Posts By Sophie Benjamin

Sarah McLeod – ‘Double R’

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Sarah McLeod – ‘Double R’ (John Roman Remix) (mp3)

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Sarah McLeod – ‘Dancing In The Dark’ (Bruce Springsteen cover)

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In 2003, The Superjesus played at the Great Western Hotel in Rockhampton. I was fifteen years old, and my friends and I clung to the barrier, totally in love with frontwoman Sarah McLeod. This video is very close to how I remember it. I spent the next few months learning their entire back catalogue on guitar, the majority of which was in drop-D tuning. Riff yer heart out, etc.

That was then, this is now, I get it. I’m no longer fat with bleach blonde hair and acne and Sarah McLeod is no longer the Gen X answer to Suzi Quatro. Here’s the thing though – McLeod is a world class rock chick, with one of the best female voices in rock music. I just feel like it’s wasted on dance music that is heavy on repetition and low on hooks. She’s written with the same writers as Roisin Murphy and Justin Timberlake, but it is missing that special spark which propelled those songs up the chart.

Bruce Springsteen was right,  you can’t start a fire without a spark. A good chorus wouldn’t hurt either.

EDIT: Sarah’s publicist has just informed me:

The track that’s posted there is a remix– its not the actual radio mix of the track, so the repetitiveness / no chorus thing is because its a remix from a set of remixes currently bouncing around blogs and clubs. The radio edit is currently being tweaked and will be coming out in a week or two.

Whoops! Pardon my ignorance. I am but a simple country girl with nu-metal running through her veins. (cue lead poisoning joke)

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The Single Malt Special – ‘Must Have Been High’

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The Single Malt Special – ‘Must Have Been High’ (mp3)

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I was about to write The Single Malt Special off as good enough for the crew at Triple J to mazz over, but ultimately a pale imitation of The Bamboos. ‘Must Have Been High’ is a good standard funk groove and I was ready to find a profile picture of the band, probably full of three-piece suits and superfluous hats.

All I could find was this picture of a gigantic octopus wearing headphones attacking a skyscraper. I’ll leave you all to make your own ‘killer octopus/must have been high’ puns.

http://www.myspace.com/thesinglemaltspecial

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Young Bloods #1 @ Legions Club, Brisbane.

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Brisbane music-scene do-gooders Brisbane Sounds and Starving Kids have teamed up to run a monthly licenced all ages club night in the Valley, with very young bands on the line-up. The result is Young Bloods, held at the Legions Club – a hole-in-the-wall RSL with a war museum in the basement and incredibly cheap bar prices. Of the four bands on the line-up, I caught sets by Bixby Canyon and Dirty Bird. Both bands were solid, but Dirty Bird were really something else – they brought the biggest crowd and said crowd was up and fight-dancing throughout the band’s entire excellent but weird set.

All in all, good times were had. There are a few hush-hush all-ages BYO venues in Brissy, but ideally it would be easier for venues to get a liquor licence so they didn’t have to sneak around risking fines. Thank goodness for RSLs and their loophole-strewn section in Queensland’s liquor licencing legislation.

Bixby Canyon

Dirty Bird

The venue had a war museum in the basement and a sizable library of first-edition Mills and Boon romance novels near the bar.

For more photos, see my Flickr profile.

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Pockets – ‘Gun Shy’

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Pockets – ‘Gun Shy’ (mp3)

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Sydney’s Pockets are tight. Their songs are short, punchy and well-produced – there’s not an ounce of sonic fat left to be trimmed. There’s a lot about this track that reminds me of Silversun Pickups – the tightly edited drums, breathy singing alternated with muted screams – but the aforementioned tightness saves them from the wank and effects pedal abuse rife in post-rock.

They’re playing in Sydney on Saturday at Jira Books with Japanese band Nim, Brisbane’s In Sepia and Hira Hira.

www.myspace.com/pocketsinpockets

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Erasers – ‘Safe Sound’

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Erasers – ‘Safe Sound’ (mp3)

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Quite often, the term ‘minimalist’ is less of a descriptor of compositional style, than it is a euphemism for ‘shit boring music’. Perth’s Erasers have given themselves a head-start in the right direction with clean production and a solid groove and motif to base the song on. The female vocals annoyed me a little, but by the time they started, I was deep enough into the drone of the song to accept and forgive them.

They’re playing Sydney and Melbourne in the next fortnight or so – check their MySpace for details.

www.myspace.com/erasersonpencils

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