Built to Spill + Crayon Fields & Gareth Liddiard

Built to Spill(space) + Crayon Fields(space) & Gareth Liddiard
The Corner 29/12/2007, ticket $48, pots of draught beer $3.60

Crayon Fields played a sweet, crusy indie pop, great for a summer day.

Gareth Liddiard(I think he's the Lead singer of the Drones) solo act, playing haunting ballads and telling stories.

Built to Spill played a real dreamy gig with plenty of great guitar action. It was amazing that this relaxed band had a few crazy supporters in the crowd even one person who must of fainted near the stage, as the lead singer called for someone to give them a hand. Doug Martsch also thank the crowd for coming and mention how expensive it was, but how I see it was very cheep for an international gig these days.

HappyJoySoundNoise

While looking for another artist (on J unearthed) I stumbled across this four piece Melbourne band SuperFunHappyBand! With a name like that you would expect them to come out of Japan... or not. It's Pop, Electro and Punk all rapped into one. Just beware plenty of synth can be found here.

If you want to check them out gigs comming up are 27/12/07 8pm Miss Libertine; 29/12/07 Falls Festival; and 14/2/08 Ding Dong.

SuperFunHappyBand! - Short And Harsh
SuperFunHappyBand! - Get Good!

The Black Lips & Spencer P. Jones

The Black Lips(space) + Spencer P. Jones & the Escape Committee(space) and Digger & the Pussycats, Thursday 20/12/07, The Tote

There was a plenty of hype around town about The Black Lips. It was cool how they had three gig's in a row, one at the art house and then a couple at the Tote. I only just got there, and saw the last couple of song by Spencer P. Jones & the Escape Committee, always highly recommend them as they are hard workers on stage, and give you much bang for your buck. The Tote was amazingly stinky, the heat was almost too incredible and exhausting. If I felt hot in the crowd how unbearable was it for the muso's on stage with the lights on them.

The Black Lips had the sound (blue/punk), sometimes it was a little bit repetitive, but I was totally not into them. They've got a couple of good tracks out but maybe the heat just got to me, which eventually forced me to leave.

Black Lips - Cold Hands

King Brothers & Bang!Bang!Aids! at the Tote

King Brothers, Bang!Bang!Aids! and ?.
16/12/07 at the Tote

I only caught the last five tracks of the first act, and can’t remember for the life of me who they were but they had some incredible fuzz happening.

Second act to come on stage was Bang!Bang!Aids!(In my opinion on of the worst names in the business at the moment). If you haven’t seen this band they comprise of Guitarist, Drummer and Two members on stage each had a Floor Tom(I know nothing about drums and found this on wikipedia). I have listened to some of there music before and was very interested in seeing them live, but live was a little bit annoyed with the stopping and starting and some in house jokes with the crowd. Also minor note some of the punters left while this band was playing.

Bang!Bang!Aids! – Jesus

Didn’t know what to expect with the King Brothers other than they were from Japan, and they’d played this Rock n Roll/Punk tunes. They were very hardworking on stage, songs went into one another and they’re was some great long guitar solo’s to be heard.

The Gossip and Catcall

The Gossip(Space) and Catcall at the Prince Band Room, Sunday 16th December

It's been really hard keeping up with writing this blog as we're in the silly season of gig's. Many a gig and festival is happening around Melbourne town. The crowd at the Prince Band room was fairly young, mixed though, with slightly more Ladies than Gentlemen in the house.

Last time I saw Catcall was at Roxanne, and was much more impressed this time. What I liked about this time was a better vibe with the venue, which it seemed Catcall was feeding off it, and also she had two backup Singers/Dancers who were Ms Fitz and Carolina. Also I can't remember her introducing them. I heard once that Missy Elliot when she was down, introduced all her 20 odd dancing/backup posse in a song that went for a little long, which sounded very hilarious. For this year Catcall would be in my top 10 or one of my top lists, especially with the 'Dis' track on her demo CD (get if you can).

The Gossip mixed it up with a bit of banter and some amazing sounds. I still am amazed on how fantastic Beth's vocals were in real life, very much like a soul singer, and for some reason I was thinking Sharon Jones. It'll be very interesting to see were the Gossip career will go, and especially Beth.

Exotics and The Murder Rats

Exotics and The Murder Rats
At the Grayhound Hotel Sat 8th December
The Murder Rats are a fairly new line up even though the Bassist and the Drummer play in Intoxia, with young singer Ash and a guitarist who I can't remember where they found him, but has worked in other rock'n'roll bands. They played a very energetic rock'n'roll punk sound, with a lead singer with a gravely voice, which made me thing of Motorheads Lemmy. Also there was a plenty a crowd sticking around to see this band play.

The well played around Exotics had a two set. Second set had Spencer P Jones play with them, before the lights went out. Well they must of burnt a fuse or something.

Some more music festival posters

Something for the posers. Website

Blues fest website

Website

The New Electric

I've been very slack with my posts recently. I saw The New Electric at Ding Dong last month, can't remember the date. They were supporting a new act, which I can't remember who they were. The New Electric was great, very sharp on stage, probably best described as new wave pop with a twist of rock and electro thrown in for good measure. When I saw them I thought of 80's music with the likes of The Jam and Rocky Music (maybe due to sax).

The New Electric - Blue Envy
The New Electric - Flesh and Metal
The New Electric - Lady

BLACK GUNS + LOS AMIGOS + SIXSHOOTER

BLACK GUNS + LOS AMIGOS + SIXSHOOTER + SHOWCARD + DJ APPLEJACK Ding Dong Lounge, City. 8pm, 30th November 2007. $10.

BLACK GUNS - Another rock act
LOS AMIGOS - Banter was great, lyrics in music was good,
SIXSHOOTER - clasic rock out fit, maybe you could say with the likes of those new rock bands like Airbourne , but with out the wacky outfits.

BLACK GUNS - Nervous Breakdown (from In the City)

Devil's Kitchen! 2008

I almost forgot about this one. Reports has it that 2007 was good. Hopefully I can still go. Check out Cherry Bar's myspace for more details.

Hot Air Baboon

Hot Air Baboon - Card counting in hell & Reaction

Hot Air Baboon is an 3 piece rock act out of Melbourne town who play an experimental rock. Probable influences would be the likes of Frank Zappa, Tom Waits, Blue Explosion and Ween.

You can find a few other downloads at the Triple J unearthed website.

Gig comming up in Melbourne, 12 Dec 07 at Ding Dong; 19 Dec 07 at The Tote; 11 Jan 08 at Bar 303 (Northcote); and 18 Jan 08 at The Blue Tile Lounge (Collingwood).

PBSfm Live Music Week

Fed Square in Melb CBD, 2nd December 11am-7pm. It's Free.