Column: News
| Date Published: Monday, 9 July 12
| 10 months, 2 weeks ago
The song One More Day by local band Sunchaser & the Wayward Orchestra has been used in the blockbuster film Rock of Ages. Not surprisingly, the band were elated to hear the news.
Band frontman and songwriter Jason Campbell-Smith says, “It’s especially exciting to be included in a film where the story revolves around classic rock and is jam-packed with such huge hits; it’s a compliment to our work and spurs us on to keep doing what we do.”
The song was pitched to Hollywood by Hook, Line and Sync, an Australian licensing company that places home grown music into film/TV with companies such as Warner Bros, NBC, CBS, Paramount, Disney and Universal.
“Landing One More Day in Rock of Ages was a huge surprise for all of us,” says Jamie Brammah from Hook, Line and Sync. “They dropped the track in between some monster ‘80s hits and the fact that it’s the only Aussie song in the movie and it’s from an indie band is testament that their track fits the bill.”
The song is included on the bands recently released EP and available for online purchase at www.swomusic.com.
Well, Tex Perkins is bringing his stunningly successful show, The Man In Black: The Johnny Cash Story, back to Canberra Fri-Sun August 17-19. This is the gimmick: he imitates Johnny Cash, sings Cash’s songs in a thematically and chronologically coherent order and walks away with a wad of cash. Meanwhile at the Southern Cross Club, some other guy’s rinsing more punters doing the same things for another dead guy, Michael Jackson, on Thursday August 2, albeit a guy with considerably more accusations of paedophilia hovering over his garishly overwrought grave. How this differs from remaking a classic movie beats me. And Walk The Line was pretty good too. Anyway, tickets are available from Canberra Theatre Centre. There are your unbiased facts. Hence: news.
For those who missed out first time round, Bone hit the ACT back in 2010 and teamed up with KP for a full house show of 1,000 and an after party we won't forget. Krayzie and Wish loved the capital and they are coming back for round two: Friday September 21, 8pm. Bone Thugs N Harmony burst onto the hip hop scene in the ‘90s, signing on with the late Eazy E's Ruthless Records. With the backing of Eazy, Bone came into the game at full throttle, using their signature sound to cement themselves as one of the most successful groups hip hop has ever seen. Bone will again be supported by Big Dave, Grantwho? and Kitty B performing songs from the upcoming Self Made LP for the first time. Tickets are available through Moshtix and Ticketek.
After the successful Amped Up In Conversation event in March, at which The Jezabels were announced as the winner of The 7th Amp, the team behind The Australian Music Prize have started work upon The 8th Amp. Notably, for the first time, entry to The Amp is free-of-charge. Also for the first time The Amp has already started collecting albums for consideration. “We’re simplifying the process for artists and going digital,” says Scott B. Murphy, the Founder and Prize Director of The Australian Music Prize. “We now accept Australian artist album releases digitally and – when the panel is ready – our judges can access the music online, as and when it suits them.” The Amp urges artists, labels, publishers or anyone who’s heard an Australian artist album release this year, of any musical style or genre, to have it considered by the judges. For details and entry forms, visit www.australianmusicprize.com.au.
This Saturday July 7 will see the Computer & Electronic Fair take over Southern Cross Stadium, Tuggeranong. I’ve never been to one of these things. Hyping it won’t come naturally but let’s see how this goes.
OK, so the ad here says ‘Bargains Galore – Rock bottom prices.’ And there’s a little cookie cutter graphic with the words ‘New electronic dealers welcome!’ in it. So if you were to offer the people at this market money, you would offer them a price similar to what you’d offer for something found beneath a rock. That varies a great deal with climate and location. The undersides of rocks are interesting in hot, moist climates—but then what interests me may not interest you. It may disgust you.
A friend of mine once ran 300 metres and vomited when we chased him with a caterpillar.
Then again, this rock could be deep underground—in a mine, perhaps—and underneath it there may be treasures untold. To generalise, you would probably pay more for what’s under that rock than for the aforementioned topsoil-dwelling grubs. To my mind, it seems likely the prices at this Computer & Electronic Fair will be somewhere between the two.
As for ‘New electronic dealers’, my mind says garage sale. My heart says Jawas.
The Fair also runs Saturday July 21 at the Old Bus Depot Markets and Saturday July 28 at Exhibition Park In Canberra. Entry is $3 and free for kids.
Sydney indie-art pop-rock powerhouse Dappled Cities will return this Friday August 3 with their fourth album, Lake Air. The record constitutes the first release on HUB The Label: the new partnership between HUB Artist Services and Inertia.
Conceived while living in London and three years in the making, Lake Air is wild, breezy, thrilling, lofty and anything but ordinary. Shedding the imposing and complex sonic layers of their 2009 breakthrough Zounds, the new album apparently showcases a sublime clarity with a sparser, loftier sound than ever before.
If Zounds was the sound of Dappled Cities growing up, Lake Air is the rediscovery of their youth, the reordering of their ambitions and their subsequent reflections on life, death and family. Or that’s what their press release says. It could be lying.
Forming in their teens, Dappled Cities have experienced a meteoric rise over the past decade. That part’s true. Amongst countless accolades, the latter two gathered rave write-ups from critical institutions Pitchfork and Stereogum. Also fact. At home, the band have toured with the likes of TV On The Radio, Death Cab For Cutie and LCD Soundsystem, and played countless festivals including Harvest, Laneway, Big Day Out and Splendour In The Grass. That all happened too. I saw them with TV On The Radio. They were amazing.
Lake Air was recorded in various sessions across Paris, Los Angeles and Sydney and is the first album co-produced by the band themselves with young US producer Jarrad Kritzstein. “It's everything we've ever been,” says Derricourt. “It’s got experimentation, wildness and melody. It gives me the sense that I get every now and again that we could keep doing this for another 20 years – or more.”
That last bit seems excessive but who knows? It could happen. Either way I’m looking forward to the new album. Maybe you are too. Maybe not. Shut up.
The Falls Music & Arts Festival reaches not one but two milestone years, celebrating the 20th and 10th anniversaries in Lorne and Marion Bay this year. The Festival's gift-giving has commenced in fine style with the following artists signed up and packing their balloons and confetti for Lorne and Marion Bay this summer.
By combining the sweeping pop orchestration of Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally,Beach House have become an act whose every album gets filed under ‘classic’. It happened in 2010 with Teen Dream and history has repeated itself with this year’s Bloom.
The Only Place, Best Coast’s follow-up to 2010’s acclaimed Crazy For You finds the proudly Southern Californian duo of Bethany Cosentino and Bobb Bruno maturing in their sound and perspective.
There aren't many superlatives left that haven't been used to describe Boy and Bear. Unearthed by triple j in 2009, their rise to the throne of Australian music has been extraordinary. It’ll be one of your last chances to catch them before they bunker down towards album number two.
Coolio has been dropping hits and acting up a storm since reaching chart paradise in the mid nineties. He’s a Grammy Award winner and a 3 time MTV Video Music Award winner.
And what better way to celebrate than to enlist Australia's favourite sonic adventurer Sampology. It’ll be a blockbuster mash up of the Festival’s soundtrack and video footage history over the years. Sampology will be cooking up a Lord of the Rings-sized playlist that will touch on every New Years’ memory you've managed to keep.
SBTRKT, the man without vowels will be parking his spaceship smack bang on top of us this summer. Emerging from London's thriving dub step scene in 2010, wearing a ceremonial mask to hide his true identity, he proceeded to wub-wub-wub his way into the hearts, minds and playlists of DJ's locally, nationally, internationally.
The Flaming Lips, those eccentric folk from Oklahoma touched by genius and led by one man highlight reel Wayne Coyne are coming too. Balloons, confetti, animal costumes, crowd-surfing bubble? All we know is that they’ll be bringing a lot of party to the party.
The coastal locations are beautiful and all camping is free. The events run Friday December 28 – Tuesday January 1 in Lorne, Victoria, and Saturday December 29 – Tuesday January 1 in Marion Bay, Tasmania. All ages.
To be at The Falls Music & Arts Festival this year enter the ticket ballot which is now open via www.fallsfestival.com get in before it closes at midnight on Thursday August 2.
ANCA Gallery is an ideal space to present solo or group exhibitions and is inviting applications from both artists and curators for the second half of 2013. Australian National Capital Artists Inc. (ANCA) is an artist-run-initiative located in Canberra. ANCA’s mission is to promote visual arts and cultural development through a dynamic sustainable organisation by providing access to affordable professional studio and exhibition space. The application form, hire conditions and floor plan are available for download from the ANCA website: www.anca.net.au. Proposals are due by Friday August 17. For further information contact Jan Falsone, ANCA Gallery Development Officer, on (02) 6247 8736 or via email at gallery@anca.net.au.
DEFYNT Music Australia (DMA) is an independent hip hop label which was founded in late 2011 by Chris Abideen aka MC Defyntz ('Defiance'), the end result of three established entities working collaboratively towards a common goal - to promote the balance between lyrically diverse, socially conscious hip hop and hip hop made to appeal to the masses. DMA the label will officially launch its permanent home (www.defyntmusicaustralia.com) in the latter part of 2012. Over the coming three years the team at DMA have planned seven releases under the DMA banner which will be distributed digitally via TuneCore. Defyntz and Moshated have already launched their first single, Dear Lord, available for free download from Soundcloud and Triple J unearthed. You can keep abreast of developments with the new label on Twitter (@DEFYNTmusicAus) or via their Facebook page.
