May 21.

May 21, 2012 Births, Deaths & Marriages., Music News., Videos. No comments

Happy Birthday Wally De Backer!

The man behind what is currently the most popular moniker in the WORLD, Gotye turns 32 today!!

Born in Belgium in 1980, Wally and his family moved to Australia when he was two years old and he began experimenting with music in his teenage years, learning several instruments, particularly drums.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock you’d be well aware of the fact that his third album ‘Making Mirrors’ has been a worldwide success, particularly because of that little song ‘Somebody That I Used To Know’ which has reached number one in the music charts of around seventeen countries!

Speaking on triple j last week, Wally hinted at the idea of some (ridiculously overdue) Australian tour plans and we should expect to hear about capital city and regional tour dates in the next few weeks! YAY!!

Happy Birthday Wally, you talented man! You deserve all the success you’ve had!

Check out the awesome video for ‘Easy Way Out’ below:

 

 

 

Monday Morning.

April 16, 2012 Playlists., Reviews., Tracks of the Week., Videos. No comments

If you were anything like me and had a lecture at 8.30am this morning, you may be in need of a little cheering up. I’ll ease you into the week with some new music.

Easing you into a new week is the video for Angus Stone’s latest solo track ‘Bird On The Buffalo’. The song is great, the video is.. less.. great, but should be watched primarily for Angus’ terrible dancing in the middle of the desert and the awesome owl. It also features his girlfriend, actress Isabel Lucas, who is rocking a look similar to Daenerys Targaryen’s in ‘Game Of Thrones’.

For something a little more rocking you should check out the latest offering from Eugene McGuinness. ‘Shotgun’ features sampling from ‘Shiny Gun’ by Tricky and is my favourite song right now. Eugene McGuinness has SO MUCH SWAGGER and I’ve included his previous track ‘Lion’ in a Monday blog before, which proves his music results in instant happiness.

The last offering for this Monday’s playlist is ‘Money’ by Melbourne band The Delta Riggs. Currently touring Australia in support of Stonefield, you can hear influences of Jet, The Hives and The Vasco Era in their latest track. The song is accompanied by a rather strange, but easily likeable video which was directed by Vegadeetz Films around the Richmond area.

Now, don’t you feel so much better?

Happy Monday dudes!

Reasonably Good Excuses for being the World’s Slackest Blogger.

April 9, 2012 Anecdotal Rants., Live Music., Reviews., Videos. No comments

It has been a ridiculously long time since I’ve written a blog, so to make up for it here’s what has happened over the past 57 days in a nutshell. (A really large nutshell – think of a walnut, or something.)

I turned 19.

I moved out of home and started University.

I moved out of home and discovered that I have two of THE coolest housemates in the world. Our joint love for olives, cheese, spooning and animal beanies makes living in a share house the best! I mean, come on, just look at how cute we are!

I went to Port Fairy Folk Festival.

The two trains and bus that I had to endure to get there were worth it as I saw the likes of John Butler, Mama Kin, Tinpan Orange, Lanie Lane, The Bamboos, Eagle & The Worm, Jeff Lang and Tripod over the Labour Day long weekend.

If you haven’t already, you’ve got to check out the song ‘I Got Burned’ by The Bamboos, which also features musical genius Tim Rogers. I’ve been hearing this track a lot on Triple J since I got back from Port Fairy and it’s definitely one of my favourite tracks from 2012 so far.

Here’s Tim and The Bamboos being super cool on the ABC.

Jared Followill started dating model Martha Patterson.

I left the internet for a week and this happened:

*Sigh* I guess he’s another one to add the very long list of ‘ones that got away’. 

I went to Mossvale Music Festival.

The Bamboos got their funk on again, along with acts such as Eric Bibb and Stefan Astner, AHAB, Liz Stringer and Van Walkner and the headlining acts Charles Bradley and The Dirty Three.

The Dirty Three were amazing to watch and I shook Warren Ellis’ hand!!

The Hives FINALLY released a new song.

The track ‘Go Right Ahead’ is the first taste of their new album ‘Lex Hives’ which is due on June 5th. It’s been five years since we’ve heard new stuff from the Swedish band and I am really excited for their fifth album!

You can stream the song here!

Jet broke up.

On March 26th Jet announced their “discontinuation as a band”.

After eleven years, three albums and 6.5 million records sold, the Melbourne four piece called it a day. Speaking about it, drummer Nic Cester said;

“I think the band’s been slowly disintegrating and slowly breaking up since the Shine On sessions in 2005 or 2006. We just never really talked about it. I dunno. We never really wanted to drum up any kind of bullshit between us.”

Whilst I wasn’t too shocked to hear the announcement, it is sad news to hear that another one of Australia’s great live rock bands have split. They’ve joined Powderfinger, Silverchair, The Middle East and Grinderman who have all parted ways over the past two years.

Coincidentally, it was actually this day (April 9) two years ago that Powderfinger announced their split.

Here is one of my favourite Jet songs, ‘Move On’ live from The Forum in Melbourne.

I saw Steve Earle live at Meeniyan Town Hall. 

In Australia for Bluesfest, Steve Earle’s another musical legend that I’ve seen live and he didn’t fail to disappoint!

Justin Townes Earle’s fifth album was released.

I finally got my hands on a copy of ‘Nothing’s Going To Change The Way You Feel About Me Now’ on Wednesday and I’ve listened to it on repeat since, I love it so much. You should check out Justin performing one of his new tracks, ‘Memphis In The Rain’ below, I know I sound like a bit of a fangirl, but he’s lookin’ super cute in it.

Kimbra, Mark Foster and A-Trak teamed up for Converse.

Once again, Kimbra can do no wrong. Her collaboration with Mark Foster from Foster The People and DJ A-Trak is awesome and is accompanied by a pretty snazzy video, which you can check out below. I’ve listened to this song heaps since it was released last week and you should do yourself a favour and click here to download it!

Jack White released a weird video.

I’m not surprised by this though, it is Jack White after all. This video accompanies his wicked track ‘Sixteen Saltines’, and features a girl vomiting milkshake, a kid drinking cough syrup and a homicidal blue kid. This is the latest taste of what’s to come from White’s debut solo album ‘Blunderbus’, which is due for release on April 23.

 I started my Easter holidays by seeing My Morning Jacket live.

Supported by Dawes (who also supported Justin Townes Earle) the Kentucky band rocked The Palace last Wednesday. Pleasing the crowd with favourites such as ‘Holding On To Black Metal’, ‘Touch Me I’m Going To Scream (Part 2)’ and ‘Gideon’, it was the opening track ‘Victory Dance’ however, that impressed me the most. This is one of the band’s catchiest tunes and the first time the bass was played the entire floor vibrated – IT. WAS. AWESOME. In between head banging, singing with a towel on his head (yeah, weird..) and pretending to be a vampire, lead singer Jim James told the crowd of the band’s love of Australia, saying being here makes their blood ‘light up’.

It was an awesome way to start my holidays, although I was a little disappointed that they didn’t play ‘Highly Suspicious’, which is my favourite song. I filmed ‘Victory Dance’ though and you can check it out below.

 I followed this gig up with Justin Townes Earle the following night. 

By now you’ve probably figured out that I have a pretty big crush on Justin Townes Earle, so I won’t bore you with a massive description of how awesome he is. Although, I will say that I will never get sick of watching him play his guitar and he is one of the only men who can rock a pair of loafers. Playing the majority of the songs from his latest album during the 90 minute set, he also incorporated crowd favourites, opening with ‘They Killed John Henry’ and closing with ‘Halfway To Jackson’.

I filmed the final song and you can have a look at it below, just excuse the fact it looks like I filmed it using a potato.

AND LASTLY,

Kanye West and Kim Kardashian are rumoured to be dating. 

But we’ll all pretend this rumour doesn’t exist.

I promise I’ll try to update more regularly! Now I’ve settled in to my new home, I should be lurking on here, talking crap more often! Happy Easter! :)

Happy Valentines Day, Babes!

February 14, 2012 Anecdotal Rants., Holidays., Live Music., Videos. No comments

My non-existent boyfriend bought me a ticket to ‘Groovin’ the Moo’ Festival for Valentine’s Day.

You may not know this, but I LOVE holidays – Christmas, Birthdays, St. Patricks Day, Halloween, you name it, I love it. I’ve accepted the fact that Valentine’s Day is pretty much a joint scheme between the ‘Hallmark’ Card Company, florists and ‘Lindt’ Chocolate to make a shit-load of money, but I still can’t help think it’s cute. So, I am proud to say that this year I am one of the few single girls who aren’t getting bitter about being single.

Valentine’s Day is also during the week in which I have dubbed my ‘Birthday Week’. I believe that if there can be twelve days of Christmas there can be at least seven days of my Birthday. I’m not expecting presents for every one of these days – I’m not like Dudley in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, who cried “36?! BUT LAST YEAR, LAST YEAR I GOT 37!” I just expect people to be nicer and not judge me when I dance like the guy in the ‘Lonely Boy’ clip or sing ‘Faith’ by George Michael and any present that happens to end up in my possession is greatly appreciated.

Having an ‘admirer’ (as my Mum would call it) on Valentine’s Day is just an extra bonus of my Birthday week and to be honest, I’d rather be single than have a boyfriend who complains about having to buy me a Valentine’s present and a Birthday present in the same week- which has happened in the past (What. A. Keeper.)

Instead of being a whingey female cracking a ‘die alone with 27 cats’ joke because I’m single on this holiday, I like to remember that this day 12 years ago I got my ears pierced and 11 years ago I started learning guitar. If that isn’t going to cut it for you and you’re being a soppy bitch go hug your Mum, listen to some Adele and feel better when you look at these pictures/watch these videos:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

February 12.

February 12, 2012 Births, Deaths & Marriages., Videos. No comments

Happy Birthday Lisa Hannigan!

The beautiful singer, songwriter and musician is 31 today!

Born in Dublin in 1981 and raised in Co. Meath, Lisa has been a solo artist since 2008 and has released two critically acclaimed albums ‘Sea Sew’ and ‘Passenger’.

Before becoming a solo artist, Lisa recorded and toured as part of Damien Rice’s band for six years and the beautiful female voice you hear on both of his albums belongs to her. Lisa has also collaborated with acts such as The Frames and contributed to several collaboration albums for charity.

Lisa’s latest album, ‘Passenger’, which was released last September was recently nominated for a ‘Choice Music Award’ for ‘Irish Album of the Year 2011’ and I highly recommend it, it’s beautiful.

Below, I included my favourite video of Lisa and her band performing ‘I Don’t Know’ in a Dingle pub in 2009 as well as an interview with Lisa, who talks about ‘Passenger’, you should check them out.

Happy Birthday Lisa!

Oh Hey, Jack White.

February 10, 2012 Music News., Reviews., Videos. No comments

After years of band-hopping and collaborations, Jack White’s debut self-produced solo album will finally see the light of day in April.

Speaking of his forthcoming album, Jack White explains why this release has taken so long;

“I’ve put off making records under my own name for a long time but these songs feel like they could only be presented under my name. These songs were written from scratch, had nothing to do with anyone or anything else but my own expression, my own colors on my own canvas.”

White’s debut single ‘Love Interruption’ was released at the end of last month. The track was the world’s first glimpse at just what this man can do on his own – and he didn’t fail to surprise. In ‘Love Interruption’ White’s bitter and slightly macabre lyrics, which tell the tale of the expectations of love are met with a twist of country music.

Jack White’s awesome trademark sound of heavy guitar is notably missing in this acoustic song and many listeners were surprised by this, deeming the song ‘understated’. Whilst his distinctive guitar may be missing, his distinctive nasally voice is not. It is however,  accompanied by the voice of Ghana born/Nashville raised singer-song writer, Ruby Amanfu, which is a welcomed surprise on this musically minimalistic track.

If you haven’t already, you can check out ‘Love Interruption’ below:

Just the other day the B-side to ‘Love Interruption’, called ‘Machine Gun Silhouette’ was released and was quickly deemed Jack White’s “Proper comeback” by the likes of NME. Yet, whilst this track sounds more like White’s usual work, there is still an underlying country influence in this song -particularly with the use of the fiddle.

Jack White never fails to surprise his audience and so far his solo efforts have been met by praise from fans and critics alike. Have a listen for yourself here.

Keeping busy, White’s latest effort sees him pair up with classic crooner, Tom Jones. Famous for such tracks as ‘What’s New Pussy Cat?’ it was quite a surprise to hear that the 71 year old is actually a pretty awesome blues singer. The two, along with the help from The Raconteurs’ Patrick Keeler and Jack Lawrence, covered the Howlin’ Wolf classic ‘Evil’.

This track is awesome and is another successful duet that White can add to his list (along with the ones he did with Alicia Keys and Danger Mouse). The track, along with a re-recorded version of Jones’ ‘Jezebel’ will be featured on White’s ‘Blue Series’, which is due to be released by Third Man Records on March 19th.

Make sure you check it out here.

Personally, I think everything Jack White does is awesome and I’m looking forward to getting my hands on his debut album!

‘Blunderbus’ is set to be released on April 23rd.

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