Category: Post Dumps

Oh my god, September was huge!

I hope everyone reading this had a fantastic month, and has an even better October. I don’t really have much to report on my end (we’re still in lockdown, but it’s looking more and more likely that we’ll actually get out of it next month), so here’s everything I got up to around the Internet throughout September.

I think my favourite album this month was Sleigh Bells’ Texis, which feels like the definitive distillation of their warbly, off-kilter pop and rock ebullience – dare I call it hyper-rock? – into an ultra-bright eruption of fun and fucked-up production perfectly suited for the rollercoaster ride that has been 2021. Here I’ve tacked on my favourite track from the record, ‘Tennessee Tips’.

UNFD: THE OFFICIAL PODCAST

Episode 6: Stray From The Path (Apple Podcasts | Spotify)

NME

Ruby Fields – ‘Been Doin’ It For A Bit’ review: gut-punching debut from an indie-rocker wiser than her years

BLUNT

AViVA: Finding the light within emo’s darkness

Turnstile: Glow with the flow

WAAX: On the cusp of a new age

Amyl And The Sniffers: A warm hug of raw punk

Spiritbox: An eternity in the making

The Beths: Tour bus gazers

Parkway Drive: A royal return to the stage

Justice For The Damned: The infinite potential of power

Polaris: Life after The Death Of Me

Ruby Fields: Life in the fast lane

Vox Pop: How do full-time touring artists keep themselves sane on the road?

5 songs that helped The Sleepyheads get through 2020

The Weekly Riff: August 28th – September 3rd, 2021

The Weekly Riff: September 4th-10th, 2021

The Weekly Riff: September 11th-17th, 2021

Premiere: A Swift Farewell tug at our heartstrings with their latest pop-punk crooner, ‘Sunburn’

Premiere: Agapanther stick it to their dickhead “mates” with the ripping new single ‘Pseudo’

Premiere: Drastic Park admit they suck ass with god-awful new single ‘Snakes And Ladders’

Premiere: Wildheart prepare to dominate hardcore with vicious new single and debut album

Premiere: Mosh-pop supergroup Dead Mall roar to life with debut single ‘Cough It Up’

Premiere: Afterthought revel in their “heartbreak memories” with punchy new jam ‘Homebound’

EN GARDE – thy full lineup for Knight & Day 2021 hath landed!

The Used have dropped their enormous deluxe edition of ‘Heartwork’

AUSTRALIAN GUITAR (via GUITAR WORLD)

The Superjesus’ Jason Slack: “I had no real plan from the start, I just wanted to make a guitar”

Australian Guitar x Bluesfest 2022: All Our Exes Live In Texas

Australian Guitar x Bluesfest 2022: Tex Perkins

Australian Guitar x Bluesfest 2022: The Living End

Australian Guitar x Bluesfest 2022: Hiatus Kaiyote

Spotlight: Alex Lees of Four In The Morning

Spotlight: Ella Williams, a.k.a. Squirrel Flower

Spotlight: Sam Sheumack of Fangz

Spotlight: Kyle Balkin of Leisure Sport

Premiere: Justin Bernasconi channels the spirit of the Australian outback on luminous new single “Lady In The Field”

Good morning!

I hope you are having a wonderful start to your Saturday (or whatever time of whatever day it is when you’re reading this). I’m doing great today, I had my first really solid night of sleep all week last night and goddamn, what a difference that can make!

After a pretty chaotic June and July, August felt like such a turnaround. It was chaotic in the sense that I’m pretty sure I’ve singlehandedly kept the energy drink industry alive with how busy I’ve been, but it wasn’t chaotic in the sense that I had a whole bunch of turbulent shit going on in my personal life. The crushing malaise of lockdown aside, the past month has been exciting. We sent AG #145 to print and had it hit shelves, I picked up a third job – I’m back at BLUNT, now wrangling the site as its editor – and I got my second jab, so now I can look forward to being able to get out of the house again once NSW hits 70% vaccination (which they reckon will be around mid-October, but I’m not getting my hopes up there.

Here’s everything I got up to around the Internet last month – and a track from the debut Binki EP, Motor Function, which came out a few weeks ago. I am totally fucking obsessed with this record – it feels like a big, explosive bedroom-pop smoothie of Bloc Party, M83, Kid Cudi and Gorillaz. I’m gonna be mad pissed if this dude doesn’t end up headlining festivals by the end of the 2020s.

LITERALLY MY OWN SITE

A heaps rad chat with Tim and Craig of LOSER

CD Review: Willow – Lately I Feel Everything

CD Review: Bleachers – Take The Sadness Out Of Saturday Night

CD Review: Sleater-Kinney – Path Of Wellness

CD Review: Alice Skye – I Feel Better But I Don’t Feel Good

CD Review: The Bronx – Bronx VI

CD Review: Turnstile – Glow On

UNFD: THE OFFICIAL PODCAST

Episode 5: Thornhill (Apple Podcasts | Spotify)

NME

Teen Jesus And The Jean Teasers: Canberra grunge revivalists making heartfelt, heavy-hitting punk anthems

BLUNT

Sleep Waker: Chasing a dream, fighting a nightmare

Lil Lotus: “I remember relating to things I’d never even experienced yet”

Vox Pop: How do the biggest names in alt music deal with stage-fright?

What you should know about UNIFY 2022, according to Luke Logemann

8 bands we’re pretty sure will be on the UNIFY Gathering 2022 lineup

Between You & Me show us what songs to check out after spinning ‘Deadbeat’

The Weekly Riff: August 9th-13th, 2021

The Weekly Riff: August 14th-20th, 2021

The Weekly Riff: August 21st-27th, 2021

Premiere: Sink into the nostalgic haze of Oceans’ new clip for ‘Break My Fall’

Premiere: Mirrors dive into The Ego’s Weight with a razor-sharp new single, ‘Leave Them Behind’

Hollow Front usher in an explosive new era with ‘Treading Water’

AUSTRALIAN GUITAR (via GUITAR WORLD)

Rise Against’s Tim McIlrath: “The world keeps creating an audience for our music”

The Screaming Jets’ Scott Kingman: “I love this whole ‘build your own’ situation that we seem to have been forced into”

Tropical Fuck Storm’s Gareth Liddiard: “I don’t know what the f*** other bands are even thinking about”

The Jungle Giants’ Sam Hales: “Lockdown was sad and weird, but it was definitely productive”

Children Collide’s Johnny Mackay: “We were using old, shitty, tiny Fender amps”

Australian Guitar x Bluesfest 2022: Ross Wilson

Australian Guitar x Bluesfest 2022: Hussy Hicks

Australian Guitar x Bluesfest 2022: Jeff Lang

Australian Guitar’s Fresh Frets: Vol. 9

Explore the immortal legacy of Prince in Australian Guitar #144, out today

Okay, so June and July were pretty slow months on the posting front. But I spent most of June struggling with a whole bunch of health issues, culminating in an ICU stint and a bunch of other hectic shit in July, which in turn left me me with only the latter half of July to bring almost the entirety of Australian Guitar #144 together, while also working another steady writing job, getting my life back in order, and dealing with some other little tidbits. So I have that excuse!

August has already been a much more eventful month on the writing side, and I’ve picked up another editing job (so now I work three jobs, woo!) so the next post dump will be way more jam-packed, I promise!

‘Til then, I hope you enjoy cringing at all the shit I scribbled up in the articles below!

I’ve decided to embed three songs in this one: “Big Kitten” by Feed Me, from his downright magical new (self-titled) album, “Blackout” by Turnstile, from what I’m almost 100% certain will end up being my favourite album of 2021 (Glow On – keep an eye out for my review here next week, or read it in AG #144), and “Dead Friends” by Clay J Gladstone, which I caught on Triple J one afternoon and have been frothing since.

LITERALLY MY OWN SITE

AFI: Keeping The Flame Alight

The Great Ed Square Snack Crawl Of 2021

BLUNT

10 adorable queer love songs to warm your cold, dead heart

AUSTRALIAN GUITAR (via GUITAR WORLD)

Garbage’s Steve Marker: “It was important to keep the initial spirit that we had when we wrote these songs”

The Offspring’s Dexter Holland and Noodles: “Everything from Smash ’til now seems like it’s all part of the same era”

Teenage Fanclub’s Norman Blake: “If we share the load, it should mean that we can come up with a stronger album”

Liz Stringer: “I didn’t have any design for the outcome, which was very different to other records I’ve made”

Rag’N’Bone Man: “It feels like we really concentrated on the songs before anything else was done”

Gojira’s Joe Duplantier: “I think humans are pretty shitty sometimes, but we’re as horrible as we are incredible”

Dropkick Murphys’ Ken Casey: “I’m having a blast being able to connect more with the audience”

DZ Deathrays’ Shane Parsons and Lachlan Ewbank: “It’s almost like the record opens up as you get further and further into it”

Polish Club’s David Novak: “We’ve moved beyond the OG Polish Club setup”

Dinosaur Jr.’s J Mascis on being inspired by Thin Lizzy and working with Kurt Vile

An interview with Fender Custom Shop Master Builder Kyle McMillin

Australian Guitar’s Fresh Frets: Vol. 8

Spotlight: Rosie Tucker

Spotlight: Aston Valladares of Towns

Spotlight: Wallice

Spotlight: Harper Bloom

Spotlight: Saska Brittain of Dulcie

Amends – Tales Of Love, Loss, And Outlaws album review

Sly Withers – Gardens album review

Paper Citizen – Wandering Ghost EP review

Beabadoobee – Our Extended Play EP review

So this time I actually have an excuse for leaving this blog out to gather dust – I have been keeping myself super busy lately! And I’m feeling all the better for it!

I’ve picked up a new job as part of the Australian news team for NME, I’ve been writing a bunch of editorial for BLUNT, and I’m still going strong with Australian Guitar. I’ve also teamed up with the absolute gems at UNFD to write for their new podcast series, showcasing highlights from their back catalogue in celebration of the label’s ten-year anniversary. You can check that whole thing out here.

Milo and I are planning to move in the next few months, too, so there’s been a lot of time spent hoarding bits and pieces, looking at places, and hashing out a game plan. We did the RSPCA Million Paws Walk this month, which was an absolute blast – as you can see above, Bruno was definitely the biggest fan between us. We raised over $1,000 for pups in need! Go us!!!

Anyway, here’s everything of mine that got published around the web throughout March, April and May of 2021 ☺️

LITERALLY MY OWN SITE

A very belated chat with Billy Corgan of The Smashing Pumpkins

BLUNT

Death From Above 1979: “We’re free to run wild”

Drown This City: Finding the colour in trauma

Twenty One Pilots: A world of imagination

Teenage Joans: High school, heartbreak and hunger

In retrospect: Hellions’ ‘Opera Oblivia’

AUSTRALIAN GUITAR (via GUITAR WORLD)

Plini: “I’m really happy with everything on this record, which I don’t think has ever happened before”

Orianthi: “I wanted to really mess with my sounds and try new stuff”

Psychedelic Porn Crumpets’ Jack McEwan: “It’s the clean tone that really defines what a great guitar sounds like”

Jess Locke: “The world is insane at the moment – I feel like I couldn’t help but just absorb everything!”

Evanescence’s Jen Majura and Troy McLawhorn: “I think it’s a very beautiful, very meaningful, very REAL album”

Foo Fighters’ Chris Shiflett: “In 25 years, we’ll all be on stools, playing ukuleles and doing ballads – but we might still be going!”

Cheap Trick’s Rick Nielsen: “We’ve loved Australia since the first time we went there in 1978”

Greta Van Fleet’s Jake Kiszka: “We wanted to create something orgasmic and cinematic”

Carla Geneve: “It’s really honest and transparent songwriting about what I was going through”

The Rubens’ Izaac Margin: “I’ve kind of gotten over the guitar sounding just like a guitar”

Adrian Smith & Richie Kotzen: “The style of the record came from our instincts and how we play together”

Middle Kids’ Hannah Joy: “This album is a bit more reflective – there’s a bit more space and it’s a bit more dynamic”

Manchester Orchestra’s Andy Hull: “It was like we had only finished the edges of a 2,000-piece puzzle, and then we had to figure out the insides”

Tomahawk’s Duane Denison: “There’s a political statement to be made in the whole concept of a band”

Tigers Jaw’s Ben Walsh: “This band has always had a really great sense of community around it”

Mogwai’s Stuart Braithwaite: “2020 was such a crazy year that we were just trying to get through it more than anything else”

A Day To Remember’s Kevin Skaff: “We threw out the imaginary rulebook that never existed”

The Pretty Reckless’ Taylor Momsen: “It was very literally music that saved my life”

NOFX’s Aaron ‘El Hefe’ Abeyta: “We’re older now, so there’s a lot more sad shit to write about”

The Bamboos’ Lance Ferguson: “I found it far more enjoyable, because everyone was putting in more creative energy”

St. Vincent: “I wanted to make something more grounded – more, like, from the guts”

Epica’s Mark Jansen: “I cannot stand when things stay the same for too long”

You Am I’s Tim Rogers: “I was always writing – it was just that I wasn’t being a good friend or bandmate”

Melvins’ Buzz Osborne: “We’ve written and recorded more than 500 songs – what can we do to keep it fresh?”

Mannequin Pussy’s Marisa ‘Missy’ Dabice: “It felt like a lifeline to suddenly have something to pour ourselves into”

Waterparks’ Awsten Knight: “I wanted to make Greatest Hits sound more grand and expensive, and just massive…”

Royal Blood’s Mike Kerr: “We wanted Typhoons to feel like a debut record”

Teenage Joans’ Cahli Blakers: “I don’t think a song is ever truly done as soon as we’ve finished writing it”

Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready on teaming up with Fender to recreate his prized 1960 Stratocaster

The six-string origins of DZ Deathrays

Birds Of Tokyo fill us in on their favourite summer jams

Australian Guitar’s Fresh Frets: Vol. 7

Spotlight: Axel Carrington of New Talk

Spotlight: Kai Cult

Spotlight: Jack Gray

Spotlight: Rhys Hope of Highline

Spotlight: Marie Ulven Ringheim, a.k.a. Girl In Red

Spotlight: Tynan Reibelt of Deadlights

Spotlight: Tyne-James Organ

Spotlight: Josh Renjen of Drown This City

Producer Profile: Shane Edwards

Nova Twins – Who Are The Girls? album review

Stumps – All Our Friends album review

Hospital Bracelet – South Loop Summer album review

The Weather Station – Ignorance album review

Hayley Williams – FLOWERS for VASES / descansos album review

Citizen – Life In Your Glass World album review

Erra – Self-Titled album review

The Antlers – Green To Gold album review

Death From Above 1979 – Is 4 Lovers album review

Felicity Urquhart & Josh Cunningham – The Song Club album review

The Small Calamities – Moments Of Impact album review

Drown This City – Colours We Won’t Know EP review

Live Review: Yours & Owls Festival 2021

NME

Listen to Alex Lahey’s original song for Netflix film ‘The Mitchells Vs The Machines’

Listen to Eliza & The Delusionals’ catchy new single, ‘YOU’

Luca Brasi to headline Gold Coast’s 2021 CRAFTED Beer & Cider Festival

Unreleased XXXTentacion songs to be offered as NFTs

Fucked Up premiere colossal 26-minute collaboration with Julien Baker

Phi11a to embark on national ‘Riot’ tour in June

Watch Tim Minchin cover a fan-requested Ball Park Music hit for Like A Version

Listen to the vicious new Apate single, ‘Under My Skin’

Skrillex teams up with Swae Lee and Siiickbrain for guitar-driven single ‘Too Bizarre’

Red Rocks Amphitheatre offers COVID-19 vaccine at its events

John Mayer assures his next album will “all fire up very soon”

Listen to Vance Joy’s bubbly comeback single, ‘Missing Piece’

Amyl and the Sniffers announce June residency at the Croxton in Melbourne

Regurgitator celebrate 25 years of ‘Tu Plang’ with a surprise deluxe reissue

Listen to the effervescent new Odd Tastes single, ‘It’s Alright’

Alanis Morissette releases new song ‘Rest’ in support of Mental Health Action Day

My Chemical Romance announce 2022 Australian arena tour

Danny Elfman drops video for new version of Oingo Boingo’s ‘Insects’

Members of Deftones, Killswitch Engage, In Flames and more deliver heavy metal cover of Björk’s ‘Hyperballad’

The Mars Volta’s Omar Rodríguez-López uploads 62-album catalogue to streaming platforms

Listen to Katz and Sophia Brown team up on a new single, ‘Only You’

James Reyne leads inaugural Valley Sounds acoustic festival lineup

Clare Bowditch stresses a need for vaccination increase to save Australia’s music industry

Wolfmother and Hayley Mary lead the inaugural Byron Music Festival lineup

Listen to Yorke’s groovy new single, ‘Window Shopping’

Moss crowned the winner of triple j Unearthed’s 2021 collab contest

Hilltop Hoods and Nai Palm are the Australian ambassadors for Record Store Day 2021

SBS cancels plans for Eurovision Asia Song Contest

Members of Tonight Alive and Stand Atlantic lead Crowbar Sydney fundraiser show

Listen to two new Juice WRLD tracks, including Lil Uzi Vert’s ‘Lucid Dreams’ remix

Polo G sets a release date for new album ‘Hall of Fame’

DL and Nathaniel team up for soulful new single, ‘Love’

Listen to the catchy new single from Down For Tomorrow, ‘Sentimental’

DZ Deathrays, Stand Atlantic and more streaming live sets on Amazon tonight

Oly Sherman announces debut album, ‘Land of All Pretend’

Hi, hey, hello!

At the start of the year, I told myself I’d be using this site a lot more frequently, and posting at least once a week. But alas, we’re ankle-deep in March and I have posted literally once – I’m sorry. Please accept the above photo of my adorable baby Bruno as a consolation.

Anyway, here’s everything of mine that got published around the web (see: one piece for BLUNT and the rest on the Guitar World site – I also need to up my freelancing game ASAP, I know) in February. Note: all the GW features are also printed physically in Australian Guitar #141, which is out now wherever great magazines are sold!

BLUNT

Beyond The Beat: Hachiku battles slugs and soil with her ambitious home garden

AUSTRALIAN GUITAR (via GUITAR WORLD)

Yungblud: “Why, by some f***ing miracle, have I gotten this far? Because of my fanbase and my community – they know I’m telling the truth to them, and I ain’t gonna leave them behind”

Luca Brasi’s Tom Busby: “We actually made a conscious effort to put heaps less pressure on ourselves”

Pale Waves’ Heather Baron-Gracie: “This album is a journey through my emotional growth as a person across the past year”

Tash Sultana: “I wrote an album that coincided with the realisations I was having within myself”

You Me At Six’s Max Helyer: “The best way to describe how I write a song is that I look at it as though I’m a painter”

Julien Baker: “Nothing about it is really haphazard – even the stuff that sounds intentionally lo-fi, or minimalist, is actually very calculated”

Architects’ Adam Christianson: “We wanted to start fresh and try some new things”

Amahiru’s Saki: “It was so fun to work with Frédéric Leclercq and we both had a lot of ideas, so we decided to make Amahiru its own project”

Spotlight: Maddy Jane

Spotlight: Kelly Jansch of Totty

Spotlight: Matt Stevens and Paul Musolino of The Gloom In The Corner

Pinegrove – Amperland, NY album review

Billie Joe Armstrong – No Fun Mondays album review

Hachiku – I’ll Probably Be Asleep album review

Joe Bonamassa – Royal Tea album review

To see this one out, here’s a song I am absolutely obsessed with at the moment. It’s the new single by Norwegian alt-pop trailblazer Girl In Red, “Serotonin”, from her debut album if i could make it go quiet – which lands April 30th via AWAL. I’ve been stewing with an advance copy of the record for a couple of weeks now, and I’m still blown away by it all over again on every listen (I’ve probably played it cover-to-cover a solid 100 times by now). It’s my first 10/10 album for 2021. I’m dying to get my hands on the vinyl come April. “Serotonin” is definitely a highlight on the record, too; I hope you like it as much as I do.