A clone again, naturally

By Dave Simpson
September 30, 2005

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2005/09/29/1127804596701.html



The real deal: Coldplay's Chis Martin.
Photo: Supplied

SO FAR, 2005 has been an exceptional year for Coldplay, with their album X&Y achieving 29 number-ones around the world. But it's also been a very good 12 months for bands who sound like them. Keane have gone from the back rooms of pubs to shifting 4.5 million albums.

Coldplay soundalikes Athlete (who used to sound like Steely Dan and were nowhere near as successful) have sold half a million copies of their Coldplay-lite album Tourist.

Keane and Athlete are what might be called surrogate bands, who sound and sometimes look similar to another, already much more successful, group. A surrogate band is signed by a label seeking a copy of something with a proven market. Right now there are so many it can seem as if we're approaching a doomsday scenario in which everyone is remaking the same handful of similar-sounding records.

There are numerous morose, David Gray-type songwriters (Damien Rice, Johnathan Rice, James Blunt, Tom Baxter). There are the spiky, shambolic Libertines-type bands (the Rakes, new Virgin signings Kooks, the Others, the Cazals).

Hordes of bands owe a bigger-than-healthy debt to Franz Ferdinand, including the Brakes, the Editors, VHS or Beta, the Departure and We Are Scientists. Much of the time, Razorlight are an eerie facsimile of the Strokes.

Other spinoffs include the bands being signed because they sound a lot like the Killers, as well as the boy bands because they're from the same management stable as a McFly or Busted.

''Sometimes I think the industry wants - and perhaps financially needs - a situation where a massive audience are buying exactly the same records," says Paul Weighell, a former A&R man.

"If they do want it, it's working. According to Amazon's "People who bought this also bought . . ." facility, records by Coldplay, Keane, Athlete and Snow Patrol sell to the same people."

Usually someone at a label will say, 'Have you seen how high X are in the charts? We need our own X!'" Weighell explains.

He signed the Levellers in the 1990s and watched as labels snapped up Levellerssounding groups.

"Old-timers used to say we didn't do this in the 1960s and early 1970s, but that's rubbish," says Weighell.

"They signed a slew of progressive bands, for example, because they knew there was a market who wanted 30-minute opuses about salads, surgery and brains!"

There's nothing new about replication - it's been going on in pop since Cliff Richard curled his lip like Elvis or the Beatles spawned the Monkees. The difference is degree. As the music market has got smaller, the cost of launching a new act (marketing, styling, videos, production) has soared. So labels play it safer more often by signing identikit acts with a supposedly proven market. It's a risky business and some in the industry are warning against a meltdown.

"A band like Franz Ferdinand are very interesting," says Andy Ross, Blur's Food Records boss in the 1990s, "but a band influenced by Franz Ferdinand are obviously going to be less interesting, and diminishing returns set in until you reach a point where pop music is over."

The strategy can also backfire.

Spiky metal types Feeder became the latest combo to undergo the Coldplay makeover, but their reception at the recent Download Festival suggested they have alienated their core audience. If cloning pop is selling like beans, it seems there are only so many varieties the market will sustain.

Generally a surrogate works best when the original is not around. Keane and Athlete profited when Coldplay were slaving away on X&Y. The Alarm - who Joe Strummer once derided as "a pale imitation of a shadow of the Clash" - had a few hits when their mentors had imploded.

A problem is that too many copies of something can damage the original. There was a time when every second band sounded like Oasis. Embrace used to be an Oasis surrogate to the point of adopting similar bravado during interviews.

They prospered as the Gallaghers' distinctiveness and creativity wavered. Eventually, both became passe. Embrace now sound like Coldplay: their recent return was on the back of a song written by Chris Martin, who himself was once considered too heavily influenced by Jeff Buckley, who in turn was a surrogate of his father, 1960s singer Tim Buckley.

"Sometimes it does feel like the whole industry is eating itself," says Ross.

It could be just another sign of the times, in the same way that fashion designers are now used to seeing their work copied on the high street. But pop culture is supposed to be above this.

Given that the music industry today is dominated by four multinational conglomerates, it's not surprising that much of their output comes down to the preferences of people at the top.

One major-label A&R man who prefers not to be named has noticed his bosses' obsessions with their own notions of "taste". He believes majors are run by people who don't actually like rock'n'roll.

"They'll happily say that Sting or the Police are their favourite acts," he whispers.

"So someone like Chris Martin comes along, who writes intelligent songs with a bit of a political leaning, and they consider that to be 'quality'. So it becomes 'What we do at this company is provide quality', and the next thing they've signed a band who sound like Coldplay and it becomes this dreadful conveyor belt."

To an extent, record companies will always respond to what's around. If kids like the Libertines, for instance, the chances are they'll pick up a guitar and sound like the Libertines, especially given that their ramshackle sound is easier for young musicians to appropriate.

What Ross finds disturbing is the "altogether higher level of cynicism a band would need to transform themselves into something as musically sophisticated as Coldplay".

At the heart of it is pop's obsession with genres. Weighell notices how we no longer ask people "What artists do you like?" but "What sort of music do you like?"

A&R men still seem particularly preoccupied with pop's trends and scenes. In the 1990s, for example, it seemed like you just had to come from Manchester to get a record deal. One story had it that entire A&R departments were sent to the Rainy City and told not to come back without one of its bands.

"That story may sound apocryphal but I was there (as Factory Records' publicist) and it did actually happen," laughs Jeff Barrett, head of Heavenly Recordings, whose latest signings are the Magic Numbers.

"They came up in coaches and signed those bands!" That's 808 State, Inspiral Carpets, My Jealous God, Mock Turtles, Northside, Intastella, the High, World of Twist, Rig and Paris Angels. Remember them all?

Probably not, because usually by the time the "next wave" or "clone" band have got their album out, the scene has moved on.

"I don't know if the industry ever learns," says Ross, who knows of at least two A&R scouts permanently camped out trying to find a Futureheads.

When Barrett came across something fresher in outsize hippyish folk-duo Magic Numbers, other A&R men asked him: "Are you sure?" "They thought they were 'out of time'," he says.

The nub is that surrogates can and do develop. Grunge queen Alanis Morissette was once a talentshow- entering disco diva. Even David Bowie started off as a derided surrogate of cabaret singer Anthony Newley. Perhaps a climate of homogeneity will provoke more wayward talents into doing something different. And when they do, the industry can cope - EMI handled Radiohead's metamorphosis from indie rockers to experimental electronic boffins with Kid A.

But perhaps the most intriguing question is whether an act could be really wily - get signed as a clone and use that platform to create something that's their own. It may have happened already. Few will remember that Blur were originally signed as a baggy band.

Their first records in 1990 and '91 had the much-copied indie-dance groove; Damon Albarn probably wouldn't broadcast this now, but he had a bowl cut and was less cool than the Mock Turtles.

But almost immediately Blur reinvented themselves from psychedelic popsters to Parklife Britpoppers to angular experimentalists - and Albarn's still doing it with the multimedia Gorillaz.

"Damon's a very intelligent character," says Ross. "I certainly wouldn't bet against him having planned it all along."

These days, Albarn even has his own almost-surrogate in the Blurish Kaiser Chiefs. Not bad for someone who began pop life as a copy of Ian Brown.

- The Guardian

Paid-up punks

September 16, 2005

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2005/09/15/1126377383560.html


Original punks the Clash.
Photo: AP



Sponsorship deals, credit card endorsements, apathy and MTV. Punk ain't what it used to be, writes Michael Dwyer.

Punk. It may be the most adaptable four-letter word in the modern musician's vocabulary. Between the Clash's Know Your Rights and Blink 182's Show Us Your Boobies lies the broadest pigeonhole known to rock'n'roll.

It's universally accepted that Iggy Pop's scarred chest smeared with peanut butter was punk.

The Ramones' 90-second garage rock nuggets were punk.

The Sex Pistols swearing on television was punk.

The Dead Kennedys' California Uber Alles was punk.

But fast forward to modern Swedish 'punks' Millencolin - they have a skate sponsorship deal. And Canada's Simple Plan offer a personalised Mastercard offer.

We're either talking about a radical post-modern redefinition of the term here, or a flagrant perversion of punk ideology. But one thing hasn't changed. To the old guard, it's incredibly offensive.

"When you look around today, it's like punk never happened," bemoans Don Letts, maker of Punk: Attitude, the allegedly "definitive" documentary out on DVD next week.

"Not only have people forgotten, they don't care.

"Back in my day you could blame The Man," says the London dub DJ and influential associate of The Clash.

"Now there's complicit guilt, because kids don't want much. They just want their 15 minutes of fame. They're playing up to the cult of celebrity.

"If you wanna be on MTV and be in the Top 40 then you're not gonna be allowed to be that radical. It's become increasingly difficult to be radical within the format of music.."

If punk is ''the fight against complacency," as fellow film-maker Jim Jarmusch declares early in Letts's film, Simple Plan's Jeff Stinco strikes a contentious pose from his laid-back position in Montreal.

"I gotta tell you, it's an awesome day here," he gloats.

"I spent my whole day just chilling on the main street, drinking beer and watching the girls. It's great."

A multi-platinum major label concern, Simple Plan is one of the most successful "punk-pop" bands of recent years.

Like practically every band labelled punk in the last 35 years, Stinco doesn't identify himself as such. It's not his fault that the first link when you Google 'Simple Plan Punk' is 'Punk rock music artists - corporate entertainment bookings.'

"I think punk is an era in rock'n'roll,'' he says.

''I'm not even sure it's a genre. We're not making any statements, not even fashion statements - like the Sex Pistols were.''


New punks Millencolin.
Photo:Supplied

''I mean, I have respect for them and the Clash but they weren't my early influences. The bands that got me were bands like Face to Face, Lagwagon, No Use For a Name, Strung Out" - all sound-alike hardcore skateboard enthusiasts that cranked up amps in sunny California in the '80s.

"As a teenager I was pretty rebellious. I needed some kind of outlet for my anger and my frustration and those bands seemed to express those feelings in very easy-to-understand words and straight-to-the-point music. The simplicity and the intensity of it was fascinating to me."

In that respect, Simple Plan picked up on much the same energy that the Ramones or the Pistols ignited in a previous generation.

And in purely sonic terms, the thread hasn't changed much from '60s trailblazers the Stooges to Millencolin - who could be described as generic Swedish skate rockers. They return to their core Australian market for the umpteenth time next week.

What's changed is the tapestry of music as a whole. Since Nirvana made punk synonymous with mainstream rock, the subversion potential of a snotty-nosed, electrified squall has become virtually zero.

To Millencolin guitarist Erik Ohlsson, who also designs the artwork for the band's independent releases, punk is a question of personal control, rather than sound or intent.

"Punk rock, for me, has always been about doing it yourself," he says. "Be aware and be creative. For me it's a really personal, positive thing. You're not following the rest of the stereotype, being who you should be. You follow your own path."

Reminded that Millencolin's "own path" is now identical to the mainstream youth culture superhighway as seen in Coca-Cola ads, Ohlsson can only offer a sheepish chuckle and "hope that everyone is doing it for the right reason."

In his band's case, that reason was creating a soundtrack to their skateboarding exploits. Hardly the "death or glory" minefield that the Clash's Joe Strummer spent his life negotiating.

"We are political personally, but we don't involve that in our music," Ohlsson says. "I think in this time, it's really important to bring out a positive vibe and entertain people. A lot of our lyrics are political in a personal way: growing up issues, relationship issues, which are really important too."

It's a pretty safe mission statement. In fact, for a band that prides itself on operating outside the corporate music sphere, it's plain lame. Asked how he thinks Millencolin's outlook might differ from a major label rock dinosaur like Bon Jovi, Ohlsson doesn't even sound insulted.

"We never had a manager, we grew up from the underground, being in control of everything," he says.

"I don't know how Bon Jovi felt when they started a band but I think those guys had a goal to be rock stars and get tons of girls and they have never been the issues for us. Well, of course it's great getting girls," he concedes, "but it's not the focus."

Don Letts understands the fundamental lack of ambition he perceives in the modern punk.

"Counter cultural movements are fuelled and informed by the social, economic and political climate of the times," he notes.

"And I guess the youth of the west don't want for too much. But sometimes you gotta get really ill before you know you need a cure. And look around, man. We're really sick."

That fact has not been completely hijacked by the punk-pop gravy train that's made Simple Plan and their ilk so comfortable. Detroit punk agitators the Suicide Machines mount their first tour of Australia next month, albeit on a much smaller scale.

Given the temper of the times, guitarist Dan Lukacinsky is appalled that so few of his contemporaries share their blatant tone of political dissent.

"Punk rock has been too safe for a long time," he says. "Great bands like Anti-Flag have been banging away forever but it's like people just didn't wanna hear it. People who work normal jobs look at music as an outlet to have a good time. They think really hard at their jobs, they don't wanna do that with music. And that's the whole problem in the US right now: ignorance and complacency."

Don't bother looking for the Suicide Machines' latest album, War Profiteering is Killing Us All, on the Billboard or ARIA charts.

Song titles such as Capitalist Suicide, All Systems Fail and 17% 18 to 25 (about the low youth voter turnout at the last US election) are plainly less commercially viable than the navel-gazing cliches favoured by Simple Plan.

Lukacinsky lays much of the blame for youth apathy at the door of MTV.

"If you have a captive audience of young people like they do, they have a responsibility to tell the truth about certain things. They have Rock the Vote (young voter registration campaign), but it's all a bunch of garbage when you see how empty and meaningless their programming is."

Lukacinsky stops short of dissing MTV pawns such as Simple Plan.

"They're friends of ours," he chuckles, "and I know they didn't get into this to get rich."

He does, however, acknowledge a certain ideological contradiction in Suicide Machines' website link to their skatewear sponsors.

There's no such concession from Jeff Stinco, who talks with equal enthusiasm about his band's involvement with the Make Poverty History campaign and the new Simple Plan cash card.

Dude, it's totally a Mastercard with the band's picture on it.

"It's a concept that allows young people to get used to using a credit card," Stinco explains.

"Their parents fill them up with money and hopefully it teaches them how to spend wisely. The coolest thing is people get to have their favourite band on their card. It's personalised, so it's another way for them to express their identity."

But, says Don Letts: "When we got into music, it was an anti-establishment thing. Now people are getting into music to be part of the establishment. The pop culture of that time broke down social, class and race barriers. It was very instrumental in making our world a better place. In a certain section of UK society, music has been a galvanising force. It has that potential. I think people have forgotten that.

"But I am an optimist," he says.

"You can't stop this thing. I think we've got to look to places that haven't been saturated with satellite dishes and haven't had MTV rammed down their throats for 25 years. Maybe places like Iraq? Like Orson Welles said, if you wanna make a truly original film, don't watch movies."

Teenage memories

By Andrew Murfett
Dusk to dawn
September 16, 2005

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2005/09/15/1126377383590.html

Good pop music evokes memories of 'making out' and teen angst, writes Andrew Murfett.

THE best pop music isn't always disposable.

My all-time favourites are typically songs I associate with either a person I care for, a booze-soaked memory, a missed opportunity, a moment of triumph or, at the absolute extreme, a moment that's helped shape me.

A great record is like a virtual photo album. I can put it on and be instantly transported back not only to the time and place but also the feelings and emotions.

For example, the Smashing Pumpkins' Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness is my first trip to Queensland, a time of loneliness and my old friend Georgie.

You Am I's Hourly, Daily sums up my first year out of high school and my first serious girlfriend.

The first Australian song I ever heard on US radio was the Church's Under The Milky Way and every time I hear the track, I instantly recall driving through the Florida Keys that muggy afternoon.

Similarly, anything by Pearl Jam harks back to high school, Carlton Colds and PJ super milds.

While I never drink Coldies these days and I've given up the smokes, I still love Pearl Jam.

Actually, when I hear Spin The Black Circle, I'm reminded of an old mate drunkenly explaining the meaning of the track between swigs of our shared hipflask one night at Richmond station.

Which brings me to the maligned and unfashionable Counting Crows. After a dire day at the office recently, I searched my CD shelf for an album of melancholic nostalgia and came across August and Everything After.

My teenage years were as angst-ridden as any and August ... was always a temporary panacea.

While I was never a Mr Jones sorta guy, at moments Round Here and the at-the-time profound Raining in Baltimore felt both insightful and cathartic.

Listening to the album again for the first time in years, I still knew every word.

I thought of how I used to hang at a schoolmate's place, sipping coffee and smoking cigarettes after school listening to August .... Indeed, when they announced their first Australian tour in '93, we ditched school for the morning to line up for tickets.

The shows were eventually cancelled and I didn't see them play until four years later in Miami.

I've listened to August ... a couple more times since. Each time, besides the feelings it evokes - I want to call in sick to work, take up smoking again and head to the beach on a cold day - I still hear great pop songs.

Which brings me to the first night I ever heard Jeff Buckley. I was about to travel overseas for the first time and a few friends gathered at my parents' house to toast my farewell.

Over the night, despite the boozy tone of the evening, the track Last Goodbye must have been played at least three or four times.

Each time, I silently noted the track's glorious guitar intro, the melody and Jeff Buckley's gorgeously anguished vocals.

The night lingered on, and the last two standing were myself and a friend who, it happens, I had a crush on.

We took a drive and as that balmy summer night turned into day, ended up at a beach, talked candidly and, being teenagers, made out.

We were both in burgeoning relationships at the time and, although we talked intermittently for a few months later, things were never the same and I haven't seen her for almost 10 years.

Although I have since come to know and love the album Grace (especially Hallelujah), every time I hear Last Goodbye I think of that person, that night, our last goodbye.

Vancouver's Red Hot Indie Music Scene

It's incredibly diverse, and grabbing wide attention.

By Elaine Corden
September 13, 2005

http://thetyee.ca/Entertainment/2005/09/13/VanIndieScene/


Vancouver's indie supergroup, The New Pornographers. Photo: Steven Dewall

Your mom loves Coldplay. She does. And so does everyone else's mom. Even if you liked them before, your mom's adoration of their milquetoast melodies had kind of ruined it for you, hasn't it? Ditto U2, ditto White Stripes. You can't listen to them now without thinking of your matriarch, or of that annoying man at the office, or the million other folk who insist on keeping the minivan radio tuned on "mass consumption." And so you have to move on. Because if you hear X & Y one more time, you're personally going to hunt Coldplay's plaintive singer down and beat him with a James Taylor album.

You're tired of bands being rammed down your throat. You are a pop culture refugee. Well, sit down next to me. Enter the world of independent music.

With due respect to the all-conquering pop-song, the advantages of exploring independent music are obvious: songs you love are less likely to become jingles for Sunny D., you are not feeding the media beast that is AOL Time Warner, and yes, you can walk a little taller knowing that your record collection is unique, unlike your neighbor's. It takes a little more effort to find the diamonds amidst so much coal, but in the end, it's worth the effort.

Laid back explosion

While every town has its local gems, Vancouver's indie music scene is red-hot right now, so you really need look no further than your own province as a starting point. In fact, had you traveled down to Victory Square, on the edge of Gastown, this past Labour Day, you would have found a veritable treasure chest of independent, local acts: all playing a beautifully utopian outdoor concert, not in the name of profit (the event was free), but rather for the sheer love of making noise.

With seven acts on hand (Fond of Tigers, The Christa Min, The Book of Lists, Calamalka, Ladyhawk, P:ano and the buzzier-than-buzz Pink Mountaintops), you'd have been hard-pressed to come away with something you didn't like. In fact, the line-up was exemplary of why taste-making music press, such as Pitchforkmedia.com, NME, and Spin have taken an interest in our fair city lately.

Take Black Mountain. Drawing huge interest in the UK and Stateside, the Vancouver-based group has just returned from a jaunt opening up for (wait for it) Coldplay, a feat that, considering the uber-popularity of that group, was of no small importance. Ramshackle and defiantly retro, Black Mountain (whose membership forms no small part of the aforementioned Pink Mountaintops) are making '60s-styled, druggy guitar rock that's the toast of the global indie rock community.

Coastal talent pool

Likewise, The New Pornographers and specifically chief songwriter Carl Newman, have been drawing over-the-top praise in the international music media, with American rag Blender naming Newman to their "Hot 100" list of worldwide music visionaries. One listen of Pornographer's witty, harmony-laden new album, Twin Cinema, will tell you why. While the album traverses the well-worn territory of love and relationships, it's done in such a fresh, clever way that you'll find yourself immediately hooked.

Add to that jerky post-punkers Hot Hot Heat, a once-indie, now-signed-to-Warner outfit who is playing the likes of Glastonbury and David Letterman. And The Organ, an all-female group whose melancholy, Smiths-esque 80's revivalism is capturing critics' hearts. And a host of other up-and-comers making their mark beyond our borders, and all together, you have something akin to the Seattle explosion of the 1990s or the Hives-led Swedish garage rock phenom at the start of this century.

The chief difference, (the difference, one hopes, which will not leave us in the same time-has-not-passed-since-Soundgarden's-"Spoon Man" state as the still-grungified Seattle) is the incredible diversity of our flourishing talent.

Diverse rock

The acts on hand at the Victory Square Block Party, for example, while all "rock" bands, could trace their respective influences to groups as varied as Roxy Music: the spacey-sounding Book of Lists, who also draw heavily on the canon of psychedelic prophet Syd Barrett (listen to Book of Lists' single "Through Stained Glass"), to Canned Heat. And Pink Mountaintops, basically a sexed-up version of Black Mountain who mix songs about "Sweet 69" with romantic, existential boy/girl duets (listen to Pink Mountaintops' single "Leslie").

Furthermore, while it's our pop and rock outfits drawing the most attention right now, other genres, such as jazz, hip-hop and electronica also boast some extraordinary talent. For example, hip-hop fans should check out the rabbitting, quickfire delivery of socially-conscious local Birdapres if they don't believe visceral rap could come from laid-back Vancity. (Listen to Birdapres' single "Broke Beat")

Perhaps this is the upside of the Vancouver's whorish courtship of "global city" status. It may be that we have to endure the occasional unnecessary stadium or Cadillac transit project to keep talented artists in town. In the past, we've hemorrhaged talent to cities like Montreal and Toronto, but now it seems that we're finally interesting enough for artist to remain here.

Wade in

If you're a newcomer to this strange and exciting world, it may be daunting to wade in to the torrent of creativity in the city right now. It is still, despite the talent boon, a crapshoot to wander into a nightclub or music venue not knowing any of the artists. Any of the bands mentioned above are a sure bet.

When you get to their shows, saddle up to the nearest hipster-with-a-beard and ask them who their favourite local act is. You'll be amazed at the variety of answers, and the liveliness of opinions on the matter. We've finally outgrown the days when we were famous for grow-ops and Bryan Adams, and have become a world-recognized epicentre for visionary music. If you're brave enough to explore the scene, you may just end up handing that Coldplay album over to your mother for good. Trust me. You won't need it where you're going.


Elaine Corden is a Vancouver writer, editor and living room dancer.

Music downloads (Click on the links below to listen):

"Through Stained Glass" by Book of Lists at http://newmusiccanada.com/genres/artist.cfm?Band_Id=15290

"Leslie" by Pink Mountaintops at http://newmusiccanada.com/genres/artist.cfm?Band_Id=13283

"Broke Beat" by Birdapres at http://newmusiccanada.com/genres/artist.cfm?Band_Id=15302

Magic circles

September 9, 2005

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2005/09/07/1125772586522.html


Magic Dirt live - energy and charisma.
Photo: Simon Schluter

Snow White, Magic Dirt's newest release, was a lesson in discipline for the band, writes Emma Miller.

FIFTEEN years ago, Magic Dirt bass player Dean Turner witnessed something that changed his perception of music forever. Friends were playing a gig at Geelong's Barwon Club and they invited his rather straight-looking friend Adalita Srsen - his bandmate in quirky pop act Deer Bubbles - to do an impromptu performance.

"Adalita got up on stage to sing a song with this band and I've never seen anything like it," Turner says. "She f**king let go - glasses went flying, hair's everywhere, she's on the ground screaming into this microphone and the whole pub erupted.

"Everyone in the place was saying, 'This is incredible' and for me that was definitely a point where I realised we could take this much further. I think that experience was just learning how much you can let go and an audience will respond to that."

Letting go is something Magic Dirt does exceptionally well. The Geelong-born, Melbourne-based and distortion-fuelled rock/pop band has the kind of energy and charisma that most bands can only dream of.

This is a band not afraid to let rip and they like their audiences to do the same. If music is sex, Magic Dirt, who have been together 13 years, is a leather-clad dominatrix in 10-inch heels.

But when we meet they are eating muffins in a plain white room at their record company offices; there is little sign of the powerhouse rock gods of the stage.

In fact, Magic Dirt look almost normal. Srsen is wearing hardly any make-up; guitarist Raul Sanchez and Turner are signing copies of the band's new album, Snow White, as diligently as if it were a high school assignment. Drummer Adam Robertson sips a takeaway coffee.

The contrast between the two Magic Dirts is something of which the band is conscious and something they also appear to cultivate through their music, which, of late, has veered from grungy, angry rock to super-melodic pop songs.

Snow White is no exception. The beautiful cover art immediately sets a contradictory tone by featuring red roses, and the songs include smatterings of country, doo-wop and girly pop alongside their more typical hard-edged sounds. It's easily their most diverse and accessible album yet.

Srsen's voice veers from shouting to soulful and an impressive soaring falsetto reminiscent of early Sinead O'Connor. It's all about as double-edged as Srsen herself, a woman who has been known to wear frilly pink blouses with sleeves short enough to show off her many tattoos, and who delights in juxtaposing images of softness and hardness, strength and vulnerability.

She agrees that Snow White, the band's fourth album, is far more mellow and less angst-ridden than 2003's Tough Love, which raged about heartbreak, betrayal and masturbation.

"We're growing up more and you let go of those feelings, you're over and done with certain things and you don't go back there," she says.

"So there's a lot of intense, deep feeling on the new record but it's not necessarily coming from an angry viewpoint. A lot of the album's about beauty and that's what I wanted to do, make a beautiful album."

Although Tough Love was nominated for an ARIA award and finally delivered the band the recognition they deserved, it very nearly destroyed them.

"Tough Love was so regimented and there was a lot of discipline, it was very S&M, you know, cracking the whip every second," Srsen says.

"We talked about every single thing, we worked really hard in the studio, we had tuning problems, I had difficulties singing. It all sounds great in the end but there was so much trial by fire and so much discipline which we'd never really encountered before; never put ourselves through before. So after all of that I guess we were a little bit burnt-out, a little bit tired and wanted to just relax a bit."

Adds Turner: "We found out it was a shit way to write music. We set goals for ourselves and at the end of the record we had achieved those goals. But it's not a very fun way to make music so we'll never do a record like that again."

Enter the looser, floatier Snow White, where the band followed their muse, even if it meant using acoustic guitar for the first time (on the track Envious) and working for days trying to find the right tone for I Love the Rain, which Srsen wrote about her cat.

"You don't really have a say, you just follow it," she says, of a more organic song-writing and recording process. "You feel like you're under a spell, the art is dictating what you're doing, not the other way around. You have to surrender to it."

But what if fans don't like the result?

"That doesn't stress me," she says. "That's the reward you get from surrendering to the feeling. You don't really care."

But if Magic Dirt have put their artistic calling first, that's not to say they don't care about their fans. In fact, you'd be hard-pressed to find a band of their stature that is more down to earth and hands-on when it comes to dealing with the public.

"We all enjoy after shows, talking to the crowd, and we've always been like that, from day one," Srsen says.

"The night doesn't feel complete to us unless we've done that part, liaised and chatted and hung out."

Says Robertson: "No one's ever too good not to have a beer with other people."

"That's the scene we came from, which was the antithesis of rock stardom," adds Turner.

"I think we bring a lot of that into what we do now. Because a wanker is just a wanker no matter what they did 40 minutes ago on stage."

And Magic Dirt have worked very hard at not being wankers. On the band's website, www.magicdirt.net, Srsen personally posts frequent diary entries about what the band is up to, from how recent gigs went to what books she's been reading.

The band recently toured remote areas of Australia and chose local bands as supports. They have also been visiting regional schools, where they give 40-minute talks on the music industry and do a short acoustic set.

It's not really what you'd expect from an established rock act signed to a major label - so why do they bother?

"We came from a small town where art was not considered important at all," Turner says.

"It's all just sport and trade (in Geelong) and we're trying to even up that balance a little bit. Expressing yourself is important and creating art is a worthwhile pastime and passion."

"It's about not being scared of following your dreams," Robertson says.

"Because kids are always getting told 'that's stupid'. I was basically going to be a farmer's son for the rest of my life, but I said, 'F**k that, I'm getting out of here and I'm going to do this instead'."

It's that kind of single-minded ambition that has helped Magic Dirt survive in an industry that spits out young talent like wads of stale chewing gum.

Since forming in 1992, they've endured the break-up of Srsen and Turner's relationship, being dumped by their record label and - probably the bane of every wannabe rock star's life - parental disdain.

Srsen says while her mother used to take photos at gigs in the early days, her parents continue to cut out job ads from the paper for her.

"There was a lot of resistance; still is," she says.

"They wanted me to be a teacher but I sort of am a teacher in a way." She had to look within to find the strength to follow her musical ambitions.

"I was pretty fiery, I was headstrong and absolutely taken with this impulse to be creative. It's a kind of craziness, I think.

"We are stubborn and curious, like cats and cockroaches. I think they are the qualities of this band that stand out the most."

The band is about to head off on a national tour, which is far and away their favourite thing.

"There's this retarded adolescent's thing of going on holiday. It's a working holiday but you don't have to worry about bills or doing the dishes," Sanchez says.

"I really feel like it's a community project," Srsen says.

"We're doing it for the community and the community's there for us - it's a two-way street. We bring joy and fun and rock and sweat and good times - it's almost socialist or something."


Magic Dirt play the Northcote Social Club on Wednesday, Ding Dong Lounge on Thursday, Revolver Upstairs next Friday and The Tote next Saturday.

Fast and furious

September 9, 2005
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2005/09/07/1125772586549.html


Fantomas, with Mike Patton, right.
Photo: Dustin Rabin

Fantomas' music, unless played right, risks being horrible noise, Mike Patton tells Andrew Drever.

THE manic pace of singer Mike Patton's work continues unabated. This year has already seen the release of the Fantomas album Suspended Animation, his collaboration record General Patton vs the X-Ecutioners and the mellow collaboration LP Romances.

But wait. There's more. Now, the prolific former Faith No More singer's focus is his long-awaited "pop" project, Peeping Tom, a series of albums on which he will play all the instruments.

Then there's the collaborations with producer Dan "the Automator" Nakamura, Muggs from Cypress Hill, Brazilian chanteuse Bebel Gilberto, rapper Kool Keith, 3-D from Massive Attack, beatboxer Rahzel, Amon Tobin and Melbourne's the Avalanches.

There's also talk of work with Bjork, a third Tomahawk album, the running of his record label Ipecac and a film score to compose.

"Well, it doesn't feel like work, man," he says from San Francisco.

"I'd be doing this anyway. Thank God I'm making a living at it. I feel pretty lucky. This is just a pace I feel comfortable working at. I like to have a few things going on at once. It feels natural. I don't have to push myself . . ."

Suspended Animation, the fourth Fantomas album and the follow-up to the 74-minute "ambient" album Delirium Cordia is made up of 30 short pieces of music.

The band, comprising Patton, Melvins guitarist Buzz Osborne, former Slayer drummer Dave Lombardo and former Mr Bungle bassist Trevor Dunn, continue to refine their death-metal blast, with a rapid-fire tribute to cartoon music.

"Well, those guys physically have capabilities that are downright unfair to the rest of the world," Patton says of his band.

"They're open to doing anything and have a deep trust of the material that I give them. No matter how insane or complicated it sounds, they're willing to take a stab at it.

"If you don't play this stuff right, it's just horrible noise. It's meaningless. If it's executed perfectly, though, it's magical and it's really fun and comical and intense at the same time. It takes patience and a lot of f---ing work, but it's one of the most fun and challenging band environments I've ever been in."


Fantomas play the Palace, St Kilda, on Tuesday night.

No beer, no show, says Cave

September 9, 2005

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2005/09/08/1125772641985.html

Australian singer Nick Cave scored a victory for rock and roll over health and safety laws after refusing to take the stage in London last week without his beer and smokes.

As Cave walked on stage at Alexandra Palace last week for a concert with his band the Bad Seeds, he was stopped by a security guard who told him his cans of beer and cigarettes were against the venue's rules.

According to British newspaper The Independent today, Cave told the guard he would not perform.

"Nick just said 'Fine, if I can't take a beer on with me, I'm going back to my dressing room. You can go out there and tell some jokes to entertain the crowd for three hours.'," a source on Cave's tour told the Independent.

"Then the band turned on their heels and marched back up to their dressing rooms."

The paper said that, after an awkward wait, venue authorities backed down and gave the band "special allowance' to take their beers and smokes on stage.

- AAP