Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2015 i Rolling Stone Australia

Taming the Beast SO U.S. ROLLING STONE gets reality TV idiot Kim Kardashian’s heaving boobs on the cover and we get Kevin Parker gazing dreamily into the distance? Thanks ROLLING STONE! I’ll take the delightful Kev over that no-talent skank any day! Bronwyn Ellis, Cargo, NSW TAME IMPALA’S NEW RE- cord is a revelation. After getting used to the absence of guitar riffs, I’ve come to love Currents. Listening to it with headphones makes you feel like you’re drifting in an isolation tank, which if you haven’t tried before, you should – it’s a mind-bending experience, much like Kevin Parker’s trip of a record. David Branigan, Melbourne, Vic Sister Act AS A DEDICATED READER with a vagina, the last issue of ROLLING STONE was a step in the right direction.…

THERE’S A SIMPLE REA- son why Foals have returned with their fourth album, the seething What Went Down, so soon after the extensive touring for their breakthrough record, 2013’s Holy Fire, had concluded. “We felt charged,” declares the English rock group’s frontman, Yannis Philippakis. “The last few shows for Holy Fire were some of the best we’d ever played and we wanted to capitalise on that energy.” Stepping out of a London rehearsal room where the new compositions are being prepared for a return to the road, Philippakis is quietly enthusiastic about the finished album but still trying to get his head around the dizzying creative burst that birthed What Went Down (out August 28th). “The momentum was there and we basically wrote the entire record in three months,” explains…

Austin ‘Chumlee’ Russell Best known as: Co-host of the History Channel show Pawn Stars, where his goofball comic charm has made him a breakout star. Years DJ’ing: Since early 2015 How’s it going? After taking lessons at a “DJ institute” called Blend and practicing “for, like, a month straight”, Chumlee made his debut in February at Vegas’ Ghostbar Dayclub; his rider for the show requested five Nerf guns, Girl Scout cookies and “beautiful waitresses to take me to the stage”. Kristian Nairn Best known as: Hodor, the lovable gentle giant on Game of Thrones. Years DJ’ing: 12 How’s it going? Nairn, who grew up in Northern Ireland, was a fixture on the Belfast DJ scene years before he started acting. “I’m shooting emotional laser beams out into the crowd,” he’s…

Rolling Stone writer Jeff Apter can clearly recall the moment he decided to write his latest book, Tragedy: The Sad Ballad of the Gibb Brothers. “As soon as I saw Barry Gibb standing alone onstage in 2013 during his Mythology tour, I couldn’t help but notice what a forlorn figure he struck. We’re so used to seeing the three Gibbs on stage as the Bee Gees, that the image of Barry alone really drove home the recent loss of Maurice and Robin. That was the starting point for me, that inherent sense of tragedy. I also wanted to explore the strong bond the Gibbs had with Australia: this is where they were raised and where they served their musical apprenticeship.” So began more than a year of research and writing…

‘CATHARSIS” IS A WORD Shane Nicholson uses frequently to describe Hell Breaks Loose, his first album since the demise of his marriage to fellow singer-songwriter Kasey Chambers, which several songs on the record confront. “It’s a less guarded record than ever before,” he says. “They’ve all been honest but this is certainly less dressed up in metaphor and disguise. “There were songs where I thought, ‘Wow that’s a bit pointed’, but I decided that I wouldn’t sugarcoat it.” The other vital inspiration was a trip to Central Australia to spend time with his friend, indigenous singer Warren H. Williams, whom Nicholson describes as his “Mr Miyagi”, and whom he credits with reinvigorating his songwriting mojo. “I felt this immediate removal from my life, which offered so much perspective after this…

“I photographed Jeff for the Grace cover in December of 1993 at my friend Billy Basinski’s Arcadia loft in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Jeff definitely had his own sense of personal style. The glitter jacket he is wearing is one of his thrift store finds. The shoot went on most of the day – he was a bit nervous because it was the album cover shoot. I wasn’t even interested in the shot Jeff chose for the cover. Jeff saw it on a contact sheet and said, ‘That’s it. That’s the cover. I can tell I am listening to music in this shot.’ The music he was listening to was Patti Smith’s Horses album. Later I found out there was quite a bit of controversy about the cover selection. Management didn’t like…

1 Mojo Pin KATIE NOONAN THE fiRST TIME I HEARD Jeff Buckley my world stopped. Never had I heard such earnest, raw and pungent beauty. I also remember feeling relief that music like that could exist, as I was beginning to dream my own sonic world and he gave me hope! “Mojo Pin” was the soundtrack to my first serious make-out session/“sleepover” with my then new boyfriend, now husband of over 10 years, Zac. We were lying on the floor of my share house bedroom listening to the live version (Live at Wetlands) and it is so, so seriously sexy: “Love turn me on/let me turn you all over/with my thumb on your tongue/rest your heel on my shoulder/your love melts like chocolate/on the tongue of God . . .”…

JUDD APATOW SETTLES INTO THE HOME OFFICE AT his Brentwood mansion one recent evening. He’s wearing socks, jeans and a polo shirt. Messes of paper and books cover every surface – scripts he needs to read, novels and biographies he wants to. The mess is a fitting visual corollary to his neuroses, which, after all these years, still gnaw at him. “I have a very hard time filing things away,” he says. “Someone will come in and straighten up, but then it’s back to looking like this in three days.” Over the past decade, Apatow has become the most prominent comedy-maker of our time. His name evokes not only a particular comedic tone (heartfelt raunch) but also particular stars (Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill, Melissa McCarthy, all of whom he helped…

THE BOARDING PROCE- dure has barely started at Chicago O’Hare, and Ben Schlappig has already taken over the first-class cabin. Inside Cathay Pacific Flight 807 bound for Hong Kong, he’s passing out a couple of hundred dollars’ worth of designer chocolates to a small swarm of giggling flight attendants. The six suites in this leather-bound playpen of faux mahogany and fresh-cut flowers comprise the inner sanctum of commercial flight that few ever witness. They’re mostly empty now, save for two men in their twenties who seem even giddier than the flight attendants. The two stand to greet him. “This is so cool!” exclaims one, and soon Schlappig is ordering champagne for everyone. This sort of thing happens to Schlappig nearly everywhere he goes. On this trip, his fans will witness…

Shane Nicholson  Hell Breaks Loose Lost Highway Shane Nicholson’s fifth solo album marks a kind of catharsis for an artist now something of a veteran among Australia’s alt-country community. Not only is this his first LP since his well-documented divorce from Kasey Chambers in 2013, he also had to confront a case of songwriter’s block, overcome by an inspiring trip to Central Australia. Not that there is much sense of that locale or culture on the unhurried, introspective Hell Breaks Loose, which sits back without pretension or much complexity, making for a disarmingly interesting listen. Nicholson is never likely to reinvent the genre, yet this is far from formulaic country-rock. An array of sombre ballads (aided by some very pleasant piano parts) is balanced by more dynamic songs such as…

Irrational Man Joaquin Phoenix, Emma Stone, Parker Posey Directed by Woody Allen GETTING AWAY WITH MUR- der in a godless universe is a theme that has long compelled Woody Allen, from Crimes and Misdemeanors to Match Point. Allen sees this as a cosmic joke. And in Irrational Man, the story of an impotent, alcoholic philosophy professor (Joaquin Phoenix) who tries to rationalise homicide, Allen serves the comedy black and stinging hot. Phoenix plays Abe Lucas, an educator who hates himself for leaving real-world activism in Darfur and New Orleans to teach a summer course in ethical strategies at Braylin, a fictional college in Rhode Island. The students romanticise Abe, especially Jill Pollard (Emma Stone), who finds her boyfriend, Roy (Jamie Blackley), paling in comparison. Abe has a similar effect on…

THE MAN WHO JUST PUBLISHED one of the best novels ever written about the Internet has spent less time online than almost anyone else his age. After graduating from college in 2001, Joshua Cohen lived in Eastern Europe for six years, writing fiction, filing overseas dispatches for The Jewish Daily Forward and generally avoiding the Web – he didn’t even have a dial-up connection. When Cohen returned to New York in 2007, everyone suddenly had smartphones and Facebook accounts. He found the Web’s unrelenting creep so unnerving that he considered going back to Europe. “I realised I didn’t have enough money to buy a ticket,” says Cohen, 34, drinking whiskey and smoking cigarettes at a bar near his home in Red Hook, Brooklyn, one recent afternoon, “and I had shipped…

WHEN DON HENLEY WAS A BOY growing up in rural Texas, he used to listen to country greats like Hank Williams and George Jones on the legendary Louisiana Hayride radio show. For Cass County, his first solo album in 15 years, Henley went back to those roots, recording in Nashville with singing partners like Mick Jagger, Merle Haggard, Dolly Par-ton, Miranda Lambert and Alison Krauss. “I got people whose voices move me, people whose music I respect,” says Henley. “They’re real singers who can really get the job done.” Henley wrote songs for the album during the 250-kilometre drive between Dallas and his tiny hometown of Linden in Cass County, Texas, drawing inspiration from a landscape he describes as “where the Old South meets the West”. Co-produced by former Tom…

FOR PRODUCER-DJ DIPLO, THE PAST 12 years have been a slow but unrelenting march from the ultra-hip fringes to the dead centre of pop music. Recently he had two chart-topping singles from two different projects: the Justin Bieber-featuring “Where R U Now”, from his Jack Ü collaboration with Skrillex, and “Lean On”, from his dancehall-inflected act Major Lazer, which went from studio lark to festival-packing force. Diplo, who first broke through to the mainstream circa 2005 as M.I.A.’s producer, says there’s never been a master plan: “I’ve been 100 per cent improvising,” he says. “When I moved to L.A. to produce and write, I kept DJ’ing on the side, but I thought that was never gonna go anywhere.” So is Justin Bieber officially cool now? He’d been stuck in a…

OLD Grateful Dead “China Cat Sunflower” My dad was a big fan of the Dead, so I used to hear them all the time around the house. This song is so psychedelic and free-flowing and deep. It’s like it’s in 3D. Janis Joplin “Cry Baby” This is one of my favourite vocal performances by Joplin. It’s a forgiveness song. If a girl wrote a song like this about me, I would be so flattered. Aphex Twin “Bucephalus Bouncing Ball” So incredible. It’s a crazy journey, like five songs in one. I’ve memorised every single hit and solo and accent. NEW Taylor Swift feat. Kendrick Lamar “Bad Blood” A year ago, you never would have thought that Kendrick and Taylor would make a song together. I think it’s awesome. Really fun.…

‘YOU’VE BEEN LISTENING TO Robert Johnson, haven’t you?” ¶ Jeff Buckley flashed a smile at his new friend, Michael Tighe. He liked what he had just heard. They were sitting on Tighe’s bed; the guitarist had never been in a serious band before, but he was playing Buckley some music for a song he was working on. Buckley, meanwhile, had just signed a recording deal with Columbia Records. ¶ Fast forward to late 1993 and Buckley, his friend Chris Dowd from the band Fishbone and Tighe were in the Sony Studios in New York’s Hell’s Kitchen, trying to finish some likely B-sides. The main sessions for Buckley’s debut album, Grace, were done. Tighe’s song now had a title – “So Real” – but it didn’t have much in the way…

ON A CHILLY MORNING DURING LOS ANGELES ’ “MAY grey”, as mist rolls off the sea’s marine layer to cool down the city, Kim Kardashian wakes up at 6 a.m. and an hour later heads to her “glam room”. That’s Kardashian-speak for her capacious dressing room, where even at this early hour, a profession al makeup artist and hairstylist have already arrived , awaiting her with hundreds of little brushes , blushes and combs . She relaxes into her chair as layer upon layer is applied – she loves the feeling of getting makeup done, the way you can be at one with your eyeliner – while also glancing at a baby monitor in case North, her two-year-old daughter with husband Kanye West, wakes up. West has his own monitor…

Gurrumul The Gospel Album Skinnyfish/MGM When news of this album leaked, expectations of a dramatic recasting of Gurrumul’s extraordinary voice naturally rose. Imagine that impossibly plaintive instrument murmuring against a humming black American choir; rising on a tide of lung-busting hallelujahs and handclaps as a Hammond organ rocks the pews. Talk about a potent brew of cultural cross-pollination. As it happens, the gospel according to Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu is much closer to home. His third studio outing under the stewardship of Melbourne bassist Michael Hohnen is a slow, gentle, atmospheric hymnbook remembered from Sunday sing-alongs in the Elcho Island church of his Methodist upbringing. There are some subtle sonic developments whispering beneath the singer’s trademark hypnotic lull. Distant flurries of churango and mandolin invoke an island string-band breeze in the…

Royal Headache  High Distant and Vague Recordings Given the sense of volatility that surrounds Royal Headache – from an Opera House stage invasion they unwittingly caused to a live show that could implode at any point – the mere existence of this album is miraculous in itself. Frontman Shogun has always hinted that Royal Headache are a band on borrowed time, recently telling ROLLING STONE that this record was “that one umbilical cord that’s kept me connected to the fucking band”. But High sounds absolutely nothing like the “contractual obligation” that statement implies. There’s a cluster of tracks here that pick up where 2011 debut Royal Headache left off, yet there are other moments where you get a sense they’re becoming a different band altogether. There’s (gasp!) an organ on…

Lianne La Havas Blood Nonesuch When we first met Lianne La Havas, on her 2012 debut, she was a South London 22-year-old coming of age, electric guitar in hand. Plucking out rhythm lines that sounded like bossa nova gone rockabilly, she sang about love’s ups and downs in a voice that moved from gold to gravel in a blink, intertwining strength and vulnerability. On her second album, she still strums and fingerpicks like an alt-folkie, but that new sound you hear is bass, and plenty of it. Standouts like “Unstoppable” and “What You Don’t Do” make the case for La Havas as a cosmic soul queen, recalling the daydream music Aretha Franklin made in the mid-Seventies. Many will attribute the change to Prince – La Havas performed with him on…

Monkey Wrench Hits Foos! Dave Grohl was sprinting across the stage at Sweden’s Ullevi Stadium during “Monkey Wrench” when he took a 12-foot tumble. “I definitely shredded something!” he said. After cancelling European dates the Foos resumed their U.S. tour, with Grohl resplendent on his own Game Of Thrones-inspired throne. Thoughts are also turning to a new LP, which likely will be another concept album. “It’s not enough to just make a fucking record anymore,” said drummer Taylor Hawkins. RUBY TUESDAY Not content with winning over the U.S. in OITNB, Ruby Rose hit the decks at Pacha in New York. ROLE MODEL Cara Delevingne pulled some decidedly un-photogenic facials while appearing in Madrid on El Hormiguero, a Spanish variety TV show, while promoting her new film, Paper Towns. We still…

Dennis Dunaway – bassist for the Alice Cooper band from 1968 until Cooper became a solo act in 1975 – has collected his wildest tales for a new memoir, Snakes! Guillotines! Electric Chairs! My Adventures in the Alice Cooper Group, written with ROLLING STONE contributor Chris Hodenfield. Here are five things we learned. Early on, the band’s management team paid the bills by selling Dylan bootlegs. Cooper’s managers allegedly got the tapes through a source at Columbia Records and sold them to record stores as the band toured. “They had carloads of them,” writes Dunaway. Cooper’s famous boa constrictor fell into his lap – almost literally. The snake, featured with Alice on the cover of ROLLING STONE in 1972, became a signature after a fan threw it onstage one night.…

Filmmaker Sean Baker was intrigued by the trans-gender streetwalkers he’d seen in his West Hollywood neighbourhood, so one day he approached a tall, striking woman named Mya Taylor to ask her for stories. Says the director, “She told me she’d help me make a movie on two conditions: ‘You have to be brutal and show what it’s like on the streets . . . and you have to make it funny.’ ” The result is Tangerine, a raucous comedy starring Taylor and breakout performer Kitana Kiki Rodriguez. Shot on an iPhone, it’s the year’s best microbudget buddy movie. “We weren’t trying to be part of a revolution,” says Baker. “But when you see Mya and Kiki, you understand why these stories need to be told.”…

The First Song I Learned To Play Soundgarden “Outshined”, 1991 “It’s in Drop D tuning, and I still play in Drop D tuning. Every song on every album [of mine] is in Drop D, and it’s because this is the song that I learned how to play guitar to. A guy at my high school introduced me to Soundgarden. Up until that point I was exclusively into Guns N’Roses. As soon as I learned how to play this song I started writing my own songs, so for me it was a revelation, it was like unlocking the key to being able to write my own songs.” The Song I Fell In Love To Iron & Wine “Naked As We Came”, 2004 “It’s not the song I fell in…

I MET JEFF AT THE ‘GREETINGS FROM TIM BUCKLEY’ rehearsals. The organiser wanted us to do a song together, “The King’s Chain”, so I said, “Why don’t you come over, I live in the West Village.” He came around the next day, I handed him a microphone and he started to sing. My jaw dropped. The wheels started turning in my head, because I had been disappointed [with the current singer in Gods and Monsters]. Not long after things blew up with that singer and we lost our deal with Columbia. So I called Jeff up and he said, “I’ll be your singer”. In the next few days I was inspired to finish a piece which was “Rise Up To Be”, and I wrote this other instrumental called “And You…

MATT JOHNSON Left the music industry for some time after leaving Buckley’s band at the end of a set in Australia in 1996, but has since recorded and performed with Rufus and Martha Wainwright, Beth Orton, St. Vincent and Angus and Julia Stone. MICK GRONDAHL Went on to play with Elysian Fields and Black Beetle (which featured Joan Wasser), but eventually returned to his native Denmark. He currently teaches music and is working on a novel. GARY LUCAS After being plunged into what he described as “indie hell” in the wake of Buckley leaving Gods and Monsters, Lucas has since forged a stellar international career as a guitarist, bandleader and composer. He has been nominated for a Grammy, and his latest project is music director for A State of Grace:…

ON MARCH 20TH, INSIDE THE HIGH-SECURITY wing of Los Angeles’ Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center, the man once called “the most feared man in hip-hop” is looking more like the 50-year-old with chronic health issues that he is. Suge Knight sits in shackles, wearing an orange prison jumpsuit and chunky glasses, his beard flecked with grey, listening impassively. It’s the end of the day’s proceedings, and Judge Ronald S. Coen is announcing the bail for Knight, who is facing charges of murder, attempted murder and hit-and-run: “In this court’s opinion, $25 million is reasonable, and it is so set.” A gasp erupts from Knight’s row of supporters – some of whom sport red clothing or accessories, a colour associated with the Bloods and Piru street gangs. The most shocked…

Young Kim grew up in L.A. Her late father, Robert, was on O.J. Simpson’s legal team. As she learned to court fame with Paris Hilton, “we’d just go anywhere to be seen”, Kardashian says. Her prom date was Michael Jackson’s nephew TJ. On the sex tape: “I don’t really think about it. When I get over something, I get over it.” Keeping Up With the Kardashians debuted in 2007, spawning several spinoffs and making them the first family of reality TV. With her mum and mentor, Kris. “Between all us girls, we have 300 million followers on social media,” says Kris. Kim on Kanye: “We’re opposites. I calm him down, and he pumps me up.”…

Josh Pyke But For All These Shrinking Hearts Wonderlick/Sony It opens with a low, pulsing rumble. Then there’s a build-up of slightly unsettling keyboards. “I’ve been taking my cues from the Book of Revelations,” sings Josh Pyke. Well, actually, he’s pretty obviously been taking his cues from Wilco, specifically their career-defining 2002 fractured masterpiece Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. He’s said as much himself. On two songs – “Songliness” and “Momentary Glow” – he used Jeff Tweedy’s trick of recording gibberish before he had any lyrics, then worked with that “mumble track” to finish the final wording. It’s a good idea and a bold move for a guy who has built his reputation on four albums of personal, poetic songs that evoke everyone from Paul Simon to Elliott Smith. You’ll find a…

The last time I swore at the telly Every time I see our Prime Minister, Tony Abbott. The Conservative side of politics has had some cold-hearted tiny-minded arseholes over the years, but there’s never been anyone like our Tony. The swear words are usually euphemisms for some kind of genitalia, ending in “unt” or “rick”. I feel physically violated whenever I see him, as if someone has squirted vinegar in my eyes. Hate is not a strong enough word. The last time someone was rude to me Was on the internet, of course. Where every arsehole gets to express every tiny little thought and opinion they have. The last thing I do before going onstage Take a piss. The last thing I do before going to sleep Take a piss.…