Author Archives: Stu

[gigs] Dinosaur Jr tour in March

There’s already gigs by Pavement and the Pixies in March, now it’s really seriously becoming indie nostalgia month with Dinosaur Jr coming to Adelaide as well.

Also recently announced is Neko Case at Fowlers in January.

When the WOMAD lineup was initially announced I failed to notice that the Dean in Dean & Britta is Dean Wareham, formerly of Galaxie 500 & Luna.

The Dirty Three are playing in Adelaide in January, but unfortunately they’re not bringing the Laughing Clowns with them.

Update – Method Man and Redman at the Shores Complex on January 8

NOVEMBER

  • 19th Bohoeffer, We Grow Up, Colonel Kernel play at Phung Aid fundraiser at Jive
  • 20th The Sea Thieves are supporting Angie Hart at the Jade Monkey.
  • 21st Satan’s Cheerleaders, God God Dammit Dammit at Enigma.
  • 24th The Buzzcocks at the Gov.
  • 27th Lightning Bolt with The Grey Daturas and Primitive Calculators at Fowler’s Live.
  • 28th Ed Kuepper and the Kowalski Collective at the Gov Cancelled :(
  • 28th Batrider and No Through Road at the Metro.

DECEMBER

  • 3rd Paul Kelly at HQ.
  • 4th The Church at the Gov.
  • 5th The Crayon Fields at the Metro with Hit the Jackpot and Bing Goes to Monaco.
  • 5th Stereosonic at Bonython Park, lineup includes some interesting stuff like Drop the Lime and Hudson Mohawke.
  • 10th Jarvis Cocker at HQ the Gov.
  • 18th Sandy Cenin & Paul Champion’s Xmas show at the Metro.
  • 19th (Melbourne) Underground Lovers at the East Brunswick Club.
  • 23rd (Melbourne) Kim Salmon & the Surrealists, No Through Road and lots more at the Low Transit Industries Xmas show at the Corner Hotel.

JANUARY

  • 5th Cat Power at the Gov.
  • 8th Kaki King at Jive.
  • 8th Method Man & Redman at the Shores.
  • 16th Neko Case at Fowlers Live
  • 20th Handsome Family at the Grace Emily.
  • 20th (Melbourne) Joanna Newsom at the Forum.
  • 21st (Melbourne) The Dirty Three and the Laughing Clowns at the Forum)
  • 22nd The Dirty Three at Fowlers Live.
  • 23rd (Melbourne) Camera Obscura at the Corner Hotel.

FEBRUARY

  • 5th Laneway Festival with Echo & The Bunnymen, Eddy Current Suppression Ring and lots more.
  • 19th Yo La Tengo at Fowler’s Live.
  • 27th London Sinfonietta: Pacific Currents at the Adelaide Town Hall.
  • 28th London Sinfonietta: Wind & Glass at the Adelaide Town Hall.

MARCH

  • 5-8th WOMADelaide at Botanic Park with the Skatalites, Calexico, Ravi Shankar, Dean & Britta and lots more.
  • 6th Wayne Shorter Quartet at the Festival Theatre.
  • 7th The Necks at the Spiegeltent.
  • 7th Pavement at Thebby
  • 12th Dinosaur Jr at Fowlers Live.
  • 24th The Pixies at Thebby (playing Doolittle)

On the Stereo

  • Leyland Kirby – Sadly, The Future Is No Longer What It Was 3cd (History Always Favours the Winners)
  • Broadcast and the Focus Group – Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age cd (Warp)
  • Various – Dirty French Psychedelics cd (Dirty)
  • Shackleton – Three EPs cd (Perlon)
  • Manitoba – Up in Flames cd (Leaf)
  • Battles – Mirrored cd (Warp)
  • Casiotone For the Painfully Alone – Vs Children cd (Tomlab)
  • Ned Collette and Wirewalker – Over the Stones, Under the Stars cd (Dot Dash)
  • The Holy Sea – Bad Luck / King of Palm Island cds
  • The Red Krayola – Coconut Hotel cd (Drag City)

The Adelaide Heatwave in Context

We’re just coming to the end of the first November heatwave on record in Adelaide. Since last Sunday the max temperature has been over 35 degrees Celsius every day. A change is due to bring the temperature down for a day or two before it climbs back up again over 40 in the middle of the week. As usual when there’s a heatwave there are a lot of people (particularly at Adelaide Now) who downplay the heatwave, saying that Adelaide has always had heatwaves and it isn’t anything different, but in this post at Brave New Climate, Professor Barry Brook does an excellent job of putting it into context. The current weather is quite extraordinary in a couple of ways, firstly as something that is quite unprecedented for this time of year (the previous record for November being 4 days over 35 in the 1890’s), and secondly because it adds to a number of extreme weather events in recent years, with heatwaves that smashed previous records in the last two Summers. Meanwhile, in South Australia, we are represented in the Senate by the likes of Nick Minchin and Cory Bernardi, who showed themselves to be totally delusional on the topic of climate change in a recent Four Corners program.

NICK MINCHIN: For the extreme left it provides the opportunity to do what they’ve always wanted to do, to sort of de-industrialise the western world. You know the collapse of communism was a disaster for the left, and the, and really they embraced environmentalism as their new religion.

SARAH FERGUSON: Minchin encourages his junior colleagues to speak out too.

NICK MINCHIN: I don’t mind being branded a sceptic about the theory that that human emissions and CO2 are the main driver of global change – of global warming. I don’t accept that and I’ve said that publically. I guess if I can say it, I would hope that others would feel free to do so.

SARAH FERGUSON: The junior south Australian liberal senator, Cory Bernardi, takes his cues from Minchin.

CORY BERNARDI: The fact that Nick has publicly supported the right of back benchers and others to speak up on a very critical issue is certainly encouraging.

(Excerpt of footage of Cory Bernardi at book launch, 27 January 2009)

CORY BERNARDI: The challenge for Australia, and the Australian parliament is to examine the facts of climate change and not just the opinion polls.

SARAH FERGUSON: Earlier this year Bernardi launched the book, Thank God For Carbon, a publication of the vehemently sceptical Lavoisier group.

(End of Excerpt)

CORY BERNARDI: Well I think that scientists need to justify their own actions. They will keep putting forward and saying we’ve got all this evidence, the evidence is increasingly discredited, why have they done it, what’s their motivations for doing it? Are they afraid to stand up to the extreme green lobby?

It is reasonable that not all parliamentarians are experts in every area, but what they show here is a complete failure to assess the credibility of sources. They ignore the CSIRO, the Australian Academy of Science and Australia’s leading experts in the field of climate change in universities around the country (such as Adelaide’s chair of Climate Change Barry Brook, linked above), and find their own “experts” (e.g. Ian Plimer,  Bob Carter) who have a stance they find more politically appealing but which does not stand up to critical analysis (e.g  debunked  claims like it isn’t warming or volcanoes are more important than human CO2 emissions). I think that South Australians could do better than to be represented by conspiracy theorists who are too worried about reds/greens under the bed to be able to deal with the serious issue of climate change.

Update – John Quiggin’s latest post touches on some of this.

[gigs] Yo La Tengo in February, No Ed Kuepper in November

A mix of good & bad news today. The very bad news is that Ed Kuepper’s tour in November has been cancelled due to an injury which means he can’t play guitar for a while. Hopefully to compensate his Adelaide fans he’ll consider bringing the Laughing Clowns here in the new year. At least rather than sitting at home sulking on November 28th I can go out to the Metro to see Batrider & No Through Road.

Fortunately there’s also some good new news today – Yo La Tengo are playing at Fowler’s in Feb. There’s been quite a few other announcements as well e.g. a Dirty Three/ Laughing Clowns Don’t Look Back show, Dinosaur Jr, The Books, Fink, Camera Obscura, and lots of other stuff for various festivals (Syd Festival, Golden Plains, Perth Festival) but no Adelaide dates for any of them.Keep an eye on the Feel Presents site since they promise to reveal info on more Dirty Three/Laughing Clowns shows on November 13th and full Dinosaur Jr tour dates on November 16th.

I got quite excited when scanning through the list of touring artists on Liveguide I saw Earth, but turns out it’s an Australian metal band called Earth and not Dylan Carlson’s band. Very annoying when that happens!

Finally, don’t forget that I’ll be DJing at the Metro this Sunday (8th) from 4-7, come along to here the eclectic sounds of Le Rayon Vert live!

NOVEMBER

  • 5th Matt Banham, Shame Spiral, Michael Beach at the Grace Emily.
  • 6th Bohoeffer at the Ed Castle.
  • 8th Le Rayon Vert DJ set at the Metro
  • 11th Johnny the Kid & Pat Ram at the Grace Emily.
  • 12th Casiotone for the Painfully Alone at Jive.
  • 13th Ned Collette and Laura Jean at the Metro
  • 14th Blackeyed Susans at the Norwood Hotel.
  • 21st Satan’s Cheerleaders, God God Dammit Dammit at Enigma.
  • 24th The Buzzcocks at the Gov.
  • 27th Lightning Bolt with The Grey Daturas and Primitive Calculators at Fowler’s Live.
  • 28th Ed Kuepper and the Kowalski Collective at the Gov Cancelled 🙁
  • 28th Batrider and No Through Road at the Metro.

DECEMBER

  • 3rd Paul Kelly at HQ.
  • 4th The Church at the Gov.
  • 5th The Crayon Fields at the Metro with Hit the Jackpot and Bing Goes to Monaco.
  • 5th Stereosonic at Bonython Park, lineup includes some interesting stuff like Drop the Lime and Hudson Mohawke.
  • 10th Jarvis Cocker at HQ.
  • 18th Sandy Cenin & Paul Champion’s Xmas show at the Metro.
  • 19th (Melbourne) Underground Lovers at the East Brunswick Club.
  • 23rd (Melbourne) Kim Salmon & the Surrealists, No Through Road and lots more at the Low Transit Industries Xmas show at the Corner Hotel.

JANUARY

  • 5th Cat Power at the Gov.
  • 8th Kaki King at Jive.
  • 12th Handsome Family at the Grace Emily.

FEBRUARY

  • 5th Laneway Festival with Echo & The Bunnymen, Eddy Current Suppression Ring and lots more.
  • 19th Yo La Tengo at Fowler’s Live.
  • 27th London Sinfonietta: Pacific Currents at the Adelaide Town Hall.
  • 28th London Sinfonietta: Wind & Glass at the Adelaide Town Hall.

MARCH

  • 5-8th WOMADelaide at Botanic Park with the Skatalites, Calexico, Ravi Shankar and lots more.
  • 6th Wayne Shorter Quartet at the Festival Theatre.
  • 7th The Necks at the Spiegeltent.
  • 7th Pavement at Thebby
  • 24th The Pixies at Thebby (playing Doolittle)

On the Stereo

  • Sunn0))) – Monoliths and Dimensions cd (Southern Lord)
  • Mountains – Choral cd (Thrill Jockey)
  • Times New Viking – Born Again Revisited cd (Matador)
  • MV & EE with Bummer Road – Green Blues cd (Ecstatic Peace!)
  • Tren Brothers – Tren Brothers EP cdep (Drag City)
  • Mouse on Mars – Instrumentals cd (Thrill Jockey)
  • Various – Mary Anne Hobbs: Wild Angels cd (Planet Mu)
  • Various – Warp 20 box set (Warp)
  • Ikonika – Please/Simulacrum 12″ (Hyperdub)
  • Antipop Consortium – Fluorescent Black cd (Ninja Tune)

[gigs] That’s it, I’m off to Melbourne

I’m getting sick of all the tours that miss Adelaide – Joanna Newsom, Animal Collective, Camera Obscura, Akron/Family, Why? …. so I’m going to Melbourne. Well, for a few days in December at least. I can’t make it for any of the gigs above but I can make it for two great gigs featuring a couple of my favourite bands that I used to see a fair bit back in the 90’s – the Low Transit Industries Xmas show at the Corner Hotel (with Kim Salmon & the Surrealists, plus lots more including No Through Road) on December 23rd, and an Underground Lovers reunion show at the East Brunswick Club on December 19th. In the meantime there is still plenty happening in Adelaide, including my own DJ set at the Metro on November 8th.

The details of the Adelaide Festival of the Arts and WOMADelaide (expanded to 4 days) for 2010 have been announced, unfortunately there is a bit of clashing between them (and with Pavement) though. I’ve listed some of the highlights in the gig guide below.

I’m also getting rather impatient for announcements about possible Laughing Clowns shows in the new year, and possible Don’t Look Back shows (which may be the same thing) …. still no news of either. In the rumour department, the Clarendonian in Katoomba have confirmed an upcoming visit by Neko Case (thanks for the tip Derek), look out for a mid-Jan show in Adelaide as well. Rumours of visits by Yo La Tengo & Dinosaur Jr persist but no details yet. The Sydney festival rumours are flying with recently announced tours by the likes of Joanna Newsom and Camera Obscura conspicuously missing Sydney dates, but also, Adelaide is missing from both as mentioned above. Another rumour which sounds like a good chance for the Syd Festival is The Books, but I’d be surprised if they made it over here to Adelaide.

OCTOBER

  • 29th & 30th – The Wagons at the Wheatsheaf.
  • 30th Philadelphia Grand Jury at the Ed Castle.

NOVEMBER

  • 5th Matt Banham, Shame Spiral, Michael Beach at the Grace Emily.
  • 8th Le Rayon Vert DJ set at the Metro
  • 12th Casiotone for the Painfully Alone at Jive.
  • 13th Ned Collette and Laura Jean at the Metro
  • 14th Blackeyed Susans at the Norwood Hotel.
  • 21st Satan’s Cheerleaders, God God Dammit Dammit at Enigma.
  • 24th The Buzzcocks at the Gov.
  • 27th Lightning Bolt with The Grey Daturas and Primitive Calculators at Fowler’s Live.
  • 28th Ed Kuepper and the Kowalski Collective at the Gov.
  • 28th Batrider and No Through Road at the Metro.

DECEMBER

  • 3rd Paul Kelly at HQ.
  • 4th The Church at the Gov.
  • 5th The Crayon Fields at the Metro with Hit the Jackpot and Bing Goes to Monaco.
  • 5th Stereosonic at Bonython Park, lineup includes some interesting stuff like Drop the Lime and Hudson Mohawke.
  • 10th Jarvis Cocker at HQ.
  • 18th Sandy Cenin & Paul Champion’s Xmas show at the Metro.
  • 19th (Melbourne) Underground Lovers at the East Brunswick Club.
  • 23rd (Melbourne) Kim Salmon & the Surrealists, No Through Road and lots more at the Low Transit Industries Xmas show at the Corner Hotel.

JANUARY

  • 5th Cat Power at the Gov.
  • 12th Handsome Family at the Grace Emily.

FEBRUARY

  • 5th Laneway Festival with Echo & The Bunnymen, Eddy Current Suppression Ring and lots more.
  • 27th London Sinfonietta: Pacific Currents at the Adelaide Town Hall.
  • 28th London Sinfonietta: Wind & Glass at the Adelaide Town Hall.

MARCH

  • 5-8th WOMADelaide at Botanic Park with the Skatalites, Calexico, Ravi Shankar and lots more.
  • 6th Wayne Shorter Quartet at the Festival Theatre.
  • 7th The Necks at the Spiegeltent.
  • 7th Pavement at Thebby
  • 24th The Pixies at Thebby (playing Doolittle)

On the Stereo

Various – Warp 20 Box Set (Warp)
Antipop Consortium – Fluorescent Black cd (Ninja Tune)
Jaga Jazzist – The Stix 2LP (Ninja Tune)
Jaga Jazzist – A Livingroom Hush LP (Ninja Tune)
Cinematic Orchestra – Motion cd (Ninja Tune)
DJ Food – You Don’t Know Ninja Tune 1000 Masks Mix cd (Ninja Tune)
Mordant Music / Shackleton / Vindicatrix – Picking O’er the Bones cd (Mordant Music)
Jonny Trunk – Scrapbook cd (Trunk)
Flaming Lips – Embryonic cd (Warner Bros)
Text of Light – Metal Box 3cd (Dirter)

Laneway 2010

Here is the first Laneway announcement (via Faster Louder). The first thing to notice is that all the rumours were sadly not true (Yo La Tengo, The Books, Neko Case, Camera Obscura) though I think many of those acts are touring anyway.

Echo & The Bunnymen
Florence & The Machine
Black Lips
The XX
Daniel Johnston *
Sarah Blasko
N.A.S.A
Eddy Current Suppression Ring
Hockey
Dappled Cities
Mumford & Sons *
The Very Best
Radioclit
Wild Beasts *
Whitley
The Middle East
Kid Sam
Dirty Three – Melbourne only

Overall not that exciting for me, though a hell of a lot better than the BDO. Unfortunately the 3D’s are only playing the NZ show, not any of the Australian shows.

(Addition – the artists marked * are not playing Adelaide according to this Mess & Noise thread. The absense of Daniel Johnston makes it even less appealing)

[gigs] Pavement tour Australia in March

The rumours were true, Pavement are touring Australia in March including a show here in Adelaide. Full details here. Looks like Australia will be the very first stop on their world tour. This blog grew out of an email gig guide which ran intermittently between 1997-2007, and it all started with me advertising Pavement’s July ’97 shows at the Metro in Sydney to my friends. None of them went, but I persisted with pestering people about gigs anyway. The setlists for the first two shows were (with some tracks out of order)

Tuesday 22nd : Old to Begin \ Stereo \ Transport is Arranged \ Date w/
Ikea \ Give it a Day \ Cut Your Hair \ Perfume-V \ Starlings of the
Slipstream \ The Hexx \ Shady Lane/J vs S \ Kennel District \ Father to
a Sister of Thought \ Cream of Gold \ Unfair \ Fin \ Box Elder \ Here \
encore: Blue Hawaiian \ Elevate Me Later \ Type Slowly

Wednesday 23rd : Date w/ Ikea \ Silence Kit \ Summer Babe \ Type Slowly \
Passat Dream \ Conduit for Sale! \ Black Out \ Stereo \ Transport is
Arranged \ In the Mouth a Desert \ Stop Breathin \ Shady Lane \ Blue
Hawaiian \ The Hexx\ Grounded \ Grave Architecture \
encore : We are Underused \ Range Life \ Debris Slide

Also in the gig guide emails, in June 2004, when the Pixies first got back together, I did a feature on other possible reunions and assessed their likelyhood including this prediction regarding Pavement – “All Tomorrows Parties in 2010 perhaps?”.

Back when I last saw Pavement I was also regularly going to gigs by Kim Salmon & the Surrealists but I think the last time I saw them must have been in 1997, so I’m very keen to go to the Corner Hotel in Richmond to see them play at the Low Transit Industries Xmas party, together with Adelaide’s No Through Road plus a bunch of others. I haven’t been to the Corner for about 10 years but have fond memories of shows there by Tortoise and Mercury Rev.

Watch out for lots more announcements of gigs next week. On Tuesday 20th the Laneway festival details will be announced (and after a BDO with very little that interests me I’m holding out hopes for good stuff at Laneway). Also next week (22nd) is the launch of the Adelaide festival (which brought us Ornette Coleman last time), that should also include the first announcement for the big 4 day WOMAD. Feel Presents are still to announce the details of their Don’t Look Back shows for early next year, and also Fowler’s Live haven’t updated their site for a while, but I expect they will after the Laneway announcement so at that point they might add some other good stuff that they have coming up early next year.

Something else coming up in March is an Australian tour by Jandek with his band, details have yet to be released so no idea if an Adelaide show is likely.

One more thing is that on Sunday the 8th of November you can hear the sounds of Le Rayon Vert at the Metro between 4-7pm.

OCTOBER

  • 16th Like Leaves at the Ed Castle.
  • 16th No Through Road & Bing Goes to Monaco support the John Steel Singers at Jive.
  • 17th Cheer Advisory Council at the Metro with The British Robots and The Honey Pies.
  • 23rd Bing Goes to Monaco with Aviator Lane at the Jade Monkey.
  • 29th & 30th – The Wagons at the Wheatsheaf.
  • 30th Philadelphia Grand Jury at the Ed Castle.

NOVEMBER

  • 8th Le Rayon Vert DJ set at the Metro
  • 12th Casiotone for the Painfully Alone at Jive.
  • 13th Ned Collette and Laura Jean at the Metro
  • 14th Blackeyed Susans at the Norwood Hotel.
  • 24th The Buzzcocks at the Gov.
  • 27th Lightning Bolt with The Grey Daturas at Fowler’s Live.
  • 28th Ed Kuepper and the Kowalski Collective at the Gov.
  • 28th Batrider and No Through Road at the Metro.

DECEMBER

  • 3rd Paul Kelly at HQ.
  • 4th The Church at the Gov.
  • 5th The Crayon Fields at the Metro with Hit the Jackpot and Bing Goes to Monaco.
  • 10th Jarvis Cocker at HQ.
  • 18th Sandy Cenin & Paul Champion’s Xmas show at the Metro.
  • 23rd (Melbourne) Kim Salmon & the Surrealists, No Through Road and lots more at the Low Transit Industries Xmas show at the Corner Hotel.

MARCH

  • 5-8th WOMADelaide at Botanic Park
  • 7th Pavement at Thebby
  • 24th The Pixies at Thebby (playing Doolittle)

On the Stereo

  • Love of Diagrams – Nowhere Forever cd (Unstable Ape)
  • The Fall – The Real New Fall LP (Formerly ‘Country on the Click’) LP (Action)
  • The Smiths – The Queen is Dead LP (Rough Trade)
  • The Smiths – Meat is Murder LP (Rough Trade)
  • Mick Turner / Tren Brothers – Blue Trees cd (King Crab)
  • The Mile End Ladies String Auxiliary – From Cells of Roughest Air 10″ (Bangor)
  • DJ Food – Kaleidoscope 2LP (Ninja Tune)
  • Subtle – Wishingbone cd (Lex)
  • Subtle – Yell & Ice cd (Lex)
  • Autechre – Anti cdep (Warp)