Cat Empire - Prince Bandroom

• Author: Mike
• Filed under: Events
• Date: Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Back at The Prince of Wales celebrating the launch of their new album

Thursday 20th September THURSDAY NOW SOLD OUT!

with special guests Symbiosis

The Falls Festival - Lorne, Victoria

• Author: Mike
• Filed under: Events
• Date: Tuesday, August 28, 2007

The Falls Festival is a New Year’s Eve music festival, held annually in Marion Bay, Tasmania and Lorne, Victoria Australia since 1993. It lasts three days, from December 29 to January 1 each year. The headline acts play mostly over two evenings, December 30 and December 31. Both festivals run simultaneously and swapping line-ups over different days. Due to the length of the event, people bring a tent and camp out at the event; both locations have nearby beaches. Many artists playing at the Falls Festival are traditionally of the blues & roots genre, however it is not exclusively of this style, with rock, hip hop and electronic style acts also playing.

The announced performers as of August 15 include:

• Kings of Leon
• Groove Armada
• Paul Kelly
• Midnight Juggernauts
• Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
• The Waifs
• Gotye
• Built to Spill
• Jos? Gonz?lez
• The Go! Team
• Blackalicious
• The Mess Hall
• Girl Talk
• Kev Carmody
• Whiskey Go Go’s
• Neville Staples from The Specials

Tegan and Sara - The Forum

• Author: Mike
• Filed under: Events
• Date: Monday, August 27, 2007

Canadian twins, Tegan and Sara return to Australia in December 2007 to tour and support the release of The Con, their follow up album to the hugely successful 2004 album So Jealous - named one of the 50 best albums of 2004 by Rolling Stone magazine.

Co-produced by Christopher Walla with Tegan Quin and Sara Quin, the record was cut in Portland, Oregon at Walla’s Alberta Court studio. Having taken a break after the success and non-stop touring behind So Jealous, Tegan and Sara spent months apart while continuing to write and record songs that would eventually make the cut on The Con. Using their self-produced home recordings as the template for the final recording process with Walla, they collaborated with Death Cab’s Jason McGerr on drums along with AFI’s Hunter Burgan and The Rentals’ Matt Sharp, both on bass.

Tegan and Sara will take their show on the road in Australia this December with some special guests to be announced.

Sleep Is For The Weak, Apu!

• Author: Mike
• Filed under: Travel
• Date: Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Four hours sleep is more then enough for any person, especially after a loaded day of music in the desert.

My phone rings at 6am for my wake-up call. I pick it up, stretch and go back to sleep.

My phone rings at 7:15. I pick it up and here “Mr. Brown, your transport is here.”

“I’ll be right down”

FUCKFUCKSHITSHITFUCKFUCKSHIT

Nothing is packed up. I throw everything into my suit case and put on yesterday’s clothes, which by now stink due to all the sweat. No time or space to fit in the six or seven cans of Mountain Dew Code Red, I have to go. I forget to leave a tip and head down stairs to check out and leave. After finding that I’ve been checked out by the staff member, I apologise to the shuttle driver and grab a seat in the back for my trip back to LAX.

I sleep for the majority of the trip, only waking up at Burbank airport for a dropoff and then at LAX. I actually feel much better thanks to the few extra hours of sleep and head down to the arrivals to get my shuttle to Anaheim. I’m still unsure if I’m able to check into my hotel room due to the credit card mess so I may be sleeping outside Disneyland with my pack. When we get to the Howard Johnson, before checking in I pull out my laptop and bring up Skype. Thanks to free wireless broadband at the hotel, I’m able to ring home and find out that my mum has sorted out the credit card issues and I’ll be fine to check in - thanks Mum!

I’m able to check in instantly and head straight up to my hotel room. It’s a fair bit bigger then my other room earlier in the trip which is a nice little bonus, so I take the time to ring home and let them know I’ve got my room. At this stage I’m deciding what I’m going to do for the night, I’m either going to have another nap or go to Disneyland, but I’m super tired and don’t feel like going out. I ask my mum to find out if I can have my trip extended by a few days - I’ll pay for the hotel room and if it’s only a few hundred to fly out on Friday rather then Wednesday, I’ll do it. She rings back and tells me that my Frequent Flyer membership allows me to have one free flight change - oh ship it! I will now miss out on my birthday at home, but at least I’ll enjoy my trip a bit more. I also check my Travelex account and notice I’m down to $80.. my money still hasn’t came through. I get on the phone andask why my money hasn’t gone through since it left my bank account more then five days ago - they say it’s security checks. I complain that I have no money in my account and need someone to get by on while this transfer is taking place, and the best they can do is offer me $25. I tell them where to go and end the phone call at that.

Rather then heading to a park, I decide to have a long shower then go and check out the Downtown Disney district. Downtown Disney is a shopping and dining section in between Disneyland and Disney’s California Adventure. They have a great deal of shops, both Disney and non-Disney. I take the time to check out Disney’s Grant Californian Hotel (which is an incredible sight and somewhere I wished I stayed, even if it was only for one night), a really great bookstore with tons of Disney related books and ESPNZone, the sports channel themed restaurant and arcade. I decide to take a look at the arcade before shelling out $20 to play a few games. They have the standard arcade games with a sports theme - basketball shooting, car racing games and the like. But with that they also have bigger interactive games ESPN’s NFL2Night, a game where you have to throw footballs to receivers and my favourite, NHL2Night - a beat the goalie game. I spend most of my points playing that and the various other games in the place. I vow that I will return here for dinner one night, just not tonight.

I walk around the various food stores and end up deciding on getting some take-out from Ralph Brennan’s Jazz Kitchen Express, a place offering short order Cajun food. I decide to grab a Gumbo Ya-Ya (a thick gravy/soup mixed with rice, chicken and sausage) along with a coleslaw and bread. I stop by store in the hotel to grab a couple of bottles of water and a can of Coke on my way back. I eat in my room while watching Scrubs - the meal is delicious, I really gotta find a place in Melbourne that makes Gumbo like they do (and given that it’s a fast food place in the middle of California, I’m sure that they make it a ton better in New Orleans).

I spend the rest of the night watching TV and surfing the web, only going downstairs to get myself an ice cream sandwich (which they make with oreos, and it was goooood). On the plans for tomorrow was something I was really looking forward to - Six Flags Magic Mountain and rap artist Nas over at the House of Blues - the days never stop being filled when I’m travelling.

Coachella: Day 3

• Author: Mike
• Filed under: Music, Travel
• Date: Tuesday, August 21, 2007

One day into Coachella and I was ready for another week of it - way too much fun. Two days into Coachella and I wondered how much more of it I could take - the desert sun was beating this pasty faced fat man like an early-90s Drederick Tatum in ‘The Bout To Knock The Other Guy Out’. With Sunday being the most loaded day of the Coachella Festival, I figured that all the negatives had passed and I was in for an incredible day of music.

It makes it so hard to think that everything that follows is the 100% truth.

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