Perth Music

Hot off the heels of the most successful Global Gathering in the UK to date, Mellen Events, Future Entertainment, the Angel Music Group and Ministry Of Sound Australia announce the most dynamic and groundbreaking joint venture the Australian music industry has seen in a very long time; the launch of the Global Gathering Festivals across the country this coming November.

Since its launch in 2001, Global Gathering has become the world’s undisputed front-runner of dance festivals.  A massive 50,000 revellers congregate annually from all corners of the globe at the renowned Long marston Airfield, Stratford Upon Avon in the last weekend in July, creating the biggest dance and live music weekender of the European summer.  This year’s record attendance exceeded 55,000 and stood tall as the strongest performer amidst the myriad of UK festivals this summer.

This is a landmark union between Australia’s largest festival promoter and international touring agent, Australia’s most recognised dance music brand and record label, and the UK’s most successful dance festival promoters.

Global Gathering
Sat 22nd November - Sidney Myer Music Bowl, Melbourne
Sun 23rd November - The Esplanade, Perth
Sat 29th November - Brisbane Turf Club (Doomben Racecourse), Brisbane
Sun 30th November - Hordern Pavilion, Royal Hall of Industries & the Entertainment Quarter, Moore Park, Sydney

Lineup:
Kraftwerk (live)
Mark Ronson & The Version Players (live)
Gorillaz Sound System
The Orb (live)
Fischerspooner (DJ set)
Above & Beyond
Felix Da Housecat
ATB
DJ Sneak
Dirty Soth
The Potbelleez (live)
Kazu Kimura
LA Riots
Larry Tee
The Stafford Brothers
TYDI
and many more still to be announced…

Tickets on sale nationally at 12 noon this Monday September 1.  For more info visit www.global-gathering.com or www.mellenevents.com

Saturday 16th August 2008
Amplifier Bar, Perth
Trial Kennedy
Mere Theory
Grim Fandango

It was a cold night in Perth that saw a healthy crowd descend upon The Amplifier Bar to see three exciting bands put on a show that felt more like a local gig than a touring show. Parking next door, the music was pounding and I regretted running late but luckily the line outside was short so it took no time at all to get inside. Local rockers Grim Fandango were on stage as I entered but there was no sound. Everyone was running around looking a little stressed out and a little angry. Just then the band announced that even though it was half way through their set, the guitarist had blown the amp and could not go on. Quite ironic that an amp was blown at The Amplifier.

The crowd gathered closer to the stage as Adelaide’s Mere Theory started playing their no nonsense rock that exploded onto the audience. The bass player had everybody watching him as he violently started swinging his bass around him knocking over speakers, almost hitting lead singer, Chris Mellow, and just looking like he was out of control. Apart from that craziness the band did a great job entertaining all that were there with solid rock music. And it turned out later, after I saw him walking around with a walking stick, that the bass player was blind. Not blind drunk, but actually blind.

The whole place was buzzing as Trial Kennedy jumped on stage and got straight into showing everyone how good their debut album, New Manic Art, is. The band did a good job in trying to get on the local crowd’s good side dedicating three separate songs to three separate local bands, in Calerway (calling them great mates), Gyroscope (calling them the best band in Australia) and Karnivool (calling them cunts, as a joke). The big crowd pleasers were Neighbours, Colour Day Tours, Sunday Warning and The Great Escape. It was a fantastic gig and Trial Kennedy impressed everybody that was there, hopefully there will be many tours by these fellas very, very soon.

RTRFM 92.1 continues to turn Perth radio on its head with Radiothon 2008: Turn it up!

It’s that time of year when RTRFM 92.1 asks for your support to promote the upcoming festivities and raise the support and funds the station needs to supply the sound alternative to Perth’s airwaves.

Radiothon will kick off on Friday 29 August with a launch from Planet Books on Beaufort St during an outside broadcast of the Breakfast with Barr program featuring all the regulars plus some very special musical guests.

For one action-packed week RTRFM asks it’s listeners to express their love for the station by taking out an annual subscription (prices listed below).  Everyone who subscribes during Radiothon will go into the draw to win some massive major prizes!  With over $150,000 worth of prizes to be won and an average of 2,500 subscribers during Radiothon, you’re looking at some pretty good odds of being a big winner!  But more importantly, the station relies on your subscriptions during Radiothon to ensure it can continue to operate.

Subscribe to RTRFM 92.1 during Radiothon 2008 for your chance to win a massive HiFi system and CD pack from Simply Hi-fi and Universal Music, Honda scooter from West Coast Honda, private film screening for you and your friends from Luna Palace Cinemas, Stanton DJ Set-ups and bass guitar and amp packages from Kosmic Music, PA Package from Theo’s Music, recording time from Poons Head, music gear from Billy Hyde, books, clothes, free meals all around town, mountains of CDs, a year’s free broadband from Westnet, Perth Festival tickets and Lotterywest Festival Films season pass, audio gear, skydives, helicopter rides and lots more!

Listeners can subscribe by calling the Radiothon hotline, (08) 9260 9210, logging on to www.rtrfm.com.au or sending a cheque or money order to PO Box 842, Mt Lawley, WA 6929.

Following on from their incredible recent performances at this year’s Fuji Rock and Splendour In The Grass festivals, The Vines are pleased to announce that they will be embarking upon their first full length national album tour in over four years this coming October and November in support of their brand new long-player, Melodia.

After their many well documented trials and tribulations, no one really had the right to expect to find The Vines in such rude health in 2008, but with the release of Melodia, the band have come full circle, recording their best album since ‘Highly Evolved‘ and playing the finest live shows of their career. Anyone who has witnessed the band’s incendiary sets at Splendour, Homebake or Big Day Out over the past two years will attest to the fact that as a live force they are now nigh on unstoppable.

With the first single He’s A Rocker having reacquainted the listening public with the trademark razor-sharp pop instincts that led to The Vines becoming one of Australia’s most recognisable and passionately supported bands, the band will be releasing the album’s scorching opener Get Out to coincide with the shows, a song that has immediately become a festival crowd favourite.

Tickets on sale Friday 5th September

Tour Dates:
Fri 24th October - ANU Bar, Canberra
Sat 25th October - Hi Fi Bar, Melbourne
Thur 30th October - Great Northern Hotel, Byron Bay
Fri 31st October - Tivoli, Brisbane
Sat 1st November - The Metro, Sydney (Licensed All Ages)
Fri 7th November - Governor Hindmarsh, Adelaide (Licensed All Ages)
Sat 8th November - Rosemount Hotel, Perth

End Of Fashion - Fussy

End Of Fashion - Kamikaze

Upon its release, The Grates debut album Gravity Won’t Get You High immediately shot to the ARIA top-ten, was nominated for awards, and sold over 50,000 copies. The trio slogged it out for two years straight, with sold-out Australian tours, shows in the UK, US and Canada, and garnered gushing press coverage. With their new album Teeth Lost, Hearts Won, The Grates faced a new challenge in the studios: being their own co-producers for the very first time. While sound engineer/producer Peter Katis (Interpol, Mates of State, The National) joined the ride again, this time, The Grates were also alongside him closely at the producer’s desk at Tarquin Studios, a gutted-out attic in Connecticut, USA. Initially, taking the production helm - occasionally by themselves - scared them. Needless to say, the band’s newfound musical smarts have paid off. This batch of songs is more sophisticated and punch-in-the-guts catchy than anything they’ve done before. Hand-clapping, foot-stomping first single ‘Burn Bridges’ is a good indicator of The Grates’ new musical direction, but also provides a handy manifesto. Guitarist John Patterson spoke to Justin Middleton for this exclusive interview.

Click here to download the podcast of the entire interview. (9:00 - 2.1Mb)

“We are super happy. In the US we were in this house in Conneticut which was this huge stately mansion on a main road in a dirty area. We all lived in this house and it was half winter, half spring and we barely left. We worked upstairs and slept downstairs and that’s kind of how I like to work, just put everything into it and have nothing else to focus on. It was great. Peter Katis lives in Conneticut and the studio is in his house so we just went to his house. There was nothing special about the place except he was there.”

I asked John what it was like being away from Australia to record the album. “We’ve done both of our albums away from home and I would have a lot of trouble trying to work on something at home. There are so many distractions when you have to go home to your house and you have your family there or you pick someone up or drop someone off or you have bills to pay and stuff. When you are away you don’t have any distractions, even with the timezones no one can really call you up. It’s a great way to get away from everything.”

Second albums can sometimes cause problems with bands especially trying to live up to expectations and writing new songs. I asked John if this was the case with Teeth Lost, Hearts Won. “It was harder to write songs because when you first start writing songs it’s so easy because you’ve never done anything before. You feel so super original for writing your first 20 songs because you’ve never written songs before. The more you write the harder it is to feel you are doing something original and feel like you are doing something new. So it takes a lot longer to write songs and we had to put a lot of effort into making things feel organic. Even though it took a long time to arrange the songs and stuff a lot of thought was put into making it feel like they grew organically instead of just having that organic feel just because you wrote it really quickly.”

Asked what the songwriting process of the band was, John replied “The only way we have been able to get it to work is Patience and I start writing something at exactly the same time pretty much. I might write something on guitar and she sings something in the next 30 seconds or something. Otherwise we all get quite anxious and feel a lot of stress. If I write a guitar riff and leave it with Patience for a day or something, there’s no way she will be able to write anything for it because she will feel too much pressure. We have to do it both together at exactly the same time. It seems like that is the only way we can do it at the moment. I don’t know what it will be like for the third record but that was the only way we could it.”

“I think this one has much more of a theme than our last record. We tried to treat every song separately on the last one and this one was all written within a year and lyrically there are similar themes and musically I tried to bring in little melodies. We always try anything that is hanging around the studio. I played bass guitar and somebody else played bass guitar and we hadn’t done that before so I think there is bass guitar on six or seven songs this time. I think Patience can credit herself with handclapping as an instrument so she can sound like she can play an instrument. She does a bit of tamborine at the moment as well.”

Tour Dates:
Thur 2nd October - Sands Tavern, Sunshine Coast QLD
Fri 3rd October - The Arena, Brisbane QLD
Sat 4th October - Coolangatta Hotel, Gold Coast QLD
Sun 5th October - Great Northern, Byron Bay QLD
Wed 8th October - 21 Arms, Ballarat VIC
Thur 9th October - Peninsula Lounge, Moorooduc VIC
Fri 10th October - Hi Fi Bar, Melbourne VIC
Sun 12th October - Govenor Hindmarsh, Adelaide SA
Wed 15th October - Uni Bar, Wollongong NSW
Fri 17th October - Metro, Sydney NSW
Sat 18th October - Cambridge Hotel, Newcastle NSW
Thur 23rd October - Prince Of Wales, Bunbury QLD
Fri 24th October - Settlers Tavern, Margaret River WA
Sat 25th October - Capitol, Perth WA

For more info visit www.thegrates.com

The Grates - Burn Bridges

Read on… because here is the news that everyone has been waiting for! MGMT – the super cool Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden – are touring Australia for the first time ever this December. The band who’ve created a storm here in Australia & around the world over the last few months will perform headline shows in Perth, Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne.

Whilst MGMT might seem like an overnight success, they’re not. Goldwasser and VanWyngarden have been performing together since their freshman days at uni back in 2001. After their graduation in 2005, the band took their hyped live show on the road and following a brief hiatus, secured their record deal internationally with SonyBMG.

From there things snowballed, with the band exploding onto the international music scene earlier this year. The trippy duo’s hit song ‘Time To Pretend’ was added to radio the world over, used on the hit UK TV show ‘Skins’ and the USA’s ‘Gossip Girl’ and earned the pair appearances on Letterman and Conan O’Brien.

The buzz band at this year’s SXSW, MGMT’s psychedelic debut Oracular Spectacular caused a wave of excitement amongst critics and fans alike upon its release in May.

Now with another hit song ‘Electric Feel’ flooding the airwaves and a wealth of live experience (including Glastonbury, T in the Park and Lollapalooza of late), MGMT will be the concert of the Summer.

Enigmatic Sleepy Jackson frontman Luke Steele will be the special guest support on all shows.

Tour Dates:
Sat 6th December - Belvoir Amphitheatre, Perth
Tue 9th December - Enmore Theatre, Sydney
Wed 10th December - The Tivoli, Brisbane
Thur 11th December - The Palace, Melbourne

FRIDAY, JANUARY 2
The Hives, Pete Murray, Architecture In Helsinki, Donavon Frankenreiter, Birds Of Tokyo, Liam Finn, TZU and The Drones and more to be announced

SATURDAY, JANUARY 3
Franz Ferdinand, The Kooks, The Cat Empire, Gomez, Pete Murray, Tegan And Sara, The Grates, Atmosphere featuring Brother Ali, Faker, Eli ‘Paperboy’ Reed And The True Loves, Jamie Lidell, Karnivool, Mystery Jets, Soko, A-Trak, Wolf & Cub and more to be announced

Western Australia’s very own Music, Camping and Arts Festival is back to nature with the finest rollcall of rockers, boppers and beat makers this side of Pluto. So, without further adieu, may we introduce the Southbound family for 2009. First up, a very big band from a very little country…those great Scots Franz Ferdinand. Now, say ‘yeah’ for our raucous Swedish brothers The Hives. And we see you’ve already met The Kooks. Watch those sharp horns…The Cat Empire can get a little wild. Now come and meet the rest of the family – there’s Gomez over in the corner playing ping-pong with Pete Murray. And that’s our American cousin Donavon Frankenreiter getting all philosophical with his northern neighbours Tegan And Sara.

And on the trampoline, that’s The Grates with Atmosphere featuring Brother Ali. And there’s Faker playing doctors and nurses with Jamie Lidell. Eli ‘Paperboy’ Reed And The True Loves – please play nicely with Architecture In Helsinki! Oh, and there’re the twins…Birds Of Tokyo and Karnivool. Aren’t they cute? But they’re almost as hyperactive as A-Trak. The Mystery Jets and The Drones are some of the brightest in the bunch. Oh, and that’s Soko messing about with TZU, Liam Finn and Wolf & Cub – she’s visiting from France.

And there you have it – the Southbound family. But that’s not all…there are plenty more of us. But you’ll get to meet the rest in the months ahead. More than 30 international, national and local artists will make the fifth annual Southbound Festival the finest yet on Friday, January 2 and Saturday, January 3, at Sir Stewart Bovell Park, Busselton.

It all kicks off on Friday, January 2, when campers arrive, with the Festival continuing on Saturday, January 3, and campers departing the festival site on Sunday, January 4. This year we’ve expanded the Friday night programme to include its very own exclusive performances. Unlike previous years, however, we will be releasing a very limited amount of day tickets for Friday – so lucky day-trippers can experience the very special Friday entertainment – for the first time. These changes are an exciting development for Southbound, as it truly progresses into a two-day festival.

Southbound will again feature many special initiatives, including ArtBound, which gives visual artists a chance to get involved in the cultural celebration that is Southbound. More details for the initiative will be announced shortly. EcoBound will also be back greener and more eco-friendly than ever.

TICKET INFORMATION
Happy Camper Tickets – These include two nights camping on Friday and Saturday night, plus the full weekend of entertainment and are $197 + booking fee.

Festival Ticket: Two Day Pass – For the very first time Saturday ticket holders can purchase a strictly limited amount of Friday day tickets for an additional $70. That’s $189 + booking fee for two days’ worth of festivities…

Festival Ticket: Saturday Only – Saturday tickets are $119 + booking fee.

Or if you’re up for a bit of convenience, snap yourself up a Pampered Camper ticket, which will make it all the more easy – arrive with your tent already set-up in a prime position! Now, that’s the business. Head to www.sunsetevents.com.au for more information, where you’ll also find information on VIP tickets.

Go to www.sunsetevents.com.au for full ticketing information, including bus tickets.

Public tickets go on sale Monday, September 15.

After playing to over 1 million people with their renowned energetic live gigs and their TV performances, Faker now celebrate their second album Be The Twilight officially achieving Gold sales status. Be The Twilight features Faker’s Top 10 hit single This Heart Attack – which is still in the ARIA chart after staggering 40 weeks! After a #5 peak on iTunes, a #5 peak on the radio airplay chart, a ‘Law & Order’ promo and endless TV performances, This Heart Attack has well and truly been seen and heard across the nation and also came in at a very respectable #5 on the Triple J Hottest 100. Far from resting on their laurels, Faker are soon to head out on the road on the ‘Are You Magnetic Tour’, supported by Sparkadia. Bassist Nic Munnings spoke to Justin Middleton for this interview.

Click here to download the podcast of the entire interview. (9:56 - 2.3Mb)

“It’s pretty surreal. It’s really exciting, we’ve been doing this forever and it’s flattering that people are starting to pay some attention to it. We never really have any idea what is going to happen next. The best we can do is try and write songs that we like and try not to care too much whether other people like them as well.

I asked Nic if the band felt more pressure from outside influences or themselves while writing and recording Be The Twilight. “We probably put more pressure on ourselves after the first record. It seemed to take us forever to get our teeth into the process for the second album. We were basically doing demos for two years from just before the first record came out until when we recorded Be the Twilight. We didn’t really feel a great deal of pressure from anywhere else but there were definitely points where we were going ‘What the fuck are we doing?’. We kind of had 45 songs before we went into pre-production and there was quite a lot of trimming down to come up with 12 songs out of that.”

The album was recorded in LA and I asked Nic if it was good to be away from friends and family for the period of recording. “The main thing about recording in LA was being away from everything. We worked really hard and were there for three months. We had a couple days off when we got there but other than that we were working six day weeks, up to about 14-15 hours a day. We didn’t get much of the sightseeing experience of LA and there is a reputation of LA people being superficial but we didn’t see that. You really need to be able to focus on the task at hand and we really thought we were going to be making the record at home so I don’t think we would have been able to focus all the energy if we were kind of going home at the end of the day.”

Asked what the band are up to at the moment and coming up in the next few months Nic replied “The tour starts next month but we a couple one off shows leading up to that. We are turning on the tap slightly before letting it all out. At the moment we are up the coast doing some demos of new stuff so that’s already underway. That will be the next thing we do after the tour and it’s pretty rare that we actually stop. Nathan will always be coming up with things while on tour but by and large, the touring side of things is not really where the creative process happens. It’s usually pretty important for us to find some space and time to let that stuff happen because on tour every ten hours you have to be somewhere else.”

I asked Nic how much he enjoys making music videos and especially the new Are You Magnetic clip which can be viewed at the bottom of this post. “It was even more colourful on set due to the amount of digital effects and stuff. We had a blue screen and we were wearing green lab coats that I don’t think are ever actually green in the video. The main thing was working with the guys making the video and making it a collaborative effort instead of them telling us to stand here and there. There is a lot of standing around but it’s important to feel like you have some involvement in the visual representation of your music. Our old drummer Paul used to say that every time he had to make a video a little piece of him died inside. But maybe that’s why he isn’t in the band anymore.”

Are You Magnetic Tour Dates:
Thur 4th September – Prince Of Wales, Bunbury, WA
Fri 5th September – Metro City, Perth, WA
Sat 6th September – Settlers Tavern, Margaret River WA
Fri 12th September – Forum Theatre, Melbourne, VIC
Sat 13th September – Wrestpoint Showroom, Hobart, TAS
Sun 14th September – HQ, Adelaide, SA
Thur 18th September – Tivoli Theatre, Brisbane QLD
Fri 19th September – Coolangatta Hotel, Gold Coast, QLD
Sat 20th September – Enmore Theatre, Sydney, NSW (licensed and all ages)

For more info visit www.faker.com.au

Faker - Are You Magnetic

An unprecedented 23 bands from the University of Western Australia will be fighting it out in the National Campus Band Competition (NCBC) this year. The bands are competing in NCBC heats throughout August, with the winning bands playing in Semi-Finals across Perth against other Western Australian universities and TAFEs. The State Final will be held in early October, featuring the cream of this year’s crop of campus bands, and the winning band will walk away with over $2,000 in prizes.

NCBC, now in its 19th year, is the largest live band competition in the southern hemisphere. The competition showcases up-and-coming bands to wider audiences and has helped launch the careers of acts such as Eskimo Joe, The Vasco Era and Jebediah. Last year’s competition saw WA band Will Stoker and the Embers take out the national title, while Black Market Babies, the top UWA band, played alongside Karnivool and Bluejuice at the UWA O’Day concert this year.

Competition between the UWA bands has got off to an early start, with an online ‘People’s Choice Award’ poll showing some clear leaders before the heats have even begun. And, with genres ranging from Indie Rock to Shoegaze/Psychedelic, Alternative/Fusion and New Age Folk Electronica, the 2008 UWA NCBC heats are set to be some of the most entertaining and diverse live music shows in Perth.

The four UWA heats will take place at the UWA Tavern on August 8th, 15th, 21st and 22nd; all at 3pm. Entry is free (18+ ID required). For the running order and details of the bands playing, check out www.guild.uwa.edu.au.

Final Dates
Semi # 1 – Fri Sep 5th Railway Hotel
Semi # 2 – Fri Sep 12th Swan Basement
Semi # 3 – Fri Sep 19th Rocket Room
State Final – Sat Oct 4th Hyde Park Hotel, backroom

Prizes:
The winning band will receive $2000 worth of gear from Kosmic Sound, plus 2 days studio time from Sumo Sound Studio and all the backline needed for studio recording from Lounge Backline. All other prizes can be viewed online at the NCBC West Myspace (www.myspace.com/ncbcwest)