After 10 minutes listening to hold music of indescribable horror, MITCH ALEXANDER is finally put in touch with JAS SHAW, one half of English production team SIMIAN MOBILE DISCO.

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Scottish Catholics are in a furore over the words to the Hokey Pokey, AKA the Hokey Cokey or, for New Zealanders, the Hokey Tokey. The seemingly innocuous rhyme is supposedly anti-Catholic propaganda derived from the beginning of the Latin mass, “Hoc est...” Scottish fans of that foot-to-ball game have been banned from using anti-Catholic chants during Celtics matches (the Celtics’ fans are predominantly Catholic), but are appropriating the Hokey Pokey to get around the rules. How tough can they sound chanting “You put your right foot in and you shake it all about” though?

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The Ragamuffin event planned for Byron’s Red Devil Park has shifted to Ballina’s Kingsford Smith Park, after a delay in Council approval. Ziggy Marley (pictured), Eddy Grant, Ali Campbell, Shaggy, Arrested Development, Inner Circle and Bonjah will be heading en masse to Ballina – all tickets remain valid for the Monday Jan 26, 2009 event.

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New Orleans piano master Jon Cleary (pictured) is returning to our shores for his first ever solo tour in support of his recent live album Mo Hippa. On Sunday Jan 11, 2009, he performs at The Sound Lounge in Currumbin on the Gold Coast (the doors open at 3pm) before heading off to The Troubadour in Brisbane for an evening show that same day Tickets are $30+bf through OzTix and www.soundlounge.com.au, or $35 on the door.

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Photo: Elleni Toumpas

When Toronto four-piece Holy Fuck perform, it’s like watching a flurry of activity around Doctor Who’s Tardis console. Centred on stage with main-men Brian Borcherdt and Graham Walsh facing one another, it’s like these skinny Canadian white boys are forming a defensive core in case some kind of sci-fi catastrophe occurs. Lord knows, the music they make sounds like the aftermath of technological Armageddon. It’s post-apocalyptic Mad Max indie-tronica – music cobbled together from ancient bits of incongruous equipment (a 35mm film synchronizer, cheap casio synths, shrieking ham radio mics, esoteric digital noisemakers…), held together by a fiercely powerful rhythm section – the ‘traditional’ bass and drums creating grooves to die for.

Holy Fuck’s strengths are many, and all are on display tonight. Despite the heat (Saturday was HOT folks, you know it…), the punters at the front of the stage go crazy when the jackin’ beat of Frenchy’s pulses out. That’s strength #1 – making indie kids dance like loved-up ravers to experimental music. Strength #2 is HF’s inbuilt capacity to inject moments of psych wig-out sans guitars into their rhythmic juggernauts. I’ve made Chemical Brothers comparisons before, but while Tom & Ed’s psych diversions tend to be endless references to The Beatles’ Tomorrow Never Knows, Holy Fuck are looser, wilder; less bound by sequencers and pre-programmed flourishes. Strength #3 however, is another aspect they share with the Chems – melody – best exemplified by the lovely Lovely Allen, a set-closing highlight. Toss in some unhinged tomfoolery like the chase music of Echo Sam and Safari (which prove to be so fast live that only the most wired audience members can keep up), a few promising new tracks (their debut full-length has been out for a year now – more tunes soon please!) and signature krautrock-pillaging number Super Inuit, and you’ve got a show that had more than one newcomer to the HF fold breathlessly exclaiming, “those guys were fucking amazing!” (or words to that effect). Holy fuck indeed.

TOPHER HEALY

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(Telarc)

A suitably breezy backing for a romantic comedy set in Spain

Whatever you think of Woody Allen’s movies (and they have been a little hit-and-miss over recent years), the one aspect where you can be assured he pays particular attention is the soundtrack. This latest film, set in one of Spain’s most colourful cities, is proof of that. Even though Allen says he didn’t really know any Spanish music when he began this project, his jazzman’s ear and his openness meant he mixed old and new, and the famous with the obscure. He then found a way to add in the odd non-Spanish tune without disturbing the fittingly romantic but lithe tone of this set of mostly instrumental music. That takes you from the classic, classy mood of Paco de Lucia’s flamenco-flavoured Entre Dos Aguas from 1973 to the new title track by the relatively unknown Barcelona band Giulia y Los Tellarini. It also takes you from El Noi De La Mare, a Catalan folk song given a classical flavour by Jean-Felix Lalanne and Muriel Anderson, to the light and airy French-style jazz guitar stroll of The Stephane Wrembel Trio’s Big Brother. If the film is as warm, inviting and stylish as this collection, Woody’s on another winner.

***½

BILL HOLDSWORTH

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