Robyn Writes

UNDERGROUND DOWN UNDER pt. 2: SOUNDWAVE FESTIVAL 2009 pt. 1 (except Perth) by soufex

The revolution won’t be televised, but they’ll be doing a signing at 3.10!

Brisbane Soundwave/Sydney Soundwave

Soundwave is an Australian music festival that has been around for a couple years now. It kind of existed for a few years before that under a different name, but that was in Perth and nobody really cares about Perth. This year, Naja (my girlfriend) and I went on an epic nomadic journey that encompassed pretty much the entire 2009 Soundwave experience. Apart from Perth, because nobody really cared about Perth. (That and it’s ridiculously expensive to fly out there.)

Some time early on a Saturday morning in February, we hauled our asses from North Geelong to Avalon Airport and a few hours later end up in Brisbane. Brisbane is sticky but has good public transport. There’s a train than runs from the airport pretty much right to the venue’s doorstep. (It would actually run to the venue if Soundwave wasn’t on, how neat is that?) The queue is kind of massive but we’re through with our bags cloaked and hanging out with our friends in front of Stage 2 within half an hour because of killer organisation. (This doesn’t sound important, but trust me on this one…)

Stage 2 is occupied by Forlorn Gaze who have to be seen… and heard, to be believed. During FG’s set, tragic news befalls us. (Turns out I think it was all Chris’ fault?) Big sorry feelings for Brisbane, who also missed out on a Goldfinger headliner show because John Feldmann won’t fly coach. We were kind of freaking out because dear sweet Roger Manganelli is supposed to be playing in another band over Soundwave, and if he’s not here… oh boy.

Having nothing better to do on account of there is absolutely no Jake (considerably Less Than Jake) to be found, we headed over to Stage 3 and found the ever-so-handsome Mike Herrera of MxPx doing an acoustic set of MxPx/Tumbledown songs. What a dude. MxPx are Soundwave veterans and were doing it back when it was Gravity Soundwave in Perth so it makes sense that Mike was there. (I think Yuri is looking after his baby and Tom… I don’t know what Tom was doing so that he wasn’t there.) After that we hung around and caught a few Saves The Day songs before going for a wander to check out the rest of the stages, eat Nutella sandwiches and watch Goldfinger from the bleachers. I keep seeing these things called Dagwood Dogs being sold about the place and it turns out they’re like corn dogs-on-a-stick but they look like roadkill. I never ended up eating one, and thinking about it, it was probably a good thing.

Oh, and there are signing tents! So we lined up to get tickets to fawn over The Bloodhound Gang, gave props to a dude from the Riverboat Gamblers who was wearing a Black Fag: Jealouth Again shirt and I decided that Anthony from Bayside kind of definitely looks better with bleached hair. The BHG are really nice guys. Jimmy Pop gives me a kiss on the cheek and I left the tent thinking everyone I’ve ever met from Pennsylvania is really nice. Speaking of, they put on a good show and there’s nothing quite like a few thousand slightly sunburnt people singing I need to find a new vagina. Jared performs his regurgitation party trick and we see his Aussie flag undies for the first but certainly not last time. Between them and your new favourite band were Rival Schools over on Stage 3 and it was really cool to just chill out in a big car park watching cool dudes play cool music.

INNERPARTYSYSTEM ARE YOUR NEW FAVOURITE BAND. They’ve kind of been my new favourite band since October but I finally got to see them play and they’re amazing. So there. Stage 5 is kind of in a little clearing all of its own with benches and a summer house, and there were these big trees facing the stage and all these kids watching the bands in the trees. Very cool. Say Anything were on after them, running late because of Bemis as usual. I really like SA but Max is such a diva. They were like 20 minutes late and we caught a couple songs but they weren’t so great that night and seeing as they didn’t pull Trever Keith over for an off-the-cuff rendition of People Like You Are Why People Like Me Exist I lost interest and we popped back over to Stage 3 where all the action and awesome is.

Well, almost all the action and awesome. We ended up accidentally catching the end of Chiodos’ set and I don’t like Chiodos (they don’t even get b-tags i don’t like them that much). New Found Glory weren’t bad (although I still maintain that Jordan Pundik is too old for this shit) and Alkaline Trio had the slowest roadie in the universe. One day I will see Alk-3 when they’re not before the band I really came to see and I will probably enjoy their show a lot more. I mean, hell yeah they’re good but there’s always the nagging omfg get off the stage already voice in the back of my head chanting over I won’t have to quit doing fucked up shit.

And then oh my stars, it’s Face To Face! I hadn’t seen f2f since before my birthday last year, in which I nearly broke my nose, Naja most certainly broke her hand and I had a couple of nasty panic attacks (and again the day after at The Bamboozle Left when no other than Alk-3 was playing before them, alas). Their usual bass player, Scott Shiflett (listen to viva dea h…) is sick as a dog and couldn’t make the flight out to Australia so they pulled in Roger from Less Than Jake and he kicks ass. Seriously amazing. My love for him increases twofold. Things are rad. We catch the free train out to the suburbs and stay at a friend’s house, and his mother lets us shower and sleep in a real bed and gives us a taxi number so we can get back out to Brisbane Airport four hours later, good times.

The taxi cost us an arm and a leg and we bitch about it for a few minutes, then we almost lose one of our friends’ tickets- we’re not even in Sydney and the dark cloud of failure that hangs over the place is already cursing us! At least we’re then in the company of awesome friends and a rental car and we head over to the fucking Eastern Creek Raceway, get lost for a couple hours, finally make it out to the middle of bumfuck nowhere Blacktown and then, and then we get seriously wailed on by The Curse Of Sydney Soundwave.

So last year’s Sydney Soundwave was reportedly the worst festival in Australia in 2008 due to hideous organisation. (And we figured, since they had it all sorted in Brisbane the day before… we figured wrong.) This year, it ain’t much better. We stand in line for three hours and miss Mike Herrera, Less Than Jake (and man are we pissed for missing LTJ two days in a row), Bayside, Riverboat Gamblers and Goldfinger. We are not pleased. There’s a second entrance that nobody knows about. The venue layout is nothing short of dire, meaning there’s a tiny bottleneck right next to the metal stage, and all six stages are lined up so sometimes you can hear the other stages playing around you very loudly. Oh, and they have taps for free water but nothing to put it in. Enough crabbing on about how shit the Raceway is, we catch Straylight Run, 20 minutes of IPS and then trot on over for the BHG. (I like bands from Pennsylvania who can be abbreviated to three letters, it seems.)

We end up catching most of Dillinger Escape Plan and I still don’t like them. Well, that’s not true, I like one or two of their songs. It’s just that I also like full use of my ears and digestive system and apparently one cannot have both. Once I’d felt like barfing out my intestines from superhxc double-kick we raced plastic bottles along the barrier and saw BHG again and it was better than Brisbane which was nice. We caught some of Billy Talent and then waltzed over for Rival Schools (still awesome), New Found Glory (still pubescent), Alkaline Trio (who still need to fire their exceedingly slow roadie, he might realise he’s fired next week) and Face To Face (still better than you). Trever announces that because of the response at Soundwave after two shows, f2f are coming back to Australia next year. Naja and I break a few glasses from squealing. Life is awesome.

next up- Sydney Sidewaves/Melbourne Sidewave/Melbourne Soundwave/(R)Adelaide Soundwave!

Underground Down Under Pt. 1 by soufex

Going on a five-month sabbatical to the other side of the world doesn’t mean I can just abandon my post as a writer for the heavenly scripture that is Two Beats Off! – so I am taking it upon myself to write home about Things That Rock Here, in fairly regular installations.

(Now, by no means am I here because I am rich; I’m just lucky that an unnamed acquaintance gave me the airmiles for a return ticket. To be honest, if it weren’t for the fact that my girlfriend lives here, I probably would never have visited. As it stands, here I am!)

I’m living in Melbourne until mid-April, and I have to say, I’m very stoked about it. Melbourne is awesome.

The scene here is wicked. And so far, I can say only rivalled by Wollongong, some 500 miles up the coast in New South Wales and has a ridiculously cool handful of bands that remind me why I love punk rock. Saying that, Melbourne is home to some fantastic musicians and some lovely venues. (I’ll write about the venues soon, but there are still a good few I haven’t been to yet and just need an excuse to check out.) That’s not to say every band here is awesome because some of them are kind of awful, but I guess it’s the same everywhere you go. However, my girlfriend insists this lot are fine:

Yidcore

Local Resident Failure

Subject To Change

Commissioner Gordon

There’s so much more to this city – to this country – but there’s a lot of time ahead and a lot more fun to be had, so keep yourselves busy with this for now!

~sfx

Achievement unlocked?

Just lately, I’ve found myself playing the games on PS3 which have trophies more than the ones which don’t. “Okay Ripper, what does that mean?” you might ask. Well, I don’t know. Maybe it’s the proud feeling when one pops up in the right hand corner of the screen. Perhaps it’s the fact that it means I get a lot of replay value out of those games and as such, the Scrooge in me feels compelled to play them more. It could be my competitive streak – I’m a member of several gaming communities where you can compare your current trophy level with other players. I just don’t know, but lately, I’ve become a damn trophy whore.

For the uninitiated, let me briefly explain the PS3 trophy system. For achieving certain feats or beating different points within the game, you can get trophies. A bronze is usually an easy trophy to get, silver is a bit more difficult and gold can be damn near impossible on some games (here’s looking at you, Bioshock). When you’ve got every trophy in the game, you get a platinum, which are pretty coveted on online communities. I only have one platinum, I’m not that hardcore. The Xbox 360 has a similar system with achievements – you get so many points for each one you unlock, eventually culminating in 1000 points per game. It’s an excellent tool for fuelling your online ego – boasting about how big your Gamerscore is, or how many platinums you’ve got. Trophy hunting takes discipline and hard work if you want to be the best. Some people dedicate every ounce of their free time to this endeavour. I like to think I’m a casual trophy whore, but then I downloaded Linger In Shadows because it had easy trophies to get and was cheap. So maybe this is growing into a kind of obsession.

The disturbing part of this is that it could overlap into real life. It already is in various respects – I scrobble everything I listen to on Last.FM in an effort to boost my play count to 15,000; I post on various forums and feel a little bit of joy when my post count hits another hundred or thousand; I collect tons of stuff and will spend relative amounts of money and time on rare action figures and so on. I could apply the trophy system directly to certain aspects of my life that I’m trying to do better in. Maybe that’s a good thing! It could be useful when it comes to my exams – get a bronze for finishing them all, get a gold for getting all A’s, get the platinum for getting into university. Who knows, if I think about it like that, I might spend less time writing articles like this and more time studying. I’m trying to get in shape this summer, so if I apply my new trophy system, that could help! Bronze for not touching chocolate until Fridays, silver for losing a few pounds, gold for going down a dress size. On the downside, there’s slightly creepier and lame ones which I won’t mention, but you get the picture.

Although, this could be applied on a wider scale, if you think about it. How about measuring your whole life in trophies? Bronze for every birthday you reach. Silver for doing every stupid thing you might want to try out. Gold for reaching something important – like getting the degree, getting married, having your first child. Those are achievements, even though the reward is the event itself. However, this is something worth thinking about. I don’t know what it is, but I’ve noticed a lack of ambition in my town as of late. It seems like a lot of people I know have just given up on trying to achieve anything, and when they do, it’s only because they’re pushed by somebody else, not because they really want it. Would a real life ‘trophy system’ help? The truth is, we all need goals before we get anywhere, otherwise we lack focus and give up. So, those dreams are my goals, and those are my trophies. I just hope I achieve enough of them to get the platinum before my time is up.

Alkaline Trio – 21/5/10 [O2 Academy Birmingham]

To view photos for this show, see my Flickr – http://www.flickr.com/photos/twobeatsoff/

There was a lot of trouble concerning this show. To begin with, I wasn’t even planning on going – I was going to catch the 30th anniversary Bad Religion show instead. However, my friend bought a ticket and wanted me to go with her, so I gave up on the Bad Religion (I could always dream that they were doing Reading Festival this year) and booked myself in. That same friend then didn’t get her ticket in time for the show and couldn’t go. It could have potentially turned into a disaster, but I’d persuaded Kitteh to come along a couple of weeks previously, so everything was just peachy in the end.

Alkaline Trio are always one of those bands that I’d missed on pretty much every tour they ever did. Even if I was in the same vicinity as them, I ended up missing them, which I found pretty weird for one of my favourite bands. I put it partly down to transport – I used to have to get my dad to drive me everywhere – and also down to lots of other bands touring at the same time. When you’re relying on other people to get you there, you have to go with what they say. So term time means easy access to Birmingham, which means I get to go to shit. And then get yelled at by my mother for spending money. However, I think if she’d have witnessed the Alkaline Trio set, she’d heartily approve.

First up on the bill were Me Vs Hero, a pop-punk band from Blackpool. Well, I say pop-punk, but this sure as hell wasn’t some Fall Out Boy shit – this was from the new school of pop-punk spliced with hardcore, which is precisely what I like. They were much better than I expected them to be, but then I realised that they would be when I saw their baseball t-shirts at the merch stand. To get a clear idea of their sound, imagine New Found Glory but with a lot more breakdowns and a lot more British. Though they may be lacking the diversity of NFG’s sound, they certainly weren’t lacking the passion and played brilliantly. The set was ridiculously fun, and I can tell that I’ll be hearing a lot more from them. The ‘pop-core’ sound is perfect for the summer and it wouldn’t surprise me to see a lot more jumping around, hair flying everywhere and sweet, sweet breakdowns at Reading. Even if their guitarist did have some very girly sounding screams.

Next up were Set Your Goals, also on Epitaph, which I suppose links how they were playing with Alkaline Trio. I thought that the two supporting bands possibly didn’t fit so well with the headliner, but even so, I was glad they were there. Would it be going too far to suggest that Set Your Goals were the best band of the evening? I certainly don’t think so. I saw SYG at Reading and, if I’m being honest, wasn’t all that impressed. Their sound was a bit weak then, but they had no problem owning the venue tonight with their own brand of pop-punk. Despite the lack of a circlepit, the set was excessively fun as they whipped out some old material in the form of ‘Goonies Never Say Die’ and some new stuff from their latest release, ‘This Will Be The Death Of Us’. The dual vocalist effect worked much better here than at Reading, but even so, I’d love to see Set Your Goals in a much smaller venue, as I think that’s where their sound would come out best. Not to mention the crowd would probably go fucking mental. Kitteh was very enthralled with Audelio’s screams as he threw his guitar at Jordan and took centre stage to show us all how to growl like a real man! The new material sounded absolutely stellar and I’m very much looking forwards to their next headline tour.

Alkaline Trio had the best opening of any band ever. Even better than when Story Of The Year came on to the Star Wars theme. Only Alkaline Trio can get away with dancing onto the stage to a bit of ghoulish pop. Fresh off their European tour, Alkaline Trio were headlining a big tour across the UK and Birmingham was the first to witness it. Dan Andriano came out with a fantastic beard, Matt Skiba had a proper old man cap… oh, if only fightclubsandwich were there. That was probably the most accessible part of their set however, because if you weren’t a huge Alkaline Trio fan, you’d have been entirely lost by half of their set. While they covered a couple of singles like ‘Private Eye’, ‘Stupid Kid’ and ‘We’ve Had Enough’, the vast majority of their set was built up of ‘From Here To Infirmary’ material and previous, leaving much of the audience lost, including Kitteh. However, I’ve been listening to this shit since I was 10, so I was alright. Even if you didn’t get their set so much, you could still appreciate the performance, as it was absolutely blinding. Their skill as musicians was certainly showcased well as the band swapped around for the encore with Dan on guitar and Matt on drums, and he certainly mixed up his vocals gloriously throughout the rest of the show, displaying that yes, Alkaline Trio aren’t just revered for their dark, tongue in cheek lyrics. Even though there was plenty of that on show with ‘Mr Chainsaw’ and my own personal favourite, ‘This Could Be Love’. The crowd were possibly not as responsive as the band would have liked, as they cracked jokes and tried to get a bit more of a reaction. However, we were the first show on the tour, so the band could possibly have been testing the waters. Whatever it was, it didn’t work and sadly, a lot of the people around me were not having as good as time as they should have been. I don’t attribute this to the band, but to the twelve year old dickheads who didn’t know what the fuck to do. That said, the Trio could have picked a better set list with a few more of the singles. It was actually a reasonably low-key set, as they played a lot of their more mellow material. There was something for everyone though in their 90 minute set, as they finished on classic ‘Radio’. They might have been better off ending on a slightly more high-energy song, but it kept the fans happy and I was definitely surprised and delighted to see it played. It’s plain to see that Alkaline Trio are still kicking and have bounced back spectacularly with latest album, ‘This Addiction’. Here’s hoping that next time they return, we’re all a bit better prepared.

Best albums of 2009, best albums of the decade

As we reach the end of the decade, there is really only one question to ask – which were the best albums of the noughties? Truthfully, I’m far too lazy to fulfil that request. There have been some absolutely spectacular records and to ask me to choose would just be too much. However, choose I shall try. In order to make this a little easier on myself, I’m going to name my top five albums of this year first, and then move onto the top five of the decade. Disagree with my choices? Email me at ripper@twobeatsoff.co.uk with yours and I’ll put them all up for consideration!

Top 5 albums of 2009
There were some difficult choices to make this year. Firstly, I bought hardly anything that was actually released this year, and secondly, everything I did buy was pretty damn amazing. What can I say, I have discerning tastes! Anyway, if you haven’t picked up these releases, I highly recommend you do.

5) Chuck Ragan – Gold Country
Gold Country is Chuck’s foray into solo territory, and there really is only one word to describe this album – beautiful. It’s an absolutely incredible alt-country effort, featuring some of the most incredible melodies I’ve ever heard, all tied together with Chuck’s incredibly gruff voice at the centre. It also works fantastically live, and having seen Chuck at Reading Festival this year, all fears I had of it not being quite as good as Hot Water Music were removed. Plus, y’know, Tim McIllrath appeared and that makes everything doubly awesome anyway.

Recommended songs: Glory, Rotterdam, Don’t Say A Word

4) Kevin Devine – Brother’s Blood
I’m a pretty big KD fan as it is, but when I got my hands on Brother’s Blood, I was blown away. It’s got everything his albums have had before – pretty songs, angry songs, melancholy songs, optimistic songs – but the way that they’re presented on Brother’s Blood is entirely different and better, and it’s incredibly varied. First single, Another Bag Of Bones is dark, disturbing and hits you hard, whereas Fever Moon is a slow, almost drunken seduction, and I Could Be With Anyone is in grand old KD tradition – totally upbeat but lyrically devastating. If you listen to Brand New and you’ve never heard of this guy, make sure you change things. Not only because you’ll probably like him, but because he tours with them pretty much every year.

Recommended songs: Fever Moon, Yr Husband, All Of Everything Erased

3) Say Anything – Say Anything
Say Anything’s fourth effort (I am totally counting Baseball) is just… awesome. To be honest, while I liked In Defence of the Genre, I didn’t think it really lived up to what it could have been. Too many songs, too many guest stars, and it just didn’t work as well for me. This, however, brings SA back to top form. It’s not another …Is A Real Boy, it’s completely new and fresh, and yet still sounds familiar enough to add to its charm. Musically, it’s more experimental, as Bemis plays around with horns and strings, and lyrically, it’s utterly adorable. It’s a love story from start to finish, almost, and it’s sweet. And clever.

Recommended songs: Do Better, Eloise, Death For My Birthday

2) AFI – Crash Love
What?! I’m reviewing top albums and AFI aren’t on top?! Might be a bit of a shock, but to tell the truth, it just wasn’t the best album of the year. Of course, it was still pretty damn good. AFI have changed over the years, it’s true, and as a result, everything sounds fragmented as a result of them trying to find the right style. On Crash Love, they’ve found it. Admittedly, it’s incredibly 80s, but that’s okay, because it sounds great. All that experimenting has paid off. Davey is as melodramatic as ever, Jade’s guitar’s got even more pretentious and Hunter and Adam are still solid, so it’s all good. I also happen to like songs about death and breakups, so this is the album for me.

Recommended songs: End Transmission, Darling I Want To Destroy You, Too Shy To Scream

1) Frank Turner – Poetry Of The Deed
Well, what can I say? Since finding out about Frank in February, he has slowly been creeping up my Last.FM chart to take over some of my previous favourites, and with good reason – the man’s a genius. Poetry Of The Deed is testament to this statement, because there are barely words to describe it. It’s smart, it’s beautiful, it’s snarky, it’s dark, it’s happy – it’s fucking good music, to put it simply. It’s another album full of anthems, and it’s absolutely impossible to avoid his charm – all my friends fell in love with him on first listen. There is absolutely no bad part of Poetry Of The Deed. If you haven’t listened to it yet, may I recommend that this should be top of your Christmas list this year.

Recommended songs: Try This At Home, Richard Devine, The Road

Okay, so we’ve had my favourite albums of this year. However, there’s been a whole decade of incredible music! Attempting to narrow this down into five albums will be excessively difficult. However, I can but try. Here are my top five albums of the decade… however difficult and ridiculous this may be.

5) Midtown – Forget What You Know
Midtown’s final and best album, by far. This is the Gabe Saporta I idolised, not the sleazebag discowhore that he is today. FWYK is some serious stuff. It’s all heartbreak and politics and lyrics that grab you by the throat and make you pay attention. It’s inspirational, and hell, it sounds it. The thirteen minute epic at the end, So Long As We Keep Our Bodies Numb, is potentially one of the most caustic and similarily, most beautiful songs I’ve ever heard. Midtown are definitely one of my favourite hidden gems and I curse the day they went on hiatus, because this needs to be heard and never forgotten.

Recommended songs: Empty Like The Ocean, Waiting For The News, Whole New World

4) Millencolin – Pennybridge Pioneers
I love Millencolin, as you may well know. This is the album that shot them to fame, with that incredible opener featured on THPS2, No Cigar. Whilst No Cigar is an absolutely amazing song, there is so much more on here to be enamoured with. Pennybridge bounces along, filled with enough pop-punk jollies to make you lose a few pounds jumping around with it. It’s the ultimate feel-good album and it’s fantastic. And who else can get away with comparing a car to a girlfriend? Best experienced loudly and obnoxiously.

Recommended tracks: Fox, No Cigar, The Ballad

3) The Lonely Island – Incredibad
Of all the albums I could have chosen… just hear me out, okay? Out of all the white boy rap albums out there, this one is actually good. And why? Because it isn’t trying to be. The brainchild of the comedy troupe of the same name, featuring SNL regular Andy Samberg, this album touches on such topics as impregnating aliens, being on a boat and making everyone dance/shag by slamming a boombox down. It’s so ridiculous that it’s fantastic. And surprisingly, the beats work so well. It also has the best guest stars I’ve ever heard on an album, including Julian Casablanca, Jack Black and Natalie Portman. You heard me.

Recommended tracks: I’m On A Boat, Punch You In The Jeans, Incredibad

2) Against Me! – As The Eternal Cowboy
Against Me!’s 2001 effort is definitely one of my favourite albums of all time, let alone this decade. Reinventing Axl Rose was great enough, but ATEC just took it to a new level. It’s not as raw, but still as poignant, still as hard hitting, still as entertaining. Gabel’s voice gets less shouty, more powerful and it totally works, and I can’t deny singing along loudly (and badly) to Sink.Florida.Sink at every opportunity I get, which generally means it’s a pretty amazing song. If there is an album for the summer, it is this – Floridians know how to do it best, after all.

Recommended songs: Sink.Florida.Sink, You Look Like I Need A Drink, Cavalier Eternal

1) AFI – The Art Of Drowning
This album is the album that founded my love of music, not just my love of AFI. It’s actually really difficult to say why, because I just love it, with no real explanation, but try I shall. This is the album where AFI were at their best – still punk, but with a bit more of an edge than they’d ever had before, due to utilising Jade correctly. Lyrically, it’s fantasy, pure and simple – Davey’s metaphors got out of hand and it was glorious. There’s something wonderfully passionate about this album which AFI’s albums have been lacking ever since, and the end of an era. I really can’t give this album enough praise. Without this album, I would not be the same person I am today.

Recommended tracks: Wester, Morningstar, The Nephilim… hell, all of it.