The bandroom at the Northcote had been transformed into a hippie paradise, complete with cardboard trees and sustainable screen printed tee-shirts to celebrate the launch of Tash Parker‘s debut record Waking Up. Supporting Tash on her night of nights was fellow band member Ben Abraham and his friends. Ben delivered a gorgeous set of laid…
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The media hype machine has been in overdrive since New Zealand’s young hopefuls The Naked and Famous released their debut record Passive Me, Aggressive You last month. The band sold out two nights in a row at The Northcote Social Club, with a bevy of excited punters arriving early to catch a glimpse of their…
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It’s been a big year for Melbourne’s finest purveyors of indie disco dance jams, and the boys of World’s End Press are showing no signs of slowing down as they raised the roof off the Northcote Social Club on the first show of their national Faithful EP launch tour. First on the billing was the…
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Three years ago, young Perth based troubadour Justin Wonsley Snowball released his debut Rules of Nature EP to critical acclaim, and then disappeared off the radar. Fortunately for us, after engaging in a journey of self-discovery, taking in the sites of London, Berlin and New York, Snowball, who is better known as Wons Phreely is…
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It’s difficult for a music enthusiast to keep track of all the new talent in Melbourne, particularly when the bands keep changing their names. Swiss have been making waves since they first popped up on the local scene late last year, and the six piece who are now known as Alpine are finally unleashing their…
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You’ve got to love Melbourne and their enthusiasm for the arts, which is so strong that even mild flooding in the CBD and a 24 hour torrential downpour wasn’t enough to deter eager punters from heading along to the Workers to see Kyü launch their debut record. Supporting the Sydney siders on their big night…
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Warming the stage for lovely local lads The Smoke, were Tehachapi, an interesting choice of supports as these two bands are as musically compatible as oil and water. Tehachapi are a psychedelic post-rock group with heavy nineties indie and shoe gaze influences. Think Brian Jonestown and Radiohead with a heavy helping of Mogwai and illicit…
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2008 was the year of MGMT, followed by 2009 which saw the rise of Passion Pit and their glorious synthesiser driven fuzz-pop. Here in 2010 New Zealand’s next big thing The Naked and Famous are set to take their place and have indie kids the world over going spastic on the dance floors with the…
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A small crowd ventured out on a freezing Wednesday night to take in the sounds of two up and coming local artists Goodnight Owl and Dan Webb. Goodnight Owl take my breath away with their sweeping, electronic ambience that never fails to deliver live. Eddie Alexander has a disarming stage presence and put on a…
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Art vs. Science have had indie kids around the nation tearing up the dance floor since “Flippers” hit the airwaves mid last year. The boys packed up their party bus and hit the road on their Magic Fountain tour, stopping by Hi Fi bar in Melbourne for two sold out shows. First on the billing…
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Hungry Kids of Hungary took on the East Brunswick club for the second time this year, playing to a full house with the last tickets snapped up before the doors to the bandroom opened. Playing the final leg of theirShady Haze of Winter tour, the challenge was on to see if the boys could warm up the…
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The new LP from Melbourne’s Gosteleradio Good Deeds Against the Dead is a down beat affair that sounds as though it was written under the influence of a cocktail of illicit substances and Pink Floyd’s back catalogue. Formed as a side project of Plug in City and TTT, Gosteleradio are one of the more interesting…
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Buick Six aren’t releasing ground breaking music. Everything on their Common Arms EP is derivative of seventies rock and the early nineties garage scene. However, there is something obscenely endearing about their particular brand of guitar driven rock that is packed full of energy, mischief and killer hooks. The boys from Brisbane have taken on…
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Brisbane artist Dan Parsons made the trek down to Melbourne this weekend to showcase the tunes from his debut LP Firestarter. First stop was a set with the full band at The Toff In Town, a cozy venue with a lively atmosphere that suited the mood of the music. Parsons is a confident entertainer who…
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There was electricity in the air of the Prince Bandroom as hundreds of excited punters braved the stormy weather and made the trek down to St. Kilda to catch electro-pop wonders Passion Pit on the last of their Splendour in the Grass sideshows. Supporting the boys on their Australian tour were The Joy Formidable who…
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Brisbane’s finest purveyors of indie pop, The Boat People, graced the Worker’s Club with one of the final shows on their Dear Darkly album launch tour. First on the billing were local act Drugs In Vegas. Formed in their final year of high school, Drugs In Vegas have already amassed quite the fan base through…
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A large crowd was crammed into the Workers bandroom to watch local folktronic act Goodnight Owl launch the film clip for “Maps and Compasses”, taken from their recently released self titled EP. Supporting the band were a young group from Geelong called Sleep Decade. Sleep Decade were a pleasant surprise with their pleasant blend of…
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Splendour in the Grass is almost upon us and the sideshows kicked off in Melbourne last week, including an intimate set at the Workers Club with the UK’s best kept secret The Joy Formidable. The Workers underwent a slight transformation for the evening, with the front bar closed off to the general public and the…
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Kat Mahina recently chatted with the lead vocalist of Melbourne’s Goodnight Owl, Eddie Alexander. He let’s us in on who Goodnight Owl are, what they’re all about and what’s next! How did the band meet and start playing together? We started playing together because Joe and I recorded the EP and then obviously needed to…
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Kite Club’s debut EP Esoterica is a surreal experience that envelopes the listener in a miasma of wistful pop melodies that are deliciously avant garde in their construction. Nicholas D. Futcher, the young musical mind behind Kite Club, has created a sound that is similar to the likes of Dirty Projectors and Wild Beasts with…
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Music is a powerful medium that can heal a broken heart, make the dark days bearable and add another layer of happiness to the tender, joyous moments in one’s life. The new EP from up and coming local artists Goodnight Owl does all of this and more, with their gorgeous electronic arrangements that offer comfort,…
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Do you remember the magical feeling you have when you first fall in love? How you suddenly start smiling at nothing, as the whole world bursts into Technicolor? I had a similar experience as I was listening to Firestarter, the debut LP from Dan Parsons. At the tender age of 22, the talented Mr. Parsons…
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Given the band name and album art, you’d be forgiven for thinking Castratii were a hardcore metal group. [Ed: They’re not!?] The three piece from the Blue Mountains make atmospheric compositions that are so dark and brooding, they may have been taken straight from the bowels of hell. Their new double single Orchid/Surrogates is drenched…
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Better late than never has always been my motto, and whilst I missed most of the supports for Eagle & The Worm, I stumbled into the Northcote band room just in time to be forced back out again by the wall to wall crowd of people spastic dancing to Barbarion. Born from the fire pits…
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I remember listening to Regurgitator when I was in primary school and being told off by my mother for playing obscenities in her house. So when it was announced earlier in the year that the boys were back, moving to Melbourne to work on a new record, with a couple of live shows thrown in…
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Spending Thursday night on Brunswick street is always a pleasure, particularly when the Evelyn serves $2.50 pots to stave off the subzero temperatures of a harsh Melbourne winter. First up in the band room were NSW wild men Royal Chant. Royal Chant are Andrew, Brendan, Matt and Mark and their live show was endlessly disappointing….
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Another Friday at the pub, and the line down Swanston street was huge as an eager bunch of fans queued up early, eagerly awaiting the gorgeous songstresses that awaited us that evening. First up were a band called Brackets. This haphazard group of men seemed to be on a personal mission to deafen the audience…
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Go Genre Everything are a complete head fuck. I’ve listened to their EP Humans & Luxury for a few days now and am still unable to decide whether this is a collaboration of musical genius’s, hipster wannabes performing a masturbatory exercise, or a group of friends simply taking the piss. They’ve written their own Wikipedia…
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The more I hear from Hungry Kids of Hungary, the more I like them. The four-piece from Brisbane have given us a taste of their forthcoming debut album with the feverish single Wristwatch. This is one short, sharp number jam packed with the Hungry Kids trademark twee harmonies mashed up with some deliciously pop keyboards…
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Describing sound is a difficult thing to do, and with Melbourne 9-piece Eagle & the Worm the best I can come up with is chilled out chaos. Led by Jarrad Brown (Custom Kings and Your Animal), Eagle & the Worm have reinvented the happy-go-lucky acid infused tunes of the 70’s with their gem of a…
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