http://these-are-my-twisted-words.tumblr.com/

new QOTSA reminds me of old QOTSA, which is a very good thing...

Sun, 19 May 2013 22:11:26 +1000

new QOTSA reminds me of old QOTSA, which is a very good thing indeed.

Video

Sun, 19 May 2013 21:27:34 +1000

Video

Sun, 19 May 2013 21:17:48 +1000

dont mean to be a pest but if you could like my facebook page it would be great facebook. com/MaccaArtist

Sun, 19 May 2013 18:11:39 +1000

Sure. Likewise: http://www.facebook.com/pages/These-Are-My-Twisted-Words-blog/223518530998316?ref=hl

Kashmere Club – ‘Soldier’

Sun, 19 May 2013 16:09:00 +1000

It’s Sunday afternoon - what are you doing?

Are you sprawled out on the couch, stuffing your face with something sugary or deep-fried, watching daytime TV while nursing a hangover? Perhaps you’re plucking lint from your bellybutton, squashing it into little balls and assembling it into fuzzy micro sculptures on the coffee table? Or maybe you’re just plain bored? It’s Sunday, and you’ve got nothing better to do than dread the thought of another week spent wasting office supplies and laughing at your boss’ jokes (who you secretly despise). Well, I have a suggestion to make today a little more bearable: you should listen to Kashmere Club’s new single, ‘Soldier’.

If you don’t know who Kashmere Club are already, you really ought to. They’re three dudes from Melbourne who play classic rock & roll with a chic modern finesse; think slinky lead guitar breaks drizzled over a sturdy 70s-inspired rhythm section, with plenty of warm harmonies and melodies peppered throughout. I’ve been following them for a couple of years now, and like that prized bottle of Shiraz that’s gathering dust on the top of your kitchen shelve, these guys are only getting better with age.

Following the release of their debut EP in 2011, the lads are back with new single ‘Soldier’ from their upcoming sophomore EP, Lost & Sound. Check it out below. I think it’s an infectious little earworm if there ever was one.

Oh, and guess who produced the new EP? Chris Cheney. That’s right – he of The Living End fame. Not too shabby at all, right?

Photo

Sat, 18 May 2013 11:35:17 +1000

Yep.

Wed, 15 May 2013 14:24:02 +1000

Yep.

🍲🍜🍙 #chinchin #foodgasm #foodporn (at Chin Chin)

Mon, 13 May 2013 18:35:29 +1000

🍲🍜🍙 #chinchin #foodgasm #foodporn (at Chin Chin)

Black Sabbath at Rod Laver Arena, Melbourne 1/5/2013

Thu, 02 May 2013 07:47:58 +1000

Black Sabbath at Rod Laver Arena, Melbourne 1/5/2013

Interview: Funeral For A Friend’s Kris Coombs-Roberts

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 00:33:42 +1000

Originally posted on Everguide.

It’s 7 a.m. when my phone rings. “Hello, is this Mr Jack Pilven?” enquires a polite female voice. “Um… yeah,” I grunt affirmatively, fumbling with the buttons on my mobile while dragging myself out of bed. “Great,” replies the eloquent stranger, who briefly explains that she’s calling from a conference centre before placing me on hold. Next thing I know, I’m making small talk with Funeral For A Friend guitarist Kris Coombs-Roberts. “Sorry if I’m a bit out of it, it’s first thing in the morning here,” I apologise. “Yeah,” chuckles Kris in a thick Welsh drawl, “it’s pretty much last thing at night here.”

Once we get past the awkward introductory banter, Kris explains that he’s just returned from a weekend in Cardiff and that he’s currently relaxing at home in London. While we’re oceans apart now, it won’t be long until he reunites with the rest of Funeral For A Friend for the band’s most extensive Australian tour yet. Armed with hectic and heartfelt anthems from their latest album Conduit, the band’s visit will also coincide with the ten-year anniversary of their debut, Casually Dressed & Deep In Conversation: an album still heralded as a post-hardcore masterpiece.

Though they’ve gone through many lineup changes over the years, Kris Coombs-Roberts has been there from the beginning. He’s been a creative force in the band’s ever-evolving sound, has a gnarly beard, and could shred your face off with one of his riffs. Oh, and he’s also a really nice bloke, too.

Jack Pilven: Not long until you’re back in Australia.

Kris Coombs-Roberts: Yeah, as a band we’re all really excited to get down there. It’s been a couple of years since we’ve done any Australian headline shows. The last couple of times we’ve toured as part of festivals, so to come back and do our own shows is really exciting. Plus we get to play some places we haven’t been to before, so we’re really looking forward to that.

JP: Most bands come out here and play all the major cities and then they fly out again, but you’ve managed to queue up 10 shows. That’s pretty amazing.

KCR: Yeah, it’s something we’ve been planning on doing since we first came over. We’ve always enjoyed playing in Australia but doing Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth and then going home… it just feels like a hell of a long way to travel to do a couple of shows. In all honesty, we’ve always wanted to try and spend a bit more time there and to see a bit more of Australia as well.

JP: You’re playing shows every night in Australia from May 8 to May 18, with the exception of a night off on the 13^th. Is it exhausting playing shows night after night like this or do you get used to it?

KCR: To be honest, I prefer it. You get into a routine of playing when you’re doing headline sets night after night. For Matt (Davies-Kreye/vocals) I think a day off is essential, but for the rest of us I think we’d all prefer to be playing every day.

JP: And you’re coming back to showcase tracks off your new album, Conduit. What can you tell us about this one? Is there an underlying theme or concept behind the album?

KCR: Um, not really. We took quite a bit of time off to write the album and to reflect on what we’ve done as a band and the musical directions that we’ve taken in the past. I feel like when we were doing Tales Don’t Tell Themselves and Memory and Humanity we had a different kind of pressure on us as a band, especially in the UK where we were seen as spearheading a particular genre, one which we didn’t necessarily feel comfortable with. I think we did everything we possibly could to try and get out of that genre of music and to distance ourselves from it. What we’ve done with Conduit is focus on the simplest forms of music that we love the most, drawing on those early influences that inspired us to play in a band in the first place. I think that Conduit is - not necessarily a return to our roots because it’s a different lineup - but I think the ideology behind the band and the record has more in common with our first two EPs, Four Ways To Scream Your Name and Between Order and Model.

JP: As you mentioned, you get labelled as everything from emo and screamo through to metal, punk, and hardcore. Do you get sick of people trying to box you into neat genre categories?

KCR: Um, to be honest, not any more. As we’ve gotten older and grown up in this band we’ve realised that no matter what we do that’s always going to happen. It’s something people do so they can say, “Oh, if you enjoy this band then you might also enjoy this.” You know what I mean? Around the time that we started ‘emo’ was a bit of a dirty word and somewhere along the way it became the coolest thing on earth to be called an emo band. When we started, the bands that we were being compared to were… well not compared, but people were saying we were in the same genre as everything from Dashboard Confessional to Poison the Well, which obviously covers some massive differences in style. Sometimes it’s hard when you’re being labelled as something you’ve never said you were or something that can make people instantly dislike you before even listening to you.

JP: I caught the video for ‘Nails’ recently. This one looked like it would have been a lot of fun to make. Was it hard singing when you were having paint thrown in your face?

KCR: Pat (Lundy), our drummer, spent about eight and a half hours vomiting after doing it because he got paint in his gob, which he didn’t particularly enjoy. To be honest, the paint wasn’t the biggest problem, it was the fact we were shooting in a storage facility and it was absolutely freezing in there. Obviously when you’re covered in paint and you’re wet… it was really, really cold.

JP: I think the outcome was worth it. The video looks a million dollars.

KCR: Why thank you very much. Yeah, I think it was worth it in the end but the process was quite painful (laughs).

JP: And on the topic of paint, who designed the artwork for Conduit?

KCR: It was actually a good friend of mine, Matthew Evans, who was the original vocalist for Funeral For A Friend. Since he left the band, we’ve stayed in touch and we’re still good mates. He’s a really grounded artist and he’s built up a large portfolio of work that he’s started exhibiting in the UK. He goes by the moniker Snowskull. When we were looking at the album and thinking it was a return to the past, we thought it would be cool to get him involved in some way. We were originally going to talk to him about doing a piece for us, but then we looked through the pieces that he had and (the Conduit artwork) was exactly what we would have wanted him to do anyway – it was just insane that he’d already done it (laughs). So it worked out really well.

JP: Do you get up to any other creative practices outside of music?

KCR: I’ve been writing poetry since I was about 12 or 13. It’s something I do for the fun of it. I’ve been talking to Matthew (Davies-Kreye) about doing a piece together, combining poetry and art, which could be quite cool. But other than that, it’s not necessarily creative, but I’m a massive football fan.

JP: When you’re in Australia you should try and make time to see an AFL game.

KCR: I love Aussie rules! I get it on ESPN and I watch it just about every year. But because of the time difference, over here we get a lot of games starting early in the morning, so by the time it gets to the play offs I have to watch it online. I’ve been dying to go to a game when we’ve been down there but I’ve just never found the time.

JP: Fingers crossed you can squeeze in time to see one game.

KCR: Who’s your team?

JP: Essendon. And you?

KCR: I’ve got a thing for the Magpies. We had an Australian sound engineer and they were his team, so he introduced us to it and got us into it. It’s all about the clan!

JP: Essendon and Collingwood - the Magpies - are actually playing tomorrow, which is going to be a good game.

KCR: Oh really? I should check to see if it’s on ESPN. I’ll have to remember to wake up to catch it.

JP: Set your alarm. Okay, we’ve digressed a little bit here. But to get back to Funeral now, I know Matt Davies-Kreye is a vegan and is passionate about animal rights, but are you as well?

KCR: I’ve been vegetarian for about eight years now, I think? And yeah, I don’t buy leather. I believe in animal rights but at the same time, for me, it’s more about the way people consume meat now. Back when all meat was bought from the butchers you’d get it wrapped in paper, blood would be soaking through it and you’d know where it had come from. But now it’s all completely disassociated with the fact that it comes from an animal; it’s put in neat little polystyrene cases with clean wrap over the top and normally a picture of the animal looking really happy and a flag of the country that it comes from. I’ve got nothing against farming, but if animals were raised right then I think everyone on the planet could be vegetarian, do you know what I mean? I think it’s necessary to a degree that some people eat meat and others don’t, but like I said, with animals being treated well and looked after… I can understand that a lot more than battery farming.

JP: Is that something you’d like your fans to know you’re passionate about?

KCR: Yeah, I think so. But at the same time, it’s a bit hypocritical for me to say we stand for it as a band when there’s one vegan, two vegetarians, and two meat lovers in the band. Obviously I can’t speak for Rich (Boucher/bass) and Gav (Burrough/guitar), who eat meat, but I think we all feel quite strongly about things like that. From a personal standpoint, it’s something that I feel strongly about, but at the same time, I don’t want to be one of those preachy people and I’ll only give my opinion if I’m asked. I think people can make up their own minds.

JP: Fair enough. And how’s the dynamic within the band? You’ve had a few lineup changes over the past few years, so is everything cool at the moment?

KCR: Yeah, definitely. I think when people left the band it was always handled in the right way; nobody dragged things out or lied about things. Every time somebody got to the point where they felt they couldn’t do it anymore, they spoke openly about it. It’s pointless forming grudges with people if they honestly say they don’t want to continue doing something anymore. Twelve years of being in a band is a long time, you know? I’m 32 now and I’d just turned 20 when this band started, so a lot of things in my life have changed. I think the people who have come into the band… the best thing was finding likeminded individuals who love music and want to try and achieve the same things as you. They’ve definitely reinvigorated the band.

JP: Good to hear things are solid within Funeral For A Friend. Okay, I better start to wrap things up now, but before I let you go, the video for ‘Best Friends and Hospital Beds’ has a zombie infection theme going on so I was wondering what would be your plan for surviving a zombie apocalypse?

KCR: Okay, we actually did this top five interview for Virgin media recently – everyone was doing their top five favourite bands or top five favourite songs or whatever – but we decided to do our top five favourite crew members. And in that we actually answer what we’d do in a post-apocalyptic event, which is we’d find our roadie, Greg Winn. I’d personally find Greg Winn because if there was a zombie apocalypse I think he’d probably be the only human to survive it. I’d at least have a chance of surviving with him around. So my answer: find Greg Winn – guitar tech extraordinaire.

JP: Is there anything else you’d like to share with us just quickly?

KCR: Just that we’re really excited about coming down and doing these shows. And I’d like to thank everybody for sticking with us for the past 12 years and for still giving a shit about what we do. It means the world to us.

Funeral For A Friend Australian Tour:

Wednesday 8 May – The Rev, Brisbane

Thursday 9 May – Surfers Paradise Beer Garden, Gold Coast

Friday 10 May – The Cambridge, Newcastle

Saturday 11 May – Manning Bar, Sydney

Sunday 12 May – The Basement, Canberra

Tuesday 14 May – The Corner Hotel, Melbourne

Wednesday 15 May – Pier Live, Frankston

Thursday 16 May – Fowlers Live, Adelaide

Friday 17 May – Amplifier Bar, Perth

Saturday 18 May – Prince of Wales, Bunbury

Words: Jack Pilven

G R I M E S: I don't want to have to compromise my morals in order to make a living

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 10:11:22 +1000

G R I M E S: I don't want to have to compromise my morals in order to make a living :

actuallygrimes:

i dont want my words to be taken out of context

i dont want to be infantilized because i refuse to be sexualized

i dont want to be molested at shows or on the street by people who perceive me as an object that exists for their personal satisfaction

i dont want to live in a world where…

Karl Thomas – aka ShockOne – Interview

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 11:54:00 +1000

Originally posed on Everguide

Karl Thomas is a regular looking guy, the type you brush past half a dozen times during your daily morning commute. With his scruffy hair and five o’clock shadow, chances are you’d treat him like any other hipster wannabee if you spotted him on the street. But as the rest of us scamper to office cubicles and lecture theatres, Karl earns a crust doing something different – he travels the world and makes people dance. Meet Karl Thomas - aka ShockOne - aka your new favourite bass music maestro.

Originally from Perth but now living in London, Karl dropped his first EP as ShockOne in 2009 and has been cranking out drum and bass, dubstep and electro gems ever since. His remixes and DJ sets have allowed him to tour the globe, playing shows across Europe while still finding the time to treat fans back home with appearances at the Big Day Out, Stereosonic and Creamfields. He’s got Youtube hits in the millions, the thumbs up from BBC Radio 1’s Zane Lowe and countless other dance music tastemakers, as well as tracks dominating the iTunes and Beatport charts. Yep, now is a pretty sweet time to be ShockOne.

With his debut album Universus out later this month and dubstep stompers like ‘Chaos Theory’ causing an apt level of mayhem in clubs everywhere, Karl returns to Australia for the Groovin the Moo festivals and a few headline shows. Psyched to have him back, we woke the in-demand producer up with a phone call one morning to get the lowdown on all things ShockOne.

Jack Pilven (Everguide): So why did you make the move to the UK? Are there more opportunities to get the ShockOne name out over there?

Karl Thomas: Pretty much exactly that, man. I love Perth; it’s got a great music scene and I was lucky enough to be so successful while I still lived there. But there are only five or six major cities in Australia and you never want to saturate all the fans there by playing to them every two weeks. So if you want to make a living as a DJ, unfortunately, you need to move to where there are more people, you know? Here I can play Vienna one night, Prague the next night and Birmingham the following weekend.

JP: Sounds like you’ve covered a lot of ground. Any crazy moments or memorable sets sprung up recently?

KT: I played at a rave about two hours outside of Moscow, Russia, last summer. That was pretty out there. All the security guards had AK47s and they were searching the cars coming in. I don’t know what drugs people are on in Moscow but there were some crazy people out in the bush in Russia. That was a very weird experience. Probably one of the weirdest ones I’ve had.

JP: That sounds awesome! So when you’re playing a show like that, do you have a pre-determined set or are you DJing or what are you doing up there? I don’t know much about drum and bass, but how do you pull it off live?

KT: It’s not pre-determined but it’s not completely unplanned. I cover a lot of different tempos and genres, so I kind of know in the back of my mind when I want to take them down. But it all comes down to looking at the crowd; if I think they’ll enjoy going down into some 130-bpm electro or whatever, then I’ll take it there, but if I do and it doesn’t work, then I’ll take it back quickly. It really comes down to looking at the crowd and seeing what’s going to work. However, I still have a bunch of songs that I know I want to fit into the set. You know, you have your key points and your low points and stuff. It’s probably somewhere in between being totally freeform and totally planned, somewhere in the middle of all that.

JP: One of those set staples would have to be ‘Chaos Theory’, which has been flogged by triple j over here and is a total banger. Do you enjoy watching the crowd’s reaction when you drop that one?

KT: I love it. Usually by the time I play ‘Chaos Theory’ I’ve already had about 20 people hassle me to play it, so I know people are gagging for it (laughs). But it’s always nice to see such a positive reaction to songs that I’ve written myself; there’s really no better feeling than that. A lot of these songs take a long time to write, so it’s really cool to see people going mental to something that you’ve made and pulled your hair out over. It makes it all worth it when you see people losing their shit.

JP: Is that what you want people to get out of your music? Just to go out, have a good time, and lose their shit?

KT: Of course, man. I really feel that dance music and music in general can be a real form of escapism. I want people to be able to completely lose themselves; they’re there, they’re not thinking about all the rest of the shit in their lives, and they can just be in the moment and enjoy what’s happening that very second. Hopefully it makes people happy. That’s why we listen to music, that’s why I make music, and that’s why we go out to see music – it’s all about having a good time and having fun. That presence and energy between them and me, and the way that cycles and the way things build up when you get to that point where it’s better than any drug… you know, every time I play I try to develop that cyclic building of energy between me and the crowd. That’s what DJing is about for me.

JP: Do you ever have gigs where it is more difficult to form that connection with the crowd?

KT: Definitely, man. You’re going to get that with everything. I find that Australian crowds are already excitable by nature, and being Australian, I connect with them easily. I know what they’re into, I know what they like, and I know what life is like living in Australia. Whereas, in Russia, there can be quite a cultural barrier. You don’t know what styles of music they’re vibing on, you know? There can be cultural differences sometimes, but that’s something you know within the first minute or so of playing. You work out what the vibe’s like, and that’s your job as a DJ to go, “Okay, cool. I’ll adapt and I’ll give them what they want while still keeping myself happy.” It’s a tightrope that you walk, trying to make everyone happy while still getting that vibe happening - that’s your job as a DJ.

JP: What can you tell us about your new album, Universus? Does the space theme fit in with what you were saying before about escapism via music?

KT: A little bit. The loose theme of Universus is the lifespan of our universe. The term itself, universus, actually means everything right now. It’s dealing with, as humans, our perception of reality and how we deal with the universe that we’re in. It’s something that I think about a lot, you know, our perception of reality and the fact that everything is one, and one is everything. We’re all made of the same stuff. I’m made of the same stuff that trees are made of… we’re all just molecules and atoms. It’s something that I think about constantly and it’s naturally started seeping into my music. And the theme kind of showed itself organically without me having to do anything. About halfway through writing the album I realised I had a theme on my hands without meaning to.

JP: Cool, so you really get into existentialism and all that jazz, ey? Do you believe in parallel universes?

KT: Yeah, I really get into all that stuff. Parallel universes are something that I’ve been reading about a lot recently and it’s a crazy theory but it’s also pretty crazy… but let’s not get into that! That’s a conversation for another time (laughs).

JP: Yeah, that’s a bit heavy for your typical DJ interview. Let’s keep it light.

KT: Yeah. (laughs)

JP: Okay, well you’re going from playing these big shows in places like Moscow to coming back here for Groovin The Moo, which is kind of out bush. Are you prepared for that? These shows are bound to be a bit different to what you’re used to.

KT: Not really, man. People are people, you know? What I love about dance music is that you can play to someone in Russia and you can play to someone in Bendigo, and you’re all on the same level. We’re all just humans, so it’s not as different as you might think. It always comes down to good music and good times. But that being said, today I will be preparing to put my music together for sets and stuff. I still don’t know what people can expect from the sets, but I guarantee it’ll be good, high-energy and very diverse.

JP: Do you still get nervous when you’re up in front of thousands of people and you’re up there on your own?

KT: I get good nervous. Nerves keep me in check and they make me perform better. But I don’t get anxiety nervous, I just get butterflies that get that adrenaline pumping. I like that feeling, it makes me on edge. Reality is on a knife-edge. It’s very poignant when you’re there, and then before you know it, it’s all over and you’re sitting at home or in a dressing room. It goes so quick sometimes.

JP: How did you get into drum and bass to begin with?

KT: I’ve been a drummer since I was four, so I was playing in bands during my teenage years. And then through meeting up with the guys who are now Knife Party, you know, we played in a band together for many years. It was Rob Swire (Knife Party/Pendulum) who showed me electronic production when we were teenagers. He opened my eyes to that world of music making, and after a couple of years, I was hooked on that. When Pendulum blew up and our band had to break up I was left without a band, so I decided that I was going to take my messing around on sequencers and take it seriously. That’s how ShockOne developed.

JP: Some people might not realise that you’ve actually been doing this for quite a long time now, so – I don’t know if you were holding down another part-time job at the time – but did you ever get to a point where you said to yourself, “You know what, I think I can make a living out of doing this?”

KT: Not really, it was kind of the opposite. Most of the time I was thinking, “I’m so sick of having no sleep and working a job I don’t like” and, “I don’t want to work part-time retail for the rest of my life.” And then I realised, well, what am I going to do if I quit music? And I couldn’t think of one thing I’d do that would make me happy, so I accepted the fact that I was going to be making music for the rest of my life, whether I was successful or not. When I made that decision, that’s when things started to happen for me funnily enough and it’s when I let go of all those stresses and monetary pressures. When I let go of all that, that’s when I started making my best music and that’s when I became successful as an artist.

JP: So would that be your advice to aspiring DJs and producers? To just let go, take a risk, and do what makes you happy?

KT: It would be. It’s easier said than done because I understand people have mortgages and people have responsibilities in their lives. But what you also have to understand is that nothing will ever be handed to you on a platter. If you don’t put the hours in, then there’s no one but you to make things happen. To master something you have to put in those hours, so if you don’t give yourself that time to develop then you can’t expect to become really good at it and become known for it, that’s just the way things are.

ShockOne ‘Universus’ Launch Tour:
Wednesday 24th April - Metro City, Perth
Thursday 25th April - Liberty Social, Melbourne
Saturday 27th April - Groovin’ The Moo, Maitland
Sunday 28th April - Groovin’ The Moo, Canberra
Friday 3rd May - Oxford Art Factory, Sydney
Saturday 4th May - Groovin’ The Moo, Bendigo
Sunday 5th May - Groovin’ The Moo, Townsville
Friday 10th May - oh Hello!, Brisbane
Saturday 11th May - Groovin’ The Moo, Bunbury
Friday 24th May- HQ, Adelaide
Friday 31st May - SECRET SHOW
Saturday1st June - SECRET SHOW

Words: Jack Pilven

Photo

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 22:18:18 +1000

Reissue of Tool’s Opiate EP came in the mail today....

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 22:17:56 +1000

Reissue of Tool’s Opiate EP came in the mail today. It’s signed by all four members. I’m so happy right now 😁 #tool #fanboy

Photo

Sun, 07 Apr 2013 11:15:21 +1000

Video

Sun, 07 Apr 2013 11:05:32 +1000

MEAA survey results and 'freelancer pro' launch

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 20:37:21 +1100

MEAA survey results and 'freelancer pro' launch:

paythewriters:

The MEAA has released results of a survey of 326 of its freelancer members, published with comments at @mumbrella, ahead of today’s launch of its new Freelancer Pro membership category. A small sample skewed towards established/print journos (ie those already members of the Alliance) still reports a lot of working for nothing. 40% were not paid for blog posts, 22% were not paid for photos, 13% were not paid for opinion pieces. Pay rates varied wildly within publications. The discrepancy between online and print pay rates is particularly disturbing, though hardly surprising.

#lmff #fashion #melbourne

Sun, 24 Mar 2013 22:20:06 +1100

#lmff #fashion #melbourne

#lmff #melbourne #fashion #karenwalker (at Central Pier)

Sun, 24 Mar 2013 22:19:56 +1100

#lmff #melbourne #fashion #karenwalker (at Central Pier)

wishyouwerehearblog: New Track : Daft Punk - Random Access...

Sun, 24 Mar 2013 22:15:49 +1100

wishyouwerehearblog:

New Track :

Daft Punk - Random Access Memories