Author results: Wilfred Brandt
Stroke: Stongs for Chris Knox
The history of punk and DIY music is super inspiring, and songwriting is fu*king tough.
These are just two reasons why Chris Knox is revered not only in his native New Zealand, but worldwide. In 1979 he formed Tall Dwarfs with Alec Bathgate, helping to pioneer a lo-fi, DIY aesthetic that combined punk's simplicity and disdain for musical virtuosity with home-recording experiments, cryptic lyrics, introspection, and the ultimate rebellion in counter-culture circles - admitting to love pop songs and hooks.
Difficult Music Festival
While Sydney's small bars and tiny cafes proliferate (yay!), live music venues and strange shops are closing (yikes!).
Sedition barbershop has resisted the gentri-fabulous-cation of its surroundings in Darlo for years, stocking weird shit and just generally not giving a damn. Several small spaces around town have started/continued showcasing experimental noise artists (places like Hellen Rose Labrotorium, Red Rattler and Locksmith Project Space).
Danimals Single Launch
We're all back in Sydney and thank God all that holiday crap is over with. You know how you can celebrate? Danimals!
One of the most exciting Aussie acts around, Danimals make music that twists, turns and sputters with life. They kinda sound like Flying Lotus making beats for Animal Collective (and their antecedent Beach Boys), with playful melodies, lo-fi, shambling production and a sunny disposition.
Grand Gelato
Sing it with me: "G to the E-L, A to the T-O"
Summer in Sydney means many things. A tasty scoop or three of gelato always ranks high on the list of ways to cool off (coming in just above standing in the walk-in beer cooler at Amatos Liquor).
Newcomer to the highly-competitive gelato scene is Glebe's Grand Gelato - and yes, they're a contender.
Ordinary Magazine
What David Lynch showed us with Blue Velvet was how beneath the ordinary, every day life... there's some creepy shit going on. What we try and show each week with TwoThousand is how beneath the ordinary, every day life, there's some awesome shit going on.
Ordinary Magazine shows us that there's a fine line between creepy and awesome.
Maker, Pontiak
Regardless of the era, older brothers who smoke pot and play Dungeons and Dragons are perennially cool. Virginia's Pontiak capture that wizards and jean jacket vibe perfectly on Maker, their third full-length album.
Trudging through stacks of sludge and fuzz, this is slow-groove downer rock, like if Dead Meadow, Black Mountain, and Tame Impala made a really stoned baby with Black Sabbath.
Privileged Woes, Oh Mercy
The croon is making a comeback.
I'm not talkin' Bing Crosby crooning; I mean the kind the New Romantics revitalised, and that The Smiths have stamped eternally, indelibly cool. It's in new bands like Cut Off Your Hands and Foreign Born, and Melbourne's shockingly able upstarts Oh Mercy.
After gaining considerable buzz off their EP, In The Nude for Love, Oh Mercy's debut LP, Privileged Woes, is a killer collection of songs for springtime, with a wry sense of humor and catchy melodies.
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