The Trafalgars

Hey, whatever happened to this band? In another obsession I will attribute to my post-Jet adolescent frenzy of 'retro-rock' appreciation, The Trafalgars were probably the first local band I really listened to in unhealthy amounts, despite releasing only two EPs.

I even dragged my under-age arse out to a gig of theirs at The Cavern supported by the truly awful, woeful band "Universe". Their sleekly produced single - complete with trite faux-British pronunciation of bus (booos) - 'London Taxi' received a solid amount of affection from Triple J and they even won a slot at the Falls Festival around 2005. Then they kind of dropped off the map, releasing a couple of demos like the pretty cool Drones-aping 'All The Days & The Nights' (Gareth Liddiard probably nabbed it from an earlier song anyway) but otherwise maintaining a pretty low profile. They never released the debut album they'd been recording tentatively titled 'Peaches And Cream'.

So, I moved on and didn't really think of the band again until recently, when I felt an unexplainable craving to bop along to their EP after a hook of theirs came out of nowhere and planted itself in my head.

Sure, in today's context they are pretty daggy and trite (hell, they probably were then), but who doesn't like the 60's packaged into tight modern pop songs? The Crayon Fields proved that for one thing, I haven't quite moved on from my Year 9 tastes. The Honey Pies do it with a little more panache than ye olde Trafalgies though, I must say.

The Trafalgars - Madeline Jones (live on Home & Hosed)*

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*as a side note, it'd be nice for Triple J to do live sets of more obscure Oz bands for H&H. I guess they lack the clams. Oh nevermind, Radio Adelaide does a pretty sweet job as it is Adelaide-wise.

Deja Entendu

Quite I while ago, I started this blog with a post about a band called Deja Entendu. They had added me on myspace a few days earlier and although I enjoyed the blippy-piano pop of the majority of their EP, I was most interested by then-guitarist Anthony Wignall’s one track ‘I Think We Lost Her’. Since he’s given us more than enough pop gold in the last year with The Keepsakes, the rest of their debut Skeletons warranted a little more attention, especially as they eschewed the stage in the last few months in favour of cooking up some new recordings.

This track ‘Fast, Hard!’ is quite accurately titled. ‘Hard’ could perhaps be interchangeable with ‘Slick!’. The song kind of sounds like Muse (of the ‘Undisclosed Desires’ sort) after chewing up and spitting out the Rogue Traders, then upping the tempo. At first it took a bit of adjusting to appreciate how an (I think home-recorded, but am probably wrong) independent Melbourne band could put together something equally if not more shiny than anything coming out of major-label production houses. I also had to shake unescapable feeling that they are making a concerted effort to really hit radio over the head with this one.

Then again - and I quite like this train of thought - it is pretty awesome to see an unsigned band reclaiming that autotuned, big-budget electro-pop sound for their own, and for us all. No longer, Justin Timberlake and Rihanna, shall your over-produced pop aesthetic be an unnattainable fantasy for us ProTools homebodies with a synth and a dream! They even have sweet Brian May-esque guitar solos.

The track is nonetheless invested with an atmosphere of palpable paranoia and frenetic movement that is quite a shot edgier than their commerical radio counterparts. Also, the relative intricacy of the song’s hooks sets it apart from its more mainstream cousins and their more obvious, watered down choruses.

So, a few listens of adjustment later, I quite like this song.

Deja Entendu - Fast, Hard!

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The Bedroom Philosopher

For over a year now, I've coveted any opportunity to visit the homes of my female friends for the sole reason of delving into the next issue of Frankie. I know, I know, "it's for girls" but I'll be damned if it isn't full of some of the nicest little articles in Australian print at the moment. The aesthetic is nice too.

And one of those big draws, other than Marieke, is Justin Heazlewood. Better known as The Bedroom Philosopher, he achieved a level of Triple J ubiquity with the impossibly funny "I'm So Post-Modern" that he struggled to match in the last few years. That is, of course, until his new single 'Northcote (So Hungover)', a merciless piss take of Melbourne hipster culture.

So I was quite pleased today to find out of nowhere his new album Songs from the 86 Tram in my letterbox today. Four listens later, it's quite an amusing little album. While there's nothing as immediately grabbing and ingenious as 'Northcote', many come close, from the understated little soliloquey of a Sudanese to an Irish girl's search for meaning in... 'Irish Girl'.

The album, derived from Heazlewood's stage show at last years Melbourne Comedy Festival, also hits a peak with "New Media", one that particularly hits home for me as a student of media. A dark glimpse at the possible future of my classmates and I, perhaps?

While the album is a little patchy, it is musically subtle and swings every so slightly from song to song to complement the passenger that each song is sung from. And while positioning himself as Australia's premier musical taker of the piss, for the most part he imbues the tracks with a distinct empathy for his characters, poking fun but never mocking them. The only really dud track would be the faux Oz Hip-Hop of 'We Are Tramily', but that might grow on me as it's lyrical wordplay (which is very clever throughout the album) becomes clearer.

The Bedroom Philosopher - New Media

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