Reviewed for LiveGuide. The Watch Me Set My Strange Sun You Bloody Choir tour is billed as a bit of a retrospective look at the work to date of Augie March and it serves as a closing chapter on the first volume of the band’s career. As singer Glenn Richards announced towards the end of their set, this is the last tour for a few … Continue reading REVIEW: AUGIE MARCH @ Metro Theatre, Sydney (17/07/09)
Written for FasterLouder. Thanks to Antony McDonald for some great photos. Sunday night gigs at the Annandale are a great way to start the new week. Seeing three bands and being home by 10pm is a pretty good night out and Jack Ladder even made the tongue-in-cheek comment about not leaving the stage before the encore to save time so we could catch the end … Continue reading REVIEW: JACK LADDER @ The Annandale Hotel (28/06/09)
Reviewed for FasterLouder – visit them, they’re great !!! Tonight was a special evening for the Sydney indie crowd who had missed Deerhunter at the Manning Bar a week earlier, such was the hype and anticipation that has been built up around this tour. Tweets and bloggers have been foaming at the mouth over the the band’s visit and so for someone who hadn’t yet … Continue reading REVIEW: DEERHUNTER @ The Annandale Hotel (20/06/09)
Reviewed for THE DWARF visit them, they’re great! Psychedelic-tinged music is on the rise in Sydney with bands like The Laurels, Circle Pit and now Cabins utilising its effects. These bands are all including it in their sound in a different way, whether it is adding atmosphere to shoegaze or a garage rock element to punk, they are forgoing straight chords and aggression to create … Continue reading REVIEW: WOLF & CUB @ Oxford Art Factory (19/06/09)
Reunion tours are a common occurrence these days and for the most part they are performed by commercially successful bands trading on nostalgia. In that context it was a pleasant surprise to see Flipper hit Australian shores to remind people of their standing as one of the true originators of US punk and deliver what they themselves called a “true Flipper show”. Perhaps the biggest disappointment … Continue reading REVIEW: FLIPPER @ Manning Bar 13/06/09
DS was at the Pitch Black show in Sydney last week and had its mind and body moved… …As each track evolved and lifted the tempo, the grinning cyber punk Free worked frantically around his midi controller and samplers as if he was trying to keep up with the music. Hodgson, expressionless, worked studiously next to him, physically leaning into and tweaking the mixer knobs … Continue reading REVIEW: PITCH BLACK live @ Spectrum
A wet and rainy Sydney evening was a good way to spend a few hours in The Forum with two bands that understand dynamics of sound in quite different ways. Trail Of Dead were touring their latest Century Of Self album and experiencing something of a minor renaissance after the mixed response to their last two records. Read the full review here… FASTERLOUDER Continue reading REVIEW: AND YOU WILL KNOW US BY THE TRAIL OF DEAD @ The Forum, Sydney
with The Laurels, Songs + Dead Farmers, 25th April 2009 … Kris Buscombe’s voice ranges from a Mark E Smith rant to a Fugazi scream and it plays a big part in their masterful display of discordant melody. Witch Hat succeed because they can bludgeon and caress you and that magic mix is what makes bruised music beautiful. read the full review over at FasterLouder… Continue reading REVIEW: WITCH HATS @ Annandale Hotel
REVIEWED FOR LIVEGUIDE – please visit them for all your gig news and reviews… New Zealand’s Kora returned to Sydney on Saturday night for yet another performance to their faithful masses. Playing in Coogee will always guarantee a venue full of fellow Kiwis, and even Easter Friday and an early start time didn’t deter a healthy and enthusiastic crowd from turning up en masse. Budspells … Continue reading REVIEW: KORA live @ Selinas
written by Chris Familton Australia holds a special place in the heart of Evan Dando with our warm weather, surfing lifestyle and the fact that Australians Tom Morgan and Nic Dalton have both been members of The Lemonheads. It seems the feeling is mutual as he can still sell out the Annandale on a sunday afternoon, primarily playing solo and acoustic. Support came from locals … Continue reading LIVE REVIEW: Evan Dando @ Annandale Hotel, Sydney 05/04/09
The V Festival drew criticism this year from many people who saw it as having a weak lineup. Not weak in terms of the popularity of the bands in a commercial sense but more in the musical quality of the headlining acts. There was definitely an anglophile slant to the lineup this year with many of the bands being darlings of the middle of the … Continue reading Review: V Festival @ Centennial Park, Sydney
Annandale Hotel, Sydney, NSW 5th February, 2009 Canada’s Black Mountain are a band of many peaks and valleys and they brought their retro psych rock sound to the Annandale for the second of two packed nights. On the back of last year’s In The Future they hypnotised the audience with a big, bold and at times deafening set that covered all corners of their music. … Continue reading REVIEW: BLACK MOUNTAIN Live
Doubtful Sounds 