Mess+Noise album review: Surf City
An album review for Mess+Noise. Excerpt below.
Surf City – Kudos
Kudos is an anachronism. It simply shouldn’t be. It is the antithesis to modern music. While every other band is doing their best to sound like the future, New Zealanders Surf City are stuck in the past. There’s nothing futuristic about it, and yet, like a Magic Eye image, if you stare into their gaping sonic void for long enough, a conclusion reveals itself. Suddenly, it all makes sense: Surf City sound so fresh because they’re not trying to sound fresh.
From the moment the first glassy guitar notes of ‘Crazy Rulers Of The World’ stream from the speakers, it’s clear that the six years the band have spent working toward their debut were worth it. In fact, just why Kudos succeeds so resolutely could be put down to the band’s patience. Their self-titled EP wasn’t released until 2008; likewise, nothing about Kudos feels rushed. Again, Surf City is antithetical to modern music, and the forever fast-forwarded release cycle perpetuated by tech-savvy musicians. Their social networking sites are neglected. Too busy making amazing music, I guess.
Full review on Mess+Noise. More Surf City on MySpace.
I wish I could embed a video or something to show you just how amazing this band is, but there’s fuck-all info about them online. You can stream the album’s best track, ‘Icy Lakes’, via Polaroids Of Androids, however. Do it.
Mess+Noise single review: Jebediah
A single review for Mess+Noise. Excerpt below.
Jebediah – ‘Under Your Bed’
The best thing about ‘Under Your Bed’ is that it sounds like Jebediah circa 1997’s Slightly Odway. The weirdest thing about ‘Under Your Bed’ is that it sounds like Jebediah circa Slightly Odway. The newly-revived Perth quartet – whose last release was 2004’s Braxton Hicks – are all now surely in their mid-30s, yet here they are, all piss and vinegar, thrashing out a breakneck two-minute punk jam like they’ve just picked up their instruments for the first time.
This is powerful musical juju whose potency shouldn’t be underestimated. Scores of Australians – likely also approaching their mid-30s – look back fondly on Jebediah, who rose to prominence during the heyday of triple j’s alternative rock obsession. The last thing they want is for their fond memories to be tainted by another ill-advised reformation. You know the drill: band releases and tours new album, audience stifle yawns during new material. ‘Under Your Bed’ seeks to buck the trend through sheer volume and speed. Incredibly, it succeeds.
Full review at Mess+Noise, where you can also stream the track in question. More Jebediah on MySpace.
Mess+Noise single review: Gotye
A single review for Mess+Noise. Excerpt below.
Gotye – ‘Eyes Wide Open’
“So this is the end of the story/Everything we had, everything we did/Is buried in dust,” begins the first original solo offering from Gotye since 2006’s Like Drawing Blood LP. Following its runaway success, songwriter Wally de Backer prepared a remix album, Mixed Blood, then shelved Gotye in favour of consistent writing and touring with his other band, The Basics. Ahead of a slot on the 2011 Laneway Festival and an impending third LP comes ‘Eyes Wide Open’, a compact, three-minute tune available for free download from his website.
The most striking aspect of the song is its sparse instrumentation, especially when compared to his intricately-layered past works. ‘Eyes Wide Open’ is built around a three-note bass progression, de Backer’s characteristically muscular drumming, and that unmistakable voice. Additional credits for “whale cello” (Gareth Skinner), “poker bass” (Lucas Taranto) and “wasteland pedal steel guitar” (Michael Hubbard) are noted, but their input is more atmospheric than integral.
Full review at Mess+Noise. More Gotye on MySpace. The music video for ‘Eyes Wide Open‘ is embedded below.
I should point out that what appears above is not the original review I submitted. Turns out I’d totally misheard most of the lyrics I quoted. Wally texted me soon after it was published to tell me the correct lyrics. How embarrassing. At least it was on the web, where it could be easily updated. I’m now super cautious when quoting lyrics – especially in newly-released music – for fear of being wrong. Again.
Mess+Noise album review: You Am I
An album review for Mess+Noise. Excerpt below.
You Am I - You Am I
When discussing a new release from an act like You Am I, there’s a tendency to compare it to past works. Can it match Hi Fi Way or Hourly, Daily? Was it as disappointing as Dilettantes? So let’s try something different. Let’s pretend it’s their first album, not their ninth. Could it be wedged comfortably between the buzz bands of 2010, and hold its own? Could You Am I find an audience with You Am I if it were their debut?
I won’t string you along. The answer to all of the above is “yes”, but here’s where my review concept falls apart: it’d be nigh on impossible for a rock band’s debut to emerge so fully-formed. The songs and sounds contained within You Am I could only be written by a band with 20-plus years of experience up their sleeves. Its trajectory is remarkable, as the LP seems to gather momentum and clarity as it nears the end; a rarity among musical acts of any genre, for sure. It feels as though the album’s near-perfect pacing is integral to its impact. Its 11 tracks offer disparate moods and experiences, yet they’re loosely threaded through the same rock narrative that made them endearing in the first place.
Full review at Mess+Noise. More You Am I at MySpace. Video for their single ‘Trigger Finger‘ embedded below.
The Vine festival review: Parklife Brisbane 2010
An extended live review of the 2010 Brisbane Parklife Festival for The Vine. Excerpt below.
Parklife Brisbane, 2010
There’s nothing quite like rain to fuck up a festival. As clouds loom ominously overhead, we wonder how many tears are being shed in Parklife HQ as wet weather threatens to disrupt the national tour’s first stop. Such thoughts are momentarily cast aside when, soon after hopping off the CityCat nearest Brisbane’s Botanical Gardens, we’re accosted by a friendly undercover policeman, who has us empty our pockets. “Has anyone offered you any drugs?” he asks. “Not yet,” we reply. With a laugh, he sends us on our way – despite having neglected to check my back pockets or earplug case, both of which are chock-full of illicit substances.
After passing through the VIP entry soon after gates open at 12pm, we encounter Last Dinosaurs, a young local indie pop act who are playing to eight people at the Kakadu Stage. As we walk past, three of them leave. We’re just getting settled in at the better-attended Atoll Stage, where triple j Unearthed winners Teleprompter are playing, when the clouds break. And don’t let up for the rest of their set. For the 50 of us who don’t dash for the nearest cover, this makes the quintet’s set more enjoyable, somehow: dancing in the rain to their slick take on indie-punk which calls to mind the late Melbourne act Damn Arms. Inexplicably, they’re all dressed in Star Wars get-up: the singer’s Luke Skywalker, the keyboardist’s Darth Vader, and the drummer’s Boba Fett. It’s a stupid gimmick, but it’s funny nonetheless. They sound good, and they clearly don’t take themselves too seriously. The Force is strong.
Full festival review at The Vine, as well as photos via Justin Edwards.
I don’t usually publish my live reviews here – instead, they’re linked over in the right column, via my Last.FM journal – but I’m making an exception in this case, and I’ll likely do the same for longer reviews in future.
Junior ‘Issues’ story: Concert ticket scalping in Australia
Junior is a new street press started by the folks behind Scene Magazine here in Brisbane. 115,000 copies are distributed monthly throughout QLD, NSW and VIC.
I was commissioned to write a feature for their first issue on the topic of concert ticket scalping. Click the image below for a closer look, or read the article text underneath.
Issues: To Scalp Or Not To Scalp?
No discussion associated with live music is as emotionally-charged as ticket scalping. Junior spoke to several key players within the live music industry to gauge their opinions on the issue.
“It’s a difficult issue, as in some ways it is a free economy and the laws of supply and demand apply,” begins Chugg Entertainment managing director, Matthew Lazarus-Hall, whose company is currently touring acts like Gorillaz and Rufus Wainwright. “The greater challenge is: would the general public accept dynamic pricing from the start? Do people really care that someone paid more or less than the person they’re sitting beside?”
Lazarus-Hall refers to the practice of changing prices at regular intervals – every few minutes, hours or days – based on actual consumer demand. Introducing dynamic pricing would mean that the quality of a seat directly correlates to the ticket price. In real world terms, it’d mean that those sitting closest to the stage opt to pay more, while those poor souls stuck in the nosebleed section would likely pay substantially less.
This differs from the existing systems offered by Ticketek and Ticketmaster, wherein a flat rate is applied to all seats within particular sections, regardless of their distance from the stage. For example, ticket holders Row AA in section 42 of the Brisbane Entertainment Centre pay the same as those in row ZZ, despite the spatial difference.
“There are about 20 different price types on a plane trip from Sydney to Melbourne,” Lazarus-Hall continues. “Same destination, same experience, and people do not care. Whereas at concerts, people are far more emotional and there’s a perception that the person sitting next to you should pay the same – except when scalping is involved.
“Our preference is that scalping didn’t happen, as the artist misses out on the revenue. We do the best we can [to avoid scalping], but we do not need more legislation,” he concludes.
National ticketing company Moshtix – who provide service for a wide range of music events, like Splendour In The Grass – welcomed a June 2010 Commonwealth Consumer Affairs Advisory Council (CCAAC) review into ticket scalping by conducting their own survey, which garnered responses from around 750 Australian gig-goers. Over half of respondents (54%) had purchased a ticket through an onseller; around a third (35%) had paid more than the market price.
According to Adam McArthur, Moshtix general manager, there’s simply no need for scalping. “We’re against it, because we’ve found that, with the use of some technology tools, you can eradicate scalping without penalising the original ticket purchaser.” These tools include limiting paper ticket delivery by issuing tickets electronically; collecting the names and birthdates of attendees and verifying these details at the point of entry; and a resale facility, which allows ticket holders who can no longer attend events to securely return their ticket to the market.
No such measures have been adopted by Australia’s two biggest ticketing companies, Ticketek and Ticketmaster.
“If they’re not being pushed to do it, then why bother?” asks McArthur. “Both Ticketek and Ticketmaster haven’t been challenged in that large arena market for some time. They just keep offering the same services, because they don’t need to change.” Despite these frustrations, he disagrees with the notion of Government intervention. “Legislation is really difficult to enforce in this industry, so the best thing the Government could do is put some broad guidelines in place.” McArthur notes secure ticket delivery and resale facilities as his top two concerns.
“The government question is hard,” admits the man behind Andrew McManus Presents, whose company is presenting forthcoming tours from Brian Wilson and Guns N’ Roses. For him, it’s more about “the need to make people aware of the risks of buying a scalped ticket, rather than trying to stop scalping.” McManus does point out, however, that he’s against the act of scalping for profit. “On a personal level, it’s unfair for those who line up, wait for hours and miss out on tickets due to some loser buying 50 and selling them on eBay for three times the price, just because he knows the fans will buy it. We put on shows for the fans, not for scalpers to make a buck.”
Andrew McManus Presents always set a per-transaction ticket limit for their shows in an attempt to curb scalping. The ticket limit “varies from show to show, but is always in place. We also monitor eBay and other similar auction sites,” the promoter says. “Anyone found selling our tickets for profit runs the risk of being reported and having their listing removed, or even having their tickets cancelled. I don’t think sites like eBay should intervene on their own, but if a promoter tells them to take something down, they should. And for the most part, they’re pretty good at doing that for you.”
“We do get the odd request from venue owners and promoters, but it’s very rare,” admits eBay Australia‘s Head Of Corporate Communications, Daniel Feiler. “Generally though, unless it’s legislated, we don’t remove the tickets. In Australia, there are laws in Victoria and Queensland around resale of certain types of tickets.”
At present, the only Victorian event impacted is the AFL Grand Final, to which tickets cannot be sold above their face value. In Queensland, it’s unlawful to sell tickets for events held at eight venues – including the Brisbane Entertainment Centre and Suncorp Stadium – for above 10% of their face value.
“If someone does sell a ticket that’s above 10% for an event where the legislation applies, it’s up to the Queensland Police,” says Feiler. “If they want information about either the buyer or seller of that particular trade, then we’ll provide them with the registration details of those people. Then it’s up to them to choose to make an arrest or issue a fine.”
Feiler points out that, for a “blockbuster” event held at Suncorp Stadium – which holds around 52,000 people – typically, only a few hundred will end up on eBay.
“That’s the story that people don’t necessarily hear about,” he says. “There’s an assumption that just because the tickets are being sold on eBay, they’re being sold above face value. Our experience has always been that if you put the tickets in the hands of genuine fans, they’re unlikely to sell them, as they desperately want to go to an event. It really comes down to the promoter, and whether they want to put the systems in place to make sure that genuine fans get tickets first. We don’t see it as eBay’s role to fix up an issue that may or may not be created by poor original distribution in the primary market.”
Enough philosophising about this issue. Junior went straight to the source, and spoke with a pair of ticket resellers (or scalpers, depending on whether you consider it to be a pejorative term): one who operates on eBay, and one who doesn’t.
Stuart Hamilton runs a full-time ticketing business under several eBay usernames , including Chilli Entertainment, though eBay accounts for only “a small part” of his customers; most of his business comes from corporate clients. At the time of writing, Hamilton has over 100 ‘buy it now or make an offer’ listings for events which range from concerts like U2, The Wiggles and Iron Maiden, to non-music events like the AFL Grand Final, The Footy Show and Robin Williams. Is the business profitable?
“Yes and no. At the end of the day, I cover the over heads and make a good wage similar to a middle manager’s wage at any major company,” says Hamilton, who started the four-year old business after leaving his role as senior sales manager. His decision came at a cost: “I often do 10 hours a day on the computer, doing the shit that needs to be done. It’s high stress and high risk: you can lose thousands on a concert if you get it wrong. The trick to this game is to know when to cut your losses, quick. To be honest, I wonder if it’s all worth it at times, and I do have my eye open to new opportunities away from reselling.
“Sometimes we get a big premium for an outstanding located seat,” he continues. “These are usually purchased by a wealthy person who just wants the best. But we don’t get many of the best tickets – maybe four or six per concert if we’re lucky – so we have to make the most of the ‘big hits’, as it’s not always roses.”
To illustrate, he points to his tickets to Powderfinger in Perth, which he’s currently selling for half price ($49 each), thereby losing about $70 a ticket. “With 30 of them, that hurts,” he admits. Some of his customers are happy to pay $60-$120 more for a good ticket simply because they “don’t have the time to go through all the stress and headaches of purchasing from Ticketek, whose internet systems often crash during a big-event sale.”
Hamilton seems content with his role as reseller. “We provide a good service for those who want convenience of purchase, and we’ll often get a better ticket than they could get themselves anyway. If it’s through a safe marketplace like eBay, 99% of the time, no-one will get ripped off. Let the fans have a choice: they don’t have to buy off a reseller, but they then have to make sure they make the effort to get their tickets early.”
Several independent ticket brokers operate outside of the eBay realm, three of whom were publicly dissed by Suncorp Stadium general manager Alan Graham on brisbanetimes.com.au in mid-September: Red Circle, worldticketshop.com, and ticketfinders.com.au. Simon Williams, manager of the latter website, was none too pleased by being tagged by Graham as an “unscrupulous operator”.
“We’re not a fake website,” he tells Junior. “We source and supply tickets to hundreds of clients every year, and fulfil our obligations every time. We do not rip anyone off.”
At time of writing, Ticket Finders’ prices for access to the ‘sold out’ 8 December U2 concert in Brisbane range from $175 (general admission) to $950 (‘Red Zone’ area); face value for these tickets were $99 and $350, respectively. Their web form allows customers to request up to 50 tickets per section.
“Call it scalping if you want, but ticket broking has been around as long as there’s been tickets for events. We operate in a free market based on capitalist ideals. What’s the difference between buying and selling houses and cars, and pieces of paper?” Williams asks. “I think it’s hysterical that people get so worked up about it. Of course, a ticket’s got more of an emotional attachment to it.”
“We provide a service: people can’t find a ticket, then we’ll find it. We pay a premium ourselves to find it, and we charge a premium on top of that. It’s not any different to people buying and selling cars or houses, or any commodity. It’s not like we’re selling drugs or weapons.”
For more information on Junior, visit their website – which, at the time of publishing this blog entry, is still under construction.
Rolling Stone story: Hungry Kids Of Hungary
A story for the November 2010 issue of Rolling Stone, on Brisbane band Hungry Kids Of Hungary.
Click the below image for a closer look, or read the article text underneath.
Hungry Kids of Hungary Stay Close to Home for Debut Disc
Queenslanders finally drop their debut after a pair of promising EPs
For Brisbane-based indie pop quartet Hungry Kids Of Hungary, the three-year path to their debut album was paved with transcontinental correspondence, two EP releases, and a stack of national tours supporting the likes of OK Go, Little Birdy and Bertie Blackman.
Escapades took shape in the suburban home of producer Matt Redlich, with whom the band recorded their second EP, last year’s Mega Mountain. Over cold drinks on a warm Brisbane day, singer/guitarist Dean McGrath and singer/keyboardist Kane Mazlin reflect on a recording process that began in January 2010 and concluded six months later.
Ultimately, the band were faced with a choice: record with a familiar face in a comfortable, inexpensive environment, or return to Tony Buchen’s studio in Sydney, where the band recorded earlier single “Let You Down”.
As an indie band faced with financial realities, though, the decision to remain Brisbane-bound seemed simple. ”We love Matt’s recording space,” says McGrath. “It’s underneath his house; it’s just cosy, and suits us down in the ground. There’s a pool out the back. We started recording in January – when it was far hotter than this – so we could do takes and then go for a swim. I was interested in doing something different and pushing us out of our comfort zone, but I think the right decision got made in the end.”
The band also found that removing time and money constraints had a positive effect on their songwriting. “We actually did some pre-production this time,” reveals Mazlin, in reference to an exhaustive process of rehearsal, deconstruction and rearrangement of each song.
“Sometimes you end up putting it together exactly the same as you started,” says McGrath,”but I think it’s a dangerous thing to have an album’s worth of songs ready and then just recording those 12. The cool thing about stretching it out over a long time is there’s four songs on the record now that weren’t written at the start of the recording process.”
Hungry Kids formed in mid-2007. Drummer Ryan Strathie had played in separate bands with both Mazlin and bassist Ben Dalton; McGrath was a mutual friend. As McGrath and Mazlin share vocal duties, the band agonised over Escapades‘ tracklisting. “It was always going to be a little tricky for us to make everything flow,” says Mazlin. “But I think we managed it.”
When asked to pinpoint the band’s sound, McGrath is laconic. “Pop’s the simplest way to describe it. It’s what we do. I think it’s unnecessarily complicated to give it a whole bunch of sub-genres.”
More Hungry Kids Of Hungary on MySpace. The music video for their song ‘Coming Around‘ is embedded below.
The Vine interview: Shihad
An interview for The Vine. Excerpt below.
Interview – Shihad
After 22 years together, the Melbourne-based, New Zealand-raised rock act Shihad are still kicking. September 24th 2010 marks the release of their eighth studio album, Ignite, which – like its predecessor, 2008’s Beautiful Machine – was self-recorded in drummer Tom Larkin’s studio. Unlike that largely pop-favouring release, though, Ignite marks somewhat of a return to what the band have always done best: huge, riff-heavy guitar rock suitable to be blasted at both clubs and stadiums.
Shihad have played both kinds of shows, many times. They supported AC/DC on the New Zealand leg of the Black Ice tour earlier this year, and soon after touringIgnite across Australia’s capital cities in November, they’ll play national tours with Guns N’ Roses and now-labelmates Korn (Ignite is the band’s first release with Roadrunner Records). In July and August, Shihad played a handful of exclusive shows in Sydney, Melbourne, Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland wherein they performed their classic albums Killjoy (1995) and The General Electric (1999) in full. And so TheVine’s conversation with Tom Larkin begins…
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Before we discuss Ignite, I want to touch on the shows you did last month for Killjoy and The General Electric. Did you enjoy yourself?
Of course. A lot. It was one of those things we had planned for a long time. We’d left it on the sidelines, and we’d get busy and then go back to the idea and keep coming at it, but it was really, really enjoyable for us to do. And great for us to revisit that stuff and revisit the material we hadn’t played for a long time. It was great.
Read the full interview on The Vine.
This interview was a little strange for me, as Shihad are a band I’ve respected for a long time – for a few years, around 2005-2006, I readily named them as my favourite band. My interest their music (especially the lacklustre newer stuff) has since plateaued, but still, they’ve played a large part in my life. It was a pleasure to speak with Tom.
More Shihad on MySpace; the music video for their Ignite single ‘Lead Or Follow‘ is embedded below.
The Vine interview: The Dandy Warhols
An interview for The Vine with The Dandy Warhols – all four of them – conducted in tandem with my girlfriend Rachael in the band’s hometown of Portland, Oregon.
Why? We won a competition to do so.
Interview – The Dandy Warhols
Despite their early ambitions to re-energise the shoegaze genre (which will make more sense after reading the below interview), The Dandy Warhols emerged from Portland, Oregon in the mid-1990s to become best-known for brandishing a unique take on alternative rock that favoured lengthy psychedelic compositions and instantly accessible pop tunes in equal measure. After hitting their stride commercially with …Dandy Warhols Come Down in 1997 and Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia in the early 2000s, the band were dropped by their label Capitol Records in 2005. Ties between band and label had been strained for some time, as evidenced in the infamous 2004 documentary DiG!, which chronicled the band’s career in parallel to The Brian Jonestown Massacre.
Rather than despair, the band made the most of their freedom by establishing their own label, Beat The World, which they now use to promote their friends’ bands, in addition to their own material. 2008’s Earth To The Dandy Warhols was their debut LP as an independent band, and they’ve recently released a greatest hits compilation entitled The Capitol Years: 1997-2005.
Ahead of their Australian tour as part of the Parklife Festival, my girlfriend Rachael and I met with The Dandy Warhols in Portland on September 9 2010, after winning a competition organised by Virgin Mobile, Pedestrian.TV and Parklife Festival promoters Fuzzy. After watching them record a rare acoustic set for the local community radio station OPB – wherein they covered songs by Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones and The Brian Jonestown Massacre, as well as a couple of their own – we decamped to their studio space, The Odditorium, for an extended interview during which the four members come and go.
To read the full interview – around 50 minutes’ worth – visit The Vine.
Footage of our trip to the US is embedded below; read more about it here.
