the stabs

they're from melbourne
they're playing in sydney at the excelsior on the 23rd of april
they're fucking rad
think a little like a bit of birthday party, sonic youth, mudhoney plus a lot of origionality.
http://www.myspace.com/thestabs

Listen. Now

Foal

Australia has never been lucky when it comes to having bands from over seas tour, and this years Big Day Out is one very good example of this (apart from the horrors, who STILL haven’t announced sideshows). Tomorrow night we have a small… ok VERY small consolation, but hey, beggars can’t be choosers. At the once brilliant, now predominantly disgusting Candy’s Apartment we have keyboardist Edwin Congreaves of Foals DJing. I was very VERY far down the grape vine when I herd the news, thus the news was some what distorted which resulted in me thinking the FOALS WERE PLAYING GIGS IN AUSTRALIA. But of course I realized that this was not so, and I realized that my excitement was entirely unwarranted, because I'm in Australia, no one comes to Australia. (Except Pavement !)



Anyway
• Friday the 13th November
• Candy’s
• A foal
• Many drunks
• Which sounds fine by me.

Paper Moon

When one types the words “Paper Moon” into Google the results range from a wholesale retail distribution company, a film that involves an orphaned daughter of a prostitute, a gaming blog and an anime cartoon. Thankfully the Paper Moon that I am talking about has nothing to do with a wholesale anime hooker.

This Paper Moon is a band that hails from Wollongong (and occasionally Marrickville) who play what could be described as a fusion of Ryan Adams, You Am I and Neil Young along with some originality and one hell of a voice. I have witnessed them play a few times now and I think they are more than plug worthy, so you should give them a few moments of your time. They are playing at the Annandale this Wednesday, and hey, no one needs another reason to go there, it’s the Annandale, I want to live there.

They have a few other gigs coming up too:
www.myspace.com/itsonlyapapermoon

oh Morrissey

I haven’t listened to this album but:
a. Morrissey looks like a truck driver on a long slog from Dapto to Glendambo
b. He looks like he is about to molest this small child.
c. WHY IS HE HOLDING THIS BABY FROM ITS CRUTCH!?
d. He should be holding a meat pie and a "big cold beer", not a baby.


Seriously. I don’t care how beautifully crafted his winging is, how lovely his phrasing is or all the times he has given me cynical company on the train to uni while I am squished between a wall with suspicious stains on it, a business man and a man with man boobs larger than mine. I won't buy it. Not even to pay homage to his seemingly indestructible quiff.


But I’ll download it

Hannah Montana, Radiohead and the Master Musicians of Tanzania

Hannah Montana scares me, or Miley Cyrus, either way it’s a hideous fusion that I don’t fully understand. It makes me nostalgic for the days where I danced around in my bedroom blissfully listening to Five …wait ... I mean… I didn’t listen to fi… ok well at least they didn’t threaten to “ruin” Radiohead. For those of you who don’t waste their life reading Who Weekly, lil’ Miley made this ever so formidable threat after Radiohead snubbed her at some music bigwig awards show. I presume she would ruin them by singing to them, which of course would induce simultaneous Radiohead suicide, and that little piece of paparazzi encased gold was the most entertaining piece of trash gossip I had read since I found out that Suri Cruise eats only with chopsticks. I mean, if I had those things near me at her age I’m pretty sure they would have entered some sort of orifice where chopsticks are NOT supposed to go. Is that weird?

Anyway in this day and age where miss Mon-Cyrus is dominating the airwaves and Lady Gaga is singing shit like “lets have fun, this beat is sick, I wanna take a ride on your disco stick” I advise looking beyond our western shores and some what depressing mainstream music and look to Africa.

Two records that I have been listening to nonstop lately are “Missing You (Mi Yeewnii)” by Baaba Maal and “Mateso” by The Master Musicians of Tanzania. Yes I know these two cds are hardly discs to go flaunting around Oxford Arts Factory to demonstrate your highly educated indie ear, but they are amazing. African culture has a completely different perspective on music, rather than being cerebral (like dear Morrisey's angst) it is much more spiritual and almost trance inducing. The cyclic motions of the polyrhythms are insane; I cannot even understand how they play some of the rhythms they do.

It’s quarter past one in the morning, and I could stay up all night telling you how brilliant African music is, but one must sleep apparently. I highly recommend these two cd’s, they are not for the feint hearted, don’t be expecting too many verse/chorus/verse/chorus, but fuck. They are amazing.

Both of these cds are available on Amazon. Look them up and give in to the hypnotic African grooves

Mateso- Master Musicians of Tanzana:



Missing you- Baaba Maal:

G-H-O-U-L

Last Saturday night a few friends and myself, in midst of ignoring all Uni work, headed off to Spectrum to catch a Ghoul show. Personally I thought it was great, a musical ear could pick a glitch here and there, but who the fuck wants to listen/cares about that? As I said, a marvelous performance. They played the older songs from the EP with prowess and unleashed some new songs on the excitable audience at spectrum. Staying true to their roots, the down fall of the set was it’s length, it seemed as though it had only just started when they announced their last song and I think somewhere in my mind I worked out the ratio of Ghoul time to cover charge cost (it was 50 cents per minute). Anyway it was twenty fifty cent minutes well spent in my book.

Oh and having an extra floor tom is brilliant, if I didn’t already play drums I would take up full time floor tom duties. Pavle was shredding during the set, but I couldn’t shut up that heckler in the back of my head that was constantly yelling “play There There”, God dammit insanity.

Here’s are a few photo’s taken by Emma and I.





So after having finally witnessed their performance, I managed to organize an email interview with Ivan from Ghoul.

Your EP “Mouthful of Gold” was launched at the end of last year, how does it feel looking back on the record now?

There are bits we like and bits we hate. I guess it shouldn't have really been 9 tracks... there are 3 or 4 duds on there. It was good to just get it out and it's great that people are listening to it and getting into it. We've pushed over 1000 units... great for a local release. I'm just happy we have something to call our own.

I’ve read that the EP was recorded in a bedroom, have their been any changes to the recording process this time round? Possibly upgrades?

Yes and no. Drum tracking for the album has been done in a proper studio with more microphones. For Mouthful it was done at home.

A lot of the overdubs are done in my bedroom in front of the computer. I think as long as you've got the right gear and you know what you want from it, you could record anywhere. There's no need to pay someone money to make your record... unless it's Brian Eno or something.

Your songs seem to be driven by an idea, drum pattern or riff, rather than a traditional song structure. How do you go about song writing?

The EP wasn't very democratic. Something would be composed on the computer and people would record bits over the top of it. Then we culled it back or change it completely. Now, we get an idea from a demo or a jam in rehearsal. We record it straightaway, just to get something down into the computer we can work with. Then we try to figure out how we're going to play it live... which is usually where things get fleshed out even further. Then back to recording. Back and forth, constantly.

We're really into repeat patterns, syncopation... stuff like that. I don't think we really 'get' how to write a chorus... just counterpoints. The EP is like one counterpoint for each track... that's why they are so short. Have you consciously tried to go in a different direction with your new songs?

Yes. They're a little warmer, a little more developed...

You’re playing with an MPC in your live shows now; do you think this has changed the performance? Is it hard to get used to playing with it live?

It's giving us the opportunity to play things through, properly. Up until now we just transposed everything to guitar and it wasn't working. With the MPC we have another set of hands... it's not that we're playing along to a backing track or anything. All the samples have to be triggered at the right second or the whole thing goes to shit.

I noticed there was a distinctly different feel in the songs when played live. What is your approach to live gigs?

Yeah less dream synth pop and more liars... ahaha. We're still working on our live show, it's pretty dogs balls. Some things we had to change, like Swimming Pool, just to make it sound bigger. Serbian and Jakob are pretty close to the recording. Loon was figured out post-recording, but I think if we recorded it again it would sound like that. Scary.

And the 20-minute thing... yeah, sets are really short... by accident. I mean, we play 7 or 8 songs but they're all around 2 minutes. Ohana used to play 20 minutes.... we're working on that too.

I guess we're not as twee as we make out to be on the EP. We're just trying to do better things... a little more serious? hahaa I'm not sure.

I saw a Ludwig kit on stage at spectrum, channeling some Ringo?

Hanno got it the other week. It's perfect. Loud as.

Any plans in the near future for touring?

We want to go to Melbourne this year, but we really need to get our live show on par before. No point in disappointing people.

Do you have a favorite venue to play at?

I like main stage on Oxford Art Factory because the foldback isn't shit. The worst is when you can't hear yourself singing.... I just miss everything. Sounds terrible.

The floor in the other room is cool too. Love playing in the midst of people.

What are your favorite bands at the moment?

Better yet, records we are listening to:

Talking Heads - Remain in Light
Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works 85 - 92
Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest
This Heat - Out of Cold Storage

They've got a few gigs coming up, some to fundraise for FBI, so get yo asses theya!
http://www.myspace.com/ghoulsydney

Primary Colours- The Horrors

I’m not even going to try to “review” this album as such, rather, I’ll just tell you to GET OFF YOUR LAZY ASSES AND GET YOUR HANDS ON THIS RECORD.

I was thinking, and I’m sure many others were too, what would The Horrors do next? Neatly shelved as another novelty scenester band with all their fantastic gore, fuzz, organs, skinny legs and hair. Oh so much hair. Could this concept stretch another album? Would they try to do just that? Would they disappear into the abyss of bands that the NME threw in the scrap heap when they realized that Noel Fielding didn’t dig them anymore?

Thankfully Faris Rotter, Spider Webb, Coffin Joe, Tomethy Furse and Joshua Third did none of the above. With Webb and Furse swapping synth and bass duties The Horrors have managed to craft themselves a knew completely sound with out losing what made me fall in love with the first album.

If you would like a neatly packaged box to put them in, here it is:
The old horrors + new order + 90’s shoe gaze then listen to them through a kaleidoscope and you will have something along the lines of “Primary Colours”.

I have not been so pleasantly surprised since I found out that... Well I can’t remember, which either means I have a rather depressing life or that this is a brilliant album. I’ll leave that for you to decide.

My Favourites:
Mirror’s Image
Who Can Say
Scarlet Fields
Sea Within A Sea