The Music (Sydney) Issue #142

08.06.16

Issue

Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture

142

Sydney / Free / Incorporating

sydney ten films film you just festival have to see

F E A T U R I N G

G U E S T

S I M O N T H E

T I M

T H E

U N D E R

T H E

J O S E P H

M E L I

W I D O W B I R D S

WIN!

M E A C O

L O C K H E A R T S

D A L L A S J I M M Y

V O C A L I S T S

F R A S C A

A N D

C U P P L E S

C R E A T I V E

D I R E C T I O N

Buy tix by midnight 19 June & enter the draw to WIN an amazing Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin Wireless iPod/iPhone speaker system valued at $999.95. Conditions Apply.

O F

C A L D E R A Z Z O

9 PIECE BAND STRING SECTION BIG SCREEN VISUALS

W H O L ELOT TA LOV E .CO M . AU

2 • THE MUSIC • 8TH JUNE 2016

THE MUSIC 8TH JUNE 2016 • 3

Entries close: 31 July 2016

win you some of the $5,000 worth of great prizes up for grabs!

" footprints@lmc.nsw.gov.au or (02) 9367 9381 www.leichhardt.nsw.gov.au/Footprints-Film-Festival 4 • THE MUSIC • 8TH JUNE 2016

Saturday 11th June @ 7.30pm

WaveFM Presents Ganggajang + Spy vs Spy + Urban Guerillas

Saturday 18th of June @ 8pm

Funkoars Waves

Waves Sunday 12th June @ 7 pm

Sunday 26th of June @ 4pm

I98fm Presents - Ash Grunwald + Claude Hay

WaveFM presents Jon Stevens + Ben Ransom Band

Waves

Waves

Friday 5th of August @ 9.30pm Friday 17th of June @ 8pm

Karnivool Waves

WaveFM presents Angels + Mi Sex Waves

www.towradgibeachhotel.com.au 170 Pioneer Road, Towradgi 2518 | 02 42833 588

www.thebasement.com.au

The Home of Live Music Since 1973 BASEMENT

THU 9TH 8PM

BASEMENT

FRI 10TH 8PM

BASEMENT

SAT 11TH 2PM

BACK AT THE VALVE

ROCK SHOW WITH: “BROKEN HANDS”, “LXM”, “THE MAKE UP”, “THE LAST EXPOSURE” AND GUESTS

SAT 11TH 7PM

FOLK PUNK FROM BRIGHTON UK SUPPORTED BY: “THE BOTTLERS”, “KANG”, “THE WILDBLOODS”, “DAL FAILURE”, JOSH ARENTZ, YVETTE VIALS, BD/SM, ADAM NEWMAN AND MANY MORE

ACOUSTIC DELIGHTS

KIRSTY’S BIRTHDAY BASH

WITH: “BASIC ECSTASY”, “THE MURRAY GREYS”, “INTO THE WILD”, “MIKE CRANE”, “THE BRENDAN FRASER’S”, “THE OTHERWISE MEN”, “THE LAZY PICKS”, “THE FAGGOTS” AND MANY MORE

JAKE MARTIN (UK)

VALVE BAR PRESENTS:

THURSDAY89 JUNE SATURDAY JUNE

DEAN PRESENTS: BASEMENT

BASEMENT

SUN 12TH 4PM

SECRET PARTY

COMING UP

“DRAIN LIFE”

THRASH SHOW SUPPORTED BY “DISINTEGRATOR”, “FRAME 313”, “PIZZA GUTT”, “HEAD IN A JAR”

Wed 15 June: Justin presents: Indie Club night; Thu 16 June: 8pm Basement: Indei Rock Show with “Jones The Cat” supported by: “Dave”, “Fitzroy”, “Ambulate”, “6 Strings” and guests ; Fri 17 June: 8pm Basement: Punk Rock Show with “Starving Millions” (-NZ) supports by: “The Phosphorous Bombs”, “Two Faced”, “Boneless”, “Ben Gel & The Boneyard Saints”; Sat 18 June: 8pm Basement: Return Of The Hook!: Grime/Garage Party with James Finney, DJ Trene and many more; Sun 19 June: 4pm Basement: Francis Rodr presents Winter Flavours with “Brumby”, “Frank” and many more

DON’T MISS

THE DIVA SERIES #2

THU 09 JUNE

JAMES MORRISON

FRI 10 JUNE

YELLOWJACKETS (USA)

SAT 11 JUNE

YELLOWJACKETS (USA)

SAT 11 JUNE

YELLOWJACKETS (USA)

SUN 12 JUNE

THE MONDAY JAM

MON 13 JUNE

SUPERNAUT

THU 16 JUNE

A NIGHT WITH PRINNIE STEVENS…

A NIGHT WITH PRINNIE STEVENS…

THE DIVA SERIES #2

BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND – PRINNIE STEVENS WILL RETURN TO THE BACKSEMENT FOR PART 2 OF THE DIVA SERIES. THE SHOW WILL TAKE AUDIENCES ON A MUSICAL JOURNEY THROUGH THE MUSIC OF CHAKA KHAN, DIANA ROSS & ALICIA KEYS.

COMING UP...

FRI 17 JUNE THE MORRISONS SAT 18 JUNE STEVE CLISBY (VIVID MUSIC EVENT) SUN 19 JUNE THE AUSTRALIAN BURLESQUE FESTIVAL PRESENTS: EMPRESS ROYALE FOLLOW US: ON FACEBOOK @ THE BASEMENT & ON TWITTER @ #BASEMENTSYD RESTUARANT OPENS AT 11AM, SERVING FOOD ALL DAY

VIVID MUSIC EVENT (EARLY SHOW)

VIVID MUSIC EVENT (LATE SHOW)

THE MUSIC 8TH JUNE 2016 • 5

Credits Publisher Street Press Australia Pty Ltd Group Managing Editor Andrew Mast National Editor – Magazines Mark Neilsen Arts Editor Hannah Story Gig Guide Editor Justine Lynch gigs@themusic.com.au Contributing Editor Bryget Chrisfield

Music Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture

‘90s Revival On The Green

A Day On The Green

As the first event for the festival season, A Day On The Green have dropped a massive line-up for this November’s winery tour, featuring a ‘90s extravaganza of legendary acts led by You Am I, Something For Kate and Spiderbait.

Editorial Assistants Brynn Davies, Sam Wall Peter Garrett

Contributors Adam Wilding, Andrew McDonald, Anthony Carew, Brendan Crabb, Brendan Telford, Cameron Cooper, Cameron Warner, Carley Hall, Cate Summers, Chris Familton, Chris Maric, Christopher H James, Cyclone, Daniel Cribb, Danielle O’Donohue, Dave Drayton, Deborah Jackson, Dylan Stewart, Eliza Berlage, Guido Farnell, Guy Davis, Hattie O’Donnell, James d’Apice, Jonty Czuchwicki, Kassia Aksenov, Liz Giuffre, Mac McNaughton, Mark Beresford, Mark Hebblewhite, Matt MacMaster, Mitch Knox, Neil Griffiths, Paul Ransom, Mick Radojkovic, Peter Laurie, Rip Nicholson, Roshan Clerke, Ross Clelland, Sam Murphy, Samuel J Fell, Sarah Braybrooke, Sarah Petchell, Sean Maroney, Sebastian Skeet, Sevana Ohandjanian, Simon Eales, Steve Bell, Tanya Bonnie Rae, Tim Finney, Tom Hersey, Tyler McLoughlan, Uppy Chatterjee, Xavier Rubetzki Noonan

Bleached

Photographers Angela Padovan, Cole Bennetts, Clare Hawley, Jared Leibowitz, Josh Groom, Kane Hibberd, Leila Maulen, Pete Dovgan, Peter Sharp, Rohan Anderson Advertising Dept Georgina Pengelly, Sammy BladesMoore sales@themusic.com.au Art Dept Ben Nicol, Felicity Case-Mejia Admin & Accounts Meg Burnham, Bella Bi, Ajaz Durrani accounts@themusic.com.au Distro distro@themusic.com.au

King Of The Comeback Midnight Oil frontman and expolitician Peter Garrett along with his backing band The Alter Egos have announced a massive run of intimate theatre shows this July in support of his comeback album, A Version Of Now.

Subscriptions store@themusic.com.au

There’s A Storm Coming

Contact Us PO Box 2440 Strawberry Hills NSW 2012

American rapper and hip hop maven Tech N9ne has announced his return to Australian shores this November for an expansive national tour. The quick-spitting MC’s forthcoming record The Storm is due out in September.

Suite 42, 89-97 Jones St Ultimo Phone (02) 9331 7077 info@themusic.com.au www.themusic.com.au

— Sydney Tech N9ne

6 • THE MUSIC • 8TH JUNE 2016

c / Arts / Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture

Say That Three Times Fast

Pinot Palooza

Pinot Palooza, the annual nationwide festival of pinot noir and music, is heading out on their fifth birthday, which will even see NZ. Plenty of wines will be available as the festival travels throughout August and October.

Bleach Of Conduct Los Angeles-based punk trio Bleached have announced their very first tour of Australia this September/ October, bringing their recently released album Welcome The Worms to four dates around the country.

10 Big White Taxi

Big White

Sydney alternative-pop outfit Big White have spent the past nine weeks abroad, honing their skills across the US and Europe, and they’re returning home to a run of headline dates next month.

The percentage of basketballers that are Australian in the NBA finals.

THE MUSIC 8TH JUNE 2016 • 7

Arts / Li Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture

Calm Before The Tour

With recently released debut In A Restless House, Melburnian buzz band City Calm Down have unveiled a huge national tour, as the quartet hit their biggest shows to date around the country come September.

City Calm Down

George Maple

George Staple After a series of tantalising guest appearances at the likes Groovin The Moo, LAbased electro singer George Maple she’ll hit the road in July with single Sticks And Horses for what will be her biggest national tour to date.

The Delta Riggs

Open-heart Surgery On the back of brand new track Surgery Of Love, Melbourne rock outfit The Delta Riggs have announced they’ll be hitting the road this month for a series of headline shows.

8 • THE MUSIC • 8TH JUNE 2016

ifestyle Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture

Frontlash

Fingertips, Pt Blue

On what will be only her second headline tour, folk-pop up-and-comer Vera Blue has announced a huge headline run this August, just days after wrapping up a tour in support of single, Fingertips.

Kennards

Thumbs up to their clever way to protest the lockouts.

American Gods

Vera Blue

The Gooch Palms

This upcoming TV show seems even more on a winner with the casting announcement of Gillian Anderson, reuniting with Hannibal creator Bryan Fuller.

AFL

Having just wrapped up a tour with Brisbane reprobates Violent Soho, LA-based duo The Gooch Palms have announced they’ll be heading around Australia yet again this August in support of their forthcoming second album, Introverted Extroverts.

While the NRL thinks racism is funny, the AFL forced Facebook to take down a racist meme of Adam Goodes.

Kennards Hire

Lashes

Gooch In Palms Out

Backlash

Storm Clouds Vs

Kav Temperley

Coming Together Celebrating two iconic albums, a supergroup of musicians are collaborating for Beatles Back2back.

With a little help from our friends Kav Temperley, Russell Morris, Jack Jones and Jon Allen, a national tour will be hitting the Abbey Road this August.

6 The number of years it took for Machine Head’s Robb Flynn to unexpectedly get back two out of four guitars he had stolen in 2010 from him.

Computer Cloud

The inclement weather knocked out a whole bunch of web-based services as Amazon Web Services went down. What else are we to do if we’re stuck inside due to the rain but jump on the web?

Left Out Of Leftovers

HBO’S The Leftovers will film in Melbourne, meaning any chance we had of spying Justin Theroux, Liv Tyler, Christopher Eccleston et al around town just diminished.

NRL Footy Show How did such a distasteful, racist joke make it to air? It would have been seen by so many people but no one stopped along the way and thought not to broadcast it.

THE MUSIC 8TH JUNE 2016 • 9

Music / Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture

Maroochy-coochey-coo

Maroochy Music and Visual Arts Festival have released an epic 2016 line-up. This 10 Sept Matt Corby and Peking Duk will lead the parade with Allday, George Maple, Client Liaison, Ngaiire and heaps more joining in.

Margaret Cho

Trevor Noah

Still Fly Dappled Cities are back with a new single, That Sound.

To coincide with the new release, the indie-rock outfit have announced two shows in Melbourne and Sydney 15 & 16 Jul respectively.

Laugh It Up The Ssixth Just For Laughs has announced an amazing September line-up with, Alan Carr, Margaret Cho, Trevor Noah set to tickle funny bones.

Also returning are the Comedy Channel’s Stand-Up Series and the JFL All-Star Gala.

Alan Carr

Whole Lotta

Heaven The Axe

Love For the 13th year the Whole Lotta Love Led Zeppelin celebration hits the road to pay homage to the rock’n’roll kings. You can see Dallas Frasca, Simon Meli, Jimmy Cupples and more singing the classics this August.

10 • THE MUSIC • 8TH JUNE 2016

Brewtal

Dallas Frasca.

Pic: Josh Groom

The annual Brewtality Festival returns to The Tote and Bendigo Hotel this August, as well making its maiden trip to Sydney.

There’s a huge lineup including Toe To Toe and Heaven The Axe, who’ll play Sydney and Melbourne.

Arts / Li Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture

Leave Your Mark

This Week’s Releases

Footprints Ecofestival

Dappled Cities

Releases

Sydney’s Footprints Ecofestival has opened their doors for submissions to the 2016 Footprints Film Festival competition. Short films with a theme of environment or sustainability are encouraged to enter, applications close 31 Jul.

Garbage Strange Little Birds Stunvolume/Liberator

Yeeeeah over 36,000 signatures for #keepcommunityradio!

Keep it coming people keepcommunityradio. org.au/ @synmedia Keep the tunes alive.

Grant Gerathy

Vintage Beats

The second annual Vintage & Custom Drum Expo, 14 Aug, has confirmed live performances from Grant Gerathy (John Butler Trio), Pete Drummond (Dragon/Thirsty Merc) and Dave Goodman (Dave Goodman Quartet/Trioflight) with more to be confirmed.

Marcus Whale Inland Sea Good Manners

Peter Bjorn And John Breakin’ Point INGRID/Kobalt

The Temper Trap Thick As Thieves Liberation

THE MUSIC 8TH JUNE 2016 • 11

SFF

Ten Films To Watch At Sydney Film Festival Our film guru Anthony Carew picks his favourites for the 63rd Sydney Film Festival.

Certain Women (USA, D. Kelly Reichardt) Reichardt’s unhurried, unglamorous, unwavering films are the antithesis of most American cinematic exports: filled with rural realism, telling silences, and - gasp! - stories of women. Her sixth film - and follow-up to the so-so eco-terrorist thriller Night Moves - comes adapted from short stories by Maile Meloy (sister of Decemberists leader Colin), and stars Michelle Williams, Laura Dern and Kristen Stewart as characters all grappling with their place in frontier Montana/small town America.

9 Jun, State Theatre; 17 Jun, Hayden Orpheum Picture Palace

Aquarius (France/ Brazil, D. Kleber Mendonca Filho) Mendonca’s 2012 debut Neighbouring Sounds is one of the decade’s quiet masterpieces, a portrait of metropolitan living - of class, property, architecture - that doubles as searing exploration of Brazilian society. Aquarius, which comes to Sydney direct from Cannes, promises something similar. Sonia Braga plays an elderly woman whose refusal to sell her seaside apartment stalls a proposed new development - a richly symbolic story for a country that went building-crazy for the World Cup and Olympics.

Chevalier (Greece, D. Athina Rachel Tsangari) On a yacht moored in the Mediterranean, a group of Greek men stage an Alpha Male contest; testing themselves in increasingly idiotic fits of strength and stubbornness, and measuring hair growth, cholesterol levels and penis size. Following up 2010’s daffy Attenberg, Tsangari has made a Greek Weird Wave classic. Chevalier plays its insecurity-laced pissing contest as both deadpan farce and pitch-perfect satire, mocking male vanity, the patriarchy and the arcane rituals of fraternities.

10 & 11 Jun, State Theatre

12 & 13 Jun, Event Cinemas George Street

Barakah Meets Barakah (Saudi Arabia, D. Mahmoud Sabbagh) He’s a petty bureaucrat from the wrong side of the tracks, she’s an Instagram celebrity/ manic-pixie rich kid. And when they meet, there’s no love lost! These sound like creaky rom-com cliches, but Sabbagh’s wry debut uses romance’s universal currency to explore life on the ground in the Saudi state, where individual desires are either socially shunned or legally outlawed, and where even going on a date requires the kind of subterfuge usually seen in spy-movies.

Evolution (France/Belgium/ Spain, D. Lucile Hadzihalilovic) The interminable wait for a follow-up to Hadzihalilovic’s luminous 2004 debut, Innocence, is forgotten by the end of Evolution’s opening reel. It’s another social parable as surrealist fairytale, consisting wholly of astonishing, dreamlike images. And, again, it involves a children being groomed for sinister purposes: an island’s population of boys sent off to a shadowy hospital.

There’s hints of Cronenbergian body horror awaiting, but Evolution is never a work of genre, just pure cinema: a weird, wild work from a singular artist.

16 Jun, Event Cinemas George Street; 17 Jun, State Theatre

12 • THE MUSIC • 8TH JUNE 2016

12 & 19 Jun, Dendy Newtown

SFF

High-Rise (UK, D. Ben Wheatley) Adapting JG Ballard’s dystopian parable, Wheatley doesn’t set it in sci-fi’s obligatory ‘near future’, but when the book was written: 1975. So, there’s sideburns and shag-carpets, flared trousers and honking-big moustaches in, certainly, SFF’s most wood-panelled film. Marshalling a game cast - Tom Hiddleston, Luke Evans, Sienna Miller, Elisabeth Moss, Jeremy Irons - Wheatley goes for broke, descending into a wild orgy of theatrical depravity and decadent debauchery so utterly, unabashedly over-the-top its ridiculousness becomes sublime.

Suntan (Greece, D. Argyris Papadimitropoulos) A depressed, balding, chain-smoking, chubby, pastyskinned middleaged doctor (Makis Papadimitriou, who’s also in Chevalier) takes a job as the local MD on a tiny Grecian isle. In winter, its locals lie in collective hibernation, but, come summer, there’s a Dionysian orgy of thumpin’ clubs and exposed flesh. Falling in with a cadre of young revellers, our good doc grows increasingly obsessed, Papdimitropoulos’ Wasted Youth follow-up at once hilarious, heartbreaking, and darkly disturbing.

10 Jun, Skyline Drive In; 11 Jun, Event Cinemas George Street

11 & 15 Jun, Event Cinemas George Street

Lo And Behold: Reveries Of The Connected World (USA, D. Werner Herzog) While his Nicole Kidman-starring failed Oscarbait matinee Queen Of The Desert stinks up regular cinemas, SFF allows us to forget such a misstep, and see Herr Herzog where he shines. Here, the iconic auteur tackles the topic of our times - the motherfucking internet! - as only he can: with a mixture of sincerity and absurdity, with tiny details and sweeping themes, and, of course, existential philosophising in his inimitable narration.

The Treasure (Romania/France, D. Corneliu Porumboiu) While it’s too dry, deadpan and unhurried to be comfortably called a ‘crowdpleaser’, Porumboiu’s modern-day, post-Communist fable is a quiet a delight. Here, a hangdog father (Cuzin Toma) and his prickly neighbour (Adrian Purcarescu) go off on a modern day treasure hunt, the latter sure that a fortune was buried by Nazis in his old family farmhouse’s backyard. It’s a wild goose chase whose absurdist, quixotic quest taps into the local resentment at the vanishing of riches from Ceausescu’s Romania.

8 Jun, Event Cinemas George Street; 9 Jun, State Theatre

15 Jun, State Theatre; 19 Jun, Dendy Opera Quays No Home Movie (Belgium/France, D. Chantal Akerman) Akerman died late in 2015, the legendary iconoclast leaving behind a final film whose signature study of mortality finds profundity through banality. Through long takes - from trees blowing in the breeze to kitchen table conversations - she watches her frail mother inch slowly towards death. It’s a style she minted with her 1975 masterwork, Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai Du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, a fictional depiction of a housewife’s horrifying tedium that’s also screening at SFF. 12 Jun, Event Cinemas George Street; 18 Jun, Dendy Opera Quays

THE MUSIC 8TH JUNE 2016 • 13

Everybody Wants Some!!

SFF

Becoming An Adult Richard Linklater, writer and director of Everybody Wants Some!!, talks to Hannah Story about the moment where “your adult meter starts ticking”.

Y

ou’ve seen a movie written and/or directed by Richard Linklater. The highlights reel: independent classic Slacker, described by Kevin Smith as an inspiration for Clerks; cult ‘70s high school film Dazed & Confused; the gorgeous Before... trilogy, starring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy; the 12-year coming of age project, Boyhood, for which Patricia Arquette won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress; and now “companion piece” to Dazed & Confused, 1980 college baseball film Everybody Wants Some!!

Linklater’s latest sees Jake, played by Blake Jenner, arrive on campus at the house he now shares with the Southeast Texas Cherokees baseball team in the days prior to his first semester in college. The film follows the team over the course of three days, as the young adult men practice baseball, banter, bicker, chase women and quickly foster an easy camaraderie. It’s a movie that depicts a particular kind of male friendship, one we rarely see drawn out so vividly on screen.

“On this movie I think [male friendship] was something I was definitely exploring,” says Linklater. “You know in college you all live together - girls’ dorm, boys’ dorm - I had basically 17 roommates in these two houses, there were 18 of us. And I was like ‘Wow, that was the last time I was such in a male [environment].’ So I was examining the ease of it.

Something about men can come together in a fun way, it’s very kind of cooperative often.

“In fact that’s how it was making the film - the guys came together really quick and there wasn’t anybody on the out. Everybody was cool and they really got along well.

It’s fun. I think everybody was there for a good time, kind of appreciative... Guys are good at that - come together with a common goal: ‘Let’s win the game, let’s win the election, let’s win.’ Guys have a way of zoning out other things that are maybe more meaningful: feelings and connections and personal pasts and emotions, and they can throw all that aside and just focus on having fun, focus on drinking, focus on winning the game, and it’s kind of fun to put all that other stuff aside. Guys do that better than anyone, that’s why they tend to dominate for better and mostly for worse in this world. If we had an all-women government that would alright by me.”

In Dazed & Confused, Linklater was offered the opportunity to grapple with his teenage years, growing up in Texas in the 1970s. In Everybody Wants Some!!, the 55-yearold, who studied at Sam Houston State University in Texas, where he too played baseball, “was trying to deal with my college years, y’know, what it was like to be young at that very point in time”.

14 • THE MUSIC • 8TH JUNE 2016

“The more farther away I got from it the more interesting it started to be. You look at your own past - it’s very autobiographical, I was in college at that moment, blah, blah, blah - I was starting to think it was a pretty fun time to have been in college. Culture’s really changed a lot.

“Culturally I look back [at the late ‘70s/1980] and I go - I think a lot of other people do too - when you think about it, in the US, it was kind of the end of a certain generation, there was a lot of optimism in the ‘70s, compared to today.

College was very inexpensive, weed was going to be legal any second, it was progressive, it was a pretty cool time, a pretty raunchy time. Pre-Reagan/Bush era, pre-AIDS, pre-, you know a lot of pre-s.”

But no way would Linklater want to go back to being 18 years old, particularly not back to first young adult love, the blossoming of which we see for Jake in the film. “Too much anxiety, too much, y’know, stuff to be a young person ever. What [Everybody Wants Some!!] meant to me, is the

It was progressive, it was a pretty cool time, a pretty raunchy time. first time I sort of acknowledged myself as far as like: ‘Ok, these were my decisions, I was an adult.’ That’s what the film’s about: your adult meter starts ticking for the first time at this phase of life... I was less conflicted about this phase of my life. I started accepting my life. ‘That’s who I am, those are the decisions I’m making,’ you live with it. But I wouldn’t want to go back to it.

“You’re kind of becoming who you are at that stage.

You’re not experienced but you’re certainly who you’re going to be to some degree... It’s a messy time. I associate more heartache, pain, y’know all that stuff, [it] feels more real as the love part. The love part is fleeting and wonderful, the pain and the aftermath kind of hangs around a long time.”

What: Everybody Wants Some!!

When & Where: 12 Jun, State Theatre; 18 Jun, Event Cinemas George Street

THE FUSEBOX

THE MUSIC 8TH JUNE 2016 • 15

In Focus Janis:

Little Girl Blue

On Wednesday 15 Jun at 8.30pm The Music presents a super special Sydney Film Festival screening of Janis: Little Girl Blue, a documentary about the American singer-songwriter Janis Joplin.

Narrated by Cat Power, featuring musicians such as Juliette Lewis and Pink, and boasting archival footage featuring the likes of Jimi Hendrix and John Lennon, the documentary tells the story of the lauded 1960s rock icon, whose life was cut short in 1970 when the 27-year-old Joplin died of a heroin overdose.

The Music’s screening of Janis: Little Girl Blue is on 15 Jun at Dendy Newtown. The film also screens on 10 Jun at Event Cinemas George Street.

16 • THE MUSIC • 8TH JUNE 2016

THE MUSIC 8TH JUNE 2016 • 17

Music

In It Together When Bryget Chrisfield sits down with half of The Temper Trap — Jonny Aherne and Toby Dundas — they discuss becoming a quartet, the toll touring takes on personal relationships and life after Sweet Disposition.

T

he Temper Trap played a show in Melbourne the night before our chat. While bassist Jonny Aherne peruses a Southbank eatery’s menu, drummer Toby Dundas divulges, “I got to bed at, like, 1.30am, so I think Jonny’s had less sleep than me”. Aherne joins us at an outside table. Before their recent trio of homecoming shows, Dundas estimates the band would’ve last performed in “January 2015”.

Reflecting on The Temper Trap (formerly Temper Temper)’s career trajectory, Aherne points out: “Sometimes it takes a long time for things to happen

I mean, second album, our label was telling us, ‘Oh, this is gonna be huge and that’s blah-blah-blah,’ and, you know, it didn’t really kinda happen in that way.

suddenly. It took a long time but, when it happened, it was kinda all these lights did shine… I think people think it’s magic — it’s just like all of a sudden you were chosen, but nobody really knows how much you put into it.”

Two flat whites are delivered to the boys. When writing material for the band’s latest album, Aherne found putting pressure on himself “to write a Temper Trap song” counterproductive. Of the songs that “just worked”, the bassist contemplates, “They came from — just not a place of pressure or trying to write a Sweet Disposition or something. That sort of natural place brings better work, I think.” So we’re just aching to find out: did they know Sweet Disposition would be a hit as soon as they wrote it? “No. I didn’t,” Aherne replies before Dundas elaborates, “You don’t know. And even our idea of what a hit could’ve 18 • THE MUSIC • 8TH JUNE 2016

been, at that stage, would’ve been different: like, we would’ve been happy if triple j had smashed it and added it to high rotation let alone where it ended up getting to and, like, connecting with people all over the world. And I don’t think that was on our radar at the time.

“I mean, second album, our label was telling us, ‘Oh, this is gonna be huge and that’s blah-blah-blah’, and, you know, it didn’t really kinda happen in that way. So you’ve just gotta — I mean, we just write the songs for us, and from our heart, and we believe in them. And then it’s really nice when other people kind of, like, feel the same way about it. But it’s not the be all and end all.”

The band collaborated with outside songwriters such as Justin Parker and Pascal Gabriel for the first time on album number three and, when asked whether egos get bruised when these songs don’t make the final cut, the drummer shares, “I think they’re pretty used to that process”.

“There was a song that the boys wrote with Weezer — with Rivers [Cuomo] — and it ended up this great song,” Aherne tells, “but it ended up like a Weezer song. And then he was thinking about taking it for his record that just came out, but he didn’t… Some of the songs which didn’t make it, it wasn’t because they weren’t good songs it just didn’t feel like The Temper Trap.”

Midway through Thick As Thieves songwriting sessions, The Temper Trap’s guitarist Lorenzo Sillitto left the band. “He’d been in the band since pretty much day one,” Dundas laments of the guitarist’s departure.

“Lorenzo and I have been friends since we were, like, 12.

He kind of came to us and he was like, ‘I don’t wanna keep going’.” Admitting this came as “a bit of a shock”, the drummer continues, “He was about to have his first kid and he was getting married and all sorts of things and, yeah! The touring lifestyle definitely takes a toll on your personal relationships.”

Dundas and Aherne were with their respective partners prior to The Temper Trap’s relocation to y g , before their debut album London about seven years ago, Conditions dropped. “All our partners moved and, you know, Jonny’s wife — and he’s got two kids now — and, yeah! It was a whole big move to kinda go over there and take that chance,” Dundas confirms. Aherne extols, “We were off in a van driving around Europe and they were kinda holding down the fort together.”

When asked what their proudest The Temper Trap achievements are to date, Aherne has a mouthful of focaccia, so Dundas offers, “Winning the ARIAs was really nice, you know? Dougy [Mandagi, vocalist]’s mum was always very keen for him to get a real job — yeah, go to business school — so I think when he sent the ARIAs home she changed her tune.” He was also pretty stoked to play during half time at the AFL Grand Final in 2012 — “I’m a massive footy fan”.

“My dad is a Hawks supporter,” Aherne interjects, “but they lost. So I was so ready for that to be a great day for dad, you know? But it was, like, bittersweet going up to him afterwards. He was like, ‘Well done,’ and he was, like, sad.”

What: Thick As Thieves (Liberation)

. -

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THE MUSIC 8TH JUNE 2016 • 19

Eat / Drink Eat/Drink

Comedy

Drama

For a tipple to tickle your funny bones, try a clear spirit, like gin or vodka. First: it makes you giggly. Second: when you laugh so hard you spill your drink all over yourself, clear spirits wont leave any nasty stains! Third: if you have enough, you’ll be super funny too!

Your jokes will be better, and everyone will laugh with you.

A white or sparkling wine.

Something sweet and a bit classy. You’re here to feel something, so you should really try and feel it, y’know? Indulge, get a choc-top too, prepare yourself for a big cry. Preferably served in a glass a la Inside Amy Schumer’s Friday Night Lights sketch. Or just bring in the whole bottle. You deserve it.

What to see: Swiss Army Man, Maggie’s Plan, Down Under, War On Everyone

B o oze + Movies =

đ&#x;‘?

Some of the venues for Sydney Film Festival have bars. Some don’t — but they’re definitely near bars. What we’re trying to say, in our roundabout way, is that some people might like a bev during/ before/after a screening. And maybe it’d be handy to match those bevs to the types of films you’ll be watching.

Consider this a guide.

What to see: Demolition, Elvis & Nixon, Sunset Song

Action/Thriller/Horror Maybe a beer or cider? Something carb-heavy, in case you’re too afraid/thrilled to eat solids. Also really good in bottle form — less will spill if you jump out of your seat in surprise or fear. Thrills and spills, amirite? Add pizza if you’re ready to really bro out over [explosions, plot twists, cars racing].

What to see: Blood Father, Embedded, The Devil’s Candy

A Foreign Film Grab a glass of red wine. Ideally from a country as far away as possible. Bonus points if you match your wine region to your film’s place of origin. Channel yourself as pretentious third-year university student. Mumble through a mouthful of shiraz that you just love the power of the German/Spanish/French/ Iranian language.

What to see: Psycho Raman, It’s Only The End Of The World, Viva, Mustang 20 • THE MUSIC • 8TH JUNE 2016

Documentaries You are a learned man or woman and you should have a scotch neat while learning about competitive tickling. Think about it: ice in a crystal glass, the sounds of a nature documentary, the smell of fresh mahogany... And then you get to chew everyone’s ear off about it afterwards — even while your mouth is full of that ice we mentioned earlier. Stop talking with your mouth full, you grub.

What to see: Notes On Blindness, Weiner, Kate Plays Christine, Heart Of A Dog

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THE MUSIC 8TH JUNE 2016 • 21

SFF

A Phony Art Form John Carney, director of Sing Street, explains to Anthony Carew that films are bad.

The Loss Of Youth The intertwining of sex, youth and grief was a subject on director Craig Boreham’s mind – and then he made Teenage Kicks. He explains his process to Anthony Carew.

“I

t’s so nice to be invited to play in Sydney, to premiere the film where we shot it,” says Craig Boreham, director of Teenage Kicks, about his film’s imminent screening at the 2016 Sydney Film Festival.

And it sure was shot around Sydney, locations including Gunnamatta Park, Cronulla, Bondi, Little Bay, Botany Bay. “We spanned a lot of the city, across a five-week shoot,” Boreham says. “We moved around a hell of a lot.”

Teenage Kicks marks the first feature for the 46 year old filmmaker. Boreham came to cinema through a side door: he began as a hairdresser, then worked in wardrobe, setdressing, and production design, eventually graduating to crewing and post-production work. He began making short films in the ‘90s, and, over the years, kept making them, minus careerist ambition. “I didn’t have a burning desire to make feature films, or work in television,” he says. “It was just something that I enjoyed doing, and for a long time I was happy making art for art’s sake.

“I was always interested in queer stories,” says Boreham. “And in the fact that there weren’t many. As a gay man, I was searching for those stories, and just felt like there weren’t many. So, I felt the imperative to tell those stories because they weren’t being told. I was reading a lot of David Wojnarowicz, this postAIDS poet from the States that I really loved.

His stuff was really inspiring to me.”

22 • THE MUSIC • 8TH JUNE 2016

In 2009, Boreham made a short film, Drowning. It united him with Miles Szanto, his future feature lead, and served as a calling card for getting the full film made. Even still, getting Teenage Kicks to screen was far from easy. “It was a slog. It can feel quite formidable in this country, trying to get a film made - especially when your area is queer cinema, which is seen as pretty niche and really risky,” Boreham says. “So, we didn’t go through the standard screen organisation funding bodies. We went into the shoot knowing we had the resources to shoot the film, but we didn’t have the resources to finish the film.”

Still, blessed with a “game” young cast Szanto, Daniel Webber, Charlotte Best, Shari Sebbens - Teenage Kicks throws itself into a queer coming-of-age tale filled with death, grieving, fucking, drugs, drama and violence, crossing all lines of sexual congress. “My partner lost his brother quite a while ago now,” explains Boreham. “And I was with him while he was going through that period of grief and struggling to make sense of the world in the face of that big a loss. It was quite profound, and I thought that it was something I hadn’t seen in stories. So, I was interested in exploring that experience. And I got interested in connecting that to a story of a young man’s sexual awakening, and what happened if those things are connected. I feel like a lot of that classic coming-of-age stuff is pretty nostalgic, and I didn’t want to just do that. I wanted to have this story of sex and grief be a metaphor for all of that - for the loss of youth, the loss of innocence, seeing the world for what it is, and finding your place in the world.”

What: Teenage Kicks When & Where: 11 Jun, Event Cinemas George Street; 16 Jun, Dendy Newtown

“B

y definition, films are bad,” says John Carney. The Irish filmmaker is talking a week before his public diss of Keira Knightley - with whom he worked on 2013’s Begin Again - made headlines, but he’s clearly in a prickly mood, critical of everything from himself (“I’m 44 and not very cool”) to the state of cinema. “It’s a phony business, it’s a phony art form,” Carney says.

“Shooting out of sequence, people dressing up in other people’s clothes and delivering lines they didn’t write and that they don’t mean. By definition, films should be a car crash. They’re not a poet sitting down to write what’s on their mind. They’re not a painter sitting down in front of an easel. They’re not a writer sitting down in front of a laptop. They’re 100 people out on a set trying to remember what a writer who isn’t even there did five years ago, with a producer screaming at them because the money is running out, and actors uncomfortable in their skins and other people’s clothes. That’s a disaster, actually.

You’d be amazed that that is ever any good.”

Yet ‘authenticity’ was what was hailed in Carney’s breakout fourth feature, 2007’s Once, a tale of Irish buskers making an album, that crashed the 2008 Oscars and led Carney to America. There, he made Begin Again, another film about writing songs, though one more conventional and commercial. He’s returned to Ireland for his latest film, Sing Street, which continues the musical theme, telling the story of a crew of high school friends forming a band in 1980s

SFF

Dublin, inspired by his own experiences.

“It wasn’t like the starting point was to tell my story,” Carney says. “I saw a schoolkid on a train in London, wearing a school uniform, and he was carrying his guitar over his shoulder. And I remember taking that journey a lot when I was a kid: on my way from school, on my bike, back to band practice. I thought that would be an interesting idea for a film: the greyness of being in school juxtaposed with the joy and fun and colour of being in a band. How opposite those two lives are.”

The film is filled with period music - The Cure, Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet - close to Carney’s heart. “Each song represents a certain period of my upbringing, or a certain memory, or a certain flashback, or a certain girl, or a certain night or weekend,” he says.

He’s drawn to depicting music-making on screen because “cinema really suits music in an amazing way... Cinema started off with music, from the beginning. When there was no sound, the first thing they had was a pianist playing along”.

But as much as Carney loves pop songs in films, traditional scores sit alongside Knightley on his shitlist. “Score, nowadays, feels dated; like a remnant of the silent era.

Putting scary music next to scary things, or happy music next to happy things, I think that’s really cliched and hackneyed. I can’t believe that people still do that.”

What: Sing Street When & Where: 18 Jun, State Theatre; 19 Jun, Event Cinemas George Street

A Metaphorical Leap Rosemary Myers, director of Girl Asleep, talks to Anthony Carew about rites of passage, fairytales, and solving things in 3D time and space.

“E

ven when we made it as a theatre piece, we knew we were going to make it as a film,” says Rosemary Myers. The filmmaker behind Girl Asleep may be making her cinematic debut, but she’s the longtime Artistic Director of Adelaide’s Windmill Theatre, where she’s made a host of works that “centre around teenage experiences”. Girl Asleep was conceived of as the third in a trilogy, following Fugitive (“a look at a group of alpha males”) and School Dance (“a triumph-of-the-nerds story”), both of which premiered at the Adelaide Festival.

Girl Asleep’s own teenage tale finds a girl in the suburban ‘70s escaping from her 15th birthday party by disappearing into a fantastical dreamworld.

“The ‘70s is a really interesting time to tell a girl’s story, because it was such an interesting time for women in the Western world, moving away from the post-war idea of the housewife towards liberation,” says Myers.

“So, we really wanted to explore a female as the central protagonist. And both [writer] Matthew Whittet and I are very interested in fairytale, and very interested in rites of passage. We were looking at this idea that the teenage experience is one half risk and adrenaline, but then has this other side that is quite latent, and how much you exist in your bedroom in your own mind.

“We naturally think about transferring things to quite fantastical worlds. It’s very

obviously a dream play. It’s quite a common form of storytelling: The Wizard Of Oz is a famous example. The characters go into another realm, but they’re really going into their psyche. You set up all these relationships and dynamics, and then you make a leap into a psychological, metaphorical telling of that story.”

Bringing that story to screen, Myers has leant on some of the signature stylisations of Wes Anderson: the symmetrical framing, flat tableaux and air of deadpan whimsy. The evocation of the “colourful” time-period comes with wide collars and wood-panelling and removes the story from the realm of modern technology. “In our theatre work, we like to create a world that’s part recognisable reality, but part its own little bubble. In some way, that makes it easy for the audience to engage with something; it feels both familiar and distinct,” says Myers.

“One of the things people enjoy most is the quirky style. And that comes from the limits of the theatre, where you can only be in one time and space. As a group of makers, we’re used to solving everything in 3D time and space; the idea of waiting until post-production or using CGI is something completely foreign to us. The ideas we come up with to solve these problems can be quite lateral, and always becomes a fun part of the language of our stories. And what we ask of our audience can be quite a leap of imagination... It was quite ambitious, what we were doing. A few people said to me along the way: ‘You’re only making something with this much ambition on this small a budget because you don’t know what you’re doing.’”

What: Girl Asleep When & Where: 18 Jun, Event Cinemas George Street

THE MUSIC 8TH JUNE 2016 • 23

SFF

A Thriller Goldstone director Ivan Sen tells Anthony Carew how he took a genre we’re all used to and gave it “a dose of social, cultural complication”.

T

hree years ago, Ivan Sen opened the 2013 Sydney Film Festival with Mystery Road, a policier that used the murder investigation genre to explore sociological issues. Its dead girl was Indigenous, its script a broadside against the treatment of Aboriginals by police, inspired by the fact that cases involving missing or murdered Aboriginal women — including two distant cousins of the filmmaker — are rarely pursued with much zeal. Its lead detective, Jay Swan, was played by Aaron Pedersen, this not-quitehero a mixed-race ‘turncoat’ — a modern-day tracker too black for the local police force, too white for the local aboriginal community.

Being caught between two worlds is a feeling both the filmmaker and his star know well from their own lives, which inspired Sen to keep exploring the same character. Now, Goldstone will open this year’s SFF, bringing things back full circle.

“That first screening [of Mystery Road] in Sydney,” Sen recounts, “the audience reacted really well, and I was just standing up the back, and I just felt like there was something missing from this idea of this Indigenous detective in this desert landscape, trying to achieve this dream of universal justice in this small town, where he’s up against the establishment, as well as his own community. I felt like it was missing this emotion, this... feeling, that’s not something that I can totally articulate.

So, right after the first screening I felt that I wanted to do another one. But I didn’t really pursue it until Aaron Pedersen called me up

24 • THE MUSIC • 8TH JUNE 2016

and encouraged me to write another film.

He was just as keen to keep exploring Jay Swan and his world.”

In Goldstone, Sen explores the lead character in a deeper fashion, describing the film as a “spiritual journey” in which its central cop “reclaims his identity, his culture, his past”. Again, these sociological ideas, which have deep resonance in Australian culture, are explored through the prism of genre, with the help of an impressive cast.

Sen believes he’s now found his calling: making genre movies shot through with social themes.

“When you make a film like Mystery Road, it’s interesting,” he says. “Some people are just there for the gun battle. Which is fine. But then, hopefully, they take on board that cultural perception that underpins the fabric of the action. Then you’ve got people who are interested in Indigenous films, but who might not normally go to genre movies.

“Even if you’re making a genre movie, it has to have a deeper meaning. I’m taking stepping stones towards trying to redefine what genre means. By putting this Indigenous perspective, this conflicted Indigenous perspective, in the middle of something that is a Western, that is a thriller. It’s taking a genre that we’re all used to and giving it a dose of social, cultural complication. It’s pumping it full of this reallife meaning, which has come from my life, and Aaron Pedersen’s life, and the life of a lot of people in this country.”

What: Goldstone When & Where: 8 & 11 Jun State Theatre; 10 Jun, Casula Powerhouse; 12 Jun, Hayden Orpheum Picture Palace

Good Old Dane “Good old Dane” actor Pilou Asbaek talks to Guy Davis about Game Of Thrones, hosting Eurovision and Denmark’s involvement in the so-called War On Terror.

O

ne could forgive Danish actor Pilou Asbaek for not picking up the phone when writer-director Tobias Lindholm calls. While the two men have collaborated on three acclaimed dramas since 2010, and their work together has earned them plenty of praise, Lindholm does put his leading man through his paces and then some. “Tobias has become one of my closest and dearest friends, we are great at drinking drinks and eating good food together,” he smiles. “I love him, and I get frustrated thinking about the day he’s going to start using international actors rather than a good old Dane like me. But as good as we are when we’re not shooting, we’re as terrible when we are! We keep pushing each other — I expect him to be the best writer and director in the world and he expects... well, not acting but the opposite of acting because he just wants people to be. I know for a fact that if I had to follow a filmmaker to hell and back, it would be Tobias Lindholm.”

In A War, Asbaek plays Claus Pedersen, the commanding officer of a squad of Danish soldiers serving a tour of duty in Afghanistan. Tough but compassionate, he is faced with an impossible choice when he must decide between the welfare of his men and the safety of the Afghan civilians he has promised to protect.

It’s compelling, confronting stuff, made with Lindholm’s combination of documentary-style realism and cinematic

SFF

Innocence Lost

panache and held together by Asbaek’s rock-solid performance (surrounded by actual soldiers as his co-stars, he underwent a three-month boot camp to become “a character they would respect”). And it’s all the more interesting because, as the actor reveals, not many people outside Denmark actually knew that Danish forces were fighting the so-called War On Terror.

“When it comes to Danish involvement, we have been a warring nation for the past 15, 20 years in Iraq and Afghanistan,” he says. “In Iraq we were peacekeeping troops; in Afghanistan we were peacecreating troops, which meant we would be aggressive. The Danes knew this and have discussed it a lot, but when we took this film to America or the UK or Australia or New Zealand no one knew about Denmark’s involvement in Afghanistan. We were one of the first nations to go into Afghanistan, and many, many families have lost loved ones.

To hear from other countries that they didn’t know about that, I was like ‘Jesus, man...’”

Given the intensity of his recent work (including a stint on Game Of Thrones as the notorious Euron Greyjoy: “I hope I’ll be back next season but they won’t tell me anything!”), it’s nice to know Asbaek can still relax every once in a while, as he did when he hosted the Eurovision Song Contest broadcast in 2014. “I’ve always been considered a very serious actor in these very hardcore dramas,” he laughs. “Then I got this call: ‘We think it would be funny if you hosted Eurovision.’ I’ve never said no to a party in my life and I’m not about to start now. And it was a month of celebration. I loved it.”

New doco Tickled looks at the world of competitive endurance tickling, but co-director David Farrier tells Steve Bell that lifting the sport’s veil is no laughing matter. ew Zealand documentary Tickled started out as a light-hearted look at one of the stranger ‘sports’ out there — competitive endurance tickling — but ended up uncovering an Americanbased online tickling empire willing to go to extreme lengths to punish even the smallest slight or scrutiny, a shadowy hornet’s nest of intimidation, endemic cyber-bullying and vexatious litigation.

Throughout it seems completely bizarre that a pastime so seemingly innocuous on the surface — albeit with obvious fetish overtones — could mask something so insidious, the filmmakers ultimately embroiled in an intricate web of intrigue as scary as it is surreal. “It started out as another two-minute whacky story for the end of the news, which has kinda been my job for the last decade at least,” explains journalist David Farrier. “I stumbled across [competitive endurance tickling] and saw that some New Zealanders had taken part, and Australians. So it felt very local to me, that’s why I reached out — ‘Oh my god, New Zealanders had taken part in competitive tickling in LA, and they’ve sent their audition tapes from New Zealand. Can I do a story?’

“Once they replied with such a big ‘no’ in various ways — whether through their personal emails or when they hired a lawyer in New York and a lawyer in Auckland — I just thought, ‘There’s got to be more to this story than tickling.’”

N

The initial emails to the openly gay Farrier from Jane O’Brien Media, the production company behind the tickling events, following his innocent inquiry were incredibly over-thetop and vitriolic. “Yeah, they were [disturbing],” he admits. “It was this weird mixture of them being almost so extreme — they were so homophobic and then they went into almost weirdly racist territory — that I didn’t know whether to laugh at them or be offended by them, it was this really weird line because it was so full on.”

Yet this pales into insignificance compared to the harassment campaigns unleashed on tickling participants themselves who fell from grace with the shadowy puppetmaster. “Some people go on this tickling competition and they’re fine. They go and they take part and they fly home and they don’t hear anything of it,” Farrier explains.

“But there’s a percentage of participants from competitive tickling who absolutely became a target of this harassment campaign. There were many reasons why they were targeted, but it’s been happening for a long time.”

Throughout the filming Farrier and collaborator Dylan Reeve stood firm in the face of pressure only the deepest pockets can apply, before their perseverance unravelled the whole sordid affair. “There’s still lawsuits involved now so I can’t speculate on anything in particular,” Farrier tells, “but in a wider way I’d say that the film is intentionally a commentary on bullying and what it can do.

It’s not like people magically turn into bullies, there’s usually a reason that they end up this way. Part of the hope is that people will walk out just thinking a little bit about bullying and the fact that it’s a big cyclical thing, and just not to start that cycle.”

What: Tickled When & Where: 9 Jun, Dendy Newtown; 10 Jun, Event Cinemas George Street

What: A War When & Where: 9 Jun, Hayden Orpheum Picture Palace; 13 Jun, Event Cinemas George Street

THE MUSIC 8TH JUNE 2016 • 25

Music

LAST CHANCE SUBMISSIONS OPEN FOR SUFF The tenth annual Sydney Underground Film Festival is scheduled for 15 to 18 September at the Factory Theatre – and we’ve got quite the opportunity for you.

The festival have kindly extended their submission deadline for the budding auteurs among us – it’s only $30 with the promo code THEMUSIC to enter your film before 5pm on 16 June. Your film might be one of the 100, out of a pool of 800 films submitted from across the globe, to be shown on one of five screens. Your film isn’t ready yet?

Well, the festival also boasts twoday filmmaking workshops to teach you all you need to know.

Returned from an American hiatus, Spit Syndicate’s Jimmy Nice chats to Rip Nicholson about exciting times ahead after having trimmed the fat for their next album.

“W Xx

Earlybird tickets for the full four days ($95) of the festival are on sale now until 3 August. And the full exciting program launches on 3 August at 7pm at Factory Theatre with a party – free beer and pizza, yes! – where you’ll be able to find out exactly what’s in store in September.

More info at suff.com.au.

26 • THE MUSIC • 8TH JUNE 2016

going to put this out,” explains Nice.

“It’s all pretty much ready to go, just the last final touches.

The last 20% can be 80% sometimes, you know? A lot can change in these last little flourishes.”

First single Know Better, produced by Styalz Fuego and dropped this April, was developed from time spent in the US. “Nick and I set out on that trip to get some inspiration. You can get to the end of an album cycle and feel a little creatively exhausted. It’s almost like you have to go through a period of just living, not making music and going through the motions and then you have something to then write about. So, we forced ourselves into that zone and just went out and got some studio sessions out in LA and jumped headfirst into what was the next album but we had a lot of time alone there in some strange places.”

Speaking of strange places, in Know Better, Lupi name-dropped one of the greatest ever singer-songwriters in a story that became highly publicised on the home front. Long story short — after hanging out at Bob Dylan’s grandson Pablo’s home recording studio in the Hollywood Hills, the Sydney rapper, suffering a bout of the munchies, dove into Bob’s fridge, stealing leftover pizza.

While Spit Syndicate gets back to doing what they do best on their Know Better national tour this June, it’s comical to think that over in Los Angeles, Pablo and friends found it hard to believe that these two Aussies could spit. “I think they were kinda surprised that we even rhymed,” he laughed. “’You’re from Australia and you rap, you dress like that?’ They didn’t quite believe us. As faded as we were, we kinda had something to prove so we switched into rapper mode.”

Trimming The Fat

ithout getting too much into the specifics, our time with Obese [Records] was up with the last album so yeah, I won’t disclose too much but I want to do the best by us moving forward. We’re still figuring out the ins and out of this deal but, for the first time in our careers we’re not contractually bound to anyone,” says Nice.

“I guess we’re at a point right now where we’re very confident with the music we’re making and the direction we want to take but being completely freed up is liberating and it’s exciting. A lot has changed since we signed our first deal.”

In 2008, the pairing of Nick Lupi and Jimmy Nice out of Sydney’s inner-west inked a record deal with Australia’s fattest indie rap label before dropping their debut album Towards The Light, which was nominated for Best Urban Release at the 2008 ARIAs. Two years on the Syndicate dropped Exile, and then Sunday Gentlemen in 2013, the latter of which they regarded as their most mature release to date. That is until the new album arrives, slated for late this year, as Lupi told triple j. “At the moment, the focus is on finalising the album which we’re pretty much done with and gearing up how we’re

When & Where: 11 Jun, Come Together, Big Top

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THE MUSIC 8TH JUNE 2016 • 27

THREE FILMS TO CATCH IN CINEMAS THIS MONTH What if you’ve still got a film itch that needs scratching when Sydney Film Festival is over – and Netflix just wont cut it?

Music

Tuckered Out

You’re going to have to go to the cinema to see one of these:

Finding Dory

Finding Dory If you’re not jumping at the bit to see the Finding Nemo follow-up you’re either lying or you have no heart. Not just a movie for your mum/little cousins.

Brendan Tuckerman’s dual projects as Tuka and one fourth of Thundamentals aren’t showing signs of slowing him down any time soon, as Brynn Davies discovers.

The BFG

The BFG The BFG is our all time favourite Roald Dahl story, and when we heard that Steven Spielberg was adapting it into a live action film we squealed a little.

TMNT: Out Of The Shadows Stephen Amell and Will Arnett had a chat to us the other day about these “heroes in a half-shell”, which you can watch on theMusic.com.au. It definitely got us humming the theme song.

Sign up to Cinebuzz at Event Cinemas for FREE, and when you catch six films you get one free. PLUS: $10 tix for students Monday to Thursday, and access to discount movie offers and special events. More info at eventcinemas.com.au/Cinebuzz.

28 • THE MUSIC • 8TH JUNE 2016

T

uka’s media release describes him as a “romantic party thug”, which, for those who aren’t familiar with the rapper’s musical vibe, doesn’t make much sense. But you need to understand where a musician comes from to understand how they create, and in Brendan Tuckerman’s case, it’s the grey isolation of the Blue Mountains. Only 90 minutes from Sydney, the Blue Mountains are like driving into the mists of some forgotten Dreamtime landscape. It’s tinged with magic, which is exactly why the mountains raise a certain kind of musician; one with a tendency to romanticise, be it through folk, alt-country, rock, or in Tuckerman’s case, hip hop.

The whole Thundamentals crew originated from these parts and were nothing short of a rolling stone when they tumbled down into the big city and smashed into the music scene, nabbing more than one Hottest 100 position, a chart topping album (So We Can Remember hit #3 in 2014), a support slot for the Hilltop Hoods and an ARIA nomination for Best Urban Record within a couple of years. It seems like a lot of work, but Tuckerman shows no signs of slowing down with either Thundamentals or

his simultaneous solo project as Tuka any time soon.

“I’ve released six LPs and two EPs as a solo artist and with my band Thundamentals. One day I stopped trying to impress others, started writing about stuff I thought was interesting and people began listening to my music,” he says.

He describes his sound as “Unicorns, sloths, cats, apple and peanut butter rap,” and as gobbledygook as that is, it works for him. His most recent project is a live album dubbed Alive Death Time Eternal, a play on his previous full-length record Life Death Time Eternal.

“The EP is a live re-interpreted version of five songs taken from my last. The EP is called ALIVE Death Time Eternal, so I guess that’s a theme. I recorded it in one day at 301 Studios in Sydney because it was a fun thing to do. I brought along some very talented friends of mine to help me and we had a great time. Music is heaps fun,” says Tuckerman of the release.

Plenty of musicians make live albums, usually at the end of a long running career.

But Tuckerman was moved towards this project by his social media following. “The idea actually came from people messaging me via Snapchat and Facebook etc. People wanted me to do acoustic versions of some of my songs, so I guess that’s how it all came about. The original tracks are from Life Death Time Eternal, so I guess you could say they’re “old” but fully re-imagined.”

What: Alive Death Time Eternal (EMI) When & Where: 11 Jun, Come Together, Big Top Luna Park

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THE MUSIC 8TH JUNE 2016 • 29

Music

Hitting The Peak PEAK Festival is set to go down in Perisher this weekend with a bunch of snow to keep your beers cold while you dance/warm up to some killer musical performances. But if you think that’s cold, check out these other festivals that happen all around the world over winter.

Soul Blast

Snowbombing Bluebird days, pow runs and boiling hot venues make up Austria’s winter festival, hosting acts like The Prodigy and Pendulum, Skrillex, Kasabian, Fatboy Slim, Bastille, Skepta and more in intimate alpine venues in Mayrhofen ski village.

Give us a rooftop jaccuzi, a litre of Stiegl and a sweaty underground nightclub after a day ripping up the slopes any time.

Neo-soulstress Ngaiire tells Cyclone that she’s still learning things about herself from her songs, even years after penning them.

T Ice Stock This has to be the world’s most remote music festival. Ice Stock is held in the Antarctic tundra at McMurdo station.

There is a chilli cookoff and many of the brave musicians (who can’t play with gloves on, brrr) are local. Perfect for scientists and adventurers who can’t attend SITG because they’re located on a great big hunk of ice.

Snowboxx The only thing we have to say about this one is that it’s French, it has fireworks and igloo raves and its very own XX club. Wowza.

30 • THE MUSIC • 8TH JUNE 2016

he beguiling Ngaiire (aka Ngaire Joseph) has come far – from a stint as the jazz singer bringing cred to the Australian Idol competition to performing with the roots collective Blue King Brown to introducing herself as an avant-soul soloist.

Now, following 2013’s auspicious debut Lamentations, the Papua New Guineaborn, Sydney-based Joseph has returned with a hot album in Blastoma via her own Maximilion Brown label.

In the lead-up to its release, the neo-soulstress is in Israel. Aside from indulging in some well deserved chillaxing post-Groovin The Moo dates, she’s shot a video. “I was visiting friends and family and my director happened to be here, so we thought, ‘why not? let’s make a video!’,” Joseph enthuses. “I’ve been riding camels, swimming in the Dead Sea, eating way too much hummus, walking around the old city of Jerusalem, partying on rooftops...” She’ll soon be rugging up to launch a headlining national tour at the Snowy Mountains’ PEAK Festival, before hitting Splendour In The Grass.

Blastoma might be described as dark – its title, referencing Joseph’s childhood cancer battle, figurative. Between albums she experienced a debilitating break-up and depression. Yet ultimately Blastoma thematises resilience. Was making it

healing? “It wasn’t cathartic when we first started writing it,” Joseph responds.

“I wanted nothing more than not to write it as, at the time, I was quite exhausted from touring and personal pain. Two years later, I’m learning more about myself through these songs than when I first wrote them.

That’s been quite surprising to me.

I’ve always been an honest person so, regardless of what kind of approach I choose to take, there will always be a sense of honesty.”

Joseph worked with longtime champion Paul Mac and Jack Grace as producers. But, at Mac’s suggestion, she also had writing sessions with his pal Megan Washington.

“When she whispered to me, ‘I just want to do right by you, Ngaiire,’ I felt like a teenager on nangs!” Their collab resulted in 2015’s glitch’n’B Once, Blastoma’s lead single, voted #73 in triple j’s Hottest 100.

Joseph issued her inaugural EP, Song For No One, back in 2008. However, she’s still seen as a ‘next big thing’. Certainly, Joseph’s international profile – and fanbase – is growing. She prestigiously toured with Alicia Keys (and John Legend), recalling that the American was “a darling”. She has been identified with Australia’s surging “future soul” movement. She herself admits to being “obsessed” with Beyonce’s Lemonade. “I’m a sponge when it comes to music and the whole industry is saturated with electro this and electro that. I think I will always be one to draw on what’s happening around me, yet still fulfilling my need to continue pushing my own boundaries and discovering new ways of doing new or old things.”

What: Blastoma (Maximilion Brown) When & Where: 11 Jun, Peak Festival, Perisher; 8 Jul, Oxford Art Factory; 9 Jul, Transit Bar, Canberra

Coming Up: There’s something for everyone with your SSO this winter!

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THE MUSIC 8TH JUNE 2016 • 31

Indie Indie

Project Montreal

F

or someone with a degree in jazz guitar from Queensland Conservatorium Of Music, Ryan Wyatt doesn’t sound like he likes jazz. “I mainly grew up listening to sort of alternative rock.

Later in life I got a little bit interested in electronic music. I never really listened to jazz a great deal,” he admits.

Rather than encourage him to play Miles Davis in smoky bars, university sent Wyatt in an entirely different direction — smack bang into electronic composition. “By the time I’d finished studying I just wanted to play around with all these different sounds and textures as opposed to just studying harmony,” he laughs. “The whole time I

Halcyon Drive

W

hen Michael Oechsle made a few tracks in his home town of Melbourne, he never expected it to become anything other than a small personal project. “I tentatively chose to share a few of those tracks with close mates including Max [Pamieta] and he was like ‘Wel,l let’s bloody play them live then!’ So it’s just grown from there into our little baby,” explains Oechsle, who is the lead vocalist and guitarist of two-piece Halcyon Drive.

Their follow-up EP to debut Cruel Kids is Untethered, a blend of “intellectually heartfelt pop” and indie-soft-rock. “We worked with Steven Schram [San Cisco, Cat Empire] on 32 • THE MUSIC • 8TH JUNE 2016

was studying I was listening to music that eventually found its way onto the record, bands like Radiohead.”

He’s recorded an acoustic album, melded it with electronic synth rhythms and featured the 52-piece Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, all under the influence of Grammy-winning arranger Van Dyke Parks. Bluster and blow seems to have served him well when making his debut, Patterns, especially when it came to organising the orchestra. “ When you’re... having to produce the Prague Philharmonic and you’re sort of pretending to know what you’re doing, talking to the conductor and the control room and briefings and stuff...Yeah, a bit of faking it ‘til you make it!”

Patterns’ unity comes from the philosophy behind it: “It was like a Picasso idea – taking ideas which are from two different areas and mixing them together, trying to create tension and capture that relationship between two things that don’t necessarily fit.”

When & Where: 11 Jun, Oxford Art Factory

this EP again, and he suggested the idea of setting up our own space to record. So we shacked up in a beautiful old mud brick in the Otways forest last year for a couple of weeks to knock it over.”

“The ‘studio’ location itself was just stunning, and being immersed in that every day was particularly inspiring,” muses Oechsle. Being a two-piece, the band ran up against some creative differences while shacked up in the woods working on Untethered. “I like to think we toe the line between [perfection and vibe when recording]. Max is a very - sometimes frustratingly so - detail-oriented dude, and I tend to be more about the vibe. So we get a good balance even if that takes a few hefty arguments!”

When & Where: 9 Jun, Rad Bar, Wollongong; 10 Jun, The Stag & Hunter Hotel, Newcastle; 11 Jun, Transit Bar, Canberra; 12 Jun, Botany View Hotel

Manu Crook$

MC Booth When did you pick up the mic and why?

Four years ago-ish... I enjoy making music I guess.

Who’s who in your current crew? A few people in the DB music crew, Dopamine (producer/engineer), Dj Ziggy, and Miracle to name a few.

Do you practice all of the four elements?

MCing. Also enjoy the production aspect of making music.

If you could be anyone’s hype man who would it be? I don’t really think of being a hype man for anyone else, too focused on trying to perfect my craft.

What can punters expect from you when you’re working the room? Energy.

When and where for your next gig? 11 Jun, Come Together, Luna Park; 12 Jun, Civic Hotel.

Website link for more info? facebook.com/ officialmanucrooks

Music

idea of ever having vinyl — and selling vinyl — was just not even on the cards.”

Fast forward to now and, “Vinyl is one of the main things we try and move and people really enjoy having it,” he observes.

“It’s amazing that we’re not losing our history,” Kolawole commends, after noticing the availability of “crazy reissues” of “classic albums that people just never thought that they’d have”.

“I think that’s so important,” he concludes. “Whatever you’re doing, pay attention to your history.”

Kolawole and his long-time collaborator Sensible J (Justin Smith on his passport) now run their own label, House Of Beige.

“We’re trying to be a label that’s a family,” Kolawole stresses. “I know a huge thing about major labels is they kind of just get as many artists as they can and then hopefully one of them will turn into Bruno Mars, and the rest kind of fall off to the side,” he laments. The idea for House Of Beige is to “create [their] own little scene”, Kolawole admits: “If you really like our music then you more than likely will like the other music on our label... it’s gonna have that similar energy, that similar vibe.”

House Of Beige releases music that sits outside the realm of expectation when it comes to Aussie hip hop and Kolawole elaborates, “A lot of second generation migrant kids have come over and we sound different, we look different, our musical taste that we’ve been brought up [on] in the house is different; you know, I didn’t hear Bon Jovi until I was 17! It was funny, because I was at my friends’, like, 18th birthday parties and stuff. And they’re all arms around each other singing that stuff as loud as they possibly can. Whereas I grew up with, like, Marvin Gaye and Michael Jackson in my house.”

Making A Scene

After telling Bryget Chrisfield he didn’t hear Bon Jovi until he was 17 years old, Remi Kolawole spills some details on his upcoming second album, Divas And Demons.

F

or Good, the first taste from Remi’s forthcoming second album, features rising star Sampa The Great as well as an irresistible, bubbling groove. On the follow-up to his Australian Music Prizewinning debut Raw X Infinity, Remi Kolawole enthuses, “I can’t wait to show everybody, it’s very different. It’s a lot more musical than the last one... We got some more instrumentalists on this one. We’ve got a couple of guys coming in playing keys: Simon Mavin from Hiatus Kaiyote and Silent Jay actually came and played keys on a few of the joints as well. And we got some awesome features on there, like, we’ve got Sampa, as you know, and Baro.”

So how much longer do we have to wait for the full set, entitled Divas And Demons, to drop? “We’re aiming for September 2nd,” Kolawole reveals, adding this upcoming material is “a bit more personal”. Kolawole then promises “a new taster from the record” will come out “within the next month”.

It suddenly sounds as if Kolawole is speaking from inside a fish tank and, when told about this, Kolawole chuckles, “I’m underwater.” Has he got gills? “I’m taking this rap stuff to a new level, you know?”

He teases.

Our discussion turns to the evolution of musical formats and Kolawole points out, “When we first started doing music, the

A Raging Voice

Last week, loud rumbles along the Twitter chain spoke of a Rage Against The Machine comeback, complete with a supergroup featuring Tom Morello, Tim Commerford and Brad Wilk, alongside Public Enemy’s Chuck D and B-Real of Cypress Hill – the two rappers may have confirmed the rumours through a series of cryptic social media posts involving hype around an unnamed band and a promotional image from the Prophets Of Rage website accompanied by the caption #riseup.

The official Rage Against The Machine website hosted a countdown which concluded on 31 May. The band held their first ever interview with Rolling Stone, with Morello explaining, “We’re not a supergroup. We’re an elite task force of revolutionary musicians determined to confront this mountain of election year bullshit, and confront it head-on with Marshall stacks blazing.”

Prophets Of Rage are set to rock the system at a one-off LA show at the Whisky A Go Go. Morello says, “It’s my contention that we can no longer stand on the sidelines of history. Dangerous times demand dangerous songs. Both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are both constantly referred to in the media as raging against the machine.

We’ve come back to remind everyone what raging against the machine really means.” You go Morello!

When & Where: 12 Jun, Peak Festival, Perisher; 24 Jul, Splendour In The Grass, North Byron Parklands THE MUSIC 8TH JUNE 2016 • 33

OPINION Opinion

Candy Hearts

Wa ke The Dead Punk And Hardcore With Sarah Petchell

W

e all know that the majority of the aspects of the business of making music are male-dominated. And despite attempts to foster inclusivity, the punk and hardcore scenes are just as guilty of this.

Like elsewhere in society, there are always going to be allegations of violence perpetrated against women by their male counterparts. Do I want a world without

Get It To g et her

L

violence against women? Well, actually, I would like a world with no violence whatsoever, and recently being on the receiving end of a verbal threat of violence (by another woman) has cemented my resolve on this issue.

Whether stopping violence against women (or stopping all violence), the action to affect change begins in our own backyard. We need to call out behaviour - whether physical or verbal - that we don’t agree with. There are

iking something and being a fan of it are two different things. The former is straightforward and logical. “This thing pleases me. Therefore I like it.” Being a fan is a more fundamental response.

That the word itself is derived from “fanatic” makes the position clear enough. A fan is passionate, is committed, and is just a little bit crazy. Two recent releases elucidate the difference.

Hip Hop Flume’s newie Skin is a proper achievement: the high drama With James of good futurebeats, informed by a deep understanding of how a pop song is supposed to work. Listening to it is a pleasure. I like D’apice it. Chance The Rapper’s Coloring Book, on the other hand, I am a fan of. The response of a fan is undeniable, like the revealing of a truth you’ve somehow always known deep down. To listen to Chance ask, “How can they call themselves bosses when they got so many bosses?” is to have rap music’s greatest brag dismissed. To take a deep Chance The Rapper – Coloring Book breath and listen to Same Drugs is to be transported by a blast of searing beauty.

I mean only 42 seconds into the release itself is the delivery I feel like I’ve been waiting years for.

Curry’s jump shot, Orwell’s prose, Orr’s pasta, whatever it might be, there’s a line between appreciating excellence and being carried off into fandom. If you find yourself liking a lot of what’s crossing your path but fandom’s eluding you, relax: you’ll be a fan of something new soon enough. There’s a world of excitement within you just waiting to be unlocked.

34 • THE MUSIC • 8TH JUNE 2016

certain things that we don’t have to stand for.

What got me thinking about this in a punk/hardcore context is recent statements made by pop-punk act Candy Hearts’ singer Mariel Loveland regarding abuse by a former tour manager. I’m not going to delve into whether the story is true or not, but I would like to use the example as a way to get all of us to consider what behaviour we consider acceptable and what we don’t.

We are supposed to be a safe and inclusive scene, and we should do all we can to preserve this feeling for everyone that is involved in it. After all, it isn’t just rap that can be misogynistic, or just pop where allegations of sexual abuse can happen.

Dance Moves New Currents With Tim Finney

M

ost European techhouse of note these days is difficult to carbon-date, sounding like it could have emerged at any time in the last 15 years or so. A pessimist would say this reflects a lack of genuinely new ideas, but a more forgiving interpretation paints a scene in an ongoing process of refinement. It’s not surprising then that the debut album of Swedish producer Alexander Berg (under the moniker Dorisburg) feels so much in dialogue with that which has come before.

Specifically, with Irrbloss, Berg joins the ranks of John Talabot, Mano Le Tough and Young Marco in offering electronic music of

OPINION Opinion

unabashed prettiness, his becalmed techhouse grooves buffed to a sumptuous, high gloss sheen.

Talabot has in fact put out Irrbloss through his label Hivern Discs, and you can sense his influence and guiding hand at work here: more than any other point of comparison, Irrbloss strongly recalls Talabot’s debut album Fin both in mood and sound design, in its interplay of melancholy and wistfulness, and the way his grooves spool out like rippling satin. Both the rhythms and melodies pirouette with pointillist grace, uniting both impulses, Berg frequently draws for arpeggios that seem to mutate and deliquesce both tonally and percussively, acting as both refrain and rhythmic counterpoint.

Where Irrbloss departs from Fin is in the lack of any gestures towards populism or songfulness: while the tunes are beguiling enough, Berg doesn’t attempt to make them particularly nagging, and there are no vocal

contributions whatsoever. The effect is to make the album seem more reserved than it really is, more woven into fabric into everyday existence.

Fabric metaphors keep on occurring to me, perhaps because of the strong sense of warp and weft at work in Dorisburg’s production approach.

On the title track, a lonely woodwind wanders through the groove with the same detached air of searching as Jon Hassell’s trumpet. Throughout Insvept, a synth riff bubbles up endlessly and desperately, only to fall back again each time, like a fish looking for a hole in the net of the groove. On Kassiopeia, the arrangement becoming increasingly elaborate and ornate with synthesiser melodies seeming to lash out in arcs, as if a spirallogram was being used to trace a web of riffs around the central groove. Meanwhile, Gloson contrasts a moody, burbling bass line and sharply pinging synth riffs; they dart around each other like flies on the surface of a swamp. Perhaps my favourite inclusion is Sagofabrik, whose combination of stuttering heartbeat rhythm, trebly woodblock percussion and compressed, squiggly arpeggios sounds at once like floating around an alien’s bloodstream and being in the centre of a menagerie.

As with much of Talabot’s album, Irrbloss’s advances through new emotional and (seemingly) geographic terrain mostly come at the expense of dancefloor dominance, as he uses his ear-tickling rhythms and iridescent riffs to convey a sense of isolation within the natural world. The album cover’s wood carving depiction of an explorer staring out over a forested ravine is almost too fitting, as if Dorisburg risks making too Dorisburg explicit the vibes and sensations his exquisitely textured and topographical arrangements are intended to evoke. Irrbloss’s dedication to a more mysterious air makes it easily one of the most gorgeous homelistening techno albums this year.

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THE MUSIC 8TH JUNE 2016 • 35

Album / E Album/EP Reviews

Album OF THE Week

The Temper Trap Thick As Thieves Liberation

★★★★

The Temper Trap have gone back to basics on their third studio album.

Thick As Thieves is their first release since the departure of guitarist Lorenzo Sillitto in 2013, yet the now-four-piece sounds not so much reduced as reborn, trading in the dense and diverse aural experiments that characterised 2012’s self-titled album for a more direct, but no less distinctive, stadium-pop sound.

Don’t for a second mistake simplicity for taking it easy though, as the new album manages to seem both more pared back and more epic than its predecessor. The strong melodies and harmonies, singalong choruses and expansive layers of instrumentation suggest The Temper Trap have reaped the creative benefits of a renewed focus on the fundamentals of songwriting and production.

The opening title track sets the pace, with Toby Dundas’ sledgehammer kick drum and Dougy Mandagi’s caterwauled refrain “Making noise and shouting” defining the track as an instant anthem.

So Much Sky and Burn raise the emotional stakes, with the former’s chunky bass and ebullient cries of “oh-way-oh-way-oh”, and the latter’s Achtung Baby-worthy guitar sounds and super-sized chorus seemingly custom-made to lift the roofs off arenas.

The album is unrelentingly, but not detrimentally, upbeat. “If we have to fall, we’ll fall together,” Mandagi declaims on Fall Together, while, on Alive, they decide simply that “It feels so good/So good to be alive”, and prove the point with a highly danceable drum’n’bass combo.

Following the sting of separation from Sillitto, the band finds positivity in unity, and brings us along for the ride.

Tim Kroenert

Dope Lemon

Ngaiire

Honey Bones

Blastoma

EMI

Maximilian Brown

★★★½

★★★★

Angus Stone is back with his new side project, Dope Lemon.

His debut release, the album Honey Bones, is an effortlessly cool collection of breezy tunes that’s guaranteed to be every triple j fan’s wet dream. The stellar combination of dreamy vocals and layered hooks is rough around the edges in all the right ways and works hard at putting its listener in an almost inescapable trance.

The album can be roughly divided up into two parts, although there is still a great deal of continuity throughout. The first part channels a vibe not unlike Mac DeMarco, complete with jangly guitars, and dreamy, echoed lyrics. The second half channels the motorway-like beat of the late ‘70s to mid-’80s post-punk. This is where the album really shines.

Although both parts are replete with groovy riffs, the second half nails it. The listener is sure to

The second album Blastoma from 32-year-old Papua New Guinean, Sydney-based soul songstress Ngaiire, features collaborations with local artists Paul Mac, Megan Washington and Jack Grace. Named after a form of cancer she survived as a young child, the album sees Ngaiire exploring the boundaries of contemporary Australian neo-soul.

Ngaiire’s single Once, released in July last year, landed her a spot in the Hottest 100, also making her the first Papua New Guinean musician to make the radio station’s annual music listener poll. Blastoma takes somewhat of an introspective approach to songwriting, with the sultry, emotion-filled I Wear Black, “It’s over, I’m shedding my skin, slipping in and out of colour again, maybe over is where it begins...”, not only referencing

36 • THE MUSIC • 8TH JUNE 2016

experience a feeling of elevation, and will truly feel chilled out.

It’s fantastic to see a key Australian musician develop their sound in such a different direction to the current trends. EDM seems to be on the rise these days, with hyped up, pumping beats. Stone has opted to defy this sound, and channel a deep contemplative aesthetic. While the listener may find themselves entering a trance experiencing this album, it will be transcendental and reflective.

It’s the kind of music you’d hear in an indie flick as the protagonist cruises through the countryside in a beat-up camper — chilled out and inexplicably magical.

Charmaine de Souza

her past battle with cancer, but a recent breakup after returning to Sydney from touring internationally.

The album as a whole, crosses soul and electronica from the incredibly catchy, almost pop track Diggin to the subtler, minimal I Can’t Hear God Anymore, to the monumental electro-pop, soul ballad Many Things. Blastoma sees Ngaiire finally carve out quite a solid name for herself, as a strong vocalist and a rising star at the forefront of Aussie future-soul.

Tanya Bonnie Rae

EP Reviews Album/EP Reviews

Band of Horses

Garbage

Letlive

Why Are You OK

Strange Little Birds

If I’m The Devil

Interscope/Universal

Stunvolume/Liberator

Epitaph/Warner

Nahko & Medicine For The People Hoka SideOneDummy/Cooking Vinyl

★★★★

★★★★

★★½

★★★

Rather than getting lost in sprawling western vistas, as they could have, Why Are You OK is mostly centred around head-Horse Ben Bridwell finding peace as a family man -- songs mostly written in the dark after he’s got the kids to bed.

As producer, Grandaddy’s Jason Lytle brings out the singer’s plaintive scrape of a voice — reflective on Throw My Mess, a little more puzzled on Casual Party. There’s other tangents: opening seven-minute meander Dull Times/The Moon stretching and adding some found sounds and spoken words samples — not quite Wilcoesque, but maybe heading that way. It’s an album to let seep into you.

Even though it’s taken over two years to gestate, Garbage manage to make Strange Little Birds sound a bit unstudied, with a lot of the near-industrial scuffed sheen of their early records to it.

The gentlemen producer/ musicians of the combo make the racket necessary to match Shirley Manson’s typically aggressive vulnerability — she who still manages to coo, ache and threaten often simultaneously. Songs like Empty and Magnetized have the familiar widescreen sweep and muscle to them, but there is variety, like the altogether oppressively moodier Even Though Our Love Is Doomed.

Their electronic element is still present, but knows its place among guitars, drums and sohuman woman at the front.

While If I’m The Devil... is a well-produced album with tight performances and an air of authenticity, it can certainly be said that Letlive’s latest effort is not ‘all killer no filler’.

The majority of songs have moved away from the radical elements that defined the early career of Letlive and delved into the realm of simple melodic rock. If the entire LP held to the standard of ripsnorters Another Offensive Song, Foreign Cab Rides and Good Mourning, America we would have a record that is much more impressionable to the listener.

Wolf howls, tribal chants and voiceovers open the album on the title track before a dramatic change to beautiful piano ballad Directions erupts into a blaze of guitars.

Nahko Bear’s vocals are smooth and dreamy, especially in It Is Written as guitars explode, giving it a rock edge before trumpets take over.

Make A Change gives off an indie vibe with Zella Days’ beautiful soft vocals, while We Are On Time is like a slow country song. It’s an impressive and ambitious 19-track album fusing various musical genres and cultural influences to keep everyone happy.

Ross Clelland

Jonty Czuchwicki

Aneta Grulichova

Ross Clelland

More Reviews Online Josh Pyke Live At The Sydney Opera House

theMusic.com.au

Plaid The Digging Remedy

The Strokes Future Present Past

THE MUSIC 8TH JUNE 2016 • 37

Album / E Album/EP Reviews

Marcus Whale Inland Sea Good Manners Records

Peter Bjorn & John

Spring King

The Gotobeds

Tell Me If You Like To

Breakin’ Point

Dew Process/Universal

Blood // Sugar // Secs // Traffic Sub Pop/Inertia

Ingrid/Kobalt

★★★½

★★★½

★★★★

★★★

Marcus Whale (Collarbones) has made an impressive artistic statement with his debut solo album.

Released digitally, with an accompanying physical book, Inland Sea explores queer and colonial Australian history through a dark and oblique gauze of minimal electronica.

It veers between militant, tech-heavy drums and glitchy whirs of atmospheric sounds that can draw a timeline back through artists such as Bjork and Photek. There’s an ominous and heavy-lidded tone to Whale’s soulful voice as he builds layers of affected vocals, like mantras floating over the dystopian landscape below — all the while searching for answers and selffulfilment in the modern world.

With vocals generally pushing upper registers, drums usually programmed instead of banged, and a willingness to go big and lush with its production and electronic instruments, Peter Bjorn & John make no attempt to be anything but pure Euro (Skando?) pop on Breakin’ Point.

But poppy never means simple here. The songs can only support the many layers of polish on top because there’s a whole lot going on underneath.

And if that wasn’t enough, Breakin’ Point is just a plain old great time. Who’d have thought three Swedes pushing middle age could do pop so well?

Writing catchy hooks seems like child’s play to this new pop-punk outfit from Manchester.

Spring King may owe more to Arctic Monkeys/Kaiser Chiefs than they do Blink, but there’s a volatile energy and an originality that’s all theirs. Despite having only been around only two years, they’ve already penned a handful of anthems, certified belters Rectifier and City being two bloody obvious examples. The reflective Heaven closes their debut and suggests that we’ll be hearing a lot more from these guys in the future.

The Gotobeds’ second record Blood // Sugar // Secs // Traffic is the expansion of the pop elements from their debut Poor People Are Revolting.

Pleasingly, the new wave revival rock style still rings true but it’s now stacked on top of stronger melodies and harmonious hooks to much greater effect and is echoed throughout the tracks. With the exception of some experimental moments such as Red Alphabet, this is the fun and stupid bouncing guitar indie-rock sound that they’ve established themselves on.

Christopher H James

Mark Beresford

Pete Laurie

Chris Familton

More Reviews Online Roxette Good Karma

38 • THE MUSIC • 8TH JUNE 2016

theMusic.com.au

Amber Arcades Fading Lines

Listen to our This Week’s Releases playlist on

THE MUSIC 8TH JUNE 2016 • 39

Live Re Live Reviews

Deafheaven @ Sydney Opera House. Pic: Brendan Delavere

New Order

Sydney Opera House 1 Jun

Deafheaven @ Sydney Opera House.

Pic: Brendan Delavere

New Order @ Sydney Opera House.

Pic: Pete Dovgan

New Order @ Sydney Opera House. Pic: Pete Dovgan

Fear Factory @ UNSW Roundhouse.

Pic: Angela Padovan

40 • THE MUSIC • 8TH JUNE 2016

The Smith Street Band @ Metro Theatre.

Pic: Hayden Nixon

“Thank you, good night,” Bernard Sumner says before the band have played a single note.

He then announces they’re experiencing a slight technical problem. Singularity from New Order’s latest Music Complete set follows, complete with its accompanying music video. We can tell the band is still working through their technical issues.

A man a few rows in front of us squirms in his seat, relentlessly punching the air — alternating arms to avoid lactic acid build-up — frustrated by his seated state.

There’s a vulnerability to Sumner’s singing, perhaps more pronounced with the passing years, which serves as a constant poignant reminder that fronting this band wasn’t his initial choice. Come Crystal, audience members migrate to the side aisles for a boogie.

Sumner tells us the band feel honoured to play Sydney Opera House: “Really big venue. Big enough to contain our egos.”

Pause. “That was a joke.”

Seeing Gillian Gilbert play the effervescent Bizarre Love Triangle keys parts is a real treat and it’s grins all ‘round in the House. During this song, Sumner holds the mic down into the crowd for a front-row couple to take an entire verse, which we could’ve done without.

He then directs our attention to the visuals, instructing, “Don’t take your eyes off them”. Sure, they’re impressive, but should we have experienced some kind of optical illusion? Then Plastic comes in as if to demonstrate how much New Order reentered the club via their new material.

We wish they’d forked out for a female backing vocalist, though.

Clap-alongs sound satisfyingly loud and in time.

We all enthusiastically belt out, “Let’s go out and have some

fun!” during The Perfect Kiss.

New Order’s back catalogue is breathtaking and we’d almost forgotten about Temptation! It’s absolute swoon territory even though we sound like a pack of football hooligans singing, “OH-Oh-Oh-Oh-oh!” where gentle, “doo-doo-doo”s belong.

We score an extended mix and dance wildly, dusting off moves that haven’t seen the light of day this century.

And of course there’s gonna be an encore since we’ve not yet arrived at Blue Monday. We score an extended mix and dance wildly, dusting off moves that haven’t seen the light of day this century. “I see a ship in Sydney Harbour” — yes, Sumner takes it there!

When he takes over Gilbert’s keyboard to close out Blue Monday, his takeover is only barely tolerated, with a forced grin. Whaddayamean they’re playing Love Will Tear Us Apart!?

When a picture of Ian Curtis graces the screen followed by “Joy Division Always”, the crowd goes nuts. We could’ve done without Superheated, which only seems to serve the purpose of containing the closing lyrics, “It’s over.”

Bryget Chrisfield

eviews Live Reviews

Deafheaven

Sydney Opera House 2 Jun

California’s Deafheaven are a band that could only happen now. They are a fierce combination of black metal, shoegaze and post-rock that could only come out of a hyperawareness of postmodern sounds. The polarisation of public opinion surrounding the band is strong, and the bile aimed at them is a result of grotesque projection, insecurity and misguided territoriality. That they got booked to play at the Sydney Opera House means

They perform a perfectly savage rendition of New Bermuda in its entirety and cross metal off the list for the Opera House, the final frontier for a place designed for austerity and refinement.”

Opera House, the final frontier for a place designed for austerity and refinement.

They take the stage quietly.

George Clarke sways and crouches like a big cat. The frantic melodrama of Brought To The Water opens the floodgates. It’s a great song, full of strong ideas and motifs all stitched neatly together while maintaining power and tempo.

Luna gets a big response, and as the onslaught gives way to Explosions In The Sky post-rock around the seven-minute mark the room loosens up. People begin standing, head nodding becomes headbanging, and the band start to feed on the energy.

Baby Blue is where some people (metal purists) step off.

They lean right into the lush dream-pop expanse for the first few minutes, releasing the tension the space had built up.

Kerry McCoy, lead guitarist, seems to lag here and there, and maybe the vocals could have been upped, but that’s just nit-picking.

The encore is Sunbather and Dream House, a mic-dropping two-punch combo that closes out a blistering show. Intensity, technicality and emotional heft are all accomplished. Having black metal dragged out into the light (sans corpse paint, thank God) is not a bad thing. Having a group like Deafheaven do it in style like this is even better.

Matt MacMaster

something. It’s a defiant middle finger (covered in black nail polish) to the idea that metal needs to be locked away somewhere in a garage or bleeding from the earbuds of some mopey kid at the back of the bus for it to be “pure”. Despite the petty grief they endure, all that useless noise is blown away as soon as they play. They perform a perfectly savage rendition of New Bermuda in its entirety and cross metal off the list for the

Fear Factory, Circles, Tensions Arise UNSW Roundhouse 3 Jun A sparse early attendance meant Sydney’s Tensions Arise were predominantly a soundtrack to the few present buying merchandise and downing a few cleansing ales. They dedicated themselves to the task, but such nondescript groove-metal meant the crowd ultimately went mild.

Melbourne prog-metal mob Circles offered a greater emphasis on nuance and more intriguing dynamics. Even members of the folded-arms brigade were soon compelled to concede approval. The 45minute set did lag somewhat towards its conclusion, but overall they left with reputation enhanced.

have long been a hit or miss proposition live, with noticeably more of the latter occurring nowadays, but nonetheless the gathering embraced the sheer energy. Multiple generations of certain clans — the frontman joked that many younger punters hadn’t been born when 1992’s death metal game changer Soul Of A New Machine landed — certainly got their fill until the machines of hate return for another round.

The turnout writhed and pogo-ed to the barrage of industrialised anthems.

Brendan Crabb

Nostalgia may be more potent than ever within heavy music. The uproarious response afforded sci-fi metallers Fear Factory opening with the onetwo sonic gut-punch of stonecold classics Demanufacture and Self Bias Resistor would indicate as much. The LA crew had enlisted a new face, former Static-X bassist Tony Campos, alongside mainstays, vocalist Burton C Bell and portly riff-meister Dino Cazares.

However, their efficient delivery remained as the turnout writhed and pogo-ed to the barrage of industrialised anthems. Even a few selections from latest disc Genexus were warmly greeted, although that may be partially attributable to the songs’ selfreferential nature.

An online fan poll resulted in the reintroduction of the likes of atmospheric Resurrection.

Non-Cazares era track and initial parting shot Archetype was incorporated again, albeit with lyrics slightly modified (“the infections have been removed”) as a riposte to former bandmates. Bell’s clean vocals

The Smith Street Band, Luca Brasi, Joelistics, Jess Locke Band Metro Theatre 3 Jun Jess Locke Band melted away our week’s worries, opening with their warm yet melancholic folk-rock. Locke is exceptionally talented, and the three-piece play a tight show — keep an ear out for this trio.

Youth worker by day, rapper by night, Joelistics and DJ Beatrice were here to shake things up with their set of slick beats and rhymes. Telling tales of hardship and political correctness, the MC showed he’s not afraid of being himself, spitting refreshingly honest hip hop.

One might have been mistaken in thinking this was a Luca Brasi show, as the boys confidently controlled the stage and launched into Aeroplane, sending the crowd into a frenzy. Mosh pits were rife and crowdsurfers rogue during a set of new tracks that were received exceptionally well. Classic Borders And Statelines was a standout, and Count Me Out closed the set, one which could have left them outshining the headliner, including the crowd calling for an encore — a rarity for a support band.

THE MUSIC 8TH JUNE 2016 • 41

Live Re Live Reviews

More Reviews Online theMusic.com.au/ music/live-reviews

Hiatus Kaiyote @ Sydney Opera House Tiny Ruins @ Sydney Opera House New Order & ACO @ Sydney Opera House Bjork Digital @ Carriageworks Future Classic Presents Ta-Ku ft Wafia @ Sydney Opera House Goodgod Super Club: Kyle Hall, Magda Bytnerowicz @ Sydney Opera House Radio Birdman @ Factory Theatre Polica @ Sydney Opera House Leonardo’s Bride @ Camelot Lounge

Fortunately the crowd were cheering and chanting for The Smith Street Band before they reached the stage. Wil Wagner took to the stage solo to open with I Love Life and by the time the second song was through, the Metro floor was heaving; jumpers were being thrown, and Wagner could barely be heard over the crowd singing.

The pit was rife with your usual punk antics, and Tyler Richardson from Luca Brasi lent his voice to a verse or two, before the therapeutic Surrender lifted everyone’s spirits.

Wagner announced that there would be more Smith Street tunes coming our way soon, dedicating a new track to

Sydney Opera House 4 Jun

Though not intended for the Vivid stage, Esperanza Spalding’s Emily’s D+Evolution tour (of the 2016 release of the same name) slots perfectly into a line-up of full of artists testing the limits of theatricality and live music.

Spalding takes the stage in a black and white tent, her head poking out the top like a poorly judged Barbie cake in an afro to kick off an evening of riffed on selections from D+Evolution.

As the crescendo to the second track builds, Spalding turns

white plastic frames and braids.

The double bass that used to nest in her elbow is replaced by an electric one that clips to a belt on her waist. Spalding sets the joyous and liberated play of D+Evolution firmly in a place that doesn’t quite look like here: half of her stage is bathed in the yellow, the other in red, and as she moves through them she smears herself with paint, the inverted tent dress sits up the back and looks like a silver princess castle, and then Spalding herself moves with an endlessly fluid playfulness. Even on the highest notes and most complicated scats, Spalding’s body is in character.

Esperanza Spalding @ Sydney Opera House. Pic: Angela Padovan

Jumpers were being thrown, and Wagner could barely be heard over the crowd singing. the times “when you’re trying to have a good time and some buff dude takes his shirt off” (a not so subtle nod to a shirtless crowdsurfer).

I Don’t Wanna Die Anymore was distinguished, and Wagner was ruthless during I Can’t Feel My Face, literally kicking some dude off stage, proclaiming “For future reference, if you want to get on stage, start your own fucking band.” Ouch.

Throw Me In The River was a fitting end to a mental set, and an ode to the gritty, familiar and enduring Metro Theatre and its legendary place in the Australian punk scene.

Melissa Borg

42 • THE MUSIC • 8TH JUNE 2016

Esperanza Spalding

Emily’s D+Evolution overflows with invention, curiosity and an intoxicating childish dreaminess. her back on the audience and deconstructs herself to re-emerge in white denim, a gold fairytale crown, thick

The drama carries into the fabric of the performance too, the songs are discrete vignettes, each one calling for its own physicality, its own props, its own arrangement and even its own drama. At one point, a supporting singer proposes to Spalding and is rejected as she climbs a step ladder.

Emily’s D+Evolution overflows with invention, curiosity and an intoxicating childish dreaminess. Spalding may have climbed down on stage, but right now she is climbing a seemingly endless ladder to invention.

Samantha Jonscher

Arts Reviews Arts Reviews

The Literati. Pic: Daniel Boud

Burlesque:

Strip, Strip, Hooray!

Cabaret Big Top, 4 Jun

★★★★★

The Literati Theatre SBW Stables Theatre to 16 Jul

★★★★½ The innocent Juliet and the simple Clinton want to be married, and her father Christopher gives his blessing.

But Juliet’s pretentious sister Amanda and her snobbish mother Philomena are not impressed with the match, offering up an alternative they deem more suitable — the sham poet Tristan Tosser.

And so is the set up to Justin Fleming’s The Literati, a new Australian play based on Moliere’s Les Femmes Savanates, co-presented by Bell Shakespeare and Griffin Theatre Company. Griffin’s SBW Stables Theatre proves the perfect setting for the laugh-a-minute farce, designer Sophie Fletcher creating a chic eastern suburbs living room in which the action plays out, its centrepiece a revolving platform on which characters such as Kate Mulvany’s Amanda fumble and stumble, and Jamie Oxenbould as both Clinton and Christopher have a slapstick conversation.

But it’s the language — and its performance — that holds the play together, under the direction of Griffin Artistic Director Lee Lewis. Fleming has used different rhyming schemes for “lofty pretentious”, love and “wisdom and true scholarship”, keeping the combination of the Queen’s English and Australian colloquialisms that rhyme fresh and constantly hilarious. It’s all in the aim of exposing literary pretension in 21st century Sydney, best observed in the torn Amanda preening and arranging herself among her books, and in Philomena, played by Caroline Brazier, championing the plagiarised rot disguised as poetry written by Gareth Davies’ Tristan Tosser. And why would Philomena, Brazier tall and arresting, want that fop — who Davies plays as just the right amount of smug and ridiculous — to marry the sweet-tempered Juliet, brought to life by Miranda Tapsell?

A fucking hilarious night at the theatre. Do not miss it.

Hannah Story

The curtain went up on burlesque glamour queen Dita Von Teese on Saturday night in Sydney for her first show in Australia with her show Burlesque: Strip, Strip, Hooray!

Although some of the finery sported by the audience wound up a tad bedraggled thanks to a thorough buffeting by the weather outside, inside the people-watching opportunities were unparalleled as cleavage plunged and bosoms swelled, heels were killer and a vintage fur stole — faux or otherwise — was the accessory du jour.

Anchored by the “the hardest working middle-aged man in show business”, MC Murray Hill, Von Teese was joined by performers Natasha

Dita Von Teese

Estrada, Catherine D’lish, Perle Noire, Ginger Valentine and Jett Adore, giving us their take on the high art of the reveal. The ‘Von-terage’ is a nice serving of beefcake on the side, featuring Alex from Poland and Elio from Puerto Rico, chiselled back-up dancers who fill out their gold hotpants very pleasingly.

At the heart of burlesque’s enduring appeal is its sense of humour; in its early days this manifested as a delight in skewering public mores and carving steak off sacred cows. On Saturday evening, Hill rightly pointed out that the show “is a safe place to objectify women”, and got the crowd laughing at its own baser instincts: “This is like Christmas-fucking-morning for the lesbians!”

The high points of the evening’s entertainment were, of course, Dita’s four routines; the first of which was her iconic, sparkling martini glass. Each of Von Teese’s appearances on stage began with the star in a crystal-encrusted gown, corset, lingerie and pasties. Even her stocking seams glinted in the lights.

The saguaro cactus gracing the stage next to the mechanical bull did not escape the bedazzler — indeed there was very little that did. Even the confetti showering the audience at the finale of the first act was foil.

The second act opened with von Teese’s birdcage and fan dance, included Hill’s dance-off with randomly selected members of the audience who were judged on showmanship, shamelessness and danceability. “This is a special night folks,” Hill said. “We are here to greet Michael as he comes out of the closet.” The show closed with the Opium Den, Von Teese’s latest lavish spectacle, a shower of rose petals from the confetti cannons.

Fiona Cameron

THE MUSIC 8TH JUNE 2016 • 43

Comedy / G The Guide

Wed 08

Last Dinosaurs

The Ramblers: Bald Faced Stag, Leichhardt Songs On Stage feat. Stuart Jammin: Balgownie Hotel, Balgownie SOSUEME feat. Fatherdude + Twinsy + Amastro + more: Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Beach The Stained Daisies + Gardens: Brass Monkey, Cronulla

The High Learys: 14 Jul The Basement Canberra; 17 Jul Newtown Social Club; 21 Jul The Small Ballroom Newcastle

The Music Presents

Sam Brittain: Brighton Up Bar, Darlinghurst The Dawsons: Captain Cook Hotel, Paddington

DMA’S: 9 & 10 Jun, Metro Theatre

Lee Kernaghan: Dapto Leagues Club (Auditorium), Dapto

Come Together: 11 Jun Big Top Luna Park

The Dark Hawks + The Shnand + Shady Nasty: Frankie’s Pizza By The Slice, Sydney

The Rubens: 24 Jun Hordern Pavilion

Yessac + Leroy Lee + Richard Cuthbert: Gasoline Pony, Marrickville

Elizabeth Rose: 24 Jun Oxford Art Factory, 25 Jun Argyle House Newcastle Abbe May: 1 Jul Newtown Social Club Bello Winter Music: 7 – 10 Jul Bellingen Jack The Stripper: 8 Jul The Basement Canberra; 9 Jul Factory Floor The High Learys: 14 Jul The Basement Canberra; 17 Jul Newtown Social Club; 21 Jul The Small Ballroom Newcastle Beach Slang & Spring King: 20 Jul Oxford Art Factory

Molly Ringwald: Hurstville Entertainment Centre, Hurstville Live & Originals feat. Rebecca Henry + Arna Georgia + Goldenheist: LazyBones Lounge, Marrickville Kim Lawson: LazyBones Lounge (Level 1), Marrickville Live & Local feat. Josh Needs + Dave Wells + Euphorium: Lizottes Newcastle, Lambton Key to the Highway: Marble Bar, Sydney Manouche Wednesday feat. The Squeezebox Trio: Mr Falcon’s, Glebe

Fossil Fuelled Brisbane-based Last Dinosaurs have already sold out two shows at Newtown Social Club this week. You can still catch them at the venue Thursday though supported by Rolls Boyce and Jody.

Musos Club Jam Night: Ruby L’Otel, Rozelle Cathartic: From Carlisle to Coolio feat. Catherine Alcorn: Slide Darlinghurst, Surry Hills Ben Camden: The Newsagency, Marrickville Jake Martin + BD/SM + The Lowlands + Jim Dusty: The Phoenix, Canberra

Jack Garratt: 21 Jul Metro Theatre

Thu 09

Mark Lanegan Band: 23 Jul Factory Theatre

Bears With Guns + Hurst: Captain Cook Hotel, Paddington

James Blake: 26 Jul Hordern Pavilion

Daryl Braithwaite + Kate Ceberano + Jon Stevens + John Paul Young: Civic Theatre, Newcastle

sleepmakeswaves: 8 Aug UniBar Wollongong; 10 Aug Cambridge Hotel Newcastle; 11 Aug ANU Bar Canberra; 12 Aug Metro Theatre

Dead Letter Circus: 20 Aug Metro Theatre; 21 Aug Cambridge Hotel Wollombi Music Festival: 24 Sep, Wollombi A Day On The Green: 5 Nov, Bimbadgen Estate

Shining Bird

Ciggie Witch + Wives + Zone Out: The Phoenix, Canberra Broken Hands + LXM + The Make Up + The Last Exposure: Valve Bar (Basement), Ultimo

Fri 10

Sydney Comedy Festival Encore Showcases: Comedy Store, Moore Park Ted Nash: Fortune of War Hotel, The Rocks The Living End

Helluva Show

Matt Malone + Trappist Afterland + Fuschia: Hamilton Station Hotel, Islington

Hitting the road to celebrate the release of their new single Helluva Lot, Shining Bird will be making their way to Newtown Social Club on Wednesday. They will be joined

by Solid Effort and Morning TV.

Chris Cavill & The Prospectors: LazyBones Lounge, Marrickville Larger Than Lions: Marble Bar, Sydney DMA’s + Green Buzzard: Metro Theatre, Sydney Skyscraper Stan: Midnight Special, Newtown Ricardo Steyer: Mr Falcon’s, Glebe

Shining Bird + Solid Effort + Morning TV: Newtown Social Club, Newtown

44 • THE MUSIC • 8TH JUNE 2016

Greg Bryce: The Bradford Hotel, Rutherford

Rhys Nicholson: Comedy Store (7pm), Moore Park

Vintage & Custom Drum Expo: 14 Aug, Factory Theatre Whole Lotta Love: 20 & 26 Aug, Laycock Street Theatre; 27 Aug State Theatre

A Night with Prinnie Stevens: The Basement, Sydney

Last Dinosaurs + Rolls Bayce + Jody: Newtown Social Club, Newtown

No End In Sight You can see Aussie rock’n’roll stalwarts The Living End at Enmore Theatre Saturday for the one of the few shows on their Shift album tour that hasn’t already sold out. Bad// Dreams and The 131s will be supporting.

Mark Travers: Orient Hotel, The Rocks

Halcyon Drive + Capital Coast + The Trakks: Rad Bar, Wollongong

The Roots & Riddim Club with Errol Renaud Trio + DJ Dizar: Play Bar, Surry Hills

Errol Renaud + Carribean Soul: Rock Lily, Pyrmont

Urthboy + L-FRESH The LION + Okenyo: Academy, Canberra

DJ D-Flat: Rock Lily, Pyrmont

The Migration with Stu Hunter: Seymour Centre (York Theatre), Darlington

Age Of Menace: Bald Faced Stag, Leichhardt

Gigs / Live The Guide

Little Earthquake

Disastrous Symmetry Little Earthquake, aka the Hyland brothers, and Melbourne rock’n’rollers Maefire are travelling for their co-single The Lines Of Symmetry launch tour.

See the two supported by Yung Dread at Factory Theatre this Friday.

Gadjo Guitars: Paragon Cafe, Katoomba

The Chatswood Club, Chatswood

Jeff Lang: Camelot Lounge, Marrickville

No Troubles: Penrith RSL (Castle Lounge), Penrith

John Kennedys’ 68 Special: The Merton Hotel, Rozelle

Ramblin’ Nights: Camelot Lounge (Django Bar), Marrickville

Perisher Peak Festival feat. A French Butler Called Smith + Matiu Te Huki + Lagoon Hill Zydeco + Azadoota + The Settlement + Jordan C Thomas Band + The Button Collective + Big Earle + Felicity Lawless + more: Perisher Valley, Perisher Valley

Fat Yahooza + La Tarentella: The Oxford Circus, Darlinghurst

Unleash: Carousel Inn, Rooty Hill

Capes + Rumblr + Jack Livingston: The Phoenix, Canberra Halycon Drive: The Stag & Hunter Hotel, Mayfield

Curve Ball 2016 feat. ZHU + Cosmo’s Midnight + Basenji + Joy. + Nicole Millar + Elk Road + Cleopold + Yuma X + more: Carriageworks, Eveleigh

Phat Play Fridays with D-Funk + JR Dynamite: Play Bar, Surry Hills

Blanck Mass: The Zoo Project, Potts Point

Urthboy + L-FRESH The LION + Okenyo: Carrington Hotel (Baroque Room), Katoomba

The White Bros: Quakers Inn, Quakers Hill

Dr Farquhar: Towradgi Beach Hotel (Sports Bar), Towradgi

andhim + Andy Bird + Winny: Chinese Laundry, Sydney

Rick Dangerous & the Silkie Bantams: Rad Bar, Wollongong Next Best Thing: Ramsgate RSL, Sans Souci

KLP

Lee Kernaghan: Revesby Workers (The Whitlam Theatre), Revesby The Kamis: Revesby Workers (Infinity Lounge), Revesby Furnace & Fundamentals + DJ Kitsch 78 + Rohan Cannon Duo: Rock Lily, Pyrmont

The Banter Junkies: Bald Faced Stag (Front Bar), Leichhardt Hunch + Montes Jura + Amyl & The Sniffers: Bank Hotel (Waywards), Newtown Friday with DJ Richie Ryan: Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Beach Tommy Novak: Captain Cook Hotel, Paddington Sydney Comedy Festival Encore Showcases: Comedy Store, Moore Park Steve Edmonds Band: Dicey Riley’s Hotel, Wollongong Shannon Noll: Dubbo RSL, Dubbo Daryl Braithwaite + Kate Ceberano + Jon Stevens + John Paul Young: Enmore Theatre, Newtown Karise Eden + Dean Ray: Ettamogah Hotel, Kellyville Ridge Little Earthquake + Maefire + Yung Dread: Factory Theatre (Factory Floor), Marrickville

Gold: The Ultimate ABBA Show: Sawtell RSL, Sawtell Whispering Jack - A tribute to the music of John Farnham: South Sydney Juniors (Auditorium), Kingsford Dave Debs: Tahmoor Inn, Tahmoor A.D.K.O.B. + Owen Rabbit + Skinpin: The Basement, Belconnen James Morrison: The Basement (6.30pm), Sydney James Morrison: The Basement (10pm), Sydney The Dew Cats: The Beach Hotel, Merewether

Cold Vulture + Edgar Owens’ Miracle Men + Temporary Exile + Barside:

Dumbsaint

Gadjo Guitars: Hotel Gearin, Katoomba

Spoonbill + Grouch: Manning Bar, Camperdown

Reckless: Orient Hotel, The Rocks Smokin’ Willies: Oriental Hotel, Springwood Winter Weekender with Louisahhh!: Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst

Beatnix - Beatles Show: Club Old Bar, Old Bar

Dylan Joel + Man Made Mountain + Elemont: Uni Bar, Wollongong

Rhys Nicholson: Comedy Store (7pm), Moore Park

Jake Martin + The Bottlers + Kang + BD/ SM + more: Valve Bar (Basement), Ultimo

Sydney Comedy Festival Encore Showcases: Comedy Store, Moore Park

Bangers & Thrash 2016 feat. Murder World + Hidden Intent + Disintegrator + Imminent Psychosis + Dark Order + Abraxxas + Wartooth + PurEnvy + Enfield + Hammer + Fatigue + Snow Leopard + Panik: Bald Faced Stag, Leichhardt

Black Label + Thug: Macquarie Arms Hotel, Windsor

Last Dinosaurs + Rolls Bayce + Jody: Newtown Social Club, Newtown

Discovery (Daft Punk Tribute Show): Treehouse Canberra, Canberra

Sat 11

Joe Echo: Jacksons on George, Sydney

DMA’s + Green Buzzard: Metro Theatre, Sydney

KLP’s Nothing But Air tour for her latest single Air will blow through Beach Road Hotel on Saturday night. The multi-talented artist will be supported by special guest Tigerilla.

The Core: The Bradford Hotel, Rutherford

Prince & Bowie Tribute Party: Factory Theatre, Marrickville

Brown Sugar: Marble Bar, Sydney

Air Flo

Stupid, Saintly Scenes Head to Factory Theatre Saturday for an entirely unique experience from Dumbsaint.

They’ll be playing Panorama in full in tandem with a screening of the feature-length filmic adaption of the album. Solkyri, Majora and Mish support.

Kallidad + Th Fika: Bald Faced Stag (Front Bar), Leichhardt Yours feat. KLP + Tigerilla + Beni + Housing Corp: Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Beach Come Together 2016 feat. Drapht + Allday + Tuka + Spit Syndicate + Dylan Joel + Gill Bates + Mallrat + Manu Crook$: Big Top Sydney, Milsons Point A.D.K.O.B. + Owen Rabbit: Brighton Up Bar, Darlinghurst

The Skeletones: Coogee Bay Hotel, Coogee Get Rocked Band: Coogee Diggers, Coogee The Spit Roasting Bibbers: Crown Hotel, Sydney Clive Hay: Dural Country Club, Dural The Living End + Bad//Dreems + The 131s: Enmore Theatre, Newtown Dumbsaint + Solkyri + Majora + Mish: Factory Theatre (Factory Floor), Marrickville Petulant Frenzy Play Frank Zappa: Factory Theatre, Marrickville Los Romeos Oxidados: Gasoline Pony, Marrickville The Headliners: Georges River Sailing Club, Sandringham

THE MUSIC 8TH JUNE 2016 • 45

Comedy / G The Guide

Prince Tribute with Simon Day + Trent Marden (The Holy Soul) + more: Golden Age Cinema & Bar, Surry Hills

Culture Club + Bjorn Again + Kids In The Kitchen: Hordern Pavilion, Moore Park KLP: King Street Hotel, Newcastle West

Culture Club + Bjorn Again + Kids In The Kitchen: Hordern Pavilion, Moore Park

Josh Rennie-Hynes + Caitlin Harnett: LazyBones Lounge, Marrickville

Mick Daley’s Corporate Raiders + Bunt + Loose Pills + Leadfinger + The Hot Sweets + The Antibodies: Italo Australian Sports & Recreation Club, North Lismore

Monsters of Rock + Ngariki: Lizottes Newcastle, Lambton Blake Tailor: Manly Leagues Club (Menzies Lounge), Brookvale

Cath & Him: Kellys on King, Newtown

Yellow Claw + Mike Cervello: Metro Theatre, Sydney

Kuren: King Street Hotel, Newcastle West The Ninjas + The Fossicks + The Dead Set: LazyBones Lounge, Marrickville Darren Percival: Lizottes Newcastle, Lambton

Karise Eden + Dean Ray: Mounties (Showroom), Mt Pritchard Primal Fear + HAZMAT: Newtown Social Club, Newtown

Kallidad

Air Supply: Llewellyn Hall, Canberra Kickstar: Oatley Hotel, Oatley Original Sin - INXS Show: Lockies Hotel, Leppington Gold: The Ultimate ABBA Show: Macksville District Ex Services Club, Macksville Cavan Te & The Fuss: Marble Bar, Sydney

Fiesta

Player Haters Ball with Shantan Wantan Ichiban + Adit + Flexmami: Plan B Small Club (formerly Goodgod Small Club), Sydney

Kirsty Birthday Bash with Into The Wild + Mike Crane + The Otherwise Men + THe Lazy Picks + The Faggots + more: Valve Bar (Basement), Ultimo

Blake Tailor: Plough & Harrow, Camden

Stephanie Lea: Wentworthville Leagues Club (Wenty Lounge), Wentworthville

Clever Little Secretaries + DJ Kitsch 78 + Alanna Cherote Duo: Rock Lily, Pyrmont Ash Grunwald

Amy Winehouse Experience: Rooty Hill RSL (Fred Chubb Lounge), Rooty Hill

See Aussie blues innovator and legend Ash Grunwald at Towradgi Beach Hotel this Sunday (Queen’s Birthday Eve), fresh from Port Fairy Bluesfest appearances. He’ll be joined by one-man swamp-rock-blues movement Claude Hay.

Peace Train - The Cat Stevens Story: Rooty Hill RSL (Tivoli Showroom), Rooty Hill Daryl Braithwaite + Kate Ceberano + Jon Stevens + John Paul Young: Shoalhaven Entertainment Centre, Nowra Stace Cadet: Taylor’s Rooftop, Sydney Yellowjackets: The Basement (6.30pm), Sydney Yellowjackets: The Basement (10pm), Sydney

Matt Malone + Trappist Afterland + Stephen Holmes: Music Farmers, Wollongong Last Dinosaurs + Rolls Bayce + Jody: Newtown Social Club, Newtown The Jacks: Oatley Hotel, Oatley Perisher Peak Festival feat. OKA + Ngaiire + Big Earle + Tinpan Orange + Freddy Flyfingaz + Taylor + The Morrisons + The Humphreys + Allensworth + A French Butler Called Smith + Felicity Lawless + Azdoota + Jordan C Thomas Band + Lagoon Hill Zydeco + more: Perisher Valley, Perisher Valley

Hits & Pieces: Wyong Leagues Club (Main Lounge), Lake Haven

The JP Project: Rocks Brewing Company, Alexandria

Pre-Birthday B-Ash

Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever: Marrickville Bowling Club, Marrickville

Reckless + The White Bros: Orient Hotel, The Rocks

Saturday is going to be huge at Bald Faced Stag. Day Of The Dead heads Kallidad will be slinging their flamenco/mariachi/rock/metal mash-up joined by two-piece Th’Fika, who are touring their debut EP Home.

Yellowjackets: The Basement, Sydney

Halcyon Drive: Botany View Hotel, Newtown A Tribute to Prince feat. The Booty Affair: Brass Monkey, Cronulla

Matt Malone + Trappist Afterland: The Front Cafe & Gallery, Lyneham Kuren: The Ivy, Sydney

Cumbiamuffin: Camelot Lounge, Marrickville Spoonbill Daryl Braithwaite + Kate Ceberano + Jon Stevens + John Paul Young: Canberra Theatre, Canberra

Miracle + B Wise + Manu Crook$ + more: Civic Hotel (Underground), Sydney

Brothers3: The Glasshouse, Port Macquarie

Lee Kernaghan: Doyalson RSL (Auditorium), Doyalson Sammy J & Randy: Enmore Theatre, Newtown

Halcyon Drive: Transit Bar, Canberra City

Heaps Gay x Vivid Sydney feat.

Collarbones + The Blow Waves + Yo! M.A.F.I.A + HTML Flowers + Simo Soo + Dweeb City + more: Factory Theatre, Marrickville

Acoustic Delights with Various Artists: Valve Bar (Basement), Ultimo

Glenn Esmond: Fortune of War Hotel, The Rocks Dead Marines: Gasoline Pony, Marrickville Urban Guerillas: Hamilton Station Hotel, Islington

46 • THE MUSIC • 8TH JUNE 2016

AMBON feat. Lloyd Swanton + more: Street Theatre, Canberra

See You Sunday with Various DJs: Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Beach

Abbalanche - The Australian ABBA Tribute Show: The Cube, Campbelltown

GANGgajang + Spy V Spy + Urban Guerillas: Towradgi Beach Hotel, Towradgi

We Come Out At Night feat. Justice For The Damned + Semper Fi + Honest Crooks + Trojan + Like Royals + Diamond Construct + Divinate: Scary Canary, Sydney

Armin Van Buuren: Sydney Showgrounds (Exhibition Halls), Sydney Olympic Park

Dom Dolla + Torren Foot + Coda: Chinese Laundry, Sydney

Pacha feat. Drezo: The Ivy, Sydney

Bill Kacir: Rocks Brewing Company, Alexandria

Sun 12

Full Throttle: The Beach Hotel, Merewether

Hostile Objects + Chinese Burns Unit + Dark Horse + Society’s Chain: The Hideaway Bar, Enmore

Perisher Peak Festival feat. Remi + OKA + Allensworth + The Protesters + Matiu Te Huki + Benny D Williams + Taylor + A French Butler Called Smith + The Button Collective + Azadoota + Felicity Lawless + The Morrisons + The Settlement + more: Perisher Valley, Perisher Valley

All Squak Melbourne artist Spoonbill is launching his latest EP Squakus at Manning Bar this Friday with two sets, one uptempo and one down. New Zealand producer Grouch, will play support with dub, hip hop and drum’n’bass.

Gigs / Live The Guide

Blue Groove: The Merton Hotel, Rozelle

Finn + Friends: Town Hall Hotel, Newtown

Ted Nash: The Mill Hotel, Milperra

Ash Grunwald + Claude Hay: Towradgi Beach Hotel (Waves), Towradgi

Thando + Josue + Imogen Spong: The Oxford Circus, Darlinghurst

The Cyril B Bunter Band: Towradgi Beach Hotel (Sports Bar), Towradgi

Borneo: The Record Crate, Glebe Air Supply: The Star Event Centre, Pyrmont

Raised As Wolves: Transit Bar, Canberra City Drain Life + Disintergrator + Frame 313 + Pizza Gut + Head In A Jar: Valve Bar (Basement), Ultimo

Father Dude

The Monday Jam with Various Artists: The Basement, Sydney

Songs On Stage feat. Stuart Jammin: Kellys on King, Newtown Swiftly Taylor: Mounties, Mt Pritchard

Tue 14

Bandview Sessions feat. Lucas Hendriks: Bald Faced Stag, Leichhardt

Co-Pilot: Orient Hotel, The Rocks

Open Mic Night with Champagne Jam: Dundas Sports Club, Dundas

Street Jam with Various Artists: Play Bar, Surry Hills

Songs On Stage feat. Ingrid Mae: Gladstone Hotel, Dulwich Hill

Bands On Stage feat. Russell Neal: Ruby L’Otel, Rozelle

Steve Edmonds Band: Wickham Park Hotel, Islington

Mon 13 Songs On Stage feat. Russell Neal + Kenneth D’Aran: Kellys on King, Newtown John Maddox Duo: Mr Falcon’s, Glebe Skinpin: Newtown Social Club, Newtown

Twin Tunes

Rob Henry: Orient Hotel, The Rocks

Kickstart the Queen’s Birthday a little early with Sosueme this Wednesday at Beach Road Hotel. Twinsy (Yacht Club DJs), Canberra’s Amastro and Delta Riggs DJs will perform with USA’s Father Dude.

Perisher Peak Festival feat. Allensworth + The Protesters + Enda Kenny + Taylor + The Humphreys + Benny D Williams + more: Perisher Valley, Perisher Valley Karaoke: Rock Lily, Pyrmont Vivid LIVE presents Wayne Shorter Quartet: Sydney Opera House, Sydney

Live & Originals feat. Kay Camargo + Rod Crundwell + Harry Heart: Mr Falcon’s, Glebe

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THE MUSIC 8TH JUNE 2016 • 47

48 • THE MUSIC • 8TH JUNE 2016