Issue 1384

2

X-Press – First on the street, Wednesdays

www.xpressmag.com.au

3

4

X-Press – First on the street, Wednesdays

www.xpressmag.com.au

5

6

X-Press – First on the street, Wednesdays

LOONATIC FRINGE

The Cult

CULT CLASSIC

The Cult will be docking into Metro City on Saturday, September 28, as part of the Australian leg of their Electric 13 World Tour. They’ll be performing their legendary album Electric in its entirety and a second set from their now classic back catalogue. It’s presented by X-Press Magazine, tickets from Oztix.

Loon Lake

Melbourne five-piece Loon Lake will be heading our way in the near future in support of their upcoming album, the idiosyncratically named Gloamer. The album hits shelves on October 11 and the band will be at Flyrite a mere six days later on Thursday, October 17.

Tickets are available through Oztix.

Eskimo Joe

WHADDYA KNOW, JOE?

An new Eskimo Joe track is always cause for celebration, and this is no exception Taken from the upcoming album, Wastelands, due out through Dirt Diamonds/Inertia on September 20, Got What You Need is a classic slice of Joe goodness, and is sure to be a frequent flyer on radio waves across the nation. It’s available now everywhere you’d expect.

BORN TO THE PURPLE Birds Of Tokyo

BIRD HUNTERS ‘THON DRIVE

RTRFM Radiothon

It’s radio that keeps giving and it’s that time of year when it needs a li’l something in return.

RTR FM’s annual Radiothon is in full swing, tune in to 92.1 to avail yourself of the magic, or head online to rtrfm.com.au to see/hear/learn about the station.

Radiothon continues until this Sunday, August 25. Check out Live for a look at the Opening Party last weekend.

WA Roller Derby

DERBY DAZE

WA Roller Derby is holding its third and final bout of the 2013 Home Season - Science Friction this Saturday, August 24. See Electric Screams and Sonic Doom battle it out for glory at Kingsway Indoor Stadium, Madeley from 6.30pm. Door sales are $15 adults, $7 for children and there’ll be half-time entertainment, food and alternative market stalls. Tickets are available through trybooking.com

GET READY TO RAMBLE

Paramore

PREPARE FOR PARAMORE

Fans of Paramore are about to lose their minds as the Tennessee trio has announced their intention to return down under next year for a whirlwind tour, with support from You Me At Six and Twenty One Pilots. You can catch them at the Perth Arena on Thursday, January 16.

Tickets go on sale at 9am on Thursday, August 22, through Ticketek.

8 Reactions/Comp Thing 11 Flesh 12 Music: Snakadaktal/ Claire Bowditch/ Andrew Strong 14 Music: Vance Joy 16 Music: Grinspoon/ Whitlams 17 New Noise 19 Eye4 Cover: Perfect Tripod 20 Eye4: News/ What Maisie Knew 21 Eye4: Kiss Ass 2/ Upstream Colour 22 Arts Listings 25 Salt Cover: Wen 26 Salt: News/ Test Pad/ Behind The Decks 27 Salt: The Substance/ RUFUS 28 Salt: Rewind: Circo 30 Scene: Live: Cosmic Psychos/ RTR Radiothon 33 Tour Trails 34 Gig Guide 36 Volume COVER: Dream-pop quintet Snakadaktal are headed to Perth in early September on the back of their debut album, Sleep In The Water.

SALT COVER: Deadweight! Crew are celebrating their third birthday this Friday, August 23 at Gilkisons and UK grime/ dark beats producer Wen is on the bill. www.xpressmag.com.au

The inaugural Recipes & Ramblings cookbook, a celebration of all things of community and culinary, was launched last November as a prelude to the Beaufort Street Festival. It boasts a litany of delicious recipes from local residents, chefs, businesses, colourful identities and who just love Beaufort Street (and beyond).

With the next Beaufort Street Festival looming, it’s time to hit the drawing board for this year’s edition. If you have something to make mouths water, submit your application at beaufortstreetfestival.com.au.

All recipes will be put to the Beaufort Street Festival food army for selection and for those that don’t make it, there will a section on the website that will feature all submissions.

Deadline for all recipe entries is this Friday, 23 August.

Over 30 years ago, Talking To A Stranger by Hunters & Collectors made an indelible mark on the Australian landscape. Now, a new interpretation of the classic track by Birds Of Tokyo is set to do the same. The first single taken from the upcoming album Crucible: The Songs of Hunters & Collectors, it’s a fresh take on a classic Aussie track that demands to be seen. The album, which features works by such luminaries as Eddie Vedder and Neil Finn, Something For Kate, The Panics, Abbe May and The Avalanches, is out on September 27 through Mushroom.

The best Sunday arvo on offer just got better with the news that Sam Perry will be supporting The Purple Sneaker DJs at the Aviary Rooftop Sessions this Sunday, August 25, alongside Micah, Troy Division and Paradise Paul. You can catch the loop master from 4-10pm, and entry, as always, is free.

GOT GET MMM

Triple M are making a play for part of the lucrative Perth digital radio market. The national network will go live in our neck of the woods on Monday, September 2, which means not only a slew of new and classic music, but access to Triple M’s exclusive AFL commentary. It’s a win for music heads and armchair jocks alike.

Sam Perry, Aviary Rooftop Sessions

The Cribs

CRIBBED FOR OUR PLEASURE

The Cribs are swinging through Perth on their 10th anniversary tour. The British punk provocateurs will make a big night of it at the Rosemount Hotel on Tuesday, October 29. tickets are $40 plus booking fee through Oztix.

Doctopus, Flyright Launch Party

RITE OF PASSAGE

The Flyrite Launch Party has been set for Thursday, September 5, at Northbridge’s newest nightspot - Parker. Featuring Doctopus, The Dianas, Puck, Red Engine Caves and Thee Gold Blooms, Flyrite will showcase some of Perth’s best local acts every Thursday. Door sales are $10.

7

Enter online at www.xpressmag.com.au. Snail mail entries can be sent to Locked Bag 31, West Perth 6872. Entries close 4pm Monday. By entering you agree to X-Press Magazine’s Terms and Conditions, which can be found online. All competition entries will automatically enable you to become an X-Press subscriber! No details will be given to a third party.

Print and Digital Editions Publisher/Manager Joe Cipriani Editorial

9213 2888

Managing Editor Bob Gordon: editor@xpressmag.com.au Dance Music & Features Editor Jo Campbell: danceeditor@xpressmag.com.au Local Music & Arts Editor Travis Johnson: localmusicarts@xpressmag.com.au Gig & Event Guides Co-ordinator guide@xpressmag.com.au Entertainment Services Co-ordinator / Competitions win@xpressmag.com.au Photography Callum Ponton, Stefan Caramia, Daniel Grant, Sammy Granville, Matt Jelonek, Denis Radacic, Emma Mackenzie, Guang-Hui Chuan, Max Fairclough Contributing Writers Henry Andersen, Ashleigh Whyte, Nina Bertok, Shaun Cowe, Derek Cromb,Chris Gibbs,Alfred Gorman,George Green,Alex Griffin,Chris Havercroft, Joshua Hayes, Brendan Holben, Coral Huckstep, Rezo Kezerashvili,Tara Lloyd, Adam Morris, Andrew Nelson, Chloe Papas, Ben Watson,Jessica Willoughby,Miki Mclay,Morgan Richards,James Manning, Joe Cassidy, Shane Pinnegar For band gigs and launches - plugyourgig@xpressmag.com.au

Advertising

E DOWNLOAD TH P QR READER AP ING! AND GET WINN

The Rides

GET THIS

The Rides is a blues/rock trio featuring the legendary talents of Stephen Stills, Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Barry Goldberg. Their debut album called Can’t Get Enough is out this week on 429 Records and we’ve got some copies to give away. Enter to win!

WHAT MAISIE KNEW

9213 2888

Sales and Marketing Manager Craig Mauger - advertising@xpressmag.com.au Online Marketing Craig Mauger - advertising@xpressmag.com.au Music Services / Musical Equipment / Bands / Record Labels Dez Richardson - musicservices@xpressmag.com.au Entertainment Venues / Live and Dance Music Promoters Tim Milroy - entertainment@xpressmag.com.au Lifestyle Development Manager Craig Mauger - eye4@xpressmag.com.au Agency / Movies / Education / Sponsorship Keeley Warren-Langford - advertising@xpressmag.com.au Classifieds Linage classifieds@xpressmag.com.au

Production Department

The Company You Keep

THRILLING COMPANY

The Company You Keep is an elegant thriller available

What Maisie Knew is the story of six year old Maisie who is caught in the middle of a custody battle between her rock star mother, Suzanna (Julianne Moore), and art dealer father, Beale (Steve Coogan). In a race to win the court’s advantage, Beale marries Maisie’s nanny, Margo (Joanna Vanderham), prompting Suzanna in turn to marry a local bartender, Lincoln (Alexander Skarsgard). What Maisie Knew Maisie is infinitely accepting and angelic in her ability to observe their immature actions without judgement, staying calm amongst the chaos. Enter to win a double.

Hayley Beth

UNPLUGGED AT FAC

This winter Fremantle Arts Centre’s main gallery plays host to a series of intimate, unplugged gigs by some of WA’s leading songwriters. Presented as part of Anarchy, Rock & Ink - FAC’s celebration of political, rock and art printmaking - the evocative space will be filled with Chesterfield couches and Persian rugs.

Enter to win a double pass to see Big Old Bears frontman David Craft and WA songstress Hayley Beth perform next Thursday, August 29.

9213 2854 on DVD, Blu-Ray and Digital Download this week and

we’ve got some copies to give away. Directed by and starring Robert Redford The Company You Keep is the story of Nick Sloan (Robert Redford), who has been Dwight O’Neil wanted by the FBI for over 30 years, living out his Design + Production time posing as an attorney under an assumed name.

Andy Quilty, Anthony Jackson, Kasia Mazurkiewicz When one of his former cohorts is arrested, a young Printing enthusiastic journalist, Ben Shepard (Shia LaBeouf) Rural Press Printing Mandurah is compelled to investigate and stumbles across Administration 9213 2888 Nick’s true identity. As Nick is forced on the run, Ben discovers that the history of his case isn’t as clear-cut Entertainment Services as the authorities claimed it to be.

WHAT’S ON AT MY PLACE

production@xpressmag.com.au

Art Director

digiservices@xpressmag.com.au

My Place

It’s your last chance to be in the running for our What’s On My Place Bar & Restaurant $100 food and beverage voucher. Simply send your name and contact number to win@xpressmag.com. au with the email title ‘What’s On @ My Place’, and list three cocktails from the My Place menu before this Friday, August 30.

Accounts Lillian Buckley

accounts@xpressmag.com.au

Distribution Distribution

9213 2853 distribution@xpressmag.com.au

CAB AUDITED CIRCULATION: 38,000 OCTOBER 2011 – MARCH 2012

Deadlines EDITORIAL General: Friday 5pm,, Eye4 Arts: Thursday 10am, Comp’ Thing: Monday Noon,, Salt Clubs: Monday 5pm , Local Scene: Monday Noon,, Gig Guide: Monday 5pm ADVERTISING Cancellations: Monday 5pm, Ads to be set: Monday Noon Supplied Bookings / Copy: Tuesday 12 Noon, Classifieds: Monday 4pm

PERFECT TRIPOD

Eddie Perfect and Tripod have combined forces on a tour that will see them perform next Friday and Saturday, August 30 and 31 at the Regal Theatre. Inspired by their celebrated rendition of Paul Kelly’s Meet Me in the Middle of the Air, Eddie Perfect and Tripod have united to craft Perfect Tripod Australian Songs - an album featuring brand new vocal arrangements of iconic Australian hits from across the ages, to be featured on stage. We’ve got doubles to give away to the two gigs.

Published by: Columbia Press Pty.Ltd. A.C.N. 066 570 803 Registered by Australia Post. Publication No PP600110.00006 Suite 55/102 Railway Street, City West Business Centre, West Perth, WA 6005 Locked Bag 31, West Perth, WA 6872 Phone: (08) 9213 2888 Fax: (08) 9213 2882 Website: http://www.xpressmag.com.au

WARRANTY AND INDEMNITY

Advertisers and/or their agents by lodging an advertisment shall indemnify the publisher, and its agents, against all liability claims or proceedings whatsoever arising from the publication. Advertisers and/or their representatives indemnify the publisher in relation to defamation, slander, breach of copyright, infringement of trademarks of name of publication titles, unfair competition or trade practices, royalties or violation of rights or privacy and warrant that the material complies with revelant laws and regulations and that its publication will not give rise to any rights against or liabilities in the publisher, its servants or agents. Any material supplied to X-Press is at the contributor’s risk.

8

HIT WWW.XPRESSMAG.COM.AU SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER FOR LOADS OF EXCLUSIVE COMPS, NEWS & MORE!

X-Press – First on the street, Wednesdays

www.xpressmag.com.au

9

10

X-Press – First on the street, Wednesdays

HUMPHRIES & PICKETT Brendon Humphries and Todd Pickett perform at Fremantle Arts Centre’s Gallery Sessions this Thursday, August 22. It’s BOB GORDON’s shout.

Ed Kuepper Photo: Rachael Barrett

ED KUEPPER Timothy Nelson

Fly By Night Club Friday, August 16, 2013 It was appropriate that opening act, Timothy Nelson, has a new single, Born In The ‘90s, under his arm at this juncture. Most of the songs that the headliner was about to play were also born during that very time. The usual spirited performance by Nelson gained him many a pat on the back from (older) newcomers to his music. Mr Springsteen should also consider him as a support act (but he’s not having one, so he won’t).

Ed Kuepper, exuding nonchalance, yet somewhat warmly so, took to the Fly stage to an immediate request. “Play La De Do!” someone yipped from the back and it was on.

Almost. “Let’s move slowly...” Kuepper replied, reining in the proceedings for what would be the first of many times. It was sorted though, falling into Electrical Storm, that strange mellifluous tone and eerie 12-string strum immediately swept the near full-house up, with only the odd drinks order breaking the spell. He took the opportunity to dash into Horse Under Water, not presuming to command the situation, yet doing so anyway.

The first shows of this request series was

probably always going to attract a few bumps.

Mostly - and understandably - in the audience.

‘Confessions Of A Window Cleaner! Honey Steel’s Gold!

Black Ticket Day!’ Kuepper gave Confessions “a go,” then gave a spirited but early finishing run through Black Ticket Day (and yes, it’s still reminiscent of the Degrassi High theme).

It was mid-set when the haphazardness of the request format revealed itself, as audience shouts led to the sort of banter that Kuepper doesn’t normally go for and perhaps with good reason. “You want all the fast ones, and if I play them all now then you’ll say, ‘this guy can’t pace a set’,” Kuepper commented, although it did reveal a not-often seen light-hearted nature.

The chatter may have been one thing, but the songs came in streams of beauty. From Kuepper’s respectful versions (his own) of Ring Of Fire and Highway To Hell, to Pretty Mary and, eventually, La De Do (a spirited audience sing-a-long), to the Laughing Clown’s Collapse Board (“the most depressing song in Australian history”) and the hit-ish likes of Sleepyhead, The Way I Made You Feel, Real Wild Life and Everything I’ve Got Belongs To You, if there was any notion of nostalgia present it was distilled/dispelled by the contemporary nature of the artist in delivery of his art.

Even so, perhaps he should invest in a chocolate wheel. _ BOB GORDON

Bruce Springsteen

BOSS IN WA

Unless you’ve got a freight train running through the middle of your head you’re no doubt aware by now that Bruce Springsteen is finally coming our way, opening his next Australian tour at Perth Arena on Friday, February 7, 2013.

If you’re a registered Frontier Touring Member their pre-sale continues until Thursday, August 22. The general public sale starts on Monday, August 26, from ticketek.com.au (132 849) on sale at 9am WST.

Brendon Humphries is the vocalist/guitarist/ songwriter of Kill Devil Hills and Todd Pickett the drummer; though he’s also a multi-instrumentalist, multiple band guy who is also a mean solo artist.

So it makes perfect sense that they’re teaming up - along and together - at the Fremantle Arts Centre as part of the Anarchy, Ink & Rock gig series. “ Todd’s busy recording a solo EP,” Humphries says, “so he’ll be sporting some of that stuff, I think. I’m trialling some new Kill Devil Hills songs, some of which we’ll yodel out together. It’s a totally acoustic affair, so no mikes, nothin’. That’s always an enjoyable challenge.”

One wonders - well, I do - what do you most appreciate about each other as musicians and people?

“I think when you find the right people to create with, there’s a kind of ESP that kicks in,” Humphries notes.“Look, gesture, smell... you tune into each other’s odours, pheromones. Yes, that must be what it is... that sense of connection is rare and unique each time, I reckon. I guess that means I find Todd rare and smelly.”

Kill Devil Hills, meanwhile, have a live album coming out. So what’s been going on and what’s gunna happen?

“Yes,” Humphries concurs,“the rumours are true. We’ll be releasing an album of live tracks recorded earlier this year. It was intended for a European tour

Brendon Humphries (Todd Pickett not pictured/didn’t get memo) that didn’t happen, so we’re putting it out anyway in the next month or so, then recording a studio album in October, then heading for a lap of the country in November.

“There’s a bunch of WA shows on the horizon, then we’ll be getting busy all over again making up lies about ourselves to promote the new rekkid.”

Cavalia

HORSE LATITUDES

Some 12 additional shows have been added to Cavalia: A Magical Encounter Between Human And Horse with the opening night now set for Wednesday, December 4. Featuring 48 horses, 35 riders, aerialists, acrobats, dancers and musicians, the show will run until December 29 under Cavalia’s White Big Top along Riverside Drive, Perth. Tickets are available now from cavalia.com.au.

Alison Wedding

WEDDING AT WAAPA

Jazz vocalist Alison Wedding is to perform a oneoff show with Jamie Oehlers and stand-out WAAPA jazz musicians this Thursday, August 22. To be held at ECU, Mount Lawley, Wedding will perform her own originals along with some old jazz classics. Tickets are $24 at full price and $20 for concession.

Wolf Mail

BLUES MAIL

The Montreal-born, California-raised Blues-rocker, Wolf Mail is on his way to join the Perth Blues Club at Charles Hotel on Tuesday, September 3. Currently touring in support of the release of his sixth album, Above The Influence, Wolf Mail’s performance has been polished on thousands of stages in over 20 countries during a nomadic career spanning 27 years. Tickets are $25 on the door.

Prince Rama Violent Soho

HUNGRY VIOLENT GHOST

Brisbane outfit Violent Soho have announced a national tour that will see them performing Mojos on Thursday, October 31, and at Amplifier on Friday, November 1. The tour’s happening in support of the release of their third LP, Hungry Ghost, and Violent Soho will be supported by Sydney’s Straight Arrows. www.xpressmag.com.au

RAMA LAMA DING DONG!

Taraka and Nimai Larson make up Prince Rama.

Their impulsive live shows, incorporate elements of mystical sonic ceremony, performance art and dance floor initiation rites and the duo will exhibit a special screening of their short film, Never Forever, directed by Lily X. (Astral Projects) at all shows on their forthcoming Australian tour.

Catch Prince Rama on Saturday, October 19, at Amplifier. Tickets through oztix.com.au.

11

SNAKADAKTAL Down By The Water

Snakadaktal

Gearing up for a headlining tour to mark the release of their debut album, Sleep In The Water, dream-pop quintet Snakadaktal will stop by the Newport Hotel on Thursday, September 5; Capitol on Friday, September 6, and Settlers Tavern in Margaret River on Saturday, September 7. SARA MATTSSON chats with vocalist, Phoebe Cockburn, ahead of the 11-date national jaunt.

ANDREW STRONG Cuffe Links

Andrew Strong, star of the 1991 movie The Commitments, is bringing the hit songs from the film to Metropolis Fremantle this Thursday, August 22. SHANE PINNEGAR reports.

Andrew Strong

CLARE BOWDITCH

Winters Of Content Equal parts cabaret, pantomime, comedy, and free-for-all musical mayhem, legendary indie songstress Clare Bowditch’s annual Winter Secrets tours have become something of an Australian institution. THOMAS BAILEY chats to Bowditch ahead of her show at the Fly By Night Club on Friday, August 30.

Ever since Clare Bowditch first began Winter Secrets, a most irreverent and curious series of interactive concerts back in 2009, she has made it her mission to close the gap between performer and audience.

Now, with her 2012 studio album, The Winter I Chose Happiness under her belt, Winter Secrets is returning – and just about anything is possible. What is certain, though, is that there will be some dizzyingly jazzy sounds, and some damn good times to be had.

In person, as in her public persona, Bowditch is an irrepressibly positive figure who exudes a gentle and intoxicating warmth. She smiles widely when asked how the idea for this series of concerts first came into being.

“I was touring a lot with a big band, and then, to change things up, I thought I’d 12

With her serene voice, songstress Phoebe Cockburn sounds like stress-less-ness personified.

And apparently, this is just what touring with Snakadaktal is like.

“It’s quite peaceful,” Cockburn affirms. “We were doing it from the start when we were very young and we were able to fit it in to our own pace. The most difficult part of that is managing the energy and trying to keep up with everything that’s going on while trying not to step ahead of what’s going on (laughs).

“I always hear people comment on our nature,” she continues down the line from her Melbourne home,“and call us shy and so on, but I think we’re at peace with each other, so we are able to find that on tour as well, as difficult as it is to not get too fuzzed or overwhelmed because it is a lot of stress involved.”

Snakadaktal’s first single release, Air, was recorded when Cockburn was in Year 8 (the rest of the clan, being one year older, were in Year 9). The tune is part of their 2011 self-titled EP, which was also selfrecorded in diverse home locations.

But with age comes experience, and Snakadaktal’s only female band member asserts the sound has developed from the first release.

“It has evolved, definitely. Just purely from the influences that have surrounded us and purely

from growing up and experiencing different things, and hearing different things.

“It’s always been quite a dynamic sound, I think,” Cockburn muses. “Through having the access to more professional recording equipment and a producer, Dan Hunn, who helped us endlessly along the way, the sounds become quite more intimate.”

On the day of Sleep In The Water’s August 2 release, the LP was at #7 on iTunes Australia Top 10 Album chart. In spite of that very immediate reaction, Cockburn explains the 13-tracker requires a few listens before anyone really will get it.“We didn’t want listeners to feel that they’d get their head around it in the first listen, so in that sense it’s a very patient record,” she contemplates.

“The record was one that we’ve been kind of dreaming of making our entire musical lives,” she says, sounding like she has been a musician for decades (when in reality she has barely lived for two). Either way, Snakadaktal has grown a huge following since winning the Triple J’s Unearthed High competition in 2011.

“It’s been quite overwhelming, actually,” she notes. “We didn’t even think we were going to enter our song in the competition. The whole process has been really exciting and really delightful, but also overwhelming. So it’s important to us to take it as slowly as we can and keep grounded during the journey.

“We have a really great little team going and we feel like we can speak to each other about anything that’s necessary,” Cockburn says of the friendly dynamic within the group.

“We are just mates and the rest is a huge bonus and a huge part of what we want to do in our lives, but the soul behind it is the friendship.”

Lately, there’s been lots of trekking around the country for Snakadaktal, supporting UK outfit Alt-J followed by performing at Splendour In The Grass last month. Before the five friends embark on their own debut album tour, they are joining Bernard Fanning and The Rubens on the road.

“We’re all really eager to commit ourselves fully to it at the moment,”Cockburn says.“It doesn’t seem like a thing anyone could do for a lifetime, but for what we want to do it’s quite perfect and we fit well into it.”

Since then Strong, who still lives in his native Ireland, has released three successful solo albums, and is quick to clarify that he will be backed on this tour by his own eight-piece band and not the movie guys.

“I don’t want Australians to be under the pretence that I’m going there with The Commitments,” he explains, “because that’s not the case. I’m going there to sing the songs, and if they’re prepared to come and hear me sing them, than that’s cool - and it’s always nice to get down to Oz anyway, you know?”

Strong reunited with his co-stars for a series of gigs in the UK in 2011 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the movie, but admits tensions ran high and there was no longevity in the project.

“There were a couple of members of the cast that I just couldn’t be in a room with,” he reflects, sadly.“I just felt extremely uncomfortable. And then on the other hand I said, ‘well, let’s put that aside, and let’s think about the people who went out and bought these records, let’s think about the people who have given me my career. Let’s think about the people who absolutely adore this music and adore my contribution to that, and let’s think about the people who deserve to hear that’.

So I kind’ve put my differences aside and I’m kind’ve happy about that - I mean, we played some great, great shows.

“In a way it’s sad that we couldn’t say, ‘let’s just go out and do this one time. Let’s go to Australia,

let’s go to America, let’s do Europe properly’. It’s sad that we couldn’t do that but to be perfectly honest with you, it’s like a time bomb going on tour with all of us, because everybody’s just so different, and everybody’s got very diverse careers and so, the limited amount of shows we did do were tough enough to do.

“I just could not see myself going out on tour in that environment for six months, because it just wouldn’t last to be perfectly honest with you. As far as the shows go they were fine, but as far as what was going on behind the scenes, it wasn’t really a nice place to be, to be honest.”

Thursday’s show will feature “predominantly 90 per cent Commitments stuff” and despite being happy to celebrate the songs from the movie, Strong feels he never felt much in common with his arrogant, heavy drinking character, Deco Cuffe.

“Oh, not really to be honest,”he laughs.“My character was pretty much an unsavoury character - a dickhead. I mean, I’m a totally laid back person, maybe I used to be a bit feistier when I was younger, but no, I think the only thing I had in common was the ability to sing, you know?

“It’s me portraying a character in a film.

It’s like the way Robert DeNiro portrays a character in Taxi Driver - he doesn’t go around in a mohawk shooting pimps, you know what I mean?”

“We have a really great little team going and we feel like we can speak to each other about anything that’s necessary. We are just mates and the rest is a huge bonus and a huge part of what we want to do in our lives, but the soul behind it is the friendship.”

Two soundtrack albums from The Commitments hit the Australian top ten 20 years ago, featuring Andrew Strong singing American soul classics including Midnight Hour, Try A Little Tenderness and Mustang Sally. do a solo tour,” she says. “I called it a ‘Random Creative Adventure’. I found that when I played, the audiences were always just so brilliant, and were always really talented… and so I just started throwing backing vocals out to them, and they’d throw them back to me, and we’d all do three-part harmonies, or whatever.”

It didn’t take long for Bowditch to take her interaction with the audience one step further: the origins of her special breed of audience participation were seeded a long time ago.

“I was at a Jeff Buckley concert when I was a teenager and I remember that feeling of wishing he would just reach down and drag me up on stage,” she recalls fondly.“And Winter Secrets then became a chance to get some of those talented people up on the stage. So it’s two parts – there’s a lot of play with the audience; if they’re into it, that’s great… and if they’re not, then that’s fine. But there’s a competition as well.”

And by competition, she means that there’s the chance for one talented musician in each state that Winter Secrets visits to grace the stage with Bowditch and perform a cover of her most recent single, the bittersweet and beautiful, One Little River. Hopeful musos from across Australia have been filming themselves covering the song and sending their entries to Bowditch’s website (clarebowditch.com). The singer herself will choose the winners.

Another time honoured tradition of Bowditch’s Winter Secrets is her hand-picking of a collaborator to join her in her shenanigans. Just as last year’s festivities included Lanie Lane, this year Clare will bring along the effervescent electronic skills of Melbourne-based Spender – a prospect Bowditch is truly excited about.

“Spender is someone whose work I really admire – we went to school together. He was really short then, but then he really grew up, and now he’s become an amazing music-maker,” she laughs.

“He’s making stuff that sounds like no one else except him, and he’s a great experimenter. He’s a great person to have on the road with me.”

Clare Bowditch X-Press – First on the street, Wednesdays

www.xpressmag.com.au

13

With the single, Riptide, still ringing in ears all around the globe, Vance Joy supports Bernard Fanning this weekend at the Astor Theatre (sold out) and headlines his own show at the Fly By Night Club on Friday, August 23. BOB GORDON reports.

VANCE JOY

The ‘Tide That Binds

James Keogh, aka Vance Joy

James Keogh, aka Vance Joy, has enjoyed a great year thus far. Riptide, the lead track from his debut EP, God Loves You When You’re Dancing, has opened door upon door, being featured on Offspring, Home & Away and Neighbours on the very same night, gaining airplay all ‘round and helping to ink in a deal with Atlantic Records (US).

It’s a postcard on a mission.

Even so, a songsmith must keep writing and that’s exactly what Keogh has been doing recently, penning tunes in Seattle.

“It was awesome,” he reflects. “I was at Bear Creek Studio, which is minutes out of Seattle, a beautiful old building, in a beautiful location. They’ve done some great records there. You can actually live in the studio, my drummer and I stayed there and it was very homely.

“The guy we were working with, Ryan Hadlock (The Lumineers, Ed Harcourt, Soko), he grew up on the property. It’s like this bubble, this isolated little place where you can let your creative juices flow and shares ideas and be in this supportive, relaxed environment.”

Times have changed for the young songwriter, who creative pursuits and inclinations have mainly been around Melbourne, but whose music now puts him on planes to go off and write more songs elsewhere.

“It’s amazing that I’ve got the opportunity to go over there and record with such an amazing producer,” Keogh says, “and to go over there to work with someone who has such an amazing body of work.

“I was just so surprised at how enthusiastic he was. He was so engaged in it and totally openminded. In terms of finding the right thing he’d listen to everyone’s input, in finding the right path, the right progression for the song.

“In that sense it’s like, ‘what a special moment, to be over here’, but all the ingredients are the same. You carry over the song, it’s with you in your head. For the people who are connecting over music the language is the same, whether you’re in Melbourne or America.”

Ultimately, it seems, one must be in the moment.

“Absolutely,” he agrees. “That’s a good point, it’s like, ‘I’ve got an idea of what the songs should be, I’ve done a few demos, but I’m just gonna show Ryan the raw skeleton of the song and let the song go from there. Try not to restrict the song, let us have our ideas and see what can come out of that chemistry’.”

The irony in that process is that songs themselves are emotional entities, but sometimes the last thing a songwriter can afford to be is too emotional with them.

“You have to let the song go and be its own thing.

You want to defend it and protect it, but at a certain point you have to let go and say, ‘this didn’t sound like I thought it was going to sound, it sounds better’, or maybe it sounds different, but you can’t have control over some of those things.

You just have to let it go.”

“You have to let it go,” Keogh notes. “You have to let it go and be its own thing. You want to defend it and protect it, but at a certain point you have to let go and say, ‘this didn’t sound like I thought it was going to sound, it sounds better’, or maybe it sounds different, but you can’t have control over some of those things. You just have to let it go.”

Keogh has been chipping away at songs for an album, due for release in early 2014. The move these days for emerging artists often seems to be for two EP releases then a debut LP but the momentum for Vance Joy perhaps suggests otherwise.

“I think so. You think about an album, you’re writing for an album. It’s a challenge, as opposed to just writing songs and saying, ‘how many songs do you need for an EP? Three to five? Sweet, let’s do these’. So it’s a different mentality and a different challenge.”

O n l y t h re e ye a r s a g o K e o g h w a s performing at open mic nights in Melbourne.

Unsurprisingly with all that’s happened, it feels longer than that.

“It feels like ages,” he notes. “I had two songs and first played them at this open mic night at the end of 2010. I felt like that was a massive step, getting out there and playing my new songs. It was an empty room, basically, at a pub in Melbourne.

“That’s three years ago, it does feel like ages. So much has happened in that time; I was still in the thick of uni, my performing wasn’t there.

Obviously you have ways you can improve, but my voice was way weaker and the songs were being played at like 10 times the normal speed. I still get nervous before gigs, but that would have been one of the more nerve-wracking moments, playing those first few open mic nights. My mouth was so dry, racing through those songs. It was like a rite of passage, you have to do it... and I felt so good after doing it.”

Meanwhile, Riptide continues to melt hearts all around, one of those universal songs that connects to people like an old friend.

“I’m so grateful to have written that song because really everything has started from it,” Keogh says. “I think it’s a special song, it’s catchy, but for whatever reason it feels familiar to people or sticks to people in some way. I think that’s pretty lucky and a rare thing. It’s like I’ve gone fishing and caught a really big fish.”

14

X-Press – First on the street, Wednesdays

www.xpressmag.com.au

15

GRINSPOON The Getaway Plan

Touring in support of their latest album, Black Rabbits, Grinspoon hit the Astor Theatre this Friday, August 23, and Port Hedland’s North West Festival this Saturday, August 24. BOB GORDON checks in with vocalist, Phil Jamieson.

Phil Jamieson is quite at home being at home.

He’s in his car; his cousin, Danno, is driving.

He’s on the corner of Pacific Drive & William St, in the Mid North Coast town of Port Macquarie.

“I’m looking over Town Beach, on the Pacific Ocean, it’s a beautiful crisp winter’s day here,” he says in a very capable Breakfast Announcer’s voice.

“It’s maybe a top of 18 degrees.

“I’ve got to get home and get the washing in. At the moment my wife is overseas for five weeks, so I’m currently being Hero Single Dad and just being awesome. Danno’s scored himself a takeaway flat white, and we’re going home to watch a horror movie, No One Lives, while I fold the washing. So I’m living the dream, basically.”

It’s a fairly rare moment of domestic bliss in 2013 for Jamieson and Grinspoon. The band have already rounded off on a huge regional tour, which took in Esperance, Albany, Margaret River, Bunbury and Mandurah in WA alone. Such is his geographic familiarity with this wide brown land - not to mention a sturdy broadcast voice - one might think Jamieson

Grinspoon would be a good fit on a show like Getaway.

“Well that’s very nice of you to say,” he laughs, “but unfortunately I’m just a little bit too cynical and honest for media. I’ve been caught in a few traps on TV where I’ve just said the truth. With media you’ve got to play by the book, I think.

“I would love to be paid what those Getaway people get paid to travel around the fucking world. But not for me at this point in time; I like the freedom of rock’n’roll too much.”

Mainstream media’s loss, however, seems to be Twitter’s gain. Jamieson’s pretty handy with the odd tweet.

“Yeah, thank you. I do love the written word. I like words, that’s why I’m not much into Instagram. I also get inspired by following people on Twitter. I really enjoy that community. I think there’s 12,000 people who wanna listen to what I’ve got to say, which is very flattering. I haven’t bought any followers, unlike some people I know (laughs).”

Formed way back in 1995, Grinspoon have seen many fellow bands come and go (and come again) in their time. Recently The Superjesus’ Sarah McLeod commented to X-Press that she admired the staying power of The Living End and Grinspoon, saying that the latter’s ability to always up front with each other was probably why they’d lasted so long with the original - and only - line-up.

“That’s quite an interesting observation,” Jamieson reflects. “I don’t really ponder the ‘90s, or our longevity, or being all the same dudes. I think it just is what it is. There might be a good case in that, if there’s some sort of disagreement we’re pretty much open about it.

“It’s really difficult for me to be selfanalytical, unfortunately, but we just kind of exist where we are and it’s nice of her to say that. The Living End are another great band and it’s nice to be included with them as our contemporaries and peers as well.”

The Whitlams

THE WHITLAMS & WASO Room On My Horse

Tim Freedman brings The Whitlams “a good all ‘round orchestra.”

The last Whitlams studio outing was the back for two shows at the Perth gold double album, Little Cloud, in 2006, but Freedman Concert Hall with the West doubts there’ll be another any time soon.

“No, I envisage releasing songs, but I can’t Australian Symphony Orchestra imagine a whole album at this point,” he says before on Friday-Saturday, August 30-31. admitting he has nothing written or planned so far.

Known for his personal, emotive SHANE PINNEGAR reports. songwriting, Freedman explains that he doesn’t get The Whitlams have performed with WASO on several occasions in the past, but Tim Freedman explains that the show has been rejigged from the last time they shared the stage with the prestigious orchestra.

“It builds slowly,” he begins, “It starts with solo piano, then I add strings, then I add the band and then we add the brass. So the first half is just like layer upon layer, and it ends with a big bang. Then the second half of the concert is full symphony.”

Playing with an orchestra doesn’t change things too much for the band. Freedman says they “just play less. If it’s a great arrangement I sometimes won’t play the piano for 90 seconds ‘cause I’m conscious I need to make space for the oboes and pipes and the harp. That’s the most important difference between playing with an orchestra and playing in a four-piece.

“What you lose in spontaneity,” he explains, “you gain in these gorgeous crescendos and extra melodies and textures. It’s exciting being in the middle of 70 people playing these arrangements, so as a trade-off it’s not difficult to make.”

WASO first commissioned orchestral arrangements of The Whitlams’ songs back in 2004, and Freedman credits our orchestra with knowing the material back to front and having always been 16

twisted up in a song’s emotions when he performs it.

“Even if a song appears intensely personal,” he says thoughtfully, “there’s still been an editing process and the really, really heart-wrenching stuff has probably been left out.” He laughs wryly, “You know - it’s all edited. And when I write, I write it to play to people, so that motivation doesn’t change over the years.”

He goes on to spill the beans on an unlikely cover version the band will be performing.“There are a few songs that do get transformed (by the orchestra). I just commissioned Two Little Boys, the Rolf Harris song.

And I’ve sort of turned it into a poignant ballad and that’s working with the orchestra - that’s a real tearjerker now.”

Freedman says that the impression of him being cynical or dour is wide of the mark. “I suppose that impression is mainly by people who only know the two biggest songs on the radio, which is Blow Up The Pokies and No Aphrodisiac, which are ballads. But we always have pretty healthy crowds because I think they know we can be quite ebullient, so I don’t sort of come up against it as you might think.”

He certainly seems to be smiling in the new promo pic.

“Oh yeah,” Freedman chuckles cheekily before deadpanning, “I’m quite a cheery soul!”

X-Press – First on the street, Wednesdays

SALVIA PLATH The Bardo Story

MAJOR CHORD Transition THE SMITH STREET BAND Don’t Fuck With Our Dreams Poison Records

Melbourne punks The Smith Street Band have said they’d been galvanised and strengthened as a group by their recent touring, and the band do sound more focused on their new EP, Don’t Fuck With Our Dreams. They bunkered down with producer Matt Voigt (Paul Kelly, The Dirty Three) to record this ‘snapshot’ release that will tide fans over while the band work on the full-length follow-up to last year’s Sunshine & Technology.

Wil Wagner’s visceral, anguished vocals explode through speakers like a punch to the gut. The rough-around-the-edges aural aesthetic still remains, but is leaner this time around. These are emotions laid bare, battered and bleeding, but the lyrics are deceptively simple and matter-of-fact.

The title track was inspired by an altercation a tour mate had with an aggressive concertgoer. Don’t Fuck With Our Dreams became a mantra of sorts for the band and has carried over to this new EP. Ducks Fly Together is an open, heaving love song. There is nothing sweet here, just a chest cracked open, exposing the slightly bruised but still beating heart within. On Bigger Than Us, when Wagner cries, ‘And when I tell you all I love you / Fuck, I couldn’t mean it more’, it seems inevitable that sweaty moshpit crowds will be screaming it back at him before long.

Don’t Fuck With Our Dreams is raw and a little jagged, but it is also soaring and necessary.

BEN SALTER European Vacation

Vitamin

Domino/EMI

ABC Music

Over the course of three albums, Major Chord has pretty much been a solo venture for Dan Flynn. On his fourth LP, Transition, he may invite a few friends into the studio for the ride, but that doesn’t mean he’s throwing out his folk leanings with the bathwater.

Flynn may have crammed more people onto this record but it hasn’t led to a remarkable increase in volume. The tunes on Transition still appear to come from a place of solitude and more likely than not despair. This could be due to the fertile environment of his counsellor by day role, or to do with the passing of his father, yet regardless of the inspiration Flynn has a knack for storytelling.

Transition is full of the type of folk that makes you want to curl up in your favourite spot and do nothing more than listen. Flynn’s clear vocals and confidently plucked guitar make this an enjoyable outing even if the falsetto driven Rubber House falls a little too closely into Bon Iver territory. Meabh Freil chimes in with vocals throughout to give Flynn someone add layers to his thoughtful words.

Major Chord have fleshed out their sound without substituting any of their character. Transition is not as sombre as past outings, but it equally appealing.

M ichael Collins star ted releasing off-k ilter pop records under the moniker Run DMT until he noted an Austin dubstep duo were using the same name. Collins has since relabelled his project as Salvia Plath as a vehicle for his energetic entries into psych-pop.

The Bardo Story is a result of Collins spending his time drifting between major cities including Boston and Baltimore in an artist’s daydream that created a plethora of tunes to draw from. The cities may have changed along the way, but The Bardo Story still finds Collins putting a mish-mash of ‘60s inspired sounds through a thermomix to spit out a batch of pot infused melodies with some psych bite.

Collins has no issue with mixing things up during his loop-driven outings. Stranded would be at home in a left of centre spaghetti western where you would imagine the protagonist dies.

This American Life is the most straightforward pop moment with handclaps and harmonies leading into a foot stomping chorus.

The Bardo Story has some seriously strong high points, but it is a too often unfocussed and meandering. There is no doubt that Collins has a cracking album in him. If only he had the attention to foster it.

Ben Salter is one of Australia’s most underrated songwriters in one of the country’s most underrated bands, The Gin Club. Salter’s 2011 solo LP, The Cat, departed slightly from The Gin Club mould, further showcasing the range of a fine songwriter, and this EP continues that trend in a surprisingly more experimental way. It’s evident on Tremulous with its thumping, heightened pulse and keys reminiscent of something from the score of Blade Runner.

The EP’s title is not misleading: each track was recorded last year across several locales in Europe, although there are not necessarily obvious connections between song and place. Instrumental tracks provide an interesting change of pace, All The Things sounding more like it’s from the American heartland than from Ireland where it was recorded.

The rest is more recognisably Salter: The Prophetess is a steady, darkly rocking opener, and Not Today is almost the antithesis of that – sharp plucking of acoustic guitar accompanied by strings and sultry saxophone that catches you unawares.

Semi Pro Gamer sits a little uncomfortably amongst these tracks – it is a good tune with a great chorus; it’s just Salter singing lines such as ‘I don’t need a passport / Just an unlimited wireless plan’ that seems odd. But it’s a minor blip on the radar of an otherwise enjoyable interim release.

_ CHRIS HAVERCROFT

_ CHRIS HAVERCROFT

_ GARRY WESTMORE

_ NATALIE AMAT

SNAKADAKTAL Sleep In The Water I Oh You/Liberation

Weightlessness is a hell of a feeling, whether it is physical (floating) or metaphorical (transcendence). Running with the duality of this adjective Snakadaktal have released a debut album that sonically flows with an effortless style that is so well-produced it immediately contemporises them with UK megastars The xx.

Cockburn’s vocals on Ghost seem to have relaxed somewhat from Snakadaktal’s 2011 debut EP, with her voice losing that youthful twang and now settling in somewhere between Tori Amos and Kate Bush. The musical backing to this song is sparse, yet profound. Softly fingered and icy six-string is abused by jarring riffage from the lead guitar, reminiscent of the 1980s production of Dire Straits and more recently Bon Iver on Bon Iver.

The single, Hung On Tight, with its dramatic film clip and vivid lyrical storytelling the song has already made quite the impact. Musically, the song is dissimilar to Ghost – while still having the ethereal edge, and drives forward with compelling inexorability like a boxer pulling themself off the mat to then deliver the winning punch. Heathcliff’s vocals are stirring and the lyrics well chosen.

A highlight of this album’s tenderness and beauty is the triptych of The Sun parts I, II and III. The first movement features Heathcliff and a clean guitar strum pleading to be heard, and the third movement, which closes the album, is a beautiful coalescence of Snakadaktal’s best attributes: naivety, texture, intelligence, and beauty.

_ DENVER MAXX

LETLIVE. The Blackest Beautiful Epitaph/Warner

Is letlive., along with its pouty insistence on lowercase style, the new sound of teen rebellion? Kids are fodder at the cult of rock. Like life, rock promises so much. It embodies fists to the jaw of the man, unlimited sex beyond all moral decency and uncompromising freedom. Ultimately, our bellies are left empty, fed on hope. What about letlive.?

Firstly, we hear a drop of prog in their oceans of hip hop borrowings. The odd lead break dazzle doesn’t go astray either. Virgin Dirt, a brutish take on the acoustic ballad, hears vocalist Jason Butler clawing at walls. Machine drums rearrange faces and string quartets soothe. Grinding bass bursts through the gates on That Fear Fever, tempered by Butler’s deceptively sonorous pipes. letlive. dust off new jack groove in The Dope Beat, threatening like chain-wielding thugs doing the moonwalk. Butler’s nods to sleek ’90s Motown continues in drum-and-bass-whacked The Priest And The Used Cars. Gang vocal breakdowns seduce down-tuned axes, emerging a new breed of arena rock sing-along. ‘I buy my faith when it’s on sale / That’s why my holy water’s stale,’ Butler snarls.

Produced to an Instagram vintage and a mind to cut their sugar with bile, rebellion never sounded this volatile or this agreeable. Rock doesn’t fulfil its promises, but The Blackest Beautiful’s earnestness and sheer force might restore faith in rock’s dead-end youth. _ TOM VALCANIS www.xpressmag.com.au

17

18

X-Press – First on the street, Wednesdays

PERFECT TRIPOD F r o m L i t t l e Things, B i g Things G r o w A collaboration between musical comedy performers Tripod - aka Scott ‘Scod’ Edgar, Simon ‘Yon’ Hall and Steven ‘Gatesy’ Gates - and Eddie Perfect, Perfect Tripod Australian Songs grew out of a love of the rich history of Australian music, as Scod explains.

The first thing Scott ‘Scod’ Edgar does is try to pass the buck. “ Well, Eddie,” he says, referring to fellow comedian and musician, Eddie Perfect. “I’ve gotta blame Eddie, originally.”

CONTINUED ON PAGE 20.

www.xpressmag.com.au

19

FRESH MOVES

From August 27 - 30, UWA’s Dolphin Theatre plays host to Fresh, a collection of works by WAAPA’s third year dance students designed to showcase their impressive skills. Each of the 10 performance The Ballad of Weeping Spring opens the 10th AICE pieces is choreographed by a graduating BA Dance Israeli Film Festival tonight, Wednesday August 21, at student and scored by WAAPA’s composition and Cinema Paradiso, after an official reception at Oliver’s music technology students. For more info on this on James from 6.15. Described as a kind of Israeli provocative and exciting performance season, head Magnificent Seven, the film marks the beginning of to waapa.ecu.edu.au. seven days of the best cinema that Israel has to offer.

Head to lunapalace.com.au for info and tickets.

READ ‘EM AND WEEP

THAT’S MY JAM

CONTINUED FROM COVER It was Perfect who first approached Scod and his fellow Tripod members about working together on an a capella cover version of Paul Kelly’s Meet Me In The Middle Of The Air for a cabaret show in Melbourne back in ‘07. “He’d done a beautiful arrangement for it for four voice which we set upon like hungry dogs and then took apart and put back together in our own image. It was a really fun kind of moment in the show and Paul was actually there, which was kind of intense, and he gave us some great feedback. That was that and we kind of thought that was the end of it, but people kept approaching us to do this tune and so kind of kept pulling it out like a party trick and then, eventually, it just became obvious that we should really try and do a whole show based on us singing together.”

The four comedians decided to focus on Australian music to give themselves a kind of thematic framework. “It just gave us something to hang our hat on, you know?” Scod explains. “If we’d just done a general sort of thing... it would have been a nightmare to choose music if we didn’t have any kind of strictures to work inside of. So I kind of feel like it gave us a flavour or a theme. It’s a loose definition of the word ‘idea,’ but it is an idea. That’s why we do it. And also, there’s so much great Australian music and we really respond to it; the breadth of voices out there to choose from is enormous and so we kind of really enjoyed celebrating our colleagues, compatriots and forefathers, you know?”

Even with those parameters in place, whittling down a list of songs to cover was by no means easy. “Choosing songs has been an ongoing challenge and debate, actually, about what to do.

Perfect Tripod - Photo by DWV Photography In the end we decided that we can’t represent all Australian music or give any kind of exhausting list, but we can kind of represent ourselves and what we respond to, so that ended up being our mantra.”

When asked what their chief method of research was, Scod replies without hesitation. “Lots of YouTube. Look, I think ultimately it’s not very hard - ultimately it’s supposed to be fun, this project. In the end, if someone didn’t want to do it or you made a suggestion or it didn’t hit the table - there wasn’t a lot of angst about that. It was all pretty straight forward. Having said that, a lot of songs fell by the wayside. We didn’t do a lot of fighting, but we did do a lot of disappointed letting go of good music - but in the end I think we came up with a list that we’re all pretty happy with. A lot of the days when we were supposed to be choosing songs just degenerated into a roundtable YouTube party playing tunes to each other and free-associating.”

As for his own personal favourite amongst the cuts they’ve covered? The answer may surprise you. “I’m a really big fan of How Deep Is Your Love?

- the BeeGees thing. That’s a fun one to spring on people. I love playing that one. Every one of them is a killer tune, but that would be one of my favourites, for sure.”

Perfect Tripod Australian Songs is on at The regal Theatre on Friday, August 30 and Saturday, August 31. Book through ticketek. _ TRAVIS JOHNSON

Head down to 816 Hay Street this Saturday, August 24, to check out the Oculus And IndieCade VR Jam, where independent games developers are battling it out for over $50,000 in prizes. A whole host of cutting edge VR tech will be available for curious punters to noodle around with, including a number of Oculus Rift rigs, Microsoft Kinect cameras, Leap Motion Sensors and more. go to letsmakegames.org for further info.

DEEP IN THE DARK

Darkness On The Edge Of Town, which takes its name from the ‘78 LP by You Know Who, is a new group exhibition at the Perth Centre Of Photography opening this Thursday, August 22. Encompassing both video and still photography, the works on display investigate the interstitial spaces between civilisation and wilderness. Artists include Rohan Hutchinson, Natalie Jeffcott, Mark Reid, Dawn Roe, David Mutch, Polly Stanton, Kurt Sorenson, James Voller and David Surman. It runs until September 22.

Check out pcp.org.au for more info.

DESPITE ALL MY RAGE

Thursday, August 22, make your way to Fremantle Prison for Caged, a runway show and tattoo exhibition presented by Coveted Events. Lucy Peach performs live, and the tattoo show features Dave Fox, Electric Pick, Fieldey, Holly Azzara, Ivana, Jason Stephan, Jesse Smith, James Ellis, Josh Woods, Leah Moule, Morof and Ulrich Krammer. Tickets are $39 from ticketbooth.com.au.

PICA CONFIDENTIAL

Tourists - David Mutch

Capes And Scrapes Directed by Jeff Wadlow Starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Chloe Grace Moretz, Jim Carrey, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, John Leguizamo, Donald Faizon, Clark Duke Three years after the joyfully anarchic and playfully offensive Kick-Ass comes this belated sequel, which delivers more of the same to somewhat lesser effect, while still remaining largely enjoyable.

A few years after the events of Kick-Ass, the titular everyman superhero, known to friends and family as Dave Lizewski (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), has inspired countless others to take up cape and cowl in the cause of justice, and is seeking to connect with others in the nascent hero community.

Conversely, the ferocious Hit-Girl hangs up her guns to wrestle with a challenge more terrible than a thousand mob goons - navigating the treacherous terrain of high school society. Meanwhile, weakling mafia scion Chris D’Amico (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) takes on the nom de guerre of The Mother Fucker and, styling himself as the world’s first super-villain, plots vengeance against Kick-Ass. The plot flows organically from the climax of the first film, raising the stakes and expanding the film’s scope in a logical manner. A lot of the fun comes from meeting the other loose units who have taken on secret identities, such as the amiable Doctor Gravity (Donald Faison, and it’s nice to see him again); the rather tragic Remembering Tommy (Steven Mackintosh and 20

Monica Dolan), a husband and wife team who took to hero-ing in tribute to their abducted son; and especially Jim Carrey’s maniacal but good-hearted Colonel Stars & Stripes, a former mob enforcer turned Born Again Christian and gleefully violent vigilante.

Yet, while there’s plenty of violence - albeit mostly non-lethal this time around - and lashings of profanity, Kick-Ass 2 often feels like it’s trying too hard to shock while at the same time refraining from anything really transgressive. When the first film hit a good chunk of the world lost their minds at the sight of an 11 year-old girl calling people cunts before slicing them into quivering piles of sushi; having a 15 year-old do the same thing has less impact.

Also, the film seems to have little clue as to what to do with the character of Kick-Ass himself.

While he fulfils his role as a moving part of the plot engine and suffers his share of tragedies to motivate him toward action, he’s by far the least interesting of the lead characters, with the ridiculously talented Moretz eclipsing our nominal lead in pretty much every respect.

Still, it’s all a lot of fun, if not nearly as much fun as the first instalment. Perhaps we could chalk that up to familiarity, perhaps to the obviously lower budget - there are some CGI effects that are winceinducing in their obviousness - and perhaps to writer/ director Jeff Wadlow (Cry_Wolf, Never Back Down) not possessing the tonal dexterity of previous helmer, Matthew Vaughn. Kick-Ass 2 is loud, proud, crass and, here and there, even impressive, but it’s also pretty disposable, which could well have been the intent. _ TRAVIS JOHNSON

It was a sad day when part of the ceiling of the Perth Institute Of Contemporary Art’s main gallery collapsed, causing the much-anticipated An Improvised Sound Project exhibition to get knocked back until 2014, but the good news is that it’ll be reopening on August 30 with In Confidence: Reorientations in Recent Art, the Institute’s next major show. Curated by John Mateer, the exhibition collects works from across Australia and South East Asia to create a snapshot of the political and cultural concerns affecting the art world today. Go to pica.org.au for more.

What Maisie Knew

Kick-Ass 2

KICK-ASS 2

Breaking Out from Fresh - Photo by Jon Green

WHAT MAISIE KNEW

Won’t Somebody Please Think Of The Children?

Directed by Scott McGehee and David Siegel Starring Onata Aprile, Julianne Moore, Steve Coogan, Alexander Skarsgard, Joanna Vanderham Henry James’s 1897 morality drama gets transposed to modern day New York in this incredibly moving film from long-time directing partners, Scott McGehee and David Siegel (Suture, Bee Season).

Ageing rock singer, Susanna (Julianne Moore), and narcissistic art dealer, Beale (Steve Coogan), are on the downslope of their marriage.

As they lawyer up and commence their far from amicable split, their precocious and perceptive daughter, Maisie (Onata Aprile) is caught in the middle. Despite lip service, it is clearly apparent that the love and concern they have for Maisie pale in comparison to their own selfish impulses, and both her former nanny, Margo (Joanna Vanderham), now married to Beale, and her mother’s new husband, bartender Lincoln (Alexander Skarsgard) show her more regard than her biological parents. Gradually, Maisie comes to understand that she must decide who will best love and protect her.

A film about a child rather than a children’s film, What Maisie Knew is anchored by a remarkably assured performance from Aprile as our point of view character. By filtering the events through the perspective of a child, what could have been rendered as a fairly drab domestic drama is a much

more high stakes affair, and we’re never allowed to forget how vulnerable and powerless Maisie is in the face of adult callousness. McGehee and Siegel take care to shoot mostly from a low angle, mimicking Maisie’s point of view, and when they’re not doing that, they frame the tiny waif against the monolithic structures of their New York setting, reinforcing her vulnerability. It’d take an especially hard heart not to become invested in her plight, and the fervent need to see Maisie get something resembling a happy ending is what carries the audience through the film’s occasionally leaden running time.

Having said that, the film never descends into the maudlin, largely due to the committed cast and well-drawn, three-dimensional characters.

Every major character, no matter what their plot function, has an inner life, with even Beale and Susanna capable of eliciting our sympathy, despite their obliviousness to the effects their actions have on their child.

Moore is fearless as the feckless Susanna, all faded tattoos and whiskey rasp, and Skarsgard radiates effortless charm and decency, but the film completely belongs to Aprile, who delivers a thoughtful, nuanced turn. For an actor of any age, it’d be impressive; for such a young performer, it’s flatout amazing. Maisie isn’t just a Hollywood moppet there to make puppy-dog eyes on cue, but a living, breathing, well rounded figure in her own right, capable of great empathy and generosity, and it’s this that elevates the film above the ordinary. Make time for this one - it’s worth it. _ TRAVIS JOHNSON X-Press – First on the street, Wednesdays

Upstream Color David Siegel and Scott McGehee

DAVID SIEGEL AND SCOTT MCGEHEE Directing Miss Maisie

What Maisie Knew is the fifth film that long-time filmmaking partners David Siegel and Scott McGehee have made together, in a partnership that has lasted since they first made Suture back in 1993.

However, it very nearly wasn’t; at first glance, the two were fairly unimpressed with the subject matter, an adaptation of the 1897 Henry James novel of the same name.

“There was a script,” Siegel explains. “We didn’t write it and we didn’t know the book, either one of us, beforehand. The script was sent to me by one of the producers and, frankly, it didn’t sound like such a good fit. It sounded a bit maudlin and heavy. But when we read the script we found it quite light on its feet and the challenge and interest in it for us really came from the idea of trying to tell the story from the point of view of a six year-old child.”

McGehee agrees that the age of the protagonist is what really intrigued them. “I think that’s definitely what kind of stimulated us creatively as filmmakers was this idea of trying to figure out how to do that cinematically - not make a childish film but make a child-centric film that really captures her feelings, her experience through this thing.”

What that meant in practical terms was finding a child actor who could hold her own in scenes with such veteran performers as Julianne

www.xpressmag.com.au

Moore, Alexander Skarsgard and Steve Coogan. Suffice it to say, the search for such an actor was neither short, nor easy.

“It went on for weeks and weeks and weeks,” McGehee says. “We started really early, of course, because we knew it was going to be an important thing, but we expected to find the girl early so we could build our whole production around her, which is what you want to be doing. We didn’t have our little girl until about three or four weeks before we started shooting, when we finally found her. It just took them a while to get around to sending her in and we were already giving up hope.”

“Every week we’d say to our casting director, ‘We’re just not finding our girl. What’s going on?’” Siegel adds. “Her name’s Avy Kaufman, by the way, and she’s very talented - she cast The Sixth Sense, for example, so we knew she knew what she was doing.”

In the end, it was newcomer Onata Aprile who was able to combine the different characteristics that the two saw as essential to the portrayal of Maisie. As Siegel says, “One of the touchstones for us with her has this idea of her generosity of spirit.

She has a kind of innocence and a kind of simplicity even, but there was something true in her heart that was open to people. She’s not a little girl who judges, she’s not a little girl who blames people - she’s quite accepting.

“That kind of openness and innocence was important to us. We really wanted that childlike openness - that mood - to resonate with you when you walk away from the film.”

UPSTREAM COLOR Seamless Cinema

Directed by Shane Carruth Starring Shane Carruth, Amy Seimetz, Andrew Sensenig, Thiago Martins Nine years on from his debut film, Primer, software engineer turned polymath filmmaker, Shane Carruth, returns to the screen with the brilliant but at times nigh-on impenetrable Upstream Color.

To say that the film is difficult to describe is a massive understatement. It demands close attention, and while all the information needed to parse Carruth’s intentions is up on the screen, the viewer still has to work to access it. In the broad strokes, the story follows Kris (Amy Seimetz) and Jeff (Our man Carruth, who also wrote, shot, edited, produced and scored the film), two people who have both endured some kind of trauma which, on some level, compels them toward each other.

When we meet Kris, she is robbed of a great deal of money by a con man (Thiago Martins) in a complex turn of events that involves, amongst other things, a chain of pages from Henry David Thoreau’s Walden. Years later, her life in ruins, she meets Jeff, who has had a similar experience. As it transpires, each has been infected by some kind of parasitic organism that changes them on a psychological, behavioural, sensory and even metaphysical level, and the narrative traces their attempts to understand and come to terms with what has happened to them.

That narrative is an elliptical journey at first watch, though, and there’s no shame in not getting everything that Carruth is talking about on the first viewing - very few people got a handle on Primer the first time around, and most of those who said they did were lying. As an artist, Carruth isn’t interested in talking down to his audience; indeed, it appears his ideal audience is himself alone - if you want to watch his films, that’s fine, but wanting him to tailor them to your expectations is a lost cause.

A certain amount of confusion is par for the course, and taking Carruth’s disinterest in spoon-feeding information as wooliness is a mistake - his precise command of his material is apparent in every element of the film.

While the time travel drama, Primer, essentially functions as a challenging logical puzzle, here he forefronts the emotions of his characters.

Kris and Jeff are victims of a an uncaring process, and the film’s hypnotic imagery, oppressive sound design and rhythmic editing all work to put us in their shoes, caught up in a relentless machination that, although perhaps understandable, is unalterable. At times the tone verges on the nightmarish, yet the film retains a very human heart.

Shane Carruth’s idiosyncratic style and rigid adherence to his cinematic principles pretty much ensures that he’ll be toiling in the low budget indie fields for the foreseeable future. Nonetheless, this is a film that everyone who considers themselves a fan of the medium must seek out. Whether you like it or not is almost beside the point; Upstream Color is like nothing you’ve ever seen before. _ TRAVIS JOHNSON

_ TRAVIS JOHNSON

21

Riley (the cow): Fremantle Arts Centre A look at the central character that has dominated the work of Perth artist Rachel Salmon-Loams for the past 18-odd years. It runs until September 15. Go to fac.org. au for more.

VISUAL ARTS

You & Me (Part 1): Ruck Rover General Store A collection of works by Perth based artist and writer Secrets of the Afterlife: The Western Australian Kate-Anna St. Valentine. It runs until August 31. Go to Museum ruckrover.com.au for more.

This collection of over 100 Egyptian artefacts from the British Museum collection - including two The Colours Of My Life: The York Mill Boiler Room mummies! - explores ancient attitudes to life after Gallery death. The exhibition runs until September 22. Go This collection by Sue Duperouzel is inspired by childhood recollections and dreams that followed the to museum.gov.au for more. death of her mother last year. It runs until September 1.

Recent Acquisitions Your Collection: Art Gallery Head to theyorkmill.com.au for details. of WA Many of the more recent additions to the gallery’s Pilltati And Other Stories: Elements Art Gallery extensive collection are on display until October 27. An exhibition of works by the Tjungu Palya Indigenous community, curated by Dr Jo Lagerberg. On display until Go to artgallery.wa.gov.au for more.

September 1. Go to elementsartgallery.com.,au for more.

Van Gogh, Dali and Beyond - The World Reimagined: Barrack Street - A Time To Reminisce: The State Library Art Gallery of WA The third exhibition in AGWA’s MoMA Series Of WA encompasses works from Vincent Van Gogh, Paul An interactive exhibition that looks at the changing Cezanne, Richard Long, Frida Kahlo and more. The face of Barrack Street throughout the thoroughfare’s exhibition runs until December 2. Go to artgallery. history. It runs until September 6. Part of the Perth Winter Arts Season. wa.gov.au for further information.

Mekel - Illustrative Exhibition: Tu Gallery Little Paintings, Big Stories: Lawrence Wilson Art Ethereal illustrations by Mekel, featuring model Chrysta Gallery Copland and fashion from Flannel, Dyspenea, Ae’lkemi Runs until December 14. and Kemi. It runs until September 15. Go to tu.com.au The Figure: Buratti Fine Art for details.

An exhibition of works inspired by the human form that features pieces by Alex Proyas, Salvador Dali, 33: Fremantle Arts Centre Pablo Picasso, Johnny Romeo, David Spencer and An exhibition of works from three Martu women - Nora more. Runs until September 1. go to buratti.com.au Wompi, Bugai Whyoulter and Nora Nungabar - that for more. carries on from the successful We Don’t Need A Map. On display from August 25 - September 15. Go to fremantle.

Here & Now 13: Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery wa.gov.au for further info.

This annual exhibition of contemporary Western Australian artists includes works from Katrina Aconitum: YMCA HQ Gallery Barber, Patrick Carter, Clive Collender, Aquinas The first solo exhibition by emerging WA artist Dominika Crowe, David Guhl, Tim Maley, Julian Poon, Jane Grotowski. It runs from August 30 - September 12.

Ryan, Robert Turpin, Lisa Uhl and Robin Warren.

Runs until September 28. Go to lwgallery.uwa.edu.au Lab Partners Showcase: Outré Gallery Original paintings and prints by San Francisco-based for more. husband and wife team, Lab Partners. From November Beyond The Pale - Hits From Australia’s Top Rock 1 - 30. Go to outregallery.com for more.

Poster Studio: Fremantle Arts Centre This fascinating tour through the history of rock art runs until September 15. Go to fac.org.au for further info.

Augustyn Schwarzwald, Cobalt II - New World Order New World Order: Venn Gallery A group exhibition from artists Tom Muller, Yarra Vega and Augustyn Schwarzwald that takes a look at globalisation and the shifting liminal lines between fiction and reality through print, sculpture, installation and video. It runs from August 21 - October 4, and venn.net has further details.

THEATRE/DANCE/ PERFORMANCE

Black Cat And Beyond... Diatribe Of The Squeegee: Fremantle Arts Centre A collection of political posters crafted by Black Cat/Gato Negro, an anarchist collective formed in New York City in the late ‘70s. It runs from until September 15. Go to fac.org.au for further details.

Empire: The Great Lawn, Crown Perth Inside a beautiful, 700-seat Spiegeltent, broaden your horizons in this burlesque blitzkrieg of theatrical excess and cabaret camp. The show runs until August 25. Head to empireaustralia.com for info and tickets.

Mackenzie Thorpe - Do Anything For Love Mackenzie Thorpe: Linton & Kay Galleries A collection of new original paintings from the acclaimed artist, as well as limited edition serigraphs and sculptures. It runs until September 3. Check in with lintonandkay.com.au for more.

Hedda: The Blue Room Theatre This bold interpretation of Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler stars Norwegian actors Marthe Snorresdotter Rovik and Tone Skaardal and is directed by the brilliant The Whitlams and the Western Australian Renato Fabretti. The season runs until August 31. go to Symphony Orchestra: Perth Concert Hall Performances August 30 - 31. Go to waso.com.au blueroom.org.au for session times and bookings. for information and bookings.

The Little Mermaid: The Blue Room Theatre This reworking of Hans Christian Andersen’s darker than you may remember children’s tale by director Ian Sinclair is a far cry from Disney - and that’s a good thing. It runs Perth Winter Arts Season: Various Locations until September 7. Head to blueroom.org.au for tickets Over 200 events are planned, encompassing and session times. film, comedy, cabaret, opera, literature, dance, Colder Than Here: The Melville Theatre music and fine arts. The season runs until August A thoughtful comedy about a woman facing terminal 31. Head to perthwinterarts.com.au for more cancer, written by Laura Wade and directed by Susan Lynch. It runs from August 30 - September 14. Go to information.

MUSIC

FESTIVALS

meltheco.org.au for session times and bookings.

Shrine: The State Theatre Centre Presented by The Black Swan State Theatre Company, written by Tim Winton, starring John Howard. Runs from August 31 - September 15. Go to bsstc.com.au for more information.

Storm Boy: The State Theatre Centre Barking Gecko Theatre Company presents this adaptation of Colin Thiele’s immortal Australian children’s classic, which runs from September 19 October 5. Barkinggecko.com.au has further information.

Tickets available through Ticketek.

Cavalia: The White Big Top This magnificent equestrian event combines spectacle and acrobatic skill reminiscent of Cirque Du Soleil with jaw-dropping displays of horsemanship and derring-do.

From December 18 - 29. Head for cavalia.net for more.

AICE Israeli Film Festival: Cinema Paradiso Opening with The Ballad of Weeping Spring, this celebration of Israeli cinema, which includes 19 feature films and documentaries, runs from August 21 - 28. Head to lunapalace.com.au for details.

CinefestOZ: Orana Cinemas, Busselton This regional celebration of Australian and French cinema runs from August 21 - 25. Go to cinefestoz. com for more details.

Rottofest: Rottnest Island Our annual explosion of stand-up comedy, music and film runs from September 6 - 8. Head to rottofest.com.au for details and tickets.

The 2013 Per th Fashion Festival: Various Locations The biggest event on the calendars of WA’s fashionistas runs from September 11 - 16.

Hola Mexican Film Festival: Cinema Paradiso This celebration of south of the border cinema runs from November 14 - 24. Go to holamexicoff.com for more.

To have your performance, exhibition or cultural event listed, get in touch via

localmusicarts@xpressmag.com.au 22

X-Press – First on the street, Wednesdays

POLKA DOT VINTAGE MARKET Claremont Showgrounds Saturday, August 17, 2013

MICHAEL GRIFFITHS Strike A Pose

A whole heap of folks with a passion for fashion swooped down on the delectable retro delights on offer at the Polka Dot Vintage Market last weekend, and our photographer was on hand to snap a few pics of the dedicated bargain hunters.

Photos By Emma Mackenzie

Michael Griffiths

Having spent the last five years playing Bob Crewes in Jersey Boys, Michael Griffiths was ready for a new challenge when an old friend called him up about a one man show. The result is In Vogue: Songs By Madonna.

Michael Griffiths had started at WAAPA as a composer before he discovered his true passion of musical theatre. Spending his time auditioning for musicals and studying his craft ensured he was on the right track to pursue that passion after graduating. Two years ago, an old classmate touched base and suggested they write something together. “Dean Bryant is my writer and director; he has been doing cabaret for a couple of years and has had quite a lot of success with it. Liza on an E was here at the fringe festival and he did a Britney Spears cabaret which was successful at the New York cabaret festival.”

Initially Michael was reluctant to get involved, not because of nerves but actually because of one of his talents. “Dean knew that I could play the piano, I’ve always played it, but it is something I’ve let go a little bit, it’s weird. I was always a bit embarrassed by it in this business because it’s about singing dancing and acting - not about playing the piano, so it’s something I didn’t feel comfortable doing, but Dean was quite firm.”

If he was going to do cabaret, however, Michael wanted to put his own mark on it. “From quite early on I said we should do a Madonna show, because pop is actually my first love, I didn’t want to do show tunes if I was doing cabaret. Dean resisted because he had just done a Britney Spears show where impersonation featured heavily. I said

I won’t impersonate Madonna. It will be me in a white shirt and a tie behind a grand piano and I’ll speak in my own voice and accent, but I’ll sing the songs and we’ll give her the cabaret treatment as if she’s one of the great American composers.”

Doing away with impersonation has been very well received, having performed in Australia, New Zealand and New York in between performing with Jersey Boys with good reviews.

When we speak, Michael is gearing up to take In Vogue to Edinburgh Fringe Festival, which he has mixed emotions about. “I am absolutely terrified because nobody knows me over there, but you just have to give it a go, don’t you. On my side, if you’re a Madonna fan you’re already half interested.

I’m not just saying come and see me singing show tunes. I’ve kind of got an angle; Madonna is universal so it gives me confidence.”

After Edinburgh, Michael returns to Australia to perform In Vogue and audiences can expect to be thoroughly entertained. “The show is hysterically funny, all philosophy aside. Madonna would hate the show because we have a lot of laughs at her. I don’t think she’d have a sense of humour about herself, maybe I’m wrong, but we certainly take a lot of piss. ” In Vogue: Songs By Madonna plays Downstairs At The Maj from Thursday, August 29 until Saturday, August 31. Go to hismajestystheatre. com.au for session times and tickets. _ DAISY LYTHE

Grace, Kyle

Shenae, Taylor

Jasmine, Andrea

Katie, Madelaine

Sheree

See yourself? Tag yourself! Head to our Facebook

www.xpressmag.com.au

23

24

X-Press – First on the street, Wednesdays

Even though he has only a handful of releases to his name, the underground seems to be murmuring approval in the direction of UK bass merchant Wen. Ahead of his appearance at Deadweight’s third birthday ANDREW NELSON chats with the grime producer to find out about his career to date, his aspirations for the future and his conversion to the dark side.

Though more and more producers seem to be distancing themselves from dubstep as we know it and the whole bass music scene has fragmented into a million ridiculous sub-genres: brostep, gorestep, drillstep, emostep, post-dubstep, post-post dubstep, and personal favourite clownstep, to name but a few, there is one young producer who has seemingly created his own distinct style which, three releases in, is making enough waves to get the critics scratching their heads searching for the correct appellation. Wen (aka Owen Darby), the producer in question, is content for his music to be free from the shackles of nomenclature for the time being.

“It’s still hard to put a finger on what it’s called,” Darby explains over the phone, having touched down in Perth for the first time a few hours previously. “We’re happy not to give it a name at the moment, it borrows from each of these genres but I like to think that it holds its own as something different but you can definitely hear influences of grime and dubstep the strongest. There is influence from lots of different styles, funky and techno as well, that’s why it’s hard to pinpoint what you call it exactly. When you put a name to it it’s easy for that sub-genre to get lost within everything else, it’s a continuous thing that’s always changing. Once you give a name to something it’s expected that it sticks at that one moment but that’s the opposite of what I want to happen.”

CONTINUED ON PAGE 26

www.xpressmag.com.au

25

Booka Shade

SHADY GIG

CONTINUED FROM COVER. Darby first got into the scene via a familiar route.

Drawn to the music on the UK’s biggest pirate radio station RINSE FM. The station, which has now received a community licence, has been home to the likes of Skream, Kode9, Zinc and Plastician and it prompted the youngster to start dabbling with Fruity Loops and trying to get his music out there.

“Dusk and Blackdown were the first people I sent a solid batch of tunes to,” he says “I listened to their show for a while and I just sent them stuff and a few months later they played one or two tunes and then it became a regular thing.”

Things moved rapidly after that and following the release of Hydraulic in 2012, the artist hooked up with Keysound Recordings and earlier this year he was featured on their significant compilation This Is How We Roll shortly followed by the release of the Commotion EP. The response has been very positive, FACT listed his tune Road as one of the best tracks of 2013 so far. Since then things haven’t really stopped with Darby showcasing his talents in club nights from London to Berlin.

The producer has taken to the acclaim like a duck to water and is stoic when asked if the early success is a burden. “It’s been crazy, from the end of last year it’s all happened pretty quick,” he begins.“It’s not like I feel pressure to make music like that again, I feel like I want to do the opposite and make some different stuff so I don’t get narrowed down and boxed in to a sound, the Swingin release [his third - a double A side with Walk Tha Walk], afterwards was a bit different. It was bright and colourful.”

Swingin aside, the one prominent theme in is his music and DJ sets is that of darkness,

The powerhouse German double-header Booka Shade & Digitalism are on their way to Villa on Wen Friday, October 25. Four artist albums on and Berlin something which sits comfortably with Darby. based duo Booka Shade are still producing rare “Dark music just sounds cool to me,” he clarifies electronic sounds while Digitalism (no strangers to “Whenever I listen to it, if it’s got a dark edge to it, Villa) are still ingeniously fusing indie, dance and it really appeals to me. On the dancefloor when you punk. This show will probably sell out fast. First hear a darker tune it sounds totally different and release tix are $35+bf via Moshtix with VIPs available for $50 from the Boomtick shop. takes you somewhere else It sounds a bit colder it’s nice to take things down a bit, you get a lot more space. Darkness and space go hand in hand and that is something I try to work with on my tunes. I like it to be dark and almost empty at times, there needs to be space between each element and that becomes dark. Silence is darkness.”

We’ll soon get a chance to listen to Wen’s murky-edged unique take on bass music at Deadweight’s third birthday extravaganza at Gilkison Dance Studio this weekend. It’s the furthest he’s travelled during his short career and the first time on these shores “I’ve been looking forward to this,” he says eagerly.“I’m in good hands with the Deadweight guys at the moment and really looking forward to playing their party. They seem to have a really good ethos behind them. I always try to play 50 per cent of Danny T my set as my own music as people want me out here to play my own stuff. Maybe I’ll be able to experiment a little bit more over here. I’ll just play it by ear and Ministry of Sound’s Clubbers Guide to Spring Tour is go with what I’m vibing to. I’m really looking forward on its way to Villa for the Friday, September 27 long to how people may react. So first time but hopefully weekend featuring duo The Only and Danny T. not the last.”

The Only’s debut single The Only F*cking Rave Party became the #1 Australian Artist Dance Single in the country while Danny T is Queensland’s hottest house party exports. They’ll be supported by Chiari, » WEN Jackness, Slappin’ Plastic and ACEBASIK. Tickets are » FRIDAY, AUGUST 23 @ GILKISON DANCE STUDIO $25+bf from Moshtix. VIPs are $40+bf.

ADMINISTER THIS

RUFUS

ON THE MAP/ATLAS Sydney trio RUFÜS are releasing their debut album Atlas just in time for two spring shows in Perth.

TOM KITSON chats to one third of the group, James Hunt, about the album’s recording process.

As the music world awaits the much anticipated debut record from RUFÜS the band is preparing for national tours and featuring as a major drawcard at the new festival Listen Out. James Hunt says they’re relieved to finally be releasing Atlas after a year of patient construction following producing ear-catching tunes like Take Me and a recent gig as programmers on Triple J. “We’ve been working on the album for the last twelve months or so and sitting on it for a while,” Hunt says. “Finally people can hear it and with the process

26

RUFÜS coming to this point it’s pretty meaningful.

“On the last two EPs we were trying to get things done quicker and make things happen,” he says. “When we started recording the album last year we allowed ourselves to spend time on sonic experimentation and really be happy with the tones we were bringing out.”

The trio are all perfectionists in their methods, and each contribute equally to their careful and open-minded songwriting process. “We might tinker over one bass tone for a whole day until we’re happy with it,” Hunt says. “We’ll work on it until it’s up to our standard because in the end we’re making music we want to listen to.

“As we were writing the album we were listening to different artists, particularly minimal tech house like Booka Shade, which was quite a big influence on some of the textures of the album, the way certain instruments play off each other,” he says.

“Because we had so much time recording, we worked on live instrumentation to play along with the electronic influences,” he says. “Bands like Foals were an influence on the live side of things as well.”

The RUFÜS project began as a two man show between singer-guitarist Tyrone Lindqvist and keyboardist Jon George, with drummer Hunt joining on to add to the live performance aspect, the guys preferring a live band setting for their gigs.

“After Tyrone and Jon had written the tracks that became the Surf EP, I joined on and we started bringing a live show together,” he says. “That then inspired the writing process and it goes full circle with both sides really influencing each other.”

Mathas

TASTY TUNE

Local master of the lyrical form, emcee Mathas has teamed up with Abbe May on his latest single; a precursor to his upcoming LP. A socially conscious song, Nourishment investigates Australia’s national food identity and treatment of indigenous Australians.

It’s the first taste of his upcoming sophomore album, Armwrestling Atlas which will feature collabs with Mei Saraswati, Ylem, Empty and Archi.

Miss Nine

TO THE NINES AT PARKER

Born in Germany and raised in Holland, Miss Nine might be an actual model, having been the face of Armani, Dolce and Gabbana and Pioneer’s 350 CDJs and DJM350 turntables but she’s also pretty ace on the decks too. Her latest smash Turn Up the Love was released on Big & Dirty Recordings and her live set ranges from energetic grooves with plenty of vocals to a deeper, progressive sound. Check her at Parker on Friday, September 6. Door sales are $15.

Describing the writing process as a democracy, Hunt points to the fact that combining a band formation and electronic music is what has worked so well for RUFÜS, with their various influences and interests adding dimensions to their music and earning them airplay and touring opportunities.

“Writing is kind of like shift work at times,” he says.“We’ll all have a go writing in a percussion part or a bass line that we’re really feeling and we’ll go with whatever each person is passionate about. If it’s not working, someone else will have a go.”

Describing the reason behind their rapid success, Hunt says it comes down to doing what they love and remembering it’s all about how the music makes you feel.

“The music just seems to resonate with a lot of people, I’m not exactly sure why,” he says. “It’s definitely reassuring that we’re able to do something that we love and get this kind of response, which is both amazing and bewildering.”

» RUFÜS » LISTEN OUT » SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 29 @ OZONE RESERVE » ATLAS TOUR » FRIDAY OCTOBER 11 @ VILLA

X-Press – First on the street, Wednesdays

THE SUBSTANCE

background messing around in garage bands, brothers Brock and Steele Carter share the band’s production role, brought together by 2Ray’s dynamic hip hop styled vocalisms. Their live show is energetic, incorporating phat sounds across D’n’B, dubstep, rave and breaks via a multitude of original loops, beats and live samples.

“We wanted to come out with something Two years on and live electronic new and the three/four piece band (concept) has been outfit The Substance are on their way done to its best in the world already, so we wanted do something that no one else has heard and put to receiving national recognition to across fresh vibes,” says Steele Carter of the band’s having signed to Central Station beginnings. also about being able to cover Records. Their forthcoming single, any genre“Itwewas wanted and incorporate it into our Vandals, is set for launch this Friday sound - as music lovers we don’t want to stick to just or drum’n’bass; we want to be able to record and if true to form, their punk-styled breaks live drums and guitar or whatever it may be and do live show is likely to bring down the whatever we want.”

The Substance performed live for the first rafters in a frenzy of dark, heavy time launching their Sugar Sex Disco Attack LP of 2011; beats. JO CAMPBELL has more. a diverse collection of hardcore, rave inspired tunes since followed up by a two equally wide-scoping and Genre Nazis will find themselves perturbed when technically superb EPs. Their Audio Bushido Part 1 EP trying to cleanly define The Substance. With a features a Rage Against The Machine inspired track

LIVE PUNK ‘N’ BASS

featuring 2Ray’s vocals and a heavy industrial rave tune illustrating their ability to switch between genres seamlessly. Carter says the transition from lab to stage has also been smooth, with the live performance being a key part of the production strategy.

“Personally, when I go see someone live I don’t enjoy just hearing five per cent of what you heard on their CD live and you get disappointed because you like them for the music they released.

“In saying that, we try to stay original to our tracks but we vibe them up a lot to make them a lot more epic live so that when they are flowing into one tune into another there’s big rises, big build ups to keep things interesting, especially with our older stuff.

We mash up our older stuff because we’ve played that out and people have heard it live before. But our new stuff is kept pretty clean cut.”

In keeping with the tradition of launching their records at Villa, their latest single, Vandals, will be unleashed this Friday, where a clip will be filmed for promo use. A drummer has also been added to the stage show to create what Carter calls the ‘upgraded’ The Substance sound. “That’s (the addition of the drummer) increased the intensity by another 40 per cent. It’s going to be much louder, much more intense.“

SALT NIGHTS OUT

GILDAS KITSUNE & JERRY BOUTHIER SOLEIL MIX 2 KITSUNE

Gildas Kitsune and Jerry Bouthier – the folk behind French electronic music and fashion label Kitsune have released the second compilation in the Soleil Mix series. Maintaining the solar-influenced theme, the label boss Gildas Loaec and French DJ/Producer Jerry deliver a fresh, incredibly light record perfect for some easy, intoxicated pool-side listening.

Superpoze and Tiny Dragons are featured first and set up cool summer vibe from the outset.

In the first two tracks, 30-second Pavane and the longer PACT Remix of Canvas, are the beginnings of an hour long journey through some of Kitsune’s premier artists. If you close your eyes, you could imagine a scene from a mod, afternoon pool party, people dressed in designer swim suits, retro sunglasses, swaying to tunes and dancing in broad light. As day becomes night and the party continues on a now packed dancefloor, bottles of champagne spewing into the air over the crowd but the mood fun and frivolous the whole way through. That’s Volume 2.

It is on this dancefloor that the middle tracks of the album belong – they tend to get a bit lost – perfect for around midnight on the dancefloor but elsewhere a little nauseating. Charli XCX, The Swiss and Jupiter provide a set of tunes that are poppy, pulsating and driving. Kamp! Comes in and changes things to a more synth-pop, ‘80s electro sound before Todd Terje and JBAG come in with some killer remixes of Hot Chip and Two Door Cinema Club respectively.

SAILING OFF THE GRID MUSIC MAN

BEHIND THE DECKS

Croatian producer Petar Dundov returns with his third long player for Belgian label Music Man. It was recorded in Neumatik studio in Zagreb where he also works as an engineer and expands on the theme of harmonious techno that was deftly shown in 2008’s Escapements and Ideas From The Pond from last year.

Dundov has evidently looked back on the techniques and sound structures employed by engineers throughout electronic music’s history and has produced a masterclass in synth laden genres starting with the beautiful ambient Enter The Vortex, he then ventures into Italo-disco territory with the relentless cosmic funk of Yesterday Is Tomorrow which the likes of Andrew Weatherall would lap up in his sets - before heading back to the eighties with the retro flavours of Spheres and White Spring sounding more like Vangelis than Van Buuren. The release then shifts down the gears through the deep house of Sailing Off The Grid and chilled vibes of Sur La Mer Avec Mon Ami to finish with another beatless offering - Cradle.

The one complaint is the sheer length of the tunes, the album lasts around an hour and a quarter but this only comprises eight tracks, each of these clocking up at between seven to a whopping 14 minutes in length. Even though this release is intended for home listening emersion, some compromise between duration and variety could have been made. An absorbing listen in parts, may be too lacklustre for some.

Purple Sneaker DJs

THE INSIDE STORY FROM PURPLE SNEAKER DJS Best track to open and end a set with?

Oh man... Start with the easy questions hey...

Ummm... usually like to start with some sorta bass heavy hip hop vibes at 85bpm, so can be anything like TNGHT, Rustie, Carmack, Djemba Djemba to start things off slow and build upward.

Closing the set, well that’s more about fireworks.

You’ll just have to come and see us play!!

What’s your favourite new track?

Definitely Everything ft. Karin Park by Maya Jane Cole.

Nate Whiskey DEVDBEVTS (Vol 3): A new monthly event with drink specials and party tunes.

Expect To Hear: House party, dance, trap, rap and everything that bounces.

What’s the most twisted tune you’ve ever played?

LOL like what we play isn’t already all over the place... Ummm... Pretty sure I’ve legitimately pulled off playing Mi Confession by Gotan Project in a club set. We also have a madddd thing for pop reggaeton stuff like Daddy Yankee!!

What would you ask god if he/she existed?

You mean God isn’t Alanis Morissette in that Kevin Smith movie Dogma???

Raddest DJ trick?

We used to play a CDJ guitar on stage... It’s a CDJ bolted onto a guitar!! Pretty sure it’s still somewhere at Timmy’s place. Should break that puppy out some time!!

» ANDREW NELSON » CHECK THIS » DEVDBEVTS (VOL 3) @ THE CAUSEWAY » FRIDAY, AUGUST 30

www.xpressmag.com.au

» THE SUBSTANCE » VANDALISM SHOWCASE » FRIDAY, AUGUST 30

PETAR DUNDOV

Ethos: A night of fresh beats featuring resident DJ Nate Whiskey and special guests.

» HAYLEY DAVIS

The Substance

» PURPLE SNEAKER DJS » AVIARY ROOFTOP SESSIONS @ AVIARY » SUNDAY, AUGUST 25

27

Deadline Monday 5pm. The Club Manual is a service to advertisers listing all DJs & Dance Music.

All inclusions are at the discretion of X-Press. Email guide@xpressmag.com.au

AMPLIFIER/CAPITOL

THE COURT

WEDNESDAY 21/08

The Village Bar - Village People Wednesdays ft. Ruby May

Amplifier/ Capitol - Harlem VS Death DJs ft. Genga & friends The Bird – Hibernations End ft.MmHmMm/ Rok Riley/ Donna & Nicky The Brass Monkey - Victor Captain Stirling - DJ Lokie Shaw Club Red Sea – Cheek Gold Bar - Famous Midweek Beats The Good Shepherd - The ArtGames 2013 Winter Series Round 4 ft. Hayley Welsh vs Liam Dee The Grand Central - ANG3L Groove Bar (Crown) - DJ Crazy Craig Leederville Hotel (upstairs) Kreem ft. DJ Karl Blue and MishTee Leederville Hotel (downstairs) Arena Party ft. DJ Vi Son/ Pup The Llama Bar – Arkuna Club ft.

Charles Murdoch Mustang Bar - DJ James MacArthur Newport Hotel - Full Moon Party ft Purple Sneakers DJs/ Tom Drummond/ Angry Buda/ Wot Evs Sovereign Arms – Mark Syrkiewicz

THURSDAY 22/08 The Avenue – Lokie Shaw The Beat (downstairs) - Fantasy Thursdays The Causeway - Xport Thursdays Club Bay View - Dj-Vi Son The Craftsman – James Barclay Eve Nightclub - Retro Thursdays ft. DJ Crazy Craig Fremantle Prison - Caged The Grand Central - DJ Roger Smart Leisure Inn - DJ Peta Mustang Bar - DJ James MacArthur Newport Hotel - Tiki Bar Open Mic Night Swallow Bar – Mr. Kavebeat

FRIDAY 23/08 Air Nightclub - VIP Platinum Fridays

The Substance

28

Ambar - Challenger Ready ft.

Tonic v Mr B/ Micah v Oli/ Blend v Bezwun/ 4by4/ Tapeheads Amplifier - Fridays Are Back ft. KLa The Avenue - DJ Lokie Shaw The Aviary (Birdcage) - Ben McIntyre The Aviary (Rooftop) - Micah/ Paradise Paul Bar Orient - The Reggae Club The Beat (downstairs) – PLAY The Brass Monkey – Jewel/ James Ess/ Vicktor C5 – Bass Attic ft. Bass Attic DJs Capitol - Capitol Fridays ft. DJ Roger Smart Capitol (upstairs) - I Love 80’s & 90’s ft. Darren Tucker The Carine - Az-T The Causeway – Acoustic Sundowner Club Red Sea - Fresh The Como - Funadelic Fridays ft.

Philly Blunt The Craftsman – Michael Brittliff Empire Bar - Matt Riley/ Jordan Eve Nighclub - DJ Don Migi Flawless - Monarch Fridays Flyrite - Self Help Geisha Bar - An Evening With Tyree Cooper Ginger Nightclub - Mondos “Feel Good” Dance Party The Good Shepherd – Throwback ft. DJs Aslan/ Midsole/ Klean Kicks The Grand Central – Jay Mackay Groove Bar (Crown) - DJ Crazy Craig The Hyde Park - DJ Hages Lakers Tavern - Grizzly & friends Library - Dorcia Matches Nightclub – Zoo Republic Fridays Metro Freo - Frat House Fridays ft.

Death Disco DJ Mustang Bar - Swing DJ/ Cheeky Monkeys/ DJ James MacArthur My Place - Karaoke Newport - Karaoke Classic with Steve Parkin with DJ Tahli Jade/ Angry Buda/ Sardi/ Mr Phat Paramount Nightclub – Flyte with DJ John Jordan Parker – Hook N Sling Players Bar - Purple Sneakers DJs The Queens - Reuben Rocket Room - Howlers ft DJ Frank N Bean Sovereign Arms - ANG3L Shape - Switch

I LOVE 80’S 90’S

CAPITOL

Tiger Lil’s - Paul Malone/ Adam Kelly/ Alex Koresis The Velvet Lounge - Village Oblivia VIII ft. Era/ Travis Doom The Vic - Friday Funktion ft. Jix Project Villa - The Substance ‘Vandalism Showcase’ YaYa’s - ACE ft DJ Pup

SATURDAY 24/08 Ambar - Japan 4 ft. Qwerk/ Dead Easy/ Philly Blunt/ Bezwun/ Micah Amplifier - Pure Pop ft. Eddie Electric The Avenue – Lokie Shaw The Aviary - Zel/ Samuel Spencer/ Troy Division The Balmoral - Back To The 80’s Bar 120 – Little Nicky/ Jordan Scott Beat Nightclub (Upstairs) CANVAS Beat Nightclub (Downstairs) Runaways The Brass Monkey – DJ Peta & Jewel C5 - I Love 80s + 90s ft. Darren Tucker + Dr Wazz Capitol - Death Disco ft. Death Disco DJs Capitol (Upstairs) - Cream of the 80’s ft. The Great RV The Causeway - House party Clancys Fish Pub Fremantle Apollo Soul Volume 2 ft. Pimps of Sound Club Red Sea – Fresh Saturdays East End Bar – Home: Rave Cave ft.

Slumberjack Empire Bar - James Shipstone/ Miggy Flyrite - FΔMILY Flawless – The Hennessy Societe Fortnightly Saturdays The Generous Squire – James Nutley Gilkisons Dance Studio - Rewind The Vibe ft. Ultra-Sonic The Good Shepherd - Chocolate Jesus The Grand Central - Armee Groove Bar (Crown) - DJ Dan Leederville Hotel (downstairs) – Under The Arena Party ft. DJ Vi Son/ Pup The Library - DJ Victor / DJ Riki Lost Society - Chalk (indie/ hiphop)

Big Chocolate Metro Freo – Metropolis Saturdays ft. Darren Tucker/ Dr Wazz/ Newport – Karaoke Classic with Steve Parkin Parker - Parker Saturdays ft.

Escue/ Tone/ Acebasik/ Chiari/ Kno Agents Paramount Nightclub – Felix with DJ John Jordan Players Bar - LUXE ft. DJ Franceso The Queens - Kenny L The Saint - Az-T Tiger Lil’s - DJ Bojan/ Benjamin Sebastian/ Alex Koresis Villa - HILINE ft Big Chocolate/ Spenda C The Wembley – ANG3L YaYa’s - Arcadia August All-Nighter

SUNDAY 25/08 The Aviary (Rooftop) - Aviary Rooftop Sessions ft Purple Sneaker DJs/ Sam Perry/ Micah/ Troy Division/ Paradise Paul The Bird - Miley ft. Om FoM/ HW Sims/ Mike P/ Henry Maxwell

Empire Bar - DJ Victor/ DJ Riki Eve Nighclub – DJ Slick Groove Bar (Crown) - DJ Crazy Craig Mustang Bar - DJ Rockin’ Rhys Newport - DJ Tom Drummond The Queens – James Barclay & Sam Spencer Rosemount Hotel - soundz like sundayz The Saint - DJ Jon EE/ Az-T

MONDAY 26/08 Mustang Bar - Triple Shots The Rosemount Hotel - Bada Bingo!

TUESDAY 27/08 Mustang Bar - Danza Loca Salsa Night

X-Press – First on the street, Wednesdays

See yourself? Tag yourself! Head to faceboåok.com/XPressMagazine

FRAT HOUSE FRIDAYS

METRO FREO

SATURDAYS

THE MUSTANG

NEWPORT

IN THE THIS WEEK The Substance Friday, August 23 @ Villa Hiline ft. Big Chocolate Saturday, August 24 @ Villa

Rewind The Vibe ft.UltraSonic & Perth Old Skool DJs Saturday,August 24 @ Gilkisons Dance Studio

Ministry Of Sound: Clubber Guide To Spring Friday, September @ Villa

Inhibit 7th Birthday ft. Killafoe& Laurel Halo & Objekt J.Nitrous Saturday, September 27 The Aviary Rooftop Sessions Friday, August 30 @ Shape Bar ft.Purple Sneaker DJs @ Bakery Sunday,August 25 @ The Aviary Speakeasy ft Illy: On & On Tour Alison Wonderland Saturday, September 28 Friday, August 30 @ Villa @ Villa The Beat-Sitters Listen Out Club Friday, August 30 @ Sunday, September 29 @ Flyrite Ozone Reserve

Ultra ChetSonic Faker

REWIND THE VIBE FT. ULTRA SONIC & PERTH OLD SKOOL DJS SATURDAY, AUGUST 24 @ GILKISONS DANCE STUDIO

www.xpressmag.com.au

COMING UP

Machine Gun Kelly Rap City 2013 ft. Talib Wednesday, September Kweli/ Homeboy 4 @ Capitol Sandman Saturday, October 4 @ Fierce Friday, September 6 @ Villa Geisha Bar Horrorshow Miss Nine Thursday, October 3 Friday, September 6 @ Prince Of Wales Bunbury Parker Friday, October 4 Amplifier EDM PRIME ft.

John 00 Flemming & Saturday, October 5 Marlo Mojos Bar Saturday, September 7 @ Metro City Rufus Crissy Criss & Mc Felon Thursday, October 10 @ Saturday, September 7 Mojos Bar @ Villa Booka Shade + Midnight Juggernauts Digitlism Saturday, September 7 Friday, October 25 @ Villa @ Capitol Porter Robinson Ghost Poet Thursday, September 12 Saturday, October 26 @ Villa @ The Bakery The Aston Shuffle Chet Faker (DJs) Thursday, October 31 @ Friday, September 13 @ ARTBAR Parker RA The Rugged Man Stereosonic Friday, September 21 @ Saturday, November 30 and Sunday, December 1 @ Rosemount Hotel Claremont Showgrounds

Flight Facilities

RAVERS’ PARADISE

CIRCO featuring Flight Facilities, Taku, Chet Faker and Dune Rats Ascot Racecourse Saturday August 17, 2013 The first ever edition of CIRCO took place on a cool, rainy day and outside of regular festival season, but attendees were not bothered by the conditions and turned up at Ascot ready to let loose. The debut event featured current emerging artists Jerome LOL, Wave Racer, Dune Rats and Giraffage, headlining favourites Flight Facilities, Hermitude and Chet Faker as well as a rare and anticipated appearance from Perth producer Ta-ku.

Setting up over an indoor stage with a dance focus and outdoors with a variation of musical styles, CIRCO drew in the youthful and slightly confused masses, some turning up in singlets and tropical shirts and others in raincoats and gumboots, all unsure of what weather would ensue.

Combining the closed in club vibe inside ‘The Blue Room’ with more spacious opportunities to dance outside at ‘The Hanger’ and at local artist stage ‘The Gazebo,’ there were plenty of big bass jams to rave the day away to.

The theme inside throughout the day was trap, hip hop and post-dubstep based beats from Evian Christ, Groundislava, Mickey Pearce, Djemba & Carmack and Girl Unit, with the timely accent of deep house from closing act New York Transit

Authority. The low bass drops were blaring out of the Blue Room all day, artists sticking to this latest crowd pleasing genre for the most part.

The Hanger stage provided variation, with energetic and mischievous pop trio Dune Rats performing as the odd ones out musically but strirring the crowd throughout their appearance, throwing out free teddy bears and getting everyone singing along enthusiastically to their best known tune Red Light Green Light.

As the grey skies turned to night, Ta-ku hit the outdoor stage with a barrage of trap numbers and a couple of his own tunes and edits, bringing joy to many of his fans craving to see the man live in action and beats to dance to in one of the highlights of the event.

Chet Faker followed up next with a shortened set due to time constraints, going for a very different vibe with his piano and vocal led songs that unfortunately seemed out of place at this dance themed festival, and he didn’t have the chance to fully demonstrate his singer/songwriter skill.

Hermitude got the crowd moving once again with their catalogue of hip hop influenced dance beats off their album Hyper Paradise, and the stage was closed by aviation themed house duo Flight Facilities who ended with their hit Crave You while confetti sprayed out from the stage.

With its lineup of fresh new artists giving the crowd exactly the music they were after, CIRCO’s organisers pulled off a good show that could’ve been more intense in the summer months where higher numbers are drawn in and the atmosphere is pumping, but the intention to provide a lower key event foremostly for lovers of the music and at a time when no one else is throwing festivals ensured this one will stick in the mind.

» TOM KITSON

29

RTRFM RADIOTHON 2013

COSMIC PSYCHOS

Leeches/The Devil Rides Out Amplifier Friday, August 17, 2013 On a dreary winter evening, punk was the word du jour at Amplifier Bar. Openers Leeches sweetly dedicated their set to frontman Benny’s wife – ‘It’s my wife’s 30th today, so this goes out to her!’ – before not-so-sweetly assailing punters’ ears with their short, fast and LOUD punk (think Frenzal Rhomb, with a hint of Gallows). In fact, with his ginger locks and ruthless stage presence, Benny reminded me of a slightly more upbeat Frank Carter. Interrupting such tasteful ditties as Junkie and Rags to lead a crowd sing-along of Happy Birthday, the gesture showed a softer, but still fun-as-all-hell side to the otherwise hard-as-nails trio.

Rockabilly-infused four-piece The Devil Rides Out had the crowd moving within moments, and the reason was clear – sometimes, a band just works. Operating like a well oiled, melody-makin’ machine, their fantastic musicianship was a joy to watch. I especially loved frontman Joey K’s raspy vocals that, for all their coarseness, still retained a rough beauty – and I couldn’t drag my eyes away from drummer Nathan Sproule, who not so much owned the kit as obliterated it. They wailed, they rollicked and they rocked; musically, not a beat was missed. My only complaint was that in between songs their charisma was sadly lacking, with near incoherent mumbling proving to be a bit of a buzz-kill. However, their grace in allowing a young fan to occasionally share the mic proved that whatever they lack in banter they make up for with heart – and a suitcase full of talent.

With three middle-aged, decidedly ordinary blokes comfortably padding out the stage, Cosmic Psychos are not (as their name might otherwise lead you to believe) just another prog-rock band. If you’re imagining a bunch of father types sedately jamming in the toolshed, however, think again; their

Sugar Army - Photo by Matt Jelonek

Emperors/ Sugar Army/ Tangled Thoughts of Leaving/ Race To Your Face/ Puck The Bakery Saturday, August 17, 2013

Cosmic Psychos - Photo by Denis Radacic Perth following is so loyal that even fuzzed-out tuning up and relaxed intra-band banter resulted in appreciative cheers. Vocalist/bassist Ross Knight finally led the cavalry with swearing and shouting a-plenty, demonstrating an abrasive charm that can’t be taught (although maybe, after thirty years of gigging, it can be earned). Baby-faced guitarist John Onya rested his axe on a sizeable beer gut, shredding and hollering with the vigour of a teenager, while drummer Dean Muller employed a party trick of tossing and then catching his sticks mid-air. Psychos by name, but not by nature; the old-school larrikins kept it simple with straight-up, rough-as-guts, traditional punk. The high point of the show was when Ross said conversationally, ‘it’s a nice day to go to the pub, isn’t it?’, before segueing into their ‘yobbo’ hit of the same name. With its simple, repetitive refrain of ‘have a beer, have a beer’, I confess it’s not my kind of song – but the ecstatic reaction of the audience was contagious, and before long we were all raising our respective beers (and wines) in salute. _ ELLIE HUTCHINSON

Another year, another huge celebration of Perth’s best local music and their unrelenting supporters, RTRFM. The annual Radiothon Party took over Northbridge with a slew of Perth’s best and boldest musical talents from the technically brilliant to the joyful and boppy.

It was a wondrous night of support for the radio station responsible for nourishing and growing the local music scene.

Like a two for one mix of Kurt Cobain and Dave Grohl, the drummer and vocalist of Puck, with his grungy vocals and thumping drums, got the celebrations cranking early. The three piece’s solid set moved from chuggy to drone, to pure loud rock, tempting the crowd away from their conversations and into the hall to bask in the warm reverb of some lovely raw vocals and perfectly executed rock.

The oddly named Race To Your Face brought elated surprise and even a few gasps from the audience as this flawless instrumental duo seemingly effortlessly created intoxicating melodies. These enviably talented musicians stunned and hypnotised with their technical, jazzy drumming and layer upon layer of gorgeous riffs and sounds. This guitarist has stunningly mastered how to use loop pedals to create a wall of blissfully powerful resonances. Adding humility to their seriously perfect set was their clever

and quietly funny quips between songs.

Although a seemingly difficult task to follow the last band, the flawless musicians in Tangled Thoughts Of Leaving did anything but disappoint.

With their strong, emotional, melodic, and hauntingly beautiful set. Flowing from deep and soulful to heavy and pounding, this energetic group gave everything they had to each brilliant song. The most colourful keyboardist around juggled tasks, also creating electronic hisses and squeals, adding to the full, thick sound.

Well-loved indie pop group, Sugar Army, looked out to a packed room, the venue now bursting at the seams with music revellers eager to enjoy the fun, happier sounds and songs for the night. A great upbeat band but still with a rocky edge, these boys kept the energy up and continued the RTRFM love in.

Smooth, unfaltering vocals, catchy riffs and a fun vibe showed fans and newcomers a like why they support this stellar band.

Fun yet soulful indie rockers Emperors had great love for ‘R, mother fucking T, mother fucking R’, and boy did the crowd bring the love for them too. The pitch-perfect vocal harmonies were an absolute treat, bringing cheers from the crowd. An oldie but a goodie, View From The Sun was a welcomely softer song, sweet and melodic, reminiscent of Something For Kate but with a slight rockier edge. The crowd was captured by songs from the bands 2012 album Stay Frosty, the irony of the current weather conditions not lost on most shivering revellers, who did indeed want ‘the fire in our bones’. This perfect performance solidified their position at the top of the bill for Perth music’s night of nights. _ LIANA KELLY

See yourself? Tag yourself! Head to our Facebook

RAILWAY HOTEL

This Saturday, August 24, things get heavy when To Hell With Honour, Pending The Silence and Welcome The Wildfire hit the stage. Doors open 8pm, $8 entry. Sunday it’s the August edition of the Gignition new band showcase, this time featuring The Devil In Miss Jones, Odlaw, Agamous Betty, Luke Argall and Jasmine Atkins. Doors 4-8pm, $8 entry.

Voltaire Twins

MOJO’S

Saturday, August 24, Voltaire Twins say Goodbye Freo. Goodbye Gio. With special guests Leure, Seams, Jack Stirling and Willy Suede. Voltaire Twins are heading off to other parts, which means they won’t be around these parts for quite a while, so they’re throwing a party to say goodbye. It’s also Voltaire drummer Matt Gio’s last show. Joining in are some of the bands favourite local gangsters. It’s only $10 entry and it’s going to be a wild night! Doors open at 8pm.

For your chance to win a double pass to the show, email your contact details to mojos@ coolperthnights.com wiht ‘Voltaire Twins’ in the subject line.

THE BEAT NIGHTCLUB

This Friday, August 23, Punkinstuff launches its first of soon to be many nights upstairs at The Beat. Headlining the night will be Scalphunter and if you have never seen these guys perform you need to crawl out of the rock you live under and slap yourself! Hardcore punk at its best! Support from The De Niros, Coronal Sky, Midnight Boulevard & Ben Elliot.

Saturday night, Runaways’ Onesie Party will go off with Sydney’s Buried In Verona, Adelaide’s Graveyards and Perth’s new comers This Existence.

Doors open at10pm.

ROSEMOUNT HOTEL

Tonight, Wednesday August 21, catch Lionizer, Shouting At Camels and more, then on Thursday catch The Smith Street Band playing their only WA show.

Friday catch local rockers Wiked Fury launching their debut EP and then Saturday the Roll Call Tour featuring Funkoars, Vents and more hits town. Monday US rock duo Japandroids hit the stage and then on Tuesday it’s a sold out show courtesy of Irish indie-rockers Ash, along with special guests Emperors and The Love Junkies. Doors open 8pm each night (except for Monday which is 7.30pm), head to rosemounthotel. com.au for ticket info.

30

SWALLOW BAR

On Thursday, August 22, Mr. Kavebeat will be playing ‘60s Rock n roll, garage, surf and psych. Then on Sunday, Limelights Jazz Trio play old school swing kicking off at 5pm.

RTRFM RADIOTHON PARTY AT YAYA’S Saturday, August 17, 2013 One of five venues scattered across The ‘Bridge that hosted the festivities heralding the anuual RTRFM sponsorship drive, the YaYa’s stage was graced by Methyl Ethel, Starcleaner, Shimmergloom, The Dianas and Runner.

Photos By Matt Jelonek

The Dianas

CLANCY’S FISH PUB, FREMANTLE

Tonight, Wednesday August 21, check out Chet Leonard’s Bingoteque. Friday it’s Johnny Law And The Pistol Packing Daddies, Saturday catch Freqshow, Pimps of Sound, DJs J-Kash and Iron Palm and MC Amani, while Sunday, as ever, sees The Zydecats grace the stage with their presence once more.

INDI BAR

Soul queen of the desert Toby returns to our shores for a performance in Scarborough this Saturday night. Also this week is your last chance to catch Morgan Bain as part of his Sunday night residency, featuring support from Little City Dream.

Adam, Rachel

Jake, Lisa

Midnight Mules

YAYA’S

Get yourself over hump-day the right way with the launch of GIGGIDY, this Wednesday! Featuring some of the best of YaYa’s Open Mic Night; Oakland, Tell The Shaman and All But Over, as they support established Perth musos The Midnight Mules! This Friday get down to the dirty riff-driven blues of Datura while on Saturday come down to support Little Skye as they raise money for their debut album! Supporting on the night are WiseOaks and Spilt Cities.

Troy, Jess, Leanna, Carla

Vicky, Annie X-Press – First on the street, Wednesdays

Edited by T R AV I S J O H N S O N

When did you first start playing music?

About five years ago my little sister received a bright pink guitar for Christmas. I sort of stole it and started teaching myself how to play. If that didn’t happen I probably would’ve never gotten into music and be studying an English degree instead. My first gig was at a high school concert in front of an audience of at least a hundred people - it was atrocious and awkward but that’s how we all start isn’t it?

How would you describe your sound?

I get asked this question all the time and never know what to reply with. It’s hard to define a sound. I feel blind to my own style, but I’ve been told it’s folk pop, so we’ll stick to that. Influence wise I really love Bon Iver and Laura Marling though I source a lot of inspiration from local bands.

What’s your songwriting process like?

To me the songs are their own entities and write themselves.

Sometimes I’ll stumble over a pattern or riff that sounds good and go from there. I’m pretty much a musical dyslexic so I heavily rely on my ear to figure out what works and what doesn’t.

CODIE SUNDSTROM PICA Bar is the place to be on August 24 to catch the launch of precocious singer/songwriter Codie Sundstrom’s debut EP, Darkest Shines, with support coming from Jarrad Wall of Jake And The Cowboys and Leah Miche. Tickets are $10 on the door from 8pm. We had a quick word with guitarslinging girl ahead of this momentous event.

PYRO FOR PORNOS

Veteran Perth melodic metalheads Pyromesh set their second album loose this Friday, August 23, at Amplifier! Biologic will be ushered into the world with help from Chaos Divine, Prescient and Tusk, a lineup that ensures this will be a thunderously loud and frenetic occasion. Doors open at 8pm, entry is $15.

How was recording the EP? The plan was to record five tracks in five days. Some people cringe at the thought of recording so quickly but Studio Couch has a killer vibe and it’s across the road from the beach so I really enjoyed myself. Working with Matt Gio and Dan Carroll was a breeze too. They both have a great ear for what a song needs and I’d highly recommend them to anyone.

What does the future hold?

I’ll continue to play shows with the band for a while because I’ve only recently turned 18 and need to settle into the live scene.

Picking up the electric guitar again has prompted my songwriting to move more towards a blues-rock style but I’m digging artists like Chet Faker and Willow Beats at the moment so who knows where it’ll go.

THE TROUBLE WITH TEMPEST

Following on from the release of their debut EP, Calm Before The Storm, last year, Tempest Rising will be giving us another does of heavy noise in the form of their new single, D.T.F. (Dominion That Falls). Catch them at The Civic Hotel this Saturday, August 24, with Claim The Throne, Psychonaut and Beyond Never. Doors open at 8pm, entry is $15 with a free copy of Calm Before The Storm going to the first 100 punters.

Tempest Rising

Pyromesh

LONDON CALLING

To celebrate the release of their 2009 album, Hollow Be My Name, on vinyl, Eleventh He Reaches London are having a bit of a shindig this Saturday, August 24, alongside Foxes, Mt Mountain and Ourobonic Plague. This is also a good chance to cop a listen to some cuts from their upcoming release, Bānhūs. Doors open at 8pm, entry is $10 plus booking fee through nowbaking.com.au. $15 on the door.

PRAY FOR DELIVERANCE

The Church Of Alcoholics is in session this Sunday, August 25, in The Swan Basement. A hard-rocking lineup will be on hand to entertain you between communion shots, including The De Niros, Yob Mob, Trip Hazard And The Rude Boys, 88 To Yesterday and Ben Elliot. Doors open at 6pm, entry is $7.

23/08/2013 23/08/2013 24/08/2013 24/08/2013 24/08/2013 30/08/2013 30/08/2013 30/08/2013 31/08/2013 06/09/2013

Eleventh He Reaches London

07/09/2013

DATURA DAYS

Psychedelic rockers Datura will light u p Ya Ya ’s t h i s Friday, August 23.

The veteran four piece will be ably assisted by top notch local talent The High Learys, SpaceManAntics and Silver Hills.

Doors open at 7.30pm, entry is $10. www.xpressmag.com.au

06/09/2013

13/09/2013 13/09/2013 19/10/2013

Datura

Pyromesh Biologic Album Launch @ Amplifier Wiked Fury Scars Under My Skin EP Launch @ The Rosemount Codie Sundstrom Darkest Shines EP Launch @ PICA Bar Eleventh He Reaches London Hollow Be My Name LP Launch @ The Bakery Tempest Rising Dominion That Falls Single Launch @ The Civic Archer & Light Our Love Is Confetti EP Launch @ The Rosemount The Scotch Of Saint James Real People Fucking LP Launch @ YaYa’s Simone And Girlfunkle Secret Single Launch @ PICA Bar Louis And The Honkytonk Self Titled Album Launch @ PICA Bar The Midnight Mules First World Problems EP Launch @ The Rosemount Timothy Nelson & The Infidels Born In The ‘90s Single Launch @ The Amplifier Patient Little Sister Self Titled EP Launch @ PICA Bar Chainsaw Hookers Party Man Video Launch @ Amplifier Vida Cain The Rule Of Gravity Album Launch @ The Bakery Sirgin One Love EP Launch @ The Civic

Bands Enrol now www.aaca.net.au 31

32

X-Press – First on the street, Wednesdays

The Black Seeds, August 23

Amanda Palmer, September 8

Lamb of God, September 26

THE CULT KIM WILDE MIDNIGHT 20 Astor Theatre JUGGERNAUTS 28 Metro City PAUL DEMPSEY 6 Prince Of Wales, ILLY PAUL KELLY 20 Fly By Night Bunbury 28 Villa 22-23 Regal Theatre EVERY TIME I DIE 7 Capitol 29 Prince Of Wales, ANDREW STRONG: THE REZUME 24 Amplifier Bunbury COMMITMENTS BEHEMOTH 7 Civic Hotel ONE DIRECTION 22 Metro Freo 24 Capitol AMANDA PALMER & 28 & 29 Perth Arena THE AMITY THE GRAND THEFT XAVIER RUDD/ THE SMITH STREET AFFLICTION ORCHESTRA DONAVON BAND 26 Metro City 8 Astor Theatre FRANKENREITER/ 22 Rosemount Hotel 27 Metro Freo CONVERSATIONS WITH NAHKO & MEDICINE 23 Prince Of Wales, MATT CORBY GHOSTS FOR THE PEOPLE Bunbury 27 Fremantle Arts 8 Perth Concert Hall 28 3 Oceans Winery, BURIED IN VERONA Centre JAMES REYNE Margaret River 22 Amplifier TELEVISION 8 Newport Hotel 29 Fremantle Arts 24 YMCA HQ 28 Fly By Night Club ANBERLIN Centre JACKIE ONASSIS 11 Metro Freo LISTEN OUT FESTIVAL SLEEP 22 Prince Of Wales, 28 Rosemount Hotel FOR THE FALLEN 29 Ozone Reserve Bunbury ANDRE RIEU DREAMS 23 C5 Metro Freo 29 Perth Arena 11 YMCA HQ OCTOBER VANCE JOY TONY HADLEY 12 Amplifier 23 Fly By Night 30 The Astor Theatre WENDY MATTHEWS SWERVEDRIVER CHET FAKER 13 The Ravenswood GRINSPOON 3 Rosemount Hotel 31 ARTBAR 14 Charles Hotel 23 Astor Theatre HORRORSHOW THE BREEDERS THE BIG SCARY THE BLACK SEEDS 3 Prince Of Wales, 31 The Astor Theatre 13 Fly By Night 23 The Bakery Bunbury ENSLAVED THE GETAWAY PLAN 4 Amplifier BLUEJUICE 12 Prince of Wales, CHOCOLATE STARFISH 31 Rosemount Hotel 23 Newport Hotel YELLOWCARD Bunbury 4 Charles Hotel GEORGE BENSON 31 Capitol 13 Players Bar, Mandurah EMMA LOUISE 24 Riverside Theatre VIOLENT SOHO 14 Rosemount Hotel 4 Astor Theatre 31 Mojo’s 15 YMCA HQ NORTHWEST FESTIVAL JINJA SAFARI RUDIMENTAL 24 Port Hedland Turf 4 Prince Of Wales, 13 Metro City (sold out) Bunbury NOVEMBER Club 14 Metro City 5 Astor Theatre BERNARD FANNING PARKWAY DRIVE THE BLACK SORROWS VIOLENT SOHO 25 & 26 Astor Theatre 14 Metro Freo 01 Amplifier 5 Charles Hotel JAPANDROIDS 15 & 16 Capitol BABY ANIMALS KATE CEBERANO 26 Rosemount Hotel CIRQUE DU SOLEIL: 2 The Astor 5 Regal Theatre MICHAEL JACKSON ASH JESSICA MAUBOY SOILWORK IMMORTAL 27 Rosemount Hotel 2 Perth Arena 6 Rosemount Hotel 18 – 22 Perth Arena PITBULL & KEI$HA KATCHAFIRE RED DIRT ft JIMMY 10 The Prince Of Wales 5 Perth Arena AUGUST BARNES Hotel BEYONCE 19 Kalgoorlie Boulder 11 Metropolis Fremantle 8 & 9 Perth Arena RODNEY RUDE Race Club 12 Rosemount Hotel SCOTT KELLY AND THE 28 Civic Hotel DAN CRIBB HARRISON CRAIG ROAD HOME STONEFIELD 19 Newport Hotel 11 Regal Theatre 10 Rosemount Hotel 29 Prince Of Wales, 20 PICA Bar ME FIRST & THE LEONARD COHEN Bunbury KVELERTAK GIMME GIMMES 13 Perth Arena 30 Players Bar, Mandurah 19 Amplifier 11 Amplifier BEAUFORT STREET 31 Amplifier DEAD LETTER CIRCUS 12 Prince Of Wales, FESTIVAL 1 Indi Bar 19 Prince Of Wales, Bunbury 16 Beaufort Street THE WHITLAMS/WASO Bunbury BRING ME THE DAN SULTAN 30 Perth Concert Hall 20 Metro Freo HORIZON 16 Fly By Night Club CLAIRE BOWDITCH MANTRA & GREY 12 Challenge Stadium 17 Ellington Jazz Club 30 Fly By Night GHOST WELCOME TO THE JILL SCOTT PERFECT TRIPOD 19 Flyrite VALLEY 17 Riverside Theatre 30 & 31 Regal Theatre 20 Mojo’s Bar 12 Belvoir Amphitheatre AN EVENING ON THE CLOUD CONTROL THE PREATURES RICKY MARTIN GREEN 31 Capitol 20 Flyrite 12 Perth Arena 17 Kings Park WHITEHORSE 21 Mojos Bar THE DAVID LIEBE HART NILE 29 Mojos Bar BAND THE PAPER KITES 17 Amplifier 31 Civic Hotel 13 Amplifier 21 Fly By Night BELINDA CARLISE DEVIN TOWNSEND THE DRONES 20 Astor Theatre PROJECT 21 The Bakery BOY & BEAR SEPTEMBER 15 Metro Freo FOALS 22 Metro Freo AMORPHIS 22 Metro City 23 Astor Theatre MANHATTAN 16 Capitol RIHANNA FLEETWOOD MAC TRANSFER REGURGITATOR 24 Perth Arena 22 & 23 Perth Arena 1 Regal Theatre 16 Indi Bar ROLO TOMASSI HITS & PITS 2.0 MACHINE GUN KELLY 25 Amplifier 17 The Prince Of Wales, Black Flag, Boysetsfire, 4 Capitol Bunbury LAMB OF GOD & Bad Astronaut, Snuff, HIT THE LIGHTS/ 18 Metro Freo MESHUGGAH No Fun At All, Good HEROES FOR HIRE/ 19 Rosemount Hotel 26 Metro City For You, Off With STATE CHAMPS MARINA PRIOR CALEXICO 5 Amplifier 18 Astor Theatre 27 Astor Theatre FAT FREDDY’S DROP JUNGLE GIANTS TWELVE FOOT NINJA 5 Astor Theatre 17 Newport 26 Prince Of Wales, JOSH PYKE 18 Capitol Bunbury 5 Prince Of Wales, 27 Rosemount Hotel SPIT SYNDICATE Bunbury MELBOURNE SKA 17 Newport Hotel 6 Fly By Night ORCHESTRA 18 Amplifier 7 Astor Theatre 27 Fly By Night, DIESEL SNAKADAKTAL 28 Astor Theatre 18 Fly By Night 5 Newport Hotel 29 Wave Rock 19 Charles Hotel 6 Capitol Weekender 20 Ravenswood Hotel 7 Settler’s Tavern, WAVE ROCK ELECTRIC VINES Margaret River WEEKENDER 19 Oakover Winery THE CAT EMPIRE 28 - 30 Wave Rock MICKY AVALON 7 Red Hill Auditorium Caravan Park 19 Amplifier

THIS WEEK

www.xpressmag.com.au

Their Heads, Jugheads Revenge 24 Amplifier & Capitol MOONSORROW 24 Rosemount Hotel EROS RAMAZZOTTI 23 Challenge Stadium THE ATARIS 29 Amplifier STEREOSONIC 30 Claremont Showgrounds MUSE 30 Perth Arena SCREAMING JETS 30 Astor Theatre

DECEMBER MARTHA DAVIS & THE MOTELS 4 The Astor Theatre CITY AND COLOUR 7 Belvoir Amphitheatre AIR SUPPLY 8 Perth Concert Hall JUSTIN BIEBER 8 Perth Arena TAYLOR SWIFT 11 Perth NIB Stadium BON JOVI 12 Perth Arena HUMAN NATURE 20 Perth Zoo

JANUARY PARAMORE 16 Perth Arena CELTIC WOMAN 24 Riverside Theatre

FEBRUARY BIG DAY OUT Pearl Jam, Arcade Fire, Blur, Snoop Lion, Major Lazor, Tame Impala, Flume & more.

2 Claremont Showgrounds BRUCE STRINGSTEEN & THE E STREET BAND 7 Perth Arena BRUNO MARS 28 Perth Arena

MARCH SOUNDWAVE 3 TBA 30 SECONDS TO MARS 25 Challenge Stadium

APRIL MICHAEL BUBLÉ 26 & 27 April Perth Arena

33

The Crooked Cats, Sunday at The Newport hotel

WEDNESDAY 21.08 AMPLIFIER Harlem VS Death DJs BAR 120 Felix THE BIRD MmHmMm Rok Riley Donna & Nicky BRASS MONKEY Sugar Blue Burlesque CARINE Open Mic Night Chris O’Brien CLAREMONT HOTEL Acoustica GREENWOOD Bernadine ELLINGTON JAZZ CLUB Hale School Jazz Night Cap Session GROOVE BAR (CROWN) 5 Shots INDI BAR Wunderlust LUCKY SHAG Howie Morgan MOJOS BAR Greetings From Ethiopia Diger Rokwell Mountain Strangers Milly Taylor MOON CAFÉ Going Solo Riley Pearce Danielle MacDonald Jane Azzopardi MUSTANG BAR Pump DJ James MacArthur NEWPORT HOTEL Full Moon Party Purple Sneakers DJs PADDO Dove Dave Capper Andrew Ellis ROSEMOUNT Lionizer Shouting At Camels Pat Chow Black Stone From The Sun THE SAINT Rodney Rude UNIVERSAL Retrofit

VILLAGE BAR Village People - Open Mic YAYA’S The Midnight Mules Scott Aitken & The Deloreans Tell The Shaman All But Over Oakland

THURSDAY 22.08 AMPLIFIER Buried In Verona Common Bond We Run With Wolves THE BAKERY Release The Kraken: Robot Party Cow Parade Cow Catbrush Eteana BEAT NIGHTCLUB (DOWNSTAIRS) Fantasy Thursdays THE BIRD Foam Puck Doctopus Health Legend THE BOAT Jen De Ness BRASS MONKEY Rhythm Bound Karaoke BRIGHTON Open Mic Night Rob Walker BROOKLANDS TAVERN Celebrations Karaoke THE CAUSEWAY BAR Xport Thursdays ft:Matt Waring LOBBY LOUNGE (CROWN ) Monarchy DEVILLES PAD Rock & Roll Karaoke DUNSBOROUGH TAVERN Pat Nicholson ELEPHANT AND WHEELBARROW Karaoke ft. DJ Lucas ELLINGTON JAZZ CLUB ESPERANZAGANZA Night Cap Session FREMANTLE ARTS CENTRE Brendon Humphries Todd Pickett

Foam

FOAM

PUCK, DOCTOPUS HEALTH LEGEND

THURSDAY, AUGUST 22 THE BIRD

34

Lionizer, Wednesday at The Rosemount THE GATE Greg Carter GROOVE BAR (CROWN) Decoy INDI BAR Bex’s Open Mic Night LANGFORD ALE HOUSE Rodney Rude LUCKY SHAG James Wilson MARKET CITY TAVERN Sean Thomas Clint Hodges Jedd Crilly Jenia Greys and Blues Robby Davis Aaron and Sean METRO FREO Andrew Strong & The Commitments MOJOS BAR Maidstone MUSTANG BAR The Domnicks DJ James MacArthur NORTH FREMANTLE BOWLS CLUB The String Beans PRINCE OF WALES Jackie Onassis REGAL THEATRE Paul Kelly ROSEMOUNT HOTEL The Smith Street Band Cheap Girls Grim Fandango Ten Points For Glenroy SETTLERS TAVERN Acoustic Open Mic Night SWALLOW BAR Mr. Kavebeat UNIVERSAL Off The Record YA YA’S Sparks Vertigo Japanese Tongue Sisters Oak Tree Suite

FRIDAY 23.08 AMPLIFIER Pyromesh Chaos Divine Prescient Tusk THE ASTOR Grinspoon Emperors The Love Junkies THE BAKERY The Black Seeds BALMORAL Mike Nayar BAR 120 Funkoars Vents Briggs K21 BAR ORIENT The Reggae Club BEAT NIGHTCLUB (UPSTAIRS) Scalphunter The De Niros Coronal Sky Midnight Boulevard Ben Elliot The Black Fridays BEAT NIGHTCLUB (DOWNSTAIRS) PLAY

Catbrush, Thursday at The Bakery

BELGIAN BEER CAFÉ Adrian Wilson BELMONT TAVERN Adam James BEST DROP TAVERN Pretty Fly THE BIRD Dianas Hayley Beth Rabbit Island THE BOAT Ben Merito THE BOAB TAVERN Almost Famous BRASS MONKEY Acoustic Aly CHARLES HOTEL Killer Queen Tribute Show C5 METRO FREO Residence Jackie Onassis CHASE BAR & BISTRO James Wilson CITRO BAR Jean Proude CORNERSTONE ALE HOUSE Easy Operator DEVILLES PAD Juke Box Racket Vintage Reds Safari Ben DUNSBOROUGH TAVERN Rok DJ EDZ SPORTS BAR Back2Back ELEPHANT AND WHEELBARROW Darren Reid & The Soul City Groove ELLINGTON JAZZ CLUB Winter Arts Festival Alison Wedding The SPREAD ftg Kat Curnow EMPIRE BAR Howie Morgan THE FLY BY NIGHT Vance Joy GROOVE BAR (CROWN) Tod Johnston & Peace Love GREENWOOD Greg Carter HYDE PARK HOTEL Dean Anderson INDI BAR Vdelli INNALOOO SPORTSMANS CLUB It’s My Party KALAMUNDA HOTEL Sophie Jane & The Chilly Boys KALBARRI HOTEL MOTEL Karin Page KULCHA Chiho’S Nomad Dream LANGFORD ALE HOUSE Spritzer LEOPOLD HOTEL Karma LITTLE WING CORNER GALLERY Electric Toad Man The Clouds Lost/Tuneless M ON THE POINT Retriofit

MAHOGANY INN Kate Gilberton MOJOS BAR Bone The Long Lost Brothers Mudlark Doctopus MUSTANG Adam Hall & the Velvet Playboys Swing DJ Cheeky Monkeys DJ James MacArthur NEWPORT HOTEL Bluejuice Karaoke Classic Steve Parkin PADDO Easy Tigers PADDY MCGUIRES Madam Monatge PARAMOUNT NIGHTCLUB Flyte PEEL ALE HOUSE Better Days PLAYERS BAR Purple Sneakers DJs PORT KENNEDY TAVERN Dirty Scoundrels PRINCE OF WALES The Smith Street Band Cheap Girls THE PRINCIPAL Shawne & Luc ROSE & CROWN Tod Woodward ROSEMOUNT Wiked Fury Tuxedo Pig Blackjack Fuzzbucket Echostone ROSIE O’GRADYS FREMANTLE GrooVe SAIL AND ANCHOR Howie Morgan SAIL AND ANCHOR (UPSTAIRS) NightShift SOUTH ST ALEHOUSE Robbie King Karaoke SPRINGS TAVERN Die Hard Karaoke SWINGING PIG Rockit Greg Carter UNIVERSAL Nightmoves WANNEROO TAVERN Nitro Zeppelin WHITE STAR HOTEL ALBANY Timothy Nelson & The Infidels YA YA’S Datura The High Learys Spaceman Antics Silver Hills YMCA HQ Buried In Verona Graveyards Anchored We Run With Wolves Illuminator Hollow Ground

SATURDAY 24.08 AMPLIFIER Jackie Onassis BALMORAL The High Learys

X-Press – First on the street, Wednesdays

Deadline Monday 5pm. The Gig-Guide is a service to advertisers listing all LIVE MUSIC. All inclusions are at the discretion of X-Press. Email guide@xpressmag.com.au

Sparks Vertigo, Thursday at YaYa’s THE BAKERY Eleventh He Reaches London Foxes Mt. Mountain Ourobonic Plague BAR 120 Flyte BEAT NIGHTCLUB (UPSTAIRS) CANVAS BEAT NIGHTCLUB (DOWNSTAIRS) Runaways Buried In Verona Graveyards This Existence BELGIAN BEER CAFÉ Mike Nayar THE BIRD Sam Perry Kucka Jacob Diamond BOAB TAVERN James Wilson BRASS MONKEY Frenzy THE BROOK Back2Back CHALRES HOTEL Dave Warner from the Suburbs CIVIC HOTEL BACKROOM Tempest Rising Claim The Throne Psychonaut Beyond Never THE CLAREMONT HOTEL ANTICS Red Engine Caves Spaceman Antics Antics DJs CRAFTSMAN GrooVe DEVILLES PAD Juke Box Racket Tia Gia Burlesque Show Safari Moogy ELEPHANT AND WHEELBARROW Timeout ELLINGTON JAZZ CLUB Winter Arts Festival Alison Wedding Dd Soul Ftg Jamie Hall FLY BY NIGHT Boardwalk Beauties THE GATE Greg Carter GOSNELLS HOTEL Astrobat GREENWOOD Baby Piranhas GROOVE BAR (CROWN) Switch HERB GRAHAM RECREATION CENTRE Reload HYDE PARK HOTEL Howie Morgan Project INDI BAR Toby INDIAN OCEAN BREWING CO Shawne & Luc KULCHA Selendang Sutra Indonesian Independence Day Celebration

Friday Friday TravisCaudle Caudle Scalphunter, Travis Friday at The Fly ByNight Night Beat Nightclub Fly By

LAKERS TAVERN Celebrations Karaoke LITTLE WING CORNER GALLERY Ancient Methods LOBBY LOUNGE (CROWN) Why Georgia?

M ON THE POINT Rhythm 22 MOJOS BAR Voltaire Twins Leure Seams Jack Stirling Willy Suede MUSTANG The Wal-Tones The Burger Kings Rockabilly DJ Milhouse DJ James MacArthur NEWPORT HOTEL Karaoke with Steve Parkin OCEAN REEF SPORTS CLUB Gary Fowlie PADDO Cheeky Monkeys PADDY MCGUIRES Easy Tigers PARAMOUNT NIGHTCLUB Felix PERTH CITY FARM Sambanistas DJ Super Flog Sam Maher, Childsaint Elli Schoen Flower Drums Diger Rokwell PEEL ALE HOUSE Tequila Mockingbirds PICA BAR Codie Sundstrom Jarred Wall Leah Miche & The Regular Hunters PORT KENNEDY TAVERN Kizzy QUARIE BAR & BISTRO Acousitc Flavour RAILWAY HOTEL To Hell With Honour Pending The Silence Welcome The Wildfire RIVERSIDE THEATRE George Benson ROCKET ROOM Kickstart ROSEMOUNT Funkoars Vents Briggs K21 ROSIE O’GRADYS FREMANTLE Flava SAIL & ANCHOR Chris Gibbs SAIL & ANCHOR (UPSTAIRS) Childs Play SETTLERS TAVERN Timothy Nelson & The Infidels THE SHED Huge SOUTHERLYS Karin Page SOUTH ST ALE HOUSE Robbie King Karaoke

www.xpressmag.com.au

SPRINGS TAVERN Die Hard Karaoke SWAN LOUNGE The Dry German Grass Thatcher SWAN BASEMENT Tamika and Kaotiic SWINGING PIG Greg Crater Cheek2Cheek UNIVERSAL Soul Corporation WINTERSUN HOTEL (ALBANY) Rodeney Rude YA YA’S Little Skye Spilt Cities Wiseoaks

SUNDAY 25.08 THE ASTOR Benard Fanning BAILEY BAR & BISTRO Gary Fowlie BALMORAL Astrobat BELMONT TAVERN Jonathon Dempsey THE BIRD Miley Philly Mikey P HW Sims OMFOM Bird Brains BOAB TAVERN Adam James Duo BRIGHTON Will Rauhina BROKEN HILL HOTEL Adrian Wilson BROOKLANDS TAVERN Gerry Azor THE CAUSEWAY Accoustic Sunday CHASE BAR Chasing Calee CIVIC HOTEL Mike Nayar CLANCYS DUNSBOROUGH Timothy Nelson & The Infidels ELEPHANT AND WHEELBARROW Darren Reid & The Soul City Groove ELLINGTON JAZZ CLUB Reilly Craig THE FLY TRAP (FLY BY NIGHT) Stage Fright Open Mic THE GATE Greg Carter GOSNELLS HOTEL Conny The Clown GROOVE BAR (CROWN) Peace Love INDI BAR Morgan Bain Little City Dream INDIAN OCEAN BREW CO Retriofit KALAMUNDA HOTEL Alitia Martin LAKERS TAVERN Wesley Goodlet Jamboree Scouts

Vdelli, Friday at Indi Bar

L’ATTITUDE 28 Karin Page M ON THE POINT Chill Divine MOJOS BAR The Daniel Firkin Trio Silver Hills Heathcote Blue MUSTANG Tailgate Sundays Boom! Bap! Pow! Some Like It Yacht DJ Holly Doll OCEAN VIEW TAVERN Dirty Scoundrels NEWPORT HOTEL Little Day Out Hunting Huxley The Crooked Cats Gypsie Howls Ralway Bell The Beers One Armed Scissor Midflight Parasite Ascending Fall QUARIE BAR & BISTRO Better Days RAILWAY HOTEL Gignition The Devil In Miss Jones Odlaw Agamous Betty Luke Argall Jasmine Atkins ROSEMOUNT Soundz like Sundayz THE SAINT Howie Morgan Project SWALLOW BAR Limelights Jazz trio SWAN BASEMENT The De Niros YOB MOB Trip Hazard and the Rude Boys 88 to Yesterday Ben Elliott SWINGING PIG Matt Angell Jamie Powers UNIVERSAL Retrofit WANNEROO TAVERN Acoustic Aly

MONDAY 26.08 THE ASTOR Benard Fanning BRASS MONKEY Wire Birds

ELLINGTON JAZZ CLUB Chamber Jam GROOVE BAR (CROWN) Louise Anton Trio MOJO’S BAR Wide Open Mic MUSTANG BAR Triple Shots ROSEMOUNT HOTEL Japandroids Hamjam YA YA’S Big Tommo’s Open Mic Night

TUESDAY 27.08 BRASS MONKEY Open Mic Night Josh Terlick BROOKLANDS TAVERN Rodney Rude CHARLES HOTEL Perth Blues Club Stone Free Chelsea Gibson & The Green Ginger Band Dom Zurzolo THE COURT Open Mic Night THE CRAGIE TAVERN Open Mic Night GROOVE BAR (CROWN) Ruby’s Groove ELLINGTON JAZZ CLUB Libby Hammer KALAMUNDA HOTEL Open Mic Anthony Kay LOBBY LOUNGE (CROWN) Hans Fiance MERRIWA TAVERN Celebrations Karaoke MUSTANG BAR Danza Loca Salsa Night ROSEMOUNT HOTEL Ash Emperors The Love Junkies YA YA’S Room At The Reservoir Black Birds Children Steve D’Angelo

The Daniel Firkin Trio

THE DANIEL FIRKIN TRIO

SILVER HILLS HEATHCOTE BLUE

SUNDAY, AUGUST 25 MOJO’S

35

MUSIC GEAR & TECHNOLOGY

GEARBO X

Sterling Ax3

STERLING AX3 BY MUSIC MAN

The Sterling Ax3 by Music Man is a stout and well-tempered Indonesian made guitar which retails for about $400. This is well priced for an instrument with exceptional build quality. The 25.5” scale maple neck and fret board looks solid and is complimented by robust machine heads and has an organic yet smooth action when played. The vintage style two point fulcrum tremolo bridge is well made and feels as though it will stand up to years of punishment. The basic design of single tone and volume knobs translate well into this workhorse-like guitar. The five-way selector switch clicks along nicely providing a very eclectic range of tones from a deep jazzy sound on the neck humbucker to a gnarly yet coherent bridge humbucker.

This versatile and well-priced guitar could satisfy beginners and experienced guitarists alike. Its easy access truss and rod adjuster will likely make servicing cost effective and a rare requirement. While the body of the guitar has a maple finish it is not real maple but a bound image of a maple top body, however the realistic guitarist would not expect a true maple body for this price. Never the less the maple image and quality fretboard combined with simple well-toned pickups make this guitar a solid option when looking for a quality instrument on a budget.

FENDER JAGUAR

The Fender Jaguar was first produced in 1962 as one of the top of the line Fender electric guitars. Since then other Fender designs such as the Stratocaster have at times eclipsed the popularity of the Jaguar, However the iconic shape and raw power of the Jaguar has seen it retain all of its vintage cool. The modern Mexicanmade model retails for $1300; a reasonable price for one of the most iconic and sexy guitars ever made.

This current model comes with two humbucker pickups, a very solid and resonant alder wood body, a maple neck and classic fender rosewood fretboard. The 24” scale neck is shorter than some guitars but the iconic and beautiful headstock makes the Jag feel as though no balance has been lost with the shorter fretboard.

The unique Jaguar tremolo bridge is one of its most defining features.

The design makes for a considerable distance between the bridge and tail which provides incredible resonance, a key reason the Jaguar kept up with its Strat and telecaster cousins.

Offering a more versatile sound for the discerning guitarist the unique pickup selectors provide many options in tone. The redesigned wide-range pickups and classic on\off pickup switches combine well to provide up to six different tones from warm and jazzy to out-and-out grainy nastiness.

The versatile features and unique design ensures the modern Mexican Jaguar will remain a cost effective high-end option for guitarists of almost every playing style.

Fender Jaguar

FENDER JAZZ BASS

The American made version of the Fender Jazz Bass has been one of the most popular basses amongst experienced players since the design was first produced in 1960. Aside from its beautiful rounded body and strong yet well-tapered neck, the real reason for the Jazz Bass’s consistent popularity is arguably its ability to hold impeccable tone in its bottom end while retaining clarity in the high end. This is due to the unique use of two Jazz Bass single coil pickups and the spacing of the Jazz Bass’s frets. Two volume knobs and one tone knob are typical of the simple yet elegant design that has made the Jazz Bass so famous.

Retailing at around $2000 the modern incarnate of this classic bass includes: a solid alder wood body, a graphite reinforced neck with a modernised C-shape polyurethane finish, the option of rosewood or maple fingerboards with rolled edges provide a smooth action and amazing playability for a relatively thick yet tapered neck. Further features include unique jumbo frets which are a classic design from the original Jazz Bass and account for the guitar’s smooth bottom end. Large easy to use classic cast Fender machine heads make for effective tuning.

The “HMV” or High Mass Vintage Bridge which has been refined by fender during the company’s 50 year history ensures excellent action when playing, even after years of punishment the Jazzbass will rarely have a fret that rattles.

A solid bass that has stood the test of time and after Fender’s revamp of this classic design in celebration of the company’s 50th anniversary true lovers of bass cannot go wrong with this high-end yet relatively affordable model. Fender Jazz Bass

Korg SV-1

KORG SV-1

The Korg SV-1 73 key electric piano retails at just under $2000 and has an interesting design that is a break away from the LCD back-lit push buttons and sliders of most modern keyboards.

The SV-1 attempts rather successfully to recreate the vintage feel of retro keyboards by a system of analogue style knobs and basic instrument selector buttons. The keyboard’s tone is driven by a valve reactor consisting of a 12AX7 vacuum tube which is housed rather stylishly on the top of the keyboard, making it look almost like a vintage tube amp from the 1960s. The clever use of turn-able pots rather than modern LCD screens makes changing between tones and instruments a very organic experience. However this stylish touch could be a drawback on a darkened stage as it would likely be very difficult to see which tones or instruments the keyboard was set on without the aid of a light source.

Despite this design issue the quality of the vintage instrument sounds are impeccable, 36

with 36 in total spread out across six banks with six variations of each tone. The SV-1 also features some very usable and practical effects including equaliser, pre-effects, amp modelling, modulation effects, reverb and delay. The weight of the keyboard is a slight draw-back but is to be expected for a quality electronic piano.

The feel of the keys and the SV-1’s playability is very good and would be relished even by experienced pianists. While the unique design might be a little more about retro-chic than actual gigging convenience it is still a clever departure from current keyboard design, leaving the musician who appreciates aesthetics feeling very pleased that they are seated in front of a usable instrument that looks like modern take on their favourite aspects of the analogue age rather than the cheesy LCD-lit control desk from a sci-fi film design that many other keyboards seem to persist with. _ NATHAN CHRISTIANSEN X-Press – First on the street, Wednesdays

Send your Volume News to musicservices@xpressmag.com.au

Edited by TRAVIS JOHN S ON

MaxWatt G15R

HIWATT

With a pedigree that stretches back to the 1960s and the endorsement of such legendary rockers as The Who, The Moody Blues, Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones and Jethro Tull - not to mention modern masters like The Killers and Arctic Monkey - British company Hiwatt are one of the premier amplifier manufacturers on earth, with a range that suits both beginners and experts. For the former, currently available at WA Classic Sounds and PK Music, is MaxWatt G15R, a 15 watt machine with an eight inch speaker, three band EQ, headphone jack and CD input - a perfect practice amp. Fro the more experienced player, Concept Music, Mega Music and the rock Inn are carrying Hiwatt T40 Head, featuring a quarter inch in/out jack, three band EQ, two band master volume, and 20w/40w switching. Head over to cmcmusic.com.au for full specs and info.

Dethtone Monster Fang

DETHTONE METAL MONSTER DEAL AT KOSMIC

Kosmic Sound and Lighting are offering a hell of good deal for budding shredmasters. $499 gets you a Dethtone Monster Fang electric guitar with a 15 watt practice amplifier, an SS audio distortion pedal, a Guitar Gear uTune guitar tuner/metronome, a Guitar Gear uGrip FA10 hand exerciser, a set of Rotosound DZ10 strings, two stainless steel Guitar Gear Metal Lord 8mm picks, a Guitar Gear iGig interface for iOS, a Dethtone 2013 calendar and your choice of a KISS or Motley Crue guitar strap. There are only six packs available at this price, so get in quickly or miss out.

Monster NCredible Ntune

MONSTER NCREDIBLE

In collaboration with Nick Cannon, Monster has unleashed a line of new and stylish headphones, the NCredible range. Featuring Pure Monster sound and available in a range of vibrant colours. RRP ranges from $89.95 for N-Ergy In-Ear phones to $199.00 for the N-Tune model, to $249.00 for the top of the line N-Pulse. All models are available from JB Hi Fi stores.

ROLAND CUBE GX GUITAR AMPLIFIERS

This latest lot of grunty goodness from the good folks at Roland features unheard of versatility, including full connectivity with Apple’s iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, Each amp comes with three independent channels, and three separate effects sections, plus built in EFX, reverb and delay. Models include the 80 watt, 12-inch CUBE80GX, the 40 watt, 10-inch CUBE-40GX and the 20 watt, 8-inch CUBE-20GX, and are pexected to hit Perth shelves by the end of August.

Roland CUBE-40GX

www.xpressmag.com.au

37

MUSIC GEAR & TECHNOLOGY

FOR SALE HEADPHONES all brands & s t y l e s. 2 3 H a r ro g a te S t re e t, We s t Leederville. Contact Headphonic 8 93886333 headphones.com.au INTERNET SERVICES OZURBAN RADIO Soul, RnB, Hip Hop, Urban Tunes, Real music, Real presenters. Internet Radio 24/7 www.OzUrbanRadio.com MUSOS WANTED GUITARIST WANTED FOR COVER BAND Female pref with vocals. Inf: Alanis, Pink, Ad e l e a n d s i m i l a r. G o o d e q u i p r e q d. guitaristauditions@outlook.com G U I TA R I S T & B A S S P L AY E R r e q f o r established original rock band..no fuddy duddies..must be open minded & professional. Call 9371 6066 for auditions & details OPEN MIC NIGHT every Thursday night at Indi Bar. Just call Bex on 0404 917 632.

OPEN MIC NIGHT @ THE CRAIGIE TAV E R N Tu e s d a y s f r o m 8 p m . S o l o s , D u o s, Tr i o s, O r i g i n a l s a n d C o v e r s .

Co n t a c t Pa u l a o r Ce e l ay 0 4 2 0 3 7 5 6 7 0 or openmiccraigie@hotmail.com WA N T E D E X P K E Y B O A R D P L AY E R / BACKING VOCALIST to join local indie pop act The Autumn Isles. Must have quality gear, time and availibility to priorise a long term project. Please email your interest and contact details to contact@theautumnisles. com. Please include some performance history and tastes in music.

PHOTOGRAPHY PROJECT PHOTOGRAPHY Promo p h o t o g r a p h y, s t u d i o , l i v e , l o c a t i o n .

Mike Wylie 0417 975 964 www.projec tphotography.com When its time to ice the cake....

PRODUCTION SERVICES * L I G H T I N G * A U D I O * S TA G I N G * w w w. n i g h t s t a r l i g h t i n g a u d i o . c o m . a u www.nightstarlightingaudio.com.au www. instandt.com.au www.instandt.com.au 9381 2363/ 9444 6651 CD & DVD MANUFACTURE Check out our latest CD & DVD specials online at www. procopy.com.au 9375 3902 D I S K B A N K P e r t h ’s p r e m i e r C D & D V D m a n u f a c t u r e r, w i t h o p t i o n s for all budgets. (08) 9388 0800. www.diskbank.com.au/specials.

M AT R I X P R O D U C T I O N S AU S T R A L I A Lighting, staging, sound systems, smoke machines, night club FX, intelligent lighting, strobes & mirror balls, crowd barriers, video projectors. 9371 1551 RECORDING STUDIOS ALAN DAWSON’s WITZEND RECORDING STUDIO Prof quality albums or demos, large live room, experienced engineer, analog to digital transfers, mastering..Alan 0407 989 128 or Jeremy 0430638178 www. witzendstudios.com

38

Send your Volume News to musicservices@xpressmag.com.au

Edited by T R AV I S J O H N S O N

ANDY’S STUDIO International multi award winning songwriter / producer. No band required. Broadcast quality. A songwriter’s paradise. Ph 9364 3178 B A N D S ! - U N LO C K YO U R S O N G S ’ P OT E N T I A L + F R E E A P P R A I S A L S . U K Producer, 40,000+ hours studio experience.

20 yrs in London with bands and songwriters.

Kicking arrangements, great studio and the ability to really listen will give your material the edge you need. Call Jerry on 0405 653 338 or visit www.jerichomusic.com.au GOLDDUST Production Mixing, recording and composition. Leederville $70 p/h. 0408 097 407 POONS HEAD MASTERING Master with tape, tubes & transformers. Clients include: The Melody’s Echo Chamber, Pond, Gossling, Knife Party, Felicity Groom, The Floors, Jeff Martin & The Panics. World class facility.

World class results. www.poonshead.com 9339 4791 RECORDING MIXING MASTERING PRODUCING Fremantle location. Call Pete Kitchen Cooked Records. Ph 0407 363 764 / 9336 3764 REVOLVER SOUND STUDIO Ph 9272 7505. www.revolverstudio.com.au S AT E L L I T E R E C O R D I N G S T U D I O www.satelliterecording.com 0419 908 766 ProTools..17 Years exp REHEARSAL STUDIOS AAA VHS REHEARSAL ROOMS Great facilities, great vibe & great price!!! Unit 5 /16 Peel Road, O’Connor. Phone 9418 5815 or 0413 732 885 B I G B E AT S O U N D S T U D I O C l e a n r o o m s , a l l n e w PA s y s t e m s , a i r con and good parking . Willetton Ph: 0425 698 117.

PLATINUM SOUND ROOMS Professional rehearsal rooms, airconditioned, quality PAs mob 0418 944 722 STREAM STUDIO’S 89 Stirling St, Perth.

Mobile: 0403 152 009 info@streamrehearsal. com.au V I S I O N R E H E A R S A L Pe r t h’s p r e m i e r rehearsal facilities. Visit www.visionstudios. com.au for all info. East Vic Park. Email rehearsal@visionstudios.com.au or call 0432 034 122 TUITION ***GUITAR LESSONS*** Perth’s ultimate guitar studio. Beg-adv, all styles and levels including bass. Cliff Lynton Guitar Institute.

Mt Lawley 9342 3484 / www.clifflynton.com BASS LESSONS Rock, funk & jazz. Tony Gibbs 9470 6131 G U I TA R & K E Y B O A R D T U I T I O N (Beginners- Professional) One on O n e l e s s o n s. Fre e g u i t a r t r i a l l e s s o n .

Burswood Ph 6460 6921/ 0415 238 729 www.gvkschoolofmusic.com.au To advertise in Classified call 9213 2888 or email musicservices@xpressmag.com.au

HOT OFF THE PRESSES FROM PROCOPY

Procopy have started carrying the full range of Verbatim Notebook bags. Portable technology is integral part of our lives these days, but you still need a way to haul all that neat tech around, and folks in the music industry tend to need to haul more gear than the average bear. Verbatim’s line up padded, rugged and affordable equipment cases is bound to have something to suit any price range and lifestyle - head to procopy.com.au to take a look.

Sennheiser XSW

A SOUND OFFER FROM SENNHEISER

Sennheiser, one of the leading audio brands on the planet, have announced a new initiative in the form of their Trade In, Trade Up promotion, which allows buyers to trade in old wireless equipment from any brand in exchange for a credit of up to $200 toward the purchase of a new Sennheiser wireless system. It’s a canny move designed to shift brand loyalties, with the idea being that, once you try Sennheiser, you won’t go back to your old brand. With up to $200 in savings, it’s not a bad idea to put that implicit claim to the test.

Head to sennheiser.com/promos for full details.

Verbatim Copenhagen, available from Procopy.

SINGALONG CAMP Santana and McLaughlin

WIN! SANTANA & MCLAUGHLIN LIVE AT MONTREUX 2011

Courtesy of Shock, we’re giving you the opportunity to get your hands on a copy of a DVD or Blu Ray of these two master guitarists doing their thing.

The concert features almost all of their 1973 album, Love Devotion Surrender, as well as a wealth of other material, including versions of Stairway To Heaven, Smooth Criminal, A Love Supreme and more! Just email localmusicarts@xpressmag.com.au with VOLUME COMP in the subject heading, and specify if you’d like a DVD or Blu Ray.

WIN WITH DISKBANK

Located at Fairbridge Village, the Rock Scholars Jam Camp is three days and two nights of music, fun and education aimed at youngsters keen on honing their musical skills in a friendly and supportive environment. January, 2014, will see camps being held - the first, from Friday 10 to Sunday 12, is for students aged 12 - 15, while the second, from Friday 16 - Sunday 18, is for ages 16 and up. Activities will include song writing, jam sessions, singing workshops, the opportunity to meet and learn from local bands and recording workshops. Go to rockscholars.com.au for more information.

HOME IN THE HAND

Keen to try your hand at recording your own music or just want some tips to help your indie projects along? Disc Makers have released a free PDF guide, The Home Studio Handbook, designed to give you the down low on bedroom recording. Everything from location customisation and soundproofing to equipment selection and purchasing to all the little tricks and tips that make the whole process so much simpler is now at your fingertips for zilch. Click over to discmakers.com to download your copy today.

The good folks at DiskBank CD and DVD Duplication are looking to give away an impressive prize pack to one lucky musician or band, including 100 CDs printed and duplicated in cardboard sleeves, 100 A3 posters and 100 stickers - just the ting for an unsigned outift Speaking of WAM, the Australian Music Industry looking to put out their first album. For details on how Network, of which WAM is the WA section, has to enter, check out the ad in Local Scene. partnered up with the Australian Independent Record Labels Association and Independent Music New Zealand and is now calling for applications for their Release: The Business Of Independent Label Management Pilot Programme, which aims to help indie label honchos from Australia and New Zealand Entries for the 2013 Kiss My Camera Competition expand their businesses in the face of an ever more close on August 26, so time is running short difficult business environment. The programme for music photographers both grizzled and will incorporate two residential workshops near emerging to get their entries in. Remember that Sydney, with the first taking place in November the competition is only open to WA entrants, and 2013, and will provide participants with practical the subject must be either a WA act or playing in business advice encompassing a range of business a WA venue, but entry is free and you can submit models and systems. Applications close on Monday up to five images. Get on over to wam.asn.au for September 23, and application forms and guidelines full details on how you can get a crack at one of can be downloaded from amin.org.au, air.org.au and the two $500 prizes on offer this year! indies.co.nz.

MERCIFUL RELEASE

WHAM, BAM, KISS MY CAM(ERA)

X-Press – First on the street, Wednesdays

www.xpressmag.com.au

39