A Q+A published in the January 2011 issue of Rolling Stone, which featured in the ‘Sounds of Summer’ music festival guide. Click the below image for a closer look, or read the article text underneath.
Pendulum – Heavy Dance
Leading the Perth-born, U.K.-based drum-and-bass act Pendulum isn’t all Rob Swire has been doing recently: he also co-wrote and co-produced Rihanna’s “Rude Boy”, which meant double platinum in Australia. Pendulum have just wrapped up an Aussie tour ahead of their appearance at the Future Music Festival tour in March, and we caught up with Swire on the eve of their show in his hometown, Perth.
Onstage you rely on around a dozen computers – that’s a lot of trust in technology.
Well, the point of having 12 computers is so that if one of them goes down, the rest are relatively alright. We do get the central computer resetting sometimes, because that thing’s being raped, to be honest.
When you were younger, do you remember watching particular artists or bands and thinking, “that’s what I want to do”?
I was fairly heavy into electronic music, so I never really saw that many bands. I think the first band I saw was Spiderbait and the second was The Prodigy. We were in a band before, a sort of metal band and that was just sort of inspired by death metal bands, but I think watching Strapping Young Lad and Muse pretty much inspired us to get a band together.
Your background is in metal, yet you’re now in the biggest electronic rock act in the world. You’ve also co-written with Rihanna. Do you get bored easily?
I do, yes. I’m totally ADD in terms of writing music. I just get bored of whatever I last did, and if I do something too long I get bored and do something else. The Rihanna thing is something different and it’s far, far removed from the Pendulum stuff. It’s good.
Do you see yourself pursuing more co-writing in the future?
I can, yeah, but it’s such a different thing to the way we’ve done things in the past. With Pendulum, we have 100 percent creative control. With the stuff like Rihanna, you pretty much do what they say. If they don’t like a bit of a verse, they fuckin’ take it out. If they don’t like a vocal, that’s not the vocal they use.
With Pendulum, you’ve been performing your ABC News remix as the encore of the current tour. That song’s become something else entirely for you, hasn’t it?
Yeah, in fact, it’s a very scary thing. I think the slight weirdness of the Sydney show might have been a lot of people were solely there to see that tune. They’d heard it on the radio and thought we might be a sort of electro, DJ group or some shit like that, and they came along and there’s a band playing metal-infused drum and bass. There was a lot of chanting of “ABC!” throughout the set. It was a bit weird.
For more Pendulum, visit their website. The music video for their track ‘The Island‘ is embedded below.
Throughout their long musical history, the island nation of New Zealand couldn’t lay claim to a single blog-worthy buzz band. Split Enz? Pre-internet, by a long shot. Shihad? They’ve been mining the same hard rock territory for 20-plus years, and they’re unlikely to extend their influence beyond anyone who’s not already a fan. Cut Off Your Hands? A contender, sure, but they’ve not released new music since 2008. Die! Die! Die!? Amazing band, but probably too punk-niche to be retweetable. Flight Of The Conchords? More of a comedy act than musical, I’d argue.
Formed around the creative partnership of Thom Powers and Alisa Xayalith, The Naked and Famous took their name from a Tricky song. Soon joined by electronic whiz Aaron Short and then David Beadle and Jesse Wood, The Naked and Famous’ fortunes took off with the release of ‘Young Blood’ in May 2010, much to the delight of music fans with an urge to scratch the same itch first disturbed by Passion Pit (and earlier, by MGMT’s debut). A divine slice of electro indie-pop, ‘Young Blood’ – 900,000 views and counting – is a monster single that taps right into the vein of naïve adolescence (for real: its first line is “We’re only young and naïve still”). The September-released album, Passive Me, Aggressive You, shot to #1 on the New Zealand off the back of that single and its equally addictive follow-up, ‘Punching In A Dream’. (Interestingly, first single ‘All Of This’ was released in November 2009, nearly a year before the album’s release. It failed to chart.)
Despite their neon-glow, both singles betray the band’s true sound. Influenced by acts like Nine Inch Nails and Tool, Passive Me, Aggressive You’s non-singles exhibit more of a fascination with walls of shoegaze-like guitars and electronic sequencing than bright synth-pop. This is promising; it suggests that The Naked And Famous have a plan that extends much further than a couple of hypeworthy singles. Ahead of their appearance on the 2011 Big Day Out tour, TheVine connected with the band’s co-founder, singer, guitarist and producer, Thom Powers, to talk hype, remaining independent, and Reznor.
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I’ve seen the word ‘hipster’ getting thrown in the band’s direction a bit lately. How do you respond to that?
Dissing us, are they?
Sometimes it’s positive, sometimes it’s negative. The connotation of ‘hipster’ tends to shift a bit.
I don’t know. Hipsters are always going to exist, I think, and then they move out of home and grow up I guess. [laughs] I’m not sure, I don’t know. I don’t really know what to do about it. I’m not one of them, so I can’t really relate.
Good answer. Do you read your own press?
Sometimes, yeah. I skim through it. I try not to take it all too seriously. But it’s really hard unless you’re some sort of Zen Buddhist to actually detach and not become emotional about things, so it’s more to protect yourself. Don’t read the good ones, and don’t read the bad ones either. I do skim through them. I take it at face value, really.
Do you care about what people think about the band?
It’s a weird question. Yeah, I think I do, but at the same time if all I cared about was what people thought about [us], it would be superficial. I think that’s a pretty complicated question to ask, because I would care about what people thought if they thought it was destroying the world. But if some hipster thinks that I’m not cool enough, and he wants to call me a ‘faggot’ on the Internet, then I don’t really care about that. I can’t quite answer that question because there are too many social levels to answer it on.
Fact: The Stooges are one of the most influential rock bands of all time.
Fact: Raw Power is one of the most influential rock albums of all time.
Released in 1973 to sparse acclaim and an underwhelming commercial performance – Raw Power peaked at #182 on the Billboard charts – the album eventually spread like a virus throughout the next generation of rock musicians, many of whom would introduce their own fans to The Stooges. Among them: Kurt Cobain, who named Raw Power his all-time favourite; Johnny Marr of The Smiths (and, more recently, Modest Mouse and The Cribs); Henry Rollins (who has the words ‘Search And Destroy’ tattooed across his shoulder blades); and Steve Jones of The Sex Pistols, who says he learned to play guitar by taking speed and playing along to Raw Power.
Of the album’s guitarist, James Williamson (main pic, far left – 1972), Johnny Marr said: “I’m his biggest fan. He has the technical ability of Jimmy Page without being as studious, and the swagger of Keith Richards without being sloppy. He’s both demonic and intellectual, almost how you would imagine Darth Vader to sound if he was in a band.” Williamson first joined The Stooges in 1971 as second guitarist, but the band was dissolving before his eyes. Only a recording offer from David Bowie to Williamson and vocalist Iggy Pop got them back together for one last stab at rock stardom as The Stooges. With the Asheton brothers in tow – Scott (drums) and Ron (bass at the time, but he’d later play guitar during more recent incarnations of the band, up until his death in 2009) – Williamson co-wrote Raw Power with Iggy and played all of the guitar parts. Despite Bowie’s involvement, though, the record didn’t perform commercially, and the band again split. Williamson went on to collaborate with Iggy as a writer and producer for a couple of Pop’s solo ventures (1977’s Kill City and 1979’s New Values), but after falling out with the singer over Soldier’s recording methods, the pair remained estranged for 16 years.
What happened next is one of rock music’s strangest tales: James Williamson gave up on music entirely, graduated from California State Polytechnic University with a degree in electrical engineering, and went on to work for Sony Electronics for 25 years. Most of his colleagues had no idea of Williamson’s involvement with The Stooges, despite Iggy Pop doggedly working himself into a position of international notoriety as one of rock’s most outlandish performers. The Raw Power guitarist wanted nothing to do with it. It took a university essay written by Williamson’s son, entitled ‘Coffins In The Corner’ – in reference to his father’s guitar cases sitting up against the wall, unopened all throughout his childhood and adolescence – to provoke the guitarist to finally accept Iggy’s offer to reform the band in the wake of Ron Asheton’s death last year. It also helped that Sony offered him a generous early retirement package from his role as Vice President of Technology Standards. Now Williamson, aged 61, is touring the world, playing The Stooges’ celebrated catalogue to a new generation. The Vine connected with the guitarist ahead of the band’s appearance on the Big Day Out tour in January and February 2011.
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Andrew, how are you doing?
I’m very well, thanks. It’s 7 a.m.
7a.m.? [laughs] I’m sorry to put you through that, but I guess we could find the time we could both do it.
Absolutely. It’s an honour, mate. I found your website while I was researching for this interview. I was intrigued by a couple of things. First, what’s the origin of your nickname?
Oh, Straight James? After The Stooges had split up, Iggy came out with an album called The Idiot, and he had a song on there called ‘The Dum Dum Boys’ (link). In that song he talks about “Ron did this,” and “Scott, he did that”, and then “What about James? He’s gone straight”. So after that, I tongue-in-cheek named my publishing company ‘Straight James Music’ and it kinda stuck from there. I’ve had it ever since.
For more of The Stooges, visit your local record store / online outlet and immediately buy/download their three albums: The Stooges,Fun House, and Raw Power. Thank me later.
The approach for Gold Coast duo Bleeding Knees Club is disarmingly simple, and on Virginity, their first release – five tracks, and barely 11 minutes in total – they sound simultaneously loose and confident. It works so well purely because there’s nothing else to get in the way of Alex Wall thrashing away at a shitty old drumkit while singing about his offsider being 20, him being 21, them both being drunk, and about how guitarist Jordan Malane “found my cigarettes” and “took three”. Throw in an incessantly-shaken tambourine and a harmonised vocal melody and you’ve got everything you could possibly want from a simple, dumb, awesome indie-punk tune.
There’s a killer middle-eight in ‘Truth Or Dare’ that sounds like the wheels are about to fall off. This same sense of barely-contained enthusiasm propels Virginity along like Wall and Malane have nothing to lose.
For the full review, visit Mess+Noise, where you can also stream the track ‘Bad Guys’. For more Bleeding Knees Club, visit their Myspace. Live footage of their song ‘Camp Out‘ is embedded below.
A story for the October 2010 issue of Rolling Stone on the Brisbane-based alt-country/rock band Halfway.
Click the below image for a closer look, or view the article text underneath.
Halfway: Between Alt-Country and a Rock Place Brisbane collective embrace pared-back approach, Forster wisdom on third LP
by Andrew McMillen
Three albums into a ten-year career, Brisbane alternative country act Halfway have hit their stride with An Outpost Of Promise, released in July through +1 Records. If you’re unfamiliar with their earlier work, fear not: their latest is “definitely a good place to start,” according to Halfway’s John Busby, who alongside Chris Dale forms the band’s core duo. “It’s the least country record that we’ve done before, so maybe that makes it more accessible.”
Put Dale and Busby in the same room and you’ll soon find them finishing each others’ sentences. Both in their late 30s, their friendship was forged in the central Queensland city of Rockhampton in the 1990s before they relocated to Brisbane and formed Halfway in 2000. But while the pair are the heart of the band, they are bolstered by an extended family – all Halfway’s eight band members meet twice a week at ‘Halfway House’ (a room underneath Busby’s mother’s house) to “have a beer, play music, and just talk,” says Busby. “It’s never really toil. I love hanging out; it’s the best part of being in the band.”
The country tones that coloured their first two albums – 2004’s Farewell To The Fainthearted and 2006’s Remember The River – are marginalised on Outpost, which features 10 songs played “straight up, with tension and drama,” according to its producer and former Go-Between Robert Forster.
Forster’s wisdom triggered a shift in the pair’s approach to songwriting. This time, the pair ensured that every song worked with just guitar and vocal first, before soliciting embellishments from their bandmates. Busby suggests Forster gave them confidence by exposing each song’s acoustic core; “rather than just trying to make a lot of racket”. “That’s how we ought to go forward,” Dale concludes.
“Just let the songs do their thing.”
For more Halfway, visit their MySpace. I reviewedAn Outpost Of Promise for Mess+Noise earlier in the year. It’s ace!
Never a band to care for conventional wisdom or industry standards, Brisbane-based instrumental rock act Mr. Maps have limited this double A-side single – a teaser for their debut album, due later this year – to just 250 copies, and printed the cover on antique pianola paper to offer each payer a unique design. From the hammered-on clean guitar motif to the stomach-turning tempo changes and the subdued, cello-led midsection, the title track is immediately representative of the group’s vision and ability. ‘Nice Fights’ meanders organically, taking its time to unveil the beauty within.
The momentary pause toward the end of ‘Fly You Monumental Mistake’, however, is this EP’s dramatic apex. Everything before this point seems like padding for this money shot. In the one-second window that bucks the trend of streaming guitars and tumultuous drumming, Mr. Maps shine.
Full review at Mess+Noise, where you can also stream the track ‘Nice Fights’.
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!
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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.
Three bands define Australian hard rock: Karnivool, The Butterfly Effect, and Cog. It’s nigh on impossible to discuss Brisbane quartet Dead Letter Circus without referring to the current scene’s pioneering figures. In the context of those bands, it’s perfectly reasonable to wonder aloud: is DLC’s debut full-length a contender to Karnivool’s stellar 2005 debut, Themata? Does it stack up to The Butterfly Effect’s first LP, Begins Here? Can it be favourably compared to Cog’s The New Normal? The answers, respectively: it’s not, it doesn’t, and it can’t. It’s far from a trainwreck, but on the whole, it’s consistently disappointing.
A bit of history: Dead Letter Circus released their debut EP in 2007. Its six tracks were treated by Forrester Savell, the go-to man for alternative rock production in Australia. DLC relentlessly toured the land for the next several years to celebrate occasional singles and EPs in the lead-up to This Is The Warning, their first release with Warner Bros. They’ve worked hard to cultivate a significant fanbase, who rewarded the band with a #2 debut on the ARIA charts.
Full album review at The Vine. Though I was all over that debut EP when it first came out, I am not fond of this release. More on the band at MySpace; ‘Big‘ video embedded below.
My first ‘On Rotation’ album review for Mess+Noise, where I discuss The Gin Club’s new album in some depth. Excerpt below.
The Gin Club – Deathwish
On their fourth album, Brisbane rock/folk/country/ whatever-goes collective The Gin Club sprint out of the blocks. ‘Pennies’ grabs you firmly by the ears and doesn’t let up throughout two minutes of bluesy guitar licks and hair-raising vocals that aren’t so much sung as yelled. Its brevity speaks of the confident swagger that abounds on Deathwish. Multi-instrumentalist Ola Karlsson knew he was onto a good thing when he wrote this song, and while he could easily have stuck around for a final verse-chorus-coda, he chose to smother it prematurely. That, ladies and gentlemen, is confidence.
Unlike their previous release – the 26-song, double-disc Junk – this album’s liner notes are sparse: no songwriting credits, no lyrics, and little to suggest that the album’s 13 songs belong to 10 individuals. (In case you were wondering, I’m only able to comment on who wrote what because I have a cheat-sheet in front of me). This is a new look for The Gin Club. Whether conscious or not, they’re obscuring facts and leaving some things to our imagination. On stage, one of the band’s most striking visual elements is the constant swapping of musical instruments and stage positions between songs. On this album, there’s a greater sense of that comfortable barroom feel than ever before.
Full review at Mess+Noise, where you can also stream a couple of tracks (‘Pennies’ and ‘Milli Vanilli’). I can’t recommend this release highly enough. Check out The Gin Club on MySpace.
Pay no attention to the cover, which overlays the band name in all-caps so the eye’s tricked into reading “shit” ad nauseum. Ignore the band name, for they have no hits. Though this is music born from the Sunshine State, its content is better suited to nighttime debauchery. Which is why a comparison between Brisbane five-piece Hits’ debut and Fun House is apt for two reasons: Hits once covered that Stooges classic in its entirety, and I’m loathe to use anyone other than Iggy Pop as the reference point for frontman Evil Dick’s throaty, whiskey-tinged holler.
This is a big, dumb rock record done well. It sees the band offset masculine overtones by placing guitars in the hands of two capable women – Butcher Birds’ Stacey Coleman and former Gazoonga Attack member Tamara Bell – who double as back-up singers at opportune moments as well. Take the opener, ‘Fuck The Needy’, for example, where the pair erupt with an unexpected, hair-raising call of, “Nothing succeeds like success!”
Full review on Mess+Noise. Check out the band on MySpace. They’re good.
What happened next is one of rock music’s strangest tales: James Williamson gave up on music entirely, graduated from California State Polytechnic University with a degree in electrical engineering, and went on to work for Sony Electronics for 25 years. Most of his colleagues had no idea of Williamson’s involvement with The Stooges, despite Iggy Pop doggedly working himself into a position of international notoriety as one of rock’s most outlandish performers. The Raw Power guitarist wanted nothing to do with it. It took a university essay written by Williamson’s son, entitled ‘Coffins In The Corner’ – in reference to his father’s guitar cases sitting up against the wall, unopened all throughout his childhood and adolescence – to provoke the guitarist to finally accept Iggy’s offer to reform the band in the wake of Ron Asheton’s death last year. It also helped that Sony offered him a generous early retirement package from his role as Vice President of Technology Standards. Now Williamson, aged 61, is touring the world, playing The Stooges’ celebrated catalogue to a new generation. The Vine connected with the guitarist ahead of the band’s appearance on the Big Day Out tour in January and February 2011.
Mr. Maps – Nice Fights
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.
Dead Letter Circus – This Is The Warning
The Gin Club – Deathwish
Hits – Living With You Is Killing Me