Gig of the Week - DZ / Chicks Who Love Guns / Glass Towers @ Alhambra Lounge, Friday June 4

It's Peny Lane's third birthday and there's a celebration of sorts being put on by FANS at Alhambra this Friday. The lineup is DZ headlining, with Chicks Who Love Guns and Glass Towers for support. Then there's some people who probably take DJ'ing too seriously on afterward. Oh and it's also the official Children Collide after party as well.

(www.penylane.com - some girls who go places and take photos of stuff whilst they're there. I'm not really sure. It could be about fashion)

DZ - The Mess Up - Website

Chicks Who Love Guns - Vomit on the Dancefloor - Website

Glass Towers - Castles - Website

Gig of the Week - Regurgitator / Last Dinosaurs @ Brisbane Powerhouse, Sun 16 May

Brisbane Powerhouse at New Farm is celebrating it's 10th Birthday this Sunday and as part of a day of free events and celebrations two of Brisbane's best bands will be taking to the stage.

 Regurgitator need no introductions, being one of Brisbane's most high profile bands of the past fifteen years. The genre-blending outfit started out way back in 1994, storming the alternative music scene with numbers like I Sucked a Lot of Cock To Get Where I Am. Along with the attitude, Regurgitator were blessed with highly charismatic frontman Quan Yeomans. Warner snapped them up for a multi-album deal and soon the boys from Brisbane were sharing stages with Beck, the Chili Peppers and the Prodigy.
Regurgitator hit their peak in 1998 when Polyester Girl - their biggest-selling single - helped push the album Unit to sales of 240,000-plus. They joined Midnight Oil for an anti-uranium mine demonstration at Jabiluka, toured Japan several times and headed to England's Reading Festival. The band has been quieter in recent years but will no doubt draw a considerable crowd this Sunday.

Indie-popster's Last Dinosaurs are one of Brisbane's best and brightest young bands. Having just released their debut EP in February the band's appeal is growing fast thanks to their spritely, youthful sound.

Gig of the Week - Henry Rollins, Brisbane Powerhouse, Tue 20 Thu 22 Fri Apr 23

This was going to read 'Gig of the Week - Die! Die! Die! / Villains Of Wilhelm @ X&Y, Saturday Apr 24' but with Villains of Wilhelm pulling out because of their guitarist Liam 'Shine Bone' Keats' health, ol' Henry Rollins has been bumped up a spot.

In 1980, Henry Rollins was a teenager living in Arlington, Virginia, USA, just over the river from Washington, DC. He worked as the shift manager for a Haagen-Dazs ice cream shop near Georgetown University, and was a huge fan of a Southern California punk rock band called Black Flag. One day, Henry and his friend Ian MacKaye (who later formed Fugazi) drove to New York City to see Black Flag play at the Peppermint Lounge. They played later at a small club down the street, and Henry jumped on stage and took the mike for a song. A few days later, Henry was called back to New York to audition for the band. Henry spent the next six years riding in vans, sleeping in the back of trucks, getting beaten and mauled on stage, and fronting the baddest, most primal rock and roll band in the history of the world.

When Henry talks about traveling the world, he’s not referring to plush resorts and genteel European cities. Henry’s most recent travels include stops in Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Brunei, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, China, and Senegal. These global experiences – like past excursions to such vacation hotspots as Pakistan, Myanmar, and Siberia – not only supply humorous anecdotes for Henry’s talking shows, but they inform his worldview. As the Shepherd Fairey tour poster bills it, “Knowledge without mileage equals bullshit.”

"Since I was last on tour, I have been working in television and radio, traveling all over the world,” says Henry. “And like everyone else, dealing with the changes America – and the world – is going through. I thought America would become a more peaceful place in 2009. I had no idea the country had so many lunatics. There's a lot to remark upon, of course. There always is."

Gig of the Week - Rodriguez @ The Tivoli, Wednesday Mar 31

'Sixto Rodriguez released his debut album, Cold Fact in 1970. It's crushingly good stuff, filled with tales of bad drugs, lost love, and itchy-footed songs about life in late '60s inner-city America. But the album sank without trace, thanks, in part, to some of Rodriguez's more idiosyncratic behaviour, like performing at an industry showcase with his back to the audience throughout. When the follow-up, 1972's Coming From Reality, also sold poorly, Rodriguez called an end to his recording career.

But in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, Cold Fact became a word of mouth success, particularly among young people in the South African armed forces, who identified with its counter-cultural bent. But Rodriguez was an enigma - not even the label knew where to find him - and his demise became the subject of debate and conjecture.

Barring a couple of sold out Australian tours in 1979 and 1981, nothing had been heard of Rodriguez for almost 30 years when journalist Craig Bartholemew found him working as a labourer in Detroit in 1996. Rodriguez himself had no idea about his fame in South Africa (the album had gone multi-platinum, Rodriguez has received not so much as a Rand in royalties), and embarked on a triumphant South African tour followed, filling 5,000 capacity venues across the country. In 1998 the documentary 'Dead Men Don't Tour: Rodriguez in South Africa’ was screened on national TV in the US. Now the Australian audiences can find out why Rodriguez is spoken of in the same reverent tones as The Doors, Love and Jimi Hendrix.'

The Tivoli
Rodriguez

Gig of the Week - Drawn From Bees / Bonfire Nights / Running Guns @ The Troubadour, Sat March 27

This weeks 'Gig of the Week' sees three of Brisbane's best bands come together as part of Drawn From Bees 'Run Away' single tour.

Drawn From Bees have fast become one of Brisbane's bigger bands. Formed in April 2008 out of the ashes of a ten-year stint as progressive rock band, 'Glasshouse' the band has since garnered national attention after gaining significant airplay on Triple J.

The quartet’s sound is a blend of four-fold male harmonies woven around flourishes of psychedelic keys and guitars, creating a distinctive style of summery pop rock that is accessible yet literate.

The gig will mark Bonfire Night’s only second appearance on stage, as they treat Brisbane audiences to the live debut of their raw drum-guitar sound and two-part vocals that has already earned them comparisons to The Raveonettes, The Mess Hall and My Bloody Valentine as well as a spot as one of Triple J Unearthed’s feature artists.

Along with Bonfire Nights support on the night will be provided by Running Guns, who are sure to impress with their lively brand of garage rock.

Gig of the Week - Pixies @ Brisbane Convention Centre, 18 March

The Pixies reunion continues to roll on as this week they arrive in town to play the Convention Centre. It's all part of "The Doolittle Tour" celebrating the 20th anniversary of the classic album Doolittle (1989), which was the second full-length release from the band. Black Francis, Kim Deal, Joey Santiago and David Lovering will perform all of the songs from the album as well as related B-sides.

Here's the Doolittle track listing:

1. Debaser
2. Tame
3. Wave of Mutilation
4. I Bleed
5. Here Comes Your Man
6. Dead
7. Monkey Gone to Heaven
8. Mr. Grieves
9. Crackity Jones
10. La La Love You
11. No. 13 Baby
12. There Goes My Gun
13. Hey
14. Silver
15. Gouge Away

"We wanted to do something special for Doolittle's 20th anniversary," Black Francis said, "and we thought this was a good opportunity to play all of the songs from that album, something we don't normally do at a regular gig."

Gig of the Week - Pavement / Gersey @ The Tivoli

There are several great gigs on this week but it's impossible to go past Wednesday's show at the Tivoli that features reformed 90's indie legends Pavement.

Pavement marked the point when post-punk turned into indie rock. When their first EP, Slay Tracks (1933-1969), was released in 1989, it sparked a back-to-the-garage movement in the American music scene.

While there were a number of hardcore and punk bands in the U.S. during the late '80s, Pavement brought guitar pop back into the underground lexicon. Combining ringing guitar hooks with mumbled, cryptic lyrics and a D.I.Y. aesthetic borrowed from post-punk, the band simultaneously sounded traditional and modern. Though there were no overt innovations in their music, Pavement had an identity and sense of purpose that transformed the American music scene.

Throughout the '90s, they worked relentlessly, releasing records every year and touring constantly, playing both theaters and backwoods dives. Along the way, they inspired countless bands, from the legions of jangle pop groups in the mid-'90s to scores of alternative pop groups in the '00s, who admired their slow climb to stardom.

Pavement’s first two LPs became defining soundscapes of the emerging ’90s indie movement. The debut Slanted and Enchanted abandoned the grandiose ambitions of other California rockers and assumed defining a humility and prosaic-ness that would come to dominate the sound of indie rock in future.

The band would release several fantastic albums over the decade including Wowee Zowee, the hook heavy 'Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain' and the famed 'Slanted & Enchanted'. Their set on Wednesday is expected to range their entire back catalogue resulting in a performance that is not one to miss.

Supporting Pavement are Melbourne based alternative/shoegaze band 'Gersey'.

Formed in 1997, Gersey built up a fanatically loyal fan base with the release of albums Hope Springs (2000), Storms Dressed As Stars (2002) and No Satellites (2006). They toured extensively, both locally and internationally, and played festivals around the country including Big Day Out, Laneway Festival, Falls Festival and Pyramid Rock. They have also supported such luminaries as The Flaming Lips, Wilco, Mogwai and Mercury Rev.