2023 Mixtape

2023's favourite tracks, designed to be listened to in order.

1. "A Good Thing" Claud
2. "Cramps" Slow Pulp
3. "Not Strong Enough" boygenius
4. "Lights Light Up" Fenne Lily
5. "After Midnight (feat. Clairo)" Phoenix
6. "Joy (Guilt)" dust
7. "Turkey Vultures" Wednesday
8. "Flood Into" Fazerdaze
9. "Eraser" Pulp Fever
10. "Adderall" shame
11. "Emergency Contact" IAN SWEET
12. "Lovely Sewer" Yves Tumor
13. "Spring Bug" Helena Deland
14. "Best Friend" Wallice
15. "I Heard It In My Dream" Caitlin Harnett & The Pony Boys
16. "Something Wrong" Hand Habits
17. "Borrow Trouble" Feist
18. "Cellar" Sea Lemon
19. "Good Lies" Overmono
20. "Skipping Like A Stone (feat. Beck)" The Chemical Brothers
21. "A&W" Lana Del Rey

SXSW Sydney music venues revealed

Bree van Reyk & Mick Turner at Phoenix Central Park

SXSW Sydney is just a couple months away and more details have been revealed including the venues for the music festival. Due to Sydney’s geography and fragmented planning of its streets, the magic of Austin’s Sixth St is unlikely to be replicated, however, I remain excited for what the city can bring.

Venues we know of so far:

Chippendale

• The Lord Gladstone

• The Chippo Hotel

• Sneaky Possum

• Phoenix Central Park

• The Landsdowne Hotel

• The Abercrombie Hotel

• UTS Underground

Surry Hills (near Central)

• Hotel Hollywood

• The Civic Underground

• The Soda Factory

Ultimo / Darling Harbour

• Powerhouse Museum

• Tumbalong Park

There are supposedly upto 25 venues in all so if I was a betting man, I would suggest some of the others could be Hotel Harry, Goros, Tio’s, The Gaelic.

The music festival commences Wednesday 18 Oct and goes for four days until the Saturday night. The lineup continues to grow and is being added to.

Use this handy map to orient yourself and see as much fresh music as possible!

Addendum: Added potential venues (?) given location in relation to the already confirmed venues (purple). To be updated as more are confirmed.

2022 Mixtape

Clocking in at 89 minutes, here’s 2022’s favourite tracks. Carefully curated to be listened to in order.

1. “Bad love” Dehd

2. “Waterfall” Disclosure, RAYE

3. “Bad habit” Steve Lacy

4. “American teenager” Ethel Cain

5. “Runner” Alex G

6. “Belinda says” Alvvays

7. “King of Sweden” Future Islands

8. “Is it supposed” Hudson Mohawke

9. “There’s only one (feat. Genesis Owusu)” Winston Surfshirt

10. “Step by step” Braxe + Falcon

11. “Spiderweb” Built To Spill

12. “Good will hunting” Black Country, New Road

13. “Snow on the beach (feat. Lana Del Ray)” Taylor Swift

14. “Problem with it” Plains

15. “This is a photograph” Kevin Morby

16. “Block me out” Gracie Abrams

17. “Coyotes” Bill Callahan

18. “Midnight sun” Nilüfer Yanya

19. “Call me home” SASAMI

20. “Lullaby” Grace Ives

21. “Emberly” Deadharrie

22. “Free in the knowledge” The Smile

“Bad love” by Dehd

10(ish) Influential Albums

..but with some explanation and not on facebag.

Never an easy task coming up with a list such as this but hells yeh I’m going to try. Some cheating in that golden year of music, 2005 and the years around that era, and as always, this list will be in chronological order.

1993.

’Siamese Dream’
Smashing Pumpkins

Timeless hooks and the perfect soundtrack to my angsty teenage years, somehow tinged with bubble gum.

1994.

‘Grace’

Jeff Buckley

You gave me more to live for, more than you’ll ever know.

1996.

’No Code’
Pearl Jam

Eddie and band went from great to transcendental with the release of their 4th studio album. No wonder The Last Dance chose to end with a track from ‘No Code’. Still got it. Still got it.

2001.
’Yankee Hotel Foxtrot’
Wilco

Tweedy at the absolute height of his powers with exotic layered melodies and how is it possible that it gets better every year?

2004.

’Funeral’
Arcade Fire

It quite literally changed everything.

The 2005 Bloc.

‘Silent Alarm’ | Bloc Party
’Black Sheep Boy’ | Okkervil River
’Gimme Fiction’ | Spoon
’Clap Your Hands Say Yeah’ | self-titled
’Twin Cinema’ | The New Pornographers
’Apologies to the Queen Mary’ | Wolf Parade

2007.
’Shut Up I Am Dreaming’
Sunset Rubdown

Be careful what you wish for.

2007.
’Mirrored’

Battles

Rhythm and maths.

2007.
’Boxer’
The National

Tired and wired, we ruin too easy.

2007.
’Sound of Silver’
LCD Soundsystem

Did music stop 13 years ago? It certainly appears so.

Vivid Memories

Vivid Memories

Ever since Love Police announced that folk-maestros Big Thief will be touring in May, I have been looking out for any signs of Vivid 2020 news - since there is currently a big Sydney-shaped hole in their schedule (they’ve since added 2 more shows in Melbourne making it 4 times at the Corner Hotel!).

So when I received the email from Sydney Opera House that the first announcement is imminent, it took me down a path, down memory lane if you will, to this cool microsite that SOH put together back in 2018 to celebrate its 10th year - https://vividlive10.sydneyoperahouse.com/

When I think about Vivid and all the amazing artists that have performed in the House over the years, I can’t help think that us Sydney-siders do take it for granted that we have this wonderful venue and setting for this form of art to inspire and flourish.

It all kicked off in 2009, of course, with Brian Eno curating the festival of light and music. That year, I was fortunate enough to witness Battles for the very first time, and Tyondai Braxton was still part of the rotation. I still say this in my top 5 shows of all time and thank you Mike Evans for keeping this memory alive on YouTube.

2010 was Holly Miranda in The Studio where she covered Jeff Buckley’s Lover You Should’ve Come Over and mesmerised us with her sultry vocals.

I must’ve missed the years when the likes of Janelle Monae and Odd Future tore it up but in 2013, I made it to German legends Kraftwerk performing 2003’s Tour de France, with 3D glasses and all.

Kraftwerk - Vivid 2013

2016 was rather special with Justin Vernon (@blobtower) of Bon Iver fame retweeting me for some reason after their rather beautiful ‘Cercle’ show. 4 nights of it at The House and the kids are probably still talking about those run of nights. So many for us, indeed.

Cool pic. Best hang thanks https://t.co/SImsVdVd9s

— blobtower (@blobtower) May 29, 2016

Fast forward to 2018 and we made some noise for Ice Cube and then Sydney’s own Middle Kids wowed on back to back nights. A homecoming or sorts for Hannah and band, and the whole evening felt triumphant and I was especially pleased for introducing them to some of my dearest friends.

Middle Kids - Vivid 2018

Which brings us to 2019.

Ethereal is one word that springs to mind when describing Grouper and she was certainly that in the most intimate of settings in the Utzon Room one rainy evening with the harbour as the backdrop. Just beautiful.

And to round out my Vivid experience so far is The Cure and the 30th anniversary of Disintegration. They had just been inducted to Rock ‘n Roll’s Hall of Fame just a month earlier and it was just one big celebration of music.

Bring on Vivid 2020.