The Glimmer
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The Glimmer

Newtown, New South Wales, Australia | SELF

Newtown, New South Wales, Australia | SELF
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"New Best Kept Secret: The Glimmer (Australia)"

Latest pick of cool emerging artist in our ongoing collaboration with Sonicbids.



By Fred Mills



The BLURT staff put our heads (and ears) together and we have the latest pick for our Blurt/Sonicbids "Best Kept Secret": it's The Glimmer, from Newtown, in New South Wales, Australia. This makes our 18th BKS selection since commencing the program of spotlighting new and under-the-radar artists back in 2008.



The group is described in its bio thusly: "The Glimmer is a 4-piece rock 'n' roll outfit from Newtown, NSW, influenced mainly by the raucous rock & roll bands and sassy girl groups of the 1960s. With a sound that's grittier than Best Coast but prettier than The Dead Weather, ‘The Glimmer are the very model of a certain inner-west indie band. Bluesy, some frayed country around the edges, and for some flavour, add some surf guitar buzz and up-to-four-part boy/girl harmonies. Goes with the requisite rumble and swagger.'"





Pistols at Dawn by TheGlimmer





The Start A Fire album was released this past June. It was cut with Andrew Beck (Amiel, Modular Lounge) and the legendary Kramer (of Bongwater, Galaxie 500, Low, etc. fame) in Australia, and Kramer subsequently mixed it at his studio in Florida. The press immediately latched onto the guy-girl vocal mix, not to mention the deep, primal twang that reverberates through all the songs. And with a pure pop vibe at its core, the group clearly hearkens back to the mid-‘80s Australian golden age of alternative rock, but there's also a distinctive postmodern aesthetic at play too.



The Glimmer: Cassady, on guitar/vocals; Dereck, guitar/vocals; Nikki, bass/vocals; Jules, drums/vocals.



We'll have an interview with the band posted to the site shortly in which we let them fill you in on all this and more. Meanwhile, check out their official website or Facebook page for additional details as well as song samples. They're one of the good ‘uns, trust us. - Blurt Online


"IN THE SHADE w/BLURT’S BEST KEPT SECRET #18: The Glimmer"

"Kind of unique and a little bit isolated": talking to the Australian twang/surf/rock/noir combo about their debut album, the Down Under scene, its rich history, and more.



BY FRED MILLS



As previously announced, the latest selection in our Blurt/Sonicbids "Best Kept Secret" series of new or under-the-radar artists (www.sonicbids.com/blurtonline) is The Glimmer, from Newtown, in New South Wales, Australia. This makes our 18th BKS selection since commencing the program of spotlighting new and under-the-radar artists back in 2008.



The group is described in its bio thusly: "The Glimmer is a 4-piece rock 'n' roll outfit from Newtown, NSW, influenced mainly by the raucous rock & roll bands and sassy girl groups of the 1960s. With a sound that's grittier than Best Coast but prettier than The Dead Weather, ‘The Glimmer are the very model of a certain inner-west indie band. Bluesy, some frayed country around the edges, and for some flavour, add some surf guitar buzz and up-to-four-part boy/girl harmonies. Goes with the requisite rumble and swagger.'"



The Start A Fire album was released this past June. It was cut with Andrew Beck (Amiel, Modular Lounge) and the legendary Kramer (of Bongwater, Galaxie 500, Low, etc. fame) in Australia, and Kramer subsequently mixed it at his studio in Florida. The press immediately latched onto the guy-girl vocal mix, not to mention the deep, primal twang that reverberates through all the songs. And with a pure pop vibe at its core, the group clearly hearkens back to the mid-‘80s Australian golden age of alternative rock, but there's also a distinctive postmodern aesthetic at play too.



When BLURT reached out to the band to request an email interview, they quickly accepted, and then upon sending the answers back to us, disclosed that rather than sit down and type out their answers (a task that, typically, falls to either the acknowledged leader or frontperson or the most motivated/least slacker member), they rounded up a friend with a digital camera and proceeded to film the interview, responding to the questions directly, as a group. As you'll read below, this yielded a delightful give-and-take to the dialogue, and as they have also threatened to post the video online at some point in the very near future, you just may be able to eventually watch and listen to ‘em talking to Ye Olde BLURT in the (almost) flesh. Thanks, ladies and gents - this turned out to be one of the most entertaining "Best Kept Secret" interviews we've had so far.



The Glimmer: Cassady Maddox, on guitar/vocals; Dereck Cannon, guitar/vocals; Nikki Ponymeadow, bass/vocals; Jules Hernandez, drums/vocals. Check out their official website or Facebook page for additional details as well as song samples.





Pistols at Dawn by TheGlimmer







***



BLURT: I lived in Arizona for ten years, and if I didn't know you were from Australia I'd swear you were from the desert, or at least had spent some formative time there, baking in the sun and rustling up some Twang-Noir tunes... Giant Sand, Calexico...



CASSADY: Well, Australia is kind of a big desert.

NIKKI: Yeah, and I do a bit of baking in the sun.

CASSADY: Yeah, you do. Not me, I'm too pale and pasty white to go outside, but yeah, doesn't it have the most desert...?

NIKKI: Most uninhabitable, arid land of any country in the world.

JULES: At least the Southern Hemisphere.

CASSADY: That's why we have all those weird animals and bugs that everyone in other countries are so scared of.

NIKKI: But we also have the desert with the ocean.

CASSADY: Which is why we're Surf Noir... and [Giant Sand's] Howe Gelb, we haven't met him personally but our friends' band, Wifey, supported him at The Factory.

CASSADY: We don't have rattlesnakes - 'though, that'd be cool, if we had rattlesnakes!

DERECK: It's hot and dry, and a lot of the songs that are on the album were written in the middle of summer in a - Blurt Online


"Twangin' the Pop Wave by Michael Smith"

CLASSIC '60S 45S, SHORT ATTENTION SPANS, TALES OF LOVE AND LUST - THEY'RE ALL PAR FOR THE COURSE FOR THE GLIMMER, AS MICHAEL SMITH FINDS OUT FROM NIKKI PONYMEADOW, CASSADY MADDOX AND DERECK CAMERON.

There's obviously a big passion for the sounds of the '60s in The Glimmer, with elements of everything from Dick Dale to The Mamas & The Papas and even a touch of Janis Joplin evident in their debut album, Start A Fire, which is very much a jangly yet loving paean to that whole era.

"I guess I learned a lot of stuff through these guys, and Cass particularly," bass player Nikki Ponymeadow Savvides begins. "She's always been into it, but some of it is stuff my parents listened to , so it's kind of got a real connection to childhood. And there's a sort of warmth about it too that I like; something genuine about it."

"My mum had a massive stack of 45s," the aforementioned singer and guitarist Cassady Maddox explains, "and I just listened to them one by one, kept the ones that I really liked [laughs]. I guess as a teenager you have such a short attention span. 45s just really worked for me. I always liked The Easybeats and that kind of stuff that makes you want to clap your hands. Really like The Shadows as well. I like instrumental surf music and stuff, I don't know, something about finding a good melody and putting a good beat to it. That's why we have that kind of 'combo' (vocal/guitar) version of Sleep Walk that kind of tributes the Santo & Johnny original, Betsy Brye, and The Shadows' version."

Another surf classic they cover is The Atlantics' Bombora which, much to their surprise, apparently went down a storm when they played it at the Wintersun Festival in Port Macquarie recently. They've recorded a version they're releasing soon as a B-side.

The Glimmer grew out of two parts The Charles Manson Experiment (The Mansons) - Maddox and guitarist Dereck Cameron - and "a very punky, grungy, garagey band" called Ruby Sue - with Savvides then on vocals/guitar. Maddox joined Ruby Sue before the two bands collapsed and the three decided they "wanted to be in a real band", as Maddox puts it, laughing.

"The opportunity came when their bass player left" Savvides continues, "and I'd just taken up bass, literally a matter of weeks before." With the addition of drummer Jules Hernandez, The Glimmer was complete - let the twangy guitars and spaghetti western sensibilities commence.

"It was never intended for us to sound like a Quentin Tarantino film," Cameron admits, "though that's what everybody keeps saying. I think it's because of the storytelling and the quirky guitars and melodies."

"And we get that live or recorded, we've always found," Maddox adds.

"All different things spark the songwriting. We write some of them together, two of the songs on the album came out of it being ridiculously hot during summer and they're kind of the slower ones, because you're moving, playing slower, Pistols At Dawn particularly..."

"Yeah, that kind of lethargy," Savvides remembers, "the heat filling your apartment. But I guess there's also an element there from movies or stories and that sort of stuff." "We've moved since then," Maddox takes up the story of the album once more, "but our old 'headquarters' had no real ventilation, it was above a shop - a cafe - and all wood; an absolute heat box. And then In It For The Money was just because somebody said to us, 'Oh come on, all musicians are in it for the money - you can't tell me you're not playing music for the money.' We just thought that was very funny..." "Oh it was hilarious," Cameron chips in dryly, at which point the trio laughs all too knowingly. "Yeah, rolling in money!" Which is why live, they often tack on their version of Money (That's What I Want). - Drum Media (Street Press Australia)


"Pistols At Dawn Review by Ross Clelland"

The Glimmer are the very model of a certain inner-west indie band. Bluesy, some frayed country around the edges, and for some flavour, add some surf guitar buzz and up-to-four-part boy/girl harmonies. Goes with the requisite rumble and swagger. And tunes like the well-organised Hatemail Blues shows they might have the songs there too. A few beers and watching them sweat at the Sando would probably be a good night out. If you remember it afterward. Good work. - Drum Media (Street Press Australia)


"The Glimmer - Start A Fire (Independent)"

Produced by Kramer (Bongwater, Galaxie 500, Low, etc.), Australian quartet The Glimmer take their name from a Mick Jagger /Keith Richards writing pseudonym, and their debut album certainly carries an early Stones R&B influence, though it’s just one of many. Surf, power pop, alt. country, ‘60s beat and a certain noirish quality pervades much of the material, and both the former and latter attributes have led to comparisons with the soundtrack collections of Quentin Tarantino. The fact that Kramer produced Urge Overkill’s “Girl, You’ll Be A Woman Soon” probably facilitated the association.

“Start A Fire” is the band’s debut, and although very much a product of their influences, it’s an utterly fresh and enjoyable record. All four members sing, and the two female vocalists Cassady Maddox and Nikki Ponymeadow bring a real dark twang to the proceedings. The songs, which cover revenge, sci-fi themes, and a lot of love-gone-bad, perfectly suit the mood. Look out for the single “Pistols At Dawn”, and the wonderfully titled “Cannibal Magnetism”. Countrymen, The Lime Spiders, would have been proud of that one.
www.theglimmer.net
Rob F. - Leicester Bangs


Discography

Start A Fire - album (June 2011).

Pistols at Dawn - single (June 2011)

"This Day Forward" pre-album release featuring Ratcat's Simon Day. (June 2010)

Photos

Bio

The Glimmer is a 4-piece rock 'n' roll outfit from Newtown, NSW, influenced mainly by the raucous rock & roll bands and sassy girl groups of the 1960s. With a sound that's grittier than Best Coast but prettier than The Dead Weather, “The Glimmer are the very model of a certain inner-west indie band. Bluesy, some frayed country around the edges, and for some flavour, add some surf guitar buzz and up-to-four-part boy/girl harmonies. Goes with the requisite rumble and swagger.” (Ross Clelland, Drum Media.)

The Glimmer name comes from the Mick Jagger/Keith Richards pseudonym "The Glimmer Twins". With their "surf western" stylings and "certain noirish quality" (Leicester Bangs UK), their music is often likened to the soundtracks to Quentin Tarantino's films.

The band has made a splash around Sydney with their strong stage presence and raw and contagious live energy. In the tradition of 1960s groups like The Animals and The Shangri Las they often play covers of classic rock 'n' roll songs in their set. In the past 12 months The Glimmer have played a number of diverse shows around town - in full band mode at The Sandringham, The Lansdowne, FBi Social in Kings Cross, The Annandale and The Townie, stripped back acoustic sets at The Union Hotel, and an extremely well-received apearance at Wintersun Festival in Port Macquarie, alternating original sets for the festival crowd with rock 'n' roll classics for the swing dance set.

The Glimmer released their debut album in July 2011 –“elements of everything from Dick Dale to The Mamas & The Papas and even a touch of Janis Joplin evident in their debut album, Start A Fire” (Michael Smith, Drum Media). The 12 songs were tracked with Andrew Beck (Amiel, Modular Lounge) and Kramer (Urge Overkill, Leader Cheetah, Bridezilla) at GigPiglet Studios in Redfern, mixed by Kramer at his Florida studio and mastered at Turtlerock Studios by Rick O'Neil.