Tara Simmons – ‘I Can Not Be Saved’ (video)

Papercuts Collective – Launch and zine fair

When you’re a kid growing up in the country, you are not only forced, but encouraged to make your own fun. Games with the electric fence, riding your pushbikes off jumps into dams and all sorts of other unsafe but stimulating activities. It’s kind of the same in Brisbane. Our liquor licencing laws are screwy and venue owners are scared, so D.I.Y. venues pop up across the city like field mushrooms.

With the city lacking a Sticky Institute or Format zine store, the Brisbane zine scene is also like the metaphorical mushroom field – and not just because it is fueled by the city’s bullshit. *boom tish*

SO: the Papercuts Collective are having a triple zine launch and zine fair at Bleeding Heart Gallery in the city. Bianca Valentino’s “Conversations with Punx: A Spiritual Dialogue” (featuring interviews with Ian MacKaye, Henry Rollins and more)  Staples’ travel zine “Whenever I see a bearded hobo on the street, I’ll think of you and smile” and Matt Limmer’s art will be launched tomorrow night, with a zine fair at the same location on Friday night. My zines will also be there if you’d like to come and say hi or tell me I’m shit at life.

www.papercutscollective.tumblr.com

Never judge a CD by its cover #1

Welcome to 2010, where MP3s cost nothing and are worth as much, and even your Grandma has the skills to record show tunes and hymns before burning them to a CD-R.

It’s no wonder people aren’t rushing out to buy bog-standard glossy jewel case CDs. Sometimes some creative and aesthetically pleasing packaging can be the difference between your CD gathering dust on the shelf and your work of art being exchanged for cash monies.

After the cut are some of the more interesting CDs that have found their way onto my desk in the last few months. If you’re in a band and have a CD that you think I’d like the look and/or sound of, email me at sophie [at] whothehell [dot] net for my postal address.

… Continue Reading

Castles Sunk Below The Sea – “Inland Sea”

Castles Sunk Below The Sea – ‘Inland Sea’ (mp3)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

I wrote about Castles earlier this year, when they had a few demos cobbled together and were nervously playing their first shows. Now they’re about to launch their debut EP and I hear their bass player has finally bought a tuning pedal, although that could just be a hopeful rumour. From little things, etc.

‘Inland Sea’ is a nice textbook example of post-rock, but it builds a bit too slowly to a climax that doesn’t quite hit the heights it should. Having said that, they’re a band worth seeing live, where they are able to create a real atmosphere around their music.

They launch their EP next Wednesday the 25th at the Troubadour in Brisbane, and are heading down to Melbourne not long after. See their MySpace for details.

www.myspace.com/castlessunkbelowthesea

Bigstrongbrute – ‘You Were Always Right’

Bigstrongbrute – ‘You Were Always Right’ (mp3)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Two of my housemates have been raving about Bigstrongbrute for a long time now, and both of them have better taste in music than me.  However, one of them has been teasing me mercilessly for liking Sarah McLeod, and the other one’s cat shat in my bedroom, so I’ve been disregarding their sentiments on music until I can get the smell of cat waste out of my clothing.

It’s been my loss. Paul Donoughue is from the Conor Oberst/Elliot Smith school of songwriting, where raw emotions and recordings take the place of robust vocal chords. ‘You Were Always Right’ works though, because Donoughue has written a song with good bones and left enough room for added instrumentation as the song builds.

Bigstrongbrute will be touring his new EP We Can Sleep Under Trees In The Morning with friend Carry Nation over the coming weeks.

www.myspace.com/bigstrongbrute

Darren Hanlon – ‘All These Things’

Darren Hanlon - ‘All These Things’ (mp3)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

There is something about Darren Hanlon and his music that makes me think he operates on a different plane to the rest of us; from a gentler time before self-promotion and social media and iTunes.

It could be the large, ornate, handmade diorama that I saw in Brisbane’s Rockinghorse Records promoting his new album, I Will Love You At All.

It could be the fact that he keeps putting out records regardless of whether the Aussie music press picks them up or not, delivering without bitterness.

It’s probably his music’s intrinsic sweetness and genuine delivery. Sure, it is a bit twee, but I think you take your chances when you write songs on a ukelele.

http://www.darrenhanlon.com/

Operator Please – “Back and Forth” video

Massive HURRRS in my direction for posting this so long after its release. According to lead singer Amandah, the clip’s aesthetic is inspired by “Carmen Miranda minus the fruit.”

www.myspace.com/operatorplease

Ride The Tiger – ‘Danny’

Ride The Tiger - ‘Danny’ (mp3)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Ride The Tiger is a band from Tasmania, made up of veterans from the state’s punk/rock/hardcore scene. ‘Danny’ is the second track from their debut EP Ambush, and combines sing-a-long choruses with a nice groove and a sneaky harmonised guitar solo. It’s often a struggle for songs in this genre not to sound samey, but the guitar playing is what grabbed my attention and sets this song apart from similar tunes.

www.myspace.com/ridethetigerrock

I first heard this song on the excellent D.I. Wireless podcast, a must-listen for anybody into punk rock.

Scott Spark – ‘The Truth’ video

www.scottspark.com

Sarah McLeod – ‘Double R’

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

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

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

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

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)