Cuthbert and The Night Walkers – ‘Newtown (La La La)’ (mp3)

I can unabashedly say I love this song!  If you live in Sydney. especially the Inner West like myself, it’s a great geographical name-dropper of a song.  If you don’t live in Sydney, you can hear about some of our great suburbs.

Cuthbert and the Night Walkers really are one of those great feel-good bands.  Yes, there are 10 members in the band.  This includes five wonderful backup singers.  So it gives the band a kind of Polyphonic Spree vibe.  Richie Cuthbert is the brainchild of the group, and his songs, at their core, are indie-folk tunes, with lyrics that tell a story (Bob Dylan is listed as an influence) and music that’s heavy on melody.   Add 9 more people to the equation and you get a Sufjan Stevens / Architecture in Helsinki type feel. 

I had the group (not all of them, they wouldn’t have fit in the studio) on my radio show a few months back, and they were such awesome guests.  I implore you to go and see them when they do their thing live.  Although, they’re taking a 3 month break, so, I dunno… write yourself a Post-It note to remind yourself of this 10 piece extravaganza.

Their new single is posted here – ‘Newtown (La La La)’ – and it’s such a happy-go-lucky number.  It’s my MySpace profile song now, because it makes me smile.

http://www.myspace.com/cuthbertandthenightwalkers

The Seabellies – ‘Song We Don’t Speak Of’ (mp3)

I once got an SMS from one of my mates saying “Come down to the Hopetoun and watch the Seabells play.  It’s the finals fo the Fasterlouder comp”.  So I jumped on fasterlouder.com.au and searched for this band called the Seabells (the comp was to win a spot on the Australian V Festival lineup) and I couldn’t find them. And he kept raving about them.  And then I found out they were called The Seabellies.

Pointless story sure.  I don’t care.  It’s my blog.  Needless to say, these guys are awesome.  Jonno Seidler, former Who the Hell cohort, is a big fan of The Seabellies.  I’ve never seen them live, but I will endeavour to do so very soon.  There’s six members in the band, but they each play about a thousand instruments each – just check out the list on their MySpace site!  Don’t you just hate multi-talented people?  I hear they even swap instruments during their sets.  That’s cool.

They’re just unleashed their debut EP Wave Your Fingers To Make The Winters and I’m itching to grab a copy.  Their style is maybe what you’d call baroque pop: layered indie pop rock tunes, channelling 60s Beach Boys with a dab of Brian Eno.  Think Arcade Fire, Broken Social Scene, Architecture in Helsinki, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah but not as aggressive (and in the case of CYHSY, much better singing).  They’re doing a handful of East Coast Australia dates, so keep an eye out for them and make sure you go see them. 

http://www.myspace.com/theseabellies

The Baggsmen – ‘Bubblegum’

These guys produce the freshest beats in the country, and though their second album Eleven Stages did well on radio, in the stores, and earned them two Big Day Out tours, the did not make it big enough. Maybe their luck will change with this new album. The Baggsmen are producer/bassist Tony Buchen (who has done work with Macromantics, Kid Confucius and Earl Gray), drummer Lok Brahe and new addition to the lineup Welshman Brad Munn. In this record they again collaborated with friends Jake Stone of Bluejuice, who featured on this track, Janny Cassanova of Rastawookie and Earl Gray of, well Earl Gray. This is the only song that I have heard from the album, so looking forward to hearing more

www.myspace.com/baggsmen

I don’t mean to detract from Baggsmen’s musical merits, but for those of you who remember, Jake Stone was once arrested mid-show on stage for wearing a police uniform. He was cleared of all charges, but the accompanying youtube is priceless:

The Third Cycle – ‘The Turning Day’ (mp3)

It’s been a while since I’ve posted something on Who The Hell.  Perhaps I was too busy.  Perhaps I was lazy.  Nah, not lazy, busy… I promise!

So these four Northern Beaches kids like to call themselves The Third Cycle.  If you’ve gone to at least a handful of gigs in the past few years where the bands on stage turn their amps up to eleven, then you’ve probably seen the members around, either in this band, or in their previous bands.  Vocalist Jess Donnellan used to play in an all-girl group called Charlie.  Bassist Clint Ossington and drummer Scott Chandler used to play in a band called Unsaid (Clint used to sing and Scotty used to play percussion).  And Matt Dobson… well, I just can’t remember what band he used to play in!

They hit the stage in 2006 surrounded by a lot of publicity – smart move really on their behalf: build the hype and watch the people come, which they did at their first official show at the Annandale Hotel (they played a warm-up show under the name “The Turning Day” – yep like the song – at The Lair, Metro Theatre in Sydney). 

They’ve played a bunch of shows, and are starting to build a pretty solid fanbase.  They’ve got a 3-track demo floating around, and you can hear all the songs off it on their MySpace page.  I think they’re currently recording an EP with producer Dave Petrovic, so keep your ears out for it.

Oh, and P.S. I don’t know what “The Third Cycle” actually is.

www.thethirdcycle.com
www.myspace.com/thethirdcycle

Grafton Primary – ‘Relativity’ (mp3)

Grafton Primary are brothers Josh and Ben Garden from Sydney. Their previous track ‘Hidden Cycle’ rotated on lots of radio playlists round about last year. They’ve since recorded an album due to be out soon titled 2020 vision. ‘Relativity’ is so 80s in instrumentation, arrangement and lyrics I almost tuned the radio out, until it reached the bizzarely catchy hook of ‘we equal m c squared..’ ??? I can’t explain it but it’s a hook that would have worked twenty, thirty years ago, and thanks to the current music scene’s obsessions with 80s beats and synths is now working today.

www.myspace.com/graftonprimary

This song reminds me of a childhood favourite:

Thomas Dolby – ‘She Blinded Me With Science’

Road to recovereeeeeeee…..

www.myspace.com/midnightjuggernauts