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NICK MCCARTHY, guitarist and keyboard player with Scottish group FRANZ FERDINAND, is on a tour bus heading out of San Francisco when he catches up with ALASDAIR DUNCAN, to discuss the band’s two-year hiatus, the disco direction of their new album, and his brush with German puppet theatre.
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Popular bayside event – Sandgate’s Music By The Sea Festival – is returning for its seventh outing from Jan 9-11, 2009. Programmed for the ’09 event are Karin Schaupp, Mamadou Diabate (Mali), Katus (UK), Kristina Olsen (USA), Circle Of Rhythm, The Yearlings, Tijuana Cartel, William Barton, Java (France), Herb Armstrong & The Royal Street Krewe, Waiting For Guinness, Badineri Trio, Seaside Symphony Orchestra, Nicholas Kaye-Smith, Stonehouse and more. The festival opens with a free outdoor concerton the beach at Lower Moora Park (Shorncliffe) on Friday Jan 9, 4.30pm – 7.30pm, featuring William Barton, Katus, Tijuana Cartel and Java. Tickets are available online at www.4mbs.com.au, and you can check www.musicbythesea.com.au/festivalfor updates. Head along to the shows for some eclectic summer music fun.
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Family Nightclub continues to welcome the big names this Summer with the announcement of San Francisco’s Claude VonStroke (pictured)and the UK’s Ewan Pearson getting behind the decks Saturday Jan 24, 2009 – yep, Australia Day Weekend. Doors swing open at 9pm with the usual residents kicking things off. Tickets are available Thursday Jan 1, 2009 for $15+bf from all regular outlets; look out for deals for members.
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Bleeding Through (pictured) are teaming up with Between The Buried & Me for a return sojourn to our wide brown land. Hitting Club 299 on Saturday Jan 10, 2009, it will be something of a homecoming for the touring party, with extraneous band-types having some Brisbane links. As Blood Runs Black flesh out the bill, with tickets on sale through OzTix.
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Having graduated from uni the previous day, I am still a tad disheveled as I drag myself up the all-familiar Zoo stairs. Opening to a modestly sized crowd, Yeo & The Freshgoods are a massively fun if somewhat incongruous support act. Prancing around the stage with the vigour of Energizer bunnies, Yeo Choong and his accordingly fresh-faced cohorts funk like Curtis Mayfield fronting Parliament, sending taut drumbeats, fat basslines, clipped guitar chords, sunny trumpet fills and Bernie Worell-channelling synth lines flying everywhere. The tragically hip keytar makes an appearance on a couple of groove-laden songs, adding a slight smattering of cheese to the Freshgoods’ good-time musical smorgasbord; elsewhere, their forays into ’70s soul prove to be a resounding success, bringing the band’s vocal harmonies out to the front.
Maybe it’s the Mick Jagger-meets-Iggy Pop-on-speed stage act or the requisite New York wankery, but something about tonight’s headline act and indie sex symbol definitely doesn’t translate in a live band setting. After an extended hi-hat intro, the pink leather jacket-clad Adam Green runs onstage, and, one song in, announces that “koalas are kinky motherf***ers and deserve to be punished.” Erm, if you say so. Backed by a commendable yet unimpressive combo, the anti-folk acolyte and former Moldy Peach croons his sardonic vignettes to the excited, forgiving punters, who he finds the time to refer to as “f***ing bogans” before embarking on a crowd-surf. A swaying standout from string-laden recent record Sixes And Sevens, Tropical Island is let down by the pedestrian live backing; somehow, it’s the signature song Jessica that proves to be the most perfectly realised moment of the show. Come the encore, the now bare-torsoed Green regales the crowd with the acapella rendition of The Beach Boys’ Kokomo before launching into the self-explanatory Drugs and finishing with Friends Of Mine, pupils dilated to the max. Sure, the “Carolina-vagina” and “Dostoevsky-Fab Moretti” rhymes are amusing, yet overall, Green’s live show sadly chokes on a c**k, as the man himself sings.
DENIS SEMCHENKO
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Debut album from folk rock combo, led by the songwriting pen of Morgan Nagler
The Whispertown 2000 are an LA-based rootsy four-piece – two boys and two girls, one of those girls being singer/songwriter Morgan Nagler. On their debut album Swim, the band combines Nagler’s diverse, storytelling compositions with a stripped-back and dry garagey production. The result is roots music that has a tough punky edge, largely thanks to Nagler and co-vocalist Vanesa Corbala’s indie-porch harmonies colliding triumphantly with Tod Adrian Widenbaker’s fuzzed-up electric guitar and his brother Casey thumping out confident bass lines. This frenetic combination is best summed up in the medley From The Start/Jamboree, one of the better examples of the “indie punk hoedown”. There’s a backing chorus supergroup in the soaring ballad Atlantis, Nagler and Corbala harmonising with Jenny Lewis and their label boss Gillian Welch. Even the more “straightforward” folk-pop moments have welcome twists, such as the opening Beatle-esque stride of 103 which pleasantly surprises with the sudden arrival of soulful Hammond organ. Effortlessly swaying from lurching psychedelic blues to campfire quietness, The Whispertown 2000 prove themselves to be a band to watch.
****
MATT THROWER
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ADAM DONOVAN and EDMONDO AMMENDOLA (let’s call him Ed) talks to MITCH ALEXANDER about The Hobbit, vegans and George Orwell’s blog. Oh, also, they’re in a cracker of a band called AUGIE MARCH.
So … who wants to have a deep and meaningful conversation about the toiling pressure of following up a highly successful album, one that is being slowly considered by the general public as a modern Australian classic? Certainly not Ed and Adam, as they casually pick at their respective breakfasts of devilled eggs and what I can only refer to as ‘a heartstarter’, complete with hash browns, eggs, bacon (quickly sent away because of his vegetarian status) and a glass of wine. When questioned about the glass of red at 10 in the morning, Adam brushes concerns away with a cavalier comment along the lines of ‘why not?’ His hearty meal begins to make sense after a story of how last night was spent, which involved a private function and a Jagerbomb for a nightcap…
“Are you really writing all this down?” questions Ed, observing me as I scribble the details of their breakfast order into a tattered notebook.
“Yeah, of course,” I respond. “People love that actuality shit”. This is met with a raised eyebrow but general acceptance as I continue a question about pressure as they created fourth album Watch me Disappear, their follow-up to the mainstream breakthrough 2006’s Moo, You Bloody Choir?
“No way! Because we’re fucking hopeless at being ambitious, goal-driven, disciplined…” Ed trails off with a laugh from Adam. “It doesn’t matter who told us what to do. Even the producer of the record, we drove him out of the studio because of that Augie March ineptitude and stubbornness.”
In an interview such as this, young writers look for any sort of connection, a common ground that lets the other side know you’re not a noob. It’s the interviewing equivalent of striking up a conversation by talking about a mutual friend. Of course, this can backfire supremely, as I found when discussing The Glenorchy Bunyip, a personal favourite from the new album. A rollicking rockabilly tune with raucous keys and guitar, I was sure I heard them perform it when supporting Crowded House at the beginning of 2008. Glowing in praise, our roles of questioner and questionee were momentarily reversed.
“No, we didn’t play it on that tour, I don’t even think it had been written yet,” answers Ed, as I explain that it had that quality of sounding instantly familiar. “Maybe we just ripped it off somewhere else then.”
“You may have been getting it mixed up with the pirated copy you downloaded a few months back,” adds Ed. There’s a slight smirk in his deadpan delivery, but I could have sworn there was a moment of Larry David/Curb Your Enthusiasm eyeballing too.
Hellbent on ruining their breakfasts, I ponder what it must be like to be in a band for over a decade, and yet the bulk of Australia are familiar with one major album, particularly one anthemic, festival favourite single. It turns out to be a concept they’ve had some familiarity with.
“Some people have written that this is ‘the great follow up to their first album’,” Adam says incredulously. “But if that’s the case, our first album went gold, so that’s good. As long as people come to shows, I don’t mind what they think. There’s still a lot of people that don’t know us at all.”
AUGIE MARCH play The Tivoli on Friday Nov 28, supported by Dan Kelly & The Ukeladies. WATCH ME DISAPPEAR is out now through Sony. Check out www.augiemarch.com for more information.
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NICK MCCARTHY, guitarist and keyboard player with Scottish group FRANZ FERDINAND, is on a tour bus heading out of San Francisco when he catches up with ALASDAIR DUNCAN, to discuss the band’s two-year hiatus, the disco direction of their new album, and his brush with German puppet theatre.
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Family Nightclub continues to welcome the big names this Summer with the announcement of San Francisco’s Claude VonStroke (pictured) and the UK’s Ewan Pearson getting behind the decks Saturday Jan 24, 2009 – yep, Australia Day Weekend. Doors swing open at 9pm with the usual residents kicking things off. Tickets are available Thursday Jan 1, 2009 for $15+bf from all regular outlets; look out for deals for members.
Bleeding Through (pictured) are teaming up with Between The Buried & Me for a return sojourn to our wide brown land. Hitting Club 299 on Saturday Jan 10, 2009, it will be something of a homecoming for the touring party, with extraneous band-types having some Brisbane links. As Blood Runs Black flesh out the bill, with tickets on sale through OzTix.
(Acony/Shock)
ADAM DONOVAN and EDMONDO AMMENDOLA (let’s call him Ed) talks to MITCH ALEXANDER about The Hobbit, vegans and George Orwell’s blog. Oh, also, they’re in a cracker of a band called AUGIE MARCH.
