This is Fucked Up

Regular readers of my blog will know that I love the Canadian hardcore band Fucked Up and their genre I like to consider "smart" hardcore.

Their live shows are legendary, with the singer Pink Eyes going nuts in the crowd. I was lucky enough to be next to him as he lost his shit at Soundwave this year.

Taking all of that into account, it's kind of weird that they have been announced as the support for the Foo Fighters tour. Less than a year after coming out, they'll be playing in giant stadiums. It doesn't seem like their thing, but goddamn I want to go to this show. Foo Fighters, Tenacious D and Fucked Up? Will they even be allowed to advertise their name on the posters? Why can't they play some club shows in Brisbane?! Please.. Please.. I'd consider even financing it out of my own pocket if I knew how to. But no, as always, the only Fucked Up sideshows will be in Melbourne and Sydney. I don't think I can afford to travel for that.

December 10, Metricon Stadium, Gold Coast.

*runs away to cry*

The greatest band on earth, touring Australia as a support band

I first heard about this tour back in February. I've been sitting on it a while, waiting for confirmation, etc, but I can now tell you that the greatest band on earth, Tenacious D, is heading to Australia. Amazing! Yes!

However, they're hitching their tour on a much larger wagon, who they once helped film a music video with:

Yep. That's right. It's the Foo Fighters, supported by Tenacious D. December 10th, at Metricon Stadium on the Gold Coast (that's the old Carrara Stadium, just in case you were wondering). Foo Fighters did a quick stop in Brisbane at the start of the year for a flood fundraiser, and by all accounts, they are back on top of their game as one of the best modern rock bands.

I've never seen them, so I guess this may be the time to do it. Especially since there's more bands to be announced and the major rumour is (from someone in the know who's right about 90% of the time) its the Strokes.

One sentence album reviews (#15)

Yoyoyo, so if you don't know by now, well... I do one sentence album reviews on my Twitter when I feel up to it. I normally build up a review list over the week and post them during the work days to keep me somewhat sane. When I build up a few, I post them all here for historical reasons.

Today saw me hit a new point, I've run out of reviews. I've been so busy lately that I've got a giant stack of CD's next to my comptuer, a stack of vinyl on my bookshelf and about 130 hours of new music queued up on my computer. So, as a consequence, it might slow up for a while. But here's the last bunch:

Lonely Island - Turtleneck & Chain (2011): A few funny songs, but mainly sounding like the Beastie Boys did 20 years ago, with bad humour 2.4/5

Saul Williams - Volcanic Sunlight (2011): 1st listen: like 2 minutes only of spoken word. Disappointed. 5th listen: a clever rap album 4/5

Foo Fighters - Wasting Light (2011): They have gone slightly back in time and got their heavy back. I scarily like it 4/5

Death Grips - Ex-Military (2011): Excellent grimey rap with lots of classical rock samples that make my inner music nerd jump for joy 4.5/5

Fucked Up - David Comes To Life (2011): A departure from their hardcore to make a brilliant rock opera. May alienate old fans. 5/5

Touche Amore - Parting The Sea Between Brightness And Me (2011): Hardcore that sounds like La Dispute had a musical baby with Defeater. 4.5/5

Face to Face - Laugh Now, Laugh Later (2011): This is how pop-punk should be. A lesson from the masters 4.5/5

Boy Hits Car - Stealing Fire (2011): A very American rock sound, kind of like nu metal crossed with classic Iron Maiden style vocals 3/5

Braveyoung-We Are Lonely Animals (2010): Instrumental post-rock eh? So you build up each song slowly into a drawn out crescendo? #cliche 1.5/5

Bullets in Madison - We Became Your Family When You Died (2010): starts as boring post-rock and then slowly merges into a Thom Yorke sound. 2/5

Cloud Nothings - Cloud Nothings (2011): Jangly lo-fi guitar pop. Sounds like a lot of other bands, but with more personality due to raw and rough edges 4/5 The song Heartbeat is a contender for song of the year

Crocodiles - Sleep Forever (2010): This album is from the wrong decade, it needs to be in the mid 90's new wave-era. Oh the memories 4/5

The Black Powder - The Black Powder (2008): Unclassifiable noisy-post-punk-hardcore (that's a classification I guess). The kind of band I want to be in 4/5

Ampere - Like Shadows (2011): 11 Songs, 15 Minutes of good hardcore. They exemplify short and sweet 4/5

The Antlers - Burst Apart (2011): It took me 5 listens to take it all in, as it's so quiet and unassuming. Modern elevator music maybe? 2/5

Kindest Lines - Covered In Dust (2011): A band that grew up listening to way too much of the Cure and wants to keep their spirit alive 4/5

Arctic Monkeys - Suck It And See (2011): Less garage rock and more indie, there's 2 songs that channel Interpol deeply 3/5

City & Colour - Little Hell (2011): I like Alexisonfire, but I don't like Dallas' solo stuff, way too mopey. #emo 2/5

The Paper Scissors - In Loving Memory (2011): Australian band making brooding moody indie. Channeling their inner dance-goth I think 3/5

The flood fundraiser to out-fundraise them all?

This band is probably only known as the band that has the guy that was once in Nirvana. No other reason really. But luckily for us, they will be doing a fundraising gig for the floods in Brisbane (and one in Auckland for the earthquake).

They are the mighty Foo Fighters.

It's probably their only Australian show (not really, they have a secret gig in Sydney, but it's a secret so it doesn't count, right?) in their preparation/celebration of their soon to be release album. And it's a great way to raise money.

It's going to be at the Riverstage, March 29 for $99. That's about the average price for their show I guess, but this one is all going to charity, so no complaints from me!

There will be three supports: You Am I, Cloud Control and TBA. The best part of the TBA is that it could be you! Or me. I'm hoping me. You can enter by following the details at Frontier Touring's Website

Kaki King tour

One of my surprise albums so far this year has been Junior by Kaki King. Kaki is as cute as she is an amazing guitarist, and the album is full of great guitar melodies, almost folk like in a way. Did I mention she's cute?


She's toured out here a few times, including the opening slot for the Foo Fighters on their last tour, where apparently Dave Grohl ranked her as a guitar god. Her playing style involves a lot of fret tapping, guitar slapping and general rhythmic sounds that aren't entirely natural to a guitar; although on the latest album Junior it's less noticable.

Kaki will be spending a few weeks in our country doing some festivals, but we're lucky enough to get a club performance. So come catch her at the Zoo on November 20.

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