1.Your Profile
Hello, our name is Jakarta Criers. We don’t usually do this sort of thing, but we increasingly find ourselves seeking companionship in this melancholy world of ours. A little bit about us: we’re a fun-loving bunch of guys who enjoy sitting in dimly lit rooms drinking beer and listening to old cassettes from the ’90s (as the sunshine hurts our eyes). Although we are what you might call pessimists, we seek the accompaniment of sunshine girls with flowery dresses; the optimistic ying to our brooding yang. Must enjoy candlelit walks on the beach.
2. Keeping Busy
As if day-to-day life isn’t hectic enough, we have been doing all these things on top of that. We spent a week and a bit down in Sydney with the incredibly talented and all-round legend Jean Paul Fung, recording our second official EP – Regal Twin. On top of that, we have been doing the odd show around the South East Queensland area, which saw us head up to Toowoomba for the first time, which is a great place. Just recently we’ve ramped up our live presence, doing an east coast tour including Melbourne, Sydney, Byron Bay and our comfy old bosom in Brissie. Next year should be an interesting one for us – nothing too set in stone but something inevitably pops up and takes us in a new direction, no doubt including some new tracks.
3. Best Gig Ever
Every time we seem to do a gig, we rate it as the best gig we’ve ever done (and then forget about it two months down the track). So, in that spirit, I would have to say to say a show we did within that two-month timeframe down on the Goldie. The best shows are always the ones that you don’t have much expectation of – and this one was on the Gold Coast on a Sunday night carrying sizeable hangovers. But the crowd was large and awesome, the rider was flowing and we ended up having a real fun show.
4. Current Playlist
We have been mostly going to back to go forward with our current likes. Bruce Springsteen, INXS, Paul Kelly and Creedence Clearwater Revival have been mostly occupying our record players of late. That being said, we’ve got a thing for Eves The Behaviour and also Courtney Barnett, who’s bringing the love back to Aussie rock’n’roll poetry, which is awesome. Best recent gig would without a doubt be The Darkness at the Tiv a couple of weeks back. Those guys are just the right amount of hilarious and awe-inspiring musicianship that can make you watch them all night.
5. Your Ultimate Rider
We are an unfussy lot, just a simple rider of cold beers (not too cold), a carton of Peter Stivy’s Classic Blue (must be Classic Blue), water from the mountains of Peru and a bowl of M&Ms with the brown ones picked out. If not possible, a couple of free beers behind the bar and perhaps a parmy if we’re lucky.
TheJakarta Criers releaseRegal Twin is out now, and available through Bandcamp, and they play Oxford Art Factory on Thursday December 3.
