# 0 5 • 11 . 0 9 . 1 3 • P E R T H • F R E E • I N C O R P O R AT I N G
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JUST ANNOUNCED: PRINCE RAMA AT AMPLIFIER, 19TH JUST ANNOUNCED: POND AT METROPOLIS FREMANTLE OCTOBER 12 DECEMBER Vaa egZhVaZ i^X`Zih id h]dlh VkV^aVWaZ [gdb lll#doi^m#Xdb#Vj THE MUSIC • 11TH SEPTEMBER 2013 • 3
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themusic 11TH SEPTEMBER 2013
#005
INSIDE THIS WEEK Artlab Creative Conference Deadweight! Tales Of A Tall Fellow
live
NEWS
Laneway 2014 Bonjah Pond Helmet Gooch Palms
FEATURES The Drones Wave Racer Crocodiles Duke Dumont Fan Fiction Placebo
ALBUM REVIEWS Placebo
MGMT
“AS ALWAYS, PYKE’S INCREDIBLE LIVE ENERGY TRANSLATED SONGS FROM HIS RECORDS INTO AN ASTOUNDING LIVE SHOW THAT LEFT THE AUDIENCE WANTING MORE. NOW EXCUSE ME WHILE I MOP UP MY EXPLODED OVARIES.”
“IT’S COOL THAT THERE’S ENOUGH HYPE TO MANAGE THAT KIND OF MUSIC NOW. IT’S MOVING AWAY FROM TRADITIONAL DANCE MUSIC AND I THINK THAT’S REALLY EXCITING FOR PEOPLE TOO. IT’S ONLY GOT MORE ROOM TO GROW.” SAYS THE HYPE MACHINE ALSO KNOWN AS WAVE RACER [P24]
TASH EDGE #OVERSHARES THE LOVE FOR JOSH PYKE [P46]
“THERE ARE BETTER INDIE GAMES OUT THERE THAT DESERVE YOUR MONEY.” ANDREW SUTTON ISN’T IMPRESSED BY SHELTER [P50]
Wolf & Cub Kit Pop Elvis Costello
LIVE REVIEWS Josh Pyke
Midnight Juggernauts Fucking Teeth Snakadaktal
“WITH TIME PASSING THE PUPPETS GROW, SO THEY GET THIS BIG.” PETER WILSON ON THE PUPPETRY OF STORM BOY [P37]
feature “LIFE’S TOO SHORT FOR EPS”
SPACEMANANTICS TELL AMBER FLYNN ABOUT MAKING IT IN PERTH [P37]
The Growl
THE GUIDE Manimal
Place Of Indigo Katie Valentine Good Fats/Bad Fats Cocaine Whisky
8 • THE MUSIC • 11TH SEPTEMBER 2013
review
“THE RECORD’S ELECTRONIC VIBE IS SURE TO BE THE CHILL OUT SOUNDTRACK FOR THE UPCOMING PERTH SUMMER.” ELI GOULD REVIEWS KIT POP’S SEAMS [P44]
WWW.YA-YAS.COM.AU
WED 11 SEP HaHa's @ YaYa's
PAT BURTSCHER (CANADA)
$15 Online/$20 Door/8PM
THURS 12 SEP
GUTTER DRAKES W/
Burning Fiction, White Oak & Stuyvesant, Paper Plains $5/7:30PM
THURSDAY September 12th TIRED LION
+ BOB BUILDINGS + LIONIZER
FRI 13 SEP
THE STRIDES (NSW) "One For One" Single Launch $10/7:30PM
SAT 14 SEP
ARCADIA ALL-NIGHTER Your favourite party night returns!
SUNDAY September 15th THE ISOLITES + DOWNBEAT
$5/9PM
MON 16 SEP
BIG TOMMO'S OPEN MIC
coming soon
Our solution to the Monday blues
THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 19TH
Free/7:30PM
+ Special Guests
TUES 17 SEP
FRESH JAMS FT/
Matty T Wall, 88 To Yesterday, Foreign Architects, Rum Punch $5/7:30PM
VIDA CAIN
SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 22ND
DEEP FRIED SOUTHERN GRITS BAND THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 26TH
LEGS ELECTRIC + Special Guests
WED 18 SEP
JAZZ AT YAYA'S FT/
Gavin Shoesmith, Gabriel Fatin, Bretty Smith $5/7:30PM
Cnr James & Lake St Northbridge 147 James Street Northbridge 6003
FREE ENTRY
46 LAKE ST, NORTHBRIDGE 9328 2350 LIVE MUSIC EVERY NIGHT OF THE WEEK ENQUIRIES info@mustangbar.com.au www.mustangbar.com.au
THE MUSIC • 11TH SEPTEMBER 2013 • 9
CREDITS PUBLISHER
Street Press Australia Pty Ltd
GROUP MANAGING EDITOR Andrew Mast
EDITOR Callum Twigger
ASSISTANT EDITOR Cam Findlay
MUSO EDITOR Michael Smith
ARTS AND CULTURE EDITOR Cass Fumi wa.arts@themusic.com.au
GIG GUIDE Justine Lynch wa.gigs@themusic.com.au
CONTRIBUTORS Aarom Wilson, Adrienne Downes, Amber Flynn, Andy Snelling, Annabel Maclean, Athina Mallis, Chantelle Gabriel, Christopher James, Claire Hodgson, Daniel Cribb, Eli Gould, James Hunt, Jeff Kit, Jeremy Carson, Jessica Tana, Kane Sutton, Kershia Wong, Kitt Di Camillo, Liv Gardner, Lukas Murphy, Luke Butcher, Mac McNaughton, Marcia Czerniak, Mark Neilsen, Matthew Tomich, Michael Caves, Natasha Lee, Rachel Inglis, Renee Jones, Ross Clelland, Scott Aitken, Simon Holland, Steve Bell, Tess Ingram, Tom Birts, Troy Mutton, Zoe Barron.
PHOTOGRAPHERS
THIS WEEK THINGS TO DO THIS WEEK • 11 SEPTEMBER - 17 SEPTEMBER 2013
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CONTACT US Tel 08 9228 9655 info@themusic.com.au www.themusic.com.au 1/205-207 Bulwer St, Perth WA PO Box 507 Mount Lawley WA 6929
PERTH
Artlab Creative Conferences is bringing in some of the heaviest swingers in contemporary Australian streetart for an all-day conference that explores just about everything you can do with a spraycan and a marker pen. Intended as an examination of contemporary art and culture in WA, Art Lab has lined up Sydneysider Anya Brock, LA filmmaker Brett Novak, Sheryo, The Yok, and Mark Raats for your enlightenment and entertainment. Tickets to this conference go for $30, and the event takes place at The Riverside Theatre on Saturday 14 September.
Di Nguyen is the brains behind Tales Of A Tall Fellow, Perth’s newest menswear label. TOATF are an ethical brand that create dapper threads for gents without exploiting thirdworld labour: TOATF works with local graphic designers and illustrators to create their own original prints, and we love it. Their latest collection features artwork by Perth artist Josh Tavener. TOATF has been chose as the local designer for Perth Fashion Festival’s Makeshift, which will take place at 6PM on Thursday 12 September at Fox Hunt on William Street in Northbridge.
Perth’s favourite trap/garage/grime/dub stoners Deadweight have got their hands on their very own fortnightly night at Flyrite, Perth’s newest weeknight spot. Expect sounds from Saxon, Boy P, Kit Pop, and Bazyl Zemplas. They’ve made it pretty clear this is a no-bullshit gig so don’t bring your attitude. Enjoy the showcase.
style
go
All skills with plenty of thrills, the Harlem Globetrotters continue to carry on a hoops legacy that was started way back in 1927, and these incredible athletes are bringing their one-of-a-kind sporting spectacular to Australia for the first time in almost a decade. Gear up for big slams, ridiculous moves and plenty of laughs when the hardcourt heroes roll into town. The world’s most famous basketball team will play capital city and regional shows throughout October, with tickets on sale now.
read
over
The worst election in living memory has concluded – thank fuck. Abbott and the Coalition government have walked away as victors; only time will tell if we all end up the losers.
Do you have a really strange cousin? The kind who eats his own snot, or maybe gets hammered at Christmas and then pins his gaze to your arse? Well, we can guarantee that rapper Mac Lethal’s cousin Bennett is weirder. Bennett sends Lethal text messages about everything from the “crip life” and “hoes” to granola bars, complete with questionable grammar and lewd remarks. Texts From Bennett started as a popular Tumblr but was released this week as a novel – available now from Amazon.
watch
If you’ve been following the furore around Robin Thicke’s ‘hit single’ Blurred Lines, you’d know some people are not happy about its controversial subject matter. However, you also would’ve uncovered our friends from across the Tasman parodying the explicit video. As part of Auckland University’s Law Revue, three girls sing (and rap) about it in Defined Lines. Their video was then banned from YouTube for being sexually explicit. Which is funny, because the original wasn’t banned, and in this one the young men are at least wearing jocks. It’s since been re-uploaded to the website. THE MUSIC • 11TH SEPTEMBER 2013 • 11
national news news@themusic.com.au POND
BLAST OFF!
The amount of quality sounds coming out of Perth these days is verging on the ridiculous, and right now the very core of the city’s musical success can be attributed to most, if not every, member in ramshackle rockers Pond. After their celebrated release of last year, Beard, Wives, Denim, they’ve wasted no time jamming out another cracker in the way of Hobo Rocket, and are heading out on the road to tour the release. And be warned: the guys have said this will be the only headline dates for this full-length, with their minds already in motion for the next LP, so don’t miss out when Pond play 12 Dec, Metropolis, Fremantle; 14 Dec, The Zoo, Brisbane; 19 Dec, Corner Hotel, Melbourne; and 20 Dec, Metro Theatre, Sydney. All dates are proudly presented by The Music.
JACK OF ALL TRADES
Singer-songwriter, surfer, filmmaker and all around chill guy Jack Johnson will tour his brand new sixth record, From Here To Now To You, with some special shows featuring a full band as well as fellow Oahu locals Paula Fuga and John Cruz. Bliss out with Johnson’s smooth ocean vibe when he performs 7 Dec, Kings Park, Perth; 10 Dec, Opera House Forecourt, Sydney; 14 Dec, QPAC, Brisbane; and 16 Dec, The Plenary, Melbourne. Tickets go on sale next Tuesday at 9am.
SECOND SLICE FOR FALLS AND SOUTHBOUND
The Falls Music & Arts Festival has just dropped a bunch of new acts on us and it makes a pretty special bill even more brilliant. Maintaining the eclectic talents found on the first announcement, this second batch of artists features Emma Louise, Horrorshow, Hungry Kids Of Hungary, Johnny Marr, Oliver Tank, The Paper Kites, The Rubens, Thundamentals, Violent Soho and The War On Drugs. All those artists will rotate between Falls’ three dates, happening at Lorne, Victoria, 28 Dec to 1 Jan; Marion Bay, Tasmania, 29 Dec to 1 Jan; and North Byron Parklands, Byron Bay, 31 Dec to 3 Jan, as well as Southbound in WA, which takes place over two days, 3 and 4 Jan.
COMFORTABLY FUN
The Aston Shuffle have been around the world and back putting together the followup to their highly fancied first full-length Seventeen Past Midnight and are finally ready to remind dancefloors across the country why their beats are recognised in all corners of the globe. Make sure the talc is down on the ground as the Canberra duo are going to make you shuffle all night long. They play 13 Sep, Parker Nightclub, Perth; 14 Sep, Toucan Club, Mandurah; 27 Sep, Oh Hello!, Brisbane; 11 Oct, Academy, Canberra; 12 Oct, Spring in The Valley, Perth; 19 Oct, Oh Buck Yeah, Park Hotel, Bathurst; 20 Oct, Marco Polo, Ivy, Sydney; 26 Oct, Fat As Butter, The Foreshore, Newcastle; 15 Nov, Elsewhere, Gold Coast; and 16 Nov, Onefiveone, Wollongong.
12 • THE MUSIC • 11TH SEPTEMBER 2013
The Redline Music Tour is set to make the temperature gauge soar, bringing three hip hop/R&B names to Australia in what’s set to be one of the biggest urban tours of the year. Platinum selling rapper Fabolous is heading up the bill, the New Yorker having worked with everyone from Rihanna to Jay Z. With him comes former B2K lead singer Omarion, as well as old school player Chingy, whose single Right Thurr found its way into the ARIA top ten back in 2003. Get ready to get sweaty when they take to the stage 26 Sep, Challenge Stadium, Perth; 27 Sep, Big Top, Luna Park, Sydney; 3 Oct, Arena, Brisbane; 4 Oct, AIS Arena, Canberra; and 6 Oct, Forum Theatre, Melbourne.
DEATH TO ALL HEARING There’s going to be ringing in your ears for weeks after the riffing frenzy of old school heroes Melvins and Helmet attacks your senses on Australian soil this summer. Continuing to put bands half their age to shame, the two American hard rock acts are out here for Meredith and will partner up for loads of dates, as well as playing their own headline shows. Stay with us. Both groups front up 8 Dec, The Hi-Fi, Brisbane; 9 Dec, The Northern, Byron Bay; 11 Dec, Cambridge Hotel, Newcastle; 12 Dec, ANU Bar, Canberra; and 15 Dec, The Hi-Fi, Sydney. The Melvins then do two more shows, 6 Dec, Metropolis, Fremantle and 17 Dec, The Hi-Fi, Melbourne, while Helmet will do their own thing 18 Dec, also at The Hi-Fi, Melbourne. Maybe they’ll be sick of each other by then? We don’t know.
TICKLING THE IVORIES
One of this generation’s most powerful entertainers and respected voices, Alicia Keys continues to uplift and inspire with her jazzy brand of R&B and soul and she’ll take centre stage this summer when she brings her Set The World On Fire Tour Down Under with special guest John Legend. The two American performers are here 5 Dec, Perth Arena; 7 Dec, Rochford Winery, Yarra Valley; 8 Dec, Rod Laver Arena, Melbourne; 11 Dec, Allphones Arena, Sydney; 13 Dec, Brisbane Entertainment Centre; and 14 Dec, Hope Estate Winery, Hunter Valley.
“NOBODY TEXTS FASTER THAN A PISSED OFF FEMALE” A$AP ROCKY [@ASAPROCKYTRILL] FEELING THE DIGITS FLY.
DIAMONDS IN THEIR EYES
NEW EMPIRE
REBUILDING AN ARMY
Cronulla four-piece New Empire look set for a big 12 months, with the rockers about to deliver In A Breath, their first full-length in a couple of years. Jam-packed with uplifting themes of hope and affirmation, it’s a bold statement from a band that are ready to take things to the next level. They play 17 Oct, The Small Ballroom, Newcastle; 18 Oct, Oxford Art Factory, Sydney; 19 Oct, ANU Bar, Canberra; 24 Oct, Toff In Town, Melbourne; 25 Oct, Brisbane Powerhouse (all ages); and 26 Oct, Joe’s Waterhole, Eumundi. Proudly presented by The Music.
national news news@themusic.com.au VOLCANO CHOIR
BILLY BRAGG
SONIC ERUPTION
TALKING ‘BOUT A REVOLUTION
Arriving in the country this week for BIGSOUND, it seems like a suitable time for Billy Bragg to announce a bunch of new headline dates for 2014. One of the greatest living songwriters of our time, he’ll return to Australia full of fire and inspiration, playing dates with Melbourne’s new favourite storyteller Courtney Barnett. Catch them 8 Mar, Perth Concert Hall; 13 Mar, Palais Theatre; 16 Mar, Sydney Opera House; 19 Oct, Canberra Theatre; and 20 Mar, The Tivoli, Brisbane. All shows are proudly presented by The Music.
BONJAH
COLOUR CODED
Back to it with brand new track Blue Tone Black Heart, the sounds of Bonjah are ready to paint your summer rad. The guys have made the call – they’re embracing their true sound. Tap into that when they lap around the country 12 Oct, Point Lonsdale School Hall (all ages); 27 Oct, Pop Culture, Melton (all ages); 2 Nov, Ding Dong Lounge, Melbourne; 7 Nov, Beach Road Hotel, Sydney; 28 Dec, Solbar, Maroochydore; 29 Dec, The Northern, Byron Bay; 30 Dec, Surfers Paradise Beer Garden; 3 Jan, Torquay Hotel; 9 Jan, Prince Of Wales, Bunbury; 11 Jan, Mojo’s, Fremantle; and 12 Jan, Indi Bar, Scarborough. All dates are proudly presented by The Music.
After Justin Vernon got a bit lippy on radio last week, the announcement that his new outfit Volcano Choir will be playing their first shows in Australia as part of the Harvest Festival was fast-tracked. Their album Repave has been getting praised heaped upon it around the globe (including an album of the week nod in this very publication), and it’s going to be a captivating experience watching these tracks get fleshed out on stage. Harvest hits Werribee Park, Melbourne, 10 Nov; The Domain, Sydney, 16 Nov; and City Botanic Gardens, Brisbane, 17 Nov.
THE SECOND COMING
They’ve been off the map for a little while now, but finally fans of The Butterfly Effect can brace themselves for the band’s return. The Brissie lads have announced capital city dates for next month, however, they’ve remained tight-lipped with regards to the possibility of new material, and also the burning question – who will replace Clint Boge out front? Only one way to find out. Get effected 10 Oct, The Zoo, Brisbane; 11 Oct, Gershwin Room, Melbourne; 17 Oct, Rosemount, Perth; and 19 Oct, Annandale Hotel, Sydney.
“CAN’T BELIEVE THE KIDS AREN’T MORE INTO TONY ABBOTT’S STEAMPUNK INTERNET PLAN” WHAT’S WRONG WITH THE YOUTH JOHN SAFRAN [@JOHNSAFRAN]?
THE STENCH OF PAIN
Since 1987, Greek extremists Rotting Christ have been running amok, building a devoted underground fanbase right around the globe. Considered one of the leading metal trailblazers of their region, the quartet have returned to the fore with this year’s Kata Ton Daimona Eaytoy and will squeeze every drop of blood out of that album and many others from their extensive back catalogue with three east coast shows early next year. Catch them at Crowbar, Brisbane, 16 Jan, before they knock over Heavyfest in Sydney (17 Jan, The Hi-Fi) and Melbourne (18 Jan, The Hi-Fi).
INDIE AWARDS UP FOR GRABS
Nominations for the Carlton Dry Independent Music Awards have just been announced, with electro/indie flavours setting the pace this year. Flume and Jagwar Ma have both garnered five nominations, while Big Scary snagged three, with a whole bunch more including The Drones, Vance Joy and Dick Diver all getting two. The winners get announced at a roof-raising party 9 Oct at Revolt, Melbourne, with the night also featuring performances by Archie Roach, Violent Soho, Saskwatch and Rüfüs, as well as nominees Big Scary and Seth Sentry. THE MUSIC • 11TH SEPTEMBER 2013 • 13
local news wa.news@themusic.com.au THE GOOCH PALMS
AIMEE FRANCIS
WINNERS AND LOSERS
GET YOUR HAND OFF THAT
Newcastle garage duo The Gooch Palms are set to release their debut album NOVO’S next month, but they gave us a new single last week to tide us over until the records start shipping. The title track to the album, the band handily explains that the track is about “the actions, attitudes, beliefs, and dispositions (among other things) of a lazy, apathetic, and above all, worthless individual from Newcastle.” Read: The Gooch Palms’ irreverent yet striking approach to making music. The duo head to The Bird on Thurs 24 Oct for what is sure to be a slobber knocker. Tickets on the door.
NOT THE HEDGEHOG
Twenty-three year old Aimee Francis hails from Sydney’s inner west, and has already established an impressive musical resume having toured the world with the likes of Pat Benatar and Steel Panther with her rebellious rock anthems. She returns to Australia with a new tune in tow in the form of Loser’s Game – a rock lullaby about lost love. Aimee has just returned from a whirlwind tour of the US, where she did big things at SXSW and impressed a lot of important people. She plays The Ellington, Sun 13 Oct; The Court, Thurs 17; Elliot St Bar, Bunbury, Fri 18; Oktoberfest at Duckstein Brewery, Margaret River, Sat 19 (day) and Swan Basement, Sat 19 (night). Aimeefrancis.com for full deets.
Fremantle Arts Centre’s highly intimate concert series Sonic Sessions is set to return this year with three heavyweights of Australian songwriting. On Mon 18 Nov, two-time ARIA winner Sarah Blasko will join Sonic Sessions host, ABC Radio National presenter and Grammy Award-winner Lucky Oceans for an intimate evening of music and conversation. Following that, Aussie rock legend Tex Perkins takes over on Tues 19, while iconic Indigenous singersongwriter Archie Roach steps up on Thurs 12 Dec. Tickets through fac.oztix.com.au or the FAC reception.Palms’ irreverent yet striking approach to making music. The duo head to The Bird on Thurs 24 Oct for what is sure to be a slobber knocker. Tickets on the door.
SSNOOB
DIG DEEP
There’s been a lot of talk going around about Listen Out lately; the festival, heading to Ozone Reserve on Sun 29 Sep, is bringing some of the freshest faces and heaviest heroes for a big ol’ dance-fest. Now, to pump the local side, a third stage has been announced. The Crate Diggers Stage will see Black & Blunt play old school breakbeat; Charlie Bucket play ‘90s hip hop; Drifter & Pussymittens play deep house; France China plays ‘90s and noughties party jams; Gracie & Sistym play frontin’ drum ‘n bass; and Oli & James A play vinyl-only house. All good stuff. Tickets through listen-out.com.au and Oztix.
ALL IN THE MIND
Emerging from Sydney’s vibrant hip hop community in 2006, the duo known as Mind Over Matter quickly established themselves as artists to be reckoned with. Through their highly lauded mixtape For Our Hip Hoppers, they successfully built and earned a loyal fan base nationally. They’ve toured alongside Chet Faker, and have worked with some of Australia’s current hip hop luminaries, including Drapht, Bliss n’ Eso and more. They’ve also got a brand spankin’ new album slated for release next year, so now’s as good a time as any to catch them when they head to The Causeway on Wed 9 Oct.
14 • THE MUSIC • 11TH SEPTEMBER 2013
KICK OUT THE WAMS
The wait is over – WAM have announced the 80 nominees in 16 categories in the running for the 2013 WAM Song Of The Year. Now in its 24th year, this prestigious songwriting competition celebrates the best of WA s songwriting talent, offering more than $35,000 in prizes. With that kind of clout, it’s recognized as not only a top songwriting competition in Australia, but also the entire world. The list is too huge to list here: head to wam.asn.au/songoftheyear for it. Winners will be announced at the Awards Night held at the Fly By Night Musicians Club on Wednesday 9 October from 7pm. Hosted by Tomás Ford, the stellar line-up and public tickets will be announced this 16 September, so stay tuned!
SSNOOBY SNACKS
Ssnoob, aka Andrew Weir, may just be one of those unspoken heroes of our local music scene. One half of The Bosons and all-round great guy, his solo Ssnoob project is his next step into improvised dance and electronica. On a 2013 tour to South Korea, Ssnoob played at the Boryeong Mud Festival and at venues including Club Freebird, Myoung Wol Gwan, Strange Fruit and Hodge Podge. The Bosons also got a lot of traction throughout Asia and Europe. Now, Ssnoob is heading back to Korea to play Zangari Festa, with a stop in Japan in the mean time. He’s holding a little fundraiser at The Velvet Lounge on Thurs 26 Sep with local guests. $5 on the door from 8pm.
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local news wa.news@themusic.com.au DE LA SOUL
SARITAH
CIAO BELLA
The luxury revolution returns, with one of Perth’s premier New Year’s Day events flying back in supreme style for its eighth year, this time whisking you away for a luxurious, care-free ‘50s European summer holiday. That’s right; Cuban Club is on again, heralding in the new year in true swingin’ fashion. Think the sophistication of Audrey Hepburn, the suaveness of Gregory Peck and the fancy-free Vespa riding from Roman Holiday, and you’re pretty close. Hitting the Flying Squadron Yacht Club on Wed 1 Jan (obviously), there’s already two huge names on the bill: US hip hop legends De La Soul and perennial UK favourite DJ Yoda. Tickets go on sale through Ticketmaster from Wed 11 Sep, with more names to come.
GET YOUR MOO ON
From Gloucester and Maitland, along the Hume to Albury and Canberra, out to Naranderra and up to Darwin, across to Townsville, back down to Bendigo and west to Bunbury – communities of locals, artists, family members, crews, travelers and guests alike have all gathered under the banner of ‘the Moo’. Taking the usual festival experience and throwing in a regional twist, Groovin’ The Moo has become one of the country’s favourite festivals in recemt years. The festival returns to its western homeland of Bunbury’s Hay Park on Sat 10 May 2014. Tickets go on sale Tues 4 Feb, and keep an eye on these pages and theMusic.com.au for the line-up announcement in the near future.
16 • THE MUSIC • 11TH SEPTEMBER 2013
BACK TO THE ROOTS
After a three-month northern hemisphere summer tour beginning with two shows at the UK’s mammoth Glastonbury Festival and ending playing to packed rooms in California, positive roots songstress Saritah brings her conscious vibes to her favourite southwest corner of the world for a handful of select shows this September. The WA mini-tour will welcome Saritah back en route to her country of birth, South Korea, for performances at the prestigious Asia Pacific Music Meeting and Jarasum International Jazz Festival in early October. Catch her at Mojos, Thurs 19 Sep; White Star, Albany, Fri 20; Settlers Tavern, Sat 21; and Clancy’s Dunsborough, Sun 22. Saritah.com for full details.
LANEWAY RETURNS IN 2014
As the event lands in the United States for the very first time this week, Laneway Festival figure they’d mark the occasion by announcing dates for 2014. After getting things underway on foreign soil in Singapore (25 Jan) and Auckland (27 Jan), the event will move to Australia, hitting Esplanade Park and West End, Fremantle on Sat 8 Feb. Stay tuned for the full line-up which will be announced online at theMusic.com.au on 24 Sep.
GRASS IS GREENER
As has come to be expected, there’s some great Aussie talent headlining this year’s An Evening On The Green concert at Kings Park & Botanic Garden on Sat 16 Nov. Hoodoo Gurus, You Am I, The Whitlams, Dave Graney & The mistLY and Rainy Day Women are set to join forces for a sensational night of music under the stars in Kings Park. Four of Australia’s greatest, best loved and most enduring rock bands of all time, the veterans join Rainy Day Women, who are doing big things with a bunch of awards and great shows to their name. Head to adayonthegreen.com.au or mellenevents.com.au for tickets.
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18 • THE MUSIC • 11TH SEPTEMBER 2013
music
THINK MUSIC
Words Samson McDougall. Photo Kane Hibberd
The Drones frontman Gareth Liddiard tells Samson McDougall that when he admits to incorporating classical music into his rock’n’roll, “People will go, ‘Wow, that’s fuckin’ weird and you’re fucked in the head. You think that you’re smarter than everyone else’.”
T
he Drones’ songwriter-frontman Gareth Liddiard says that his band don’t stop in Wollongong when touring Australia. It’s no direct slur on the Illawarra town, more a general statement about the lack of popularity of the band outside the main centres in this country. It’s strange, given the band have spent years as perpetual world tourers, frequent All Tomorrow’s Parties contributors (and recent curators) and global festival mainstays, that their spleens don’t bleed much beyond the suburbs in their home country. But it doesn’t bother Liddiard much. “I would say that little towns are just like ten or 15 years behind the cities,” he says. “They’re not as savvy as other people. It’s not like anyone in a country town has ever heard of fuckin’ Die Antwoord or Lightning Bolt, you know what I mean?”
book that was read to you a long way back and now experiencing it with fresh eyes. “We wanted to have our own voice, but it’s really fuckin’ hard to be like Sonic Youth or Suicide or someone who’s just really, really, really fuckin’ original,” continues Liddiard. “So we were happy to sound a bit like this or a bit like that because, y’know, someone like Nick Cave sounds like Johnny Cash – if we sound like Neil Young then Nick Cave sounds like Johnny Cash... I couldn’t do anything else if I tried, really. The way I sound is the way I sound, you know, whether I’m playing
classical methods to blues-rock guitars and drums to deliberately subvert the rock song. “It’s as simple as it’s pretty much a standard blues guitar – if you’re talkin’ about it as an object, into an amp, the way it’s set up – but it’s playing full-tone scales that, y’know, Stravinsky would do, and that’s the bit that makes people think that it’s weird,” Liddiard says. “That’s a conscious decision. If you know what a full-tone scale is, you really have to commit to it because it gets fuckin’ odd. So in that sense, yeah totally, we’re tryin’ to be weird.” And this weirdness still perpetuates weirdness with slow-burning ballads coiling, shrinking and bursting into full-blown brain snaps and Liddiard’s lyrics stumbling drunk with grazed knees to reach their often bitter conclusions. The line-up of Liddiard, Kitschin, Noga and Luscombe has been solid for a couple of albums now, though Liddiard, as chief songwriter, can be held largely responsible for the misshapen blues or rock that spews forth. They enlisted keyboardist Steve Hesketh for I See Seaweed and his presence, more than anything else, subtly injects more oddity to an already off-kilter sound. Hesketh’s brief, according to Liddiard, was: “Pretty much, ‘You know that Rolling Stones piano, and you know that rock’n’roll piano, major/minor chords? Don’t do it’.
“WE WANTED TO HAVE OUR OWN VOICE, BUT IT’S REALLY FUCKIN’ HARD TO BE LIKE SONIC YOUTH OR SUICIDE OR SOMEONE WHO’S JUST REALLY, REALLY, REALLY FUCKIN’ ORIGINAL.”
I See Seaweed, the band’s sixth ‘proper’ album – they’ve amassed a fair collection of live recordings and compilations for those willing to dig – in many ways is, sound-wise, not a lot different to their breakthrough 2005 Australian Music Prize-winning album Wait Long By The River And The Bodies Of Your Enemies Will Float By. Liddiard’s bent guitar lines and always spat, sometimes awkward, vocals have maintained the spine of the band through multiple line-up shuffles and all of their recorded work. Theirs is a sound that takes time to transfuse into the bloodstream. As much as their singles Shark Fin Blues, The Minotaur and How To See Through Fog permeate the clag and find the band in almost radio-playable territory, their secreted and obscure opuses – the title track off The Miller’s Daughter, Locust off Wait Long..., I’m Here Now and Words From The Executioner To Alexander Pearce off Gala Mill, and Nine Eyes and Laika off I See Seaweed, to name a few of many – reject this notion of accessibility and challenge the listener to stay on board. “We wanted something that was ours,” says Liddiard of the inception of The Drones’ sound. And, love or hate it, from the outset they have laid claim to and owned a patch of sonic real estate like no other. As a follower of the band playing I See Seaweed for the first time, the songs felt familiar; but not in a tired and uninventive sense, more like reopening an old 20 • THE MUSIC • 11TH SEPTEMBER 2013
guitar or singing. [It’s] the same with Fiona [Kitschin – bass], she can’t play songs on the bass, what you hear is what it is, that’s all she can do; and same with Mike [Noga – drums]. Dan [Luscombe – guitar], he’s a bit more flexible – he’s actually like a really good Hawaiian guitarist, he can play the proper traditional Hawaiian shit. But I could never do that, like, I can only do what I do. And that’s good because we can try and do different shit and try and take the whole thing forwards into areas we’ve never explored and we’ll always sound like us because we can’t help it.” Their approach brings
So then I just gave him a bunch of classical stuff and said, ‘Do that!’ If you can’t do that major/ minor stuff then you’ve got no option except to do all this augmented-diminished stuff. “After punk rock, you weren’t allowed to do all that shit. What’s fucked up about punk rock is that it made everything stupid and you had to be thick, sorta small minded... Now, if [I] say I listen to classical music and I put it in my music, my rock’n’roll, people will go, ‘Wow, that’s fuckin’ weird and you’re fucked in the head. You think that you’re smarter than everyone else’. It’s like, ‘fuck you!’ You’re not allowed to be smart, is that the new rule? You’re not allowed to use the brain nature gave you?” The subjects and themes explored on the album are broad. Liddiard revisits a remembered past in Nine Eyes – the song opens with tweaked strings and Hesketh’s distorted keys and via Liddiard’s drawl we amble down streets transformed through time. Laika treads more abstract territory – a lament for a dog shot into orbit and to its doom. On closing track, Why Write A Letter That You’ll Never Send, Liddiard ‘reads’ an email – “more impotent than important” – from a friend, which steadily veers from its path into train wreck. The songs are as disparate and disjointed as the instrumentation that
SUDDEN IMPACT Within their back catalogue, The Drones always make strong statements with their album openers. Their album closers are always epic in some way, but the openers propel you within. Samson McDougall speaks for the affirmative: Shark Fin Blues (Wait Long By The River And The Bodies Of Your Enemies Will Float By – 2005) This has to be the most well-known Drones number of all and remains a live staple. It bears all the trademarks of classic Drones: complex riffing and structure, Liddiard’s laconic drawl, full-blown verse build-ups and beautiful backing vox by Fiona Kitschin. Listen to it now. Jezebel (Gala Mill – 2006)
yet united by the guilt of knowing we are leaving the planet a less healthy place than we found it – thematically challenging, standard Drones fare. “What you see is what you get, y’know,” says Liddiard of bringing together this bunch of songs for the album. Typically, he says, most Drones songs are pretty well ready to go when the band converge for recording sessions, it’s no democratic process. “It’s not like Laika goes through this process where we decide whether or not it’s gonna go here or there. The song is written and beggars can’t be choosers, it’s not like we have a million songs kickin’ around...” The Drones will now tour to release one of the more energetic songs on the album: A Moat You Can Stand In. It’s as musically discordant as anything Liddiard has recently conjured and is chockers with jabs at the rich, the church and our leaders – it’s a mud-fight that allows each component of the band to get loose. It won’t lead them to Wollongong but it is suggestive of a band re-energised. “We had a nice big break in between [albums] and we needed
it ‘cause we’d been living with each other for a long time and, y’know, I think we overdid it with the touring,” Liddiard says. “I think there’s sort of a fuel tank full of inspiration... We were on empty there for a while so it’s good to refill it. “Some songs I don’t look forward to
playing live but with all these ones I do. They’re full-on, but they’re easier to play than you’d think. Some songs are, like, you’ve gotta put a lot of effort in and you don’t get a lot out of them and, some songs: they just play themselves and they sound amazing... These are the latter.”
WHAT: I See Seaweed (MGM) WHEN & WHERE: 21 Sep, The Bakery
The aural equivalent of a door slamming on your face, Jezebel is still one of the more confronting Drones songs. “I’m recording, shut up!” yells Liddiard as dogs bark and crickets chirp in the background before the opening chords rip out like a mouthful of stones. A challenging listen and lyrical masterpiece. I See Seaweed (I See Seaweed – 2013) Following up from Havilah’s lyrically awkward Nail It Down, I See Seaweed enters as a serious contender for the pick of the lot. The song smoulders in cryptic nostalgia for the first couple of minutes then erupts into a full band assault. Fuck knows what it all means but it’s some heavy shit. THE MUSIC • 11TH SEPTEMBER 2013 • 21
culture
CREATIVE CONFLICT the upper hand. I knew who she was, but GIRL had mistaken me for someone else. It didn’t seem fair. So I started.
We pulled tentatively at the corners of my horrible fucking review. “It’s not a conscious process,” she explained, “You don’t get up on stage with this idea of how you’re going to come across, you just feel it.” I told her that I didn’t really understand that experience because I’m not an artist. I told her that I rarely consider the person on the other side of my music reviews; that nothing I write is meant to be taken seriously. But the more excuses I offered, the more disingenuous they sounded, and the points I was making were obviously beside the point. The spiralling weakness of my defence was a result of the fact that my apology was, at best, superficial. I never said, “What I wrote was wrong and I shouldn’t have written it.” My review was mean but it was honest.
“I think you mistook me for someone else before. My name is Simone Ubaldi and I write for MAGAZINE.” She looked as though she’d been slapped with a fish.
At the end of our conversation, as we got up to leave, GIRL paused and turned to me, unwilling to waste the moment. “What you wrote was incredibly hurtful to me,” she said. “And I’m not a raging feminist or anything, but it felt like I was being attacked in a very misogynistic way. I really couldn’t believe that a woman would write something like that about
What happens when a music journalist comes face to face with an artist who’s felt their critical wrath? Simone Ubaldi will tell you. (This following story is true. Names have been changed for what should be obvious reasons.)
T
he penny dropped when she called me Bianca. I was idling in a doorway at this house party-cum-record launch, casting around for someone I recognised, when a blonde girl appeared at my elbow. “You look familiar,” I said, because there is no filter between my brain and my mouth. “Bianca! Hi,” she replied, “I haven’t seen you since...“ I missed the tail end of her sentence because the penny was dropping. “You’re GIRL,” I told her. “GIRL,” I thought, “of BAND, about whom I have written terrible, terrible things.” The first time I saw GIRL she was supporting a GUY at the VENUE. It was 2009, a year since BAND’s Album had debuted, winning widespread critical acclaim and the holy grail of triple j airplay. I didn’t have a particularly strong opinion about GIRL’s music. Didn’t love it, didn’t hate it. I had no real sense of GIRL as an artist and had no particular prejudice towards her – until I experienced her live show. In the support set, she took to the stage with a Lana Del Rey-ish sex doll malaise, drooping about the microphone like a post-fellatial junkie. Later, she played keys and made a fairly distracting show of singing along with GUY as he delivered the headline set. In both instances, GIRL was compelling people to look at her by appearing to be utterly lost in the music. It felt performative and inauthentic to me, an affected pose of arty disaffection. The next time I was sent a BAND song, I heard not one artist in a vacuum but an exemplar of a broader problem in rock’n’roll: narcissism and soullessness. I wrote a really mean review. Mean as hell, but not personal. How could it be? I didn’t know her. It was the persona and the aesthetic that was under attack, not the person. Now, I had a terrible sense of guilt. Not because of what I had written. Instead, I felt bad that in this completely neutral, private context I had
“SHE LOOKED AS THOUGH SHE’D BEEN SLAPPED WITH A FISH.” I nervously eyed the glass of champagne in GIRL’s hand. “I wanted to introduce myself and say sorry. And let you throw your drink in my face, if that’s what you want to do.” GIRL declined to take up the offer so I kept talking. I’m not entirely sure what I said, but the general tone was friendly and apologetic, and I managed to convince her at some point to join the conversation.
another woman.” I told her that was not what I intended and that I was sorry she felt that way, which was true. We shook hands and parted ways (not exactly best buds, but nobody got whupped). The question is why I bothered to stage this confrontation with GIRL (which, by combination of my self-effacing and somewhat pathetic diplomacy and her general politeness and self-control, was not actually that confrontational). I’m not sure about that. Like I said, there was a fairness issue. But more importantly, I think, I didn’t want to hide behind my keyboard. I’m not generally required to answer to musicians and I don’t seek out their company, but if fate sticks one of them next to me at a party, it seems pretty undignified to run away. I write what I write, for better or worse. The least I can do is admit it.
music
RIDING THE WAVE Dolphin enthusiast Wave Racer (aka Thomas Purcell) chats to Kane Sutton about his triple j house party experience and the importance of sticking to your own style.
H
e hasn’t many tracks to his name, but that’s hardly an issue when they contain some of the most immediate, catchy dance music available to human ears. As such, Purcell’s popularity has exploded and he couldn’t be more thrilled. “The (triple j) house parties have been amazing,” he sighs. “I’ve still got a couple left to go – it’s been incredible, I couldn’t really ask to be with a better group of people – we’ve had such a great time. I think the Fremantle show has been my favourite so far; I got one of the better set times a little later in the night and the crowd was just so packed out and so responsive. They seemed to love every second of it so yeah, I had a great time. It was my first time in Fremantle and second time in WA – I was just over there a few weeks ago for a festival called Circo, which was great too.” The 21-year-old has only been on the scene for about 18 months, only four months as Wave Racer. Picking up the guitar in high school and playing in a number of bands through his teens, it took a couple of years for him to discover the electronic music scene. Once he had, there was no turning back. “In the last few years I’ve just been really interested in electronic music because it’s changed and evolved so much recently. It’s difficult to say what turned me onto it; I guess I just had a few friends in high school that got me into it when I was about seventeen or eighteen, so from there I started looking at some of the old-school electro from around 2007 like Justice and Daft Punk and all that kind of stuff. I was inspired by a lot of underground stuff that most people haven’t heard of. I spend a lot of time during the day just scrolling through Soundcloud and listening to as much stuff as I can. I came across some music that was just so different and obscure and I realised that I wanted to move into the more experimental bass music stuff. I put my own little spin on it with a little bit of happiness and brightness and this is how it came out. I just love how it (electronic music) is so versatile.” While Purcell argues he doesn’t follow a particular style, it’s certainly his approach to electronic music that has created such a buzz. Purcell’s music conjures up an aggressive longing for the past, a sense of nostalgia.
24 • THE MUSIC • 11TH SEPTEMBER 2013
The synth arrangement in Stoopid feels sugary as all hell. With this in mind, Purcell is completely aware that when he’s playing a live show, his sound my catch a few people off-guard. “I definitely have that feeling when I’m playing my own songs that people don’t
crowd aren’t used to because it’s unlikely they’ll be hearing it anywhere else. I like people to discover the kind of music I’ve been listening to for a long time.” “It (electronic music) is developing a huge following. I’m not the only artist experimenting with this kind of stuff; there are obviously heaps of artists out there doing heavy bass-orientated stuff. Promoters are bringing out bass musicians and they’re smashing out national tours. It’s cool that there’s enough hype to manage that kind of music now. It’s moving away from traditional dance music and I think that’s really exciting for people too. It’s only got more room to grow.”
“I DEFINITELY HAVE THAT FEELING WHEN I’M PLAYING MY OWN SONGS THAT PEOPLE DON’T KNOW THAT THEY MIGHTN’T UNDERSTAND WHAT THEY’RE HEARING” know that they mightn’t understand what they’re hearing,” he chuckles. “I like to challenge people when I’m playing my own stuff, so playing stuff they’ve definitely never heard before, or playing styles they’re not familiar with is great. I just dive straight in and let them know what I’m playing; if they like it then that’s awesome, if they don’t, then I don’t really mind. People usually like it, which is good, but I do like playing things that the
Asked whether he feels pressured to alter his sound as new subgenres constantly try to break their way into electronic music, Purcell is dismissive. “You see that kind of thing with little niche genres being overtaken and oversaturated but I don’t really care that much for genres and subgenres. There are no real rules. With genres, people tend to stick to a certain sound, aesthetic or style, and I think that’s awesome because it is cool to play a particular style and really explore that, but I don’t really have a particular direction I want to follow, apart from the tempo. I’m not concerned about genre.” It’s been a huge year for Wave Racer thus far, and making sure he has more material for his fans to listen to is the first thing on the agenda. “I’ve three remixes I haven’t finished, but they will be coming out over the next couple of months. I’m also going to be working on more original stuff too, so you’ll be hearing more originals and more remixes from me in the near future.”
music
HAND IN YOUR BADGE What do you do when a global organisation asks you to change your band’s name? If you’re Brisbane’s newly rebranded Cub Sport, you suck it up, as lead singer Tim Nelson tells Carley Hall.
“M
ost of the band burst out laughing when our manager told us, because it is pretty ridiculous. Everyone found it entertaining for about a second until we realised it actually was quite serious.” It’s clear you’ve made it when you attract the attention of legal eagles threatening punitive action for use of their client’s name. On these grounds Brisbane happy-go-lucky kids Cub Scouts should have been flattered when Scouts Australia wrote them a “nice” letter to cease and desist or face the consequences.
Despite initial giggles, Nelson and his four-piece were slightly puzzled by the organisation’s timing, the band having played at the Scouts jamboree earlier this year with no sign of impending trouble, while also midway through releasing their new EP. “They have known about us and our name for quite a while, so it’s annoying that it came up in the middle of us releasing an EP, after we got 1500 copies of the Cub Scouts Paradise EP. But people have been keen to snatch those up now so it’s kind of worked in our favour. Maybe we should change our name once a week!” Cub Sport have been
comedy
BYRNE NOTICE Madcap Irish comic Jason Byrne is about to celebrate wrapping his BBC1 sitcom shoot with a trip to see his fans Down Under with new stand-up show, Special Eye, He chats to Baz McAlister about what audiences can expect from the sitcom. Jason Byrne is well-known by legions of fans in his native Ireland, the UK and here in Australia, but he’s about to become a true household name by scoring the “holy grail”, a BBC1 sitcom which he created and stars in, titled Father Figure, about a stay-at-home father of two. When he answers his phone, it’s late night in Ireland; Byrne wrapped filming on the sitcom at London’s Elstree Studios a couple of days before and is relaxing with fellow comedian Eric Lalor. “I hadn’t gigged solo in months – thank fuck they were nice, it was
a big weight off me,” he says. “I’d never stopped for that long in seventeen years of gigging, and I was worried I wouldn’t remember how to do it. I’m such a fucking idiot. I could have stopped for five years and it wouldn’t have mattered. I tried out loads of new material; I go to Edinburgh now for four weeks and then I’ll be so match fit when I get to Australia [with Special Eye]!” Byrne is known for his wild nights of audience participation, crazy improvisation and offthe-cuff shenanigans – anything can happen at his gigs. Many comedians joke to the audience about mass hiding while
26 • THE MUSIC • 11TH SEPTEMBER 2013
good sports about their new moniker, crossing out the old name on t-shirt merchandise with permanent markers and so on. The idea of a potentially lengthy legal battle was not their idea of fun, and with the band picking up steam overseas, Nelson says it was better to just shrug their shoulders and focus on the bigger picture. “In America it’s obviously a much bigger thing than in Australia, and it would have been a much bigger fight. We have worked hard to get our name out there, but I think it was a wiser decision to just change [it] and keep moving forward.” Cub Sport’s new EP Paradise has had regular spin on local radio, plus it’s already nabbed attention overseas, aided by their slot on Brighton’s Great Escape Festival in the UK. “Brighton’s an awesome little town and it was a lot of fun,” Nelson says. “Those industry events are often quite stressful, but we managed to pick up an agent in the UK and that was the main thing we wanted to achieve.” The band worked with indie’s go-to producer John Castles (Washington, The Drones) on their five-track EP in Melbourne, with the promise of a UK/US release later this year, plus another overseas jaunt planned after. They’re also about to support Jinja Safari and are scheduled to appear at Brisbane’s industry showcase, BIGSOUND. After the band’s first single Evie dropped in 2011, Nelson feels the need to regularly pinch himself. “It’s a lot more than we ever could have hoped for. I didn’t think that it could ever get to the stage where I’d have to defer uni, and I didn’t think that we’d ever attract enough attention to the point where we’d get asked to change our name.” WHEN & WHERE: 11 Sep, BIGSOUND, Coniston Lane; 12 Sep, The Spotted Cow, Toowoomba; 13 Sep, The Hi-Fi; 14 Sep, Coolangatta Hotel, Gold Coast
an audience member goes to the toilet, but Byrne’s actually done it, squeezing hundreds of people behind the stage curtain to jump out on one poor weak-bladdered woman. So how did he handle the tightly-scripted world of TV? “It was weird, going from comedian to actor. The discipline of it all – having to deliver your words so the next actor wouldn’t fuck up. But it was great craic – I’d fucking do it forever! People just kept handing me lattes and drinks and asking if I was all right, and if I went to pick something up they’d be like, ‘Doooon’t pick that up! Jeeeesus! You’re irreplaaaaceable!’ If I was treated like that, imagine how Tom Cruise is fucking treated.” Byrne also says he couldn’t get over the fact that as the show’s writer, he was given an army of production minions who had to realise whatever came out of his brain. “It was weird when you arrive on a set and they’ve built everything you’ve written! I was like, ‘holy shit’. I wrote a scene where I had to fall off a roof and they built the whole top of a house! And the actual studio we shot in was where the Millennium Falcon was [for Star Wars in 1977]. Loads of Star Wars was shot in Elstree, it was hallowed ground. But then Big Brother was on at the bottom of the street, and that wasn’t very hallowed ground. I think if you threw a bomb in there you would get rid of a lot of arseholes, quite frankly – but I didn’t get time to do that.” WHAT: Jason Byrne: Special Eye WHEN & WHERE: 29 Sep, Athenaeum Theatre
ADRIAN BOHM IN ASSOCIATION WITH OFF THE KERB PRODUCTIONS PRESENT
The UK’s biggest-selling comedian and star of Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow
IA FIRST TIME IN AUSTRAL “The UK's most loved and treasured comedy performer today.” THE GUARDIAN
SPECIAL GUEST
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PERTH ARENA ON SALE THIS FRIDAY BOOK AT TICKETEK.COM.AU 132 849 Michael McIntyre “The Complete Laughter Boxset” available on DVD from 28 November MICHAELMCINTYRE.CO.UK • OFFTHEKERB.CO.UK • ABPRESENTS.COM.AU
THE MUSIC • 11TH SEPTEMBER 2013 • 27
Lucifer but brought out even prouder this time round. Almost obliterated is the punk aesthetic that drew the two together, after the winding up of their former bands Some Girls and The Plot To Blow Up The Eiffel Tower. With titles like Gimme Some Annihilation the duality of ‘violence and beauty’ Welchez has spoken about in the past is definitely present, but when he’s singing “I want nothing more than to be your Marquis de Sade” there are plenty of oohs and ahhs to sweeten the suggestion. It’s a beautiful tension that runs through the album, and Welchez counts it as the thematic glue of Crimes Of Passion. “I think we tend to stick to the subjects of love/hate a lot – one or the other. Every once in a while there’s a social comment made, every once in a while there’s something else expressed, but most of the time they’re love or hate songs.”
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CRIMES OF PURPOSE San Diego duo Crocodiles don’t let the fact that there’s an ocean between them stop them from making music together. Amber Fresh catches Brandon Welchez nestled between cats and learns how to make an album in a week – in a bedroom, no less.
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hen Brandon Welchez’s voice washes down the phone line, he’s on a bed between two cats: a bombay (“Helmut”), and a tabby (“Johnson”). It feels like a fitting image, somehow, as the backdrop for a discussion of the band and their latest offering, their fourth album in five years, Crimes Of Passion. Along with fellow bandmate Charles Rowell, Walchez seems to musically and personally exude a simultaneous sense of casualness and hard work, and of course lashings of effortless cool, but with a sense he wouldn’t particularly like to be labelled that way. It’s hard not to though – the band’s 2009 bedroom-recorded debut Summer Of Hate, released following some high-profile love by No Age; 2010’s Sleep Forever recorded in the Mojave desert by James Ford; and 2011’s Berlin creation Endless Flowers, are all embodiments of cool, and recording Crimes of Passion in one week with the help of The Raveonettes’ Sune Rose Wagner seals the appellation. For Welchez though, it’s just how things panned out. “We supported The Ravonettes on tour in 2009 so we were already friends with them. We hit it off on that tour. And we discussed working together back that far but it didn’t really pan out. He [Wagner] lived in New York at the time so I would hang out with him here and, you know, I really trusted that he knew where we were coming from. So when the time came, luckily there was a week window there where we were available and he was available. So we just flew out to LA, Charles and I, and spent a week just in his bedroom in his house in LA.” The limitations of recording an album in a week, and in a bedroom – not unheard of but certainly not the easiest undertaking – provided the duo with the compressed time they’ve become accustomed to, with both band members living on opposite sides of the globe: Welchez in New York and Rowell in London. “We didn’t have time to fuck around,” Welchez explains. “It was in his
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[Wagner’s] house so we didn’t really have loads of gear to experiment with and we also didn’t really have time to. We knew we had to go into it with a pretty clear concept of what we wanted the finished product to sound like, you know? I mean there were some snap decisions made but we had demoed everything. Before we met up Sune had chopped them up and showed us his ideas. So it had all been pretty clearly examined and discussed. And yeah it was just pretty easy, pretty fast. The easiest recording we’ve ever done, for sure.” The product is an album which takes Crocodiles’ evolution another step further from the crunch, fuzz and noise of their first outputs to an aurally sunnier, brighter place, where there’s even room for a bit of spoken-word and some unadulterated piano on opening track I Like It In The Dark, sounds hinted at in Endless Flwoers’ My Surfing
Between Welchez and Rowell though, it’s all love. After leaving San Diego Welchez went to New York and Rowell ended up in London, changing the possibilities of how the two would work together as the project continued post-San Diego life. “When we were living in the same city we could just go over to the other’s house with like the tiniest idea and work on it together, whereas you’re not going to just email somebody some piece-of-shit riff if you think it might possibly be something. So individually we go over our ideas a little bit more than we did when we lived in the same city, but I mean, we still really only work things up from a very skeleton point during our two week writing excursions that we have... And you know, once in a while we’ll collaborate on something from the ground up when we’re on tour or something, but we’re usually too hung over to get anything done!” Welchez laughs.
“EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE THERE’S A SOCIAL COMMENT MADE, EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE THERE’S SOMETHING ELSE EXPRESSED, BUT MOST OF THE TIME THEY’RE LOVE OR HATE SONGS.” “We’re separated by an ocean,” Welchez puts it with pathos, but explains it hasn’t stopped the two, who have been playing together since teenage-hood, continuing the work and friendship ties as strongly as ever. “I mean I typically see Charles when we have band business to do, so I see him for every tour and for a week or so before, and then you know, he’ll come out here, or I’ll go to London for two weeks. We’ll do that maybe twice a year to work on demos and stuff but we communicate every day by text or email; we still have an active friendship, it’s not just like music production together, I talk to him every day. But yeah, I don’t see him that often unfortunately...” Welchez laments. “But you know, absence makes the heart grow fonder, we make up for it in person, you know?” If making up for it in person includes putting out albums like the latest, then yes, we know. WHAT: Crimes Of Passion (Frenchkiss Records)
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fan fiction
A FOOL’S GOLDMINE SAILOR MOON
When the now-cast Fifty Shades Of Grey film eventually wraps, hits screens, and inevitably and depressingly makes Universal Pictures literal houses of money, it seems likely we’ll see more and more movies with their roots in the weird and wonderful world of fan fiction. But that’s not necessarily a great thing, as Mitch Knox explains. id you know that Fifty Shades Of Grey, EL James’ cringeworthy BDSM wish-fulfilment shitfest, began life as a piece of Twilight fan fiction? Not satisfied with the spectacularly terrible story of a century-old undead guy and his insatiable lust for teen flesh as written by Mormon housewife Stephenie Meyer, James decided Bella and Edward’s relationship could be improved upon, and wrote far more than anybody should about an effeminate vampire and beige personified getting freaky with each other. And then she decided other people needed to read it, too. She called it Master Of The Universe, though it contained disappointingly little of He-Man, and published it online.
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The final version of Fifty Shades is revised – impossibly handsome billionaire Christian Grey and naïve grad student Anastasia Steele replace Meyer’s totally copyrighted characters, for starters – but it wears its fan fic roots on its sleeve, which perhaps it can’t help, on account of the remedial prose and dearth of synonyms down there. It’s like the book’s editor got through a chapter 30 • THE MUSIC • 11TH SEPTEMBER 2013
and just went, ‘Screw it’, decided that grammar and a varied vocabulary are for pussies, downed a shot or six and waited for the cash to roll in. And roll in it did. Make no mistake, you made this possible. Well, not you, but people – the buying public. You snapped it up faster than the Harry Potter series, vociferously purchasing 70 million copies’ worth of mangled trees to devour the literary equivalent of a 15-yearold narrating a porno, and now it’s being turned into a goddamn movie. Fan fiction (or work that had its genesis in fan fiction) has become a credible source for movie ideas. It’s the beginning of the end. The well, for better or worse, has been sprung. Fan fiction, if you’re unaware, is the collective name for works of fiction written by fans. Fans of TV shows, movies,
anime, manga, books, plays, bands… you name it – it’s been written about by people who love it in ways which only those people with the strongest sense of social justice could reconcile in their own brains. Fan fic is a wildly varied movement, running the gamut from 300word, harmless stories about the time One Direction went to the mall all the way up to 60,000-plus-word epics about the time One Direction went to the mall and then went home and had a five-way. There’s literally something for everyone, including the kind of people you had no idea even existed. People who would write an Emperor’s New Groove/Star Wars mash-up and call it The Empire’s New Groove, or spend 10,000 words detailing John McClane’s (Die Hard) adventures on the Enterprise-D (Star Trek: The Next Generation). And then there’s the disturbing stuff. Stories that would make David Lynch’s hair turn jet-black and then white again… “Bastard!” Piglet pulled out his sword. “No, Piglet. Death is too easy. I want to savor my revenge. I’ll have my revenge! Tigger, bend him over!” “That’s what tiggers do best!” “Afraid of me even now, Pooh? Why don’t you fight me, single combat? Too cowardly to fight a cripple?” “No...” Pooh pulled down his breeches. His magnificent golden penis stood in the air like a golden statue. It made his golden hand look like dull copper. “I prefer to make you suffer!” Hey, do you remember the time Game Of Thrones’ Jaime Lannister met and was raped by Winnie the Pooh? Because Master_Jay, the guy that wrote the
CUPCAKES BY OCARINAPLAYA
BATMAN HEARTS JOKER
“THERE’S LITERALLY SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE, INCLUDING THE KIND OF PEOPLE YOU HAD NO IDEA EVEN EXISTED.”
CUPCAKES BY OCARINAPLAYA
text from which the excerpt above is taken, apparently does. It gets much worse, really quickly. Those are the depths (or heights, depending on your perspective) to which fan fiction sinks (rises), sometimes. Honestly, My Little Pony fans are responsible for some of the most aggressively insane narratives ever written, such as the horrifying Sweet Apple Massacre and the truly gut-wrenching Cupcakes, in which Pinkie Pie dismembers and devours her friend Rainbow Dash, because bronies (Google it) are clearly psychopaths. Pinkie selected a large butcher knife and walked behind the blue pegasus. “Hope you don’t mind, I think I’m gonna wing it now,” Pinkie laughed. That’s not even the worst of it – but it’s just not the sort of thing you subject someone to involuntarily. Consent should absolutely be required. Speaking of, do not look up Agony In Pink. Do you understand? Aside from massive trigger warnings, all you need to know is that it involves the pink Power Ranger, the villainous Lord Zedd and someone called Tortura (“torturer”). Written and uploaded in 1994, it’s become one of fan fic’s most infamous – if not the most – and was considered so offensive by the Australian government that in 2000 its existence was specifically cited as justification to block access to the alt.sex. stories newsgroup on proto-forum Usenet. You can find it now with ease, though. But don’t. Seriously. It’s worth noting that this isn’t a condemnation of fan fiction in general as a form of artistic expression. On the contrary – it’s an incredibly vital and valid outlet for people’s personal, sexual and creative impulses. There are some tremendous, genuinely astounding end results:
for example, the world’s longest piece of literature is a piece of Super Smash Bros Brawl fan fiction. Really. It’s more than three million words – eclipsing even War And Peace, the Bible and Atlas Shrugged put together, and then some – about Nintendo characters who sometimes fight each other. Presumably. But, even so, some fan fiction is terrible. And some of it is messed up. And some of it, as you’ve seen, is completely baffling. Then again, source material being terrible, messed up or baffling has never stopped Hollywood before, and it’s certainly not going to stop it when it comes to mining fan fiction for ideas – especially now that there’s high-profile precedent and they can basically pass it off as crowdsourcing. Jack Sparrow vs Jaws: The Movie: in a cinema near you soon. THE MUSIC • 11TH SEPTEMBER 2013 31
When you live there, you’re going to all these nights, and you have all these ideas but basically no time to get them all down. I wanted to take what I was doing more seriously, so I needed some space from all that.” Going from thriving in the London scene and using it as a motive to produce, to separating yourself from the scene in order to get more work done. It seems like a contradiction for someone so heavily involved in the dance scene as Dumont, but it has well and truly paid off. The first proper releases to come out of his out-of-the-way sanctuary were the For Club Play Only Vol. 1 and 2 discs. Finding theme in house, bass and contemporary dub, For Club Play Only now sits amongst a few other label releases as the thing to play European clubs. Fitting, really, given the name. It also thrust Dumont from the world of behind-the-scenes producer and intermittent DJ to a name in his own right.
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100% EFFORT Top-list UK producer Duke Dumont might have hit the big time thanks to one huge track, but there’s more to the man that now takes his craft very seriously. He chats to Cam Findlay about feeling at home in the studio as well as the forest.
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uke Dumont is big. That’s a pretty bloody obvious statement, when you think about the last year or so, and specifically one very popular song. Need U (100%), released in March this year, has pretty much become a favourite amongst a slew of electronic artists that were, and still are, releasing fully-packed albums’ worth of material. It officially put Duke Dumont, known to his parents as Adam Dyment, on the map. But that’s not where his story begins; he’s been a very busy man for many years. “I grew up in that kind of environment where what I’m doing now was nurtured, you know,” Dumont explains, not long before his 2013 Creamfields UK slot. He’s not wrong; Dumont was mentored by London house legend Switch, who’s lauded for various dub plates and producer’s roles, most notably for M.I.A. “It was just a matter of being in that place at the right time, really. When I started, it didn’t really feel like I was doing anything too weird or different. There was a lot of it going on, and it was going on everywhere, all at once.” Dumont started off purely as a DJ and remixer, making a name for himself at regular house nights and by cutting up tracks from Mystery Jets, M.I.A. herself and a knockout version of Bat For Lashes’ Daniel. From around 2009 right up until 2012, he was mostly known as a producer’s producer, being responsible for a huge amount of tracks laid down at dancefloors around his home country, but staying relatively unknown among the populace. “The whole studio environment feels comfortable for me,” Dumont says. “When you’re DJing in front of a large crowd, you’ve got two ideas pulling you either way, and other DJs will say the same thing. One, you’ve got the crowd, and what they want to hear; two, you’ve got your own style and your own creativity, which you have to stay true to. It’s hard sometimes to get the balance right between the two. But in the studio, you’ve got time and... separation, I think, from 32 • THE MUSIC • 11TH SEPTEMBER 2013
the crowd. You’ve got time to stop and think without distraction. Not a whole lot of time, because you’ve got to put deadlines on yourself, otherwise you won’t get anything done! But yeah, that environment is very important for me and how I work.” So important, in fact, that he took a seemingly drastic measure to separate himself from the crowd: he pulled up roots from London and moved to the forests of Hertfordshire, where his studio now sits among the trees. “It’s really beautiful, and it’s amazing to wake up in the morning and just walk out into the forest,” he explains. “The whole distraction thing is definitely part of it as well, though. I was finding that, when I was living in London, I was going out every night of the week, as well as weekends. I just had no time and motivation to work as much as I needed to.
“Those releases were kind of a shift in my working output,” Dumont says. “I’d never really done an idea over two releases before. I’d had EPs, but most of the things I had released had been singles over the internet or wherever. It was really the first time where I had decided to sit down and spend a long period of time on one idea. It was kinda freeing, in a way, but also really strenuous and time-consuming.” It was those releases that proved Dumont’s writing and production credit to the wider world, and what would eventually lead to Need You (100%). “Yeah, it was definitely surprising,” Dumont says of the tracks, which first got airplay on BBC Radio 1 before taking over the world. “When you’re sitting at home and writing something, you have absolutely no idea how it’s gonna go, how it’s gonna stand up. Even now, when I hear the track, it’s a really weird feeling. Because I wrote it, released it and kind of forgot about it after,
“WHEN YOU’RE SITTING AT HOME AND WRITING SOMETHING, YOU HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA HOW IT’S GONNA GO, HOW IT’S GONNA STAND UP.” it’s just now this track I hear all the time; I have to stop myself and think sometimes, ‘I wrote that’.” Don’t expect Dumont to be too self-aggrandising of that one track; he has his mind firmly set on the future, after all. “Because you can’t get bogged down in something you wrote a year, two years ago,” he explains. “If you keep thinking about some track and how it’s doing, you’re limiting yourself. You’re stopping yourself from focussing and putting as much effort as you can into what you’re doing now. Yeah, it’s good that the song’s done really well, but I can’t think about it too much. I’m still working every day, and that’s where my focus is, where my focus has to be. Like, this tour, coming to Australia and everything. That’s what I’m thinking about right now, that’s where my energy is going.” WHEN & WHERE: 29 Sep, Listen Out, Ozone Reserve
A BONE TO PICK After a quiet four years, Perth’s progressive rockers Eleventh He Reaches London are set to release their latest album Bānhūs. Guitarist Jeremy Martin tells Eli Gould how the time off has delivered their darkest work to date.
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lot can happen and a lot can change in four years. Since their formation in 2002 Eleventh He Reaches London have been through a heap of changes. While they started off as a post hardcore band in the early ‘00s, they quickly became one of the biggest bands in Perth. In 2005 they were the only main stage support for what was the biggest screamo/post hardcore festival, Taste Of Chaos, where they supported international heavyweights Killswitch Engage, The Used, Rise Against and Funeral For A Friend. Their debut release The Good Right For Harmony in 2005 and their follow-up Hollow Be My Name in 2009 have become
significant records in the Perth musical landscape, but after their release not much has been heard from the quintet. “We’ve been sort of pretty distant and absent from the scene for quite a while, and we’ve been focusing on getting the new material ready to go and we tend to fuss over the details,” begins guitarist Jeremy Martin on the reasoning behind such a long break. “But we work quite slowly as well; we’ve got other commitments and we’re all perfectionists in what we do and we want to put something out there that we’re really happy with.”
Bānhūs, set to be released in early October, also marks the first album to be written by the current line-up of the band. “The new stuff is more streamlined, and it’s easily the darkest stuff we’ve done,” Martin offers. “We’d written a few riffs and a few bits and pieces that were sounding darker and then we sort of said, ‘Let’s write a really dark album’, and it flowed from there.” It’s a bold change in direction, but one that the band realises could go either way with their current fans and being able to attract new listeners. Martin describes the sound of the new material as moody and atmospheric. “It came naturally to us [because] we’ve been listening to a lot of different stuff and a lot of moody stuff. I think we could alienate some people potentially with the new album and hopefully we’ll win some people over.”
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Bānhūs, the name of the album, is an old English word for body and literally translates to “bone house”. Lyrically the songs are also dark and focus on existence, death and misery but are hard-hitting in their approach to getting the message across. The album took three years to write, record and perfect. Martin believes it is the most honest, intricate and stripped-back record of their catalogue. Although there was such a big break between records, live performances and tours, the band has never been in a position close to disbanding. “We thought, ‘Let’s give this album all we can and see what happens,’ but there’s no intention for us to break up or call it quits soon after this album is released. But we acknowledge time is ticking and the band is not paying the bills, so other things have to. We’re excited to have the new record out there and hopefully people can enjoy it and take something from it.” WHAT: Bānhūs (Hobbledehoy Records) WHEN: 5 Oct, The Bakery
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LOVE AND DESPAIR
Placebo are back with their first album in four years. Frontman Brian Molko chats to Mark Hebblewhite about the dangers of the virtual world and being attracted to the “melancholic aspects of existence”.
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e’ve all been very aware that’s it’s been a while since we did a full album but this time around we were determined not to rush anything. We really wanted to focus on the quality of the record without feeling like we had to compromise on what we were doing.” So what have Placebo been up to since 2009’s Battle For The Sun? “Well of course we released the B3EP last year – and that was really just to give the hardcore fans some new sounds to tide them over until we finished the new album proper,” says Molko. “But really what we did was put our heads down and tour the world. After Battle For The Sun we were on the road for 18 months. After that I really wanted to take some time off and focus on parenting – so I took a year off to be with my son – and then after
proclaiming the joys of being alive and having the ability to give and receive love, Too Many Friends, which deals with the insidious creep of ‘online existence’, immediately sends him spinning downwards into bitterness and disbelief. According to Molko this dichotomy was not contrived for artistic effect – in his view that’s just the cost of existence.
deserve to feel sadness at any point in time is I think a form of self-sabotage. Naturally as a band we are attracted to the more melancholic aspects of existence – well, we find it more interesting to write about. The record is called Loud Like Love but it doesn’t have ten love songs on it: this is Placebo World so of course we’re going to explore the more dark recesses of emotion – obsession, jealousy, alienation, heartbreak, abandon – and even the absence of love and the effect that has on a human being.” Molko goes on to point to the aforementioned Too Many Friends as the perfect example of Placebo’s willingness to get deep into the recesses of human negativity. “Too Many Friends is based on real events. One day I was at my computer – and I don’t know what I typed into Google… what dodgy porn I was watching… and all of sudden my computer started advertising to me. Like, you know, I was a gay man into the fetish thing. And I remember saying to myself, ‘My computer thinks I’m gay today’ – what a ridiculous line to start a song (laughs). Around the same time, some friends of mine who use social media, and I should say that I don’t myself because I have enough trouble keeping up with my real friends, said they had to stop taking friend requests because they had too many friends. I started thinking ‘How can we ever have too many friends? Then I wondered how many ‘real’ friends do I actually have and how is the virtual world humans are creating
“THIS IS PLACEBO WORLD SO OF COURSE WE’RE GOING TO EXPLORE THE MORE DARK RECESSES OF EMOTION – OBSESSION, JEALOUSY, ALIENATION, HEARTBREAK, ABANDON.” that we signed a new deal with Universal Records for the latest album which we’ve finally finished. “The break was really good for me. I find parenting to be the perfect antidote to the crazy whirlwind, sometimes fulfilling but often superficial, world of rock’n’roll. My son is eight now and things are just getting more interesting every day (laughs). I’ve found that I’ve had to challenge all the things I used to take for granted in my own mind.” It will only take you a moment to realise that Loud Like Love has been worth the wait. The album’s magic lies not only in the band’s seemingly effortless ability to concoct an almost endless parade of infectious hooks and hummable melodies. Also impressive is the way the ten songs form a detailed case study into that greatest of human dichotomies: hope versus cynicism and despair. Where the title track sees Molko soar, 34 • THE MUSIC • 11TH SEPTEMBER 2013
“I see life as very bittersweet and I also believe that a lot depends on your attitude to life. My lyrics reflect this view and also the fact that I believe you have to live in a place of acceptance – that life isn’t always fair. Yes – life can be filled with joy if one is open to it but life is also invariably filled with challenges and sadness. To go through life thinking that we don’t
affecting the way we interact with each other? “Is it creating a new society founded on togetherness or is it simply creating a new form of social alienation? I think it’s very dangerous. People don’t have to communicate face to face anymore – you can do it from behind a screen. You no longer have to have the courage of your convictions – you don’t have to justify what you feel and what you really mean. The virtual world creates an amazing platform for the spineless. It’s both a fascinating and dangerous proposition to consider.” WHAT: Loud Like Love (Caroline/Universal) WHEN & WHERE: 3 Mar, Soundwave, Claremont Showgrounds
A NEW SCENE After a little time in the wilderness, Scenic are back with a new EP, and Troy Mutton chats to Adam Tucker and Eric Harrison about new directions, new tunes and no new-disco.
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aving taste-making Frenchman Joakim pick up one of your first ever tracks to release on his Tigersushi label is not something many can lay claim to, but it was where Perth four-piece Scenic found themselves a couple of years back with single, This Can’t Be. The resulting Magician remix found its way into many a wheelspinner’s platter, and piqued the interest of Australia’s own taste-maker extraordinaires Future Classic, who quickly signed the group. Since then, however, things have been somewhat quiet, with pesky irritations like university getting in the way. Fortunately for fans of the dreamy disco-pop outfit’s
smooth tunes, 2013 has seen a return in the single Shockwaves – the title track from their forthcoming EP – and founders Adam Tucker and Eric Harrison are excited to push a new direction in the young outfit’s trajectory. “The words ‘disco’ and ‘funk’ have been thrown around a lot for [the track] Shockwaves, but the others will probably put a firm end to that,” begins Harrison, “which is sort of what we always had in mind. A bit more alternative rock… Dancebased, [but] not too much disco going about the rest of the tracks.” It seems they’re ready to embrace the more live elements of the
PUSHING AHEAD
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idea of “reggae roots big band”, are world music writ large. It’s been a few years since The Strides have had a release-based foothold in the roots scene, with their last album Reclamation coming out in 2011. Not that they’ve been lax, though; the band have constantly toured up and down their state’s coast since then. “We’re about to kick the tour off this week, with a bunch of shows up and down the east coast,’’ the band’s sax player Jeremy Rose says on the eve of their first national tour in a while. “Coffs Harbour, Maroochydore, Byron Bay and the Gold Coast, places like
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Offering Air, Sébastien Tellier and the general French Touche scene as reference points, it’s the time away from Scenic that has offered them a chance to refocus, so much so that new music is already in the pipeline given Shockwaves has been ready to go for a while now. “I think it’s a good thing that we finished it a while ago. Now that it’s actually coming to the release date, it’s really excited us to make more music. We’re more excited now, and we have a clearer picture of the sound we want to be making. We’ve already written a bunch of stuff, we’re getting some material together now and we’ll hopefully have another song or two out by end of this year/early next year,” Tucker reckons, before Harrison adds, “We can quietly, confidently say we’ll be making our way to the east coast this summer and doing a couple of shows west as well, just getting back on the live bandwagon.”
WHAT: Shockwaves EP (Future Classic)
that. We’ve toured up the east coast about a dozen times now, but we’re still really looking forward to it.” Their third album is wrapping up now, with a release date aimed at the end of the year, ready for summer.
Sydney’s The Strides have been short of an album for two years now, but the hard-working world music dudes are back at it. Cam Findlay catches up with sax man Jeremy Rose. orld music’ is one of those catch-all terms that sits pretty comfortably in an industry which, let’s face it, has a big thing for catch-all terms. You’ve got everything from nu-house to post-dubstep now, but world music has been around for a lot longer, meaning... what? It’s music from the world? Isn’t that all music? Rant aside, the best world music does take that word to its extent, harnessing musical styles from as far away as possible into a homogenised whole. Sydney’s The Strides, pretty much filling the
group as well, which becomes a four-piece featuring Doug Armstrong and Harrison’s younger brother Nick. “We were really focused on making band-orientated music for this EP,” Tucker confirms, “and steering away from electronic influences. But in saying that, I think these new songs will work really well live. I think we’re obviously still really influenced by electronic, dancier sort of stuff. I think in the future we’ll re-address that.” They’re quick to dispel the suggestion they’ve thrown out their previous pop-leanings altogether, however. “I think we always want to make music that hits the pleasure centres. That’d be the best way to describe our music. You still want to make songs that are pop enough, but you want to be individual enough to make more experimental stuff and take new pathways.”
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Now, onto that whole world music thing. While the core of the band call New South Wales home, there’s enough cultural elements embedded in The Strides to make it emulative of almost any place you can think of. “The band formed around 2007, when there were three of us – the trumpeter Nick [Garbett], guitarist Matt [Smith] and myself,” Rose explains. “We all grew up in the same area on the south coast of New South Wales, but we’d all been living apart for a while. Some of us were living in New York and Europe and up in Byron Bay, but we all bumped into each other in a pub in Surry Hills. We were like, ‘Man, let’s get a band together’, so that’s what happened. What binded it all together was that we all had love for reggae and world music. Apart from that, we’d come from places that had very different musical cultures. And then that just built. “We always wanted to work with the reggae master Ras Roni, who’s such an icon in Australian reggae scene, one of the original reggae singers here, but from Barbados via London. We eventually ended up getting introduced to LTL Gzeus, who comes from the whole Islander background. So yeah, there’s a lot going on,” Rose laughs. He’s also pretty sure that being labelled as a world music band is inevitable. “I mean, we have all of these different backgrounds and styles, it’s just obvious that it was going to wok out this way. We love world music, and we always have. It’s just such a joy to play.” WHEN & WHERE: 11 Sep, Ellington Jazz Club THE MUSIC • 11TH SEPTEMBER 2013 • 35
He says Some Say I So I Say Light is a different album, and different for a reason. “Subconsciously, I’d stored up enough material since my last album so when it came down to write new material just flowed. I didn’t feel pressured or stressed as it was about having fun and making music.” He says he wanted to experiment and explore. “The new album’s still experimental in nature as this time I wanted to work with acoustic instruments and continue my exploration with electronics. I feel it’s evolving me as an artist. I work full-time in music and I’ve been able to immerse myself in the genres that I love.”
music
DAYS OF LAST Ghostpoet, aka Obaro Ejimiwe, ain’t no rapper, nor is he sure if he’ll ever record another album. But for now he’s waxing lyrical on the every day, one day at a time. Stuart Evans gets the low down.
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here is generally a clue to Obaro Ejimiwe’s lyrics. Ejimiwe, better known as Ghostpoet to the masses, is a melancholic MC with a reputation for lyrics that chronicle life’s variances. His prose is firmly rooted in the abstract. He laughs, “It’s not really that complex as it’s me mumbling over my diverse musical tastes and then getting people to like it. I don’t make records for anybody but myself and most times I go in with the mindset of making a record that I would like listen to.” He says he doesn’t want to be a pop star and his lyrics aren’t complex. “I mean, my lyrics aren’t as straightforward as an ABC rhyme or anything and they’re not Bob Dylan. It’s just me talking about the world as I see it.” After his 2011 debut album, which carried an abstract moniker (Peanut Butter Blues And Melancholy Jam) was shortlisted for the prestigious Mercury Music Prize, some tagged Ejimiwe as a neo-rapper – a guy who represented a new direction for British rap. He disagrees. “I’m not a rapper and would never describe myself as one. I’m a fan of rap music but I’m a fan of many genres. I listen to hip hop, trance, indie and all kinds of music and don’t need to limit myself to one genre. I hope the diversity comes out in my music as I don’t write to sound like one particular style.” Released in 2010, Peanut Butter Blues And Melancholy Jam was picked up by Radio 1 DJ Gilles Peterson’s Brownswood label and the album immediately earned praise for lyrics that spoke of everyday life. And by everyday life, that’s exactly what Ejimiwe speaks of: lyrics could reference a past takeaway, a movie or a dream he had last year. On paper it’s hardly the subject matter that speaks to a generation, yet Ejimiwe has achieved the feat of being completely and easily identifiable. He sees the funny side: “I just say what I want and what I feel. It’s me talking about everyday life, the people I meet and the situations that arise.” Nevertheless, the comparisons with rap are easy to reconcile. If rappers tell stories of personal adversity, triumph, hardships and life’s twists and turns,
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so too does Ejimiwe. Still, if comparisons are to be made it’s probably with Mike Skinner (The Streets) or Roots Manuva. Like Ejimiwe, both artists combine tales of gritty urban life with electronic and atmospheric influences. It’s evident in Ejimiwe’s latest and equally conceptual album title, Some Say I So I Say Light. “As strange as it sounds, the album title came to me in a dream,” he laughs. Having received such critical acclaim for Peanut Butter Blues And Melancholy Jam, Ejimiwe’s follow-up album was always going to stoke comparisons. Was he little more than a onealbum wonder? The thought never crossed his mind, although the success of Some Say I So I Say Light has surprised him. “I didn’t expect such great reviews as I didn’t think people would like it. I’ve realised as I’m getting old I’m getting more pessimistic. I’m really pleased with the reaction though, so it’s so far so good.”
Some Say I So I Say Light was largely recorded in analogue and in a studio, a stark contrast from the home recorded Peanut Butter Blues And Melancholy Jam, which was recorded via digital instrumentation. Established producer Richard Formby (Formby co-produced Some Say I So I Say Light) helped the transformation, or advancement. Although there was a need to bring in assistance, Ejimiwe’s quick to clarify that Formby’s contribution was a value-add, not a must have. “I knew I needed to bring in a co-producer as I wanted to get the best of this experience. Having a co-producer was about aiding and improving the music I was already making and not him making music for me.” He is also candid about the need for him to progress. “I knew that whatever I did after Peanut Butter Blues And Melancholy Jam I needed to develop as an artist and that my next album would have to be recorded in studio.” So his latest effort is slicker and more refined than his debut, yet manages to trend between gritty realism and over-the-top production. The other difference is the list of guest contributors – Tony Allen, Lucy Rose, Woodpecker Wooliams to name a few. Ejimiwe says the choices were deliberate. “I wanted real musicians to feature on the album. They may not be the typical commercial big headline acts but they are people with a reputation for their music.”
“I LISTEN TO HIP HOP, TRANCE, INDIE AND ALL KINDS OF MUSIC AND DON’T NEED TO LIMIT MYSELF TO ONE GENRE.” Content-wise, the lyrics and storytelling remain as abstract as ever, even if it’s relatable. If there’s an evident rationalisation for the new ideas on Some Say I So I Say Light, it’s because life has a canny knack of changing. That Ejimiwe writes about life and not about themes gives him plenty to say. “I just write about stuff. It could be something I’ve read or something I’ve watched on TV. It could be a bit of art I’ve seen. Themes don’t mean anything to me. It’s about exploring the world of emotions. We all feel some kind of emotion – black, white, tall, short, Australian or English – emotions are the one thing we all have in common.” You’d think that he’d have plenty of material for a third album. After all, life changes daily; new books arrive and the information age is relentless with who does what and why it matters. “I don’t have a clue if I’ll ever make another album,” he admits. “I still love making music and I’ll probably make another one at some point. What? How? When and where?… Who knows? I don’t.” WHAT: Some Say I So I Say Light (Liberator) WHEN & WHERE: 12 Sep, The Bakery
STRINGING US ALONG Peter Wilson chats to Dave Drayton about the puppetry of pelicans ahead of the new stage adaptation of Storm Boy.
components,” Wilson says of his Mr Percival. “So you study what the shape and the look and the movements are of a pelican – how does it move and does it waddle and when do the wings go out at certain points and how does the gullet work? The key elements when you look at a pelican are his lovely feet, the bill – the really long beak and the bill – and his wings.”
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a mechanised menagerie of fellow pelicans Mr Proud and Mr Ponder, penguins and snakes.
Shaka Cook and Michael Smith are the two actors under Wilson’s puppetry direction, both with only a handful of puppetry experience under their belts, though Wilson seems pleased to have two apprentices.
“The anatomics of how a creature works is really important, and the follow-through is to get into the making and the articulation; it’s quite a complex process going from a drawing on a page to fully realising these creatures on the floor and being able to give them the exact quality that you want as a puppetry director,” Wilson explains. He talks like a puppeteer, considered hands always shaping his conversation, pulling strings of thought or illustrating ideas with gestures so fluid they look choreographed.
“We realised one puppeteer was simply not enough; there are so many characters in this that we thought perhaps we should have two. I had a much better opportunity to create characters, I mean, at one point there’s three pelicans on stage, so how the hell do you do that with one person?
hroughout a lengthy and celebrated career, Peter Wilson has brought to life everything from horses to dragons through puppetry. Most recently, he was the mastermind behind the towering King Kong, the puppeteered primate star of the musical of the same name. While his current project is a little smaller – a pelican is no match for a giant ape – the character in question, at least in Australia, is as well-known as Kong: Mr Percival. Fifty years since the first publication of Colin Thiele’s children’s book, Storm Boy, and close to 40 years on from Henri Safran’s film version, the classic Australian story will finally grace the stage in an adaptation by Tom Holloway, directed by John Sheedy. Wilson will bring the pelican befriended by Storm Boy to life – alongside
SCENE FROM STORM BOY. PIC BY BRETT BOARDMAN
“There are three major articulated
SPACIOUS ANTICS Local psych-rockers SpaceManAntics got their first break as Big Splash semi-finalists, winning new fans and mustering the tenacity to record their first album, as Amber Fresh discovers from band members Broderick Madden-Scott and George Foster. “Pretty much 90 percent of our exposure came from Big Splash,” guitarist and singer Broderick MaddenScott explains. “We could tell Andrew [Ryan] was really trying to make it as friendly as a competition could be,” drummer George Foster adds. “With the Big Splash itself getting a lot of attention Andrew exposed all the bands through it as well – it seemed like he just wanted to get everyone out there.”
“The band just fell together because all our friends play music anyway,” Foster agrees. “Now it’s sort of morphed into a community basket of ideas, as opposed to just Brod’s music. It’s evolved into its own sound from recordings.”
“There’s the little baby pelicans, which he discovers in the nest,” Wilson cradles one hand, the fingers become hatchlings, “then with time passing the puppets grow, so they get this big,” Wilson, raising a hand to below waist height, performs a reserved fluttering of large pelican wings, “and then they transform again into the life-size characters. They’re a combination of a rod puppet, a directcontrol puppet and a Bunraku puppet. There are three ground-dwelling and three flying versions of the pelicans. The flying ones have wings that fold out – fully wide at the two-point-five metre width,” Wilson too now spreads full wings, “and as they’re released their wings spread out and they fly, and are seen to be flying off the stage.” WHAT: Storm Boy WHEN & WHERE: 21 Sep to 5 Oct, Barking Gecko, Heath Ledger Theatre
laughs. “I don’t know how you can still hear anything!” Adding members Jack Gaby, Nick Perkins and Blake Hart gave the ability to extend what Madden-Scott and Foster had begun, and they soon began recording as a whole group. “Our sound is a mixture of what we love, trying to recreate different aspects of it, and then putting a spin on it,” Foster continues, “which is why we want to record an album. I guess a lot of the sounds we want to portray get lost in the live context. In a way recording an album will give people a kind of mind frame to listen to the songs in.”
music
Having released EPs in previous band incarnations, the band were ready to dive straight into a full-length offering. “Everyone puts out EPs, but life’s too short for EPs,” Madden-Scott says with a grin. “We’re bored of EPs, and albums are fun. You can make a whole big story, a journey, as opposed to just having six songs.” Madden-Scott describes the upcoming album as a “loose kind of coming of age story using space as a catalyst,” sticking thematically with the band’s moniker. But although the boys have enjoyed the extra attention post-Big Splash, it’s still all about the jam.
SpaceManAntics were one of a number of local acts who got a taste of bigger things through the competition, funded by local music lover and business woman Maria Florides who Foster describes affectionately as “the Yoko Ono of Perth.” But the band began with Madden-Scott quietly recording songs on his own after a previous band dissolved into the ether. “It was George eventually that said, ‘Oh, let’s try play that song you wrote!’,” Madden-Scott explains. “At first it was just me and him jamming and then we slowly recruited other members.”
theatre
The evolution included Foster’s self-professed “very easy tendency to play extremely loud on the drums.” “Yeah, the transition from drum machine to violent drummer is pretty amazing,” Madden-Scott
“I guess it would be stupid to say that we wouldn’t want success with our music,” Foster says, “But I think at the moment especially that’s a long way away, and looking at everyone when we go for band practice it’s not like ‘Hey let’s make some money,’ it’s like, ‘Man that sounded sick, let’s play that again! Let’s have that jam again!’ I think for me that’s pretty satisfying.”
WHEN & WHERE: 13 Sep, The Bird THE MUSIC • 11TH SEPTEMBER 2013 • 37
film
REACHING NEW DEPTHS Despite featuring in numerous films as a teen, Percy Jackson star Logan Lerman still had to attend public high school. He chats to Anthony Carew about hating it, bonding with fellow Perks... actors and working with director Darren Aronofsky.
“M
y father sent me photos of Happy Meals or whatever from Carl’s Jr, with my face on that,” says Logan Lerman, with a smile. “That’s pretty weird. In fact, I try not to think about it; and I never look at that stuff. There’s no way for you to think about that kind of thing and have it not be weird.” Lerman is, these days, pulling double-duty. There’s the ascendant young-Hollywood thesp, who’s set to appear in Darren Aronofsky’s biblical epic Noah; the one who just finished five months of rehearsal opposite Brad Pitt and Shia LaBeouf for David Ayer’s WWII war movie Fury. And then there’s the kid with his face plastered on movie-themed fast-food tie-ins, the lead in the ongoing (there’s now two of ’em) Percy Jackson movies. Coming from the profitable post-Potter niche of magically-themed adolescent adventures – profitable for both publishers and motion-pictures – the story involves Ancient Greek myths rewritten as 21st century high-school saga, with Lerman playing the titular character, an angry and possibly-chosen-one kid whose deadbeat dad is Poseidon. Y’know, the god of the sea. Like so many films that end up on franchise merchandise, Percy Jackson: Sea Of Monsters features very few actual locations; but Lerman isn’t one who finds the endless green-screen work disorienting. “To me it’s just fun,” he says. “It’s just a test of your imagination. Before you shoot anything, you see a lot of key art, pre-visual animation, so you get a good idea of what you’re going 38 • THE MUSIC • 11TH SEPTEMBER 2013
to be working with. And then you just go out and play within the shot, within the frames, give the editor options for the editing room, and you just have a blast.” Lerman made the first film in the franchise – the epically-titled Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief – when he was 17, and touring the globe doing the promotional rounds was like a passport unto the world. Yet, by then, he was already a screen veteran. When he was eight, Lerman played Mel Gibson’s son in Roland Emmerich’s flag-wavin’ The Patriot and a younger version of Mel Gibson’s character in Nancy Meyer’s gender-trolling comedy What Women Want. After surviving a double dose of Mel,
playing a younger version of Ashton Kutcher (replete with Ashton Kutcher’s haircut) in the unintentionally-hilarious time-travel barney The Butterfly Effect was a piece of cake. Yet, while he kept turning up in major film productions as an adolescent – in a key role in the 3:10 To Yuma remake, and the car-crash Jim Carrey conspiracy-movie The Number 23 – Lerman still remained a high school kid. Sure, he was at Beverly Hills High School, but his recollections lack glamour. “My experiences in high school were basically just trying to get out of it,” he admits. “And feeling really lucky that I could work, that I had this other outlet that would allow me to miss school. I was at a big public school, the kind of place that’s so huge you just get lost in the masses. Maybe because there were so many people there, it was really, really competitive there, just all the time. Sports, academics, socially: everyone was competitive about everything. As much as I enjoyed my friendships there, I just really hated being there. I just wanted to be making movies.” Logan brought all that high-school angst to bear when he was cast in the lead in Stephen Chbosky’s self-directed adaptation of his novel The Perks Of Being A Wallflower. Its tale of social outcasts and victims of abuse at school in the ’80s has gathered a cult following behind both book and picture. “It was such a unique film to make, because everyone was so passionate about it: no one was just there like they’d shown up to work,” he says. Lerman cites it as his career highlight, as much due to
PERCY JACKSON: SEA OF MONSTERS (2013)
3:10 TO YUMA (2007)
“MY FATHER SENT ME PHOTOS OF HAPPY MEALS OR WHATEVER FROM CARL’S JR, WITH MY FACE ON THAT. THAT’S PRETTY WEIRD.”
his own coming-of-age experiences in making it; his friendship with fellow leads Emma Watson and Ezra Miller mirroring that which was happening on screen. “We were all really isolated from the people that we knew, and we took over a wing of this one hotel; we all had connecting rooms,” Lerman recounts. “We were basically just living together, making trouble, having a blast. It was just like in the film, where [characters] Charlie and Sam and Patrick end up getting really, really close: I ended up getting really, really close with the rest of the cast. So it was really satisfying for me both personally and professionally.” The Perks Of Being A Wallflower “opened a lot of doors” for the now-21-year-old actor. “It allowed me to meet with a number of directors who, before that, probably never would have.” Like Darren Aronofsky? “Exactly,” Lerman affirms. “I have like this kind of mental list of directors who have really inspired me, who I would love to be able to work with, or even just one day meet with. And Darren Aronofsky was very, very high on that list.” Aronofsky brought Lerman aboard for Noah, his large-scale take on the famous biblical fable. Lerman plays the deliciously-named Ham, the son of Russell Crowe’s titular oracle, and he’s full of near-religious reverence when talking of the movie. He calls it his first real grown-up experience of “heavy material and heavyweight actors”, playing a key role in a prestige-picture that scans as a mortal lock for Awards Show season. Not that he can talk too much about it. “It’s still somewhat shrouded in secrecy,” Lerman says
of Noah. “Even though I’m pretty sure you know what the plot is; I don’t think we’re fooling anyone with the story. But I don’t think anyone will be able to anticipate the way it’s been told, which is in a lot of ways really unexpected. I can’t really talk too much about it, yet. But I can tell you: it’s a fucking cool movie, man. It’s Darren Aronofsky. And I think we’ve reached the point where the technology we have, in this day and age, can take this ancient story and make it feel so immersive, make it so visually stunning. I can’t wait for the world to see it.” WHAT: Percy Jackson: Sea Of Monsters In cinemas 19 Sep THE MUSIC • 11TH SEPTEMBER 2013 • 39
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reviews
ALBUM OF THE WEEK
This week: the many uses of a cybernetic left arm (hint: offing criminals) in Killer Is Dead, a new documentary goes behind the myth of the author Salinger, plus The Weeknd continues to live up to the hype.
TRACK LISTING 1. Suite IV: Electric Overture 2. Givin Em What They Love ft Prince 3. Q.U.E.E.N. ft Erykah Badu 4. Electric Lady ft Solange 5. Good Morning Midnight (Interlude) 6. PrimeTime ft Miguel 7. We Were Rock & Roll 8. The Chrome Shoppe (Interlude) 9. Dance Apocalyptic
JANELLE MONÁE The Electric Lady Atlantic/Warner Her 2010 debut, The ArchAndroid, was one of the most elaborate R&B albums ever released and from the sweeping spaghetti western opening of Suite IV Electric Overture, it’s clear Janelle Monáe hasn’t toned down her ambition. The ensuing 67 minutes of The Electric Lady are packed with disparate ideas, all revolving in one way or another around psychedelic R&B, but nothing seems out of place. Monáe has friends in high places; Prince, Erykah Badu, Miguel and Solange Knowles add plenty to their songs, but they don’t come close to stealing her spotlight.
★★★★½ 10. Look Into My Eyes 11. Suite V: Electric Overture 12. It’s Code 13. Ghetto Woman 14. Our Favorite Fugitive (Interlude) 15. Victory 16. Can’t Live Without Your Love 17. Sally Ride 18. Dorothy Dandridge Eyes ft Esperanza Spalding 19. What an Experience
The Electric Lady makes up parts four and five of Monáe’s seven-part Metropolis suite, a lofty Afro-futurist concept expounding – among other things – the notions of love and sexuality among androids. Yep… But if you want to drag it down to its basic musical elements, the record still works. Rump shakers like Q.U.E.E.N. and Dance Apocalyptic are jubilant cuts of funk, Primetime is a devastatingly smooth slow-jam, the searing lead guitar on We Were Rock & Roll seems to cut the air and the groove of Ghetto Woman is simply watertight. The Electric Lady is, again, staggering artistry from one of the true geniuses in modern music. Monáe could be the most important R&B artist in decades; unfortunately her colossal musical ambition might just be too great for mainstream audiences to ever truly understand. Whether it’s a chart topper or not, The Electric Lady will go down as another classic for those willing to take a trip with her. Dan Condon THE MUSIC • 11TH SEPTEMBER 2013 • 41
album reviews
MANTRA
THE WEEKND
Ten To Two
Universal
To speak of a hungry MC doesn’t get to the heart of it. Hunger is about desire: I want food. Hunger is not starvation: I need food. So to describe Mantra as hungry is to miss the point. He doesn’t want to rap. He must rap. You can hear it in the ferocity of his rapid-fire delivery. You can feel it in the way he squeezes everything he can from a rhyme scheme before moving on to the next one. You can sense it in the mini-melodies that punctuate his raps. Mantra had to make Telling Scenes this way. He had no other option.
Abel Tesfaye aka The Weeknd is one dangerously seductive dude. He has knack for creating songs that make you feel ashamed and dirty, yet empowered and sexy all at the same time – something he established in spades on his 2012 compilation Trilogy. Most of those tunes had been previously released in separate mixtapes so his latest offering Kiss Land seems like a whole new ball game for the singer-songwriter.
Telling Scenes
Learn Your Language is a case in point. “Ya ya ya ya ya ya ya,” and then – bang! We find ourselves in Mantra’s world of words bouncing and boombapping along. It serves as the album’s mission statement: we are here to talk about talking. The Fear has a stunning moment a little after the two-minute mark where Mantra’s melodic command roams free before
Kiss Land
★★★½ segueing back to the hypnotic hook. Break Tradition deserves its reputation as a call to arms for all white ribbon wearers. Perfect Crime is striking and powerful; comfortably the album’s best. Problems? The skits detract from the album a little more with each listen. After all, a good joke gets boring faster than a good song; an average joke, faster still – a minor quibble. Telling Scenes is a compelling achievement. It’s the album Mantra had to give us. James d’Apice
Professional has an almost trip hop feel to it, setting the tone for the record in captivating fashion. The MJ comparisons shine through on The Town while the title track is a dark
WOLF & CUB
42 • THE MUSIC • 11TH SEPTEMBER 2013
The hype that has surrounded The Weeknd will always have some potential to disadvantage the music he puts out. But he continues to live up to it and produce the kind of avantgarde R&B that most other artists would kill to create. Sally-Anne Hurley
In Rolling Waves
Dot Dash/Remote Control
Still, the altered direction is worth a listen, particularly on tracks like second single I Need More, the rompy All Through The Night and the dreamy What
hybrid of electro, hip hop magic. The singer also teams up with previous collaborator Drake on one of the standouts, Live For, which is classic Weeknd – changing tempos, hitting high notes and holding our attention from start to finish. Pretty is another impressive number. It highlights Tesfaye’s vulnerability and sensitivity at its best.
THE NAKED & FAMOUS
Heavy Weight
Breaking onto the scene way back in 2005, Wolf & Cub managed to achieve a lot in a relatively short space of time – getting noticed off the back of a stellar debut EP, a thumbs up from QOTSA frontman Josh Homme and being the first Australian band to land a record deal with respected Brit label 4AD. Things have slowed for the formerly Adelaide-based four-piece (whose members are now in Sydney and interstate) and on their third effort to date, the band have gone for a less laboured and naked approach. Certainly from the sounds of things the band stuff seems to be second to whatever other artistic endeavours the guys get up to in their spare time, which lends itself to the conclusion that Heavy Weight wasn’t intended as any sort of ‘comeback’ album.
But if you’re looking for a complete sound overhaul from Tesfaye on this record, you might be slightly disappointed. While he does play around with more distorted sounds on some tracks, he generally sticks to the formula that he does best: bass-heavy beats with honest, intriguing and completely unique lyrics.
★★★½
Universal
★★★ More Could I Say, all of which appear on the latter half of the record. Joel Byrnes’ vocals have also been stripped of the heavily layered coat they were subject to on the previous two albums and this has meant less of a dark psych feel on the album as a whole, but that’s okay because the result is a well measured cup of influences past and present. Adam Wilding
Those tuning into record number two for NZ’s The Naked & Famous and hoping for more of the same featured on debut Passive Me, Aggressive You might be a little taken aback. For what’s happening here is we’re truly witnessing a young and tremendously talented outfit growing up. Their tones are moodier and their songwriting has matured spectacularly. Each song begins with minimal instrumentation and builds beautifully in its own unique way. It’s actually remarkable how a ‘formula’ as such can remain quite original throughout. Opener A Stillness is the older, wiser sequel to (previous hit) Young Blood, starting with little more than an acoustic guitar strum that eventually is built upon to a steady electro throb. Preceding single Hearts Like Ours mirrors the formula but perhaps invites a little of the
★★★½ youthful naivety the band is known and adored for while upping its anthemic ideals to just the right level. The Mess builds the pace a little and, if possible, sharpens the hooks even further. The Naked & Famous haven’t changed, they’ve grown. Older, and wiser, you can sense the band making songs that they want to play onstage, slightly more organic than their first LP. In Rolling Waves is one to file under ‘moody electro’ alongside The xx, and while it probably doesn’t have the outright smashes boasted on their debut, it feels as if this one will offer The Naked & Famous some well-earned longevity. Ben Preece
album reviews
★★★½
★★★½
THE DEVIL MARK WEARS PRADA LANEGAN
★★
PLACEBO
Loud Like Love
8:18
Imitations
Roadrunner/Warner
Heavenly/[PIAS] Australia
The latest release for Dayton, Ohio’s best known Godbothering head bangers, 8:18 continues The Devil Wears Prada’s love affair with melodic metalcore. All the usual hallmarks are here: double kicks, vocals alternating between screams and soaring melodies, as well as typically compressed guitars and bass. There’s even the odd dip into technical death metal with the opening strains of First Sight and Martyrs, which keeps things interesting. With plenty of chugging breakdowns and heart-palpitating beats, this album sees TDWP at the top of their game. Glenn Waller
Listening to Imitations, it’s easy to forget one is hearing the voice that fronted Screaming Trees and has contributed to the odd Queens of the Stone Age album. However, Mark Lanegan’s decision to make a covers album of crooners appears to be an inspired one. Frank Sinatra and Andy Williams get a reworking, with the heartwrenching Greg Dulli-penned Deepest Shade seeing Lanegan’s ragged baritone put to its best use. Like a smoky single malt aftertaste, Imitations lingers and requires more than one shot to fully appreciate its charms.
Striking for their love of big, dark ‘90s-flavoured rock melodies and colourful lyricism, Placebo became progressively softer ‘round the edges in 2006’s excellent Meds, and seventh record Loud Like Love continues the trend. It’s a tough sell from the get-go; AC piano ballad ode-to-socialnetworking lead single Too Many Friends opens with a particularly nauseating: “My computer thinks I’m gay,” and, while the fuzz smack-down of Rob The Bank and stadium-sized synths of Scene Of The Crime offset this somewhat, it’s not nearly enough to save this record considering Brian Molko’s usual heart-tearing minor key melodies are largely missing.
Glenn Waller
Tyler McLoughlan
★★★★
MAN MAN On Oni Pond Anti-/Warner
Caroline/Universal
★★★½
★★½
JACK JOHNSON
From Here To Now To You Universal From I Got You to Home – the first and last tracks that are especially worth mentioning, as they’re two of the high points – Jack Johnson’s new release is true to form. Johnson provides the same chilled, melodic and groovy vibes that he has offered throughout his whole career, which is either a good or bad thing depending on how you look at it. If you’re one of those who are happy with where Johnson is orientated in his direction, then this’ll be enjoyable for you. If not, then maybe it’s not for you. Lukas Murphy
★★★★
★★★★
NIGHTMARES ON WAX
SEBADOH
MGMT
Domino/EMI
Sony
Warp/Inertia
MGMT continue to explore the landscape of alternative psychedelic realities on their third album. MGMT loses the dense-and-intense-ities of Congratulations to take us on a whacky and whimsical magical carpet ride. Like Flaming Lips, they stand their idiosyncratic ground to give us a flavoursome feel-good pill of psychedelic pop weirdness. From the delightful bubbles of lysergic funkiness of Alien Days to the instantly gratifying psychedelic pop hooks of Mystery Disease, it’s obvious they’re on a mission to challenge our perceptions of reality. MGMT remain galaxies away from their contemporaries. Guido Farnell
Feelin’ Good
Defend Yourself
Following in the vein of their 2011 album Life Fantastic, Man Man are running with a sound that is a touch less eccentric than that of the three albums that came before. On Oni Pond, while full of dark oddities and a collection of unusual instrumentation, is tidily put together and gloriously – yet ungratuitously – peculiar. They’ve struck an absolutely perfect balance between accessible and bizarre and have yet again proven themselves capable of producing consistently impressive and imaginative music without borrowing too much from past material.
On the downbeat hip hop/soul/ leftfield tip, George Evelyn’s Nightmares On Wax project has few peers. With Feelin’ Good, the Ibizan-based Englishman continues his twenty-year unbroken winning run, drafting in a load of musicians to add deeper, lusher dimensions. Easing in, he drops gentle chill (So Here We Are), acoustic folk (Master Plan) and slow-motion jazzy Afrohouse (Luna 2) before pushing things up with a clutch of breaks and reggae dancefloor steppers, and anthemic ‘60s soul chop-up, Give Thx. Feelin’ Good is another picture of smoked-out consistency.
Indie icons Sebadoh’s first album in 14 years harks back to the vibe of benchmark sets Bakesale (1994) and Harmacy (1996), which will make fans very happy. As always the disparate songwriting vision and execution of main songwriting protagonists Lou Barlow (reflective break-up tracks: I Will, Oxygen, Listen) and Jason Lowenstein (angsty rockers: Inquiries, Beat) complement each other perfectly, and while these self-recorded tunes are reminiscent of their ‘90s pomp they still sound vital and contemporary. A more than welcome return from a band that paved the way for so many.
Justine Keating
Darren Collins
Steve Bell
MGMT
THE MUSIC • 11TH SEPTEMBER 2013 • 43
singles/ep reviews
★★★★
APACHE
INDIAN SUMMER
LILY & MADELEINE
Seams
Foreign Formula Remix EP
The Weight Of The Globe
Sweat It Out!
Spunk
As summer approaches, Aussie artists have begun trying to make the perfect ‘summer track’. Indian Summer have released a whole bunch of remixes to their track Foreign Formula. It’s a variety bucket of sounds in one EP, featuring remixes by Sinden and Cosmo’s Midnight. It’s the EP where you can’t stop moving, even in the most inappropriate of situations. The Yolanda Be Cool Grand Rapids remix is also featured on this track. Ladies bring out the tanning oil and guys get a few cold ones out; this EP is definitely set to sizzle.
Unlike a lot of other artists who got their foot in the door via a viral YouTube video, Lily & Madeleine actually have sustainable talent.
Independent
Independent
Kit Pop aka Justin Elwin’s latest release Seams is chilled in every sense of the word. It’s relaxing, mellow and creative beat making, following in the footsteps of Perth favourite Ta-Ku. The albums electronic vibe is sure to be the chill-out soundtrack for summer. Kit Pop’s production values are massive and his creativity runs wild through all of the eleven tracks on this release.
CARAVÃNA SUN Took The World Independent If you’re having a bad day or need a pick-me-up, look no further than Caravãna Sun’s new single. One listen and you’ll want to take your shoes off and run around on the beach until you collapse from exhaustion.
★★★½
KIT POP
Creatures Frontman Timothy Gordon has always had an interesting, carefree approach to music, and with this new eclectic project, he finally has an appropriate emotional release for his songwriter.
★★★½
Perth’s got some serious talent going around at the moment, and while Elwin started his beatmaking as a teenager, he’s clearly learnt the skillsets to deliver a crafty chilled out masterpiece.
Athina Mallis
Eli Gould
Their debut eight-track EP uses nothing more than perfectly seamless harmonies to lure in the listener, and from there, their lush blend of gentle folk with a modern age pop rock twist seals the deal. While drums, bass and keys expand their soundscape and add an unmeasurable emotional depth, the three acoustic numbers at the EP’s end prove they do it best with one acoustic guitar and their voices. Daniel Cribb
CATHERINE TRAICOS & THE STARRY NIGHT Light In The Dark An Ocean Awaits Records It’s a shame the world has to wait until the end of November for the full album, but for now, this single does wonders, as Traicos’ unique voice has an underlying, deep-seeded beauty to it that mirrors the song’s dark emotions.
★★★
★★½
★★★★½
MISERY SIGNALS
TIM FITZ
THE WALKING WHO
Absent Light
Unscene
Mansions
Strong
Warner/UNFD
Independent
Independent
Dew Process/Universal Music
Absent Light is a well-constructed metal record, but where Misery Signals have stepped up the game is by straying away from some generic scene idioms that get thrown around by way too many bands these days. They have shown that you don’t need breakdown after chuggachug breakdown to create a heavy record. The album is unpredictable, and has hooks and turns in every song which make you want to keep on listening. It has more melodic elements than any of their previous releases which create a record that is fresh-sounding and intricate.
The expectations for a first release are to queue up the EP, press play and cop a kick to the chops regardless of genre. The Wanderer’s opening ethereal, lo-fi guitar and electronic synth sounds cannot be appreciated nor can the effort made to create orchestral layering. Its location on the release lets it down. Tracks like this work best as a breath of fresh air interlude, not a first. Fitz’s voice is controlled and home-made. The tracks are short and don’t flow musically into a seamless expose. Unscene is a showcase of multi-instrumental skill, but it lacks confidence.
Looking for an exciting collection of indie-fuelled psychedelic tunes to usher in the spirit of summer? Look no further than Mansions. Recorded in a massive house in Sydney which has been transformed into an artistic playground, the tunes have clearly been influenced by the surroundings they were spawned in – the EP starts out light and relaxed with Rita and Have You Seen The Colours, before progressively becoming more mysterious and haunting for the final two tracks Dead Man’s Alter and Take My Picture. Chuck this one on repeat and enjoy!
Eli Gould
Katie Rolston
Jazmine O’Sullivan
LONDON GRAMMAR With Strong’s reverb-covered, weeping guitar and heartwrenching vocals, something special is lost when listening through computer speakers or a car stereo. Best enjoyed through headphones.
MOBY A Case For Shame Warner Here Moby’s collaborated with Cold Specks to produce another instant classic. His approach to production is what’s kept him relevant for so long; this is another shining example of his diverse skillset. Daniel Cribb 44 • THE MUSIC • 11TH SEPTEMBER 2013
live reviews
JOSH PYKE, PATRICK JAMES, OLYMPIA Astor Theatre 7 Sep For the final show of his latest album tour, Josh Pyke proved to the packed-out Astor why he’s one of Australia’s most loved musicians. The audience was treated to world-class music all night, first up with Melbourne’s Olympia. The creative mind behind the project, Olivia Bartley, played a magnificent solo set, delivering a stellar performance with heart and a voice so exquisite it inspired goosebumps. Her track, Sleeping Wolves, saw the loop pedal used
every single song a die-hard fan could possibly ask for, feeding them a good mix of old and new, spanning across all four of his studio albums as well as some of his earlier EPs. Old familiar track Memories And Dust had the audience singing along early, and his classic, Forever Song, was met with infectious enthusiasm. A personal highlight of the night, old cracker The Lighthouse Song was filled with such emotion and gave the set a more intimate vibe. New tracks Haunt You Love and Warm In Winter showcased the brilliance of the new album, and the final song before the pre-warned encore, Leeward Side, was met with an audience explosion upon commencement. An encore of four songs was provided and the set ended with just the man himself, his 12-string guitar and a loop pedal for his
Sydney’s Patrick James and his band delivered a cracking indie set, with musical stylings very similar to that of the headliner. His clever finger-picking guitar melodies and smooth, warm vocals had the audience mesmerised right from the beginning, and his single, Brighter Lights, was foot-tappingly catchy. Proving his versatility, his tribute to James Taylor’s Carolina In My Mind was so beautifully executed and so pure it rivalled the original. The endlessly charismatic, lyrical genius Josh Pyke took to the stage to raucous applause and launched straight into an older tune, Goldmines. Playing a killer set, he treated the audience to
Sydney’s Fishing were up next and it was clear they were in their element. Capitol was the perfect venue for the duo, as their heavy bass and beat-driven, almost exclusively instrumental melodies filled the room easily. Hard to describe is an understatement; their beats were
JOSH PYKE BY ANNI FORDHAM
JOSH PYKE BY ANNI FORDHAM
to fill out the sound with such expertise it was hard to believe she was the only one onstage. Her knack for clever and original songwriting was undeniable, and the audience was captivated.
were up first, and their brand of dreamy pop was similar to that of the headlining act. The four-piece band of youngsters used experimental techniques to create new and alternative sounds, one instance being the odd-looking but effective wagging of the microphone side to side to create a kind of rippled vocal effect. Their set finished off with an air of atmosphere, and it was only right at the end that the audience decided to dance along; none moreso than the photographer up the front.
new track, Bug Eyed Beauty. As always, Pyke’s incredible live energy translated songs from his records into an astounding show that left the audience wanting more. Now excuse me while I mop up my exploded ovaries. Tash Edge
SNAKADAKTAL, FISHING, THE FLOWER DRUMS Capitol 6 Sep An unusual venue choice for the musical stylings of Snakadaktal, Friday night’s set from the band’s new album tour proved interesting. Barefooted Perth locals The Flower Drums
almost trip-hoppy electronica, with a tropical, ocean influence. Working together with such clarity, they were oddly engaging despite looking almost exclusively away from the audience and speaking very little. Moving seamlessly from one song to the next, the digital element of their set was fascinating; much like watching Gotye live, there is just too much going on to fully comprehend how they’re actually making the music. Ending on a cover sounding suspiciously like TLC’s Waterfalls (though hard to tell through all the distortion) these guys were the highlight of the night. Taking to the stage pretty early for a Friday night headlining gig, Melbourne five-piece Snakadaktal played a good mix of old and new songs. Hottest 100 ranking track, Air, had the audience singing along, a good reminder of why Australia fell
in love with this band. Very reminiscent of Iceland’s Of Monsters & Men, the title track from the new album, Sleep In The Water proved just the right mix of driving drum beats and slow ambience that these guys do so well. Arguably the band’s most well-known song, Dance Bear, had the audience singing along again, though the slow, atmospheric tunes in between were drowned out by the loud, swelling and increasingly inebriated crowd. Unfortunately the venue choice was not ideal for their more ambient numbers, and despite the fact that their performance was impressive, this counts for little when the band is hardly heard over the raucous crowd. Tash Edge
JOSH PYKE BY ANNI FORDHAM
MIDNIGHT JUGGERNAUTS, USURPER OF MODERN MEDICINE, FASCINATOR Amplif ier Bar 8 Sep It was a night dedicated to electronica weirdness at Amplifier as Fascinator kicked things off. Taking precautions to not reveal his identity, he altered his voice with various pitches and wore a black veil cross cap to hide his face. Add to that a shiny gold tunic as if he had stepped off a flight from Dubai. He played an electronically entertaining set of songs; it was as if the audience THE MUSIC • 11TH SEPTEMBER 2013 • 45
live reviews was transported on an LSD trip set in an electronic India.
and synth to become the next big thing in electronica.
Usurper Of Modern Medicine came on stage and exploded into their set, basically shooting the ice out of everyone’s plastic tumblers. It was a combination of rock and electronica that made this band so interesting. The room quickly filled up as Usurper’s notoriously un-pidgeonholeable sound filled the room. They were clearly enjoying themselves moving around, head-banging and hip shaking and the audience was definitely mimicking the band’s movements. The Usurpers guys are releasing a brand new album next year, so more big things on the horizon for the trio.
Athina Mallis
Midnight Juggernauts appeared from a haze of smoke and from the get-go cast an electronic spell over the audience. All were wearing matching kimonos, their faces covered with tribal print. Building on the energy of the launch for their third album,
FUCKING TEETH, DOCTOPUS, CATBRUSH The Bird 8 Sep A Peter Bibby special brought the Bird family together as one big horde for a rare Fucking Teeth performance on Sunday night. Catbrush began the evening with a gutsy display of rock and roll, displaying their versatility with a variety of tunes ranging from the speedy and punked up, to the slow and grungy. It proved to be a fantastic start to the evening. Doctopus were next to take up the reigns, conceding they were to play a shorter-than-usual set because
MIDNIGHT JUGGERNAUTS BY KIERAN CHEW
Uncanny Valley boys played old songs, new songs and some in-between, though it was mostly music off their new album, such as Ballad Of The War Machine and Systematic. Midnight Juggernauts took the audience on a synth journey where no body was still. A 40-something-year-old couple stole the show, their extravagant dance moves becoming a part of their spectators’ camera roll. Everyone looked as if they belonged in a tai chi class for hippies. The Juggers ended their set with some classic songs Into The Galaxy and Vital Signs. However, it wasn’t the end of their set; ten minutes after they finished, they reappeared on the stage, brought people up with them and busted out some more moves, causing a frenzy in Amplifier. The night was full of synthetic beats and general weirdness, probably inspiring everyone to buy a keyboard 46 • THE MUSIC • 11TH SEPTEMBER 2013
the drums into a pulp, while Bibbs worked the crowd into a frenzy while introducing the ever-popular track, Medicine. There was a minimosh forming at the front of the stage by the time I Wish You Were Dead was played, and it continued right up until the end of the set. The buzz of energy that swarmed across the venue afterwards was tribute to how brilliant the band were – for now, it’s simply a matter of longing for the next show. Kane Sutton
THE GROWL, PETER BIDDY The Ellington Jazz Club 6 Sep Sealing a hectic year of touring with two gigs back on their home turf, the lads from The Growl were greeted at the Ellington Jazz Club by friends and fans eager
MIDNIGHT JUGGERNAUTS BY KIERAN CHEW
“Jeremy’s just vomited everywhere; we were drinking hard last night and somebody was going to.” Luckily there were no detrimental effects on the performance, as the trio swaggered through a raw and up-tempo set which lasted all of 20 minutes. Bellair’s alternated between subdued tunefulness and high-pitched yell-singing about people being “shit friends,” and the crowd certainly enjoyed it. It’s what the night was all about. All in all, Doctopus were fantastic and tonnes of fun to watch. Finally, it was time for Fucking Teeth, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many people crammed into the Bird’s stage-viewing platform. Choosing to stand upon one of the seating ledges, I had a perfect view of the action as the local legends launched into Spastic Dog Dick, complete with animalistic howls. Drummer Anetta Nevin was phenomenal, shrieking into her mic constantly while beating
to get down and dirty with the band for one last time in 2013. Initially awarded to the local vocals of Mei Saraswati, the opening slot was filled in her absence by Perth expat Peter Biddy. Now living in Melbourne, Biddy travelled with the band for the east coast leg of their weeklong national tour and became a last minute addition to the night at the Ellington. Usually performing as Peter Biddy & His Bottles of Confidence, Biddy was just as happy to brave the stage alone. His casual banter and off-beat tunes had the crowd captivated and the more formal Friday night punters in the cocktail lounge a little raw around the ears. “I want to be murdered and chopped into chunks,” sang Biddy, followed by a song that progressed from “I want to give head” to “I wish you were dead”.
With the crowd perfectly primed, The Growl sauntered onto the stage, slightly tired and dishevelled-looking after what Avery referred to as “a big night in Brisvegas”. The band’s frontman tends to pull the focus during their performances, with Father John Misty-esque swagger and sway, but in the intimate jazz venue, bassist Marc Early with his six-foot tall double bass took centre stage. Touring in the name of the third single off their debut album, Douse The Lamps, Avery led the band through a smorgasbord of both old and new work, stripping back some songs to prevent “blasting everyone’s faces off ”. 3, 6, 9 and the band’s cover of Blind Willie Johnson’s John The Revelator were familiar favourites for the home crowd, with newer tracks from What Would Christ Do??, such as Eleven, Cleaver Lever and In The Belly Of The Beast received
MIDNIGHT JUGGERNAUTS BY KIERAN CHEW
with equal gratitude. Liarbird was dedicated to friend and local muso Amber Fresh and was a clear favourite. A lot of the band’s show only involved a few members at a time, tending to promote Avery’s skill set, with a few of songs pared right back to just his voice and the bass. While this did sound fantastic, the gig’s best moments were when the band came together as a whole. The Growl is a damn fine live band, and a real asset to the Perth local music roster. What would Christ do? Get out to see them when they return to the stage next year. Tess Ingram
THE MUSIC • 11TH SEPTEMBER 2013 • 47
arts reviews
SALINGER
SALINGER Film
In cinemas 12 Sep It is hard to know for whom Salinger – a documentary on The Catcher In The Rye author J.D. Salinger – has been made. Salinger aficionados are already well versed on much of what has been to put to screen. A
48 • THE MUSIC • 11TH SEPTEMBER 2013
running length that clocks in at two hours on a man who only published one novel and spent much of his life in a writing bunker will test everyone else. Filmmaker Shane Salerno does try to infuse the film with some new revelations about Salinger. To that end, the film relentlessly pursues the question: did Salinger write any other novels during his years in the bunker? The
SALINGER
film answers that question with a grandiose climax that has been spoilt by most news media. The documentary style itself can be gimmicky: flashing up text to prepare us for never-before-seen footage of Salinger that turns out to be quite irrelevant; filling out interviews with celebrities to distract from lack of access to Salinger’s family. Much of Salinger remains a mystery and
the film is effective when it evokes a Salinger myth akin to Bigfoot. The film really hooks you in with glimpses of insight to a defining moment of Western culture – the release of The Catcher In The Rye. The lasting impression is that it is not the man that matters, but the work. Samuel Hilton
AN RTRFM EVENT
BIG EAR CHAD FOXMAN SUPER-J MICROGROOVE SPUD MURPHY CLAUDE MONO MAMA CASS MC JONNY HOPPER
FRI 20 SEPT DEVILLES PAD 8PMLATE
PRESALE TICKETS: $10/$15 FROM RTRFM.COM.AU DOOR TICKETS ON THE NIGHT
THE MUSIC • 11TH SEPTEMBER 2013 • 49
games tough to imagine that those long nights as a little ‘un would continue in much the same way as they did – a loop of anticipation, addiction and satisfaction.
★★★★
CASTLEVANIA: LORDS OF SHADOW Konami PC
Immortality has a new name and it is Castlevania. The legacy of the legendary franchise stretches from the dawn of 8-bit gaming through to the current incarnation Lords Of Shadow and continues to land knockout blows in terms of gameplay, story engagement and raw silicon beauty. It was
The story of the vampirical Belmont family continues much as it started: battling against an unrelenting supply of werewolves and other nightmarish beasties employed by local apocalypse merchant Dracula. Don’t let the vampire connotations detach you – the serious legacy of these bloodsuckers were established well before the concept was ridden into the ground by Twilight. It remains faithful to the original concept of conflicted romance, tragedy and terrifying violence and the perfection of the gameplay creates a pathway to tap directly into the beating pulse of the story. The graphics are jaw-dropping; a perfect blend of artistry and functionality while providing an arena in which to spill some serious blood. The fight mechanics are flawless with a gentle learning curve and depth added by level ups and bone-breaking combos. Clear your schedule for this one; it’s completely off the chain. Simon Holland
KILLER IS DEAD
★★
Suda 51
Xbox 360/PS3 It’s the future. You’re Mondo Zappa, a hired killer with a cybernetic arm that drinks blood. Mondo flies around the world to fight and kill other evil mutant killers. Aesthetically, the game is drenched in hallucinatory neon visuals evocative of Yoshiaki Kawajiri’s amazing anime Wicked City, but that’s as clever as Killer gets. Case in point: you face a
the wind and crunches underfoot. It’s a joy to emerge from your burrow – cubs in tow – and bask in your pastel playground. Clicking your mouse produces a ‘bark’, followed by five miniature yelps from your progeny; Shelter’s first five minutes will have you grinning like an idiot.
SHELTER
★★
Might & Delight PC/Mac Indie games are a terrific breed. Lacking the colossal budgets of their AAA brothers, indies often dabble in creative art direction to stand out from the pack. Enter Shelter, a playful title featuring artistic direction that oozes beauty and style. Players take control of a Badger, mother to five adorable baby badgers, on an adventure through the forest. Shelter’s world is a whimsical paper craft wonderland; the forest rustles in 50 • THE MUSIC • 11TH SEPTEMBER 2013
Despite the lovable sentiment, Shelter commits some serious game heresy. In the hour it took me to reach the credits, I endured a lack of meaningful game mechanics. The first time I took refuge in tall grass while a predatory bird circled overhead was gripping. The third time, I realised Shelter’s inspiration stops at its striking aesthetics. I’m aware of Shelter’s minimalist approach – it’s not trying to be StarCraft. The player is supposed to enjoy the game’s simplicity and admire the visuals (difficult to do when the camera keeps bugging out). Ultimately, Shelter suffers from a lack of substance. There are better indie games out there that deserve your money; if you want to enjoy Shelter’s art there’s always David Attenborough documentaries. Andrew Sutton
★★★ ½
WORMS CLAN WARS Team17 PC
When Worms debuted in 1994, its 2D gameplay was probably due to the facilities available to the developers at Team17. But with the release of Worms Clan Wars, it’s clear the simplistic layout of the series is what makes it so appealing to long-time players and the uninitiated. In 2003, a shortlived 3D version of the game surfaced; its lack of a follow-up
young woman who complains she has a back-ache. She then explodes with gore and mutates into a girl-o-pede: her thighs become mandables, her spread legs become a mouth, and a mutated mantis-head emerges from her vagina, which you have to draw out and hack off. Which could be, like, cool and metaphorical, except the game is so incoherent Mondo’s barely uttered another forgettable one-liner before you’re off to kill the next killer dead. The game’s dialogue is a mosaic of shitty clichés. Once you crack each bosses’ dodge/slash/dodge morse code, you’ve basically got a visually arresting whack-a-mole. Also, if you haven’t learned how to google “big ol’ titties”, there’s this gross mini-game called giggolo mode between missions where Mondo has to distract women at a bar via inane conversation to stare at their immense gourd-like breasts; this powers up your “love meter” or something - if you perv out for long enough you get to take them home for MA15+ video game seks. Yeah, nah. Callum Twigger was proof what fans really love about this series. In 2011, Worms: Revolution literally revolutionised the series, improving almost everything about the game, which is why it’s surprising they’ve managed to outdo themselves this time around. With Worms Clan Wars, Steam Workshop Integration allows players to customise their worms (that’s a weird thing to say), and with improved online gameplay, the game is as addictive as ever. While Team 17 stayed true to the 2D platform, the 3D engine used sees the visuals drift away from the cartoon-like classics the game used to employ. When you first run the game, you’re forced to play a ten-minute tutorial, which veterans may find annoying. Along with improved online gameplay and Stream Workshop Integration, there are also new weapons: Mega Mortar, Gravedigger, The Equilizer. There’s nothing new about the latest title in the Worms series, but that’s a good thing. If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it. Team17 have managed to release pretty much the same game for the tenth time and keep it fresh. That’s a pretty impressive feat. Daniel Cribb
muso
BEHRINGER UFX1604 & 1204 MIXING DESKS Behringer’s new UFX 1604 Mixer (ssp $1145) has taken versatility to the next level by integrating 16-track digital recording into the traditional desk. Now, you can record your mixes directly to a USB without your computer. There are eight Xenyx mic preamps and eight line ins, with on-board compression, British EQ (two sweepable mids) and dual studio grade FX processors for professional ‘in-the-box’ results. You can also plug the 1604 into your computer via USB or Firewire, mix down your tracks in your favourite DAW (or with the included Traktor 4 software) and as soon as it’s connected, the desk instantly becomes an audio interface and control surface via MIDI. If the 1604 is too much, then the Behringer UFX 1204 (ssp: $765) is for you, still containing the16-track on-board digital recorder, but with four Xenyx mic preamps, eight line ins and a single FX processor. Reza Nasseri
KEMPER PROFILING AMP
The Kemper Profiling Amp is one of the most exciting, revolutionary products to have ever entered the field of amplification, because nothing does what the Kemper can and that’s “profile” your own guitar amp. It does this by sending test signals and capturing different break points in the preamp, power-amp, speakers and microphone, so the profiles respond, feel and sound exactly the same. Each profile takes about 45 seconds to complete and 52 • THE MUSIC • 11TH SEPTEMBER 2013
BEHRINGER X32 COMPACT DIGITAL MIXER
The original Behringer X32 took over three years to develop, with collaborations from Midas and Klark Teknik, so it entered the market with the confidence, technology and knowledge attained by learning from its predecessors. The new X32 Compact gives you the same desk in a smaller format that’s easier to take on the road and to fit into smaller venues. The X32 Compact (ssp: $3349) features 16 Midas-designed pre’s, six line inputs, USB input, eight XLR
outs and 17 motorised faders. You also get an additional 16 pre’s via AES50 and eight true stereo FX that you can integrate into your mix while walking around the venue making real time adjustments with the X32 iPhone app. What’s great about the X32 Compact is it can be as simple or detailed as you want it to be, with the ability to sculpt the perfect mix beforehand, or to mix on the fly as a well laid-out desk with a quick learning curve. Reza Nasseri
MATON ECW 80 HERITAGE ACOUSTIC GUITAR
if you’re unable to profile your dream rig you can jump online and download it. A powerful DSP also packs in a tonne of salivating effects on par with the best in the world. Currently you can get the original Kemper head in black or white, a rack version, Powered Head, or Powered Rack (both in black, $4199 RRP), both featuring 600 watts of Class D power, allowing you to plug into your favourite cab and use it like a regular amp.
Maton’s new ECW 80 Heritage goes back to the company’s roots, mixing the big bass of their ‘70s CW80s with today’s technology. These guitars feature AA-grade spruce tops, sepele (mahogany) back and sides, a mahogany neck and rosewood fingerboard that’s amplified by their new AP5 Pro Pickup. The guitar plays, sounds and looks gorgeous in a honeystained satin finish and a retro Maton heritage logo. The neck is quite thin, with a medium depth and action suited to a wide range of styles, projecting a full, rich tone with an amazing depth of bass. Plugging in the new AP5 Pro pickup provides incredible versatility by combining an adjustable dynamic mic inside the body with a piezo pickup. The tiny circuitry of the preamp is housed on a single PCB that’s free of electrolytic capacitors (known to introduce fuzz) and is mounted directly into the body, so it won’t rattle over time.
Reza Nasseri
Reza Nasseri
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54 • THE MUSIC • 11TH SEPTEMBER 2013
the guide
PERSONAL BEST RECORDS MANIMAL
AKA James Beecroft The best record I stole from my folks’ collection was… Pete Townsend - Face the Face The f irst record I bought with my own money was… Nirvana - In Utero The record I put on when I’m really miserable is… Cajmere - Percolator The record I put on when I bring someone home is… Boards of Canada - The Campfire Headphase My favourite party album is… In Flagranti - Brash & Vulgar The best album to comedown to is… FlyLo - Cosmogramma The most surprising record in my collection is… Klaus Nomi - Klaus Nomi The last thing I bought/downloaded was… Waze & Odyssey - Gonna Make This The record I’m loving right now is… Fantastic Mr Fox - The Trap When and where are your next gigs? Tiny Cub, Fri 13 Sep, The Good Shepherd; Get Weird 1st Birthday, Fri 20 Sep, Shape Bar Pic by Girl
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the guide wa.live@themusic.com.au
FRONTLASH
LIVE THIS WEEK
HEAVE-HO
After a brutally partisan weekend, we hope West Australians can put aside their ideological differences and unite for the dawn of a new era: Freo are through to the semi-finals. Good luck.
WA WOMEN Curtin’s Julie Bishop is set to become Deputy Prime Minister, and Perth’s Alannah Mactiernan is a favourite for at least a couple of shadow portfolios. Our congratulations to both!
PEANUT BUTTER JAMS Britain rhyme renegade Ghostpoet plays the Bakery on Thurs 12 Sep. The choice MC by the likes of Mike Skinner and Roots Manuva, Ghostpoet continues to amaze with his creative and provoking wordplay, surrounded by production work that refuses to maintain any sort of status quo.
FESTIVUS FOR THE REST OF US We’ve already had some big lineups (Soundwave, BDO, and Southbound) announced: Spring is here, and with it comes the lineups to festival season. Start saving.
BACKLASH CLICKSTERBAITING
MAN THE HELM
ODE TO JOYCE
Following a year off the road to write, Queenslanders Helm will return to the stage to promote and perform their forthcoming third opus, Vol 3... Panthalassa, at Rosemount Hotel on Fri 13 Sep. Tickets through Oztix and CD stores.
Recently announced on The Smith Street Band’s upcoming national tour and Poison City’s Weekender Fest, Californian indie/ punks Joyce Manor are now playing Pica Bar on Wed 11 Sep, supported by our own Grim Fandango and Flowermouth.
This One Article That Provides A Strangely Ambiguous Headline To Draw In Reader’s Clicks. Unghhk.
SPORTING CHANCE Thanks largely to the labyrinthine Senate preference system, the Australian Sports Party is possibly going to win a WA Senate seat with just 0.22% of the primary vote.
SYRIAMBIGUITY The Middle-East is facing yet another heartbreaking humanitarian crisis, and nobody really knows what to do about it.
THIS WEEK’S RELEASES… SEBADOH Defend Yourself Domino/EMI MGMT MGMT Sony BALANCE & COMPOSURE The Things We Think We’re Missing Shock MAN MAN On Oni Pond Anti-/Warner
56 • THE MUSIC • 11TH SEPTEMBER 2013
IN THE FAMILY Described by audiences as honest, fresh, exciting and powerful, The Aunts are a band with a continually evolving sound of rock, jazz, classical music and roots influence. They head to The Rosemount on Thurs 12 Sep. Tickets $8 on the door.
FREAKY FRIDAY
FAIR GO
This Friday marks the day where birds fall out of the sky and computers catch deadly viruses. So fancy dress in your shadowy threads and join Devilles Pad for a Friday The 13th Bash. Dressups, Bands, DJs and all the usual Devilles craziness, $10 after 8pm.
The Last Fair Deal’s debut at the 2013 Perth Fringe Festival with soulful singer Bessie Lanu-Moana’Vai Kuini earned them a nomination for the fest’s music award. They head back to Kulcha on Sat 14 Sep, tickets through kulcha.com.au.
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LIVE THIS WEEK
TASTE TEST
HAVE SINGLE YOUFOCUS HEARD
PLACE OF INDIGO With Sam Joyce The best record I stole from my folks’ collection was… Teenage Jesus & The Jerks – Shut Up And Bleed.
DOWN TIJUANA WAY Hailing from the Gold Coast, Tijuana Cartel have been able to garner a solid reputation for beats which span the universe. They’ve played some great shows over our way including festivals, and they return to play Settlers Tavern, Fri 13 Dec; Whit Star, Albany, Sat 14; and Mojos Sun 15.
CLEANING UP
COLOUR TV
Newcastle four-piece Maids are set to tour WA for the first time this month. They’ll be in town for two massive shows at PICA Bar on Sat 14 Sep and at The Newport Hotel on Sund 15, touring in support of their new self-titled EP.
Local indie-rockers TV Snow are thrilled to present their latest power pop single Neon Night on Sat 14 Sep, 8pm at Amplifier. They’ll be filming on the night making one of those slo-mo vibe vids - with Tired Lion, Apache and Fly Breeder. $10 on the door.
INSANE IN THE CAIN
CIRCLE OF FRIENDS
Vida Cain formed in early 2012. Now, in a very small space of time, they’re gearing up to release their debut album, The Rule Of Gravity, and coincidentally do so at The Bakery on Fri 13 Sep. Tickets through Now Baking.
Abmusic WA, the state’s leading incubator for local Aboriginal artists, presents Thaylia & Friends at Kulcha on Fri 13 Sep. Hailing from Darwin, Thaylia brings to the stage a voice of courage, inspiration and hope. Tickets via kulcha.com.au.
The f irst record I bought with my own money was… Battles – Mirrored. The record I put on when I bring someone home is… Antena – Camino Del Sol. Bossanova electro Latin synth pop! My favourite party album is… The Horrors – Skying. Chilled with just enough pump up moments. Last track Oceans Burning is pre-party gold. The best album to come down to is… Bjork – Vespertine. Beautifully solemn yet still gives a glimmer of hope that it’s okay to enjoy your own company. The record I’m loving right now is… James Blake – Overgrown. Through decent speakers this record is so wonderful to listen to over and over on a rainy Sunday. When and where are your next gigs? Antics, 14 Sep at The Claremont Hotel with Red Mexico. Website link for more info? facebook.com/placeofindigo
THE MORNING NIGHT With Adrian Hoffmann Single title: Valentine What’s the song about? Valentine is a narrative of love and loss where our protagonist contemplates the tragedy of the unattainable. How long did it take to write/record? Initially written in its acoustic form quite quickly, the process to capture the dissonance of the story through the composition (with producer Ricky Maymi and the rest of the band) took several months. Do you play it differently live? It’s a bit wilder; with six of us on stage, there’s a lot of spontaneity. When and where is your launch/next gig? Pica Bar, 13 Sep for the launch of Valentine. Website link for more info? facebook.com/ themorningnight
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DJ BOOTH
JACKNESS
KATIE VALENTINE
With Jack Lu
With Katie Valentine
When did you know DJing was the gig for you? To be honest I really have no idea, it had all happened so quickly but I love performing and seeins people have fun and really get into the music; it’s really rewarding.
The best record I stole from my folks’ collection was… Felix Da Housecat & Drop Music – Inland Knights (thanks, dad).
What’s your most memorable musical moment? It must be the moment I was notified that my remix was supported by Alex Gaudino on radio in Italy.
The f irst record I bought with my own money was… 50 Cent – Get Rich Or Die Tryin’.
With their second album Not Art once again establishing them as masters of emotive, minimalist pop music, Big Scary are back out on tour at the moment, hitting Fky By Night on Fri 13 Sep. Tickets through flybynight.org.
The record I put on when I bring someone home is… Bloodhound Gang – Bad Touch. My favourite party album is… Any mix by Mark Farina.
Who’s the act everyone will be talking about in 12 months? There’s a 21-yearold bloke named Deorro from California... watch out! His sound is a twist of dutch and progressive and his production is so damn addictive like hot sauce!
The last thing I bought/ downloaded was… About $80 worth of tunes in my Beatport cart.
Website link for more info? jackness.com.au
NOT THAT SCARY
The record I put on when I’m really miserable is… Being miserable is the best time to write your own!
What release should everyone have in their collection? Right now it must be Lunde Bros – Can You Feel It (Original Mix). If you can stay still to this track, you have no soul... NO SOUL, I SAY! It’s so damn groovin’.
What can punters expect to hear when you’re in control of the dancefloor? I mainly play big room progressive house with a mix of dutch and electro. I feed off the energy from the crowd and things can get really interesting when it becomes a snowball effect.
LIVE THIS WEEK
TASTE TEST
The best album to comedown to is… Rufus – Atlas! The most surprising record in my collection is… Parkway Drive and I Killed The Prom Queen.
The record I’m loving right now is… Disclosure – Settle. On repeat! When and where are your next gigs? QLD - 7 Sep, Komune. 28 Sep, The Exchange. NSW - 21 Sep, Chinese Laundry. 12 Oct, Aqua Groove Cruise. WA - 27 Sep, Cake, Parker. Website link for more info? facebook.com/djkatievalentine
BAD BRAINS Defining a decade of electronic obscurity and with releases on Hyperdub and 4AD, Zomby is the leader of a generation capable of negotiating territory from jungle, dubstep, rave, garage, rap and more. Along with the awesome Badbadnotgood, he hits The Bakery on Sat 14 Sep. Now Baking for tickets.
BLACK FRIDAY
PART OF THE PLAN
It might be Friday the 13th, but that’s no reason to hide away in your homes. Something Humble, Bury The Dead, Flyball Gov’nor and The Littlest Fox are all hoping to get you up and dancing this Fri 13 Sep at The Railway Hotel. $8 entry.
Armed with new material, a new bass player and renewed drive, The Getaway Plan’s Lovesick Tour will see one of Australia’s favourite bands head to Prince Of Wales, Thurs 12 Sep; Players Bar, Fri 13; Rosemount, Sat 14; and and YMCA HQ (AA) Sun 15.
DECADE OF DRIVE
AYRES ROCKS
Also on the heavy music/Aussie faves tip, Parkway Drive are celebrating ten years of some truly incredible achievements this month. They head to Capitol for two shows, Sun 15 and Mon 16 Sep, with special guests supporting. Ticketek for tickets.
Catch singer-songwriter Jason Ayres performing an up close and intimate acoustic set this Sat 14 Sep at The Charles Hotel, showcasing songs from his new album alongside songstress Wendy Matthews. Tickets through Ticketmaster.
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LIVE THIS WEEK
TASTE TEST
HAVE SINGLE YOUFOCUS HEARD
BOY P With Christopher Caravella
KHAAAAAAAAAAN Californian dude Valentino Khan has put out official remixes for artists such as Wiz Khalifa, Skylar Grey, Kreayshawn, The Bloody Beetroots, Benny Benassi, Congorock, Sean Paul, DJ Craze and Steve Aoki. Catch him for Hiline at Ambar on Fri 13 Sep. Tickets $20 on the door.
DOUBLE TROUBLE
ALL IN THER STRIDE
Twin Towers sees duo acts playing Mojos this Wed 11 Sep, with full funds going to the bands. Catch Man The Clouds, Mudlark and a bunch of other awesome two pieces. Yes, we get the reference, please don’t write in and complain.
Hailing from Sydney, The Strides have become a new force for urban roots music. Fronted by Reggae Master Ras Roni from Barbados via London, and Fijian MC Ltl Gzeus, they hit The Ellington on Wed 11 Sep. Tickets through ellingtonjazz.com.au.
PSYCH IN SPACE
SUN IS SHINING
Evolving from bedroom recording to exotic cosmic performance, SpaceManAntics are set to self-produce their debut LP, which will be out later this month. Head along to the launch party at The Bird on Fri 13 Sep with local supports. $5 entry.
Gypsy-fuelled ska rockers, Caravãna Sun are getting ready for their next album. In true Caravãna style, they have a huge tour that hits Mojos, Thurs 12 Sep; Divers Tavern, Broome, Fri 13 and Sat 14; and Indi Bar, Sun 15. Tickets on the doors.
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The best record I stole from my folks’ collection was… A live recorded version of Rick Wakeman’s Journey To The Center of The Earth. Some prehistoric synth pop shit!
TV SNOW
The record I put on when I’m really miserable is… Mark Pritchard’s Heavy As Stone. Something about that tune’s bassline lifts me out of any slump!
What’s the song about? The song is about a girl, a dancer, that lived for the night; the rest is open to interpretation.
The record I put on when I bring someone home is… Prince’s I Would Die 4 U. The best $2.50 I ever spent on discogs on a record. Lovers spesh! My favourite party album is… Zomby - Where Were You In ‘92 is the record I always wanna hear played at any party! The most surprising record in my collection is… I’ve got a massive stack of ‘90s Italian house records in my collection that would probably surprise any one that listens to them. They’re my guilty pleasure though! When and where are your next gigs? Picking tunes at It’s A DeadWeight! Ting Launch night on the 13th of September at Flyrite. Then at I.C.S.S.C’s Jam City gig 20th Sept at the Bakery.
With Anthony Di Giovanni Single title: Neon Nights
How long did it take to write/record? We sat on this song for about a year and it had several rewrites. The producer of this release also made some changes when we finally sat down to record it. Do you play it differently live? We’re aiming to get it sounding as close as possible. We have now picked up a Jupiter 50 synth keyboard to make that happen. When and where is your launch/next gig? We have a launch on the 14 Sep at Amplifier Bar. We have Tired Lion, Apache and Fly Breeder supporting us on this night. Website link for more info? tvsnow.net
THE MUSIC • 11TH SEPTEMBER 2013 • 59
opinion
OG FLAVAS
BLACK FLAG
TRAILER TRASH
URBAN AND R&B NEWS BY CYCLONE
PUNK AND HARDCORE WITH DANIEL CRIBB
DIVES INTO YOUR IDIOT BOXES WITH GUY DAVIS
Frank Ocean abandoned a second Australian run because of vocal problems, but Miguel Pimentel almost compensated for it with a surprise promo tour. The cred – and underrated – altR&B singer even performed intimate industry gigs. Pimentel will be back in February to open for Bruno Mars (as of yet no sideshows are confirmed). In fact, he’s way too good for that. The quiffed Californian’s sophomore, Kaleidoscope Dream, surfaced late last year (it entered the US charts at number three) but, remarkably in this highturnover era, his Australian label, Sony, has continued to campaign behind it. That’s largely due to Pimentel’s performance of the Marvin-esque quiet storm Adorn with Wiz Khalifa at the Grammys – it went viral. Today label showcases are rare – the last Sony one OG snuck into was for Simon Cowell’s soul protégé Rebecca Ferguson – and they’re virtually unprecedented for an act of Pimentel’s status. After all, he has already won a Grammy for Adorn (‘Best R&B Song’). Since Kaleidoscope Dream Pimentel has made choice cameos. He sang on old bud J Cole’s Power Trip and Mariah Carey’s #Beautiful. The soulster pops up on Janelle Monáe’s buzzworthy The Electric Lady. And lately he’s aired another ‘remix’ of Adorn with Brit nightbus queen Jessie Ware. Love. ogflavas@themusic.com.au
GREEN DAY
Soundwave can be a bit of a tricky one for punk and hardcore fans. It’s a festival that appeals to alternative music lovers, but tends to offer less value for punk and hardcore enthusiasts. At first glance the line-up usually brings a wave of excitement, but when you start doing the math, you end up realising you’re looking at paying $50 a band, which can be hard to justify. The amount of sidewaves the East Coast gets is ridiculous, with most bands teaming up to play club shows. Perth usually gets three, if that. While Soundwave is an impressive feat, it’s sort of screwing over punk and hardcore fans. The Lawrence Arm tune Warped Summer Extravaganza (Major Excellent) discusses the band’s dislike of the Warped Tour tearing through town and band’s playing one big show on one day rather than pubs and clubs being packed every weekend. Although Soundwave is 10 times bigger than Warped, this couldn’t describe our situation any better. “It’s burning; a fire inside that I just don’t believe,” The Lawrence Arms bassist Brendan Kelly sings in the song’s first verse – the line was presumably an attack at AFI, who are playing Soundwave next year. Instead of seeing four or five of your favourite band’s spread over numerous nights, you have to pay $200 to see them play 30-minute sets in 40-degree heat.
MIGUEL 60 • THE MUSIC • 11TH SEPTEMBER 2013
If there were sidewaves delivered to WA, that would rectify this issue, but there isn’t, so it’s time to decide whether or not to part ways with your hard-earned cash. Hopefully
this will sway your decision. Often those who love hardcore found their way there through bands like Soundwave headliner Green Day, or similar ‘90s pop punk bands. Parkway Drive started off listening to bands like Offspring and Millencolin, and from there ventured into hardcore, then metalcore. Green Day might not really be your thing anymore (their last four records have been atrocious), but with Dookie celebrating its 20th anniversary next year, it’s highly likely their two-and-half-hour set will feature a slew of older hits. Last month, at London’s O2 Academy in Brixton, they played Dookie in its entirety. That nostalgic orgasm alone would be worth the $200 ticket price. Plus, old punk rockers know how to party best; Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong recently going through rehab and last year Alkaline Trio’s Matt Skiba having a drug-related meltdown onstage in the US. With the small handful of acts on the bill that fit into the genre confines of this column, and the nostalgic overload Green Day are surely to deliver, Soundwave 2014 should make for a pretty decent day. Alternatively, you’ve still got some time to purchase a flight to Florida and see ALL, The Flatliners, The Menzingers, and The Lawrence Arms at Fest 12 next month.
In cyberspace, everyone can hear you scream inanely. Now I’m probably a little late in bringing this up, given that its relevance as the pop culture bete noire was quickly superseded by Miley Cyrus getting molested by that Blurred Lines guy in a Beetlejuice suit, but I feel it’s important we talk about the casting of Ben Affleck as Bruce Wayne/ Batman – Batfleck, amirite, guys? – in the upcoming Man Of Steel sequel, which unfortunately is rumoured to be titled Batman Vs Superman. Seriously. Myriad names were tossed about as potential cape-and-cowl successors to Christian Bale once he bowed out. There was speculation that Joseph GordonLevitt might strap on the suit, as per the final moments of The Dark Knight Rises. But the announcement of Affleck came as a left-field shock when the word went out a couple of weeks back. And among many dark, dank corners of fandom, there was dismay. Suddenly, all the good will Affleck had accrued thanks to his sturdy work on both sides of the camera with movies like Gone Baby Gone, The Town and the Oscar-winning Argo seemed to fade, and dirty words like Gigli and Daredevil were uttered once again. Gigli... well, there’s no defending that one, although like many so-called fiascos it’s not really as Godawful as its reputation would have you believe. Still, it ain’t great. And Daredevil... yeah, that kinda sucks too, actually. But Affleck is far from the worst thing in it. You can’t blame Affleck for Daredevil; you can blame writerdirector Mark Steven Johnson, a well-meaning but ham-fisted hack, for Daredevil. Now... all this talk about Bryan Cranston as Lex Luthor. Yea? Or nay?
RYAN GOSSLING
THE MUSIC • 11TH SEPTEMBER 2013 • 61
the guide wa.gigguide@themusic.com.au
THE MUSIC PRESENTS RUDIMENTAL: SEP 13 Metro City
HORRORSHOW: OCT 3 Prince Of Wales, Bunbury; OCT 4 Amplifier; OCT 5 Mojos
ARTLAB CREATIVE CONFERENCE: SEP 14 Perth Convention Centre
JINJA SAFARI: OCT 4 Settlers Tavern, Margaret River; OCT 5 Prince Of Wales, Bunbury; OCT 6 Astor Theatre
DEAD LETTER CIRCUS: SEP 20 Prince of Wales, SEP 21 Metropolis Fremantle
THE BREEDERS: OCT 31 Astor Theatre
FOALS: SEP 22 Metro City TWELVE FOOT NINJA: SEP 26, Prince of Wales, Bunbury, SEP 27, Rosemount Hotel ILLY: SEP 28 Villa, SEP 29 Prince Of Wales
BOY & BEAR: NOV 22 Metropolis Fremantle; NOV 23 Astor Theatre ONGOING:
GIG OF THE WEEK GHOSTPOET
GIGNITION: Upcoming band showcases 4-8pm last Sunday of each month at The Railway Hotel
THE PAPER KITES: SEP 21 Fly By Night
WED 11
XAVIER RUDD: SEP 28 Three Oceans Winery, SEP 29 Fremantle Arts Centre
Sugar Blue Burlesque: Brass Monkey Hotel, Northbridge Open Mic Night with Chris Gibbs: Carine Glades Tavern, Duncraig Chet Leonard’s Bingoteque: Clancys Fish Pub, Fremantle Night Cap Session + The Strides: Ellington Jazz Club, Perth Bernardine: Greenwood Hotel, Greenwood Malachai: Indi Bar, Scarborough
Open Mic Night with Rob Walker: Brighton Hotel, Mandurah
Jen de Ness: The Boat, Mindarie The Mystery Men: The Shed, Northbridge
Monarchy: Crown Perth (Lobby Lounge), Burswood
Voudou Zazou: Vic, Subiaco
Open Mic Night + Various: Dunsborough Tavern, Dunsborough Jamie Oehlers + Tom O’Halloran + Daniel Susnjar: Ellington Jazz Club, Perth Greg Carter: Gate Bar & Bistro, Success
Gutter Drakes + Burning Fiction + White Oak & Stuyvesant + Paper Plains: Ya Ya’s, Northbridge
FRI 13
Jewel + George Greene + Vicktor: Brass Monkey Hotel, Northbridge
Bex’s Open Mic Night: Indi Bar, Scarborough
Howie Morgan: Lucky Shag, Perth Anberlin + The Maine + William Beckett (The Academy Is) + Masketta Fall: Metropolis, Fremantle Dust + Man The Clouds + Mudlark + Mind Canary: Mojos Bar, North Fremantle
ASTON SHUFFLE
CLUB GUIDE
WED 11
SAT 14
Lokie Shaw: Captain Stirling, Nedlands
Japan 4 + Various DJs: Ambar, Perth
Fiveo: Sovereign Arms, Joondalup
Little Nicky + Lokie Shaw: Bar 120, Hillarys
THU 12
DJ Grizzly + Jewel: Brass Monkey Hotel, Northbridge
DJ Grizzly: Kalamunda Hotel, Kalamunda
DJ Mel: Brighton Hotel, Mandurah
DJ Molotov: Leisure Inn, Rockingham
Parker Saturdays + Various DJs: Parker Nightclub, Perth
FRI 13
Hiline feat. Valentino Khan + Various DJs: Ambar, Perth
Troy Division + Paradise Paul: The Aviary, Perth
SUN 15
Az-T: Carine Glades Tavern, Duncraig
DJ Jon E + DJ Mikeee: Saint, Innaloo
DJ Grizzly + DJ Merqury: Lakers Tavern, Thornlie
Rooftop Sessions feat. Micah + NDorse + Zel: The Aviary, Perth
Motley Zeke + Rob Delirious + S.O.X + Gem Selector: Mojos Bar, North Fremantle DJ Mikeee: Saint, Innaloo Ang3l: Sovereign Arms, Joondalup Troy Division + Paradise Paul + Baron Gutter: The Aviary, Perth
Going Solo feat Andrew Clarke + Amber Fresh + Sam Maher: Moon Cafe, Northbridge Wax Motif: Newport Hotel, Fremantle Joyce Manor + Grim Fandango: PICA Bar, Perth Children + When It’s Over + Sail On! Sail On! + Yeti Resort: Rosemount Hotel, North Perth Andras Fox & Oscar Key Sung: The Bird, Northbridge Anderson + Chris Gibbs + Jamie Seinemeir:*The Paddo, Mt Hawthorn
JOYCE MANOR Grant Hart: Kalbarri Motor Hotel, Kalbarri
Dilip ‘n’ The Davs + Mutima: Clancys Fish Pub, Fremantle
James Wilson: Lucky Shag, Perth
Limelights Jazz Trio: Clancys Fish Pub, City Beach
The Strides + Caravana Sun: Mojos Bar, North Fremantle
Elouise & The Infinite Squeeze: Claremont Hotel, Claremont
Ha Ha’s @ Ya Ya’s! + Various: Ya Ya’s, Northbridge
Kings Justice: Newport Hotel, Fremantle
Storm The Sky + Fit For A King + Ruthless + Anchored + Iconoclast + Finders: YMCA HQ (All Ages), Leederville
The Getaway Plan: Prince of Wales, Bunbury
THU 12
Storm The Sky + Fit For A King + Averia Skies + Still Water Claims + Reflections Of Ruin + We Run With Wolves: Amplifier Bar, Perth
The Aunts + These Winter Nights + King of the Travellers + London Bureau: Rosemount Hotel, North Perth
The Spread + Aaron Malone + Becc Sanderson: Ellington Jazz Club, Perth Big Scary + Courtney Barnett: Fly By Night, Fremantle
Open Mic Night with Claire Warnock: Settlers Tavern, Margaret River
DJ Hages: Hyde Park Hotel, North Perth
Ghostpoet + Oscar Key Sung:The Bakery, Northbridge
Thaylia and Friends: Kulcha, Fremantle
Kara “Yo!” Ke + Various: The Bird, Northbridge
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Caravana Sun: Divers Tavern, Cable Beach
Vdelli: Indi Bar, Scarborough
Aaron Woolley: Last Drop Tavern, Warnbro
the guide wa.gigguide@themusic.com.au Rudimental + Gorgon City: Metro City, Northbridge
Big Thommo’s Open Mic Variety Night: Ya Ya’s, Northbridge
The Arsonist + UPNUP: Metropolis (C5), Fremantle
Matty T Wall + 88 Toi Yesterday + Foreign Architects + Rum Punch: Ya Ya’s, Northbridge
TUE 17
Soul Corporation: Moon & Sixpence, Perth
Matt Richards Creatures of the Deep: Ellington Jazz Club, Perth
The Aston Shuffle (DJ Set): Parker Nightclub, Perth The Getaway Plan: Players Bar, Mandurah
Mojo’s Monthly Comedy + Various: Mojos Bar, North Fremantle
Something Humble + Bury The Heard + Flyball Gov’nor + The Littlest Fox: Railway Hotel, North Fremantle Helm + Serial Killer Smile + Forstora + Law Of Attraction: Rosemount Hotel, North Perth Tijuana Cartel: Settlers Tavern, Margaret River Vida Cain: The Bakery, Northbridge Spaceman Antics + Silver Hills + Moana + Solar Barge: The Bird, Northbridge
THE GETAWAY PLAN
Jinx Project: Vic, Subiaco
Nukara Rhythm & Fire Fest + Dilip ‘n’ The Davs + Boom! Bap! Pow! + Jordan McRobbie: Nukara Farm, Nanson
The Strides: Ya Ya’s, Northbridge
Maids + Puck + Dead Owls + Pat Chow: PICA Bar, Perth
Crush + DJ Glenn 20: The Shed, Northbridge
SAT 14
TV Snow + Tired Lion + Apache + Fly Breeder: Amplifier Bar, Perth Tonight Alive + Hands Like Houses + D At Sea: Astor Theatre (All Ages), Mount Lawley Reflections Of Ruin + Afraid of Heights + Dawn of Leviathan + Severtone + From Isolation: Civic Backroom, Inglewood Public Son + Julius Lutero Trio + Kat Wilson: Clancys Fish Pub, Fremantle Sunset Belly Dancers: Clancys Fish Pub, City Beach Antics feat. Place Of Indigo + Red Mexico + Antics DJs: Claremont Hotel, Claremont Caravana Sun: Divers Tavern, Cable Beach Hornography + Aaron Malone + Becc Sanderson: Ellington Jazz Club, Perth The Idea of North: Fly By Night, Fremantle Manalion: Indi Bar, Scarborough Hot Suga: Kardinya Tavern, Kardinya
The Strides: Prince of Wales, Bunbury The Rumble + The Hum + Subject 2 Change: Railway Hotel, North Fremantle Hells Bells: Ravenswood Hotel, Ravenswood The Getaway Plan + Avastera + Dead Glorious: Rosemount Hotel, North Perth
Maids + Foam + Hideous Sun Demon: Newport Hotel, Fremantle Sunday Sessions with Timothy Nelson: Newport Hotel (3pm), Fremantle Ute Lemper: Perth Concert Hall, Perth Tracey Barnett: Settlers Tavern (Verandah/3pm), Margaret River Stage Fright! + Various: The Fly Trap, Fremantle
Optamus + Downsyde: Settlers Tavern, Margaret River
The Healy’s + Renogade: The Shed, Northbridge
Zomby + BadBadNotGood: The Bakery, Northbridge
The Getaway Plan: YMCA HQ, Leederville
Grace Woodroofe: The Bird, Northbridge Huge + DJ Andyy: The Shed, Northbridge The Aston Shuffle (DJ Set): Toucan Club, Mandurah Arcadia + Various: Ya Ya’s, Northbridge
SUN 15
MON 16
Parkway Drive + Confession + Ruthless: Capitol, Perth JSRHS Jazz: Ellington Jazz Club, Perth Open Mic Night + Various: Mojos Bar, North Fremantle
TIJAUANA CARTEL
Parkway Drive + Thy Art Is Murder + Make Them Suffer: Capitol, Perth The Strides: Clancys Fish Pub, Dunsborough The Zydecats: Clancys Fish Pub, Fremantle
Bessie Lanu-Moana’Vai Kuini: Kulcha, Fremantle
DJ Boogie + The Salt Shaker Selectors: Clancys Fish Pub, City Beach
Rudimental + Gorgon City: Metro City, Northbridge
Hi-NRG: Crown Perth (Groove Bar) , Burswood
Parkway Drive + Thy Art Is Murder + Confession: Metropolis (Under 18 Show), Fremantle
Sarah Ramsey Quintet: Ellington Jazz Club (5.30pm), Perth
The Volcanics + Datura + The Wishers + Ellie Schoen: Mojos Bar, North Fremantle
Golden String + Mitchell Freeway: Moon Cafe, Northbridge
Caravana Sun: Indi Bar, Scarborough Mikelangelo and the Black Sea Gentlemen: Kulcha, Fremantle Tijuana Cartel: Mojos Bar, North Fremantle
2 X TICS
SUN 15 SEPT
TIJUANA CARTEL
EMAIL: WA.GIVEAWAYS@THEMUSIC.COM.AU
FRI 13 SEPT 7.30PM $10
THE STRIDES (NSW)
“One For One” Single Launch
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health
GOOD FATS, BAD FATS, NO FATS, NEED FATS Carolyn Jones sifts through the options. options
F
or many of us, the word ‘fat’ conjures up all sorts of negative images and feelings when it comes to what we eat. I’d never come across low-fat milk or yoghurt when I was a kid, but by the time I was a teenage girl growing up in suburban Melbourne, fat was the enemy. Supermarkets were filled with products labelled ‘lite’, ‘fat-reduced’, ‘fat-free’ etc and to even consider buying full cream milk I’d have to be insane. Even now the effects on the psyche of the adults who grew up in the fat as enemy culture are clear as they order their skinny lattes or ask for no dressing on their salad. Things have changed and are continuing to change as research is showing that previously accepted ideas about the damage dietary fats cause, including the most emotive one – that fat makes you fat – are being questioned, turning some of these long-held beliefs on their heads. Here are a few things you might want to chew over when you are making decisions on what you want to eat when it comes to fat.
oil, avocados, peanuts, cashews and almonds. Good fat plays a role in many of our body’s biological functions including skin health, mood balancing, brain function, cell and organ membrane integrity, anti-inflammatory function, hormone regulation and also assist in the absorption of the fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K.
GOOD FATS VS BAD FATS
LOW FAT OR FAT-FREE PRODUCTS ARE HEALTHIER OPTIONS
Ask any dietician and they’ll tell you that saturated fats are bad, trans fats are worse but monounsaturated fats are good and polyunsaturated fats are better. If only it were that simple. Yes, trans fats are really bad, and they are generally easy to find (and avoid) as they tend to be used in commercially-baked goods (doughnuts, muffins, cakes, pastries), packaged snack foods (crackers, microwave popcorn, potato chips) and fried fast food (hot chips, fried chicken). Even healthy oils, like olive oil, can convert into trans fats if reused or overheated. But hey, we all know that these foods aren’t doing us any favours anyway. Saturated fats, on the other hand, are a hot topic at the moment. Foods high in saturated fat include meat, dairy, fish, dark chocolate, coconuts, nuts and seeds. The problem is many of these foods also contain health-boosting vitamins, minerals, polyunsaturated fats and fibre essential to good health. Good polyunsaturated fats are found in oily fish like salmon, tuna, mackerel and sardines, and also in walnuts, Brazil nuts and seeds. Good monounsaturated fats are found in olive 64 • THE MUSIC • 11TH SEPTEMBER 2013
FAT MAKES YOU FAT Over-eating makes you fat. Not cooking for yourself makes you fat. Choosing something from a packet over something fresh makes you fat. Per gram, fat contains more kilojoules (37kJ) than carbohydrates (16kJ) or protein (16kJ). So choosing the right fats to make up your recommended daily intake of between 44-78g is the key. Make saturated fat a maximum of ten per cent of this. Increase quality fats in your diet and eliminate trans fats. Make sure the fat (and everything else you eat) is nutrient dense and minimally processed.
While regulatory bodies continue to encourage consumption of low-fat products as part of a healthy diet, the truth is that fat tastes good. Remove the fat and you have to replace it with something to replace the flavour. Sugar, artificial sweeteners and artificial flavours are the usual replacement. These ingredients can cause inflammation and irritation to your digestive system and mess with your general health. They have not been proven to assist in weight loss or weight management in the long term. Choose the fats you eat carefully and enjoy them. As a general rule cook with the good fats that are solid at room temperature, and use the liquid ones on salads. Fat isn’t the enemy. In fact the benefits of including a wide range of good fats in our diet has been proven to improve health and reduce many of the damaging effects of the environment we find ourselves living in today. Now I’m off to get myself a full fat latte and a piece of chocolate.
TYPES OF FATS
Trans fats – avoid them all. Saturated fats – choose wisely, try replacing margarine and vegetable oil with coconut oil (my current favourite is Spiral extra virgin/ expeller pressed) in your cooking. Use organic butter – Aldi do a nice New Zealand organic butter that’s half the price of the big two supermarket offerings. Saturated fats are more stable when heated so use these for cooking. MonoUnsaturated And Polyunsaturated Fats – increase fish oils, nuts and seeds and use a good quality olive oil. Dump the margarine and vegetable oils. Try making your own nut butter, or go to a farmer’s market and grab some macadamia nut butter to have on your sourdough toast. These fats are good for cold use like salad dressings and nut butters.
eat/drink
TOP 5
I LOVE A SUNBURNT WHISKY
WHISKY BARS
Scott Fitzsimons used to drink a lot of whisky from Scotland and Japan. Then he ran into the Australians… Pics by Holly Engelhardt.
Above: Bill Lark
1.
Helvetica Perth – Get lost in the CBD, find whisky
2.
The Classroom North Perth – Jamesons is actually brilliant. Try the 18.
3.
1907 Restaurant Perth – A whisky cocktail thanks, hold the cocktail
4.
Choo Choo’s Perth – ‘Dive’ into whisky
5.
Print Hall Perth – All good newspaper men and women drink whisky
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o longer is whisky solely the domain of a gloriously cold and windy country called Scotland. The secret is out; the rest of the world has found the recipe and some of the world’s best ‘Scotch’ whiskies are now coming from Japan, Sweden, India, Taiwan (whose Kavalan distillery is one of the most exciting in the world right now) and – bloody oath – Australia. In the past ten years distilleries have been popping up all over the country, fuelled by back-shed – and probably not entirely legal – home distillers. Now Aussie malts are being sent all across the world, garnering influential admirers and recognised awards. A visit to the small Scottish island (and whisky Mecca) Islay has locals and travellers hounding you for information on what the hell is going on down under? Victoria has the sweet notes of Bakery Hill, the ever young Starward and steam train-inspired Timboon Railway Shed Distillery, and Western Australia has Limeburners, where diesel fuel notes are the answer to Scotland’s seaweed and peat, but it’s the cluster of Tasmanian distilleries that is really exciting everyone. Malts from Lark, Sullivan’s Cove, Overeem and Nant are world class. The Australian climate speeds up the rate in which the newly made spirit extracts flavour from the wood and expressions such as Sullivan’s Cove French Oak and Overeem’s Cask Strength Port are absolutely gorgeous. The mind-blowing flavours are sometimes even too much flavour for the old whisky guard. Bill Lark – the Godfather of whisky in Australia – is experimenting with things like apple brandy casks, just because he can. All the while Heartwood’s independent bottlings (handpicked casks bottled in one-off runs) are having a lot of fun kicking everyone’s arse at over 70 per cent alcohol. It’s not only the malts that are superb – the utterly picturesque scenery of Tasmania seems to rub off on these whisky trailblazers and they’re some of the nicest, easy-going people you’ll ever meet. Move over dickhead bartenders and wanker cocktail ‘experts’, there are no boundaries to Australian whisky and it’s opening the
doors to whole new communities. Lark, who supplies spirit to many of the Tasmanian labels and who advises on pretty much everything from still shape to marketing, even looks like an Australian Santa Claus. If Lark is the Godfather, then Dan Woolley is the punk. Having run backstage bars at festivals like Big Day Out, he’s recently assembled one of the country’s best whisky selections at his Byron Bay Roadhouse restaurant (including a bottle of Dalmore made specifically for him). “It’s a global thing,” Woolley says of the whisky market resurgence, which famously moves in soaring peaks and crushing distillery-closing lows. “In fact, we’re way behind the rest of the world with this. Most of the quality distillers throughout Scotland, the USA and Japan sell out of everything they make so it was just a matter of time before we got the call. Global trends have local impacts. “There is no more ‘norm’ demographic for the whisky consumer. All ages from 18 to 80, male and female. They might not make it to the events and shows but in all the bars and all the homes around Australia you’d be very surprised who’s taking drams.” There’s a lot of marketing that goes into whisky – it’s big business trying to sell a premium spirit that looks like urine – and so there are a lot of stories to be told. Each dram has a tale, each distillery has a history. The Australian industry is 20-years-young and at the very start of its story, right now is probably the most exciting time to discover whisky – it’s like drinking liquid history. “So you’ve tried the Ardbeg Lord Of The Isles?” Bill ‘The Godfather’ Lark asked me once at a whisky function, referencing a 25-year-old, $1,700 bottle from the famous Scottish distillery. “I’ve got a bottle back home that needs opening, remind me when you come down.” “You’re kidding, right?” “No, hold me to it. Whisky’s meant to be enjoyed and shared. I want to drink it with someone who’s going to enjoy it.” THE MUSIC • 11TH SEPTEMBER 2013 • 65
eat/drink
CHECKOUT
WHO’S COOKIN’
PEPE SAYA HAND CHURNED BUTTER Who would have thought butter could be better than a loaf of bread, well this one is. It’s exy but ohh so worth it. Cost: $9.99 for a wheel
FOOD TRIPPIN’ EATING AROUND THE USA WITH SOFIE MUCENIEKAS AND LLOYD HONEYBROOK
WRITER, A. A. MILNE
TESS WILLIAMS Which cafe/bar/restaurant do you cook at? Clarences Address: 566 Beaufort St, Mt Lawley SIOUX FALLS TO CHICAGO
To prepare for the ten-hour drive we ate a hearty breakfast at Phillip’s Avenue dinner in Sioux Falls. Two Bacon Benny Deluxes (biscuits, eggs, hollandaise, asparagus & hash), an OJ & about 8 coffees. Pretty darn good diner fare for a city in the middle of nowhere. With @lloydhoneybrook
FOOD IS ART
Three words that describe the place? Funky, cool, classic. If you were a patron of your establishment what would you select from the menu? Entree: Smoked ham hock terrine with a rocket and pickle salad. Served with? A nice traditional cider. Main: Steak and frites. Served with? A glass of Malbec from Mendoza, Argentina. Dessert: Chocolate beetroot brownie. Served with? An espresso and a nice digestive like Fernet Branca or Amaro Montenegro. What’s the average price of a main? $28 Three ingredients everyone should have in their pantry? Good quality pasta, olive
66 • THE MUSIC • 11TH SEPTEMBER 2013
“WHAT I SAY IS THAT, IF A FELLOW REALLY LIKES POTATOES, HE MUST BE A PRETTY DECENT SORT OF FELLOW.”
oil and a good tin of Italian tomatoes. If your food was compared to music what style would it be? Folk, blues and classical mixed with a little bit of something that hasn’t been classified yet. What music is likely to be playing in the kitchen when you’re cooking? ‘80s hits and if I’m alone in the morning, most likely old classical French hits. It’s a bit of a mix. Where do you usually eat after your shift? Billy Lee’s, a late-night Chinese joint – BYO and open late. What’s your dish of choice to enjoy after work? A nice quick pasta. Simple with a glass of wine and a group of friends or my husband. Is your chef lifestyle more Anthony Bourdain or Pete Evans? Haha, it was like Anthony Bourdain, with the travel and eating. I guess I’ve become a little settled now. Website link for more info? clarences.com.au
“I LIKE RICE. RICE IS GREAT IF YOU’RE HUNGRY AND WANT 2000 OF SOMETHING” COMEDIAN, MITCH HEDBERG
travel
TOP 5
PEDAL TO THE FLOOR
PLACES TO LEGALLY CONSUME DRUGS ON THE BEACH IN GILI TRAWANGAN
Mushroom milkshake vendors dot the main drag of this idyllic Indo island. Pick one up, then sit the fuck down.
Noble Dye drives down the fast lane at Route 36 – the world’s only ‘cocaine bar’.
IN A CANOE ON THE AMAZON
Found in the jungles of Brazil, the Sapo looks like a green tree frog on ‘roids. However, his venom’s heaps psychedelic, man, when burn into your skin.
RIDING ALONG THE CANALS OF AMSTERDAM Long seen as the legal drug Mecca, the ‘Dam lures you in with its hazy charm before spitting you back out fragile and alone. Listen to the guy behind the counter.
CAMPING IN THE MOJAVE DESERT Get some salvia, drive into the lonely Californian yonder and hold on as you embark on a journey that you’re very much not ready for.
TRAWLING THE STREETS OF ROPPONGI
The Tokyo suburb that’s designed to inflame your senses can be taken to the next level with a quick stop at one of the many head stores found in the neon maze.
T
he hostel scene at Wild Rover is colourful at barely 8pm. A cute Canadian bartender sporadically offers schnapps free pours, while global nomads shark around the pool table. We arrived at the Irish themed establishment today and already we’re feeling the pinch of an altitude assisted happy hour, my two mates and I deep into a drunken dribble session with a lairy lad from England. He says he can help us get to the infamous Route 36 tonight but we’re dubious at best because really, can you imagine a bar existing that has cocaine on the menu? Situated over 4,000 metres above sea level at its highest point, Bolivia’s legislative capital La Paz isn’t know for much except it’s head spinning elevation, accessibility to the world’s most dangerous road and a drug scene for tourists that’s unlike any on the planet. Ever since the book Marching Powder drew a global audience to the post-millennial cocaine culture here, La Paz has attracted backpackers looking to flirt with danger for a sniff of some of the most pure snow produced anywhere. But for all our research in the lead-up to this leg of our South American trek, Route 36 still seems like a myth. That is until we meet Rowdy Brit. Over a heaving mid-week party he tells of his experience; how the staff bring the coke to your table; how it only costs $14 a gram. The Englishman then explains that like many cities, information on illicit activity is kept bubbling just below the surface of regular society. He writes a Spanish translation on the back of a napkin, tells us to read it out when we jump in a cab and sends us on our way. Unbelievably, it works. Our Spanglish is deciphered by the large, moustached cabbie and five minutes later we’re standing on a badly lit street that looks like every other badly lit street in La Paz, not knowing quite what to do. Suddenly to our right a roller door crashes upwards and a man ushers us inside with what you’d call casual urgency. And then for a fleeting moment it’s just like any club in the world: we pay a fee, receive a stamp and walk down a long, snaking corridor.
The main room is fairly derelict – probably a nightclub a few years ago but it hasn’t aged well. There’s coloured cellophane stuck crudely over lights, while The Rolling Stones’ Paint It Black powers out from the speakers. We grab a seat at one of the last remaining booths and take it all in. There’s maybe 20 people inside divided into around six or seven groups; talking is continual but contained. Two sounds are unmistakable though – credit cards knocking on wood and nostrils inhaling – and they’re both happening at alarmingly fast intervals. We’re still trying to get our bearings on all of this when we’re greeted by a kind looking woman – no older than 40 – who verbalises our run sheet: order drinks, order rack, repeat at your will. When she returns a few minutes later we honestly can’t believe what’s presented to us. Lying flat, next to our Heinekens and vodkas, is a well-wrapped white parcel containing the salt of the land. And so it begins. General word is that authorities have been trying to shut Route 36 down for years but due to its continually changing location – the bar moving every month or so – they’ve never been able to. This has to be bullshit. If the local policia wanted to find the bar they’d only need to locate the trail of wired foreigners released back onto La Paz’s streets each morning. Make no mistake, this is a legitimate operation, and some individual with a badge and a title is taking their cut of this foreign stimulus package. America’s ‘War on Drugs’ was lost when coca farmer Evo Morales was elected Bolivian president in 2006, and now with the plant rooting deeper into soil and society, a shady side of alternative tourism has emerged. Eight hours pass at Route 36; night’s turned into day, and now the three of us are ambling through a bustling morning market trying to compute the madness we’ve just left behind. We solved the world’s problems, if only we knew, made some amazing friends that we’ll never remember, and had a once-in-a-lifetime experience we won’t forget. THE MUSIC • 11TH SEPTEMBER 2013 • 67
sport BICYCLE ACCESSORIES
PEDAL POWER
PIMP YO’ BIKE. BASKET
An obvious one, but a staple. Useful for holding groceries, flowers, dogs, tiny babies, etc.
HORN
Sometimes a bell just doesn’t cut it; no matter how angrily you ding it, it still sounds polite. An obnoxious horn is able to really communicate, “Don’t stand in the bike lane, ya fuckin’ idiot”.
Parties powered by bicycles. They are out there. Giuliano Ferla explores the options.
HANDLEBAR STREAMERS
T
here I am peddling the shit out of some crapped out old bike. People surround me, clapping in rhythm. They are so psyched about my pedalling that they are dancing. I can hear music – no wait, I AM music. I am making music and disco lights happen with my pedal power. Am I passing out? NO! That’s just the strobe light. Holy moly, I’m peaking on that E I took. I could ride forever. Blood is coursing through me and all my little blood cells are dancing too. “Faster!” they say in chipmunk voices. “Faster or we’ll kill you!” I pedal faster. I know what you’re thinking and, no, I’m not that pill-popping, mono-testicular Lance Armstrong. I’ve just pedalled a pedal party. Dismount. Come down. People are going to read this. I have to make sense. I am at Falls Festival in Tasmania. The next three days are the best party of my life. Or at least they would be, if I hadn’t completely made up this story. So let me unpack this a little. At the Falls Festival they had ten-minute dance parties powered with bicycles. Eight people jump on cycles and pedal away. The cycles are hooked to generators, the generators run to the DJ booth, the DJ booth runs to the speakers, the speakers blast music, and about 300 people do their dance thing. Pretty swell idea. I would like to try that. I wanted to check and see if my imaginings matched up to reality so I called Greer Allen from Magnificent Revolution, whose company ran the pedal disco at last year’s Falls. While I’m sure the punters were having a blast, she was not. “They asked me to come back but I just turned it down because I don’t really like Falls Festival; I haven’t been exposed to that crowd in a very long time.” Let me fill you in: Magnificent Revolution are an environmental organisation who aim to educate through sustainability events. The Falls Festival kinda flopped in Allen’s eyes. She continued, “[The punters] kinda didn’t get it – they were all just pinging on drugs and pissed out of their skulls and they didn’t really have any time to go, ‘Wow! This is good!’ It was a battle.” 68 • THE MUSIC • 11TH SEPTEMBER 2013
But Magnificent Revolution do a whole gamut of things, not just pedal parties. They do kids’ breakdance competitions, pedal-powered smoothie makers and pedal-powered cinemas. (I forgot to ask Allen if the noise from the bikes and the generator drown out the sound of the movie. In my head this leads to some kind of positive feedback loop whereby to make the sound from the movie louder you have to pedal faster which in turn makes more noise. The whole process then continues ad infinitum or until the cyclists’ legs fall off. Or until the end of the movie… Or what if maybe you could power whole cities by giving party-kids in their early 20s copious amounts of LSD, putting them on generator bikes and letting them cycle through their hallucination? Utilitarian hedonism? Hedonistic utilitarianism?) But Magnificent Revolution have a message. Their focus is education. And hey, I’m all for that. But what if I also have the very specific desire to drink and cycle? Is there a place for me and my needs? Apparently, there is. All over Europe and America they have something called the Pedal Pub (aka party bike, pedibus or bierbike). Twelve people sit on bike stools around a central bar and pedal, while the chauffeur steers and the publican pours. Looks like a poor man’s limousine, and you get to be obnoxious at a slower pace. I might enjoy that. They don’t have them here in Australia so I looked at YouTube videos. Look, I’m going to be honest with you. The pedal pub is one of those ‘seemed like a good idea at the time’ ideas. I mean, despite the fact that working out while drinking makes you feel terrible, what the hell are you meant to do when you need to go to the toilet? The more I look at the videos and read about the pedal pub, the more it seems like a stupid idea. H.G. Wells once said, “When I see an adult riding a bicycle I no longer despair for the human race.” I think if he saw the pedal pub he would change his mind.
Indulge your nostalgia for the ‘80s and ‘90s with some of these. Bonus points if they’re glittery, metallic or pastelcoloured.
STICKERS
Flames, unicorns, Sailor Moon, skulls, cats, Nic Cage – whatever you’re into, somewhere on the internet, you can find stickers of it. Let your bike proudly display to the world the kind of person you are.
WHEEL SPOKE BEADS
For those who long for the days before they turned 12 years old.
fashion AUSTRALIAN STYLISTS GRACE HORNEMAN
Created Perth company Grace Mae Designs in 2010, and is also the creative director of Marina’s Ambrosia. She started out with a Diploma of Fashion Design and Technology and Certificate of Makeup Artistry and is capable of creating her client’s outfit, hair and make-up.
ALL DRESSED UP Bec Cole is the goth girl who grew up to be an in-demand fashion stylist. She chats to Cyclone about her contribution to the MSFW short Reflections and her “perfect sandwich” of a career.
NICOLE WARNE
Otherwise known as Gary Pepper Vintage, this 23-year-old fashion blogger/stylist has her own online store, utilises social media and blogging to her benefit, and this year is a Mercedes Benz Fashion Week Australia Insider.
MARGARET ZHANG
Another Sydney fashion blogger (who runs Shine By Three), stylist and photographer harnessing the greatness of online media. By day she is a law/ commerce student at the University of Sydney but in her spare time she is a Harper’s Bazaar contributor. Styled by Grace Horneman Pic by Libby Edwards
M
elbourne’s Bec Cole has a dream career as a fashion stylist, curating looks and creating ‘worlds’ for fashion campaigns. She’s also the resident stylist at Melbourne’s cosmopolitan Southgate hub. Cole served as the production designer for the adventurous Melbourne Spring Fashion Week short film Reflections, leading a workshop relating to its themes at Southgate’s Define Your Style party. But, even during MSFW, she has been in Sydney for a whirlwind shoot. “I don’t tend to do any of the runway, I do more editorial and advertorial, so I don’t get caught up in a lot of the craziness,” Cole confesses. Cole studied production design at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, where she was conspicuous in her apparel. “I was a goth – I’ll own it!” she laughs, admitting to still favouring Melbourne’s black dress code. She would eventually segue from set – and costume – design into fashion styling for ads (and kitted out one Hugh Jackman along the way). “I did set design at WAAPA and that was a pretty amazing experience, but I was very, very young – and, when you’re dealing with such an elite group of people at the age of 17, it’s overwhelming. But I knew from there onwards that I wanted to help create worlds. I moved into film and television once I’d done that and worked on Australian films and worked with great directors like Craig Monahan and amazing production designers and loved creating the worlds. But I missed that fashion element, having been such a lover of fashion from a really early age – like dressing up in mum’s clothes and waking my sister up at all hours to style her! So I knew that I wanted to incorporate both.” Cole, who’s worked for iconic Melbourne accessories retailer Christine Barro, cites US Vogue’s Creative Director Grace Coddington as an example of “a great stylist”. “They not only have the ability to put clothing together in an interesting and different way to tell a story, [but] they also help capture a different world. It’s not just the clothing – it’s the mood
around it, it’s the surroundings, it’s the settings... For me, that kind of joining of production design and background sets in with fashion was like the perfect sandwich. It gave me that opportunity to create the world – because I want control over not only the clothing, but also what’s happening around it.” Cole brought this perspective to Reflections. The surrealist film, directed by Folie à Deux and starring model (and MTV VJ) Kate Peck, depicts five female characters who “represent different fashion, but also the different Melbourne girl”. Reflections traverses high and popular culture, entails local and international designs, and journeys to disparate key locations about town. The first of its characters is the urban or ‘street’ girl, outfitted in a typically muted Melbourne colour scheme. Then the “tough” sporty girl wears Christina Exie’s “minimalist” leather vest and visor, while the party (or music festival) girl dons a bespoke transparent Limedrop dress, white LIFEwithBIRD shorts and top, and Megan Park’s boho accessories. The artistic, balletic girl follows in “lighter” and “dreamier” romantic attire (an Akira gown). Yet Cole’s favourite is the “dramatic” socialite, who struts around in a Neo Dia dress, Philip Treacy headpiece from Christine, and wicked thigh-high Alex Perry for Tony Bianco boots. She interrupts a banquet scene evoking Peter Greenaway’s decadent The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (Milliner Richard Nylon cameos). Indeed, Cole revels in the fantasy and transformative aspect of fashion, like Coddington, but maintains her mystique. “I will be honest – I do shy away from a lot of fashion events,” she says. “I love sharing my craft, and I love what I do so much, but the schmoozing side of it – I’d rather create a really beautiful image and that be what I’m known for than [be a part of ] the overly social element of the industry... I’d rather be that person who is too busy on a shoot or dreaming up the next story than going to the opening of a car door! I like to try to be more grounded with it all.” THE MUSIC • 11TH SEPTEMBER 2013 • 69
the end
TONY! TONY! TONY! TONY DANZA KNOWN FOR?
Playing men called Tony: in Taxi, then in Who’s The Boss?, Hudson Street and The Tony Danza Show.
TONING UP US extreme metal band The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza always had Danza fans show up at gigs.
PROS He’s multi-skilled: boxing, tap dancing, teaching (on TV), cooking and writing about it all.
CONS People thought Elton John’s Tiny Dancer was Tony Danza (“hold me closer, Tony Danza...”).
MY LITTLE TONY Actually... he was born Antonio Salvatore.
TONY MONTANA KNOWN FOR?
That mountain of cocaine he was determined to snort in 1983’s Scarface.
TONING UP Al Pacino turned this gangster Tony into a role model for wannabe drug dealers around the world - not really sure that’s what director Brian De Palma was going for.
PROS He doesn’t lose his cool when confronted with a chainsaw.
CONS Has anger management issues.
MY LITTLE TONY Without Tony Montana we’d never have gotten Tony Soprano.
TONY STARK KNOWN FOR?
Being a playboy superhero.
TONING UP
When not being Tony, this fictional Stan Lee-created Marvel character gads about as Iron Man.
PROS No lycra.
CONS As a role model for real-life billionaires we suspect he’s the reason Richard Branson thinks he can fly into space.
MY LITTLE TONY Forbes listed Tony as the 10th richest fictional character (below Bruce Wayne and Scrooge McDuck). 70 • THE MUSIC • 11TH SEPTEMBER 2013
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