In a departure from earlier guitar-driven releases, No Harm Done is played entirely on an authentic 1960s Wurlitzer (courtesy of Head Gap studio in Preston). The warmth of the Wurlitzer is counteracted by a driving kick and snare. Finally, the crooning lead vocals of Robert J Mahon are elevated by the dulcet harmonies of Melbourne artist and guest vocalist Juice Webster.
Over the last five years of eclectic releases and impassioned live performances, The Slingers have cemented themselves as one of the most unique bands in the Australian underground/alternative scene. The band signed to Flightless Records in 2020, releasing a double A-Side 7-inch vinyl, The Cruellest Cut//Kind Hearts (a collaboration with legend of the Melbourne underground, Spike Fuck). Their recordings have garnered a cult following on Youtube and Spotify, resulting in sold-out crowds in their hometown of Melbourne.
The evolution of the band culminates in their incoming full-length LP ‘Sentimentalism’. Written in a small cabin on a farm outside of Colac, Western Victoria, and produced by Errol Green (Big Yawn), the album ranges from piano ballads to purely electronic pieces and features guest appearances from ‘’Evil’ Graham Lee (The Triffids) on pedal steel guitar and Melbourne artist, Juice Webster, on vocals.
Influenced by the music of William Shatner and the films of Nick Cave, The Slingers have sought through their music to balance and synthesize several oppositional artistic forces: lyrics that are both tongue-in-cheek and haltingly sincere, a sound that is as comfortable producing outlaw country as it is exploring drum machines and synthesizers, and a live energy that borrows simultaneously from Elvis and Angel Olsen.
Midnight Oil are the 29th act to throw support behind Support Act’s Roadies Fund through the Australian Road Crew Association (ARCA)’s awesome Desk Tape Series.
The Series was created by ARCA to raise funds to provide financial, health, counselling and well-being services for roadies and crew in crisis.
The recordings are made off the sound desk by a crew member. MIDNIGHT OIL LIVE at the OLD LION, Adelaide 1982 was recorded by Mark Woods, and is another fantastic tribute to the great sounds engineers produced for the early Aussie pub rock scene. This live tape is released on ARCA’s Black Box Records through MGM Distribution and on all major streaming services.
THE BAND
Peter Garrett – lead vocals Peter Gifford – bass, vocals Rob Hirst – drums, vocals Jim Moginie – guitars, keyboards Martin Rotsey – guitars
CREW
Mark Woods (sound) Michael Lippold (stage/ production manager) Ron “Wormy” James (lights)
TRACK LISTING
1 Written In The Heart 2 Brave Faces 3 Armistice Day 4 I’m The Cure 5 Bus To Bondi 6 Quinella Holiday 7 No Time For Games 8 Burnie 9 Cold Cold Change 10 Powderworks 11 Koala Sprint 12 Back On The Borderline 13 Don’t Wanna Be The One 14 Wedding Cake Island 15 Stand In Line 16 No Reaction
The MIDNIGHT OIL LIVE at the OLD LION Adelaide 1982 live tape and all the ARCA Desk Tape Series recordings are available through Black Box Records – ARCA (australianroadcrew.com.au) and the following: Amazon, Anghami, Apple Music / iTunes, Boomplay, Black Box Records, Deezer, MGM, Pandora, Shazam, Spotify, TenCent, Tidal, TikTok, YouTube Music.
The Old Lion show on Friday March 26, 1982 was part of a two-week run through Victoria and South Australia. At that stage, the band were doing 180 shows a year, and firing on all eight cylinders.
Rob Hirst admits: “I’m exhausted listening back to the tape, it’s relentless! We were, excuse the pun, a well-oiled machine, angry young men against the world.”
Mark Woods, who filled in as sound engineer on the run, called it the “Speed and Dust Tour.” It was hot and the tour moved at a frantic pace. Woods had just finished a run with Men At Work, with two weeks off before MAW’s first US visit. When the Oils’ run ended in Whyalla in regional South Australia, he drove 14 hours overnight without sleep back to Melbourne, in time for the Los Angeles flight with Men At Work.
Woods didn’t mind: he was a massive fan. “I thought they were the best band in the world. On this run they were at their absolute peak. Much of the set was from Place Without A Postcard, which was just released four months before, so the songs sounded fresh. It wasn’t that they were loud, it was the power. They weren’t ‘screamy’ or harsh listening, they just had a very full solid big fat sound.”
“They were all red hot players”, Woods recalls, citing how Jim Moginie and Martin Rotsey’s guitars intertwined, and how the Peter Gifford/ Rob Hirst rhythm section locked in.
“I loved Giffo’s playing, he was the perfect bass player for them and at his best on this tour. There was something about his beat which worked well with Rob’s drums, they were right on the beat, really driving it forward.”
Gifford left a few years later to become a businessman in Byron Bay. Michael Lippold spent as much time on stage as the band, unravelling Pete’s mic leads from the guitarists’ legs as he danced manically about. Hirst’s drum kit had to be nailed down. Not only did he attack them with exuberance, breaking pedals and sticks, but he’d also jump into the air off his stool for greater power when he landed.
Listening to the Old Lion tape, Hirst chuckles, “It reminds me of the breakneck speeds we used to play those songs! The album versions chugged along but the live versions were 30% to 40% faster, if not faster. It’s almost as if we couldn’t wait to get to the (hire cars) and fishtail out of there!”
Also giving him a buzz on the tape were how the guitars sounded so distinctive and Garrett’s onstage patter recalling which politician or issue was irritating him in 1982. The tape shows how the Oils were starting to musically move around at that time. In 1981 when famed English producer Glyn Johns (Stones, Who) saw an Oils show at Selinas in Sydney, he invited them back to England to record in his new studio in Surrey.
“It was supposed to be our big break,” Hirst relates. “It wasn’t.” Hirst says Johns expected them to arrive with 12 fully formed songs, but he and Moginie, as the Oils’ main writers, had been unable to write songs due to the band’s hectic touring schedule. Even worse, Johns failed to capture the Oils’ live roar on the record.
Hirst: “The creativity and the song writing was getting stronger. But we were frustrated with the sound on the albums so far. They didn’t grab you by the throat and wrestle you to the ground. It was only working with Nick Launay (in 1982, on the 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 album) and disassembling the Midnight Oil live sound in the studio and starting again that we started to understand studio craft.”
Johns had a deal with A&M Records in America to release his productions. A&M wanted the Oils to go back to the studio and cut a single for the American market. The Australians gave them a two-finger salute and returned to Sydney.
The Old Lion tape captures how some of Postcard songs should have sounded. “Armistice Day” was an example of their new found song writing depth.
“I’ve always been obsessed with my family’s military history,” the drummer explains. “Songs like ‘Forgotten Years’ were about my father and grandfather’s military service. We knew as soon as we recorded ‘Armistice Day’ that no matter what happened to the rest of the album, it was going to be the lead track.”
“I Don’t Wanna Be The One” was in the spotlight when the Oils were inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame in 2006.
LIVE At The Old Lion Adelaide 1982 is the latest initiative by the Oils to support roadies and crews in crisis. Hirst readily admits that the members relied heavily on their crew, “we had the best sound and lighting guys in the business. It is the crew that helps with any band’s success.”
On their farewell tour in 2022, Hirst’s drum tech for nine years, Clem Ryan, wanted to sit it out. Rob rang him, “I’m not doing this tour until you’re doing this tour.” Long-time front of house Colin Ellis wanted to retire before the run. They talked him out of it. “Retire? You’re younger than us!”
LIVE At The Old Lion Adelaide 1982 also highlights how dedicated the fans were.
Woods recalls: “Big lads, well charged up, a happy blokey crowd which sang along, boisterous, rowdy but never unpleasant.”
One of three albums released by King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizardin the same month (and four albums released this year), Laminated Denim consists of just two tracks – each fifteen minutes in length. The songs were recorded so they could be played during intermissions of their epic three-hour live sets at the Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado, but they’re not the original tracks made for those sets.
Those tracks were recorded and released on the half-hour, two-track album Made in Timeland released earlier this year. The Made in Timeland tracks were never played during the Red Rocks intermissions because those 2019 shows never happened due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The tracks sat unused for nearly three years before the band, know for their endless energy and prolific output, decided to release Made in Timeland at a three-hour hometown gig.
The problem that then arose was, “What do we play at the upcoming Red Rocks intermissions now?” The answer to that was to record two new long tracks, and thus Laminated Denim (an anagram of “Made in Timeland”) was born.
The first track, “The Land Before Timeland,” gets off to a quiet start that builds into a lengthy jam session of happy guitars over soft jazz drums. Ambrose Kenny-Smith‘s harmonica weaves in and out of the song quite well.
“Hypertension” brings in some of the microtonal elements that KGATLW are known to love. It’s a faster jam that the previous track, probably designed that way to slowly build the audience’s anticipation for what’s to come after intermission.
These two tracks pick you up, carry you away, and let you drift along with them for a nice half-hour jaunt.
Today, Australian polymaths King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard unveil their new single/video, “Hate Dancin’,” taken from their forthcoming album Changes, out October 28th on KGLW. Following last week’s Laminated Denim– an album written specifically with their recent sold-out Marathon Shows at Red Rocks in mind – and Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms And Lava, Changes marks King Gizzard’s third and final album of October. Originally imagined as the group’s fifth album of 2017, Changes has ended up the sixth album King Gizzard will release in 2022 (rounded out by April’s double album, Omnium Gatherum, January’s Butterfly 3001 remix record, and March’s Made in Timeland, the latter of which was just surprised-released on DSPs for the first time). “Hate Dancin’” is a tight number, clocking in just above the 3-minute mark. “I started writing a song about how I hate dancing, but then I realized that I love dancing,”says Gizz frontman Stu Mackenzie. The accompanying video puts the band’s exquisite moves front and center.
For half a decade, the sextet has been haunted by one elusive conceptual project that had bested their every attempt (of which there had been several). They first conceived the album back in 2017, a busy year for the group. Within a mere twelve months, they recorded and released five albums of new material, but the band had intended to see out the year with a different album. That album was called Changes, and it’s finally arriving now. “I think of Changes as a song-cycle,” says band-member Stu Mackenzie. “Every song is built around this one chord progression – every track is like a variation on a theme. But I don’t know if we had the musical vocabulary yet to complete the idea at that time. We recorded some of it then, including the version of ‘Exploding Suns’ that’s on the finished album. But when the sessions were over, it just never felt done. It was like this idea that was in our heads, but we just couldn’t reach. We just didn’t know yet how to do what we wanted to do.”
The group abandoned Changes and instead prepared the beguiling Gumboot Soup (the last of five albums the band released in 2017), and were then quickly ensnared by about eight other outlandish ideas that sent them in infinite new directions. But the concept of Changes did not go gently into that good night. “We really have been tinkering with it since then,” Mackenzie adds.
“It’s not necessarily our most complex record, but every little piece and each sound you hear has been thought about a lot,” Mackenzie adds. Indeed, the album has gestated over a fitfully inventive five years. But the album has taught him that projects operate to their own schedules and are ready when they’re ready.
Good things come to those who wait, and the magnificent Changes is worth every one of the 2,628,000 minutes King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard invested in it. Soaked in the warm sonics of 70s R’n’B and guided by simple chord-changes that contain multitudes and rounding out another remarkable year for the group, Changes is a luminous, soft-pop marvel. Come lose yourself in its slow-cooked brilliance.
Currently in the middle of a largely sold-out U.S. tour, the band return to the U.K. and Europe for a run of shows in March 2023 which include two nights at the Brixton Academy in London. Full dates are listed below and tickets are on sale now.
Finally, read Stereogum’s recent Cover Story on the band, which dives headlong into their epic month and the history of the band as they continue their march towards world domination is the Greatest Rock Band on the Planet™.
TOUR DATES Fri. Oct. 21 – Forest Hills, NY @ Forest Hills Stadium % Sat. Oct. 22 – Philadelphia, PA @ Franklin Music Hall * SOLD OUT Sun. Oct. 23 – Washington, DC @ The Anthem * SOLD OUT Mon. Oct. 24 – Asheville, NC @ Rabbit Rabbit * SOLD OUT Wed. Oct. 26 – Atlanta, GA @ The Eastern * SOLD OUT Thu. Oct. 27 – New Orleans, LA @ Orpheum Theater * SOLD OUT Fri. Oct. 28 – Austin, TX @ Levitation – Stubb’s * SOLD OUT Sat. Oct. 29 – Austin, TX @ Levitation – Stubb’s $ SOLD OUT Mon. Oct. 31 – Oklahoma City, OK @ The Criterion # Wed. Nov. 2nd – Morrison, CO @ Red Rocks Amphitheatre # SOLD OUT Sat. Dec. 10 – St. Kilda, AUS @ The Palace Foreshore @ Thu. Dec. 29 – Tauranga, NZ @ Wharepai Domain Sat. Dec. 31 – Wanaka, NZ @ Rhythm & Alps Wed. Jan. 4 – Auckland, NZ @ The Matakana Country Park Fri. Jan. 6 – New Plymouth, NZ @ Bowl of Brooklands Thu. Mar. 2 – Paris, FR @ Zenith Fri. Mar. 3 – Amsterdam, NL @ Gashoulder Sat. Mar. 4 – Tilburg, NE @ 013 Mon. Mar. 6 – Malmo, SE @ Plan B Tue. Mar. 7 – Stockholm, SE @ Munchenbryggeriet Wed. Mar. 8 – Oslo, NE @ Sentrum Scene Thu. Mar. 9 – Copenhagen, DK @ Den Gra Hal Sat. Mar. 11 – Warsaw, PL @ Progesja Sun. Mar. 12 – Prague, CZ @ Lucerna Velky Sal Mon. Mar. 13 – Vienna, AT @ Gasometer Wed. Mar. 15 – Milan, IT @ Alcatraz Thu. Mar. 16 – Zurich, CH @ X-Tra Fri. Mar. 17 – Lausanne, CH @ Les Docks Sat. Mar. 18 – Wiesbaden, DE @ Schlachthof Mon. Mar. 20 – Brussels, DE @ Cirque Royale Wed. Mar. 22 – London,UK @ Brixton Academy Thu. Mar. 23 – London, UK @ Brixton Academy Thu. Mar. 30 – Sydney, AUS @ Big Top Luna Park Thu. Apr. 6 – Byron Bay, AUS @ Tivoli Fri. Apr. 7 – Byron Bay, AUS @ Byron Bay Bluesfest
* w/ Leah Senior % w/ black midi, Leah Senior $ w/ Tropical Fuck Storm, The Murlocs # w/ The Murlocs, Leah Senior @ w/ Stella Donnelly, CIVIC
According to the liner notes of The Beths‘ new album, Expert in a Dying Field, the theme of the album can be summed up in one question: “What do you do with how intimately versed you’ve become in a person, once they’re gone from your life?”
As a widower of nearly a year, I can relate to that. We all can at some point or another, be it a spouse, a lover, a friend, a child who leaves for college, a pet, a coworker, or even a trusted neighbor. The album is a lovely, and rocking, story crafted lyrically by Elizabeth Stokes (guitar and lead vocals) and her bandmates, Tristan Deck (drums), Jonathan Pierce (lead guitar and keyboards), and Benjamin Sinclair (bass).
“Can we erase our history? It isn’t as easy as this,” Stokes sings on the opening title track. It’s not. Letting go of that history is hard, but the risk of holding onto it is being dragged to death. The song has a slight melancholy to it, but also a lot of hope. “Knees Deep” is, after all, about jumping into something new with both feet and braving the risks of adventure (and love). Pierce’s guitar fuzzes out on “Silence Is Golden” – a nice, ironic touch.
“Don’t cry. I’m driving all night to be by your side,” Stokes sings on the lovely “Your Side.” To feel this kind of love, where you’re willing to drive cross-state or even cross-country for even just a few hours with someone, is a gift to be treasured. “It’s been quite a year,” The Beths sing on “I Want to Listen.” That’s a mild way of putting it for certain, but they encourage us to reach out to each other to help us all heal.
“Head in the Clouds” is a great rocker, with Deck’s drums hitting hard for the seats in the back of the auditorium. “Best Left” continues the rocking, even as Stokes sings about her being miserable and feeling she’s “best left to rot.” “Change in the Weather” has her feeling better, and “When You Know You Know” has her thinking that love might still be in the cards for her, and for all of us.
Stokes and the rest of the band have a bit of an angry edge on “A Passing Rain” – in which Stokes calls out someone for sticking around to seemingly just make her like worse. I love the way they jump back and forth between silence and breakneck rhythms on “I Told You That I Was Afraid.” “2am” has Stokes wondering if she could return to a simpler time with a lover, but knowing that moment, like all moments in time, is already gone…and yet it still exists in the present.
The whole album is like this – a look back at the past through the lens of the present, which is truly the only way to see it since the past took place in the present. Expert in a Dying Field is a bit of a Zen koan, a lesson on letting go or being dragged.
One of the many fun things about The Chats‘ new album, Get Fucked, is that its title can have at least three different interpretations: 1. The Chats (say), “Get fucked.” to all their critics, ticket inspectors, tobacco sellers, stuffed shirts, politicians, and anyone who doesn’t like a good pint or a party now and then. 2. The Chats get fucked over by those mentioned in option #1. 3. The Chats get laid. My theory is that the first option is the closest to their original intention, judging from the album cover and the middle fingers being flipped to everyone – including those of us picking up the album. The cover is supposed to shake you out of your current reality, and the whole record pretty much throws a pint of lager in your face.
The album’s opening track, “6LTR GTR,” gets us off to a gas pedal-stomping start as they rip off a track about a hot rod being driven by a douchebag idiot who doesn’t deserve it. “Struck by Lighting” is even faster and brings to mind both AC/DC and The Ramones with its punk ferocity. You’re almost out of breath by the time we reach “Boggo Breakout” – and that’s only the third track. “Southport Superman” is barely over thirty seconds and feels like a mosh pit erupts in your head.
The build-up of “Panic Attack” gives you a brief respite from the chaos, but soon the vocals are coming at you like a belt-fed machine gun. “Ticket Inspector” has the band railing against a jerk who flaunts power he doesn’t really have. “The Price of Smokes” starts off with blues-like lyrics about not having enough money for rent and smokes and slowly builds into a rager about the Australian economy in general. “Dead on Site” and “Paid Late” keep the fire burning, and “Paid Late” has some of Eamon Sandwith‘s funkiest bass licks. “I’ve Been Drunk in Every Pub in Brisbane” is a great track that we can guess is based on true events.
Not much of your face is left by the time you reach “Out on the Street,” because most of it has been shredded off you by now. New guitarist Josh Hardy has a burning solo on it, and across the whole record. It’s difficult to choose which is best. “Emperor of the Beach” could be an early King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard track with its groove that evolves into a wild, psych-surf punk banger. Matt Boggis‘ cymbals wash over you like ocean waves by the end. The album ends with “Getting Better” – a pep talk of a track that turns into a drag race between nitro-burning hot rods that have time bombs attached to them.
Get in, sit down, shut up, and hold on with this album.
King Gizard and the Lizard Wizard are one of the few bands out there who could start off an album with a song that’s over eighteen minutes long and everyone would think that’s a perfectly normal thing to do. Their new record, Omnium Gatherum, does just that with “The Dripping Tap.”
The album almost sounds like a greatest hits record, as KGATLW move back and forth between genres, time signatures, tuning preferences, and distortion levels. “The Dripping Tap” is a wild psychedelic freak-out, the kind that first got the band noticed just a decade or so ago (although it seems longer due to the massive output the band has generated in such a short time). “Magenta Mountain” starts off with soothing keyboard tones and then drops in slick beats that are perfect for a stroll or cruising on a Jet-Ski.
The funky bass on “Kepler-22b” takes you into outer space and encourages you to have a good time there (as do the lyrics). “Gaia” takes us back to Earth with re-entry burn riffs. Then, just to confuse ads, they drops “Ambergris,” a bedroom slow-jam that would fit on a Thundercat record. “Sadie Sorceress,” believe it or not, is a rap track – and it works.
“Evilest Man” is electro krautrock mixed with roaring riffs and smashing cymbals that sounds like something they accidentally left off Nonagon Infinity. “The Garden Goblin” is a fun, bouncy track that could’ve been listed on Fishing for Fishies, as could “Persistence.” “The Grim Reaper” is another hip hop track, complete with trippy flute loops.
“Presumptuous” bounces with Outkast-like pep. “Predator X” is a return to hard-hitting thrash metal, countered nicely by the trippy “Red Smoke” and “Candles,” which literally has the band singing, “Wheee!” at one point. The album closes with an instrumental – “The Funeral,” an interesting name choice for the final track, and an interesting choice to close the record with a track that only has vocal sounds and no lyrics.
Omnium Gatherum is a great place to jump on the Gizzard Train if you’re new to the band. It showcases so many styles they can play, and play well, that you’re sure to like at least a few things here.
Australian punks The Chats unleash “Struck By Lightning,” their first new tune and video of 2022. It follows their 2020 debut album, High Risk Behaviour, “an album you can blast on the highway while going 90 or one that you can watch live and get drunk and crowd-surf to” (Consequence). “Struck By Lightning” is a fast, furious, 100-second blitz from punk heaven. It shows the Queensland trio revitalized post-pandemic and toting a ripping new guitarist, Josh Hardy. Following a Chats jam session, singer/bassist Eamon Sandwith went home and wrote a song about getting struck by lightning, like how you would feel, and what would happen. “People can’t grow their hair back and shit,” he says. “It’s weird – especially the whole no-eyebrows thing. That would be really scary! I’m really hoping that this doesn’t happen to me, now I’ve written a song about it.”
Eamon got a taste of the storm gods’ revenge in the accompanying video, directed by NAME.. It shows the band, including drummer Matt Boggis, playing in a shed, before being hit by unexpected bolts of lightning. “It’s a silly video, and I reckon I did like seven or eight takes of this stunt, where I was hoisted in the air at a fast speed, straight off my feet,” says Eamon. “That night, we were doing a show, and I had this headache. I guess the stunt work had fucked with my head, and I started throwing up while I was playing. The thing is, the crowd loved it, and they went off about me throwing up even more than they did for any song we played.”
The Chats took lockdown as a chance to plan their next move, which is when they enlisted Hardy after the departure of their last guitarist. “He’s been a good friend of ours for years. After our old guitarist Pricey left, me and Matt had a conversation, like, ‘If we can’t get Josh, we might just not carry on.’ Luckily, he was willing to join, and we got right into it, writing songs and stuff. We were like, this is unreal – so good!” The freshly-minted line-up broke in their new recruit via a bunch of shows in Oz between lockdowns, and duly cut “Struck By Lightning.”
Next week, The Chats will kick off their UK tour. Following, they’ll bring their live show across North America, where they will play some cities for the first time ever. Then, they’ll continue their tour in Europe. A full list of dates can be found below.
THE CHATS TOUR DATES
Mon. Apr. 25 – El Paso, TX @ Lowbrow Palace Tue. Apr. 26 – Houston, TX @ The Bronze Peacock at House of Blues Wed. Apr. 27 – Austin, TX @ Emo’s Austin Thu. Apr. 28 – Dallas, TX @ House of Blues – Cambridge Room Sat. Apr. 30 – Nashville, TN @ Basement East Sun. May 1 – Atlanta, GA @ Buckhead Theatre Tue. May 3 – Columbia, SC @ The Senate Wed. May 4 – Baltimore, MD @ Baltimore Soundstage Thu. May 5 – Boston, MA @ Paradise Rock Club Fri. May 6 – Warrendale, PA @ Jergel’s Rhythm Grille Sat. May 7 – Brooklyn, NY @ Warsaw Sun. May 8 – Philadelphia, PA @ The Foundry @ The Fillmore – SOLD OUT Tue. May 10 – Montreal, QC @ Foufounes Électriques Wed. May 11 – Toronto, ON @ Velvet Underground – SOLD OUT Thu. May 12 – Cleveland, OH @ Grog Shop – SOLD OUT Fri. May 13 – Louisville, KY @ Zanzabar Sat. May 14 – Chicago, IL @ House of Blues Sun. May 15 – St. Paul, MN @ Amsterdam Bar & Hall – SOLD OUT Tue. May 17 – Lawrence, KS @ The Bottleneck Wed. May 18 – Omaha, NE @ Slowdown Fri. May 20 – Denver, CO @ Marquis Theatre – SOLD OUT Sun. May 22 – Daytona Beach, FL @ Welcome to Rockville 2022 Wed. May 25 – Seattle, WA @ El Corazon – SOLD OUT Thu. May 26 – Portland, OR @ McMenamins Crystal Ballroom Fri. May 27 – Vancouver, BC @ Hollywood Theatre – SOLD OUT Mon. Jun. 27 – Paris, FR @ La Maroquinerie Tue. Jun. 28 – Brussels, BE @ La Botanique Fri. Jul. 1 – Werchter, BE @ Rock Werchter 2022 Mon. Jul. 4 – Amsterdam, NL @ Melkweg Tue. Jul. 5 – Berlin, DE @ SO36 Wed. Jul. 6 – Hamburg, DE @ Moltow Backyard Thu. Jul. 7 – Cologne, DE @ Gebäude Fri. Jul. 22 – Adelaide, AU @ Adelaide Showground Fri. Jul. 29 – Luxembourg, LU @ Rotondes Sat. Oct. 8 – Sacramento, CA @ Aftershock Festival
In 2017 Midnight Oil returned from a long hiatus with a sweat drenched pub gig at the legendary Sydney venue, Selina’s. In the middle of that special set, frontman Peter Garrett borrowed some famous lines, exhorting “rage, rage, against the dying of the light”. And that’s exactly what they’ve done ever since. They sold out 77 shows in 16 countries on their epic “Great Circle” tour. They toured Europe again, did a memorable gig in the outback, then returned to the studio for the first time in over 18 years and recorded 20 new songs. The first batch of that material, The Makarrata Project, debuted at #1 on the same weekend that longtime bass player Bones Hillman sadly died. Despite that profound blow, and a global pandemic, the band and their First Nations Collaborators still mounted their acclaimed “Makarrata Live” shows early this year – championing the Uluru Statement and highlighting ongoing injustices suffered by First Nations people.
Today Midnight Oil announced that this chapter of their career will come to a memorable close next year with the release of the other 12 new songs they recorded with Bones and a series of big gigs. Both are aptly titled Resist.
The band also announced that this will be their final concert tour while making it clear that this does not mean the end of the Oils. Each of the members will continue their own projects over the years ahead. They remain very open to recording new music together in future and supporting causes in which they believe but this will be their last tour.
Meanwhile Resist will be a fitting, forward looking, statement for a band whose clarion call has always been “it’s better to die on your feet than live on your knees”. The tour will see them performing classic Midnight Oil songs from across their repertoire while also showcasing some urgent new works. As the title makes abundantly clear, Resist engages with the issues of today and tomorrow – like the lead single “Rising Seas” which tackles the climate crisis in typically uncompromising fashion.
The album pre-order and Australasian tickets will go on-sale from next Tuesday 30 November. Dates, venues and all other info is listed at midnightoil.com/tour. A handful of international concerts is also being considered (subject to Covid restrictions).
Rob Hirst says: “If I look back, I see a blur of familiar names and faces: Jim, Pete, Martin, Bear and me, slamming loud prog-pop in a Chatswood garage; Giffo, magnificent, rocking back and forth at his first Royal Antler gig; Bonesy, headphones on, singing, lounging on the deck learning our catalogue.
I see our managers in their offices – Gary, Zev and John; our tour managers in their cars and buses – Constance, Neil, and Willie Mac; our producers in their studios, Keith, Lez, Glyn, Nick and Warne; and our crew on countless stages, Michael, Oysters, Ozzy, Doc, Nick, Jock, Gerry – and so many more.
I see our folks-in-the-engine-room that the outside world has never seen: Stephanie, Wayne, Diana, Arlene, Jonesy, Craig, Geoff H, Chris P, Peter T, and Mel C.
I see our wives and trusted friends, and the tiny faces of the ‘Baby Oils’, watching us from side of stage, from Sydney to Sao Paulo to Saskatoon.
But mostly, blinded by stage lights, I see the first two rows of a thousand gigs: Midnight Oil fans, pumping, jumping, singing louder than the band.
But I don’t look back.”
Peter Garrett says: “We all know time refuses to stand still for anyone but after many years together the band’s spirit is deep, the music and words are strong, and our ideas and actions as bold as we can make them. We’ve reached people in ways we never could have imagined. Our desire to create and speak out is undimmed. We hope everyone who hears this album and gets to one of the shows will come away charged up about the planet’s future, saying ‘why stop now?’. Having always tackled every tour like it’s the last – this time it actually will be.”
Jim Moginie says “We’ve played intensely physical gigs since our humble beginnings back in 1977 and we never want to take even the slightest risk of compromising that. A lot has happened over the last five years. Much has been achieved and with the passing of Bones much has been lost, so it now feels like we’re at the end of a cycle.
These will be sad and beautiful gigs but luckily we’re still capable of blowing the roof off any stage and that’s what we intend to do. You could call this a farewell tour, but Midnight Oil will still continue in some form or other as we’re brothers, family. We stand as one, dependent on each other and grateful in all the important ways that make great bands great.”
Martin Rotsey says: “A huge thank you to all our fans around the world. We’ve shared so much together from the swelter of Sydney pubs to magical nights under starry skies. Your energy took us further than we could ever have dreamed.
To those down the front in the maelstrom, those at the back of the room singing their hearts out, and all of those onstage, backstage, and back home who helped make everything possible, we send our thanks.”
From the northern beaches of Sydney to the streets of Manhattan, they have stopped traffic, inflamed passions, inspired fans, challenged the concepts of “business as usual” and broken much new ground. Seeing Midnight Oil in full flight is to experience the kinetic power of live rock’n’roll. They leave you inspired to live life more passionately and to Resist.
Midnight Oil calls for governments to urgently take serious actions that reduce carbon pollution. This tour will embrace best practices for emission reductions and offsetting. A portion of proceeds will be set aside for organizations seeking to elevate the existential threat posed by the climate crisis.
Members of Midnight Oil’s mailing list will have exclusive first access to Australian tickets. Anyone who signs up by 5pm Monday November 29, will receive a dedicated email later that evening, containing the presale ticketing link and password which can be used to purchase up to 8 tickets per show. Presales are expected to sell out quickly so fans are strongly advised to make sure they are logged into the ticketing agency website prior to the onsale times. Members of the General Public, including anyone who missed out on the presale, will then have access to tickets from Wednesday December 1. See below for ticketing information, and visit midnightoil.com/tour for specific show dates and information.
In addition to these shows, the band has already announced special appearances in Tasmania for Mona Foma 2022 and at Byron Bay Bluesfest next Easter. Details about those festival events at monafoma.net.au and bluesfest.com.au
Released without any singles dropped ahead of time, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard‘s newest album, Butterfly 3000, was a mystery up until its release…and still is in many ways. The cover alone has things hidden in it, the lyrics are full of introspection and philosophy, and it’s an electro record to boot. This from a band known mostly for its psychedelic sounds, or even thrash metal.
The album opens with a track called “Yours,” an indication that the album is a gift to all of us. The poppy, happy synths bump hips with Michael Cavanaugh‘s joyful drumming and you instantly know that this KGATLW album will be different from any you’ve heard before now. The album was made in quarantine by the band members sending each other samples, loops, and tracks via e-mail and digital download. Frontman Stuart Mackenzie has famously said the album cost nothing for them to make as a result.
The vocals on “Shanghai” blend into the synths to the point where you’re not such which is shadowing which. “Dreams” could be the track that sums up the whole album. Every track is about some kind of journey, growth, or peeling away of illusions. “I only want to wake up in my dream,” Mackenzie sings. Where does the dream end and reality begin? It’s difficult to tell at times, and sometimes you’d rather stay in one than return to the other. The song melts / morphs into “Blue Morpho,” which will probably end up in an Australian sci-fi movie soundtrack in the near future.
“Interior People” is the closest the band gets to a “classic” King Gizz-type of jam with its rolling beats and guitars, but those know when to step back and let the synths and electric piano move to the front. “Catching Smoke” is a standout, with electro-disco synths and hip-shaking beats. It reminds me of some of Bayonne‘s work. “2.02 Killer Year” is probably a treatise on 2020, but it’s so damn peppy that you can’t be sad while hearing it. I mean, it’s full of bright sounds, lasers, hungry hippo bass, and even harp plucks.
“Black Hot Soup” seems to harken back a bit to the psychedelia of Gumboot Soup, but still keeps synth effects on the vocals. “Ya Love” mostly repeats the title as the band jumps back and forth between happy puppy synths and rollercoaster rhythms. The electric heartbeat of the title track closes the album alongside a building synth riff that takes off like a new butterfly emerging from its cocoon and fluttering toward the sun.
The whole album is like that – a liftoff to a brighter future. We could all stand to follow KGATLW’s lead and move forward instead of letting 2020, or our past in general, weigh us down.
Keep your mind open.
[Don’t forget to subscribe before you float away.]
