Courtney Barnett, I like her

Anyone going to see her in London on the 10th of April?

oh man, i could well be tempted. my partner's also a big fan and it's her birthday week but we were planning on a trip to london earlier in the week anyway.

I'm going to the Cambridge gig on the 7th.

We might go to the Cambridge one instead

I hope the album is more like "Pedestrian" noisy thing

But I doubt it

http://grantland.com/hollywood-prospectus/courtney-barnett-writes-all-the-best-songs/

Pedestrian is striking me as some weird cross between Institutionalized & Parklife. Good stuff.

Her turn of phrase is really quite cringeworthy - "give me all your money and I'll make some orgami honey", "now we've got that percolator, never made a latte greater". I like the grungy sound of the first track but her lyrics just put me in mind of some self-lampooning sadsack character from a Lorrie Moore short story, except no way near as funny or sad or charming or well-written as that would imply.

I love that line and her delivery.

She can kind of sound like the inside of your head when it's four am and you've been trying to sleep since midnight, tangential and ranty and frustrated. Personally, I find it hilarious and really interesting.

I really liked Avant Gardner, but to be honest Pedestrian reminds me a whole, whole lot of Magic Dirt's foray into Aussie rock/rap "Vulcanella" and I can't really get that out of my head and it's not an association I want to make.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjB71I9to30

http://www.thedwarf.com.au/live_review/20736/courtney-barnett-secret-gig

previewing a lot of stuff from the albumn.

New album is great, no sophomore slump!

hearing a lot of decent aussie indie stuff lately. its in good health. i really like courtney barnett, dick diver and ausmuteants. any other good aussie stuff people can hip me to?

I like Dollar Bar.
http://dollarbar.bandcamp.com/album/paddington-workers-club

if you don't mind things in a new ordery/kraut direction, black cab's 'games of the xxi olympiad' album is excellent

also i've been digging dorsal fins, living eyes (labelmates with ausmuteants iirc), pearls (if you avoid the 2 crappy glam tracks on their album the rest is v good shoegaze), babaganouj (only a couple of singles out, but brings back welcome memories of peak half a cow days)

xpost

also multiple man are fantastic, but that's more of an electro/post punk (DAF/Cabs) thing

Recent Twerps album isn't bad

*holds tongue*

?

Jim - thanks for those recommendations. It's just hard for me to hear young bands and think:
Multiple Man - holy shit, someone's been listening to "The Crackdown" over and over. Not in any way meant as a negative!
Dick Diver - completely filling the hole left behind by The Go-Betweens.
Ausmuteants - Devo obsessives.
Pearls - as you described, solid shoegaze.

Nothing new in any of these sounds, but I've got them all queued up for further investigation in Spotify.

Courtney is coming back to Boston in May, and it's already sold out. Glad I saw her last year!

Ha, I find Lorrie Moore super forced and unfunny, but I really like Courtney B. I will give LM another go though.

The other Aussie band I know and love, also doing a great job of redoing old stuff, is Total Control. They fought it out with Ausmuteants for my favorite album last year (and won).

Was surprised to find that Courtney had never heard of Lorrie Moore. Goes to show that some similarities that seem obvious are coincidental.

I didn't know she has a girlfriend. Not that that matters in any particular way, just wasn't aware.

A little disappointed to learn "Pedestrian" is the noisiest thing on the album, but I bet I will like the record anyway. I like "Depreston" a lot.

they do work up a racket a bit

wikipedia sez

Current

Courtney Barnett – vocals, guitar, songwriting
Bones Sloane – bass, backing vocals
Dave Mudie – drums
Dan Luscombe – guitar

is it her or lunscombe that's playing lead?

on Ellen @ 4PM today!

is it her or lunscombe that's playing lead?

on which recording or performance?

the album

think it's luscombe on the new stuff. he seemed to be the shreddy one when I saw the CB band late last year.

'depreston' has seated itself in my consciousness pretty solidly. don't love it but I do find myself singing it...

I thought she seemed nervous and performance a bit watery and uncertain on Ellen.

not a whole lot of opportunities to perform on aussie TV any more

RIP hey hey it's saturday

The Footy Show didn't book her?

footy season hasn't started yet!

she's been around for years, surely could have played half a dozen times by now

crowding out Craig McLachlan's return slot

saw her last night at sxsw. was surprised a bit at how much she rocked, I had seen a live review that cast her show in a more psychedelic tint. really liked the new stuff, and there were a couple of honest to god pop songs in there as well, which I can't wait to hear. 3-piece show last night, but it was a BIG sound, and while there are probably a ton of guitars on record, live she does a good job of balancing rhythm and lead duties. played history eraser, are you looking after yourself and avant gardener off the double ep, and I'm guessing the bulk of the new one, with the exception of depreston-which probably would have dragged the pace a bit last night. if pedestrian is the biggest rocker on the new one I'd be surprised.

Was it a big crowd? Feels like she's getting a lot of buzz right now, would expect sxswers to respond.

200-300 maybe? Monday nights are weird to judge a crowd by, because interactive is winding down and music hasn't kicked off fully yet (Weds.).
which makes Mondays ideal for people like me trying get into a buzz show without the buzz crowds.

The album is streaming right now via iTunes which I don't use, report back please

yeah, listening to it on iTunes radio. What a pile of crap iTunes radio is-how does a company with $170-odd billion dollars sitting around have essentially stock photos for its channels?
That’s the best it can do? A magenta 'pop' icon? I would listen to 'ShamROCK' radio for the laughs, but I'm afraid the joke's on me.

After a couple of listens, I tend to think 'Sometimes I Sit and Think' is at its best when it's least predictable. 'Small Poppies' and 'Kim's Caravan' bring to mind Crazy Horse/Meat Puppets, and Small Poppies in particular is riveting. When she finished it last night she announced that she was terrified of playing that song ("I used to hate myself but now I think I'm alright")-it's perhaps the unhinged answer to the same question that 'Pedestrian at Best' addresses. Or maybe it just has a lot of changes. The super pop song is 'Debbie Downer', where she delivers some of her most pointed comments into an arrangement that recalls the Lucksmiths. Great stuff. This dynamic is probably summed up best by the 2 singles, Pedestrian at Best and Depreston; the former sounds like something she could write in her sleep at this point, but the latter, with its gentle guitars and subtle organ is incredibly moving. Still, she likes to rock out, and she's good at it, so who can complain? Not a huge step forward, but given how many other recent bands have wilted (The XX, Best Coast, The Pains, ad nauseam) or barely remained in place in the glare of today's Pitchfork/Twitter/ILX (heh) media spotlight, it's enough.

Do I hate her because I am Australian?

Yes

Possibly a dumb question, but it needs to be asked: is "Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit" the new "Tuesday Night Music Club"?

(I like her album, I'm just feeling an "All I Wanna Do Is Have Some Fun" vibe somehow)

Eagerly awaiting a Soak Up the Sun about dying seals.

I actually like TTTTT better than her debut. I think I prefer her in a slightly downbeat mode.

Wow, good thread, dunno why I didn't post here. 2015 ballot comments:

Back in Australia, Courtney Barnett, like her Melbourne neighbors Dick Diver, seems to have learned from the Go-Betweens, especially Forster (whose own, long-awaited return is mostly too much a nostalgic, watered-down recycling, though I do like the samba[?!]), re how to compress and clarify (with oblique strokes) her observational verses, and her guitar on the choruses, as she says, draws on Television, for bracing yet partial release from verse situations---partial cos she's neurotic(does have a sense of humor, though). The double-EP was lyrically denser, but also excellent.

Yeah, don't sleep on the double-EP! Not seeing much mention of it here.

I love Courtney Barnett! Just found out about her recently, totally scratches that 90s itch

Oddly enough, Split Peas is still the only release I know well. "Scotty Says" and "Anonymous Club" are what drew me in. I appear to be saving up whatever subsequent deep cuts 3RRR/3PBS haven't much played for a rainy day!

That 'stemmixer' thing posted 4.5 years upthread is superfab. My impromptu mixes of the first half of TTTTT have been bitchin' just now.

A few years ago I suggested via social media that she should cover “Waiting on a Friend” which didn’t receive a reply, but there’s a new song which has me wondering if she fooled around with it.

since of course I am the only person who has heard or would recommend that ultra obscure piece

Creature of Habit is the fourth studio album by Australian singer-songwriter Courtney Barnett. It was released on 27 March 2026 by Mom + Pop Music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPgaP3SJZKU

It's all on YouTube with striking mantis shots for those that don't have music videos made for them.

It's really good, the songs even held up really well without a rhythm section when I saw her at Rough Trade here in NYC. (She warned us she probably would skip the guitar soloing that's supposed to close "One Thing at a Time" (see above), which is a shame because the record has a great solo, but it was still very enjoyable to hear.)