Webcuts Music

We told you about the bounty of international acts coming Australia’s way in the next few months a couple of weeks back, now after an announcement they would play the Meredith music festival in Victoria got those in other states chomping at the bit it’s now official — Mark E Smith and his current cohorts known as The Fall are playing headline shows in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne on the back of this year’s Your Future, Our Clutter album. Also tour announcements for San Fran’s Girls and Canadian indie supergroup The New Pornographers.

To celebrate 50 years of the footwear of choice for pretty much every rock music subculture — Dr. Marten’s boots (aka Docs) — the company has asked 10 artists to cover a cult classic representing the spirit of the people who have worn Docs. Black Rebel Motor Cycle Club have done an admirable acoustic version [...]

And now for something completely different… We’ll admit we don’t feature many non-Western acts here at Webcuts but when, out of left field, comes a piece of ear candy from the east like The Suzan’s “Home” we do listen. And look. With a cute glockenspiel intro, maracas-a-plenty, chunky bass and soothing if indecipherable vocals culminating [...]

During their recent visit to Australia for Splendour in the Grass we caught up with LCD Soundsystem’s main man James Murphy who gave us reason to put away the hankies for LCD’s much reported demise – “It’s not necessarily the last record. I would make another record. It’s more the end of this part – three records that go together, an arc. We became a bigger band than I ever expected. Something needs to stop, for me, for us all to be happy.” He also waxes lyrical about making the record in the LA of his imagination, growing up and wanting kids, his Greenburg soundtrack experience and his many and varied future projects.

Brisbane upstarts DZ have thrilled and spilled with their brash brand of  indie-punk since last year’s DZ Ruined My Life EP and legendary live shows including a sweaty but memorable gig at the Hangar. With a fund-raising east coast tour around the corner to enable the band to terrorise the inhabitants of NYC they have [...]

The end of winter and the onset of spring then summer in the Southern Hemisphere means one thing. Well it means warmer temperatures obviously but it also means more international tours for us antipodeans starved of name acts over the winter months (excepting Splendour and its sideshows of course). A number of big names have been announced in the past week including The Manic Street Preachers, The Charlatans, Concrete Blonde, The National, Interpol, The Morning Benders and Joan Jett!

In the space of the just two weeks one singer-songwriter who hails from Essex in England, Gemma Ray, has set up residence in the speakers and hearts of at least two of us here at Webcuts. The source of such an impact was the new album It’s a Shame About Gemma Ray, a 16 track covers album of timeless (Buddy Holly, Etta Fitzgerald) and alternative (Mudhoney, Sonic Youth, The Gun Club) classics. The first track is the sparse take on Gallon Drunk’s dark but delicious “Put a Bolt In the Door” from their album The Rotten Mile. Featured above is an acoustic session from Le Cargo! which successfully conveys the stripped down and dirty nature of the recorded version. Note the large kitchen knife tucked away at the back of the fretboard which Ray regularly uses in concert and studio in place of a slide. The Ray of light (or dark) will continue in the next week when we’ll feature a lengthy interview with the chanteuse about the album and future recordings.

A few nights before this Pixies warm up concert for Splendour in the Grass, I had a vivid dream. In it I was the tour manager or press officer for the band and they were being put up in a luxury hotel with a huge swimming pool which they were swanning around in and (in)famously not getting along and refusing to do the show. It ended with me giving them a “look all the great rock’n’roll bands are dysfunctional, but when you’re on stage for that hour and a half you come together, that’s when you work, that’s when you function!” speech. And then I drove them to the Zoo in a black hummer.

For those who haven’t been paying attention (and you should) Darren Hayman the singer/guitarist from London indie sensations Hefner has recorded five albums and numerous EPs since that group went on permanent hiatus in 2001, either under his own moniker or with his new band The Secondary Modern (not to mention collobrations with The Wave Pictures and blue-grass indie supergroup Hayman, Watkins, Trout and Lee). His sixth is Essex Arms due on 4 October via Fortuna POP!, the first in a planned trilogy of albums focusing on the East Anglian rural underbelly. This taster (not single that will be “‘Nothing You Can Do About It” out Aug 16) is just where you’d imagine Darren Hayman to be at this stage of his career — wistful folk, full of warmth and a touch of nostalgia which is accompanied by a richly textured film clip shot in Super 8 featuring Darren and band members and most charming of all his dog Bella. Woof!

It took eleven years, three albums and a European tour for Melbourne space rockers Black Cab to broach Brisbane but they did and yes, it was worth the wait. Even the prospect of a half empty venue, an OCD stricken punter and the one colour Hi-Fi lights were not enough to dissuade Black Cab in performing anything less than a mesmerising set of original material and two stunning encores that paid homage to the whole space/drone/shoegaze rock genre. Able support was provided by Brisbane alt.rock kings Grand Atlantic.