Steven “Danno” Lorkin is an occasional I-94 Bar reviewer & photographer from Sydney, Australia. Cool Charmers guitarist. Mug punter.
Top 10 2008 (not in any order so stop pouting)Top 10 2008 (not in any order so stop pouting)
1) Asteroid B612; Not Meant for This World 2008 2CD reissue. This in my mind was real high point for the Asteroids, the song writing, the musical chemistry, Grant’s psychotic emotional vocals and of course the live shows were dynamite. The bonus demo tracks on this are as raucous as you’d expect.
2) From The Jam. The Forum Sydney. Hey, it was two chaps who use to be in The Jam backed up with some great players. They played Jam songs and played them bloody marvellously.
3) Stiff Little Fingers – The Forum Sydney. Christ who’d of thought Sydney would finally get SLF after all these years. I’ve dug the first 2 albums since they first got released. Every old school punk in Sydney must have been there.
4) Do the Pop Redux. Laingers (that’s David Laing to you) has done a great job in once again making available all these great Oz 70s + 80s gems. Keep em coming Dave!
5) Cool Charmers. Live + rehearsals + after rehearsal pub band meetings. Barman, are we still allowed to use these end of year Top 10 tens to promote our own bands? Good …cause I had a blast playing with this Sauvé bunch. Come to our next concerto Y’all.
6) Pete Wells Bodgie Dada CD. Pete’s final studio recordings before he left this world in 2006. Backed up by Rob Grosser and Lucy De Soto this CD really goes beyond what people have come to expect from Pete, at times weirding out ala Beefheart.
7) X at the Sando. Of course X are always great, even when they sucked they are masterful. Using borrowed amps and drum kit they weren’t their usual brutal self’s but still a great rock n roll show.
Hitmen reissues/gigs. Did the Shock reissues come out this year?? Anyway they were a fine tribute and salute to one of the rockin’ worlds most hated bands (everyone has a Hitmen story it seems)…and the gigs were great fun. Bizzos & Annandale were a blast. I hope this line up sticks together.
9) Visitors CD reissue + live at the Empire Hotel. Finally this great recording is available again (and with some brilliant photos in the booklet I might add) the Empire show saw Dr Deniz playing with a bizarre cooking injury which held him back a tad but they still blew the venue apart .
10) Roxy London WC2 Box Set. Six-CD set with all of the existing recordings from this infamous 70s UK Punk venue , These versions of The Adverts tracks are better then their studio recordings and hearing entire sets from the early Buzzcocks and X Ray Spex is a punk rock history lesson.
Honorary mentions – Tony McCann 7” EP on Zenith Records; Purple Hearts LP; 13th Floor Elevators Mono debut LP reissue; New Christs at the Annandale and the Bizzos; Sonic Youth Scientists double header at the Enmore; Tactics at the Annandale; Tactics reissues; The Residents Duck Stab 30th Anniversary reissue (shite how many of my top 10s are “ reissues” ?); Masters Apprentices Apprenticeship in the Garage 1966 CD, Hoody’s Birthday at the Excelsior; Angels reissues of the first 2 albums and SBS Doco on telly; Launch of Pete Wells album at the Bridge with Angry Anderson, Dave Tice and a cast of thousands; Judith Lucy at Glee Books; My DJ set at Take it or Leave It; Sham 69 at the Gaelic; AC/DC Black Ice
