2016 Australian Tour || Josh Pyke

"The world would feel a lot smaller and we'd have a lot more of a community if we didn't have these shrinking hearts. It sounds negative, but it's more like a call to arms to remind everybody that we're all in this together."

Since the release of Josh Pyke's latest full-length album, But For All These Shrinking Hearts, the Aussie singer-songwriter has continued the same dependably ace musical career he has fostered from the beginning. The LP has gone from strength to strength; being dished positive reviews from both fans and critics alike and soaring to top two placings on both the ARIA and Australian Albums charts. 

Josh continued to give back to his fans with a run of intimate, fans-first gigs after But For All These Shrinking Hearts' release. But now it's time for the rest of the nation to see Josh in live glory; with his new run of 2016 tour dates being unveiled. 

With support national support act, Banff (with the exceptions of Melbourne and Sydney who will instead see Winterbourne open), Josh is keen to head back out on the road and take his fifth studio album to an even greater audience. 

"I'm extremely excited to share this tour news with you! It's been ages since I've done a full band tour, but it's all happening next year, and I've tried to make as many shows 'All Ages' as possible."

JOSH PYKE ‘BUT FOR ALL THOSE SHRINKING HEARTS’ ALBUM TOUR

Presented by Music Feeds

FRI 29 JAN | TWILIGHT AT TARONGA, SYDNEY NSW (ALL AGES)

Tickets available from www.twilightattaronga.org.au

SAT 30 JAN | CANBERRA THEATRE PLAYHOUSE, CANBERRA ACT (ALL AGES)

Tickets available from www.canberratheatrecentre.com.au | 02 6275 2700 | Canberra Theatre Box Office

THU 04 FEB | STUDIO 56 @ MIAMI MARKETTA, GOLD COAST QLD

Tickets available from www.oztix.com.au | 1300 762 545 | All Oztix Outlets

FRI 05 FEB | THE TRIFFID, BRISBANE QLD

Tickets available from www.oztix.com.au | 1300 762 545 | All Oztix Outlets

SAT 06 FEB | STAR COURT THEATRE, LISMORE NSW (ALL AGES)

Tickets available from www.starcourttheatre.com.au | 02 6622 5005

FRI 12 FEB | MELBOURNE ZOO TWILIGHTS, MELBOURNE VIC (ALL AGES)

Tickets available from www.zoo.org.au/twilights

SAT 13 FEB | THE WOOL EXCHANGE, GEELONG VIC

Tickets available from www.oztix.com.au | 1300 762 545 | All Oztix Outlets

FRI 19 FEB | HER MAJESTY’S THEATRE, ADELAIDE SA (ALL AGES)

Tickets available from www.adelaidefestivalcentre.com.au | 131 246 | All BASS Outlets

SAT 20 FEB | ASTOR THEATRE, PERTH WA*

Tickets available from www.astortheatreperth.com | 1300 111 369

*U18 can attend with parent/guardian

joshpyke.com

Music & Muses - Alyssa Palombo || Guest Post

In light of Alyssa Palombo's fabulous new musically drenched new book The Violinist of Venice, Alyssa has kindly agreed to guest post for you all. So grab a snack and enjoy!

Given that I wrote a novel largely about music and musicians, it's probably no surprise that music is a huge part of my life, and something that I love passionately. I got a great musical education from my parents growing up, and heard everything from Stevie Ray Vaughn and B.B. King to Led Zeppelin and The Who to Metallica to rock operas like Jesus Christ Superstar. I love musical theatre (Phantom of the Opera is and always will be my jam) as well as opera, and as a classically trained vocalist I have sung my share of opera music. I've been a huge heavy metal fan since the age of fifteen, when my dad bought me a copy of Black Sabbath's Paranoid and told me, "You have to hear this". I've dabbled in piano and violin and even spent a few ill-fated months trying to learn the flute. I listen to music while working at my day job, while driving, while cleaning, while working out. And I listen to music while writing. Especially while writing.

Since music has worked its way into my life in so many other ways, it only stands to reason that it would become part of my writing routine as well. I know that every author is different in this respect, but I just can't write without music playing - I think simply having it on helps unlock the creative parts of my brain to get the words flowing.

Many authors make playlists for their novels or works in progress, and I do as well, though The Violinist of Venice was the first project where I really got serious about doing so. I'm a bit obsessive about it, actually. I like to find just the right song to go with most scenes (especially the important ones!) as well as songs that fit with the theme and feel of the story generally. I start compiling the playlist from the time I first conceive of the idea, and keep at it all through revisions and edits and pretty much every part of the process. One song on the playlist for The Violinist of Venice, Kamelot's Under Gray Skies, got added when I was reading through the pass pages for the novel - basically at the very last moment that I as the author had my creative hands on the book.

Sometimes I'll know just the right song for a scene before or as I'm writing it; sometimes I'll hear a new song for the first time and realise right away that it fits in with a scene or character; and sometimes one will fit in by happy accident: something that I happen to be playing will end up fitting in perfectly with the scene that I'm writing at a given moment (this happened with another Kamelot song, Veil of Elysium, when I was writing the very end of my second novel, and it was magical).

Other than the playlists just being a fun thing to compile and to have, for me they've also become a very useful writing tool and an integral part of my writing process. I load up the playlists onto my iPod and will often listen to the playlist for whatever I'm working on while at my day job, and that helps me keep my head in the game even when I can't be writing or revising. Too, listening to and thinking about a song in relation to a certain scene or it can help me clarify what a character's motivations might be, or what may be happening in that scene beneath the surface. One scene in Violinist took a complete left hand turn on me in revision because I was listening to Lacuna Coil's song End of Time while working on it. That song - which is beautiful and bittersweet and about the end of a relationship - changed what was previously a happy, lighthearted moment into something very stark and real and painful. It changed, to a degree, some of what needed to come afterwards in the relationship between my two main characters. And it improved the scene exponentially. That was what needed to be happening there, at that point in the story, as it turned out. To this day those are some of my favourite paragraphs in the book.

And I just love writing about music, about a specific piece of music, about a certain melody or orchestral part or ornament or vocal line. The passages in which I'm describing music are also some of my favourite sections of the book.

Two of the vocal pieces in the novel - the first movement of the Stabat Mater and the aria Cosi potessi anch'io from the opera Orlando furioso - I have actually performed myself, When I chose to learn Cosi potessi anch'io I knew that it would fit into a later scene in the novel that I hadn't written yet, so that was another form of research in and of itself. The Stabat Mater I confess that I worked into the novel just because I love it so much - to this day it's one of my favourite things I've ever sung. Of course, when I started writing the scene with that piece I realised that it fit what was happening in my heroine's life better than I had originally anticipated!

Every writer has many different wells that we draw from for inspiration: our own lives and experiences, other books, our education, movies and television. I draw from all these wells too, but music is the well that I draw from the most often, and I'm happy to have it so. I'm definitely not done writing about music and its effects on people and their lives; but whether I'm writing about it or not, it will always be a part of my writing.

alyssapalombo.com

Alive - Wren || Review

If I had dreams in black and white, this is what I would want it to be like. 

Catapulting straight into a haunting mix of colour-drained cinematics and enticing guitar, Sydney-sider Wren has offered up a ridiculously stunning video clip to accompany her also ridiculously stunning track Alive. The track has been pulled from her debut EP Raw, which you can read me rave about here.

Alive, as a single, is an enchanting song in its own right, but adding a video such as this can only be seen as an asset. Hooking you in from the very beginning, Wren has astutely served up a simple video that you just can't look away from. Its laid-back nature is the very essence of what makes it so powerful. Surrounded by high intensity, this relaxed, daydream-esque clip stands out. As it should.

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Crashing Down || Book Review

Title: Crashing Down
Author: Kate McCaffrey
Release Date: August 2014
Publisher: Fremantle Press
Source: Review copy from the publisher
Buy the book: Book Depository

Lucy is in Year 12 and under pressure to succeed. 

The last thing she needs now is an intense boyfriend. Breaking up with Carl feels like the only way to keep her dreams on track.

But good decisions can have bad consequences.

And leaving Carl is going to be a whole lot harder than Lucy could ever have imagined. 




To be honest the cover and blurb for this book were so unappealing to me that I nearly just shoved it on my bookcase and left it there. But thankfully I pulled it out anyway and got over the lacklustre start. Because I know what they say about judging a book by its cover and I didn't want to not start just because it didn't look as pretty (sorry to all my English teachers for using that adjective..) as some of the other books on my TBR (To Be Read, for anyone who's confused) list.

Crashing Down tells the story of Lucy and Carl, who within the first chapter lands himself in a coma after a drunken car accident. Which is basically what the synopsis had already told me, but the rest of the book was so dramatic and fast-paced that I felt like I was watching an over-the-top soap opera.

I don't want to give anything away, but there was so much going on in this book that I couldn't believe how short the timeline of this book was. Everything that happened to Lucy was, although far-fetched perhaps, realistic, but it did feel like a lot of ground for one book to cover.

Lucy was the character that I had the most mixed feelings about. She was the obvious centre of the book, and had a superwoman amount of strength about her. But at the same time I often felt that she was unrealistic, or at least foreign to me in a way that made it quite difficult to connect with her. Usually I leave books feeling like the main characters are friends, but Lucy didn't end up that way.

Crashing Down is a book that covers a lot of ground in a very short space of time. It wasn't the best book I've ever read but I would recommend it you if you're into coming of age stories. Just keep the tissues handy and don't go into this book if you're having a down day.

The Sunnyside - Dallas Crane || Review

Is there anything better than an ace song for nothing? Download The Sunnyside for free here.

I'm not sure how much of my love for rock music I can attribute to my dad's constant playing of Cold Chisel when I was a child, but I'm going to go with a whole lot of it. Which is lucky really, because I'd be totally missing out if I couldn't appreciate Dallas Crane's latest track The Sunnyside. So kudos Dad, you did good.

The Sunnyside is a drum heavy, soaring vocals type of rock that continues to stand the test of time. The thing that really attracts me to rock, and in turn to this Dallas Crane tune, is the rawness of the music. There is no pretending, no computers or tricks here. If you can't play it live how it sounds recorded then it would miss the best thing about this rocky genre. It's honesty.

Maybe I'm just nostalgic (can you even be nostalgic at seventeen?), but this is a track that you can love now, tomorrow and in a decade's time. Dallas Crane doesn't slow down, they build their momentum until the very last note, it's a clever technique, really, because you'll only ever want more.

Tour Dates

Saturday December 26 - Barwon Club Hotel, GEELONG
Sunday December 27 - Lorne Hotel, LORNE
Saturday January 16 - Ballarat Beer Festival, BALLARAT

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'Release Me' Colour Dazed || Single Premiere

Melbourne's latest post punk ensemble, Colour Dazed is sitting in the eye of the storm, ready and waiting for their world to blow up.

The band's new single Release Me, pulled from their upcoming EP Synesthesia Blues, is an old school quality of new fresh punky rock. With a sound that is familiar as it is unique, Colour Dazed are the fresh faces of a rocky, punk inspired genre that should be blasted from speakers far and wide.

The track, a recipe of heavy drums, strong bass, driving guitar and subtle vocals all stirred together is two minutes and nineteen seconds of musical artistry. This is a track for anyone that truly appreciates music made in its rawest form. Just three blokes making tunes people want to listen to.

With summer here (although very reluctantly down in Tassie), I'm always after tunes that go hand-in-hand with an arvo out in the sun. And I've definitely found a new one to add to my list. With the balance fine tuned, you'd be forgiven for thinking this trio had been releasing tunes for years. They may be newcomers but their music is timeless, honest post punk.

www.facebook.com/colourdazed

'I would just sit there mute' || Tim Wheatley

Fresh off the back of his latest rendezvous in Los Angeles, Tim Wheatley has followed up his latest album Cast of Yesterday with a fresh folky tune. The Heathen is a song about the Tim's eye-opening early experiences with the City of Angels. Continuing on from the success of his previous single, Valerie, Tim has penned his latest track featuring the "seedy" nightlife that he fell into. Although the lifestyle mightn't be something Tim is likely to return to, the sound is something that he plans on keeping from now on.

“While Niko and I were mixing it, we thought it could use just a little something else, and so Niko suggested we take it to legendary guitarist Waddy Wachtel who has played with Keith Richards, Tom Waits, John Mayer, Jackson Browne, Stevie Nicks just to name a few.  Waddy just played along and gave the song a dynamic that builds and builds,” enthuses Tim.  “Having him play on my album was a surreal experience.  Waddy would ask for my input, and I would just sit there… mute!”

The Heathen is a hearty mix of bluesy harmonica and some seriously smooth vocals from Tim. The track, which was recorded in Melbourne and in Hollywood, is already an international track. But trust me, it also deserves to be an international hit.

Now back in Australia, Tim is pumped to be back on home turf playing his tracks with "the same old bad jokes". After the success of his previous releases their was no time to waste for Tim, who has another four shows to play for his audiences down under. 

2015 Tour Dates

WED 25 NOV  |  THE BATCH BREWERY  |  MARRICKVILLE 

SAT 28 NOV  |  HAYCOCK THEATRE  |  GOSFORD 

WED 02 DEC  |  PANTHERS  |  PENRITH 

THUR 03 DEC  |  LIZOTTES  |  NEWCASTLE 

FRI 04 DEC  |  DEEWHY RSL  |  DEEWHY 

SAT 05 DEC   |  THE BASEMENT  |  SYDNEY  

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