golden barley

Tickets for the only Sydney show by Mick Medew and the Mesmerisers are selling - and how.

The I-94 Bar presents the former Screaming Tribesman and his all-star band at Marrickville Bowling Club on Saturday, November 5 with support from the impeccable powerpop stars The On and Ons and fuzz-fiends Jupiter 5. Grab yours here. 

Mick Medew and the Mesmerisers will play a free show at Mayfield Bowling Club in Newcastle on Friday, November 4 with support from local heroes East Coast Low and Mick Medew and Ursula.It's free admission and you can see the Facebook event here.

Mick Medew and Ursula will launch their "Love Is Calling" album with a free Sunday show at The Golden Barley Hotel in Enmore on Sunday, November 6 from 6pm. Facebook event details here.

It’s renowned as one of Melbourne’s most spectacular rock and roll shows and it hits Sydney’s Factory Theatre at Marrickville on Saturday. Epic Brass is the brainchild of Hunters and Collectors horns man Jack Howard and employs a stellar cast of underground stars to showcase the songs of the Saints, X, Laughing Clowns, Painters and Dockers, the Hunnas and Midnight Oil.

Former Sydneysiders Ron Peno (Died Pretty), Steve Lucas (X), Penny Ikinger (Wet Taxis) will join Jack Howard and Fiona Lee Maynard, with John Archer (Hunters and Collectors) on bass and Ash Davies on drums. Tickets here.

If you’re of a resident of Sydney’s Inner-Western Delta, you won’t have far to catch two sideshows before and after Saturday. Steve Lucas plays a free solo show at the Golden Barley at Enmore from 8pm on Thursday night with Penny Ikinger backing up at the same venue at 7pm on Sunday, also gratis.

_{The Subterraneans performing at Sydney University in 1986. From left to right, Peter Coutanche (X, Kamikaze Kids), Marty Willson-Piper (The Church), and James Griffin.
Photo, Kim Sandeman.} 

James Griffin, onetime inner-Sydney underground music household name now living in Melbourne, is poised to play his first show in living memory in his old hometown of Sydney this month.

Griffin will play the Golden Barley Hotel in Enmore solo on Sunday, May 19, reprising his extensive back catalogue of work with The Subterraneans, The Agents and as in his own name.

A successful poet, songwriter and broadcaster, James Griffin began his performing and songwriting life in the  early '70s. Originally an alt-folk/punk-folk solo acoustic artist, he built a successful live performance career around such songs as "20th Century Blues", "I Smoke Money", "I Don't Think I Drink Enough", "I thought It Was You On the Boulevard" and "Australia's Just A Suburb of the USA".

Pat Todd
+ Mad Macka
Golden Barley Hotel, Enmore, NSW
Saturday, 25 November 2023 

Australian music legend and label owner Sebastian Chase once said to me: “Punk rock is folk music with volume - street music, if done right”. And with local bands like Cosmic Psychos and X, a case can certainly be prosecuted that street music and its stories can be  found in bars and pubs across the land.

Mad Macka has played his fair share of pubs and bars for almost 40 years, originally with The Onyas and lately with Cosmic Psychos. Macka’s music mirrors what you’ll still see and hear in drinking establishments across the land: cynical yarns by blokes on the punt and into their sixth schooner.

Remember tours? Thee fuzz-toned and fabulous Cha Cha Chas have escaped the Victorian lock-down and are bringing their one-woman-one-man-band goodness to New South Wales this month.  

“The Day Is Done Tour” kicks off on June 4 at Link & Pin in Woy Woy with The Not Nots, The Mild Times, Space Boozzies and Imaginary Things, and spans the following two weekends with gigs in Newcastle and Sydney. The band escaped Victoria before the COVID-19 drawbridge went up late last week. 

Thee Cha Cha Chas, comprising Kylie and Lluis Fuzzhound. have been tearing up stages in hometown Melbourne for years with their gravel-rash-guitars-and-deadbeat-drums sound, and busted an EP, “It’s Coming After You”, out of the morass that was lockdown in early 2020.

The I-94 Bar has a hand in organising two free gigs at The Golden Barley Hotel in Enmore. Mark down Sunday, June 6 and a return bout on Sunday, June 13 for double doses of all the lo-fi rifferama your head can handle. June 6 finds them matching primal beats with the rough and raw Dunhill Blues as supports, while June 13 they’ll have the Sabbath-in-the-garage sounds of Jupiter 5 opening up. The tour is brought to you by Hog Wild Records and Outtaspace Presents.

The Cha Cha Chas
“Day Is Done” NSW Tour
JUNE
4 - Link & Pin, Woy Woy - June 4
+ The Not Nots + The Mild Times
+ Space Boozzies + Imaginary Things
5 - Mayfield Bowlo 
+ Dunhill Blues
6 - Golden Barley, Sydney
+ Dunhill Blues
10 - Frankies Pizza, Sydney 
+ Scatter Light + The Object Project
13 - Golden Barley, Sydney
+ Jupiter 5 

Clyde Bramley’s Top New South Wales Live Music Venues 2021

“The Magnificent Seven” (I’m sure there are many more out there, but I haven’t had a chance to interact with them over the past year!)

1. Marrickville Bowlo, Marrickville, NSW
The flagship Sydney venue at the moment. I particularly like the Sunday arvos with a very civilised 4:30-7:30 time frame. Richard Ball always does a sensational mix.