Shaky Hands – ‘You and I’

I’ve only seen these guys once but they definitely leave an impression, just like fellow frantic Kiwi rockers Die!Die!Die! and The Mint Chicks. It was at Purple Sneakers in Abercrombie Hotel and the friday night indie club night doesn’t usualy put bands on but made an exception for them. It was packed and took me almost an hour to get through, and once inside it was so crowded I could not really see the stage or the band. Phil the vocalist of the group is known for his wild stage antics and this night he decided to climb the rafters onto the rooftop next to the stage and yelled out some of his songs from there. Reminds me a lot of that guy from Les Savy Fav.

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teenagersintokyo – ‘End It Tonight’

“One word, all lowercase”, that’s how Sam of teenagersintokyo instructed me to spell out her band name. Actually I wasn’t sure if they were a band back then, more like really hot team DJing action that frequented cool underground indie clubs, Modular parties and advertising functions. Of course being the local Sydney radio identities that they were, getting involved in the live music scene was inevitable and all that interviews and gig going soon led them to morph into a band. They started out with five but soon lost their drummer to a wrist injury, and I was told they now perform with a drum machine instead.

They get a lot of comparisons with Brazillians Cansei De Ser Sexy, but those are usually based on their image rather than music. Both have crazy indie disco fashion sense and hot looking girls, but CSS has a much more clubbier feel to their music while these girls lean towards the no/nu wave revival popular of late in the Sydney scene. I’ve only seen them once and I believe it was one of their very first gigs at Brighton Up Bar in Darlinghurst, a tiny space of maybe 80 people capacity with no stage. Coincidentally it was also the same place where I saw Young & Restless for the first time. And now these three bands will have another connection, CSS is touring Australia early January and teenagersintokyo is supporting them in Sydney while Y+R is the support for Melbourne. All of them have very hot Asian girls leading so check them out yo!

www.myspace.com/teenagersintokyo

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This one shot clip of Snowman‘s Andy Citawarman gives a hint of indication of his manic stage demeanor. My favourite cut from one my top 5 albums this year.

www.myspace.com/thesnowmanempire

Other Snowman Posts

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Yen – ‘Emily’ (mp3)

We hardly blog enough on pop music so here’s a piece from Sydney outfit Yen. Not much is known about these guys except that they’ve entered Triple J’s Unearthed competition which is how I found out about them. I do like a good laid back pop number every now and then and these guys do it well. They are playing the end of year Peats Ridge Festival in New South Wales. This is a ‘sustainable’ festival, where part of the shtick is that the performing musicians get paid in free tickets for their friends and family. Not my kind of thing personally but lots of people dig it.

www.myspace.com/yenband

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Sparkadia – ‘Morning Light’

A new track from this Sydney 3 piece. After changing bass players since we wrote about them last, Sparkadia announced a new EP deal with fledgling label Boundary Sounds – run by the same guys who run the very popular Sydney indie disco night Purple Sneakers. Rumours are the band have also attracted overseas label interest and will be flying off sometime in the first half of the year of next year. This track is a new song from them in over a year I think. Just as catchy as the other ones. Good stuff.

http://www.myspace.com/sparkadia

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The Dappled boys are webcasting a special/secret gig for 100 punters tonight at Oxford St, Sydney, to be folllowed by a Q&A session by SMS. It’s for one of those new web based companies that aim to help artists reach new audiences (aren’t they all).

Beside producing one of the better albums of the year, they are pretty interesting to see live, especially watching how the two vocalists Tim Derricourt and Dave Rennick take turns in the lead. I’m not convinced watching a webcast would do justice to their live playing ability, but if you’ve never seen them before it’s better than nothing. I think.

Watch the webcast here tonight at 8pm

www.myspace.com/dappledcitiesfly

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

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photo by Sir Wheatley

Tranterco – ‘Midnight Juggernauts vs Spank Rock mash’ (mp3)

Crunking party machine DJ Tranterco treats us to one of his signature crowd pleasing mashes combining Spank Rock’s ‘Bump’ with Midnight Juggernauts’ ‘Shadows’. I see dancefloors get bent everytime he drops this one off so download it for your next party mix right now. Tranterco is a regular at the Streetparty nights in Melbourne each week but you can also catch him at the Girl Talk and Uffie shows in December.

www.myspace.com/jesuswearyourhairdown

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