mattdoriawritesthings

[mattdoriawritesthings]

A small update on things

Hello! I know that virtually nobody visits this site, but on the off chance that you’ve stumbled here and wondered, “Why hasn’t Matt updated their shit since the middle of last year?”, I figured it might be worth giving you (and you specifically) a bit of an update.

First on the list – I have a new job! After three-and-a-half years of writing, proofreading and general shit-kicking at the Australian Guitar headquarters, I’ve officially taken over the mag as its new editor. My first issue manning the ship is #132, which lands on March 21st. It’s coming together nicely, I think – there’s a whopping 14 interview features on the table (including the cover story, which is one of the most exciting I think we’ve done in a good while), a good lil’ wrap up of this year’s NAMM, and a whole bunch of other cool stuff. We’ve even got a head start on #133, with the cover story for that one locked in and a few other smaller features in the bag. 

I’m still kind of getting my feet in balance with the new role. So, as expected, I’m finding myself with a lot less time to do other shit than I did a few months ago. I’m still freelancing with Mixdown, which I don’t see myself slowing down with; you can find my interview with Oli of Bring Me The Horizon on the cover of their January issue, and a short chat I had with Joyce Manor in the February one. My work with Hysteria has fallen by the wayside for the minute, but I’m hoping I can do some more stuff with them in the not-too-distant future. 

I was also recently commissioned to write some native content for the Download Festival Australia website, which was incredibly exciting, and an opportunity I’m so grateful to have been given. Big ups to Dan at UNIFIED and Ellie at Secret Sounds for that. 

Outside of the usual clusterfuck of writing/editing, life has been good! I started dating my amazing parter, Milo, in October, and we’ve been spending a lot of time swimming and fawning over Netflix Originals together. Archie (my dog, who you’ll know well if you follow me on social media) is getting older and more brittle by the day – I’m optimistic that he’ll last the year, but it’s dawned on me that he likely won’t stick around for too much longer than that. So we’re showing him as much love as we can while we can. 

I’ve started writing music more frequently – that’s a thing that’s happening! I don’t know if I’ll ever get it to a point where I’m ready to put something out, but I hope I do. I want to. I’m excited about what I’m writing and I’m proud of these little ideas. I have about 10 songs in various stages of written-ness.

As for this site, I’m not sure what’ll happen with it. I’m mulling over the option of moving it from Tumblr to Wordpress, which I feel could be more beneficial in the long run (it’ll also give me more freedom to build it as a multi-faceted thing, not just a constant stream of content both new and archival – which was cool for the minute, but isn’t so much anymore). I don’t know what’s involved in that process, or whether it’s even doable at all. I might just re-build it from scratch – I’unno yet. But because of that, I’ve been hesitant to invest any time updating it with new content and such – hence why nothing’s gone up since last year.

Either way, I’ll be back with another update at some point in the near future. Thanks for reading this, if you read it.

If you want to get in contact, you can reach me at mdoria@nextmedia.com.au (for enquiries relating to Australian Guitar) or dee.ninetysix@gmail.com (for anything and everything else).

All the best, Matt

[mattdoriawritesthings]

[Hysteria] West Thebarton: From Zero To 5031

Though with a vastly different line-up to what we see now, the West Thebarton septet made their unforgiving debut with a sloshy and searing little surf-punk number called Chemotherapy.

It was just shy over four years ago, when petrol still cost under $1.50 per litre, Donald Trump wasn’t actively destroying the Western world, and the band formerly known as West Thebarton Brothel Party were little more than a van full of mates jamming out to kill some time.

Today, they’re a much different unit. Where their lineup would previously fluctuate and members would often swap roles (and, in some cases, they’d grow as stately as a nine-piece), they’ve found a happy constant in Ray Dalfsen on vocals and guitar, Nick Horvat on bass, Tom Gordon, Josh Battersby and Josh Healey on guitars, Caitlin Thomas on drums and and Brian Bolado on… Fuck, pretty much anything he can get his hands on. Seriously, the average show will see him on drums, keyboards, guitar, bass, tambourine, maracas and the mic — sometimes all in the same goddamn song!

They’ve also got some pretty high ambitions, with their focus having shifted from quick and quirky punk jams for the local dive to ovation-worthy stadium anthems. The album they’re hoping will kick it all off is Different Beings Being Different—11 slices of raw and ravaged honesty wrapped in tight guitars, ear-numbing drums and some of the most passionate vocals this side of VB’s headquarters.

Less than a week out from the release of Different Beings Being Different, and a month out from their enormous national headline tour with Sydney moshlords Pist Idiots, we caught up for a quick chat and some friendly banter with Dalfsen.

Different Beings Being Different is FINALLY almost here! How relieved are you now that we’re just a few days away from it hitting shelves? [Laughs] I don’t know if ‘relief’ is the right word, man. It almost feels like the start of something—like everything up to this point was a bit of a prequel. We’re all so proud of this record, and I honestly just can’t wait for people to hear it. I know that a few people have already heard it here and there, but that’s mainly us getting drunk and showing it to our mates, or our managers showing it off and going, “Hey, check this out!” It’s really nice that the people we have shown it to are always like, “Jesus Christ, that’s good!” So I really can’t wait to show people. And even if everyone thinks it sucks, at least it’s out there, y’know? I just can’t wait for that.

Is there a particular song that you’re most proud of? I think initially it was Reasons, because whenever we play that one live...

Read the full feature on the Hysteria site: http://bit.ly/WestThebHYST

[mattdoriawritesthings]

[Australian Guitar] CD Review: West Thebarton - Different Beings Being Different

West Thebarton - Different Beings Being Different (Domestic La La) Review by Matt Doria

Hi, my name is Matt, and before landing this cush job where I get paid to write about my favourite bands, my day-to-day involved stacking bricks, trawling mud over scaffolds and hammering planks as a tradie. The job was as draining on my soul as it was on my energy, and though blasting music helped the days melt by, Triple M never quite took the edge off. I yearned for an album that would pump me full of adrenaline; an album soaked in grime and spilt VB, that held artistic weight but was rough enough around the edges that it never felt inauthentic. This – the debut full-length from Adelaidian pubcore pulverisers West Thebarton (nee. Brothel Party) – is that very album.

On it, the septet make 40 minutes feel like ten, every cut outright impossibly massive. Ray Dalfsen puts the ‘amp’ in ‘champ’, his vocals...

Read the full review on the Australian Guitar site: http://bit.ly/WestThebReviewAG

[mattdoriawritesthings]

[Australian Guitar] Courtney Barnett Tells It Like It Is

Melbourne’s indie-punk trailblazer reaches new heights on her head-turning second solo album. Words by Matt Doria

A lot has happened in the three years since Courtney Barnett dropped her mainstream-crashing debut, Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit (henceforth Sometimes). World tours, copious accolades and a duet album with indie twanger Kurt Vile all filled her journals, and though most of the journey has been exhilarating, it hasn’t been without its pitfalls as well.

Both sides are explored on Barnett’s second solo album, Tell Me How You Really Feel: an album that mediates as much on the Melbourne songwriter’s catapulting success as it does on the always erupting supervolcano that is her inner monologue. On the striking lead single “Nameless, Faceless”, she bites at the comment section warriors that plagued her rise to the spotlight, and how violent quips aimed at women aren’t uncommon coming from men in (and out of) the music scene. On its follow-up, the mellow and melodic “Need A Little Time” (which is an indisputable highlight, if we may say so ourselves), Barnett ruminates on the stresses that weigh down her personal relationships.

The record is equally polarising from a musical standpoint. Structures are pulled apart and pieced together in ways that scream originality. Guitar parts are more ambitious and often experimental, and from the bleak throbs of “Hopefulessness” to the elegant strums of “Sunday Roast”, she dives into a wealth of newfound craftsmanship. From the bustling corner of a cute inner-city Sydney café, we caught up with Barnett to dig deep on the musical profusion that makes LP2 her most exciting record yet.

Why would you say Tell Me How You Really Feel is your best record thus far? I guess it’s special because it’s the most recent one, and it covers the most relevant thoughts that were going around. I think with each thing I’ve made – and I’m sure this will continue over time – I’ve picked up new skills as a guitarist, a songwriter and a singer, and it’s fun to just experiment with that. I think after a couple of years of just straight up touring, mostly as a three-piece but sometimes as a four-piece, I’ve had to really step up my guitar, so I felt like I got to play a few more cool guitar bits on this album as an outcome.

The biggest thing that stands out about this record is how bold a lot of the guitars are – you’re not afraid to bust out a sick hook or a ripping solo on some of these tracks. Was it a gratifying album to record as a guitarist? Yeah, I had a lot of fun. In the past...

Read the full piece on the Australian Guitar site: http://bit.ly/CourtneyBarnettAG

[mattdoriawritesthings]

[Australian Guitar] Underoath: Old Kids, New Block

With the aptly titled Erase Me, Underoath tinker their signature chaos for a new generation. Words by Matt Doria

Few bands have mastered the comeback album as nobly as Underoath. Erase Me – their first full offering in eight years, following an acclaimed comeback in 2015 (during which they swore off its possibility) – kicks off with a swift left hook to the eardrums in “It Has To Start Somewhere”, blaring howls and thundering guitars pelting at our undeserving faces the Underoath we knew and loved as teens. But it doesn’t take long for the ex-Christian hardcore warriors to show a new, more experimental side of their musical cataclysm.

Bright, lingering guitars fill the soundscape on “Wake Me”, paving way for Spencer Chamberlain’s emphatic clean vocals to shine like jewels. Crunchy synth-bass floods “Sink With You”, a neogothic ode to the mosh pit. It’s a journey through hell and back told in 11 short, but tight and tempestuous chunks of sonic gold. And, unlike most heavy genre comeback albums, it’s entirely deserved. On the heel of its release, we sat down with lead shredder and beard god Tim McTague to learn a little more about 2018’s biggest statement album.

When the six of you reformed in 2015, did you think you’d end up here with a new album? Not for a second. We went on the Rebirth tour in March of 2016 – the biggest tour we’d ever done – and as soon as we announced that, we started getting more tour offers. We got tour offer after tour offer after tour offer, and we kept saying, “Nope, we’re just back for five weeks.” And then at a certain point on the tour, Spencer [Chamberlain, vocals] said, “Yo, are we just going to keep saying no to everything, or is there something here?” So we all got lunch as a band and we all started to think about it, and we were like, “Okay, let’s not say no to every opportunity.” It was really just a touring thing at first, but just for fun, we started noodling around with some weird little riffs. We were just chipping away at these little ideas, and we realised, “If we’re going to start touring again, the next logical step is to at least think about a new record.” It was very much an organic process. Certain dudes were like, “I’m done! I sold my gear and I have a full-time job, I’m not joining this band again!” And we kind of had that discussion of, “But what would it look like if you did?” That was a big couple of months for us, and once we realised that everyone was not only available to do it but wanted to do it, we were set.  

Read the full feature on the Australian Guitar site: http://bit.ly/UnderoathAG

[mattdoriawritesthings]

[Australian Guitar] CD Review: Slowly Slowly - St. Leonards

Slowly Slowly - St. Leonards (UNFD) Review by Matt Doria

Depending on where in the country you are, St. Leonards is either a bustling hub of coffee shops and skyscrapers in a cluttered North Sydney (and, fun fact, where the Australian Guitar HQ is situated), or a cute ‘n’ quaint beach town about a half hour east of Geelong. The debut album from local pop-rockers Slowly Slowly is named after the latter, and it makes perfect sense: 13 tracks of pure summery bliss à la riff, it’s the exact kind of record you’d want to pop on your Bluetooth speaker when you first dig your toes into the sand.

Read the full review on the Australian Guitar site: http://bit.ly/SlowlySlowlyAG

[mattdoriawritesthings]

[Australian Guitar] CD Review: Gurrumul - Djarimirri (Child Of The Rainbow)

Gurrumul - Djarimirri (Child Of The Rainbow) [Skinnyfish/MGM] Review by Matt Doria

“Third time’s the charm,” or so the adage goes. But for an artist that’s never really had a slip-up to begin with, it’s Gurrumul’s posthumous fourth album that sees him reach a true peak in musical prowess. Four years in the making and completed less than a month before his tragic passing, Djarimirri (Child Of The Rainbow) is hauntingly beautiful, showcasing not just an ambitious triumph in uncompromising devotion, but a lifetime of accumulated talent.

Read the full review on the Australian Guitar site: http://bit.ly/GurrumulAG

[mattdoriawritesthings]

Mixdown #289

The new issue of Mixdown is out, beautiful, and FREE! It’s also the first one I have content in (a semi-fictional interview with ‘ethno-prog’ outfit BaK – a very... interesting band), which is super exciting!

If you can't find a copy in person (suss your local record/music store if you’re in Sydney), it's also available in an extra sexy digital format: http://mixdownmag.com.au/read-mag/mixdown-magazine-289

[mattdoriawritesthings]

Australian Guitar #127

PSA: there's a new issue of Australian Guitar out RIGHT THE FUCK NOW! I have interviews with Courtney Barnett, Underoath, City Calm Down and Press Club, a recap of the first ever Download Festival to kick off in Australia and reviews of the new West Thebarton, Cat Heaven, Gurrumul and Slowly Slowly records.

If you only make one good decision this week, make it the decision to buy a copy of this gem! Cop it from your local newsagent (nationwide) or online from australianguitarmag.com.au

[mattdoriawritesthings]

[Australian Guitar] Groovin The Moo 2017, Canberra & Maitland - Live Review + Gallery (Part 2)

Groovin The Moo 2017
 Violent Soho / The Wombats / The Darkness / Milky Chance / Tash Sultana / The Smith Street Band

Maitland: Maitland Showground, Maitland 29/04/2017 
Canberra: University Of Canberra, Canberra 07/05/2017

Review (Maitland and Canberra): Matt Doria | Photos (Canberra): Peter Zaluzny

What little energy we had reserved after a triple-hit of K.Flay, Against Me! and Montaigne was put to good use when Melbourne punks The Smith Street Band rolled out, the mainstage crowds packed to the brim and beyond with those in the market for a good sadmosh. Rocking choice jams from their brand new frothfest, More Scared Of You Than You Are Of Me, the four-piece spurred pit after pit, no time allotted for a breath in their 40-minute onslaught of blistering emotion and angst-tinged melody. Singalong stalwarts like “Death To The Lads" and "Surrender" gave lead axeman Lee Hartney a cue to steal the spotlight, mental runs and biting solos in no short order atop Wil Wagner's humble yells.

Wagner's own guitar playing was nothing to gloss over, though - the frontman shredded like no tomorrow on a '76 Stratocaster knock-off (which you can read about in AG #121), heart-on-sleeve hymns like the anthemic "Young Drunk" and stately "Shine" gushing through the festival grounds like a tsunami of enormous punk rhythms. Notable too is how much Wagner embraces the shift in atmosphere from theatre to field: The Smith Street Band didn't just lazily translate their normal club setlist to the outdoor stage. Every song they played was one that genuinely worked in a festival setting, which meant that every song they played was met with riotous acclaim from their sea of supporters. If they could just go ahead and play every festival in Australia from now on, that'd be swell.

Read the full feature on the Australian Guitar site: http://bit.ly/GroovinAG2

[mattdoriawritesthings]

[Australian Guitar] Tash Sultana: The Deep End Of The Notion

Tash Sultana is not the next [insert famous guitarist here] – she’s the first Tash Sultana. Matt Doria sits down with the one-woman powerhouse to vibe on how guitar’s up-and-coming queen is building her own throne.

At age three, this scribe’s biggest achievement was lasting more than twelve hours without biting into a glycerine hand soap because it looked like an oddly-shaped gummy bear. Tash Sultana, on the other hand, was already strumming away on a little nylon-string classical passed down from her grandfather – “I’ve still got it lying around somewhere,” she chuckles. In a storied eighteen years, the mind-melting Melbournite has grown from a hobby shredder to a full-time prodigy, dead set on forging a legacy her peers will extol for generations to come. She eats, sleeps and breathes the beat, simply put, to the point where cherry-picking memories is as a futile mission. She sighs, “They’re pretty much my only memories, dude! Music has been such a consistent time in my life that it’s really all that [my life] is.”

Read the full feature on the Australian Guitar site: http://bit.ly/TashSultanaAG

[mattdoriawritesthings]

[Australian Guitar] Against Me!, Sydney - Live Review + Gallery

Against Me! / Camp Cope / Mere Women
 Manning Bar, Sydney 11/04/17 
Review: Matt Doria | Photos: Britt Andrews

Queer, straight, cis, trans, and every nuance on the spectrum: tonight, Sydney’s cozy Manning Bar was a flurry of punks in every flavour, giddy as shit for the long-awaited return of Gainesville rifflords Against Me! Their 2016 album - the bright, brash, scuzzy and scuzzily honest Shape Shift With Me - begs for the stage. It's an album dotted with loud and luscious guitar lines, throat-ripping singalongs and breakneck hooks that outright demand rabid headbanging, and so it's somewhat surprising that, eight months after release, the quartet's Australian tour is only their second headline run in its support. Though of course, such freshness means an equal spread of energy between the band and the crowd.

Almost sadistically, that energy felt further constricted by the strained, uneasy bends of local post-punks Mere Women. To the left of their platform stood guitarist Flynn Mckinnirey, testily rocking from side to side with every coarse and numbing riff that bled from his weather-worn axe. Trisch Roberts met his callous buzzing with a calm repose on bass, gently plucking out a mash of throbbing chords while vocalist/keyboardist Amy Wilson whirled in a polarising smoothie of tense hums and panicked yells. Though their crowd was placid, it wasn't at the hand of disinterest: Mere Women are the kind of band that one can only really stand back and soak in every soul-rattling element of, utterly stunned. Mission accomplished - hopefully it won't take them eight months to tour their forthcoming record, Big Skies.

Read the full feature on the Australian Guitar site: http://bit.ly/AgainstMeAG

[mattdoriawritesthings]

[Australian Guitar] Paul Dempsey, Sydney - Live Review + Gallery

Paul Dempsey / Blake Scott 
Manning Bar, Sydney 02/06/17
 Review: Matt Doria | Photos: Britt Andrews

There are 1,440 minutes in a standard 24-hour day. The average conversation lasts between two and 20 of those.   With the potentiality to start and end over 72 individual chats in a day, the question grows elusive: why the everliving  f*** would you choose the 30 minutes in which an acoustic performance you willingly entered unfolds? Did you not come here to watch live music? It's selfish, obnoxious, disrespectful to the artist and, above all, just really goddamn annoying. Trust us, literally no sane person gives one fifth of a f*** that you haven't seen your friend in, "Like, forever man!" Go outside. Wait until the set ends. Do absolutely anything other than screw up everyone else's night by making shrill, vapid small talk while someone far more talented than you'll ever be creates literal art in front of your eyes.

The skin-crawling sound of such grating ignorance muddied an otherwise captivating solo set from The Peep Tempel frontman Blake Scott. It completely destroyed the atmosphere, as if some punters were actively seeking to tarnish his performance; petty revenge for some unspeakable act the rest of us were unbeknown to.

But all ranting aside, Scott's set was otherworldly. Washed over in a deep red glaze, the Melbourne poet-punk spent the majority of his set with eyes clenched shut and acoustic clenched tight; with every rootsy strum and raspy, alcoholic yell he seemed to slip further and further into another world, only snapping back to reality to thank fans and whip banter before doing it all again. And though the searing energy of a Peep Tempel show was lost, the passion and intensity were both fully intact – if not magnified by the intimacy of the stripped-back atmosphere. With no drums or extra cords to push them over the edge, songs bubbled with a fierce tension: Scott's warm acoustic tones held back the Tempel's usual heaviness, but there was always an underlying feeling that the tunes at hand were powerful and huge. Scott's solo show is a must for any Peep Tempel fan, but really, it's also a must for any fan of smoky, scuzzy acoustic alt-rock.

Read the full feature on the Australian Guitar site: http://bit.ly/PaulDempseyAG

[mattdoriawritesthings]

[Australian Guitar] Taking Back Sunday, Sydney - Live Review + Photo Gallery

Taking Back Sunday / Acceptance / Endless Heights 
Enmore Theatre, Sydney 17/03/17
 Review: Matt Doria | Photos: Britt Andrews

It's almost absurd how beautiful the Enmore Theatre is - even when it's home to the most savage and sorrowless of heavy acts, there's an underlying sense of elegance, as if one of the bodies you come face-to-foot with in a wall of death may belong to a Victorian prince.

Such opulent surroundings dole the average emo band a more epic feel than a simple stew of power chords and prose may otherwise, which bodes well in Endless Heights' favour. The local foursome play tightly with guitarists Jem Siow and Christian Hrdina feeding off each other to fabricate these huge, but never excessive soundscapes, bassist Matt Jones always close by with a dark and driving riff. They're not without occasional moments of stagnation, but they're also not a band with decades of experience at their helm. For every overlong bridge, there's a thrilling chorus, and every haphazard stage move is met with an easily redeemable hook. Once they outgrow their training wheels, we're sure it won't be long before Endless Heights are off headlining theatres of their own.

Read the full feature on the Australian Guitar site: http://bit.ly/TakingBackLiveAG

[mattdoriawritesthings]

[Australian Guitar] The Last Frost, Wollongong - Live Review + Gallery

Violent Soho / Cloud Control / Last Dinosaurs / Fazerdaze / Sloan Peterson University Of Wollongong - Innovation Campus, Wollongong 19/08/17 Review: Matt Doria | Photos: Peter Zaluzny

Winter is the absolute epitome of bittersweet: you can sip hot choccies 24/7 and nobody is allowed to judge you (as per the Milo Protection Act of 1973), you can enjoy at liberty the sheer euphoria of being crushed by heavy doonas, and you never have to stress about sweating up a storm on crowded peak hour trains. But – and it's a fickle motherf***er of a but – outdoors after 5pm are an incontestable no-no. So with that in mind, what better a way to remind us that summer isn't all that bad than to hold an outdoor music festival in the violent, icy clutch of Wollongong's remorseless mid-August!?

There's a homely vibe to this miniaturised offshoot of the rapidly burgeoning Yours & Owls festival ��� tucked away on a university campus were 3,500 fur-jumpered punters all huddled around a single stage with a unified devotion to solid indie, and a few smaller shared loves for cheap alcohol and filthy burgers. The evening was off to a brilliant start, as the sunset-stricken mountains proved a dazzling backdrop for Sloan Peterson's dreamy '50s-channeling guitar pop.

Melding upbeat tempos with breezy harmonies, Joe Jackson's youthful and infectious energy set the platform for fizzy, reverb-licked guitar solos and dusty, pumping basslines to soar. Perhaps it's just our recent obsession with the flick, but a cut like "Rats", for example, would fit effortlessly into a film like Baby Driver. Put straight, it's music to feel like a badarse to: the kind of rollicking fret affection to blast from the subs in your vintage Mercedes as you glide down the open road at doubtlessly illegal speeds, the wind dancing through your matted locks and sunlight glittering off the lip of your Ray Bans. No wonder the band is named after the Ferris Bueller's Day Off character.

Read the full feature on the Australian Guitar site: http://bit.ly/LastFrostAG

[mattdoriawritesthings]

[Australian Guitar] Taking Back Sunday: Surf's Up

Taking Back Sunday are about to embark on their first tour Down Under in three goddamn years! We sat down with guitarist John Nolan to vibe on the album they're bringing with them: Tidal Wave. By Matt Doria

In an era so enraptured by nostalgia, it’s a tad surprising - though, palpably refreshing - that Taking Back Sunday didn’t dip back into their mid-noughties emo roots for album #7. Tidal Wave does have a slight tinge of throwback in its blood, but that comes more in a nod to the bright, rollicking punk rock of the ‘70s and the early post-grunge wave of alternative that, ironically enough, fizzled out just as Sunday’s guyliner-emo began to soar.

Citing bands like The Clash and Ramones as key influences - “It just hasn’t been something we’ve maybe tapped into until now” - lead guitarist John Nolan muses that as they near their second decade, Taking Back Sunday are switching things up to avoid the static trudges of a ‘legacy act’ status. “Going into it, we knew that we didn’t want to be one of those bands where every new album is just ‘whatever’,” he says, fierce and blunt. “Everyone is just there for the old stuff - you might take a listen to what they’re doing now, but no-one really cares. I think part of why that happens is because the band stops caring about their new stuff too, so we really put it on ourselves to work as hard as we possibly could with this record - make it one that would mean something to people.”

Read the full feature on the Australian Guitar site: http://bit.ly/TakingBackSundayAG

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[Australian Guitar] Luca Brasi, Sydney - Live Review + Gallery

Luca Brasi / Pianos Become The Teeth / Maddy Jane Metro Theatre, Sydney 01/07/17 Review: Matt Doria | Photos: Pat O’Hara

In June of 2016, Luca Brasi supported Melbourne indie-punks The Smith Street Band on a national tour that landed them at a sold out Metro Theatre. It was eye-opening to see how brightly the Tassie shredders' loose and upbeat brand of punk shined in the open surrounds of a 1,000-cap hall, as opposed to the scuzzy clubs and bars they're used to thrashing. It's with that in mind that tonight's show was extra special: Luca Brasi have finally made it to the stages they deserve to conquer, and goddamn is it heartwarming to see.

Before witnessing a pivotal moment in Aussie punk history, though, we were treated to 30 minutes of spellbinding jams from fellow Apple Isler and soon-to-be superstar Maddy Jane. Jane was instantly enigmatic, coolly noodling her first song acoustically to a sea of stunned faces before she and her backing band powered into a breathless blitz of electric energy. Blending indie and pop with a deep, folky twang, Jane delivered a stunning blend of vibes that swerved between inescapable catchiness and smoky groove. She jammed passionately and in a haze of buoyancy, her stage presence in general screaming genuine adoration for the craft. Expect to see her name pop up a lot in the near future.

Read the full feature on the Australian Guitar site: http://bit.ly/LucaBrasiAG