Year: 2016

This week in the music industry: artists are reminded to submit their annual Performance Reports to APRA AMCOS to receive their live performance royalties, and the second installment of the APRA AMCOS and WAM 2016 MISS conference offers essential financial and legal advice for those working in the music industry. APRA AMCOS Performance Reports The annual submission…

Adelaide songstress MANE may be a relative newcomer to the scene but she’s wasting no time in making an impression fast. Her new single “Bitter” is the first taste we’ve gotten from her debut EP House of Horror – a catchy, rhythmic pop and blues fusion bound to catch attention. For MANE (aka Paige Renee Court), “Bitter” stems from a…

George Clooney’s Smokehouse Pictures is collaborating with the creators of Making a Murderer for a new series entitled Americas Most Admired Lawbreaker. The series will be based on a regular column in The Huffington Post by journalist Steven Brill about a reputable pharmaceutical company that created a powerful drug and marketed it aggressively to children and the elderly while…

BBC America has announced that their drama Orphan Black will return for its fifth and final season. The last season will feature 10 episodes which are expected to air in 2017. “Orphan Black is a thrilling, genre-bending ride that has captured our fans’ imaginations and hearts like no other show,” said Sarah Barnett, President of…

Supergirl is about to get a whole lot more interesting with the casting of Teen Wolf’s Tyler Hoechlin as none other than Superman. The super hero series, which has recently moved from CBS to join Arrow and The Flash on The CW, will once again be produced by Greg Berlanti and Andrew Kreisberg. “Greg and I…

Fans of Doctor Who will recognise Ingrid Oliver as Petronella Osgood, though if you’re a fan of British comedy you may have caught Oliver in a number of other productions over the last decade. Oliver however looks strikingly different from Osgood minus her thick rimmed glasses and lab coat when we catch up with her…

We all loved Josh Radnor in his days on How I Met Your Mother. Now, it seems like he’s taken a break from acting and dabbling once again into the directing side of things. It’s been announced that Radnor will be the director of a new sci-fi drama series titled The Leaves for Lion Gates…

On Wednesday night in Morrison, Colorado, Sia opened the US Festival SeriesFest with a special performance at the historic Red Rocks Amphitheater, headlining the opening night of the festival in its second year. SeriesFest aims to be the “Sundance of Television”, offering a platform for independent television writers, producers and creators to have a platform to…

The line up for the 17th annual AmericanaFest has continued to roll out some brilliant names for its 2016 event, with the likes of Billy Bragg & Joe Henry, Amanda Shires and Bruce Hornsby & the Noisemakers being announced in their latest artist reveal. The festival is already boasting artists including Wynonna & The Big Noise, Jay Nash and The Black Lillies, while Kasey…

It’s not often you attend a show and leave feeling completely enamoured. Dance is such an expressive form of the human body and to see the physical and emotional commitment from every single dancer on the stage was spellbinding. We had a chat with Artistic Director Paul Lightfoot in the lead up to the Nederlands…

LANKS has been generating some impressive momentum for his music and skills as producer and multi-instrumentalist for a little while now, but crowds around the country recently have seen just what he can bring to the table, off the back of successful shows with NGAIIRE. Now, we’ve got a brand new single from LANKS in “Bitter Leaf” and once…

Jo and Tom have announced the first Big Scary tour in three years, finally! With a brand new album in Animal and an expanded line up for the live shows, fans can expect a totally new side of Big Scary to emerge when these dates take off in September and continue through October. The new album marks Big Scary’s third studio…

The wildly successful mini-festival I Love Life is coming back strong this year, taking over the Manning Bar in Sydney and The Triffid in Brisbane this September! Helmed by The Smith Street Band and Poison City Records in its first year back in 2015, the festival brought out ridiculously large numbers (perhaps unsurprisingly), and this year…

This country has a cultural heartbeat like few others. For millennia that pulse has been powered by music. It has always been song that has told this country’s stories – it’s why such an ancient culture remains so alive and powerful. But today we see a new tradition being born – young artists drawing from…

Melbourne’s Maefire emerged in 2015 with their debut EP, wasting no time in generating a solid reputation for themselves on the east coast as a band to watch. Of course, experience on stage prior to their outing as Maefire helped, with the group coming together out of the ashes of For Our Hero and Madison in 2014. With…

Beaty Heart are one of those bands who popped up out of nowhere for me. Recently emerging as one of the fresh new bands out of Britain to be watching, a jump down a YouTube/Spotify rabbit hole soon after had me hooked. Their musical flavour is one that evokes the energy of early Foals, Alt-J…

Suspenseful and action-packed, you don’t want to miss out on Jack Reacher: Never Go Back’s first trailer. Last week, Entertainment Tonight showcased a butchered version of it – only showing snippets which didn’t even last seconds. Now, you can enjoy its full glory down below! The film is based off the eighteenth novel of Lee Child’s popular…

Game of Thrones stars Daniel Portman and Keisha Castle-Hughes are heading down under as special guests for Oz Comic-Con in Sydney and Brisbane this September! In case you need a refresher, you’ll recognise Portman as Tyrion Lannister turned Brienne of Tarth’s loyal squire, Podrick Payne, and Castle-Hughes as the deadly Obara Sand, one of the three Sandsnake sisters from Dorne. Portman and…

Bounty Films and Frankie’s By The Slice are teaming up for the ultimate event screening of the award-winning New Zealand horror/thriller Blood Punch. Blood Punch follows brilliant chemistry student Milton (Milo Cawthorne) who breaks out of court-mandated rehab, in the company of Skyler (Olivia Tennet), on the premise of producing enough meth to set the…

Paramount Pictures have reportedly secured the book rights to The Saint, the novel in which the 1997 Val Kilmer film was based. Producing deals are still being thrown around but it’s likely that Lorenzo di Bonaventura, Brad Krevoy and Robert Evans will be among the producers. Based on the original series of books that ran…

Imagine Entertainment, in collaboration with White Horse Pictures and Apple, released a teaser trailer and poster this week for Academy Award-winner Ron Howard’s highly anticipated documentary feature The Beatles: Eight Days A Week – The Touring Years. The authorised documentary features rare and exclusive footage, documenting the early career (1962-1966) of the famed band with…

James Gunn, director of Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy films has posted a video on his Facebook page, celebrating Chris Pratt’s work as his time on the set of the sequel comes to an end. Gunn also announced via his video that he, Pratt and more of the cast will be at this years San…

ABC has announced that their four-part drama series, Barracuda, will air on Sunday nights in the lead up to the 2016 Rio Olympics. In Melbourne 1996, the Golden Age of Australian swimming is beginning and a scholarship to an exclusive boys school brings 16-year-old Danny Kelly one step closer to his ultimate goal – winning Olympic gold….

Viggo Mortensen is no stranger to portraying a damaged father in a journey to protect his children à la The Road, but Matt Ross’ quirky tale has a lot more than just Aragon to draw in audiences. A quick glance at Ross’ resume won’t inspire confidence because of its relative shortness, however, Captain Fantastic flew…

There’s an extended sequence in Independence Day: Resurgence where an all-powerful queen-bee alien is chasing a Jeff Goldblum-driven school bus across the desert, somehow finding itself unable to keep up with his wild driving skills despite swatting down fighter-jets only moments earlier with unspoiled precision. It’s one of the many moments this large, loud sequel…

After winning the Jury Prize at Cannes Film Festival this year, there have been more than a few people waiting for a glimpse of Andrea Arnold’s trans-America visual bildungsroman. The trailer has at last reached the Internet, and it’s exactly the emphatic and chaotic two and half minutes one would expect from Arnold. The story…

Homegrown science fiction adventure film Arrowhead brings a lot of ambition to the table but little else. For fans of the genre, it’s a bold step forward into disappointingly familiar territory. Directed and written by Jesse O’Brien, the film follows Kye (Dan Mor), a prisoner of war between two interstellar factions locked in political conflict. Kye is…

The quirky trio behind Netsuke recently took to New York for the CMJ Music Marathon. Freya, Elias, and Danny’s style of intricate indie electronica began in Sydney and they currently call London home. To give us a taste of life on the road, the trio documented their travels through the states with some stunning images….

In today’s Flight review on AU Abroad, we take you on Southwest Airlines‘ service from Memphis, Tennessee to Chicago Midway in the USA. Airline: Southwest Airlines Route: Memphis, Tennessee (MEM) to Chicago Midway (MDW) – WN1470 Seat: 22C (aisle, 3-3 layout) Aircraft: Boeing 737-700 (73W) Scheduled Flight Time: 1 Hour 30 Minutes On Schedule? Departed 15 minutes late, arrived about 5 minutes late Frequent Flyer Program: Southwest have…

As we continue our culinary tour around North America, we come to Ottawa in Ontario, Canada for their annual mammoth event the Ottawa Bluesfest, which takes over the Canadian capital city over 10 days every July. As they are about to kick off the event for 2016, we’ll take you back to the event last…