Sunday Psychedelic Sesh

In light of missing out on tickets to see Roky Erickson (of 13th Floor Elevators) at the Corner Hotel in March, I'm consoling myself with the best of psychedelic rock. What's that you ask? Psych rock was born in the 60's in a whirlwind of attempts to portray and enhance the altered state and experience of psychedelic drugs with predominant keyboard and guitar use, reverb effects and long, kick-ass instrumentals and jams. Rob O'Connor of Yahoo Music knows why-
"Well, LSD was pretty popular in the music culture for a time, so it would figure that the results would show up in the music. Just as today's music is fortified with all kinds of artificial sweeteners. Not that we should look down on the Splenda crowd! High Fructose Corn Syrup Rock never resulted in a major movement that I'm aware of. Then again, maybe it did. "  

Psych branched off from early blues and folk and lead the way in the evolution of 'conventional' music. Nowadays, psychedelic rock is a fire ready to catch alight with just a little more kindling yet. More and more 'neo-psychedelic' bands have risen to popularity such as The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Tame Impala and Neutral Milk Hotel. I couldn't be more happy about this and The BJM are definitely one of my favourite bands however, them aside, there is generally no match for the real pioneers of the genre. Have a listen to a few of the real-deals of psychedelic rock and see for yourself.
FYI- The image above is a painting of Albert Hoffman, discoverer of LSD, by psychedelic artist Alex Grey.You might recognise his style from his album artwork for Tool. He's an incredible artist and an insightful person.

Whatcha Gonna Do About It- The Litter
Action Woman- The Litter
A Legal Matter- The Litter
Rack My Mind- The Litter
It's Safe To Say- Bubble Puppy
Elizabeth- Bubble Puppy
Lonely- Bubble Puppy
Road To St Stephens- Bubble Puppy
I've Got to Reach You- Bubble Puppy
Barnyard Blues- 13th Floor Elevators
Doctor Doom- 13th Floor Elevators
Down By The River- 13th Floor Elevators
Scarlet and Gold- 13th Floor Elevators
Thru' The Rhythm- 13th Floor Elevators
You Don't Know- 13th Floor Elevators
Kingdom Of Heaven- 13th Floor Elevators
Where There's Woman- Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band
Grown So Ugly- Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band
I'm Glad- Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band
(We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet- The Blues Magoos
Gotta Get Away- The Blues Magoos
Sometimes I Think About- The Blues Magoos

The Wizards of Oz Music

G'day mate it's me, Sheila. just donezo givin me pet kanga a hose down n I'm busy as a one legged arse kicker organisin shrimps n stubbies for me bbq tomoz so i can't have a good long yarn with yas true blue fkn oath. Ok, enough of that. For all the internationals visiting Under the Radar, as I'm sure most of the locals already know, tomorrow, January 26 is Australia Day. for most people what this day involves is slapping on some zinc, thongs and Australian paraphernalia (if you're one of those people) and basically demonstrating their patriotism by getting shitfaced drunk at a BBQ while listening to Triple J's annual Hottest 100, that's if they aren't already rocking out/melting at our biggest music festival, the Big Day Out. To celebrate Australia Day eve, I'm getting back into some great home-grown music. Here are some songs by Australian musicians and bands, of different genres and popularity, that I've enjoyed over the years. Land Down Under was written by a Scotsman so it doesn't make the cut and sorry but yes, Khe Sanh is essential for one big, slurred sing-along.

Ocean- John Butler
Khe Sahn- Cold Chisel
Friday On My Mind- The Easybeats
Draw Your Swords- Angus & Julia Stone
Get Ready For Love- Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
Change- Karnivool
Staring Down The Sun- Josh Pyke
New Moon Rising- Wolfmother
Jellylegs- Children Collide
Down River- Temper Trap
Skeleton Tiger- Tame Impala
Tomorrow- Silverchair
Queen Of Apology- Sarah Blasko
These Days- Powderfinger
From Little Things Big Things Grow- Paul Kelly
Blood- The Middle East
Building Ships- Lior
19 20 20- The Grates
It's Alright- Little Red
Thanks For Your Time- Gotye
Four Seasons In One Day- Crowded House
So Many Nights- The Cat Empire
Cold Acre- Augie March

It's Fried-day

No need for chit chat. just chewns. Here's what I'll be listening to to celebrate Fried-day.

Apparat is a German electronic musician, formerly a DJ, who is now focussed on creating music through sound design and experimentation. I highly recommend downloading/buying his recent album The Devil's Walk. It's unique, atmospheric and the guy really knows how to intensify tension and build up in a song without using only conventional instruments and tools. I've posted a couple of tracks but it's Fried-day and my brain won't think of words that will help me describe them to you so for want of justification, watch the youtube video below of Apparat performing Ash Black Veil live in a studio. sends chills down the spine! 





The Black Angels from Texas play delicious psychedelic revival rock. In my opinion they sound like The Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Velvet Underground and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club having an orgy and The Black Keys are sort of standing there watching it all happen.... It's a plausible metaphor in my mind... Ironically, The Black Angels have played alongside or supported three of the aforementioned bands. 



Telephone- The Black Angels (Phosphene Dream, 2010)
Entrance Song- The Black Angels (Phosphene Dream, 2010)
True Believers- The Black Angels (Phosphene Dream, 2010)
Empire- The Black Angels (Passover, 2006)

More from Texas, we have Explosions in the Sky. The most incredible and powerful live act I've ever seen. They are an instrumental-only quartet , a rarity these days, which makes them extremely easy listening as well as somewhat timeless. The concentration on melody and rhythm creates a highly intense listening experience and has developed their ability to portray emotions and happenings of the world around us  through the power of music. All tracks below are from the album All Of A Sudden I Miss Everyone (2007)

                                                      Catastrophe and the Cure- Explosions In The Sky

Sorry for the negligence

Never fear! All of you followers and frequent readers ...*cough cough* ('cos there's so many of you...) can fight the famine with ear-blasting, good ol' fashion, modern day blues rock advocates, Hot Fiction. This UK duo, Andy Yeoh (vocals and drums) and Simon Miller (guitar) are the spawns of rhythm and soul heroes The Black Keys circa Thickfreakness, which in my opinion is still the best album TBK have produced. Their debut album "Dark Room" was released in June 2010, with all tracks being available for download from the band's Facebook Bandpage.
Catchy garage blues riffs, bellowing choruses sung through Yeoh's smooth low-pitched pipes, stomp-along drumming and a whole lot of attitude in each track make for one great album. Out of the 13 tracks, these are the stand-outs in my opinion, Start It Off, Laid Me Low, All My Love In Vein, Get Out Of My House and Autumn Girl (harmonica!)
These guys are just starting to kick off in the big bad world of music and I want to give them all the help I can, which is not much... but I can urge you (and you can imagine puppy dog's eyes while I do this) to not only download the tracks but also Like and share their page! Then we can all be those smug dickheads who get to say  "I liked them before they got big". Real big...as I foresee in the near future.


And just because I can, here's Dan and Pat on the cover of the first Rolling Stone Magazine for 2012 and a snippet from the interview.

"Rock & roll is dying because people became OK with Nickelback being the biggest band in the world," says drummer Patrick Carney. "So they became OK with the idea that the biggest rock band in the world is always going to be shit – therefore you should never try to be the biggest rock band in the world. Fuck that! Rock & roll is the music I feel the most passionately about, and I don't like to see it fucking ruined and spoon-fed down our throats in this watered-down, post-grunge crap, horrendous shit. When people start lumping us into that kind of shit, it's like, ‘Fuck you,' honestly."  source

Amen, the prophets are here to save us!

Collarbones Collaboration

Collarbones' debut album Iconography was released earlier this year, a collaboration between Sydney boy Marcus Whale and Adelaide's Travis Cook. What first intrigued me to look into their music was the fact that the two constructed and created the album over the internet using file sharing.  Described as objectively as 'Great late night, sample-heavy electronica',  but Travis had a something a little more fittingly obscure to say...
'In an old interview I described Collarbones as "what it sounds like when you stick a second-hand Rihanna CD into your stereo and it skips every now and again. You're not sure whether you like it or not." That tired smile is okay, except now maybe there are a couple of other CDs battling for supremacy in the disc charger. Instead of skipping, the CDs melt together and morph into a hologram of JonBenet Ramsey's disembodied head.' http://collarbonesband.tumblr.com/
In my opinion, I think Iconography as collective of songs is a little disjointed, but I like the experimental kind of journey it takes you on.  The songs on the album are based on the foundations of samples of beats, synths and instrumentals all mixed and matched together in a colliding fashion which suprisingly manages to flow and the more I listen to it the more I get it. Their sound is more atmospheric and doesn't really coincide with a song or genre structure. Considering all of this was made without face-to-face contact, I think we will be hearing a lot more from Collarbones in the future. Here's a few I enjoy.

Tashkent- Collarbones
Malone- Collarbones
Don Juan- Collarbones

Gotye Gets Animated



Awesome official film clip for Gotye's Bronte, from the new album Making Mirrors. This unique film clip reminds me of Where The Wild Things Are and is some amazing animation accompanying an equally amazing song.
Directed and animated by Ari Gibson at Mechanical Apple. Background art by Jason Pamment.

High-five for lo-fi

I've been sick of the squeaky clean indie pop sound that typically presents itself to me just a little too much on the radio lately which has lead me to a phase of dabbling in the lo-fi, grunge/garage rock movements of the 80s and 90s. I was probably in the same boat as majority of the population when faced with the question of my favourite grunge/lo-fi rock bands from this era- maybe Silverchair? Nirvana? Incubus? I was satisfied with what I knew from growing up with Rage on Saturday mornings and still enjoyed them. BUT I've looked further past the 'familiar' exterior of the 90s for something refreshingly different and I've rediscovered the delight of the slack attitude, rough edges, likeable imperfections and lyrical focus of the 90s. Here are some shining examples.

Hey- Pixies (1989)


Wild Impalas in the Forest


I'm back. Here's a dope film clip by Tame Impala performing Expectation, which a dope song.
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