Perth Music

It’s all about new things for Bob Evans in 2009 – a new album Goodnight, Bull Creek! released on April 3, a new single Someone So Much at radio now and available digitally now and a new national tour in April/May to top it all off.

Goodnight, Bull Creek is the third album from Bob Evans and was recorded in Nashville with producer Brad Jones (Josh Rouse, Sheryl Crow) who also produced the last Bob Evans album Suburban Songbook. While keeping you in the palm of his hand with his endearing lyrics and melodies, the album does take a sidestep away from the previous albums to show a different side to Bob.

Someone So Much is the first offering from the album and is available digitally now. It was one of the first songs written for the album and contains the lyrics from the album title. A multi track single will also be available digitally on February 27 and includes the additional album track Power of Speech.

Bob will then take his show on the road in April on the national Goodnight, Bull Creek! tour (WA date to be announced very soon, keep an eye on the website for details). Tickets are on sale Thursday February 19 – check out www.bobevans.com.au or www.myspace.com/suburbankid for ticketing details.

Bob will be joined by his fantastic new band - Malcolm Clark (Sleepy Jackson), Hugh Jennings (End of Fashion, Bob Evans), Ben Witt (The Chemist) and Louis Macklin (67 Special) – as well as special guest Steve Poltz all the way from the USA.

Tour Dates:
Sat 18th April - West Coast Blues and Roots Festival, Fremantle WA
Thurs 7th May - Tivoli, Brisbane, QLD
Fri 8th May - The Sands Tavern, Maroochydore, Sunshine Coast, QLD
Sat 9th May - Coolangatta Hotel, Gold Coast, QLD
Sun 10th May - Great Northern, Byron Bay, NSW
Tues 12th May - Lizottes, Kincumber NSW
Wed 13th May - Newcastle Uni, NSW
Thurs 14th May - Wollongong Uni, NSW
Fri 15th May - Metro, Sydney, NSW (licensed & All Ages)
Sat 16th May - ANU Canberra, ACT
Wed 20th May - Peninsula Lounge, Moorooduc, VIC
Thurs 21st May - Corner Hotel, Melbourne VIC
Sat 23rd May - Republic Bar, Hobart, TAS
Thurs 28th May - The Gov, Adelaide, SA

For the first time since 2006 The Fray will return to Australia and New Zealand in March. Performing in their largest venues to date, these Colorado rockers are sure to ignite all those before them. The Fray will return to Melbourne, Sydney and Auckland, and for the first time ever will also perform in Perth and Brisbane. Support at all shows will come from American up and comer Secondhand Serenade.

Bursting onto the scene through a myriad of successes, The Fray claimed 2006 as their own. Monster singles ‘Over My Head’ and ‘How to Save a Life’ saw The Fray rule the airwaves, both singles garnering Grammy Award nominations. ‘How to Save a Life’ went on to certify The Fray a global phenomenon after spending 58 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 and finding placement in a number of television shows including Grey’s Anatomy, Scrubs, The Hills and Family Guy. Debut album How to Save a Life fulfilled their potential, reaching #1 and #2 in Australia and New Zealand respectively, collecting platinum certifications in both countries.

Fast forward to 2009, and The Fray are poised to deliver their finest work to date in the form of second record The Fray (released February 7). Recorded in 2008 with first album collaborators Aaron Johnson and Mike Flynn, The Fray defies the sophomore slump soaring to the highs that 2006’s debut hinted The Fray were capable of. Lead single ‘You Found Me’ this week sits at #1 on Australia’s ARIA chart – their first ever #1 single Down Under – proving The Fray will be as in demand as ever when they touch down this March.

Support act Secondhand Serenade has proven to be the surprise hit of 2008. The brainchild of the charismatic John Vesely, Secondhand Serenade released their debut single ‘Fall For You’ in Australia and New Zealand in late ’08 to a rapturous response. A radio favourite, ‘Fall For You’ was an instant smash, reaching the top 20 on the ARIA chart. Second single ‘Your Call’ is already burning up the charts in the US and looks set to follow suit here.

To date every performance by The Fray in Australia and New Zealand has sold out. With the sterling support of Secondhand Serenade in 2009, this tour is sure to tread the same path.

Tickets on sale Monday February 9. Please visit www.frontiertouring.com for pre-sale details

Tour Dates:
Tue 17th March - Metro City, Perth
Fri 20th March - Palace Theatre, Melbourne
Sat 21st March - The Tivoli, Brisbane
Tue 24th March - Enmore Theatre, Sydney
Thur 26th March - The Powerstation, Auckland

Bacardi have just announced the upcoming release of the eagerly awaited EP from this year’s Bacardi Express headliners Groove Armada. The EP is available to adult music fans via the B-LIVE Share application that can be found at www.bacardi.com. Remixes of one of the EP tracks, ‘Drop The Tough’, came courtesy of Australian Electronica duo Van She Tech and Brazilian dance duo The Twelve’s.

The EP will be delivered through an innovative online sharing mechanic called Bacardi B-LIVE Share. Bacardi B-LIVE Share is a pioneering online application encouraging and rewarding consumers who share music from Groove Armada’s new EP with their own online communities.  Sharing can take place through the site and widgets that can be integrated into social networking environments. The more consumers share, the more tracks from the EP are released to them. Additionally, Australian users have the chance to win a VIP experience with Groove Armada onboard the Bacardi Express this March – see www.bacardi.com for details.

B-LIVE Share is a pioneering application, as it empowers sharing as the future model for music content distribution. Sharing music via this method is legal because the rights owners — the artists, Bacardi B-LIVE Records and the publisher — are all compensated for the downloads and shared files.

The EP release highlights an eight month first-of-its-kind collaboration between the premium spirit brand Bacardi and the music group. In April 2008, Bacardi announced a ground-breaking global music agreement with Groove Armada. Groove Armada side-stepped music industry tradition and worked with Bacardi in touring, recording, and producing Bacardi B-LIVE — the global experiential marketing programme, which reaches its climax in March this year when they jump onboard Australia’s Bacardi Express.

The online sharing application is available now through to March 1st, when the EP will be available via commercial digital release.

It is almost impossible to overstate the importance and impact that Wiley has had on UK urban music. From UKG’s ‘Nicole’s Groove’ to being a member of Pay As You Go, Boy Better Know and, of course, Roll Deep, this enigmatic MC and prolific producer has more than earned the title of Godfather of Grime but is now perfectly placed to take the scene to new boundaries with what will no doubt be his biggest album to date. See Clear Now is the hotly anticipated new album by Wiley out January 17th. The album features a heavy-mixture of grime, house and electro-pop melodies as well as special guests including Hot Chip, Kano, Daniel Merriweather, new kid on the grime block Scorcher, Pharrell protégé Kenna, Sam Young and Mark Ronson to name a few.  Wiley caught up with Justin Middleton for this exclusive interview.

See Clear Now is Wiley’s third full length album and was released in the UK late 2008. There have been some reports of Wiley not being that happy with the album so I asked him to explain the process of creating this album and if he is happy with the final product. “What happened was that I was more like a robot on this album, I just listened to what I was told. Sometimes you have to do that to be able to see the big picture so that’s what I did. There was some stuff that I didn’t like but I did it anyway and I didn’t argue and at the end I kind of felt that there was a bad energy about the whole album. But then I listened and listened to it and realised that the album wasn’t made for my normal crowd but for a wider audience. That’s when I saw the bigger picture.”

Wiley has been given the unofficial title of the Godfather of Grime and is highly respected in the music industry with artists such as Dizzee Rascal and Kano publicly stating that he is their idol. “I said to my father that I didn’t want to be known as the Godfather of Grime because I’ve always felt that Godfather means an old man and he said to me that in music there’s Godfathers like James Brown is the Godfather of Soul, there’s Kings like Michael Jackson is the King of Pop and that being labelled like the Godfather of Grime is a very important thing and I shouldn’t just brush it aside. He said to be called a Godfather of a genre is a very powerful thing and that other people in other genres will respect me and even if they don’t like my music they will respect me. So I am trying to embrace it from that advice.”

I also asked Wiley to explain the formation of Grime music and what he thought of the genre in Australia. “I was partying in the Garage, 2-step scene and there were a lot of people that were older than me that I looked up to and a lot of people that were younger than me looking up to me. I think the Grime scene evolved from the Garage scene and kind of formed from all the people that wanted to get into Garage but weren’t able to get fully into the scene. I haven’t stopped making music for at least 5 years so when I got here to Australia I was so happy. It seems like somewhere I can take a break as well as make music at the same time. The Grime scene in Australia is small so I would love to build it up and be completely involved. I used to think you had to live in London to do what I do but I’ve come to realise that I can live anywhere in the world especially now with the Internet the way it is.”

See Clear Now is out now. For more information on Wiley visit www.myspace.com/eskiboywiley

Godfather Of Grime 2009 Australian Tour Dates:
Fri 16th January - Rosemount Hotel, Perth
Sat 17th January - Metro Theatre, Sydney
Wed 21st January - Meche Nightclub, Canberra
Thur 22nd January - Prince Of Wales, Melbourne
Fri 23rd January - Adelaide Uni Bar, Adelaide
Sat 24th January - Coolangatta Hotel, Gold Coast
Sun 25th January - Zoo Nightclub, Brisbane

The excitement for Fall Out Boy’s forthcoming Australian and New Zealand tour has kicked into overdrive with confirmation that The All-American Rejects and Hey Monday will open all shows on the tour this February.

The All-American Rejects’ return will be their first to Australia since 2006’s sold out headline tour, and their first to New Zealand since their maiden voyage in 2005. The All-American Rejects shot to prominence following the release of their debut album and rocking single ‘Swing Swing’, however it was the release of the infectious Move Along record that saw the boys explode to a new level.

The All-American Rejects will return to Australia and New Zealand in support of their highly anticipated third album When the World Comes Down. With the album already spawning the monster single ‘Gives You Hell’, there’s no doubt The All-American Rejects’ star will be on the rise in 2009… Just in time to head Down Under.

Hey Monday will warm the stage as they tear through tracks from their debut album Hold on Tight. Signed to Pete Wentz’s Decaydence stable, Hey Monday sit amongst some of today’s finest bands including Fall Out Boy, Panic At The Disco and Gym Class Heroes. With a firecracker front-woman, and a plethora of catchy tunes, Hey Monday will leave you wanting more.

Tickets to Fall Out Boy’s forthcoming tour are selling fast. The addition of The All-American Rejects and Hey Monday is set to make tickets sell that much faster. Secure yours now to avoid disappointment.

YES SESSIONS COMPETITION
Under 18’s get the chance to win some of the best tickets to see Fall Out Boy live! Go to www.yessessions.com.au for more info.

Tour Dates:
with The All-American Rejects & Hey Monday
Tickets on sale NOW
All shows are all ages events

Sun 15th February - Challenge Stadium, Perth
Tue 17th February - Adelaide Entertainment Centre
Wed 18th February - Rod Laver Arena, Melbourne
Fri 20th February - Brisbane Entertainment Centre
Sat 21st February - Acer Arena, Sydney
Mon 23rd February - Vector Arena, Auckland

Chugg Entertainment today confirmed that Coldplay would return to Australia next February on their “Viva La Vida” tour, in support of their new album of the same name.

In a rare move for the Australian market, Coldplay will go on-sale with two shows in each of the East Coast cities to ensure as many tickets as possible are made available to meet the demand that was set the last time they toured.

The four-city jaunt will kick off on Friday 27th February at the Burswood Dome in Perth, travel to Melbourne for two shows on Tuesday 3rd and Wednesday 4th March, and then move on to Brisbane at the Entertainment Centre on Sunday 8th and Monday 9th March. The tour finishes up at Sydney’s Acer Arena on Wednesday 11th and Thursday 12th March.

On their last concert tour of Australia in June 2006, Coldplay sold out a total of ten arenas shows, playing to more than 100,000 people, garnering rave reviews and leaving rapturous fans in their wake.

For all shows, a special Visa Entertainment pre-sale starts at 9am local time on Thursday 27 November; tickets go on sale to the general public via Ticketek on Thursday 4 December. Ticket details are available at www.ticketek.com.au or 132 849.

In time for the anticipated tour announcement, EMI has just yesterday released Coldplay’s Viva La Vida - Prospekt’s March edition. The two-disc deluxe package includes Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends, the band’s fourth full-length album, plus a brand new EP entitled Prospekt’s March. The EP, which will also be for sale separately, includes six recently-completed songs that the band had begun recording during the Viva La Vida sessions and brand new versions of two album tracks – Lost + (featuring Jay-Z) and Lovers in Japan (Osaka Sun mix). Viva La Vida was released in June 2008 and went on to chart at No. 1 in 36 countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia.

Tour Dates:
Fri 27th February - Burswood Dome, Perth
Tue 3rd and Wed 4th March - Rod Laver Arena, Melbourne
Sun 8th and Mon 9th March - Entertainment Centre, Brisbane
Wed 11th and Thur 12th March - Acer Arena, Sydney

Tickets for all shows on sale 9am, Thursday 4 December through Ticketek.

It might be said that natural karma played a role in transporting the image of Katie Noonan as one of the two brother-and-sister lead singers of the ARIA-award winning group, george. After scoring huge success with their 2002 debut album Polyserena, and its wonderful 2004 follow up, Unity, george took a break from their burgeoning career to pursue an assortment of personal musical projects. Katie release a jazz album with her new band, Elixir, a classical album with her mother and a solo album that reached number 6 on the ARIA chart. After signing to Sony BMG, Katie decided to record a Beatles inspired album with some of the world’s best Jazz musicians in New York with the result being Blackbird - The Music of Lennon & McCartney which was released on November 1st. Katie talked to Justin Middleton for this exclusive interview.

I asked Katie to give us an explanation of how the album formed and how she feels about it now that it has been released. “I am really proud of it. I felt like it was a wonderful chance to celebrate the great song writing diversity and beauty of Lennon and McCartney and to give it a different perspective, combining it with the freedom of jazz improvisation. The idea popped into my head about a year ago, I was living in Sydney and I was asked to put together a proposal for a fellowship. I just thought ‘what can I do to combine my two main loves of pop and jazz’ and the perfect pop is The Beatles. They are concise and very precise and perfectly structured music with fantastic melody, lyrics and chordal movement. So that kind of structure of pop I believed would mix well with my in-the-moment spontaneity love of jazz.”

“So then I thought Joe Lovano (Grammy award winning saxophonist) would be perfect to work with and he suggested this absolute dream band to work with and I honestly thought it would never happen. Even to work with Joe Lovano was a dream come true but to end up having Sam Keevers, Joe Ferla (Grammy award winning engineer), Ron Carter (Grammy award winning double-bass player w’ Miles Davis, Eric Dolphy, Cannonball Adderley, Dexter Gordon, Wayne Shorter), Lewis Nash (played w’ Diana Krall, Betty Carter, Branford Marsalis), John Scofield (played w’ Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, Joe Henderson, Herbie Hancock) was unbelievable. I didn’t realise how stressed I was until I finished the rehearsal and felt this enormous and very heavy weight lifted from my shoulders because a) they were nice people and we got on well and b) the group was right.”

With such a world class band and a very expensive studio, I asked Katie how smooth the actual recording sessions were. “We made the record in two days, pretty much a day and a half. The first day with John Scofield we did 8 tracks from 12 to 8pm and that was with a lunch break! It was relaxed. It was intense but relaxed at the same time. Everything was a first take except for 3 songs and I have never had that before. We were originally going to do 14 songs for the record and then we got through them so quickly that we were also able to add Michelle. At first I thought Michelle and If I Fell were too similar and then I had this great experience walking through Central Park. I was asking Sam Keevers if he thought we should do Michelle or If I Fell and just as we turned the corner there were 20 guys all singing at the top of their voices ‘If I fell in love with you’ and standing around this Imagine monolith thing in Strawberry Fields. I didn’t even realise we were there and we just accidentally walked right through it. So we cut Michelle and then when we got through everything so quickly we thought let’s just do it. And it ended up sounding great.”

“Early on I did limit all the songs to Lennon and McCartney and that was just a self imposed rule because there are so many good Beatles songs I had to cut the list somehow. I love George Harrison but his style is really quite different so to stick to continuity I’d stick with Lennon and McCartney. And it is pretty McCartney heavy too but I just picked the tunes that felt right and lyrically and melodically inspired me. The noticeable omission is Sgt Peppers, there’s nothing from that record and I started from Hard Days Night which was their first all original record” Katie explained when I asked how she chose the final songs that ended up on the album.

With a bunch of album launch shows set for December I asked Katie if she was excited about playing these songs live and also why there wasn’t a Perth show planned. “The studio at the Opera House is one of my favourite rooms and hopefully we are going to do a live filming too so we can do a DVD thing. My Australian band is fantastic, I really love them and am very proud of them. There aren’t any album launch shows planned in Perth at the moment but I am really trying to change that. It’s been difficult with venues and the time of year but we are going to try and play in Perth. Otherwise I will be back in March, early April to do a series of shows with WAAPA doing this material. I will be doing some teaching there for about a week and doing some shows with the students. I don’t do a lot of stuff like this but it’s really fun to do.”

Album Launch Dates:
Tue 9th & Wed 10th December - The Studio, Sydney Opera House NSW
Thur 11th December - Prince Of Wales Hotel, St Kilda VIC
Fri 12th December - Adelaide Festival Theatre, SA
Fri 19th & Sat 20th December - Cremorne Theatre, QPAC QLD
Sun 21st December - Bangalow A and I Hall, NSW

Blackbird - The Music of Lennon & McCartney is out now. For more info visit www.katienoonan.com

Fall Out Boy have just announced that they will be returning in February ’09 for their largest Australian and New Zealand tour to date! Fall Out Boy will perform in arenas in Perth, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Auckland. South Australian fans are also in for a treat as Fall Out Boy confirm they will perform in Adelaide for the first time ever.

Fall Out Boy will return hot on the heels of the release of their fifth album Folie à Deux. ‘I Don’t Care’ – the first taste of what’s to come from Folie à Deux – has reignited the Fall Out Boy flame in 2008 as it climbs the charts around the world. Folie à Deux sees Fall Out Boy at their finest. From pop punk gems on one end of the spectrum, to their slower defining moments on the other, Folie à Deux is sure to find a place in all music fans’ collections. Featuring Deborah Harry, Elvis Costello and production from Pharrell, Folie à Deux will take Fall Out Boy to a new level.

Last here in 2007, Fall Out Boy illustrated why they’re no flash in a pan, with two sold out tours, and live performances that left fans in awe.

Pre-sale tickets will be available from Thursday 6 November.

Tour Dates:
Tickets on sale Wednesday 12 November
All shows are all ages events

Sun 15th February - Challenge Stadium, Perth
Tue 17th February - Adelaide Entertainment Centre
Wed 18th February - Rod Laver Arena, Melbourne
Fri 20th February - Acer Arena, Sydney
Sat 21st February - Brisbane Entertainment Centre
Mon 23rd February - Vector Arena, Auckland
Tickets through www.ticketmaster.com.au, www.ticketek.com.au and www.ticketmaster.co.nz

When Moo, You Bloody Choir, was released in 2006, it sparked 18 months of furious activity for Augie March. Accolades poured in at home, with the album winning them the Australian Music Prize in 2007, four ARIA Award nominations, while the single One Crowded Hour topped the Triple J Hottest 100 in 2007 and was named song of the year at the APRA Awards later in the year. Moo was also the album that finally brought Augie March critical acclaim and a swelling fan base in the United States. The world singer Glenn Richards has created for Augie March’s fourth album, Watch Me Disappear, is certainly not everyday and for the first time, Richards’ imagination has taken precedence over introspection. Keyboardist Kiernan Box spoke to Justin Middleton for this exclusive interview.

Click here to download the podcast of the entire interview. (18:14 - 2.1Mb)

After touring with Crowded House last year Augie March found themselves actually recording their new album in Neil Finn’s new studio in New Zealand. I asked Kiernan what was involved in the recording and if it was a different process to their previous albums. “We recorded a lot of it in New Zealand, in Auckland at a studio owned by Neil Finn which he’s building up for a while. I think we were the first act to actually record in the new, finished main studio. We planned to do all of it there, in the past albums end up being a piece meal, a little bit here and a little bit there. Different sounds at different studios with different recording engineers. So one idea this time around was to record it all in the same place and get a big, solid consistant sound. We got a lot of it done but not all of it, we ran over time and had to finish quite a bit of it in Australia and a little bit of it was recorded in Los Angeles. So in the end there is a little bit of that global production but we didn’t intend on it this time.”

“It was different. We worked with an American producer (Joe Chicarelli) and we hadn’t worked with a producer who brought such a strong vision of his own into the studio before. In the past I think there has been a person there who has tried to keep us in a straight line, kind of let us do want we do and then trimming off the edges. But this time we had a guy who had a pretty clear idea from the start what he thought the record could sound like, and to get that we had to work pretty hard. We did many more takes of songs than we did in the past and we spent a lot more time on individual instruments.”

I also asked Kiernan how well the new songs are translating to the live shows compared to before they were recorded. “Really good. Because we rehearsed them and played them so much, in one sense they don’t need any more rehearsal but I also think it’s very important that we shake them up a bit. The record is pretty intense and methodical and ambitious in a structural and sonic kind of way. That’s all there when you play it live but you also want to create an energy to make it work with a live audience. Let it off it’s leash a little bit. We’ve got a very talented musician joining us on tour named Dan Kelly and his backing vocals alone are worth the price of admission. He’ll be playing a lot of guitar and a little bit of keyboards. We’ve also been working with a horn section but I don’t think we’ll be able to get them over to Perth.”

Watch Me Disappear is out now. For more info visit www.augiemarch.com

Tour Dates:
With Special Guests Dan Kelly with The Ukeladies
Thur 30th October - Metro Theatre, Sydney
Mon 3rd November - Regal Theatre, Perth
Sat 8th November - The Uni Bar, Hobart
Thur 13th November - Governor Hindmarsh, Adelaide
Sat 15th November - Ormond Hall, Melbourne
Fri 28th November - The Tivoli, Brisbane

The Frontier Touring Company is pleased to announce the return of Rise Against to Australia & New Zealand in 2009 for their largest headline tour to date. After last thrilling fans on 2007’s Taste of Chaos tour, Rise Against return in support of Appeal to Reason, their phenomenal fifth studio album. Rise Against will perform in Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Auckland – their first headline shows since their sold out 2006 tour. Joining the tour on all Australian dates will be Swedish rockers The (International) Noise Conspiracy.

Tour Dates:
Tue 24th March - Metro City, Perth (18+) with Miles Away
Wed 25th March - Thebarton Theatre, Adelaide (All Ages) with A Death In The Family
Fri 27th March - Festival Hall, Melbourne (All Ages) with A Death In The Family
Sat 28th March - Hordern Pavilion, Sydney (All Ages) with 50 Lions
Sun 29th March - The Tivoli, Brisbane (All Ages) with Badday Down
Tue 31st March - Powerstaion, Auckland (18+)