Kisschasy Have Seizures

As some of you may know, I’m a bit over the whole pop-punk/emo/whatever you call it thing. It might be because all of the music sounds the same, the lyrics are contrived and attempt to be “deep” when they really aren’t, it’s obviously marketed at people my age(which I find a little insulting) or it could because I was a massive fan of this stuff when I was thirteen and overplayed it to the point where I can no longer listen to it without cringing.

However, I know that ther are plenty of people who dig this stuff and opinions are like arseholes(everybody has one).

Kisschasy are one of the more sucssesful bands to come out of this genre. They’ve managed to win the hearts of teenage girls everywhere and release two albums that have been quite popular and Hyms For The Non-Believer even experiemented with the genre a little.

They have a new album called Seizures coming out on the 21st of August and I recived the title track in my inbox and thought I would share it with anybody you all. The song itself sounds like you would exprect a Kisschasy song to sound, although I’m not sure about those “ah-ahs” before the chorus. According to the lead singer Darren Cordeux, the song is about a friend who was “not living life to the fullest because they were too afraid of the consequences.”

Anyway, You can have a listen youself. The mp3 is posted with permission, so don’t even think about suing.The band are also going on a national tour with quite a few all ages shows, so head over to their website to see all the dates.

Kisschasy-Seizures.mp3

www.kisschasy.com

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The Quarters

Yes, There are only three of them

I first came accross the The Quarters through a couple of friends from my local Freeza group who kept insisting that we get them to play at one of our gigs.  Needless to say that they did play and although there were issues during their set(namely a wanker throwing things on stage) I still came away a fan.

The most accurate description of  The Quaters that I’ve ever heard came from one of these friends who described their sound as a cross between The Living End and The Arctic Monkeys. While this sounds like a bizarre combination, it really does work.

The Living End influences are everywhere, especially in the guitar parts(which anyone who’s heard Chris Cheney play will tell you is a very good thing) and all of their songs I’ve heard have the same kind of energy as some of the earlier Living End stuff.

The track I’ve posted(with permission, don’t sue me) is one of my favourites by these guys and was also used in my slightly dodgy short film. They seem to do quite a bit of gigging and it’s worth seeing them, considering I enjoyed the set I saw and there was an idot in attendence.

The Quarters-When I Speak.mp3

http://www.myspace.com/thequarters

New Muse: United States Of Eurasia(+ Collateral Damage)

It’s fair to say that there are heaps of people who are dying to hear the new Muse album, The Resistance. While we will have to wait until september to hear the whole thing, the band have been kind enough to let us hear one track, The United States of Eurasia(+ Collateral Damage).

They did this by letting fans play a series of games and at the end of each one part of the song could be heard. I have no idea how to work the site but I’m sure there are plenty of people out there who do. you can check it out here.

Someone has been kind enough to post a video with all parts of the song. Is it just me or does the song have a bit of a Bohemian Rapsody vibe about it?

Festival News

I’ve been at school camp the last few days so these annoucements are probably a bit old but I’m sure some of you might of missed them.

Homebake is happening on the 5th of December this year at the Sydney Royal Botanic Gardens. Tickets will go on sale on the 17th of August. The line up was announced this week and looks something like this:

POWDERFINGER
JET
HILLTOP HOODS
ESKIMO JOE
SIA
DANIEL MERRIWEATHER
MIDNIGHT JUGGERNAUTS
SARAH BLASKO
A special best of performance by TIM FINN
CLOSURE IN MOSCOW
TIKI TAANE (NZ)
SHORT STACK
UNDERGROUND LOVERS (original line-up)
PHRASE
DECODER RING
BUMBLEBEEZ
TUMBLEWEED (original line-up)
EDDY CURRENT SUPPRESSION RING
ROWLAND S HOWARD (together with Mick Harvey, JP Shiloh & Lindsay Gravina)
THE FUNKOARS
THE MIDDLE EAST
THE ASTON SHUFFLE
SUGAR ARMY
RECORD PRODUCER
SHOCKONE

And more to be announced

In other festival related news, Jane’s Addiction have pulled out of Sp

lendor in the Grass and all of their other Australian dates due to band member Stephen Perkins being hospitalised with an infected elbow. The Living End have been named as a replacment for the festival.

If anyone has Splendor tickets and want a refund because of this, you can head over to http://support.qjump.com.au

Bluejuice Broken Leg Video

I got this video in my inbox today and it’s too brilliant to not share.

I’m sure some of you will remember Bluejuice for their catchy-as-hell song Vitriol and the hilarious video that went with it. I think they may have toppped that effort with their new video Broken Leg, which focuses on a skipping competition circa 1985.

If only more music videos were this good.

Monsters Of Folk

For some reason, supergroups are usually dissapointing. You would think that getting a bunch of well established togther to make music would turn out really well, but for some reason it usually comes off being pretty uninspired.

This is where, judging from the free song they’ve offered so far, Monsters of Folk differ. The band name doesn’t lie either. The line up is an indie kid’s wet dream and features M.Ward, Connor Oberst, Jim James(My Morning Jacket) and producer Mike Mogis.

Musically they sound exactly what you’d imagine a band featuring these artists would sound like. This is a very good thing indeed. They have an album coming out in the US on the 22nd of August.

The song Say Please can be downloaded from here and all you have to do is answer a simple riddle. Awesome!

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

What was the director of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince thinking?

Most people come and see the films because they like books or at least enjoyed the other movies. It seems strange then that they made a film that has almost no similarities to the orginal story. I’m not usually one for comparing the books to the films but this was impossible to ignore. I can imagine many die-hard Harry fans being very pissed off about this.

All of the talk of it being a darker film in the trailers is absolute rubbish. The whole thing was like a romantic comedy with a touch of magic thrown in there every now and then. It almost felt as if they forgot what kind of film they were making. While humor is an essential part of the films, at times I felt like I was watching a comedy rather than a Harry Potter film. Too many hormones and not enough darkness.

The film wasn’t terrible though. It was very entertaining and it didn’t feel like it dragged on. The comedy did work well and the special effects were excellent. The magic side of the plot was neglected and anoyone who hadn’t read the books were often left confused as things weren’t really explained in any sort of depth. The death of one of the major chacters lacked any real emotion and could have been handled a lot better.

The ending of the film was anti-climatic. Anyone who was hoping for a battle like there is in the book will be extremly dissapointed as the director didn’t want one because of the battle in the last intsallment of the series,

Overall, it is an enjoyable but dissapointing film.  It should have been so much better but instead it just set us up for the next installment. Here’s hoping the next film is better.

6/10

The Hottest 100 of All Time

I always get dissapointed and excited by these lists. I love the hottest 100. Since I was 11 I’ve been sitting by the radio every year and getting excited when my favourite song come on, only to be extremely annoyed a few hours later when the number 1 song is announced. The main problem I have with this countdowns is that the most popular tracks aren ot neccessarily the best ones.

For this years Hottest 100 of All Time, the number 1 song was Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana. I’m a bit dissapointed by this. Not that it’s a bad song, it’s just been overplayed by just about everyone. Although if I hadn’t discovered Nirvana I would never have discovered all these great bands that I listen to today.

The whole countdown focused on the 90’s although to be fair it does take a few years to see if a song really is timeless. I was pretty annoyed about Sex On Fire making the list. It’s a popular song at the moment but I just don’t think that we will be listeing to it in 10 years time. Although I’m probably just bitter because it beat Bon Iver.

Quite a few people are dissapointed about the lack of female artists in the countdown and rightly so. Maybe they should start playing more female artists to try and balance this out. Although being Triple J, they’ll probably just play lots of Aussie hip-hop instead. Interestingly, only one Australian hip-hop song made it into the countdown. Maybe they can stop playing so much now.

Anyway, what did you want to get to number 1? What did you think of the overall countdown? Let us all know by leaving a comment.

I’m in a short film!

For media we had to make a short film about teenagers and I thought it might be a but of fun to put it up on Youtube. Anyway, this is the second short film I’ve have helped created so any kind of feedback would be awesome.

I had control over picking the music, which was suprisingly hard since I was listening to a lot of Okkervil River at the time and needed something rebellious. So if any bands are reading this, don’t sue me.

I play the goth, by the way. I don’t dress like that in real life but it was pretty fun to see people’s reactions when I was walking aorund the school.

Yves Klein Blue- Ragged & Ecstatic

It’s great when an album actually lives up to, and in this case, supasses your expectations. Yves Klein Blue are an indie band form Brisbane who quickly became Triple J favourites after the release of thier excellent debut EP Draw Attention To Themselves. Recorded in LA with producer Kevin Augunas (Cold War Kids) Ragged & Ecstatic is the band’s first album, and a damn good one at that.

Album opener Make Up Your Mind has been avaliable as a free download for quite some time and unsterstandably so. It’s a bouncy pop song in the vein of Vampire Weekend and a great introduction to the band’s sound. The first single from the album, Getting Wise is another catchy indie pop song based around a piano riff. Mistibishi Ad favourite Polka made its way on the album and is amazingly catchy despite having no real chorus.

There is more to the band than catchy pop songs, however. Album closer Gin Sling is best described as a country song, however Michael Tomlison’s vocal style stops i from becomming cheesy. Digital Love (no, it’s not a cover of the Daft Punk song) is as close to a straight up rock song as it gets on the album but it’s still as catchy as hell. About The Future is a more serious song that mainly features acoustic guitar. The ska tinged Summer Sheets features a horn section and is definently one of the album’s standout tracks.

The album drags on a little bit at the end, espcially the track Reprise, which would probably be better as a B-side. Overall, Ragged & Ecstatic is fantastic debut album with many highlights. I have a feeling that these guys are going to be huge.

9/10