John Shand Posts

October 10, 2018 / Concert Reviews - Archive

Lennox Theatre, September 24 9/10 The impetus is easy to understand. The youngish Jeremy Rose reads Robert Hughes’ The Fatal Shore and has his conception of his homeland turned on its head. Where was this in the school history syllabus? Last year Rose, a Sydney-based composer and jazz saxophonist, released…

October 6, 2018 / Concert Reviews - Archive

Blue Mountains Theatre, September 21 8/10 Xylouris White don’t do polite folkloric music. They direct-inject us with the culture that spawned the blood and fury of such characters as Theseus. Nor are they obsessed with priggish, academic authenticity. In an age when music groans beneath so many sub-genres as to…

October 4, 2018 / Features - Archive

It’s November 8, 2016. Guitarist Marc Ribot is so appalled by Donald Trump’s election he knows he needs to respond. But how? He was making an album with his band, Ceramic Dog, at the time. “I realised that the world might have to wait for another record about me fighting…