Last night a bunch of up and coming Aussie hip hop acts came together and “raised the roof” right off the Annandale. The night featured performances from True Vibenation, Rapaport, Natural Causes and Reverse Polarities; with all the cashola made from ticket sales going straight into Oxfam’s giant pocket. Here’s a couple of snaps from the night.

Plenty more photos over at our Flickr gallery.

Those fun loving pranksters The Grates are creating what we in the industry like to refer to as “buzz” for their sophomore album, Teeth Lost, Hearts Won, by giving away a free mp3 for keepsies and preparing a special pack for hardcore fans who pre-order the highly anticipated record from their official website.

To obtain the “Burn Bridges” b-side, “Call of The Wild”, just head on over here and fill in the required deets for a free copy of the tune that was originally recorded Teeth Lost, Hearts Won, but “didn’t fit in with the final idea/mood of the album”.

However, if you don’t mind getting out your wallet or downloading a respected credit card number generator, make sure to pre-order the special pack from here. As well as a copy of the Teeth Lost, Hearts Won album, each pack contains a ticket for one of the band’s upcoming shows, a handkerchief and a limited edition, hand numbered Grates pillowcase. No more runny noses and disturbed sleep, kiddies! Or alternatively, no more trying to decide how best to obscure your face and where to stash the cash when you rob your next bank! Those Grates sure have thought of everything.

Sorry about the shitty/terrible pun title - basically, I couldn’t help myself (ouch). For those who can’t remember, last April, those dapper, beat-making gentleman known as The Basics took on the seemingly impossible task of maintaining a month long residency at three separate venues in three separate states.

Come this this August either the band have matured slightly and realised how mad an idea that was or certain nasty incidents re: hygiene are still haunting them, but the trio will be taking on the less daunting task of a month long residency in two separate states. It’s still an impressive feat and you don’t exactly see Thirsty Merc attempting anything of the like. Presumably at said shows, the band’s re-issued, remastered and Tim Heath-less 2002 debut LP, Get Back, will be on sale. But don’t quote me that one. Seriously. You can listen to some Get Back tracks over at this social networking site that was once the Coca-Cola of its kid.

In related news, I had the pleasure of chatting with the unofficial fourth Basic, Syms “Neil Aspinall” Covington, over some massive handguns and targets at the local indoor shooting range about the band’s upcoming video for the new tune, “With This Ship”. Unfortunately, I can’t repeat anything of interest about the clip here because I was still wearing my earmuffs at the time and couldn’t hear a bloody thing he was saying. At least I think that’s what we were talking about. The extent of my lip-reading skills is sadly just decoding insults from disgruntled drivers whom I annoy by driving slowly. It’s better to be safe than wrapped around a telegraph pole, I say.

A while back I used some awkward albeit hilarious layman terms to describe the camera/light-less technical endeavors Radiohead were implementing on the high tech video for what is probably now the thirty-seventh In Rainbows single, “House of Cards”.

Well, the video has been out for a few days and I do apologise for being behind the curve ball (blame my recent acquisition of an iPhone), but let me say this - it is truly the shit. Not even after reading the relatively simple-sounding and helpful Google blog post do I have the slightest idea how it all works, but basically it looks like Thom going wild with a multi-coloured, digital Pin Impressions toy thing. Go see for yourself. I have to go look at some emails on my iPhone.

Digitally scanned videos. iPhones. Boy, we’re really in the future now kids.

Talent is a funny thing. Some people are good at making tables. Some excel at always being on time. And others, like Craig Nicholls, are wholly accomplished in the intricate art of three-minute long pop songs. Let’s get one thing straight here, and I apologise if this sounds a little too obvious: but when pop is done well – it’s done really fucking well - and the soft/loud guitar pop dynamic seems to prove this perhaps better than any other musical guilty pleasure.

When it comes to Sydney band The Vines, it seems that the term ‘comeback’ has been tossed around all too easily with every subsequent release after their two million selling debut, Highly Evolved, the record responsible for the band’s infamous 15 minutes of new-rock poster boy stardom, the kind that most acts only dream of. But never has it been as accurately used as now, in regard to the band’s fourth studio effort and first released on the independent label Ivy League, Melodia.

Free from the shackles of label giant Capitol and the highly-publicised meltdowns that made them easy weekly musical press targets, Melodia is the furiously punchy, often soaring half hour opus that Nicholls has been threatening to write ever since he peaked in 2002, with Highly Evolved. What makes Melodia the more authentic comeback after the somewhat clinical-sounding endeavour that was 2006’s Vision Valley, is that without an international label or a contractual obligation to fulfil, The Vines literally have everything to prove. Again.

Here’s the stats: Melodia is fourteen tracks long and if you blink you’ll miss all but its thirty minute duration. Hardly any songs last longer than two minutes, excluding the string-laden centrepiece six minute ballad “True As The Night”, which is about as good as anything Noel Gallagher ever wrote when ripping off John and Paul. There’s the radio crowd pleaser, the derivative “He’s A Rocker”, some helter-skeltering, punkabilly grunge (“Merrygoround” , “Braindead”) and frantic surf-rock shout-a-longs (“Scream”). Melodia’s not rocket science, and it’s definitely nothing new, but it is a hell of a lot of fun. And before the soap opera that was The Vines, I’m certain fun is all Craig Nicholls ever really wanted.

QUICK! Watch this new video from Albert Hammond, Jr and his band of Hispanic looking friends before the bad men take it off YouTube.

Oh, Albert. Now our eyes can be as crossed as yours always are.

So Jack White III, who wasn’t feeling very homesick at all, penned a poem about his old stomping ground Detroit, Michigan. I say “penned” not as a figure of speech, but rather because I’m 100% certain JW still doesn’t own a computer and/or colour television. The loving ode to the Motor City is called Courageous Dream’s Concern and was written in response to the misinterpretation surrounding Jack’s exit from the city two years ago. It’s also kind of long. And while we’re on the topic, it’s also nowhere near as good as the acrostic poem I wrote about Jack White:

Jack White’s best friend is called
Angus and they
Cuddle and
Kiss every night

“Whisper in my ear, young man” Jack says -

Ah, nevermind.

Read Jack’s inferior and less sexy poem here.

If you’ve swung by this blog lately and noticed all of the Web 2.0 dust collecting (or alternatively wondered why our RSS feed wasn’t updating YOU TECH HEAD VIRGIN DWEEB) it’s because for the very first time since we launched way back in oh six (besides the time we relocated HQ) we decided to take a week off. Bloggers needs holidays too. All of that uploadin’ and aggregatin’ can get pretty tiring. Well, that and the fact that nothing remotely interesting happened in the music world that week (Joy Division dude’s gravestone got stolen. Ooohhhh. How gloomy). Which is pretty lucky for us, because due to unforeseen technical difficulties (read: being capped after downloading shitloads of TV series) it was near impossible to even check the press releases we’re sent to do the ol’ we-haven’t-updated-for-days-do-a-copy-and-paste-lazy post.

So it was almost fate that while at work yesterday, an esteemed colleague asked whether I wanted to be put on the door for a Dappled Cities gig at the Factory Theatre that night. Despite the fact it was an all ages show and I was pretty exhausted from a Curb Your Enthusiasm marathon from the night/morning before (read: the reason why I was capped), my journalistic instinct told me that this was exactly the type of musical extravaganza I needed to reinvigorate our abandoned webspace. Thomas McLean has massive nuts.

It was a shock to go to gig that was guaranteed to end at nine, but it was even more a shock to discover that after the punishing half hour walk from Newtown station I couldn’t order a stiff drink to quench my hard man thirst (scotch on the rocks, thank you). The Factory had been transformed into a strictly Coke and Cordial zone, with the only drop of alcohol being that of the sickly-sweet aftershave and perfume cloaking the packed room of pubescent scene kids who kept trying to guess my age (how does one make the leap from seventeen to twenty-nine? And no, I haven’t seen your grandmother’s lost locket.)

After coming to terms with the fact my posse and I were the eldest in attendance (after the bouncers and their parents), we found the safest kids-free-zone and caught the end of The Seabellies’ anthemic style of Diet Arcade Fire, which was lapped up extremely well by the dehydrated tween crowd. While catching snippets of conversation between the crowd of frantic and slutty Christian teenage fangirls was both rewarding and priceless (direct quote - “I think Tim is the cutest, but Alex is the awesomest”), the real pay off arrived as Dappled Cities Fly marched on stage and blistered through a set of upcoming album three numbers mixed in with some Granddance favourites. I didn’t realise how popular these guys were with the kids. I’m talking rapturous applause and sing-a-longs. Which was an odd thing to witness compared to whenever I’ve seen them play an 18+ show, where the audience consists of about three or four psychotic fan girls with the rest being bitter Sydneysiders in ‘bands’ non-chalantly standing with arms folded pretending to ignore the awesome melodies before them. I should know, because I’m one of them.

Back when it was announced that East Coast rap legend, Jay- “Mr. Beyonce” Z, would be headlining this year’s Glastonbury festival, former headliner and all around jive-talker Noel Gallagher spat some serious smack at the promotors’ decision by calling their move “wrong” and offered the age old “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it” argument. “If you start to break it then people aren’t going to go. I’m sorry, but Jay-Z? No chance… I’m not having hip-hop at Glastonbury.”

So in a move designed to make amends (or perhaps kick off an updated Blur Vs. Oasis type of scenario for the new millennium) Jay-Z opened his set with a short rendition of Gallagher Bros. & Co.’s “Wonderwall”, in a performance that I can safely say is drunkenly on par with some of my finer 3 am karaoke efforts. But don’t fret G’s, because after some brief Brit-pop warbling Jay-to-tha-muthafuckin’-Z kicks into “99 Problems” and metaphorically raises the roof. Because it’s an outdoor festival. So there’s no roof. And/or roofs.

One of my worst nightmares came true the other night when I arrived late for a show I was meant to be photographing. That show was theredsunband at the Oxford Art Factory, and although I didn’t make it into the venue until half way through the set, I still managed to get completely blown away by how much these guys have improved.

I’ve seen them quite a few times over the years, with three different drummers, and this time was by far one of the better shows I’ve seen. The band have not only improved as a collective, but now also seem much more comfortable on stage than in the past; interacting with the crowd on several occasions.

I was particularly impressed with the trio’s cover of Smog’s “Bathysphere”, which appears on the album, but really came together live with new drummer Jasper Fenton kicking it off on vocals. Click away below to have a listen to “Bathysphere” as it sounds on theredsunband’s recently released and completely self-funded second album, The Shiralee. If you like it, head over to Red Eye Records and grab yourself a copy so that these guys can get a decent meal and maybe even pay their rent next week.

theredsunband - Bathysphere.mp3

Check out the rest of our photos over at our Flickr gallery.

Greetings co-workers,

I’m a little late with this but to be honest, I’ve been completely snowed under with work at the ol’ office (read: end of financial year). In fact, if it wasn’t for Ramón from Accounts (and his excellent mass forward emailing skills), I would have totally missed the embedded video goodness that is Weezer and two hundred fans (approx.) performing Radiohead’s “Creep”. The good news is there ain’t an inch of that “so very special” shit in sight. Scott, being the hardcore gentleman he is, has no problems whatsoever dropping the f-bomb in front of the kiddies.

Special thanks goes out to Raúl from Sales for going to the trouble of uploading an mp3 rip of Weezer performing a live acoustic version of my favourite Red Album off cut, “Miss Sweeney”, recorded for their second AOL Sessions. (He knows just what I like to listen to on my iPod’s ‘work it babay’ playlist when I do my cardio exercises in the lunchroom every day).

Weezer - Miss Sweeney (Live Acoustic AOL Sessions).mp3

But Ramirez being the outstanding Personal Assistant/Wingman that he is, just went that extra mile as usual (which is why he is on the kinda salary that he is), and uploaded the video footage of the performance to YouTube, since I couldn’t figure out what codecs to use on this stupid work PC. I’ve got to say, I’ve seen basically every Weezer video there is - but this one takes the cake and I’ll tell you why: Rivers acting as a business man. Rivers providing his own intercom sound effects. Business suit. Desk. Clipboard. Hot assistant (Miss Sweeney). Dancing. Hot assistant (Miss Sweeney) taking off glasses and letting hair down. Rivers acting as a business man. Rivers providing his own intercom sound effects. etc.

And yes, I run an illegal Mexican sweatshop.