What’s more important than snags, cricket, beer, pavlova, facepaint or sunshine (of which there is a definite lack of in Sydney) on Australia Day? The music. If you’re not tuning into the triple Hottest 100 tomorrow, or if you need some tunes to carry you even further into the day/ night, we’ve devised an awesome ’straya day playlist to get you patriotic about our great Aussie music catalogue. The list includes Silverchair, Ratcat, INXS, Cold Chisel, Icehouse, Men At Work (without saying), Powderfinger, AC/DC and even Craig Machlachlan…. click here or below to play.
Latitude is a music and arts festival that takes place near the east coast of England in Suffolk. Now in its fifth year, Latitude presents a popular yet relatively niche collection of established artists from a very broad and respected spectrum.
I’m currently on a 100% attendance rate and it’s been a real pleasure seeing it mature into the celebration it has become. Unfortunately my veteran status didn’t stop me from taking every wrong turn on the way there, thus turning a three hour trip into a four hour slog.
Well, the beautiful beautiful thing that is Glastonbury Festival is over for another year. The sun was uncharacteristically, um… out, and the incredible line-up were out in full force celebrating the UK festival’s 40th birthday!
Our fellow In Sounder Sarah attended, so we’ll hopefully have a full Glasto report coming from her soon (unless we’ve lost her to the stone circle and herbal highs tent). Stay tuned!
In the meantime, please check these Gorillaz and Empire of the Sun clips because they are utterly epic! Damon Is God, ya dig?
Snoop & the band absolutley kiiiiiilling Clint Eastwood
Lou Reed! Lou Reed! Lou Reed!
The legendary Mark E. Smith giving Damon a soundgasm
Stroll down Oxford St in London this month and you’ll be bombarded with an array of brilliant dioramas in honour of the British music festival season… The windows of the iconic Selfridges dept store are displaying a series of ten song-title inspired dioramas called “Sounds of the Mind” – and Empire of the Sun’sWalking On A Dream is one of them!
The window exhibition is showing now and will be up for 6 weeks with 125,000 people walking past them each day. Check out the pics below – the two lions kinda remind me of the terrifying Sphinx Gate in The Neverending Story!
If you guess the song titles of all the window displays, you can win £500 to spend at selfridges.com, but we can give you a headstart by telling you that other artist involved are Hot Chip, Florence and the Machine, Dizzee Rascal, The XX, Marina and the Diamonds, The Drums, The Big Pink, Paloma Faith and Charlotte Gainsbourg.
If you’ve not heard today’s incredible 10th anniversary Splendour In the Grass lineup, have you not a computer / radio / phone / ears / eyes????
OK so camping tickets are $450 (ouch), but we’ve done the math & it turns that makes each set $5.55… Five and half bucks to heard the new LCD album live!? The full lineup is below, with our favourite acts on the LHS. (Full disclosure, they’re all ours!)
Laura Marling Ltd Edn I Speak Because I Can CD/DVD with 5 free downloads, postcard artwork, and lyrics booklet
Jonsi blockmounted poster featuring Go album art
Operator Please signed 7″ vinyl of Logic / Logic (Dolby Anol Remix)
Ben Harper & Relentless7 signed blockmounted poster featuring White Lies… art
Gorillaz limited edition Plastic Beach CD/DVD
Hot Chip One Life Stand double gatefold vinyl
Goldfrapp Headfirst collector’s edition cassette
Just head to our sister store at theinsong.com/splendour, buy any of the singles or albums to receive competition details, and tell us in 25 words or less how you plan to warm up for Splendour.
Over the last several months, the streets of Sydney have been graced by a site for sore eyes…
Each morning the stunning Chariot of the Sun greeted us as we entered our HQ – hibernating in our office carpark by night, radiating mystical energy like an otherworldly spacecraft locked away in the dark, waiting to be unleashed upon the roads of Australia by day. And unleashed it was… see the Chariot of the Sun visiting Australia’s great icons – the Gold Coast, Byron Bay, Bondi Beach, and the Harbour Bridge.
Today therefore is a bittersweet day for us, to see the Chariot find a new home down south in Caroline Springs, Victoria. Its new owner Mario Chrisanthou must now take the Chariot’s reigns and tame the beast… Godspeed Mario, Godspeed!
Here are the Chariot’s final moments at EMI HQ. Farewell oh Chariot of the Sun, we will miss your pounding subwoofers, skull feature door-locks, extremely wide turning circles, and the comforting growl of your engine beneath our feet as you cocooned us in your warm embrace.
Who’s up for a big old awards party? The esteemed Brit Awards are celebrating their 30th on Tues Feb 16 and we’ve just received the nominations which were picked out by the 1,000 strong BRITs Academy.
The lovely and tenacious Ms Lily Allen (currently in Oz!) is top of the pile, with three noms for British Female Solo Artist, British Album (It’s Not Me It’s You) and British Single of the Year (The Fear). But we always knew she was a clever kid…
The seriously exciting news is that our homegrown legends Empire of the Sun are taking on well… the world. The Empire has been nominated for both International Album (Walking On A Dream) and International Breakthrough Act. Emperor Luke Steele will fly to London to attend the Brits on behalf of the band, and by the looks of the Empire of the Sun site forums, the British Empyreans are super-excited to have him in their home town, sharing their oxygen supply (Empire fans are hardcore… but they’d better still themselves, because The Empire is heading to the UK and Europe for an assault on the summer festival circuit!)
If Empire wins either of the Awards, they’ll be the first Australian band to win a BRIT Award since Crowded House in 1994! The only other Australian band to have previously won a BRIT Award was INXS, and outside of Kylie Minogue, no other Australian artist has won a BRIT Award in the past decade! Empire’s competition this year is Jay-Z (on whose album Emperor Steele is a guest artist), Lady Gaga, Animal Collective and Black Eyed Peas.
Amongst the excitement about the nomination Emperor Steele said, “The dream was the king for this record and it is becoming wilder and wilder as the sandman keeps cooking. This is a great honour, we are walking on a dream.”
In a déjà vu moment, Robbie Williams and Empire of the Sun will be sharing the Awards Ceremony limelight (think ARIAs ‘09), as Robbie Williams presented with the highly coveted Outstanding Contribution to Music Award. Robbie will close the 2010 show with a stunning live performance – here’s to more self-confessed Dad dancing!
We only have the Empire Chariot of the Sun for a short while longer, so we’re making the best use of it whilst we can! (ie the comp to win the chariot is closing soon – enter now!)
Late last year, two bright young strapping lads from the EMI Australia A&R team (follow them on twitter @eyesandearsoz) drove the hulking beast of the Chariot down the East Coast of Australia. This is their story. (kudos to Kelly who followed the their trip and brought the boys beer!)
And more recently, we’ve been cruising around the city of Sydney in the Chariot…
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