Innholdsfortegnelse for July 2017 i Rolling Stone Australia

Boyband Blues UGH, IT’S ALL PLAYING OUT like it does with every other boyband. So Zayn Malik was the “brave” one leaving One Direction first; now Harry Styles is the “creative genius” who for some reason deserves to be taken seriously. I wonder which member of 1D will have the failed solo career, and who’ll end up strung out in the tabloids. It’s going to happen. Robyn Tailor Swansea, NSW Trump’s Triumph MATT TAIBBI’S BRILLIANT take on Trump [RS 786] was very accurate. It was replete with black humour at its best. However, Trump didn’t really win the election. Hillary lost it. The crucible that is congress long ago lost its power to represent, thanks to corporate lobbying. Trump is simply the end product of a badly compromised system: a…

BRITISH INDIE ROCK TRIO ALT-J ARE NO STRANGERS TO abundant success and prestigious accolades: 2012 debut An Awesome Wave went platinum in the UK, won the Mercury Prize that year and was named Album of the Year at the 2013 Ivor Novello Awards, making the self-described “art school band” critical darlings in the process. 2014 follow-up This is All Yours, however, took things to the next level: second single “Breezeblocks” cracked the lucrative US market and went platinum, leading to a Grammy Award nomination for Best Alternative music Album Over a billion music streams later, Gus Unger-Hamilton admits it was a lot for the group to take in. “It didn’t end well, really,” the keyboardist and vocalist says. “I don’t know how you’re supposed to take that kind of thing.…

SINCE HARLEY-DAVIDSON OPENED shop in 1903, the brand has grown from a simple manufacturer of a distinctive motorbike into something iconic (some would say spiritual). The bikes will be forever linked to Seventies counterculture through films like Easy Rider and its Steppenwolf track “Born to Be Wild”, but as Vice President of the Harley-Davidson Museum, Bill Davidson, explains, the cool really started with the King, Elvis Presley. “We have Elvis’s 1957 Sportster on display in our Milwaukee museum. At the time, he was not that well known. He had to take a loan out to buy the Sportster. Shortly after he took the loan out he released ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ and he just skyrocketed. After that he could have bought a thousand Sportsters and paid cash for them.” Davidson, who is…

In celebration of his 50th anniversary as a recording artist, Diamond is hitting the road this year for a world tour. Lonnie Donegan “Rock Island Line” I first heard this when I started playing guitar. It was a combination of folk and rock & roll, and it angled me into the world of Woody Guthrie. The Everly Brothers “Bye Bye Love” If you were a teenager into music at this time, you loved the Everly Brothers. Anybody could do harmonies, but nobody had their sound. Peter, Paul and Mary “Blowin’ in the Wind” This actually talked about current events. It spoke about an issue that had been boiling for years and was ready to make itself known. The Rolling Stones “Satisfaction” This had a black groove, not only by white…

I had one song called ‘I Don’t Have to Mow the Lawn No More’. ‘The first time I photographed Radio Birdman was when they supported Ol’ 55 at Sydney University,” recalls snapper Bob King. “I was there to ‘shoot’ Ol’ 55, but as I arrived before they played I took some photos of Radio Birdman too. They were very energetic – and very loud! – and the audience was dancing right in front of the stage, close to the band. I sent some proofs to their manager the following week. “Later that month they invited me to the recording of a TV special at the ABC TV studios at Gore Hill. Then over the following two months I photographed the band twice in a small photographic studio in Ultimo…

 It’s not exactly how I thought the day would go, but in the midafternoon in a warehouse building somewhere off the 101 freeway, Lorde is stripping down to her skivvies. In all fairness, so am I. We’re at Shareen Downtown, a 6,600-square-foot Los Angeles paradise of secondhand sartorial wonders where there are no dressing rooms and, not coincidentally, there is also a strict rule that there are NO BOYS ALLOWED, as a sign on the front door attests. “Isn’t that great?” asked Lorde earlier. “I found out about it through my old tour manager’s wife, who did the costumes on Mad Men. She was like, ‘I always go to Shareen.’ And so I go to Shareen now as well.” “I look back like, ‘That was insane’,” Lorde says of her first…

“It never felt like ‘Civil Dusk’ was finished and this new one was beginning,” says Fanning. BERNARD FANNING IS KEEN TO GO back on tour. The former Powder-finger frontman only briefly hit the road after releasing his third solo album Civil Dusk last August, preferring to continue work on that record’s successor, the newly issued Brutal Dawn. Now that he has both albums done, he wants to present them to fans – not to mention that touring allows him to catch up on his favourite television series, the Cold War espionage drama The Americans. “That show is brutal, and it’s fascinating to see how the inner machinations of the Russian side works,” says Fanning. “Plus, you know, it’s suddenly a lot more relevant these days.” Cut at Fanning and producer…

Known for their warm, gentle take on indie folk, Husky (Husky Gawenda and cousin Gideon Preiss) have packed away the acoustic guitars and pulled out the keyboards for synth-heavy, Seventies-inspired space-pop album Punchbuzz. “I think in the past we considered ourselves a folk band, and perhaps we restricted ourselves a little bit to fit that description,” says Gawenda. “With this record we didn’t worry too much about that and found a kind of freedom. We allowed ourselves to explore things without worrying [about] the results.” Conceived during a year spent in Berlin (“A crazy, dark, long, twisted, hedonistic dream”) and largely written and recorded in Melbourne throughout 2016, Gawenda is unconcerned that the change in direction will scare off long-time fans. “Fundamentally we’ve remained the same band, and people who…

BENJAMIN BOOKER OPENED FOR Jack White and became a festival breakout around the release of his 2014 blues-punk debut LP. After a long tour, he visited Mexico City. “It was life-changing,” he says of the monthlong trip, which informed his new album, Witness. Booker keeps trip mementos at his L.A. home, from a Charles Bukowski T-shirt to a wood-carved tiger mask he bought from a woman who “must have been 100 years old”. Meanwhile, Booker’s move from New Orleans to Echo Park, where he relocated to be near his girlfriend, has changed his look: “I had a funkier style – crazy polka-dot shirts,” he says. “I guess now I’m in a relaxed, back-to-basics kind of phase.”…

You’ve had health crises over the years, including breast cancer and a benign brain tumour. How have those affected the way you see day-to-day life? I don’t think about it anymore. I don’t think about whether my cancer’s coming back or if my brain tumour’s growing or anything like that. I’m busy with my kids – my objective is to be here as long as I can for them and to enjoy every second of it. But I would say that my life was really changed when I got diagnosed. It gave me the freedom to just say, “Hey, let’s get on with life. If you wanna have kids, either adopt or go have one, get some sperm, whatever.” I also learned how to let myself off the hook, and…

IN THE EARLY DAYS OF THE REA- gan administration, Steve Van Zandt started writing a doo-wop song called “The City Weeps Tonight”. The goal was total authenticity, something that “could have been by the Students or the Jive Five”, and he was getting pretty close, until he got stuck on the final verse. As Van Zandt threw himself into the improbable arc of the next 36 years of his life – leaving the E Street Band to launch an activism-fuelled solo career; helping to establish a pivotal cultural boycott of South Africa with “Sun City”; then falling into a post-Eighties showbiz limbo that consisted mostly of walking his dog, only to find himself, all at once, starring on The Sopranos, touring the world again with Bruce Springsteen, and becoming the…

‘Born to Run’ Tour 1975 New E Streeters Steven Van Zandt, Max Weinberg and Roy Bittan helped Springsteen live up to the insane hype of Born to Run and bring its wall of sound to life night after night. ‘Ghost of Tom Joad’ Tour 1995-97 Springsteen hit theatres armed with an acoustic guitar and delivered spare, powerful renditions of his songs. After a down period, the tour rebooted his entire career. The E Street Reunion 1999-2000 Ten years after Springsteen fired his most famous band, they all came back together for an emotional tour. “We did a run at MSG that was so over-the-top,” says Weinberg. “Some of the best shows we ever did.” ‘Working on a Dream’ Tour 2009 The final tour before the death of Clemons featured performances…

“They’re guaranteed to raise a smile. So may I introduce to you The act you’ve known for all these years: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.”—THE BEATLES, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely The Beatles Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band: Anniversary Edition Capitol ★★★★★ In 2006, the Beatles coaxed producer George Martin out of retirement to remix and rearrange several of their songs for Cirque du Soleil’s Las Vegas production Love. To aid him, Martin brought on his son Giles, who created a revelatory mash-up that reminded us how beautifully George Martin (who died last year at 90) had produced them all in the first place. Now, Giles is helming another historic project, an expanded 50th-anniversary edition of the Beatles’ masterpiece, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. It’s the kind of reconsideration…

“This guy said, ‘You look like Pete Murray.’ I said, ‘I hate that guy’s music.’ He said, ‘Yeah, he is a bit of a wanker.’” The last time I busked It was when I first started playing guitar, and I was in Canada. It was myself and a mate, it was freezing cold, I think it was minus-10 or minus-15, and the first person walking past came up and got his wallet out. And we’re thinking, “This is great! We must be pretty good!” We were playing a Neil Young song, “Comes a Time”, I think. He comes up and he said, “Here, boys, here’s $20, it’s too cold, you should go inside.” The last time I was mistaken for someone else I get mistaken for me all the time.…

Whole Lotta Love Jimmy Page and Noel Gallagher hung out at a London exhibition celebrating the art and music of Pink Floyd. The meeting went better than a run-in at Zeppelin’s 2007 reunion, in which Robert Plant snubbed the Gallaghers. “One of them said, ‘You’re the real fucking thing’,” recalled Plant. “I said, ‘I’ve known that all down the line’ . . . and left quickly.” SEND IN THE CLINTONS Bill and Hillary Clinton were in the crowd at a Barbra Streisand show in Brooklyn; the singer introduced Hillary as “winner of the country’s popular vote”. BLOND AMBITION Debbie Harry made a political statement at a London show that included songs from Blondie’s new LP, Pollinator. Blondie are touring the U.S. with Garbage all summer. SWEET CHARITY Neil Finn and…

EVEN IN TRENDY WILLIAMS- burg, Brooklyn, Valerie June stands out: star-studded sunglasses, a sparkly silver blouse and a plume of thick dreadlocks that sprout in all directions. At her favourite neighbourhood bistro, she attracts the attention of a bald customer who approaches her table to hand her his business card. “Love your hair,” he says flirtatiously. “Maybe you could give me some.” “I might!” June replies with a laugh. June, 35, smiles again when asked about another compliment she received recently. In an interview posted on his website, Bob Dylan said he’d been listening to June, whose latest album, The Order of Time, is a blend of spacey hippie soul, blues and folk with June’s pinched, modern-Appalachian voice at the centre. “I lost it,” June says of the Dylan shout-out.…

JOHN MELLENCAMP SPENDS AN awful lot of time alone, painting. Not long ago, he went 35 days without leaving his Indiana compound, a stretch so lengthy that his 85-year-old dad told him he was worried. But whether he wants them or not, songs still come to him, as his strong, country-inflected new album, Sad Clowns and Hillbillies (made in collaboration with Carlene Carter), makes clear. “A voice in my head will go, ‘OK, put your brush down and write these words down’,” he says. “And I’ll be like, ‘No, I don’t want to fucking write a song.’ Then the voice will go, ‘You better write this down, you idiot.’ Then I forget about it, and I find it and go, ‘When did I write this?’ It’s a wonderful way of…

“Autograph seekers wait for me all over. Lobbies, airports, train stations.” WHEN I FIRST STARTED DOING MUSIC MANY years ago, I never thought I would be appreciated enough to where someone would ask for my autograph. When recognisability became part of my life, it was mostly bad. The idea of fame was equivalent to selling out. One night after a show, I was walking through the parking lot of the venue with Joey Ramone. A girl came up to him and yelled, “Rock star, I don’t wanna know YOU!” Joey kept walking. The signals were, at best, mixed. Punk rock instructs me to speak to whom is speaking to me. I don’t pretend I didn’t hear them. I always did my best to answer every question and sign every item…

The Song That Reminds Me of School Bachman-Turner Overdrive “Takin’ Care of Business” 1973 “That song really reminds me of being in the parking lot at school and my friend blasting it out of the car speakers, and we’d be singing along like [in macho voice], ‘Takin’ care of business, every day!’ [Laughs] Many years later I was watching The Simpsons and that song comes on the radio and Homer goes, ‘Woo! Bachman-Turner Overdrive, yeah!’ I was like, oh my God, my contemporary is Homer Simpson!” The Song You Wouldn’t Expect to Find on My iTunes Lana Del Rey “Ultraviolence” 2014 “I don’t really listen to digital music so much, but I use ‘Ultraviolence’ by Lana Del Rey for my ringtone. That might be a surprise to people, that I…

“I WAS A FROZEN EMBRYO CALLED TINY TINA. PUT ON ICE. I WASN’T COOL.” ‘HEY MOZ! HAVE YOU GOT ANY more of this gravy?” Tina Arena calls out across a café in Fitzroy’s Brunswick Street. She’s a regular here since moving back to Melbourne in late 2015 after almost two decades in London and Paris, and the owner gives her the thumbs-up and brings over a small jug. Arena is tucking into a plate of braised lamb with the same relish she approaches her career and her conversation. She’s never backward in coming forward, swears like a sailor and holds forth on everything from her personal life to attitudes towards women in the music industry. As she prepares to turn 50 in November, Arena is already celebrating with the release…

SUNY Stony Brook, Stony Brook, NY SEPTEMBER 19, 1971 One of Duane Allman’s most magnificent shows: See the 11-minute-plus “Blue Sky”. Cow Palace, San Francisco DECEMBER 31, 1973 Jerry Garcia, Bill Kreutzmann and Boz Scaggs sit in on New Year’s jam that starts with “Whipping Post”, then goes jukeboxing. Beacon Theatre, NY OCTOBER 28, 2014 A four-hour farewell blowout at their adopted latter-day home base, ending in the a.m. on the anniversary of Duane’s death.…

The 31-date tour was the most technically complex in rock at that point. Here’s a look at what went into it. Number of white fireproof, reinforced cardboard boxes that made up the wall: 340 Number of feet a hydraulic lift hoisted Gilmour into the air every night to play his “Comfortably Numb” solo on top of the wall: 33 Number of dollars the band earned from the entire tour, excluding keyboardist Richard Wright, who was fired during the making of the album and was brought on as a hired hand: $0.00…

London Grammar  Truth Is a Beautiful Thing Universal ★★★ It’s hard to imagine Jamie “xx” Smith much likes London Grammar being compared to his band. He’d have reason to groan, too – while London Grammar’s first album enjoyed the rare combination of critical acclaim and huge international sales, their second is less impressive, a dirge-heavy collection that lacks the colourful counterpoints of its predecessor – and certainly the boundless imagination of Smith’s work. Hannah Reid’s vocals are undeniably arresting – she’s got lungs to match Florence Welch’s – but the songs lack the range of her clarion alto. Lyrically, too, Reid stumbles – “follow your dreams” on repeat in “Wild Eyed” is hard to stomach, and her reminder that “Maybe what we are and what we need, they’re different things” (shock…