All posts tagged rolling

  • Rolling Stone album review: Midnight Juggernauts – ‘Uncanny Valley’, June 2013

    Midnight Juggernauts - 'Uncanny Valley' album reviewed in Rolling Stone Australia by Andrew McMillen, June 2013An album review for the July 2013 issue of Rolling Stone Australia.

    Midnight Juggernauts
    Uncanny Valley

    Melbourne outfit hit the bullseye on third full-length

    Midnight Juggernauts’ first two albums suffered from inconsistency, but there are no such issues here: Uncanny Valley‘s 10 tracks is packed with hooks. If anything, they’ve streamlined their approach, cutting the fat and boning up on the pop smarts that’ve been central to the Juggernauts’ appeal since their excellent debut, 2007’s Dystopia. Distinctive, sinister first single “Ballad of the War Machine” isn’t the strongest song here: that’d be the masterful finale, “Melodiya”, a stunning summary of the trio’s ability to marry shadowy dance music with elements of electronica, rock and pop. A fine way to close their most accomplished set yet.

    Label: Remote Control
    Rating: 4 stars

  • Rolling Stone album review: The Drones – ‘I See Seaweed’, March 2013

    An album review for the April 2013 issue of Rolling Stone Australia. Click the below image for a closer look, or read the review text underneath.

    The Drones
    I See Seaweed

    The Drones explore cracks of beauty and humour amid the darkness on sixth LP

    The Drones - 'I See Seaweed' album reviewed in March 2013 issue of Rolling Stone by Andrew McMillenThis album’s greatest surprise is saved for the penultimate track, ‘Laika’: an orchestral upswing suddenly blooms from nowhere, and it’s later paired with a harmonising female choir. Neither stylistic decision sits well with The Drones’ reputation for misanthropic, noisy rock ‘n’ roll, but the result is beautiful.

    This Melbourne band’s sixth studio album sees keyboardist Steve Hesketh expanding the quartet to a five-piece. His contributions here work well, often providing another layer of rhythmic bedrock to keep these eight tracks grounded; on ‘How To See Through Fog’, though, Hesketh’s tinkering accounts for a memorable lead melody.

    Singer Gareth Liddiard is well-known for penning some of the most original rhyming couplets in Australian music; I See Seaweed is no exception. The eight-minute title track alludes to rising seas and overpopulation: “We’re locksteppin’ in our billions,” he sings, “Locksteppin’ in our swarms / Locksteppin’ in the certainty that more need to be born”. It’s the heaviest song – lyrically and musically – that The Drones have released since ‘Jezebel’, the devastating opener to 2006’s Gala Mill.

    But it’s not all dark. ‘Nine Eyes’ sees Liddiard using Google Street View to visit his childhood home – accompanied by a sinister groove – and wondering “what kind of asshole drives this lime green Commodore” parked out front; ‘A Moat You Can Stand In’ matches a hilarious skewering of modern religious practices to a taut, thrash-rock tempo that nods at their early material.

    I See Seaweed captures a singular band in scintillating form, delivering yet another astounding collection of songs.

    Label: MGM
    Rating: 4.5 stars

    Key tracks: ‘I See Seaweed’, ‘Laika’, ‘Nine Eyes’

    Elsewhere: I interviewed Gareth Liddiard for The Vine a fortnight before the album’s release

  • Rolling Stone story: ‘Hungry Kids of Hungary Get Serious’, February 2013

    A story that was published in the March 2013 issue of Rolling Stone Australia. Click the below image for a closer look, or read the article text underneath.

    Hungry Kids Of Hungary Get Serious

    Personal tragedies and isolation inform the Brisbane band’s second album

    'Hungry Kids of Hungary Get Serious' story in Rolling Stone by Andrew McMillen, February 2013A band that writes a debut album brimming with sunny indie pop songs can be reasonably expected to write more of the same for their follow-up. Such was the situation in which Brisbane’s Hungry Kids of Hungary expected to find themselves following 2010’s Escapades, which hit a sweet-spot between classic Sixties-era pop and their modern take on the form. Real life has a habit of intervening, though.

    In March 2011, the four-piece – Dean McGrath (lead vocals, guitar), Kane Mazlin (lead vocals, keys), Ben Dalton (bass) and Ryan Strathie (drums) – were booked for a three-week tour in North America, including showcases at South By South West and Canadian Music Week – great opportunities to extend the band’s growing reputation overseas. Then, suddenly, all shows were cancelled and the band was homeward bound.

    “2011 was a pretty full-on year for me,” says McGrath, whose experience triggered the return journey. “A lot went down. Naturally, that really coloured the songs I was writing.” He won’t be drawn on specifics, but notes that a “personal tragedy that affected someone I was close to” meant that he had to catch the next flight home.

    “That incident echoed throughout the whole year for me,” the singer/guitarist continues. “It was an ongoing ordeal. It’s funny; writing songs for this band, we’ve always been fairly carefree, but after that [experience], these songs started coming out that were fairly intimate and personal. I was like, ‘shit, how are people going to react to this when they hear it?’”

    The result is You’re A Shadow, a collection of songs somewhat divorced from Escapades’ brimming optimism. Kane Mazlin’s contributions were coloured by a sense of isolation and melancholy, too, in part influenced by a stint in Denmark while his girlfriend took an internship. “She was busy during the day. I was by myself: I didn’t speak Danish, didn’t know anyone,” he says, over a beer in late December. “That had a huge impact on two or three of the songs that I wrote.”

    It wasn’t all bad news internationally, though: footage filmed at the Dutch festival Pinkpop in May 2012 shows the band performing before a crowd of thousands. “The Netherlands seems to be the area where it’s taken off, which is weird,” says McGrath. “When we started talking about doing overseas stuff, that’s not really the area that we imagined we’d be delving into.” Mazlin chimes in: “I think Nirvana started there, didn’t they? It’s a goldmine!”

    After the rush of Pinkpop, though, it was an abrupt comedown in Belgium. The band played that show – “a giant blur of fun” is how Mazlin describes it – and then drove half a day to Antwerp. “We played a tiny show there, where no-one knew who we were,” says McGrath. “We were like, ‘what the hell? We only drove for a few hours, why don’t people know us here if they know us there?’ You forget that it’s a different country! We crossed a border, and they don’t get the same radio [stations]. Touring Australia has conditioned us to think that it’s natural to drive a few hours to get to the next big city!”

    When it came time to choose which tracks made the new album, the four tended not to argue too much about what made it past the rehearsal room. “We do try to keep it to four equal votes, but if two of us feel really passionately about something, then the other two will probably either give it a go, or scrap it,” says McGrath. “Song-wise, we haven’t had to do that a lot leading up to this record, because we’ve seen eye-to-eye on most things without any need for debate – which makes life easier.”

    Five things that influenced You’re A Shadow

    Classic pop

    Kane Mazlin: “I listened to a lot of Camera Obscura, The New Pornographers and The Shins; really nice, classic-sounding pop records with great guitar sounds.”

    Live quintet

    Dean McGrath: “Knowing that there’s a second guitarist during live shows drastically affected the way that I write my parts – it’s not so chordal, busy and strummy.”

    Debut co-write

    Mazlin: “We were on the same wavelength this time, to the point where we were able to co-write a song, ‘When Yesterday’s Gone’ – something we’d never done before.”

    Deerhunter

    McGrath: “I listened to Halcyon Digest on repeat for months, and it heavily influenced how we recorded a few songs in the studio: that ‘lo-fi pop songs, washed out’ approach.”

    Producer Wayne Connolly

    Mazlin: “He had great ideas from the very first email: he told [bassist] Ben Dalton, ‘you need a hollow-body bass and flatwound strings’. It sounded awesome!”

  • Rolling Stone Q+A: Paul Kelly, December 2012

    A Q+A with Paul Kelly in the December 2012 issue of Rolling Stone. Click the below image for a closer look, or read the article text underneath.

    Q&A – Paul Kelly

    The singer-songwriter on his new album, having his life documented, and nephew Dan’s cooking skills

    Few of us will ever know the feeling of watching a feature-length documentary about our own lives while sitting in a cinema filled with friends and family. Paul Kelly is one of the lucky few, though he probably wouldn’t use that adjective when describing the premiere of Stories Of Me at the Melbourne International Film Festival in August. Its limited release in October coincides with the release of the acclaimed singer-songwriter’s eighteenth album, Spring And Fall, which sees Kelly pare back rock-band tropes in favour of largely acoustic, softly-sung songs.

    Before we discuss that, though: what was it like to watch your life dissected on film? “It’s something I want to do only once in my life,” Kelly replies. “I had some of my brothers and sisters there. That was the best part of it for me; the celebration of my family. The rest of it was a pretty awkward thing to watch. But I got through it.”

    First the memoir two years ago, now this film. What in your life hasn’t been documented, Paul?

    I think too much has been documented, so it’s probably time to jump back into the shadows again for a little while! [laughs] I gave Shark Island [Productions] pretty good access, but from that point it was their film, not mine. It’s funny; I don’t feel connected to the doco like I would to my own work. I liked that they picked up a lot on my family; generations back, as well as my wider clan. That’s showing that people don’t work in isolation – they’re a product of a whole lot of things.

    Speaking of family, you and your nephew Dan have spent thousands of hours together, both onstage and off. Which trait sticks out more in your mind: the fact that he’s a great musician, or that he’s family?

    Family’s first, but he’s a joy to play with. He can be a bit of a worrier. He’s a great cook, so he’s great to travel with. He cooks like he plays [guitar]; never really follows a recipe, but he’s a great improviser. His playing has big, deep roots, because he listens widely to a lot of music. He’s got one of those ‘fermenting’ brains: there’s always a lot going on in Dan’s head, and it’s just a matter of catching it as it falls out.

    Spring And Fall is a love story – what can you tell us about the starring characters?

    It’s a love story from a couple of different points of view. Some of the songs are narrated, like ‘When A Woman Loves A Man’; ‘Time And Tide’ feels a bit more like a third-person story. Others are more directly speaking from the characters involved. But to me, the emotional arc of the record starts with love’s beginning – the ‘spring’ – and there’s a turning point in the middle around ‘Someone New’, followed by the aftermath.

    With your characters, do you go as far as envisaging their physical appearances and personality traits?

    Not on this record. I didn’t have it that defined; I don’t have names for them. But a bit of a model was a Willie Nelson album from 1974 called Phases and Stages. It’s the story of a divorce: side one is the man’s point of view, side two is the woman’s. I wasn’t getting quite as specific as Willie, but I kinda liked that idea.

    I’m not sure what you’ll make of this, but every time I listen to your song ‘When A Woman Loves A Man’, I think of how perfect it’d be as the soundtrack for a sex education video.

    Really? [laughs] Well, you know, if you know people in the know, then send it off!

    “Time and tide wait for no-one,” as you sing. You seem to have taken aging in your stride better than many musicians, perhaps even working harder as you grow older.

    Songwriting’s really a form of play. I still find it fascinating. It doesn’t feel like a grind. There are certain aspects of my job that’s grinding; sometimes the touring, and proofing, and approving YouTube videos. [laughs] If you want to be any good, you have to get involved with everything. There’s more work on the creative side now. And also, the record companies do less now than they used to: I do it, or me and the team do it. But the actual thing that starts it all is ‘play’: writing a song. Nothing would happen without playing in the sandpit. And that’s all it is.

    That’s a view that hasn’t changed over the years?

    Yeah. Songwriting’s not real work. Don’t let anybody tell you it’s a “craft”. It’s play.

  • Rolling Stone album review: Die! Die! Die! – ‘Harmony’, August 2012

    An album review for Rolling Stone, published in the September 2012 issue.

    Die! Die! Die! – Harmony 
    (Inertia)

    Kiwis hone their brand of noise-punk to a sharp edge

    Since forming in 2003, this Dunedin noise-punk trio has gone from strength to strength. Their last album, Form – released in 2010 on Flying Nun Records – was a muscular mix of rock aggression and pop smarts. Die! Die! Die!’s fourth LP, Harmony, is another leap forward, and their finest work yet. The formula is simple – guitar, bass, drums and vocals – yet these three continue to make thrilling new breakthroughs. Their career represents an ongoing tug-of-war between noise and melody, and on Harmony they excel once again: a pair of slower, melancholy tracks contrasts well against the gripping flurry and bluster of the remaining eight songs. Highly recommended.

    Key tracks: “Erase Waves”, “Seasons Revenge”

    ++

    Elsewhere: an interview with Die! Die! Die! singer/guitarist Andrew Wilson for The Vine in 2010

    Elsewhere: a review of Die! Die! Die!’s 2010 album, Form, for The Vine 

  • The Vine interview: The Butterfly Effect, April 2012

    An interview with all four members of The Butterfly Effect for The Vine. Excerpt below.

    The Butterfly Effect: “I felt that I’d lost everybody’s faith and trust.”
    by Andrew McMillen

    I arrive at The Butterfly Effect’s rehearsal space in an inner north suburb of Brisbane on the afternoon of Wednesday, 8 February 2012. After pushing open a door bearing the band’s name in bold type, I find all four members in band position, almost as if they’re ready to begin playing. Ben Hall is sitting behind his drum kit, Kurt Goedhart is sitting before a wall of amps and noodling on his guitar, Glenn Esmond is cradling his bass and leaning over his pedalboard, and singer Clint Boge sits at a desk behind a computer and a set of speakers. They’re not rehearsing at the moment, though: instead, these four men are working on a first draft of the setlist for their final tour together. Two days earlier, the Brisbane-based hard rock act announced that Boge will be leaving the band after the tour culminates in early June. The other three members will keep the name, audition to find a new singer, and press on.

    Though the announcement was a shock to the band’s significant national fanbase, it’s less surprising when you consider their last few years of activity – or lack thereof, perhaps. Their last album was released in 2008, the sprawling, ambitious Final Conversation Of Kings, which saw the band reaching toward a more epic, prog-rock sound than what we heard on their 2003 debut Begins Here or its superb follow-up, 2006’s Imago. Though the quartet had toured occasionally throughout the last few years – including a short run of dates celebrating their 10th year together, in October 2011 – they had also been trying to produce a fourth album. They still haven’t gotten very far, apparently.

    Clint disconnects the speakers on his desk and distributes the milk crates that supported them. Kurt stays more or less in the same spot he was sat when I first entered the room; he continues to hold his guitar, and absent-mindedly plays a few notes occasionally, while the other three position themselves around the desk and do the majority of the talking. It’s clear that Clint and Ben are most interested in having their say, though Glenn does interject with a few nuggets of wisdom throughout our 45 minute conversation. Immediately before the interview begins, there’s an air of friendliness which morphs into tension remarkably quickly, as I start with the most important question: why is Clint leaving, after over 10 years fronting one of Australia’s most successful hard rock bands?

    TheVine: How long have you all known about Clint’s decision?

    Ben: It’s been a few months.

    Clint: September [2011]. It was mid-September when I came in and said I didn’t feel like going on anymore; continuing on. It took a little while to cement in, I suppose.

    How did the rest of the band react?

    Ben: I think it’d been coming. Everyone knew that there was something that was simmering. Not simmering, but… we’d obviously been trying to make a record for three years, and I just don’t think we were getting very far. I don’t think we were all happy with the way it was going. There was many tense moments, lots of points over those three years where we sat down and tried to realign, and I think it just came to a head on that day. We all agreed that we weren’t in the same direction, so maybe we shouldn’t waste any more time doing that. It was not a decision that was made…

    Clint: It wasn’t made lightly. It was something I’d thought about quite a lot leading up to that day. I think it came from… there were a couple of suggestions made to me about who I should work with, and who I should be trying to extract the best melodies with, and not really getting the songs, or delivering them in the right way. That was the last straw for me. I thought, ‘If I’ve lost the faith from my bandmates to produce what I think are the best melodies…’ and to have that trust taken away, then I couldn’t go on working like that. Not only that, but I don’t want to be the weak link in a band. I don’t want to be the guy that’s not pulling his weight. That was another reason, too. I thought, ‘If that was the case, I’ve got to go.’

    Not only that, man, but I think musically-wise I was looking for something different that I wasn’t quite hearing in the songs. I [think that some] of the ideas that I [was trying to communicate] weren’t being actioned. They weren’t being done, so I felt lost in that department, as well. It’s probably been happening for some time. I really felt some pressure, to not make the same mistakes that I feel we made on Final Conversation. Wanting to step up and go beyond was the focus.

    In terms of the band’s style, you mean?

    Clint: Yeah, yeah, and especially my vocal delivery, and what I heard in the songs and what I could hear being the final product. That was all taken into consideration, and the decision was made based on all of those points.

    Where were you on that day? Did you meet here [at the rehearsal room], and discuss it?

    Clint: Yeah, it was just another practice day, pretty much. I sat in my car for about 20 minutes, pretty nervous, thinking, “This is a big decision to make.” And not only that, to come in and do it cold. I pretty much walked in, grabbed my mic, put it in my pocket… because I thought, “I’m taking my bloody microphone!”

    [Ben begins laughing, and says, “Far out!” Glenn laughs and says, “I’m taking my bat and ball, and going home!”]

    Clint: [laughs] It was a bit symbolic, but nah, I actually needed it to do something with it. I was going to do some singing at home, and it’s a better microphone than I’ve got at home. I said to the guys, in light of the email that was sent and the two band meetings that happened previously in the year, I felt that I’d lost everybody’s faith and trust, so I removed myself from the band. Everyone took it pretty well. I thought so. There was no, “Fuck you, and up yours Jack” and whatever. “Get the fuck out of here or I’ll bash you,” or any of that sort of bullshit.

    Ben: Would’ve made for more of an exciting story, but. We can organise it?

    Clint: And also, Benny sent me a text message afterwards and just said, “Look man, you know we don’t want to go out like that.” Which I said to the guys, “I don’t want to go out arguing and screaming, and calling each other names”.

    Ben: We’ve done plenty of that over the years. There’s been of that sort of shit going on. It’s not just Kurt and me; it’s Clint and Kurt, or me and Glenn. We’ve had plenty of years worth of fights and all that sort of that shit. The second that Clint walked in, when that was the outcome, I think we all felt that this time, more than any before, that it was probably the right decision. It was probably something that had been coming for a fair while. As much as you don’t want to let it go, you fear having nothing. This band’s everything to all of us. It has been. But you go, ‘Cool, let’s reflect and look at what we’ve done.’

    Clint: And celebrate it.

    Ben: Immediately, I started to feel a better sense of achievement than I had the whole time I’ve been in the band. We’ve done a lot of stuff together, and we’ve achieved a lot, and it’ll be great to hold this together in light of what we’ve done, and do this tour that’s coming up. Already today, we’re talking about the setlist, piecing it together, and getting excited about it. Which is awesome. It could be a terrible break-up, but everyone’s been adult-like.

    Clint: I think that’s the surreal thing for me — when we did that tour in October. That week or two for the [band’s] ten year anniversary. We all came in, the pressure was off of writing an album, and it felt good to hang out. I really enjoyed that tour. [He looks around the room and is met with nods.] I thought everyone got along really well. There was a good sense of camaraderie. There was no hint of any malice towards each other. It was really… and it was odd, because I was expecting being at the airport and being sat in a different section of the plane. Sort of feeling this – ‘Oh shit, I’m the odd guy out’, and having the crew shun me and go, ‘You bastard, you’ve effectively taken one of our meal tickets off the table’ sort of thing. But no, it was good. Everyone was really good. And now it’s — do the last tour, really celebrate and enjoy a long time in the music industry, and some great achievements, and off we go. And then it’s a new singer for The Butterfly Effect, and a solo album for me, and rock’ n roller.

    For the full interview, visit The Vine.

    Note: Quotes from this interview originally appeared in the April 2012 issue of Rolling Stone Australia

  • Rolling Stone story: ‘The Butterfly Effect splinter’, April 2012

    A story which appeared in the April 2012 issue of Rolling Stone Australia. Click the below image for a closer look, or read the article text underneath.

    The Butterfly Effect splinter
    Brisbane rockers part ways with singer after 10 years together

    In mid-September 2011, Clint Boge drove to The Butterfly Effect’s rehearsal space in an inner north suburb of Brisbane. It was just like any other practice day for the hard rock act, who had released three albums since their debut EP in 2001. Boge switched off the engine and sat alone in nervous silence for 20 minutes, thinking about the bombshell he was about to drop on his three bandmates: he was quitting.

    Boge recounts the tale in blunt terms. “I felt that I’d lost everybody’s faith and trust, so I removed myself from the band. Everyone took it pretty well, I thought,” he says. “There was no, ‘Fuck you, and up yours Jack,’; no ‘Get the fuck out of here or I’ll bash you,’ or any of that sort of bullshit.”

    Rolling Stone arrives at the same rehearsal space on February 8, two days after Boge’s announcement was made public. The band are putting together the first draft of a setlist for the 20-odd tour dates that will run through late April until early June.

    The ‘Effected’ tour and the best-of compilation released simultaneously will allow fans to farewell Boge, and mark the end of an era for one of this country’s most successful hard rock acts.

    Boge’s bandmates weren’t entirely blindsided by his decision. “It’d been coming,” says drummer Ben Hall. “We’d obviously been trying to make a record for three years, and we weren’t getting very far. There was many tense moments; lots of points where we sat down and tried to realign. It just came to a head on that day. We all agreed that we weren’t [heading] in the same direction, so maybe we shouldn’t waste any more time doing that.”

    It wasn’t a decision that Boge made lightly. “I’d thought about it quite a lot leading up to that day,” he says. “There were a couple of suggestions made to me about who I should work with, who I should be trying to extract the best melodies with; and [that I wasn’t] really getting the songs, or delivering them in the right way. I couldn’t go on working like that.”

    The Butterfly Effect was formed in 1999 by Hall and guitarist Kurt Goedhart while the pair were in high school. Boge saw one of their first gigs, at the Ipswich Racecourse – with a different vocalist – then rode home with Hall and showed the drummer lyric ideas that would form the basis for their debut EP. Bassist Glenn Esmond joined the group in 2002.

    “It’s definitely going to be sad. I’m not going to bullshit to you,” Boge says of the forthcoming tour. “I have moments where I just think, ‘Fuck – it sucks that it’s gotta go like this.’ But the thing is, I’d rather walk now than have these guys looking at me in a year’s time, saying, ‘Fuck you, I hate you, get out of my face.’”

    After the ‘Effected’ tour, Boge plans to record and release a solo album, continue working with his other hard rock act, Thousand Needles In Red, and devote more time to his vocal coaching clinic, Road Coach. His three former bandmates will audition for a new singer – they won’t reveal who’s on their shortlist – and work toward the release of their elusive fourth album.

    “We’ve been extremely blessed to be able to do this for as long as we have,” says Esmond. “I really do appreciate all the stuff we’ve had done far. I just feel stoked to have been able to do it. Whatever happens from here – I’m content that I satisfied all my dreams [doing] this.”

    “I’m sure we’ve all still got more to achieve,” adds Hall. “We’ve lost a limb, but hopefully we’ll find another one, and power on. We’ve got plenty of songs, so we’ve just got to find the right person. They’re some big shoes for someone to fill.”

    Further reading: The full transcript of my interview with the band was published on The Vine in April 2012.

  • Rolling Stone ‘My Record Collection’ interview: Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol, January 2012

    An entry in Rolling Stone’s regular ‘My Record Collection’ interview series, published in the January 2012 issue. Click the below image for a closer look, or read the article text underneath.

    My Record Collection – Gary Lightbody

    Snow Patrol’s frontman takes us through his favourite albums

    “I’m certainly the one who listens to the craziest music,” Gary Lightbody says of his four bandmates in Irish rock act Snow Patrol. “I make mix CDs for everybody. Sometimes they’re met with raised eyebrows. If I make one for my Mum, it’ll definitely be little country songs, some pop songs, nothing too crazy. But I might throw in a cheeky wee Four Tet song!” Lightbody is on a promo tour in Amsterdamwhen RS calls, ahead of the release of their sixth album, Fallen Empires.

    Metallica – …And Justice For All (1988)

    “This was their best record, and probably the one I listened to most. That style of music was a bit lost on me, because I couldn’t emulate it on guitar. It sounded like alien beings were creating the music: virtuoso guitar solos, and chugging that I couldn’t match with my right hand. Maybe it’s because I wasn’t masturbating enough as a teenager. But it was still intense; I’d always be thrashing away, headbanging to it in my room, or with my mates.”

    Nirvana – Nevermind (1991)

    “This record changed everything for me. It made me realise that I can actually do something with my guitar. Nirvana brought music into the real world, for me. Writing from the heart, rather than playing from the head and thinking from the ballsack. Kurt’s songs were extraordinary deconstructions of the human mind. As a sullen, sensitive 15 year-old – who was very insular, awkward, and loved his poetry – Nevermind spoke to me, just as it spoke to millions of other kids around the world.”

    Super Furry Animals – Fuzzy Logic (1996)

    “This is just an insane record. These are all songs that I still absolutely adore today. The Super Furries are one of those bands that opened up all sorts of music. People call them psychedelic because they don’t have any other words to describe them. They’re on their own little trip; in a class of their own. If their boundary-less expression of music has showed us anything, it’s that you should never keep doing the same thing again and again. It taught us to be adventurous.”

    Young MC – Stone Cold Rhymin’ (1989)

    “When I was 18 I started going to clubs, so my music tastes widened. I still listened to guitar music, of course – I mean, I’m in a band that plays guitar music – but I found a lot of dance music, funk, soul and hip hop. This is my favourite hip-hop album of all time. I love it when hip-hop is playful, and not about guns, bling and bitches. His records were about things like ditching school, and first loves. There was a naivety about it that’s unusual in hip-hop these days, and even a little unusual back then, when hip-hop was so political and racially charged.”

    Midlake – The Trials of Van Occupanther (2006)

    “I completely fell in love with this record, as well as that whole genre of music – Americana-ish, bluesy- and folky-tinged rock music. ‘Roscoe’ could possibly be my favourite song of all time. It’s an extraordinary piece of music: sweeping, lyrically phenomenal, and dense. It’s incredibly tricky to take in on the first goodness-knows-how-many listens. That’s the testament to a great song: you’re always finding new things in it.”

    Bon Iver – Bon Iver (2011)

    “Their first album was incredible, too, but this is just a beautiful, beautiful record. I’ve just been in its little universe for the last few months, loving every minute of it. ‘Michicant’ and ‘Holocene’ are two songs that I’ll take with me forever, I think. They’ll always be on my mind.”

    Arcade Fire – The Suburbs (2010)

    “On The Suburbs, themes and little motifs reoccur. You discover more about the song before by listening to the song after. It’s the sort of record that is essential, and cherishable. That’s the style of record that we wanted to make, too. Goodness knows if we’ve achieved it [with Fallen Empires], but my God, our ambition was high. Bands like Arcade Fire make your ambition high. When I listened to it, I went, ‘Fuck me, we’re gonna have to be better.’”

  • Rolling Stone album reviews: Tim Freedman, The Bon Scotts, January 2012

    Two albums reviews published in the January 2012 issue of Rolling Stone.

    ++

    The Bon Scotts 
    We Will All Die At The Hands Of C.G.I. 
    Popboomerang

    Misleadingly-named outfit deliver quality LP

    The second LP from this seven-piece exhibits folk pop with none of the over-earnestness you might associate with the genre. Each of the 11 tracks clocks in at under four minutes, and all are neatly contained musical ideas adorned with brass, flute and chanted band vocals, the latter of which adds a real sense of fun. The Melbourne-based septet have found a fine balance between beautiful instrumentation – fingerpicked guitar, graceful piano runs – and raucous theatrics. Neither element is overbearing, and the result is a well-rounded set of songs informed by irony, humour and – as the title hints – an undercurrent of mortality. Just ask the morose, overweight Batman on the cover.

    Key tracks: “Let’s Do What The Catholics Do”, “Polluted Sea”

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    Tim Freedman 
    Australian Idle
    Sony

    Whitlams frontman fails to excite in solo mode

    The Whitlams singer/pianist steps out for his first solo album and delivers a collection of middling pop tunes with nary a memorable hook between them. Freedman has displayed a knack for clever wordplay in the past, but there’s a dearth of evidence here: his gags and puns invariably fail to hit the mark, album title included. Most songs exhibit an overproduced sheen, which acts as a repellent. It’s only when Freedman allows some tenderness to shine through that we’re reminded of the talents that made him a household name. These comparatively subdued moments allow Freedman’s band to shine, too. Such songs are in the minority though. A thoroughly disappointing solo debut.

    Key tracks: “Back When We Were Beautiful”, “In The Current”

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  • Rolling Stone story: ‘The Discovery Channel: triple j’s power over Australian music’, December 2011

    A feature story published in the January 2012 issue of Rolling Stone Australia, under the ‘National Affairs’ banner.

    Click the below image for a closer look, or read the article text underneath.

    National Affairs: The Discovery Channel
    Is triple j’s power over Australian music being used for good, or evil?

    by Andrew McMillen. Illustration by Andrea Innocent

    In many ways, triple j studios – located on the third level of the cavernous ABC building on Harris Street, in inner Sydney – also functions as the central nervous system of the Australian music industry. On any given day, hundreds of thousands of listeners across the country are tuned in. Label owners, promoters, publicists and musicians follow the station with relentless fascination, as its playlist and musical preferences can literally make, delay, or break careers in the notoriously fickle music business.

    For decades, since the national broadcaster’s inception in August 1980, triple j has continued to grow: in terms of staff numbers, audience popularity and, as a direct result, cultural influence. With great power comes great responsibility. As triple j continues to slowly evolve into a gangly octopus whose arms now extend far beyond its initial radio habitat into print media, significant online networking, year-round event promotion, and – with the October launch of a standalone Unearthed station – digital radio, it’s worth taking a magnifying glass to the station’s many activities to examine whether their great power is being used for good or evil.

    Two senses are immediately pricked entering triple j studios: the eyes are met with bloody red walls contrasting against innocuous whites, and the ears latch onto the sounds of triple j being piped through the station’s corridors, while Zan Rowe broadcasts her morning show live to air just a few metres away. Station manager Chris Scaddan strolls past their huge music library to his corner office. His coffee table is stacked with months’ worth of printed music media: street press, monthlies, international imports. A recent issue of triple j magazine sits conspicuously atop the pile.

    He turns down the live broadcast to a quiet gurgle as he considers a question: how would he describe triple j to someone who’d never heard it before?

    “It’s uniquely Australian,” Scaddan says. “We’re about new music; mainly, new Australian music. We’re targeted at 18-24 year-olds, so we’re here for young Australians. We play diverse styles of music; we’re independent and non-commercial, which is important. At this point, we’re a brand that reaches across quite a few different platforms. We’re our audience as much as anything, as well. We’re really in touch with our listeners, and we hope that what we’re doing is reflecting and inspiring what they want, and what they want to listen to, and what they want to know about.”

    Eight minutes into the interview, in response to a question about whether triple j’s support is crucial to the success of Australian bands on a national scale, he cites a recently discovered statistic that he’s clearly very proud of: in October 2011, the station posted audience figures of 1.5 million in the five capital cities (Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide).

    “At the moment, we’ve got as many people listening as we ever have. But are we crucial to a band’s success? I don’t think so,” Scaddan says. “Certainly we’re a national broadcaster, and we’ve got a really strong audience. I wouldn’t say it’s crucial to whether you make it or don’t. There are so many different ways that you can find a career or an audience through the Australian music industry. There’s so many examples of bands who may not have been played by triple j who are doing just fine.”

    “Just fine” is a relative term, of course. For every Art Vs Science, Boy & Bear or Washington playing to thousands-strong crowds on the national stage, there are dozens – perhaps hundreds – of acts across Australia who enjoy strong support within their hometowns or capital cities, but struggle to make the jump to national notoriety without the nod from triple j. Does Scaddan find that bands get pissed off when they get told, ‘thanks, but no thanks’ in response to their latest release?

    “That does happen,” he replies. “That’s the nature of the business we’re all in. Just like artists who are pitching for articles in Rolling Stone and don’t get a mention get pissed off, and can’t understand it sometimes. It is really, really difficult. We’re always looking to try and find a really good balance of genres, of locations – nationwide, so we’re not just picking bands from Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane all the time.”

    “It’s difficult, and sometimes bands who want to get triple j airplay might not crack it on the playlist. That doesn’t mean they’re still not getting played in other ways on the station. They tune in and they’re not getting played as often as Gotye, or Florence + The Machine, and they think they should be. You just hope they can understand that there’s a limit to how much music can fit on the station and make it work.”

    Such programming decisions lie not with Scaddan, nor with music director Richard Kingsmill, but with the entire triple j staff. When Kingsmill is questioned – in jest – about whether he’s the most powerful man in Australian music, he practically explodes in exasperation from a couch positioned nearby the station’s carefully stacked CD collection.

    “It is not anywhere near the truth. It is just such a misconception to think this place isn’t a team of people,” Kingsmill says. “I have said this time and time again, and if people still think that I sit there and basically call all the shots, they are wrong. I can’t say it enough. This station is built on teamwork. It always has been. If you’ve got a bad framework, or teamwork vibe happening in this place, it shows on the other end of the radio. When we all work together, we get the results. It’s as simple as that.”

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    What happens when your band wins the musical equivalent of the lottery, the triple j Unearthed slot to open the main stage of Splendour In The Grass? In 2011, the competition was won by Brisbane indie pop band Millions. Twenty-two-year-old drummer James Wright is being a little humble by equating the contest to a lottery: those rely on luck alone, not songwriting talent.

    Still, it’s curious to hear Wright honestly state Millions’ intentions upon forming in December 2010. “The entire objective of the band was using triple j to get where we want to go,” he says. A four-piece comprised of members from three Brisbane bands you’ve never heard of, Millions realised during their initial rehearsals that their sound might appeal to the national broadcaster.

    “There was the fleeting chance that, if we maybe more deliberately went towards the triple j sort of sound, in terms of being more accessible than our previous bands, then we might have a shot at actually doing some good, and getting played,” Wright says. “We didn’t exactly have high aspirations for it, but we were really happy with the two songs we’d written [at the time].”

    He says that Millions are “the exact opposite” of their previous bands, in that their path was “extremely thought through, to the point of calculating exactly how many shows it would take us to get where we wanted to go, and to who we should play these shows with and why we should do them and where we should play them.” The Splendour 2011 slot was unexpected for the band, and “pretty much blew everyone’s mind” according to Wright, but not unsurprising given their ambitions.

    Stephen Green is well acquainted with this kind of mindset among artists. Since beginning as a radio “plugger” – a guy who pitches new music to stations across the country – he now runs his own publicity consulting business, SGC Media.

    “The problem of triple j being so dominant is that it artistically skews what some bands are coming out with,” he says. “If you’ve got the opportunity to do the song that’s in your head that’s not very ‘triple j’, or you tweak it somewhat and make it sound like bands that are getting airplay… I think a lot of bands are going down [the second] path a little more.”

    “The tracks that I think work least are the ones that the band have gone, ‘right, we’ve got to get on triple j’, and they’ve tried to write a ‘triple j song’,” Green adds. “If it just happened like that, then – great. But I think too many bands push down that path. Being generic so that you sound like every other band is not usually the way to stand out and have a particularly successful career.”

    When Green works on publicity with Australian artists, he never plans a campaign assuming that the act will get triple j airplay. “If you do that, you’re setting yourself up for a big disappointment,” he says. “I don’t think you can make assumptions that anybody’s going to play anything.” So what happens when triple j rejects the song or record you’re pitching them? “Well, you kick the wall, the client gets shitty and says, ‘you didn’t rep it properly’. You break up, and that’s the end of that!” he laughs, clearly joking.

    Like Green, Megan Reeder Hope places a high value on including triple j in her marketing plans. As general manager at Secret Service Public Relations, Reeder Hope works regularly with the Brisbane-based record label Dew Process, whose roster includes Mumford & Sons, The Grates and Seeker Lover Keeper. “triple j is essential,” she says. “It’s probably the crux of my plans of how we work at Dew Process.”

    “That’s not to say that we don’t value the rest of the media: community radio is really important, as is commercial radio when you get to a certain point,” Reeder Hope says. “But I think triple j is that centrepiece that needs to be in place to be able to do all of the other ones, as well. From our perspective, triple j has a high level of integrity. They really do things in a way that’s uncompromising of their own editorial policy, while still always putting the music first. It really is all about the music for them. They support artists, and they support them throughout their careers.”

    Back at the station’s Sydney studios, music director Richard Kingsmill is clearly proud of the station’s success, and unapologetic to its critics. “If anyone’s got any complaints and arguments against us, or thinks that we’re in some ways trying to monopolise the Australian industry….” He pauses. “You get damned if you do and damned if you don’t. If we sat back and went, ‘Well, we shouldn’t monopolise the Australian music industry, we should sit in this corner and do our little job and not try to do anything,’ we’d get criticised for being negligent and not proactive. If you’re proactive, then you tread on toes a little bit, I guess, but we’re not meaning to tread on toes.”

    “It’s not supposed to be 100 per cent,” Kingsmill continues. “No one can be 100 per cent, and no one should expect triple j to be 100%. We do what we do to the best of our abilities, and we try as hard as we possibly can, with the best of intentions. But at the end of the day, we’re all humans. So we’ll take chances and we’ll take risks, and sure, we’ll piss people off, but we wouldn’t do it if we didn’t think there was a section of the community out there who was actually enjoying it.”

    Further reading and discussion: