Sailmaker Are Set To Beg, Borrow and Steal

One of my favourite things about the internet is discovering new music. Over the past couple of years there have been hundreds of bands who have chosen to relase their music online for free. While it isn’t always good, it is nice to discover a new band and listen to their album or EP without forking out money I don’t have. But I’ll get to that later.

Sailmaker are a Sydney band who have come up with an interesting approach to releasing their music.  They are going to be relasing three EPs over the coming months, titled Beg, Borrow and Steal. The first EP Beg is due out at at the end of next month.

The third EP Steal will be avaliable as a free download to anyone who signs up to their mailing list, which you can do here: www.begborrowandsteal.com.au

Sailmaker make dreamy acoustic pop music that doesn’t sound like any other  particular band, although I can imagine fans of bands such as The Panics and Augie March enjoying their music.

The band are coming down to Melbourne and have a couple of shows coming up:

Friday 28th August - Dum Dum Club Launch @ Spectrum, Sydney

Friday 18th September @ Ding Dong, Melbourne

Saturday 19th September @ WOW Inflation, Melbourne

Saturday 17th October @ Spectrum, Sydney (EP Launch)

Sailmaker-Scout.mp3

http://www.myspace.com/sailmakermusic

MJ is alive, Paul is dead and Elvis works at Maccas

Today video footage was released of Michael Jackson getting out of a coroners van. I was watching the dodgy morning show today and they were going on about it being amazing footage. It is probably the fakest hoax I have ever seen. Part of me likes to think it was done by a bunch of bored uni students with accesses to a black wig and a van.

Anyway, let me know what you think:

How to loose fans and alienate people

When a reletivley unkown band changes their sound to be more commerical and then become hugley sucsessful, it is easy to see why their fans get upset. This is what happened to Kings of Leon last year when they released Only by Night. To be fair, the album does contain quite a few catchy songs and it is easy to see why the masses went ape-shit over Sex On Fire. After releasing a ridicoulous amount of singles from the album, it has been revealed that Kings of Leon are planning a remix album featuring Pharral Williams, Justin Timberlake and Linkin Park.

I understand that the band can do whatever they like, but they’re alienating a huge part of their fan base.  I’m also not so sure who would actually buy this. They don’t really seem like the most remixable band and many of the band’s newer fans seem to some from the “we change our favourite bands as often as we change underwear” school of thoughts and by the time this comes out they would have moved on to other bands.

Either way, it’ll be interesting to see how it turns out.

Exclusive New Philidelphia Grand Jury Track

Philadelphia Grand Jury make me so happy…

After posting  about them a couple of days ago, I recived an exclusive new mp3 from their upcoming album in my inbox. Yay!

The Good News is the lead single from the band’s upcoming album Hope Is For Hopers which is due out on September 25 on  Boomtown records together with the band’s own label Normal People Making hits.

The song hasn’t been put up on the band’s website or myspace yet so you lucky people are among the first to hear it. The song continues the band’s trend of writing redicoulously catchy music and is more pop based than their previous two singles. I dare you to try and get the chorus out of your head.

The band have some upcoming show as well:

FRI 11 SEPT – Big Sound, BRISBANE
SAT 12 SEPT – Bimbadgen Festival, POKOLBIN, NSW
WED 16 SEPT – Corner Hotel, MELB – w/Grinspoon
THUR 17 SEPT – The Factory, SYDNEY – w/Grinspoon
SAT 19 SEPT – Hi Fi Bar, BRISBANE – w/Grinspoon
SAT 17 OCT – Fresh Festival, GOLD COAST
SUN 18 OCT – One Movement, PERTH
SUN 25 OCT – Fat As Butter, NEWCASTLE
WED 30 DEC – Falls Festival, MARION BAY, TAS
THUR 31 DEC – Falls Festival, LORNE, VIC

Philadelphia Grand Jury- The Good News.mp3

[Review]Eskimo Joe- Inshalla

In 2006, Eskimo Joe released Black Fingernails, Red Wine, an album that went double platinum and made Eskimo Joe one of the biggest bands in Australia. On their forth album Inshalla it is easy to the see that the bad are hoping for a repeat performace. With help of UK producer Gil Norton  (The Pixies)  and a few Middle Eastern influences, Eskimo Joe have recorded a solid album that highlights the band’s abilty to create catchy songs without messing with the formula too much. The result is a glossy album that lacks the charm that made the band’s early albums so good.

The first track on the album and single Foreign Land, which is said to have been inspired by Heath Ledger’s death, unexpectedly begins with a Middle Eastern instrumental before launching into a catchy rock song that is probably as close to an epic track as Eskimo Joe have ever been. Unfortunatly by about the tenth listen this becomes rather grating and lyrics like “I smell the blood of an Australian” come off a little cringeworthy, rather than thought provoking and emotional. The Middle Eastern influences continue throughout the album, especially on Falling for You, which is inexplicably seperated into two tracks when it would have worked much better as one.

This album contains some of the band’s catchiest songs. Losing Friends Over Love is definetly one of them, with a chourus that sounds like it was built for commercial radio. The Sound Of Your Heart is the closest to early Eskimo Joe on this album and also one of the stand out tracks. The best track on this album, however, is Childhood Behaviour. This ode to rockstar parenthood  features violin and acousic guitar and is a refreshing change from the slick widescreen sounds of the rest of the album.

Although this is the bands most accomnplished album musically, the whole record lacks  intamacy and charm. The songs are good but it feels like the band are trying too hard to become a stadium  success. Most of the songs sound quite generic and it’s easy to imagine them being flogged on commerical radio and featured on channel 10 promos in the near future. And this is not a good thing.

6.5/10

Philadelphia Grand Jury

I think I have just found my new favourite Australian band.

Philadelphia Grand Jury, or the Philly Jays as they also like to be known, are not your typical indie band. They look like they would fit in at a Star Wars convention, they’re signed to a punk label, they have awesome stagenames like Dan W Sweat, MC Bad Genius and Berkfinger. Oh,  and they also make  some incredibly catchy music.

Many people would be familiar with their song Going To The Casino, which has been getting heaps of Triple J airplay and they have also had one of their songs played on the TV series Underbelly.

I’m Going To Kill You is possibly one of best death threat songs around. It is the stuff that nightmares are maded out of. You know, the kind of nightmares that involve indie bands chasing after you with meat cleavers(trust me, I’ve many of those dreams).  The song has plenty of frantic guitar strumming and harmonies and is so damn catchy that you will have it stuck in your head for weeks.

The song is frm an EP that cann be purchased as a limited 7″  or on itunes. The Philly Jays also have an album called Hope is For Hopers coming out on September 25 and I have a feeling it’s going to be rediculously good. I have a feeling I’m going to be very broke by the time October rolls around.

Philadelphia Grand Jury- I’m Going To Kill You.mp3

http://www.myspace.com/philadelphiagrandjury

Buzzcocks Tour Australia

My suburb is well known for having a popular trash-and-treasure market every Sunday. It is the only time of the week where you will find many weired and wonderful characters in an otherwise nice but quite conservative suburb.

Why am I mentioning this in a post about the Buzzcocks?

Because there are two old punks who frequent the market. Both of them would be in their 50s and they still get around wearing chains and spikes on their jackets and I swear they have four teeth between them. I reckon they’re pretty awesome. Not that the old punks would be into Buzzcocks, they’re Exploited fans.

Anyway, Buzzcocks are coming to Australia and playing songs off their first two albums Another Music In A Different Kitchen and Love Bites.

Wed 18th: Coolangatta, The Cooly Bandroom
Thu 19th: Brisbane, The Zoo
Fri 20th: Sydney, The Forum
Sat 21st: Melbourne, Corner Hotel
Sun 22nd: Hobart, Moorilla
Tue 24th: Perth, Amplifier Bar

Tickets go on sale August 31.

Hungry Kids, Remixes and Old Money

This has been floating around in my inbox for the last week or so and if I have to write one more thing about how slums form I will go mental. So I will post it now.

Old money was not my favourite track of The Hungry Kids of Hungary’s Mega  Mountain EP. Not that it’s a bad song, it just lacks the immediate appeal that the others on the EP had, which is probably due to the fact that it’s the track after Scattered Diamonds which is the catchiest song on the release.

The band recently released the video for old Money which was shot in an old Museum in Brisbane.

I’m not a huge fan of remixes in general as I haven’t found many that improve the original but this one makes the song even more fun and kind of suits the song. It gives it more of a Vampire Weekend vibe, I think. It is also avaliable as a free download.

<div style=”font-size: 11px;”> <div style=”padding-top: 5px;”><a href=”http://soundcloud.com/delinquents/hungry-kids-of-hungary-scattered-diamonds-alcopop-remix-320kbps”>Hungry Kids Of Hungary – Scattered Diamonds (Alcopop Remix) – 320kbps</a>  by  <a href=”http://soundcloud.com/delinquents”>delinquents</a></div></div&gt;

Soundwave 2010 Line-up annouced

After a lot of speculation, the line up for the 2010 Soundwave festival has been announced and it looks pretty good:

Faith No More
My Chemical Romance
Janes Addiction
Afi
Paramore
HIM
Alexisonfire
Taking Back Sunday
Trivium
Sunny Day Real Estate
Eagles Of Death Metal
The Get Up Kids
Anti Flag
Reel Big Fish
Meshuggah
All Time Low
A Day To Remember
It Dies Today
Escape The Fate
Clutch
Isis
Gallows
A Wilhelm Scream
The Weakerthans
Emarosa
Anvil
The Devil Wears Prada
Comeback Kid
The Almost
Dance Gavin Dance
Four Year Strong
You Me At Six
Whitechapel
The Aquabats
Rolo Tomassi
Baroness
Rx Bandits
Maximum The Hormone
The Creepshow

The dates for the festival are:

Saturday Feb 20 – Brisbane
Sunday Feb 21- Sydney
Friday Feb 26 – Melbourne
Saturday Feb 27 – Adelaide
Monday March 1- Perth

Update

I have a feeling I’ve been neglecting this blog a little bit lately so I just wanted to let you all know I’m still alive.

I’ve been sick with what I though was a bad cold, which in the end turned out to be the sinus infection from hell. To make matters worse they’ve given me three chioces of antibiotics:  ones that I’m allergic to,  ones that don’t work and ones that make me throw up. It’s been awesome.

I’ll make it up to you all when I’m better. I have permission to post songs by Beerjacket, Philidelphia Grand Jury and the newest Dew Process signing, Alberta Cross. I also have Howling Bells and Eskimo Joe CDs to review.

I might post the odd dodgy post or two while I’m still sick but at the moment I can’t even write something like this without feeling dizzy so don’t expect much.