Viewed in light of their past releases, ‘Where I’m Going’ is a black sheep, for never before have Cut Copy leaned so far toward the pop end of the musical spectrum. All four singles from 2008’s chart-topping In Ghost Colours – ‘Hearts On Fire’, ‘So Haunted’, ‘Lights & Music’ and ‘Far Away’ – had both feet planted firmly on the dancefloor. Here, the Melbourne-based act – a newly-minted quartet with bassist Ben Browning joining full-time – ease off the multi-layered synths that characterised their second LP in favour of a prominent rhythm section and a winning vocal melody.
Full review at Mess+Noise. More Cut Copy at MySpace; you can also download this track for free at their website, if you give ‘em your email address.
Big Boi - Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son Of Chico Dusty
Though they both effectively released a pair of solo albums under the OutKast moniker with 2003’s Speakerboxx/The Love Below, Atlanta-based rapper Big Boi steps away from his songwriting partnership with André 3000 for the first time to deliver nothing less than a monster album in Sir Lucious Left Foot. The title refers to one of Boi’s numerous alter-egos; two more, ‘Daddy Fat Sax’ and ‘General Patton’, are name-checked as song titles in the album’s first half. The key to this album’s thrilling ride lies within this approach: by taking advantage of the freedom to flit between several personas, the rapper can both shrink and exaggerate his true self. It’s less a schizophrenic episode than a tactic to unlock new songwriting ideas and it’s one that works beautifully.
In a decision seemingly born from label-related frustrations – this album was first due out in 2008 – Big Boi leaked two tracks of originally intended for Sir Lucious Left Foot prior to the album’s release, in ‘Royal Flush’ (featuring Raekwon and Andre 3000) and ‘Sumthin’s Gotta Give’ (featuring Mary J. Blige). A slew of pre-release singles would follow, including ‘Shine Blockas’ (featuring Gucci Mane), ‘For Yo Sorrows’ (featuring George Clinton and Too $hort), and ‘General Patton’ (featuring Big Rube). All of which might seem like overkill if it weren’t for the monster lead single proper ‘Shutterbugg’ (featuring Cutty).
Full review at The Vine. More Big Boi on MySpace; music video for ‘Shutterbugg‘ embedded below. For mine, this is a real contender for album of the year. I don’t get into most hip-hop, but this is outstanding.
Mess+Noise asked their critics to pick their top five Australian releases so far this year. I chose these:
The Gin Club Deathwish (LP, Plus One Records)
With nine songwriters in the mix across the genres of rock, folk and pop, The Gin Club’s fourth full-length could easily have fallen victim to too-many-cooks syndrome. It didn’t. Instead, it’s one of the best Australian albums of recent memory.
Read Andrew’s review here.
Halfway An Outpost Of Promise (LP, Plus One Records)
This Brisbane alt-country act contain as many members as The Gin Club, but on this release, the songwriting of core duo John Busby and Chris Dale is informed by the direction of Go-Betweens co-founder (turned album producer) Robert Forster. The result is 10 finely-honed songs that bear a homely, barroom feel.
Read Andrew’s review here.
Nikko The Warm Side (LP, Tenzenmen)
Another Brisbane band – swear I’m not biased. Post-rock with vocals done well.
Read Andrew’s review here.
Faux Pas Noiseworks (LP, Sensory Projects/Heroics)
Outrageous, otherworldly electronic pop written in a Melbourne bedroom. An outstanding debut.
Parades Foreign Tapes (LP, Dot Dash/Remote Control)
This one was overwhelmingly dense upon first listen, and took a few listens to reveal its genius. Unconventional pop songs dressed up in the always-awkward “art rock” tag. I’m glad I gave it time. You should too.
Visit Mess+Noise to see the rest of the critics’ picks.
What are your top five Australian releases of 2010 so far?
Over three decades ago, a pair of aspiring Brisbane musicians set down two rules that they’d follow throughout their long partnership: they were to equally share the amount of songs that appeared on each album between themselves, and they’d never do anything without the other’s permission. That pair was Robert Forster and Grant McLennan, who founded seminal pop band The Go-Betweens in 1978. In 2010, whether conscious or not, another pair of Brisbane pop writers – James O’Brien and Robin Waters – have tapped into this same ethos for their band The Boat People’s third album, Dear Darkly. Like every Go-Betweens album, they touch upon romance and melancholy in equal measure. And like every Go-Betweens album, Dear Darkly consistently errs on the side of greatness.
Augmented by guitarist Charles Dugan and drummer Tony Garrett, the duo each author six songs on an album that exhibits the best work of their decade-long career. Though their last LP, 2008’s Chandeliers, was subject to a three-year gestation process, they’ve opted to work faster this time around. The result is their most eclectic collection to date.
Full review at The Vine. More Boat People on their MySpace. Music video for ‘Soporific‘ is embedded below.
On third album ‘Church With No Magic’, the band formerly known as Pivot return with not just a new name but an evolution in sound, writes ANDREW MCMILLEN.
The further you get through Church With No Magic, the less it sounds like 2008’s O Soundtrack My Heart. That album – the band’s final release under the Pivot moniker, before ceding it to an American nu-metal band – stood at the intersection of rock and electronica, forming a remarkable amalgam of the two. Like O Soundtrack My Heart, Church With No Magic opens with a brief instrumental composition (‘Community’), but that’s where the comparison ends. Here, PVT are not just embracing a new name, but an evolution in sound.
‘Light Up Bright Fires’ seethes with twisted synth sounds and ominous, shape-shifting vocals. Yes, vocals. Richard Pike’s voice appears on most of the tracks here; its presence adds an extra layer of melody to the band’s output. The addition of vocals isn’t too surprising, considering the deep, wordless yawns that coloured O Soundtrack’s ‘Sing You Sinners’, yet the range displayed is quite extraordinary.
Full review at Mess+Noise. More PVT on their MySpace. Music video for ‘Window‘ embedded below.
“More rock, fuck post-,” state Nikko on their MySpace page. Why, I’m not sure. I can think of several counterpoints to their refusal to position themselves as post-rock. One, they’re so firmly lodged within the genre – without hyperbole, they’re worthy of being listed alongside international greats like Mogwai and Explosions In The Sky – that to describe them as anything else would be misleading. Two, there aren’t many national bands trying to stake a claim within these musical confines (aside from the recently decamped The Dead Sea and fellow Brisbane natives Castles Sunk Below The Sea). Third, since when is post-rock something to be ashamed of? Fourth and most importantly, they do it well.
The Warm Side is Nikko’s debut album, following their formation five years ago. Fittingly, these nine songs have been subject to a long gestation process: the recordings were completed in August 2009, whereafter the band shopped it to labels before finding a home with Sydney’s Tenzenmen (Scul Hazzards, Paint Your Golden Face). There are no corners cut here, and not a moment wasted.
Full review at Mess+Noise, where you can also stream the title track. More Nikko on their MySpace.
That newcomer Ernest Ellis wrote most of his debut album Hunting while holed up in a Blue Mountains cabin on his lonesome has undoubtedly affected its outcome. A constant sense of space permeates this release – from the booming echo of the drums (‘Pulse’) to the persistent vocal reverb (especially noticeable on the plaintive acoustic track, ‘Valley Song’) and the layered guitar overdubs and choral accompaniment (‘Loveless’).
Despite the distance conveyed by the production, Ellis and his band – drummer Mat Gardner and bassist Ben Morgan – manage to avoid the pitfalls of overly sterile pop perfection (see: The Temper Trap’s Conditions) by injecting these songs with a human sense of warmth. The handclapped beat of ‘Heading For The Cold’ seems purpose-built for the festival set, yet such aspirations shouldn’t be held against Ellis: he deftly tows the line between folk, pop and rock with consistently favourable results.
Call them alt-country, call them roots-rock. The accuracy of genre identification matters not, as at the heart of the matter lies a simple fact: Brisbane’s Halfway are damned good songwriters. That the key writing duo of John Busby and Chris Dale are past winners of the Grant McLennan Fellowship – a $20,000 Arts Queensland grant – is not surprising given the strengths of their third LP.
Recorded by Wayne Connolly and featuring a Robert Forster production credit, it’s their most ambitious and considered work to date. Even at their most scintillating – ‘Sweetheart, Please Don’t Start’, a five-minute long, achingly beautiful epic – Halfway are characterised by a rare kind of understated cohesion. There are very few sharp edges on ‘Sweetheart’, and I don’t mean that as a backhanded compliment: it’s the most gripping song here by a long way. Built on a recurring refrain (“Not like some old love/You’re more like the sea/A heart’s coming home, love/And they wash you to me”), it’s only in the final 90 seconds that the song is injected with a sense of urgency through an increase in tempo and the appearance of softly-distorted guitars.
Full review at Mess+Noise, where you can also stream two tracks from this album. More Halfway on their MySpace.
I spoke with Dave Miller [pictured far right] – one third of the Sydney-based electronic rock act PVT – for Rolling Stone on May 11. At the time, it hadn’t yet been announced that the band were changing their name from Pivot to PVT due to legal threats. I’d been listening to an advance copy of their third album, Church With No Magic, for a couple of weeks. Dave and I spoke about the new songs, the addition of Richard Pike’s vocals to their formerly instrumental-only approach, and the name change. (In either case, the name is still pronounced ‘pivot’.) Our conversation is below.
Andrew: I’m not sure what’s the most obvious question to begin with, Dave: the name change or the presence of vocals on your new album. Let’s go with the name change.
Dave: We got issued a cease and desist letter by a band in America, and it was just one of those things where we could have been clubbed. It was probably going to be extremely costly, and the potential of losing a court battle was not really worth the money and also it would have just held the album back a year or something while we had to do this. We figured we’d kind of do a cut and dry type thing.
It’s just one of those things, where if we want to keep this name so badly, it could cost us loads of money and we would have to put the album back a year because of some righteous American emos who think they deserve the name more. That was just one of those things, so in some ways we kind of saw it as a positive thing, and kind of shedding some old baggage and moving onto new things. That’s how I’ve eventually thought about it.
Do you think that thing’s been a long time coming? I’m sure you guys were aware that there were other bands called Pivot?
Yeah, we kind of thought they’d go away and the one band that was issued the court stuff was – they’ve never played outside their hometown. They’ve never put out a record on a label. We’ve played 10 times more places than they had in their own country, yet they still wanted to hold onto their dream of making it big time or something, I don’t know. We kind of gave up on guessing what the reasoning for it was. It could have been money or whatever, but regardless we’ve let the babies have their bottle.
When you put it like that, it’s a drag, man.
Yeah, it was a drag and we found out when we arrived in America, for SXSW, which was really bad timing. But as I say, we’re kind of seeing it as a step forward for our band, rather than a step back.
Do you think your fans will understand the change?
I don’t know. As far as liking the new name or something, I hope that they’ve all realised that sometimes these things happen. It’s happened before, loads of times before. There’s sometimes stuff like that happens, and on the Internet everyone in this sort of Internet world, everyone is just as important as each other, or seemingly as important as each other.
I saw that the name has been changed briefly on your Facebook page, and a couple of fans picked up on it.
I didn’t see that. Did they like it?
Yeah, the comment was “Good work on the name change PVT. It’s way more efficient now.”
Okay, yeah it’s more efficient, like Kraftwerk. [laughs]
Moving on to discussing the addition of vocals. Who argued loudest to include them?
It was just a thing that when we first started jamming our stuff and recording in studio, a lot of the ideas were vocal ideas rather than guitar or keyboard or something. We just rolled with that. Richard’s always been able to sing and it was just one of those things where we thought, “Well, why don’t we do this? We can do this.” It was a challenge and we could’ve quite easily done another instrumental album like the last one – O Soundtrack My Heart II, or something – but that would’ve been done in 3 months. It was a sort of challenge and we kind of realised, being in a touring band for 18 months altogether, we realised we don’t really listen to much instrumental rock music at all, and a couple of times we were like “If we don’t listen to it, why are we making it?” That was just an aside. It was more about the fact that we wanted to progress, I guess.
Is it just Richard singing on the album?
Yeah, it’s all Richard.
His vocals in ‘Crimson Swan’ are excellent.
Yeah, thanks [laughs] I’ll pass it on to Richard. That was one of the songs where we sort of wrote and recorded it in the same room in a couple of days. It was one of those things that was really organic and felt right straight away. We didn’t really work on it a great deal. It was just like “okay, we’re done. Let’s move on.” We don’t want to add to it too much and we don’t want to over think it.
Is there a particular track on the new album you’re most fond of?
Probably ‘Crimson Swan’ the most at the moment. It will probably change. I like playing ‘Timeless’ live, that’s really fun at the moment, when we’ve been playing it at the shows. But I guess it varies, as what happened with O Soundtrack. Those changed throughout the time. Sometimes you get bored playing certain songs or whatever, but I think ‘Crimson Swan’ has been a favourite of mine for a while.
The album is a bit of a brief affair. It’s 10 minutes shorter than O Soundtrack. Do you have many outtakes and B sides from that recording session?
Yeah, we’ve got loads. [laughs] We have about almost another album actually, but there’s just some songs that didn’t fit in with the [hearing] of it and other songs that were better – fit the general overall feeling of the record, that it just didn’t feel right. Like I said, there was maybe one song that might have gone in or might not, so we just decided to leave it out, as far as the continuity goes, and flow of the record.
Is the album’s title of particular significance?
It’s just a phrase I had. I kind of caught an idea that Laurence and I recorded, ‘Church With No Magic’ and I liked the symbolism of it. Richard decided to use the phrase in the chorus of the song and then it turned out to be the title of the record. It was just one of those things. But it was just something that I picked up.
When recording O Soundtrack you were in London and the Pikes were still in Sydney, most of the time. Did the process differ this time around?
Yes, it was entirely different. We recorded almost everything in the same room, and it was recorded and edited everywhere. It was recorded mostly in Sydney but some parts in London, and edited when we had some time off on tour [laughs] in London, and France, and Sydney, and it kind of was a moving project as we were touring around the world. Any time we had a small chunk of time off we’d start working on it again. I guess that’s one of the reasons why it has a real live feeling about it; it sounds like 3 guys in a room, and I like to think it sounds like all our live shows have over the past year. There’s mistakes, and there’s bombastic drums and lots of air in the room. That was my thing, we kind of wanted the record to sound a bit more – not “garagey”, but like 3 guys playing in a room.
I was re-reading the interview with Richard Ayoade from a couple of years ago. During that discussion you were talking about the advantages and disadvantages of using digital gear. One of the quotes was “Inconsistencies are great. Mistakes are good, and to have rough edges is kind of important.”
That’s what we made sure, that we… we didn’t focus on it, but that was another thing that we kind of made a point of in this record, to not sand off the edges and to keep it a bit more live and raw.
So it’s less reliant on the cut-and-paste style of digital recording?
It was recorded digitally, but not anything like chopping up drums and guitars so that everything fits perfectly, and sounds like fucking U2 or something. We didn’t want to do that. We just wanted to leave it as we played it. That’s basically it.
From that same interview there’s another quote one of you said, “we’ve seen a lot of live electronic music and been very bored, so that’s something we wanted to avoid – we don’t want to be cold and faceless.” Have you got anything special in mind for the next album tour?
I don’t know. I’m not sure if we’ve thought that far ahead, but one thing that we have realised makes a big difference is lighting. I know that’s not a new thing but it makes a difference as far as the audience’s interaction with the show. I think when we’ve had good lighting, it seems like it’s given us a far bigger boost. It’s like the comparison between having bad sound and good sound, having no lighting versus lighting makes a massive difference. If we can find the man who’ll make us light up well, we’ll take him on tour.
But I don’t think as far as live or electronic music, I think there’s probably a big difference between solo electronic stuff that I’ve seen, and what we do. Just because there’s a guy that plays electronics doesn’t mean that he’s an electronic act. There’s always exceptions to the rules as well; Jamie Liddell’s solo live act is absolutely amazing.
As a musician, do you find that an album release is less exciting in 2010 than it was a few years ago, given how easily accessible and traded music is these days?
People don’t really know when release dates are, do they? And they don’t really care for them. They just kind of want it as soon as it’s available, which is kind of… that’s the ‘me’ generation, which is not really my feeling but I understand it. Life moves on and society moves on, but I’m still totally excited about the record gig. I kind of wish that that particular date was a big deal. I remember when I was much younger, waiting for the date that the new Nine Inch Nails record would come out and go to the record store, and buy it that day. I wonder how many people do that anymore. [laughs]
But I’m excited, and I know Richard and Laurence are. It’s just a matter of… I’m more excited about people hearing this record than the last one, mainly because it’s a bigger progression, maybe, for us.
I’m interested to know how many labels these days have contingency plans in place for if an album leaks, or more accurately when it leaks?
Yeah, I don’t know; I think it depends on the band and the manager and the label and everyone else. It’s not just the label I don’t think. Everyone kind of has a say in it. You’re right, it makes a big difference as to when it happens and stuff. I can’t answer that question.
As I understand it, you’ve been a part of Pivot for 5 years now, Dave, is that right?
Maybe a bit less than that, 3 or 4 years probably. I’d probably played the first gig with them in 2006, so 4 years now.
At this stage, is there a particular band leader or do you all have equal input into what goes on?
[laughs] I think it’s pretty democratic. Any sort of ideas, being musical or otherwise, anyone can kind of shut down and anyone can get a ‘thumbs up’ too. Yeah, it’s good having a 3-piece group. There’s always a majority.
From what I’ve seen of you playing live in Brisbane over the last few years, the audiences keep growing and growing. I’m curious to know how you feel about where the band fit into the Australian musical landscape.
I don’t know, to be honest.
I find that at festivals, people know the Pivot name by now and they know you’re pretty different to everything else that appears on festival line-ups. They’re drawn to that.
Yeah, if people are open-minded like that, that’s great. [laughs] It’s just a matter of getting the gigs in the first place. That’s probably the main problem.
Was making a living from touring outside of Australia always the goal for the band?
Making a living any which way we can as far as the band goes, whether it’s playing in Europe, Australia, or America, or whatever. It’s not really – like lots of territories and lots of places you don’t really make any money. It’s more about the fact that you’re playing to a new audience and they’ll get excited and next time you might make money. It’s a slow process, but we played loads and loads in Europe over the past 2 years and I’m hoping it’ll come out to something next time we tour there as well.
I gather from your mailing list that the live video for ‘O Soundtrack My Heart‘ [embedded below] was recorded for a French TV show. Is there any chance it’ll be released as a whole performance on DVD or something eventually?
Yeah, when we got sent the DVD of the show, it was actually the first time we’d ever seen us videoed before, in decent quality, rather than just off our phones or something. It couldn’t have been a better situation and it was like an amazing lighting show and playing in front of 5,000-10,000 people in an outdoor festival with night time in France. It was pretty amazing. [laughs] Everything kind of fell into place.
I don’t know; it’s been a while since I looked at the video. I guess eventually maybe. I can remember there being a few duff notes that Richard was blushing about. But other than that I think we’ve got the whole concert. It’s just the matter of whether.. I guess it’s all in good time.
Final question, Dave. You’re a professional touring musician in a band that’s appreciated in indie circles throughout the world. What would you be doing if you weren’t a musician? Was there ever a plan B for you?
I used to do programming for websites and stuff. I’d probably be pretty bored of that by now and would’ve turned to something else. I don’t know, it’s never bothered me before, but maybe I’d be a florist or something, I’m not sure. [laughter] It’s best not to think of at the moment!
++
PVT’s third album, Church With No Magic, is released July 16 2010 (today!) via Warp/Inertia. For more information – including links to buy the album – visit their website. Video for the first single, ‘Window‘, is embedded below. You can read my album review for Mess+Noise here.
Koalas, uzis, and ‘Heartbeats’: Los Angeles-based hip-hop group Get Busy Committee (GBC) don’t mess around. Their 100% self-funded, self-released debut album Uzi Does It was released on their own label, Tokyo Sex Whale, and declared 2009’s ‘hip hop album of the year’ by Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park/Fort Minor off the back of their lead single ‘My Little Razorblade’ [audio embedded below], which sampled the rhythmic pulse of Swedish electronic act The Knife’s distinctive track ‘Heartbeats’.
Consisting of underground rapper Apathy, Styles of Beyond‘s Ryu, and producer Scoop DeVille, GBC took the unlikely step of releasing the album in a USB uzi format that won them coverage on Wired, thereby reaching a tech-mad fanbase and creating buzz ahead of a digital album launch that saw Uzi Does It offered in mp3 form for just $1 via MySpace Music. Confused? Get busy. Below is an email conversation with the group, which was answered for the most part by Apathy.
Andrew: Hey GBC. I follow music industry news, I heard about you through guys like Bob Lefsetz (music industry commentator) and Ian Rogers (CEO of online music marketing company Topspin Media). Is it true that all publicity is good publicity, or were you weirded out by having a mid-50 year old guy like Bob write about you?
No way! Bob Lefsetz has been around long enough to have a good idea of what he likes, and I hope we’re on his good side! GBC does not age-discriminate, and we are definitely NOT for the kids!
Ian’s involvement and enthusiasm seems to have boosted your profile to a level that other acts might spend months or years developing. How important is his guidance and experience to the group?
In all honesty, Ian Rogers and the folks at Topspin have been the best thing to ever happen to our career. When in the past we would have a crazy idea, it would just stay a crazy idea. Ian is able to take a crazy idea, add sweet peppers and Giardiniera on top of a paper thin cut of beef, throw it in a French roll, and make a Chicago-style Italian beef sandwich out of it. (Sorry… Man V. Food is on in the background as I write this.)
We also have to thank our good friend Mike Shinoda [Linkin Park/Fort Minor] for linking us up with Ian!
“This is a marathon, not a sprint. Get Busy Committee hasn’t even played a live show since the record came out yet,” wrote Ian on his blog. Do you have an interest in the marketing and promotion side of things, or are you happy to let others take care of it while you work on the music?
Ryu: Yes, we are heavily involved with the marketing of the group. From the conception, it was very important to me that every detail of the group was carefully thought out. From the way we comb our hair, to the stylish clothes we wear. [A reference to their song 'Stylish Clothes']
I also have a background in marketing/PR with the clothing brand True Love & False Idols. With GBC I wanted our image, logo (koala with uzi), website, and merchandise to be an extension of the brand. Everything is designed by our good friend and owner of TLFI (and sometimes GBC collaborator) Alex (2tone) Erdman. The marketing for this album has been a fun experience for us.
“Financially we’re doing slightly better than break-even at the moment, which means no one is making a bunch of money but we aren’t losing money, either,” wrote Ian in the same blog post. I take it that – having been in other groups – GBC have been realistic about the financial situations for musicians since you formed a couple of months ago?
We were very realistic financially with this album. The point was never to become rich off of the album; we just wanted to generate enough money to continue to raise awareness.
Hypothetically, what would it take for an independent hip-hop act like yourselves to be able to live off your music – touring, merch, record sales, etc? Is this even possible in 2010?
An artist being able to live off of [recorded] music, touring, merch, etc is a very real possibility in 2010, provided that the artist is patient, and the margin of profit works in the artists’ favour. It’s also important that you offer a product that people can’t live without. Everyone can live without a CD, but nobody can live without an uzi-shaped USB, with a free album included!
In the end, the funds you take is equal to the guns you make!
From an interview here: you said “‘My Little Razorblade’ is probably the worst recording ever. The vocals are all blown out.” What? Are you serious? Fuck pristine, I love the edge this track has. It’s the first thing I heard from you guys, and still my favourite. Was it difficult to clear the ‘Heartbeats’ sample? Have you heard any feedback from The Knife’s camp?
Thanks! Razorblade is one of our faves as well. We like the blown out vocals as well!
As for the sample? The Knife have been really cool for not suing the shit out of us. We assume they are familiar with the track, I think one of the band members follow us on Twitter! @GetbusycommittE
In that same interview, Ian stated that the album is “something that you guys have been working on for over a year; in your spare time, and across the country, and for essentially no money”. You later said “Don’t make a record, it’s the worst way to try to make a living.” What are your day jobs? Do they have any relation to your music?
We have been fortunate enough in this business to sustain us through the years: Styles Of Beyond, Fort Minor, Demigodz, as well as producing for outside artists have paid the bills for years. Some years are better than others, but we have been very fortunate thus far. Some of the things we do to earn money are:
Scoop DeVille: His production credits include Snoop Dogg’s ‘Life Of Da Party‘ and ‘I Wanna Rock‘, Fat Joe and Young Jeezy ‘Ha Ha‘, as well as upcoming tracks on albums from Busta Rhymes, The Clipse, Bishop Lamont, and of course the Get Busy Committee. Safe to say, the kid don’t need a day job.
Apathy: Shitloads of solo records including the recently released Wanna Snuggle? as well as upcoming albums with Army Of The Pharaohs, and the Demigodz. Production for Cypress Hill, Busta Rhymes and more. Your boy is good!
Ryu: Get Busy Committee, and PR/Marketing for True Love & False Idols.
You’ve all been part of the hip-hop scene for over a decade. You knew the music business pre-internet. It must be quite a change to work as GBC, whose marketing and promotional output is almost entirely online.
Yeah the marketing and promo has changed a lot, but we’ve been in the business long enough and have worked albums in just about every climate of the ever-changing music business, so the new way of doing things hasn’t come as a shock to us. It’s actually a welcome change after spending so much time on major labels. The new style of marketing is much better suited to a group like us. We love it.
Scoop, have you shown GBC material to Snoop or The Game? What kind of feedback have you been getting?
Scoop: Yeah I was just out in Miami recently with Fat Joe, DJ Khaled, Cool and Dre, and they loved the USB uzi! I should have brought more with me, everyone was taking pictures with them and shit! The industry is definitely taking notice of the moves we’re making. We’re actually working on a Get Busy Committee and Busta Rhymes song tonight! Shit is gonna be nuts!
Cut Copy – ‘Where I’m Going’
Big Boi - Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son Of Chico Dusty
The Boat People – Dear Darkly
PVT – Church With No Magic
Nikko - The Warm Side
Ernest Ellis - Hunting
Halfway – An Outpost Of Promise
I spoke with Dave Miller [pictured far right] – one third of the Sydney-based electronic rock act 
Yeah, the comment was “Good work on the name change PVT. It’s way more efficient now.”
I was re-reading the 
From what I’ve seen of you playing live in Brisbane over the last few years, the audiences keep growing and growing. I’m curious to know how you feel about where the band fit into the Australian musical landscape.
Koalas, uzis, and ‘Heartbeats’: Los Angeles-based hip-hop group 