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Dead Can Dance, Capturing the Spiritchaser

Interview with Lisa Gerrard

I was dressed in pyjamas when I first confronted Dead Can Dance – the imagescape of 1993’s Baraka was flowing over me with The Host of Seraphim, from Dead Can Dance’s 1988 tome, The Serpent’s Egg, invading my soul. The theatre was full, but I think I had been standing throughout the whole trial. For the images of Baraka are truly a trial for any mortal. Environmental degredation should make any bastard shirk.

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Ash, Tuesday October 1, 1996

Metropolis Concert Club, Fremantle

You could say that the Australian tour for Ash started at Monday’s ARIA awards. This Irish teenage supergroup were there, presenting an award on a night littered with examples of Australia’s own youth-orientated heroes You Am I and Regurgitator reclaiming contemporary ground. Just as Ash did when they dethroned Alanis Morissette off top spot on debut in the UK, and just as their opening show in Perth furthered the worldwide reclamation of youthful contemporary music with an utterly rewarding show of their own.

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Jebediah; Bluebottle Kiss; Something For Kate, Shenton Park Hotel, September 14, 1996

The “Unipalosers” may have only played to about twelve people in Canberra, home of our national treasures but little more besides, so finding a wealth of punters at the Shenton Park Hotel could have been quite a surprise for the tired gaggle of Murmur stablemates. And “yip”, they burped, for this was the last gig of their five week Australian tour and Vanessa (Jebediah) was sick of sharing vans with nine stinky lads.

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Tyranny of Distance? Save your Pity For Yourselves

Article for The Australian – Western Australia feature (Sept, 1996): WA music industry

It was during a small, suburban park cricket match in late 1995 that many of us finally realised that Western Australia’s largely unheralded music ‘renaissance’ had finally broken through. Halfway through the Treadmill Eleven’s dashing batting effort on a slow but true pitch against Perth’s X-Press Magazine, the booming strains of Ammonia’s Mint 400 album came wafting across the field from a brick and tile suburban dwelling.

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Weathervane; Burnside, Rosemount Hotel, August 17, 1996

It was only a few weeks earlier, when Flashing Tablet broke the sound barrier at a party in the Rosemount, that I realised what a great room it could become. Being just down the road from Perth’s gig and indie club epicentre at Planet and encapsulating all the goodness of the olde pub environment, sweet Saturday gigs at the Rosemount looked to be the go, followed perhaps by a post-gig crawl down the hill.

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Eos, Swanbourne Hotel, August 9, 1996

When a local band puts in the effort, it’s quite amazing how their organisational energies, lighting rig and fervent sticker distribution can turn a beer barn shindig into a sweltering mass of pogoing punters. Allow the band a little more room to act like rock stars – as in keeping the audience waiting in near darkness with smoke machines and red lights upping the atmosphere – and once again the exotic dizziness of a rock concert comes to the fore.

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The NAD Campus Band WA State Final, Planet, August 7, 1996

A dash of guitar grunt, a sprinkle of exquisite harmony, a few deft lines of lolling bass, all topped with some hit-squad homey humour … this year’s campus band competition ran the full gauntlet. And after experiencing simply a smidgin of the WA contingient, I’ll wager a barrel of pickled fish on each and all of these folk dominating finals for more years to come.

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