The Decemberists – The Hazards of Love
EMI/Rough Trade, 2009 [7/10] Where once The Decemberists were a modest modern rock band, albeit outsiders with literate leanings that rarely leaned toward rock's excesses, they have gradually extended their artistic aspirations into the musical
Who The Hell Are… The Rifle Volunteer?
It's an audacious pronouncement to commit to releasing 12 singles in 12 months. The Wedding Present set the benchmark in the 90's. Ash tried the same thing recently, in a mixture of desperation and overkill in numbers too large to comprehend and tarnishing the very idea of a single. It's not just two songs on a slab of vinyl (or cd, or one of those less satisfying digital w/artwork jobs). It's a living, breathing statement. A trojan horse in disguise. A rallying cry to fall behind. A rallying cry... See, The Rifle Volunteer comprehend this. "I'll Sleep When That Damned Sun Is Dead", the first single in their year long campaign, is what we're talking about. Here is a band that means business.
Savages – London – 11 October 2012
Savages Electrowerkz, London 11th October 2012 Does anyone remember the post-punk explosion of 2005 when every second band seemed to be cribbing off each other's influences sheets, and labels with derivative names
Against Me! – White Crosses
Fifth album from these Floridian punkers. File under "anarchy, unfulfillment and frustration".
The Darling Buds – London – 22 September 2010
You’d be forgiven for having a sense of déjà vu here. Is it 1989? Did The Primitives and The Darling Buds really both play London within a week of each other? Having been absent from the live scene for most of the '90s and all of the past decade, for both bands to surface at the same time is unthinkable. Unthinkable, but pretty damn cool. It brings back memories of a time when the music magazines invented a scene called ‘Blonde’, where bands were lumped together purely based on the colour of the lead singers hair. Which by their way of thinking meant you were either a Blonde, a Goth or in Fairground Attraction.
Die! Die! Die! – Form
New Zealand's Die! Die! Die! make their third incision into the heart of rock n' roll but fall short of delivering the expected death blow.
Spoon – Interview with Britt Daniel and Jim Eno (Static, 2010)
Spoon's latest album, Transference, seemed to show the band finding new ways to tie their own shoelaces, searching out their own "Mystery Zone" or what Britt Daniel will later say in the interview "we gotta try to please ourselves first". Notable for being our first interview where the band asks us the questions, Spoon have perhaps realised there's more to making music than pleasing yourself. You've still got to please your Mom too...
Hoodoo Gurus – Interview with Dave Faulkner (2008)
Living proof that great bands and great songs endure all, Sydney's Hoodoo Gurus are the epitome of the walking jukebox, with a back catalogue of classic singles and albums that have become as much part
Wendy James – London – 9 June 2011
Why hello, Wendy James. It’s been a while. Almost 20 years since I saw Transvision Vamp play at the Hordern Pavilion in Sydney. A mostly unremarkable show except for the amount of intimidating drunks in attendance and the fact they played their current ‘hit‘ twice. Australia loved Transvision Vamp, almost in the same way it loved Blondie, decades before. Stick a blonde wig on a mop, put it in front of a bunch of guys in leather jackets and you're set. Transvision Vamp at that time were in their career descent with Little Magnets Versus The Bubble of Babble (my head still shudders at the idiocy of this title) and this was their last roll of the dice.
Who The Hell Are… Lion Island?
Lion Island were first encounted playing a free show in Brisbane's King George Square. Their ability to fill a large stage with eight members and the cavernous square full of wondrous music bolstered my mood and had casual passerby's on their way to the train, stop and listen. When seen again three months later at The Hi-Fi Bar a liking for the band was affirmed and proved that Lion Island are one of the city's most ambitious and talented acts. Here are a band able to switch from solo singer-songwriter folk, then become a Brisbane Beirut by adding brass and violin to the acoustic guitar and drums to full out orchestral rock, as if Finn Andrews was fronting The National.
The Scare – The Final Interview, Sydney (2010)
Is there anything more cliched than the rock and roll break-up? Secret meetings in dark alleys. The guitarist that suddenly pops up on other people's records. The singer who doesn't return their calls. You either see it coming a mile away, or it creeps up on you like old age. It happens to the best and it happens to the worst, and eventually it will happen to them all. Piss and moan about it all you like, but what's done is done. The latest induction to the rock and roll hall of "fuck this shit for a laugh" are Webcuts' favourite punk sons, The Scare.
Grouplove – Never Trust A Happy Song
Energetic indie-rock from LA's Grouplove but watch out for "the boring half of the record". Whoops.
Heaven 17 – Live at Last
Cooking Vinyl, 2008 [1/10] For those unaware, Heaven 17 existed on the periphery of the pioneering electronic new wave scene. They didn't have the pop flair of the Human League or the sequined glitz of
Dum Dum Girls – London – 28 September 2010
California girls. Beach Boys praised them, Katy Perry revived them, but Los Angeles' Dum Dum Girls are the kind of girls that either Brian Wilson or Katy Perry had in mind. Palm trees, bikinis and suntans aren’t their domain, in fact, it would be surprising if daylight ever graced their chalk-white skin, looking as they do Josie and The Pussycats meets Tim Burton. Making a return visit to London in the newly opened (and un-divey) East London venue XOYO, Dum Dum Girls are Dee Dee. The all-girl band she's assembled acts as both an extension of her psyche, and a mirror to how she dresses.
Who The Hell Are… Fennel Seeds?
Never in the history of doing these 'Who The Hell Are... ?' spotlights has a band come along and answered each question so thoroughly and excitedly that to praise them any further would make it seem like we're actually in this band or take bribes (we do. email for details). From the same stable of acts (and household one would presume) that brought you the percussive pop concussions of We//Are//Animal and the not-very-French-at-all Masters In France, come spicy indie rock quartet Fennel Seeds. Further proof that North Wales these days is a happening place or one that naught much else happens.
Jess Ducrou – Interview about Splendour in the Grass (2009)
Second Splendour line up in full and interview with Splendour promoter Jess Ducrou about the tremendous success of the festival, the process for picking the line-up and this year's bands, future expansion of the site and the improvements in ticketing technology.