Supported by: Kevin Devine

Everyone has their ‘one band’ – the one that changed their life somehow, or the one they’ve followed around on tour, or the one they always come back to, no matter what. For me, that band has been Brand New since the first time I heard them back in 2003. They were, essentially, my little secret all throughout high school, and their second album Deja Entendu changed everything I ever thought about music, as a 15-year-old girl, in no uncertain terms. The last time I saw them was when they last toured Australia in 2008, and it’s bittersweet seeing a band as you grow and they grow, maybe in different directions, but all the same the spark just can’t die out.

Warming up the crowd before the main event, Brooklyn’s Kevin Devine took the stage with a three-piece band (including Brand New guitarist Vin Accardi) for a set that was, especially compared to his acoustic performances, completely explosive and surprising. Starting off with ‘Cotton Crush’, Devine worked his way through a nine-song set that included a cover of Nirvana’s ‘School’ and an unexpected sprinkle of older songs. The crowd seemed appreciative towards the friendly and charismatic Devine, and while the performance didn’t possess anywhere near the intimacy of his solo shows, all that proved was that he’s a man who can adapt to live environments and pull off a great show no matter the size of the crowd.

Kevin Devine set:

Cotton Crush
Carnival
Time To Burn (Another Bag of Bones)
You’re Trailing Yourself
School (Nirvana cover)
I Could Be With Anyone
Buried by the Buzz
Just Stay
Brother’s Blood

Brand New’s approach has been somewhat minimalist of late. Appearing on stage drenched in singular white lights, the band looked every bit their grunge influences as they ripped into ‘Sink’ to thunderous applause. Although Daisy is by no means a bad album, some of it just doesn’t seem to work too well live – perhaps it’s the fact that the tortured scream that Jesse Lacey has adopted often gets drowned out amidst all the chaos of the other instruments, but that’s also an issue to be taken up with the sound desk. What the new material does achieve, both recorded and live, is an opportunity for Lacey to show off his incredible vocal ability – where the band has, before, focused a little more on melody, here it’s all about being guttural, which he pulls off with gusto.

As soon as the band played the first note of ‘Sowing Season (Yeah)’, though, the crowd went rabid. It was, not surprisingly, the older material that got the best response – the huge singalong for ‘Okay I Believe You, But My Tommy Gun Don’t’ was spine-tingling, and a welcome slab of material from the band’s first album Your Favorite Weapon sent all present on a whirlwind trip down memory lane. It’s strange to think that this band’s origins lie in pop-punk, considering the direction they’ve taken, but songs like ‘Jude Law and a Semester Abroad’ and ‘Seventy Times 7′ are still as infectious as ever and, strangely, it doesn’t even feel at all weird to see Lacey flit between a banshee scream and songs about girls breaking his heart.

Of course there were songs that weren’t included in the set list that would have been more than welcomed (this was Brand New’s fourth Sydney show in as many years, and they’ve never played ‘The Quiet Things That No One Ever Knows’ live here – strange, seeing as it was a single!). But the point was, for many people, to remember the feeling of being young and naive again, to go back to the days when nothing mattered but the unshakeably strong connection they felt with Jesse, Garrett, Brian and Vin. This show in all its fierceness and beauty certainly achieved that, especially when Lacey ended with a stripped-down rendition of ‘Play Crack the Sky’, and yet at the end of the night I couldn’t help but feel a little hollow.

I guess this is growing up…

Brand New set:

Sink
Vices
Gasoline
In A Jar
Sowing Season (Yeah)
The Archers Bows Have Broken
Okay I Believe You, But My Tommy Gun Don’t
Sic Transit Gloria…Glory Fades
The No Seatbelt Song
Jude Law and a Semester Abroad
Seventy Times 7
Jesus
You Won’t Know
Degausser
You Stole
Bought A Bride
At the Bottom
Play Crack the Sky

Supported by: Sailmaker

When I interviewed Kevin Devine a few weeks ago for the Drum, I discovered that he is one of the friendliest people in the current music scene. Real sweet and genuine, and he promised me, on the phone that time, to play ‘Afterparty’ and ‘Billion Bees’ for me and a friend when he eventually arrived in Sydney for his first ever Australian headline show – that was enough to make the prospect of seeing him even more exciting than it originally had been (read: already very exciting).

As a small crowd began to filter into the Annandale, Sydney four-piece Sailmaker started the night’s proceedings with a set of by-the-numbers indie rock which, while competent, was neither particularly inspired nor inspiring. Interaction was minimal as the band powered through their brief performance, which was somewhat marred by a mediocre job at the sound desk as instruments and vocals competed in an uneven blur.

But as soon as the little redhead from Brooklyn appeared onstage, all that was forgotten. Devine was instantly likeable, armed only with an acoustic guitar which was a sign that the night ahead was to be an unforgettably personal one. He started proceedings with ‘You’ll Only End Up Joining Them’, which was the beginning of a charming night filled with quirky anecdotes and beautiful music. Thanks to a quick prior chat, he played ‘Afterparty’ (“this song is for Giselle and Jess!”) and, later, a spine-chilling version of ‘Billion Bees’. Devine made the night his own by stamping his infectious personality all over it, telling stories of witnessing Sydney drug deals, sub-standard pizza and the time he called Adam Duritz of Counting Crows a ‘shitwig’ (apparently it’s Aussie slang for someone with dreads – news to me!). He was also more than happy to participate in banter with audience members, ranging from more song requests to talking about what they had for dinner. Devine’s voice is a force to be reckoned with – it goes from quiet emotion to a nerve-wracking scream, and his words are enunciated perfectly like poetry, giving them a whole new meaning when heard live.

Though the set was fairly heavy with material from his latest album Brother’s Blood, there were certainly a few surprises, including a cover of David Bazan’s ‘Curse Your Branches’, and it didn’t seem like he had a set list – he seemed genuinely saddened when he realised it was almost time to wrap the set up, and admitted later that he only remembered the ‘Billion Bees’ request mid-set.

It really was such a shame that the Annandale was not at capacity, even though Devine seemed truly surprised that anyone at all came along – it’s a rare occurrence that a performer both so talented and personable comes to our country and plays such a tiny venue and, when the show was over, Devine went out to the merch desk to sign CDs and chat to his fans, with hugs flying around like they were going out of style. Rock and roll’s most charming dude, no contest.

Set:

You’ll Only End Up Joining Them
All of Everything, Erased
Time To Burn (Another Bag of Bones)
Brooklyn Boy
Wolf’s Mouth
Afterparty
I Could Be With Anyone
Curse Your Branches (David Bazan cover)
Brother’s Blood
Tomorrow’s Just Too Late
Carnival
Billion Bees
The Burning City Smoking
Just Stay

Interview for Drum Media

When Brooklyn singer-songwriter Kevin Devine picks up the phone he begins chatting animatedly, even though he hopped off a plane only four hours ago. “I forgot that I made the arrangements to do these interviews the same day when I got home from this pretty big tour in Europe, but I actually feel remarkably normal right now. I’ve been hanging out this afternoon getting back to domesticated stuff – making some coffee, paying some bills, watering the big banana plant that I have.”

(more…)

Columbia/Sony, March 9 2010

Collaborations between musical giants can often be exercises in self-indulgence, but not so for Broken Bells, the brainchild of The Shins’ James Mercer and jack-of-all-trades Brian Burton, aka Danger Mouse. Their first album together is one that sparkles with promise and creativity, as well as influences and ideas. The Shins’ last album Wincing the Night Away had some brief forays into more experimental territory, and there certainly are a few cuts here that could well be from that album, such as the comparatively pedestrian ‘Vaporize’ and ‘Your Head Is On Fire’.

The difference about Broken Bells, though, is that the focus here is not primarily on conventional melody; there are songs that feature smooth string lines, but it’s the meshing of Burton’s production and electronics which provides an altogether different feel to Mercer’s vocals. The partnership sees Mercer performing vocal acrobatics never before tackled; take, for example, opener ‘The High Road’, which is a typical Shins cut laced with meaty synth, or ‘The Ghost Inside’, a chunky electro-tinged three-minute burst which sees Mercer adopt a falsetto over Burton’s punchy synth. Then there’s ‘Mongrel Heart’, a track that borrows heavily from the likes of The Church with its dark sonority and fuzzy electro spark.

Thanks to his involvement with so many major players over the years, Burton brings a lot to the table here both in terms of his own musicality (he plays organ, synth, bass, piano and drums on the album) and in his capacity as a producer, making an album that shines both musically and technically. Never failing to captivate, this is going to be the sound of 2010 for so many people.

TRACK LISTING:
01. The High Road
02. Vaporize
03. Your Head Is On Fire
04. The Ghost Inside
05. Sailing To Nowhere
06. Trap Doors
07. Citizen
08. October
09. Mongrel Heart
10. The Mall & Misery

Supported by: The Art

It’s a pretty cool thing to see an entire album performed live. (The 13-year-old in me still wants an Enema of the State tour from blink 182, but shhh!). My cousin bought me tickets months ago for my birthday to see the Pixies on their Doolittle tour, and I’ll be honest – I was kind of nervous. I wasn’t a massive Pixies fan – not because I didn’t like their music, but because I wasn’t wholly familiar with their music.

But I soldiered on and learned Doolittle by heart over the past few months, and I became rather attached to it. And so I wondered, walking to the Hordern Pavilion last night (after what had been a decidedly horrible day), if the live experience would be as great as my experience with their music the last few months had been.

In a word – yes.

Opening band The Art have copped a lot of shit over the years from Sydney audiences, critics and listeners alike. Originally known as The Follow, the band is musically not disastrous but vocally a bit of a trial. I only caught the tail end of their set, and it was hard to process rational thoughts about how I felt. With some vocal work, it’s possible that this band will become bearable.

Preceding the main event, slideshows of Doolittle flooded the screens behind the stage as the packed-out Hordern – from 50-somethings to trendy young hipsters – waited with bated breath. It seemed like an eternity, but when the four finally emerged the applause was deafening. Bassist Kim Deal announced, “B-sides first!”, and it was thus that the band launched into ‘Dancing the Manta Ray’ – huge cinematic sounds that rang out through the entire arena and felt big enough to blow off the roof.

The show was essentially split up into four sets – B-sides, Doolittle and two encores. It was a real treat to hear the seminal 1989 album in its entirety, with highlights being ‘Wave of Mutilation’, an excitingly jubilant ‘Here Comes Your Man’ (one of the first songs Frank Black ever wrote), ‘Monkey Gone To Heaven’ and ‘La La Love You’ (complete with projections of hearts). Black has a scream that is truly rivaled by none, and yet when he’s singing his voice also adopts an extremely sweet and melodic edge – he’s one of the more diverse frontmen of our time. Deal, however, has a voice that is hit and miss at best, frequently missing notes (especially on ‘Debaser’ and ‘There Goes My Gun’), but plays a pretty mean bass.

After Doolittle, the band scampered off stage (and a lot of the audience scampered home), but returned for the UK surf rendition of ‘Wave of Mutilation’ and ‘Into The White’. They bowed afterwards as a projection image of them lingered behind, and they reshuffled to match the image. All punters expected this to be the end of the show, and the lengthy gap and return of houselights suggested that too – until they came back, again, for ‘Velouria’, the houselights still on. Strange but somehow powerful.

And then again, after what was thought to be the finishing song, ‘Vamos’, the band turned around and launched into the opening notes of their most famous track, ‘Where Is My Mind?’. It was one of those moments in live music where you just don’t even feel like you’re awake – a dream, a vision, a flicker of total freedom. Phones waved around the pavilion, those in the seats stood up and splayed their arms and screamed – one of those moments hard to understand unless you were actually there.

What made last night particularly special, too, was that there seemed to be no animosity between band members. Deal and Black interacted happily and all four of them seemed glad to be there, unlike reports of past shows. There’s been a lot of dialogue about whether or not this was just a cash generator for people past their prime, but what last night proved was that the Pixies are still an incredibly relevant band who seemed genuinely excited about their music.

Set:

Dancing the Manta Ray
Weird At My School
Bailey’s Walk
Manta Ray
—
Debaser
Tame
Wave of Mutilation
I Bleed
Here Comes Your Man
Dead
Monkey Gone To Heaven
Mr. Grieves
Crackity Jones
La La Love You
No. 13 Baby
There Goes My Gun
Hey
Silver
Gouge Away
—
Wave of Mutilation (UK surf)
Into the White
—
Velouria
Nimrod’s Son
Vamos
Where Is My Mind?

On the first day of 2007 I started chatting to a fellow named Taylor Everett thanks to the wonders of Last.FM – he was, back then, a fresh-faced 16-year-old with a startlingly mature taste in music but who did also enjoy the odd pop punk band (if you don’t you’re not a human. Seriously).

Fast forward three years and Taylor, who hails from College Station, Texas, is busy making music of his own – though to be fair, that’s been an ongoing venture since before we started talking. He has released a bunch of albums independently and continues to make them, first going by Hand Me That Piano and, more recently, Eaux Neaux.

Taylor has asked if I would feature his latest album for free download on Shakespeare’s Sister. Misery Swimmingpool was self-released by Taylor last month and sees him do a complete 180 from the work he was doing as Hand Me That Piano. While before he was focused on being a acoustic singer-songwriter, this first release as Eaux Neaux finds Taylor Everett’s interests turned sharply towards the fusion of electronic and pop.

MISERY SWIMMINGPOOL
01. Thinking of You
02. Disappointed
03. Always the Same
04. Questions
05. I Cheated on You
06. Stupid Plaid
07. New York City
08. Taken Away
09. Apartment
10. Untitled 25
11. Information
12. It's a Trap
DOWNLOAD (78.5MB, includes digital booklet)

For more information and further downloads, keep yourself updated at eauxneaux.tumblr.com.

There’s something hugely surreal about seeing one of your favourite bands when you thought you never would. It happened to me twice last year when I went along to see Simon & Garfunkel; it happened to me again these past two nights when I went along to see Pavement play their reunion shows at the Enmore. I’m obviously not an original Pavement fan – when the band split up I was still in primary school and listening to S Club 7. I first heard them about three years ago and it wasn’t instant love, but they are a band who I have constantly come back to over the years, falling more and more in love each time.

What was particularly impressive and heartwarming about seeing Pavement two nights in a row is that, unlike the Simon & Garfunkel shows, the band weren’t at all scripted and were just having a hell of a good time together, saying what they meant and playing what they meant. The set lists on the two nights were completely different – they opened with Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain opener ‘Silence Kid’ on Thursday and Terror Twilight‘s ‘The Hexx’ on Friday – and the chemistry between the band members never felt forced. It was just like watching a bunch of middle-aged dudes relive the glory years. And it was glorious.

My guess is that a lot of those present at these shows would have seen Stephen Malkmus when he toured with the Jicks in September, so it wasn’t as much of a surprise to see or hear him. But Pavement songs, although they hadn’t been played live for 10 years before Monday night, still sound startlingly fresh, especially live, and his drawl on them hasn’t changed a bit in 20 years. Take the drawn out snarl in ‘In The Mouth A Desert’, for example, or the stream-of-consciousness shout in ‘Conduit for Sale!’ backed by Bob Nastanovich’s constant scream of “I’m trying!”.

Nastanovich himself deserves an honourable mention, actually. How anyone who looks like a high school maths teacher could have that much energy in him is beyond me – he bounced around the stage like some kind of geriatric Energiser bunny, banged away on the tambourine, rocked the shit out of a cowbell, screamed like a dying banshee and, to top it all off, took to a second set of drums throughout the set to accompany Steve West’s already frenetic beat bashing. It’s said that Blur wrote ‘Song 2′ about the dude’s insane stage antics and Sydney now knows why. We salute you, sir.

For a band that had a reputation as slackers whose live shows were sometimes more than just a little sloppy, these two shows were remarkably tight and colourful – lights strewn across the stage flashed in time to the music. And sure, there were slip-ups – on the second night it took SM about two years to start singing ‘Fin’, much to the visible annoyance of his bandmates, and there were times on the first night when they had to start songs again. Some lyrics were muddled up and some intros messed up – but really, did anyone care about tiny inconsistencies?

There were sweet moments, like hearing ‘Summer Babe’ on the first night (but not the second!), the melodia of ‘Spit on a Stranger’ closing the first night’s final encore, and guitarist Scott Kannberg, aka Spiral Stairs, taking to the mic to sing ‘Kennel District’ and ‘Date with IKEA’. Fiery and angrily passionate moments, like hearing ‘Two States’ on the second night and screaming along to the refrain “FORTY! MILLION! DAGGERS!”, and the hugeness of ‘Unfair’. Touching moments – the band still calls ‘Elevate Me Later’ by its working title, ‘Ell Ess Two’ and, on the second night, SM sang the intro of ‘Here’ as he does on the alternate version. Crazy moments, like SM jumping headfirst into the drumkit after a screeching ‘No Life Singed Her’. Teasing moments, like bassist Mark Ibold playing a few seconds of ’5-4=Unity’ before petering out. Heartlifting moments, like hearing the familiar “ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh” before the band launched into bright and energetic renditions of ‘Cut Your Hair’ that nobody in the audience could help but sing and dance along to. Far too many moments to talk about.

These are songs that have touched us all in some way, whether it was 19 years ago or three months ago, songs that were written before some of the concert-goers were even born. It’s an incredible feeling to be able to experience something that you thought you never could. This is a band who broke up a decade ago, and isn’t it incredible that people still care so much? That says a lot about the power and importance of Pavement as a band – as time goes by, their songs only grow more and more essential.

This experience was especially amazing for me because, being the dedicated person that I am, I arrived early on Thursday night and managed to secure a spot right in front of SM in the front row. Thanks to my lovely boyfriend, I am now also the proud owner of a Pavement set list. And I also went with two of my friends – both of whom I became friends with because of our mutual love of Pavement, years ago. It just doesn’t get much better than this.

SET LIST – THURSDAY

Silence Kid
Stereo
Frontwards
Father to a Sister of Thought
In the Mouth a Desert
Trigger Cut
Date with IKEA
Grounded
Range Life
Unfair
Elevate Me Later
Zurich Is Stained
The Hexx
Cut Your Hair
Stop Breathin’
Summer Babe
Here
Gold Soundz
Kennel District
Conduit For Sale!
Fight This Generation
—
Debris Slide
We Dance
Shady Lane
Perfume-V
—
Fin
Spit on a Stranger

SET LIST – FRIDAY

The actual set played on the night deviated slightly from this set list:

The Hexx
Shady Lane
Frontwards
Perfume-V
Rattled By the Rush
Two States
Gold Soundz
No Life Singed Her
Grounded
In the Mouth a Desert
Silence Kid
Father to a Sister of Thought
Kennel District
Range Life
Unfair
We Dance
Cut Your Hair
Shoot the Singer
Fight This Generation
Stereo
Here
—
Western Homes
Trigger Cut
Stop Breathin’
Box Elder
Fin
Elevate Me Later
Conduit for Sale!

To hear a full recording of Thursday night’s show, head over to Sydney Tapes.

(NOTE: Photos are only from the first night – was too far back on the second. And yeah, I know my camera quality is awful. It’s a work in progress.)

This is very exciting news for me – Scottish band Belle & Sebastian are back after years of silence! According to this Pitchfork article, they’ve been writing new songs and are about to head out to LA to record a new album – their first since 2006′s The Life Pursuit.

They have also announced a bunch of festival dates in Japan and Scandinavia, with talk of a UK tour in the works. Japan = Australia????