www.skippinggirlvinegar.com

Skipping Girl Vinegar – Chase The Sun
TOUR DATES

Fri 14th Oct – Northcote Social Club  - Melbourne
Tickets on sale from skippinggirlvinegar.oztix.com.au and phonecharge 1300 762 545,
www.northcotesocialclub.com
and at the box office 94861677 or in person via Corner Box Office 57 Swan Street, Richmond
With Myles Mayo and The Trouble With Templeton

Fri 21st Oct – The Vanguard – Sydney
Tickets on sale from skippinggirlvinegar.oxtix.com.au and from The Vanguard www.thevanguard.com.au and phone 9550 3666
With Myles Mayo and The Trouble With Templeton

Thu 3rd Nov  - The Basement @ Gold Coast Arts Centre
Tickets on sale at the door
With special guests Jac Stone & Ishtar

Fri 4th Nov – Joe’s Waterhole – Eumundi
Tickets on sale from Joe’s Waterhole (Gaming Lounge),
Backbeat Records (Nambour), Shake It Up Music (Nambour)
and Venue phonecharge 07 5442 8144
With Myles Mayo and The Trouble With Templeton

Sat 5th Nov – Beetle Bar – Brisbane
Tickets on sale from skippinggirlvinegar.oztix.com.au
and phonecharge 1300 762 545 and all Oztix outlets
With Myles Mayo and The Trouble With Templeton

Fri 11th Nov – Fresh – Launceston
Tickets on sale from skippinggirlvinegar.oztix.com.au
and phonecharge 1300 762 545
With Special Guest and The Trouble With Templeton

Sat 12th Nov – Republic Bar – Hobart
Tickets on sale from skippinggirlvinegar.oztix.com.au
or phonecharge 1300 762 545 and from
Moshtix www.moshtix.com.au  or phone 1300 438 849
With Special Guest and The Trouble With Templeton

Have you always dream’t of being Britney’s back up dancer, soft shoe shuffling like Fred Astaire or free styling like Usher?  Well here’s an event that will have you tapping your feet in no time.  From September 16-18 Homebush Olympic park will transform into one big dancehall for the 2011 Australian Dance Festival. A dance extravaganza that celebrates the best of the best of dance in one weekend of performances, competitions and dance workshops.

Professional and non professional’s dancers can get involved in classes including Hip Hop, Contemporary, Break Dancing, Jazz Funk, Broadway, Lyrical Jazz, Tap, Free-Style, Musical Theatre,Bollywood, Wacking/Voguing, Latin, Musical Theatre, Krumping and Acrobatic Dance the whole gamut of dance styles all under one roof!  This is an event unlike any other dance event in Australia and brings together best of the best dance teachers and choreographers this country has to offer.

Australian dancers are some of the most talented in the world if you don’t believe me check out this clip from last year’s event! We really can fly!

http://youtu.be/2UFfkw9Xyms

There will also be a Guinness Book of World Record attempt for The World’s Largest Remote Dance Class which involves a group of people coming together to perform a routine they have been taught ‘remotely’ (via the internet).   The song of choice this year will be Lady Gaga’s hit track ‘Born This Way’ in support of the Festival’s signature charity ‘The Butterfly Foundation’*.  All donations from the attempt will go to the charity. A community based charitable organisation that supports eating disorder sufferers and their careers.

You can jump online and join in on the attempt by learning this routine by Patron of the Festival Jason Coleman:

http://youtu.be/i9nMruMOq28

To make the album the group collected over a hundred of the most iconic broadcast speeches of the last 100 years, and after meticulously determining each speaker’s distinctive musical qualities, emotional context, key etc. then set about composing and orchestrating music to accompany each.

Importantly, the speeches have not been altered in any way; they remain at the same pitch and timing as they were delivered. The end result is that “Airwaves” is all the more impressive, the music flowing with the original emotion and timing of the speech. For example Gough Whitlam speaks in B-flat major and in a waltz rhythm; Charles Kingsford-Smith on the other hand speaks in E major.

You can check out some of the speeches at the following links:

Bill Clinton – ‘I did not have sexual relations…’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBzd_RqHSdw
Gough Whitlam – ‘Well may we say’:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14ZccNJjrVk
Martin Luther King – ‘I have a dream’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUu1BPMdzu8
Gandhi – ‘Spiritual message as music’:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cb5tDpLo9Yw

You can also catch Topology perform the album in its entirety at two select shows: Saturday August 20 – Melbourne Recital Centre, Southbank and Sunday 2 October – Brisbane Powerhouse.

“We were in the tour bus last year and Jake (bassist) went into a chemist and bought a $2 DVD for the journey. It was called Moonfire. It was about these truckers taking on a Nazi in Mexico. Though I swear the Nazi never turned up in the film and to have a swastika on the DVD cover seems a little extreme for its un-related subplot, and by no means are we endorsing swastika’s or truckers fighting in Mexico or whaling. Oh yeah and so what was the point of that story???… Well we finally decided to name our debut album coming out this August Moonfire” said Boy & Bear via Facebook and Twitter this week.

Recorded in Nashville with producer Joe Chiccarelli (The Strokes, White Stripes, The Shins), Moonfire is an evolution from their acclaimed debut EP, With Emperor Antarctica.

First single ‘Feeding Line’ has already claimed the #1 most played position on triple j.  Filmed in the USA, the breathtaking new video takes a scenic journey from Nashville to the Rocky Mountains in Colorado.  Watch the video here

Boy & Bear have just hung up their worn boots after their sell-out autumn national tour which included three shows at Corner Hotel in Melbourne and two shows at Sydney’s Metro. Next stop, a return performance at this year’s Splendour In The Grass festival.

BOY & BEAR
New single – FEEDING LINE – available digitally now.
Debut album – MOONFIRE – out Friday 5th August

WIM’s debut, self-titled record has been a creative meeting of minds, having been produced by local legend Tony Buchen (Andy Bull, Ray Man 3, Kid Confucius) and mixed by industry aristocracy Bob Clearmountain (Springsteen, Roxy Music, INXS) in L.A. The result is an album that encapsulates the best of classic song writing and modern ideas, executed in a phenomenal fashion. The record itself doesn’t ooze of a buzz band way ahead of itself but rather a gradually growing group of musicians doing what they do best.

From the stomping album opener ‘Colossus’ to the poignant first single – ‘See You Hurry’, the band exudes confidence, style and prestige. The album takes many turns, a journey is formed with tracks like ‘America’ and the tribal tinged ‘John’. You not only listen, but feel this music. With every listen, your senses open up and take in what is a densely beautiful album.

WIM don’t create buzz through cheap stunts or Twitter; rather, they excite and amaze with long sets, great tunes and glitter. Check out more right here.

Mercifully, the sound signalling the beginning, as it were, of the end, came suddenly; a ukulele began to strum and a chain, heeding the call of its jauntily plucked Master, began to rattle alongside in a foreboding, unified rhythm. Above it all, the Stetson suddenly began a slow tilt towards the heavens above, the shadowy figure underneath seemingly positioning itself for some manner of stern address. It moved with slow and deliberate assurance, seeming confident of its authority among the few lost, desperate souls gathered in this funereal pit of visible breath and shivering trepidation. As the Stetson lifted, an untraceable light illuminated the form atop which it sat. I gasped deeply as the eyes appeared; piercing and alive, tinged with sadness. I was soon after clinging desperately to a stranger alongside as the face of a being weathered but composed, solemn but unbowed, loomed into view.  It was the face of a story teller, a messenger: a Man who had seen it all. An immortal.

Amidst the surrounding gloom of shadowy fear, the ominous jangle brewed to a stirring crescendo and finally, when we could bare his silence no longer, the Man spoke. His words were never to be forgotten, but never to be repeated. It was wisdom very much of the moment. His words said it all. Electric terror surged through the crowd. What did it mean? The crowd, of which I had become very much a part, huddled tightly together in the middle of an otherwise empty room. Or was it? Something in the atmosphere tended to suggest that the space around us had become filled by spirits from another world, a forgotten age. Somewhere in the frosty mist of our surrounds spirits lurked of the ilk even Bill Murray would struggle to contend with. Only united could we becalm; in the warmth and comfort of communal humanity our shared terror finally began to subside. As if sensing this new prevailing calm, the Graveyard Train pressed confidently on, displaying a charming whimsy even whilst slipping into the most harrowing of material.

Pedalling tunes from their first two albums of country and blues murder balladry, The Serpent and The Crow and The Drink, The Devil and The Dance, this gang of misfit journeymen thrilled the unfortunately small gathering with their startling musicianship and off-beat harmonising (predominantly a series of tuneful yelps and moans) that all unfurled before our eyes and ears with rare creativity. The Graveyard Train are crafty purveyors of melodious murder, despair, mummies and werewolves, but underneath the surface a wry social commentary bubbles. Indeed, lines like ‘I’ve got a wife two kids and a car/My boss says I’m gonna go far/I tell myself that one day soon/I’m gonna lurch right out of this tomb and move like a Mummy!’ paint a picture of real world suffering that can only be corrected by a walk on the wild, horrific side of life. A later song offered a similar slice of life, contemplating aloud about how a night at the cemetery can go easily bad through just one ill-timed dog bite. Certainly, such an unhappy incident could lead anyone to muse ‘I got bit by a dog, now I think I’m a dog and I don’t know why.’

And so it was. By the end it had become a joke the entire crowd seemed in on. Oh! How we laughed.

Ceaselessly sick and twisted, sure, but when all is said and done, can there be a more thrilling spectator experience than baring witness to such a creatively in-tune ensemble jubilantly exploring life’s grimmest possibilities? If you can’t smile at the maniacal howling of a tale in which a randy young fellow falls foul of a gang of whorish witches, your plastic surgeon has probably botched your face lift.

Truth be told and all hyperbole aside, the band put on a fantastic performance which, as if to reflect their own mortality, finished all too soon. Fittingly though, the show’s untimely demise offered a perfect encapsulation of all the doom and sorrow in which we just joyfully wallowed. In a performance which told of murdered lovers, surging demons and man-eating witches, the evening’s greatest tragedy was the brevity of the display. They Graveyard Train are too good to play shows this short. They were so good that I would have had them play until they were dead. They were so good, in fact, that I was unable to prevent myself from making the purchase of a band t-shirt, despite the fact that they did not even have any in my size. Not to worry, it matters little; this is a shirt I will starve myself to fit. There can be no confusing the truth of this matter: it is a shirt I will wear to the point of absolute disintegration. I will marry in this shirt. The Graveyard Train are a band worthy of nothing less.

The Brothers Grimm followed this performance with a charismatic set of manic rockabilly that I fully intended to review in greater detail. But alas, it seems I ran out of room. It seems that once one boards The Graveyard Train, there’s no telling when the journey will end.

Article written by Craig Tuck.

At 23 years of age, the pianist, vocalist and composer is a graduate of the West Australian Academy of Performing Arts where Hugh Jackman, Marcus Graham, Lisa McCune and many other leading Australian musical and theatre performers also trained.  While in Perth she completed a Bachelor of Jazz (Composition) degree, won the Jack Bendat Scholarship, the Hawaiian Award for ‘Most Outstanding Jazz Graduate’ and the Perth Jazz Societies Award for leading the ‘Most Outstanding Group of the Year for 2008’.

Now based back in Melbourne, her rise through the ranks of the Australian music scene has been spectacular, aided by frequent appearances at venues like Bennett’s Lane, The Paris Cat, and at major festivals. Her musical pedigree is impeccable, having been mentored by legends like Graeme Lyall, Jamie Oehlers, and especially James Morrison, whose Scholarship she won after six consecutive years of involvement in Morrison’s Generations in Jazz talent development programme, where she performed alongside him at major concert venues including The Basement in Sydney, The Stonnington Jazz Festival and The Stones of the Yarra Valley.

“Sarah McKenzie is a musical marvel. She sings with the kind of phrasing that only a true jazz singer can come up with while her groove of the piano is the stuff that makes people want to play jazz. Don’t miss a chance to hear this lady perform live!” James Morrison. Don’t Tempt Me contains extraordinary takes on classic pop, blues and jazz tunes, from the barnstorming first single You’d Be So Nice To Come Home To, through a smouldering rendition of the classic Summertime and onto a unique bossanova take on Elvis’ Love Me Tender which sounds as if it’s come straight from the soundtrack of an uber cool bar scene from TV show Hawaii Five-0.

Sarah McKenzie’s debut album ‘Don’t Tempt Me’ is now available.

There’s a stack of info @ www.mvmu.com.au and below but in short: MVMU is a time-based music video making competition. It’s simple:

•    Bands and filmmakers register (for their respective city – Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane)
•    They are then paired up randomly and given just THREE days (Queen’s Birthday Long Weekend (June 10-13, 2011)) to create, shoot, edit and submit a music video.
•    Bands – all you need is a recorded original song (no covers)
•    Filmmakers – all you need is a camera and a crew

There are stacks of prizes to be won including the winning clip playing on Video Hits, PLUS a representative from the winning band and filmmakers will be flown to the Video Hits set to be interviewed on air!  All entries are also showcased at a special premiere at Palace cinemas in their respective cities.

When I First Met Your Ma features an array of award winning Australian  Artists, including Paul Kelly, Julia Stone, Washington, Clare Bowditch, Bertie Blackman, Katy Steele, John Butler Trio, Gurrumul, Oh Mercy and many more.

New album – WHEN I FIRST MET YOUR MA – out 22 April 2011.

Believed to be a world first, soundslikebrisbane (SLB) is bringing together the citys indie labels under the one banner – already 17 independent labels are represented, with more to join the fold soon. They are giving you a taste of the collective with a free Brisbane music sampler available online now.

Covering every genre from garage rock and indie, to jazz, hip-hop, country and pop, the labels define the creative melting pot that Brisbane has become. Together these labels work with dozens of artists, promoting close to 100 releases each year.

Among them are some of the countrys most exciting new artists including DZ DEATHRAYS, Mr Maps, The Optimen, The Medics, Regurgitator and Jackie Marshall. Whether you’re a fan or a music industry type, discover new labels, new bands, make new connections in Australia and get your head around one of the world’s most exciting music cities at www.soundslikebrisbane.com.