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Interview With POND's Nicholas Allbrook

Posted by The Bay Area Crew, April 18, 2017 01:47pm | Post a Comment

POND

By Dominique Gomez
Photo by Matt Sav
This article also appears on DoTheBay

After almost two years of silence, Australian rock band POND has spawned their new album, The Pond, The WeatherWeather, releasing on May 5th, 2017. The whimsical and multicolored group has yet again brought their honest expertise to the table. Yet, the band twists expectations by fusing pop and semi-political messages into their mind-bending songwriting. Produced by Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker, POND’s glam and glitzy rock tendencies are now fully embraced in The Weather, with touches of a younger POND’s jammy and experimental artistry.

Their first single, “Sweep Me Off My Feet,” was released in early October, giving audiences a taste of their bubble gum dance abilities. The song sheds awareness, challenging masculinity and the ideologies modern society holds as true beauty. Much earlier than planned, their second single, “30,000 Megatons,” was brought to us shortly after the world learned that the United States would soon be led by reality T.V. star and actual super villain of humanity, Donald Trump. Lastly, the album’s title track, “The Weather,” was released this spring.

Frontman and songwriter Nicholas Allbrook gave DoTheBay and Amoeba Music an early listen to their long-awaited album along with a quick phone call to discuss his master plan behind the scenes of the band’s music. If you find yourself weak at the knees after getting this sneak peek of The Weather, head over to the Great American Music Hall on Tuesday April 25th, 2017 to catch POND perform their newest work right before your eyes. Enter to win a pair of tickets to this show with DoTheBay HERE!

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One album wonders: David McComb's Love of Will

Posted by Eric Brightwell, December 1, 2014 08:00am | Post a Comment
DAVID MCCOMB - LOVE OF WILL


David McComb is best known as the singer of The Triffids, unquestionably one of the greatest rock bands of all time and one which released quite a few albums over the course of their fourteen year existence. As a solo artist, however, McComb recorded just one solo record, which is the subject of this week’s One Album Wonders.

David McComb was born 17 February, 1962 in Perth, Australia to Dr. Harold McComb (a plastic surgeon) and Dr. Athel Hockey (a geneticist). The McComb family resided in the Cliffe, an historic home on McNeil Street in the posh neighborhood of Peppermint Grove. David and his four older brothers all attended Christ Church Grammar School in nearby Claremont. Nevertheless, McComb would emerge as one of Australia's greatest poetic voices.

McComb began making music with Alan “Alsy” MacDonald in 1976, who was the primary songwriting partner throughout what proved to be his too short life. The two first collaborated as part of the collective known as Dalsy, then as Blök Music, and followed by Logic, which after just one performance in 1978 changed their name to The Triffids. Despite their having released some of the best music of the 1980s and NME having gone so far as to proclaim 1985, “The Year of the Triffids,” they were never commercially successful. After one of their most musically adventurous but commercially less successful albums, The Black Swan, The Triffids called it a day in 1989.

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Aussie Psych-pop Band Wunder Wunder Talk to the Amoeblog Before Their Show May 22 at The Roxy

Posted by Billy Gil, May 14, 2014 05:20pm | Post a Comment

RSVP here to see Wunder Wunder with Holy Fuck and James Supercave May 22 at The Roxy for Red Bull’s next Sound Select show in Los Angeles. The show is only $3 with an RSVP.

If there’s ever been a group that fused the sensibilities of two places they've come from, it’s Wunder Wunder, an Australian band that now live in L.A. The band hails from a place known for its awesome psych-pop bands, like Tame Impala and Jagwar Ma, to name a few, but they’ve got a distinctly easygoing, SoCal vibe, too, on songs like the glittering “Coatstline.”

Even though we’ve only heard two songs so far from the band, we’re already pumped about the prospects they offer. The duo’s debut album, Everything Infinite, is out July 15. We caught up with the band, made up of Aaron Shanahan and Benjamin Plant (who are also in electro-pop band Miami Horror) before their May 22 show with Holy Fuck and James Supercave at The Roxy May 22.

 

What do you guys think of L.A.? Do you feel like the new surroundings have affected your music at all?

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Somebody Called Me Australian - Music Videos Part III - The Australian Age

Posted by Eric Brightwell, April 7, 2011 07:00pm | Post a Comment
This blog entry is part of a series on the history of music videos in the pre-MTV era. Part I dealt with the era from 1890s-1940s. Part II covered the 1940s-1960s. This section focuses on Australia's domination of music videos, beginning in the 1970s.

Videos took off in Australia largely because the country is a dang continent and back in the day traveling across it was harder than just moving to England and getting famous there, something which many Aussie bands have done… and probably continue to do. So rather than drive through bush fires and blizzards to get from Perth to play to seven larrikins in Brisbane, music videos were increasingly used to promote bands.

 

Sounds Unlimited




Out of Africa - Austro-Melanesian History, Culture and Music

Posted by Eric Brightwell, September 1, 2010 12:00pm | Post a Comment
Once upon a time, one or two hundred thousand years ago or so, anatomically human beings appeared on the scene in Africa. About 60,000 years ago, there may have been as many as 5,000 people living on the planet. A number, possibly around 150, decided to cross the Red Sea... following the lead of their cousins, Homo erectus, who'd decided to look for new real estate some 2 million years earlier.


Homo Erectus couple
 

The humans traveled along the Arabian coast and, once arriving in South Asia, decided to settle down for a while. Over thousands of years, physical differences would develop in humans that spread from this population; lighter skin allowed for the absorption of Vitamin D3 as people moved into less sunny climes. Nowadays we usually call these descendants Asians and white people. But the people that moved on through Southeast Asia to Australia don't have a name nearly as recognized. To my ears, Australoid sounds so clunky... does the "oid" suffix ever sound good? Some of the more widely used terms in their respective cultures include the vague "black," "negrito" and "aborigine." I'm going to stick with Austro-Melanesian (or Australo-Melanesian) for now... If that catches on, maybe future generations will shorten it to AMs, Ausmels or something catchier. But for now, I'd merely like to focus on both the diversity and solidarity of these various peoples.

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