Live Review: 7Bit Hero EP Launch

Live Review: 7Bit Hero EP Launch.

Interview with Tasha D from Smoking Martha

Interview with Tasha D from Smoking Martha.

Cool Kids and Coloured Cups – A Review of Brisbane Society of Sound’s Launch Party

Cool Kids and Coloured Cups – A Review of Brisbane Society of Sound’s Launch Party.

Our First Review! – The Halls – Self-Titled EP / Demo

Review: The Halls – Self-Titled EP / Demo.

A guide to the boring side of music

Oh yeah, this is going to be a super exciting post. You’d better avert your eyes now before you fall asleep.

borrrrring

For reasons that must remain mysterious (I’ll tell you the whole story when I can. I promise!), The Halls have needed to hire a music lawyer and set up some proper businessy stuff.

I guess at some point, it becomes necessary to run your band like a business.

Gawsh, it really is irritating stuff, though. For example, I want to get us an ABN (Australian Business Number). But the application form for an ABN told me that to proceed in my application, I need to provide an ACN (Australian Company Number). So, i moseyed on over to get our band an ACN. But what do you know, guess what you need to be eligible for an ACN? An ABN!!! Lol. It just makes no sense, it’s like a loop of evil. I need to call these cats on my day off and ask them what the dealio is.

 

Setting up a joint bank account is also proving to be a bitch, as we all have to be present on the same day to sign for it. Which is dang near impossible during the week, with all our different schedules. So we’re just going to use one of Ged’s savings accounts for now. (We trust him, haha.)

 

Anyway, it’s lucky me and Ged are organised in terms of this kind of stuff. If it were up to Ross and James, probably none of this would get done. I don’t blame them at all though, it’s just not their forte. (Just like being a cool laid back rad guy with crazy hair isn’t my forte). Ross and James are the chilled ones, and me and Ged are the hyper ones. Although Ged is pretty chill, actually. Maybe it’s just me who’s the hyper one.Moving on – if you ever need a lawyer for music contracts and the like, Darren Sanicki of GI & Sanicki Lawyers in Melbourne is amazing. He is a musician himself, and went on to practice music law. He has tons of experience, and their firm specialises in music, entertainment and intellectual property law. They rep clients like Cat Stevens, Matt Corby and tons of great Aussie artists. Darren is the nicest guy, and really knows his stuff. Yes, The Halls are pretty poor right now and it’s hard to afford to pay lawyers. But it’s really worth it to understand the nitty gritty of things.Music business 101: never make the mistake of signing a contract without totally understanding it first! Even if you think you understand it! I’m not a total dumbass, but law contracts seem to be freaking designed as hard to read. I found a sentence in something we’re looking at that went on for nearly 2 paragraphs; it’s just so dense, and there’s a lot to take in. I think I understand the stuff – but there is so much of it that you instantly forget what you’ve just read – it turns your brain into a sieve. Hence, a laywer – someone you pay to explain this crap to you in plain English.

 

If you ever need legal advice, QMusic has a great resource page with links to a bunch of .pdf files. QMusic is a Queensland arts organization, but I think their fact files would be helpful for any Australian or even international musician. For example, the management agreement .pdf is amazing and explains the usual clauses of a management contract. It tells you what is industry standard, what things to watch out for, and what things it may be necessary to add into the contract to protect you and your band.

QMusic resources
QMusic Management .pdf

Arts Law Centre of Australia is also a GREAT resource if you need free, or much-cheaper-than-usual legal advice. The only reason we didn’t go with this is that the turnaround time can be up to 3 weeks, and we don’t have that much time. Everything is outsourced to professional music lawyers, and you get 2 contract reviews and several phone advices included in whatever you end up paying. (They quoted us $280 for what we wanted done. Which is pretty rad, especially split between band members). So if you have the time to wait for a few weeks for an answer, talk to Arts Law!

QMusic also has a range of links (Down the bottom of the ‘resources’ page) that outlines what should be present in various relationship agreements. A band agreement is a really useful thing to set up for your band. Once you’re actually taking in some dollars, it is fair to everyone to work out some sort of concrete rules for who gets what percentage of what. The Halls have decided to go quarters in everything. I know that some of us come up with some songs more than others and blah blah blah, but we really feel that each of us puts as much effort into the band as we possibly can. We want everyone to feel like they’re on equal footing, and we all love each other, so in reality it doesn’t seem fair to me if I was making a big chunk more than anyone else or vice versa.

Lastly, here’s a pretty cool & no-nonsense, if slightly bogan, guide to tax stuff for your band. As well as ABNs and boring bank stuff. Yes, it’s from coverbands.com.au, but this is just as viable for originals bands.

Hope some of these links will prove useful for you. Have a great week!

🙂 Bec

The agony and the ecstasy (okay, only the agony) of music as torture

Music as torture?…No, I’m not talking about the latest Justin Bieber record. I’m talking about music used as a weapon. To torture people. This post’s about to get a little dark. It’s such a fascinating topic, though…

I saw a documentary (‘Songs of War’, by Al Jazeera) about this phenomenon on ABC a while ago. The documentary was about music being used on prisoners in detainment camps in Guantanamo Bay during the ‘war on terror’. Because of this practice, the use of music for torture has made its way into the public eye over the last few years. Music use for interrogation has been banned by the UN, but heresy statements by ex-prisoners suggest it’s still being used today (personally, I wouldn’t put it past the American military to do this). Prisoners in the documentary said they were strapped down in chairs and blasted with jackhammer-loud music, including tunes by Slayer, Eminem, Metallica, AC/DC – and even Sesame Street and Barney songs (ultra creepy). This music was played at very loud volumes for hours or days on end, causing sleep deprivation and extreme emotional reactions (some prisoners say they would have attempted suicide if any method were available to them). Prisoners also said that patriotic/culturally offensive songs were often chosen, like “White America” by Eminem or “Born in the USA” by Springsteen – deliberately chosen to break their spirits. A public statement from Captain John Kirby pretty much denied all this, saying that music was used as a ‘disincentive’, but that it wasn’t torture. Kirby declined to mention which music was played, or if the method is still in use, but said, “It’s done in a measured way, in keeping with our obligation and commitment to treating detainees humanely.”

Guantanamo Bay. This aint no carnival.

Something I found really interesting was one particular style of music torture mentioned by detainees. The military would sometimes play two contrasting songs (of different tempos, keys, etc) simultaneously to prisoners. For example, a metal song playing up against a Sesame Street tune. Can you imagine? I’m not surprised that this would drive someone mad, in extended doses. Dissonance is a really powerful weapon. It’s even been classified as ‘evil’. Between the Middle Ages to the end of the Renaissance, the tritone (a restless, quite dissonant-sounding interval) was de-classified as a chord, and effectively banned from music use. Some reports say that musicians were excommunicated by their churches if they even played this chord (although this is widely considered to be an exaggeration now). Nevertheless, the tritone was nicknamed ‘the devil’s chord’, and its sound has always been associated with a scary, ominous mood. (Just watch any horror movie and listen to the score). Dissonance, even in a musical context, seems to quantitatively affect us humans, creating an emotion or physical feeling of unease.

Director of the Human Rights Project at Bard College, Thomas Keenan, has said that the same reason people love music is why it’s an effective tool for torture. “It is music’s capacity to take over your mind and invade your inner experience that makes it so terrifying.” I’ve never (thankfully) been in a position of being tortured, but listening to music you don’t like can seriously feel torturous on its own… Think about it, some of those prisoners are from completely different cultural backgrounds. They might never have heard rock or heavy metal music before, and certainly not blasted at ear-splitting levels for hours on end. My older co-worker, who prefers retro-style pop, finds most heavy metal absolutely excruciating to listen to. She told me it seems to physically give her a headache. I myself actually left a store I was shopping in the other day, because a Reece Mastin song was playing. I couldn’t stand it – really, truly hate this guy’s music. Especially this awful, awful song.

This might sound like I’m making a joke, but I’m not. I do like some pop music, but this guy’s music is bad on every level to me. Every instrument in the music is playing the worst kind of uncreative, boppy pop. The bassline pisses me off. The overall sound is so shiny and bouncy that it cuts through me like a dagger. Reece’s voice is gratingly bright and loud, and the melody is horribly unlikeable, yet somehow extremely catchy. The song makes me feel truly uncomfortable listening to it. Oh, and of course the lyrics are terrible. Ugh!! “Maybe rock and roll is here to stay”. Yes, it probably is Reece. But you and your ear poison aren’t! Never! *breathes heavily * I wish I could just avoid this song, but working in a shopping mall, I probably hear it at least once a day somewhere.

As Jennifer Senior from New York Magazine writes, there are physical reasons for exactly why music can be torturous to humans. Especially when humans listen to music from different cultural backgrounds that they can’t ‘predict’:

“Loud music can’t be shut out in the same way that loud speech can. Neurologist Oliver Sacks, author of the book Musicophilia, once referred to “musical brainworms, the annoyingly repetitive musical phrases that may run through one’s mind for days on end.” That’s partly what makes effective pop music.

But, strangely, what makes effective “acoustic bombardment” is the very unfamiliarity of the music to non-Western ears. “Our brains automatically process music and try to figure out what comes next,” says Daniel Levitin, a psychology professor at McGill and author of ‘This Is Your Brain on Music’. Because the brain can’t help but anticipate music’s next steps, “any Western music would have done the trick,” he says. “These were tonal structures the detainees’ brains can’t figure out. They kept trying, and they kept failing. Just as if I made you listen to Chinese opera, it’d probably drive you crazy.”

Prisoners in Guantanamo.

…“One thing that makes music so powerful is that it activates circuits in the brain that are not under conscious control,” says Richard Friedman, a professor of psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College. “It has the power to augment all human drives, including aggression.” Some of the music soldiers used to torture detainees is the same they used to pump themselves up before battle—one thinks of that scene in Fahrenheit 9/11, with the fellows talking about listening to Drowning Pool’s “Bodies” as they rattled along in their tank. Whether it’s a soundtrack for a battle or one for torture, both work. “In each instance,” says Friedman, “you can use music to facilitate the process.””

(I suggest reading the whole article here, it’s very detailed –http://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/60310/)
*Sidebar – oooh that got me so mad, that scene in Fahrenheit 9/11. The American soldiers sitting in their comfy tank, listening to metal music as they shot innocent people with long range weapons. Like life was a video game. Grrrr.*

As also mentioned in the above article, there has been backlash and protest from musicians who do not want their music to be used in this capacity. Musos such as Roseanne Cash, Trent Reznor, R.E.M, Pearl Jam, Rise Against, The Roots and Tom Morello joined the National Campaign to Close Guantanamo.

Protesters doing they thing.

REM’s statement said: “We have spent the past 30 years supporting causes related to peace and justice – to now learn that some of our friends’ music may have been used as part of the torture tactics without their consent or knowledge, is horrific. It’s anti-American, period.” (Predictably, James Hetfield was quoted as being “proud” to hear Metallica was chosen to represent American “freedom of speech”. And then backtracked and said he hoped he wouldn’t be “attached to some political statement because of that”. What a douche. He’s such a right winger but always tries to hide it – even though it’s extremely obvious)

Anyway – despite most of those kids’ best efforts, Guantanamo Bay remains active today. Make of that what you will.

Talent Tuesday #6 – The Boys

There’s a 90s revival happening in Australian music right now, and today’s ‘Tuesday Talent’ are in the thick of it. Meet The Boys – the newest “it” band in Brisbane.

(…And ‘The Boys’ are all female! The ironing!…I mean. Irony.)

It’s the Spice Girls!…only…lots better.

In a world where the phrase “she plays well…for a girl” is STILL tossed around, The Boys bring refreshment to the party. And Jordan, Sophia, Rachel, Ariana and Ella-Jane have created an addictive musical cocktail. It’s pretty delicious. Tastes…good. (I’ve run out of drink metaphors now.) Blending rock, grunge and rebellious, fun-loving punk spirit, these five gals are channeling alternative bands from the 90s, as well as the rocktagious outrageousness of the 70s. They also happen to be excellent live performers. Check out the video below to see what I mean. The band interacts with each other effortlessly, and look completely natural onstage:

I think one of the most appealing things about The Boys (apart from their music) is their collective personality, which they have in spades. It’s evident immediately in their rad stage outfits, colourful hair and sometimes-silly photo poses. But it goes further than the surface. The Boys keep their blog and Facebook page bursting with wit, fun memes and pics, and caring-but-not-annoying social activism. Plus, they funny, y’all. This vid below of Jordan and Ella, with Jordan faking an ‘Annie’ audition, set me a-gigglin’. (Jordan, just in case rock music doesn’t work out for you, you may have a career in Broadway ahead):

In July, The Boys held a ‘Back to the 90s’ party (something I’ve always wanted to do. It’s on the list for my next b’day party). Their gigs are certainly turning into major events in Brisbane. And with a very dedicated (and growing) fanbase, these girls are set to kick some serious ass with their upcoming demo EP release at Ric’s on the 22nd of September*. (*Also playing at the launch are the awesome Dave’s Pawn Shop!). So if you’re in the Brisbane area, make sure you keep up with The Boys’ online links, and make it to what’s sure to be a memorable show.

Now go become Boys fans. You know you wanna!

Over & out,

Bec xx

PS: If you happen to wanna adorn yourself with The Boys’ threads, you can do so here!

Miley Cyrus’ haircut – who gives a sh*t?

There are gazillions of undiscovered, awesome indie bands out there – and the internet is all up in arms about Miley Cyrus’ haircut.

Numerous online photo galleries have appeared, chronicling her follicular metamorphosis.

Countless negative tweets have been fired at her.

All I can say is, I can’t believe all the attention this has gotten. Besides, it looks good! I don’t get what the fuss is about. The internet age is weird…

Why can’t this person just get a damn haircut without people going ape?

I’m on her side on the hair issue. Though I will never particularly be a fan of her music. And she will always irritate me for murdering ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’…

Yep. That happened. Why, Miley? Why?

Whatever. Here are some actual female rockers from Brisbane, The Boys. Your time would be better spent on them. Enjoy!

Olympics, photos + last night’s gig

Yesterday was a big day…

So, I got up early and watched most of the Olympics opening ceremony. Which made me bawl like a baby. There’s something about hundreds of thousands of people coming together in peace (or in this case, peaceful competition) that just gets to me. I thought London, Danny Boyle, and everyone involved did an amazing job putting the opening ceremony production together.

Rings of fire

I loved the way that the entire evolution of modern Britain was acted out. It was very Lord of the Rings-y. I also got a kick out of the ode to children’s literature (I am a huge Harry Potter fan, so it was kind of a squee! moment to see a big puppet of Voldemort, and J.K. Rowling reading from Peter Pan.

Aaagh! Run, Harry!

There was a wonderful range of British music represented…some notable examples were The Clash, The Beatles, Bowie, Pink Floyd and the Sex Pistols. The performances of ‘Tubular Bells’ and ‘Chariots of Fire’ were amazing – I’m not much of a Mr. Bean fan, but Rowan Atkinson was a complete crackup during ‘Chariots of Fire’. Not to mention the Arctic Monkeys’ rendition of “Come Together” and Sir Paul Mc Cartney himself “Hey Jude”ing it all over the place. I also teared up at the magnificent drumming display, led by profoundly deaf drummer Evelyn Glennie. Apparently she often drums barefoot, because she can feel the music’s vibration through her feet. What an inspiration! And the national anthem “God Save the Queen” was sung and signed by a partially deaf children’s signing choir. It was such an inclusive ceremony, encompassing England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. What an incredible celebration of the human spirit.

Evelyn Glennie was fantastic.

So, after all of this, Ross and I traveled to our drummer James’ house to have a practice session before our gig last night. We met our guitarist Ged there and had a really nice jam/practice session. Ged’s friend Matt Williamson, a photographer, also met us there, and we had our first photo session as a band. Basically, we just need some promo band photos that aren’t craptacular live shots. James’ house is a hippie wonderland, and we got some cool shots in his outdoor treehouse, next to his abseiling wall (!), playing on his giant African drum and by the multicoloured old piano in his backyard. Something weird: I dreamed Friday night about jumping on a trampoline, and after exploring James’ place, I was amazed to discover he actually has a trampoline I’ve never noticed in the backyard. I had so much fun during my brief bounce around on it.

Matt has given us one sneak peek black & white photo so far, which you can see below. I’ll post the best photos later when we receive them!

Us in James’ tree…

After our jam, it was straight to our gig at Ric’s Bar in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley. Ross and I have played Ric’s in our previous band, but not so far with The Halls. We had a really good time, and a pretty great gig! We tried something different, and decided to open our set with an instrumental jam. There are so many riffs floating around in our ‘bank’ right now, which we haven’t turned into fully-fledged songs yet. So we just improvised on one, and I think it went really well. We’ve had a few comments so far at our gigs that describe us as ‘atmospheric’, so I guess we’re elaborating on that. The instrumental got a really good reception from the crowd.

I stuffed up at this gig, in that I didn’t realize the backline was fully provided. So we all brought our amps over for nothing; we had to use the amps Ric’s Bar provided. Oops, Bec! In my defense, I really thought the backline was OPTIONAL, but, oh well. All of our songs went pretty well, although there were issues with the bass in a few songs, which made it hard to hear. There’s one song I’d really like to cut out of our set, “The Sea is Red”…I can sing it no problems usually, but somehow at gigs, with all the weird sounds floating around, it’s hard for me to get the key entirely right. I feel like I drift around it vocally. An idea I thought of AFTER the gig, was to put earplugs in while singing just that song. I think I’ll try that next time.

I can’t wait to write new material, and I know the band feels the same way. We got a great compliment on our improv jam; someone said that it reminded them a lot of The Jezabels, an Australian band who I LOVE. So that was a nice comment. I feel like our newer stuff is moving in yet another direction, and can’t wait to flesh it out. We have a gig gap coming up between the 7th and 30th of August, so we’re going to find a full weekend where we can all take our time and write new songs. I can’t wait!!!

Lots of friends turned up last night to the gig, so I was really grateful and happy to see them. Next week is our gig at the band competition finals, so that’s another big one coming up!

Thanks for reading! Until next time…

xo Bec

“Religious” bands – more than Christian?

DISCLAIMER: I’m not trying to make fun of your religion. Or if I am, I’m making fun of all of them equally. I’m irreligious, but was christened a Catholic, and have half-Jewish blood. So, no hard feelings to anyone.

The other night, when I was chatting to someone at a gig, I mused out loud that there were a lot of genres that have been hijacked by Christians. Eg. you can have ‘Christian’ pop music, ‘Christian’ rap, ‘Christian’ punk, whatever you like.

(Even Christian ‘Black metal’…which, as my metal-loving boyfriend points out, is extremely antithetical. As Wikipedia puts it: “Initially considered a synonym for “Satanic metal”, black metal has often been met with hostility from mainstream culture, mainly due to the misanthropic and anti-Christian standpoint of many artists. Moreover, several of the genre’s pioneers have been linked with church burnings… “…Mmm! Makes sense!)

Then I wondered – is there such a thing as Jewish sub-genres? What about Islamic sub-genres? Hindu?…Scientology?…I picked some to have a look at.

Hmm, I learned some symbols from this…

And I’m not really talking about traditional music in all these religions – eg. traditional Hindu, or worship music. I’m talking about the equivalent of “Christian rock”, but for other religions – other religions’ adaptations of popular styles, with a lyrical and thematic focus on promoting/discussing their religions. It has to have a religious “message” for me to consider it religious music.

I decided to Google this and..yeah. It kind of exists. Check it out! Jewish rap below. (It’s not a joke, by the way. But the video kinda makes me laugh…)

Matisyahu (an actual good one):

Here’s a video of a Hasidic Jewish guitarist shredding on a traditional Jewish song (I’m not sure what the song is called, but I’ve heard it many times on television – I think anyone would recognize it):

There’s even Jewish country music. Featuring a sample of that same song as the Jewish guitarist used above. They sure love that song!:

One more Jewish country song, purely because of this name: “They ain’t makin Jews like Jesus anymore”.

It was harder to find any Hindu-focused music online aimed at a Western audience. I couldn’t really find anything; so I’d wager that most Hindu music is sung in the Hindi language. The closest I could find were some amateur videos of “Hindu people” rapping, but it wasn’t faith-focused. So it doesn’t count!

I did find this AMAZEBALLS 80s recruitment music video for Scientology. I alternated between open-mouthed disbelief and hysterical laughter watching it:

I guess the closest other Scientology ‘musician’ I found was this kid on Youtube. He describes his aims on his channel ‘about’: “Hello everyone, welcome to my channel. This is kind of an experiment for me. I am just about to do some singing lessons and practice the tech taught to me by the great L Ron Hubbard. he is the leader of my religion scientology, the religion. So these are the before vids which i will be adding to. Then after my lessons I will do more and see how much i have improved through the power of the religion of scientology. I wanted to share my journey and i hope you enjoy as much as i enjoy my religion of scientology. I would love to know what yal think. if you want a live showing then please come down to plymouth scientology and ask for ryan. Ps bring £25.” 

I love the fact that he adds for us to bring 25 pounds. It’s not Scientology-faith focused, but I wanted to share it anyway. This is a video of him singing Usher’s ‘You Got it Bad’. At 2:27 he messes up the lyrics ‘I’m your man, you’re my girl’, and sings ‘I’m your man, you’re my man’, instead. I couldn’t help but think of Tom Cruise…:

For Islamic music – well…we have Yusuf Islam? Lol..

I’m not sure what the hell this is below, but it freaks me out. Those can’t be those little girls’ singing voices!..

This interesting vid is about a young Muslim-American fusing indie rock music and “traditional, ethnic Sufi soul music”… (Sufism is is supposed to be the inner, mystical dimension of Islam):

I found quite a few Wiccan/pagan styles of music online (I have to say I hate the Wiccan pop song below):

Pagan…rap??!

And, of course, plenty of Pagan and Wiccan metal. (I feel bad, maybe Pagans and Wiccans are different things and I shouldn’t be lumping them together?)

So, in conclusion…it seems there are other religions adapting popular music styles as a vehicle for their religious voices. But still not as many as Christian bands. I wonder why this is – is it just that Christianity is the most popular religion in the world, or is it the U.S.A has the highest amount of Christians in the world, and there is a big entertainment industry there? Are Christians just naturally pushier with their message than other religions…? (The highest diversity of genres I found for other religions was for Jewish bands, and they happen to be the 2nd most popular religious group in the United States. Not to mention known for their involvement in the entertainment industry. But it still wasn’t as popular as Christian music).

In terms of world population, there are certainly more people living in China and India than the United States. But China is probably much less likely to have any outspoken religious types around. Since, you know. Communism and free speech bans, and all. India is difficult to research because I can’t speak Hindi, although it does look like there is quite a lot of Hindi/Hindu music out there.

Whatever the conclusions, it’s been interesting to take a peek at the non-Christian religious music there is out there in YouTube land. I hope you enjoyed having a look with me!

🙂 Bec