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KATE MILLER-HEIDKE A MAJOR LABEL DEAL MADE HER MISERABLE
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THE MUSIC • 12TH MARCH 2014 • 3
4 • THE MUSIC • 12TH MARCH 2014
THE MUSIC • 12TH MARCH 2014 • 5
Fri 21st March
The Suicide Girls + Blackheart Burlesque Tour
Sat 22nd March
Wendy Matthews + Special Guests
Sun 6th April
Cloud Control Corona extra 3pm - 4:30pm - FREE GIG
Fri 18thApril
Sat 17th May
+ Kohji + Rude Rahlis + Crash Tragic + Lower Coast Skies + Under The Influence GOOD FRIDAY
Bodyjar The Bee Gees Show One Night Only!
www.towradgibeachhotel.com.au 170 Pioneer Road, Towradgi 2518 | 02 42833 588 6 • THE MUSIC • 12TH MARCH 2014
THE MUSIC • 12TH MARCH 2014 • 7
themusic 12TH MARCH 2014
IT SEEMS RIDICULOUS LOOKING BACK THAT I WOULD PUT THAT MUCH EFFORT INTO A ROMANTIC COMEDY.
#029
INSIDE FEATURED
Kate Miller-Heidke Billy Bragg
NICK FROST ON CUBAN FURY [P.35]
Neil Finn Orphaned Land Green Porno Damien Dempsey Calling All Cars Caspian Iced Earth Jurassic 5 Yo La Tengo Glen Hansard The Stray Sisters Chicks On Speed Sky Ferreira
review
NINE INCH NAILS PIC BY JOSH GROOM
“TRENT REZNOR, EVER THE SHOWMAN, STALKED AND HOPPED AROUND THE STAGE WHEN NOT LURCHING OVER THE MIC-STAND, LIKE THE MESS OF ANGER AND MUSCLE HE IS.” ANDREW MCDONALD REVIEWS NINE INCH NAILS [P.42]
Cuban Fury
REVIEWS Album: Kate Miller-Heidke Live: Future Music Festival Arts: Cuban Fury ... and more
THE GUIDE
Cover: The SideTracked Fiasco Eat/drink Indie News Opinion Gig Guide The End
WE’RE ON THE GROUND IN AUSTIN AT SXSW AGAIN THIS YEAR. KEEP UP WITH ALL THE ACTION ON THEMUSIC.COM.AU
TAKE AN IN-DEPTH LOOK AT SOME OF THE COMEDIANS ON THIS YEAR’S MASSIVE SYDNEY COMEDY FESTIVAL RIGHT NOW ON THEMUSIC.COM.AU
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MELBOURNE SKA ORCHESTRA
CATCH NEW VIDEOS FROM MELBOURNE SKA ORCHESTRA, KINGSWOOD AND MORE THIS WEEK ON THEMUSIC.COM.AU
THERE’S ABOUT A MINUTE AT THE START OF SUPERMODEL WHERE YOU THINK IT’S ALL GOING TO BE OKAY.
review 8 • THE MUSIC • 12TH MARCH 2014
MADELEINE LAING REVIEWS FOSTER THE PEOPLE [P.36]
@ Agincourt 871 George street, Sydney City, valvebar@gmail.com www.valvebar.com.au WED 12TH 7PM
THU 13TH 7PM
BASEMENT
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LEVEL ONE
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VIBRATIONS AT VALVE
BASEMENT
GREAT BAND COMP/ EXCITING PRIZES
SAT 15TH 8PM
“PASSIVE RESISTANCE”
LEVEL ONE
PUNK SHOW WITH SUPPORT FROM: “GOOD GRIEFS”, “NARLA”, “MONTE”
“KALEIDOSKOPE” PSY ROCK SHOW WITH SUPPORT FROM: “LUCHA LIBRE”, “HOLLOW GODS”, “PSYCHIC SUN”, “HOON”
VENT@VALVE
SAT 15TH 8PM
BASEMENT
SUN 16TH 12PM
BASEMENT
HIP HOP MONTHLY HOSTED BY IZZY N THE PROFIT, DJ MANIAK FEAT PERFORMANCES BY MANY SPECIAL GUESTS
SUN 9TH 6PM
GLOBAL BATTLE OF THE BANDS SYDNEY HEAT $100,000 GRAND PRIZE GLOBAL BAND COMPETITION
“COLOUR THERAPY” INDIE ROCK SHOW WITH SUPPORT FROM: “ADULTHOOD”, “TAKING BERLIN”, “BALTIMORE GUN CLUB”
CORROSION GOTH MONTHLY CLUBNIGHT FEAT DJ’S PERFORMING GOTH, OLD SCHOOL, INDUSTRIAL, ALTERNATIVE
“BEN HARDIE TRIO” SOUL/FUNK/ROCK SHOW ALBUM RELEASE PARTY WITH SUPPORT FROM “LUCY & THE B SIDES”, “ELISHA KEEN”, “RED OXYGEN”
COMING UP
Wed 19 March: Vibrations at Valve Band Comp ; Thu 20 March: Rock Show presented by Black Diamond Touring; Fri 21 March: Basement: Rock Show with “Angel At My Table” , “Dress To Riot” , “Summer’s Mixtape” , “Exit Row” , “Flick The Bean”; Level One 9pm: Dark Sun Entertainment presents “Melody Black” , “In Hydes Shadow” , “Domino” , “Coredea”; Sat 22 March: 8pm Basement: Rock’n’Roll Show with “Stand Alone” , “The Vee Bees” , “Sin 4 Me”; Level One: Punk/Hardcore Show with “COFFIN” , “Deadly Visions” , “Birds Eye View” , “Death Sleds” , “The Human Wrongs” ; Sun 23 March: 5pm: Rock’n’Roll Show with “Elston Gun” , “War Flower” , “Claire & The Cops” , “Delta Edge & The Hounds”
For band bookings please email valvebar@gmail.com
THE MUSIC • 12TH MARCH 2014 • 9
CREDITS PUBLISHER
Street Press Australia Pty Ltd
GROUP MANAGING EDITOR Andrew Mast
EDITOR Mark Neilsen
ASSISTANT EDITOR Hannah Story
ARTS AND CULTURE EDITOR Cassandra Fumi
MUSO EDITOR Michael Smith
GIG GUIDE EDITOR Justine Lynch nsw.gigs@themusic.com.au
CONTRIBUTORS Adam Wilding, Andrew McDonald, Anthony Carew, Ben Meyer, Benny Doyle, Ben Preece, Bethany Cannan, Brendan Crabb, Brendan Telford, Callum Twigger, Cam Findlay, Cameron Warner, Cate Summers, Chris Familton, Chris Maric, Chris Yates, Christopher H James, Cyclone, Dan Condon, Daniel Cribb, Danielle O’Donohue, Dave Drayton, Deborah Jackson, Dylan Stewart, Glenn Waller, Guido Farnell, Guy Davis, Helen Lear, Jamelle Wells, James d’Apice, Justine Keating, Kristy Wandmaker, Liz Giuff re, Lukas Murphy, Luke Dassaklis, Mark Hebblewhite, Mat Lee, Matt MacMaster, Paul Ransom, Rip Nicholson, Ross Clelland, Sam Hilton, Sam Murphy, Sarah Braybrooke, Sarah Petchell, Scott Fitzsimons, Sebastian Skeet, Sevana Ohandjanian, Simon Eales, Steve Bell, Tim Finney, Tom Hersey, Tyler McLoughlan, Xavier Rubetzki Noonan
PHOTOGRAPHERS Angela Padovan, Carine Thevenau, Clare Hawley, Cybele Malinowski, Jared Leibowitz, Jodie Mathews, Josh Groom, Kane Hibberd, Peter Sharp, Rohan Anderson, Thomas Graham
NATIONAL SALES MANAGER Brett Dayman
THIS WEEK THINGS TO DO THIS WEEK • 12 MARCH - 18 MARCH 2014
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shop
At Taste Of Sydney, Sydney’s restaurant festival in Centennial Park. Opening tomorrow and running for only four days, the fest sees pop-ups from some of our favourite restaurants, Like Chur Burger, Biota Dining and Efendy, setting up shop with special tasting dishes up for sale. Other highlights of the fest include tasting masterclasses, food talks, cooking schools and chef demonstrations from top chefs and industry experts. Yum.
At Victoria’s Secret’s first Sydney CBD store, opening today in the QVB. It’s a beauty and accessories store, selling perfumes, handbags, sunglasses, underpants and scarves, plus more. As of yet there are no plans to open a Victoria’s Secret lingerie store, so you wont be able to dress exactly like an Angel/Miranda Kerr just yet, but at least you can smell like one.
ADVERTISING DEPT Brett Dayman, James Seeney, Andrew Lilley sales@themusic.com.au
ART DIRECTOR Nicholas Hopkins
ART DEPT Eamon Stewart, Brendon Wellwood, Julian De Bono
ADMIN & ACCOUNTS Loretta Zoppos, Shelley Neergaard, Jarrod Kendall, Leanne Simpson accounts@themusic.com.au
DISTRO Anita D’Angelo distro@themusic.com.au
SUBSCRIPTIONS store@themusic.com.au
CONTACT US PO Box 2440 Strawberry Hills NSW 2012 Level 1/142 Chalmers St Surry Hills NSW Phone (02) 9331 7077 info@themusic.com.au www.themusic.com.au
SYDNEY
watch
Short films at the fifth Seen & Heard Film Festival, running until 20 Mar at the Red Rattler. This film festival showcases films by women from all around the world, whether as writers, directors or producers. The idea stems from the poor stats in relation to women in behind-the-scenes roles on film: in 2011 38 per cent of the US top 250 domestic grossing films employed no women in any major production role. It’s ridiculous, and one step to remedying it, is to catch some of the great films screening at this festival, including Grave Goods on 20 Mar, a film about family and the possessions they leave behind.
THE MUSIC • 12TH MARCH 2014 • 11
national news news@themusic.com.au BAM BAM
BIFFY CLYRO
HOLIDAY MODE
GLITTER AND TRAUMA
If you’re yet to climb some Mountains with Biffy Clyro then do yourself a favour and change that situation this year. One of the biggest rock bands in Europe, the boys have headlined Reading, sold out Wembley Arena, and are excited about returning to Australian stages after playing to adoring crowds across Soundwave 2014. Experience these Scottish greats at the height of their powers, 4 Sep, The Tivoli, Brisbane; 5 Sep, Enmore Theatre, Sydney; 7 Sep, Palais Theatre, Melbourne; and 12 Sep, Metro City, Perth.
BIG MAN PLANS
Charismatic hip hop hero Action Bronson is set to be one of the highlights on the upcoming Groovin The Moo tour. But although you can take the city boy out to the country, you can’t keep the city boy content out there, which is why the New York MC has announced some capital headline dates around the country. Catch him 30 Apr, Metro Theatre, Sydney; 1 May, Corner Hotel, Melbourne; 7 May, The Hi-Fi, Brisbane; and 9 May, Villa Nightclub, Perth.
CLASH OF THE TITANS
A night for the heads and the purists, legendary hip hop producers Pete Rock and DJ Premier will be bringing their Collusion event out to Oz, the American pair perform as a duo, and in both collaborative and versus sets. These huge nights of beat and rhyme happen 1 May, Capitol, Perth; 2 May, 170 Russell, Melbourne; 3 May, The Hi-Fi, Sydney; and 9 May, Arena, Brisbane.
BIG WIN FOR BIG SCARY
Congratulations are definitely in order for Melbourne duo Big Scary, who have beaten out more than 300 longlisted domestic acts to take home the ninth annual Australian Music Prize, the Coopers AMP recipients taking home the first prize check of $30,000 for their second LP Not Art. Acclaimed Grammy Award winning producer Steve Lillywhite presented the group with the award at The Basement in Sydney.
SOUND ALL AROUND
Although the hype machine would have you believe otherwise, Oscar Key Sung is only just getting around to releasing his debut EP. Holograms captures the prodigious Melbourne songwriter and producer at his most daring and emotive, his alt-R&B jams taking you from the bedroom to the dancefloor and back again. Hear these new songs first 14 Mar, Trinity Bar, Canberra; 11 Apr, Star Bar, Bendigo; 19 Apr, Howler, Melbourne; 24 Apr, Goodgod Small Club, Sydney; 26 Apr, Alhambra Lounge, Brisbane; and 1 May, The Bird, Perth.
“IF YOU LOOK BACK THROUGH THE HITS OF THE 2000S IT SEEMS PHARRELL HAS ALWAYS BEEN THERE IN THE BACKGROUND LIKE SOME SORT OF R’N’B KEYSER SÖZE” LET’S HOPE THINGS DON’T GET AS TWISTED IN THE END @DAVECALLANTWIT. 12 • THE MUSIC • 12TH MARCH 2014
Hip hop sensation Bam Bam is dropping The Good Life later this month and to celebrate he’s taking his party bangers on the road: 2 Apr, Happy Club, Newcastle; 3 Apr, Manning Bar, Sydney; 4 Apr, Bowler Bar, Brisbane; 5 Apr, Solbar, Maroochydore; 12 Apr, Northcote Social Club, Melbourne; and 19 Apr, Amplifier, Perth, with Savo supporting. Proudly presented by The Music.
BEGINNING OF THE END
Misery Signals are back with new album Absent Light, and they’ll be taking their metal precision and punk attitude on tour with Stories in tow: Amplifier Bar, Perth, 8 May; YMCA HQ, Perth, 9 May; The Espy, Melbourne, 10 May; Break The Ice Festival, Lilydale Showgrounds, Melbourne, 11 May (Stories not appearing); ANU Bar, Canberra, 15 May; The Hi-Fi, Sydney, 16 May; The Hi-Fi, Brisbane, 17 May; and The Lab, Brisbane, 18 May.
THY ART IS MURDER
FREE YOUR MIND COMPLETES LINE-UP
The full line-up for mini-fest Free Your Mind has been unveiled. Headlined by the festival’s curators Northlane, other acts include Thy Art Is Murder (pictured), Veil Of Maya, Volumes and Make Them Suffer. The minifest visits The Hi-Fi, Brisbane, 22 May; Metro Theatre, Sydney, 23 May; The Cambridge Hotel, Newcastle, 24 May; Zierholz, Canberra, 25 May; Fly By Night, Fremantle, 28 May; The Capitol, Perth, 29 May; and The Hi-Fi, Melbourne, 31 May and 1 Jun. And don’t forget to enter theMusic.com.au’s competition for your band’s chance to open the festival in your city! Proudly presented by The Music.
BAND OF SKULLS
WITH SPECIAL GUESTS
FRI 20 JUN THE HI-FI HIMALAYAN OUT 28 MAR
SKY FERREIRA WITH SPECIAL GUESTS
UT TUE 18 MAR OXFORD SOLD O ART FACTORY TICKETS FROM MOSHTIX.COM.AU SECRET-SOUNDS.COM.AU SKYFERREIRA.COM
NIGHT TIME, MY TIME OUT NOW
SECRET-SOUNDS.COM.AU | BANDOFSKULLS.COM | THEHIFI.COM.AU
TICKETS ON SALE NOW
THE MUSIC • 12TH MARCH 2014 • 13
local news nsw.news@themusic.com.au TOM BALLARD
RESIDUAL
LEAVING RESIDUE
Geelong band Residual have released their new single Numbered, from their forthcoming debut EP, and are celebrating with an east coast tour. Catch them at The World Bar, Apr 4 and FBi Social, 5 Apr. Proudly presented by The Music.
LAUGH IT OUT
The Sydney Comedy Festival will celebrate a decade of laughs with over 165 shows kicking off on 22 Apr. The month-long festivities will feature international and local comedy stars and a plethora of special events over 30 venues across greater Sydney. The full program has now been announced, and features the likes of Jeff Dunham, Tom Ballard (pictured), Gen Fricker, Joel Creasy and many, many more.
GIVE ‘EM HELLIONS
Sydney heavy act Hellions have announced their We Are The Wild Ones tour, which will bring their Die Young album cycle to a close before they head back into the studio. Joined by Trophy Eyes, Hellions make their way to The Cambridge Hotel, Newcastle, 7 May and The Basement, Canberra, 8 May.
ANATHEMATISED
All you patient Anathema fans can rejoice, as the UK rock/metal band are finally coming to Australia for the first time in their 25-year existence. They bring their melodic, heavy music to the stage at the Metro Theatre on 22 Aug.
OLDER AND WISER
Following the release of her new single When We’re Older, Mia Dyson has announced a couple of album preview shows for next month. Dyson, releasing her new album independently, invites fans to share in the process via Pledge Music. See what she’s got in store when she performs at Factory Floor, 3 Apr.
A BIT OF SWAY
With her third album, Sway, Amaya Laucirica cements her presence in the Australian music landscape. Layered acoustic and electronic sounds permeate the record, with Laucirica’s emotional vocals always at the forefront. Witness her live at Goodgod Small Club, 31 May.
Ginger & The Ghost are playing some east coast shows to celebrate the launch of their forthcoming EP Call Up The Whales – set for digital release on 28 Mar. The two mixed media artists will bring their altpop to Goodgod Small Club on 29 Mar.
GOOD LORD
Metalheads Lord will perform “for spare change” on their mini-Australian tour, as they attempt to crowdfund their next big recording project the old fashioned way. Catch the band at Hermanns Bar, 10 May; The Grand Hotel, Wollongong, 16 May; and The Basement, Canberra, 17 May.
KINGSWOOD
GETTING CLOSER
Sydney electronic pop artist Thief has announced he’ll be playing some shows for his national Closer EP tour, with support from Nicole Millar. Thief ’s had a busy 2014 so far, supporting The Aston Shuffle and now heading to the US for SXSW. Catch him at Goodgod Small Club on 28 Mar.
“GIRL IF UR WORRIED ABT WHERE TONGUES HAVE BEEN GOOD THING UR EX BOO IS UR EX BOO CAUSE WE ALL KNOW WHERE THAT BEEN” @MILEYCYRUS’ RESPONSE TO KATY PERRY’S DISS OF THEIR ‘BANGERZ’ KISS. 14 • THE MUSIC • 12TH MARCH 2014
WHALE SONG
SEE YA, SUCKERS
Kingswood are getting ready to hit the road on the Groovin The Moo festival tour. They’re playing some headline shows as well, in celebration of new single Suckerpunch. The Groovin The Moo/Funk In The Trunk tour stops off at The Hi-Fi, 30 May. Proudly presented by The Music.
SUMMER REMAINS
Summer Flake is back with a new video for her track Forever Here And Now. Stephanie Crase, the woman who singlehandedly wrote, recorded, mixed and played every instrument on her debut album You Can Have It All, will perform as Summer Flake at Black Wire Records, 30 Mar.
THE MUSIC • 12TH MARCH 2014 • 15
local news nsw.news@themusic.com.au PIXIES
JACK COLWELL
BAND TOGETHER NOW
Kilter will join Art Vs Science at the Oxford Art Factory on 11 Apr. Monster Magnet are bringing King Of The North along for the ride on 4 Apr at The Hi-Fi, along with Arrowhead. Warming up for Ella Hooper at her single launch at The Vanguard on 29 Mar is Jack Colwell & The Owls.
FEELIN’ FRESH
For this year’s season of Freshworks, the Old 505 Theatre is presenting four shows. Dining (Uns)-Table (3–6 Apr), sees Cloé Fournier investigate failed familial relationships; Old 505 Theatre Co (10–13 Apr), is a work-inprogress development showing; Machine (17–20 Apr), is about 20-something Christine and her guardian angel, and incorporates light, sound and projections; and Macbeth (24–27 Apr) showcases the rigorous and disciplined Suzuki Method of actor training.
IT’S A VIVID LIVE! The first acts have been announced for this year’s Vivid Sydney. Three Vivid LIVE acts have been announced for the Sydney Opera House: Pixies (pictured) will be playing a four-night residency from 23 – 26 May at the Concert Hall; the Australian Chamber Orchestra joins The Presets in Timeline – Life Flashes Before Your Ears at the Concert Hall and Joan Sutherland Theatre, 25 & 29 May; Giorgio Moroder joins UK 50-piece The Heritage Orchestra at the Concert Hall, 1 Jun (plus a Q&A with Moroder himself ) – Moroder also appears at The Studio for a party. The visual centrepiece will be 59 Productions’ Lighting The Sails, running the entirety of Vivid: 29 May to 19 Jun. The full Vivid program will arrive on 24 Mar. Vivid LIVE is proudly presented by The Music.
“OWNING A WHITE CAT + BLACK CLOTHES = WHITE CLOTHES”
SONGBOOK II
Last year, Sydney audiences experienced some of the country’s best performing some of the country’s most treasured songs in The Great Australian Songbook. In light of its success, the event is set to return. It’s on at the Metro Theatre on 26 May featuring Jon Stevens, Shannon Noll, Dave Faulkner (Hoodoo Gurus) and many, many more.
LONG LIVE GIGS
In response to the apparent decline of live music in the inner west, The City Of Sydney, Leichhardt and Marrickville Council representatives have formed a blueprint to resolve current issues that are affecting venues and live music. The three councils agree that, in order to allow live music to thrive, a ‘good neighbouring policy’ between residents and venues should be established, among other points including establishing Parramatta Rd as a live music venue and creating mini-festivals.
PSYCHED UP
The Perch Creek Family Jugband will launch their second LP Jumping On The Highwire at Lizotte’s, Central Coast, 7 May; Lizotte’s, Newcastle, 8 May; Rad Bar, Wollongong, 9 May; Lizotte’s, Dee Why, 11 May; Newtown Social Club, 12 May.
IT’S LADIES’ NIGHT
UK DJ and producer Girl Unit will be returning to Australia this July, bringing his classic 808/909 rhythm tracks, icy rap/grime/R&B instrumentals and club tools to Chinese Laundry, 19 Jul. 16 • THE MUSIC • 12TH MARCH 2014
CAT PROBLEMS, @BALLPARKMUSIC?
ON THE HUNT
Melbourne’s Hayden Calnin has just released his second EP Oh, Hunter, and will launch it at an intimate show on 9 May at Goodgod Small Club. Support from Eliza Hull.
STILL BEATING
Ross Mueller’s Construction Of The Human Heart is a fast and electrifying dark comedy that tests the limits of language. The play now visits TAP Gallery Theatre, 16 Apr – 3 May.
BJORKIN’ HARD
Brant Bjork will co-headline the first CherryRock14 Sydney beside Meat Puppets. Also on the line-up are Hell City Glamours and The Lockhearts. CherryRock14 is on at Factory Theatre, 31 May.
SUPER SUPANOVA
Appearing at Australia’s premier comic-con and pop culture event, Supanova, from 13 – 15 Jun, will be stars from television’s Arrow, John Barrowman and Katie Cassidy, amongst others. Barrowman has previously featured in Torchwood, while Cassidy has appeared in Supernatural, Gossip Girl and Taken.
RK’N’RL
HTRK will be launching their new album Psychic 9-5 Club at Civic Underground on 10 May. Psychic 9-5 Club sees HTRK’s Jonnine Standish and Nigel Yang recording entirely as a duo for the first time, after former member Sean Stewart’s passing – reflecting on sadness and struggle, but finding hope, humour and love within it.
DOING CARTHYWHEELS
British folk music icon Martin Carthy has been announced as the exclusive headliner for this year’s National Folk Festival, held from 17 to 21 Apr at Exhibition Park, Canberra. Carthy has inspired the likes of Bob Dylan and Paul Simon and has recorded with bands such as Steeleye Span and The Watersons.
EXTRA EXTRA
Katy Perry’s added a third show in Sydney at Allphones Arena, 24 Nov. Indie dance trio Rufus have announced a second show for their Worlds Within Worlds Tour, at Enmore Theatre, 22 Jun. Beth Hart’s announced a second show at The Basement on 13 Apr. Justin Timberlake will play a second show at Allphones Arena on 2 Oct.
THE MUSIC • 12TH MARCH 2014 • 17
music
INDEPENDENT WOMAN Kate Miller-Heidke tells Hannah Story about embracing the eclectic, the freedom granted by going independent, and a fan’s prize cow, also named Kate.
D
on’t expect Kate Miller-Heidke’s fourth album to be the same as 2012’s Nightflight. Instead, O Vertigo! is a release that experiments with sonic palettes and vocal melodies, and is different to its predecessor in more ways than one. Firstly, it’s the first album Miller-Heidke has released independently, out from under the watchful eye of her former label, Sony. “I just felt as though it was time,” Miller-Heidke says. “It wasn’t working really well for me, I was miserable, and the way that my career’s developed is very much as a sort of niche artist. I’ve got a small little kind
So not only was she free of the demands of her record label and the constrictions of an album-album format, but also of the pressures of collaboration with her husband and long-time creative partner, Keir Nuttall. As such it is less heavy on the metaphor for than her previous releases, and “sounds like more of a reflection of me than anything I’ve done before. I feel like it’s got more personality. “For a start, vocally, there’s a bit more experimentation, there’s more character in the vocals. I think the lyrics are a lot more direct. There’s a lot less metaphor on this record and a bit more
of needing reassurance from him, or wanting to ask him what he thought of something, but ultimately it all just came down to what I thought about the stuff, which once I let go, was really freeing.” But that doesn’t mean Miller-Heidke did it all on her own. On O Vertigo! she was also able to record with Washington in the studio, and collaborate long-distance with Passenger and Drapht. “It was such a lovely thing for all those guys to just agree to be involved. I had a dream for this album a year ago that I wanted Passenger, Drapht and Washo on the record and I thought, ‘Look, even if I can just get two out of three or whatever, I’ll be doing well’. Just that act of reaching out and asking, it’s not easy for me, I’m quite an introvert and I’m pretty scared of rejection, but they all said yes and I think that helped me get more confidence again.” It’s an album that ended up having the same production values as something put out by a major label, thanks to the great success of her independent PledgeMusic crowdfunding campaign. Her fanbase can’t be so small after all. Despite the backlash unleashed on other singers who have taken the crowdfunding route, MillerHeidke was not discouraged, even enlisting fellow crowdfunder, Amanda Palmer, for her campaign video.
“ONE GUY TOLD ME THAT HE’D NAMED HIS PRIZE COW AFTER ME.” of cottage industry and a relatively small yet devoted fanbase. I just felt that it wasn’t being handled as well as it could’ve been. I didn’t need that big huge machine behind me, I didn’t want the pressure of people wanting me to write a radio song or a single. I wanted to be able to make whatever music came out.” Miller-Heidke was also able to approach the album in a different way; the aesthetic has changed to a more eclectic mix of songs, each distinctive and different to the next. “I think that I didn’t care too much about making a coherent statement, or having a particular colour palette or aesthetic. That was something I was very focused on in Nightflight and this time I wanted it to feel more like just a release or an escape and for each song to be its own universe. I do think listening through it now that there are threads that run through it, but I didn’t care so much about that. “I felt it was too constrictive for me the other way. Even though I think Nightflight is a beautiful record and it’s very cohesive, it was a bit dark and very introspective and I wanted this album to represent complete freedom, y’know. I’m independent now and I wasn’t working with my collaborator, Keir Nuttall; for the first time ever, I wrote nearly everything myself without a collaborator. I guess I just wanted to break free of all of those constraints.” 18 • THE MUSIC • 12TH MARCH 2014
vulnerability, in a way. I think my style is lyricwriting is more direct than Keir’s and part of that is because I wanted the melodies to be really married to the vocals, the lyrics to be really married to the melodies, so it had to be lyrics that would sing beautifully, not just sound good. “It required a bit of a leap of faith in myself, but it was the same thing with going independent. I don’t know, it was kind of time for me to step up, and Keir and I were sending each other insane last time towards the end of the touring cycle and both of us needed a break. I had the really strong sense that I had to make it myself, and sometimes I did fall into those old habits
“You’re always going to get backlash proportionate to how well you do. I feel actually quite lucky that I seem to have escaped too much criticism over it. I think there are still a lot of misconceptions around of what crowdfunding actually means but in my case, through Pledge, it really is a case of just buying things, or pre-ordering things that hopefully you were going to buy anyway, just paying for them a few months in advance. There’s no aspect of it that’s like begging or asking people to pay for things twice, it’s just almost like an online store, an extension of that.” And then when she raised 214% of her goal, she was surprised and overwhelmed. Its success has meant not only increased funds to go towards videos, photos, artwork and other promotion, but the establishment of a different type of connection with her fans. The rewards for the campaign included t-shirts, copies of the record, a songbook, Happy Birthday phone calls, acoustic house gigs, and even the piano on which she wrote the album. But the process of enacting all these rewards is more time-consuming than Miller-Heidke imagined. “It’s been amazing and a new experience for me, but very rewarding. It’s really cool to get to speak to people and they’re all lovely and I don’t know, it just gives an extra dimension of meaning to what I do, I guess, to be able to talk to people on the phone, and they usually want to share a story
A LOT ON HER PLATE On top of writing and recording an album, in 2013, Kate Miller-Heidke featured in the English National Opera’s production of Sunken Garden, as a hologram – which was admittedly a strange experience. She’s already got plans to get back onto the theatre stage following the Australian tour, as she heads to New York to live and work for two-and-a-half months, taking a part in Metropolitan Opera’s The Death Of Klinghoffer. She heads straight into six weeks of rehearsals, but is confident as she already knows the role and the production. But that’s not all: “And I’m writing a children’s opera at the moment for Opera Australia, which is going to open early next year, so yeah, I love that world, the world of the theatre, and I think I definitely will do more of that stuff in the future if it’s right.” However, MillerHeidke doesn’t feel that she’s overworked or juggling too many projects. “Sometimes I do feel that and it’s something I’ve had to struggle with in the past, particularly when there’s lots of travel involved and jetlag. It’s just like getting punched in the brain and I swear that jetlag makes you depressed sometimes. Having said that though I do love being busy, it’s that old paradox of the more you have to do, the more you get done. It’s just a case of finding balance, which is hard as a musician.”
about one of my songs or gigs or whatever, and I feel quite lucky actually. It doesn’t feel like a job, it feels like an exchange, I’m getting a lot back from it. “I’ve only done one house concert and we’ve got quite a few more of them coming up and I’ve been writing out lots of lyric sheets everyday, there’s a lot of things. It’s actually a lot of work; it’s easy to think up reward. And the pressure to make sure everybody gets it on time, because I would hate to disappoint anyone by being late.” The Happy Birthday calls are an especially enjoyable experience where she discovers a lot about her fans, often when they’re a little bit drunk at their parties. “One guy told me that he’d named his prize cow after me, but it’s like a prize heifer that lives with Freddie Mercury and Prince, the other cows. In pretty good company there, it was quite flattering.” Five per cent of the total funds raised from what was, at the time of writing, 2629 pledges, will go to the WWF and their work trying to save the World Heritage-listed Great Barrier Reef. Miller-Heidke is adamantly against the dumping of dredge soil. “All that money will go through to the WWF on the day of album release, so the 14th. It might make some small difference, that’d be incredible, who knows?” Luckily, Miller-Heidke and Nuttall are not driving each other insane anymore, and are prepared to head on an epic Australian tour together again; Miller-
Heidke couldn’t see it any other way. “The thing is that we’ve got such a musical affinity that he’s not replaceable, he’s just not. We’re in a much better place now and we’ve got another musician with us on the road now as well, our dear friend John Rodgers; he’s a violinist and multiinstrumentalist. We’ve got our tour manager and sound guy and lighting person so it’s kind of a gang of us, it’s not just like me and Keir on the road in America for three months. “On stage you can see that we have a really deep
connection, so if anything, even if we’ve just had a major fucking argument, on stage it’s a way to sort of cement that connection. It can be a different way of communicating with one another. “Keir’s been doing this comedy thing, Franky Walnut, and he’s been getting more and more commitments now, like he’s opening for The Beards during July. He’s played the Tamworth Country Music Festival and stuff like that, so I’m starting to have to book his time way in advance, which is a little bit annoying…”
WHAT: O Vertigo! (Cooking Vinyl) WHEN & WHERE: 12 Mar, Seymour Centre; 19 Apr, Bluesfest, Byron Bay THE MUSIC • 12TH MARCH 2014 • 19
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HEARTS AND MINDS Billy Bragg wouldn’t say it, but he is part of a tradition that goes from toting a banjo down a dirt road, through to building an audience 140 characters at a time. Ross Clelland listens to tales of the music of politics, and the politics of music.
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ou don’t so much interview Billy Bragg as have a conversation – with him asking as many question as you – as he prepares for one his semi-regular Australian tours. His previous visit, a short hit-andrun for a music conference with a just couple of shows shoe-horned in, came a few days after the last election. ”I think a lot of you were in a state of shock,” he notes. “So how’s the Abbott thing working out for you?” The death of folk music legend Pete Seeger is still a touchstone for folk. For the music, the man, and what he represented. “He was taking on the world with just a wiry voice and a banjo,” Bragg explains. “I remember being at some ceremony for him, looking down and finding him doing cycling exercises on the floor – he must have been near 80. That’s 100 per cent better than twerking.” It was not just the physical vitality that impressed him. “Even in his 90s he still had work to do, things to achieve. And this was a man who had travelled with Woody Guthrie, wrestled the Ku Klux Klan as they tried to stop [legendary black singer] Paul Robeson performing. He actually walked alongside Martin Luther King. You were shaking hands with history.” Conversely, Bragg plays down moments from his own life. Being at the frontline of the Miners’ Strike in Thatcher’s England, visiting Russia as the USSR collapsed, and being a part of the campaign to free Nelson Mandela, among other things, just don’t seem to have the same currency to him. “I don’t want to think about that yet. I want to live in the present – I still have plenty to do. History will judge us on what contribution we make, but that’s for history, not for now.” For Bragg, it all comes back to the work: “Not all music, but some can carry a message – an idea that can just carry and take hold. You have to have a faith that sometimes that’s going to happen.” In another twist this most English of singers’ latest album, Tooth & Nail, has seen him embraced by America as never before, getting labelled as ‘alt-country’ or even ‘Americana’. “Americana is a quite broad word,” he says in that quite broad accent. “It can be Johnny Cash, it can be Booker T, any music that has its roots in American roots music, whatever that is. I was just trying to find my way back to Mermaid Avenue,” he recalls the
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celebrated – if slightly fractured – collaboration with Wilco of Woody Guthrie songs, which gave all the participants a wider audience. “I wanted to find more of that sound, that idea, that Wilco and I sometimes got in the studio. But I got sidetracked – that’s been known to happen before,” he muses.
where in England it’s quite different – it’s much more marginalised.” Does that mix in with the natural English reserve? “An embarrassment in letting go?” he asks himself. “Like Morris dancing? Everybody tends to be embarrassed by Morris dancing – sometimes even those actually doing it. Then again, I have Scots friends who are mortified when they see some bad singer get up in a kilt.” Bragg can also see the upside: “The folk audience – wherever they’re from – still want to hear topical songs, and that’s died out a lot in much other contemporary music. Do people not want to think? Sure, to switch
“THE FOLK AUDIENCE – WHEREVER THEY’RE FROM – STILL WANT TO HEAR TOPICAL SONGS, AND THAT’S DIED OUT A LOT IN MUCH OTHER CONTEMPORARY MUSIC.” Those thoughts dovetailed with his homeland’s view of the music. I throw one of his quotes back at him: ‘They’re embarrassed about folk music, the British. It’s something the Scots and Irish do when they’re drunk’. He pauses. “Did I say that? I might have been drunk,” he adds with a laugh. He quickly and politely clarifies: “Maybe I meant that our Celtic neighbours still use folk music as part of their identity,
off and relax – I’m fine with that. But don’t tell me that music’s only purpose, it can be more than that. It can be about any part of the human condition.” While knowing the past, Bragg knows things have changed, via a keyboard and a screen. “When I was 19, I really only had one outlet – learn to play an instrument, write songs, do gigs. If you were really lucky, go into a cheap studio and make a record. A 19-year-old now has so many more options: Write a blog, make a film and stick it up on YouTube, tweet up a crowd. Music has probably lost its vanguard role, where in the second half of the 20th century music was our social media. It used to be three chords and a chorus – now it’s 140 characters.” WHEN & WHERE: 16 Mar, Sydney Opera House; 18 Mar, Manning Bar; 19 Mar, Canberra Theatre
with
Fri 21 Mar Sat 22 Mar Thu 27 Mar Fri 28 Mar Sat 29 Mar
The Zoo BRISBANE Miami Shark Bar GOLD COAST ANU Bar CaNBERRa Cambridge Hotel NEWCASTLE Manning Bar SYDNEY
Sat 5 Apr Fri 11 Apr Sat 19 Apr Sun 20 Apr
MELBOURNE Pier Live Frankston The Gov ADELAIDE Rosemount Hotel PERTH Players Bar Mandurah
Tickets available from TwelveFootNinja.com THE MUSIC • 12TH MARCH 2014 • 21
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HITTING NEW HEIGHTS Neil Finn reveals some secrets, but probably keeps a lot more, as he speaks to Ross Clelland about a new album of love, family, mortality and ‘other stuff ’.
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he familiar fringe that flops down over his eyes has some flecks of grey now. Those eyes might have a few more laugh-lines, but they still have a sparkle. Neil Finn has been doing this for over 30 years. And still can find the wonder in it. “I’m as fascinated by music as much, maybe more, than I’ve ever been,” he states. “But that doesn’t mean there aren’t dark days where you can’t quite find what you’re trying to achieve.” Many would name him a master of the craft, the art, the mystery of songwriting. He offers some of the formula: “There’s inspiration, creativity – and some bluff. And maybe a bit of skulduggery.” It’s probably up to the listener to work out just what proportion of those ingredients are present across Dizzy Heights. It’’s very much a family affair: wife Sharon, and sons Liam and Elroy centring a band that trooped off to Flaming Lips’ producer Dave Fridmann’s studio in upstate New York. “We’d actually did a couple of ‘family band’ gigs at the end of the Pajama Club tour. This may be a step to one day doing an album where we can all write the songs, then play it all together. New Zealand’s Von Trapps? Maybe not. There’s not many truly memorable family groups. OK, maybe The Partridge Family,” he jokes. “It’s about finding a balance. Music is the most important thing in the whole world, beside my family. But then you recognise the cosmic significance of a few songs is fairly small. You’ve got to keep both of those thoughts in your head, otherwise you’ll disappear up your own arse. But make it too frivolous and it’s all too much just a game of getting famous.” But Neil Finn does have the fame, and a canon of songs that truly affect people. There’s a pride in the work, perhaps tempered with a bit of a self-effacing New Zealand reserve. “I don’t really sit around and think about the ‘legacy’ aspect of it. But I do know I’ve written things that mean a lot to a lot of people. I appreciate that exchange – that’s profound, I’m lucky to be part of that.” However, a competitive element seems absurd to him. “Comparing and connecting my work to the work of others, it makes no sense. To be honest, I’m bored by the
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idea of all those lists that seem to be the fashion, particularly when I’m not on one of them. And I just hate being asked ‘So, what’s the favourite song you’ve written?’ That’s ridiculous to me, an impossible question. I can maybe pick 20 that I’m really happy with, but don’t ask me for three or five.
So, we think we know Neil Finn, but probably don’t. We presume he’s the character in his songs. He then demystifies one of greatest of these supposed confessional moments: “Maybe I’m being disingenuous, but Into Temptation is really from two experiences – neither of which was me having it off with a stranger in a hotel, as much as people might want it to be. “Basically, there was a rugby team and a netball team staying at the hotel I was in, I heard what I thought was someone knocking on my door, stuck my head out to find that next door along one of the netball girls was, er, ‘calling on’ one of the rugby boys. It was actually very comical – he saw her, then saw me
“THEN YOU RECOGNISE THE COSMIC SIGNIFICANCE OF A FEW SONGS IS FAIRLY SMALL.” “Maybe one of the secrets of a successful song is it sounds like you’re revealing yourself – even when you’re really not. What might start from some personal point would get bogged if you kept just trying to diarise your life – although that does seems to work for Taylor Swift,” he chuckles. “That’s where the skulduggery comes in – to open up doors to possibilities, so people can imagine their own scenarios.”
looking, much embarrassment all round, and I just quickly went back in the room and scribbled down ‘Opened up the door, I couldn’t believe my luck’…. “And the ‘Knowing full well the earth will rebel’ is from after one of the big earthquakes in LA, one of those hellfire preachers saying that was God’s punishment for America’s sins. But there’s not a person who doesn’t understand the theme – but sometimes banal circumstances can make for a great song.” What makes Neil Finn different from we mere mortals is not many of us could find that kind of emotion in the banal. WHAT: Dizzy Heights (Lester/Kobalt) WHEN & WHERE: 18, 21 & 22 Mar, Sydney Opera House Concert Hall; 20 Mar, Newcastle Civic Theatre
METAL FOR PEACE Although hailing from a land historically rooted in hatred and bloodshed, Israeli metal act Orphaned Land want to discuss the light rather than the darkness, vocalist Kobi Farhi informs Brendan Crabb.
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[think] about it in a positive way, that we want that peaceful life as well.”
e always heard about Australia because there’s a big Jewish community,” Kobi Farhi comments. “Everyone knows that all Australians are saying ‘no worries’. And that’s something very inspiring for us as Israelis, coming from the Middle East. Being Jewish we’re always worried about so many things,” he chuckles. “It’s always stories that Australia is magical and everybody is living a peaceful life. Of course you probably have your own problems and not everybody is perfect, but when we get to hear about Australia, we always
A first Australian tour is another landmark for the Israeli progressive metallers, now into their third decade, whose career highlights include supporting Metallica in their homeland and playing major festivals like Germany’s Wacken. Fans even started an online petition to nominate them for the Nobel Peace Prize. Head-banging for peace, Orphaned Land recently toured Europe with Palestinian band Khalas. Their sophisticated aural seduction has gradually seeped into international consciousness, courtesy their being
featured in 2007 documentary, Global Metal. “We’re living in a free country, we can do whatever we want, speak about whatever we want, so for [filmmaker] Sam Dunn to come here and film it was just the easiest thing in the world.”
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Dunn’s film showcases other Israeli musicians acknowledging their everyday reality is infinitely more confronting than the fictional horror often portrayed within metal. In it Farhi emphasised that Orphaned Land try to be the “good news” coming out of Israel. “There is plenty of darkness in this world. I think this is why we should speak about the light. “We’re not using mythology; we’re using more stories that are happening these days. It’s very interesting, because everyone is familiar with bands from Europe or United States, and there weren’t many bands emerging from the Middle East. So for a metal fan it’s interesting to explore a heavy metal band from the Middle East, and to hear the stories from first impressions… The story of Orphaned Land is very interesting, because we’re an Israeli band, we have Arab fans; we’re functioning and writing music in a conflict zone. “Being Israelis with Arab fans is something that, if you would have told anyone 20 years ago that Arabs will follow an Israeli band, that would have been one of the biggest jokes around. It’s happening, because the themes are strong, the music is strong, and the subjects are very deep. People find it interesting, even in Israel or Arab countries, or anywhere in the world. I think Australians should find it interesting as well, because they can be proud as metal fans to see the achievements that metal has succeeded to gain in the Middle East. That’s a story for every metal-head everywhere in the world.” WHEN & WHERE: 20 Mar, Factory Theatre
PRE ORDER NOW STORE.THEMUSIC.COM.AU THE MUSIC • 12TH MARCH 2014 • 23
art
BACK TO SCHOOL Isabella Rossellini, Italian cinema icon, takes time out of her busy schedule to speak to Anthony Carew.
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sabella Rossellini had long ago cemented her status as an icon of cinema — daughter of Roberto Rossellini and Ingrid Bergman, one-time muse/squeeze of David Lynch, modern-day partner-in-crime to Guy Maddin — when, in 2006, she found herself in a situation familiar for so many women. “I was over 50, children grown up, not really working as much as a model or as an actor,” recounts Rossellini, now 61. “I suddenly had a lot of time on my hands, so I went back to school.” Enrolling in New York’s Hunter College, Rossellini set out to study something she’d always been fascinated by: animals. At that point
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in her life, she had little to prove; so, it was for her own edification. But it turned into a radical change in her career. In 2007, Rossellini conceived of a series of two-minute shorts about peculiar mating habits, in which she’d dress up in home-sewn costumes and enact these rituals. Its title? The internetfriendly Green Porno. “IWe know that people are interested in sex. But they’re also interested in everything that comes with it, so, even though it’s called Green Porno, we do courtship, and motherhood too. The intent was to make funny films about science. I wanted to make people laugh, but make sure that everything I did and said was scientifically
correct.” Green Porno proved hugely successful: beginning just as a pilot, but soon growing into 40 short films. There’s a request for ten more, but its star/creator finds herself too busy, given she’s currently touring the world with a live stage-show for Green Porno. Along the way, she also made her directorial feature debut, Animals Distract Me, and is still studying: she’s now a grad student at work on a Masters in Animal Behaviour. It’s a turn in her career that’s taken her back to her childhood, growing up in Italy as cinema royalty. There, she first dreamed of making films for National Geographic, that initial impulse taking a backseat to when modelling (she was long the face of Lancôme) and acting (where her American break-out came in Lynch’s Blue Velvet) came along. “I was really very, very fond of both those jobs, but animals always remained a part of my life.” Now, she’s become an ambassador of animals; an activist, conservationist, philanthropist, and one-woman show. Touring Green Porno, she sees kids in the audience (“they love the costumes”), and loves having teenagers in the crowd (“you need only to say the word ‘penis’ and they giggle”). And she finds that the monologue form invites her to elaborate and philosophise upon smaller points from the series. Like homosexuality. “Homosexuality has been proven to exist amongst nature, with certain animals and insects. When humans condemn it, say it’s ‘against nature’, well, it isn’t. Sex isn’t just for reproduction, and it doesn’t just involve mothers and fathers. We make love to create intimacy, to create bonds, heredity, families. There’s more to mating than just procreating.” WHAT: Green Porno WHEN & WHERE: 22 Mar, City Recital Hall
AN IRISHMAN IN AUSTRALIA Damien Dempsey reflects upon the highlights of his career as Tyler McLoughlan comes to understand why he’s referred to as the voice of a generation.
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amien Dempsey is as Irish as they come; he has become a hero of the working class over six albums and 15 years. Last month he celebrated with the release of It’s All Good – The Best Of Damien Dempsey. ”We went about the best of like it was a gig, like we were writing a setlist. We just put on the songs that we felt meant most to people, the ones that really move people, but it was hard…” says Dempsey. “There’s a song called Colony that’s an anti-racism song and I think that’s important; racism causes so much pain and war and suffering in this world. Another song was about two of my friends who took their own lives, because lots of people have come to me and said that song actually saved their life. So when you can write a song that can save a few lives I s’pose you need to put it on the best of,” he says with a cheerless chuckle. For many down-and-out Dubliners circa 2009, Dempsey’s lyrics scattered randomly on the city’s walls by graffiti artist Maser brought hope as unemployment rates soared. His positivity has drawn the respect of fans and some of Ireland’s finest songwriters alike, a point that makes him feel proud as he reflects on his career to date. 24 • THE MUSIC • 12TH MARCH 2014
“There was a great band called The Dubliners, and one of the guys was dyin’ – Ronnie Drew, the singer. They brought him into the main late night TV show in Ireland, and we got a song [The Ballad Of Ronnie Drew] from myself, U2, Sinead O’Connor, Shane McGowan from The Pogues and The Corrs. I just looked across the stage at one time and saw all these famous Irish people and I was there singin’ the words with them…” he says with disbelief. Even though O’Connor features on the compilation’s title track and he counts her as a close
friend, it still blows Dempsey away that someone of her calibre is interested in what he’s doing. “I’ve never seen a singer like her. I toured Australia with Sinead and America and Europe and I’ve never seen a singer like her; to be able to hit you in the heart and send a shiver up your spine, it’s otherworldly, just otherworldly. She’s sang on a lot of my albums you know, so that’s a great moment for me as well to have a huge idol of mine think my stuff was good enough that she would sing on my albums.” WHAT: It’s All Good – The Best Of Damien Dempsey (ABC/Universal) WHEN & WHERE: 16 Mar, Metro Theatre; 11 Apr, The Gum Ball, Belford; 17 Apr, National Folk Festival, Canberra
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“It’s a lot of lazy bedroom techno,” Montgomery opines. Though sonically different from previous releases, Raise The People maintains focus on tempos and rhythms. “It’s always better not to think about the live thing and just focus on making a good song,” explains Ing, a statement perhaps more attuned to a “lazy bedroom techno” artist than a kicking three-piece. Demos for the album, as for the band’s previous two, were recorded with friend Tom Larkin. Chasing further challenges, and resisting complacency, the band aimed high, with legendary producer Tchad Blake (The Black Keys, Phantom Planet) on the top of their list. Busy with recording a time-rich, better-financed, major label band, the trio waited before choosing to go with local producer Steve Schram (San Cisco, Eagle & The Worm). “I’ve always been a massive fan of big pop hooks,” says Ing, explaining the choice. “When his name came up we said ‘sweet’. We hit it off straight away, we wanted to push ourselves and he wanted to push us even further.”
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CALLING THE SHOTS When Andy Hazel catches up with two thirds of Calling All Cars – frontman Haydn Ing and bassist Adam Montgomery – the pair identify a musical theme that seems to be emerging via a lot of bands these days. “Lazy bedroom techno,” as Montgomery calls it.
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fter several years of solid touring and becoming regular features in the charts and on triple j, rock trio Calling All Cars have been mysteriously quiet since 2011. Despite a 2013 tour with Kingswood, and several secret shows under the name Werewolves, the band explain their absence and why a year off to write and record an album soon turned into three. “It was down to a lot of things: record labels, who we were going to get to produce and record with – we had a lot of options and we wanted to try something different, but we’re always thinking about international as well,” explains singer-guitarist Haydn Ing. “That was the whole focus,” adds bassist Adam Montgomery. “We wanted a label where we were getting international support. We had to hang out for it a bit longer, but it worked out for the best. We’re moving to the UK at the start of May, as soon as this tour finishes. We don’t really know where yet. The label wants us to go to London, but we’re thinking maybe Manchester; it’s better for touring. We thought, ‘It’s stupid not to go, we’re a rock’n’roll band!’ We’re just going to pack up, take our guitars and see how we go.” Signing to Cooking Vinyl, a label with a base in London and an office in Australia, seems like an ideal move for a band with one of the best honed live shows in the country who are also keen to break new ground. With new album Raise The People about to be released, the timing couldn’t be better. Not named for political- or zombie-related reasons, the album instead serves to remind audiences what the band does best: move people. “Big Day Out this year was really interesting,” explains Ing. “Everyone was like this [frowns and crosses his arms].” “There was a lot of indifference,” Montgomery adds. “When high-energy bands like Grouplove or The Hives came on, they got the place moving and it was so cool to see that.” 26 • THE MUSIC • 12TH MARCH 2014
Renowned for their blazing live shows and relentless touring schedule, Calling All Cars have not only opened for AC/DC, Foo Fighters and Queens Of The Stone Age – playing to tens of thousands of punters – but also bring the same energy to all ages shows in country towns, as they’re planning to do on their typically thorough forthcoming national tour. “Country towns don’t get bands through as much, so they tend to get more involved,” Montgomery muses. “But it doesn’t matter where you are,” Ing continues, “it’s down to the band playing a good show. Big Day Out ten years ago, bands that got the opportunity to be on the main stage really went all out: they’d spend money on backdrops, looking good and play for their lives. Now, I don’t know…” he trails off. “A lot of the bands we saw were really lazy, there seems to be a theme going on [laughs].”
“WE THOUGHT, ‘IT’S STUPID NOT TO GO [TO THE UK], WE’RE A ROCK’N’ROLL BAND!’ WE’RE JUST GOING TO PACK UP, TAKE OUR GUITARS AND SEE HOW WE GO.” “We wanted to do something weird,” agrees Montgomery. “He’s a bizarre guy to work with – doesn’t give a fuck about the process of recording as such, it’s all about vibing.” Schram, who turned out to be friends with Blake, passed the album on; the big man’s advice: “Don’t re-record”. “He dug it, he said it was an eclectic album,” says Ing. “So maybe 60% of the album is the original demos we recorded in Tom’s studio live.” “After we finished the demo, we cut things up and moved things around and that’s more the production [Schram] did,” adds Montgomery. “They came together a bit more as a cohesive thing after we spent time with him.” The first taste of this collaboration, Werewolves (a song Ing describes as being about “a night of really intense sex”), and its suitably NSFW video, has divided fans. “We’re not surprised,” laughs Montgomery. “But there’s no pressure. We’re just excited to finally play it live.” WHAT: Raise The People (Cooking Vinyl) WHEN & WHERE: 20 Mar, Manning Bar; 30 Apr, Charles Sturt University, North Wagga; 1 May, Transit Bar, Canberra; 2 May, The Small Ballroom, Newcastle; 3 May, Oxford Art Factory; 4 May, Studio 6
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TALE OF TWO SEASONS Revisiting their latest album with its official Australian release, Philip Jamieson is eager to extend the lifetime of a record he considers Caspian’s finest hour. He chats with Benny Doyle.
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assachusetts instrumental rockers Caspian are heading Down Under for the very first time, roughly ten years since they began gigging around their oceanside hometown of Beverly. Band lynchpin Philip Jamieson admits that he has problems putting his joy into words regarding this maiden voyage, but says the situation is something he never expected. “In the back of our minds we always hoped that we would reach as many people as possible, but I don’t necessarily know if we thought it would reach as far as it has,” he smiles. “It continues to be a huge honour and a privilege to do this, and to bring [our music] to people who haven’t heard it, who are literally on the other side of planet earth. We really want to give [Australia] ten years of music in 70 minutes, if that’s possible. We’re going to present the suite that’s for sure; we’ve got the arsenal ready.” Long established throughout North America and Europe as a post-rock force, the five-piece have gradually extended their three-guitar sonic attack to incorporate more mood into their soundscapes. This was brought to life no clearer than on 2012’s Waking Season, an album – recorded with celebrated post-rock player and producer Matt Bayles – which terrified Jamieson in its infancy. “We stretched the songs out so much and we got a little less proggy; things got a little lighter and ethereal and ambient, and we tried to incorporate textures beyond just the guitars. Pulling ourselves away from that was a little frightening at first but it was something that we ended up being proud of.” In the 18 months since its initial reveal, the success and reach of the record has all but exceeded Caspian’s expectations in terms of the way their fans have received it. This has pushed Aussie indie imprint Hobbledehoy to re-release Waking Season as a deluxe double vinyl to tie-in with the band’s debut tour. But Groundhog Day this isn’t for the quintet, with Jamieson admitting that reliving this music is a joy. “It’s like multiple Waking Seasons, it just keeps rising,” he chuckles. “[The record] was kinda a crossroad for us because we’d done everything ourselves up to that point, 28 • THE MUSIC • 12TH MARCH 2014
and we were proud with what we had done, but when it came time to do that record we invested more work, more time, more everything into [its] creation. To see it get recitation with the release in Australia and getting people to experience it for the first time, it brings us back to the moment
was with us we channelled his energy and his presence into the music from his contributions; now that he’s no longer with us, we have our memories of him, and they’re all beautiful and wonderful and they’re things we use in a different way towards the music – we’ll see when we start writing this summer. But every show that we’ve played without him, pretty much every moment, we feel his presence all the time, and we want to make the band succeed for him especially.” Jamieson says that Caspian have trouble writing between tours, preferring instead to assimilate back into normal life before they begin work on a record. But having
“WHEN IT COMES TO CREATING, WE TRY TO THROW DOGMA OUT THE WINDOW.” [when] we were creating the record, and it was a great time for us so it’s nice to revisit it.”
already written the majority of one new song, the group are ahead of their standard curve, and with nothing extensive on the horizon following this Australian tour, a new album could become a reality before the year is out.
The strength of these songs also stands as a fitting tribute to their former bass player Chris Friedrich, who tragically passed away last year, aged 32.
“The talk around the campfire from everyone right now is that we’d kinda like to get back into heavier music a little bit,” reveals Jamieson. “We’ll see though – before we started Waking Season we wanted to just totally get rid of guitars all together, and of course there’s [still] lots of guitars on the record, so there’s certain things you can’t detach from. When it comes to creating, we try to throw dogma out the window; we try to make it as pure a process as possible, whatever feels right, whatever sounds right, and we try to follow that.”
“His spirit is imbued in every piece of music we’ve done up until now, and always will be, but in a different way,” says Jamieson. “We know when Chris
WHAT: Waking Season (Hobbledehoy) WHEN & WHERE: 19 Mar, Bald Faced Stag
AMERICAN COOL Having unleashed their latest opus, American heavy metal warriors Iced Earth are headed back to Australia. Vocalist Stu Block warns Brendan Crabb that something wicked this way comes.
“I
think heavy metal’s always been that consistent thing,” suggests Stu Block. “It’s not as big anymore, but everything is cyclical. Everything comes in cycles, so I can see in certain markets it’s big, other markets it’s not, but we’ll have to see the way people’s tastes are. At our level, we’re just lucky enough that we can make a living doing what we’re doing.” Spearheaded by hard-nosed guitarist Jon Schaffer, the US metallers have dodged numerous trends for close on
three decades now. The versatile Block (formerly of under-rated Canadian prog-death outfit Into Eternity) was enlisted for 2011’s Dystopia, and he’s comfortably transitioned to fronting an established, acclaimed band, despite succeeding much-loved Matt Barlow and Tim ‘Ripper’ Owens. “Jon and I have the same type of chemistry,” Block says of new disc Plagues Of Babylon. “I write lyrics, melodies, cadences and choruses, he writes the music, arranges it and everything else. It was great; same chemistry, same energy level. When we wrote the first song together, End Of Innocence, it was good.”
An ongoing thread that has perhaps aided Block’s assimilation into the ranks – and simultaneous acceptance by their dedicated fanbase – is the continuation of the long-standing ‘Something Wicked’ concept on selected Plagues… tracks. “I like it. I’m a big horror movie fan and Jon is too, and I think it was just a fun thing to write about. [The other lyrics] are all different subject matters.
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“The first half tells the story of the apocalyptic from beginning to end, and then the second half of the album is standalone songs. If I Could See You is a song that Jon wrote for his grandfather, who went through a lot of things in his life. There was a song called The Culling, and that’s sort of just about separating the weak from the strong, and how society does that sometimes. There’s the Highwayman cover, which was a fun cover we could do with Russell [Allen, Symphony X] and Mike [Poulsen, Volbeat]. There’s a lot of cool stuff spawning from different influences.” Perhaps their unwillingness to kowtow to fads has ensured Iced Earth remains a sizeable draw on the European festival circuit, while still garnering positive reviews, worldwide chart positions and expanding their road itinerary. First visiting here in 2012, they return this month. The Music suggests there may be a feeling within the camp that their time has finally arrived. “I don’t know if it’s my time, but I’m here making music with some great guys, we’re having fun doing it, and time flies when you’re having fun,” finishes Block. “It’s actually almost been three years coming up here for me, so I’m looking forward to many more years. It’s gonna be great.” WHAT: Plagues Of Babylon (Century Media) WHEN & WHERE: 15 Mar, Manning Bar
THE MUSIC • 12TH MARCH 2014 • 29
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THEY’RE GOLDEN Jurassic 5 are back with their classic rap shit. DJ Nu-Mark tells Danielle O’Donohue the big Coachella reunion almost didn’t go as planned.
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here are just minutes to go before you’re supposed to walk out onstage in front of a field full of Coachella revellers eagerly awaiting your first show in seven years. But then disaster strikes. A crew member drops a vital piece of your crewmate’s gear. What do you do? Do you panic and lose your cool? Start yelling and throwing your weight around? Or refuse to go onstage until everything is fixed, turning an eager crowd impatient and frustrated. If you’re Mark Potsic, better known as Nu-Mark, the renowned DJ from hip hop collective Jurassic 5, you don’t do any of those things. Instead, you pull out your smartphone and get your picture taken with one of the most famous musicians in the world. “That was absolutely the craziest show I’ve experienced,” Potsic admits. “What people don’t know about Coachella is that five minutes before myself and Cut Chemist were rolled out on stage we had a major equipment failure. Our engineer dropped Cut’s portable turntable and the needle shattered, and as that happens Sir Paul McCartney walks up. “This is about the time where a bubble appears over my head that says ‘Nu-Mark, do you help Cut with his needle problem or take a picture with the best melody arranger in the world?’ So, I took a few pics with Paul and I told him he’s my Gemini twin. He winked at me and I handed Cut a spare needle.”
how to create an entirely new DJ experience. All in all I’d say we started to feel the chemistry in an hour or so especially with all the jokes.” It’s an intriguing prospect, fitting a primarily positive big name live hip hop group back into the modern musical landscape especially now J5’s most similar peers, The Roots are almost better known as a TV backing band. Potsic says the group are used to being out of step with the industry. “We’ve never fitted into anything. We are truly misfits when it comes to conventionalism in the music industry. That’s part of the reason why people are still intrigued with our chemistry.”
“WE ARE TRULY MISFITS WHEN IT COMES TO CONVENTIONALISM.”
Luckily Jurassic 5 also have plenty of friends at events like this and fellow DJ, Z-Trip, was on hand to lend his expertise. “As they roll our risers full of DJ equipment on stage, Z-Trip is super-glueing a needle into a portable turntable and blowing on it so it dries. Yeah, first show in seven years and the group still crushed it. Proud of ‘em!” It was a triumphant return for a group known for the dynamism of their performances. With a return to the original line-up that includes Cut Chemist and Chali 2na, it wasn’t long before offers to do international tours were flooding in, Australia top of the list. “The Aussies truly understand us and have been so supportive since day one. We had a great time playing with The Roots out there in 2003.” Potsic says the break was needed to refresh everyone’s batteries but it didn’t take long to turn the clock back once everyone was back in the rehearsal room. “After going through some of the songs in rehearsals it was like getting back on a bike after an extended vacation. The MCs laughed about how intricate and detailed some of the verses were, while Cut and I were trying to figure out 30 • THE MUSIC • 12TH MARCH 2014
The positivity that became the group’s trademark wasn’t always considered a good thing by the group itself. “Actually, that positivity created a challenge for us. The masses need to know where to categorise music. At that time the average consumer was used to jiggy, thugged-out hip hop to the point of not knowing if there was anything out there that differed in style. That mind-set made it tough for us to break into new markets. It was our stage
presence that catapulted our name in front of new audiences who were eager to hear something other than Top 40 hip hop.” Despite the challenges, J5 were able to make their difference work for them and their breakthrough album, Quality Control, recently ticked over Gold sales in the US, an achievement Potsic is very proud of. “For me that’s really a big deal because it’s so tough to sell anything physical these days in the music industry. With all the piracy that has now become acceptable and almost expected, it really brings a smile to my face to hear that we sold Gold on an underground hip hop LP. At the time it was released Interscope was struggling to figure out how to sell Jurassic 5 albums because the other artists on the label, Dre, 50 and Eminem, were selling records left and right and almost made it look easy. For us, we really had to perform in every market and battle a ton opposition.” WHEN & WHERE: 18 & 19 Mar, Enmore Theatre
INDEPENDENT THINKERS Yo La Tengo guitarist Ira Kaplan talks about existing in the shadows of pop. He chats to Samson McDougall.
F
ounding member of the three-piece, Ira Kaplan, doesn’t dig on the term ‘indie’. ‘Independent’, yes; ‘independence’, definitely; but ‘indie’, not so much. “I think we prize two of those and don’t take one of them very seriously at all,” he says down the line from Denver, Colorado. “’Independent’ and ‘independence’ are two things that matter a lot to us, but ‘indie’ is something that’s just... I don’t think that really means very much. I don’t know that it ever did.” For the uninitiated to the band’s bent pop, their latest album, Fade (2013), is as good a place to start as anywhere. Sonic parallels have forever been drawn
between Yo La Tengo and some of the Flying Nun stuff that came out of New Zealand in the late ‘80s. Yet outside of these comparisons, they’ve always been difficult to place in the spectrum of things. They’re a band that exist in the shadows of pop – just enough rockin’ for the party crowds, but weird enough for the nerds – and they’re incredibly proud of going their own way. In some kind of irony, central to their fierce autonomy is the 20-odd year relationship they’ve had with label Matador. Kaplan explains they were friends with Matador founder Gerard Cosloy long before signing with the label, and that it’s a friendship grounded in mutual
respect. “In 1993 when we put [sixth album] Painful out we were the new band on the label, we weren’t a new band but we were new to the label,” says Kapla. “Now we look around at the acts that they’re putting out and we’re the old men and women of the label... ”
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The respect that the band have for the label extended recently to discussions of what they may do next. Kaplan and his cohorts, wife Georgia Hubley and James McNew, asked Matador what they’d like to see the band do next. “That’s one of the advantages of being with a little label who you respect,” says Kaplan. “When there’s mutual respect, we are always open to different approaches and different ways of doing things, so as much as our group likes to put our heads in the sand and just do what we do, we wanted to at least think about being receptive to another way of doing things... ” The Yo La Tengo approach to songwriting hasn’t been wearied or altered by time. If anything, Kaplan says, making music’s gotten a little easier as their trust in one another and their belief in what they do has grown. “I’m not sure how we got to be so good at this but we really are good at ignoring our surroundings and pretending that nothing’s different. One thing that’s gotten easier is that I think we trust each other that much that I think we do believe that if we just relax into it we will do something we like. I think the pressure of previous years – of feeling like something’s not working and what do we do – now we accept when something’s not working and we just allow things to take the time they take.”
WHEN & WHERE: 13 Mar, Sydney Opera House Concert Hall
LIFE IS NOISE PRESENTS
AUSTRALIAN TOUR 2014 with special guests
SATURDAY MAY 3 MANNING BAR Tickets from lifeisnoise.com, oztix and the venue.
sargenthouse.com / russiancirclesband.com
THE MUSIC • 12TH MARCH 2014 • 31
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SONGS FOR LIFE
up to it’. And we spoke for maybe an hour, mostly about what he had gone through, and then he said, ‘If you don’t mind, I’ll call you again, if you’re open to it’.”
Tragedy brought Glen Hansard and Eddie Vedder together; mutual respect and creativity cemented their friendship. Hansard talks to Michael Smith about life, death, friendship and music.
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t was late August 2010 and the band he shared with now former lover Marketa Irglova, The Swell Season, were playing in Saratoga, California. Singer-songwriter Glen Hansard takes up the story. “It was an outdoor show, an amphitheatre, and this young man ran the length of the roof and jumped, landed right next to me. Could have killed me, could have killed anyone in the band. It was a terrible, terrible thing. Four thousand watched the young man die, instantly. Of course, when it happened, people initially
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laughed. They thought it was somehow part of the show – they had no idea.” The dead man was 32-year-old Michael Edward Pickels. His girlfriend had been a fan; they’d split up and he’d decided to take his life. “The next day, I got a phone call in the middle of the afternoon. We were all just kind of zombies, hadn’t slept. ‘Hello, this is Eddie Vedder. Glen, I just wanna check in on ya, that you’re okay. We heard about what happened and I don’t know if you know but in Roskilde, nine people died at one of our shows [ June 30, 2000] and I kind of know what this feels like a bit and I’d just like to sit with you and talk if you’re
Hansard had never previously spoken to the Pearl Jam singer, but over the next three days, he and Vedder spoke again, for an hour each call, and, having convinced him not to cancel the tour gave Hansard his number – “If you’re in Seattle…” “I went over to the studio and sat with him for few hours,” Hansard continues. “We ordered food and we drank tea and then he said, ‘Do ya feel like singin’ a song with me?’ And I was like, ‘Wow, I’d love that so much’. He said, ‘There’s this Everly Brothers tune, Sleepless Nights. If you think about what happened with you a few months ago, and I think about what happened to me a few years ago, and we sing it from that perspective, it might help us both’. So we did.” Headlining his own shows after touring with Vedder, Hansard is showcasing from his own debut solo album, Rhythm & Repose. He’ll also play tracks from his new EP, Drive All Night, the Springsteen-penned title track of which features guest vocals by Vedder. “Which came about because of another terribly sad thing,” he admits, the record dedicated to the late E Street Band saxaphonist, Clarence Clemons. “Myself and Eddie and Jake [Clemons’ son] happened to be together at the time and just thought it would be a good idea to mark [his passing] somehow. We hadn’t really decided whose name it would come out under – it was just something that we should do.” WHAT: Drive All Night (Spunk) WHEN & WHERE: 17 & 20 Mar, Sydney Opera House Concert Hall
ROAMING HOME The Waifs are on long-term hiatus, but sisters Donna and Vikki can’t stay away from the stage or their native WA for too long. Amber Fresh hears from Donna Simpson in the lead-up to the sisters’ new outing as The Stray Sisters.
“I
spent eight years living in Minneapolis… And I couldn’t wait to get home,” Simpson proclaims from her home in Fremantle, settling a crying son while juggling the phone. “I’m just a West Aussie at heart.” With Vikki Thorn still across the globe in Utah, raising sons of her own, Skype has become the ultimate songwriters’ friend for the two. “It’s pretty bloody handy actually, as long as you can get the kids out of the room,” Simpson laughs. “We really missed playing music together. So now we jam on Skype. Just before you called we were jamming on a song.” Playing across continents has also been the impetus to start a new project, The Stray Sisters, giving Simpson and Thorn a chance to return to the stage while The Waifs continue a break. “We just feel like we want to see each other, sing together in the flesh, and tour, you know? ’Cause it’s so ingrained in us. “When we talked about going out on tour together just the two of us, I automatically started writing again and just got really excited, started playing my guitar more. Vikki’s always writing material anyway. We’ve got a heap of new songs; we’ll dig out some old Waifs songs as well.
32 • THE MUSIC • 12TH MARCH 2014
“It’s gone back towards the storytelling aspect of songs. The Waifs used to play a lot of songs like that and then it went a bit more poppy. Vik and I have come back to storytelling in the songwriting. “I mean there’ll be nothing for us to hide behind. We can’t hide behind Josh’s great guitar playing anymore,” Simpson laughs. “It’s just going to be us. There’s pressure on ourselves to get things right.” The sisters are aware there’ll be plenty of expectations from Waifs devotees, especially after such a long break.
“The audience is very important to us. We don’t get up there full of ego and just play our songs and expect everyone to just shut up and listen. It’s always a joyous and very enjoyable occasion for us when we perform. So I would hope the audience would really feel the same, have that connection with us. That’s what The Waifs has always been about. “You know people love to hear things that they’re familiar with, that’s for sure. But there’s also songs that we feel that we’ve written that maybe got lost behind the band, you know? So this will be a really nice way of making it quite raw and giving the songs the space they deserve.” WHEN & WHERE: 15 & 16 Mar, Blue Mountains Music Festival, Katoomba; 20 & 21 Mar, The Basement; 22 Mar, Tilley’s, Caberra
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U IS FOR UTOPIA
Chicks On Speed’s latest art-music fusion creation, Utopia, is out this month. Alex Murray-Leslie took some time out to have a quick chat to Olivia Gardner about it.
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etween creating an electronic stiletto shoe guitar, weaving theremin tapestries and exhibiting all over the globe, the wonderful ladies behind Chicks On Speed have found the time to release yet another studio album that features a stellar cast. “It’s been about two and a half years,” Murray-Leslie reflects. “[The album] is from a perspective of how there have been many utopian ideas, many failed utopias; we’re asking a lot of questions with our use of the word ‘utopia’.”
The album is a beatsy, colourful amalgamation of music, fashion and art, high in energy and opinion, with the title track no exception. “On the song Utopia, we have a guest, Yoko Ono, because she was a big player in that concept of utopia with John Lennon. It’s also looking at Russian utopias of space, to art performance utopias, to what is the notion of utopia today. Do we need a utopia? Yes we do, because utopias open the mind, the vision and where we want to go. Maybe we don’t go there but maybe we go somewhere else that’s better.” Another guest collaborator is one Julian Assange. “We
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made the song, God, with Julian; we went to visit him in the Ecuadorian Embassy. That was wild. It was very abstract. It was amazing to meet him and it was a real life-changing experience but it was very sad to go in there and have this really great exchange of ideas and just have to say ‘OK, we’re going now, bye.’ It’s not like, ‘Oh, do you want to go out for a drink?’ because he can’t go out there. It’s just really wrong. He’s too ahead of his time and I think people don’t really understand him and the Australian government should be supporting him and get him out, obviously.” The album traverses countless themes, birthing powerful notions within the trio’s fun and fascinating electropop concoctions, the track, Art Dump adding another element of conceptualism. “There’s a bit of a story behind Art Dump actually. It’s a dream of Francesca Von Habsburg. Francesca said, ‘I had this dream about an art dump’, because there’s this whole discourse going on in the art world at the moment, you know, that we shouldn’t create objects anymore because its cluttering up the world and we’re just creating more and more waste, the museums and the collectors can’t handle it and so all of this really bad art should be buried somewhere in this huge art dump in the back of Munich somewhere and she had this dream and she told us about this dream and we were like ‘This is great, this is a song!’ Art Dump is pretty much a bit of a critique also about market art and that people are creating art for the market. We’re real supporters of non-market art, that you make art not just to sell art but you make it for a more social outcome – so that’s our critique of the art market there.”
WHAT: Utopia (Chicks On Speed Records) WHEN & WHERE: 14 Mar, Kings Cross Hotel
SKY HIGH Her free spirit may have seen her debut album delayed five years and her name in the news after an arrest, but Sky Ferreira’s new record is proof that creativity will always reign triumphant. Daniel Cribb discovers the power of independence.
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here comes a point in high school when you’re forced to think about what you’ll do after graduation. When your parents, the school counsellor and almost everyone else you know don’t believe in a dream you’re trying to turn into a reality, things tend to feel a little hopeless. When LA-based singer-songwriter/model/actress Sky Ferreira was in such a situation at age 16, she left home, dropped out of school and put all her efforts into getting signed. It wasn’t long before she was picked up by a label, but then another roadblock was forged. Convinced they had the next Miley Cyrus or Taylor Swift, writer after writer was brought in to try and mould the rock star to fit certain conventions. But Ferreira didn’t budge on her creative image and thus was stuck in what seemed like an endless loop. That’s when she realised it was up to her alone to get the job done. “I think they thought I wasn’t going to do it, because I remember one person saying, ‘I’ll believe it when I see it’, and I was like, ‘Fuck you’,” the now 21 year-old laughs from her LA home. “I used all my modelling money to do it, and I always have. I really love modelling, but one of the main reasons I do it is so I have the freedom to make whatever I want to make, and do it the way I want to do it and as wild as I want 34 • THE MUSIC • 12TH MARCH 2014
to without having to rely on other people.” Her independence paid off. Even though her record, Night Time, My Time, was written and recorded in just over two weeks, it flows effortlessly and is a result of someone who has surfaced from a near-career breaking period, maintaining creative integrity and control. She may only be 21, but it comes from a more mature headspace. “I’ve always been an old soul. I remember being five years old and being over it… I think that has to do with upbringing; I’ve always been very independent,” she tells. “I think in some ways, when you
raise yourself, you have no choice but to become an adult. I was out of the house by 16, and already working and living on my own and not getting in trouble. Like, actual trouble,” she laughs. But the day after announcing her debut album, she did stumble across some “actual trouble”, when she was arrested along with her boyfriend, Zachary Cole Smith of DIIV, and charged with possession. “People like to talk – they’ll get over it. It still gets mentioned all the time. I’m more than my...” she pauses and laughs, “I can’t believe I was about to say it. Oh well, I’ll just say it – I’m more than my mug shot, and once the album came out it kind of proved that. For a second it was, ‘Look at Sky, she fucked it up’. In a way, I’m glad it happened before the album rather than after.” WHAT: Night Time, My Time (EMI) WHEN & WHERE: 18 Mar, Oxford Art Factory
NICK FURY
the next morning a little the worse for wear there was a reply: ‘This is a great idea. Let’s do it’.”
Nick Frost talks to Guy Davis about making a dance film, Cuban Fury, and taking salsa lessons.
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ick Frost likes to dance. And he’s good at it when he does. But Nick – like many men, perhaps – doesn’t like feeling obliged to dance. “If you leave me alone and drip-feed me drinks throughout the evening, I will get closer and closer to the dancefloor until I just have to dance,” says the star of Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and The World’s End. “But if you expect it, I’m not going to want to do it.” The fact that Frost is, in his words, “a bigger man” only adds to the dance dilemma. “There’s a look you’re given by thinner people – it’s almost as if they’re a bit sorry
for you,” he says. “‘You go for it, big guy!’ It’s so awfully patronising it would make you not want to dance.” But Frost did want to dance. What’s more, he wanted to dance onscreen. And for the last few years, an idea for a movie had taken up residence in his brain and wouldn’t budge. “Every now and then after I’d had a few beers it would knock on my psyche and say ‘Hey, why don’t you tell someone?’” he laughs. “And I’d tell it to be quiet. But I think I was like a serial killer who wanted to get caught. And one night that voice got so loud I wrote an email to my friend and producer Nira Park, and when I woke up
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His idea for “a big, bright, beautiful, passionate dance film” is now sashaying into cinemas as Cuban Fury, a romantic comedy starring Frost as Bruce, a salsadancing prodigy in his youth who turned his back on his passion. Years later, Bruce is a middle-aged saddo until he catches sight of his fetching new boss, Julia (Rashida Jones), who has a liking for salsa. Inspired to dust off his dancing shoes, Bruce has to wrestle with his own insecurities, while competing with a co-worker (Chris O’Dowd) for Julia’s attention. Wooing and winning the heart of Julia is a noble goal, but Frost sees Bruce regaining his self-respect as the real achievement of Cuban Fury’s central character. “The film is about him rediscovering the man he once was or could have been,” he says. “It’s not about him bettering himself for a woman, which a lot of romantic comedies depict well. But what happens then? What if it doesn’t work out between them? He’s back to square one. What we’ve tried to do is make him a better man for himself, and in doing so he might win the girl. Even if he doesn’t, it doesn’t matter.” While he was no slouch as a dancer beforehand, it took seven months of salsa lessons – “seven hours a day, five days a week” – for Frost to get into Cuban Fury form. And he’s justifiably proud of the outcome. “It seems ridiculous looking back that I would put that much effort into a romantic comedy but when you see Bruce dancing that is Bruce dancing. That’s me dancing.”
WHAT: Cuban Fury In cinemas 20 Mar
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★★★★
album reviews
KYLIE MINOGUE
THE AUDREYS ‘Til My Tears Roll Away
Kiss Me Once
ABC/Universal
Warner
ALBUM OF THE WEEK
The recent developments in territories like Russia and Uganda, which are repressing and persecuting their LGBT communities with draconian laws is terrifying. Legally sanctioned social wrath is a trend that is gathering momentum and more people are living in fear for simply being who they are. Escapist pop albums can provide a rare glitter ball of hope. Kylie Minogue’s 12th is an unabashed shimmering life-raft of sexy fabulousness. She may have conquered cancer and is a love lost 40-something, but rather than get all inspiringly serious, she’s stripping down to her hot pants, squealing “Fuck it – let’s party!”, which is exactly the kind of fantasy hedonism so many of us need right now. A meticulously selected gaggle of notable writers and producers (including some bloke called Pharrell Williams) have knowingly updated her Fever-era persona, parrying
the political messages when fun is all that is needed. And that’s exactly what we get in the stupendously bubble-machined choruses of Sexy Love, Million Miles and Into The Blue. Kylie’s gonna have you doing it in the shower, on the dance floor or at the gym grinding up against a Muscle Mary in Sexercize. As we edge slowly but surely towards marriage equality in Australia, Kiss Me Once is the kind of important album that anyone forced to live in the closet can cling to as they wait for the day they can burst out and sing, “When I got my back up against the wall/Don’t need no one to rescue me”. Mac McNaughton
The Audreys have been very mean and made us wait quite a while for new music this time around - something about procreating and having new life experiences to inform a new sound. The good news is that the new stuff is all the better for the break – a bit heavier, grittier and more rounded than before, but still with the recognisable sonic backbone. Single and first track, My Darlin’ Girl, is a third person roller with a sweet tambourine and whiney guitar, but just a little fiddle for good measure. Also on the upswing are Baby, Are You There and Roll Away, the latter with a sweet guitar growl to complement Taasha Coates getting her revenge on. It’s not a complete thrasher, mind, but a good excursion beyond the Easy Listening and Adult Contemporary-ness that has grabbed the duo before.
KATE MILLERHEIDKE
Sony
Cooking Vinyl Australia
Foster The People’s first record, Torches gave us a buttload of killer singles that more than made up for some bleh album tracks. There were plenty of high energy synth and guitar floorfillers and just enough irony to keep it on the ‘indie’ side of the dance music spectrum.
“I’m sick of tiptoeing ‘round,” sings Kate Miller-Heidke on Oh, Vertigo! opener Offer It Up – a line that sets the precedence for what’s about to follow. The Queensland singer has made a name for herself with her unique use of operatic vocals in pop songs and it seems set out on a mission to exploit that diverse range, experimenting with somewhat unorthodox techniques whilst writing album number four, as is evident in the six-plus vocal tracks dancing around each other on Rock This Baby To Sleep.
Oh, Vertigo!
Supermodel
Ask Yourself, the album’s second track, brings with it the stock-standard second album disillusionment with fame, Foster whining, “I tried to live life the way you wanted 36 • THE MUSIC • 12TH MARCH 2014
Liz Giuffre
For fans of the slower and more sultry Audreys, Bring The
FOSTER THE PEOPLE
There’s about a minute at the start of Supermodel where you think it’s all going to be okay. It’s the kind of fun, driving pop intro and catchy vocal hook we expect from Mark Foster and co. But then the verse kicks in – a weird amalgam of faux ‘tribal’ drumming, clapping and cringeworthy, patronising lyrics and references to Champs Élysées and djembes. Just… why?
★★★½ Stars Out will provide, as will Comfort Me (a waltz with The Nymphs featuring) while I Can’t Sleep is just an old-fashioned heartbreaker delivered simply and with no-frills acoustic loveliness. It’s well worth staying to the end of the six-minute Love Has A Way Of Unravelling, a jangly singalong that could sit near a campfire or in a daggy pop music setting. Building around the simple title and adding a few more voices, instruments and ornaments for each refrain, it’ll likely be lots of fun live too.
★★½ me to.” Things continue in much this vein until Pseudologia Fantastica, a dreamy, Neon Indian-esque track that’s a little more interesting, if still lacking much in the way of big hooks. Towards the end of this (much too long) album, the band start to go a bit off-book with Best Friend, a super ‘80s number with funk guitar, horns, excellent bass detail and Foster’s best vocal take. But then it all falls apart again with closer, Goats In Trees, a very strange acoustic guitar-based ballad that could be interesting in another context, but here just feels tacked on. There are some glimmers of gold, but mostly Supermodel just isn’t much fun. Madeleine Laing
Yours Was The Body allows the listener to regain their bearings temporarily before the record’s second single, Oh, Vertigo!, knocks them back to the ground with a series of unexpected and pleasantly surprising turns, voiding all sense of where things will venture next. The remaining nine tunes don’t seem to follow any set direction, which simply adds to the album’s charm,
★★★★ and keeps things interesting. Carefully placed guest vocalists Passenger, Drapht and Megan Washington add their spin on three of the album’s best tracks, Passenger transforming Share Your Air into an instant hit that may even be MillerHeidke’s best work to date. Anyone who pledged to the Oh, Vertigo! crowd-funding campaign can rest assured that their money was put to good use as, with a clear headspace and support from fans, MillerHeidke has found a healthy blend of the quirky elements of 2008’s Curiouser and more serious nature of 2012’s Nightflight. Daniel Cribb
album reviews
★★★½
★★★★
★★★★
SIMONE FELICE
LUCA BRASI
Warner
Poison City
Surrender
Felice’s new solo album includes contributions from his kin The Felice Brothers as well as Wesley Schultz and Jeremiah Fraites of The Lumineers. It finds him sounding more relaxed, mature and carefree than ever and at under 40 minutes it’s a masterclass in economical, emotive and melodic songwriting. Harnessing the sound of the Catskill Mountains it also carries a Laurel Canyon vibe, bursting with soul influences, folk fragility and some epic pop touches. Felice is boldly charting his own course, letting the songs ride roughshod over any concept of market, brand or scene. This is his best yet.
It’s hard not to let a patriotic sense of pride wash over you when listening to By A Thread, the second full-length from Luca Brasi. The young Tassie quartet deliver world-class punk in the most disarmingly humble manner possible, while somehow managing to make you reflect on the past and celebrate the present all at once. Tyler Richardson’s lyrics could have been written sitting on the corner of the street you grew up in, while those clean lead guitar lines of Tom Busby give the raw energy stability throughout. These songs are written for the front rows, for the friends, for the strangers and believers.
Skinnyfish/Sony
Strangers
Chris Familton
By A Thread
Benny Doyle
DEWAYNE EVERETTSMITH
★★★★
THE WAR ON DRUGS Lost In The Dream
Secretly Canadian/Inertia
Widely known as the voice of Tourism Australia’s 2012 international campaign, Dewayne Everettsmith’s debut Surrender further establishes the musician as a technically beautiful vocalist proficient in communicating old-school charm and depth of emotion. The album’s title track, featuring Brisbane’s Thelma Plum, is playful and fun, while Melaythina is a slow-harmony song of welcome in the Palawa Kani Tasmanian Aboriginal language. It’s lovely though to finally hear Everettsmith let loose, shaking off the adult contemporary appeal with the rhythmic roots-style Whisper.
So, it turns out Slave Ambient was just hinting at the raw power Adam Granduciel could convey through music. He’s been touring that album nonstop for three years, and Lost In The Dream is quite obviously a culmination of Granduciel’s growing connection with his band and confidence in his sound. The result is spectacular. Part amped-up Dylan (obviously), part synthy ‘80s road album, there’s just so much substance it’ll take you a couple of listens to feel the full weight of it. This is a moving, enchanting album. Cam Findlay
Tyler McLoughlan
★★★★
BETH HART
★★★
SUN KIL MOON
TAKING BACK SUNDAY
Spunk
Hopeless/UNFD
Beth Hart is one of those raw talents of bluesy vocal gymnastics whose repertoire does away with any expectations one carries into the genre. A mustsee at this year’s Bluesfest for her back catalogue alone, Bang Bang Boom Boom provides fresh incentive. Hart’s at her most enveloping when wallowing in her ‘woman-scorned’ lyrics and it’s hard to surpass on darkly magical opener, Baddest Blues. She weaves around this ball-busting intensity frequently, in Better Man and Caught Out In The Rain, but gets a bit cabaret with big band sass on the title track.
Who says an old dog can’t learn new tricks? Epic miserable-ist Mark Kozelek undertakes two startling challenges on Benji. First, he masters explicitly personal lyrics, delving so deeply that an attentive listener will gain a comprehensive understanding of Kozelek’s bad back, sore feet, teen crushes and high school fist-fights. The other innovation is a genuinely happy ode to Death Cab’s Ben Gibbard Ben’s My Friend which closes the album with a wistful feel and – gasp – a saxophone. Not really his strongest material, but still nothing less than a revolution for Kozelek, truth be told.
After 15 years and as many band member changes as studio albums, it’s amazing Taking Back Sunday are still around for record number six, let alone sounding as good as they do. Following on from the success of their 2012 eponymous record, Happiness Is has solidified the place of returning band members Cooper and Nolan, while offering up the band’s best effort since 2006’s Louder Now. First single, Flicker, Fade, is sure to earn the posthardcore rockers some new fans, while All The Way provides a dose of vintage Taking Back Sunday.
Carley Hall
Christopher H James
Bang Bang Boom Boom Mascot/ADA
Benji
★★★½
★★★½
Happiness Is
Ash Goldberg
ARCHITECTS
Lost Forever // Lost Together UNFD A look at the track listing on Lost Forever // Lost Together might give the impression that Architects have little hope for the world. Despite titles like Colony Collapse, The Devil Is Near and C.A.N.C.E.R, this is metal with a message. It comes across as less a surrender to the inevitable and more a passionate, aggressive call to pull our shit together. With this album, Architects reach into your chest like an Indiana Jones villain, tear out your still-beating heart and make you stare at it for 11 tracks of maximum brutality. Pete Laurie
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albums/singles/eps
★★★ ½
★★ ½
★★ ½
ALL THE COLOURS
BLOOD RED SHOES
Gina Works At Hearts
Repent Repeat/Inertia
Jazz Life/[PIAS] Australia
Piano Ombre
I Oh You
Hints of crooning, Motown, doowop, soul, balladry, heartbreak and hipster pretension all rear their heads at different times in this self-titled debut. But the result is so much more than the eclectic sum of its parts. The hooks are as crisp as their suits and pomaded hair, which is both its greatest strength and biggest weakness. As good as All The Colours might be, it almost feels too pristine at times. It’s missing just a little bit of authenticity that might come by loosening those bowties and getting some dirt under their fingernails.
Almost drowning in a very specific kind of nostalgia, much of Blood Red Shoes channels heavy-rock’s origins, when a foreboding sense of dread was more important than anger or soaring guitar solos. At times they go beyond homage, with songs like Behind A Wall and Don’t Get Caught, the most unique offerings, buried midalbum and almost lost amongst the soundalikes. Ultimately, Blood Red Shoes the album does little to differentiate Blood Red Shoes the band from their influences. If you like the same bands they obviously do, you’ve heard it all before.
Domino/EMI
DZ DEATHRAYS
Likely to be one of our big noises – literally and figuratively – at SXSW. Oh, there are lots of guitars, and this pounds where the previous, Northern Lights, lulled you into a slight sense of security, here dismissed.
T54
Life Is Swell Flying Nun/Remote Control Updating the classic South Island sound of the ‘80s through ‘90s, the guitars cascade in and the strangulated vocals echo in and we find the Straitjacket Fits (obscure Dunedin joke for those over 35).
All The Colours
Pete Laurie
Blood Red Shoes
Pete Laurie
FRÀNÇOIS & THE ATLAS MOUNTAINS Once a touring component of Camera Obscura, Frànçois Marry has brought a similar twee feel to the fourth Frànçois & The Atlas Mountains release. Combining French and English lyrics, blending Afropop with nouvelle chanson, it’s a shimmering pop album that doesn’t quite make it past the language barrier. Musically, Francois and co blend their influences well, but Marry’s thin voice rarely strays into strong expression making it difficult to connect to the French tracks. It’s a pretty affair, but lacks real depth. Katie Benson
MANCHESTER ORCHESTRA Top Notch Caroline The album which this sweeping angsty noise precedes is called Cope. This may refer to their state of mind, or tribute one of their city’s finest musical eccentrics. Works either way.
HOLY HOLY
House Of Cards Wonderlick/Sony Guitarist Oscar Dawson is placed with singer Timothy Carroll in a European studio to make slightly folky, polished, polite music suitable for use on late night news programs.
FIREKITES
Closing Forever Sky Spunk Skittering and quietly uneasy, they bring back the nigh-on seven-minute single where you wait for the changes in mood and feeling that do occur as it unfolds in its own sweet time. Ross Clelland 38 • THE MUSIC • 12TH MARCH 2014
★★★★
★★★★
GEORGE MICHAEL
THE MEN
Universal
Sub Pop/Inertia
Recorded during his Symphonica tour of 2011 and ‘12, George Michael delivers tracks made famous by Nina Simone (My Baby Just Cares For Me, Feeling Good) and Roberta Flack (The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face) that fit snugly alongside his own hits, such as Praying For Time and One More Try. The symphonic element is deftly handled, with string sections beautifully arranged so as to serve Michael’s nuanced and expertly controlled vocals up on a platter. Track selection flows along nicely and extra credit goes to the sound engineers for capturing the warmth of these performances.
The evolution of Brooklyn rockers The Men continues with latest record Tomorrow’s Hits, which diverges further away from their explosively vitriolic beginnings and delves further into nostalgic, iconic American rock tropes. From the Neil Young/Crazy Horse-style glorious shambles that is Dark Waltz to the Replacements-style carefree guitar jangle of Get What You Give and the shimmy and sax of the Boss echoing through Another Night, Tomorrow’s Hits proves that The Men aren’t hardcore heathens but rock tragics at heart, that they do whatever they damn well please – and do it damn well.
Symphonica
Glenn Waller
Tomorrow’s Hits
Brendan Telford
★★★ ½
MØ
No Mythologies To Follow RCA/Sony The debut album from Danish singer MØ is filled with dark and slick electro pop, from the Karen O-channelling opener, Fire Rides, to the deep beat Diplo collaboration, XXX 88. Other stand-outs include the emotive Never Wanna Know, which builds in epic fashion, and the almost faultless alternative pop gem Walk This Way. With this album, MØ has constructed a collection of songs that are very easy to listen to, yet edgy enough to stay interesting. It’s an album that’ll please the indie and hipster kids, but one that’s also accessible for the mainstream music lovers. Sally-Anne Hurley
THE MUSIC • 12TH MARCH 2014 • 39
40 • THE MUSIC • 12TH MARCH 2014
live reviews
FUTURE MUSIC FESTIVAL
Randwick Racecourse 8 Mar The sun was shining and the sweat was dripping as thousands of scantily clad ladies and shirtless beefcake guys made their way into the Randwick Racecourse for one of the most enviable line-up’s Future Music Festival has brought us to date. On entry we decided to make a beeline for the Body Rock ride, which sufficiently shook us up, leaving us battered and bruised but pumped for the epic day that was to come. Then with the sounds of Dannic pumping from the Future Sound System stage beside us, we quickly mapped out a game plan and off we went!
Happy, which had everybody swinging their hips and dancing like lunatics. This was followed by his Daft Punk and Robin Thicke collaborations Get Lucky and Blurred Lines, with Williams offering a refreshing balance of live vocals in the otherwise heavily electro-dance music day out. Although his timeslot seemed unusually early (and short) considering the amount of hype that was built up around his last-minute addition to the lineup, the international superstar lived up to the hype and had everybody gagging for more. Next on our list was Macklemore & Ryan Lewis who delivered an impressive set (although disappointingly there was no impromptu appearance by Queen Latifah officiating any mass weddings). Dropping some of their biggest hits straight off the
DEADMAU5 @ FUTURE MUSIC FESTIVAL RANDWICK RACECOURSE. PIC: JARED LEIBOWITZ
We decided to stop in to the Jack Daniel’s White Rabbit Saloon for a quick drink, where we were greeted with some chilled-out beats from Aussie DJ Thomas Jack and some delightful eye candy working behind the bar. Wanting to be in prime position for Pharrell Williams, we made our way to the main stage where R3hab followed by Dada Life delivered killer sets. As the front rows were showered with streamers, moods were high and the entire crowd was dancing like nobody was watching, with girls ripping of their shirts, revealing skimpy bikini tops and guys hoisting them up on to their shoulders in anticipation of Williams’ performance. Williams did not disappoint, bringing with him his now trademark hat and crowdpleasing tracks, most notably the happiest song in the world,
a plethora of half-naked girls hoisted high on boys shoulders as they brought it home just as strong with Waiting All Night, Powerless and Feel The Love. The crowd of thousands was going hard and showed no signs of slowing down just yet. Next up on the Safari Stage was Cut Copy, but the allure of Eric Prydz followed by Hardwell and Deadmau5 was too strong so we hauled arse back over the Future Music Stage. It was disappointing to have to choose between Deadmau5, Phoenix, Gesaffelstein, Chase & Status and Paul van Dyk, who were all competing for the headlining spot, and from the sounds of it, the Safari Stage was the place to be, with all recounts saying that Phoenix delivered a show-stopping performance to close the night.
MACKLEMORE & RYAN LEWIS @ FUTURE MUSIC FESTIVAL RANDWICK RACECOURSE. PIC: JARED LEIBOWITZ
bat with Same Love and Thrift Shop, you wouldn’t have wanted to arrive to the stage late, but with their commanding stage presence and thoughtful messages of empowerment, they had the entire crowd in the palms of their hands. Another fun inclusion on the day was The Foamarama Stage, which saw punters dancing knee deep in white foam that was being sprayed down on them from above. Arguably one of the biggest crowd-pleasers of the day was Rudimental who produced a ridiculously elaborate lighting set, this nine-piece UK group owning the stage and working the crowd to perfection. It was an enormous set of hits, with tracks such as Right Here, Not Giving In and Free encouraging mass singalongs with the jam-packed audience. Infectious stage presence teamed with some incredible vocals saw
Metro Theatre 9 Mar
It’s all about timing. And this could well be Dan Sultan’s time. In a small window between opening for that Springsteen guy – possibly the most thankless job in rock’n’roll – and the release of an album that many suggest will be the making of him, it’s a Sunday night show for a not quite full venue of the faithful and the curious. But this is a man who feeds off an audience. The Bruce shows had him singing to a crowd filling in time until an historic event, but here it’s people who know (most) of the songs, and he’s getting an answer for every
PHARRELL WILLIAMS @ FUTURE MUSIC FESTIVAL RANDWICK RACECOURSE. PIC: ANGELA PADOVAN
Deadmau5 delivered a set that did not hold back, with blinding lights and a blasting smoke machine, although the performance from the helmetclad rodent was just a little lacklustre in comparison to all of the trimmings, so we decided to again head back to the Future Sound System Stage to try and catch the end of Paul van Dyk. This was to be our best decision of the day, with the German DJ lifting our spirits back up. The energy was palpable as the entire crowd danced to the beats, feeding off the energy van Dyk was providing. As the night came to a close and the realisation set in that Future Music was over for another year, the crowd disappeared into the night and onto their next adventure… the trek home. Deborah Jackson
DAN SULTAN, THE MEDICS
‘Yeah!’, ‘Oooh!’, and grunt – that the girls understand, and the boys with them wish they did. The Medics struggled a bit. You want to like them, but somewhere between what you want them to be and what they are there’s a disconnect. Maybe it’s the mix which has them making Wembley widescreen racket to a mostly empty room. Kahl Wallace’s voice echoes out, but often is left waiting for a reply. And they’re better than that. However, while having the attention of almost every woman – and many chaps – in the room, Dan Sultan has songs that get you in. Ain’t Thinking About You is love gone, and trying to convince yourself you’re over it. Hint: you’re not. Further secret weapon: Even’s Ash Naylor is guitar foil, embellisher, and safety net for these songs and the bloke singing them. They laugh, converse, and THE MUSIC • 12TH MARCH 2014 • 41
live reviews take the piss from each other. At other times, Sultan cajoles, flirts and exhorts the audience to enjoy it as much as he is. Most happily acquiesce. There’s blues, there’s rock, there’s soul. The boy is gonna be a star – or should be. The perhaps unexpected charm is he still appears to be not sure if he’s worthy of it, so throws himself into it with sweat and utter joy. Someone best tell him he is the business, for he is. Ross Clelland
FLYING LOTUS, SILENT JAY
Sydney Opera House 9 Mar No matter what your taste in terms of genre or style, you cannot dispute Flying Lotus is right at the edge of music’s progression. He
DAN SULTAN @ METRO THEATRE. PIC: PETER SHARP
drives it forward relentlessly but never loses sight of what music means to people. He is a jazz musician in every sense; that he chooses to manipulate computer programs and synthesisers instead of live instruments means nothing. His arrangements are dense storms of texture and exploding melodic patterns pinned down by loose rhythms pulsating underneath like warm blood flowing around inside your body. It’s a cerebral trip, and the Opera House proved almost the perfect venue to explore his headspace. Supporting him was Silent Jay, an R&B producer that set a nice tone. Loose R&B grooves roamed around the hall and felt comfortable in all the large and small spaces the House provides. Some nice vocals added some sharpness to the performance and his selection was vivid and warm. Some tightening up of his 42 • THE MUSIC • 12TH MARCH 2014
crowd banter would have elevated it, but that’s a small detail. Flying Lotus’ set was accompanied by an incredible visual experience composed by Timeboy and Strangeloop, and together they comprised LAYER3. In the foreground was a semi-transparent screen for the first projection. FlyLo performed behind this, being the second layer, and the final layer was another screen, this time non-transparent, behind him. The effect was almost magical; FlyLo himself has mentioned in previous interviews he feels magic is lost as you get older, and he wants to bring it back through his work. Huge images of neon, Tron-like landscapes glided around the silhouette in the centre while floating shapes flew around in the background. It felt like an immense organic
MIKHAEL PASKALEV, LITTLE MAY
Oxford Art Factory 5 Mar “I wanna be a b-b-b-bad boy,” he wailed in his husky, boyish way. There was no fooling anyone at Oxford Art last night, though – Mikhael Paskalev is surely one of the nicest boys in indie-pop around. That’s his stage persona, at least, although you can imagine him breaking a few hearts in his time. The place filled with nonchalant teenage girls and mild young boys in sweaters as Little May took the stage first, three Sydney girls with a sense of ease but also real energy about their delicate
MIKHAEL PASKALEV @ OXFORD ART FACTORY. PIC: ANGELA PADOVAN
machine that Flylo breathed life into and controlled. His set was harder and more structured than his recorded work, and not as abstract, even including songs by Drake and Thundercat. The mix was a clean one, offering as much room for the bass as possible. Booming thuds and crackling pops and hisses moved around the space and it achieved a great balance, surprising given the complexity of the soundscape he was manipulating. His freeflowing MC work was fantastic, and a great surprise to the many that were not aware of his skills. Flying Lotus is fully aware of what people respond to musically, and he fearlessly and gleefully opens new doors with that in mind. We were privileged to be a part of his ongoing experiment. Matt MacMaster
moustache. Teenage girls looked up from their phones long enough to indulge their crushes. I Spy, Paskalev’s first single from 2012 – and the biggest, after it went viral with a clip of him dancing in his underwear – picked up the pace again, injecting the room with a burst of red cordial in a stomping beat, sweet harmonies and raucous yells. Jive Babe followed, and its infectious ‘60s joy brought us somewhere a long way from rainy northern Europe. For his last song, Dust On The Saddle, we were even further into the hot wild west, riding into sunsets. The encore was a gentle coda as he returned to the stage solo to play a heartfelt song of bromance, Hey Joseph, and it was clear Mikhael Paskalev charmed his way into plenty of hearts tonight. Eliza Goetze
PHOENIX @ HORDERN PAVILION. PIC: PETER SHARP
folk songs, especially in the tight acoustic co-ordination and eerie howls of Hide, and the gentle harmonies of Boardwalks. Mikhael Paskalev, nervous and excited, bantered away throughout the set, ahead of the release of his first album, What’s Life Without Losers, on Friday. “I don’t think I’ve ever been so sweaty ten minutes into a gig,” the Norwegian-Bulgarian exclaimed after an up-tempo opening, before launching into a lull of rainy day rock – the kind you can imagine being written gazing out of a drizzly window in his hometown of Ålesund or stomping ground, Liverpool. “To travel all this way and see so many people here, it really means a lot,” he told the crowd between songs. “I know musicians are supposed to be cool… but I do want to smile.” He managed a wry smirk from beneath his
PHOENIX, WORLD’S END PRESS Hordern Pavilion 5 Mar A robust crowd had started to gather for synth aficionados, World’s End Press. Kaleidoscopic guitar effects set the scene for some popping percussion and striking synth work. Their set had all the trimmings of an indie-rock powerhouse, and the crowd ate it all up as Drag Me Home erupted into the venue with its bursting synth and outrageous dance moves. They sounded like the little brothers of Friendly Fires and seemed as though they would know where to find the after-party. Phoenix arrived in a cloud of red light and pounding bass. The
live reviews French ensemble all stood for a moment to take in the sheer magnitude of the crowd and then exploded into Entertainment. Drums clashed with the sweetness of the keyboard, making this the perfect opener. Thomas Mars shouted an, “Un, Deux, Trois!” as he launched into Lasso. The two percussionists made this track a rolling stand-out, while managing to shatter eardrums in the most enjoyable way. Lisztomania saw a sea of forearms reaching out toward the band in salute of this hit. The tune could be felt reverberating through the floorboards as Robin Coudert slayed the keyboard solo, making this live rendition truly unique. The guitar oozed with funk as Too Young began only to be seamlessly segued into Girlfriend. A quick yet palpitating guitar solo made its way into the
QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE, NINE INCH NAILS, BRODY DALLE Qantas Credit Union Arena 6 Mar While the crowd’s eagerness for the main acts to start was palpable, Brody Dalle was just as eager to kick off her first Australian show under her own name. With her band, she belted through a handful of The Distillers classics, Spinnerette tunes and new songs from her upcoming album Diploid Love. While The Distillers material was obviously the strongest of the set, it’s great to have her performing live again at all after such a lengthy break.
QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE @ QANTAS CREDIT UNION ARENA. PIC: JOSH GROOM
medley, as the layering became intriguing and mesmerising. Trying To Be Cool was lit up by a giant rainbow LED screen and saw Phoenix flip-flopping between genres. From sugary pop sounds to intense guttural rock, this version was explosive. The Real Thing had stunning keyboard work with evocative guitar. Phoenix took a grunge avenue with the track mixed in with their usual indie-rock. This was an interesting yet refreshing development for the band. Their energy had been unwavering and palpable, creating a set that was constantly moving, evolving and attention-stealing. As the night concluded, Mars physically made his way around the crowd, hugging and thanking the revelers in attendance. As repayment to the band’s gratitude, the mosh pit held Mars from his feet above their heads like an indie-rock Messiah. Jessica Holton
Yet it was obvious why the sold out crowd was here and Nine Inch Nails soon made their imposing way on stage. Somewhat Damaged kicked off their set and it was clear from the outset the band weren’t messing around. Everything, from guitar to synths and fierce percussion, was so angular and jagged and made obvious the reasons the band is so acclaimed. The occasionally blinding light show pulsed and throbbed throughout their set (epileptics be warned) and despite being a pale version of their US light show, was still an imposing force. Frontman Trent Reznor, ever the showman, stalked and hopped around the stage when not lurching over the mic-stand like the mess of anger and muscle he is. As great as the band’s new material is, it was obvious that the highlights were drawn from the band’s golden period in the early ‘90s. The March Of The Pigs/Piggy
one-two punch was as brilliant as it was obvious, while the surprise inclusion of noise rocker Wish got the crowd into frenzy. Overall, the band simply rocked too hard and with too much energy for a group of their age and history. It would be a hard act to follow. This was especially the case considering Queens Of The Stone Age are, for many intents and purposes, a more ‘straightforward’ rock group. But this is exactly why they were able to kill their set as powerfully as they did. Throwing down the gauntlet by belting out classic No One Knows as the second track, Queens were out to prove they were here for blood. Josh Homme is easily one of the most exciting and naturally charming frontmen in rock’n’roll and his love of performing was obvious. A set pulled primarily from their
NINE INCH NAILS @ QANTAS CREDIT UNION ARENA. PIC: JOSH GROOM
latest excellent record, ...Like Clockwork, was punctuated with lean and messy highlights from Songs For The Deaf and Rated R including jammed-out versions of Better Living Through Chemistry and a ten-minute-plus rendition of Feel Good Hit Of The Summer. Ultra masculinity is the raison d’être here; a near caveman sonic aesthetic enveloped the crowd, especially as the group’s sound live is even looser than on record, sounding just held together. Fans could argue about who should open for who forever, but the fact is, this was a double header of two sublime acts. That we should receive them both back-to-back seems impossible. The odds of this calibre of show rolling around again are slim and those who went will cherish it for years, nearly as long as those who missed it will rue it. Andrew McDonald
THE GROWLERS, TOMORROWS TULIPS, THE WALKING WHO Oxford Art Factory 7 Mar The Walking Who opened proceedings, playing middle-of-theroad indie-psych. Obvious fans of BJM, the Wollongong group were at their best when they left the atmospheric synth and the washedout sound behind, and instead played tighter poppier numbers, with bassist Jay Bird providing much-needed back-up vocals. California’s Tomorrows Tulips followed, surrounded by bubbles, to play what seemed like a Nirvana homage. They had the look down,
THE GROWLERS @ OXFORD ART FACTORY. PIC: AVERIE HARVEY
with ‘90s outfits, long blonde locks and all, and the garage/ grunge sound, although Alex Knost’s vocals were not quiet akin to Cobain’s. Their sound seemed more effortless and honest than the former’s, with projections behind heightening the atmosphere. For The Growlers’ maiden voyage, the crowd were rabid. There was a fair amount of moshing, crowdsurfing, dancing girls on either side of the stage, shirtless young men and lots of crowd stage dives, but The Growlers played on unfazed. Frontman Brooks Nielsen didn’t mind, he seemed glad to be there, with an almost creepy kind of swagger as he crooned tracks from 2009’s label debut Are You In Or Out? and their more recent discography. They opened with Something Someone Jr and although the SoCal psych songs quickly blended into one another, Acid Rain was a crowd favourite. THE MUSIC • 12TH MARCH 2014 • 43
live reviews Their sound feels less surf-focused and a little more intricate than that of their contemporaries, sometimes almost going Western in feel and execution, a blend of desert rock and psych. It was a fun high-energy performance with Nielsen’s stage presence proving entertaining as he performed in front of video footage of California, with minimal lighting that for the most part illuminated only him and drummer Scott Montoya. The furnace that is a capacity Oxford Art Factory (almost like being in SoCal in summer) seemed stoked with the set even when the band chose to forego an encore. Hannah Story
THE ROLLER DEN OPENING PARTY The Roller Den 7 Mar Sundown State were the first of the highlights. Falling between Stone Roses and Tame Impala they will surely be heading for the UK as soon as they can afford it. Their cover of Oasis’ Gas Panic! was phenomenal and their original
A Friend Of Mine quality. Dead Radio made it clear that the Sydney scene is going through a psychedelic shoegaze revival. The room held the acoustics of three guitar layers nicely and the Mosrite seemed at home, almost giving birth to the true city basement band room. The Fixators kept upstairs humming with enough reverb for orcas to notice. The banter flowed as they relaxed into Franz/Vampire Weekend pop fuzz territory. Their EP Colourblind is worth grabbing. Despite all the cock rock douchery that The Dead Love put out their music’s more Grinspoon than Motley Crue. Thrashy rock with a punk twist and occasional riff or melody that makes it all go down smooth. Thieves kept Pedal Fest 2014 strong upstairs. They’re apparently notching up as many live shows as they can before unleashing a new direction with their yet-to-be-released album Anxious Heart. If the title track is anything to go by, their festival invites will continue growing.
exploded all over the mirror balls. Wasters’ Jebediah cover was fun, and James Seymour’s vocal is hot beyond his years, echoing a rawness not heard since Sid O’Neil. Panachae meanwhile walked straight from the set of Glee, with amazing hair flicks down front and guitar licks from the back of stage. The night finished off upstairs with true Manchester 89 heartthrobs The Khanz. Architecture in Helsinki x Beats International x Hacienda – hell yes. Downstairs had a delectably more gritty finish, with Born Lion tearing the place apart. Easily opening with hit D For Danger because the rest of their catalogue is already shit-hot. Good Times Jimmy was an obvious highlight,
Wasters slid the upstairs room from rock to pop nicely before the total poptasm of Panachae
as was the bass players rant, the singer’s crowd participation and the 140 per cent intensity from go to woah. The Snowdroppers were the prefect choice for Roller Den’s christening. Like a bluegrass yokel snogging their cousin, it was hot, sweaty and frenetic; and so, so dirty. Their grimy rockabilly sludge made covers Yer Blues, Cecilia and Hurt all their own, while the stage show dubbed ‘Soundwave 2014’ made the sausage fest night all glam rock lovely, the, “I been working hard all day all night” refrain from Do The Stomp was the bare balls truth. Apologies to the rest of the line-up. Like Soundwave, scheduling made it impossible to catch everyone. Kristy Wandmaker
THE SNOWDROPPERS @ THE ROLLER DEN. PIC: CLARE HAWLEY
arts reviews
CLOSE TO THE WARM BY WANG ZHIYUAN
REFORMATION Visual Art
White Rabbit Gallery to 3 Aug In January this year the reputation of White Rabbit Gallery hit a new high when the New York Times chose the Chippendale resident as their number one destination 44 • THE MUSIC • 12TH MARCH 2014
in Sydney. In March, White Rabbit Gallery presents its tenth exhibition, Reformation, one of their most astonishing offerings to date. An homage to their previous exhibitions can be viewed through an expanse of paintings hanging together in the gallery foyer, but as you explore the three levels of the gallery space you will encounter bold, thought-provoking pieces that confidently move between states of pleasure and pain. On level one you will find Shyu Ruey–Shiann’s Eight Drunken Immortals, robotic ink paintings that ask the viewer who or what is the artist here? Hop to level two to be overcome by MadeIn Company’s Play 201301, an impressive model of a Gothic Cathedral constructed entirely of bondage supplies, suspended in the centre of the room. And don’t forget to take the elevator to the third floor, if only to visit Sun Hongbin’s Fat Lady. Bethany Cannan
CUBAN FURY Film
In cinemas 20 Mar When it comes to dancing – and I’m talking more about a semisloshed Friday night boogie than anything competitive – enthusiasm, exuberance and a willingness to have a good time tend to make up for a lack of technique or finesse. Look at Cuban Fury the same way and you’re likely to have a bit of fun with this twinkle-toed romantic comedy starring Shaun Of The Dead’s Nick Frost. Frost plays Bruce Garrett, who turned his back on his youthful passion and penchant for salsa dancing after a nasty incident with a pack of bullies. He’s now a middle-aged shlub half-heartedly trudging through life until he discovers his sweet new boss Julia (Rashida Jones) is partial to a few turns around the dancefloor. Getting his groove back and wooing Julia won’t be easy – smarmy co-worker Drew (top-shelf dickishness from
Chris O’Dowd) has his sights on her as well – but Bruce has his old coach (Ian McShane), his supportive sister (Olivia Colman) and a new posse of salsa-loving pals in his corner. Story-wise, it’s all a bit slight and predictable, really, but it’s presented and performed with such gusto and good humour that it’s easy to forgive a few shortcomings, especially when Frost (who came up with the film’s concept) is such a winning lead, bringing heart, soul and some marvellous moves to his underdog hero. Guy Davis
the guide
THE SIDETRACKED FIASCO Answered by: John O’Donnell Role: Bass How long have you been together? We’ve been proudly manufacturing funkcore since 2006. How did you all meet? Adultmatchmaker.com. Ryan’s (vox) ad said “A Ribena nightmare who loves body paint and rubber ducks seeks three other like-minded individuals to funk till their eyes pop out. Though I did find it funny he spelt funk with “ck” – must’ve just been a typo. You’re on tour in the van – which band or artist is going to keep the most people happy if we throw them on the stereo? I’ve chosen to take this question literally... So the answer is Ian Watkins. Just keep throwing his head against the stereo till it bursts open like a rancid cantaloupe. What part do you think Sydney plays in the music you make? Not a very big part but a memorable part with choice dialogue. Probably akin to the part Christopher Walken played in Pulp Fiction, you know the “this watch” speech. Is your band responsible for more make-outs or break-ups? Why? I’ve never been responsible in my life! Next question. What reality TV show would you enter as a band and why? Border Security, that is if they ever check our bags. There’s nothing like the sound of a latex glove slapping against the naked skin of a wrist... Winning! What’s in the pipeline for the band in the short term? Hitting Lansdowne Hotel, 14 Mar; Great Northern Hotel, Newcastle, 15 Mar. Website link for more info? thesidetrackedfiasco.com Pic by Josh Groom THE MUSIC • 12TH MARCH 2014 • 45
eat/drink
SHOUT IT FROM THE ROOFTOP BARS Hurry up and make the most of drinking in the warm sun because before we know it, it’ll be winter.
SWEENEYS – 236 CLARENCE ST, SYDNEY The total hole of Sydney’s otherwise glitzy drinking scene, Sweeneys is the place to end the night, start the night, shake off the night before and everything in between. It’s a no-frills affair that’s reached by trekking through four floors of the colourful Hotel Sweeney. But if this is what no frills feels like, we’re not looking back.
THE GLENMORE ROOFTOP – 96 CUMBERLAND ST, THE ROCKS At the other end of the spectrum is The Glenmore’s rooftop bar, with spectacular views of the Opera House and the bridge. Nestled amongst the sandstone of The Rocks, this place feels historic yet modern and comfortable, with a retractable roof ensuring you can drink here all year round. It might not be your local but it’s a must for out-of-towners.
DARLO BAR
DARLO BAR – 306 LIVERPOOL ST, DARLINGHURST
COOPER’S ARMS HOTEL BISTRO – 221 KING ST, NEWTOWN This sophisticated bistro and deck bar celebrates inner city living, but not in an exclusive way – anybody’s welcome. Whether you’re dressed up or down, there for a casual bevvy or a decent feed, Cooper’s Arms will deliver with $15 jugs all day, $10 daily meal specials, happy hour from 4 - 6pm every weekday, and a complimentary glass of wine or beer with every bistro meal between 12 - 3pm.
This much-loved local is pretty much everybody’s favourite, especially on Thursday and Saturday evenings when the cocktails are dirt cheap. The option to order in food from surrounding restaurants seals the deal. The garden-themed bar upstairs is the prime spot in the joint so come armed with a back-up plan if you don’t want to be relegated to an indoor drinking sesh.
DARLO BAR
SWEETHEARTS ROOFTOP BARBEQUE – 33-37 DARLINGHURST ROAD, KINGS CROSS Don’t let the Kings Cross location fool you, this place is no dive. Sweethearts offers food and drink for the soul, served with a healthy side of vitamin D and fresh air. Alongside BBQ staples such as ribs and drumsticks are vodka-infused watermelon slices and a very retro drinks list of shandies and spritzers. Make Sweethearts your summer staple.
DARLO BAR
243m 46 • THE MUSIC • 12TH MARCH 2014
297.3m
249m
249m
HOBART: WREST POINT CASINO
CANBERRA: LOVETT TOWER
ADELAIDE: WESTPAC HOUSE
PERTH: CENTRAL PARK
BRISBANE: INFINITY
SYDNEY: CITIGROUP CENTRE
TALLEST BUILDINGS IN AUSTRALIAN CITIES.
MELBOURNE: EUREKA TOWER
HOW HIGH CAN YOU GO?
131m
93m
73m
eat/drink DRINK UP
THE CHIPPENDALE HOTEL 87-91 Abercrombie St, Chippendale facebook.com/ thechippendalehotel
Answered by: Kat Camrass Briefly decsribe the design/ atmosphere of the bar? We’re an awesome pub that loves our locals. Relaxed vibe with good beers and good food. The pub has a rustic timber feel throughout.
Does the bar have a music component? Sure does. We host live music every Friday night, events on Saturdays and acoustic sessions on Sundays. We support Sydney’s music scene, and open the space for locals. What drinks are you serving? Do you have a specialty? We promote local craft beers. $5 beers are our speciality, changing up the $5 beer every week. $5 Stockade is a crowd favourite. We have $10 Corona buckets on Sundays. We also have a specialty wine Babylon Sem Sav. It’s
fresh and fruity, perfect for a summer’s day. Does the bar offer food? If so what style and what’s your specialty? We have an awesome pub menu. Our specialty is the Moroccan-spiced chicken burger with okra and harrisa. Every day there is a $15 meal special, which includes a drink. Delish.
CHECK OUT
Anything out of the ordinary on the horizon? Wednesday Uni NightBuck It. Can’t afford to go to Thailand? Buck it. We’ve got buckets, pumping music and the Thailand flavour here on Wednesday nights for uni students to enjoy.
HOT SPOT BAIRRO PORTUGUÊS PETERSHAM FOOD & WINE FAIR – 16 MAR This year’s annual fair, presented by Marrickville Council, features Masterchef 2013 finalist Christina Batista as MC. Batista is particularly passionate about Portugese seafood and will be sharing a more inclusive understanding of classic Western European flavours. Between 10am and 6pm, Audley and Fisher Streets will be filled with stalls of barbecued meats and seafood, Portuguese tarts, seafood paella, the famous Brazilian Feijoado bean dish and other delights, as well as plenty of wine, spirits and beer. There’s also traditional music and dancing and kids’ entertainment.
DRINK UP
GILT LOUNGE QT Sydney 49 Market St, Sydney qthotels.com.au Answered by: Jared Thibault What’s your bar’s specialty drink? On our newest summer menu it is the “Day Of The Dead”. 45ml Habanero infused Calle 23 Tequila, 15ml Avocado Shrub, 30ml Fresh Lime, 10ml Mango Infused Agave. Candied Jalapeño.
What makes your bar different? Our unique style of products that you can’t find at most bars, from Quinine Syrup for house-made tonics, to spirits such as Wray & Nephew and Batavia Arrack. Also, our selection of barrel aged cocktails have been a big hit. What’s the design/ atmosphere of your bar? Very Manhattan designer-hotel style
THE ROLLING STONES WINE Fans of The Rolling Stones and wine can now rejoice in the joining of two of their interests, in The Rolling Stones 50th Anniversary McLaren Vale Shiraz. From Australian wine producer Warburn Estate and available exclusively from Dan Murphy’s (in store and online) The Rolling Stones 50th Anniversary wine bottle features the Stones’ iconic tongue and lips logo. The Rolling Stones are touring Australia from 19 Mar.
bar, with the same style cocktails to match.
style and class, with the knowledge to back it up.
Who is pouring at your bar and what makes them special? As bar manager, I get in the mix when we are busy but I am blessed with a great team led by Marcellus Heleta, who is one of the best I have had the pleasure of working with. He does it with
Best hangover cure? You can’t go past the Ghost Of Mary – 45ml Jalapeño and American bacon infused Vodka, 60ml tomato consomme, 4 dashes of celery bitters, pickled asparagus served in a bacon salt rimmed Martini glass. THE MUSIC • 12TH MARCH 2014 • 47
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FRONTLASH
LIVE THIS WEEK
VIVID LIVE
Pixies! Giorgio Moroder! And that’s only the first announcement. We look forward to the full reveal in a couple of weeks, but it’s a great start from Vivid LIVE this year.
BIENNALE Coming a week after artists withdrew from the Biennale Of Sydney due to major sponsor Transfield’s links to the Manus Island Detention Centre, Biennale has now severed its ties completely with them. It ends a long-standing agreement, but times have definitely changed.
SYDNEY COMEDY FESTIVAL With the full reveal of the line-up, we think we’re going to book an operation in midMay as we’re going to split our sides laughing from the massive amount of talent on offer.
ON THE BOWLING GREEN Alt-country renegades The Green Mohair Suits are headed to Petersham Bowling Club on Sunday. Joining them are Handasyd Williams & The Brothers Primitive along with acoustic cowpunk artist Dave Favours.
A MUSICAL SUMMATION OF MIGRATION
LUCK OF THE IRISH
As part of the Greek Festival of Sydney, Van Louis will be presenting Migratorium – a music project detailing the effects of migration – this Thursday at the Factory Theatre.
Jameson Irish Whiskey has put together something to ensure your St Patrick’s Day is suitably celebratory. This Sunday, Furnace and the Fundamentals, Thundamentals, Hot Dub Time Machine and Yolanda Be Cool will be performing at Ivy.
KLASSIC KAOS
LADY IN THE LAKE
A CAPELLA CAFÉ
Percussionist and director Eddie Caceres has pulled together the best in the Latin music business to form Latin Kaos, an outfit that colourfully blends classic salsa jams with exotic South African rhythms. They’re heading to Jam Gallery this Thursday.
Canberra’s Julia & The Deep Sea Sirens have a new single, a pop-drenched folk number about sex-positivity and Australia’s disappearing lake, which launches this Saturday at the Newsagency after they hit Canberra on Friday for the YouAreHere Festival.
ARIA-nominated a cappella gospel choir Café Of The Gate Of Salvation will be performing at the Jam Gallery this Saturday paying a tribute to Nelson Mandela with a performance of their rendition of the 1987 song Asimbonanga.
INTERNATIONAL, ALPHABETICAL
CUMBIERO EMBASSY
BIG LEAGUES
Fresh from landing home after a string of shows in America, future-soul artist Ngaiire will be playing a show at Oxford Art Factory this Saturday to mark the release of her ABCD film clip.
With the aid of the Colombian Embassy in Australia, the Oxford Art Factory will be paid a visit on Wednesday by Bogota-based Frente Cumbiero and La Chiva Ganvita, both of whom revive early Colombian rhythms with electronica, rap and dub culture.
Since scoring second place in Australia’s Got Talent, The Wolfe Brothers have been working on a collection of new material. With some new demos in hand, they’ll be playing alongside Lee Kernaghan at Dapto Leagues Club this Thursday.
CHARMING FOLK
TOEHAUGEN
WANDERLUST
The Folk Informal returns to FBi Social this Thursday with yet another charming array of eclectic folk and alt-country acts. Features performances from Oliver Downes, Golden Bridges, Lola & The Captain and Jep & Dep.
In the wake of their recent crowdfunding success, Melbourne prog-rockers Toehider are playing a show at the Beachcomber Hotel in Toukley on Saturday and another at RAD in Wollongong on Sunday with co-headliners Troldhaugen.
Shortly after his single It’s Like Love appeared on Tourism Australia’s recent television advertising campaign, Hobart’s Dewayne Everettsmith is set to launch the debut album from which the single was lifted this Friday at the Factory Floor.
GIORGIO MORODER
BACKLASH TOOLS
For a moment there, we thought a new Tool album was coming, then it turns out a fan didn’t possess a sense of humour and reported guitarist Adam Jones’ joke that it was done as fact.
SXSW Some of The Music team is covering SXSW currently, while there are some of us still here wishing we were checking out the action.
INXS Alright, we thought they’d end up here soon. Love your legacy, you’ve done some great songs, but you’ve had your fun recently, time to let some new music dominate the charts now. Thanks! 48 • THE MUSIC • 12TH MARCH 2014
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LIVE THIS WEEK
SPIRITED AWAY
LAZYBONES
IN THE GROOVE
Almost 18 months ago, Americana-influenced four-piece The Spirit released their first single, Forever Gone. They’ve now finally announced that they’ll be playing their first set of shows, including a show at Goodgod this Saturday with Steve Smyth.
Five-piece rockers The Lazys are back from a stint in New York and are ready to jump straight back into touring. Warming up to the release of their debut album, The Lazys will be playing at Studio Six in Sutherland this Friday.
Timed with the announcement of both a new single and self-titled EP, alt-rock outfit Veludo have a string of shows lined up. Friday they’re playing at The Groove Saint in Albury, and then on Saturday, The Bald Faced Stag.
ANTI-TREE TRIO
PETERSHAM BY PORCHLIGHT
GIN AND JUICE
Local three-piece rock outfit Hitting Trees have closely followed the release of their debut EP with a second shortplayer titled Enemies. Joined by Central Coast alt-rockers Elliot The Bull, the launch of the EP hits Brighton Up Bar this Friday.
Leroy Lee will be playing the first of a series of monthly events at Petersham Bowling Club, Porchlight Sessions. Commencing this Thursday, Leroy is joined by The Morrisons.
After seven years together as a band, the debut album from punk-rockers BinJuice has finally come to be. As such, they’ll be throwing a wild launch party at Spectrum on Friday night – entry to which includes access to the after-party.
JTR FACTOR
ON HOLIDAY
With a new video clip to accompany her single Sensibility, Elizabeth Rose will be performing at Wollongong Uni on Thursday with SAFIA and Fishing.
After taking some time off to work on their debut alum, former X-Factor finalists JTR have finished recording and are ready to hit the road in celebration of the album’s release. This Saturday, they’re playing at the Oxford Art Factory.
The Holidays will be bringing their second album Real Feel to Oxford Art Factory on Friday. It’s an expansive, layered album that took three years to complete, as they attempted to stray from the Holidays sound.
PAIR OF STIFFS
HOLOGROOVES
BLUE IN THE FACE
To ring in the release of their second LP, Melbourne rock’n’roll duo The Stiffys are undertaking an east coast tour, in the midst of which they’ll be playing a free show at Frankies Pizza this Thursday.
Oscar Key Sung, Melbourne beat darling, formerly of the muchloved Oscar + Martin, brings his R&B vocals and electronics to Trinity Bar, Canberra, this Friday, to celebrate the release of his debut EP, Holograms.
Postblue release their debut album later this month and to commemorate the special occasion they play with Luca Brasi at Magpies Club, Canberra on Friday, at Hermanns Bar on Saturday, and at Beatdisc Records on Sunday.
A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME
THIS WEEK’S RELEASES… ARCHITECTS Lost Forever//Lost Together UNFD LUCA BRASI By A Thread Poison City THE WAR ON DRUGS Lost In The Dream Secretly Canadian/Inertia SIMONE FELICE Strangers Warner 50 • THE MUSIC • 12TH MARCH 2014
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LICENSED SENIOR TATTOO ARTISTS WANTED BUILD YOUR OWN BUSINESS WITHIN OUR BUSINESS REACH YOUR FINANCIAL GOALS BEACHFRONT STUDIO, EXCELLENT INTERNATIONAL EXPOSURE EMAIL: info@bondiinktattoo.com.au
THE MUSIC • 12TH MARCH 2014 • 51
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ALBUM FOCUS
ALBUM FOCUS making? I had some boring personal issues last year. We went through line-up changes and I moved states. What’s your favourite song on it? My favourite would have to be Pig. It’s probably the heaviest song on the record, and the chorus is cool.
PALACE OF THE KING Answered by: Matt Harrison EP title: Palace Of The King II: Moon & Mountain How many releases do you have now? This is the second EP we’ve released in the past 12 months. Our debut EP was released in May 2013. Was anything in particular inspiring you during the making? Just the fluidity of having played a truckload of live shows. Some of the new songs had already been refined in a live setting and were ready to package, stamp and post.
the most climactic moments in our set and always takes the show to another level.
POSTBLUE
We’ll like this EP if we like... Grand Funk Railroad, Deep Purple, Aerosmith, The Black Crowes, Humble Pie, Rival Sons, Graveyard, Funkadelic, Led Zeppelin.
Album title: I Hope They’re Praying For Me
When and where is your launch/ next gig? 14 Mar, The Vanguard
How many releases do you have now? Including our demo, this will be our fourth release.
Website link for more info? palaceofthekingmusic.com
What’s your favourite song on it? Black Heart. It’s one of
Answered by: Riley McEvoy
Where did the title of your new album come from? It’s a lyric from the closing track, and one of the oldest lyrics on the record.
How long did it take to write/ record? We started writing in early January and finished in August. Recording took three days in November.
Will you do anything differently next time? I’d like to take a bit more time to record, and have work on the songs for a bit longer. When and where is your launch/ next gig? Our next show is the beginning of our tour with Luca Brasi on 14 Mar at the Magpies Club in Canberra. Then Hermanns Bar, 15 Mar, and Beatdisc Records, 16 Mar. Website link for more info? facebook.com/postbluemusic
Was anything in particular inspiring you during the
ALBUM FOCUS
HAVE YOU HEARD
for around two years, some revived, some left for dead. Two weeks in the studio, up around 200 hours, tracked live. Bit of a slog at times.
LUCA BRASI Answered by: Tyler Richardson Album title: By A Thread Where did the title of your new album come from? The themes in the record reflect what was going on in my life at the time – between home, work and touring, everything seemed to be hanging by a thread. How many releases do you have now? This will be our second full-length. We also have our first LP Extended Family and an EP called TASSIE. How long did it take to write/ record? Some of the tracks have been floating about 52 • THE MUSIC • 12TH MARCH 2014
Was anything in particular inspiring you during the making? We have a few favourite records as a band which we really drew from for inspiration; Osker’s Idle Will Kill and Hot Water Music are two. Chocolate biscuits as rewards for good takes too. What’s your favourite song on it? My personal favourite is Waves: so much energy, so much fun live! Will you do anything differently next time? Ideally we’d be able to have more days to record, although budget and work will always be our limitations. When and where is your launch/ next gig? 15 Mar, Hermanns Bar; 16 Mar, Beatdisc Records. Website link for more info? lucabrasi.com.au
KING TIDE Answered by: Tony “Two Suits” Hughes How did you get together? I was asked by Glenn Wright from Vitamin Records to put a band together for Thursday Roots Music nights at The Beach Road Hotel in Bondi. I rang up my fave musicians. King Tide was born. Sum up your musical sound in three words? Rock steady reggae. If you could support any band in the world – past or present – who would it be? Toots & The Maytals at Sun-splash JA.
You’re being sent into space, no iPod, you can bring one album – what would it be? King Tubby Meets Rockers Up Town. Greatest rock’n’roll moment of your career to date? You call this a career? Probably playing to big crowds at Womad and Peats Ridge festivals. Why should people come and see your band? Because we’re Bondi’s third best uptown, jam-down, rock steady reggae, got soul band around. When and where for your next gig? 14 Mar, Jam Gallery. Website link for more info? kingtidemusic.com
the guide nsw.live@themusic.com.au
EP FOCUS
ALBUM FOCUS say really. Roger Bergodaz recorded and mixed the album in two weeks or less.
THE STIFFYS Answered by: Jason and Adam EP title: We Are Groovy Boys How many releases do you have now? This is our second EP, and we also have an exercise video and 25 videos on the internet. Was anything in particular inspiring you during the making? Mainly having a great time and having a couple of drinks and providing a safe environment for all the ladies to dance and express themselves and probably think we’re really cool guys.
What’s your favourite song on it? Probably Boogie Boarding. It always gets so crazy live. People bring boogie boards and do great jobs together. We’ll like this EP if we like... Having a couple of drinks and dancing and doing the fancy moves and being on trend and talking to girls and doing kickflips and being groovy boys. When and where is your launch/next gig? We’re on tour all this month. 13 Mar, Frankie’s Pizza; 2 Apr, Beach Road Hotel; 4 Apr, Oxford Art Factory. Website link for more info? thestiffys.com
LOST RAGAS Answered by: Matt Walker Album title: Phantom Ride Where did the title of your new album come from? I think we were doing ten hours on the Hume when pedal steel-player, Shane Riley mentioned it. Phantom Ride is a film where the camera moves forward into the images by an invisible force. How many releases do you have now? This is the debut album for Lost Ragas. How long did it take to write/ record? 20 years, two months, three days and seven minutes to write it. But it’s hard to
ALBUM FOCUS
Was anything in particular inspiring you during the making? When you find yourself in a creative place, you can be alone... or not. But either way it is inspiring to be there. This is a band of songwriters working as one. That is fucking rare. What’s your favourite song on it? Phantom Ride. Someone suggested it sounded like a cross between Lou Reed and Creedence Clearwater Revival. Will you do anything differently next time? All will be different... and the same. Personally I wish to see drummer, Simon Burke, drink a glass of nails and sing his heart out. When and where is your launch/ next gig? 14 Mar, Coogee Diggers; 15 Mar, Factory Floor; 16 Mar, Junkyard, Maitland. Website link for more info? lostragas.com
JUST VISITING
and an album that you could listen to from beginning to end. That takes time and effort. I’m happy with the outcome.
DEWAYNE EVERETTSMITH Album title: Surrender Where did the title of your new album come from? Surrender is the title track. The album represents a life of ups and downs, trials and tribulations. At some point we surrender to our surroundings and circumstances. Surrendering is not always a bad thing. How many releases do you have now? I have released EPs and have songs on compilation albums but Surrender is my debut album. How long did it take to write/ record? Recording Surrender took three-four years. I wanted an album that was timeless
Was anything in particular inspiring you during the making? It was really inspiring to work with a variety of really talented musicians who offered new and different ideas for the album. You need to be opened to those ideas to create a great album. What’s your favourite song on it? I go through stages of which one I like depending on how I’m feeling. O.v.e.r.d.u.e is my favourite right now. Will you do anything differently next time? I don’t know, I think that will be dictated by the songs we choose for the next album. Their presence will create the future direction. When and where is your launch/ next gig? The launch will be on 14 Mar at the Factory Floor. Website link for more info? dewayneeverettsmith.com
DEKE DICKERSON Why are you coming to visit our fair country? To bring my brand of crazy American hillbilly music to you Aussies... Not that you don’t have your fair share of crazy hillbillies Down Under!
Any extra-curricular activities you hope to participate in? Off on some unplanned adventure, I hope! What will you be taking home as a souvenir? Hopefully some meat pies... or a 1960s Maton Fyrbyrd guitar!
Is this your f irst visit? No, I’ve been four times previous. Love it in Australia!
Where can we come say hi, and buy you an Aussie beer? 14 Mar, Manning Bar.
How long are you here for? A whirlwind visit – four shows in five days!
Website link for more info? dekedickerson.com
What do you know about Australia, in ten words or less? It’s like California before too many people moved there! Paradise! THE MUSIC • 12TH MARCH 2014 • 53
opinion OG FLAVAS
THE HEAVY SHIT
WAKE THE DEAD
URBAN AND R&B NEWS WITH CYCLONE
METAL AND HARD ROCK WITH CHRIS MARIC
PUNK AND HARDCORE WITH SARAH PETCHELL
Neneh Cherry pioneered (alt) hip hop soul in the late ‘80s with her classic debut Raw Like Sushi. Cherry was born in Sweden, settling as a teen in the UK, where she initially gravitated to the punk scene. However, she presaged not only textural street soul, but also Lauryn Hill and M.I.A., transitioning between rapping and singing, plus addressing feminist and anti-materialist concerns. Later Cherry veered off into trip hop, Massive Attack long-time associates. Still, The Notorious B.I.G. rapped on her Buddy X remix. Cherry last presented 1996’s boho Man, entailing the sublime 7 Seconds with Senegalese star Youssou N’Dour. Weirdly, her back catalogue has seen few reissues; there’s no ‘best of ’! In the 2000s Cherry, a reluctant celebrity DJ, guested on Groove Armada’s definitive Love Box. She’s had several side-projects. Now Cherry is back with the buzzy Blank Project, which underscores her status as an eternally cool reinventor. It’s part electronic jazz, part avant R&B – and based on synths and live drums. Cherry teamed with IDM producer Kieran ‘Four Tet’ Hebden and London musos RocketNumberNine in New York. Hebden’s subjective ‘techno’ can be like gluten-free bread: ‘good’ and wholesome yet unappetising. But, somehow, his partnering with Cherry works, Blank Project being abstract, yes, but also raw, melodic and dramatic. The LP, mortality its dominant theme, opens with the ultra-spare and percussive Across The Water. The highlight is Out Of The Black, a duet with another Swedish rebel – Robyn. @therealcyclone
NENEH CHERRY
54 • THE MUSIC • 12TH MARCH 2014
If you look at my list of my top ten favourite bands, somewhere between three and seven sits two giants – Converge and Every Time I Die (Converge sits slightly higher, but if you’ve been following this column since I started writing it, you would know that about me already). HEAVEN’S BASEMENT
I know it’s early in the year, but I have been listening to an album non-stop for the last two weeks that I think is a very early contender for album of the year. The band are called Heaven’s Basement and their debut album is Filthy Empire, which was released early in February via Red Bull Records. I had no idea energy drinks have diversified into the music industry, but whoever is in their A&R department knows their shit. You know how it is when you see a festival line-up and a large majority of the bands are names you have never seen before. HB were one such name on this year’s Soundwave line-up and it didn’t even register with me. Then, just before the whole thing started, a PR buddy of mine sent me the CD in the mail (yes, that still happens). It sat on my pile for a day until I chucked it in the car and from the opening riff I was hooked. I’d go so far as to say that in my opinion they have the best album opener in Welcome Home since Lay Your Hands On Me. It just oozes rock’n’roll swagger, a sense of rushed excitement and it really does set the tone for the rest of the record, it is like a welcome of sorts. Yes, I should point out that it’s a full-blown hard-rock record unlike last year’s album of the year winner for me, Carcass, so you might as well stop reading now if you’re the kind of person who listens to death metal at breakfast. It then flows through hook after hook and the choruses on every song are so big that I reckon every track could be a radio single. In fact I do believe Triple M are playing them.
Lights Out In London and The Long Goodbye are seriously emotive and the longing in singer Aaron Buchanan’s voice rings so true that you see the lyrics as they pass through your ears. There’s some balltearing straight-up rockers on there too and it closes with the foreboding Executioner’s Day which brings the whole lot full-circle quite nicely. The lads hail from England and are fairly young. Young as in I thought it was a misprint when I saw the singer’s birth year listed as 1990 and thought it couldn’t be right. It’s not that young anymore, I guess I’m just fucking old, but lyrically it’s wise beyond their perceived youth. I got to see them open Stage Seven at Soundwave in Melbourne and they nailed it. No one should be forced to sing their guts out at that time of the day and they pulled it off and impressed the fairly strong crowd who where there early. I think they’d kick ass at a show of their own and at a reasonable hour. When they return I’ll tell you. There’s not many bands you can say that have yet to tour Australia, but every once in a while one turns up unexpectedly and takes everyone by surprise. Last week it was announced that the UK’s Anathema will be coming to town in August and I know that a whole stack of people were very happy to hear the news, myself included. Starting as another early ‘90s death metal band, they embody the true meaning of progression and moreso than Opeth, I think they are the Pink Floyd of metal. heavyshit@themusic.com.au
We know from simple laws of physics that when two objects collide there’s usually a big bang of some sort so when my brain was greeted by the news that Every Time I Die had entered GodCity Studio to record their new album with none other than Converge’s Mr Kurt Ballou, then the possibilities of the size of that bang became endless. And judging from the reaction on social media, my reaction was not isolated. This is the producer behind some of the best heavy music records of the last ten years, from bands like Champion, Modern Life Is War, Rise & Fall, Kvelertak, Black Breath, Trap Them… And this is the band that possibly popularised Southern hardcore a few years back (a trend I’m glad kinda died) then returned with some of the best material in their entire discography (2012’s Ex Lives was, in my opinion, the best thing they had done since Gutter Phenomenon back in 2005). Ladies and gentlemen, I think we have an early contender for album of 2014 (if it gets released before the end of the year), and that’s without even having heard it. It does have some strong competition from the new Architects and Comeback Kid records, but my faith holds strong in what will inevitably be an excellent result. wakethedead@themusic.com.au
EVERY TIME I DIE
opinion GET IT TOGETHER
DANCE MOVES
ROOTS DOWN
HIP HOP WITH JAMES D’APICE
NEW CURRENTS WITH TIM FINNEY
BLUES ‘N’ ROOTS WITH DAN CONDON
DE LA SOUL
We’ve spoken about copyright before. We’ve spoken about how I probably understand it better than you, and how I certainly understand it better than your mate whose cousin plays in a covers band. In short: copyright protects a creator’s work from being used without the creator’s permission. It’s what stops musicians from playing other people’s songs. Or, more accurately, it’s what stops musicians from playing other people’s songs without paying a license fee. There are lots of arguments about the law of copyright. Most of them are conducted by internetsavvy young men who hope to download torrents in peace. Ignore those guys. At least for now, the system is no copying without permission. Clive Tanaka has commenced legal proceedings alleging that Nicki Minaj and others have infringed his copyright with the song Starships. Minaj’s song, says Tanaka, is similar to his own song Neu Chicago. Minajis resisting the claim. “We believe [both songs] are similar to the point that it is nearly impossible for it to be a coincidence,” says Tanaka’s lawyer.3 (Hint: they are not that similar.) Chasing fellow artists through the courts is one attitude to take to copyright. De La Soul have taken another path, a better path. To celebrate the 25th anniversary of their seminal album 3 Feet High And Rising they put up their entire catalogue for free download. All their songs. Free. It’s a stunning move. It’s also a subtle thumb in the eye to other artists who are a little more savage about enforcing their rights. getittogether@themusic.com.au
R’n’’b singer Ne-Yo has given away his new EP 3 Simple Rules for free, and sensible people are calling it a return to form, or near enough. “Sensible people” means, basically, people who recognise that the guy’s first three albums comprise one of the most rewarding oeuvres of any (secret) singersongwriter of the past decade. This may surprise those who mainly know Ne-Yo for the thumping club-pop of Closer or his hooks on Pitbull’s Give Me Everything and David Guetta’s Play Hard, but that disparity captures a contradiction at the heart of contemporary r’n’b, a tug of war between what r’n’b typically is – diagnostic relationship music in a variety of forms – and the solipsistic hedonism that the charts currently demand of it. As if in reaction to those demands, 3 Simple Rules sounds defiantly domestic. My favourite track is Bigger Than This, a heart-tugging sci-fi ballad about a longterm relationship whose enduring strength is obscured by petty squabbles. If there’s a word to describe this vibe, it’s adult, and it stands in stark contradistinction to the ‘forever young’ party mode that typifies current dancer’n’b. In Give Me Everything, Ne-Yo justified his desire for instant gratification on the grounds that “we might not get tomorrow”. But much of his own work is situated precisely in those endless tomorrows, the days after the first spark, when maintaining the heat begins to seem like hard work.
The examination of those tomorrows provides the foundation for Babyface and Toni Braxton’s new joint effort, Love, Marriage and Divorce. Even the title – part blunt description, part tracing of a narrative arc – points to the album’s broad focus, the lens pulling back to capture not just the first flush of desire, but also the first bitter taste of disappointment, acrimony, regret and wistful remembering. Babyface, of course, was the king of the ballad for about a decade expanse from the late ‘80s through to the late ‘90s, churning out flawless classics (TLC’s Diggin’ On You) and turgid mush (Eric Clapton’s Change The World) with equal flair. The husky-voiced Toni, meanwhile, was close to being his greatest muse, in particular on 1996’s peerlessly sexy You’re Making Me High. Their joining of forces here feels like a throwback, a nostalgic window on a time when r’n’b’s geographical heart was the bedroom rather than the nightclub. The closest the album comes to sounding like 2013 is on the disco stomper Heart Attack, which comes on like a middle-aged riposte to the post-Guetta sound, but I prefer the more subdued variation offered by Hurt You, a crying at the discotheque psychodrama in which Toni cheats on Babyface as payback for a prior affair and they both, somewhat disingenuously, declare, “God knows I never meant to hurt you.” Self-deceiving? Sure, but lying to yourself is a very adult thing to do.
BABYFACE AND TONI BRAXTON
MIA DYSON
There will be a new Mia Dyson record released at some stage this year, her fifth, and while it doesn’t yet have a name, we did get to hear the first track from it last week. Dyson has been one of our finest blues/alt-rock crossover acts for a decade now, but this latest single – called When We’re Older – is possibly the best thing that she has ever done. It’s got a lot of the rollicking Americana we’ve come to expect from artists like Lucinda Williams and Dyson’s voice is sounding better than ever; if the rest of her fifth album is as good as this then we’re in for a treat. You can head to her PledgeMusic page to pre-order the record and help her raise enough money to release the record independently. If you’re not familiar with Aussie blues masters The Black Sorrows then Joe Camilleri has offered you a hell of a way to get acquainted, with Nutcracker Blues being collated and offered for free online. The record is a bunch of Camilleri’s favourite bluesy songs – his brand of blues is far from traditional, but it is deeply personal and there’s a lot be said for that. You can access the record for nothing – or you can choose to throw in a few shekels if you so wish – at the band’s Bandcamp site theblacksorrows. bandcamp.com. The Black Sorrows play Bluesfest on Saturday 19 April. THE MUSIC • 12TH MARCH 2014 • 55
the guide nsw.gigguide@themusic.com.au The Grigoryan Brothers: Lizottes Central Coast, Kincumber
THE MUSIC PRESENTS Metro Theatre
The Bondi Cigars: Lizottes Newcastle, New Lambton
Jimmie Vaughan, Nikki Hill: 16 Apr Metro Theatre
Klay: Mercantile Hotel, The Rocks
The Soul Rebels: 16 Apr The Basement
Riz: Newport Arms Hotel, Newport
Robben Ford, Walter Trout: 16 Apr Lizotte’s Newcastle; 17 Factory Theatre
Anthems: Orient Hotel, Sydney
Morcheeba, Chali 2na: 17 Apr Metro Theatre KC & The Sunshine Band, WAR: 17 Apr Enmore Theatre Bluesfest: 17 – 21 Apr Tyagarah Tea Tree Farm Byron Bay
BETH HART: 12 & 13 APR THE BASEMENT Caravana Sun: 14 Mar Beach Bar Wollongong; 22 Oxford Art Factory Billy Bragg: 16 Mar Sydney Opera House; 18 Manning Bar; 19 Mar Canberra Theatre Jurassic 5: 18 & 19 Mar Enmore Theatre Caspian: 19 Mar Bald Faced Stag
Buddy Guy, Charlie Musselwhite: 19 Apr Sydney Opera House The Wailers, Sly & Robbie & The Taxi Gang: 19 Apr Enmore Theatre Trixie Whitley: 19 Apr The Basement Larry Graham & Graham Central Station: 20 Apr The Basement Jake Bugg: 20 Apr Enmore Theatre Seun Kuti & Egypt 80: 20 Apr Metro Theatre
Pretty City: Oxford Art Factory (Gallery Bar), Darlinghurst
GIG OF THE WEEK JURASSIC 5: 18 MAR ENMORE THEATRE
Trivia: Riverwood Inn, Riverwood
WED 12
Wanderlust: 505, Surry Hills Trick Finger: Artichoke Gallery Cafe, Manly Musos Club Jam Night + Various Artists: Bald Faced Stag, Leichhardt Empire Of The Sun + Rudimental + Samantha Jade: Big Top Sydney, North Sydney Gogarty + Nikita King: Brass Monkey, Cronulla Mitch Anderson & His Organic Orchestra: Coopers Hotel, Newtown
Calling All Cars: 20 Mar Manning Bar; 1 May Transit Bar Canberra; 2 Small Ballroom Newcastle; 3 Oxford Art Factory; 4 Studio Six Sutherland
Suzanne Vega, Seth Lakeman: 20 Apr Factory Theatre
Absu: 22 Mar Factory Theatre
North Mississippi Allstars: 22 Apr The Basement
DJ Attack Me If You Dare: Great Northern Hotel, Newcastle
Steve Earle & The Dukes, Kasey Chambers: 23 Apr Enmore Theatre
Gary Johns: Hillside Hotel, Castle Hill
Shapeshifter: 22 Mar Manning Bar Stonefield: 27 Mar, Miranda Hotel; 28 The Roller Den, Erskinville; 29 The Small Ballroom, Newcastle The Jungle Giants: 28 Mar Metro Theatre Melbourne Ska Orchestra: 28 Mar The Hi-Fi Ella Hooper: 29 Mar The Vanguard Bam Bam: 2 Apr Happy Club, Newcastle; 3 Apr, Manning Bar Sally Seltmann: 3 Apr Lizotte’s Kincumber; 4 The Vanguard; 5 Clarendon Guest House Katoomba
Devon Allman, Gregg Allman, Gov’t Mule: 21 Apr Enmore Theatre
KT Tunstall: 23 Apr Lizotte’s Newcastle; 24 Lizotte’s Central Coast; 25 Lizotte’s Dee Why; 26 The Basement Aaron Neville, Dr John & The Nite Trippers: 24 Apr State Theatre India.Arie, Joss Stone: 24 Apr Enmore Theatre Ozomatli: 25 Apr Factory Theatre Booker T Jones, Valerie June: 26 Apr Factory Theatre
Monster Magnet: 4 Apr The Hi-Fi
Groovin The Moo: 26 Apr Maitland Showground; 27 University of Canberra
Loon Lake: 4 Apr Oxford Art Factory
The Jezabels: 28 & 29 Apr Sydney Opera House Concert Hall
Harmony: 4 Apr Goodgod Small Club; 5 The Phoenix Canberra
Arctic Monkeys: 6 May Sydney Entertainment Centre
Residual: 4 Apr World Bar; 5 FBi Social
The Beards: 8 May Studio 6; 9 Tattersalls Hotel Penrith; 10 Collector Tavern; 5 Jun Mona Vale Hotel; 6 UniBar Wollongong; 7 The Abbey Canberra; 8 Captains At Mariners Batemans Bay; 11 Carrington Hotel Katoomba; 23 Jul Bar On The Hill Newcastle; 24 Entrance Leagues Bateau Bay; 25 Fitzroy Hotel Windsor; 26 Factory Theatre
Cloud Control: 4 Apr (early evening) Coogee Bay Hotel (Beer Garden); 4 (late) Manly Wharf Hotel; 5 (arvo) Bucket List; 5 (early evening) Newport Arms; 6 Towradgi Hotel, Wollongong; 6 Northies Cronulla; 11 (early evening) Queens Wharf Brewery Newcastle; 11 (late), Shoal Bay Resort Newcastle Bliss N Eso: 12 Apr Nobbys Beach Reserve Newcastle; 17 The Domain The Magic Band, The Grandmothers Of Invention: 12 Apr Metro Theatre
Free Your Mind ft Northlane: 23 May, Metro Theatre; 24, Cambridge Hotel, Newcastle; 25, Zierholz, Canberra Frente: 30 & 31 May The Basement
Beth Hart: 12 & 13 Apr The Basement
DZ Deathrays: 30 May Rad Bar, Wollongong; 31 Oxford Art Factory
Allen Stone: 13 Apr
Kingswood: 30 May The Hi-Fi
Pen Island: Foundry 616, Ultimo The Rumjacks: Frankies Pizza, Sydney
Michael Griffin Quartet: LazyBones Lounge, Marrickville Coopers Live & Local feat. Jacinta Counihan + Manik Maydunne + Blueprint + Jessie Belle: Lizottes Central Coast, Kincumber The Grigoryan Brothers: Lizottes Newcastle, New Lambton Coopers Live & Local feat. Blue Amplifier + Brandon Koolloos + Alana Patmore: Lizottes Sydney, Dee Why Andy Mammers Duo: Maloneys Hotel, Sydney Lee Kernaghan + The Wolfe Brothers: Mittagong RSL, Mittagong
Marta Pacek + blueVenus + Luke O’Shea: The Vanguard, Newtown
Yo La Tengo: Sydney Opera House, Sydney
Vibrations At Valve: Valve @ Agincourt, Sydney
The Aston Shuffle + Notendo + Jarrod Pearse + Bassic Thieves: Tattersalls Hotel, Penrith
THU 13
Trivia: The Exchange Hotel, Hamilton
Future Love Hangover + Idea Idea + Waza + more: 505, Surry Hills
Kenna & Cox: The Newsagency, Marrickville
Lionel Richie + John Farnham: Allphones Arena, Sydney Olympic Park Peter Lanzon: Artichoke Gallery Cafe, Manly Empire Strips Back: A Star Wars Burlesque Parody: Bathurst Memorial Entertainment Centre, Bathurst Bad Jeep + Okay Cocaine + Twin Towns: Brighton Up Bar, Darlinghurst SumSum: Camelot Lounge, Marrickville Christie Lamb: Campbelltown Catholic Club (Cafe Samba / 6pm), Campbelltown Musos Club Jam Night: Carousel Inn, Rooty Hill Peter Rowan Bluegrass Trio: Carrington Bowling Club, Carrington Recharge: Club Belmore, Belmore Lee Kernaghan + The Wolfe Brothers: Dapto Leagues Club, Dapto Blues Pirates: Deck Bar, Dee Why Trivia: Duke of Wellington Hotel, New Lambton
K.P.: Mounties (Terrace Bar), Mt Pritchard
Migratorium: Factory Theatre, Marrickville
Daniel O’Donnell + Mary Duff: Newcastle Entertainment Centre, Broadmeadow
Tangalo: Foundry 616, Ultimo
Cara Kavanagh Duo: O’Malleys Hotel, Kings Cross Gemma: Observer Hotel, The Rocks Mark Travers: Orient Hotel, Sydney Frente Cumbiero + La Chiva Gantiva + Cumbiamuffin: Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst Mainline: Royal Hotel, Bondi Kate Miller-Heidke: Seymour Centre (York Theatre), Chippendale
Pokey LaFarge: The Basement, Circular Quay
Wildcatz: 3 Wise Monkeys, Sydney
The Stiffys: Frankies Pizza, Sydney DJ Vadim + Anomie + Onetalk + Noel Boogie: Goodgod Small Club (Danceteria), Sydney Michael Gorham + Joel Sulman: Great Northern Hotel, Newcastle Flap!: Hotel Steyne (Moonshine Cider & Rum Bar), Manly Latin Kaos: Jam Gallery, Bondi Junction Ben Bennett: Kareela Golf & Social Club, Kareela
Alex Hopkins: Summer Hill Hotel, Summer Hill
FBI Social feat.Oliver Downes + Golden Bridges + Lola & The Captain + Jep & Dep: Kings Cross Hotel, Kings Cross
Greg Agar + Imogen Clark: The Juniors, Kingsford
Thrust: LazyBones Lounge, Marrickville
1000S OF GIGS AT YOUR FINGERTIPS. FOR MORE HEAD TO THEMUSIC.COM.AU 56 • THE MUSIC • 12TH MARCH 2014
No Dice Paradise feat. Embassy + Atolla + VCS + James Blonde: Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst
The Bennies + Apart From This: The Phoenix, Civic Parkside: The Spice Cellar, Sydney The Good Lovelies + The Little Stevies: The Vanguard, Newtown The Holidays + The Cairos: Transit Bar, Canberra Garden Party feat. Sticky Fingers + Saskwatch + Elizabeth Rose + Jeremy Neale + more: Uni Bar, Wollongong Passive Resistance + Good Griefs + Monte + In Hydes Shadow: Valve @ Agincourt, Sydney Nuclear Family + Beast & Flood + My Little Underground + Luche Libre: Yours & Owls, Wollongong
FRI 14
DJ Sean Michael: 5 Sawyers, Newcastle
Bandaluzia Flamenco + Naike Ponce: 505, Surry Hills Joel Fletcher: Academy, Canberra Armchair Travellers Duo: Albion Hotel, Parramatta Benoit James: Artichoke Gallery Cafe, Manly Big Yellow Moon: Avoca Beach Hotel, Avoca Beach Hard As Nails + The Bite + T.O.C + Sin $ Me: Bald Faced Stag, Leichhardt Adrienne: Bar Petite, Newcastle Reverse Polarities + Backyard Lab + Cooking With Caustic + more: Baroque, Katoomba Wildcatz: Bayview Tavern, Gladesville Caravana Sun + Splashes II: Beach Bar, Wollongong Luca Brasi + Postblue + Vera + Silver Lining: Belconnen Magpies, Belconnen The Rockin Eddie Band: Belmont 16’s, Belmont Howie & Alex: Belmore Hotel, Maitland
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www.thebasement.com.au
BVS 6][S ]T :WdS ;caWQ AW\QS '%! FRI 14 + SAT 15 MAR SATURDAY 8 JUNE
ROBERTO FONSECA
WED 12 MAR
POKEY LAFARGE (USA)
THU 13 MAR
MARTHA DAVIS AND THE MOTELS (USA) “TOTAL CONTROL”
MON 17 MAR
SWINGTIME TUESDAYS
TUE 18 MAR
HANGGAI
WED 19 MAR
(CUBA) – 2 SHOWS THIS WEEKE ND
JON CLEARY & THE ABSOLUTE MONSTER GENTLEMEN (UK/USA)
DESCRIBED BY MANY AS THE FUNKIEST BAND IN THE CITY THAT HAS THE FUNKIEST MUSICIANS IN THE WORLD, JON CLEARY BRINGS HIS LEGENDARY NEW ORLEANS BAND BACK TO AUSTRALIA FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 6 YEARS.
NEWS FROM THE BASEMENT
COMING SOON...
SUN 23 MAR BOBBY KEYS & THE SUFFERING BASTARDS (USA) THU 27 MAR SKETCH THE RHYME – SKETCH KOMBAT ROUND 3 FRI 28 MAR JAMES MORRISON FOLLOW US: ON FACEBOOK @ THE BASEMENT & ON TWITTER @ #BASEMENTSYD RESTUARANT OPENS AT 11AM, SERVING FOOD ALL DAY
(MONGOLIA)
THE STRAY SISTERS (OF THE WAIFS)
UNCLE JED
+ FERNANDO ARAGONES
THU 20 FRI 21 MAR SAT 22 MAR
FRIDAY MARCH 14TH
TOPNOVIL HEADBUTT
9:00pm Upstairs in the Live Room - Free
FRIDAY MARCH 21ST
KALEIDOSCOPE THE ACID MONKEYS, THE STRAWDOGS, SLEW, SHELLY MAY EVANS 8:30pm - Lounge Bar - Free
SUNDAY MARCH 23RD ACOUSTIC SESSIONS EVERY SUNDAY
GNARLY
SHELLY MAY EVANS
5:00pm Downstairs in the Lounge Bar - Free
FRIDAY MARCH 28TH
HOLLOW GODS T - REX RADIO, THE ESCARPMENT, SCARBOROUGH 9:00pm Upstairs in the Live Room - Free
SATURDAY MARCH 29TH
CONTRABAND 9:00pm Downstairs in the Lounge Bar Free Entry
FRIDAY APRIL 4TH
CULT KILLERS
9:00pm - Upstairs in the Live Room Free Entry
FRIDAY APRIL 11TH
JONES THE CAT 9:00pm Upstairs in the Live Room - Free
SUNDAY JUNE 8TH
STEVE EDMONDS
BRAYDEN DENMEADE 60S MUSIC FESTIVAL 1:30pm Station Bar, Lounge Bar, Ivory Room
SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 14TH
STEVE EDMONDS 3pm - Lounge Bar
facebook.com/corrimalhotel PH 02 4284 4086 ROB@PUB.COM.AU
THE MUSIC • 12TH MARCH 2014 • 57
the guide nsw.gigguide@themusic.com.au Black Jesus + Dark Horses + Graves + Dead Architect + Gvrlls: Blackwire Records, Annandale Blue Mountains Music Festival feat. The Good Lovelies + Rory McLeod + Eleanor McEvoy + Hanggai + Chipolatas + Blair Dunlop + Swamp Thing + Peter Rowan Bluegrass Band + Rose Cousins + Lior + Xavier Rudd + Eric Bogle + Jeff Lang + Ash Grunwald + Flap! + Roesy + Jesse Valach & Blues Mountain Trio + Grace Barbe + Sunas + The Woohoo Revue + The Pigs + The Borderers + The Tiger & Me + Benny Walker + Jack Carty + Mustered Courage + more: Katoomba Jon English: Brass Monkey, Cronulla L.A. Experiment Duo: Briars Inn, Bowral Balmain Blitz + Various: Bridge Hotel, Rozelle Hitting Trees: Brighton Up Bar, Darlinghurst Rumours - A Tribute to Fleetwood Mac: Camelot Lounge, Marrickville DJ Slinkee: Campbelltown Catholic Club (Club Lounge), Campbelltown Gold: The Ultimate ABBA Show: Canberra Theatre, Canberra Empire Strips Back: A Star Wars Burlesque Parody: Canberra Theatre, Canberra Gen-R-8: Cessnock Leagues Club, Cessnock Talk of The Town: Charlestown Bowling Club, Charlestown Steve Crocker: Chatswood RSL, Chatswood ETC!ETC! + Jackal + Spenda C: Chinese Laundry, Sydney Peter Rowan Bluegrass Trio + Paul Hemphill: City Diggers, Wollongong
ABBA: The Concert Experience: The Playhouse, Canberra Theatre, Canberra Toehaugen + Trolhider: The Small Ballroom, Newcastle Soft & Slow feat. Frank Booker: The Spice Cellar, Sydney Mike Tramp + Palace Of The King: The Vanguard, Newtown Big Rich: The Vineyard Hotel, Vineyard Cam Hughes Duo: The Windsor Castle Hotel, Newcastle
THE HOLIDAYS: 13 MAR TRANSIT BAR CANBERRA; 14 OXFORD ART FACTORY
Astral People & Friends Vol 1 with Polographia + Cliques + Black Vanilla + more: Goodgod Small Club, Sydney The Wires: Great Northern Hotel (Main Bar), Newcastle Corpse Harvest: Great Northern Hotel (Tiki Bar), Newcastle Reverse Polarities + Hyjak + Backyard Lab + more: Hamilton Station Hotel, Hamilton CMC Rocks The Hunter feat. Lee Kernaghan + Blackjack Billy + Craig Campbell + Jayne Denham + Jim Lauderdale + Wagons + Paul Thorn + Lachlan Bryan + Shane Nicholson + Little Bastard + Peter McWhirter + more: Hope Estate Winery, Pokolbin Hooray For Everything: Hornsby RSL, Hornsby Big Way Out: Horse & Jockey Hotel, Homebush Duelling Pistols: Hotel Jesmond, Jesmond Counterfeit Tribute Night: Woodstock feat. The Blarney Stoners + TAOS + Rex Havoc + more: Imperial Hotel, Newtown
Mashed Fridays with DJ Tone: Oatley Hotel (8pm), Oatley Ryan Daley: Ocean Beach Hotel, Umina Jonathan Jones + Reckless: Orient Hotel, Sydney Eye Of The Tiger: Overlander Hotel, Cambridge Gardens The Holidays + The Cairos: Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst Music Makers Club with Enerate + Little Odessa + The Zoo City Lads + more: Oxford Art Factory (Gallery Bar), Darlinghurst Backlash: Penrith Gaels, Kingswood Cath & Him: Quakers Inn, Quakers Hill Us Too Duo: Ramsgate RSL (Lounge), Sans Souci Jellybean Jam: Revesby Workers (Infinity Lounge), Revesby Original Sin - INXS Show: Rock Lily, Pyrmont Daniel O’Donnell + Mary Duff: Royal Theatre, Canberra
King Tide: Jam Gallery, Bondi Junction
Courtyard Sessions feat. Goldsmith: Seymour Centre (Courtyard), Chippendale
Blackstar: Collingwood Hotel (5.30pm), Liverpool
GTS: Kiama Leagues Club, Kiama
Daughter of Dynamite: Seymour Centre (Courtyard), Chippendale
Big Blind Ray Trio: Coogee Bowling Club, Coogee
FBI Social feat. + Chicks On Speed + Scraps: Kings Cross Hotel, Kings Cross
Emma Hamilton + Greg Poppleton & The Bakelite Broadcasters: Slide Darlinghurst, Darlinghurst
Matt Walker & The Lost Ragas + Raised By Eagles + Jep & Dep: Coogee Diggers, Coogee Karaoke: Corrimal Hotel, Corrimal Topnovil + Headbutt: Corrimal Hotel (Live Room), Corrimal Hand Picked: Courthouse Hotel, Darlinghurst Kick Start Duo: Crown Hotel, Sydney Steve Edmonds Band + Hooper & O’Toole Trio: Dicey Riley’s Hotel, Wollongong
The Sidetracked Fiasco: Lansdowne Hotel, Chippendale Dan Barnett + Shaun Meehan & The Grow Girls: LazyBones Lounge, Marrickville
Bin Juice + Moonlight Cowboys + more: Spectrum, Darlinghurst The Lazys: Studio 6, Sutherland
The Bondi Cigars: Lizottes Central Coast, Kincumber
Something Else: Sutherland United Services Club, Sutherland
The Grigoryan Brothers: Lizottes Sydney, Dee Why
The Snowdroppers + Crapulous Gee Gaw + Swamp Harlot + The Drain Babys: Tattersalls Hotel, Penrith
Deke Dickerson: Manning Bar, Camperdown Brown Sugar: Marble Bar, Sydney Zero Cool: Marquee, Pyrmont
Ash Grunwald: The Abbey, Nicholls
Illy + Jackie Onassis + Remi: Metro Theatre, Sydney
Jon Cleary & The Absolute Monster Gentlemen: The Basement, Circular Quay
Marty’s Place: East Hills Hotel, East Hills
Good Company: Nelson Bay Diggers Club, Nelson Bay
Sundays Record Duo: The Exchange Hotel, Hamilton
Dewayne Everettsmith + Special Guests: Factory Theatre (Factory Floor), Marrickville
JJ Duo: North Sydney Leagues, Cammeray Klay: Northies, Cronulla
Red River Shore + Special Guests: The Green Room, Enmore
Mike Nock Quartet: Foundry 616, Ultimo
Aaron Hood: Northumberland Hotel, Lambton
Lliam Caulfield: The Newsagency, Marrickville
Acoustic Dave: General Gordon Hotel, Sydenham
Dennis Demello: Oasis on Beamish Hotel, Campsie
Toxic Dolls: The Oaks Hotel, Albion Park Rail
Greg Bryce & The Bad Bad Things: Duke of Wellington Hotel, New Lambton
Mushroom Planet + The Overtones + Maximum Security: Town & Country Hotel, St Peters
Ryan Daley: Duke of Wellington Hotel, New Lambton Rebel Rousers: Ettalong Memorial Bowling Club, Ettalong The Sweet: Factory Theatre, Marrickville Matt Walker & The Lost Ragas + Raised By Eagles + Jep & Dep: Factory Theatre (Factory Floor), Marrickville Glenn Esmond: Fortune of War Hotel, The Rocks
Oscar Key Sung: Trinity Bar, Dickson
Dale Barlow Quartet: Foundry 616, Ultimo
Pluto Jonze + Braves + Little Fox + DJ Bernie Dingo: Upstairs Beresford, Surry Hills
Futtra Della Morte + Ether Rag + Dark Horses + Black Jesus + Disintegrator + more: Gladstone Hotel, Chippendale
Hoon + Lucha Libre + Hollow Gods + Kaleidoscope + Psychic Sun + more: Valve @ Agincourt (Basement), Sydney Rebel Rousers: Wallarah Bay Recreation Club, Gorokan Hornet: Warners at the Bay, Warners Bay
The Spirit + Steve Smyth + Hot Spoke!: Goodgod Small Club, Sydney Crooks Live feat. Joyride + Miracle + Manu Crooks + Levins + more: Goodgod Small Club (Danceteria), Sydney
DJ Marty: Wentworthville Leagues Club, Wentworthville
The Sidetracked Fiasco: Great Northern Hotel (Tiki Bar), Newcastle
The Donovans: Windsor Leagues Club, South Windsor
Grouch: Great Northern Hotel (Main Bar), Newcastle
Animaux + March of the Real Fly + Dlinkwnt: Yours & Owls, Wollongong
Cath & Him: Grumpys
SAT 15
Bandaluzia Flamenco + Naike Ponce: 505, Surry Hills Harbour Master: Abbotts Hotel, Waterloo Dean Kyrwood: Absolute Thai, Charlestown Cicada + Veludo + U:CODIA + Neon City: Bald Faced Stag, Leichhardt Soda: Bay Hotel, Bonnells Bay Toehaugen + Trolhider: Beachcomber Hotel, Toukley
Luca Brasi + Postblue + The Bennies + Apart From This: Hermanns Bar, Darlington SoLoco Saturday: Hillside Hotel, Castle Hill CMC Rocks The Hunter with Gretchen Wilson + Kibbs & Mac + Morgan Evans + Kaylens Rain + Clay Walker + Kaylee Bell + Thompson Square + Jason Owen + Busby Marou + We The Ghosts + Love and Theft + Corey Colum + The Greencards + The Davidson Brothers + Adam Eckersley Band + more: Hope Estate Winery, Pokolbin Cam Hughes Duo: Hotel Jesmond, Jesmond
Blue Mountains Music Festival: Katoomba
Cafe of the Gate of Salvation: Jam Gallery, Bondi Junction
Peter Northcote’s Drive + Ciaran Gribbon: Brass Monkey, Cronulla
Steve Edmonds Band: Kiama Leagues Club, Kiama
Mucho Sonar + Drug Mother + The Delta Lions + The Grounds: Cambridge Hotel, Newcastle West
Hands Up!: Kings Cross Hotel, Kings Cross
Blue Candy: Camelot Lounge, Marrickville
Magnus + The Ivory Drips + more: Lansdowne Hotel, Chippendale
Jonny Gretschs Wasted Ones + The Missing Link: Captain Cook Hotel, Paddington
The Flaming Stars: LazyBones Lounge, Marrickville
Max Power: Carousel Inn, Rooty Hill
By Eleanor + Good Griefs + Whitefield + Chasing Light: Lewisham Hotel, Lewisham
Len Faki + The Only + Chris Arnott + Matt Ferreira + Fingers + FT Mode: Chinese Laundry, Sydney Benn Gunn: Coogee Bay Hotel, Coogee Jono Read: Coogee Diggers, Coogee Roxy Heartfelt & The Heart Throbs: Corrimal Hotel (Lounge Bar / 3.30pm), Corrimal
The Crowdies Show: Lizottes Central Coast, Kincumber Bondi Cigars: Lizottes Sydney, Dee Why Sons of Mercury: Macarthur Tavern, Campbelltown Iced Earth + Elm Street: Manning Bar, Camperdown Grant Smillie: Marquee, Pyrmont
Anton: Crown Hotel, Sydney
The Lonely Boys: Mercantile Hotel, The Rocks
Amanda Easton: Dee Why RSL, Dee Why
Suicide Girls: Metro Theatre, Sydney
1000S OF GIGS AT YOUR FINGERTIPS. FOR MORE HEAD TO THEMUSIC.COM.AU 58 • THE MUSIC • 12TH MARCH 2014
Wollongong Metal Massacre feat. New Blood + Inhuman Rembants + Hematic + more: Dicey Riley’s Hotel, Wollongong
the guide nsw.gigguide@themusic.com.au CitySlam: AWF Wrestling: Metro Theatre (The Lair), Sydney
2GoodReasons: The Windsor Castle Hotel, Newcastle
Sonic Mayhem Orchestra: LazyBones Lounge, Marrickville
The Cyril B Bunter Band: Milton Theatre, Milton
Paul Hayward + Friends: Town & Country Hotel (4pm), St Peters
Mister Styles: Mounties (Terrace Bar), Mt Pritchard
Client Liaison + Lanterns + Nicole Millar + more: Upstairs Beresford, Surry Hills
Rattle & Hum-U2 Show + Mark Travers + Shaylee Wilde: O’Donoghues, Emu Plains
Mountain Sounds Festival feat. Worlds End Press + Ball Park Music + Emma Louise + Snakadaktal + The Holidays + Sticky Fingers + Jinja Safari + Beni + Wordlife + Yacht Club DJs + Canyons (DJ Set) + Midnight Juggernauts DJs + Yolanda Be Cool + Cosmo’s Midnight + Mountain Sounds Festival + more: Mt Penang Gardens, Kariong Original Sin - INXS Show: New Brighton Golf Club, Moorebank Dan Romeo: Newport Arms Hotel, Newport Kickstar: Oatley Hotel, Oatley Blarney Boys + Souled Out: Orient Hotel, Sydney Ngaiire: Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst JTR: Oxford Art Factory (Afternoon), Darlinghurst Suli Breaks: Oxford Art Factory (Gallery Bar), Darlinghurst
Global Battle Of The Bands: Valve @ Agincourt (Basement / 12pm), Sydney Colour Therapy + Adulthood + Taking Berlin + Baltimore Gun Club: Valve @ Agincourt (Basement / 8pm), Sydney Phase III: Warners at the Bay, Warners Bay Hue Williams: Woy Woy Leagues, Woy Woy Pretty City + Calypso Toad + Miners Of Pala: Yours & Owls (Rad), Wollongong
SUN 16
The Regulators: 3 Wise Monkeys, Sydney
DJ Tone: 5 Sawyers, Newcastle Suicide Girls: ANU Bar, Acton Oli & Sophie: Bar Petite, Newcastle
MOUNTAIN SOUNDS FESTIVAL FT BALL PARK MUSIC AND MORE: 15 MAR MOUNT PENANG PARKLANDS, KARIONG
CMC Rocks The Hunter feat. Toby Keith + Adam Eckersley Band + Eli Young Band + Peter McWhirter + Kellie Pickler + Luke O’Shea + Blackjack Billy + Jody Direen + Jedd Hughes + Aleyce Simmonds + James Reyne + Mustered Courage + The Greencards + The Viper Creek Band: Hope Estate Winery, Pokolbin
The Rockin Eddie Band: Penrith RSL (Castle Lounge / 2pm), Penrith
The Strides: Hotel Steyne (Moonshine Cider & Rum Bar), Manly
St Patrick’s Live with Shantan Wantan Ichiban + Yolanda Be Cool + Hot Dub Time Machine + more: The Ivy (3pm), Sydney
Ryan Daley: Jewells Tavern, Jewells
The Green Mohair Suits + Handasyd Williams + The Brothers Primitive + more: Petersham Bowling Club (6pm), Petersham Billy Bragg + Courtney Barnett: Sydney Opera House, Sydney
DV8: The Mark Hotel, Lambton
Billy Malcolm: Kiama Leagues Club, Kiama
Jesse Morris + Jerome Fandor Trio: The Vanguard, Newtown
Funk Engine: LazyBones Lounge, Marrickville
Liam Gerner: The Welcome Hotel (5pm), Rozelle
Bloom: Belmont 16’s, Belmont
Sunday Soundtrack + Various DJs: Lewisham Hotel, Lewisham
Paul Eagle: Quay West Magenta Shores (6.30pm), Magenta
Blue Mountains Music Festival: Katoomba
Bandaluzia Flamenco: Lizottes Central Coast, Kincumber
Ben Hardie + Lucy & The B Sides + Elisha Keen + Guests: Valve @ Agincourt, Sydney
The Bandits: Ramsgate RSL (Auditorium), Sans Souci
Sydney Blues Society: Botany View Hotel (7pm), Newtown
Saturday Night Diva’s: Revesby Workers (Infinity Lounge), Revesby
Quasimodo + Top Hat: Brass Monkey, Cronulla
Jon Cleary & The Absolute Monster Gentlemen: Lizottes Newcastle, New Lambton
Jive Bombers: Penrith RSL (Castle Lounge / 2pm), Penrith Ange: Picton Bowling Club, Picton
Ignition: RG McGees, Richmond The Wild Roses: Riverwood Inn, Riverwood Mayhem 101: Royal Federal Hotel, Branxton Flamin’ Beauties: Royal Hotel, Springwood Stormcellar: Royal Hotel, Bondi
Luca Brasi + Postblue + The Bennies + Apart From This + Oslow: Beatdisc Records, Parramatta
Peter Northcote + Simon Meli: Bridge Hotel, Rozelle Paul Woseen (The Screaming Jets) + Special Guests: Cambridge Hotel, Newcastle West The Court Music Of Rampur ft. + Bobby Singh + Anindya Bannerjee: Camelot Lounge, Marrickville
Rattle & Hum-U2 Show: Lizottes Sydney, Dee Why Bryen & The Bayou Boogie Boys: Marrickville Bowling Club, Marrickville Damien Dempsey + Sasta + Mick McHugh + Lisa O’Neill: Metro Theatre, Sydney Damn Good Divas: Nelson Bay Diggers Club, Nelson Bay
Raoul Graf: Waverley Bowling & Recreation Club, Waverley Troldhaugen + Toehider + Calibur + Amodeus: Yours & Owls (Rad), Wollongong Trophy Eyes + Perspectives + Thesis + Metcalfe + Silver Lining: Yours & Owls (Afternoon), Wollongong
MON 17
Tranny Bingo: Coopers Hotel, Newtown
Ian Blakeney: Campbelltown Catholic Club (Club Lounge / 6pm), Campbelltown
Sunday Sounds Acoustic with Bop Louis Duo: Oatley Hotel (2pm), Oatley
McAlister Kemp: Southern Cross Club, Woden
Jimmy Gannon: Campbelltown Catholic Club (Cafe Samba / 1pm), Campbelltown
Sunday Sessions + Various DJs: Oatley Hotel (6pm), Oatley
St Patricks Day with The Ramshackle Army + Wongawilli Ceili Band + Achtung Baby + Hooper & O’Toole Trio + more: Dicey Riley’s Hotel (11am), Wollongong
Daniel O’Donnell + Mary Duff: State Theatre, Sydney
Chris Connolly: Campsie RSL (2pm), Campsie
Black Rose: Overlander Hotel, Cambridge Gardens
Frankies World Famous House Band: Frankies Pizza, Sydney
Strangerous Collective + Mattersphere + Van Cooper: Tattersalls Hotel, Penrith
Craig Laird: Captain Cook Hotel, Botany
Jon Cleary & The Absolute Monster Gentlemen: The Basement, Circular Quay
Klay: Cookies Lounge Bar, North Strathfield
Arrebato Ensemble: Seymour Centre (The Sound Lounge), Chippendale
Flying Mare: The Exchange Hotel, Hamilton Pacha presents Love + Chardy with Denzal Park + Ben Morris + Baby Gee + more: The Ivy, Sydney
Martha Davis & The Motels: The Basement, Circular Quay
TUE 18
Underground Tuesdays feat. Declan Kelly + Black Lace + Donegal + Marlin: 34 Degrees South (Downstairs), Bondi Beach Toby Keith + Eli Young Band + Kellie Pickler: Allphones Arena, Sydney Olympic Park Jam Night with Michael Muchow: Avoca Beach Hotel, Avoca Beach Elision: Carriage Works, Eveleigh Open Mic Night with Champagne Jam: Dundas Sports Club, Dundas Jurassic 5: Enmore Theatre, Enmore Henry Rasmussen + Steve Hunter: Foundry 616, Ultimo Open Mic Night: Great Northern Hotel, Newcastle Ray Beadle & The Silver Dollars: Jam Gallery, Bondi Junction Billy Bragg: Manning Bar, Camperdown Nick Kingswell: Orient Hotel, Sydney Sky Ferreira: Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst Neil Finn + Joshua James: Sydney Opera House (9pm), Sydney Stefan Grossman + Special Guests: The Vanguard, Newtown Chu Hip-Hop & RnB: World Bar, Kings Cross Prepared Like A Bride: Yours & Owls (All Ages), Wollongong
The Ramshackle Army + Sparrows: Frankies Pizza, Sydney
Julia and the Deep Sea Sirens: The Newsagency, Marrickville
Lost Ragas + Raised By Eagles: Grand Junction Hotel (The Junkyard), Maitland
Black Vanilla + Lovelyhead + Ruined Fortune + Thomas William + Circular Keys + more: The Square, Haymarket
Big Swing Band: Tattersalls Hotel, Penrith
St Patricks Warm Up Day feat. You, Me & Danny Celtic Band: Dicey Riley’s Hotel (3pm), Wollongong
Turner & Simmons: Gladstone Hotel (4pm), Dulwich Hill
Move D: The Spice Cellar, Sydney
Glen Hansard + Lisa O’Neill: Sydney Opera House (Concert Hall), Sydney
Kooyeh: Coogee Diggers, Coogee
Dan Beazley: The Mark Hotel, Lambton
Driverside Airbag: The Sly Fox, Enmore
St Patrick’s Day Festival with Killarney Trio + Stringy Bark McDowell + Blarney Boys + U2 Elevation + The Moonshiners + Dublin Up + Lonesome Train: Orient Hotel, Sydney
Peter Head Band: Harbour View Hotel, The Rocks Patrick Brady Duo: Heathcote Hotel (1pm), Heathcote Sunday Social: Hillside Hotel, Castle Hill
1000S OF GIGS AT YOUR FINGERTIPS. FOR MORE HEAD TO THEMUSIC.COM.AU THE MUSIC • 12TH MARCH 2014 • 59
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60 • THE MUSIC • 12TH MARCH 2014
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(02) 9763 7030 THE MUSIC • 12TH MARCH 2014 • 61
the end
BOOZE HOLIDAYS
ST PATRICK’S DAY WHAT ARE WE CELEBRATING?
St Patrick getting rid of all the snakes in Ireland. Seriously, look it up.
WHAT DO I WEAR? Anything green – including underwear – and the largest, most annoying hat you can find.
DRINK OF CHOICE Gigalitres of Guinness, and green-coloured cocktails that will probably make you real sick.
WHO TO LOOK OUT FOR The one genuine Irish guy who got dumped by his friends and is now screaming Pogues songs at the bathroom wall.
OKTOBERFEST
WHAT ARE WE CELEBRATING? Everything that is great, hairy, windmill-ish and sausagy about Bavaria.
WHAT DO I WEAR? Leiderhosen for the guys and Dirndls for the ladies. A Hitler ‘stache if you’re feeling brave/dumb.
DRINK OF CHOICE Whatever Weihenstephaner they have on tap; one really obscure beer that tastes like fruit mushed up in battery acid.
WHO TO LOOK OUT FOR The customary German polka band, watching us get drunk and ruining their traditions.
MELBOURNE CUP WHAT ARE WE CELEBRATING?
The process of watching 2000-pound equines running around a dirt circle.
WHAT DO I WEAR? The classiest stuff you can find, because it’s not Cup Day if you’re not dousing yourself in champagne and vomit.
DRINK OF CHOICE As above, champagne, plus whatever else is served to you in plastic glasses by bemused caterers.
WHO TO LOOK OUT FOR Those people who actually came to enjoy the sport of horse racing. Pffffft.
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