Hailing from Adelaide comes The Honey Pies born like a phoenix from the ashes of one now defunct band, the quartet have released a few demos to show people what they’ve got to give this time around. Armed with up-beat and witty surfy pop songs, lots of fun and catchy as hell! They tackle that 1960’s rock and roll sound with a modern shake that makes you want to dance.
Go HERE to download their tracks, “Fool in Love”, “Sold My Soul” and my personal favourite of the three, this twisty surfy anthem appropriately entitled ‘”Sex Wax”.
The video below is the band performing the track live, pretty neat!
I dig, I dig greatly!
http://www.myspace.com/thehoneypies
http://www.thehoneypies.com/
My favourite Melbourne threesome, Children Collide have just had their song ‘Skeleton Dance’ remixed by those synth-loving lovelies in Ladytron for the FIFA 10 soccer game, released by EA Games. I’m not so much into soccer/football or video games really, but I am into Children Collide, and Ladytron go alright, and so I have below the video trailer for the game, featuring the remix. It’s pretty creepy, with lots of animated football players and weirdo skeletons, dancing, funnily enough.
Anyway, enjoy!
Go to www.myspace.com/childrencollide, where the song is also up-and-streaming!
http://fifa.easports.com
Two Bright Lakes will probably one day sign an act I’m not interested in but today is not that day. After seeing pop duo (or sometimes more) Otouto perform around Melbourne a few times I have to say I’m intrigued. They’ve got enough quirkiness without being annoying, and seem to know the magic behind writing a nifty indie pop song.
The opening guitar line in their new single “Sushi”, sounds like something that would fit on one of the original Contra games’ soundtracks. It’s all midi; quick, spiky and catchy. Lyrically, there’s more to it than you would think on first listen. It’s not all about men eating sushi that looks like moustaches. Pots and pans drumming and some cute girl breathy vocals fit easily with the thought out guitar riffs. Otouto aren’t afraid to push the edges of the traditional pop song and it’s refreshing seeing them poke around and try new things within a four minute single.
Watch the video clip for lessons on how to stalk people in a cute and fun way!
Earlier this year I was fortunate enough to chat with Alan Sparhawk (he’s in the middle in the above picture, if you’re wondering) from the band that are deemed slowcore masters – Low. They had been out here for the 2009 Sydney Festival and can remember being raptured by their set in the most serene of places – The Famous Speigeltent set up in Hyde Park. At the time Drums And Guns had been out for not too long, and the album was something I did get into in the interview, but I was intrigued to see what Alan though of the concept of the Don’t Look Back (done in conjunction with ATP) show that they played as part of the festival. They would be revisiting their classic 2001 release Things We Lost In The Fire for that particular show.The below is a transcript of that chat earlier this year.
Philippe – What convinced you to take on that kind of concept (Don’t Look Back)?
Alan - It’s an interesting challenge. As a band over 15 years we’ve probably played over 1000 shows, just the opportunity to do something a little bit different in that way is interesting. Most of the time our set list and our sets are very loose and we don’t know until right before we play what we’re going to be playing. This is interesting because it’s sort of a set thing and you have to find yourself in the moment there. It’s different from doing our own shows where we’re playing the songs that we’re working on right now, or we’re excited about at the time. It’s a good exercise and I think the first time we had to go back and learn a couple of the songs again it was fun.
You never had reservations about learning those songs again?
No, it’s so, I don’t know. We’ve never really been too hung up on the past or comparisons of what we were then and what we are now. It doesn’t really, I guess for someone it must be sort of a weird game that I have to go back and do that, but I was comfortable with it. A lot of those songs we still pull out live from time to time anyway, so it wasn’t a big stretch, but yeah, it’s fun. It is what it is, it’s Low playing songs from a record we did seven or eight years ago.
Let’s move on to another subject, I was wondering if you could tell me more about your school project in Kenya, it sounded fascinating.
Well, it really is more a friend of ours project. We went to him and we were going to do some Christmas shows a few years ago and we raised some money and I went to him and said “with this much money what can we do in this village in Kenya?”, this friend of ours had been going over there for a couple of years and recording their music, getting to know the village, doing some projects there and raising money for what already was a running school. They were basically meeting under trees and makeshift buildings here and there and he came back and said “well, we can build a school”, and it was sort of a surprise because the economy’s different there and a little money goes a long way in their economy, so we were able to finance most of building this school.
Did you visit the school?
Yeah, when I went over I guess a year ago this past summer. I did go over there and got to meet the village, the people are the Masai, one of the Aboriginal cultures of Africa and they live a few hours drive outside of Nairobi. It was amazing, it was really interesting. They were beautiful people, and I guess more spiritually intense than we are.
It fascinates me to know people are making music in such far off places.
Oh yeah, most of the music is vocal which is interesting because they’re traditionally nomadic, they don’t have a lot of possessions. Music is something they never really made with instruments, it was all singing and rhythm. I guess personally it was an amazing experience because for a middle American farmer kid it’s the other side of the world, and just to be there and feel the resonance of who they are spiritually was in many ways a shock to me and it really woke up parts of my mind. I said it a couple of times, the only thing I can really liken it too is meeting Jesus or something. Strange. It was really great, I’d like to go again. This friend of ours who coordinated that, who’s the original person who’s been going over there and working with them, he’s actually going to be over there while we’re in Australia.
I was wondering if we could talk about your latest release called ‘Drums and Guns’. I found that with every release you look to not limit yourselves too much in sound, and I thought you really stretched your wings with ‘The Great Destroyer’. But with ‘Drums and Guns’ I thought you wanted to explore more of a sparse, electronic edge to what you do, that was my personal opinion while I was listening to it, what are your thoughts on that?
Yeah, I agree. We didn’t set out to make electronic or sample based music with Drums and Guns. Right after we made Great Destroyer, the stretch we took on that album to me answered some of the things we were headed for the last number of years. I remember very distinctively after that record thinking “OK, there’s a weight of my shoulders, I feel like the next recording is going to be further out”. I guess I knew after making Great Destroyer that it would be very different. Not because we didn’t like it, I just felt it did what we were hoping it to. Like I said it answered some questions and resolved some stuff we had for a while, and having that off of you gives you a sense of a little more freedom. Sorry about that, that’s my three year old son on the kazoo.
It’s all good, obviously some musical influence there.
Yeah, he’s got a thing for David Bowie. It’s sort of disturbing.
I also read at the time of Lost In The Fire, the album you’ll be performing down here for the Don’t Look Back series, the bassist at the time of the recording of that album, Zack, had mentioned that touring was just strange and you’d been used to slowly increasing numbers at your shows, and then crowds just grew expediently after that release. Did you ever feel it was strange?
Yeah, it’s always strange to see a few more people coming. Particularly that record in England and Europe was a big step forward. We had done a few records before that and were growing a little bit in America and stuff, but Europe and UK that was sort of the arrival of records. The Christmas record and that record are the ones that they’ve stood up and paid attention to, for some reason. Yeah, it’s strange. For most part the fan base has been a very steady growth and I can’t imagine being a band that’s around for a year or two then has a huge, huge hit and plays to thousands of people, that would be overwhelming. We’ve been lucky, it’s grown pretty solid over the years. Every once in a while there’ll be a little bump, but I’m surprised anybody shows up any night!
Brooklyn’s Yeasayer really surprised me when I saw them last year at the Corner Hotel. While they seem to have good time on record playing with layer after layer of world music-y sounds I really wasn’t expecting them to be so damn energetic and fun live. They’ve definitely captured this energy here and created a great single for their upcoming sophomore album, Odd Blood.
New track “Ambling Alp” explodes with glitzy synths and a staggered beat while sounding less world music, and more electro-pop. The array of worldly samples from their debut album is still there, mostly filling out the background, but this track has a much stronger pop element. It’s brighter and more self-affirming than any of their previous work. “Stick up for yourself son!” shouts singer Anand Wilder in the chorus before busting out a falsetto in the bridge. I think he wants you to dance.
Is this guy some kind of indie superstar I just never heard of? To be honest I like stumbling upon an artist with an already established back catalogue via their most recent release. It gives you a lot of potential exploring to do which is quite exciting. If you, like me, didn’t know; Kurt Vile is also lead guitarist and vocalist in The War on Drugs, from Philadelphia, who have been kicking around for a few years.
His new album Childish Prodigy has clicked pretty well with me. It’s drenched with reverb and sludgy garage guitar. Just a touch of “the current lo-fi trend” and healthy set of influences from blues, psychedelic rock and even a bit of bedroom pop. It’s all very atmospheric and surprisingly catchy. “Blackberry Song” is a kind of night time driving song with eerie looped guitars and off centre vocals. Relying on finger picked guitars for rhythm as it steadily rolls along until slightly building and then slowly drifting off to leave you alone with your thoughts.
It’s just all too perfect really. American’s have been going on about how great it is to have a black dude running the country and are bound together by a sense of hope and overwhelming happiness (besides FOX news viewers) so it was only a matter of time before music got all sunny again. It seems like New York duo The Drums, have come out of this crazy mess of feel goodery with one of the catchiest songs of the year. Who can even tell if it’s good?
“Obama, I wanna go surfing”? Yeah really, that’s the chorus lyric from their track “Let’s Go Surfing”. Could these guys be any happier? Not to the mention the whistling part and simple bright guitar riff. The whole song song can be stuck in your head at once, different parts overlapping and causing you to really question your carefully constructed taste in music. I’m sure after it’s been picked up to be played to death on the airwaves and in malls all over the country I will tire of its innocent charms but I’ll probably still be whistling along. Don’t hate me.
The last thing I would think on any band’s mind when they have a new release out is to break up. I dunno, bands have their reasons I suppose, but it was a bitter sweet discovery I found with “That’s The Reason” off their latest album release Klang. I was just getting into this band after they have been around for what seems eternity. That in itself is an odd thing, because I thought this band were to hip for me to like, and I’m never hip. I’m the daggiest South American / Italian / Australian you’ll ever know with the horrendous haircut in the world.
In fear of me getting off on the insanity bend here, I will now only simply say to enjoy this racey, upbeat track as it will be the last Rakes track you will hear (unless of course they get a nostalgic fanbase who never realised the band’s potential and hence reform in ten years).
Happy Summer everyone! And it shall be very happy indeed with Mistletone’s Dent May coming down to play a few shows in January 2010. This guy, this is the guy for clever ukulele pop songs and crooning vocals.
Sat 16 Jan: Summer Tones, Melbourne.
Sun 17 Jan: Pure Pop Records instore, Melbourne.
Tue 19 Jan: The Empress, Melbourne.
Wed 20 Jan: Spectrum, Sydney.
Thu 21 Jan: Troubadour, Brisbane.
Three Melbourne shows? Well okay, thank you very much.
Music and causes. For me, they are two concepts that really don’t mix. Whether it’s Live 8 or Dark Was The Night, I keep thinking the whole idea of someone playing/recording a song to raise awareness is something that needs to be treaded with care. I mean, what good can music do? It’s action really that’s needed, I could never see how strumming a guitar can get that happening.
Call + Response is a rockumentary coming from the brain of Justin Dillon, a singer songwriter from the US, who decided to make a film looking at the shocking truths of the people trafficking and the usage of them for prostitution, child warfare and slave agriculture. Interspersed with interviews with educated people on the matter like Madeline Albright, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, and Ashley Judd, are music performances from artists which actually aren’t mainly my thing (think Five For Fighting, Switchfoot and Natasha Bedingfield). It has some captivating performances amongst them though, especially Emmanuel Jah (a war child himself) & Imogen Heap songs. As described above – the only downside being, particularly in this type of film, that it was a little hard to discern what these performances had to do with the premise of the film at all sometimes. You could tell the intent is there though and these musicians are very passionate about the issue.
Despite this, the film is a passionate documentation of a trade that is quite abhorrent, and opened my eyes to a problem which I thought wasn’t so huge. One particular part of the film which got me sitting up saw academic Cornel West (deliver an eager monologue on the aspect of funk and how it is related to the dirty and dank parts of humanity. Call & Response remarkably informative a from someone who definitely is trying to get his art (and other people’s art) interconnected with the eradication of slavery which, to me shocked me that it still exists in today’s world.
The movie is out in Australia right now. Check out the website for more deets.
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