RVG – Romy Vager (vocals, guitar), Reuben Bloxham (guitar), Angus Belle (bass), Marc Nolte (drums), known less formally as the Romy Vager Group – deliver a refreshing kind of honesty and intelligence that you don’t hear in your everyday garage band. Hailing from Melbourne’s northern suburbs, they released their acclaimed debut album A Quality of Mercy in 2017 which was self-recorded live off the floor at The Tote. The eight songs on A Quality of Mercy traverse through the myth of the tortured artist, the isolation of being trans, falling in love with a computer and the feeling of awaiting your fate on death row. Each song is played with wit, compassion and commitment, evident in singer Romy’s delivery, her “fierceness, her flow, and how clear it is she’s singing about what she knows” (The Guardian).

They four-piece signed with Our Golden Friend / Island Records who re-released their album in October, which led into a much-hyped BIGSOUND set and four nominations at The Age Music Victoria Awards – for Best Album, Best Song, Best Band and Best Emerging Act. RVG have since signed with Isla Angus at ATC Live for bookings in the UK/EU and Lucy Beach at Paradigm for North America, and are touring the UK and Europe this May with UK band Shame.

www.facebook.com/RVGBAND

One of Brisbane’s rising independent theatre performers, Regan Lynch, is one of these 2,000 men. And his new cabaret, Regan Lynch Does It In Public, offers a cheeky glimpse into life before, and after he began taking the drug.

“PrEP, I think, gives us a chance for a new sexual revolution. Or at least the continuing of an old one. Some of us have never known life without a fear and anxiety of HIV. It’s been driven into us since we were children. Antiretrovirals give us a chance to live without that fear, and I think that’s pretty exciting.”

While airing the details of his sex life may seem risky, for Regan it offers a unique opportunity.

“Sex is hilarious and weird,” he says. “Which is why it makes a great topic for comedy. But more than that, as a queer man I am used to people being pretty obsessed with my sex life. Shows like this are a way for me to reclaim that conversation and throw it back on my own terms.”

Regan has been described by Aussie Theatre as “larger-than-life, high camp, high fidelity and even higher energy,” by AbsoluteTheatre as “exceptionally good,” and by Rip It Up as “a must see for cabaret fans.” In 2015, he was nominated for Best Male Actor in a Leading Role at Queensland’s pre-eminent Matilda Awards.

Regan Lynch presents his first solo work, Regan Lynch Does It In Public, at this year’s Anywhere Festival. It’s a comedy funk and punk cabaret, a burlesque, and a raucous and sometimes alarmingly interactive hour of stupid sex clowning.

Performed with an electric guitar, a ukelele, angel wings, several layers of fetish-wear and a jar of meds, audiences will groove, laugh and be a little aroused as Regan meanders his way through sexual anecdotes and observational songs.

Regan is teaming up with local business, Betty’s Espresso and Bar, to present this work. Well-regarded for its vintage furnishings and comfortable, lush couches—as well as being the home of Naked Ostrich Burlesque—this is the perfect setting to present a sexy musical romp.

Regan Lynch Does It In Public
Thursday 4th May – Sunday 21st May @ 7:00pm
Betty’s Espresso and Bar – 11 Browning St, West End
Tickets can be purchased at anywheretheatre.com

Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) Director Chris Saines CNZM said tickets were on sale now for more than 25 films in ‘Get What You Want: Music Cinema’, a program screening from 2 September to 2 October in conjunction with Brisbane Festival.

The film program covers all genres of music from country to disco, folk to hip hop, house to punk, and metal to reggae. It includes films that provide insight on the music and lives of artists including Kurt Cobain, Amy Winehouse, Bob Marley, Miles Davis, Madonna and more.

‘We witness the motivations of some of the most mythologised stars of modern music as well as far-flung communities where grass roots movements are localising contemporary genres to powerful effect,’ Mr Saines said.

‘Get What You Want’ opens on Friday 2 September with a Madonna double-bill. Following the 6pm screening of the new documentary Strike a Pose 2016 exploring the life of backup dancers away from the spotlight of the 1990 Blond Ambition tour, In Bed with Madonna 1991 then screens from 8pm.

Documentaries on musical icons such as the heartbreaking Amy Winehouse story Amy 2015 and the surreal day-in-the-life of Nick Cave 20,000 Days on Earth 2014 will screen, as will an illuminating profile of reggae star Bob Marley, Marley 2012 and the tortured portrait of the symbol of a generation, Kurt Cobain, in Montage of Heck 2015.

Buried Country: The Story of Aboriginal Country Music 2000 shows how the genre’s themes of loss and endurance have deep relevance for Indigenous Australian musicians, while Maestro 2003 explores the roots of dance music culture in the night clubs of 1970s New York, and heavy metal makes a difference in the most unexpected of places with Death Metal Angola 2012.

Feature films in the program include the Coen Brothers’ Inside Llewyn Davis 2013, punk classic Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains 1982, and Don Cheadle’s directorial debut and star turn as influential jazz man Miles Davis in Miles Ahead 2015. Purple Rain 1984 also screens.in tribute to the recently departed legend, Prince.

Peter McKay, Curator, Contemporary Australian Art, QAGOMA, said ‘Get What You Want’ would explore the impulses that drive performers and audiences in pursuit of great musical experiences.

‘The program gives audiences insights into the creative and social dynamics that operate across musical subcultures,’ Mr McKay said.

The rarely screened underground documentary All Ears: A Glimpse into the Los Angeles Beat Community 2013 examines the influence of producers J Dilla and Madlib on the scene that coalesced around LA’s Low End Theory nightclub in the mid 2000s. It screens with Our Vinyl Weighs a Ton: This is Stones Throw Records 2013, which celebrates the eclectic LA record label, ahead of a 20th anniversary celebration of Stones Throw featuring founder Peanut Butter Wolf, J. Rocc and Egyptian Lover at the Brisbane Festival Aurora Spiegeltent on 8 September.

‘Get What You Want’ also features the harrowing manufacture of a K-Pop girl group in Nine Muses of Star Empire 2012, one man’s near-impossible mission to unite all nine members of the Wu-Tang Clan on stage for their last concert in Rock the Bells 2006, and Penelope Spheeris’ chaotic portrait of the early 1980s LA punk scene The Decline of Western Civilization 1981.

Presented in partnership with Brisbane Festival, ‘Get What You Want’ is a ticketed program at the Australian Cinémathèque at GOMA from 2 September to 2 October 2016. Cinema tickets are on sale now, adults $10.50, concession $8.50 and Gallery members $7.50. A five-film discount is available at the Cinémathèque Box Office.

Get What You Need with Music Cinema at GoMA
2 September – 2 October 2016
GOMA, Cinema A – Brisbane
www.qagoma.qld.gov.au

So it somehow makes sense that they’re about to embark on a concept tour, taking their already infamous crowd interaction to the next level.
 

 
Getting personal at up-close venues around the country, the Philly Jays will be creating their very own karaoke bars where some lucky fans will be able to get up on stage and join the band to sing their favourite Philadelphia Grand Jury songs.  There might even be some classic karaoke covers thrown in there as well.

“The important thing on the night was that the Philly Jays live show (still) kicks ass.” – The Music

So You Think You Can Philly Jays Australian Tour 2016
Friday 27 May – The Brightside, Brisbane
Friday 3 June – Transit Bar, Canberra
Saturday 4 June – Jimmy’s Den, Perth
Friday 10 June – Brighton Up Bar, Sydney
Saturday 11 June – Yah Yah’s, Melbourne
www.philadelphiagrandjury.com.au

As ever with ES you’ll find yourself simultaneously inspired by their unique vision and despairing at how RARE such forward-moving revolutionary art is in this day and age. In a musical world where the by-rote and predictable seem to be the only ‘risk’ anyone’s willing to take, and where lyrically rock’n’roll has never been more conservative, ‘personal’ and staid, Enter Shikari’s music hits like a bolt from the blue, a living livid reminder of music’s real ancient powers and future possibilities, intimate as a friend, global in its reach.

Joining the tour with their own unique sound will be Canberra’s Hands Like Houses, who have been constantly touring UK, Europe and North America, selling out shows worldwide. Their last album Unimagine debuted top 40 on the US Billboard charts.

Enter Shikari live have broken barriers and busted heads wherever they’ve been heard, a meld of punk roots and kaleidoscopic musical consciousness.

Enter Shikari Mindsweep Tour
Fremantle – Monday 18 May – Metropolis
Adelaide – Wednesday 20 May – HQ
Melbourne – Friday 22 May – The Forum
Sydney – Saturday 23 May – Roundhouse
Brisbane – Sunday 24 May – The Tivoli
www.entershikari.com