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Who The Hell Are… Civil Civic?

By |November 16th, 2010|Categories: Features, Who the Hell Are|Tags: , , , |

There aren't that many great instrumental duos in the history of rock and roll. I've thought about this for about 20 seconds or so and bored already. To arrive at that musical decision, and to arrive at that musical decision when your bandmate doesn't even live in the same country, is as perverse as it is stupid. Being as they are Australian, perverse stupidity is our calling, and it's why Civil Civic succeed where others have just gone "Dude, we need another member". With the title still up for grabs (or until some smart-ass avant-garde freak shoots me down), Civil Civic could turn out to be the greatest instrumental duo in the history of rock and roll. Wouldn't that be just dandy?

Way Out West Festival 2008 – Part 2

By |August 29th, 2008|Categories: Live Reviews|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , |

Review of the 2008 Way Out West Festival in Gothenburg Sweden - Neil Young, Sarah Hotnights, Siliverbullit, The Flaming Lips, Caesars, Håkan Hellström, Fleet Floxes.

Who The Hell Are… Janus 4-14?

By |September 22nd, 2010|Categories: Features, Who the Hell Are|Tags: , , , |

Janus 4-14's tag is 'indie pop that won't make you cringe', but they fail to recognise that statement itself is cringeworthy. Despite being presumptious of their own sound, Janus 4-14 do make for great music. They exist in a time that some would regard as the golden age of music, that mid-90's alternative scene when American bands owned their airwaves. They took their influences from the UK, as well as their own country, and put together something that sounded like The Ramones meets The Buzzcocks, that in itself was almost a new breed of rock n' roll -- fast or slow, these were raging guitar-driven, melody-led slices of imperfect perfection.

Black Cab – Brisbane – 17 July 2010

By |July 29th, 2010|Categories: Live Reviews|Tags: , , , , , , , , |

It took eleven years, three albums and a European tour for Melbourne space rockers Black Cab to broach Brisbane but they did and yes, it was worth the wait. Even the prospect of a half empty venue, an OCD stricken punter and the one colour Hi-Fi lights were not enough to dissuade Black Cab in performing anything less than a mesmerising set of original material and two stunning encores that paid homage to the whole space/drone/shoegaze rock genre. Able support was provided by Brisbane alt.rock kings Grand Atlantic.

Warpaint – London – 26 August 2010

By |September 7th, 2010|Categories: Live Reviews|Tags: , , , , , , |

It’s shows like this which give birth to the very nature of rock and roll. The hip-swaying sounds of a band as they rock back and forth, eyes closed, mouths pressed against the microphone with their feet marking the beat. It’s an undeniably sexual thing. This isn't news. It’s why they tried to ban Elvis in the 50’s. He turned young girls on, and it wasn’t so much the man, but the music, the stage, the sweat, the motion -- the rock and roll of it all. Wedged together in this barely ventilated Old Street basement, Los Angeles' Warpaint are presiding over something that had this been the 50's, would've gotten them banned too.

Lydia Loveless – Columbus – 30 September 2011

By |October 7th, 2011|Categories: Live Reviews|Tags: , , , |

A couple of songs into Lydia Loveless’s evening set, and it’s difficult to tell where Lydia the singer ends and Lydia the person begins. It’s simply hard to imagine a woman like this, barely in her twenties, and standing a little over five foot tall in her boots, could be so worldly and explosive. And yet, there she is, muttering a string of f-bombs during a song break because she can’t get her guitar tuned quite right. The attitude, the weathered, sarcastic smile. The edge. That’s pretty damn tough to fake.

Black Cab – Brisbane Interview (2010)

By |September 29th, 2010|Categories: Interviews|Tags: , , , , |

Sometimes the best music is just under your nose, as in literally right under your nose on your desk hiding in a spindle of CDs. That’s what happened with Melbourne's Black Cab as after receiving a promo of their third album Call Signs mid last year it was put on said spindle and largely forgotten about until the video for the first single, the chugging rock epic “Church of Berlin” was seen, which quickly made me hunt out the promo disc and give it my full, rapt attention. With Calls Signs recently being given an European release we talked to Andrew and Steve about their visit to the sunshine state, the sexiness of “Sexy Polizei”, the allure of Germany as a source for lyrics, covering alternative classics and new recordings.

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