Some of my favourite Aussie Indie bands…

Only the Sea Slugs

A Sydney band who’ve just released a mini-album with rave reviews including the US. They’re kind of dark indie rock although I’ve so far missed opportunities to see them live.

http://onlytheseaslugs.tumblr.com/

Fire! Santa Rosa Fire!

I’ve rambled about South Australian act a few times and they’re my favourite band at the moment. Indie with 80′s (real) drumbeats, sophisticated guitar counter melodies and interesting aloof vocals. I saw them not long ago in a small venue called ‘The Good God Small Club’ in near Chinatown, Sydney. Apparently they’re coming to Syd again at the ‘Upstairs Beresford‘.

http://twitter.com/#!/firesantarosa

 

FloatingMe

Located in Sydney, these guys are heavy, but I wouldn’t call them metal or grunge. It’s like dense, heavy rock with deep yet ethereal vocals. It’s kind of a heavy-rock super band with some of Australia’s best musos (Lucius Borich on drums).

http://floatingme.com/

 

The Paper Scissors

Another Sydney indie band with support from both JJJ and FBI radio stations. Brash and heartfelt at the same time.

http://www.thepaperscissors.com/

 

The Keep on Dancin’s

They’re from Brisbane and they’ve been described as ‘reverb-core’ with a nod to classic 50′s/60′s songwriting.

http://www.facebook.com/keepondancins

 

Seja

Another Brisbane artist who’s forte is classic-synth infused pop. She also does felt synths.

http://www.myspace.com/sejamusic

Finally saw Fire! Santa Rosa Fire!

I’d been waiting for Fire! Santa Rosa Fire! to come to Sydney for a while and so I was delighted to see them last night at the oddly named Good God Small Club near Chinatown.  I was probably the oldest fogey there as most of the crowd were 20 something hipsters with slanted fringes, braces and stretch jeans.

 

But FSRF are one of my favourite bands at the moment because of their interesting angular guitar riffs and hypnotic vocals by Caitlin Duff. If you check their wiki site you’ll see they’re described as “monolithic tech-pop”. For me, they have interesting lyrics and a great beat. And I think they’re representative of the quality of up-and-coming bands in this generation who have something interesting to say musically.

 

My 30-something colleagues and friends often feel satisfied with the same classics from the 60′s to the 90′s -Led Zep, Nirvana, Massive Attack,  Pearl Jam, and the Aussie greats like You Am I, INXS, Cold Chisel etc… Don’t get me wrong, I also love most of the classics, but people in my age group seem overwhelmed by the barrage of new acts coming at us from the open media environment that is the internet.

 

You just gotta dig, filter and sift and you find the good stuff. It’s also hard avoiding the clutter and self promotion. But you’ll find bands like FSRF. Even the support acts weren’t to bad.  I only got the tail end of the first act 1929 Indian, which I regretted because I liked their song on Youtube.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire!_Santa_Rosa,_Fire!

 

http://www.moshtix.com.au/event.aspx?id=54441

Finally got to see the Paper Scissors…

The last few times that the Paper Scissors played in Sydney I had every intention of going to their gig, but due to several lame excuses never made it. However, coz I’m on their mailing list they let slip they were playing an inconspicuous free gig in a hotel-pub in Manly… even though it was a Thursday night, I decided to go because they started at 9.30 and I’d be able to catch a ferry and bus home for work the next day… It was a good gig. A bit slow at first but the crowd got into it and were dancin’ and groovin’ by half way through the set, even wanted an encore but the frontman confessed they’d exhausted their repertoire.

I’m not sure if there were many die hard fans there -it was a cocktail bar two floors up, and it was a hip crowd. I was probably the biggest dag there, but the upside was that the sound wasn’t at maximum ear-bleeding volume of a typical pub-rock gig -just groovy enough to get into.

 

http://strugglingmuso.wordpress.com/2011/06/26/the-paper-scissors-album-review-lifemusicmedia/

Talking about the Brisbane indie scene: The Butcher Birds

I mentioned I saw the Keep On Dancin’s a week or so back -well a grungy ‘relative’ is The Butcher Birds -for those who are into Sonic Youth and bands like Borris…

This clip starts out arty with blurring effect and gradually comes into focus to reveal the performers from a live gig

(http://youtu.be/1Qf6pbeW7js)

 

MV from Sydney indie-rock band The Paper Scissors

Lung Sum by The Paper Scissors

I think they’re from Sydney. I like the title -reminds me of ‘dimsum’.