Steve Smyth at The Slaughtered Lamb, London

Sometimes you just know that you have witnessed something seminal. The Slaughtered Lamb pub, tucked away in the labyrinthal back streets of Central London, offered up one such occasion on a cold, dark Wednesday night, as Sydney's Steve Smyth played an exceptional show for the UK launch of his debut album, Release.

Beginning with one of the most exciting songs put out by anyone this year, Barbiturate Cowboy & His Dark Horses, Smyth (pictured, above) demonstrated his vocal range and captivating stage presence as an ethereal opening was barged aside by a lung-busting, gravel-throated Tom Waits bark. He howled, approached the mic from every angle, stomped his feet and dropped to his knees on the beer soaked carpet as droplets of sweat rained from his brow. On A Hopeless Feminist, the troubadour treated his guitar with the gentle caress of a lover while during the raw blues of No Man's Land, he bashed the living hell out of it. Counterbalancing this, he further illustrated the nuances of his vocal with a beautiful A Cappella version of Leadbelly's Sylvie.

As well as being backed by Howling Bells drummer Glenn Moule on drums for much of the set, Smyth was also joined by Moule's London-based Australian band-mate Juanita Stein (pictured, above) for the sweet and gentle duet Stay Young. The Howling Bells singer's pretty delivery floated elegantly through the silenced room and juxtaposed the show's more visceral moments. The night closed with Smyth being joined by Kitty, Daisy & Lewis (pictured, below) for a fun Howlin' Wolf-esque romp, Chocolate For Breakfast, which had been created in the London siblings' home just the day before.

Calls for an encore were reluctantly denied by Smyth. “How can you top that?” he asked of his triumphant closing jam with the North London trio. And so, with a drink in each hand and a smile the size of the Thames visible through his epic beard, he disappeared through the packed room to a multitude of back-slaps and a cacophony of cheers.

On this showing, and judging by the quality of his debut LP, the charismatic Steve Smyth has an incredibly exciting future ahead of him and this love-in between himself, his musical mates and a wooed audience is sure to be one of those occasions where those in attendance will, in the future, boast “I was there.” The singer/songwriter certainly seemed overwhelmed and humbled by the turnout and reception and, as the crowd stepped out into the freezing London streets, their breath dancing in front of their faces, they did so in the knowledge that they had witnessed something truly special.

Review and photos by Bobby Townsend.

Big Day Out 2012

So, who remembered to put on sunscreen? Oh, that's right, NOBODY. And who got sunburnt to hell? Oh yeah, EVERYBODY. Well, actually, it wasn't so much that Big Day Out punters forgot to use sunscreen, it was more the fact that we were told it was going to piss down all day. Indeed, as Abbe May's powerful set of guitar-led indie-rock closed, the heavens opened and it seemed that BDO 2012 was going to be a mud-bath of Glastonburic proportions. But then something amazing happened (in the context of what has been the most rainy Sydney summer ever). As Best Coast brought their angsty-yet-perky, reverby indie to the table, the sun came out. As if on cue. For most of the afternoon, it remained H to the O to the motherflipping T. Like, seriously boiling. Lobster skin was order of the day, especially because there seems to be some kind of unwritten rule that the majority of the crowd must remain shirtless throughout. It makes sense though, I mean, how else would we be able to see their Southern Cross tattoos?

What's that? Oh yeah, the music.... Well, the aforementioned Best Coast were an early highlight, as were Sydney punkers, Chicks Who Love Guns. Triple J Unearthed winners Underlights displayed a sound that is clearly influenced by late 90s English indie. It was a shame that they suffered terrible sound (the bass was too prominent, everything else sounded like a muddy mess) because there were signs of promise there.

Boy & Bear brought a sense of serenity to the madness with their lovely set, which peaked when they covered Crowded House. Elsewhere, Battles and OFWGKTA were excellent and The Vaccines proved why they have received so much hype of late. Kimbra has been omnipresent this summer and she put in the strongest performance that we have seen from her so far. Vocally MASSIVE and exuding confidence in abundance, this woman is an absolute megastar in the making.

At the same time that My Chemical Romance were looking bored and old, Mariachi El Bronx doffed their sombreros to a huge crowd elsewhere in the concrete jungle of a site. Later, Kasabian did what Kasabian do while the day's highlight was going on in front of a criminally small crowd at one of the smaller stages. Kitty Daisy & Lewis (above) are simply wonderful. We have said enough words about how much we love them before, but, suffice to say, anyone at BDO who didn't pop along to see at least a couple of songs from this delightful trio of London siblings deserves to have their entire record collection smashed into tiny pieces. Whatever else you were doing, shame on you for not joining the couple of hundred people who were dancing like crazy to their amazing set (during which legendary Jamaican trumpet player Eddie Tan Tan Thornton made a typically impish appearance).

After this, we cut a dash to see the back-end of Foster The People's set and discovered where everybody was during Kitty Daisy & Lewis. Holy smoke, they were playing to a gargantuan crowd. Yeah, yeah, Pumped Up Kicks has been played to death but its appearance and subsequent mass sing-along was the feel-good moment of the festival in the early evening sunshine. Back in the arena were Soundgarden but, let's be honest, who really cares? After all, it's not 1994 any more. That said, Black Hole Sun did make us chuckle, as it brought back memories of how we used to sing it as Back Hole Mum as teenagers.

And then it was time for the main event. Kanye West announced his appearance by being hoisted way into the air on a cherry picker as puffs of smoke billowed below him (you can just about make him out in the blurry iPhone photo below) and the strains of Dark Fantasy kicked in. It was quite the spectacle and was greeted with an audible sense of awe from the massed throngs. This was followed by a fantastic version of Power. As starts go, this was as strong as anything we've seen, but his self-indulgence soon got kinda tiresome and his set list offered some seriously dull moments.

Post Kanye, Noel Gallagher & His Angry Birds (or whatever they're called) certainly knew how to keep the crowd happy, with a spattering of Oasis songs, including the underrated Talk Tonight in amongst his new stuff.

And, after Gallagher had done his thing, it was time for the shirtless masses to go home and apply some aloe vera to their bright red skin. All in all, it was a fairly unremarkable Big Day Out. Still, considering some of the headlines previous years have made, that's no bad thing.

Review by a sunburnt Bobby Townsend.

Kitty, Daisy & Lewis - Smoking in Heaven

We make no secret of the fact that we love the shit out of England's Kitty, Daisy & Lewis here at Bobbysix.com. When we reviewed their debut album in 2008, we concluded that if their brand of rockabilly jump-blues failed to excite you then it was probably time you gave up listening to music altogether. Then, when we wrote about their gig in Sydney in 2009, we did so in such gushing terms that the delightfully polite Kitty even wrote to us to say thank you.

So you can imagine our excitement at the discovery that their sophomore offering bursts with the same joie-de-vivre and displays the same level of passion for the music they create. This time round, things are a little more polished, but while the erratic sound levels from their eponymous debut have been left behind, the working practices remain impressively authentic. The album was recorded straight to eight track one-inch tape in a home studio modelled on the one at Sun Records and, because of this, sounds like a proper long-player in the old-fashioned sense.

Perhaps the main difference between Smoking in Heaven and their debut is that all of the tracks here were penned by the siblings (along with a couple written by their parents, who - as if all this weren't lovely enough already - are also in the band). If their first record may have seemed like a novelty - a trio of teens playing covers of tunes written decades before they were born - then this collection of songs shows beyond any doubt that Kitty, Daisy & Lewis really are absolutely the real deal.

The record opens excitingly with the brilliant ska of Tomorrow, featuring the effervescent Eddie ‘Tan Tan’ Thornton on trumpet, and sets the upbeat tone of the album perfectly. Meanwhile, Messing With My Life is perhaps the closest that the trio will ever come to a regular pop tune and shows that they are capable of giving a contemporary edge to their sound, while Going Back is swinging rockabilly at its most fun.

All of which results in a triumphant return for a band whose oldest member, remarkably, is still only twenty. If the auto-tuned, plastic rubbish that currently litters commercial radio station playlists had one-hundredth of the energy, honesty, heart and soul that this record does, the music world would be a much more satisfying place.

Review by Rob Townsend 
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