Big Day Out first announcement: as it happened

For 2012's Big Day Out, the promoters took a leaf from the Soundwave festival school of promotion: they leaked the artists one at a time over Twitter. However, unlike Soundwave, they did it over 2 nights, instead of just whenever they hell the feel like it for months at a time. And now, here's the list, with my initial reactions as I sat at my computer:

But before we start, let us not forget what you will see a lot of during your day if you do decide to go: bad patriotism tattoos.

Why yes, that is the map of Australia. And yes, the interior is the Australian flag over a bunch of $100 bills. And yes, apparently Tasmania isn't part of Australia. (I took this picture during Matt and Kim this year. Couldn't stop laughing).

Anyway, the first announcement, with my reactions:

• Best Coast "huh.. first band announced, and I'll probably want to see them. This could be a good year... maybe..."
• Foster the People "Triple J listener's cliche band of the moment at the festival."
• Cage the Elephant "Yes, I'll see them. They're good and a lot of people won't see them! They'll be on a side stage outside of the crowds"
• The Getaway Plan "Christ I saw this band like 100 times in 2004-2008. Pass"
• Girl Talk "An artist that will get me to the boiler room this year!"
• Frenzal Rhomb "Already seen them twice in the last year, they must be desperate for money now!"
• OFWGKTA "Weren't they here a few months back? Probably still trying to cash in their short-lived earning potential. Don't want to see them though"
• The Jezabels "They are becoming one of those Australian bands that play every festival now!"
• Battles "YES! Highlight of a Big Day Out a few years ago... But are they as good without their old frontman now?"
• Architecture in Helsinki "They wrapped up a tour only a few days ago. Back on it already?!"
• Mariachi El Bronx "OH HELL YES. I hope that means the Bronx does a sideshow too!"
• Parkway Drive "HAHAHAHAHAHAHA"
• Boy And Bear "More Australian music content filler. Should not be as high up over some of these great overseas bands"
• Hilltop Hoods "well it's not a Big Day Out unless the Hilltop Hoods play... is it?"
• Royskopp "Was not expecting this... More of a V-Fest or Laneway band, but could be excellent late in the afternoon"
• The Living End "It's not an Australian music festival unless they play it"
• My Chemical Romance "They've never been the same since their first album. Glad I saw them in lots of small club shows when I was younger"
• Kasabian "ohhhhhhhhhhh yes. Excellent festival band"
• Soundgarden "wait.. Back up. WHAT?! They're back together? HECK YES"
• Kanye West "not a logical choice. He was too expensive for Splendour (yet still played it) and they didn't even get close to selling out. Just gives me a reason to leave early"

So will I go? At the start it was a definite no. Now it's a maybe. Soundgarden together again will probably be the one band that tips me over the edge into "fuck it, I'm going." But we'll wait for the second announcement.

January 22. Gold Coast Parklands

One sentence album reviews (#4)

Some more album reviews from the last week or so:

From Monuments to Masses - The impossible...(2003): Noodly instrumental post-rock with way too much overdubbed political speeches. 2/5

Islands - Vapours (2009): Disappointing: they've lost their sounds of the first 2 albums and become generic indie-electro-pop. #yawn. 2/5

Kings of Leon -Come Around Sunset (2010):wasted potential; like most of my classmates that are now drug dealers or managers at Woolies. 1/5

Kerouac - Cold and Distant...(2010): Dirty, angry, hardcore and invokes violence and hatred with their music and lyrics. Yet oh so good 4/5

Forest City Lovers - Carriage (2010): Upbeat indie folk pop music, with vocals that sound a little bit like Lily Allen 3.5/5

Gayngs - Relayted (2010): Electronic folk music that is very chill and perfect for a Sunday lying around relaxing, even with a hangover. 3/5

Grouper - Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill (2008): Very quiet ambient music, I actually didn't notice the album playing a few times. 2/5

Marc Houle - Drift (2010): minimalist techno; cross between nintendo music and 90s neo-gothic apocolyptic movie soundtracks. Amazing. 4.5/5

Girl Talk - All Day (2010): If nightclubs in Brisbane played this music, I'd never stop clubbing. 71 minutes of amazing mashups. 4.5/5

Grown Ups - More Songs (2010): Math rock collides with pop-punk; two guilty pleasures rolled into one. 3.5/5

Koalacaust - Koalaaust (2010): Makes me thing of old school Against Me!, less angsty but with lots more accordians. 3.5/5

Interpol - Interpol (2010): Everything they do is ultra-criticised, but I find this their darkest and most brooding album to date. 3.5/5

Jeremy Messersmith - The Reluctant Graveyard (2010): peaceful poppy folk singer-songwriter, this album is almost like lullabies. 4/5

Kylesa - Spiral Shadow (2010): Amazing sludge metal album that is not too heavy and quite accessible. 4.5/5

Magic Kids - Memphis (2010): It's as if 1960's pop-rock is reborn in an indie band (4/5)

Free new Girl Talk album!

If nightclubs in Brisbane played music like Girl Talk, I would go clubbing way more often.

Girl Talk is the ultimate mash-up artist. He takes samples of songs you probably already know and mixes them all together into unbelievable new songs. And he does it so damn well. Whenever I listen to him I find myself trying to guess each and every track he samples. His samples tend to only last about 10 to 20 seconds each, so it can be quite the game.

Today he put out a new album called All Day. And it's completely free. Right here: http://www.illegal-art.net/allday/ It may take a while (it took me about 3 hours) as the server is experiencing quite heavy loads, due to how freaking awesome it is.

The album can be downloaded as one track, or 12 individual tracks. You'd want to experience the whole thing as one track. I did, and listened to the whole album on the way home from work. I found myself quietly dancing on the train. Something I never do.

All Day opens up with Ludacris over War Pigs/Luke's Wall by Black Sabbath. It's an interesting combination, but Girl Talk makes it work. And that's the beauty of Girl Talk, he doesn't stick to one generation or even one genre of music. He mixes everything and anything. It's eclectic, just like my music tastes.

It's free. Get it. It may be just your party album of the year, if not the album of the year.

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.