Kelly Clarkson: Stronger

30 October 2011

by Poppy Reid

"Tea is the shit y’all.”

Kelly Clarkson has just fixed herself a cup of tea and is making her way over to a couch in Sydney’s Shangri-La Hotel, hair and makeup artist and manager in tow. In the country for just a few days to perform at the NRL Grand Final and to promote her fifth album, Stronger, it’s hard to believe it was over a decade ago when this ebullient Texan became the original American Idol.

Clarkson, 29 was thrust into pop- stardom overnight when she took out the incipient title in 2002. The ingénue maintained her disposition throughout the past 11-years and now boasts five albums, 59 million records sold, countless accolades including two Grammys and three MTV Video Music Awards, and a labeling as one of the world’s best selling artists. Her rise could be perceived as an interminable record company marketing strategy, but her intransigent nature as Miss Independent (pardon the pun), that has seen her butt heads with canonical figures throughout her career, is enough to believe her dismissal of pop culture fame.

“I’ve worked with a manager, a previous manager,” she says, “Who wanted me to be the biggest star in the world and I said, ‘one problem, I don’t want to be’.”

Clarkson is referring to Jeff Kwatinetz whom she fired in 2007 for trying to mould her into the exact protégé Simon Fuller had intended for all his Idol contestants.

“His goals were different, I’m not Madonna, I’m not Britney Spears, that’s not my goal. I don’t want that kind of pressure put on me because it’s not something I want,” she affirms. “I just want to maintain me and I don’t want to ruin it trying to be somebody else just because somebody thinks I have the capability.”

Clarkson is part fresh-faced American dream, part brutally forthright country queen. She is the product of ten years of sensationalist tabloid interest that she spent every moment shying away from; a dichotomy she says only fuels the press’ need to badger her. “With other people, they’re either getting out of rehab or they date so many people, or there’s drug addictions, or they’re drunk coming out of a club - there’s so much going on with other artists I think I must throw people off their game,” she laughs. “I live in Nashville, Tennessee and in Texas. I don’t live in the natural industry world so I just think people don’t really know what to do with me; it’s weird.”

Media’s inability to categorise her shaded personal life has lead them scrambling at attempts to fabricate her social life. Although Clarkson pointedly refuses to read her critic’s opinions, there have been a few to slip through the cracks. “I learned that on Idol, she says, “not to read stuff ‘cause it’s either gonna give you a big head or it’s gonna make you want to kill yourself.” One particular rumour that did penetrate her bubble-of-steel is also the one jab she takes the most offence to.

“I’m so unfiltered, if I was a lesbian I would be like ‘you know what I’m gay! I’d actually probably have more luck. “I think it’s insulting to the gay community; just because you’re single doesn’t necessarily mean you’re gay.”

The track and music video for Stronger’s first single, Mr. Know It All is Clarkson’s retaliation against this. She handpicked magazine clippings herself with titles like ‘Kelly fights with label’, ‘Why so single Kelly?’ and ‘Is Kelly Clarkson straight?’ to make a floor-to-ceiling collage of bad press. “They’re all complete jokes to us, we totally make fun of [the press]... You have to, for ten years it’s been happening.” The rest of the album follows a similar theme where Clarkson questions unlettered opinions over “pop rock with some stank on it.”

She even includes a Bible reference in the track Honestly, where she relates her life to that of Jezebel. “She gets stoned and then Jesus from the Bible says ‘whoever hasn’t sinned then you can throw the first stone’ - This isn’t quite how the quote reads, but whatever,” she adds. “It’s like with Britney especially because the poor girl gets kicked left and right - people are like ‘oh I can’t believe you did that’ but the person saying that probably has a thousand things that they’ve done similar or in the same kind of vein. It’s a song that says ‘ okay cool you can do that, if you can do it honestly’.” 

Having just dropped her fifth album into the clammy hands of her zealots and the trigger-happy index fingers of her critics, Clarkson intends to straighten her blinders and assert her hopes for the album’s future solely on her fanbase.

“I hope that people get inspired from the album,” she says wishfully. “I hope it’s an album that people can turn on and feel good about life.”

Tonight Alive: Landed

17 October 2011

by Poppy Reid

Seated on Sony Music’s delegated interview couch in Sydney, Tonight Alive’s self-assigned promo duo, Jenna McDougall and Whakaio (say it as if you’re about to cuss the F-word) Taahi look as though their smiles might emit an explosion of rainbows and Skittles at any given moment. They’ve just finished hosting a slot on Channel [V] and their debut album What Are You So Scared Of? is mere hours from dropping – probably not the best moment to bring up the plethora of Paramore parallels that have been following the five-piece since forming in 2008.

“I think it’s a lazy comparison,” says 19-year-old McDougall, a little irked. “It’s easy to say that. Especially when journalists write something about us and that’s the first thing they say; you wouldn’t really say that about a male fronted band.”

                                                                                   Photo credit: Ken Leanfore

But for McDougall, guitarists Taahi and Jake Hardy, Bassist Cam Adler and drummer Matt Best Tonight Alive was always going to be a femme-fronted pop punk band. After Taahi joined Hardy and Adler’s cover band in Year 11 he spearheaded the auditioning and forming of a band powered by jovial angst and unabashed pop punk referencing.

“I kind of kicked out the singer,” laughs Taahi, 21 “Then we got Jenna in and I kicked out the drummer, and then we got Matt.”

Undoubtedly still completing their green years, the band’s bright-eyed and baby-faced disposition garnered them a major label record deal this year, globetrotting support tours with their genre’s luminaries and a six-week recording stint in L.A. with producer-great, Mark Trombino (Blink 182, Jimmy Eat World). While it may seem like every kid with aPunk-O-Rama boxset’s wet dream, Tonight Alive are a long way from gaining any kind of independence.

“I guess the only hard thing is money, ‘cos we can’t work while we do this,” says Taahi, oblivious to the fact he actively doesn’t consider Tonight Alive work. “We all have nothing in our bank account at the moment but this is what we love doing.”

Unfortunately it’s the parentals that have been funding the band’s dream since they collectively decided to forgo HSCs and university degrees to make Tonight Alive top priority. “It’s tough having to always borrow money off my parents,” says McDougall. “But it’s all I have right now.” Desperate times did indeed lead to desperate measures whilst in Brisbane touring with Simple Plan recently. “Since we’re all broke the band made a bet with Whakaio,” begins McDougall before Taahi cuts her off to explain the wager in between chuckles.

“When I’m onstage I always stand in this massive power stance like an idiot, and all my jeans are split in the crotch. Before we were gonna go on [stage] they said ‘why don’t you just cut the leg off, we’ll give you 70 bucks.’ “So I just had one full leg and one booty shorts leg, my undies were out and everything, and I went out and played to a sold out Tivoli.”

The band sold out a few venues of their own this year; while touring their Starlight EP Tonight Alive played two back-to-back shows at Sydney’s Annandale Hotel this July, a moment which Taahi says marked the point where he realised Australia was listening. “I remember just looking over at our drummer Cam and we both knew what we were thinking: ‘what the fuck did we do to deserve this?’”

Since then, Tonight Alive have become the poster kids for follow-your-dreams inspiration arrangements, even landing the Ambassador position for My School Act, an online music and talent competition for high school students. “We were in high school when we started the band and we did stupid little competitions to try and get ahead,” says Taahi. “But this one is a really good opportunity that we would have loved to have had when we were in school.”

The band understand they were flown into the spotlight and were developing their own sound before they’d even fully developed themselves. “I think I’ve been experiencing things that a lot of kids my age won’t experience for a long time,” admits McDougall. “There’s expectations that you put on yourself, adult expectations,” adds Taahi, “We’re in an adult world,” McDougall tells her bandmate.

They may be small fish in a big pond with media endeavouring to pigeonhole them at every turn into boxes they think the public can handle, but Tonight Alive are determined to stand their ground and carve their own path using stern revolt and an integrity moulded since their early teens.

“We just concentrate on our own sound and playing shows,” says Taahi. “Hopefully with the release of this album we’ll go in our own direction.”

What Are You So Scared Of? is out now through Sony Music.

Panic! At The Disco

14 October 2011

by Poppy Reid

When Panic! At The Disco’s Brendon Urie was 18-years- old, he told his parents he had no plans to further his education and would be moving out with three other wide-eyed dreamers into a room, in a basement, to live on a diet of theatrical pomp music and callow faith. “I was definitely acting like a little asshole, I wasn’t the nicest kid,” he says from a hotel room in Sydney.

Eight years later, the Las Vegas lads turned their nascent hope into a two-million-selling debut, A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out, an ARIA #1 with 2008’s Pretty.Odd and a third record which subsequently split the quartet directly down their monolithic middle.

Urie and drummer Spencer Smith kept the moniker and the sound whilst guitarist Ryan Ross and bassist Jon Walker went on to become The Young Veins before dividing again to seek an even more self-governed path as solo artists.

“They basically told us, ‘hey we’re gonna start this new band,’ and we said, ‘that’s totally cool, whatever you guys want to do’.” The 24-year-old had felt the need for the split as soon as the band had started work on the most recent album, Vices & Virtues in 2009.

“We realised it was really for the best because we didn’t want to go into a studio where we’d have to compromise a bunch of our ideas because we didn’t see eye to eye.” With Ross as the band’s principal lyricist -“[Ross] did 99% of it,” Urie quips - media’s censorious eyes were on Urie and Smith to see how they would follow the success of their last two offerings.
“We didn’t really like to think about it, it gave us anxiety a little bit,” he says. The pair approached the pressure in much the same way they have approached their music from the beginning, using cathartic self-reflection to study their own behaviour instead of others. “If you start dictating what you do by what other people are saying it just seems cheap,” he adds.

Understandably, Urie was at first uneasy about leading the band’s lyric march but after teaming with Pretty. Odd producer Rob Mathes and songwriter-producers Butch Walker (Avril Lavigne, Weezer) and John Feldman (Good Charlotte, Foxy Shazam), Urie says the creativity flowed easy.

“I think I was a little anxious,” he admits. “I didn’t really know how I wanted to go about it but it just kept happening song by song by song.” One track even played a hand in Urie and Smith’s emancipation from the former Panic! The Calendar began as “a guy and a girl story,” and although lyrics like ‘Put another ex on the calendar, summer’s on its deathbed,’ paint a similar picture, when the pair changed the meaning to denote themselves and their critics the track’s purpose changed.

“We changed it from a boy and a girl to the story of us and that tied it all together,” he says. “It was a therapeutic thing to do to get things off our chest that would have been more difficult to do if we hadn’t written it in a song.”

Despite Vices & Virtues being widely received as the first opus from Panic! as a duo, they weren’t a twosome for long. Guitarists, Ian Crawford and Dallon Weekes soon joining the ranks; Crawford left fellow Nevada band The Cab around the same time as Ross and Walker’s departure and Weekes had previously played bass for indie band The Brobecks.

“We felt so fortunate that we found people with the same sense of humour, we also seem to have a similar taste in music and where we see the band going.” But Urie assures he and Smith won’t be too quick to jump into bed with them; he maintains they’ll make sure they’re certain so as to avoid a Ross- Walker repeat.

“It’s kind of like a marriage, we didn’t want to rush into a pre-nup or any kind of agreement,” he laughs. “But we’ve been dating each other for a while and y’know we’re dating and I think it will eventually happen.”

With Vices & Virtues peaking at #6 on the ARIA Album chart and their first two singles weaving their way to the forefront of the commercial airwaves, Panic! At The Disco’s return to form has been met with a widespread nod of approval from the critics they could care less about.

Live Review: The Amity Affliction

12 October 2011

                                                                             Photo credit: Jared Van Earle

by Poppy Reid

Sunday October 9
Big Top, Luna Park, Sydney, NSW

Since the #6 ARIA debut of sophomore effort Youngbloods, The Amity Affliction have been one of the most sensationalised acts in the Australian post-hardcore scene.

Emerging from the deep bowels of Brisbane’s most raw music scene, the six-piece earned their pedestal position through years of constant touring and creating a live atmosphere that juxtaposed their sound but reinforced their lyrics.

However, the band’s Sydney show of the Fuck The Reaper tour was not the best example of their positive, encouraging disposition; the live show gimmicks were there, the onstage antics were there, but their signature tight and precise sound came off bloated and tired.

Opening with RIP Foghorn, Amity began right on form; the sextet’s screaming counterpart, Joel Birch buckled his body in half and sang with intense conviction. A body board was thrown into the crowd for H.M.A.S. Lookback and some unskilled punters tried to catch a human wave while Amity’s technical proficiency seemed wholly in tact.

To be fair, the largely Youngbloods borrowed set didn’t falter until around the halfway mark for fan favourite Snitches Get Stitches; Amity may be renowned for forgoing precision for personality but not even their light-hearted take on the death wall (they asked us to high five each other instead) could disguise their lethargy.

The vocals from lead guitarist/clean vocalist Ahren Stringer paled in comparison to Danny Worsnop who’s band Asking Alexandria were received and performed like headliners before Amity took the stage. After Birch struggled to deliver his growls in final track Anchors the band wasted no time returning for their most popular single I Hate Hartley. The obvious encore was met with savage fervour from the crowd as the band fought powerlessly to match their energy.

The Amity Affliction are revered enough to warrant at least a handful of off-nights and I can almost guarantee any disappointed crowd member will be back to catch them again next time they’re in town; but unfortunately it has become a recurrence for the band in the live realm where as soon as their energy and accuracy wains so too does their integrity.

Lanie Lane: To The Horses

11 October 2011

by Poppy Reid

Sydney songbird, Lanie Lanie has flown far from home to make her U.S. debut this month, and as she speaks softly over the phone from Los Angeles you can hear the cringe in her voice as she’s asked for the umpteenth time that day about the man who pushed her into public consciousness, Jack White. “I don’t know the guy really, I only spent seven hours with him,” quips the 24-year-old.

Lane says it was more of a “right place at the right time” situation when her management had a connection with the General Manager of the White Stripes’ Third Man Records studio. “My management knew that he would like my music so he passed it on to Jack White who emailed me and asked me to go and record with him.”

It may sound as though she’s attempting to play down the two tracks she recorded in the Nashville studio, but Lane is well aware of the weight a White endorsed product holds, even if their only connection was through the music.

“We really didn’t talk about personal stuff or anything like that,” she says sternly. “It was all about making music and recording together, and having this bond through the song. If Jack White likes it you know the song’s gonna be good.” And just like that Lane joined the eclectic list of luminaries like Laura Marling, Cold War Kids and Insane Clown Posse who have all recorded at Third Man with White.

While plainly conscious of the positive consequence that came with White’s stamp of approval, the biggest and most surprising victory for Lane was the fact they shared common ground. “For me it was interesting just being able to work with someone who had a similar approach to life and music that I did,” she recalls. “He created a world of his own and I really want to bring people into my world the way he has.”

It’s this dichotomous world of Lane’s that will prove an easy fit for most; her debut album To The Horses touches on the heartache that comes akin with empathy in Heartbeat, living on your own terms in the record’s title track, and the drudgery of working a job you hate in first single What Do I Do. After four years working a “really gritty job” as a florist to support her dream of pursuing music full-time, Lane is thankfully too busy singing in all four corners of the globe to be messing about with florets.

“People romanticise floristry and I can only say that my sympathies are with the florists...I had to remain open because it’s not a strategic move having a career in music, it’s more like a long life decision of ‘this is what I want to do.’”

Encouraging her from an early age are her parents who played a sizeable hand in the country/rockabilly/pop and roots hybrid she is today. Her father taught her the basics of guitar and is said to be the most prominent influence on her taste in music; but as Lane remembers through stifled laughter, her mother’s Irish heritage also helped form her style.
“She said the other day ‘you know, people always go on about how it was your dad and his record collection, but you know actually I played a lot of those records!’ She loves having a bit of ownership of that, so good on her.”

Lane may possess a different sound than the aural-rape that has been clogging radio airwaves of late, but she’s not alone; with artists like Imelda May, Kitty, Daisy & Lewis and Mylee Grace among those spearheading a resurgence in rockabilly blues, Lane joins the ranks of those allowing their genetics define their creations.

“I feel like I must have something like that in my blood that makes me love the old time music,” she says.

Her debut may be the product of years of material, but Lane would prefer you see it from a distance. “To The Horses is about me living my life in terms of seeing the big picture and doing what I want the way I want to do it with the right people,” she explains. “I think having a collection of morals that are grounding of that sentiment is important.”

Lanie Lane’s unapologetic sensitivity is comparable only to her determination and musical genius. As an enigmatic female in a self-moulded genre, Lane speaks from the mind of a woman closer to 35 than 25. Just like a mature-aged maven, she is more than aware of what she has to offer.

“I’ve been through a lot and I’ve been able to write about it, and I’ll continue to do all of that.”

To The Horses is out through Ivy League Records on October 14

New Found Glory: Same Old Story

06 October 2011

by Poppy Reid

Jordan Pundik has made enough money as the frontman of pop punk progenitors, New Found Glory to quietly retire; as he celebrates “happy hour” from his backyard in San Diego, it even seems quite apposite from this end of the phone line. But as Pundik explains, when the band ignited their genre’s torch 14-years ago (when pop punk was still in-vogue), the five-piece made a decision to shy away from ephemeral influences and become immutable, a road destined to portend both criticism and applause.

“When we first started, [pop punk] wasn’t as cool,” says the 32-year-old. “Then it got cool, then it got mainstream and then it went away for a while; but we never went anywhere.”

Neither did their sound for that matter; New Found Glory have just released album number seven and with the onslaught of bands like Blink 182 and Good Charlotte heading up a pop punk resurgence, Radiosurgery has chosen an intelligent time to emerge. Like its predecessors, the album represents a time capsule of the band’s recent existence. Although Pundik is tight-lipped about which band member’s breakup inspired the record this time around, he did compare the album to surgery; an interesting fact in view of guitarist, composer (and boyfriend of Paramore’s Hayley Williams) Chad Gilbert, who underwent a thyroid operation in January last year after a cancer scare.

“Radiosurgery is this non-invasive surgery without knives, without actually cutting you open,” he explains. “It’s like the person you can’t get out of your thoughts and it’s just tearing at you like the tumour. The music is sort of the surgery, if that makes sense.”

Much vaunted for their ability to articulate their feelings through risible metaphors, Pundik says writing his emotions down in the form of lyrics is the one and only platform where he feels comfortable.

“I’m not that great with sharing my emotions and confronting things, it’s really hard for me; but I feel like when I have the rawness of music behind me it’s a lot easier to do that.”

Pundik is pragmatic though, he’s actually thankful most of his fans may not completely comprehend the weight of his lyrics. “Even though we might have written a song about my grandfather passing (Sonny) and how much of an influence he was, it could mean something completely different to somebody else,” he says before a long pause. “Sorry where was I? Yeah, they could take that song and start thinking about their fuckin’ goldfish that died.” However, this self-therapy has been known to backfire on the singer at times. “Some people have said, ‘Why you gotta be so fucking angry all the time, huh?!’”

The band may have been condemned for not evolving over the years, but with a steady fanbase that has aged by their side, the unchanging sound has only affirmed their demurral. “They’re just not so much in the front at shows anymore though, they’re at the back hanging out at the bar,” he sniggers.

After almost a decade and a half of adhering to their own formula, the pop punk stalwarts clearly have more smarts and musical integrity than any of their backseat driving critics. “We’re just real guys,” he says, seriously. “I really feel like that’s why people can relate to our band y’know, because we’re a ‘no bullshit’ band. We’re not hiding anything, we wear our hearts on our sleeve.”

After realising how ‘emo’ he was starting to sound he adds, “I should have been a therapist, huh?”

Live Review: Simple Plan

                                                                             Photo credit: Jared Van Earle

04 October 2011

by Poppy Reid

Saturday October 1
Enmore Theatre, Sydney, NSW

Simple Plan fans are an impudent bunch, when Sydney’s Enmore Theatre filled with impatient, panda-eyed zealots sporting the routine side fringe, Converse kicks and even a few rat-tail haircuts, we all knew exactly what we were in for.

One and a half hours later, the crowd departs – shocked, baffled, jubilant, slightly deaf, but wanting to experience it all over again.

The French-Canadian’s Australian tour may have been to promote their punny fourth record, Get Your Heart On but the five-piece wreaked havoc as they not only took us back through over a decade’s worth of pop punk gems but also showed us they hold more sexual frustration than half a Viagra pill.

Opening with the band’s breakout single Shut Up their plaudits screamed mercilessly while their chaperones covered their ears; swiftly followed by latest single Can’t Keep My Hands Off You, only a select few looked disappointed that Weezer’s Rivers Cuomo didn’t make a physical cameo as most in the theatre weren’t even old enough to care who he is.

“I want you to leave here feeling like you are part of the band,” said frontman Pierre Bouvier before Addicted. As guitarist Jeff Stinco sucked on a gobstopper through pelvic thrusts and bassist Dave Desrosiers and rhythm guitarist Sebastian Lefebvre scissor-kicked through an array of different sized punk jumps, it was clear they loved a bit of overplay; Simple Plan were like The Wiggles for tweens – only on heat.

:: View all the live shots from the night here.

After confessing he thought the Australian accent was hot and kissed his own muscles in jest, Bouvier belted out what should be the band’s next single, You Suck At Love. Their sound has remained unchanged since 1999, and with deafening screams to have their babies, that’s exactly the way the crowd want things to stay. Bouvier dedicated Thank You to their support act’s frontwoman, Jenna McDougall before asking for a circle pit during Your Love Is A Lie, the crowd awkwardly obliged but went straight back into their safe jumps when they thought he wasn’t looking. The sound through this track was terrible with Bouvier changing mics and struggling to hear himself through following tracks Astronaut and Summer Paradise, perhaps in an effort to distract the audience, he stood behind Stinco and simulated pelvic gyrations – most forgot about any sound issues from this point on. Lefebvre helped drummer Chuck Comeau with percussion on a road case for Summer Paradise, and when he was done, rubbed the drumstick on his crotch before throwing it to a screaming tween.

“Who will let me stay at their house?” Bouvier shouted.

Simple Plan then treated us to a mash up of cover tracks from Cee Lo Green to Jason Derulo to Pink before inviting Tonight Alive’s Jenna McDougall onstage to stand in for Natasha Beddingfield for Jet Lag.

Bouvier’s between track banter for final tracks Welcome To My Life, and I’d Do Anything consisted predominantly of him trying his darnedest to get Stinco laid with comments about his sexual health and desperate availability. Desrosiers even revealed he’d “had sex for three hours once.”

Cringing parents exhaled a collective sigh of relief after the four-song encore (Loser Of The Year, I’m Just A Kid, Everytime and Perfect); they led their minors through the doors and prayed they were too innocent to comprehend the plethora of sexual innuendos and blatant titillation that just took place.

:: Read our review of Get Your Heart On here.

Big Day Out 20th anniversary: Through the lens

30 September 2011

by Poppy Reid

Over Tony Mott’s 30-year career in rock ‘n’ roll photography, he has carved himself a meaty slice of Big Day Out history with his archive of trademark images.

2008 - “Rage Against The Machine were on at three o’clock in the afternoon and they were at the height of their angst. They just walked onstage and were just all left-wing politics; in the middle of the set, Zack (De La Rocha) stage dived straight into the middle audience, right across the pit and I got a shot of it.”

2004 – “The Flaming Lips - I got crap photos of them, they were a nightmare to photograph, they had the fucking worst lights I’ve ever seen but they were just brilliant onstage.

“They got practically every Big Day Out crew member and all their friends to dress up in animal clothes. Drew Barrymore was knocking up the drummer from The Strokes at the time so I had Who Weekly and everybody hassling me for photos and she said, ‘No I don’t want them’ so I played a trick on them. I told everybody they could have an exclusive and they got it.
She dressed up as a bear every night and danced onstage with the Flaming Lips and was dry humping The Strokes drummer who was dressed as a big rabbit. So I took a photo of a dancing bear and sent it to them. I got some very irate emails after that.”

2001 – “PJ Harvey was coming every single year and never came; she cancelled every time. When she did play she was just mesmerising - this little girl with such charisma, she was just fabulous and dressed fabulous.”

1995 - “The first time Silverchair played they were referred to as Nirvana In Pajamas. Courtney Love was on the road then and the crowd just went fucking off, to say the least. In Sydney there was a guy at the top of a pillar and it was literally swaying and people were just thinking ‘oh god this is going to be the end of Big Day Out, this guy’s gonna fucking die’.”

“They were on the rooftop of all the sheds in Melbourne and on the Gold Coast, the side stage was packed with a thousand people and everyone was there for Silverchair.”

1992 – “The first travelling Big Day Out is easily my favourite and I’ve never topped it. It’s the only Big Day Out where they never had a headliner, Iggy Pop, Nick Cave and Sonic Youth took it in turns. Every single finish they’d jam and do Iggy Pop’s I Wanna Be Your Dog, it was amazing.”



Sophie Howarth has been a staple in Big Day Out pits since the festival’s inception.

2011 – “I was asked by Henry, Iggy Pop’s manager to do a photo shoot for Iggy and The Stooges. My photo appeared on a CD cover this year for Sadistic Summer: Live At The Isle Of Wight.”

2003 – “This is the year I was asked by Big Day Out to be an official photographer. I felt I really earned this position.”

1992 – “I was there but with no camera or film - all in the film of my mind. I remember Nirvana in the Hordern. Hanging off a railing sweltering. The site at the Showground had a grassy, kind of magical Easter Show vibe to it. It was all very relaxed and spontaneous.”

The above photograph is from Sophie Howarth's book Peace, Love and Brown Rice, out now.

Live Review: Alice Cooper

                                                                               Photo credit: Jared Van Earle

29 September 2011

by Poppy Reid

Monday September 26
Enmore Theatre, Sydney, NSW

Alice Cooper is a pervert; and his black-clad eclectic fanatics could not be more happy about it.

Opening with The Black Widow, the 61-year-old icon made his entrance dressed as a spider in a military jacket; firework sparks were flying before he’d even addressed the packed Enmore Theatre.

Renowned for his stage theatrics and deviant train of thought, Cooper’s No More Mr Nice Guy concert was always going to reign supreme as the month’s most mind boggling live show from a rock god. With an oversized crutch under his arm, Cooper let us in on the joke about his age for I’m Eighteen and during Is It My Body he performed to the black sea with a live snake draped across his shoulders; as the serpent crept around his neck and up his face you could sense most of us were looking on with mouths agape.

Each track was a dramatised event as fake executions, simulated sex with a corpse mannequin, Frankenstein’s monster, and zombies galore complimented his lyrics on this bloodied, metal-lovers’ playground. The backing band were clearly headhunted; Australia’s own Orianthi Panagaris chewed gum throughout the whole set, stopping only to sing backing vocals or sear into a guitar solo. Drummer Glen Sobel stole the show on numerous occasions, there was a reason why Cooper elevated his kit above the other players.

:: View all the live shots from the night here.

In final track School’s Out, Cooper included a snippet of Pink Floyd’sAnother Brick In The Wall while his crew emerged to release giant coloured balloons to the crowd. Just before you could say “coloured balloons at an Alice Cooper concert? That’s odd,” the leather-clad singer produced a sword to burst them one by one.

Although Cooper performed just one encore track, he made it worth five as he donned a silver jacket and hat for Elected and cited Wayne’s World by telling us we were “worthy.” As we screamed in delight at the comment that has adorned many a high school conversation, Cooper threw his hat to Sobel, who caught it on the tip of his drum-stick. The No More Mr Nice Guy tour should be a permanent reference for any band wishing to even faintly follow in his footsteps.