The Chisels are back
By MELISSA WALSH Cold Chisel is back with a vengeance, performing a heap of One Night Stand shows, to coincide with the release of The Perfect Crime, the follow up to their 2012 comeback studio album, No Plans. Kicking off with the Deni Ute Muster, the One Night Stand shows will take in towns in regional areas across Australia, as well as major towns and cities with recently released shows in Geraldton, Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney....
The Basics: this could be the last time
By NEIL WALKER GOTYE has gone back to The Basics and the band is dropping in on Mornington as part of their national tour in support of their latest The Age of Entitlement album. Guitarist Tim Heath says The Basics drummer Wally De Backer, known as the solo artist Gotye, is heading back to Australia from the US where he is recording the follow-up to his commercially successful Making Mirrors album which spawned the global smash...
Running Touch: new talent dawning
By NEIL WALKER Running Touch is a Mentone man of mystery. The 21-year-old electronica singer-songwriter, who is nameless and faceless in publicity shots, is a jack of all musical trades but listening to efforts such as his latest song This Is Just To Say it’s apparent he is certainly a master of blissful beats and smooth vocals with an urban edge. The vocalist, lyricist, guitarist, pianist, producer and poet (yes, poet) is off to a...
Live: walking the walk
By ANDREW DIXON “Entrepreneurial” isn’t a word you commonly associate with multi-platinum rock stars. Nor would you expect them to admit that, sometimes, building communities and creating jobs in the real world can be “much larger than band stuff.” Live’s new (ish – he reminded me it’s been almost four years since he signed up) frontman Chris Shinn has the presence of mind to acknowledge the way the world works outside the...
Def Leppard shake off the haters
By NEIL WALKER The haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate but Def Leppard are due more credit in rock and roll’s history books than critics generally give them. Taylor Swift certainly thinks so. The biggest pop star in the world right now performed with Def Leppard in 2008 as part of a US series called Crossroads that paired modern musicians together with their idols from yesteryear. Swift reckoned that singing the likes of the hit...
Hunters & Collectors release their first ever anthology
By CAMERON MCCULLOUGH They are anthems for a generation, songs that define an era in Australian music. “The real essence of rock music,” Mark Seymour pondered at the end of 1983, “It’s just passion, it’s just really pure.” More than three decades later, that statement is a neat summation of the new Hunters & Collectors collection, which is simply titled Anthology. These 40 songs tell the tale of a remarkable 18 years, from the...