Live Review – Thousand in Twenty at the Zoo 15/07

To celebrate a thousand issues and 20 years since its inception, local street press Rave Magazine put together a bit of a Brisbane all-star gig at the Zoo last night. Indie rockers Velociraptor opened the night to a fairly sparse crowd, sporting 11 of their 12 members tonight (well, 10 members for the first couple of songs as main frontman Jeremy Neale explained, “Lauren’s parking her car but we’ll have a keyboard player at any moment.”). There were a few moments where you had to wonder maybe six guitars in are too many guitars in one band, with some of the heavier moments sounding a little messy. Despite this, the group put on an exciting show, high in energy and enthusiasm.

Keeping in theme of bands with a ridiculous amount of members, folk-pop group Inland Sea were up next, opening their set with ‘Traitor’. Tonight they were down a few members, namely their string section which unfortunately impacted on their overall sound quite a bit. The strings add a much needed middle ground between ‘soft’ and ‘soaring’. It seemed like the group tried to make up for the lack of strings by simply being louder, instead coming across as overdone rather than enthusiastic. ‘All Fall Down’ was enjoyable, as it is simply a beautiful song (as is that whole EP actually), but for the most part the set failed to impress.

Highly anticipated, Dave McCormack of Custard fame took to the stage next. Custard, or any of McCormack’s other projects, have never really featured too heavily in any of my music adventures so I didn’t really know what to expect from the set. A few glitches with the synth/keyboard (which Seja Vogel from Sekiden/Regurgitator was helping out on) early in the set stalled things a little bit, but was a fairly seamless performance overall. McCormack proved that he’s still a mighty fine performer and enigmatic frontman.

Easily the most highly anticipated act of the night (apart from the ‘mystery’ headline act) was the Brisband Experience. Consisting of members from Hungary Kids of Hungary, Drawn from Bees, The Boat People, Rhubarb, the Blood Poets, Transport and as also Katie Noonan, the group performed some classic songs fromBrisbanebands. ‘Breath in Now’ by george was as beautiful as ever, with Katie Noonan showing that she still has an amazing voice. Rhubarb’s ‘Exerciser’ and the Go-Betweens ‘Streets of Your Town’ were both highlights that prompted some nice sing-a-longs. However the best moment of the set was easily the cover of Savage Garden’s ‘To the Moon and Back’, where Dan James of Drawn from Bees helped to turn a fairly corny song into something pretty awesome.

There were a lot of names thrown around as to who the mystery headline act could have been. Powderfinger, Robert Forster, Butterfingers, sixfthick and the Grates were a few rumours floating around. Most punters consistently guessed the act to be Regurgitator though, and there was a roar of applause as the trio walked onto the stage. Performing a classic hits style set, the ‘Gurge certainly made a spectacular comeback toBrisbane’s live music scene. Opening with ‘I Sucked a Lot of Cock to Get Where I am’ and then continuing on through favourites like ‘My Friend Robot’, ‘I Wanna be a Nudist’ and ‘The Drop’ there wasn’t a dull moment to the set. ‘Black Bugs’ transformed into a brief rendition of ‘Sweet Child O Mine’ and Seja Vogel came back to help out on synths for a few tracks, making ‘Polyester Girl’ a particular highlight. They closed their far too short set with ‘! (The Song Formerly Known As)’ and ‘Kung Foo Sing’, leaving most patrons on a trip down memory lane.

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CD Review – Seja

Seja – We Have Secrets but Nobody Cares

7/10

It took me a long time to get my hands on this album (as you probably – hopefully! – read last Sunday), so in my head I built it up to be the most awesome album of all time. Listening to We Have Secrets but Nobody Cares with these fairly high expectations was a huge mistake as it certainly didn’t live up to that self-imposed title. But once I got past this idea and listened to the album without any of these ridiculous expectations, it was actually pretty good.

For those of you unfamiliar with Seja Vogel, she’s been around the local Brisbane scene for a few years now. She started out in indie pop band Sekiden, playing keyboards and vocals but was then recruited by Regurgitator to be their touring keyboard player. We Have Secrets but Nobody Cares is her debut solo album, and a bit of a departure from both of those styles. Composed almost entirely on her collection of vintage synths, a unique style of rich and lush sounding pop music has come about (but I must stress, it is nothing like the horrendous 80s synth pop we’ve been hearing in mainstream music lately).

Lead single ‘I’ll Get to You’ and ‘We Can’t See Past Our Hands’ both have gorgeous melodies and are possibly the catchiest of all the tracks. ‘Wir Haben Geheimnisse’ (which actually translates to be the title track!) is sweet and makes for an interesting change being sung in Vogel’s native German. The extremely intimate ‘We Begin’ lets Vogel’s vocals come to the forefront a little, and it’s the first time on the album where you realise just how gorgeous the timbre of her voice is. The focus of the album seems to be harmonies with light melodies that don’t overshadow the musical soundscape.

The style of music varies a bit on the album. ‘Framed in Fiction’ is sombre electronica featuring male vocals, and a personal favourite, and ‘Fire This Fuel’ is poppier and much closer to the style of music Vogel played with Sekiden. For the most part the different styles work pretty well and keep things interesting. I guess the only downfall of the album is that it gets a little too simple at times, ‘One Year Later’ being the prime example, especially when held against some of the better crafted tracks. On some listens the middle section of the album tends to lull a little bit, since these tracks have a style closer to ambient dream pop. While I wouldn’t say that this is a spectacular release, it certainly is a classy album, and only a sign of what more is to come from this talented artist.

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Sunday Thoughts – Accessing Local Music

If you follow me on Twitter, you probably heard me rant a few weeks ago about how difficult it was to get Seja’s debut solo album. I went to two out of the three JB HiFi’s in the city, as well as Rockinghorse – no luck. As I was sprinting around the city I couldn’t help but think ‘I bet Skinny’s would have stocked this‘.  Yes, I’m still a bit devastated that Skinny’s is no more.

Fellow blogger Darragh suggested I just buy it from iTunes…I looked into it, but to be honest I couldn’t justify spending $17 to download an album, when I could spend $20 and buy the CD and have it on display for all who enter my house to see. I finally tracked down the album on the JB HiFi online store, and went back to one of the stores in the city with this information. Of course they had no idea what I was talking about, so I just sucked it up and bought online. I finally received it in the mail last week.

For the most part, it’s not too bad trying to find local music JB HiFi and if it isn’t there it will definitely be in Rockinghorse. But every now and then, like with the Seja album, it just isn’t. And if you miss the live show, what are you supposed to do? Surely I’m not the only one who doesn’t want to buy their music from iTunes?

Alright, yes, it is me being picky about value for money but I can’t imagine spending more than $10 on a download unless I actually get some extra tracks or PDF to go with it. Do any other Brisbane-ites have suggestions where to get local music (or if they managed to actually buy the Seja album in real life….). Or how about readers from other cities – is it difficult for you as well?

I can’t help but think that if it wasn’t so difficult to access local music that these bands would be doing a lot better, and selling a lot more records.

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