The Vine interview: David Roads of Airbourne, June 2011
An interview with Airbourne for The Vine. Excerpt below.
Airbourne are a rock and roll band from Warrnambool, Victoria. On face value, it appears that they like loud guitars, open chords, beefy drums, headbanging, and climbing scaffolding at festivals. They write songs with titles like ‘Too Much, Too Young, Too Fast’; ‘Blonde, Bad and Beautiful’; and ‘Cheap Wine & Cheaper Women’. At times, they sound a lot like AC/DC; which is to say, all of the time they sound a lot like AC/DC.
Their website URL claims ‘Airbourne rock’. The cover of their most recent album, No Guts. No Glory. (yes, the punctuation is compulsory), features an artful drawing of the four band members looking very rock ‘n’ roll amid evocative “rock” symbolism. Which, to their credit, tells you exactly what Airbourne are all about before you even hear a distorted G chord.
Witness: a smoke-belching industrial factory, including masculine workers exiting the gates, fists aloft; a doe-eyed woman in a bikini drinking a martini while covered in cash, empty shot glasses by her side; some young rockers/punks hoisting a skull-adorned flag on the edge of a cliff; and, best of all, a semi-trailer busting through a wooden barrier while being pursued by two helicopters and a light aircraft. The semi-trailer is driven by Lemmy – of Motorhead fame, who also appeared in their video for ‘Runnin’ Wild’ – but that’s not even the weirdest part of the album cover; which essentially a combination of everything that any teenaged male has ever mindlessly doodled in the margins of his high school notepads. No; the weirdest thing is that Lemmy’s semi is inexplicably pursuing a mini tornado. Yes.
All of which makes them a very easy target for ‘serious music fans’—which, if I’m being honest, I probably consider myself to be. Meaning I’ve never paid much attention to Airbourne. The closest I’ve come is seeing them at festivals, watching from a hundred metres back with a smirk on my face, not really paying them attention or respecting them in any way whatsoever. Yet they’re probably among the most recognisable Australian bands at an international level—they’re signed to Roadrunner Records and are frequent festival bookings in both Europe and the United States. Yes, although there is a fair bit of cultural cringe attached to Airbourne, it’s tough to deny that they’re good at what they do. And strangely, I couldn’t help but develop a newfound respect for Airbourne after chatting to guitarist David Roads (above, far right) for the first time, here now on TheVine.
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What does an average day look like for you, when you’re not out on tour?
We’re very busy lately. We’re currently working on album number three. So at the moment we’re just kind of based in Melbourne and we’re rehearsing a lot. With the tour coming up next week, we’re starting to rehearse a lot more because we’re going back and [getting] the old stuff ready for the tour.
What gets you out of bed each morning? What do you look forward to when you first wake up?
Well lately, a sunny day! [laughs] The weather’s been so crappy here down in Melbourne. But, you know, we’re focused on what we’re doing at the moment with the album—I want to get in there and just make a rockin’ album. I guess our head’s in that at the moment, but [we'll be] back around Christmas time. And we just got back from tour. We’re trying to have a bit of a break. We still did Big Day Out and stuff, but we’re kind of still in ‘work mode’.
Do you view music as a job?
Yeah, we’re full-time with the band. If we’re not off the road, we’re on the road, touring. And when we release new albums, we go overseas for the majority of the year. Last year we were over there for 10 months touring for No Guts. No Glory.
If music is a job for you, what’s the most stressful part?
You can call it a job. It’s our living but it’s not really…I guess job’s a bad choice of word. It’s a lifestyle for us. As musicians, we love playing rock and roll, we love touring as a rock band. There’s nothing real stressful. There’s a lot of fun involved. It’s like, if you love what you do, you’re living the dream, I guess. We have a lot of fun when on tour and all that kind of stuff.
I guess sometimes it can get a bit stressful when you’re on the road. Sometimes when you’re sick of touring you can get sick with the flu, or a bad cold. That gets pretty hard, because the show goes on. You get up and have got to play that night. That can be about as stressful as it can get, really, I guess. But when you’re making an album it’s a bit stressful, because you’re still writing an album that’s going out to the world. You get in there and just do the best job that you can.
For the full interview, visit The Vine. The music video for their song ‘Bottom Of The Well‘ is embedded below.
The Vine interview: Rohin Jones of The Middle East, 2011
An interview for The Vine. Excerpt below.
A sense of mystery has shrouded The Middle East’s musical career to this point. What we do know is that the indie-folk collective formed in Townsville, Queensland in around 2005, after the members found themselves constantly playing in each others’ bands. Core songwriters Rohin Jones and Jordan Ireland were drawn together out of a mutual desire to better themselves as writers; they assembled a team of collaborators around them to record their self-released debut, The Recordings of The Middle East, in 2008.
Though containing eight songs and running to 52 minutes, the band soon shied away from calling it their debut album. After releasing those eight tracks locally, the band amicably parted ways due to Ireland traveling to Europe. In the meantime, word escaped Townsville that The Middle East were worth hearing. Their debut landed on a desk at Spunk Records and – after the track ‘Blood’ was added to a Spunk singles comp, was deemed worthy of a 2009 re-release under the Spunk banner. After Ireland returned home, it seemed like a good decision to get the band back together.
Three songs were cut from the initial album for the EP, which (confusingly) retained the same name. But one, in particular, would reach ears across the world. A slow-burner in both musical nature and popularity, ‘Blood‘ (and its ethereal, fingerpicked cousin in ‘The Darkest Side’), soon attracted the ears of the nations broadcasters and wider music industry. Fans started flocking and soon ‘Blood’ was being heard on films, American television shows and TV commercials for European banks; it also polled at #64 in the triple j Hottest 100 of 2009. The Middle East then spent the majority of 2009 and 2010 touring Australia and the wider world, playing at the SXSW festival and picking up shows with the likes of Grizzly Bear, Mumford & Sons, and Doves. Despite their relative ubiquity among indie-folk circles, still little was known about the band.
April 2011 sees the release of their proper debut album, I Want That You Are Always Happy. Containing 13 new songs, it’s the sound of a young band pushing the boundaries of what they want their music to represent, as well as exploring their bands ability to create a united front. Three days after the album’s release, TheVine connected with a humble but semi-reluctant co-frontman Rohin Jones (he and Jordan Ireland are credited as the eight-piece band’s sole songwriters in the LP liner notes); a man whose answers are somewhat guarded and circumspect. Throughout our interview, “I don’t know” is a recurring response; he also has the curious habit of giving a sharp whistle when confronted with a question that prompts him to search his long-term memory.
We discuss the band’s mystery, democracy, religious undertones, their hometown of Townsville, an uncertain future and Jones’ (above right, second from right) secret hardcore past.
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Rohin, you’ve been in this position before, where you’ve just released a collection of your music out into the world. What’s different this time around?
Umm… [laughs] Well I guess the first time we released, it was giving it out to 30 or 40 of our friends. It was a whole lot less vulnerable experience. That’s one big difference.
Is there a greater pressure or expectation placed upon the band this time around, or do you try to put that out of your mind?
I don’t think there’s any industry pressure; to ‘conquer the industry’, or be some big, successful act. I think the pressure of the last two years came from trying to produce something that we thought was credible, and up to our potential.
The first time I saw you was in March 2009, when you supported The Devoted Few at The Troubadour in Brisbane. I think that was right before you hit triple j airplay, and everything else that went with that. What do you recall of that time in the band’s career?
It was kind of fun. Jord had just come back from Germany, and we picked up where we left off; just playing around. It was nice to play music with old friends again, after having a bit of time off. It was a good time.
Was there a sense among the band that you could become bigger?
Not really, hey. I don’t know how to explain it, but… I didn’t expect that EP to [do anything beyond] just hearing it when I went home, because my parents were playing it. That’s about as much as I was thinking at the time. I don’t think we anticipated anything, to be honest.
That original LP release in 2008 is 52 minutes long. Do you consider it an EP, or an album?
I definitely don’t consider it an album. It’s definitely not good enough [laughs]. I guess we wrote a lot longer songs back then.
When you listen to that first release, what do you hear?
[Whistles] To be honest, I haven’t listened to it in years [laughs]. Usually I get super-close to projects when I’m working on them, so instead of hearing a song, I’ll just hear the mix between the two stereo guitars, or something like that. I’ll be like, “Ehh, we didn’t really get that right”. Or I’ll forget about a part, and go, “Oh, that’s right, that part’s in there.”
Interview – The Middle EastFor the full interview, visit The Vine. For more on The Middle East, visit their website. The audio for their song ‘Jesus Came To My Birthday Party‘ is embedded below.
The Vine column: ‘Group Therapy’ #1 – ‘What is the value of recorded music?’, 2011
A new column for The Vine. Excerpt below.
Group Therapy #1 – ‘What is the value of recorded music?’
This week we here at TheVine are positing a new column. The idea is that Group Therapy will operate as a semi-random music industry related Q&A, a missive we send out to a great many artists in order to gauge their feedback on any particular issue.
This maiden edition is a good way to start: back in October last year, journalist Andrew McMillen was intimately involved in the One Movement festival in Perth (a festival which, incidentally, has just been deferred pending a review of the event). McMillen was well placed to engage with a wide array of artists attending the five-day event. Whilst there, he saw fit to ask them all this question:
“Your recorded music is an advertisement for your live show. You should not expect that people will buy your music. Agree/disagree?”
Responses below.
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Agree:
The Jezabels [pictured above, left]
“I guess so. You can’t stop downloads, and I’d rather people have the music than not. Also I think it’s a pretty healthy thing for a band to view touring as their livelihood. It’s when you contact most of the people who might become real fans.”
The Great Spy Experiment (Singapore)
“Do you mean it the other way? That is, if our live show – as an advertisement for our recorded music – sucks then we should not expect people to buy our music? Either way, I probably agree. The best thing about our live sets is our dancing. And you can’t get that on our records. So we understand if you don’t want to buy our CD.”
Big Scary (Melbourne)
“I agree. I started realising this switch in the industry a few years back. For most musicians – I don’t think this necessarily applies to super famous and successful artists like Lady Gaga etc – firstly, the live stuff is usually band’s bread and butter. Secondly, people can get their hands on so much free music from downloading and blogs and all the streaming on Myspace that it’s not easy to encourage them to spend on what they can easily get for free. We’ve been giving away our singles all year because we know it’s better to get people to our shows.”
Richard In Your Mind (Sydney)
“I agree that recorded music is an advertisement, but it’s a product too. That’s the great thing about music: it comes in different forms to be enjoyed in different ways. Some people don’t like going out to shows, they prefer to sit in their lounge room listening with a cup of tea. Less people are actually buying music because of the internet, I guess, but there will always be those who still pay for it.”
For the full column – which includes artists who disagree with the statement, as well as a few fence-sitters – visit The Vine.
The Vine interview: Brett Mitchell of Jebediah, 2011
An interview for The Vine. Excerpt below.
“Jebediah’s apparent strategy is simple,” I wrote in December last year; “Take to the stage and kick several shades of shit from any lingering doubts about their ongoing aptitude.”
At the time, it’d been a while between drinks for Perth quartet, who rose to national prominence off the back of their 1997 debut, Slightly Odway. During the ensuing years, their high-energy alternative rock – occasionally intercut with slower, ballad-like singles, in ‘Harpoon’ and ‘Feet Touch The Ground’ – was on a par with Silverchair, Spiderbait, You Am I et al in terms of both triple j airplay and frequent festival appearances. The foursome – frontman Kevin Mitchell, his older brother and drummer Brett, bassist Vanessa Thornton, and guitarist Chris Daymond – took a breather after the so-so chart performance of their independently-released fourth album, Braxton Hicks (2004), Kevin Mitchell pursued (and found) success with his solo project Bob Evans. Jebediah would continue to play sporadically, but by and large, it seemed as though the group weren’t in any hurry to return to the studio.
Now their fifth album is being released on April 15 via Brisbane-based independent label Dew Process. Kosciuszko was recorded on-and-off over several years with Dave Parkin (Snowman, Sugar Army) in a Perth studio, whenever the four members could find the time. Bar now-Melbournite Kevin Mitchell – the only member able to support himself as a full-time musician – the other three still live in Perth. Mitchell senior works for a logistics company, Daymond works at 78 Records, and Thornton recently completed a Bachelor of Science, between playing with Felicity Groom & The Black Black Smoke.
I spent a couple of days with the band in early December last year, while they played a short run of shows and shot the video for ‘She’s Like A Comet’ – their current single, which is receiving heavy airplay on both alternative and commercial radio – in Sydney. With those experiences still fresh in mind, TheVine connected with drummer Brett Mitchell.
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You’ve been in this situation before, where you sit down and do a bunch of phone interviews to promote the new record. How does it feel this time around?
It’s coming back to me. Promo is one of those things which – as I’m sure you know – ranges from genuinely painful to genuinely enjoyable. So it’s a bit of a mixed bag for me. It’s always nice to have the chance to talk about things in a meaningful way, or in a way that you think is going to be relevant to people. But that doesn’t always happen. What can I say? I’m just kind of going with the flow, and trying not to be too cynical about it.
At this stage, which sensation is more accurate: painful, or enjoyable?
I have to say, it probably has been more enjoyable than I would’ve anticipated. Maybe that’s because the commercial [success] is happening with the single (‘She’s Like A Comet’). Plus there’s that [band] history there, which a lot of people seem to be familiar with. I guess people have got a couple of different angles to approach us from, and maybe that’s helping me smooth it over.
The single has been doing well, hasn’t it?
Yeah. I’m certainly spun out. It’s very strange to me, that after all this time, we get this song pretty much across the board on radio. It’s certainly never happened before. It’s awesome because it’s giving us a springboard, which I’m sure we did need. But it’s still a shock. It probably doesn’t bear anything, really; it’s one of those things that’s just happened, and perhaps it’s a random event. We just have to capitalise on it.
I have to ask about the album title, Kosciuszko. Is there a significance behind it? Can we draw some parallels between it being the summit of Jebediah’s musical career so far, or some such?
I was actually a bit worried about the symbolism that people might interpret in that. It seemed like it might be a little bit grand, or arrogant, or something. But in actual fact, that doesn’t exist at all, and I’m still at the point now – speaking of promo – where I’m actually telling the truth about most things. So the truth with [the album title] is that it was Kevin’s baby.
Apparently The Beatles were going to call The White Album Everest. He must have read something about it. Obviously it never happened, and I don’t know if anyone else has ever gone down that path. But the appealing thing to me about it, is that it’s essentially a nonsense word. It doesn’t even look like a word, when you see it written on the page. We’ve always had a lean in that direction, so I think it kind of fits. As for the symbolism – I don’t know. People can make of it what they will.
Interview – JebediahFor the full interview, visit The Vine. For more Jebediah, visit their website. The music video for their song ‘She’s Like A Comet‘ is embedded below.
Elsewhere: ‘Jebediah Return From Hiatus’ news story for Rolling Stone, February 2011
The Vine interview: Kenny Sabir of The Herd, 2011
An interview for The Vine. Excerpt below.
After spending ten years at the forefront of Australian hip-hop, you could forgive The Herd if they became complacent. Ten years in anything is a long time, let alone the music business. Yet complacency is the furthest thing from the minds of this Sydney collective, whose eight members have earned a reputation for both their energetic live shows – owing equally to the live instrumentation and sheer number of bodies on stage – and their want to challenge Australian society and politics thereof. See: ’77%’, whose chorus call of “These cunts need a shake-up” was directed at the ’77%’ of Australians who (according to a poll) supported the then-Howard government’s response to refusing to allow a distressed fishing vessel, the Tampa, to enter Australian waters. See also: ‘The King Is Dead’, which celebrated Howard’s removal from office.
This overt politicisation wasn’t always apparent in The Herd’s musical output, though. Their first single to achieve triple j attention, for instance, was an ode to ordering food at a take-away store (‘Scallops’). During their career, they’ve released four albums; over time, the quality of songwriting and production has steadily increased. Though they’ve got their eyes on release #5 later this year, The Herd are currently embarking on a short run of shows to celebrate their 10th anniversary (or birthday, depending on which way you look at it).
The morning after the tour’s first show in Newcastle, TheVine connected with Kenny Sabir (a.k.a. Traksewt, who plays accordion, clarinet, and beats), a founding member of both The Herd and their associated label Elefant Traks.
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First things first, Kenny. How’d last night go?
Last night was great. After not playing for two years, there was that nervous excitement of, “Oh, do the crowd still remember us?” But when you’re up on stage, it comes back to you about how it feels to be playing. The crowd were into it. We got to try out the new single (‘The Sum Of It All’; TheVine review here). It went down well.
I take it you’re playing something similar to a ‘greatest hits’ set for these shows, since you don’t have a new record to promote.
Yeah. We’ve got the new single, and we’ve got lots of new tracks, but we’re not thinking about [playing them] on this tour. We’re doing a new beat, but we might use it as an instrumental for freestyles. There’s a lot of stuff we’d love to play, but they’re not fully finished yet.
I’m interested to know some of the differences between touring Australia now, versus when the band started in 2001.
One thing is that, when we started, we were very Sydney-centric. The label wasn’t purely hip-hop back then; we were doing electronic stuff as well. Back then, a lot of the focus was on the label itself, The Herd were more unknown. We started to get dedicated fans. You’d see the same faces quite often. Once we started getting more radio play, we started venturing [outside Sydney]. The first gigs in other cities were hard. We started gigging around before the radio [play] really took off, too. But after that, it was a constant groundswell. We’d get a lot of love from Brisbane and Melbourne, and it kept ramping up. Some of our craziest shows have been in the other cities.
It’s changed a lot. Getting into the festival circuit was very hard initially, as we were independent and we didn’t have the arrays of contacts that you need to get into that circuit. But it’s always been fun, and they’re great guys to be touring with. We still have the same problems that we had 10 years ago, of trying to organise eight or nine people to leave somewhere for breakfast [laughs].
I’m guessing you take better care of your physical health nowadays, too.
[Laughs] Yeah. It’s pretty diverse in the band, you could say. There are more things we’re aware of, that we have to worry about now. We’d like to think that we take better care of ourselves now, but when you’re in the mode of touring, you switch on your ‘touring brain’ and you start living how you used to live.
For the full interview, visit The Vine. For more of The Herd, visit their label’s website. The audio for their new single, ‘The Sum Of It All‘, is embedded below.
The Vine live review: Foo Fighters, 2011, Brisbane Riverstage
A live review for The Vine. Excerpt below.
Foo Fighters – Queensland Disaster Relief Benefit
Riverstage, Brisbane
Sunday 27 March 2011Behind the Riverstage, at the edge of the City Botanic Gardens, the Brisbane River silently ebbs in the night. As ferries pass by, their flashing beacons reflect off the body of water that snakes though the city. A few months earlier, that river rose too close for comfort; for a week in mid-January 2011, Brisbane effectively came to a standstill while its inhabitants rallied first to escape the water, then to salvage what was left in its dreadful wake. It was a scary, surreal thing to live through. Even now, the topic is never far from conversations shared between both friends and strangers. Owing to the city’s one degree of separation, every Brisbanite was either directly affected by the flood, or knows someone that was. Repairing what was lost will take more time and money than can be realistically measured. Still, in the immediate aftermath of what went on in this town and others throughout the state of Queensland, the Premier set up a fund for donations, whose resources will be allocated toward those who lost possessions, homes, or worse.
Unsurprisingly, a spate of flood benefit shows were held at live music venues across the state, and throughout the country. A couple of weeks ago, this – the largest single natural disaster benefit event since Melbourne’s Sound Relief in 2009 – was announced: American rock act Foo Fighters were to top a bill that included Melbourne stalwarts You Am I, adored Blue Mountains indie pop act Cloud Control, and a local act to be hand-picked by Foo frontman Dave Grohl. (Apparently, he fancied a storming rock quartet named Giants Of Science.) At $99 a head, 9,000-odd tickets to the event disappeared within minutes. Donating to victims of natural disasters seems to be way more fun if the package deal includes a rock show.
Once inside, the Foos – who performed in New Zealand last week under similar circumstances, in support of those affected by the Christchurch earthquake – offer us a couple more deal-sweeteners at the merch desk: t-shirts ($40) and posters ($30), both designed and printed exclusively for this show. All proceeds go toward the Premier’s flood appeal. The limited run includes 350 posters hand-numbered by the artist, whose design includes the five band members’ faces framed around an outline of a Queensland branded with the Foo Fighters’ logo; underneath sits the Brisbane skyline. (Interestingly, the drawings barely resemble their real-life counterparts.) At my request, a guy behind the merch desk checks some paperwork and tells me that 1,783 shirts were printed for this show. Since they’re doing a roaring trade all night, it’s likely that they’ll have very few left by the end of the night.
For the full review – and photos by Elleni Toumpas (who also took the above photo – visit The Vine.
The Vine album review: Collarbones – ‘Iconography’, 2011
An album review for The Vine. Excerpt below.
Collarbones – Iconography
(Two Bright Lakes)Despite being written and arranged by two dudes living in different cities, Collarbones’ debut record is surprisingly cohesive. The product of the interstate collaborations (or should that be collarborations? *cymbal crash*) between Sydney-based Marcus Whale and Adelaide native Travis Cook, Iconography is the disorienting soundtrack to a ride through multiple sounds and scenes: electronica, pop, R&B and hip-hop all seem to inform the duo’s sound in equal measures. This has been Collarbones’ best asset since Whale and Cook began fooling around together in 2007: they can’t be confused with anyone else, they’re on their own wavelength. Iconography is worthy of your attention if only for its unique individuality.
Describing Collarbones’ music robs the experience of much of its pleasure, so here’s a couple of cliff notes. Most every song is built around an eclectic selection of sampled beats, synths and instrumentation, all of which are chopped and shunted into a shifting mass of sound. The results feel organic and effortless, the effects beguiling. In spite of the disjointed nature of their compositions, the production smooths over most jagged edges to ensure Iconography stays on a fairly even keel. Whale sings on the majority of the album’s 11 tracks; more often than not, his voice is discombobulated just as much as the surrounding instrumentation. Some of the album’s best moments are lyricless; the hook of ‘Id’ – if it can even be called a hook – is essentially a symphony of swelling vocal samples, intercut with staccato beats. Previous singles ‘Beaman Park’ and ‘Kill Off The Vowels’ feature Whale’s voice prominently, though the songs’ moods are vastly disparate. The latter is bent around a dark, almost industrial vibe and lower-register singing; ‘Beaman Park’ pitch-shifts Whale’s voice to improbably lofty heights. Both work incredibly well.
For the full review, visit The Vine. For more Collarbones, visit their Tumblr. Music video their song ‘Don Juan‘ embedded below.
Elsewhere: an interview with Marcus Whale of Collarbones for The Vine
The Vine interview: Marcus Whale of Collarbones, 2011
An interview for The Vine. Excerpt below.
Marcus Whale lives in Sydney. Travis Cook lives in Adelaide. Combined, they form Collarbones, an electronic-based act fascinated with pop and R’n’B, who cut, paste and loop sounds and voices atop one another to create dense, uniquely compelling music. Whale and Cook had gone by their respective experimental music monikers Scissor Lock and Cyst Impaled for several years before they connected online. Though they bonded and began sharing song sketches immediately, it was 18 months before they met in person.
Following a string of appealing single and EP releases – ‘Beaman Park’ wasForkcasted in July last year, and their EP Tiger Beats was a collection of pop covers, remixes and reinventions – Collarbones’ full-length debut, Iconography, is released on March 18 via Melbourne-based, artist-run label Two Bright Lakes.
TheVine connected with Marcus Whale to discuss interstate collaborations, getting Collarboned, Bieber, and male models.
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At what point did this become a public project? When did it move from just you two exchanging ideas, to putting your music online?
In the ‘Myspace generation’, you can basically be public as soon as you finish a track. Even with sketches and demos; they can be already up there on the internet, it’s just a matter of whether or not people actually know it. So technically, about an hour after we finished our first track, toward the end of 2007 [laughs]. It’s been a while, but at the beginning, it was just for shits and giggles.
You were comfortable with sharing even just rough sketches? There was no hesitation?
The idea of making music public nowadays is way less intense than it used to be. I guess I never really thought about it; it was just like, “Hey, we’ve got some music. Let’s put it on the internet.” We’re both pretty used to that sort of thing. Knowing that it’s not necessarily going to be widely listened to; it’s just there.
Has making music always been a solitary activity for you?
Not really. I grew up playing in the school band, and that sort of thing. I played in rock bands when I was in high school. I’ve sung in choirs. It’s always been a fairly group-based thing. I did do a lot of solo stuff; have done, and still do. I did have a lot of fun collaborating with people.
Travis and yourself currently live in different cities. Are you happy with that arrangement? Do you hope it stays that way?
Funnily enough, I feel like we’re more productive when we’re just doing little bits and pieces on our own and then sending it [to each other], rather than a really intensive situation where we’re both in the same room, but doing stuff at the same time. I found that if you invite someone over, and say, “Hey, we’re going to make some music,” it takes quite a long time to get something happening. In my experience. Unless it’s really improvised, jammy music.
We’ve only really successfully collaborated in person twice. I think we’re getting better at it. It’s becoming easier, I suppose. But Travis has generally made music on his own. He has a fairly strange way of going about things sometimes. He has quite an obtuse taste in music. It’s very trial-and-error. He’s come up with some really awesome stuff using devices in a way that’s not standard. I was listening to some of his old music the other day; it’s probably some of the weirdest music I’ve ever heard. He had a very strange mind as a teenager. His project is called Cyst Impaled, and it’s completely different [than Collarbones]. Basically, it’s a combination of really fucked-up ranting about stuff. Brutal noise, flamenco guitars, lots of sampled stuff, and occasionally some really hot dance beats. But then it became a mash-up project. Some of it is truly disturbing.
Interview – CollarbonesFor the full interview, visit The Vine. For more Collarbones, visit their Tumblr. Music video their song ‘Don Juan‘ embedded below.
The Vine feature: ‘First Three Songs, No Flash – And No Copyright’
A feature article for The Vine. Excerpt below.
First Three Songs, No Flash – And No Copyright
Andrew McMillen inspects the contracts and copyright law related to recent Australian tours by Big Day Out artists Tool and Rammstein.
(Main pic: Slash vs Photographers at Soundwave, Adelade 2011 by Andrew Stace)
As the 2011 Big Day Out tour wound itself across the country this year – it ended in Perth on Sunday, Feb 6 – hundreds of professional photographers snapped portraits of an artist line-up that included Californian hard rock act Tool and German industrial metal troupe Rammstein.
These two bands were the heaviest-hitting acts on the tour. Yet their photo release forms also revealed that they were the bands most protective of their image. “All copyrights and other intellectual property rights shall be entirely Artist’s property,” read a line from Tool’s contract, which photographers wishing to capture the band from the front-of-stage photo pit were required to sign. “[The photographer] is prohibited from placing the photos in the so-called online media, and/or distributing them using these media,” stated Rammstein’s decidedly archaic contract, which concludes with an apparently self-defeating line about being subject to the laws of Germany.
Such rights-grabbing statements are nothing new in the live entertainment business, where artists’ images and ‘trade secrets’ have always been fiercely protected. Eddie Van Halen was known to turn his back to the audience when performing innovative electric guitar solos before Van Halen were signed, so as to prevent both his newly-discovered techniques from being viewed by rival guitarists – or being captured by keen-eyed music photographers.
Recent Australian tours by popular rock acts like The Smashing Pumpkins and Muse have demanded that photographers shoot only from the sound desk; Muse, too, issued a contract which states that photographers “hereby assign full title guarantee the entire worldwide right, title and interest in and to the Photographs, including the copyright therein”. Which means that if Muse (or, more likely, their management or lawyers) happen to be browsing your live photo portfolio and they’re particularly taken by a picture of bassist Christopher Wolstenholme’s fetching red suit, they can request the high resolution image file – or negative – free of charge. You have no power to negotiate because you’re bound by a contract.
Why, then, in an age where the vast majority of gig-goers carry web-ready media devices in their pockets, are bands still so insistent on attempting to shield themselves from the close scrutiny of professional cameras? And are these contracts even legally binding, or simply attempts to scare newbie photographers into surrendering their hard work – with zero additional compensation on top of their publication’s one-time print fees?
For the full article, visit The Vine.
The Vine festival review: Soundwave Festival 2011, Brisbane
A festival review for The Vine. Excerpt below.
Soundwave Festival
RNA Showgrounds, Brisbane
Saturday 26 February 20112011 marks Soundwave Festival’s fifth year as a national touring entity; five years old, and already rivaling the Big Day Out in terms of sheer artistic firepower. The most recent BDO was headlined by Tool. This year’s Soundwave features Iron Maiden – one of the biggest bands in the world – closing each night with a two-hour set. What a coup.
Besides that classic British metal act, nearly 70 other acts – mostly internationals – fill out a line-up pregnant with talent. The bookers are clearly doing something right, as several Soundwaves have sold out, Brisbane included (though curiously, today they were still selling tickets at the gate, for $180). Judging by the maps being handed out inside, the festival grounds have nearly doubled compared to last year. For the first time, organisers have placed two stages outside of the RNA Showgrounds, thereby using some of the space that an expanded Laneway Festival trialled last month. More space means more people. Maybe it’s the urban environment messing with my perceptions, but it feels like there could well be more people here than at the Gold Coast Big Day Out. At least on sight, it’s a major achievement for a festival solely focused on rock, metal, punk and hardcore.
Pathways to the new stages – numbered 3 and 6, which makes very little sense – become natural bottlenecks early in the day, as many thousands attempt to see Swedish act Millencolin on stage 3 at 12.30pm. There’s not a skerrick of space anywhere within eyeshot of the band, who’re celebrating the 10th anniversary of their most popular album, Pennybridge Pioneers, by playing it in full today. It’s a winning decision: tracks like ‘No Cigar’ (Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2, anyone?), ‘Fox’ and ‘Penguins & Polarbears’ are all classics.
Walking through the main arena – where stages 1 and 2 are positioned adjacent to each other – presents a strange sight: very, very few people watching Welsh rock band Feeder. Poor dudes. Apparently MxPx/The Ataris brought a big crowd immediately beforehand. Outside the arena and across the train tracks that split the venue in two, Sevendust are playing the same heavy, down-tuned breed of metal I remember from high school on stage 4. (Stage 4a is right next to it. Soundwave don’t try too hard with naming stages, clearly.) It appears not much has changed in the interim. They add in a couple of metal cred-seeking song snippets, including ‘Master of Puppets’ and Pantera’s ‘Walk’; a decision which was always going to work in their favour in front of a crowd like this. Singer Lajon Witherspoon makes some strange comments toward the end of the set: “Thank you for making our dreams come true!”, and “Sevendust has arrived!”. Huh? They’ve been around for 17 years. Weird. Still, they’re playing to several thousand people, so… good for them. Monster Magnet are playing over on stage one. The vocals are really high in the mix. The singer’s voice sounds shot. Or maybe he always sounds like that. I sit and idly watch them from the shade of the grandstands for a while – they don’t seem to mean much to many people.
Devildriver, on the other hand, clearly do. Over on stage 4, they’re playing to a field full of young dudes thrashing away in the sun. I opt to explore the wide range of food outlets positioned between stages 4 and 5. The organisers have allowed some non-traditional food stalls to operate in the venue: ‘Punk Rock Burgers’ is doing a roaring trade, and the Iceberg (slushie/slurpee) fan is working in overdrive. $5 for a 600ml Coke is a bit rough, though.
For the full review, visit The Vine. Above photo by Justin Edwards.
