Music

It’s a casual sit-down affair at The Rails on Thursday evening, candle-lit, except for those dastardly flashing fairy lights. Support act Mark Gray is local singer-songwriter, who comes armed to face a sold out crowd with a handful of really decent songs and solid guitar technique. But in the face of an increasingly loud room,…

In this AU Review feature, Philippe Perez talks to a couple of Australian music teachers, Rosalind Chia and Tao Kahn (pictured above) and delves into what makes for a good student-teacher relationship musically. There’s normally a process of many years to plug through to become be a master of any instrument. Practice makes perfect, as…

Perth band The Stanleys recently galavanted around the USA for a tour leading up to a series of shows in New York for CMJ. The band have shared their tour diaries with us. The first, above, is from their first stop in LA and the first of many burgers and fries on the CMJ Tour……

Over the next few weeks, bands from around Australia will be sharing their adventures in India exclusively with the AU review. We’ll also be sharing stories of our own. To kick things off, Melbourne duo Big Scary will be walking through us their adventures in India for OzFest, the NH7 Weekender and The Aussie BBQ….

You know those moments when your favourite band plays your favourite song and it’s everything you ever imagined it would be… and more? Tonight was one of those nights where this happened again and again and again. This was the night that Radiohead came and pleased their Sydney fans after an eight year absence. Let…

Melbourne four piece Dancing Heals recently returned to Australia after an expedition to the USA to play CMJ… among other things. The band have exclusively shared with the AU review their tour diaries detailing their adventures… The talk about drinking with Das Racist, seeing The Jezabels explode on the international stage, of course their own…

Following the release of their debut self titled EP and the subsequent release tour, we caught up with Melbourne’s Texture Like Sun to find out a little more about them, their EP and the upcoming tour. The band will be playing a homecoming show at Melbourne’s Northcote Social Club on the 15th November. Who do…

While he was in India, Larry had the chance to catch Jack and Ed from Bombay Bicycle Club perform a special acoustic set at the NH7 Weekender. One thing led to another and they ended up on a Tuk Tuk heading to the festival’s afterparty. Here’s what Larry and Ed Nash chatted about while driving…

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. If that’s the case, Macy Gray’s Talking Book– a full-length cover of one of Stevie Wonder’s most famous albums of the same name- is surely the highest form of praise. In fact, rather than imitating, Macy has aimed to put her own spin on the 70s…

If dark, distinctly-Aussie rock sounds appealing, you need to know Bec and Ben. The first song crawls up on you. Twenty seconds in, there’s a change; an echoing riff, speeding up gradually until the one minute mark. Another change. This riff is shorter. Sharper. Then Bec starts to sing, and they’re not the words you…

In what was the calm before the storm, perhaps it was appropriate for San Diego’s Little Hurricane to open up proceedings on Saturday night in New York City, just two nights before the full brunt of Hurricane Sandy devastated so much of the city and its surrounds. For my girlfriend and I, it has been…

If there’s one word that does not fall into the vocabulary for the band Muse, it would be ‘subtle’. This band was always destined for enormous stadium extravaganzas and now “The 2nd Law” tour has exploded onto stages to prove that this trio from Teignmouth are ready to take on the mantle of ‘bigger and…

Tonight at the hot and sweaty Railway Club, tracks like ‘Deep Heat’, ‘Suffocated’ and ‘Fever’ all seem really appropriate. A layered, deep and funky house party album, Deep Heat is rife with glam-rock references, endearing rock star affectation plus a little bit of reggae. It’s a total and planned departure, Oh Mercy frontman Alex Gow…

Flume talks about the triple j house party tour and much more to Larry Heath, while at BIGSOUND in Brisbane.

The guy who always appears on stage to check the mic and gets everyone’s hopes up. The guy who makes sure the band is in tune, the peacemaker and the go to guy for, well, everything. Or to my mind, the mysterious strangers who usually fascinate me more than the musicians themselves, with their lanyards…

Larry Heath talked to Ringo Deathstarr while at CMJ in New York City about their tour with The Smashing Pumpkins, the Catch 22 of alcohol, the future of the music industry – and of their own shows.

For anybody who has ever seen Delta Goodrem in concert / in interviews / in person, it appears easy to understand why her new record is titled Child of the Universe. She’s bubbly, kind, and never stops smiling — But if you want an accurate tip-off as to what this record sounds like, you need…

As we look back on our week of festivities in New York City for CMJ, a few international artists stick out for us. So, in the hopes to promote our favourite artists as much as possible (and also for those who don’t have time to read through our comprehensive festival diaries series), here now are…

At CMJ, Andrew WK tells Larry about achieving his dreams of partying hard, his love of My Little Pony, Taco Bell, plans to record a new album in 2013 and much much more…

Brisbane artist Thomas Calder aka The Trouble With Templeton is currently in the USA, performing solo and making plenty of waves in the process. You’ve already heard our Disneyland interview with Tom, and now we’re going to take you through a photo tour diary of Tom while he was in Los Angeles… read on! WITZEND…

UK based label Communion have come to international prominence thanks in part of Mumford & Sons, but as they continually prove through showcases at events like CMJ, they are a label chock-a-block full of incredible talent. Friday’s event at Rockwood Music Hall was no exception. Nashville, Tennessee based five piece Foreign Fields (pictured below) were…

While at Austin City Limits, Larry talked to Gotye about his whirlwind year of touring, developing his live show, performing where The Beatles once played and much more…

Just before flying off to New York for CMJ a week or so ago, Larry sat down with Australian brother/sister duo Kim and Pete Kicks aka Satellite Sky while enjoying an In N Out Burger in Los Angeles – the city they now call home. They talk about their massive Olympic Games sync deal, life…

Larry catches up with acclaimed Brooklyn outfit Oberhofer at the Austin City Limits Music Festival.

Back in Australia for a string of dates to support the release of his new EP Toe Jam we caught up with AGT alumni Joe Robinson to discuss his latest album, playing with his heroes and what to expect from his live shows. What was it that first made you pick up the guitar? I…

As Lucy wasn’t able to catch Weezer on the first day of Austin City Limits, I thought I’d take some time to review their hour long performance at the festival over the weekend! Though I would have undoubtedly first heard Weezer in the mid 90s, and certainly knew a few of the singles, it wasn’t…

While waiting in line to ride the “Tower of Terror” at Disneyland’s California Adventure theme park in California, I caught up with The Trouble With Templeton‘s Thomas Calder to discover where the Templeton name and project was born: on this very Twilight Zone inspired theme park ride. Listen below to learn more, find out more…

Larry catches up with Chuck Criss from New York’s Freelance Whales to talk about their sophomore album Diluvia, their performance at Austin City Limits just moments before, future plans, James Dean, Planetariums, Australia, Big Day Out, Sufjan Stevens and much more… Audio edit by Tiffany Britchford

Out of the 20 bands that played at the recent Stamping Grounds Festival, She Rex were easily the most unique and talented group there, thus making them my favourite. They’ve just released their first single, “11th Hour”, meaning I get to listen to them, and use the phrase ‘sultry rap-rock.’ The girls have already been…

I’ve always found it a little awkward when Tonight Alive tried to include plot in their videos because it always seemed like they tossed it in as an afterthought. Thankfully, the punk-rockers have forgone any elements of a storyline in their latest music video, with the focus one hundred percent on performance.