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Gyroscope - ‘Snakeskin’

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I remember many, many years ago being at a house party one Saturday afternoon in Newtown, which I got completely munted on beer and tequila - a lethal mix! I remember people at the party playing an early Gyroscope CD because they were obsessed with the song ‘Doctor Doctor’ which was one of the very first singles that garnered this Perth act national attention.

Since then they’ve had a string of mildly successful releases, which lean to the more rockeir side of the pop/punk spectrum, though ‘Doctor Doctor’ was more post-hardcore than what they are now. But their new single, ‘Snakeskin’, taken from their forthcoming album Breed Obsession, is the first Gyroscope song that I’ve actually paid attention to since the release of ‘Doctor Doctor’ which was a couple of years ago now.

There’s nothing really complex to this tune - it’s just damn catchy. Simple piano melody introduces the song, the vocals don’t do anything spectacular and the syncopated beat keeps you tapping your feet. You’ll be singing it for days.

Oh, P.S. This may just be the greatest photo ever taken… it’s from Band Capture Photography.

http://www.gyroscope.com.au/
http://www.myspace.com/gyroscope

We usually save videos for the weekend, but it’s been a busy last few days and anyway, this is relevant after yesterday’s post. Here’s The Veronicas performing their new single on the red carpet just prior to the ARIA Awards.

http://www.theveronicas.com
http://www.myspace.com/theveronicas

So the Australian music industry’s night of nights has come and gone for another year. I didn’t make it to the ARIA Awards this year due to a number of factors - maybe it was lethargy; maybe it was the lack of a video camera to report from the red carpet with; maybe it was the ghost of Saturday night still haunting me. But this year’s awards was decidedly basic as compared to last year’s, ditching the usual cavalcade of pointless international guests and keeping the ceremony to just over two hours, which was a good move because, at the end of the day, there really isn’t an awards ceremony anywhere in the world that’s actually entertaining.

The red carpet kicked off early in the day with live performances from Ricki-Lee who was backed by a bevy of awkward looking dancers (check it out here - the dude with the afro cracks me up) and The Veronicas, who performed a rawer version of their current single ‘Hook Me Up’ which I reckon sounded better than the over-produced, electro-saturated studio version.

During the ceremony there were performances by Silverchair, Who the Hell fave Gotye, Kate Miller-Heidke, Australia’s most successful high school band Operator Please, John Butler Trio with Keith Urban, Sneaky Sound System and Missy Higgins. As this footage undoubtedly gets leaked online, we’ll put some up here.

The night belonged to Newcastle lads Silverchair who picked up five pointy awards, and their filmclip for ‘Straight Lines’ also garnered an ARIA. The lovely Sarah Blasko picked up a deserved award for her amazing album, and the ever-affable Wally de Backer (a.k.a. Gotye) won Best Male Artist. You Am I, who preceded the retro fad by an entire decade, won an award for Best DVD, and Nick Cave stuck it to the man during his Hall of Fame speech. In interviews during the week prior to the ARIAs, he’d spoken about his disdain for the awards and that he was going to duck out the back door after he received his award to go get a kebab. I wonder how it tasted…

Here’s a list of all the winners:

Best Breakthrough Album
Sneaky Sound System - Sneaky Sound System

Best Breakthrough Single
Operator Please - ‘Just A Song About Ping-Pong’

Best Ubran Release
Hilltop Hoods - The Hard Road Restrung

Best Pop Release
Sarah Blasko - What the Sea Wants, The Sea Will Have

Best Country Release
Keith Urban - Love, Pain and the Whole Crazy Thing

Best Independent Release
John Butler Trio - Grand National

Best Rock Album
Silverchair - Young Modern

Best Adult Contemporary Album
Josh Pyke - Memories & Dust

Best Music DVD
You Am I - Who Are They, These Rock Stars? Live at the Mint

Best Dance Release
Sneaky Sound System - Sneaky Sound System

Highest Selling Album
Damien Leith - The Winner’s Journey

Highest Selling Single
Silverchair - ‘Straight Lines’

Best Group
Silverchair

Best Cover Art 
Debaser (Powderfinger - Dream Days at the Hotel Existence)

Best Video 
Paul Goldman & Alice Bell (Silverchair - ‘Straight Lines’)

Engineer of the Year
Wayne Connolly (Josh Pyke - Memories & Dust)

Producer of the Year
Wayne Connolly & Josh Pyke (Josh Pyke - Memories & Dust)

Best Classical Album
Richard Tognetti & the Australian Chamber Orchestra - Bach Violin Concertos

Best Jazz Album
Mike Nock & Dave Leibman – Duologue

Best Original Soundtrack/Cast/Show Album
Choir Of Hard Knocks – Choir Of Hard Knocks

Best World Music Album
Zulya - 3 Nights

Best Children’s Album
The Wiggles - Pop Goes The Wiggles

Best Comedy Release
Dave Hughes - Live

Best Blues & Roots Album
John Butler Trio - Grand National

Best Female Artist
Missy Higgins

Best Male Artist
Wally de Backer (Gotye)

Hall of Fame Inductees
Nick Cave

Single of the Year
Silverchair - ‘Straight Lines’

Album of the Year
Silverchair - Young Modern

http://www.aria.com.au
http://www.ariaawards.com.au

http://www.loveofdiagrams.com
http://www.myspace.com/loveofdiagrams

The divine Ms B and the gorgeous song ‘Planet New Year’.

http://www.sarahblasko.com
http://www.myspace.com/sarahblasko

Dardanelles - ‘Mirror Mirror’

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Australian bands have a fascination with the Eighties. Whether it’s the nasal snark of electro, or the dark echoes of post-punk - and occasionally the fashion sense - Aussie musos love to delve back into the era of big hair and power ballads.

Melbourne’s Dardanelles are no exception. Taking lead from bands of that era like The Cure (particularly Disintegration / Pornography era), Joy Division and artists of that ilk, they’ve built themselves up quite a following here with their combination of reverb-heavy guitars, baritone vocals and driving rhythms. .

Mirror Mirror is their debut record, recorded by acclaimed producer Pauk “Woody” Annison who’s produced, amongst others, Sydney act Red Riders’ debut record Replica Replica. Aside from similarities in album titles, their sounds both hark back to the post-punk / new-wave movement of the late 70s/early 80s, however Dardanelles throw in the extra element of keys which adds a serene ambience to a number of their tunes.

I didn’t think I’d like this album, because I’ve pretty much missed the whole punk revivalist movement, but this is rather cool.

http://www.myspace.com/dardanelles

Cog - ‘Sharing Space’

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Another taste of the forthcoming album from Sydney three-piece Cog: this time it’s the title track to the LP, Sharing Space. Once again, it’s musical gold for the band that effortlessly mixes Tool-esque progressive elements with a melodic richness that makes it palpable even to those who despise loud guitars.

Focussing more on hooks and melody than the first single off the album, ‘What If’, ‘Sharing Space’ continuously drives along, thanks in part to Lucius Borich’s constant kick drum, thumping away on the beat. The production is superb, with multi-layered vocals giving the song a rich texture and plenty of melody. There’s no monstorous riffs in this song which is somewhat of a departure for the band, and it seems they’ve wanted to listener to focus more on the vocals and the beat. There’s some deft use of electronic drums as well which adds an extra element of interest.

If ‘Sharing Space’ and ‘What If’ are anything to go by, this next album is going to be one amazing CD.

http://www.cog.com.au
http://www.myspace.com/cogrockmusic

The Saturns - ‘I’ll Be Alright’ (mp3)

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I’m a late convert to the church of The Saturns. I really only discovered their joyous blues and 70s inspired rock and roll a couple of weeks ago when I put on their debut EP Here’s The Saturns. If you’re sick of Jet peddling the retro vibe and killing it for every other band because they saturated the market, then perhaps you should throw on The Saturns to restore your faith in bands who are looking into the past for inspiration, and doing it with joie de vivre.

Vocalist Nathan Carr has the perfect rock voice, and in ’I Could Be The One’ he shows it off with some great vocal howls in a song based around the 12 bar blues and it doesn’t sound stale at all. ‘Ease My Mind’ has guitars that twang along; the whole song having a Rolling Stones kinda vibe.

It’s all about fun for this Sydney five piece who burst out of your stereo with excitement, energy and uncontrollable foot-tapping rhymths.

http://www.thesaturns.com
http://www.myspace.com/heresthesaturns

photo by Melinda Comerford

Nina May - ‘It’s Easy To Be Worst’

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So this blog’s been in existence for over a year now and surprisingly, one of our most popular posts has been my inaugural post on Brisbane outfit Nina May over 10 months ago. A lot of things have changed since that post - namely, they’ve released their debut EP Make Love To Your Stereo; gone are the poor quality demos on their MySpace and in their place are rocking tunes from the EP; and I’ve hung out with their lovely vocalist Erinn Swan a couple of times and found out what she’s actually singing about in ‘Monsters In The Dark’… is it too late to renege my comments about said song’s lyrics?

What else has changed is that this four-piece has become somewhat of a musical juggernaut, thanks in part to a fantastic 6-track EP recorded at Modern Music Studios in Brisbane. When I originally heard ‘Monsters In The Dark’ I was enamoured by that song but the other tracks that were up on their MySpace page didn’t really do much for me. But since its release, the EP has been one of my favourite local releases for 2007. I’ve said many, many times that I’m a sucker for a rock group with a sassy female vocalist, and there’s not many that do it better in Australia than Nina May. A lazy comparison might be to recent visitors to our shores Paramore, but Nina May mix progressive and alt. rock elements with their love of a good pop hook.

Case in point: ‘It’s Easy To Be Worst’, the dark finale to Make Love To Your Stereo. It features backing vocals courtesy of The Veronicas Jessica Origliasso and what sets this song apart from the rest of the EP is that it sees the band branching out with their sounds and song structures - there’s great use of acoustic guitar and bass swells, and it crescendos into a thundering ending before abruptly being ripped back to a minimal harmonised guitar line. There’s hooks as well as some killer riffs.

Kudos goes to either Erinn or Jess who have some excellent screams in this song, and to Simon who’s the king of pinch/artificial harmonics. The band are also going to be playing live on MTV’s The Lair this Thursday night so anyone in Australia with Foxtel or Austar should keep an eye out for this band on their TV sets.

http://www.myspace.com/ninamaymusic

The Captain’s Package - ‘Out of Focus’

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To propagate my laziness, I’ll just quote a review I wrote of The Captain’s Package for The Brag sometime last year: “A melting pot of Faith No More and Mr Bungle-esque sounds with a B-52s mentality, their music isn’t easily contained within whimsical musical adjectives… (it’s) a side-step away from what most bands are composing around Sydney.”

At that stage, The Captain’s Package had some enthralling musical elements in place but some songs were better than others and they seemed to be searching for what “their sound” could be. Now they’re set to release their brand new record Happiness which was recorded with producer Evan McHugh and if the first taste of the CD is anything to go by, ‘Out Of Focus’, they’ve found their niche in a crowded scene. It’s a song akin to ‘House of Fun’-era Madness with the male-female duelling vocals of the B-52s. Ska meets pop meets avant-garde. They’re launching Happiness on December 1 at Bar Broadway in Sydney, and it should be a night of decadence and extravagance.

http://www.myspace.com/thecaptainspackage

http://www.regurgitator.net
http://www.myspace.com/regurgitators

Get your pop on while Ricki-Lee gets her boobs out.

Sorry, no MC Hammer here.

http://www.myspace.com/rickileeofficial

The Chaperones - ‘Jacqueline’ (mp3)

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It’s an apt time to post about two-piece garage rockers The Chaperones because we’re smack bang in the middle of their month-long residency in the darkened interior of The Excelsior Hotel in Sydney’s Surry Hills where they’re playing every Wednesday night.

The Chaperones are the girl-boy combination of the rather cute drummer Marissa Gillies (I’m not sure if she’s in any way related to Silverchair’s stickman Ben Gillies) and frontman Matt Vince (the girls will have to decide whether he’s cute or not… sorry Matt!) and, like a number of bands in this post White Stripes world, they’ve deemed a bass player unnecessary. To me, not having a bass player is a cardinal sin because there’s a whole frequency range missing and unless you build a custom guitar/bass like Local H’s Scott Lucas or have someone playing droning low-octave keys a la The Red Sun Band, you’re never going to actually hide the fact you’re missing a bass player.

This duo plays with plenty of panache and energy and have some really lo-fi, groovy tunes. Overdriven guitars and solid drum patterns give The Chaperones that indie/garage aesthetic and their debut EP has been garnering some healthy reviews. Still, a bass player would be nice…

http://www.thechaperones.com.au
http://www.myspace.com/chaperones

Lady Strangelove - ‘Rotate (Part 2)’ (mp3)

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It’s been a while since I’ve heard a band actually do old-skool psychedelica. There’s been a booming undercurrent of psychedelica-inspired bands in my home town of Sydney, but who knew they actually did it properly in Adelaide? Lady Strangelove are a funky rainbow cocktail of Wolf & Cub style rhymths, Hendrix inspired lead guitars which screech throughout and delay-heavy vocals which bring to mind Led Zep’s Robert Plant and former Pink Floyd vocalist Syd Barrett.

They call their music “psychedelica dance-rock” or “prog-dance”. It’s all very 60s technicolour/acid inspired with a touch of Mars Volta and The Music thrown in. I’d love to see these guys play live if they didn’t live so far away. Here’s hoping they come by the Annandale Hotel sometime soon.

http://www.myspace.com/ladystrangelove

Pomomofo - ‘Island’

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It’s been a while since we heard the disco grunge of Sydney’s Pomomofo. The now familiar sounds of dirty bass, hi-hats on the upbeat and 80s synths has become a stalwart on the airways of local radio stations around Australia and has seen the kids lining up down the streets to see acts like Midnight Juggernauts, Muscles, Dukes of Windsor, Plug-In City and more.

Which may just be the problem for Pomomofo. When they hit the scenea couple of years back, they were exciting and fresh but now the sound has been carbon copied so much that this three-piece has lost that initial buzz about them. What does set Pomomofo apart though is their energetic and thoroughly enjoyable live show, which may help save them from drowning in a sea of Aussie electro acts. Their set opening for Cornelius last year, including their cover of ‘Mr. Wendell’ WITH Speech from Arrested Development equaled pure musical orgasmic joy.

Check out what we wrote about them over a year ago.

http://www.myspace.com/pomomofo