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Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever

Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever tell us about what's keeping them occupied during COVID-19 isolation

We’ve been asking artists what’s keeping them occupied during coronavirus quarantine, and this one comes from Melbourne band Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever. The band’s Fran Keany, Tom Russo, Joe Russo and Joe White all submitted items, including TV series, movies, books and music. You can check out their list, complete with fun commentary, below.

Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever release their second full-length, Sideways to New Italy on June 5 via Sub Pop. You can check out “Cars in Space” and “She’s There” from the record below.

ROLLING BLACKOUTS COASTAL FEVER – WHAT WE’RE LISTENING TO, WATCHING AND READING DURING COVID-19 ISOLATION

Watching Luther Season 1 (Joe White)
I don’t watch a lot of television. This show is ten years old, I’m still catching up. It’s a British crime drama and it’s awesome. It has all your classic tropes – super tough cop that dashes the rule book to get the job done, terrifying bad guys, the bent cop that you just can’t stand. All the characters are really clever so you feel like you’re watching a brilliant game of chess – everyone thinking 3 steps ahead – but it’s heaps more entertaining than that.

Listening to Ween (Joe White)
I’ve jumped back in to Ween in a big way. It’s definitely a product of the times. They play with such freedom and fun and that’s what I feel like is needed when you’re all cooped up and isolated. I’m missing the joy of playing music with friends, of thrashing, loud guitar, and the feeling of freedom that comes with all that. Ridiculous music for a ridiculous situation.

Reading Blueberries by Ellena Savage (Joe Russo)
This collection of personal essays is beautifully written and full of incisive observations on contemporary society and literature. As with books you connect with most, at points it feels like she gives words to some half-formed thought you think you might have almost had, but when clothed in the perfect words it suddenly, miraculously makes sense and you understand with perfect clarity for the first time. They’re excellent.

Watching Twin Peaks (Fran Keaney)
The soundtrack, and the roaring stillness of the show – it’s bleeding into my iso life.. pouring a glass of milk and feeling sinister, brushing my teeth and maintaining eye contact with the mirror, thinking about who might have stolen the package from my doorstep, looking through my Venetian blinds at an empty street, listening with a cup to the wall while the neighbour talks to her sister for the third time today, all the while the soundtrack drones on…

Watching Porco Rosso (Tom Russo)
Rewatched this beautiful film, it’s a nice way to travel without leaving the couch. The wonder and magic of it are good antidotes to the grim daily news cycle. Any Miyazaki will do the trick really. It’s set in a fictional 1940s Mediterranean island realm, which is so beautiful I feel sad it doesn’t exist in our world. It has this kind of melancholy longing and mystery. It’s definitely in the canon of the best films ever about Italian fighter pilots who are also pigs.

Watching The Circus (Tom Russo)
It follows the rolling shitshow that is the US presidential election campaign, in almost real time. It’s both inspiring and depressing. A few things you learn: Most of the Republican candidates seem quite likeable and reasonable in person until they talk politics, Bernie Sanders’ wife Jane is probably the nicest and most down to earth person in the whole circus, the presidential campaign is a lot like an indie rock tour but with better transport. One morbidly fascinating aspect is watching the virus gradually enter the radar of the campaign in the last few episodes, as a minor distraction at first. In the final episode things are beginning to blow up, and it’s dawning on everyone that nothing will be the same again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kV7qm-jwd-8