28.06.17 Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture
Melbourne / Free / Incorporating
tour: GRINSPOON
tour: LISA MITCHELL & DUSTIN TEBBUTT
release: STONE SOUR
A m e r i c a n B r o t h e r s B r i n g i n g G l a m o u r To S p l e n d o u r
Issue
195
2 • THE MUSIC • 28TH JUNE 2017
THE MUSIC • 28TH JUNE 2017 • 3
- Islands In Mind the new album by
Album Out Now www.eldafyre.com
4 • THE MUSIC • 28TH JUNE 2017
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9387 6779
THE MUSIC • 28TH JUNE 2017 • 5
Music / Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture
The Loneliest Number
Paul McCartney
It’s official – Paul McCartney’s One On One world tour will take him to Australian shores for the first time since 1993! Tickets will undoubtedly disappear faster than Adelaide’s hopes that he’ll stop at their city (our condolences, Adelaide).
Pharoahe Monch
Barter Bits Australia’s own Ali Barter is gearing up for one hectic year. The singer-songwriter is embarking on an 11-date national headline tour late August, as well as throwing some festivals into the mix while she’s at it.
Monch On This (Pharoahe Monch) MC Pharoahe Monch is finally returning to Down Under with an upcoming headline tour in September. Beginning in Brisbane, the New Yorker will hit (almost) all of Australia’s major cities, before wrapping up at WA’s Wave Rock Weekender.
Jen Cloher
24 Fourth Time’s The years between Paul McCartney tours of Australia by the time he touches down in December for his just announced run of shows
6 • THE MUSIC • 28TH JUNE 2017
A(nother) Charm Having already churned out three albums, Jen Cloher is prepping for her fourth release in August. The Melburnian has also just announced a national headline tour to coincide with the release, which kicks off in Brisbane.
Arts / Li Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture
Credits
Publisher Street Press Australia Pty Ltd
Dream Big, Play Big
Group Managing Editor Andrew Mast
National Editor – Magazines Mark Neilsen
As festival season looms, line-ups continue to roll out. BIGSOUND Festival are the latest to unveil their arsenal of musicians, and it’s quite the collection. Ruby Fields, The Creases and Alex The Astronaut are just a taste of what’s in store.
BIGSOUND Festival
Ali Barter
Editor Bryget Chrisfield
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Gig Guide Justine Lynch gigs@themusic.com.au Editorial Assistant Sam Wall, Jessica Dale
Future
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Listen Out is set to take over September and October, and the festival has enlisted some big names for the occasion. Future, Duke Dumont, PNAU and Bryson Tiller are a few of the international artists included on the massive bill.
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Fax 03 9421 1011 info@themusic.com.au www.themusic.com.au 459-461 Victoria Street Brunswick West Vic 3055
Motherfuckin’ Starboy As anticipation runs high for The Weeknd’s first ever Australian tour, the Canadian songsmith has kept the fire burning by confirming venues and support acts. The Starboy: Legend Of The Fall tour will feature French Montana and Nav supporting.
PO Box 231 Brunswick West Vic 3055
— Melbourne
THE MUSIC • 28TH JUNE 2017 • 7
Music / Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture
Bloomin’ Horse
Brisbane prog-rockers Caligula’s Horse recently shared that their latest studio album, titled In Contact, is set for a September release and in addition, they’ve announced an Australian tour to go with it.
Caligula’s Horse
Pete Tong
Ballarat Winter Festival
Christmas In Ballarat It’s a Christmas miracle! Ballarat Winter Festival is happening again this July, where Sovereign Hill’s Main Street gets decked out in Christmas lights and a popup ice skating rink dares anyone to show off their shaky skills.
Australia To Ibiza UK DJ Pete Tong and his Ibiza Classics tour will be heading to Australia in November. Accompanying Tong are the 65-piece Heritage Orchestra for a night of classic club anthems with a stage performance twist.
Bongo Bingo
My heart goes out to all the parents spending this gorgeous Saturday watching their kids suck at sports. @JennyJohnsonHi5 8 • THE MUSIC • 28TH JUNE 2017
Bingo Was His Name-O The Bongo’s Bingo phenomenon has finally arrived to Melbourne, and it’s exactly what one would look for in a night. A hectic rave fused with a classic game of bingo forms one of the most wonderfully strange nights going ‘round.
Arts / Li Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture
[ Formerly The Hi- Fi Bar ]
SAT 01 JUL
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ROOM39
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THU 20 JUL
LANY
SAT 22 JUL
LOCALS NIGHT AT MAX WATT’S
w. THAT GOLD STREET SOUND + MORE!
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FRI 04 AUG
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ILL NINO
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THE MUSIC • 28TH JUNE 2017 • 9
L
Music
OUT ON A SWEET MUSICAL LIMB On their debut album Do Hollywood, The Lemon Twigs distill the history of popular music into the musical equivalent of technicolour pop art. Elder sibling Brian D’Addario chats with Chris Familton about their adventure so far and most importantly where it is heading.
10 • THE MUSIC • 28TH JUNE 2017
ast year, word began to filter through online about two teenage brothers starting to turn heads in New York with their eclectic fashion sense and equally dizzying, pop culture grab-bag of musical styles. With a thrift store punk aesthetic, an all-in, kaleidoscopic approach to songwriting and enthusiastic live shows, Brian and Michael D’Addario were touted as the next big thing, a claim given greater kudos with the release of their debut album Do Hollywood last October. Brian D’Addario is hanging out in California for the week, sandwiched between the two weekends of the Coachella Festival where the band are making their first festival appearances. Festivals have a way of bringing out special performances, with bands going that extra mile to win over new fans. The Lemon Twigs ace card was bringing out one of their musical heroes, Todd Rundgren, to guest on their version of his song Couldn’t I Just Tell You which D’Addario enthusiastically says was “a dream come true!” “The show itself went well too. It was really our first festival and as we’re going to be doing a bunch of them it was nice knowing it’s not going to be a drastic change for us. I was expecting it to be like a major adjustment which it wasn’t. It felt different enough that it’ll be nice to do a bunch of festivals compared with the same thing we’ve been doing for the past couple of months.” One of the things that immediately hits you when listening to Do Hollywood is the way the duo pull from all corners of rock and pop music with a carnivalesque glee and playfulness. The Beach Boys, The Monkees, Queen, The Who, glam rock, power pop and psychedelia all combine in a wonderful collision of sound that D’Addario describes as “very stream of consciousness”. Though that worked for them on their debut, he sees it as an area they’ll be working to refine for their next record. “We didn’t really do much editing with the first record. That’s going to be the big difference between album one and two. The songs are going to be more structured and we’re going to try to make them just as interesting but with more thought in their structure. Before, we would just let the ideas come. Now we do that to a point and then stop and if we write anything extra it will probably become its own song. It’s just going to be more focused going forward I think.” The good news is they have the songs already written for their next album, installing a 24-track desk in their parents’ Long Island basement ahead of a whole month of recording in May before they head to Australia and then hit the northern hemisphere festival circuit.
Songwriting was generally a separate and individual process for the brothers but that too has been evolving to the point where greater collaboration between the pair has been happening. “There’s a certain type of song now that we can write together, which wasn’t the case before,” D’Addario explains. “Now we can complete a song together and even though the next album won’t be a complete collection of songs like that, we’re going to bring each other into the process much quicker. There will be a lot less detail behind who does what on the next record. A lot of the songs were written right after Do Hollywood and though they weren’t all collaborations they feel more like collaborations because when we record we’re not going to say, ‘This is my song, I have to sing lead and play all the instruments on it.’ It was a little immature that we did that in the past,” he says, with the benefit of hindsight. It is also easy to forget that the pair are only just exiting their teens and still developing their musical personalities and growing as players, something D’Addario points to as another agent of change in their music. “After recording the first album we were happy with each other’s songs enough to trust each other more. Also, Michael’s voice has got a lot stronger and my drumming has got stronger, whereas we were like ‘this is what you’re good at so you’re gonna do this...’ and I think since then we’ve both improved in different ways and we can have a little more fun with it.”
Both brothers spent time in front of the camera as child actors, which has prepared them somewhat for the peripherals around releasing music - videos, promotion, interviews, waiting around - but they’ve also had the added bonus of having two school friends also playing in The Lemon Twigs. Keyboardist Danny Ayala and bassist Megan Zeankowski give the group a full band dimension and add a sense of camaraderie to the unit. “Yeah, they’re very important,” enthuses D’Addario. “They’re very talented in their own right. It’s important that we have the people playing the parts who wrote them as opposed to people who are obviously hired hands. It’s cool because they have their own personalities on stage so it isn’t just people looking at Michael and I all the time,” he laughs. The brothers have began touring the USA with their exuberant high-kicking, guitar shredding and Keith Moonstyled drumming live show as well as making a foray into the European market, with surprising (to them) success. “European shows keep getting bigger. They have taken to the album more so than in the States. Even though we’re playing bigger places in the cities like LA and NY, there’s still a lot of touring we have to do in the US and it really feels like we’re at that first record place. In Europe it feels like a bigger thing. The shows getting bigger in that way is kind of an overwhelming thing but I feel like we are playing well and people we talk to after shows are really nice so it’s not like people are getting too fanatical about it. I’m happy about that, it’s not getting too crazy,” says D’Addario cautiously. Fashion has always gone hand in hand with music, whether as an extension of a person’s creative personality or as an attention grabber. In the case of The Lemon Twigs it’s a bit of both, with D’Addario explaining that much of the impetus for their style comes from Michael. “We really know what we don’t like with clothes and videos. With the clothes, Michael usually picks out a lot of the stuff and then I wear what he throws away. Now I shop a bit for my own self. It was really important to him in the beginning for us to dress up a bit.” As the Los Angeles nightlife beckons, we touch on one more obvious topic. The sibling relationship and how it has shown to be both a blessing and a curse in other famous musical partnerships such as those of the Everly, Davies, Gallagher and The Jesus & Mary Chain’s Reid brothers. “It’s a bit of both but I’m really happy to work with my brother. I can’t think of another musician that I respect more than him. I think he has an incredible amount of potential and if we continue to work together constructively we can do good stuff. I just hope that it stays that way.”
We didn’t really do much editing with the first record. That’s going to be the big difference between album one and two.
INTRODUCING... PAPA TWIG Brian and Michael D’Addario aren’t the only family members releasing albums. Their dad, Ronnie D’Addario, is a respected songwriter in his own right whose closest brush with fame was having one of his songs recorded (but unreleased) by The Carpenters just prior to Karen’s death. D’Addario self-recorded and played everything on his own albums in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s while also working as a session musician and recording engineer. Now those records are getting the CD reissue treatment via the label You Are The Cosmos, as well as a vinyl compilation The Best Of Ronnie D’Addario 1976-1983. There are also plans to release new material including an album called The Many Moods Of Papa Twig. It is easy to hear the influence of their father’s music on The Lemon Twigs. Soaked in heady, sweet melodies, clever arrangements and musical twists and turns they are all clearly drawing from the same well dug by the likes of Brian Wilson, Paul McCartney, Todd Rundgren and Emitt Rhodes. Ronnie was responsible for the brothers always having instruments laying around the house, ensuring they were able to explore their musical curiosity whenever they felt like it and encouraging them from a young age.
When & Where: 25 Jul, The Curtin
THE MUSIC • 28TH JUNE 2017 • 11
Music
Double Trouble Anthony Carew sits down to an international three-way call with Dustin Tebbutt and Lisa Mitchell ahead of their Distant Call tour.
G
iven Dustin Tebbutt and Lisa Mitchell share members of their backing bands, it makes sense that the two are embarking on a collaborative tour. But, though they know each other from around the traps, they’re not, yet, the best of pals. “In terms of actually bro-ing down, we haven’t actually spent that much time together,” Mitchell laughs. “We know each other from around Sydney, but, at this point, we’re more penpals, really.”
We’ll be doing a few covers together, and jumping on each other’s tracks.
Fittingly, on a three-way rock-interview conversation, Tebbutt and Mitchell aren’t in the same hemisphere; Tebbutt in the studio in Sydney, Mitchell at her grandmother’s house on the Scottish coast. Mitchell has, notably, just played a show in Manchester, the day after the tragic terrorist attack rocked the city. “We arrived on the day that the explosion happened,” Mitchell recounts. “We were staying close to the venue. We just heard sirens from outside, we had no idea what was going on, we didn’t have any news reports coming in. I saw police gathering out the window outside. It was totally terrifying. But it wasn’t until we woke up the next day that we discovered that 22 people had been killed. Of course, the mood in the city was pretty sombre. We weren’t sure that we were going to be able to play our show... sometimes promoters just cancel everything when things like this happen. 12 • THE MUSIC • 28TH JUNE 2017
“I really wanted to play,” she continues. “Especially for people who’d bought tickets to our show, it would’ve felt horrible to just cancel it. When awful things happen, music can be such a wonderful vehicle for being able to process feelings... I’m super glad that we played. It felt like the right thing to do.” Tebbutt, in contrast, is alone in the studio, in the middle of psyching himself up for vocal takes (“after this, I’m going to have a whisky, and then I hope I’m good to go”), and working on new recordings. As with his debut LP, First Light (2016), the bulk of which he wrote while living in Sweden, Tebbutt wrote much of the record in the Far North. “I did a bunch of writing in Scandinavia and the Netherlands, and came back with a lot of material that I really cherish,” he offers. “So, I’ve been spending the last little while piecing them together, and they’re starting to form into a bit of a body-of-work, but I’m not exactly sure how I’m going to release it.” Tebbutt wonders, now, if writing in faraway countries hasn’t become “a bit of a crutch for [him]”, but Mitchell -who was living in London when she wrote her 2016 album, Warriors — sees the liberation in a situation that “allows you to step away from who you are in that place, to get out of your own head, to forget yourself.” In turn, Tebbutt and Mitchell have called their collaborative tour Distant Call, evoking both the distance and longing in their music, and in the build-up to the tour thus far. “Our own sets are going to be interwoven, throughout the evening, so it’s not really a double bill,” says Tebbutt. “And, during that, we’ll be doing a few covers together, and jumping on each other’s tracks. We haven’t really figured out all the logistics yet, because all of this has been done over the internet, and in our minds. We haven’t had a chance to actually rehearse yet.” They have, however, collaborated on a track, covering RÜFÜS’ Innerbloom; with Mitchell recording her vocals in Berlin, and the version bringing the tenminute banger but to a sombre four minutes. “When you strip away the production, the song is really beautiful,” says Tebbutt. “When we started recording the demo, it really quickly went to a place that was really inspiring.” The pair are looking forward to bringing this dreamtof collaboration to fruition, and sharing the burden on stage. “It’s actually pretty rare to be working with another artist like this,” Mitchell says. “As the songwriter, in the ‘artist’ role, it can be a situation where you’re in charge of all these decisions. This way, it feels like someone else is on your side.” “There’s definitely been times,” Tebbutt furthers, “as I’ve been doing this thing as a solo artist, like at a festival set, which is this goal that you’ve been working so hard to get to, and when you’ve reached the point where you’re actually doing it, and you’re on stage, sometimes you feel really alone. Like, you’ve got this team around you, and they’re all really good friends, but they’re not in there as much as you are, and it’s quite hard to share that moment. From our point of view, as artists, it’s nice to have someone else sharing that role.”
When & Where: 29 — 30 Jun, Corner Hotel
ON SALE NOW VIA
WWW.CORNERHOTEL.COM AND 1300 724 867
57 SWAN ST, RICHMOND, 3121
29/06 -
DUSTIN TEBBUTT
30/06 -
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01/07 -
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+ LISA MITCHELL
SELLING FAST
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FT. ALI BARTER, ALEX LAHEY + MORE
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+ TURNOVER USA
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FT. AUGIE MARCH + MORE
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18/08 - AMY SHARK SOLD OUT 19/08 - AMY SHARK SOLD OUT 21/08 - AMY SHARK SOLD OUT 24/08 - HUSKY 25/08 - OCEAN ALLEY SOLD OUT 26/08 - DIESEL 30TH ANNIVERSARY TOUR 31/08 - HAWTHORNE HEIGHTS USA 02/09 - TROPHY EYES SOLD OUT 03/09 - TROPHY EYES SELLING FAST 08/09 - ALI BARTER 09/09 - THE GETAWAY PLAN SOLD OUT 10/09 - THE GETAWAY PLAN SELLING FAST 15/09 - WEEKENDER FEST ‘17 SOLD OUT 16/09 - MOTEZ 30/09 - AESOP ROCK USA - SELLING FAST 06/10 - AGAINST THE CURRENT USA - SELLING FAST 07/10 - ME FIRST AND THE GIMME GIMMES USA
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THE MUSIC • 28TH JUNE 2017 • 13
Music
A Time And A Place Celebrating the 20th anniversary of their debut Guide To Better Living with a re-issue and touring the album in full, Grinspoon vocalist Phil Jamieson, guitarist Pat Davern, bass player Joe Hansen and drummer Kristian Hopes reflect on how it could have started Guns N’ Roses style.
To read the full interview head to theMusic.com.au
P
hil Jamieson: It was all the songs we’d ever written in our lives to that point. The way the writing would work is Joe would bring a riff into the rehearsal room in South Lismore, Sound Solutions. Joe or Pat would bring in a riff and then we’d try and meld it together in a sort of a jammy kind of way. I might write a riff. But there were never writing sessions, we were just rehearsing...
We wanted to give people value for money.
Pat Davern: ...To do gigs... PJ: To do gigs, so we could buy weed. Well, so I could buy weed. We met at a jam night so... we wouldn’t call them writing sessions — that would have seemed too presumptuous. Joe Hansen: Yeah, yeah, that’s a bit highfalutin probably for the situation at Sound Solutions. I guess it was like a pretty dodgy little rehearsal room. PD: It was a shithole. There were cockroaches all over. JH: It had drapes around the walls for sound, so if you moved the drapes to try and find a power point or something, there would just be cockroaches scattering everywhere. I think one time half the ceiling fell out. PD: Yeah, like asbestos came down. JH: It just collapsed, fell in and there was a lot of dust everywhere and we decided to take a break at that point. PJ: I think we recorded the 16 songs that were on 14 • THE MUSIC • 28TH JUNE 2017
Guide To Better Living, 17 with the hidden track, and then Busy, Explain and Green Grass Meadow, which has just been released now. So all up we tracked like 20 songs or something. But then Champion, PEA [Post Enebriated Anxiety] and Sickfest were already recorded, so do the math. It was all the songs we’d ever written. Nothing ever got kind of thrown out, except maybe Water. But maybe that came later. Remember that 5/4 piece of shit? Kristian Hopes: They were all pretty short [songs]. We wanted to give people value for money. PJ: It was what everyone did back then. I think Frenzal... you just put lots on songs on the record. KH: Spiderbait. PJ: Spiderbait had 17 at least. JH: We didn’t think too much about it, we just put them all on. And also, I think at the time, Universal wanted to actually make it into a debut double album. PJ: Use Your Illusion. Guide To Better Living I, Guide To Better Living II. PD: We should have probably done it. JH: That would have been a statement, wouldn’t it? Yeah we had all these songs, I don’t think we thought about paring it down too much. We just put them all on. PJ: If the songs were good live, then we’d record them. We’d go from Sound Solutions and play a gig at the Richmond Tavern and if it worked, then we recorded it. PD: I like [Guide To Better Living]. It captures a time and a place. When things were simpler. JH: There’s a few overdubs and extra stuff, but there’s not a whole lot of it. It’s pretty raw, it’s like a lot of probably debut albums in that it’s just the band... PD: Honest. JH: Yeah, honest recording, not too much extra frills. When we thought if you’re going to play an album front to back, you want all the songs to be good. Because if you get to having to play all this filler and stuff... and I think it is all good. I enjoy playing these songs. PJ: We wouldn’t be doing this tour if we didn’t like it, I don’t think. It’s testament to the fact that I think 20 years is enough time as well for us to go back and... KH: ...forget [laughs]... PJ: ...not be part of it. I haven’t listened to the record in ten years or more. And I’ve got a lot of affection for it and I can’t wait. It’s a really fun record the way it goes from start to finish. It would be really disingenuous of us to do a tour if we hated it. So the reflections are fond.
What: Guide To Better Living (20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition) (Universal) When & Where: 30 Jun, Margaret Court Arena; 1 Jul, Village Green Hotel; 3 Aug, Wool Exchange, Geelong; 4 Aug, Pier Bandroom, Frankston
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Music
Crossing Paths Ahead of their national co-headlining tour Radio Birdman frontman Rob Younger and his Died Pretty counterpart Ron Peno recall to Steve Bell some of their early meetings at the rock’n’roll coalface.
I
Radio Birdman
n the annals of Australian rock’n’roll you don’t get too many bigger names than legendary outfits Radio Birdman and Died Pretty. Both bands forged unique and groundbreaking careers at a time when there were no real antecedents for what they were doing, blasting into their own orbits with only incendiary and atmospheric music (respectively) as their guide. Now both bands are turning back the clock and teaming up for a co-headlining national tour, and while their actual careers may not have physically crossed over — Radio Birdman’s original tenure lasted between 1974 and 1978 while Died Pretty didn’t kick into life until 1983 — there was still plenty of overlap in the distinguished pathways they would eventually travel. Speaking to the bands’ respective frontmen in Rob Younger (Radio Birdman) and Ron Peno (Died Pretty), The Music starts by transporting back to the legendary days in the late-’70s when Birdman was running the Darlinghurst venue which they’d christened Oxford Funhouse (namechecking The Stooges, naturally). Peno’s first band The Hellcats supported Birdman a few times in this era, a pretty heady start to one’s career no matter how you look at it. “Yeah, we played some shows with Birdman,” Peno recalls. “They took us under their wing and we played quite a few shows with them. I think The Hellcats only lasted about three or four months, but in that time we played shows with Radio Birdman, yeah. It was special seeing them in full flight, they were a fantastic band and I loved to go and see them. It was very exciting and wild and heady and great.” History even tells that Younger was actually Died Pretty’s first ever drummer, although his recollections of this are somewhat hazy. “I don’t even know if it was just twice, but I remember going along to some little space.
Died Pretty on the road is like The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin without the money.
16 • THE MUSIC • 28TH JUNE 2017
Died Pretty
I think they used to keep mushroom spore in there or something, it wasn’t an actual rehearsal room but they tried to clean it out and make space for people to make some racket in there,” Younger tells. “I guess they didn’t have a drummer at the time and wanted to go through some songs. I’ve always wanted to be decent on the drums but actually, I’m not — and I certainly wasn’t back then — but I must have tapped away and someone remembered it, so thereafter I’ve always been the original drummer.” In time Younger would eventually produce Died Pretty’s first single (1984’s Out Of The Unknown), first EP (1985’s Next To Nothing) and first two albums (1986’s Free Dirt and 1988’s Lost), and Peno admits that despite the two bands’ different sounds, Birdman was very much an influence. “Very much so, I was always very influenced by Radio Birdman,” he explains. “And still am, and always will be.” “Died Pretty doesn’t sound anything like Radio Birdman though,” Younger offers. “The reason I was involved in it was being a mutual friend and being associated with their manager too, John Needham. But I also fell into that because [at the time] I was one of the few people around who had actually been in a band that had made a record in that scene. So suddenly it was, like, ‘Hey, you could produce our record!’ and that’s how it all started. “With the Died Pretty recordings I was just learning on the spot really, and just judging the performances in the studio more than arranging the songs and pulling all that stuff apart. My level of involvement wasn’t like that and I wouldn’t have had the confidence anyway. “Mind you, none of those songs needed much done to them really, it just needed a good performance. The band had so much personality and such a great sense of atmosphere. And a great melodic sense as well, so it was a really good group and I was lucky to hook up with that because it got me other work as well.” For now, the two bands are mainly just looking forward to this shared stroll down rock’n’roll memory lane. “It should be good,” Younger enthuses. “I wish we could carry on and go around the world.” “That would be wonderful,” Peno concurs. “Maybe another time,” Younger smiles. “Mind you going around the world with the Died Pretty might be more than we could handle ourselves. Died Pretty on the road is like The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin without the money. Their behaviour is appalling, John Needham has told me in minute detail about the things that used to go on when they toured Europe and so forth, and I was incredibly impressed.”
When & Where: 30 Jun & 1 Jul, The Croxton
THE MUSIC • 28TH JUNE 2017 • 17
TV
Tough Truths Ahead of the Australian premieres of his latest films, infamous documentarian Louis Theroux talks alcoholism, brain injuries and being an overly inquisitive child with Guy Davis.
I
t makes sense that Louis Theroux was curious from a young age. The UK journalist and documentary filmmaker has made a name for himself over the last two decades by gently but insistently shining a light on marginalised, misunderstood subjects and individuals, from maximum-security prisons to Michael Jackson. And as he recalls, his interest in such topics was active when he was a boy. “I was aware of being fascinated as a young child by homeless people, mentally ill people, talking to themselves,” says Theroux when asked about the first
These are situations that take us to the heart of what it means to be human and to be alive.
inkling of his affinity for the different. “I know it’s a slightly odd image. But my parents used to say I would embarrass them by saying in a loud voice ‘Why is the man shouting when there’s no one there?’ My dad used to do an impersonation of me where I’d always start my sentences with ‘But whyyy?’ It became a family joke, and it might be a stretch to relate that to the job I’m doing, but I’ve always been asking ‘But why?’” Theroux’s profile rose in the 2000s with a range of documentaries he made for the BBC that would embed him with a variety of subcultures, from the porn industry to neo-Nazis. His hour-long interview with UK entertainer Jimmy Savile, who would be posthumously accused of serial sex offences, was voted one of the 18 • THE MUSIC • 28TH JUNE 2017
best documentaries of all time. In recent years, however, Theroux’s focus has shifted somewhat - sure, in the past few years he has spent time with people who collect extremely exotic pets and revisited the porn stars he profiled a decade earlier, but he has also investigated mental illness, the lives of transgender children and treatments for autism and dementia. Two of his most recent specials, Drinking to Oblivion and A Different Brain, are airing on ABC in July, and their sensitive but forthright approach to the subjects of extreme alcoholism and acquired brain injury illustrate the direction Theroux’s career has taken as of late. For Theroux, however, the shift doesn’t seem that radical. “For years I’ve made shows about what were deemed weird people - religious stuff, sexual stuff, slightly racist people... well, not slightly - and more recently I’ve been doing shows more in the area of disability, so [Drinking to Oblivion] was approaching alcohol from that sort of angle,” he says. “And then you have family members faced with the dilemma of helping someone abusing alcohol to a horrific extent - it becomes a question of whether your help is any use and whether or not you have to disengage from this person. For me, the core to all these stories is something very raw, real and emotional, with very high stakes at the heart of it.” Drinking to Oblivion and A Different Brain are thematically linked by the effect the conditions in question have upon the person at the core of the story but also their loved ones. It’s often heartbreaking stuff, given that alcohol abuse and brain injury can have so transformative. “I think alcohol abuse is something like an illness, and brain injury is a physical condition with psychological effects,” says Theroux. “In both cases, there are family members and loved ones who are trying to rebuild their lives around someone who is profoundly different. In the case of Rob and Amanda in A Different Brain, Amanda has suffered a brain injury after a horse-riding accident. As Rob sees it, Amanda is a different person - she’s impatient, she’s snappish with their kids in a way she wasn’t before while Amanda feels like she is who she is now, and she feels patronised - people are treating her as if she’s a child, so there’s this question of how much you do to keep the relationship on track. “It’s the best kind of terrain for documentary making because you’re taking a situation that is on one hand very extreme but on the other very relatable. It reminded me of my own kids, my own family.” That link between the personal and the universal is perhaps what draws so many viewers to Theroux’s documentaries. “For me, the first impulse is ‘That’s a story we can tell, and it would be a really good story’,” he says. “It comes down to people put in extraordinary circumstances - These are situations that take us to the heart of what it means to be human and to be alive.”
What A Different Brain airs 3 Jul and Drinking to Oblivion airs 10 Jul, both on ABC2.
Eat / Drink Eat/Drink
Five Point Four
These purveyors of fresh and healthy eats take all the effort out of nailing that balanced diet. They’ll deliver a week’s worth of ready-made meals straight to your door for ultimate
Summer Bodies Are Made In Winter
W
inter is well and truly here, so most of us are rugged up tighter than the Ikea Monkey (if you don’t get that reference, google it immediately). But in a few short months, summer is going to be rolling around and everyone will be stripping off the layers. So, it’s time to start planning for your beach bod, but if you think eating healthy is too much of a hassle, help is at hand. Here are the best meal deliveries for health-conscious foodies.
convenience, but what really stands them out from the meal delivery crowd is their member support services. They will carefully tailor your meal plan to help you achieve specific goals, and will even devise a post-goal maintenance plan to stop those yo-yo diet blues. Plus their meals are among the best tasting around. Find out more at: fivepointfour.com.au
Marley Spoon If you prefer the taste of freshly cooked to pre-prepared, but find it tough to shop lite, then this food box service is a great option. Simply choose from a range of recipes and all the
ingredients in exact amounts will be delivered to your door along with instructions on how to whip up each dish. Marley Spoon’s recipe range is extremely eclectic, from pub faves like Chicken Parmigiana to exotic world cuisines like Brown Rice and Quinoa Congee or Moroccan Beef Pilaf. Best of all, there’s a great range of healthy choices, so you don’t need to deprive yourself of the yum factor while you’re getting yourself into shape. Find out more at: marleyspoon.com.au
You Foodz One of the biggest fish in this healthy meal pond, You Foodz has a broad range of meals to suit pretty much any taste, including high-protein/low-carb options, low-fat meals and
gluten-free and other “free-from” options. They are always fresh, never frozen, so the food tastes great, and they deliver twice weekly, nationwide. They’re also available in some supermarkets if you want to grab a healthy bite on the go, and meal plans include snacks and treats so you won’t feel like you’re missing out while you fight the flab. Browse their ready assembled meal plans or pick and choose from their range yourself to meet your individual needs. Find out more: youfoodz.com
THE MUSIC • 28TH JUNE 2017 • 19
Frontlash
Music
You Haft To Go Melbourne’s getting its own axe throwing venue before year’s end. No more unsupervised weekend wilderness trips so we can get our hatchet tossing fix, alright!
At Their Flyest
Ba-Sista Bomb From the writers of Weeds, OITNB and Nurse Jackie comes ‘80s-set, women’s wrestling series Glow. And, if that’s not endorsement enough, if you ever shipped Harry and Trudy in Mad Men then here all your fantasies are finally realised.
Go The Doggies
Lashes
Another year, another thrilling clash between the Megahertz and the Rockdogs. Head to the Live section for the full Reclink Community Cup rundown.
GLOW
Backlash Prodigy
Vale to the rapper who was one half of Mobb Deep.
Couch Tax
The salad days are OVER! The new goods and services tax on digital products and services kicks in this week, so expect your Netflix binges to cost up to 10% more in future.
Matching Father Daughter Masks Oh Goodness. Everybody knows the only time you put a mask on your kid is during Halloween and critical turbine failure – somebody give Future the memo.
20 • THE MUSIC • 28TH JUNE 2017
Spit Syndicate MC Nick Lupi reflects with Cyclone on the years of clothes swapping that translated into One Good Shirt Had Us All Fly.
S
ydney duo Spit Syndicate, members of the super-crew One Day, chose a fun title for their fourth album - One Good Shirt Had Us All Fly. But, beneath the rockin’ beats, it reveals profound subject matter. “The title stems from a teenage ritual, or custom of sorts, that we had when we were growing up - but it’s by no means unique to us,” explains MC Nick Lupi. “Basically, if one of our friends or somebody in our crew had a particularly fly item of clothing - a shirt, a jacket, a pair of kicks - then we would take turns in rocking it. Everyone would share these items of clothing around in a collective effort for everybody to shine.” Lupi and co-rapper Jimmy Nice signed to Obese for 2008’s debut Towards The Light - which received an ARIA nom. In 2014 - over a year after their third outing, Sunday Gentlemen - they enjoyed unprecedented crossover success with One Day’s Mainline. But, now in their late 20s, Spit Syndicate found themselves reflecting on those years of sharing get-up. Today they’re less impressionable, and less materialistic, but the communalism remains. “It’s been a big part of this album coming together, in terms of it being such a collaborative record. I guess, in the last couple of years, this One Day crew thing that we’ve been really flying the flag for has reinforced this ethos of: if one person shines, then we’re all shining.” Still, Lupi says, hip hop is about competition - and Spit
Syndicate have been spurred on by their homies’ artistic achievements. Importantly, One Good Shirt Had Us All Fly has a figurative aspect, with Spit Syndicate redefining what constitutes “fly” - challenging the (self-)destructive “toxic masculinity” underlying modern Australian culture. Says Lupi, “We kind of feel a bit of a responsibility, in some ways, to kick some game.” One Good Shirt Had Us All Fly is bold musically - transcending boom bap. In fact, it was influenced by the fluid vibe of the One Day Sundays parties. Above all, Spit Syndicate followed their instincts, rather than calculatedly cutting, say, radio songs. Providing beats are Styalz Fuego, Horrorshow’s Adit, Sticky Fingers’ Freddy Crabs, and Left.’s Jono Graham. However, Lupi jokes, Spit Syndicate were hands-on as “backseat” producers. “There was no picking a beat off a beat tape for this record.” Again, Spit Syndicate approached friends to guest. One Day’s Solo and Joyride blaze the single Hold On Me. Remi shows on the deeply groovy Houdini, which, produced by Styalz, sounds like Kaytranda joining A Tribe Called Quest. “We were fans of Remi a couple of years ago and then we became friends with him to the point that, when he would come up to Sydney, he was crashing at my place.” Other ‘features’ include Thelma Plum and the Indigenous power-soulster Radical Son. If Spit Syndicate’s presser touts One Good Shirt Had Us All Fly as their “definitive work”, then Lupi calls it “an arrival”. “I feel like everything that we’ve done - all of the ups and the downs, and the triumphs and the failures, have led us to this particular point.” He adds, “It is us at our sharpest; at our flyest.”
What: One Good Shirt Had Us All Fly (Inertia) When & Where: 1 Jul, Howler
In Focus Electric Lady
We’re sure there’s probably other stuff happening this week, but nothing’s going to hold a candle to incandescent power of Electric Lady. Launched back in April by Holly Rankin (who’ll also be hitting the stage on the night as Jack River), Electric Lady has been amplifying kick-arse women in music, politics, science, sport and everything else with their ‘Electric Lady Influencer of the Week’ spotlights. Now they’re heading into the live arena with a legendary all-female line-up comprised of Ali Barter, Alex Lahey, Jack River, Gretta Ray, Bec Sandridge, Rackett and Body Type. Head down to Corner Hotel this Saturday to catch some heat. THE MUSIC • 28TH JUNE 2017 • 21
Into The Furnace
In the lead up to their Furnapalooza tour, we asked Sydney showmen Furnace & The Fundamentals what their favourite covers are to perform. Circle Of Life – The Lion King Mike Solo (drums): Turning the opening theme from one of my favourite childhood movies into a stadium rock anthem is pretty darn fun every time. Once that opening call sings out, everyone recognises it and joins in, arms up and sometimes holding invisible young Simba lion cubs into the air, Rafiki-style. Love it. Bohemian Rhapsody – Queen Furnace (lead singer): From soulful slow singing, to operatics that no other pop song would dare attempt, to one of the best head banging rock out drops ever, how this song works at all is ridiculous enough, let alone works so well. There’s nothing like riding the wave of styles and emotions this song throws at you, with a crowd singing and head banging all the way. It’s the reason this song has been in basically every set we’ve ever played. I Believe In A Thing Called Love – The Darkness Digby (lead guitar): It’s big, loud and sexy. As a guitarist how can I go past this one with three glamorous solos involved all with a unique feel. Verse is short and to the point and the chorus has such a catchy melody and hitting great highs, especially when the harmonies get involved. The crowd always gets heavily involved which makes it so much fun and it has such a huge finish to top it off. When & Where: 1 Jul, Max Watt’s
22 • THE MUSIC • 28TH JUNE 2017
Music
Interesting Times
Gomez mainstay Ben Ottewell tells Steve Bell how the current global political turmoil is being reflected in his burgeoning solo canon.
H
aving initially come to fame as one of the vocalists from UK rockers Gomez - the one with the unmissable gravelly baritone - with that band having been on hiatus for much of the decade, Ben Ottewell has been emboldened to embark on a solo career. Now, that side vocation has quietly bloomed into fruition with the recent release of his third solo album A Man Apart, and Ottewell himself is starting to feel more comfortable as an “established solo artist”. “It’s an interesting proposition for me,” he chuckles. “I’m really proud of [A Man Apart]. I was trying to think of how it’s different, and I think the songs have taken a bit of a turn this time. I think [2011 debut] Shapes & Shadows was a bit of a vibe-y record, leaning a lot on English folk and in a way quite pastoral. It was a small record really - quite a compact little thing - where [2014 follow-up] Rattlebag was very riff-based. Now I think the songs are coming through a bit more on this, which I’m very happy about. “The songs maybe just reflect me getting older - they’re changing, and I think they’re getting better. They mean something nowadays, the lyrics for me used to just be filling in space. It was like, ‘Okay, I’d better sing something now’, but I think on this record there’s a bit more kind of meaning
there. A bit more of something behind the words.” Some of the new songs have taken on more of a sociopolitical bent as well. “It’s very hard in the UK these days for current events not to have that impact on you, particularly with Brexit,” Ottewell admits. “It’s interesting times, especially with social media, which is great in a way but there’s also a real danger that you just connect with people that you know and what happens is you end up just getting more of what you like. It’s not broadcasting, you just get to see things which match your preferences. “And I get my news from The Guardian in the UK - all of my friends are left-leaning liberals - and Brexit really felt like being knifed in the back by the rest of the UK. And I think for me and a lot of my friends - a lot of my friends who make music as well - there’s been a massive coming to terms with that, and it’s hard for that not to impact you. “And then there’s the Trump election as well - I spend a lot of time in America and have a lot of American friends - and it just seems like there’s just been a massive mountain of shit dumped on us by the universe in the last year or two. It’s hard for that not be reflected in the way you write.”
What: A Man Apart (Cooking Vinyl) When 30 Jun, Northcote Social Club; 1 Jul, Caravan Music Club
THE MUSIC • 28TH JUNE 2017 • 23
Indie Indie
Emerge In Yarra
Perolas
Tom Stephens
Have You Been To
Single Focus
Single Focus
Answered by: Freyja Macfarlane
Answered by: Liana Perillo
Answered by: Tom Stephens
Position/role: Event Manager
Single title? All Is Here
Single title? Wake Me When The Day’s Gone
The Event: Emerge In Yarra
What’s the song about? We need nothing else than to acknowledge the true power of presence that lies within to each of us.
What’s the song about? Living in the city and feeling like you’ve got to join the hustle to survive. Sometimes it’s all too much.
How long did it take to write/record? Written in Byron Bay in December 2016, played live across various festivals and recorded in May 2017, this song has been a new journey, a new sound and a new project completed entirely by Perolas.
How long did it take to write/record? My band and I recorded the song live in one take at Rancom St Studios in NSW. There were a few overdubs added afterwards... a bit of extra spice is always nice.
Why should punters visit you? Emerge In Yarra is truly about culture empowering community, celebrating the ever-expanding contributions artists from all sectors of our diverse society have made in building Melbourne’s unique creative landscape. What’s the history of the event? Founded in 2004, Emerge In Yarra has grown to encompass talented artists from refugee and emerging communities across the city, diverse art forms, new collaborations and commissioned works. Any advice for first timers who want to visit the event? Check out a live cooking and storytelling evening, an underground multiart installation, live music, spoken word and exciting gallery exhibitions. Who’s performing this time around? The Black Orchid String Band album launch, Visible Project Showcase, Osono by Our Culture, Oscar Jiminez and new electronic collab Film School. Do you have any plans for the event in the future? Now in its 13th year, going forward Emerge In Yarra is still going strong with innovative artist lead programs, strong ties to the community and amazing collaborative art being produced. When and where for your next event? 1 Jul is Emerge In The North, and Mapping Melbourne is coming up in December. Website link for more info? multiculturalarts.com.au
Is this track from a forthcoming release/ existing release? This track will be the second single released this year by Perolas, its forthcoming release will be coupled with an inspiring and expressive music video featuring an eclectic mix of people dancing their innermost expression! What was inspiring you during the song’s writing and recording? Nature, people and the rich diversity that surrounds us each day was the inspiration and motivator. My harp teacher Mary Doumany also contributed to the harp’s reggae flavour, as did the recent Bob Marley documentary. We’ll like this song if we like... Bob Marley, Hiatus Kaiyote, UB40, Low Leaf, Fat Freddy’s Drop, World Music, Bonobo, Massive Attack, contemporary harp music. Do you play it differently live? Our live version is a little more stripped back, however we aim to stay true to the primary elements of the song, highlighting drum, bass, harp, & horns sections. When and where is your launch/next gigs? 29 Jun, Wesley Anne. There’s an upcoming release as part of a music video launch. This venue has been super supportive of our music, thank you. Website link for more info? perolasmusic.com
24 • THE MUSIC • 28TH JUNE 2017
Is this track from a forthcoming release/ existing release? It’s the first offering from a new batch of songs for me. I’m headed to Castlemaine in Victoria to record my second full-length in early July. We’re recording at an all-analogue studio, straight onto tape. What was inspiring you during the song’s writing and recording? Mental illness. Some people just don’t want to do the whole city hustle thing or they’re not cut out for it and that’s ok. These people often find themselves on the fringes and get forgotten. We’ll like this song if we like... Don’t listen if you like dogs. There’s a line in there about the time I saw one get hit. Do you play it differently live? We recorded the song live so I’d like to think it’s pretty similar to the live experience. Gotta allow for some spontaneous one-off flourishes though... keeps things interesting. When and where is your launch/next gigs? 1 Jul, Wesley Anne; 8 Jul, Oxford Art Factory. Joined by local songwriters Forever Son & Angie McMahon. Website link for more info? facebook.com/tomstephensofficial
Music
Looking Inwards WAAX frontwoman and songsmith Marie DeVita tells Steve Bell how a subtle shift in writing approach has paid handsome dividends.
R
ising Brisbane rockers WAAX have made a huge sonic progression with their second EP Wild & Weak, taking their distinctive brand of melodic punk-tinged indie-rock to a whole new level. Teaming up with Brisbane/LA producer Miro Mackie (Major Leagues, Jeremy Neale), the recently reconfigured WAAX sound far more ambitious and assured than on 2014 debut EP Holy Sick, an evolution frontwoman/chief songwriter Marie DeVita largely attributes to a new range of influences. “I think we wanted something really contemporary, and something really angular,” she reflects. “We wanted to have a bit more of a post-punk influence for this record, so that informed a lot of the writing and production. And also just experimenting a lot - I think we really wanted to find our sound and really hone in on it. “We take a lot of inspiration from bands like Gold Class and even local Brisbane bands like DZ Deathrays and [Violent] Soho just anything really. We were always just looking for a contemporary sound, and I was really inspired by Kurt Vile’s latest record [2015’s B’lieve I’m Goin’ Down...] as well when he put out [lead single] Pretty Pimpin’ I remember thinking, ‘I want to write a song like that!’ Then I started thinking, ‘Okay, maybe I’m ready to start singing about more internal issues and what I’m going through’, so it was a bunch of things.” The lyrics on Wild & Weak are indeed extremely personal, far different in tone than prior WAAX missives. “It’s the most personal thing I’ve ever done,” DeVita affirms. “The last record was very external and about wanting to change the world and all this stuff, but this record’s more about how I want to save myself from going insane, and I want to find a way to overcome this.
The last record was very external and about wanting to change the world and all this stuff, but this record’s more about how I want to save myself from going insane.
“I had a lot of personal issues that came up inbetween the records - especially with changes in line-up and problems in my personal relationships - and I went down a bit of a spiral, so I thought I’d document it with this EP. Each song represents a stage that I went through in that process, and the whole EP’s kind of a diary and a story with each track as a chapter. “Moving away from what I felt comfortable was difficult, but we were doing so many different things that it just came out naturally. I was singing more, I was feeling comfortable with my vocals and with my songwriting, plus I felt like I had a lot more to give on an emotional side. “I really wanted to show that sense of vulnerability because I think it’s a completely different side of my personality - a really vulnerable side - whereas on the last record I put up a more tough exterior. It was something that needed to happen, and I think it’s helped form more of our story.”
When & Where: 1 & 2 Jul, The Gasometer Hotel
THE MUSIC • 28TH JUNE 2017 • 25
Music
Would You Like Drives With That?
Outback Isolation
Ahead of their powerful new album Big Skies, Mere Women keyboardist/vocalist Amy Wilson tells Steve Bell about gaining inspiration off the beaten track. Say good bye to your waistline, Maccas has only gone and teamed up with UberEATS to launch McDelivery (the advertising boffins really earned their wages with that canny name, eh), which will be whisking your burgers from store to front door nationwide by the end of this week. The national rollout has followed a successful pilot period in Melbourne, so on behalf of Australia can we just say, thank you Melbourne for not fucking this up for the rest of us. Your dutiful burger guzzling is most definitely appreciated. Even within Melbourne’s city limits, it’s good news for burger lovers, as the seven McDonald’s restaurants of the soft launch will be expanded to a gut-busting 80 outlets by week’s end. The full menu will be accessible including that most hallowed of meals, the all-day breakfast, so clear your schedule, pull a sicky, jump into your tracky dacks and fire up UberEATS – it’s time to head down to Old Mate Ronald’s flavour town.
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S
ydney post-punk outfit Mere Women recently expanded from the original trio incarnation which had served them so well for years into a four-piece with the welcoming of bassist Trish Roberts, and this new dynamic is entirely evident on their accomplished third album Big Skies. It’s a vital and haunting concern, robust and angular with plenty of emotional heft, and frontwoman Amy Wilson puts its strength down in part to that structural realignment. “I think that to date it’s the best thing that we’ve ever done,” she smiles. “It’s been a pleasure writing it and recording it and to have that end result and be proud of it, you couldn’t ask for more. This is the first time we’ve written with bass — it’s really made us grow as a band. Our progression as a band really shines through on this album, and that’s a lot to do with that new element. “It just made it really easy to write, because we’d been playing with the three of us for probably close to five years and to add that new personality and new sound, it just meant that we really just blazed through the writing process once she was a part of the band.” The album came together in the band’s city rehearsal space at Black Wire Records,
but its actual inspiration stemmed from a more rural setting. “A lot of the inspiration for the album came from when I was living in a small New South Wales country town,” Wilson explains. “I was living there all alone so sort of vocally and thematically it sprung from that time, and then the actual writing with all of us there together came about at Black Wire. “I went out there to work. I’d been working for a not-for-profit and I was living in the city and I was a bit bored in what I was doing, and I just wanted [to do] something crazy so I just packed up my whole life and just went out there for six months. “I lived in a town in a big old creaky house all by myself, and my workplace was in this really amazing old 1920s milk bar which has been converted into a gallery, it was really wild. And I got to travel all around far west New South Wales meeting lots of women from drought-affected communities. So the inspiration came from a combination of hearing these stories and being isolated and alone myself, and then also having family who grew up in regional New South Wales on the land as well. “[But] it’s not all bleak, the album is not a bleak album. I think it’s about finding the positives in those sort of trying circumstances and triumphing through those hardships or the restrictions that are placed on you.”
What: Big Skies (Poison City) When & Where: 30 Jun, The Curtin; 16 Sep, Weekender Fest, Evelyn Hotel
Music
Paradise Found
At A Glance: Eldafyre Hometown: Shepparton
AIR Announces Indie-Con Australia
For you if you like: Patti Smith, Rodriguez, Ben Harper
Number of releases: Two albums
Eldafyre explains to Jessica Dale how a new location led to a whole new sound.
T
he latest offering from spoken word artist Eldafyre, aka Marc Cottrell, Islands In Mind saw Cottrell change up his work environment and source of inspiration. Writing the tracks over a sixmonth period in a location that he says “can only be described as paradise” inspired him to create an album with an island vibe flowing strongly through it. From here, he took the works to producer Simon Moro and his team at Allen Eaton Studio. “Something drew me to work with Simon and his crew of gifted session musicians,” explains Cottrell. “The experience itself has brought me back. I hope to record every album with Simon.” When asked what his recording process is like, Cottrell shares that sometimes his overexcitement does cause issues... “I have to always keep in mind to calm down and make sure I do not sing with too much passion,” he says. “The only time we need to record again is usually when I find I’m singing with too much passion.” Cottrell dubs Moments Of Paradise as his favourite track on Islands In Mind. “There is something magical about that song and I can never sing it quite the same as when I created it,” he shares. “This studio recording is the closest I have ever gotten to singing it as it was created. It moves me.”
The scene needs more: Great bands working with great poets instead of separately
Joanna Syme
Where to see: “I plan to busk around Australia for the next two months.”
Dream support: “Unknown artists are so amazing so I would have to say anyone in that field.”
Five-year plan: “Hopefully living near Daylesford, Victoria. In the woods somewhere, up a mountain with fresh water and an extra-large fireplace.”
What: Islands In Mind (Independent)
Established in the UK as the first conference of its type to truly address the needs and issues facing self-releasing artists and independent labels, Indie-Con is now launching in Australia in conjunction with this year’s AIR Awards. The inaugural Indie-Con Australia will be held at Tandanya National Aboriginal Cultural Institute, Adelaide on 27 and 28 Jul, offering insights into the latest innovations and technological advancements in products, services and strategies available to the independent music sector. Providing professional development opportunities across leadership and business performance skills, the two-day event will feature networking opportunities, workshops, panels, presentations and interviews with key industry players. Speakers include Jen Cloher (Milk! Records), Briggs (AB Original and Bad Apples), Joanna Syme (Pieater/Big Scary) and Sebastian Chase (MGM) offering the opening keynote. AIR members will receive invitations to attend, with limited tickets available to nonmembers from 6 Jul.
THE MUSIC • 28TH JUNE 2017 • 27
Album / E Album/EP Reviews
Album OF THE Week
Wet Lips Wet Lips
Hysterical Records
★★★★
Wet Lips’ eponymous debut shares more than just a little with Sleater-Kinney classic Dig Me Out. It’s not just the sonics — fuzzy power chords and bass hooks, topped with tempered screams — but also the way it satirises and derides the patriarchy. Wet Lips are sick of our shit. All of it. Look no further than single, Can’t Take It Anymore. While it’s difficult to ascertain exactly what they’re screaming, it’s very clear what they’re screaming about. Wet Lips is unapologetically feminine, the ethos of its brazen two and three-chord headbangers epitomised by the visceral depictions of menstruation found on Period. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a better song this year about finding blood on your knickers. Like Boat Show’s Groundbreaking Masterpiece earlier in the year, Wet Lips is a great advert for local punk. It’s short, fast and loud; while also managing to squeeze in a more than a little politics. There’s not a lot of variation, but variation has never really been a hallmark of punk, or why the genre matters. Punk is about getting angry, turning up to 11 and kicking out the jams. Wet Lips do it pretty damn well. Evan Young
Brightness
Stone Sour
Teething
Hydrograd
I Oh You
Roadrunner/Warner
★★★½
★★
Described as “a diary that candidly documents phases of uncertainty, dread, confusion and wonder”, there’s a lot to be found in Teething, the first solo outing for Newcastle’s Alex Knight, aka Brightness. The opener Oblivion is punchy and sharp, with a sense of longing weaved throughout the instrumental outro. Surrender is abundant in its vocal and multi-instrumental layering, and it’s here that you can understand why Knight chose to play just about everything on the album himself. If peak 1979-era Smashing Pumpkins took on a Latin influence, surely it would have resulted to Talk To Me. There’s a brief intermission with Blow Fly, a low-end heavy, oneminute piece that feels a little out of place plonked between the previous and following
In many ways, Stone Sour have had a more consistent career than vocalist Corey Taylor’s other band Slipknot. Unlike that band, Stone Sour’s future has never truly been in doubt and they’ve yet to release anything as polarising as Slipknot’s Iowa or All Hope Is Gone - despite going full concept album on their last two full-lengths. Their songwriting has stayed solid throughout their career. Fifth album Hydrograd, though, feels a little spotty. At 15 songs, it’s packed with tunes, but it may have benefited from some trimming. Intro Ysif and opener proper Taipei Person/Allah Tea are completely disposable. It isn’t until the anthemic churn of Knievel Has Landed that the album starts to really deliver a sense of energy. Even then, the album’s
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melancholia-tinged lyrics. Waltz is soft and sweet (just don’t get put off by its seemingly false start) before you’re thrown into the shoegaze heavy Queen Bee that gradually progresses into an all too familiar wall of sound before you’re even aware that it’s happening. Kudos to Knight on developing such a rich and wideranging collection of sounds, with everything from ‘90s alt to soft guitar lullabies referenced throughout the tracks. Teething seems like the perfect title for this album; a contemplative collection of works that are still working their way through to full development. Jessica Dale
more memorable moments have problems. Taylor excels at delivering huge, captivating choruses. However, many songs tend to lose steam in between those moments; cuts like The Witness Trees and the title track boasting fantastic choruses and largely forgettable verses. There’s lots of tom-beating and melodramatic guitar parts but it mostly rings hollow. In writing the record, the band discussed focusing on a more rock-driven direction than on previous recordings. Unfortunately, that approach seems to have left them sounding a little toothless. Disappointing. Matt O’Neill
EP Reviews Album/EP Reviews
TLC
Deafcult
TLC
Auras
Liberator
Hobbledehoy
The Love Junkies
Tex, Don & Charlie
Cough And Splutter
You Don’t Know Lonely
Independent
EMI
★★★½
★★★★
★★★★
★★½
“We don’t need no scrubs chasing waterfalls” — in less than a minute, TLC’s return album addresses one of two elephants in the room, their past (mega) success. The other — the absence of Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes — is acknowledged by the end of the album’s second line. Both prove that, although they’ve billed the Kickstarter-funded TLC as their final record, Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins and Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas are looking at the present and not dwelling on their ‘90s heyday. TLC are devoted to their fans, who will be chuffed at the heady combination of a familiar sound delivered with peak contemporary production.
Auras is full of melodic drone, flecked with classic rock, sort of like listening to another band through a few sheets of gauze. While it might set a shoegaze pace, it’s often far more proactive, peppering each track with catchy little hooks and alluring deviations, subtle traces of ‘80s electronica or an off-kilter country refrain, slipping in and out of the swelling grit that permeates their sound. It’s vaguely hypnotic — after a while, everything starts to fade away and you’re left floating inside someone else’s dream, like being trapped on an ice floe watching the Aurora Borealis shimmering faintly overhead.
Pugnacious Perth punklings The Love Junkies return for what will be the first of two EPs this year. Cough And Splutter is a rollicking bluster of passiveaggressive bombast that will have fans of their album Blowing On The Devil’s Strumpet doing cartwheels, if that can somehow be combined with moshing. “I can’t help but be confused” they groan as if clattering through the messy 3am madness of the seediest parts of Northbridge, before hammering their way out with the power chords of No 2, one of their most brilliantly unhinged and unchained works to date.
It’s sometimes hard to work out whether or not to take Tex Perkins seriously. Here, the Aussie pubrock demigod’s third round of delicately poured bluesy shots with guitarist Charlie Owen and Cold Chisel’s Don Walker goes down quick and relatively smooth. His trademark zingers occasionally threaten to drag you from the husky darkness, like when he lisps “personality” in the grieving I Used To Be or the priceless Johnny Cash-in A Man In Conflict With Nature. You Don’t Know Lonely is the bedraggled soul at the end of the bar neither exciting nor offending anyone.
Christopher H James
Mac McNaughton
Nic Addenbrooke
Dylan Stewart
More Reviews Online Bonny Doon Bonny Doon
theMusic.com.au
Kacy Hill Like A Woman
Listen to our This Week’s Releases playlist on
THE MUSIC • 28TH JUNE 2017 • 29
Live Re Live Reviews
Reclink Community Cup @ Victoria Park. Pic: Renee Coster
Reclink Community Cup @ Victoria Park. Pic: Renee Coster
Reclink Community Cup @ Victoria Park. Pic: Renee Coster
Reclink Community Cup @ Victoria Park. Pic: Renee Coster
Reclink Community Cup @ Victoria Park. Pic: Renee Coster
30 • THE MUSIC • 28TH JUNE 2017
Reclink Community Cup @ Victoria Park. Pic: Renee Coster
Community Cup Victoria Park 25 Jun
The unlikely duo of Murray Wiggle (The Wiggles) and Wally Meanie (The Meanies) join forces early in the day with their Bubblegum Machine, welcoming early birds to Victoria Park for 2017’s annual Reclink Community Cup. Boxwars exhibit their biggest ever event at their first Cup appearance. Cardboard aircraft jet across the green field, with children of all ages inside the marvellous creations. By midafternoon most of the aircraft have been disassembled, but a few thrilled youngsters have managed to keep a hold of at least their headpieces. The first regular act of the day is Jen Cloher, whose bouncing indie tracks welcome the ever growing crowd. Courtney Barnett joins her partner on stage, and debuted in the setlist is Cloher’s latest single Forgot Myself. The beginning of the match erupts in roars of support and team spirit, as Megahertz and Rockdogs file out of their changing rooms, both with an entourage of cheerleaders to follow. Rockdogs take the lead pretty quickly, but that doesn’t prevent both teams from having a could-have-been-choreographed dance together at quarter-time to Destiny’s Child’s Bootylicious. Another quarter and Rockdogs are still in lead, playing one helluva game against their radio presenter opponents. At half time we’re getting funky to Remi Kolawole and his eponymous band REMI. There’s a prominent stench of marijuana floating through the crowd, and one punter who’s very eager to bust a move. He’s joined by Sampa The Great during For Good and our grooving is well and truly underway as the two own the stage among the rest of the band and a Rockdog’s player rises up on someone’s shoulders.
“This is a song for the warmer days, about getting drunk with your friends, and it seems like most of you are already halfway there,” Remi laughs as they progress through their set. Back on the field, we cop an eyeful from the first streaker in the third quarter, who’s chased off by a player. The Rockdogs’ water boy comes to hydrate the team, also butt-naked. One streaker scores a goal with his own footy, and another crouches down on the field to skull his beer; Megahertz score a goal and the ball ends up in the grandstand, which is caught by an eager punter. Throughout the day the smell of sausage sizzles lingers around the field, and the consistent queues for the portaloos and beer tents never ease, despite there being constant eyegrabbing entertainment on the stage and field.
Two naked males join the celebration, one on top of the other’s shoulders. The first and only female streakers of the day make one hell of an appearance, wearing only their Rockdogs merchandise and holding a STOP sign. Towards the end of the game a children’s drum kit is assembled to the left of the goalposts, a guitar resting on the kick drum, where some kids have a sick jam as a Megahertz player gets taken down in a domino effect tackle. Winning the game with an outstanding performance, Rockdogs take The Cup and the enormous crowd erupts in a roaring cheer. Two naked males join the celebration, one on top of the other’s shoulders.
eviews Live Reviews
The fields celebrations separate and within minutes the oval is covered with ecstatic punters and flying footballs, cheerleaders and a brewing mosh pit for The Peep Tempel. After a few minutes of sound checking by fellow team mates, The Peep Tempel take the stage with Rayguns. The crowd screams along beneath the setting sun, and we dance around, clinking our Young Henrys tinnies. Carol brings even more punters to admire the Peep’s engaging set, and they hold our attention during Constable as they say a big thanks to the constables present. The stage is ambushed by cheerleaders, who pretty quickly take their stage performances to the next level. Blake Scott drinks from The Cup, spilling booze on his team jersey, and suggests that the cheerleaders remain on stage for the rest of the set; both team’s colours becoming a blur in the dark. Through another intermission, our footballs fly across the field as we await the day’s headlining band, Spiderbait. There’s some comedy banter from our host on the stage, and before too long we’re aware that although it’s below six degrees, Kram is wearing thongs behind his kit. Kram begins on the vocals, and soon he’s mixing it up with Janet English among the songs. Even from a distance their sound is crisp, as their amplifiers are at 11, and it’s the perfect soundtrack to having a kick around. Fucken Awesome gets us singing along and soon they’re joined on stage by Dan Sultan. Beneath the field lights, the excited crowd begins scattering at the end of the set, young kids still singing Black Betty as their parents drag them home. Mikaelie Evans
The Blackeyed Susans
National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) 23 Jun
With the poetry and vigour of a Southern Baptist preacher, Rob Snarski appropriately transfixes the crowd gathered under the spiritual stained glass of the Great Hall with his opening monologue. The lead vocalist of The Blackeyed Susans displays no sign of jet lag, despite announcing the band has travelled far and wide on their tour “searching for answers”. “Tonight, we hope to find it here.”
Country and western meets Brunswick Street, Fitzroy, with a lick of melancholy blues and tinges of rock. Rollicking in rhythm and rabblerousing in dynamics, the band — whose members feature a virtual line-up of who’s who from Australian alternative rock bands The Triffids, The Cruel Sea, Augie March, Dirty Three, The Jackson Code, The Drones and Hungry Ghosts — launch into an evening that is part nostalgic and part new horizon-testing. Tonight is definitely one for the silvery crowned among us as we watch Snarski, Phil Kakulas (bass), Kiernan Box (keyboards, harmonica), Mark Dawson (drums), JP Shilo (electric guitar, accordion, backing vocals), and Graham Lee (pedal steel guitar, backing vocals) regroup in fine form. Pooling their wealth of collective alternative rock sounds
plays to the band’s strength, as evidenced by the giddy chorus of delight and familiar nodding of heads from the audience as they soak in A Curse On You and the achingly cool Smokin’ Johnny Cash from their earlier albums. However, there is a distinctive mellowness in the offerings from their latest album Close Your Eyes And See; Lee’s haunting, atmospheric chords on the pedal steel guitar channel the airy expanse of country and western tracks, while Snarski’s prose delivery at the start of each track is an unmistakable nod to Nick Cave, Leonard Cohen, and Richard Hawley. Snarski firmly anchors us in Melbourne — speaking of walking down Degraves Street and turning to find Lou Reed walking beside him before “we both decided to get off this cloud”. He conjures up everyday scenes from hip inner city suburbs in his lyrics. With his felt hat and rolled up sleeves, he brings the band’s loftier sounds back to the familiar, slightly grungy bluestoned kerbs of our locale. The result is a sound that is country and western meets Brunswick Street, Fitzroy, with a lick of melancholy blues and tinges of rock. Slow diffusing ballads like I Don’t Dance (Anymore) and Dream On round up the varied setlist that is just testing the waters from the band’s comfort zone. The moving large-scale projections of Vincent Van Gogh on the backdrop wall give the illusion of the band floating amongst the great master’s works. It is no coincidence that many of their lyrics speak of the numerous faces of the skies, seas, and clouds — all thematic references that keen-sensed audience members would have observed from their jaunt to the main gallery next door. In these moments, The Blackeyed Susans share Van Gogh’s climatic vision and ambition — a not insignificant feat.
More Reviews Online theMusic.com.au/ music/live-reviews
DD Dumbo @ The Croxton Xiu Xiu @ The Substation
Ching Pei Khoo
THE MUSIC • 28TH JUNE 2017 • 31
Arts Reviews Arts Reviews
touches thoughtfully on the refugee experience and explores Australian hypocrisy through a hilarious, ukulele-led ditty (punchline: “I like diversity, just not in my backyard”). The dialogue — much of which is spoken by Captain Ruin, the show’s de facto leader — is incisive and funny. But the performers mostly let their bodies do the talking. And my, what expressive bodies they have! Model Citizens incorporates elements of musical theatre and dance to offer thoroughly contemporary takes on traditional circus acts. Like some fairly abstract juggling, which is more akin to a contemporary dance piece during which the dancer also happens to be expertly controlling several juggling balls. Circus Oz has a deliberately ramshackle aesthetic, which creates the exhilarating sense that anything can happen. The show is clearly highly professional, but not over-polished. You will find yourself thinking, “Is that meant to happen? Have they done this before?” Occasionally there is a minor mishap, but they just make the performers seem more human and remind us how impossibly difficult the feats being performed truly are. If ever you can tear your eyes away from the circus performers, the live band is also thoroughly entertaining. The original soundtrack is impressively diverse, spanning several genres over the course of the night, always perfectly complementing and elevating what’s happening onstage. At times Model Citizens is overtly political, but mostly in a way that feels playful, rather than preachy. There are gentle jabs at Malcolm Turnbull. There is a sign advertising ‘Adani Coal-Fired Chicken’. Circus Oz clearly leans to the left, but even pro-coal, anti-equality circus-goers shouldn’t find it too alienating. Most of the digs at contemporary Australia are affectionate, rather than condemnatory. The show skilfully raises questions, without jamming answers down our throats or being too didactic.
There’s a fascinating irony found in the latest season (and its predecessor) of Junji Kohan’s sprawling prison drama Orange Is The New Black. For a show made purposefully for a binge-watching market its story arcs can be agonisingly glacial. Set over a four-day prison riot, the show’s pace is almost in real time, but a great deal of this is devoted to exposition, to the point of being wantonly sluggish. Ironic this may be, but it’s also a big risk. From the relatively simple concept of a middle-class anti-heroine wading into the murky socio-economic depths of Litchfield Penitentiary, the show has since spun its yarns into a mind-bogglingly complex tangle of subplots, flashbacks, and origin stories spanning a vast cast of motley misfits. In terms of its density, this isn’t unprecedented - Game Of Thrones being the most familiar example of a large ensemble cast. However, where Orange Is The New Black differs (aside from the lack of dragons, iron thrones, and incest) is that each of its characters’ stories exists in a vaguely similar emotional spectrum, and the cumulative effect can occasionally read as white noise. And then there’s the comedy. In and of itself, the toilet humour and quirky character gags are not necessarily out of place - indeed, it’s matching the tone set in the first season. But as the show’s narratives have become darker, as it’s explored the horrors of abuse, neglect, drug addiction and mental illness, its jokes have become increasingly jarring alongside the heft of its subject matter. Or so I thought until I had watched the season to the very end. Perceived flaws in its tone, in its pacing, in its lumbering self-indulgences are revealed as surgically precise decisions that guide our empathy to a heartstopping climax. It’s a slight of hand that leaves the viewer feeling both duped and grateful. This is storytelling on an operatic scale, and could very well be the natural evolution of binge brand TV. Finally, we have a show that dares to ask as much of its audience as we ask of it.
Joel Lohman
Maxim Boon
Model Citizens
Model Citizens Theatre Until 16 Jul, The Big Top
★★★★ From the moment we see the Big Top jutting out of Birrarung Marr parkland there is a sense that we are about to experience a complete departure from regular life. This feeling only becomes more acute as we pass through the buzzing entrance, past spruikers and popcorn machines, and take our seats. It would do a disservice to reader and circus to say too much about what happens next, but Circus Oz has famously progressive politics which are proudly worn on their sleeve tattoos, and Model Citizens has a lot more on its mind than cool tricks. The show plays extensively with gender roles and heteronormativity. It
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Orange Is The New Black
Orange Is The New Black (Season 5) TV Now streaming via Netflix
★★★★
OPINION Opinion
Howzat!
Local Music By Jeff Jenkins Owl Be There For You “Speak up, my friend, the time to be heard is now.” The line leaps out of Tempus Sun’s debut single, Owls. It’s a song about mental health and the importance of speaking about your struggles, but the line could also be applied to the band who have been on the fast track since winning last year’s Melbourne Music Bank competition. Keyboards player and singer Grant Hardisty explains that “the owl represents the shadow of depression and how it can follow you everywhere. The song encourages people to reach out for help when they need it. It doesn’t just represent depression, but many daily stressors that we can all face.” Wikipedia informs us that Tempus is a Latin word for “time”, and a Finnish, Swedish and German word meaning “grammatical tense”. It’s also a Superman villain, a demon in Charmed, a Dungeons & Dragons deity, and a musical term. So what inspired the band name? “I think out of all those we’ll take the Superman villain - we’d be fairly happy to mislead people on that one,” Grant laughs. “But the name actually came
about when our resident drunk, Ed [guitarist Ed Borromeo], was drinking a bottle of wine named ‘Tempus Two’ and decided to use it as inspiration. We tweaked it a little and, fittingly, it does also refer to time and tempo within music.” Tempus Sun are blazing their own trail with their emotional, euphoric rock - launching Owls at The Toff In Town on 30 Jun - but they also dig Boy & Bear. Grant loves a line in the band’s Big Man: “If failure don’t hurt, then failure don’t work no more.” “I love this lesson, and it’s something I take with me everywhere to keep perspective.”
Oh So Pretty Howzat! was lucky enough to write the foreword for the new edition of Ian McFarlane’s magnum opus The Encyclopedia Of Australian Rock and Pop. We posed this question: “Why didn’t Died Pretty become as big
Tempus Sun
as REM?” Died Pretty are much loved, but haven’t got the attention they deserve. Died Pretty and Radio Birdman are playing at the Croxton on Friday and Saturday. Hip Hip Happy Birthday to The Go-Betweens’ Robert Forster, who turns 60 on 29 Jun. He shares a birthday with Colin Hay, who’s 64. Hot Line “Wherever I go, the owl and me, but that’s not what the world will see / I think it has a hold of me” - Tempus Sun, Owls.
THE MUSIC • 28TH JUNE 2017 • 33
OPINION Opinion
The Focus Group
L
ibrary music is the holy grail of record collectors. In nondescript covers, often with barely any information about the musicians for hire playing the tunes within, they were designed as the background for film, television and radio. The beauty is that notable composers often slummed them for quick cash, using aliases to hide their shame. While there were numerous examples of top 40 rip offs and smooth jazz, occasionally artists would be let off the leash to engage in all manner of avant-garde experimentations. And that’s the gold. They’ve been sampled extensively by hip hop artists, and have become a source of inspiration for a small niche of artists attracted to the freedom, wilful experimentation and moment-in-time nature of the music. One example is UK’s The Focus Group, who mine British psychedelia, Italian horror movies and Eastern European animation for inspiration, creating an exotic collage of sound that lingers in the past — reminiscences of memories that never truly were. They came to prominence via 2009’s compelling collaboration with Broadcast,
Fragmented Frequencies Other Music From The Other Side With Bob Baker Fish
Wa ke The Dead
Blink 182 – Dude Ranch
Punk And
T
his morning I got a text message Hardcore from my sister. It With Sarah was a screenshot from Mark Hoppus’ Petchell Instagram. What Hoppus posted on his Instagram was the cover of Blink 182’s 1997 album Dude Ranch with the caption, “20 years, people!” Instantly I felt every one of my 32 years. Dude Ranch is very much a seminal
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album from my youth. Remember last column where I talked about gateways into punk and hardcore? This was one of them for me. The video of Hoppus trying to win back an ex-girlfriend in the movie theatre is painfully nostalgic. And while I would argue the album (asides from its nostalgia value) has lost some of its shine for me, I can still understand why little 13-year-old me thought it was amazing. But Dude Ranch was not the only punk or hardcore album to define 1997. Green Day released Nimrod and made Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life), the song that would be played at high school graduations for the next five years. Perth’s Jebediah held down the Australian front and released Slightly Odway — an album that I was obsessed with most of my way through high school. Later in my life, other albums from that year became important to me. Sleater-Kinney released Dig Me Out and H2O Thicker Than Water. AFI, who became one of my favourite bands a few years later with the release of Sing The Sorrow (another gateway album for me), released Shut Your Mouth And Open Your Eyes. And of course, Converge released Caring And Killing. 1997, we salute you!
Broadcast And The Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults Of The Radio Age (Warp) and have continued to release tantalising collage music where exotic instrumentation, processed samples and fragments of electronics collide. It’s the work of Julian House, co-founder of Ghost Box (a label that specialises in hauntology), who’s new album Stop-Motion Happening With The Focus Group (Ghost Box) offers woozy fragments of eccentric aged audio memorabilia that could have come from anywhere in the last five decades.
Han Solo & Lando
Trailer Trash
I
do enjoy a busy news day, and we had a heck Screens of a one a couple of weeks back. It And Idiot Boxes started innocently With Guy Davis enough, with Daniel Day-Lewis announcing that he was retiring. Given that Day-Lewis is kinda the current gold standard for screen acting, the news that he was calling it a day was something of a
Dives Into Your
OPINION Opinion
drag...but then again, Day-Lewis has made this sort of declaration before. More than once, I believe. So while it’d suck if his last screen performance is in Paul Thomas Anderson’s next film, which has the working title Phantom Thread and is currently scheduled for a late-2017 release, let’s maybe sprinkle a grain or two of salt on that announcement, huh? It seemed as if only a few minutes had passed when the next item started doing the rounds - Damon Lindelof, who won friends and influenced people by co-creating Lost, had his reputation tarnished by tinkering with Prometheus (to name just one infraction) and then gained a bit of redemption with The Leftovers, had a new project in the pipeline: a series adaptation of the seminal graphic novel Watchmen for HBO. Does Watchmen, an unflinching, multi-layered deconstruction of comic-book heroes and villains, still have the same juice it did when it burst onto the scene in the late ‘80s? Hell, if anything, it’s probably more relevant now than it’s been in the last couple of decades, actually (because of both the current political climate and our superhero-soaked popular culture). And Lindelof earned a bit of enmity from fanboy types for his willingness to leave some things open-ended, but that may be just the approach something like Watchmen needs. The big news of the day, however, was saved for last - with only a few weeks of principal photography remaining on the new Star Wars side-story, this one focusing on the younger years of everyone’s favourite nerfherder Han Solo, co-directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller either jumped or were pushed from the project. Sure, everyone made with the usual platitudes about creative differences and mutual respect. But this is a Star Wars movie we’re talking about, so naturally every nerd and their Wookiee started digging a little deeper to unearth the real story. I don’t know if we have space (or if I have the inclination) to go full Rashomon here and explore the viewpoint of all parties concerned but here are a few of the tastier speculative tidbits: There was bickering between newbies Lord and Miller and two keepers-of-the-Star-Wars-flame, producer Kathleen Kennedy and screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan, from day one. Lord
and Miller were reportedly big on improvisation, which irked Kasdan. And actor Alden Ehrenreich, playing Solo, was concerned that the directors’ take on the character was a little wackier than what he’d signed on for. Whatever the reason, the outcome is this: Lord and Miller are off the project, which is scheduled for a mid-2018 release, and Ron Howard is in the director’s chair for the remainder of the shoot, however long that is and whatever form it takes. There’s no word about whether Howard, whose rocksolid, journeyman approach would appear to be a polar opposite to that of the Lord-Miller duo, will be giving it a complete overhaul or working with what’s already there (my guess is the latter). But the Star Wars universe has never really welcomed distinctive voices other than George Lucas’ - there’s a reason Richard Marquand and not David Lynch ended up directing Return of the Jedi - so Howard, a reliable choice who generally makes square films that are a comfort to revisit, is probably a good call.
FESTIVAL OF THE ECSTATIC
Presenting Partner
Media Partner
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Comedy / G The Guide
Wed 28
The Passage North
Musk Stick + Young McDonald: 303, Northcote Ten Dollar$ + Rare Olive + Alex Elberry: Bar Open, Fitzroy
Horrorshow
Sarah Maclaine: Bird’s Basement, Melbourne Mellowdias Thump feat. Rahu: Boney, Melbourne
The Music Presents Ali Barter: 1 Jul Corner Hotel; 25 Aug The Workers Club Geelong; 1 Sep Theatre Royal Castlemaine; 8 Sep Corner Hotel Orsome Welles: 8 Jul Evelyn Hotel The Lemon Twigs: 25 Jul The Curtin Two Door Cinema Club: 25 Jul Festival Hall Sigur Ros: 27 Jul Margaret Court Arena Vera Blue: 8 Aug Tap House Bendigo, 11 Aug 170 Russell, 12 Aug Wool Exchange Geelong Dan Sultan: 1 Sep Wool Exchange Geelong; 2 Sep Forum Theatre Mew: 12 Sep Max Watt’s At The Drive In: 28 Sep Festival Hall Caligula’s Horse: 30 Sep Max Watt’s Alt-J: 7 Dec Sidney Myer Music Bowl
Muddy’s Blues Roulette with Travis Winters: Catfish (Front Bar), Fitzroy Lonefree + A Basket Of Mammoths + Sleeper Service: Cherry Bar, Melbourne Blyolk + Hi Tec Emotions + Peach Noise + Cool Explosions + Semplesize DJs: Evelyn Hotel, Fitzroy Gonzo + Bananagun + Tali Mahoney: Grace Darling Hotel, Collingwood Playing It Forward with John Farnham + Jimmy Barnes + Noiseworks + Diesel: Hisense Arena, Melbourne Lomond Acoustica feat. Alex Burns & Jen Hawley Band + Ben Rogers Trio + Oriel Glennen: Lomond Hotel, Brunswick East
Resplendent Descendant The Passage North (aka Jack Anderson) is taking his debut album, Descendant, to Wesley Anne this Friday. Riley E Catherall and Emily Daye are in tow for the big kick off, which comes with a complimentary digital album download.
Mariachi Los Romanticos: Open Studio, Northcote
New Band + Emily Ulman + Spiral Perm: The Tote (Front Bar), Collingwood
Artist Proof + Sylveria + Junior Under The Moon: Retreat Hotel, Brunswick
Disco Multiverse feat. Holy Boner + Derailment + Body Horror + Valhalla’s Gooch: The Tote (Upstairs), Collingwood
Wine, Whiskey, Women feat. Brooke Taylor + Emily Daye: The Drunken Poet, West Melbourne
Anna O + Glass Diamonds + Kaia: The Workers Club, Fitzroy Trivia: Wesley Anne, Northcote
Rat Child
Come Lend a Helping Hand Cancer Benefit with Various Artists: Spotted Mallard, Brunswick Altivo + Mona Bay + Freak & The Fat Cats: The Bendigo, Collingwood Bollard + The Fainters + Georgia Smith + Weird Weather: The Brunswick Hotel, Brunswick
Is There A Hotline? + Sectape + Silknita + TV Telepath: Yarra Hotel, Abbotsford
Thu 29 Kickin The B at 303 feat. Leroy’s Hammond Trio: 303, Northcote Meruka + Longboys + AntiViolet: Bar Open, Fitzroy
Rat-A-Tat-Tat Melbourne-native Rat Child is at the tail end of her three-date stint at Edinburgh Castle Hotel, so if you’re yet to catch the multi-talented singer/composer, grab some mates and mosey on down this Friday.
Michelle Nicolle: Bird’s Basement, Melbourne Cobra Snake Necktie DJs: Catfish (Front Bar), Fitzroy
In With The New
Thando: Cherry Bar, Melbourne
Drummer Vito Lucarelli is the newest edition to Claws & Organs, and they’re planning on putting him to task when they support Thug Mills alongside Spawn and Raul Sanchez. The packed line-up will be rocking out at The Tote Friday.
Dustin Tebbutt + Lisa Mitchell + Alex The Astronaut: Corner Hotel, Richmond Barry Sunset: Evelyn Hotel, Fitzroy Bench Press + Moody Beaches + Loobs: Grace Darling Hotel, Collingwood Comedy Fundraiser with Adam Rozenbachs + Lawrence Mooney + Anne Edmonds: Howler, Brunswick
Singles Night 2.0 with Matthew Parlane + Jimmy Chang + more: The Gasometer Hotel (Upstairs), Collingwood Grups + Gem Bones + Sonke: The Old Bar, Fitzroy Senivoda + Bonewoman + Sophia Sin: The Toff In Town, Melbourne
Catfish Voodoo: Lomond Hotel, Brunswick East Kelly Brouhaha: Martians Cafe, Deans Marsh Karate Boogaloo + Tomgirl: Open Studio, Northcote Juice Beats: Retreat Hotel, Brunswick
36 • THE MUSIC • 28TH JUNE 2017
Claws & Organs
Pete Daly + Joshua Seymour: The Drunken Poet, West Melbourne Red Bull Sound Select feat. Tyrannamen + Sex Drive + Miss Destiny: The Gasometer Hotel, Collingwood
Gigs / Live The Guide
Cookin’ On 3 Burners
Afro Moses + Ras Jahknow + more: Bar Open, Fitzroy
Cookin’ On 3 Burners + Fulton Street: Karova Lounge, Ballarat
In Store with Rebecca Barnard: Basement Discs (12.45pm), Melbourne
Andy Scotts’ Honky Tonk Swing: Lomond Hotel, Brunswick East
The Big Hoo-Haa: Bella Union, Carlton South
Refraction: Long Play, Fitzroy North
Kitty Flanagan: The Capital, Bendigo Performing Arts Centre (Ulumbarra Theatre), Bendigo
Killer Diller Laneway Jive with Various DJs: Loop, Melbourne
Died Pretty + Radio Birdman + Kim Salmon Power Pop Trio: The Croxton, Thornbury
Grinspoon + Hockey Dad: Margaret Court Arena, Melbourne
Mere Women: The Curtin, Carlton
Soul Cupcake: Bird’s Basement, Melbourne One Puf: Boney, Melbourne
Fixin’ For A Mixin’ Lab Experiments Vol 1: Mixin’ is the latest concoction from Cookin’ On 3 Burners, and the trio are keen to share it with the masses. Fulton Street and Chelsea Wilson are joining the launch at Northcote Social Club this Saturday. James Hooker & The Hallows + Melbourne Cans + Michael Galloway: The Old Bar, Fitzroy
Lloyd Spiegel: Burrinja Cafe & Bar (Skylark room), Lysterfield The Meltdown + The Teskey Brothers: Caravan Music Club, Oakleigh
Julian James: The Drunken Poet, West Melbourne
The Electric Blues Collective: Catfish (Front Bar), Fitzroy Bare Bones + The Dead Love + Cosmic Kahuna: Cherry Bar, Melbourne Knock Off Drinks with Chris Wilson: Cherry Bar (5.15pm), Melbourne 1am Slot feat. Rhysics: Cherry Bar (Jenni Bar), Melbourne Steve Hughes: Comic’s Lounge, North Melbourne Dustin Tebbutt + Lisa Mitchell + Alex The Astronaut: Corner Hotel, Richmond
Synthetics + The Faculty: The Post Office Hotel, Coburg
Field See & Mason + Dino Jag + Bloom: Ding Dong Lounge, Melbourne
Shaun Kirk + Alana Wilkinson: The Toff In Town, Melbourne
Branch Arterial + Toehider + Acolyte + Senita: Evelyn Hotel, Fitzroy
The Dull Joys + Tall Shores + Box Crunch + Dave O’Connor: The Tote (Band Room), Collingwood
‘This Is Joni’ - a show celebrating the music & art of Joni Mitchell with Lauren Elizabeth: Flying Saucer Club, Elsternwick
Swamp + Sofala + Hannah Kate: The Tote (Upstairs), Collingwood Golden Vessel + Elkkle + Eilish Gilligan: The Workers Club, Fitzroy
Katie Noonan + Karin Schaupp: Melbourne Recital Centre, Southbank
Degrees Of Separation + Moonshifter + Drova + Suburban Prophets: The Brunswick Hotel, Brunswick
Spit Syndicate
Vaudeville Smash
Smash Money If you’re wanting a bit of everything, look no further than Vaudeville Smash. This group of brothers and mates have banded together for an explosion of funk, flute, sax and dance tunes. Experience it at Howler on Friday.
Cystic Nightmare + Don’t Thank Me, Spank Me!: Tramway Hotel, North Fitzroy Assault & Battery + Evil Has No Boundaries + Vendetta: Mr Boogie Man Bar, Abbotsford
Perolas + Sned + Bloom: Wesley Anne, Northcote
NGV Friday Nights feat. Ben Salter: National Gallery of Victoria (NGV), Southbank
Steph Brett: Wesley Anne (Front Bar), Northcote Supa Suplex + Wolves Among the Hallow: Whole Lotta Love, Brunswick East Daryl Roberts: Winelarder, Brighton Moana + Lovision + Erin Will Be Mad: Woody’s Bar, Collingwood Holy Holy + The Money War + Machine Age: Wool Exchange, Geelong GOD$ + King Cnut & The Waves + Clouds: Yarra Hotel, Abbotsford
Fri 30
Spit-Flyer Sydney-natives Spit Syndicate are kicking off their national tour in Melbourne this Saturday. Jackie Onassis will be accompanying the hip hop duo when they grace Howler to support their latest album, One Good Shirt Had Us All Fly.
Agent 37 + The Beggars’ Way + Brodown + Spencer Vine + Nathan Brailey: 303, Northcote Janette Geri: Albert Park Yacht Club (Port Lounge), Albert Park Larissa Tandy + Brooke Russell & The Mean Reds: Baha Tacos, Rye
Sun Sap + Department + Auntie Leo & The Backstabbers: Grace Darling Hotel, Collingwood The Vaudeville Smash + Bullhorn + Sansonus + Sex On Toast DJs: Howler, Brunswick
The Vibrajets + Tijuana Surf + DJ Dave Gray: The Gem, Collingwood
Ben Ottewell (Gomez) + Ruby Gill + Buddy: Northcote Social Club, Northcote
The Jim Cuomo Trio: The Merri Clan Cafe, Preston
The Stained Daisies: Penny Black, Brunswick
China Beach + Jordan Clay & the Skeleton Band + Gumboot + Dumb Dog: The Old Bar, Fitzroy
La Danse Macabre with Brunswick Massive: Rainbow Hotel, Fitzroy Jemma Nicole: Retreat Hotel, Brunswick Bay City Rollers feat. Les McKeown: Shoppingtown Hotel, Doncaster Bury The Kings: Singing Bird Studios, Frankston Zerafina Zara + Alleged Associates: Smokehouse 101, Maribyrnong
Holy Holy + The Money War + Machine Age: 170 Russell, Melbourne
The Meanies + Ausmuteants + Stiff Richards: The Gasometer Hotel, Collingwood
Afternoon Show with Root Rat + Michael Beach + Liam Linley: The Old Bar, Fitzroy Marathon + The Parks: The Post Office Hotel, Coburg The Aston Shuffle + TCTS + Icarus: The Prince, St Kilda Tempus Sun + Eaglemont + Angie McMahon: The Toff In Town, Melbourne
Moreland City Soul Revue: Spotted Mallard, Brunswick
Thug Mills + Claws & Organs + Spawn + Raul Sanchez: The Tote (Upstairs), Collingwood
Providence + The Ruiner + Daniel Tucceri + Onne + True Believer: The Bendigo, Collingwood
Kelly Brouhaha + Jacqui Sterling: The Westernport Hotel, Phillip Island Slowcoaching + Poppongene + Backyard: The Workers Club, Fitzroy
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Comedy / G The Guide
The Sequels + Tom Walker & The Sick Individuals + DJ Sammy Soul: The Workers Club Geelong, Geelong
WAAX: The Gasometer Hotel (Upstairs), Collingwood
The Meanies + The Pink Tiles + Suss Cunts: The Gasometer Hotel, Collingwood
Hanny J + Tim Maxwell: Tramway Hotel, North Fitzroy
Mon Shelford: Wesley Anne, Northcote
Michael Beach + Truly Holy + Low Talk + Baby Blue: The Old Bar, Fitzroy
The Passage North + Riley E Catherall + Emily Daye: Wesley Anne, Northcote
Afternoon Show with Louis Valentine: The Old Bar, Fitzroy
Laura Palmer + Body Parts: Woody’s Bar, Collingwood
Tracy McNeil & The Good Life: The Post Office Hotel, Coburg
Kingswood + Press Club Band: Yah Yah’s, Fitzroy
Albert Salt + Sofala: The Toff In Town, Melbourne
The Diecasts + Evil Twin + Lorikeet: Yarra Hotel, Abbotsford
Andee Frost + Otologic: The Toff In Town, Melbourne Alex The Astronaut
Older Men + Lost Talk + World Sick + Flood Plains: The Tote (Upstairs), Collingwood
Sat 01 Geotech 2 feat. Trickbox + Lazyboy Proactive: 303, Northcote Sun Sap + Middlemarch: Baha Tacos, Rye Citrus Jam: Bar Open (Front Bar), Fitzroy Umlaut + My Idiot Friend + SOLS: Bar Open, Fitzroy
Hotline Sing Alex The Astronaut will be given her space to shine when she supports Dustin Tebbut and Lisa Mitchell on Thursday for their collaborative Distant Call tour. She’ll be sharing the stage at Corner Hotel for their unique mixed set.
Gold Shoulder Golden Vessel’s east coast Shoulders tour will give him the chance to showcase his latest single in all its glory. Elkkle and Eilish Gilligan will be accompanying him when he heads to The Workers Club Thursday.
Soul A-Go-Go feat. DJ Vince Peach + DJ Miss Goldie + DJ Richie 1250 + DJ Manchild + Coco Brown + DJ Heata: Bella Union, Carlton South Karise Eden: Bird’s Basement, Melbourne Ben Ottewell (Gomez): Caravan Music Club, Oakleigh Goat Control: Catfish (Front Bar), Fitzroy Frances Gumm Frontier: Charles Weston Hotel, Brunswick
The Pinheads + Solid Effort + Bitch Diesel: The Workers Club, Fitzroy Matinee Show with Shiver Canyon + Creek + Lack The Low + Carly Fern: The Workers Club, Fitzroy
The Flaming Mongrels: Rainbow Hotel, Fitzroy
Electric Lady feat. Ali Barter + Alex Lahey + Gretta Ray + Bec Sandridge + Jack River + Body Type + Rackett: Corner Hotel, Richmond
Stiff Richards + The Grogans + Bleach: Record Paradise, Brunswick
Songbird - A Musical Tribute to Eva Cassidy feat. Anouska Taylor: Thornbury Theatre, Thornbury
Seattle Fix + The Sand Dollars + Beautiful Beasts + Caitlin D’Souza: Retreat Hotel, Brunswick
Matt Glass & The Loose Cannons + T-Bones: Union Hotel, Brunswick
Back To The Eighties: Eddies Poolroom & Bar, Moorabbin Maja: Edinburgh Castle Hotel (Front Bar), Brunswick Strangers + Creo: Evelyn Hotel, Fitzroy The Eagles Story: Flying Saucer Club, Elsternwick
The Velvet Addiction: Revolver Upstairs, Prahran Bang feat. The Rock Show + My Echo + Brittle Bones + Wildheart + Future Static: Royal Melbourne Hotel, Melbourne Warehouse 3000 feat. Mike Steva + Various DJs: Rubix The Venue, Brunswick
The Wellingtons + The Golden Rail + Max Quinn: Grace Darling Hotel, Collingwood
Jacob Diamond + Hannah Cameron: Some Velvet Morning, Clifton Hill
Spit Syndicate + Jackie Onassis + Nasty Mars: Howler, Brunswick
Andrea Marr Band: Spotted Mallard, Brunswick
Purple Revolution - A Tribute to Prince with Andrew De Silva: Italian Sports Club, Werribee
Hanksaw: Surabaya Johnny’s, St Kilda
Tango in the Night: A Fleetwood Mac Tribute: Karova Lounge, Ballarat Archer: Kew Court House, Kew Murphy’s Hardware: Labour In Vain, Fitzroy Nice Boy Tom: Lomond Hotel, Brunswick East Emma Davis: Long Play, Fitzroy North Furnapalooza with Furnace & Fundamentals + Discovery (Daft Punk Tribute Show): Max Watt’s, Melbourne
Grinspoon + Hockey Dad: Village Green Hotel, Mulgrave Harrison Craig: Wangaratta Performing Arts Centre, Wangaratta Dan Lethbridge: Wesley Anne (Front Bar), Northcote
Gold Chisel: Satellite Lounge, Wheelers Hill
Cisco Caesar + The Excellent Smithers: The B.East, Brunswick East Melbourne Manifestation with Persecution + Desecrator + Dark Earth + Maniaxe + Black Jesus: The Bendigo, Collingwood Devil Monkey + Curse Ov Dialect + Battlesick + Beyond Contempt: The Brunswick Hotel, Brunswick Afternoon Show with Mat Black + Mr Alford Country + Rough Sauce: The Brunswick Hotel, Brunswick Radio Birdman + Died Pretty + Dave Graney & The MistLY: The Croxton, Thornbury
Grim Rhythm + Jack Harlon & The Dead Crows: Cherry Bar, Melbourne
Cookin’ On 3 Burners + Fulton Street + Chelsea Wilson: Northcote Social Club, Northcote
Hideous Sun Demon + Lazertits + Bench Press: The Curtin, Carlton
Kisstroyer + Electric - The Cult Show: Commercial Hotel, South Morang
Nerv: Open Studio, Northcote
Cold Heart + Say Nothing: The Drunken Poet, West Melbourne
38 • THE MUSIC • 28TH JUNE 2017
Olly & Scuzzi: The Westernport Hotel, Phillip Island
Grace Robinson: Compass Pizza Bar, Brunswick East
Kitty Flanagan: Eastbank Centre, Shepparton Golden Vessel
Blank Statements + Trevor + Waterfall Person: The Tote (Band Room), Collingwood
Furnace & The Fundamentals
Crazy Fun Furnace & The Fundamentals are bringing their brilliantly named Furnapalooza to Max Watt’s on Saturday, so now there’s literally no excuse not to party the weekend away. Discovery, a Daft Punk tribute show, will round out the night.
Gigs / Live The Guide
Tom Stephens + Forever Son + Angie McMahon: Wesley Anne, Northcote
Lost Talk + Super X + Shepparton Airplane: Evelyn Hotel, Fitzroy
Open Swimmer: The Post Office Hotel, Coburg
Yukumbabe: Woody’s Bar, Collingwood
Karise Eden + Steve Hoy: Flying Saucer Club, Elsternwick
Shakey Stills: The Standard Hotel, Fitzroy
Busy Kingdom + Dal Santo + Pipsy: Yah Yah’s, Fitzroy
Contaminated + Shitwreck + Esp Mayhem + Asbestosis: Yarra Hotel, Abbotsford
Sun 02 Jacob Diamond + Gena Rose Bruce + Liv Cartledge + Time Robb: 303, Northcote
Eurosmash! feat. Otto & Astrid: Howler, Brunswick Andy Murphy: Kay St, Traralgon Pheasant Pluckers: Labour In Vain, Fitzroy Marty Kelly & Co. + Rebels Without A Clue: Lomond Hotel, Brunswick East Lah-Lah: Malvern Town Hall, Malvern
Afternoon Show with Megan Barnard: 303, Northcote
Hard Edge: Mr Boogie Man Bar, Abbotsford
CHILD + Stiff Richards: Baha Tacos, Rye
Unplugged Live feat. Sui Zhen: National Gallery of Victoria (NGV), Southbank
Resonant feat. SFBM + Volupt + Delphic Karma + Erin K Taylor: Bar Open, Fitzroy
The Slipdixies: Open Studio, Northcote
The Spheres + Cold Hands Warm Heart + Motte: The Tote (Upstairs), Collingwood Winter Sun + The Moth Body + Film Clip + Atom + Bronwyn: The Tote (Band Room), Collingwood Afternoon Show with Key Hoo + King River Rising + Matt Crowley: The Workers Club, Fitzroy Sky Roller + Alphonso + One Day Bender: The Workers Club, Fitzroy New Band + Jarrow: Tramway Hotel, North Fitzroy Moreland City Soul Revue + The Quirks: Union Hotel, Brunswick Jazz Jam with Line Matter: Wesley Anne, Northcote
The Aston Shuffle
Holy Holy
Wildheart + Capone + Cordell + Nidus: Wrangler Studios, West Footscray
Painted Love Psychedelic rock outfit Holy Holy are bringing their colourfully chaotic album Paint on a 12-date tour around Australia. Catch their funky bass lines and ripping guitars on Friday night at 170 Russell with The Money War and Machine Age.
Tue 04 The Pinheads
Klub MUK: 303, Northcote Olivia Chindamo + Dane Layborie Trio: Bird’s Basement, Melbourne 59 Rockers + Jade Nye + Andy Phillips: Cherry Bar, Melbourne Public High + Gee Seas + Super X: Evelyn Hotel, Fitzroy Clare Bowen: Hamer Hall, Melbourne
Pin It To Win It Shuffle Butter Running two tours essentially back-to-back, The Aston Shuffle are showing no signs of slowing down. After the recent release of Only 100s, the duo will be taking their mix for a spin at The Prince this Friday.
Jackie Bornstein Quintet: Bird’s Basement, Melbourne Whomst? feat. Spacey Space + T-Rek + Silversix + Butters + DJ Hey Sam + Luke Vecchio: Brown Alley, Melbourne The Clip Clop Club: Caravan Music Club, Oakleigh Benjamin Bones: Catfish (Front Bar), Fitzroy Creo + The Avenue: Cherry Bar, Melbourne Cherry Blues with Phil Para Band: Cherry Bar, Melbourne The B# Big Band: Copacabana, Fitzroy DYLANesque: Eastbank Centre (Riverlinks), Shepparton The Knott Family Band: Edinburgh Castle Hotel (Front Bar), Brunswick Afternoon Show with Off The Leash: Evelyn Hotel, Fitzroy
The Nudgels: Rainbow Hotel, Fitzroy
The past few months have been massive for The Pinheads, as the Sydneysiders have commenced their tour shortly after dropping their self-titled debut LP. Clamber down to The Workers Club this Saturday for a cheeky squiz.
The Houndlings: Royal Oak Hotel, Fitzroy North Grand Pine + Fenn Wilson + George Wilson: The Brunswick Hotel, Brunswick The Bonafide Travellers + The Groovetones: The Drunken Poet, West Melbourne Larissa Tandy + Brooke Russell & The Mean Reds + Sam Newton: The Gasometer Hotel, Collingwood WAAX: The Gasometer Hotel (Upstairs), Collingwood
Agamous Betty + Zyklus + Foggy Notion: The Brunswick Hotel, Brunswick Playing the Songs of Nick Lowe with Liam Gerner: The Drunken Poet, West Melbourne Harry Permezel + Mouseatouille + Hector Clark: The Gasometer Hotel, Collingwood Skyscraper Stan + Hollie Joyce + Oskar Herbig: The Gasometer Hotel (Upstairs), Collingwood Tenderloins + SM Jenkins + The Good Minus: The Old Bar, Fitzroy
Zoe K: Retreat Hotel, Brunswick Afternoon Show with Monique Brumby: Retreat Hotel, Brunswick
Arsenic & Old Lace: Some Velvet Morning, Clifton Hill
Mon 03 Brooklyn’s Finest + DJ Cassette Walkman: Evelyn Hotel, Fitzroy Wind It Up with Various Artists: Northcote Social Club, Northcote
Fripps & Fripps + Big Creature + Feelds: The Workers Club, Fitzroy Rifle Smile + Kathleen Mary Lee: Tramway Hotel, North Fitzroy Moulin Beige: Wesley Anne, Northcote
Nishla Smith + Dave Gillan: Open Studio, Northcote Horace Bones + Hexdebt + Fuzzsucker: The Old Bar, Fitzroy Aztx + We Are But Citizens + Koda: The Workers Club, Fitzroy Celiac + Dire + Symphon + Silveria: Yarra Hotel, Abbotsford
Pony Face + Kelly Day + J Scot McKenzie: The Old Bar, Fitzroy
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