Favourite Songs of the Year + Screamfeeder @ Woodland, 1st December, 2011

Hello friends, I'm on holidays. I've spent a lot of time doing very little and sleeping in. It has been terrific. What this also means is more blog time! Not only shall I briefly mention my last gig but there is also ANOTHER LIST FOR YOU! Don't you love them?

MY FAVOURITE SONGS OF THE YEAR AKA WHAT I VOTED FOR IN THE TRIPLE J RADIO HOTTEST 100

No surprises this year actually, for my top 10 songs of the year. I am usually a pretty dedicated Triple J listener and poll contributor, but this year, I was pretty terrible at keeping up with what was hot. I only just read about Lana Del Ray. Nevertheless I managed to come up with a shortlist of 21, narrowed down to what you see here. Most of them are also from my favourite albums of the year, surprise surprise. I gave myself rules: One song per artist, Must be in the pick list that Triple J, but must be genuine favourites. Cannot just vote for Björk because she's Björk.

Arctic Monkeys- The Hellcat Spangled Shalalala

What a great way to sum up the year with the lyric "sing another fucking shalalala". There were ups and downs to 2012, so many important figures died, so much of the music scene was considered dying, and throughout all this, the Monkeys were reviving britpop. Perfect.

(Piledriver Waltz was not in the list :( )

Ball Park Music - All I Want Is You

A sweet, heartwarming tune professing the comforting qualities of having a loved one by your side as your day turns to absolute shit. I found this one stuck in my head during a great proportion of the year, and I didn't mind it being there one bit.

Björk - Crystalline

Luckily, this song is pretty amazing, otherwise based on my rules I could not have voted for it. With thumping bass beats that hark back to Homogenic and a singable chorus line, the super highlight is when everything is lost in a massive house/techno/trance drum explosion at the close.

Cut Copy - Need You Now

An album forgotten from my top list this year, sorry Cutters! They redeemed the dancefloor with this album and their title track gets you right in the mood, slowly building up so that by the last "I KNOW WE'RE GOING CRAZY BUT I NEED YOU NOW" you can't stop your feet moving.

The Horrors - Still Life

Surprised that it was only this one or "I Can See Through You" on the Triple J pick list. Nonetheless, this was the sleeper hit for me of the year, such a slower, pulsing track on their album but so addictive and with such a comforting message; "Don't hurry, give it time, things are the way they have to be".

Jay-Z and Kanye West - That's My Bitch

I could only choose one? Who made these rules anyway! Luckily this was my favourite AND on the list and an easy selection. The opening drum sample combined with the grinding bass and the chorus chant by ... La Roux? perfectly combine with said ridikulus lyrics. And who said I couldn't find something to like about La Roux?

Radiohead - Lotus Flower

Amazing beat, fantastic lyrics, completely bizarrely timed handclaps which somehow work, and Thom's brilliantly weird dance. WHAT IS NOT TO LOVE

St Vincent - Cruel

A song I've really got into over the past few months, from an artist I've always wanted to check out but never got around to until around the same time. It's a ridiculously catchy tune, without being particularly contemporary or predictable. I also loooove the filmclip.

tUnE-yArDs - Bizness

I think I've ranted enough about Merril Garbus' tUnE-y-ArDs project, but this song is absolutely amazing and I really hope it make the 100 this year, as it damn well DESERVES TO.

TV On the Radio - Second Song

A perfect opener to Nine Types of Light and completely worthy of any party soundtrack over this summer. I love how the beginning is so completely different to the end, with signature TVOTR brass the icing on the cake.

I am ashamed at my lack of local artistry in my list! A couple that were on my shortlist included Emma Louise and Last Dinosaurs who are much beloved at the moment. I couldn't say no to the 10 above however. What's special about those two songs is that a few of my friends worked on the pretty rad filmclips for them. I also didn't vote for Gotye, but I'm not worried, everybody else has.

SCREAMFEEDER @ WOODLAND - 1ST DEC 2011

3-piece Screamfeeder et. al.

I had decided it would be totally wrong of me not to swing by Woodland on a Thursday evening to check out Brisbane's beloved Screamfeeder, who were also playing with Tape/Off and Violent Soho on this eve as part of Screamfeeder's 20th Anniversary of being a band. So I did, just in time for Violent Soho to be getting into their set. I have seen Violent Soho more times than I can even begin to remember, probably more than any other band I've seen, but this was the first in quite a few years. As it appeared, they still 'have it' (not that they could ever lose it), and their handful of new songs I heard were quite pleasing, signifying perhaps a return to the studio? A la Trail of Dead who they supported years back, VS were the band to rock out to and I enjoyed a little bit of a jump to old hits "Jesus Stole My Girlfriend", "Love is a Heavy Word" and "Bombs over Broadway". The sound was actually really good, which was not usually a high point of any of their shows; distortion, screaming and excessive feedback taking precedence over clear sound. I realised later that this clarity was probably assisted by having stood right next to the sound deck. Perhaps this is the key to good sound at Woodland?

Screamfeeder took a while to come on and when they did it was reasonably easy to stand myself right at front. Front man Tim Steward found this lack of mosh uncomfortable and asked everyone to come forward, so I could have leaned out and touched bassist Kellie Lloyd's awesome tights (but didn't).

rad tights

Being out the front however meant I had to make way for the 2 or 3 photographers that wanted every angle, which I hadn't ever found to be an issue before this night. The music commenced, and as mentioned earlier, the sound did turn out to be a bit distorted, but I would have been crazy to move. They opened with the classic "Above The Dove", and continued on with a bucketful of their songs. Many of them I didn't recognise and a few were hard to discern due to the sound issues, but I was happy to hear the ones that stuck in my head over the years; for example the fantastic "Hi C's", accompanied by Dean Shwereb's sticks-on-fire drumming, emotionally charged "Ice Patrol", and finishing with the upbeat "12345". It was a very, very long set, which was made even longer by some technical problems a third of the way through- it appeared that neither Kellie's bass nor Tim's guitar were working, and it was a good 5 to 10 minutes before they were on their way again. It was nice to hear so much of their signature guitar work, harmonies and drum patterns in one night though, and I was happy to be a little tired for work the next day.

Before their closing song, Tim got a few people up on the stage, including Violent Soho and Tape/Off, Seja from Sekiden, and apparently a member of Pavement (see first pic). They played "You and Me", a joyful singalong that put smiles on everyone's faces, even while singing the lyrics "hey now, the devil's at my feet".

It was a great 'last' (or at least last for a while) performance, complete with a giveaway of a Tym's Guitars pedal, a very deliberate and graceful destruction of a guitar by Tim (simply by bending it upright on the stage), and final hugs and high fives for most of the audience members (I got a high five!).

RIP guitar

It was a gig that left me in a good mood and humming their tunes for a few days. Screamfeeder gets 7.5 out of 10 Tim/Tyms.

please stand still when you're high-fiving Tim.

HAPPY NEW YEAR BLOGREADERS! May your 2012 be as music filled as you want it to be. In my case, PACKED!

John Waters: Looking Through A Glass Onion, Concert Hall (South Bank), Friday 25th November, 2011

One day, a man called John Waters was a playschool host. He was in lots of other acting and musically based things, but I don't remember any of them, I only remember PLAYSCHOOL.

Then after various acting roles, musicals, etc., he decided he was going to recreate the work of John Lennon into a stage show. This was apparently so long ago that it's not funny (1992) and he is still doing this thing, when he's not being a double father on Offspring. Oh and by the way, he is not the director of Pink Flamingos. That's THIS GUY.

Panda courtesy of clotwo

On this Friday night, I wasn't sure what exactly I'd signed up for, but I knew it involved said dad from Offspring and some John Lennon covers. I'm not going to explain who John Lennon is. I knew there would be some value in the evening as I assumed some of my favourite songs would be played, so off I went with the usuals for old-people fare (the parents and godmother) and had the usual too many wines.

(This is where I rant about QPAC'S bell ringing to make people sit in the auditorium and rush people of all ages while they threaten to close un-openable doors. I'll move on.)

Not long after we sat down the stage went dark and centred on a pianist on the left, Stewart D'Arrietta, who turned out to be damn amazing. He began playing a short interlude, before the band launched into "Day in the Life". The band as a whole were instantly identifiable as very, very good. I'm so used to hearing crappy covers of classic songs that I was a bit surprised at how well they played them. They had paid well attention to each little detail, to recreate it with a splash of uniqueness. And I was very satisfied with the drum fill after "He blew his mind out in a car". Thus thankfully, my Beatles snobbery was taken care of.

So as of this moment I felt I knew what was going on. Ok, covers of Lennon's best penned/co-penned tunes. Starting with the best and moving down the hierarchy? ... Cool.

But then, after the first chorus, the music stopped, all lights focusing on John on the microphone. Without a beat, he launched into a Lennon quip in a quite impressive imitation of a Lennon Liverpudlian accent. I'm not Liverpudlian but I thought it was pretty accurate, and he certainly seemed to channel the ghost of Lennon through it, with little nuances and hand gestures throughout his speech to make the character come alive. I suppose he has it down to a fine art, through years of practice. From then on the format of the show was set. Cover song; at times full songs, like the title tune, at times excerpts, like the beautifully arranged 'Isolation'; and then a snippet of dialogue from John/John, and so on. At times Stewart on piano would accompany John's dialogue with background music, depending on the subject matter.

The dialogue roughly charted John's life, from his schoolyard clowning to his rapid rise to fame with his Beatles band mates, his friendship with Paul, and the death of his mother (where a beautiful rendition of "Julia" followed). The first half ended on "Strawberry Fields Forever" (quick! run to the bar! Hurry up old people in front of me! Quick, guzzle it down! Quick, have a quick pee! Quick, find your seat again!)... and began with "Steel and Glass". I didn't know this song, which made me shameful. The next half focused more on his struggles with fame and search for meaning, and the discovery of it through Yoko, and how he transferred his new found meaning and love over to his lyrics. A lot more of his solo songs

were featured here, such as "Woman", "God" and "Watching the Wheels". It was rather lovely to hear the dialogue reflecting the context behind the songs, and then hearing said song, which brought new appreciation to the songs. There were hints throughout the dialogue of him having some insight into what would happen next: that his life was running short, and his unavoidable neglect for every fan's attention would be his undoing.

Wrapping up the performance, as "Isolation" was revisited once again, it came to the bridge, and suddenly all lights centred squarely on his head surrounded by black. John sang those last affecting lines, which finished with the sound effects of two gunshots. Lights went down. The stage was silent for a time. While we figured out what was going to happen next, the opening piano chords of "Imagine" started up slowly. After such a journey with John as John, the effect of this moment was a little tear inducing. I'm a tough cookie though. "Imagine" is such an overplayed, over-loved, overdone song, that has lost its meaning through repeated listens, however when played in this context, it's popularity all made sense. It is a song reserved for 'fucking good' status.

John Lennon was not just an arrogant rockstar who stumbled upon the greatest band in the universe, winning him life in the spotlight and fans and groupie sex and drugs. Like every other rockstar. The difference with John Lennon, apart from being one of the greatest songwriters of all time (OF ALL TIME), was that he tried to use his fame and art to say something other than telling stories. In his cynical Lennonish way, he invented things like Bagism and planting acorns and Bed-Ins for peace, to get people noticing him for the message it brought, not the thing itself. Which is why people still remember him as one of the most prolific ambassadors for peace. Sure, if he had died 10 years or even 5 years later than he did, perhaps we wouldn't remember him so fondly... and perhaps his family life would be more on the table (poor Julian). But I do think his campaign would still be remembered as one that actually did something, inspired people, got people thinking about the reality of a peaceful world.

No one is really doing or has really done that since. This may be because it is now a much more common thing for most musical artists to stand a bit more for something other than just the art. Whether it be amnesty or veganism or disability awareness or political disdain, a lot do have some kind of backing behind their art. Which is great. But we the young people (yeah, until I'm 26 I still think I can still call myself a young person), of today, do not have the leader for peace that John Lennon tried to be. Granted, we're not in Vietnam times. But there is still a war or two going on that people do tend to forget about. While John Waters has been bringing this show around the country and overseas for many years, earning him not only moolah but the opportunity to act and play as his idol, it's a good way to remind us of this fact. And while it'd be impossible to kill, it's nice of him to keep the Lennon spirit alive. So, it was worth going for that, and I'd recommend it to anyone who hasn't. I just wish I had posted this a few weeks earlier to commemorate the anniversary of his death! RIP JOHN.

7 and a half bent back tulips out of 10.

And a happy christmas from John and Yoko.