Rock City flies with King Parrot

This is a band who’ve had 200,000+ views for their Sh-t on the Liver clip shot at The Tote (see below, yo). Rock City is concerned black make-up smeared vocalist Matt Young isn’t looking after himself. We want King Parrot to still be obliterating audiences in 2055, after all. Your scribe recently had his liver checked out — for piece of mind and because Mother Dear insisted — have the guys done anything similar so you can still be rocking the f–k out in 2055? Regards, Concerned of Collingwood. “Regular health check-ups are essential if you care to live until 2055. If King Parrot make it through until 2015 it will be a miracle unto itself. I’m taking our bass player Slatts in for a colonic irrigation next week just to flush out his system before we head back to North America to tour in a few weeks and overdose on junk food,” Youngy assures.

Give us your hot tips on the Australian death, thrash and grind bands that are doing something original and honest? “Thy Art is Murder are killing overseas at the minute. Some of my personal favourite bands right now are Desecrator, Captain Cleanoff, Portal, The Kill, Psycroptic, The Ruiner and Frankenbok, and there’s a few up and coming bands like Mason, Horsehunter and Cryptic Abyss that people should check out too.”

What about 5 Seconds of Summer? “So cute and precious, I just wanna take them to the butchers,” he says, licking his lips.

Rather than dice their sound up and serve it back to us in bite-size pieces, they plan to follow-up Bite Your Head Off by once again biting our heads off. “We’ve been working on it a lot, and will be spending some downtime in the USA fine tuning and finishing it all off. It’s pretty safe to say we won’t be toning anything down for anyone, bands that do that sort of thing end up sucking. We just combine all the elements of grindcore, punk, thrash, hardcore and rock.”

Looking at their FaceBook page, a sideproject looms too: King Pastry. They have their pseudonyms sorted, Rocky Road, Snot Block, Hedgehog, Coffee Scroll and Boston Bun.

“It’s not actually a music project, we’re opening a chain of bakeries around the nation (The Bakery Boys). We will take over Bakers Delight and any other competitors that get in our way. If they don’t like it we will just wheel the band in to play in front of their store and drive the customers out that way. We will win in the end,” he nods.

King Parrot flew the coop earlier in the year, cracking heads at SXSW in Austin and playing shows in LA too. Their most memorable gig was “a full house at The Whiskey A-Go-Go in Hollywood. Just knowing how many incredible acts have played there on that stage is mind blowing. I was sitting in the dressing room upstairs by myself at one point just thinking, ‘Wow, Axl Rose, Slash, Tommy Lee and Nikki Sixx have all been involved in orgies with beautiful women, piles of cocaine and a plethoras of booze in this very room’…and there I was sitting by myself with a bottle of water, packet of pretzels, and a salad sandwich… living the dream.”

Threepeat The Question

Favourite movie quote? “It doesn’t take rocket appliances to realise that all you gotta do is take a chain, hook it up to a truck and yank the bank machine out of the store.” Ricky – Trailer Park Boys

Favourite inspirational quote? “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got” Don’t know who made it up, but it’s good.

Favourite thinspirational quote? “Put down that delicious Reece’s Peanut Butter Cup, you slob” – Me to myself.

This Friday at Ding Dong you can hear their new song “Hell Comes Your Way. It’s very chanty and very basic, but it’s also probably the most brutal song we’ve written.”

They’re supported by Desecrator, Horse Hunter and Cryptic Abyss. Reasonable start to the weekend.

Ding Dong Lounge, Market Ln, city. Fri, 8.30pm. $ 10; Wrangler Studios, Footscray. Sat, 2pm; Barwon Club, Geelong, Sat, 8.30pm, Karova Lounge, Ballarat, Sun, 8.30pm.

facebook.com/kingparrotband

Your Heart Is Ajar

The good sorts at Milk! Records are set to release a 10” vinyl release that was recorded in Headgap in Preston with engineer Burke Reid (The Drones) and is to feature new material from all Milk! acts including Courtney Barnett’s kooky new song, Pickles From the Jar.

Dig the lyrics: “You say Christopher I say Walken.”

Pozible campaign and launch details:

Northcote Social Club, 301 High St, Aug 31, pozible.com/milkrecords

Pour Me A Jamo

Phil Jamieson has steered himself back on to the straight and narrow and this year joined forces with Unwritten Law’s Scott Russo to play sold-out shows in Sydney and Melbourne.

Reviews = rave.

They’ll be playing Christmas shows nationally, just giving you plenty of lead time.

Corner Hotel, Richmond, Dec 19, ticketscout.com.au

Save(d) Cherry Bar

King Parrot won the Cherry Bar/Jagermeister Act of the Year award in 2013 and the world infamous AC/DC Lane bar will be discussed later in this column. When Youngy (not James, perish the thought, no offence Great Man) crowd-surfed at last year’s Cherry Rock he looked like he was in his happy place. “Having our performance filmed for the Bozo video clip was testament to how cool AC/DC Lane is and I’m glad we documented that.”

Now Cherry Bar needs your help to soundproof the venue so it can continue showing live music seven days a week.

UPDATE: They reached their goal in less than a day. All their supporters really gave 114%.

On Wednesday they launched a PledgeMusic campaign where punters (hey, that’s you) could “purchase” (prices range from $ 18 to $ 5000) items such as T-shirts, stubby holders, bumper stickers, named “bricks” in the soundproof wall, a 7-track digital EP, and medallions for free entry.

pledgemusic.com/projects/savecherry

Donkey Vote

Pure Pop Records has to move, Tago Mago is having a tough time, Cherry Bar had to lean on their customers for soundproofing and you can blame Planning Minister Matthew Guy for merely planning instead of doing. Donkey.

The “honourable” Matthew Guy promised in January the Agent of Change Principle would be introduced “within six to seven weeks.” Sure, suuuure. It’s seven months down the track and the good people at Music Victoria and SLAM are still trying to nut it out with the Napthine Government.

The Agent of Change Principle in very simple terms puts the onus on the tenants moving in / property developers to soundproof the property if it is near a live music venue. Once this is passed in State Parliament it will set a precedent that basically means new residents can’t move next to, say, Cherry Bar and then complain about the beautiful, wonderful sound of rock’n’roll seven nights a week.

Why didn’t you “honour” your promises @MatthewGuyMP? A reminder: http://t.co/3eabOctqWt #WrongGuyForTheJob #slamrally #livemusic #melbourne

— Mikey Cahill (@JoeyLightbulb) July 23, 2014

The #WrongGuyForTheJob hashtag has been seized upon by everyone from The RocKwiz team to SLAM to Ella Hooper to Marcus Teague. You should try too! Be sure to include @MatthewGuyMP in your tweet.

The always enthusiastic, sometimes caustic Jake Cleland interviewed Rock City and did a great piece here too: http://www.thevine.com.au/music/news/is-planning-minister-matthew-guy-the-wrongguyforthejob-20140724-283428/

Follow the progress here:

musicvictoria.com.au

4 Minutes with Andy Bull

1 His Puns Ain’t Puny

Sydney’s deep thinking synth-pop artist is following in the footsteps of great Australian artists using puns in their album titles: Oh Mercy’s Great Barrier Grief, Tim Freedman’s Australian Idle and now his second album Sea Of Approval. “The pun might be a one-off. People have turned it into memes which is quite funny. It was meant to be tongue-in-cheek.” Imitation was the highest form of flattery, now the ultimate tick of approval is an affectionate meme. Look away Sad Kanye.

2 Acting The Fool

Bull casts himself as The Actor on his second album. This allows him to slip into roles in Baby I Am Nobody Now, The Hill and Talk Too Much. A recent tweet posits “Honest distance is truer than false intimacy.” He chuckles at the sentiment. “That was apropos of album reviews that mention a distance, a gloss. It’s funny because on the record I’m quite honest. Maybe it comes off as a distance but it’s better than fake earnestness. That quote feels like a scene that’s run through the last year of my life.”

3 Real Talk

It’s been five years since Bull’s last album We’re Too Young. ”I made a lot of music over the last four years … I didn’t put it all out.” New single Talk Too Much is smashing it on Triple J. “It was a tester of me as a producer. I was sure people weren’t gonna get it … but it’s been the best received so far,” he beams. “That was the first track we cut and it had the live band feel.” The unsettling clip (that you just watched) features a cameo from Megan Washington and John Mangos getting his TV host creep on.

4. We Can Be Heroes

The record oscillates between sounding cold and detached and pulling you in close for a cuddle. “Every single interview I talk about David Bowie. I listen to McCartney and Bowie and McCartney is clever and his heart’s on his sleeve but when I listen to Bowie I feel so much more.” You’d reckon Bowie would approve of Bull’s approach too.

Meanwhile, he’s “getting my solo chops back” as he does album showcases.

“All the gadgets can be a mindbender sometimes.”

Here’s a 4 star review of ze rekkid.

Sea of Approval – Andy Bull (Universal)

Andy Bull isn’t here to procreate with spiders. He wants to get meta on meta data as we willingly drown in a Sea Of Approval (Keep On Running). His mellifluous, slinky timbre on opener Just One Expression Just One Line is supple like Electric Guest. Bull laces each song with a hint of the darkside — he’ll give you a butter knife handle first and you’ll find out the hard way it’s for carving steak. He makes cabaret cool again and his sharp run of singles — including smash-to-be Talk Too Much — gives the record popular attraction. Australia has needed a Dark Synth Pop King to emerge; Bull is the man. Is he our Mark Ronson? Rufus Wainwright? Glenn Medeiros? No, he’s Andy Bull and that’s all he needs to be. Total package.

Corner Hotel, Richmond. September 27-28. cornerhotel.com

It Pays To Do The hArD yArDs

Merrill Garbus pulled the ultimate judo move on/of life on her third album, tUnE-yArDs’ Nikki Nack. The 34-year-old American made self-doubt work in her
favour.

“That’s true … if you like Nikki Nack,” she bubbles. “It’s hard to grasp self-doubt because if it works then people will say, ‘Ha! (Eureka tone) Surely they knew they had a great album on their hands!’ Nate (Brenner, longtime collaborator) and I were having lunch with our engineer and we were saying how frightened we all were before it came out. Now it’s ‘Wow, people like it! (Sally Field tone)’ It’s rather difficult material, complex material, but people have latched on to it.”

There’s much to like.

During Nikki Nack she sing-shouts about chickens on Water Fountain, claps predators over the ears on Time Of Dark and zaps listeners with synths on Hey Life then declares, “I’ve spent 12,944 days alive, Amazing how a human beeeeing can stiiiill thrive.”

In Australia for Splendour In the Grass plus sideshows, has she been updating the number of days each time she performs?

“I’ve been meaning to … but I haven’t calculated it. My goal will be by the time I get to Australia I’ll have updated it.” All ye who are seeing her at Melbourne’s Howler or SITG this weekend, take note. Also: “There’s a lot of dancing, so get ready.”

Garbus cut her teeth in a cappella groups then indie-pop never-weres Sister Suvi before snapping the shackles and going solo.

“I started tUnE-yArDs to say ‘I don’t need any help (The Power Of One PK tone) I got this, I’m gonna show you all!’ As with any artistic endeavour, I’ve learned that I do need help. Even if I have known how to write a song in the past it doesn’t mean that I know how to write a song now. I was at such a desperate point when I started tUnE-yArDs I didn’t think I’d have longevity as an artist. Even as a person. When you’re in your 20s you feel like you’re probably going to die before you’re 30 (laughs).”

A first for Garbus on album number three, she read Molly-Ann Leikin’s 1987 book How to Write a Hit Song.

“It was hard for me to ask for help,” she says. Tracing Garbus’ her-story, 2009’s Bird Brains was reissued by 4AD and then she widened her range on W H O K I L L in 2012 with cuts Bizness and Gangsta. The first time Bizness slaps you upside the head you’re sure it’s an African woman hootin’ and a hollerin’.

“I get that a lot,” she says. “When I joined a rock band I realised you gotta sing loud.”

No doubt.

If you’ve missed out on tickets, listen back to tUnE-yArDs live performance on Smart Arts on Triple R via Radio On Demand when it becomes available: http://ondemand.rrr.org.au/

Howler, Brunswick, Fri, 8.30pm. Sold out. h-w-l-r.com

Oh Sugar Sugar

Yes, it’s tragic Big Day Out will not go ahead in 2014, but Sugar Mountain has shifted to the traditional date of BDO, Saturday January 24. BAM. Tig Huggins has hinted there may be an Arthur Russell 3D Hologram. The cheek.

sugarmountainfestival.com

Chinatown Treat

Earlier this year, HTRK played a breathless, altogether-Tantric show at Sugar Mountain, and now the savvy cats at Thump have premiered an 11-minute video for Chinatown Style directed by Nathan Corbin. They’d be a cool band to see at 1am at Meredith Music Festival too, dontchathink? Get lost in the cooked squid dub:

facebook.com/htrkrtio

Going at a Clip – 7 New Videos Under The Mikeyscope.

Got It – Banoffee

Who dat who dat? Melbourne mover/shaker/never-faker with forthcoming EP out August 22nd via Two Bright Lakes / Remote Control Records.

When do I get to feel all the feels? 2.30 when things ratchet up a notch and your Banoffee starts a’tuggiin’ on your heartstrings.

When do I get to sing? “I got I got Oooh I got it I got it you know I got it.”

Have You Seen My Son? – Benjamin Booker

Who dat who dat? Noo Awlins singer/songwriter who cites The Gun Club, Blind Willie Johnson and T. Rex as life coaches.

When do I get to feel all the feels? Tears at 2.25, post chair-splintering.

When do I get to sing? “RaaaaaaAaaaAaaaaaaghhhhhhh” is probably the best bit to banshee too. Needs a better chorus.

Do You? – Spoon

Who dat who dat? One of the three members of the cutlery family, Spoon is buddies with Knife and Fork. Touring member Spork plays several outdoor festivals.

When do I get all the feels? This is more like it! Spoon nail the mournful transition from catchy jangle-pop verse to life-affirming/relationship-questioning chorus. Watch Britt Daniels cruise through a city under siege. It peaks when the babies start going Marshmallow Man on everyone’s ass at the 3 minute mark.

When do I get to sing? “Someone get popsicles, someone do something about this heat.”

Queen – Perfume Genius

Who dat who dat? Brittle but rugged Seattle-based solo artist Mike Hadreas is ready to drop his third album and sashay all over your couch.

When do I get to feel all the feels? Office supplies hotel-trashing and angels in the snow at 1.31. Also when ol’ Genius cops a look at Elvis Pegley’s, err, peg.

When do I get to sing? “Hey hey hey, hey heyyy-eee.”

Metal Zone – The Vines

Who dat who dat? Post-Nirvana, post-implosion Sydney band. Ostensibly Craig Nicholls’ sanity project.

When do I get to feel all the feels? Instantly annoying in the first ten seconds of smoke’n’mirrors. Not a good start. Pulls it back by getting to the point and hammering out hooks’n’fun for 2 minutes. The kaleidoscopic, head-swivel stuff at 1.39 seals the deal.

When do I get to sing?
“I take rock’n’roll to get radical.”

Help Me Out – Lucianblomkamp

Who dat who dat? Shiver-inducing Melbourne dude with Post-Nature album due out August 15 via Yes Please / Remote Control. Sounds Scandinavian/Icelandic/Bristolian without reverting to trope hop.

When do I get to feel all the feels? 1.50 mark onwards things get a little heavy. He just wants some pharmaceuticals, he’s not asking you to buddy up with a Wigga called Jessie and get a Winnebago ferchrissakes. Help a brother out.

When do I get to sing? “All my life I’ve been waiting.”

Pro Anti Anti - Liars

Who dat who dat? Forever changing, forever deranging trio based in Brooklyn lead by ‘Strayan legend Angus Andrew. This is their “don’t-think-just-dance” techno record.

When do I get to feel all the feels? After the 3D printed wax faces are prepped….you know what’s gonna go down. 3.32 onwards will make you feel all the feels and a few you don’t really understand. Always a sign that the art is worthwhile.

When do I get to sing? “They brood in ecstasy, a thought to wrap your head ‘round. The burn that earns the gleam, red crystals shine above a yacht.”

Stay Splendour’d (even though I won’t be at SITG) by following twitter.com/joeylightbulb

www.news.com.au/entertainment/music