There are a couple of other shows listed here – http://www.myspace.com/violentsoho

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.

For more, see my Flickr page.

The Holidays – ‘Golden Sky’ (mp3)

The Holidays have been kicking about for a couple of years and I really liked an old self titled ep of theirs. Lately we have had a couple of singles released in anticipation of their debut LP, due in September. I was curious how the sound would translate live and I am glad to say they did a good job. It was a fairly packed John Curtain and there was a good energy in the crowd, despite the set consisting mostly of new and unheard material. Take a look through more pictures after the continue reading jump.

Keep an eye on these guys here – http://www.myspace.com/theholidays

Sydney band Parades played the East Brunswick Club in Melbourne on Friday night and it was a pretty effin great show.
Parades are currently touring their debut LP ‘Foreign Tapes’ details here – http://www.myspace.com/parades

Live pictures after the continue reading jump.

Perth band Pond, was formed like a dream and that ‘fantasy’ feeling, beamed throughout the show that played to a packed Workers Club in Fitzroy on Sunday night.

Nick ‘Paisley Adams’ Allbrook on Vocals and glitter mayhem – he joked that he’ll probably have to clean up the place himself. Joseph Orion on bass and Jay Watson, the drummer of Tame Impala, make up the core members. Jay played a bunch of instruments, swapping around with Jamie Terry who plays guitar and keys in The Silents. Kevin Parker, Tame Impala’s lead guitar and vocals, played the driving drums that seemed to tie the whole room together, not unlike Lebowski’s rug. These guys are all very bloody talented and made the show one of the most fun gigs I have seen at this venue.

Look out for an album soon but check out their myspace now – http://www.myspace.com/mickmanmoose

More photos after the continue reading jump

The video was shot at the historic Montsalvat Castle in Eltham, Victoria. Quite a fitting location for this troupe of beatniks, as Montsalvat was also where the Rolling Stones conducted interviews on their Australian tour in 1973. The ornate backdrop of this castle/artists’ colony seems to provide an appropriate stylistic vibe for the jangle tripping R&B sounds of the track.  It will be interesting to see the final product.

(all photos from Tim Pierce)

Dick Diver is a catchy name to be sure. A Melbourne four-piece that plays a relaxed show and it’s rare to hear a bad word about. Alistair McKay and Rupert Edwards on guitars and alternating vocals, Al Montfort on bass and Steph Hughes on drums and backing vocals. Steph’s harmonies actually give the band a similar feel to Smudge, light country alt pop that sticks in your head or at it’s heaviest, the guitars drive closer to Neil Young. These guys have a 7″ titled ‘Arks Up’. Released late last year on Chapter music, as part of a series that pairs a vinyl single and a CD with bonus tracks. I have the Twerps release in this series and Dick Diver, will make a nice addition.

Spin a couple of tracks on their myspace here - http://www.myspace.com/dickdiverband

More pictures after the hop

Mike and Gus, members of Battlesnake, make up the poptastic sounding Leafs. Short punches of pop that slap you about, kinda like the concords – if they were more rock.
These guys played with the Bon Scotts, who were also very intense and great, at the Builders Arms in Fitzroy. A small dining room gets taken over for the evening, and 100 peeps squeeze in with a minimal stage setup and down lights with red gels gaffered on. Third support slot by Frontiers in Photography rounded off a very nice evening of intimate sets.

The Leafs play about town so check em out here – http://www.myspace.com/theleafs

The Leafs – ‘Figs’ (mp3)

Pikelet 2010

Dates for more shows this month here – http://www.myspace.com/ovalyn

The venue

awk·ward, adjective

1 obsolete : perverse
2 archaic : unfavorable, adverse
3 a : lacking dexterity or skill,  b: showing the result of a lack of expertness
4 a : lacking ease or grace  b : lacking the right proportions, size, or harmony of parts
5 a : lacking social grace and assurance  b : causing embarrassment
6 : not easy to handle or deal with : requiring great skill, ingenuity, or care

Riding in a full elevator is awkward. Finding out your boyfriend’s mum is about to become your step-mum is awkward. But somehow, spending a hot afternoon crammed into a small room with forty other people and watching melodic punk bands play wasn’t awkward at all.

It was special though; Fires of Waco and Headaches formed from the remains of Brisbane’s best-ever melodic punk band The Gifthorse, and both bands were clearly stoked to be playing together again.

Browning Street Studios runs out of a converted workers cottage in West End, and shows there have the best aspects of a house party (BYO booze, no door bitches or security) without any of the nasty consequences (morning after cleanups, randoms in your bed, losing all your bond at the end of the lease).

Alan from Fires of Waco summed it up nicely:

“I don’t mean to rag on the bands that play bigger venues, but I’d much rather be squashed up with ten people in a room like this than play a big club and have ten people up the back feeling awkward.”

The crowd

Luke, Fires of Waco

Alan and Stevie, Fires of Waco

Headaches

Headaches +beer

For more photos go to my Flickr.

Launching their new single ‘Today’, Sarah Jane arrived with a basket of easter eggs. Unfortunately this wasn’t enough to get the limp crowd excited and certainly no one was standing up – not after eating jesus all day.

It was a little sleepy which is a shame because P1.5 sound great. Sarah-Jane and Richard Andrew have a wonderful energy and know how to pen a pop song. This show felt a little flat and with two band members reading sheet music, a small crowd and my high expectations, I left a little disappointed.

P1.5’s new single sounds catchy and with an LP to follow, it will be interesting to see how a band that has previously had plenty of success, competes with the current wave of local talent.

To pick up the new single, check out their official site here – www.princessonepointfive.com

Workplace Health and Safety do not advise the "throw extension cords out the window" method of powering a PA.

Ironhide - siq guitar.

Ironhide

We Lost The Sea

We Lost The Sea - 8/9 members pictured.

You can see more at my Flickr page.

Cheap party props are fun and Last Dinosaurs wear them well. They also play like a band that have been touring for years despite their youth. They may have been too young to play Rats but they are familar with the Phoenix back catalogue – loved the Funky Square Dance jam. Hopefully they’re allowed to get pirate ear rings next time, as their support of Yves Klein Blue continues through April. Dates on their myspace here.

Follow them on twitter for decorating advice here.

I posted the support bands yesterday, this was the main event – Ned Collette + Wirewalker farewell oz for a relocation to Berlin.
Collette needs no introduction, he is well established and this farewell show felt more like a friendly get together of Melbourne’s finest musicians.
That said, I don’t get that excited by his music. I know it’s good, It just doesn’t move me.
I do however, enjoy seeing a crowd enthralled and photographing this set was a real treat. I post this as a tribute to these guys and the strong influence they have had on Australian music and I wish them well in Berlin.
Follow their adventures here.

The Ancients

Somewhere in the industrial end of fairfield lies a warehouse that housed the ‘Ned Collette + Wirewalker’ farewell show.
These guys played along with ‘Duns’ (I was too late to shoot but heard great things about) and wrapped by ‘Super Melody’.
‘The Ancients’ were a nice warm up to the explosive ‘Ouch My face’ who really were my highlight.
Considering that most peeps were sitting around on the floor, Ouch brought a great energy to the space.
Check the Ancients here and Ouch My Face here.

I revisited my coverage of St Jerome’s Laneway in Melbourne, this was my most coherent set.
- I was pretty effin sick that day, got through on cold tablets and sugar.
Full coverage, including the internationals xx and my fav Dirty Three, up on my flickr.

The Twerps put out a 7″ late last year on the wonderful chapter music. I was quite hooked on that release and glad to catch their support slot for Super Wild Horse at the Empress. Lo fi pop is pretty hip right now, whilst I can get bored with some of the current crop, the Twerps have something more going on. I can’t tell you what that is exactly but it’s not just their youth. These guys aren’t moaning and have a wholesome sound, not ‘couldn’t be bothered’ lo fi. This comes across in the live show, which I really enjoyed.

Check out a track off the CD that comes with the 7″  ’Little Guys’ - mp3

I caught these guys briefly at Homebake last year and was quite impressed by their sweet sound.
It would seem I am not alone, the gig was packed when I got there and I actually had trouble getting pictures.
B&B performed a great version of ‘Mexican Mavis’ with Laura Marling using beautiful harmonies.
The mostly young and female crowd, were left in a daze, probably good for Marling.
I’m sure they can expect another strong turnout for the Hungry Kids of Hungary support later this month.
Dates for that tour and a dodgy vid of ‘Mexican Mavis’ with Laura Marling here.

I really like St Jerome’s Laneway Festival, actually I love it. So to those that bitched about a blow out last year – well, nothing. There were only a small number of basement dwelling noisy dickwads and nobody actually cares about them. This year’s festival sold out of course and it was once again – awesome!

The immediate feeling of the Laneway Festival is that it’s put on by music lovers for people that actually dig music. This is not a festival to get trashed and throw cans at Lilly Allen before pushing smaller people out of the way to get a glimpse of some inflated rock opera. It is a diverse, well considered and quite manageable day of quality Australian and lesser known International Artists.

Dirty three were an obvious highlight for me, Oh Mercy were solid and the Philly Jay’s have well confirmed themselves as one of the most exciting live bands in the country. Bridezilla showed confidence on the larger stage but really need an evening slot to help the atmosphere of their sound. Sarah Blasko has played every festival I have been to over summer, so it’s fair to say I saw nothing new but it’ll take a while to tire of hearing her perform tracks from ‘As Day Follows Night’. Finally, a quick mention of XX as the most incredible international band of the day and definitely the sexiest bass player to grace our shores.

Review by Matt Hickey, Brisbane

I’ve been to a fair few music festivals. Which isn’t to say that I’m any more ‘hip’ than anyone – as if going to summer music festivals is any sort of exclusive activity these days. But I mention this because I’m all too well acquainted with dancing to filler line-ups while being pressed up against sweaty, shirtless ‘bro-gans’ and ’sluzbots’ that decided bikinis were adequate clothing. It’s not an indictment on the quality of Laneway’s program in the slightest when I suggest that my favourite thing about the festival wasn’t the bands but the atmosphere. Held in a small, nifty seciton of the RNA Showround’s, Brisbane’s Laneway Fest 2010 was undoubtedly a success. There were trees, lot’s of cover from rain and/or sun, an indoor bar, bands that have good records AND can bring the shit live – and I only saw two southern cross tattoos all day. I know it’s an easy shot to target the universal emblem for bogan nationalism and one that will probably spark accusations of pretension and a sense of misplaced superiority. But hey, there was a definitely a civilised air about proceedings that is missing from, say, BDO’s Boiler Room; an appreciative atmosphere that allowed The Dirty Three’s long-from instrumental workouts to play second last on the main stage to an attentive, sizable crowd.

With that out of the way, Laneway – musically – was in fine form. While I thought the program did kind of lacked a big headliner this year, the high quality of acts from the outset alleviated any potential disappointment at the end of the night. Kid Sam were the first band that I caught proper and they were simply great. They were somehow left off my ‘best of 09′ list and also, I realised, have been criminally uncovered on whothehell.net. If anyone involved with Kid Sam reads this, you should send me everything that you put out from this point on. Their songs are moving with an anthemic quality to them, and the instrumentation is a perfect mix of technical flair and DIY sloppiness. If you’ve not seen them live, don’t hesitate when next they play your fair city.

Philly Jays were great and uber-energetic as usual. Sharing a slot with Mumford and Sons (the “poor man’s Frightened Rabbit” as my Twitter peep @albertinho calls them) meant that there was a small crowd at the start. But after those British nu-folksters ill-advisedly played ‘Little Lion Man’ about third song in, the crowd grew to an impressive size in time for a rousing rendition of ‘I Don’t Want to Party (Party)’ that devolved into a weirdly hypnotic drum freakout as per usual before leading into set-closer and Hottest 100-charting ‘The Good News.’

Highlight of the day probably went to Wild Beasts. That any band should have one singer with a falsetto like that is near unfathomable, let alone two singers! That’s just obscene. The moment when that second, almost bland looking bald singer stepped up to the mic only to shriek out the opening “watch me, watch me” from ‘All The Kinds Men’ was literally my favourite moment of the day. And there’s just something far more offputting but alluring about a booty call invitation being sung in that high, warbly male voice that kinda gives me the goosebumps. I thought these guys would be good, but I didn’t know how good.

I won’t ramble. The xx brought enough charisma (well, bass player Oliver Sims/Chuck Bass did anyway) to overcome the lull in energy that can result from not having a live drummer; The Dirty Three did as The Dirty Three do, which is generally quite enchanting; and Florence was mildly underwhelming just as she was when I saw her in Belgium last August. I was really kicking myself for not seeing ECRS again but thank fuck they’ve announced that album tour. I shan’t be missing that. Nor shall I be missing Laneway 2011.

I don’t think I spoke to anyone that didn’t enjoy the day. Although it’s grown in size, Laneway has managed to retain its boutique charm, curating line-ups of quality acts over big names for a crowd hungry to soak up every last note.