The Fumes

The Fumes have been a little quiet of late, but that's about to change. A prime slot at the Lock N' Load festival at the Espy and an ongoing but soon-to-be-finished album project are both looming on...
music feature
Kamelot Posted 22 May 2013 @ 11:53am 74 views 0 comments American power metal act Kamelot are another legendary, long-running heavy music act that are, curiously, yet to tour Australia – considering the rabid following that metal and its myriad sub-genres has here. That all changes in mid 2013, however. Twenty-two years and no less than ten epic albums into their illustrious career, the band have finally announced their very first Australian sojourn,...
Prudence Rees-Lee Posted 22 May 2013 @ 11:35am 122 views 0 comments Classically trained with a futuristic flavour, Prudence Rees-Lee is known to those in the know for her work with Hammocks and Honey. With the release of her debut solo album, Court Music From The Planet Of Love, she is poised to come to the attention of many more. Ahead of the album’s June launch, she held forth on the album’s slow gestation, and the physical difficulties of getting her...
Beaches Posted 22 May 2013 @ 11:27am 108 views 0 comments It was a long, but ultimately worthwhile, wait in between the breakthrough self-titled LP from Melbourne guitar gods Beaches and their just-released triumphant second full-length, She Beats. Needlessly offering a pre-emptive disclaimer of incoherence due to a brain-draining week of solid PhD work, guitarist-vocalist Antonia Sellbach recounts the album’s false start and eventual realisation...
Earl Sweatshirt Posted 22 May 2013 @ 10:31am 248 views 0 comments Earl Sweatshirt returned from two years at a Samoan reform school with a new song called Chum last year, but instead of a howl of triumph celebrating his freedom, we heard him sounding unusually vulnerable. “I’m indecisive, I’m scatter-brained and I’m frightened,” he admitted, finishing the final verse with, “Been back a week and I already feel like calling it quits.” It wasn’t the...
Hell City Glamours Posted 21 May 2013 @ 1:48pm 349 views 0 comments Peanut butter and jelly. Harold And Maude. Bondage and discipline. Scurvy and citrus. Some things are just made for each other, but as Melburnians understand, no two things fit together quite as well as rock‘n’roll and beer. Sydney’s glam/punk/heavy-metal four-piece Hell City Glamours will perfectly encapsulate this heavenly pairing when they close out this year’s Good Beer Week with a bang...
The Murlocs Posted 21 May 2013 @ 1:43pm 114 views 0 comments The phone reception’s a little sketchy when I catch The Murlocs lead singer Ambrose Kenny-Smith as he is cruising out of Echuca with the King Gizzard fam’, who are on their way to perform at a youth festival in Deniliquin. Less than a week after performing harmonica duties with the populace garage prodigies, Ambrose will be fronting his blues outfit The Murlocs as they launch the first...
The Break Posted 21 May 2013 @ 1:36pm 124 views 0 comments “It’s an interesting parallel in a way, surf and space,” muses Jim Moginie, founding member and guitarist with Midnight Oil and now guitarist with instrumental psychedelic-surf band The Break. The Break’s first album,Church of the Open Sky, indulged the surf-rock sounds of The Atlantics, Dick Dale and Taman Shud; on its follow-up album, Space Farm, The Break embark on a conceptual journey...
Kim Volkman & James McCann Posted 21 May 2013 @ 1:28pm 122 views 0 comments Kim Volkman and James McCann’s shared history goes back to Sydney’s dirty but fertile rock’n’roll scene at the turn of the century. At the time, Volkman was playing guitar in the late Ian Rilen’s band, the Love Addicts. McCann, a founding member of The Drones in Perth, had moved across from his native Perth to pursue his musical fortunes. “We worked together at Shock later on, but I remember Kim...
The Nerve Posted 17 May 2013 @ 11:31am 129 views 0 comments Look, nobody said 'supergroup,' okay? It's inevitable that, sooner or later, musicians who have been in bands in the past go on to form or join other bands. And it's also inevitable that some jerk journalist will say "Oh, they're a supergroup" just to make their job a little easier. But the term 'supergroup' has been corrupted to imply a bloated, chemistry-less conglomeration of dudes-on-hiatuses...
Eluveitie Posted 17 May 2013 @ 11:16am 107 views 0 comments Swiss folk-metal act Eluveitie have been around for more than a decade now, and yet 2013 sees them clocking up two firsts in their career. In the next couple of months, they are spreading their folk metal gospel all over the world. The month of May finds them playing in China and Australia for the very first time in their history. Vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Chrigel Glanzzman, speaking...
Echo Drama Posted 17 May 2013 @ 11:05am 258 views 0 comments Echo Drama are a powerhouse Melbourne nine-piece band smashing out a solid fusion of dub/reggae/hip hop music. Drummer and founder of the band Jeremy Schiftan and vocalist number two Alex ‘Sinks’ Sinclair muse on their plans for world domination (and the logistics of organising nine freaking band members) but first they’re just enjoying there current Tuesday night residency at The Evelyn. ...
...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead Posted 17 May 2013 @ 10:46am 168 views 0 comments Austin’s long-running …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead have developed a cult following over the course of 15 years and eight albums. However, none of those albums garnered quite as much love and critical adulation as 2002’s Source Tags And Codes, which famously received a 10 rating from Pitchfork. Ahead of their Australian tour, which will see the band play Source Tags And...
The Reverend Horton Heat Posted 17 May 2013 @ 10:37am 197 views 0 comments The Reverend Horton Heat is a force of nature. The psychobilly pioneer (Jim Heath to his friends) has outsold and outlasted all of his contemporaries, boasting a cult following worldwide. Ahead of a run of Australian shows, The Reverend offered reflections on his career and his love affair with rockabilly. Showman, raconteur, force of nature – The Reverend Horton Heat is truly a one-of-a-kind....
Lita Ford Posted 17 May 2013 @ 10:10am 109 views 0 comments As a Californian teenager learning to play guitar in the early '70s, Lita Ford didn’t have a lot of female role models to choose from; in fact, there weren’t any. “I did see Fanny, with the Millington sisters – June and Jean – play in California, and there was one thing that stuck in my mind,” Ford recalls. “And that was when I went to the ladies’ room during the show, and there were these girls...
Flap! Posted 16 May 2013 @ 12:09pm 453 views 0 comments The songs on the latest Flap! album, A Great Day For The Race, often involve characters and invite you into an unusual scene. Eamon McNelis, trumpeter and vocalist for the eccentric Melbournian jazz extrapolators, attests that they make sure the lyrics contain something worth relating, rather than just filling up the melodies with fluff. “If you’re going to go to the effort of singing words...
The Cat Empire Posted 16 May 2013 @ 11:59am 362 views 0 comments For singer Felix Riebl, it was necessary to leave The Cat Empire behind in order to realise just what was special about the band. Two years ago, Riebl went solo, and toured the country with a set of gentle, acoustic songs – music in marked contrast to The Cat Empire’s raucous, carnival-like output. “The atmosphere throughout that tour was completely different,” he tells me. “The Cat Empire’s...
Delaney Davidson Posted 15 May 2013 @ 7:39pm 128 views 0 comments “It’s interesting seeing how it works, the whole songwriting process,” muses New Zealand DIY-garage-country artist Delaney Davidson. “You can exhaust yourself, and then you catch a couple of more things. It seems to revolve around songs that come out at the time, then you have to go away and listen to a whole lot of completely different stuff, and then come back and try and do something new again...
Jinja Safari Posted 15 May 2013 @ 7:34pm 130 views 0 comments “It’s the calm before the storm for want of a better expression. It’s out of our hands at this point – we’ve done our bit. We’ve worked on the album, rehearsed. Let’s see what signing to a major label does, whether it creates a big buzz. We’re all pretty close to the tunes so it’s hard to know subjectively what’s what. Curiosity is the main kind of feeling within the band really.” That’s Jinja...
Vampire Weekend Posted 15 May 2013 @ 10:14am 387 views 0 comments I’m speaking with Vampire Weekend multi-instrumentalist Rostam Batmanglij as he enjoys a relative respite, relishing a “chill week” in his Brooklyn apartment before the promotional storm that accompanies the ceremony that is an album’s release. That’s not to say the madness hasn’t already begun to transpire. The band purportedly raised the ire of car enthusiasts with a slow motion lyric clip...
Smokescreen Music Festival Posted 14 May 2013 @ 4:14pm 228 views 0 comments Mushroom Marketing Director Carl Gardiner is aware that some music fans were irritated to learn last month that the Smokescreen Festival, billed as ‘the most dangerous music festival on earth’, was actually a ploy. While he concedes some may not have liked the tactic, he’s unapologetic about the message it attempts to deliver to young people: Every cigarette-related death is totally preventable...
Dillinger Escape Plan Posted 14 May 2013 @ 3:30pm 185 views 0 comments Ben Weinman is in a bit of pain. The founder and only remaining original member of hardcore outfit Dillinger Escape Plan is walking back to his tour bus when he takes my call, sounding equal parts exhausted and confused. “We just finished a show in Columbus, Ohio and someone came onstage, grabbed my balls and twisted them,” says the 37-year-old guitarist. “Sometimes, your fans want to hurt you....
Artist Proof Posted 14 May 2013 @ 3:22pm 279 views 0 comments Chris Pattenden, songwriter, guitarist, and soaring vocalist for the theatrically-inspired operatic rock band Artist Proof is amped up for the release of their latest double A-side, Had It All/Change On The Wind, after an arduous but thoroughly enjoyable time in the studio. Their music, heavily influenced by the dramatic songs of Muse and the grandiose melodic commands of Queen, creeps...
Funeral For A Friend Posted 14 May 2013 @ 10:21am 164 views 0 comments Welsh post-hardcore luminaries Funeral For A Friend have been in the game for over 12 years. For those people who suffer from the syndrome whereby you think the ‘90s was only ten years ago, it’s almost impossible to believe the clock has ticked so many times since FFAF released Casually Dressed & Deep In Conversation. Currently touring their sixth studio album, Conduit, FFAF have...
Razors Of Ockham Posted 10 May 2013 @ 1:11pm 188 views 0 comments Melbourne two-piece Razors of Ockham announced themselves in fine style by winning the Emerging Indie Development competition at the Elsternwick Hotel. ‘The Wick’ is getting back in touch with its past as a live music mainstay, and Razors of Ockham have been the first band to enjoy the benefits. But who are Razors of Ockham? To find out, we caught up with guitarist and multi-instrumentalist...
Rolling Stone: The Covers 1972-2010 Posted 10 May 2013 @ 11:44am 153 views 0 comments Throughout the decades, Rolling Stone magazine has been one of the most important chronicles of rock music – of the artists, and the ideas and movements that inspire them. Each cover tells a different story, and this month the Yarra Ranges Regional Museum are celebrating this by showing off some of the finest examples. “There are 150, going from 1972, which was the first Australian...
Bobby Womack Posted 10 May 2013 @ 11:27am 211 views 0 comments “I’m coming to see everybody down there at just the right time. I was green before, but I’m well-seasoned now.” Bobby Womack is the last person who can believably refer to himself as inexperienced, in any way.  But then again, the man who is known as the Greatest Soul Singer In The World isn’t really in the business of being believable. Last year he was preparing to tour The Bravest Man In...
Neon Trees Posted 10 May 2013 @ 11:14am 138 views 0 comments American four-piece Neon Trees have experienced huge mainstream success in recent years, commencing with their glossy pop-rock tune Animal, the lead single from 2010 debut album Habits. Last year the band extended their airwave domination with the release of their second album Picture Show and the single Everybody Talks, which cracked into the US top 10....
Buchanan Posted 9 May 2013 @ 11:29am 142 views 0 comments Melbourne band Buchanan’s debut album Human Spring is a complex beast. From the paradox of the cover image to the sad story behind the album’s dedication, Human Spring has the makings of a hallmark release in an era when keeping music and themes simple is not an option. "We wanted to write something that had a bit more meaning and we felt that in order to convey that we had...
The Gaslight Anthem Posted 9 May 2013 @ 11:19am 216 views 0 comments There’s no getting around the fact that The Gaslight Anthem write sad songs. The New Jersey rockers make the kind of tunes that you can put on as you crack open a beer and think about the old days. Even an energetic song likeThe ’59 Sound has an aching sadness at its core. As drummer Benny Horowitz tells it, the guys in the band aren’t the type to talk about their feelings, so it all comes...
The Rechords Posted 9 May 2013 @ 11:15am 172 views 0 comments Much-loved rock‘n’roll three-piece The ReChords have developed an ardent live following in Melbourne and beyond, and their new EP, It Won’t Be Long, promises to continue that. Ahead of their EP launch, double bassist Tyron Shaw discussed their ‘experimental’ recording process and their unique look. Before they even play a note, the first thing that strikes you about The ReChords are their...