I’ve taken a particular shine to both bands from Down Under today. As a matter of fact, we named bluejuice’s ‘Vitriol’ our top track for last year and they indeed (along with our friend Will) put this whole week into motion. So, without any further delay…
“Hello from bluejuice. We’re a band from Sydney – a band that will do almost anything to get to the top. We’ll sell our souls by spending years of our existence in relative obscurity as a stodgy funk band. We’ll make a desperate grab for fame by being independent and self-managed for 7 years. We’ll tour the country over and over again, and sometimes sleep in the van just like the celebrities we admire so much. We are truly shameless in our quest for overnight success. Let’s hope we never make it.
Anyway, we’ve been described as many things, “punk-hop” being the most recent; “shit” being equally as recent and slightly more relevant. We’ve just released our first single from our second album, which was produced by Dr Chris Shaw, a Godly man known for his penchant for lip balms and fine red wines. He also has a history of working with people we’d throw up on if we met them – Bob Dylan, Public Enemy, Weezer, JSBX, Paula Abdul. That dude has cyborg ears.
I spent many hours as a youth in various independent record stores in Sydney’s CBD – Waterfront, Red Eye, and Good Groove. Waterfront Records was a brilliant place that fulfilled my all of my teenage desires (well…mostly) when the owner asked me to look after the store while he went outside. He was gone for all of ten seconds, but in that ten seconds I felt like a Nerd God. I also felt like making off with his entire collection of JSBX rarities. Sadly, Waterfront is no more, possibly due to their breezy adherence to store security.”
bluejuice – Broken Leg (Mp3) The new single!
bluejuice – Vitriol (Pious Edit) (Mp3)
bluejuice – Vitriol (E.L.F. Remix) (Mp3)
“We are a rambling, Melbourne, alt-acoustic, pop four-piece called Skipping Girl Vinegar. I’m obsessed with melody, pop hook and the craft of songwriting. We spent way too long writing and recording the material for our debut album, which took close on four years. It was, however, a process of growing up as writers and trying to stretch ourselves to make something with as much substance as we had within us.
Our name comes from a 1930’s, old world neon sign located in Richmond, Melbourne, Australia that features a girl skipping in neon. The girl is belovedly known as ‘Audrey’ the Skipping Girl Vinegar. She is an old, cracked, underground, pop icon of Melbourne that we felt an affinity with and that is deeply rooted in our childhood memories of driving past at night.
I love independent record stores; they have been a haven for me to discover new music. They are usually run by obsessed music lovers with an encyclopedic knowledge that can turn you onto something new as well as reference you back into influences from the past. Two of my favourite ones in Melbourne are Basement Discs and Polyester Records. We are big supporters of indie stores, who are a life blood for emerging and underground bands. We created an Audio Library bag for our debut album which was exclusively available at indie stores and online from the band in an attempt to support and thank these stores for their support.
I was buying CD’s in an indie store yesterday – I need credit card intervention!”
Cheers,
Mark
