The Scene

Jets final landing

The Screaming Jets say farewell at the Workers Club next Thursday.

No they haven't been taken over by Qantas – unlike some other former Newcastle high fliers – but after 12 years, the Screaming Jets have decided to come to a screaming halt, not breaking up, but definitely grounding themselves for a while.

More recently, they made a name for themselves as the first people to be thrown off Virgin Airways (and that was after they were invited to the launch). But now the band's three founding members – Grant Walmsley, Paul Woseen and Dave Gleeson, have decided they'd like to step away from constant touring and instead sit back, relax and re-join the human race.

Frontman Dave Gleeson says it was a difficult decision for them to make.

'However, we all agree that to take a year or two off and be able to stand back and take a look at where we are going, will quite possibly be the best thing that's ever happened to the group,' he said.

In a prototype for Unearthed, the Screaming Jets rose to prominence after winning the Triple J national battle of the bands in ‘89. Since then they've produced five gold and platinum albums, plus three gold and platinum singles, selling more than half a million records, and along the way, delivering 2000-plus concerts.

But now one of the nation's hardest working and honest rocking bands has fallen victim to fickle pop fashions, with Australian ears tuned into the USA and crappy college bands like Limp Bizkit. Gleeson hints as much.

'Maybe when we are gone for a while, Australian music fans will wake up and realise that bands such as Limp Bizkit, KORN and Prodigy are not and never were gonna be the biggest thing Australia has ever seen,' he said.

'Then the time will be right for the true prophets of Oz rock to return, til then, youse can choke on Fred Durst's Soggy Sao for all we care!'

Before you suck it and see, catch The Screaming Jets at the Lismore Workers Club next Thursday, May 31. Tickets at the door.

www.screamingjets.com

The More Things Change

INXS with Jon Stevens play the Workers Club on June 5.

The figures are impressive – and leave you wondering what might have been.

In a career spanning 23 extraordinary years, INXS have sold more than 25 million records worldwide.

Their first gig as the Farriss Brothers, on Sydney's Northern beaches, was in August 1977. The rest, as they say, was history for Michael Hutchence, Kirk Pengilly, Garry Beers, Tim Farriss, Andrew Farriss and Jon Farriss.

Their first Australian Number One single and album came in 1984 with ‘Original Sin' from The Swing. The 10 million-selling Kick, delivered their first US Number One – ‘Need You Tonight', plus an unprecedented run of six US Top 10 singles, seven MTV Awards and three Grammy Award nominations.

At their peak, 75,000 crammed into London's Wembley Stadium in 1991 (which became the Live Baby Live video and album), then in November 1997, as they were preparing for a new album, tragedy stuck when the band's charismatic lead singer, Michael Hutchence, was found dead in a Sydney hotel.

Finding a replacement hasn't been easy. Jimmy Barnes grabbed the mike a year later for a one-off at the Mushroom Records 25th Birthday Concert.

Then Terence Trent D'Arby was guest vocalist to officially open Sydney's Olympic Stadium before a 90,000 crowd.

While the taste for performing together had begun to return, various band members had commitments to other projects then current, so it was a while before more gigs could be seriously considered.

Early in 2000 with the band itching to play, the idea arose for doing a one-off club show. Drummer Jon Farriss had been writing with Jon Stevens, the former frontman of Noiseworks, who had just returned from living in Los Angeles. A few rehearsals showed Jon fitted in well.

The next six months saw INXS with Jon Stevens performing at several major events, including the closing ceremony of the Olympic Games. (Stevens' song ‘Carry The Flame', the official theme for the Olympic Games torch relay.)

Now INXS with Jon Stevens is hitting the road with the ‘Just for Kicks' tour, which brings them to the Lismore Workers Club on Tuesday, June 5. Tickets for the concert are on sale now from the Workers Club.

www.inxs.com

I Like Their Old Stuff

Regurgitator head a triple bill at the Great Northern next Thursday.

Regurgitator, since implementing a broad range of genres– britpop-esque clean tunes, 60s-style melodies, fast guitar songs and even electronica/dance numbers, have quickly climbed up the musical ladder of Australia's indie circuit.

When Regurgitator come to Byron Bay, next Thursday, May 31, with King Kapisi and Sekiden, the ‘gurge' experience of audio/visual magic will be again unleashed.

After a chance 1994 meeting between Ben Ely and Quan Yeomans on a bus, Regurgitator was formed with drummer Martin Lee. Before Regurgitator, Ben Ely was (and still is) in a popular underground local Brisbane band, Pangaea.

Across six years, the punchy three-piece produced one award winning album after another. 1996's Tu-plang was the crunch album, which made the band the flavour of the nation.

In July 1999, the ‘Gurge released Art…, which led to a watershed shortly after the second single ‘I Wanna Be A Nudist', was released.

A disgruntled Martin Lee left the band, displeased with the direction of its music and his lack of input.

Peter Kostic (Front End Loader, Hairy Mary) stepped up to the skins as the new drummer.

Since then, the group has been working on a new album, the esoterically titled Eduardo & Rodriguez Wage War On T-Wrecks, due for release on July 16. The first single, 'Fat Cop', is a hip-hop flavoured track.

Tickets for Regurgitator copping it with New Zealand Hip Hopper King Kapisi and Sekiden next Thursday at the Great Northern are available from the pub or Music Bizarre. Doors open 9pm.

Hip Hop Comes of Age

King Kapisi joins Regurgitator at the Great Northern next Thursday.

Forget the gangsta, Pacific pranksta King Kapisi thinks there's more to hip hop than rhyming to an American tune.

The New-Zealand-born – but only just – Samoan says that guns and putting down women have got nothing to do with his life so he can see no reason to make them part of his work.

'I want to perform songs that reflect where I'm coming from, and that extends to the production process,' Kapisi said.

'There's no way I'm going to sit there and rhyme to some producers track.

'I put together the whole song so the backing reflects, enhances or adds counterpoint to what I'm saying up front.'

'By creating your own thing you get to think about the beat, lyric, scratches and melodies, as well as the direction of your track.'

Kapisi claims to be open to anything and his list of influences include Metallica, Beethoven, various indigenous artists and the Wiggles.

When he laid down his current single, Screams From the Old Plantation. he used ukulele and traditional chants to create a hip hop number that his uncles and aunts could groove to.

One reviewer put it another way 'you'd have to be deaf not to smell what Kapisi's cooking'.

'We did several Big Day Outs on one of our earlier Aussie tours this year,' he said.

'The crowd took a while to warm to us but by the end of the show they knew where we were coming from.'

Kapisi believes there is no limit to where hip hop can go and that it is just a matter of educating the fans.

'For me it's about expressing myself,' he said. 'Some tracks will be happy and some will be dark and moody. It's just a matter of how I was feeling on the day.'

King Kapisi plays the Great Northern in Byron Bay, next Thursday May 31, with Regurgitator and Sekiden. Tickets at the door.

Ace The Bass

Motor Ace play the Evans Head RSL Club next Thursday.

æometimes music is simply a matter of chance. Patrick Robertson, lead singer with Motor Ace, and unashamed blues man, had been slogging away in nowhere bands in nowhere land, and was ready to toss it in when he met Damien Costin.

It wasn't an auspicious beginning. Damien was working as assistant engineer on Patrick's demo, when he dropped the tape and it rolled across the floor – leading Patrick to suspect sabotage. But the mood changed when Damien hopped on to the drums to relieve the studio boredom. They clicked, and were jamming together when David Ong wandered in, listened in the corner for a while, then picked up a guitar and let rip with a haunting guitar line which later became the opening to ‘Siamese'.

An old friend of Dave's, Matt Balfe, rounded things out on bass, and Motor Ace were born.

The debut album Five Star Laundry, was released earlier this year. Recorded in four weeks during a Melbourne heatwave 12 months ago, the 12-tracker is a study in flawed humanity, from ‘Death Defy', a love song masquerading as an ‘aren't we tough, let's go and get pissed' song, to ‘Chairman of the Board' their first single.

The Motor Ace sound can be fast and furious, yet clever and tender, with a rock-blues sound.

Now the Melbourne four-piece is on the road, coming to Evans Head RSL Club next Thursday, May 31, from 9pm.

Motor Ace headline a triple bill that also features Fur Patrol and Klinger

For details, call the club on 6682 4282

www.motor-ace.com

Latin Love

Jim Kelly's Latin Lovers speak for themselves, next Wednesday at Maggie Moores.

Jim Kelly's Latin Lovers are performing the music of Central and South America next Wednesday, May 30, at Maggie Moores.

Featuring Elizabeth Lord on vocals, the five-piece is playing a repertoire of infectious rhythms and exotic, dreamy melodies, from ‘Lover come back to me' and ‘What is this thing called love?' to ‘Begin the Beguine', ‘Blue Daniel' and even ‘Tico Tico'.

Tickets for the concert are $5 at the door, with the love going round from 8.30pm.

Yuri and me

Yuri and his wife Olena take to the bar at the Northern Rivers Conservatorium.

We were so taken with the recent story on Ukrainian acrobat and gymnast Yuri Stepchenkov that we somersaulted him right out of the photograph.

The person in the picture was Aeon Matheson, who also teaches gymnastics at the Northern Rivers Conservatorium and had brought in the members of one of his classes to meet Yuri and his wife Olena.

Yuri is running ‘More Than Dance' classes at the Conservatorium, with the first class for juniors (6 -11 years) from 4pm to 5.15pm, and seniors (12 and over) from 5.15pm in the downstairs dance studio. The cost is $10. For more details, phone Nola on 6684 1034.

Zephyr Timbre

What happens when two wiggin stalwarts from the broadest spectrum of music decide to take their love of unique and melodic sounds, then blend it together with honey-smooth female vocals, add a twist of turntablism, then take things one step further with a toasty MC?

Well the answer is Zephyr Timbre which delivers everything from stomping filtered funk to sly dub/electro.

Porl DeVille & FUnCK da Bass are the sparring partners and brothers in groove who conjure up the beats, sequences, guitar stabs and assorted noodlings. Manta Ray is the voice, channelling soul and silk in equal proportions through her vocal chords. Down in the Funk Lab lurks DJ Lectre, the wax scientist, and last but not least is none other than Cameron James Brown - renowned MC and man of seriously dope rhymes.

Zephyr Timbre place an emphasis on creating important music as well as being dedicated to shaking some punter posterior on the dance floor.

Listen. Inhale. Move and enjoy the vibe.

You can catch them at the Canberra next Friday, June 1.