brisbane

Live review: Ben Salter + Seja + Machine Age – Black Bear Lodge, Brisbane – 19/7/13

/ Paul McBride / Leave a comment

Are there many better places to be in Brisbane on a Friday night than Black Bear Lodge? Probably not. The snug venue is quite perfect for a cold and rainy evening, and tonight’s bill of all-Queensland talent looks set to keep things toasty.

Seja

Seja

First up is Cairns native Adrian Mauro, otherwise known as Machine Age. The virtually unknown Mauro begins with just a folk-y, Fender-y sound and his rich voice, before breaking out the synths and turning his solo act into a whirlwind of electronic drums, heavy bass, and ramped-up guitar noise. After singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to someone in the audience (don’t you have to pay royalties to somebody to sing that song?) his final tune is a colossal, Communist-era chuggernaut of a jam; the sound building to such a cacophonous, blaring drone that it felt like a derailed train would crash through the walls at any second. This guy is definitely worth keeping an eye on.

Next up is Brisbane’s own Seja, who takes to the stage with an appeal to the audience. “Sorry for my nasal voice, I woke up this morning feeling like a pig shat in my head,” she says, earning top marks for choice of film reference to make her point. With second album All Our Wires having just been released (featuring collaborations with Gotye and members of Cut Copy and Regurgitator, among others), her set is heavy on new material; a highlight being the folk-y ‘Die Wolken’, on which Robert Forster sings on the album.

Ben Salter has been in and around the venue all night, so he is well aware that a large percentage of the audience has been loudly chatting up to this point, foolishly oblivious to the artists on stage in front of them. “Can we have a bit of shush?” he demands, changing the atmosphere immediately for the better, before beginning with ‘Not Today’ from his newly-released European Vacation EP. It’s a great start, and immediately shows what an outstanding vocal talent Salter is. The title track from previous album The Cat follows, and then perhaps the most Brisbane song ever written, ‘West End Girls’. “West End girls run wild and free, take the 199 to the Valley”: fantastic.

Immediately after this tune the charismatic Salter announces “You can take your Dick Diver and all those other bands and get rid of ’em… The Young Liberals albums are all free online,” (and so they are, so go get ’em), before telling a story about him and Seja making plans to play each others songs, before changing their minds at the eleventh hour. Salter continues to be entertaining in more ways than one, throughout an excellent set of songs.

Having secured a deal with ABC Music to release the travel-inspired European Vacation, Salter’s stock is pretty high right now, and tonight’s confident showing by one of Brisbane’s best singer-songwriters is surely confirmation of that.

Live review: Bernard Fanning + Big Scary + Vance Joy – The Tivoli, Brisbane – 18/7/13

/ Paul McBride / 1 Comment

There’s something about a sold-out show that will partly make you happy that artists can still sell out venues on a cold Thursday night in Brisbane in these uncertain times for live music, and partly apprehensive about the fact you’ll be spending the next three hours crammed shoulder-to-shoulder with a plethora of potential idiots after enduring a two-day wait to get to the bar. I guess some of us are never happy.

Big Scary

Big Scary

Young Melburnian folkie Vance Joy is first to step into the rich blue lightning of The Tivoli’s stage; and his amiable and charming patter entertains a quickly swelling crowd, between songs from his new EP God Loves You When You’re Dancing, including ‘From Afar’ and the excellent ‘Riptide’. A cover of ‘Dancing In The Dark’ fits in nicely mid-set after Joy explains he saw The Boss recently and didn’t expect such a lengthy set.

Next up is Melbourne duo (or in live form, a trio) Big Scary who also have a new album out in Not Art. Beginning with the slow and ominous new song ‘Phil Collins’, the band are instantly engaging and almost hypnotic, as all eyes turn to drummer Joanna Syme for the second track – the outstandingly grand ‘Belgian Blues’ – as she displays her enviable skills all over the kit, before asking the audience to engage in a joint “drool over Vance Joy”. The edgy ‘Twin Rivers’, ‘Luck Now’, and older track ‘Falling Away’ see singer Tom Iansek switch between guitar and keys with ease, and the only way this set could have been any better would be with the inclusion of ‘Mix Tape’. Like I said: some of us are never happy.

*** Allow me to now take a moment to congratulate whoever decides on what music plays between bands at The Tivoli; it’s never anything but top-notch tuneage. The boring lull waiting for gear to be set up is transformed into a collective musical erection with the likes of The Faces’ ‘You’re So Rude’ and Ike & Tina Turner’s ‘River Deep – Mountain High’. Keep up the good work, you fine, faceless people. ***

And now: Bernard Fanning. Where I grew up Powderfinger were never big, so tonight’s show isn’t fuelled by nostalgia or a sense of musical loyalty for me, as it seems to be for a lot of the audience in front of The Tivoli’s stage. Fanning and his five band members take to the stage to massive cheers and begin to rip through songs from new album Departures, as he announces his first gig in Brisbane since 2007 by saying “this is already markedly different to Toowoomba,” to the sound of even more resounding cheers.

Bernard Fanning

Bernard Fanning

‘Tell Me How It Ends’ is up first, followed by the big rock number ‘Inside Track’, and ‘Limbo Stick’, which all get great responses considering the record has been out barely six weeks. Introducing songs from his 2005 Tea & Sympathy album, including ‘Believe’, and then giving a shout out to his sister, mother, wife, and mother-in-law in the audience (“four firey ladies – don’t fuck with them”), Fanning seems entirely at ease throughout his hometown show, and appears to be enjoying the fervent adulation reverberating around the venue, which peaks during the best of his new songs, ‘Battleships’.

The title track from Departures is one that Fanning introduces as being about where he grew up, and gives a shout out to “anyone from Toowong”, before a massive sing-along erupts during encore highlight ‘Wish You Well’, and a happy audience pours onto Costin Street and makes for home.

Bernard Fanning has put together another fine album in Departures, and has a kick-ass touring band, and while we just enjoyed a solid set of quality Aussie rock, it’s Big Scary who fill my thoughts as I head for home; reinforcing the argument that gig-goers should NEVER avoid the support act, lest they miss their new favourite band.

Record review: Maps – Vicissitude (2013, LP)

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Back in 2007, the powers that be saw fit to nominate Northampton native James Chapman’s (a.k.a. Maps) debut album We Can Create for the Mercury Music Prize, among such esteemed company as Arctic Monkeys, Amy Winehouse, and eventual winners Klaxons. Six years and two albums later, and it’s hard to see what could have possibly possessed that year’s panel of experts; one has to assume it was a pretty lean year for British music, outside of a few big albums. That album at least had a relatively fresh sound for the time; the electronic shoe-gaze approach to making music being fairly uncharted territory in a year that saw a resurgence in beardy indie bands. The truth is, listening to Vicissitude is a tiring and insipid affair. Opener ‘A.M.A.’ sets the scene for what’s to come by evoking nothing but a face-cracking yawn, as waves of sickly, over-pleasant muzak waft over gentle vocals, and second track ‘Built To Last’ follows in a similar and almost indistinguishable vein. ‘Nicholas’ is probably the worst effort; getting through its six minutes of dull, repetitive dirge is a challenge to test the strongest of constitutions. The only positive thing that can be said about Vicissitude is that it could make pretty good background music in a situation when you don’t need to notice it, but that’s hardly much of a compliment, is it? It has to be assumed that making this album cost someone quite a lot of money, when really they shouldn’t have bothered. (EMI)

Live review: The Mercy Beat + The Strums + The Grand Scheme + Snakes and Daggers – The Tempo, Brisbane – 14th June 2013

/ Paul McBride / 1 Comment

Our Band Could Be Your Life #3: The Rock Edition is part of a regular showcase put on by Brisbane music warlords Footstomp Music, in order to get local bands on a stage. Tonight, we will be treated to four of the finest and most hard-working rock bands from Brisbane: Snakes and Daggers, The Grand Scheme, The Strums, and headliners The Mercy Beat, who are here to launch their new single ‘Fishbowl’ in the spacious, beer-y environment of Fortitude Valley’s The Tempo Hotel.

A small but dedicated has gathered in front of the stage as openers Snakes and Daggers get the show on the road with some quality hard rock. Named Guns ‘N’ Roses-style after singer Dick Dagger and guitarist James Snake, the band run through a short but sweet set of high-octane rock riffage, with Snake putting out the most energy as he gets amongst the audience for his solo.

Next up is The Grand Scheme, who should have played in this venue a few months ago, but were kicked off bonehead Bam Margera’s bill in contentious circumstances. Opening with ‘Kings of Youth’, the quartet play a tight set of hard rock with plenty of scream-y vocals and dual guitars. ‘Kink Kink’ is introduced as “the first song we ever wrote” and another is described as “going out to all the sexy beasts.”

The Grand Scheme

The Grand Scheme

Following The Grand Scheme is The Strums, who have been slogging away on pub and support circuits around Brisbane for some time now, and they provide the best set of the night so far. With a shout of “How ya doin’, alright?” and the words “love is rad” painted on his guitar, frontman Jai Sparks leads the widely-grinning quartet through a set of upbeat rock and punk tunes, including the catchy ‘Passive Smoke’ and call and response of ‘Fuck Yeah’.

The Strums

The Strums

And so, to our headliners for this evening: The Mercy Beat. The Brisbane rock trio are here to launch their single ‘Fishbowl’, and it appears in second slot in the set after opener ‘The Mercy Blues’, and gives The Tempo audience probably the best riffs of the night. Without pausing to introduce their songs or address the audience, the band rock through an hour-long set of top-notch rock ‘n’ roll and punk tracks, including ‘No Crown’, ‘Eagle Throws Goat Off Cliff’, and ‘Born Yesterday’ from their How To Shampoo A Yak album in a thunderous climax to the evening.

The Mercy Beat

The Mercy Beat

All in all, Footstomp have put together a damn good show tonight, and getting four kick-ass rock bands for $10 entry is a pretty good deal. While each of these bands deserved a bigger crowd this evening, it’s great to see people out supporting local acts and for them to be promoted in this way. Here’s hoping for many more nights like this.

Event review: Opal Vapour – Visy Theatre, Brisbane Powerhouse – 5th June 2013

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Opal_Vapour

No, it’s not an upstart new-world band you haven’t heard of. Opal Vapour is a contemporary dance work with roots in Indonesian ancestral dance, and is brought to the stage with an Australian twist. Drawing on themes such as cleansing, purification, and belonging to a place of birth, and taking elements from Javanese shadow puppetry, the show is a stunning, haunting, and ultimately very impressive piece of work.

The Powerhouse’s Visy Theatre is a suitably dark and snug venue for a performance of this kind, and a perfectly-sized space for the three-person show. Consisting of the powerful physical moves of dancer Jade Dewi Tyas Tunggal, the soaring voice and musicianship of Ria Soemardjo, and the lightning of Paula van Beek, the fifty-minute show is captivating from start to finish.

As the audience files into the theatre and takes to their seats, each and every person present slowly realises that the object on the stage, an oblong-shaped box perhaps six feet in length, has upon it a drape-covered shape that looks suspiciously like a person. It is only around ten minutes later when the show starts, that this is confirmed. Ria Soemardjo slowly circles the stage, chanting in a haunting fashion and ringing hand-held bells, before slowly removing the layers of drapes from what soon is revealed to be Jade Dewi Tyas Tunggal’s body, and the show begins. The stamina to stay so still under hot spotlights and several layers of drapes is only the start of Tunggal’s physical exertion for this evening.

For the next forty minutes or so, the trio hold the audience in the palm of their hands, with a series of moves, postures, shades, and sounds that evoke strong images of trance, reawakening, and court dance. Visuals from an overhead camera are projected onto a screen behind the dancer to add a dual effect, and the box on which the performer spends the entire performance is lit from below and covered in a thick layer of sand; all of which ends up on the Visy floor by the end of the performance. Something else that happened at the end of the performance is the audience being so impressed that the performers were called back onto the stage four times for rounds of bows to the sound of thunderous applause; all richly deserved.

After being fairly spellbound for the duration of the performance, it’s a harsh reality that awaits the audience as they come blinking back into the light of the Powerhouse’s foyer, and while a dance performance needs to be seen to be fully appreciated, take it from me: this one was pretty damn great.

Live review: Local Natives + New Gods + Texture Like Sun – The Zoo, Brisbane – 19th May 2013

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Local Natives have been wowing fans up and down the country of late, and hot on the heels of their second album Hummingbird, they’re in town with the aim of doing the same to Brisbane. Drawing favourable comparisons to Fleet Foxes and Grizzly Bear, the quartet are well-known for their multiple harmonies and classy song-writing. The Zoo’s stage awaits their talents.

First up for tonight’s gig is Melbourne indie-folk duo Texture Like Sun, who provide an understated but increasingly attention-grabbing performance with a series of ominously-haunting piano melodies and soaring vocals. Their song ‘One Great Prize’ is a good starting point for checking these guys out, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Texture Like Sun

Texture Like Sun

The second support for tonight is Melbourne indie-rock quintet New Gods, who will possibly forever be described as featuring former members of Little Red; that once omnipotent but ultimately substance-free band of pop-lite not-quite-pretty boys who released a couple of chart-bothering tunes a couple of years ago. I immediately have flashbacks of a tragic night at The Hi-Fi in Brisbane, watching baying hordes of over-privileged teenage girls try to levitate their virginities in the general direction of any or all of the relatively unskilled band members, as the objects of their affections alternate between blushing under the swell of pheromone-fuelled adulation and jostling each other for a slice of the limelight and pick of the skirts.

Thankfully, New Gods aren’t like any of that – for the most part – and as I write a quick note by which to remember their set, a satisfying rhythm falls across the paper: “The little boys from Little Red… have become men and learned to shred.” While elements of dreamy pop inevitably slip into their set from time to time, they are at their best when guitarists Adrian Beltrame and Dominic Byrne let rip with the riffs, which they do really well; although writing a song about Bill Hicks and throwing your guitar gently and politely to the ground with an “I’ll-fix-it-later” look on your face doth not a rock star make. Next time, I want to be picking shards of your fretboard out of my eyeballs (with bleeding fingers) for a month, if you please.

New Gods

New Gods

And so: California’s Local Natives. When Hummingbird came out earlier in the year, I was quick to hassle people in relation to its greatness, claiming it to be one of the albums of 2013 already; and I stand by that. Top-notch tuneage seeps from every pore of that record – it’s a exquisitely crafted piece of work that will still sound great when we’re all just a bump in the graveyard grass. Alas, this is a review of a live show, not an album.

I was recently chatting to a friend about seeing Wild Beasts at Laneway Festival in 2010, and how totally disappointed we were with their show, especially considering they had just released such a top album in Two Dancers. It was tame in almost every sense of the word; all the right songs were there, played to perfection, but where was the performance? Every ‘T’ was crossed and ‘I’ dotted in terms of how the songs sounded, but where was the heart? Where was the soul? The audience engagement? It was as fun as being in your bedroom with their record playing in the background, and a couple of hundred random people along for the ride. The same could be said for tonight’s show.

Local Natives

Local Natives

“Hello, how are you? This is our last night in Australia, and we have a lot of songs for you tonight,” offers Kelsey Acer to a half-filled Zoo, before the band kick into ‘You & I’, with plenty of exaggerated arm-swinging on the down strum, and a range of well-practised facial expressions to show just how serious this band takes itself. As with Wild Beasts, the songs are all there; and are replicated in a note-perfect manner, including ‘Ceilings’, ‘Mt. Washington’, ‘Airplanes’, ‘Colombia’, and the sublime ‘Heavy Feet’, but despite unquestionably great musicianship and a fine range of facial hair, there’s something missing from this show that leaves me feeling – dare I say it – bored.

A mid-set cover of Talking Heads’ ‘Warning Sign’ provides some relief from the earnestness, and when it’s time for an encore The Zoo’s audience doesn’t exactly put up a fight to get the band back on-stage. Watching them pick up their instruments and strike up another couple of indifferent chords is enough for me, and I’m down the stairs to freedom in a matter of seconds. Disappointing.

Live review: The Bronx + DZ Deathrays + Spitfireliar – The Hi-Fi, Brisbane – 7th May 2013

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IMG_3532

It’s Tuesday night in West End and The Hi-Fi is heaving. Not long after the doors are opened, it’s nigh-on impossible to get near the bar, the area in front of the stage is rapidly becoming an elbow-room-free zone, and the steps linking the two are filled with lines of people who always seem to be fighting the current. It’s time for this Brisbane audience to drain their beers and ready their eardrums – The Bronx don’t do things softly.

After a quick and heavy set by local lads Spitfireliar, including their song ‘I Want To Eat Natalie Portman’s Poo’, Brisbane thrash duo made-good DZ Deathrays take to the stage. It is immediately clear that Shane Parsons and Simon Ridley have become one hell of a musically tight pairing; made possible by the almost constant touring across North America, Europe, and Australia of late. What’s also clear as their set progresses is how much of a monster shredder Parsons now is; those local music fans who still consider DZ an offshoot of Velociraptor must realise that there was no way an indie-pop band was ever going to contain this guy’s riffs. ‘Cops Capacity’, ‘No Sleep’, ‘The Mess Up’, and a finale of ‘Dollar Chills’ sound great, and a couple of new (unnamed) songs are trialled with plenty of screamo gusto.

It’s almost eleven o’clock by the time Los Angeles quintet The Bronx take to the stage to the boom of a spaghetti western track that sounds like it could be a tune by their alter egos Mariachi El Bronx. If you were choosing a traditional frontman’s look, it wouldn’t be that of singer Matt Caughthran, but the day he realised he has a voice powerful enough to topple regimes must have been a momentously life-changing occasion. As ‘White Tar’ sends the audience into a frenzy, Caughthran announces “Brisbane is the favourite town of the motherfuckin’ Bronx; the first place we ever touched down in Australia,” before scolding the audience for not selling out the venue, climbing along the railing, crowd-surfing back to the stage, catching a random hurled garment with his forehead, before finally announcing “We have come home to Brisbane, make some noise motherfuckers!”

‘Too Many Devils’ is introduced as being “for all the chicas,” before Caughthran kindly informs the by-now sweaty and elated crowd that “after tonight you will be born again, and everything else will pale in comparison to seeing The Bronx.” ‘Six Days A Week’ and a massive ‘Youth Wasted’ sound fantastic, as the energy level doesn’t let up despite the obvious expenditure on stage.

Unlike many hardcore and punk bands, The Bronx have a backbone of solid musicianship, talent, and top tunes; they come across as the type of band who could be just as successful as a calypso/bluegrass/sea-shanty/whatever group if they set their minds to it. For now, their rock show will do just nicely. What a great night.

Kings Konekted: “A lot of things dictated who stood where and by whose side”

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kings koneketed

Brisbane hip-hop collective Kings Konekted are about to launch their new EP The Campaign, and it’s set to be a real landmark release for the group. DJ/producer Stricknine and MC Culprit explain how much it means.

“It feels great to have it finished,” says Stricknine. “It was all done at Class A Records and it was an absolute pleasure working with producer Trem.”

“We always love recording,” explains Culprit. “We would do it every day if we could. When writing we usually start with a beat first, and we can ponder on that for days or weeks, and from there we’ll either decide if it needs a theme or a message, and Dontez might write some verses to it. Generally the writing process starts with the beat, and the beat dictates where the writing of the track is going to go for us. It might all three of us or just two of us working at any one time. Dontez really controls the boards; the computers and the programming. I don’t do any of the computer work, but once we load the beat in we work out the layout of the song, and whoever is going to rap first does their part. The choruses tend to get done at the end, after we get our verses out over the beat and have a listen. If there’s something that’s going back and forth then the process changes a bit where we might switch things around to make sure we get it out effectively.”

Serbian/Australian Culprit and Indigenous Australian/Italian Dontez forged their friendship and musical bond from a young age, growing up in the crime-infested streets of the western suburbs of Brisbane, before joining forces with elder statesmen Strickine, Prowla, and Trem to make The Campaign.

“There was a lot of segregation in what we call the 4300 postcode area,” says Culprit. “It’s a working class area and unfortunately there’s a bit of crime. You could call it a low socio-economic environment if you wish, and a lot of things in the lifestyle – things like graffiti, things like music, things like sport – dictated who stood where and by whose side. And unfortunately fights are pretty common out there. But most cities across the world – wherever you go – have riff-raff; it just happens to be a bit more common in that area, and we bring it all to the table. It’s not a negative view or a positive view; we’re not saying it’s good that there’s fighting or it’s bad that there’s fighting, we just want it to be known. It’s our life, our story, and what we’ve seen, so we want to portray that. But it’s each to their own. We don’t think you have to come from that sort of background to be a hip-hop artist.

The Campaign is the group’s first release since 2009’s Trails To The Underlair, but fans won’t have to wait as long for the next, with a full-length album planned for late 2013.

“It’s going to be called Corrupted Citizens,” says Culprit. “We wanted to put out the EP as a taster to give something to the fans and to thank them for waiting so long as we’ve been working on this since 2009. But that’s not to say the quality on the EP isn’t as good as what the album will be.”

When asked about what the local hip-hop scene and what could improve it, Stricknine is quick off the mark.

“More Kings Konekted!” he says. “Nah, the scene in Brisbane has its moments. There’s plenty of stuff out there that would make me want to go and see it. But there’s a lot of stuff out there that’s labelled as hip-hop that isn’t. We try to make music that can be recognised as hip-hop the world over, so someone in New York can listen to it and know what it is, not just someone from Australia. Some hip-hop artists are together for only a couple of years and put out an album, and it shows in their music, whereas we started in 2007 or 2008 and the guys were together for about ten years before that.”

‘THE CAMPAIGN’ IS OUT APRIL 19th FROM WWW.CLASSARECORDS.COM