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 (#12)

No Joy - Ghost Blonde (2010): noisy shoegaze with beautiful sirens crooning over the top 4/5

Sun City Girls - Funeral Mariachi (2010): avant garde roots and folk music. Words I never thought would go together, yet it's bliss. 5/5

Uncommonmenfrommars - I Hate My Band (2010): fun punk from French, luckily in English though. 3.5/5

Plebeian Grandstand - How Hate Is Hard To Define (2010): chaotic hardcore, channels French anger yet slows down in all the right places 4/5

Defeater - Empty Days & Sleepless Nights (2011): Brilliant hardcore that is turned on it's head with an acoustic finish to the album 4.5/5

Dropkick Murphys - Going Out In Style (2011): 3 listens in, and it may already be my favourite celtic-punk album. Of all time. 4.5/5

Bayside - Killing Time (2011): It's like alternative rock meets pop-punk, and I scarily like it 4/5

Radiohead - The King of Limbs (2011): too much like background music to be their best, couple of ok songs makes it not their worst. Middling. 3.3/5

The Strokes - Angles (2011): Every time I've tried to listen to this album so far I've fallen asleep. 2.5/5

Akron/Family - S/T II: The Cosmic Birth and Journey of Shinju TNT (2011): The first track had me thinking I was listening to Sleigh Bells, but luckily it became electronic-folk 4/5

Protest the Hero - Scurrilous (2011): 70's metal style vocals over some of the most technical musicianship I've ever heard 4/5

Selenites - Jeder Für Sich Und Gott Gegen Alle (2009): Wow. So the French do heavy music really awesomly apparently. 4.5/5

Forming - 7" (2010): Excellent fuzz rock EP in the style of Dinosaur Jr, yet signed to a crazy hardcore label 4/5

Boris - New Album (2011): Experimental metal band go electro J-pop... Confusing, But oh so good in a guilty pleasure way. 4/5

Rise Against - End Game (2011): Listen to this. Now listen to Siren Song of the Counterculture. 'Nuff said 2/5 #Iliketheiroldstuff

Explosions in the Sky - Take Care, Take Care, Take Care (2011): typical post-rock in every way possible. 2.5/5

J Mascis - Several Shades Of Why (2011): First solo album from the Dinosaur Jr lead, sounds exacly like an acoustic Dinosaur Jr album. 3.5/5

Shigeto - Full Circle (2010): quiet ambient electronica that paints some beautiful soundscapes 4.5/5

Deafheaven - Road to Judah (2011): 4 songs, 40 minutes of dark, dark black metal. Dark like my soul. 4/5

Peter Broderick - How They Are (2010): unassuming, sombre and beautiful piano led singer-songwriter, who's normally a violinist. 4.5/5

Supermachiner - Rust (2009): Listen to this instrumental scenery. Then listen to his full-time band, Converge. Is it really that different? 4.5/5

Calories - Basic Nature (2010): Every song on this album sounds different, like an homage to each subgenre of indie over the last decade. 3.5/5

Frank (Just Frank) - The Brutal Wave (2010): A bunch of French dudes who never left the 80's and nu-wave and post-punk behind 4/5

Free Strokes Song

You like the Strokes, don't you? If you don't, please leave my blog. We seriously can't be friends.

There's no denying that when Is This It came out, the whole world dropped everything and paid notice. It was like a resurgence of the underground garage rock days of the 60s and 70s. Some people say that after that it was all downhill, but I won't hear anything like that from anyone thank you very much. Room on Fire was magnificent and First Impressions of Earth brought an extra dose of loud rock and kick-ass with it.

They then took a break, Albert went off and made some beautiful, reminiscent of 1960s pop-rock music, while Julian put out some of the same old same old.

But now, they're back together. They're putting the finishing touches on a new album and the first song can be yours. For free. But only for the next 48 hours.

Called Under the Cover of Darkness, you can grab it right here. I've only listened to it about 10 times already, but I'll let you form your own impression of it. I don't want to bias it at all.

Free Music Friday 3!

For the last few days I've been saturating myself with garage rock, mainly in the form of Post-nothing by the Japandroids (amazing!) and interspersed with some of my Strokes' vinyl. Life is good. So to keep the mood going, today's free music Friday is garage rock!


The band today is Weird Korea. And if you try to Google search for images, you get stuff like that crazy picture above. But no band shots. They're a New York band and have played with one of my other new favourite bands, Titus Andronicus. And according to my lame-ass internet research, their first gig was at an art gallery playing Velvet Underground covers.

So I think that establishes their garage rock credentials. They've barely been around for a year but already they're looking to be a good garage rock band. Lucky for us, they've also put out their EP No Art//No Trade for free on their Bandcamp! Download it here

I'm calling it right now. Garage Rock is coming back big next year. Hopefully hot on the heels of a new Strokes album.

The Strokes, a tribute

One of my all time favourite bands is the Strokes. And this is one of my all time favourite songs:

Reptilia - The Strokes
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Apparently, I'm not the only one. Although they were here recently, it was only for Splendour. And I was mad. But some others must have seen them and wanted to emulate them, as there is a tribute show coming around!

November 7 at X&Y there will be a show entitled Room on Fire: A Tribute to the Strokes. Featuring...

a bill of Brisbane’s finest including Running Guns, My
Own Pet Radio, Ivy May Dillon and Woodville House,
the bands will be performing a selection of re-worked
and re-imagined songs from The Strokes.

It should be an interesting night. At a good bar, I like X&Y a lot.