The Brag

“The concept of the band came before the band itself,” singer Nick Finch says. I’ve asked whether his infamous horror/country/chain-gang collective Graveyard Train have become more concept-focused than intended. “The idea was to have a country-horror band with a whole bunch of guys making a whole bunch of noise on stage and singing songs about death and stuff. It has really developed a lot since then; we were a lot more country in the early days, but we are not really now.” The band are getting set to launch their new album Hollows, a dark and rollicking eleven tracks of minor chords and morbid lyrics. “I wonder if fans are going to like this,” he says. “It’s a long way from where it started.”

Posted: June 7th, 2012 under Brag 465 (June 4), Feature Music, Music, Music - Interview.
Tags: Brag, Feature, Graveyard Train, Hollow, interview, Krissi Weiss, Music, The Metro Theatre

on White, the cigar-smoking, scotch-drinking Texan with a rough voice and a rougher sense of humour, has worked his way to the top of the comedy food chain, a long way away from where he started 26 years ago. “At one point I was doing a lot of work for one chain of comedy clubs, and they realised I didn’t have anywhere else to work, so they decided to cut my pay by a third and take away my airfare,” he recalls. “So basically I told them to go eat a steaming bowl of fuck.”
White promptly moved to Mexico with his then-girlfriend, and opened a pottery mosaic factory. “But then this thing called the Blue Collar Comedy Tour happened, which is what made me really popular, and they couldn’t tolerate me living in Mexico. So they said, ‘You have to move back to the US if you want to do this.’”

Posted: June 5th, 2012 under Arts, Arts - Interview, Arts Feature, Brag 465 (June 4), Live Comedy Reviews.
Tags: Arts, Arts Feature, Brag, Comedy, interview, Live Review, Metro Theatre, Moral Compass Tour, Ron White, Roslyn Helper

Ditto declares on droning opener ‘Melody Emergency’, “So you’re not a rock and roller and there’s nothing wrong with that”. Only time will tell if her fans feel the same.

Posted: June 3rd, 2012 under Album Reviews, Brag 464 (May 28), Music.
Tags: A Joyful Noise, Album, Album Review, Brag, Gossip, Lee Hutchison, Music

After counting down the days and suffering the heartbreak of a postponement, the Mickey Avalon concert was finally here. Since I’m not a teenage boy, I don’t know what exactly it is about his music that I find appealing. Somehow the combination of smutty innuendo and sheer vileness works for me, although it seems that most other people have had enough. Sure, it’s pretty funny to list all of the things that are great about your dick and terrible about someone else’s dick – but then what?

Posted: May 31st, 2012 under Brag 464 (May 28), Live Reviews, Music.
Tags: Brag, Irina Belova, Kid Mac, Live Reviews, Mickey Avalon, Music, Slippery MC, The hav Knots, The Hi-Fi

Shaking my head. That’s how I spent the majority of Kimbra Johnson’s headlining show at the Enmore Theatre. Sure there was a fair bit of jiving, a good helping of grooving and a smidgen of fist-pumping but mostly, in the miniscule periods of downtime between songs, I found myself shaking my head in disbelief. At 22 years old and with only a single LP to her name, Kimbra is not the live artist you’d expect. Having contributed to Miami Horror’s sensational ‘Illumination’, Gotye’d her way into the US late-night television circuit, and answered a call-up from Converse to collaborate with A-Trak and Mark Foster for ‘Warrior’, you’d think she’d be a good live prospect. But nowhere near this good.

Posted: May 30th, 2012 under Brag 464 (May 28), Live Reviews, Music.
Tags: Brag, Daniel Merriweather, David Seidler, Kimbra, LIVE, Live Review, Music, The Enmore Theatre