I’m getting sick of all the tours that miss Adelaide – Joanna Newsom, Animal Collective, Camera Obscura, Akron/Family, Why? …. so I’m going to Melbourne. Well, for a few days in December at least. I can’t make it for any of the gigs above but I can make it for two great gigs featuring a couple of my favourite bands that I used to see a fair bit back in the 90′s – the Low Transit Industries Xmas show at the Corner Hotel (with Kim Salmon & the Surrealists, plus lots more including No Through Road) on December 23rd, and an Underground Lovers reunion show at the East Brunswick Club on December 19th. In the meantime there is still plenty happening in Adelaide, including my own DJ set at the Metro on November 8th.

The details of the Adelaide Festival of the Arts and WOMADelaide (expanded to 4 days) for 2010 have been announced, unfortunately there is a bit of clashing between them (and with Pavement) though. I’ve listed some of the highlights in the gig guide below.

I’m also getting rather impatient for announcements about possible Laughing Clowns shows in the new year, and possible Don’t Look Back shows (which may be the same thing) …. still no news of either. In the rumour department, the Clarendonian in Katoomba have confirmed an upcoming visit by Neko Case (thanks for the tip Derek), look out for a mid-Jan show in Adelaide as well. Rumours of visits by Yo La Tengo & Dinosaur Jr persist but no details yet. The Sydney festival rumours are flying with recently announced tours by the likes of Joanna Newsom and Camera Obscura conspicuously missing Sydney dates, but also, Adelaide is missing from both as mentioned above. Another rumour which sounds like a good chance for the Syd Festival is The Books, but I’d be surprised if they made it over here to Adelaide.

OCTOBER

• 29th & 30th – The Wagons at the Wheatsheaf.
• 30th Philadelphia Grand Jury at the Ed Castle.

NOVEMBER

• 5th Matt Banham, Shame Spiral, Michael Beach at the Grace Emily.
• 8th Le Rayon Vert DJ set at the Metro
• 12th Casiotone for the Painfully Alone at Jive.
• 13th Ned Collette and Laura Jean at the Metro
• 14th Blackeyed Susans at the Norwood Hotel.
• 21st Satan’s Cheerleaders, God God Dammit Dammit at Enigma.
• 24th The Buzzcocks at the Gov.
• 27th Lightning Bolt with The Grey Daturas and Primitive Calculators at Fowler’s Live.
• 28th Ed Kuepper and the Kowalski Collective at the Gov.
• 28th Batrider and No Through Road at the Metro.

DECEMBER

• 3rd Paul Kelly at HQ.
• 4th The Church at the Gov.
• 5th The Crayon Fields at the Metro with Hit the Jackpot and Bing Goes to Monaco.
• 5th Stereosonic at Bonython Park, lineup includes some interesting stuff like Drop the Lime and Hudson Mohawke.
• 10th Jarvis Cocker at HQ.
• 18th Sandy Cenin & Paul Champion’s Xmas show at the Metro.
• 19th (Melbourne) Underground Lovers at the East Brunswick Club.
• 23rd (Melbourne) Kim Salmon & the Surrealists, No Through Road and lots more at the Low Transit Industries Xmas show at the Corner Hotel.

JANUARY

• 5th Cat Power at the Gov.
• 12th Handsome Family at the Grace Emily.

FEBRUARY

• 5th Laneway Festival with Echo & The Bunnymen, Eddy Current Suppression Ring and lots more.
• 27th London Sinfonietta: Pacific Currents at the Adelaide Town Hall.
• 28th London Sinfonietta: Wind & Glass at the Adelaide Town Hall.

MARCH

• 5-8th WOMADelaide at Botanic Park with the Skatalites, Calexico, Ravi Shankar and lots more.
• 6th Wayne Shorter Quartet at the Festival Theatre.
• 7th The Necks at the Spiegeltent.
• 7th Pavement at Thebby
• 24th The Pixies at Thebby (playing Doolittle)

On the Stereo

Various – Warp 20 Box Set (Warp)
Antipop Consortium - Fluorescent Black cd (Ninja Tune)
Jaga Jazzist – The Stix 2LP (Ninja Tune)
Jaga Jazzist – A Livingroom Hush LP (Ninja Tune)
Cinematic Orchestra - Motion cd (Ninja Tune)
DJ Food – You Don’t Know Ninja Tune 1000 Masks Mix cd (Ninja Tune)
Mordant Music / Shackleton / Vindicatrix – Picking O’er the Bones cd (Mordant Music)
Jonny Trunk - Scrapbook cd (Trunk)
Flaming Lips – Embryonic cd (Warner Bros)
Text of Light – Metal Box 3cd (Dirter)

Here is the first Laneway announcement (via Faster Louder). The first thing to notice is that all the rumours were sadly not true (Yo La Tengo, The Books, Neko Case, Camera Obscura) though I think many of those acts are touring anyway.

Echo & The Bunnymen
Florence & The Machine
Black Lips
The XX
Daniel Johnston *
Sarah Blasko
N.A.S.A
Eddy Current Suppression Ring
Hockey
Dappled Cities
Mumford & Sons *
The Very Best
Radioclit
Wild Beasts *
Whitley
The Middle East
Kid Sam
Dirty Three – Melbourne only

Overall not that exciting for me, though a hell of a lot better than the BDO. Unfortunately the 3D’s are only playing the NZ show, not any of the Australian shows.

(Addition – the artists marked * are not playing Adelaide according to this Mess & Noise thread. The absense of Daniel Johnston makes it even less appealing)

The rumours were true, Pavement are touring Australia in March including a show here in Adelaide. Full details here. Looks like Australia will be the very first stop on their world tour. This blog grew out of an email gig guide which ran intermittently between 1997-2007, and it all started with me advertising Pavement’s July ’97 shows at the Metro in Sydney to my friends. None of them went, but I persisted with pestering people about gigs anyway. The setlists for the first two shows were (with some tracks out of order)

Tuesday 22nd : Old to Begin \ Stereo \ Transport is Arranged \ Date w/
Ikea \ Give it a Day \ Cut Your Hair \ Perfume-V \ Starlings of the
Slipstream \ The Hexx \ Shady Lane/J vs S \ Kennel District \ Father to
a Sister of Thought \ Cream of Gold \ Unfair \ Fin \ Box Elder \ Here \
encore: Blue Hawaiian \ Elevate Me Later \ Type Slowly

Wednesday 23rd : Date w/ Ikea \ Silence Kit \ Summer Babe \ Type Slowly \
Passat Dream \ Conduit for Sale! \ Black Out \ Stereo \ Transport is
Arranged \ In the Mouth a Desert \ Stop Breathin \ Shady Lane \ Blue
Hawaiian \ The Hexx\ Grounded \ Grave Architecture \
encore : We are Underused \ Range Life \ Debris Slide

Also in the gig guide emails, in June 2004, when the Pixies first got back together, I did a feature on other possible reunions and assessed their likelyhood including this prediction regarding Pavement – “All Tomorrows Parties in 2010 perhaps?”.

Back when I last saw Pavement I was also regularly going to gigs by Kim Salmon & the Surrealists but I think the last time I saw them must have been in 1997, so I’m very keen to go to the Corner Hotel in Richmond to see them play at the Low Transit Industries Xmas party, together with Adelaide’s No Through Road plus a bunch of others. I haven’t been to the Corner for about 10 years but have fond memories of shows there by Tortoise and Mercury Rev.

Watch out for lots more announcements of gigs next week. On Tuesday 20th the Laneway festival details will be announced (and after a BDO with very little that interests me I’m holding out hopes for good stuff at Laneway). Also next week (22nd) is the launch of the Adelaide festival (which brought us Ornette Coleman last time), that should also include the first announcement for the big 4 day WOMAD. Feel Presents are still to announce the details of their Don’t Look Back shows for early next year, and also Fowler’s Live haven’t updated their site for a while, but I expect they will after the Laneway announcement so at that point they might add some other good stuff that they have coming up early next year.

Something else coming up in March is an Australian tour by Jandek with his band, details have yet to be released so no idea if an Adelaide show is likely.

One more thing is that on Sunday the 8th of November you can hear the sounds of Le Rayon Vert at the Metro between 4-7pm.

OCTOBER

• 16th Like Leaves at the Ed Castle.
• 16th No Through Road & Bing Goes to Monaco support the John Steel Singers at Jive.
• 17th Cheer Advisory Council at the Metro with The British Robots and The Honey Pies.
• 23rd Bing Goes to Monaco with Aviator Lane at the Jade Monkey.
• 29th & 30th – The Wagons at the Wheatsheaf.
• 30th Philadelphia Grand Jury at the Ed Castle.

NOVEMBER

• 8th Le Rayon Vert DJ set at the Metro
• 12th Casiotone for the Painfully Alone at Jive.
• 13th Ned Collette and Laura Jean at the Metro
• 14th Blackeyed Susans at the Norwood Hotel.
• 24th The Buzzcocks at the Gov.
• 27th Lightning Bolt with The Grey Daturas at Fowler’s Live.
• 28th Ed Kuepper and the Kowalski Collective at the Gov.
• 28th Batrider and No Through Road at the Metro.

DECEMBER

• 3rd Paul Kelly at HQ.
• 4th The Church at the Gov.
• 5th The Crayon Fields at the Metro with Hit the Jackpot and Bing Goes to Monaco.
• 10th Jarvis Cocker at HQ.
• 18th Sandy Cenin & Paul Champion’s Xmas show at the Metro.
• 23rd (Melbourne) Kim Salmon & the Surrealists, No Through Road and lots more at the Low Transit Industries Xmas show at the Corner Hotel.

MARCH

• 5-8th WOMADelaide at Botanic Park
• 7th Pavement at Thebby
• 24th The Pixies at Thebby (playing Doolittle)

On the Stereo

• Love of Diagrams – Nowhere Forever cd (Unstable Ape)
• The Fall - The Real New Fall LP (Formerly ‘Country on the Click’) LP (Action)
• The Smiths - The Queen is Dead LP (Rough Trade)
• The Smiths – Meat is Murder LP (Rough Trade)
• Mick Turner / Tren Brothers – Blue Trees cd (King Crab)
• The Mile End Ladies String Auxiliary - From Cells of Roughest Air 10″ (Bangor)
• DJ Food - Kaleidoscope 2LP (Ninja Tune)
• Subtle - Wishingbone cd (Lex)
• Subtle - Yell & Ice cd (Lex)
• Autechre - Anti cdep (Warp)