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News.com.au
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- News.com.au
Revealed: Homes of Qld's hottest musos
With Queensland claiming 11 spots in the Triple J Hottest 100 of Australian Songs, here is a look at the homes owned by the sunshine state's hottest acts. THE GO-BETWEENS This indie rock band was formed in Brisbane in 1977 and their track 'Streets of Your Town' was No. 84 on the countdown. Six months after forming the band, singer-songwriters and guitarists Robert Forster and Grant McLennan moved into a share house at 10 Golding St, Toowong Between 1978 and 1979, the band recorded a number of songs live in Forster's bedroom, which were released on 'The Lost Album' in 1999. Property records show the Golding St home was built around 1930 and was last sold in May 1984 for $50,000. It is estimated to be worth about $1.36m. Forming in Brisbane in 1993, this alt-rock band had '!(The Song Formerly Known as)' appear at No. 67 on the Hottest 100 list. The group formed in the garage of 40 Coopers Camp Rd, Bardon, which was owned by Lien Yeomans, the mum of lead singer Quan Yeomans. Ms Yeomans sold the property in 2016 for $975,000. At the time of the sale, Yeomans said he wrote all of Regurgitator's early songs downstairs on a 4-track tape machine. 'Mum let me set up full drum kits and amplifiers and I made a racket,' he said. 'My base player came downstairs and saw me tinkering away and that's what kicked it (Regurgitator) off.' THELMA PLUM Gamilaraay woman, Thelma Plum appeared at No. 53 on the countdown with 'Better in Blak'. Born in Brissy, Plum spent most of her life in the river city and her third EP, 'Meanjin' was a love letter to her hometown. The singer-songwriter bought an apartment in the suburb of West End in 2022 for $780,000, with the home today estimated to be worth more than $1m. SAVAGE GARDEN This ARIA award-winning pop duo's hit 'I Want You' scraped into the 100 Hottest list at No. 97. Cornubia Savage Garden formed in 1993 with Darren Hayes and Daniel Jones rehearsing and recording at Jones' home at 10 Ballan Ct, Cornubia. When Jones sold the home in 2002 for $230,000 he left behind a plaque that read 'built in 1982, this room was converted to a sound studio in 1994 where Darren Hayes and Daniel Jones of 'Savage Garden' wrote and recorded most the songs from their self-titled debut album'. The property sold again in 2019 for $590,000 and in 2020 for $618,000. It is now valued at $1.06m. Cleveland In 2006 Jones sold a waterside residence at 32 Sentinel Ct, Cleveland for $5.8m. The home sold again 2013 for $4.96m and smashed the Cleveland sales record went it sold for $8.5m in 2020. POWDERFINGER Powderfinger, formed in Brisbane in 1989, appeared in the Hottest 100 of Australian Songs three times, with 'My Happiness' at No. 6, 'These Days' at No. 14 and '(Baby I've Got You) On My Mind' at No. 70 while lead singer Bernard Fanning came in at No. 57 with 'Wish You Well'. Camp Mountain Guitarists Ian Haug owns and operates Airlock Studios in Camp Mountain, where he also has a home. Wights Mountain In 2016, Powderfinger lead guitarist, Darren Middleton listed his Wights Mountain home of 15 years for sale for $1.395m. The 2.05ha property came with a dam, barn and mango grove. 'We stumbled across this block of land and made an offer, as soon as we saw it we thought we could build a house here that could become the ultimate hideaway,' Middleton said at the time. Paddington Also in 2016, Fanning sold a two-bedroom investment unit in Paddington for $520,000, having bought it in 2011 for $422,500. He listed a second nearby two-bedorom unit for sale for offers over $400,000 around the same time. Toowong In 2022 a link to Powderfinger may have helped save an old Queenslander from developers. 'Goldicott House' and its outbuildings, including a former Brisbane Boys College music room where Fanning learned his craft, was bought by developers in 2017. Developers sought to demolish the music room building, but numerous objections from locals based on the historic nature of the estate caused plans to be rejected by council. BBC, in partnership with the Presbyterian Methodist Schools Association, purchased 'Goldicott' in February 2022 for $17m. THE VERONICAS Brissy twins Lisa and Jessica Origliasso formed pop duo The Veronicas in 2004 and made the Triple J list with 'Untouched' at No. 4 and '4ever' at No. 76. Albany Creek The pair grew up in Albany Creek, with their family home selling in 2007 for $580,500 to Defence Housing Australia. The five-bedroom, three-bathroom property now has an estimated value of $1.35m. Fortitude Valley In 2015 Jessica sold her inner city apartment in the McWhirters building for $599,000, after buying it in 2009 for $465,000. When the property was listed for sale, Jessica said if the walls could talk, they'd have some wild stories to tell. 'There have been some awesome parties in this apartment, I also really do love to host dinner parties,' she said. 'I had my friend's hen's party here and have had lots of other musicians over to jam.' Landsborough In 2020 Lisa and Jessica sold a 2.7ha property in Landsborough for $770,000 after buying is in March 2019 for $695,000. The property included a three bedrooms home with two master suites, a huge shed with granny flat and a spa. 'It has been a dream living on the Sunshine Coast, so close to Australia Zoo, and among the most beautiful hiking trails and beaches in the world,' the duo said when the property was listed for sale. Bowen Hills Lisa sold her Bowen Hills townhouse in 2021 for $815,000. The property had been her Australian home base for more than 12 years. At the time, the pop star said 'a lot of music' was made in the three-bedroom, two-bathroom home. 'I lived there with Mummy and Jessie, so I have a lot of really beautiful memories,' she said. Gold Coast Jessica and her fiancee Alex Smith bought a double-storey apartment on the Gold Coast for $1.73m in 2023 with plans to renovate. The beachfront two-bedroom, two-bathroom home had terracotta floor tiles, a dated kitchen and a leaking roof in the bathroom. The couple said they had grand plans for the unit. 'We want it to feel like it has a lot of personality. We want it to be a little eccentric,' Jessica said. While these iconic Queensland acts didn't make the Hottest 100 of Australian Songs cut, they too once called a slice of the sunshine state home. KEITH URBAN Country music star and husband of Nicole Kidman, Keith Urban grew up in Caboolture, just north of Brisbane. At one point he lived on an acreage block on Pumicestone Rd with his family. The property is not visible from the road but the 'Days Go By' singer did revisit the home in 2005, chatting with the new owners and a horse from his childhood named Gypsy, according to a Sunshine Coast Daily report from 2006. It is also believed the Urban family once called a little weatherboard home on Douglas Tce in Caboolture home at one point during Keith's childhood. The home still stands and has and estimated value of $665,000. THE BEE GEES The Redcliffe Peninsula's most famous export, the Bee Gees once called an old cottage on Tramore St, Margate, home. Unfortunately, the property was gutted in a fire in 2012. The property was one of several Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb lived in while growing up in the area. Post-fire, the empty block sold for $350,000 and then again in 2021 for $535,000 before a house was built on the land. THE SAINTS A modest tin and timber building at 4 Petrie Tce was once the share house, rehearsal space and live venue for The Saints, with a shopfront space at the front of the home becoming known as 'Club 76'. The rock band formed in 1973 and singer Christ Bailey moved into the Petrie Tce home in 1976. Due to the place being unlicensed and unregulated, its time as a music venue lasted only until early 1977. The home is now a commercial property with a number of businesses having operated from the former 'Club 76', including a law firm and a digital marketing agency.
New York Times
21-07-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Can Indigo De Souza Spin Pop Gold From the Wreckage of Her Past?
Indigo De Souza and Elliott Kozel almost canceled their musical blind date. In January 2023, De Souza — a singer and songwriter who had increasingly toyed with borders around indie-rock, soul and pop — flew to Los Angeles from her home in Asheville, N.C., where she'd made her records with old friends. Now she wanted to try meeting strangers in their studios and seeing if, together, they might create a pop anthem. She was anxious, since this 'blind session' would be her first. Kozel wasn't nervous. He'd long done 60 such sessions a year. He had, however, been up late, playing songs in a small club. He was hung over. 'He was very grumpy, like the world had beaten him down,' De Souza said during a recent video interview, a day after turning 28, laughing beneath the radiant-green tree canopy of a rural spread where she sometimes stays near Asheville. 'He wasn't putting on any frills. He was showing me exactly who he was. That's what I needed.' Within an hour, Kozel had found a synthesizer sound and vocal sample De Souza loved. As the music looped, she sat down and, in 10 minutes, wrote 'Not Afraid,' an existential examination of life, aging and death, of recognizing the inevitability of them all. Kozel was stunned she could explore her own mortality so readily in front of someone new, let alone sing about it. Though De Souza went to other sessions, she returned only to Kozel to write and record in his garage. With its heroic keyboards, romantic guitars and insistent rhythms, the absorbing 11-track result, 'Precipice,' makes good on her longtime ambition to release a sophisticated pop album. It is a vivid and gripping reintroduction, putting her in unexpected conversation with stars like Lorde and Charli XCX. Perhaps more important, De Souza's work and camaraderie with Kozel allowed her to write about lifelong struggles with mental illness and abusive relationships with newfound clarity and confidence. 'She has a very thin wall between herself and her music,' Kozel said in an interview, noting she's the only songwriter he's worked with who made him cry. 'Whatever is going on, she's really good at just letting it out.' De Souza spent her first seven years in Bethel, Conn., where her mother, Kim Oberhammer, was raised. But by the time De Souza was coming of age there, the town had become an escape for wealthy New Yorkers. Oberhammer had divorced De Souza's father, a Brazilian guitarist, when De Souza was 3; she found a log cabin on a little farm in Western North Carolina and headed south with her kids. The small-town tension was immediate. In Spruce Pine, N.C., Oberhammer, a longtime artist, painted her 1986 Ford Ranger with pink camouflage and bombs emblazoned with the names of countries the United States had attacked. She glued naked Barbies to the hood. Its windows were repeatedly smashed. 'I was really embarrassed of her, because she was making us stick out like a sore thumb to people who didn't understand us,' De Souza said. 'Whenever I'd go to other people's houses, I'd be like, 'Why is my mom so different?' I felt some heartbreak.' Though not a musician, Oberhammer always kept instruments around and soon spotted the way they lured her youngest daughter. When De Souza got her first guitar, at 9, she began writing songs. Oberhammer bought her a four-track recorder and carted her to lessons with Rhonda Gouge, an area legend who insisted the elementary schooler develop calluses by playing steel strings. 'It was like a journal, this space for me to be really vulnerable and emotional,' De Souza said of those first songs. Her circumstances, though, got worse. De Souza shuttled among public and private schools and home-schooling, beaten down by bullying that sometimes stemmed from perceptions of her mother. And then her grandfather, who had dementia, moved in. When he became violent, Oberhammer sent De Souza, then 16, an hour southwest to live with her older sister, Logan, in Asheville. For the first time, she was popular in school, making friends who didn't find her weird and exposed her to indie-rock. She fell for an older busker and moved in with him. For years, she felt locked in a codependent and controlling relationship. 'That was the biggest turning point in my life,' she said, sighing. 'It's where a lot of my trauma comes from, where a lot of things my body and brain learned come from. I was so young.' De Souza doesn't regret those experiences, she said, because they at least fueled her songwriting, resulting in three albums where she lit fathoms-deep darkness and tales of awkward sex with wry humor and athletic theatricality. (M.J. Lenderman was a bandmate.) Her mother painted every album cover, and the brittle sounds of her early work became increasingly polished, with hints of arena-sized pop arriving on 'All of This Will End' in 2023. As she sang on that record, however, 'I'm not sure what is wrong with me, but it's probably just hard to be a person feeling anything.' Mixed with touring's unglamorous instability, those vestigial hardships corroded her mental health. De Souza clashed with bandmates until they quit and would sometimes disappear from gigs altogether, overwhelmed by anxiety and despair. Friends staged an intervention, leading to a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder. 'I thought of myself as a bad person,' she said. 'Being able to put a name to it and realize I'm not broken, just traumatized by things that have happened, gave me a better picture of why I am the way I am.' Last fall, De Souza was on tour in New York when Hurricane Helene ripped through Western North Carolina. The mud line reached 12 feet inside the former church in which she'd been living in a mountain hamlet. Her roommates had tossed her favorite guitar, laptop, and a box of childhood mementos onto her bed, which floated. Almost everything else was gone. She was floored by her community's solidarity, how everyone put on gloves and grabbed shovels. But as she passed winter outside of town in a blue shed with paper thin walls, she got cold and miserable. 'It became this dull sadness,' she said. 'It felt like, 'Everything is destroyed, and we're going to be cleaning up for a long time.'' So De Souza went back to Los Angeles and Kozel. They began writing again, and she used his space to process the damage she'd seen in a place she loved. In a matter of weeks, they had made most of a second record together, expanding on their chemistry and the full-hearted pop of 'Precipice.' Starting her first album since her diagnosis felt different, too, like connecting with a new puzzle piece. What's more, De Souza began to recognize that the city's busyness — the producers she could meet, the shows she could see, the experiences she could have — made her happier than she'd been in years. She moved to L.A. early this year. In July, during her first visit home in six months, De Souza admitted she missed the creeks and mountains, some friends and familiar haunts. She was eager to take her California boyfriend to an Appalachian rodeo. But she seemed more excited that, since her diagnosis and move, she'd finally started to understand how to have a fulfilling relationship. Maybe she was even learning what she wanted. 'I've spent so long attaching to other people's idea of happiness that I'm now trying to figure that out for myself,' she said, smiling amid the trees. 'I want to figure out where I want to be for a long time, then sink into that place.'
Yahoo
21-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Alex G's ‘Headlights' Is a Low-Key Gem in a Catalog Full of 'Em
Hitting play on a new Alex G album can feel a little bit like that sequence in Alan Moore's Watchmen comics where Doctor Manhattan sits on a rock on Mars, pondering the nature of time. It's 2014. I'm listening to an oddly moving song that Alex G recorded by himself in a small room in Philadelphia… It's 2019. I'm listening to an oddly moving song that Alex G recorded by himself in a slightly bigger room in Philadelphia… It's 2022. I'm listening to an oddly moving song that Alex G recorded by himself in yet another room in yet another part of Philadelphia… It's 2025. That brings us to Headlights, the indie-rock hero's tenth album, and his first for RCA Records. There was a time — let's call it the Nineties — when an artist like Alex Giannascoli signing to a major label would have felt like a seismic shift, complete with passionate arguments both pro and con in photocopied zines across the land. But that world is long gone, thanks in part to the revolution that Giannascoli and his generation of DIY auteurs led in the 2010s. He was one of the first and finest acts to break through to a national audience by posting his home-recorded music straight to Bandcamp starting in his teens. By the time publications like Rolling Stone began writing about him, he was already four years and several albums deep into a catalog full of low-key profundity. More from Rolling Stone Alex G Announces New Album 'Headlights,' Shares First Track, 'Afterlife' Alex G Unveils 2025 North American Tour Dates Jack White, Cigarettes After Sex, Alex G Lead Desert Daze 2024 He hasn't veered far from that course in the decade-plus since then, and why should he? His tried-and-true methods haven't stopped yielding uncannily compelling results, no matter the size of the label releasing them. Find a seat on that Martian landscape and pop on some headphones for Headlights, and you'll be greeted by the chiming chords and quiet wisdom of 'June Guitar.' 'Love ain't for the young, anyhow/Something that you learn from falling down,' Giannascoli sings in one of many choruses you'll find echoing through your gauziest daydreams for years to come. He's the only musician credited on that song — playing acoustic guitar, bass, drums, and what sounds like a harmonium, with longtime co-producer Jacob Portrait behind the boards — and his ability to create a sound this magical and lived-in that way remains remarkable, like whole histories of folk and rock music are expressing themselves through this one chill guy. His live bandmates have even less presence on this album than usual, appearing on just one track, the energetic closing singalong 'Logan Hotel (Live)' (which he has admitted is 'basically a studio song' despite that subtitle). Otherwise, this is Alex being Alex. There's some back-porch strumming, some ambiguous yet powerful imagery, and an occasional splash of vocal processing, all presented with an appealing, off-the-cuff looseness. On the casually tuneful 'Real Thing,' he opens with a couple of verses that sound like honest reflections of his (or someone's) life — 'Hoping I can make it through to April/On whatever's left of all this label cash' — before lapsing into a wordless coda. On 'Is It Still You in There?' he lets a trio of guest singers including Molly Germer, his partner of many years, deliver his words of eerie self-interrogation: 'Has your wish come true?/Is there nothing left between the world and you?' And despite those hints of doubt elsewhere on the record, songs like the warm, nostalgic 'Oranges' and the bright, bluegrass-tinged 'Afterlife' are up there with his most life-affirming exaltations. The bottom line is the same as it's always been: You either find this stuff brilliant or you don't. The number of people who do now includes enough true believers to fill many large theaters, as well as celebrity fans like Halsey and Frank Ocean (both of whom have tapped him as a session guitarist, as he's no doubt tired of being asked about in interviews). Alex G's cult audience has never been bigger or more welcoming. Whether you've been riding with him for years or you're thinking of joining up today, Headlights is an album that won't make you regret that choice. Best of Rolling Stone Sly and the Family Stone: 20 Essential Songs The 50 Greatest Eminem Songs All 274 of Taylor Swift's Songs, Ranked Solve the daily Crossword
Wall Street Journal
15-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Wall Street Journal
‘Headlights' by Alex G Review: Staying True to His Sound
In 2012, Philadelphia singer-songwriter Alex Giannascoli, who performs as Alex G, uploaded an album called 'Trick' to Bandcamp. Though he was just 19 years old, it was actually his fourth self-released LP, and it became something of a cult classic—one that, by streaming standards, can fairly be called a 'hit,' with several songs that have accrued hundreds of millions of plays on Spotify. He's now famous, in a way, for a certain audience: If you are under 35 and enjoy indie rock, Alex G is close to a household name; if you are over 50 and not particularly invested in new music, you may not have heard of him. Today's media fragmentation allows artists to build large followings without broad mainstream recognition. There's an inherent contrast in Alex G's music. As a teenager, he was obsessed with the work of Elliott Smith, and his breezy tunefulness and fondness for acoustic guitar still carry some of that influence. But Mr. Giannascoli is no throwback. He has an ear for the perfect chord change and knows how to tweak a melody for maximum heartbreak, but his music feels of and for the internet. He often bends and filters elements including his voice into weird shapes, and his album covers speak the visual language of videogames and memes. The songwriter's 10th studio LP and major-label debut, 'Headlights' (RCA), out Friday, is notable for how little it seems designed for wider acceptance. Some tracks capture his playing and singing a little more clearly, but it has all the immediacy and eccentricity that have carried him this far. That said, if heard in the background, the early stretch of 'Headlights' scans at first like Mr. Giannascoli has sanded off some of the edges. The opening 'June Guitar' is a stately acoustic ballad, and Mr. Giannascoli has rarely sung so plainly, with so little processing on his voice. The song's characteristic lyrics touch on personal epiphanies and the lost innocence of childhood—one moment he's at the 'end of my rope,' the next he's looking for a girl to swing on it with him. The following 'Real Thing' has a hushed, countrified arrangement as the singer meditates on authenticity, throwing in details that could come only from a young musician signed to a record deal ('Hoping I can make it through to April / On whatever's left of all this label cash'). And 'Afterlife' is a twangy exploration of what heaven might be all about that moves among fragmented images—a kid running in the grass, an overpowering light—like a Terrence Malick film.
New York Times
15-07-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Billy Jones, Impresario of New York's Indie Music Scene, Dies at 45
As a recent college graduate in the early 2000s, Billy Jones lived with his parents in Richmond, Va., but his fantasy life was elsewhere: in Williamsburg, the Brooklyn neighborhood that had become the world capital of indie rock. The closest he could get was visiting his local Barnes & Noble, where he would read magazines covering New York's music scene. Then one day in 2002, he made the leap: He was leaving home, he told his father. He and the high school friends who made up his band, Other Passengers, had decided to try to make it big in New York. In Williamsburg, Mr. Jones began working as a barista, with dreams of indie-rock stardom. It wasn't so far-fetched. At a cafe down the block, another barista, Kyp Malone, would soon gain renown as a singer and guitarist with the group TV on the Radio. There was passion in the moans of Mr. Jones's singing, but he did not become a rock star. In time, the Williamsburg concert venues that had launched some of his peers — clubs like 285 Kent, Glasslands, Death by Audio — all closed. Rents in the neighborhood had skyrocketed. Aspiring young musicians left. And instead of achieving his own dreams, Mr. Jones wound up doing something else: He made it possible for other people to keep dreaming. In 2013, he and a friend, Zachary Mexico, opened Baby's All Right, a club at 146 Broadway in Williamsburg. It became, as The New York Times wrote in 2015, the 'nightlife preserver' of the neighborhood. It was a small enough venue to offer major acts an indie spirit that they could no longer find elsewhere in New York City, yet big enough to make unproven musicians feel that they had made it. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
