With all the blog loving that these guys are getting, do we really need another entry? You bet! This tube shows the boys getting creative to kill the boredom on the road. A hilarious amateur reenactment the boys shot while en route to Lorne for the Victorian leg of the annual Falls Festival. Shot at the famous Bells Beach where the last scene of the movie was set.

Previous posts: Dappled Cities Fly: Live, Dappled Cities Fly: ‘Within Hours’

photo by Angelo Soulas

Belinda Emmett – ‘Less Than Perfect’ (mp3)

To those not familiar with the name, Belinda Emmett was an ex Home and Away soapie actress/singer who recently passed away, losing a tabloid covered battle against cancer. She was Rove McManus‘s wife, host to the popular talk show on free to air TV channel 10. Her family recently released an mp3 of a recording meant to be part of her solo album which she never finished. The Age described it as a ‘heart wrenching ballad’. While circumstance and a media love-in drew me to the song more than its musical merit, I find it interesting that her family decided to publish the song online as a free download. Did they do it to share their grief with the masses of tabloid readers and Rove fans? Do people do that nowadays, when a family member passes? Put out mp3s on the net instead of just playing sad songs in funerals? The last funeral I went to a few years back was for a friend whose band I was involved with, he also lost his fight to cancer at 25 years old. The remaining band members sang him a song in the church. They didn’t record and put out an mp3 online. Would it have made anyone better if they did?

Belinda Emmett – Wikipedia 

Temper Trap – ‘My Sun’

Ok so after 5 weeks in Melbourne I finally have broadband, a working computer and time to blog again. It has been frustratingly slow to resettle in Australia’s 2nd biggest city, but I’ve used that time to get out and familiarise myself with the local scene. In Sydney every second person I meet is a DJ, but here in M-town, everyone is in a band. Which is good in a way, but also means that there are a lot of shit art school bands playing around the numerous venues.

Fortunately I’ve found a few gems. One band of Melbournites that stand out from the cacophony are the Temper Trap boys. They used to call themselves Temper Temper but apparently there’s a few other bands in the world with the same idea. A few weeks ago I met Dougy the singer while hanging out at St. Jerome’s laneway bar, home to the annual Laneway Festival, a very indie, small capacity gathering that tops at 2500 capacity in 3 cities next year in early 2007. Turns out he’s from Bali. Doug has a voice that cuts through any given room. They very recently put out an EP on Liberation Records and are playing some shows around town. They will be in Sydney this Saturday playing at Spectrum with Triple J Unearthed winners Young & Restless. Catch them yo.

http://www.myspace.com/thetempertrap

Bushido – ‘Romeo’

With no blogs from me in quite a while, I’ve got a backlog of artists to write about. But since I couldn’t decide who to blog on, I just picked up the first CD in the pile.  And that’s how we’ve all arrived at Melbourne three piece Bushido.

*Edit – so previously I had written that Bushido’s account had kept being deleted by the MySpace hierarchy, which it had.  But I’m happy to say that’s it been reinstated and all the issues have been cleared up.  Check out Bushido’s MySpace page at http://www.myspace.com/bushidomusic and you can read about the whole situation.  Anyway, back to your normal blog reading…

But Bushido have been kicking around for a few years, playing some major Aussie festivals including the inaugural Pyramid Rock Festival and supporting the likes of Cog and Karnivool.  And it’s no surprise really – these guys are riff masters and pull the shit off live as well with precision.  I’ve only managed to catch them live once and they definitely got the room moving with the grooving tunes.

Their debut EP Last Breath is completely sold out, but their brand new EP Mercina is available from Rare Records.  They’re not creating earth-shattering original music, but it’s groovy as hell and if you’re a fan of heavy music like I am, Bushido are following the right path.

http://www.bushidomusic.com/
http://www.myspace.com/bushidomusic

The White Room – ‘Enemies Closer’

The White Room will be, without doubt, your new favourite band. Trust me on this one, the four piece are the freshest group to emerge out of the fledgling Aussie rock scene since Silverchair became our favourite ‘Freaks’. Unlike Wolfmother (massive props to Mike Patton, hahah!), Jet, the Casanovas and the proliferation of 70s rock imitators, these guys (and one girl) are vastly original – embracing their culture rather than simply ripping off one from years gone by. Led by the power duo of Marc and Steph Collins, their debut, White Room Music is a grungy, bouncing ride that will have you addicted from the moment it hits your ears.

It’s like AC/DC meeting a 70s Funk band in a pub. Guttural but groovy, grungy but gorgeous, the White Room are a true anomaly in the Sydney scene; a group so great which continually resists catergorisation. The album was recorded by Phil McKellar, probably one of the most famous Australian producers – ever. And it shows: every note is crisply polished to perfection. The tunes rollick about with some moody-ass lyrics helping them along the way. Needless to say, there’s definitely some major label backing behind these guys but I’m yet to hear them on local radio. Check them out now, it’s definitely worth it!

http://www.thewhiteroommusic.com.au/
http://www.myspace.com/whiteroommusic

Busy hands means less blogging.  So apologies on behalf of the team for the lack of updates.  We’ve all been stupidly busy lately which means that blogging has slowed quite a bit, but I’ll do some updating over the weekend.  To tide you over ’til then, and to reward those of you who constantly check our site for updates (and a biiiiiiiiiiig thankyou to you!), I thought I’d put up a video that’s not necessarily Australian, or about new Aussie music, but that’s just a good laugh.  Here’s Mike Patton telling us all what he really thinks of Wolfmother.  Ahhh, the wonders of YouTube.

Jumping into the time machine, this is the filmclip for the Inga Liljeström song ‘Phoenix’ from her album Elk which came out in 2005.  Yeah, it’s a bit of a slow blogging day…

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