In Words: Meredith Music Festival 2014, Day 2+3, 13.12.14-14.12.14
We’re through the looking glass – on the good side. Day Two is buffered at both ends, forming a temporary autonomous zone whose participants abandon property (I wake tumbling from my neighbours’ tent, raising no questions but only smiles on both sides) and identity (everyone else knew to dress up). Though there’s still only one stage, things are less […]
In Words: Meredith Festival 2014, Day 1, 12.12.14
It’s immediately apparent that it’s true: Meredith is NICE. Even the put-upon town of Meredith, ten minutes from the festival grounds, is welcoming, the lovely pub dishing up “festival lunches” and handles of beer opposite the corner store selling bags of ice and ammunition. The staff/volunteers at the festival gate manage to make a vehicle check for glass, the only real […]
In Words: Cibo Matto + Richard In Your Mind + Ben Ely @ The Zoo, 29.10.2014
Most musicians are mired in their muck. And we love that. But some people – I guess I call them artists – seem to float above it all, with the lightest touch. Ben Ely is a musician and it comes naturally, like breathing. This is his first show with a new drummer and he’s glad to be […]
Various Artists – Song Reader (Capitol)
Beck’s sheet music-only “album”, Song Reader, proved surprisingly divisive as a concept. Some lapped up the intended, vaguely Luddite reminder of pop music’s origins as a DIY and ephemeral home entertainment; others shuddered at the “vintage” flavour (liquorice and pomade) or found the prerequisites of musical literacy/ability and access to an instrument elitist. I was always in […]
Live Review: Wire, Per Purpose, Multiple Man @ The Zoo, Brisbane, 19.02.14
The doors are closed when I arrive. This is because the gig is on the other side of town. I’ve wrongly assumed Wire would play at The Hi Fi, a larger, air-conditioned venue that’s hosted a series of older/reformed bands lately. Instead they are playing The Zoo, a smaller, hotter venue that tends a little […]
Album Review: Blank Realm – Grassed Inn (Fire/Bedroom Suck)
That narrative in the music press (the music press love a narrative) in which Blank Realm emerge four-legged from the murky deep and wriggle their gills in the fresh air of rock n roll? It’s true, to an extent. I told it myself a few years back, on an unread, long-dead blog. “Blank Realm invented […]
Deerhunter + Blank Realm @ The Zoo, Brisbane 09.12.13
“We gotta go to school today, gotta learn THAT! STUPID! SHIT!/Soon as I can get a car to drive then I’m gonna be DONE WITH IT!”
Bitch Prefect – Bird Nerds (Bedroom Suck)
In the uncertainty and shit-talk of 2013, Bitch Prefect might just shine a little light.
In Words: Bardo Pond + Dream Time + Pale Earth @ The Zoo, Brisbane 02.08.13
Bardo Pond shouldn’t have faces because their music doesn’t sound like it comes from people.
Reviewed In Words | You Am I @ The Tivoli, 26/27.06.13
Ah, Tim. How many performers, in the straight-up ‘rock band’ world or indeed elsewhere, self-censor as little as Tim Rogers?
