The Ocarina of Rhyme

I'm generally not a fan of mash ups, that genre of music were different songs are mixed together. Artists like Girl Talk are one of the few exceptions, his amazing ability to form a new song out of so many pieces of other songs is mind boggling. Another one of the few I really like is Illionoize, where producer Tor has mashed up hip-hop songs with Sufjan Stevens. The indie and the hip-hop reallly mixes well together and you can get that album for free at this website.

But now there's a new one I like. And it mixes hip-hop with the music from one of my all time favourite video games: The Legend of Zelda, Ocarina of Time.


It's put together by Team Teamwork, a group of guys that do mash ups, some video game related. I've been trying to buy a Nintendo-64 lately purely so I could play this game again and it was just blind luck that someone linked me to this mash up based off of the game. It features Spank Rock, Jay Z, Dr Dre/Snoop Dogg, Clipse, Aesop Rock, Busta Rhymes and Common amongst others. All set to my favourite songs and sounds from the game.

They put all of their mash ups out for free, so download the whole album here.

Tron

Like most people of my generation, I was introduced to Tron by the Simpsons' Treehouse of Horror 3D special:

I hate how the only Simpsons videos you can find online are in Spanish... But you get the point. It was crude 3D line drawings. A movie about being sucked into a video game in the 80s.

And it's back. Featuring video games, 3D, the Dude (Jeff Bridges) and 13 from House (Olivia Wilde). (Both of those links are awesome, click on them)

But the best part is that the soundtrack is being composed by Daft Punk. There's not much out there yet, but you can catch a few clips of their music at the official Tron website right here. This movie probably won't be amazingly Oscar worthy, but it should be a damn good time with a damn good soundtrack.

Big Sound and Valley Fiesta collide!

Those of us that live and gig in Brisbane truly understand how we can be seen as the live music capital of Australia. The music scene here is just so large and diverse, yet still as close as a family. Q Music run a yearly music conference called Big Sound as a celebration of this aspect of our wonderful city.

It's a coming together of the business, the arts and the music side of everything. As they say in the above trailer, it's our attempt to replicate a South by Southwest style festival and conference in the streets of Fortitude Valley, where there's so many live music venues in such a small area. This year there will be all sorts of managers, musicians, producers and more sharing their experience and knowledge, and helping out the local scene.

And the best part is, a shit tonne of concerts in association with it.

On the Wednesday and Thursday (8th and 9th of September) over 60 bands will be playing across 6 stages in the Valley, including 2 outdoor stages. Get comfortable, here's the list (I've bolded the notables to me):

CHILDREN COLLIDE
THE VASCO ERA
BOY & BEAR
THE GIN CLUB
THE JOHN STEEL SINGERS
PARADES (one of my new random favourite bands)
ERNEST ELLIS
THE HUNGRY KIDS OF HUNGARY
BRIDEZILLA
THE JEZABELS
BONJAH
THE WILSON PICKERS
LAST DINOSAURS
HALFWAY
THE CHECKS (NZ)
THE HOLIDAYS
STIFF GINS
GEORGIA FAIR
FIRE! SANTA ROSA FIRE!
PERRY KEYES
DUBMARINE
THE CAIROS
THE MELODICS
BALL PARK MUSIC
ARTISAN GUNS (NZ)
YOUNG REVELRY
RICHARD IN YOUR MIND
EAGLE & THE WORM
O YE DENVER BIRDS
THE NAKED AND FAMOUS (NZ)
THE OPTIMEN
PIKELET
THE MEDICS
GUINEAFOWL
MY FICTION
THE TRANSIENTS
BIG SCARY
DISCO NAP
THE DELTA RIGGS
DANIEL LEE KENDALL
26
DEEP SEA ARCADE
JINJA SAFARI
METALS
KYU
THE HONEY MONTH
LOVE CONNECTION
MELODRAMAS (UK)
KIMBRA
EDGE OF COLOUR
RUBY FROST (NZ)
CITY RIOTS
THE FOREIGN OBJECTS
KNIVES AT NOON (NZ)

And that's just the first announcement. Granted, it's a lot of indie, but it's mainly local. Just showing how good our music scene really is. Tickets are only $46 for the full two days, which is a steal for the amount of music you will get to see.

The second all this finishes, we get to start the music all over again! The weekend starting the 10th of September is when the Valley Fiesta starts. 3 days of music all throughout the Valley, most of it free. In years past there's been great bands, I remember in the first few weeks of living in Brisbane they had the Resin Dogs play the Sunday Afternoon. The mix of a few beers and free music in the mall made me actually happy to be living in this great city of ours. The line up is yet to be announced, but they generally manage to pull out some good bands, even a few international ones. A few years ago they even had the Silversun Pickups play for free.

Big Sound
Big Sound Tickets
Valley Fiesta

This is serious mum

New computer has arrived! So the blog is back. The first change is compliments of Clus' wonderful coding skills. The upcoming shows list on the right is linked to a public Google Calendar. It's all up to date and you can visit the actual calendar to download all of the shows for your own calendar. And now for some music news...


TISM (This is Serious Mum) are Australia's most elusive and annoying band. They've made almost as many enemies as they have friends with their political rock/electronica/spoken word music. And apparently they're coming back, hopefully in time for the election. Their website (http://www.tism.com.au/) is being updated as we speak. To me, they have a few great songs, but their albums are full of mainly absolutely tripe between the songs.

Enjoy their most widely known song, as performed in an Indian style on John Safran's Musical Jamboree:

Music Music Music

Simply Red

My parents love this band. They've been pouring out hits for 25 years and now it's time for their farewell tour. Although their music is very pop these days, they actually started at a Sex Pistols show in the 70s.

Take your parents to see them (with Marcia Hines supporting) October 1 at the Entertainment Centre.

Last.fm

Bulls and music

For those of us not lucky enough to be going to Splendour, there's a festival happening at the same time in Ipswich called Rodeo Rockfest. Catch Spiderbait playing the Friday and Sunday.

July 30 - August 1 at Ipswich Turf Club

Tickets and details

Regurgitator!

Brisbane's favourite native party band has to be Regurgitator without fail. After playing QPac's Birthday, it seems they enjoyed it so much they're going on an Australian tour.

Tivoli, September 18

Not that you need it, but their MySpace if you haven't heard them before

La Dispute

I'm not going to lie, I only just started listening to this band, even though lots of my friends rave about them. And I'm addicted. It's like a heavier mewithoutyou. Think hardcore, spoken word, folk and instrumentals mixed in together. It's fairly unique. And awesome.

They did a basement DIY tour of Australia earlier in the year, which I kick myself for missing. But luckily, the word on the street is that they will be back out here in January for another trip round. I cannot wait. Do yourself a favour and check out a great band with an original sound.

MySpace

Gorillaz tour

A few months back, with the death of Dennis Hopper, I was watching a bunch of videos of him, including him performing "Fire Out of the Monkey's Head" with the Gorillaz live. And after that I watched all of the Gorillaz live videos I could. They just seem to put on an amazing theatrical experience (not just a show) and never did I think I'd ever get to see it.

But now I can.

Not just the Gorillaz, but they'll be bringing out a bunch of guests to help them perform their songs. Which means we get to see this:

Their tour party will include De La Soul (in the video above), Mick Jones, Bobby Womack, Gruff Rhys, Shaun Ryder and Little Dragon. Look at that list for a second. I'd give a leg to see Mick Jones (the Clash), De La Soul, or the Gorillaz. And now we get them all together.

19th December at the Entertainment Centre. It may be the first time I will ever enjoy a show there.

If you want, check out the Gorillaz live in Harlem, featuring every guest star you could possibly imagine: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--QTzeFCwtg

Mouthguard's last show!

Don't have much time to write, so here's something I copied from Rave:

Mouthguard, Plan Of Attack,Boss Sounds, The Black Market and Jack Flash all play The Prince Of Wales Hotel, Nundah on Friday Jul 23. Viktor Mouthguard is bound for an indefi nite sojourn in the Czech Republic, so don’t miss this show if you’re a fan because it’s your last chance!

Sad times, Mouthguard is one of the best local hardcore bands with such a dedicated following. Hopefully it's only for a short while until they find a new bassist to replace Viktor.

Also, the Blackmarket are freaking awesome Rancid style folk/ska/punk.

Mouthguard
Black Market (Free MP3's!)

Brisbane Festival 2010

Every year the Brisbane Festival celebrates art and everything that is Brisbane. Starting with the fireworks frenzy that is Riverfire (sans F-111s for the first time this year, sad), it also includes concerts throughout the festival run (September 4-25).

The "bigger and mainstream" acts occur mainly in the Spiegeltent, set up in King George square. It features music every night (at 7pm), cabaret most nights (at 9pm) and Jazz on Sundays. Although there are plenty more shows scattered around our fair city. Some of the acts I'm considering this year are:

Paul Dempsey - The lead singer from Something for Kate has been striking out on his own for a while now doing his solo acoustic act. And sold out many a show in our town. He's playing September 5, 6 and 7 at the Spiegeltent.

http://www.pauldempseymusic.com/

Ed Kuepper - The founder of Brisbane's (and possibly the world's, I've got in many debates about this) first and legendary punk band the Saints and now touring guitarist for Nick Cave. September 15 at the Spiegeltent.

Robert Forster - The last surviving half of Brisbane indie legends The Go-Betweens. He'll be playing everything old, new and lots of covers. September 18 at the Powerhouse.

I'm sure there'll be more announcements and more I'm excited for!

First Big Day Out band for 2011

This band let slip in a New Zealand interview that they will be playing next year's Big Day Out.

Yeah.
South African rappers Die Antwood.
Probably another reason not to go.

Punk cancellation, announcement and possible album of the year??

SNFU Cancel tour (not their fault... maybe)

These Canadian punk legends were going to be out soon doing a long awaited tour. Unfortunately:

Is it possible to live the values of your sub-culture too completely? Can members of punk bands be accused of being "too punk"? SNFU never thought so. Unfortunately, the Australian Government doesn't seem to agree.

With fans eagerly awaiting their 2010 tour, we here at New Noise Agency have been informed by Australian Customs that a member has been denied a Visa, based on prior convictions – meaning he can't legally enter Australia. As much as we've tried to fight this decision and find a way around it, we've been left with no choice other than to cancel SNFU's forthcoming tour.

So they are no longer playing the Zoo in the next week.

Miles Away tour

WA's hardcore punkers Miles Away are heading our way again for some more shows.

Oct 1 The Fort Brisbane AA
Oct 2 Rosies, Brisbane (Thriller, 18+)

MySpace

Album of the year?

One of my new front runners for album of the year is now Norma Jean - Meridional. O God the Aftermath and Redeemer were some amazing albums that really took the heavier mathcore/hardcore scene to great places. Their latest, the Anti-Mother, was more melodic, but I didn't enjoy it as much.

But Meridional... wow. Get it if you like any heavy music.