32 • B.ENTERTAINED www.bendigoweekly.com.au Bendigo Weekly – Friday, April 8, 2011

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So for the indie pop quartet from Sydney to be locked down in al-bum production mode for 18 months, life was horribly stagnant. Yet strangely creative.

“We’re not the kind of people who long to stay at home, we’re into moving around and see-ing the world,” vocalist Simon Jones said from a Sydney studio.

Which is handy, be-cause with a US tour complete, and rave re-views in Japan and the UK earned, The Holidays are destined to see a lot more of it.

The stuck–in–a–rut mentality behind their album, Post Paradise, fu-elled its creation. But it came at a price.

“We disappeared from the world for a while,” Jones said.

“We took about 18 months to put it togeth-er. We produced it our-selves so we were pretty painstaking with the de-tails.”

The Holidays of Jones, Will Magnus, Alex Kortt and Andrew Ker-rige, who met at high school and university,

were understandably protective of their baby.

“Every decision made was ours alone,” he said.

“It was good, but putting all the pressure on ourselves to do every-thing, we didn’t delegate anything, it made for a lot more work to be done.

“Having said that I wouldn’t do it any other way.”

Which isn’t to say there weren’t times when Jones didn’t resent total autonomy.

“I guess we got in-volved in it so much we lost a bit of perspective,” he said.

“At one point during the process I went over-seas for a bit, I didn’t lis-ten to anything. I needed a break from it all.”

Post Paradise was complete mid last year, and the slow burn of suc-cess began.

“We didn’t expect to go gangbusters straight away. It feels like it’s building momentum slowly but surely, which is a nice feeling,” he said.

Jones is understat-ing that momentum. Post Paradise collected a pair of top shelf gongs, with The Age EG award for Best Album, and the prestigious Australian Music Prize Red Bull Award for the Best Debut Album of 2010.

Jones still feels like he’s pinched the pre-miership from way back in the � eld.

“It was really unex-pected, when we found out we were nominated

we kind of laughed it o� because we didn’t ex-pect to come anywhere near winning it,” he said.

“With competition from bands like Tame Impala and Cloud Con-trol, it was a bit of a long shot for us. It was a pretty good moment, it was more relief than anything.”

It was light relief that actually spawned The Holidays, providing the 24-year-old Jones and his friends a sunny dis-traction from the drudg-ery of an economics de-gree.

“We started just mucking around,” he said.

“But it got more seri-ous as things went along, I could start seeing a bit more future in it.

“It’s (2010) been the most ful� lling year, we’ve done a lot of stu� I never thought we’d do.”

Initial success was triggered by � rst single Moonlight Hours.

“I remember when it came out and we were at The Falls Festival and it was the most played song on Triple J that week,” he said.

“I was walking around the campsite and hearing it coming out of people’s cars, that was really cool.”

Two more hits fol-lowed in Moonlight’s wake, � rst the “dancey conga percussion” of Golden Sky, in� uenced by the band’s fondness for UK groovers, The Happy Mondays and Pri-mal Scream.

Then came the mel-ancholic detour of Bro-ken Bones.

“As we got further into the album the songs started getting more quiet and instrospective,” he said.

That trio became a Triple J staple, from an album Jones describes as tapping into ideas and themes of escaping the banality of everyday life.

“We were projecting our vision of somewhere perfect, a paradise we could get to, to get out of our current situation,” he said.

“But then we thought that idea of paradise is such a ‘grass is always greener’ theory, it’s more about wishing you were somewhere else.

“(But) what happens when you get to para-dise? It’s never a place to stay, you always want something more.

“I guess Post Para-dise is about what comes next (after getting to paradise), you always long to be somewhere else. If you don’t stay in one position you can’t really get bored.”

Boredom is not on the cards for The Holi-days. Before jetting o� for their US tour, they re-ceived some sage advice from some well known band mates.

“The Temper Trap told us not to expect too much sleep,” Jones laughed.

The Holidays will play Groovin The Moo in Ben-digo on April 30.

BEN CAMERONThe Holidays love perpetual motion. Like any force of nature, their strength has come from forward momentum.

HOLIDAYS

WHAT WHEN/DETAILSNational Youth Week 2011 Freeza Music Event

Friday April 86pm to 10pm at McGilvray Hall, B.R.I.T campus, McCrae Street, Bendigo.Featuring Low Point, My Best Friend Boom, Blackbird, Eddie Amiet and The Tides, Tom Snowdon (lead singer of the Escape). An all ages fully supervised drug and alcohol free event, no pass outs.Contact the City of Greater Bendigo Youth Development Team 54346464.

Bendigo Folk Club presents Canadian trio, The Good Lovelies.

Tuesday April 12From 8pm at the clubrooms under the grandstand at the Queen Elizabeth Oval, View Street, Bendigo.Tickets $20 and $15 for members.

Heartbeat Victoria Bendigo branch Danny Blumes fundraiser

Tuesday April 122pm at St Peters Hall, Eaglehawk.All welcome, members please bring a plate.

RELAY FOR LIFEBENDIGO music lovers, it’s time to rock out for a good cause.The Relay For Life Anti-Cancer Bene  t gig at The Golden Vine is back again tomorrow night, with a cavalcade of local talent on show.The bill includes emerging talents Joel English and Talisa “TJ” Jobe, the eclectic Deano Stanton and the always entertaining Urban Creatures of Damien Neil and Colin Thompson.The gig has become an annual event since 2007, with all pro  ts from the door donated to the Cancer Council.“It’s four class acts, one class venue and one great cause, so get some friends together and rock on down,” musician and event organiser Colin Thompson said.It’s a fair argument. So show your support for local music, and a worthy charity, all for the paltry price of ten bucks. Show starts at 8pm.

INBRIEF

FREEZAGET ready for four hours of power.Part of National Youth Week celebrations, Bendigo bands Eddie Amiet and The Tides, Lowpoint, Blackbird and The Escape will team up with Shepparton My Best Friend Boom! to rock out the McGillivray Hall at B.R.I.T tonight. The tunes kick o� from 6pm. For band bios, go to www.bendigoweekly.com.au

MOOVIN UPBendigo bands, keep plugging away, because Groovin The Moo could be expanding next year.GTM promoter Steve Halpin said the number of local acts pencilled in for the Bendigo gig could increase in 2012.“It’s a possibility,” he said. “We could open the gates earlier, have a bigger show.”Full story at www.bendigoweekly.com.au

WHAT’SON

FOR MORE GIGS AND EVENTS GO TOWWW.BENDIGOWEEKLY.COM.AU

FOR YOUR CHANCE TO WIN TICKETS TO GROOVIN THE MOO, LIKE B.ENTERTAINED ON FACEBOOK FACEBOOK.COM/BWBENTERTAINED

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Friday April 22SoulchildSunday April 24SoulchildMonday April 25The MockbellsSunday April 29Leigh Turner

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Friday, April 8, 2011 – Bendigo Weekly www.bendigoweekly.com.au� b.entertained • 33

The five piece is bus-ily preparing the release of their debut EP Caught

Behind and are excited to be playing the single launch here in Bendigo.

“Apart from doing Gigfest and a few other local gigs, most of our shows have been in Mel-bourne and Sydney, so it will be good to have an event locally for our single launch”, guitar-ist Jeremie Collard said. “We’re

definitely looking forward to it.” Jeremie likes to describe

the band’s style as balladic rock with a sound that encapsulates a wealth of experience and influence from bands raging from The Beatles and Coldplay to Metallica and Megadeth.

After the launch, the band is looking forward to more re-cording in the immediate fu-ture.

“We want to get back to the studio asap. There is a lot of material that needs to be re-corded. After we release Caught Behind we want to move for-ward with a full album,” he said.

“We have been writing as a band now for about four

years, with some of the mate-rial about 15 years old in some instances.

“It’s time to arrange and release.”

Opening for Master of None next Friday will be local soloist Ash French.

“Ash is a regular at the jam nights at the Vine and it would be great to have him in on a Fri-day night. He is a fantastic local acoustic act,” he said.

Make sure you come along to the Golden Vine tonight and show your support to one of Bendigo’s most polished rock acts.

They would love to have you along.

C h o k e d by red; pum-melled by blue and s p e a r - t a c k -led by yel-

low, I dropped to the canvas. “One two three – you’re out!”, screamed the ref. I was down for the count.

Happily though, having not been this gob-smacked by colour since I stood in front of an Yves Klein Blue at the Mu-seum Ludwig in Cologne last year.

Six giant panels involving startling primary colour greet-ed me as I entered Harcourt artist Craig Gough’s show at Latrobe’s VAC. Gough’s flagrant – there’s no other way to de-scribe it – use of colour is ines-capable, hearty, over-the-top and seductive.

It makes you feel, even if you’re not quite sure what.

Six large canvases are flanked by six smaller, under

glass. All evoke Matisse some-how, though Gough certainly has his own style. It’s at once deft and primitive, drawing a direct line to the lyrical ab-stractionists of the 1970s, an expressive and emotive style of painting which grew out of modernism as his artist-friend Steven Turpie kindly explained to me.

“All the formal elements come into play but the imagery is pared back to basics.”

Grinning, he said “it’s defi-nitely a colourist show,” when I confessed my first first-impres-sion.

Turpie and Gough go back a bit, having worked together as art lecturers at Latrobe Uni, with Gough previously a senior lecturer in painting – and Head of Fine Art – at Monash Univer-sity during the 1980s.

Now in his early 70s, Craig Gough is as vibrant and ener-getic a person as I’ve met in some time.

“I want people to feel something when they look at my work rather than being comforted by the nice view”, he laughed, apparently flattered by my appraisal of seeing his work for the first time.

Leaning in perilously close in to one of his paintings – all various representations of his garden – Craig then said, “I don’t want my painting to be perfect, I want it to be rough and for people to see that.”

He pointed to a wide brush stroke. “There are all sorts of decisions when I paint,” refer-ring to the swathe of colour

that rushes to meet his rough line. There is a distinct logic within each painting.

“I choose to work this way”, he says of the gut instinct that fuels his painting style, though points out that he also does figurative work, evidenced by his commissioned portrait of Bishop Noel Daly hanging in Bendigo’s Sacred Heart Cathe-dral.

Gough is by no means pre-scriptive about how his work should be interpreted; quite the opposite.

He’s more than happy for people to bring their own “bag-gage of preconceptions” into the gallery.

Thus the title Resonance. Gough pushes his colour to the extreme in scale and form, in the aim of evoking honest and immediate emotional respons-es from viewers.

He writes in his artist state-ment, “Resonance occurs when strong emotions, memories can come to mind in the pres-ence of artworks.

Often they are described as haunting, very moving and poignant, or as having a certain richness or significance.”

There is an intensity to his work which is hard to avoid. I know I certainly need to feel something when I experience art, otherwise I feel diddled.

Mr Gough had me at red-yellow-blue.

Resonance at Latrobe Visual Arts Centre, 121 View Street, Bendigo. Until May 1.

MASTER OF NONEJAKE ScHATZ

Local rock maestros Mas-ter Of None are gearing up for the launch of their first single ,The Living, tonight at The Golden Vine Hotel. .

MASTER OF NONE

cRAiG GOuGH

FuLL STORY AT BENDiGOWEEKLY.cOM.Au

MEGAN SPENcER

Walking into painting exhibi-tion Resonance i felt like i was immediately body-slammed by colour – ka-pow!

KNOcK-OuTGOuGH’S

NicK

FOR MORE ON THiS STORY: WWW.BENDiGOWEEKLY.cOM.Au

BARKERNICK Barker is a song-writer first and fore-m o s t . A n d despite an i m p r e s s i v e

body of work and a lengthy history of collaborations with a swag of Australian music legends, from Seymour to Kel-ly, it remains a fact his biggest hit was written by a Londoner by the name of Harley.

Back in early 1988, Nick Barker (middle right) and The Reptiles scored a Top 40 hit with their cover of the Steve Harley and the Cockney Rebel number, Make Me Smile.

Barker was initially re-luctant to promote the song from the relative obscurity of a Reptiles’ live set, to the na-tional airwaves.

“I wasn’t really that com-fortable with it at the time,”

he said.“I consider myself to be a

songwriter. For a songwriter to put out a cover and that to be what you are best known for, it didn’t sit well with me for a while.

“But looking back now, it was a good idea. As I got older I realised it probably got me where I am.”

That place is enviable, as 23 years later, after hundreds of pub gigs, Barker has anoth-er chance to put his creative spin on the works of others,

when he teams up with James Blundell, and Dave Larkin from Dallas Crane, to deliver the Ultimate Rock ‘n’ Roll Jam Session, part of the Apollo Bay Music Festival this weekend. No offence to Steve Har-ley, but the Jam Session is a slightly more upmarket hom-age than the Reptiles’ easy listening impression. “It’s very far removed from anything I’ve done,” he said.

Apollo Bay Music Festival is on today, Saturday and Sunday.

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