I’m back home from tour and slowly sorting through a million e-mails and art-type-deadlines. I’m writing a big blog on the whole tour but this weeks’ Drum Media Perth already features a full tour diary, so I figured rather than repeating myself, you can check it out here.
HANGOVER #1: WEDNESDAY
I arrived in Brisbane last night to play a pre-conference showcase with Queensland cabaret artist Ghostboy, which turned into a bit of a party, so I start the conference with a hangover. The aftershow ended up at a showcase by Brisbane indie label Plus One Records, featuring mostly fairly generic Brisbane bands before a performance from Graveyard Train, whose distinctive horror-country pose and masculine harmonies sound a likely fit for early afternoon festival stages next year.
Wednesday starts with an overly-conversational-for-this-time-of-morning call from my pal Belowsky, telling me to get my arse to Judith Wright for Alan McGee’s opening talk so he can introduce us. His onstage interview is from the perspective of a man who achieved all he set out to do in the music industry and now has the audacity to be honest about wanting no part in it. It’s amusing to watch an entire room take offence to his nonchalance but the reality is that he’s more grounded than you would expect the former manager of Oasis to be, though he clearly has no patience for the industry hussle everyone at the conference was poised to lay on him. Then it’s onto other panels; learning about sync placement in TV is way more fun than expected and a panel on New Zealand music becomes a fascinating dissection of their industry.
I’ve had enough of schmoozing for now, so I dodge the early parties for some bad Chinese food and a beery catchup chat with Sean from Perth band The Spitfires. We head out together. Melbourne’s Brous are first up, coming off entirely like Kate Bush fronting a generic indie band, they are lucky that their frontwoman is so beguiling. Sean drags me to Boy In A Box, who proceed to play what sound like the boring songs off Living End albums while clad in matching white T-shirts like an early ‘90s boy band. Perth’s Split Seconds are pure class, and it’s a pleasure to see them nail a packed set for hypnotised delegates. I don’t quite make it to the shows by Perth acts The Novocaines and The Chemist in the midst of the multi-venue madness, but reports are that they pick up a lot of industry interest and play to heaving crowds. Closing out the night, The Vasco Era absolutely tear up The Aviary. It’s honest, raw and powerful rock and roll that makes almost everything else at the conference seem artificial by comparison. Then it’s somebody’s birthday, the party rolls on and I find myself ranting to Central TAFE students in the stairwell of the backpackers at 2am.
HANGOVER #2: THURSDAY
Nobody looks very cheery this morning, but I’ve got a day of meetings and industry hussling planned, so it’s down for an un-hearty $4 breakfast at Ric’s where I find the WA delegates huddled together. It’s nice how the Perth industry stick together at these things. Today is an absolute smorgasbord of conference treats; I pick up some useful ideas for structuring national tours, before taking in a surprisingly entertaining and relevant interview with Robbie Williams’ management team IE: Music. My meetings generally go splendidly; it’s amazing how willing some usually quite unapproachable people are to have a chat in a conference setting.
The early evening party thrown by Oztix has coincidentally become a WA showcase; Split Seconds, Boom! Bap! Pow! and The Chemist all put in worthy sets to an impressed crowd. There’s a palpable buzz around the WA music scene, I’ve heard it mentioned quite a few times on panels and in conversation this week. Later in the evening, hype band DZ Deathrays fail to bring their usual punk basement intensity to bear on an outdoor stage. Jon Toogood from Shihad’s new act The Adults starts out in lame pop territory but halfway through the set transforms into a perfect update of the sound of weird New Zealand in the ‘90s – think Headless Chickens and Straightjacket Fits. San Cisco impress at Woodland before Trial Kennedy and City Riots show there is still life and fun left in Australian alt-rock. Closing out is King KSSR, who everyone says are “like Empire Of The Sun but good,” which is really code for the fact that they are musically almost identical to Empire Of The Sun, it’s just they haven’t been hijacked by commercial radio yet. In any case, they are enjoyable enough and we head over to the epic joint Dew Process/Street Press Australia afterparty. Everyone drinks a lot and it’s so much fun that we all agree we won’t regret our hangovers in the morning.
HANGOVER #3: FRIDAY
Everyone regrets drinking so much last night. An international record label has emailed me to request a meeting with them today. This is enjoyably scary and exciting and I spend the day sweating on this. A lot of people have gone home following the showcases and the panels today reflect the winding down feel of the day; it’s all fluffy industry stories and not much important information. There’s still a buzz in the air; people are packing in their final meetings and there’s an air of a lot of business getting done. I have my scary meeting and do rather well. I drag myself up the street to my hotel, collapse in a heap and sleep righteously for sixteen hours.
First off, I’m playing a show with Ghostboy on Tuesday September 6 at Brisbane’s suburban home of artistic awesomeness, 
I had a ludicrously awesome time last night at Abbe May’s LP launch. MC’ing comes pretty naturally to me and the backstage area was STUPID AWESOME, so it was a bit like a house party where one of the rooms happened to be a stage with about 700 people in front of it that I got to have a chat to every so often. I dressed in my new cloak (which smells of putrid community theatre backstage areas and dead nannas) and rocked out a vampire look. Photos soon.
But onto other things now. My longtime gigging buddies in the Voltaire Twins are also unleashing their new single Animalia and it’s killer. More of a late night sway-er than a dancefloor killer, it’s got that whole wistful, sparkly electro thing going on that all the kids love at the moment but with the added bonus of some really interesting synth programming (the offbeat percussive, wierd arpeggiated, delay-ey textural synth stuff that comes in halfway through makes me feel very positive emotions) and the kind of sound where you can tell they’ve built up their synth chops through years of gigs and releases. I dig it. Anyway, enough adjectives, it’s streaming here:
