Frankly! it's a pop festival

Pop in it's broadest sense. From the pure pop of i heart hiroshima to the electro pop of Qua vs Supermelody or Seja via the sunshine drenched harmonies of The Tenniscoats, the singalong Pancakes, the soul searching of Heinz Riegler to the unique vocal stylings of Jamie Stewart. It all fit. Laurence English is a genius. As is Sarah Neal.

Heinz Riegler - At Frankly! It's A Pop Festival - 12 Sept 2009

The Pancakes - At Frankly! It's A Pop Festival - 12 Sept 2009

Seja - At Frankly! It's A Pop Festival - 12 Sept 2009

Jamie Stewart - At Frankly! It's A Pop Festival - 12 Sept 2009

The Tenniscoats - At Frankly! It's A Pop Festival - 12 Sept 2009

i heart hiroshima - At Frankly! it's a Pop Festival - 12 Sept 2009

Qua vs Supermelody - At Frankly! It's A Pop Festival - 12 Sept 2009

Peaches did a DJ set but I listened from the cafe next door cause I was restoring my strength before the evening concert by Van Dyke Parks. Man is a legend for a very good reason.

Van Dyke Parks - Live @ The Powerhouse - 12 Sept 2009

Chinese Burns at The Step Inn

Another night of garage punk pop ish stuff. Actually one of the better nights recently. Geese are new and consist of 2 Z-Rays and a drummer. Undead Apes, Fancy Boys,and Chinese Burns share members but come from two states. It's complicated but it seems to work.

The PA upstairs at the Step Inn sounded good for a change. I credit Xavier from fancy boys/chinese burns [from melbourne] for this.

Geese - Live @ The Step Inn - 19 Sept 2009

The Fancy Boys - Live @ The Step Inn - 19 Sept 2009

Undead Apes - Live @ The Step Inn - 19 Sept 2009

Chinese Burns - Live @ The Step Inn - 19 Sept 2009

Up Late At The Met

Another Up Late series this time at the Queensland Art Gallery for the Met's traveling show of American Expressionism. Superb art. Absolutely.

The musical evenings featured mainly solo artists because the stage area was quite small.

The other reason was probably because the concert area was a huge room about 5 times as wide as it was deep, with the stage set in a pool of water covering most of the floor, and with walls of marble. The acoustic equivalent of... i dunno, a big perfectly reflective box.

Kin Salmon with an amplified electric guitar was almost unlistenable. I missed the first half of Dave Graney's set but as he had only a miced acoustic it was OK but still harsh as hell. The comments on Robert Fosters final night show are all along these lines so it isn't just me.

The three acts I did get well are below. Still very echoey but nice enough. The comment between songs in Kate's set is Ben Salter.

GOMA sounds much nicer.

Holly Throsby - Live Up Late @ The Met - 07 August 2009


Kate Jacobson - Live @ The Met Up Late - 11 Sept 2009


Ben Salter - Live @ The Met Up Late - 11 Sept 2009

Violent Soho with Talons, Sips and Hy-Test

Brilliant stuff. From Hy-Test who are just so tight and so good, a great Sips set, Talons, and Violent Soho at home among the Mansfield set.


Long and Loud.

Hy-Test - Live @ The Step Inn - 05 Sept 2009

The Sips - Live @ The Step Inn - 05 Sept 2009

Talons - Live @ The Step Inn - 05 Sept 2009

Violent Soho - Live @ The Step Inn - 05 Sept 2009

Little Lovers & Extra Foxx

Nice to see Little Lovers again touring from Sydney. And I had not seen Extra Foxx before. I love them.

Little Lovers - Live @ Ric's - 29 Aug 2009

Extra Foxx - Live @ Ric's - 29 Aug 2009

Sugar Army & Others

I was all excited about this. The press had them as the next big thing of Australian music. They were good. Very good in fact. But not that good.

Sugar Army - Live @ The Troubadour - 04 Sept 2009

Comic Sans, local support were interesting and worth watching to see how they develop.
Comic Sans - Live @ The Troubadour - 04 Sept 2009

Here's some other recent stuff.

DZ - Live in Brisbane - August 2009

i heart hiroshima - Live in Brisbane - August 2009

Stemford Hiss - Live in Brisbane - August 2009

and a few songs from Ironside

Ironside - Live @ The Step Inn - 04 Sept 2009

Live @ X&Y Bar

A new venue. Looks like it could be too upmarket in the long run for the likes of me and the bands I see most often. But a regular Thursday night show by appropriate bands would work I think. I enjoyed it. Particularly enjoyed watching the passersby peering in through the large window opening on to Ann St behind the band. Plus the sound is quite clean and well balanced and they have Asahi on tap.

This Secret Birds incarnation includes a few John Steele Singers. Damon's amp was playing up and it is hard to hear him sometimes but other than that a good set.
Secret Birds - Live @ X&Y Bar - 27 Aug 2009

The Axxonn set is a great recording of a duo who just spent a month or so playing around Europe and got way better at it while away. Sometimes it takes me a while to 'get' this style of music. I get Axxonn now.
Axxonn - Live @ X&Y Bar - 03 Sept 2009

Spencer P Jones

Spencer does a short but satisfying set at the Powerhouse on Sunday arvo.

Spencer P Jones - Live @ The Powerhouse - 16 Aug 2009

New Christs

First up is actually the supports sets by The Dangermen and Killerbirds before the Cosmic Psychos on the 11th. Unfortunately I was not feeling well and didn't hang round for the Psychos. Good sets however by both bands. Killerbirds hail from Victoria and I do believe one of the the guitarists is a cosmic psycho daughter.

Killerbirds - Live @ The Step Inn - 11 Aug 2009

The Dangermen - Live @ The Step Inn - 11 Aug 2009

Later that week, The Hits supporting New Christs

The Hits - Live @ The Step Inn - 14 Aug 2009

The New Christs - Live @ The Step Inn - 14 Aug 2009

Splendour 2009

The Great Northern Pre Splendour Party
Dananananackroyd - 3 Songs Live @ The Great Northern - 24 July 2009

Yves Klein Blue - Live @ The Great Northern - 24 July 2009

Bloc Party - Live @ The Great Northern - 24 July 2009

Splendour

Every year now i say I won't go but I go and find enough for it to be worth my while. I think the problem the Festival has for the last couple of years is that it has a reasonable set of headliners but not much good second division overseas stuff. Lots of good local bands and Local is OK but most of them I have seen over the last year or so anyway. This wqas the first festival for a long time where i wandered between tents without watching a full set. Maybe it needs to get bigger to afford that kind of bulk. But that won't happen at the current site.

So without further ado here is what I saw.

Polaroid Fame - Live @ Splendour - 25 July 2009

Deer Republic - Live @ Splendour - 26 July 2009

Jack Ladder - Live @ Splendour - 26 July 2009

Dappled Cities - Live @ Splendour - 25 July 2009

Kram - 3 Songs Live @ Splendour - 26 July 2009

The Beautiful Girls - Live @ Splendour - 26 July 2009

White Lies - Live @ Splendour - 26 July 2009

The Middle East - Live @ Splendour - 26 July 2009

Children Collide - Live @ Splendour - 27 July 2009

The Gutter Twins - 4 Songs Live @ Splendour - 26 July 2009

Doves - Live @ Splendour - 26 July 2009

Happy Mondays - Live @ Splendour - 25 July 2009

The Specials - Live @ Splendour - 26 July 2009

Flaming Lips - Live @ Splendour - 26 July 2009

The Step Inn in July

Ric's is free but the Step Inn is cheap and the beer is cheaper. So two weeks in July upstairs at the Step Inn local garage pop punk stuff is on display with first a set by Sweet Dreams which is advertised as a combination of various other bands but which looks suspiciously like eat laser scumbag with a different drummer. This is quite a good thing.

Sweet Dreams - Live @ The Step Inn - 11 July 2009

The next week it's a big night. The Sips release the 7'' that's been cluttering up the underbed space for nigh on a year now. To support them they have gathered the cream of local bands including the newly formed Undead Apes which really does have members of various other bands Sekiden, Eat Laser Scumbag, Dick Nasty, Gazoonga Attack, and Fancy Boys [one from each], Blank Realm, and The Heels.

It was great. Though the sound upstairs at the Step Inn is iffy.

The Heels - Live @ The Step Inn - 18 July 2009

The Undead Apes - Live @ The Step Inn - 18 July 2009

Blank Realm - Live @ The Step Inn - 18 July 2009

The Sips - Live @ The Step Inn - 18 July 2009

As a bonus I will throw this one in. Early in the year Eddy Current Suppression Ring did a show at the Step Inn downstairs and it was excellent. My recording gear decided to only record one channel properly and I filed it away. I have now produced a mono file. It's actually quite listenable.

Eddy Current Suppression Ring - Live @ The Step Inn - Feb 2009 - MONO

Primavera 2009

I had a great time. The quality of the acts was superb and they all played great sets. The venue is one of the best I have seen. Maybe a liitle too much concrete but its better than the Gold Coast Parklands dustbowl. The Spanish smoke more than I could have imagined possible and on Friday night it actually made Debbie and I ill enough to leave early.

My only real complaint was the sound, mainly at the ATP stage but also Vice. The bass sound was overwhelming sometimes. It made Jesu almost unlistenable. I could see a guy playing guitar but could barely hear him. I could however feel the bass and the backing track in my chest. The mix for the Drones meant you could barely hear Gareth's guitar [when it worked] and you could hear every note the bass played. Same with Jay Reatard at Vice and to a lesser extent Oneida. The Rockdelux and Pitchfork stages were OK. Didn't see enough on the Main Stage to make much comment but it seemed alright.

On the Primavera Forums when I mentioned it few had similar comments. Some mentioned sweet spots but really you should be able to get listenable sound anywhere except close to the speakers and maybe right down the front depending on what is coming off the stage. We have sound guys in Australia who think their mission in life is to let everyone hear the drums, I mean really hear the drums, but this was ridiculous.

Anyway I saw

The Vaselines
Jesus Lizard
Women
The Bats
Jay Reatard
Sleepy Sun
Carsick Cars
The Drones
SunnO)))
Shellac
Jesu
Deerhunter
Oneida

and at the Joan Miro Park on Saturday
Bowerbirds
Sleepy Sun again
and
Ponytail.

The park show was magic. 150 people maybe under the palm trees in the early afternoon with a couple of beers.

All of those I recorded except SunnO))) for battery reasons and The Bats where I don't know what happened really, the first 4 minutes are fine then it just disappears. Pity, cause they wee excellent.

Debbie [my wife] saw Shearwater, and Daisy Kitty & Lewis and thought they were great.
I saw most of Lions Constellation from a ticket line so i didn't record them but they were pretty good.

We went to see Bat For Lashes but just didn't find it interesting enough to stay. Magnolia Electric Company was the same. The set started off quite slow and did not grab me at all and in any case I have a set from Splendour a couple of years ago which is quite good.

Tried to see Neil Young and MBV and Sonic Youth but the crowds were terrible. As in large. Young and Sonic Youth I have seen before but MBV would have been good.

I am beginning to think I would be no good at the larger festivals like Roskilde or Rock Wetcher. Or the US shows like Coachella.

I will return for Primavera as soon as I figure which rich aunt is least likely to be missed.

Life After Spain

How to get back into the swing of things in Australia after spending all my monies in Europe. Why, go to Ric's of course, it's free. Drink Coopers Green and see great bands like Mum Smokes up from Melbourne where the other good bands come from. Crewed by The Ancients’ Jonathan Michell, Karl Scullin of KES Band fame, Julian Patterson from Minimum Chips and Zond’s Justin Fuller the band play a wide range of styles but all of it engaging.

Mum Smokes - Live @ Ric's - 10 July 2009

Couple of weeks later back to Ric's for local band Teeming With Wildlife who now sport a vocalist and keyboard and who are all the better for it. Not that they were bad before. Far from it.

Teeming With Wildlife - Live @ Ric's - 01 Aug 2009

My Trip To Spain Part 2 - Almost Primavera

As well as the festival itself Primavera has a number of record label showcase gigs running during the week before. I went to two of these; The Holy Cobra Society Showcase at the Sidecar, and the Heart Of Gold show at The Apolo.

Holy Cobra Society

Uber who were due to play pulled out so it was a late start at this intimate cellar venue to see Muletrain and The Intelligence. I spent the frst half of Muletrains set searching for a shop in as Ramblas which sold batteries. It was the night of the Champions League final and everyone was shut. Finally scored in an Internet Cafe somewhere. So I only got the last 15 minutes. Crashbeat they call it. Punk Hardcore Pop.

Muletrain - Live @ The Sidecar - 27 May 2009


The Intelligence are US indie pop and very good at it too.

The Intelligence - Live @ The Sidecar - 27 May 2009

On the way home I moved through the crowd in Place Catalunya celebrating the Barcalona win. Many of them were still there two days later.

Heart Of Gold

Got lost on the subway so I missed the first set by The Disciplines. Reigning Sound features Greg Cartwright of The Oblivians doing more straight forward material. At the time I was very ho hum with this set but it has grown on me.

Reigning Sound - Live @ The Apolo Barcalona- 26 May 2009

My Trip To Spain Part Two - Primavera Sound 2009

Shifted up the page.