Sunday, March 25
Snowman Interview
Interviewed Snowman at their hut. Well two of them anyway. Great guys. Interesting to hear a more up and coming perspective of the scene and the bands that went before.
Up and coming maybe doesn't do Snowman justice anymore after what Pitchfork Media wrote about their Laneway Festival shows.
We’ve also started to get heaps of people asking about the film and when it’s coming out etc and telling us how excited they are to see it. It’s still months off being finished and I guess we’re just getting our first taste of just how engaged with the scene some people are. Which turns into a whole lot of pressure to make the film good. Plus it appears that there will be no shortage of opinions about who should have been in the film but won’t be, as well as people who are there undeservedly.
Importantly they’re only opinions and so is mine in the film. It’s just that I get to make a film and they don’t.
-Aidan
Sunday, February 25
WAMi Weekender
Well Sports Fans that was one MASSIVE weekend! If we needed reinforcement that there really was something special about the music scene here then this weekend was it: The WAMi Weekender. I’m not going to bang on about WAM or the festival itself (a lot of people do justifiably in interviews for the film though). I will say a large congrats to WAM for listening to the idea for the Saturday Spectacular when it was thrown up (by someone who won’t stop reminding me it was his idea). But Friday comes before Saturday and I have a sore tooth… courtesy of the elbow of one member of the rabid crowd rocking out to Gyroscope.
Capitol and Amplifier (well Capitol mainly) were amazing on Friday night. Dom Mariani and the Majestic Kelp, The Fuzz, New Rules for Boats and The Silents all basically just played support in the lead up to the most intense mosh I have been in in quite some time. There was even a fight going on when the band came on stage. Young people these days…
Anyway, Gyroscope - HOLY CRAP! Great show, LOVED by their fans and another example of what hundreds and hundreds of gigs does to your performance. As we film interviews for this I’m getting less and less enamoured with record companies (the machine not the people) but I’d be surprised if the Gyros don’t end up with a Big Brother soon - they’re just so god damn bank.
Saturday was eight stages spread across Northbridge (and Caplifier) and we got cameras in front of The Avenues, Abbe May and the Rockin’ Pneumonia, the Kill Devil Hills, Halogen, Eleventh th He Reaches London and End of Fashion (who brought home the old “Perth is the new Seattle” thing by rushing back on stage after their set to bust out some entirely passable Nirvana).
I’ve seen the Kill Devil Hills boys a few times but never like they played on Saturday night. To see all those guys and all that noise bursting off the tightly packed stage, we were all pretty privileged and I think even the KDH’s biggest fans knew they were witnessing something special.
A bunch of Perth’s most exciting bands at the moment have proven to be a bit hit and miss with their live performances I think Snowman and Schvendes know who I’m talking about and the Kill Devil Hills have been the same in my experience. I just hope that what we saw in person translates into the film.
The same stage provided the setting for yet another truly amazing performance. Fresh from playing with her brother (brothers?) in The Fuzz the night before, Abbe May was good enough to give me goosebumps (I love female vocalists who sound like they mean it). Though I'm certainly not agreeing, I can see some of why Katy Steele said Abbe was the “best thing to come out of Perth in the last 30 years”. The number of bands we DIDN’T see (or film) on the weekend comfortably outstrips the ones that we did but that’s what this town is like during the festival. If I was less shattered I could have seen Birds of Tokyo again tonight or gone to the WAM closing event Bon Scott Celebration Concert (I still don’t know how to get that guy into the film) but I’m so over-gigged this month that I even bailed on seeing Peter, Bjorn and John at PIAF on Thursday night. (though thankfully I hear it wasn’t that good and that the whole trio wasn’t even all there!).
The only downside of the whole weekend (well two actually): Janelle wasn’t in town to check it out (off at the annual Australian International Documentary Conference) and Ian Lenton busted a knee rocking at the front of Eleventh He Reaches London. Big, season-defining weekends always have their casualties. Also we may have broken the Capitol PA with our recording equipment. Sorry. Also sorry for the over use of parentheses. I’m tired. (As if anyone’s even going to read this anyway…)
-Aidan
- WA Music industry Association - Gyroscope - The Fuzz - New Rules For Boats - The Silents - The Avenues - Abbe May and the Rockin' Pneumonia - The Kill Devil Hills - Halogen - 11th He Reaches London - End of Fashion
Wednesday, February 17
I wonder if Triple J are filming tonight’s Bob Evans / Institut Polaire Live at the Wireless for JTV? They should both be in the film. Looking forward to catching up with Robbie Buck and hopefully the King when they’re here. Maybe they’ll know…-Aidan
- Triple J Live at the Wireless - Bob Evans - Institut Polaire
Thursday, February 16
Birds Of Tokyo
Holy Crap. Most polished local gig I’ve ever seen. Fair enough I don’t generally see the bigger Perth bands when they play at home - besides at festival events - but Birds of Tokyo tonight put on a show the likes of which are usually reserved for international acts when they hit our shores.
Killer sound, killer lighting, great performance and a really responsive crowd.
I missed the actual WAMi Festival opening but this was one hell of a way to kick it off.
Sunday, February 4
The Perth Day Out
I guess it's basically the reason that now is the right time to make this film. Half of the Australian bands who played the Big Day Out yesterday were from Perth. HOW CAN LESS THAN 5% OF THE OZ POPULATION BE TURNING OUT THAT MUCH GOOD GEAR?
We didn't film performances but we stopped by to watch Little Birdy, The Sleepy Jackson, Snowman, Bob Evans and Eskimo Joe we kind of saw from afar walking between interviews.
I also got to tell Paul Dempsey that I oved his band which was means I've now told all three of them.
I also got to tell Paul Dempsey that I loved his band which means I've now told all three of them.
Other notables from the day include the fact that I still can't understand why the kids like My Chemical Squarepants. Muse were awesome, the wind played havoc with my attempts to watch The Killers, interviewing Luke Steele made me miss out on seeing Peaches and for once I didn't get to go to the after party because my AAA said "Broadcast" (and normally I don't even have one!).
Oh! and an odd thing happened as we were walking around backstage in an attempt to drop some gear back at the vehicle. We were walking along a road inside the Showgrounds and a production guy asked us to wait where we were, along with about 12 other people. We kinda stood around for a while with nothing happening and no obvious safety risk from vehicles or whatever and then someone asked what we were waiting for. Then the guy said: "Tool will be walking through here in a minute and they can't have other people around". What?!? Maynard can't share the same quarter acre of outside space with other people? Tool is right. Harsh but fair.
-Aidan
Saturday, January 27
Schvendes Canadian Music Fest Fundraiser
Still hotter than the sun but at least the bands we watched were
playing at night.
Oh and note to bands not fronted by women with awesome voices, genuine frontman rock attitude is kinda cool. Prancing around TRYING to be cool really isn’t. Everyone knows who I’m talking about.
-Aidan
Oz Day, January 26
The "Mother" Concert
Hotter than the sun! seriously. Janelle couldn’t even walk to buy a drink from the van that was a 30 metre walk through the sun away. She just leant on a pole and panted the whole afternoon (besides pressing a few pertinent record buttons at appropriate times). Feel sorry for Mark too having to toil in the heat.
Filmed on the picturesque Langley Park as the Perth City Council tried to give the kids something to do other than punching on while they waited for the annual fireworks over the river. Trouble was it was too hot and no one showed up. The Bank Holidays, the Panda Band and Red Jezebel all played to about 40 people and half of them were either the other bands, sound guys or us. The sets were pretty good and I admire anyone who decides that rock is important enough to wear a black shirt and jeans to play in the sun. We’re not that committed and filmed about three songs of each band before retreating to the shade.
Finished up and didn’t hang around for the Youth Group who were headlining, aren’t from Perth and are kinda boring. The day ended with me watching the fireworks with a glass of wine at the ANZAC memorial across the road from the apartment. I really like fireworks so it’s saying something about the heat if I didn’t even bother heading in for a closer look. One thing I really like about today is that the whole thing was sponsored by Coke and no one showed up.
-Aidan
Monday, January 8
Southbound
Headed down to Southbound on the weekend much to the disappointment of a couple of sound guys who got extra narky at us for cutting it so fine with our recording equipment (which takes all of 20 seconds to set up), we got some very interesting contradictory instructions from a whole range of people before we could actually get into the event. Southbound is incredibly well run except for the security. Muppets.
Everyone who knows me knows that I can crap on about bands and music ad infinitum but I promised myself that this wouldn’t just be full of reviews so I’ll limit it to:
- a good time was had by all;
- it was great to chat with John Butler and the Eskies;
- Wolfmother can pull a crowd like nothing I’ve ever seen; and
- Andrew Stockdale comes up with the lamest come back lines I’ve ever
heard: “Yeah, well you’ve got glasses”. Yes I do Andrew. Well spotted.
Kinda windy which probably won’t help the footage but we got the performances of The Preytells, The Flairz, the Sleepy Jackson, Little Birdy, John Butler, the Panda Band and Eskimo Joe. A good day’s work followed by a good night’s boozing. Awesome.
-Aidan
- Southbound 2007 - John Butler Trio - The Sleepy Jackson - The Preytells - Little Birdy - The Panda band - Eskimo Joe
Monday, January 1
New Year's Eve
New Year’s Eve at work -never done that before I don’t think, but it makes a fairly welcome change actually from a whole bunch of overhyped parties and unmet expectations. In Perth a bunch of people are even more excited about New Year’s Day and the Perth Cup (it’s a horse race -for non-locals) but NYE remains the most consistently under performing party night of the year for me.
Last night we kicked off what is the most exciting and most daunting screen project I’ve ever worked on. All of a three week gestation period for development and we’re away. Plus Janelle (the Producer) says we’ve broken the two cardinal rules of film making:
NEVER make a film where music rights will be an issue and NEVER invest your own money.
Capturing the excitement of the Perth music scene in a doco is going to be hard work (and I’m not even a real director!). I’m assuming if you’re reading this then you must know what the film is about so I’ll leave that out of these entries.
New Year’s Eve and Day One of production and we filmed the Panics, End of Fashion and Che’Nelle at Gloucester Park and Metro respectively. Our audio recording kit was a resounding failure so that’s a really crappy way to start a production. At Gloucester Park it was my fault and at Metro is was kinda everyone’s. Some of the footage looks nice though.
We’re visiting Che’Nelle at her folks’ house this afternoon to catch her before she heads back to the States and her 6 album deal.
I’ll try to write bits and pieces here and there so I can look back (and anyone interested can look on) as we go through the production process. Maybe some other film-types might like to look into how we did it and how long it took. The whole of this diary (for want of a better noun) should be taken as just the ramblings of a fan (and disorganised filmmaker) and if I didn’t HATE poor grammar and online chat abbreviations all the entries would probably start with IMHO.
-Aidan
