JIMMY HAWK & THE ENDLESS PARTY

Have you heard the tale of the rag-tag low-fi traveling gypsies that play rock n roll so sweet and seductive, music so laced with love, that not even the fish-women sirens of Greek mythology could tear your eyes and ears away from a collection of sound drenched with the warmth of the sun?

Jimmy Hawk & The Endless Party

The only difference between JIMMY HAWK & THE ENDLESS PARTY and the fore-mentioned mythological Sirens is that instead of luring your boat to shipwreck, the Melbourne based 5 piece lead you to the soundtrack of your upcoming Summer.

The past year or so of touring, rehearsal and studio time culminates in the long awaited debut self titled LP due to be released in October. Up to this point, the guys have some pretty impressive notches in their collective belt. They were chosen as a feature artist on the Triple J unearthed website with the A-side to their MEET ME AT THE PARTY 7”(2011), with Triple J Music Director RICHARD KINGSMILL reviewing “I keep hitting repeat on this new tune…It’s cool stuff that generates a bit of heat each time I hear it.” The ‘heat’ was enough that JIMMY HAWK & THE ENDLESS PARTY also featured in the promo video for the launch of the unearthed radio station due to be popping it’s cherry on October 5. Amongst this there were a number of Melbourne shows, as well as a sold out single launch for MEET ME AT THE PARTY at The Gaelic in Sydney, not a bad effort for the out-of-towners.

This early success should come as no surprise if you’ve mapped Melbourne’s musical underground to the point of knowing it better than the back of your music loving hand. JIMMY HAWK cemented his place in the heart of Melbourne’s music scene with his debut solo LP ECHO PARK (2010), a record created in the iconic area in LA of the same name.

Echo Park

THE ENDLESS PARTY also pack industry cred in their own right with bass player Jack Wilson of the rock-steady/reggae bandits THE OPERATORS, guitarist Nick Duplieux of the band known just as well for being genetically blessed as they are for writing addictive hook laden harmonized rock – DIRT FARMER, drummer Thomas Van der Vliet who’s been known to keep the rhythm with SAINT JAMES, MASTER CARDINAL and now BRAVE FACE, as well as multi-instrumentalist Troy Raemakers coming off the back of supporting THE KILLS  with TEENAGE MOTHERS.

On the back of all the whispered hype and industry anticipation comes the first single off JIMMY HAWK & THE ENDLESS PARTY’s self titled debut LP – A FEVER – a slow burning make-out jam that gives us a taste of the album that drummer Thomas Van der Vliet describes as “Very Mo-town in recording style…and very live. You’ve got drums bleeding into bass mics, bass amps bleeding into guitar mics…it doesn’t sound like any other album on the radio at the moment.”

The film clip is pretty straight forward, recorded on a whim at the Bake House (whose halls have welcomed THE AVALANCHES, JANE’S ADDICTION and DEFTONES). The part I really love about it is the sense of nostalgia that may not be immediately apparent. The break-up of image invokes the memory of days gone by where VHS was the ultimate technology to record your favourite film clips. For those of us who indulged in such a past time, you would be familiar with the distorted images that occurred after recording over recording over recording.

JH&TEP LIVE

JIMMY HAWK & THE ENDLESS PARTY’s debut has aspects of world music, which separates the sound from straight up rock n roll. All 5 members are involved in the writing process with everyone adding their own colour, texture and flavor. With their diverse musical backgrounds the result is an album like no other: There’s immense warmth to the sound delivered through the recording process, but the album isn’t all sunshine, there are some dark tracks thrown in for good measure.

ALBUM TRACK LIST:

1. Hectic

2. A Fever

3. Satellite

4. Cocaine Fury

5. Hollywood Travelling Blues

6. 21

7. African Love Song

8. Hungry For Your Love

This is one I’m really looking forward to. Keep your eyes out for album launch dates in capitals along the east coast throughout October before the guys head off to the US, and to keep you occupied until the album drops check out the clip to the first single A FEVER – awesome song, awesome film clip.

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BATHS

Samurai

Imagine you’re a samurai…Imagine you’re a Samurai in the heat of battle…now imagine that you’re mortally wounded…What happens to the Samurai once he has no choice but to accept his mortal fate?

If you like high definition film with a snippet of a kooky story in place of your run of the mill music film clip, then you may appreciate BATHS music video for LOVELY BLOODFLOW. I haven’t noticed music featuring Samurais so heavily (at east in the film clip) since WU-TANG spoke of the Shaolin, and this clip is shot in a forest of dreams where masked dreamlike creatures save your dying breath only to release it later for reasons unknown.

Baths

BATHS is a 22 year old (fucking bastard!) American electronic musician with chillwave and experimental undertones that have the BBC and PITCHFORK drawing comparisons with TORO Y MOI, BJORK, and FLYING LOTUS.

This song came out on his debut album under BATHS through the independent label ANTICON titled CERULEAN(2010).

BEAUTIFUL, BEAUTIFUL STUFF!

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KINGS OF LEON

Here’s a short story about a band - full of holes, innuendo, half-truths and ramblings from a madman.

Love them or hate them you can’t deny the meteoric rise of KINGS OF LEON over the last 10 or so years.

The guys have walked the line of a well structured career through their times initially finding success in the outer reaches of rock n roll and slowly moving themselves, album by album, into the stadium hearts and minds of young teenage girls, commercial pop radio DJ’s and middle America.

I loved KOL, I was introduced to them by some savvy music loving friends (you know who you are) and I immediately fell in love with their balls out, smoky bar, raw southern rock sound. 

The Brothers and cousin FOLLOWILL picked up a nod from ROLLING STONE MAGAZINE when their debut EP HOLY ROLLER NOVACAINE (2002) received 4/5 stars, no doubt with a little help from their record label RCA.

Interestingly the B-side WICKER CHAIR was about ‘Alcholism a little bit…and losing it and kinda not realising it.” (This will make sense a little later on in the piece).

KINGS OF LEON released YOUTH AND YOUNG MANHOOD (2003) to rapturous applause in the UK with NME hailing it as ‘One of the best debut albums of the last 10 years.’ The album was arguably most successful in AUSTRALIA earning triple platinum status.

Album after album the guys changed their look and style of music edging closer to how we see and hear KINGS OF LEON today.

Youth and Young Manhood

Aha Shake Heart Break

Because of The Times

Only By The Night

Come Around Sundown

And album after album I felt that their balls out, smoky bar, raw southern rock was slipping away. As a band you need to progress and build on what you have done, otherwise you fall into the ‘one trick pony’ category.

These guys have built their sound and fan base album after album, tour after tour, to an astounding level which the nay-sayers see as ‘selling out’, but in my opinion if I made the decision to be a career musician why would you not want to enjoy the benefits of the success that you know you can reach?

Stadium Rock Bitches

Jump forward past AHA SHAKE HEARTBREAK (2004) to BECAUSE OF THE TIMES (2007) and you will see the guys continued on their musical warpath to success as well as cop a bunch of criticism from some major music media players with STYLUS MAGAZINE saying ‘If they wanted us to take them serious (sic) this time around, they’d at least try to be right honest (sic) about their ascent into minor celebrity and not keep on with the yokel facade. Without cautionary yarns regarding life on the tour bus or banging supermodels, the bright eyed, legs-stretched mood of the music rings just as hollow.” The burn didn’t end there with PITCHFORK concluding that ‘BECAUSE OF THE TIMES sound[s] suspiciously like a counter attack on womankind, launched from somewhere in the mid 1990’s, deep inside a bruised, stadium rock ego.’

I’m not sure I understand the point or general reasoning behind either comment by STYLUS or PITCHFORK, but needless to say STYLUS MAGAZINE shut down publishing soon after. Check out the butcher review from STYLUS and PITCHFORK

Reading the articles, as much as I dislike their ridiculously negative attitude towards the album, I can’t help but agree with their foresight in seeing KINGS OF LEON morphing into a stadium rock band borrowing signature song writing aspects of U2. But if you put that aside your left with two (maybe) fat idiots sitting behind their computers with earphones inserted into their anuses listening to music by a group of guys that are well on their way to conquering the world. The guy who wrote the review for STYLUS wasn’t writing for them much longer, and the dude who bagged them from PITCHFORK is currently masturbating to the idea that he was into bands so much before anyone else was, to the point that they didn’t even exist.

Anywho, the KOL bag continues to grow fan by fan, minute by minute, commercial radio by commercial radio until their stomping rise meets the goal that they were perhaps searching for from the beginning – recognition back home in the U S of A.

ONLY BY THE NIGHT reached #4 on the US  Billboard charts along with getting 4 singles into the the largest music poll in the world, AUSTRALIA’s own TRIPLE J HOTTEST 100.

ONLY BY THE NIGHT (2010) saw KOL demolishing charts on every corner of the globe on the back of their first single RADIOACTIVE.

With growing success seems to come excess and with mounting pressure and a growing tour schedule the cracks that were starting to show reached a sour point on 29^th of July 2011 with the KINGS OF LEON having to cancel their DALLAS, TEXAS show for reasons that people are either describing as alcohol related, tension amongst the brothers/cousin, vocal exhaustion or heat exhaustion. The band announced on 1^st of August 2011 that the rest of their US tour was cancelled. Whatever it was, heaps of people were pissed off and you can check out the footage below. A bloke from the Tele in the UK had this to say.

Whatever you want to say, love them or hate them you can’t deny the meteoric rise of KINGS OF LEON.

*****

HUMP-HOP WEDNESDAY - WU TANG CLAN

Get through you’re hump day with some Hip-Hop.

Wu Tang

We all know the WU TANG CLAN ain’t nothing to fuck wit. And why would you when the clan roll 9 deep? Pretty much all of the dudes will be making their way to AUSTRALIA excluding RZA, who is apparently working on a Kung-Fu movie with our boy RUSSEL CROWE, and OL’ DIRTY BASTARD who died of a drug overdose back in 2004 (Cocaine/ prescription synthetic opiate Tramadol).

So that leaves GZA, METHOD MAN, RAEKWON, GHOSTFACE KILLAH, U-GOD, INSPECTAH DECK, MASTA KILLA as well as DJ’s ALLAH MATHEMATICS and STREETLIFE to protect ya neck, and joining the posse will be ODB’s son YOUNG DIRTY and yeah, he looks heaps like his Pa.

Ol' Dirty

Young Dirty

The guys will be here early August playing 2 shows at the ENMORE THEATRE in SYDNEY (4^th and 5^th) MELBOURNE’s FESTIVAL HALL on the 6^th and way out west in PERTH on the 7^th.

Check out the latest release from RAEKWON, SHAOLIN VS. WU TANG released early March, here’s the title track from the album. This clip is one of the best I’ve seen in quite a while, you’ve got ninjas, a bit of bling, and more ninjas.

*****

ANGRY TUESDAY - FOLK METAL

Something about Tuesdays makes me angry… I don’t know what it is. Maybe because it’s such a nothing day.

I want to take you on a little trip through metal, mythology…and folk music. I’m taking a sneak peak at an interesting sub genre of metal called FOLK METAL. For the uninitiated it kind of sounds reminiscent of middle earth, the war cry that would ring out as the armies of Sauron march out from the fires of Mordor. And if you’re a little geeked out by what I’ve said so far, I would run for the hills…

Folk Metalists: Eluveitie

FOLK METAL is said to have begun with one band, SKYCLAD back in the early 90’s. The genre takes on all the elements of metal, but it also adds folk instruments and, to some extent, more traditional styles of singing. Here’s where it began.

The genre caused such a stir amongst fans and media to the point where well-known black metal musicians from bands DARKTHRONE and SATYRICON came together to form a ‘supergroup’ with members of DOOM METAL band THE 3^RD AND THE IMMORTAL.

The use of violins, tin whistles, flutes, and/or the hurdy gurdy (my personal favourite) gives the music a certain celtic feel, which spawned the sub genre of CELTIC METAL.

Metal isn’t the only genre to bridge the gap with folk by adding some instruments that aren’t usually in the mix. Heard of punk? Heard of DROP KICK MURPHYS? These guys have done it quite well. ENJOY!

*****

F**KED MONDAY - MEAT LOAF

Everybody knows that Mondays are fucked… so I’m giving you music that is fucked…

Love it or hate it, it is still fucked…

ZERO HEADED ONE LEGGED has been on a short hiatus for the last week, and it was gonna take some pretty big news to break the shackles of laziness and get back to it. The exciting news came in the form of everyone’s favourite mystery meat mash announcing that he will be touring AUSTRALIA in October. I’m, of course, talking about MEAT LOAF.

Meat Loaf

Only one thing could make this huge news even massive-er, and that news has also dropped – MEAT LOAF will be playing at the 2011 AFL GRAND FINAL… Holy shit…a bunch of meatheads playing their guts out whilst MEAT LOAF tunes ring in your ears…could it be anymore epic?

Along with the footy extravaganza, The Loaf will be playing A DAY ON THE GREEN at BIMBADGEN WINERY NSW and ROCHFORD WINES VIC (It would be awesome to get boozed at a winery and watch Ol’Meaty), as well as a show at the SYDNEY ENTERTAINMENT CENTRE where you can meet MEAT LOAF as well as see the performance if you have a spare $400, and WA isn’t going to miss out either with a show at NIB STADIUM in PERTH. If ticket sales blow up then they will surely add more shows.

Meat Loaf

I’m sure there are some naysayers reading this asking “what’s the big deal?” well this bloke, in one album alone has sold 43 million copies world wide, making BAT OUT OF HELL (1977) the fifth greatest selling record of all time, only beaten by MICHAEL JACKSON’s THRILLER (1982), AC/DC’s BACK IN BLACK (1980), PINK FLOYD’s THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON (1973), AND WHITNEY HOUSTON’s THE BODYGUARD (1992). To put this into a little more perspective, THE BEATLES don’t get a mention until no.14, selling 11 million less with SGT. PEPPERS LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND (1962).

The mind truly boggles thinking about the enormity of this album. But what are its origins?

A fella by the name of JIM STEINMAN wrote an album for an updated sci-fi version of PETER PAN titled NEVER LAND. Steinman and Mr. Loaf thought there were 3 stand out tracks, and wanted to make an album around them. The songs were BAT OUT OF HELL, HEAVEN CAN WAIT, and FORMATION OF THE PACK which would be retitled as ALL REVVED WITH NO PLACE TO GO. The 3 tracks would form the basis of the 7 track BAT OUT OF HELL album. But the guys had their balls broken many-a-time in trying to find a record label who would release it. Silly them. A subsidiary of EPIC, CLEVELAND INTERNATIONAL RECORDS released the album.

Clive Davis

CBS executive CLIVE DAVIS made the biggest mistake of his life turning down the album, telling the guys that “Actors don’t make records” (MEAT LOAF was an actor at the time and had appeared in THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW as well as a heap of musicals and more recently FIGHT CLUB – “His name was Robert Paulson”) and criticizing JIM STEINMAN by saying:

“Do you know how to write a song?…do you know anything about writing?…you don’t know how to write a song…have you ever listened to pop music?...have you heard any rock n roll music?...you should go downstairs when you leave here and buy some rock n roll records.”

MEAT LOAF would regain the upper hand when leaving the building by yelling “FUCK YOU CLIVE!” from the street. Well, MEAT LOAF and JIM STEINMAN gave CLIVE DAVIS an even bigger fuck you by the album doing so monstrously well.

Anyway, for an artist coming to AUSTRALIA who has the second greatest selling album within the country, only topped by JOHN FARNHAM’s WHISPERING JACK (1986), selling 23 times platinum, you can see how this is kind of a big deal…if you’re a MEAT LOAF fan.

Here are a few classic MEAT LOAF tracks to get you in the mood for his AFL GRAND FINAL appearance. Now there are 2 reasons to watch on that one day in September.

*****

ANGRY TUESDAY - WESTON CAGE

Something about Tuesdays makes me angry… I don’t know what it is. Maybe because it’s such a nothing day.

Weston Cage

FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA’s great nephew, aka NICOLAS CAGE’s son aka WESTON CAGE got severely beaten by his trainer/bodyguard after the pair had an altercation over appropriate food selection. Apparently Weston and his bodyguard/trainer take their food rather seriously.

The physical fight started when Weston attempted a roundhouse kick on his companion, but the move backfired severely when his trainer/bodyguard went to town on Weston’s face. Young COPPOLA-CAGE copped 13 punches to the face on a Hollywood street, in a gutter, in broad daylight.He was taken to hospital for stitches, and a brain scan.

Typical of the idiots surrounding the incident, the footage would be captured on camera phone from at least 4 different angles, with nobody appearing to even attempt to intervene.

You can check out some fairly poor camera work of the incident below.

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The reason I’m writing about this on ANGRY TUESDAY (apart from the incident being reasonably angry) is that WESTON CAGE is also the front man for an AMERICAN BLACK METAL band called EYES OF NOCTUM. Although the band claims to be BLACK METAL, I have doubts about this. I don’t know much, if anything about metal, but I believe that BLACK METAL has the characteristic of shrieked vocals and EYES OF NOCTUM have quite a lot that are growled, as you will see in the clip below, so maybe these guys are more of a BLACKENED DEATH METAL band. Anyway, like I said I don’t really know, but for those of you who are into music, there are some pretty insane sub genres of metal, which I will come back to next ANGRY TUESDAY.

Anywho, here’s the angry work of WESTON CAGE, and if you were introduced to people as often as he is, in the way that I introduced him at the top of this article, it’s no wonder he makes music like this…hell, I’d be angry too.

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