With their mix of vintage guitar pop and indie-esque sounds, The Bowers hailing from Melbourne, Australia who have a tight sublime sound whilst still retaining an impressive rawness which adds great depth to their music.
I asked guitarist Phil Gionfriddo for the down low on The Bowers and his thoughts on the live Melbourne music scene:
There are a plethora of songstresses that draw their inspiration from yesteryear big band, Motown and RnB, but most of all soul thus the ‘Soulstress’ is born. Seeing as the inspiration for their music is very apparent, is this just a a blatant act of forgery or do these women genuinely have something new to bring to the table?
In the self indulgent world of blogging where everyone thinks that their opinion is right and must be heard, founder of Whiteboydancefloor (wbdf), Chris English was no different. With his general hatred for most music and his intense love for a small amount of it he started wbdf in 2006. At the original conception he brought along Pix who he’d worked with on previous projects; for the first few years they worked as a duo until they decided on an expansion. SoundProof Magazine spoke to the two on their positions as official white boys.
Die Roten Punkte
Brother- sister act, Astrid & Otto make up the quirky and highly entertaining German band ‘Die Roten Punkte’. With Astrid on drums/glockenspiel/vocals and Otto providing vocals/guitar/keytar, the two provide fun, kitsch music with equally as quirky videos.
I spoke to the two over the phone while they were in Adelaide, Australia on their downtime whilst performing at the Adelaide Fringe Festival. Being quite the talkative pair I quickly discovered what great story tellers Astrid and Otto are; there was the time Astrid decided to pierce Otto’s ear while he was sleeping on consecutive nights, Astrid’s trip to drug and alcohol rehabilitation where she learnt the meaning of moderation but the most interesting was the tale of how the band began.
Australia is definitely not an old country and what comes with that is a lack of many traditions but attending The Big Day out is undeniably a right of passage for Australian teenagers. Having worked behind the scenes at other Australian festivals, it’s easy to see that over the years the organisers of The Big Day Out have a tightly run ship on their hands. There wasn’t a huge wait to get in, the bands were on time with smooth transitions and there were no major incidents to speak of.
Beginning in Sydney as a small festival it now travels to six cities across Australia (including one city in New Zealand and spans over a two week period in the sweltering heat of the Australian summer. With a mixture of international and local acts across many genres, the international acts are a huge draw card with tickets usually selling out nationwide.
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