tim hemensley

Finally seeing the light of day again and for the first time on vinyl, the classic 1995 Powder Monkeys album "Time Wounds All Heels" is about to drop.

Originally released on the Dog Meat label and comprising the power-trio line-up of Tim Hemensley, TJ Ray and John Nolan, the band at this point were an absolutely unstoppable force, a powerhouse comparable to the finest moments from the MC5, Motorhead and Black Flag.

_{Simon Juliff flanked by Jimm Sfeftos (left) and Joel Silbersher with Greg Bainbridge on drums.} 

Simon Juliff might be the best Australian songwriter you’ve never heard of.

Not that he’d ever be so egotistical as to suggest that. Or that it’d be easy to find evidence of Juliff’s songwriting. Indeed Juliff’s career is as sporadic as it is enigmatically impressive.

Juliff formed his first band, The Evil Dead, in his teenage years in hometown Melbourne, in the shadows of more prolific and now legendary Melbourne bands such as GOD, Powder Monkeys and Hoss, vehicles for Juliff’s high school friends Tim Hemensley and Joel Silbersher. Some years later Juliff joined with his younger brother Felix, bass player Dave Bryan and future Dan Sultan collaborator Scott Wilson in the three-guitar, country ’n’ rock band The Roys. 

Their ranks included Sultan for a while on drums and they released two criminally underappreciated records on Bruce Milne’s Infidelity Recordsbefore fading from view.

It would be more than a decade before Juliff’s songwriting rose to the surface again, this time via long-time fan and Dog Meat Records boss, Dave Laing. Indeed Laing was so impressed with Juliff’s unrecorded material that he decided to release his debut solo album, "Stars", on the rejuvenated Dog Meat label.

Patrick Emeryspoke to Juliff about his origins as a musician and recent re-emergence.

_{John Nolan (left) with Tim Hemensley and Timmy-Jack Ray in the Powder Monkeys.}

John Nolan, the former Powder Monkeys and Bored! guitarist and more recently member of Powerline Sneakers, has died. It is understood a family member found him earlier today in his Melbourne home.

The lanky, long-haired and wickedly talented Nolan was an elder statesman of the Melbourne underground scene. He initially rose to prominence in Geelong band Beyond the Magnolia Curtain in the mid-1980s. and went on to the twin-guitar line-up of Bored!

In 1991, Nolan and Bored! bassist Tim Hemensley (ex-GOD) left Bored! to set up the Powder Monkeys, who became one of Australia’s most fearsome - and infamous - outfits.