Last year we supported Nouvelle Vague and DJ $olal, and this year we have another musical treat. Lykke Li! We are pleased to support the Swedish songstress for her two headline shows on her first Australian tour, and give anyone that missed out on SOLD OUT festival tickets a chance to see the pretty lady. As well as appearances at the Falls Festivals across the country, Lykke Li will now play intimate sideshows at the Prince of Wales in Melbourne on January 4th and Oxford Art Factory in Sydney on January 5th. We have been secret fans of Lykke Li for some time now, so this is super exciting for us. frankie is officially pink with excitement!

Melbourne band Rudely Interrupted, whose musicians share a range of intellectual and physical disabilities (blindness, deafness, autism and Down Syndrome), are taking a break from the studio to perform songs from their upcoming album "Tragedy of the Commons" at Sydney's Oxford Art Factory. The performance will mark Autism Awareness Week. The Rudies have been turning heads all over the world (they were the first rock band to play at the United Nations in New York) with their sing-a-long tunes.  Head down on May 16 from 8pm to check them out. 

A quick fill in the gaps with New Zealand sweetheart Finn from The Veils. They're touring from November 25, so for tickets details and dates head over to Oztix. if you're in Brissie or Moshtix if you're in Melbs or Sydders. 
Hello my name is Finn but my friends call me Finnius. I'm 
a skinny big mouthed jerk with a microphone. Some people 
say I sound like Eartha Kitt in a windtunnel. When visiting 
New Zealand make sure you don't miss seeing The Mint Chicks play 
live or taking every available opportunity to hassle our 
accent.  If I had to say something nice about myself I'd say I give 
good praise. Don't ever ask me to plumb in a new shower 
fitting because I probably can't. Things I like most in this world are Roy Orbison and David Foster Wallace and manatees. I'm touring soon so come and be merry. Sun Gangs is out now through Remote Control.

We are proudly supporting So Frenchy, So Chic tours around Australia. Be prepared to be dazzled by the soothing sounds of the sophisticated French indie music scene. On the double bill is unforgettable acts Cocoon and Moriarty. Most exciting is we have tickets to giveaway. We’ve got ten doubles for Melbourne, at the Prince Bandroom, November 25. Two double passes for the Brisbane Powerhouse show on November 26, ten doubles for Sydney at The Factory Theatre, November 27 and three doubles for Adelaide at the Festival Theatre on November 28th. This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it for your chance to win. Head over to Cartell music for all the tour info.

Wooot! We're excited to announce Tegan and Sara are coming to Australia and we’re sponsoring their tour.  Tour kicks off May 4 in Brisbane and heads to Sydney May 7, Melbourne May 11, Adelaide May 13 before finishing in Perth on May 14. We’ve got a double pass to each show plus a Sainthood album up for grabs. This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it your postal address and put what show you’d like to see in the subject line.

It's M. Ward Day! If you were lucky enough to nab some tickets in our giveaway, we hope you will have a lovely boogie for us. For those who weren't so fortunate, here's a little something to keep you smiling: the poster art. His pretty promo poster was designed by the one and only frankie gal, Beci Orpin. We didn't think it was actually possible to make Mr. Ward more attractive, but Beci has awed us yet again.

We are ultra proud to be sponsoring the delightful Megan Washington's Australian tour, and she's already doing us proud. Meg has already sold out five of her tour dates - go go gadget Meg! Tickets just went on sale for a bunch of brand-spankin'-new dates, and you can buy them here. And for the youngsters: the new dates are all ages! She has Sydney boys Deep Sea Arcade and US songstress Lissie supporting her, so make sure you get there early. It's going to be her only headline tour for this year, and we're so excited that we just can't hide it. All of the April and May tour dates can be found here.

I started this trip in Los Angeles. The only remarkable part of the million-hour flight was that I found myself seated beside the classic stranger-as-travel-partner who unfortunately possessed:

1) a divided septum.

2) a sub-par standard of personal hygiene.

3) the astonishing ability to chew his airplane meal so fiercely and skillfully that his chomps and slurps created a sonic frequency that managed to be audible through my headphones with Rufus Wainwright at full volume.

After arriving and settling in, I was to begin some 'co-writing', sight unseen, with two L.A producers who were selected for me by my UK A&R guy. I confess that I've always been somewhat skeptical of the whole LA 'co-writing' scene: it always seemed very strange to me to be thrown into a room with another person, a piano and a computer and expected to 'create' some music that doesn't suck, when you don't know each other and one of you (me) has a very hit-and-miss relationship with songwriting at the best of times. Nevertheless, I was determined to give it a try. So on the first day I drove out to Silverlake, perilously drifting to the wrong side of the road, as though I were Yoshi and the entirety of Los Angeles was some fucked-up level of Mario Kart, to meet Jarrad and give this musical 'arranged marriage' a shot.

And, as usual, it turned out that my reservations were completely misguided.

Jarrad was rad. His studio was out the back of his house, a bungalow near Chevy Chase Boulevard, and we spent five days writing songs, challenging each other, looking at Rebecca Black's video on YouTube, tuning guitars, banging on trash cans, and becoming good friends. He also has a deep love of 'Summer Heights High' and does the best Jonah Takalua vocal impersonation I have heard.

When Megan comes back from America she will be travelling around Australia for her only headlining tour of 2011, supported by Deep Sea Arcade and Lissie (below). You can buy tickets here.

We recently featured you in our backyard feature in issue #39 – yours was by far the biggest! How big is it? We rent a huge chunk of land for half the price of a 'house' in the inner city, or whatever passes for the inner city these days, plus we have the arse end of a big valley all to ourselves. It's like 3000 acres or something. About an hour ago someone landed a helicopter next to the house. What was it like playing gigs around the time of Black Saturday when your house in the valley was at risk? Our house was due to get cooked about the time that we went onstage, so the gig was pretty sub par. We couldn't concentrate. We would have just gone home but Albury airport was closed because of the smoke. How do you feel that the Australian music industry has changed in the past five years? There are always good underground type bands like Kes Band or Love of Diagrams no matter what decade it is, but the larger bands now are all just so retro. I know that the stuff I've done hasn't exactly reinvented the wheel but I've never set out to replicate anything. Remember Midnight Oil? They were huge without being a Sabbath or an AC/DC clone. What happened? What would you change about the industry if you could? I'd remove the entrenched fear of imagination. But it's a very Australian trait. You'd have to put LSD in the water supply.  How do you compare yourself up against the older song writing greats of Australia like Paul Kelly? What do you have left to learn? I don't bother with the universal thing. I look and sing like a Muppet, so why even pretend? I just find the gaps and use them up. I try and go where no one else has gone, song writing wise/lyric wise. Then I put it all together and shove a rocket up its arse. What non-musical skill do you wish you had? Astronaut skill. I would prefer to be an astronaut than a musician or anything. What lesson have you learned in life now that you wish that you learned earlier? Don't smoke. Quitting is hard. And think for yourself. And floss your teeth. Brushing alone is bullshit. Think about that for 30 seconds and you too will floss regularly.

Gareth Liddiard is playing three more shows in Melbourne and Geelong this week, with tickets available here. His stunning solo album Strange Tourist is out now!