features

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    Tumbleweed (Mess+Noise Icons Series)

    First published in Mess+Noise, December 2009

    The line to enter Waves Nightclub in Towradgi is the kind that makes your heart sink. It snakes out through the carpark and begins to zigzag in front of Waves’ glossily-furnished beer garden. But although it’s inching forward slowly, no-one seems disheartened. Most are on beachside home turf and they’re here to see the original line-up of Tumbleweed play for the first time since ’96. ...

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    Storytellers: The Kill Devil Hills

    First published in Mess+Noise, December 2009

    A ’65 Jazzmaster, a Joe Strummer song and love letter to an old friend – Brendon Humphries from The Kill Devil Hills talks to KATE HENNESSY about the genesis of ‘Words From Robin To Batman’, the emotional centerpiece of new LP ‘Man, You Should Explode’. A friend once told me, “If someone gives you one good reason for something, it’s probably true. If they give ...

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    Storytellers: The Nation Blue

    First Published in Mess+Noise, November, 2009

    For music fans, it’s the eternal argument. Are great lyrics or great hooks more important in a song? In the first installment of a new series called “Storytellers”, KATE HENNESSY talks to The Nation Blue’s Thomas Lyngcoln about the bleak origins of ‘Cold Cluster’, the final track on the band’s new LP ‘Rising Waters’. Oh, how bands must bicker about what song to put first ...

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    New Weird Australia

    First published in Mess+Noise, December 2009

    New Weird Australia (NWA) slipped onto the scene in July 2009, releasing Volume One in a compilation series featuring new, eclectic and experimental Australian-only music. Available for free from the NWA website, it has so far racked up 3000 downloads, with Volume Two released this month. There’s no specific theme or genre. Bluegrass glitch and free-jazz nestle alongside “sprawling sample ephemera” and psychedelic folk on ...

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    The Cab Effect

    First published in Mess+Noise, July 2009

    “Pitchfork contacted you?” “Um, hang on, let me check … yeah. Pitchfork. The founding editor [Ryan Schreiber] got wind we had a new record and asked us to send him a copy. Have you heard of Pitchfork?” It’s six weeks prior to this exchange and Melbourne duo Black Cab are perched on stools at a Melbourne wine bar. They’re smearing cheese on tiny crackers, discussing ...

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    Turn up the tiny guitar

    First published in The Brag, December 2008

    Attach it to a distortion pedal and it sounds like a wobbly, out-of-tune bass. Pitchshift it up with a delay effect and you’ve got steel drums. The humble ukulele played by electric ukulele lady, Rose Turtle Ertler, sounds nothing like Tiny Tim. ...