Revolver: Queensland music news
THE creative brains behind the Grates, Patience Hodgson and John Patterson, are so nostalgic for school camps they’ve organised their own. And everyone’s invited.
WHEN it comes to the local music scene, no one knows the ins and outs better than our columnist Sally Browne. Check out what’s on her radar this week.
GOOD TIMES
It’s the chance to relive all of your great school camp memories, or if they weren’t so great, generate some new ones.
The creative brains of the Grates, singer Patience Hodgson and her husband, guitarist John Patterson, who also run Southside Tea Room and neighbouring bar Death Valley at Morningside in Brisbane’s east, are about to stage their second annual Death Valley Fun Camp, and they’re inviting everyone along.
The vision is Patterson’s and the DVFC attempts to mirror the ultimate school camp experience, minus the bullies and the teachers. Out in the wilderness, or the Lake Moogerah School Camp Grounds, 96km southwest of Brisbane in the Scenic Rim, to be exact, they will be hosting events such as archery, kayaking, craft workshops, sauerkraut making, karaoke, fireside singalongs and more.
“It’s like viewing a school camp with heavy nostalgia and through rose-coloured glasses,” Patterson says.
Says Hodgson: “I have good memories of going on school camp when I was a kid. Like my friend was sitting there and we were all laughing and she sucked in a fly.”
Patterson’s memories are a little more varied.
“I had to mop the whole floor of the dining mess hall with a teacher berating me at how bad I was at it. I’m like, well, I don’t have to mop at home,” he says, laughing now.
“Then the dude I was camping with got really agitated and when we were packing up ripped all the pegs and poles out and just had the tent collapse on me when I was inside. I had my feelings really hurt. On the way home someone spewed on the bus and the teacher made me clean up the spew.”
This year’s ticket price ($179) includes all meals and access to a tuckshop. An optional drink pass will include a souvenir enamel mug for refillable beer and cider.
All ages, including children, are welcome, though under-18s must be accompanied by a parent or guardian. The night will include a performance by the Top Shelf Wedding Band, including members of Brisbane indie-rockers Velociraptor, at the hall.
The DVFC is a no-waste event inspired by other festivals the Grates have played overseas. When these events conclude, the band were often witnesses to the horrors punters can leave behind.
“It was nice when we packed up (from DVFC last year), there was nothing left behind,” Patterson says.
The event is also billed as a “digital detox”, which they saw organically happen last year.
“You just didn’t see a phone,” says Hodgson. “The pace just slowed, it was great,” adds Patterson. “We left an acoustic guitar out and it would just get passed around all night.”
When not busy dreaming up creative endeavours, Hodgson and Patterson are running around after their two-year-old daughter, Soda. While they might be competent business people, in many ways it’s the littlest member of the family who is the boss.
“She always goes, ‘hey, you sit down’,” says Hodgson. “She’s only just turned two. I find it funny.”
Soda is already into music. She’s changed her mum’s mind on Katy Perry.
“I’ve been influenced by Soda,” says Hodgson, who says her daughter loves listening to her parents’ music, too.
“She’s always after the ‘Mummy songs’,” says Hodgson. “She’s like, ‘Mummy song! You sing!’ ”
The band are between albums and at the writing stage of the game; their last album was 2014’s Dream Team, and they’re still playing live when they can. Meanwhile there’s enough going on at Southside Tea Room and Death Valley Bar to keep them busy. They are fond of quirky themed nights and recently introduced comedy and boy-band karaoke to the calendar. Disney karaoke is already a firm favourite.
Patterson will create a pre-camp Spotify playlist to which people can add songs. There will also be one person creating a ’zine at the camp, in the form of a camp newsletter, to capture the memories made. And campers will have the chance to write letters home in a letter-writing session.
Says Hodgson: “Last year everyone who was leaving said could we please create a Facebook page so we can all stay in touch.”
Death Valley Fun Camp, Lake Moogerah School Camp Grounds, May 27-28; deathvalleyfuncamp.com
WHAT SONGS MADE YOU?
The Queensland Music Festival is inviting emerging female songwriters from Mackay, Mount Isa and Gladstone to apply for its Songs That Made Me program.
The mentorship program will see songwriters working and performing alongside established talents including Deborah Conway, Clare Bowditch and recent Grant McLennan Fellowship winner Hannah Macklin.
In its first year, the program was developed by artistic director Katie Noonan in response to a lack of female artists registered with APRA AMCOS (The Australian Performing Rights Association and The Australasian Mechanical Copyright Owners Society), with female membership at 21 per cent.
The Songs That Made Me tour will visit Mackay, Mount Isa and Gladstone and wrap up with a finale concert at The Tivoli in Brisbane on July 16. The Queensland Music Festival kicks off from July 7-30.
Singer-songwriters of all ages are encouraged to apply. Entries close May 19. Details: https://qmf.org.au/songs-that-made-me/
PARCELS GET MIXED UP
From Byron Bay to Berlin, five-piece Parcels are only moving up in the world in the cool stakes.
After moving there last year, they have already had lots of adventures including supporting Two Door Cinema Club on their European tour and signing to French label Kitsune.
Now they have just put out a remix version of their EP Hideout. It seems a number of European producers couldn’t wait to get their hands on Parcels’ tracks.
The diverse mix includes Australia’s Inagwa, France’s L’Impératrice, Germany’s Mouse on Mars, Finland’s Disco Despair and the Netherland’s Kraak and Smaak.
The remixes take the band’s already eclectic funk-disco-dance vibe and amp it up to the next level. In turn, the European influence is rubbing off on them.
“We’ve been discovering the whole French disco scene that’s kind of not present in Germany,” says bassist Noah Hill.
“It seems more parallel with what we’re doing. At the same time we came to Berlin totally hating techno but we appreciate it now.”
So far, they’re having a great time, and unless it’s for the odd tour, have no plans to come back. The five-piece, who met when they were at high school are a band of brothers.
“We genuinely enjoying hanging out together,” says Hill. “Which is good because that’s what’s gonna happen for the next couple of years.”
MID AYR FLOAT ON
They may not be household names, but Mid Ayr can claim the honour of having Triple J’s most played Australian song last year, Letting You In.
They followed that up with the song Vampires, whose film clip won them Triple J’s Unearthed NIDA music video competition.
Not bad for a duo who are only just releasing their second EP, Elm Way. The four-track release includes lead single Pocket Her Eyes, which is another ethereal earworm.
The song is inspired by hook-up culture: “They say hunting’s a sport, come claim your prize / Hang her face on the wall, pocket her eyes”, go the lyrics.
“There’s a lot of pressure when you go out to hook up with people to gain more social acceptance with your peers,” says chief songwriter and vocalist Hugh Middleton, 27.
“A lot of people are feeling socially anxious and it turns into a bit of a numbers game.”
These days a lot of that culture is online too, with apps such as Tinder. “You start your collection of girls you match with and show your friends,” says Middleton.
“The things that draw us in to each other, things that we like about relationships, are threatened because it turns into just hooking up with that girl to get a notch in your belt.”
Mid Ayr may be of a generation fully hooked into technology, but they’re well aware of the value of face-to-face contact as we meet for a drink at a bar in Brisbane’s Bowen Hills.
Says drummer Zac Moynihan, 28: “That screen you have in your face all the time, I feel every single human reaction we used to have, not even 10 years ago, going out and catching up with people, calling people on the phone, that has all just been condensed on your handset.
“We don’t really know the consequences of all this stuff because it’s all just happening now. I was listening to a podcast that said loneliness is a massive mental health issue because everyone is stimulated all the time with their technology at the expense of human interaction.”
Mid Ayr’s award-winning video Vampires, which features an individual living in a small enclosed box, reflects the point. Yet despite the talking points, Mid Ayr are very connected into a social scene in Brisbane. They’re part of a network of bands who all know each other, live together in various sharehouses, play shows together and play in each other’s bands.
Middleton and Moynihan were both in other bands before they started Mid Ayr.
“I played with Trouble with Templeton for a while and got super busy with that including international tours, which kind of pulled me away from my own thing,” says Middleton, “so I called Zac and said, let’s do it.”
“I was super keen too,” says Moynihan. “I was getting over a band I was playing in too.”
Sounds like a relationship break-up. “It’s worse,” says Middleton. “There are more people involved. You break up with seven people.”
Says Moynihan: “We were putting so much effort into this other band but it wasn’t working. But we persevered.”
Middleton and Moynihan felt a spark. While billed as a duo, the band does have an invisible third member. They were working with bassist Alex L’Estrange, who mixes and masters their material, but has since moved to the UK. While still an unofficial member, he has been replaced by Alex Mitchell, their current touring bassist, who also plays in Moses Gunn Collective.
“Bassists are hard to lock down,” says Moynihan. “Once you have one, you try to hang on to them as much as possible.”
Mitchell too may soon abscond to Canada, but for the moment Mid Ayr are not going anywhere – physically, at least. They’re happy to be based in Brisbane, where they have a great network and crew. If they did move away, though, it wouldn’t be to the usual haunts of Sydney or Melbourne, but overseas.
“I’d ideally like to skip Melbourne if we could and go straight overseas,” says Moynihan. “In Brisbane, definitely there is a glass ceiling. There are only so many places you can play before it gets a bit old.”
From L’Estrange they inherited some sound gear and a studio, the Luv Basement, which they are transforming into their own. For all their ambition, Brisbane is still a good place to grow a band. “From my experience it’s been great to start in Brisbane,” says Middleton. “We’ve had the best run. People have really helped us.”
Says Moynihan: “There’s a more collaborative atmosphere here. Within our scene of who we play music with, we are very good friends. We don’t just play gigs with them. We hang out with them and catch up with them on the weekend. We live with them. We’ve all played in each other’s bands too. It’s a real family thing.”
Mid Ayr perform at the Foundry, Fortitude Valley, on Saturday, May 6.
Originally published as Revolver: Queensland music news
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