GRINSPOON ANNOUNCE 27-DATE NATIONAL TOUR + 20TH ANNIVERSARY DELUXE EDITION OF ‘GUIDE TO BETTER LIVING’
Post-grunge Aussie rockers, Grinspoon have today announced a 20th Anniversary deluxe edition of the album that kickstarted their long-standing music career, Guide To Better Living, alongside an epic 27-date national tour of Australia, playing the album cover to cover for fans throughout June, July, August and September.
It’s 1995. A band from Lismore named Grinspoon (named after Associate Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, Dr Lester Grinspoon who supported the medicinal use of marijuana) submitted the track, Sickfest to triple j’s Unearthed national band comp in its inaugural year. To everyone’s amazement, they won – and for the next two months the song was the station’s number one request. Fast forward to September 1997, signed to Universal Music’s Grudge imprint, Grinspoon released their debut album, Guide To Better Living.
Going on to boast double-platinum accrediation on the back of five singles; Pedestrian, DC×3, Repeat, Just Ace and Don’t Go Away – Guide To Better Living (GTBL) spent 36 weeks in the ARIA Top 50. The album stands now as a similar coming of age as The Angels’ Face to Face, Cold Chisel’s East and Midnight Oil’s 10, 9, 8… were at the time. Since then, it’s been a rolling success and yeah, occasionally, excess story with certified sales of well over half a million, seven albums all very familiar with the Top Ten, ARIA Awards, 13 ARIA nominations, more than 1,000 gigs, tens of thousands of international frequent flyer miles, 7 appearances at the Big Day Out as well as slots at Homebake, Falls Festival, Splendour in the Grass, an NRL Grand Final and a Commonwealth Games Closing Ceremony in Melbourne.
Twenty years later – with the album chalking up a double decade of acclaim – Grinspoon are emerging from hiatus to celebrate their debut album with the Guide To Better Living tour. Supported nationally by Hockey Dad, they’ll be playing the album cover to cover across June-September 2017, alongside a selection of later favourites from their albums that followed. The tour takes in 27 dates across the nation – the first tour of such scale since the band went on hiatus in 2013, broken only for a support slot on Cold Chisel’s Perfect Crime tour of Australia in 2015.
Candidly chatting about the 20th anniversary of their monumental debut release, vocalist Phil Jamieson jests, “I hate nostalgia, it gets my goat. What I do love are tunes, and we’ve got tunes! NBT – Balding Matters – Scalped are probably what are considered to be album tracks or ‘filler’, but I can’t wait to spit ‘em out with as much venom as I did as a 19 year old. Then there is Railroader – Repeat – Just Ace – Champion – Boundary …. it’s like a little treasure box of ditties! I don’t think I really knew what I was doing when I made Guide To Better Living, but I know that playing this album from start to finish is going to be one of the most challenging, enjoyable & kickass things I’ll ever do! Bring on the road, bring on the tour, bring on the shows… happy 20th birthday GTBL!”
To correspond with the tour, an accompanying expanded, multi-format reissue of the album will be released on June 23. Grinspoon have curated a 20th Anniversary edition of Guide To Better Living, expanding the original 16-track album to a mammoth 49 track feast of rarities, live tracks and unreleased recordings. The album also appears on vinyl for the very first time in the form of a limited edition red vinyl pressing, coupling the original album with a second disc Live At CBGB’s – an incendiary 10-track live recording of the band taken from the fabled CBGB’s venue in New York. The recording was found in a scour of the vaults late in 2016. The physical 2CD edition is packaged in a deluxe slipcase, alongside a 36 page book featuring unseen images, scans of memorabilia, full lyrics and essays from each of the band members.
The original 16 track album is augmented with Live recordings, rare B-Sides and an unreleased track ‘Green Grass Meadow’ recorded at the time of Guide To Better Living, unheard until now. The set is finished off with a previously unreleased 13-track performance from the Falls Festival of 1997. 49 tracks in all!
“IIt’s a real honour to be releasing the 20th Anniversary of Guide To Better Living. It was an amazing time in the band’s life. Going back and listening to the album and watching old footage reminds me of what was an unbelievably exciting time in all our lives,” says guitarist Pat Davern.
Grinspoon is Phil Jamieson on vocals, Pat Davern on guitar, Joe Hansen on bass and Kristian Hopes on drums.
Guide To Better Living 20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition is set for release on June 23. Pre-order album bundles are onsale from www.grinspoon.com.au.
GUIDE TO BETTER LIVING NATIONAL TOUR DATES
Presented by TEG LIVE and Triple M
FRI 23 JUN | KAY ST ENTERTAINMENT COMPLEX, TRARALGON VIC | 18+
FRI 30 JUN | MARGARET COURT ARENA, MELBOURNE, VIC | LIC AA
SAT 1 JUL | VILLAGE GREEN HOTEL, MULGRAVE, VIC | 18+
FRI 7 JUL | ENMORE THEATRE, SYDNEY, NSW | LIC AA
SAT 8 JUL | THE TIVOLI THEATRE, BRISBANE, QLD | 18+
SAT 29 JUL | ONE TROPICAL DAY @ DARWIN SKI CLUB, DARWIN, NT | LIC AA **
THU 3 AUG | THE WOOL EXCHANGE, GEELONG, VIC | 18+
FRI 4 AUG | PIER BANDROOM, FRANKSTON, VIC | 18+
SAT 5 AUG | GRANADA TAVERN, HOBART, TAS | 18+
THU 10 AUG | THE JACK, CAIRNS, QLD | 18+
FRI 11 AUG | DALRYMPLE HOTEL, TOWNSVILLE, QLD | 18+
SAT 12 AUG | MAGNUMS, AIRLIE BEACH, QLD | 18+
THU 17 AUG | VILLA NOOSA, NOOSAVILLE, QLD | 18+
FRI 18 AUG | REDLAND BAY HOTEL, REDLAND BAY, QLD | 18+
SAT 19 AUG | SHAKA FEST – MIAMI TAVERN, GOLD COAST, QLD | 18+ **
THU 24 AUG | DUNSBOROUGH TAVERN, DUNSBOROUGH, WA | 18+
FRI 25 AUG | METRO CITY, PERTH, WA | 18+
SAT 26 AUG | ADELAIDE ENTERTAINMENT CENTRE, ADELAIDE, SA | AA
THU 31 AUG | THE CAMBRIDGE HOTEL, NEWCASTLE, NSW | 18+
FRI 1 SEP | LISMORE CITY HALL , LISMORE, NSW | 18+
SAT 2 SEP | RACEHORSE HOTEL, IPSWICH, QLD | 18+
THU 14 SEP | THE ENTRANCE LEAGUES CLUB, BATEAU BAY, NSW | 18+
FRI 15 SEP | WAVES, WOLLONGONG, NSW | 18+
SAT 16 SEP | UC REFECTORY, CANBERRA, ACT | 18+
WED 20 SEP | CSU, WAGGA WAGGA, NSW | 18+
FRI 22 SEP | BEER DELUXE, ALBURY, NSW | 18+
SUN 24 SEP | BATEMANS BAY SOLDIERS CLUB, BATEMANS BAY, NSW | 18+
**Hockey Dad not appearing
TICKETING INFORMATION
Telstra is offering their customers an exclusive Telstra Thanks 48-hour pre-sale on most shows from 9am Wednesday 5 April 2017. For more details regarding the pre-sale, please visit www.telstra.com/music.
Velocity Frequent Flyer is offering a pre-sale window for a limited time to Velocity members, available via Velocity Live from 11am Friday 7 April 2017 until 8am Monday 10 April 2017.
The general public will have the opportunity to purchase tickets from 9am Monday 10 April 2017.
For further information, head to www.grinspoon.com.au.
HUE BLANES RELEASES NEW VIDEO ‘FERNANDO’ AND ANNOUNCES NEW ALBUM ‘
Piano fiend and enigmatic genius singer-songwriter, Hue Blanes, PBS Young Elder of Jazz 2017 and 2017 Green Room multiple nominee, has today released his new single, Fernando and announced his sophomore record, Holiday – a darkly wonderful song cycle full of modern poetry – set for release on April 14. To support this stunningly beautiful work, Hue will play a strictly limited run of intimate shows across Ballarat, Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra and Mullumbimby in April.
Hue’s sound sits somewhere outside of the usual genre boxes, yet somewhere in all of them; jazz, classical, artsong, pop, the album is a rare and musically sophisticated work, ahead of its time, yet deceptively simple – just Hue, sitting at his piano singing his stripped back melancholy. It is like Father John Misty, Jeff Buckley, Bach and David Foster Wallace all having an existential crisis in a room somewhere.
Speaking on the single, Fernando, Hue explains, “It’s about a troubled world famous soccer player and what I may have in common with him. I was wondering if hugely successful sports players suffered loneliness and anxiety and when I read a story about one of my favourite players – Ronaldo Luís Nazário de Lima from Brazil – having a setback before a crucial game in the World Cup, I decided to write about the story from my perspective.”
The song has been paired with a simple, poignant video clip. Disarmingly voyeuristic, we follow Hue as he walks apparently aimlessly around the lonely, dark and quiet streets of Brunswick. Filmed by Ben Stace ‘Cowboy’, the video was an immediate reaction to a botched attempt at another clip. “We had wanted to superimpose painting on top of a video shot in the studio of the finished take of Fernando,” Hue says, “It looked a little bit like The’ Mulligrubs’ or something out of the 80s and we weren’t feeling too good about it, so we got a camera and shot the clip in an hour, edited it the next day.”
Holiday is a stunning, bleakly comic song cycle featuring Hue’s virtuoso singing and piano, a story of loneliness, despair and the difficult search for meaning amongst the everyday tedium of being human, told in Hue’s trademark wryly moving style. With this work, Hue takes his place as the troubadour of the troubled, the singer of solitude.
Written over a two year period and heavily influenced by Hue’s troubled and anxious state of mind at the time, he explains, “The album was written while I was living with a schizophrenic golfing marijuana shaman who spent 8 hours a day shaking maracas on his knees whilst massaging himself and giving complex advice on posture and world politics to the other housemates and myself… Things needed to change. I wrote songs and got some new housemates. Meanwhile the shaman is living in a volcano in Nicaragua and having a great time and I’m releasing the album 3 years later and still in the same house.”
Available on vinyl, the LP will be accompanied by a booklet of original drawings by illustrator, Bernard Caleo who has interpreted the songs with scribbled drawings, with one drawing that perfectly sums up this desolate record – a man with an umbrella over his head with rain pouring out from inside the umbrella.
Hue has a host of fans near and far, with collaborator and artist, Bernard Caleo saying, “In this song cycle, Hue Blanes immerses you in a world of troubled dreamers, estranged lovers and ex soccer stars. The tunes ache with a sweet loneliness and the search for another, more bearable world.” Deborah Conway is also a supporter, saying, “Hue Blanes has a transcendent voice, perfect timing and an angelic touch on the piano, he’s a star.”
The intimate shows set for April are on sale now, offering an opportunity for those lucky enough to encounter one of Australia’s most startlingly original performers.
Fernando is out now. Holiday is set for a vinyl release on Melbourne’s Pound Records on April 14
HOLIDAY TOUR DATES
FRI 14 APR | MINERVA’S BOOKS & POT OF GOLD COLLECTABLES | BALLARAT
SAT 15 APR | THE JAZZLAB with special guest JOE O’CONNOR | BRUNSWICK
THUR 20 APR | VENUE 505 with special guest BRIAN CAMPEAU | SURRY HILLS, SYDNEY
FRI 21 APR | SMITH’S ALTERNATIVE with special guest ALICE COTTEE | CANBERRA
SAT 29 APR | DRILL HALL | MULLUMBIMBY NSW
HOLY HOLY ANNOUNCE NEW SINGLE ‘ELEVATOR’ + REVEAL NEW ALBUM DATE & TITLE, AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER NOW
Currently mid-national tour, Holy Holy have today revealed details of their sophomore LP alongside the announcement of their new single, Elevator (out today). Their anticipated new album will be titled Paint, and is set for release on February 24, 2017. The release comes at a busy time for the band, who have just embarked on a massive national tour which has already seen them play packed out shows in Adelaide, Bunbury, Perth and Fremantle, with upcoming shows set to hit a sold out Corner Hotel in Melbourne, Geeling, Ballarat, Newcastle, Sydney, Wollongong, Canberra, Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast and Brisbane in the coming weeks.
Buoyed by arpeggiated synths and the band’s classic driving guitar lines, a nostalgic yet contemporary feel and a chorus that will not leave your head, Elevator propels even further into exploratory territory. Vast and satisfying, with a clear, affecting narrative, Elevator is an exciting taste of Holy Holy’s enigmatic new album expected to drop in early 2017. Lead guitarist Oscar Dawson reflects on the writing process of the track, “I can’t recall how it germinated, but before we knew it we were playing this same two chords, over and over. And it built from there, like a conversation; starting softly, then bouncing around to become louder and louder… It had been caught on a phone when we were touring in Europe, and back in Australia we put it together and decided that, in fact, it is a song.”
It has been a remarkably eventful year for Holy Holy, who have been writing and recording their eagerly awaited new album featuring singles, Elevator and Darwinism in between wildly successful national and international tours. The band were hand-picked to record an intimate performance of Darwinism for the world renowned Mahogany Sessions in the UK, who have just announced their partnership with Distiller Music, with stunning results. They dropped into their Bath studios whilst on their recent European tour which saw them selling out their third London show, several shows in The Netherlands and playing packed showcases at Reeperbahn Festival in Germany.
If the critics are to be believed, now is the time to catch Holy Holy live. With Darwinism reaching the coveted #1 most played spot on Triple J, debut album When The Storms Would Come being nominated for Triffid Queensland Album of the Year 2015/16, Dawson being nominated for Guitarist of the Year at THE NATIONAL LIVE MUSIC AWARDS, the band making the Vanda and Young Songwriting Competition Longlist this year, not to mention Liam Gallagher addimg himself to their long list of supporters, they have become a band that is impossible to ignore.
In light of these achievements, lead vocalist Timothy Carroll is thrilled to be back touring in Aus, saying, “It’s great to be out on the road again – especially with a bunch of new tunes to try. We’re in the studio again in December so this a last chance to try some songs out before we get them carved in stone….or vinyl as the case may be.”
Paint is available to pre-order now. All album pre-orders will receive Darwinism and Elevator instantly.
HOLY HOLY ‘DARWINISM’ NATIONAL TOUR
Supported by I Know Leopard & Alex L’Estrange
Presented by Musicfeeds, Tiny Monster & Select Music
FRI 11 NOV | CORNER HOTEL, MELBOURNE VIC **SOLD OUT**
Tickets available from www.holyholymusic.com | 1300 724 867
SAT 12 NOV | THE WORKERS CLUB, GEELONG VIC
Tickets available from www.holyholymusic.com | 1300 762 545 | All Oztix Outlets
SUN 13 NOV | KAROVA LOUNGE, BALLARAT VIC
Tickets available from www.holyholymusic.com | 1300 762 545 | All Oztix Outlets
THU 17 NOV | CAMBRIDGE HOTEL, NEWCASTLE NSW
Tickets available from www.holyholymusic.com | 02 4968 3093
FRI 18 NOV | METRO THEATRE, SYDNEY NSW
Tickets available from www.ticketek.com.au | 132 849 | All Ticketek Outlets
SAT 19 NOV | UNI BAR – WOLLONGONG, WOLLONGONG NSW
Tickets available from www.holyholymusic.com | 1300 GET TIX | All Moshtix Outlets
SUN 20 NOV | THE BASEMENT, CANBERRA ACT
Tickets available from www.holyholymusic.com | 1300 762 545 | All Oztix Outlets
THU 24 NOV | MIAMI MARKETTA, GOLD COAST QLD
Tickets available from www.holyholymusic.com | 1300 762 545 | All Oztix Outlets
FRI 25 NOV | SOLBAR, SUNSHINE COAST QLD
Tickets available from www.holyholymusic.com | 1300 762 545 | All Oztix Outlets
SAT 26 NOV | THE TRIFFID, BRISBANE QLD
Tickets available from www.holyholymusic.com | 1300 762 545 | All Oztix Outlets
*Dream Rimmy appearing in place of I Know Leopard