Southern Indie Music Festival Sideshows Coming North to Brisbane

Apologies. I promised myself I wouldn't do this ever again, but there's been so much news updates in the last 2 or 3 days and I have so little free time that the only way I'm going to get it out to you right now is in one of those "one-size-fits-all" blog update. Except this one size happens to be Shaq-size. So there's plenty of room for all of the news.

The following news items are in no way in an order of importance, more or less just which tab I have open in my browser closest to the blogger editing window.

The Kooks
The weird thing is, I saw this on a bus stop near my shopping mall days before the official press release. But yes, indie darlings the Kooks are coming to Australia for all the southern New Years festivals, which means we get sideshows up north! January 2nd at the Tivoli.

Beirut
Appearing at some of the same festivals will be the folky indie sounds of Beirut. We get them at a full gig, January 12 at the HiFi.

Deerhoof
Let's just presume every indie band playing in that fortnight is on one of these festivals. Deerhoof would be one of the ones I'm most excited for though. Their experimental indie style is quite an inspiration to many modern indie bands, and they are playing Woodland for like $24! It's on the 10th of January. I can guarantee it will be a sweatbox, but bloody hell, it'll be great.

Fleet Foxes
Is this folk-rock band playing a southern New Years festival?
Yep.
Are we getting a sideshow?
You bloody well know it.
January 11, the Tivoli.

J Mascis
The creative genius behind the legendary noise band Dinosaur Jr is also coming out for some festivals, but in his solo acoustic mode (which is still bloody good). He'll be playing sideshows at the Sound Lounge on the Gold Coast on January 7 and the Powerhouse on January 10. Given Woodland's late starts, you could probably do this before Deerhoof. I'm thinking of that plan anway...

Kings of Leon
Despite the rumours of their break-up, alcoholism, etc, they are coming down under to play their postponed tour from last year. This band really polarises me. Their first two albums, were amazing. I still love them to this day. They inspired me to relearn guitar when I had given up on it, and they blew me away on their first Australian tour oh so many years ago. Then they released a bunch of tripe. And continue to. But hey, if you like them now, they've added a new Queensland date on their tour, at the Gold Coast Convention Centre. It will be November 9, the day after their show at the Entertainment Centre.

Off!
Switching genres now, Off! are a band made up of former members of Black Flag, Circle Jerks and Rocket From the Crypt. I don't think you can get anymore punk credibility there. But they're bringing their old school style of skate-hardcore punk to Australia.

If you can't see the tour poster above, I'll tell you what's on it. We get two shows. Dec 4 at the Zoo for the 18+ and Dec 6 for an all-ages at Sun Distortion (this will be insane). I cannot wait.

Free Music Friday 23! (The "I-think-Blake-will-like-this-edition")

There's something to be said about slightly balding and aging musicians, with a bit of a gut that wear glasses. They make bloody good music, they don't wear much clothing and they're great performers. Case in point:

Pink Eyes from Fucked Up (okay, he doesn't wear glasses):

Dan Deacon:

Les Savy Fav:

And now, I'm going to introduce you to another contender, Clint Maul:


Now I don't know about his live show (hey, he could be an animal and not wear much clothing), but his music is sublime. My album reviews have been falling behind all week, mainly because I've been listening to his three EPs on repeat.

As far as I can tell, Clint Maul is stuck back in the hey-day of alternative rock: the early 90's. To me, it sounds like he channels Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr, writing some beautiful songs with a very distorted, noisy undertone. It's everything I loved about alternative rock of that time. I wish I could be more eloquent about it, but after reading this quote, I can't describe it any better:

“Taking the audience back to the halcyon days of alternative rock — when acts overtly indebted to the pure-pop genius of Westerberg’s Replacements signed to majors and dated Wynona Rider”
— The Washington Post

It's just amazing. It's everything I love.

You can "name-your-price" for his three EPs at his bandcamp right here.

I am going to chalk this up as my best find so far of 2011. I just hope he puts out a full album out soon that I can rank it high on my end of year list.