A waiting Jess Klein. Photo by Rodney Bursiel IF YOU’RE HEARING it first on her new record of pop songs that come from earthy roots, when Jess Klein sings “I’m done being small/Wanna grow my heart so big, my spine so tall”, it’s handy to know this isn’t new, Klein told us a while back in a song that she was tougher than she seemed. that you’d be wrong to assume a quiet voice, a small frame, a willingness to listen and change was a weakness to exploit. Now a long-term resident

Les garcons de la plage (sans Bruce Johnston) Later this month, one of the last of the original (or near enough to original to not matter) Beach Boys, Al Jardine, will be touring Australia backed by a band comprising many of the musicians who once backed Brian Wilson in his 21st century revival/return. It is both an easy and a hard sell, a moral question and a musical dilemma. The Al Jardine And The Pet Sounds Band show offer (sadly) no Wilsons and (thankfully) no Mike Love a

DANNY WIDDICOMBE One Note At A Time ( Futurfonic Records) THERE’S BEEN A DELAY in responding to this album on my part, but I’m pretty sure Danny Widdicombe will be relaxed about my tardiness, for three reasons. Working backwards, number three is that one of the key players here in the band being called The Wand'rin’ Stars, is a local country legend in pedal steel player Michel Rose, a Mauritian – yes, one of us. And I can confirm that as well as our parents loving old schoo

Some people are terrors, some days are horrors, but the beautiful is still there if you look. CLICK HERE TO LISTEN More things of beauty in hundreds of playlists from me can be found at Spotify.

“I had to make something out of the devastation, make art out of it, make beauty out of it." Grace Woodroofe SO, YEAH, HI GRACE. It’s been a long time since your last album, the one that came with celebrity endorsement (Heath Ledger, who pulled her into his orbit), serious backing (Ben Harper, who produced), and a beckoning future (the sort of career dreamt of but almost never seen). More than a decade actually. Had much on? You could say that. Try an amour fou that became un

Hello ladies ... Don Walker. Photo by Stuart Spence Here we have the next instalment in What Comes To Mind, an alternative series in the Wind Back Wednesday space, based on the work of the brilliant photographer Stuart Spence. Each time, he will dig out a photo from his archives going back almost 50 years and challenge me to respond with what comes to mind when I look at that image. It might be serious or ridiculous, personal or historical but it will be inspired by a photo I

"Cate Le Bon was not common." Photo by Ravyna Jassani CATE LE BON CASS MCCOMBS Vivid Live, Sydney Opera House, May 31 WHILE THE TICKET indicated otherwise, this was not strictly speaking a Sunday night pairing. Cass McCombs played first, yet nothing suggested this was an opening act, more the first of two shows in the Joan Sutherland Theatre; nothing was said in either show to suggest a connection or reflection, just a similar shaped set-up much more forward on this stage t

Why would you want to be anywhere else, listening to anything else? CLICK HERE TO LISTEN Plenty of other action in hundreds more playlists I've made. Seek me out at the evil empire Spotify.

Tom Dowse and Florence Shaw. Photo by Mikki Gomez DRY CLEANING Vivid Live, Sydney Opera House, May 29 THIS IS A BAND WITH SPECIFIC, identifiable personalities. Not the musicians themselves – I don’t know them; I’ve just listened to them, so don’t go basing a dating profile on what would be my ignorant say-so – but the music, the way these instruments are being played, the message conveyed in the cracks between the people and the space between the notes. And these “personali