A new addition to the Mute label family is Brooklyn-based six-piece White Rabbits. The band formed at the University of Missouri and like many before them headed east to the proverbial bright lights, big city.
It all seems to be going along swimingly with the release of their sophomore album, It’s Frightening, produced by none other than Spoon frontman Britt Daniel. His influence can be heard on the album with a striking mix of intensity, energy and intelligence. Plus, all six band members can play drums!
It’s great to see Aussies do well overseas but it’s even better to get them back! That’s the story with Sydney’s Sick Puppies who rocketed to success after being Unearthed and making a cool video for their hit All The Same (’Free Hugs‘ anyone?) that even Her Majesty Oprah got down to. The band then relocated to LA and recorded their follow up album Tri-Polar which is in all good record stores now.
We’re pumped to have the guys back on home turf and even more excited to see them playing in STADIUMS with Nickelback on their Australian tour.
This morning we popped in to triple m *whispers “triple your mu-sic”* to chat to The Grill team and to play an acoustic version of their new single Maybe. It rocked. See?
Tonight and tomorrow they’re playing Acer Arena (more dates here). If you’re off to see Nickelback, I highly recommend you get there early for Sick Puppies!!!
Last week we had the fabuloso Paul Dempsey in the office to come play for us at our Head of HR Jo Perkin’s farewell.
After some really lovely speeches from key people Jo worked with at EMI over her ten years, we presented her with a plaque containing a framed lyrics sheet of her favourite song by her favourite artist Paul DempseyTake Us To Your Leader as a token of appreciation from EMI past and present…and then Paul Dempsey himself arrived to sing for us Jo’s favourite song Take Us To Your Leader.
I grew up in a working class suburb on a diet of Australian pub rock consumed at one of the toughest rock rooms in the country. Not a far cry from the love I now have for Australian country music artists. Don Walker & Guy McDonough songs and Australian country songs have so much in common.
I guess my passion for Australian country music was underway long before I started my beer guzzling bong gulping session at The Bridgeway Hotel. As a kid, I loved the family trips away, the smell of the native pines burning on the campfire and the long weekends on the banks of the Murray River so it must have been a natural thing to be drawn to songs about our places and landscapes.
Lights On The Hill, Galleries Of Pink Galahs, These Pines, Rain On A Tin Roof and Buffalo Bill are all amazing songs about the Australia that is behind the Great Divide… great picture painting by the artists. Don’t get me wrong though just like contemporary music it’s not all good in country music as there’s some absolute crap out there – you only need to take a walk down the main street of Tamworth in January to find it.
I hate to think how many 10 year old girls will be busking this year doing their best Taylor Swift or a crap version of Sweet Home Alabama blending in with the next busker singing “flipping burgers on the hill, looking like Faith Hill”. There is a lot of really bad music pulling the good music down. So get away from the main drag and right away from the crap talent contests and pull up at a table at the pub called The Pub and check out gigs by Bill Chambers and The Flood – They have plenty of special guests pop up on stage and are great shows. Also check out The Scully Room for good music – tip here is Harmony James and Lou Bradley shows – The breakthrough artists in country music right now! Also check out gigs by Huckleberry Sweedes and The Wildes and you won’t go wrong.
Check this out, Arctic Monkeys performing Cornerstone on French TV!!
I don’t know what I love more… the girl presenting them saying god knows what in French that sounds completely adorable and something I could listen to mindlessly for hours, or the fact that the album is pronounced “OM-BARG” in French!!!!
Too cute. And a great performance too!
Les Singes Artiques on Le Grand Journal for your viewing pleasure:
Tina Arena will tour Oz in January next year, appearing as special guest with international (and rather handsome) superstar Ronan Keating for indoor concerts in Melbourne and Sydney, plus seven “A Day On The Green” winery events around the country.
The tour is a quick skip-hop-and-a-jump back home after she has spent much of the year in Europe – being awarded the French Order of Merit (!!!), releasing a French Greatest Hits album (The Best and Le Meilleur), and has been sweeping wowing crowds on her European tour.
“There really is nothing like the out-door venues in Australia,” Tina said. “They are some of the best places on earth – and surrounded by the holy grape! Touring them with Ronan will be an amazing start to 2010.”
In Australia, Tina will be touring with her full band including strings and performing the her own classics plus songs from (her double platinum) Songs of Love and Loss albums Volumes 1 & 2. If you’ve not heard the albums, they’re probably not quite what you think… with covers of Alice Cooper, Blondie, Nick Kershaw etc.
What a week for Robbie Williams – his album Reality Killed The Video Star is #1 on the UK mid week charts and on Australian iTunes AND… this is it… Robbie has confirmed a reunion for the first time in almost 15 years with former band mates and recently reunited friends, Take That for a London performance in the name of charity for BBC’s UK Children In Need.
Here’s hoping they bring back these kinds of dance moves (look how baby faced Robbie looks!)
Robbie was so excited about getting back together with the guys he got himself a Take That tattoo… find out how the band reacted in Rob’s interview
Like every sane Sydneysider, I adore Sydney in summer; the glistening harbour, the deafening yet somehow soothing crickets, the shimmer of heat rising above grass at dawn… and most of all The Sydney Festival! (Personal fave memory is sitting in a deserted Martin Place at dusk whilst The Knife’s Silent Shout was broadcast throughout the city to test the festival audio systems – a surreal kind of bliss!)
If you’ve never done the Festival First Night in the CBD, I tell you it’s a packed out, breathtaking, and FREE evening… Last year, The Cat Empire and Grace Jones performed for over 100,000 people in The Domain alone, with dozens of other stages, art installations, and markets dotted throughout the city – people, people, music, dancing, parades, food, and more people everywhere! Here are some snaps from the 2009 First Night.
Twelve artists including Al Green (!!) and Big Bad Voodoo Daddy are already confirmed for for the 2010 First Night on Jan 9, with plenty more to come. But the Sydney Festival does run for almost all of January, and there’s plenty more than just the First Night. Personal highlights include Laura Marling, Neko Case, Grizzly Bear, Patrick Watson, The Handsome Family, JOHN CALE (!!), and of course the mesmerisingly haunting The Middle East… who incidentally soundtrack the trailer for the 2010 Festival (but are *cough* from Townville *cough*). Check it!
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