Nothing says way too much time on your hands than firstly sitting back and watching you favourite Jean-Claude Van Damme movie… but then post-credits tucking into your next 6 pack and another round of tim tams, and then watching the whole thing again with the director’s commentary.
Well consider this me giving you around 3 minutes of spare time you thought you never had thanks to J Award nominated Director Tom Noakes.
Last week Tom was nominated for the J Award for his video for Could Be Bad by The Scare so I dragged him into the office to sit down with us all and explain the process, the joy, the tears and the legs behind what will hopefully be the winning J Award video.
Debuting at #2 on the US Charts Creed are back together???
Didn’t they break up…? Wait a second… let’s go back a few years… to good old 1995. Let’s see if I can paint you a picture of the times: John Howard had just become Liberal lead getting ready to battle Paul Keating for the federal election, Bob Dylan went on tour with Patti Smith, OJ Simpson tries on a black leather gloves in a court house, Microsoft releases Windows 95, Michael Jackson decides to make a giant rock statue of himself and Bill Clinton gets his… actually we’ll leave that one.
However in Tallahassee, Florida a band by the name of Creed is about to unleash a new generation of Rock music that will pour down just as Korn or Linkin Park did for their genre of music… Bands such as Nickelback, Saving Abel and Daughtry have jumped on the Creed bandwagon and never looked back. Rehashing that deep country soul voice from the influences of Eddie Vedder – sorry, Layne Staley – actually I think it was Jim Morrison – no no no, that Johnny Cash made us love so much. Quality shred guitar and a nice fat bass sound accompanied by a fat rock drum sound. Gets me all excited just thinking about those days.
Ask anyone who has ever been in a band… it’s not like being in a relationship. It’s like being in 3-6 relationships and instead of sex you play gigs and buy instruments… Each band practice is different then the next, with band members in all kinds of fun and interesting moods. There’s:
The classic working late and tired band member;
The turn your amp up to 11 band friend;
The coming in hungover band mate;
The stoner muso who constantly wants to jam on acid groovy band mate (VERY BAD IDEA);
The I just broke up with my girlfriend musician;
The let’s hurry up and get everything done in one rehearsal band leader;
or even the classic I just want to jam and never play the set muso…
Don’t have a ticket to the ARIAs or the ridiculously exclusive Robbie Williams Mastercard Sydney Metro show next week? Bah humbug, what’s that next to seeing Sir Robbie in Europe!?
Head over to Take 40 to for a chance to win a $10 000 VIP trip to see Robbie live in Europe. All you have to do is ‘Get Your Robbie On’ and film yourself or you and your mate’s mum / little brother / bank manager / history professor singing a Robbie song and upload it at www.take40.com/competitions (Go on, you know you want to, cos I guarantee we’ll be uploading some ridiculous footage of our own!)
In the meanwhile, we’re still calendar-watching like pop geeks at HQ… 4 days til Robbie touches down in Oz and exactly ONE WEEK til the man himself take over The ARIAs with Bodies!
It’s been a bumper year for our gal Lily. The Special Edition CD/DVD of It’s Not Me, It’s You is out now. And we thought we’d set up a competition in honour of it – because, well, that’s one of the things we do at a record label.
Whether you have INMIY or not (we won’t judge), you should enter to win a signed poster by Lily and a Special Edition CD/DVD of the album.
But in order for a bit of inspiration, we’ve posted Lily’s amazing cover of Womanizer. And, yes, it’s on the Special Edition! Lily Allen – Womanizer (Acoustic) by theinsound
How did it come to this? Ten short years ago I was dancing to TLC’s No Scrubs (judge ye not!) on Manly Beach for the countdown to *gasp* The Millennium.
Suddenly, we’re at the other end of the decade, and we never did work out what to call ‘00-10… “The Noughties” didn’t really cut it. We’d better come up with something quick sticks, because the tunes from the last ten years have been incredible and future generations are going to need to refer to us somehow…
NME’s Top 100 albums of the last decade has some mean contributions, not the least of which is the man of the hour Emperor Luke Steele’s early effort, Lovers from The Sleepy Jackson. The Empire defining epochs, even way back when!
Other EMI faves from the list you can regularly hear blasting around the office are below:
#4 – Arctic Monkeys – Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not
One very notable absence however… WHERE IS THE DAFT PUNK!?!?
Whilst we greatly respect NME’s all-seeing UK hipster stylings, stay tuned for The In Sound’s very own and very wise Best Of 2009 album list – coming soon to a browser near you!
The gorgeous tunes of Moroccan/French singer Hindi Zahra (new album = Hand Made) arrived in our inbox a couple of weeks ago, and wow – what a welcome surprise! The unusual old time World music influences mixed with a subtle pop sensibility lend themselves beautifully to create an album of warmth and intrigue.
So… highlights from the album, you ask?
1. Fav song to listen to whilst road tripping along the coast in Summer: “Music”
2. Fav song to listen to whilst shopping at the markets on a Sunday: “Imik si mik”
3. Fav song to listen to whilst drinking a morning latte in Madrid: “Beautiful Tango”
They continue to represent Australian music with knowledge and class. The Paul Kelly Tribute “Before Too Long” in Melbourne on Friday and Saturday evening is testament to that.
A stellar line up of Australian artists assembled for the evening, hand picked by Richard Kingsmill and music director (and Even leader) Ash Naylor. John Butler, The Herd’s Ozi Batler, Missy Higgins, Bob Evans, Claire Bowditch, Adalita, Megan Washington, Paul Dempsey, Dan Sultan, Katy Steele, The Panic’s Jae Laffer and Dan Kelly made up the vocalists for the evening with Ash and Augie March the amazing backing band. With artists and and a band such as this you know you’re in for a night of magic.
So, I was speaking to a friend a couple of days after this tribute show and I was still buzzing from the show on Saturday Night. (he’ll probably never talk to me again after mentioning the this story). The look of shock and horror in his face, he responded with, “oh man – I didn’t know, when did he die?”, followed by a string of questions one asks… So when I could finally get a word in, I proceeded to set him on the right track and inform him you don’t need to have passed on for a show to be held in your honour.
I mentioned the all star line up of musicians who had jumped on board with the show and watched him fall to his knees, as he was just a bout in tears from missing the show.
So the show kicked off with Before Too Long (sung by Ash Naylor (EVEN) and part of Paul Kelly’s touring band of recent times)… great solid performance and seemed to get the crowd into the right mood, by the end of the first song the was a nice warm buzz in room, against the majestic setting of Melbourne’s Forum Theatre.
The songbook journey continued, hit after hit, stellar performance after stellar performance, whether it was Megan Washington’s a capella version of Meet Me In The Middle, which had the room so quiet you could hear a pin drop… or the blistering version of Dumb Things covered by Paul Dempsey.
The night was split into half, and was great to see so many musicians on stage looking relaxed, and rolling with a night of entertainment that spanned one man’s amazing career. It almost seems like cliche, to say there was something for everyone, however it remains true. Genre crossing performances from Ozi Batler (THE HERD), to the all-swinging, all-dancing talent of Dan Sultan, that had girls hearts melting.
The boys weren’t forgotten, with a full blown rocked out performance from Adalita (MAGIC DIRT), to the delightful tones of Clare Bowditch on To Her Door. Other memorable performances included, Bob Evans (aka Kevin Mitchell), John Butler, Missy Higgins, Jae Laffer (THE PANICS), Katy Steele (LITTLE BIRDY), Dan Kelly and I honestly hope I haven’t missed any one out…
I have to finish this with the final performance of the evening, Paul Kelly, who came out on stage at the end of the evening with the full supporting cast for a crowd pleasing performance of ‘Leaps and Bounds’ a wonderful night, that I’ll remember for some time.
In fact, In The Flowers could well be my SONG OF THE YEAR. I’m hard-pressed to think of a song more alive, more urgent than this when the middle kicks in. It’s a rush of blood to the head, a total high.
So I was pretty ecstatic when this sneaky little gem got posted online last week, no muss, no fuss, while we wait for the upcoming video for current single Brothersport.
Directed by Abby Portner (Avey Tare of AC’s sister), it’s exactly the kind of weird ass explosion of vivid, wacky, whimsical whirlwind of lo-fi random life imagery I would have hoped for a song like this.
Except for the dancing mannequin head at the end. That’s just scary.
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