So the first line-up for what many thought would be the last St Jerome’s Laneway festival has been announced and I’ve gotta say it does look pretty good:

• Echo & The Bunnymen
• Florence & The Machine
• Black Lips
• The xx
• Daniel Johnston
• Sarah Blasko
• N.A.S.A.
• Eddy Current Suppression Ring
• Hockey
• Dappled Cities
• Mumford & Sons
• Radioclit
• The Very Best
• Wild Beasts
• Whitley
• The Middle East
• Kid Sam
• The Dirty Three

Mumford & Sons leaked earlier this week in a Tripe J interview that they’d be in the country for a “laneway” festival so that pretty much confirmed for me that the festival was still one… Definitely pretty keen to see Florence & The Machine, The xx, Radioclit, The Very Best (makes sense since Radioclit is there…), Hockey and of course N.A.S.A. So where has it moved to you may ask?

Farewell to the stinky lanes and hello to the banks of the Maribyrnong River...

Why the Footscray Community Arts Centre… No laneways in sight at all but at least we’ve been told the debacle of lockouts this year’s festival will no longer be an issue… I might as well list the dates and venues for the rest of country also:

Brisbane – Friday 29th January @ Alexandria St off St Paul’s Terrace, Fortitude Valley
Melbourne – Saturday 30th January @ Footscray Community Arts Centre
Sydney – Sunday 31st January @ Sydney College of the Arts
Auckland, New Zealand – Monday 1st February @ Britomart Station
Adelaide – Friday 5th February @ Fowler’s Live, North Terrace
Perth – Saturday 6th February @ Cultural Centre, Northbridge

Looks like the festival will make an appearance over in NZ also. Tickets go on sale next Friday 30th October at 9am from the Green Tix website.

Now I’ll try and keep this going as regularly as possible in the interest of public awareness and self dedication to a cause… Anyway, for your listen pleasure and social highbrow-ness, here’s a selection of tracks that have been copping the repeat a fair bit from myself this week:

Hockey – Too Fake

Hockey are a four-piece outfit from Portland getting a fair bit of hype and buzz culminating is a set at Glastonbury this year. Debut album is set for a late August release. They’ve been compared to The Strokes and LCD Soundsystem which isn’t exactly a bad thing… I hear a bit of Arctic Monkeys, The Rapture and that opening synth bop definitely reminds me of something the Conchords would do.

Umpire – Streamers

Umpire are a four-piece out of Perth who are rightly getting some decent airplay on Triple J. The single “Streamers” combines blissful, yet haunting vocals and purposeful indie guitar goodness. How does WA keep churning out winners like this? Thanks to the Voice Of Reason for bringing these guys to my attention. No sign of any Melbourne shows in the near future but I’ll definitely be catching them when they do.

The Very Best – Warm Heart Of Africa (Featuring Ezra Koenig)

The Very Best is collaboration project between Esau Mwamwaya and Radioclit (Divina Gosa anyone? – Switch!). They’ve released a free mixtape which you can grab off their MySpace which can be described as a mix of dance, hiphop, pop and traditional Malawi. This track features the vocals of Ezra Koening from Vampire Weekend who themselves are fairly influenced by the whole Africa sound. Thank you Paul Simon for opening up  the world to the sounds of Africa haha!

Lupe Fiasco – Shining Down (Featuring Matthew Santos)

What can I say? I loved the previous collaboration between the two and the feeling’s the same with this one. An epic sound coming off this single with the catchy guitar/synth riff throughout. I swear I’ve heard it somewhere though… Oh and the string arrangement in the third verse? Totally adds to the EPIC! I keep tell ya, 2009 is the year of EPIC! So yeah, “Shining Down” is the first single off Lupe’s upcoming album Lasers which there was talk would the last of his albums. Here’s hoping it’s not…

So that’s it for the first Weekly Tunage. Those links will probably stay up till the next installment or when the labels threaten to whoop my arse in court. In any case, if you dig the artist/music the go buy it whether physical/digital and go see them live. Your conscience and the artists will love you more for it!