Groovin The Moo (16/5/2009)

Apologies for this being so late.... seeing as it happened almost a month ago. But rather than make excuses, I'll just write about how it was a particularly awesome day....

That started at some stupid time in the morning. A music festival in Bendigo of all places meant leaving the real world at stupid o'clock in the morning. Luckily, Hungry Jacks breakfast wraps are the shit. (Stay tuned for 2010... 100Wraps). After the long drive, we ended up in Bendigo, prepared to tackle the unorganized mess that is the rural Festival. However, there was no such mess... we strolled in and found ourselves right in front of the stage. Superb. Time for band one.

For the record, I didn't take any of these photos.

The Darts

They were here because they one Triple J unearthed. I remember seeing this band last year at Pogo... or Wow... definitely a place with one word that 17 year olds can get into. Which works because these guys don't look like they could walk into a place full of people who were old without someone yelling "You're Young", or "Get out of here Youngsy". They played music that sounded like everything I've heard, but did it pretty well. White Stripes, Pixies, Yeah Yeah Yeahs etc. Pretty fun. Listening to their songs again I remember enjoying Killer on the Tracks. Ah... they're from Bendigo too... looks like the J's are a little cheap for a bus fare these days.

My Own Enemy

This band was here because they won Pushover. From what I can guess, it must have been a hard competition to judge... because if these were the winners. Whew. It's metal... I'm not impressed. There weren't enough middly solos to keep me interested. And wow... what is it about Metal bands taking themselves way seriously. Smile. That's all I can say. The crowd brewing for Tame Impala on the other stage was bigger than the crowd for this band. I felt bad. But then felt better. They all did this weird guitar pose... which I admit, I'd never seen before.... but it looked like they were doing poo. Strange stuff.

Tame Impala

This band was here because they rock my tits off. If you haven't read the stupendous review of their show by Pat earlier in May, do it now, coz it's better than something I'd write. But I am shocked by the amount of people who were watching Tame Impalas 60's garage inspired psych rock. How quickly the young electro crowd (you can tell them because the girls are wearing tights as pants...) changes to what's awesome. I just hope they don't ruin Tame Impala like they ruined TV Rock. The set rocked, although some of the crowd seemed a little bored during the wiggin out. An you know what that leads too.... Drinking solo out of your shoes. And Drenching your socks in solo then wringing them out into your friends mouth. Great time.

Children Collide

I saw these guys last on the eve of 100Gigs, so it's cool to have them finally mentioned for proper. It's really fun rock tunes. Every song is as catchy as the last, and everyone should go out and buy the album because it has a scratchy on the cover. For the record, I got the planet one. The set flew by, the growing crowd moshed for the first time of the day, and went totally spazzo for the song from the Hottest 100 (Farewell Rocketship). Which I like, but I prefer say.... every other song on the album. They finished the set with an awesome instrumental, but the crowd was sort of disappearing after hearing the popular one. After this set, I liked Children Collide even more than I did.

The Drones

Everyone knows by now that I love the drones... if not... look here. We got the usual Drones show, awesome as usual. Even people who'd never heard them enjoyed. We laughed at Dans wit then got yelled at by Gareth. Nail it Down was awesome. Here's a video. Not from where we were.

It was this point in the day when we noticed there weren't stupid lines everywhere, the bands were all playing on time, security weren't being dicks and the crowd was having a generally good time. It was groovy. Gedddit.

Mammal

Pat's seen this band a lot, but I never had, and I didn't really do much to change that by getting some lunch while they were on. What I did see was a guy jumping around in a red jumpsuit, poopooing K-Rudd and asking a lot of questions to the crowd. All over some kind of OK but not that great sounding metal. But the crowd was getting into it, and lead dude could have said anything and they would have got a cheer. My kransky in bread was tasty in case you were wondering (stay tuned for 2011... 100GermanSausages).

Awesome Helmet!

Miami Horror

Our next wise move was into the Moolin Rouge tent (geddit?) for some dancy dance. First in line was Miami Horror, who had disappointed me previously with what were decent DJ sets, but no live show. This time was to be different, my little guidebook assured me. The next 45 minutes was a fun romp through a bunch of Miami Horrors live songs and originals, played by a 4 piece band. Like a live DJ set... much like Soulwax do. Sadly though, I didn't get the same buzz from it, there were some cool moments, but it maybe lacked a little something. Can't put my finger on it... Also, they went overtime so we missed out on hearing Summerfest '86, which would have no doubt been the highlight. Decent show, but my expectations may have been too high.

The Twelves

After Miami Horror, the tent emptied fairly quickly, obviously nobody had heard the awesomeness that are Brazilian DJs the Twelves. Anyone but me that is. And they killed it... playin predominately their own remixes (The Reckoner by Radiohead is excelent - which you can hear above), plus chuckin a bit of Beatles made it one of the best DJ sets I've seen all year. The crowd had rejoined by the end of the set, and a big yellow munter danced until he was thin.

Little Birdy

Hardly saw any of this, but I do remember hearing their cover of 6 Months in a Leaky Boat. Which I think is rad. Everyone thinks Katy Steele is a hotty, but I don't really. Didn't see enough of their set to warrant a picture, even to verify if said singer is a hotty.

Architecture in Helsinki

Back on the main stage, we battled through the what was now a largish crowd to check out AIH, who I'd surprisingly never seen live before. I'm not a huge fan, their songs seem to be a little too all over the place for my liking. BUT..... They did a cool cover of Womack & Womacks 'Teardrops', which had everyone singin like a stupid. It was fun... then they played all their other popular songs, That Beat was fun, but the songs just don't seem that great. I prefer the US version, Still Flyin... which I think are their best buds or something.

Ratatat

I think my highlight of the day, back in the dance tent we were treated with two guitarists playing some mean psych-electro-hip hop, with creepy videos from Predator and of Abba's faces melting. Ratatat are an instrumental duo that I once said that if you'd heard one song, you'd heard them all. How wrong I was. They played through most of their latest LP (LP3) as well as the popular tunes from earlier two albums. Everyone needs to check out the song Seventeen Years... I had a hair standing up at the back of my neck moment.... something I can't remember happening for ages (which then happened the next night at Tame Impala funnily enough). Excellent excellent band.

The Grates

Wasn't really paying attention, except they played the one song I like off their first album, and I think Patience looks nicer now with Blonde hair rather than brown. I still really don't like the sound of her voice though. Not worth the ctrl-v it would take to put in a picture.

With what was to be a long drive home, we didn't stick around for the shitness that is The Living End or Hilltop hoods. While in the dance tent Infusion and Muscles were to play, it didn't seem enough of a drawcard to warrant me driving off the Calder at 1am.

Organisers take note... this is the way a day festival needs to be.

Tame Impala @ The Toff (18/5/2009)

Triple J hosted a fantastic free gig in the city of Melbourne for 300 lucky people to experience the wonder of Tame Impala. We were lucky enough to be counted amongst this group of keen punters.

The Toff -
Cool place, it was perfect for this kind of function, free entry and mood pouring out of it's walls creating a cosy, yet classy atmosphere.

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Oh Mercy -
This was the first time I had heard them, but first impressions: think of a slightly poppier Blonde Redhead and add a pinch of The Bends Radiohead? Maybe check out their MySpace and decide for yourself. They played a good show and I think they impressed the majority of the crowd. They had a decent sound and I would like to see them again!

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Tame Impala -
Fucking awesome gig, I might even go as far as to say...Best of the year? maybe it was due to the fact that I had seen them on saturday and all their songs were fresh in my head... I had an awesome time. I won't really understand how they pull such a massive crowd considering that psychedelic stuff doesn't always do it for everyone, but I guess MGMT might have provided a stepping stone for the modern mainstream alternatives into this genre; interesting.... I was having a great night, even though my taxi driver made me listen to some indo-pop on the way home nothing could get me down!
ok, so the show started with a usual familiar song (sorry don't know the names) and kept them coming until the third or forth song where they pulled a complete surprise piece and whipped out an awesome rendition of angel by massive attack. But the fun didn't stop there, I really can't express this effectively in words but suffice to say it had me smiling for the length show, so much so the guy next to me insisted I have a swig of his pint of wine! These guys play the style of music I appreciate most and you are in to the psychedalia, I highly recommend you see them.

Roar Sounds (19/2/2009)

When someone says there are a bunch of bands playing at the Melbourne zoo, a few incredibly witty replies will come. The Animals? The Monkees? The Shitty Beetles? Well, on this summer evening, we were entertained by Tame Impala, Eddy Current Suppression Ring (not that animal-ish, but a full nerd name), and Lions eating Goat Halves (Not actually a band... more of a performance troop).

The zoo was a great venue for tunes... there was good food available, it was BYO, and there were really odd birds flying around. The catch was that it was kind of pricey, however, I won tickets so poo poo to you I guess.

Tame Impala
Still an excellent band that actually do live up to all the hype that surrounds them. The crowd chilled on their picnic blankets as they played all the songs that I know but can't remember which is which. I'm pretty certain Skeleton Tiger is my favourite, as I've mentioned previously, there's a moment when this crazy drum rythm drops in and I totally lose my shit every time. Their EP does it no justice. It was also interesting to note there was a second guitarist on stage... I have no idea who it was or why he was there. Perhaps the 3 have become 4?

Eddy Current Supression Ring
I had briefly seen these guys years ago before they sort of blew up, and to be honest... I thought I had read somewhere that the whole band were disabled. I don't know why I even thought this, I'm wrong, and I apologise to the band, and anybody that was offended when I called them the Steady Eddy Current Supression Ring.

These guys tore the place up. While the crowd was relaxed and comfortable during Tame Impalas set, as soon as ECSR hit the stage everyone was on their feet. They ripped through tune after tune, few which I recognised, and by the time the sun had set... there was the most energetic mosh pit I had seen since year 12 in my High School gym. Crowd surfing, stage diving... awesome. The tunes were really good, proper rock music. Singer Brendan Suppression has a real Aussie twang, which really works with the riffage supplied by the other dudes. If you get a chance to see these guys, take it, I'm annoyed it took me this long to get into them.

I also invite pat to explain what the hell an Eddy Current Suppression Ring is... I looked it up, but Pat knows about that kinda stuff so he'll explain it better. Maybe.
(All I know is: the spiral path an incompressible fluid takes upon passing a solid object is an Eddy (current), like gasses make vortices. This expression is also used to describe an electromagnetic effect in circuits - or rings? - and suppression something that be done to an interference signal. Overall I'd say someone in this band had studied a bit of physics, or has a keen interest in electromagnetics and thus produced an awesome band name!)

Was this review any good? The event was BYO so I had a lot to drink... my review was based on some fuzzy memories.

St Jeromes Linewait Festival (1/2/2009)

It would be so incredibly easy to write a diatribe about this festival, but there'll be enough of that in every music press over the coming year, so I'm going to focus on the good! Which there was a lot of, despite what you may have heard...

Tame Impala

Due to a late start, the Tame Impala set was criminally short... about 4 songs I think. Godd thing the songs are awesome, drawn out and a whole bunch of fun. There's a whole bunch of hype about this band, which of course means there's just as much backlash. They don't seem to care... they're doing what they like, getting stoned and playing stoner jams and covers of 90's soul songs. The moment when the drums start rollin in Skeleten Tiger was one of the best moments in live music so far this year. Real back of neck stuff. The crowd loved it.

Beaches

These girls looked like they would all eat me alive, so in case of them reading this I'll stay nice... Really cool proggy rock, plenty of guitar effects and general mania. The songs started sounding a little samey, but when the piccolo/recorder/whatever bloody instrument it was appeared, it added a strangly large amount of depth to the tunes... no mean feat considering it could have easily been drowned out by the 3 guitar onslaught of bitch rock.

Still Flyin'

My new favourite band. Fun funky reggae type stuff with about 15 people on stage. I'm not sure what half of themn even did, but the crowd were totally spastic for it. Singalongs, dancing... I hadn't had this much fun since the first time I went on the Gravitron at Luna Park. Seriously... if this had of closed the festival there would be nothing but smiles today. 'I want to bicycle kick my worries away'... 'nuf said.

Spiral Stairs

Only saw a little of this guy and his band, but seemed ok. Rocky stuff... apparently he used to be in Pavement. So all them indie types cared a lot. The crowd seemed a little warey of him though, but inviting members of Still Flyin' to assist in the last song really got the party going. Wish I had of seen more.

Port O'Brian

Looked a little bit country, played some countryfied rock in the style of Band of Horses. Actually... sounded a lot like Band of Horses. Pity none of the tunes did anything for me. And I always find it hard to get motivated when a member of the band is sitting down. (hey, dummers are band members too! -Pat)

No Age

No Good.

Cut off your Hands

Only really heard this from behind the sound tent as I waited for the drones. I knew a few of the songs from the wireless, the crowd that knew them really got into it, but everyone else didn't seem to care.

The Drones

It is absolutely criminal that The Drones are not recognised as one of Australia's best rock bands. Get fucked Jet, the Living End... whatever shit is on Triple M now. 'I don't ever want to change' should be played by every shitty cover band in shitty pubs in between 'Khe Sahn' and 'Run to Paradise'. Gareth sang like a lunatic and the crowd absolutely ate it up like I ate a delicious Colossal Chicken burger from Burgers Edge. 'Sharkfin Blues' was a highlight, as was 'Oh My', 'The Minotaur'... and shit... everysong they played. See the Drones people... before you miss the boat and your kids will be like... 'Hey Daddy, when you were little did you ever see the Drones', and you'll be all 'Yeah... heaps' then have to change the subject.

Mountains in the Sky

To close the festival for me, the uplifting electronic rock of Mountains in the Sky. While the majority of the festival whinged about not being able to see the Girl Talks, me and 150 others saw a great show that was everything that was right about the festival. A bunch of people dancing to great interesting music and not giving a shit if they'd heard it before or not. Everybody in the room shared stories about the trying day, missing out on bands here and there... but in that room we were united, and as the beeps looped and the guitars drifted... we danced the shit away.

Also... Tiger beers were 4 bucks!