Musicadium Blog

This week’s featured artists describe themselves as being akin to monkeys in stylish 60’s threads. One thing we did notice at the musicadium office is their nostaglic 60’s rhythm and blues sound are bound to make us go ape! Musicadium’s own Sarah caught up with the The Frowning Clouds monkey man, Zak, to chat about turtlenecks, stripey shirts and a little music thrown in there for good measure.

When one first listens to the Frowning Clouds  there is definitely a nostalgic 60’s feel to the music. As a band, what is it about this era musically that appeals to you?

The girls.

This passion for the 60’s extends right down through to your threads, and reviewers have often commented on your turtleneck sweaters. What is it about turtlenecks that you love? Surely they get a bit hot at the summer festivals?

Yes we do love to dress as nice as possible, turtle necks being one of our favorites. Although, in summer we wear shirt’s and stripey t-shirts more often than not, turtle necks do bring the sweat glands into overdrive.

You’ve been playing a lot of festival gigs over the summer, including The Boroughs and Sandcastles. Do you prefer to play these larger events over smaller, more intimate gigs?

We enjoy playing both just the same, intimate gigs suit our music alot more though. Having said that, festivals are heaps of fun!

You’re playing on the Laneway bill this year – what can punters expect from your show? Who else are you looking forward to checking out?

Yeah we are lucky enough to have the pleasure of JJJ choosing us as Melbourne’s Unearthed winner to play laneway this year, it was quite a surprise ’cause the drummer and I had already bought tickets to go and then we got a call a few weeks later so I’ll have to sell my ticket to somebody. We are all REALLY REALLY looking forward to seeing The Black Lips and Daniel Johnstone.

Lovin’ You 7” has been released through Spanish label Monterrey Records. How did this come about?

We recorded the tracks nearly a year and half ago for a label called ‘Stained Circles’, but we were slack and never got the front cover finished or anything so in the time it took for us to get photos the label had spent all their money on the Jay Reatard anthology (R.I.P). So we had these 3 songs and nothing to do with them, when a friend of mine from Spain who’s in a group called ‘The Phantom Keys’ told us of a friends label who had just started up and wanted to put out a 7 inch. So I just sent him some photos and the songs through the mail and about 2 months later a got a large box filled with about 300 Frowning Clouds 45s.

What artists both nationally and internationally are you excited about at the moment?

I can’t speak for everyone but I’m really into The Black Lips, Thee Oh Sees, The Last Shaddow Puppets, and nationally, I have a friends band from Melbourne called ‘The Process’ and they are really really good.

Finally, what does 2010 hold for The Frowning Clouds?

2010 holds our debut album release, which will be next month, a Sydney tour in early Feb and hopefully if all goes well we COULD be going over to play a garage festival in spain and some shows around a few other european countries.

You can check out The Frowning Clouds through their MySpace or Facebook and their EP is available on

This entry was posted on Monday, January 18th, 2010 at 1:26 pm and is filed under Featured Artist. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.