Indefinite hiatus

Although it's been obvious for a while, I thought I'd put the official word up here that I won't be maintaining Drone for the foreseeable future. Call it an indefinite hiatus. I'm immensely busy with other projects and other parts of my life; truth be told, my attention has been pulled elsewhere for some time now, and I just don't feel the passion I used to for whatever it was I used to do around here.

For anyone who has stumbled upon this blog and is thinking of sending through anything - submissions, music, whatever... please don't. You're resources and energy will be better served somewhere more active.

Good night, good luck... for now, anyway.

Review: The Laurels - Mesozoic

By Beth Keating.

The Laurels are one of those bands you wait for, patiently, devotedly, passionately. It feels excellent to hold their recently released e.p., Mesozoic, in my hands. For the last three and a half years, I’ve lived on long-ago recorded demos downloaded from the band’s myspace page; early tracks featured on the eponymous Sydney hey-day neo-psych compilation, Burn Your Fingers on the Sun; and sporadic mastered mp3s picked up here and there.

Mesozoic showcases the Laurels in their most current incarnation, and in so doing, demonstrates with full force how much they’ve has grown over the last four years. If you already know the band, you’ll likely be familiar with most of the material on the e.p. – of the six tracks featured on Mesozoic, the majority have existed in various forms of development for some time.

‘Black Cathedral’ is a brilliant introduction to the e.p. The track itself has changed substantially from it’s previous incarnation as part of the Shoegaze Demo a few years ago: it’s more confident, gutsier, harder – more self-assured. ‘Black Cathedral’ has always been hypnotic, but here it goes beyond bended, translucent shoegaze and blasts forward like a manifesto – an aural articulation of strength and focus.

Shoegaze seeps through all six tracks of Mesozoic, but the release offers glimpses of how the Laurels are not falling victim to a remarkably limited genre. Instead, they’re redefining it – participating in a kind of musical revisionism, blurring the lines between different facets of psychedelia and inserting their own idiosyncratic perspective. ‘Merry Go Round’ mixes Ride’s propelling, pent-up and exuberant energy with Storm in Heaven like vocals. Kate Wilson’s drumming stands out most on this track, guiding it, powering it, overriding it with a wonderfully primal energy. It represents one of my favourite things about the Laurels: total cohesion. The music isn’t just about the guitars, or the effects, the vocals or the band’s influences – the Laurels are the sum of their parts, completely democratic in creating a rich, dissonant product.

Mesozoic is a strong offering – anyone who has been following the band would expect nothing less. As a long-term fan of the Laurels, it’s fascinating and rewarding to actively watch and hear the band develop – something that this e.p. captures really well. What I’d ultimately like to see is an album – a recording with a distinct purpose and direction. It would be hard to fault any of the tracks featured on Mesozoic, but their strength exists independently rather than as a whole. The Laurels continue to get better and better; I’d like to see them produce the great Australian album I know they are capable of. It’d be worth the wait.

Release: The Warlocks - Enter at Your Own Skull Vol. 1

By Beth Keating.

Totally slipped my mind to post the link up to an expanding collection of demos, b-sides, unreleased material and alternate versions that Bobby of the Warlocks has put up for download on the band's Bandcamp page.

Get Enter at Your Own Skull here for five US bucks.

Film: The Ballad of Genesis and Lady-Jaye

By Beth Keating.
For the last few years, certain documentaries have screened in Melbourne focusing on a related set of figures absolutely essential to my cultural development: in 2009, it was the Brion Gysin documentary, Flicker; 2010 - William. S. Burroughs: A Man Within. This year's Melbourne International Film Festival hosts the Australian premiere of The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye - a documentary exploring one of the most central influences and inspirations in my life to date, Genesis P-Orridge, and his amazing relationship with his late wife, Lady Jaye.

Genesis is an epicentre, tying together the seemingly disparate countercultural obsessions that have played major roles in my development as an individual. Gysin and Burroughs; psychedelia; industrial and experimental noise; Brian Jones - even the Brian Jonestown Massacre; mysticism and the occult. Before I discovered Genesis, I never realised the link between them all. Genesis opened me up to correlation, interconnectedness. Much like Burroughs, he embodies a subterranean danger - completely unwilling to compromise, defiant of categorisation, unique, brave. Completely individual.

In my mind, Genesis is one of the most important countercultural figures of the last forty years. He's my hero, and I'll promote anything that assists in increasing his recognition and his influence.

For more information about the film, visit the official site here. For information specific to the documentary's screening at MIFF, visit the festival's site here.

Interview: The Black Angels

By Michael Hartt.

After much anticipation, The Black Angels are finally touring Australia. It’s the first time the Austin-based quintet has played in this part of the world. As lead singer Alex Maas explains, the tour was long-overdue.

“Our first record, Passover, got released first in Australia -- before it was released in America. Seeing as though it’s been several years since that came out, it’ll be nice to finally get there.”

The group come to Australia in support of their third album, Phosphene Dream. The album marks somewhat of a departure from the band’s two previous albums. It’s their first album to come out through Blue Attic and it’s also the first time the band has worked with producer Dave Sardy (Oasis, Black Mountain, The Dandy Warhols). It also sees the band reign in length of the duration of both the tracks and the album as a whole. Maas says this was a means to explore new sides to the band.

“One of the things we wanted to do was, if you listen to a lot of psychedelic music from the sixties, a lot of the songs were short little numbers. It was like 2 minutes 30 seconds and you kind of get everything you needed to say out in that short little short amount of time. When we first started playing music we were more into extending the songs and being more patient with the songs and having a more droney aspect to the music. Our taste in music and our influences are all over the place so we’re just exploring a different side of our influences. It was kind of a conscious decision to make shorter tunes, you know, find the song within the song.”

Exploring different parts of their influences and their sound is something The Black Angels plan to continue doing.

“It was a new direction. In my opinion, it opened us up to do something different on the next record as well. If we could do something like Silver Apples, it would be just amazing. So the next record, which we’ve started writing songs for, it’s not going to be like the Silver Apples but if you could have elements of that or something else. If you listen to a band like them or Suicide, they’re still songs, but they’re just kind of like a groove.”

He adds: “Think about listening to Contact in the 60s or early 70s and you think ‘Man, these guys were way ahead of their time.’”

In between second album Directions To See A Ghost and Phosphene Dream, the band worked on a couple of other projects including a collaboration with UK electronic act UNKLE, on the track 'Natural Selection' from their most recent album Where Did The Night Fall. The venture came about after UNKLE contacted the band.

“It was the first time I’d ever done any kind of collaboration like that through the internet. It was an interesting experience and experiment. They would send files over to us and we’d say ‘These three songs are our favourite’ so we’d work on those. We kind of had a lot of creativity in terms of the ones we wanted to work on”, Maas says.

“We’d lay down guitar parts or organ parts or vocals and send it back to them and they’d make suggestions to us. It kind of went back and forth like that for a while. It was cool because it was an experiment and an interesting way to make music.”

Maas adds that there’s a chance more work between the two acts will be released in the future. “We’re still communicating. We have talked about working on some other stuff. When James was in town about six months or so, I went into the studio and recorded some vocals on top of another track that’ll be released probably this year at some point.”

As well as the work with UNKLE, The Black Angels have also toured as the backing band to former 13th Floor Elevators frontman Roky Erickson. There were plans to release an album with Erickson which remains unfinished.

“We recorded about ten tracks of his. His manager sent us about 60 unreleased Roky Erickson tracks. We got the opportunity to listen to them and choose our favourite tunes. We went to the studio and recorded them. We’d love to finish those and release them one day. It seems to be just an idea that fizzled out for some reason. It was a nice project and I think, for whatever reason, people kind of lost interest in the idea. Our idea was to make the lost 13th Floor Elevators record so we were using the same instruments and same gear they were using on Easter Everywhere. The record he released with Okkervil River -- surprisingly, some of those songs that we recorded ended up on that record but different versions.”

On top of all of this, Mass and the other Black Angels are heavily involved in the organisation of the annual Austin Psych Fest. In its fourth year, the three-day festival brought together about 54 acts from a broad range of musical backgrounds. This includes Australia’s Beaches and The Black Ryder. The initial idea for the festival came, Maas says, simply because no-one else was doing anything like it.

“We’ve met so many amazing artists touring around the world and we wanted to have a place for all of them to come play. Austin being one of the earlier homes for psychedelic rock music thanks to bands like 13th Floor Elevators. We initially wanted to re-instil the initial Vulcan Gas Company idea where tonnes of psychedelic bands would come through – but we wanted to do it in one weekend and show Austin what’s going on in the psychedelic community. We had Austin Psych Fest this year at this old power plant that was hallowed out. We had to bring in water and power to the site. It was a fun festival.”

“It’s been growing each year; this year was that largest year. I think other people have similar festivals and I think it’s great for the genre and great for the whole psychedelic community. You start associating yourself with other bands and playing with other bands [as a result]. It’s a rather small community but it’s growing rapidly. Psychedelic music is growing in terms of what it means. There’s so many different kinds of psychedelic music. You have surf psychedelic, garage bands; I would consider aboriginal music psychedelic, native american music. It’s all about what we think is psychedelic.”

As for this tour, Maas says people coming to see The Black Angels for the first time are in for something.

“The music has therapeutic elements to it. When we play the music it also has therapeutic elements to it and spiritual elements to it. What can people expect? Hopefully to be taken on some kind of journey. That’s kind of all I want them to do and to kind of be inspired to do something. That’s always a goal of ours.”

The Black Angels play the Metro in Sydney tonight (with support from The Laurels)and the Hifi Bar in Melbourne tomorrow night (with Beaches). Joining the band on this tour is Joel Gion, who will be DJ-ing at all shows.

Live: Dark Bells final shows

The Dark Bells are a fantastic Sydney-based psychedelic band who are relocating to the UK. Before the big move, they're playing a few final shows - including two gigs in Melbourne over the next few days.



Forming in late-2009, the band features Teneil Throssel on vocals and guitars (formerly in Diamondback Rattler and The Black Astronaut Appreciation Society), Ash Moss on bass, keys and vocals (ex-Mercy Arms), and drummer Simon Parker (ex-Damn Arms). The band have plans to release a 7" on Low Records in the near future, and upon relocation to the UK will begin work on their first album.

For those who can't get to one of The Dark Bells final Aussie gigs, take a listen to 'The Mire', an unreleased demo the band kindly offered to share with us.

I'm going to try to make it to the show at the Night Cat tomorrow night, but am currently in the process of fighting off a fairly nasty cold. If I make it, I hope to see some familiar faces there!

The Dark Bells - The Mire

New: Dead Skeletons - Dead Magick

It's here - finally - the debut album from Dead Skeletons. I can't even tell you how long I've been hanging out for more than my Dead Mantra record and the clips I ripped from YouTube.

Dead Skeletons are the future of this genre - they're representative of an entirely new chapter of psychedelia. Most of the tracks you've probably already heard on YouTube, but isn't it grand to finally have them in one tangible place?

Purchase Dead Magick here.

A crisis of [self] consciousness

By Beth Keating.

I am hindered by a bipolar energy when it comes to writing: moments of passion-infused motivation followed by episodes of a confused, apathetic lethargy. There’s a question that keeps returning whenever I begin to contemplate focusing on Drone again – it’s simple and it’s insidious: What is the point?

When I started this site, I threw myself into a new world – with the hope that I’d be able to write about something I loved and meet new people who shared the same passion as me. I was ambitious, ultimately a tad bit arrogant, but I had a great time – encountering people spanning across hemispheres who became kindred spirits, exposing my ears to a whole bunch of amazing music.

Around about a year ago I began experiencing an identity crisis. Setting up Drone had given me a lot, but I felt myself changing, desirous of being able say something more solid, more developed. I have struggled with that ambition ever since.

I used to have passion for ‘music writing’ – but looking back over old material, I’d hardly call my content worthy of such a title. Now I’m not sure what role my voice has to play in the wider cultural landscape. Music is important, but my opinions are just an unnoticeable blip on a very crowded radar.

What is the point?

Despite battling the cynical view that music writing is an indulgent and irrelevant pursuit, a large part of me still believes in the power the form has in terms of historical documentation and cultural representation. But I’m tired and apathetic towards the standard review/interview/news-style beat of the music blog. This is the point at which I consistently keep finding myself, and I keep finding myself at a loss as to how I can move past it… and evolve.

The music we listen to – and that I try to represent on Drone – is amazing. And as such, it’s worthy of a type of analysis that extends beyond trite pop pieces that relay the same old, well-trodden information. There are so many avenues today from which to get your music information – I guess what I’m struggling with is what sets Drone apart. Going back into academia this year has strengthened my analytical skills and opened up an entirely new belief in my perspective. Ultimately this site began as an outlet for one person; over time it has welcomed a lot of different, wonderful voices into its fold. That’s where I’d like the point of difference to lie – a place where genuine expression is valued over timeliness or trendiness; a living documentation of passion and pursuit that grows, changes, evolves as its creators do. It’s not perfect, but it seems more real than presenting a replication of an already heavily replicated formula.

The new mantra for Drone Magazine will be: ‘No pressure, just passion’. What is the point? I think I’ve just defined it.

Thoughts on... The Better Beatles

By Brad Krohe.

Don't set out to raze all shrines, you'll frighten men. Enshrine mediocrity-and the shrines are razed.
-Ayn Rand

Central to all myths is a challenge - a person or persons overcome seemingly insurmountable odds to accomplish the previously impossible. They then become heroes, and because they are heroes they are worshipped by those who are not. A following soon starts. Their exploits are recounted. The tales grow larger. The renown spreads. Converts are won, and the Myth begins to influence and shape world-views. The Myth motivates-it is used to justify, to exclude, to identify. Thus is the gene pool for empires, nations, religions, sects, ideologies, etc. In the Free West, arguably one of the most dominant, pervasive and enduring Myth-driven forces to still impact day to day to lives is that of The Beatles. Placed upon a cultural mantel unequaled by any other musical figure(save maybe Elvis), a kind of Pax Beatlemania is firmly established among the first world nations. John Lennon once said: “Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me.” The same can be said for the idolatry of Beatledom. Don’t misread this. The importance and influence of The Beatles to their time remains unparalleled. Their ingenuity and pioneering paved a way. But how long should such celebration last, and to what extent? It is no stretch to say they owe some due, but is deification necessary? When is it appropriate for The Beatles to be placed on the shelf instead of on the pedestal? When will their relevance finally mutate into a footnote instead of The Book? 50 years of music and innovation have occurred since. And still, the Beatles paradigm dominates musician and listener alike, limiting imagination and possibility. It’s an unfortunate symptom that the in the realm of music, those who seek to sustain this glorification have actually diluted it, rendering what was once groundbreaking into something generic and common. In some circles, it’s fashionable to have a rewrite of Revolver as the core of your art. How often have you read reviews that include Beatles-based adjectives? Is this a limitation on the part of the reviewer/critic/listener or the artist? Have such general comparisons ever roped you into a senseless Beatles argument with a wide eyed acolyte who begins their sentences with “Yeah ,but The Beatles..?” Again, no one should discount the contribution of The Beatles. But at some point, the acknowledgement has to be enough so that art can continue on and not be bogged down in the stagnation of yester year. The mystification however obscures such distinction, and the two separate but related issues(that of what was and what is) are fused into one taboo. It’s a notion that has been adopted by scores of people who were not even born when The Beatles were still making albums. Cross someone who was, and the argument always ends with “you weren’t there.” Which always misses the point; the point being we’re here now. Out of this fervor a cultural Temple has been erected, a spot where worship is unceasing, where A Hard Day’s Night is a continuous rite, and the money changers await in the outer courts to sell the faithful yet another photobook, t-shirt, or compilation - successfully erasing any boundary between relic and memorabilia.

It was exactly under this cloud of fanaticism, that four kids from Omaha entered the Temple in
1982. They began to erode away the foundations---not just for the sake of sacrilege, not just to shock or provoke. Their blasphemy was deeper, more subtle. They simply did not believe.

For 12 weeks, the group that called themselves “The Better Beatles” took a Lennon-McCartney songbook and methodically deconstructed some of the most venerated tunes in popular music. What started off as just screwing around with some music while singing Beatles lyrics, turned into a direction for the short lived quartet. Recording 10 songs worth of material, and releasing a single (Penny Lane/I’m Down), they would only play a handful of shows before breaking up. Those 10 songs don’t qualify as 'covers' - they are nothing in the spirit of the original songs. They are the body without the soul. These interpretations carry only a synth, bass, standard percussion, and most notably a dry vocal delivery. No harmonies are heard here, no overdubs or serious production work. Lyrics are retained from the songbook and little else. The resulting work is something more 'accessible' than the No Wave label/comparisons attached to it, but it does bare some relation to those descriptors.

While it would be easy to dismiss The Better Beatles as novelty, their actions run deeper than a bad joke. It’s more along the lines of high satire; ridiculing, to expose truth. What The Better Beatles have done is demystify the cloud of mythos surrounding The Beatles. By taking The Formula and turning it on its head, we realise how often it is used, how much we hear it, and should wonder why that is. In the end, the four kids from Omaha playing 'oldies' parallel four kids from Liverpool who started their career giving treatment to 'oldies.' A kind of philosophical equation is drawn, stating that while the former was certainly not anything more than latter, they were definitely not anything less. In today’s world of 'instant' and 'buzz', perhaps that equation can provide us with a satisfactory answer to the question: When is praise founded on merit or simply driven on by its own impetus?

The Better Beatles - Paperback Writer

Thoughts on... The Neon Violets - The Search

The Search by The Neon Violets

By Beth Keating.

They've only released one song so far - and that was only recorded in February - but the Neon Violets have got me completely hooked. 'The Search' is imbued with a Spacemen 3-ish simplicity - hypnotic, repetitive, close to the edge. The band itself is only made up of two people - Joe on guitar, bass, synth etc, and Nell - the drummer. I reckon it's her playing that really sets this sound apart. It's immediate, at the forefront, almost garage in style... offering an interesting contrast with the deeply cerebral melody.