Photograph by David Thai from Vancouver show

I arrived a bit close to 10pm and now regret missing out on Knightlife’s dj set along with Matt and Kim’s performance.  A brain fart lead me to believe 9:30 Club was opening at 9pm instead of 7pm.  But timing was just right as I arrived close to 10pm and after sorting out tickets with friends, we entered the venue.  Roughly around 10:10pm, Fred Falke’s remix of ‘Colours’ by Hot Chip was playing and alludes to Dan Whitford, Mitchell Dean Scott, Tim Hoey and Ben Browning heading up on stage to perform, better known as Cut Copy.

Being a complete n00b to music reviews, I thought it was a great idea to carry a printed excel spreadsheet of the tracks from In Ghost Colours.  Now I can only imagine how Dave feels lugging around a camera, a moleskin pad and getting stuck in a mosh pit as the end result of fantastic Aussie electropop.  Call it nervous preparation, but I’m just a stickler for playlists and being somewhat orderly.

The band commenced with ‘Hearts on Fire’.  If my memory serves me correct, they played that as an encore the last time around at 9:30.  By the time, the 4th single came on, Dan Whitford announced it would be a track from Bright Like Neon Love.  My nerd juices were overflowing with joy.  I was like “Guys, could it possibly be Autobahn Music Box?”  For those that haven’t heard this hidden gem off the debut album, please see this video.  My excitement lead to a bullseye guess.  Unfortunately, the crowd was not as ecstatic as I was.  Next up was ‘Sands of Time’, another hit that I secretively prayed that Cut Copy would perform.  “Sands of Time” was not released on either albums and much like ‘Autobahn Music Box’, receives a lot of playtime on mine and my homegirl SK’s iPod.  So it was a definite treat to hear a live rendition.

For one reason or another, the crowd this time didn’t have the same level of energy as seen at the Black Cat and the last Cut Copy show with the Presets.  That is until the Dan Whitford asked if DC  was ready to get our dance on.  From tracks 6 through 14 ending with “Lights and Music”, the crowd went pulled a 180 and everyone was getting into Cut Copy.  At one point, a patron was seen crowd surfing from center left nearing the stage.  So even with a less receptive crowd towards some songs, dare I say another 3peat victory for Cut Copy?  I’d think so as do the not so gentle 6′3 and above giants that blocked my homegirl’s and my view.  Many Thanks to 9:30 Club for hooking it up, and be sure to check out www.930.com for a list of all upcoming shows as well as keeping it locked to Killahbeez as we will continually have ticket giveaways in conjunction with the 9:30 Club.

On a different note, Cut Copy’s US tour will continue down South all the way to Miami’s Ultra Music Fest.  However, those that would rather avoid a massive like environment should head down to Rokbar for Onitsuka Tiger’s party which also features a Cut Copy as well as Presets dj set.

Vancouver, Commodore Ballroom, Thursday, October 9th, presented by Sealed with a Kiss. The final leg of the Cut Copy & The Presets North American tour officially dubbed “Modular presents Cut Copy & The Presets”.  The tour kicked off on September 13th and embarked on a 20-date tour across the US and Canada, before both label mates, Cut Copy and The Presets, go their separate ways overseas. This wasn’t the first time either groups have stopped in Vancouver as The Presets have made their way here several times and this was Cut Copy’s second stop in Vancouver in the same year.

Kicking and Screaming

So right off the bat I have to say I missed a few songs from The Presets, not due to tardiness or troubles at the gate, but that’s neither here nor there. When I finally did get in it was a party atmosphere as I could feel the dance floor from underneath me moving as if it were a small wave. When I made my way up to front I could see drummer Kim Moyes standing in front of his drums and riling up the crowd and getting as much energy as he could, while Julian was doing his thing on the keyboard.

They performed an array of songs as they went through “This Boy’s in Love” and “Kicking and Screaming”, this particular song had the crowd going wild and literally kicking and screaming as Kim left his drums for the song to switch up instruments and as my friend AJK said “freaked it on what looked to be the analog synth staple, the Korg MS-20”. Kim would do this throughout the night, abandoning the drums for the Korg MS-20.

Other recognizable jams that they performed were mostly off of the Apocalypso album such as “Talk Like That”, “Together” and “My People” which again had the crowd singing along and wilding out hard. A mistake on my part, I was wearing a flannel shirt as it was damn cold outside, but I neglected to check this piece of blanket wrapped around me and damn near drowned in my own sweat from all the dancing with various peoples in attendance. The vibe was mad cool and chill, total party peoples in the house. As The Presets set drew to an end, drummer Kim threw out his drumsticks for a few lucky fans and Julian thanked the crowd for their energy and supporting the music.

Lights and Music

After a brief 10 – 15 min intermission the stage lights went down and through the darkness you could see Mitchell, Tim and Dan walk out on the stage and assume their instruments as the noise level in the venue cranked up to a 50 on a scale of 1 to 10. In the middle of the cheers the group quickly went into “Nobody Lost, Nobody Found”. The energy was definitely incredible as the crowd was fist pumping and dancing along. As the song ended they went straight into “Far Away”, which is easily one of my favorite songs on the album, although I can honestly say I love most of the tracks off of In Ghost Colours evenly.

From there they flipped the script and took everyone on a journey back to their first LP, Bright Like Neon Love, and performed “Time Stands Still”. The set would continue with “So Haunted” and “Strangers in the Wind”, which would lead to the group taking a short break as Dan thanked everyone for supporting the group and showing them all this love, as well as mentioning that this was the final North American stop. At which point he said something that made me laugh so hard I almost peed myself, he yelled out “DISCO TIME!” and then Cut Copy went into “Saturday” from Bright Like Neon Love.

Continuing to jam through their songs including “Lights and Music” and “Future”, which quite a few people noticed was a punchier and more upbeat version then the original, this ended their set, but the crowd cheered louder and louder. The boys from Australia didn’t disappoint as they came back out and performed “Hearts on Fire” for their encore. The show was great, the stage setup, wonderful, a complete “Lights and Music” show.

After the show it’s the…

The official after party held at Republic was also being promoted by Sealed with a Kiss. The after party also featured a DJ set from Kim of The Presets as well as Tim and Dan from Cut Copy. But here’s where our story dies, as management from DHM told us that we were good to get in and indeed we were on the list. The problem really lied with their overzealous bouncer that decided not to let us in, even after knowing that we had promised DHM that we would review the after party. When we eventually did get in, 25 mins later, we had basically missed the DJ set from Kim. Nonetheless everyone was still buzzing from the concert and that’s all that really mattered.

The Presets played a great set and were entertaining throughout the night. This was also the case with Cut Copy as they really utilized the crowds energy by putting their all into the set. Although I will have to say that I would have loved to have heard more older tracks specifically “1981″ and “Rendezvous”, but I can’t complain the performance was, for a lack of a better word, awesome. A big thanks goes out to Malcolm at Sealed with a Kiss, check out their website for a list of upcoming shows, www.sealedwithakisspresents.com.

If you like the review please vote for me here.

Peace.

David Thai
www.killahbeez.com

P.S.: Pictures are here on Flickr: www.flickr.com/photos/killahbeez

P.S.S.: As usual I try and get the playlist for all you folks out there to re-live the experience or for those that didn’t make it to have an idea of how the set broke down. Since I missed out on a portion of The Presets set, I will only be able to provide Cut Copys list.

• Nobody Lost, Nobody Found
• Far Away
• Time Stands Still
• So Haunted
• Unforgettable Season
• Strangers in the Wind
• That Was Just A Dream
• Saturdays
• Feel The Love
• Out There On The Ice
• Lights and Music
• Future
• Hearts on Fire – Encore

Going to see Cut Copy with The Presets tonight and am pretty amped up. I’ve been listening to some old Cut Copy stuff to brush up and came across this track “1981″. Yeah I know Cut Copy isn’t that old, but hell this track came out in 2001, that’s 7 years. Here’s a brief history lesson. Cut Copy was a side project that Dan Whitford, then a DJ and graphic designer, started and  from there released the EP, I Thought of Numbers. From there he recruited additional members Tim Hoey, Mitchell Scott and Bennett Foddy (left group in mid-’04) in 2003 and released their debut LP, Bright Like Neon Love. Then in 2008 came the release of In Ghost Colours and the eventual acceptance from mainstream media. Anyways check out the video above and hear where the sounds of Cut Copy originated and after that, go and check out our interview that we did with them earlier this year in May, here.

Here’s the official and just released video for Cut Copy’s “Hearts on Fire” from the In Ghost Colours album. The one some of ya’ll may have seen with the girl riding around on the bike and masked people was made for a Nokia contest I believe.

Note that I also tagged this video for the humor section – I got more than a few laughs from it.

The direction of the video was a real surprise considering the track is a real upbeat joint. Dan Whitford should consider doing some Aussie soap opera’s..he could be like the reverse-progress male version of Natalie Imbruglia.

People who know me on even an acquaintance level are well aware of how passionate, critical and even borderline asshole I can be when it comes to opinions on music and giving out my self-proclaimed coveted stamp of approval – so any insinuations of a fluff piece can be checked at the door.

With that being said, my proverbial ink pad has almost run completely dry with how much I’ve been frantically stamping away at everything Australian trio Cut Copy has put out ever since I became aware of them earlier this year. They’ve been around for a minute now, so I had some backtracking to do once I was introduced to their recently released 2nd full-length album In Ghost Colours and its inspirational precursor Dj set So Cosmic.

After digging up some of their previous and equally amazing material, I became even more interested in how these guys put together such a distinctive album this go around and I was able to squeeze in a sit down with them to remedy that curiosity just a few hours prior to their April 29th, 2008 show in Vancouver, B.C.

Click on through for the exclusive interview.

How did the three of you originally meet and how long was it before the group came about?

Tim: We were kind of just all friends. Dan had started Cut Copy as a studio production solo project and we just all knew each other through various people. Originally, I used to live in a small town around South Wales and Dan used to come up there on holidays and stuff. Then, we both separately moved to Melbourne. I went down there to go to art school, and yeah, Dan kinda started writing Bright Like Neon Love. He kind of got us around to add, I guess, the more organic sounds to the record that he’d written the majority of on the computer, and it just became what it is now.

So, were you guys were heavy into music since childhood?

T: Never played ‘till later on…

So no classical training or anything like that?

Mitchell: No, not like playing instruments.

Dan: That’s almost the opposite of our approach. Ya know, the whole point of this is, we kind of just taught ourselves to play instruments. That’s the contrast between the sort of perfect studio stuff and the sort of loose and live aspect of Cut Copy that adds a dynamic to the music.

In Ghost Colours plays through much like a mixtape in terms of cohesiveness and transitions from one song to the next. How much did having a DJ in the group play into the executive production of the album?

D: I think that’s probably not something I would’ve thought of if I wasn’t into DJ’ing and mixtapes. Perhaps the idea or just the way its put together is sort of reminiscent of maybe all the records, like Tangerine Dream or, you know, records where the whole side of a piece of vinyl would be continuous music you could zone out to and get into that way. It’s not so much beat-matched, but it does flow.

This album seems to have more vocals relative to its predecessor Bright Like Neon Love. Did you find a huge difference in the creation process this time around considering you had to write more lyrics?

D: Yeah, I think so. I don’t even know whether it was something I really thought about. It just seemed to naturally turn out that way. A lot of the stuff with this record wasn’t really some sort of master plan for us. It’s just the way things turned out. The fact that the record flows together is just something we ended up doing. It wasn’t a decision from the outset. Same with the extra vocals and probably the more layered guitar stuff and live drums – it just happened really organically and crept up in a way I guess.

You guys give a lot of credit to other artists for inspiring your music. What is some of the music you had in heavy rotation during the period In Ghost Colours came together?

D: I guess with the guitar stuff, My Bloody Valentine and some of that Shoegaze guitar sound. Lots of Krautrock as well, Cluster– a lot of those bands. I guess current dance music in general as well. A lot of the DFA stuff, which we were pretty inspired by and obviously having Tim (Tim Goldsworthy – DFA’s in house producer and LCD Soundsystem member) as a producer on the record as well. I could probably keep going…(Laughs)

It’s endless I suppose… That being said, the album has a very retro/dance feel but still sounds very much ahead of the curve. Did you go out and really hunt for new/vintage gear and synths to capture that particular sound?

M: Going over to the DFA studios, they’ve just got so much gear there that you can’t nearly get through it all really.

T: They did all the hunting for us.

M: Yeah, and there’s always new stuff arriving. They’re always just buying, collecting and hoarding stuff. Yeah, there was just so much for us to experiment with and to get new sounds out of and sort of adapt to what we’re doing. So yeah, a lot of that was done for us, but I mean, also, Dan bought a bunch of new synths.

D: Yeah, I spent all my money on sort of three synthesizers – probably $7,000-$8,000 worth. They ended up all over the record. I think it helps the particular kind of music we make. Buying new gear and that sort of thing almost shapes the way a record can sound. The creative rush you get just finding something new can end up influencing the sound of the record. So I think, yeah, the equipment probably played a big part.

Some of the interludes were recorded and cut from four track tapes. Any particular reason you guys went analog for these sections of the album?

D: Umm, I guess it’s sort of nice to have a contrast of lo-fi and hi-fi stuff to a record -different types of recording on an album. A lot of my favorite music is really poorly recorded. Like Guided by Voices or Ariel Pink – amazing songwriters where the studio polished aspect is left out. I kind of find that side of things interesting, so I think it’s sort of nice to have a bit of contrast of different recording sounds in there.

You guys just played Coachella – How did that go? Any artists that stood out to you guys out there? (Note: Prior to sitting down, the guys had mentioned that they hadn’t had much of an opportunity to watch other acts at Coachella due to the fact that they had shows in San Francisco and Portland the following nights before reaching Vancouver)

D: We had a great show. We didn’t really get to see anyone else (laughs). We can’t really speak for any of the other ones. But yeah, it was obviously quite hot in the middle of the desert, but apparently, the day that we played actually wasn’t that hot compared to usual. It was really good, like the crowd was jumping around and going nuts, and it was sort of everything we would’ve hoped for from a first show like that, so we were really thrilled with it.

Did the crowd seem really familiar with your music? A lot of people singing along and such?

All: Yeah, yeah.

D: We had a full tent, so we couldn’t have asked for more.

As I’m sure you guys know, once you play at SXSW and Coachella, you’ve pretty much “arrived” in North America. Having the new album debut at No. 1 back home in Australia and a fan base rapidly building in North America, is there any particular region you guys plan to target next for touring and exposure?

M: We’re going to come back here in the fall. We’re doing our tour now and our shows have all been really good. A lot of people coming out and enjoying the shows, enjoying the record and I mean, yeah, it’s really great for us. We like being here, and later in the year, we’re going to come back and just see some of the people that came to the shows this time around come back again and add some more songs from the record and keep working on our live show.

Are you guys thinking of maybe hitting Europe a lot more?

T: Well, our record is coming out in Europe really soon, so we’ll spend a lot of time there… In the U.K., obviously, hopefully Asia – kind of everywhere. That was always the idea when we put the band together. We’d take it as far as we possibly could and kind of get to every corner of the world that’ll have us.

Right, right, they call you and you guys are ready to go!

T: Yeah!

M: Except we want to make sure we get around to making the new record.

Are you guys already working on a new album?

D: Well, we got our touring and then some solo records.

Dan, you designed the album artwork. With Cut Copy’s international profile growing exponentially, do you still find time to work on graphic design?

D: Not so much at the moment to be honest. I mean, I have in the past. It’s been a while since we worked on this record at home. When we’re back in Australia, I work as a designer. I’ve got my own business that does a lot of artwork for MTV and sort of various other people. It’s sort of something I have to step in and out of. Obviously when we’re touring, it’s a bit hard to run things. But yeah, definitely when I’m at home, it’s sort of good having that totally separate creative outlet. It kind of keeps you a bit refreshed. I think doing that and coming back to music and vice versa, you sort of end up hopefully cross-pollinating a little bit.

What about you guys? Do you have other focuses besides music that you’re quite heavily involved with?

M: I’ve got a web development business sort of similar to him (Dan), and yeah, it’s pretty similar in that respect.

T: I’ve studied Fine Arts at university, but yeah, kind of like everyone else, I don’t really have that much time for it. Like, I’ll do stuff at home but never to the point where I could get an exhibition or anything together at the moment. Plus, I’m kind of actually learning stuff about music at the moment. I kind of spend every second I’m not touring trying to learn something new to apply to the next record or whatever. Its kind of a full time thing at the moment, but certainly the visual aspect of Cut Copy is a very important one. We spend a lot of time with artwork and visuals for the show. At times, it’s just as important as what we put on record as well.

And of course, the inevitable… What’s your take on the current state of the music industry?

T: It’s not much of an industry anymore. It seems very open.

D: It’s kind of like the Wild West!

T: Only the strongest survive!

D: I think that the internet has blown it all open. Like blogs, file sharing and all that sort of thing.

M: It’s a tougher thing for producers, but I mean, for bands playing live… there is a really good audience for bands playing live at the moment. There are some upsides for it, but as far as record labels, I guess its tough conditions for them – trying to make money with less people buying records these days.

Personally speaking with regards to you guys, I was exposed to Cut Copy purely via online.

M: Oh yeah, a lot of people are.

D: Well, just commenting on over in Europe, our new record hasn’t come out there and we had people singing the words to all our new songs and that sort of thing. So it’s like, you don’t need a physical record out for people to know about you. For a band, it’s great, but for a record label, it’s not so good. But I mean, hopefully people will still buy our record (laughs).

I think a lot of it is, when fans know a little bit more is going to the artists, I think they’re more inclined to purchase. I guess that kind of keeps you guys on your toes to put on a really good live show.

All: Yeah, yeah!

Cool, I think we’re good, thanks guys.

All: Cool, thank you.

And so there you have it people, an interview with Cut Copy, the band that created In Ghost Colours, a masterpiece musical journey that a lifelong Hip Hop head ranks amongst his top albums of all time – right up there with Nas‘ Illmatic, Biggie’s Ready to Die, Jay-Z’s Reasonable Doubt and even Michael Jackson’s Thriller. Yup. For Real.

For more on the group check out their blog at cut-copy.blogspot.com or hit them up on Myspace at www.myspace.com/cutcopy.

*Edits: Mona Alice Oakenfold aka Michelle.