Check out Dear Pluto...

If you're Sydney-based and have even the slightest inclination towards vintage clothing, then you seriously need to check out Dear Pluto. Tucked away in Surry Hills, the pretty space hosts vintage sales each weekend as well as intimate events like Monday movies nights and speed dating parties.

Hosted by, Emma Daniels (above) - the chick who also brought you those amazing Hibernian House Vintage and Retro Sales - Dear Pluto's hand-picked goodies all fall below the fifty dollar mark, with some pieces giving you change from five bucks. So, if you haven't visited Dear Pluto yet, or if you are overdue a visit, then this weekend is the perfect time to pop in to see Emma and Millie The Cat and snap up some embarrassingly cheap vintage awesomeness.

Get rummaging at 5a Wilshire Street, Surry Hills.

Words by Rob Townsend.

Kimya Dawson & Friends - Alphabutt

What was the first album you owned? I’m guessing it was something you don’t boast about too much nowadays (mine was Alchemy: Dire Straits Live). Well, American anti-folk legend Kimya Dawson has ensured that a future generation of adults can claim their first record to be something supercool, as she has released an album for kids.

The Moldy Peaches singer has always had a wonderful sense of community about her, and here recruits musical friends and their kids for an energetic, ramshackle acoustic romp complete with handclaps, foot-stomps and singalong choruses. Dawson combines hilarious lyrics about wee-wee, poop, robotic monkeys and growing hair “on your legs, your armpits and even down there,” with moral messages about the importance of sharing, loving and being kind.

Kids will go wild for Alphabutt. The songs are catchy and interactive, and, at 27-minutes long, the album is short enough to hold their attention. That’s not to say this is exclusively for children though. Fans of Dawson will be pleased to find the usual mix of humour and tenderness within her wordplay, and the simple structure and rawness of her previous recordings also remain. Indeed, there are a couple of songs of a more grown-up nature, like Happy Home (Keep on Writing), that could comfortably sit on any of her other solo albums.

Buying Alphabutt for your child would be giving them the perfect introduction to all that is good and honest about music and, similarly to something like Sesame Street, this is so witty, heart-warming and fun that it can be enjoyed by kids of absolutely all ages.

Wendy James Interview

FORMER TRANSVISION VAMP FRONTWOMAN WENDY JAMES TALKS TO ROB TOWNSEND ABOUT COMING TO SYDNEY FOR THE FIRST TIME IN TEN YEARS

“I remember playing the Hordern Pavilion. Is it still there? I think we did five nights in a row. They were all sold-out.” It’s fair to say that Wendy James’ old band, pop-rockers Transvision Vamp, were massively popular in Australia, so it’s all the more remarkable that it has been over a decade since her last visit. In that time, she has relocated from England to New York, which she has called home for the past seven years. “I fell in love with it when I was 16 years old. I found myself in a position that if I wanted to move I could, and so I did. It’s just everything I would want from a city. I haven’t had a bad day in New York once. Not through all the years. It’s incredible.” James has also formed a new band, called Racine, since moving to The States, yet it’s her skills behind the decks that bring her back to this city, with a host of appearances including a return to Kings Cross, where she recalls Transvision Vamp stayed last time round. “I remember we always stayed at the Sebel Townhouse Hotel. That was like, you know, Sydney’s version of the Hyatt Hotel on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles. It was always very good fun to check in there. That’s gone, right?”

During her sets, James promises an eclectic mix, including some Detroit garage punk, a bit of NYC new-wave, some M.I.A, Santo Gold and a smattering of British indie. “I love The Horrors,” she tells me in the most perfectly proper English accent. She’ll also be playing plenty of old school hip-hop. “That’s what really turns me on nowadays, everything from The Beastie Boys right through to some proper hardcore Wu-Tang Clan. Basically, it’s going to be a heavy night. Whether its rock ‘n’ roll or hip-hop, it’s going to be heavy.” And are there any bombs she likes to drop every time? “If I can get away with it, I always play Grace Jones’ Slave to the Rhythm, but that’s really for my listening pleasure.”

While she loves DJing, James’ main focus is Racine. “We’re planning for Racine to come over and tour in January. So, while the DJ sets will be rocking nights, they’ll also let everybody know that Racine is coming to town soon.” This is a prospect that clearly excites the singer. “It’s taken time, because we’ve done five tours around Europe and two tours around America but we haven’t been to Australia yet. And yet historically, Australia was one of Transvision Vamp’s main countries. So it’s kind of crazy that its taken this long for Racine or Wendy James to get back out there and play,” she laments. “But now we’ve got it up and running, and its happening.”

James goes on to talk about how she is wilder now than she was back in her Transvision Vamp days, and the passing years seem to have given her a greater appreciation of her life as a musician than she had back then. “I remember it as a whole package of just ‘Wow,’” she says of her time as a teenage bombshell frontwoman. “I was too young to appreciate what was happening. It’s only a few years afterwards that you clearly remember how incredible it was. I don’t know. It’s funny. It’s just something I did.”

I wonder how many people come to see her because they know her from her days in her previous band? She ponders for a moment, then responds. “There’s always a few people who are Transvision nuts, but on the whole it’s a brand new thing.” I suggest that it must be a wonderful feeling to have a whole new generation of admirers, rather than living on former glories. “Yeah it’s fantastic,” she smiles. “There are a lot of girls into me now in their late teens and twenties to thirties. I don’t mean teeny-bop, giggly girls; I mean independent young women. It’s very exciting.” She pauses again. “You know, sexy tough strong young women.”

When I ask James what the future holds, and whether she has the desire to take on any non-music-related projects, she scoffs, and simply responds: “Rock ‘n’ roll till I die baby.”

FBi Fifth Birthday Party

FBI FIFTH BIRTHDAY PARTY
World Bar, Kings Cross
12/09/08

It shows just how highly thought of FBi is, as a sold-out crowd and a host of local talent flocked to Kings Cross to celebrate the successful passing of five years on the air. Early on, WOW performed to a sparsely populated room. Their distinctly unsubtle dance music was faintly entertaining during their first song, but, unsurprisingly, ugly vocals shouted over crude beats quickly became very annoying.

DJ Mailer Daemon’s (above) excellent set on the terrace stage included vocal turns from Catcall and Peach and was followed by S.Y.L.K, who offered female 80s-style rapping over DJ Spruce Lee’s beats. If you imagine The Waitresses’ Christmas Wrapping in a singing-into-hairbrushes-in-front-of-the-bedroom-mirror kind of way then you’d get an idea of the awesomeness of their performance.

In contrast, upstairs The Protectors (above) played straightforward rock ‘n’ roll. Even though they look absolutely fucking terrible – like a hobo version of The Darkness – their set was raucous enough to forgive such a woeful aesthetic. Meanwhile, Catcall and DJ Sleater Brockman, aka lynchpin of the local scene Andrew Levins, teamed up downstairs to get the crowd moving. In the club room, Yves Klein Blue had a justifiably confident swagger about them as they rattled off jaunty indie-pop-rock with a British feel to it. It’s easy to see a very bright future for the quartet.

Another highlight was beardy three-piece, Philadelphia Grand Jury, whose irresistibly effervescent pop was the kind of thing you’d hear on American college radio. They may not be pin-up boys, but they sure can pen a tune. While The Laurels filled the tea room with shoegazey guitar noise, Spod (below) was his versatile self on the terrace stage. His tongue-in-cheek mix of hip-hop and electroclash was wonderfully baffling and always entertaining.

Opening with Lies Are Much More Fun, before continuing with a couple of new tracks, The Grates were typically perky in the searing heat of a packed club room. Singer Patience Hodgson’s unabated enthusiasm created a buoyant atmosphere as she bounded around stage. “Now we get to play a new album. It’s very exciting,” she enthused as unfamiliar tunes were interspersed with oldies like Trampoline. While such poppy songs define the band, their true strength actually lies in deeper, more ruminative numbers, like the post-grunge of Feels Like Pain and Rock Boys. That said, it was the singalong of Science Is Golden and 19 20 20 which sent the crowd nuts.

And so, as night turned to early morning, the bands made way for DJs and the kids danced until dawn. The most refreshing thing about this party was the complete lack of pretence on display. Often in the rather narcissistic Sydney scene, people attend such events merely to be seen, or to be cool (or, indeed, to be seen being cool) but it is testament to the general vibe of FBi that people were here simply to have fun and enjoy some good music. It was a great night, fitting of such a brilliant community institution. Happy birthday FBi. Here’s to many more.

For another perspective on the night, go here

Dr. Dog - Fate

Shallow as it sounds, it’s hard not to be instantly put off by a band with a name as abysmal as Dr. Dog. I mean, seriously, Dr. Dog? However, if such superficiality were allowed to prevail, then Arctic Monkeys would never have stood a chance, and so we persevere beyond the awful moniker to discover a quintet of Philadelphians offering a decent collection of psychedelic pop/rock with elements of country that sounds like it belongs in another time.

Fate alludes to the likes of The Beatles, The Band and The Byrds and, while at times it all sounds a little derivative, it has clearly been constructed with a genuine love of that era of music. Okay, so the gospel ballad Army of Ancients is clearly a nod to John Lennon and elsewhere things go a bit Sgt. Pepper, but this is not a rip-off, rather an homage to their influences, which offers some interesting moments like the folky The Breeze, which opens the album with lovely vocal harmonies over piano, harmonica and acoustic guitar.

Admittedly, the overt sense of reminiscence here does get a bit grating after a while, and one wonders why you wouldn’t just dust off your old vinyl in favour of this, but if you dip in and out of Fate then you’ll discover some pleasing tracks which certainly do justice to the bands they are inspired by. If nothing else, for a group whose sound is so stuck in the past, Dr. Dog should be applauded for just about avoiding sounding like a straight-up tribute act.

The Futureheads interview

SPLITTING WITH THEIR LABEL HAS GIVEN THE FUTUREHEADS A NEW LUST FOR LIFE, AS GUITARIST ROSS MILLARD TELLS ROB TOWNSEND

It’s been too long, three years in fact, since English post-punk quartet The Futureheads last visited Australia, and guitarist Ross Millard can’t wait to get back. “We toured the first record for over two years and it was quite a galling schedule, but there was just something about Australia. There was a unique aura about the country,” he reminisces about his band’s only previous visit. “It’s hard to explain but you almost adopt a different lifestyle. We’re all quite uptight individuals most of the time,” he laughs. “I love the fact that it didn’t seem like a rat-race and that people didn’t seem to be pushing each other out of the way to get things done. It was nice to go to a country with a real feeling of people just wanting you to enjoy yourself.”

A lot of water has passed under the bridge since The Futureheads were last here. After the release of their second album, New And Tributes, the band parted company with their label, Warner Bros. Millard describes this difficult time as “a bureaucratic nightmare,” that nearly led to the band calling it a day. “We’d have found it incredibly difficult to make another record if we’d stayed with Warner Bros because… well, they seemed hell-bent on making it difficult for us.” Following the divorce from Warner, the chirpy lads from North-East England went about setting up their own label. “There were just irreconcilable differences between the label and the band. The music industry has just descended into chaos. Everyone is running around like headless chickens because people aren’t buying music, and we are taking ourselves out of that by trying to exist independently. We’re not at the mercy of a major label. There’s no knife to our throat anymore.”

Millard continues to chat candidly about the breakdown of his band’s relationship with Warner, and his vivacity is palpable as he discusses the liberty that they are experiencing now they’ve escaped the shackles of a major label. Such freedom is symbolised by the artwork which accompanies their new long-player, This Is Not The World, which sees the four-piece wearing foil masks. Millard explains. “Our drummer Dave had the idea of making masks. Even though we spent five minutes doing the photos, almost as an afterthought to satisfy his whim, they have this element of power about them, because, if Warner had been involved, someone there would have just said: ‘Oh don’t be silly Dave, that’s just stupid and you’re wasting time.’ Now we can decide which pictures we use, and it’s all symbolic of this kind of independent spirit.”

The newfound autonomy that the Englishmen are enjoying shines through on This Is Not The World, which is perhaps their best and most vibrant record to date. It is clear that the band is happy and experiencing a new lease of life, although, without the clout of a major label, the purse strings are being watched very closely. “It’s a double-edged sword because there’s not an endless pot of money like there was at Warner. They would literally pay for anything. That’s the stupidity of major labels; they are always keen to dig into their pockets. I suppose the old adage is that you have to speculate to accumulate, but with our own label we can’t do that. You have to be a tight-arse, watch every penny and pick your moments. You can’t just throw a load of cash at the wall and hope something sticks.”
 

Financial constraints aside, The Futureheads are in the best shape they’ve been in for years. Such is their fresh outlook, it’s as though they are an entirely new band; indeed, Millard says they approached their new record as though it was their first. However, while they are looking very much to the future, they won’t be ignoring their back-catalogue when taking to the stage at The Gaelic Theatre. “I remember being disappointed when I saw Pulp because they didn’t play Common People and some of their bigger songs from Different Class. I don’t think a band should deny people their hits, because they have paid good money to go and see them.” So, pleasingly, you can expect Hounds Of Love and Decent Days And Nights to be part of their set. “It’s nice to able to play for an hour and not know every song intimately as part of the routine, but we would never omit certain songs. Hounds Of Love is a defining song for our band, you can’t deny that, but the fact that we can pick from 35 songs keeps it interesting for us and the crowd.”

Jim Noir - Jim Noir

Jim Noir’s quirky first album of pinky plonky, psychedelic electronica with naïve lyrics and pop sensibilities oozed charm and won plenty of plaudits, so it is no surprise that his sophomore effort – which again he played every instrument on - continues in a similar vein.

That’s not to say Jim Noir offers nothing new. Far from it. While this album does not digress hugely from its predecessor, it does show a natural musical progression and is generally lusher and more ambitious in its production. Alright demonstrates this well, with layers of electronica and vocals rounded off with a harmony which could almost have been lifted from Pet Sounds.

The leftfield, madcap and often frivolous lyrical content from his first record remains and, though sometimes his wordplay is a little banal (Good Old Vinyl is about him accidentally breaking his favourite CDs), overall the songs have a wonderful sense of sweetness and quintessential Britishness. Same Place Holiday is a good example of this, with its nostalgic tale of childhood summers spent in English resorts. Noir’s choruses are insanely catchy too; and are often the same line repeated over and over, making them almost impossible not to sing along to.

It’s all incredibly cheerful stuff; and sounds like Super Furry Animals having a big old cuddle with The Beach Boys. Yes, it’s really that cute, and deserves much more recognition that it probably will get. Both for its sense of unabated sanguinity and the quality of the music on offer here, Jim Noir is utterly irresistible.