Part of the Surfers Paradise Festival here in the Gold Coast, The Oneway Project brought together art stalls, live graffiti art and live music in one little lane in Surfers. Despite being a cold day and being out of practice, I had heaps of fun trying to sketch the bands. Bonus points for being able to test drive an ipad for field work as well. Must endeavour to do more…
-Emmanuel Hernaez
Dolphins
Oceanics
Steph Pickett
Kwerkshoppe
The Winnie Coopers
I’m slowly becoming more and more convinced that tom drums make people lose any sense of self control. My Disco and Absolute Boys at The Zoo on Saturday night presented no exception to this rule.
Adelaide trensters Absolute Boys started off the evening playing to an unfortunately nearly empty room. The few punters scattered around The Zoo were far from given an empty performance, however. Absolute Boys were tight and expressive, combining catchy pop tunes with fierce and jagged eccentricities. Their stage presence I found to be polite, but extremely “cool” at the same time. And “cool” is definitely a key word for this review. Absolute Boys had a definite hipster vibe going on, with a clear vision of trend beaming out amongst the plaid button-up shirts, layers of bass delay and slashing guitar layered on top of the soft and precise vocals. But, you know what, I’m not even saying that’s a bad things. As hipster tre cool as the Absolute Boys may have come across, there was also a “reformed boys from the Adelaide burbs” vibe too, which acted as a sort of subtext to their whole performance. So don’t get me wrong, I absolutely loved the Absolute Boys set. They were thoroughly enjoyable and made me want to dance, and this could never lead to a bad thing.
I admittingly didn’t hang around for the Slug Guts set. They seem to be playing every show in Brisbane lately, along with a couple of other bands who seem to be dominating all the shows and venues around town. And personally, I’m getting pretty sick of Brisbane’s entire underground music scene being represented by three or four bands. So this is the reason I didn’t stay to watch them.
While I found quite a few similarities between the Absolute Boys and My Disco sets in terms of repition, driving basslines, vast walls of sound and insistent minimalism, there was a real rawness harnessed by My Disco which makes it easy to see how so many people have become obsessed with them. They played their entire new album Little Joy from start to finish, with slight deviations away from the recorded version of the songs. As you have heard, Little Joy is not a participants album in the way that it is a mesmerizing one. My Disco have created a repetitious monster of the trance kind, and Saturday night they unleashed it onto The Zoo patrons with an unstoppable force. The little lighted worked perfectly with the minimalistic sounds of My Disco and created a great atmosphere. While I was a little disappointed when I found out they were going to play Little Joy from start to finish (why should I pay an extra $20 to hear something I already have), I think it made sense. It was a very complete set that went through all the right levels of energy and intensity like waves.
Overall, it was a really awesome night with quite an interesting lineup. There was all the genetic makeup here for a possibly mediocre evening, but My Disco brought their balls to the table and once again proved that they are probably one of the most unique bands in Australia right now, and definitely one of my favourite.
Liza Harvey
The Bleeding Knees Club
Friday November 19th
Woodland Bar
18+
$5
Good times to be had by all
Gareth Liddiard (The Drones)
Friday November 19th
The Old Museum
18+
$25.50 Oztix
Songs to melt your brain to
TWIN PEAKS THEMED PARTY!!
w/The Keep On Dancin’s
Saturday November 20th
18+
FREE before 10pm, $5 after
Many a good theme song to dance to – or murder to
Thank god I can spend all day watching live NBA games on 1 and still go out & kick it w/ the rest of the world @ night- otherwise I’d totally get bummed out ’cause I missed seeing kyü at the (lovely) old museum and in some future reality I’d finally go see them at the Hifi bar and spend the whole time stuck to the floor, guzzling $10 beers in a state of harrowing regret…
Friday 29th Oct;
– Kyu / Pikelet / Nimble Animal @ Old Museum (Cnr of Gregory Terrace and Bowen Bridge Rd
Spring Hill) 8pm, $10 (srsly you aren’t going to more heartfelt warm smiles in your heart for $10).
– Talkshow Boy / Laura Hill @ Ric’s (FREE) (Talkshow Boy is NUTS. Not everyone’s cup of tea but if you dig Gameboys, electronics & getting yelled at-this will be the best place to invest your $0.00).
Saturday 30th Oct;
– Dimi Dero Inc / Hits / Obliterati @ Troubadour (8pm/$12) (!!!)
– Ice Cube / Scorcher / Briggs @ Tivoli (8pm/$89) (Ice Cube is both the best rapper AND best actor in the world…- & Briggs is totally badass, but this one is for millionaires and dealers only. I might have to stay at home and watch All About The Benjamins 2 or 3 times and huff some glue instead).
– Oh Ye Denver Birds / Ghoul (SYD) / Toy Balloon / Tiny Migrants @ The Zoo (8pm/$10) (Maybe I’ll pass on the glue and just hit up the Zoo instead- killer bands AND it’s being billed as a halloween party-so go get your freak on).
I was hoping to post a picture of zombie Ice Cube-but google images failed me-failed us all.
PS Why didn’t anyone inform me Brian Wilson / Chicago / America / Peter Frampton were tearin’ up the Riverstage?? POWERHOUSES. (my pick for worst best tour ever envisioned)
After a huge week of killer live music (including the likes D!D!D!, Dead Meadow, Sage Francis & Baroness) I was left with massive bags under my eyes, an empty wallet and a questionable amount of permanent marker spalshed all over my arms (Scott Baio is making a BIG comeback-I can assure you). Even though I might have felt like quite the raggamuffin, I did also feel alive- stay off the crack, kids- get on this life shit everyone seems to be diggin on so hard. B.a.n.a.n.a.n.a.n.a.s.
There’s some top talent coming our way so get on board and get involved;
Friday 22nd Oct (tonight)
– Mirah (USA) (PS: She’s GREAT) @ Lofly Hangar (Redhill – all ages / BYO – great venue)
– Eagle & The Worm / Ball Park Music / Blame Ringo @ The Troubdour ($10 which is totz magoatz a bargin)
– Nikko (100th show BOOM) / Mahal Kita / Running Guns / Gerald Keaney & The Gerald Keaneys @ The Nest (Davies Park, West End)
Saturday 23rd Oct
– 4ZZZ Carpark Gig (!) Pastel Blaze / Stag / Loose Grip @ 4ZZZ Carpark (2-6pm, FREE, all ages)
– Andrew Morris / Mexico City @ The Troubadour
– Howl / Parties Of Interzone / Velociraptor @ Club House (downstairs at Tempo)
PS- Come to the carpark gig @ the 4ZZZ carpark dumdums, unless you hate fun in the sun
PPS- Brisbane zombie walk on Sunday, so probs just ignore the trembling horde of the undead if you’re not a fan of getting your freak on.
Rave safe kids.
Frankly! It’s a Pop Festival graced our fine Powerhouse this last Saturday past, bringing with it an enviable lineup of some serious pop bands. In the last year or so my definition of ‘pop music’ has done a complete backflip. So, I can understand if you’ve read this review so far and thought “hells no! A pop festival??” But, Zeders, fear not – this is pop music at its purest, with just plain mother fucker catchy tunes. The lineup was made up of Fabulous Diamonds (Melb), Guy Blackman (Melb), Surf City (NZ), Crayon Fields (Melb), High Places (US) and Xiu Xiu (US). I found it interesting that there seemed to be a pretty decent crowd right up until Xiu Xiu played – perhaps the lure of pretty and colourful fireworks got people’s attention. Lawrence English who curated the festival certainly did a great job at piecing together this fantastic pop festival!
Fabulous Diamonds
One of the things that really struck me about Fabulous Diamonds was there skill in keeping repetition interesting. Sure, there songs are a collection of one drum beat and a keyboard riff that slowly develops over a period of about 7 minutes or so, but for some reason I find it really easy to get into it. I thoroughly enjoyed their set at Frankly on Saturday, much more so than at their LP launch the night before at Burst City. Fabulous Diamonds seemed to balance the right amount of tension and drone quality across their Frankly show and I’m not sure if anyone else could have pulled it off quite as well as they did.
Guy Blackman
I’m still not quite sure how I feel about the Guy Blackman set at Frankly. For a lot of the time his simple pop keyboard melodies, clean vocals and daggy jokes made me feel like I was watching my Dad perform. But maybe that was just his charm? I think I kind of appreciated it in the same sense that you can appreciate a dad-joke, and his set did get more interesting as it went on. By the last two songs, the boys from Crayon Fields had joined Blackman on stage to perform a super up-beat version of “Gayle”, which ended the set on a fantastic note.
Surf City
Surf City really carry on that classic New Zealand pop sound that is reminiscent of bands like The Clean and even Songs (yes, I know they’re from Sydney but three of them are from NZ!). There was a real particular nostalgic pop sensation that flowed through the Surf City set and I really enjoyed it. However, listening to music that makes you feel like dancing, while it’s really the middle of the day and everyone’s sitting down inside a big brick building just didn’t seem to bring the right vibe to their set. There was definitely something missing in the middle, some kind of translation or understanding where even though the Surf City boys performed really well, the crowd just didn’t respond in the way that I think they deserved.
Crayon Fields
There was something extremely wholesome about watching a bunch no particularly attractive guys play 60s inspired pop with a geeky precision! Crayon Fields are now one of my favourite bands, and I think it might be just because I feel like if I took one of them home my dad would be very happy! Their set at Frankly was really great and they injected a fair dose of renewed excitement into the festival air. Not that the previous bands didn’t perform well, but the whole timetable had been pushed forward by about an hour and this made everything feel a little rushed, like the organizers were trying to rip off a band aid as fast as possible. So when Crayon Fields played fantastically, there was a fair amount of excitement that seemed to drive up the vibes a little bit.
High Places
There were a few things about the High Places set that really distracted me from really enjoying their set. There were a fair amount of sound issues before they started playing which pushed back their time by half an hour (and actually bringing the festival back to its original playing times) and there’s always a nervous tension in the air when even the audience can tell that something’s gone wrong. Then when they started playing the mix just seemed a little bit out, like there was some phasing or something happening with the speakers… and then I realized it was all because of a photographer who was leaning his entire body against the right hand speaker to steady his camera and in doing so cutting out most of the higher frequencies and quite radically changing the sound. As a trained engineer/producer, these little things really get to me and I’m sure even those in the audience who don’t know anything about the physics of sound would have heard the extreme change in sound. As I said, I was pretty distracted through the High Places set, and so while their beats came across really brutal and meaty from their drum machine, I felt like for most of the set the entertainment value of watching two people on stage and a drum machine just didn’t hold its worth. It was real shames because their recorded works are fantastic and pack a shitload of punch, but it just didn’t seem to translate live. This, doubled up with my audiophile distractions proved High Places to be a bit of a disappointment.
Xiu Xiu
While in their stage setup, Xiu Xiu weren’t all that too different from High Places in term of two people on stage adorned by drum machines, keyboards, guitars and a few percussion bits and bobs, their live stage presence was surprisingly overwhelming. I felt that they were super intimidating on stage, especially Angela Seo. Maybe because I’ve seen her throw up for the entire 3:56 of the “Chocolate Makes You Happy” filmclip I thought ‘wow, there’s really not much these guys wouldn’t do for their art’. And that completely translated into their set at Frankly. Xiu Xiu had an air about them where they really came across as being completely there for the audience and for their music. I know this sounds cheesy, but they really ‘performed’, and it was thoroughly entertaining, engaging and exciting. Even though the crowd had maybe halved by the time Xiu Xiu graced the stage, I really don’t think it altered anything about their performance and it was really flattering.
Liza Harvey
A fun night with Nikko, Turnpike, Monster Zoku Onsomb and 6Ft Hick rocking out with glorious abandon. Had lots of fun sketching and was exhausted for it.
-Manny
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Nikko
6FT Hick
Turnpike
Monster Zuko Onsomb
More Zoku!
Liza Harvey
Your Weekly Weekend Planner!
Thursdaaaayyy 15th July
– Lambda Lambda Lambda –
MOSES GUNN COLLECTIVE
TEENAGE WOLVES
$10 (student card gets you in for $5!)
Alhambra Lounge
Fridaaaaayy 16th July
SOUTHERN COMFORT (SYD)
BLANK REALM
THE SIPS
THE SEIZURES
Burst City $8 BYO
Saturdaaaayy 17th July
SUPER WILD HORSES(Melb) Album Launch
SOUTHERN COMFORT (Syd)
KITCHENS FLOOR
LOOMER
Lofly Hangar
$10 BYO
Sundaaaayy 18th July
Sunday Ice Cream Socialist/Bastard Theater of Brisbane
– a festival of the brisbane underground –
CURED PINK (SABBATICAL RECORDS TAPE LAUNCH)
CRAFT BANDITS
HEART FLEW
YOUT DIEM
KITTEN PARTY
SKY NEEDLE
6MAJIK9
PSY ANTS
AMBROSE CHAPEL
GERALD KEANEY + THE GERALD KEANEYS
DJ SLUG GUTS
and appearances from
OTHERFILM
THE NEGATIVE GUEST LIST
BEDROOM SUCK RECORDS
UNIQUE BEAUTIFUL FLOWERS
REAL BAD MUSIC
BATS MAGAZINE
Burst City $6 BYO
Enjoy the weekend, kids!
I had heaps of fun at my first Taterstomp last week. Despite some indecision and fighting the effects of a 50 hour work week, I managed to get back into band sketches. A little too rusty but it’s a start.
-Manny
The Sugar Shakers
Ten Four
Corn Liquor
ZEDblog 