get to catch a glimpse of what is to come on their new album, set for release in 2011.

CASTLES NAME SUPPORTS

Crystal Castles have announced the support acts that will be sharing the stage for their Melbourne Big Day Out sideshow. Playing at the Palace on Friday 28 January, Crystal Castles will perform with special guests My Disco and House Of Beggars. So if you missed out on tickets to see them perform at the sold-out Big Day Out, make sure you get in quick as tickets are selling fast from Ticketmaster and Oztix.

12 Legged Beast are bouncing straight back onto the stage this weekend, fresh from an amazingly unique and highly successful show supporting Bias B and Bigfoot. Now they’re ready to shake you to your core this Friday at Bar 303, Northcote, with support from the superb local hip hop talent of Broken Crayons. Doors open at 8.30pm, with entry set at a gold coin donation.

CHRISTMAS CARUS

This Christmas, Carus Thompson is back for his annual end-of-year party show with his good friend Loren. Together they’ll be playing at the Northcote Social Club this Thursday. Carus and Loren have toured Australia together many times and their Northcote shows always sell out, so if you haven’t got your ticket yet head to northcotesocialclub.com to secure one now.

BIEBER FEVER

Lock up your daughters (or at least put ear plugs in before you tell them this) in preparation for the mass squealing that will follow the news that teen pop sensation Justin Bieber is headed downunder in April 2011 for his first ever Australian tour. His previous promotional tour to the country resulted in mass hysteria, sending thousands of fans into a frenzy at the thought of catching a glimpse of the star. Now he’s bringing his infectious pop hooks and charm to Australian arenas. Justin Bieber plays Rod Laver Arena on Monday 2 May. Visa pre-sale tickets are on sale now, unless they’ve already been snapped up. Frontier members pre-sale tickets go on sale this Thursday with further details available from frontiertouring.com. General ticket sales commence at 9am on Monday 13 December.

ACOUSTIC XMAS CHEER

Everyone knows that Christmas is a time for friends and family and, of course, smashing out sweet jams on electric and acoustic guitars. This Sunday, three of Melbourne’s finest – UV Race, Constant Mongrel and School Of Radiant Living – will be belting out some yuletide cheer on acoustic guitars and cranking up the Christmas punk spirit at Yah Yah’s. Doors open at 6pm.

FELINE ALRIGHT Returning to Australia in 2011 for her second successive summer time drop-in is Cat Power, AKA Chan Marshall. It’s no secret that the Atlanta-born songstress is a fan of our country and this time around she’ll be showcasing material from her forthcoming album, currently still being recorded, as well as a selection of old favourites featuring the talents of Jim White and Judah Bauer. Cat Power will perform at the Forum Theatre on Friday 21 January and at the Theatre Royal in Castlemaine on Saturday 22 January. Tickets for both shows go on sale this Friday from Ticketek and the Theatre Royal for the Melbourne and Castlemaine shows respectively.

$2 CARLTON POTS EVERY MONDAY FRIDAY 10TH DECEMBER

CLASS A & SYNTAX DOUBLE ALBUM LAUNCH SATURDAY 11TH DECEMEBER

ISHU

FRIDAY 31ST DECEMBER PBS 106.7 PRESENTS:

SOUL-A-GO-GO NYE

FRIDAY 18TH FEBRUARY

TORO Y MOI

WED 8TH DECEMBER

THE STAR EXPRESS

+ WOLFIE & THE BAT CUBS

THURS 9TH DECEMBER

TRUE LIVE FREE SHOW! DJS: YOUNG ROMANTIX DJS

FRI 10TH DECEMBER

CLASS A AND SYNTAX - DOUBLE ALBUM LAUNCH + W/ CITYWIDE CREW

DJS: TWO BRIGHT LAKES

SUN 12TH DECEMBER SAT 11TH DECEMBER SUMMER SERIES PRESENTS ISHU ‘A WORLD IN PROGRESS’ ALBUM LAUNCH SAN FRAN DISCO + RED INK + CITY CALM DOWN PATAPHYSICS + DYL THOMAS (DJ SET) + RUSSIA + ALBA VERDA + WAY WITH WORDS ELF TRANZPORTER (DJ SET) MON 13TH DECEMBER - RESIDENCY TUE 14TH DECEMBER WED15TH DECEMBER

KING GIZZARD AND LIZARD WIZARD W/ SPECIAL GUESTS ONLY $2 ENTRY!

DJ PRINCESS BUGMEAT & DJ JAMIE WHITESIDE

ANDY’S MOVIE NIGHT W/ ANDY LANE

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LUCA DELA NIGHT OWL + OH, DEANNA

FOREWORD LINE

NEWS FROM THE FRONT Mos Def

SONIC DOOM Straight out of the shadows of the concrete metropolis is rap’s most revered super-villain, Doom AKA MF Doom. The masked lyricist is known to possess a variety of super powers, including genius level intellect and multi-syllable rhyming. The secret identity of the man behind the mask is Daniel Dumile, a New York native with a passion for hip hop, storytelling, comic books and sci-fi. Throughout his extensive career he has been known by many other aliases, including King Geedorah, Metal Face, Metal Fingers, Viktor Vaughn and Zev Love X. Dumile retreated from the hip hop scene from 1994 to 1997, following the death of his brother in 1993. Since then he has released solo albums as Doom, Viktor Vaughn and King Geedorah, and has been a part of a few very successful collaborations including Madvillain (with Madlib), Danger Doom (with Danger Mouse), and Sniperlite (AKA Dilla Ghost Doom, with J Dilla and Ghostface Killah). On his first ever Australian tour, Doom plays the Espy on Thursday 24 March. Tickets are on sale now from theespy.oztix.com.au, Oztix, the Espy bottleshop and Polyester and Greville Records.

DELAYS FOR RAP CITY

The Rap City – Summer Throwdown organisers have announced that the upcoming Australian tour, originally scheduled for December, has been postponed until June. The tour, featuring Blackalicious, Murs & 9th Wonder and RA The Rugged Man, has had to be postponed due to “circumstances beyond [the organisers’] control”. All ticket holders can obtain a full refund from their place of purchase. A press release from the organisers states “we can verify that all the acts are re-confirmed for tours in 2011 and details will be released accordingly.”

OLD BAR MAYHEM This Saturday at the Old Bar, feel the pain of a million lives gone so wrong that they’ve come full circle and are amazing once more. Pseudo-beat noise destruction duo Dick Threats will make good on their threats; whirlwind hip hop noise riff genius Ivens will mess with you; Cocks Arquette were born to deliver nervous heaviness and digitally fried noise rock; Occult Blood are possible the noisiest, punkest thing you’ll see all weekend. Entry is $10.

I SCREAM, YOU SCREAM

Legendary Brisbane rockers Screamfeeder will play a one-off show at the Tote on Friday 25 February. Renowned as one of the most important and successful guitar rock groups of the ‘90s, Screamfeeder have continued to play sporadically throughout the noughties, including sell-out performances of their most famous album, Kitten Licks, in Melbourne last year. Their live shows are as breathtaking as they are rare and you’d better get in quick if you want to see them play at the Tote. Ticket release details will be announced soon so stay tuned.

HANDY ANDY Andrew McMahon is best known as the pianopounding frontman of Something Corporate and Jack’s Mannequin, with a sold-out solo tour of the States also under his belt. With Something Corporate, McMahon wrote of loneliness, homesickness and longing, paving the way for the numerous melancholic introspective bands that followed after SoCo’s hiatus in 2004. With help from Bobby Anderson, Andrew McMahon will be touring Australia in February, to perform songs acoustically from his solo career along with definitive hits from Something Corporate and Jack’s Mannequin. He plays the Prince Bandroom on Sunday 13 February. Tickets go on sale Friday from princebandroom.com.au and Ticketek.

FEELING HOT, HOT, HOT After the sizzling debut of The Hot Barbeque in its new location at the seaside location of Point Nepean, Portsea, the summer get-together is ready to rock again in 2011. The Australia Day long weekend is the perfect time to serve up a summertime smorgasbord of mouth-watering musical treats and on Saturday 22 January 2011, Molly Meldrum will host the star-studded show with performances from Mos Def, Roger Sanchez, Hoodoo Gurus, Bluejuice, Gypsy & The Cat, Cash Money, Hungry Kids Of Hungary, Boy & Bear, Grafton Primary, The Jezabels, Kids Of 88, The Holidays, Illy, Catcall, Owl Eyes, John Course, Grant Smillie, Canyons, Zoe Badwi, We Are Fans, San Fran Disco and a whole lot more. Tickets for the event go on sale next Monday 13 December from Ticketmaster.

FULL PRIMED

After their Big Day Out sideshow at the Forum sold out almost instantly, Primal Scream have announced that they will be performing a second date at the venue on Thursday 3 February, giving their loyal fans one more chance to see them perform their classic album Screamadelica live in its entirety, with guest performances from Underground Lovers and World’s End Press. Tickets are on sale now from Ticketmaster.

BARRY’S BACK

Barry Manilow is set to return to Australia in April for his first Australian concert tour since 1996. With worldwide record sales exceeding 80 million, Manilow is one of the top adult contemporary chart artists of all time. Fans can look forward to hearing Manilow perform an array of his most loved classic hits, including Mandy, It’s A Miracle, Could It Be Magic, Copacabana and many others. Manilow will perform with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra at Rod Laver Arena on Monday 11 April. Tickets go on sale this Friday from Ticketek.

FREE MUSIC DOWNLOADS

The ol’ bank balance can take a bit of a beating as we head into the silly season, so we’ve pulled a few strings to get you a couple of smokin’ hot tracks for absolutely nothin’. The first is the Modular-debut for Canyons, the second from Irish rockabilly superstar Imelda May. Simply head to universalmusic.net.au/ freedownloads/streetpressaustralia to get downloading. My Rescue CANYONS Taking a musical approach guided by intuition and feel, Canyons have forged their own identity amongst a sea of comers, goers and imitators. They traverse the obvious comparisons to whatever is on the radio right now, focusing on creating original music that could be from the past, present or future. Making their much-anticipated label debut, My Rescue is an ode to the sun and enlightenment. It is positivity and musical freedom at its very best. Sneaky Freak IMELDA MAY Imelda May, born in Dublin and raised in the Liberties, may be an unknown name to some, but to many she is already a superstar. She is unmistakable both in her music (a fusion of surf guitars, blues and rockabilly that wouldn’t be out of place in a David Lynch film) and her style, with a solitary curl and shock of blonde in her jet black hair. In Ireland, her debut album Love Tattoo, which she recorded and released on her own label, has gone triple platinum. She has shared stages with U2, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Van Morrison, Scissor Sisters, Eartha Kitt, Lionel Richie and, most recently, the first lady of rockabilly, Wanda Jackson. And now, with the release of her new album Mayhem, she is about to go stellar. May will be touring Australia in February and March.

GO WITH THE FLOW

If you haven’t heard of Zulu Flow by now, then prepare to be schooled. One of the best up-and-coming freestyle rap and hip hop artists Melbourne has to offer, this Jamaican-born cunning linguist will spin you into aural hypnosis with his engagingly fresh and enigmatic freeform style. Zulu Flow is set to launch his debut solo album at the Evelyn Hotel on Sunday 19 December. Featuring performances by live Capoeira dancers, the renowned skills of the Tetris Studios crew, as well as the world-class talent of some of Melbourne’s finest artists such as Opium Den, Vida-Sunshyne, Cyclones, 16 & MZ Rizk, Lesson MC & Billy Hoyle and Able & Manix, this is one show not to be missed. Tickets for Zulu Flow’s launch are on sale now through Moshtix.

CHARLES IN CHARGE The Dynamites featuring Charles Walker are returning to Australia for the second time, after originally making their Aussie debut at the Byron Bay Bluesfest earlier this year. Since their formation in 2007, The Dynamites have toured Europe and the US extensively. The band are fronted by the legendary Walker, who has been performing alongside the likes of James Brown, Jackie Wilson and Etta James since the late ‘60s. Now they’re returning to Australia this month for what promises to be a mind-blowing string of summer festival shows, celebrating the upcoming release of their album, Kaboom!, available in stores Friday 7 January. The Dynamites featuring Charles Walker play the Order Of Melbourne on Thursday 6 and Friday 7 January. Tickets are on sale now from theorder.com.au.

COCKER HOOP

With support from George Thorogood & The Destroyers, it’s no surprise Joe Cocker’s performance at the Palais on Tuesday 8 February sold out quick sticks. The Sheffield-born singer has announced a second date at the venue, where he’ll again be supported by Thorogood, on Wednesday 9 February. Tickets go on sale Friday from Ticketmaster.

FAIR AND SQUARE

This weekend Melbourne’s city centre will come alive with an excellent line-up of local musicians, performing at the free, outdoor Fair@Square fair trade and ethical festival held at Federation Square from 11am until 6pm this Saturday and Sunday. The festival is aimed at promoting fair and ethical trade in an engaging and inspiring way to a variety of audiences. Artists set to perform include: Blue King Brown’s Natalie Pa’apa’a, Bonjah, Declan & The Antics, Aluka, Liz Cavanagh, The Young Faithful, Anny Smyrk & The Appetites, Frankie Wants Out, Adam Cousens, Studio Samba, Corner Stone, Massive and FlashFry. There will also be a variety of activities such as lifestyle workshops in yoga, massage, meditation and feng shui, cooking demonstrations, fashion shows and children’s activities. A full festival program can be found at moralfairground. com.au.

SUPA DOOPER

Last year’s inaugural SupaFest saw artists such as Akon, Kelly Rowland, Pitbull, Jay Sean, Sean Paul and Eve play to more than 65,000 people around the country. The event returns in 2011, with eight “superstar” artists promised to take the stage at the Melbourne Showgrounds on Sunday 17 April. Early bird tickets will be available from this Friday for a discounted price from supafest.com.au. For all other ticket info head to ticketek.com.au.

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FOREWORD LINE

NEWS FROM THE FRONT

T EN S E PR

DEAD BROUGHT TO LIFE One of the most important recordings in the evolution of hip hop was De La Soul’s 1991 milestone album, De La Soul Is Dead. The record was helmed by legendary DJ producer Prince Paul, and with members Maseo, Dave and Posdnuos, gave birth to one of the most loved and celebrated hip hop records of all time, which included classic De La joints like A Roller Skating Jam Called ‘Saturdays’, Ring Ring, Keepin’ The Faith and Pass The Plugs. Next year sees the 20th anniversary of the release of this golden moment in hip hop history, and to celebrate, De La Soul, Prince Paul and international guests, will perform the album in its entirety from start to finish. Hip hop history will be brought to life at Billboard on Friday 11 February. A small number of discounted tickets are available from peacemusic.com.au. Tickets go on sale Monday from Ticketek.

GREAT KATE Kate Nash returns to Australia in February with a new album and a new look to perform at the Playground Weekender festival, held at Wisemans Ferry in New South Wales. Nash’s latest album, My Best Friend Is You, is about trust, sexism, homophobia, honesty – and how being in a serious relationship with Ryan Jarman of The Cribs has made her feel less selfish and more grown-up. Nash plays her own headline show at Billboard on Friday 18 February. Tickets go on sale Monday from Moshtix.

RESISTANCE IS USELESS

The Muse juggernaut has officially landed in Australia with a few tickets to one of 2010’s must-see live shows still available. Australia is the final stop on the band’s world tour, and with 12-metre LCD towers, state of the art sound and a bucket load of lasers, the Resistance Tour is about as big as stage shows get. Muse play Rod Laver Arena on Tuesday 14 (sold out) and Wednesday 15 December.

GREEN DAYS

Fest La Frog is a festival like no other; run by BareFootPrints Inc, the aim of the festival is just as the organisers’ name suggests – perfecting the approach to the creation and successful running of a festival that is entirely sustainable and organic in nature. McLeod’s Eco Farm, located on French Island, is hosting the festival, which will run from Friday 8 to Sunday 10 April. All stalls at the festival will be selling food and beverages sourced from local vendors. Alcoholic beverages available at the festival will also be eco-friendly, either being organically crafted by small local producers, or solar brewed by Buckleys Beer – a Yarra Valley micro-brewery ‘greened up’ by The Good Brew Company. There will be a ban on any single-use items on the site – even festival tickets include a wristband with a reusable cup attached to prevent wastage. Sustainability workshops will also be held throughout the three-day festival. The first round of acts playing the festival will be unveiled next Wednesday 15 December. Organisers of the event are still looking for performers, artists and musicians/groups, as well as general volunteers and anyone interested in running market or food stalls for the duration of the festival. Tickets and more info can be found atfestlafrog.com.

EVERY MONDAY

FE BAC BR K UA RY

5pm til 3am on weeknights and 5am on the weekend

All presale tickets available through MOSHTIX: Phone: 1300 GET TIX (438 849) on-line: www.moshtix.com.au, or at all Moshtix outlets, (Fitzroy & City ) including Polyester

BIRDS IS THE WORD

CHK YOUR HEAD

Swedish experimental group Wildbirds & Peacedrums are set to make their Australian debut in March 2011, bringing with them their unique blend of blues, jazz, folk and soul fusion. Mariam Wallentin and her husband Andreas are the dynamic duo behind the group, having crafted their powerfully raw and innovative pop sound from experimental percussion, strings and Mariam’s evocative vocals. They will play in duo mode on Sunday 6 March at the Famous Spiegeltent at the Arts Centre, in addition to their performance at the Golden Plains Festival in Meredith.

Blazing Californian dance punks !!! bring their massive sound and stunning dance moves back to Australia for their third tour as part of the Laneway Festival. Crossing the divide between indie, electronic, dance and rock, !!! have created a style of their very own across tracks like Heart Of Hearts, Must Be The Moon and Me And Giuliani Down By the Schoolyard (A True Story). This year the group released their long awaited and critically acclaimed fourth album, Strange Weather, Isn’t It?. While they’re in the country !!! will play a headline show in the Prince Bandroom on Thursday 10 February with support from World’s End Press and Super Melody.

EVERY FRIDAY

EVERY SATURDAY LATE

EVERY SUNDAY FROM 4PM

SWING PATROL

LOVE STORY

POPROCKS

THE SUNDAY SET

Classes at 6.30pm, 7.30pm Social dancing 8.30pm Tickets $15 on door / $22 for 2 classes

and guests

No brainers and guilty pleasures

THE HOUSE DE FROST

FREE ENTRY - From 11.30pm

FREE ENTRY - From 9pm

with 1928 (STROBE)

w/ Dr Phil Smith

w/ AndyBlack & Haggis

w/ Andee Frost FREE ENTRY - From 12 Midnight

SE FALLI ST NG !

This weeks theme: SCHOOL FREE ENTRY - In the Carriage

WED 8 DECEMBER

THURS 9 DECEMBER

SAT 11 DECEMBER

THE KUJO KINGS

RUSH IN ATTACK

MAMA KIN

EP LAUNCH with LOONEE TUNES & THE OPERATORS

SINGLE LAUNCH with 8 BIT LOVE & ZEAL

with MATT JOE GOW

with MATT VAN SHIE

Tickets $10 + BF / $15 on door

Tickets $10 + BF / $12 on door

Tickets $18 + BF / $22 on door

Tickets $40 +BF / More on the door

TUES 14 DECEMBER

THURS 16 DECEMBER

SAT 18 DECEMBER

SUN 19 DECEMBER

REDBERRYPLUM

JESSICA SAYS

AMAYA LAUCIRICA

LOTEK

- DECEMBER RESIDENCY with KITE CLUB, SIKAP SEMPURNA & SNAKADAKTYL (14/12)

‘WORLD WITHOUT MEN’ SINGLE LAUNCH with OSCAR + MARTIN, HUNTER DIENNA and DJ GEOFF O’CONNOR

VINYL LAUNCH with HOWL AT THE MOON & MATT BAILEY

‘INTERNATIONAL RUDEBOY’ ALBUM LAUNCH with RuC.L., MC JULEZ, DRAGONFLY and MORE!

Tickets $10 on the door

Tickets $8 on the door

Tickets $10 + BF / $12 on door

Tickets $15 + BF / $25 with CD on door

SAT 15 JANUARY

SUN 16 JANUARY

WED 22 DECEMBER

FRI 31 DECEMBER

BEN ABRAHAM

The House deFrost present

with LUCY HALL

(Blackcock / Sarcastic Disco)

Tickets $10 + BF / $15 with CD on door

British electro pop duo The Ting Tings have been added to the line-up of the Good Vibrations festival. The group released their debut album, We Started Nothing, in 2008, with singles That’s Not My Name, Shut Up And Let Me Go and Great DJ selling more than four million copies worldwide. The Ting Tings cancelled a winter tour this year due to the rescheduling of their new album, but the duo will be bringing fresh material with them in February. Their hotly anticipated second album is tipped for release in early 2011, which features the already-released single Hands, mixed by Calvin Harris. The Ting Tings join already announced headliners Faithless, Phoenix, Nas & Damian Marley, Sasha, Ludacris, Cee Lo Green, Kelis, Erykah Badu, Miike Snow, Friendly Fires, Janelle Monáe and more at Flemington Racecourse on Sunday 13 February.

EVERY THURSDAY LATE

Swing dancing classes

Thai dinner & supper

SOME TING MORE FOR GOOD VIBES

SE FALLI ST NG !

DJ HARVEY

Penny Drop and 3RRR presents,

MOUNTAIN MAN (USA)

SUN 12 DECEMBER Penny Drop presents,

WASHED OUT (USA)

SE FALLI ST NG ! Handsome Tours, Inpress, 3RRR present & Fasterlouder.com.au

OWEN PALLETT (CAN)

with DJ Garth NYE Spectacular

with WET WINGS (NZ)

with SPECIAL GUESTS

Tickets $65 + BF / More on the door

Tickets $38 +BF

Tickets $42 +BF / More on the door

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FOREWORD LINE

NEWS FROM THE FRONT Earthless

KEEP ON GRINDIN’

Grinderman will tear their dark and dirty rock show out of the Big Day Out this coming summer and hit Melbourne for two headline dates. With the first show at the Palace on Monday 17 January sold out, a second and final show at the venue on Tuesday 18 January has been announced. Tickets are on sale now.

BORN RUFFIANS CANCEL SHOW

Chugg Entertainment and Lunatic Entertainment have announced that the Born Ruffians show scheduled for Saturday 1 January at Northcote Social Club will no longer be going ahead. All ticket-holders are encouraged to exchange their tickets for the show scheduled for Sunday 2 January. For all ticket exchange and/or refunds, contact the Northcote Social Club box office on 9489 3917.

NO SLEEP TULL...

FEEL THE EARTH MOVE Melbourne record label and touring agency Heathen Skulls will be presenting this year’s New Year’s Eve at the Tote. Drawing from a vast landscape of outer sounds and hypnotic rhythms, Heathen Skulls and the Tote aim to open your mind and expand your horizons. The new year will officially be kicked in by living legends and Australian rock royalty Kim Salmon & The Surrealists, with a late set in the early hours of the new year provided by Californian stoner psych power trio Earthless. Special guests on the night are New War, Breathing Shrine and Blarke Bayer/Black Widow. Doors at 8pm, entry is $20. Earthless also play an earlier set at the Espy on NYE and the Arthouse Hotel on Sunday 9 January.

Named in the second round of artists playing next year’s Byron Bay Bluesfest, Jethro Tull have just announced a Melbourne headline show of their own. After six years away the group will play the Palais on Thursday 28 April. Tickets go on sale tomorrow from Ticketmaster. Having sold more than 60 million albums worldwide, Jethro Tull’s music incorporates styles as diverse as American blues, Celtic, folk, classical, world music and hard rock. The band will play a bunch of classics from a back catalogue spanning 43 years. The tour also coincides with the 40-year anniversary of the album Aqualung, with the group set to perform many of that album’s tracks. The line-up touring will feature Ian Anderson, Martin Barre, Doane Perry, John O’Hara and David Goodier.

WILD SIDE

Just south of Brisbane is an amazing place where dreams come true – Wet’N’Wild water theme park. While touring together in March, Canberra sludge merchants I Exist and Sydney pseudo thugs Phantoms visited this magical place and decided to immortalise it in song. Recorded in one afternoon with Lachlan Mitchell between visits to Sizzler and a Soulfly concert, the result is the Bad Romance split 7”, two songs from each act and all named after Wet’N’Wild rides. The bands are re-teaming to take the songs on the road – they play the Arthouse on Saturday 19 February and an all-ages show at Phoenix Youth Centre on Sunday 20 February.

It’s been two years since Canadian psych-rock five piece Black Mountain graced Australian stages to play their critically acclaimed second record, In The Future. This February they’re back sporting a brand new album, Wilderness Heart. With a spellbinding combination of exquisitely layered male and female harmonies, ‘70s psychedelia and stoner grooves, Black Mountain are guaranteed to leave a lasting impression on their audience. They will play the Corner Hotel on Monday 21 February and tickets are on sale now from the venue as well as from Polyester Records.

LET’S EXPLODE

Anybody who witnessed the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion on their first visit to Australia and New Zealand in the early ‘90s as support to Beck, would have seen a man – a band – seemingly possessed with the spirit of everything great rock’n’roll has to offer. An explosive appearance on Saturday morning TV show Recovery followed, cementing their reputation, and saw the JSBX return for subsequent sold-out headline tours and two guest appearances on the travelling Big Day Out circus, the most recent, in 2005, being the last visit to our shores. The band are returning in 2011 – they play their classic album Orange in its entirety at the Hi-Fi on Saturday 13 January, supported by Kim Salmon & The Surrealists and Super Wild Horses. A second show has just been announced – JSBX will now also hit the Espy on Friday 14 January. Tickets are on sale now from Oztix.

Tony Joe White

A BIT RICH

Following his AFL Grand Final performance in October, iconic performer Lionel Richie will be returning to Australia in March for a tour of the country’s arenas. Following his stint in popular 1970s funk band The Commodores, Richie was further propelled to fame with his self-titled solo debut in the early ‘80s, which led to him becoming a household name across the globe. Richie’s music, a phenomenal catalogue that includes pop anthems Dancing On The Ceiling, All Night Long (All Night) and ballads Hello and Endless Love, is universally renowned and widely beloved. Guy Sebastian will supporting Richie on the tour. They play Rod Laver Arena on Tuesday 29 March.

MOUNTAIN TOPS

BOOGIE OOGIE OOGIE

WORSHIP THE CHURCH

After the epic-ness of last year’s Boogie festival, organisers have added an extra night of entertainment to next year’s event, which returns to Tallarook next Easter weekend, running from Friday 22 until Sunday 24 April. Acts playing Boogie 5 are Tony Joe White, Boomgates, Dan Kelly, Oh Mercy, Barbariön, Matt Sonic & The High Times, The Laurels, Smoke Machine, The Level Spirits, Money For Rope, Beaches, Chris Altmann & The Que Paso Revue, Immigrant Union and, around the fire, Van Walker’s Cracked Country Lips. Tickets include free return train travel form Melbourne, a free shuttle from Tallarook station and camping. Tickets are on sale now from Greville and Polyester Records and boogie.net.au.

With a bunch of their early records recently re-released, The Church are embarking on the An Intimate Space tour. The acoustic shows will see the group performing one song from each of their albums over the last 30 years in reverse chronological order. The tour rolls through the Thornbury Theatre on Friday 17 (sold out) and Sunday 19 December. The ticket price includes a 28-page colour programme with discographies and reviews as well as short overviews of each album written by Marty Willson-Piper, as well as a copy of the Deadman’s Hand EP, featuring the title track from Untitled #23 and four brand new tracks recorded specifically for this release. The recent ARIA Hall Of Fame inductees have also announced an exclusive concert with the magnificent George Ellis Orchestra at the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall on Sunday 10 April. The band – Steve Kilbey, Peter Koppes, Tim Powles and Marty Willson-Piper – will perform a selection of their greatest songs in a unique best-of event. John Legend

NAKED GUNS

With comparisons to all the right bands of 2010, it’s not only New Zealanders that are excited about their country’s latest offering to the indie world, The Naked & Famous. Their debut album Passive Me, Aggressive You scored a number one back home and has been certified gold, but had to settle for critical acclaim from the rest of the world. It’s garnered them a spot on the UK label Fiction alongside Snow Patrol and Crystal Castles as well as a slot on the upcoming Big Day Out Festival alongside Tool and Die Antwoord. They’ve announced headline shows to accompany their festival travels and will play the Corner Hotel on Friday 28 January.

T EN S E PR

TRIGGER POINT

No Trigger have never been a band to rush things. After releasing their first full-length album Canyoneer back in 2006 to widespread acclaim, the band seemingly dropped off the map. The melodic hardcore crew reunited in 2010 and dropped their first release in more than four years, a 7” entitled Be Honest. Next year the group will enter the studio to record the long-awaited follow-up to Canyoneer, but before they do they’ll tour Australia for the first time, supported by Such Gold. They play the Arthouse on Friday 4 February and an all-ages show at Irene’s Warehouse on Sunday 6 February.

FIGHT FOR YOUR RITE

The Rites Of Passage Tattoo Convention And Arts Festival is a unique event celebrating tattoo culture, visual art, music and sustainability held in the Royal Exhibition Buildings from 28 to 30 January. Alongside the bevvy of talented tattoo artists appearing at the festival (more than 150 from around the globe), the festival will also feature some incredible musicians including Abbie Cardwell, Booze Hag, Dallas Frasca, Dean Carroll, Die Smiling, Jack’s Union, Kids Of Zoo, Lucky Diamond Rich, My Left Boot, Sanna, Spencer P Jones, The Loveless, The Peep Tempel and Graveyard Train. For more info check out ritesofpassagefestival.com.

MO’ BETTER BLUES Already with one of the biggest festival line-ups to its name, Bluesfest’s second list of acts for next year has ensured something we already knew – that it’s one of Australia’s premier festivals of any genre. Joining the likes of Bob Dylan, BB King and Elvis Costello at the Tyagarah Tea Tree Farm from Thursday 21 until Monday 25 April will be Jethro Tull, ZZ Top, John Legend, Gurrumul, Toots & The Maytals, Pete Murray, Wolfmother, Funky Meters, Irma Thomas, Booker T, Los Lobos, Kasey Chambers, Captain Matchbox Whoopee Band, Tim Robbins & The Rogues Gallery Band, The Dingoes, Diesel, Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue, BB & The Blues Shack, Joe Louis Walker, Phil Jones & The Unknown Blues, The Snowdroppers, Ray Beadle, Mat Col & The Kings and Barrence Whitfield. Tickets are on sale now.

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Mostly based in Nashville, THOSE DARLI NS are finally bringing their raucous, boo zed-up live show to Australia after a false start earlier this year. DOUG WALLEN talks to JESSI DA RLI N ahead of the garage country rockers’ Meredith appear ance this weekend.

ong before they signed to Spunk and cram med in 140 gigs last year alone, Those Darlin s were just three Southern gals based in Murfr eesboro, Tennessee. Located 40 minutes from the world’s country music capital – Nashville – Murfr eesboro is best known for the record-industry incubator Middle Tennessee State University and an aeronautics progr am. “It also used to claim to have the world’s largest ceda r bucket,” says guitarist Jessi Darlin, referring to the 7,070 -litre wooden pail that was a major tourist attraction before arsonists got to it. “But it burnt down,” she laughs. These days, Those Darlins have mostly migrated to Nashville. The band are now a four-piece with the addition of drummer Linwood Regensburg, and only bassist Kelley Darlin – yes, all the girls have adopted the Darlin surname – still lives in Murfreesboro. “It’s kind of the same thing,” explains Jessi. “It’s not a suburb, but it’s right on the outskirts. Everyone goes to Nashville, like, five times a week. I was just bored of living in a colleg e town where I wasn’t going to college, and I was alrea dy here every night of the week.” Formed in 2006 simply because Jessi, Kelley Kelley and baritone ukulele player Nikki Darlin all played musi c and shared a lot of the same influences, the band starte d out playing traditional songs. A few covers have stuck around, but today original material makes up the bulk of the tunes, which range from sweet songbird coun try to bratt y garage. More often it’s somewhere in between, leading to a “garage country” tag that fits Those Darlin s like a worn-in western shirt. After going through a few temporary drummers, the girls stuck with Regensbur nsburgg and he now shares in songwriting duties. He only plays on three songs on the band’s self-titled debut, but he had a major part in the follow-up, already in the can. “Our self-titled one came out in July in the US,” Jessi shares, “and our next one is coming out in the [northern] spring. It’s definitely a lot less coun counttry ry and more

rock’n’roll. No matter what, we still have twang in our accents, so you’re never gonn a take the South out of us. I’d say that we’ve matured, after playing a lot and learn ing a lot.” She promises a record more in line with Red Light Love Love,, the arse-kicking opener of the self-t raucous and boozy as Those Darlins’ live itled debut. Because as show is, the first album includes quite lush instrumentation. Produced by Jeff Curtin, who helmed the first Vampire Week end LP, it includes guests on strings, horns , theremin, and all manners of keyboards and found objects (like coffe e makers and ‘belly slaps’). It makes for an unpredictable listen, as the songs already fuse a gritty rawness with both old-soul beauty and an almost novelty kick of wisecracking fun. By compariso the second album should be more straig n, htfor ward and with less frills. “Being from Nashville, people wanted us to make it more like that traditional, prett y simple soun we appreciate that, but we were trying soundd,” ,” recounts Jessi. “And to do something a bit different and not just be another revival band. We tried to keep our minds open and not just make a traditional country album.” Although the follow-up was also recorded in New York with Curtin, she says, “It defi nitely has less on that side of things. There’s more of us just playing. It’s elect ric and there’s a lot more guitars. It’s a full band, but there’s less strings and extras.” Looking over the band’s core instrument ation, Nikki’s baritone ukulele is bound to stand out. So what’s the deal? “It’s bigger than the little ukulele you usually see,” explains Jessi. “It’s got four string s and it’s tuned just like the bottom four strings of a guitar. It’s still a higher-pitc hed instrument, because it’s so small and has nylon strings. But the way Nikki plays it, it’s almost a rhythmic instrument . She plays it through an amp, so it has this plucky soun sound almost like someone playing drum soundd.. Sometimes it can s.” The three girls, each of whom sing lead on certain songs, trade off on bass depe nding on who’s singing lead. Set lists are constructed so that there’s not a ton of swapping, and the band are sure to bring multiple basses to work with. Judging by Those Darlins’ live reputation, there’s rarely any momentum lost. One can imag ine an album track like DUI Or Die absolutely exploding on stage, whereas the honeyed twang of Snaggle Tooth Mam a is sure to stop punters in their tracks. As gorgeously rendered as the first album is, the songs themselves remain dirty and bold. “A lot of the new album had to do with the live show,” Jessi admits. “We were playing these loud rock’n’roll shows and people would get our record and go, ‘That ’s interesting.’ Or [vice versa ]. People defi nitely notice a difference. more with that natural feeling we have ence. We went on stage.” Originals aside, three covers show up on the first album : Uncle Dave Mason’s closin g lark Keep My Skillet Good And Greasy and The Carter Famil Family’s y’s effects-laced Cannonball Blues and downright badass Who’s That Knockin’ Window? It says something about the vinta At My vintaggee qualit y of the band’s originals that those covers fit well alongside. “When we first started playing together,” says Jessi, “we had a shared love for country music, especially The Carter Family. Those [three ] are the ones we felt the most natural playing and seemed to fit us, espec ially lyrically. Also, we came up with our own feels for them, whereas other ones didn’t really become our own.” And Mason, as it turns out, was a Murfreesb Murfr eesbooro ro native.

Although in between album releases, Thos e Darlins are anything but taking it easy. Having tour dates slated for next year with alt.country icons the Old ’97s, the band are coming to Australia for the first time to conquer Meredith’s usually sleepy Sunday schedule. It’s one of four gigs in the Melbourne area, including appearances at the Tote and the Espy. All of that is a nice consolation for both Those Darlins and their Aussie fans, considering a previ ously planned tour here with Wagons had to be cance lled after Nikki broke her arm. She’s long since healed, and every thing is in place for a hell of a whirlwind tour, especially as Nashville’s grunge-garage champs Jeff The Brotherhood are co-headlining most of the Aussie dates . It won’t be the first time Those Darlins have toured with a band that have a different core audie nce. An early stint through the US supporting The Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach raised their profiles considerably. “We’ ve played with a lot of people that have done that,” Jessi reckons, “but the tour with Dan was one of the first wher e it was large crowds and definitely not people who would necessarily find us on their own. We’ve had a lot of awesome fans come out of that.” So are they psyched to share their Auss ie experience with Jeff The Brotherhood? “We’ve known them a long time,” Jessi answers. “We’ve never played a ton with them and we’ve always wanted to. They’re awesome. ” Laughing, she reveals, “I’m actually wearing their T-shirt right now.” WHO : Those Darlins WHAT: Those Darlins (Spunk) WHEN & WHERE: Friday, Karova Lounge (Ballarat); Sunday, Meredith Music Festi val; Friday 17 December, the Espy; Sunday 19 December, the Tote; Monday 20 December , Rooftop Bar

BIRTHDAY BASH

Dirty Three Meredith 1993

The MEREDITH MUSIC FESTIVAL celebrates its 20th anniversary this weekend. Co-organiser MATT HIGH explains to TONY MCMAHON why the festival is so special.

wenty years of the Meredith Music Festival? Surely not. Is it possible that we’re all that… old? Matt High, co-organiser of the world’s two greatest festivals, Meredith and Golden Plains, thinks not. Apparently, it’s all just a trick of the light. “We certainly are not that old, it’s an illusion, don’t worry about it. It really was only yesterday that Meredith had one stage, no commercial sponsors, [you could] camp wherever you wanted, bring a couch into the amphitheatre and enjoy a long weekend of freedom in the glorious Australian countryside.” And funnily enough, that’s still what Meredith is about. So, how is it possible that something as cool as this has survived so long without becoming commercial? High puts it down to r-e-s-p-e-c-t.

forward to seeing Clipse, Little Red, Kimbra, The Fall, Custard and Washed Out, Girls, Neil Finn, Dirty Three… umm, yeah all of them, really.” And in closing, High acknowledges the people who really matter. “Thank you to all those people who have participated in Meredith over the years. The festival exists because of you.”

WHAT: Meredith Music Festival WHEN & WHERE: Friday to Sunday, Meredith Supernatural Amphitheatre

“We never thought we were cool and in fact I think part of the reason Meredith hangs in there untainted is that she is not really cool, she’s never been uber-trendy, she’s never been the ‘It’ girl. She just hangs around and does her thing and doesn’t stray too far from what she knows and loves. And I think people respect her for that.” Having said that, of course, Meredith has changed over the years, without sacrificing any of its appeal, and High agrees that any modifications to the winning formula have been decidedly for the better. “The site itself has changed enormously in terms of better facilities. Also our management of the festival has bloomed to include a large contingent of dedicated and passionate staff. So the festival runs better, in all weather and all circumstances, and the experience for the Meredithgoer is vastly improved. World’s-best-practice loos and showers and roads and paths and lighting and food and medical and emergency services if required. Better campgrounds, faster entry, less queues, and aesthetically a more beautiful environment for three days.” This might be a tough – maybe impossible – question, but Inpress is forced to ask High if he has a highlight from over the years. He nominates a certain world-class instrumental band and getting to see punters and musos naked. “Little things really, like Japanese high-tech concept artist Cornelius playing to a rapt Amphitheatre after a second 40-degree day in a row. Ideas like tai chi, The Gift, the SportsField and Sky Show coming to fruition. The composting loos being a hit. The new wristband system getting everyone through the gate quickly. And yes, Dirty Three in an electrical storm is a memory I’ll treasure forever.” Probably another ridiculous question, but what about a highlight or two from the extraordinary line-up for this 20th anniversary year? We’re talking The Fall, Custard, The Dead Salesman, Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, just to name a scant few. Yeah, it’s a really ridiculous question. “I know what you mean about ridiculous. The whole idea of Meredith is to have three days and two nights of highlights, where things could become an ‘Amphihit’ at 11am or 3am. Personally speaking, this year I am looking

PERCEPTION AND DISTORTION JAMES CARGILL of British group BROADCAST sets ANDY HAZEL straight on the difficulties of inhabiting their structured world of experimental pop.

rom an English country town, down an appropriately crackly and delayed phone line, comes the Brummie brogue of James Cargill, a man once a fifth and now half of electro multimedia group Broadcast. Resolutely British middle class in his recurring mention of monetary thrift and expense, and constantly in love with the escapades offered by his obsession with West Coast 1960s electronic experimentalism, Cargill and bandmate Trish Keegan have spent the last 15 years building a name associated with an almost unchanging aesthetic. Unusually, for such a successful band, there is one sole album that inspired their formation; the 1967 self-titled album for Californian experimental band The United States Of America. Fifteen years ago Keegan described it as “a bible”. Some things don’t change. “Yeah, I’ve never felt like it’s an album I’ve outgrown,” says Cargill with enthusiasm. “What they were trying to achieve with that record

is still what I’d like to achieve; a balance of experimental song structure and electronic textures. It’s a great model for a band.” Pursuing an unobtainable goal such as this is certainly a model for longevity and this path is something that has taken its toll on the band when it comes to members. “It’s just been me and Trish for a few years now,” he explains slowly. “People have always come and gone, me and Trish have always held it together. When we lost Roj [Stevens, keyboards], it was a bit of a blow. When we started, it was me, Trish and Roj. You can make it work… you have to work when someone leaves. You have to have a new project and change the sound of things,” he says in a tone that suggests things didn’t end amicably. “I think we’ve moved on from the Tender Buttons album,” he continues airily, “which we made just the two of us. Making that record we thought we didn’t need a drummer any more, and being without one isn’t too hard, you know. I really like the sound of working with a drummer but suddenly it became difficult to work with them, and expensive. I would like to work with a drummer again, as long as they don’t charge anything.” Drums weren’t an issue on Broadcast’s most recent album, which they made with longtime friend, artist and founder of British experimental magicians The Focus Group, Julian House. “We said we’d always do something together,” says Cargill of their collaborative effort Broadcast And The Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults Of The Radio Age album. “Julian’s first ever record sleeve was our first ever single, so we had that history and we’re so good at working with him. That album took us one month to do, it was the quickest thing we’ve ever done; which was weird because we’re so used to spending years on things,” he says jovially. “We’ll do some of it live, we try and integrate it with the other stuff we’re doing, and it can be difficult when it’s just the two of us as we have to bear in mind we can’t achieve what’s on the record.”

“

I would like to work with a drummer again, as long as they don’t charge anything.”

Through a famously laissez faire arrangement with their label Warp Records, the band have the freedom to move resolutely at their own pace. Starting out amidst the full force of Britpop and lingering polished grunge, Broadcast were a beam from a cleaner, colder time, partly retro and partly futuristic. “At that time, when we started, there was a big period of guitar music. It was a pretty flat landscape, though there was a burgeoning electronic thing that really appealed to me. Part of that was a bit of a Moog thing going on, like Stereolab and Beck as well. In interviews, they were name-checking a lot of records I’d really like. Me and Julian used to go to record fairs at the time and discovered records by Bruce Hark, Silver Apples, The United States Of America, Neu and so on. They were real outsiders but they were still trying to make pop records with different effects and textures, not kitsch throwaway pop. It still had a solid part to it and I wanted to start a band which brought together these textures and sounds and stuff.” The band’s gradual evolution and iceberg-esque disintegration is not born from a lack of inspiration or work ethic, as Cargill depicts. “It can be a painful thing to do. It’s hard to labour over something for so long. It is difficult a lot of the time. The idea with any art is to do it quickly and move on. The idea we had when we started still feels valid to us: the integration of song, form, texture and electronic sounds. I do hear music that I think is kind of detailed like ours now and then, and it is important to me to make a habit of listening to new stuff. Me and Julian talked about this recently when we were listening to Dolphins Into the Future and Ducktails and Ariel Pink – how would you make that music as a British band? It would probably end up sounding like Doctor Who; it’d be brilliant. We talked about forming a band like that but instead of doing it you end up drifting off. It’s difficult when you’ve been around a while because you don’t want to lose the aesthetic of things,” he says slightly despondently. Long a part of both their influences as well as their own style, is the effect of visual art and projections accompanying live shows and accompanying artwork. “We do have projections, we do them ourselves,” Cargill adds. “We used to have a projectionist but it got too expensive.” With songs already featured in films such as Morvern Callar and 21, there is clearly a strong influence of films on the band’s music and in return, the projections do more than just hark back to West Coast psychedelia. What surprises many of their fans is why the band doesn’t feature more frequently in film soundtracks. “It’s funny you should mention soundtracks actually,” he says keenly, “because we’ve just been talking about working with the guy who directed the film Katalina Varga [Peter Strickland]. His new film is about an Italian film studio and a British guy who goes to work on a soundtrack. There are elements of an occult in the film, and it soon becomes a film-within-a-film scenario. We’ve been asked to work on that film within the film, to bring some elements into that. I absolutely loved Katalina Varga, but this new one is quite different to that.” WHO: Broadcast WHEN & WHERE: Thursday, Hi-Fi; Friday, Meredith Music Festival

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CHEMISTRY SET INTERPOL’s DANIEL KESSLER discusses the departure of long-time bassist Carlos Dengler and the changing face of New York City with NINA BERTOK.

ew York City’s kings of indie cool need no introduction. In fact, they no longer need an album title either, according to Interpol’s Daniel Kessler. Some ten years into the band’s incredibly successful career, the guitarist and founding member claims the music simply speaks for itself. Nope, no frills here – just three dudes with instruments on a mission to knock the world on its arse for the fourth time. “And it’s because it’s our fourth record that we didn’t want to give it a title,” adds Kessler. “To me, having an album that is self-titled makes sense because the music itself says enough. We don’t really need some snappy title or something to bring it all together. We’ve been making records for quite some time now and they each stand up on their own. This album is like a statement of all that we are, of all that has accumulated over the last three albums. We are Interpol and if you know Interpol, you know what you’re going to get.” Recorded at Electric Lady Studios in New York in 2009, the new album was completely produced by the band members themselves. However, it was the setting up of Interpol’s very own, newly-formed label Soft Limit that truly marked a milestone for the band, according to the guitarist. “The fact that we went from a major label to creating our own label had nothing to do with [EMI label] Capitol as a company, can I just say…” begins Kessler. “We’ve always been an indie-run band even when we were on a major label; our ideals and direction were never compromised. People have always known that when it comes to our records – when you’re working with us, we have a certain way of how we go about things. That’s actually been the very reason that people like Capitol have wanted to work with us, because we know what we’re doing and we won’t compromise.”

Because not too long ago, according to Kessler, all of this was merely a pipedream. Sure, it was more than a decade ago now, but when you’ve been a struggling muso for years just trying to make it in the Big Apple, you tend to remember the trials and tribulations. Then one day, you get a break, as Kessler claims. For Interpol, first came the critically-acclaimed debut album Turn On The Bright Lights (2002), followed by the commercially successful Antics (2004) and 2007’s Our Love To Admire. In Kessler’s mind, the last ten years are still very fresh, indeed. “I remember when we were given the opportunity to make our first album; well, I don’t think any band would forget the day that happens,” he says. “And the reason you never forget something like that is because up until then you’ve been playing shows around New York City and getting absolutely no interest from anyone and you’re getting rejected by everyone. Not that we were absolutely cut up over it or anything, but it was definitely frustrating more than anything. Our first two demos both got rejected until we finally got a ‘yes’ on the third one. New York from 1997 to 2002 was a much different time period, though. The difference the internet has caused has been enormous since then. Whereas it took us a while to gain some kind of interest, the internet is now a vehicle for bands to get discovered in two seconds. Sometimes I think some of the bands that are around right now maybe might not have been around back then. They definitely would have struggled a lot more back then to stay together. In the late-‘90s if you weren’t getting a break after a while, if you weren’t pulling people to your shows, your band would probably break up not long after.” Luckily for Interpol, persistence was always one of the band’s key strengths. An undeniable chemistry between all the members proved to be another, explains Kessler. Unsurprisingly then, despite now

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being a trio, Interpol continue to soldier on with just Kessler, vocalist/guitarist Paul Banks and drummer Sam Fogarino comprising the official line-up. “New York City is full of talented musicians – I mean, it’s the mecca of music. The only problem is finding the right people that you can connect with on a musical and personal level. Chemistry is almost impossible to find. It took me a long time to find what I was looking for. A lot of people want to be in bands, but whether you actually have the talent for it and whether you can really stick it out within that dynamic is a different story. Sometimes you only find out what people are like after you’ve been playing with them for a while. In New York’s case, it’s obviously not a question of talent – there are so many great artists – it’s just a matter of finding people who get you and can get on your level. Going back to the technology thing as I was saying before, this isn’t really a problem anymore; it’s a lot easier to find ways to figure this out and find the right kind of people. I knew what kind of band I wanted and I didn’t want to compromise on that. I wanted to put together a band that was serious about music; that wanted to do it for the right reasons. The history of Interpol started when I finally found that.” For that reason, it wasn’t easy for Kessler or Interpol to see the departure of long-time member and bassist/keyboardist Carlos Dengler in mid-2009. Following the current album’s completion, Kessler says Dengler announced his decision to retire from music altogether and pursue a new career outside the industry. While the resignation came as a shock to the band, Kessler also claims things always happen for a reason and no bridges were burned in this case. “I think it just came down to the fact that he basically wanted to have a change in his life,” sighs Kessler. “He said he wanted to see what it was like to have a life outside of music. He wanted to find out what it’s like to pursue goals that have nothing to do with being in a rock band anymore. I think he just wanted to do things on his own. I mean, we did have a very long dialogue about it, I’ll admit. We very much understood that this was something that he needed to do with his life. It’s never easy to go through something like that, especially if the person has been in the band from day one pretty much. At the same time, we know that it happens to bands all the time. Sometimes people get replaced, sometimes not.” For the time being, Kessler says Interpol will operate as a three-piece, with various live members filling in on bass and keyboard duties during the band’s world tour, which will see them back in Australia over the new year. “Last time we were there was January 2008, from memory. I had a great time, the weather was nice and warm and I think that just brings everything to life. I remember visiting this Nick Cave exhibit in Melbourne, which really stood out for me. The great thing was that we got a lot of down-time, which doesn’t always happen on tour. Sometimes it’s like you have no idea where you even are and all you get to see is inside the venue you’re playing. With Australia, though, because it’s such a long way to get to, you really try to make sure you make the most of it because you only get to come back every so often. Though you always do wish it was otherwise.”

WHO: Interpol WHAT Interpol (Soft Limit/Co-Op/Shock) WHEN & WHERE: Thursday 30 December, Falls Festival, Lorne; Friday 7 January, Palace

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ANDREW W.K. SAT 29 JAN

THE HI-FI

ALSO APPEARING AT BIG DAY OUT RIGHT AROUND THE COUNTRY SPECIAL GUESTS

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TICKETS FROM THE VENUE (1300-THEHIFI (843 443), THEHIFI.COM.AU) & POLYESTER

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ALSO APPEARING AT GOLDEN PLAINS FESTIVAL

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Tickets from the Corner Box Office (57 Swan St Richmond 12-8 Mon-Sat), www.cornerhotel.com, 9427 9198 and Polyester Records

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TALK ABOUT REVOLUTION With their homeland going “Biffy crazy”, Scottish rockers BIFFY CLYRO are ready to make Australia their bitch. JEREMY WILLIAMS tracks down drummer BEN JOHNSTON.

“I

t was mega, it was really good. This is one of the smaller venues so we didn’t get to bring in the missiles and the bigger stuff, but it was still a great crowd so we are all happy guys.” Having just come off the stage at Plymouth Pavillions, Scottish rockers Biffy Clyro are riding the crest of a very high wave. Forming 16 years ago, the Ayrshire trio (Simon Neil – lead vocals/guitar, James Johnston – bass/ vocals, Ben Johnston – drums/vocals) have taken what could be described as the slow road to mainstream success. With five albums under their belt, drummer Johnston reckons they just happened to be “the right band at the right time”. Though Johnston tries to take their newfound fame in his stride, he concedes that “it is all pretty mental and pretty weird. There is nothing about our life that is mundane, mediocre or normal. When we look back we can’t believe where we started. It has been 16 years of hard graft. It has been a

gradual progression from one stage to the next. It takes a good long time to take it all in and we’ve got strong heads on our shoulders.” Unable to pinpoint exactly what led to the commercial success of their fourth album, Puzzle, Johnston proudly points out that “we’d put in the groundwork and it was bubbling away” prior to the album’s release. The statement is undeniable for a group who have spent most of their band life on the road. Biffy Clyro are the perfect example of a band prepared to put in the legwork to achieve accolades, no desire for over night success for them. Declaring “passion” as the secret to their success, arena tours are a long way from “three friends playing in our parents’ garage, making a racket. We were doing Nirvana songs, indie songs and everyone’s favourite songs.” What started as three boys bashing their instruments slowly evolved into a creative unit. Johnston takes up the tale: “Eventually we wrote our own stuff. Then suddenly we’re doing a gig and so our aim changed to doing an album. It just goes on like that. You take it in small steps. We were talking about this the other day, and Simon had scribbled on his art school folder – everyone used to scribble on theirs – he wrote the Reading line-up of the year 2000 and apparently we were headlining. That was Simon’s aspirations anyway, by 2000, but it wasn’t quite right! Maybe 2012 – who knows?” Despite their commercial and critical acclaim, Johnston is pleasingly humble. The hard work has paid off and Biffy Clyro may be reaping the rewards, but they realise it might just as easily not have happened at all. Rather than a band with big dreams, they are still just three mates enjoying the ride of a lifetime. Whilst the impact of the success must have hit home, Johnston finds it difficult to recall the real turning point, the moment that he and his chums realised there was more to Biffy than they could have dreamed. He says with a wry laugh, “You are asking me to cast my mind back a good few years here. It was probably the first time we sold out King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut, a little venue in Glasgow. The first time we sold it out and the audience were singing our stuff back to us to the point to where our monitors were [inaudible]. We couldn’t hear ourselves sing. It was like a proper fucking Beatles moment, you know? Back then we thought it was about to kick off in Glasgow, there was a vibe that it was all going off. It was before we’d even released an album, so probably 2000. So the year Simon wanted to headline Reading, we were actually selling out King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut.”

“

There is nothing about our life that is mundane, mediocre or normal.”

King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut may seem a long time ago now for the trio, but it was their consistency on the live circuit that really won over the public. Having launched themselves at the height of Britpop, Biffy Clyro never really fitted the mould of the popular music scene. Despite 2007’s Puzzle still being distinctly non-mainstream, Johnston was thrilled when their singles “were suddenly played on daytime radio. We were just over the moon when it happened. We will welcome as many fans as possible.” So what of current album Only Revolutions? Did the group find their newfound success added pressure to the melting pot? Johnston concedes, “There is a little bit of a niggle in the back of your head, but it definitely isn’t something that occupies your thoughts much. The tester for our songs is: do we like them? Do they make the hairs on our neck stand up? If they do then they make the album, or if not the record then they will be a B-side. It is the same testing process for everything; that hasn’t changed at any point ever. We aren’t going to start putting restrictions on what we do.” It appears that their continued progression into ‘popular music’ leaves Johnston bewildered but satisfied. “ It is everything we are to this point. There is nothing we have lost. We still have the sensibilities of the first album. Our spirit is still there. It is a perfect representation of where we are as a band.” Johnston’s statement resounds throughout the record, which is true to Biffy’s back catalogue but has seen the group win over an even wider audience. Whilst it is arguable that a Mercury nomination was an inevitable progression for the trio, their recent Radio 1 Teen Award for Best Song would have seemed unlikely even at the height of Puzzle. “Britain has just gone a bit Biffy crazy. It is just really hard to believe we even won at the Teen Awards this year. We won Best Song. We beat Cheryl Cole and some other pop bands, so we can’t believe it is actually happening. People’s ears were pricked up already and then the album came out. It was the right record at a good time.” With Big Day Out on the lists of gigs they have yet to conquer, Jonhston is excited about their impending trip down under. He promises to “try and play as many of our songs as we can fit into one set” and give a “spirited performance”. A tip for those wanting to impress: run through Biffy’s lyric sheets before the gig as Johnston loves nothing than hearing people “sing our songs”.

WHO: Biffy Clyro WHEN & WHERE: Tuesday 14 and Wednesday 15 December, Rod Laver Arena (supporting Muse); Thursday 16, Hi-Fi

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REVENGE OF THE NERDS There’s rare and then there’s rarer. The chance to catch DESCENDENTS live falls in the latter category. “I guess we’ve all re-bonded over the very simple fact that we’re still here and breathing,” drummer and punk rock icon BILL STEVENSON tells MARK HEBBLEWHITE.

“W

hy has it taken us so long to get down to Australia? I wish I had a real answer for you,” ponders Bill Stevenson when asked why All, a band spawned by the Descendents, have visited so often while the parent organisation has not. “The only way I can explain it is that the Descendents is really a hobby for all of us: it has been since we formed the band back in high school. We never really had an agenda as far as getting a real career out of the band. So tours and records come and go. Also three of us are parents, which meant that the lag time between when we do things gets longer and longer. Every time we play now people think it’s a ‘reunion show’. And of course Milo [Aukerman, vocalist] has his own career outside of music [he’s a biochemist]. So when you put all that together it’s easy to see why we don’t get to play a huge amount anywhere, let alone get down to Australia.”

Despite the sporadic nature of the band, Stevenson does not rule out a new album. In fact, it could happen within the next year. “Now could actually be a good time for a new Descendents record,” offers Stevenson. “Over the next 12 months we may have some opportunities because we’ve recently re-bonded as a band. That’s not to say we ever had fallings out or anything, it just means that recently we’ve been focused on the band a bit more. I think all this stems from a few things that have happened lately. First, a couple of years ago Karl [Alvarez, bass] had a heart attack, from which he’s now completely recovered. Also, this last year I had two very serious near death experiences, which required neurosurgery but from which I’ve actually recovered quadruple-fold. I feel like I’m 20 years old again; it’s amazing. “But anyway I guess we’ve all re-bonded over the very simple fact that we’re still here and breathing,” he adds with a laugh. “So you know, we haven’t actually talked about recording yet but we were able to accept the offer of an Australian tour and we’ve been planning more shows in the States next year. So who knows?” Since a Descendents show is something of a punk rock ‘event’, the band are promising a live show in keeping with their ‘virgin’ status as it relates to our fair shores. “We’ve taken a very democratic and I guess very predictable approach to putting together the song list for our first Australian tour,” reveals Stevenson. “You’re going to hear a fair representation of all our albums, every one of them, because that’s the only way to satisfy everyone’s desires.

“

Now could actually be a good time for a new Descendents record…we may have some opportunities because we’ve recently re-bonded as a band.”

“There’s going to be one interesting aspect to the whole thing though. We’ve never played a song from [2004 album] Cool To Be You live – not once, because we haven’t played a show since the record came out. So whatever songs we play from that album when we’re in Australia will be a real first because they haven’t been played anywhere before.” The Descendents are not only in demand due to their infuriatingly limited schedule. The simple fact is that this band of aging punk rockers are universally beloved in a way few other bands could hope to achieve. So what inspires the fanatical loyalty and dedication that the Descendents have achieved among punk rock fans? “Well, it’s actually hard to judge your own art and why it affects people in certain ways. In fact doing this feels like an act of conceit to try and do so,” answers Stevenson. “But if I was forced to give an answer it’s because we started our band for the right reasons. That is we wanted to play music for music’s sake – in particular the elation of musical discovery – and people seem to have reacted to that ethos. Also the Descendents have never been scared to express honest emotions, no matter how embarrassing that may be. People really relate to the lyrics in particular because they are uncomfortably honest.” The Descendents then could very well be a musical version of Revenge Of The Nerds. “Yeah that wouldn’t be a bad way of putting it at all,” laughs Stevenson, who’s the first to admit that he and his fellow band members were never the ‘cool’ punk rock kids. As nerdy as the Descendents were – and are – the band played a pivotal role in the development of pop/punk, or if that term has now become pejorative, melodic hardcore. So does the band relish their OG status? “I don’t see us as originators as such. Instead I prefer to see the band as part of a continuum – we were running water that just happened to join the stream. That said we did influence a lot of bands and I personally take great pride in that. “But you’ve also got to remember that we had our influences as well. There were so many bands that were important in shaping us – those from way back when, The Stooges, The Kinks and Eddie Cochran right through to The Ramones, The Germs and some punk rock bands that never [got] ‘known’ if I can call it that, but who really influenced us.” And did the melodic approach taken by the Descendents go down well with an early ‘80s audience used to the uber aggressive strains of Minor Threat and Black Flag? “Well, it varied,” admits Stevenson. “I do remember early on when we did a show supporting The Germs and their fans were just pointing and laughing at us. They didn’t even bother to throw things. At that point we were really poppy and that show gave us the incentive to put a more aggressive edge to our sound, if no other reason than we didn’t want to get beat up at our own shows. “As bands like Black Flag went, there really wasn’t a problem. By the time both of us had got somewhat popular it was the same people coming to both shows. Everyone knew each other and things were really cool, so there were no problems at all.”

WHO: Descendents WHEN & WHERE: Friday 17 December, No Sleep Til Melbourne, Melbourne Showgrounds

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SINGLED OUT BY CLEM BASTOW

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SINGLE OF THE WEEK

MIA IT TAKES A MUSCLE XL/Remote Control

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN THE PROMISE Sony

FITZ & THE TANTRUMS PICKIN’ UP THE PIECES Dangerbird/Alberts

Such was the lukewarm-bordering-on-hostile reaction to /\/\/\Y/\, I find myself surprised when another single is released and I don’t hate it (NB: this despite the fact I didn’t hate the record). That’s what happened with It Takes A Muscle, which I had well and truly forgotten by the time it was released; fortunate, then, because its swoony, soupy romanticism caught me quite by “surprise”. I almost find MIA more subversive when she’s in this mode than I do her shouty moments, only because it’s so out of character for what is expected of her.

Springsteen recorded a lot of songs for 1978’s Darkness On The Edge Of Town that didn’t make it onto the album. As well as a mega-deluxe version of that record being released, the extra material is also available as a double album, which makes it a lot easier to examine and appreciate the work on its own terms.

Another day, another band mining the depths of deep ‘60s R&B. It’s fertile territory that has never really gone out of fashion, but is certainly more in vogue now than ever before. Los Angelenos Fitz & The Tantrums are a band that could go either way. They have the chops and sensibilities of the soul music they’re so heavily influenced by, their songwriting is capable and sonically they have hit a distinct ‘60s sound while still sounding relevant. But with a proliferation of these kinds of bands at present, are Fitz & The Tantrums offering anything new?

COLDPLAY CHRISTMAS LIGHTS EMI I assume this is one of the first entries in the traditional™ race to the UK Christmas number one, and in the tradition™ of other feelbad dirges to have snared that honour like Gary Jules’ Mad World, Christmas Lights finds a pretty downbeat Coldplay, Chris Martin talking about holding onto chandeliers of hope, or something. There are some nice syrupy string arrangements, but the song feels disjointed and leaves you remembering that they’ve done much, much better than this. Bah, humbug.

P!NK F**KIN’ PERFECT Sony If we can take a moment, I’d just like to make it clear that the spelling of F**kin’ Perfect is neither Inpress’s decision nor mine (if it were the latter, I’d probably call it Fucking Cockmonkeys Cunting Perfect, such are my feelings about faux swearing). Anyway, here’s P!nk in upbeat self-love power ballad mode, and it’s rather nice; not as maudlin as Family Portrait nor as sunny as, say, most of the rest of her catalogue, and features a non-horrible rap middleeight from Ms Moore herself.

An alternative version of Racing In The Street kicks off the compilation, and thankfully it’s the only track from the original to be doubled-up. It’s the perfect example of a Springsteen masterpiece, with so much emotion and storytelling condensed into one simple and honest track. The kind of song so many others fail at when trying to mimic him. Significantly, we are finally treated to the original studio version of Because The Night, a song that Springsteen was unsatisfied with at the time of recording, so passed onto Patti Smith who ended up making it a massive smash. Disc two includes the first appearance of a studio version of Fire. Someday We’ll Be Together is deeply inspired by one of Springsteen’s heroes, Roy Orbison, not only in its arrangement but also the warm, deep vocal delivery. It’s A Shame could have been as big a hit as anything from Born In The USA. Also great is hearing discarded tracks that were re-worked for later material – Spanish Eyes starts with the exact lyrics that eventually became I’m On Fire. The songs were for Darkness, and subsequently these tracks were cut mostly live with the E Street Band shortly after being written which adds a rawness and immediacy that you can feel in all Springsteen’s best work. This compilation is an amazing recollection of one of the most fertile periods of his career, and an absolute treat for every fan of the Boss.

If you’ve heard MoneyGrabber, the first single from the record, then you may want to lower your expectations when it comes to the longplayer; that song is out of this world and up there with the finest ‘retro’ ditties in recent memory. It’s not that the rest of the record lets the standard slip any great deal, it’s more that the record is ostensibly a 36-minute plateau. The blue-eyed soul doesn’t stop being appealing, but it never grabs you by the loins and makes you feel the kind of ecstatic joy that can only come from hearing this music delivered from the guts. It doesn’t make any real attempt to move you. There are a lot of things to like about this record, but they’re mainly academic – from the cutesy flute motif on the title track to the heavily-echo treated piano throughout and the slick schoolyard chant in the tail end of Rich Girl’s verses. It’s all so pleasant. Indeed this band’s value lies strongest in its definite commercial appeal. If anyone is to convert the masses to the retro soul revival, Fitz & The Tantrums are surely the frontrunners in that race. Dan Condon

THE DUKE & THE KING LONG LIVE THE DUKE & THE KING Silva Oak/Shock With the stock of The Felice Bros still on the rise, Simone Felice split from his brothers and formed The Duke & The King. Their first album, Nothing Gold Can Stay, received wide acclaim before Felice hit a major stop sign this year – undergoing urgent heart surgery to rectify a problem which saw him operating on only one-eighth of the normal supply of blood. Out of that major event comes Long Live The Duke & The King. You would expect something either boldly celebratory or darkly reflective from someone who has gone through so much but this record, to its detriment, takes the middle road. The country soul blend that Felice soaks his songs in is almost too easy listening in its sweet delivery and as a result there is a blanding out of sorts that distracts attention from the handful of gems. The single Shaky is shaped by a light funk quality that makes it dance lightly with a nostalgic summer haze. It works wonderfully but just as quickly a song like Children Of The Sun takes things too far into hippy territory with naive lines like “Hello children of the sun/how’s it feel to hold a gun”. Other key moments are the bluesy R&B of Hudson River (it sounds like a lost ‘60s classic), the ‘70s West Coast sound of No Easy Way Out and the dark and sultry Have You Seen It?. The highlight is album closer Don’t Take That Plane Tonight, with its slow and plodding Crazy Horse groove. Too much of the album though is neither deep enough in its soul or sharp enough in its funk to maintain attention. As an EP this would have been a much stronger release. Chris Familton

Chris Yates

JASON SINGH I CAN DREAM Independent I still think Everywhere You Go by Taxiride is/was one of this country’s great underappreciated pop gems (file with Scott Cain’s I’m Movin’ On, Nikki Webster’s Strawberry Kisses), so consequently I have a very small soft spot for Jason Singh’s I Can Dream, which feels a little like an offcut from the Boy Meets Girl (that’s the songwriting duo, not the theme) songbook, but is ultimately too TT-FM to be truly transcendent. Still, it’s nice to know he’s still, I dunno, alive?

BIFFY CLYRO BOOOOOM, BLAST & RUIN 14th Floor Yes, five o’s. Look, I know I’ve grizzled about Biffy Clyro before, but I genuinely don’t get it: am I imagining that they have a huge following and considerable critical adoration? Because on the basis of Boooooooooooooooom, Blast & Ruin, they sound like lesstalented contemporaries of turn-of-the-century Jimmy Eat World.

ALEXANDRA BURKE START WITHOUT YOU Sony Man, it’s been so long since I’ve heard a club track that starts with a dancehall toast that I had a flashback to 2003. And this is seriously old school; it’s closer to Mr President than, I dunno, Rihanna; cod riddims and random shout-outs pepper the backing track before a chorus that is somewhere between a Play School nursery rhyme and a Banana Growers Association jingle.

BLACK DEVIL YARD BOSS SMASH STUFF Independent Titles like Smash Stuff inevitably recall the “glory days” of Limp Bizkit et al, so it was perhaps not that surprising to find that Smash Stuff is the sort of chugging blues/ rock rifferama that was fresh back when Spiderbait covered Black Betty. However, there’s something about it – perhaps that hint of Mt Panorama – that I can’t bring myself to fully hate. Meet you at the Green Room for a Bundy and Coke.

LYRICS BORN AS U WERE Shock Lyrics Born, nee Tom Shimura, the Japanese-born and American-raised MC, has released an album which embraces the club aspects of pop music over the hip hop he is renowned for.

PURDY DEVIANT NATURE Soft Purdy wants to be played loud. How else can you get the full effect of the ‘60s exotica and psychedelic washes of bright, full sound billowing past you? There’s so much going on – trumpeting horns, wheezing synths, whispering vocals, hand percussion, samples and field recordings. In fact, it’s almost a crime not to crank it up so you can fully realise and experience everything. Deviant Nature is an album that has a real sun-kissed vibe, a little similar to Caribou but much less shoegazey. Purdy has a joyful, childish exuberance and he’s painting it bright yellow across his music, which feels like playtime at the local kindergarten, just as chaotic but perhaps a little more contained. He also sings on a lot of the tracks, sounding a little Britpop. Yet don’t be discouraged – as he sings, the music is reaching around, trying to bury him because, make no mistake, this music is alive. It’s been fed too much red cordial and now it won’t go down for a nap. It’s Sydneysider Kevin Purdy’s third solo album and it really extends upon the lush, beautiful, exotic strangeness of his previous two, as well as his other band the prog psych sweethearts Tooth. There’s also a real pop element to this album at times. It still possesses that library music quality but at times Purdy seems anxious to sing his songs. But it’s when they extend and break out, the sounds swirling around madly, the music just sauntering along casually, like the aptly titled Floating, Waiting, Repeating, that you really understand the craft at play here. There’s so much going on, so many sounds. Yet it’s full without feeling busy. And when you get a chance to really listen to the amount of plates he’s spinning at once, it’s nothing short of a joy. If you like your psych pop exuberant, exotic and cheeky then Purdy is your man.

As U Were bares a perverse resemblance to electro duo Chromeo’s ironic appropriation of the more sardonic and cheesy aspects of ‘80s dance music. I Wanna B W/U traverses the Kanye West AutoTune route and is thankfully executed in a manner that seeks to push the boundaries of contemporary popular culture rather than pursuing a substandard musical revival of a decade long since past. While one can appreciate Lyrics Born’s desire to experiment on this record, it’s only midway through with I’ve Lost Myself that Shimura explores an almost minimalist drum and organ hip hop structure that is interspersed with Joyo Velarde-sung soul-imbued choruses, exploring the wearisome lyrical theme of life in the public eye. As it progresses it’s difficult to sense any coherence in As U Were, coming across more as a mix tape than an official album. The Marc Almond-via-Italio disco thud of Lies x 3 is Triple J radio fodder, and while the album at times seems like it is inundated with hits, there’s a definite sense that Lyrics Born has compromised some of the inventiveness and unique lyricisms which originally marked him as a truly unique artist. Throughout Lyrics Born includes the now traditional hip hop comedy skits that include him interacting with a record company executive, one ending with Lyrics Born saying to the executive, “Well, I think we are both going in two very different directions, so fuck you,” and with that the pulsating dance beat of Pushed Aside, Pulled Apart kicks in. That comedic interaction may just explain Lyrics Born’s direction on this album – he certainly has the confidence to pursue his own singular vision. Cam Ford

Bob Baker Fish

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RIHANNA LOUD Def Jam I’m a heterosexual male. Even if I wasn’t – even if I was an asexual frog living in an Amazonian tree hollow – I’d understand that Rihanna is a smoking hottie. Maybe it’s the Def Jam label, maybe it’s the confidence oozing from every perfectly sculpted pore, maybe it’s the glitter body paint from the Umbrella film clip. Or maybe it’s the calibre of her releases over the last five years that’s seen her billed as arguably the second biggest female artist of the decade (a tip of the hat, Ms Knowles). So if RiRi’s latest offering, Loud, were to be heard in full without knowledge of the woman behind the mic, that pair of ears would walk/flap away thinking that it’s a solid but definitely not showstopping album. First track S&M fits the kinky opening song bill perfectly (“Sticks and stones may break my bones/But whips and chains excite me”), while first single Only Girl (In The World) is a prime-time club banger sure to spasmodically grind groins from here to Greenland. Guests Drake (What’s My Name?), Nicki Minaj (Raining Men) and Eminem (Love The Way You Lie Part II – a stripped-back reply to his Love The Way You Lie from his latest record) are brilliant, but there aren’t too many other highlights. Man Down is a less-than-convincing reggae tune lacking both decent lyrical quality and a substantive hook, and I was reaching for the scissors listening to California King Bed, feeling like I had been transported to the ‘emotional balladry’ of Fergie circa Big Girls Don’t Cry. And nothing else on the album really contains enough to hold your attention for too long. Rihanna (and, let’s face it, her management) obviously made the decision to jump on the single downloads wagon early, and have invested in half an album’s worth of choice cuts. Unfortunately for listeners of Loud, the remainder is simply filler. Dylan Stewart

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NATHANIEL RATELIFF IN MEMORY OF LOSS Universal

ALL INDIA RADIO THE SILENT SURF Independent

American newcomer Nathaniel Rateliff’s biography has mythic overtones of Kings Of Leon, Ray LaMontagne and Bon Iver. He was raised in rural Missouri, his parents devout Christians. Then he discovered rock (Led Zeppelin!). He wound up in Denver, working for a trucking company. Yet illness intervened and so he found solace in music… Rateliff’s songwriting, too, shares inflections with the aforementioned nu-Americana contingent, veering from busker blues to alt.country to nu-folk.

All India Radio is a place where serene, down-tempo strumming, these gentle instrumental excursions, meet lush swells of atmosphere and occasional samples. It began as a solo project for Melbourne-based Martin Kennedy, some seven albums ago, doing some bedroom recording along to scratchy samples that a friend had recorded overseas, and since then it’s grown into a band proper, recruiting bass, drums and mining the whole tripped-out ‘70s Pink Floyd vibe. It’s lush and surprisingly large-sounding music, where everything has been constructed for the sole purpose of allowing the listener to just close their eyes, let go and fall headlong into it.

On the basis of its sleeve, In Memory Of Loss could be mistaken for an ambient electronica album. While it’s the antithesis of that, Rateliff’s music is similarly about mood, even sentience (especially the Lennon-esque piano piece Happy Just To Be), as much as repressed desire and dormant indignation. This is some skinny love soul. Rateliff’s composition is distilled to its essence, the album opening with the gorgeously hummable Once In A Great While, the strings as delicate as dragonfly wings. Rateliff and his producer, Brian Deck, who counts Iron & Wine among his credits, value quietness – and spareness. Indeed, for all his old-worldly charm, Rateliff abides by a modern minimalist aesthetic. The multi-instrumentalist also appreciates contrast. Rateliff is a self-styled troubadour, yet everything here is so very still. And, though he’s attached to his acoustic guitar, the broodily intense Early Spring Till, about tried patience, has a visceral electric hum over its throbbing bass drum. Rateliff can rock. The gritty You Should’ve Seen The Other Guy has dive-bar humour – with heirloom harmonica. And, had the Followills shunned stadiums (and razors), they may have come up with the understated Shroud, midnight stomper Whimper And Wail, or Stonesy A Lamb On The Stone. In Memory... is slow music for fast times. Cyclone

Though they’ve used singing in the past, their eighth album is wholly instrumental, save for some very scratchy vocal samples from Professor Don Gurnett (NASA and the University of Iowa), which curiously enough come across in a similar manner to the way Kennedy used samples on his earliest albums. In this sense it’s something of a return to his roots, and if truth be told the lack of vocals really contributes to a feeling of space and scope, and to sing over the top would only bring the music back down to earth. As such, what we do have is a kind of shimmering acoustica; gentle, almost post-rock space folk tunes that have slowed down and allowed the atmospheres to crawl all over them until they’re so entwined that one can’t exist without the other. All India Radio’s use of dynamics is incredibly powerful – these abrupt shifts that really highlight the rich fullness of their sound. The changes are big, telegraphed, and when they occur they’re welcome and almost comforting. In fact there’s something familiar about the riffs and music, something that taps into our collective past. It’s not cutting edge music, it’s comfortable music – big, lush and beautiful.

RE-RELEASE ME

Nigerian Fela Kuti, the inventor of Afrobeat, a funk-based groove with traditional African rhythms clocking in at more than ten minutes and sung in pidgin English, was an agitator and provocateur, often falling foul of the military government. Opposite People/Sorrow Tears And Blood (Knitting Factory/Planet Company), originally released in 1977, are directly related to his struggle. Angry, eloquent and a little bit cheeky, this is some of Kuti’s best work, where he drew on South Africa’s apartheid, multinational corporations and the elites in Lagos, who blindly continued to appease their former colonial masters.

Incredibly prolific, Stalemate/Fear Not For Man (Knitting Factory/ Planet Company) were two of ten or so albums that Kuti would release during 1977 alone. There’s a real relaxed, almost cocktail Afrobeat feel – minimal, low-key – with a gentle groove flowing throughout. Politics was increasingly finding its way into his lyrics during this time, and musically everything is simpler, almost austere, but most of all the tempo and urgency has slowed dramatically, just as his focus has now shifted from the urgency and passion of his youth to a more incisive political and social commentary.

RESCENT REISSUES

Upside Down/Music Of Many Colours (Knitting Factory/ Planet Company) pools together two albums distinguished by Kuti opening up his music to outside forces. Firstly, with Sandra Akanke Isidore, the US woman who introduced Kuti to black consciousness, who provides vocals on 1976’s amazing Upside Down. Music Of Many Colours (1979) is a joint album with US jazz funk superstar Roy Ayers, who toured with Kuti in Nigeria. Hearing Ayers’ vibraphone cascading over Kuti’s tight Afro-funk is nothing short of a joy. You’ll wish he stayed in Nigeria.

Shuffering And Shmiling/No Agreement (Knitting Factory/Planet Company) are two of Kuti’s more provocative political agitations from a time (again, 1977) when the band were at their peak. This is the epitome of Afrobeat. This is tight, urgent and funky as hell, with a mischievous Kuti firstly condemning the religions of his former colonial masters and then proclaiming that no agreement will ever be reached between him and the government. If you’re after music that means something this is the place to come. Some 33 years later it will still make the hairs stand up on the back of your neck. Bob Baker Fish

Bob Baker Fish

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Since the last column was dedicated to a rant perhaps equally as self-indulgent as its subject, a lot of great music’s been stockpiled for this week. So forgive the brevity of each entry. When asking bands to record a song for their Holiday Undercover series, The AV Club had two rules: the selection had to be a cover, and it had to somehow be holiday-themed. The Walkmen, the last band to play in the original Undercover series, returned to provide a spirited take on Lindsey Buckingham’s Holiday Road. Yep, the song as featured in all the Chevy Chase-starring Vacation films. Check out the video on avclub.com for a little festive cheer/nostalgia. While we’re on the topic of Christmas, Target, ahem, are soundtracking their stores with an eclectic (and good) roster of musicians including Blackalicious, Bishop Allen, Crystal Antlers, Coconut Records (AKA Jason Schwartzman), and the pairing up of Best Coast and Wavves and, in the spirit of 25 December, are giving the 13-track compilation for free. We still don’t feel entirely comfortable downloading something from the Target website – even their editorial is banal: “Blackalicious delivers this song from the point of view of a child on Christmas morning, channeling the excitement one could only feel during a total, paper-tearing toyfest” – but hey, there’s no denying it’s a quality collection of songs. Head to the Christmas section of target. com to download. We’ve uncovered a reasonably recent video of Sydney electronic live act The Bird (AKA Sifixion and Ben Walsh) playing live dubstep. It’s pretty incredible to watch, with live kit and MPC/keys, with an audio version of the session available from pnomad.com. To watch the video search for ‘The Bird – live dubstep sessions’ in YouTube. Two acts coming out for Soundwave have music freely available online, and one of them’s a seminal band who you’d think would be all nah-they-canpay about their music. Gang Of Four, one of the earliest purveyours of post-punk and arguably the strangest inclusion on the Soundwave bill (but a good one), have released a three-track EP, featuring a new recording of Glass, from their 1979 debut Entertainment!, a remixed version of I Party All The Time from their upcoming album Content, and another new song, Sleeper, which didn’t quite make it onto the album. You can download it, and read commentary from the band about the songs, at the Guardian’s website: http://bit.ly/9iovGc. The other Soundwave band that we’ve started following is This Town Needs Guns, a tweehardcore act that have an infatuation with animals and make cute DIY music videos. You can find them on Bandcamp like all the other cool kids these days, but we’ll direct your attention to a free compilation album that they feature on, called Sonic Waves, from Exploding In Sound. It’s a great blend of known bands (such as Retribution Gospel Choir, Alberta Cross and even Karnivool!) and those that were new to us (Suns Of The Tundra, anyone?) and is available in all sorts of bit rates – Apple Lossless for the win! Twenty-one songs. For free. Indulge! Get it at explodinginsound.bandcamp.com. Bronze are a garage pop band from New York City – Brooklyn, specifically, of course – that write catchy as fuck songs, brief snippets of LCD Soundsystemesque punk-funk but with lots of lo-fi fuzz. Think DFA Records circa 2004/2005 and you’ve in the right ballpark. You can download their self-titled EP for free, featuring the brilliant Count To Two, via bronze.bandcamp.com. Finally, to Tape Findings, which we stumbled upon via a Guardian piece by Alexis Petridis. Tape Findings is an online place for “found home recordings, and other cassette deck oddities”. Its compiler hunts thrift shops and garage sales for random cassette tapes, records them to his computer and offers these sounds to the world. It’s equal parts fun and eerie. Not knowing the origins of the audio, often not even knowing who’s singing or playing (or what’s playing) adds a mystery you’ll rarely find in modern music, allowing your imagination to run wild. A couple of old ladies singing? Random collection of garage noises only your dad would recognise? Sweetthunder.org has it covered. Head to the Tape Findings section and prepare to give your download limit a work out. There’s 119 weeks’ worth of material at time of writing, which should keep you entertained throughout the festive season. Stocking filler, perhaps?

SPOKES EVERYONE I EVER MET Counter Records

BRIAN ENO SMALL CRAFT ON A MILK SEA Warp/Inertia

DUFFY ENDLESSLY A&M Records

They are lost, these first notes that usher in Spokes, and their latest release Everyone I Ever Met. Although their isolation is fleeting, they push through the holes in your speakers like sugar through a sieve – falling softly, only to be surrounded, stirred and mixed with other ingredients. The result is 3 4 5, the beautiful opening song from this, the Mancunian outfit’s second album. The record’s 11 other songs follow suit, blending subtle pop melodies (album highlight Give it Up To The Night) with epic instrumental moments (the seven-minute-plus title track), all the while harbouring a tangible melancholy.

Brian Eno surprised many when it was announced that this album would be coming out on the Warp label with its focus on forward-thinking electronica. Hearing it makes the move the perfect fit as this is an album of stern electronica with flashes of dissonance and a certain sci-fi film quality to many of the tracks.

You’re on a hiding to nothing as a neo-soul singer. Either you’re the new Amy or you’re not a patch on Aretha, on Billie, on Dusty. Endlessly comes four years after Duffy’s hugely successful Rockferry and, although her voice is a distinctive and memorable instrument, this album only reinforces her place in the second rank of modern soul singers.

Listening to it during an Australian summer, Everyone I Ever Met might not have the same appeal as it will for the band’s compatriots in the midst of a northern winter. Whilst providing a perfect backdrop for a latenight, cross-city drive on a hot Friday night, this is the kind of music that our northern counterparts use as the soundtrack to mulled wine, card games and snowcovered streets. In saying this, there are occasional, uplifting moments reminiscent of Arcade Fire that show a maturity across the record. Most of the songs run five minutes or longer, and while on the whole they are structurally simple, the use of volume and the ability to let an instrument – whether it be electric guitar or a frantic violin solo – take as much of the focus as the words. Interludes Sun it Never Comes are Canon Grant offer two distinct sentiments, the first being a warm, open-fire lullaby and the latter an oddly-placed appendix, recorded as if in a vacant warehouse on a century-old piano. Everyone I Ever Met is a beautiful and varied record, with Spokes definitely a band to watch on the resurgent Manchester scene. An investment for colder days ahead… Dylan Stewart

VARIOUS ARTISTS TRADI-MODS VS ROCKERS Crammed Discs/ Planet Company Konono No1 released their third album, Assume Crash Position, earlier in the year, and again, despite their previous two albums, it sounded like it had just dropped out of the sky. Their sound is so incredible, so alien. Of course the sky is actually the Democratic Republic of Congo and their sound is that of poorly amplified thumb pianos played in an hypnotic trance style. It’s where the Congotronics tag came from, and from under this wing emerged similarly messed-up alien geniuses like Kasai Allstars, a 25-piece collective who also play electrified traditional music. So now their label has done something totally amazing and unexpected and farmed out the tunes to the cool indie kids. So now we’ve got everyone from Animal Collective to Deerhoof tackling these songs over two discs. Each artist approaches the work in their own unique style – some are straight out remixes, some are inspired by the tunes, such as New York quintet Skeletons, who use Sobanza Mimanisa’s Kiwembo as inspiration, screaming “we’re playing likembes” over sparse, funky guitar. This album is nothing short of incredible. Remix albums can be tired – this by contrast is overflowing with ideas. Whether it’s Tussle’s taut kosmische disco funk, where they focus on the polyrhythmic percussion within Konono No1’s music, or Portland-based Au’s frenetic eastern melodies on Masanka Sankayi’s Two Labors, it’s clear that the source material really inspired the collaborators. Burnt Friedman uses elements of Konono No1’s Rubaczech in his typically highly percussive electro dubby outing, whilst Eye from the Boredoms takes Konono Wa Wa Wa to a noisy dancefloor, offering not only the most aggressively funky music on the disc, but also the highlight. This is truly incredible music. Every tune.

Eno, with collaborators Jon Hopkins and Leo Abrahams, took inspiration from soundtracks and as a result many of the pieces do have a strong cinematic feel. Often the tracks only last a few minutes, leaving the feeling that Eno was content to find his compositional point via improvisation and then move on quickly to the next idea. From ambient beginnings the album quickens considerably with the anxious rush of Horse – all chattering synths and galloping percussion that departs as soon as it establishes momentum. The two tracks that stand out as the album highlights are the Sonic Youth-meets-Can kosmische of 2 Forms Of Anger and the closing track Late Anthropocene, with its pretty and subtle fluttering notes that weave a totally immersive soundscape over seven minutes. They work because they feel like focused pieces of music that have been laboured over versus the half-thoughts of some of the other tracks. Eno does explore other styles on the album, like the jazz/hip hop Bone Jump, with its fragmented glitches, Emerald & Stone’s elegiac and emotive piano playing from Hopkins, and the synth washes and ‘70s kosmische explorations of Lesser Heaven.

There’s not a dud song on Endlessly, nor is there a particularly great one. The music is indifferent, soulinspired generica, a safe backdrop upon which Duffy is given the chance to make the songs her own. But Duffy is never able to make anything much of the material, her voice never really inspiring. Well Well Well is the most entertaining number, a song that brings the funk with the help of The Roots, although Duffy herself only meanders before breaking out in her wispy way with the catchphrase that titles the track. Keeping My Baby is a curious neo-soul update on Madonna’s Papa Don’t Preach that comes with synths right out of the ‘80s, while Breath Away is the album’s biggest win, the soaring strings of the chorus working elegantly with the subdued yet effective rhythm section to highlight the vocals affectingly. Most maladroitly, however, Endlessly introduces electronic clicks, beats and synths into songs such as My Boy, Lovestruck and Girl that are reminiscent of our Kylie and sit rather uncomfortably within the album’s soul-oriented arrangements.

Small Craft On A Milk Sea is certainly an interesting collection of musical ideas but as an album it lacks resonance and cohesive flow. You sense that Eno and co are dabbling and improvising and that perhaps the process is more exciting to them than the results.

Endlessly does nothing to allay the sense that, really, Duffy is only nominally a soul singer; she conveys no soul, nor does she let on that she has one. Her charmingly spun, almost reverberating singing voice is not enough to carry the setlist, and only on one’s way to Dusty on iTunes would a second thought ever be given to Duffy.

Chris Familton

Antonios Sarhanis

THE BASEBALLS STRIKE Warner

THE SLEEPING THE BIG DEEP Victory Records

Often it’s a thin line between ‘awesome’ and ‘OMG, what is this shit?’. Even German vocal trio The Baseballs had to know that, on paper, their idea to go ‘50s boy band on a bunch of recent pop hits smacked of cheesy novelty album.

Multifaceted without coming across as pompous or sounding like they’re trying to show off how bitchingly eclectic their influences are, and progressive without trying to fit as many weird time signatures or intolerable atonal chords into each song as possible, The Sleeping are happy to stretch out a little while remaining catchy enough to appeal to anyone who habitually buys things just because they’re released on Victory Records.

Somehow, though, they pull it off. There are a couple of clunkers. The reworked Love In This Club, originally recorded by Usher, though quite funny, definitely veers toward the cheese end of the spectrum, while The Pussycat Dolls are far too skanky for Don’t Cha to sit well with this Brylcreem and plaid-shirted version of modern pop. This is one of the few songs to feel like it was chosen for its novelty value. But it’s a rare misstep. Mostly, the reason this album works so well is the song choices. Originally these songs may have been hits for the likes of Rihanna, Katy Perry and Jennifer Lopez – hell, even Roxette – but here they’ve been chosen because they work as rockabilly songs. Listen to The Baseballs’ version of Umbrella and you will almost forget the song was once an omnipotent urban smash. This is about as far from Jay-Z and Timbaland as you can get. With their spatted-out band behind them playing honkytonk piano, slapped upright bass and guitars sitting high on their chests, the three singers – Sam, Digger and Basti – tag-team on the verses and harmonise beautifully on the shared choruses. There’s plenty of doo-wops and hand claps and more than a little Elvis hip-shaking and for fear of being far cheesier than The Baseballs ever are, this album will be great holiday listening because it really is fun for the whole family. Danielle O’Donohue

Bob Baker Fish

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The Big Deep is probably best described as post-hardcore, purely because of the ‘atmospheric’ and ‘mellow-singingwith-raspy-vocal-interludes’ connotations, but it’s reasonably unique in its way. It begins with the offbeat drums and fuzzy bassline of Dark Days, before the Panic At The Disco-evoking whine of Douglas Robinson joins in and things build to their peak with a hell of a lot of droning wash and eerie though melodic keys. There are a few interesting departures from what you might expect, most noticeably on track six, The Phantom Of Darker Clouds with its spacey, jazzy inflections seamlessly moving in and out of modern alt.rock territory for the choruses, and the drum’n’bass-meets Mars Volta intro of Young Vibes. The Big Deep might not grab you on the first listen, but it deserves a few more and you might need them before it starts to unfold and make sense as a package. This album isn’t without filler, and the radio-ready pairing of Oh Gloria and Get You Back on tracks seven and eight is best avoided. This is better than a lot of what Victory Records has been putting out (we’re looking at you, The Scenic) and deserves a look-see. Brent Balinski

ON THE RECORD

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MATT & KIM SIDEWALKS Fader/Liberation

NORAH JONES …FEATURING Blue Note/EMI

Former couple… former art students… cutesy three-tofour minute pop ditties about life and love… Matt & Kim are a marketing wet dream perfectly geared for American Apparelled indie kids across the globe. Three albums in and the Brooklyn pair are still purveyors of all things short and sweet and shallow but after 35 minutes of shouty, nasal vocals laid over the top of faux children’s music, it’s hard not to be annoyed by Sidewalks.

My, hasn’t little Norah Jones been busy over the last decade? Not only has she released four studio albums, she’s also found time to collaborate with umpteen scores of musicians and maintained a few side projects. …Featuring is Jones’s vessel for many of those collaborations, a collection of her guest appearances on other artists’ albums (with a few exceptions), featuring the likes of Foo Fighters, Belle & Sebastian, Willie Nelson and Dolly Parton. Largely made up of tracks of her own jazz and country stylings, some will be surprised to learn of her dabbles with hip hop when she becomes the hot hook girl in Q-Tip’s Life Is Better and Talib Kweli’s Soon The New Day.

Being a duo obviously creates musical limitations where artists are sometimes unable to fulfil their visions. But when your music is as inoffensive and unappealing as what is provided over Sidewalks, even the grandest of ideas and all the musicality to put them into action would prove fruitless. The yelp-fuelled delivery of Matt Johnson grates incredibly while the percussion and keyboard fiddlings sound akin to a kindergarten at playtime. A couple of mid-album tracks work, most notably the subtler tones of Good For Great, which is concise, crisp and shows clear purpose. However, by the time Ice Melts rolls around to end the pain, you have already repressed the entire lack of experience that has come before it. With an upcoming slot on the Big Day Out just announced, be prepared for these tunes to set drug-induced youngsters’ hands straight for the air and everyone to proclaim just how magical the world is. But the drugs wear off and so do these tunes. Fast. In fact, more substance would probably be found in a cheeseburger bun. Benny Doyle

The moments where Jones truly duets rather than following the ‘you sing, I sing’ formula are the most alluring. Ryan Adams takes the high notes in Dear John, a mournful country ballad in which his presence nudges ahead of Jones’ sultry low melody. She brings a beautiful warmth to the recording, though by offering less of herself, she is somehow offering more. The same is true of the inclusion of her piss-take rock band side project El Madmo, thankfully forgoing the more crass tracks to include the menacing safe-for-a-Jones-audience track The Best Part. There’s no disputing the quality here – Jones is an exceptional voice with a mountain of hard-earned respect. Though her languid vocal style does get sleepy over the 18-tracks, making one daydream of the naughtiness of her Peeping Tom Sucker collaboration, which would never have been an option for this release (unless a flattened out, de-sexed and fade-out version was to surface). …Featuring lands on shelves just as people everywhere are contemplating Christmas gifts for their mothers. It’s a no-brainer, really, though quite a likeable one.

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VARIOUS ALBUM REVIEWS

A label sampler featuring artists that do a little genre hopping, Tru Thoughts Recordings (Tru Thoughts/Fuse) features some recognisable types as well as exotic sugar. You may have already come across local girl Kylie Auldist, who features twice here with A Week In A Day (a solo effort that channels ‘70s soul), as well as with band The Bamboos and I Don’t Wanna Stop (in acoustic strippeddown mode rather than in a normal big band style). UK blue-eyed soul girl Alice Russell is a regular to our shores, and she features here with Sweet Is The Air and Stoneface (featuring Adrian Utley from Portishead) doing Yellow Brick Road (sans Elton).

Is it too far to call the Putumayo series a world music version of the So Fresh or Ministry Of Sound compilations? They’re nice overviews, a bit quirky, often with a dead-set piece of gold or two, but they also do run the risk of offending the die-hard and truly devoted. Tribute To A Reggae Legend (Putumayo/ Select), a collection of Bob Marley covers, also falls into this category, the kind of thing that Marley faithful will likely hate before you even hit ‘play’, but for the rest of us it’s actually quite cool. Most impressive is One Love by Playing For Change, a supergroup that puts slide guitar next to sitar, crossing vocals and instruments skillfully.

It’s unclear if C’est Chic! French Girl Singers is meant to be a ‘true’ representation of ‘60s French pop or just a shameless nod to those that have jumped on the bandwagon with the prominence of the So Frency So Chic compilations. Either way, if you’re having an Austin Powers-themed party or wanting to get a bit sophisticated on the stereo, this sounds appropriately funky and exotic. The presser points trainspotters towards reworkings of The Tokens, Sonny Bono and Marianne Faithfull, however this reviewer kept getting distracted with playing ‘spot the breathy lovely French lady’ to keep her ears on the melody. Listen with a fine fromage and vino.

Black Hill Highway (Stanley Records) is what you get when a bunch of local axe-swingers move towards some wild west action. This is a compilation based around four main bands (Chuck’s Wagon, Roland K Smith & The Sinners, The Dennis Boys Band and Mo Trowell & The Delivery), and all give both country and western a solid airing. The tracks are pretty even-paced and don’t differentiate between the outfits too much, but particular distinction goes to the harp and sweet female vocals of Mo Trowell. Liz Giuffre

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RIDE THE LIGHTNING Austin heavy hitters THE SWORD have taken their brand of sludgy hard rock a step further with their third album Warp Riders. Frontman JD CRONISE tells DAN CONDON what changed this time around.

efore the release of his band’s third LP, Warp Riders, The Sword’s JD Cronise came out and made a provocative statement about the direction they were taking on this release and how the band’s fans might respond to it. “It will absolutely alienate some fans,” he told Noisecreep in November of last year. “The kind of music we play is partially described as heavy metal and unfortunately a lot of dudes that like heavy metal are very narrow-minded and only like it to sound one particular way.” So now that the record has been released, have The Sword alienated their fanbase? “I don’t know,” Cronise admits down the line from his Austin home. “And I probably won’t know to a large extent because the ones that are alienated will probably stop coming to the shows so I won’t see them and they’ll probably stop putting comments on our MySpace and Facebook pages and stuff. But most of the

things I’ve seen have been really positive, hopefully everyone will get it but I know that you can’t please everyone.” Not pleasing everyone is something that Cronise does not seem to have any trouble coming to terms with. When asked how much he thinks about his audience when he is writing songs, he admits that the less he thinks of what they might want the better. “I try to write entirely for myself. I think that’s really what makes art genuine. If you’re doing it for other people then it becomes more pure entertainment,” he declares. “I think it has become a problem with a lot of forms of expression these days; people ask the audience what they want too much. The internet has given rise to this a little bit with getting instant feedback about things, so rather than someone going and isolating themselves in a dark room and creating something, they’re always asking, ‘What do you think of this?’ and in a way I think that hurts the artistic process. To me I think it’s better if the artist has his own vision and presents that to people and lets them interpret that as they will rather than asking the audience what they want to see or hear.” He admits, however, that it does become harder to stay disconnected from audience expectations as the band begin to achieve a higher profile. “It’s hard not to do that sometimes; it’s something everybody learns when you’re in a band and you start to do it on a regular basis or do it for a living, it definitely changes the way you approach it,” he professes. “You have to do what you can to, at least in your mind, pretend that everything is the same as it was when you first started and that you’re just doing it for yourself, because if you lose sight of that then it starts to go downhill and that’s an easy pitfall to wander in to.” Warp Riders is an ambitious beast, Cronise’s lyrics weaving a science fiction steeped narrative that tells the story of protagonist Ereth, who is attempting to restore balance on his planet of Acheron after half of it has been scorched by suns and the other half cast in darkness. This is backed up by the band’s plying of various styles of heavy rock, occasionally sludgy, other times soaring, but always heavy and with the highest production qualities ever heard on a record from The Sword. “It tells a story so it’s overall a different vibe I guess; it’s kind of purposefully varied so that every song can be like a different scene,” Cronise says of the band’s decision to expand their musical palette. “With the first two records the point was just kind of to hit you over the head as much as possible and with this it’s intended to be a little different so that has changed the way that it sounds.” When it came to piecing together the story, Cronise was insistent that the direction of the narrative would be completed before anything else. “The point of having the theme was to write the lyrics about that kind of thing first,” he says. “It was an idea that just popped up a while back. It takes a lot of planning, it’s not something you can just decide on a whim.” Solid preparation is important for The Sword at all times, and Cronise admits he couldn’t imagine the band entering the studio without having all of their material ready to go. For them the studio is a place of strict work, not experimentation. “We’re not really a write in the studio kind of band or anything like that. We go in with all of our songs ready to go, otherwise we’d probably just end up wasting a lot of time,” he says. “It’s just a matter of doing everything as good as we can do it – everything is pretty well planned.” The latest record is the first of the band’s not to be produced by Cronise himself, with acclaimed heavy metal producer Matt Bayles (Mastodon, Isis) taking control of production duties this time around. Cronise says that relinquishing control to someone else was not difficult, but only because the band’s overall sound had already been established on their first two records, which in turn allowed Cronise to relax somewhat. “[Bayles] had reached out to us a couple of years ago and we always just kind of always kept him in mind and when the time came we called him up,” Cronise tells. “Being in charge was just something that I felt I had to do before because I was the one who knew what it was supposed to sound like so I’m going to be the one sitting in the control room for hours and hours but now, having laid down that blueprint, it wasn’t too hard to let somebody else take the controls. I mean, we’ve recorded in situations with other people before; it was fairly easy and fairly painless.” The huge sounding record has Bayles’ trademark style all over it and Cronise admits that the record would have sounded a lot different had they used someone else. But he is quick to note that all the writing and arranging of the tracks was still all completed within the band. “Definitely the sound of the album is due to his influence. All of the material was already written and arranged before we went into the studio so he didn’t really have a lot to do with shaping the music or anything but he did play keyboards and stuff here and there. But the feedback I’ve heard is all about how much better this one sounds to the last one so, you know, obviously he did something right.” It’s quite odd that The Sword – who had not visited Australia before last month’s support slots with Metallica in the southern states – would be hitting our shores on two separate tours within a couple of months of each other. “I think the festival thing was actually talked about first, we signed on to Soundwave first and then Metallica contacted us soon after that,” Cronise explains. “They kind of just have their whim about when they want us to be on tour or not, they just call us!”

WHO: The Sword WHAT: Warp Riders (Kemado/Shock) WHEN & WHERE: Friday 4 March, Soundwave Festival, Showgrounds

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INFINITE GWAR GWAR are still going strong more than 25 years after crash landing on Earth, thanks in part to our planet’s ready supply of crack cocaine. Galactic overlord ODERUS URUNGUS AKA DAVE BROCKIE discusses having his genitals eaten with MATT O’NEILL.

t’s easy to get distracted when discussing the legacy of Gwar. Not necessarily by matters unrelated to the band – but rather by any number of superficial realities concerned with the group’s 26 years of conceptual deception and confounding audiences. While Gwar are a musical ensemble of considerable accomplishment and influence worthy of in-depth discussion, it’s all too easy for things like founding member Dave Brockie’s Cuttlefish Of Cthulhu codpiece to overshadow the band’s work. It’s not exactly surprising – or undeserved, for that matter. One even suspects it’s the band’s desired reaction. After all, for more than a quarter of the century, the band’s members have been claiming to be aliens from outer space stranded on our planet. Their albums have all featured conceptual narratives about their trials upon Earth and their live shows have been defined by elaborate costumes and special effects. The band’s members even conduct interviews in character. “I’m surprised we’re still stuck on this planet after 25 years,” for example, is how founding member, frontman and bassist Dave Brockie responds to queries regarding Gwar’s 25th anniversary – speaking in character as alter-ego Oderus Urungus. “We were supposed to be blasted off back into outer space by now. We did get a spaceship at one point but we soon discovered this planet was the only planet in the universe that has crack cocaine and were forced to return.”

from Antarctica? Is it a comedy act? Do we take the music seriously? Is Gor-Gor going to eat my genitals? We want to keep people guessing.” “You know, in the 25 years we’ve been doing this, we’ve never gotten tired of it,” the frontman continues. “It’s always been provocative, always been fun and always been cutting-edge. Gwar has always had a very special place in a lot of people’s hearts. It is very much the voice of the underdog and our position as lords of the underworld has ensured our continued success. Better to reign in hell, you know.”

WHO: Gwar WHAT: Bloody Pit Of Horror (Metal Blade) WHEN: Friday 17 December, No Sleep Til Melbourne, Melbourne Showgrounds

“You know, hopefully we can keep going forever. I mean, now that we know that the entirety of the universe’s crack cocaine is located on planet Earth, we don’t really have any desire to go anywhere else,” Brockie riffs. “We’re perfectly content to stay here as the most dominant metal apocalypse that has ever been fucking created. You know, we’d be liars if we claimed we didn’t enjoy bringing the heavy metal to the households and playing for the nice people.” Such theatrics naturally overshadow the band’s considerable list of musical accomplishments. While the entirety of their recorded catalogue does chronicle the exploits of fictional characters, Gwar’s cumulative skills as a musical ensemble have always been remarkable. Aside from the requisite technical ability necessary to perform their demanding thrash-metal songs, there’s the oft-unrecognised intellect and songwriting nous which informs their best material.

“

People still don’t really know what we’re all about.”

“You know, while I throw it around all the time, I hate putting labels like heavy metal on what we do,” Brockie says of the band’s music. “We’re a hard rock band. We’ve got all different elements of different kinds of rock and heavy metal music. If you want to call it heavy metal or thrash metal, then I suppose that makes sense. We really just put all these kinds of labels upon ourselves to help other people make sense of what we do.” “Or maybe we just do it to confuse them even more,” Oderus Urungus contributes to the conversation. “Or maybe it’s to help ourselves so we know what kind of albums to buy so we know what kind of bands we want to sound like so we know what kinds of albums to make – oh, I don’t know. I just think the name Gwar goes with heavy metal. You don’t think Gwar and go ‘polka music’ – though I’m not saying we won’t make that album.” Of course, there is no shortage of popular musical acts whose abilities are overshadowed by theatrics. One could almost describe Lady Gaga in such terms. Gwar, however, are somewhat more complicated than the standard idiot-savant cultural archetype. Underpinning both their work as entertainers and as musicians is a fiercelyaware political and philosophical consciousness. Their anarchic mythologising veils both social commentary and cultural critique. “Oh, certainly,” Brockie agrees. “Gwar makes all kinds of statements about all kinds of social bullshit. One of the big things that Gwar does is act as a force of justice in a world where the downtrodden masses rarely get the justice they deserve. Basically, when you have a force like Gwar that can arbitrarily punish politicians and celebrities, on stage and on record, despite their consistent ability to avoid the consequences of their crimes, you can actually deliver the punishment they deserve.” “Gwar’s dedicated in general to destroying things that are just boring and stupid,” Urungus adds. “Politics is actually banned in outer space, you see. The sole reason they have politicians in space is so as to crucify them and make paper out of their buttocks. I think one of the main reasons Gwar is so popular here on Earth is that you have so many politicians who need to be killed and that is a service we can provide to the people.” In many ways, their career is analogous to the work of P-Funk luminary George Clinton – whose ludicrous concept albums and indulgent theatrics veiled socio-political allegories as often as they did mere flights of surrealist fancy. Gwar may release overtly political releases like 1992’s America Must Be Destroyed but, by the same token, they’re just as likely to bring a fully-functioning Tyrannosaurus Rex puppet to Australia for no other reason than because it’s a freaking cool idea. This is why discussing Gwar’s legacy is such a complicated and distracting process – because it’s more than a little difficult to ascertain that legacy’s exact nature. The band may have just released their 12th studio album in 25 years – Bloody Pit Of Horror – but even their fans would be hard-pressed to place them within any specific category. Depending on who you ask, Gwar could be considered shock-rock, performance art, heavy metal or comedy music. “Well, I hope we are misunderstood. I’d like to keep them guessing,” Brockie muses. “People still don’t really know what we’re all about. Are we barbarians from hell? Are we a bunch of art school dropouts? Are we a bunch of bong-addled stoner punks? Or are we just

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PALAU POP Babyface, a seafood menu and a desire for new sounds have helped throw Barcelona’s EL GUINCHO from blogs onto festival stages. ANTHONY CAREW chats to PABLO DÍAZ-REIXA. made all over the world, so the idea of making ‘global’ music doesn’t just apply to me. All music is global music.” Yet, cultural collision has been in Díaz-Reixa’s life since childhood. Born in/on Gran Canaria in the Canary Islands, with its shared African/Portuguese/Spanish history, the young Pablo spent his sunny, summery childhood encountering a parade of tourists from different locales, and travelling with his family throughout North Africa and Mediterranean Europe. When it came time to go to high school, he relocated to Paris, and, there, became obsessed with French rappers like MC Solaar. It was this that lead Díaz-Reixa, previously only a classically trained student of percussion and piano, to start trying to make him own music. “All the kids at my school were really excited that we could learn how to make beats on the computer,” he recalls, “and that was how I started to learn music outside of the classical system.”

fter some hunting, Pablo Díaz-Reixa, the 25-year-old Canary Islander behind Barcelonabased project El Guincho, is tracked down in Ho Chi Minh City. The initial assumption may be that he’s there on holiday, en route to Australia for his third tour of these parts, but, in fact, El Guincho have been playing their bright, breezy, tropicalist dance pop in South-East Asia. And parts elsewhere. “The Spanish Embassy wants to show the different things we make in Spain, they don’t just want to book flamenco shows everywhere. The Embassy are trying to change the image people have of Spain, and, part of that, I guess, is booking me to play shows all over the world!” Díaz-Reixa laughs. “This year we’ve played in Vietnam, Thailand, Hong Kong, Ethiopia. It’s really fun, because it’s people who don’t own my records, have maybe only heard a couple of songs. They’re pretty open to whatever you want to do; they’ve come because they usually don’t get these sort of shows here.” The rise of the global village and the internet’s democratic dissemination of information has led to an increasing universality to performance in off-thebeaten-track locales. But, heading as far out as Eastern

Africa and South-East Asia, Díaz-Reixa has seen some different reactions to his polyrhythmic, polyethnic, post-Avalanchian jams. “What’s the same everywhere around the world is that they get into the music because of the rhythm,” Díaz-Reixa offers. “The low end and the bass. That’s something that everyone seems to enjoy, this thing we human beings have in common. When we played in Ethiopia, they recognise these rhythms we have – that for me, come from the Canary Islands – as their own, and they can get into the music a bit easier. But, when we play in Asia, it’s something far more exotic to them. They can listen to the chord progressions and hear something so strange and foreign to them. But, then, they can still enjoy the rhythms.” Taking influence from Brazilian tropicalismo, African highlife, French hip hop, Cuban timba, and, well, Melburnian sample-science, El Guincho’s music seems a likely type for transcending cultural barriers, but DíazReixa doesn’t see anything special in his multicultural streams of influence. “I think all music, these days, has a global quality,” he shrugs. “I don’t think that’s what makes my music different. Maybe 50 years ago, it would sound more exotic, or that question would make more sense. But, nowadays, everyone has access to all music

When Díaz-Reixa came back to the Canary Islands from France, a sense of cultural isolation – something he never felt during a boyhood filled with playing sports and hanging out at the beach – set in. “I remember feeling really trapped,” he says. “Because I literally couldn’t find anyone who was into the same things that I was.” So, Díaz-Reixa moved to Barcelona, and, in the city’s Gràcia neighbourhood, ended up finding a whole bunch of sympathetic peers. From there, club nights, projects, and bands would evolve, Díaz-Reixa taking part in an Animal Collective-inspired tropicalmutant-pop project called Coconot. El Guincho – named after an endangered Canary Islands fishing bird that always flies solo – initially grew as a side project for Díaz-Reixa to play South American folk songs. Whilst always sample-based, things were less hectic and dancefloor-driven when the project began; 2007’s self-released Folías having a warm, acoustic sound. Things changed with 2008’s Alegranza!, both in the El Guincho sound and musical fortunes. The bright, busy, chaotic, highly percussive jams – cacophonous waves of ecstatic rhythms overlaid in ever-escalating loops – found a highly favourable audience, with the official Best New Music blessing from web behemoth Pitchfork expediting the El Guincho rise. Soon after its release, Díaz-Reixa toured Australia, solo, supporting Architecture In Helsinki, just one small man in red pants.

CALIFORNIA BOYS The breezy tunes of San Francisco’s GIRLS perfectly encapsulate their laid-back approach to the whole music caper. Frontman CHRISTOPHER OWENS tells STEVE BELL how they’ve stayed grounded amidst the worldwide whirlwind. putting recordings out the reaction was pretty good all around the world, so we kind of had an idea that this was going to be a fairly extensive project. It kinda makes sense to us because we try to play music that people would want to listen to. I guess if you’d told us two years ago what lay in store for us we would have been pretty surprised, but once you start putting things on the internet you can kind of judge the reactions pretty well, and it became pretty obvious pretty quickly that this was going to be something that people connected with.” Despite its relative brevity, Broken Dreams Club is a perfect expansion of Album’s diverse brew of trippy, sun-drenched sounds, the pair’s preference being unabashed pop with an esoteric and inherently DIY bent. “We just didn’t have much time to record last year because we were touring,” Owens explains of the abridged nature of the new release, “so we just tried to get as much done as we could and we ended up with a six song record, and we just wanted to put it out. We’re going to record the next album after these shows in Australia, but we didn’t want to wait too much longer. We just wanted to put out as much as we could, and we ended up with the EP, so we thought it was a good thing to do.”

f only all bands’ career paths were so interesting. Christopher Owens, born in Florida, is raised as a member of the religious cult Children Of God – the same sect River Phoenix and his siblings experienced their formative years in – and lives a transient and often impoverished childhood, spending his youth traversing dozens of countries throughout Europe and Asia before escaping the community whilst still a teenager and moving to Amarillo, Texas, to live with his older sister – a strange place indeed to become accustomed to the outside world. After a few hedonistic years in Texas, Owens hitches to California with a friend and immerses himself in the local punk scene. He joins Ariel Pink’s outfit Holy Shit as a guitarist and tours with them back to Europe, staying with the band until their eventual implosion a short time later.

form – had started writing his own songs, and when he befriended producer/bassist Chet ‘JR’ White in his adopted town of San Francisco, the seeds of the pair’s band Girls were sown. Utilising their complementary skills they recorded some songs together, chucked them up on MySpace and the reaction from the online community was instantaneous. Cue a record deal, the release of their acclaimed 2009 debut longplayer Album, some massive international support slots and now, on the back of their excellent new EP Broken Dreams Club, Girls are finally making their way to Australian shores. “It’s wonderful. It’s like a dream come true for us,” Owens marvels of the band’s rapid rise in fortunes. “It’s been really amazing the past year. We’ve gotten to do a lot of things that we never imagined that we’d get to do, so we’re all really happy and excited. We really want it to keep going.

By then, Owens – who despite not being exposed to much music in his youth, except that written by fellow cult members, had long been fascinated with the art

“When we first started recording, before we were even a band, we didn’t really expect much, we were just kind of doing it for ourselves. But as soon as we started

While Owens writes all of the band’s material, his creative partnership with JR is integral to the band’s recorded sound and aesthetic. “He produces all of the music, so it’s important for me to have somebody that I can communicate easily with and tell them what I’m trying to go for, and he knows how to record it,” Owens continues. “It works for us – I don’t know how to record it myself, so I need having somebody around who does. And it means that we can get it done without having outside producers or engineers get involved, we can just do it all ourselves. It’s a good way for us to work. “We’ve always played live with a full band – you can’t really play that much with just two people – but when we first started recording we didn’t have a band yet, so we just recorded the album ourselves. Then the band came after we sort of had the demand for touring and stuff like that, so we just put together a band made up of friends of ours who played music here [in San Francisco]. They’ve played on the EP now, so we’re trying to mould it into more of a ‘real’ band.”

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The success of Alegranza! effectively introduced the El Guincho sound as something ripe for biting, but DíazReixa hardly felt as if he’d settled upon his own unique musical identity. “I’m still trying to find my own style,” he says. “That’s what keeps me making music, and trying different sounds, and buying new equipment.” Thus, for his third El Guincho LP, Pop Negro, Díaz-Reixa set about redefining his own sound. Gone were the layers of fuzzy samples, in their place drum machines and synthesizers. The global influence was turned in a stranger direction, as he drew from cheesy ’80s Spanish pop and even cheesier early-’90s US R&B (Babyface a huge inspiration, apparently). “I wrote Alégranza when I was 21, 22, and I was touring with this album for years, and I got tired of all those settings, all that equipment,” Díaz-Reixa explains. “So, like every other musician, I just got tired of doing the same thing again and again.” After recording wholly at home before this, Diaz-Reixa went in to professional studios, from Planet Roc in Berlin to a friend’s newly built studio in Gran Canaria. Díaz-Reixa’s accompaniments, this time, were a 909, an 808, a “couple of synthesizers”, and copies of The Mixing Engineer’s Handbook and Behind The Glass: Top Record Producers Tell How They Craft The Hits. Finally, Jon Gass – who mixed Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown in the ’80s, and Toni Braxton and Missy Elliott in the ’90s, no less – was brought in to mix the record. “It was more challenging, because I was aiming for a more polished sound, more based on hi-fi stereos and radio production,” says Díaz-Reixa. “If you want to get to that high-end sound, you have to work really hard.” Pop Negro is, in its glossy sound, a concept record. After mistakenly misreading a Catalonian menu at a Barcelona restaurant, and turning Pop, octopus in Catalan, and Arros Nègre, into a singular Pop Nègre, Díaz-Reixa liked the combination of words and their musically suggestive combination. “I thought it would be interesting to make an album based on that imaginary style, Pop Nègre,” he says, “that it would be fun to create the parameters and limits to this genre that didn’t actually exist.” WHO: El Guincho WHAT: Pop Negro (Young Turks/Remote Control) WHEN & WHERE: Saturday, Meredith Music Festival; Monday 13 December, Rooftop Bar; Wednesday 15, East Brunswick Club

According to Owens the fact that Girls’ songs traverse so much musical and stylistic terrain is due to their broad music tastes rather than any specific desire to be eclectic. “We’ve always just wanted to do a lot of different styles – we don’t really have one sound as a band,” he offers. “We feel like each song is really different from the next, so we just sort of approach it on a song to song basis, and we don’t always go through the same approach with each song. At the end of the day we end up having a lot of different styles on the record and I think that makes it interesting. It’s also more fun for us to try all those different sounds. “[Our taste] is really diverse – we listen to a bit of everything. We listen to anything that’s on the radio, or our friends’ bands – all kinds of stuff. We’re not really into one type of music or one scene – we’ll listen to anything that’s good. All kinds of different things. If music’s good then we like it.” The frontman’s unconventional upbringing didn’t allow much exposure to popular culture, and this experience has partially informed how he writes and appreciates music to this day. “I think maybe a little bit,” he muses. “It kind of gives me a simple style. I think the stuff that you grow up with probably subconsciously affects the way you write. I listened to a lot of pretty simple classic music. I think it’s still something that affects me, but then sonically we have a lot of current influences, so we try and mix it all up together. The basics of the songs are all pretty simple – almost country music or something like that.” Even though the world at large has become rapidly enamoured with Girls’ summer-tinged sound, Owens doubts that the success will affect the band’s relatively carefree attitude to their craft. “No, because we’re doing what we want to do,” he reflects. “We’ve always just made the songs that we want to play and the songs that we like, and I think it’s just worked out that it’s happened to be something that other people like. It hasn’t changed at all, really, our approach, it’s just encouraged us to keep going and sort of enabled us to do it on a grander scale. We’re totally happy with how things are going, so why change it?” WHO: Girls WHAT: Broken Dreams Club (True Panther/Inertia) WHERE & WHEN: Friday, Corner Hotel; Saturday, Meredith Music Festival

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FLIPPING THE SCRIPT Having beaten a prescription drug addiction, MONSTER MAGNET frontman DAVE WYNDORF says his band are now back to their best. “It’s almost like being born again,” he tells SAMUEL J FELL.

istortion on vocals and tightly rolled spliffs/ Pounding backbeats and sharply bent riffs/ Stoner rock goodness on lidded-eye wings/ These are a few of my favourite things…

It was sitting on a bong water-stained carpet that I first heard Monster Magnet and my Sabbathloving mind convulsed at the sounds thrown down, the howl from the rock’n’roll abyss, the tightly controlled mayhem pounding on my brain. From that moment, I went back and found the Tab (’91) and the Spine Of God (’92). I embraced the Superjudge (’93) and joined the Dopes To Infinity (’95). I went on a Powertrip (’98) and eventually sparred with the 4-Way Diablo (’07). And I liked it. A lot. Today Monster Magnet are a band who stand tall amongst the pretenders and they wallow in the mire they’ve created, a sludge too powerful for most, but life-affirming for the believers, and the fact they’re still strong and alive brings peace to a mind withered from constant Top 40 swill

made popular by a man in a suit with money to burn. With alarming frequency, these five musical behemoths from Red Bank, New Jersey have salvaged my soul and showed me the light and now they’re burning brighter and I don’t need to stumble any longer, for there’s a tunnel and the light is here with me, not anywhere near the end. “It’s weird, we’ve been going for so long but for me it’s kinda like a new start, because I had the drug problem and I thought I was never gonna play again,” says frontman Dave Wyndorf candidly on the fact Monster Magnet have been around for 21 years now. “So I’m all fuckin’ piss and vinegar – ‘Yeah, all right fuckers, let’s go.’ It’s almost like being born again… it feels good.” No doubt it feels good – Wyndorf almost succumbed to prescription drugs in 2006, but came roaring back to make 4-Way Diablo, and has carried on, the band recently dropping their eighth long-player, Mastermind, reaffirming their stoner brawn with aplomb. “4-Way Diablo was a weird record in that it was really a collection of pieces of songs that were put together by me when I was in not a very good state of mind,” he tells. “I had a really bad prescription drug problem at the time and so 4-Way Diablo is a weird record for me. Mastermind to me, fits in right after Monolithic Baby! (’04), that’s the record that should have come after Monolithic Baby! So 4-Way Diablo is kind of an odds and sods kinda deal, bits of music left over from other things.” Mastermind, however, is a record with focus, with direction, a record Wyndorf dragged from his very soul. He’s been quoted as saying it’s “guitar heaven”. “Believe it or not, I think this is more guitar heaven,” he says with a hefty laugh. “I really, really pay close attention to not only recording people’s guitars, but recording the guitars that I want to record. I was a bit of a dictator on this record, even more so than usual. I was like, ‘I’m not gonna have a Strat on this record, I’m picking out some others,’ and nobody gets a choice, I pick out every single guitar people are gonna play. This is something I haven’t done before; usually I’ll say, ‘Whatever guitar you’re gonna play, I’ll record it,’ but this time I picked every single one, so for me, it was guitar heaven.” Critics and fans the world over, only a month or so after Mastermind has been released, are calling it a ‘return to form’. It’s easy to see why when Wyndorf describes how 4-Way Diablo came to be, but that was still a good record – is Mastermind a return to form then? Did the form ever really go away? “Well, yeah, a return to form, but a return to what form?” he asks. “We’ve got a couple of different forms… what I wanted to do here was get the best of Monster Magnet live into a bunch of new songs, that’s what it was really all about.

“

I’m all fuckin’ piss and vinegar – ‘Yeah, all right fuckers, let’s go.’”

“I have the sound in my head really before I have any of the songs written. I mean, I had the songs in a really short amount of time, about a week and a half, so it was really all about the sound and to be able to be put forth live,” he goes on. “I didn’t want it to be an album that was so caught up in the studio that we could never play it live. I wanted the songs to sound even better live, and that’s really what it’s about. So a return to form just means that I probably went back to a point where I was thinking about the live show. That’s the way I did the middle period of Monster Magnet – Dopes To Infinity, Powertrip. I was thinking live.” It’s interesting that Wyndorf says he gathered the songs for Mastermind in such a short space of time, as the lyrics here, as with all the band’s records, are incredibly cinematic, painting vivid (if not warped and kaleidoscopic) pictures you’d think would take a lifetime to conjure up – “I just got a mission I can’t turn down/Killing Nazi zombies in a German town” a prime example from Wall Of Fire off 4-Way Diablo. “It has to make sense to me, but it also has to sound good,” Wyndorf muses on where these lyrics come from. “Sometimes when I make a record, it’s almost more important for it to sound good. “There are ways I can explain what I’m talking about that are a lot more literal, but it wouldn’t sound as cool,” he smiles. “So I’ll write the song in my head how I’m trying to say it, and 99% of my songs are about normal things, but what I’ll try to do is put it through this expression. The use of vernacular is one of my favourite things, like the use of science fiction, of comic books, things that can make normal things sound larger than life. So I’ll write the basic plot in my head, what I want to sing about, and then I’ll start interpreting that… I use a lot of metaphors, and it just kinda builds from there. And if it sounds cool from there, then I know I did my job.” It’s been a job well done for a little more than two decades, as Wyndorf concurs. “It’s been so long because I don’t know how to do anything else,” he laughs. “If I could find something better to do, I’d do it – but I love music. I love making music, I love making albums, I can dedicate every brainwave to it and it lets me be free in a way I don’t think I could find anywhere else, and that’s a really good combination.” The mire is getting deeper and the riffs more sharply bent, the Monster Magnet juggernaught rolls on and that is, of course, one of Dave Wyndorf’s favourite things.

WHO: Monster Magnet WHAT: Mastermind (Rocket) WHEN & WHERE: Thursday 3 March, Festival Hall; Friday 4 March, Soundwave, Melbourne Showgrounds

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THIS WEEK IN

ARTS

TITANIC

WEDNESDAY 8 Life As A Fatal Sexually Transmitted Disease – Polish film about a doctor who, upon learning he has a terminal disease, heads to Paris for his final days. Melbourne Cinémathèque at ACMI Cinemas, 9pm. Titanic – James Cameron’s 1997 magnum opus – commercially at least – starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet as lovers on the ill-fated ship’s maiden voyage. Astor Theatre, 7.30pm. The Ultimate Rock’N’Roll Jam Session – James Blundell, Nick Barker, Dave Larkin, and Ezra Lee star as Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Carl Perkins performing the infamous session they played together at Sun Studios, Memphis, 1956. Comedy Theatre until 19 December.

Land, with live commentary in the theatre from Cinema Fiasco. Astor Theatre, 8pm.

SUNDAY 12 The Nightwatchman – Matt Scholten’s direction of Daniel Keene’s play about a man recently gone blind whose children have returned to the family home to help him move. Theatre Works until 12 December. The Refuge – exclusive season of François Ozon’s new film, which is reminiscent of the director’s early short Under The Sea. Opening night, 7pm. ACMI Cinemas until 12 December.

MONDAY 13 The Godfather Part II – it’s not often you get to see one of the greatest films of all time on the big screen. Astor Theatre, 7.30pm.

THURSDAY 9

ONGOING

VCA Film & TV Graduate Screenings 2010 – annual showcase from graduating students of Film and Television students from the Faculty of the VCA and Music, University of Melbourne. Opening night, 5.15pm. ACMI Cinemas until 18 December.

Dreams Come True: The Art Of Disney’s Classic Fairy Tales – exhibition featuring hundreds are artefacts from the Disney vault, or, more specifically, the Animation Research Library. Features sketched, frame cells, drawings, concept art, and more, from the likes of The Little Mermaid, Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs, and Cinderella. ACMI until 26 April 2011. RMIT Fine Art Photography Graduation Exhibition 2010 – showcase of 26 RMIT graduates’ work. Fortyfivedownstairs until 18 December. Rock’N’Roll Is The New Trainspotting – exhibition of music photography drawing on the past 30 years of Tony Mott, in conjunction with a book of the same name. The Raw Gallery until 22 Deember. Songs For Nobodies – the story of five anonymous women who all had brushes with fame, combing live performance and music. MTC’s Fairfax Theatre until 23 December.

FRIDAY 10 A3 – exhibition of works produced in A3-format from over 50 artists including Don’t Sleep Mag, Adnate, Sofles, Aeon, Josh Robenstone, Fintan Magee, and more, raising money for Room To Read, a charity helping communities establish schools and libraries. Last day. For Walls Gallery at Miss Libertine. Castaway with Rachel Perkins – the director of such films as Radiance, One Night The Moon, and Bran Nue Dae discusses her five desert island films. Studio 1, ACMI, 6pm. The People That Time Forgot – the sequel to The Land That Time Forgot, in which adventurers return to The

HARMONY IN DISPARITY IT’S THE STORY OF THE DAY THAT FOUR OF EARLY ROCK’S MOST INFLUENTIAL FIGURES CAME TOGETHER FROM DIFFERENT PASTS TO CREATE COHESIVE AND MEANINGFUL MUSIC. AS JAMES BLUNDELL AND DAVE LARKIN TELL MITCH KNOX, THE ULTIMATE ROCK’N’ROLL JAM SESSION IS KIND OF A CASE OF LIFE IMITATING ART IMITATING LIFE. It’s 1956. Four men are in a studio – three standing, one hunched over a piano – creating music that will define a generation and influence several of those to follow. Their backgrounds and futures are dissimilar but aligned enough to have allowed the foursome – Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash – to come together for an evening and record together for the first and last time; to thrive off each other’s energy and experience as musicians and create something really special. It’s 2010. Four men are in a theatre, reinterpreting music that defined a generation and still has influence today. Their backgrounds and futures are dissimilar but aligned enough to allow the foursome – James Blundell, Dave Larkin, Nick Barker, and Ezra Lee – to come together for several evenings and perform together for the first, not necessarily last, time; to thrive off each other’s energy and experience as musicians and create something really special. Okay, so is there a glitch in the

DANCE MASSIVE IS BACK IN 2011 After the success of the inaugural Dance Massive festival in 2009, Arts House, Malthouse Theatre, and Dancehouse in conjunction with Ausdance Victoria have announced the festival will return in 2011, bringing with it some of the most cutting-edge dance works on the planet. Boasting 22 performances featuring 200 artists across three venues, the festival will see the premiere of Connected, the new work by Gideon Obarzanek for Chunky Move, as well as the choreographer’s solo worki Faker, and works by John Jasperse Company, Helen Herbertson, Ben Cobham, Rosalind Crisp, Shaun McLeod, Narelle Bejamin, Antony Hamilton, Force Majeure, Branch Nebula, Michelle Heaven, ReelDance, Balletlab, Luke George, Shaun Parker & Company, and more. Dance Massive will take over Melbourne Tuesday 15 to Sunday 27 March. Keep checking back to these pages but in the meantime, head to dancemassive.com.au.

SHAUN PARKER & CO.’S HAPPY AS LARRY

Matrix or what? Is history repeating itself? Well, kind of, if history’s a little more organised the second time around. The day in ’56 which saw Elvis, Lewis, Perkins and Cash come together for what was coined as ‘The Day The Music Lived’ by the International Centre for the Repression of Originality, was notable because it marked the only time in the quartet’s lives that they would all record together, and it was also notable because they recorded some seriously memorable tunes that day. That made it significant enough to inspire a narrative-driven concert, The Ultimate Rock’N’Roll Jam Session, which sees Blundell, Larkin, Barker and Lee reinterpret the musical fruits of the day’s labours for modern audiences. But despite having access to a rehearsal schedule, lead narrator Blundell explains that his group of four still found surprises – of the pleasant variety – when they joined together to start preparations for the show. “I think that the thing that has surprised us all – because Dave and myself and Nick Barker and Ezra

Lee are all really, really disparate musicians,” Blundell elaborates, “I think the thing that really surprised us was when we started rehearsing everyone was going, ‘Ah, yeah, we’ll see how it goes,’ but it’s been a lot of fun. It’s a great excuse to revisit this period of music that is subconscious in all our musical styles, but not something you’d spend a great deal of time on going back and being in a cover band or being in a rockabilly band or whatever. And it’s been a really good excuse to get around. Because we all write, you’re looking at some of the seminal craft that was done early on in the piece before music became this massive bloody industry, and the reason these songs still work well is because they’re really well-written; they’re simple, and at that stage in the game not all the tricks had been tried. “Do you think that’s fair?” he defers to Larkin. “Oh, absolutely,” Larkin agrees. “One poignant memory from one of the shows was looking out into the audience and seeing these three kids in the seats, and I thought, ‘Aw, these guys aren’t gonna like it; they’re too young, they won’t like it,’ and they were the first ones up and dancing to just the primal boogies of Johnny B Goode and Matchbox and the Elvis songs. Just all those great things that for some reason got swept aside for dross over the years still have a primal effect on people and I think that’s certainly something that’s gone missing in modern music, and it’s great to see that it still can do it.” “That’s such a valid point,” Blundell

muses, “because they really had no exposure to it at all. That sort of, 18 down, if they’ve ever heard it it’s because there’s a record in a parent’s collection or an uncle or an aunt who’s got some connection to it. The thing that’s been really good fun has been seeing what a broad age group it’s taken in.” Despite their present enthusiasm, both performers admit there was a vein of hesitation amongst the crew in the early days of rehearsal, largely given their general complete lack of experience as theatrical participants. Still, by all current accounts, the show’s magic genuinely comes from its performers’ chemistry, so it can’t all be bad. “I think because we’ve all worked in a really cold-faced, tour-your-music-live reality, none of us have had much to do with theatre,” Blundell explains. “Theatre as an entertainment form has a lot more young people attracted to it than I would have given it credit for, y’know? Theatre was a very 50splus mentality.” “I think we were all a little reticent,” says Larkin. “No one was really… we were just sort of dipping our toes in at the start. Because it’s an uncanny mix of guys and none of us have worked together, personally, I was like, ‘I don’t know; I don’t know if I can, I don’t know if it’ll be good’…” “Ezra was very much that way, too,” Blundell says. “Yeah, yeah; we all were. I know Nick was too, and funnily enough it’s the sum of parts that makes it a great thing, y’know? It’s why it’s a cool thing, because it’s not kind of your stock… it’s not your obvious choices.” Blundell summarily laughs, “It looks silly on paper, and even sillier on stage!” WHAT: The Ultimate Rock’N’Roll Jam Session WHERE & WHEN: Comedy Theatre until Sunday 19 December

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PUTTING THE ‘MENTAL’ IN FUNDAMENTALIST BRITISH MC AND ACTOR RIZ AHMED TALKS TO BAZ MCALISTER ABOUT HIS ROLE OF SOLDIER, FATHER, AND PRANKSTER OMAR IN CHRIS MORRIS’ UNIQUE LOOK AT THE WAR ON TERROR, FOUR LIONS. Bombs, terror plots, planes whacking into buildings, secret nuclear stashes, weapons of mass destruction – still, you’ve got to laugh, don’t you? Chris Morris certainly does. The British satirist who became notorious for his cheeky Brass Eye specials and took a swipe at new media culture in Nathan Barley has fixed his gaze on home-grown English jihadists in co-writing and directing Four Lions. Morris spins a yarn about a jihadist cell made up mainly of buffoonish bombers who’d struggle to put together a kebab, let alone a terror plot. Struggling to give this group

some much-needed direction is Omar, a family man with a higher purpose in mind. British rapper and actor Riz Ahmed plays Omar, and says he found three ways in to the character – he’s a soldier, he’s a father, and he’s a prankster. This, Ahmed says, gives the character clarity. “Having a family he cares for, in Omar’s head, is synonymous with wanting to create a better world (through martyring himself),” Ahmed says. “A lot of people talk about the scene where his kid is saying ‘Go on dad, do it’ but if you flip it around into

RIZ AHMED

a Disney, Avatar sort of setup where you have the goodie soldier having a wobble about going to war, and then the family come in and do the noble thing and embolden the goodie soldier – they say, ‘Go on, do it, fight for us, fight for America, fight for the Jedi,’ whatever – and in Omar’s head he’s a goodie soldier. The sense of wanting to care for your family and fighting a just war go hand in hand. “Also, he’s a prankster. For Omar, part of the idea is he’s weirdly attracted to the theatre, the spectacle, the prank of walking around with secret knowledge in your head and a grin on your face – ‘I know something you don’t know, it’s important and I’m playing my game in a world that really counts, not this pleb nine-to-five level but in the world of global espionage’.” Morris glommed on to Ahmed originally through his rap video Post 9/11 Blues, where the puckish MC

wryly comments on the war on terror. The director realised that Ahmed was humorously rapping about the subject matter he was investigating for the script that would eventually become Four Lions. “Chris wanted to meet up and he told me he was researching in and around the subject matter – Muslim Britain, fundamentalism, intelligence services, war on terror, and that whole circus of madness – which was kind of what my track was about. We kept meeting up every couple of months, talking about everything and nothing. At no point did he even tell me he had a script and had me in mind for a role, but it was a real eye-opener. “Chris just looks at things differently. What it got me thinking about was the out-takes from this narrative of terrorism, the blooper reels. If you go on YouTube and type in ‘jihadi videos’ near the top will come up this British

THE MENSTRUUM TOMBSTONES, COBBLESTONES…

conquered places. Europe is shown being made in a modern image, under archeologists’ boots and bulb flashes, and as Ed Izzard would remind us, with the cunning use of flags.

BY ROBERT LUKINS

I think of what it is to be buried, and take the lift from beneath the ground, up. Cameras, sliding doors and green-red lights suggest security and I walk out onto the public floor of the National Gallery of Victoria, and the café is busy and I let the narrow escalators suck me up to the second floor and then the third, and I think that for just another fortnight I will work in this place and wonder how from then it will be different. Luminous Cities is an exhibition of architectural photography hidden in the plain sight of the International gallery’s top floor. Free and running for five months, it’s the accessibility and ease of this collection that will allow so many to miss it. Walking into the still, peopleless room, the air smells of good history and the forgiveness of early summer. The photographs move in an arc of age around the walls and reveal the change of structures and bricks and how we see ourselves beside them. Athens is a brother to Pompeii and a catalogue of ancient,

The 19th century hurries to be the 20th and we’re in Paris, Berlin, and New York; that place made only of buildings and their verticals. When planes took out the towers, it was physical and bodily – it was two front teeth being knocked out of a face. The NY photographs are dizzying, with reflections doubling, tripling up in the long glass and steel rectangles. As I wonder how long lunch breaks become once you’ve quit your job, two white-haired women, a tight couple, arrive and tour the pictures, reminding each other of their English childhoods and landmarks they have holidayed in front of. They’re laughing and clutching each other’s biceps, and I feel silly for always wanting to think in grand, romantic turns. I had penciled in to write a city without its people is made so human by their absence: but here they are, a beautiful pair of old ducks, in a place simply made of occasionally reorganised stone, and what I’m thinking and writing is a nonsense.

Asian guy in Bosnia making a speech – ‘Brothers, come out here and fight, the cause is just, the people are beautiful, the country is beautiful, and brothers, the kebabs here are amazing’.” It was this idea of following the ‘blooper reels’ and ‘outtakes’ of a terror cell that would become the crux of Four Lions. Omar, Barry, Waj, Hassan, and Faisal bicker like feuding ten-year-olds, play around with homemade bombs, wrestle, fight, and talk trash – in that respect, they’re just like any bunch of guys. “Just like any male group endeavour, the driving force of it is testosterone and idiocy,” Ahmed says. “Just like bowling clubs, biker gangs, anything – you get a group of guys together the dynamic is rivalry, camaraderie, and idiocy. Of course they’re normal guys. What else are they? If you check out people who were involved in the 7/7 attacks [in London], some of them were genuinely loved, praised as the nicest guy in the world, or the most upstanding, helpful, selfless person. That jars in our heads with the image of evil, moustache-twiddling baddies but the issue of terrorism is much messier. It’s not a James Bond supervillain network of baddies. It’s average Joes that undertake these tasks. That picture of them as normal guys is very true to life. That doesn’t take away the fact that what they’re doing is clearly wrong.” Ahmed has had his own brush with the intelligence forces and reports that the ‘blooper reel, out-take’ culture is alive and well among

those who fight terrorism, just as much as it is in those who perpetrate it. Ahmed starred in The Road To Guantanamo a few years ago as a member of the Tipton Three, British men held for two years in Guantanamo Bay. On the way back from a screening of the film on Berlin, Ahmed was detained at Luton Airport by security officers. “Looking back now with these eyes, I see the funny side of my detention at Luton Airport by British Intelligence officers – which it turned out was completely illegal, they were basically just cowboys trying to rough someone up. It was weird and scary at the time, but there were really ridiculous elements. They were sat there jabbing a finger in my face going [yells], ‘Do not use your phone!’ But when I used it they were like, ‘Well, there’s nothing we can really do about it.’ “Then at one point one of them got me in a wrist lock – it fucking hurt, he nearly broke my wrist – and he got the phone out of my hand and he was going through it, making lurid faces at me like, ‘Ooh, I’m looking at your secret texts.’ When I got the phone back the language had been changed to Danish! This idiot was just randomly jabbing all the buttons at once. But it got me thinking: this is a confusing area people are involved in and it’s always prone to lots of bloopers.” Ahmed’s debut album as Riz MC, MICroscope, will be released in January. WHAT: Four Lions on DVD (Hopscotch)

7 UP

MURRAY ABRAHAM IN AMADUES

“AND THE OSCAR GOES TO…WHAT’SHISNAME”: ACADEMY AWARD-WINNING PERFORMANCES BY CHARACTER ACTORS IN LEADING ROLES BY JOHN EAGLE 1. Wallace Beery, The Champ (1931) 2. Charles Laughton, The Private Life Of Henry V111 (1932) 3. Broderick Crawford, All The King’s Men (1949) 4. Geraldine Page, The Trip To Bountiful (1985) 5. F Murray Abraham, Amadeus (1984) 6. Jose Ferrer, Cyrano de Bergerac (1950) 7. Robert Duvall, Tender Mercies (1983) I turn and turn again and it’s someone else’s 1925: Eugene Atget’s Coin de la rue Valette et Pantheon, 5e arrondissement, matinee de mars. It is a rust brown alley of chipped façades and closed windows, leading to almost nothing, but then the sun-cloud of the French Panthéon, a mock-up of the Roman Pantheon, itself a Hadrian rebuild of the earlier version. A dead street and a photo

of a model of a model: we could construct a pithy metaphor from that, or we could meet a friend for lunch and get on with our lives. The amazing women cackle and I want them to include me in their jokes. I’m just a child and I smile anyway. An empty building resembles either a tombstone or a coffin, or maybe just an empty building.

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FRAGMENTED

WITH BOB BAKER FISH It’s not when Eric proudly tells Tim that he’s gone out and got himself a third testicle to give himself some extra pizazz. Nor is it when he fondles it to the sound of clinking billiard balls. It’s not when Eric complains of feeling sick and Tim diagnoses the third ball as having been sucked up into his stomach. Nor is it when Tim operates on Eric, trawling through his entrails, eventually diving into the wound in an unsuccessful attempt to locate the missing ball. It’s not when the duo go to Lamaze class, so Eric can force the teste out of his rear. Nor is it when, with Tim’s earnest coaching, Eric successfully ejects it from himself, the force of the pressure bouncing it off the instructors

FISH REVIEW

forehead before ricocheting into the open mouth of Tim. It’s when they both shrug and say, “Okay, let’s switch up,” that you realise how unbelievably wrong Tim And Eric Awesome Show Great Job Season 4 (Adult Swim/Madman) is. It sounds like it should be cartoon, but it’s not. It’s live action acting like a cartoon. It’s the kind of stilted, confused, uncomfortable work that you’d expect on a community television show staffed by passionate but inept volunteers. It’s overacted, edited strangely with a reliance on cheesy fx and nonsensical gestures, possessing a kind of morally ambiguous weirdness that will just leave you hanging. Previous scenes get scrunched down and zing around the screen like a pinball

before flying into the nose of a character from the next scene or at the wrongest moment they freeze the screen and the words ‘great job’ appear. It’s the ultimate stamp of approval. This means that it’s even gone too far for them, extending into a darker uncontrolled place where something might truly be wrong. Either that or it’s an admission that even they have no idea what’s going on. It’s a sketch comedy show with links to the surreal humour of Chris Morris’s Jam, but with the Z-grade gross-out Americana slapstick of the American Pie franchise, then there’s these violently awkward absurdist moments that are really all their own. Tim And Eric is also a soup kitchen for an asylum of randoms, outsider artists, or perhaps outsider people whose eccentricities have made

ONCE WAS LOST...

them cult figures on the show. Perhaps Werner Herzog is the only person who has come close in his desire to utilise real life weirdos in his films. Yet where Herzog to some extent has always felt a little exploitative Tim and Eric feel like a family. A family where the two daddies love smearing brown stuff over their faces, shoot testicles out of their arses, and sing heartfelt songs about yearning for a women’s touch whilst staring deeply into each others eyes. But yes, a family nonetheless. The kind of family where everyone is the weird uncle. There’s also a gaggle of celebrity guests, again a bizarre assortment of the kitsch and cult, recent Australian visiter, crooner Frank Stallone, Alan Thicke (Family Ties), Jonah Hill (the fat kid from Get Him To The Greek), one of the guys from Flight Of The Concords, and, of course, series regulars like Zach Galifianakis (the bearded dude from The Hangover) as the nutty acting coach for kids, and John C Reilly, who apparently has a spinoff series based on his Dr Brule character, a television MD dispensing quite questionable medical advice. They’ve also used one of the episodes to get behind one of the most bizarre, deluded, and unconventional filmmakers around, Tommy Wiseau (The Room, currently playing the lateshow at the Nova), inviting him in to direct an episode. This in particular is one of the more ambiguous episodes. Throughout the series the freaks have to some extent felt in on the joke; hell, most of the time they seem to be driving it themselves. But Tommy is so immersed in his own mad world that his presence feels somewhat exploitative, yet with Tommy you can never really tell. Once you’ve seen The Room you realise that his version of what’s normal and acceptable is very different to most. His presence on the show actually makes Tim and Eric seem, well, normal.

BOOK REVIEW A VISUAL/ORAL HISTORY OF RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS Red Hot Chili Peppers with Brendan Mullen - Harpers Collin Publishers

This is not your average coffee table photography book, though its hardback, bound, thick red cover may suggest otherwise. Inside lives page upon page of reminiscent images and stories from the ever popular foursome and their friends, bandmates and loved ones who’ve been part of the journey from the 1980s ’til now. Fans will relish the beautifully printed shots of the band taken from their very foundation through to Stadium Arcadium shots. Hillel Slovak, Dave Navarro and numerous other members are represented in images that range from touching black and white portraits to ridiculous yet

NBA 2K11 PS3/Xbox 360/Wii

diverse community and economic backgrounds, so it was vital to find a concept that could bring everyone together. Westside is a ‘social circus’ after all,” he says. “The main aim is to help young people build confidence and wellbeing, to create positive relationships to promote self-expression, teamwork and leadership skills, as much as valuing

the acquisition of circus skills, film skills, or the musical expertise that Lee is fostering.” Morgan adds that it’s the pulsating music that helps draw these performers together, that levels out the differences. He provides a highly animated story of the “funky and sweaty” rehearsal room over the

past weeks, about the dancing and specific challenges Westside Circus faces, like getting students to show up for practice in the first place and getting them to conscientiously lose their mobile phones for the duration of rehearsals. “The music mood varies,” he says. “We have created a landscape

SEVANA OHANDJANIAN

GAME REVIEW

A NEW PHYSICAL THERATRE PIECE SET IN A LOST AND FOUND OFFICE IS PLAYING AT GASWORKS ART PARK. PAUL ANDREW SPEAKS TO MUSICAL DIRECTOR LEE MORGAN. Musician Lee “Sonnyboy” Morgan has performed alongside a who’s who of celebrities, including the likes of Midnight Oil, Yothu Yindi, Archie Roach and Ruby Hunter, Paul Kelly, and Guy Sebastian, but right now he is “ecstatic” about joining up with a mob of young Indigenous artists from around Victoria who are making circus with a difference. Morgan is rehearsing for an acro-action packed show about the comings and goings of an imaginary lost and found office, and as musical director for the show he is responsible for a energetic band of young musicians from Songlines Aboriginal Music; his primary concern, to create the Circus’s uplifting musical “pulse”. “My role is mainly to facilitate a ground base for the Indigenous youth from Songlines to express their musical ideas, to help them each to open up the creative flow that comes freely when the right support and the right guidance is in place. It was challenging at first but it’s all come together in the last few weeks, they’re an amazing crew.” Westside artistic director George Filev explains that alongside the musicians are the circus performers themselves; talented members from Westside’s own athletic youth troupe Behind The Wall and the visionary film students from the Collingwood Alternative School who have made a cinematic stage ‘backdrop’ about inner city living. “Each of these students has a varying range of skills expertise, are all aged between 14 and 25 years of age, and come from

famous socks on cocks images. In between these are stories, bite-sized perspectives on different periods represented with band member initials. The book doesn’t follow a chronological order, which may have been a better option than the slightly confusing chapters that attempt to delve into different aspects in their tenure. Some subjects are rehashed and for those who’ve read Anthony Kiedis’s stunning autobiography Scar Tissue, there may not be much you didn’t already know. There’s plenty for newcomers to enjoy, especially stories regarding the unexpectedly warm relationship between Perry Farrell and John Frusciante, and the latter’s tale of drug addiction and rehabilitation, told with stark honesty and clarity. The book feels more representative of Flea and Kiedis’s relationship; there’s a wealth of imagery of the pair and stories of their unique childhood based bond. Flea even wrote the band-signed intro, as he looks back fondly on a band he’s been a part of for his entire adult life and surely many years to come.

of sounds; some poignant and surprising, some mysterious, other’s mundane, calm, introspective quirky amusing. Much like life really.” Morgan gets particularly emotional while recalling the spoken word collaborations devised for the show. “They are very pensive, immediate with a very melancholy edge to them. They’re beautiful.” He continues to explain the lost and found office theme, why it’s so vital. “It works so well because it’s something that everyone can relate to, everyone has lost something valuable at some point in their lives. What inspired us was the ethos of holding near and dear to us the things that really matter in our lives; like family, friends and the people we love. Not just things that are material things like possessions. We may loose something we might think is important to us but at the end of the day if we have love and strong energies around us such as family and dear friends – our clan – then this is what truly matters.” WHAT: Lost And Found WHERE & WHEN: Gasworks Arts Park Wednesday 8 to Sunday 12 December

What sets NBA 2K11 apart from every other basketball video game that’s come before it is you can finally play as Michael Jordan. As Jordan, you can unlock 50 different types of shoes, play classic Chicago Bulls championship games against past legends like Magic and Bird, conquer the Jordan skill challenges, and, a personal favorite, play the signature Air Jordan team which includes D-Wade and Carmelo Anthony. It’s tough and unforgiving at first; even when you play on rookie level you’ll go through a significant learning curve before feeling remotely comfortable running basic plays and draining threes. The game also allows you to manage a team, trade players, and design your own custom team and uniforms. The presentation - graphics, sounds, etc. - is so realistic someone walking past could mistake it for actual basketball (although this has kind of been the case for the past decade). If you’re connected to the internet it will lock in actual games played that day in NBA making the Quick Game option much more appealing. The commentary features detailed basketball lingo with the voices of actual ESPN journalists giving you the play-by-play comparisons, but after a few games utilising the same teams or players you will get tired of hearing the same comments on repeat. The menu system features a fresh soundtrack such as Aussie outfit Art vs Science, and - we reviewed the title on Nintendo Wii - makes decent use of Wii remote motion to control and navigate the start-up menu, but the motion control becomes frustrating when the game actually begins. Use a classic controller. For all you basketball nuts out there who are looking for a serious NBA simulator, NBA 2K is the closest thing you will find on the market.

NICK LA ROSA

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THERE WILL BE METAL

THE THIRD SEASON OF ADULT SWIM’S HEAVY METAL SERIES METALOCALYPSE IS RELEASED ON DVD THIS MONTH. BOB BAKER FISH TALKS TO ITS MAIN CREATOR, BRENDAN SMALL.

Welcome to Metalocalypse, where Dethklock are the world’s biggest band, their brand of extreme metal so popular that they’re almost drowning in drugs, money and groupies. When they hold a press conference the world stops. By the end of the second season they are the world’s seventh largest economy. Not only do they have their own masked minions, they’re able to wander throughout the world leaving a trail of murder and destruction behind them. The thing is, the band are so out of touch they often have no idea what they are doing is illegal. Oh yeah, Metalocalypse is an Adult Swim cartoon. “It’s not about metal, if you ask me,” offers the show’s co-creator/writer/ voice actor/composer Brendan Small. “The way I approach the episodes is [that] it’s about celebrity. It’s about five inept celebrities who are also a family. I consider it a family show when I write for it, about celebrities who don’t know what day it is, who don’t know what time it is, who don’t open doors for themselves… I don’t look at them like they’re stupid, it’s just that they’re very good at some things and very poor at others. Just like everyone.” He pauses to consider this statement. “Okay, they’re also a little stupid,” he concedes, “but I think they’re more narcissistic and that just clouds their judgement constantly.” That’s why, in the first episode of season three, the band, sad about declining world economy, job losses and increasing debt, decide to stage the most expensive concert ever – a little like a band playing an enormous concert, ‘in the round’, whilst their

country applies to the European Union for a bailout.

musical identity crisis. So I started doing stand-up comedy.”

“We said in the very first episode that Dethklock is incapable of selling out, they’re just making the world more metal,” Small says. “As the economy has been plummeting all around the world, wouldn’t it be the most grotesque thing to spend money on a concert? In fact, at one point they blow up money and black truffles, just because they can, because it’s metal, it’s wrong to do it.”

It was through this that he met some animators and started pitching shows. Yet metal was also progressing, getting heavier and better produced, and eventually his two passions met. In fact, in doing the show he has met and worked with more than his share of idols, even recording as Dethklock and touring the US.

Small had a very roundabout path to Metalocalypse, graduating from music school in Boston during the height of grunge in the mid-’90s. “It was very uncool to play a guitar solo or have any virtuosity whatsoever,” he says, laughing. “It was a very dark time for guitar players. So I put my guitar in its case and said, ‘I don’t know what to do.’ I guess I was going through some

“The reason I get these people like, let’s say Cannibal Corpse, or Arch Enemy, or Enslaved or even guitar heroes of mine like Satriani or Vai or Slash, is because I think it’s fun for the fans. We don’t draw them in their likeness, we sneak them in. So people could be like, ‘Oh that was funny, oh that was King Diamond that made me laugh!” WHAT: Metalocalypse Season 3 (Adult Swim/Madman)

GIVEAWAY Blue Valentine is a film that’s been top of our list of most anticipated titles for quite some time, having debuted at Sundance earlier this year to critical and audience acclaim before going on to screen Un Certain Regard at Cannes. The coming together of Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling in a film that was shot in an off-the-cuff manner, Blue Valentine is an intimate portrayal of a less-than-perfect relationship that spans many years between a couple that married young, with an original score by Grizzly Bear. Released nationally in cinemas on Boxing Day, we’ve got five double passes to an advance screening at Kino Tuesday 14 December, 7pm. For your chance to win one email giveaways@inpress.com.au with ‘BLUE VALENTINE’ in the subject line.

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C U LT U R A L

CRINGE

ZOE LYONS

WITH REBECCA COOK Someone at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival (MICF) must be psychic. Less than a week after we have a new state government, MICF has announced there’ll be a Bollywood dance spectacular as part of its free family program next year. Now, it could be a coincidence, but it seems a little off-brief for the Comedy Fest, so Cringe wonders if it’s a prophetic investment into its future. You see, as it goes, our new Premier and Arts Minister, Ted Baillieu, appears to be quite fond of a splash of Bollywood. You’ll recall one of the Libs’ grab-bag of

pre-election funding commitments was $500,000 over four years to the Melbourne International Film Festival to coordinate a Bollywood Film Festival as well as six scholarships of $20,000 for young Victorian producers and directors, giving them the opportunity to undertake short-term overseas study missions to movie production bases ‘such as Bollywood’. Even cleverer would be for the fest to announce some allnight Bollywood event to check off the Libs’ love of Las Vegas hours. Earlier this year, former Liberal leader, now Melbourne Lord Mayor Robert Doyle announced funding for late-night performances at the Comedy, Next Wave, Arts and

Film festivals to culture-shock the bogans out of the city. And you may also recall that one of the Liberal Party’s other pre-election commitments was for Melbourne to host a ‘Nuit Blanche’ festival. This annual ‘sleepless night’ where the “metropolis is transformed into a moving canvas of exhibitors, theatre, performance art, dance, and music down every alleyway and on every corner” would be similar to those held in Paris and New York City, where cultural institutions such as museums, galleries, music venues, theatres and cinemas stay open from ‘dusk to dawn’. Despite some truly random arts policies, Baillieu is not new to the arts. A former architect, Ted (according to his own bio) has many varied community interests having been involved in the Melbourne International Comedy Festival and the Australian Children’s Television Foundation, to name just two. He has also been Shadow Arts Minister since 2008, although Cringe had great difficulty sourcing too many announcements from him with his arty hat on. The one issue he has been consistently vocal on as Shadow Arts Minister is the Victorian College of the Arts. Back in September he promised to fix the VCA’s funding shortfall and return its independence from the University of Melbourne. Cringe waits to see how he’ll prioritise this against his role as Premier. How will he manage downing the cask wine at a Getrude St gallery opening and then getting up the next morning at the crack of dawn to break out the budgie smugglers?

THE PACK

OF GODS AND MEN

A CAT IN PARIS

SPECIAL TREATMENT

FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL ANNOUNCES 2011 PROGRAM The Alliance Française French Film Festival returns to Melbourne in 2011 from Wednesday 9 to Sunday But back to the Comedy Festival, which is turning 25 this year and has just announced some of its international guests for next year include: New Art Club (UK), Paul F Tompkins (US), Tom Segura (US), and Zoe Lyons (UK). Cringe has absolutely no idea who any of these people are but it’s rare for MICF to bomb out with international guests, so they’re bound to be hilarious. Also returning are old favs such as Stephen K Amos and the Pajama Men. Registrations for Raw Comedy have just opened so if you’re a funny bugger then head to comedyfestival.com.au to find out how to enter.

27 March. The festival, second only to Cannes as the largest festival of French cinema in the world, is an impressive collection of cinema across romantic comedy, farce, drama, documentary, and even a horror film, which is great considering the quality of genre films coming out of France at the moment. Highlights of the festival include the opening night film, François Ozon’s Potiche, a comedy set in the late-’70s starring Catherine Deneuve and Gérard Depardieu; An Ordinary Execution, documenting the last days of Stalin’s dictatorship; the (surprising) French box office hit Of Gods And Men, about a group of French Cistercian monks in Algeria who become the target of fundamentalist rebels; A View Of Love, a thriller starring OSS 117’s Jean Dujardin, Claudia Cardinale, and The Diving Bell And The Butterfly’s Marie-Josée Croze; Daniel Auteuil

in Donnant donnant (Fair Is Fair); Isabelle Huppert in Sans queue ni tête (Special Treatment); Crime d’amour, with Kristen Scott-Thomas and Ludivine Sagnier as rival office executives; Jean Dujardin and Irréversible’s Albert Dupontel in the black comedy Le bruit des glaçons (The Clink Of Ice); the blockbuster Les petits mouchoirs (Little White Lies), a dramady about friendship starring Marion Cotillard (Public Enemies), François Cluzet (Tell No One), Gilles Lellouche (Mesrine), and Jean Dujardin; the stunninglooking animated film Une vie de chat (A Cat In Paris); The Arrivals, a documentary Garnier described as the real Welcome; and the horror film La meute (The Pack), the trailer of which boasts a deliciously twisted joke and some crossing of the fourth wall. Closing night film is yet to be disclosed.

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FILM

CAREW REVIEW

a flag of nationalist pride: in several instances, Lebanese civilians stare right back at the target sight, at the soldiers in the tank, at the camera’s eye, and, thus at the audience themselves. It’s a didactic gesture, but one bold and unbowed: Lebanon an unwavering attempt at putting a face on the victims of Zionist belligerence.

DESERT FLOWER

WITH ANTHONY CAREW War is all kinds of hell in Lebanon, a cinematic memoir from filmmaker Samuel Maoz. Drawn from his own experiences in the 1982 invasion, the Israeli filmmaker tells his film via a simple, effective gimmick: entirely from inside a tank. Meaning, we witness a warring skirmish in either the belly of the tank itself - the tense, hostile, sparring interactions from soldiers ranging from hyper-masculine to terrified - or we see the chaos and carnage outside through a target sight. The gimmick carries an obvious heft: this was how Maoz saw the war himself; and the clunky mechanism of the target sight - both as mechanical apparatus and suggestive cinematic gimmick - both removes the soldiers from what’s outside and, on screen, makes it seem all the more tragic. Maoz is clearly disinterested in waving

From its very first notes of swelling orchestral uplift, Desert Flower’s “inspirational” clichés have all the artistic heft of a telemovie. Which is no surprise, given director Sherry Hormann comes from German TV, with a history that includes a productive sideline in shooting made-for-TV English-language melodramas in Berlin. Her only film to previously crack local screens, in any sense, was Guys & Balls, a gay-men-play-soccerthemed rag-tag-group-of-misfits sports-movie commercial comedy that is just as bad as you imagine. Desert Flower, despite its supporting cast of Mike Leigh-approved English thesps - Timothy Spall, Sally Hawkins, Juliet Stevenson - is possibly even worse. Based on the memoir of famous-human Waris Dirie (a Somali “supermodel” who became a public crusader against female genital mutilation), it hits nothing but a succession of big, dumb, obvious notes; replete with awful score, pointed flashbacks, a teen-film-esque montage, Hawkins and Stevenson in noxious comic-relief caricature mode, and a succession of ‘personal trials’ that soon become unintentionally funny. The eventual moral of the story

turns out to be, roughly: female genital mutilation = bad, being beautiful = good. The expanded English-languagerelease title of Detective Dee And The Mystery Of The Phantom Flame - in China it was initially released as, simply, Detective Dee - suggests that Tsui Hark, the bro behind such brand-names as the Once Upon A Time In China, A Better Tomorrow, Swordsman, and Seven Swords series, may be resurrecting its titular sleuth for an ongoing series of modern-day Mandarin blockbusters. A mythical 7th Century figure who’s been so constantly-adapted that he’s a sort of Tang Dynasty Sherlock Holmes; and, here, he’s remade as an Andy Lau-played martial-arts hero, thrown into a Mystery that involves him only interrogating people whilst sparring with them. Tsui’s film is about the uneasy relationship between superstition and science, the tenuous power of the state, and the righteousness of a handful of individuals taking down an evil cabal intent on bringing down the Empire in the most hilariously symbolic way imaginable. In one way, it’s a heaping helping of familiar action-film clichés, but it’s notable to Western viewers for two things: Chinese myths that will seem completely fucking ridiculous to many, and really, really, really hilariously-bad CGI. In one magical moment, these two things are made comically manifest, as Lau must fend off a marauding pack of badlyanimated talking deer, who are some kind of mythical spirit-creatures and/ or extensions of magical practitioners who can use their four hooves to engage in choreographed fight sequences.

LAWRENCE LEUNG

FERA OF A BROWN PLANET

NINA CONTI

PAUL FOOT NEW ART CLUB

MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL COMEDY FESTIVAL REVEALS 2011 LINE-UP And the announcement you’ve all been waiting for: the first line-up for the 25th Melbourne International Comedy Festival, taking over the city Wednesday 30 March to Sunday 24 April 2011. MICF debutants include the UK’s New Art Club, an ensemble who describe themselves as a marriage of stand-up comedy, choreographic minimalism and philosophy; Paul Foot (UK), who’s a familiar face on Never Mind The Buzzcocks, while his recent show

Ash In The Attic boasts direction from The Mighty Boosh’s Noel Fielding; Zoe Lyons, who did the MICF Roadshow earlier this year; Paul F Tompkins, who trainspotters will know from the likes of There Will Be Blood, Magnolia, and The Informant!; British rapper and comedian Doc Brown, a member of Poisonous Poets; self-described comedian, child genius, Jew, Jew comedian, OBGYN Moshe Kasher; American Tom Segura; Brooklyn’s Sean Patton; and MADtv’s Matt Braunger. In addition, will be the return of Arj Barker, Eddie Ifft, Mark Watson, Tig Notaro, Maria Bamford, Nina Conti, Stephen K Amos, Russell Kane, David O’Doherty,

Pajama Men, Reginald D Hunter, and locals Sammy J & Randy, Felicity Ward, Smart Casual, David Quirk, Wil Anderson, Josh Thomas, Tom Gleeson, Alan Brough, Tom Ballard, Hannah Gadsby, Charlie Pickering, Denise Scott, Dave Thornton, Sam Simmons, Peter Hellier, Tommy Little, Rod Quantock, Michael Chamberlin, Justin Hamilton, The List Operators, Josh Earl, Melinda Buttle, Carl Barron, Lawrence Leung, Andrew McLelland, Kitty Flanagan, Steven Abbott (Sandman), and Fear Of A Brown Planet. And that’s just the beginning! Head to comedyfestival. com.au for tickets.

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MELBOURNE SYDNEY BRISBANE

STRONG LANGUAGE A bust-up, a rebirth and a reality-TV stint have all helped make ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT main man SPEECH a wise rapper in a fickle game, JEREMY WILLIAMS discovers.

“I

t definitely depressed me. It was years before I could listen to that album with any joy.” Arrested Development’s reputedly outspoken frontman Speech (birth name Todd Thomas) is really a sensitive soul. Having been catapulted to superstardom back in 1992 with their debut album 3 Years, 5 Months & 2 Days In The Life Of…” (which was aptly named after the amount of time it took for them to get signed), Speech struggled to cope with the backlash of sophomore release Zingalamaduni’s comparative failure. “I don’t know exactly how many units it sold – some say 500,000 and others say less – but that was very depressing because I just really wanted to be the type of artist and producer that was able to maintain the status that I had got. That was definitely a rude awakening when that didn’t happen.” Even though Zingalamaduni reached number 55 in the American chart, it was not enough to sustain the Grammy-winning sextet, who split shortly afterwards

due to creative differences. However, looking back, Speech concedes that the impact of failure left him depressed and disillusioned. Having fought so hard to be noticed, the lack of continued success came like a slap across the face. Only now does Speech admit that, “for the longest time, that album was associated with failure. It took me ten years or so to listen to that record and get the beauty of what we did.” Having reached an irrepressible low in 1994, the journey back has been full of twists and turns for Speech. Whilst “God had a big deal to do with my spiritual life,” it was creativity that really paved the road to recovery. “I always loved creativity. It has always been my backbone, so doing my solo career was a joy for me. I did a lot of solo material and I pretty much wanted to go to the polar opposite of Arrested Development. I did that and that felt very refreshing. It felt like a rebirth.” Having founded his own record label, Vagabond Records, Speech released his eponymous debut solo record to mixed success in 1996. Yet given a new creative outlet, Speech felt like he was coming into his own again. Speech was followed by 1999’s Hoopla before he felt it was time to try to reunite with his old gang. Though 2000 marked a re-formation of Arrested Development, the line-up was not to mirror the troupe that originally won over the world’s heart. For reasons undisclosed, Timothy ‘Headliner’ Barnwell and Dionne Farris decided not to rejoin the gang. However, for Speech there was an easy solution when it came to making up the numbers, in fact he even managed to over-compensate for the lost pair. “In 2000 when we got back together, I didn’t want to leave my band hanging so I asked them to be involved with what we were doing as a group. They started playing behind us and before we knew it, they were just part of the group. The vibe felt so natural and real, we decided to keep them as actual members.”

“

…that album was associated with failure.”

Yet even after the group found their feet, they were to be disillusioned by the music industry that they found faced them. Despite a couple of low-key releases, Arrested Development never really found their way through to the new internet-loving generation. Then, in 2005, an offer came through that caused them initial confusion. “We were in a weird place at that spot. It was 2005 and we had been together again for five years by then. We had realised that the music industry was a different landscape and it wasn’t as easy to be exposed on a major level without a major label. Even though there was the internet, it was hard because there was so much stuff on the internet, [it was hard] to reach people as they were flooded with too much information as it was. So we got this offer to do the TV show [Hit Me Baby One More Time] and part of us was like, ‘No way, that’s not a cool thing for us to do,’ and then there was another part that felt that it was on a major network that would reach millions of people. So we tried it and, to be honest, I had a lot of fun doing it.” Not only did Speech and friends have fun on their ‘reality talent show’, it appeared so did the American prime-time audience, with Arrested Development winning their round and a large sum of money for charity. For Speech it proved a refreshing relief and spurned him on creatively. With the likes of Salt-N-Pepa, Coolio and MC Hammer having used reality TV to win over the public once again, it has to be asked whether Speech would be tempted to further pursue that avenue? His response is one of initial confusion, followed by simplicity: “It is such a new world that all of us in the music industry are fishing around for the best way to do things and get along in the new landscape. I wouldn’t say no, that I wouldn’t do a reality show, but I know this: it would have to fit our vibe and our own personality as a band. I do know I wouldn’t just do anything.” It appears that the aftermath of Zingalamundi may have also had a positive side effect. Whilst in his early years Speech was driven by a hunger for success, it now appears it is just a sheer love of his creative freedom that drives him. He thinks “the fact that we are still unique in the rap atmosphere motivates us. It is good that there are not a million groups like us. It lets us know that there is something special that we bring to the table.” So what of the new album, Strong, and the upcoming tour? Brimming with pride, he says cackling of the group’s latest release, “Listen to it or be killed!” Just to make sure, he adds, “I am just joking.” A lighter side to the sensitive soul shines through. Despite the highs and lows, Speech is still strong and is using his learned lessons as inspiration. “We are talking about some topics that are pretty unheard of right now. We have the right to talk about them because we have being going so long. We have been around almost 20 years, when you have been in the hip hop world that long, there are some things you can say from experience that others just don’t have the experience to say. I think the record is pretty fresh in that way.” So will he revisit past glories as they set out on the road again? Proudly Speech closes the conversation by stating “we decided to really do a great mixture and we definitely do classic stuff from the albums of the past. But we also do a hearty amount of the stuff from now. For us, our shows are like a celebration, where it is very heavy crowd participation and party energy.” WHO: Arrested Development WHAT: Strong (Vagabond) WHEN & WHERE: Wednesday 29 December, Espy; Thursday 30, Pyramid Rock Festival, Phillip Island

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LIVING LA VIDA LOCAL LOCAL NATIVES drummer MATT FRAZIER is looking forward to sleeping in his own bed. He tells DANIELLE O’DONOHUE just how crazy life’s getting. weren’t in a very big place. We knew which buttons to push and which buttons not to push on each member. I think it was a good start for us into this crazy world of years of touring. I definitely don’t regret it by any means.” Though they weren’t touring much when they first moved in, it didn’t take long for people outside of the group to cotton on that the band had something special. A couple of highly regarded SXSW performances early last year set the ball rolling and now Frazier says he can hardly remember being home much at all in the last two years. “Occasionally it’s been like, maybe a week, two weeks at most at a time. But yeah, the past two years have been pretty extensive touring. It’s been a kind of a whirlwind. But it was definitely always step by step. We want to take things step by step and not expect things too soon and so it was always like, ‘This tour’s coming up and we’ll just take this tour right now and see how it goes and see what happens next’. For me personally I never wanted to expect too much too soon. Because I used to do that when I was younger and you just get let down way too easily, y’know? “You kind of just take it step by step and see how it goes and it’s worked out, luckily enough for us, pretty well. We had no idea that it would snowball as much as it did. And we’d be going to as many countries as we did and whatnot and I think that’s what helped us. We could focus on the task at hand.”

here’s really only one place the intricate four part harmonies and indie rock played by American five-piece Local Natives could have sprung from. The band’s sound was clearly formed from years basking in the Californian sun. “Ryan [Hahn, guitar/vocals], Taylor [Rice, guitar/vocals] and Kelcey [Ayer, vocals/guitar] were all from Orange County, Andy [Hamm, bass]’s from Colorado, and I’m from Southern California as well, but I am from a little bit north east of Orange County in an area called the Inland Empire,” drummer Matt Frazier explains. “Then I moved into Orange County with the other guys. Eventually we all moved to Orange County together.”

To make the most of being in their newly formed band, the five young musicians moved into a house together and wrote their debut album Gorilla Manor, with the title a nod to their Orange County share house. “That was probably like three years ago almost and I look back on moving in together now and I’m really glad that we did it,” Frazier says. “I feel like it definitely improved the touring situation for us. At that point three years ago we weren’t really touring much at all. We were doing maybe a couple of weeks out of the year, just little stints here and there. But it kind of really helped us learn about each other as people and as musicians. It was kind of like almost a tour in training in a way. We were in close quarters. We

With the compass pointed toward Australia in time for Laneway Festival, the band are looking forward to some down-time over Christmas, a chance to get reacquainted with friends and family members and to sleep in their own beds (though they now all live in separate places in LA’s musically rich area of Silver Lake). Two months off also gives the band a chance to write, a prospect that clearly delights Frazier. “We’re not sick of playing live or playing our songs by any means because we love the live experience, we love the touring experience; we all kind of thrive for that. But we’re starting work on little nuggets of new material. We’ve been touring this album for over three years now. Even before the album came out we were touring the album. So we’re definitely ready to start writing new things and finishing new things and starting to change up the concert that we have been playing for quite a while. It’s time for the next step.

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“This last US tour we just did, we had a couple of little soundchecks here and there to kind of work on new material. I get really excited about it. We have December and January off pretty much completely and we’re hoping to really hunker down and start working on new stuff. So hopefully by [Australia] we’ll have maybe at least one or two new songs worked out to debut for you guys.” Though it’s still early days in the formation of a new album, Frazier says there is the possibility that next time around things are going to be a little different. “Currently in the live set, I don’t sing but I can sing. We’ve actually been working on a lot of new ideas; new concepts are in the works. And one of the new concepts for me is singing because on the last record I didn’t really sing at all. I’m hoping that on the new record all five of us will be involved with the vocals. It’ll progress into a new thing. “We’re still trying to figure out the next album and figure out what’s going to work best, because when we wrote the first album we were all living together and we were all writing together every day. So who knows – maybe next album we’ll find a random little place and we will all move in together again. We don’t really know what’s going to happen. It’s definitely a possibility.” Looking back over the last two years, Frazier says there’s one moment that stands out as one of those, ‘Wow, my life really isn’t the same as before I was in the band’ moments. “Spain was pretty crazy. We’ve been there twice. And we did Barcelona. The nightlife there is like nothing I’ve ever experienced. Everything starts super late. In the US people start going out at ten to 11pm. People in Barcelona at like one or 2am. That’s like standard normal times. “We went out and we ended up playing in this club. And we didn’t end up going onstage until like 3.30am. And there was all these people wearing masks and it happened to be their week they call Carnival where everyone dresses up and it’s kind of like this all-out festival – kind of like Halloween in the States. But it was like our show and we played super late and people weren’t going to bed until like 8am. Our world was completely tipped upside down. So that was a little weird.”

WHO: Local Natives WHEN & WHERE: Saturday 5 February, Footscray Community Arts Centre; Tuesday 8 February, Corner Hotel

DANCE ’N’ MEANINGFUL COMBE NOT OVER With her third album for 2010 now out, Swedish pop machine ROBYN tells DANIELLE O’DONOHUE how the ambitious Body Talk project has changed her life.

Kids’ entertainer PETER COMBE is still packing them in, playing to a new generation of fans as well as those who grew up on his music, writes DOUG WALLEN.

12 months, Robyn continued to work on each album right up until it went to the pressers. And the first two albums each feature a beautifully arranged, stripped back version of the following album’s big-ticket, über-slick single. On Pt 1 it’s Hang With Me and on Pt 2, Indestructible. “It’s been nice, because I’ve been able to talk about the albums in interviews while I’ve been recording them. It’s been a more natural process. Making interviews has been easier because I actually do have things to talk about. “The first two albums effected the third album a little because you see a reaction from the audience when you’re touring and you see what they like. But also because people really got into the four-to-the-floor and the dancey stuff made us do more of that on the second album but then by the third even though we wanted to do more of the club stuff we had more pop songs in us. So that’s kind of what the third album became. It is like the pop finale you could almost say.”

t’s been a pretty busy year for Swedish pop singer Robyn. While some artists take years to get around to writing, recording and releasing their next album, Robyn has spent the past 12 months writing, recording and releasing not one, not two, but three albums, Body Talk Pt 1, Body Talk Pt 2 and just recently the final instalment in the series, Body Talk, which is a compile of the best songs off Pts. 1 and 2 and five brand new tracks. But what’s even more surprising than the volume of music Robyn has released this year is the quality. These three albums are the best music of Robyn’s career and, while they’re probably not enough for the Swede to push Lady Gaga off the top of the pop ladder, the singer is finding herself cropping up on shows like Gossip Girl, singing at the Nobel Peace Prize Concert and being championed by everyone from NME to New York Magazine. “I’ve finally begun to record and tour at the same time, which is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. I’ve been really happy how it’s gone. People get the idea but also I’ve been able to work in a little bit more of an organic way when it comes to recording and touring.” Rather than write a stockpile of songs and record them all at once, then trickle their release out over the course of

Very European in its approach to dance music, Robyn’s sound is all shimmering beats but with a heart-breakingly emotional core. Songs like Dancing On My Own, Time Machine and Hang With Me are some of the singer’s most intimate songs to date. “I always make music that way. I never know how to write songs in any other way. On these albums maybe it became clearer. I think it’s something I realised about the way I like to write on the last album when I did With Every Heartbeat.” Robyn also had a moment performing at Sweden’s The Polar Music Prize ceremony in August. The song she sang was Hyperballad, and the song’s original artist, Björk, was sitting in the front row – a pretty scary moment for any performer. “For sure, for sure. It’s like doing a pastiche of a Picasso painting in front of him – ‘I know you made a great piece of music but let’s do it again.’ I don’t know why I said yes to that but I did and it went well. She really liked it. She came up to me afterwards and thanked me. So it was great. I’m happy I did it now but when I was walking onstage I was definitely scared.”

WHO: Robyn WHAT: Body Talk (Modular/Universal)

deliberately plan. But you’re right, a lot of my best-known songs have a food theme. I love food, so it happened quite naturally. And, of course, kids love food.” Also subconscious for Combe is any distinctly Australian content in his work. “I don’t go out of my way to write Australian songs,” he states. “I’d like to think I can write songs that can work in other continents. But having said that, being Australian, the songs naturally have an Australian feel.”

t’s been three years since Peter Combe, the iconic Australian entertainer behind such children’s classics as Wash Your Face In Orange Juice, returned to the national touring circuit. In that time, Combe has proven to be less a nostalgic novelty than a unique and enduring songwriter. He expanded his gigging after sold-out appearances in his native Adelaide, where’s he lived all his life aside from time in England and Sydney. Well after his late-’80s/early-’90s heyday, Combe is again a perennial attraction, as befits a man with two platinum records, seven gold records, and three ARIAs under his belt. That’s not to say Combe isn’t surprised by his own resurgence. “It’s a difficult situation to be in when you’re not on television [any more],” he admits. “The Wiggles so dominate children’s [musical] television these days, there’s hardly anyone else to get a look in. But, luckily, I’m very well known to people between the age of 20 and 30.” And that’s exactly the segment of the population driving demand for Combe today. “It’s a very interesting phenomenon,” he muses. “People in their 20s are revisiting their childhoods and really getting off on the songs. There’s four or five hundred adults singing my songs at 11 o’clock on a Saturday night. It’s wonderful. Some now have their own kids and they want to bring them. So the matinee [gigs] are getting bigger, even though I’m not on TV.”

Besides a certain ode to citrus and hygiene, Combe is famous for songs like Toffee Apple and Spaghetti Bolognaise. What’s with the food fixation? “It’s probably subconscious,” he laughs. “It’s not something I

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Combe has released nearly two dozen albums, and though he’s no longer a TV fixture or signed to the ABC as a recording artist, his records are still available. YouTube has been a boon for him, in that anyone can revisit old footage of him performing for children in any number of colourful film clips. But there’s more than nostalgia operating here. Otherwise, Combe would have done a single victory lap and returned to the fringes of the entertainment business. Instead, his audience grows with every year, as new generations discover his songs and older fans reconnect with their timeless quality. “I think if the songs are good enough,” he reckons, “they simply pass on to the next generation. And a good children’s song is liked by children and parents. I can think of loads of children’s songs I adore, like Peter Yarrow’s Puff The Magic Dragon. It’s just a beautiful song, whether you’re five or 50. That’s what children’s songs ought to be. All your songs don’t have to be simple and repetitious.” Returning to Melbourne for a pair of Christmas gigs, Combe has planned a mix of holiday selections as well as his big hits. The former include a Caribbean version of Mary’s Boy Child and cuts from 1990’s Peter Combe’s Christmas Album, which went gold in five weeks. Among the members of his five-piece backing band are his own children Emily and Tom, aged 31 and 29, respectively. “They’re there because they’re very good at what they do,” Combe says. Never one to miss a beat, he adds, “And they’re right in the demographic, too.” WHO: Peter Combe WHEN & WHERE: Saturday 1.30pm (all-ages) and 8.30pm (18+), Corner Hotel

ALL PRESENT

OUT OF LEFT FIELD

THE BLACKEYED SUSANS bassist PHIL KAKULAS tells TONY MCMAHON that all he really wants for Christmas is a palace in Thornbury and a new gig tradition.

Moving techno into a traditional band setting has been the aim for AXEL WILLNER, better known as THE FIELD, writes GUIDO FARNELL.

set, Reveal Yourself 1989-2009 and – perhaps most delightfully of all – Blackeyed Susans tea towels, which, for this writer at least, make washing up a real pleasure. Oh, and there was a tour of Europe as well. “I’m glad you put the tea towels ahead of the tour of Europe; they’re important, those tea towels. But it was great to finally get that boxed set out. It felt like some time in the making. And there seemed some kind of logic in doing a release like that 20 years after we’d formed. Then in March, April we went over to Europe with The Triffids and did some shows with them, as well as some shows of our own.”

rguably Melbourne’s most beautiful yet still rocking band, The Blackeyed Susans are playing a one-off Christmas show at The Thornbury Theatre that should prove to be a truly special event. Bassist and founding member – as well as ex-Triffid – Phil Kakulas explains to Inpress that he and his band are attempting to create something of a tradition around performing at this sanctified time of year. “We used to do the New Year’s Eve shows at the Corner and for the last couple of years we’ve been doing Christmas shows. Last year, we did one at the Thornbury [Theatre] and that just seemed like the perfect venue: there’s just something about its faded glory that suits us. It’s a gilded, gaudy palace. So we’re doing it there again this year. I guess we’re trying to build a tradition. It’s a nice time of year to come out and play.” So, how are the Christmas shows different to a regular Susans gig, themselves always something of an event? Kakulas says that, well, the calendar does play a part, but the main thing is the not inconsiderable task of tracking down good yuletide tearjerkers. “Besides the fact they’re held in December, I guess it’s an opportunity to choose a set that looks back over the previous year, as well as the last 20 years. It’s an opportunity to throw in a few sad ones. We’re always looking for a sadder song than we did the year before, but surprisingly, there aren’t that many sad Christmas songs around.” Talking of reflecting back on the past year, 2010 has been a beauty for The Blackeyed Susans with the continued popularity of their gorgeous retrospective boxed-

The Triffids – and for that Matter the Susans, too – have historically been more popular in Europe than their home country. Even though that gap is, thankfully, closing somewhat now, Kakulas says that playing on the Continent is still an amazing experience. “You can imagine how warmly received they [The Triffids] were. People were so happy to see them and hear them again. I just really felt lucky that the Susans were able to play a small part, although I think still a significant part.” Tantalisingly, Reveal Yourself was not exhaustive of the Susans’ back catalogue. Kakulas assures Inpress there is plenty more to come, although retro fetishists will probably be disappointed about some aspects. And taking into consideration the rarity of the music under discussion here, it’s obvious this is no CMME (Cynical Money Making Exercise). “The re-releases are a cassette from… ’93, I think it was, called Hard Liquor, Soft Music. It sold out within a year, I imagine, and hasn’t been available since, although we’ve plundered a few of the tracks for B-sides over the years. We’re talking a CD release, although we’ve tried to keep it as true as possible, while reducing the tape hiss, which I’m certainly not nostalgic for. The other re-release is a live recording called Some Night Somewhere, which was recorded at the Continental, which was very much our home ground, we played there a lot, and it captured a typical night there. That was only ever available as a bonus disk, so it’s good to bring that one out.”

WHO: The Blackeyed Susans WHEN & WHERE: Saturday, Thornbury Theatre

HOME GROWERS

which is a more traditional band setting. I wanted to offer people something a little bit different, especially since electronic music tends to be so laptop dominated right now. While electronic sounds will always be a part of my music, it is complemented by a live band.” Sounding as though he is enjoying the company both in the studio and on the road, Willner adds, “I have a great relationship with the rest of the band so it’s good to work collaboratively. We never rehearse. We do that more or less when we play. They live in Sweden and I live in Germany, so it is always hard to find a time and place to rehearse. I think because of this, it is always like a jam and largely that is how the last album came about.”

he Field is one of those acts that could have been filed away under ‘ambient techno’ alongside a plethora of other electronic artists working within the idiom. Yet surprisingly the dreamy, spaced-out euphoria of the outfit’s 2007 debut album, From Here We Go Sublime, found favour with indie dance types that suggested The Field’s fluffy clouds of sound were in fact an electronic approximation of shoegaze. “I was super surprised that the indie kids really like my music,” exclaims Axel Willner, who is the driving force behind The Field. “I always thought that I was doing something that would not be accessible to people outside the electronic crowd. I guess it is the samples in my music that people recognise and makes them want to listen to more,” he says, referring to his micro-sampling techniques that have clearly incorporated shoegaze samples. Quick to cite ‘90s electronica as a major influence, Willner also liked punk back in the day. “Warp was probably the opening for me that got me into electronic music. Gas is of course one of the biggest influences. As a teenager I was punk and loved the Hard-Ons, the old Australian band, amongst other things,” he says on the phone from his home in Berlin. On many levels Willner’s love of electronic and band-based music is also reflected in the evolution of The Field. Since From Here We Go Sublime Willner has transformed The Field into a band. “I sought to make a change about two years ago now, because I was really bored with touring by myself and playing with a few laptops and a few effects. I was so completely sick of it that I invited a few friends to join me and take it back to where I was from,

“It is really difficult to describe South By Southwest unless you have been there,” Harris continues. “If you could imagine Flinders Street up to Lonsdale Street, Swanston Street down to King Street – that whole block with bands playing in barber shops, tattoo parlours and in pubs, clubs and 7/11s, even on the street. There is just music going on everywhere.” Clearly as in awe of the festival’s immense size as his group’s achievements, The Resignators relished every moment of the festival. Admitting that the festival was “crazy – it is amazing but totally crazy,” Harris found

With the South By Southwest experience now just a memory, The Resignators are back on home turf with new material and a fresh outlook. A determined Harris states, “I’d really like to see success in Australia like we have overseas, asked to play big festivals and be involved in the Australian scene as much as we are over there.” Having had a taster of more mainstream success, The Resignators realised that there is a healthy demand for their sound, which they hope will be repeated back home. “In Canada we have an agent who is constantly in contact with us, saying people would like us to come over to do this and do that. In Australia it seems we have to work a lot harder. We have not got a problem with that, we are happy to work as hard as we need to, but it would just be nice to be as wanted in our homeland as we are overseas.” But what of the aforementioned Europe? With the band’s future looking bright, would Harris be tempted back? Remaining upbeat but realistic, he admits, “I would love to do Europe. We have got a lot of fans there, a lot of people interested in what we do. In comes down to money and finances like anything in this world.” Until that day arrives, Harris hopes they “just make it” with new album See You In Hell. With the record released next week, he promises anyone who comes to join the celebrations will have “an energetic, fun night filled with dance, laughter and lots of great people.”

WHO: The Resignators WHAT: See You In Hell (MGM) WHEN & WHERE: Friday, Hi-Fi

WHO: The Field WHEN & WHERE: Thursday, East Brunswick Club; Friday, Meredith Music Festival

Richmond. Our guitarist Ryan [Lapthorne] said, ‘Dude, that’s a good song name and it’s a good name for the band, let’s do that!’ I thought, ‘Why not?’”

While the festival served to buck up the group’s spirits, it proved beneficial in opening up a new territory to explore. Reliving the excitement, Harris is like a child getting candy as he retells his tales. “The United States was really good to us. We didn’t just do the festival, we did a tour of Canada with a band called The Creepshow. We played all over the United States as well. We were away for nearly 40 days. It was a fantastic experience.”

So what is it that allowed the sextet to pick up where they had left off? It turns out that having put in the hard graft on home turf, their musical efforts had pricked up ears in Europe and the States. “I think it was not long after that we got invited by [US music conference] South By Southwest. I think that was the thing that picked everyone up.

Despite having achieved so much in the last three years, Willner is unsure about what he will do next. “At the moment I am working on my son. I just became a father,” he says proudly. “Lately I have just been touring and trying to be a good father. We are taking the start of next year off, so the Australian shows will the last for a while. After that I guess I will start to think about making a new album. We would like to release something by the end of next year.”

Ahead of the launch of HOLLIAVA’s debut album, founder MICHAEL SOLTYS tells JEREMY WILLIAMS why he’s not the Jack Johnson type.

enjoyment as both spectator and performer, with a true highlight being in the audience of a Circle Jerks gig.

“I

Ostensibly a techno artist signed to a techno label, Willner sounds intent on adding a new dimension to the familiar four-on-the-floor template. “I am completely fed up with the techno scene and it’s time that people try something new. In the next 12 months I think we can expect to see more artists trying to do something a little more out of the box. Kompakt is changing too and starting to try different things. Quite a few of the acts signed to the label now are not completely what you could call techno artists.”

GET RHYTHM

Local ska merchants THE RESIGNATORS hope to replicate their overseas success in Australia, FRANCIS HARRIS tells JEREMY WILLIAMS.

ncorrect paperwork” left Resignators frontman Francis Harris heartbroken. Having spent years slogging away on the Australian ska circuit, his sextet had been invited to do a handful of dates in Europe only for the dream to be shattered by border control. Having rarely talked about the fateful event, Harris concedes “it was a major lowpoint. It happened quite a few years ago now, so it is a lot easier to talk about.” With Harris a British citizen, he felt his innards rip when he saw the rest of his bandmates deported. With their European hopes frazzled, he “didn’t think that the band would survive the setback. But in true Resignators form we continued to operate.”

The Field’s second album Yesterday And Today reflects this change, retaining the synthetic tech tones of the first album while adding a slightly wonky and more organic feel to the proceedings. “We had started doing the band thing live and I wanted to bring that to the studio for the second album. I don’t really want to create a mix comprised of processed sounds that come solely from a computer.”

Having determined a final line-up and name, it appears that guitarist Lapthorne has been instrumental to the forward thinking of the line-up. Having already determined the band’s name, he applied pressure to alter the band’s target points. “The plan was obviously to do a few EPs and possibly an album down the track,” Soltys explains. “Then one day Ryan said to me, ‘Let’s stop fucking around and just record an album. We’ve got the time and we’ve got the songs. Let’s do it.’”

“T

he songs themselves and the way I write, I could never be a Jack Johnson or a John Mayer. I can’t just pick up an acoustic guitar and write songs about the beach or whatever, for people to sit around and smoke a joint to. It has always needed something else, that rhythm section behind it and some chords and something over the top.” Holliava frontman/ guitarist/pianist Michael Soltys always wanted to pursue a career in music, but he knew early on that he would not be able to do it alone. Therefore he recruited his older brother Luke as a bassist and set about piecing together his own quartet. But finding the right line-up proved a more complicated process that he had anticipated. It took a long while before he realised that a functional band needed “a mixture of being friendly, being pals and getting along as well as being confident as a band and musicians”. Having now discovered “the cream in the middle of his cracker,” Soltys explains it was just a matter of experimenting to find the right balance. “We’ve had drummers before who were really good drummers but we didn’t get along with them. The same with bassists. We had people we got on with very well but who couldn’t contribute musically.” Having always worked well with his older brother Luke, Soltys needed to find people who could balance out the equation and bring the missing ingredients to the table. After an extended period of searching they recruited Tyson Hooper on drums and Ryan Lapthorne on guitar. With a completed line-up, Soltys decided that their original name, Sober Phil, no longer fitted, so set about thinking about “a new, refreshing name. We had a song called Holliava named after the bar in

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Realising that there was more than a little truth ringing throughout Lapthorne’s statement, the group immediately contacted Matt D’Arcy at Basin Studios, with whom they previously had done a one-track demo, and simply “sorted all the dates.” With a producer on board, the quartet had to pick which of their songs would make the cut, a process that had inevitable difficulties. Having chosen a shortlist, the boys hit the studios, where they “originally went in and recorded 14 [songs], two of which didn’t make the cut.” Given the obvious attachment to their musical creations, Soltys reveals that the final selection process, which saw Holliava dropped from the tracklist, was surprisingly easy. “We played them, recorded them and listening back, we just thought, ‘These don’t sound good.’ They didn’t scrub up against the other 12. We always knew we’d have to ditch a few and we were worried that wouldn’t know how to decide. But it was easy; all of us said the same two had to go. The rest were songs that we knew would be on the album regardless.” Whilst the song that inspired their name faced the chop, another song experienced a promotion even the band didn’t foresee. “There was one, the title track, Stay Where We Lay, which we had our doubts about but it ended being one of the most powerful songs on the album. That is why we made that number one and named it after that as well. That was never planned – that kind of came long after the album was done.” WHO: Holliava WHAT: Stay Where We Lay (Independent) WHEN & WHERE: Friday, Revolver

FRIDAY 10 DECEMBER 2010 4:00 - 4:40PM 5:00 - 5:40 6:00 - 6:40 7:00 - 7:40 7:45 8:10 - 9:00 9:30 - 10:15 10:45 - 11:40 12:10 - 1:00AM 1:20 - 2:05 2:25 - 3:55 4AM IS 4:00 - 10:00AM

PUTA MADRE BROTHERS RAT VS POSSUM KIMBRA JEFF THE BROTHERHOOD HOUSEKEEPING BROADCAST CLOUD CONTROL REVEREND HORTON HEAT LITTLE RED CLIPSE THE FIELD CURFEW SILENCE WEDGE

INTERSTITIAL SOUNDTRACK BY DJ FEE B2

SATURDAY 11 DECEMBER 2010 10:00 - 10.40AM 11:00 - 11:40 12:00 - 12:40PM 1:05 - 1:50 2:15 - 3:00 3:00 3:20 - 4:05 4:35 - 5:30 5:55 - 6:40 6:45 6:50 7:10 - 8:00 8:30 - 9:40 10:10 - 11:20 11:50 - 1:00AM 1:20 2:00 - 3:00 3:10 - 4:10 4:15 - 7:00

CITY OF BALLARAT BRASS BAND KYÜ WASHED OUT C.W. STONEKING GIRLS HOUSEKEEPING EL GUINCHO THE FALL CUSTARD HAPPY BIRTHDAY HOUSEKEEPING COMBO LA REVELACION NEIL FINN SHARON JONES AND THE DAP-KINGS DIRTY THREE MEREDITH SKY SHOW DJ MU-GEN THE HEATWAVE PANTHA DU PRINCE DJ HARVEY & DJ GARTH

INTERSTITIAL SOUNDTRACK BY DJ PEOPLE AND LOVEFINGERS

SUNDAY 12 DECEMBER 2010 7:00 - 9:00AM 9:00 - 9:40 10:00 - 10:40 11:00 - 11:40 12:00 - 12:45PM 1:05 - 2:05 2:15 - 2.45 2.45 - 3.45 4:30PM

SILENCE WEDGE MASTER SONG TAI CHI THE DEAD SALESMEN DUO SALLY SELTMANN THOSE DARLINS HYPNOTIC BRASS ENSEMBLE THE MEREDITH GIFT HOSS GATES CLOSE

INTERSTITIAL SOUNDTRACK BY ZAN ROWE SPECIAL GUEST MC ANGUS SAMPSON GIFT MISTRESSES THE TOWN BIKES

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ISSUE 1152 - WEDNESDAY 8 DECEMBER, 2010

TOURS

PRESENTS

THIS WEEK INTERNATIONAL

JACK JOHNSON: December 8 Sidney Myer Music Bowl GOTAN PROJECT: December 8, 9 Forum JEFF THE BROTHERHOOD: December 9 Pony; 11 Rats; 17 Espy; 18 Tote THE FIELD: December 9 East Brunswick Club CLIPSE: December 9 Prince Bandroom BROADCAST: December 9 Hi-Fi BON JOVI: December 10 Rod Laver Arena; 11 Etihad Stadium THE FALL, DAVE GRANEY: December 10 Billboard GIRLS: December 10 Corner Hotel PANTHA DU PRINCE: December 11 New Guernica LITTLE DRAGON: December 11 East Brunswick Club GORILLAZ: December 11 Rod Laver Arena EVAN DANDO: December 12 Northcote Social Club LINKIN PARK: December 12, 13 Rod Laver Arena MUSE, BIFFY CLYRO: December 14 Rod Laver Arena

GIG OF THE WEEK GORILLAZ

NATIONAL

HUMAN NATURE: December 10 Melbourne Convention And Exhibition Centre BLACK SORROWS: December 10 Substation (Newport) HERMITUDE: December 10 Northcote Social Club PETER COMBE: December 11 (all-ages 1.30pm, over-18s 8.30pm) MAMA KIN: December 11 Toff In Town GYPSY & THE CAT: December 13 Tote

UPCOMING THE FALL Friday Billboard

SATURDAY, ROD LAVER ARENA

orillaz have locked their animated band members – Murdoc Niccals, 2D, Russel Hobbs and Noodle – in the green room so that they can perform with a slew of their favourite musicians without having to worry about virtual sabotage during their Escape To Plastic Beach world tour. Two members of The Clash, Paul Simonon and Mick Jones, remain onstage the whole time with mastermind Damon Albarn plus others and a rollcall of guest artists including De La Soul, Little Dragon and Bobby Womack will land onstage for various appearances throughout the night. Of course, Jamie Hewlett’s animation will hover proudly above proceedings at all times and this visual feast straddles three album’s worth of material. Our bet is that Mark E Smith will probably hoon back straight from The Fall’s Meredith Music Festival slot just in time to crank out his vocal part on Glitter Freeze from Plastic Beach. Albarn hasn’t set foot on our shores in 15 years and Simonon reckons the last time he was here was in “probably about 1982”, so set sail to this one and don’t forget your compass.

Reel Big Fish pic by Kane Hibberd

bunch of people. I can’t help but wonder whether all those pale in comparison to the catharsis one would experience seeing Reel Big Fish live. Nobody will articulate how shitty your life is after the end of your last relationship with as big a smile as lead singer Aaron Barrett.

INTERNATIONAL

MUSE, BIFFY CLYRO: December 15 Rod Laver Arena EL GUINCHO: December 15 East Brunswick Club BIFFY CLYRO: December 16 Hi-Fi THE REVEREND HORTON HEAT: December 17 Billboard JEFF THE BROTHERHOOD: December 17 Espy; 18 Tote THE EAGLES: December 17, 18, 21, 22 Rod Laver Arena THOSE DARLINS: December 17 Espy; 19 Tote; 20 Curtin House HEADS OF STATE: December 23 Palace JAMAICA: December 24 Corner Hotel MARINA & THE DIAMONDS: December 28 Hi-Fi Bar ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT: December 29 Espy NEON INDIAN, CASIOKIDS: December 29 Revolver EARTHLESS: December 31 Espy; January 9 Arthouse ARMIN VAN BUUREN: December 31 Etihad Stadium FUTURE OF THE LEFT: January 2 Corner Hotel HOT HOT HEAT: January 3 Corner Hotel JUNIP: January 4 Corner Hotel THE DYNAMITES FEATURING CHARLES WALKER: January 6, 7 Order Of Melbourne SLEIGH BELLS: January 7 Prince Bandroom

THE FALL: December 10 Billboard EVEN: December 18, 19 Tote JAMAICA: December 31 Corner Hotel BUILT TO SPILL: January 1 Corner Hotel JUNIP: January 4 Corner Hotel THE NATIONAL: January 9, 10 Palais THEE OH SEES: January 9 National Hotel (Geelong); 12, 13 Tote BEACH HOUSE: January 10 Hi-Fi JON SPENCER BLUES EXPLOSION: January 13 Hi-Fi; 14 Espy PLUTONIC LAB & G LOVE: January 14 Northcote Social Club WIRE: January 19 Corner Hotel ANDREW WK: January 29 Hi-Fi BLONDE REDHEAD: February 7 Billboard BEAR IN HEAVEN, THE ANTLERS: February 9 Corner TWO DOOR CINEMA CLUB: February 9 Prince Bandroom STORNOWAY: February 10 Corner FOALS: February 10 Palace WARPAINT: February 10 Northcote Social Club YEASAYER: February 10 Billboard CARIBOU, FOUR TET: February 16 Hi-Fi I AM KLOOT: February 17 East Brunswick Club MAYER HAWTHORNE & THE COUNTY: February 18 Hi-Fi SWERVEDRIVER: February 19 Corner Hotel DOVES: February 19 Forum TUNNG: February 22 East Brunswick Club THE HOLD STEADY: March 11 Hi-Fi THE CLEAN: March 11 Corner Hotel WAVVES: March 14 Corner Hotel DISTURBED, TRIVIUM, AS I LAY DYING: April 24 Rod Laver Arena KYUSS LIVES: May 8 Billboard

LIVE: REVIEWS REEL BIG FISH BILLBOARD

he scene at a Reel Big Fish concert is about what you’d expect: A few hundred terribly unfashionable people of all ages lost in ecstatic, embarrassingly unselfconscious dancing to a band of ageing musicians singing upbeat songs about downbeat things. People put all kinds of solutions to you following a break-up, from going to the gym and eating healthier to just sleeping with a

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Barrett is a fun guy to watch. I’ve never been able to tell how many levels of irony he operates under, but I admire a man who can play a guitar solo behind his head while rocking the brightest Hawaiian shirt I’ve ever seen. He comes onstage with giant white sunglasses on, and I can’t help but smile. For a decade and a half, Reel Big Fish have eschewed traditions and mocked rock’n’roll while making genuinely good music. They’re not a joke band, but they are unequivocally ‘fun’, and so are their shows. They race through their hits with vigour, whipping the crowd into a frenzy, only pausing briefly between each song to make jokes. One of these is, “We have many, many, many, many hit songs… that we’ve covered…” which prefaces the first cover of the night, a poppy rendition of Van Morrisson’s Brown Eyed Girl. The cover treatment is also given to Metallica’s Enter Sandman, which my plus one, unfamiliar with Reel Big Fish (though now converted), is pretty happy about. The last song they play is a cover as well, their most famous: a-ha’s Take On Me, which finishes the encore. Of course, the biggest song of the night comes after someone from the crowd shouts, “Yo, do you guys know any songs about beer?” Predictably, Beer goes off. Even the guy at the in-house ATM has his shirt off and is skankin’ while waiting for the cash that he’ll presumably spend on the drink the song’s named after. As I look over, I see the screen flash “Insufficient Funds”, but to the shirtless consumer, it doesn’t really matter. He just looks happy to be here. Jake Cleland

live@inpress.com.au

DARKEST HOUR, CARNIFEX: January 7, Hi-Fi INTERPOL: January 7 Palace JASON COLLETT: January 8, 9 Northcote Social Club THE NATIONAL: January 9, 10 Palais THEE OH SEES: January 9, National Hotel (Geelong); 12, 13 Tote JON SPENCER BLUES EXPLOSION: January 13 Hi-Fi; 14 Espy EMMURE: January 14 Castle (Dandenong) PLUTONIC LAB & G LOVE: January 14 Northcote Social Club MOS DEF: January 14 Palace Theatre MOUNTAIN MEN: January 15 Toff in Town OWEN PALLETT, JESSICA SAYS: January 15 Thornbury Theatre; 16 Toff In Town GRINDERMAN: January 17, 18 Palace HOLLY MIRANDA: January 17 East Brunswick Club WIRE: January 19 Corner Hotel JUDY COLLINS: January 20 West Gippsland Arts Centre; 21 Corner Hotel; 25 Theatre Royal (Castlemaine) HEALTH: January 21 East Brunswick Club CAT POWER: January 21 Forum; 22 MAMA KIN Saturday Toff In Town

Theatre Royal (Castlemaine) BROOKE FRASER: January 22 Athenaeum Theatre BEACH HOUSE: January 25 Hi-Fi KENNY ROGERS: January 25 Regent Theatre OLAF ARNALDS: January 26 Toff In Town (HED)pe January 27 Corner Hotel COCOROSIE: January 27 Prince Bandroom COLM MAC CON IONMAIRE: January 28 Melbourne Recital Hall CRYSTAL CASTLES: January 28 Palace THE NAKED & FAMOUS: January 28 Corner Hotel THE VERLAINES: January 28 East Brunswick Club ANDREW WK: January 29 Hi-Fi RATATAT: January 31 Hi-Fi MATT & KIM: February 2 Corner Hotel THE BLACK KEYS: February 2 Palace THE GREENHORNES: February 2 Palace; 3 Northcote Social Club PRIMAL SCREAM: February 2, 3 Forum HOLY FUCK: February 3 Hi-Fi ALOE BLACC & THE GRAND SCHEME: February 4 Prince BELINDA CARLISLE: February 4 Chelsea Heights Hotel; 5 Shoppingtown Hotel THE UNTHANKS: February 4, Bella Union, Trades Hall CONOR O’BRIEN: February 6 Northcote Social Club BLONDE REDHEAD: February 7 Billboard TRAIN: February 7 Forum JOE COCKER: February 8, 9 Palais LES SAVY FAV: February 8 Billboard LOCAL NATIVES: February 8 Corner Hotel MENOMENA: February 9 East Brunswick Club BEAR IN HEAVEN, THE ANTLERS: February 9 Corner ARIEL PINK’S HAUNTED GRAFFITI: February 10 Northcote Social Club STORNOWAY: February 10 Corner Hotel !!!: February 10 Prince Bandroom WARPAINT: February 10 Northcote Social Club RETURN TO FOREVER: February 11 Regent Theatre I AM KLOOT: February 17 East Brunswick Club MAYER HAWTHORNE & THE COUNTY: February 18 Hi-Fi TORO Y MOI: February 18 Workers Club KATE NASH: February 18 Billboard DOVES: February 19 Forum THE LIKE: February 19 Northcote Social Club THE GETAWAY PLAN: February 19 Hi-Fi THE BOOKS: February 20 Thornbury Theatre

BLACK MOUNTAIN: February 21 Corner Hotel TUNNG: February 22 East Brunswick Club MICHAEL BUBLÉ: February 22, 23, 25 Rod Laver Arena IRON MAIDEN: February 23 Hisense Arena NEW FOUND GLORY, LESS THAN JAKE: February 28 Billboard PENNYWISE, MILLENCOLIN: March 1, Palace BRING ME THE HORIZON: March 2 Hi-Fi SUM 41, THE BLACKOUT, THERE FOR TOMORROW, VEARA: March 2 Billboard ROB ZOMBIE, MURDERDOLLS, MONSTER MAGNET, DOMMIN: March 3 Festival Hall PRIMUS, MELVINS: March 3 Palais DEVILDRIVER, ILL NINO, ALL THAT REMAINS, NONPOINT: March 3 Billboard ROXY MUSIC, MONDO ROCK: March 3 Rod Laver Arena WE THE KINGS, NEVER SHOUT NEVER, THE MAINE: March 3 Billboard

NATIONAL

PARIS WELLS: December 16 Corner Hotel JONATHAN BOULET: December 17 East Brunswick Club HOODOO GURUS: December 17 Corner Hotel; 18 Ferntree Gully Hotel GOSTELERADIO: December 17 Curtin Bandroom ADAM BRAND: December 17 Warrnambool Entertainment Centre; 28 Colac RSL; January 25 York On Lilydale (Mount Evelyn); 26 Regent Cinemas (Ballarat); 27 Hallam Hotel; 28 Gateway Hotel (Geelong); 29 Kinross Woolshed (Thurgoona) CUSTOM KINGS: December 17 Prince Bandroom; 18 the Grand (Ballarat) THE CHURCH: December 17, 19 Thornbury Theatre BONJAH: December 18 Hi-Fi Bar MICK THOMAS & THE SURE THING, THE WILSON PICKERS: December 18 Corner Hotel DARREN HANLON: December 19 Northcote Social Club BRITISH INDIA: December 24 Espy FIREBALLS: December 25 Espy JIMMY BARNES, NOISEWORKS, THIRSTY MERC: January 2 Warrnambool Racecourse; 9 Mildura Soundshell; 15 Bonnie Doon Hotel; 16 Morning Star Estate; 22 Eureka Stadium (Ballarat); 23 Latrobe City Sports And Entertainment Complex (Morwell) GOTYE: January 14 National Theatre THE BAMBOOS: January 14 Prince Bandroom BLUEJUICE, PHILADELPHIA GRAND JURY, PURPLE SNEAKERS DJs: January 18 Inferno Nightclub (Traralgon); 19 Torquay Hotel; 20 Flying Horseman (Warrnambool) ; 21 Eureka Hotel (Geelong); 22 Westernport Hotel (San Remo) CHOIRBOYS: January 29 Palms At Crown SIA: February 1 Palais THE GETAWAY PLAN, TONIGHT ALIVE, SECRETS IN SCALE: February 19 Hi-Fi SCREAMFEEDER: February 25 Tote SPARKADIA, OPERATOR PLEASE, ALPINE: March 25 Hi-Fi

FESTIVALS

STEREOSONIC: December 4 Melbourne Showgrounds MEREDITH MUSIC FESTIVAL: December 10-12 FALLS FESTIVAL: December 28-January 1 Lorne PYRAMID ROCK FESTIVAL: December 29-January 1 Phillip Island NO SLEEP TIL MELBOURNE: December 17 Melbourne Showgrounds SUMMADAYZE: January 1 Sidney Myer Music Bowl THE HOT BARBEQUE: January 22 Point Nepean Portsea BIG DAY OUT: January 30 Flemington Racecourse SOUNDWAVE: March 4 Melbourne Showgrounds GOLDEN PLAINS: March 12-14 Meredith FUTURE MUSIC FESTIVAL: March 13 Flemington Racecourse APOLLO BAY MUSIC FESTIVAL: April 8-10 Apollo Bay SUPAFEST: April 17 Melbourne Showgrounds

The Meanies pic by Tim Chmielewski

QUEENSCLIFF MUSIC FESTIVAL The festival that our Sunday arvo headliner, Kate Miller-Heidke, describes as “one of the best in Australia” turns 14 this year and every effort is made to involve the young folk. We are told that 2010 marks the first time school kids have been bussed in from surrounding areas during the day on Friday for their very own, mini festival experience. The young talent on display reportedly included 17-year-old Catherine Sanzaro, who got to perform on the main Lighthouse Stage, and those with signed excursion slips were surely inspired to turn up to all future piano lessons without complaint (or ask Santa for a guitar). Our festival experience opens in the Crossing Stage with Paul Greene performing an acoustic version of Cold Chisel’s Khe Sanh, which he sings with much feeling, emphasising lyrical content for those who have only ever screeched it out on autopilot in pubs. There’s a slight aroma of chaff on the breeze and we know that, for this weekend at least, we’re content to be countrified. Katie Noonan & The Captains open this evening’s entertainment on the Lighthouse Stage and Noonan looks svelte in an all-black ensemble capped off by a ginormous, red floral adornment on her head. Her voice is glorious but the music is compositionally alienating. There needs to be more distinct hooks in order for the chatter to cease. The sun has barely set and there’s already much evidence of merrymaking. A young ‘lady’ seeking directions to the female facilities giggles as she refers to them as “vagina toilets”. Ash Grunwald is up next and he always delivers fine festival fare. Breakout is a rollicking beast of a song and the crowd pogos in appreciation, stoked to have an excuse to get loose. Audible soundchecks are adorable and the punters assemble, hard up against the barrier, preparing to Listen To Little Red. Slow Motion elicits mass squeals and then Dom Byrne, the hyperactive frontman, marvels, “That was just our soundcheck!” Little Red kicks off officially with Little Bit Of Something. It’s pleasing to see the band have shared their fee in supplying a brass section. “They’re pretty popular,” remarks a young dude in the crowd, implying his clueless mate should get with the program. “Rock it to the break of day/Don’t stop rocking now, no way!” – the sold-out crowd obey and that ever-so-catchy piano riff holds us captive. Conscious that there are two full days left of merrymaking, we weave our way up Hesse Street for an early(ish) night. Queenscliff’s local bird life fossicks around our campsite and squabbles seem to take place on top of our tent, which is reason enough to surface and scurry down to board the QMF Express. Our breakfast barely digested, we perch precariously against a railing in Carriage A. As the scenery floats by, our hangovers remain distracted until The Bedroom Philosopher’s lyrics make mention of a cake made out of pubic hair. Parents eye their children nervously, realising it’s too late to cover innocent ears and Justin Heazlewood is punished accordingly when a bout of turbulence propels the mic into his lip. The inanimate object draws blood and it’s ‘hello hangover’! RocKwiz Live makes its debut over at Lighthouse Stage and squeezing in for a decent posi proves difficult. Brian Nankervis puts the punters through their paces as they audition for a seat on the panel and effortlessly takes try-hard, buzzer-happy contenders down – “No one likes a wanker.” The RocKwiz Orchestra sounds brilliant pumping out ‘Million Dollar Riff’s and audience members, forgetting themselves, proudly yell out the answers. A fantastic addition to the QMF program. Our hangovers scream for fish’n’chips so it’s up the hill for a gander. Catherine Sanzaro’s voice draws us towards the Queenscliff Inn, where she is performing with two extremely accomplished

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young musicians. While Sanzaro’s stage dad adjusts the levels, we appreciate a stripped-back take on Outkast’s Hey Ya! with sweet harmonies. Andy Bull gets his chat on at Lombardys On Hesse, sharing detailed back-stories and career advice. This singer/songwriter’s demeanour is charming, his haircut is welcome and that vocal range is capable of soaring beyond what’s possible, even for a female. (It’s okay, he is well aware of this fact.) A soirée at the Salt Contemporary Gallery celebrates the festival’s halfway mark and Mayor Bob Merriman shares a pearl of wisdom – “What’s to worry about rain unless you’re made out of cardboard?” Back down at Crossing Stage, The Nymphs (labelled in jest “those bitches who harmonise”) point out how funny the underside of seagulls feet look through the translucent marquee roof. The stylish Melbourne ladies sport matching, retro halter neck frocks and sing into customised vintage mics. Some humorous anecdotes are served up through divine four-part harmonies and lilting arrangements and the quartet closes with their take on Zuckerman’s Famous Pig from Charlotte’s Web. The bar barrier extends well into the Lighthouse Stage tent, which means you can get close to the action with a beer in your hand. Saturday night’s entertainment is high on the heritage quota and Colin Hay performs stripped-back versions of Men At Work classics, such as Down Under and Be Good Johnny, interspersed with his solo material. The sheer size of the assembled crowd makes it difficult to decipher his always-on-form banter and a few more musicians onstage wouldn’t have hurt (though the Down Under copyright infringement lawsuit must have hurt Hay’s hip pocket). Next up, “Vocal artist” Mr Percival leads us through a live mash-up of Down Under with classic Marley (Stir It Up) and the rowdy punters marvel that both songs sung in unison create an interactive shout-off. The crowd participation he initiates via Electric Avenue, requires vocal parts plus choralography (“You’ve gotta put your cans between your legs, lads!”). Mr Percival creates the sound of each instrument on the spot with the aid of loop pedals and we mark our schedules for more opportunities to participate in this hilarity on the ‘morrow. Swinging back ‘round to the massive circus tent that is Lighthouse Stage, it’s all about Mark Seymour. And the audience goes off, as expected, when Hunners songs enter the mix. We’re treated to When The River Runs Dry, Holy Grail and (the eagerly anticipated) Throw Your Arms Around Me, during which you can’t possibly hear Seymour’s voice. It’s ace to partake of these wonderful songs but The Horns Of Contempt are sadly missed. Upon waking, there’s no recollection of stumbling up the hill back to the campsite, but we’re told we looked pretty content rocking out to The Meanies last night. This speaks volumes and yes, The Meanies were loud and raucous! As we wander past the giant banners advertising QMF’s headliners at the festival entrance, we notice one missing and wonder who was wily enough to smuggle it out. Hang on, where’s Washington? The ravishing Clare Bowditch is onstage. It is later revealed that Washo cancelled due to ‘illness’ or ‘exhaustion’ or some such excuse and even Bowditch makes a wisecrack about being “professional”. Oh, we see! So that’s why that massive Washington banner was removed! Bowditch generously employs three backing vocalists in her band The New Slang and their cover of Bowie’s Fashion, complete with well-rehearsed handclap sequences, is delightful. A group of dudes in the bar area wear dress-ups, opting for the anti-fashion look, and the knob award goes to the dude sporting what appears to be a white, women’s lawn bowls dress. The Vasco Era open with frontman Sid O’Neil performing Jimi Hendrix’s Voodoo Child solo. O’Neil goes without shoes and plectrum and recognises the costumed enthusiasts, asking from the stage whether they’re from Colac. “Elvis!” they reply

live@inpress.com.au and continue to do so at every available opportunity. O’Neil pulls out a crowd-pleaser for the over-50s, Dock Of The Bay. The Vasco Era are exceptional musicians, their songs have a raw intensity you’re powerless against when experienced live and O’Neil’s relaxed, in-between-song banter is a hoot today. He even goes so far as to say he’s been practising this while looking into a vanity mirror at home. A handful of kids are invited onto the stage, each presented with a pair of drumsticks to help belt out closer When It Was Making Weird Love Songs (better known as Honey Bee) – cacophonous but cute. O’Neil relents and performs Elvis Presley’s Can’t Help Falling In Love With You and it beats me why everyone isn’t in love with this band. Kate Miller-Heidke brings her stripped-back incarnation to Queenscliff this year, performing songs mainly with her collaborator Keir Nuttall. She looks so much prettier au naturale (and minus clock headwear) and exhibits amazing vocal control. Miller-Heidke plays a song requested by a fan via Twitter and we’re positive we hear her say, “I love you with my front bottom sausage purse.” QMF children will take some interesting new vocabulary to school tomorrow. We are then treated to a new, unrecorded track called The Tiger Inside Will Eat The Child. This is a little too down-tempo to close our festival, so we head to Fishnets Stage for Public Opinion Afro Orchestra. This conglomerate is the answer to our prayers – all brass and booty. There’s so much joyous energy on that stage, it draws you to your feet. And there can’t be a soul present who doesn’t wanna head to wherever these foxy BV vixens learned how to dance. This fusion of African rhythms and MCs is a fitting apéritif for after-party action. Bryget Chrisfield

MY DISCO THE HI-FI

busting these lengthy and rock-defiant songs. After finishing their Australian tour in mid-December, My Disco are set to release Little Joy worldwide at the end of January, and if their upcoming performances are anything like tonight, then My Disco are certain to succeed once more in a global arena. Danielle Trabsky

BLONDIE, ATTACK OF THE MANNEQUINS TRAK Melbourne’s Attack Of The Mannequins lucked out with their support slot for perennial new wave faves Blondie. The NY punk outfit have been regular visitors since reigniting their career in 1999 and now attract a older-than-usual gigging crowd; one that arrives early, drinks a lot and shows appreciation for lower billed acts – it’s a rare night out, they’ll make the most of it. So Mannequins play to an almost-full room where many have sauntered close-to-stage for prime Blondieviewing positions. And while other retro gigs might have attracted a following that would be confused, or made uncomfortable, by Mannequins’ horror filminspired uniforms and make-up, many in a Blondie crowd lived through the eras of punk and hair metal – they’re most likely wondering, “What! No chainsaws?” Fronted by brothers Harrison and Jackson Freud, Mannequins are made-for-arena, post-My Chems hard rock pomp, and they own this slot. They power through a set like their futures depend on it and singer Harrison Freud has rock star banter going on that sits somewhere between glam arrogance and cynical flippancy. He even stops halfway through their last number to ask the audience, “How’s my hair?” Like everything else they present on the night, his hair is looking good.

And, to Blondie’s Debbie Harry we say, “Your hair is beautiful.” Like their support act, Blondie have always known that hair plays a vital role in rock. Harry’s fright-white bouffant almost out-dazzles their kickstart with new track D-Day – it’s no wonder she’s wearing sunglasses too. Later in the set, Harry sings those immortal words of coiffure appreciation (Atomic) as the band glide through their greatest hits of the ‘80s. But this is not quite your regular golden oldies set most ‘80s bands are hawking around the global heritage circuit, Blondie are an ongoing recording concern and have already toured their two most recent albums here in the past ten years. Tonight, they have another new album to plunder from (Panic Of Girls, out in the new year) and one of those new songs is a highlight of the evening. Mother is a twitching, neurotic power pop rush that is classic Blondie (“I was foolish, you were right… Mother, may I stay out late tonight?”) and merits its place amidst tonight’s wellworn hits One Way Or Another and Union City Blue. However, it seems some in the audience are disgruntled with the performance, upset with what they take to be Harry’s couldn’t-care-less attitude onstage. Those folk miss the point – Harry’s stage persona has always been that of the punk upstart, it’s just now that she’s in her mid-’60s that brattish behaviour is mistaken for nonchalance, or cynicism at worst. Okay, Harry can no longer wreak havoc onstage as she did in the past and she may also struggle with some of the notes (especially in Call Me) that she used to slide into with ease, but she spends her time away from Blondie singing jazz not roaring out rock standards. However, Harry still leads Blondie (alongside two other originals in guitarist Chris Stein and drummer Clem Burke) with a slinky vocal style and a sex kitten/cougar

My Disco pic by Jess Booher

persona (“I heard there’s a lot of nude beaches around here… we’re looking for nude beaches, not bitches.”). But maybe Harry is suffering from first-night-of-tour jitters. And why not? There are elements of the fanbase that are only here to sing as loud as they can to the back catalogue. It’s gotta get tiring poking the mic out to a crowd as they scream untunefully to Heart Of Glass and Hanging On The Telephone. Her energy levels pick up noticeably for newer- and lesser-known workouts. To finally hear The Hardest Part (from 1979’s Eat To The Beat) makes up for once again enduring the out-of-place (but crowd favourite) cod calypso The Tide Is High. More recent hit Maria is stunning as ever and Harry lets rip during new tracks What I Heard and Love Doesn’t Frighten Me. If anything, you get the feeling Harry wants to leave the old behind but the fans who pay $100 for a club ticket ain’t about to let that happen. In fact, some punters stand dazed and confused during the encore as the band, not playing more staples like In The Flesh or Denis instead, pay tribute to their fallen NY punk compatriots (Johnny Thunders’ You Can’t Put Your Arms Around A Memory and New York Dolls’ Jet Boy). That’s what Blondie have always been about (as well as hair) – and that’s not about pandering to Classic Rock radio listeners. Andrew Mast

ELIZA DOOLITTLE, WONS PHREELY TOFF IN TOWN A lacklustre support act can work two ways for the main attraction. Whilst half an hour without a toe tap can make a headliner seem instantly amazing, the anticipation might also up the ante in the expectation stakes. Luckily for Eliza Doolittle, Wons Phreely attracts so little attention that the crowd are nonchalant to his presence as they await hers. With comparisons to Lily Allen and Amy Winehouse seeming to float around the packed out Toff, the frenetically energetic Eliza Doolittle bounds on stage and immediately disproves both counts. Dressed in little hot pants and a vest top, Doolittle brims with girly energy and flirty fun, which the aforementioned too-cool-for-school pair lack. A refreshing presence, Doolittle does a lot to ensure audience participation. Clearly taken aback by the sing-back response, Doolittle seems totally chuffed that people know and like her songs. Also clearly a believer in audience inclusion, Doolittle ensures people know the words and makes regular eye contact with those she can reach. Whilst a cover of Big Jet Plane fails to truly get off the ground, everything else Doolittle does is perfection. Whilst lead single Pack Up closes the set on a high, it is the lesser-known Police Car that truly stands out. Where her Angus & Julia Stone cover fails, her sassy rendition of Cee Lo Green’s Fuck You almost tops Pack Up in the popularity stakes.

After bypassing a nest of fi xies outside the Hi-Fi, I worm my way downstairs to find a laser penetrating the space surrounding the bar and stage area. Fans are standing around transfi xed by the conspicuous light, not really sure of its purpose. It’s not entirely unusual considering this is a My Disco gig, and this Melbourne trio are famous for their unconventionality. They have made their mark both within Australia and on international music circuits for their abstract and experimental post-punk rock pieces and their live gigs are anything but ordinary. While brothers, Liam and Ben Andrews and Rohan Rebeiro have been touring extensively throughout Australia, Europe, Japan and North America, it’s been over two years since the release of their second full-length album Paradise, and tonight it is time to officially launch their latest child, Little Joy. The album, which is mixed with the help of Scott Horscroft (Silverchair, The Presets), consists of multilayered and nuanced tracks and is also highly minimalist and expansive in concept. It has garnered rave reviews since its release at the end of October.

Without a planned encore, Doolittle leaves the audience in the dark before the screams get out of control. Clearly touched by the response, Doolittle proves her diversity and vocal dexterity with her first chilblain-inducing performance of the night. Whilst Doolittle focuses on the fun, her heroine Aretha Franklin sings it big. To the audience’s surprise, this jittery girl can belt as she closes the night with a show-stopping rendition of I Never Loved A Man The Way I Love You.

As My Disco walk onto the stage, they are greeted excitedly by their huge Melbourne fanbase. The first track from their latest album, Closer, kicks off the set and the band are lost in their own world; Ben whipping his head back and forth, Liam moving sharply between the blasts of heavy rhythmic beats and Rebeiro furiously drumming at the back of the stage. The hypnotic single Young, which clocks in at just-under nine minutes and was released as an EP in February this year, follows on.

Those who came to see the next Allen or Winehouse did not leave disappointed. Whilst Doolittle doesn’t have Allen’s cocky charm or Winehouse’s swagger, she is a bright and breezy alternative whose infectious energy will take her far.

The band plays Little Joy in full and finish with closing track, A Turreted Berg. With beads of sweat forming on their faces, the trio seem exhausted from

Jeremy Williams

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live@inpress.com.au U2 pic by Kane Hibberd

U2, JAY-Z ETIHAD STADIUM Jumping on a City Circle tram at first seems like the correct choice given the gridlock traffic conditions. That is until it starts chugging along, slower than walking pace, with a constant, deafening voiceover pointing out attractions such as an “interactive play adventure” to our left approaching Docklands. The concert’s scheduling seems to have been pushed forward slightly to accommodate latecomers and we note that U2 songs are being pumped through the Etihad sound system in the lead up to showtime. With the stadium roof open tonight, ponchos are being sold at the merch stands for those in the “red section” who don’t think Bono has done enough charity work to hold off the rain. Jay-Z gets the standing room area bouncing from the first beat, however the bums on seats are hesitant to holler back. H To The Izzo is the ultimate audience participation track but I’m a lone ranger yelling back “V to the izz-A”. 99 Problems sees the red section

bouncing invisible giant beach balls in unison before Jay-Z tests his authority by requesting people circle their t-shirts in the air. It looks effective, even if the majority of the helicoptered garments are plastic ponchos. Obviously Jay-Z is forbidden to strut Bono’s series of catwalks and remains on the actual stage. When the vocal from Empire State Of Mind kicks in, we have a cow thinking Mrs Jay-Z has taken the mic until we recognise the recorded pipes of Alicia Keys. Still, we hold our breath thinking this would make a good transition into Beyoncé hitting the stage to perform Déjà Vu featuring her boo. It would’ve been the bomb, but we’re picking up what the ‘Z’s throwing down, even if the punters in the bleachers are a little unsure. As the sun sets, The Claw, which reportedly took six jets to transport to Australia, takes on a menacing silhouette. A comedian once spoke of a huge carbon footprint translating to a massive carbon cock, and Bono could well be a candidate here. U2’s intro tape is David Bowie’s Space Oddity and the crowd erupts. Kicking off with a new song is a bit rough but Beautiful Day makes up for it. Bono still rocks double leather and walks like he still knows how to move in Mysterious Ways. This song is one of the night’s highlights and features crystal clear 360-degree visuals that take lyrical content to the extreme – the new Klaxons Twin Flames video done tastefully. Elevation continues the amusement ride feel of proceedings and the 360-degree set rotates so that everyone gets a piece of The Edge. Until The End Of The World (from the soundtrack to the motion picture of the same name) is a less obvious inclusion and it’s so beautiful lyrically. Then The Edge goes and rips out a heartbreaking guitar solo to make us well up. During Sunday Bloody Sunday, those who thought this song was all about bemoaning the last day of the weekend learn a valuable lesson via graphic visuals. Jay-Z joins the band onstage and his attempts at singing only serve to make Bono’s voice sound even more extraordinary. ‘Il Divo Bono’ makes an appearance for an interlude and he should hook up with The Knife for an operatic collaboration. A lighting effect that resembles a giant, rotating, psychedelic dustbin is bedazzling. Bono refers to The Claw as “The Space Station” and we half expect alternate life forms to fly out of it. The banter’s a bit cheesy. Bono: “What time is it in the world?”/ “SHOWTIME!” Really? All over the world? The first encore is classic, poignant U2 – One and then an acoustic snippet of Amazing Grace (yep, the traditional hymn) that segues perfectly into Where The Streets Have No Name with full band. We’re asked to hold up our mobile phones in remembrance of those we’ve lost. With Or Without You is the highlight of the second encore and although catching The Claw in action isn’t a life or death situation, it’s one for the bucket list. These four Irish rockers look like they’ve still got a few world tours left in them and if the leather fits, wear it. Bryget Chrisfield

MIAMI HORROR THE ESPY Not about to let the summer rain dampen their spirits, Miami Horror have gone tropical to promote their Holidays tour. The Gershwin Room at the Esplanade is decorated with palm trees and festoon lights and is overflowing with punters wearing leis when I arrive. The band look like they’re in the mood to party, dressed in Hawaiian shirts, with Josh Moriarty sporting a white Miami Vice suit. On stage, the band rock out with guitars blazing on Don’t Be On With Her, with Moriarty providing vocals and guitar, joined by bassist Daniel Whitechurch and Aaron Shanahan on drums. Founding member, keyboardist and producer Ben Plant is showing a willingness to move away from the electro, synthdriven sound that established Miami Horror in the days when he was working solo. Having performed at big name festivals, including Good Vibrations, Splendour In The Grass and with a gig this year at Summadayze, you get the impression these guys would prefer sweating it out outdoors, where the crowd can move around and enjoy themselves. As it stands, there’s barely room to shuffle, so Moriarty suggests we clap our hands above our hands on Make You Mine, when we’d really love to be dancing. There’s technical problems early on, with muted vocals indecipherable in the midst of feedback. When Plant steps up to perform Moon Theory (a heavenly blissed-out summer anthem with vocals that should float harmoniously over its sequenced layers), the two singers have to share a microphone to keep the show going. Consequently, the chorus becomes laboured, as if the guys are forcing the words to get the song out. The sound becomes cleaner halfway through the set, when the guitars move into the background and Plant has the floor to showcase his electronic talents. Appearing on iconic dance label Ministry Of Sound as an artist and remixer – working with local talents Pnau and The Presets, collaborating with Sam Sparro and Hook N Sling – Plant’s Australian credentials are well established. It’s disappointing then, that their studio successes don’t translate live. Sometimes (achingly beautiful on video, with a narrative reminiscent of The Blue Lagoon) only just passes. Support act Kimbra is a welcome guest on I Look To You and brings a smooth melody to the vocal that echoes Morcheeba. Wrapping up with Holidays, it seems Miami Horror are still in a state of flux: Are they pub rockers, festival favourites or dance producers? There’s certainly some crossover and the band obviously enjoys the opportunity to experiment with their live show. In fact the intention with debut album Illumination was not to sound too “hi-fi”, but it’s the polished “disco-influenced prog-pop” that shines through tonight. Reprising Paul Simon’s You Can Call Me Al for their encore, the band leave the audience upbeat after a short and sweet one-hour performance. Back out in the beer garden, the crowd disperses into the wet Melbourne weather, dreaming of summer nights once more. Chris Toussaint

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live@inpress.com.au The Jezebels pic by Lou Lou Nutt

songs is that they’re over before you know what’s going on. The upside, of course, is that these short bursts of energy inject the music with something fresh and urgent, even if it is possibly insane. It’s a pleasure to behold. Rob Gascoigne

PATINKA CHA CHA, SEAGULL WORKERS CLUB In a venue free of sound insulation, bands get a bright and garish sound playing in the Workers Club, and this works surprisingly well for the bands tonight, both of whom hide their accomplished musicianship in twisting and unpredictable songs. Chris Bolton makes a case for being one of the more fearless singer/songwriters in town with his moniker Seagull now signifying a fourpiece band who explore the outer edges of indie rock with piercing vocals, heavy rhythms and textured melodica. Bolton has transformed from

an intelligent, bookish wilfully low-fi singer/ songwriter into a charismatic near-experimentalist pushing his Velvets chugs into dark stabs of pop. With Patinka Cha Cha member Ruby Green providing the melodica lines, which blend beautifully with his textured stabs of guitar, the band move easily from elegant and slightly sinister dynamics to My Disco-like sledgehammer blocks of rhythm. For a guy strumming a broken acoustic a year ago, this blazingly charismatic transition makes Whitley’s seem tame. Rather than finding a rhythm and driving it into the ground, Patinka Cha Cha play with the idea of what songs can be. A typical one messes with the meter, skips from effervescent horn blasts to a fluid melodic guitar break before crashing into a five-part vocal-led outro and offering the delicious proposition of not knowing where a song will go next. Sounding entirely unlike any other band yet with the horn-led rhythmic fluidity of late-‘70s British combo Pigbag, Patinka Cha Cha are a dazzling seven-piece and prove Natasha Rose is a disarmingly shy bandleader

and blisteringly exciting guitarist. Hiding swathes of warm, untreated jazz-influenced guitar virtuosity amidst danceable beats and explosions of synth pad warmth, there is a breathtakingly unique mix of musicality and pop nous, all the more amazing for the youth of all involved. Despite the dynamic shifts several girls are inspired to do swoopy dancing, the room is nearly packed and the thermometer cracks the high 30s which all lends this show and this band an exciting ‘now is their time’ edge. Whether PCC fall on the right side of indie or are deemed by those with radio playlisting power to be too imaginative, too jazz influenced, too unpredictable or just uninterested in the opportunities on offer remains to be seen, but either way, Patinka Cha Cha are one of the most exciting bands 2010 has yet offered. The fact that they’ve already outgrown the EP they spent tonight promoting is another reason to check them out sooner rather than later because there’s really no knowing what’s next. Andy Hazel

THE JEZABELS EAST BRUNSWICK CLUB Tonight is the third and final show in Melbourne for Sydneybased quartet, The Jezabels. Since the release of She’s So Hard EP in November 2009, these cool cats have been hot property, touring with artists such as Tegan & Sara, Regurgitator and Josh Pyke, and were recently given a nomination in the Triple J Unearthed J Award. To top that off they have been selling out shows across the country with tonight being no exception. The crowd arrives early to catch local darlings Fuzz Phantoms and Canadian indie outfit, Two Hours Traffic. Shortly after, The Jezabels’ drummer Nik Kaloper, guitarist Sam Lockwood and keyboardist Heather Shannon, walk onto the stage to take their places, but as soon as the hypnotic vocalist Hayley Mary becomes present, the cheers intensify. A Little Piece from their most recent release Dark Storm EP kicks off the set. Sounding strikingly similar to Karen O of Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Mary’s voice is intoxicating with fans clearly enamoured by this charming chanteuse as she swiftly moves across the stage. Easy To Love from She’s So Hard EP follows on. “We need to fill the awkward silences”, Mary tells the crowd as the rest of the band set up for the next track, “but we’re not good at it”. The silence is short-lived much to the relief of the modest Mary and as The Jezabels break into Disco Biscuit Love from their The Man Is Dead EP fans begin dancing, lost in the lyrics of this catchy and bop-able anthem that spent weeks on rotation on most independent radio stations around the country. Mace Spray and the melancholic Hurt Me are also well received with fans lip-synching the words to these tracks. After playing Violent Dream, Mary politely explains, “We’ve come to the end of our set now, but can we play another song?” By the applause it seems that the crowd just can’t get enough and Dark Storm from the most recent EP concludes the evening. Danielle Trabsky

STRAIGHT ARROWS, CHINESE BURNS THE TOTE Chinese Burns are the last of a parade of garage rock support acts taking the stage on this too-hot night in the Tote’s brick pen. There is something that stands out about this band. They have the same lo-fi rawness of their predecessors but they have merged this with elements of Black Flag and a minimalist Peter Hook bass. Unlike Hook, however, this bass player seems to have no idea where the audience is. Still, when you’re this engaging it doesn’t seem to matter that your bass player has his back to the crowd or that your hyperactive drummer is wearing shades at midnight. It’s awesome. The second the guitarist slams his guitar into the drum kit to symbolise the end of their set, I run to the merch table to grab their single Rohypnol. Straight Arrows glide onto stage soon afterwards. I say ‘glide’ because frontman Owen Penglis and guitarist Alex Grigg are wearing rollerskates. They open with Cry Girl and Penglis rolls his insane eyes back in his bobble head as he snarls into the microphone. It Begins, their best song, follows immediately afterwards and this gives a chance for Grigg (on holiday from his other incarnation as the creative force behind Red Riders) to drive the band forward with surf rock riffs. Between songs, Penglis and Grigg try to speak to the audience, but the many layers of reverb on their microphones make it impossible to decipher what they are saying. I guess whatever it is is funny because each comment is met with one or the other crumbling into giggles. The songs, none more than three minutes long, are flying thick and fast. Magic Sceptre brings back some of the surf rock but submerges it under a mournfulness that recalls Paint It Black. It Happens Again introduces traces of early Oasis and their closer Haunted World opens with a long, languorous nod to The Triffids before finding its own manic energy. At the end of it, audience members are looking at their watches and wondering where time went. The downside of these brief

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GALLEONS OF FUN

GREATEST HIT

Adelaide indie-rockers Galleon have just announced the release of their new single In Stereo and accompanying east coast launch shows. In Stereo is a winding climactic and stereophonic journey that, in the words of frontman Nick Deagon, “questions the conventional nine-to-five lifestyle and attempts to somewhat justify and even glorify the lesser travelled path of being an artist.” In their hometown, supporting bands such as Eskimo Joe, British India, the Whitlams and many more, coupled with their own sold-out headline shows, has seen Galleon solidify a strong local fan-base. The east coast can get in on the action at Galleon’s show at Workers Club on Friday 17 December.

DESERT ISLAND SONGS WITH CLEM BASTOW FATBOY SLIM FUCKING IN HEAVEN Have you ever had one of those neighbours? I seem to have been blessed with them at every turn. In my first flat, there were the engineering students who were very fond of playing Blackstreet’s No Diggity. Nothing but that song, as it turned out, for six long months. They moved, and were replaced by a crackhead who owned perhaps the country’s last surviving copy of Hocus Pocus’s Here’s Johnny. At the next house, neighbours who enjoyed a sunny afternoon on the back porch soundtracked by a variety of grindcore hits. Then, in the fresh hell of West Preston, the affable neighbours who liked to work on their hotted-up cars on the front lawn while playing Peter Cetera’s greatest hit, The Glory Of Love (AKA the love theme from The Karate Kid 2). When they weren’t home, occasionally their teenage daughter would hit the same volume levels with a bit of Mariah Carey and Rihanna. Finally, last year I moved to a quiet block of flats ruled with a velvet-gloved iron fist by a body corporate that Gets Shit Done. Antenna on the blink? Sorted. Security gate not working? Someone Is Fixing It. Somone had a noisy party? There will be notes in every letterbox about it.

THE NOIR ERA

TRACEY TELLS IT Tracey Miller is showcasing her new album, I Can Tell, at the Caravan Music Club at the Carnegie/Oakleigh RSL this Thursday, featuring her all-star band, The Sun Kings. No stranger to Melbourne music enthusiasts and lovers of folk and country sounds, Miller’s two previous releases, One More Day and I’ll Get Along Somehow, have already displayed her fine voice and the formidable songwriting talents that make her such a rare diamond in Melbourne’s roots scene. Her new album contrasts sharply and focuses on her soul and blues roots as she pays tribute to blues greats. Tickets are $17+BF from caravanmusic. com.au or $20 on the door from 7.30pm.

It was that last item of business that meant the flats existed in a glorious oasis of calm in an area that is not known for being particularly relaxing. Parties moved inside off balconies at the stroke of midnight and sound leakage was rare, the sole example being the day the Irish backpackers decided to sing Herman’s Hermit’s Something Good with a ukulele.

Gold Coast/Byron Bay reggae rockers CC The Cat are back on the road launching their much-awaited debut album Inna Babylon Jungle. CC The Cat is known and loved by fans for her powerful jazz/ soul/blues vocals, incredible range, and on-stage passion and presence, as well as her quirky sense of humour and witty audience engagement. She delivers an articulate message of love and freedom through folk ballads, upbeat reggae-funk tunes, acoustic rock songs and jazz-soul numbers. Check CC The Cat out at the Bendigo Hotel this Sunday.

The long haul began around midnight with The Prodigy’s Smack My Bitch Up followed by the assorted highlights of the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ songbook, and took a turn for the worse an hour later when Fatboy Slim’s Fucking In Heaven came on.

The nice police sergeant at Melbourne North was sympathetic when I called and tried to laugh off the onslaught that was slowly driving me insane; she said they’d “come tell them to shut it down” but warned that it was a busy night. Around 3.45am, another hour into the ‘90s megamix, I realised just how busy. I threw on my dressing gown and stormed two doors down, waiting for a break in the music so that my plaintive knocks at the door might be heard. Eventually, a sweaty, shirtless bro emerged. “Please,” I said, “that music is so loud it’s like it’s in my house. I asked you to turn it down two hours ago. I have to work tomorrow and I can’t sleep.” This went down about as well as a bucket of cold sick, which I realised when, moments later, I heard a man using a comedy harridan voice yell, “TURN IT DOWN, I’VE GOT MY PERIOD.” They then proceeded to bang on my front door and windows while singing Happy Birthday before mercifully dispersing. Hey, bro dudes: if you EVER have another party of that nature and punish me for daring to ask if you might turn it down some four hours after the witching hour, I will use Fatboy Slim’s Fucking In Heaven to carve you and your stereo into a million tiny pieces, while playing the overture from Oklahoma! as loud as you seem to like. Because I, too, am one of those neighbours.

A SESSION WITH ABBIE Enter the rootsy, rockabilly world of Abbie Cardwell & Her Leading Men as they launch their new album, The Bare Bones Session, at Bella Union (Trades Hall) this Friday. Recorded live with no editing or overdubbing in a Melbourne studio and mixed in the USA by Nick Didia (Bruce Springsteen’s engineer) this acclaimed album is receiving rave reviews. Support on the night comes from The ReChords and DJ Mohair Slim.

CC THIS

This Friday just past, however, our high-rise idyll was plunged into the depths of terror by a party the likes of which were outside the bounds of human comprehension: the hits of Triple M, circa 1996–1999, at levels so loud that not only were my glass cabinets rattling, I may as well have been playing the music in my own flat.

Now, I’ve always had a soft spot for You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby; it’s one of the few dance records from that era that’s not only survived the test of time but somehow ripened with age. I often thought it would be “hilarious” to make a mash-up of Fucking In Heaven with Regurgitator’s I Like Repetitive Music. After Friday night, however, I never wish to be informed where Fatboy Slim is fucking, ever again.

Melbourne’s biggest brass, afro, jazz, fusion, neo crazy funk ensembles are bringing some class to the Ruby’s Dance Hall for Melbourne’s newest funk movement: Ruby Noir. It’s a prohibition era underground speakeasy with a neo twist. Frankie Wants Out will bring the swing with burlesque beauties, and launch their brand new single Cigarette Case. DJ Paper will be the host for the evening, spinning the greatest of the era and some groundbreaking swing sets. There will new big bands every month! Dress to impress when you come to the very first Ruby Noir at Ruby’s Lounge on Saturday 18 December. Entry is $10.

SMART ALEX A Day In The Life play the Spanish Club this Friday. HOW DID YOU GET TOGETHER? Ryan Wilson, vocals/rhythm guitar: “We formed after my brother Dean [bass guitar] and I started jamming and writing songs at home together. We have been through a few different members to find a line-up that suits our sound.” HAVE YOU RECORDED ANYTHING OR DO YOU PREFER TO TOOL AROUND IN YOUR BEDROOM? “We have released a four-track EP called Sick And Twisted, available online atfist2face.com.au.”

After a huge year playing shows, local residencies, touring and writing new songs, much loved local artist Alex Hallahan and his band aren’t ready to wind down the year yet. This month sees them play a Wednesday night residency (including tonight) in the Edinburgh Castle front bar and then into the studio they head to commence recording Hallahan’s next album. So head down and hear the new songs – he begins at 8pm.

SUN GO BANG It’s Christmas at Bang this Saturday! Be there and get a photo with Ghetto Santa in his milk crate wonderland. Thanks to Four Seasons all patrons will receive free condoms in a collectors tin. Keep it safe, baby! Bang hosts the No Sleep Til Melbourne: Megadeth Party! Be in the metal room to hear heaps of Megadeth and score a double pass to the festival on 17 December. Playing live this week will be Sun Tzu with support from Emerson and Three Time Thrill. As always, resident DJs playing the best punk, hardcore, emo, metal, alternative, party, indie and retro across multiple rooms all night! For more info and club pics head to destroyalllines.com or facebook. com/BangNightclub. Entry is $15 from 9pm.

TASTE TEST KYLESA – LAURA PLEASANTS

CAN YOU SUM UP YOUR BAND’S SOUND IN FOUR WORDS? “Energetic punk rock fun.” IF YOU COULD SUPPORT ANY BAND IN THE WORLD, WHO WOULD IT BE AND WHY? “Nirvana, one of our favourite bands who have a big influence on the type of music we play and listen to.”

The fi rst record I bought with my own money was… In terms of an actual LP, it would have to be Misfits’ Legacy Of Brutality I think. The first cassette I bought was Guns N’ Roses’ Appetite For Destruction.

IF A HIGHER POWER SMITES YOUR HOUSE AND YOU CAN ONLY SAVE ONE RECORD FROM THE FIRE, WHAT WOULD IT BE? Rancid – ...And Out Come The Wolves. My favourite record I own.”

The record I put on when I’m really miserable is… There are several. A good go-to is Burning Witch’s Rift. Canyon.Dreams played very loud. The record I put on when I bring someone home is… I really like Judas Priest’s Rocka Rolla for a good time.

DO YOU HAVE A LUCKY ITEM OF CLOTHING YOU WEAR FOR GIGS AND WHAT IS IT? “No, but I can’t have an amp [turned to] five or ten, otherwise the world will implode.” IF YOU INVITED SOMEONE AWESOME ROUND FOR DINNER WHAT WOULD YOU COOK? “I would cook some vegie pasta with pre-made sauce. It’s the only thing I know how to cook.” WHAT’S YOUR FAVOURITE PLACE TO DRINK IN MELBOURNE? “The Espy, my favourite venue for live music.”

The most surprising record in my collection is… Jerry Falwell – Feudin’, Fussin’ and Frettin’. It’s a real weird gem. The best record I stole from my folks’ collection was… Luckily I didn’t have to really steal anything. But I did go to the attic in the eighth grade and grabbed all of them, the best one being The Beatles’ Abbey Road or Led Zeppelin I.

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The last thing I bought/downloaded was… Hour Of 13 – The Ritualist. Kylesa play the Soundwave festival at the Melbourne Showgrounds on Friday 4 March.

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POPPING IN FOR XMAS Muster up some of that festive cheer and get down to the Popboomerang Records Christmas party at the Cornish Arms on Friday 17 December. The night will feature live appearances from Popboomerang labelmates Greg Williams (Splurge), Underminers, Courtney Barnett, D.Rogers, Georgia Fields and The Bon Scotts, as well as a DJ set from foundation Popboomerang band Remake Remodel. Entry is free (but a gold coin donation would be much appreciated) and the Popboomerang crew are planning special giveaways, raffles and merchandise items. Go on, let Popboomerang kick-start your Christmas cheer!

CHANTING YAH YAH

Auckland’s Street Chant have just returned from New York City, where they destroyed both Brooklyn hipsters and cynical CMJ festival attendees with their tight right jab/left hook indie pop and punk combination. They are now heading to Yah Yah’s on Thursday 9 December to do something similar. The three-piece will be joined by friends Brainwaves and relative newcomers Deep Heat, Infi nite Void and Pine Gap for a special night of bratty punk fun times. Doors open at 9pm.

TASTE TEST CONFESSION – MICHAEL CRAFTER The record I put on when I’m really miserable is… Blink-182’s Cheshire Cat or Dude Ranch. The record I put on when I bring someone home is… Eminem or Dr Dre… Pretty sure it makes chicks wanna get naked. The most surprising record in my collection is… Umm… on my iPod probably everything by Bruce Springsteen. I remember my mum went to see him in Melbourne when I was a kid. She’d played it in the house for years of my life.

SUBS AND SORROWS

SAN FRAN-TASTIC

In the third of its SubSonic Music Series, The Substation is proud to present one of Australia’s best loved live acts, Joe Camilleri’s The Black Sorrows this Friday. The band have been back in the studio, hard at work on their new album, due for release very soon. All of this time in the studio has left Camilleri and the guys busting to get out and blow out the cobwebs with some live shows of Sorrows classics and soon to be classics and what better way to showcase them, than in one of Melbourne’s newest and most unique venues. Tickets are $37+BF from thesubstation.org.au and doors open at 7.30pm. The Substation is at 1 Market St, Newport.

This Sunday, the Workers Club hosts the greatest metropolitan line-up of the night! Headliners San Fran Disco play their sunny, ultra-light pop with supports from Red Ink, City Calm Down, Russia, Alba Varden and Way With Words. San Fran Disco have been building a huge word-of-mouth buzz in recent months, packing out nights such as Tone Deaf at Ding Dong and attracting plenty of offers from bookers for their efforts. As headliners of this edition of the Workers Club Sunday Series, they sit alongside fellow season headliners Beaches, Romy, Slug Guts and The Ancients. Yes, you must see them now! Entry is $10 from 4pm.

The best record I stole from my folks’ collection was… AC/DC’s Back In Black record. Could be an original. Might be worth something.

The last thing I bought/downloaded was… The new A Day To Remember. Seriously, they are this era’s Blink-182.

The fi rst record I bought with my own money was… Pennywise’s self-titled. I was like 13 and ready to push mosh.

Confession play the No Sleep Til Melbourne festival at the Melbourne Showgrounds on Friday 17 December.

NUDE FOR LIFE Life Drawing at the Old Bar is hitting the beerswilling patrons of Melbourne with an injection of culture, a scrawl with charcoal amidst the gin and tonic lulls. This is all as it sounds: drawing nudes outside of the restraints of the artist studio. You will be talked through the process of drawing the human form by experienced tutor Kristen. You can expect anything from grouped poses of three or four models playing out roles in historical religious masterpieces to one model moving around the room and being drawn simultaneously. All materials are provided. Be there at 7pm this Tuesday night.

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WEAVE THROUGH THIS

Newly signed to Mistletone Records, The Orbweavers commence a three-week residency at the Edinburgh Castle this Saturday afternoon. There has been much intense and loving local attention for The Orbweavers’ recently released double A-side single Japanese Mountains/Spotswood, a tribute to Japanese volcanoes and the historic Spotswood Sewerage Pumping Station. The Orbweavers reveal newly woven songs their forthcoming second album Loom among older tunes dating from their 2009 debut Graphite & Diamonds in the front bar of Edinburgh Castle on Saturday from 5pm to 7pm with support from Pirra & The Moon. Entry is free.

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HOT JAM

DEMON SLAYS

Pull up a seat and raise your goblet at this most eclectic of banquets at the Builders Arms this Saturday commencing at 8.30pm. The recipes kick off with Nigel B Swift’s haunting raw vocals and steel-stringed landscapes, followed by the piano flavours of Andrew Arnold’s folk band Canvas and concluding with Melbourne’s very own Jam Banquet, who mix European and eastern folk, traditional and jungle jazz, with a touch of calypso and a dream of sea shanties. You’ll smile, raise an eyebrow, your heart will pound. Entry is $5 from 8.30pm.

SEAN COMBS OVER

DANNY’S HIGH STANDARD Tonight (Wednesday), Danny Walsh will entertain the fine folks and friends of Fitzroy with his brand of revelry blues at the Standard Hotel. Be captivated by soundtracks to the wild western setting sun scene behind the stage, blown away by the guitar storm of birthday boy Adam Redfern and stunned at the special guests that may appear without warning. Catch two sets from 8.30pm, free.

COURTNEY LOVES IT

Local favourite Courtney Barnett and her new band The Olivettes take over the Edinburgh Castle this Sunday. You can find them on the backyard beer garden stage from 4pm to 6pm every Sunday singing some meticulously wellwritten pop surf indie folk rock. It’s free!

RAAH SCORE After a sold-out February performance at the Melbourne Recital Centre, 2010 saw the continued upward trajectory of Melbourne’s foremost contemporary large ensemble, The RAah Project. The group’s seamless blending of jazz, orchestra, soul and dance music has seen the 17-piece garner widespread success and praise, and international critics have hailed their debut album Score. Before they step back into the studio to start work on their second album, the group have assembled their 17 players and are heading back to the Melbourne Recital Centre for one night only. Find out what all the fuss is about on Saturday 11 December. Head to www.melbournerecital.com.au to book your spot!

TRACY BELLOWS

Canadian singer-songwriter Tracy McNeil is bringing her brand of roots-country to the Drunken Poet stage. From her solo work through to her output as one half of the much-lauded Fireside Bellows, Tracy has been kicking ass all over the country since arriving in 2007. Packing an authoritative, expressive voice and songs that have been described as “mini masterpieces,” Tracy has established herself as a favourite of the roots/country scene in her adopted hometown. These are songs that make you want to crack a beer, grab the instruments and get the party started. See Tracy McNeil this Sunday from 4pm.

DEVIL EYES SHADOW Living With The Devil at the Tote this Sunday will be a dark, fiery day of celebration with seven of the finest, fastest, and loudest rockabilly and psychobilly bands this side of the desert. Headlining are Sydney vixens The Dark Shadows with their applauded brand of “dark aged punk noir”. Manic Pistoleros come crashing, swaggering mightily after their latest album was picked up by Beligian distributer Drunkabilly Records. After 22 years together, Wild Turkey will have you stomping. Cyclone Diablo are just what they say they are. Sweaty and ready for domination, Casket Radio are three kindred spirits who want nothing more than to kill it with their chosen tools. Cherrywood are not quite country, not quite rockabilly, but what they lack in certainty they definitely make up for in style. Bands start at 3pm with a BBQ out back!

If you are at a loose end come Meredith weekend, head to Yah Yah’s and get treated to some one-off psychedelia this Saturday. Sean McMahon, Dave Ong, James McCann, Davey Lane, Spencer P Jones, Mikey Madden, Jules Sheldon and Tim McCormack all accompany each other’s short solo sets, before all coming together for a set of blinding psychedelic covers by the likes of Hawkwind, Grateful Dead, Marc Bolin, The Beatles, Sid Barrett, Arthur Lee and heaps more. Dress up in psychedelic gear for some tripped-out prizes. Doors open at 9pm.

MUNG FACE Forget Meredith and head to Pony this Friday night. Think of all that money you’ll be saving on sunscreen and reinvesting in cab fares and tasty beverages. Yum. And you’d struggle to find bands equalling the brutality of this massive line-up. For those who like their music short, fast, heavy, gory and slamming, The Mung return triumphantly to Pony following their EP launch a few months back. Also onboard are Odiusembowel, A Million Dead Birds Laughing, The Ophidian Ascension and Wallet Inspector. Doors at 8.30pm.

CASH FOR TRICKS

It’s been awhile, but Cash No! are back with a new bass player and a thirst for party. Coming from all corners of Melbourne and influenced by the likes of Strung Out, Thrice, MYC, Propagandhi and No Use For A Name, Cash No! tear out aggressive and technical melodic punk. Teaming up with local mates Backyard Surgeons, Frankston boys Public Liability and fresh off a US tour is Friends With The Enemy from the sunny shores of the Gold Coast, who are launching there debut EP, New World DisOrder(Your Daughters Records). All this at Pony this Saturday night from 9pm.

FISHA SOONER Looking for some summer vibes? What better way to find them than with a six-piece reggae/dub band who have recently been hailed the best thing to come out of Redcliffe since The BeeGees. Combining old school reggae rythms and a love of song craft, Kingfi sha have created their own unique sound and are Melbourne faves! Joining them for the night is the finest dub devotees Sine. Entry is free from 10pm.

RACE RELATIONS Christmas is a time for friends and family – and smashing sweet jams out on both the electric and acoustic guitar! Three of Melbourne‚s finest exponents of smashing sweet shit out – UV Race, Constant Mongrel and School Of Radiant Living – get together for some yuletide cheer at Yah Yah’s this Sunday. There will be covers – probably not about the birth of baby Jesus, but then again you never know! Doors at 6pm.

MOUNTAIN YA

Magic Mountain Band is a veritable ‘all-star band’, boasting members & collaborators of The Verses, Mia Dyson, Jeff Lang and many more. Their debut release, Over An Ocean Away (to be released 2011), is an elegant and disarming symphony. Textured grooves, deep double bass, floating guitars and shimmering piano journeys from land to sky, desert to sea and finally come to rest in the Colour Fields… See them for free in the Edinburgh Castle front bar this Friday night from 8pm.

It’s Zenith ASP’s last gig of the year at the Spanish Club this Friday and they’re going out with a bang! The band’s previous gig at the Evelyn Hotel saw an intense crowd turnout, with their ever growing army of fans swarming the front of stage, crowdsurfing and stage-diving! Zenith ASP are promising more of their massive magic at the Spanish Club, so strap yourself in and gear up for an epic show.

LAY WITH HOLLIAVA Melbourne band Holliava have crafted a debut album that demands attention. Recorded nestled in the hills of Melbourne’s east, Stay Where We Lay has everything you could hope for from an emerging band. Songs of substance with strong hooks, unique melodies and emotive lyrics that keep you guessing whilst never straying from their pop rock roots. Energy is slowly building around the band as the video for the first single from the album, Good To Me has just been added to the Rage playlist and the bands live show has been steadily turning heads and winning fans. The four-piece launch Stay Where We Lay at Revolver this Friday with Celadore and Innerspace. Entry is $12 from 9pm.

LATONAS COMING

The Latonas’ infectious songs and furious live performance will be on display at Revolver this Thursday. The band have been gigging solidly around Melbourne and are heading up to Sydney in the new year. Catch them before they go and you’ll hear some of the new tunes off their upcoming EP. With support from the very talented The Run Run and Dead End, entry is $5 from 8.30pm.

SKAZZ BUCKETS The musicians who were brought together to create Skazz are the finest money can’t buy. They play for love. They play to make people dance, to forget their worries. This ensemble plays with the enthusiasm and sense of fun that jazz once had – but that’s not to say they don’t take their jobs seriously. The combined musical history of these players covers everything from mainstream pop to fringe theatre; from straight-ahead jazz to classical and traditional African; circus bands to film scores. Catch them at Bar Open this Saturday from 10pm. Entry is free.

FOLK IT, ELLIS Folk, country, blues and rock thrown together in a dusty garage, churned up and blasted out with a little too much overdrive and embellishment, tempered by a healthy obsession with melody… Matt Ellis is a troubadour from Melbourne with his own brand of whisky-soaked garage rock headed for the Great Britain Hotel in Richmond this Thursday. Support comes from Dave McDonald who lies somewhere between Billy Brag and Jordie Lane, which is a sweet combo. It’s free from 7pm.

RUSTED NAILED Formed in 2006, four musical mates got together to make something bigger than themselves – Rusted, a truly unique blend of blues and country garage with rock at its core. They have played lonely Elwood Tuesday nights, cool Collingwood Wednesdays, sweaty front bars in Brunswick and beer-soaked Sundays in St Kilda. Their recently released EP is the culmination of tireless performing and grass roots enthusiasm and has those in the know singing their praises. Catch them play two sets at the Great Britain this Saturday from 9pm. Entry is free.

SHOOTING RANGE

Shoot The Sun have been toiling away in the studio on their soon-to-be-released single and cavorting around Melbourne for their upcoming film clip, but December is the time when they will be doing what they do best and sonically harassing the good people of Melbourne’s eardrums with their trademark live shows. After playing phenomenal gigs at many fine venues throughout Melbourne, Shoot The Sun will finally be making their debut at the cultural institution that is the Tote this Thursday! They’ll be joined by The Kickers and Society Of Beggars, and entry is $7.

MAGNOLIA CRUISE IN

DOUBLEBLACK OUT

Doubleblack take a break from recording their debut release to play a big Double header show with Sydney’s Captain Reckless & The Lost Souls at the Ding Dong Lounge this Saturday. See the Sydney versus Melbourne battle, and get fired up over Doubleblack’s wired and wild three-piece rock’n’roll, or Captain Reckless’ horn powered raunch! Tickets are on sale now from dingdong.oztix.com.au.

ZENITH, OLE!

It’s been a massive year for The Demon Parade, starting off with an Australian tour with the Brian Jonestown Massacre, releasing their debut EP God Said It’s Legal, playing headline shows around Australia and picking up a slew of fans and a sackful of glowing reviews along the way. To say thanks to all their hometown friends and fans, the bands invites you to get hot and sweaty in the intimate confines of the Worker’s Club! Joining them will be the sweet soulful sensation of Jimmy Hawk & The Endless Party, the spiky punk pop of The Kicks and the rock n’ roll clatter of new sensations Dirt Farmer. Don’t miss out on The Demon Parade’s last show on Saturday 18 December before they head to USA to put finish their forthcoming release!

Imagine if a soundtrack came before the film. If the music was already there, and the pictures were woven between the notes. This is Magnolia. Spontaneously formed in 2009 by longtime friends, an afternoon of Lanois-inspired playing turned into the making of a record. Collectively their resume includes The Bamboos, The Cat Empire, FGHR, Paul Grabowsky, Missy Higgins, the Melbourne Symphony, Doug Parkinson, Washington, and many more. Having launched their debut record, This Is Magnolia, back in April, they return to the Northcote Social Club on Wednesday 15 December with support from Stephen Magnusson. Entry is $12 from 8pm.

CRACKIN’ ASSASSIN After their highly successful debut album Bleeding To The Circle, Star Assassin have travelled the far reaches of Australia and New Zealand on a hyperactive tour, which will come to a riotous end at the Evelyn Hotel this Saturday. On tour, the boys have clocked more than 20,000kms on the road and in the air, to bring you one of the freshest rock shows in Australia at the moment. Early in 2010 Star Assassin locked themselves away in a studio, writing the majority of their much-anticipated second album in under a month. Hear ‘em all live, supported by Crash And Burn, Concept Unknown, Scarmouche and Zac Slater. Tickets from Moshtix and on the door from 8pm.

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CC The Cat launch their new album at the Bendigo Hotel from 3pm this Sunday. HOW DID YOU GET TOGETHER? Claire Cottone, vocals/guitar: “I’ve been playing with Guy [drums] for about four years. I’ve now got my sister Julz on bass (we’ve been singing and playing together for ever). I met Katia (BVs, sax, flute) on the Gold Coast and immediately wanted her in my band and she jumped on board. I’d been wanting to find a trumpet player for a while and one day Roberto called me up and asked if I needed his services for the Island Vibe festival. We started jamming and he became a solid band member.” HAVE YOU RECORDED ANYTHING OR DO YOU PREFER TO TOOL AROUND IN YOUR BEDROOM? “We’ve got two releases, our EP Nicotine and our new full-length album, Inna Babylon Jungle, which we’re currently launching around Australia. I did all my early CC The Cat recordings with my old drummer, Patty Bom. Then we recorded our first release, Nicotine, with ARIA award-winning producer Govinda Doyle [Angus & Julia Stone] in 2008. Then our album was recorded entirely in-house. Our drummer Guy recorded all the beds in his home studio in Lennox Head, then we laid down all the lead instruments and vocals in our soundman Boyd Luadaka’s studio at the Gold Coast, and he did all the mixing and production there. We spent nearly two years making it and put in a million hours… and we’re stoked with the results!” CAN YOU SUM UP YOUR BAND’S SOUND IN FOUR WORDS? “Rockin’ reggae funk soul.” IF YOU COULD SUPPORT ANY BAND IN THE WORLD, WHO WOULD IT BE AND WHY? “Damian Jr Gong Marley, because he is amazing and my favourite living artist. And because the Marley family are my biggest musical heroes.” IF A HIGHER POWER SMITES YOUR HOUSE AND YOU CAN ONLY SAVE ONE RECORD FROM THE FIRE, WHAT WOULD IT BE? “Thelonius Monk, because it’s the only record I own!” DO YOU HAVE A LUCKY ITEM OF CLOTHING YOU WEAR FOR GIGS AND WHAT IS IT? “My long gold sparkly vintage skirt.” IF YOU INVITED SOMEONE AWESOME ROUND FOR DINNER WHAT WOULD YOU COOK? “Vegetarian pasta. It’s the only thing I can cook.” WHAT’S YOUR FAVOURITE PLACE TO DRINK IN MELBOURNE? “Wherever there’s a rad band playing.”

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BANG BANG

PURPLE SNEAKERS

BANG

RS PURPLE SN EAKE

BANG NEXT

N EXT PURPLE SNEAKERS

NEXT PURPLE SNEAKERS

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FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS

STATE I’M IN

After completing a US tour, playing shows with Guttermouth and Versus The World, Friends With The Enemy who hail from the sunny shores of the Gold Coast decide to keep the ball rolling! See them this Friday at the Bendigo Hotel as they team up with good mates Cash No!, Subject To Change and Doomsday Saints. Releasing New World DisOrder on Your Daughters Records in September of this year, Friends With The Enemy are fast making a name for themselves with there brand of female-fronted, fast, melodic punk rock! Doors open 8pm and entry is $10.

MUSIC VICTORIA UPDATES WITH PATRICK DONOVAN Deborah Conway’s 1990s hit It’s Only The Beginning was Ted Baillieu’s theme song during the election campaign and we at Music Victoria are hoping that that sentiment rings true over the next few weeks when the new government formulates its arts policy. Mr Baillieu taking on the arts portfolio as well as running the state augurs well for the arts community, as it will give arts initiatives a higher profile. The Coalition’s pre-election arts policy was centred around improvements to liquor licensing laws and support for the Victorian College Of The Arts, the Rock Eisteddfod and a European-style White Nights festival. Music Victoria encourages musical education and celebrating Melbourne venues, but we would love to also see support for artists at the grassroots level and in training and development. It would be great to capitalise on some of our best talent, with artists such as Conway (the artistic director of the Queensland Music Festival), Paul Grabowski (who runs the Adelaide Festival Of The Arts) and Mick Harvey involved in curating any new festivals. Music Victoria has made contact with members of the incumbent government and look forward to outlining our important role in representing the diverse contemporary music community and explaining how we will continue to make life better for musicians and music fans. Certainly local councils and agencies such as Tourism Victoria and the AFL have increased their support for local music over the last year and we hope that the government too will embrace the new paradigm. For those of you out there who have built up relationships with Arts Victoria and Liquor Licensing, don’t be too concerned. While the Arts Minister and Minister For Consumer Affairs jobs will be filled by Mr Baillieu and Mr Michael O’Brien respectively, Arts Victoria and Liquor Licensing (and its director Mark Brennan) will pretty much remain as is. We have no reason to believe that the solid relationships we have developed with both groups over the last year won’t continue. There’s certainly plenty of goodwill towards live music from the Coalition. In its policy document it argues not only that there is no link between violence and music, but that a healthy live music scene will directly inhibit alcohol-related violence Victoria. It argues that live music is an important part of the social and cultural fabric of our state. This is all really positive stuff, and Music Victoria hopes to be invited to be at the round table with Liquor Licensing, Victoria Police, live music venues and the government to ensure that significant liquor licensing issues involving live music can be discussed quickly and effectively.

LITTLE RIPPER

EAST VS NEXT This Thursday night Next hosts the Darkest Hour tour party where punters can score double passes to the Hi-FI gig on 7 January thanks to Strike Hard Bookings! It’s also the Joey Cape (of Lagwagon) after-party! Heading to see Joey at the Arthouse? Head to Next and show your stamp at the door for cheaper entry! Playing live this week is State Of East London with support from Atlantis Is Burning and Crown Us Thieves! Playing acoustic in the beer garden will be Jimmy Kyle with support from Summerset Avenue! As always DJs play the best punk, hardcore, emo, metal, alternative, party, indie and retro across multiple rooms all night! For more info and weekly club pics check destroyalllines.com or facebook. com/NextNightclub. Entry is $15 from 9pm.

VOILA, BOULET!

Music Victoria CEO

Black Devil Yard Boss play the Evelyn on Friday 17 December. HOW DID YOU GET TOGETHER? Pete Williamson, guitar/vocals: “Zane [drums] and I used to play together in a band called Mammal. After that band split up we decided to continue our bromance with Black Devil Yard Boss (BDYB). We needed a bass player with the biggest/fattest sound and huge groove, so when we found out my old mate Big D was keen we were pumped. Big D is growing a sweet afro at the moment – enough said…” HAVE YOU RECORDED ANYTHING OR DO YOU PREFER TO TOOL AROUND IN YOUR BEDROOM? “We have released a self-titled EP and are currently working on our debut album. The first single, Smash Stuff, from the forthcoming album is out now as a free download via our website, blackdevilyardboss. com.”

The dreamy and dangerous sounds of The Cape Cod Affair is erupting every Wednesday in December at the Builders Arms in Fitzroy. Special guests each week complete their message of love and togetherness, including last week’s glorious melodic duo Shag Marry Kill and the dulcet tones of Michael Stevenson. Tonight they’re joined by the elegant grit of Dogs Of Thomas Park and the shimmering guitar/organ drones of Constant Light. Entry is $5 from 8pm.

COLLINGWOOD RIFF RAFF

Fresh from the studio, The Rock City Riff Raff are closing the year out with style. With the release of their debut EP just around the corner, the band have decided that there’s no better way to celebrate than by hosting a massive party at the beating heart of Melbourne’s music scene, the Tote Hotel this Friday night. Heading a stellar cast of guests will be Attack Of The Mannequins, hot on the heels of supporting Blondie at their exclusive Melbourne show. Also on the bill are rock’n’rollers Dead City Ruins and Deep End.

IF YOU COULD SUPPORT ANY BAND IN THE WORLD, WHO WOULD IT BE AND WHY? “My dream would be to support Buddy Guy. There’s so much passion/energy/fire in his blues playing and he’s a great showman. He has influenced so many great players – basically, he is a legend!”

We also took part in the recent Face The Music conference at the Arts Centre, presenting two lively and entertaining panels.

Patrick Donovan

COD WITH ARMS

CAN YOU SUM UP YOUR BAND’S SOUND IN FOUR WORDS? “Siberian husky hell rock.”

We met with the AFL about getting more Victorian music played at the footy and with the Abbortsford Convent about devising a policy to increase performances at the venue.

Mr Baillieu is also a self-confessed Paul Kelly fan, saying in a recent article that he would like Kelly to sing the soundtrack to his life. As Kelly sings so poignantly, ‘’From little things, big things grow.’’ Let’s hope that that rings true for the future of Victorian music.

Breaking into the male dominated field of guitar players, Kizzy will be taking guitar playing to the next level with her music steeped in roots, blues, rock, folk and touches of electronica, along with her sweet yet raunchy vocals. Stripped back to a solo performance with special guests, she will lay her soul bare, but there will be no fear and no holding back. Witness Kizzy’s rocking, upbeat and, at times, subdued moody music at Grumpy’s Green in Collingwood this Thursday. Doors open at 8.30pm and entry is free.

Every Monday night at 8pm, Fruit Jar’s Old Timey String Band take to the stage at the Old Bar and start playing their barn-stormin’, squaredancin’, fiddle-playin’, toe-tappin’, knee-slappin’, foot-stompin’, tobacco-chewin’, jaw-droppin’ oldtimey tunes that’ll make you wanna pick some cotton and drink some white Jesus moonshine. It’s an 8pm start with the band playing two sets.

KUJO, NO RABIES

The Kujo Kings have stormed the Melbourne ska scene in their short time, supporting the likes of The Resignators, Area 7, performing at the Ska Nation festival, and coming out of the MLG Last Band Standing competition as “clear winners”. The up-and-coming youngsters celebrate their first release, Regal Riot, tonight (Wednesday) at the Toff In Town. The six-track EP takes you on a journey through zombies, monkeys, all too familiar video games and more and will have you on your feet dancing as it’s performed live and supported by two great bands, Loonee Tunes and The Operators. Tickets are $10+BF from Moshtix or $15 on the door from 8pm.

GIVE US A KIZZY

FRUIT JUICY

Sydney’s Jonathan Boulet has returned with a triumphant new single, You’re A Animal, and a swift quasi-national tour to boot. You’re A Animal is a war cry of warrior angels, a lurching, spinning call to arms and the first new material since Boulet’s acclaimed debut late last year. Not content to rest on the reputation of an accomplished, dazzling debut, and not busy enough despite his constant touring with Parades, production for (insert bands here, can’t remember them all) and remixes of The Holidays, Wolf & Cub and more, Boulet didn’t waste any time getting up to his neck in the follow-up album (due early 2011) and he’s taking a break to hit the road and share the first fruits of his labour. Catch him at the East Brunswick Club on Friday 17 December with WA’s Grace Woodroofe and The Parking Lot Experiment. Tickets are $15+BF from the venue.

In other news, Music Victoria held its first Annual General Meeting, which saw musician Clare Bowditch and former Tote licensee Bruce Milne elected to the board. Licensee Jon Perring was re-elected and Illusive’s Adam Jankie and Shock Records’ Andrew Fuller were appointed to the board at the subsequent board meeting. We welcome the new board members and thank the dozens of members who showed up to the AGM and voted.

We want to thank the previous government for their support for live music, and particularly the VicRocks program which funded dozens of excellent local albums. We hope that the new government continue to support the excellent program.

Melbourne’s indie pop darlings The Little Stevies have returned to Australia with a new album in their pocket and are set to celebrate their homecoming at the Northcote Social Club on Saturday 18 December. With three-part harmonies, heartfelt lyrics, unpredictable onstage banter and an overall uplifting aura, it’s clear to see why The Little Stevies are one of Australia’s most acclaimed young bands touring today. Support comes from Eliza Hull and Phia, and tickets are $15+BF from the venue or $20 at the door if available from 8.30pm.

MARK WANTS IT A staunchly independent artist, Mark Wilkinson has endeared himself to countless fans through tireless live performance. His live CV shits on most people’s in terms of bragging rights – opening for Grammy winners at arenas, performing for troops in the Solomon Islands, and represented Australia at the World Expo in China. His previously released EPs, available only at shows, have gone on to sell almost 10,000 copies. Now on the eve of his debut album, Truth Came Running, Wilkinson celebrates the release of his first single, All I Ever Wanted at the Grace Darling Hotel this Friday with Tom Tuena and Dave Anderson from 9pm. Tickets are $10+BF from Moshtix or $12 on the door.

IF A HIGHER POWER SMITES YOUR HOUSE AND YOU CAN ONLY SAVE ONE RECORD FROM THE FIRE, WHAT WOULD IT BE? “Jimi Hendrix – Band Of Gypsys. You can never beat the live energy of music, and something magical happened on this CD where the warmth of the sound is hypnotic.” DO YOU HAVE A LUCKY ITEM OF CLOTHING YOU WEAR FOR GIGS AND WHAT IS IT? “My dark blue Lee jeans. No matter how much you sweat or spill on them they never smell. (Or at least not to me…)” IF YOU INVITED SOMEONE AWESOME ROUND FOR DINNER WHAT WOULD YOU COOK? “I really can’t go past firing up the barbecue and throwing on a couple of steaks, so make sure you let me know in advance if you are vegetarian.” WHAT’S YOUR FAVOURITE PLACE TO DRINK IN MELBOURNE? “Wabi Sabi Japanese restaurant in St Kilda. I love drinking hot sake and the food is next level!”

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THE CARUS CLAUS Carus Thompson is back for Christmas, with his annual end-of-year party show with good mate Loren to be held this Thursday at the Northcote Social Club. Carus has been based in Europe, playing over 100 shows there since March, and the NSC gig will see him taking to a Melbourne stage backed by a band for only the first time this year! Carus and Loren have toured Australia together many times over and their Northcote shows always sell out. Newcomers The Quarry Mountain Dead Rats open the evening, fresh from performances at Queenscliff, FRL and with a set due at The Falls Festival. Tickets are $16+BF from northcotesocialclub.com.

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DEPARTMENT

WAKE THE

All things under 18 with KENDAL COOMBS accessallages@inpress.com.au

Hardcore and punk with SARAH PETCHELL

OF YOUTH

It’s almost the end of the year, so it’s about time we had a bit of an update on the happenings of the FReeZA Push Start Battle Of The Bands 2010/2011 series. Firstly a big congratulations must go to the bands who have already won their regional finals and will be hitting the stage at the 2011 Push Over festival, alongside some of Australia’s hottest artists. The Eastern Metropolitan final was won by indie rock quintet Amber Lamps. They beat out four other bands to claim the title back in October. The Southern Metropolitan final was taken out by Mornington Peninsula reggae trio Blackwater Riff. The Northern Country/Grampians final was won by Cass Ward at the start of October. The first hardcore act to make it through to the final were Emerson, who took out the Northern Metropolitan final. The Western Metropolitan final was won by Werribee garage band Passport For Amy, who beat five other bands on the night to win their place in the final. The Gippsland final was won by garage metal group Kyrano, who incidentally are currently searching for a guitarist if you’re looking for a free ride into the Push Over grand final gig. The Barwon South final was won by blues and roots group The Fire Alive. The Goulburn North East/Hume final took place this Sunday past with the winners expected to be announced this week, and still to come is the Mallee Wimmera final which is happening next Saturday 18 December at the Stawell Town Hall. So far that final has only two bands competing, and is likely be pretty devastating for the one who loses if no other bands join in. Planning for the Push Over festival is underway and if you want to have your say as to what bands will join those above at the 2011 event then head to thepush.asn. au and fill in the form on the Push Over page to nominate your favourite Australian acts. In other Push Over news, the festival is currently recruiting dancers/MCs and hip hop artists to join the ranks in the Push It hip hop arena on the day. They are looking for DJs, MCs, breakin’ crews and hip hop acts who want to feature in the Push Underground Showcase, three-on-three breakin’ and one-on-one MC battles on the day. Selection criteria and entry forms can be found at thepush.asn.au. Push Over takes place on Sunday 13 March at the Abbotsford Convent. The underground showcase has been a part of the Push Over festival since 2007 and is fast becoming one of the most popular aspects of the event. Don’t miss your opportunity to perform.

TONIGHT (WEDNESDAY)

Jack Johnson plays the Sydney Myer Music Bowl with special guests Tegan & Sara and Ash Grunwald from 5.30pm. Tickets are on sale now at the Arts Centre box office. Summer Vibe 2 with jewellery making, African drumming, DJs and MCs, art, face-painting, a talent quest and more is on at the Castle, Dandenong from 11am. Entry is free.

FRIDAY

Bon Jovi play Rod Laver Arena from 6pm. Tickets are on sale now through Ticketek. Orchestrate The Sky, I Sleep You Dance, Wolves, In A Memory, Check Your Smile, Eyes That Envy and We Can’t Be Heroes play the Sunbury Youth Centre from 6pm. Early bird entry is just $5.

SATURDAY Latrobe City’s Got Talent open mic talent show with Euphoria as well as various open mic spots is on at the Traralgon Sound Shell from 3pm. The Gorillaz’s Australian tour makes its way to Rod Laver Arena at 7.30pm. Tickets are on sale now from $99 through Ticketek. The Phoenix Skate Park Jam takes place at the Phoenix Skate Park in Malvern East from 11am. Entry is free.

SUNDAY City Breaks: an evening of jammin’, getting down and just straight up reppin’ for the scene, or so they say, is on at Signal on Flinders Walk from 2pm. This event is free.

TUESDAY

Muse play Rod Laver Arena. Tickets on sale through Ticketek.

Heavy Heavy Low Low

DEAD

Heavy Heavy Low Low are to commence their first and last Australian tour this week, with the band hitting up Melbourne this weekend. This Friday they will be playing the Arthouse supported by Totally Unicorn, The Omen and Hawaiian Islands. Then the next day Heavy Heavy Low Low and Totally Unicorn will be playing Irene’s Warehouse for an all ages show supported by Jack The Stripper and Ornithologists. The tour is in support of their schizophrenic (in a good way) new EP, Hospital Bomber. Totally Unicorn are main support for the entire tour, touring on the back of their debut EP, Horse Hugger, released today through Soviet Records. Okay, so this might not count as punk news, but I loved Something Corporate back in the day so I’m a little bit excited! Andrew McMahon, the leader of Something Corporate and Jack’s Mannequin, will be touring Australia in February. He will be performing songs acoustically from his brilliant solo career, along with hits from Something Corporate and Jack’s Mannequin. The Melbourne date for the show is 13 February and will be in the Prince Bandroom. Tickets go on sale this Friday. Also on sale this Friday are tickets for the No Surrender tour announced late last week. Taperjean Records are bringing out Oh Sleeper and The Chariot for a run of shows in April 2011. The tour will cover the major cities and regional dates between Toowoomba and Perth, with shows scheduled for the Bended Night Club in Bendigo (27 April), the National Hotel in Geelong (28 April) and the Evelyn (29 April). Oh Sleeper last played Australia in September, but to be honest I’m more excited about seeing The Chariot. This will be their first time visiting our shores, and with four albums under their belts, it has been a long time coming! Having just released Long Live (available through Good Fight/RIOT!) I’m hoping to see a broad range of music from across all four albums to make up for their delay in getting here!

THE

RACKET

Between The Buried & Me frontman Tommy Rogers is set to release his debut solo album on 1 February (via Metal Blade Records/RIOT!). If you know anything about BTBAM, you know that this guy has killer vocals and is a talented multi-instrumentalist, so doing his own thing was probably the next creative step for him to take. Using the pseudonym Thomas Giles (Giles being his middle name) as his moniker for the project, the album is called Pulse. Rogers not only selfproduced the album, but also arranged, composed and played all the instruments, and is referencing the likes of Radiohead, Björk and Spiritualized as inspirations. Rogers said, “I hope everyone enjoys this record, as I feel there is something for everyone on it.” Keep an eye out for the first single from Pulse, which is the introspective album opener, Sleep Shake. The self-filmed and self-edited video for the track is expected to drop any day now. While he was at it, Rogers also dropped some hints about what fans can expect from Between The Buried & Me in 2011. “And don’t you all worry;” he said, “BTBAM is writing new material as I type. We have a very busy year 2011 planned, which includes lots of new music and touring.” Stay tuned!

GIG OF THE WEEK

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve heard about The Damned Things. The band features Anthrax members Scott Ian and Rob Caggiano, Every Time I Die’s Keith Buckley and Fall Out Boy’s Joe Trohman and Andy Hurley. They have posted the first video from their forthcoming debut album, Ironicast, and you need to YouTube that shit because it is the funniest music video I have seen in a long time. Anyway, the point of this particular piece of news is to say that the album is out this weekend through Mercury/EMI. In other release news, A Day To Remember’s newest effort entered the ARIA top 100 at number 24 this week. The album, What Separates Me From You, is great listen if you’re in the mood for something fun and catchy. Best of all, the band put on a killer live show and you can see them in action on the No Sleep Til line-up all over the country in less than two weeks!

For this week, there are two gigs but it’s a part of the same tour, so it was hard to differentiate. Definitely check out the Heavy Heavy Low Low tour, at either the Arthouse or Irene’s, on Friday and Saturday, respectively. If you are over 18, I would say go to the Arthouse show just because The Omen are supporting. They are an amazing local talent, with a recent 7” release called Room Five, on Midnight Funeral Records. Totally Unicorn have also been amazing, without fail, every single time I have seen them, and according to reports from friends who have seen them overseas, Heavy Heavy Low Low will blow your mind! As a little footnote, I’m the editor of an online punk and hardcore magazine called No Heroes. Issue 8 went live last week, and features interviews with Dangers, Dropsaw, Craigos from Midnight Funeral Records, Strike Anywhere, Josh James of Evergreen Terrace/Casey Jones and heaps more stuff. Check it out at noheroesmag. com and click the link to the current issue.

Machine Head

Metal, heavy rock and dark alternative with ANDREW HAUG theracket@inpress.com.au This is an odd match: JD Fortune, the Canadian singer who is back fronting INXS on the road, told the QMI Agency in a recent interview that he has been writing tunes with Iron Maiden guitarist Adrian Smith, and that one of his songs has been picked up by producer Jerry Bruckheimer for a movie. No further details are currently available. Slipknot singer Corey Taylor says he has “no plans” to make a new album with the band “anytime soon” despite drummer Joey Jordison’s claim that work on the group’s next CD is already underway. Jordison told Billboard.com that he and other members of the group are recording demos of new material separately, and that he hopes to see them get together in the studio some time in the first half of 2011. He told the Pulse Of Radio that he expects great things out of the next Slipknot record. “I think it’s gonna be really, really cool,” he said. “I think it’s gonna be a really, really great record because, I mean, everyone’s being really involved in the process and I think it should be, definitely for me it’s gonna be, I think it’s gonna be a healing process for all of us.” In response, Taylor had the following to say via Twitter: “Before anyone gets the wrong idea, let me be clear. I have NO PLANS to make a new Slipknot album anytime soon. Shows? Maybe. Album? No. As for Joey’s comments, he took that on himself to say that in print. I can think of five people in this band who haven’t written/heard a thing.” Machine Head have begun writing and demoing material for their new studio album, which they hope to officially start recording by next April. At least two songs have been fleshed out in demo form, with several others in the works. Deicide will release their new album. To Hell With God, on 19 February via Century Media Records. The CD was produced by Mark Lewis (The Black Dahlia Murder) at Audiohammer Studios in Sanford, Florida. AC/DC drummer Phil Rudd has told Stuff.co.nz that he is being treated unfairly by New Zealand authorities who convicted him for possessing 27 grams of cannabis. Rudd was convicted in the Tauranga District Court recently for possession of

cannabis found on his launch, Barchetta, on 7 October. “They [police] have been trying to catch me on the road for a while, too,” he said. Community magistrate Robyn Paterson convicted Rudd and during proceedings commented that the drummer was “playing Russian roulette” by being in possession of cannabis. “My only Russian roulette is surviving life on the road,” said Rudd. He told Stuff.co.nz that he has not spoken to any of his AC/DC bandmates about his conviction and is unsure if they will embark on another tour. KYPCK (‘Kursk’ in the western alphabet) – the Russian-singing Finnish doom metal band featuring former Sentenced guitarist Sami Lopakka (AKA SS Lopakka) – will release their sophomore album on 9 February via an as-yet-undisclosed record label. Justin Broadrick of seminal post-punk/industrial behemoths Godflesh has confirmed to Decibel magazine that the band are slowly putting together ideas for a new studio album. “It’s something we’re discussing all the time, and I do have bits and pieces of material,” he said. “But it’s something we’d really like to develop. It’d be quite easy to knock out eight to ten in-character songs and release it as quickly as possible to capitalise on the popularity of the group, but it would feel entirely wrong. If it’s another two years until another Godflesh record, so be it. The most important thing is making a record that stands up with the rest of the back catalogue. I do have this in me again, though.” Finntroll have just confirmed an Australian tour for March 2011 – catch them on 25 March at Billboard.

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Chimaira bassist Jim LaMarca has released the following statement regarding his departure from the group: “I would like to thank the Chimaira fans worldwide for their endless support. Those who have met me in person and or online know that I have tried to make contact with as many of you as I possibly could. I can’t express enough how much it was a pleasure for me to meet all of you. I had an incredible time being a part of Chimaira. This experience has provided me to live a lifestyle that I always dreamed of having. I am excited to now be able to focus my efforts on my company, Straight Razor Entertainment, which will be focus on developing bands and artists.” Chimaira are currently touring with a stand-in bassist, Daath guitarist Emil Werstler. Black Majesty will be doing an in-store signing session at Metal Massacre at Blasphemy (21 Elizabeth St, city) at 2pm this Saturday.

LOCAL GIG GUIDE

Kriss Hades, Heirs, Agonhymn – Saturday 11 December, East Brunswick Club

TOURS, TOURS, TOURS

Finntroll – Friday 25 March, Billboard Andrew Haug hosts Triple J’s The Racket every Tuesday from 10pm – triplej.abc.net.au/ racket. Email theracket@inpress.com.au

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THE

Tao Lin

BREAKDOWN Pop culture therapy with ADAM CURLEY What’s the difference between a dumb hipster and a smart hipster? A dumb hipster will take ecstasy with his friend and then make a twohour film documenting their inane exploits and conversations to show people. A smart hipster will charge people $20 to watch it. Well, that is and isn’t true. A smart hipster will also be able to defend the exercise, if not with an explanation of its relevance to art/film theory then with hyper-elusive quotes seemingly intended to reveal the questioner’s base ignorance of Life 2.0. Tao Lin is a smart hipster. This month, through a self-established ‘production company’ called MDMA Films, Lin (author of 2009’s Shoplifting From American Apparel and this year’s Richard Yates) and his friend Megan Boyle (whose most relevant ‘work’ so far seems to be a blog, but that information is itself perhaps irrelevant) set up a website advertising a “feature film” titled MDMA. The website features a link to a two-minute Vimeo trailer for MDMA, in which Lin and Boyle interview each other, assumedly while ‘high on ecstasy’, with questions such as, “Do you want to fight or kill anyone, and who?” (sic; and these people are supposed to be NYU-educated), before taking a trip to Times Square and walking around saying things like, “Extreme mumblecore… drugcore,” and yelling at strangers for directions to Toys ‘R’ Us. The website also gives you the option to purchase a DVD of MDMA (released on 20 December), as well as films scheduled for future production, including BEBE ZEVA (referencing the teenaged Las Vegan ‘hottie’ featured many times on the Hipster Runoff blog – I think it’s now accepted knowledge that Lin is Carles from Hipster Runoff but I’m not sure), MUMBLECORE and HEROIN. The ‘films’ are US$20 each, $70 for all four or $100 for a “lifetime subscription” to MDMA Films. So, who wants to pay $20 to watch a couple of New York 20-somethings get high? It’s a question that has been rolling around in my head and I can’t quite come up with any solid ‘for’ or ‘against’ arguments. Reaching the point of that being the most relevant question in this scenario was difficult enough. Without having seen the entire film (yet?), it’s possibly remiss to muse on the seeming self-absorption of the whole exercise, even though that’s the obvious initial desire. That also makes it impossible to ‘critique’ it as any kind of documentary or film with an overall ‘purpose’ for the viewer, though I suspect that,

ROOTS DOWN

Blues ‘n’ roots with DAN CONDON rootsdown@inpress.com.au The second announcement for next year’s Byron Bay Bluesfest has dropped and while there are no artists with the kind of status as Bob Dylan or BB King on this one, it’s still monumental. British prog-giants Jethro Tull are a surprise inclusion, Texan rock kings ZZ Top a not so surprising addition while funk and soul legends like Irma Thomas, The Funky Meters and Booker T all beef up the bill considerably. Reggae masters Toots & The Maytals, Latin blues favourites Los Lobos, modern day soul crooner John Legend, Tim Robbins & The Rogues Gallery Band (AKA High Fidelity’s Ian “what fucking Ian guy?!?!” Raymond), Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue, BB & The Blues Shack, Joe Louis Walker and Barrence Whitfield round out the international contingent. On the local front the announce is honestly almost as big; Gurrumul plays an exclusive performance, Kasey Chambers, Pete Murray and Wolfmother are the big young guns while Captain Matchbox Whoopee Band, The Dingoes and Phil Jones & The Unknown Blues will be bringing back memories for many. Diesel, The Snowdroppers, Ray Beadle and Nat Col & The Kings cap off another huge announcement from the team up in Tyagarah. The festival hits Tyagarah Tea Tree Farm Thursday 21 April through to Monday 25 April. Carlos Santana remains one of the biggest names in the guitar world these days, just as he has been since the release of the first Santana album back in 1969. He’s still hard at it, his latest record Guitar Heaven matching him up with some of the world’s most famous vocalists to run through some of the most iconic guitar tunes of all time – an intriguing concept but one that his legion of dedicated fans have lapped up. It has been a

if there is one, it will be like Lin’s writing: a mirror-on-the-wall to absurdism that is itself both too self-aware and unaware to say clearly what it’s reflecting; both perceptive and infuriating. Based on the trailer, Lin and Boyle appear ‘likeable’ enough, if not slightly arrogant for the way they grin knowingly while asking each other and strangers stupid questions, but y’know, they are on ecstasy, another fact that makes the trailer conceivably relatable or in the realm of ‘fantasy travel doco’ in the same way people watch Catriona Rowntree on Getaway and wish they were on Xanax in Fiji. Then there’s the question of whether it’s really worth discussing as a film at all, but the ‘What is film?’ debate – or the ‘What is art?’ debate – is both boring and stupid to get into without the required space and research. However, there does seem to now be a blur between the accepted ‘legitimacy’ of the instant internet video diary as ‘film worth consideration’ and other, perhaps more ‘traditional’, film mediums that take time and effort to be released to the public. MDMA seems to be somewhere between the two, though beyond the editing process and marketing there doesn’t appear to have been a huge amount of thought involved, unless you count their combined years of education, which perhaps we should (which leads us back to having little idea what the intention behind the film is, if that matters, besides some hyper-elusive interview responses given by Lin on thelmagazine.com). It seems relevant now to mention that in their press release announcing MDMA Films, Lin and Boyle call it “an “extreme mumblecore”/“drugcore”/“emo” film/documentary/“event coverage”/ production company”. So, without being able to really debate whether MDMA is a film or whether it’s a film worth thinking about beyond being potentially “funny” (Lin’s word), we can really only debate the commercial aspect of the venture. So, who wants to pay $20 to watch a couple of New York 20-somethings get high? And does paying make you a smart hipster or a dumb hipster?

couple of years since he last visited us, so you can bet there are plenty of people very excited to hear of his return early next year. He will drop by the Rod Laver Arena on Wednesday 16 March to dazzle all and sundry and tickets are available from Ticketek as of Thursday morning. You’d be hard pressed to find any international artist who has fallen in love with Australia quite as much as Justin Townes Earle. His affinity with the country, coupled with his tireless dedication to spending as much time on the road as he can, has meant that he has visited us three times in the past two years and has already scheduled visit number four. He’s fresh from the release of his latest LP Harlem River Blues, another release of supreme quality, but anyone who has seen him live in the past will attest to the fact that it is on the live stage that this artist really shines. You can catch him at the Forum on Friday 18 March and grab your tickets from Ticketmaster right now for $51.20. Of course Earle also plays the Golden Plains and Port Fairy Folk festivals. Minnesotan bluesman Charlie Parr is no stranger to Australian audiences either. Ever since his first visit here a couple of years ago we simply haven’t been able to keep him away for the place and we’re certainly not complaining about that. His latest record, When The Devil Goes Blind, really is his finest release to date and as well as that record, he’s also recently completed the soundtrack to the Australian feature film Red Hill. Parr’s fingerpicking, storytelling and his rich, bluesy voice have fast become favourites of Aussie audiences and you’ll be able to see him doing his thing live in the flesh when he plays a couple of sideshows following his appearance at next year’s Sunset Sounds festival. He plays Hapy Mondays at the Rooftop Bar on Monday 27 December, the Old Bar on Friday 31 December, hooks up with Dan Kelly to play the Theatre Royal in Castlemaine on Thursday 6 January, the Caravan Music Club in Oakleigh on Friday 7 January and Meeniyan Town Hall on Saturday 8 January. Parr will also appear at the Falls Festival over New Year’s.

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BRUMBY’S SKELETONS Multiple ARIA nominee and two-time winner Monique Brumby hits The Drunken Poet this Saturday to showcase songs both old and new. With 15 years of experience on the road and in the studio, record number four, Skeletons Polka, finds a songwriter completely comfortable in her art. Monique’s latest work delves deep into her past and finds her questioning the human experience, resulting in a record that fluctuates from her signature brooding rock to a more lyrical pop oriented sound. Catch Monique Brumby this Saturday from 9pm.

GRIP A SAUSAGE

Welcome back to rock’n’roll!! Vice Grip Pussies have reignited the music scene with an energy and sound that reminds the audience of the thrill they felt when they first discovered rock music. It’s rock’n’roll with a sense of humor and fun; live shows are full of energy and unexpected things. Drum-driven arrangements lead their rock/pop/sideshow alley swing with a rhythm that makes you want to move. These 19- and 20-year-old boys from the Gold Coast and Byron Bay play every Wednesday in December at the Tote from 7pm. Entry is $8 with a BBQ!

NYMPHS FOR NUTHIN’

GUITAR GODS GATHER

Forged in the swelter of Melbourne’s eclectic live music scene in 2005, The Nymphs’ addictive blend of WWII-era inspired ditties, soulful harmonies and a beguiling sense for the theatrical have seen them kick their matching heels into the hearts of audiences around the country. The Nymphs’ timeless repertoire of inimitably catchy original tunes as well as a handpicked selection of reinvigorated classics dish up a unique treat for today’s music lovers! Now, with a fresh and exciting EP released and being hot off the Queenscliff Music Festival stage, The Nymphs are serving two sets of their vocal banquet up at the Builders Arms every Saturday afternoon in December from 4.30pm! So get on down, have some wine and some Nymphs! It’s free, of course.

The historic seaport of Williamstown will be the host of the very first of many Melbourne International Guitar Festivals at Seaworks, 82 Nelson Place, on the weekend of 19 and 20 March 2011. The Guitars Across The Bay festival will take guitar players, enthusiasts and music lovers through an assortment of sounds and styles of the guitar and guitar players, featuring some of Australia’s finest guitarists over two days on three different stages. Those playing include The RocKwiz Orkestra, Geoff Achison, Ray Beadle, Simon Patterson and Jimi Hocking. Head to guitarsacrossthebay. com for all details and Moshtix for tickets.

BACKWOOD ENTRY Launching their self-titled EP at the Retreat Hotel this Saturday, Backwood Creatures will be pulling all the stops and delivering a blistering two-set spectacle. Traversing the murky depths of southern style swamp blues these three lads had to have been born under a bad sign. Their spin on blues form is haunting yet soulful and showcases the mastery of songwriter Jeb Cardwells guitar virtuosity. Joining these seventh son’s of a seventh son’s will be very special guests Jeff Lang and Matt Walker, so rest assured there will be licks flying through air like it’s nobody’s business. Kicking off the night in the front bar at 7.30pm will be everybody’s favourite Tom Baker lookalike JVG Guitar Method. JVG knows how to hold a crowds attention and execute their funky blues numbers with class and precision.

BONNIWELLS OUTTA THE GARAGE

The Bonniwells launch their critically appraised debut release, Unprofitable Servant (out via Z-Man Records), on Thursday 23 December at the Grace Darling Hotel. Channelling the punk ethic of yesteryear and combining a marriage of super-cool garage, hyperactive surf guitar, gymnastic mod out-takes, swampy badass, and garage explosions, the album which made it to RRR’s Soundscape list, has also been enjoying high rotation on other community radio stations. With special guests The Galaxy Folk and Duck Duck Chop, entry is $8 or $15 with a copy of the CD from 9pm.

ENTER THE JUNGAL Following the launch of their debut album This Crooked Track to capacity crowds in early 2010, all-female roots/folk trio Jungal embarked on successful tours of both Canada and Australia to spread their new music far and wide. For their return to Melbourne, the three sisters of Jungal will release their newest single People at the Evelyn Hotel this Friday, with folk rock singer/ songwriter Aurora Jane and seven-piece East Timorese world fusion band Sol Nation.

Snakadaktal play the Toff In Town on Tuesday 14 December. HOW DID YOU GET TOGETHER? Sean, vocals/guitar/synths: “We spontaneously met at a Nintendo 64 club meet. When realising we went to the same school and had been for years, we keenly decided to play music together.”

Having done a full band run through the US and Canada in September, THE BEAUTIFUL GIRLS singer, songwriter and guitarist MAT MCHUGH continued his North American adventures in solo mode, opening for the John Butler Trio. He details his experiences for Inpress. get to play on these stages is just amazing. Tuesday 23 November – Fitzgerald Theatre, St Paul, Minneapolis Austin was in the 20s – left there in the morning and here we are in St Paul for the gig and it’s minus 20! Brutal, brutal cold; just painful. Any exposed skin just gets destroyed by the cold. It’s like being back in New York a few days ago. From here we go to Winnipeg in Canada and they’re both crazy cold, Minneapolis and Winnipeg – and Chicago.

The John Butler guys are just really good guys. The music business in so many ways is full of pretenders – people act one way on stage and then they’re actually not that way but John and the boys are just legit. From everybody on the crew to the band, what you see is what you get, you know, just honest good dudes and very much they’ve looked after us.

CAN YOU SUM UP YOUR BAND’S SOUND IN FOUR WORDS? “Dream run friendly pop.” IF YOU COULD SUPPORT ANY BAND IN THE WORLD, WHO WOULD IT BE AND WHY? “The Dandy Warhols, on a tour where we would change our name to The Randy Whoreholes. They are also terribly good.” IF A HIGHER POWER SMITES YOUR HOUSE AND YOU CAN ONLY SAVE ONE RECORD FROM THE FIRE, WHAT WOULD IT BE? “Ziggy Stardust by David Bowie.” DO YOU HAVE A LUCKY ITEM OF CLOTHING YOU WEAR FOR GIGS AND WHAT IS IT? “Joey [guitar] wears an Indian chief feather hat with white dangly bits.” IF YOU INVITED SOMEONE AWESOME ROUND FOR DINNER WHAT WOULD YOU COOK? “Potato gems. Pumpkin sauce if the mood did strike the kitchen.” WHAT’S YOUR FAVOURITE PLACE TO DRINK IN MELBOURNE? “The Milk Bar. It’s full of flavour.”

ednesday 17 November – Ryman Auditorium, Nashville, Tennessee Incredible! This is the Grand Ol’ Opry where Johnny Cash and Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis – like everybody – played. My dressing room is Johnny Cash’s old dressing room and they’ve put a bunch of old photos of him all around the room. It’s just insane. There are photos of Elvis and Johnny Cash hanging out together, it’s ridiculous. I’m treading on some pretty hallowed turf here, treading where these legends have trod. The Ryman’s a seated theatre – they all are on this run, 2,000 to 3,000 seaters – and I’m up there playing solo, an acoustic guitar, a loop pedal and some kinda old hip hop 808 drum machine beats that I’ve looped in there. I guess it’s probably a bit sacrilegious playing an 808 in the Ryman Theatre, but it was great.

HAVE YOU RECORDED ANYTHING OR DO YOU PREFER TO TOOL AROUND IN YOUR BEDROOM? “We record mainly with tools in our bedroom. Our debut album will hopefully be ready by the summer time of 2011. We are most excited.”

GOSSLING GOES EAST To celebrate the release of her sophomore EP, Until Then, through MGM, Gossling (aka Helen Croome) is taking to the stage in Melbourne with the superb Georgia Fair, as well as scheduling in appearances at Woodford Folk Festival and Peat’s Ridge to give punters their festival hit. Having just finished a tour with Lior, it has been a busy year for Gossling, having already supported the likes of Lamb, The Whitlams, Jamie Cullum, Newton Faulkner, Whitley and Mark Scholtez in 2010. Catch her at the East Brunswick Club on Thursday 16 December – tickets from the venue.

The Boy Who Cried Wolf sometimes goes by another name. He is an extraordinary talent and having just spent a good part of the year in the USA has returned with a swag of new songs and is dying to try them out on the stage. Having headlined the Corner Hotel and Northcote Social Club in recent times, he hits the Empress this Saturday with Cam Ewart and Rumblefi sh. Entry is $10 from 8.30pm.

GOOD PEOPLE, GOOD TIMES

DROP IT LIKE A CLASS A

This Friday sees the indomitable Class A and Syntax team up at the Workers Club to launch two of this year’s most lauded Australian independent hip hop releases: Class A’s Me, Me, Me & Him: The Secret Life Of A Receptionist, and Syntax’s The Musical. Class A is currently winning hearts and heads nationwide for her debut longplayer, a record brimming with honest tales of heartache, wit and self-discovery. Syntax’s album is a lyrically introspective record replete with lashings of soul, drawing immediate comparisons to those such as Little Brother and Dilated Peoples. Class A and Syntax are supported by local showstoppers Citywide Krew and Doc Felix, and featuring Rachael Berry and DJ Sizzle. Entry is $10 from 8pm.

’TIL YA CRY

Same with John’s crowd. They’re a little different to The Beautiful Girls crowd – they’re more of a listening, music crowd whereas our crowd tend to kind of want to get down and dance and have a bit of a party. So playing solo, before I started this tour I was a little terrified because I didn’t know what to expect, but every night everyone’s been really, really cool so I guess John Butler’s brought a bunch of good people together. Saturday 20 November – Stubbs BBQ, Austin, Texas This is insane! This is one of the most legendary venues in the country too. Austin is arguably my favourite music city in America – every 20 feet there’s a bar with a cool band playing in it – and Stubbs has this outside section that’s sort of an open courtyard and seats about 3,000 people. John’s been working up to these places for quite a while, so for me to kinda jump in and

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Wednesday 24 November – Burton Cummings Theatre, Winnipeg, Manitoba So we got dumped on in Winnipeg – it was the biggest snow so far this season and it’s minus 30, two feet of snow – bit hard to drive down the street. Still, not many people back in Australia get to experience this kind of cold or this kind of ferocious weather, so it’s cool in a way too. Of course if you live in Winnipeg or in Minneapolis you’re pretty used to living with the cold weather – they get it for a solid four months of the year. We were tempted to not leave the dressing room but the kids were great. Canada’s a lot more like Australia, a bit more laid back and easygoing. It’s a more relaxed version of the States for sure. There’s not been much jumping about for my set – it’s pretty mellow anyway – but you can pretty much hear a pin drop every single show. That’s like thousands of people just standing there silently checking it out. I don’t think I’ve seen that happen that often in Australia. I don’t know if I’ve just got lucky or that’s what happens, but it’s been great. At the other end of the spectrum, John and the boys are very kind of rockin’ so everyone goes nuts when they come on so it’s kinda two ends of the spectrum, which is good. Thursday 2 December – Wiltern Theatre, Los Angeles, California We’ve just arrived in LA so we’re sitting outside in the sun and it’s about 23 and it feels like it’s 60! Yesterday we drove about eight hours through the mountains from Spokane, Washington where we played the Knitting Factory, to Portland to play the Crystal Ballroom and it was just ice and snow and blizzards – nasty stuff. Still everyone’s been really kind and this is definitely the best American tour that I’ve ever done in many respects. WHO: The Beautiful Girls WHEN & WHERE: Friday 31 December, Falls Festival, Lorne; Thursday 20 January, Ferntree Gully Hotel; Friday 21 January, Prince Bandrom; Saturday 22 January, Pier Live (Frankston); Sunday 23 January, Barwon Heads Hotel

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THE GIZARD KING

On tape, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard are cavernous and ragged. One-man reverb-tank choirs. Guitars echoing out into the red. Bursts of lead fuzz. On tape, this is the work of one dude sewing together unhinged pyschedelia and out-of-print 1950s garage compilations. As for the live incarnation, a castrated, skeletal rendition of this brimming psych pop just didn’t seem right. The solution: six, seven, sometimes eight garage rock devotees jamming these concise gems into a sprawl that’s loose, driving, and bursting with jangly energy. These jams go from sparse, Grateful Dead-like segues where scrapes and harmonics bounce around the room to waves of loosely aligned frequencies and half the band hollering on the chorus. They play the Workers Club this coming Monday 13 December with Seagull. Entry is a measly $2 from 8pm.

ORKESTRA PITSTOP

RUSH TO THE HEAD This Thursday, Rush In Attack will be launching their new single, Wan Wan 100%, at the Toff In Town. They will be supported by friends 8 Bit Love and Zeal, making it a night of blissful indie pop. Rush In Attack will accompany the launch of their new single with a live VJ set to boot. This is music for those who are tired of new wave clichés and garage blues. Embrace your short attention span and grab some instantly catchy tracks with both hands. Tickets are $10+BF from Moshtix or $12 on the door from 7.30pm.

For the first time in Australia, UK festival favourites Orkestra del Sol explore their polygamous love affair with bombastic brass band music and anarchic humour at the Northcote Social Club on Wednesday 12 and Thursday 13 January. Offering an explosive reinvention of the brass band format, they cite influences from the virtuosic wedding bands of Eastern Europe, suave street sounds of the US and the rebellious carnival bands of Latin-America. Soaring horn lines, mournful melodies, rolling Middle-Eastern rhythms bursting with wildly skilful musical arrangements, a roguish sense of theatre and a healthy dose of humour. Tickets are $20+BF from the venue or $25 at the door from 7.30pm. Flap! and Mikelangelo support Wednesday; Vulgargrad and Mikelangelo on Thursday.

HIGH AND HAPPY The party season is kicking into overdrive with Hot & Delicious Records and FUR Group presenting the ultimate rock’n’roll Xmas shindig at Ding Dong Lounge this Friday. Fresh from packing out their album launch, Skybombers are taking to the stage for one of their final shows before they move to the USA and they’re going out in style. Backing up head to head with the hard touring, hard partying boys of The Happy Endings, they’re going to be offering kisses under the mistletoe and getting you out of your Christmas trees. Joined by the swirling industry buzz of Triple J Unearthed winners And Burn, and emerging Melbourne rockers VIMM this is going to be one hell of a Christmas cracker of a party! Entry is $12.50 from 8pm.

EAST BRUNSWICK OR BUST Sometimes you have just got to say goodbye. You have worn down your wrist from the shackles, they bleed a little. You will never enjoy wearing a watch again. Why would you need to know the time anyway? What’s the point? East Brunswick All Girls Choir will be leaving for a while, making good time across the plains. Before they leave, the band will be playing their new album in its entirety, from start to finish, at the Northcote Social Club on Friday 17 December. There will be no old classics only the new. Joining them for the special occasion will be Adelaide’s most awesome Birth Glow and Vanuatu Scalps. Entry is $10 from 8.30pm.

REVEREND RUNS

The Reverend Kriss Hades descends upon Melbourne to deliver his first ever sermon with a full backing band at the East Brunswick Club this Saturday. Hades has long been renowned for his guitar work in the notorious Sadistik Exekution. Now, he has escaped the Sadistik institution and eagerly awaits the chance to unleash his madness upon the masses with his inimitable brand of psychedelic black metal. Preceeding the sermon will be support from Melbourne doom duo Agonhymn and with their first show back from Europe, Heirs. Tickets are $13+BF from the venue or $18 at the door if still available from 8.30pm.

TIGER AND ME DARLIN’ Stretching up for a big summer of festivals (Falls Festival, The Hills Are Alive, Apollo Bay), indie cabaret folkies The Tiger And Me are celebrating The Year Of The Tiger with a killer double-headline/end-of-year-party gig at the Grace Darling Hotel with local Melbourne trio The Lloyd Weir. A possibly challenging night for your heart but ultimately satisfying for your ears, it goes down on Saturday 18 December.

MCDONALD GAFF When Melbourne music lovers think of local music that represents summer, many think of Danny McDonald. Melbourne’s own summer pop singer/ songwriter, formerly of P76, Oscarlima and Jericho, has returned with a full-band Melbourne show to mark the beginning of the season. After releasing over 30 CD and vinyl releases during the last 15 years, McDonald’s new single, In Melbourne Tonight, is his first in a series of free downloads available from his website: dannymcdonald.com.au. He plays IDGAFF this Friday with his band The Right Wing Conservatives, joined by special guests The Lazybirds (featuring ex. Members of Header and Ammonia) and She’s The Driver (featuring ex members of Violetine).

ALTMANN TO THE RESCUE

Chris Altmann has been touring the country with his band to celebrate the release of his debut solo album, Que Paso. Spanish for “what happened”, “Que Paso” is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the change from the hard rocking style that fans have come to expect from Altmann’s better known group, The Vandas. The sound is influenced by the Texas border town grooves of Doug Sahm and Jerry Jeff Walker, combined with the uptempo country rock beats of Chuck Berry and Levon Helm. Altmann will be doing a special solo performance at the Gem in Collingwood tonight (Wednesday) at 9pm, playing tunes from the album on piano, along with his favourite boogie woogie covers. It’s free!

SURE THING FOR XMAS For the tenth year running, Mick Thomas & The Sure Thing are bringing their annual Christmas show to town. After touring Europe and China, releasing a new live album, playing a couple of huge shows with Weddings, Parties, Anything and setting up an online subscription music club, Thomas is set to see out the year in style with a couple of shows at his favourite Melbourne musical haunts: Saturday 18 December at the Corner Hotel with special guests the JVG Guitar Method and The Wilson Pickers and Friday 24 December (Xmas Eve – duh) at the Northcote Social Club with special guests The Idle Hoes and Van Walker. Tickets are on sale now through the venues.

TASTE TEST HEROES FOR HIRE – LEE MCGARRITY The record I put on when I’m really miserable is… I’m never miserable – that’s for our singer Brad to worry about. The record I put on when I bring someone home is… Venga Boys. You know this is a great pump song. Get those reps up!

DON’T MISS UNIVERSE

The most surprising record in my collection is… Ke$ha. Though that’s not really a surprise.

Hostile Universe, a hard rock band from Melbourne, formed at the beginning of 2009. Fusing many different styles, influences and their combined years of experience, they have created a unique sound that is reminiscent of bands from the mid-’90s hard rock and alternative rock movements. They will be rocking a venue near you very soon this summer, beginning with a show at the Spanish Club Fitzroy this Friday.

The best record I stole from my folks’ collection was… The Beatles’ White Album. The fi rst record I bought with my own money was… Ixnay On The Hombre by The Offspring.

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The last thing I bought/ downloaded was… The new A Day To Remember. I bought it, I swear. Heroes For Hire play the No Sleep Til Melbourne festival at the Melbourne Showgrounds on Friday 17 December.

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HOWZAT! Local music news by JEFF JENKINS Brian Cadd: top muso, shit speller

OFF THE RECORD

Somewhere In The World ALTIYAN CHILDS (11)

Vegas Songs From Sin City HUMAN NATURE (21)

No, this book ($30, University of Queensland Press) is not the titillating tale of what goes on behind the scenes at Brian Wise’s RRR show. It’s a compilation of articles from Australia’s oldest street press publication, Brisbane’s Time Off (now part of the Street Press Australia group, publishers of Inpress). From Hunters & Collectors in 1986 to Angus & Julia Stone in 2010, the writing is strong and informative. But I’m not sure if the format – a conventional novel size – is right for such a dynamic book. I would have loved a Time Off scrapbook, reproducing original pages and covers.

Saturday Night JESSICA MAUBOY (16)

The Great Tenor Songbook MARK VINCENT (22)

Plans BIRDS OF TOKYO (26)

This Is Bat Country SHORT STACK (24)

Planets SHORT STACK (30)

Jack JOHN FARNHAM (29)

Freefallin’ ZOE BADWI (35)

Birds Of Tokyo BIRDS OF TOKYO (31)

Rapunzel DRAPHT (37, debut)

Little Bird KASEY CHAMBERS (34)

Hamish & Andy have a top ten debut.

I Believe You Liar WASHINGTON (39)

Celebrating 50 Glorious Years HAMISH & ANDY (number six, debut)

HOWZAT! PLAYLIST

CHART WATCH

Ginger Man BRIAN CADD

Twenty Ten GUY SEBASTIAN (ten)

Everything You Need NICK BATTERHAM

Guy Sebastian leaps from 11 to two. And Perth hip hop star Drapht – who sold out the Prince of Wales last Friday – makes his Top 40 debut.

Down The Way ANGUS & JULIA STONE (16)

Rapunzel DRAPHT

Get Closer KEITH URBAN (19)

Hot Air ADALITA

Who’s That Girl GUY SEBASTIAN (number two)

He Will Have His Way VARIOUS (20)

Living In Oz RICK SPRINGFIELD

BOOK ’EM, DANO This has probably been the biggest year yet for local music books. Here are four more titles to consider for Christmas:

LATE, LATE AT NIGHT It starts with a suicide attempt and many of the following 320 pages deal with Rick Springfield’s depression, which he calls “the Darkness”. But Rick’s memoir ($35, Simon & Schuster) is also strangely life-affirming and a celebration of being a musician. “We are all still 15-year-olds at heart,” Rick writes, “committed to the path of ‘girls, guitars and glory’.” He starts in Melbourne as Richard Springthorpe, but is re-named by bandmate Pete Watson. “No one will ever understand ‘Springthorpe’,” said Pete, who was also a member of Mike Brady’s MPD. After stints with the woefullynamed Wickedy Wak, and Zoot, Rick relocates to the US at the start of the ’70s, where he becomes a poor man’s David Cassidy. By 1979, he’s in a cover band, thinking of becoming a professional stained-glass master. He falls for a woman at the glass class, the partner of a man named Gary. He writes a song about her, but changes the male’s name to “Jessie”, “because ‘Gary’s Girl’ doesn’t have enough of a rock’n roll ring to it”. A friend recently asked Paul Kelly: What’s harder to write about, heroin or infidelity? “I don’t choose to write about infidelity,” Paul replied, “I don’t write about it in the book.” But Rick’s memoir is a roll call of rooting, including affairs with Australian pop stars Lynne Randell and Allison Durbin. It’s a fine book, filled with good advice (“Don’t listen to all the people who say they know the path you should be taking,” Rick writes. “They are most likely full of shit”). Rick should be in the ARIA Hall Of Fame.

FROM THIS SIDE OF THINGS

Brian Cadd has had a remarkable career. How’s this for starters: he auditioned for the David St Hubbins role in Spinal Tap. He made an album with Shel Talmy, who produced My Generation, You Really Got Me and Friday On My Mind. He was asked to join the Bee Gees band. He produced an album for Daryl Somers that was never released. He was the musical director for the “French Elvis”, Johnny Hallyday. He was a latter-day member of The Flying Burrito Brothers. And he was responsible for a song that haunted me during my youth, Robin Jolley’s Marshall’s Portable Music Machine, a staple on the only radio station in my hometown. Brian also wrote A Little Ray Of Sunshine (which he performed at Carl Williams’ daughter’s christening), Don’t You Know It’s Magic, Elevator Driver, Ginger Man and Woman You’re Breaking Me. He’s Australia’s Leon Russell, though Molly once introduced him to Elton John, saying, “Brian is probably to Australia what you are to England.” Brian’s book ($33, New Holland) is unfortunately marred by the misspellings of many major stars’ names, but it’s a fun read.

DANNII, MY STORY

Dannii Minogue’s autobiography ($35, Simon & Schuster) also has some inexplicable spelling mistakes: Ramsay Street is written as Ramsey Street, while her former Home And Away co-star Craig McLachlan becomes Craig McLaughlin. But this is not the book’s biggest failing. “What kind of girl do you think I am?” Dannii asked on her debut single, 1990’s Love And Kisses, “is it the plain Jane type?” There’s been nothing plain about Dannii’s life – which has included a Playboy shoot, a boob job and more UK club chart-toppers than any other female artist – but, sadly, the book doesn’t dig much deeper than this sentence, the start of Chapter Four: “Being a regular team member on Young Talent Time was heaps of fun and a dream come true, but it was also incredibly hard work.” Sure, Dannii covers her feud with Sharon Osbourne, and mentions how her first mother-in-law, Lady Sonia McMahon, didn’t like her. She even writes about her first kiss (with Young Talent Time co-star Vince Del Tito). But My Story is simply too nice, lacking any real spice.

gigguide@inpress.com.au

WED 08

Alex Hallahan & Band Edinburgh Castle Hotel Attack of the Mannequins, Vintage Cinema, Dukes A, Shaky Memorial Revolver Ben Hauptmann Uptown Jazz Café Bittersweet Kicks, Bombastic Plastic Cherry Bar Cape Cod Affair, Dogs of Thomas Park, Constant Light Builders Arms Hotel Chris Altman The Gem Colin Hay, The Little Stevies Corner Hotel Danny Walsh, Adam Redfern The Standard Hotel Defron, Bel Woods & The Posers Ruby’s Lounge Dizzy’s Big Band, Paul Dunn Dizzy’s Jazz Club Edel Plastik, Lo-Res, Rob Simone Quartet 303 Firepower, Sarah & The King Bees, The Scarecrows, Better Than The Wizards Esplanade Lounge Girls on Film Co., Crown Gotan Project Forum Theatre Goyim Marquis Of Lorne Hotel Jack Johnson Sidney Myer Music Bowl John Lingard, April Maze, Siobhan Northcote Social Club Katsina Empress Hotel KKS Project, University Challenge, Ella Thompson Evelyn Hotel Knife Fight, Circuits, Leprosy, War Widow Bar Open Kriss Hades, Fucked, Ivens, DJ Fuck Pokeno Stutter Loon Lake, Undercolours, Fever Artiste Ding Dong Lounge Marcel Yammouni Spenserslive Music Trivia Grumpy’s Green Nilusha Baeder, Alex Pertout Paris Cat Jazz Club Open Mic Bendigo Hotel Open Mic Brunswick Hotel Open Mic Grind ‘n’ Groove Bar Rosalind Hall, Alice Hui-Sheng Chang, Michelle Nicole Fret Septet Bennetts Lane Rosalind Hall, Alice Hui-Sheng Chang, Michelle Nicolle, Septet Bennetts Lane Stutter Horse Bazaar Tanya Lee’s R&Bs Transit Lounge Tara Minton Veludo

The Kujo Kings, Loonee Tunes, The Operators The Toff In Town The Star Express, Wolfie and the Batcubs Workers Club The Stillsons, The Stetson Family, Alysia Manceau East Brunswick Club Tim Durkin, Barbara’s Bush, Joe Forrester, Pat Walker The Old Bar Trial By Night, High Side Driver, Red Sky Divide, Master_Beta The Arthouse Trivia Glenferrie Hotel Trivia Royal Derby Hotel Van Myer, Rainbow Massacre, Dani Marte Gertrude’s Brown Couch Vice Grip Pussies, The Council, Cold Harbour, Seedy Jeezus, Burn In Hell The Tote Victoriana Gaye Retreat Hotel Wine, Whiskey, Women, Kerryn Fields, Kristy Apps The Drunken Poet Winter Street, Fun Machine, Kaze John Curtin Hotel

THU 09

A Brokers Night Sleep, Hey Fever, Reds Under the Bed 161 Archetype, Jordan Clarey, I Know a Ghost, The Young Raptors Esplanade Basement Ben Abraham, John Flanagan Edinburgh Castle Hotel Bewilderbeast, On Sierra, Fieldlings Empress Hotel Binghi Fire, Tiger, Kilow First Floor Brash & Sassy, Metals, Polygon Palace The Old Bar Broadcast, Seekae, Pikelet The Hi-Fi Brother Buffalo, JJ Symon, Teresa Dixon Gertrude’s Brown Couch Carus Thompson, Loren, The Quarry Mountain Dead Rats Northcote Social Club Clipse, Opulent Sound, Mafia, Mat Cant Prince Bandroom dar.e.beats Dizzy’s Jazz Club DJ Krispy Fusion, Crown Freestone Fox, Agility, The Sweets Brunswick Hotel Froy Aagre, Goodrich Ensemble Paris Cat Jazz Club Funhouse Co., Crown Gotan Project Forum Theatre

Jazz City, Magic Mountain Band Wesley Anne Jeff the Brotherhood, Barbarion Dozers, Love/Hate, A13, Throbulator Pony Joey Cape, Jamie Hay, Darren Gibson The Arthouse Katie Ferdinand Band, Ben Smith and the Noise Diary Chapter Rainbow Hotel Kizzy Grumpys Green Ladies Night Burlesque Bar Matt Ellis, Dave McDonald Great Britain Hotel Matty Grant, Matt Dean Billboard Microflora, Carry Nation, Blood Clot Builders Arms Hotel Pony Face Retreat Hotel Pub Poker Glenferrie Hotel Red Ink, Colour Age, Passport For Amy Esplanade Lounge Rock Aerobics, Street Chant, Brainwaves, Deep Heat, Infi nite Void, Pine Gap Yah Yah’s Rush In Attack, 8 Bit Love, Zeal, Tranter, Rad Pitt, Megawuoti, Sleeves The Toff In Town sababa, Bending Rodriguez Veludo Scott Edgar & The Universe 303 Shoot the Sun, The Kickers, Society of Beggars The Tote Slabotomy, Travis Winters, Ryan Sweeney Evelyn Hotel Soul Safari Cherry Bar State Of East London, Atlantis is Burning, Crown Us Thieves, Jimmy Kyle, Summerset Avenue Next Stephen Cummings Union Hotel Brunswick Steve Magnusson Trio Uptown Jazz Café Streams of Whiskey, Sheldon King Bar Open Tegan & Sara Thornbury Theatre Tehachapi, Secretive George, Boogie Monster, The Call Up, Nick & Billy John Curtin Hotel That 1 Guy, Mr Percival Corner Hotel The Artisans Spenserslive The Bucket Room, Local Singer Songwriter Night Grumpy’s Green The Field, Qua, Kharkov, DJ Tim Shiel East Brunswick Club The Latonas, The Run Run, Dead End, Revolver Designer Market at 3181 Revolver

The Lesson, Changing Falls, Goodbye Zoe, September Falls Ding Dong Lounge The Martha Baartz Quartet Bennetts Lane Tranters ‘Sax Fax’ EP Launch, The Young Faithful, Strangers From Now On, The Thod POGO @ Geddes Lane True Live, Young Romantix Workers Club Tully Sumner, Gavin Ackerly The Drunken Poet Tupinikings Brazilian Party:, DJ CIA, DJ Vini Hasin Roxanne Parlour Urgent Blood, Seesaw Blue Tile Lounge Vedran, Dom Dolla, Beetlejuice, Press Play Dj’s, Retza Royal Derby Hotel Zumba, DJ Gio Luber Esplanade Gershwin Room

FRI 10

12 Legged Beast, Broken Crayons 303 5 Venoms, Rock City Riff Raff, Diamond Sins Cherry Bar Allnitelongers Pascoe Vale RSL Andrew Reid, Hayden Jones Dizzy’s Jazz Club Billy Hoyle Veludo Black Swans Of Trespass, Chicks With Picks (Deb Bond) Wesley Anne Bon Jovi Rod Laver Arena Carl Craig, Kenny Larkin, Moodymann, Theo Parrish Brown Alley Cash No!, Friend with the Enemy, Subject To Change, Doomsday Saints Bendigo Hotel Cirque De Femmes Burlesque Bar Cisco Caesar Rainbow Hotel Class A, Syntax, City Wide Crew, Two Bright Lakes DJ Workers Club Cocks Arquette, Muir, Arturo Ritual Books & Music Craig Williams Glenferrie Hotel Creswick, Le Foxx Builders Arms Hotel Danny McDonald & The Right Wing Conservatives, Lazybirds, She’s The Driver IdGAFF Dark s.paid, Burn City Queenz, Culture Crew Horse Bazaar Dean T, Phil Ross, DJ Johnny M Fusion, Crown Dirty Britches Boy Sporting Club Hotel DJ Evo The Deck DJ Graeme Royal Derby Hotel

DJ Seb The Hawthorn Durk, Mountfield Plains, Low Speed Bus Chase, Ariochet, Winton Hill Esplanade Gershwin Room Elemental Burn, Nocturnal Ashes, Clint Flick, 180 Proof The Prague Emma Gilmartin, Tony Gould Duo, Elly Hoyt Quintet Bennetts Lane Fangs of, Wicked City, Brain Resin, Worm Intentions The Old Bar Feed Her To The Sharks, I Know a Ghost, Isis for Balour Trash @ Casey’s Feline Faery Fest Northcote Uniting Church Fifteenth Avenue Blue Diamond Gimme Skelter Station 59 Girls, The Ancients, Redberryplum Corner Hotel Good Vs Evil, DJ Johno Precinct Heavy Heavy Low Low, Totally Unicorn, The Omen, Hawaiian Islands The Arthouse Hello Satelites, Em-Sem, Miracle, Strange Talk, Wild Life DJs, Trailer Park DJs, Luke Warm, Girls DJ Set Miss Libertine Hermitude, Damn Moroda Northcote Social Club Holliava, Celedore, Innerspace, Mike Callander, Matt Radovich, Jamie Stevens, Lewie Day Revolver Human Nature Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre Jen Tutty, Tom:hutcheon, Lewie Day, Sam Deluxe, Katie Drover, Hoops, Agent 86, Mic Newman 161 Joe Sofo, Kitty Kat, Nikkos Co., Crown Jungal, Sol Nation, Aurora Jane Evelyn Hotel Kingfisha, Sine Bar Open Lethal Binge, Thrashdance, Stiff & the Creeps Public Bar Little Dragon East Brunswick Club Little Red Meredith Music Festival Lloyd Spiegel Grind ‘n’ Groove Bar Magic Mountain Band Edinburgh Castle Hotel Mark Wilkenson, Tom Tuena, Dave Anderson Grace Darling Hotel Mastiff, Invader, Before Black Waters, Seppuku Esplanade Basement MC Tiki Roxanne Parlour McAlpine Fusiliers, Australian Kingswood Factory, Zeptepi Brunswick Hotel

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Mihirangi, Jack Winter Retreat Hotel Mitch Peters, Middlend, Jen Knight & the Cavaliers, Dangerous Truth, Red Sky Divide Ruby’s Mr Jimmy, Sarah Carroll, John Fox, The Woolworths Blues Sings Empress Hotel Nero Abode Paul Williamson Quartet Uptown Jazz Café Perrins Perversions Grumpy’s Green Poprocks at the Toff, Dr Phil Smith The Toff In Town Reverend Funk Night Cat (City) Rock City Riff Raff, Attack of the Mannequins, Dead City Ruins, Deep End The Tote Shaun Kirk Paddy Tavern Skybombers, The Happy Endings, And Burn Ding Dong Lounge Straight 8’s Ferntree Gully Hotel Tavares Night Cat The Black Sorrows The Substation The Bon Scotts Builders Arms, early show The Daimon Brunton Quartet Paris Cat Jazz Club The Fallen, Dave Graney Billboard The Go Set, The Resignators The Hi-Fi The Mung, Odiusembowel, A Million Dead Birds Laughing, The Ophidian Acension, Wallet Inspector, Fathoms, Pink Fitt Pony The Rebelles, Richie 1250 & The Brides Of Christ, The Shambelles, Anto Mantooth Yah Yah’s The ReChords, Abbie Cardwell Bella Union Trades Hall The Word Trak Lounge Bar Tim Mcmillan Band, Rook, The Evening Son, I A Man, Rusty (Electric Mary) Esplanade Lounge Tim Woods, Jackson Fish, Gallant Trees Cornish Arms Hotel Tracey Miller & the Sun Kings Caravan Music Club Traditional Irish Music Session, Dan Bourke & Friends The Drunken Poet Transit Spenserslive Twelve Foot Ninja Pelly Bar Underbelly Kasbah Christmas Thornbury Theatre Wingman Reveller’s Bar

SAT 11

Adamus Exul, Order Of Orias, Okera, Perserverance The Arthouse Andrew Reid, Kate Lucas, Roger Clark Quartet Dizzy’s Jazz Club Angela Fabian Quartet, Chantal Mitvalsky Quartet Bennetts Lane Apollo Pathway, New Birds, The Whole Molko John Curtin Hotel Audio Pilot Station 59 Blazin’ Marty, Vince Van Go, Vanguard, Defron, Adzl, Bastian Kill Joy, Primary Source, The Creep Team Ruby’s Lounge Bon Jovi Etihad Stadium Brunswick Hotel PA Fundraiser Brunswick Hotel Cash No!, Friend with the Enemy, Backyard Surgeons, Public Liability, Popstrangers, Grandmaster Vicious Pony Chain Gang High Street Car Park, Echuca Cirque De Femmes Burlesque Bar Cold Snap Cornish Arms Hotel ‘Cookin’, Miss Goldie, Dave Boots Gertrude’s Brown Couch Cyantific, Shockone vs Phetsta, MC LowQui Miss Libertine Dead City Ruins, 180 Proof, Red Rockets Of Borneo, The Superguns Esplanade Basement DJ Evo The Deck DJ Pony, Backwood Creatures, JVG Guitar Method, DJ Xander Retreat Hotel Double Black, Captain Reckless & The Lost Souls Ding Dong Lounge Dr Zok, Shane Copal, Benzai, James Ware, Mic Newman, Lewie Day 161 Duchesz, Mat Cant, Paz First Floor Editor, Dysphemic, Unsoundbwoy, 555, Wanklerotaryengine The Johnston Fastrack Reveller’s Bar Feline Faery Fest Armadale Uniting Church Geoff Achison & The Souldiggers Rainbow Hotel Gypsy Brown Night Cat Hayley Couper Edinburgh Castle Hotel Ishu, Pataphysics, Dyl Thomas (DJ Set), Elf Tranzporter (DJ Set), Ice Cream Workers Club Jacket Off Veludo

Jaggers Banquet The Post Office Club Hotel Jam Banquet, Canvas, Nigel B Swifte Builders Arms Hotel Jamie Vlahos, Phil Ross, Frazer Adnam, Scott McMahon, Mr Magoo, Ziggy Billboard Jeff the Brotherhood, Bitter Sweet Kicks, Phantom Agents, Toyota War Rats @ Brown Alley Jodie Moran, Mark Smith, The Hidden Venture St Andrews Hotel Julien Wilson Quartet Uptown Jazz Café Kam Denny Fusion, Crown Kill The Matador, First Base, Daybreak, Calvacade Bendigo Hotel King Fisher, The Marabou Project, The Animators, Phil Para Esplanade Lounge Kriss Hades, Heirs, Agonhymn East Brunswick Club Legends Of Motorsport, Digger & The Pussycats, Wedgetail, Brat Farrar The Tote Loose Joints, Blake, Tig Horse Bazaar Magic Monkey Waterside Hotel Mama Kin, Matt Joe Gow, The House deFROST, Andee Frost The Toff In Town Monique Brumby Trio The Drunken Poet Mr Palmer Precinct New Skin, Tread, In Volume, Forest of Gnomes, Amirala, Fhate Esplanade Gershwin Room Noria Letts Quintet Paris Cat Jazz Club Occult Blood, Ivens, Cocks Arquette, Dick Threats The Old Bar Paul Zala, Lee Cassidy, Jez Vary, Cam Elvey Icon Bar Peter Combe, The Finishing School, Andrew Swift Corner Hotel Pina Tuteri Sporting Club Hotel Ronit Granot, Ginger and Tonic, Blue Notion Wesley Anne Rusted Great Britain Hotel Samson & Delilah Empress Hotel, Arvo Show Scruffy, Beaker, Syme Tollens Abode Sean McMahon, Dave Ong, James McCann, Davey Lane, Spencer P Jones, Mikey Madden, Jules Sheldon, Mess Around, Fanta Pants Yah Yah’s Seedy Jeezus, Wolfgang Wilkins Band, The Martian Kings Chandelier Room

30 Gertrude St, Fitzroy (03) 9417 6420 IUOL=?A ?KI CANPNQ@AO>NKSJ?KQ?D

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Wed. 8th (Wine, Whiskey, Women) 8pm: Kerryn Fields 9pm: Kristy Apps Thurs. 9th 8pm: Tully Sumner 9pm: Gavin Ackerly Fri. 10th 6pm: Traditional Irish Music Session with Dan Bourke & Friends Sat. 11th 9pm: Monique Brumby Trio Sun. 12th 4pm: Tracy McNeil Trio 6.30pm: Alex Burns Tues. 14th 8pm: Shaun Kirk

All Shows Always Free! The Drunken Poet, 65 Peel Street (Directly opposite Queen Vic Market). Phone: 03 9348 9797 www.myspace.com/drunkenpoets twitter.com/inpressmag

gigguide@inpress.com.au Shaun Kirk Wild Thyme Skazz Bar Open Stan Walker Co., Crown Star Assassin, Crash & Burn, Concept Unknown, Scarmouche, Zac Slater Evelyn Hotel Steller, DJ Tim, DJ Ash Glenferrie Hotel Sugar Beat Blue Diamond Sun Tzu, Emerson, Three Time Thrill Bang The Asmatics, Immersion, The Harlequin Chapter Public Bar The Blackeyed Susans, Lisa Miller, The Spoils, The Salvos Thornbury Theatre The Blow Waves, Neon Knights, Brash & Sassy, Ransom, Mat Cant, Spinfx, Julien Love, Paz, Lewis Can Cut Revolver The Boy Who Cried Wolf, Cam Ewart, Rumblefish Empress Hotel The Cartridge Family, Finger Bone Bill Union Hotel Brunswick The Good Suns Grumpy’s Green The Jed Rowe Band Grind ‘n’ Groove Bar

The Kilniks, Rosencrantz, Men they Call Jane, CC The Cat 303 The Moniters, Passport For Amy, I A Man Cherry Bar The Nymphs Builders Arms, early show The Orbweavers Edinburgh Castle, early show Twelve Foot Ninja Ferntree Gully Hotel Wes Pudsey & The Sonic Aces, The Infernos, Sonyta, DJ Duke Tedesco Caravan Music Club Woohoo Revue, Me, Editor Northcote Social Club

SUN 12

Alexis Nicole and the Missing Pieces, Dead Albatross, May Hishmeh Brunswick Hotel Atrocity Burlesque Burlesque Bar Bad at Knitting, Mojo Filter, The Fuckups The Arthouse Blackmolls, Fred Negro’s Kooky Karaoke St Kilda Army & Navy Club

Broderick Smith, Matt Walker Caravan Music Club Catfish Pie Station 59 CC The Cat, Mihirangi Bendigo Hotel City Breaks Signal Courtney Barnett and the Olivettes Edinburgh Castle, early show Dilconcieved Notions (The White Ribbon Fundraiser) John Curtin Hotel Duchesz, Anya First Floor Duksey, Lia Avene, Fifth Element Veludo Ekklesia, The Dead will Tell East Brunswick Club Emergenza Billboard Evan Dando, Spencer P Jones Northcote Social Club Fat Chance Bell Tavern Fergus McAlpine Sporting Club Hotel Festival Sextet, Froy Aagre Bennetts Lane Fiona Boyes Rainbow Hotel Goyim, Chloe Twoig, Melissa Main, Holly Kerby Wesley Anne Grand Wazoo Blue Diamond

Headspace, Dale Ryder Band, Bad Boys Batucada Esplanade Lounge Healesville Music Festival Fundraiser Grind ‘n’ Groove Bar Hogbelly Morton’s Country Revue Union Hotel Brunswick Hugh McGinlay, Susan Lily Chandelier Room Jason Singh Precinct Jesus Hands Terminus Hotel Jody Bell, Cash Savage & The Last Drinks, The High Water Ballroom Band Retreat Hotel Little John, Lindsay Phillips, Emily Ulman The Old Bar Liz Stringer Carringbush Hotel Long Billy Boys Cornish Arms Hotel Los Cabrones Night Cat Monique DiMatina Grumpy’s Green Monsterotica Thornbury Theatre Pet Rocks Builders Arms Hotel Phil Para Manhattan Hotel Popstrangers, Pop Singles, Guests Bar Open Round Table Knights, Boogs, Spacey Space, T-Rek, Radiator Revolver

Ruckus St Andrews Hotel Ryan Sterling The Standard Hotel San Fran Disco, Red Ink, City Calm Down, Russia, Alba Verda, Way With Words Workers Club Sean Simmons Builders Arms, early show Sebastion Rideaux, Butter Time, Superplastique, High Society, Goodsuns, Inkstain Pro The Spot Shane Sewell Gertrude’s Brown Couch Steve Purcell’s Pearly Shells Yorkshire Stingo Hotel The Band Who Knew Too Much, FLAP!, The Red Brigade, Reflejos, Kimba & the Gin Remedy, Dirty Ol’ Dogs, Jugularity, Opa 303 The Dark Shadows, Manic Pistoleros, Wild Turkey, Cyclone Diablo, Casket Radio, Cherrywood The Tote the F100’s Clare Castle Hotel The ReChords The Gem The Refunds, Napolean Conquers All, The Close, Samson, Buchanan, Chasing Valdarie, Mannequin

Alley Esplanade Basement The Scarlets Cherry Bar Tracy McNeil Trio, Alex Burns The Drunken Poet Uncle Bill Guitar Gallery UV Race, Constant Mongrel, School Of Radiant Living Yah Yah’s Washed Out, Matt Van Shie The Toff In Town Wicked Anabelle Lord Newry Hotel

MON 13

Alias & The Jams, Nic Tate, Reece Dillon & the Jellybabies Empress Hotel Andrew Swann Collective Grumpy’s Green Bennetts Lane Big Band Bennetts Lane CC & The Cat Veludo Daryl MacKenzie Jazz Orchestra The Apartment DJ Sir Absolut, Clown, Kristopher Young, Ruth RogersWright, Mark Fitzgibbon Berlin Bar

El Guincho Rooftop Bar (Level 6 Curtin House, City) Fruit Jar’s Old Timey String Band The Old Bar Gypsy & the Cat The Tote Josh Owen Band Esplanade Lounge King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard Workers Club Monday Night Madness! Brunswick Hotel The Adelaide Sax Pack, Mal Webb 303

TUE 14

Anna Morley Collective, The Twoks, Glas Frosch The Old Bar Anna’s Go Go Academy Bendigo Hotel Cine - Cult, Silent Night Deadly Night Part II 303 Dan Webb, Wintercoats Evelyn Hotel DJ Ash Glenferrie Hotel Documentry Gertrude’s Brown Couch

Emma Sidney Dizzy’s Jazz Club Kane Sole, Sons of May, Redefine, Dom Cooley & The Shit Hats, The Advocates, Jamie MacDowell Esplanade Lounge Melbourne Fresh Industry Showcase, Barrie Jessep, Narn, Elizabeth Kaye, I Know a Ghost, Diprosus, Fine Young Theives, Blue Tongues, Never Cheer Before You Know Whos Winning Oasis, Kraymer Tramp Bar Open Mic Night Empress Hotel Open Mic Night Veludo Overproof Transit Lounge Redberryplum, Kite Club, Sikap Sempurna, Snakadaktal The Toff In Town Reverend Horton Heat, Midnight Woolf, The Level Spirits Esplanade Gershwin Room Rock Aerobics, Shaky Memorial Retreat Hotel The Bedroom Philosopher, Giles Field Northcote Social Club The Brunswick Discovery Brunswick Hotel Weekly Trivia The Drunken Poet

Wed 8th

music trivia 7.30pm

Thurs 9th

The Bucket Room; showcase of local and interstate singer/songwriters 8.30pm

Fri 10th

Perrins Perversions; Local band throwing out some funk and grooves 9.30pm

Sat 11th

The Good Suns; rootsy trio, John Butler Meets Sinatra 9.30pm

Sun 12th

Monique Dimatina, jazz and blues piona/vocals 2pm

Mon 13th

Andrew Swann Collective 7.30pm All events at Grumpys Green are Free entry www.grumpysgreen.com 125 Smith Street, Fitzroy

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THURS 9TH

pete satchell (dallas crane)

FRI 10TH

SWAMPLAND SAT 11TH TUNES BY

DENNIS CONFET SUN 12TH

THE RECHORDS TUES 14TH

JIMMY STEWART gembookings@gmail.com

289 WELLINGTON ST COLLINGWOOD 94195170

KITCHEN OPEN 6 NIGHTS

140 Sydney Rd

BRUNSWICKHOTEL.NET

9387 6637

NO COVER CHARGE

WED 8TH OF DEC - 8PM

THE BRUNSWICK HOTEL OPEN MIC! $10 JUGS

THURS 9TH OF DEC - 9PM

FREESTONE FOX AGILITY THE SWEETS

FRI 10TH OF DEC - 9PM

MCALPINE FUSILIERS

AUSTRALIAN KINGSWOOD FACTORY ZEPTEPI

SAT 11TH OF DEC

BRUNSWICK HOTEL PA FUNDRAISER 23 ACTS OVER 2 STAGES 12PM TILL 5AM. $10 ENTRY

SUN 12TH OF DEC - 5PM

ALEXIS NICOLE & THE MISSING PIECES 9PM - DEAD ALBATROSS MAY HISHMEH

MON 13TH OF DEC

MONDAY NIGHT MADNESS $10 JUGS. FREE POOL AND JUKEBOX

TUES 14TH OF DEC

BRUNSWICK HOTEL DISCOVERY GIVING OPPORTUNITIES TO UP AND COMING LOCAL ACTS

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BANG

Sunday Headspace, Dale Ryder Band, Bad Boys Batucada Monday Josh Owen Band Tuesday Kane Sole, Sons of May, Redefine, Dom Cooley & The Shit Hats, The Advocates, Jamie MacDowell

Saturday Sun Tzu, Emerson, Three Time Thrill

BAR OPEN Wednesday Knife Fight, Circuits, Leprosy, War Widow Thursday Streams of Whiskey, Sheldon King Friday Kingfisha, Sine Saturday Skazz Sunday Popstrangers, Pop Singles, Guests

BENDIGO HOTEL Wednesday Open Mic Friday Cash No!, Friend with the Enemy, Subject To Change, Doomsday Saints Saturday Kill The Matador, First Base, Daybreak, Calvacade Sunday CC The Cat, Mihirangi Tuesday Anna’s Go Go Academy

BLUE DIAMOND Friday Fifteenth Avenue Saturday Sugar Beat Sunday Grand Wazoo

BRUNSWICK HOTEL Wednesday Open Mic Thursday Freestone Fox, Agility, The Sweets Friday McAlpine Fusiliers, Australian Kingswood Factory, Zeptepi Saturday Brunswick Hotel PA Fundraiser Sunday Alexis Nicole and the Missing Pieces, Dead Albatross, May Hishmeh Monday Monday Night Madness! Tuesday The Brunswick Discovery

BUILDERS ARMS HOTEL Wednesday Cape Cod Affair, Dogs of Thomas Park, Constant Light Thursday Microflora, Carry Nation, Blood Clot Friday Creswick, Le Foxx Saturday Jam Banquet, Canvas, Nigel B Swifte Sunday Pet Rocks

BURLESQUE BAR Thursday Ladies Night Friday Cirque De Femmes Saturday Cirque De Femmes Sunday Atrocity Burlesque

CARAVAN MUSIC CLUB Friday Tracey Miller & the Sun Kings

SMASHING UP THE YARD Hot off the heels of supporting Shihad and Dead Letter Circus around Australia, Black Devil Yard Boss (BDYB) are back in town to officially launch a brand new single called Smash Stuff. It will be a Christmas show to remember, so for a night of some great local blues, rock, and punk music, catch BDYB with The Sure Shot Hunters and Clowns at the Evelyn Hotel on Friday 17 December. Tickets are available through Oztix and www.blackdevilyardboss.com. Saturday Wes Pudsey & The Sonic Aces, The Infernos, Sonyta, DJ Duke Tedesco Sunday Broderick Smith, Matt Walker

CHERRY BAR Wednesday Bittersweet Kicks, Bombastic Plastic Thursday Soul Safari Friday 5 Venoms, Rock City Riff Raff, Diamond Sins Saturday The Moniters, Passport For Amy, I A Man Sunday The Scarlets

CORNER HOTEL Wednesday Colin Hay, The Little Stevies Thursday That 1 Guy, Mr Percival Friday Girls, The Ancients, Redberryplum Saturday Peter Combe, The Finishing School, Andrew Swift

EAST BRUNSWICK CLUB Wednesday The Stillsons, The Stetson Family, Alysia Manceau Thursday The Field, Qua, Kharkov, DJ Tim Shiel Friday Little Dragon Saturday Kriss Hades, Heirs, Agonhymn Sunday Ekklesia, The Dead will Tell

EDINBURGH CASTLE HOTEL Wednesday Alex Hallahan & Band Thursday Ben Abraham, John Flanagan Friday Magic Mountain Band Saturday Hayley Couper

EMPRESS HOTEL Wednesday Katsina Thursday Bewilderbeast, On Sierra, Fieldlings

Friday Mr Jimmy, Sarah Carroll, John Fox, The Woolworths Blues Sings Saturday The Boy Who Cried Wolf, Cam Ewart, Rumblefish Monday Alias & The Jams, Nic Tate, Reece Dillon & the Jellybabies Tuesday Open Mic Night

EMPRESS HOTEL, ARVO SHOW Saturday Samson & Delilah

ESPLANADE BASEMENT Thursday Archetype, Jordan Clarey, I Know a Ghost, The Young Raptors Friday Mastiff, Invader, Before Black Waters, Seppuku Saturday Dead City Ruins, 180 Proof, Red Rockets Of Borneo, The Superguns Sunday The Refunds, Napolean Conquers All, The Close, Samson, Buchanan, Chasing Valdarie, Mannequin Alley

ESPLANADE GERSHWIN ROOM Thursday Zumba, DJ Gio Luber Friday Durk, Mountfield Plains, Low Speed Bus Chase, Ariochet, Winton Hill Saturday New Skin, Tread, In Volume, Forest of Gnomes, Amirala, Fhate Tuesday Reverend Horton Heat, Midnight Woolf, The Level Spirits

ESPLANADE LOUNGE Wednesday Firepower, Sarah & The King Bees, The Scarecrows, Better Than The Wizards Thursday Red Ink, Colour Age, Passport For Amy Friday Tim Mcmillan Band, Rook, The Evening Son, I A Man, Rusty (Electric Mary) Saturday King Fisher, The Marabou Project, The Animators, Phil Para

EVELYN HOTEL Wednesday KKS Project, University Challenge, Ella Thompson Thursday Slabotomy, Travis Winters, Ryan Sweeney Friday Jungal, Sol Nation, Aurora Jane Saturday Star Assassin, Crash & Burn, Concept Unknown, Scarmouche, Zac Slater Tuesday Dan Webb, Wintercoats

GRACE DARLING HOTEL Friday Mark Wilkenson, Tom Tuena, Dave Anderson

GRUMPY’S GREEN Wednesday Music Trivia Thursday The Bucket Room, Local Singer Songwriter Night Friday Perrins Perversions Saturday The Good Suns Sunday Monique DiMatina Monday Andrew Swann Collective

JOHN CURTIN HOTEL Wednesday Winter Street, Fun Machine, Kaze Thursday Tehachapi, Secretive George, Boogie Monster, The Call Up, Nick & Billy Saturday Apollo Pathway, New Birds, The Whole Molko Sunday Dilconcieved Notions (The White Ribbon Fundraiser)

Tuesday The Bedroom Philosopher, Giles Field

PONY Thursday Jeff the Brotherhood, Barbarion Dozers, Love/Hate, A13, Throbulator Friday The Mung, Odiusembowel, A Million Dead Birds Laughing, The Ophidian Acension, Wallet Inspector, Fathoms, Pink Fitt Saturday Cash No!, Friend with the Enemy, Backyard Surgeons, Public Liability, Popstrangers, Grandmaster Vicious

PRINCE BANDROOM Thursday Clipse, Opulent Sound, Mafia, Mat Cant

RETREAT HOTEL Wednesday Victoriana Gaye Thursday Pony Face Friday Mihirangi, Jack Winter Saturday DJ Pony, Backwood Creatures, JVG Guitar Method, DJ Xander Sunday Jody Bell, Cash Savage & The Last Drinks, The High Water Ballroom Band Tuesday Rock Aerobics, Shaky Memorial

REVOLVER Wednesday Attack of the Mannequins, Vintage Cinema, Dukes A, Shaky Memorial Thursday The Latonas, The Run Run, Dead End, Revolver Designer Market at 3181 Friday Holliava, Celedore, Innerspace, Mike Callander, Matt Radovich, Jamie Stevens, Lewie Day Saturday The Blow Waves, Neon Knights, Brash & Sassy, Ransom, Mat Cant, Spinfx, Julien Love, Paz, Lewis Can Cut

Sunday Round Table Knights, Boogs, Spacey Space, T-Rek, Radiator Tuesday Melbourne Fresh Industry Showcase, Barrie Jessep, Narn, Elizabeth Kaye, I Know a Ghost, Diprosus, Fine Young Theives, Blue Tongues, Never Cheer Before You Know Whos Winning

ROXANNE PARLOUR Thursday Tupinikings Brazilian Party:, DJ CIA, DJ Vini Hasin Friday MC Tiki

ROYAL DERBY HOTEL Wednesday Trivia Thursday Vedran, Dom Dolla, Beetlejuice, Press Play Dj’s, Retza Friday DJ Graeme

TERMINUS HOTEL Sunday Jesus Hands

THE ARTHOUSE Wednesday Trial By Night, High Side Driver, Red Sky Divide, Master_Beta Thursday Joey Cape, Jamie Hay, Darren Gibson Friday Heavy Heavy Low Low, Totally Unicorn, The Omen, Hawaiian Islands Saturday Adamus Exul, Order Of Orias, Okera, Perserverance Sunday Bad at Knitting, Mojo Filter, The Fuckups

Wednesday Chris Altman Sunday The ReChords

THE HI-FI Thursday Broadcast, Seekae, Pikelet Friday The Go Set, The Resignators

THE OLD BAR Wednesday Tim Durkin, Barbara’s Bush, Joe Forrester, Pat Walker Thursday Brash & Sassy, Metals, Polygon Palace Friday Fangs of, Wicked City, Brain Resin, Worm Intentions Saturday Occult Blood, Ivens, Cocks Arquette, Dick Threats Sunday Little John, Lindsay Phillips, Emily Ulman Monday Fruit Jar’s Old Timey String Band Tuesday Anna Morley Collective, The Twoks, Glas Frosch

THE STANDARD HOTEL Wednesday Danny Walsh, Adam Redfern Sunday Ryan Sterling

THE TOFF IN TOWN

Wednesday Wine, Whiskey, Women, Kerryn Fields, Kristy Apps Thursday Tully Sumner, Gavin Ackerly

Wednesday The Kujo Kings, Loonee Tunes, The Operators Thursday Rush In Attack, 8 Bit Love, Zeal, Tranter, Rad Pitt, Megawuoti, Sleeves Friday Poprocks at the Toff, Dr Phil Smith Saturday Mama Kin, Matt Joe Gow, The House deFROST, Andee Frost Sunday Washed Out, Matt Van Shie Tuesday Redberryplum, Kite Club, Sikap Sempurna, Snakadaktal

Wednesday Goyim

NEXT Thursday State Of East London, Atlantis is Burning, Crown Us Thieves, Jimmy Kyle, Summerset Avenue

Wednesday John Lingard, April Maze, Siobhan Thursday Carus Thompson, Loren, The Quarry Mountain Dead Rats Friday Hermitude, Damn Moroda Saturday Woohoo Revue, Me, Editor Sunday Evan Dando, Spencer P Jones

THE GEM

THE DRUNKEN POET

MARQUIS OF LORNE HOTEL

NORTHCOTE SOCIAL CLUB

Friday Traditional Irish Music Session, Dan Bourke & Friends Saturday Monique Brumby Trio Sunday Tracy McNeil Trio, Alex Burns Tuesday Weekly Trivia

THE TOTE

GOT BLOW It’s time to step out of your caves, shake off the stalactites and leave your cardigans at home as Melbourne’s bad boy bandits The Blow Waves light up the summer skies with an onslaught of melody-driven mayhem. After spending months working on their debut album, The Blow Waves take to the Revolver stage this Saturday with their notoriously renowned live show, showcasing some of the new singles off their forthcoming album due for release early in 2011. Support comes from Melbourne’s Neon Knights, bringing their patented blend of chemical wonder and rock’n’roll swagger, and Perth’s granddaughters of Italo disco, Brash & Sassy, touring the East Coast for the first time with their debut EP. Tickets are $15+BF from Moshtix or $20 on the door from 9pm.

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Wednesday Vice Grip Pussies, The Council, Cold Harbour, Seedy Jeezus, Burn In Hell Thursday Shoot the Sun, The Kickers, Society of Beggars Friday Rock City Riff Raff, Attack of the Mannequins, Dead City Ruins, Deep End Saturday Legends Of Motorsport, Digger & The Pussycats, Wedgetail, Brat Farrar

Sunday The Dark Shadows, Manic Pistoleros, Wild Turkey, Cyclone Diablo, Casket Radio, Cherrywood Monday Gypsy & the Cat

THORNBURY THEATRE Thursday Tegan & Sara Friday Underbelly Kasbah Christmas Saturday The Blackeyed Susans, Lisa Miller, The Spoils, The Salvos Sunday Monsterotica

UNION HOTEL BRUNSWICK Thursday Stephen Cummings Saturday The Cartridge Family, Finger Bone Bill Sunday Hogbelly Morton’s Country Revue

UPTOWN JAZZ CAFÉ Wednesday Ben Hauptmann Thursday Steve Magnusson Trio Friday Paul Williamson Quartet Saturday Julien Wilson Quartet

WESLEY ANNE Thursday Jazz City, Magic Mountain Band Friday Black Swans Of Trespass, Chicks With Picks (Deb Bond) Saturday Ronit Granot, Ginger and Tonic, Blue Notion Sunday Goyim, Chloe Twoig, Melissa Main, Holly Kerby

WORKERS CLUB Wednesday The Star Express, Wolfie and the Batcubs Thursday True Live, Young Romantix Friday Class A, Syntax, City Wide Crew, Two Bright Lakes DJ Saturday Ishu, Pataphysics, Dyl Thomas (DJ Set), Elf Tranzporter (DJ Set), Ice Cream Sunday San Fran Disco, Red Ink, City Calm Down, Russia, Alba Verda, Way With Words Monday King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard

YAH YAH’S Thursday Rock Aerobics, Street Chant, Brainwaves, Deep Heat, Infinite Void, Pine Gap Friday The Rebelles, Richie 1250 & The Brides Of Christ, The Shambelles, Anto Mantooth Saturday Sean McMahon, Dave Ong, James McCann, Davey Lane, Spencer P Jones, Mikey Madden, Jules Sheldon, Mess Around, Fanta Pants Sunday*UV Race, Constant Mongrel, School Of Radiant Living

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BEHIND THE LINES THE CAVERNOUS LOW ANTHEM

Recording in unlikely places seems to have become the thing to do in order to find a new sound. The latest example are American indie folk band The Low Anthem who, after surveying dozens of spaces, took their portable recording studio into a cavernous, vacant pasta sauce factory in Central Falls in their home state, Rhode Island to record, over 40 days and nights, their forthcoming album, Smart Flesh. Additional tracking was done in a Providence, Rhode Island garage. While the four multi-instrumentalists that make up The Low Anthem took care of producing the album, it was mixed in Omaha, Nebraska by Mike Mogis, whose credits include Bright Eyes, of which he is a member, and Monsters Of Folk, at his Presto! Recording Studios, with additional mixing done by engineer Jesse Lauter, who helped the band set up their studio in the pasta factory, in New York. As band member Ben Knox Miller explains in the official press release, they were looking at the space in which they were recording to effectively be “the main instrument for the whole record. We were able to experiment with new recording techniques to capture the sound at different distances. Mics 100, even 200 feet away caught the sound barrelling across the room.” The album will be released at the end of February.

SHURE NOW BETA

Renowned for their solid live vocal performance microphones, Shure have just released four new instrument mics in their Beta range, distributed in Australia by Jands. The Beta 91A has been designed specifically with the bass or kick drum in mind. Using a half-cardioid condenser boundary mic with an integrated XLR preamp, it’s tailored for a strong low-end response. There’s a two-position contour switch for optimising the sound signature and can also be used for other low frequency applications, like piano. The Beta 98A/C is a high-output miniature cardioid condenser mic ideal for a variety of instruments where warm, natural sound reproduction is essential, like percussion, piano, reed, wind and string instruments. The Beta 98AD/C similarly uses a miniature cardioid condenser mic that uses an extremely uniform cardioid polar patter that provides excellent gain-before-feedback and off-axis rejection of unwanted noise, so is ideal for toms, snare drum and percussion. The Beta 181 is an ultra-compact, small diaphragm side-address condenser mic with four interchangeable capsules that offer different polar positions, thus allowing discreet placement and versatility in tight conditions. It’s a multi-purpose mic that can be used right across the board from guitars to bass to drums.

SIMPLY GUITAR THE MACKAY WAY

Currently touring with his band Twelve Foot Ninja, guitarist, songwriter and producer Steve Mackay is also working on a follow-up to his very successful Simply Guitar tuition book and DVD, based on what he feels is a quite unique teaching methodology he has developed. A National Line 6 Clinician for the Australian Music Group, Mackay’s book/DVD, distributed internationally by Hinkler Books, recently passed a million copies sold, which is pretty impressive, so I’ll get him to talk about the new book when it’s published in March next year.

READ ABOUT RUBIN

If there’s a producer who refuses to allow himself to get pinned down to a particular genre, it’s the multi-Grammy Award-winning Rick Rubin, whose name appears there right up front on the new album, Illuminations, from American classical pop phenomenon Josh Groban. Rubin has DJed with the Beastie Boys, co-founded Def Jam Records, has produced metal giants Danzig, Slayer and Metallica, set up American Recordings and revived the careers of Johnny Cash and Neil Diamond, and has even produced Shakira and The Dixie Chicks. So it’s well worth seeking out Rick Rubin: In The Studio (ECW Press), a comprehensive look at the art and craft of the producer by Nashville-based rock biographer Jake Brown, chock full of behind-the-scenes stories on the making of some of these albums.

THE COLOUR GREY Mark Free – owner Is the studio capable of holding a full band at once for recording? “We’re not so much set up for recording, more for rehearsing. But in terms of that, we manage to fit all of Rat Vs Possum in, which is five people plus guitar, bass, three synths, laptops and lord knows how many drums.” We’re an impoverished indie band – do you offer any deals for acts in our situation? “Absolutely, we cater almost exclusively to impoverished indie acts.” Do you have any in-house instruments at the studio acts can use, or is it totally BYO? “We provide drum kits and PA. The rest is BYO but we offer storage with your booking.” What’s the access to the studio like with regards to parking, flat load, etc? “Street parking in the area is ample and the load-in is a single step up, but using our storage you’ll rarely even need to drive to practice.” What’s the studio set-up you have there equipment-wise? “Fairly basic but effective. We’ve got a couple of Mackie Thump 15a powered speakers, a 16-channel Mackie desk with on-board effects and four mics with stands. There’s also a choice of a Gretsch jazz drum kit or a Pearl.” Any tips for artists entering a studio for the first time? “Not really. Just have fun!” Which notable artists have worked at the studio? “All our artists are notable in our opinion. On the roster so far we’ve had Love Connection, Rat Vs

Possum, Tantrums, Absolute Boys, A Dead Forest Index and whole bunch of other rising stars.” Who do you have on staff and what’s their background in the industry? “Just Mark McCrystal and I at the moment. We both play in our own bands and have been in and around various music scenes for most of our lives.” Can bands bring in their own engineer or do they have to solely use a house engineer? “Bands can do as the please as long as they leave the place how they found it.”

Working in the studio can be arduous and we’ll need a break – what are the amenities in the local area? “We’ve got a relaxation room with couches, tea and good coffee, Far Side comics and National Geographic mags. High Street is just a block away where you can find El Joyero cafe, Northern Soul and a couple of cheeky second-hand record stores.” What are your contact details? markwfree@gmail.com or Mark McCrystal: 0435 038 946

BIG SOUNDS Producer extraordinaire and “studio rat” DANIEL LANOIS tells MICHAEL SMITH about the new dub technique he’s invented with his BLACK DUB project, and his time spent working with Neil Young and U2. Canadian-born Daniel Lanois was an aspiring singer, songwriter and guitarist when he set up his first studio in the basement of his mother’s house with his brother Bob. From there, he set up Grant Avenue Studios in an old house in Hamilton, Ontario where he produced two albums for Martha & The Muffins, after his sister, who joined the band as bass player, introduced him. It was through these recordings that Brian Eno picked up on Lanois’ potential and called him in to collaborate on the track Dunwich Beach on his 1982 Ambient 4: On Land album. Within two years, Lanois and Eno were co-producing U2’s The Unforgettable Fire and in 1987, The Joshua Tree Tree.. Lanois has gone on to work with artists as diverse as Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Emmylou Harris and Peter Gabriel, but since 1989, when he released his own debut album, Acadie Acadie,, Lanois has also re-established himself as an artist. His most recent album, Black Dub,, is a collaborative project with singer, songwriter Dub and multi-instrumentalist Trixie Whitley, Belgian-born daughter of the late American alt.country artist Chris Whitley, the four-piece filled out by rhythm section Daryl Johnson on bass and Brian Blade on drums. “It was pretty much live off the floor,” Lanois, on the line from a café in Montreal, explains, the quiet grin palpable in his voice. “It’s reassuring when you can get them that way. It means you’ve got a pretty good band there to play with. Even though the tracks were recorded all over the world because I’m a bit of a troubadour and vagabond when it comes to recording – I’ve always got something in the trunk of the car! – the vocals were done in Toronto and Los Angeles, and quite quickly. Trixie’s a first-taker.”

SOUND BYTES

Featuring members of Karnivool, Cog and Scary Mother, the Sydney-based Floating Me have cut an as-yet untitled debut album with producer Forrester Savell (The Butterfly Effect, Karnivool, Dead Letter Circus).

“I’ve always had a dream to make very rhythmic music, so this is my segue into a more groovebased music. I’ve always liked the Jamaican dub culture – in fact I’ve been a resident of Jamaica for 15 years – and I love the forefathers of dub: Lee Scratch Perry and others. I’ve always like the minimal display but with rock and soul underneath of it all.

The Waifs, who are all basically living in the US full-time these days, spent ten days in a basement in Minneapolis recording their sixth album, Temptation, due for release in March.

STUDIO PROFILE

Lanois ran into Whitley a couple of years ago at a festival in Belgium he was playing as a two-piece with Blade. A family friend – he’d played guitar on Chris Whitley’s 1991 Living With The Law album – she presented him with a CD of her own music that impressed Lanois enough to invite her along to do a session. Her ability and soulfulness became the final component for a project he had in mind.

The Resignators took themselves off to Montreal, Canada to record their latest album, See You In Hell, with Canadian label Stomp Records producer Alex Giguère (The Beatdown).

BROUGHT TO YOU BY

“Some of the songs are very band-oriented and some are more studio rat-oriented – that’s what I call myself, ‘Studio Rat’! The more laboratory aspect of things I still love of course and a lot of what I do is born that way. There’s an instrumental on the record called Slow Baby – that’s obviously sample-

Black Dub in the studio; Lanois second from left

driven and rhythm box-driven but there’s also a lot of vitality in the topping, the guitar playing.” Sitting over a rhythm section informed by not only dub reggae but also enough jazz and funk to keep the groove interesting, Lanois’ guitar sounds are typically cinematic and yet edgy. “That’s a combination really. Some of the sounds are more straight up and guttural, like you hear on Slow Baby – there’s not a lot of trickery with those – and then I’m fascinated by this new dub technique that I’ve invented. That’s where the name Black Dub came from and it’s a technique where I extract from already existing ingredients in the recording, work on the sounds and spin them back in to the appropriate places, and that’s most evident on the track Where Love Lives. Lives. I don’t know where a sound will come and it’s directly related to one of the components already in the music but it jumps out as a surprise. Sometimes I apply voltage control oscillators to that, which gives it a human voice sound. It’s something I’ve been working on for years and I think the Black Dub record shows it off a bit and I also recently made a Neil Young record and that really displays that technique in a big way.” That Neil Young record is his latest solo album, Le Noise, Noise, which was recorded in Lanois’ home in the Silverlake area of Los Angeles. As it happens, Lanois has recently opened a new studio, The Temple, at Roncesvalles

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in Toronto. While Lanois describes the Young album as “a man on a stool [playing acoustic and electric guitars] and me doing a nice job on the recording,” it’s those trademark sonic textures that sets it apart. “I hit on this technique years ago, and I use boxes – old boxes and new boxes – they’re really just sampling devices. You can think of like, you’ve made a beautiful suit – now you’ve got to put on the pockets. So you take from an already existing motif and maybe blow it up eight times in size and then the pocket goes on and it’s clearly a different expression – genetically associated but not identical at first glance.” I couldn’t of course let Lanois go, despite getting the wind-up from the operator, without a quick question about his working with U2. “Oh yeah, the Dublin boys! I think about them every day. They’re like family to me so I always think, ‘What’s Larry Mullen gonna think of this beat?’ The Unforgettable Fire and The Joshua Tree,, that whole period in the ‘80s, it was pretty Tree much nose to the grindstone and I had no social life. Those records are quite deep and profound I think, largely I think because of the concentration we had in those days. I can only take so much responsibility – those guys are a force. It was nice to be with them and we kind of grew up together in the studio.” Black Dub is out on Jive/Sony Music.

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ENTERTAINMENT

tocaster.(Mexico) Updated model including new tinted neck. Different colour options available. Package includes Guitar, gig bag and stand. RRP $1100 Logans Price $756 Heaps of other Fender bargains instore. Logans Music (02) 9744 2400 www. loganspianos.com.au AUTHORISED FENDER DEALER iFlogID: 6618

FENDER STRATOCASTER DAN SMITH 1982. RARE MOCHA BROWN. ORIGINAL BODY AND PARTS. IN FENDER CASE. EXCELLENT CONDITION. CALL 0432 224 799. FOR MORE INFO. iFlogID: 9895

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Australia’s leading online employment and news website dedicated to backstage. The website is free to search and join with out any hassles of membership fees. www.backstagejobs.com.au

BURLESQUE & DRAG EYELASHES Petticoats & Gallantry has launched a new range of exclusive, boutique handmade & decorated false eyelashes perfect for going out. With a mix of over-the-top dramatic lashes suitable for Performances, Burlesque, Drag and even just for a special night out, you’re sure to find some one-ofa-kind false eyelashes to wear. Each pair is customised and decorated by hand in a variety of themes, and commission orders are very welcome. www.petticoatsandgallantry.com.au Look for us on facebook for exclusive promotions. iFlogID: 6658

Joe Meek Twin Q recording strip. Mic pre/compressor/limiter/equaliser stereo/twin channel recording strip, barely used, perfect condition. Adds awesome vintage mojo to recordings. Sounds fantastic. I’m selling all my recording gear. I paid $1450, sell $750!

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AMPS Fender Super Reverb. 1969 Vintage 4 x 12” combo. Minor cosmetic damage. Great amp. $2895 or near offer. Call Frank 0434 686 755 or 02 9740 8333. iFlogID: 9809

Fender twin reverb combo amplifier, later 70’s. reverb and tremolo. 100+ watts. silver face with foot switch, on casters. All original including the valves no tears anywhere. excellent condition. $2100. Contact brendon at email mccarrison@aapt.net.au

Brand New Gibson SG Standard Lefthanded guitar. Heritage chrery finish including Gibson hard case. Logans Price $1999 WOW! (righthanded also available!) Logans Music Burwood (02)97442400 www. loganspianos.com.au AUTHORISED GIBSON DEALER iFlogID: 6614

GUITAR AMPLITUBE IRIG

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Line 6 Flextone 2 combo. 2 x 12” speakers. Good condition with full pedal board. sell $795 or near offer. Call Frank on 0434 686 755 or 02 9740 8333. iFlogID: 9805

Markbass Studio Pre500 amp. Top of the line unit, used on 3 sessions, still under Warranty. Retail $4395...Sell $2500 o.n.o. Call Frank 0434 686 755 or 02 9740 8333

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Marshall 2x12 cab up for sale! 2x 65watt celestion speakers both brand new, 4 screw in wheels carry handles , great quality , $350 or best offer,so if your interested call us on 0435510600 iFlogID: 9915

PEAVEY BANDIT 11 80 watt 12” combo guitar amp.USA made.2 channel footswitchable.reverb,saturation etc. great fat tones.VGC.$350 Ph. 0428744963.cooroy. iFlogID: 9913

BASS Warwick Streamer II 5 String Bass Guitar. As made famous by Dirk Lance of Incubus. As new condition.

Win a Pearl Forum drum kit with cymbals. Drummers Paradise are celebrating their 21st birthday by giving away a Pearl Black Forum 5 piece kit with cymbals. Just go to www.drummersparadise.com.au to enter. Prize is Drawn Dec 21st a noon. iFlogID: 9939

GUITARS

AmpliTube iRig. Plug your guitar into your iPhone/iPod touch/iPad and jam anywhere with world class guitar and bass tone right in the palm of your hand - from the leader in studio-class guitar and bass software. Simply plug the iRig interface into your mobile device, plug your instrument into the appropriate input jack, plug in your headphones, amp or powered speakers, download AmpliTube for iPhone Free and start rocking! You’ll have at your fingertips the sound and control of 3 recombinable simultaneous stompbox effects + amplifier + cabinet + microphone just like a traditional guitar or bass stage rig! Add amps and effects as you need them — you can expand your rig with up to 11 stomps, 5 amps, 5 cabinets and 2 microphones in the AmpliTube iRig app custom shop. ONLY $59.99 UNBEATABLE Logans Music (02)9744 2400 www.loganspianos.com.au iFlogID: 6545

Lowden acoustic guitar. Made in Ireland 2003. Model 032C cutaway. Rosewood back and sides, sitka spruce top. Abalone inlays. Hiscox case. Mint unused condition suit new buyer $3500. Ph Brendon on mobile 0417644600. iFlogID: 9423

MATON accoustic steel string 3/4 guitar.model F 11.dated 10/73.no 1591. all australian timbers.good origional condition.suit collector.$500. Ph 0428744963. Cooroy iFlogID: 9811

Tobacco Burst 1974 USA Gibson SG Looks it’s age if your into that relic rock’n’roll been around the traps look. Sounds amazing. A real character & a reluctant sale. Recently had professional setup & comes with it’s original hard case. iFlogID: 9430

AUCTION Saturday 11th December 2010 @ 10:30 AM In our Rooms, 41 Greens Road, Dandenong South Music: 12 x Electric Guitars(1991Fender/Yamaha/Morris/ Ibanez/SX),Guitar leads & stands ,Hammond Organ, Matador Bongos, Hohne Harmonicas, Gazoos, Guitar Cases, etc. www.mckearneys.com McKEARNEY’S AUCTIONEERS & VALUERS iFlogID: 9799

FENDER SRATOCASTER. PINK PAISLEY. genuine early 80’s.with hardcase.all origional.plays great. beautiful tone and sustain.very rare. suit collector. exellent condition. $2500. Ph 0428744963 iFlogID: 9815

MIXERS Mackie Onyx 1620 analog mixer w/ SKB Mighty Gig Rig on wheels (Complete mobile PA / recording system can be racked in this rig). 8 preamps w/ direct recording out. iFlogID: 9850

Sell Control Surface Digidesign Control 24 (Focusrite) in excellent condition, $5000. Selling because moving overseas. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions and in order to discuss the price. iFlogID: 9736

OTHER Avalon 737SP micpre/compressor/ equaliser Amazing Class A professional quality recording strip, used by studios everywhere. Hardly used! Very regretful sale. Perfect cond. RRP $3400, selling $1800!

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Vintage 1960’s “Optro” 305 compressor limiter. Vintage & classic 2RU broadcast transformer balanced opto compressor/limiter, in great working condition. Great vintage mojo. As used by Festival, ABC and Metropolis studios. Bargain! Sell for $675!

PA EQUIPMENT

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DRUMS

iFlogID: 9813

iFlogID: 9564

HUGHES & KETTNER TRIAMP MK2 Amazing sounding amp! Used on Top 40 Aria recordings and National Arena Tours. Priced to Sell $2800 PHONE LUKE: 0400077901 iFlogID: 9677

Quested F11.. 2 way active near field monitors. Pro grade quality. Good Condition. $1395 or near offer. Call Frank 0434 686 755 or 02 9740 833.

Billiard Table 8’x4’, Blue, slate, Ash Timbers, Teak Gloss Finish. Also inc Pool Balls, snooker balls, Triangle, 4 Cues, 2 Chalk ,Rule Book, 1 Cross Rest and Handle, Brush. cue & ball stand, score board attached to 2 drawer table. iFlogID: 9672

BSSound PA & Lights SALE Grays Online Auction: 2 to 8 December. Inspection day Tuesday 7 December. 150 Lots of brand-name microphones, speakers, effects, amps, mixers, road-cases and lights. www. bssound.com.au/sale.htm www. graysonline.com/sale/67713 Mark Barry on 0419 993 966 iFlogID: 9651

CARVER U.S.A Twin 900 watt split mono power amp with Bose controller/pre amp. rack mount style.in covered case.will run 4 speakers each side.total 1800 watts.LOUD! VGC $750 lot.Ph.0428744963 cooroy iFlogID: 9308

MUSIC SERVICES BAND MERCHANDISE NOT AVAILABLE FOR FREE ADS. CL - PRO QUALITY BACKING TRACKS! - MIDI or MP3 - Any song you want - Send me the song today, Get the MIDI file the next day! - $25 for MIDI / $35 for mp3 - EMAIL: vangelis2133@ yahoo.com PHONE: 0449672435

MINSTREL MANAGEMENT Need help with your music career? We provide the best in Recording, Mastering, Tours, Promotion, Publicity, Solicitation, Merchandise, Music Video’s, Photography, International Licensing, Direct to fan Marketing campaigns. WANT TO TAKE YOUR ACT TO THE NEXT LEVEL? www.minstrelmanagement.com iFlogID: 9681

OTHER Commercial Radio Airplay, get your songs on Radio! Interested? contact andy@zfmcountrywide.com iFlogID: 9406

free iphone and nokia apps Radio Bondi

iFlogID: 9548

Free Radio Bondi Fm Iphone app, visit the app store, search for radio bondi, download free app, enjoy! iFlogID: 9408

Heavy Metal Community

iFlogID: 9594

SELL YOUR BANDS C.D’S ONLINE!!!! www.rocknpops.com/unsignedmoozik iFlogID: 9373

SIGNUP FREE! SONGUPLOAD FREE! RockCraze.com is a Musicians Social Networking Portal. We created an opportunity for Musicians, Song Writers. Bands and DJ’s to not only keep close ties with their fan-base but to also sell your own music on RockCraze.com Share your works on RockCraze with all the other SNS’s like Twitter, Facebook, Myspace including many others. iFlogID: 9972

www.ozjam.com.au is free to join, and with over 4500 members its fast becoming the largest online music community in Australia! If your looking to join or form a band, find a band member, or get exposure check Ozjam out today! iFlogID: 9941

iFlogID: 9706

BOOKING AGENTS Gig Launch has heaps of opportunities for artists in Australia and around the world. We’re always on the hunt for new artists, so head over to www. giglaunch.com.au and get submitting! Go Aussie, Go Gig Launch iFlogID: 9386

Gig Launch is Australia’s first online booking agency. Gig on a Japanese Boat for 6 months at AU$3000 per month, Submit your music to feature films, Play at any of the Scorcherfest festivals and Apollo Bay! Just head to www.giglaunch.com.au iFlogID: 10004

SnakeEyeProductions offers EPK’s also know as electronic press kits, they work as a bio/show reel, to promote your band to bookers/ promoters/labels and venues. PH0416120639 iFlogID: 9588

PA / AUDIO / ENGINEERING PA/OPERATOR FOR HIRE For as low as $100, you get a PA system with a sound mixer, complete with a human operator as well to set it up for you for the evening. Contact Chris 0419 272 196. iFlogID: 7415

Tony Day P.A. & Lighting Hire. Comedy Shows/ Small Bands/ Functions. Delivered/ Set Up/ Operated. Reasonable and Negotiable rates with experienced owner/ operator service. Also, Walk-In mixes with mic kit. tonyday66@hotmail.com 0414092463 iFlogID: 9832

PRINTING BAND & DJ SIGNAGE!!

iFlogID: 9854

EP RELEASE EVERY SONG - RADIO READY! SPECIAL PRICE avail for singer/songwriters until end of January 2011... Have 5 songs produced, mixed & mastered for ONLY $499 per track!!! Email info@nathaneshman.com for more details as conditions apply. Visit

iFlogID: 9842

Studio Recording and musician services. iFlogID: 9862

REPAIRS MIKES GUITAR GARAGE GUITAR REPAIRS & SETUPS www.mikesguitargarage.com (02)95862486. We are passionate about Guitar Repairs. From simple restrings, complete setups, repairing broken headstocks or installing pickups, we can do ANYTHING! We can get your favourite axe sounding and playing better! iFlogID: 9578

ROCKIN REPAIRS - GUITAR TECH RESTRINGS-SETUPS-UPGRADESREPAIRS Do you live to play? Whether you’ve bought a new guitar or a favourite is feeling faded, we’ll rejuvenate it! We work hard to give you the feel/sound you want! 0405253417 tara@rockinrepairs.com www.rockinrepairs.com iFlogID: 9340

TUITION GUITAR LESSONS! Luke has been at the forefront of the Australian Music Industry for the past 10 years. Signing to 4 record labels, sharing management with Matchbox 20, playing National arena’s, and writing songs with Eskimo Joe. Call: 0400077901 iFlogID: 9679

iFlogID: 9852

RECORDING STUDIOS Eternal Post Production

iFlogID: 9698

iFlogID: 9720

Lead guitarist looking to form/ join a heavy metal band,on the central coast. Influences: Mercyful Fate, Judas Priest, Metallica,Iron maiden,Kalmah,Dethklok - Blake 0403138542 iFlogID: 9836

MUSICIANS WANTED BASS PLAYER Bass player , experienced for original trio iFlogID: 10016

Double Bass to play swing, blues, rock n roll. Vocal ability a plus. Regular work. Vini & The Moonlighters vatm.com.au iFlogID: 9542

NTL. TOURING GRP WITH AGENCY & UK/US DEAL W/AU DISTRO NEEDING BASSIST NOW! ‘ROCK N ROLL/INDIE/ NEW WAVE’ - MUSICALLY PROFICIENT, MANY GENRES AS BONUS. DO NOT CONTACT IF U NO PLAYING WEB (must have myspace etc.) - newplaying@live.com iFlogID: 9880

DRUMMER

VOX MUSIC ACADEMY FOR GUITAR • VOCAL • BASS • DRUM TUITION Get the very best out of your music career. BOOK NOW! Vacancies at Dandenong, Bayswater & Brunswick. Contact Us info@voxmusic.com.au or PH (03) 8772 2605 iFlogID: 9907

VIDEO / PRODUCTION SnakeEyeProductions specializes in live gig film clips for your website or myspace. Filming in HD with broadcast quality equipment, we edit clips and provide DVD transfers/authoring and uploads. Great way to make your music stand out from the rest. ph-0416120639 iFlogID: 9584

MUSICIANS AVAILABLE DRUMMER I am looking to join a funk/R&B/ soul cover or originals band. I’m 33, played for 20 years, and have own equipment. Tony 0437 725 521 iFlogID: 9643

Pro level drummer with good vocal ability available for gigs, sessions, tours etc. Good gear, good attitude, own transport. Can play many styles, specialising in Rock and Funk. Based on the Sunshine Coast. Call Paolo on 0404054743 iFlogID: 10012

GUITARIST Pro guitarist / singer available

iFlogID: 10022

17 yr/o guitarist been playing 5yrs keen to join a hard rock/ metal band, no scremo, death core bullshit, real metal, influences megadeth,maiden,priest,guns n roses etc... interested? call 0435510600

iFlogID: 9967

Early 30’s Melbourne guitarist forming a band.I detest naming bands as I have my own style but I dig theMelvins, Entombed’Pig Destroyer’Sonic Youth, Pixies’Jucifer’Fugazi’Baroness, Darkthrone’Shellac’I was wanting to play a mix of blacknoisepunk’death’d oom’indie’grind. give me a high sign iFlogID: 9568

Experienced Guitarist looking for good Sydney Cover Band. At 23 I have been playing for over 10 years, have 4 years professional touring experience, Pro Gear (Fender, Gibson,

singer wanted for metal bandin kiama shelharbour area, no scremo gay shit, true metal, looking for someone who writes songs with meaning and purpose not just about deamons and death so if interested call at 0435510600

GUITARIST WANTED TO TEACH

Sydney Band looking for creative singer to write some original music with. 18 - 25 years old, music genre ranging from soft modern rock (Temper Trap) to alternative (tool/ porcupine tree). Give us a call. 0431 485 328 (Toby).

iFlogID: 10029

iFlogID: 9631

iFlogID: 9949

Dedicated drummer wanted for originals band. Songs ready to go with all other members organised. Drum parts just need to be arranged though. Influences - Sonic Youth, Slowdive, MBV, BJM, The Cure, etc. Ph - 0403929446 iFlogID: 9363

Drummer experience required

iFlogID: 10018

Drummer needed for indie rock band. Influences: early KOL, Bloc Party, Radiohead. myspace/tierraoutlaws. Contact Andrew 0408255644 iFlogID: 9927

Drummer wanted for weekly jams with view for fun improv, song writing, strange rhythms, gigs, money. Reference points include: Phish, Gojira, Tom Waits, Fishbone, Primus. mrmoolking@yahoo.com iFlogID: 9992

Drummer Wanted! hey were a couple of guys who are keen to get a serious metal band up and running in kiama area ,so far just guitar and bass influenced by megadeth,maiden,slayer so if interested call at 0435510600 iFlogID: 9499

Female drummer wanted for Brisbane rock dance band. Inf: RATM, RHCP, P!nk, Suzi Quatro, Alanis Morrissette. Must be 18 - 35 y.o., photogenic and be ambitious. Ph 0437 428 859 or 3267 6789. iFlogID: 9934

Mature dynamic metal band based in Hills/Blacktown,Sydney. Infl: Rock, Grunge, Black, Death, Hardcore, Groove, Doom...etc Looking for like-minded drummer, own gear & car. Practice weekly. Gig monthly. myspace.com/cursedwithsanity. PLEASE NO TIME WASTERS! iFlogID: 9616

Sydney contemporary rock band is looking for a young vibrant 22-30-yr drummer to join now!!! Songs ready to go, gigs waiting for us and we are ready to record our first album early 2011.

iFlogID: 9501

iFlogID: 9438

Young,talented and committed male and female lead vocalists required for soul/pop project in Newcastle. Ph 0449 201149

iFlogID: 9844

Brisbane alt rock band Greenthief are relocating to Melbourne early 2011. Seeking a new committed hard hitting drummer age 18-25. Email: management@greenthief.com to arrange audition/for more details. myspace.com/greenthief.com (Inf Mars Volta, Radiohead, Tool, RATM, Nin, Jeff Buckley)

iFlogID: 9795

ROCK BAND. PREFERABLY AGED BETWEEN 18-25. WE ARE SUPPORTING CHOIRBOYS IN MELBOURNE IN JANUARY AND WE ARE LINING UP MORE GIGS IF YOU WANT MORE INFO THEN CONTACT US... 0404 166 433 pippincopps@yahoo.com.au

SESSION GUITARIST available to play on your next track remotely via the internet. Great quality tracks without the expenses of studio time and travel. Perfect for producers/songwriters Excellent equipment,tone and touch, 20 years experience. For examples further information- www. rockethouseproductions.com

8 piece soul, reggae and funk style band in Marrickville, Sydney looking for a drummer who can be ready to gig in 8 weeks! Rehearsals 11-3pm every Sunday in St Peters, please contact us if you are interested, jon@ low-gear.com

Credits: Marcia Hines, Candice Alley & Fergie Frederikson (ex-Toto)... Nathan Eshman is available for online guitar sessions. Email him your guide tracks & you’ll receive tracks recorded in a pro studio without leaving home. Contact info@nathaneshman.com or visit www.nathaneshman.com ANY BUDGET! STAND OUT FROM THE CROWD! Whether it be drumskin decals, logo design, or a portable stage backdrop, allow Brainchild Project Management take your gig to the next level. You sound great, now look great - dont be just another Band/DJ at just another venue...let your fans know who you are, and advertise your name at the same time!

endorsed by Mesa/Boogie). Email anthony at anthony320chmiel@hotmail.com No Time wasters please.

SINGING LESSONS Certified Speech Level Singing (SLS) Instructor. Learn the Technique of over 120 Grammy award winners. Extend your Range. No more Breaks/Flips. Develop Strength. All Styles. Eastern Suburbs. www.myspace.com / mazvocalstudio - Contact Maz: maz@mazmazak.com

iFlogID: 9645

DUPLICATION/ MASTERING Deluxe Mastering: Melbourne’s premier mastering specialists for CD, vinyl and online release. Servicefocused, relaxed atmosphere, decades of experience in all genres, custom analogue signal path. Noobligation quotes & mix evaluations. See website for credits. w: www. deluxemastering.com.au e: adam@ deluxemastering.com

SINGER/SONGWRITERS have a home studio and require a producer to help polish your tracks? High-end recording studio with the convenience and universal application of the Internet. World class session musicians work with you every step of the way- more information www.rockethouseproductions.com

iFlogID: 9544

We seek guitar players who are looking to earn money teaching guitar. Training and teaching materials are supplied. Teach from one of our schools or your own location. Limited positions available. Visit www.g4guitar.com.au for details. iFlogID: 7447

looking to start up a new acoustic band from scratch and am keen to get it started. looking for over age of 18 and needs to be able to contribute as a two piece band. Shane

SERVICES GRAPHIC DESIGN DESIGN, SIGNAGE & PRINT. Stickers, CD Artwork and more: www.farfromhere.com.au iFlogID: 9417

MUSICIAN & BAND WEBSITES

iFlogID: 9371

National touring band require professional guitarist. Age 18 -25. Must be proficient in all forms of Rock, Blues, Roots.Involves backing high profile artists. Show operates out of Queensland. For further details email marty@thewindupdolls.com or phone 0408 010 789 iFlogID: 9925

singer looking for musos to jam or form a band iFlogID: 9618

KEYBOARD Experienced keyboard player wanted for recording house music in Melbourne. For more information call Ozzy 0412 704 613 iFlogID: 9361

OTHER

Create your presence online and get noticed. Sydney based web designers are here to help you create and design your website with ease. We specialise in building websites that work. When you hire us to design your website we’ll give you a product that looks great and that actually works for your business or service. Packages start from $400 Call Richard or Kelly on 0424 125 169 iFlogID: 6665

Offering a range of design services www.melissahowarddesign.com iFlogID: 9602

Festival4Stars International Songwriting Contest - now accepting submissions. Prize of an all expenses paid trip to London, and all song submissions receive written feedback from the judges. Heat 3 winners receive $300. To submit your song, head to www.giglaunch.com.au

Professional Band and Business Websites: Videos, audio clips/jukebox, Photogallery, Gig Dates, About Us, Contact Us and much more from $399 fully hosted. See www. bizwebsites.com.au or contact info@ bizwebsites.com.au today!

Sydney gigs available - Empire Hotel. Launching Empire Unplugged November 25th as a showcase for Sydney artists. To submit to play, go to the Gig Launch website at www. giglaunch.com.au

Do you have an Iphone? If yes, please download my free app, radio bondi, cheers

iFlogID: 9840

iFlogID: 9388

iFlogID: 9398

Sydney gigs available - Low302. Darlinghurst. Looking for bands to play, show usually starts around 9pm. To submit to play, go to the Gig Launch website at www.giglaunch.com.au iFlogID: 9400

SINGER CAUSTIC ATTACK are a Sydney based Grindcore band in search of a vocalist. This vocalist must listen to: Napalm Death Carcass Morbid Angel Repulsion Celtic Frost Discharge Doom Crass If you’re interested contact us via myspace. www.myspace. com/causticattack iFlogID: 9870

Hi, I’m looking for a great male vocalist. To sing only one dance song. Thanks

OTHER

iFlogID: 9653

Is your life a cluttered mess? Take it Shake it Life Coaching visit www.tisi. me Xmas gift vouchers available.

iFlogID: 9458

Want to capture a live performance? Professional live recording 24 tracks, mixed and mastered my experienced audio engineer. Can also record and band mix tracks themselves.Done on budget.0406456364 iFlogID: 9504

WANTED OTHER missing .. man from sydney central yha.. with red hair and leather cuffs.. this is maxine kezerle..chick with roxy pants...would you like to go out for dinner sometime?? 0432470048 iFlogID: 9356

iFlogID: 9860

Looking for singers/songwriters for electronica/indie/dance project. More info mail to reigovilbiks@gmail.com Location Perth. Reigo iFlogID: 9442

Require a strong professional female singer with cover band experience for high end Corporate and private Functions Party Covers Band and agency backed! Send CV/bio to info@ techwebdevelopers.com on receipt I will send applicable band website, setlists, songs etc

to matt damon.. and the 7foot something guy from the yha.. does anyone know you?? i keep trying to ring the places where i think you’d be to no avail..i know its been years.. please call.. iFlogID: 9741

to the guy from the sydney central yha.. please send me a message.. ill take you out for christmas dinner.. love, maxine

iFlogID: 9714

iFlogID: 9661

We need a drummer. Our name is ‘Hero In Your Own Lunch Box’. We want to keep improving and play gigs! We sound like this currently: (hiyolb.bandcamp.com) in a year we hope to sound a million times better with you! iFlogID: 9864

GUITARIST GUITARIST WANTED FOR SYDNEY

DO IT FOR FREE!

For a limited time. Free online and print classifieds Book now, visit iflog.com.au 90

iFlogID: 9955