“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

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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

MATT BERNINGER Vivid Live – Sydney Opera House, March 28 WHEN MATT BERNINGER STEPPED down into the audience, dipping in and out of rows to share the microphone, hold heads close to his, clamber over to stand on the back of seats, and reach out metaphorically and literally to anyone – this “quiet company” that was anything but quiet now – who could see or reach him, it felt like an unbreakable, deeply-rooted connection. “It takes an ocean not to break,” he sang. We sang. But

"Freedom is everybody's job." Brian Jackson (left) & Yasiin Bey (right). Photos by Ravyna Jassani THE MUSIC OF GIL SCOTT-HERON Presented by Brian Jackson and Yasiin Bey Vivid Live. Sydney Opera House, May 27 YOU CAN SEE the bones – actually, to be fair, a good bit of the flesh too – of a special show in this tribute to the work of poet/proto-rapper/singer/activist Gil Scott-Heron. The flaws obvious here, in particular an awful sound mix, are not insurmountable, and the potent

KYLIE M GOT ME THINKING at the weekend. Everyone well understands that the creation stories of artists – the troubled childhood or the idyllic one; the thousands of hours of practice and slogging or the 10 minutes it took to write the hit; the miracle of discovery or the whatever it takes doggedness that overcomes indifference; the troubled genius or the humble genius; or, that favourite of TV talent shows, the ugly duckling who blossoms before our eyes as beneficent judges s

As we are being treated to one of those enjoyable but carefully cultivated/controlled biographical series right now from Netflix on Ms Kylie Minogue, Wind Back Wednesday pulls into the station with one prepared earlier. This carefully cultivated (I was there on the promoter’s coin after all) but not wholly controlled moment with Australia’s biggest, longest-lasting and least disliked pop star happened in the far far north – yes, further north than Cape York – in the year of O