Carl Newman of The New Pornographers: “We’re a supergroup; that’s just the way it is”

September 1, 2014April 24, 2015 / Paul McBride / Leave a comment

WITH their new album Brill Bruisers, The New Pornographers are keen to celebrate their return after a four year absence, says frontman and songwriter Carl Newman.

“With this record, I just wanted to make a rock and roll record, or what I thought was a rock and roll record,” he says. “It was fun to do because it was the first record [on which] we ever used a vocoder and we’d never used arpeggiators very much; it was fun to try all those things. It happened that all the songs I was writing lent themselves to that kind of arrangement, so it all worked out. It’s scary and exciting to know that a lot of people are going to be hearing it, but I feel confident in it.”

Four years may seem like a long time between albums, but Newman hasn’t been idle.

“I put out a solo album in there, so that took up some time,” he says. “I also had a kid; I’ve got a two-and-a-half year-old son. Kids take up a lot of time, and time just flies, you know? Sometimes you don’t even notice that it’s been four years between albums. I knew my solo record should be a lot more subdued. I wanted it to be a lot more singer-songwriter; a lot more personal.”

The Canadian eight-piece – featuring Neko Case and Destroyer frontman Dan Bejar, among others – are often labelled a supergroup; something Newman doesn’t take too seriously.

“It’s definitely a bit of fun,” he says. “People called us a supergroup when we began, and we weren’t a supergroup. Now I look at us and I think ‘sure, we’re a supergroup’. Why not, you know? I don’t fight it; I’ve just accepted it. Now, I think if we’re a supergroup, we’re a supergroup; that’s just the way it is.”

With eight members involved in their own separate projects, Newman admits it can be hard to bring them all together come tour time, but the end result is worth it.

“It’s an endless hassle,” he says. “It always has been, but it’s just the way it is. There’s nothing we can do about it. Its the weird part of our band. It’s our greatest strength and our greatest weakness, you know? [Touring] is fun to come back to. When we played a few songs recently it made me think ‘wow, we’re a good band’. I forgot we’re a good band. We’ve done about four of the new songs live, and that’s been very cool. In this day and age you don’t want to play all of your songs too early because then they all end up on the Internet. The new songs feel like they belong in our set; they don’t feel weird. [They went down] well, which is always a good sign. Sometimes when you play new songs people are looking at each other like ‘when are they going to stop playing new songs and play the old songs?’. But I feel like they fit in very seamlessly.”

So, will Australia be featuring on the Pornographers’ tour schedule any time soon?

“We want to [visit] but it won’t be until next year,” he says. “We’ll have to figure it out. It’s hard; there’s not enough time in the world to play everywhere you want to play, but I think well definitely get there next year. We’ve always loved playing in Australia, so I’m looking forward to it. The most exciting thing that ever happened was the first time we played in Sydney in 2006, and Dave Faulkner from the Hoodoo Gurus was at our show in Sydney. We met him and I remember we were really excited because we were massive Hoodoo Gurus fans. That really jumped out as an exciting thing to have happen the first time we went to Australia – to have one of our favorite Australian musicians be there.”

BRILL BRUISERS IS OUT NOW.

For Beat

Live review: Bob Dylan – The Tivoli, Brisbane – 27/8/14

August 29, 2014 / Paul McBride / 4 Comments

TWO days spent listening to gushing reviews from the mouths of fans who had attended the Convention Centre show on Monday confirmed several things.

One: Dylan has still ‘got it’. Two: anyone expecting the ‘hits’ is going to be disappointed. Three: you’d better get there early if you want to get within a kilometre of the exalted one for a performance billed as a “once in a lifetime show”.

It was this last point that became particularly apparent as the line of people outside the Tivoli had already snaked so far around the block that it had almost arrived back at the front of the venue itself by the time the doors opened at 7pm. Anticipation was thick in the air inside the packed 1500-capacity venue, but when Dylan and his band sauntered on stage at exactly 8pm, the atmosphere was less rock show, more warm and cosy lounge gig.

It’s no secret that Dylan has spent much of his career trying to pop the bubble of high reverence in which he’s been placed by his adoring public, and this show served up yet more evidence of that. Partially hidden from the start behind his four microphones and under a simple four-light setup that can only be described as being darker than a coal miner’s depression, the man and his band were the epitome of non-showmanship throughout, save for a few grins and cheeky taps of the foot from time to time.

The first half of the set, comprising the first nine songs, was identical to that of the Convention Centre gig, with ‘Things Have Changed’ opening, followed by ‘She Belongs To Me’ and ‘Beyond Here Lies Nothin”. Unusually for a gig at the Tivoli (or anywhere) the standing audience, to a man, politely took their spots without pushing or jostling for a better position – this crowd knew it was lucky to be here at all, slightly-obscured view or not.

‘Duquesne Whistle’ was a stomping early highlight, as was ‘Tangled Up In Blue’ a little before the interval, which got the biggest cheer of the night up to then. Standing with his legs wide apart like a quarterback calling all the plays, the 73 year-old controlled every moment of every song, seemingly without even trying.

The second set kicked into life with the country twang of ‘High Water (For Charley Patton)’, followed by ‘Girl From The North Country’ and ‘Cry A While’, before late highlights ‘Trying To Get To Heaven’ and an extended bluesy jam on ‘Thunder On The Mountain’, before the set-closing epic, ‘Ballad Of A Thin Man’.

Only then were the ‘hits’ yielded to, with a two-song encore of ‘All Along The Watchtower’ (Jimi still owns this one) and a laid-back, cosy campfire version of ‘Blowin’ In The Wind’; the latter sounding like anything but the archetypal protest song it is often considered to be. After a controlled finish and quick wave, the stage is empty, and the unmistakeable realisation that something pretty special just happened is firmly splashed across the faces of the majority of the audience as the house lights flick on.

Much has been said about his so-called raspy or sub-par vocals, but Dylan’s are the types of tunes that don’t need belting out. The beauty is in the words, not the delivery, but if there’s one thing Dylan and his band did tonight, it’s deliver. What did 1500 Brisbanites do to deserve this?

Felix Burton of Basement Jaxx: “I saw something sitting right in the middle of the sky that looked a flying saucer”

August 28, 2014September 7, 2014 / Paul McBride / Leave a comment

IT’S been five long years since the last official Basement Jaxx album, but the English EDM duo are coming back strongly with new effort Junto.

While being free of his record contract and releasing new material means DJ and song-writer Felix Burton should be feeling on top of the world, it’s something altogether more other-worldly he most wants to talk about.

“We’d just moved into a new studio; its windows look over London,” he says. “I saw something sitting right in the middle of the sky that looked a flying saucer. Well, it looked like a Ford Fiesta; the way a car shimmers in the sunshine – it was definitely metallic. [A friend was] with me, having a cup of tea, and we were watching this thing in the sky. We realised it wasn’t a helicopter or a hot air balloon or anything like that; whether it was a military device or arable farming technology we’ve never heard about, who knows? Some other people saw it on that day, but what was most interesting was how small-minded some people were when I told them. An unidentified flying object means I don’t know what it is, but people would get angry and say it doesn’t exist or there isn’t such a thing, and I thought it was amazing how closed-minded people are to new possibilities and ideas. I did a lot of research into all this as I was doing a talk at Oxford University, and I was trying to make sense of it, so I was trawling through conspiracy theories and all the stuff out there. I was seeing a girl at the time, and we were out at some exhibition. She had actually seen something when she was eight years old in Scotland; something had hovered over the car, and she had always talked about it. I was with her in this public exhibition and was talking about the UFO, and said ‘my girlfriend here also saw something’. It was a Judas moment because she said she hadn’t seen anything, and when I asked her about it afterwards she said it was because people think you’re crazy if you say you’ve seen a UFO. I just thought it was awful that people walk off on you and get angry if you say you’ve seen a UFO, but she was blatantly disproving it just because she was embarrassed. People can’t say what they think or be honest. So many people are living a charade and getting whipped up in all this bullshit of celebrity culture that has no effect on their lives and makes them feel dissatisfied and envious. I believe in angels, UFOs, ghosts and all those kinds of things, and I don’t have a problem with it. I’ve looked a lot into religions and what my spiritual path is; maybe because my dad was a vicar. But people are scared of even thinking about all these things, which is such a shame. People just jump on something and use these things to feel superior. They don’t like the idea of something they don’t understand, but the fact is nearly all of life and reality we don’t understand; it’s arrogant to think we do.”

Interplanetary interruptions aside, Basement Jaxx are back with an album brimming over with their signature electronic-pop anthems and plenty of vocal collaborators. After over ten years with XL, Burton is happy to be embracing independence on the new record.

“We’ve always felt free in how we write,” he says. “It’s just you might not hear a lot of the stuff that was very free [laughs]. There were people who thought it might be a bit too tangential or might not fit into the idea of what was appropriate. With this album, we were very clear that we wanted to have stuff we could DJ, so we wanted to make sure it could be useful in our live show and connect to Jaxx fans, as well as fitting in with the current resurgence in house and deep house; now that’s kind of like pop music here. A lot of those people are inspired by us, so actually we might as well do our version of ourselves anyway.”

One of the guest vocalists was transgender rapper Mykki Blanco, who didn’t exactly finish the job, Burton says.

“That was the one vocal where we weren’t actually with the singer. It was done in a very modern way, where we e-mailed stuff. I sent him a couple of things and said it’d be great to work on ‘Buffalo’ and get some Native American spirit. We were back-and-forthing, and Mykki was really into it, then we started getting random e-mails and things weren’t quite connecting. Then [someone said] ‘Mykki’s gone’. We thought it was all sounding great, and told them we need the second verse to finish it, but they told us he’d gone to the desert. I thought it sounded all quite biblical, but that was it. We were mastering the album the next day, so ran out of time, but it’s amazing what you can do when you’ve got to reshape something and make it work.”

Having been a major player in the EDM scene since the ’90s, Burton is unconcerned about how the music industry is evolving of late.

“It’s been changing so much in the past ten years,” he says. “I think people who work in the music industry now have no idea what’s happening with it or where it’s going, which I really like. Rather than resting on their laurels, people need to understand life is about change and embracing change. Everything is temporary, and if a tune is good, you’ll be whistling it in a few years and everything else will get left behind. At a time when there’s so much corporate entertainment dross, it’s good that things keep moving forward and we don’t know where they’re heading. Everyone says it’s all about streaming and nobody will own any music any more, but who knows? There are always going to be enthusiasts who pile up vinyl, but I don’t really worry about these things I guess.”

A heaving touring schedule is already locked in for the end of the year, with Burton hoping to add Australian dates.

“I’m really hoping we can come in February or maybe January; around that time,” he says. “We just did the Fuji Rock Festival in Japan and a festival here in the UK. They went amazingly and I feel very happy with our live show at the moment. We have a lot of people, so it’s quite expensive, but I’d love to bring everyone. Also, the album is called Junto, which is about togetherness. It’s not about me or Simon, it’s about the audience and ideally all the people on stage as well. But yeah, fingers crossed. If Australia shows some interest in the record, then hopefully we can come. At the moment, we’re slightly in that limbo time where we’re waiting on responses to the album, but in my mind I’ve got it to go to Australia and Japan in February next year.”

JUNTO BY BASEMENT JAXX IS OUT AUG 22.

For Scenestr and The Brag

Record review: Kingswood – Microscopic Wars (2014, LP)

August 28, 2014 / Paul McBride / Leave a comment

As recently as February, Arctic Monkeys frontman Alex Turner felt the need to include the words “that rock ‘n’ roll, it just won’t go away” in an award acceptance speech, as a gesture of defiance in support of a so-called waning form of music. If rock and roll is indeed fading away, thankfully nobody has told Kingswood, who seem intent on embarking on a one-band mission to put it back where it belongs. Anyone who has had their ears assaulted by the Melbourne quartet on one of their many jaunts up and down the east coast over the last couple of years knows that they are one of the hottest rock bands in Australia right now, but until now they’ve been a white hot rock band without a debut album. Now it’s here, and it’s a lot more varied than you might expect, with the scorching big-noise numbers ‘Ohio’ and ‘Sucker Punch’ being bookended by the desert blues of ‘So Long’ and jaunty ‘Piece By Piece’. Single ‘ICFTYDLM’ packs an altogether groovier punch than perhaps anything the band has done before; it’s as if a sleazy lounge band has been allowed to throw in some songwriting ideas for a few minutes, and it works beautifully. Inevitable Led Zeppelin comparisons will ensue, but whether you label this album good old fashioned rock and roll, straight-up guitar-rock or whatever, in the end Microscopic Wars is simply a ballsy and brilliant piece of work. The future of rock and roll, it seems, is in excellent hands. (Dew Process)

For mX

Record review: Elodie Adams – inSUBORDINATE (2014, EP)

August 21, 2014August 21, 2014 / Paul McBride / Leave a comment

There was a time way back in 2003; a dark and confusing period for popular music when Evanescence ruled the airwaves. Nu metal was finally on its way out after long overstaying its welcome and hipster culture was barely a glint in a ’90s skateboarder’s eye, which left a gaping opportunity for Amy Lee and Co.’s dark gothic rock to plant its flag on the summit of contemporary culture. A few million record sales later, and the band slipped from public favour and disappeared. With every trend seemingly doomed to repeat itself, their influence is now being felt in the suburbs of Melbourne, via the violin-toting, neo-gothic, industrial-rock sounds of Elodie Adams. But wait, come back: this six-track debut EP is more than worth a listen, whether you fancy revisiting the fantasy-filled angst of your younger self or not. The action kicks off with dramatic opener ‘Born To Love You’, which has already been hand-picked to appear on Sony PlayStation’s Oddworld: New ‘N’ Tasty game; quite a score for a relatively unknown artist, and ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ gets into even heavier territory before being punctured by a calming violin. ‘Multiplayer’ (going all-out for the gamer market, Elodie?) wades knee-deep in sludge, before the title track sees Adams combining her classical violin skills with an obvious penchant for horror movies in another genre-bending effort. Is it time for gothic-rock to conquer the world again? If so, Elodie Adams will do Team Australia proud. (Independent)

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Bill Bailey: “It becomes very much an Oz-centric show”

August 16, 2014April 24, 2015 / Paul McBride / Leave a comment

FEW comedic minds are as sharp as that of Englishman Bill Bailey, and he’s bringing it our way once again in a bid to help us contemplate the true nature of happiness.

His new show, Limboland, is sure to continue his habit of selling out major venues all over the country, with a 16-date tour on the cards for October.

“[The show] basically uses a term which is more to do with comedy found in the Catholic liturgy; this concept of limbo or a state of transition,” he says. “But it’s not strictly that, it’s Limboland, so it’s a place of the unknown or expected. I guess it came about because I saw a sign on a door coming out of an airport in Copenhagen saying ‘welcome to Denmark – the happiest country in the world’, and I was like ‘what, really?’ I became intrigued by what is happiness, what constitutes the happiness quotient in our lives and what really gives us happiness. It’s very often not the things you find in surveys, which are all about feeling secure, the bins being collected and the country being in a secure state. It’s more ephemeral; it’s more sort of transient. I guess that’s the starting point of the show; trying to explore that area between what we expect and what is real, what we think our lives are going to be like and what they are actually are like. It’s quite an interesting area to explore because it lead me to all kinds of memories from my childhood and growing up; key moments where you think it could have gone this way or that way. It’s quite a personal show and a kind of reflective look at what makes us happy and what’s the true nature of happiness.”

The 50 year-old Bailey is best known to Australian audiences for his stand up shows and his appearances on television, including QI and ABC’s award-winning hit, Black Books, in which he played the increasingly deranged Manny Bianco opposite fellow comic, Dylan Moran. But can he provide the secret to true happiness with Limboland?

“Sometimes it’s just having a decent cup of tea and watching the sun rise or something, you know what I mean?” he says. “There are odd moments when things just come together and you think ‘this is it’. When religions talk about moments of rapture, they’re not really about visions and all the rest of it, they’re just about the day-to-day or if you have a moment of clarity about something. But it’s also about feeling a state of change; almost like a transitional phase in your life when you reflect and think ‘I’ve done this, this and this, I’ve got a family, house and a nice life’. That’s really what the show is about; it’s a slight sense of mortality or uncertainty about the future, perhaps. It might be borne out of the things that we used to think were untouchable; the monoliths of our society like banks, politicians, royalty, the media, newspapers and all these things that are supposed to be completely unimpeachable, above the law and pristine. All these institutions have been gradually and systematically revealed to be utterly rotten to the core, so there’s nothing for us to cling to. We’re a bit on our own and we have to look out for ourselves a bit more.”

No Bill Bailey show is complete without a healthy portion of his ample musical ability, with Limboland set to feature a fabulously downbeat version of ‘Happy Birthday’, among other compositions.

“I was just reading a fascinating book about the history of protest songs,” he says. “So I thought it’d be good to revive that notion, and there’s an element of that in the show. The travelling I’ve done quite recently has all been through Europe, and it seemed odd that I neglected touring Europe for so many years. I’ve been to Australia and New Zealand many times, I’ve travelled to Asia and performed pretty much all over the world. So I did this big tour in Europe earlier this year, and it was fascinating to realise that there’s so much diversity and difference in language and culture, all quite jumbled together in quite a small area. I did this intense hit of Europe and went to about 15 countries in a month and it proved to be a rich source of [musical] material.”

Having spoken of his love for Australian border control and customs in the past, Bailey is looking forward to the trip this time around.

“I’ve always had fun getting into Australia,” he says. “Very often, over the years, I’ve travelled to Australia via South-East Asia. Having been in parts of Indonesia where the border patrols aren’t that strict, and then arriving in Australia, you realise it’s got proper border controls with sniffer dogs and God knows what. I’ve been picked out of a line-up by dogs before now, and it’s always embarrassing. The dogs have just stood there, barking and barking. Once, I think we were at a party and somebody had a spliff or something, and some of the smoke tends to just cling to you. I didn’t have anything on me and there was no wrongdoing involved, it was just the dog doing his job, so I had to ‘fess up and say what had happened. The thing was, I just didn’t want the dog to get in trouble, you know?”

A run of 16 shows begins in Perth on October 1st, before finishing nearly a month later in Newcastle, with shows in Brisbane on October 12th and 13th.

“I like to come and run in the show, and it’s good to spend a bit of time in a country and really bed it in,” Bailey says. “Often, when I come to places like Australia, there’ll be incidents in politics that will end up in the show as well, so as the show tours around, I pick up stories and things that will get thrown into the show and it becomes very much an Oz-centric show. That’s the way I like it; I like to have material that comes in and is specific to an area, and is gone before I leave.”

Besides his accomplishments as a comedian, actor, writer and musician, Bailey is a self-confessed super-fan of wildlife; a passion he hopes to indulge Down Under.

“I’m hoping to be filming [a wildlife show] at the end of this tour,” he says. “We’re just sort of negotiating at the moment about the feasibility of it. If I’m able, then I’m going to try to fit it in. I’ve been travelling to Australia for nearly 20 years now and have a fascination with the wildlife, so I think I want to have that outsider’s perspective of some of the more colourful aspects of the wildlife, get into detail and maybe expose a few myths about them. I’ve snorkelled around sharks, stingrays and octopuses and hung around snakes and all sorts of things in Borneo, so I’m not too phased by these kinds of things. I’m fascinated by them, so I guess I do sometimes forget that these things can nip you or whatever. Okay, maybe more than a nip; a nibble.”

BILL BAILEY APPEARS AT QPAC ON OCT 12 & 13.

For Scenestr

Record review: Jenny Lewis – The Voyager (2014, LP)

August 16, 2014August 16, 2014 / Paul McBride / Leave a comment

Most people who haven’t slept for five days would see a doctor. Instead, former Rilo Kiley singer Jenny Lewis began writing songs for her first solo album in six years. Plagued by insomnia following the break-up of her band and death of her estranged father, the 38 year-old American crafted the bulk of The Voyager from a very dark place. While it shows on introspective laments ‘Slippery Slopes’ and the title track, there’s just as much defiance to counter the gloom, and it’s the combination of the two that makes this ten-track effort better than the average alt-country release. Lyrics flit between breezy and burdensome on highlights including the bar room stomp of ‘You Can’t Outrun Em’ and JJ Cale-esque riff on ‘She’s Not Me’, while throughout the brutally honest tale of fading youth on ‘Love U Forever’, Lewis lays herself barer than before. Top-drawer production from Ryan Adams rounds off what is both the sound of an artist looking for closure and calm, and a welcome and overdue return to making solo albums.

For The Big Issue

Joe Agius of The Creases: “In the beginning it was definitely not serious at all”

August 15, 2014August 21, 2014 / Paul McBride / Leave a comment

LAST year, Brisbane’s Joe Agius and Jarrod Mahon decided to record a song and make a video one weekend as a bit of a laugh, doing it under the name of The Creases.

Little did they know that legendary UK label Rough Trade would soon have the band in their sights, and things were about to get a lot more serious.

“In the beginning it was definitely not serious at all,” Agius says. “They found the song and video on a random blog and e-mailed us. The Creases was kind of like a fun, joke band we had on the side, and then after we released the single for Rough Trade, we got more serious with it and realised that we could do it for real. It was suddenly an opportunity for us to tour and do all the things we wanted to do. It’s definitely different to a normal band, where you can chip away at it for a year and figure out exactly what kind of band you are and gig a lot, but we were thrown in the deep end pretty quickly. We had to make sure we were tight live, and had a good plan. We don’t mind the pressure; we actually work better under the pressure.”

The link-up with the label lead to a UK tour and now the young quartet have released their debut EP, entitled Gradient, but Agius is already looking forward.

“The EP has been a long time coming,” he says. “It’s a bit of a mix of stuff. There’s one song that’s more like the first single, and there’s a really shoegaze-y kind of track, and some more post-punk kind of stuff. It’s a pretty big mix, but still all sort of in the same category. Mostly pretty similar to ‘Static Lines’. We’re super-psyched for everyone to hear it. It’s taken ages for this EP to come out, so we just want to try and have a smaller gap between releases and move on to what will probably be an album. We’ll start demoing for our new album next month and then record it later in the year. We’ve probably got half an album right now, but we haven’t actually started writing properly.”

The sudden thrust into the spotlight has forced the band to adapt in other ways, with education and employment cast aside.

“I deferred before actually dropping out of uni,” Agius says. “I don’t think I’ll be going back, hopefully. Aimon [Clark, bass] has quit work then got employed again, but we’ve quit a fair few things for the band. It was hard in the beginning; my parents weren’t happy with me dropping out of uni to play in this band they hadn’t even heard yet, but I think they feel better about it now. I think once we started touring and they started seeing a good reaction and our music being played on the radio and stuff like that, they definitely felt a lot better about us dropping out of uni and work.”

The band began as a duo before going through a couple of changes and settling on the current line-up of Agius (vocals, guitar), Mahon (guitar, vocals), Clark (bass, vocals) and Gabe Webster (drums).

“When [our original drummer] dropped out, it was a pretty mutual thing,” Agius says. “She was doing law and was pretty far through a degree. At the time, she had to weigh up what she had to do. We were getting a bit too serious and she just didn’t have the time. Gabe is actually our third drummer; he played in Gung Ho in Brisbane. Gung Ho have kind of gone on hiatus; I don’t know what the go is with that band, but he joined the crew and it’s working really well. It’s good to have a confirmed line-up.”

With an appearance at Splendour in the bag, Agius is looking forward to a busy few months ahead for the band.

“Playing Splendour was the highest goal I ever set with music,” he says. “I would always go and tell my friends that next year we’d be on that triple j unearthed spot or whatever. It’s really scary, but super fun. We’ve got a few more tours with other bands, which will be announced, and we’re writing and demoing for an album. We’ll probably be doing some of our own shows as well.”

GRADIENT IS OUT NOW.

For Forte

Jeremy Neale of Velociraptor: “It’s here now; the apology record”

August 14, 2014April 24, 2015 / Paul McBride / 1 Comment

FOR five years, Brisbane many-piece Velociraptor have been living up to their self-elected position as Australia’s most dedicated party-starters.

Now, ‘earth’s mightiest band’ (their words) is releasing its debut album, and is ready to bring the party to a venue near you, says frontman and songwriter Jeremy Neale.

“It’s really exciting,” he says. “Although I’ve heard [the album] so many times that I’ve lost objectivity on it, so I don’t really know what it sounds like to a new listener. I think retrospectively I’m really happy with it, so I’m looking forward to seeing how people respond to it. In an ideal world it’d be satisfying to be releasing music at least every 12 months, if not quicker than that. For us it’s been two years now, which is quite a length of time, but it’s here now; the apology record.”

The band’s self-titled debut, which comes after EP releases in 2010 and 2012, is littered with pop-culture references and ’60s pop vibes, as on tracks like ‘Monster Mash’ and opener ‘Robocop’.

“Well, obviously one of the greatest songs of all time is called ‘Monster Mash’,” Neale laughs. “I just wanted to use that as a way to paint the scene. If you imagine someone dancing to ‘Monster Mash’, you immediately get the vibe of that party, but the song is a bit dark, and I like the juxtaposition of the happy imagery in the middle of a sad song. The Robocop thing was a cool context to put it in, but the real sentiments behind the song were about being in love with something who is everything to you, but to them you’re just the best option at the time. I don’t know how Robocop came into it, but I wanted to create that kind of imagery of essentially a gritty, neon city that features on the cover art of the album. When this album was first demoed, everything was quite minimalist in its approach; everything was just power chords and simple beats. The vision for the album was to do a dark, ‘Pet Sematary’ or ‘Bonzo Goes To Bitburg’ kind of record, but after we played around with [the songs] in the studio it become more of a variety record than how it might have sounded.”

With anything up to 15 members in the band at any time, you can never be sure of what you’re going to get at a Velociraptor gig.

“We keep it all quite fluid, as everybody does have responsibilities,” Neale says. “It’s kind of like ‘here are the dates, who’s in?’ There’s nine of us going to Perth this time, which is out of control. It’s obviously a lot of fun, and it’s a unique and rewarding experience once we’re there. Having now done the record and booked all our flights, except for Adelaide, theoretically all the hard stuff is done. Now, we just have to go and have a good time and deliver the product. We’ve been playing [first single] ‘Ramona’ live for probably a year, and we added ‘Robocop’ and a song called ‘Leaches’. When we added them both to the set ‘Robocop’ [went down] fine, but ‘Leaches’ just did not work for people on first listening. It’s a very interesting experience working out what people want to see live; they just want to be familiar with it, I guess. They looked at us like ‘what are these guys doing; a weird cover or something?’ Once the album is out in the world and people have had a chance to hear it and still want to hear it, we’ll be able to get behind everything on there. It’s all relatively accessible and it’ll be more ‘party’ and faster live. I have high hopes for how it’ll translate.”

VELOCIRAPTOR’S SELF-TITLED DEBUT IS OUT AUG 22.

TOUR DATES:

THURSDAY 21 AUGUST
NORTHCOTE SOCIAL CLUB,
MELBOURNE

FRIDAY 22 AUGUST
NEWTOWN SOCIAL CLUB,
SYDNEY

FRIDAY 29 AUGUST
THE BRIGHTSIDE, BRISBANE

SATURDAY 30 AUGUST
THE COOLY HOTEL,
COOLANGATTA

SATURDAY 6 SEPTEMBER
THE CAUSEWAY HOTEL, PERTH

SUNDAY 7 SEPTEMBER
THE NEWPORT HOTEL,
FREMANTLE

SATURDAY 20 SEPTEMBER
PIRIE & CO SOCIAL

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Record review: Twin Peaks – Wild Onion (2014, LP)

August 14, 2014 / Paul McBride / Leave a comment

Despite having the same name as the brilliantly-disturbing cult TV series, Chicago quartet Twin Peaks are much easier to figure out, even if their second album finds them expanding their sound in an attempt to ‘grow up’ and edge away from their scratchy debut. While barely out of their teens, this is a gang whose sound has seemingly been spewed forth via the power-pop of Alex Chilton, sloppy party-rock of The Libertines and blue collar appeal of The Replacements, with a whole lot else stuffed down the middle and wrapped up in one big messy musical burrito. While there are some dirgy moments, as on the floundering ‘Ordinary People’, and they get caught belting out unnecessary hell-for-leather power chords at a couple of points, the overall vibe is of a fresh and energetic guitar album that’s generous and enticing at 16 songs. There are some great riffs spattered throughout, including on the shimmering, arching ‘Flavor’ and the excellent Faces-meets-Blondie ‘Telephone’, and when the the type of dual guitar interplay that Thin Lizzy would have exhibited pops up, new reasons to appreciate Wild Onion are found. ‘Sweet Thing’ shows the band know the power of a rhythm guitar in driving a song’s groove, while the instrumental ‘Stranger World’ catches them trying to bring sax back, before giving up a minute later. It’d be easy to write off Twin Peaks as just another bunch of rowdy indie upstarts, but this album is well worth getting your onion-loving tastebuds all over. (Grand Jury)

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Record review: Anberlin – lowborn (2014, LP)

August 8, 2014 / Paul McBride / Leave a comment

Having already decided to disband after this album and one last tour, Florida alt-rock outfit Anberlin have nothing to lose in 2014. With six albums under their belts, the band – formed in 2002 – should be taking this chance to throw caution to the wind and go all-out in one last blast of statement-making rock fury. However, lowborn was pieced together by five musicians recording their parts separately with different producers, and while the sound quality hasn’t suffered as a result, it’s a formula that has produced a fairly robotic and over-polished piece of work that surely only hardcore fans of the band are going to appreciate. Every good album should start with a cracker then take it up a notch, but the plodding opening one-two of ‘We Are Destroyer’ and ‘Armageddon’ fall well short of the epic stadium pop-rock anthems they are meant to be. Elsewhere, the overwrought balladry of ‘Birds of Prey’ provides another forgettable moment among many forgettable moments. While ‘Dissenter’ reveals the first hint of potential perspiration by the band, as singer Stephen Christian lets rip with a vein-bursting, effect-ridden vocal, it’s nowhere near buoyant enough to stop the nine other tracks dragging it under the surface of mediocrity. Overall, there’s really nothing wrong with this album; there’s just nothing particularly right (or even memorable) about it either, so it’s with a whimper that Anberlin exit stage right. (Tooth & Nail)

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Julia Stone: “Angus and I probably would have just drifted off”

August 2, 2014August 2, 2014 / Paul McBride / 3 Comments

BANDS split up and get back together for a multitude of reasons; whether it be for money, ego or another stab at the limelight.

For brother/sister act Angus & Julia Stone, however, it was different. Both were happily coasting along independently with their respective solo careers, until a legendary US producer sparked the flame that got them working together again.

“Rick [Rubin] said that he heard our music at a party and wanted to meet us,” Julia explains. “He contacted us when we were both on tour doing our solo records and it was very out of the blue. It was just so weird; we were like ‘what’s going on?’ We had our own paths set going solo, and we were both really happy doing that, and then Rick contacted us and came to both of our solo shows separately in LA. We hung out with him separately. I met up with him a few times in LA; we would hang out and go for walks, go on motorbikes and talk. Angus did the same when he was in town. Rick said he wanted to make a record with the two of us together, and that was kind of like the beginning of Angus and me talking; we hadn’t really chatted much between our solo tours. It was out of the blue, but it was a good thing, and it was a blessing. I think Angus and I probably would have just drifted off and not made an effort to be in each others lives. We really now have become friends because of this process, and I don’t think I would ever not talk to him for more than a week now, but at that time I wouldn’t have seen him until Christmas 2015, you know?”

Meeting and working with the Def Jam label founder has brought a new lease of life to the Stone siblings’ song-writing, the result of which is a new, self-titled album; their first since 2010’s Down The Way.

“It feels very exciting,” Julia says. “I feel like we know the record so well now, and I just assume that everybody else knows it. We’ve been playing a whole bunch of shows and summer festivals through Europe, and we play so much stuff off the new record and I forget that nobody’s heard it. I just sort of assume that everybody’s been living with the mixes as long as we have, but I’m actually excited that people will get to hear it for real, and not just in my head. It’s probably just the nature of what’s new in your life, but I feel that the new songs have a lot more energy for us. I think as well the [new] songs are a little more beat-driven and it’s more of a dance-y feel to a show, which is unusual for us. It’s fun to dance around a bit more.”

Not only has the rekindling of their personal relationship brought about a new album, but an entire new approach to song-writing for the pair.

“I think that for Angus and I, song-writing was always a really personal thing and it was space away from each other. All of a sudden, we’re Angus and Julia Stone and we’re this brother and sister thing. We were really young when it started and we enjoyed it a lot, so we kept on going with it, but there was a part of us that wanted to claim our independence from each other. I think for both of us, when we were on tour doing a lot of press and travelling, the song-writing was a really good way to express things that were personal to us and independent from the other person. The idea of writing a song together never even crossed our minds; it wasn’t something that appealed. This time around, we had had time apart and we had written and recorded on our own, and we felt that the only reason to get back together was to try to be different in the way we worked and in our relationship. I think the time apart made it possible; we established that we were independent, so when we came into the studio and started singing together, there wasn’t as much control and we felt more free.”

The new album takes the duo’s trademark folk sound and injects some unmistakeable American flavours, although the pair have no particular goals in that part of the world, Stone says.

“We signed to Rick’s label and he’s based out of the US, but I don’t know,” she says. “The guys from the label over there are really lovely and excited about the album. For us, we sort of just go to wherever we’re summoned to play music, and we never really know what makes a song work on radio or whether people are going to connect. We just wake up and play our songs, and whatever unfolds from it unfolds from it. We haven’t ever been known for our planning or goals about places or things. I think Rick’s great though, and his label’s really good, so we have a lot of support to tour there. Although I don’t really have a phone filled with famous people. It’s Rick and then family [laughs].”

The duo have lined up a September national tour following on from their homecoming show at Splendour, with dates already selling out.

“I was just looking at a tour schedule today,” Stone says. “We have so many tours, so many shows! We go to LA in a few weeks to do press, then we go to Europe to do TV and press and stuff. Then we have an Australian tour for September/October, then an American tour for November, then a Europe tour for December. Then I don’t know what happens after that. [I’ll] probably have a little nap.”

ANGUS & JULIA STONE PLAY THE PALAIS THEATRE SEP 25 & 26. THEIR NEW ALBUM IS OUT AUG 1.

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Sian Plummer of Circa Waves: “We’re a bit sketchy on the details – can you fill me in?”

August 2, 2014April 30, 2015 / Paul McBride / 1 Comment

THERE are bands who have had meteoric rises, and then are English indie-rock quartet Circa Waves, who are set to play Splendour In The Grass and four sideshows.

When they wrote, recorded and uploaded their single ‘Young Chasers’ to Soundcloud in a single day, they didn’t expect much to happen. That very night it was picked up and played on the biggest radio station in the UK, and the young band haven’t looked back since.

“It was definitely a freak occurrence,” says drummer Sian Plummer. “That’s not the norm for us by any means. I think it was just knowing the right person at the right time at Radio 1 that helped it get played that evening. It really helped that Radio 1 was so keen to help champion young, new music, and they were quite eager to give us a push. But [getting it played on] the first day was quite an achievement [laughs].”

Sudden national exposure led to a flurry of song-writing and touring for the band, before a deal was inked with Dew Process.

“We all met at a festival in Liverpool called Sound City,” Plummer says. “We were all there, and we were all bored with our respective bands and whatever. So we decided we’ll start a band with the aim of playing Sound City next year, and instead of doing that we ended up getting signed and touring the world. To celebrate we just went out and had massive steak dinners in this really posh restaurant. We basically gorged ourselves on quality meat.”

They’ve existed for barely a year, in which they’ve toured incessantly, so it’s understandable that not all the members of the band have had a chance to reflect and plan for the gigs ahead. When asked how much he knows about Splendour In The Grass, Plummer laughs.

“We’re a bit sketchy on the details – can you fill me in?” he says. “Australia: the idea that people are listening to our music on the other side of the world is an unreal scenario to think about. I don’t even know what’s happening over there. I can’t quite process the idea that people are hearing our music and are sort of down with it, so we’re looking forward to coming over and seeing first-hand. It’s really exciting. To be honest, we’re just pretty stoked to be going to Australia, so we haven’t thought far enough ahead to be considering festivals and club shows. I guess I’m excited to see what an Australian club show is like; how you guys react and whether it goes off. Festivals are amazing as well; there’s this whole other side of playing to a crowd in a tent that is just a unique feeling, so we’re looking forward to both.”

The band have just released their debut, self-titled EP in time for an airing at Splendour and a run of shows supporting Metronomy.

“We’re just about there right now,” Plummer says. “We’ve got enough material for at least a 45-minute set now. We’re sort of still perfecting our set and have been over the past six months, so I think we’ve got a good set-list together now and we can fill that time. Then obviously Kieran [Shudall, guitar/vocals] does loads of stand-up comedy between each song, so that takes about ten minutes between each song in the set [laughs].”

Despite being praised by British music press and hailed as a “buzz” band and ones-to-watch, Circa Waves are keen on winning fans the old-fashioned way, Plummer insists.

“We did the NME tour, and that was a strange one,” he says. “It didn’t sell as well as it could have done, but they’ve been really supportive and we really appreciate having anyone like that championing us and getting our name out there. In terms of getting us out there, it’s invaluable. Being played on Radio 1 is the best place to get heard. But from our point of view, it’s all about the live shows; going to people’s towns and playing is the important thing. That’s the way we’ve always got out there and got known. If people haven’t seen us play and don’t know what we’re about live, they’re not going to know what it is we’re about. We’re keen to spread that message.”

While their touring schedule appears unending, a band that does things as quickly as Circa Waves isn’t going to wait years to put out an album.

“We’ve just finished recording our album a couple of weeks ago,” Plummer says. “We went into a studio for about five weeks and laid down quite a lot of tracks. Bit by bit we’re going to start mixing them in and showcasing them live. We’ve amassed quite a bit of material in the last six months. Ideally we’re looking at an early next year release, and before then play live in as many places as we can. It’s a pretty raw sounding album in many ways. It’s not an overly-produced record; we’ve tried to keep post-production to a minimum, and it’s got quite a live feel to it in places as well, as some of the takes were done completely live. It’s about capturing and conveying a lot of the energy of us live. I think we’ve managed to get something that sounds pretty cool as well. We get a lot of comparisons to the Strokes and that’s a great comparison to have, but it doesn’t tell the whole story. We’re influenced by the Strokes, but I don’t think we sound like the Strokes, and what we’ve tried to do on this record is to convey who Circa Waves are and how we sound, and I think that’s massively important. We’re looking forward to getting it out there and showing everybody what we’re about.”

When & Where:

Friday 25th July Forum Theatre, Melbourne (supporting Metronomy)
Saturday 26th July Splendour In The Grass, Byron Parklands

CIRCA WAVES’ DEBUT EP IS OUT NOW.

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Russell Morris: “I was sick of trying to write songs that I thought people might like”

August 2, 2014 / Paul McBride / Leave a comment

AFTER almost 50 years in the music business, Russell Morris is enjoying somewhat of a renaissance, with his last two albums reaching numbers six and four on the ARIA charts respectively. It’s all thanks to throwing a bit of caution to the wind and getting back to his roots, says the 65 year-old Victorian.

“I remember an ex-manager asking me what I was doing next,” he says. “I said I was doing a blues album. He said ‘why would you do something stupid like that?’ and I said because I really like the blues, to which he replied ‘but nobody will ever buy it’. I’m not doing it for that reason, I’m doing it because I really love it, but I think what happened is that people really do love blues music, but they hear American blues mostly. They can hear it and love it, but it’s not in Australians’ hearts. I think people can relate to the music lyrically and like the sound. A lot of traditional Australian music is real corny country stuff that a lot of people can’t relate to, with lines like [adopts country accent] ‘he came down from Nanadoon with a swagger on his back’. I wanted something with a bit more meat to it.”

2013’s Sharkmouth and the recently-released Van Diemen’s Land tell stories about a range of colourful Australian characters from as far back as convict times.

“History is something that really intrigues me,” Morris says. “I’d done probably six albums that had sunk without a trace, and I was sick of trying to write songs that I thought people might like. So, I decided to go back and make an album of stuff that I would really like. I thought about what got me into music, and the first album that really got me into rhythm and blues was the very first Rolling Stones album. I thought ‘wow, this unbelievable, I’ve never heard anything like it’. Then I realised they weren’t writing all the songs; they were written by a whole lot of other blues artists, and we started collecting their albums. I started off performing with a blues band, and I think that was the happiest I think I was. So, [with Sharkmouth] I decided to write a blues album. At the time I think I had written about four songs and I thought it didn’t seem right. One of the songs was called ‘Chilli Pepper Woman’ or something, and I thought it seemed a bit fake. I sort of put it on the back-burner, but then I was in Sydney and I saw a photo from 1916 of a guy called Thomas Archer being arrested. The photo really transfixed me and I took it home. One afternoon I was sitting looking at the photo and it almost spoke to me, telling me I’m not American and asking me why I’m trying to write songs about America, and almost telling me to write a song about it. I wrote a song called ‘Sharkmouth’ and as soon as I wrote it, I sort of saw the light and thought ‘that’s what I’ve got to do’. I’m Australian, with an English/Irish background, so that’s what I’ve got to write about and talk about my history and my blues. I can’t write about the Mississippi or New Orleans; I need to write about something I feel in my guts. That’s when I started writing about where my ancestors came from, the gangsters and stories I heard about when I was a kid.”

Morris will bring his new lease of life on a national tour beginning the first week of August.

“What I’m trying to do with this tour is to combine the [last] two albums,” he says. “Hopefully it’ll be an entertaining show. I’ve picked all the songs from the albums that I think are the best to do, and hopefully we can entertain the crowd. I think we should do, because we’ve been doing a lot of blues festivals, and it’s been really, really good; a lot of fun.”

Fans of Morris’s material from the sixties and seventies needn’t worry; he still plays classics ‘The Real Thing’, ‘Rachel’ and ‘Sweet, Sweet Love’ live.

“I almost become a sort of Doctor Who as we take a trip through time and end up in 1969,” he says. “That’s a way I can introduce it. I still enjoy doing the old songs, but the newer songs are much more fun, because as an artist you always hope you can engage audiences with new material. But people spend their hard-earned money to come and see me, and I don’t want them going away disappointed. If they’ve spent money to come and see me, I really have to give them the best I’ve got.”

When & Where:

The Capital Theatre, Bendigo Aug 3
The Palms at Crown, Melbourne Aug 8
The Wool Exchange, Geelong Aug 9

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Record review: The Creases – Gradient (2014, EP)

July 31, 2014 / Paul McBride / Leave a comment

How quickly things can happen when the right people hear your song. What started as a joke for Brisbane’s Joe Agius and Jarrod Mahon resulted in legendary UK label Rough Trade picking up their ‘I Won’t Wait’ single and the rest might just go down in history. Several abandoned uni courses and letters of resignation later, and The Creases are now a quartet and a serious concern, with a debut EP in the bag and an album in the works. But has all the hype and “buzz band” statuses on the blogosphere been worth it? The answer is an unwavering yes. Opener and single ‘Static Lines’ is pure pop bliss, as Agius throws out classic lines about sitting by the phone and seeing things “in the way you smile”. Despite having a title that recalls something that mopey old muppet Morrissey might write, second track ‘How Long ‘Til I Know’ is a pleasingly squalling shoegaze number that was probably nicked from Agius and bassist Aimon Clark’s side-project RINSE; a band which, like Mahon’s Emerson Snowe, looks to have become somewhat of a casualty of The Creases’ sudden success. Third track ‘Fall Guy’ is the unexpected highlight; its chiming guitars and wistful lyrics stand head and shoulders above the rest, while ‘Do You Know Why’ is more of a scratchy number and the closer and title track packs a late punch, courtesy of some powerhouse drumming by Gabe Webster. The Creases might have started out as a joke, but this debut release is as promising as they come. (Liberation Records)

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