2011: Best of songs

As I finish my last few album reviews for my best of 2011 album list and let the craziness of Soundwave and miss photography slowly dissipate, I think it's time to tell you what my favourite songs of 2011 were. In no particular order at all, except for when I wrote them down in my dodgy ass Windows Notepad file. I may write something about it, I may not. Just know that i love these songs.

Touche Amore - Home Away From Here

It's short, fast, hard and emotionally brutal, which at the time I got into this song was everything I felt. "It's just I have this problem that I want to be everywhere I'm not..."

Defeater - Empty Glass

Boris - Les Paul Custom '86

Multiple versions of this song came out this year, but there's something about the metal band doing stripped-back J-pop/electronica in this that just astounds me and makes me sing along, with words I don't understand.

The DC3 - I was the Guy in TISM

The Australian satire and wit! AHH!

Monument – Dot Dash/Bikeage/What a Wonderful Puddle

The album wasn't considered for my end of list because it was 50% covers. But what covers! Get it for free on their bandcamp.

My Morning Jacket - Holdin' On To Black Metal

 

 

The song's subject matter v. delivery. 

Yuck - Georgia

 

 

Rekindled my love affair with Brit-rock, even with a bit of a Cure riff rip-off.

Andrew Jackson Jihad - The Michael Jordan of Drunk Driving

 

 

Short. Quirky. Original.

Wilco - One Sunday Morning (Song for Jane Smiley's Boyfriend)

 

 

It may be a tad bit long for some people, but it is the perfect song to listen to while lying in bed on a Sunday morning. And that riff! My god, it's repetitive, but it's catchy.

The Smith St Band - I Ain't Safe

 

Thrice - Listen Through Me

 

The Hotel Year - Weathered

 

 

La Dispute - King Park

 

 

The subject matter alone. Christ. Try listening to this without getting goosebumps or crying.

The Wonder Years - Came Out Swinging

 

 

A great start to my favourite pop-punk album of the last 5 years. And it's not about lost love, but something I understand. Missing the youth of growing up in the burbs of Chicago (or near enough in the case of me up the road).

Joyce Manner - Constant Headache

 

 

This album was good, but not great. Yet I kept looking to it. And this song would always be the first one I listened to.

The Dear Hunter - We've Got a Score to Settle

 

Mastodon - Curl of the Burl

It was nigh on impossible to pick just one song from this album to be in this list, but this one had an "official" music video.

2011: Best of Photos

2011 was a big year for me in photography. I got my first SLR at the end of 2010 and up to July 2011 I only was able to take band photos in little venues after sweet talking the bouncers. By the end of 2011 I had photographed two massive festivals of international bands, broken 1 lens mid-Future of the Left gig, broken 1 camera mid-Soundwave Counter-Revolution festival, had photos printed in a magazine (in Canberra of all places) and been able to get up close with so many bands I loved.

It's been fun. I would like to thank Alternative Music Hub and Tone Deaf for allowing me to occasionally photograph for them. 2012 will see me dragging my camera wherever possible and hopefully being able to take some more larger bands/festival photos. If you're reading this and you want me to take photos for your publication/band/etc, please hit me up on photo@moshpitson.com.

Now that's all done, here's my favourite live music photos I took last year. This list has been impossible to make as I keep changing my mind and I tried to only limit it to 1 photo per show.

20. The Chariot, Sun Distortion Studios, April 20

This gig was absolutely insane. Despite being a small room with one small bulb from the roof making for horrible lighting, the band was so crazy that most photos turned out. Even this one of the bass player being carried out the door while still playing.

19. The Damned Things, Soundwave Counter-Revolution, Riverstage, September 24

Although not an action shot, I just really enjoy this picture of Damned Things/Every Time I Die lead singer Keith Buckley walking off stage. (See the full gallery here)

18. The Walkmen, Harvest Festival, Riverstage, November 19

I had been waiting the better part of a decade to see the Walkmen. This picture of the lead singer looking suave and slightly 1950s is everything I had ever imagined about this band. (See the full gallery here)

17. The Grates, Tivoli, October 28

Patience, the energetic lead singer, is generally the focus of attention in the Grates live show. However, in this picture, John shows he can still get his boogie on. (See the full gallery here)

16. Alesana, Soundwave Counter-Revolution, Riverstage, September 24

I may not be the biggest fan of their music, but their live show was sure fun to watch. Even though my camera was minutes away from breaking, this shot of the guitarist mid-dance at the back of the stage managed to capture some of the action. (See the full gallery here)

15. Army of Champions, the Jubilee, November 17

It was the first time I had seen, let alone heard of, this band and I fell in love. This picture captures all of them singing/shouting at once, in the Against Me! punk vibe they put out.

14. Man Overboard, The Globe, September 3

Whenever I watch a punk show, it's always my goal to get a picture of a guitar jump. It's bloody hard and very rarely works out. This shot was taken just as I put the flash on my camera and before I even had it set up properly and it needed a lot of post-editing to not be dark. The post-editing gave it a very old-school film feel I think. (See the full gallery here)

13. Raein, Sun Distortion Studios, December 31

This was one of the last photos I took in 2011, of the Italian screamo band playing the last Sun Distortion Studios show. The whole energy of the set was intense, with almost everyone in the band screaming into any microphone that was near them and just jumping around like madmen. Was a great way to see out 2011.

12. Periphery, the Zoo, July 29

The first gig I shot for any reason apart from for fun. Although I had to jostle with the crowd a lot to get shots, they were just fun to photograph. Every shot I took had them in different poses and it was really hard to pick a single photo for the best of list! (See the full gallery here)

11. Nuclear Summer, Sun Distortion Studios, December 31

Nuclear Summer will go down as one of my favourite local bands in 2011. This shot shows basically everyone you see regularly at gigs in Brisbane just getting into the song as well.

10. The National, Harvest Festival, Riverstage, November 19

The lighting, the mist, the composition... I think it really just goes hand in hand with the style of music that is the National. (See the full gallery here)

9. La Dispute, the Zoo, January 25

Adam Vass screaming into the mike. This was my favourite photo for the first half of the year.

8. Architecture in Helsinki, the Tivoli, September 25

I couldn't take my eyes or lens off the front man of Architecture in Helsinki. I think of this picture as the hipster music version of Egon from Ghostbusters. (See the full gallery here)

7. Every Time I Die, HiFi, September 23

The second Keith Buckley picture of the top 10. He's just such an an enigmatic front man, you can't help to take a lot of photos of him. This photo was part of a set of photos I took of him just tossing the microphone around in between singing. (See the full gallery here)

6. Trash Talk, Step Inn, February 25

This was taken the night before Soundwave festival, in a special flood benefit fundraiser in the small band room of the Step Inn. Trash Talk, as always, were absolutely nuts on stage and barely kept still. This photo made the countdown purely for the expression of the guy on the side of stage. That's what everyone feels like after watching the insanity and non-stop movement of the Trash Talk live show.

5. Jim Ward, Alhambra, August 13

If I was to give an award for the worst lighting in a venue to take photos in, it would be Alhambra. One spot light and a mirror behind the performer. But I managed to get this shot with the lights above the bar reflected beautifully in the mirror. Artistic almost. (See the full gallery here)

4. AC4, The Zoo, April 7

I was lucky enough to see Dennis Lyxzen (lead singer of Refused/International Noise Conspiracy) twice this year in different forms. Dennis is renowned for his stage performane, and at the Zoo in his hardcore band AC4 he showed us all why. Despite only landing in Australia a few hours earlier, he danced like a mad man and finished writhing on the floor while still singing.

3. Touche Amore, Old Museum, September 8

I got to take most of my pictures on stage, which is rare for me in such a large venue. I was singing along the whole time and this whole band photo, with Jeremy screaming, was turned into a poster for my friend Jess who's hand is sticking out in the crowd. (See the full gallery here)

2. Flaming Lips, Harvest Festival, Riverstage, November 19

Anyone who has seen a Flaming Lips show will know about how insane it is. The photo pit was packed and I took about 400 photos just of the first 3 songs of these guys. So much was going on it was so hard to keep up with the action. This is a shot of Wayne just as he unleashed streamers from his blow gun, with more streamers in the background and all of the photographers trying to get a good angle. (See the full gallery here)

1. Fucked Up, Alhambra, December 9

What you can't see is the fact that I'm singing like a manic into the microphone while taking this photo.

2011: Best of gigs

2011 was my most musically productive year, in regards to gigs. Over the last 365 days I went to 64 gigs/festivals. This smashes my previous years by a long margin. I imagine the increase is due to my photography, but I like to think it was just a great year for live music in Australia!

There was the normal year starter of Future of the Left, followed by festivals in torrential rain, festivals in crazy heat, multiple trips to Melbourne and Sydney for shows, in-store performances, orchestras, flood-benefit shows, cover bands, friends' bands, classic bands playing arena shows, bands I've waited most of my life to see, my favourite band of all time and lots of new bands I'd never heard of before yet became instant fans. What a year.

Despite my bemoaning of the death of the festival, there were too many good ones for me to pass up this year. Most years I'll go to 2 or 3, but this year I went to 6, 2 of them as a photographer. Considering one of them was a 2 day festival (in torrential rain a few days before the floods), it was quite a tiring year.

With so many gigs (I think I saw 237 different sets), it's really hard to do a top 5, so I made an internal compromise and came up with my top 8 gigs of the year that was 2011.

8. Off With Their Heads/Against Me! (4 May, 2011 @ the HiFi)
If you've ever seen Against Me! live, you'll probably realise their inclusion in any best-gigs-of-the-year list is mandatory. Through an extended set you could just see them enjoying playing as much as we were enjoying watching. It's rare to get a synergy between a band and a crowd at a venue of a large size like the HiFi, but everyone in the band and the crowd had massive smiles on their face. Throw in a long set list full of classic songs designed to get the crowd pumping their fists and singing along, bring along another great international punk band in Off With Their Heads and you get a great night of punk rock.

(click here for the original review)

7. Sufjan Stevens (26 January, 2011 @ the Tivoli)
This was my first time seeing Sufjan. Although more of a fan of his acoustic-folk, I knew this set would lean towards his newer electronic stuff. I figured it was worth going just to see the few songs I really, really like. What it ended up being was an ethereal all-encompassing experience. Not just a gig, but a whole show. Sufjan conducted a light, laser and balloon show that added incredible depth to his music, allowing me to appreciate it at a new level. And he still played some of the folk classics.

(click here for the original review)

6. Melvins/Primus (3 March, 2011 @ the Palais Theatre, St Kilda)
No surprise this was going to be on my list. Primus is my favourite band, no matter what, and my trip to Melbourne was purely for this show. The venue was sitting only (heavily enforced by the ushers), but it was in ridiculously comfortable leather seats with plenty of room. Kim and I were right near the front of the upper balcony and we first watched an all-out aural assault by the Melvins with 2 drummers following a classic set of Primus, including a few new songs as well.

(click here for the original review)

5. The Chariot (20 April, 2011 @ Sun Distortion Studios)

Their first tour of Australia and they absolutely slaughtered the venue. The opening bands weren't really to my taste, but when the Chariot came on I no longer cared. The stage broke and was carried out in pieces. A yellow pages phone book was ripped in half and thrown in the air. The bass guitar broke a string, something I thought was nigh on impossible. The bass player was carried out of the venue still playing. Everything was destroyed in a full on noise-assault. It ended with everything in pieces and the band slumped to the floor and me wanting to see it all over again.

(click here for the original review, picture gallery and bonus video)

4. Modest Mouse (21 July, 2011 @ the Prince of Wales Bandroom, St Kilda)
I travelled to Melbourne just for this show. There was a fight in a mosh pit (what the fuck Melbourne indie fans?), there was no Johnny Marr, but it was still one of the best times I've seen Modest Mouse play. They played something off almost every album (fairly rare) even a few impromptu acoustic songs that Isaac has obviously forgotten most of the lyrics for... stopping to apologise at the second or third verse. The kicker for me though was the fact the encore saw them playing for an hour and a half longer than they were supposed to. Is there such a thing as too much Modest Mouse? No. Not at all.

3. Harvest Festival (Kevin Devine/This Town Needs Guns/The Holidays/The Walkmen/Mercury Rev/TV on the Radio/Clap Your Hands Say Yeah/Bright Eyes/Mogwai/The National/The Flaming Lips/Portishead) (19 November, 2011 @ the Riverstage)

Granted, any festival featuring the Flaming Lips will blow you away with their fully immersive spectacular. But this festival was enough to make me actually enjoy the whole day, instead of suffering through a day of mediocrity just to see one or two bands I really like. Harvest restored my faith in the music festival. It wasn't just about music, there was plenty other things to do that were actually interesting as well as plenty of art and installations. The grounds were laid out perfectly with no noise-pollution between stages and the bands were top-notch. I may have also cried when the Walkmen played The Rat. What a magnificent day it was. I wish all festivals were even half as good as this.

(click here for the photo gallery I shot of the day over at Tone Deaf)

2. The Mercy Beat/Trash Talk/H2O/The Bronx (25 February, 2011 @ Step Inn)

The night before the Soundwave festival and this was a hard-to-get-tickets-for flood fundraiser in the tiny-ass band room of the Step Inn. Originally supposed to be featuring Terror on the line-up, flight connections meant they missed out, but it didn't stop one of the greatest gigs I've ever been to. Trash Talk played an insane (as always) set, going all out with amazing energy. H2O showed why they are one of the best hardcore bands and featured guest spots by members of New Found Glory and Terror (who just showed up) and the Bronx wowed us all the way through to the wee hours of the morning, even playing a song they never play live: Strobe Life.

(click here for the original review and photo gallery)

1. DZ Deathrays/Fucked Up (9 December, 2011 @ Alhambra)

They put out one of the best albums of the year and then they came out on a stadium tour with the Foo Fighters. Luckily they threw this gig together quickly. Alhambra didn't know what hit it. Fucked Up played an awesome set that had security confused and saw Damian spend most of his time shirtless in the crowd with everyone going crazy (which of course is his normal routine, but it's still great to see). He even stopped the band and retrieved an evicted punter when security got a bit too over the top. It was full of great songs, DZ Deathrays were the secret opening band playing their first Australian show in god knows how long and Fucked Up were nice enough to stay behind afterwards and meet everyone. Of course there's a bit of fanboy-bias in this choice, but it was just an amazing night.

(click here for the original review and here for my Tumblr-based photo gallery)

2011: a retrospective

Now that 2011's all wrapped up with a loud, screaming bang, it's time to begin the slow process of churning out best of lists. The big one, the albums list, won't be out until February probably, due to the massive stack of CDs still sitting on my desk waiting to be reviewed. But keep an eye out, being a man that loves lists, statistics and all things music related, I'll be putting a lot of random best of lists together in the next 2 months.

Best of 2010: Gigs

So it's that time of the year again, when the internet is overloaded by bloggers arguing over what in fact was the best-faux-hipster-lofi-core-pop-punk band of the year and why their opinion is better than NME/Rolling Stone/Pitchfork. And don't worry, mine will show up at some point in time, but I still have about 20 albums to listen to and not much free time to do it. So for now, with only a few hours left in the year, I thought I'd do my top five gigs of the year.

2010.
49 gigs (2 festivals).
182 bands.

It's down on the last few years, that's for sure. I'm not sure who to blame... My old job with it's travel, my new job and settling in, old age, having seen a lot of bands before and not wanting to see them or the GFC, I just didn't go to as many gigs this year. That being said, some of my favourite gigs of my life have been this year, specifically the last few months. So let's begin:

5. I've had to call this one a tie, as I just could not take one of these off my list, they were both amazing.

5a) Mark Lanegan, July 6 @ the Zoo
Two men: one standing with an acoustic guitar; the other singing such beautiful songs. I can't remember last time I stood there absolutely spellbound by someone's voice (maybe the Thrills in 2008). I didn't know most of the songs (except for the one Queens of the Stone Age song he threw in at the end) but it didn't matter. When someone can sing that beautifully and command such a presence with just his voice, it is truly memorable. I may have even swooned a little.

5b) Revival Tour (Tim Barry, Ben Nichols, Frank Turner, Chuck Ragan), April 28 @ the Rosemount Hotel (Perth)
Sure, I was disappointed that I was travelling for work through their Brisbane show, but seeing this in Perth was probably even better.

4 great punk singers on acoustic guitar, with 2 backup multi-instrumentalists, getting together randomly on stage for 3 hours, playing their own songs, each other's songs and whatever they felt like in a neo-punk-folk-country style. Chuck Ragan (Hot Water Music), Frank Turner, Tim Barry (Avail) and Ben Nichols (Lucero) are even better performers acoustic than they are with full bands. Not to mention the fact that I made some great friends that night and even met the guys.


4. The Pixes, July 31 @ the Zoo
A last minute announcement was made that this was the warm up show for the Pixies before they headlined Splendour in the Grass the next day. The show was unexpected. Earlier in the year I saw them play a fairly mediocre and lacklustre performance at the Convention Centre and had actually written them off as no more than a cash machine living off our fond memories. But then, given the opportunity to see them play a tiny-ass club with ~450 other people, I could not say no!

They rocked through 28 of their classics on a stage that couldn't even fit their setup properly. I was standing less than 2 metres from them (compared to the Convention Centre where I was probably 100 metres away). It was a very rare one-off gig, and I will never go see them again, so as not to tarnish this special performance.

My full review is here.

(FYI, apparently their headlining set at Splendour the next day was horrible. So I'm glad we got to see it privately).

3. Graf Orlock, Dangers, June 19, Burst City
One of the main reasons I started blogging was for the band Dangers. At the start of the year I was obsessed with this band, and still am. I started blogging because I wanted to share this album with as many friends as possible. So when they came out on a little DIY tour of Australia I had to go, as it may have be the only chance we will ever get.

Having seen Dangers and Graf play the Tempo Bar the day before, I was already excited. But seeing them play a little club hall, with an amazing all ages crowd (and BYO alcohol) was an experience. Everyone there was really getting into it and the main bands went all out. Even the four local bands opening were great, leading to just a huge evening of hardcore music (which was followed by seeing Carpathian play another gig and Australia play a World Cup soccer game. It was just a huge day).

My short review is here.

2. Dave Hause, Hot Water Music, Bouncing Souls, December 11 @ the Zoo
This gig would have been amazing purely for Hot Water Music playing one of their rare live performances or for the Bouncing Souls doing their first Australian tour in about 3 years or even for a nice unplugged set from the lead singer of the Loved Ones. But what made this gig memorable was the encore. All 3 international acts came on together to sing each other's songs, changing instruments/singers mid song sometime. This was what an encore should always be and capped off an amazing evening.

My full review is here.

Drumroll....

1. Baroness, October 17 @ the Zoo

I've never seen a band enjoy themselves on stage so much. I've never seen a predominantly metal crowd like so spellbound and in awe of what they were seeing. Put those together and Baroness just fed off the raw energy and put on an amazing show. They showed how talented they were as musicians and just couldn't stop smiling and enjoying themselves the whole set. A set, mind you, which went an extra 30 minutes past the scheduled ending time. A set which included an encore of a song they hardly play, because they enjoyed themselves so goddamn much. And a set which ended with a band absolutely humbled and thanking us like it was also the best night of their life. Lucy and I just walked out smiling and giggling like little school girls in love, it was that amazing.

My short review is here.


2010 was full of great gigs for me. Some of these will be top 5 of all time for me, I just know it. However, 2011 is shaping up to be even better. I'll be seeing some of my favourite bands like Future of the Left, Interpol, Sufjan, Streetlight Manifesto, La Dispute, Primus, Belle and Sebastian and the Hold Steady. I'm also heading to at least 4 more festivals. And that's just all in the first few months of the year. 2011 is set to blow me away with live music.

Happy New Year to my readers