What do you read, my lord?

A work in progress.

2006-05-31T12:05:00.000+10:00

Hey there everyone.

Just to fill you in on what's happening here - excuse me while I step around these sawhorses and the big hole in the floor - I thought I'd post a brief something.

You see, this place is in the process of being populated with content. I'm in the progress of retrieving all my online reviews so that they can be gathered together in one place. They'll be added with dates mapping to when they were written, which explains why you're seeing a lot of 2004 stuff at present.

There will be new reviews going up, as well - it just takes a bit of time.

Other than that, enjoy! Please feel free to leave comments on the writing to let me know your thoughts.

Cheers!

Gentle Ben And His Sensitive Side - The Sober Light Of Day

2005-10-20T10:45:00.000+10:00

The Queensland band with more soul than most return with a second album that makes good on the promises made in their debut. Don your dinner jacket, and enter the seamy world of the Sensitive Side.

When Gentle Ben and His Sensitive Side’s first album, The Beginning Of The End was released, it heralded the arrival something truly different on the Australian scene. Sure, people knew that the singer from the legendary SixFtHick, and understood that there’d be some level of theatrical oddness involved, but few expected the level of observational cabaret that the band would bring to the scene. Their first disc unveiled the group’s penchant for exploring the sorts of tunes usually relegated to late-night AM country radio, to lost broadcasts, and marked them as a group with bucket loads of potential.

Happily, their second release has proven that the glowing reviews weren’t bullshit: the band is back, leaner and more suave than ever. There’s growth on this disc, and it’s aided the Sensitive Side’s whip-smart tunes no end.

The last year has been hard on the band’s touring schedule. They’ve spent most of the time – save for the odd excursion into the limelight – sequestered away, working on songs for the new album. Compared to 2004 (when the band shared stages with Rocket Science, Calexico and The Handsome Family, amongst others) 2005 has been very quiet for the quartet, spending chunks of time in Melbourne’s Atlantis Studio, under the sound guidance of producer Loki Lockwood. And while it was created in time away from the stage, it’s obvious that the band’s rigorous touring schedule has impacted on the performances on The Sober Light Of Day. Tracks from their debut (such as I Don’t Think She Loves Me and I Can’t Hurt You) hinted at the sort of explosive stop-start power that the band could corral. It’s that power – the acknowledgement of the role of tension in the tunes – that’s been honed mightily since the last release. The first album sounded like a band finding its feet, while this one is a record of a band that’s rehearsed so rigorously that they’re perfectly in sync – something that’s vital if you’re in a musical concern that, in a live setting, must follow the whims of a theatrically-inclined front man. There’s a sense, much more than before, that the Sensitive Side are not only comfortable with the idea of exploring the tunes, but that they’re relishing it.

There’s a distinct sense of play through the album, of experimentation within some particularly-defined areas. This is perhaps most obvious in the album’s longest track, Summertime, a tune of a singer’s loss, which takes wordless lamentation to extended lengths. At the other extreme, songs like Punishment and lead single The Dogs of Valparaiso show that the quick-change dynamic of the band’s been refined, and that the big beat’s been embraced wholeheartedly, and embellished with flick-knives.

The Sober Light Of Day is an album that sounds, lyrically, like it’s come from England. That’s not to say that the subject matter isn’t Australian – not at all. Rather, it seems that Ben Corbett’s lyrics are of a style that echoes Tindersticks, Morrissey or Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker. The examination of life that’s written here is particularly kitchen-sink, in a warts-and-all manner that’s at once confession and parody. The focus here is on the seamy side of life, of extremity, of the nastiness that surfaces when the fun’s over and the velvet curtains have been drawn. It’s easy to laugh some of it off, but the disconcerting note that the songs strike – and there’s more than a few across this disc – linger on. It’s something that overseas bands seem to be a little more au fait with than locals, so it’s good to see a local act embracing that sense of lopsidedness.

The thing that appeals most about this album is the fact that the music is ostensibly chipper, happy music. It’s accomplished, with a certain amount of sultriness. But it’s this confection that makes the sting of the lyrical content that much more pronounced. It’s something that’s got a long history in music, and the nearest touchstone (aside from Pulp, or Morrissey, that is) is something like The Ronettes' Be My Baby. Elements of Phil Spector’s production style appear on the album – spacious sounding songs, moments where guitars ramp into walls, backing vocals that seem ripped from the past – but what appears more noticeably is the mixture of a pleading, hopeless, diminished-strength vocal linked with sugary pop music. It worked for The Ronettes, and it’s working for Gentle Ben; perhaps more effectively, as the disc’s exploration of male characters in periods of breakdown, or in the titular sober light of day, seems at once somehow more pathetic, and more intriguing. The puppy dog-eyed, over-eager offers of love are present here, as they were in the Ronettes’ day, but they’re tempered with the barely-constrained (if at all) violence of the flawed male.

It makes for a breathtaking examination of men at extremity. And as such, it puts a lot of attention on the band’s singer. Thankfully, Ben Corbett’s performative streak is broad enough to make the feelings ring true, rather than come across as some kind of overplayed cabaret role. The band behind him – guitarist Dylan McCormack, bassist Trevor Ludlow and drummer Nick Naughton – are up to the job of supporting such an endeavour. The two elements – band and singer – are obviously more enmeshed here than they were on their last outing, as the arrangements in the tunes are a lot more complex, with a South American strain making itself felt a little more forcefully than before. There’s a sharpened sense of clarity on display here, leaving the listener in no doubt that this is a formidable group, working at full strength.

The Song Of Drowning Men sets the scene for the rest of the album. Opening with insistent drums and a sort of Cramps/spy movie crossover riff, the story of social failure kicks proceedings off with a defiantly sexy hip-shake. The song also highlights the fact that the imagery in Corbett’s lyrics is much more pronounced on this release. The spin-cycle deaths of men attempting to measure up socially, stifled by music and perfume, are painted in fine detail from the outset:

There’s an ocean on the dance floor
And it’s full of drowning men
Clutching at fistfuls of torn skirts
And this song is washing over them.

It also, importantly, sets up the band as something close to a house band for tragedy. Gentle Ben is someone observing these dissolute characters, someone close to the action but not part of it. Yet, later in the disc, first person narrative comes to the fore. The line between participant and voyeur is blurred, and this sort of occlusion – carried on in lyrics which often only obliquely hint at what’s going on, such as the possible new start (or burial) implied in Filling In The Ditch – is key to what the band’s trying to do. It forces you to listen harder; to ascertain whether the buoyancy of the music or the dark velvet of the lyrics carry the true meaning of the song. It creates an internal tension that’s crucial to the band’s sound.

The First Song Of The Last Day Of The Rest Of Your Life follows, and it’s sort of like an amphetamine-fuelled version of Pulp’s Bar Italia, albeit a version containing both psychedelic offshoots and Elvis Costello-speedy panache. It is, essentially, a reminder of the Oscar Wilde truism about being in the gutter and looking at the stars – except for the fact that in this world, we’re in the gutter and looking at an evening’s worth of beer, and that that realisation is set to a beat that you can’t help but dance to.

The aforementioned Morrissey similarity comes into play with Help Me Make It Down The Street, one of the album’s most appealing songs. It could be something as simple as the fact that Morrissey does have something of a Spector-production fetish, but it seems that the guitar lines from this tune, layered over a bruiser’s warning of just what love for him will entail, could’ve come from what’s undeniably that artist’s bittersweet epic Vauxhall & I. Except here, the rough trade is real, immediate and threatening:

And if any man looks sideways
Or perchance makes a remark
It’s gonna get very dark…

Of course, all the machismo here means nothing; for while the narrator’s a thug, he can’t make it through alone:

Darling, give me hope
Take off your heels and hold me up
My split lip drips kisses inarticulate

So when I cannot speak and
Cannot find my feet
Help me make it down…

Oh, on some enchanted eve
Help me make it down the street

The guitar solo of the tune – which also reminds the listener of the Pixies’ Where Is My Mind? – adds a sort of sugary blast to what’s essential a tune about a brawling bastard. Moments where guitar and bass combine in a climbing riff, and the minor-key lead-in to the chorus work together to sucker-punch the listener into feeling for the reprobate that’s sung about. It’s confronting, because the last thing you expect to feel that Northern Soul sappiness about is someone who’s ostensibly a drunk with a hair-trigger, but it works so well that you can’t help but feel some kind of sympathy. It’s moving, stunningly so.

Carpark is another tune that takes violence as a key concern. Beginning with one of the most immediately descriptive verses I’ve heard in a while,

Cut adrift in whiskey mist
Then you sailed by, like the Mary Celeste
Slicing up the parquetry
In a drunken slow-dance
With his hand up your skirt
And your hand down his pants

the song continues an examination of a jilted lover, a fool. Sparse instruments – bass, acoustic guitar and cannily-placed organ – underscore the abandonment the speaker feels. But, true to form, the shadow of weakness overcome with violent intent makes an appearance, with a chilling prediction of how the evening’s embarrassment will end:

This is not the place
For me to stand and fight
‘Cause wallflowers wilt
Under dance floor lights

But I will show you
And I will prove to you
Who loves you more
With a true heart
And a sock full of pool balls.

Sounds in poor taste? Strangely, it’s not. It’s an examination of a character that most of us would recognise, either from keeping eyes open after a long night on the piss, or from personal experience. But it’s someone who isn’t usually given a chance to talk, someone whose viewpoint isn’t explored in rock. Not usually. That’s where Gentle Ben and His Sensitive Side shine – giving voice to people who we’d rather not hear from, and proving that their stories can be poignant and affecting, even while they remain morally reprehensible.

Similarly, the S&M messages of Punishment – a song which rides on a palm-muted guitar line, before flowering into a wonderful, sparkling guitar riff, replete with angelic backing chorus – explore the mindset of a controlling person, who could as easily be God as the singer himself. Lines that speak of whipping, of entrapment and duplicity are used to explore seaminess in a non-seamy musical setting, and it’s intriguing.

Elsewhere, The Shimmering Hand looks at a narrator that’s

Firm but fairly unconcerned
With right or wrong

before moving onto the sort of nameless horrors that he’s carried out in the name of The Shimmering Hand. Is it a crime cabal, a bunch of religious zealots, or something more sinister? It’s never adequately explained, and while the Eastern tinges to the tune carry their own suggestions, it’s refreshing to hear something that lets you draw your own conclusions, rather than stating the case plainly. It signifies bravery on behalf of the band, at least, to firstly believe that the tunes are strong enough to tell their own open-ended stories, and secondly, to let them do exactly that.

The song that underscores the band’s security in their sound is Execution Day, a cover of the Beasts of Bourbon tune. In the hands of the Sensitive Side, it’s turned from a dirty, gritty rock song into something completely different. Martinis wait in the background. We’re at some kind of Caribbean resort, at a spy convention, on a tropical island. There are low-key machinations afoot, with vocals remaining smooth until the inevitable eruption of passion – which subsides as quickly as it came. It’s more threatening than the original, perhaps because of the restraint that’s on display: like a mask hiding what’s underneath, this version of the song conveys real feelings of tension, of uncertainty, and they’re communicated beautifully through McCormack’s guitar-playing.

The album ends with an off-the-cuff tune, Plaza De Armas. Written in the studio, the tale of a new life through drug trafficking provides the perfect early-morning stumbling-out tune to close the album. It brings a feeling of ambivalence with it, that’s a perfect palate-cleanser from preceding tune Summertime’s focused despair. There’s a feeling of hope, of new beginnings, but they’re entwined with the feeling that what’s just transpired has fucked things up irrevocably. It links with the downbeat ending of the band’s debut, and brings the song cycle nicely to an end, leaving uncertainty and a certain dose of regret, of faded glamour that’s hard to resist.

The artwork of this release: queasy greens and collapsed bodies – fits the tone of the album well. But the key component, I feel, is the inlay photograph: in it, a sweat-slicked Corbett stands onstage, limp, looking off into the distance, engrossed in his song and the thoughts they bring. The faraway look in the eyes turns songs into recollections, rather than creations, and lends the endeavour the feeling of honesty that’s crucial to its success.

Gentle Ben and His Sensitive Side are back. They’ve returned in a form so suave, so sinuous that it’s doubtful that their equal exists in their country. There’s keen-eyed observation here that’s quite rare, and quite searching. You’re never sure if it’s a gigantic pisstake, or the most plain-speaking album you’ve ever heard, but one thing’s for sure: The Sober Light Of Day is much, much closer to the electric windmilling sweatbox that is Gentle Ben live. This is an album that crackles with energy, and demands to be heard. Or else.

Lock up your mothers, and give fulsome praise that Gentle Ben and His Sensitive Side exists. After all, someone in this country’s got to take care of the dirty work. And it sure as hell ain’t gonna be any of those ‘70s revivalist groups, is it? Sometimes, only a silver-tongued, swivel-hipped bruiser and his crew of reprobates are the only men for the job. Invite them in, but watch out for the sock full of pool balls. The world awaits, Ben, so sally forth and break its heart.

This article originally appeared on FasterLouder.com.au. I am no longer associated with that website and, as copyright owner, have moved it here for permanent record.

The Proposition (John Hillcoat, director)

2005-10-10T23:27:00.000+10:00

Perhaps this year's most anticipated Australian film, The Proposition tells a story set in the 1880s, but which resonates with the present, too.

There have been few Australian films as hotly anticipated as The Proposition. The combination of director John Hillcoat and screenwriter Nick Cave (who have created film clips together, and were previously teamed on the thoroughly disturbing Ghosts… Of The Civil Dead) and a cast including Guy Pearce, Ray Winstone, John Hurt and David Wenham served to create quite an appetite. The good news is that the expectations created by such a gathering of talents are surpassed with this film. It’s a truculent, smouldering piece that, while managing to have a core story that’s straight out of a western, manages to address issues which still dog Australia today.

The film’s opening scene – a moment’s pleasure torn apart in a hail of bullets – certainly hooks the viewer. It’s certainly the most dynamic, action-filled scene in the movie, and it’s here that the proposition of the title is made. Local lawman Captain Stanley (Ray Winstone) presents Charlie Burns (Guy Pearce), an Irishman of questionable morality and criminality, with a deal: in order to save his younger brother Mikey (Richard Wilson) from the gallows, he must hunt down his psychotic older brother, Arthur (Danny Huston) and kill him.

It’s an easy enough deal, and one that Charlie seems to accept – except there’s flies in the ointment. Stanley’s deal is threatened by local landowner Eden Fletcher (David Wenham), as well as increasing pressures to capture troublemaking Aborigines, while Charlie’s mission is made more difficult by the appearance of a bounty hunter. From here on in, the story turns from what in other hands might’ve solely been a relentless hunting-down, into a meditation on family and the responsibilities it’s owed, both on the side of the law and the lawless.

The performances in the film are universally good, with some cast members being truly outstanding. Guy Pearce is, as expected, fine as the brother who must kill one of his siblings to save another – all unwashed, lank hair and rapid blinking. Danny Huston occasionally channels Billy Connolly – it could be the bushy hair and the wild-eyed, trickster demeanour – while elsewhere Leah Purcell and David Gulpilil provide some particularly subtle characters. The shittalking townsfolk – particularly the troopers who undermine Stanley when he’s not around – are a guilty pleasure, too.

The performance that really intrigues, however, is Ray Winstone’s Captain Stanley. It’s easily the best role of his career thus far, and though he is the instigator of the proposition that ultimately brings unhappiness to a number of the film’s characters, it’s very difficult to dislike him. Stanley’s interactions with his wife, Martha (Emily Watson) are always protective, though often wildly divergent in character. He’s a man adrift, lost in a world that he knows he must tame but is almost certain he cannot. The comments on colonialism, on identity, on power and on the idea of keeping up appearances that’re contained in Stanley’s character are manifold, though Winstone is careful enough not to turn his musings into proclamations. It’s a beautiful performance of a man who’s slowly disintegrating, who’s unable to fit where he’s put, and the emotion felt for the character at some junctures in the film is surprising and real.

Both Winstone and Pearce’s characters have a single-mindedness that puts the viewer very much in mind of the works of Patrick White; Voss in particular. The same sort of focus that that book’s titular character is given, the almost Christlike sense of being driven along a path that leads to unpleasantness or destruction is very much present in the two actors’ characters, and it’s a credit to them that they’re able to present it without losing credibility.

If there’s a downside to the performances in the film, it’s in the fact that David Wenham – while playing his role well – doesn’t really get the chance to perform to the degree that projects such as The Boys have shown he’s capable of. His Eden Fletcher remains something of a cipher throughout the film, which, while it makes the power he holds seem vaguely ominous, it also can make him appear a little two-dimensional. There’s more to him than starched collars, hair-oil and sadism, but sometimes it’s difficult to see it. A different disappointment comes in the form of John Hurt’s Jellon Lamb. He’s a wonderfully meaty character, though it seems that his role in the film – other than to highlight the quick-change nature of the surrounds – is somewhat undernourished.

Hillcoat’s direction contains a pretty meditative streak, something that’s certainly aided by the locale in which he’s shooting. The long, penetrating shots of the outside of the prison facility that gave Ghosts… Of The Civil Dead its oppressive feel return in The Proposition, but here, they’re focused on natural features, not man-made constructions. But the menace that many of these views hold is the same: we’re dealing with a landscape that’s no less dangerous than prison. In many ways, it’s more dangerous, because in this film, the power and malevolence that’s exhibited seems to come from the idea of nature asserting itself, of nature being given free reign. Indeed, in some shots, where the eldest, psychotic brother howls at the sky like a dingo, the feeling of channelled strength, of nature-invoked nastiness is very difficult to shake off.

There’s been much made about the use of violence in The Proposition, and many have suggested that it’s the case that Cave has been indulging his penchant for a bit of bloodletting, out of all step with the narrative. But from my viewing, I must say that this is a wholly inaccurate criticism of what occurs. The film is violent. This violence, however, is a reflection of both the landscape and the people upon it. There are scenes of incredible violence, but they are never gratuitous, except in one instance – but the abundance of gore in that particular scene is used to illustrate the fundamental lack of understanding of human limitations by one of the film’s major characters (Wenham’s landowner). Not only is this an instance of violence being used for character development – not shock – but it’s also something that’s commented upon by the small town’s chorus of locals. At the junction I’m referring to – and it’s pretty plain in the movie which it is – even the hardest, meanest frontier survivors blanch at what’s been dished out. There’s palpable disgust and dismay. (That, of course, is without getting into the evocations of Christ that the scene is filled with.)

Where Cave’s musical and filmic portrayals of violence differ is that here, there’s no nudge-nudge, Murder Ballads tongue-in-cheek feeling to take the edge off. You get the feeling, more than in any of his other work, that this is For Real. (Of course, this is perhaps criminally underplaying Hillcoat’s contributions, but given that the script dictates how things proceed onscreen, I believe it’s apt.)

The fundamental problem I see with accusations of wilful violence in the film is that it negates something that’s fundamentally true about the era that’s depicted: it was a time of violence. It was the time of the bushranger, the time of. Aboriginal denegration and destruction. The time for figures of authority who openly resorted to violence to contain locals who were often only a short step away from convicts. There’s a tendency to want to portray all people living at the point where civilization and the unknown hit each other as being somehow all upstanding: all goodly folk, free of disease, despair, and the smell of shit. It’s true, there’s a new century just around the corner from when this film’s set – but the action here happens away from the bright lights and big cities. It occurs in the moral miasma of the rural, a place where the strength of the residents was the difference between survival and failure, and it strikes me that it’d be a failure on the part of the filmmakers if they caved – no pun intended – on this particular point of realism.

The violence in the film isn’t such that it should stop anyone watching, but it is explicit, and in context, supports the story. Hillcoat’s style of direction seems to be set against the idea of showing anything that doesn’t contribute to the advancement of the story – this is a lean film, in many ways – and so it would be a bit of a fool’s errand to stuff in some bloodlust simply for the sake of it.

As you’d expect, the score – a joint effort between Cave and fellow Bad Seed (and Dirty Three main man) Warren Ellis – has a distinctly wire-and-wind quality to it that befits the action. There’s a distinct feeling of development as the film progresses, and the music’s underplayed in a way that allows the action onscreen – and not the names behind the tunes – to take your attention. It provides feeling by stealth, in an almost unobtrusive way, something that’s lost on many soundtrack composers today. There’s moments of heightened tension, usually ushered in by sinuous violin lines, but by and large it’s the subtlety of the soundtrack that really scores points for the film.

The Proposition is a film that’s as solidly satisfying as a novel, yet as shocking (in places) as a slasher flick. It’s not a stock-standard western, but neither is it the sepia-toned morass of self-congratulation that many films on early Australia are. It’s different, and it’s important, and it’s the sort of film that you hope would get a lot of attention overseas, if only to show that there’s more to us than Strictly Ballroom or Priscilla.

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that this film speaks to Australians more fulsomely about the harshness of their country’s earlier times than scores of films before it. It’s brutal, bloody, brotherly love wrapped in the thin tissue of societal boundaries, and it gives the audience no chance to look away, no chance to catch their breath. Like the place in which it is set, the film is both beautiful and unforgiving, both vital and dead. It is a joy to watch, a terror to behold, and, quite simply, one of the finest Australian films ever made. See it.

This article originally appeared on FasterLouder.com.au. I am no longer associated with that website and, as copyright owner, have moved it here for permanent record.

Mikelangelo And The Black Sea Gentlemen - Journey Through The Land Of Shadows

2005-06-03T15:44:00.000+10:00

Mikelangelo And The Black Sea Gentlemen unveil their second album, an immersive disc that sounds like a musical antique store, run by a loquacious gypsy sailor.

Since forming in 2000, Mikelangelo And The Black Sea Gentlemen have been gathering accolades for their superlative, part fairy-tale, part cabaret, part cautionary huckstering live performance. Playing a number of festivals worldwide – including the Edinburgh Fringe Festival – they’ve honed their approach and reeled in punters with an ear for the more curiously strait-laced (in a completely Victorian, bodices-and-waistcoats kind of way) side of the gypsy-folk spectrum. And with this, their second independently-produced album, they’ve finally managed to capture the stage magic that has made them famous.

Journey Through The Land Of Shadows is the sort of album that begs to be sold with a monocle. Images of mustachio’d brutes and astrakhan caps play through the mind upon hearing the band’s songs. It’s evocative and emotive, and is relentlessly not of our time. That’s its thematic appeal – it’s so foreign, so bizarre that it immerses completely.

Musically, there’s a lot to link the band with Tom Waits, perhaps the most obvious exponent of the good that tacking a bit of weirdness into your music can do. More specifically, the music on disc would fit into The Black Rider, the Waits album that accompanied a stage collaboration of the same name. Particularly, Clarinet Interlude and The Eye Of The Storm, small instrumental interludes, are particularly close to Waits’ incidental music. Elsewhere, the brilliantly percussive The Wandering Song owes a spiritual debt to Raindogs’ Singapore – all foot stamps and piratical la la-la-la la backing vocals, and a surprisingly familiar bass riff.

So I wandered to a place sometime long ago I knew
A place that we all know but only tell a precious few
Moored upon its shores a ship, on its deck the crew
Their faces are familiar - their eyes are glazed with glue
I wonder where this ship would go, if I shot the crew?

(At which point, three taps on a snare echo shots. Simple, percussive narration.)

Of course, this should not be taken as inferring that the band is a rip-off. They’re writing in that same big-hearted gypsy-folk vein as Waits, to the point that this album’s This Broken Dream is a song so gorgeous that it demands a cover by the gruff vocalist. With its melancholy, entwining melodies, it’s a distressingly beautiful, setting-sun-through-Venetians moment that it’s hard to not get swept up in.

The shackles of this life
Have left me hiding in the dark
Like some mangy beast.
The torture of this life
Has left me cowering
Like some poor beaten child.
Still, I hope
Still, I believe
There is a way
Out of this broken dream.

Truly, a grand weeper, very much in the vein of Waits’ writing on Alice.

The UK band The Tiger Lillies might be a better reference-point for the band. That group’s use of Victoriana and highly theatrical presentation is pretty close to what it is I think that Mikelangelo and his Gentlemen are attempting to do. There’s no sense of the creators here as ordinary blokes – they’re all either vagabonds or scoundrels, or great lovers. Their group functions on the suspension of disbelief, on the injection of some forgotten – though not outmoded – magic into music. Songs of horrible travails, of sea journeys, of the Devil stalking the streets are their stock-in-trade, and to pull them of effectively, they demand that you take them as they present themselves: eccentrics, cads, and ultimately heart-on-sleeve men of genteel distinction. It’s a bold move, and one that few bands can manage without sounding like rip-offs. But by God, these guys have done it.

For the album, the four core band members – baritone vocalist Mikelangelo, clarinettist The Great Muldavio, violinist Rufino The Catalan Casanova and Baron Von Babyface, the fearsome contrabassman – are joined by a number of different musos, including those on musical saw, piano accordion and trumpet. Elsewhere, an orchestra turns up – backing the wondrously over-the-top Rufino on Thing Will Never Be The Same, a tune Maurice Chevalier would kill for. All the while, the standard musical weapons of the band – accordion, piano, glockenspiel, tin whistle, jaw harp, mandolin and the like – create a soundscape that sounds particularly Eastern European, albeit one that’s been captured on a wax cylinder, a sort of musical time-capsule.

A range of musical styles are touched upon throughout the album. There’s an almost-gospel vocalise in The Dead Men Rise At Dawn, while El Diablo smoulders on in a style that’s at once Latino, smooth jazz, and experimental sawing. A Formidable Marinade is straight klezmer sneakiness, while Figueras (with guest vocalist Anushka, The Russian Princess – who sounds for all the world like the Emcee from Cabaret) offers shades of sleepy Spain. There are stompers, weepers and sing-along tunes, and it really serves to add a sense of propulsion to the proceedings. In addition, almost every song features a Gentlemen’s chorus. Seriously, there’s more homage to the art of the barbershop quartet going on here than I’ve heard in a while, and there’s nothing more effective in communicating either upstanding goodness or bastardly dastardliness. Every “bom” and “la” is thankfully free of any sense of tongue-in-cheek irony, and as such renders such vocalisations delightful.

The album is structured in two acts, underscoring the theatrical nature of the excursion. It’s certainly easy to pick which is the more perverse side, as the tone darkens considerably from The Eye Of The Storm until its conclusion. El Diablo slinks on with its tale of faceless devils, of lungs filled with sand, of creeping death, but of particular note is The Carnival Goes On All The Same. It starts lugubriously:

Life was mild and it was meek.
When it was not as sour as kraut
It was sweet.
Things rolled on and turned on and churned on
Like the wheels of some old ice-cream machine.
We never noticed what was approaching.
We were to numb to see that our eggs were a-poaching.

before really heating up. The song goes on to mention some kind of spiritual mistral, a malaise blowing through life with the sound of a lark that has fallen one too many times from its tree. By the time the eight-minute tune comes to its end, there’s a Zorba-style maelstrom in progress, with lyrics that testify to the continuing nature of the carnival of life. (Hairy-chinned wives are mentioned, and larks sing prodigiously throughout.)

The tune on the album that perhaps captures best what the band’s on about, though, is A Formidable Marinade. Opening with its tale of creepy enchantment in a Turkish bath, the song progresses to a murderous close – but not without invoking one of the most memorable choruses ever:

Sodomy is not just for animals
Human flesh is not just for cannibals
I’ll feast on your body if you feast on mine
Blood is thicker and redder than wine
Lay ourselves out upon the table
Ravish each other ‘til we’re no longer able
When juices mix in the heat of the fray
It will make a formidable… marinade.

Clarinets sinuously slide through the tune and Bernard Herrman-like violin slashes punctuate while Mikelangelo’s strikingly deep, affecting voice tells of a lust taken to unnatural extremes. By which I mean a desire taken to the point of spit-roasting your lover and climbing inside to be close and to dream. The most important vision he sees there? Men who live on only remorse, a line emphasised so effectively by the manly chorus of the rest of the Gentlemen, who end this klezmer-themed tune with the most stentorian, brilliant round of la-la-ing you’ll hear this year. It’s thoroughly addictive, possibly because there’s pretty much nobody else pulling off this kind of thing with such balls… and such aplomb.

Throughout the length of the album, there’s a couple of little vocal tales from two guys billed only as Laslo and Josef. They tell stories of duck calls, of escapes, of travel and general arsing about, in deepest, deepest accents. Their anecdotes form a sort of vocal signpost for the listener, and lead nicely into The Great Muldavio, a dockside spoken word track in which the group’s clarinettist speaks of his history thus;

“How comes a man by a name?” you ask, with a curiosity shallow
You wish for a simple anecdote – a trifle
An entertainment for you and your fellows.
Very well.

It’s a nice interlude, and is perhaps the most obvious reference to the stage life of the group. Of course, Laslo or Josef end the disc, talking about playing music with combs, the pianoforte, Good Morning Vietnam and animal balls as an accordion plays in the background. It gives the feeling, particularly strongly, that somehow all that’s passed in the last hour of music has been a momentary daydream, some kind of muzzy musing, and now you’re jolted back to reality by the voices of old men in a market. It’s a nice way to bring the listener back to reality, and pretty much emphasises the fact that this is a disc that’s conceived as an experience, not just as background music.

As you’d imagine, this isn’t really a disc that lends itself to casual listening. The lyrical cleverness of Mikelangelo – quite aside from the often grin-inducing blend of almost archaic styles – is something that rewards close attention. There are subtle undercurrents on the disc both musical and lyrical, and while it’s certainly closer to music hall or Gilbert & Sullivan light operetta than many listeners these days would be used to, they’re hiding there, just waiting for you to discover them. There are moments of pure over-the-top vocal emotiveness – I’m looking at you, Rufino! – but everything here is played so straight that it’s difficult not to get sucked into the world of pipe smoke and flickering gaslight of the band.

The quality of the disc – and indeed the performances – is pretty high. If one compares the version of A Formidable Marinade that rests on the band’s website - the best place to grab this disc - with the one that’s laid on disc, the increased darkness, the improved grasp on theatricality is particularly noticeable. This is an album which has a quality that is, I think, the result of its independent production. There’s a more matured sound here, also: earlier songs sounded a little too close to artists like Waits, whereas now that’s less prevalent. The band’s sound is complete and its own, though there’s an undoubted tip of the fez to other artists on the way. It can safely be said that the sound is unique, and seems to – at least on this record – be fully-formed, and (despite the theatrical conceit for the whole thing) unforced and naturalistic.

The cover of the disc – also produced by Mikelangelo, so rumour has it – fits into the scheme of things beautifully. Watercolour fish skeletons bedecked with top hats dance on in a hallucinogenic break from darkness. Demons in party hats dance around in a circle. Childhood becomes something horribly perverse, yet cute. Juggling, youthful enthusiasm and naïve art come together as one, and though it may appear a little too close to Leunig for some tastes – I can’t stand the bloke, myself – it’s somehow incredibly apt. The portraits inside, thankfully, show the band in suitable garb – no illusion-destroying tracky-dacks here.

Journey Through The Land Of Shadows is a rare album, and should be cherished as such. At times, there’s a little too much greasepaint-smeared enthusiasm, but Mikelangelo And The Black Sea Gentlemen should be congratulated for larding the album with so much of their souls. Music like this doesn’t come along very often and – like other moreish ephemera; a fine smoking jacket, a carved wooden fetish or a delightful pair of ornate pince-nez – it should be hoarded when it does. This is a thoroughly delightful, unashamedly melancholic, stomp-around-the-room-drunk sort of album, the kind that stays close.

And the Gentlemen all sing…

This article originally appeared on FasterLouder.com.au. I am no longer associated with that website and, as copyright owner, have moved it here for permanent record.

Tom Waits - Swordfishtrombones

2004-12-09T15:09:00.000+11:00

A look back at the album which saw Tom Waits ran away from the bar to join the circus.

Love, invariably, has an effect on an artist’s music. Whether it’s the pursuit of it, or the resultant joy or pain from acquiring it, many artists have been changed by the experience of love. And there’s none that exhibit this more profoundly than Tom Waits. Swordfishtrombones, for all its strangeness, is an album that pays tribute to the power of being in love, because it’s the first "proper" Waits album to have appeared following the songwriter's tenure as a soundtrack-writer for Francis Ford Coppola, for a film called One From The Heart. The film's important, as it was during his time working on it that Waits met his future wife, Kathleen Brennan. Brennan's been credited with the role of muse and musical head-fucker; and since that time has had joint writing credits with him on his albums, and is often lauded by the artist as being crucial in the creative process.

So what is it that makes this disc so important, so necessary? It's because it's where the old is snapped back and allowed to pervert itself; it's the place where the singer's career changed irrevocably, and it still – its insistence on exploring odd tones and wilfully weird lyricism – informs his work now. With Swordfishtrombones, Tom Waits shrugged off the increasingly tired boozehound, barfly persona that was threatening to drown him, and became the crotchety-yet-lovable, avuncular artist that he's known as today. This is a crossroads album that still, years later, holds a heady thrill – there's the sense of an artist searching for expression through a number of new forms, and it's intriguing to see just how far on a limb a singer-songwriter can go. It’s a total reinvention; the sort that few artists have the balls to attempt, and that even fewer have the strength of vision to pull off. Swordfishtrombones was, all things considered, a brave outing for the guy who could’ve taken the easy option and continued as a Billy Joel analogue. Instead, he leapt into the abyss, jumped ship from his former record company Asylum Records for the sunnier climes of Island Records, and unveiled himself as a much more dramatic performer than his previous outings had revealed him to be.

This was, from the outset, Waits' baby. He produced the album, arranged (for what’s often described as a "junkyard orchestra", featuring players he'd return to in the future) the music and handled the design and cover art of the disc. The bum, such as he'd existed in Waits' career thus far, was well and truly gone, and replaced with something much feistier.

Album opener Underground begins with a blockheadedly-thumped percussion line (and more than a hint of marching-band horn atop a chicken-pecked guitar), giving the first hint that the troubadour of old had departed. Singing about a world beneath our own, a combination of marching tempos and chest-beating declamation heralded the new Waits like a punch to the gut.

A short, sharp introduction, Underground is followed by a more subtle character-sketch, a world – literally – away from the skid-row losers that'd previously been the singer’s stock-in-trade. This song, Shore Leave, is one of the finest tunes ever to feature accompaniment from a chair. Moving into shadier territories, Waits relates the tale of a dislocated seaman on leave from his ship, seeking simple pleasures while missing his girl. Muted horns growl like passing traffic over stories of floorshows and new decks of cards, and billiards-playing midgets. It's a tense piece, but during the loverman chorus, marimbas – soon to become a Waits staple – add a slinky-hipped sort of sway to the horny sailor-boy tale.

Some of the most fabulous guitarwork to be married to Waits' imagery exists in this song, too - spidery guitar lines that burst into fullness, with a texture reminiscent of a blade drawn across the skin of a peach; juicy, fulsome, splitting. The solo offers the clarity of a shiv, spiked into one's eye – in a background of aunglongs and what sounds a lot like banjos. By the end of the song, the frustration's become too much: an almost incapacitated Waits wails the words "Shore leave!" over and over again, a sort of idiot mantra, as the marimbas slink away in the background. It's an air of open-ended uncertainty, framed by strange reedwork, that's created. It's immersive in a way that none of the singer’s songs had, thus far, managed to be.

Of course, the old Waits hadn't entirely been eschewed. Both Johnsburg Illinois and Soldier's Things hark back to his earlier work – perhaps so as not to spook the long-time fans? – though have enough dissonant aspects to unsettle. There’s a nakedness to the tunes – about love and about the reduction of a life to a box of useless ephemera – that makes them compelling, though strangely-placed, given the avant-garde nature of some of the other works on the album. In other quieter moments, Australia gets a mention with Town With No Cheer, a tune that talks of the reduction of rail services that bring a small outback town to its knees, wrapped (after bagpipes skirl and what sounds like a blowing sign clanks through the intro) in nettles that shroud the hills in "a blanket of Patterson’s curse". With reference made to both Slim Dusty (see A Pub With No Beer) and the sort of thumbnail portraits of tragedy espoused by Paul Kelly, with this song, he creates one of the most heart-rending portraits of fucked-over rural existences laid to tape.

It seems, however, that Waits hadn't entirely come to the disc with the intention of being inventive for the sake of it, nor with the idea of repeating his past too much. Tunes like Down, Down, Down see experimentalism given the shunt for some stop-on-a-second soul-groove playing that swings amazingly. 16 Shells From A Thirty-Ought Six – featuring a percussion line played on a brake-drum and thumped doghouse bass – rocks its way through, and marks the start, perhaps, of the singer's grandstanding blues part of his career: "I'm gonna whittle you into kindling!" he cries, between lines speaking of mule escapades and of tearing the seats out of cars. Elsewhere, Gin Soaked Boy knocks out some dirty blues, almost like a John Lee Hooker tune with the benefit of a three-week bender, akin to the sort of pissed lecture you'd receive from a favourite uncle who you’ve found on the back porch with the dregs of a bottle of bad bourbon, and no pants.

The bandleader aspects of the album are best encapsulated on In The Neighbourhood, where Salvation Army-styled instrumentation accompanies an ode to the urban life, like a heartfelt love-letter to the bastard aspects of everyday life as heard through a hangover; at once thankful and celebratory and sore headed. Portraits of guns by registers, noisy traffic, newspaper sleeping-bags and lapsed deliveries wrap around each other in the skein of memory.

Providing a link between the lengthy ad-libs of the singer's live shows (captured on numerous bootlegs, as well as the legit release Nighthawks At The Diner) and his new area of interest, is Frank's Wild Years, a spoken-word number that’s backed by a particularly funky set of keyboard stylings. The suburban dream, during its length, is burnt to a crisp, and it's a tune that would also provide the seed for an album – and stage-show – of the same name, to be explored in the ensuing years.

The album's title track is the platter's best example of Waits' perverse recollection of human peccadilloes. More marimba, talking drums and an almost-vocal bass combine with a tale of twisted locals, the effect of wars and mental illness to produce a uniquely backwoods, drink-sodden tale. Here, his imagery is at its strongest, with protagonists with a pair of legs that opened up like butterfly wings, and with the cryptic cultural reference of characters who Chesterfield moonbeams in a song. The track is also, perhaps, gives hints to Waits' reinvention. In particular, the lyrics

Now some say he's doing the obituary mambo
Some say that he’s hangin' on the wall
Some say this yarn's the only thing that holds this man together
Some say that he was never here at all
Some say they saw him down in Birmingham
Sleeping in a boxcar going by
And if you think that you can tell a bigger tale
I swear to God you'd have to tell a lie.

seem particularly apropos, given Waits' interview tricksterism and general playfulness with descriptions of himself. If there were ever an acknowledgement that Tom Waits was a made up bloke, then this is it.

The album's running-order is broken up, sporadically, by instrumentals that lend the album a sort of silent-movie feel: Dave The Butcher gives atmosphere that seems to be borrowed from Nosferatu, Just Another Sucker On The Vine comes across as a kind of ragtime disappointment, with a dash of Gallic charm, while album closer Rainbirds feels like curtain-music, like the signifier of the end of an evening. It's a brilliant, theatrical feeling that’s oddly fitting.

While it's the first in what many perceive as a trilogy of albums that woven from the same strange wool, Swordfishtrombones remains the work that still casts a shadow over what Waits does today. While Raindogs highlights more of the scope of Waits' musical peregrinations, and Frank's Wild Years is much more of a considered whole, Swordfishtrombones is the disc that saw him break free from his past and embrace the sort of roleplaying tendencies that would see him move more towards the theatre and film. A kaleidoscopic portrait of the weirdness of life, the album is still, more than twenty years on, like a radio-broadcast from another planet.

This article originally appeared on FasterLouder.com.au. I am no longer associated with that website and, as copyright owner, have moved it here for permanent record.

The Tremors, The Grates @ Hopetoun Hotel, 6/06/04

2004-06-09T18:18:00.000+10:00

Two Brisbane bands bring a touch of the tropical to a slow Sydney Sunday.

The Grates' frontwoman Patience Hodgson is a sterling advertisment for the benefits of youth, clean living, and a shitload of red cordial.

While the drum-guitar-and-vox combo's tunes stand on their own - while not exactly reinventing the wheel, the trio provided a great set's worth of exuberant Yeah Yeah Yeahs-styled rave-ups rooted in childhood reminiscence - it's their singer's energy levels that keep most enthralled during their set. Perhaps it could be the threat of being followed by the stage-slamming beast that is Geoff Corbett, perhaps it could be the result of an enviable sugar rush, but for the short set these guys were on stage for - during which it seemed they shoehorned in at least three hundred tunes - she was a jumping bean. Literally. There was hardly a tune that was delivered from a static position: arse-shaking, aerial moonwalking, foot-slamming - it was all in evidence during the set.

The JJJ favourite tune Trampoline won some head-nodding approval from the crowd, while oddly endearing songs about mosquitoes and Snakes And Ladders gave punters a look into the cracked world the band inhabits. It's all very BRIGHTSHINYSUPERFUNHAPPY! but it's handled with such sweetness and doggone enthusiasm that you can't help but get into it. (And, a reliable source mentions, guitarist John Patterson is kinda cute.) The Grates' music is childlike, and impossible to decode, and seems like something that was thrown together for a school fete - and that's precisely why it works.

Special mention must go to drummer Alana Skyring, who throughout the set laid down some fearsomely steel-fisted beats, and generally kept the show on the road, providing the backbone that, if missing, could have seen things end rather terribly.

Then, it was Tremors Time. The four-piece ensemble have recently been laying down tracks for their forthcoming long-player at Big Jesus Burger with Jon Boy Rock. And judging from the snarl when they took to the stage, they've been suffering from a little cabin fever. So, with a little setting-the-scene-in-a-cruise-bar tete-a-tete happening, they kicked into the first song, dedicated to The Beat, a notorious nightclub in Brisvegas. Consisting of little more than the mantra "The Beat goes off!" over and over again, it was proof that the band's tightness has become damn-near impenetrable. Sure, there's the expected sliding and slipping across the stage that we've come to expect, but there was much more of a sense of slicked-back danger in evidence tonight.

"Is it OK with you if we just play new stuff?" Geoff asked the crowd at one point, just after deciding to nix Keep It On from the set proper. There wasn't much argument - the tunes that had been given an airing this evening fairly crackled, they were so loaded with energy. From straight-out rockers (the already-released Mirrors, introduced as a tribute to drummer Cec Condon (who'd jokingly been referred to as having to be gaffa taped to his drum stool so he didn't float off) to unbelieveably soulful Lovin' You - a song that's so tearjerking in its use of wailed chorus and gut-punched feel that it already feels like a canonical number that you've heard belted out by one of the greats. True, there's a sort of sordid tang to The Tremors' tastes - Monkey being about a traumatic, drug-effected relationship - but it's wrapped with such canny use of rhythm that it's impossible not to get on board.

Oh, and there was some top-of-the-bar crooning, too, as fans have come to expect.

Keep It On - after its unceremonious dumping earlier in the set - made its appearance as the band's encore tune. Back by popular demand and treated like a James Brown musical experience, the tune meandered over an extended, drawn out intro, before guitarist Dan Baebler kicked in with the signature riff. Eleanor Logan's trumpet and vocals added a soulful note to Geoff's rough-as-guts wailing, and the flirty interplay that there'd been between the two came to a head in some punter-pleasing exhibitionism - the keyboardist left the stage, climbed up a pole and proceeded to gyrate, delivering the final verses in feigned ecstasy. (And somehow, it looked as if Geoff was musing why he hadn't thought of that move earlier.)

Leaving the stage, one couldn't help but realise that The Tremors are approaching the sort of get-the-fuck-out-of-the-way sense of assuredness and strength that people normally reserve for stampeding zoo animals or rocks heading for the earth, destined to obliterate it. The time in the studio has affected their poise on the stage, and they're playing more tightly than ever before. The soulful-yet-funky touches that made Jon Spencer big are there, but with a frontman who deserves the gaze. Showmanship, musical communication and a hearty does of arse-shaking is what the band has to offer - and there's not many out there who can do it better.

So there you have it: charged frontpeople, dry-humped support poles and a whole load of broken glasses. Not your average night in the Hoey, but a bloody good one.

This article originally appeared on FasterLouder.com.au. I am no longer associated with that website and, as copyright owner, have moved it here for permanent record.

Shannon Wright - Over The Sun

2004-06-02T18:33:00.000+10:00

The perennially-dumped punk-folk songstress returns with an album that won't let you go until you're heartsick and headached.

Shannon Wright has opened on tour for Nick Cave, which should immediately tell you something about her style of music. A live performer known for almost painfully personal gigs, she's rooted deep in the southern gothic neck of the woods; a place of betrayals and of misdemeanours, of love lost and lovers fucked over.

This isn't going to be an easy listening encounter.

The cover of Over The Sun, shows the singer-songwriter at the controls of some film editing equipment, creating some mysterious work. And it's probably the best way to describe the disc in its entirety. There's a sense of working towards something, but Shannon's the only one with a clear idea of what it is - we're not at the controls and are just along for the ride. It can't help but feel, though, like we're going to end up at the dentist's office, and not Disneyland. The power in Wright's voice can't undo the feeling that all the songs are pushing the listener towards a bad place, towards a finale that's going to do nobody any good. With titles like You'll Be The Death and Plea living up to their tissue-paper-in-the-rain promise, there is certainly a lack of room for light here. There's Leonard Cohen discs with more joie de vivre attached.

Musically, however, this album is compelling, though it does lapse into repetition a little too often for its own good. With room-filling drum work from Christina Files, the only other contributor is Wright herself, providing spiky guitar that refuses to be pinned down - at once forming coherent riffs, at other times making confrontational attacks on your ears. There's keyboards throughout - the disc opens with a small mellotron interlude (which returns, disturbingly, later in the disc) before the crash of guitars sweeps it asunder - and it's these moments that provide respite from the angular guitar onslaught of off-kilter riffs. At various places, it sounds like the electric keyboard from mid-period Led Zeppelin has been roped into duty, and it adds a strangely spacious contrast to Wright's cramped guitar work. Indeed, one of the most affecting tracks on Over The Sun is entirely piano-driven - Avalanche. Through the tune, Wright cajoles simple chords out of the piano, reminiscent of some of A Silver Mt. Zion's work for its lonely, played-in-a-scout-hall feel. The playing style is deceptively accomplished - from Philip Glass-like moments to childishly-thumped passages, it's here that the performer's true range is explored, and it's the song that benefits the most from the absence of guitary artiness.

It took three years from the release of Dyed In The Wool - a time of continual touring and refinement of her legendarily passionate live shows - for Wright to get around to recording this disc. Someone so intense would naturally chose Steve Albini to handle their production - though some would argue the term should be preceded by the words "lack of". However, it's perfectly suited to Wright's musical vision. There's not a lot in the way of trickery, except for the way the vocals are mixed. At once, they whisper in your ear but seem maddeningly out of reach. There's always the thought that the singing should be louder, so apparent is the strain that's heard in some songs - the wail in Throw A Blanket Over The Sun is heartbreaking - but it all seems to hang together well. There's an almost-falling-apart quality to the drum sound on here - a familiar thing if you?re aware of Albini's other work - and it gives more weight to the desperation, to the rawness that lards the tunes.

The biggest complaint about Wright?s writing is that it ploughs the same furrow, largely. Musically, even. This is by no means a bad thing - many artists have made great careers from doing one thing and doing it well - but Wright's song writing is occasionally akin to stumbling across your obsessive-compulsive sister's diary, post-break-up. Being done wrong, continual recurrence of confessional admissions of worthlessness abound, and end up tiring, rather than revealing. A bit of levity to balance out the grim nature of this recording wouldn't go astray, and would probably even out the relentlessly bummed feeling that pervades every song here - eventually becoming so cloying that you'll have to rip out some brainless pop to stop yourself from rooting around in the knife drawer.

Ultimately, Over The Sun has a sort of narrow-lipped tension-headache feel that makes it a difficult disc to sympathise with. There's plenty of emotion through its length, but it's wrapped so tightly that it's difficult to penetrate - or escape. Like black writing on black paper, there's an inscrutable quality here that's intriguing, but makes for very hard going, listener-wise. It's rewarding if you persevere with it - masochism can bring rewards! - but this is certainly not an album that allows you to put it on as background listening: it cajoles and bludgeons its way into the limelight. There's no doubt that this is a heartfelt, intensely personal album, but it's one that isn't likely to find its way into the player much, unless climbing the walls while hopped up on red wine and heartbreak is a regular occurrence around your place.

This article originally appeared on FasterLouder.com.au. I am no longer associated with that website and, as copyright owner, have moved it here for permanent record.

PJ Harvey - The Letter

2004-06-02T00:30:00.000+10:00

After a couple of years' wait, the first single from PJ Harvey's new album hints at the blacker points of her past.

This, the first single from the Uh Huh Her album contains the biggest hint we�ve had yet that the evil, voodoo-crazy PJ Harvey of old is kicking at the door and waiting to come out into the light again.

Opening to with a detuned, low-down riff that reverberates in your gut, Harvey�s almost-funky-but-not-quite playing immediately kicks The Letter into a strange place. Rising in accordance with lyrical emphasis, an organic sound�s created, beaten into shape by Rob Ellis�s skittish drumming. There�s an element of languor conveyed by breathy vocals, invoking a lover�s scent on a communiqu�, placed at odds with the ominous bassy rumbles that pepper the music.

There�s moments of vocal affectation here that have Polly Jean sounding more like Siouxsie Sioux � her words trailing off into a tunnel of echo that ventures into the realm of the banshee (if you�ll excuse the pun). Rather than sounding operatic � as Harvey has done previously � it sounds more unsettling, unworldlier. The final words of the song ring as if they�re coming across the ether, communicated by ghosts.

Lyrically, the song continues Harvey�s highly sexualised investigations into passion and communication. Sure, this is a tune about a letter, but when she describes licking a pen, removing a lid, gnawing the stationery and the shape of her g� well, you get the idea. There�s the idea of eavesdropping, of intercepting cryptic, private notes shared between lovers who are running out of time. As ever, PJ Harvey exists in a world of shadow, seen obliquely by the outsider who can�t penetrate it, no matter how much they desire entrance. And it�s frustratingly seductive, whetting the appetite for a fuller exploration of such ideas.

It just might be the case, judging by the bass-heavy, soup-thick sound that�s on this sample track that the dusty hellishness of To Bring You My Love is once more at the front of the PJ Harvey sound. While it�s not as immediate as some of her other work, there�s a creeping nature to this tune that sees it embedded in your head after only a couple of plays. Here�s hoping the level of mystery bodes well for the album.

The commercially released version of The Letter in single format contains three additional tracks: The Phone Song, Bows & Arrows and The Falling.

This article originally appeared on FasterLouder.com.au. I am no longer associated with that website and, as copyright owner, have moved it here for permanent record.

The Casanovas - The Casanovas

2004-06-01T14:19:00.000+10:00

One of the hardest-working bands in the land survived lineup change and taping delays to release their debut. And it's one of the best - and dumbest - Oz Rock albums you're likely to hear.

You love AC/DC, don't you? Admit it. You do. You're thinking of a couple of Angus Young riffs right now, aren't you?

So is guitarist, vocalist and self-confessed Acca-Dacca enthusiast Tommy Boyce. But he's not only admitting his love � he's shouting it from the rooftops with his two partners in crime (Damo Campbell on vocals and bass and ex-The Onyas drummer Jaws) � who, together, make up the Melbournian trio of raunch-merchants The Casanovas. Their debut album � after a string of smaller releases � is filled with the sort of sly-grin shenanigans and fabulous fret-busting riffage that makes those elders of Oz Rock so damn enjoyable.

There's an element of the naughty to The Casanovas that seems to be missing from many bands. The band exists in that special place that most rock bands have since eschewed, unless they're somehow connected to David Lee Roth or KISS � the Oo-Er Missus Fun Zone. Big, dumb rock? Hell yes. After all, AC/DC were tough as hell, but there's also a large element of behind-the-hand sniggering going on almost all the way through. (You have heard Big Balls, right? Come on!) The songs on this album exist in a wonderfully fun place. It's like they've been bodily lifted from a risqu� '80s movie � and this is by no means a denigration of their achievement. This is the sort of album that you'd play on the way to the beach with the windows down, whistling and playing steering-wheel drums. It's got a sort of naughty innocence - or ignorance? - floating throughout that remains miraculously good natured for the length of the disc, and it's one that endears the group to you. Yeah, they've only got one song, give or take - but it's a bloody good one, and they rip through it well enough to ensure it stays interesting. It's one of those discs with perfectly-timed intervals to allow the armchair guitarist to stick their crotch out and go �Uhhhhhh!� in Big Rock Mode; in other words, it�s eminently, wonderfully enjoyable.

Livin' In The City is probably the finest example on the album of the bad-boy-with-attitude storytelling The Casanovas purvey. Of course, the tale about getting out of a hick slum to move to the big city to try coke and get a shag is bookended with some fantastically plain living lyrics:

So I got a place
I wasn�t lonely
I ordered pizza
With pepperoni

Fabulous. Na�ve first experiences in the big, bad city distilled down to a pizza box: there�s honesty amongst the twelve-bar raunch, and that�s what appeals so greatly about this disc. It�s not pretending to be anything grandiose or life changing. But it is some of the most honest rock you�ll hear � and that�s without mentioning that this is a bunch of blokes that can pull off that Twisted Sister vocal doubling/falsetto thing and get it right (Break Your Heart). A rarity, that.

Of all the tunes on the album, there's only one real weak one - Here's To It - but even this isn't too bad an imposition on the ears. It's a substantially rockin' tune (with some wonderful slide guitar) but pales in comparison to some of the absolute fist-pumpers that it sits alongside. It�s the only real misstep � and that�s only because the chorus doesn�t live up to the opening riff�s promise � of an album of tight rock that�s mindful of the big names of Oz pub rock�s glory days without becoming too slavishly forelock-tugging. Heartbeat has hints of the You Am I (at their most beat-drummed) to it, Strange Dreams is almost a Hoodoo Gurus number, while tracks like Shake It and Runnin� So Late are so perfectly formed that they fairly beg to be included in the chase scene of a caper flick. So strong are the rhythms, so meshed the trio�s playing and so fluid � though not ostentatious � the guitar soloing that there�s just no way you�ll be able to stop involuntary bodily rocking-out movements while this album�s on. Fact.

Clocking in at 37 minutes, there's no room for filler on this album. Each of the ten songs on disc is pretty solid, presumably as a result of the extended recording period taken to get 'em down, coupled with the amount of touring that the band have undertaken. Sharing stages with The Datsuns and The Living End - not to mention Rose Tattoo - would force any group to tighten up, but in the case of The Casanovas, this would seem an impossible task. They're about as tight as bands come: the playing on The Casanovas sounds devoid of screw-ups, but somehow this is managed without sacrificing the great feel that the band�s rocking out, sneaker-clad in the same room, replete with devil�s horns and rock tongue action. Sure, there's nothing original really going on here. But that's fine. There's nothing original going on on Jet records, either. But there's a lot more fun � and a lot less pilfered riffs � on The Casanovas than there are on most retro-rock big things' discs. And they've even got the common decency not to screw up the party with any of those wussy ballads.

Well done, those men

This article originally appeared on FasterLouder.com.au. I am no longer associated with that website and, as copyright owner, have moved it here for permanent record.

Danko Jones @ The Gaelic Club, 27/05/2004

2004-05-30T23:54:00.000+10:00

A not-quite-full Gaelic Club was blown away by the trio from Toronto with rabble-rousing attitude and energy to burn.

This was a gig that had been a long time coming. Danko Jones � the singer/guitarist and his identically named power trio � had been looking forward to touring Australia for months. Little did tonight�s punters know that they were about to be hit by The Canadian Sledgehammer Of Rock.

Walking onstage and kicking off with the thunderous We Sweat Blood, it was clear that the sharp-dressed men weren�t here to mess around. With a tongue that�d do Gene Simmons proud and some True Metal head shaking going on, Danko ripped into his riffs with jaw-dropping ferocity. The title track from the band�s last album seemed more imbued with bristling rage than in CD format. Rather, it was a defiant announcement of the dedication of the three guys on stage: leader Danko on vocals and guitar, JC on bass and Damon on drums. Yes, they were there to rock. And no, they wouldn't leave the stage until rocked was what you were.

There�s only one way to describe the group�s playing � fucking tight! That two-word descriptor was bantered around the Gaelic with some regularity, and while it�s true that metronymic rigidity does not, necessarily, a perfect gig make, it certainly helps in laying the musical punches where they need to go. There�s no wasted gestures here; everything sits together in a perfectly crafted way. Rhythm chord slashes make way for lightning-fast licks in a way that�d make you believe there were two guitarists playing. Vocals are strong, and never strained. Bass lines punctuate, rather than dominate. And drumming? Well, it�s been a long time since many gig-goers have seen a kit beaten as hard as Damon�s was this evening. It�s an old standby, but the three played as if they were one � sympathetic and muscular. The trio�s dedication to their performance comes across effortlessly in a live setting. With band members less on the ball, it all could�ve fallen into a screaming heap: but not here, and not with these guys.

There wasn�t a great deal of stage banter through the gig. That�s not to say that the band were sour � far from it. But they were more concerned with setting off another rocket of a song than with having a chinwag with the locals � at least while they were onstage. When Danko did talk to the crowd, though, it was certainly easy to see how he can hold European festivals in his hand. Like a grandstanding, rock version of � ahem � The Rock, he spent parts of the night baiting photographers (come closer to the stage and see exactly what you get to photograph!), geeing up the crowd (�Are there 8,000 people in here? That only sounds like 2,000!�) and generally playing the part of the shit-stirrer. An easy grin and a rock-n-roll outlook meant that Danko's mix of double-entendre banter and honest-to-God nice guyness had the crowd exactly where he wanted them.

Whipping through a set that was liberally sprinkled with older tunes � it�s refreshing to see a band that doesn�t do the standard here�s-our-new-album-in-its-entirety-plus-two-hits-at-the-end-if-you�re-good � the band ensured that their die-hard, longtime fans were kept as happy as those who�ve come to the Danko Jones fold through recent airplay of Dance. Danko�s tales of learning to play the blues (by getting himself a woman, natch) of being the lover man of prodigious proportions (not to mention the lovestruck man of Forget My Name) all sat nicely atop the chunky, devil�s horns-inducing riffery that saw the whole crowd moving. Simple enough to rock but smart enough to avoid being stupid, the playing was so energetic that it was impossible for the band�s enthusiasm not to rub off on those there to see the show.

Of course, big applause must also go to the band�s soundman, Corey, for ensuring that the mix on the night was clear and sharp. No dropped-out vocals or flabby drums: the tunes of the night kicked hard as befits a group of this stature.

The set proper came to an end with the not-yet-properly-recorded tune Bring On The Mountain (Become The Mountain), which saw Danko shuck off the ready-to-rockisms for some truly awesome spirit channelling, shaman-style. The tune speaks of the frontman making it to the top of a mountain, overcoming all those who�ve tried to put him down, and holding hands � and court � with departed luminaries such as Johnny Cash, Bon Scott, DeeDee and Joey Ramone, Joe Strummer, Barry White and Otis Redding. Ending with the sentiment that everyone�s sexy in heaven, it�s hard to decide whether it was future ideal or retrospective lament � but it was one of the most empowering tunes to ever make it into a set of dick-swingin� rock that�s been heard in recent years.

The band returned to the stage to perform three more tunes before bidding Sydney a fond farewell. The set had packed in seventeen songs but seemed to have ended in an instant, so mesmerising was the performance. This truly was a gig where you found yourself startled by how quickly you�d reached the end of it. (And was that a song dedication to the Hard-Ons, there at the end? Rock!)

The only disappointing thing about this Danko Jones gig was the audience. It wasn�t that that the audience wasn�t getting into the rock action � far from it � but rather that numbers were down for what should�ve been a sell-out show, given the vitality of the performance. While Danko�s stage presence is certainly enough to control wandering-off punters in a festival field somewhere � meaning that it�s more than up to the task of corralling a couple of hundred punters in a room in Sydney � those in the audience couldn�t help but wonder exactly how much more electric this show might�ve been in a venue the size of The Annandale, where the band�s in-your-face, high-testosterone rock would�ve been slammed straight into punters, rather than into a two-thirds (at best) full room.

Whinging over crowd turnouts aside � come on, Sydney! It was a Thursday night! Where were you? � it was clear that those lucky enough to get along to the Gaelic bore witness to some pretty damn special rock and roll this evening. Here�s hoping that � given the workaholic nature of Jones et al � that they�re back soon.

And this time, that they get the hanging-off-the-rafters crowds they deserve. Certainly, there can�t be many bands that work quite as hard as these guys do for their applause.

The set for the evening ran as follows:

We Sweat Blood
Way To My Heart
Samuel Sin
Dance
Play The Blues
Livin� In The City
Sugar Chocolate
Sound Of Love
Boogie Woogie
Forget My Name
Lovercall
Cadillac
Bring On The Mountain (Become The Mountain)
Encore: I Want You
Encore: Mango Kid
Encore: Get Outta Town

This article originally appeared on FasterLouder.com.au. I am no longer associated with that website and, as copyright owner, have moved it here for permanent record.

Bugdust @ Bat And Ball Hotel, Sydney, 21/05/2004

2004-05-26T15:01:00.000+10:00

Sometimes, there's just no justice. Why's a band this good playing to less than thirty people?

There's many a moment of clarity been experienced in venues serving alcohol. Usually they revolve around one's consumption of aforementioned liquids or behaviour after same. But not tonight. Tonight's razor-sharp observation more revolved around the deep philosophical question of why it is, exactly, a band as good as Bugdust are playing to fewer than thirty punters.

Having not seen The Crisps or AJ, the two supports of the evening, it's impossible to say how they fared in comparison to the headliners. But they would've had to pull some pretty stylish rock moves out of the roadcase in order to top the balls-out "ARE YOU READY TO ROCK?" show that this four-piece were packing. The band's played gigs with Pacifier, and it appears from tonight's show that everything they'd seen from that stage-sharing has been taken to heart. Like that band, the performance here is faultless, and full of classic rock moves. That doesn't mean it's pre-rehearsed, though. Indeed, when they take to the stage and launch into the first song, the four-piece adopt guitars-in-air poses, summoning down some fearsome rock energy in that exuberant, Bill-And-Ted kind of way. All closed-eye soloing and two-guys-one-microphone stances, they're riffling through the pantheon of performers' finest stage tricks, but unlike other bands, they've a refreshing honesty that carries it off. This is something that a brief chat with band members cements after the show - they're earnest, nice guys, who are enthused that people want to watch them. There's no rider-nitpicking arrogance here, just a dedication to the music - and it shows.

Musically? Finally, we have a band who's unashamed to use the cowbell! Bugdust's sound is strong and thick. There's overtones of early-era Iron Maiden (without the histrionics), The Hellacopters (those double-guitar leads are a killer), Black Sabbath and general Detroit rock in their sound, but it's constructed in a way that makes it sound their own. This evening's mix pretty much knackers their three-part vocal harmonies - what happened to the voice levels? - but the polish amid the rough is communicated clearly enough. There's stoner rock and acid freakout tinges to the tunes, but any idea of slacking is removed as soon as the guys open up and let rip. The drummer's shirt goes by the wayside as the tunes begin to cook, and it's impressive to note that the group stays locked in with one another, no matter how slow or heavy the tunes get. There's a tripping fluidity to the performance that's enthralling, and that's before you get to the bits that sound like they're improved versions of Master Of Puppets riffs. This is superb, head-nodding rock-and-roll mayhem; simplicity and tightness used to devastating effect. The evening's rendition of Set To Snap, from their four-track EP, obliterates the original, before ending with a bass player atop a bass drum, all fucked-amp glory and fist-in-air bravado. Class.

It's usually a pretty good indicator that a band you haven't seen before has their rock ducks in a row if you find you can play air guitar along with them on a first listening. The amount of phantom axe-wranglers in the Bat And Ball this evening was terrifying. So again, the question raises itself: how come Jet are playing festivals and Bugdust aren't? Why is it that something so good is happening in front of so few?

If the Muses exist, boys, then they're fuckin' with you. Your time will - if there's any justice - surely come. Rock needs more majesty - but just be sure to take those devil's horns with you on your travels.

This article originally appeared on FasterLouder.com.au. I am no longer associated with that website and, as copyright owner, have moved it here for permanent record.

Dirty Dealings With Danko Jones

2004-05-25T03:15:00.000+10:00

Danko Jones - guitarist and vocalist of the self-titled Canadian trio - spoke to us about dead rock stars, sleeping on amps and playing with Mick and Keef..

With the Australian leg of their tour to support the incendiary We Sweat Blood set to start burning through some lucky venues this week, it�s about time that you all sat down, shut up, and got a good dose of Danko. Danko Jones, that is. The Canadian three-piece�s mix of metal, sass and dedication to rock has been winning fans the world over � particularly in Europe � and so now it�s our turn to see what the fuss is all about. We spoke to the man himself, Danko Jones, in Stockholm. Our conversation took in writing to Chuck D, hanging out with Keith Richards, gravesites of the rock and famous and what happens when you annoy your record label too much.

�I spend a lot of my time off here,� says Danko of Stockholm. �We just came from France � we played three shows and before that, eight or nine shows in Germany. France is the hardest market to crack in Europe. They were packed � Paris was sold out � so it was really good. We just finished the tour. We�ve got a week off. Saturday, we go to Norway and play with Gluecifer and then Sunday we join The Bronx in the UK for two weeks of shows, then we�ve got four days off. Then we�re heading to Australia. Very excited!�

Breakneck tours schedules are something of a given in Danko�s world. His band � managed by bass player JC � has been on something of a marathon tour to support their newest disc. It�s best described by the singer/guitarist himself: �I left home March 29, I don�t get back home until September 6 � and I hope it�s later than that!�

Clearly, this is a driven performer. But what is he expecting of Australian fans? Subdued applause, or raucous, storming-the-stage enthusiasm? With mates in bands like The Hellacopters � themselves tourists so familiar with Australia�s venues that the bar staff probably could pour their drinks without asking � have the Canadian trio been forewarned about our crowds?

�We just played Germany and France with The Bronx. And The Bronx were just down in Australia not too long ago and they were saying that we�re gonna have a blast. We�re coming with no expectations � we�ll come to play. If there�s 50 people there, it�ll be fucking awesome. If there�s 500, then that�s so much better!� he enthuses. �But what I gather about Australia is that rock lives and breathes there. A lot of bands go on tour there, and it�s pretty far from everywhere else. In order to do that there has gotta be a pretty big incentive � so I�m guessing that there�s some real rock fans in Australia. A lot of live albums and concerts are taped in Australia. Maybe my eyes and ears are more in tune with Australia because we�re going there, but I�m noticing more and more that some heavy rock shit�s going down there.�

But what sort of Aussie tunesmanship has managed to make its way into Danko�s collection? What locals are doing us proud in the Northern Hemisphere's listening tastes?

�Radio Birdman. I just saw Powderfinger in Texas at South By South West. Other than that, I know what everyone knows about Australian music � the super-famous people. I�m not really familiar with the down rock scene over there. But I�m more than willing to get myself acquainted with it.�

Given the heavy AC/DC leanings of the band�s most recent output � and the ubiquity of the pilgrimage film Thunderstruck at the current time, it seems churlish not to ask if there�s a special trek to Bon Scott�s Fremantle grave in store for the trio.

�I didn�t know he was buried in Australia,� says Danko, enthusiastically. �That�s awesome! I mean, Angus Young lives in Holland, so I dunno how I didn�t know that. That�s cool. I would definitely go there. When we were in Ireland, I wanted to go to Phil Lynott�s grave, but the club we were playing was in the exact opposite end of town to where the gravesite was. But next time we�re in Dublin, I�m gonna go to Phil Lynott�s grave. If I can get a free moment and head on over to the graveyard, I�ll definitely make a journey out of that.�

It�s fitting that death�s mentioned here, as the band�s beginnings were so intensely focussed that they would have killed less hardy rockers. Danko Jones were a band that were so keen to hone their craft that they eschewed sales, recordings and � almost � any profit at all. Danko explains:

�Basically, we didn�t put anything out for two years. We just played. We just figured we wanted to build a reputation as a live band. We followed that route � the road less travelled. And we did it. For two years, we did tours with no merchandise, no t-shirts, no records. We slept on our amps, barely had enough money for the three of us to go into a motel room. We crashed on people�s couches endless nights.

�We wanted word to spread through word of mouth. The strongest marketing campaign anyone can have is word of mouth. Whether you�re inundated by multi-million dollar campaigns from record labels, you�re always gonna listen to who your friends tell you who should check out before you check out who the million-dollar campaigns tell you you should."

�We refused to do interviews for two years. I guess we were more like punk rock fucks. We were arrogant punk rockers, and we thought we could get away with it. And in a way, we did. People were like �Who do these guys think they are? They don�t want to do interviews, and they don�t want to do photo shoots or put out records � there must be something there.� And thankfully, there was, and that was the live show, which is what I think people kept wanting to come and see.

The hard slog around Canadian venues � which garnered feverish live reviews � did end up taking its toll, and the band eventually relented on its no-recording stance.

�Finally, we had to put out a record so we could play longer, farther, play more of the year. We wanted to see more of the world, so we put out an EP that had five songs on it and put out another EP a year and a half later. Then we compiled that and put it out as I�m Alive And On Fire � available on Bad Taste Records � which came out in 2001. It�s a collection of songs we�d had backlogged for a couple of years. Then, Born A Lion came out in 2002, and then we toured that extensively, then We Sweat Blood � and we�re in the middle of that record�s tour.�

It�s a tour, it seems, that�s been having results. The band played Europe
for three months last year, as well as some shows in Canada to prepare for another five months on the road in Europe and Australia. They�ve signed licensing deals in South Africa and have had a lot of interest from Brazil � but nowhere has the band�s rock dream been more fulfilled than when the band landed a support slot with The Rolling Stones on their 40 Licks tour� a tour that some thought wouldn�t sit well with Danko�s well-known impatience with corporate rock. After all, these days, the Stones are as big a corporate rock entity as you�ll find, right?

�Definitely! But I think the Rolling Stones also come from a grassroots sort of background. No matter how much sheen you put on some of these Stones, they don�t shine up. I mean, no matter how much sheen you put on Keith Richards, he�ll never look like part of a corporate band. I think that�s because the true essence of Keith Richards � who I think is the heart and soul of the Stones at this time � is blues and roots, that kind of thing. We�re not a blues-rock band, but I think he�s hip enough to keep his ear to the ground. Actually, we were in Germany last year, playing in a club in Cologne, when someone there told us they�d just read an interview with Keith Richards and he was asked which band was his favourite support on the 40 Licks tour, and he named The White Stripes and Danko Jones. That made my night, if not my week!

�The reason why we got on the Stones bill is, I think, because we�re nice guys. Our crew insists on working with us, people want us back because they worked with a band that was not only in control and responsible, but made things smooth because they were nice guys. We don�t screw around, and we don�t screw people over. When people meet us in a business setting, they realise that they�re working with a band that�s responsible, that�s punctual, and � I like to think � very professional and very nice. I think it was also the Stones recognising a really cool local band. There are other things � [Mick] Jagger was given a copy of Born A Lion at a birthday party.

�The Stones hang around Toronto to practise before any world tour. I think word had gotten around about our band. So when it came down choose a local band, we were in line, and they recognised us. I guess they liked what they heard � and they chose us. The story I�ve heard is that they chose us because they liked us � especially Jagger because he got two copies of Born A Lion � one at his birthday and one just before the show!�

So: rapturously received shows � on their own back and on a bill with one of rock�s biggest bands. Things couldn�t be going better for Danko Jones, right? So you�d think. But all through the band�s career, there�s been a problem: Danko�s not a huge fan of the record industry.

�I have a tendency to open my mouth too much! Many doors have been closed because of the way we do things � because we demand control of our band. Record companies don�t like that � they realise they can�t manipulate this band. The reason there�s so many new bands that you�ve never heard of, that don�t have a back-catalogue is because these are young bands that record labels know they can mould because they don�t have a voice and they�re na�ve. We�re not like that, so we don�t get a lot of attention from major labels because they know we�re just gonna be trouble down the line. Whereas if they were actually business-savvy, they�d realise the potential of this band and capitalise on that. But they�ve failed to do so.�

Add this outspoken nature to the thorny issue of downloading and you�ve got a sure-fire recipe for artist-label headbutting � as Danko was to find out.

�We got dropped from our label in Canada � Universal � because on February 22nd, I appeared on a nationally-televised panel on downloading. I was for downloading. And we didn�t tell our record company this.

�Three weeks and two days later, we got dropped. Discussions went from my pro-downloading stance to our relationship with our major label, and I disclosed a few things I was unhappy with. I think it�s an old story. I mean, how many stories and interviews have you read about bands complaining about their label? It�s old hat! But they didn�t like that.

The record they were working [We Sweat Blood] was five-and-a-half months old. It didn�t even get the twelve-month treatment. We got brushed. The second single for the album, Dance, was dropped. Basically, we signed an agreement that they would work our record, and as far as I�m concerned, they didn�t hold up their end of the deal. They dropped it cold.

�There�s a lot of problems with that label. The Canadian version of We Sweat Blood doesn�t have the Universal logo on the back of the record, because they forgot to put it on. The graphics department forgot to put the company�s logo on the back of the record! I mean, if that isn�t complete negligence, I don�t know what is.

�I always say this � part of it�s our fault, because we tour outside Canada constantly. And the official reason for us being dropped was that we didn�t play enough Canadian dates. So basically what they�re saying is that you get dropped if you�re a domestic act who goes international��

Unfortunately, the interview slot is coming to its intercontinental end, though there�s still so much more to say. But with the energetic � and damn friendly Danko � manages to fit in more information in the last thirty seconds than some manage to shoehorn in an entire press release:

�Sorry if I rambled on on downloading, but it�s just that I just sent a letter off to Chuck D about it, so it�s fresh on my mind. I�d just like to say that We Sweat Blood was written in five weeks, recorded in about two and a half weeks, mixed in ten days and we�re going on tour all the way.

�We�re gonna start working on the new record this [northern] summer, we�re hoping that it�ll be out by December this year or January/February of next year. We�re working on a DVD, and I�ve got a radio show in Stockholm called The Magical World Of Rock With Danko Jones � check it out at www.themagicalworldofrock.com � I�m doing spoken word gigs this [northern] summer in Europe� and I�m goin� to Australia, man! I�m fucking pumped!�

And with that, he�s gone. With an attitude and a work ethic like that, you better believe that Danko Jones sweats blood.

This article originally appeared on FasterLouder.com.au. I am no longer associated with that website and, as copyright owner, have moved it here for permanent record.