Grab your dancing shoes, treadmill and sweat pants: Ok Go are here. Not here in my office, here in Australia touring their new album and walking the streets being weird and brilliant. Known for fathering “Here It Goes Again” the most downloaded music video of all time (48 million hits and counting)  the Chicago quartet are valiantly fighting off the prospect of being remembered as a novelty, treadmill-enhanced act. Their new album Of Blue Colour Of The Sky sizzles with a quirky blend of funk, soul and sixties pop aesthetics. There’s more than a touch of Prince in those falsetto vocals and, done well like it is here, that’s a good thing. Not that the band are distancing themselves from their video past – there are clips planned for all 13 tracks on the new album. OK GO will play Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and appear at Playground Weekender later this month.

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The East Coast Blues and Roots Festival (aka: Blues Fest) will celebrate its 21st birthday this Easter with a five day extravaganza of blues, roots, soul, reggae, folk, dub, hip hop, rock n roll, country and world music.  Late on Friday night an elderly Chicago gentleman by the name of George ‘Buddy” Guy will take the stage and thrill you to the core. Buddy is the revered idol of guitar gods such as Jimmy Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, Keith Richards and, more recently, Jack White. He is, as they say, the man. Last time I saw him perform he was rocking a baby pink suit, bowler hat and a pokadot tie. A legend like Buddy could rest his bones on a chair and humble his way through a few tunes and you’d be satisfied. Only he don’t do that. He remains a class A performer. Buddy has been known to play solos with one hand while changing out of his jacket with the other. When I saw him he left the stage and got down with the elated audience for an extensive wail. I patted him on the back and felt an fission of delta blues history run right down my spine. A word of warning about the Blues Fest for first timers: it’s long. Five days of festival fever can become an endurance test unless you’re mad for it. Check out the line up (bluesfest.com.au) and pick your days.     

 

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With the noughties officially over it’s time for journalists of all shapes and persuasions to compile lists. You know the type of thing: best movies, best TV shows, best dressed celebrity pets etc. Rhaposdy.com recently weighed in with their list of the best 100 albums of the last ten years. Like any bestie list it’s purely subjective and will incite hand-wringing and righteous anger among music fans. I was sure the Kings Of Leon would rank highly but was curious which of their four albums would reign supreme. I began with the top ten selections and scanned downwards with an increasingly morbid fascination. I passed Norah Jones (16), Justin Timberlake (18) and still no Kings. Down I went, past  the Dixie Chicks (45), countless forgettable hip hop acts, pop divas, Canadian Indie bands and – are you kidding me – Keith Urban (83)! Christine Aguilera’s Back To Basics closes the list at 100. The Kings don’t rate a single mention. I felt like blogging a snarky comment on the site but thankfully an army of music fans had beaten me to the post. Why the oversight Rhapsody? Is it the southern accents?

 

 

 

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Summer has a soundtrack. It begins with a bass line and a whistle. Then comes the chorus: “Oh, Mumma, I wanna go surfing. Oh, Mumma don’t care about nothing.” Repeat bass line, repeat whistle, repeat chorus. Two listens and it’s in your head summer long. Simple, perfect pop – no bells and just the one whistle. Uplifting and dreamy, it’s been likened to the Beach Boys idyll of wave riding - pre-weed, pre-crowds, when girls still listened to their fathers and a roasting hot climate was a good thing. The band is The Drums. They hail from Florida but recently moved to New York. Even before they released their debut EP critics were wetting their pants. This from British scene makers, NME: “New York’s official Coolest New Band... This might be the most contagiously energetic NYC band of the past 10 years.”  Like the Beach Boys The Drums don’t surf but they do like the look of it. No matter when you sound this fresh. “We just wanted to sound like The Wake but we’re really just like everybody else, chasing that perfect pop song,” says the band. “And that’s not so bad right?” Right. It’s going to be a good summer.

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I saw Nirvana at the first Big Day Out not realizing it would be their only Australian tour and that it would later be regarded as the Second Coming of Jesus. In hindsight, I wish I wasn’t quite so intoxicated so I could remember a few more details beyond a wall of grungy noise, some impassioned Cobain howling and a sea of VB cans. Anyway, good news. If you weren’t there or, like me, you can’t remember seeing Nirvana perform live there is now a recording of the band so good you no longer need to feel like your living an unfulfilled life. Nirvana Live At Reading is that rare thing: a live album worth getting excited about. The SMH goes as far as to suggest it might be their best ever offering. I’m not sure about that but it does capture their sound and spirit to stunning effect. The Reading gig occurred post Nevermind, pre- In Utero and features 27 songs including covers and B-sides. It comes with a DVD so you can see Kurt’s classic stage entrance in a wheel chair and hospital gown. Stage talk includes a dedication to his days old daughter, Frances Bean. Punk pop has never sounded so brilliant or so bittersweet.      

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If there is one bit of advice that can be applied to all music festivals this summer it’s this: plan early. Those things sell out faster than you can jog on the spot and say Run DMC. Of course you can plan too early too. If, for example, you’ve already booked your accommodation in Byron Bay for next year’s Splendor in the Grass you will be strategically disadvantaged because the festival’s three-day, 10th anniversary bonanza will be held two hours away in Queensland. Splendor has build up a reputation as a killer festival. It runs in winter, which makes sense if you’re intolerant of heatstroke and coming into contact with other people’s sweat, and it organizers always jag the cream bands. Splendor has out grown its original venue but will return to a new site in the Byron Shire for 2011. Meantime, next year’s show will be held at Woodford in Southern Queensland, home of the Woodford Folk Festival. The bands are announced in March – start planning (splendourinthegrass.com).       

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Foo Fighter singer (and ex-Nirvana drummer) Dave Grohl has sweaty arm pits and powerful friends. When he wants to pound out some high octane thrash-n-roll he doesn’t stuff around. He speed dials rock history and the big guns come a-running. Such is his influence, such is his charm, so fragrant is the rock star sweat collecting in his rock star boots. Grohl’s latest project features none other than Led Zeppelin bass player, John Paul Jones, and Queens of Stone Age front man, Josh Home.  When they gig together they are known as Them Crooked Vultures. No prizes for guessing what they sound like: loud-ass, progressive, sweat rock is an unglamorous description but sits close to the mark. Rock fans will know the boys are coming to Oz in January next year and that there album “Never Deserved the Future” is out now and that it rocks some serious arse.

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BDO tickets always sell out superfast. It’s our premier touring music festival with a history of rock and roll excess to rival Woodstock. Unlike Woodstock there’s precious little mud to worry about and your fellow revellers are a lot better dressed. I don’t even think it matters to some people who’s playing – just the chance to dress up and get tipsy in the blazing summer sun is reason enough to attend. In case you do care about the music, here’s a few highlights: Muse, Lilly Allen, Groove Armada, The Mars Volta, Eskimo Joe, Grinspoon, Ladyhawke, Kasbian, Peaches, Rise Against, and The Horror. While most dates have sold out they have added an extra show in Sydney and you can be in the running to score tickets right up to December. And by “score” I mean purchase. That’s how popular this thing is – you have to go in a ballot and pray to your god(s) just to be able to buy a ticket. See: bigdayout.com for all the relevant details. 

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If you didn’t catch the Pixies at the 2007 V Festival you probably heard about it from someone who did. I’m still finding new and exciting (for me) ways to slip my own attendance into conversation. “Great day for flying kites,” someone will say. “Kites!” I’ll respond. “If you’d seen Francis Black steer the Pixies through a pin-sharp perfect set of demented grunge punk pop at the inaugural V Festival you wouldn’t be wasting your life with kites.” Pixies Obsessive Disorder (POD) can afflict anyone with working ears but it tends to largely be a Gen X phenom. To bring you up to speed, the Pixies are the nirvana we were having before Nirvana, the forbearers of grunge and the inventors of the soft loud dynamic. They were far too Indy to have had any hits but even casual fans can recite the lyrics and their own interpretations of songs like Monkey Gone To Heaven, Debaser and Where is My Mind? The awesome news is that the Pixies will return to our shores in March next year for a special 20 year anniversary celebration of their seminal 1989 album Doolittle. Bring your kite (if you must) I’ll see you there. See: fasterlouder.com.au for tour dates.

 

 

 

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 Things have been pretty quite in Camp Phish lately. In fact the band disbanded for four years which is about as quite as rock bands get without the need to hire a funeral director. Word is singer/songwriter Trey Anastasio spent a good portion of the band’s hiatus battling drug addiction and the fall out form a drug-related arrest. A rock singer with a drug problem!? I was shocked too. While there is certainly a world-weary quality to some tracks on “Joy” the overall vibe is redemptive and upbeat. In fact this is a remarkable comeback album, its strengths all the more pronounced because Phish aren’t renowned for their studio work. “Backwards Down the Number Line” kicks things off swimmingly with a country groove lit up by a diamond bright guitar solo. “Sugar Shack” and “Kill Devil Falls” are also among the album’s highlights, the latter guaranteed to get your arse swinging all over the joint. If you haven’t heard of Phish this is your chance to catch up. With a bad catalogue stretching over 20 years there’s plenty of phishy joy to go round.

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