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Australian Music News
by Evan Alexander
A huge few months in Australian music has seen Melbourne rockers Jet top both the rock and alternative charts in the USA. Their single 'Cold Hard Bitch', lifted froth their rock 'n' rollicking debut album 'Get Born', pummeled Nickelback's 'Figured You Out' from the top of the US rock charts. A new band with an old sound (think of vintage Stones grooves fused with an ACDC growl) 'Cold Hard Bitch' also edged 31 l's cover of The Cure's 'Lovesong' from the alternative chart. Self described as "just a dumb arsed rock song" whatever Jet are doing it's working, after already blitzing Australia they now look set to add the US to the list.
Independent poster boy John Butler swept the Australian album charts and made APRA (Australian Performers Rights Association) Music Awards history by taking out the hotly contested award for song of the year. This is the first time the award has been given to a self published, independent singer / songwriter. The success of John Butler's 'Zebra', a song that almost didn't make it onto the acclaimed 'Sunrise Over Sea' album marks the first time a composer with no major label backing has received this peer voted honor. Also hailed as a milestone for independent Australian artists was the fact that Sunrise Over Sea', Butlers third album, quickly went number I on the Australian album charts; now officially accredited double platinum status. The John Butler Trio continues their national 'Sunrise Over Sea' tour with many shows already sold out. Butler will donate one dollar from every ticket sold to The Refugee Action Coalition, "an activist campaign to end mandatory detention of refugees, temporary protection visas, deportation and the racist scapegoating of refugees and asylum seekers". In other APRA award news, the songwriter of the year award was won by Powderfinger's Bernard Fanning, Jon Coghill, Ian Haug, Darten Middleton and John Collins and Delta Goodrem, who is in Europe, took out the APRA breakthrough award, which recognizes the talents of an emerging composer.
The Dissociatives, Silverchair frontman Daniel John's new project with dance guru Paul Mac, released their self-titled debut last month. A strange brew of dysfunctional pop rock and sub electronica, it received rave reviews and has been placed on high national rotation.
An unexpected force that has hit the Australian charts like a Tsunami of late has been Brisbane born, now Melbourne based singer / songwriter Pete Murray. An ex natural-medicine student and footballer who took up music after a knee injury meant he had to stop playing football, "Feeler", his acoustically charged, self penned debut album for Sony has seen three big singles and a massive national tour.
Crossover country-rock darling Kasey Chambers new album Wayward Angel is perched up top of the ARIA (Australian Recording Industry Association) charts at the moment. Released on May 31a, it only took about three days to get there.
West Australian trio Eskimo Joe released "A Song Is A City", the follow up to 2001 's "Girl", on May 16t~. An absolute gem of generally chilled but irrepressibly flammable Aussie rock'n'roll, hovering in the top ten, it continues to rise steadily up the charts. I caught up with drummer Joel last week in order to get more info re: the new album and where on earth you get a name like Eskimo Joe from;
"Where did the name Eskimo Joe come from then?"
"Kav was hanging out with a friend of his and they were going op shopping, this is years and years and years ago, and he found a tee shirt in an op shop it was "Eskimo Joe's Diner' in Stillwater, Oklahoma, Kay told Stu about it, cause they've been friends since they were five, kind of thing, and they sort of said to each other, if we ever start a band together that' s what we'll call it. We didn't have to sit around thinking about, thinking of a name it just was, and I just hope the folk in America don't sue us, the diner."
"In Oklahoma?"
"Yeah, We'll steer clear of there."
"I saw you play up here in Brissie last month at 'The Zoo', you're back up here already at the Arena, on the eleventh of June, you guys are keeping busy...."
'We'd just put the single out then so we thought we'd go and do a quick run around and gauge how we were doing and all the shows sold out so it was a really good tour, and now the album's coming out next week, so yeah we gotta go out and flog that"
A Song Is a City" hits stores On May sixteenth;
That's right.
The making of it; has it been a slow process?
We always take a long time to make albums, I guess we've become the sort of band that doesn't just bash something out, we really have romantic ideas about making records, and spendinga lot of time on pre production and spending a lot of time recording it and post production and mixing, so it was a long process.
How do you guys approach your songwriting?
Kav will come in with an idea and a few chords and a melody and some lyrics and we get together with him and turn it, put it through the Eskimo Joe machine and by the and it comes out as one of our tunes. Basically we write the song while we are recording it - a demo of it - we don't set up as a band and play it We kind of record it and than we learn how to play it after we have written it.
The writing process on ""A Song Is A City'"' did that differ to the process on "Girl"?
In as much as we spent more time pre-producing the songs, doing those demos, if we're doing a song we usually go solid three days on it, put down a quick track and acoustic and a vocal and then build it from there.
Regarding track 3 on "A Song Is a City" 'Life Is Better With You' has one or all of you been listening to a lot of Neil Young lately- Down By the River in particular?
You got it!
I'm a huge fan of "Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere" it's my favorite album man.
We're all big fans, Kav's been a big fan of that album for years and years and I'm a big fan of other albums of his. 1 hadn't really heard that album and Kay wrote 'Life is Better With You' the verse and the chorus, and then we were coming up with parts and he was saying maybe we should do this and that, and then when we were actually recording the album he pulled out the disc and said "Check this out"
What was the process behind the production on Carousel?
The music box was in the studio in Sydney, it was just sitting on top of the piano and Paul McKercher recorded it on to tape for us. We came home cause we did post production at our own studio in Perth and Stu just grabbed a chair and put it in the middle of the garden, we ran a mic to it and played the guitar part and then Kay wrote a kind of lullaby over the top of it.
The music box is kind of the basis of it but the guitar part Stu wrote around the musicbox thing, Kav wrote the song.
A lot of the album was produced and recorded by Paul McKercher, did you choose him for a particular reason?
Oh, just cause he had done good work in the past, and worked with bands that we like, and when picking a producer I got on the phone to all the different producers and spoke to them and he seemed to be the one that was on the same, definitely on the same musical wavelength as us. He's a very musical guy, so yeah we decided to go with him.
How do you feel about the album on a whole Joel?
I'm really happy with it, we're all, we're like proud parents at the moment.
1 think you should be.
Just can't wait to get it out there, it's taken a year and a half or whatever from starting it maybe even two years from starting it to today. So we're all kinda just champing at the bit for other people to hear it, I mean obviously media people have heard it but we can't wait until it's in the shops.
Do You think it picks up where "Girl" left off?
I guess it's a lot more developed than "Girl' and I was reading a review of it the other day - he kind hit the nail on the head he explained it better than I could. He said 'They've taken the Eskimo Joe sound and stretched it to almost breaking point kinda thing, which was what I thought was a good description. That's the goal for every record y'know, when we stop making better records we'll probably stop as a band.
The last words of the album "So don't worry about me.." I mean it's left pretty clear you know, just Kay and the acoustic. Is that any way representative of the emotion that "A Song Is a City" conveys overall?
Yeah, I think it was a nice way to round off the album. As soon as that song was written we knew it was going to be the last song on the record. It rounds it off; it kind of leaves you hanging as well. Yeah it was a nice way to round it all off'.
New Zealand, Music News
Normally held on April 31st, The 2004 New Zealand Music Awards have been postponed to September 22nd this year. New Zealand Music Month will remain in May, thus providing NZ with two high points to the Kiwi music calendar - New Zealand Music Month in May and the NZ Music Awards later in the year. Said Music Award spokesperson Adam Holt
"By holding the Awards in late September, both the award winners and the nominated artists can benefit greatly from the exposure the Awards give them in the lead up to the industry's peak selling period".
Big winners last year were Rock quartet The Datsuns who claimed four, namely; Album of the Year, Export Gold Best Group, Outstanding International Achievement and Breakthrough Artist of the Year. Other multiple winners include established vocalist Bic Runga (Best Female Vocalist, Best Solo Artist and Highest Selling Album) and the Grey Lynn-based four-piece band Goodshirt (mOnstavision Single of the Year and Songwriter of the year for their hit Sophie)..
Che Fu grabbed the award for Best Male Vocalist while the Best Urban Album Award went to popular newcomers Nesian Myatik.
Salmonella Dub captured the award for Red Bull Best Dance Album for "Outside the Dub Plates".
The one New Zealand band that has consistently managed to blur the lines between the dance and rock camps is the Headless Chickens. At times bright, expansive and ambitious, their new release "Chickenshits" is a compilation of material plucked from throughout their recording career.
After touring Australia in June, Bic Runga returns to NZ for two gigs on her Beautiful Collision tour, 3rd July in Cambridge, 4th July at Bruce Mason Centre, Auckland before heading back to the UK.
Cameron Clayton, of Auckland, captured the heart of a capacity audience and the votes of the judges to win the senior title at the New Zealand Gold Guitar Awards in Gore on the 6~' of June. The 18-year-old singer was awarded the coveted title at the Gore Town and Country Club stadium, focusing on country / country rock, Gore was plucked out of 28 senior finalists from nine sections.
Acclaimed Auckland band the Mint Chicks have left the country to chase their rock'n'roll dream.
The group left last week to head to Los Angeles, London and New York during the next month, hoping to hook a record deal beyond the one their New Zealand label, Flying Nun, has been able to offer them.
The Mint Chicks have spent the past two years playing in and around Auckland, have toured New Zealand twice and supported the White Stripes in Australia.. On arrival in LA the Mint Chicks are being taken to dinner by a representative from the Geffen label before spending a few days at the Hollywood house of the lawyer who represents the White Stripes. In London, the band will play every night for a week and a half. "Most of the shows are in crappy little bars," says Nielson, but they are also supporting the Datsuns at the 1500-seat Shepherds Bush Empire Theatre before heading off to New York. Promotional teams are working in New York and London to push the band. They have received radio and video play in Britain and a single released there sold out its 2000-copy pressing in two weeks, in each city they are staying a few days after their gigs to be available to meet industry representatives.
Australian New Releases
Tonight Alright
Spiderbait
Universal
Most of us would have heard Black Betty by now. The first single lifted from 'Tonight Alright', it's initial release met with a fair bit of skepticism and general reservation and yet within weeks it was number one on the mainstream charts. I mention it now, cause it's highly indicative of what to expect here, the ragged riffy reworking of Huddie Ledbetter's classic blues stomp slots in perfectly alongside the remainder of the tracks on 'Tonight's Alright', the remainder of which are all Spiderbait penned.
Recorded in Weed, California in an old converted theatre, Kram, Whitt and Janet have made no effort to conceal their punk/metal-pop roots. Bursting at the seams with savage bouts of incensed 'square peg in a round hole' drumming overlayed with a thick frenzy of riffs, crunchy power chords and fuzzy staccato bass grooves, the album forges on relentlessly. Track 9 'Tonight' lets up momentarily with some lightly panned vocals splayed out across a comparatively minimalist canvas, but track 10 'Airtight' quells that immediately, kicking back in like a chainsaw. You've heard the expression "a walk in the park"; well this album is a heavily distorted blouse strut through Purgatory.
A Mark On The Pane
Tames Wells
Popboomerang
The debut album by Melbourne quartet Tames Wells, "A Mark on the Pane" is a sparkling little collection of restrained harmonies and passive yearnings. Subdued tempos and chime styled guitars are the sheets this bed is made with.
Only a year and a half has passed since the release of their debut three track single 'Cigarettes, a Tie and a Free Magazine', their subsequent home recorded EP 'Stitch In Time' caught the attention of producer Tim Whiten who invited them to Sydney to record some of their new material, this album is the result.
Tames Wells himself has that uncanny ability to transfer seemingly mundane, commonplace moments of life into lilting, palpable lyrical measures. He threads these simple, everyday observations into a string of well crafted, delicately woven, contemporary Australian lullabies that saunter along completely at their own leisure.
Tales of Time and Space
Paul Grabowsky
Warner Music
Recorded in New York, 'Tales Of Time And Space' brings together the compositions of one of the most respected names in Australian music, Paul Grabowsky and some of New York's (indeed the world's) finest jazz musicians in an orgy of improvised splendor. Also featuring renowned Australian trumpet player Scott Tinkler, Grabowsky's aim was a "special collaboration between some very committed individuals .... an Australian perspective [on] the music which so represents the very soul of New York .... a dedication to two worlds, both of which mean so much to me".
From the stirring abruptness of' Silverland", a jazz tribute to Silverchair, to the sharp scatting shuffle of 'Updraft', "Tales Of Time And Space" is without a doubt, an exemplary musical dialogue by true masters of their craft, namely Branford Marsalis, Joe Lavano, Ed Schuller, Jeff Watts, the aforementioned Tinkler and of course Grabowsky himself.
New Zealand New Releases
Collider
Fur Patrol
Universal
The title comes from the theory that if you drive a gold atom and a lead atom into each other at rapid speed, you create a 'super collider'. Established four years ago in Wellington, New Zealand, and now operating full time out of Melbourne, a major label deal and the budget that accompanies it allowed the four piece the breathing space required to really tighten the straps and trim the fat off'Collider'. A lean, smooth combination of trash punk rock and wiry pop, including the heavily rotated single 'Get Along', Fur Patrol deliver a polished, well-compressed shot of fizzy, riff-based angst here. Vocalist Julia Deans exorcises her various sorrows and anguish in a decisively well hung manner, the more chilled, submissive tracks like 'Into The Sun' and 'Someone You Really Want' balance out the chunkier muse of tracks like 'Precious' and' Art Of Conversation'. Riffs really are the special of the day here, widely varied manifestations thereof, from the cleverly staggered manipulations of the melancholic 'All These Things' to the jagged attack of 'Fade Away'. "Collider" does fall shy of an epic, but makes a concerted effort that definitely deserves validation nonetheless.
Soul Revolution
Cornerstone Roots
Motherland Records
A soul revolution straight out of New Zealand, something sounds awry, not normally words you would tend to expect in the same sentence. Chilled, message orientated New Zealand reggae reflecting daily observations, inspirations and emotions stemming from their own local environment, augmented by sultry horn lines and strong bass grooves, this righteous roots driven outfit have done a fair job of it though. Highlighted with streaks of funk, genuine sincerity and a heavy, positive consciousness this is the debut album by this trad-based outfit.
A radio edit of the title track 'Soul Revolution' is to be the first single lifted from the album, with a remix of the same track by NZ dub boyz 'Salmonella Dub' as the B-side.
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