Tag Archives: alternative

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Paul Scott Releases Single ‘Back To The Old Town’

As part of the rollout for his forthcoming 2024 album ‘Faster Than Witches’, The Insufferable one releases the 3rd offering in this 2023 trio of videos and singles already receiving rotation airplay on community stations, most notably Sydney’s 2SER Breakfast the past 10 days.

‘You spend so much time trying to escape and when you do, you’re dragged back for the best and worst possible reasons. I always resented my hometown, why? Because everything was happening everywhere else. I was a provincial; envious, frustrated and motivated to flee. And I did. Whenever I’d return, I held a glimmer of hope in my heart that I’d see the old town in a new light, that time would reveal virtues and treasures previously hidden to me and I’d come to appreciate it with a provincial pride enjoyed by those who stayed. It never happened. And yet, and yet… back to the old town I go.’

Paul Scott’s happy and uptempo look at a childhood spent in small town NZ. Paul’s trademark jangly and hooky indie pop guitars with some very insightful lyrics. The drums and bass lock it all down with a catchy sing along part rolling over and over in the track.

Paul Scott began his career in music, writing and playing bass in angular NZ group Pop Mechanix.  Despite court cases, a revolving cast of singers and multiple record labels, their single ‘Jumping Out A Window’ became a staple of New Zealand pop culture.

Relocating to Australia, Paul formed Montana with Ken Stewart (Mr Blonde), Michelle Margherita and Steve Melville. Their first release featured ‘Koolest Band’ which received national airplay and high rotation on JJJ. A brief tour of the USA and a performance at SXSW, led to ‘Koolest Band’ being included in the Hollywood movie ‘You Drive Me Crazy’. The subsequent album ‘Bubblegum Love’ was released in Australia, Spain, France and the USA.

Teaming up with Steve Melville (ex Mr Blonde and Montana), Paul and Steve have established a studio production relationship, playing on each other’s tracks (Stewart and Melville, The Likes of You) and coproducing The Insufferable Paul Scott’s well received 2021 album ‘Tea and Medals’ (which Melville also mixed).

Their most recent project is a closer collaboration with Melville adding drums, percussion and keyboards to Scott’s voice, guitar and bass, a line up very close in sound and feel to their youthful unit ‘Montana’, harkening back to their familiar themes of sweet harmonies, spikey lyrics, and intriguing production.

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The Insufferable Paul Scott – Back To The Old Town is out NOW Nov 24
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Halfway Homebuoy-New Self Titled Album

In the hallowed halls of Damien Gerard Studios, the band embarked on a three-year-long musical odyssey, painstakingly sculpting each note, lyric, and sonic texture that would eventually coalesce into their magnum opus. This album is more than a collection of songs; it is a testament to Homebuoy’s unyielding dedication to the craft of music production.Time was thier greatest ally throughout this creative journey. Over the span of three years, the band meticulously poured their hearts and souls into every track, allowing each one to evolve and breathe, unfettered by the constraints of hurried production. Damien Gerard Studios provided the ideal canvas for this sonic masterpiece, a space where creativity flowed unhindered, and every sonic nuance was perfected. The result is an album that is not just a collection of songs but a sonic landscape that invites listeners on a transformative and emotionally charged voyage

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It’s been a strange path for Halfway Homebuoy to finally end up as ‘based’ on the NSW Central Coast, an hour north of Sydney.  The band was formed almost 10 years ago on the ski slopes of Switzerland where all of the (then) members were working the season and playing shows at night.

With three Englishmen and one Aussie the band moved out here and were recommended to Foghorn Records where they quickly found a home.  As things happen after a few years the visa’s ran out, the Aussie moved back to Europe and the sole remaining member, principal writer and singer, Jack Davison, married an Aussie and stayed here.  Unfortunately, he was left without a band.

Not to be deterred, Jack found local musicians, new songs were written, live shows booked, a new album released, the band continued on.  Now based on the coast and with a new record almost finished the guys are ready to reboot post lockdown into 2022.

Checkout the new album OUT ON OCTOBER 27 (Foghorn MGM)

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Jessie-May K Releases Album ‘Rising Sun’

Jessie explains below how this first full length album is a triumph over childhood hardship – 

Since escaping, recovering and healing from some childhood traumas, I’m finally experiencing a life where I’m free to live & not just survive. My whole world has opened up! The sun has finally shone through, I can explore people and places freely and breathe life in! Something I never had the chance to do as a child.

The first 18 years of my life were focused on surviving constant anxiety. It bubbled in my chest and body, it was like I hadn’t a second to take a breath. After escaping this situation, my brain and body shut down for a year like never before. My mental health had never been worse. The physicality of my depression & trauma hit me like a tonne of bricks. My mind and body were completely and rightfully exhausted.

I’ve grown the most, tried the most and felt the most free than ever in my life. I’ve met friends who have shown me levels of kindness and support I’d never experienced before and who help me remember life is worth living. I’m at a stage in my life where I’m younger now, a phoenix, regenerated, a Rising Sun. I’m still eclectic as a creator, but with this album I feel like I’ve really found my sound and one that expresses who I am inside.

There are so many people I couldn’t have made this album without! Artists I’ve collaborated with such as Brandon Macmillan, Jordan Ellery and the extraordinarily talented Dave Hunt. My wonderful sound engineers who do a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to these projects: Andrew Beck, Olivia RA, Murray Dilger & Russell Pilling and my Vocal Coach Joanne McMahon.

Jessie-May K is a young Singer, Songwriter, Director, Actor & Artist. Most successful as an internet personality, Jessie has released four singles and a collection of episodic works that accompanied their 5 track EP Zone Out (2020).

Originally trained in Musical Theatre, Jessie transferred to music when they were 16, teaching themselves guitar from YouTube to elevate their musical career, as they had been writing songs with lyrics and melody since they were 5 years old.

Jessie is passionate about social justice and activism, often releasing music about movements that are important to them, raising awareness and sharing donation links in the hopes it will make a difference. Jessie is Neurodivergent and was born with ASD, ADHD, OCD and developed PTSD as a result of their early hardships and extreme childhood trauma. Jessie believes that the world thrives on diversity and that benign individuality is something to be celebrated and not feared.

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John Kennedy – New Review and Tour Dates

Heres the most recent review of John Kennedy’s Raining Treasure Volume 2 (More Australian Indie Gold Covers) by none other than Michael Smith – a bit of an Aussie Icon himself

Before the creative juices are once again unleashed in order to explore the next musical chapter, John Kennedy found there was still a little unfinished business from his past few years of activity, taking stock of various aspects of his back catalogue either as selections from across several releases with 2018’s compilationSecond Best, or remastering his most successful album,Always the Bridegroom, recorded with his band Love Gone Wrong, which topped the Australian Independent Music charts in 1987. Then there was his bit of fun, a collection titled Raining Treasure, loving reinterpretations of his favourite post-punk indie Australian pop singles.

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Well, before he and the band kick into recording an album of new material, Kennedy felt that there was still some fun to be had from those classic singles – and some you would never have imagined crossed the defiantly defended “frontier of cool” that ruled in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. Though, “I don’t think you can beat ’66, ’67 quite frankly,” he admits, “but ’72 gives it a good run.” Enter Raining Treasure Vol. 2. “In terms of engagement with music, it was really the punk, New Wave and then the DIY explosion that followed that which led me to get involved in my first garage bands after school, and then, after an old school friend (singer and guitarist) James Paterson returned from an overseas trip, we formed JFK and the Cuban Crisis and got involved in the Brisbane indie scene. We were the wave behind the Go-Betweens and the Riptides. So all of that was in the background, that early ‘80s golden period of Australian indie and of course there was a lot of great stuff that happened in the late ‘70s and all through the ‘80s on independent record labels, so that’s what was really the inspiration behind these two Raining Treasure albums.

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“The first time around it was pretty much going through my own seven-inch vinyl collection, just picking my favourites or absolute ‘stone-cold’ classics of the genre, and then trying to find our own interpretation, or super-charging them. This time round I did look further to some acts that I would never have been into in that period. I also looked at those two compilations Do The Pop and Tales from the Australian Undergroundand then I was asking other people what they thought would make coolselections. One of the key examples of throwing a wider net for Volume Two came from the band’s bass player Phil Hall. He had noted my aversion to Radio Birdman the first time round and said, ‘Well, here’s one that we might be able to do something with,’ and pitched Radio Birdman’s ‘Hand of Law’. Apart from two or three songs I don’t know much of Radio Birdman’s catalogue, but he played it to me and I liked it but it’s pretty simple and doesn’t go anywhere. It just gets in a groove, which is a good groove, and he suggested that perhaps I could amend the melody and push it a little further – which is what I did – added a few chords to the chorus, and then rather than putting in the ‘Theme from Hawaii Five-O’, we put in ‘Pipeline’, so a little homage to Birdman’s surf-punk genre.”

The least likely song Kennedy could have chosen has to be The Angels’ ‘Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again’. “We have done it as a waltz live, in the past; not very often but in the wake of Doc Neeson’s death as a little bit of a tribute. It’s a great pop song in the original version but it was nice to actually to bring a completely different vibe to it – that’s Phil Hall playing vibes in the background! He’d provided the horns on a couple of songs on Raining Treasure Volume One. The Cruel Sea’s ‘The Drift’ was an interesting choice, and ‘My Pal’ by GOD was a left-of-field selection, but then Phil just worked them and worked them and turned those two into epics.”

And if you’re going to cover The Sports’ ‘Who Listens to the Radio’, why wouldn’t you kick it off with the riff behind Mental as Anything’s ‘Nips Are Getting Bigger’. “It just occurred to me that they’re not too far apart in the groove,” he chuckles. “In our band me and (guitarist) Murray Cook especially are both huge Sports and Mentals fans. And why the reggae groove? If you listen to the rhythm guitar in the Sports original, that’s the rhythm that’s being played. So I just sort of latched onto that with the proviso that we were not making ‘mock’ reggae. We just wanted to touch that flavour.”

Then there’s the upbeat country take on ‘Shivers’. “It’s odd, because I’d call this a classic, but for the Young Charlatans it might have sold in the hundreds, so it’s not a best-seller” – Kennedy perhaps tastefully ignores the fact that The Screaming Jets scored themselves a #19 hit single with it in 1993 – “but it’s still somehow iconic, so how do you take it and offend as many of its original fans as possible?! So we thought we’d go with a country song with banjo to the fore.”

 Checkout Shivers Video

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Raining Treasures Vol. 2sees Kennedy performing his first duet, on a tune titled ‘Face with No Name’. “Phil played in the last reformation of Flaming Hands about two years ago – he was actually playing sax. I obviously knew of them from back in the day but it was also obvious that Julie Mostyn still has a fantastic voice, so when we were thinking about how we would approach the song I asked Phil if Julie would be up for a duet, and happily she was.” And Kennedy unleashed his inner Jim Morrison as the song breaks out into The Doors’ ‘Do You Love Her Madly’.    MICHAEL SMITH

Sydney Upcoming dates

Egg Records Instore, Sat 4 June

Golden Barley Hotel, Sun 5 June

Melbourne Tour Dates

Lomond Hotel, Brunswick East Thurs 16 June (Melbourne album launch)

Dogs Bar, St Kilda on Fri 17

Post Office Hotel, Coburg on Sat 18

 

Stream or Download the album here

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