Farewell

At least for now.

As you have probably noticed I'm not really doing this so much anymore. It's been a productive two years and a lot changing during that time, but unfortunately I'm not feeling the passion for it anymore and feel as if recently it's becoming more of a chore that's taking away from my enjoyment of shows. I took a month of going to gigs in general and came back trying to tape Sun Araw and that was not a good experience, I might release that later. Hey, I might even come back to the blog later if I feel and resparked interest in it, or maybe if the Sydney scene really switches it up in the near future. That said it's been a fun 2 years, met a buttload of people, heard a lot of incredible music and I think I've captured a very important time in Sydney music on tape forever. Thanks to everyone that listened, commented, let me tape them, hung out with me at shows, let me know that my efforts were appreciated, Adam Lewis for having me on Radiant on FBi a few times, Papaiti for playing my tapes on his show in Wellington, and Chris over at Fan Made Recordings for getting me into this in the first place.

As for regrets, I regret never being able to record the following bands: Ether Rag, Thylacine, Yes, I'm Leaving, Let Me Down Gently, Jungleman, None Music, Ghoul, Michael Crafter, Carborator and plenty more from beyond Sydney.

And for the sake of numbers, my most downloaded shows were The Cure, Pavement, Rowland S. Howard, Glassjaw and Paul McCartney in that order, each downloaded tens of thousands of times each. I might do a few posts in the future revisiting my favourite shows.

I might have some new blogs up soon, something small for now that I run with Adam Lewis from Radiant on FBi fame is ausreleases, just an archive of albums released for free by Australian bands.

Royal Headache + Wollen Kits

Photos by Dimity. Full set over at Two Point Eight.

I didn't get a chance to record Lowlife and the Warm Feelings as I was pretty all over the place at that part of the night, but they were pretty cool.

But before I start anything, fuck Newtown RSL. I haven't been there since I saw Animal Collective play there years ago, unless that Kiosk + Calvin Johnson show was after that, I forget. But the sound is fucking atrocious, at random points the sound would just totally blow out and either become all high end or get drowned in bass, and at the best of times it was like hearing the bands play through a hand held radio, also I know it's standard RSL fare but trying to tell people that live within 5kms that they need to get a membership is annoying as hell when you have an event such as this going on.

Woollen Kits played just as well as they did the night before, but with pretty poor sound, but less guitar cutting out.


Woollen Kits - Newtown RSL, Sydney, 20/08/2010 - 47mb - 30 minutes

Playing the shortest set of the night in true Royal Headache style, they stepped it up a notch and reminded everyone why they love them so much. No other band in Sydney can get a crowd going like these guys can and it's pretty awesome/fun to see that sort of reaction. It still amuses me how much they hate even the slightest suggestion of playing Honey Joy, despite the fact that song is pure genius.

Royal Headache - Newtown RSL, Sydney, 20/08/2010 - 33mb - 23 minutes

Woollen Kits + Bed Wettin' Bad Boys

Photo by Dimity. Full set available at Two Point Eight.

Bed Wettin' Bad Boys played a set with Shortty (currently of Royal Headache fame) on drums. It's pretty cool that they switched things up but I definitely prefer it as just the 3 of them, it kinda took away from the amateur charm and made it all a bit stale.

Bed Wettin' Bad Boys - Gallery Bar, Sydney, 19/08/2010 - 41mb - 28 minutes

Woollen Kits came up to Sydney for the weekend to play a stack of free shows. The vocals sort of become over powering in the last song so everything else is mixed a bit lower throughout as a result, I might fix it later, but their brand of double-guitar-pop is just beautiful. First time getting to see them live so half the set was new music for it and I dug it all heaps.

Woollen Kits - Gallery Bar, Sydney, 19/08/2010 - 44.7mb - 31 minutes

First ever Absolute Boys show.

Long long ago I got to witness and record Absolute Boys first ever show supporting My Disco, Holy Balm and Royal Headache. The recording was great, and they were great, but this has been unavailable since then. But as of right now I'm allowed to put it back up so everyone can hear, and I cannot recommend it more. Give it a spin. Here's what I said at the time:

"Who are the Absolute Boys? I only found out who they "might" be the night before and this was enough to make me excited, 1 part Eucalpyt, 2 parts Ohana, and the result was fucking awesome. Got about half way through the intro to the first song before realising this was going to be a great band. Pretty sure this was their first show."

Minimalist awesome.

Absolute Boys - Oxford Art Factory, Sydney, 24/09/2009 - 30.54mb - 21 minutes

Pisschrist farewell

Supported by Pathetic Human and Teargas.

This was due to start at 4pm in Footscray Park, but this damn hyped up thing I've been hearing about all weekend called the "Arctic Blast" hit and just started pissing down, being windy as hell and into single digits of temperature, so we had to stand around for about an hour and a half while things were slowly set up, was actually quite painful but easily worth it.

Was really pumped to see Pathetic Human, I expected nothing more than the 10 minutes set they gave us, I couldn't see anything but they played well.

Pathetic Human - Footscray Park, Melbourne, 01/08/2010 - 15mb - 10 minutes

Never heard of Teargas but I am an instant convert, once again didn't see what they looked like. The power cuts out about half way through after one of the many dogs pull it out of the pole, followed by a human pyramid being built to plug it back in.

Teargas - Footscray Park, Melbourne, 01/08/2010 - 39mb - 26 minutes

And on to the final ever Pisschrist show, they were awesome, so damn awesome. BUT. They played for 50 fucking minutes. I was exhausted by the end, I granted that it was their farewell show but I had really had enough by this point with the weather/location and what not. Though huge fans of the band would have been loving it, and so ended my adventure to Footscray Park and Melbourne.

Pisschrist - Footscray Park, Melbourne, 01/08/2010 - 77mb - 51 minutes

Super Wild Horses album launch

Supported by School of Radiant Living, Boomgates and Total Control.

So I went to Melbourne for the weekend, I had a bit of trouble trying to figure out which Victoria Hotel this was since the address I had been given was an actual hotel. Turns out the show was literally in a hotel, in a function room. Which turned out to be surprisingly good, as I'm sure they don't normally have gigs there so there was no limiter and it was preeeeeeeeetty pretty loud.

Boomgates were quite interesting to see, who are (correct me if I'm wrong) Rick from the Twerps, Steph from Dick Diver, Gus from Teen Archer, Brendan from Eddy Current Suppression Ring and maybe one other person. There are some really well thought out songs here, but they also played a few duds as well, a short set of all the good stuff would have gone over really well, but this dragged on a little. Brendan spent half the set shredding into a melodica and I don't think I heard a peep out of it once.

Boomgates - Victoria Hotel, Melbourne, 31/07/2010 - 45mb - 31 minutes

I was always looking forward to seeing Total Control, but did not expect them to be this good, one of the best sets I've seen all year, if I had to go down "x meets y" path I'd say Chrome Dome meets Brainiac. Best I saw all weekend, as far as I know Total Control is Mikey from Eddy Current Suppression Ring, Dan from the UV Race/Straitjacket Nation, Al from UV Race/Dick Diver and two other dudes that I'm sure people from Melbourne know.

Total Control - Victoria Hotel, Melbourne, 31/07/2010 - 41mb - 27 minutes

Super Wild Horses, seemed to be a bit of an off night and they played wayyy to long. I didn't even know they had this many songs, plenty of enjoyable moments through out though.

Super Wild Horses - Victoria Hotel, Melbourne, 31/07/2010 - 63mb - 44 minutes

Golden Staph + Super Wild Horses

I missed all of Golden Staph's shows this weekend because shit was busy as and I'm lazy but they were awesome, regret only seeing them the once but that didn't take away from it at all.

Golden Staph - Repressed Records, Sydney, 25/07/2010 - 29mb - 20 minutes

First impressions from seeing Super Wild Horses back at Flip Out last year left me less than impressed. In fact I hated them, time to admit I was wrong because this was great.

Super Wild Horses - Repressed Records, Sydney, 25/07/2010 - 29mb - 21 minutes