ISSUE 1433
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3 0 T H J U LY 2 0 1 4
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F R E E W E D N E S D AY S
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E N T E R TA I N M E N T I N P E R T H
IN AUGUST
BLUES PILLS
THESE FINAL HOURS
MYON & SHANE 54
SWANS
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#XPRESSMAG
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NEWSDESK
LOCAL NEWS
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GLOBAL NEWS
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ANNOUNCEMENTS
DMA’S TO HEADLINE SEA SHELLS, SEYCHELLES Grace Barbé will be performing a huge 34-date national tour spread over three months in support of her latest album release, Welele!. With her fivetime award winning Afro-Kreol band accompanying her; The Brow and DJ Jay-C will also join the former Seychelles Tourism Ambassador. Barbé’s Perth leg of the tour will see her play at Mojos Bar in Fremantle on Friday, August 15, from 8pm. Tickets are $20 at the door or $15 for RTRFM members.
DMA’s have announced their first national headlining tour in September/October following their incredible shows at Circo Festival and Splendour In The Grass. The boys will be teaming up with The Creases for shows in Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide, as well as two huge WA shows at Mojo’s on Thursday, September 25, and Amplifier on Friday, September 26. Tickets go on sale this Friday, August 1, via dmasmusic.com. DMA’s
TEA TIME Canadian rockers, The Tea Party, will return to Australia for the 14th time this October to coincide with the release of their first album in 10 years, The Ocean At The End on Friday, September 5. The band will be joined by ARIA award-winning Aussies The Superjesus who also recently reformed after a decade-long hiatus. The Perth leg will take place at the Crown Theatre on Thursday, October 9, with tickets on sale Friday, August 1, through Ticketek.com.au. The Tea Party
Grace Barbé Pic: Matsu Photography
BEAUFORT STREET FESTIVAL APPLICATIONS Local artists are being encouraged to apply for the opportunity to have their visual art funded for and displayed during the 2014 Beaufort Street Festival. Over 120,000 people attended the festival last year, with the event being WA’s largest single-day festival focussed on local art. Applications (creative visual arts only) must be lodged by Friday, August 22, through http:// bit.ly/bs14art. Beaufort Street Festival
COMEBACK CANADIANS Canadian hardcore quintet, Comeback Kid, are hitting up Amplifier on Thursday, October 6, to support the release of their fifth LP, Die Knowing, and maybe nab a few new fans. With over a decade of blistering beats and chugging distortion, the band is sure to do it large. The boys have also enlisted LA punk outfit, Rotting Out and Sydney hardcore kings, Relentless, to help with the carnage. Tickets go on sale on Thursday, July 31, and are available through Oztix.com.au. Comeback Kid Pic: James Hartly
ROTTOFEST ACCOMMODATION EXPANDS
SCHOOLS OF ROCK Roll up, roll up, bands one and all; the National Campus Band Competition is coming around again. With past winners including the illustrious likes of Eskimo Joe, Grinspoon and The Vines, winning the competition is a pole vault to the big leagues – not to mention last year’s winners nabbed themselves a tasty $10,000 in cash. To enter, at least one band member must be enrolled at a participating university. Heats begin running next month, so head to aaca.net. au/ncbc/ to enter.
This year’s Rottofest is shaping up to be a biggie, with four and sex bed units sold out, Kingstown Barracks have released additional accommodation with twoto-six camping sites available for $35 per person per night by calling 9432 9111. The barracks are approximately one kilometre from the Thompson Bay Jetty with regular bus services available. The Rottnest Lodge also has 20 rooms left and can be contacted on 9292 5161. Hit up rottofest.com.au/accommodation for full details. Rottofest takes place from Friday, September 19, ‘til Sunday, September 21.
Eskimo Joe, 20th century National Campus Band Competition winners
Rottnest Lodge
THE BEGINNING OF THE ROAD The Telstra Road To Discovery is officially under way with emerging songwriters being urged to apply for the chance to win a $15,000 music development fund and a trip to the US to perform at the Americana Music Festival. The program has previously helped the careers of Jessica Mauboy, Neda and Melody Pool. To apply visit telstra.com/trtd. Telstra Road To Discovery ambassador Ella Hooper launches the competition in Sydney last week
INTERNATIONAL BLUES MUSIC DAY The Perth Blues Club is launching the inaugural year of International Blues Music Day in style, with an afternoon gig at The Flying Scotsman’s Defectors Bar. Rick Steele will be launching a programmed jam to celebrate, on Saturday, August 2, featuring a handful of special guests, including Pete Romano, Dave Gillam and Steve Garde. Entry is $10 and the tunes start at 2pm. Make sure you come down and support blues music on its special day. Rick Steele
30 ROCK Genre-defying heavy pioneers Neurosis are on their first-ever Australian tour and given they’ve been going for 30 years, they’re sure gonna make it count. You can catch these recent X-Press cover stars on Wednesday, August 6, at Capitol, ably supported by Drowning Horse. Neurosis 4
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N E W S L E T T E R - S I G N U P AT F O R E X C L U S I V E C O M P S
PRINT AND DIGITAL EDITIONS PUBLISHER/MANAGER Joe Cipriani
EDITORIAL - 9213 2888
IF YOU WANNA BE THE MAN… WWE® Live is coming to Australia, bringing Chris Jericho, Ric Flair (WHOOOO!), Roman Reigns, Kane, The Wyatt Family and Emma along for the ride. If you’re keen for some World Wrestling Entertainment and wanna see some of the biggest names battle it out and puff chests here in Perth, it’s sure to be a big night. Following Melbourne and Sydney shows, the pain will hit the Perth Arena, Saturday 9 August 2014. You can grab tickets now from ticketek.com.au. For a chance to win one of three double passes, where one luck winner will also receive a ‘money can’t buy’ experience - a meet and greet with a WWE Superstar, hit us up at win@ xpressmag.com.au. WWE ® Live
THE RAID 2 Welsh pencat silak obsessive Gareth Evans just keeps whipping up martial arts masterpieces, and The Raid: Redemption is no exception. Rama, an undercover operative/martial arts expert spends two years in prison to gain the trust of and infiltrate a Jakarta criminal empire. Plenty of virtuoso blood and gore ensues. The Guardian called it “pelvis-dislodgingly, inner-eardamagingly hardcore action”; The Mirror gave it five stars. DVDs are out now, and if you’d like a copy, let us know at win@xpressmag.com.au.
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PRODUCTION DEPARTMENT - 9213 2854 CONTENT COORDINATOR Anthony Jackson - production@xpressmag.com.au ART DIRECTOR Dwight O’Neil DESIGN + PRODUCTION Andy Quilty, Anthony Jackson, Rachel Del Borrello PRINTING Rural Press Printing Mandurah DISTRIBUTION - 9213 2853 - distribution@xpressmag.com.au ADMIN / ACCOUNTS - 9213 2888 Lillian Buckley accounts@xpressmag.com.au EDITORIAL DEADLINES General: Friday 5pm, Eye4 Arts: Thursday 10am, WIN: Friday 5pm, Salt Clubs: Monday 5pm , Local Scene: Monday Noon, Gig Guide: Monday 5pm ADVERTISING DEADLINES Cancellations: Monday 5pm, Ads to be set: Monday Noon Supplied Bookings / Copy: Tuesday 12 Noon, Classifieds: Monday 4pm
RAIDERS OF THE LOST JAKARTA Not only do we have recent release The Raid 2 still up for grabs, we’ve just received a swag of The Raid BluRay discs to giveaway. It’s a big, bombastic Indonesian martial arts mess, and it’s received enormously positive praise from critics and gore freaks across the world. Think blood and beautifully constructed battle scenes, every step of the way. If you’d like a copy, hit us up at win@xpressmag.com.au.
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.
Iko Uwais in The Raid.
A GREAT ESCAPE Another Scandinavian novel adaption hitting Australian screens, The Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out The Window And Disappeared is the story of a dynamite expert who decides to, you know, escape out the window and disappear. Was your heart warmed by the conclusion of Harvey Krumpet? Wanna win a double pass? Hit us up at win@xpressmag.com.au.
POMPEII Kit Harington can’t catch a break. When he’s not fighting off hordes of White Walkers in Game Of Thrones, he’s fleeing devastating freak dust clouds of volcanic ash. It’s 79 A.D. Kit’s a gladiator called Milo. He has to escape an arena of death, save his beloved, and avoid getting trammelled by the eruption of Vesuvius, all in the same week. Pompeii has just been released on DVD, and if you’d like a copy, hit us up at win@xpressmag.com.au.
33,560 OCTOBER 2012 MARCH 2013 - AUSTRALIA’S HIGHEST CIRCULATING STREET PRESS
CARNEVALE After an enormous Carnevale success in April, Perth house impresarios Rough Love are bringing b ac k t h e i r C a u s eWay masquerade for a second round. A house party founded on the twin pillars of Venetian masked balls and arcade gaming à la Mortal Combat, The Carnevale 02 will be headlined by R&B, house and ghetto-tech legend Jimmy Edgar (UK). There’ll also be a lot of shimmery house vibes from a local legends Parakord, Eyan. Nina Van Dyke and Milanov, among others, as well as a sideshow alley set-up featuring arcade games and soul food. Tickets are on sale now from pulseradio.net, but you can win a double pass by emailing us at win@ xpressmag.com.au. Jimmy Edgar
20,000 LEAGUES MISTER AND PETE Even with star power like Jeffrey Wright, Anthony Mackie, and Dreamgirls' Jennifer Hudson behind it, The Inevitable Defeat Of Mister And Pete focuses on the harrowing story of two young children abandoned in a New York tenement and dodging Child Protection Services. It's received enormously positive press, and it's out on August 13. If you'd like to win a copy, get in touch at win@xpressmag.com.au. 6
The Inevitable Defeat Of Mister And Pete.
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Nick Cave freaks, those fascinated by his mythos, and everyone who dug his neo-Western The Proposition should check out the new semi-fictional film, 20,000 Days On The Earth. The film is a broody take on a day in the life of Cave, and it’s an intimate and frank look at the creative process and who we really are. It’s bound to be as trippy and melancholically meta as his music and novels, and you can see it in cinemas from August 21. Keen for a double pass? Hit us up at win@xpressmag.com.au. 20,000 Days On The Earth.
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FLESH
NEWS - INTERVIEWS - REVIEWS - CONTENTS
THEY BOOKED KENNY! Kenny Rogers will be performing alongside Kasey Chambers, Adam Harvey and Beccy Cole as part of his Through The Years world tour at Sandalford Estate, Swan Valley. Having recently released his 32nd studio album last year; Rogers is back for another solid night of storytelling and classics on Sunday, February 8, 2015 with tickets on sale through Ticketek. com.au on Thursday, July 31, from 9am. Kenny Rogers
Dream Rimmy
THE BIG SPLASH First Semi-Final Rosemount Hotel Friday, July 25, 2014
THESE ARE THE BEST YEARS OF YOUR LIFE Get ready for the Best Years Of Your Life tonight, Wednesday, July 30, with a huge double stage extravaganza at the Rosemount Hotel with Electric Toad, Chief Richards (Peter Bibby), Hideous Sun Demon, Hunting Huxley, Dream Rimmy and King Crime in the main room; whilst Four5Nine will be rocking with Aborted Tortoise, Kitchen People, Black Stone From The Sun, Skullcave and Robbie Rumble. DJ Anton Maz will also be spinning tunes out in the Beer Garden. The event will be $10 for both stages at the door with $12 steaks running through the night. Aborted Tortoise
HERE’S WHALLEY Frenzal Rhomb frontman and, until last year, longterm host to a pig tapeworm living in his brain; these things may not lay a sturdy foundation of confidence for Jay Whalley’s stripped-back acoustic tour, but Whalley’s made a career of drunkenly careening into the face of expectation and it looks like he may just pull it off again. WA dates happen from Thursday, October 16, at the Odd Fellow; Friday, October 17, at the Civic Hotel; Saturday, October 18, at the Prince of Wales, Bunbury, and Sunday, October 19, at the Indi Bar. Tickets available through Oztix.com.au (1300 762 545). Jay Whalley
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Newsdesk Win Flesh Music Kingswood, Blues Pills Swans Timothy Nelson & The Infidels/The Acid New Noise Eye4 Cover: Zak Hilditch These Final Hours, A Most Wanted Man Deliver Us From Evil, Marilyn Monroe The Hit List, Fashion, Arts Listings Scene Cover: Myon & Shane 54 Feature: What’s On In August EDM News, Producer’s Cut, Take 5 Brookes Brothers, Jimmy Edgar Live: Viper Records 10th Birthday, Metronomy Live: Splendour In The Grass, The 1975, Ben Howard Local Scene: Junkadelic X-Press Guide Social Pics, Volume
FRONT COVER: Timothy Nelson & The Infidels launch their new album, Terror Terror, Hide It Hide It, at the Rosemount Hotel, this Friday, August 1. Pic: Rachael Barrett SCENE COVER: Myon & Shane 54 hit Metro
City on Friday, August 8. 8
We’re already at that time again, the semi-finals stage of The Big Splash. MC Magnus provided words and context in his usual dapper and dynamic manner, as the judges gathered their thoughts to appraise the bands in terms of musicality, innovation, originality, crowd response and, of course, je ne sais quoi. One can only venture a guess as to the reason behind the band name, Dream Rimmy, but surely, it must be lewd. Taking the stage some 10 minutes late (due to no fault of their own), Dream Rimmy were resplendent with guitars that were seemingly colour-coordinated with the bass player’s socks, and a barstool being used quite sturdily as a keyboard. Their opening gambit was a catchy new tune for the band, with duel harmonies reminiscent of The Breeders, that carried on throughout the set. It was an often humorous set, with a lot of support up the front. Expect an EP, Pacific Rim, to surface soon. Eloise Ashton and her backing band took to the stage next, launching into a song with a mellow groove rendered quite infectious with a distinct jazz feel accentuated by the drummer’s use of brushes instead of sticks. Ashton asked the somewhat shy crowd to move forward and her request was duly granted. Singing solo with a ukulele for the third song, Ashton looked like a polka dot angel, back lit from the stage lighting. It was a little laidback for a Friday night at times, but Ashton’s songs are nicely written, with complex chord changes that were well delivered overall. There was no mistaking Puck’s intentions on this night - heavy, grinding, simple sounding garage rock with the occasional odd time signature to prove otherwise. A baritone guitar and bass combined with drums for a heavy, large, penetrating, low frequency sound. Clearly a crowd favourite, Puck had heads bobbing up front and an invitation wasn’t necessary. Holy puck, they were loud. All three pieces of The Kitchen People took the stage - guitar/vocals, borrowed bass and simple drum kit. There’s no mistaking they’re a punk band, with lots of stage presence, and while some songs could drift into monotony, the energy of it brought it all home. Top tunes for antidisestablishmentarians. Husband provided a change of pace, Michael Paolino’s brooding voice given added dynamic via keyboardist, Anneke de Rooij’s backing vocals. Husband weren’t afraid to slow it down a
Kitchen People Photos: J-F Foto
little, highlighting Darrell Sundai’s hard-hitting drum work as hues of The Bad Seeds speckled the music, including a cover of The Moody Blues’ Nights In White Satin. While it made for a big change from the energy of some of the previous bands, Husband’s closing set was no less powerful. In seemingly no time, MC Magnus was back on the stage announcing the winners. Dream Rimmy were victors on this occasion, with The Kitchen People following them into the grand final at The Bakery on Saturday, August 9. Overall, there was a lot of talent exhibited and a variety of music to please almost everyone. The second semi-final happens this Saturday, August 2, at the Rosemount with Pat Chow, Old Blood, Hideous Sun Demon, Junkadelic and a wild card entry from heats 5-8. JF James
STARTUP WEEKEND Entrepreneurs, programmers and start-up enthusiasts are invited to sixty27’s Startup Weekend in Joondalup to pitch their ideas, crowd-source team members and bring their ideas to life in a 54-hour collaborative challenge. Running from Friday, August 8, until Sunday, August 10, teams will present their work on the Sunday evening to a panel of industry leaders with $5000 worth of prizes up for grabs. To register, check out facebook.com/sixty27. sixty27, Joondalup
A CREEPY CARNIVAL The Cannington Exhibition Centre will host a Creepy Carnival as part of the 2014 Make Smoking History Canning Show for members and the public. The event will feature the Twisted Vaudeville Circus, nominees of the Fringe Festivals vinaceous cabaret award. The night will also feature finger food and special guest speakers and judges who will reveal further information on the show. The carnival will kick off on Friday, August 1, with tickets available through show@cahrs.com.au for $15.
SHAKE YOUR BOOTY Dilip N’ The Davs, Paul ‘KK’ Daly and the Heavy Hitters are teaming up for a huge night of dance at the Freo Workers Club. Boogie Nights will see the ‘70s come alive this Saturday, August 2, with the bands reviving some of the best ‘70s dance hits. Tickets are $20 from the Freo Workers Club or by calling 9336 1484. Dilip N’ The Davs
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MUSIC
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KINGSWOOD By Any Means Necessary Melbourne rockers, Kingswood have a released a single, I Can Feel That You Don’t Love Me, from their upcoming album, Microscopic Wars. Ahead of their WA shows at the Prince Of Wales, Bunbury, on Thursday, August 21, and Capitol on Friday, August 22, (the album's release date) SHANE PINNEGAR chats to guitarist, Alex Laska. Kingswood’s debut album, Microscopic Wars, may surprise some with its eclecticism. It was recorded in the US with producer, Vance Powell, who apparently knew how to coax the best out of the four-piece. “Everything that you're hearing on the album is within the musical realm of Kingswood and always has been,” guitarist Alex Laksa begins. “I think rock'n'roll can definitely extend to interesting and varied corners. We had all these songs, then Vance would say, ‘you've kind of gone down this road, what can you do in this realm that I find impressive?’ He kind of takes you where you've gone, but pushes your creativity and makes you think bigger. Leading the charge of this new broader musical palate it the mellow new single, I Can Feel That You Don't Love Me. Not only is it a ballad, but Laska took lead vocals for the first time. “I sang the demo with the idea that Fergus (Linacre, vocals) would eventually be singing it,” he explains. “With this one, I brought it in and everyone was like, ‘Man, that vibe is definitely your voice'. Then it was just, ‘Well, why not?’” Laska credits Powell with the crystal sound of Microscopic Wars, and reveals the band were excited to work with the guy after his stints with Jack White, Kings Of Leon and Arctic Monkeys. “He's a wizard when it comes to making things sound good. There's a reason we picked him. We really got into Blunderbuss by Jack White. His name came up and it was like, this is the guy that made this record that we all love the sound of, so when the opportunity arises where you get that person to make your record you're like, ‘Fucking hell! Let's do this by any means necessary!’”
"I do this thing where I have so much adrenaline and that gets sort of destructive. I never used to understand why people would smash guitars and now I totally get it. When you're so charged with energy you just need to release it some way. I've never smashed my guitars, but I used to dive through the drum kit with my guitar on me, which is really not cool. Luckily, we haven't completely broken anything yet, but I've done some pretty bad things to my body." Kingswood celebrate the release of Microscopic Wars with a national tour, taking in just about every corner of the country from late August right through October. Laska says the band are pretty active on the road and do as much as they can when travelling. “You get to experience amazing places that you would never have thought to go," he notes. "You get to see amazing things and meet all these cool people. We thrive on the essence of meeting people and extending all these relationships. Obviously, meeting all the people and all the parties are great, I'm not going to lie. At the end of the day, we love playing music. Imagine you get to travel around and do it every day - it's just the best thing in the whole world.”
With a reputation for energetic live shows, one wonders if it has resulted in any on-stage collisions or mishaps. “Oh yeah,” the guitarist laughs. “All sorts of stuff. I do this thing where I have so much
completely fucked my back and the next two weeks I was playing shows on a stool - it was really bad!” Having first played with Linacre aged 12, and been in bands with the other guys on and off over the past decade, perhaps the most surprising thing is adrenaline and that gets sort of destructive. I never that the foursome have come together finally with a used to understand why people would smash guitars united vision for what they want in a band. and now I totally get it. When you're so charged “Yeah, it's really weird,” Laska agrees. “I don't with energy you just need to release it some way. know if you believe in this - I don't even know if I do I've never smashed my guitars, but I used to dive but it's meant to have happened because it is pretty through the drum kit with my guitar on me, which miraculous. I used to play in bands with Mango (Hunter, bass) when I was like 14, 15, 16, and we played acid is really not cool. jazz, like Herbie Hancock stuff. Jay (Debrincat, drums) "Luckily, we haven't completely broken and Ferg played in a punk band all their teenage years anything yet, but I've done some pretty bad things at school. It's just weird. Everyone's always been around to my body. I jumped off the kit once last year and each other musically, in a way. So there you go.” “It wasn’t like we just sat down and decided we wanted to sound like we were a band from the ‘60s. It was more just a blend of the music that we were listening to, which is soul and blues and rock, all from that era. Then, when we make music together, that’s just how it sounded really.”
BLUES PILLS Good Medicine Swedish/American/French psychedelic blues rockers Blues Pills, release their self-titled, debut album this week. Bassist Zack Anderson calls SHANE PINNEGAR from his adopted home of Sweden to explain how this multinational band formed and created their genre-defying sound. 10
Blues Pills bassist, Zack Anderson, says that he and fellow American drummer, Cory Berry, started jamming with Swedish vocalist, Elin Larsson, when she spent six months living in the US. Upon her return, they duly followed and Blues Pills was born, sans guitarist. Luckily, Anderson remembered a young guitar prodigy he had seen in France. “When I was on tour in Europe one time, I just saw Dorian (Sorriaux) playing in this little bar in France when he was just 15 years old, and he basically blew away everyone that was watching that day” the bassist recalls. “I remembered him after that and then once I moved to Sweden and we started Blues Pills, I just asked him if he wanted to come to Sweden and try playing with us. He came and we just connected right away and it just worked instantly.”
Blues Pills’ analogue sound is unashamedly old-school: it takes you back to the days of The Jimi Hendrix Experience and Cream, Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac and Big Brother & The Holding Company. Crucially, while the riffs are heavy and the solos fiery, Larsson’s soulful vocals soften the punch with an edge of Janis Joplin and Aretha Franklin. It’s an intoxicating mix that references without copying and sounds very now. It’s forward-thinking retro, if you will. “There’s no question that classic rock and soul’s obviously influenced our music a lot,” Anderson concurs. “At the same time, like you said, we really aren’t trying to copy anything. It’s just that we like a lot of that kind of music and then it ends up being what we write, because we write music that we would want to listen to ourselves. “It wasn’t like we just sat down and decided we wanted to sound like we were a band
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from the ‘60s. It was more just a blend of the music that we were listening to, which is soul and blues and rock, all from that era. Then, when we make music together, that’s just how it sounded really.” With analogue recording comes a warm, vibrant sound, and with their classic soul influences comes an abundance of emotion to match the power of the music. It’s intriguing, therefore, to see so many metal festivals on the band’s European touring schedule. “Really, none of us listen to any metal, I guess, other than maybe the really early stuff like the first Black Sabbath LP but that's more almost blues rock or something!” Anderson chuckles softly. “Yeah, it’s kind of strange that the metal scene has embraced us so much. I don’t really know why - but it’s really just gone well and they really enjoyed it and we get a good response every time.” As for the name, Blues Pills, Anderson is happy to explain what actually means. “We got the name, Blues Pills, from a German music blog that I used to download a lot of ‘60s and ‘70s music from - just rare records and things they would post and you could download the music. That was a way that I discovered lots of obscure, unknown bands and things from the ‘60s and that blog was called Blues Pills. Basically we just liked the name and it kind of means for us, like medicine for the blues, or it also can hint towards psychedelic blues or something.” An amazingly trippy piece of psychedelic cover art painted by artist, Marijke Koger-Dunham, completes the '60s feel of the record. “She’s from the Netherlands, but now she’s living in LA I think,” Anderson explains. “She was kind of known in the ‘60s for painting for the Beatles and she painted Eric Clapton and Cream’s instruments on tour. I just had the idea to see if this artist was still around, and she sent me a handful of different paintings that she did in the ‘60s. “It can’t really get much better if you’re looking for a ‘60s inspired artwork you might as well have something that’s actually from the ‘60s.”
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SWANS PIC: MATIAS CORRAL
SWANS Cool To Be Kind New York experimentalists, Swans, have released their 13th album, To Be Kind. AUGUSTUS WELBY chats with frontman, Michael Gira. For decades, Bob Dylan has been upsetting au d i e n ce m e m b e r s a l l ove r t h e wo r l d by performing versions of his songs that scarcely resemble the original recordings. You wouldn’t commonly group Dylan together with art-rock lifers Swans, but this refusal to conduct a live re-enactment of what happened in the studio is an attribute shared by both artists. “The main thing is we’re trying to make something urgent and undeniable happen in the moment,” says Swans frontman and creative
force, Michael Gira. “I can’t relate to the old material, because it just seems phony to me. I can do a little bit of it and try to change it so it feels urgent. But mainly it’s trying to ape what you’ve done in the past and it just seems inauthentic to me.” This disinclination to look back characterises Swans’ recent career resurgence. After a 13-year break, Gira and his five bandmates returned in 2010 with a new LP, My Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope To The Sky. The comeback was solidified two years later with an even more expansive, and universally celebrated album, The Seer. Then – perpetuating this stretch of unprecedented productivity – in May this year Swans unveiled their 13th LP, To Be Kind. This is an impressive turnover by anyone’s standards, let alone a band whose songs are works of detailed intensity that regularly tread past the 15-minute mark. “There’s a lot of work involved,” says Gira, “but what is the alternative – to sit around and eat vegie burgers all day? You have a really short time on Earth and I think it’s a person’s
duty – if they’re capable and they’re not being oppressed by Syria or something – to try to fulfil their potential. “The agenda was to make something unexpected happen and to push music as far as it could go in whatever direction it wanted; to be uncomfortable and elated simultaneously and to not compromise at all.” Indeed, in a career that dates back t o t h e e a r l y ‘ 8 0 s , G i r a ’s b e e n a u n i q u e l y uncompromising artist. Over the years he’s faced plenty of denigrating scrutiny – “In the early days of Swans’ career the response was pretty much negative or scathing,” – but that hasn’t impeded his questing aesthetic. Thus, shunning the formula for polite applause in a live setting is an inextricable aspect of his artistry. “The band probably loathes me because every soundcheck is revising,” he chuckles. “We are trying to be inside of an experience that audiences can participate in and hopefully they will get a lot of positive energy from it, but we’re not trying to play music they recognise. We’re just trying to make something happen in the moment.
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“I look at it as kind of jumping into a maelstrom and you’re whipped about haplessly and at the end you’re spit out. I don’t know if you feel better or worse at the end, but the experience was worthwhile.” Further evidence of Swans’ fundamental aversion to industry norms lies in the fact that the majority of tracks from To Be Kind actually appeared on last year’s live album Not Here/ Not Now. With Gira’s forward-looking ethos in mind, it’s hardly surprising to hear that the band’s latest set lists largely consist of brand new compositions. “We do a couple of songs from To Be Kind and we do one song from The Seer and that’s pretty much it. The songs that we’re doing from To Be Kind, even, are changing completely. I don’t want to be a travelling advertisement for a record. I’d rather move onto something else. I realise that’s probably an ill-advised career move, but it’s just what we do.” Yes, Swans are basically a commerciallyminded manager’s worst nightmare. Taking into account both the all-consuming two-hour co m m i t m e n t d e m a n d e d by Sw a n s re co rd s and the band’s expectation-thwarting live shows, it’s fair to say that they directly oppose contemporary culture’s emphasis on snippets and predictability. Yet, much to Gira’s bemusement, the group’s fanbase is positively blossoming right now. “There’s an alarming amount of people at our shows and they seem to be getting something genuine from the music,” he says. “It just goes to show you that there are people on earth who are not internet zombies. There’s a lot of people that want something true. There’s a lot of people that want something that’s challenging and real; they want the sweat, or they want the reality of things.” For an artist to consistently convey a sensation of reality, the siren song of complacency must be resolutely ignored. Comprising dynamic extremes and sometimes uncomfortable physicality, To Be Kind reveals that Gira’s ardent creative hunger puts Swans in contact with a sublime energy force. “It’s almost like at many moments the music is playing us and it’s forcing us into a new direction,” he says. “The goal is always ecstasy but you can’t sit down and write a song and say, ‘Now I want ecstasy’. It’s just there once you reach a certain unspoken understanding of an intuitive connection with the musicians you’re working with. It’s this beast, like an octopus or something, that’s playing all these instruments. The music is the beast and we’re just the fingers.”
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TIMOTHY NELSON & THE INFIDELS PIC: RACHAEL BARRETT
TIMOTHY NELSON & THE INFIDELS Terrorific Timothy Nelson & The Infidels launch their new album, Terror Terror, Hide It Hide It, at the Rosemount Hotel, this Friday, August 1, with support from Institut Polaire, The Avenues and Colab. BOB GORDON invites Nelson into his kitchen. Their time starts now. Timothy Nelson’s music has changed somewhat over the years. It’s been a steady evolution, but there’s been bumps, shall we say, along the highway, that have helped it along. He and his band, The Infidels, have just released their second album, Terror Terror, Hide It Hide It, a suite of songs dressed in full pop finery. It’s a long and different way from the folk yearnings of yore, and while such changes do occur over the course of a long game, he can also pinpoint the change in heart and circumstance to a singular moment.
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“I started writing more songs on piano when I broke my wrist a few years ago,” Nelson announces over a delectably cooked meal of pie with mushy peas, red wine and a Stax compilation album. “I broke it at the Hydey,” he continues, citing the old Hyde Park Hotel, back in 2009, “it was the last day they were open. We got there at the start and we were there at the end. It was the three-lamp light fitting at the stage floor, which turned out was the only light that was on, because I ended up swinging from it and it came out of the roof and I hit the ground and the whole place blacked out. “Everyone got turfed out and people were ripping curtains down. Everyone was kind of standing around in a circle singing, ‘it’s closing time’. The funny thing was that Benny Watson, from Project Mayhem, at that exact time had jumped up on the bar and was about to do a crowd surf, people were looking at him but at the second he launched off the bar I was swinging from the chandelier, so they went ‘what?!’ and all turned around and he just ended up face-planting on the floor. He hurt his hand as well. Mine was in a cast.” It does seem a strange catalyst for the transition from simple folk music to pop music, but it did indeed help Nelson on his way (Watson has been busking with an acoustic guitar around Europe this year, clearly it had the opposite effect). “I just realised that I wasn’t listening to much folk stuff anymore,” Nelson says, though the last of this output was released on his 2011 LP, I Know This Now. “I was listening to tons of ELO and Michael Jackson and pop music. I tend to listen to lots of pop music... it just tends to make me feel good. I’d write that stuff but tend to think it should be for someone else. I started trying it for myself, out of lack of having anyone else to sing it. There was this moment of, ‘oh I’m just gonna do this!’ and it went from simple acoustic tunes to Jeff Lynne things with 700 chords. I wrote like that for a while and then I met Joel.” He met Joel Quartermain of Eskimo Joe and resident song/production boffin at Wasteland Studios, to be precise. And he’s your go-to guy for that kind of caper. “We just started talking about songs,” Nelson says. “He and Dale Shearsmith (from Nelson’s other band, High Horse, and a co-writer on the new album) they’re the two dudes I can talk about songs and songwriting with in the way that Luke and Joe (Dux and Grech, Infidels guitarists) would talk about guitars. It’s developed from there. Eskimo Joe had just built a studio and were doing their record and he said, ‘you should come do a record with us’. We talked about it for a year before we actually did anything, and that was about two years ago when we started doing this.” Nelson says that there was a middle group of tunes that didn’t make the last album, nor this one. The first song Nelson worked on with Quartermain was a breakthrough in all kinds of ways, and set the new plan in stone. “The first song I did with Joel was Mary Lou,” Nelson says of his best-known single, “but we’d had a plan to do another song with him. I’d gone into the studio and we’d worked on this song just one-on-one and it was all ready to go, the band were gonna come in in a few days and we were going to record it as a single. “Then I played him this thing on my phone that we recorded at a jam, previously, and it had the chorus of Mary Lou and some rough lyrics. He said, ‘we should do that’ and he convinced me.
“On the very first day we wrote Animal and we were all like, ‘Wow, that is awesome, we better clear our diaries’, and over the next 10 days we recorded the EP. That first song, Animal, was so magical. We always had that to go back to.”
THE ACID PIC: EMMA GREY
THE ACID Triple Dissolution Just who, exactly, are The Acid? MEG CRAWFORD investigates. 12
Until recently, The Acid were an enigma. No one knew who they were, or where they were from. Initially, calls for information were met with radio silence, adding to the shroud of mystery. All that was known was The Acid were behind some achingly beautiful, even groundbreaking songs. Their eponymously-titled EP, The Acid,
released in April this year, is a lush, luxuriant, ambient, celestial-sounding collection of electronic and guitar-laden beauties that bathes one’s ears in warmth. It’s an experience outside the ordinary listen – much like The Acid’s debut album, Liminal, which followed in May. Now we know the identities behind the band: California’s Steve Nalepa, England’s Adam Freeland and Australian expat, Ry X. Nalepa talks about the evolution of the group. “Initially, when Adam, Ry and I got together in the studio, we had no plans,” he says. “However, on the very first day we wrote Animal and we were all like, ‘Wow, that is awesome, we better clear our diaries’, and over the next 10 days we recorded the EP. That first song, Animal, was so magical. We always had that to go back to. “I was on tour with the (Parklife) Weekenders straight after that. Everyone had to split for other projects. In the meantime, Adam had one of his friends run the tracks through a tape machine to warm things up a bit. Around that time, we made a conscious decision not to tell anyone about it. We all have our own established careers and various things are associated with each of us. We didn’t want the EP to be judged as someone’s ‘new thing’ or side project. We just wanted the music to be first and foremost.”
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“We had this grand idea of making today’s version of Ram, by Paul McCartney,” he confides. “It was going to be a vintage sounding ‘70s thing. It just... didn’t happen. We just went on doing our own thing with it. It was pretty cool, actually, because on the last album I was fond of paying homage to my favourite bands, with this one if something sounded too guiltily like someone else, or there was just a deliberate reference, it was like, ‘let’s mess it up a bit’.” Before that I’d never been one to pay to record in a proper studio, a song that hadn’t been finished. I was like, ‘really?’ and he said, ‘yeah it’ll be wicked, we’ll do it as we go’. “So in a sense he kind of joined the band for that session and we made that song. And it was cool, instead of pressing ‘go’ and recording a thing that the band had been playing for two years, it was sort of going on a journey in the studio. Once we’d done that it just excited us and we just kept doing it like that. It was cool.” Nelson says that there are some songs on the record that are up to five years old, however they received the same treatment as songs that he had written the day before he went in to record them. Inversely, the band’s last single, Born In The ‘90s, did not make the cut. The vision proved malleable. “We had this grand idea of making today’s version of Ram, by Paul McCartney,” he confides. “It was going to be a vintage sounding ‘70s thing. “It just... didn’t happen. We just went on doing our own thing with it. It was pretty cool, actually, because on the last album I was fond of paying homage to my favourite bands, with this one if something sounded too guiltily like someone else, or there was just a deliberate reference, it was like, ‘let’s mess it up a bit’.” If it sounds as though the rest of the band - Dux, Grech, Hayley-Jane Ayres (violin, viola, keys), Brad Forest (bass), Peter Forgus (drums) - simply gave way to this because it has Nelson’s name on the tin, it’s not the case. While he’s an out-and-out songwriter, collaborating with a songwriting craftsman no less, it actually served to enhance the band’s internal, creative dynamic. “It used to be like that but since the last album we went through a few line-up changes and it’s ended up with this great new unit,” he says. “I really enjoy bringing songs in half-finished and working on them with the band. We were already becoming far more collaborative, then working with Joel just added to that vibe.” Not that anyone is too needy in the Infidels. A band of multi-instrumentalists, all of the members play in a multitude of Perth bands, seemingly all of the time. “That’s why we took two years to make 10 songs,” Nelson laughs. “It is a pain in the arse, just the organisational side, a six-piece band where everyone plays in other bands, but if you enjoy the result of it enough it makes it all worth it. And it most certainly is.” The mystique couldn’t last forever, though. The EP was so well received that it provoked an almost frenzied response. “I wasn’t expecting it,” Nalepa says. “Suddenly we were getting hit up with messages all the time asking about us. People were saying, ‘We are taking bets on who you are’. It was really catching on and we played up to that a bit. We started saying we were from Santiago, Chile, Berlin, Sydney – all of these exotic locations – and we changed it every couple of days. It was playful.” Despite having no plans when they set out to record, The Acid were guided by principles of minimalism and simplicity. “‘Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler’. Adam told us that on one of the first days of recording – it’s an Einstein quote. We kept coming back to that. So we stripped everything back as much as we could, without losing anything. Besides, Ry is such an incredible singer. We don’t need much more.” The aura of mystery around the band was compounded by other factors, including the name. “As far as we were aware, The Acid hadn’t been used yet. It was kind of a bold move, really. It’s a really strong name. Before we identified ourselves as being a band, we connected musically and quickly built a body of work. At some stage after that, Adam was at a friend’s house and he thought he read ‘The Acid’ on something, although, he actually didn’t. We were concerned about the name to a degree, because it has certain connotations. Because of that, we made an effort not to use traditional psychedelic colours and fractals. “There is a bit of mystery around it, too. It can be interpreted in different ways. Another way to look at it is that acid can dissolve things and create something abstract. That’s us – we’ve dissolved into each other and created something else. We’re really proud of what we’ve made and we want people to interpret it as they will.”
NEW NOISE
For more album reviews head to xpressmag.com.au
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SPOON
VARIOUS ARTISTS
They Want My Soul Spunk
Then & Now Australia Salutes The Beatles Universal Music Masterminded by the reverend of Australian music journalism, Glenn A. Baker, Then & Now Australia Salutes The Beatles is founded on a pretty straightforward premise: lots of people like The Beatles, lots of Australian artists have covered The Beatles, let’s make an album that catalogues these covers over the past 50-odd years. There’s some guilty hints that a few of the tracks are indulgent picks from the aging rock journo, but that can be forgiven. After all, an album of nationalistic Beatles fandom beats the traditional compilation archetype of a lazy, opportunistic cash grab and there are some true gems in the rough here, including Wendy Saddington’s eight-minute flower power jam of Tomorrow Never Knows and Hoodoo Guru’s rockin’ cover of A Hard Day’s Night. At its core, Then & Now is the March Of Progress of Australian music, from Barry Gibb’s nasal, adolescent vocals in the Bee Gees’s 1964 cover, From Me To You (this was before the heady days of cocaine and three-piece disco suits), to Katie Noonan’s famous jazz cover of Blackbird and The Voice winner, Harrison Craig’s rendition of Til There Was You (okay, so they’re not all great picks). It shows Australian music as it was, as it is, the influences we take and the sounds we create, the good moments and the regrettable ones, but mostly, it shows just how often we, as a nation, seem to cover (and adore) The Beatles.
Spoon were one of indie rock’s success stories at a time when bands were finding it hard to stay afloat and were almost singlehandedly propping up record labels along the way. After their longest break between recordings, Spoon reunite for their eighth full-length album, They Want My Soul. Spoon have always been a band that are as vibrant on record as they are in the live arena and They Want My Soul finds the members of the band reinvigorated to offer this latest outing oodles of energy without sacrificing style. After his time moonlighting in Divine Fits, it is refreshing to hear Britt Daniel embrace the characteristic rasp in his voice as he attacks these angular tunes with renewed vigour. Studio whiz-kid and drummer, Jim Eno, ensures that They Want My Soul has a cracking rhythm section to give Spoon the drive and propulsion that is the band’s signature. New kid on the block, Alex Fischel (keyboards) swells the numbers to make Spoon a fivepiece and offers extra colours and flavours, taking a lead role on the surprising, tender inside out. Spoon are masters of the memorable hook without ever being throw-away. They Want My Soul is chock full of guitar-driven greatness that makes it well worth the four-year wait and is bound to see it feature highly on end-of-year lists. CHRIS HAVERCROFT
SHAUN COWE
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JUNGLE Jungle XL Recordings/Remote Control
DEETRON Fabric 76 Fabric Records/fabric149 London’s tastemaking nightclub and record company Fabric are best known to Australians by their monthly mixtapes, released since November 2001. That’s 76 mixes to date, and the latest features Swiss DJ/producer Deetron, shuffling techno, house, nu disco, chillwave, and Brainfeeder-style IDM into a seamless 28-track set. Deetron constantly shuffles classic techno, house, electropop elements into something quietly complex, both in the thickness of the layered samples and in the gentle manipulation of their textures at each level of the mix. That subtlety arrives at moments of enormous payoff, like when the faux horns and strings in Caribou’s Irene give way to the unbalanced whine of industrial saws in Joe’s Slope. It’s a weird trip determined by what Deetron has called his ‘pleasure principle’, but unified by an overall leaning towards handclaps and high-pitched percussion, buzzy timbres, and almost inaudible sine pitches, sweeps, and vocals. It all culminates in Nils Frahm’s transcendent Says, almost antithetical to Johnny Blas’ cyber Cuban opener, Picadillo, and powerfully cathartic at that. ZOE KILBOURN
Whenever you see UK label XL Recordings attached to an album, you tend to prick your ears up. It only releases six albums a year on average, but with the likes of King Krule, The xx and Dizzee Rascal under its wing, XL has a heavy hand on the British scene. Its latest project, garagesoul group, Jungle, is a chip straight off the London block. With an unmistakably UK sound, reminiscent of the early ’80s, the album performs a delicate ballet between quotation and originality. The opening tracks, The Heat, Accelerate and Busy Earnin’, showcase a tapestry of synths, held together by tight-knit progressions and a falsetto that sets the sonic palette for the album. Busy Earnin’ blasts you with a dazzling splay of horns, all fanfare and Don Cheadle braggadocio. It’s exhilarating, but nothing new. It’s what happens after the hefty openers that exposes Jungle’s true ability: the album moves with cinematic propulsion through a kaleidoscope of musical ideas and influences, everything from Jamiroquai to Seattle grunge. Cuts such as Smoking Pixels and Crumbler are rich and complex, miles away from the roller disco beginnings. Jungle is an easy and well-constructed album that explores a healthy blend of synth and soul to the full. Keep it in your back pocket for summer. NIC LINEY
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MAGIC!
OUT OF 5
EUGENE MCGUINNESS
Don’t Kill The Magic RCA Records
Chroma Domino/EMI
The sudden rise of Magic! has been an enjoyable one; bringing their fresh batch of reggae-pop to a seemingly stale and repetitive mainstream scene. However after months of listening to their hit single Rude, it’s time to see if the Canadian quartet can keep up the groove and avoid being a one-hit wonder. Their debut album, Don’t Kill The Magic, proves just that; showcasing the band’s versatility and smooth ability to transition between both the reggae and pop genres. The album varies from the rim-shotting, hand-clapping No Evil to the stripped-back melodies of One Women One Man. However, it’s clear by the end that MAGIC! shine in their fast-tempo’d, ultra-layered, harmonised pop tracks, with tracks such as Paradise and Little Girl Big World. The title track, Don’t Kill The Magic, may be the weakest track on the album, with simplicity and a lack of elements keeping it from being overly engaging. Having the mainstream expertise of Nasri Atweh (involved in writing chart toppers for Justin Bieber and Chris Brown) has paid off, providing some relaxing holiday pop and taking the first step to restoring mainstream airwaves.
Eugene McGuinness has Irish heritage but when listening to his music there can be no doubt that he is firmly entrenched in the culture of England, where he has spent most of his life. His latest album opens with a riff that would be familiar to anyone that has had half an ear to The Beatles Day Tripper, and although his most derivative, Chroma could be the best McGuinness album yet. McGuinness has a confident voice without being brash, and while it is inoffensive enough, there is nothing in his tone that sets him apart from his countrymen. Where McGuinness is most adventurous is his penchant to never stick with one style for too long. Much is rooted in the ‘60s, but the sequencing and sense of cohesion is almost non-existent. Despite I Drink Your Milkshake being a collection of some pretty inane lyrics, it is still one of the album’s high points due to its somewhat angular and rhythmic verses coupled with a sugary and agreeable chorus. Eugene McGuinness has been one of those artists that has been lauded by the critics and relatively ignored by the public. Chroma is a step in the right direction, but it looks like the public might be fighting on the right side this time.
AARON BRYANS
CHRIS HAVERCROFT WWW. XP RE SS MAG.COM. AU
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A R T S & C U LT U R E
The new Australian drama These Final Hours promises the ultimate downer ending - the extinction of all life on Earth. But it's what happens before then that is important, as writer and director Zak Hilditch explains to us. Given the incredible amount of noise around These Final Hours, a lot of people are going to be hearing Zak Hilditch's name for the first time. But the hotly anticipated apocalyptic thriller is not his first feature film; it is, in fact, his fifth. "I did three what I would call backyard features which were a lot of fun," he says. "Getting together a team of likeminded friends from Curtin University, where I studied. After uni, you know how it is, we were like, 'What
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the hell are we going to do now?' You just get as many of those passionate people together who all want to keep making films. You don't really know what you're doing, but you just want to keep making stuff. So we ended up making three of those over a seven year time span while I was also having a crack at shorts, some funded, some unfunded, and just developing the shit out of a lot of projects. And a lot of them would fall over but this one sort of withstood the fire and brimstone of development." Perhaps that's because it deals with some pretty bedrock themes that all of us have pondered at one time or another. These Final Hours follows James (Nathan Phillips) as he resolves to reunite a young girl, Rose (Angourie Rice) with her father on the day the world is scheduled to end. Hilditch says film was inspired by "My own mortality and our own mortality - the sort of thing that keeps a lot of people up at night. I am very fixated on it and there's
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definitely something in there about what would you do if you knew you were gonna die? At the same time there was this idea about these natural disasters that just sort of take people by surprise and then they're gone - they didn't have time to prepare and they didn't see it coming. Well, what if you spun that on its head and you could see it coming but you still couldn't stop it? It gives you time to prepare and it really breaks things down to the questions: what would you do? where do you belong? who do you really love? All those really primal questions. That's where it all tied in together." Hilditch was also adamant that the film be set in his - and our - home town. "Being born and bred here I always wanted to set the film here. I didn't want to set it in Nowheresville or Everytown. I wanted to set it specifically in Perth and to show Perth in a way that people who live here have probably never seen their city before, especially on the big screen. This isn't New York,
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this isn't LA - this is Perth that this is happening to. I think that was incredibly interesting." He also dismisses the possibility that These Final Hours is another entry in the seemingly endless cycle of downbeat, selfserious Australian films (See: The Rover, Mystery Road, Somersault, Snowtown, etc). "At the end of the day this film could seem like the bleakest film a human being could make - it's about everyone dying. But at the same time, James' journey with Rose and doing the right thing and realising that it's never too late to find redemption even in the face of the apocalypse... to make a film about the apocalypse you have to go to some pretty dark places but that, to me, is balanced out by their journey through the film because he does manage to right his wrongs - all with the ultimate ticking clock." TRAVIS JOHNSON
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WORDS BY WOMEN TAPPING AN ARTORY The Artory is a new creative space located in Kelmscott. Serving as a learning centre for film, art and dance, they also have exhibition space available. This month, their featured artist is Julie Feenstra, whose exhibition, Yetrospective, showcases her fascination with nature, music, biomimicry, robotics and social issues. It’s on display until August 12. Check out the Artory Facebook page for more info. Yetrospective - Julie Feenstra
GOING TO THE DOGS Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs is coming to the stage! Specifically, to the Pakenham Street Art Space from August 27 - September 6, thanks to Circle In The Sand. Based on the cult 1992 heist film, the play sees a group of professional criminals turn on each other after a botched jewellery heist when it becomes apparent that one of their number is an undercover cop - and if you didn’t know that already, you need to culture the hell up. Directed by David Meadows, the production features a top notch local cast, including Adam T. Perkins, Benjamin James, Brodie Masini, Dimitrios Christodoulakis, Patrick Whitelaw, Jake Garner, Matthew Kiely and James Hagan. Book via Trybooking.com.
A combination of literary event and live performance, Women Of Letters sees some of Perth’s best, brightest and boldest female minds hold forth over two nights at PICA Performance Space, courtesy of Perth Theatre Company and curators Marieke Hardy and Michaela McGuire. On Wednesday, July 30, Abbe May, Carmen Lawrence, Sally Burton, Gillian O’Shaughnessy, AJ Betts and Mama Kin will pen A Letter To The Thing I Didn’t See Coming, while on Thursday, July 31, Hellie Turner, Rachael Dease, Gina Williams, Kerry O’Sullivan, Andrea Gibbs and Ofa Fotu will turn their hands to A Letter To My Startling Truth. Go to perththeatre.com.au for full details. Mama Kin - Women Of Letters
BRACE YOURSELF FOR BRAZOUKA Following the world premiere season at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Braz Dos Santos’ Brazouka is coming to Australia! The striking dance/drama mash up is directed by Arlene Phillips and written by Pamela Stephenson-Connolly and sees the acclaimed dance troupe slam together Forro, Capoeira, Contemporary and Samba movement styles in the dizzying gestalt known as Lambazouk. The show runs at the Regal Theatre from October 23 - 26. For tickets and times, hit up Ticketek.
ANDERSON AT BURATTI An exhibition of new works by Perth artist Daevid Anderson opens at Fremantle’s Buratti Fine Art on Thursday, August 7. Inspired by the abstract geometries of Australian artist John Nixon, Anderson has created a series of portraits overlaid with geometric shapes, combining highly detailed realism with more opaque abstraction. The exhibition also includes a series of grey studies that combined discrete areas of the human body with a striking use of negative space. For more information, go to buratti.com.au.
These Final Hours
THESE FINAL HOURS Wave Of Mutilation Directed by Zak Hilditch Starring Nathan Phillips, Angourie Rice, Daniel Henshall, Jessica De Gouw, Kathryn Beck Writer/director Zak Hilditch (The Actress) takes the notion of the cosy catastrophe by the neck and turfs it out the window in this violent, Perth-shot-and-set apocalyptic drama. It’s the end of the world as we know it, with an encroaching asteroid about burn the globe free of life. There’s nothing we can do about it - we are utterly, utterly, doomed. With 12 hours left on the ontological clock, a young man, James (Nathan Phillips) is going to a party thrown by his mate, Freddy (Daniel Henshall). It’s a Masque Of The Red Death affair, more or less, with all the revellers knowing full well that this is this their last hurrah, but James’ goal of rendering himself senseless to onrushing oblivion hits a snag when he crosses paths with Rose (Angourie Rice), a young girl who has been separated from her father. What matters when nothing matters? that’s the central moral question of the film, with Hilditch asserting that it’s how we conduct ourselves in the face of certain death - certain erasure from history, even - that really counts. James resolves to
reunite Rose with her family, an act that also raises pangs about Zoe (Jessica De Gouw) the lover he left to face the apocalypse alone. The film makes a virtue of its low budget, framing Perth as a desolate, nigh-abandoned suburban wasteland (must have saved a tonne on set dressing, hey?) populated by the deranged, drunken and murderous (and casting...). Tonally, although the film’s narrative journey is towards redemption it’s a bleak, brutal affair, punctuated with shocking violence, another example of Australian Cinematic Miserablism - even The Rover had more laughs than this. However, the assured direction and brisk pace mean it’s gripping rather than depressing. Still, the film does feel a little undercooked in places. Although incident by incident the story has surprises, the broad strokes of the plot and the ultimate destination - narratively and thematically are never in any doubt. It also feels strangely lopsided, with James’ actual decision to help Rose coming relatively late in the proceedings and the film hurrying through what would ostensibly be its second half. These aren’t deal-breakers by any stretch, but do mar what is otherwise a hugely impressive work. And it really is impressive. There’s a seriousness of purpose here that is rare such lowbudget genre fare. Hell, it’s increasingly rare at any level. While it may occasionally be overly earnest, These Final Hours stands out from the pack because it is a whole, complete experience, a film that takes one of the age-old barroom philosopher quandaries - what would you do if you had one day left to live? and runs with it. It’s a question you won’t be able to help yourself from tackling afresh after seeing it. TRAVIS JOHNSON
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The State Theatre Centre Wednesday, July 27, 2014 Director Damien Ryan’s WWII-set interpretation of Shakespeare’s great patriotic play drew the city’s most ardent theatre fans to the STC last week. Photos by Matt Jelonek.
Luke, Lara
DELIVER US FROM EVIL Alice, Sally, Lizzy
The Devil You Know Directed by Scott Derrickson Starring Eric Bana, Edgar Ramirez
Darcy, Susanna Andrew, Rosh
Brendon, Greta 16
Joel, Kirby
Deliver Us From Evil sees director Scott Derrickson (The Exorcism Of Emily Rose) back on the familiar ground of demonic possession and exorcism, inspired by the apparent real life events of former NYPD officer Ralph Sarchie. Ralph Sarchie (Eric Bana sporting a credible Brooklyn accent) is a police officer working the South Bronx. While investigating a number of strange unsettling cases that are seemingly linked, Sarchie comes across the rather non-traditional Father Mendoza (Edgar Ramirez in a show-stealing performance) who informs him he no longer is facing the secondary evil of man but rather the primary evil of demons. Stylish rather than substantive, it may be covering familiar ground of exorcism and possession, but Deliver Us From Evil manages to hold its audience in a state of tension. There is a genuine sense of menace in the dark alleyways of the Bronx, as if the chipping paint and crumbling brickwork were indicative of the spiritual corruption at the centre of this film. Even in the cramped apartments of the possessed everything is filth and decay. It's a small detail, but grants the film a visceral sense of revulsion, leading to a memorably twisted piece of iconography (although not one for cat lovers). The portrayal of the possessed add to this sense. From their rotting dishevelled WWW. XP RE SS MAG.COM. AU
appearance to their animal-like motions, they give a distinct impression that they are far from human and have become something more primal and predatory. Yet Deliver Us From Evil also walks the fine line of not making anything too superhuman or fantastic. In general, a few shattering windows and flickering bulbs aside, if you accept the initial premise then everything makes a certain diagetic sense and is consistent. That's not to say Deliver Us From Evil doesn't drop the ball a few times. It may be overly fond of the jump scare, using them a few times too many - but to its credit, this is rarely for no cause as it later manages to hearken back to earlier safer scares and twist them to a much more menacing intent. It is a very dark movie, not just tonally but physically, and there are times it is hard to distinguish entirely what is happening on screen. Then there is a strange obsession with the music of The Doors and associating it with demonology, a melding which doesn't quiet work. Most damning of all is that Deliver Us From Evil brings nothing new to the genre, instead working the same old familiar tropes, even if it is with Derrickson's sense of style. A solid supernatural thriller with plenty of atmosphere, Deliver Us From Evil might not be original or challenging, but it does provide more than a few thrills and chills. DAVID O'CONNELL
FILM
A MOST WANTED MAN Directed by Anton Corbjin Starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Grigoriy Dobrygin, Rachel McAdams, Robin Wright, Willem Dafoe Director Anton Corbjin's adaptation of John le Carre's 2008 spy novel is notable for featuring the last lead performance by the late and vastly talented Philip Seymour Hoffman. Unfortunately, it's notable for little else. Which is not to say it's a bad film, per se - just a fairly stolid and unremarkable one. Hoffman is Gunther Bachmann, the head of a shadowy German anti-terrorist intelligence outfit stationed in Hamburg, the city where the 9/11 attacks were plotted. When a half-Chechen, half-Russian Muslim refugee, Issa Karpov (Grigoriy Dobrygin) arrives in the city to claim a multimillion dollar inheritance being held in the bank owned by Tommy Brue (Willem Dafoe), Bachmann sees an opportunity to follow the money and sever avenues of funding to Jihadist terrorist organisations. Complicating the scenario are other German intelligence agents, who would rather nail Issa now rather than aim for a better score down the track; the interests of the United States, as personified by CIA agent Martha Sullivan (Robin Wright); and the efforts of Issa's idealistic lawyer, Annabel Richter (Rachel McAdams).
MARILYN MONROE Norma Jeane Negatives Presented by Linton & Kay Galleries, Marilyn Monroe: Exclusive Collection Of Original Photographs From LA is a pop up exhibition featuring almost 100 rare pictures of Monroe by seven different photographers. We spoke to the curator, Andrew Weiss, the world's largest dealer of Marilyn Monroe photography.
A Most Wanted Man is not so much deliberately as glacially paced, with Corbjin - who also gave us the superior The American - devoting a lot of time and effort to portraying Hamburg's dour, chilly environs. It's also a narratively opaque film; every character plays their cards close to their chest and, with political manoeuvring and subterfuge being the order of the day, parsing the plot requires a fully engaged viewer. That's difficult to some degree, though, with Corbjin de-prioritising character in favour of other elements; in the world of A Most Wanted Man, people are their functions, be they spies, lawyers or bankers, and it is largely left to the cast to milk whatever individuality they can from their sparselywritten roles. It's difficult to empathise with figures who are largely ciphers in service of a labyrinthine plot but, luckily, the excellent cast just about manage to bring their roles to life. This is especially true in the case of Hoffman, whose effortlessly captivating turn makes what could have been a fairly by the numbers character - Bachmann is a hard drinking, chain smoking, overworked, overweight, cynical intelligence officer, just like all the rest - into a character that would be easy to follow through numerous adventures in the underbelly of European tradecraft. The fact that such a thing is impossible - at least with Hoffman in the role - is sobering. Taken as a whole, A Most Wanted Man feels like about an hour of excellent television stretched out over a two hour running time. While all the elements work, there's simply not enough going on to justify a feature length excursion into Bachmann's milieu. Having said that, it's worth a look simply to remind yourself what a towering talent we lost when Philip Seymour Hoffman died. TRAVIS JOHNSON
Andrew Weiss seems to have been destined to work in the art world, as both his lineage and his success attest. "I am a third generation art dealer," he explains. "My grandfather was a picture framer in New York. I started my career in the industry at a publishing company when I was 18, showing art to galleries throughout the US. Five years later, I started my own business and have now been in the industry for 45 years, owning several galleries throughout the US." When we speak to him, he's in Perth for the opening of the Marilyn Monroe photographic exhibition, a collection of which he is justifiably proud. "The exhibition is historic," he tells us. "Showcasing Marilyn Monroe’s remarkable transition from Norma Jeane to Hollywood’s biggest star over the 17 years of her career. The collection includes photographs from the first time Marilyn was ever paid to model, when she was 19, through to her last photo with New York photographer George Barris in 1962. Seven photographers are featured in the exhibition, and the photos tell a story of the different relationships that Marilyn had with each of them – whether they were personal or professional. "Included in the Perth exhibition are photos by Milton Greene, which have never been seen anywhere else in the world. I purchased the negatives and restored them just over two years ago. Every time I view the exhibition, I find that there’s always something new to discover about Marilyn and who she was at a particular time." Weiss was able to obtain the photographs through his friend, Edward Western. "My dear friend and pioneer in the art business, Edward Western was an art publisher known for classic Hollywood glamour photography. With New York photographer George Barris, Edward published what came to be known as ‘the last photos’ of Marilyn Monroe, taken from the original camera negatives. Edward then continued to build the collection of Marilyn Monroe photography, working with a selection of photographers who had a special connection with Marilyn. When Edward passed away, I purchased his entire collection." Although Monroe passed away almost exactly 52 years ago (the anniversary of her death is August 5) our cultural fascination with her never seems to dim. "When Marilyn was alive, she was the epitome of beauty, and continues to withstand the test of time from generation to generation. She appeals to men, but also to women with a certain vulnerability about her that they can relate to. Passing away at just 36, Marilyn will always be forever young." TRAVIS JOHNSON
Marilyn Monroe: Exclusive Collection Of Original Photographs From LA is on display in the Central Park lobby until August 15. WWW. XP RE SS MAG.COM. AU
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A R T S & C U LT U R E
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FAS H I O N
Earth, Fire And Water: Kidogo Art House An exhibition of ceramics by Jonathon Hook and Stewart Scambler, as well as paintings by Catherine Gordon. It runs until August 17. go to kidogo.com. au for more info.
The Seagull: State Theatre Centre Anton Chekhov’s masterpiece comes to the Heath Ledger Theatre courtesy of Black Swan State Theatre Company and director Kate Cherry. It runs from August 9 - 31. Go to bsstc.com.au for details.
Placement: PS Art Space Long time local music supporter and poster art collector Nikolai Graham will be exhibiting some of his favourite poster designers. The opening night of this fascinating look at music history features performances from Craig Hallsworth and The Gutterville Splendour Six, hosted by Ross Chisholm. It runs until August 9.
Concussion: The Blue Room Theatre A man is beaten so badly he suffers complete amnesia. He is cared for by a son he doesn’t remember and a doctor who may be his girlfriend. Surreal, funny, violent and explicit, Concussion runs from August 12 - 30. Go to blueroom.org.au for tickets and session times.
Curio Curiosa: Elements Art Gallery This exhibition of new works by Darwin based painter Bryan Bulley runs until August 10. Also on display is Heart-less, a mini solo exhibition by emerging Perth artist Serena Lumley. Go to elementsartgallery.com. au for more. Translations Of Space: Spectrum Project Space An exhibition of works from four Shanghai-based artists and three Perth ones, including Jiang Junchen, Luo Wei, Xu Shanxun, Zhao Peishing, Amanda Allerding, Clive Barstow and Paul Uhlmann. It runs until August 1.
EAT AT: BIVOUAC
Natural Selection: The Hive This exhibition of stunning works by zoologist turned nature photographer Simon Pynt runs from July 31 August 3 and features shots taken from the Atherton Tablelands, Pilbara, Kimberley, Murchison, Goldfields, the South West and more.
A bold, Mediterranean flavoured menu and a killer location at the city end of William Street make this relaxed eatery a Northbridge institution. Bivouac
The Seagull - Greta Scacchi as Irina Arkadina. Photo by Carolyn Cowan.
VISUAL ARTS Stay Safe: Ruck Rover General Store Curated by Kate-Anna St Valentine, this is a charity exhibition to raise money for SAFE, an organisation dedicated to saving animals from euthanasia. Featured artists include Kyle Hughes-Odgers, Sean Morris, Mel Stringer, Rose Skinner, Maddy Young, Jessica Horrocks, Chiara Hunwick, Elizabeth Murraffo, Matt Moore and Leonei Brialey. It runs until July 31. Go to ruckrover.com.au for more info.
DRINK AT: THE BROWN FOX This elegant West End watering hole boasts an awesome small batch cider in the form of their house label, Lazy Dog. The Brown Fox
Dinosaur Discovery - Lost Creatures Of The Cretaceous: WA Museum Combining life-size moving models and 3D augmented reality technology, this world-class exhibition brings the unfathomably distant past to life. There will also be fossils and specimens on display, interactive activities and more. It runs until August 3. Go to museum.wa.gov.au for more information. Inside My Outside: Little Creatures Brewing A collection of new works by Brenton See and Natalie Acton that views universal human experiences through the lens of the animal kingdom. It runs until October 14. Marilyn Monroe - Exclusive Collection Of Original Photographs: Central Park Lobby Presented by Linton & Kay Galleries, this collection of almost 100 images spans 17 years of Marilyn Monroe’s life. The collection is on display until August 15.
Becomings: Spectrum Project Space An exhibition of works by ECU post-grad students from the School Of Communication And Arts. Artists include Jan Bathurst, Claire Bushby, Nicolle Desmarchellier, Aasiya Evans, Donna franklin, Emily Hornum, Deedee Noon, Kimberley Pace, Sarah Robinson, Heather Shaw, Caroline Staron, Steven Tapping and Jane Whelan. It runs from August 7 August 22. Go to ecu.edu.au for further information.
Locally crafted, bespoke, naturally dyed leather goods. Hit up either their Hillarys or Fremantle locations, or else find them online at nevermindleather.com. Nevermind Leather
GO TO: CURTIN OPEN DAY Making the move to (or back to) tertiary education? Get a taste of the Animal House life (or not) at Curtin University’s Open Day Catalyst this Sunday, August 3. Go to openday.curtin.edu.au to scope your options. Curtin University 18
Just as the sheer sensory assault of colour, noise, light, and the stench of sandbar urinals mimics and complements tab disorientation, there’s a ton of fauxspiritual esoterica for long-haired freaky people. A lot of it’s disarmingly “ethnic” S p le n do u r ’s t e e m i n g w i t h I n d i a n headdresses and bindis, a “Henna Harem”, and “authentic Gypsy tarot readings”. It’s mostly innocent and just as shallow as acid insights, but it can feel like you’re back in a ‘60s mescaline moment. The main thing a festival like Splendour does is open up its punters to a childlike openness, with campsites looking like anything-goes refugee
The Scandinavian Film Festival The first ever Scandinavian Film Festival brings together the best cinema from Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland and Iceland. It runs at Cinema Paradiso from July 24 - 30. Go to scandinavianfilmfestival.com or lunapalace.com.au for details. CinefestOZ Film Festival Running from August 20 - 24 in picturesque Busselton, Bunbury, Dunsborough and Margaret River, this prestigious festival combines over 200 public screenings of French and Australian films, plus industry guests, forums and panels, workshops and the $100,000 CinfestOz Film Prize. Go to cinefestoz.com.au for full details.
THEATRE/DANCE/ PERFORMANCE Jasper Jones: State Theatre Centre Barking Gecko Theatre Company presents a stage adaptation of Craig Silvey’s acclaimed novel, written for the stage by Kate Mulvany and directed by John Sheedy. It runs until August 9. Go to barkinggecko. com.au for more information. Patyegarang: State Theatre Centre This new production from Bangarra Dance Theatre tells the story of the eponymous Aboriginal woman who taught her language to Lieutenant William Dawes of the Colonial Fleet. It runs from July 30 - August 2 for five performances only. Tickets are available via Ticketek.
FESTIVALS AND VIRAL FASHION Splendour In The Grass very clearly models itself on Coachella: enormous dusty camp grounds, a slew of big names (and an overdose of smaller ones), popup art, swathes of clearing left aside for boutiques and Buddhist groups. Of course, it gets all the trappings of a big messy festival - acid, pot, composting toilets, break-ins, weekend warriors willing to be flower children before work kicks off again. ZOE KILBOURN reports.
2014 Perth Winter Arts Season This seasonal celebration of art and culture is back once again, showcasing a dazzling array of performance, visual arts, film, literature, fashion, food and more. It runs until August 31. Go to perthwinterarts.com.au to start planning your winter.
Boundaries Of Beige: Fremantle Arts Centre Marzena Topka uses textiles such as office clothing and string in striking ways to investigate how organisational structures interact with our daily lives. It runs from August 8 - September 20. Go to fac.org.au for more.
FIFTEEN MINUTES OF SPLENDOUR SHOP AT: NEVERMIND LEATHER
FESTIVALS
camps from reality. Held near Byron Bay, a tourist town kept alive by end-on-end festivals including Bluesfest, the whole experience is firmly plunged in whimsicality. It’s a beautiful experience, but also the perfect time to capture the attention of potential consumers with short attention spans. In the Clickhole age, that’s pretty much everyone. Amongst all the merch stands and straightup whackjob hippie gear, there was an entire corporate set-up called the Very Small Mall. Doc Martens, Levis (selling Hell’s Angels-esque patches) and The Iconic were all hipster frontin’. There, you could also pick up an ironic Ksubi t-shirt (pictured; actual price, $60), Cotton On ‘essentials’, and a hideously overpriced but elegantly presented Norweigian onesie series, OnePiece (“The bastard son of slacker and street culture”, from $119. Richard
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Aasiya Evans - Rum#93E84D, Becomings
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Branson has one). These are the companies big enough to indulge in viral culture but too big to take a risk if a fashion meme isn’t viral enough - onesies, tattoo art, Docs are safely bizarro. These guys are angling for the Violent Soho fans in Santa Cruz socks. On the other end of the spectrum, you’ve got the smaller companies and art collectives who operate as companies that dip straight into the pop cultural consciousness or are helping to create it. Notably, the “wearable art” stalls use the reappropriative nature of streetwear to create pieces that deliberately skew the fashion mainstream while still remaining “safe” within a hipster framework. MonsterThreads, for instance, uses ordinary hoodies and tees alongside stranger woodcut brooches to push the fuzzy monster imaginings of urban artists. Spunky Bruiser takes it a step further, recreating jackets and dresses out of recovered scraps of fabric, denim, and crochet. They’re also selling “Bogan Vogue” beanies, a swipe at the general spirit of streetwear: it’d be awful if it wasn’t so cool. Included in the performance art springing up around the festival (notably Bennett Miller’s fully-populated Amish barn pop-up, Rumspringa) was Hungry Castle’s balloon sculpture, Lionel Richie’s Head. Killian Cooper, Dave Glass, and a slew of fellow designers and people along for the ride exude a kind of Warholian honesty and bravado about their work. Their work pretty much speaks for itself - it dives into the memestream and plucks out a cat shooting lazers out of its eyes, a shirt with an exact Hodor advice animal printed on it, a Lionel Richie video. Killian, sporting sunglasses with disconcerting paint splodges across the lenses, was very frank about their funding when I spoke to him (inside Rumspringa, of course). “We get it from clothes,” he said. That merch - collectively called Cool Shit - includes prints of Lionel Richie on caps and tees, Hungry Castle jumpsuits, low-fi sketches of cartoon characters. Especially when you factor in the number of hangers on (one supported the Kickstarter, another won a competition), it’s pretty much Warhol’s Factory all over again, complete with screen printing. Mass production, now via streetwear, is still the easiest way to engage anyone with art.
NEWS
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INTERVIEWS
Hungary’s foremost (and only?) purveyors of uplifting vocal trance are heading our way after recently hitting the coveted number one spot in the American billboard dance charts. But far from sitting on their laurels, the duo are aiming to conquer the pop world and they’re not ashamed about it one little bit. They’re bringing their act to Metro City on Friday, August 8. ANDREW NELSON gets the lowdown from the boys.
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Márió Égető and Előd Császár are better known as Myon and Shane 54, and judging by the amount of effort involved spelling those names correctly and finding all the special characters on the keyboard, it’s little surprise that they’ve opted to go by their nicknames. Besides, the duo need a name that trips off the tongue once they achieve the stardom they’re obviously heading for. Their last single, Lie to Me (with Cole Plante & Koko Laroo), recently reached number one in the Billboard dance charts, but while most DJs are promoted from the underground and would be overwhelmed by this level of success, these two have always had their eye on the pop market. “I have a fairly extensive media background in Hungary,” Shane explains. The pair have taken the time out from their hectic schedules and they are both eager to share their stories, finishing each other’s sentences and interjecting where necessary. “I was 5 when I first appeared on TV, on a kids show,” he continues. “In my ‘late 90s media frenzy’ I was a well-known TV/ radio host, with DJing merely as a hobby.” Myon takes over the story: “We are a dance duo with a pop background, so our main roots lie there. This is one of the biggest differences between most DJs and us. We did loads of pop songs before we properly got into DJing and
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producing dance music. We just have to have a strong foundation before we start building on it. A good chorus or something like that.” Whilst most producers would hide similar roots, the pair are more than willing to embrace these sensibilities and prostrate themselves at the feet of the great goddess of popular culture. “Yes! Without a doubt,” roars Myon when asked if this is a good ethos or not. “Why would it be a bad thing? Pop songs have this wonderful ability to take you back to the exact same moment when you first heard, or got emotionally attached to, it. If there’s anyone who had this effect with our music, we did our job well.” “Pop has such a wide palette,” Shane continues, “You can squeeze basically anything in there. And we’re more than happy to be squeezed. We value a good song more than anything. At the end of the day people will hum or sing choruses at the top of their lungs - synth riffs or, god forbid, drops, not so much. If a song’s good it doesn’t matter if you play it with a flute, an acoustic guitar or a full blown EDM arrangement. It will work perfectly every time, and that’s what we aim for.” Continued on page 20.
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YO U R G U I D E TO W H AT ’ S O N T H I S A U G U S T
WINTER ARTS SEASON Looking for a little culture? From the end of July the City Of Perth’s Winter Arts Season is a three-month program of arts and cultural events in the genres of music, theatre, dance, comedy, literature, film and visual arts in the city - has you covered. The University Of Western Australia is holding a food and dance night, Dancescapes: Stories Through Dance on Wednesday, July 30, while the State Theatre of WA hosts Bangarra Dance Company’s Patyegarang from then until Saturday, August 2. His Majesty’s Theatre will be showing The Last Confession until Sunday, August 10, while the second half of August will see the Central Institute of Technology exhibit their up-and-coming artists through Metamorphosis. Thursday, August 21, sees ARIA Award-winner, Tim Freedman, explore the work of Harry Nilsson at The Ellington. Until mid-November, the WA Museum will showcase an exhibition from the National Museum Of Kabul and the Art Gallery of WA will present the photography of Richard Avedon. Complete your Winter Arts Season experience by having a pre or post show meal and drinks at select Perth City bars and restaurants. Just mention ‘Winter Arts Season’ to receive 25 per cent off the total bill. Some of the participating restaurants include The Butterworth, C Restaurant, The Heritage, Lamont’s Bishops House, Venn and The Terrace Hotel. More information through visitperthcity.com/winterarts. Patyegarang, City of Perth Winter Arts Season
GUILTY AS CHARGED
WHY NOT?
Guilty Simpson and Katalyst will be performing at Mojos next Thursday, August 7, thanks to Grindin’, CPN and Hussle Hussle. The hip hop massive will come alive as the rappers showcase songs from their upcoming collaborative album, along with individual classics. Marksman Lloyd, Mei Saraswati and Raaghe Ismail will provide support with tickets being $25 through Oztix.com.au or $30 at the door.
The Dollhouse, in Charles Street, North Perth, has a reputation as Perth’s premier gentleman’s club, and for good reason. It hosts some of Australia’s award-winning dancers as well as an extensive drinks range and it’s open until 5am. The Dollhouse has also recently teamed up with Allure Entertainment for Why Not Wednesday?. Free entry before 10pm and women are always welcome.
Guilty Simpson
The Dollhouse
FLYING FROM THE FLOCK Rob Snarski, former singer of the Blackeyed Susans, is set to release his self-produced, debut solo album, Wounded Bird, on Saturday, July 19, following up with a national tour in July/August. The tour will see Snarksi play two WA shows at the Astor Lounge on Saturday, August 16, and Mojos Bar on Sunday, August 17. Ticket information is available at RobSnarksi.com. Rob Snarski Pic: Andrew Watson
NOBUNNY TOLD US
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O’ROURKE ROLLS Irish troubadour, Declan O’Rourke, is returning to Australia for the first time in over five years to commemorate the 10th anniversary of his acclaimed album, Since Kyabram. The tour will see the Dublin songwriter play five shows across Australia ending with a Saturday, August 30, show at The Fly By Night alongside Fiona Rea. For more information visit troubadour-music.com. Declan O’Rourke
THE KID GOES ON TOUR
Nobunny is returning to Australia this August alongside The Hussy for a tour of intense psychedelic punk rock. Performing at Amplifier on Friday, August 29, Nobunny is fresh off the release of his third album, Secret Songs, while The Hussy are set for the release of their fourth album, Hussy Galore, later this year. Tickets are available through Oztix.com.au.
Alex The Kid will look to continue their incredible 2014 with a national tour booked for August. The Geraldton locals have recently signed to Whitewinter Records and have been performing their punk anthems all across the West Coast. The tour kicks off next Friday, August 8, with an all-ages show at YMCA HQ. Hit up facebook.com/alexthekidrock to find out more about them.
Nobunny
Alex The Kid
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KATE MILLERHEIDKE Like A Sunrise Kate Miller-Heidke performs at the Astor Theatre on Friday, August 1. This is part two of KRISSI WEISS’ interview with the singer/songwriter. Kate Miller-Heidke’s new album, O Vertigo!, marks the first time, in a long time, that she didn’t collaborate with her partner-in-crime-and-life, Keir Nuttall. The break in songwriting wasn’t just for the sake of the songs, but also for the sake of each other. “I needed it,” Miller-Heidke says. “Keir and I had basically been in the same room for eight years and it had become a really unhealthy relationship, because we’re also married, and we were sending each other insane. It’s not easy; you mention coming home well we don’t have an office so there’s no coming home, we’re always home.
“At the moment, he’s developed this comedy act so he’s out on tour opening for The Beards and that’s a massive two-month tour. I’m hoping he doesn’t get alcohol poisoning, they seem to be having a good time! I think for both of us it’s been a great time of artistic growth and we definitely needed it for the music and for our relationship.” While Nuttall is out on the road with The Beards, Miller-Heidke has been in promo mode, not only for press and radio interviews, but for morning television. Sunrise, in particular, being a stand-out. Many fans of Miller-Heidke from the early Woodford and even earlier Elsewhere days (a Brisbane she played in which broke up in 2003) would’ve been shocked to see her in that format but then it’s also easy to forget how much faux moralistic bullshit musicians like to wear as part of their costume. “The world of breakfast television is extremely strange, for anyone, to play a song to no one at 7.30 am. Well no one slash a million people. But I remember reading once that television is like crack for your career and it’s true,” she says. “I still get people at gigs that say, ‘I first saw you on Sunrise’. Sunrise now is still pretty much one of the only places you can get onto Australian television and play music, so good on them for hanging in there. You know ‘ultra-indie’ is such a crock of shit. You know, no one is that unless they have no ambition. Even the people who seem to be that, they’re not, that’s their own marketing strategy, and good on them, but I do not subscribe to that theory at all.” Because the notion that you’re just playing in your lounge room not giving a damn until one day you get discovered is utter rubbish? “Everybody who’s got the fire, who’s got the hunger, they want to get on television, they want to get their music heard and sometimes it serves their purposes better to come across as super indie which is a strange conundrum. “Maybe I should’ve pretended to be more indie back then? I probably didn’t pretend enough, I do regret that but oh well,” she says with more humour in her breath than the words convey. So Kate Miller-Heidke wishes she lied more? She begins laughing at the absurdity of it all. “It’s true. Everything’s a fucking lie in music, I think.” So does she feel that there is a plastic wall of insincerity she needs to break through in her world? “Well there’s not too much bullshit for me though,” she says. “What I want to do is continue to have this amazing luxury of having this opportunity to write songs for a living and perform songs for a living and play to audiences. That’s all I want… I just think the whole, well, if ever a band says, say, they would never go on Sunrise, that’s a cynical marketing decision of their own. They are not taking a moral stand at all.” Kate Miller-Heidke Pic: Joe Duck
VAUDEVILLE WITH A TWIST
RTRFM RADIOTHON OPENING PARTY
The Twisted Vaudeville Circus will present a full stage show as part of its Au Dela Cirque Bleu fourth anniversary. Starring Aerial Twist, Joanna LittlewoodJohnson, The Rybka Twins, Ginger La Minge and Kelly Cook, as well as a multitude of cabaret, circus artists and other special performers, the show will feature a cocktail party with 100 per cent of the ticket sales being donated to beyondblue and its work with depression and anxiety sufferers. In memory of much-loved street performer, Matty Blade, the show happens next Friday, August 8, at the East End Bar & Lounge with tickets available from moshtix.com.au for $30 (plus booking fee).
RTRFM’s Radiothon Opening Party is set to take over Northbridge on Friday, August 15, from 8pm. At The Bakery, it’s Savoir, Rainy Day Women, Kučka, Davey Craddock & The Spectacles and The Weapon Is Sound; Ya Ya’s will host Dream Rimmy, Loners, HAMJAM and Hideous Sun Demon. At The Bird it’s hip-hop artists Coin Banks, Marksman Lloyd, Kid Tsunami and Empty while over at Flyrite it’s Sable, Slumberjack, Lower Spectrum and RTRFM’s Cloud Waves DJs. Presales from rtrfm.com.au are $15 – Subscribers, $20 – General. Door sales are available for $20 – Subscribers, $25 – General, plus free entry for Gold Subscribers. For more details visit rtrfm.com.au.
The Rybka Twins, Au Dela Cirque Bleu
The Weapon Is Sound, RTRFM Radiothon Opening Party
THIRD BOB DYLAN SHOW ADDED
VALLEY OF THE ‘DOLL
Good news for Bob Dylan fans, the great man’s neverending tour has been selling out all over the country and extra shows have been added. In Perth a third and final show has been added for Friday, August 15, at the Riverside Theatre (his August 13-14 shows having fully sold out). Tickets for the third show are on sale from Ticketek.com.au (132 849).
Perth’s rising rock trio Ragdoll recently returned from yet another successful US tour, this time around a 21date jaunt that included a show at the Whisky A Go Go in Hollywood and Rocklahoma in Pryor, Oklahoma. Now that Ragdoll are back they’re getting ready to launch their new album, Ragdoll Rewound, at the Civic Hotel. It’s a happening thing on Saturday, August 9, with special guests Hailmary and This Other Eden. Head to ragdollrock.com for more details.
Bob Dylan
Ragdoll
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EVENTS
STEREOSONIC The lineup for Stereosonic 2014 has just been announced. Held over two days, you can expect to see Calvin Harris, Tiesto, Diplo, Disclosure, DJ Snake, Skrillex, Alesso, Steve Aoki, Carl Cox, and Laidback Luke among a string of other DJs and producers. Stereosonic hits the Claremont Showgrounds on Saturday, November 29 and Sunday, November 30. Get your tickets and full lineup from www.stereosonic.com.au.
HABITAT DJ COMPETITION Habitat, Geisha and Store DJ are kicking of another round of the annual Habitat DJ Competion. 2014’s round is open to a string of genres listed at geishabar. com.au/whaton/2014-dj-comp/, from jackin house to nu-disco. All it takes to enter is a 30min cd mix by 6pm Saturday, August 17. First heat is on Friday, August 22 at Geisha bar. If you’re keen, get in touch at info@ habitatinc.com.au. Habitat DJ Competition 2014.
FIJI If you’ve got some cash to burn and/or are in need of a relaxing/bass jacking holiday, consider hitting up Fiji for Your Paradise. From November 19-22, 2014, you can be chilling at the Plantation Island Resort as one of 600 guests. It’s $1,299 all up, including return flights, and it features DJs like Alison Wonderland, Peking Duk, Touch Sensitive, and Golden Features. They’ve also promised a VIP sandbank party (!). Find info at your-paradise.co; alternatively, make use of the extra accommodation just announced for Rottofest.
SBTRKT British produer SBTRKT has just announced a second album, Wonder Where We Land. If you dug his last release, which featured Little Dragon on major hit Wildfire and resulted in a St. Jerome’s Laneway appearance, you should check out the newly launched single, New Dorp, New York. It’s a step away from the subdued dubstep of the last album, but it’s just as suave, and features the unflappable Ezra Koenig. The whole album will be available on September 22. SBTRKT.
AVALANCHES Australian sampologists The Avalanches are notoriously difficult to pin down - the last we heard of them, they’d released a lone (and excellent) remix of Hunters And Collectors’ Talking To A Stranger. Get excited - these unearthly shades have just locked in work with party rapper and Splendour alumnus Danny Brown. He’s apparently laid down two tracks with the group. As this was a surprise announcement in a media tent to Triple J, God knows when they’re gonna share the tracks with us - if ever. Danny Brown.
COLAB The CoLab festival has announced its 2014 lineup: it’s dance heavy, and it’s being held at UWA. Hermitude, The Midnight Juggernauts, and The Jungle Giants are all making appearances; Sable, The Kite String Tangle and Indian Summer are all swinging this way after Splendour. Also expect to see Gang Of Youths, The Creases, Citizen Kay, and one mysterious Triple J Unearthed act. CoLab is a new festival, and although they’re tricky to track down online, you can be sure there’ll be more info up when tickets go on sale this Friday. CoLab will be held on Saturday, November 29. As a friend once said: “Do The Midnight Juggernauts ever play a venue not UWA?”
DEADMAU5 If you’re not already exhausted by Deadmau5’s constant stream of twitter antics, you can check out his stab at the trance scene (and download it for free) at live.deadmau5.com. It’s called Carbon Cookie, and it apparently took him thirty minutes. He describes it as “cheesy shit for lols”.
Continued from cover. The pair have been making music since 2008. It was when Armin Van Buuren started playing their tracks and invited them to appear at his ASOT 450 party that their dance music career soared, but as Myon explains, this wasn’t the pinnacle of their calling; more a tempting glimpse of the future to spur them on. “At that moment there’s nothing bigger than that, and you strongly believe you’ve ‘made it’. Then you realise it’s more of a sign that you’re on a good path. Making a good tune is one thing. Keep coming up with ones people like is much harder. You can never be sure if your song will work as you’d like, so you better do everything in your powers to make sure you did your best.” “There’s always more to do,” Shane agrees. “And the further you go, you wanna do even more. That is natural, and once you are satisfied with yourself, I think you’re over. But of course we can have moments where we look at each other and think: wow, we certainly never expected this to happen, like when you’re playing a festival and tens of thousands of people are singing your song. Those moments are to live for.” Perhaps it’s those moments that drive the duo’s work ethic. In the last year alone they’ve worked on countless tracks, including remixes for Dash Berlin, Markus Schulz and Lana Del Rey. They spend their lives touring, making music, producing their weekly radio show (International Departures) and filming their own reality TV show (IDTV). After
the current tour, it’s straight back in the studio to do it all again. “We’re working on a new album, which is maybe 54% finished,” Myon says. “We’ve got about 18 songs in various shapes and forms, an ideal situation. We can easily ditch stuff we don’t like that much, ending up with like 13 songs in the end. Even though we’re far from finished, at least we see the light at the end of the tunnel.” Those rocking up to see them in action at Metro City will surely get to hear a whole heap of the mash-ups for which they’re famed, plus, as Shane explains, we’re also promised a world-wide exclusive: “We definitely will play our new single, Summer Of Love, as a test. We actually will play it in Perth for the first time ever! We sort of have a backbone of the gigs, tracks we definitely wanna play, but this is the first thing that falls apart during a show when the audience gives us a different vibe. Anything can change very fast. There’s no recipe or pre-made tracklist to give you.” One thing they can tell us is that they’re excited to be back in Australia. Anyone who saw them at Stereosonic the last time they were on these shores will agree that the passion is sincere. These guys have a hunger for the music and a genuine desire to please the crowd with proper songs, and if that’s not cool, then what is? MYON & SHANE 54 DREAM IN COLOUR FRIDAY, AUGUST 08 @ METRO CITY
WITH KEEP KALM LOUIS HOOD TALKS UP THE BEST NEW ELECTRONIC RELEASES KIESZA Hideaway Lokal Legend
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With cool house vibes, a cracking bassline and amazing vocals, it’s no wonder that Canadian producer and dancer Kiesza has produced a genuine deep house track that everyone, including the mainstream charts, can get behind. Such is the recognition for this track that it has been featured on the Hed Kandi radio show, which has featured dance music legends such as Armand Van Helden, Moby and Kaskade. To get the full effect of this track, watch the amazing music video on the highest quality with a set of very good speakers or headphones. It’s the only way to fully appreciate how amazing this track and artist are.
KREAP Eat Da Poo Poo Club Sessions
Notorious internet troll and occasional (prolific) producer Kreap has relaunched and remastered his track Eat Da Poo Poo with help from Australian dance legend Mobin Master. Kreap has taken his title sample from the extremely controversial speech from Ugandan Pastor Martin Ssempa against homosexuality. This funky house backing contrasts against this hateful speech and allows the listener to have a laugh at how ridiculous it really is. All social commentary aside, this is a signature Kreap funky house track with beautifully layered synths, bass and drums all topped off with excellent mastering from Mobin Master.
SLUMBERJACK Felon DieHigh Records
Slumberjack have been absolutely blowing up on the Perth scene, headlining big nights in Ambar and Mondo as well as receiving airplay on Triple J. Producers Fletcher Ehlers and Morgan Then have created a beautiful Australian Sound/Trap track, reminiscent of Flume and Emoh’s What So Not project. With the beautiful building synths leading into sophisticated and bassy drops, this is not your traditional trap banger. Felon has a maturity and complexity about it, but still encourages people to get absolutely ratchet on the dancefloor. This is a must have for fans of the heavier genres and everyone who is looking to support some amazing local artists.
WILL SPARKS Catch Ultra
Melbourne bounce producer Will Sparks has had a meteoric rise to fame, now playing super clubs in Ibiza and Las Vegas, supporting Avicii on his Australian tour as well as charting very well in both Australia and around the world. His new track Catch has taken his signature style from his genre-defining track Ah Yeah!, which reached number three on the Beatport overall charts, and mixed it with the electro house influence from his now peers such as Hardwell, Dada Life and Chuckie, hence creating another absolute club banger. With an insanely catchy hook and a killer bounce/ electro house drop, there is little wonder as to why this track is charting so well at the moment and has cemented his place as one of the pioneers of the Melbourne bounce sound.
BASEJACKERS & MAKJ Derp Hysteria Records
Due to the sheer number of artists and the decreasing popularity of electro house, it’s very difficult to get noticed and to produce truly unique tracks. However, the Dutchmen of Bassjackers and the man from the States MAKJ have created a truly excellent track. With pounding drums, wicked saw lead and a constantly building structure, this track has set the bar even higher for this genre. Watch out for this track hitting clubs and charts in the very near future - electro house is definitely not dead yet.
NEWS
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BROOKES BROTHERS
DECADE OF VIPER TOUR
Keep Calm and Carry Me On
Matrix and Futurebound, The Prototypes, Brookes Brothers, Rockwell
Phil Brookes is just as effusive on the phone as his summery, disco-tinged DnB. As one half of Brookes Brothers, he’s touring rapantly and working on an album for release later this year. ZOE KILBOURN caught up with him before he played the Perth leg of the Viper tour. Phil Brookes is, you could say, keen for life. Back from a “wicked” tour of New Zealand, you’d think he’d be working through jet lag, but instead he’s gushing about Perth (he’s played here three times before). It’s only fitting that he and his brother’s incredible production career began with a wholehearted obsession. “Before we really got into DnB, we were massively into UK garage, hip hop and jungle. Around the time we decided to get into production, that was the time we were absolute DnB fanatics, going raving ever weekend,” he explains. “When we got to the age of going out clubbing and going to raves, that really inspired us to make music ourselves. We were obsessed. Not that we’re not into DnB - we’re still very passionate about it - but in those days, there was only one thing we were going to try and make, and that was DnB. Because we came from a soul, hip hop, jazz background, we really loved the liquid stuff - people like M.I.S.T, Calibre, that was the stuff we really wanted to make.” That liquid influence is palpable in music that trades in the traditional banger-anger of DnB for warm, funky, disco-laced music. It’s still at 170 BPM, though - percussion is an enormous part of the genre and Phil’s work. “We go through different phases, and it also depends on the kind of tune we’re making,” he says. “Recently, we’ve been really getting back into the break, using slightly lighter drums. We really love breaks, but for a while people got too deep into the real hitsy, big 200Hz kicks - not a lot of groove in the beat. We try to bring it back to all those old funk breaks, which is where we came from originally. You’ve gotta have that jungle element in DnB, otherwise it’s just like trance. No offense to trance.”
JIMMY EDGAR Mercury In Retrograde Detroiter Jimmy Edgar’s career has been nothing less than mercurial. From his DJ debut at raves as a 15 year old to awardwinning work in fashion photography, he recently established the Ultramajic label and is dropping a second album. ANNA SAXON catches up with him before he plays Carnevale 02 on August 10. Techno is all about the aurally esoteric - constructed percussion, sub-basslines, the limits of synthetic noise. Jimmy exudes the same sort of ortherworldly detachment that makes his mixes compelling.
Metro City Friday, July 26, 2014
Photo: Ari Yeung
Their last big release, Carry Me On, has a very strong vocal focus. “We did come from a real sample-heavy background, and nowadays we use a lot less samples. Even on the album, a lot of stuff was played by ourselves,” he says. “Nowadays, you can get incredible instrument packages, multi-instruments with a hundred different velocities - you can really get stuff sounding organic. A lot of the time you won’t be able to tell if it’s a real piano or just a piano synth. New music technology really opened us up, so we don’t have to sample as much as we did, although you can’t beat a really lovely, juicy sample. It’s definitely still a big part of what we do. Sometimes you just need those samples to inject real character into your work.“ “Progression is a big part of our music - we don’t want our tracks to be like a five-minute loop,” he continues. “We really try to lean towards the song base structure. Chord figurations, chord progressions, chord changes all play a big part in that for us. We’ve always wanted our stuff to stand out, musically, from the rest of the pack.” He laughs. “No, that sounds like we’re being competitive. We’re just trying to make the best music we can make.” Phil explains their heroes growing up were the soul and Motown artists their parents loved Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson. A recent release, The Blues, is a particularly unusual DnB track - it uses a full forties blues vocal sample. He can’t say who it is - “It’s probably so old nobody would worry, but just to be on the safe side” -but it’s a throwback to the roots still resonant in Brookes Brothers’ work. “We spend hours and hours listening to old music and hours and hours sampling it as well - it’s not really a chore or a labour, we love it. There’s no buzz like finding new music you really love.” “I think we can apply technology to spirituality to gain a better sense of who we are,” he says. “I prefer the more esoteric subjects, but any books on transhumanism can talk about the merging of these two ideas. I think humans are coming to a point where technology will discover things about our sense of spirituality and I think it’s generally a step forward unless we start relying on technology too much. This is a very dynamic subject and it’s extremely dependent on human focus spanning time. You really have me nerding out here, don’t you?” After his Majenta audio-visual project, he’s produced a very different EP: Mercurio. “The main influence for this record was Mercury in alchemical terms,” he says. “Mercury, or Mercurio, represents fluidity, intellect, transformation and change. For me, everything about the EP represents those attributes, as does the artwork which created especially for it. I will do a third alchemical EP to complete the series later this year.” Alongside all the touring, Jimmy has a string of projects lined up, one with Berlin visual artist Pilar Zeta. “Pilar Zeta and I are working on our 3-year project to design new faces for the Major Arcana. They are pretty much done, but we’re planning on presentation now. Otherwise, I’m still going hard with Ultramajic. I am continuing my airbrush pieces and I have quite a few new ones but this year I am concentrating on artistic integrity so presentation is also important here.” Jimmy divides most of his time between Detroit and Berlin. He’s said before that “Berlin is where I get all my work done; it’s not a relaxing city”. It’s easy to wonder where he goes to chill out, if he ever does. “It’s hard for people, who potentially don’t travel as much as I do, to imagine relaxing while not traveling,” he says. “What I mean is that my relaxation is spent in my studio where I do all my art and music. The last thing I want to do is travel to relax. I am often going to tropical places to DJ anyway. “We went to Cairo last January. It was a holiday but by no means a time for relaxation, as we went to discover, learn and connect with the pyramids. The year before, we went to Macchu Piccu, so I would say yes that we prefer to have our minds blown and discover. ‘Relaxing’ in that sense doesn’t really interest me. I like to learn. When I am sleeping I am relaxed enough.” Well then. With fewer ancient monuments to connect with, is Jimmy looking forward to a second stint in Australia? “Absolutely,” he says. “Well, now that you mention it, we will have a few days off during my birthday in Australia, so we’ll have to do something really fun. This will require some research though. I’m gonna do that right after this.”
To celebrate their tenth year, UK’s Viper Recordings brought a number of artists off their celebrated roster to tour Australia and New Zealand. The drum and bass label (which counts Perth native ShockOne as one of their own) chose Metro City to host the Decade Of Viper Tour. Run with Inhibit Promotions, who traditionally stage events at Villa, the larger Metro venue offered the potential for a high-quality sound and visual show. The crowd acknowledged the prospective value of the evening, with the somewhat heftily priced second release tickets selling out well before the night. The opening acts starting at 9pm, with Dvise & Gracie followed by Ekko & Soundtrack, regulars with Inhibit Promotions here, who both demonstrated the depth of quality in the Perth scene. By 11pm, Rockwell, a ‘special guest’ from the Shogun Audio label, had taken the stage. Taking advantage of the A/V set up, he performed from an elevated podium between two walls of blue pillars of light. His set was of extremely high quality, lifting in both intensity and volume throughout. House elements at the start lead to a number of filthy numbers towards the end with warbling bass lines. The wall of screens at the back of stage turned on midway through, as if in coordination with the music, creating an impressive visual spectacle. Soon after midnight, with the crowd thoroughly lively, host MC Felon introduced the first of the Viper fold, the Brookes Brothers. The decision to play at Metro looked to have paid off by this stage, the show having filled the dance floor, as well as much of the many tiered balcony floors and outdoor area. Brookes Bros never really missed a step throughout, maintaining the quality of the set before and bringing in a couple of well known tracks including that Sigma song, and Fred V & Grafix’s Catch My Breath. Their well-known Carry Me On was well received, and the handful of vocal numbers encouraged some in the audience to sing along. Their set was notable for the introduction of the pyrotechnics display that would be used infrequently during the night, when a handful of flames burst up in time with particularly impressive musical drops. Seemingly at the high point of the show, the Brothers took their leave. MC Felon did his job, hyping the crowd to a vocal frenzy at the welcoming of Matrix
& Futurebound. This duo, similarly to their counterparts, built from song to song, to a responsive crowd. This impressive set was punctuated by the same familiar numbers Get Down Low by tc bringing the entire dance floor to a crouch, as well as a replay of the Sigma track with an alternative drop. A highlight of the evening was the playing of their own Control. These songs never seemed gratuitous, and brought sustained enthusiasm from the audience. A fight near to the stage was the only interruption to the set, and following the culprits’ exit to venue-wide booing, the set seemingly maintained the atmosphere. The Prototypes were another seamless entrance, taking advantage of the crowd’s high sprits with a consistent and unrelenting DnB set including a fair share of bangers. The quality was comparably high to their peers; however, the 3am start time did not help the act. The crowd noticeably declined throughout the set, following the closing off of the upper floors. This did not seem to be such a problem for Spectrem, another Inhibit resident DJ, who entered to thundering and ominous bass tones before showcasing why Perth is held in such high regard for the genre. The Viper artists, as well as the Perth DJs in support, were all of extremely high class throughout. The evening would have been extremely memorable for the DnB purists, with few departures from the genre, but the atmosphere, crowd, and venue made for an experience that the uninitiated could have thoroughly enjoyed. KIERAN RAYNEY
PIC: MICHAEL CAVES
METRONOMY Astor Theatre Wednesday, July 23, 2014
From the quintessential English coastal town of Brighton, the niche electronica band Metronomy tonight embarked on one of the rare sideshows, prior to playing the Splendour in the Grass festival over East. Complementing the Astor Theatre’s magnificent art deco styling was a stage-set adorned with effervescent cartoonesque clouds pinned to the backdrop, while the central drums were flanked either side by neon pink and blue illuminated Greek temple inspired podiums, all to which set the scene up impeccably for a show of transcendent proportions. Frontman Joseph Mount ambled onto the stage, while the rest of the band took their positions and from behind an illuminated keyboard stand, he began playing the sombre organ tones and sang arpeggiated vocal melodies of the song Monstrous that eased the performance off on its way. The audience stood transfixed at the spectacle of colour and hazy lights, and with a few more melodically pleasing songs from the latest album Love Letter, it took until the nostalgic melodic organ intro of The Look before the audience fully expressed their appreciation by way of their voices echoing along in unison with the band’s delivery of this popular English Riviera single. Dressed with a hint of nautical apparel, the band’s theatrics from the synth podiums added an amusing twist to the show, with each member displaying their musical skills with flare. Fantastical floods of green and red light emanated from the
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disco ball above the drum kit where Anna Prior sang captivating harmonies and her solo track Everything Goes My Way, which submerged the diversity of Metronomy’s stage show deeply within whole experience. While Mount left the stage briefly, bassist Olugbenga Adelekan took charge up front, leading the groove of instrumental electro rhythms of Boy Racer with his rasping, punchy bass, exhibiting just one of the many sides to Metronomy’s assortment of emotive vocally rich songs and upbeat synthesised pop. The new works have a mixture of influences from Motown to Bowie, blending these songs with the back catalogue of electro dance friendly tunes; the audience had every opportunity of move and shake with each new direction the show took. The luscious synth string tones of I’m Aquarius, had the whole band shoop-shoop-ahh singing along, while the stage filled with a beautiful amber hue that was a stunning sight. The merging instrumental pop with their unique style of melodic vocal songs continued on, and there was even time for a Box Codax cover of the suggestive track Naked Smile; sung candidly by keyboardist Oscar Cash, who seemed to enjoy the limelight while singing the sassy lyrics of this cheeky number. Giving thanks to the fans the band left the stage to rapturous applause, momentous floor stomping and cheers for more. Upon their return, the classic Heartbreaker from Nights Out left no one disappointed. Finishing up with You Could Really Have Me, from the first less known album Pip Paine, the night ended on an upbeat, punkish rock note, that had everyone beaming with grins long into the night. MICHAEL CAVES 23
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Friday night Splendour Pic: M. Lowe
SPLENDOUR IN THE GRASS North Byron Parklands Thursday, July 24, 2014 - Sunday, July 27, 2014 On first impression, Splendour In The Grass was absolute carnage. We’re talking 17-year-olds double dropping in line while the stereotypical alpha males chugged goon bags in the car park, sensory overload, and an utterly overwhelming amount to do, see, play and eat. By 10pm Thursday night, the North Byron Parklands (otherwise beautiful) looked like a post-apocalyptic scene from The Walking Dead. The DMAs delivered a set with enough confidence and control of the audience to blow any initial hesitation away. They had the crowd in the palm of their hands for 45 minutes and proved that they have a lot more to offer than an overplayed single on triple j rotation. DZ Death Rays, one of the most sonically impressive bands of the day, pulled the first big crowd to the Amphitheatre stage. Their polished brand of psychedelic rock seemed to come
so naturally to the boys, a polish that is usually lacking in the genre. Sydneysiders The Preatures got off to a slow start and found it hard to match the intensity of Death Rays, but once they hit familiar territory with Better Than It Ever Could Be the energy lifted. They rounded out the set with a cover of the Aussie classic Am I Ever Going To See Your Face Again?, to which the crowd happily chanted back, ‘No way, get fucked, fuck off’, and finished off with crowd favourite Is This How You Feel? Oz rock veterans Spiderbait delivered an incredible set to stumble upon halfway through - the three-piece still live the nose-thumbing dream of Frenzal Rhomb and The Hard-Ons. Kram delivered a genuinely enthusiastic performance from the drumkit, at one point bringing his kid on stage (the other was a little “too instrospective” to take up the opportunity); Damien Whitley worked tirelessly through every polka-punk riff, at one point ripping
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through a solo using his teeth. Black Betty was fed generously to a mostly ‘90s-born crowd, and received with as much love. The Presets, for all their national and international love, have a sound bordering a teeny bit on ‘Cool Dad’. Their set, though, was seamless, very well received, and beautifully designed, with alternative drops, enormous LED hexagons, and frequent Julian Hamilton Cool Dad dancing. Their hard-hitting set concluded with bangers Goodbye Future, Are You The One and This Boy’s In Love. Interpol, repping the stiff-upper-lipped The National look since before The National could get to it, played a deliberately inexpressive set: aside from a jittery lead guitarist who didn’t get the memo, no hint of audience pandering was given. Lead singer, Paul Banks, played with deliberate restraint - every guitar line was tight, to the point of flatness, and no unsung words were given except for a weak ‘Thank you very much’ or a ‘That was Interpol’. Needless to say, Australian radio favourite Barricade was not played. For many people making the Splendour pilgrimage , Outkast’s single Australian show on their commemorative 20 th anniversary tour was the reason to be there. Fighting through a overfilling nosebleed section was 100 per cent worth tripping over diehard fans’ urine bottles and being splattered by glow paint. Watching Andre 3000 (in a black jumpsuit with an oversized ‘SOLD’ tag and a silver New Romantics wig) and Big Boi (in pastel Africa pants and faux-bling) work was surreal. Andre’s fond of a doom metal growl, Big Boi does a shocking Australian impression, and with surprise guest Sleepy Brown they both stormed tirelessly through everything from Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik to Speakerboxxx. Don’t believe the bad Coachella hype. The biggest travesty of the festival was the distinct lack of people watching Melbourne ninepiece, Saskwatch. The onstage presence is electrifying to say the least. They had the crowd bouncing from the very first chord of A Love Divine and kept that energy flowing until closing the night with These Hands. Nckechi Anele’s voice was flawless, and the band played as relaxed and spontaneously as if you were watching them in a small bar to 50 people. Kelis was boring. She obviously didn’t want to be there and had next to no engagement with the crowd. Her milkshake wasn’t worth going to the yard for. Sky Ferreira, too, performed listlessly - her Joan Jett-esque appearance didn’t stand up. Violent Soho have been touring madly off the back of Hungry Ghost, and performed with the grunge intensity you’d hope for. Nothing out of the ordinary for these guys - only three weeks ago, they played a string of three Perth shows in a row - but a
rewarding one, with prominent hits such as Jesus Was My Girlfriend making a pronounced appearance. As far as their skater-slacker ethos goes, the most radical they got was a shout-out to stoners in the crowd, and a sheepish, ‘It’s a long time past 420’. Australian wave made a significant appearance, with the Mix-Up tent featuring Peking Duk, Basenji, and a particularly onpoint Wave Racer. Although the open-air tent wasn’t particularly conducive to daytime sets - dim enough to be seedy, not dark enough to effectively used projectors - Wordlife dropped a deeply appreciated set, culminating in a filthyinnocent inclusion of You Used To Fuck Me. Hot Dub Time Machine played an uninspired but bloody fun party set, highlights including a balloon drop for Nena and a forced audience crouch for House Of Pain. For anyone who caught Group Love at Big Day Out earlier in the year, you know that they are worthy of their slot on the main stage at Splendour. They had the entire amphitheatre on their feet from their first song, I’m With You. This is a band that breathes so much more life into their songs during their shows that despite what you think you’ve heard from them, you need to see them live. Penultimate Saturday act FOALS were absolutely on-point, and often wordless - they opened with a math-rock instrumental, for instance - and delivered the kind of smart, pointillist music a Splendour crowd could still groove to. A sweaty, soulful Yannis Philipakkis did his band’s name justice, practically prancing across the stage in an incredibly energetic set that occasionally drifted from Vampire Weekend pop into DnB breaks. For some reason, Foster The People broke out on stage to an underwhelming and disinterested audience. Frontman, Mark Foster, worked every inch of the stage as he led the band and tried his best to engage the uninterested crowd. It wasn’t until they closed the set with Pumped Up Kicks that everyone finally got up to dance and sing along. Put this down to them being placed before Lily Allen. Festival circuit queen Lily Allen burst onto a stage full of illuminated milk bottles with back up dancers in tow. ‘Are you ready to close this fucking festival, Splendour?’ Allen asked, before jumping straight into Smile. The session band’s live interpretations of her radio-friendly pop suited the festival vibe perfectly and some what made some of her less popular songs more enjoyable. Despite continually talking about her camel toe and asking someone to throw her a fag, Allen seems to have matured her performance since last time she graced our shores in 2007. TIM MILROY & ZOE KILBOURN
Ben Howard - Photo by Rachael Barrett The 1975 - Photo by Cole Maguire
THE 1975 Tired Lion Amplifier Capitol Thursday, July 24, 2014 The cold and temperamental weather surrounding Perth on Thursday night was but an afterthought when the desires of countless screaming girls were answered as Manchester’s own, The 1975, kicked off their tour Down Under with confidence and spunk. It only took 30 minutes for the usually spacious Amplifier Bar to become an immovable sea of eager and animated fans as the lengthy line crowding Murray Street spilled into the venue. With an energetic audience waiting, Tired Lion seized the moment, performing a flawless set that was sure to raise self-awareness. Beginning with elegant simplicity, Tired Lion’s collection of older and newer tracks told a story within themselves, with slow progressions and lively builds which blossom into thumping choruses. Drummer Ethan Darnell’s smile told the story, as it was impossible to resist the infectious melodies brought forth through Sophie Hopes’ honestly raw vocals. The group’s songs flowed seamlessly, throwing the crowd into fifth gear as the main event continued to approach.
Soon enough the Brit boys hit the stage through a cluster of dazzling white lights and deafening screams. iPhones lit up and cameras began filming what would be a huge hour and fifteen minute set from The 1975. In what felt like a solo show, front man Matthew Healy held the crowd in the palm of his hand, using his boyish charm perfectly, keeping the crowd engaged, singing along and love-struck. As the crowd continued to erupt in So Far (It’s Alright), it was evident that the band, having only just released their debut album, are at the top of their game as drummer George Daniel broke down the barriers of a traditional four piece kit, achieving unique and incredible drum fills and tempo changes to provide groovy and fun indie-pop beats. John Waugh would join the lineup with some fascinating saxophone solos whilst both Adam Hann and Ross MacDonald added sound pads to their instrumental artistry. Props had to be given to Healy, however, who sung the set incredible despite sporting his bad boy getup with a smoke and red wine in hand, showcasing himself as the UK’s answer to INXS’ Michael Hutchence. The night would soon dampen when the band chose to prolong an instrumental fill rather then harness the traditional encore. All would soon be fixed, however, as the band returned to close the show with a huge lineup of Girls, Robbers, Chocolate and Sex; leaving the crowd singing and dancing in ecstasy. AARON BRYANS
BEN HOWARD Nick Mulvey The Astor Theatre Friday, July 25, 2014 As the punters shuffled out of the rain and into the sold-out Astor Theatre, the talkative crowd was abuzz with excitement for the folk-inspired Splendour side show about to smash us in the face. Nick Mulvey was up first, bathed in purple light he delivered a haunting rendition of April, which reverberated mellifluously up the walls of the packed theatre. Competing with the loud and unfortunate hum of human chitterchatter, he eventually captured the crowd’s silence with an enjoyable cover of Gillian Welch’s Look At Miss Ohio before capping off his set with the more upbeat and playful, Cucurucu, from his latest album, First Mind. The lively crowd clapped along to the beat until the end, before Mulvey made a point to humbly thank Perth for having him before leaving the stage with friendly wave. Great bloke.
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Ben Howard hit the stage to a welcoming roar from the crowd who were in turn greeted with one of his new songs, Small Things – a track likely to appear on his next album rumoured to be out in the near future (quietly frothing). The sombre and eerie vibe of the new tune was complimented by the full sounding acoustics of the Astor – an absolute treat to listen to. Once the band kicked into the crescendo during Black Flies the crowd response was huge, one slippery punter turning to his mate to proclaim, ‘It’s a big yes so far! A reeaalll big yes!’ It was evident that he was having a peach of a time, and you couldn’t blame him. Dancing and crowd sing-alongs popped up several times throughout the set, though as could be expected the biggest response came when Ben started plucking the intro to Keep Your Head Up. At this point in time being front-andcentre was a great decision – plenty of happy campers singing every word to arguably his most recognised tune made for a magical moment in time where morale seemed to be at an all-time high. The set came to a close and though it was a little bit disappointing that there was no encore from the headline act, there was no denying that it was (as a nearby buddy of mine so eloquently described it) a ‘Barry Balltearer’ of a gig. ADAM WITT 25
NEWS
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TAKE YOUR FAIT IN YOUR HANDS
THE WINTER BLUESFEST The Northshore Tavern Sunday, July 27, 2014 What a lineup! Dave Hole, Rick Steele, Vdelli, Old Blood and more came together for a night of awesome WA old school blues and rock. Photos by Matt Jelonek.
SOFT METAL
Reece, Bill
The softer side of metal, at any rate. We love animals, and so do Chaos Divine, Silent Knight, Nightmare Effect, Bayou, This Other Eden, Lets Kill Uncle, Enemy For My Enemy and Icarus Lives. That’s why they’re having a massive fundraiser for the RSPCA! Animalistic kicks off at The Civic Hotel at 5pm this Saturday, August 2, from 5pm. Entry is $15, with all profits going to the RSPCA.
Art rockers Fait - also known as Elise Higgins and band are about to embark on a nationwide tour, with the first cab off the rank being what is sure to be a fantastic show at The Bird this Saturday, August 2. Rachael Dease and Childsaint provide support. Doors open at 8pm, entry is $10. Fait
Chaos Divine
Kim, Zoe
OZZY OZZY OZZY Sunday sessions at the Osborne Park Bowling Club continue to be awesome, with this week’s lineup of top notch local loud lads consisting of King Of The Travellers, Secret Buttons, Dennis Commeti, Midnight Mules, Something Humble, and World A Fuzzy. The action starts at 4pm and entry is $10, so get down early to enjoy the Crackerjack vibe. Tom, Emma King Of The Travellers
THE GIG OF THE MILLENNIUM Make your way down to Freo’s iconic Newport Hotel at 6pm this Sunday, August 3, to get an earful from the insanely good blues rock exponents that are One Thousand Years. Fremantle’s resident alt-country mavericks Tom Fisher And The Layabouts are on support duties, as is Riley Pearce, freshly returned from a successful tour of the US. Entry is $5.
Lisa, Guy
One Thousand Years
TURNING THE TIDE
Peter, Kurt
Victoria, Lee, Brooke
Psychedelic folk rock quintent The Lammas Tide will be bringing something different to the normally punky confines of Four5Nine Bar, along with their friends Wonderchild, Elkwood and James Bosley. Doors open at 8pm, entry is $5.
WE LOVE WESLEY Famed action star and tax evader Wesley Snipes, soon to be seen in the unnecessary but endearing The Expendables 3, turns 52 on Thursday, July 31. Good enough reason for a rock ‘n’ roll show, we say, and so do Odlaw, Custom Royal, White Oak And Stuyvesant and Like A Thief, who will be tearing it up at The Odd Fellow from 8pm. Entry is $6. Odlaw - Photo by Nicole Clissa
MOJOS BAR Saturday, August 2, The Weapon Is Sound come back onto the scene after several months spent marinating in dub sauce. They’ve been preparing with only the finest of ingredients to bring you a new single, Thundercracker Dub, with video clip. To help celebrate, Weapon are partying up with very special guest The Fire Alive from Geelong, Peter Bibby’s coming over from melbs to perform with rocking band Fucking Teeth and more bands to be announced! Entry is $10 from 8pm. The Weapon Is Sound
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NEWS
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INTERVIEWS
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REVIEWS
JUNKADELIC Heat #8 Big Splash Winner Answered by Mitch Boag (baritone sax player). How did you feel about your set last Tuesday night? We felt pretty good about our set to be honest. We have been working together in this lineup for over two years now, and have been gigging frequently. We have only just recently come back from being on tour in the Northern Territory for two weeks where we were fortunate enough to work with several Indigenous communities and performed at the Katherine Junk Arts Festival. We are all really comfortable with each other and our music as a result, so when it comes time to perform everyone pulls together and we become the Junkadelic experience. What acts caught your ear/eye? When we were told who was in our heat we knew we were up against very stiff competition. Amani Consort are a great group, and several of the band members are friends of ours. Mambo Chic bring a very different flavour with their music, featuring some rich world music influences. And of course Shameem is an amazing performer with a fantastic band, and some really great compositions. We were really happy just to share the stage with such inspiring WA musicians, so winning the heat featuring those guys was a great honour.
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Who else in the Big Splash semis are you keen to get a look at? At this stage of the competition all of the bands are going to be amazing, but I think the band we are most keen on seeing is Old Blood. Their heavy blues influence shares a similar history to the New Orleans brass bands that we draw our inspiration from. What are your plans, at this stage, for the rest of 2014? Well we are actually quite booked up for the rest of 2014! We have several regional trips planned to Geraldton, Port Hedland, Yalgoo and the South West region. Aside from the music, Junkadelic has a pretty heavy educational aspect to our work. We regularly work with schools and local community groups running workshops on instrument making, puppet making, sculpturing, and music and dance workshops. We are hoping to continue this work into 2015, and are seriously looking at taking the group over to the Eastern States to play and do workshops at several festivals. If we win The Big Splash competition we are hoping we can put the prize money towards taking the group to New Orleans to record and work with some of the brass bands we look up to. The Big Splash continues with the second semi-final this Saturday, August 2, at the Rosemount Hotel with Pat Chow, Old Blood, Hideous Sun Demon, Junkadelic and a wild card entry from heats 5-8. The first two placegetters will join Dream Rimmy and Kitchen People in the Grand Final at The Bakery on Saturday, August 9.
ROSEMOUNT HOTEL This Wednesday, July 30, sees the Main Room and Four5Nine Bar join forces for a massive two-room show featuring Electric Toad, Chief Richards, Hideous Sun Demon, Hunting Huxley, Dream Rimmy, King Crime, Aborted Tortoise, Black Stone From The Sun, Skullcave, Kitchen People and Robbie Rumble, while Thursday it’s all about the metal with Grotesque, Got Sharks?, Amidst The Broken and Epileptic Shit.
SWALLOW BAR
YAYA’S This Thursday, July 31, check out Dirtwater Bloom as they take to the stage with Maverick, The Lungs, South Side Cobras and a special downsized duo from The Kuillotines. The Devil In Miss Jones then launch their debut single Shake (Like You Feel) on Friday; the show doubles as a farewell party for Big Tommo, proprietor of our Monday open mic nights, who is jetting off to Europe. Finally Lights Of Berlin return to Perth on Saturday for a special show at the end of their national tour! The Devil In Miss Jones
LO C AL & LAUNCHING
Shotdown From Sugartown kick off a week of music on Thursday night from 7pm, with their lively rockabilly and honky tonk blues. Saturday night welcomes back Mayland’s very own Mister T King with his amazing collection of rare vinyl singles. Sunday Sessions welcomes a new country and blues duo, Jonny & Garry, kicking off at 5pm.
INDI BAR Sunday, August 2, Ben Salter returns to the Indi Bar with special guests.His music has been described as “...an intoxicating blend of avant-garde pop, rock and folk that is at once conventional and defiantly odd.” Not to be missed. Doors open at 6.30pm and entry is free
01/08
THE DEVIL IN MISS JONES Shake (Like You Feel) Single Launch @ YaYa’s
01/08
TIMOTHY NELSON AND THE INFIDELS Terror Terror, Hide It Hide It Album Launch @ The Rosemount
02/08
THE WEAPON IS SOUND Thundercracker Dub Video Launch @ Mojos
08/08
MOANA The Killer, My Girl Video Launch @ The Bird
15/08
LET’S KILL UNCLE Self Titled EP Launch @ Amplifier
21/08
OWEN RABBIT Police Car Single Launch @ The Bird
29/08
FACEGRINDER Unstable Mentality And Theoretical Convulsions Album Launch @ The Civic
30/08
REPTILLUMINATI Voodoo Cowboys Album Launch @ the Bird
06/09
KIMURA Uncaged EP Launch @ The Civic
19/09
JOSH JOHNSTONE Half A World Away EP Launch @ Indi Bar
20/09
THE PAINKILLERS Garage Sale Girl EP Launch @ Mojos WWW. XP RE SS MAG.COM. AU
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23 Astor Theatre THE ASTON SHUFFLE 23 Amplifier Bar 13 & 17 Ellington RUSSELL MORRIS THIS WEEK Jazz Club 23 Regal Theatre THE ANGELS BONJAH MELODY POOL 31 Newport Hotel 14 Northshore Tavern 23 X-Wray Café 1 Wintersun Hotel, 15 Indi Bar 24 Settlers Tavern, Geraldton 16 Amplifier Bar Margaret River 2 Charles Hotel 17 Dunsborough 26 Ellington Jazz Club 3 The Ravenswood Tavern KID INK Hotel ED KUEPPER 25 Villa Nightclub MIDYEAR MAYHEM 14 Settlers Tavern, MAN IN BLACK: TOUR ft. BURIED IN Margaret River THE JOHNNY CASH VERONA & SIENNA 15 Fly By Night STORY SKIES HANSON 26-31 Regal Theatre 1 Prince Of Wales, 15 Metropolis KING BUZZO Bunbury Fremantle 26 Astor Lounge 2 Amplifier Bar PSEUDO ECHO INDIAN SUMMER 3 YMCA HQ 15 Charles Hotel 27 Newport Hotel WILLOW BEATS 16 Centurion Hotel 29 Mondo @ Ginger 1 Mondo @ Ginger SPIDERBAIT Nightclub Nightclub 15 Astor Theatre GEORGE GARZONE KATE MILLER-HEIDKE TINA ARENA 28, 29, 30 Ellington 1 Astor Theatre 15 Crown Theatre Jazz Club ROSS WILSON BODYJAR THE AMITY 1 Charles Hotel 15 Capitol AFFLICTION IAN MOSS INXS TRIBUTE 29 Red Hill 1 The Centurion Hotel 15 Civic Hotel Auditorium DAN SULTAN RTRFM RADIOTHON KAV TEMPERLEY 1 Settlers Tavern, 2014 30 Settlers Tavern, Margaret River 15 – 24 Margaret River 2 Astor Theatre DAN SULTAN POP WILL EAT THE PREATURES 16 Roebuck Hotel, ITSELF 2 The Bakery Broome 31 Rosemount Hotel KASABIAN BJÖRN AGAIN THE OWLS 5 Metro City 16 Crown Theatre 31 Indi Bar SEEKAE LA COKA NOSTRA AUGUST 16 Villa Nightclub 31 Villa Nightclub NEUROSIS ILLY SEPTEMBER 6 Capitol 16 Settlers Tavern, I AM GIANT Margaret River DIEGO EL CIGALA 7 Amplifier Bar 23 Leisure Inn 1 Regal Theatre PAUL GRABOWSKY Rockingham ANBERLIN & THE 7, 8, 9 Ellington Jazz ROB SNARSKI GETAWAY PLAN Club 17 Mojos Bar 3 Metropolis ROY ORBISON & DEL LADY GAGA Fremantle SHANNON TRIBUTE 20 Perth Arena KANYE WEST 7 Albany KIDS IN GLASS 5 Perth Arena Entertainment Centre HOUSES KAV TEMPERLEY 9 Crown Theatre 21 Villa Nightclub 5 Players Bar, IAN MOSS THE DANDY Mandurah 8 Charles Hotel WARHOLS 6 Prince Of Wales, SLEEPMAKESWAVES 21 & 22 Astor Bunbury 8 Amplifier Bar Theatre 7 Rumours, Albany DAN CRIBB & THE KINGSWOOD 12 Divers Tavern, ISOLATED 21 Prince Of Wales, Broome 8 Rosemount Hotel Bunbury MARINA PRIOR 9 Monkey Bar & 22 Capitol 5 Albany Lounge TIM FREEDMAN Entertainment Centre 10 Newport Hotel 22 Ellington Jazz Club 6 Astor Theatre EMPERORS JAMES REYNE 7 Mandurah 9 Amplifier Bar 22 Charles Hotel Performing Arts THE TELEVISION ULTRAGLOW Centre ADDICTS 22 Metro City HOWLING BELLS 9 Rosemount Hotel NORTHWEST 6 Amplifier Bar CABLE SOUNDS ft. PILBARA THE WONDER YEARS PAUL KELLY WEEKENDER 7 Amplifier Bar 10 Cable Beach 22 – 24 Port Hedland VELOCIRAPTOR Amphitheatre Turf Club 7 Newport Hotel MENTAL AS QUEEN + ADAM SHARON JONES & ANYTHING LAMBERT THE DAP KINGS 11 Charles Hotel 22 Perth Arena 8 & 9 Astor Theatre COURTNEY LOVE THE KITE STRING CANNIBAL CORPSE 13 Metro City TANGLE 9 Capitol BOB DYLAN 22 Amplifier Bar PROTEST THE HERO 13 - 15 Perth THE APE ft. TEX 10 Amplifier Bar PERKINS Convention & DOUG ANTHONY 23 Mojos Bar Exhibition Centre ALL STARS JAMES REYNE KATY STEELE 10 & 11 Regal Theatre LIOR 11 Albany Entertainment Centre ROBBIE WILLIAMS 11 & 12 Perth Arena BIFFY CLYRO 12 Metro City BAM BAM 12 Amplifier Bar CASEY DONOVAN 12 & 13 Ellington Jazz Club REECE MASTIN 12 Astor Theatre 13 The Lakes Theatre ONE DAY 13 Capitol UNCLE JED 13 YaYa’s METRO CITY 14 The Indi Bar TUESDAY, AUGUST 5 GRACE KNIGHT
TOURS
FEATURED GIG
KABASIAN
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19 & 20 Ellington Jazz Club 360 19 Metro City (18+) 20 Astor Theatre Perth (Licensed all ages) ANDY BULL 19 The Bakery 20 Rottofest STICKY FINGERS 19 Settlers Tavern, Margaret River ROTTOFEST 19 – 21 Rottnest Island GARETH LIDDIARD 20 Rosemount Hotel MEG MAC 20 Amplifier Bar JOE BONAMASSA 21 Perth Concert Hall GABRIEL IGLESIAS 23 Riverside Theatre ANGUS & JULIA STONE 23 & 24 Perth Concert Hall ANDREA BOCELLI 24 Perth Arena INGRID MICHAELSON 24 Fly By Night Club BOY & BEAR 25 Albany Entertainment Centre 26 Bunbury Entertainment Centre 28 Fremantle Arts Centre COURTNEY BARNETT 26 Fly By Night THE CAT EMPIRE 26 Fremantle Arts Centre 27 Metro City WAVE ROCK WEEKENDER 27 - 28 Wave Rock Caravan Park VERUCA SALT 28 Rosemount Hotel RISE OF BROTALITY TOUR ft. I KILLED THE PROM QUEEN, THE GHOST INSIDE, IN HEARTS WAKE 27 YMCA HQ 28 Capitol LISTEN OUT ft. FLUME, CHET FAKER, ZHU AND MORE 28 Ozone Reserve MIAMI HORROR 28 Newport Hotel OCTOBER THE HIGH KINGS 1 Crown Theatre HANDS LIKE HOUSES 1 YMCA HQ 2 Amplifier Bar THE DIRE STRAITS EXPERIENCE 3 Perth Concert Hall VERUCA SALT 4 Rosemount Hotel RICK SPRINGFIELD 7 Crown Theatre JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE 8 & 9 Perth Arena SLAVES 8 Amplifier Bar THE TEA PARTY with SUPERJESUS 9 Crown Theatre DEAD KENNEDYS 11 Capitol THE SELECTER 14 Rosemount Hotel ALL DAY 15 YMCA HQ 16 Prince of Wales, Bunbury 17 Amplifier Bar SAY ANYTHING 15 Amplifier Bar COMEBACK KID 16 Amplifier Bar TORCHE
17 Rosemount Hotel JOHNNY CASH THE CONCERT 17 Astor Theatre CHRISTINE ANU 17 & 18 Ellington Jazz Club ADAM BRAND 17 Centurion Hotel 18 Charles Hotel 19 The Ravenswood MILEY CYRUS 23 Perth Arena BRAZOUKA 23 – 26 Regal Theatre BALL PARK MUSIC 24 Astor Theatre 25 Settlers Tavern, Margaret River BALL PARK MUSIC 25 Settler’s Tavern THE ROLLING STONES 29 Perth Arena NOVEMBER THE ROLLING STONES 1 Perth Arena KATY PERRY 7 & 8 Perth Arena JOE SATRIANI 11 Astor Theatre YES 12 Crown Theatre KRISIUM 12 Amplifier Bar JOHN DIGWEED 14 The Stables Bar DUSKY 14 Ambar Bar TORI AMOS 18 Perth Convention & Exhibition Centre JIMMY BARNES 22 Kings Park NICK CAVE SOLO TOUR 27 & 28 Fremantle Arts Centre BEN FOLDS & WASO 28 & 29 Perth Concert Hall DECEMBER UB40 & BLUE KING BROWN 5 Red Hill Auditorium THY ART IS MURDER 17 YMCA HQ 18 Capitol JANUARY 2015 SUZI QUATRO 28 & 29 Regal Theatre FEBRUARY 2015 PASSENGER 7 Red Hill Auditorium ROXETTE 14 Perth Arena THE EAGLES 18 & 19 Perth Arena ONE DIRECTION 20 Pattersons Stadium PAUL SIMON & STING 21 & 22 Sir James Mitchell Park MARCH 2015 FROM THE JAM 5 Capitol KYLIE MINOGUE 14 Perth Arena ROXETTE 14 Perth Arena MAY 2015 RICKY MARTIN 8 Perth Arena JUNE 2015 5 SECONDS OF SUMMER 29 Perth Arena
BURIED IN VERONA, AUGUST 1-3
THE ANGELS, JULY 31 - AUGUST 3
WEEKLY WEDNESDAY 30/07
THE ALBION HOTEL Quiz Night AMPLIFIER BAR Academy ft. Ratking Mindless Idle Eyes Protest THE BIRD DJ Ben M DJ Clunk Sam Kuzich James Ireland BRASS MONKEY DJ Vicktor THE BROWN FOX Johannah Grace CAPITOL Harlem Wednesdays CAPTAIN STIRLING Lokie Shaw THE CARINE Open Mic Night Shaun Street CHARLES HOTEL Funky Bunch Trivia CITRO BAR Seasons Of Perth Adrian Wilson CLUB RED SEA Cheek THE COURT Wicked Wednesdays ELLINGTON JAZZ CLUB WAAPA Musical Theatre Fundraiser FLYRITE Northbridge Nightly Now GOLD BAR Famous THE GOOD SHEPHERD Thinkfar ft. Meina Gravy Beenthere Newjaackcity GROOVE BAR (CROWN) 5 Shots HULA BULA BAR Island Nite INDI BAR Mike Nayar Chris Gibbs Stu McKay LLAMA BAR Akuna Club LANEWAY LOUNGE Adam Hall & the Velvet Playboys LOBBY LOUNGE (CROWN) Decoy Duo THE LUCKY SHAG Howie Morgan METRO FREO C5 Next Gen Darren Tucker DJ Shane DeBug MOJOS BAR Mick Blood Benefit ft.
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Ghetto Crystals The Painkillers Cavalier SMRTS The Volcanics Tilly Dan The Midfield Legends THE MOON CAFE Going Solo ft. Laurel Fixation Grant Touchel MUSTANG BAR Wild Wednesday Madam Montage DJ Giles NEWPORT HOTEL Newport Wednesdays Student Night PICA BAR David Dower Kate Pass 459 ROSEMOUNT HOTEL Aborted Tortoise Kitchen People Black Stone from the Sun Skullcave Robbie Rumble ROSEMOUNT HOTEL Electric Toad Peter Bibby as Chief Richards Hideous Sun Demon Hunting Huxley Dream Rimmy King Crime ROSEMOUNT HOTEL (BEER GARDEN) Best Years of Your Life! DJ Anton Maz ROSIE O’GRADY’S NORTHBRIDGE Laugh Resort Comedy Open Mic Night with Dave Fyffe SOVEREIGN ARMS FIVEO THE SWINGING PIG Open Mic Night Greg Carter UNIVERSAL BAR Virtual Insanity THE VELVET LOUNGE YEW2! ft. LYTS Gunns Casino Sunrise The Limbs Yew DJs VILLAGE BAR Village People Wednesdays YAYA’S Hip Hop @ YaYa’s Selekt Few Coerce & Cable Richo Kidd Chef & Shadow Warpsa DJ Relly E THURSDAY 31/07
THE BIRD Leah Miche & The Regular Hunters
Night Signals The Shops BRASS MONKEY Rhythm Bound Karaoke James Ess Open Deck Night BRIGHTON Siren Song Enterprises BROOKLANDS TAVERN Celebrations Karaoke CAPTAIN STIRLING Trivia Night THE CAUSEWAY BAR Xport Thursdays CHARLES HOTEL Comedy Lounge Presents Funny Faces THE CLAREMONT HOTEL Institution Thursdays ft. DJ Pup DJ Tahni CONNECTIONS NIGHTCLUB Bingay Hosted by Hannah Conda THE CRAFTSMAN FIVEO DEVILLES PAD Rock n’ Roll Karaoke DUNSBOROUGH TAVERN Open Mic Night Kris Buckle ELLINGTON JAZZ CLUB Jamie Oehlers Quartet – tribute to John Coltrane FLYRITE EMAS Christmas FREMANTLE WORKERS CLUB King Of The Travellers Kevin Smith And The Low Road GRAND CENTRAL PARK Adrian Wilson GROOVE BAR (CROWN) Dr Bogus HULA BULA BAR Hi-Fi Lounge INDI BAR Open Mic Night LAKERS TAVERN Dove LANEWAY LOUNGE Cathrine Summers Trio LEISURE INN DJ Miss Chief LOBBY LOUNGE (CROWN) Jack & Jill LOST SOCIETY The Collective LUCKY SHAG James Wilson MARKET CITY TAVERN Rob & Luke Vita Josh Ramsay Vincent Moffatt
THE PREATURES, AUGUST 2
Mark Torregoza Paradox Nathan Mayers MOJOS BAR Lumpy Dog Nectar Hyla Bad China Howling Bones MUSTANG BAR Vida Cain DJ James MacArthur THE NAVY CLUB Sextet Dukes Koi Child NEWPORT HOTEL The Newport Record Club NORTHSHORE TAVERN Nathan Gaunt Duo OCEAN ONE BAR Turin’s Open Mic Night THE ODDFELLOW Odlaw Custom Royal White Oak & Stuyvesant Like A Thief PEEL ALE HOUSE Open Mic Chris Kinna PRINCE OF WALES Ragdoll PS ART SPACE Back to Phillimores and more ft. DJ Paul Malone DJ Cooker DJ Chad 459 ROSEMOUNT HOTEL Lammas Tide Elkwood Wonderchild James Bosley ROSEMOUNT HOTEL Grotesque Got Sharks? Amidst The Broken Epileptic Shit RUBIX BAR Jeanie Proude THE SAINT Thursday Music Quiz SETTLERS TAVERN Open Mic Night with Claire Warnock THE SHED Midnight Ramblers SWALLOW BAR Shotdown from Sugartown UNIVERSAL BAR Off The Record YAYA’S Dirtwater Bloom Maverick The Lungs South Side Cobras The Kuillotines (duo) FRIDAY 01/07
THE ADMIRAL HOTEL Slippery When Wet – Bon Jovi Tribute AMBAR Monarch
AMPLIFIER BAR The Academy Takes Over Friday 4 ft. Statues This Existence Finders I, The Burden Vice Versa Protagonist THE AVIARY Troy Division NDORSE THE BAKERY Local Multiplayer Only ft. Rag ‘N Bone Aborted Tortoise SMRTS The Gizzards THE BALMORAL Troy Nababan Duo BAR ORIENT Ceol THE BAYSWATER DJ Atlus BEAT NIGHTCLUB (UPSTAIRS) TURNT BEAT NIGHTCLUB (DOWNSTAIRS) PLAY BELGIAN BEER CAFÉ Mike Nayar THE BELMONT Light Street BEST DROP TAVERN Driven By People THE BIRD The Fire Alive Man The Clouds Fucking Teeth THE BRASS MONKEY Fruit Tingle Fridays James Ess Vicktor THE BRIGHTON DJ Miss Chief Frenzy CAPITOL Capitol Fridays Roger Smart CAPITOL (UPSTAIRS) I Love ‘80s & ‘90s Darren Tucker THE CARINE J!mmy Beats THE CAUSEWAY 243 Fridays Launch CHASE BAR & BISTRO Karaoke CITRO BAR Seasons Of Perth Jeanie Proude CLANCY’S CANNING DJ Boogie CLANCY’S CITY BEACH Angus Diggs Phil Waldron Alex Borthwick Pax Andrews THE COMO Byron O’Neill THE COURT Cosplay Party THE CRAFTSMAN Vibez CRUISING YACHT
Deadline Monday 5pm. X-Press Guide is a service to advertisers listing all entertainment events. All inclusions are at the discretion of X-Press. Email guide@xpressmag.com.au
TOURS • LIVE • DANCE
GHETTO CRYSTALS, JULY 30
CLUB Guy Tucker DEVILLE’S PAD Custom Royal Rockin’ A Go Go Fridays DUNSBOROUGH TAVERN Cuddles EAST 150 BAR Jamie Powers EDZ SPORTZ BAR Dynamic Duo ELLINGTON JAZZ CLUB Holli Scott Quintet Fort Knox EMPIRE BAR Howie Morgan EVE NIGHTCLUB Recharge Fridays FLYRITE Air Max THE GATE Chris Gibbs GEISHA BAR It’s a London Thing – Pure Garage IV ft. Duane A Rhys D Ru-Kasu RUFKUT S-Man J Rippa GILKISON DANCE STUDIO UV-Glow Party GINGER NIGHTCLUB Mondo Dance Party GOLD BAR Fox Friday’s THE GOOD SHEPHERD Holidayse ft. Chang Yung Emperor Grecia 2 Grainz GOSNELLS HOTEL The Gypsy Minions THE GRAND Jay Mackay THE GREENWOOD Justin Cortorillo THE HERDSMAN Organ Grinders HIGHWAY HOTEL iPhunk HULA BULA BAR
LEAH MICHE & THE REGULAR HUNTERS, JULY 31
Shakin’ It HYDE PARK HOTEL (COURTYARD) Acoustic Aly INDI BAR Vdelli INDIAN OCEAN BREW CO. Ben Merito KALAMUNDA HOTEL Wesley Goodlet Jamboree Scouts KARRATHA TAV Flash Back Fridays LAKERS TAVERN Grizzly LANEWAY LOUNGE Amanda Dee & Soothe LIBRARY Sneaky LLAMA BAR Honey LEISURE INN DJ Squinty THE LUCKY SHAG DJ Richie G MALT Nu Disco Hip Hop M ON THE POINT Retrofit MAHOGANY INN Monty Cotton METRO CITY Thunderdome VII METRO FREO C5 Frat House Fridays MINT Club Retro MOJOS BAR Fisherman Style #98 ft. Crucial Rockers with Grace Barbe DJ Soul Purpose Crew DJ Sorted Earthlink Sound MULLALOO BEACH HOTEL Jam Jar Friday’s Ladies Night MUSTANG BAR Adam Hall & The Velvet Playboys Flash Nat & The Action Men MY PLACE Karaoke NEWPORT HOTEL
FEATURED GIG
WILLOW BEATS GINGER FRIDAY, AUGUST 1
FLUKE Fridays THE ODD FELLOW Basement Boogaloo THE PADDO Reilly Craig Flyte PARAMOUNT Paramount Party Crew PARKER Blowout PEEL ALE HOUSE Siren Song Enterprises PIRATE BAR Dean Anderson PORT KENNEDY TAVERN Steve Spouse Duo THE PRINCIPAL Jonny Dempsey PUBLIC HOUSE Neil Viney QUARIE BAR & BISTRO The Blackbirds THE QUEENS Jon Ee DJ Reuben ROLEYSTONE COUNTRY CLUB Stu McKay ROSEMOUNT HOTEL Timothy Nelson & The Infidels Institut Polaire The Avenues Colab SAIL & ANCHOR Howie Morgan Duo THE SAINT FIVEO SETTLER’S TAVERN Dan Sultan THE SHED Crush DJ Glenn SOUTH ST. ALEHOUSE Robbie King Karaoke SOVEREIGN ARMS Thank God It’s… Funky Lounge Fridays DJ Az-T THE SWAN HOTEL Anti Climax Like A Thief Available At The Counter Gravity Punch SWINGING PIG Greg Carter THORNLIE BOWLING CLUB The Mustangs UNIVERSAL BAR Nightmoves VERNON ARMS TAVERN Greg Carter THE VIC Nathan Gaunt WHALE & ALE Funky Friday’s Sonny WOODVALE TAVERN Milhouse X-WRAY CAFÉ David Craft Louis Inglis Rachel Charles YAYA’S
RAGDOLL, JULY 31
The Devil In Miss Jones The Midnight Mules Amberdown The Cold Acre ACE Fridays DJ Pup DJ Double Dee SATURDAY 2/08
AMBAR Japan 4 ft. Pussymittens Philly Blunt Blend MReD Mo’Fly AMPLIFIER BAR Buried In Verona Sienna Skies Aveira Skies Anchored Severtone THE AVENUE Lokie Shaw THE AVIARY August Zel Neil Viney Paradise Paul BAR ORIENT Saturday Night Fever THE BAKERY The Preatures Gunns THE BALMORAL The Wire Birds BAR ORIENT The Reggae Club BAYSWATER HOTEL Acoustic Saturdays BEAT NIGHTCLUB (UPSTAIRS) CANVAS BEAT NIGHTCLUB (DOWNSTAIRS) House Party THE BIRD Fait Rachael Dease Childsaint BOAB TAVERN James Wilson THE BOHEME Tastes Like Chicken BRASS MONKEY DJ Az-T Grizzly THE BRIGHTON Squinty THE BROOK Light Street BROOKLANDS TAVERN Organ Grinders THE BROWN FOX Lazy Dog DJ comp Heat 2! CAPITOL (UPSTAIRS) Cream Of The ‘80s DJ Roger Smart THE CARINE Craig Ballantyne CLANCY’S CANNING Minky G & Rosco THE CLAREMONT HOTEL Antics Tim from Tim & Jean COCONUT CLUB Coconut Club 21! ft.
DAVID CRAFT, AUGUST 1
GRMM Time Pilot CORNERSTONE ALE HOUSE Danny B CRAFTSMAN Rock Candy THE CRUISING YACHT CLUB Gee Whiz CYRIL JACKSON REC CENTRE The Mustangs DEVILLES PAD Black Magic Disco Studio 666 DUNSBOROUGH TAVERN John Read DUSK NIGHTCLUB Men In Uniform EAST END BAR GRRM ELLINGTON JAZZ CLUB James Flynn Quintet Quinteto Sao Paulo ENTICE @ FLAWLESS Ladies Night FLAWLESS LQ Saturdays FLYRITE Father FREMANTLE WORKERS CLUB Boogie Nights THE GATE Greg Carter GEISHA BAR Element ft. Fishtrek Flex Green George Tom Love THE GENEROUS SQUIRE Defanutly GOLD BAR Pure Gold GOSNELLS HOTEL Adam James Band Of Brothers THE GRAND Jay Mackay THE GREENWOOD Cargo Beat GROOVE BAR & LOUNGE (CROWN) Decoy HOYTS MILLENIUM CINEMA FREMANTLE Marley HULA BULA BAR Sailor Saturdays HYDE PARK HOTEL Chris Gibbs Band INDI BAR The Chevelles The 5 Hungry Infidels Howlin’ Bones Jones KALAMUNDA HOTEL Celebrations Karaoke LAKERS TAVERN Celebrations Karaoke LANEWAY LOUNGE Fleer Ultra Retrofit LIBRARY MKT LOST SOCIETY
Chalk M ON THE POINT Rhythm 22 MERRIWA TAVERN Celebrations Karaoke METRO CITY Metro Saturdays Ruthless Angry Buda METRO FREO Metropolis Saturdays Darren Tucker DJ Shane Ben C METRO FREO C5 I Love ‘80s & ‘90s MOJOS BAR The Weapon Is Sound The Fire Alive Fucking Teeth MUSTANG BAR The Continentals Milhouse NORTHSHORE TAVERN Howie Morgan Project THE ODD FELLOW Stoney Joe The Fancy Brothers Lynda Smyth & The Borrowed Few Primal Vinyl THE PADDO Cheeky Monkeys PARAMOUNT Felix PARKER Parker Saturdays ft. Simon Paiker ACEBASIK Wasteland Jackness Axen PEEL ALE HOUSE Siren & Assassin PORT KENNEDY TAVERN Stu McKay QUARIE BAR & BISTRO DJ Eugene THE QUEENS DJ Az-T 3manual RIGBY’S BAR & BISTRO Morgan Bain 459 ROSEMOUNT HOTEL Doctopus Aborted Tortoise Necter Sprawl Hideous Sun Demon ROSEMOUNT HOTEL Big Splash Band Comp Semi Final #2 ft. Pat Chow Old Blood Hideous Sun Demon Junkadelic Amani Consort ROSIE O’GRADY’S FREMANTLE Flava SAIL AND ANCHOR The Gypsy Minions THE SAINT Crackers
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STONEY JOE, AUGUST 2
SETTLERS TAVERN Boom! Bap! Pow! THE SHED HUGE DJ Andyy SOVEREIGN ARMS Countdown Saturday Britty SPRINGS TAVERN Jonny Dempsey SWALLOW BAR Mister T King THE SWINGING PIG Frenzy UNIVERSAL BAR Soul Corporation THE VELVET LOUNGE Liquid Lounge VILLA Rewind DJ Karl Blue DJ Skooby DJ Slick THE WHALE & ALE Jawsh YAYA’S Lights Of Berlin Here Comes The Cavalry Lunar Inverse The Right Way Up ARCADIA! DJ Pup DJ Double Dee DJ Shane
SUNDAY 3/08 THE AVIARY NDORSE Micah THE BALMORAL Andrew Winton THE BELMONT Justin Cortorillo BENTLEY HOTEL Jeanie Proude THE BRIGHTON James Wilson BROKEN HILL HOTEL Kizzy BROOKLANDS TAVERN Frankie G THE CARINE Luke O’Connell THE CAUSEWAY Acoustic Sunday CHASE BAR & BISTRO Spectacle CITRO BAR Seasons of Perth Dean Anderson CIVIC HOTEL Troy Nababan CLANCYS CITY BEACH Sunday Brekky Sesh ft. The Limelights Jazz Trio CLAREMONT HOTEL Sunday Driver CLUB BAYVIEW Lokie Shaw COMO HOTEL Two Frets Down DUNSBOROUGH TAVERN Kris Buckle ELLINGTON JAZZ CLUB
Ezereve Jade J FLINDERZ HILLARYS Monty Cotton THE GATE Mike Nayar THE GREENWOOD Glen Davies HULA BULA BAR Tiki Time Sundays INDI BAR Ben Salter INDIAN OCEAN BREW CO Retriofit KALAMUNDA HOTEL Ragdoll LAKERS TAVERN Wesley Goodlet Jamboree Scouts LANEWAY LOUNGE Perth Jazz Society LAST DROP TAVERN Barry Gee LATITUDE 32 Adrian Wilson LOBBY LOUNGE (CROWN) Thierryno THE LUCKY SHAG DJ Richie G MOJOS BAR Bibby’s Welcome To The Week ft. Hideous Sun Demon Alien 7 Kitchen People Rabbit Island Felicity Groom Duo Galloping Foxleys Peter Bibby solo M ON THE POINT Nathan Gaunt MULLALOO BEACH HOTEL Sunday Sesh MUSTANG BAR Wayne “The Train” Hancock Rusty & The Dragstrip Trio NEWPORT HOTEL One Thousand Years NOBLE FALLS TAV Kim Wainwright OCEAN VIEW TAV Anderson PADDY MALONE’S Gary Fowlie PEEL ALE HOUSE Thierryno PIRATE BAR Holli Scott PORT KENNEDY TAVERN Greg Carter QUARIE BAR & BISTRO The Gypsy Minions THE QUEENS FIVEO Sam Spencer REDCLIFFE ON THE MURRAY Ruby Boots THE ROSE & CROWN HOTEL Blackbirds ROSEMOUNT HOTEL (BEER GARDEN)
LIGHTS OF BERLIN, AUGUST 2
The Get Down ft. DJ Charlie Bucket DJ John Safari Klean Kicks THE SAINT Sunday Funday Jon Ee DJ Az-T Howie Morgan Project SETTLERS TAVERN Henry Faulkner THE SHED The Healys Lue Hornet SOUTH ST. ALEHOUSE Open Mic Night SWALLOW BAR Sunday Sessions Jonny & Garry SWINGING PIG Siren & Assassin UNIVERSAL BAR Retrofit VERNON ARMS TAVERN Stu McKay WANNEROO TAVERN Adam James WOODVALE Ivan Ribic THE WINDSOR Acoustic Aly YAYA’S Velveteen Joni In The Moon (duo) The Tin Man YMCA HQ Buried In Verona Sienna Skies Make Believe Me Xenobiotic Forstora
MONDAY 4/08 BRASS MONKEY Monday Madness Student & Industry Night ELLINGTON JAZZ CLUB JTC Jazz MOJOS BAR Wide Open Mic PARKER Manic Mondays! ROSEMOUNT HOTEL Comedy Trivia
YAYA’S Big Tommo’s Open Mic Variety Night
TUESDAY 5/08 BRASS MONKEY Open Mic Night Shaun Street CONSERVATORY ROOFTOP BAR Rooftop Comedy ELLINGTON JAZZ CLUB Melissa Oliveira ft. JAM GROOVE BAR (CROWN) Jack & Jill LANEWAY LOUNGE Open Mic Night Josh Terlick LOBBY LOUNGE (CROWN) Hans Fiance LUCKY SHAG Leighton Keepa MERRIWA TAVERN Celebrations Karaoke METRO CITY Kasabian MOJOS BAR Ray Finkle Black River Ransom Galloping Foxleys Emu Xperts MUSTANG BAR Danzaloca Salsa Night OCEAN ONE BAR Overgrowth Open Mic Night THE PADDO Quiz Meisters PERTH BLUES CLUB Dom Zurzolo 459 ROSEMOUNT HOTEL Bex & Turin’s Wide Open Mic ROSEMOUNT HOTEL WAAPA presents Lady Fred’s Goddamn Extravaganza SWINGING PIG Siren Song Enterprises YAYA’S Tristen Bird Badger & Kit Tashi
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Way Huge Red Llama Overdrive Pedal
TC Electronic Dreamscape Effects Pedal
John Petrucci of Dream Theater has been known to have laid down some of the most lush chorus effect sounds throughout his recording career. The intro to Pull Me Under from Images And Words comes immediately to mind. The Dreamscape from TC Electronic is his signature modulation effects pedal. The chorus settings on the pedal provide pretty much the entire spectrum of popular chorus, while the vibrato and flanger settings
take everything to more extreme levels, providing some quite outlandish effects if required. A general EQ setting allows the user to just tweak the pedal’s output slightly in terms of darkness or brightness, which is a nice touch. The final setting on the pedal is reserved for the company’s Toneprint function, which provides an opportunity for players to create and download custom settings from the web via USB connectivity. The pedal is put together well and features stereo or mono ins and outs depending on requirements. The Dreamscape retails for $399. Mega Music Wangara is currently selling the pedal for $340. Get in quick.
The quest for the perfect tone can be a long and winding road, particular when a guitarist is trying to nail down the most appropriate dirty signal for their style. The Way Huge Red Llama could be the answer for guitarists who are into classic overdrive sounds, sonically positioning itself like it could have been on any number of late sixties or early seventies pedalboards. It’s a very simple device. There’s a gain setting and a volume setting with an on/ CHRIS GIBBS
FOR SALE HEADPHONES all brands & styles. 83 Wanneroo Rd, Tuart Hill. Contact Headphonic 08 9207 3666 headphones.com.au MUSOS WANTED MUSICIANS WANTED for the Next Big Thing! Singer,Guitarist, Bass, Keys. Voice to Build a big band behind. No age barrier. Is this you? Get off your bum and live the dream. Ph 0412231126 OPEN MIC NIGHT every Thursday night at Indi Bar. Email Trojan John at trojan_johnmusic@ yahoo.com.au for spot Laneway Lounge Open Mic every Tuesday Night. If you’re keen for a spot text Josh on 0430313577 ROCHELLE O’REILLY & THE FEEL GOODS seek new Bassist for Orig/Cover Band. Must have exp & R&B Flow. 0438345354 Rochelle PRODUCTION SERVICES CD & DVD MANUFACTURE Check out our latest CD & DVD specials online at www.procopy.com.au 9375 3902
MATRIX PRODUCTIONS AUSTRALIA L i g h t i n g , s t ag i n g , s o u n d sy s t e m s , 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 ANALOG MASTERING VINTAGE TAPE, TUBES & TRANSFORMERS with the latest state of the art digital converters. Clients include: 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 ANDY’S STUDIO International multi award winning songwriter / producer. No band required. Broadcast quality. A songwriter’s paradise. Ph 9364 3178 GOLDDUST Production Mixing, recording and composition. Leederville $80 p/h. 0408 097 407
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 SONGWRITERS - BANDS! Great Productions! London Producer, awesome studio. Call Jerry on 0405 653 338 www.jerichomusic.com.au 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 BIGBEAT SOUND STUDIO Clean rooms, all new PA systems, air-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 S t , Pe r t h . M o b i l e : 0 4 0 3 1 5 2 0 0 9 info@streamrehearsal.com.au
TC ELECTRONIC DREAMSCAPE EFFECTS PEDAL
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WAY HUGE RED LLAMA OVERDRIVE PEDAL
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off toggle switch. For this type of effect, the simpler the better. It isn’t a pedal that will blow anyone’s head off in terms of gain saturation, but if you’re after a quality sounding overdrive that emulates the classic sound of an overdriven tube amp, this is a serious contender. The overdrive is warm and it is easy to set a decent level against the disengaged clean sound for authenticity. Old school, look, old school sound, new school price. The Way Huge Red Llama retails for $219. Go and see the good folk at Mega Music Wangara to pick one up for just $189.
TUITION ***GUITAR LESSONS*** The Guitar Institute. New Studio New Times Avail. Online bookings. Beg to prof, all styles. Tutors WWC clearance. Cliff Lynton Guitar Institute. Mt Lawley 9342 3484/ www.clifflynton.com BASS GUITAR LESSONS AVAILABLE by WAAPA tutor. A practicle approach to learning. .All styles.Years of experience. Tony Gibbs 9470 6131
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