23.09.15 Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture
Brisbane / Free / Incorporating
Life’s Aach Be
tour
Sad G rrrls Club
comedy
Arjj Barker
tour
Julia Holter
Issue
102
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JONSON STREET BYRONBAY FRI 18 SEPT
LYALL MOLONEY, FEEDING FAUNA SAT 19 SEPT
OCEAN ALLEY, THE VANNS FRI 25 SEPT
THE LAZYS SAT 26 SEPT
THE GARDEN, WAX WITCHES THURS 1 OCT
THE JUNGLE GIANTS, ART OF SLEEPING, HOCKEY DAD FRI 2 OCT
THE SMITH STREET BAND SAT 3 OCT
DRUNK MUMS SAT 10 OCT
BOOTLEG RASCAL FRI 16 OCT
WOODLOCK FRI 23 OCT
BOO SEEKA THURS 29 OCT
MAT MC HUGH TICKETS AVAILABLE ONLINE WWW.THENORTHERN.COM.AU
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Music / Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture
Near, Afar
Lucianblomkamp
Lucianblomkamp has released his new single From Afar and touring to celebrate. He’s now back with new material, and brand new live visuals to accompany his tour, and you can catch him throughout October in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.
Devil You Know
Speak Of The… The eighth addition to next year’s Soundwave line-up has been announced: LA-based metal supergroup Devil You Know. They last appeared at Soundwave in 2014.
M-Phazes
Carrie Me
Let’s Face It Face The Music drops its second announcement of speakers at Arts Centre Melbourne, 13 & 14 Nov: it includes Rolling Stone editor Mathew Coyte, Bluesfest festival director Peter Noble, Sophie Miles of Mistletone, producer M-Phazes and more. 8 • THE MUSIC • 23RD SEPTEMBER 2015
Cult Detroit songwriter Sufjan Stevens has announced a series of intimate concert performances across the east coast next February in support of his recent release, the acclaimed LP, Carrie & Lowell.
Arts / Li Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture
Custard Come Back
Brisbane indie veterans Custard have announced the details of their anticipated new album, Come Back, All Is Forgiven, their first album in 16 years, and an accompanying east coast tour this December.
Custard
Dan Kelly
Dreamy Dan Celebrated Australian troubadour Dan Kelly is about to set off on a headline east coast tour throughout next month with His Dream Band, proudly presented by The Music. The announcement coincides with theMusic.com.au’s premiere of his excellent new video, Never Stop The Rot.
$US35,000 The total worth of musical instruments Portugal. The Man donated to a Portland school under the guise of performing a surprise concert. Sufjan Stevens
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Lifestyle Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture
The Mark Of Cain
Annual Mark
Adelaide hard-rock crowd The Mark of Cain are hitting the road for their annual ‘one tour a year’ leg, stopping in at all major Aussie cities across the seven-date tour.
Philly Stakes Sydney indie-rockers Philadelphia Grand Jury have announced the details of a upcoming national tour following the release of their new LP Summer Of Doom this October. High-tails will be supporting across the entire tour.
Philadelphia Grand Jury
WAH WAH Knitwear
Art/Fashion/Music WAH-WAH launches their first range of knits! The Aussie knitwear label was founded by Kaylene Milner, inspired by punk rock, and features artwork from the artists behind the CD covers for some adored local bands. Check out wahwahaustralia.com. 10 • THE MUSIC • 23RD SEPTEMBER 2015
4
Days away Tony Abbott was from getting a prime minister’s pension (which PMs must serve two years to receive) before he was replaced by Malcolm Turnbull. The entitlements he missed out on were estimated to be around $300k per year.
e / Cultu Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture
Going Swimming
Keep Swimming
Going Swimming has just released their new self-recorded album Deadtime Stories. The punk rock band invite you to celebrate with them on their tour Deadtime Touries covering VIC, NSW, QLD, TAS and SA through October and November.
Funeral For A Friend
Funeral For A Band Welsh quartet Funeral For A Friend are calling it quits after over a decade in the post-hardcore game. This comes as bittersweet news for fans of the band, who have announced a farewell tour which will land on Aussie shores next February. The Gooch Palms
Hoochie Goochie Returning to our shores after moving abroad earlier this year, garage-punk duo The Gooch Palms head home for a national tour next January in support of new single Slow Burner, concluding with a hometown show in Newcastle. THE MUSIC • 23RD SEPTEMBER 2015 • 11
Music / Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture
Sorry Suze
Suzannah Espie
Melbourne roots artist Suzannah Espie has released not only her new album Mother’s Not Feeling Herself Today but also a new video for its lead single, I’m Sorry. She’s celebrating with a national tour, which kicks off 18 Oct.
Mullum Circus Festival
Circus Antics Leading contemporary circus artists are hitting the Aussie shores once again for the return of the Mullum Circus Festival. From 25 – 27 Sep, acrobats, aerial artists and tight-wire walkers in front of the Mt Chincogan backdrop will be gracing the Byron Shire, NSW.
theMusic.com.au: breaking news, up-to-the-minute reviews and streaming new releases
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Arts / Li Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture
Secret’s Revealed
The Secret River. Pic: James Green
Artistic Director Wesley Enoch has revealed his final season at the helm of Queensland Theatre Company before taking up the role of Festival Director at Sydney Festival. The season includes The Secret River, Disgraced and Much Ado About Nothing.
1ST OCTOBER
YOWIE: FLYYING COLOURS (ROYGBIV EP LAUNCH) 2ND OCTOBER
Jason Isbell
AERIALS (“RESTLESS” EP LAUNCH) 3RD OCTOBER TWIN HAUS (SINGLE LAUNCH) 8TH OCTOBER YOWIE - AIR MAX ‘97 (MLB), SIMMO SOO (SYD) 9TH OCTOBER BRISBABES #1 10TH OCTOBER WOODBOOT 15TH OCTOBER YOWIE: SIMI LACROIX 16TH OCTOBER
Second Wind Of Blues
AIRLING (“STALLIN”TOUR) 17TH OCTOBER
The exciting second line-up for next year’s Bluesfest has been announced and it includes Tom Jones, Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, The Decemberists, Jason Isbell, Sturgill Simpson, Tweedy, Steve Earle & The Dukes, Grace Potter and more.
THE CREASES 18TH OCTOBER CHRISTIAN PATEY + POLARHEART 22ND OCTOBER YOWIE: BOO SEEKA + SPECIAL GUESTS 23RD OCTOBER
Who Gives A Crap x Beci Orpin
GREENTHIEF (MLB) 24TH OCTOBER LOADED #2 25TH OCTOBER STRICTLY SPEAKING #3 29TH OCTOBER PESCI’S W/ THE LULU RAES + SPECIAL GUESTS
Give A Crap Who Gives A Crap is a sustainable toilet paper company that contributes 50% of all their profits to build toilets across the developing world. Collaborating with local designer Beci Orpin, they’ve just launched a limited edition collection of wrappers.
30TH OCTOBER BABAGANOUJ “HIT SONG” SINGLE LAUNCH 31ST OCTOBER JEREMY NEALE EP LAUNCH WWW.THEFOUNDRY.NET.AU THEFOUNDRY.OZTIX.COM.AU 228 WICKHAM STREET, FORTITUDE VALLEY
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/ Lifesty Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture
Onya, Aunty!
Aunty Donna
Melbourne sketch-comedy trio Aunty Donna is releasing a new comedy pilot on ABC iView as part of the Screen Australia/ ABC TV initiative, Fresh Blood. They’ll also produce a ten-part YouTube series later this year as part of the Skip Ahead initiative.
Maiden Heaven
Iron Maiden
Iron Maiden will be visiting Australia as part of their world tour in support of new album The Book Of Souls. Bruce Dickinson is flying the band, crew and stage production over on the Ed Force One in May 2016.
Yanela Pinera of Queensland Ballet
Reid Cycles
WIN On Yer Bike
Queensland Ballet
Thanks to Reid Cycles, we’re giving away a bike! Just in time for spring – the sun’s finally coming out to play, which means you can go for picturesque bike rides again. Visit theMusic.com.au/win to enter the comp.
Queensland Ballet’s Artistic Director Li Cunxin today announced an exciting new season for 2016, with a selection of ballet’s including a coproduction with the Royal New Zealand Ballet of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
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yle / Cul Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture
Rum & Rock
Antipodean Rock Collective
Australian rock supergroup Antipodean Rock Collective, sporting members of Jet, Spiderbait, Powderfinger and You Am I, will be headlining the Spirit Of Bundaberg festival this October, with sport from locals Zeferelli and The Young Dingoes.
Alpine
Fortitude Fiesta Indie-pop six-piece Alpine, Sydney producer Kilter and dance band Art Vs. Science top the first lineup announcement for the 19th Valley Fiesta festival, to be held at the Fortitude Valley Entertainment Precinct this October. Sunsuper Riverfire
Fire Water The wonderful Brisbane Festival is once again coming to an end which means it’s time for Sunsuper Riverfire! It’s free, family-friendly and envelops the whole South Bank precinct this Saturday from 7pm. THE MUSIC • 23RD SEPTEMBER 2015 • 15
Learnin g To Sin g Music
Parkway Drive frontman Winston McCall tells Brendan Crabb about the Byron Bay heavyhitters’ goal of not destroying what they’ve built, but redefining it. Cover and feature pics by Kane Hibberd.
G
lobe-trotting, Gold-selling metalcore juggernaut Parkway Drive have been decompressing from what vocalist Winston McCall describes as their biggest scale tour thus far. During a recent month-long European festival run, he estimates the Byron Bay-bred outfit played to half a million people and garnered their most favourable audience reactions yet. Therefore, when crafting their fifth album, it would have been a no-brainer to solely create familiar-sounding, even homogenised mosh-pleasing anthems. Instead, although the aptly titled Ire contains many elements to which fans have become accustomed, the quintet actively sought to create a wider spectrum of sounds. “We learnt a while ago that heaviness works far more when it’s played off with space,” McCall tells The Music while sitting in a Newtown pub. “It’s like when you hear a jackhammer; eventually it becomes white noise. It’s a really abrasive sound, but eventually you stop hearing jackhammer and you just hear something going off, then it stops and you’re like, ‘Oh, whatever.’ But when you have a firecracker go off right next to your ear after complete silence, it stuns you. So we’d rather work on that concept than the idea of just being completely brutal the whole time. Because if we kept on the trajectory that we originally had and created another evolution of the sound that we were already doing it would have started going into a territory which we didn’t want to necessarily delve into, which was down-tuning even more, the vocals becoming more unintelligible, and it becoming an even thrashier kind of thing. “We found that rather than necessarily just trying to go heavier, faster and tack on more melody, we restructured the whole way we wrote things. Which meant simplifying a lot of stuff... A lot of the drum beats are way simpler than anything we’ve done before. There’s a lot more gaps where the singing isn’t, which means the guitars
There are kids that will come to a show and they’re pouring more out of themselves than you are on stage.
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shine way more in a lot of parts. So it was actually quite a simple thing in that regard, but it wasn’t simple for us because we never learnt how to do that in the first place. We just started with the goal of going mental the whole time, so it was literally reassessing the entire way we created music.” This was indeed a lengthy undertaking. Parkway Drive spent two-plus years penning the album, keeping their creative detour under wraps. “It’s the first time that we have an unknown quantity in the band, which is kind of exciting,” the frontman enthuses. “It’s intimidating, but it’s exciting.” For instance, single, Vice Grip, complete with its thrillseeking video, was lambasted by some for arena-sized ambitions. Perhaps the album’s most potentially jarring point of difference though is McCall’s foray into previously untapped vocal territory. At the time of our conversation, he’s keeping mum on the mystery producer (“You’re not going to expect it when it comes out”) who helped coach him through this development. The singer says Ire’s vocals were written with considerable theory in mind. Although the members are uncertain how to describe them, McCall wished to ensure the sparingly utilised, unique, almost semi-clean tones sidestepped pop-punk-style choruses. Factoring in not wanting to become another “laptop metal band”, being able to properly replicate the material during shows was also crucial. “The very easy thing that you see bands do is they want to create, want to reach the next level of whatever, and all of a sudden they grab really clean, Auto-Tuned vocals and just jam them on in there. It’s just the same band, but all of a sudden there’s fucking these clean vocals which never get done properly live anyway. That’s not what we wanted the band to actually sound like, so we had to figure out what capacity we wanted to use that in. “It was literally figuring out what worked, what was the right level of pitch to put in and what was the right level of gravel and try to put in what we wanted to create when it came to the actual emotion. So he [their producer] was a massive help in all of that. It was a really big challenge, and I did a lot of training for this. To hit any kind of pitch, I had to literally learn how to sing, so it was like a year of doing training, because I’d never learnt any vocal technique at all. It worked for learning how to make sure I could scream better as well. But it wasn’t even just like the singing, the bits where there’s any kind of pitch, it was the fact that before this, if you listen to any other record there’s the screams in whatever high or lows, and then there’s like talky parts, and that’s it. There’s nothing in between.
“Doing all that stuff and having it actually be effective without going either too heavy or too soft or come off too cheesy, was a really big thing to actually be able to do. So when it came to the actual hitting pitch it was nice to be able to go into the studio and know what pitch I’m supposed to be hitting on the scream or whatever, and actually know what the hell I’m doing.” As the perpetually on tour band prepares to translate Ire material for enormodomes and festival stages worldwide, the 34-year-old remarks that much of Parkway Drive’s audience has grown up with them over the past decade-plus. “It used to be the case where we’d play an underage gig, and it would be three times bigger than the over-age gig. Now it’s the complete opposite.” But he also believes there may be a tangible quality that the uninitiated, such as a teenager just beginning to explore this heavy music caper, can latch onto. McCall is relishing the prospect of converting a whole new slew of youths yet to witness their live show because they haven’t toured Australia for almost two years. “Every time we do play for younger kids I’m not sure what they’re getting out of it, if they’re connecting with the vocals or just the intensity, but I’m more than happy to make no connection other than it being the music, and have them be there and be able to have an outlet. Anything more than that is just a bonus. Being able to watch a kid come to a show, be there with like-minded people, feel safe, be able to go absolutely mental and scream their lungs out is one of the most satisfying things I’ve ever felt... There are kids that will come to a show and they’re pouring more out of themselves than you are on stage. It’s amazing to see.”
He reiterates how much they embraced creating the new full-length. “I’m so looking forward to playing it, and I really think there’s so much more we can do creatively with this band. But whether or not we get the chance to do that is up to people listening to it. At the same point in time, I don’t think this is straying so far away that we become a completely different band. The whole idea of this evolution was not to destroy Parkway and create band X, or a new one. It was literally to start redefining what Parkway actually means.”
What: Ire (Resist/Cooking Vinyl) When & Where: 2 Oct, Riverstage; 3 & 4 Oct, Byron Bay High School
Ten Years On
This scribe first interviewed McCall at Wollongong University in 2005, shortly after inaugural LP Killing With A Smile’s release. Back then, he seemed genuinely astonished the album had registered on the ARIA charts. “It’s a whirlwind,” the frontman says now. “It’s one of those things where this has been a complete time-warp. Because life’s progress is actually mapped in people coming to shows, record sales and places you go, there’s always something, another thing a month away. This year has absolutely flown by and all we’ve done is one tour and recorded a record.” Killing With A Smile was a landmark, drastically shifting the goal posts for all Australian metal/hardcore acts. Enlisting an international producer (Killswitch Engage’s Adam Dutkiewicz) helped launch them overseas, and their overall grand vision blazed a trail for numerous homegrown heavy crews. “I’m still stoked,” he comments of their debut’s tenth anniversary. “There’s nothing we’ve done that I look back on like, ‘Err...’ I’m still blown away by the fact that all of those things occurred, and no one would have picked any of those steps as being stepping stones on the road that it has taken, and that other people have been able to follow it. It’s mind-blowing, and everything we’re doing with the band at this point isn’t because we’re looking back with distaste at what we’ve done in the past. It feels like we have been lucky enough to achieve all we felt we could achieve creatively with what we’d been given, and it was time to try and take a different avenue.”
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Film
There’ll Be Spectacle Despite the rigours of an intense media schedule, Guy Davis finds Hugh Jackman just as amenable and approachable as he’d imagined.
A
two-day media junket, where the talent is subjected to an ongoing barrage of nine-minute interrogations by an unbroken stream of reporters, is enough to test the patience of the most even-tempered performers. So it speaks volumes about the legendary and seemingly limitless affability of Hugh Jackman that the Australian actor is able to maintain good humour and laid-back charm during his recent press commitments for Pan, the upcoming re-imagining of the Peter Pan story, in which he portrays the pirate Blackbeard, the original nemesis of the boy who never grew up. If the berserker rage Jackman regularly unleashes in his signature role as surly, steel-clawed superhero Wolverine is at all simmering, he’s doing a great job
Joe showed me a picture that had my face, a Marie Antoinette wig, a Louis XIV costume and all this bling. And I was like, ‘Oh, I’m in.’
of keeping it from reaching boiling point. There is, of course, more to Jackman than his star-making role in the X-Men franchise. Over a two-decade stage and screen career, he’s proven himself adept in challenging dramas and charming romantic comedies. And then there are his talents as a song-and-dance man to be reckoned with. Strangely enough, his role in Pan - directed by Joe Wright of Pride & Prejudice and Hanna fame - gives him the opportunity to showcase many of these skills, with Blackbeard emerging as a fearsome villain, a flamboyant showman and a melancholic veteran of many, many battles. “It was an embarrassment of riches,” smiles Jackman, recalling the role. “It was a lot of scenerychewing, playing to the back rows and having the time of my life, and then Joe randomly comes up with this idea 18 • THE MUSIC • 23RD SEPTEMBER 2015
at rehearsals where he handed out lyrics to Smells Like Teen Spirit and I make my entrance to a Nirvana song. There were no rules!” In Pan, which, as you can imagine puts a few new twists on the origin of Peter Pan (played by young newcomer Levi Miller): “Adults had to be as children see them - ridiculous and frightening in equal measure,” says Jackman. So while the actor’s Blackbeard is torn between between vanquishing this young upstart and “almost wishing him to fulfil his greatest fear” he also had to a cut a larger-than-life figure. And that’s where Wright had a few innovative ideas. “I thought we were going to use the historical version of Blackbeard, which is quite theatrical and amazing, by the way - he used to put sticks of incense in his beard and light them so there was a cloud of smoke around his head as he emerged with his cutlass,” laughs Jackman. “But no, Joe showed me a picture that had my face, a Marie Antoinette wig, a Louis XIV costume and all this bling. And I was like, ‘Oh, I’m in.’” Jackman has collaborated with the likes of Woody Allen, Christopher Nolan, Baz Luhrmann and Darren Aronofsky, and says he’s come to realise that film is very much a director’s medium. “Actors can make three movies a year; a director makes a movie every two or three years. A great director knows that if they’re lucky they can make ten movies in their life, so these great directors make tough choices - they don’t go into things lightly. So whatever is on the page, the director may even be more important. That’s been guiding me over the last ten years. Joe Wright is a director of the highest order and I was really keen to work with him.” Still, the stage frequently beckons Jackman, who believes that “being on stage makes me better on film and vice versa”. “After Pan I did a Jez Butterworth threehander, a very poetic piece called The River,” he says. “And it had a six-minute period in the middle of the play wher where I just prepared a meal with no dialogue and no one else on stage. It was just that for six minutes! I do like to go back and forth between stage and film, it’s where I get tthe best out of myself, and I think I now enjoy film as muc much... but I’m most at home on a stage.” H He’ll get to feel very much at home later this year when he takes his stage show Broadway To Oz to five capit capital cities around Australia. “I obviously want the show to be fun and entertaining - a bit of a party - but at the th same time, like Pan, it has moments of intimacy. I like to create an atmosphere, even though we’re in an arena, of being in my living room, where people get to understand who I am and what I love. “I’ll sing songs from things I’ve been in and things I haven’t, share stories about my life, make fun of myself and play with the audience. No two shows will be the same. And there’ll be spectacle - I have an opportunity to do what I haven’t done before, which is have a 35-piece orchestra, 20 dancers and incredible lighting. When there are moments to put on a show, I really want to put on a show.”
What: Pan In cinemas 24 Sep
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Music
Frontlash
Balance Of Power
Let There Be Drums
The Libs might be shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic (if they had a worthy opposition), but great to see five women in Turnbull’s cabinet. Shame that Abbott lost the ‘Minister For Women’ post...
Birthday Blowout Which former Time Off/The Music staffer had the original line-up of The Grates reunite for his birthday party on the weekend (and absolutely kill it)? Happy birthday Donnie C...
Lashes Bullet Train
Kinda cool news that the Brisbane Bullets have been revived and will be rejoining the NBL from next year. So many memories (and victories)...
Is Gabba up to the Test?
Backlash
Gabba Gabba Hey? They cannot seriously be contemplating not giving the Gabba cricket Tests moving forward? We haven’t lost here in 25 years and the facilities are fine, has the world gone mad?
Emmy Lieu
Why was the real hosting talent at the Emmys such as Amys Schumer and Poehler playing second fiddle to the hack Andy Samberg? He’s just not funny, not sure what anyone was expecting?
Damaged Goodes So sad to see a true AFL champion in Adam Goodes farewelled in such a shithouse manner. You can say the boos aren’t racially motivated ‘til the cows come home but those people knew the offence they were causing. 20 • THE MUSIC • 23RD SEPTEMBER 2015
The dreads are gone but the commitment remains the same for Ash Grunwald. He may be growing up but he’s rocking harder than ever on his ninth album, as Michael Smith discovers.
“I
’m under no illusions about where the world’s going,” Ash Grunwald, shorn of his trademark dreadlocks, admits as he ponders his latest album, NOW. “This record just reflects where I’m at, you know? I’ve been on the road a long time, travelled really far and wide, I’m now a father, a family man - I dunno, just a whole lot of different things - and I just write really honestly on this album and everything was from the heart. It always is but I probably usually... I don’t know, keep it a bit more polite.” Grunwald explores a number of levels of consciousness on the new album - earth consciousness, self-consciousness, higher consciousness. “There are a lot of internal things,” he explains, “where I’m at and things I’ve gone through with changing spiritual beliefs, some consciousness things... But at the same time I’m also looking at the outer world and almost giving that the same treatment as well. The more activism I get involved in and the more I talk to people, the more I see what’s going on and I think, ‘Oh my God!’” A vocal supporter of the anti-coal seam gas campaign, Grunwald has performed at anti-fracking campaign events on both sides of the continent, and that’s addressed in the
song The Worst Crimes Are Legal (Revolution). “What’s really bizarre is that we’re all... Australia and Canada for example, we’re just suffering the same things. The way Canadians talk about their Prime Minister, they could be talking about Tony Abbott - he couldn’t be as bad but, you know. I went to this beautiful place in northern British Columbia, quite isolated, lots of mainly indigenous people living up there and really alternative people, and it’s so earthy and old school and really inspiring - these people are living outside of society - and then they go, ‘It’s great but where the salmon spawn they’re about to put a gas pipeline through there.’ I thought I’d found a little corner and yet that corporate machine, it’s almost like it’s attacking humanity.” Musically, NOW sonically references the power trios of the late ‘60s, from Hendrix to Led Zeppelin (yes, not strictly a trio but instrumentally...), but the soul/gospel man has also come further to the fore. “With this album it was all about stepping it up and I just thought, especially now I’m starting to play the States more, I wanted to try and get the sound of a classic album. I know it’s up to me to write the songs and perform them to try and make a classic album, but if you can make it sonically sound like a classic album, with a really good producer, then you’re halfway there. And I’d never really had that treatment. It definitely is a luxury these days and this was my first and maybe my only time - considering it’s not too easy to make money selling records - of doing it the old school way.”
What: NOW (Independent) When & Where: 3 Oct, Caloundra Music Festival, Kings Beach; 16 Oct, The Triffid
Music
Please Explain There’s an immediate sense of beguiling power about Julia Holter’s new album. Enigmatic and disarming, each song leaves Annelise Ball in a puzzled state of wonderment. She asks Holter to “please explain” this mystifying piece of work.
H
aving previously drawn inspiration from the literary classics, from Virginia Woolf to the Ancient Greeks, Californian singer-songwriter Julia Holter chose to explore the surreal landscape of her own inner world for her latest album, Have You In My Wilderness. “I drew more from a stream-ofconsciousness process, just sitting at the piano coming up with chords, then singing along until the melody and lyrics coalesced into some sort of song,” she explains. “The last record, Loud City Song, explored the idea of singing on stage to an audience, but in this record, I feel like I’m sitting in a room, singing to one person. It’s much more intimate.” Producer Cole M Greif-Neill, who engineered Beck’s 2015 Grammy Album Of The Year, Morning Phase, must also share the credit for orchestrating this mystical experience for the listener. “He’s the one who suggested I let the vocal out more, really bring it to the forefront, louder and clearer,” Holter says. “I make all my demos alone before taking them to the studio, so when I compare them to the finished product, the most obvious thing is how full and epic most of the production is.” Greif-Neill also played a more pragmatic role during the recording process. “He’s really good at making decisions, which is something I can have trouble with. There’s times I don’t know which performances to keep, or keys to use, so he’s great at helping make those calls. The album really is a true collaboration.” Track-wise, second song Silhouette has a surprisingly dark motif, despite its sweet melody and airy feel. “I’d been working on the idea of obsession,
In this record, I feel like I’m sitting in a room, singing to one person
like becoming obsessed with someone who’s left you. I wanted to write a song capturing that sense of having the question left hanging in your mind, that they might just come back, but they never do.” Vasquez, a spoken word track with a deeply evocative jazz feel, is a particularly powerful example of the intricate musicianship at work on the album. Using an LA-based ensemble of talented musicians, Holter’s stream-ofconsciousness demo is utterly transformed into a long and wondrous piece. Saxophone parts are a welcome feature. “On Vasquez in particular, there’s a great saxophone part towards the end, and I also play a crazy keyboard solo with a fake saxophone sound as well.” Sea Calls Me Home includes another saxophone moment worth writing home about. “The sax solo on that track is one of my most favourite parts of the record,” Holter confesses. Mention Meredith Music Festival and her subsequent December sideshows and Holter’s buzz levels rise perceptibly over the phone all the way from LA. “I am really excited about the tour; I love Australia,” she enthuses. “It’s always a quality experience and I’ve been a couple of times, but never to Meredith. I can’t wait.”
What: Have You In My Wilderness (Domino/EMI) When & Where: 10 Dec, Black Bear Lodge
THE MUSIC • 23RD SEPTEMBER 2015 • 21
SOUNDWAVE E V A W D SOUN SO FAR
Theatre
Business Time
Devil You Know is the latest addition to the line-up. Here’s what you may have missed:
British deathcore giants Bring Me The Horizon will bring their new sonic direction to Aussie audiences for the first time, backing the release of their genrespanning new record That’s The Spirit. Lordi, Eurovision’s sole metal victors, are making the long trip down from Finland for next year’s festival run. Equal parts hard-rock and theatrics, Lordi’s live show will make its Soundwave debut in 2016.
The addition of Sydney metalcore quintet Northlane to the Soundwave roster is a sign of the band’s significant momentum, going from strength to strength following a line-up change and their latest release, acclaimed LP, Node.
Swedish hardcore punks Refused will bring their new record Freedom to Aussie crowds, returning from hiatus to support the release of their first album in almost two decades.
Seminal US alt-rockers Failure join the 2016 line-up for their first ever Australian shows despite an extensive career prior to their 17-year hiatus, promising punters a solid dose of ‘90s grunge.
Veteran alt-rockers and Queensland locals, Dead Letter Circus, are set to bring their chart smashing new record Aethesis to the fields of Soundwave, kicking off with the hometown stop in Brisbane. Having just recently hit number one on the ARIA chart, Welsh heavy metal titans Bullet For My Valentine will take the Soundwave stage for the third time in support of new release Venom.
Lordi
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Back before “Greed is good”, there was another, breezier take on the Great American Dream via the world of business. Director Sheryl-Lee Secomb talks to Simon Eales about a classic American ‘60s musical.
I
t’s hard to be surprised these days. The solution, mid-20th century musical theatre masterminds Frank Loesser and Abe Burrows might say, is the glorious feeling a rush of power provides. The pair’s Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning show How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying follows the corporate advance of J Pierrepont Finch, who self-medicates this wonderful drug. He goes from mailroom clerk to member of the World Wide Wicket Company board in just two weeks. Whether the dupes, tricks and slights involved are really worth it can be discovered when Savoyards Theatre Company stages the hit show in late September. As director Sheryl-Lee Secomb says, How To Succeed... is one for all those ambitious self-starters who are out to beat the system. “Finch has this book that tells him how he’s going to succeed. He follows the book and enters a massive company where no one knows what anyone else is doing. You’ve got all the Ivy League guys, and then there’s this little guy who doesn’t have any qualifications. One of the humorous lines says that none of that is necessary.
Thousands of people have made their way to the top without any knowledge or skills!” Like Loesser and Burrows’ most famous musical, Guys And Dolls, How To Succeed... glorifies that good old American value written between each line of the Constitution: fake it ‘til you make it. The credo does work, but plays havoc with Finch’s love life. Some classic musical numbers punctuate Finch’s journey. “There’s this moment in the show,” Secomb says, “where he realises all is not lost and he starts this massive number called The Brotherhood Of Man. He sells everyone this great big sizzling story about how they’re all in this together and they’re all flesh and blood. It’s massively ‘musical’ and finishes with the boss’ straight-laced secretary dancing on a table.” Knowing how most of us have become experts in ‘60s fashion via the cable phenomenon, Mad Men, Savoyards have aimed to nail the show’s styling. “We’ve gone with sleek and big. The early ‘60s were pretty cool to look at, so we’ve echoed that. Our props team has spent months sourcing the real deal, we’ve worked with a professional set designer and the costumes are true to era with that little musical-theatre twist. What’s most important for me is the tightness, staying really true to that time.” How To Succeed.. is shaping up to be another impressive instalment in Brisbane’s own rocket-like theatrical rise. “It’s no longer the cultural backwater the rest of Australia used to think it was! There’s so much underground stuff happening, as well as big, in-ya-face shows. It’s very vibrant and very busy.”
What: How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying When & Where: 26 Sep - 10 Oct, Iona Performing Arts Centre
THE MUSIC • 23RD SEPTEMBER 2015 • 23
Five Things We Learnt From The Molly Trailer
Music
Public Exposure 1. Casting Sam Johnson Was Genius Whoever figured out that former The Secret Life Of Us star Samuel Johnson could pass as a dead ringer for the music industry legend himself deserves praise for one of the most accurate portrayals on Australian TV.
2. Some Lucky Local Actors Get To Play Fun Dress-Ups The trailer gives brief glimpses of countless famous Meldrum-era bands, including the signature red headwear of Devo and a near-perfect facsimile of the original KISS line-up, complete with those platform boots.
Molly
3. The Soundtrack’s Gotta Be Good It’s A Long Way To The Top, Evie and the Countdown theme all play over the course of the two-minute trailer, giving a glimpse of the potential the Molly soundtrack has to be a completely epic journey back through the music that made the Countdown-era great.
4. It Looks Legit From the looks of the wardrobe, props and sets it seems that the Molly crew’s recreation of ‘70s and ‘80s Australia, including the mayhem of Meldrum’s infamous house parties, is pretty damn authentic.
5. There Are Genuine Lols Hopefully the actual show is as genuinely funny as this trailer. Properly portraying the wit of Molly Meldrum will be essential to the success and authenticity of this mini-series.
24 • THE MUSIC • 23RD SEPTEMBER 2015
Although it wasn’t meant to “become a real project”, Ólafur Arnalds, one half of the Icelandic minimal electronic duo Kiasmos, tells Tyler McLoughlan, “We were easily convinced!”
B
eginning as a private creative reprieve for BAFTA Award-winning composer Ólafur Arnalds and the mastermind of electro-pop outfit Bloodgroup, Janus Rasmussen, Kiasmos wasn’t intended to be a public exercise. “We’ve been best friends for many years,” Arnalds says of Rasmussen. “If we needed a little bit of break we would just make music together without any pressure, without any decisions - just meet up at the studio and have a good time. But then we would always send these demos to my label and my management, and slowly and slowly they started pushing us more and more to actually make this become a real project. And we were really hesitant at first, because this was our safe haven from the pressure of the normal music business we both already have, so we kind of wanted to keep this project to ourselves and not really release anything or go on tour or anything. I don’t know,” Arnalds laughs. “We were easily convinced!” Arms twisted, Kiasmos dropped their self-titled debut album late in 2014, garnering universal acclaim for their beautifully minimal instrumental electro experiments created without ‘the business’ in mind. As it turns out, Arnalds, more used to controlling his own performances from behind a grand piano,
was thrilled to take Kiasmos on tour. “It felt great actually. For me especially because I’m not used to playing these kind of shows with dance beats - it’s a totally different environment between playing clubs instead of theatres and opera houses, and taking Kiasmos to electronic festivals and clubs... I can see the crowd dancing and screaming, and hands up in the air it’s exhilarating for me, something I’m really not used to,” he admits with a dumbfounded chuckle. Kiasmos are playing six dates in their five-city Australian tour. Although not on the Kiasmos itinerary this time around, Sydney audiences will instead be treated to an Australian-exclusive world premier performance from Arnalds as part of GRAPHIC at the Opera House. “We are doing a specially commissioned rearrangement of all of the songs, so even though we’re playing some old songs of mine, choosing a bunch of things from my back catalogue, we’ll be doing them in arrangements that not even I have heard before. We’re working with one of my closest collaborators Viktor [Orri Árnason],” says Arnalds, who’ll play two pianos and control a range of electronics in front of a 13-piece chamber orchestra. His re-imagined catalogue will be bolstered by the visual accompaniment of fellow countryman Máni M Sigfússon, known for creating film clips for Iceland’s musical elite including Ásgeir, Múm and Bang Gang. “He creates these other-worldly environments, these places that could never exist in the real world. It’s a quite beautiful, surreal imagery that he’s creating,” Arnalds explains, struggling to find the right words to convey his admiration for the project’s collaborators and his nervous excitement for the special performance. “In all, I think it will be a very unique experience.”
When & Where: 25 Sept, Brisbane Festival, The Spiegeltent
Bondi Cigars NEW CD RELEASE
”Child In The Desert” SEPTEMBER TOUR Thursday 24th The Triffid Friday 25th Bribie Island RSL Saturday 26th The Woombye Pub Sunday 27th The Soundlounge
www.bondicigars.com
THE MUSIC • 23RD SEPTEMBER 2015 • 25
Eat / Eat/Drink
s e u l BUnder the
y a w e Fre For the third year running, Morrison Hotel hosts Blues Under The Freeway, 27 Sep.
digesting. They’ve got eight different cuts on the menu, a dry aged option and a premium steak recommendation that rotates often. If you’re not into beef, there’s also wood-fired pizza, several fresh salads and a fish of the day dish.
DRINKS
T
he free event also coincides with the Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride, a race in which gentlemen and gentlewomen dress up in their finest dapper outfits and hop onto their slick, classicstyled motorcycles to raise awareness and funds for the cure for prostate cancer. The Morrison is the last stop of the ride, and will host the afterparty.
EATS The Morrison have promised the best steak you will ever have the pleasure of tasting and 26 • THE MUSIC • 23RD SEPTEMBER 2015
Craft beer and whisky - definitely the most popular choices for gentlefolk who appreciate the taste and process of their drinks. There is a range of more than 200 whiskies to choose from. It’s serious business - the Morrison’s selection is one of the largest in Brisbane. The wine list is also extensive, with 50 wines available, and there are 20 beers on tap. Of course, classic and signature cocktails are a given - plus punch jugs!
ENTERTAINMENT The killer blues line-up on the day features headliners Kevin Borich and Phil Emmanuel, supported by Strange Brew, Mojo Webb, Asa Broomhall, Bluesville Station and Brisbane’s Biggest Blues Jam with Mark D’s Big 3 hosting. The music kicks off from 12.30pm.
/ Drink Eat/Drink
Hot Spot Oktoberfest 9-11 & 16-18 Oct Oktoberfest returns to Brisbane Showgrounds for two wild weekends, celebrating everything fantastisch about Bavarian culture - the food, the beer and the fun-filled German antics. Following the tradition of the world’s largest beer festival, specially brewed beers from German brewer Tucher and Burleigh Brewing Co abide by the German Beer Purity Law. There’ll also be German and Australian wine, German sparkling ‘Sekt’, champagne, and Schnaps mixers. A must is booking a VIP table at the Bavarian corner, which gets you the best seats
in the house, a welcome bevo and one round of drinks, and plates of traditional Bettl (a generous arrangement of pretzels, bratwursts, schnitzels and salads - despite the word translating to ‘small platter’), all served by dedicated lederhosenclad staff. Enjoy this all with specialised German entertainment, like the Beard Contest, with its three hilarious categories: Natural Moustache, Natural Beard and Freestyle. That’s on top of the Biergarten (an outdoor area featuring wooden tables and benches, and fairy lights at night), an Oktoberfest band from Munich, and an authentic Oktoberfest Tent (in which everything comes from Germany). Prost! Words: Lillie Siegenthaler
Snackdownnn!
Felt Food
Tara Davies makes felt food for kids to play with - or for grown adults to collect and just look lovingly at. Check out her Facebook page for all her creations or to make a purchase.
Emily Naismith and Jess Ramsey illustrate colourful pics of foods going head to head in battle - and then write about how it all goes down! Here’s one of the rounds. Check out the rest on their Instagram: @snackdownnn.
PRAWN NIGIRI VS PRAWN CRACKER Prawn Nigiri is getting bored. He’s been waiting in the ring for 20 minutes now. He’s never been late in his life; Japanese precision. Was Prawn Cracker even gonna turn up? Prawn Nigiri turns to pick up his towel and leave when something catches his eye. Light bounces through a small translucent chip, feebly standing in the
corner. Was this his opponent? Prawn Nigiri could take this lightweight in a flick of his perfectly manicured tail. Prawn Cracker squeaks almost inaudibly as her trainer begins to pour hot oil over her. She begins to pop and grow larger, quadrupling in size in seconds, all pink and pimply. Prawn Nigiri stands still in disbelief. “You think I’m cheap, don’t ya boy?” Prawn Cracker says with sass. Without waiting for a response, she launches herself on top of Prawn Cracker. Her oily pores act as a vacuum and hold him there until he stops moving. Don’t underestimate something just because it’s usually free. Prawn Cracker wins.
THE MUSIC • 23RD SEPTEMBER 2015 • 27
Music
Bending The Elbow Punk veterans Frenzal Rhomb’s frontman Jay Whalley tells Steve Bell that even a fill-in robot drummer won’t stop them from dominating Red Deer Festival.
A
fter a one year lay-off, burgeoning Brisbane boutique event Red Deer Festival is returning to the picturesque Mt Samson locale that it’s called home since 2010, as ever promising great bands in a chilled out environment. This year’s crack line-up of musical talent is headlined by Sydney punks Frenzal Rhomb; well, three-quarters of them at any rate following a recent mishap that befell drummer Gordy Forman. “We’ve been put into a bit of a spin by our drummer who thinks that he can fly, but it turns out that he can’t,” explains frontman Jay Whalley. “His arm’s on the mend but it might take a while, it was quite an
“There was instant karma because the ambulance came and we assumed that they’d take him straight to hospital, but once he got outside they didn’t want to move him so he had to spend the entire set listening to us fucking up all our songs from start to finish; he was in horrendous amounts of pain just outside the doors listening to all these different drummers fucking up all his parts. Now we’ve got a guy from Newcastle called Kye Smith filling in, and I’m not 100% convinced he’s not a robot.” To make matters worse they were due to record a follow-up to Smoko At The Pet Food Factory (2011), once again with punk icon Bill Stevenson in the producer’s chair. “We’re actually supposed to be in the States right now recording,” Whalley sighs. “We’d just finished all the demos and were pretty much ready to go; flights were booked and I had my underpants packed. It’s a bit of a bummer but not the worst thing in the world that could happen, it’s not like the bigwigs at Sony and Universal are breathing down our necks going, ‘Where’s the next Frenzal record!?’ We’ll just hang tough until Gordy’s better and go smash it out.” Fortunately in the interim they’re pumped to be heading north for Red Deer Festival to take their mind off things. “I love these sort of festivals where it’s not just about someone making large amounts of money, it seems like a really great idea,” Whalley enthuses. “We’re super-excited to play that, and hopefully Gordy can come up too and give some new stage-diving lessons in a controlled environment. Do people strap couches to the top of cars and bring them along? Maybe people can put all the couches in front of the stage so he’ll have something soft to land on.”
When & Where: 3 Oct, Red Deer Music & Arts Festival, Mt Samson
I felt bad for the guy for a few minutes before I realised that the rest of my year was fucked, because it’s all about me
awful break. We were in Perth and he decided that he’d teach the crowd how to stage-dive and crowdsurf - because he thought it was being done wrongly somehow - but it turns out that he’s not a good teacher. He went down between the barrier and the stage and completely snapped his arm above the elbow - he gave himself a new elbow. It was brutal, and I felt bad for the guy for a few minutes before I realised that the rest of my year was fucked, because it’s all about me. 28 • THE MUSIC • 23RD SEPTEMBER 2015
ORDER
NOW STORE.THEMUSIC.COM.AU
THE MUSIC • 23RD SEPTEMBER 2015 • 29
Indie Indie
Aerials
Blues Under The Freeway
At The Dakota
Bondi Cigars
EP Focus
Have You Been To
EP Focus
Have You Heard
Answered by: Tristan Chu
Answered by: Jackie Patterson
Answered by: Zac East
Answered by: Shane Pacey
EP title? Restless
Why should punters visit you? We’re expecting up to 600 custom, classic motorcycles; we’ve organised a wicked line-up of blues music including legends Kevin Borich and Phil Emmanuel. There will be great craft brews, whisky and Brisbane’s best steaks.
EP title? Stories
When did you start making music and why? I recall making songs up in my head when I was very small, but I started playing guitar at 14 - something about the sound grabbed me.
How many releases do you have now? First EP was released in 2013, Restless EP was released on 4 Sep. Was anything in particular inspiring you during the making? We were determined to make the hardest-hitting pop tracks we could achieve. Ironically, we wrote most of it in a peaceful secluded cottage. What’s your favourite song on it? Separate sounds best cranked in the car; Burn Burn Burn gets everyone moving live! We’ll like this EP if we like… Big riffs, catchy choruses and pulsing synths. Think Depeche Mode becoming a punk-rock band. When and where is your launch/ next gig? 2 Oct at The Foundry. Website link for more info? aerialsband.com
What’s the history of the event? Began in 2012 in Sydney with 2,500 riders. This year it’ll be 21,500 riders in 405 cities in 27 countries. Any advice for first timers who want to visit the event? Get here early as the music is great from the get go and you want to get yourself the best viewing point for both the bikes and the bands. Also, definitely book for the steakhouse. Do you have any plans for the event in the future? We will host this event until it becomes too big for our carpark! The genteel men and women look awesome, the bikes are cool and it is so much fun organising the line-up of blues music and brews. When and where for your next event? 27 Sep, Morrison Hotel. Website link for more info? facebook.com/themorrisonhotel
30 • THE MUSIC • 23RD SEPTEMBER 2015
How many releases do you have now? Stories is actually our debut release! Was anything in particular inspiring you during the making? We really wanted to capture the elements of our live shows, while keeping it a clean-sounding record, and we think it turned out great. What’s your favourite song on it? They’re all our favourites, it’s really hard for us to pick just one! We’ll like this EP if we like... It’s a very clean-sounding record, but some people have likened it to Silversun Pickups, Hungry Kids Of Hungary, Boy & Bear, Red Hot Chili Peppers... Website link for more info? atthedakotaband.com
Sum up your musical sound in four words? Modern rhythmic blues rock. If you could support any band in the world - past or present - who would it be? The Band. If you could only listen to one album forevermore, what would it be and why? The Beatles’ White Album. It’s so packed with stuff you could spend a lifetime getting to the bottom of it. Greatest rock’n’roll moment of your career to date? Hearing that John Mayall (blues legend) covered one of my songs. Why should people come and see your band? They’ll hear something that’s never been heard before and won’t be heard again - we’re a very improvisatory band. When and where for your next gig? 24 Sep, The Triffid. Website link for more info? bondicigars.com
THE MUSIC • 23RD SEPTEMBER 2015 • 31
BLUES EXPLOSION!
The second batch of artists for next year’s Byron Bay Bluesfest is one of the finest announces in recent memory! Not even mentioning Tom Jones, Neil Gallagher’s High Flying Birds or The Wailers, our five picks are:
Music
Ok To Be Sad
The Decemberists These Portland indie legends have not visited Australia anywhere enough throughout their stellar career, and their catchy, verbose tunes will be absolutely perfect for the Bluesfest experience.
Tweedy Wilco have been regular visitors but we’re yet to experience the pleasure of their frontman Jeff Tweedy in solo form, augmented by son Spencer on drums. Their 2014 debut Sukirae was fabulous.
Jason Isbell The former Drive-By Trucker’s solo career has burst into beautiful bloom over his last couple of heartfelt releases, and he’s a master in the live realm as well. Pitch poignant.
Sturgill Simpson Fans of cosmic Americana have been touting this troubadour’s talent for ages, and this will be his first ever Australian visit. By all accounts his live show is killer, so much anticipation!
Steve Earle & The Dukes The great man should need no introduction – he’s been a regular visitor to Bluesfest over the journey, but always great to see him with full band in tow.
Jason Isbell
Bluesfest 2016 will be held at Tyagrah Tea Tree Farm from 24 – 28 Mar. 32 • THE MUSIC • 23RD SEPTEMBER 2015
While debates rage about the gender imbalance of festival bills, the Sad Grrrls Club is mounting its inaugural national tour plus a Sydney fest, with all acts comprising at least one female-identifying member. Cyclone talks to founder Rachel Maria Cox.
I
t may seem remarkable but the Sad Grrrls Club collective only coalesced this year, with Newcastle-based alt-pop artist Rachel Maria Cox as founder. “It started off as a couple of friends of mine and a little sort of running joke that we were all these sad female musicians - and we’ve just done our own little ‘sad grrrls’ club,” Cox says. ‘Sad Grrrls Club’ sounds like a kinda Lana Del Rey meta-emo pop song one might play when reading Sylvia Plath’s subversive feminist novel The Bell Jar - and that’s not far off the mark, says Cox, who’s majored in composition at the University Of Newcastle’s Conservatorium. The fold takes its name from a cultural project initiated by Los Angeles visual artist Audrey Wollen, who theorises that female melancholia is a manifestation of patriarchal resistance. Notably, Wollen has praised Del Rey. “Everything’s very beautiful and very tragic and very dramatic,” Cox suggests. “It’s all over the top. There is a value to that, but part of it as well is accepting that sadness and anger and these emotions that a lot of the time we don’t even allow women to have culturally are not always gonna be glamorous and theatrical - but they are very real. And they are something that we should allow women to express.” Cox will front the 12-date Sad Grrrls Club tour alongside Sydney freak-folkie Ess-Em, the pair joined by different acts in each city.
Significantly, the run will culminate in Sydney with October’s two-day DIY Sad Grrrls Fest, featuring an expanded curated roster. The first day, ‘90s-referencing punk-popsters Stellar Addiction will headline, the second indie combo Missing Children. “I just thought it’d be good to do something that brings everyone together,” Cox explains. Imagine an even more genderdiverse, yet intimate, Lilith Fair. Cox, who self-applies non-binary (or genderqueer) pronouns like ‘they’ over ‘she’, admits that Sad Grrrls Club is responding to disquiet about Australian festivals’ maledominated programming. “There’s a new festival in the States called Burger A-Go-Go - that’s another all-female festival. You read the comments on that [online] and it’s just a bunch of dudes having a bit of a whine about why are we putting together these all-female festivals - that’s just as bad as an all-male festival and stuff like that. Everyone’s complaining and talking about this ideal world where we have an equal representation on line-ups - [but] if no one’s doing anything about it, then everything just stays the same. I guess, if [Sad Grrrls Club ] works on some level - it doesn’t have to be a huge success or make it to the same level as those big festivals with the international acts, it’s a way of trying to send the message, not just to the mainstream music industry, but to female musicians and to all musicians, really, that you’re not shooting yourself in the foot to give women a go.” After lately airing the Home EP, the singersongwriter will perform Sad Grrrls-themed songs on the road. “A lot of my new material is a bit more involved in this kind of gender and sadness [milieu], and that ‘Sad Grrrls’ vibe, because I’ve been working so much on this that it’s informed my music.”
When & Where: 30 Sep, Ric’s Bar; 1 Oct, The Milk Factory
Comedy
Head In The Game
A new stand-up show exploring the different kinds of boners isn’t the only thing Arj Barker has been working on. The Aussie favourite tells Daniel Cribb about a TV show in development and why we should all fear the digital age.
C
omedy maestro Arj Barker is in the midst of “boring shit” when he answers his phone from an Adelaide hotel room, but the truth is he’s far from living a monotonous life. He’s just given his new show, Get In My Head, its debut at Adelaide Fringe, and is refining the material for the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. “I would have done 26 [shows] by Saturday night,” Barker begins. “It has just made the show so much stronger and better for Melbourne, because I have been changing things and tweaking it and getting it right.” Barker’s last show, Go Time, is being put to rest and Get In My Head sees an interesting change of pace. “Go Time had a few musical elements, and this more of a straight stand-up show… I talk about everything from having children, to ISIS, to boners. I talk about the difference between a sex boner and a boner that you just get: the boner that just comes out of nowhere. So I have a close look at that, and I found some pretty good material in there. I try to open up a lot in the show, and be a little honest. Like, it gets pretty intense. People cry. I cry.”
But it’s not just dick jokes and cheap observational humour on offer, Get In My Head also tackles a somewhat pressing issue in a comic way. With a personal insight into Barker’s life and some serious social commentary contained within, his new show sees a big step forward. “A big part of the show is how we’re being affected in the digital age. I call it the heavily image-saturated age that we live in, and how it’s been affecting people on a personal level and how we are becoming focused on appearance and essentially becoming more shallow. “We’re all just pretty goofed up right now. But that’s maybe not the biggest problem; I just wish that we were becoming more enlightened… I don’t see myself as a prophet or somebody that’s message will change the world or anything; I’m just commenting on it. Hopefully I’m doing my part but I’m really just trying to get laughs, I’ll be honest.” The wider Australian community fell in love with Barker after he appeared as Dave in Flight Of The Conchords. He left a lasting impression and with some luck, we’ll hopefully see him return to the small screen soon – that’s if he can invest any time in the new project among his hectic touring schedule. “Me and a pal are trying to develop a TV show together, so that’ll probably be a half-hour show, based maybe in Melbourne, but we’ll see if someone buys it,” Barker reveals. “It’s too early to discuss [the premise], but suffice to say I’ll be the star and we hope it’ll be really good.”
What: Arj Barker: Get In My Head When & Where: 29 Sep – 18 Oct, Powerhouse Theatre, Brisbane Powerhouse
Musical Chairs With Malcolm Turnbull doing a Rudd-slash-Gillard on Tony Abbott last week that means that we’ve had five changes to the PM position in the last five years, a glorious run of national instability. Looking at this flux in musical terms – as The Music is wont to do – we were curious as to whether there were any parallels in the music world. At first we were naturally drawn to UK post-punk icons The Fall (touring Australia next month), who under the leadership of notorious curmudgeon Mark E Smith have churned through an incredible 66 members in their 35-year history. But the analogy falls down as neither of the Australian parties have a constant figurehead like Smith, who’s also staunchly apolitical (although for years he allowed rumours to circulate unchecked that he was a raving communist).
No Strings Attached
Then we came to the conclusion that the real touchstone is post-Michael Hutchence INXS, striving to find a new figurehead capable of filling the shoes of bygone leaders and struggling to reconnect with former followers, to the point where the whole operation reeks of desperation. Although that means that we’re now being led by the equivalent of Terence Trent D’Arby or JD Fortune, disturbing no matter how the spin doctors try to sell it.
THE MUSIC • 23RD SEPTEMBER 2015 • 33
UNDER THE WHEELS
Highway 61 in Mississippi might be the “blues highway”, but this Saturday (27 Sep) The Morrison Hotel is once again holding their ‘Blues Under The Freeway’ shindig, whereby great blues bands including Kevin Borich & Phil Emmanuel, Mojo Webb, Asa Broomhall and Bluesville Station strut their stuff amidst the pub’s normal array of great steaks and fine craft beer and whisky. The blues’ long affinity with the road is well evidenced by these four classic numbers; Freeway Blues – Tim Buckley “I’ve got the cop car shoot out whistle pig blues… Come on over ‘cause I am high/Got to figure out which way to cruise” Cross Road Blues – Robert Johnson “Standin’ at the crossroad, I tried to flag a ride/Didn’t nobody seem to know me, everybody pass me by” Dirt Road Blues – Bob Dylan “Gonna walk down that dirt road/Until my eyes begin to bleed/’Til there’s nothing left to see” Road Train Blues – Slim Dusty “I’ve always been a wanderer, got these ramblin’ shoes/Guess that I was born to know the road train blues”
‘Blues Under The Freeway’ is held at The Morrison Hotel from 11am on Saturday 27 Sep – free entry!
34 • THE MUSIC • 23RD SEPTEMBER 2015
Music
Buried, Not Dead
A year ago, Buried In Verona were encountering enough rock’n’roll woes to fill an AC/ DC song. Instead of calling it quits, they turned their frustrations into their best album to date, vocalist Brett Anderson tells Tom Hersey.
“A
year ago we were all ready to give up,” Brett Anderson of Buried In Verona says straight off the bat. It’s the type of statement that in most cases would be followed a resigned sigh and a protracted explanation of what comes to be the beginning of the end. But Anderson is sounding positively cheery. That’s because he’s reflecting on the process that resulted in the Sydney metalcore outfit’s fifth album, Vultures Above, Lions Below. Beleaguered by a litany of financial and personal problems, the band managed to slog through to arrive at their most passionate, and powerful, album to date. “We were at the end of our ropes,” he continues. “Then I was writing about these experiences. But it wasn’t until we put it together that we realised this whole album was kind of about this massive transition, personally and as a band, that we all had to go through to be where we are now. So that was an awesome surprise at the end of it. That one big fluid story could come out of Buried In Verona’s personal battles that we had to deal with. Depression, alcoholism, all that sort of stuff that came about as a direct result of the
hardships Buried In Verona had to face.” Those hardships gave Anderson and the band a machine to rage against. And rage they did. Vultures Above, Lions Below comes across like a visceral gut-punch, and fans have immediately responded. Since its release, the album shot up the ARIA charts and critics have fawned over it. Which raises the question: if all this hardship led to such a great album, does that make Anderson and his cohorts kind of appreciate everything that went down? “Yes, we’ve been through some shit. And we’ve written songs about that shit. One hundred per cent, if we weren’t there, we couldn’t be here. But you can’t look at it like that. Because then it becomes this revolving cycle and I have to go through more shit to write the next album.” That’s why Anderson’s approaching the band’s upcoming tour with a positive mindset. “I’m going to use this tour as my version of therapy. Obviously I’m going to be thinking about these situations - it’s impossible not to relive a lot of the negativity when I’m singing these lyrics - but I’m going to try my best not to focus on what happened, but me expressing myself and getting those feelings out there. And using it as a positive thing to get it all off my chest... Me and the band, we just want to make things positive from now on. We want to take these negative and heavy songs from our personal lives and get that out as a means of moving forward from all this shit. “We’ve had enough negatives,” he adds cheerily. “We’ve gotta move on from all that shit. We can’t deal with any more negatives, we’ve lived it a little too long. We’ve gotta focus on the positive.”
What: Vultures Above, Lions Below (UNFD) When & Where: 26 Sep, The Brightside; 27 Sep, The Lab
Music
New Light
Afie Jurvanen, the main man behind Bahamas, is constantly looking for ways to throw new light onto his songwriting and performing experiences, as he explains to Chris Familton.
M
usicians react in different ways to their own work, particularly with the benefit of hindsight after their songs have been critiqued or performed in concert. Almost a year to the day that Afie Jurvanen’s most recent album Bahamas Is Afie was released he’s still engaged in the songs and finding new ways to explore and present them. “I still really like playing the songs,” he explains. “I’ve never been obsessed with playing the album note for note when we play it live. I just get great musicians and allow the songs to breathe and expand in sections and allow room for ideas to happen. If I tried to be the exact same person every single night that would get a little boring for me. It’d probably be boring for the audience too. That’s how I try to stay interested, with little variations and trying to bend the songs a little bit. It’s not like I’m Bob Dylan or anything though, I think everyone will still recognise the songs. It’s just great to play shows and have the conversation back and forth with the other musicians. “That’s what’s exciting for me about making records. You have to push yourself out of your comfort zone and try to make something special and see how you do. I’ll often tie one hand behind my back to
force myself to work beyond what is comfortable and that has often produced great results. For me that might mean playing a different guitar or with different musicians or studios or trying to play a guitar part on a piano. I’m always trying to think of different ways to screw with the program a bit.” Outside of his solo guise Jurvanen has also played in numerous bands as a guitarist and that experience has taught him some important skills he’s tried to incorporate into his own songwriting and performances. “I played with Feist for a number of years. She’s a wonderful songwriter in that she understands economy and getting to the point of the song quickly. She’s a great singer and guitar player and she can take you to that place. I really like that idea and try to channel that idea of keeping it lean and getting to the point. Touring with Jack Johnson a lot over the last few years, even though musically we’re different, he puts out so much positive energy and the audience sends it right back to him. Being in a room and feeling that energy, there’s nothing better so we try to channel some of that when we’re playing. It can be hard to do sometimes but you try whatever you can to get there each night.” With tour dates booked up until the end of the year Jurvanen is looking forward to a break in the New Year to start writing again. “I don’t write a lot of songs on the road. I really need to be at home for a stretch to play guitar and write some songs. I’m in a good spot so it’ll be interesting to see what comes next.”
The Best Of BIGSOUND Live Steve Bell – Editor, The Music Cosmic Psychos Young ‘uns definitely showed their promise with possibly the most distinctly Australian set of heavy rock ever delivered at BIGSOUND, then mooned us to show their appreciation.
The Goon Sax Super young Brisbane trio seem to strip back time with their jangly brand of indie rock, woozy and emotive and simultaneously fragile and robust. So compelling.
Polish Club Sometimes hype is aimed at the wrong targets and other times it’s utterly justified, and this Sydney duo belong unreservedly in the latter camp as they stun all and sundry with a polished set of soul-heavy blues rock, and that voice.
Gold Class Some lucky punters endured a face-full of invective from the frontman of this Melbourne outfit, who souvenired a lot of hearts and minds with their austere postpunk and smooth invective.
High Tension If any fool ever tries to say that women can’t rock sit them down in front of this thrashy Melbourne outfit and let them get their face melted off by Karina Utomo’s incredible scream. A lot to love.
When & Where: 24 Sep, Brisbane Festival, The Spiegeltent
High Tension. Pic: Bobby Rein
THE MUSIC • 23RD SEPTEMBER 2015 • 35
In Focus Evo l Wa l k s Pic: Terry Soo
Member/role: Leah Martin-Brown (vocals/songwriter) How long have you been together? We got together at the beginning of 2014 so we’re almost coming up to the two year mark. How did you all meet? I met most of the guys through the local music scene both in Brisbane and LA thanks to mutual friends. They were all killer players and I wanted to start something new so we jammed it out and it worked! You’re on tour in the van – which band or artist is going to keep the most people happy if we throw them on the stereo? We’re lucky that we are all into similar music styles – none of us will ever complain if you throw some Zeppelin on! Would you rather be a busted brokebut-revered Hank Williams figure or some kind of Metallica monster? We’ve been broke for what seems like forever – I don’t think we’d turn down the opportunity to become a killer band like Metallica. They’re pretty incredible! 36 • THE MUSIC • 23RD SEPTEMBER 2015
Which Brisbane bands before you have been an inspiration (musically or otherwise)? We are big fans of The Black Swamp – so much energy and killer riffs! Also the dudes in Upsize write great music and are awesome people so we love them. What part do you think Brisbane plays in the music you make? I think the nightlife around Brisbane in areas like Fortitude Valley have provided me with plenty of subject matter for songwriting over the years. We like to party and we like to write about the things we’ve experienced. What’s in the pipeline for the band in the short term? We have an 11 date Aussie tour and then head straight to the USA where we are kicking off a 7 date West Coast tour and then we get back into the studio to finish tracks for our next release.
Evol Walks play The Loft, Gold Coast (acoustic showcase) on 15 October and New Globe Theatre on 16 October.
Comedy
Weird Little Adult
“I
really just get up there and I talk about all of the things that are wrong with me - and usually people will laugh at those things because they have the same problems too,” US comedian “Little” Esther Povitsky chuckles. “And I like to go through people’s bags at the end of my show and get to know my audience. It’s really fun to kind of roast whoever’s stuff I’m going through and get to know them. I’m just gonna poke fun at the different kinds of things that us crazy people carry around in our wallets or our bags.” Povitsky’s Antipodean trek will be her firstever outside the US. “I just hear that everyone there is really fun and you guys have a good, healthy, fun attitude towards entertainment and that’s what I am excited about.” Povitsky’s “Little” handle is apt. The 27year-old, a former child model for American Girl doll catalogues, speaks in a girlish voice that’s a bit Cyndi Lauper, a bit young Madonna. Like Madge, she’s a Mid-Westerner, hailing from Skokie, a ‘village’ outside Chicago. “It’s kinda a mix between a small town and a suburb,” Povitsky says. “It’s close enough to Chicago that you feel like you can get away to the big city when you need to, but
This Week’s Releases
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“Little” Esther Povitsky is a professional stickybeak. The US comedian, hitting Australia this month, enjoys riffling through audience members’ bags, then trifling with them, in her offbeat stand-up shows, as Cyclone discovers.
it also has a really nice community.” And culturally? Back home “there are hot dog stands on every corner” - but, infamously, requesting ketchup (‘our’ ubiquitous tomato sauce) is a major etiquette fail. “In Chicago most hot dog stands will not let you eat ketchup. If you ask for ketchup on your hot dogs, they will refuse to serve you!” Regardless, while the city has “great people”, Povitsky (jokingly) says that she’s “bored of” them. She now resides in Los Angeles and aspires to travel more. Povitsky owes much of her growing international profile to podcasting, the rising star notably hosting the cult fave Weird Adults With Little Esther on the indie network Feral Audio. She initially recorded podcasts for her “existing fans”, but soon realised that they were bringing new ones to live gigs. “It has been by far the best tool and the best part of my career, I think, just for getting my voice heard - and getting these fun conversations out there and having people get to know me.” Povitsky has appeared on talk shows such as Jimmy Kimmel Live!. This year she joined Last Comic Standing as what one blog called a “secretly famous” contestant. Yet the self-described “theatrical comedian” is also pursuing a side-career as a (comic) actor, her biggest coup a role in the mockumentary TV series Parks And Recreation. “Parks And Rec was definitely a very special experience. That cast and that set, the energy there is like nothing I’ve ever experienced. Amy Poehler is one of the nicest, most amazing people I’ve ever met and she’s a comedy legend - she’s just the perfect person to me. Getting to know her was so fun and something I feel really lucky to have done. I feel really fortunate to have been part of that series because it’s so great - it’s so funny. I don’t think there’s another show that’s better - to me at least.”
The Dead Weather Dodge And Burn Third Man Records/ Warner
Kurt Vile b’lieve i’m goin down... Matador/Remote Control
CHVRCHES Every Open Eye Goodbye/Liberator
Silversun Pickups Better Nature New Machine/ADA When & Where: 27 Sep, Sit Down Comedy Club THE MUSIC • 23RD SEPTEMBER 2015 • 37
d n a r Ginal F 3 Rules Of Watching Grand Finals In Public
Whether you’re team has survived the cull and made it to the big day or not, every sports fan loves to get amongst the action and watch their favourite code’s Grand Final. It’s the culmination of a year’s worth of sweat and blood from very passionate people – and the players and coaches put in a fair bit over the course of the season as well – but there’s still some etiquette involved if you’re watching the marquee event in a public space.
Redland Bay Hotel
1. Play Hard But Fair
It’s easy to get carried away by events on the field, especially if your chosen side is involved, but remember that you’re not in your lounge room and other people are trying to enjoy the spectacle a well.
Grand Final Q&A Answered by: Daniel Sutton
2. Don’t Be A Cunt
Address: 160 Broadwater Tce, Redland Bay
Do not taunt people whose team is not faring well – it’s an emotional time already watching your hopes and dreams being flushed down the toilet; the last thing someone watching their team lose the big game needs is some drunken idiot giving them grief.
Is your venue screening both the NRL and AFL Grand Finals? NRL Grand Final live and loud on 6x5 metre big screen with full audio.
3. Stay To The End Conversely, if your own team is not doing well don’t spit the dummy and leave – it doesn’t reflect well on yourself nor your team being a peaheart. Good luck and may the best team(s) win!
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What’s happening in the way of pre- and post-match entertainment at your venue? Mental As Anything live in concert from 5pm.
When push comes to shove (as it so often does in grand finals) why do you believe your establishment is the best place to experience all the action? Bayside views with a fresh sea breeze. The Redland Bay Hotel is one of Brisbane’s best kept secrets. Website link for more info? redlandbayhotel.com.au/ whats_on
THE MUSIC • 23RD SEPTEMBER 2015 • 39
Album / E Album/EP Reviews
Disclosure Caracal PMR/Island
★★★★
Album OF THE Week
Guy and Howard Lawrence continue to extend their influence as tastemakers on this latest album. Caracal is their second effort, and while their critically acclaimed and commercially successful debut, Settle, was a complete surprise to most listeners, Caracal inevitably arrives with expectations. These are the kind of pressures that often contribute to the infamous second-album syndrome, making or breaking careers. The English brothers thankfully seem to have stuck to their strengths and challenged themselves to avoid overthinking their approach, simply improving on what Settle lacked. There are fewer barnstormers this time around, the duo focusing on their collaborations with the many respective guest songwriters on the album. Sam Smith is back for Omen, opting for thematic reversal of his previous partnership with the pair. The underlying music is more muscular and fleshed-out than the minimalistic Settle. The sense of space remains in their production, but is magnified through the care they take to ensure their higher profile guest vocalists have the chance to wrangle the songs into new emotional heights. The pair still deliver quality songwriting on their own vocal tracks. Echoes is a fitting tribute to the London garage music influence the pair have famously recontextualised, while bonus track Molecules is an exercise in dancefloor sentimentality. Disclosure is at the forefront of the electronic scene. Roshan Clerke
Chvrches
Parkway Drive
Every Open Eye
Ire
Glassnote/Liberator
Resist/Cooking Vinyl
★★★★
★★★½
Perhaps it’s in the way they put together some almost contradictory elements, but Chvrches are becoming something special. It is synth-pop, often based on the classic 1980s model. But even in those loops and samples they’re making something genuinely new. Then there’s the human instrument: Lauren Mayberry’s voice and presence more individual. Actually listen to some of the sometimes assertive - but certainly honest and thoughtful - conversations of her lyrics. The voice is human, but don’t mistake its apparent fragility for weakness. It’s never shrill, Leave A Trace one of several intelligent ‘break-up songs’ that dot the album. In different places, the thought process is ongoing - Playing Dead claims there are “no silver linings”, Clearest Blue the return
Australia’s most successful heavy music export could easily have escaped without gambling on album number five. However, chants of “Destroy!” during Ire’s opening could prove prophetic for supporters strictly anticipating ‘soundtrack to a bruising mosh’ metalcore. Their illusions may take a hit. That said, Ire is largely readily identifiable as Parkway Drive. Strings or piano flourishes and unexpected touches like Gregorian chants are afforded enhanced room to breathe, but overall it packs a sonic gutpunch. Shredfests and bursts of speed will appease long-timers. Dying To Believe’s guttural “How do you sleep at night?” catch-cry and accompanying thunderous beatdown will be an instant favourite. Dedicated’s “12 years” references feel akin to a love letter, musically and lyrically, to
40 • THE MUSIC • 23RD SEPTEMBER 2015
of some clarity, while the final Afterglow gets almost hymnal and certainly hopeful she’s come through it all. There’s further variety: High Enough To Carry You Over is more stately, with Martin Doherty handling the lead vocal to reinforce a different point of view. Overall, it’s maybe more stripped back than the first record - these are songs that happen to have machines as part of them, rather than their being mechanically formed. They’re more real and revealing for that, Never Ending Circles’ softer but inexorable whirlpools showing the quality of the pop music they now make. Ross Clelland
the faithful. Single Vice Grip’s somewhat of a ground zero; derided for its Bon Jovi-sized riff and arena ambitions, it’s cheesy but likeable. Bass-heavy Crushed’s brief, somewhat cackhanded pseudo-rapping may overshadow what’s among the LP’s heaviest moments. The real curveball is sparingly used, bordering on semi-clean vocal excursions. Winston McCall is evidently still growing into this role, and hasn’t quite zeroed in on how it slots within their bigger picture, but the distinctive presence is evidence of potential to expand the band’s scope. Parkway proudly signal a new beginning. Brendan Crabb
EP Reviews Album/EP Reviews
Ash Grunwald
Jeremy Neale
Julia Holter
Now
Let Me Go Out In Style
Have You In My Wilderness
Dot Dash/Remote Control
Domino/EMI
★★★½
★★★★
★★★★
★★★½
The opening ten seconds of River, the first track from iconic bluesman Ash Grunwald’s eighth record, sounds like the Doctor Who theme. But as soon as that distinctive guitar line pokes its ugly head into your ears, there’s no second-guessing who’s responsible. Now is fun, fast-paced and delivered with passion, Grunwald - alongside producer Nick Didia - throwing groovy riffs, driving rhythms and distorted vocals into a blender and letting the splatter hit the wall. The result is a mature record that embraces his position as a revered blues figure as opposed to the dreadlocked folk musician he once was.
The ineffably stylish Mr Neale’s music is a sometimes confusing thing. Falling somewhere between homage and pastiche, its unashamedly 1980s touchstones would see it pale quickly if he didn’t have a real grasp of how to write and deliver quality timeless pop songs. Tunes like the Scritti Politti-recalling synthetic soul of Danger come good-humouredly, but never without a real affection. And in the somewhat tongue-in-cheek Phoebe Imhoff duet of Hold On Together, there is genuine craft - even down to the obligatory plastic sax solo of the era. This is pop, yeah, yeah.
Having taken a giant leap out of her home studio on 2013’s Loud City Song, Have You In My Wilderness is an even more confident embrace of everything a pro studio can offer. This diverse assortment of songs is embroidered and laced with detailed acoustic timbres and elegant, cinematic arrangements. The backdrop of the hallucinogenic Vasquez undulates like a shimmering horizon, yet more so than ever, it’s Holter’s understated yet increasingly expressive vocals that conjure Have You In My Wilderness’ newfound sense of intimacy.
Ross Clelland
Christopher H James
Lachlan Bryan is one of those artists who straddles the worlds of commercial and altcountry, equally comfortable in Tamworth or an inner-city bar. The Mountain finds him exploring a more soulful sound complete with weeping pedal steel, fiddle, piano and shuffling drums. The emotional quota is high and generally hits the mark as Bryan sings of relationships and the pursuit of happiness. It’s not all tears-in-the-whisky-glass though with songs like The King And I striking sweet rock’n’roll and honky tonk grooves. There’s a consummate range of styles here that will satiate all types of country music fans.
Shock
Lachlan Bryan & The Wildes The Mountain Universal
Chris Familton
Dylan Stewart
More Reviews Online Doe Paoro After
theMusic.com.au
The Meanies It’s Not Me, It’s You
Patty Griffin Servant Of Love
THE MUSIC • 23RD SEPTEMBER 2015 • 41
Album / E Album/EP Reviews
My Own Pet Radio
Basenji
Peaches
US Girls
Trackpad
Rub
Half Free
Goodlum
Future Classic
Kartel
4AD/Remote Control
★★★★
★★★½
★★★½
★★★★
Sam Cromack’s debut album as My Own Pet Radio is an earnest self-portrait from one of Australia’s most rewarding songwriters. The thoughtful Ball Park Music lead singer grapples with ideas of maturity on this solo effort, experimenting with what it means to let go of other people’s and his own artistic expectations. True to its esoteric title, Goodlum is a record from the perspective of an individual in a community of outsiders. It’s a flowing album that achieves a sense of coherence without repeating itself, including instrumental tracks that demonstrate his versatile musical skills. Cromack’s sincerity is far more compelling than any false enigma.
“Universal” is often an insult; removing rough edges to upset as few people as possible tends to have the knock-on effect of exciting as few people as possible. That’s not true for Basenji. Trackpad is genuinely universal, but our host revels in the searing heat of big drums and shrill melodic stabs. Heirloom deserves its status as the EP’s lead track. The innocence of its plinkplonk melody makes for a sharp juxtaposition with its brutal backdrop. Petals is a similar blend of little and large, introspection and confidence. Only Can’t Get Enough, with its slightly oversweet vocals, jars. Trackpad is a study in contrasts.
Rub returns to a more purist electro sound to accompany the deep filthy XXX-minded nastiness that we have come to expect from Peaches. Kim Gordon and Feist make guest appearances but this is Peaches’ show. Interestingly, the humour seems to have evaporated and all we’re left with is the insistent “Rub, bitch, rub” issuing from the lips of a dominatrix. I Mean Something makes a grab for relevance as the downward spiral grind gets dark and really heavy. Feeling destroyed after odes to group sex, male genitals and some really nasty break-up songs, Vaginoplasty wearily touches on the need for reconstruction.
Meghan Remy continues to smash the pop conventions and - in a perfect world - leave the pretenders in her wake. As it stands, Half Free will probably remain on the fringes, despite its subversive brilliance. From the Western raga sway of Sororal Feelings, every track here is spectacular - the war-torn reggae and sparkle of Damn That Valley; the cerebral disco burn/Byrne of Window Shades; the sonorous noir with shades of Icehouse on New Age Thriller... Each song is fiercely iconoclastic, the lyrics both dark and proudly evocative, shining a light on gender injustice and social failures with a sheen of otherworldly beauty.
James d’Apice
Guido Farnell
Brendan Telford
Stop Start
Roshan Clerke
More Reviews Online Youth Lagoon Savage Hill Ballroom
42 • THE MUSIC • 23RD SEPTEMBER 2015
theMusic.com.au
Jemma & The Clifton Hillbillies Jemma & The Clifton Hillbillies
New Order Music Complete
THE MUSIC • 23RD SEPTEMBER 2015 • 43
Live Re Live Reviews
Mere Women @ The Foundry. Pic: Claudia Ciapocha
4ZZZ Flashback The Spiegeltent 20 Sep
Mere Women @ The Foundry. Pic: Claudia Ciapocha
Local radio-broadcasters and all-round legends 4ZZZ are joining forces with the Brisbane Festival to celebrate 40 years of bringing our city the best in local music with an afternoon full of live sets from local artists. A sunny Sunday afternoon, with the temperature set to not too hot and not too cold, brings about the perfect atmosphere to celebrate a Brisbane icon, especially one that has helped nurture so much musical local talent over the generations of its operation. The crowd at The Spiegeltent for the afternoon really exemplifies 4ZZZ’s reach, with families, the
The crowd at The Spiegeltent for the afternoon really exemplifies 4ZZZ’s reach.
Mere Women @ The Foundry. Pic: Claudia Ciapocha
Ed Kuepper @ 4ZZZ Flashback. Pic: Stephen Booth
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Ups & Downs @ 4ZZZ Flashback. Pic: Stephen Booth
young and the old ready to enjoy the musical variety on display for the afternoon. It is a rare opportunity for these bands to be seen during the daylight, making it perfect for everyone to get in on the action. Kicking off the afternoon’s antics is Jeremy Neale - a musician admired by many for his ability to adapt to any music trend as well as for his astonishing showmanship - who brings along his talented friends as backup and the always appreciated saxophonist for extra pizazz. Although it’s
eviews Live Reviews
probably not the crowd Neale is usually accustomed to, he still manages to charm with his ‘80s style boppy pop tunes. Boasting his brand new EP Let Me Go Out In Style, Neale showcases a quality display of songs from older releases as well as newer tunes soon to be heard. Neale engages in ‘storytime’, telling the crowd about his recent bout of appendicitis in transit between New York and LA on a recent holiday, but never letting his recent surgery hinder his signature screams and ability to rock, albeit against the doctor’s orders. The afternoon quickly moved onto some serious ‘90s alternative-rock nostalgia with a killer set from Screamfeeder. For a lot of fans, Screamfeeder are not just a band, but more of an icon of the alternate underground rock scene that Australian music lovers have cherished for years. After a successful past couple of years rereleasing old classics, putting on comeback tours and even teaming up with the esteemed indie label Poison City Records, Screamfeeder’s live set is one that is polished to a tee. Although the band has only played sporadically in recent times, their Screamfeeder charisma has not seemed to waver, as the band joke and banter throughout the set, most notably about bassist Kelly Lloyd’s new Fitbit. As a much loved local band and one which 4ZZZ have supported through and through, Screamfeeder surely did not disappoint those who came out to witness their wonder. Next up in the proceedings and for a change of pace is ‘80s dream pop band Ups & Downs. A band that were set for great things
back in the day, Ups & Downs have aged quite elegantly in their musical style and even subtly adapted their much loved tunes into sounds that are far less ‘80s pop style and something that could quite possibly be mistaken for a modern indie-pop band, but for the screaming 40-somethings dancing at the tail end of the set. Ups & Downs play a variety of their fun dance-tinged tunes, including The Living Kind and Lit By The Fuse. Ending the day’s celebration on an artistic high was a set from the revered Ed Kuepper. For the much respected musician in his own right as well as a cofounder of beloved Brisbane band The Saints (among other fine bands), there was going to be no doubt that The Spiegeltent would be at its fullest for Kuepper’s show. Throughout the day there is a sense of growing rowdiness inside The Spiegeltent, but that all ceases when Kuepper begins to play, enchanting the crowd with his experimental blues grunge and his settling and commanding voice, comparable to fellow Australian musician Nick Cave. Most notably, Kuepper’s performance of Electrical Storm proves particularly captivating, as he builds the song with just him and his electric guitar into something otherworldly. A great way to end a day of nostalgic tunes in celebration of a broadcaster that means a great deal to the local music scene. Georgia Corpe
Mere Women, Nature Trails, Forevr The Foundry 17 Sep
After a rough start with a termite infestation that caused them to close down for months after their opening night in May, The Foundry is back up and running and delivering some seriously good shows. Tonight’s line-up benefits from the best sound system and techs in this town - this’ll be a room bands look forward to playing. First up is Forevr, doing something that not many acts can: they’re loud without being aggressive, and cool while still expressing something real. These songs just build
There’s nothing you could add or take away to make this band better.
and build and build - you’re falling through layers of sound but where you land is soft and beautiful. Even Midas At Night, which starts with their most abrasive and distorted guitar, ends up having a sweetly hypnotic vocal hook. Shoegaze is music you really have to dive into completely to appreciate, and Forevr make the leap very easy. It’s hard to make a snap judgement of a band like Nature Trails. With deep droning vocals, sterile beats and incessantly technical guitar, it’s the kind of thing that, with repeat listens,
might reveal more nuance and dynamics. But at face value it sounds slightly samey and over-serious without conveying much of anything. There’s not a lot going on for how hard everyone on stage seems to be trying. However, their last, and apparently new, song is their best and most focused; indicating better stuff to come. Finally the answer to the age-old question; “Why the fuck would anyone move to Sydney?” Maybe cause that’s where Mere Women are from, and they’re one of the best live bands in the country. Last year’s record Your Town was a take-noprisoners ripper of what people call post-punk - but is really elemental rock’n’roll and there’s something about the absolute power of these three musicians on stage that makes you wanna be laughably effusive... and say dumb shit like ‘elemental rock’n’roll’. As soon as they rip through the hit parade of Home, Our Street, and Heave Ho in the first half of the set, it’s clear that there’s not enough exaggeration in the world for how well these songs work. There’s nothing you could add or take away to make this band better. With gale-force vocals, a drummer giving the machines in the previous bands a run for their money in precision (and absolutely slaying them for pure power) and grimly ear-wormy guitar that sounds like it’s played through gritted teeth, every moment is gripping and exciting. The biggest surprise is that we all aren’t pummelled a metre into the floor by the end of the set, which, of course, comes far too soon. But with new songs on the way we can hope Mere Women will be back before too long, ‘cause
THE MUSIC • 23RD SEPTEMBER 2015 • 45
Live Re Live Reviews
there’s not a lot to top this in the meantime. Madeleine Laing
Uncle Buck, Donnie’s Guns, Sound Of Truth
More Reviews Online
theMusic.com.au/ music/live-reviews
Circa Survive @ Metro Theatre The Smith Street Band @ Corner Hotel Tkay Maidza @ Adelaide Uni Bar Psychedelic Porn Crumpets @ The Bird
The Zoo 17 Sep “All the way from Brisbane”, Sound Of Truth kick off the night with a set that ticks all of the rock boxes, with some powerful lead vocals sailing over shredding solos on a Les Paul and a rhythm section with some serious groove and as tight as - oh, grow up. The set is jam packed full of quality rock riffs, drumstick twirls and choruses where all four members chip in with vocals to create a sound that’s much bigger than one would assume an opening act would be capable of (but you know what they say about assuming).
The initial disappointment of Uncle Buck not actually consisting of a zombie John Candy is quickly compensated for when they kick into gear. As Donnie’s Guns take the stage, we’re all informed that we’re missing The Bachelor for this show. So that was the night done, everyone went home to
46 • THE MUSIC • 23RD SEPTEMBER 2015
watch romantic “reality” shows and eat ice cream from the tub while crying. But seriously, this threepiece weave through a rich tapestry of genre crossovers, transitioning from jangly, indie-esque ditties to frantic punk riffs; the whole set having a pretty unique-butnot-outrageous undertone to it, like if Franz Ferdinand discovered distortion and speed. The set rolls on with an ode to the week’s political
distorted, the volume ramps up and everything charges on at warp-speed complete with some impressive musicality. Vocalist Wade Felsch is a prime example of born frontman; the guy has some serious presence, completely commanding the stage and the crowd as it breaks into an eight-man circle pit, all the while letting loose some throat-ripping vocals. The songs rarely go past the two-minute mark - which is
Uncle Buck @ The Zoo. Pic: Urbanwildlife
shit-storm and a personal highlight by way of whistling solo. The initial disappointment of Uncle Buck not actually consisting of a zombie John Candy is quickly compensated for when they kick into gear. Like a steelcapped kick to the teeth, the four-piece unleash a brutal display of hardcore onto an unsuspecting audience. There’s some obvious Municipal Waste and Slayer influences coming through as the down-tuned set gets more
lucky, because it’s damn near impossible not to whip your head, and if each song went for any longer there would be broken necks galore. This band may be only relatively new to the hardcore crowd, but with shows like this they’re putting the scene on notice and any thrash and hardcore fans best keep an eye out for future shows. Be warned though, it’s not nearly as family-friendly as a John Candy movie. Tom Peasley
THE MUSIC • 23RD SEPTEMBER 2015 • 47
Arts Reviews Arts Reviews
The Theory Of Everything
Prize Fighter
Festival La Boite Studio (finished)
The Theory Of Everything. Pic: Dylan Evans
★★★★ Prize Fighter. Pic: Dylan Evans
Festival Roundhouse Theatre to 26 Sep
★★★★
Everything. It’s an ambitious topic for a 60-minute performance and as the eightmember cast form a menacing line dressed in pastels, no less - to “confront” the audience with their rapid-fire opening assertions of what The Theory Of Everything is and isn’t (nothing to do with Stephen Hawking, maybe everything to do with Google and quantum physics), it’s clear they’re going to make every minute count. Amidst a bare-bones set, small costume gestures
It opens with the pumping strains of D-12’s Fight Music as the super fit fighters at a Brisbane boxing gym limber up under the watchful eye of diminutive, Miyagi-like trainer Luke (Margi Brown-Ash). On this stage - a white square of canvas overhung by a Jumbotron - the story of child soldier-turned-Congolese refuge- turned Australian light heavyweight title challenger Isa, aka “Steve The Killer” (Pacharo Mzembe), plays out. In Prize Fighter, playwright Future D Fidel cleverly frames the life story of Isa through the lens of two boxing matches. As the opponents duck and weave around each other, the threads of Isa’s youth are woven into the fabric of the play. His family butchered, eightyear-old Isa falls under the thrall of a twisted “mentor” for years before finally escaping into Kenya and thence to Australia, where he joins a gym and finds a talent for fighting. Mzembe’s performance is powerful and punchy and you can see the inner turmoil as he battles the inner bloodlusting street-fighting killer he was forced to become and tries to become a disciplined champion. The script is often rough, but the action moves at a breakneck pace and there are moments of dark comedy that leaven the The Importance Of Being Earnest grim subject matter. It’s all the more moving considering.
transform the cast into renowned historical figures reduced to schoolyard squabbling and confused biblical characters. Throughout, there’s a competitiveness to prove the meaning and purpose of life, a line of thinking or simply the pondering of an individual, though the joy in the performance comes with way this meets with flippant, colloquial snippets, such as Charles Darwin yelling ‘sweet burn’ in support of Einstein’s relativity spiel. Time, space and the outer reaches of the universe are explored too in this cleverly written production with the aid of a pitch black set and headlamps, and while ultimately the cast admit to failing in their attempt to explain The Theory Of Everything, the possibility of wonder remains delightfully intact. Tyler McLoughlan
Finn Kirkman
The Importance Of Being Earnest Festival Playhouse Theatre, QPAC (finished)
★★★★ Though the play was written over a century ago, Singapore’s W!LD RICE theatre company shows just how relevant Oscar Wilde’s farcical classic remains today, tackling societal expectation across class, marriage and gender with an extra large dose of flamboyance in their all-male production. The similarities between social pressures in modern-day Singapore and Wilde’s Victorian era are cleverly highlighted in the tale of two wealthy men who create fictional lives to escape the boredom of conventional society. Wonderfully transferable one-liners initially meant to mock the upper-class characters now appear 48 • THE MUSIC • 23RD SEPTEMBER 2015
just as relevant to the modern obsession with self, as Chua Enlai’s Gwendolen Fairfax often underlines: “I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read on the train.” Accompanied at intervals by a Queensland Conservatorium string quartet, Julian Sharp’s Bach cello solo is a particularly breathtaking highlight, as is the sharp cast suiting by Singaporean designer Frederick Lee. A bold, monochrome set design by artistic director Ivan Heng, who also appears as the imposing Lady Bracknell, bolsters the pacy dialogue. It’s a vibrant, often surprising and energetic take on an enduring classic. Tyler McLoughlan
Arts Reviews Arts Reviews
Sworn Virgin
Le Cargo
Festival Cremorne Theatre, QPAC (finished)
★★★½
Sworn Virgin Festival Palace Centro, 11 Sep
★★★½ Sworn Virgin is Laura Bispuri’s stunning feature-length debut. The Italian director wrote the delicate screenplay for established star Alba Rohrwacher, adapted from the eponymous award-winning novel by Elvira Dones. Like Bispuri’s previous shorts, this film revolves around themes of freedom and identity. Set in Albania, the story follows the life of fictional character Hana Doda as she attempts to escape the social confines of the patriarchal mountain community in which she lives through becoming a sworn virgin. By engaging in the centuries-old practice, she is able to dress and receive the privileges of living as a man. The scenery in these early sequences, and in the ensuing flashbacks, is beautifully sparse. Snow falls gently off roofs and crunches under the townspeople’s feet as they walk along icy riversides. There’s a cold and blue tinge to the film, lending it an appropriate feeling of isolation and detachment. The film is full of parallels and juxtapositions, drawing
motive connections from the flashback scenes and indulging in occasionally disorientating symbolic imagery with synchronised swimmers. Filmed using a hand-held camera, there’s a documentary sense to it that mirrors the sensory exploration Rohrwacher’s character engages in on moving out of the mountain town. Her charming and vulnerable performance is skilfully interwoven with these elements to produce an exquisitely gorgeous and fascinating look at the cross-section between culture and perspective. Roshan Clerke
“Does it make any difference when I go Linyekula’s initial around the world telling stories of the question, the Congo?” asks Faustin Linyekula as he sits audience gives upon a little stool. From the midst of a two long rounds stage adorned with only floor lights, the of applause. Yes, dancer regales stories of his childhood, it does make a his community, his family - always with the difference; culture, backdrop of war and crisis. Linyekula’s voice ritual and life is neither loud nor commanding - he’s like a experience shared new friend chatting about his life - although makes the world a slowly he positions and moves his arms better place. until he’s on his feet and really speaking Tyler McLoughlan to the heart through dance. Mixing fluid and spasmodic movements, Le Cargo. Pic: Justin Nicholas Linyekula flirts with the lighting, making two, three and sometimes four other versions of himself bounce beautifully around the space. After various rounds of storytelling, dance and song, he presses play on his laptop to make the show thus far repeat; how delightful it is to hear the performer harmonise with his own recorded voice as he throws himself fully into recreating the ritualistic dances of his childhood. In response to
THE MUSIC • 23RD SEPTEMBER 2015 • 49
Comedy / G The Guide
Wed 23
Jeanie
Code Orange + Cursed Earth + Time Crisis + Fvck Mountain: Crowbar, Fortitude Valley
Mumford & Sons
The Getaway Plan + Red Beard + Why Wait: Dalrymple Hotel, Garbutt Benny D Williams: Griffith University (Drama Theatre), Nathan
The Music Presents Brisbane Festival 2015: Brisbane 5-26 Sep At The Dakota: Ric’s Bar 2 Oct, Shamrock Hotel 3 Oct Red Deer Festival: Mt Samson 3 Oct Bad//Dreems: Woolly Mammoth 16 Oct, Miami Shark Bar 17 Oct
Big Bad Echo + Mid Ayr + Pleco: Sonny’s House of Blues, Brisbane Brisbane Festival presents Los Coronas: Spiegeltent, South Bank Malibu Stacey + What We’re Worth + Sun Heights + Eat Your Heart Out + Set The Score: The Brightside, Fortitude Valley Pennywise + Anti-Flag: The Tivoli, Fortitude Valley
Jeanie In A Bottle Melbourne duo Jeanie have made the trek upwards to Brisbane to perform a show at Black Bear Lodge, 24 Sep. Expect musical stories and clever country-pop.
Laura Marling: The Tivoli 21 Oct The Phoenix Foundation: Woolly Mammoth 23 Oct Dan Kelly: Black Bear Lodge 23 Oct Mumford & Sons: Brisbane Riverstage 7 Nov
Thu 24 Diva Demolition: Barkly Hotel Motel, Miles End Trivia: Beetle Bar, Brisbane Jeanie: Black Bear Lodge, Fortitude Valley
Lachlan Bryan & The Wildes: The Milk Factory 28 Nov A Day On The Green – Paul Kelly: Sirromet Winery 29 Nov
Coin Banks. Pic: Bron Woodward
Concrete Lips + Friendly Fire + Fuzzkill: Beetle Bar, Brisbane
Des Reid: Loving Hut, Mount Gravatt
1am Slot feat. Heavy Breather: Beetle Bar, Brisbane
Coin Banks: Mackay Entertainment Centre, Mackay
The Kill Devil Hills: Black Bear Lodge, Fortitude Valley
The Getaway Plan + Red Beard: Magnums Hotel, Airlie Beach
Brisbane Festival presents Bahamas: Spiegeltent, South Bank
Father John Misty: Max Watt’s 6 Dec
Bring the Funk feat. DJ Paprika: The Bearded Lady, West End
Bully: Woolly Mammoth 12 Dec
Bit O’ Coin Coin Banks has a bit of a busy few days this week, his regional tour now bringing him to Queensland. He’s performing two shows: Mackay Entertainment Centre, 24 Sep and Gladstone Entertainment Centre, 26 Sep.
Andrew Baxter Band: Brisbane Jazz Club, Kangaroo Point Pennywise + Anti-Flag: Coolangatta Hotel, Coolangatta
50 • THE MUSIC • 23RD SEPTEMBER 2015
Warwick Alder + Helen Russell: JMI Live, Bowen Hills
Fri 25
Brodie Graham: Solbar (Lounge Bar), Maroochydore
Mew: Max Watt’s 4 Dec
Bluesfest 2016: Tyagarah Tea Tree Farm 24-28 Mar
Thigh Master: Grand Central Hotel, Brisbane
Morning Harvey
As It Is + With Confidence: The Brightside, Fortitude Valley
Good Morn
Pesci’s Club Night with Morning Harvey + Bugs: The Foundry, Fortitude Valley
Club night Pesci at The Foundry sees Morning Harvey taking to the stage on 24 Sep. The second edition of the night follows the resounding success of the first, and will no doubt follow suit. Support from Bugs.
Electric Suede + Hemingway + C90 Superchrome: The Milk Factory Kitchen & Bar, South Brisbane Bondi Cigars: The Triffid, Newstead Fugitive Hotel + The Young Art + Fire & Whistle Theory: The Zoo, Fortitude Valley
Biggy P: Breakfast Creek Hotel, Albion
Devin The Dude: Woolly Mammoth, Fortitude Valley
Amy Michaels: Brisbane Jazz Club, Kangaroo Point
Code Orange: Zephyr Hall, West End
Part One: From Small Things Grow feat. Clocked Out Duo + Topology
Gigs / Live The Guide
+ Flutes of the Forest + Trombones in Tinnies: Brisbane Powerhouse (Visy Theatre), New Farm
+ Frayed & The Fallen + Last 9 Days + The Confederacy: Chardons Corner Hotel (Back Room), Annerley
Last Dinosaurs. Pic: Clare Hawley
I Know Leopard: Brolga Theatre, Maryborough
Sixfthick + Hits + Deafcult: Crowbar, Fortitude Valley
Bread Truck: Burleigh Brewing, Burleigh Heads
Bradley John + The Lonesome Heroes: Eat Street Markets, Hamilton
Tuxedo Kitten: Cardigan Bar, Sandgate
Nailhouse + Sewers + Heavy Breather + Piss Pain: Grand Central Hotel, Brisbane
In Death + Azreal + Amicable Treason + Symbolic Weapon + Dead End Kings: Crowbar, Fortitude Valley Steele + The Wet Fish: Eat Street Markets, Hamilton Otto Knows: Eatons Hill Hotel, Eatons Hill The Garden + Wax Witches + White Lodge: Elsewhere, Surfers Paradise Alan Boyle: Habitat Restaurant & Bar, South Brisbane
Tkay Maidza. Pic: Lauren Connelly
Berst + Locky: Irish Murphy’s, Brisbane
Not Extinct Off the back of the release of their second album, Wellness, Last Dinosaurs are kicking off the national album tour at The Triffid on 25 Sep, playing a matinee show in the arvo for under 18s and then the over-18 show in the evening. Touche: Oh Hello!, Fortitude Valley A State of Grace: The Music of Tim & Jeff Buckley feat. Martha Wainwright + Willy Mason + Casper Clausen + Camille O’Sullivan + Cold Specks + Steve Kilbey + Gods & Monsters: QPAC (Concert Hall), South Brisbane Late For Woodstock: Royal Mail Hotel, Goodna
Tkay? Ok! Australia’s rapper of the moment (for a long moment now – and with good reason), Tkay Maidza, is bringing her fun tunes and impressive flow to Oh Hello! on 25 Sep and Solbar, Maroochydore, 26 Sep.
Eddie Ifft: Sit Down Comedy Club, Paddington
Big KRIT + Milwaukee Banks: The Zoo, Fortitude Valley As It Is + With Confidence: Trinity Centre, Fortitude Valley
Battleships + Jesse Taylor: Solbar, Maroochydore
DJ Hoops + Pyromance + Trash Queen + Firechild: Beetle Bar, Brisbane
Jabba + Locky: Irish Murphy’s, Brisbane
Brad Lee: Story Bridge Hotel (The Corner Bar), Kangaroo Point
Tooth & Nail: Lock ‘n’ Load Bistro, West End
Megan Washington: Tanks Arts Centre, Edge Hill
Seductive Soul: Logan Diggers Club, Logan Central
Antagonist A.D + Reactions: The Brightside, Fortitude Valley
Tuxedo + Bankrupt Billionaires + Vulture St Tape Gang: Max Watt’s (formerly The Hi-Fi Brisbane), West End
The Lonesome Heroes + Big Iron + Paddy McHugh: The Milk Factory Kitchen & Bar, South Brisbane Last Dinosaurs + Palms + The Jensens: The Triffid (Under18s), Newstead
Family Affair: Logan Diggers Club, Logan Central In Hearts Wake + Make Them Suffer + Ocean Grove + Stories: Magnums Hotel, Airlie Beach
Deena
Hobo Magic: Wharf Tavern (The Helm), Mooloolaba
Sat 26
Brisbane Festival presents Kiasmos: Spiegeltent, South Bank
The Cornermen: Lock ‘n’ Load Bistro, West End
The Getaway Plan + Red Beard + El Fuego + Tea Society: Villa Noosa Hotel, Noosaville
The Timbers: Solbar (Lounge Bar), Maroochydore
Loa: Statler & Waldorf, Brisbane
Tkay Maidza + Willow Beats + Porches + L.K. McKay + Tyler
Last Dinosaurs + Palms + The Jensens: The Triffid, Newstead
Byron Short + The Sunset Junkies + Ellie Jane + Hayley Marsten: Johnny Brown’s, Fortitude Valley
Deena: Black Bear Lodge, Fortitude Valley The Sand Dollars: Boardriders Coolangatta, Coolangatta The Green Sinatras: Breakfast Creek Hotel, Albion Chris Poulsen Trio: Brisbane Jazz Club, Kangaroo Point Part Two: Dada Cabaret feat. Clocked Out Duo + Early Warning System + The Wild + Felaminikuti + Balloon Music + Jan Baker-Finch: Brisbane Powerhouse, New Farm The Arbiter + Odysseus Reborn + Into the Badlands + The Supremacy
Turpentine Blues Self-styled and self-taught singer-songwriter Deena is performing at Black Bear Lodge, 26 Sep, with her band in tow. She’ll be sure to captivate with her indie-blues-rock and new single Turpentine.
The Getaway Plan + Red Beard + Gloria Falling: Parkwood Tavern, Parkwood A State of Grace: The Music of Tim & Jeff Buckley feat. Martha Wainwright + Willy Mason + Casper Clausen + Camille THE MUSIC • 23RD SEPTEMBER 2015 • 51
Comedy / G The Guide
O’Sullivan + Cold Specks + Steve Kilbey + Gods & Monsters: QPAC (Concert Hall), South Brisbane Two Girls Will + Minnie Marks : Royal Mail Hotel, Goodna Tkay Maidza + Willow Beats + Porches + L.K. McKay: Solbar, Maroochydore The Flumes: Solbar (Lounge Bar), Maroochydore Daniel Stoneman: Statler & Waldorf, Brisbane
Ed & Eddy: Story Bridge Hotel (The Corner Bar), Kangaroo Point
Wolves + DJ Papa Bitcho: The Triffid, Newstead
Bondi Cigars: Soundlounge, Currumbin
Irukandji + Flynn Effect + Simulation + Dr Parallax: The Zoo, Fortitude Valley
DJ James Brown: Story Bridge Hotel (Shelter Bar), Kangaroo Point
Sun 27 Sound Of Truth + Tooth & Bone + Salt & Steel: Beetle Bar, Brisbane Say Ruby: Breakfast Creek Hotel, Albion Jake Bristow Quartet: Brisbane Jazz Club (9.30am), Kangaroo Point New Groove Big Band: Brisbane
Buried In Verona + Hand Of Mercy + Polaris + Void Of Vision + Season Unending: The Lab (All Ages), Brisbane The Mulberry Collective + Hannah Rosa: The Milk Factory Kitchen & Bar, South Brisbane The Sand Dollars: The Milk Factory Kitchen & Bar, South Brisbane The Timbers + Matt Stillert: The Triffid, Newstead
Mon 28 Maroon 5 + Dirty Loops + Conrad Sewell: Brisbane Entertainment Centre, Boondall
Got To Get Away
Magic America + House Of Giants + Lazy Daisy: The Bearded Lady, West End
Wed 30
Buried In Verona + Hand Of Mercy + Polaris + Void Of Vision + Bayharbour: The Brightside, Fortitude Valley Skegss: The Foundry, Fortitude Valley Rowen + Brother Fox + Charlotte Emily: The Milk Factory Kitchen & Bar, South Brisbane The Wet Fish + Morningside Fats: The Motor Room, West End Kingfisha + Kooii + The Francis 52 • THE MUSIC • 23RD SEPTEMBER 2015
Wiz Khalifa: Eatons Hill Hotel, Eatons Hill Daryl James: Lock ‘n’ Load Bistro, West End James Johnston: Redland Bay Hotel, Redland Bay In Hearts Wake + Make Them Suffer + Ocean Grove + Stories: Solbar, Maroochydore VanderAa: Solbar (Lounge Bar), Maroochydore
Frank Yamma + Byron Short: Black Bear Lodge, Fortitude Valley Rachel Maria Cox + EssEm + Clea + OK Badlands: Ric’s Bar, Fortitude Valley I Know Leopard: Riverway Arts Centre, Thuringowa Central Bugs: Sonny’s House of Blues, Brisbane Kirin J Callinan + Molly Lewis + Emerson Snowe: The Brightside, Fortitude Valley
Jazz Club, Kangaroo Point
Faleepo Francisco: Eat Street Markets, Hamilton
Mark Sheils: Samford Valley Hotel, Samford Village
21 Hundred + Thony Remy + Aize Akon + 2Rite: Captain Cook Tavern, Kippa-Ring
Skegss
Gorilla Biscuits + Mouthguard + The Struggle: Crowbar, Fortitude Valley
Byron Bay metalcore outfit In Hearts Wake have been having a kickass year, releasing two conceptually linked albums, Earthwalker and Skydancer, both of which made a significant dent in the ARIA Charts Top Ten. They now play Solbar, 27 Sep.
Wings + Rose + Kudos: The Bearded Lady, West End
Off the back of their latest single release, Last Words, The Getaway Plan are making their way around the country, coming to Parkwood Tavern, 26 Sep and Woolly Mammoth, 2 Oct.
DJ Panda: Story Bridge Hotel (Shelter Bar), Kangaroo Point
Wake Up
Tue 29
Charlotte McLean: Lock ‘n’ Load Bistro, West End
The Getaway Plan
In Hearts Wake
Fun Times Byron Bay punk rockers Skegss follow up their BIGSOUND show with a set at The Foundry on 26 Sep, in support of their latest single, Fun, which is, coincidentally, what you’ll be having if you head along to the show.
Running Left Handed + Fugitive & The Vagabond: Ric’s Bar, Fortitude Valley
Songwriter Wednesday feat. Tim Sladden: The Triffid (Front Bar), Newstead
Thu 01 East: Black Bear Lodge, Fortitude Valley Jazz Singers Jam Night: Brisbane Jazz Club, Kangaroo Point EMO (Enthusiastic Musicians Orchestra) + Andrew Garton + Charlotte McLean + Steve Newcomb: JMI Live, Bowen Hills
Gigs / Live The Guide
Behemoth + Watain + Bolzer: Max Watt’s (formerly The Hi-Fi Brisbane), West End
The Getaway Plan: Woolly Mammoth, Fortitude Valley
Flyying Colours
Sat 03
The Getaway Plan + Aerials: Racehorse Hotel, Booval
Clash Bash Fundraiser feat. Kingston Stompers + The Mouldy Lovers + Pick It Up: Beetle Bar, Brisbane
The Smith Street Band + Lucy Wilson: Solbar, Maroochydore Matt Stillert: Solbar (Lounge Bar), Maroochydore
Zefereli: Black Bear Lodge, Fortitude Valley
Cancer Bats + High Tension + Time Crisis: The Brightside, Fortitude Valley Yowie feat. Flyying Colours + Sacred Shrines + Soviet X-Ray Record Club: The Foundry, Fortitude Valley Rachel Maria Cox + Ess-Em + Miss Elm + Average Art Club: The Milk Factory Kitchen & Bar, South Brisbane
Meg Mac
Rafael Karlen Quintet: Brisbane Jazz Club, Kangaroo Point
Rainbow Party Flyying Colours are bringing their second EP, ROYGBIV (produced, mixed and engineered by Woody Annison (Children Collide, The Living End, Bad//Dreems) to The Foundry on 1 Oct. Supporting them will be Sacred Shrines and Soviet X-Ray Record Club. Andrew Baxter Band: Burleigh Brewing, Burleigh Heads Daryl James: Cardigan Bar, Sandgate Katchafire: Chardons Corner Hotel (Backroom), Annerley
Never Say Never Powerhouse Australian singer Meg Mac has hit the road for a national tour in support of her upcoming single, Never Be. It makes its way to Max Watt’s on 2 Oct.
Jud Campbell: The Triffid (Beer Garden), Newstead Ultra Ego + Monkey Island + Bad Pharmer: The Zoo, Fortitude Valley Cormega + Stumik: Woolly Mammoth, Fortitude Valley
Fri 02 Castlecomer: Black Bear Lodge, Fortitude Valley Louise Isackson: Brisbane Jazz Club, Kangaroo Point
Ruth Roshan & Tango Noir: Brisbane Powerhouse (Visy Theatre), New Farm
Caloundra Music Festival feat. Angus & Julia Stone + Dubarray + Agnes J Walker + Dynamic Hepnotics + Matt Stillert + Blue King Brown + Fieu + Yamini + Larry Braggs Soul Club + Alex Crook + Diesel n’ Dub + Halcyon Drive + Landerz-I + The Beards + Emma Beau + Frank Yamma + Battleships + Beverley Thrills + George & Noriko + David Flower Band + OKA + The Perries + Funk Majestic + Clayton Doley + Dear WIllow + more + Caloundra Music Festival: Kings Beach, Kings Beach Tooth & Nail: Lock ‘n’ Load Bistro, West End Meg Mac + Banff + Big Strong Brute: Max Watt’s (formerly The Hi-Fi Brisbane), West End Cancer Bats + High Tension + She Cries Wolf: Miami Tavern (Shark Bar), Miami Cheated Hearts with DJ Jane Doe + Killer Prince + DJ DZYR: Oh Hello!, Fortitude Valley At The Dakota: Ric’s Bar,
Fortitude Valley Parkway Drive + Memphis May Fire + The World Alive: Riverstage, Brisbane Izania: Royal Mail Hotel, Goodna
Garethstock III with Gorefield + Kaerulean + Smoking Martha + Bulls On Parade + Deraign + Universe + Reud Mood + Kaustic Attack + Elkenwood + Wartooth + Decapitated Mum + Wisdoms Realm + Darklore + Micropsia + Lip Sinder: Chardons Corner Hotel (Backroom), Annerley Shellfin + Hobo Magic + Party Vibez + Sorcery + Malakyte: Crowbar, Fortitude Valley
Fiona & The Sweepers: Solbar (Lounge Bar), Maroochydore Castlecomer
Mason Rack Band : Solbar (Main Stage), Maroochydore SPRUKE 2015 feat. Aldrine Guerrero + Aaron Nakamura + Tyrone & Lesley + Benhur Helwend + Numb Bums: TAFE Brisbane, South Brisbane Pete Murray + Garrett Kato: Tanks Arts Centre, Edge Hill Drunk Mums: The Brightside, Fortitude Valley Aerials + The Iron Eye + The Golden Age of Ballooning + Love Hate Rebellion: The Foundry, Fortitude Valley Pirra + Creature Kind + Amela: The Milk Factory Kitchen & Bar, South Brisbane Matt Okine: The Tivoli, Fortitude Valley Katchafire: The Triffid, Newstead Dustin Tebbutt + Jesse Davidson + Caitlin Park: The Zoo, Fortitude Valley
Of The Castle Fresh off supporting tours of Aussie favourites, Art Vs Science, Kingswood, The Griswolds and several headline tours of their own, Sydney poprockers Castlecomer are touring their new single Fire Alarm, stopping by Black Bear Lodge, 2 Oct.
Liquid Architecture feat. Richard Dawson + Basic House + New Waver + Kraus + more: Institute of Modern Art, Fortitude Valley
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The Queen Extravaganza + Tribute Band: Jupiters, Broadbeach
Caloundra Music Festival feat. Xavier Rudd & The United Nations + San Cisco + Josh Pyke + Meg Mac + Ash Grunwald + Abbe May + Watussi + Matt Stillert + The Badloves + Lime Cordiale + Band of Frequencies + Alex Crook + George Porter & The Runnin Pardners + Back Alley Cats + George & Noriko + David Flower Band + Melbourne Ska Orchestra + Sahara Beck + Andrea Kirwin + The Perries + Larry Braggs Soul Club + Yamini + The Kitty Kats + Emma Beau + Andy Jans-Brown + Cozmic + Funk Majestic + Dear WIllow + Diana Anaid + Jason Daniels + Mustered Courage + more + Caloundra Music Festival: Kings Beach, Kings Beach Devils Kiosk: Lock ‘n’ Load Bistro, West End Vicky O’Keefe: Logan Diggers Club, Logan Central Reel Big Fish + Less Than Jake + The Bennies: Max Watt’s (formerly The Hi-Fi Brisbane), West End Frenzal Rhomb + Andy Bull + Salmonella Dub Soundsystem + Hey Geronimo + Ayla + Mosman Alder + WAAX + Cheap Fakes + We All Want To + Bad Pony + Isaac Cavallaro + Machine Age + Sundown Jury + more + Red Deer Music Festival: Red Deer Festival, Mt Samson Devil’s Kiosk + Moondog: Royal Mail Hotel, Goodna At The Dakota: Shamrock Hotel, Toowoomba Richie Langford: Solbar (Lounge Bar), Maroochydore Pop Cult + Dream Thieves: Solbar (Main Stage), Maroochydore Mean Girls Party with Various Artists: The Brightside, Fortitude Valley Twin Haus + Vulture St Tape Gang: The Foundry, Fortitude Valley Hayden Calnin: The Milk Factory Kitchen & Bar, South Brisbane The Getaway Plan: The Spotted Cow, Toowoomba
54 • THE MUSIC • 23RD SEPTEMBER 2015
The Jungle Giants + Art Of Sleeping + Hockey Dad: The Triffid (2pm), Newstead The Jungle Giants + Art Of Sleeping + Hockey Dad: The Triffid, Newstead The Beards: The Zoo, Fortitude Valley Ben Lee: Woolly Mammoth, Fortitude Valley
Sun 04
Dubarray
The Audreys: Black Bear Lodge, Fortitude Valley Adam Connelly Quartet: Brisbane Jazz Club, Kangaroo Point Marco Resmann: Capulet, Fortitude Valley Reel Big Fish + Less Than Jake + The Bennies: Coolangatta Hotel, Coolangatta The Meanies + BUDD + The Onyas + BMX-RAY: Crowbar, Fortitude Valley
Pete Murray
Better Days Pete Murray is heading out on an extensive national acoustic tour, titled Yours Acoustically, which sees him visiting 33 locations, including Civic Centre, Mount Isa, 1 Oct and Tank Arts Centre, Edge Hill, 2 Oct and more.
Liquid Architecture: Institute of Modern Art, Fortitude Valley Caloundra Music Festival feat. Hoodoo Gurus + Baby Animals + Babylon Circus + Ben Lee + Carl Wockner + Mojo Juju + Joe Mungovan + Thundamentals + In2nation + Amali Ward + Agnes J Walker + All Day + The Lyrical +
Rub A Dub The Caloundra Music Festival is about to arrive at Kings Beach! On 2 Oct, let Angus & Julia Stone, Dubarray, Agnes J Walker, Dynamic Hepnotics, Matt Stillert, Blue King Brown and many more entertain you. The Settlement + Hoo8hoo + Royal Southern Brotherhood + Bearfoot + Jason Daniels + Katchafire + The Brains Trust + Doolie + Steve Poltz + Mia Wray + Michael Backhouse + Watussi + The Chontia Robinson Trio + Beverley Thrills + more + Caloundra Music Festival: Kings Beach, Kings Beach Listen Out 2015 feat. Childish Gambino + SBTRKT + Joey Bada$$ + Alison Wonderland + Odesza + Rae Sremmurd + Golden Features + Ryan Hemsworth + more: RNA Showgrounds, Bowen Hills Pop Standen: Royal Mail Hotel, Goodna Old Fashioned + Bart Thrupp: Solbar (Lounge Bar), Maroochydore 10 Years of The Secret Life Of The Veronicas performed by Beth Lucas: The Brightside, Fortitude Valley Jessie Ryan-Allen + Ella Fence + Erin Jane: The Milk Factory Kitchen & Bar, South Brisbane XKore + Dack Janiels: Woolly Mammoth, Fortitude Valley
Mon 05 The Round: Black Bear Lodge, Fortitude Valley Caloundra Music Festival feat.
Good Times Band feat. Kate Ceberano + Joe Camilleri + Brian Cadd + Ross Wilson + Wilbur Wilde + JJ Grey & Mofro + Pseudo Echo + Casey Barnes + Back Alley Cats + The Lyrical + Amali Ward + Michael Backhouse + Larry Braggs Soul Club + Tijuana Cartel + Mojo Juju + Steve Poltz + The Settlement + Bearfoot + Agnes J Walker & The Cry Babies + Landerz-I + Hoo8hoo + Doolie + more + Caloundra Music Festival: Kings Beach, Kings Beach Chunk! No, Captain Chunk! + Take Us To Vegas + Skies Collide + Glory Days: The Brightside, Fortitude Valley The Meanies: Tym Guitars, Fortitude Valley
Tue 06 Loon Lake: The Brightside, Fortitude Valley
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56 • THE MUSIC • 23RD SEPTEMBER 2015