It was a good-sized crowd on the night with a surprising and pleasingly diverse audience, ranging from young post-punk revivalists who were born around the start of this century to those elder folk who had been there from the original days, now more than thirty-five years in the past.
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Severed Heads, Snog, frogs and Ikea rats.
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The soundtrack is deserving of a short review in its own right, not the least for its own curious development.
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On the most unexpected political alliance of the year: the Juggalo youth subculture and organised socialism.
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The last of a series of concerts, this one performing Unknown Pleasures and Closer.
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Certain bands make an initial mark on the world with icons.
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As the year comes to an end there is the realisation that a half-complete text file has been languishing for a triple compilation released in October 2015. What a difference a day makes to being “somewhat late” to being “so old it’s a retrospective”.
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It was pure serendipity that I found myself on the other side of the planet from my usual home at the same time that 65daysofstatic graced Barcelona to promote their new soundtrack album, No Man’s Sky. The venue, Razzmatazz, has a good reputation and deservedly so. It’s rough and ready, but sensibly designed allowing for generous audio and viewing spaces, good ventilation, and even reasonable drink prices.
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Averaging one studio album every three years, the classic math rockers, 65daysofstatic are right on time with their latest release, the official soundtrack to the video game No Man’s Sky.
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At almost sixty-five minutes, New Order’s tenth studio album Music Complete. On vinyl it is provided as an impressive heavy-grade double album with an abstract cover design by Peter Saville, which reminds one of True Colours by Split Enz or a 1980s L’Oreal advertisement. With no sense of embarrassment, the album also includes a twelve page booklet of blank pages and uncoloured designs. This ill-considered use of the planet’s declining arboreal biomass can possibly amuse children for a couple of hours as they provide a more interesting expression of colours. As is the fashion with albums these days a digital download code is also provided.
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The concert hall of the Sydney Opera House is, of course, one of the world’s great venues. Filled to capacity of over two-and-half thousand the audience were displaying an enthusiasm that would continue throughout the night. Although older on average, there was a fair sprinkling of younger faces indicating that the reputation of one of the world’s great electronic and synth-pop bands was still continuing.
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For a band formed in 1981, Shriekback have certainly had a couple of notable breaks in their productive career.
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It is rather frightening to think that it’s now over thirty years since Psychocandy by The Jesus and Mary Chain graced the airwaves. Well, frightening to people of a certain age such as this reviewer.
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This review has been sitting in the ‘to post’ box for a while, for reasons that will become evident.
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As one of the great British indie synth-rock bands (hey, just call it “Madchester”) of the 90s, The Charlatans, left an indelible impression on
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“Last Words” (2014), is the debut EP for young Fremantle independent rock band, Muzzle, with three-piece Daniel Panizza on bass, Daniel Prince on drums,
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At a special screening at The Astor, the Nick Cave documentary 20 000 Days on Earth was screened, with Nick present for a Q&A
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Recently I gave a presentation on The Philosophy of Music. Putting aside the definitional and ontological questions for a moment, perhaps the most troubling from a reviewer’s point of view was an epistemological one; what sort of knowledge does musical and lyrical content give us?
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As perhaps the most important industrial band of the 1980s, Skinny Puppy developed a loyal following with their harsh instrumentation, samples, and politically blunt
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A small selection of oddities as a potted history in the “Yes” story, some of which are well known to aficionados, but nevertheless will give all a taste of the flights of these starship troopers.
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It’s a cute fashion for the originators of subcultures to declare its ‘death’ just as it is starting; thus the hippies of Haight-Ashbury declared
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Courtesy of our friends at The Dwarf your author had the opportunity to see the legendary Radio Birdman as long as finger was put
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(PWEI at Fortitude Valley, image by Jeff Ram Photographer) After three years of a band having a ‘new’ lineup one would think that they’re
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With their last and most successful general release album released in 1994 (Dos Dedos Mis Amigos), it is a long time between releases for
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Archive are a pretty superb combination of electronica, trip-hop, with progressive elements, something like a fusion of 65daysofstatic and Portishead. To say that they’ve
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In my much younger days, like many others with simultaneous libertarian and socialist convictions, a gravitation towards the political side of punk rock had
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Midge Ure is a musician who shouldn’t require much of an introduction. He’s travelled from from the Rich Kids in the 1970s, to Visage,
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Among the aging fans of good eighties music the prospect of The Church, Devo, and Simple Minds all at one show came with some
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The “industrial groove machine” known as The Sisters of Mercy recently performed twice in Melbourne at the Corner Hotel and apparently also at the
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In previous reviews the general superiority of Billboard as a venue has been mentioned and they remain applicable here; the light is better, the
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