Tuesday 24 December 2002

*NEWS*

Nicked off the popfrenzy website:

New Years Eve Recess
Thats right!! Popfrenzy is presenting a very special New Years Eve Recess (8pm - 2am) at the Palace. Over two floors plus the roof top its bound to be the most fun anyone will have in Sydney Dec 31! Tickets are on sale at Red Eye Records and also from DJs during regular recess leading up to the night. We've rounded up an all star line up of some of your favourite Recess djs plus visuals provided by Eidetic Pictures. Don't miss out! Get your tickets early!! Also, brand new Recess badges only available on the night!! We're so excited!! Can't ya tell!?! see the flyer here .

Why is this interesting? Well, two reasons. One, Recess is great, and two, STARSANDHEROES is playing the first hour-and-a-bit, enticing punters from the streets of Darlinghurst like a wonky pop Pied Piper, no less. Joooooin uuuuuuus.

Monday 23 December 2002

*NEWS*

Thanks to the lovely folks at Sydney's wonderful Recess club, STARSANDHEROES DJ Charlie No.4 will be "spinning" his "discs" on the "wheels" of "steel" (tr: playing lots of really good electro, pop, lo-fi, breaks and hip-hop records in a row) this Friday 2nd August 2002! Hot-foot it down to The Teachers Club, Mary Street, Surry Hills between 8pm and midnight (free entry) for guaranteed fabbo tunes, cheap beer and free pool...also playing will be DJs Jinx and Sloane, who we're assured are great too...(in fact, SAH are only on for the first hour, but still...come!)
Recess website

Word on the street is, everyone's favourite Spanish-named, Canadian-born, Germany-residing cabaret-hop superstar Gonzales managed to get himself into a spot of bother at Pulp's recent Eden Project gigs. While Jarvis and chums were onstage, "somebody" scrawled the incomprehensible phrases "New Bred Cruze" and "Caro Illage" on the side of their tour bus: Fingers were immediately pointed Chilly-wards, but our man responded with the classic riposte: "Does it say Gonzales? No? There you go then - there's your proof!". Chap...
Gonzales website

Did you miss 2002's Sonar festival? Chances are, you did, since it happened a while back, in Barcelona, which is in Spain, which is quite some way away from the majority of SAH subscribers...anyway, fear not, because the people behind the festival are releasing a generous double CD compilation of this year's highlights. Highlights of the highlights include exclusive tracks from DJ Hell, Arthur Baker, Lali Puna & Bomb The Bass, Cex, Crossover, Yo La Tengo and S.I. Futures. Go seek!
Sonar website

Warp Records' smokin' hip-hop favourites Nightmares On Wax return to the fray in September with their first new single and accompanying album in, oooh, ages we reckon. The longplayer's called Mind Elevation, and the single lifted from it is "Know My Name". On remix duties are loads of people we've never heard of: Paul Nice, Harmonic 33, will.i.am and Mark Pritchard. Oh hold on, that last fella's in Global Communication isn't he? ("Yes!" - the world)
Nightmares On Wax website

ExileInside, the new strictly online anti-music-industry project from mighty-lunged former My Life Story singer Jake Shillingford, finally have some finished songs for you to hear. Pop to their website to hear an MP3 or two and/or order the strictly limited edition (1000 only) EP including "Anaesthesia", "Katrin", "ExileInside" and "Antiques". The band's eponymous debut album, financed in advance by Shakey Jakey's ever-devoted fanbase, is released on the 12th of August 2002 and can be bought on the site. Trust us, you'll wonder how you've lived without his rich, wine-soaked tones for this long.

(originally published 1st August 2002)

Supergrass at Sydney Enmore Theatre 20th July 2002

Britpop lives! Or does it? Supergrass have been languishing in SAH's ever-growing CATSA* file since 2001's fleeting appearance at the Reading festival. Yeah, they played about a million songs, but only one new track among them, thus giving very little away as to what the dickens they'd been up to for the previous 18 months.

Flash forward to now, however, and you've got a totally different story. Supergrass are here in Australia to headline the Splendour In The Grass festival up in Byron Bay (very good, by all accounts, if a little chilly) and they've kindly taken the time to pop down to Sydney while they're knocking around the same hemisphere. And would you credit it - they've brought an absolute sackload of new songs with them...

The Enmore is full to bursting with indie waifs, curious Brits and a smattering of celeb hangers-on (well, Rhys Ifans is here anyway) and thankfully the 'Grass are on top form. Instead of shying away from testing out virgin material, as many bands might after a lengthyish break, they kick straight in with a languid piano-led newie, then swiftly remind everyone where they left off with a glammed-up "Pumping On The Stereo" (yeah, it still sounds like "humping"...). Two more already-classic fresh tracks follow - "Grace" and "Rush Hour Soul", to be precise - and thus the tone is set for the evening.

From where we're sitting/standing/dancing stupidly, every new song aired sounds like a single, a knack some feared Supergrass may have lost after 1999's bitty third album Supergrass. That said, the album's standout track, the oddly sinister "Mary" gets an airing, followed by tonight's first true ace-in-the-hole: "Prophet 15" is magnificent, a fiercely addictive Bowie-esque strum which somehow manages to namecheck everyone from Oscar Wilde and Steve McQueen to Marvin Gaye and John Belushi. Gaz even slips in a saddo fanboy reference to one "Joe The Lion", which more perceptive readers will notice is a fairly obscure Bowie song.

[Danny explains to SAH at the aftershow that the song is about "an imaginary dinner party in the clouds..."]

By this point, Supergrass have got us by the short'n'curlies - and we're not even halfway through the set. The rocket-fuelled Stoogepunk of forthcoming single "Never Done Nothing Like That Before" segues into a cracking take on "Lose It", and the old/new see-saw continues apace. Regrettably, we didn't manage to catch the titles of the remaining new tracks (the album's called Life On Other Planets by the way), but the 'Grass sandwiched them effortlessly between meaty Class Of '95 classics like "Mansize Rooster", "Strange Ones" and "Lenny" so...whaddya want, blood?

Yeah, so they encored with "Caught By The Fuzz" - so what? It rocked! Amazingly, they didn't play the still incredibly irritating "Alright", and even more amazingly, nobody here seemed to mind. There's no point looking backwards when there's so much to look forward to...

Supergrass website

*CATSA= "Crikey, Are They Still Around?"

(originally published 1st August 2002)

*NEWS*

After the ladles and ladles of critical acclaim, er, ladled on 2001's Playgroup album, it seems only right that main man Trevor Jackson be invited to contribute to the Berlin-based Studio !K7 label's ever-impressive DJ Kicks series. Otherwise known as The Underdog (you may recall his remix work for UNKLE and Massive Attack) but probably most notable for his own Output label - releasing albums by Fridge and Four Tet, among others - Jackson proved his own writing and production talents were top-notch when he unveiled his deliciously eclectic and irresistibly danceable Playgroup album last year. !K7's latest DJ Kicks instalment sees him skating from new wave to hip-hop via classic electro and groovesome disco and is not to be missed. DJ Kicks - Playgroup is out now: check out www.k7.com for details and sound clips.

Fans of the mighty Lee Hazlewood can rejoice round about now, cos there's not one but two Hazlewood-related albums hitting your nearest vinyl boutique round about now. There's a new album called - with typical sanguine wit - For Every Solution, There Is A Problem but more importantly (to our starved minds at least) there's a also a fantastic tribute album called Total Lee, both released through City Slang. The former is 73 year-old Lee's first new material since 1999's wholly bizarre Farmisht, Flatulence, Origami, ARF!!! And Me compilation of pop standards; the latter contains mainly marvelous versions of Lee tracks by the likes of Lambchop, Saint Etienne, Jarvis Cocker, Kid Loco, St Thomas and Tindersticks, to name but a few. www.leehazlewood.com is where it's at - love Lee...

Not necessarily within the SAH remit, but anyway: Did anybody witness the debacle on Brighton Beach last weekend during the Fatboy Slim gig/crushathon? Fancy penning an "I was there, blimey what a trauma, good tunes tho" review? Replies to starsandheroes@hotmail.com as per. Chairs!

(originally published 16th July 2002)

The Jesus & Mary Chain - 21 Singles (Rhino)

Ten pretty good reasons why this record, and indeed everything else touched by the preternaturally-aged hands of Messrs Jim and William Reid, is an essential purchase.

1. Mary Chain founders Jim and William Reid gave a young Alan McGee an idea. That idea was to take the shiny pop tunes of the Sixties beat boom and mesh them with huge sodding great slabs of feedback, fuck-you-all additood and the squabbling principles of brotherhood. This, yunnerstan, was A Good Idea. Sadly McGee, having signed JAMC in 1984 and released their debut single (the still immaculately frazzled Upside Down), promptly lost them to Warners, wouldn't let it lie and tried to repeat the formula in the early Nineties. The result was Oasis, a band who nicked JAMC's stagecraft and fraternal theatre but forgot to be any good for more than one and a half albums.

2. And while we're on the subject, no all Mary Chain albums don't sound the same, as someone tried to convince us recently. If 21 Singles shows us anything, it's that the band developed their leather'n'bikes'n'nihilism schtick over the years - anyone who thinks Psychocandy is their only decent album clearly hasn't listened to Darklands or Honey's Dead recently. Or Automatic. Shit, that's nearly all of them. Well anyway.

3. That magnificent bit at the end of "Far Gone And Out" (the sort of record Christina Aguilera would release if she had any self-awareness and made records that sound like she looks, ie. dirty scuzzy bouncy sexy stoopid POP) where the tune virtually shudders to a halt, then the lead guitar line creeps in, deceptively timidly, then THE WHOLE DAMN THING EXPLODES with a mighty "A-HEY HEY HEY!" crunchy coda that makes Blur's "Song 2" sound like a Belle & Sebastian ballad marathon.

4. The fact that Bobby Gillespie was their drummer for years and stood up in front of his two (all you need, of course - bass drum, snare drum and big fuck-off sticks, lots of them) drums a la Mo Tucker. God they looked cool, even with the terrible sub-Bunnymen hair.

5. Amazon.com says "Customers who bought titles by [The] Jesus & Mary Chain also bought titles by The Strokes, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, White Stripes, My Bloody Valentine" - Might we have the temerity to replace the words "also bought titles by" with the word "include"? Thankyou. None of these bands would sound or look anything like they do had it not been for Jim & William and their "let's give The Velvet Underground aesthetic to a whole new generation, but let's mix it with the Ronettes and the Beach Boys and the Ramones, just to see what happens" moment of clarity.

6. Even though it all went wrong when William hooked up with Hope Sandoval - yeah, they went all wussy and (ugh! ugh! ) semi-acoustic all of a sudden, those tunes are gorgeous, broken-backed freaks of beauty.

7. Every great band has its own lexicon: It's what separates the charlatans from the icons. You can play your own Mary Chain drinking game if you like - all you need is this album, a large bottle of own-brand vodka and STARSANDHEROES' unique list of JAMC mots-de-choix. Take a sip every time you hear any of the following:

trip
honey
head
hard
dead
candy
underground
cut
hit
kill
jesus
love
fire
sugar
rain
cherry
gold
morning
down
dark
taste
gun
pray
hell
come
bullet
end

You can see where they're coming from, right? The intoxicating combination of sex and death, the delicious collision of sweetness and darkness, it's entirely irresistible. In fact, you don't even need a copy of 21 Singles to play this game - just walk around town and play it anyway. Go on...go on...

8. Top Of The Pops, 1987. Even though the sound's turned down, we are entirely entranced by the black-clad boys onstage, seemingly legless amid the tumbling dry ice, back-combed hair rising like mushrooms from skinny necks - "When I saw/The mushroom head/I was born/And I was dead" - backs to the audience and playing like it's the last thing they'll ever do. Nobody can even remember what song they were playing, but with a performance as electric as that, who cares?

9. JAMC's remixes of The Sugarcubes' hitherto unimprovable "Birthday". That's it. go find them. They're *amazing*.

10. Frankly, we could go on doing this for weeks. If you don't own any JAMC records, buy 21 Singles: a slightly shonky reissue it may be, but you can't fault the gems within. If, of course, you already own a couple of albums, 21 Singles will make you rush out and buy the rest. That's how powerful those two speed-freak skinny-boy brothers from East Kilbride can be. Don't mess with the demons of rock'n'roll, you might end up just like them. If only...

The Jesus & Mary Chain website

(originally published 16th July 2002)

The Avalanches at Sydney Metro, 5th July

2002, and The Avalanches find themselves in a bit of a pickle. Having spent most of last year basking in the warm glow of tardy success - their Since I Left You album garnered critical praise not seen in any Australian band since, oooh, AC/DC at least - it wouldn't have been hard for them to lose momentum and grow to hate the record they'd so lovingly created...

SILY took over four years to make, and even though it took foaming-at-the-mouth reviews from the UK, Europe and America for the good burghers of Oz to sit up and take notice, take notice they did. Timing, of course, is everything: The Avalanches have spent virtually every waking moment in the last 18 months promoting the record, so it's not unreasonable to suggest that they might be a little bored of it now.

It was, then, perhaps a merciful release for the five-strong collective when drummer Darren Seltmann leapt off a speaker stack during a London show and broke his ankle last September. The band were forced to cancel numerous gigs (including an appearance at the ARIAs, Australia's biggest music industry awards show), allowing not only the convalescing acrobatic sticksman but also the whole of Team Avalanche to take a rest.

But while Seltmann's still recovering, the restless rest of the band obviously couldn't keep their itchy scratching fingers still, and so we find ourselves tonight, stuffed into an already unfairly busy Metro (no floor-space=no stoopid dancing - boo!) awaiting Dexter and Robbie's arrival on the decks.

What follows is a pretty immaculate, two-hour exhibition of How To Get A Crowd Panting For More, starting with 15 minutes of bubbling calypso and punctuated with tantalising snippets of everything from Azzido De Bass's evergreen "Doom's Night" to the Jackson 5's mighty "I Want You Back". Surprisingly not adopting the attention-diverting route taken by similarly-mided jocks like Coldcut, there's no multi-media slideshow, no fancy lighting (well, not much anyway) and no overcomplicated "ooh, look at me, aren't i a clever decknologist?" pretensions: The Avalanching pair simply seem intent on keeping the punters moving, in spite of the reluctance of at least half the room to do so.

The simply-does-it method works like a charm. By concentrating on just the music, the duo leaves Sydney in no doubt that in spite of the Australian charts being clogged up with mindless trance-pop trash, there is a real and nagging need for decent funk round these parts, and that's an itch some feckless chancer like Jamiroquai ain't gonna be scratching any time soon.

Dexter & Robbie flit between disco, hip-hop, classic house and chunky '70s rock like it all sounds the same in their heads, deftly chucking in occasional samples from their own tunes along the way ("Frontier Psychiatrist" seems a favourite, especially the horse and the parrot). Even a busted bass amp can't stop the flow - ok, so it does stop the flow for a bit, but nobody seems to care much - and when they return for the first of two encores with, get this, Le Tigre's "Hot Topic" we know we've just witnessed something extremely special. Later, we'll witness fellow 'Lanche James De La Cruz spinning classic early '90s hoover-rave (who'd have thought "Quadrophonia" would ever be played again?!) back-to-back with, uh, Fine Young Cannibals' "She Drives Me Crazy", but we'll not let that dampen our ardour. What a show. Now, let's see them top Since I Left You...

The Avalanches website

(originally published 16th July 2002)

*NEWS*

For reasons not yet clear, there was a serious breach of STARSANDHEROES' usually impregnable defenses over the weekend. So if you received an e-mail from us between Friday evening and, er, now, please ignore it as it wasn't sent by us! Cheers. And if you're the nameless cad who hacked in and changed our password, shame on you - rest assured, we will hunt you down and feed you to the salties...

In a move that probably won't surprise that many people - given the bewilderingly lacklustre reception given to ace last album We Love Life - Pulp are set to leave Universal/Island at the end of 2002. A statement, entitled "Pulp Do One", on the band's official website www.pulponline.com explains: "Keen to avoid the suspicious flannel that usually attends such partings of the ways, the band are attempting to be as straightforward as possible about events without boring the arse off everyone. Put simply, the option for the band's next (fifth) album with Universal/Island was pretty expensive (record contracts being structured with ascending advances); Island proffered a re-negotiation and Pulp said "no, ta", preferring to walk away." So now you know. The inevitable Greatest Hits album will be released just in time for Christmas, oddly. SAH's suggested title? Ten Years Of Razzmatazz...Alright.

More Flaming Lips news (sorry to bang on, but it's really exciting!): MiniDiscs* at the ready, kids, cos Warners have kindly put the whole of Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots online for y'all to listen to, a whole two fat weeks before its worldwide release. Just go here and click on the fairly self-explanatory "Listen To The Album" button. Also worth a look-see is this, a grand interview with Mr Wayne Coyne courtesy your friendly Guardian.

*Obviously, we at SAH don't condone the illicit recording of copyrighted audio streams off the Internet: The sound quality just ain't there. Buy the record!

A couple of Ninja Tune titbits for you...Funki Porcini returns after an inexplicably extended absence with a new album on July 29th. The album, called Fast Asleep, marks Ninja's first ever CD/DVD super value meal combo-type thing. And on the Big Dada front, everyone's favourite garrulous rap ingenue Roots Manuva unleashes a newish album of dub rerubs and long-lost gems he found behind the mixing desk on July 8th. Dub Come Save Me, as you might expect, is chock full of dubbed-up versions of tracks from 2001's magnificent Run Come Save Me album. And some other stuff. The Ninja Tune site is the place to go. Innit.

(originally published 1st July 2002)

Girls Against Boys at Sydney Metro, June 28th 2002

In their 12-year existence, Washington DC's Girls Against Boys have never managed to reach Australia on tour, but that's all changed with the help of Aussie scuzz-rock heroes Magic Dirt. Being huge fans, "The Dirt" (as nobody calls them) invited GvsB to accompany them on their Oz-wide City Trash Tour, and the clearly delighted four-piece happily obliged.

I say "clearly delighted" because nothing can hide the pleasure on deliciously sinewy singer Scott McCloud's face as he stands centre stage and sizes up his brand new audience for the first time. McCloud is all about young Lou Reed, dressed in a black t-shirt, his angular features startlingly fierce but paradoxically bright considering the dark black noise emanating from him and his similarly-attired bandmates (drummer Alexis Fleisig lets the side down somewhat by wearing blue, but who's quibbling?). Here is power, here is passion, here could of course have been a po-faced mess of testosterone-fuelled hot air. But GvsB know better than that, way better, and from "Cruise Yourself" onwards they're on fire.

You know how Fugazi made a huge, intense racket but you quietly wished they had more, y'know, tunes? Well knock me down, here's GvsB to provide precisely that. And what makes them even more spectacular is the simple fact that their supertight rhythm section - get this - actually have rhythm. No tedious clodhopping metal bludgeoning here (we'll leave that to the headliners); the funk in here is phenomenal, bassist Johnny Temple thudding seven shades of shit out of his obliging instrument while McCloud rasps "TheKindaMzkYouLike" - ain't that the truth - somehow carefree and totally committed, both at once.

"Kill The Sexplayer" (ever seen Clerks? Then you've heard it) whooshes by and suddenly tonight finds its place in the world like the final bit of the 90s noisepop jigsaw: McCloud is what Black Francis wished he was when he sang "I was wearing eyeliner, she was wearing eyeliner...it was so good down here" on "Subbacultcha" - fittingly, tonight's intro tape was indeed Pixies' underrated Trompe Le Monde album - and Girls Against Boys are here, groping 4 luna for all our sakes.

Totally unorchestrated but chaotically loud and unashamedly groovy, GvsB rocked Sydney harder than anybody could have possibly expected. Note to Magic Dirt: Pick vastly superior support bands at your peril...

Girls Against Boys website

(originally published 1st July 2002)

*NEWS*

STARSANDHEROES is looking for a new home! After a-year-and-a-bit of sporadic success in various bijou locations around London, we've decided to up stumps and head for sunnier climes...so if anybody has any bright ideas where we can settle down, lay our hats, kick back and so forth in the merry city "they" have been known to call Sydney, feel free to let us know. Cheers!

God, doesn't The Soft Bulletin seem like a million years ago? Well fear not, Coynetes, for The Flaming Lips are well and truly BACK!!! New album Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots hits the shops mid-July (ish - depending where you live, it could be the 15th or the 16th as far as we can tell), and initial reports have described it as "whoosh, fuck me, it's even more gigantic than the last one"...here's hoping they don't do a Mercury Rev on us and get swallowed up by uberproduction eh? Whatever transpires, be sure to pop down to the Lips' websiteand watch the video for ace new single "Do You Realise??", ok?

Call it serendipity, call it dumb luck (ok, they're pretty much the same thing, but what the hey), but it just so happens that Luke Slater's releasing a new single and it just so happens to take its name from the very e-ntity you're currently reading. Yep, "Stars And Heroes" is its name, and it's a gorgeous mid-paced electropop squeeze of joy indeed. Flexing his tunesome muscles as only a man who's spent ten years trapped in the melody graveyard of abstract electronica can, our Luke makes wholly brilliant use of former Aloof singer Ricky Barrow (as indeed he does on the bulk of his album-of-the-year-you-read-it-here-first Alright On Top) and proves his place on the Mute roster is well deserved. "Stars And Heroes" is released on July the 8th, and you can watch the video here. Go buy it instead of anything by Fischerspooner...

NB. anyone who thinks Luke nicked his song title off us is, er, kinda missing the point a bit.

A word of warning for fans of Kieran Hebden aka Four Tet: just as surprisingly not-shit, recently-renamed UK popkids Liberty X found the domain name they wanted for their website had already been snapped up by a ropey European porn site, poor Kieran seems to have encountered darstardly usurpers on the net. Go here for the full horror of Berkeley, California modern jazz quartet, er, The Fourtet...or alternatively go here for a pretty good (if a smidge old) interview with the currently-not-actually-doing-much-we-think boy Kieran himself.

(originally published 24th June 2002)

Orbital - Work 1989-2002 (FFRR)

Has it really been that long? Blimey. One doesn't usually imagine "dance" acts like Orbital to be the kind of blokes to release a best-of album, but here it is. And the thing is, it could've been so great...Sorry to be picky here, but which wrong-headed A&R twit decided using the 7" versions of all Sevenoaks's finest's singles could ever be a good idea? Fair enough, so you get the full glorious comedown whack of "Belfast", and the superior US mix of "Impact", but the mighty "Halcyon" is truncated horribly and even "The Box" isn't given enough room to breathe. Since the compiler has seen fit to chop and change 7" mixes, album versions and alternate mixes in this fashion, you might think they'd have put a little proper though into it and picked, say, the peerless live-at-Millennium-Eve version of "Chime"...well mightn't you? If you've never heard a note of the Hartnoll brothers' stuff before, of course, Work 1989-2002 is an abslutely essential purchase - as long as you take special care to ignore their decidedly shonky post-1999 work in its entirety, a task made all the more tricksy by the (aaaargh!) non-chronological track order. But if you know your Orbital onions already, you've probably got all the tracks that matter already. If not, get out there and buy Brown and Snivilisation toute suite.

Orbital website

(originally published 24th June 2002)

Cornelius at London Royal Festival Hall, May 6th 2002

Whatever you expected, here's more. If you thought Keigo Oyamada aka Cornelius would find it hard to translate his magnificent Point album onto a live stage, you're so wrong baby, so very wrong. Tonight's show is even more jaw-droppingly stupendous than the last time we saw Cornelius in action, back in 1999 at London's relatively pokey Scala. He threw his sampler into the crowd back then, and he does it again today. But it's not just the tricks, and it's not just the music - how could it ever be "just" the music? - and it's not just the visuals, and it's not just the inner ear-frazzling metal assault towards the end. It's not just the enchanting cover of "Brazil", or the ridiculously sublime theremin-led mangling of Elvis's "Love Me Tender" mid-set. It's the fact that even when your brain is desperately trying to invent a new sense just so it can take in the full technicolour blipvert blitzkrieg bouncing around the usually stolid RFH, the little it can compute is somehow horrible and harmonious, nonsense and profundity, the most perfectly choreographed strobe-o-scopic sound-and-vision spectacular since...oooh, since that time Bedazzled and Performance and The Ipcress File all became one massive film in my head. "Drop" makes everyone cross their legs, but they just...can't...move; when the aforementioned metal onslaught abruptly comes to an end, a small voice from the audience asks "is everyone still alive?" - the name of the next Cornelius album, surely? Genius doesn't even come close, really.

Cornelius website

(originally published 24th June 2002)

So STARSANDHEROES finally has its own blog, just in time for Christmas/the end of 2002/whatever else you fancy celebrating.

Excited? We sure as heckity are.

First up, we're gonna create an instant archive, so bear with us for a bit while we upload a bunch of stuff from a few months ago.

And after that? The world is our oyster and you are the pearls. Lush.