Blog — Page 239 of 285

Bad Friday Festival Block Party

Railway Parade

Marrickville, AU

April 14, 2017

The etymology of the term “good” in the context of Good Friday is contested: Some claim it is meant to simply mean pious or holy, i.e. of a day or season observed as holy by the church, while others content that it is a corruption of “God Friday” to commemorate the crucifixion of JC and his death at Calvary.

Be it as it may, Sydney’s got itself a massive block party that goes by the antonym of the former to celebrate the beginning of Easter by showcasing the crème de la crème of Sydney’s Inner West talent.

Having first incarnated at the Annandale Hotel in 2010, 2017 saw the festival take over Railway Parade in Marrickville.

Newtown locals Scabz kicked off the proceedings with their catchy, skulking, fuzzed-out odes to favourite Australian pastimes, e.g. the surf and Victoria Bitter consumption.

Next up was Flowertruck delivering their light hearted, saccharine low-fi garage pop with dual vocals and a well-measured dose of melancholy.

Got a weak spot for Blondie, Kate Bash and War on Drugs? Reformed folk singer and Wollongong artist Bec Sandridge had you covered, evoking the ghost of the 70ies and 80ies with her swagger and velocity.

Green Buzzard proved that they are more than a 1970s inspired garage rock epigone, adding their own flavour comprised of melodic punk rock grit, early 90s Brit-pop exuberance and a penchant for writing a good tune.

Shining Bird is an experimental dream pop band from the coastal town of Austinmer in New South Wales and entranced the audience with their layered synth pop.

The female poet and singer-songwriter Sampa The Great hails from Africa the motherland, and based her musical endeavours on the search for creativity, laughter, purpose and rhythms by weaving dense lyrical mazes with her verses, drawing listeners into a lush, imaginative world. , Backed by DJ Rodriguez she ran the gamut from spoken-word to more traditional hip-hop rapping, with stops at psychedelic and bluesy waypoints in between, the audience lapped up a set that seemed strangely familiar but also new.

Royal Headache is Sydney punk rock royalty with soul and a penchant for romantisches Loosen while conveying that there is a glimmer of hope in that uncertain future of yours. Too melodramatic? Well, their intense set had a sense of urgency with their raucous punk rock and singer Shogun’s soulful, melodic vocals and dedicated performance.

DMA’s took the stage to dish out their bolshy, well-crafted, catchy tunes, refurbished 90ies Brit-rock inspired catchy and at times spacey tunes including its pub poetry and no fucks given attitude: A quality stoic live performance with great stage presence and the band’s focus on the songs while holding the audience firmly in the palm of their hand, which embraces DMA’s wholeheartedly.

After an ambient intro, The Jezabels took over the stage with front woman Hayley Mary dominating proceeding with her dynamic, provocative and powerful presence and her elevating vocal delivery evoking singalongs from the audience while Heather Shannon on the synth provided the foundation with 80ies vibrations that have become a trademark of the band.

2017’s Bad Friday Festival was its eight incarnation and the Music and Booze co. managed to raise the stakes and organize the event at a much bigger scale than in previous years without diluting its DNA.

The audience was varied in age and appearance, food stalls from local outfits provided sustenance and the DJ team of local institution Sound of Seduction provided party vibes when a breather was needed from the onslaught of live performance.

A unique fest that has organically grown to a big event without sacrificing the essence of what it started out to be by honouring the local context and talent, most of which have become successes on not just on Australian turf but global territory.

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Photos by KAVV

Explosions in the Sky

Jannus Live

St. Petersburg, FL

April 12th, 2017

Explosions in the Sky are a rarity in the day and age of the “right now”, with information at everyone’s finger tips, all the time There seems to be a slight movement away from music that might take a minute to make an impact and breathe life into anticipation. Sometimes anticipation is the thing that makes it exciting….

Explosions in the Sky are masters of this. The Austin, TX band have been doing it for nearly 20 years with mini-symphonies that sit the listener on the edge…. With heaping doses of anticipation. It’s no different in a live setting. The band stopped by the shores of the Gulf on the stage of Jannus Live in the heart of the St Petersburg downtown area on April 12th. The band walked out to at least 500 screaming fans, more than I think they had expected, and played until the curfew made them stop.

For a band with no lead singer, they captivated the attention of the entire crowd moving through their instrumentals as if we were watching a movie, captivating the audience with very little downtime, the music bleeding through as the band switched instruments, turned on pedals, and moved around the stage in a blanket of multi--colored smoke.

They played songs from most of their seven studio records and various soundtracks and compilations, but I believe that didn’t matter, they could have been playing the Brady Bunch theme song and the crowd would have ate it up. Guitarists Mark Smith, Munaf Rayani, and Michael James, stalked in unison on stage, simultaneously telling their story, and summoning demons. The band totally and completely immersed themselves in the audience, I have yet to go to a show where this has happened ad length. It might be for a song or two, but this was the entire set, let alone without a front man to focus on. The absence of that front man allowed the band, and the audience, to connect on a much deeper level. With no narration, the band made the music more personal, telling a different story to each listener.

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Photo by Brian Furman

Drift Magazine

Not sure how you roll but in my world and that of Drift Magazine, coffee inhabits not an unimportant role, which is why Drift  is relevant to my interests.

Its central themes revolve around all things coffee, the people involved with it and their spatial contexts. It sheds light on a coffee drinking city at a moment in time.

The drive to source the best dispensaries is the compass that charts the geography of the cities Drift Magazine covers. 

They accomplish their mission by making the beautifully printed (both ink and paper have a nice quality to it), ad-free Drift Magazinelook more like a coffee table book than a mere periodical.

The target audience for the bi-yearly released Drift is people infatuated with caffeine and a desire to get to know a city through unconventional means with each future issue to be focused on one specific place – by way of the relaxed process of meandering as the name Drift suggests.

The issue at hand focuses on Melbourne, the unofficial home of the flat white, chia seed pudding, and avocado toast, Melbourne has been declared by many of the coffee world as a coffee capital, boasting one of the highest concentrations of coffee shops pax on this planet and its character merits  the intense focus this issue of Drift casts on it.

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Photo from Drift website

Editor note: The original post was updated on April 13, 2017.

Ambrosia Magazine

Ambrosia, the food or drink of the Greek gods which was often depicted as conferring longevitiy or immortality, is closely connected to nectar, both of which where were often used by the semi-legendary author Homer in his poems.

Ambrosia Magazine is a beautifully executed haute culinary food porn magazine. Founded by food writer / A World Worth Eating blogger Adam Goldberg, it publishes two times a year and explores the lighter side of a region’s cuisine through stories, photo essays, and light recipes from its great chefs. The concept behind Ambrosia is that eating greating food and eating healthy does not have to be mutually exclusive: It combines the world great chefs with healthful eating. As no one tells a story as accurately like a local, Ambrosia has the locals tell authentic stories themselves.

Not unlike its coffee focused bother Drift Magazine, each issue is completely dedicated to one region or city, telling the stories from different angles and viewpoints  and providing recipes ranging originated from street food vendors to owners of Michelin star adorned etablisssements.

Volume 3 takes us to Brooklyn, where they eat their way from Williamsburg to Crown Heights and Coney Island, to navigate one of the world’s most influential dining scenes against the backdrop of its storied history. Featuring recipes and stories from Carlo Mirarchi, Claus Meyer, Pamela Yung, and dozens of other chefs, servers, and vendors, this issue tells the story of the Brooklyn brand—and what happens now that the rest of the world is using it too.

The dimensions of Ambrosia Magazine is 120 pages, 7.5 x 9.5 inches and it weights a heft 465g, which gives an idea of the tactile experience the quality paper providers and the emploted varied  printing teachniques provde.

It’s one of those rare magazines and  that will make the bookshelf and whose volumes will be collected to create an encyclopedic geographic library.

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photo from Ambrosia website

Alter Bridge

Enmore Theatre

Sydney, AU

April 4, 2017

After several runs as openers, the Orlando, Florida-based melodic metal outfit toured Alter Bridge returned to Australia on the back of their fifth album, The Last Hero, for a headline tour.

Drawing from a five album catalogue, Alter Bridge delivered their trademark rangeful vocal melodies courtesy of Myles Kennedy, his 6-string duels with three times Guitar Player of the Year Mark Tremonti’s guitar work and boisterous rhythm section comprised of Brian Marshall and Scott Philips, which was enthusiastically received by their energetic, dedicated audience and further sparked by the engaging, likeable and down-to-earth manner that the band, and specifically the showman Myles Kennedy, displayed.

In a live environment Alter Bridge proves that they are a tightly knit unit with chemistry that grows to something bigger than the sum of its individual constituents would suggest:

Kennedy’s vocal performance, which amped the audience to participate and motivated not just a few faithfuls to give it up and sing along at the top of their lungs, was soulful and near pitch perfect, which is not further wondrous given that Kennedy’s kudos include having auditioned to replace Robert Plant in Led Zeppelin and having honed his performance skills fronting Slash’s band in front of big audiences.

Him handling guitar duties spinning an intricate web in tandem with Tremonti’s anthemic riffs packs a hefty punch and gels well with Phillips’ precision drumming and Brian Marshall’s bass.

The near 2-hour affair touched on the highlights of all of their albums with emissions ranging from ballads to all out bangers with both the satisfied audience’s reaction as well as the turnout being testament to the fact that it was time for Alter Bridge to grace down under with their first headlining tour.