The Music (Sydney) Issue #211

18.10.17

Issue

Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture

211

Sydney / Free / Incorporating

T H E B A N D T H AT ’S G OT ALL OF SYDNEY BUZZING

TOUR: THE CLOUDS

TOUR: DIANA ANAID

TOUR: MONO

2 • THE MUSIC • 18TH OCTOBER 2017

THE MUSIC • 18TH OCTOBER 2017 • 3

VOTE

YES The Music Supports LGBTQ musicians and their right to equal dignity.

4 • THE MUSIC • 18TH OCTOBER 2017

6 OCT

THE HARD ACHES + GHOST WAVE BASEMENT

THU 19TH 8PM

BASEMENT

FRI 20TH 8PM

ROCK ON AT VALVE WITH

BASEMENT

“BROKEN HANDS”

SUPPORTED BY “JOSH SHIPTON & THE BLUE EYED RAVENS” , “TOADVINE” DEAF TO ALL BUT METAL PRESENTS:

2 YEAR ANNIVERSARY (HIATUS GONNA HATE)

FEAT: “PANIK” , “TERRORENTIAL” , “CHILDREN OF PERDITION” , “:SNÖW LEOPARD”, “CRUCIFORM” , “HEAD IN A JAR” LEVEL ONE

FRI 20TH 10PM

SAT 21ST 4PM

FUCKFEST, LOOSE MAGGOT MOUNTAIN WARM UP PARTY

WITH EVOLVE, DECIDE TODAY, TRAMSTEIN, ATHORATAXIS, NOISETRUCKT, HEDONIST, TEN THOUSAND FREE MEN & THEIR FAMILIES, EVILZ & SICK CIRCUIT

LEVEL ONE

SAT 21ST 10PM

BASEMENT

SUN 22ND 5PM

DEAF TO ALL BUT METAL PRESENTS:

13 OCT

2 YEAR ANNIVERSARY (HIATUS GONNA HATE)

FEAT: “BY THE HORNS” , “SARCOPHAGUTS” , “BLACK MOUNTAIN” , “CORROTED”, “REAPER”, “FENRIR”, “HORRISONOUS”, “ENFILED” , “REBEL WIZARD” , “REAVER” STICKY SOUNDS PRESENTS:

IGNITE, UK GARAGE AND HOUSE PARTY WITH LAD B2B JIMMY RAY, BASSONE, STICKY SOUNDS

“MAPLE MOTHS” PRESENTS

GARAGE ROCK SHOW

WITH SUPPORT FROM “SPACE CARBONARA”, “THE BLEEDING GUMS” , “MOUNT ZAMIA”

+ FLOWERTRUCK 20 OCT

DRUNK MUMS + KING COLOUR 27 OCT

FOOD COURT

+ DANDE & THE LION

LOCAL ROCK ‘N ROLL, FOLK & INDIE POP ROCK ACTS

COMING UP

LIVE & LOUD EVERY FRIDAY NIGHT AT SELINA’S FROM 8PM

Thu 26 Oct: 8pm Basement: Garage Rock Show with “The Malts” and many special guests; Fri 27 Oct: 8pm Basement: NJE Innocence Lost Single Launch with support from Joseph Gatehau, Untaymable, C Shippy, Point Blank, Onion Man, Embrace MC, Sam.Rap and many more; 10pm Level One: For The Love Of Music: Halloween Spooktacular feat: Technikore, David PSI, JTS, Sc@r, Vendetta 7, Ross Fadre, Havoc, Catzeyez, Neo Noise, Ajay, Telepathy, Kaz, Trireme, Chris Co, OZZO in the epic night of UK Hardcore, Happy Hardcore, Rave Anthems, DnB, Italian Oldschool, Breakbeat Hardcore, Hardcore; Sat 28 Oct: 8pm Basement: BOAB - Halloween Takeover, Take a step into twisted world of BOAB Collective with Aésop, Eclipsical, Ketech, Majahkil, Modlion, Otang, Yantra; 10pm Level One: Atomic In Ocotber, Halloween Edition, 80s New Wave Club with Sydney’s best selection of alternative DJ’s; Sun 29 Oct: 5pm Basement: Howl-O-Ween party with “Howl” , “Jimmy Maddon (Melb), “Tsar Green” , “Turtle Scar”

COOGEEBAYHOTEL.COM.AU

Fabric Release Tour Sat S at 0 04 4N Nov ov //// S Sydney, ydney, M Manning anning B Bar ar Sun 5th Nov Long Hotel S un 5 th N ov // // Long Long JJetty, ett ttyy, L ong JJetty ett ttyy H otel Tickets T ickets ffrom rom w www.oztix.com.au ww.oztix.com.au

New N ew Album A lbum

FABRIC F ABRIC

O Out ut Now N ow THE MUSIC • 18TH OCTOBER 2017 • 5

Lifestyle Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture

Grouplove

Groupdy Group

In addition to headlining Mountain Sounds and Party in the Paddock, Cali indie-poppers Grouplove have announced a three-date east coast tour. They’ll be kicking about in February.

BF F No Indie-pop maestro Bec Sandridge has released a powerful new single, I’ll Never Want A BF, and confirmed a run of Australian headline dates in support. Kick off is November.

Bec Sandridge. Pic: Giuliua McGauran

Angus & Julia Stone

Snowed In After wrapping up a sold out run of the country, Angus & Julia Stone have announced of a new set of headline gigs in 2018. The duo will head back out next April and May with latest LP, Snow.

6 • THE MUSIC • 18TH OCTOBER 2017

e / Cultu Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture

Credits

Publisher Street Press Australia Pty Ltd

Three For Three

Claudia Sangiorgi Dalimore and Michelle Grace Hunder

Face The Music have a huge third line-up announce, with filmmaker Claudia Sangiorgi Dalimore, photographer Michelle Grace Hunder, Beyond The Valley’s Nick Greco, The Go-Betweens’ Lindy Morrison and more joining the already massive summit.

The Bennies

Chill High In the lead up to new album Natural Born Chillers in Feb, The Bennies are taking the first single, Get High Like An Angel, on an epic 13-date tour. Catch them ‘round the country this November and December.

Group Managing Editor Andrew Mast

National Editor – Magazines Mark Neilsen Arts & Culture Editor Maxim Boon

Gig Guide gigs@themusic.com.au Contributing Editor Bryget Chrisfield

Editorial Assistant Sam Wall, Jessica Dale

Contributors Anthony Carew, Ben Nicol, Brendan Crabb, Carley Hall, Chris Familton, Daniel Cribb, Chris Maric, Christopher H James, Cyclone, Daniel Cribb, Dave Drayton, Dylan Stewart, Guido Farnell, Guy Davis, James d’Apice, Liz Guiffre, Mac McNaughton, Mark Hebblewhite, Matt MacMaster, Matt O’Neill, Melissa Borg, Mitch Knox, Neil Griffiths, Mick Radojkovic, Rip Nicholson, Rod Whitfield, Ross Clelland, Sam Baran, Samantha Jonscher, Sara Tamim, Sarah Petchell, Shaun Colnan, Steve Bell, Tanya Bonnie Rae, Tim Finney, Uppy Chatterjee Photographers Angela Padovan, Cole Bennetts, Clare Hawley, Jodie Downie, Josh Groom, Hayden Nixon, Kane Hibberd, Munya Chawora, Pete Dovgan, Peter Sharp, Rohan Anderson, Simone Fisher

Waitress: Horseradish?

Me: I prefer my horses to be full on rad.

Advertising Dept Brad Edwards sales@themusic.com.au Art Dept Ben Nicol, Felicity Case-Mejia Admin & Accounts Ajaz Durrani, Meg Burnham, Bella Bi accounts@themusic.com.au Distro distro@themusic.com.au Subscriptions store@themusic.com.au Contact Us Suite 42, 89-97 Jones St Ultimo Phone: (02) 9331 7077

@LosLos

Dances With Wolfe

info@themusic.com.au www.themusic.com.au

— Sydney

Chelsea Wolfe is headed back to Australia for her first full tour since 2012 with recent album Hiss. She’ll bring her unique mix of gothic-rock, folk and doom metal Down Under in March.

Chelsea Wolfe

theMusic.com.au: breaking news, up-to-the-minute reviews and streaming new releases THE MUSIC • 18TH OCTOBER 2017 • 7

Music / Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture

Live Art

From 19 - 29 Oct Liveworks Festival Of Experimental Art is back at Carriageworks, a one of a kind multidisciplinary arts program featuring acclaimed experimental artists working at the bleeding edge of their art forms. This year’s event includes three world premieres.

Marrickchill

Aeon by Lz Dunn, featured at Liveworks.

Pic: Bryony Jackson

Marrickville Festival kicks off along along Marrickville and Illawarra Roads this Sunday.

Head along and celebrate the inner west’s diverse and vibrant culture with food, entertainment and tunes, including acts like Timberwolf and George Washingmachine.

In Awe by Rebecca Rose. Pic: G Carr Sculpture By The Sea 2016

Grand Castles Sculpture By The Sea - the world’s largest annual, free-to-the-public, outdoor sculpture exhibition launches this Thursday.

Head down to the Bondi to Tamarama walk to see some the installations from some of Australia’s best artists.

8 The number of ARIA Award nominations received by Gang Of Youths, the most by any artist this year. And they’ve already picked up one win for Producer Of The Year so far.

8 • THE MUSIC • 18TH OCTOBER 2017

Sick Urn Good news prog metal fans, Ne Obliviscaris are not only back with their upcoming new album Urn, but have announced a national tour in February to support its release.

Ne Obliviscaris

Arts / Li Music / Arts / Lifestyle / Culture

Hits With Kick

INXS Kick

Marrickville Festival

Frontlash Thor: Ragnarock

We managed to attend a special preview screening of the new film and director Taika Waititi has produced an action comedy tour de force.

INXS’ legendary album Kick is coming to Event Cinemas George Street with the world premiere Dolby Atmos INXS Kick Audio Experience.

Mixed by two time Grammy Award winning producer Giles Martin, who will feature in a Q&A with INXS’ Andrew Farris, the immersive experience is 24 Oct.

Pre-Thor

And the pre-show entertainment at the Thor: Ragnarock screening was also a hoot, with Waititi and stars Chris Hemsworth and Mark Ruffalo riffing off each other to have the crowd in stiches before the film even began.

Raimbow Chan

Bring Back The Night

Darlo’s Open Keep Sydney Open are putting on Meet Me In Darlo this Saturday, 12 hours of party with 20 venues and 35 artists. Catch Rainbow Chan, House Of Mince, Alexander Biggs, Mesmeriser, Lakyn and more.

Thor: Ragnarock

Lashes

The City Of Sydney’s discussion paper An Open And Creative City has a whole lot of interesting proposals to give Sydney’s nightlife a boost.

Backlash

Crying Over Spilt Milk

A planned pill testing trial at Spilt Milk Festival has been ditched, allegedly due to pressure put on the promoter.

Lost Picnic

Seems like this festival lost its way, with massive queues for just about everything leading to angry reactions on social media.

Travelin’ Blues The first lot of Bluesfest sideshows have dropped with Robert Plant And The Sensational Space Shifters, The New Power Generation, Morcheeba, First Aid Kit and Gov’t Mule all announcing their own gigs in March and April.

Harvey Weinstein

It seems like every day new allegations are coming to light about sexual harassment and assault from the Hollywood producer, even reaching all the way here with Australian actress Natalie Mendoza accusing him of assault.

Morcheeba

THE MUSIC • 18TH OCTOBER 2017 • 9

Music

‘C O R E ST R E N GT H Polaris have been going from strength to strength, but drummer Daniel Furnari tells Rod Whitfield they’re not nearly done yet.

S

ydney-based metalcore/post-hardcore outfit Polaris are very much a band in demand. In fact, while their career has been super-busy so far, having released an EP early in 2016 and toured with the likes of Parkway Drive, Periphery, Plini and Northlane, the release of their recent single The Remedy and the imminent unleashing of their debut long-

player The Mortal Coil will see them becoming head-spinningly busy. Just for starters, the band have a major tour of the nation coming up in support of said recent single, on which they are bringing three other up-and-coming luminaries of the Aussie heavy music scene: Belle Haven, Deadlights and Daybreak.

“It’s been a little over a year since we did our own headline tour,” drummer Daniel Furnari reveals. “We’ve just done a handful of headline 10 • THE MUSIC • 18TH OCTOBER 2017

shows over the last nine months or so, just in Sydney and Melbourne, spaced out a little bit, and some club shows and stuff like that, so to get out and do a real run and take a bunch of friends on the road with us and really build a tour package is something we’re psyched about.”

Then the band members won’t have time to spit before they jet off to the other side of the planet for a blistering run across Europe and the UK with the likes of Emmure, fellow Aussies Deez Nuts, Chelsea Grin and plenty more. “As soon as we finish this tour, The Remedy tour, we fly out to Europe two days later, so we’ve got no time to pack!” he states breathlessly.

“It’s the Never Say Die! tour in Europe, which is going to be wild.”

“It doesn’t even really feel real yet. It’s in like a week or two and it’s barely dawned on me that it’s actually happening.”

Polaris also have the ‘trifling’ matter of releasing their debut album and everything that goes along with that to contend with. “We’ve been so focused on what’s happening here, we’re filming a music video tomorrow, and there’s so much happening to get the record ready,” the drummer says, “and then it’s like there’s this huge trip happening, it’s awesome to have that waiting for us.

“So it’s a lot to take in. We didn’t really expect to — I mean, we always hoped that we might get over to Europe on our first album cycle; we thought it would be a huge deal if we

It is the band’s first true foray into a major foreign market. “We’re used to Australian touring, where you play six to ten shows, and they’re a bit spread out,” Furnari admits. “This one’s something like 26 shows in 25 days or something like that. We’re doing it on a shared tour bus, which is going to be really fun; like a childhood dream to fly to Europe and jump on a bus.

could do that. A lot of bands don’t even leave Australia on a first album, but the first tour for us with the album out is over there so that’s wild for us.”

The style of music that Polaris play, and the scene in which they operate both in Australia and internationally, is in a very strong place and has been for several years now. While Polaris are a great band who write excellent songs and put on an exhilarating live show, the

off the list, people are like, ‘You guys must be so stoked, this must be everything you had hoped for.’ But by the time it’s happened I’ll be saying, ‘Yeah, sick, but I’m actually thinking about the next thing now.’

“Our main goal is to get to the stage where we can be touring the majority of the year and to try to do this full time. It’s hard and it’s going to take a while, but that’s the main goal.”

Any parting words for The Music readers?

“Yeah, buy our album, please! And thank you.”

What: The Mortal Coil (Resist) When & Where: 26 Oct, Oxford Art Factory

Every single one of them was like, ‘Australian hardcore bands, every single one of them seems to be amazing, what’s going on?’ prevailing feeling is that the strength of their scene has been a driving force in building the great momentum they find themselves with right now.

“It’s really funny, I hear so many people talking about the state of the scene today, the scene is dying and this and that, but I’m sitting here and I think the scene is fucking great! In many ways it’s never been stronger,” Furnari says with fervour. “You’ve got to look on it on different levels. On the local level, it is maybe struggling a little bit because of the lack of venues and the way the demographic has changed. Back in the day everyone at the local public school was coming down to local hardcore shows, but nowadays it’s way less popular in high schools; it’s not such a movement as it was when we got into it. So for local bands and new bands things may not be going as well as they could be, but, from another angle, the exposure that Australian hardcore music is getting globally is huge.”

He believes that the reputation and aura of Australian hardcore bands have spread exponentially across the globe in recent times.

“We’ve just done a bunch of interviews with European and international publications, and every single one of them was like, ‘Australian hardcore bands, every single one of them seems to be amazing, what’s going on?’ It’s

really getting recognised, that was a thought that was repeated to me so many times.”

Furnari also singles out a particular band that has really paved the way for other Aussie bands in this scene, including his own, to push themselves in their home country and get touring on a global scale. “The recognition overseas that a band like Parkway Drive have received — they’ve really been dominating the overseas markets and getting to the level over there that they were here, is really helping everybody.”

And things are not letting up for Polaris in the new year either, quite the opposite. They are playing a run of dates with Parkway Drive across January for the ten-year anniversary of Horizons as well performing at what has become one of Australia’s most prestigious music festivals. “We go straight to UNIFY, which is going to be amazing,” he says. “We did that one this year and it was one of the best days of our lives, so we’re psyched to do that again.

“Then we’re straight onto the Parkway Horizons tour and that’s going to pretty much smash out our January. Then we’ll do another headline tour of Australia at some point during the year, we want to get to Europe again and maybe see if we can make it over to the US — it really depends on how things go at this stage.

Then of course we’ll start writing again for our next record, so it’s looking like a pretty big year next year.”

Longer term, the band are hungry to continue developing themselves, their sound, their profile and their career. They set goals for themselves on an ongoing basis, ultimately aiming towards one of the most unattainable prizes for young bands: to sustain themselves through their music. Furnari is optimistic that it can be achieved.

“When it comes to goals, it’s a funny thing: every time you hit a goal, another goal appears in front of you,” he laughs. “We’re so grateful for all the things that we’re doing at the moment, but we have some ambitions about where we want to take it. Every time we tick something

P L AY L I S T The Australian post-hardcore scene seems to go from strength to strength. While the likes of Parkway Drive, Northlane and The Amity Affliction have been Australia’s trailblazers for many years now, breaking down barriers and setting an example for all to follow, Polaris drummer Daniel Furnari believes that there is a new undercurrent of bands stepping up to the plate right now, and he is more than happy to point them out to us.

“I’d have to start by dropping the names of the bands who are on our tour that’s coming up, which would be Belle Haven, Deadlights and Daybreak,” he says. “All great bands and awesome guys, and all have put out great releases lately. They’re all doing very different things than each other but it’s all just awesome music. Then there’s The Wolves, Justice For The Damned, Ambleside — they’re all among my favourite bands on the local scene. I have to mention, I love Ocean Grove, those guys are awesome as well and great friends of ours.”

THE MUSIC • 18TH OCTOBER 2017 • 11

A message for our readers “ The times, they are a-changing” – Bob Dylan

So we’re changing with them.

For more than two and half decades, the team at The Music has been proudly producing Australia’s best weekly free-to-street entertainment title. Our industry-leading gig guide has been the go-to in-print resource for live music lovers in Australia since the ‘90s, and our interviews and reviews have had their finger firmly on the pulse of the nation’s entertainment scene, tapping the brightest talents, most exciting discoveries and biggest international acts, week in, week out, year after year.

But we’ve also kept pace with the way the media landscape has evolved in recent years to make sure we deliver the very best content for our discerning readers (that’s you!). We make small tweaks to our content to improve the reader experience all the time, but every now and then, only a bloody big shake-up will do, and The Music is stoked to be announcing one of the biggest shake-ups in our magazine’s history.

So, what you hold in your hands now is our last weekly edition and as of November 2017, The Music will be producing a new-look, glossy monthly, still free-to-street, but with improved design, larger page size and bigger, better reads. We’ll be improving the way we’re distributed so it’ll be easier than ever to get your hands on your copy, and we’ll also be unveiling a new-look website, featuring Australia’s most comprehensive and up-to-the-minute national gig guide, more video and audio content, plus all the news and features that have made theMusic.com.au the third most read music site in the country, as per Neilsen Auditing, 16 Oct 2017.

Keep ‘em peeled for the first of our new-look editions, which hits the streets in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane in early November.

130 ENMORE RD ENMORE

ENMORETHEATRE.COM.AU

BOX OFFICE 9550 3666

624 george st sydney metrotheatre.com.au box office 9550 3666

THE ANGELS

DEEPER THAN HOUSE: CARNIVAL

FRI 20 OCT

THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN

SAT 21 OCT

THE DOLLOP LIVE

LESS THAN JAKE

WED 25 OCTOBER

+ Bodyjar

WED 25 OCT

NORTHLANE

KINGSWOOD

FRI 27 OCT

HALLOWEEN WH*RES

SAT 28 OCT

+ Diesel + Mi-Sex

FRI 20 OCTOBER

BONEY M

UT! DO SOL

+ Brooklyn’s Finest

SAT 21 OCTOBER

+ ERRA + Sworn In + Easy Life

+ The Vanns + Dear Seattle

FRI 27 OCTOBER

THE BOOTLEG BEATLES SAT 28 OCTOBER

COMING SOON PENNYWISE • VARIETY ROCKS • WILLIAM SINGE GUY SEBASTIAN • MISS POLE DANCE AUSTRALIA • RONNY CHENG

FACTORYTHEATRE .COM.AU

105 VICTORIA RD, MARRICKVILLE

SON VOLT

+ JASON WALKER + FALLON CRUSH

LAMBCHOP (USA)

+ ANTIONIA SUSAN + JACK REILLY

JIM LAWRIE + ROBERT MUINOS

FRI 20 OCT

KIM CHURCHILL + AYLA + TAJ RALPH

FRI 20 OCT

DOWNTOWN FOLK FESTIVAL

SAT 21 OCT

+ HOLLOW COVES + GARRETT KATO + MORE!

UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY, CAMPERDOWN

COMING SOON PAINTERS & DOCKERS • OKTOBERWEST • CHRIS D’ELIA HALLOWEEN CARNEVIL OF THE DEAD • OSAKA PUNCH • HEARTSOUNDS

MANNINGBAR.COM

HAVANA MEETS KINGSTON

WED 18 OCT

THU 19 OCT

+ MARK HARDING

COMING SOON HALLOWEEN WH*ORES SHOCKONE • ZEDS DEAD WINSTON SURFSHIRT • OCEAN COLOUR SCENE ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT THE TEMPER TRAP • CASHMERE CAT • MIKE PORTNOY’S SHATTERED FORTRESS

FRI 20 OCT

FORMATIONS

FT. SWINDAIL + MAZDE (GER) + MORE!

SAT 21 OCT

HVE - RESURRECTION FT. ALPHA2 + KRONOS

FRI 3 NOV

THE BLACK SEEDS SAT 4 NOV

MONO (JPN) THU 9 NOV COMING SOON GZA • OXIA • SOMETHING FOR KATE FABIO & GROOVERIDER • MARKY RAMONE • THE CORONAS

SYDNEY'S PREMIER INTERNATIONAL COMEDY CLUB SINCE 1981 | EQ @ MOORE PARK ORLD FAMOU EW S TH

SHO WCASE

COMEDYSTORE.COM.AU

WORLD FAMOUS COMEDY SHOWCASE

12 OCT - 4 NOV, 8:30PM

STAND UP FOR HOMELESS YOUTH

WED 25 OCT

DAVE ANTHONY AND GARETH REYNOLDS

FRI 27 OCT

COMING SOON SHANE MAUSS IVAN ARISTEGUIETA

THE MUSIC • 18TH OCTOBER 2017 • 13

Music

Collaboration Facilitation Mista Savona facilitated a major collaboration between musicians from Cuba and Jamaica’for film/album Havana Meets Kingston. He tells Cyclone how he brought it all together.

M

elbourne keyboardist, producer and DJ Mista (Jake) Savona is making history. He’s the facilitator of Havana Meets Kingston — the first major collaboration between musicians from the islands of Cuba and Jamaica. Savona has a long relationship with Jamaica’s reggae scene. In 2007 he released the landmark Melbourne Meets Kingston via Elefant Traks. Savona has also collaborated with Sizzla. Not unreasonably, he proclaims himself “Australia’s leading reggae and dancehall producer”.

“I’ve been going to Jamaica since 2004,” Savona says, from his current Byron Bay base. “I go every year, every two years, to work on music projects there. My first trip to Cuba

I got there and fell in love with the music and the culture and realised how different it is, but also there’s a lot [they have] in common.

actually happened in 2013, because a friend had just come back from Cuba and I saw his photos and I was like, ‘Oh, wow! I have to get there’. I looked on a map and I couldn’t believe [Jamaica and Cuba] were right next door to each other. I was thinking, ‘I’m crazy, I haven’t been before’. So, in 2013, I organised a ten-day trip to Cuba from Kingston.

Of course, I got there and fell in love with the music and the culture and realised how different it is, but also there’s a lot [they have] in common. That was where the idea for the project was born.”

When researching, Savona was surprised to uncover no significant undertaking of musical cross-exchange.

Conceiving Havana Meets Kingston, the producer initially

14 • THE MUSIC • 18TH OCTOBER 2017

flew Jamaican musicians into Cuba to record with their local counterparts over ten days in 2015 at Havana’s EGREM Studios. Savona’s huge cast includes legendary Jamaican rhythm unit Sly & Robbie and Buena Vista Social Club players Rolando Luna and Barbarito Torres.

In fact, Savona had previously liaised with Lowell “Sly” Dunbar. “I think it was 2013, I did my first recording at Tuff Gong — which is Bob Marley’s studio. Sly was available, so I got him on drums. We had a great time. He loved my keyboard-playing. So that was a great way to meet him.” And Dunbar was one of the first people Savona approached for Havana Meets Kingston — the drummer then suggesting his cohort Robert “Robbie” Shakespeare.

“They’re very different personalities. Sly is super-mellow, very chilled-out. Robbie’s got more of a gangster vibe — he knows what he wants, he knows what he needs.” Curiously, the Caribbean contingent was unfazed that an Australian should be orchestrating Havana Meets Kingston. “They’re used to many people coming in that love the music and wanting to be part of the music or working with them,” Savona says.

To finance Havana Meets Kingston, Savona secured an Australia Council grant, while launching a Kickstarter campaign to cover a film crew. The album will be issued in two volumes, the first out in November and the other “later next year”, coinciding with a documentary. As such, Havana Meets Kingston ingeniously fuses Jamaica’s sound system styles (roots-reggae, dub and dancehall) with Cuban folk and jazz (son, salsa, rumba and Afro). There are both original and traditional songs. The lead single, Carnival, featuring Cuba’s Solis and the British-Jamaican Randy Valentine as vocalists, generated heat back in February.

Communist Cuba occupies a peculiar place in the Western imagination, being alternately vilified or romanticised. Savona praises Cuba’s coordinated response to the monster Hurricane Irma that minimised casualties.

“The Cuban government is very efficient and very organised when it comes to this stuff, way more than many of the other Caribbean islands. So I think they all evacuated almost a million people from the north coast of Cuba where the hurricane was hitting it.” Still, though, Cubans are proud; Savona acknowledges their “frustrations”. “Internet access is very difficult and very restricted — and they’re the kind of freedoms that Cubans really crave.”

Havana Meets Kingston is auspicious for another reason. Diplo’s Major Lazer has popularised Caribbean hyper-hybridisation. “With Major Lazer, it’s an interesting one because about half of what they do I love and about half of it I can’t stand,” Savona says candidly. “Diplo’s certainly become a tastemaker. But some of what he does is brilliant and honestly some is terrible. I actually bumped into him at [the US festival] Burning Man three weeks ago!

We had a bit of a chat in the morning after an allnighter. It was very interesting to see him in that environment. I have a lot of respect for him.”

This month Savona will tour with Valentine and Solis as Havana Meets Kingston Sound System. “No one’s done something like this before — having a live DJ set with a Cuban and a Jamaican singer. So it’s gonna be really electric and very, very unique. I’m excited to present it.”

What: Havana Meets Kingston (ABC/Universal) When & Where: 20 Oct, Manning Bar

THE MUSIC • 18TH OCTOBER 2017 • 15

Music

Down The Road From their beginnings almost 20 years ago, Japanese post-rock instrumental titans Mono are one of the hardest working bands in music, as Rod Whitfield discovers during a chat with guitarist Takaakira Goto.

“W

e’ve done nine original albums and one CD live with the orchestra,” Takaakira ‘Taka’ Goto confirms of Mono’s output, “we’re going to have our twentieth anniversary in 2019, in two years. We have a plan to release the tenth album then, so it’ll be 10 albums in 20 years.

“We also do 150 shows a year, so between all the tours I have to write the songs.”

That said, they were recently able to make some modifications to their tour bus which has enabled him to spend some of the downtime on tour actually writing

We couldn’t speak English, we didn’t know anything about America, a couple of members didn’t even have a passport!

music. “We have made a small separate room in the bus, up the back, and I have been able to use that room as a studio,” he says.

There are actually many quite astounding things about this band’s career when you examine it closely.

They are a Japanese band, creating instrumental music that is about as far from the mainstream as can be imagined, who are almost two decades and nine albums into a career with the same personnel as when they started. Taka is justifiably proud of his band’s achievements when asked to reflect upon it all.

“Fortunately we are continuing the band with the same members. This is one of the most appreciated things for me because I formed the band, I met the 16 • THE MUSIC • 18TH OCTOBER 2017

guys and we started touring the States in a van. We couldn’t speak English, we didn’t know anything about America, a couple of members didn’t even have a passport!” He laughs.

“It was a real adventure, we didn’t have a tour manager, we didn’t have a driver, it was just us all helping each other. We’ve all seen the same experiences and it just keeps making us and our relationships stronger and stronger.”

So is that the secret to keeping it together for so long, and with the same lineup? “Yep, having the same experiences, and not having any secrets, just helping each other out as friends and as a family,” Taka says, “I have to say, we are like a family, we spend 200 days per year together. We love it, it’s awesome.”

And as far as their ‘other’ families are concerned, the people in their lives who don’t write songs and go out on the road with them, it helps enormously having very understanding people in their lives who fully support their endeavours. “They realised early that this is our life,” he says, “we are very serious about making our art, and about travelling in the world and meeting people from different countries.

“They are always very curious when we get back, they want us to share the experiences we’ve had with other peoples.”

Australia has been one of the most regular destinations for the band over the years, and early November sees them returning once again to astound local punters with their monumental instrumental explorations. “We are absolutely excited to visit again,” he enthuses, “this will be seven times, I think! The crowds there are so intense, and we love to visit again, it’s so exciting.”

The band’s last album, Requiem For Hell, came out late last year to almost universal praise. While they attempt to cover both new and old music in their live set, several factors make writing a Mono setlist rather problematic. “We try hard to combine both old and new, to make the live set one long trip, one movie,” he states, “we have s so many songs, sometimes it’s hard to choose. And also, one o song is usually pretty long.

“S “Some fans have very specific tastes, specific old memo memories, but you can’t please everyone all the time. We do our ou best.”

18 years down the line, Taka still sees a very long and fruitfu fruitful future ahead for the band and says that he wants to continue exploring the orchestral and symphonic stylings that the band has always brought to their music.

“Yes, we are still going strong,” he states confidently, “I listen mostly to soundtrack music, and we want to bring that to the basic four-piece rock band, I always want to get that symphonic sound. I always want to combine the two and make the best original and intense music we can.”

With some parting words for his Australian fans leading up to the tour, Taka states “I just want to say that life is hard, it is very hard to survive.” He says, “we just want to bring some light to shine through the darkness.”

When & Where: 9 Nov, Manning Bar

Music

Astro Girl Despite Alex The Astronaut’s spacey moniker, Alex Lynn has her feet firmly planted on the ground. Jessica Dale finds out what she’s been up to.

W

hen we catch up, Alex Lynn (aka Alex The Astronaut) is fresh off a trip to Europe and just days out from the release of her latest EP, See You Soon.

“I’m excited to have it out,” shares Lynn of her latest work. “I mean, I wrote the songs a little while ago. Some of them I wrote when I was about 18; two of them, Reflector and New York - oh, New York was a little bit later. And then the other two are really new. It’s kind of interesting to have them together and to see how my style has changed.”

Lynn’s voice isn’t the only one that appears on the EP. Tune into the second track, Reflector, and you’ll be welcomed by the voice of Lynn’s grandmother. “I think I wrote it when I was 18 or 19 or 20-ish and it’s about thinking you would know everything by the time you turned that age.

And then getting there and being like, ‘Holy shit, I know nothing’,” Lynn laughs. “I wanted to interview grandma to see if that’s the experience she had, if she still feels that way or what. I guess we included the bits where she was talking about when she was younger.”

This year has offered a mass of opportunities for Lynn, particularly in the form of a recommendation from Elton John during his Beats 1 radio show and through the huge success of her song Not Worth Hiding. “It’s just crazy! I’ve had so much fun. I got to play a festival in Germany, which was just so cool, and it was really interesting playing Not Worth Hiding in Germany. And I played a show in London supporting Lisa Mitchell as well. The reaction is always the biggest for Not Worth Hiding out of all the songs I play.

“I think that because it’s such a personal song, even if you don’t know me as an artist, the audiences are kind of able to relate to it or something or they appreciate

My favourite kind of thing at the moment is I get to pick supports to go on tour with me.

the honesty, I guess. They were so supportive in both the cities and I had people that... I had this one boy who was German who came up to me and was just so eloquent in how he spoke, and [was] just talking about how it was good that I wrote it and how, across the world, he heard the message and everything. And I was like, ‘Oh, my god! That’s madness!’ It’s really cool.”

Lynn’s starting her See You Soon EP tour this week, kicking off in Brisbane before wrapping all the way ‘round to Perth. “I’m excited, yeah,” she enthuses. “My favourite kind of thing at the moment is I get to pick supports to go on tour with me, like, I get to kind of help other artists. Because up to this point I’ve only done support tours. That was such a good experience for me and it’s so good as a performer to go and play to an audience who maybe don’t know you and connect with people like that. So I get to pick some artists to come out and hang out with me and that’s really cool.”

What: See You Soon (Minkowski Records) When & Where: 26 Oct, Lansdowne Hotel; 27 Oct, Uni Bar, Wollongong; 18 Nov, The Plot, Parramatta; 28 Nov, Grow Your Own, Tuncurry; 28 Dec, Lost Paradise, Glenworth Valley

THE MUSIC • 18TH OCTOBER 2017 • 17

Music

Forever Drifting Revered indie rockers The Clouds are back with a stirring new single, Beautiful Nothingness. Jodi Phillis tells Steve Bell about their pressing collective need to move forward.

S

ydney outfit The Clouds were a key component of the alt-rock boom that shook Australia in the early ‘90s, building a strong following with their infectious mix of hazy psych and rough-hewn rock’n’roll.

Based around the undeniable chemistry between founding members and songwriters Jodi Phillis (guitar/ vocals) and Trish Young (bass/vocals), The Clouds released four strong albums and a raft of singles and EPs — becoming a mainstay of the national scene and even making decent inroads overseas — before sadly pulling up stumps in 1997.

There’s nothing more abhorrent to us [than] to be seen as a nostalgic band who just come out and play the old favourites.

To many, The Clouds were the epitome of unfulfilled potential; never quite scaling the lofty industry heights they were so clearly capable of, but sometimes leaving behind a strong body of music is more than enough.

Inevitably back in 2011 The Clouds returned for some reunion shows, but this year they upped the ante considerably with the release of the Zaffre EP — their first new music in some 20 years — which they’ve just followed up with buoyant new single Beautiful Nothingness, a track more upbeat and joyous than anything they emitted even in their heyday.

“There’s nothing more abhorrent to us [than] to just be seen as a nostalgic band who just come out and play the old favourites,” Phillis smiles. “I wish we could say the old hits, but we didn’t really have any hits,

18 • THE MUSIC • 18TH OCTOBER 2017

unfortunately — Triple M doesn’t play any of our songs every hour on the hour. But with people who came to our shows, we certainly have a bunch of favourite songs that we could just keep going out and churning through over and over, but that would be the death of us as a band.

New music it is. “[Beautiful Nothingness] is very happy and very poppy. I don’t think we’ve done anything like this before.

It’s just how it panned out, it’s a natural thing. Nothing is ever that conscious with us, really. Obviously we’ve all grown and gone in separate directions, but when we’re together and make music it just is The Clouds, that’s all there is to it and we don’t have to think about it.”

Phillis is quick to admit that the innate bond she shares with Young is a major feature of The Clouds’ aesthetic. “That’s just a freaky, weird thing,” she chuckles.

‘We didn’t know each other before the band, we weren’t friends or anything and didn’t mix in the same circles — we were just kind of introduced by Peter Oxley of the Sunnyboys. I worked at Mambo Graphics in Alexandria and Trish’s boyfriend worked there as well, and we got introduced because Peter knew I was looking to start a band and was looking for a bass player, and just from that first moment I think we just kind of impressed each other with our songs.

“It was just very easy musically and very natural, and we both kind of propelled each other to do better and better. There was competition as well for years, when you’re younger just being in a band together is like four people in a marriage basically, and all that was really hard. But we’ve come through and now Trish and I are like sisters — we’re just very well matched and we understand each other, and we can go really fast. We can move really fast with our ideas and understand each other very easily.”

In their initial tenure The Clouds seemed always on the move — constantly touring or working on a new release — and Phillis admits that they were very ambitious on the creative front. “I’m an ambitious person, not for the fame and fortune thing but I just can’t stay still,” she reflects. “I need to feel that I’m moving forward or progressing or growing, it’s just how I am. And Trish is the same, musically, although she’s not as driven as I am — it’s just in my nature, I can’t help it and have kind of come to accept it. So I wouldn’t say we were ambitious in terms of trying to take over the world, but I’d say that we were really ambitious creatively.

“And that is something we all bond with — we couldn’t be told what to do or how to do it. We got in trouble with our record label because they wanted us to repeat [acclaimed 1991 debut] Penny Century because that was a high selling album and they wanted us to do that again, but that was just the worst, most boring, frustrating thought for us to have to do that. It was, like, ‘Are you kidding me?’ We had to explore new things and that’s what we continue to do.”

When & Where: 3 Nov, UC Refectory, Canberra: 4 & 5 Nov, Factory Theatre

Music

Wanderlust Noire’s Jessica Mincher and Billy James are a long way from Gympie. They tell Anthony Carew how they started with shit songs and ended up in Florence.

“W

e played this

crazy show in Nashville, on this really ‘mixed’ line-up,” recalls Jessica Mincher, vocalist/ keyboardist of Sydney-based dream-pop outfit Noire.

“There was a five-piece country harmony band and they were amazing. Then there was this metal band [that] got up and they were all dressed as dinosaurs, they were actually quite scary.”

Guitarist Billy James explains, “The singer had this crazy, high-pitched voice and was wearing a mask that covered his face. Then the guitarist, at the end of the set, threw his amp off stage. It went from one extreme to the other. And there we were, in the middle.”

“And also,” Mincher continues, “amongst all this, Glen Campbell’s daughter [Ashley] played and she sang this beautiful song about her dad; he couldn’t remember who she was anymore. I was in tears. That show had so many emotions. It was a wild rollercoaster, with such a contrast of people.

And then we had to go on, and we were like, ‘Should we even play? Or just leave?”

For Noire, 2017 has been full of travel. Mincher and James are in Florence as they speak, where they’re in the middle of “part tour, part holiday” playing gigs in Paris and Berlin while travelling around Europe, marvelling at their luck as they, say, travel through the San Bernardino Pass in Switzerland.

Florence is a long way from Gympie, where Mincher and James grew up. Throughout his childhood, James played in his family band, cutting his teeth gigging at a young age. “I played keyboards and drums,” James recounts. “We did covers, some originals, played in pubs.

My dad would definitely say that we were ‘70s rock’n’rollstyled.”

Neither found the local musical community particularly inspiring. “There was a hardcore scene, but those were the only gigs you could go to unless you

At first, we wrote a lot of songs that were really shit...

But, when we wrote Pilgrims — that was the first song that we really just liked.

wanted to go to the Gympie Music Muster,” Mincher says. So they moved to Sydney. They formed Noire under the influence of emotional, atmospheric music — Jeff Buckley, Band Of Horses, Beach House, Air — and slowly worked at their sound.” At first, we wrote a lot of songs that were really shit,” James says. “But, when we wrote Pilgrims- that was the first song that we really just liked, that we were really proud of.”

In 2015 Noire self-released their first EP, Baby Blue. To begin work on their debut LP, though, they felt they had “to get out of Sydney”, retreating back to Queensland. “We went to this farm in Amamoor, which is close to Noosa,” Mincher offers. “There’s nothing there, except for some cows. There’s no reception, there’s no TV. You can’t really get distracted. We spent two months there, just writing.”

Some Kind Of Blue, the resulting record, officially mints Noire’s moody sound. “We get a lot of ‘hazy’, ‘romantic’, ‘dreamy’,” Mincher says. With its release, the duo are hoping to be able to keep travelling. “It’s so amazing to get to play your music overseas,” Mincher enthuses. “I just love seeing new places, meeting people, hearing stories and telling stories.”

What: Some Kind Of Blue (Spunk) When & Where: 8 Nov, Beach Road Hotel; 23 Nov, Cambridge Hotel, Newcastle; 24 Nov, Transit Bar, Canberra; 26 Nov, North Wollongong Hotel

THE MUSIC • 18TH OCTOBER 2017 • 19

Music

Seedier Than Ever Daniel Weetman, core member of The Black Seeds, tells Cyclone that the NZ outfit have found a new beginning on sixth album, Fabric.

T

he Black Seeds, New Zealand’s most feted dubreggae band, have a surprising Hollywood cool.

Their song One By One was memorably synced for the cult crime drama Breaking Bad. But the collective — led by co-vocalists Daniel Weetman and Barnaby Weir — have continued to make socially conscious island grooves.

Still, the fact that Fabric, their sixth outing, lately rocketed to #3 on the Billboard Reggae Album Chart suggests that Breaking Bad worked for them.

“That was a good step, for sure,” drawls Weetman, from his Auckland base. “It’s quite a long time ago now.

We’ve been back to the States quite a few times. I mean, definitely One By One got great exposure, but then you have to back that up by going touring and writing more music. So they’re all steps — One By One is a big step.

But we’ve done a hell of a lot of hard work to keep The Black Seeds’ name out there for the American ears. We still need to reach a lot of people over in the States. We have a unique flavour in reggae music. I think that we’re very diverse and original, if we’re gonna be put into the reggae box.”

Formed in 1998, the Wellington troupe crossed over early at home. The Black Seeds achieved an international profile with their third album, Into The Dojo, encompassing One By One, released via Jazzanova’s 20 • THE MUSIC • 18TH OCTOBER 2017

Sometimes not everybody in the band likes everything that’s happening, but it’s healthy to be able to compromise.

German label Sonar Kollektiv. The band have experienced several personnel changes — Bret McKenzie notably quitting to pursue a music comedy career with Flight Of The Conchords (and since winning an Oscar for his contribution to The Muppets movie). Says Weetman, “I think because we all have been focused on making music and enjoying it and having a good time and always thinking into the future about where we want to be, and I guess just [with] life happening, it doesn’t seem like it’s been 19 years.” He posits Fabric as a “beginning”.

The Black Seeds have welcomed a replacement bassist (Francis Harawira) and guitarist (Ned Ngatae), bringing “a new energy”. “I feel like we’re more on the same page.”

The Black Seeds may be deemed trad roots reggae, but they’re no purists — Fabric traversing funk, Afrobeat and synthtronica. The band avoid being too retro — Weetman, a rock dog, stressing that they dig “modern music”. The “six core members” all offer different influences. “Sometimes not everybody in the band likes everything that’s happening, but it’s healthy to be able to compromise.”

Having wrapped a NZ tour (McKenzie attended a Wellington gig), the live eight-piece are returning to Australia. “I think the band is at the best it’s been,” Weetman states, insisting that he’s “not just hyping it up”. He himself has a heightened emphasis on crowd connection — his aim to be “transparent” and “relatable” as both performer and entertainer. “Doing a show to me is like there’s no tomorrow — ‘cause you don’t know what’s gonna happen tomorrow — so let’s just live in the moment and give everything as much as you can on stage, in life, et cetera.”

What: Fabric (Remote Control) When & Where: 4 Nov, Manning Bar; 5 Nov, Long Jetty Hotel

Music

Regal Return

It’s been a while since the world heard from Aussie altrocker Diana Anaid. Jessica Dale discovers her new release My Queen was well worth the wait.

D

iana Anaid has been a solid contender in the Australian rock scene since she burst onto it in the mid-’90s. While the past few years have been quiet, with Anaid taking a self-imposed hiatus from the music industry, her work has always been consistent and her latest album, My Queen, is no different - Anaid’s fans and the wider community have been hugely receptive to the new work. “It’s been really lovely,” she shares. “We’ve had some really great reviews from some really cool industry types who know their stuff; so getting a bit of vindication there for the production and the songwriting, which is fantastic.

Of her recent shows, Anaid reveals, “I’ve been playing a few of the new songs as well as the old favourites from the old records, and the crowds seem to really like it. There’s a couple that go down really well and people seem to be getting them before the end of the number finishes even, so that’s good. It’s really nice.”

The hiatus offered Anaid a period where she could work on all facets of her life.

“I guess I spent a bit of time reconnecting with family and friends that I hadn’t seen a lot of. After spending a few years in Sydney and then a few years in the

States, I sort of lost touch with a few of my close friends and didn’t get to spend as much time with family as I would’ve liked to. So [the break was] just a bit of a chance to reconnect with those more simple and heart connections.

But I also did a lot of songwriting in that time and I was really giving myself a lot of space and patience and time to just write and rewrite and co-write and pre-produce, and just get really in the whole creation of the songs,” she explains.

“It’s probably harking back to my ‘99 album I Don’t Think I’m Pregnant,” she says of her latest release, “[for] which I also had a lot of time to write the songs and work on the production and do co-writing, and I was in a really comfortable space where I just wanted to give myself the time to do the songs justice and make sure I had the right songs coming out following my first album.

So I have kind of been in that sort of space before where it’s just such a nice, creative, relaxing space to make a record.”

Anaid is currently wrapping up an Australian and New Zealand tour with Adam Ant, which is something she says has been “amazing”. “I was just asked to do this tour solo, so I’m up on stage with my little guitar and I am trying to give a full-bodied performance of songs like Perfect Family and Addiction - songs that are quite rocking.

So it kind of takes all of my energy to be able to embody the sound of a full band just on my own... And it’s lovely being a support act, because I just jump on and do 40 minutes and jump off. It’s not too difficult. And they’re just all really lovely, they’re just all really lovely people, and I feel really lucky to be embraced by them.”

Mutant Genre

Just like Professor Xavier’s super powered pupils, the superhero movie genre seems to be endlessly mutating.

Straight-up adaptations have been followed by the neo-noir visions of Christopher Nolan and Hugh Jackman’s final portrayal of Wolverine in Logan.

The multi-movie universe used to assemble the Avengers and the Justice League have proven another popular development, as has the comedy that shot Deadpool to the top of the box office ratings, less successfully harnessed in the critically panned but nonetheless popular Suicide Squad.

Now it seems the latest development in the evolution of the superhero movie has arrived, and it’s not for the faint hearted.

In X-Men spin off The New Mutants, the Marvel universe is getting a horror makeover. Following the fates of five young mutants – Magik, Wolfsbane, Cannonball, Sunspot and Mirage – as they are held in a secret facility, the first teaser trailer for the film is unmistakably horror, in an almost retro, Wes Craven style. To fit that aesthetic 90% of the film’s effects were shot practically on location, with just 10% of the film performed on green screen.

The film, due for release in April 2018, will star some new comers alongside some of the biggest young TV talents in the world, including Game Of Thrones’ Maisie Williams and Stranger Things’ Charlie Heaton.

When & Where: 3 Nov, Brass Monkey, Cronulla THE MUSIC • 18TH OCTOBER 2017 • 21

Eat / Drink rs Eat/Drink

e l l i r Th I C E

Just when you thought the icecold treats at Gelato Messina couldn’t get any sweeter, they go ahead and announce this mouth-watering collaboration: a limited time partnership with the maverick mixologists at PS40,

22 • THE MUSIC • 18TH OCTOBER 2017

For four nights only, Messina’s boundary busting creative department will be presenting five sweet and five savoury dishes alongside a set of ten specially concocted cocktails incorporating signature gelato flavours. For those wanting to get the full works, there will be a

C O L D

five-course degustation on offer, paired with PS40 cocktails, as well as a la carte options.

It’s an event Messina are describing as “experimental, immersive and indulgent” and, if some of the flavour combinations they’ve already

announced are anything to go by — roasted almond gelato and porcini sandwich, roasted chicken skin powder, potato and brown butter foam with osetra caviar — they’re not wrong!

When & Where: 26 – 28 Oct, PS40

Music

Collect Calls When Kingswood set up a “hotline” to get some feedback on their new album, Fergus Linacre tells Carley Hall they weren’t prepared for the child support payment demand and one caller simply saying “chicken salt”.

It was just amazing to sit back and listen to all these people ring up and tell us these stories.

S

itting in a cafe after a week of iffy Melbourne weather has Kingswood’s Fergus Linacre daydreaming of blue skies and hitting the road. Luckily for him, by the time you read this his three-piece band will be in the middle of a 16-date run around the country, starting with Sunshine Coast’s Caloundra Music Festival.

“Have you seen the line-up? It’s, like, Ronan Keating!”

Linacre exclaims. “One of the guys in our band — Michael Belsar, who used to be in Hunting Grounds — looks a lot like Ronan so we’re going to try and get a photo of the two of them together, should be pretty funny.”

One can forgive Linacre for looking forward to getting back on the move; 2017 has seen the Melbourne rockers play a staggering and much-lauded first-day set at Splendour In The Grass, reinvent Destiny’s Child with their funked-up version of Say My Name for triple j’s Like A Version and release their second album with a recently released bonus documentary.

With their second album came a shift in sound; largely gone were the pub rock vibes and grunting rock riffs, and in their place came something lighter with a suit of multi-instrumentalists in tow. It was a potentially divisive move for a band instantly loved since their inception in 2013 with bluesy, ball-busting singles like Ohio, Medusa and She’s My Baby. But months after After Hours, Close to Dawn’s release, Linacre couldn’t be more proud of it.

“We totally expected half of our fans to just hate us for releasing such a weird record, but they haven’t and it’s been amazing,” he stresses. “It’s a bit of a cliche, but we try not to care what other people think. We just do what we do and make the music we want to make, because if you try to please other people it’s just not going to be honest music. To have a lot of people say how much they loved it — it means a lot to us.”

That connection with fans is something the band has always maintained, whether it’s from the stage or via social media. But Linacre says there’s always a barrier at some level to truly making contact with the people who shout their songs back at them from the audience or at their stereos. Less of a want to validate their bold step into new sonic territory and more of a genuine desire to connect with fans, the band opened their very own “hotline” where listeners could leave their feedback on

the album, which was then included in behind-the-scenes footage of the album’s recording process.

“It was just amazing to sit back and listen to all these people ring up and tell us these stories,” Linacre says.

“There was some weird ones. Some people rang up saying, ‘I’ve got your child and you need to pay me child support.’ Someone just rang up and said ‘chicken salt’. But there were a lot of heartfelt ones there, too.

“We just wanted to share how much the fans mean to us and how much they are a part of it. It’s hard to connect other than touring and chatting to people online, so we thought this little doco was a nice little element to add in.”

The doco does indeed shine some light on just how many extra players Kingswood roped into After Hours, Close To Dawn alongside producer Ed Spear who engineered their debut LP Microscopic Wars. There was plenty of musical talent at their disposal during recording sessions in Nashville and the sudden musical opportunities that presented themselves were tempting.

But rather than go out of their way to change tack for the sake of it, Linacre says they let the music inside them at the time dictate what ended up in the studio.

“Our next album could be an electronic dance record; we don’t really know what it’s going to be like until we do it,” he explains. “When we poked our heads up and said, ‘This song sounds really weird compared to the old ones,’ we didn’t really worry about it.”

And for the band that seemingly can’t sit still, surely there’s already a new album in the works? “There are a bunch of new songs, I won’t say too much but we’re very focused on getting a new record out next year,” Linacre shares. “We don’t really want to stop anymore; there was a big gap between the first record and the second, we just kept touring and kept touring. I suppose in the same way that you need someone to stop and make a decision, you need someone to go, ‘Okay, we’re booking in the studio,’ and set yourself a deadline.”

When & Where: 27 Oct, Metro Theatre; 28 Oct, The Long Jetty Hotel THE MUSIC • 18TH OCTOBER 2017 • 23

Theatre

The Word Of God Celebrated author Christos Tsiolkas’ dark collection of short stories, Merciless Gods, is being taken from the page to the stage. Little Ones Theatre’s co-founder, Stephen Nicolazzo, takes Maxim Boon through the process.

D

irector Stephen Nicolazzo and writer Christos Tsiolkas share a lot in common. Both come from immigrant families, both are artists who have looked to the queer experience for inspiration, and both share an attraction to a bitter-sweet aesthetic, a volatile place where beauty and savagery intersect.

But despite these similarities, Nicolazzo — an indie theatre maker with a successful, yet small-scale company — could not have imagined he’d have the opportunity to collaborate with the celebrated author, whose novels The Slap and Barracuda have had big budget TV adaptations in recent years. “My partner and I were listening to the radio

There’s something extremely classical to having those unspoken desires spoken out loud.

one morning, and Christos was on talking about Merciless Gods. He was explaining one of the stories and his affinity with Jean Genet, and I was so intrigued and excited by that,” Nicolazzo recalls. “Then my partner said, ‘You should really work with him.’ I laughed and said, ‘There’s no fucking way that’s ever going to happen.’”

His initial pessimisim was proved wrong after deciding to make contact with Tsiolkas. The pair’s shared passions proved to be the perfect springboard for a creative partnership. “Christos and I met up one afternoon over wine. Within the first five minutes, we agreed to work together on adapting Merciless Gods. Then we just enjoyed an afternoon drinking and talking about life and art and the kind of theatre that I make and our personal histories, both being ethnic queer kids,” Nicolazzo shares.

24 • THE MUSIC • 18TH OCTOBER 2017

“It was a pretty mind-blowing experience, especially considering how much I loved reading his work growing up. It’s one of those moments that is completely surreal — something I’d never have thought possible.”

The collection of 15 short stories that make up Tsiolkas’ Merciless Gods, explore the complexities of migrant life in Melbourne and the way sexuality and cultural identity are altered, confounded, and upended by being a stranger in a strange land. From gay saunas to prison cells to porn shoots, Tsiolkas offers an unapologetically gritty perspective, channelling a far darker energy than in some of his better-known books. But much like his bestseller The Slap, the stories in Merciless Gods juxtapose moments of extreme violence with the humdrum occurrences of everyday life. “He takes that kind of familiar banality and turns the volume way up, so high that it becomes something else,” Nicolazzo observes.

“And that’s really informed the process of bringing this work to the stage — it’s the way I’ve dissected each of the stories, just taking one strand of it and then pulling it apart so that it feels otherworldly but also familiar.”

Co-founder of queer theatre collective Little Ones Theatre, Nicolazzo’s canon of productions for the company bear a shared hallmark in the way they hijack traditional theatre tropes to communicate the otherness of the queer identity. This approach has often favoured narratives that have some measure of historical significance, such as Bram Stoker’s Dracula or Oscar Wilde’s The Little Prince. By contrast, Merciless Gods is altogether more overt, in both its contemporary setting and its connection to queer culture, but Nicolazzo has found a surprising number of classical resonances in Tsiolkas’ story-telling. “We’re embracing the literary vernacular, and allowing the characters to actually speak in a literary or poetic way, in much the same way that some of the characters in something like Genet’s The Balcony might speak,” he explains. “I think there’s something extremely classical to having those unspoken desires spoken out loud, and we’ve actually found ourselves going back to ideas of Greek Theatre, and the kind of really amped-up, robust, rich language that you can use in those ancient forms of theatre.”

Nicolazzo has worked with playwright Dan Giovannoni in taking eight of the Merciless Gods stories and transposing them for the theatre, but Tsiolkas has been a close collaborator on the project too, as an advisor and sounding board. “It’s been really great to have his presence because he loves theatre. He has a very good theatrical eye,” Nicolazzo says. “Christos said to us from the outset, ‘Don’t treat my work with total reverence,’ which is an incredible gift. He’s so, so generous, he’s like, ‘Just fuck with it.’ Having that level of freedom comes from that negotiation process between Dan as playwright, Christos as novelist, and me as theatre-maker. Theatre is all about finding the best provocation for a story, and then working out how that can best be translated to the stage. With Merciless Gods there are three minds working together to figure this out, feeding into the solution, being crafty together to find the best realisation possible.”

What: Merciless Gods When & Where: 1 - 25 Nov, SBW Stables Theatre

Music

Power To The People!

Laetitia Sadier Source Ensemble are headed our way in dark and difficult times.

Sadier tells Anthony Carew we need reclaim the power.

L

aetitia Sadier can’t wait to return to Australia. Her upcoming tour, with her new outfit Laetitia Sadier Source Ensemble, will mark the first time she’s been here since Stereolab, the iconic indie outfit she fronted for two decades, played Laneway Festival in 2009. It’ll also offer an opportunity to leave London with winter looming and the political situation dire.

“It’s a dark time, a difficult time,” says Sadier, 49, of life in Britain in 2017. The UK feels “depressed” post-Brexit, she thinks, its population suffering from both austerity measures and “low morale”. Talking about politics is something Sadier does “too much” in conversation and plenty in her lyrics. She’s done so ever since Stereolab’s 1994 single Ping Pong opened with the lyrics, “It’s alright ‘cause the historical pattern has shown/ How the economical cycle tends to revolve/ In a round of decades...,” and continues to do so on the recently released debut LP for Laetitia Sadier Source Ensemble, Find Me Finding You. “I’ve always done that,” Sadier offers.

“Because I feel that there is always a massive gap. It’s like there’s an elephant in the room that no one ever talks about. So, I’ve always thought: ‘I want to talk about this elephant. I find it very interesting.’ It’s like: How can we steer this elephant? Are we

always going to be crushed by it? Or can we get it to exit the room, maybe it can just go in the field and we can reclaim our living space?”

Fittingly, Sadier gets plenty passionate when talking about the political landscape.

“We can’t just hand over our vote every five years and call it democracy. That’s not democracy.

We have to change what we think of as democracy,” she says. “It’s normal that we’re getting screwed by the Theresa Mays and Trumps and Macrons and whomever you have in Australia. It’s normal. What’s not normal is that we’re not taking action. We are the force. We have the power, we’ve just relinquished it. We need to reclaim it. Power to the people!”

The opening song on Find Me Finding You — and the Source Ensemble’s first-ever single — is called Undying Love For Humanity and finds her chanting, “Power to the people!”

Although the LP marks the first outing for her ‘new’ band, the Source Ensemble is largely made up of musicians who played on Sadier’s solo albums (2010’s The Trip, 2012’s Silencio, 2014’s Something Shines) and is keeping their spirit; even if Sadier hoped to “relinquish control” and “be guided” by the songs.

“There’s been no big ruptures or departures,” Sadier says. “I’ve been, all these years, cultivating the same piece of land.

But, this time, I felt I was cultivating the sky as well. More spiritual realms. Waiting to be guided. Finding this sense of direction, to me, that’s spirituality — that’s spirit.”

When & Where: 5 Nov, Oxford Art Factory

SIZE DOES M AT T E R

Next time you’re feeling a little inadequate, spare a thought for the poor fellas of the US of A. Last week, the FDA approved the production of smaller “bespoke” condoms as the average size catered for by standard condom producers is too big, on average, for American men.

Recent CDC figures on condom use revealed just a third of single men in the US use the rubber protection routinely, with the most cited reason for avoiding their use being that they are ill-fitting and slip off.

You might cry bullshit, but a study by the University of Indiana, with a sample of nearly 2000 men, back up these claims, revealing the average length of the American tackle as 5.57 inches – almost an inch shorter than the average size most standard condoms accommodate.

In addition to improved customer satisfaction, the Food and Drug Administration, which regulates the production of all health industry products in America, hope the introduction of smaller condoms will help to improve sexual infection rates and unwanted pregnancies.

Well, don’t sweat it our American brothers, it’s not the size of the boat, but the motion of the ocean that counts. But never forget: no glove, no love.

THE MUSIC • 18TH OCTOBER 2017 • 25

Music

London Calling As the “classic line-up” of revered sonic terrorists The Scientists reunite for an Australian tour, frontman Kim Salmon recalls the band’s global movements with Steve Bell.

G

roundbreaking noise merchants The Scientists went through a few distinct iterations during their pioneering initial tenure in the ‘70s and ‘80s, having started in Perth before heading over to Sydney in 1981 to set up shop in the big smoke with a reconfigured line-up.

Eventually even Sydney seemed constricting and that version of the band decided to have a crack at the international market, decamping to London in 1984 where what’s widely regarded as the “classic line-up” — featuring Kim Salmon (guitar/vocals), Boris Sujdovic (bass), Tony Thewlis (guitar) and Leanne Chock (drums) — formed for the first time.

The Birthday Party made a really big splash there, a really big impression, and I think that people were looking for something that did the same thing.

The band’s sound and style changed remarkably in a short period of time, but Salmon explains that even the final line-up’s aesthetic can be traced back to that time spent immersed in the Sydney scene. “Back in the old days in Perth, James Baker the drummer wrote the lyrics and I’d put melodies over the top of that and arrange with my guitar and have things following on top of that,” he recalls. “That’s how it worked in the original line-up, but we eventually stopped and relocated to Sydney and James had by that time left and joined the Hoodoo Gurus, and I didn’t have anyone to write lyrics for me so I had to think of things to write myself.

26 • THE MUSIC • 18TH OCTOBER 2017

“I wrote very different lyrics to James and that’s what happened, really: the music I wrote had more to do with what I was feeling, so it was probably a lot closer to my heart. That’s the difference. I think the band makes a difference as well, don’t get me wrong, but what we were building our sound around was probably less of a romantic, post-modern view of pop music and more of a dark and primitive view of what was going on around me.

“So 1981 when we relocated to Sydney with me, Boris, Tony and Brett Rixon [drums], that was where we really built the sound around the people in it, and while I was writing the music — I’m not a drummer, so I really needed Brett’s help for that with the style. We really tried to do something quite different rhythmically in a lot of ways, and sometimes you need different players around you to sort of understand and do the right kind of playing, and who could play that kind of material, and what he did was quite unique.

“So when we went to London and eventually he left, it was really hard to replace him and we were trying to recreate that same atmosphere with players who could technically play what he did, but somehow didn’t play it in the right way. Eventually Leanne — who was not a drummer, she was our tour manager — took over. She had bought his drumkit and kind of figured she could play his beats, and basically what she learned from was what Brett had done.

“So there was no foreign material for our body to reject when she started playing, regardless of the fact that she was only a beginner at the time — it fitted better and actually sounded right in many ways. It made it feel even more primitive actually, but it finally worked.”

Back in the ‘80s, countless Australian bands followed their musical dreams to London and while many struggled The Scientists quickly found their own niche. “It was a tough place, but we had something going that people wanted to know about, because there was definitely an audience for what we were doing,” Salmon reflects. “There were a lot of bands who fit into the London scene, for instance The Birthday Party made a im big impact and then left a void when they weren’t around, and I think we fit into that same thing. I would stress that w we weren’t like The Birthday Party — we had a lot of simil similarities, but it was quite a different thing — and I think s the same thing happened when we went to Sydney. ““Radio Birdman had really established something in Syd Sydney and then when they were gone there were band everywhere imitating them, and we went there bands and helped fill that void even though we weren’t imitating Radio Birdman, and I think it was the same thing happened in London: The Birthday Party made a really big splash there, a really big impression, and I think that people were looking for something that did the same thing, as in made the same kind of statement.

[They were after] bands who had a certain amount of experimentality, and a bit of brutality and disregard for certain conventions, and I think we fit that bill.”

When & Where: 18 Nov, Factory Theatre

Music

They Call Me William?

Alt-rock icon William Patrick Corgan tells Anthony Carew that he’s done being “somebody else’s Molotov cocktail”.

“P

If you’re in the informational wars, if you’re in the digital ghetto fighting it out, every day, my idea vs your idea, this meme vs that meme, celebrity is like a fire accelerant.

ut my music in one pile, and my mouth in the other pile,” says Billy Corgan. “My music has done a lot more good than my mouth. One could argue that if I’d just shut up and played, a la Frank Zappa, things would’ve worked out better and it would’ve been a smoother ride. It didn’t work out that way.”

In recent years, if you read a story on Corgan, the 50-year-old frontman of alt-rock icons The Smashing Pumpkins, it was likely to be something to do with his big mouth. He slagged off Courtney Love, dissed Pearl Jam and Foo Fighters, and appeared, several times, on the altright conspiracy-corner of Infowars.

“Talking about things is not to be feared,” Corgan says. “Freedom of speech is the bedrock of our nation’s ideological frame. Obviously, I didn’t live through the Red Scare, but for the first time in my life people have wanted to shut down open debate, open inquiry.”

Yet, Corgan is the first to admit that, these days, he “not as candid as [he’d] like to be, or used to be”. He’s wary of the way “speech has become weaponised” and has “disconnected” himself from social media. “I find myself in a world I wasn’t prepared for, nor do I really care for,” he offers. “I’ve totally taken myself out of it. It’s just not that interesting. If you’re in the informational wars, if you’re in the digital ghetto fighting it out, every day, my idea vs your idea, this meme vs that meme, celebrity is like a fire accelerant. You’re like a Molotov cocktail to be thrown in one direction or another [and] I don’t want to be somebody else’s Molotov cocktail. I’m better off writing songs.

“Take away everything,” Corgan continues, “and I still have an ability: give me a piano or a guitar, and a piece of paper, and I can write you a good tune. Everything else past that is kind of bullshit. It’s the art of artifice: ‘Who’s in the band? What’s the name? Who are you today? Are you William? Are you Billy?’”

For his latest record, he is indeed William. Ogilala, his second solo album — and first since 2005’s TheFutureEmbrace — comes billed by William Patrick Corgan. In his mid-40s, Corgan, who’d “always just been Bill, or Bill Jr, or Billy”, decided to claim his name (“why did your parents name you something that no one ever calls you?”). “Then,” he explains, “the American media, don’t ask me how, started picking up on it, like, ‘Oh, here we go, he’s off the reservation again, out to manufacture controversy.’

So, once I saw that, I thought: ‘Oh, I’m really going to really drill it home now.’”

Corgan was at work on his latest Smashing Pumpkins LP when he “pretty much lost [his] mind in the process, got bored and quit”. Deciding it was “time to do something else, go garden for a while”, he rented an RV and drove off, randomly, around America, amid “the pre-election hysteria in early-2016”. Taking a break from his ‘work’ — running a pair of professional wrestling leagues (“honestly, it’s helped refresh my musical life by having a job not connected to music”) and slaving away at the latest Pumpkins opus — he was newly inspired, writing a host of gentle songs that suggested minimal accompaniment.

Corgan ended up recording Ogilala with Rick Rubin, throwing himself wholly into a new project hoping to, creatively, shake off the baggage of the past. “You can’t sit there waving your flag, like, ‘Hey, remember me? I was in that band? I’m the rat-in-the-cage guy!’ And, even when I don’t want to be that guy, other people want me to be that guy. It’s not a one-way street. I get that a lot: ‘Hey, put the band back together!’”

So how has Corgan reconciled his desire to forge ahead with the tendency of fans to want to look back? “I had to let go of my own attachment,” he offers. “The band had to die in my mind, for once and for all. The idea that I could resurrect the band without any number of original members — that had to die, too... I don’t have to chase windmills or ghosts or the past or Sally-Anne’s prom song.

It’s not really that important. When I get back to that space, that’s when I go back to the person that made the work that people admire. It puts you more in the dangerous frame of mind: ‘I don’t need you, I don’t need your permission, I don’t need your softball question, I don’t need you to photo-touch my picture.’ I can just do what I do and somebody will be attracted to it if it’s good. And if it’s not good, they should kick you out of the way.”

What: Ogilala (BMG/ADA)

THE MUSIC • 18TH OCTOBER 2017 • 27

OPINION Opinion

Thursday

I

f you’ve been a long-time follower of this column you’ll know Wake The Dead has a bit of a gripe about bands that reform, play a couple of local reunion shows, decide to tour internationally as a part of a reunion tour and then release sub-par new music (it’s the last part I hate the most).

This opinion is somewhat warranted, as this columnist has been burned by quite a few bands considered to be favourites who have done just this. Yes, we’re looking at you Refused.

So following the announcement that Wake The Dead’s favourite early-2000s emo band Thursday had reformed (after seeing them and, admittedly, crying a lot during their farewell shows as a part of Soundwave back in 2012) and were playing a few local festivals and shows, trepidation set in.

What was this re-formation going to look like? How far would it go? Would they release new music? Would that new music follow the trajectory of their last album, No Devolucion, which this columnist really loved?

Wa ke The Dead Punk And Hardcore With Sarah Petchell

Eminem

Get It To g et her

A

s the dust settles on Eminem’s With James a capella Trump D’apice verse, delivered last week, it’s easy to forget that — think pieces aside — it’s also just a piece of rap music. A few things are worth noting.

First, the word ‘freestyle’ means even less now than it ever has. It initially meant rhymes made up by a rapper in the moment and delivered off the top of her or his head

Hip Hop

28 • THE MUSIC • 18TH OCTOBER 2017

instantaneously. It then came to incorporate verses that didn’t form part of larger songs.

Now, it would seem, the word relates to intricately prepared, carefully rehearsed and shot BET appearances.

Second, it’s not very good! Yes, it is well intentioned. It is passionately delivered. It has a lot of the intellectual sophistication we used to know Eminem for. The malleability of its rhyme schemes and the range of different flows employed is considerable.

But it is not enjoyable in the slightest. Like most contemporary Em pieces, listening to it is an awkward experience; a realisation that total mastery of all rap’s techniques doesn’t actually sound that good.

Third, while it took some bravery to explicitly alienate and dismiss any Trump-voting listeners he might have, the commercial loss Em might suffer from being controversial must be compared to the decades of commercial gain Em has enjoyed from being controversial.

Fourth, it was a good, commendable thing to do. But it was also the bare minimum.

For a man of the eloquence, eminence and influence he has to raise his voice against racism and tyranny is worthy. But it’s also what we should all be doing. Every day.

There are few answers, but the announcement last week that the band are returning to Australia next year has thrust all these questions into the spotlight again.

The long and the short of it is that band re-formations are terrifying. I don’t want to feel disappointment.

On the upside, the Thursday tour in March is a co-headline with Quicksand, who Wake The Dead raved about a few weeks ago after they announced the release of their new album, Interiors.

With this all said... Will this columnist go to the show? Probably.

Samra Weaving

Trailer Trash

I

was never a constant viewer of Seven’s Screens seaside soapie Home And Away And Idiot Boxes but even someone With Guy Davis with only a vague familiarity of the shenanigans in Summer Bay would realise that the long-running series has been quite the incubator for Australian acting talent that has gone on to conquer the world. On the

Dives Into Your

OPINION Opinion

eve of Thor: Ragnarok’s release, for instance, we are reminded that the God of Thunder himself, Chris Hemsworth, got his first big break as an actor on Home And Away.

And another Summer Bay alumnus may be on the verge of cracking the international A-list, if her cool, captivating and chilling performance in Netflix’s new movie The Babysitter is any indication. Samara Weaving put in four years as “troubled teenager” Indigo Walker on Home And Away before deciding to try her hand overseas, and after a few eye-catching supporting roles (including a bloodstained turn in the TV series Ash Vs Evil Dead) she landed the plum role of Bee in The Babysitter.

Bee is pretty much perfect, at least in the eyes of Cole (Judah Lewis), the endearingly dorky tween she occasionally babysits.

She’s down for a rockin’ air-guitar session, she’ll lip-synch the cool scenes from Billy Jack, she’ll happily assemble a sciencefiction dream team. And forgive the slight salaciousness here, but she’ll also wear the heck out of a red bikini. Is it any wonder Cole has a hell of a crush?

It’s just too bad then that after lights out, she’ll bring together a group of her in-crowd pals for a game of spin the bottle that ends with someone getting knifed in the skull. Bee, you see, is happy to make a few sacrifices to dark powers to get what she wants out of life... and one of those sacrifices may turn out to be Cole.

I won’t deny it, The Babysitter has a few flaws — the direction by the notoriously haphazard McG tries a little too hard to be wild and crazy, and Brain Duffield’s script is a bit obvious in introducing guns in the first act that’ll go off in the third.

But for Saturday night beerand-pizza entertainment that doesn’t skimp on the gleefully disreputable good stuff, it’s definitely close to the bullseye. And if there’s any justice, it’ll get plenty of eyes on Weaving, whose performance is funny, charismatic and only slightly unhinged.

“I watched a lot of thrillers and horror movies with psychopathic characters, and I found that the creepiest villains were the ones [who] were really calm in situations that would really freak out the audience,” says Weaving. “To me, that was so much more menacing than really leaning into that psychopathic mind frame. The fact

that [she’s] so blase about this, like she’s done this kind of thing a thousand times, makes her much more interesting to watch.”

Weaving’s on the ascent, it would appear — she’s recently wrapped a role in the upcoming Foxtel remake of Picnic At Hanging Rock — but the title of scream queen would seem to be hers for the taking if she’s interested, what with a few blooddrenched projects to her credit.

“Horror’s really great because it has that element of anything goes,” she admits. “There’s no ceiling on the performance, and you can really let go and have a lot of fun. So that’s been great, although my hair and my bathtub are usually both stained pink by the end of a shoot!”

the

with Maxim & Sam

introducing your new podcast obsession

the best and worst of the week’s zeitgeist. new episodes streaming every wednesday

THE MUSIC • 18TH OCTOBER 2017 • 29

Album / E Album/EP Reviews

Nai Palm

Needle Paw Sony

★★★★½

Album OF THE Week

Needle Paw is a meditative, intimate, heart-achingly honest gift that’ll seep slowly into every single inch of your being.

The rich voice that opens on Wititj (Lightning Snake) Pt 1 is warming and welcoming. It’s the most beautiful preface to what follows — a sanctuary of sound, in its most sincere form, lyrically and musically.

This entire offering is comprised of vocals and guitar- nothing more, nothing less — and honestly there’s nothing else required. Nai Palm repurposes harmonies as more than just mere backing vocals, rather a collection of percussive instruments that colour phrases and word; emphasising emotions in a raw, moving way. From the slick, syncopated Crossfire/So Into You to the pensive Mobius, Needle Paw keeps on giving.

Layer upon layer of intense vocals float seamlessly into each other, like smoke into air, accompanied by winding, serpentine guitar melodies. Her voice is delicate at times and explosive at others, however it’s always passionate and empowered. The vocals, guitar and space itself are recorded incredibly well, with every single lingering silence, bass string, slap, twang and slide able to be felt deep in the chest.

With relatable references to nature, love, growth and home, Needle Paw paints pictures of experiences and emotions felt by all, but Nai Palm articulates through song like no other.

Natasha Pinto

Bully

Ecca Vandal

Losing

Ecca Vandal

Sub Pop/Inertia

Dew Process/UMA

★★★

★★★½

Nashville alternative rock band, Bully and opener Feels The Same establishes the tone of the album well: angsty in content and grungy in delivery.

Lead singer Alicia Bognanno has a unique and recognisable voice; it’s powerful, growly and able to convey a huge range of emotions across the album. In addition to providing vocals, Bognanno, who started out as an audio engineer, also contributed to the production of this album, engineering and mixing it.

Guitarist Clayton Parker and bassist Reece Lazarus provide a driving, heavy bed that supports the catchy melodies and personal, relatable lyrics about relationships, break-ups and, to a certain extent, growing up and maturing.

The knack Bully have for seamless, mid-song gear changes is admirable. Focused

The debut, self-titled album from Melbourne-based artist Ecca Vandal demonstrates her ability to blur genre lines of punk, rock, rap, hip hop and soul to create something completely unique and original.

Attention-grabbing Broke Days, Party Nights has the same heavy punk rock sound of her debut EP, over a year since its release. Chaotic, crashing drums and layers of distorted guitars support screamed vocals about living your best life regardless of how much money you have.

Your Orbit, featuring Sydney rapper and singer Sampa The Great however, is a completely different vibe altogether. With its dreamy hip hop sound it’s a bit unexpected from Vandal, but it’s a welcome surprise. Sampa’s not the only feature on the album though with Dennis Lyxzen (Refused) and Jason Aalon

30 • THE MUSIC • 18TH OCTOBER 2017

for instance smoothly elevates from verses with a picked guitar melody and soft vocals, layered with harmonies leading into a full chorus of crashing drums, a wall of distorted guitars and screeching, screamed vocals.

Closing track Hate And Control is a highlight, although it’s fairly different in content to the rest of the album. The track has definite political undertones — with references to empathy, care, power and hate — and contains some of the album’s most empowering lyrics.

Losing is a brilliantly produced rock album that will make you feel something.

Madelyn Tait

Butler (letlive.) appearing on the heavy track Price Of Living. The collaborations don’t stop there, with Vandal working again with Moonbase on Dead Wait after her appearance on his track Oblivion last year.

Future Heroine, with its thumping beat, sultry vocals and catchy hook is a definite album highlight, however a more mellow End Of Time is able to show off Vandal’s lyricism.

Ecca Vandal displays all the sides to her musicality on her full-length debut.

Madelyn Tait

EP Reviews Album/EP Reviews

KLLO

Jess Locke

Toehider

Backwater

Universe

Good

Good Manners Records

Pool House Records/Remote Control

Bird’s Robe

★★★½

★★★

★★★★

★★★★

Melbourne electronic duo KLLO mark their debut full-length release with Backwater.

With influences in electronic music, R&B and predecessors like The xx, the young cousins who make up KLLO find themselves on the verge of carving out a niche for themselves in between songs that rely heavily on genre trappings.

However, it’s the songs packed with originality that stand out on Backwater. The growing crescendo and progressive structure of By Your Side and stripped-back stylings of Nylon are highlights on an album that shifts towards intimate club sounds in the second half. Airy vocals and 2-step beats seem at odds on paper, but at times work impressively for KLLO.

There’s a lot to learn the second time around and Jess Locke marks a clear step forward from the DIY stylings of her previous recordings to a larger production and full backing band on Universe.

With her unique voice and soft Australian twang, the Melbourne-based muso is immediately reflective on opener Drive To Drink, a song that tackles personal responsibility, while Dangerous captures the sincerity and earnestness of writing songs for yourself.

While previous single Paper Planes highlights the indie singer-songwriter at her catchiest, album closer Border Security best shows Locke’s development with its powerful crescendo and makes her a difficult artist to pigeonhole. And that’s a good thing.

Firstly, it must be said that a band with the word ‘toe’ in its moniker has got game.

Luckily game is something Melbourne prog-rockers Toehider certainly have in spades; it’s served them well throughout their string of bold releases and off-the-wall live shows and Good is absolutely riddled with it. The chaotic mix of folk, prog and glam rock — with a healthy dose of black humour — are tumbled out from start to end and bolstered in between with thumping riffs (see: Funny Things and How Do Ghosts Work). If the tunes don’t reel you in, then the artwork will.

Melbourne’s Brooke Russell has one of those voices that, depending on your mood, is comforting and makes everything feel alright or assists you in wallowing in your sorrow.

Either way, it’s a beautiful voice full of rich tonal character that sways through the melodies and slow dances across the quietly mesmerising backing of her band The Mean Reds, particularly the evocative pedal steel of Ben Franz and restrained guitar of Grant Taylor. Late-night jazz, croon-and-swoon slowcore, alt-country and heartache country-soul blend together on this intoxicating collection of songs that recall late-period Dylan, The Delines and Lucinda Williams.

Lewis Isaacs

Brooke Russell & The Mean Reds The Way You Leave Independent

Carley Hall

Chris Familton

Lewis Isaacs

More Reviews Online Wireheads Lightning Ears

theMusic.com.au

Destroyer Ken

Nahko My Name Is Bear

THE MUSIC • 18TH OCTOBER 2017 • 31

Live Re Live Reviews

RNB Fridays Live Qudos Bank Arena 13 Oct

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One would think that given the RNB Fridays Live show goes for over six hours there would be a steady flow of punters filing in throughout the evening. But not in this case. With this reviewer arriving just after 6pm, as Mario Barret bounced around on stage, playing hits like How Do I Breathe and Let Me Love You, the GA section of Qudos Bank Arena was more than half full of screaming fans; a very impressive turnout.

Mario’s energy kept the crowd moving throughout his hits-only set and it was a treat to watch the now-31-year-old make the most of his time on stage.

The intervals in proceedings were filled by DJ Horizon and the night’s MC, Fatman Scoop, who had little trouble keeping the arena entertained, playing RNB classics from the likes of Usher, Nelly, Snoop Dogg, Beyonce and more.

En Vogue were up next and despite how strong the group were vocally, it took some time for the younger fans to really get into it. Free Your Mind and their cover of 1993’s Whatta Man helped, but they really won the crowd over with Don’t Let Go (and yes, you could hear a few people shout out, “Oh this is their song?!”)

By the time Kelis made her way out at 7pm, everyone inside Qudos Bank Arena was treating this like a straight-up dance party, and she obliged. Kelis’ energy made even the stiffest punters relax a little bit, as she also made a point to fit in all the classics in 30 minutes.

Looking out into the GA section as Kelly Rowland took to the stage, you’d be forgiven for assuming this was her own headline show. The entire standing section was crammed.

Rowland had the fans in the palm of her hand from the get-go. If the arena was crazy for Dilemma and Stole, then it completely lost its mind when Rowland delivered a Destiny’s Child medley, fitting

in some of the iconic group’s fan-favourites like Survivor, Soldier and Independent Woman.

Oh, and Delta Goodrem randomly came out during the set to get a lap dance from one of the back-up dancers. So, um, yeah.

There was that?

Oh, and Delta Goodrem randomly came out during the set to get a lap dance from one of the back up dancers. So, um, yeah. There was that?

The vibe from Rowland’s performance carried straight over into Ne-Yo’s set who was joined by a live band on stage; a very good move. The singer’s vocals haven’t wavered even an ounce in over a decade, as he belted out tracks like So Sick, Miss Independent and When You’re Mad with ease. Ne-Yo rounded out his 45-min slot with Give Me Everything and Time Of Our Lives, which the room went berserk for in easily one of the best showings of the night.

After all the bells and whistles of that set, it was going to be interesting to see how Craig David could follow, given that his TS5 show features just one mic and some turntables. It was obvious to see that some in the crowd weren’t sure what a TS5 show is (does anyone know what TS5 means by the way?) and expected to see the UK artist perform his ‘00s tunes back-to-back.

Instead, in what was the ‘danciest’ performance of the night, David played remixes (Music Sounds Better With You mixed with Wild Thoughts was a damn banger),

eviews Live Reviews

rapped and sung, and it quickly won the crowd over. While fitting in teases of R&B classics such as No Scrubs and One Dance, David was sure to make the fans happy by performing his best-known songs such as Fill Me In and 7 Days. Nostalgia, new hits and R&B favourites. Well played, David.

Jamaica’s Sean Paul wrapped up the night’s proceedings and though the crowd was still heaving, it wasn’t as energetic or as full as it was for David, Ne-Yo or Rowland. Maybe the 10.50pm start time had something to do with it or maybe the set times should have been tweaked?

Regardless, Paul put on a great display. His remix of Sia’s Cheap Thrills got a run, as did Got 2 Luv U, Rockabye and Temperature to massive cheers.

All in all, RNB Fridays Live was another huge success and many left the arena wondering out loud who they could bring out next year if it meant more sell-out arena shows. Usher?

Snoop Dogg? Hell, could they get Destiny’s Child back together?

Either way, the result was clear — with crowds like this, RNB Fridays Live is only going to get bigger, so the sky’s the limit.

Neil Griffiths

Alison Moyet, Katie Noonan Enmore Theatre 9 Oct If Katie Noonan was nervous about performing in front of a crowd amped up on nostalgia and with only one performer in mind she didn’t show it. Admitting that Moyet was not only a huge influence but a childhood idol, over a compact 40 minutes Noonan showed her class and elegance as a songwriter and performer and no doubt left the stage having won over some new hearts.

You might not think it, but Alison Moyet is hilarious.

After missing her cue for the set opener, she shrugged her shoulders and asked the crowd

for a re-do — (“bollocks” I believe was her actual sentiment), which of course only endeared her further to the Gen X hordes in attendance who’d shown their devotion by turning up on a school night.

While the sophisticated soulful stylings of her later albums were greeted warmly (in particular the sombre Ski and The Rarest Birds, Moyet’s fist in the air to diversity and tolerance) it was her “disco” — to use Moyet’s words — anthems that the crowd reserved their loudest cheers for. Yazoo standards Nobody’s Diary, Only You, Situation and of course the monumental Don’t Go were rewarded with grooving bodies, while Moyet’s own Love Resurrection received

Moyet’s voice was flawless and she commanded the stage like a boss. similar admiration.

A left-field cover of Whispering Your Name capped off a wonderful performance from Moyet, who continues to deliver the goods after decades in the game. Whether it was her high energy dance tunes or soulful, adult-oriented pop standards Moyet’s voice was flawless and she commanded the stage like a boss.

Mark Hebblewhite

Mayday Parade, This Wild Life Enmore Theatre 12 Oct Nostalgia-led anniversary tours have been far more frequent in the last two years with many crucial pop punk and emo albums having just turned or about to turn the big ten — The Used, New

Found Glory and Yellowcard have all recently played anniversary sets, with Never Shout Never and We The Kings incoming.Tonight it was Mayday Parade’s turn to revisit A Lesson In Romantics.

This Wild Life took the stage to an ear-burstingly loud Under The Sea from The Little Mermaid.

Singer Kevin Jordan’s voice was warm and welcoming, while the band’s bassist Ramsey Badawi lurked in the corner and added some depth with a floor tom and keys and guitarist Anthony Del Grosso snapped between the full drum kit and lead guitar.

Overall This Wild Life delivered a dynamic, solid set.

Mayday Parade burst straight into A Lesson In Romantics opener Jamie All Over and as soon as the opening note struck, the theatre was in full singing mode. You could hardly see the band! It was all bright neon swirling lights and a shit-tonne of smoke. Singer Derek Sanders looked as he always does, flicking back his curtain of hair every now and then, and the rest of the band were as they’ve been since 2007 — sans Jason Lancaster, a critical writer of A Lesson In Romantics, though he left right after the album’s release (drummer Jake Bundrick has been filling in on his vocals since then.)

As expected, the band tore through the album in tracklist order and we knew the opening notes of each song before the band even started. Jersey was another huge hit with the crowd, but then, there wasn’t a single song from the album that we didn’t sing word for word. Sanders faltered a little with his vocals during some songs, occasionally falling half a beat behind, but the band were tight backing him, and the crowd had him covered on vocals anyway. He was back on the ball for ballad Miserable At Best, though — it was just him and us on this one, singing as sweetly as we could — and it was one of the loudest and most note-perfect singalongs we’ve heard all year.

Final song You Be The Anchor That Keeps My Feet On The

Thanks for journeying us back to 2007, Mayday.

Ground, I’ll Be The Wings That Keep Your Head In The Clouds was another beloved ballad and it is rarely, if ever, played live — Sanders prefaced this with a heartfelt message to those struggling with depression, and the song’s amazing crescendo and our resounding voices fitted the sentiment well.

After the album’s end, we got acoustic versions of Punk Rock Princess, Terrible Things, Kids In Love, a couple of new ones and a throwback even further back than A Lesson In Romantics in Three Cheers For Five Years — plus there was a legit encore after we stomped our feet for two more songs. Thanks for journeying us back to 2007, Mayday.

Uppy Chatterjee

Live Pic credits 1. Sean Paul @ Qudos Bank Arena Pic: Brendan Delavere 2. En Vogue @ Qudos Bank Arena Pic: Brendan Delavere 3. Kelly Rowland @ Qudos Bank Arena Pic: Brendan Delavere 4. Kelis @ Qudos Bank Arena Pic: Brendan Delavere 5. Craig David @ Qudos Bank Arena Pic: Brendan Delavere 6. Alison Moyet @ Enmore Theatre Pic: Josh Groom THE MUSIC • 18TH OCTOBER 2017 • 33

Arts Reviews Arts Reviews

her wedding to Mark (Dermot Mulroney), he has an operation to perform. So Alex proposes the two hire a charter plane to get them to their destination.

When the pilot (Beau Bridges) suffers a fatal stroke mid-flight, however, the plane crashes, leaving them stranded alone high in the mountains. (Well, not totally alone — the pilot’s golden retriever also survives.) The cautious, logical Ben believes they have a better chance of being rescued if they stay where they are. But the driven Alex, despite a broken leg, is keen to leave the wreckage behind and make her way down the mountain.

And when she takes off (with the dog in tow), Ben feels obliged to follow. It’s a slow journey in freezing conditions, perhaps more frustrating than truly perilous, but exposure and exhaustion slowly start taking their toll.

And the longer Alex and Ben spend battling the elements, the closer they become to one another.

That may not sound especially compelling, but the screenplay by Chris Weitz and J Mills Goodloe has the ring of truth when it conveys the conflicting swirl of emotions between the two characters. Alex and Ben clearly view life very differently — she’s inclined to act on instinct and follow her heart, while the pragmatic Ben gruffly points out the heart is merely a muscle — but they’re also level-headed enough to realise how much they need each other. And Winslet and Elba are also talented enough to express the messiness and confusion of that mutual need evolving into a shared attraction.

Oscar-nominated Palestinian director Hany Abu-Assad presents all of these parts of the story — struggling to survive, wrestling with mixed emotions — with a pleasing delicacy and restraint, which mostly works in the film’s favour, although there are times when The Mountain Between Us could stand to ramp up the tension or danger. And the director is also savvy enough to realise that when he needs to capture the audience’s attention, all he has to is shoot a close-up of Winslet or Elba, two of the planet’s betterlooking individuals.

The Mountain

Between Us Film In cinemas now

★★★½ The high-altitude drama The Mountain Between Us wisely understands that it really only needs a few things to get its job done — a dramatic situation, a beautiful but treacherous location and two intensely charismatic, attractive people smack in the middle of both.

Story-wise, there’s not really much to this adaptation of Charles Martin’s novel about two mismatched strangers forced to rely on one another to survive following a plane crash in a wintry, isolated mountain range.

Brain surgeon Ben (Idris Elba) and photojournalist Alex (Kate Winslet) are equally (and obviously) frustrated by the stormy weather that has grounded their commercial flight — she’s en route to

Guy Davis

34 • THE MUSIC • 18TH OCTOBER 2017

Michael Hutchence: The Last Rockstar Film (Finished)

★★★ Michael Hutchence: The Last Rockstar follows a twoyear Seven News investigation, spanning five countries and four continents, after hidden bank vaults — in Zurich, Paris and London — were opened, revealing the late singer’s prized possessions, private photographs and family videos.

Bono, a member of Hutchence’s inner circle, is one of this doco’s recurring talking heads and some of the INXS frontman’s friends — including lawyer/Hutchence executor Colin Diamond and girlfriend of three years, Rosanna Crash — speak publicly about Hutchence for the first time. Other talking heads include his father Kelland (who strangely states, “Michael was a great lover”!?) and sister Tina Hutchence, Simon Le Bon (who we’re told got in touch requesting his involvment in this project), actor Billy Zane (Hutch met him on the set of Dead Calm), Danny Saber (LA-based producer of Hutchence’s solo material), Nick Egan, actress Peta Wilson and Leslie Bega (who was married to INXS drummer Jon Farriss).

After the screening and when asked whether Kylie Minogue was approached for an interview, Harvey tells us that they received “two very nice private notes back from Helena [Christensen] and Kylie”. “Both of them just respectfully said that they wanted to keep their silence, you know,” Harvey adds, “they wished us well.”

So, how is the experience of watching Michael Hutchence: The Last Rockstar? It’s wonderful to see the great man who is so dearly missed by many (teary moments by the talking heads are plentiful) lighting up the screen and celebrating his immense talent 20 years after his untimely death. Home movies of Hutchence surrounded by friends and family at his villa in the South of France make us feel as if we’ve entered his inner sanctum.

Footage of Tiger as a baby, filmed by a doting Hutchence interacting with his daughter as he zooms in, is incredibly touching. We’re reminded just how charismatic he was; no one else on the planet boasts such an effortlessly sexy, slinky strut.

Bryget Chrisfield

OUT NOW

“Many artists take cues from Bowie but she’s the closest thing we have to his audaciously protean vision of pop stardom: a living art project that contains multitudes” -Q

“A career summit. It’s her ‘Lemonade,’ her ‘OK Computer’— whatever reference conveys the urgency with which it demands to be listened to when it drops.”

- NYLON

13.10.17 THE MUSIC • 18TH OCTOBER 2017 • 35

Comedy / G The Guide

Wed 18

Mount Zamia

The Dillinger Escape Plan: Bald Faced Stag, Leichhardt Twin Peaks: Bellingen Brewery & Co, Bellingen

Diana Anaid

Casey Donovan + Joel Leffler: Brass Monkey, Cronulla Michael Jackson Legacy Tour with William Hall: Capitol Theatre, Tamworth

The Music Presents Diana Anaid: 22 Oct, Cruelty Free Festival; 1 - 3 Nov, Australian Music Week Mono: 9 Nov Manning Bar Newtown Festival: 12 Nov Camperdown Memorial Rest Park Mullum Music Festival: 16 - 19 Nov Mullumbimby Vanfest: 1 Dec Forbes Showground sleepmakeswaves: 9 Dec Oxford Art Factory Festival Of The Sun: 7 - 9 Dec Port Macquarie Alt-J: 9 Dec ICC Sydney sleepmakeswaves: 9 Dec Oxford Art Factory

Beatlemania: Civic Theatre, Newcastle Jett Williams: Dubbo RSL, Dubbo Son Volt + Jason Walker + Fallon Cush: Factory Theatre, Marrickville Dream Good + Ryan Abednego + Matt Thomson: Gasoline Pony, Marrickville Scary Good with Wash + The Cloacas: Hotel Steyne, Manly Strange Days + Pacific Avenue + Wavevom + Dartboy: Leadbelly, Newtown Songs On Stage Feat Russell Neal + Elizabeth Hylton + Jack Peck + Perikles: Paddington RSL, Paddington The Spin Drifters + Felicity Urquhart + George Washing Machine + Stuie French + Michel Rose + Clare O’Meara + Andrew Richardson + Hamish Stuart + Garry Steel + Michael Vidale: The Basement, Sydney

ZAM! Get your ears around some local garage rock goodness at Valve Bar on Sunday. Opening up the stage are Mount Zamia, followed by Bleeding Gums, Space Carbonara and Maple Moths.

John & Yuki: Gaden Community Centre & Cafe, Woollahra Brendan Gallagher: Gasoline Pony, Marrickville Habourveiw Hulabaloo feat Zack Martin + Dan Crestani + Tracey Chamberlain + Jason Mertell + Jas Lall + Matthew Ho + Jeffery Webb + Chris Brookes + Kenneth D’Aran: Harbour View Hotel, Dawes Point

Progfest: 20 Jan Factory Theatre

Paces: Uni Bar, Wollongong Rock On At Valve with Broken Hands + Josh Shipton & The Blue Eyed Ravens + Toadvine: Valve Bar, Ultimo A Gazillion Angry Mexicans: Vic On The Park, Marrickville Jett Williams: Wagga RSL & Commercial Club, Wagga Wagga

Cass Eager: Heritage Hotel, Bulli Genesis Owusu: Hudson Ballroom, Sydney Joyride + Left: Lansdowne Hotel, Chippendale

The Morrisons

Joyride

Dr TAOS + Beck Fielding + Zack Ely + Ella Carstein: LazyBones Lounge, Marrickville Casey Donovan: Leadbelly, Newtown

Oktoberwest feat. Birdman or The Unexpected Virtue of a Tony Hawk Pro Skater Band + The Bottlers + The Morrisons + more. Factory Theatre, Sunday

Thu 19 Songs On Stage Feat. Stuart Jammin + Elizabeth Hylton + Jenny Hume: BMW (formerly Beats.Eats.Drinks), Glebe Riley Pearce: Brighton Up Bar, Darlinghurst Midnight Oil + Cimarron + Jebediah + Jack River: C.Ex Coffs, Coffs Harbour Scary Good with Wash + The Cloacas: Cambridge Hotel, Newcastle West ‘The World Of Gershwin’ with Simon Tedeschi: Camelot Lounge, Marrickville Edwina Blush: Camelot Lounge, Marrickville Musos Club Jam: Carousel Inn, Rooty Hill Lambchop: Factory Theatre, Marrickville

36 • THE MUSIC • 18TH OCTOBER 2017

Easy Street + Richard Cartwright (Richard in your Mind): Marlborough Hotel, Newtown Caiti Baker: Mullumbimby Ex-Services Club, Mullumbimby Ribongia: North Wollongong Hotel, North Wollongong

Joyride + Left Lansdowne Hotel, Thursday

John & Yuki: Osaka, Potts Point Donny Benet + Gauci: Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst

Fri 20

Tony Mazell: Revesby Workers, Revesby

Michael Jackson Legacy Tour with William Hall: Anita’s Theatre, Thirroul

An Intimate Evening with Justin Hayward (The Moody Blues): State Theatre, Sydney Charli Rainford + Jacinta Shaye + Fleur Wilber: Staves Brewery, Glebe

Juliawhy? + Spike Vincent + Busty Tones + Mope City: Bank Hotel, Newtown Jason Singh + Ben Lawes: Brass Monkey, Cronulla

The Basement Big Band: The Basement, Sydney

Lost Tropics: Brighton Up Bar, Darlinghurst

Traveller + The Deslondes: The Bunker (FKA Coogee Diggers), Coogee

Poison Us The Australian Poison Tribute Show + Australian Van Halen Show: Bull & Bush, Baulkham Hills

The Peep Tempel + Batpiss + Mini Skirt: The Northern, Byron Bay Carlos C Major + Liam Cooper: The Soda Factory, Surry Hills

Topology: Byron Cultural & Community Centre, Byron Bay The New Christs + East Coast Low: Cambridge Hotel, Newcastle West

Gigs / Live The Guide

Kris McIntyre: Parramatta RSL, Parramatta

Boukabou: Belrose Hotel, Belrose

They Call Me Bruce: Quakers Inn, Quakers Hill

Michael Jackson Legacy Tour with William Hall: Blacktown Workers Club, Blacktown

Whooshka: Revesby Workers, Revesby

Andrew’s Funk & Blues Jam Feat.

Andrew Denniston: BMW (formerly Beats.Eats.Drinks), Glebe

Songs In The Key of Motown: Rooty Hill RSL, Rooty Hill Brendan Gallagher: Rous Mill Hall, Rous Mill

The Angels

The Angels + Diesel + Mi-Sex Enmore Theatre

Purple Doves: Camelot Lounge, Marrickville

Ramshackle: Shark Hotel, Sydney Georgia White: St George Motor Boat Club, Sans Souci Nick Jeffries Band + Dianna Rouvas: Street Market Asian Tapas, Crows Nest

A Billion Beats Benefit Concert feat. Maz Mazak + No Qualms + Amanda Easton + Tansy Mayhem + Sally London + The Soul Messengers: The Basement, Sydney

Adaptors + Mandarin Tree + Jacob Moon + Amritha: Captain Cook Hotel, Paddington

Planet: The Chippendale Hotel, Chippendale

Christie Lamb: Colonial Hotel, Werrington Drunk Mums + King Colour: Coogee Bay Hotel (Selina’s) , Coogee The White Bros: Coolibah Hotel, Merrylands West The Angels + Diesel + Mi-Sex: Enmore Theatre, Newtown Bongo’s Bingo Down Under: Euston Business Park, Alexandria Kim Churchill: Factory Theatre, Marrickville Jim Lawrie + Robert Muinos + Mark Harding: Factory Theatre, Marrickville

Jacinta: Long Jetty Hotel, Long Jetty Cover Me Crazy: Bull & Bush, Baulkham Hills Nite Jewel: Cake Wines Cellar Door, Redfern

Drunk Mums

The Sunset Junkies + Byron Short: The Stag & Hunter Hotel, Mayfield No Troubles: Towradgi Beach Hotel, Towradgi Deaf To All But Metal feat. Panik + Terrorential + Children Of Perdition + Snow Leopard + Cruciform + Head In A Jar: Valve Bar, Ultimo

Matrialchohol Drunk Mums are planning on rippin’ up the stage and scullin’ a shandy at Selina’s at Coogee Beach Hotel on their national tour. They are joined by epic support act King Colour Friday night.

Boo Seeka + Turquoise Prince + Resin Moon: Cambridge Hotel, Newcastle West

Formations with Various Artists: Manning Bar, Camperdown

Yeo + Lonelyspeck + Froyo: Cambridge Hotel, Newcastle West

Clowns: Marlin Hotel (The Black Room) , Ulladulla

Monsieur Camembert: Camelot Lounge, Marrickville

The Starliners: Matraville RSL, Matraville

Valhalore

Jeremy Butterworth + Justin Frew + Arlin + The Bearded Cat: Janes Wollongong, North Wollongong

Max Chapman: Chinese Laundry, Sydney

Iterim + Dave: Lass O’Gowrie, Wickham

Crystals: Coffs Harbour Hotel, Coffs Harbour

Fallon Cush + The Nature Strip + The Safety Of Life At Sea: LazyBones Lounge, Marrickville

The Mis-Made + Abolicion: Dicey Riley’s Hotel, Wollongong

Havana Meets Kingston feat. Mista Savona + Randy Valentine + Solis: Manning Bar, Camperdown Traveller + The Deslondes + Andy Colledge Band: Marrickville Bowling Club, Marrickville Yeo + Lonelyspeck + Commandeur: Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst

The Dillinger Escape Plan: Metro Theatre, Sydney Foghorn Stringband: Metropole Hotel, Katoomba Carmen Presents Noy: Miranda Hotel, Miranda

Boney M: Enmore Theatre, Newtown

Ian Moss: Leadbelly, Newtown

DJ Jack McCord: Manly Wharf Hotel, Manly

DJ SB + DJ Ben Morris: Manly Wharf Hotel, Manly

Luke Morris + Tullura: The Record Crate, Glebe

Cambio Sun: Vic On The Park, Marrickville

Clive Hay: Lynwood Country Club, Pitt Town

Ian Moss: Leadbelly, Newtown

Nocturnal Tapes: The Oxford Circus, Darlinghurst

John & Yuki: Hotel Blue, Katoomba

Rick Price: Lizottes Newcastle, Lambton

Grinding Eyes + The Holy Soul + Skullsquadron + Smash Repairs + more: Lansdowne Hotel, Chippendale

Andrew Stockdale: The Northern, Byron Bay

Queen Porter Stomp: Gasoline Pony, Marrickville

British India: Hotel Brunswick, Brunswick Heads

Rattle & Hum-U2 Show: Kingsgrove RSL Club, Kingsgrove

UV Boi: The Grand Hotel, Wollongong

Fuckfest feat. Evolve + Decide Today + Tramstein + Athorataxis + Noisetruckt + Hedonist + Ten Thousand Free Men & Their Families + Evilz & Sick Circuit: Valve Bar (Level One) , Ultimo

Transvaal Diamond Syndicate: Federal Hotel, Bellingen

Alexander Biggs + Tesse + Emma Davis: Brighton Up Bar, Darlinghurst

K.P.: Kellys on King, Newtown

Jackie Marshall: Sunset Studios, Sandgate

Cass Eager & The Velvet Rope: Camelot Lounge (Django Bar (below Camelot Lounge)) , Marrickville

Casey Donovan: Centro CBD, Wollongong

Alexander Briggs: Brighton Up Bar, Darlinghurst

Alice Cooper + Ace Frehley + Strangers: Hordern Pavilion, Moore Park

Nikki Steinfield: Modus Operandi, Mona Vale

Vik-Toberfest feat. Valhalore + Darker Half + Carmeria + Saralisse + Beast Impalor The Lair, Saturday

Sat 21 The Big Brew Up feat. Bloods + Mezko + Alexander Biggs + Tees + Hot Spoke! + Tijana + Tigertown DJs + Inertia + The Farmer & The Owl: 107 Projects, Redfern

Bongo’s Bingo Down Under: Euston Business Park, Alexandria Painters & Dockers + Imperial Broads: Factory Theatre, Marrickville

Get Rich: North Bondi RSL, North Bondi Big Village Block Party feat. Mathas + Omar Musa + P.Smurf + Rapaport: Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst

Chris O’Connor: Gasoline Pony, Marrickville Snake Oil Preachers + Anni & The Electric Fins: Gasoline Pony, Marrickville

Lakyn: Oxford Art Factory (Gallery Bar) , Darlinghurst

Rick Price: Hardys Bay Club, Hardys Bay

Songs On Stage Feat. Rachel T + David Mark: Paddington RSL, Paddington

Cimarron + Birds Of Tokyo + Ash Grunwald: Hope Estate Winery, Pokolbin

Di Bird + Red Hot & Blue: Penrith RSL, Penrith The Frocks: Penrith RSL, Penrith

Matt Lyon: Bathurst Panthers, Bathurst

THE MUSIC • 18TH OCTOBER 2017 • 37

Comedy / G The Guide

The Matchbox Tribute Show: Pioneer Tavern, Penrith

Kingswood + The Vanns + Dear Seattle: The Northern, Byron Bay

FlexMami

Gary Johns + Sydney Funk Collective: Pittwater RSL, Mona Vale

Dragon: Towradgi Surf Life Saving Club (Sports Bar) , Towradgi

Stephanie Lea: Plough & Harrow, Camden Riot Ten: Proud Mary’s, Erina

Garage Rock Show with Maple Moths + Space Carbonara + Bleeding Gums + Mount Zamia: Valve Bar, Ultimo

Akmal: Revesby Workers, Revesby

DJ Deathrayz: Vic On The Park, Marrickville

Agent 69: Revesby Workers, Revesby

Mon 23

Restless Leg + Hoolahan + Moody Beach: Scarborough Wombarra Bowling Club, Wombarra

Song Quest Feat. Russell Neal + Naomi Nash + Kay Camargo + Michelle Benson + Paul Ward + Jeffery Webb + Chris Brookes + Kenneth D’Aran: Kellys on King, Newtown

Songs In The Key of Motown: South Sydney Juniors, Kingsford

Cruise n Groove feat. Boney M + Marcia Hines + Go West + Nik Kershaw + Cutting Crew + Glenn Shorrock + Brian Cadd + Songs In The Key of Motown + Mi-Sex + Paul Gray + more: Sydney Harbour, Sydney

Planet Groove: St Marys Band Club, St Marys Beatlemania: State Theatre, Sydney

In Formation

Kathy Griffin: Sydney Opera House, Sydney The Chainsmokers: Sydney Showgrounds, Sydney Olympic Park Dappled Cities: The Basement, Sydney

A celebration of online music culture, coupled with a futuristic stage, Formations happens at Manning Bar on Saturday. FlexMami, Miss Blanks, Madze, Aywy and more are providing the tunes.

Cruise n Groove feat. KC & The Sunshine Band + Boney M + Marcia Hines + Paul Young + Go West + Cutting Crew + Mi-Sex + Songs In The Key of Motown + Paul Gray + more: White Bay Cruise Terminal (Radiance of the Seas) , Balmain

Thread: The Beach Hotel, Merewether Songs On Stage Feat. No Frills Honey: Well Connected Cafe, Glebe

Sun 22

Songs On Stage Feat. Carolyn Woodorth + James Reinhardt + Diana Figgis + Tim Walmsley + Elizabeth Hylton + Jack Peck + Kenneth D’Aran + Jeffrey Webb: Honey Rider Bar, Neutral Bay

Scary Good with Wash + The Cloacas: Bangalow Hotel, Bangalow

Kingfisha: Hotel Brunswick, Brunswick Heads

Michael Jackson Legacy Tour with William Hall: Bathurst Panthers, Bathurst

Tay Oskee: Hotel Brunswick, Brunswick Heads

Soul Messengers: Beaches Hotel, Thirroul

James Morrison: Lizottes Newcastle, Lambton

Jason Walker

Son Volt + Jason Walker + Fallon Cush Factory Theatre, Wednesday

Killing Heidi + RACKETT: Beer DeLuxe, Albury Andrew Denniston: BMW (formerly Beats.Eats.Drinks), Glebe

DJ Matt Boylan-Smith + DJ Graham M + DJ Tim Boffa: Manly Wharf Hotel, Manly Satellite V: Marrickville Bowling Club, Marrickville

Kris McIntyre: Bull & Bush, Baulkham Hills

Nick Nuisance & The Delinquents: The Northern, Byron Bay Swingshift - Cold Chisel Show: The Oaks Hotel, Albion Park Rail

Cub Sport + Middle Kids + Fritz: Cambridge Hotel, Newcastle West Philip Glass @ 80 with Andrew Chubb: Camelot Lounge, Marrickville

Acolyte: The Small Ballroom, Islington

Bronwyn Eather + The Crow Janes: Camelot Lounge (Django Bar (below Camelot Lounge)) , Marrickville

Z-Star Delta: The Stag & Hunter Hotel, Mayfield

Out Of Abingdon: Cupitt’s Winery, Ulladulla

Alex The Astronaut: The Treehouse, Byron Bay Cub Sport + Middle Kids + White Blanks: Towradgi Beach Hotel, Towradgi Deaf To All But Metal feat. By The Horns + Sarcophaguts + Black Mountain + Corroted + Reaper + Fenrir + Horrisonous + Enfiled + Rebel Wizard + Reaver: Valve Bar, Ultimo Ignite: UK Garage And House Party feat. Lad B2B Jimmy Ray + Bassone: Valve Bar (Level One) , Ultimo Fox Holmes: Vic On The Park, Marrickville Soundproofed: Wallacia Hotel, Wallacia

Oktoberwest 2017 feat. Birdman or The Unexpected Virtue of a Tony Hawk Pro Skater Band + DJ Donny Benet + Lindsay McDougall + The Lockhearts + Scabz + The Persian Drugs + The Morrisons + Ainsley Farrell + Max Quinn + more: Factory Theatre, Marrickville

38 • THE MUSIC • 18TH OCTOBER 2017

Kim Churchill + Ayla + Taj Ralph Factory Theatre, Friday

Tue 24

The Henry Fjords: Marrickville Festival, Marrickville

Less Than Jake + Bodyjar + Foxtrot: Cambridge Hotel, Newcastle West

Michael Jackson Legacy Tour + DJ Maynard: Metro Theatre, Sydney

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

Cass Eager & The Velvet Rope + Andie: Metropole Hotel, Katoomba

Songs On Stage Feat. Russell Neal + The Chordbusters + Gerry Ford + Jeff Arnold + Paul Connolly: Gladstone Hotel, Dulwich Hill

Chris Alexander Quartet: Mgs Music Lounge, Five Dock Georgia White: Mooney Mooney Club, Mooney Mooney Matt Lyon: Northmead Bowling Club, Northmead Tall Timbre: Penrith RSL, Penrith The Revivals: Pittwater RSL, Mona Vale

Acolyte + Black Aces + Flickertail: Frankie’s Pizza By The Slice, Sydney

V-Dub: The Beach Hotel, Merewether

A Gazillion Angry Mexicans: Frankie’s Pizza By The Slice, Sydney

Greg Poppleton: The Builders Club, Wollongong

Herriot Row + Pete Fenton: Gasoline Pony, Marrickville

Abolicion + The Culture Industry + Black Rats: The Chippendale Hotel, Chippendale

The Western Distributors + Lock Stock N Daryl: Gasoline Pony, Marrickville

Stephanie Jansen: The Henry Sports Club, Werrington County

Z-Star Delta: Hardys Bay Club, Hardys Bay

Kim Churchill

Songs On Stage Feat. Stuart Jammin: Kellys on King, Newtown Alice Cooper + Ace Frehley + Strangers: Newcastle Entertainment Centre, Broadmeadow Anna Netrebko + Yusif Eyvazov: Sydney Opera House, Sydney Winston Surfshirt: Uni Bar, Wollongong

FEATURING

CODY MUNRO MOORE THE CROOKED FIDDLE BAND / FOOD COURT GAUCI / THE GOODS / I KNOW LEOPARD JACK COLWELL / JEP AND DEP / KLUE / LEFT. MEZKO / PEABODY / SARAH BELKNER / SPIT SYNDICATE THE TROUBLED ROMANTICS / VOICES OF LAKEMBA (NNC SYDNEYVISION WINNER) in alphabetical order

ALONG WITH

LA TOOSH // HEAPS GAY’S KARAOKE CLOSET // NEWTOWN LOCALS // KIDS ZONE BETTER READ THAN DEAD WRITERS TENT // ECO VILLAGE // SASSY TREAT’S DOG SHOW

2017 • 39

40 • THE MUSIC • 18TH OCTOBER 2017