Tame Impala

Also floating my boat at the moment, and gathering the attention of many switched on radio announcers, is a new band from Perth called Tame Impala. I put them on my recent podcast and they have been added to the bill of the now sold-out Meredith Music Festival in December. They are also spreading their scuzzy 60s psychadelic witchery around the land with Oz rock-royalty You Am I for their album tour, as well as international supports in October for Yeasayer and The Futureheads. Groovy!

Catch You Am I and Tame Impala for the "Lets Be Dreadful" tour here:

Thursday October 16th – Settlers Tavern, Margaret River
Friday October 17th – Fly By Night, Fremantle
Saturday October 18th – Fly By Night, Fremantle
Wednesday October 22nd – Metro Theatre, Sydney
Thursday October 23rd – Coolangatta Hotel, Coolangatta
Friday October 24th – The Zoo, Brisbane
Saturday October 25th – Sands Tavern, Maroochydore
Saturday November 1st – The Govenor HIndmarsh, Adelaide
Sunday November 2nd – Prince Of Wales, Melbourne
Monday November 3rd – Prince Of Wales, Melbourne
Thursday November 6th – Theatre Royal, Castlemaine
Friday November 7th – Karova Lounge, Ballarat
Saturday November 8th -San Remo, Philip Island
Sunday November 9th – Barwon Heads Hotel, Barwon Heads
Thursday November 13th – ANU Bar, Canberra
Friday November 14th – Wollongong Uni
Saturday November 15th – Cambridge Tavern, Newcastle

Blow your little mind at Tame Impala's myspace! Freak Out! Or check this great remix by Canyons of their tune "Skeleton Tiger"...

Yeasayer - Final UK show

yeasayer in Manchester, photo by Rick and Mandy

Went to the YEASAYER show last night at the ICA. It was really, really good... ha, sorry, can't think of what else to write at the moment, other than to say if you haven't heard them I can recommend their excellent debut album All Hour Cymbals. Check out the tunes on myspace.

Yeasayer do a final UK show tomorrow (Wednesday) at ULU. Tickets here.

Afro Indie

I just read this very interesting article in The Age online written by Melbourne writer, label-boss and muso Guy Blackman entitled "Cutlural Copyright". In it he talks about the new (but naff) tag Afro Indie which is being used to describe the music of bands like Vampire Weekend, Yeasayer and Ruby Suns (pictured above and featured on my latest podcast). Guy acknowledges that musical appropriation "is intrinsic to modern life", and that tapping into the influence of African music is nothing new but still asks the pertinent question:

"when you appropriate this music, do you owe a debt to its originators?"

He goes on to argue that yes, you kinda do, but that some elements of the self proclaimed 'afro-indie' scene don't go out of their way to pay a debt or acknowledge the political nature of the music they are referencing. In contrast to previous generations of musicians (Paul Simon, Peter Gabriel, some of the white English bluesman in the 60s) who took up not only the sound of marginalised musicians from the US, Africa and the Caribbean but also championed their political causes. Of the Ruby Suns he says:

"Then there's the nominally American Ryan McPhun, who has spent much of this decade in New Zealand, but whose band the Ruby Suns head into African territory on second album Sea Lion, to be released by US indie giant Sub Pop in March. For McPhun, the connection is personal - he wrote tracks including Ole Rinka and the cheesily named Kenya Dig It? while visiting his father and Zimbabwe-born stepmother at their Kenyan home in 2006."

More of the article here.