Totally Mild Time

I stumbled across Totally Mild pretty much by accident in February 2013. The year before I'd asked Melbourne troubadour du jour Lehmann B Smith to come up to Brisbane to play a show for a Lofly gig. I missed it due to an emergency operation, but we kept in touch, and I finally caught him in the flesh when I was in Melbourne to see the MBV & Drones ATP (also playing that night at Bar Open - The Menstrual Cycle AKA Snowy Halliwell Nasdaq et al). He was playing in a friend's band which was - yep - Totally Mild. I really dug it.




It's great to see Elizabeth Mitchell's brainchild not only metamorphose into a larger band concern, or because my memory that night has always been hazy (I raced into Bar Open after two days of drinking at the Altona sweatbox, and had just finished up with Einstürzende Neubaten). It is that Mitchell's melodic music is excellent and deserves to be tickling at everyone's spine. Down Time is TM's debut LP (out through Bedroom Suck and Fire), and it is chock full of pop altruisms and melancholic mantras, knitted together with an elegance and a subtle mischievousness that is impossible to ignore. 


 
A stunning achievement, Down Time can be grabbed here.

Totally Mild Down Time

One of the albums I'm anticipating in 2015 is Down Time, the debut longplayer from subdued pop chanteuses (and boys) Totally Mild, who are the latest converts to the Bedroom Suck religion. I saw them play at Bar Open back in 2013, directly after obliterating my headspace all day at ATP - I think TM were supporting Liam 'Snow Nasdaq from The Ocean Party' Halliwell's solo thing The Menstrual Cycle - I don't truly remember, I was pretty shattered. The band is the brainchild of Elizabeth Mitchell but also enlists the aid of Lehmann B Smith (if you haven't heard his stuff before, goddamn rectify that asap), Ashley Bundang (Zone Out, Hot Palms) and Zach Schneider (Full Ugly). The first taste off the album is 'Christa', and it's a languid corker. The band are about to embark on a national tour with best buds The Ocean Party (I feel like a mouthpiece for those guys!), and you can catch 'em at the following places:

Thurs, Jan 29 – The Phoenix, Canberra, ACT [w/The Ocean Party, Black Springs + Eadie and the Doodles]

Fri, Jan 30 – The Lansdowne, Sydney, NSW [w/The Ocean Party, Black Springs + King Single]

Sun, Feb 1 – Black Bear Lodge , Brisbane, QLD [w/The Ocean Party, Workshop + Curlew]

Sun, Feb 8 – Ceres, Melbourne, VIC [10am, w/The Ocean Party, two sets each]

Sat, Feb 14 – Brisbane Hotel, Hobart, TAS [6pm, w/Bitch Prefect, Peter Escott, Old Mate, Superstar, Pines, Small Black Lambs + All the Weathers]

Tues, Feb 24 – Howler, Melbourne, VIC [w/The Ocean Party + Real Estate]

That Brisbane show with Workshop and SM faves Curlew looks fantastic... Get along you donkeys!

Video Vacuum - The Ocean Party. Constant Mongrel . Gooch Palms, Full Ugly, Home Travel, Andre, Go Go Fish

We are going full Australian with this extended Video Vacuum, so strap yourselves in...

Good buds The Ocean Party keep the good times rolling on in soft focus and fun film clips. One of the best tracks of Soft Focus is 'Deluded', and it's great that not only is it their new single, its a great video of interpretive dance from 'new' member Mark Rogers. He actually finishes the song early, after an impressive display of Fitzroy yoga - and then is superseded by a random dude in a station wagon. Accidental brilliance.

Another Melbourne band that I love is Constant Mongrel, and they have a solid video to go along with 'The Law' that is on their DCM 7" (out through RIP Society). The video - mime masks and an assort array of inanimate objects (including what looks like my dusty VCR that hasn't left my parents' garage since 2006) in an empty room. Trust me, the minimalism works. If you are digging this (and you bloody well should) and are in Sydney, head down to the Lansdowne NOW - they are playing alongside other excellent acts Woollen Kits and Nathan Roche.

The crazy kids from Newcastle Gooch Palms are almost outta town, with their relocation to the US of A imminent. And boy will we miss them - as 'Trackside Daze' attests. The Ramones in hyperdrive, on speed and clinically insane, the duo take the film clip and add cheese, uniforms, outlandish glasses, talking gerbils, dancing skeletons, grandparents, aquariums, impaled heads...man it's a schizoid mindfuck, and so so brilliant.

I've made no bones about how pleasantly surprised I was by how much I enjoyed Spent The Afternoon, the debut album from Full Ugly last year. After recording a house show and some silly interludes from the band, we now have a quaint little video for 'Oh Daddy', which has me reaching for Spent The Afternoon all over again. Nice one guys!

One of my favourite albums of the year in 2014 was Jersey Flegg, the concept album by You Beauty. That band's Will Farrier has another intriguing musical outlet at the moment, as one half of Home Travel, a minimal synth outfit that is at once camp and sinister (therefore, brilliant). Johann Rashid, the other half, resides in New York - and the film clip for 'Death Threats' underscores the seedy underbelly of that city as seen in 80s and 90s B-grade violent films (King of New York comes to mind). It's a super slick production, albeit one that is strange, stupid, knowing and fun (the tongue roll over the th in 'threat' is also incredible) - and I can't wait to see what else these two will bring our way.

An underrated musical genius lurking through the streets of Melbourne is Andre. He slips under the radar in his leather vest and miniscule moustache, his motorcycle purring down these streets. His third album Smooth Move came out in December (I'll have to get to that soon), and here is the (again) slick video for 'Single Town' . It's a great tongue in cheek song about staying single, but the video is brilliant, all slow motion posturing with fans in the bedroom, angle grinders in the garage, steaks on the BBQ, guitars in the bubblebath and a naked Emma Russack. Andre, keep it coming - there isn't enough of this out there.

A couple weeks ago we launched the news of our second Sonic Masala Fest. One of the local bands to make the grade are Go Go Fish, guitar pop nerds who love their hooks with sugar and bite. New single 'Guest List' is exactly the kind of thing these guys do well - the the clip, of the band wandering around a share house that starts out with just a small jam, blazes into a party (with added beer-induced workouts) with the slightest edge, before twinkling out with a wistful grin.

NOW GET BACK TO WORK!

Spend A Full Ugly Afternoon With Me

We have written about Full Ugly in the past. We've liked what we've heard. But there was always something a little hollow for me, like as if the Melbourne outfit were having us on. As if the band were taking the piss, just playing the jangly slacker pop that has become a blessing/curse in this country because they could and nothing more. It's not like I didn't think Full Ugly could be good - they have members from Milk Teddy and Totally Mild taking up space. But they have released their debut LP, Spent The Afternoon, and there is so much going on here that I just did NOT expect to hear. The secret ingredients? Nathan Burgess' laconic, at times wistful vocals and lyrics ('Hilly Street'); the pastoral reverbed twang of the guitar - ESPECIALLY the guitar - taking us into an Antipodean Americana meets countrified Built To Spill ('Mount Barker'); the chugging faux-psych of 'Smug S' - I love the band's propensity to veer away from what's by now expected of sounds of this type. They still do that well too - songs like 'Nervous' reminds me of a larrikin Kinks supporting The Easybeats if they played the Town Hall Hotel at 3pm on a Friday afternoon. Its a deceptively strong album, one that is haunting me in daydream reveries and warming me at the surprising twists and turns. Thanks boys.

Grab Spent The Afternoon through either Bedroom Suck (Aust) here or Fire Records (Euro) here. Full Ugly are playing Brisbane this Friday night at the Brightside (what used to be Electric Playground - where Ela Stiles played a few weeks ago) alongside Rites Wild, Martyr Privates and Thigh Master. Other dates:

May 10 - The Metro, Adelaide w/ Parading + Bruff Superior

May 16 - The Brisbane, Hobart w/ Treehouse, Pines + Heart Beach

May 23 - The John Curtin, Melbourne w/ Bitch Prefect, Totally Mild + Moon Dice

Nothing to do with Full Ugly

I've always preferred tea to coffee. It's the warmth without the hype. It's having the time to sit down for a minute and listen to what's going on around you - without really having to engage with any of it. That's what kinda makes life worth living, I reckon. It's no fucking Moccona ad, romancing through the streets of Paris, it's watching your dog stretch itself out in the sun while you do the same - having something to do that has nothing to do with anyone else.

Full Ugly brew that feeling. They never percolate it. They're all the better for it.   

If you pour over all the Bedroom Suck releases like you should, you'll know 'Hanging Around' is out on said constantly excellent (and now Fire affiliated) label now.

Eat Scott's Shorts

Man, sorry about the lame headline guys...it's too hot to think. Not too hot to listen to slacked out guitar pop though. Im Australian - it's a given nowadays...

Ah, yes, Shorts. The NYC band have a "distinctly" Australian sound, and there's a pretty good reason for that. Michael Caterer used to live in Melbourne, played in Full Ugly, and is in the New York edition of Craig Dermody's Scott & Charlene's Wedding. The two tracks on offer below are more full-bodied though - 'Berlin 1971' is more like 60s pastoral psych pop transplanted in Central Park with tattoos and the faux blues; 'Silver Circles' is just downright sexy, in an autumnal dappled sunlight kinda way. And look at that scrawl of the bare-breasted lady with cocks on her arms. Its a world of juxtaposition, that's for sure. they have releases in the wind - stay tuned, this'll be worth waiting for...