Occasionally the musical universe offers unexpected gifts that we might never have thought to ask for and had no right to expect. Strange Love, the debut album by new Melbourne supergroup Bleak Squad, is one such gift. The names speak for themselves: Adalita (Magic Dirt), Mick Harvey (the Bad Seeds, the Birthday Party), Mick Turner […]
Bleak Squad: Strange Love Read More »
Shane Chidgzey is talking a mile a minute, sounding half street hustler, half tech bro. “I didn’t come from the music industry initially,” says the Sydney-based entrepreneur and owner of Brisbane’s The Zoo, one of Australia’s longest-running music venues. “I was looking for a way to disrupt, because I like to disrupt as a basis
The Zoo: No Rum, No Double-Shots, No Dickheads Read More »
Ed Kuepper still remembers the first time he saw Jim White play drums. It was back in the mid-1990s and Kuepper – founder of the Saints, Laughing Clowns and Aints – was headlining the Prince of Wales in Melbourne, supported by a rising instrumental trio called the Dirty Three. “I know the Dirty Three aren’t
Swinging with Ed Kuepper and Jim White Read More »
Everyone’s got a “fucked-up way” of being good citizens – or so Melbourne’s Cash Savage tells us on the title track of her fourth album. Some of the things that might help us feel good about ourselves are rooted in inequalities and injustice. Like, for example, voting in a voluntary postal survey on whether or
Cash Savage & The Last Drinks: Good Citizens Read More »
A few years before Courtney Barnett was known to the wider world, during a period of life where she was, by her own estimation, “kind of unemployed and a bit depressed”, she bought a record on a whim and a recommendation. It was Kurt Vile’s Smoke Ring For My Halo, his breakthrough fourth album from
When Kurt met Courtney Read More »
Note for overseas and interstate readers: The Zoo is a music venue in the quaintly-named inner suburb of Fortitude Valley, in my hometown of Brisbane. It’s 20 years old this week, a startling achievement in an industry where places to play appear and often disappear in the space of 12 months. This is my happy
Happy birthday to Zoo Read More »