Sometimes, you just have to blow your own trumpet. I've been championing Sydney's Angus & Julia Stone and Melbourne's The Temper Trap for years now, so I was extra delighted that they came good at Sunday's ARIA Awards in Australia. The Stones picked up Album of the Year and Single of the Year, while The Temper Trap won Best Group and Most Popular Australian Single. Congratulations go out to them from their long term friends and fans and BobbySix.com.
Sydney’s favourite siblings are certainly a prolific pair. Despite being insanely busy touring the world in support of best selling records, they still somehow find time to pen solo albums. Following her brother’s long-player last year, Julia Stone now offers The Memory Machine.
The ARIA Award 2010 nominations were announced last week (for the English readers amongst you - the ARIAs are kinda the Australian version of The Brits), with Angus & Julia Stone, Sia, Bird of Tokyo, The Temper Trap (pictured, above) and Tame Impala featuring featuring heavily across the categories. If I were a betting man, which I am, I'd put money on Sia and Angus & Julia to win big.
Bloody Beetroots Death Crew 77, Lupe Fiasco, Deftones, The Black Keys, The Jim Jones Revue, Crystal Castles, Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros, Booka Shade, Pnau, Die Antwoord, Vitalic, Ratatat, John Butler Trio, Wolfmother, Airbourne, Birds Of Tokyo, Kids Of 88, The Naked & Famous, Dead Letter Circus, Children Collide, Operator Please, Bliss N Eso, Gyroscope, Kid Kenobi & MC Shureshock, Sampology, Blue King Brown, Will Styles, Little Red, Gypsy And The Cat and Lowrider.
The shitfight for tickets starts on 6th October from the usual sources. The festival takes place on Sunday 23rd January at Gold Coast Parklands (on sale 7th October), Wednesday 26th January at the Sydney Showground (on sale 6 October), Sunday 30th January at Melbourne's Flemington Racecourse (on sale 8 October), Friday 4th Febuary at the Adelaide Showground (on sale 8 October) and Sunday 6th February in Perth, at the Claremont Showground (on sale 8 October.
Up here at Bobby Six Towers the festival of choice is Latitude. You can forget your Healing Fields of Glastonbury or your drunk 15-year-olds making fires out of plastic cups at Reading, it's all about strolling through the beautiful Suffolk countryside, taking in some fine bands and enjoying the chilled out (if slightly middle-class) atmos.
He will be in slightly prettier surroundings on Thursday evening, and if you want your festival to get off to a magical start, then you'd be wise to pour yourself a mug of goon and find a nice spot to watch him do his thing.
Later on the same stage, check out Richard Hawley before trying to catch some of both main headliners, The National and the lung-busting presence of Florence and The Machine.
Someone it is unquestionably worth paying attention to on Saturday evening is David Ford. Having played a secret show by the river last year (above), this time round he'll be on the Word Stage. Don't miss his set. In fact, you'd be wise to stay in the Word Tent for the rest of the day, as Noah and The Whale, The Horrors and The XX all follow Ford's show. Otherwise, the cardiganned tweeness of Belle and Sebastian will probably be lovely, or there is always the visceral Archie Bronson Outfit in the Sunrise Arena.On the Sunrise Stage, These New Puritans simply have to be seen. Their ambitious album, Hidden, still sits atop the BobbySix album of the year poll for 2010. My Bloody Valentine-inspired The Pains of Being Pure at Heart might be worth a look too. If you need a break from the music, then check out the incredibly funny Richard Herring in the Comedy Tent and hear Jim Bob read from his new book in the Literary Arena.
Lady Of The Sunshine isn't, in fact, a lady at all. This is Angus minus Julia Stone. Yes, temporarily sans his sister, the Australian singer/songwriter has spread his creative wings and put to use any scraps of spare time during his tours by putting together his first solo album.
TOP 10 ALBUMS
TOP 5 ARTISTS
HIGHLIGHT(S) OF THE YEAR
2008 IN REVIEW 
Top 10 Albums (released in the UK or Australia)
Best Gigs in Australia
A Personal Review of 2007
It was a year of festivals for me, as I took in Big Day Out, Laneway, V Festival, The Great Escape, The Essential Festival (in Sydney as opposed to Brighton), Cornbury (where I even took to the stage) and Latitude. Aside from the already listed highlights, there were great performances from Pixies, The Killers (who I saw two days in a row and, surprisingly, loved both times), NYPC (above), Ghostwood, Mercy Arms, Magic Numbers (twice), CSS, Jarvis Cocker (twice), Damien Rice (twice), Erin Marshall, The Young and Restless… the list goes on.
Of the many interviews I was part of this year, my fascinating chat with Dolores O’Riordon (above) in a Sydney hotel is the one I am most proud of. Elsewhere, I swooned like a love-struck schoolboy when speaking down the phone from Melbourne to the exquisite Regina Spektor and laughed heartily with Caleb from Kings of Leon as he regaled me with tales of love and lust. I listened intently to the ambitious and terrifyingly intelligent Perry Farrell and, as always, enjoyed chatting to Klaxons.
ANGUS AND JULIA STONE
Highlights include Here We Go Again, which builds to a crescendo over strings and harmonica, and Hollywood, which juxtaposes Julia’s familiar melancholic subject-matter with an infectious chorus. “They all would’ve been killed in The Sound of Music,” she laments. Conversely, Just a Boy, in which Angus’ pretty melody weaves through subtle ivory-tickling and upbeat drumming, is breezy and optimistic. The gig at Bush Hall was an emotional affair, as Angus and Julia were forced to play without drummer Mitchell Connelly, who returned home early through illness The band used a four-piece strong section as they performed songs from their new album and older tracks to another sold out crowd. It was a triumphant night, and the band promised to come back to the UK next year. On this showing, their return can't come soon enough.
Blazing sunshine at a festival in England? Surely not? Well, in contrast to the mud-bath that was Glastonbury, The Latitude Festival was played out to gorgeous blue skies in the most picturesque setting imaginable, on the banks of a lake in the Suffolk countryside.On the main stage, which frustratingly suffered from sound problems all weekend, the legendary Jarvis Cocker played a cover version that rivalled Angus and Julia’s. His rendition of Eye Of The Tiger ended a stunning display which was punctuated by him casually chatting to the crowd about everything from cloud formations to politics. It was a performance which cemented Cocker’s place as one of the most charismatic frontmen of all-time. 
Brazilian indietronica/dance sextet CSS (above) brought the party to Latitude with their infectiously poppy tunes. On a stage bedecked in helium balloons, vocalist Lovefoxxx danced with abandon in glittery cat-suits so wonderfully garish that even Karen O might have thought twice about wearing them. By the time the mesmeric frontwoman belted out crowd-favourite Let’s Make Love And Listen To Death From Above, Latitude had turned from being a quaint part of the English countryside into the best disco ever. Similarly, on the same tiny stage that Howling Bells played, New Young Pony Club (below) went off. Literally. The crowd went so nuts to the Londoners’ dancey tunes that the plug had to be pulled on their show due to safety concerns.
Elsewhere, Albert Hammond Junior (below) proved himself to be more than just the guitarist with big hair from The Strokes by playing an outstanding, pop-tinged set with the backing of a ridiculously tight band. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah put in a performance that split the crowd in two, with fans loving it while the uninitiated struggled to overcome the abrasive vocals. Having previously made a guest appearance on stage during New York folk singer Elvis Perkins’ appealing set, Cold War Kids ended their own energetic and well-received show with the storming Hang Me Up To Dry. Herman Dune played kooky guitar tracks, Joan As Policewoman combined the magical elements of Cat Power, Kate Bush and Regina Spektor and Au Revoir Simone’s dreamy synth tunes were perfect for a sunny afternoon.
On Sunday night, the festival was brought to a majestic close by art-rockers Arcade Fire. Theirs was an utterly thrilling performance, and it was an indication of their awesome songwriting that, even though they only have two albums under their belt, their show played like a greatest hits set. As thousands of sunburnt Brits danced and sang along to No Cars Go and Neighbourhood #3, it became clear that Latitude can seriously rival Glastonbury as the best British festival, with its beautiful setting, chilled out vibe and no end of art, poetry, theatre and great bands to enjoy. Now all they need to do is sort out those sound problems on the main stage.
Because the event is still in its infancy, the most noticeable thing about it is its inability to pull the really big names just yet, but it would be unfair to criticise it too harshly for this, as everything needs time to grow. Similarly, the lack of paying punters and the glitches with regard to accommodating those who did turn up can be put down to the fact that this is the first year the event has been open to Joe Public. However, penning people in and not allowing them to go to the toilet is the very opposite of the fan-friendly environment that would encourage anyone to come back next year. It perhaps wasn’t quite like “going to a gig in Nazi Germany,” as one fellow quipped, but it is certainly something that needs looking into next time.
Mercy Arms and Howling Bells (above) performed, while You Am I invited a big old rock dinosaur to sing for them. I have no idea who he was, but he minced his way around the stage like Dave Gahan’s dad; posing like he was the hottest cat in the room. He wasn’t. He was an old man dressed inappropriately.
Following the sweaty festival sing-along last week, things were a little more chilled out on this particular Saturday night in Enmore (or, for those of us who have a grip on geography/reality) Marrickville. Julia opened the evening up with occasional set-closer, the heart-breaking Chocolates and Cigarettes, before Angus launched into Babylon. While these familiar tracks went down well with the attentive, friendly audience, it was once again the as-yet unreleased songs that shone through and showed an ever-growing confidence in the duo’s songwriting ability, most notably on Hollywood and Black Jacket. At separate junctures, both Angus and Julia showcased songs that edged away from their gentler folky roots: Angus purveying an astoundingly throaty holler into the mic while Julia encored with a jaunty number.