Katherine Quinn

Katherine Quinn's Top 10 Albums of 2010

10. Arcade Fire – The Suburbs [Merge]

Sensitive, unsettling lyrics supersized to anthemic, arena proportions. Just like in suburbia, on this album there’s grit beneath the gloss and sass.

9. Interpol – Interpol [Soft Limit]

A moodier offering than their previous work and certainly not their best, but worth a nod. The fact that this album is self-titled stands as an affirmation of everything Interpol: hidden hooks and sinister atmospherics underpinned by funk bass lines and a pervading sense of arrogance and irreverence.

8. Joanna Newsom – Have One On Me [Drag City]

This epic album unfolds like a story book in three compact discs. Newsom’s trademark haunting vocals and the inclusion of strings and horns give the album all the wonderment of a fairytale.

7. Yeasayer – Odd Blood [Mute/Secretly Canadian]

Odd Blood was meant to be the “pop” album for the Brooklyn band, but with touches of psychedelia, gospel and reggae, it isn’t exactly mainstream. Nonetheless, the standout track is the pop-infused O.N.E., a liberating festival anthem.

6. Laura Marling – I Speak Because I Can [Virgin]

Packed with imagery and nostalgia that would send Keats into a head-spin.

5. Bag Raiders – Bag Raiders [Modular]

Just when we were starting to feel a bit nostalgic about the ‘90s (were we?), this cheeky Aussie duo delivered a fast-paced nod to the rave era with elements of sunshine pop, funk and acid house mixed in. The tracks in the middle get a little samey, but it’s hard to care when you’re having so much fun.

4. The National – High Violet [4AD]

We’d all waited patiently for three years and then internet pirates ruined the fun by leaking a low quality version of High Violet online. But the band bounced back, premiering the album on the New York Times website, and quickly shooting to number three on the Billboard chart. A gold star for talent and resilience.

3. Deer Hunter – Halcyon Digest [4AD/Remote Control]

The swoony, layered vocals and tumbling guitar riffs of Desire Lines, the blown-out vocals and meandering sax of Coronado, the eerie echoes and drips of Sailing…

2. Kanye West – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy [Rock-A-Fella]

He threatened never to rap again; thank goodness he changed his mind. Featuring brand new tracks and reworked numbers from his G.O.O.D Friday project, this album is a testament to the fact that a bit of public humiliation is good for the creative soul. His best album yet.

1. Vampire Weekend – Contra [Rough Trade]

I knew this would be my number one when it was released all the way back in January. Vampire Weekend’s over-caffeinated, Afro-infused pop punk proves that even after The Strokes and Talking Heads, NYC’s still leading the charge in terms of style and originality.

The Temper Trap

I’m always startled when a musician I’m interviewing enquires as to how I am. What? We’re talking about me now? You expect me to come up with something interesting to say to someone who’s just won two ARIA awards and played a worldwide headlining tour? So when Johnny Aherne from THE TEMPER TRAP asks me how my day has been (having just won two ARIAs and in the midst of a world headlining tour), of course I start rabbiting on about the cheesecake I’m baking. Mortified.

It soon becomes evident, however, that Johnny isn’t your everyday rock star (if rock stars can ever be described as ‘everyday’). He actually seems politely interested in the cheesecake scenario, and he has a charmingly cavalier attitude towards his newfound fame and fortune, which makes me almost feel like I’m talking to a normal person.

“I’ve never really been normal,” Johnny tells me (I said almost!). “I dropped out of school in grade eight and I’ve done all sorts of weird jobs… I’m too much of an ADD child to go to an office. If the band stopped I don’t know what I would do.”

It doesn’t seem like Johnny will have to worry about that any time soon, with The Temper Trap’s debut album, Conditions, winning hearts all over the globe. The first single off the album, Sweet Disposition, gained them international acclaim when it was released in 2009, and has since reached platinum status after more than two million sales. The follow-ups Love Lost and Fader contain the same catchy, hook-ridden melodies and clever lyrics, with lines like “I pledge myself allegiance / to a better night’s sleep at home” making Conditions one of the stand out albums of 2010.

The music media consistently describes the band’s sound as ‘atmospheric,’ and this description is strangely apt; ethereal organs and heartbeat rhythms give The Temper Trap’s music a unique aura which could bring you to tears if you were feeling a bit pent up or fragile.

“As a band, we definitely enjoy the songwriting process and some of the members enjoy recording more than they do touring,” Johnny tells me, adding that the band will take time off to work on a new album in February 2011. “There is a great satisfaction in creating songs… I think we’re all looking forward to having a break from playing live, just for a little bit.”

That’s hardly surprising, since these talented Aussie lads are on the final leg of a marathon global tour that has lasted for over a year. Johnny laughingly tells me about the differences between audiences in different countries, describing the Spanish as passionate and enthusiastic, and the Japanese as “super polite, and they’ll clap when they’re supposed to clap and [during the performance] they’ll be completely quiet.”

As for us Aussies, apparently we’re a rather rowdy bunch. “Without fail, every show that we’ve played around the world there’s always someone who’ll yell out ‘Aussie Aussie Aussie.’ And I think Australia’s the only place in the world where the audience members throw stuff at the bands,” Johnny says. “You know, flip flops and all that sort of stuff. If they like you, they throw stuff at you.”

The four members of The Temper Trap met while working and studying in Melbourne, but have since moved camp to London to focus on the international market (probably because we throw stuff at them!).

“Dougie always wanted to start a band,” Johnny says of the lead singer. “I knew Dougie when I was 13 and he was 18 and he always said, since I’d known him, ‘one day I’ll start a band’… then when I was 18 I was working really close to him in the city, he just went ‘oi, Johnny, come to band practice.’ [We] really wanted to take it seriously, sort of practice a lot and probably take it more seriously than most people… we hit it pretty hard.”

That hard work has certainly paid off, but Johnny insists that his life hasn’t changed that much since he has scaled the heights of fame. “I can walk around sometimes before our show and watch the support band and no one will know who I am,” Johnny says. “I think it just depends where you are, or at the moment I’ve got long, blonde, stragglish hair so I’m kind of recognisable. Dougie gets it the worst – there’s sometimes not that many Asian people around Europe and stuff so he’s pretty distinct. But Lorenzo [the guitarist] sometimes says that he’ll go out to sign autographs and stuff and no one will recognise him. Poor Lorenzo.”

The Temper Trap is also doing its bit for humanity, by supporting an organisation called Buzz Off which is an international campaign against malaria and other mosquito-borne diseases. The band members commissioned three artists to paint a painting inspired by The Temper Trap’s song Little Boy, and by making a donation to Buzz Off fans can receive a postcard of one of the paintings as well as a unique code to download the song.

“The whole band is very sort of conscious of that sort of stuff, and we’re not over the top or stupid about it, but we’re just looking for little opportunities to do our part,” Johnny says. See what I mean? He even wishes me good luck with my cheesecake before he hangs up the phone.

The Temper Trap are one of the main attractions at this year’s Foreshore Summer Music Festival, held on Saturday November 27 at Commonwealth Place. If you haven’t already purchased a ticket, bad luck! The event has now completely sold out.

Liftoff Festival

It’s not often that you get bands, DJs, pro skaters, pizza, circus performers, rides and market stalls all in the one place, let alone for free! But Canberrans have the opportunity to experience all of this and more this November at the LIFTOFF FESTIVAL, the youth-based element of this year’s Woden Valley Festival.

Now in its third year, the Woden Valley Festival is a free event which aims to bring together the Canberra community under the theme of ‘Health, Sustainability and Lifestyle.’ The festival celebrates diversity and provides something for everyone, with several different ‘villages’ and stages within Eddison Park, all providing different forms of activity and entertainment.

On the Liftoff stage this year, festival-goers will have the chance to see performances by local musicians D’Opus and Roshambo and Paqman, as well as the six finalists in the annual Liftoff band competition. The finals will be judged by industry heavy-hitters from First Base Music, Phat Track Entertainment and Rock Nation, and the winners will receive recording time, festival gigs and money-can’t-buy exposure in Canberra’s fabulous, illustrious, incomparable BMA Magazine!

“[Last year] we got a lot of interest from local bands, and we just saw there was an emerging youth culture there and a lot of new sounds,” festival organiser Ben Trudinger tells me. “The Woden Festival is trying to promote artistic development in the community, so the band comp is a way of those bands getting some exposure.”

Inspired by street parties in Melbourne and Barcelona, Trudinger and his team have turned what was originally simply the Liftoff band competition into a complete sensory experience. As well as the musical element, there’s travel and careers information, cultural cuisine including wood-fired pizza, Japanese pancakes and Spanish tapas, roving performers, visual artists, circus acts and much more, all in the geographical heart of Canberra.

The festival aims to make the most of the new and improved Eddison Park, which has recently been given a facelift by the ACT government. Among other things, the area now features a skate park, and young skaters will have the opportunity to show off their prowess in a skate competition, as well as observe the experts in a pro skater display.

It all sounds like an overwhelming smorgasbord of fun and excitement, but word on the street says it’s only going to get bigger and better in years to come. “We’re trying to push the boundaries a little bit with Liftoff, just to see what inspires people,” Trudinger says. “This is just the beginning; this is a seed of something that could grow. We’re trying to give people more options, so if they just want to go to the festival and get into the music or watch performers then they can do that, but there’s more there if they want to explore it.”

The Lift Off Festival takes place at Eddison Park in Woden on Saturday November 6. The festival runs from 10-5 and is free!

Boy & Bear

It’s Wednesday morning and I’m having a terrible day. I couldn’t get a car park at uni so I missed my 9am lecture, then a friend stood me up for a coffee date, I stepped in a muddy puddle and rendered my white canvas shoe a suspicious looking brown, and prior to all of that I had a minor car accident with my front gate.

So I’m half expecting my interview with Jon Hart from BOY & BEAR to go terribly. One fifth of the Sydney-based indie folk band, Jon is responsible for vocals, keys and mandolin. And who knows what mandolin players are like. They seem like a volatile bunch. But when I tentatively answer my phone on the dot of 11am, a cheerful voice greets me. Jon seems relaxed and sanguine, just like Boy & Bear’s music, which he describes as “folk with a bit of a modern spin on it.”

The five members of Boy & Bear grew up playing in high school bands and dabbling with various different instruments, before forming Boy & Bear in 2008. With the band comprising of two brothers and three members who had been the frontmen, lead singers and chief songwriters in their previous outfits, I can’t help but wonder how they all get along.

“It means that there’s five opinions rather than four or three, so things might take a little bit longer to shake out,” Jon says. “But it also means you’re pooling from a bigger pool of resources in a sense, so you’ve got five ideas you can try out and see which one fits the vision of the song the best. It works well... I see it as a bit of an advantage.”

The boys must be doing something right, with their ethereal layered harmonies and fusion of old and new musical elements gaining them international airplay and comparisons to The Shins and Fleet Foxes, as well as supporting gigs with Mumford and Sons and Laura Marling.

“You’re not going to meet nicer people than those guys,” Jon says of Laura Marling and Mumford and Sons. “And Mumford and Sons, you don’t get a lot bigger than those guys at the moment. If anyone’s got a right to have a bit of an ego going on, maybe those guys do, but they’re just fantastic and they’re lovely humble guys... I’m not quite sure what I expected, but it’s nice to meet people who are doing something for real and they’re still real people as well.”

It is indeed, and Jon certainly seems to fall into the category, politely thanking me for the interview and bidding me to “have a nice day” as he hangs up the phone. You’re having a terrible day. And then Jon from Boy and Bear says “have a nice day,” and all of a sudden, you’re having a nice day.

Catch Boy & Bear at Stonefest at the University of Canberra on Saturday October 30. Normal and VIP tickets through Ticketek.

Little Red

Chatting to Adrian Beltrame and Taka Honda from LITTLE RED before their performance at Splendour in the Grass, the boys seem relaxed and excited. It’s the third year that they’ve played the festival, and the pair admit that their performance skills and musicianship have developed considerably since the early days of the band.

“Playing big gigs is a pretty weird feeling – there’s so much going on!” Adrian says. “I feel like it’s almost like a computer game, because every single song there’s little things that you can do – like a guitar line or a little harmony or whatever – that you can do perfectly or maybe 75% and it’s just a matter of getting all of those.  So you’ve gotta get as many points as you can in an hour or so. It’s tricky, but we’re getting a lot better at it.”

Little Red’s 2008 debut album, Listen to Little Red, smashed into the ARIA top 30, bringing us singles like Witchdoctor and the much-loved sing-a-long (my one and only advice is Coke) Coca-Cola (and ice). Their new album, Midnight Remember, has a much more sentimental vibe to it, as well as a couple of rousing, anthemic numbers and catchy grooves like the debut single Rock It. 

Filling the role of vocalist and guitarist for the band, Adrian tells me that the inspiration for the album was a sense of melancholy that stemmed from growing older. “It’s just a natural thing,” he admits. “It’s not anything that any of us consciously said to ourselves ‘we want to make more meaningful music’ – it just comes from within.”

So with two full-length albums, several tours and headlining spots on some of the nation’s favourite festivals under the belts of their skinny leg jeans, you’d think these trendy lads would have become celebrities in their hometown of Melbourne. Not so, Taka tells me. “No, Melbourne people are too cool!” he laughs, when I ask if he gets star-spotted. “They don’t give a fuck about us.  Nothing’s really changed [since we started the band].”

It’s just as well, then, that the talented five-some didn’t start the band out of a desire for fame and adulation. “We all just loved music and that’s what we wanted to do,” Adrian says. “It’s a very powerful thing, and it’s good to have fun with. We’re not trying to be cool, we’re just trying to make the best music we can.”

I can’t help but question this statement, given Little Red’s reputation for being snappy dressers. In the video for Rock It, Taka is clad in a glimmering gold bomber jacket, while the rest of the lads are all skinny ties and slouchy cardigans and pointy-toed boots. “The music comes first,” Taka insists.  “But if someone wants to give us free clothes...” Adrian adds, with Taka finishing off, “we don’t have enough clothes”.

Little Red will be stopping by ANU Bar on Thursday October 7 with Sparkadia and Kimbra in tow. Tickets are $30.90 and doors open at 8. Midnight Remember is out now through Liberation Records.

LIFE IS A CABARET

When Simone Penkethman and Chanel Cole were asked by their good friend and Canberra's proclaimed 'Godfather of the arts' Domenic Mico to write, produce and perform a cabaret show, they looked no further than their own lives and friendship for inspiration. Sure, some less imaginative types may have consulted the legacy of the Folies Bergere, Le Lido, The Duplex or the Tropicana for guidance, but not Cole and Penkethman. As two of Canberra's most well known and beloved performers (in a variety of forms), they needed but a nudge of encouragement before their collective creativity swelled uncontrollably into the makings of what would become The Pleasure Society Cabaret.

"It [the Pleasure Society] was very much a concept that we'd been talking about and discussing for a while. It evolved really naturally through our friendship - in the beginning it just had a lot to do with bicycles and pretty frocks and high heels; dressing up and bringing pleasure to yourself and to others" Penkethman says. "Then Dom asked us to write and perform a cabaret show. Neither of us had done one before. We thought about what we were going to do, and we said to ourselves 'well, we could do the Pleasure Society'".

The pair joined forces with Adam Cook on piano and Paul Christiansen on bass, and together they conjured up two acts of musical and theatrical brilliance. The first act will mix acoustic musical performs with theatrical, comedic story-telling, while the second act showcases a veritable buffet of "lovingly arranged" covers from Bowie, Spoon and the Cure, among others.

"As a cabaret, the show is a bit like theatre, but not as claustrophobic" says Penkethman. "Our first act is mainly theatre with some songs. It's not microphoned up, but we have a pianist and some guitar and we do some story telling with the songs."

The show will take place at the Tuggeranong Arts Centre's new cabaret space, where the wrap-around balconies and panoramic lake views will undoubtedly prove a perfect environment for the evening. A small exhibition of local art will precede the performance, and the bar will remain open during the second act to ensure that punters can, in the true spirit of the evening, enjoy themselves. 

"I think that overall, our main inspiration for the show was each other, more than anything else" Penkethman says. "Chanel and I don't seem on the surface to be that similar, but we have this wonderful understanding together. The place we meet, musically and ideologically, is really interesting. We both have a myriad of influences, but the Pleasure Society is really just about happiness and finding pleasure in simple things as well as the obvious things."

Catch the Pleasure Society Cabaret on 17-18 September at 8:00pm at the Tuggeranong Arts Centre. Bar and outdoor smoking area will be open from 7pm.

Phone 6293 1443 to book

THE DARK ARTS

Upon entering Life, Death and Magic at the National Gallery of Australia I am greeted by a familiar figure: the Gallery’s own ‘Bronze Weaver’, a sixth century figure of a woman adorned with large and ornate jewellery, seated peacefully at a loom while her baby suckles at her breast. The figure takes pride of place in the entrance to the exhibition, amongst other ancient Southeast Asian artworks such as textiles, beautiful gold jewellery and numerous carvings of human figures.

Life, Death and Magic focuses on ancestral and animist art, arising out of the ancient religious practices of Southeast Asia which predate Hinduism and Buddhism in the region, and still practiced in some areas today. “Through loans we’re able to show [the Bronze Weaver] alongside some other really important animist bronzes, for example a maternity figure from the Honolulu Academy of Arts,” curator Niki van den Heuvel says, gesturing toward another, less elaborate figure. “While the Bronze Weaver is very clearly a female, this figure is quite androgynous, so it introduces the animist idea of ambiguity in sex. Shamans, for example, are often women, but they’re also sometimes men who identify as women.”

Most animist communities believe in the idea of a three-layered universe, with humans inhabiting the middle realm, and the upper realm associated with deities and ancestors. Members of the community who die under desirable circumstances, for example as a result of old age, and are then sent off with the best possible funeral are believed to return as ancestors, who will look favourably upon the community and bestow assistance. These ancestors are depicted throughout animist art, predominantly symbolised by creatures of flight.

The most striking representation of a bird is displayed near the end of the exhibition, where a beautifully carved effigy of a hornbill hangs from the ceiling, throwing a stark shadow against the wall beside it. Traditionally, hornbills were believed to have acted as intermediaries between the principal deity and the human world. Bird motifs also appear in various carvings and textiles throughout the exhibition.

Images of dragons and serpent-like creatures symbolise the underworld, a watery realm associated with prosperity and fertility. A large buffalo racing sled from the National Museum of Indonesia is featured in the exhibition, brightly decorated with colourful scales and carvings of monkeys and dogs along the spine. “In the community you’d race your buffalo using this really incredible sled, to show off you prowess as an important male” Niki tells me. 

While the boys were out racing their buffalo, the ladies were inside beading and weaving tapestries.  The NGA has drawn on its extensive collection of Asian textiles for this exhibition, with extraordinary head cloths made of painted bark, and woven ritual cloths featuring skull tree motifs and protective imagery.

“Gender permeates all ancestral and animist art” Niki explains, “so you have this concept that female objects are cool, dark objects which are associated with an interior, like textiles. Then you have male objects, which are hot, light and outside, so we have stone and wood sculpture often made by men.”

Similarly, Niki stresses that magic pervades all elements of the animist existence. One room displays wonderful relics from the Batak people of Sumatra in Indonesia, such as amulets and divination books in Batak script, which were used to foresee appropriate days for funerals and other important community events. 

“In some instances it can be quite dark magic” Niki explains, leading me to a case which displays ornately carved Shaman staffs, one of which is decorated with feathers and human hair. “To make these staffs, the Batak priest from a community would have kidnapped a child from another community. They befriended the child by giving it rice wine every night, until one night the Batak priest would give it molten lead, and so the child would drink the lead and die. Then the Batak priest boiled the child up, sort of distilling the corpse and infusing it into the Batak staff.” Noticing my horrified expression, she adds, “Like I said, some of it’s really quite dark.”

In the following room are various funerary markers and implements associated with death, decorated with images of transition like ships and horses. Then we come to my favourite piece in the exhibition: a stone carving which is more than three metres long. Two ancestor creator figures sit astride a horse-serpent beast, which carries the ancestors through the three realms so that they can bestow favours upon humans and go about their business. The male and female figures have incredibly kind, loving expressions, and the female rests her hand upon the male’s shoulder in a supportive gesture while he holds the reins.

“This is a recent acquisition for the gallery, and it really sums up a lot of what the exhibition is about: life, death and especially the idea of magic” Niki says of the sculpture. “I think the more you look at it the more powerful it becomes. What’s really nice about the art in this exhibition is that you don’t have to really know a lot about art or have a great appreciation of Southeast Asian art in particular to look at these objects and see how powerful and striking they are. Often, because they’re such ancient images, they’re quite familiar to us, even if we’ve never seen them before.”

Life, Death and Magic – 2000 Years of Southeast Asian Ancestral Art can be seen at the National Gallery of Australia until October 31^st. Tickets are $15 or $10 for concession and NGA members.

Short + Sweet

Short + Sweet is the theatrical equivalent of Tropfest - a short theatre festival set to showcase local talent in a two-week season at the Canberra Theatre. Established in Sydney in 2002, Short + Sweet expanded to other Australian capital cities, and then beyond our borders to Singapore, Malaysia, New Zealand and India. It is now the largest festival of ten minute theatre in the world, this year celebrating the performance of more than one thousand plays.
Canberra writers such as Hal Judge, Adam Hadley and Darren Menachemson will be showcasing their work at the festival, collaborating with local directors including Liz de Totth and Ian Hart.  Potential Short + Sweet writers submit to a rigorous judging process, and their pieces are analysed for elements such as dialogue, theatricality, story, characterisation and dramatic tension. The final choice is then made by the directors, who select a piece they feel a connection with and consider workable.

Audiences can expect a mix of light and dark performances, with colourful characters like death-match wrestlers, dodgy real estate agents, princes, princesses and perverts played by ImproACT performers and local stars such as Alison McGregor and Dave Evans.

“It has been a busy year in Canberra arts this year, but we've managed to put together a stellar two weeks for our audience,” says Short + Sweet organiser Adam Salter. “There will be around 90 participants this year, from the writers to the tech crew. We have a really dynamic group of people providing us with some really exceptional theatre.”

The worldwide success of Short + Sweet has led to an expansion of the program to include a dance version and a cabaret version, as well as ‘best of’ showcases in each genre, appropriately titled Shorter + Sweeter. There is also a youth theatre competition called Fast + Fresh; this year’s Canberra comp was won by a group of Grammar Girls whose absurdist play will be performed in the second week of the festival.

So how is short theatre different from other theatrical experiences audiences may have had? “To be able to go to the theatre and be almost assured you will see something you like is a rare opportunity,” Adam says.  “In one night, you are likely to be presented with situations that will make you laugh, cry, scratch your head in confusion, gasp, clap, shout in either support or anger, or just smile in the darkness. You get to see a variety of genres too, including a play in style of a silent movie.”

Short + Sweet is perfect for those with a short attention span, or simply those craving a unique, zesty and truly creative theatre experience.

Top 20 Plays Week one: September 1 – 4

Top 20 Plays Week two: September 8 – 11

Top 10 Dance: October 20 – 23

At the Courtyard Studio, Canberra Theatre Centre. Bookings 6275 2700

Does It Offend You, Yeah?

DOES IT OFFEND YOU, YEAH? bassist Chloe Duveaux has a fantastic, endearing laugh. Which is not exactly what you’d expect given the band’s fierce grunge-club sound. What’s more, when I call her for a chat she’s at her grandad’s house in London’s South End, taking a break from the band’s rigorous touring schedule to catch up with family and old friends. “Not very rock and roll,” she laughs.

But while she might not seem like your run-of-the-mill rock star, it’s clear that Chloe has always had both the talent and the ambition. After playing in numerous grunge and indie bands from the age of 15, Chloe joined Does It Offend You, Yeah? after the release of their first album, You Have No Idea What You’re Getting Yourself Into.

“I’ve been lucky, and I’m still kind of surprising myself that I’m here,” Chloe confesses.  “It’s funny, I was talking to my friends who I knew when I was much younger, and all of us have turned out to be exactly what we said we’d always be. When we were about 13 I’d always say ‘I’m going to be a rockstar!’ and people would always be laughing at me, but I somehow managed to make it. I don’t quite know how that happened!”

So will she ever be able to go back to a normal life? “That’s a nightmare I have every Tuesday actually!” Chloe responds. “I hope I never have to go back; this is it forever now! We’ll be like The Rolling Stones. I’d be very depressed if I had to go back to the real world.”

That seems unlikely to happen any time soon, with the band’s latest album, Don’t Say We Didn’t Warn You, proving to be an exhilarating fusion of rock and dance music, with a heavy, aggressive edge. Vocalist and guitarist James Rushent doubled as the producer for the album, after working with The Prodigy on Invaders Must Die.

“Having James as a producer meant we could get the sound and have it our way, instead of compromising with labels or with other people,” Chloe tells me. “The first album never felt quite right, so with this album it had to be from the heart. It turned out perfect in the end.”

The band will be offering one of their new songs as a free download for subscribers to their website, to reward fans for patiently awaiting the release of Don’t Say We Didn’t Warn You, and the album tour is set to bring them to Canberra this October for Stonefest. So what can Canberrans expect from a DIOYY gig? “Head banging, but not in a bad way!” Chloe laughs. “Loads of energy, probably lots of swearing as well; people should watch out for the audience more than us ‘cause they tend to get pretty mental.” Consider yourself warned!

Does It Offend You, Yeah? will be playing at Stonefest on Saturday October 30 alongside Pendulum, Clare Bowditch, Bluejuice and more. Tickets available through Ticketek.

Blue King Brown

Natalie Pa’apa’a is like one of those cool girls in high school who doesn’t care what anybody thinks of her – just what you’d expect from a modern reggae goddess. The vivacious singer and guitarist for Melbourne urban roots band BLUE KING BROWN, Natalie excitedly chats to me about the concept behind their new album, Worldwize Part 1: North & South.

“As a concept, we thought it would be really cool to be able to release a double disc, North & South, and a part two which would be East & West,” she says. “Basically the philosophy behind acknowledging all four directions is inspired by Native American philosophy. Many Native American nations consider all four directions to be sacred and acknowledge how important it is to recognise people from all four directions irrelevant of race, colour, creed or religion.”

Equality is something Blue King Brown have always felt strongly about, with the band taking an activist position on issues like fair trading, sex trafficking and indigenous affairs. The band members’ opinions on these issues are reflected in their music, with songs like Women’s Revolution and Our Word is Our Weapon calling for unity and change, and the Worldwize spirit is evident in their collaborations with a number of Jamaican artists including Queen Ifrica and Jah Mason, as well as Elliott Martin from the US and Voodoo Dred out of Haiti.

Natalie and bassist Carlos Santone first decided to start the band when they were playing drums on the streets of Byron Bay and being inspired by characters like John Butler, Michael Franti and Ozomatli. “We always had in the back of our minds a vision to form a band, so basically we moved to Melbourne and we hunted players that we thought were good!” Natalie says. “Our really strong percussive background is the foundation of Blue King Brown,” she adds. “Our sense of being street performers is... where we got our ethic, our performance practice – you have to be good with crowds and audiences if you’re going to play on the streets.”

The creation of their 2006 debut album, Stand Up, gained them a nomination for a J Award and a spot in triple j’s Hottest 100, as well as a tour of Australia and New Zealand supporting Santana, which Natalie describes as one of the best experiences of her career. “I want to be like Carlos Santana,” she laughs.

So why did it take them two years to create North & South? “We realised that it was going to take longer to get what we wanted from the songs, and we needed to spend time finding out how to create the sounds that we were hearing in our minds and trying to make them come to fruition. And we love it! We’re stoked! We’ve already begun working on Part Two: East & West.”

Blue King Brown support the John Butler Trio at The Royal Theatre on Wednesday September 15. Tix are $70 + bf. Doors open 8pm. Worldwize Part 1: North & South is out now through Lion House Records.

Q&A with Daniel Riley McKinley of Bangarra Dance Theatre

What was it like growing up as a dancer in Canberra?  What inspired you to begin dancing? 

I did most of my contemporary dance training at QL2 Centre for Youth Dance. I was a part of Quantum Leap for 6 years. Being in that creative environment that they produce for young dancers is what convinced me that dance was a legitimate career, and it's really where the fire within me ignited to pursue dance.

In what ways does the performance depict a distinctly Wiradjuri experience?

The fact that I am a Wiradjuri man, and Michael is a Wiradjuri man makes it a Wiradjuri experience. We both share the same views on things like the demonisation of black beliefs by white settlers. And a lot of the research I did into the images was from a Wiradjuri perspective, like what the feather image means.

Is it also representational of a wider indigenous and/or Australian experience?

Absolutely. The work isn't just aimed at a certain audience. Everyone who sees it will hopefully takeaway something different from it. I've tried to create a piece of dance that everyone can connect to and understand, not just the indigenous audience. And to introduce Michael and his images to the dance audience.

What challenges did you face in creating of earth and sky?

There were daily challenges in terms of choreography and staging. Figuring out how to fit this piece of choreography in that small amount of counts, what do I cut, what do I leave? Then the next day I would come back I start second guessing my own decisions. And all the creative challenges in terms of, does it read the way it should? Is my idea and message translating? Am I being true to Michael's images and vision?

This is your debut choreographic work with Bangarra - how was the experience of choreographing different to your previous experiences of rehearsing and performing?

Performing and choreographing are completely different experiences. […] The hardest thing to begin with for me was straight away jumping over to the choreographer/director bench. […] But we are a close knit family and get along really well, so if someone wants to put their hand up to take over creatively, everyone is open to that.

What makes of earth and sky different to other Bangarra performances?

It gives the audience a real teaser and look into the future of the company. They won't necessarily recognise the movement quality and style. I'm bringing something fresh into the company because I am so young and have come from a different background, and Frances is developing as an artist and choreographer with every work she makes, so it's nice to present something new and fresh but something that still contains that energy and spirit of Bangarra and what we stand for as an Indigenous dance company.

Bangarra Dance Theatre performs of earth and sky at the Playhouse, CTC, on September 3 and 4.

Little Red

Chatting to Adrian Beltrame and Taka Honda from LITTLE RED before their performance at Splendour in the Grass, the boys seem relaxed and excited. It’s the third year that they’ve played the festival, and the pair admit that their performance skills and musicianship have developed considerably since the early days of the band.

“Playing big gigs is a pretty weird feeling – there’s so much going on!” Adrian says. “I feel like it’s almost like a computer game, because every single song there’s little things that you can do – like a guitar line or a little harmony or whatever – that you can do perfectly or maybe 75% and it’s just a matter of getting all of those.  So you’ve gotta get as many points as you can in an hour or so. It’s tricky, but we’re getting a lot better at it.”

Little Red’s 2008 debut album, Listen to Little Red, smashed into the ARIA top 30, bringing us singles like Witchdoctor and the much-loved sing-a-long (my one and only advice is Coke) Coca-Cola (and ice). Their new album, Midnight Remember, has a much more sentimental vibe to it, as well as a couple of rousing, anthemic numbers and catchy grooves like the debut single Rock It. 

Filling the role of vocalist and guitarist for the band, Adrian tells me that the inspiration for the album was a sense of melancholy that stemmed from growing older. “It’s just a natural thing,” he admits. “It’s not anything that any of us consciously said to ourselves ‘we want to make more meaningful music’ – it just comes from within.”

So with two full-length albums, several tours and headlining spots on some of the nation’s favourite festivals under the belts of their skinny leg jeans, you’d think these trendy lads would have become celebrities in their hometown of Melbourne. Not so, Taka tells me. “No, Melbourne people are too cool!” he laughs, when I ask if he gets star-spotted. “They don’t give a fuck about us.  Nothing’s really changed [since we started the band].”

It’s just as well, then, that the talented five-some didn’t start the band out of a desire for fame and adulation. “We all just loved music and that’s what we wanted to do,” Adrian says. “It’s a very powerful thing, and it’s good to have fun with. We’re not trying to be cool, we’re just trying to make the best music we can.”

I can’t help but question this statement, given Little Red’s reputation for being snappy dressers. In the video for Rock It, Taka is clad in a glimmering gold bomber jacket, while the rest of the lads are all skinny ties and slouchy cardigans and pointy-toed boots. “The music comes first,” Taka insists.  “But if someone wants to give us free clothes...” Adrian adds, with Taka finishing off, “we don’t have enough clothes”.

Little Red’s album Midnight Remember is out now and available through Liberation Records.

The Cat Empire

THE CAT EMPIRE will return to the nation’s capital this August in support of their fourth studio album, Cinema. As the title suggests, Cinema is a lively, theatrical album, influenced by musical styles as diverse as reggae, salsa and hip-hop.

“We called it Cinema because it’s the sort of album that you could put your headphones on and close your eyes to and be in The Cat Empire’s cinema,” lead singer Felix Riebl says. “Through the song writing, the production and the way we play it, it has its own world about it from the beginning to the end. It takes you somewhere else.”

After forming in Melbourne nearly ten years ago, The Cat Empire has gained an international reputation for its entertaining live shows and instantly recognisable Latin-inspired sound. But despite several global tours and headlining spots at some of the world’s biggest music festivals, Felix confesses the boys still aren’t quite comfortable playing in front of Aussie audiences.

“I feel like we’re a really established band here now and we’ve been around for a long time, so we probably have a lot more to live up to,” he tells me. “I’m always far more nervous playing to an Australian audience than I am to an overseas audience because of that history. We’ve done a lot of really great shows here, and I suppose I feel like we’re always trying to improve on the last one.”

With such a formidable live reputation, the band found it difficult to capture the spirit of a performance in a studio environment. “The studio and the stage are very different beasts,” Felix says. “The big challenge with this album, and I think we achieved it quite well, was to get energy from the studio. We were really open to being creative in the studio, often doing the opposite to what we do live in order to create that intensity on the album.”

But with six people in the band, how do you make any decisions? “With a band like us, which has got so many different personalities and so much diversity and creativity, there’s a real necessity to work with someone who’s able to make a decision which isn’t a compromise,” Felix says. For The Cat Empire, that middle man was producer Steve Schram, who has worked with Silverchair and Little Birdy. “Steve had a real vision for the album, which was exactly what we needed,” Felix adds.

“The band has kind of taken on a life of its own,” he continues.  “We write songs that feel natural and that we can play live, and the rest of what happens is a combination of the chemistry, the musicians on stage, and the audience. Any other meaning beyond that I don’t really think about too much; I think it is what it is and we try and hold on and make the most of it.”

The Cat Empire will crack out a long awaited Canberra set at the ANU on Sunday August 22. Tickets are $49 + bf from Ticketek. Cinema is out now through EMI.

Mama Kin

Danielle Caruana doesn’t mind baring her soul to strangers. The personality behind MAMA KIN, Caruana describes her new album Beat and Holler as a collection of stories, “all personal perspectives and observations of the human condition.

“It’s incredible how many people can relate to these stories that I think are only about me,” Caruana says. “It’s that classic thing where we all think we’re so isolated in the way that we operate and in the way that we observe things and the way we react to things. I suppose because I’m sharing something that’s deep and personal and generally hidden, people relate to that. They’re realising they’re not alone in feeling messed up.”

Mama Kin’s songs explore all aspects of her life; Take It Slow and Love’s Not So Great survey the perils of love and trust, It’s For Me is a joyful, rollicking declaration of passion and self-fulfilment, and the title track portrays a woman urging a loved one to reach his or her potential. Listeners seem to be delighted by Mama Kin’s earthy, rhythmic and deeply personal music, with the album debuting at number 15 in the Australian Independent Record charts.

Caruana has a lot of material to draw upon, juggling married life and two children with the demands of her musical career. “It is challenging and it’s constantly a juggle,” she says of her hectic schedule.  “I try and stick with the analogy of having a stove top with six burners on it and just kind of constantly moving different pots around and giving them energy.”

Growing up in a musical environment (one of her brothers is the keyboardist in her band, another is reggae musician Nicky Bomba, and her husband is John Butler no less), Caruana was originally trained as a classical pianist. To create Beat and Holler she used a collection of unusual instruments, including a vintage Wurlitzer organ, a Nigerian udu drum and a ukulele [like you do – AL]. 

Canberrans will have a chance to see all these instruments in action when Mama Kin joins The Cat Empire on tour this August. Caruana says she is “thrilled” to be supporting the Melbourne six-piece, speaking excitedly about her impending tour and praising Australian audiences.

“Playing live is like you’ve got this Bunsen burner and a beaker and you’re just adding chemical elements and creating a compound,” she says. “You’re creating an energy that hasn’t existed before, because you never play to the same room of people twice, you never play in the same circumstances twice, so every time it’s like being in the middle of a social experiment. It’s not just about the people on stage, it’s not just about the people in the audience – it’s about what happens in the space between those two elements. It’s incredible. I love it, and it frightens me.” 

Mama Kin plays alongside The Cat Empire at the ANU on Sunday August 22. Tickets are $49 + bf from Ticketek. The wonderful Beats and Holler is out now through MGM.

Dappled Cities

For me, the name DAPPLED CITIES evokes Monet’s Rouen Cathedral; a shroud of mist hanging over the rigid lines of architecture and rendering them shimmering, uncertain. “We wanted it to be a pretty image,” Tim from the band explains, over the phone from London on an appropriately rain-soaked Wednesday, “and we also wanted that idea of a cosmopolitan city, of a lot of different things going on and a bit of a patchwork. I guess when we started that’s how we saw ourselves, as a bit of a patchwork of ideas.”

The five Aussie lads who make up Dappled Cities met at the tender age of 14, and conveniently they “all played the exact instruments we needed for a band,” Tim says. Since then, they have released an impressive array of EPs and three full length albums, with the boys living an existence of prolonged adolescence in musical meccas like London and New York. Their most recent album, Zounds, is a layered, opulent specimen of indie rock, which displays both their musical maturity and an ever-present sense of fun.

As evidence of this sense of fun, Tim tells me a bizarre tour story about a party the band attended after closing the South by Southwest festival in Texas. “It was in this mansion with this botoxed woman – I have never seen bigger lips; they were like half the size of her face! She was some kind of oil, radio inheritance woman and we were in this jacuzzi, and there were little kittens there… It wasn’t wild, it was weird,” Tim continues, sounding somewhat bewildered. “It was awkwardly amazing! And I think those are the best bits on tour, when you go and do something that you would never do in your own life.”

This strange story is hardly surprising, coming from the lads who wore suits made from light bulbs for their music video for The Price, and who donned skin-tight gold jumpsuits at St Jerome’s Laneway Festival earlier this year. But while he agrees that “you’ve gotta make it a bit theatrical,” Tim insists the group isn’t as over the top as some of their influences, such as Pink Floyd and David Bowie. “We’re definitely really inspired by the way that they don’t limit themselves to a certain sound. If they want to put on a synthesised trumpet solo on a song, then that’s what they do. You’ve just gotta do whatever you feel is right at the time and whatever is fun.”

Dappled Cities will return to their home country this winter as part of their world tour, accompanied by Brisbane’s John Steel Singers. Unfortunately the light bulb suits got ruined on their travels, but Tim assures me there will be lasers and all kinds of entertaining shenanigans. When I ask him what audiences can expect he replies, deadpan, “absolute beauty and the best night of your life.”

Be sure to catch Dappled Cities at the ANU Bar, with the John Steel Singers in tow, on Thursday June 24. Tickets through Ticketek.

Earth Connections

The new exhibition at Belconnen Arts Centre, Earth Connections - timed to coincide with the six month anniversary of the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit - explores the role the arts can play in environmental education.

“At Copenhagen there was a pretty strong acceptance right around the world that climate change is real, but that it is a mammoth task to re-orient government and industrial systems to make the necessary changes,” program manager Christine Watson tells me. “In Western society we have this heritage of this idea of domination of the earth by humankind, and that humankind has that right to dominate other species. We still need to examine our relationship with the earth to make sure that our carbon footprints, and the consumption of material goods that creates those carbon footprints, doesn’t overtax the earth.”

The exhibition will feature the work of sixteen Canberra artists in total, some created from extraordinary mediums, such as Nancy Tingey’s forms created with woven grass seed heads, and Nicolette Benjamin Black’s pieces made from processed Patterson’s Curse, Scotch thistles and discarded computer cables.

Some of the works in the exhibition deal directly with the issue of climate change. Jorg Schmeisser’s etchings, for example, depict the breaking up of an iceberg in Antarctica, and Rosina Wainwright’s wooden planes raise the question of food miles and the consumption of energy and petrochemicals that are associated with the practice.

The Indigenous connection with the earth is an important theme within the exhibition, with the works of Karen Williams, Heather Burness and Frank Thirion all exploring this topic. Both Williams and Thirion were taught by Aboriginal elders in order to gain perspective for their work.

The opening of the exhibition will feature projections on the exterior of the Belconnen Arts Centre by the ANU BEAM artists, who incorporate video, animation and still images into their work. For the kids, there is a children’s trail through the exhibition and a children’s book which was presented to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to take to the Copenhagen Summit. There will be an opportunity for visitors to meet the artists on Saturday June 5, and an environmentally-friendly art market will be held on June 12, with local artists exhibiting plant-dyed eco-printed textiles, prints on recycled paper, jewellery made from recycled materials and low-fired pottery.

Earth Connections attempts, through exhibited works and community engagement, to deal more broadly with the human relationship with the environment and the splendour of nature. Works such as Eugenie Keefer Bell’s breathtaking photographs of skies viewed from a plane and ice formations in Finland, and Frank Thirion’s explorations of the mysterious aspects of the heavens. “A number of works in the show talk about that innate knowledge we have that the world we inhabit is an amazing place that’s bigger than our frail individual selves,” Watson says.

Earth Connections opens at Belconnen Arts Centre Friday May 28 and runs til June 20.

The Aston Shuffle

Normally you’d associate dance music with fun, frivolous things like fluoro and flashing lights and mind altering substances, right? But it’s actually a very serious subject – and this is evidenced by my very earnest discussion with Vance from THE ASTON SHUFFLE about the resurgence of The Eurythmics’ Sweet Dreams.

“There are certain records that are just insta-vibe tracks no matter where you go around the world, and Sweet Dreams is one of them,” Vance informs me. “There are certain songs and certain bands that everyone pretty much holds close to their heart, regardless of what sort of music you’re into.” So is that why all the DJs seem to be playing it at the moment? I enquire. Do you just whip out some synth when the crowd is a little lukewarm? “It’s not a matter of ‘oh, the crowd’s a little bit dead, let’s just pull out the get-out-of-jail-free card’ – it’s a little bit more subtle than that,” he insists. “But there’s always going to be dance floor weapons, especially at festivals, because at festivals you really do want to go for the jugular.”

The Aston Shuffle will be going for our jugulars at the All Our Friends music festival, alongside international dance music giants like Laidback Luke, Steve Aoki and Felix Da Housecat. Intimidated much? “I think we’re gonna try not to be too scared about playing alongside the heroes of the moment,” Vance says. “Being able to see all these people and meet them and hang out with them is really rewarding. They’ve got huge fanbases in Australia, and trying to stand up next to those guys and not screw up could be a challenge.”

Despite their modesty, you might call Vance and Mikah Shuffle nu-rave heroes themselves. The Canberra lads (yes, that’s right!) smashed onto the scene in 2007 when their single For Everyone reached the top of the ARIA charts, followed by their heady, bass-driven remix of Pnau’s Baby. Since then, they’ve supported the likes of Justice, Digitalism and Claude von Stroke, as well as mixing several CDs for Ministry of Sound.

“It’s so easy to sit back and think ‘I’ve achieved a baseline level of success, therefore I can be lazy,’” Vance says. “We’re constantly trying not to fall into that complacency trap.” Indeed, this DJ/producer extraordinaire insists there’s always something to be learned from his colleagues and competitors, declaring that “every DJ’s got a different story to tell.”

“Overall when it comes to writing a song, I think our aim is to make something that’s very musically strong and means something to people, as opposed to something that’s sort of disposable and throw away,” he says, when asked about their forthcoming album. “We might test a few new tracks [at All Our Friends]. We’re excited to finally get this music out there, because we’ve been living with these songs for a long time.”

Catch The Aston Shuffle at All Our Friends, held at the UC Refectory on Saturday June 5. Tickets through Qjump.

Urthboy

The first thing I notice about URTHBOY is the way he talks. His voice is strangely devoid of the Aussie hip-hop accent, with its lilting rhythm and homogenised vowels. Still, it’s clear that he’s a wordsmith because he selects his words very carefully, often pausing for thought mid-sentence. An MC with Australian rap royalty The Herd, Urthboy released his second solo album, Spitshine, in August last year. He scored himself a nomination for the Australian Music Prize as a result, and due to popular demand he’s about to embark on his second tour for the album, ‘The Sneakquel Tour.’

“We wanted a new challenge and we wanted to make music that didn’t copy what was going on overseas, didn’t copy what was going on here, just tried to have its own identity,” Urthboy says of his new album. “I think everybody has some kind of gift at communicating an idea, and I think that sometimes the most potent messages come from the weirdest places.”

Spitshine certainly packs a punch, featuring Urthboy’s characteristic catchy beats and sophisticated linguistics, overlaid with what he calls a “colder veneer” than his 2007 album The Signal. With guest appearances from artists such as Lior, Solo from Horrorshow and long-time collaborator Jane Tyrrell, Urthboy’s sophomore album is mature and impressively diverse.

The man himself has anything but a cold veneer, however, playfully ribbing me for asking an unintelligible question and regurgitating it back to me in a jumble of indecipherable sounds. It’s clear that he doesn’t take himself too seriously, either; when I enquire as to the origins of his stage name, he immediately responds, “oh boring, boring, boring story. It’s seriously the most boring story in history. Instead of never-ending story it’s just never-ending boredom,” before finally revealing that it’s derived from a Hotmail email account he created when he was a teenager. “I probably even wrote ‘Urthboy’ spelling it properly and somebody already had it, I can’t remember!” he confesses.

Intrigued by its absence, I enquire about the Aussie hip-hop accent and he laughingly insists I give him “an example” by talking like a rapper before he will answer the question (listening to the recording is MORTIFYING). “It’s a cultural thing in some respects,” he says. “You listen to hip-hop music and you follow all the people that are involved in it and the slang, and it becomes something that creeps its way into the way you talk sometimes,” and funnily enough, the undulating hip-hop rhythms have indeed edged into his voice as he answers.

“There’s no well-trodden path for hip-hop overseas,” Urthboy says, when I ask what the future holds for this uniquely Australian genre. “We’re doing something that’s very untraditional and unconventional, so the challenge is much greater for us. It’s much more daunting, but much more exciting.” Well, you can say that again sir, in whatever accent you like!

Urthboy will play a show at the ANU Bar on Friday May 14. Tickets through Oztix and Ticketek.

Eleventh Commandment

The Dead Weather

“Can you just put Jack White on the phone?” is a question I am not going to ask Dean Fertita of THE DEAD WEATHER (even though I desperately want to). In fact, I have a whole lot of questions I am not going to ask, because frankly you have to keep a tight rein on yourself when you love a band so much you’d name your first born after their drummer. But it’s hard to think of an original topic to raise with a supergroup featuring Jack White of The White Stripes and The Raconteurs, Alison Mosshart from The Kills, Jack Lawrence from The Raconteurs and Dean Fertita from Queens of the Stone Age – with collectively more than 50 years in the music industry, I can’t help but feel they’ve been there, done it all before.

In terms of the music, though, this couldn’t be further from the truth. “The exciting thing about The Dead Weather is that we felt like we we’re doing something new,” Fertita tells me, on the phone all the way from Detroit, Michigan. “I think there’s inevitable influence from everything we’ve done, but unless we were doing something we felt was new and exciting I don’t think we would have been as interested.”

The band got together somewhat spontaneously when The Kills were opening for The Raconteurs on their US tour. “I came down to see the last couple of Raconteurs shows,” Fertita explains. “After the show I was going to go stay with Jack [White] for a couple of days, and Alison ended up coming up as well, and little Jack [Lawrence] was in Nashville too, so it ended up becoming a recording session the next day. We thought it was going to be a 45 and it turned into a record, so it was a pretty good day.”

A pretty good day turned into a year-long world tour and a second record, which is due out in April. The band is still finalising the details, but Fertita divulges that the first single is likely to be Die By the Drop, and the second entitled Blue Blood Blues.

There’s so much mystery surrounding this supergroup that whenever Fertita actually tells me something I feel like he’s just flicked a coin to a beggar (yes, I am the beggar in this scenario). I ask, for example, what inspired the name ‘The Dead Weather,’ and Fertita replies, “we can’t actually remember! In the recording process names would just show up one day and leave the next, and this one kind of stuck around for a little bit. It just has a mood similar to what we’re doing and seemed to fit.”

It certainly does seem to fit, with the band’s first album, Horehound, a menacing mix of swaggering blues riffs, rock drumming and eerie organ melodies delivered through blown-out speakers. Lines like “I’ve done some bad things/and they get easier to do” delivered in Mosshart’s low, coital growl are enough to make you shiver, and White’s distinctive vocals have the spine-chilling timbre of fingernails on a blackboard.

Still, I am suspicious of this alleged ‘not remembering,’ since Fertita admits that the band intentionally cultivates an aura of mystery. “It’s such an information age – everybody wants to know every detail about everything,” he says. “I think letting people decide for themselves what the music means to them is a cool thing. I listen to a lot of ‘60s and ‘70s rock music, and during that time there was a lot of mystery surrounding the bands. I remember just looking at album covers and wanting to know things about them that I could never find out. It made you feel more curious; it made you feel driven to be closer to it.”

The mythology surrounding The Dead Weather is amplified by the media coverage that invariably follows the band. Jack White is married to flame-haired supermodel Karen Elson (whom he secretly wed in a Brazilian rainforest), and there are rumours of an ongoing feud between Alison Mosshart and Kate Moss, who is dating Mosshart’s bandmate from The Kills, Jamie Hince.

I try to dig up a bit of celebrity gossip myself, confessing my ladycrush on Alison Mosshart in what I hope will be a tit-for-tat, caring-and-sharing kind of thing. So, Dean, is there any sexual tension in The Dead Weather? He laughs for a good minute or so and then says, “no, Alison’s a sister to us,” before adding, as if to make me feel better, “but a very beautiful one. I don’t blame anybody for having a huge crush on Alison.”

Fertita will admit that there is, however, a different kind of tension in the band. “We push each other and challenge each other so much that it’s kind of a volatile mix, in a good way,” he says. “Everybody tries so hard to give something to this project that we’re really pushing ourselves the whole time, and that creates this weird tension. I think that’s what makes us exciting.”

Exciting is the word, and with less than a minute to go, there are so many more questions I want to ask – Is Jack White really a vampire? Where does Alison buy her jeans? Will you be my Facebook friend? – but even if he was willing to answer those questions, I’m not sure I’d really want him to. As Fertita said himself, “that’s the interesting part – not knowing – right?”

You’d be mad NOT to catch The Dead Weather at the ANU Bar on Thursday March 25. Tickets through Ticketek.

Party by Jake

Rubycon

Flipart

The Bluffhearts

Julia and the Deep Sea Sirens

Clare Bowditch

After a long but (let’s be honest) entertaining day watching the Liberal party back-stab each other, I’m looking forward to a respite from policy talks with a lighthearted chat to CLARE BOWDITCH. She’s headlining Corinbank in February, a local music festival which is only three years young and incorporates camping, workshops, yoga, performance, visual art and, of course, a bunch of rad bands. Musicians are chosen in keeping with Corinbank’s policies of showcasing 50 percent local talent, sustainability and respect for the environment, and a commitment to reconciliation. Ash Grunwald, You Am I and Urthboy are just a few of the acts audiences will be treated to this year.

So I was silly to think my interview with Ms Bowditch wouldn’t be about politics. An ambassador for Reconciliation Australia and a volunteer for Oxfam’s ‘Closing the Gap,’ Clare tells me, “I’ve always had that old idea that the personal and political are intimately entwined,” and her new song The Start of War is a bold enquiry into the state of the modern world. “The song popped itself into my head and I wanted it to go away because it was too difficult really, the question was too big. It got me thinking about these impossible questions of who started war and how do we forgive each other – how do we let go of revenge?”

Clare recorded most of the album in Berlin at the legendary Hansa studios, saying of The Start of War, “it kind of followed me to Berlin – I put 13 backing tracks to it and somehow it started to make more sense to me.” I ask her whether she feels she’s taking a risk in dealing with such topical issues, and she responds emphatically, “yes, absolutely. I’m happy to take that risk and I’ll continue to take that risk, more so in this next album than ever before.”

It’s unusual and refreshing to talk to a musician who has that 1960s perspective on songwriting – music as a mechanism for social commentary and hopefully, a catalyst for change, rather than simply a route to fame and adulation. We tend to think of politicians and lawyers as having ‘real jobs,’ when musicians often have a much clearer and more genuine voice on important issues. Clare confesses that when she was growing up, she initially wanted to be a writer. “I thought music was too much of an easy choice in a way, because I enjoyed it so much. It’s not logical in a kind of world way where you go, okay, so we muck around when we’re young and then we become more subdued and settle down and start making money. I actually think the majority of women become less and less conservative as they get older.”

A fulltime mother as well as fulltime musician, Clare has her hands full looking after identical two-year-old twins Oscar and Elijah, and daughter Asha, aged six. Her partner, Marty Brown, is the drummer in her band, and between the two of them they manage to balance their family life with constant touring and recording. “We’ve had to find a way to make it work and we’ve had to make some unconventional choices,” she tells me. “As long as the kids are into it, we’re into it, and when they’re not, I get a job at a supermarket. Which I’d be happy to do.”

Having toured Australia for seven years, Clare is no stranger to the festival scene, and recently performed at triple j’s Paul Kelly tribute concert, ‘Before Too Long.’ “The level of nerves was extraordinary – I’ve never actually seen anything like it,” she says. “Bob Evans threw up beforehand. Everyone was literally shitting themselves.” While she says that the experience was “totally awesome, of course!” she also loves the smaller, folksy festivals, like Corinbank, because “the people you meet there are extraordinary. If you’re going to choose to become an artist in Australia it’s quite a radical decision because it’s not easy to make your living. I commend anyone who makes that decision.”

Clare aptly says that in today’s world “there’s a lot of pressure on human beings to be more than human,” but she seems very philosophical and content with her own existence. We get to talking about New Year’s resolutions and she says that she doesn’t believe in them, because “the smartest way to start anything is not to wait until the new year, or Monday, or any obligatory start date.”

Ahh, she’s so wise and I’m thinking exactly what she says next: “thank god for people who push our buttons and push us beyond where we’re comfortable, because surely that’s got to be the most exciting part about creativity and about the times we live in – that we’ve got the right to have an opinion.” Clare’s not talking about herself, of course, but personally I think it applies. “Anyone who’s seen my live shows knows that it’s absolutely one third comedy,” she tells me. “It needs to be, because otherwise how else do we deal with this massive question of living life in the times that we live in?” Well, if you need a bit of a laugh just look at the state of the Australian Parliament. Somehow, Clare says it all better than any politician I’ve ever heard, stressing that “there are a lot of things that need talking about.”

Clare will play at the Corinbank Festival, which will be held from Friday-Sunday February 26-28. Tickets through Greentix.

Mihirangi

Corrina Steel

When I think of blues music, I imagine the low growl of John Lee Hooker, the meandering bass lines of Muddy Waters or the primal howl of Jack White. So CORRINA STEEL, polite and articulate, with porcelain skin and an enviable mane of dark hair, seems an unlikely candidate to be churning out this raw, gritty music which sprang up amongst the poverty of America's Deep South.

But Ms Steel is not to be underestimated. With ten years in the industry and two albums already under her belt, her forthcoming album, A Fling with the King, is a force to be reckoned with. She captures all the swagger of traditional blues with a distinct Australian twist, a touch of her country roots and, refreshingly, a woman's perspective. I ask her what it's like being a beautiful woman in such a male-dominated genre. "The music world is a man's world, no doubt," she tells me. "But I'm just like 'oh yeah, whatever boys.' I've never let anything like that hold me back from doing what I wanted, that's for sure."

Corrina penned her latest album on a cattle station in rural New South Wales. "The landscape in Mississippi is not unlike Australia," she says, and she's speaking from personal experience, having visited the delta to take slide guitar lessons from legendary bluesman Kenny Brown. "He was pretty keen to turn me into a really mean guitar player," Corrina says of Kenny. "He thought I might become really shit hot like Bonnie Raitt. But at this stage in my life, I'm not into being a totally mean guitarist."

She must have already learnt a lot though, both musically and professionally, given her extensive experience in the music industry. "It's a mean industry, there's no doubt," Corrina admits. "People have wanted to work with me and mould me into some sort of sellable thing, whereas I guess they know I mean business now. It has taken me a long time to get to that point though and to gain that sort of respect among my peers." To anyone hoping to enter the music industry, she says "I think the most important thing is perseverance. You just really have to persevere."

Well, Corrina's hard work has definitely paid off, with A Fling with the King revealing itself to be a raw and soulful masterpiece - everything a blues album should be. It's clear that Corrina loves what she does and I can just imagine her sitting on a verandah, playing slide guitar at the age of 85. "The life of a musician is extremely complicated because nothing's certain and you don't know where it's going, or if it's going anywhere at all," she ponders. "But I have to keep doing what keeps me excited, otherwise I'd probably stop. I'm keen to start learning the piano next - there's a lot to do, a lot to learn."

You can catch Corinna's live show for free at the Front Café and Gallery on Wednesday November 25.

Adrian Deutsch

It's the morning of my interview with ADRIAN DEUTSCH, and I'm not in the best of spirits. The previous night saw me stressed and sleepless at the hands of an incredibly boring essay, I have a full working day ahead of me and I'm running on coffee like it's rocket fuel. Boo hoo. Then Adrian answers the phone. "Baby, whatever it is, I'll try to help you."

No, okay, that's a lie (or perhaps a hallucination caused by sleep deprivation). Those are in fact lyrics taken from the title track of Adrian's brand new album, Help You!. A former member of Sydney band Red Riders, Adrian left in early 2008, citing "classic Spinal Tap creative differences" as his reason for going solo.

Amazingly, Adrian's music is exactly like him. So essentially, he could have answered the phone and started spouting sympathetic lyrics down the receiver. Help You! portrays a contentment and wisdom overlaid with a cheerful energy found in wandering bass lines and syncopated piano. It's the kind of music you listen to when you need to cocoon away from the world with a cup of tea - a musical hug, if you will. And Adrian is so nice to me that I do indeed feel like hugging him (hard over the phone, though).

I enquire as to what inspired this philosophical, folk-pop sound. "When I was writing the album, I'd been comparing my everyday existence now, which is very pleasant, with my family history," Adrian tells me. "My grandparents came out of the holocaust in Europe, so I'm the first born in Australia. I was just thinking how awesome my life is, really."

"But aren't you afraid your happiness is going to disappear?!" I ask, unwittingly reflecting my bleak mood. "Yeah, even when you're happy, you can be worried about when you stop being happy!" Adrian says, sounding distinctly... happy. "I guess that's a part of the human condition. I think all we can really hope to achieve is to try and articulate those moments when we are happy and enjoy them for what they are."

I'm not surprised when Adrian says he admires the work of Leonard Cohen, because the two musicians share a poetic, searching tone - what Adrian calls "the pseudo-amateur-philosophical thing I have going on." But although his songs occasionally deal with serious subjects, it's clear Adrian doesn't take himself too seriously. And how could he? He grew up in Canberra just like the rest of us, attending Campbell High and Narrabundah College, before moving to Sydney to pursue fame and fortune. He still says attending 'Bundah was two of the best years of his life and this admission reflects the sense of positivity that Adrian exudes, even over the phone. It's contagious - at the end of the interview I feel so much better. Adrian helped me, so (and I have to do this) let him Help You!

Adrian and Paul Andrews (Lazy Susan) will play a show at the Front Gallery and Café on Saturday November 14. Get there early to ensure a spot on one of the comfy sofas!

The Galvatrons

To be honest, I was a bit sceptical about THE GALVATRONS before I did this interview. Is there a place for OTT '80s rock in today's music industry? I wasn't so sure. To my surprise, however, I got totally glamoured by this glam rock frontman, and listening to the recording I realise that (rather embarrassingly) I spent the entire interview giggling like a school girl. Despite his attempts to convince me that "I'm just a knob on stage really, that's it. I'm a total geek otherwise. I'm a bit of a hermit." - I'm not buying it. Not to imply that he's a knob - but Johnny's hardly the comic-reading uber-nerd he'd have you believe. He's chatty, funny, and very charismatic; everything a rock star (and my future husband) should be.

However, despite his aforementioned good points, two successful EPs and the stuff-of-legends true story that the Galvatrons were signed after only their fourth gig, it's clear that Johnny still has both feet firmly planted on the ground. "I like my rock stars to be rock stars," he tells me, while we're discussing The Galvatrons' larger-than-life on-stage atmosphere. "Like Bowie and Mick Jagger and Freddie Mercury - I love that kind of 'I'm better than you' kind of thing - as long as you leave it on the stage."

When I ask him why he thinks it's 'important' to bring back synth-ridden, '80s cock rock, he says "I dunno if it's important! I don't think it's world changing!" (and now I feel silly for asking that question). "Around 2000 there was a lot of realist music, like music about the everyday, but now people are embracing more theatrical kind of rock stars." As for the synth: "I like the kind of paleo-future vibe. 'Paleo-future' means an outdated version of the future," he informs me, and I sit there nodding enthusiastically. "Like in the '80s if you wanted to set something that was from the future you put a synth line in. I guess it's just more of an atmospheric thing."

Then the conversation turns to sex. I don't quite know how that happens, but I'm okay with it. "If you're in it for sex and drugs, rock 'n' roll is not the answer!" Johnny says. Ah, now I remember - he's telling me about his experiences at Foreshore last year. "Man those electro-dance kids, they know how to put it on! If I could just pass that on to the youth of today - for sex and drugs, don't pick up a guitar, pick up a deck!"

Nonetheless, Johnny maintains that he is very much looking forward to playing Trackside festival this year. "We always have a good crowd at Canberra," he tells me, and, when prompted, I promise I'll be there 'in the front row.' Oh dear. This has been Bridget Jones for BMA, with (more than) a bit of a crush now, actually.

The Galvatrons are a part of the terrific Trackside Festival lineup, taking place at Thoroughbred Park on Saturday November 21. Tickets through Landspeed Records, Ticketek, Moshtix and Oztix.

Favourite Son

"When you know you want to make music, you just can't do anything else. I don't have a choice."

That explains why producer, drummer and DJ Matt Aitchison, aka FAVOURITE SON, has spent most of his life doing just that - making music. He's played drums in a death metal band, produced fifteen albums in genres ranging from world music to relaxation and he spins '80s classics at Galaxy Nightclub every Saturday. And amongst all this, Favourite Son has finally found the time to make an album of his own. The launch party will feature Canberra favourites Tijuana Cartel and is set to go off at the Street Theatre later this month.

Matt's band comprises a horn section, a guitarist (Steve Gray from local act Tonk) and a singer called Supernova Jade (I haven't even seen her yet and already I have a crush). "I think it's really important to put on a show - you've gotta give an experience. That's why I wanted to have it at the Street Theatre," Matt says. "It's not quite the same when you're playing a pub and everyone is drinking and yelling out 'play some Barnesy!'"

Far from the gravelly hard rock of Cold Chisel, Matt and his band peddle luscious, laidback beats; fusing seemingly disparate genres such as funk, old soul, ambient and rock. On first listen, his self-titled album puts me in mind of Groove Armada and Faithless, but he also lists Curtis Mayfield, The Eurythmics and godfather of soul James Brown as influences. Matt doesn't use a computer in his live shows, but switches between keyboards and drumkit. "I have two drum machines for this gig, so I can trigger awesome drum and bass loops," he says. "I figure if it's good enough for U2, it's good enough for me!"

As if this gig wasn't shaping up to be a melting pot of influences already, add to the mix the delicious flamenco/dance fusion of Tijuana Cartel. Hailing from the Gold Coast, the Cartel have packed out Hippo Bar on two occasions, as well as appearing at Woodford and the Blues n Roots festival. Their debut album They Come is an unusual mix of flavours which don't seem to work in theory, but definitely work in practice.

Matt encountered the Cartel after he moved to Byron Bay to focus on his music. "I've done Melbourne and I've seen the New York music scene. But it depends where your soul belongs - that's where you'll write your best music and be most comfortable."

Lucky for us, Matt has decided that his spiritual home is Canberra, which means we'll be treated to a certified unique experience. "I'm really excited to finally be doing this. I've known that I wanted to be a musician since I was nine years old and watched Live Aid on the telly." In that case, what's next after the album launch? "More albums," he replies without hesitation. Ah. Definitely born to do it.

Favourite Son and Tijuana Cartel will play at the Street Theatre on Friday October 23. Tickets available from thestreet.org.au.

TANK

TANK is a series of six short plays about our relationship to water. Promising pirates, puppets, polar bears and Paris Hilton, TANK is presented by Canberra Youth Theatre and will debut at Floriade this year. 

TANK is the brain child of CYT artistic director Pip Buining, and written by Canberra local Hadley, and aims to present relevant and topical issues about water conservation in a fun, quirky fashion. Each of the plays has a distinct and separate story, but they all share characters and, of course, the common theme of water. 

Hadley talked to groups of 7-12 year olds to gain inspiration for the project. "The young people here do express concern about environmental issues," says Pip. "They are interested in having a voice and speaking up about things that concern them. We wanted to create a work that gave them a voice." So does that explain the mysterious references to Martians and meerkats on the TANK posters? "Their sense of theatricality is really present in the types of characters that turn up," Pip agrees.

The story centres around a 'Museum of Water', and a water historian who is the caretaker of the museum. The requisite bad guy is his arch-nemesis 'Gramps', and the six different stories unfold when Gramps' niece and her friend go to visit the museum. To understand how a crazy rat and a fork-on-a-stick weave their way into that theatrical back-drop, well, you'll have to go along and find out.

One of the most exciting things about TANK (besides pirates and crazy rats) is that it's actually staged inside a water tank (because when CYT do a theme, they really do a theme). An intimate portable theatre, the tank seats only six audience members at a time. Pip tells me, "Everyone in there gets direct address; everyone gets a story told to them." The proximity of the audience to the actors is an important element of the performance, and adds to TANK's unique charm.  Hadley agrees: "It's a really cosy space to be in - it's very warm."

The plays will be presented in a cyclical manner, and the small audience capacity means that patrons may have to line up several times if they want to see all six plays. Entertainment will be provided for those waiting in line, however, with a mini-ensemble of 10-13 year-old 'water historians' interacting with the crowd and performing street theatre. Of course, the performances will be free to the public, in line with CYT's policy of 'access and equity' to theatre.

"For some people it might be their first theatrical experience," says Pip. "We hope it will be the first of many".

TANK plays at Floriade, Commonwealth Park, at 10am, 11am and 12 noon on 13, 20, 26 and 27 September & at 2pm, 3pm and 4pm on 12 & 19 September.

Hilltop Hoods / Classified / Briggs

To mosh or not to mosh? That is the question I am faced with as I enter the ANU Bar for the sold out Hilltop Hoods gig. It's set up sensibly for once, meaning that there is a very appealing vantage point from the steps which lead down into the refectory. It's tempting to loiter there so I can actually see, but the mosh is already stewing in front of the stage, arms in the air and bodies writhing to hypnotic hip-hop beats.

We stay on the steps - in the nosebleed section, if you will (I see what you did there! Ed.) - to watch the openers. Canadian supporter Classified is a no-show, so Briggs performs with Vents from Funkoars. They put on a good show, but Hilltop fans are notoriously uninterested in anyone but Hilltop. The crowd is fairly unresponsive and continues to call for the headliners throughout the set.

There's a long break before Hilltop come on, punctuated by the usual cries of "hillllltop, hilllllltop." We use the time to make our way through the crowd towards the stage. Down here, the air is intoxicatingly hot and thick and sweaty. Guys crack open cans of beer and it fizzes and runs down their Southern Cross-tattooed arms. Soon I'm so god damn thirsty that I want to lick it off them. As is typical of a hip-hop gig, the fans are mostly male and people have beanies on despite it being about forty five degrees. There are also couples, middle-agers, girls in heels and freshie guys in fluoro t-shirts - a testament to Hilltop's universal appeal.

When the Hoods finally take the stage, it's worth the wait. They begin with The Return, the first track off State of the Art, and Suffa and Pressure take the stage with their usual captivating bravado. They have the audience on a string - you can't help but jump because the whole crowd lifts you as it moves and all Pressure has to do is say "put your hands up!" and a sea of limbs fills the air. I feel like a butterfly caught in a herd of rhinos. And it's fantastic.

Debris reminds us what an incredible DJ he is; scratching like a superstar and winding the beats faster and faster until the MCs are rhyming double-time to keep up. He fuses old and new Hilltop, does an awesome remix of Classic Example and even throws some Led Zeppelin into the mix. Of course, Messrs Suffa and Pressure take it all in their stride, performing with the polish and confidence that comes from twelve years in the industry. The Hard Road absolutely goes off, as does The Nosebleed Section, with the entire crowd delightedly screaming "BITCH!" at the top of their lungs.

I barely saw a thing once I left the steps, but there ain't nuthin' like a Hilltop mosh pit. It's almost an extreme sport. You're getting knocked about so much you're going to be black and blue, you're high from all the marijuana you're passively smoking, you've lost your friends, your shoes and your dignity, and on top of all that you're crying like a baby because this is your favourite god damn band in the whole entire world. You might be heartbroken. You might have lost your job. None of it matters. You're free.

Grafton Primary / Hey Now DJs / Cassette Kids

How much fun one has at a gig depends upon a wide range of factors. Key 'fun determinants' include factors such as how much one likes the band/s playing, the venue in which they are playing, how long one had to wait in line before entering said venue, how cold the wait in the line was, how much one's friends bitched and whinged about being cold while waiting in the line... you get my point. On some nights - the very best, golden nights - only good things happen. And on rare occasions, only bad things happen (so far, my friends and I have only experienced one of these wretched occasions, and it goes down in our history as 'Black Thursday'). Most outings, however, are a yin-yang mixture of positive and negative events, hopefully ending up weighted towards the good side by the end of the night. The following is my account of the positives and negatives of the Grafton Primary gig. Call it a social experiment if you will. (I wouldn't, though. It's not scientific in the least.)

The night began with pizza and ice cream with one of my best friends (plus). We got glammed-up and set off for Academy and we got in straight away (plus!). However, we soon realised that there was no line because, erm, there was nobody there. Cassette Kids opened to a near-empty club and while lead singer Katrina Noorbergen did her best to get the energy levels up, their self-consciously sparse sound fell somewhat flat on the glittering Acad floor (minus). Is it just me or were you told this gig was sold out? Weird.

Then, just when the funometer needle was swinging towards the negative end of the dial, Hey Now DJs took control of the decks. And can I just say that I LOVE THEM. They reminded us of the joys of some quality '80s synth with Sweet Dreams by The Eurythmics, whipped out some classic dance anthems from Sneaky, Fedde and Armand van Helden, as well as playing Gettin Jiggy Wit It by Will Smith (plus, plus, PLUS). Even Grafton lead singer Josh Garden hit the floor, limbering up with his trademark fluid dancing.

By the time Grafton Primary took to the stage the club was buzzing, but by no means full. I had initially thought Academy was an odd venue for this gig, but the acoustics are fairly fantastic and the larger space and many levels meant that I could actually see. GP's set was FLAWLESS - Josh and Ben were so well-rehearsed that you couldn't even notice their cues. All Stars absolutely went off, of course, as did other tracks from Eon like Records For the Righteous and We Are the Music. During Telling Lies we started talking to some cute guys who were dancing with their backs against the speakers (one of my favourite things to do in the world, if you don't mind the hearing damage), but soon found out that they had only recently turned eighteen and were therefore FAR too young for us (boo, hiss, minussss). However, mad dancing to I Can Cook off the Relativity EP made us forget all about our near-cougar experience. Overall GP played an impressively long and energetic set and Academy's amazing lighting setup complimented them perfectly.

So: venue was great, lighting was great, openers were good and headliners were amazing. On the whole, the night was one big fat plus sign. Kind of like the Red Cross symbol, but not, 'cause if we'd needed the Red Cross that definitely would have been a negative and as we know, a negative is not a positive. Oh dear. Told you I was bad at this science stuff. All I know is that E = MC2 and that's because Grafton Primary told me so.

Tame Impala

This might be naive, but I always assume rock stars will be interesting. They're meant to be charismatic and suave, with the Pied Piper ability to attract hoards of groupies. On top of that, they usually have PR training and heads the size of hot air balloons. (My mum: "Stay away from them, darling. They're all egomaniacs.") 

But there is something strange about Dom Simper of TAME IMPALA. He's not your typical rock star. I feel more like I'm talking to a friend's fourteen year old brother than the bassist for one of Australia's most promising new rock bands. He keeps saying "I don't know" and I feel like any second he may grunt at me. 

An obvious question is about their influences. Tame Impala's new single, Sundown Syndrome, is so infused with '60s rock that you could easily confuse them with Cream or The Doors. When I tell him I think the vocals on Sundown Syndrome sound very Beatles, he seems genuinely pleased, admitting "I'm a Beatles obsessed freak!" I ask if it's difficult to follow in the footsteps of these musical giants. "Not really," replies Dom, "'cause we don't even pretend to be anywhere near as influential or massive as them, it's just kind of the music we grew up with." 

So why did they choose to draw on the past so substantially? "I don't really know. We never really set out to make any particular type of music," Dom offers. "The new stuff doesn't sound quite as '60s as the stuff on the EP, so hopefully it will be a new kind of music." Clearly they intended to draw on the past to some extent, with their version of '90s hit Remember Me by Blueboy set to be released with Sundown Syndrome as a nice little package deal. It might sound like a weird choice of song, but it's a lot like when The Byrds covered Bob Dylan's Mr Tambourine Man - they've made it something completely different. 

Halfway through the interview Dom's still unresponsive and I'm flagging, so I trot out an old faithful - coming from Perth, what does he think about the booming Perth music scene? "I've got no idea to be honest, it's just another town in Australia." Even people who've never BEEN to Perth have an opinion about that one! 

Soooo I resort to asking him if there's anything he'd like to add. "Um, we're going to Japan on Tuesday." Awesome! Tell me more! "We're playing a festival over there called Summer Sonic, and yeah, we're playing on the same day as Beyoncé. How rad's that?" Pretty damn rad. And I was right - definitely like a fourteen year old boy. 

At the end of the day, the music's interesting - amaaaazing - and that's all that matters. Maybe Dom is just a nice, normal person with a normal-sized head. Mum would much prefer I brought him home than Mick Jagger. Even if he does grunt at her. 

Tame Impala roll into town on Friday September 18 for a show at the ANU Bar. Tickets through Ticketek.

Eskimo Joe

"Sorry, I'm eating toast," mumbles ESKIMO JOE frontman Kav, with his mouth full of, erm, toast. "Oh that's so rude, talking with my mouth full!" I don't mind in the least; however I do eye off my own peanut-buttered breakfast, which is going cold on the kitchen counter. Kav has more of an excuse than I do - calling from Perth, where the band hails from, he had to be up two hours earlier than me!

The distant city of Perth has become known as something of an Australian band breeding ground, with groups such as Little Birdy, the Waifs, John Butler Trio and The Panics calling the west coast home. Eskimo Joe, however, have truly transcended the Australian music scene: their second album, A Song Is a City, was certified double platinum, and their 2006 album, Black Fingernails, Red Wine, reached four times platinum. This success was followed by extensive international touring and the inspiration for the title of their new album, Inshalla, was gleaned in a coffee shop in Egypt.

Loosely translated, 'inshalla' means 'god willing.' So what does that say about the album as a whole? "There's a lot more hope on this record," Kav tells me. "On our last two records I think I was descending into a winter of my discontent or something, and we tried to write a couple of songs from that old place, but it seemed inauthentic. But happy is a scary place to write from." A lot of artists seem to say that and I'm intrigued - why is that? "For some reason it's easier to talk about painful things in a public forum. To do it [write from a happy place] and not sound cheesy is hard. Not end up sounding like a Ben Lee record, you know?" Far from 'god willing,' to that I say 'god forbid!'

There are, however, some darker elements on the album, with parts of their single Foreign Land inspired by Heath Ledger's untimely death. The band was in New York as part of the G'Day USA promotion at the time Ledger's body was found, and the line 'I smell the blood of an Australian' refers to his death. "Foreign Land is basically about the fact that no one wants to die alone," says Kav.

In light of this, I ask Kav what advice he would give to Aussie bands trying to make it overseas. "I guess just try and have fun together, and make jokes in a positive way, not a dark, sarcastic way. The humour you throw back and forth will get you through those dark times." Kav also says it's important to keep things in perspective, because "even though you're big in one country you could be nothing in another."

In my opinion, however, whether a band has truly 'made it' can be gauged by one thing: whether they have a pseudonym. And Eskimo Joe do indeed have one, going by the name 'The Andy Callison Project' when they want to test-drive new material or have a low-key practice in front of a crowd. The only problem being that nowadays most Eskimo Joe fans know exactly who The Andy Callison Project really is (ha, and even more people will once this article is published). "Yeah, now everybody knows the bloody name!" complains Kav, not sounding at all distressed (and actually alarmingly cheerful for 7am!). "We'll rock up to a gig and there'll be a full house, and it's like 'I thought it was meant to be a secret gig, man!'"

Of course, Eskimo Joe have been packing out gigs under their official name for many years, playing to around 45,000 people at the Australian leg of Live Earth in 2007, and also performing this year at the Sound Relief concert for victims of the Victorian bushfire crisis and the Queensland floods. I ask him whether he sees charity work and being politically outspoken, Bob Dylan-style, as duties which arise from being a successful musician and public figure. "We should do more charity stuff," he says several times. As for writing about political and current issues, he admits, "I'm personally really bad at it. I don't write about the outer politics - I find the inner politics way more fascinating. I don't know if we're wankers but we don't really care enough. We're more focussed on the smaller details, like having our shit together enough to play a gig." But then he says again, "we should do more charity stuff," and it's clear that he does care, even if he doesn't write about it.

Eskimo Joe are also old favourites of the Big Day Out festival, having played there several times since the band was formed in 1997. I'll never forget seeing them at Sydney Big Day Out in 2005, wearing khaki wife-beaters and mirrored aviators... let's just say it was hot, and not only because it was the middle of summer (insert winky-face here). I ask Kav if we can expect more exciting costumes on the upcoming Inshalla tour. "Nah, we're letting loose a bit more this time around. I think we've been around for long enough, we don't have to rely on gimmicks." I'm quite disappointed, but then he adds, "hopefully people will still like us." They may not have costumes, but with a new record as captivating as Inshalla and a back-catalogue of hits spanning twelve years, how could we not?

Eskimo Joe will hit up the ANU Bar on Saturday August 1. Get your tickets through Ticketek.

Augie March

"I make up words occasionally," confesses Dave Williams, drummer for quirky Australian rock band AUGIE MARCH. "I do all the backing vocals for the band and occasionally in rehearsal Glenn will say 'don't tell me you've been singing that for the last ten years!'" Now I don't feel so bad, having muddled through Augie March's songs with some disgraceful mumbling myself. He goes on, unashamed, "sometimes the words are too hard to pronounce so I just make up another one."

Augie March are known for their beautiful, imaginative and emotive lyrics, which, as Dave says, could pass for poetry. Their 2006 album Moo, You Bloody Choir received four ARIA nominations, won the Australian Music Prize in 2007 and the only single from the album, One Crowded Hour, topped triple j's Hottest 100 in 2007.

The importance of lyricism to Augie March's music is evident in the title of their upcoming tour, 'Watch Me Set My Strange Sun You Bloody Choir'. This strange tongue-twister is a mish-mash of the titles of their four LPs, the most recent of which, Watch Me Disappear, was released last year through Sony. The tour will showcase songs from the entirety of the band's twelve year history, but never fear - it's not a farewell tour. Dave assures me there's still more to come from Augie March. "It's something a lot of fans have been asking for for a long time, featuring songs from most of the records and kind of b-sides if you will; album tracks which don't get an airing. We're trying to be nice to people!"

Speaking of nice, I ask Dave what we can expect from Augie March on this tour, as they are known for being somewhat volatile. Lead singer and songwriter Glenn Richards is particularly notorious for getting, erm, cross when things don't go as planned. "Well, there's me who loves talking all the time, and there's Glenn out the front who has a bit of a yak, and occasionally he'll get angry at something and go berserk but then he'll be happy the next song, and then there's Kiernan who doesn't say anything, and then there's Ed who looks like he's going to murder people, and then there's Dono who has his back to the audience for most of the night." Well. I guess that's all we need to know.

Dave adds that Augie March live are "sublime and sort of ridiculous," and I compliment him on his chosen adjectives. He admits that the band can be somewhat inconsistent, but "every night is different, it's not a cookie cutter band. When someone in the band is feeling a different way it really does affect the music. It's a very real band in that sense." In response to those people who allege that Augie March aren't as dynamic on stage as they are in the studio, he quips "they got us on a night where we were ridiculous instead of sublime."

The band recorded their fourth album, Watch Me Disappear, in Neil Finn's studios in New Zealand, teaming up with American producer Joe Chiccarelli, who has also worked with The Shins, White Stripes and My Morning Jacket. So what was recording like? "It's kind of like running at each other with knives," he says. I am shocked that such tranquil music is born of such a violent process. "Thankfully we can put all that away and then have a drink, but not have too many, 'cause then we start arguing again."

Dave's sense of humour is drier than dry, just like country Victoria where the band hails from. He brings up the band's origins when I ask whether he feels that Augie March's lyrics are bringing poetry to the masses. "Well I'm sure Glenn gets up in the morning and has a shower and looks at himself in the mirror and says 'g'day poet' (there's that dry sense of humour again). "But it's not about 'we're doing a service bringing, you know, culture to Australia,' not at all. We grew up in country Victoria before the internet. We had one AM radio station. It's not in the least bit elite."

That said, it's clear that Augie March are greatly influenced by literature and poetry. Their name is taken from Saul Bellow's 1953 novel The Adventures of Augie March, their 2002 album Strange Bird featured an index of first lines, in the style of a poetry anthology, and songwriter Glenn Richards has cited poets Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath and Robert Lowell as influences.

I ask Dave what he thinks of other modern lyricists. Does he like Alex Turner of the Arctic Monkeys? Yes. What about Lily Allen? No. He's eager to point out that Augie March's music requires a balance of execution between music and lyrics and cites Maneater by Nelly Furtado as a song he appreciates musically, but which is "not a wonderful insight into the human condition."

At that moment the Sony rep pops onto the line telling us to finish the call. "WRAP IT UP!" Dave jokingly shouts down the line and so I do, with one final question: what will you be voting for in triple j's Hottest 100 of All Time? "Back in Black," he replies, after a short pause. Not at all what I would have expected from a member of this sensitive, soulful band, but a good choice nonetheless. If he'd chosen Maneater I'd be worried.

Augie March with special guests Gareth Liddiard and Dan Luscombe (The Drones) play the ANU Bar on Saturday July 18. Tickets through Ticketek.

Karnivool Sound Awake

Four years in the making, Karnivool’s new album will be one hell of a surprise for heavy metal fans and sate the appetite for those hungry for more ‘Vool. The first half is the usual mix of viciously angry mosh and dark emotional ballads set to earblowing acoustics. But it’s from track eight onwards that the CD starts going crazy like the MC Escher staircase at Hogwarts. The Cardinal Lure starts like The Phantom of the Opera on acid. Deadman combines Ian Kenny’s melodies with some smashing ear-splitting riffs. The highlight for ‘Vool fans has to be the remix of Change.

Pony Up!

PONY UP! are an all-girl band out of Montreal whose quirky and raw folk-pop sound and confessional lyricism had them at number 47 in 2007’s H100 with their song The Truth About Cats and Dogs (Is That They Die). Their new album, Stay Gold, was released on May 30 through independent label Laughing Outlaw.

The album is therefore aptly titled, a reference to the 1980s cult film The Outsiders. A character named Pony Boy recites Nothing Gold Can Stay, a Robert Frost poem, the gist of which is what? “Don’t let the hard world get you down,” band member Lisa  tells me – good advice for anyone, particularly struggling musicians in today’s economic climate.

Stay Gold is more of the galloping drum beats, jangly guitar and unprocessed vocals we loved on their 2006 album, Make Love to the Judges With Your Eyes, except that this time they worked with a producer rather than just an engineer. And not just any old producer – Murray Lightburn from The Dears! “We really needed somebody to say to us ‘play that guitar ‘til it fucking shines’ and Murray’s a bit of a slave driver, so it worked out well. Plus we all really admire him, of course.” Apparently the feeling is mutual, with Murray asking Lisa and Laura from Pony Up! to join The Dears on tour last year.

Lisa cites Texan band Okkervil River as a major influence on Stay Gold (apparently vocalist Laura used to have a “massive crush” on a member). Indeed, there are many similarities between the two bands’ styles: they both feature meandering guitar parts, pitchy vocals and both have a penchant for prominent keyboard. However Pony Up! has a more childlike quality to their music, with uplifting, building chord progressions and soaring, layered vocals which make you feel like you’re ascending a steep hill towards sunrise. This sweet, optimistic quality is particularly evident in their new song A Crutch or a Cradle – one of my new faves. So did Laura and the guy from Okkervil River ever get together?, I ask excitedly. “No, she has real love now,” Lisa laughs. “She doesn’t need fictional love!”

Well, Lisa’s calling card is about to run out, but I have one last question: what’s this I’ve heard about a secret band handshake? There isn’t one! “But you can pretend like there is,” Lisa says. Cheeky. As a consolation she tells me about the ‘Coconut Club House’, a pantry off their kitchen too small to stand up in, which band members Laura and Lindsay decorated with a tropical theme and used to write songs in. How old were they when they did this? “That’s exactly what my boyfriend asked me when I told him that story!” Lisa cries, then says somewhat sheepishly, “They were like, twenty!”

Pony Up! will gallop into town on Wednesday June 17 to play with The Devoted Few at ANU Bar. Doors at 8:30pm, tix through Ticketek.

Funkoars

“Yeah, my mum doesn’t really appreciate it!” I’m chatting to DJ Reflux from Adelaide hip-hop group FUNKOARS and I’ve just asked him what the ladies in his life think about some of their more, ahem, offensive lyrics – particularly those about who he calls the “not-so-gifted women in the world” (that’s putting it mildly). “But when we sing The Greatest Hit (off their 2006 album, The Greatest Hits) it’s all chicks in the front row singing along. I guess they all think ‘it can’t be about me!’”

He makes me laugh, this one, talking with a curious mix of a lilting Aussie hip-hop accent and eloquent, educated language (he said ‘conglomerate’ at one point – I rest my case!). I’m assured, however, that their new album, The Hangover, which dropped in November last year, is much less likely to offend our mothers.

“What about Black Sally?” I ask, referring to the first single off The Hangover, which has received copious amounts of airplay on triple j. Is that about an ex-girlfriend of one of the Funkoars? “It’s actually about alcohol,” he replies, and I feel foolish. Here I’d been wishing that someone would write a song like that about me (guess I’m not quite as potent as a bottle of JD). “We have made songs about ex-girlfriends, but they haven’t left the studio!”

Black Sally is a powerful combination of the usual finely-crafted, witty Funkoars lyrics and a casually rhythmic backing track which reminds me of a scratched record catching as it spins – Reflux describes it as a “head-knotting groove.” It’s taken from the Human Instinct track of the same name, with Maurice Greer of Human Instinct even appearing in the video. While it’s a bit slower than usual Funkoars – and possibly a bit of an odd cocktail, mixing psych-rock with Aussie hip-hop – after the guys heard it they couldn’t resist. “We looked at more rock-based stuff for this album, with more guitars,” Reflux admits. “It’s designed to really come across live. We felt like we’d already done funk to the nth degree.”

Funkoars are touring with Phrase, out of Melbourne, who has recently received acclaim for his new album Clockwork, so it should be quite a nice package deal! “If it’s a massive crowd, our performance goes up tenfold,” Reflux promises, so we’d better all haul-ass out there. It does sound like fun, with talk of ridiculous props, video camera footage and, of course, dirty jokes. “We might put Hons in a full-body condom – five dollars a lick!” Reflux laughs wickedly. Was he joking? Guess you’ll have to come along and find out. But I know I’d fork out a fiver for that.

Make sure to bring your homies to the ANU Bar on Thursday June 25 to catch Funkoars, Phrase and DJ Flagrant. Tix through Ticketek.