Tone Deaf

5 stories

Tone DeafScenesHowlin’ Country Unveils Two-Part Newcastle Festival With Rodeo Action and Live Music After two years of bringing country music to the Newcastle Foreshore, Howlin’ Country is going bigger in 2027 with a revamped format combining live performances and rodeo entertainment. The festival’s first Rock N Rodeo

September 15

Tone DeafScenesMedium Build Announces 2027 Australian Headline Tour Medium Build will return to Australia in January 2027 for a four-date headline tour in support of new album King of Having Fun . The project of American singer-songwriter Nick Carpenter will begin the Australian run at A

September 15

Tone DeafScenesGood Things Festival Reveals 2026 Sideshows The 2026 Good Things Festival sideshows schedule is finally here. The All-American Rejects, Millencolin, Ministry, P.O.D., The Devil Wears Prada, All Them Witches, Kami Kehoe, LØLØ, The Home Team, House of Protection, iv

September 15

Tone DeafScenesHow Empire of the Sun’s ‘Walking on a Dream’ Became the Hit That Wouldn’t Go Away The music behind “Walking on a Dream” came together in about 45 minutes, in Jono Sloan’s bedroom in Kings Cross. Then it sat on a hard drive. As APRA AMCOS recounted when honouring the song in 2024, Sloan eventually pass

September 14

Tone DeafScenesICEHOUSE Celebrate 40 Years of ‘Man of Colours’ With Australian Tour ICEHOUSE have announced a major Australian tour celebrating the 40th anniversary of their landmark album Man of Colours. The Australian rock veterans have announced six shows set for mid-2027, marking their first headlin

September 14

XLR is a magazine, a radar and a diary about music gear and the making of music — for the people who make records and put on shows, wherever they do it.

The name is the three-pin connector that every signal in the business passes through: the microphone on stage and in the booth, the line to the desk, the DMX cable that runs the lights. Studio, stage and lighting rig share it, and so does this magazine. Every few hours XLR collects what the makers shipped, what the reviewers heard, what the studios and the touring crews are doing, which producers and collectives are surfacing and what they are saying — synths and modular, plugins and DAWs, guitars and drums, microphones, monitors, PA and lights, the rooms and the people — from a few hundred sources in English, German, French, Spanish, Japanese and more, then plots what is moving. The editor writes a letter every few days. Nothing is sold here; when a link leads to a shop, that is the maker's shop, not ours.