Absolute Elsewhere
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NEIL FINN AND CROWDED HOUSE (2010): The returning son
14 Jun 2010 | 2 min read
Many, many years ago Neil Finn told me he believed bands, and he was referring to Split Enz at the time, had a natural lifespan. Some years after that – in 2001 when he was well into a solo career with the album One Nil – I asked him the question again, and specifically if he felt that about Crowded House. His answer was the same. Yes, bands did have a natural lifespan... > Read more
Crowded House: Archers Arrows
ANTON FIER PROFILED (1988): A new career in a new town
7 Jun 2010 | 5 min read
Anton Fier was, until recently, a star without a bank account -- or manager come to that -- and yet at the nucleus of the hippest collection of New York’s avant-garde ever to hit vinyl. When Fier gets going, the going gets fearful as left-field jazz players, peripheral rockists and unusual combinations of singers,squawkers and shapers come together under the banner of his band,... > Read more
Golden Palominos: Omaha (1985)
TURIN BRAKES INTERVIEWED (2004): Something in the ether
5 Jun 2010 | 6 min read
So you're travelling to the States soon and wondering about that new fingerprinting and high-security thing at the airport on arrival? Tell it to Gale Paridjanian of Turin Brakes. He's been down that path repeatedly, the first time almost a year ago. "I was born in Iran," says the quietly spoken Londoner, who first sang with bandmate Olly Knights in the church choir at age seven .... > Read more
CLIMIE FISHER INTERVIEWED (1988): Studio changes everything
1 Jun 2010 | 6 min read
The rock music thing used to be quite straightforward. A few people got together, practiced a few covers, wrote some original material and the band honed its act in pubs and clubs and on the road. Somewhere down the line a record company appeared and the band made records. These days that process can be reversed. Noel Crombie of Schnell Fenster talks of journalists being flown... > Read more
THE WHITE STRIPES INTERVIEWED (2003): The Elephant in the room
1 Jun 2010 | 8 min read | 1
Jack and Meg White are easily spotted in the large lounge of Sydney's swanky new W Hotel on a converted wharf in Woolloomoloo. But they were always going to be. The Detroit duo who are The White Stripes - formerly said to be brother and sister, but now we know are ex-husband and wife - always wear a combo of red and white, and occasionally black. On this day Jack sports a red shirt, black... > Read more
The White Stripes: I Just Don't Know What to do With Myself
CHRIS WHITLEY INTERVIEWED (1991): The Law man living with the lore
24 May 2010 | 7 min read | 2
Sometimes you can just get too much too soon - and the wrong kind of attention. Take American singer Chris Whitley, whose debut album Living with the Law has been picking up praise by the bucketload. Sure it’s a great album; Rolling Stone called it “riveting and original” before acclaiming Whitley as “a visionary who trades on archetypal symbols and classic... > Read more
Chris Whitley: Big Sky Country
THE VERLAINES; REISSUED AND RECONSIDERED (2010): Listened to Mahler, look over my shoulder . . .
17 May 2010 | 5 min read
Quite why anyone thought there ever was a "Dunedin sound" is bewildering -- without even hearing a note of the music all you had to do was look at the cover of the famous "Dunedin double" album of mid '82 to see how each of the four bands -- the Stones, the Chills, Sneaky Feelings and the Verlaines -- thought of themselves and wanted to portray that to the world. On... > Read more
The Verlaines: Doomsday
GRAEME DOWNES OF THE VERLAINES INTERVIEWED (2003): Such brave, flawed diamonds
17 May 2010 | 8 min read
If there were awards in local rock for candour beyond the call of duty, then Graeme Downes, linchpin of the formative and formidable Flying Nun band the Verlaines (1981-97), would be saying “Thank you” at the podium more than most. Always a straight shooter, Downes settles over lunch to chat about the long overdue Verlaines’ compilation - the 19-track You re Just Too... > Read more
The Verlaines: Anniversary (from Some Disenchanted Evening, 1990)
BAND OF HORSES, TYLER RAMSEY AUDIO INTERVIEW (2010)
15 May 2010 | 1 min read
Originally out of Seattle, Band of Horses have had one of those constantly evolving line-ups that makes for a confusing family tree. Three-quarters of those on the first album quit before the second album leaving founder Brad Bridwell to not only rebuild the band but relocate to South Carolina where he came from. Others made guest appearances live and on record but didn't seem to be... > Read more
UTE LEMPER INTERVIEWED (2010): The fearless angel comes treading
15 May 2010 | 4 min read
Ute Lemper – the foremost interpreter of Weimar cabaret songs and the music of Jacques Brel, Kurt Weill and Edith Piaf – doesn't pull her punches. With no prompting at all after she mentions one of her most recent projects has been creating a multi-media theatrical setting for the poetry of barfly Charles Bukowski, she notes the production is better received in Europe... > Read more
OCEAN COLOUR SCENE INTERVIEWED (1996): Take it to the top
15 May 2010 | 7 min read
From the outside – even on the rather mundane inside -- the Irish Centre on Birmingham's dreary, windswept Digbeth High St doesn't look like the city’s premier rock’n’roll venue. And it’s probably not, but . . . “Yeah, the history’s here though,” says Ocean Colour Scene’s lanky frontman Simon Fowler as he sits in a cramped room... > Read more
Ocean Colour Scene: The Riverboat Song (from Moseley Shoals)
THE STROKES (2001): The future, the past or just passing through?
12 May 2010 | 11 min read
These are indeed worrying times. Steel birds fall from the sky, tall towers tumble to earth, rumours of war is the way of it if you are an innocent citizen, and the end of the world is apparently upon us. Nostradamus warned us of these times. Jezzus, I wished he'd warned us about the Strokes as well. In case you've missed the current media beat-up from the UK, the Strokes -- a... > Read more
The Strokes: Soma (from Is This It)
GORDON RAPHAEL, PRODUCER OF THE STROKES, INTERVIEWED (2004): The sky cries wary
12 May 2010 | 9 min read
Gordon Raphael’s small and shabby studio rooms near London’s classy Docklands have all the obligatory paraphernalia of most recording studios: a deceased lava lamp, Iggy Pop and Hendrix albums stacked up, and Houses of the Holy on a battered turntable. One wall is covered by a swathe of material with an eye-abusing design located somewhere between early Sixties pop art and... > Read more
The Strokes: The Modern Age
MIKE EDWARDS OF JESUS JONES INTERVIEWED (1993): Right here, right now . . . back then
10 May 2010 | 10 min read
Mike Edwards has got a big mouth - and without going too far into the anatomically impossible, it’s his big mouth that gets right up people’s noses. And right here, right now in Birmingham, he’s been getting up the noses of the British music press - which admittedly isn’t hard to do and probably quite worthwhile. A quick glance at the British music... > Read more
Jesus Jones: The Devil You Know (from Perverse)
KINKY FRIEDMAN INTERVIEWED (1994): The art of irritation
3 May 2010 | 5 min read
You have to admire Kinky Friedman. With very little effort he manages to irritate just about everybody. He did in the early 70s when he fronted his country music band Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys, who parlayed broadly satirical political and country songs and willfully provocative anti-feminist rants such as Get Your Biscuits in the Oven and Your Buns in the Bed. And he’s... > Read more
Kinky Friedman: Ride 'Em Jewboy
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN LIVE IN SYDNEY (2003): Normal transmission will be resumed shortly
1 May 2010 | 7 min read
Bruce Springsteen won't forget his show at Sydney's Cricket Ground last Saturday. He said so repeatedly and meant it. Losing power in a show can never be discounted as a possibility. But losing it twice would suggest alarmingly bad luck or poor technical support. Losing your stadium rock thump four times in the first hour, however? Well, that makes a show memorable. The first... > Read more
CREEDENCE CLEARWATER ... REVISITED?: Stu Cook interviewed (2002)
30 Apr 2010 | 4 min read
What's in a name? Well, a lengthy court case if the name you chose is Creedence Clearwater Revisited. We'll get to the litigation, but first let's rewind to Creedence Clearwater Revival, the band which ruled the singles charts for four phenomenal years from the end of the Sixties. With songs penned by John Fogerty they single-handedly invented what was called "swamp rock".... > Read more
DAVE GROHL INTERVIEWED (1995): Post-grunge fun
27 Apr 2010 | 8 min read
Through the swing doors, down the stairs, then hard right. Follow the corridor, then left, right and left again, then . . . umm. You’re in a scene from This Is Spinal Tap. Where, in this maze of corridors under the BBC Studios in Maida Vale, London, is Studio Four where the Foo Fighters are recording? But another labyrinthine 100 metres and there it is, red light on as the... > Read more
Foo Fighters: Big Me
FRANK TURNER: AUDIO INTERVIEW (2010): The documentarian of politics and the soul
22 Apr 2010 | <1 min read
British singer-songwriter Frank Turner moves between many worlds with ease: he plays to hardcore audiences (and started his career in such bands) but also works the folk circuit. He also plays huge festivals and small clubs. His music roams across politics (Thatcher Fucked the Kids), wry humour (I Don't Care What You Did in Your Gap Year) and social obsrvation("once an honest man could... > Read more
Frank Turner: audio interview. In Brisbane: May 21, 2010
NICK CAVE, THE SEEDY MIDDLE YEARS: From Tender Prey to Henry's Dream
19 Apr 2010 | 4 min read | 1
In the early Eighties the safe money would have been on Nick Cave -- then battling various demons and his elusive muse -- not making it much further. Yet here is Cave, now in his early 50s, dutifully going to the office every day to write songs, novels, screenplays and soundtracks, and curating arts festivals . . . And seeing his back-catalogue with his longtime band/co-conspirators the Bad... > Read more