Larry, our illustrious editor-in-chief (hallowed be thy name) has decreed an expansion of the pages of theAUreview to cover all arts. The blog on the Sydney Fringe Festival is the first step into this territory, but it needn't be such a channel change. 

Many bands, certainly most of the urban ones, are part of an art scene. This is nothing new, we all know the stories of The Factory, or the photographer in the audience going on to be a film director, or fashion designers getting their start dressing musician friends. I don't view this focus on art as a departure from rock, rather an opportunity to get the whole picture.

When we first discover a band, we get a whole aesthetic barrage: through videos, album covers, photos, and interviews we're exposed to alien locations, art, style and politics that we hadn't imagined. For me, music was an intro radical politics with the Dead Kennedys, DIY culture with Sonic Youth, Camus and Gormenghast with The Cure. I know that I caught the affliction of tight pants and chucks from the Ramones -I'm sure the WHO is using money from the Gates Foundation to work on a vaccine. 

The album art on In Utero caused me a minor conniption. I still like to watch the short film that accompanied NIN's 'Broken'. My love of Aphex Twin is equal parts music and Chris Cunningham. The Hives and The Horrors inspired a new wave of dapper men. The final product -the band- splendid in their tight jeans, music
videos, album art, stage show are a manifestation of an entire
ecosystem of their friends and influences. Their effect is beyond providing a soundtrack for our lives, with every song there's a little culture virus straight from their surrounds. 

With a review there's always the danger that you'll wind up doing PR, if we look a bit further we can get a broader sense of where a band's coming from, where the whole artistic scene they're connected to is at. There's no reason to wait 40yrs for the bio to come out. Now you just have to wait for us to write it.