melbourne

The Mark Of Cain - the band dubbed least likely in their high school year book - return to Australian stages this August in celebration of being the South Australian Music Awards' most recent inductee into the SA Music Hall Of Fame. 
 
TMOC join previous recipients like Jim Keays, Masters Apprentices, Glenn Shorrock, Cold Chisel, Archie Roach, Bart Willoughby, Sarah McLeod and The Zoot. The band will accept the award at a simple ceremony on August 19 at The Gov in Adelaids prior to taking the stage for a full career spanning set.

The Mark Of Cain will also play shows in Sydney, Melbourne this August under the banner “A Different Kind Of Tension”, a nod to legendary UK proto-punks Buzzcocks and their influential third album of the same name:

Legendary '70s Perth punk group The Victims - who introduced the world to both Dave Faulkner and his original drumming partner in the Hoodoo Gurus, James Baker – will say a final farewell with shows in Melbourne and Sydney in early December. 

The announcement follows the release of a new and final Victims single "Girls Don't Go For Punks"/"Victim", on esteemed Los Angeles label In The Red.

Since regrouping in late 2014 with uber  fan Ray Ahn of the Hard-Ons on bass, The Victims have released two vinyl records (an E.P. and the new single), as well as an anthology of their '70s classics, all on In The Re. They have also played a handful of shows on the Australian East and West both coasts. But now the time has come to say goodbye. 

A Perth farewell show, played in front of hundreds of heaving fans at the Rosemount back in June, was so great that plans were put into effect straight away to get the group over to Sydney and Melbourne. It just wouldn't have been fair to fans in both cities otherwise - including a new generation of '70s punk loving kids who need to see what the fuss is all about. 

The Victims play Brunswick Ballroom in Melbourne on Friday December 1,and the Crowbar in Sydney on Dec 2. And then they're done. Joining the band in both cities will be Wollongong's fantastic Chimers.

THE VICTIMS - LAST SHOWS
with special guests Chimers
DEC

1 – The Brunswick Ballroom, 
Melbourne
w/ Lice Trays
Tix on sale now
2 – Crowbar, Sydney
Tix on sale now

One of Europe's top trash garage and go-go weekenders, The Wild Weekend, is coming to Australia for the first time. The three days of monstrous mayhem will run in Melbourne. From December 31 to January 2.

Presented by The Luwow & Zombie Zoo Productions, The Wild Weekend has been held in Europe since 1998. This insane weekender has blazed a trail for other trash festivals across the world and brings a wealth of entertainment experience and an insane level of production detail to a crazy event.

Zombie Zoo Productions’ Skipper Josh and Babz Collins present a weekend of retro fuzz, crazy Ccstume parties and vinyl throwbacks, set in various venues in the Melbourne CBD. The Wild Weekend features top retro trash bands, gruesome go-go goddesses, deviant decor, dastardly disc-jocks, crazy cabaret, mad movies, a boat cruise to nowhere and the Surf-fink Swap-meet.

Full details and tickets are here. Here’s the band line-up:

_{Huxton Creepers in their '80s heyday.}

Combining elements of powerpop, grunge, and the sort of hard-edged rock ‘n’ roll that only comes out of Melbourne, the Huxton Creepers were one of the of the best bands in Australia in the ‘80s. With three well received LPs and non-stop touring, the Creepers, while only round for five years, certainly made their mark on the scene in Melbourne but also all over the country, playing anywhere and everywhere.

The Creepers are back playing a rare show at the Corner Hotel on Saturday, 27 August, along with other ‘80s legends the Gas Babies and Intoxica.

Huxton Creepers lead singer Rob Craw was happy to reminisce on the bands original run, and also what keeps them coming back for more.

A conundrum for you: If douche is a word for “an obnoxious or contemptible person” why don’t these guys suck harder than a top-of-the-line Dyson vacuum cleaner near a split beanbag?

The intent is obvious from the song titles and long before you first drop that stylus into the groove. The Douches want to wind music back to Flintstones days, stripping it bare until there’s just fuzz left on the bones. Thirty-somethings on drums, bass and two guitars. What you see in their artfully posed cover St Kilda Beach photo is what you hear.

Zappa rhetorically asked if humour belonged in music and the answer’s right here. Eight songs and there’s a droll dad joke in most of them. What’s not to love about the “primordial cordial” chorus in the song of the same name, especially when it’s about going on a bender?

Sonically speaking, Prehistoric Douche are Melbourne’s equivalent of Sydney’s Crusaders without masks and playing a little slower. The playground they’re both in is familiar but each brings something of their own to stand out from the rest of the kiddies.

Nothing succeeds like excess and this trio from Melbourne has the concept truly nailed on this seven-track EP, their second release. Studio leakage, a seething fuzz attack and enough strange aural samples to keep it weird, Fortress of Narzod actually turns over new turf in a well-ploughed paddock.

Nailing their colours to the mast of a boat occupied by bands like Sabbath, MC5, Union Carbide Productions and Dead Meadow, Fortress of Narzod comes across as an Antipodean, suburban version of all of the above. No war pigs or bustles in hedgerows here, Fortress of Narzod draws as much inspiration from Michael Moorcock sci-fi novels and video games as doom-laden minor chords.

Black Bats guitarist and singer Dave Houston is slightly apologetic about the name of his Melbourne garage-surf-desert-psych outfit, Black Bats. 

Back in 2015, Houston was putting together a surf-garage EP when, searching for a name for his bedroom demo project, he looked to the Halloween theme for inspiration. 

“I was going to call it Black Cats but then I thought that was a bit um … [laughs] so I called it Black Bats, just this one surf-garage EP, then the name stuck and I’m stuck with it! It’s a terrible name!”

It seems every Australian city had its underground "punch-above-its-weight" scene in the ‘90s. Hell, all of Charlie Marshall’s Melbourne band members here had serious form. That said, just because there’s a track record doesn’t mean there’s always gonna be magic. There might be concrete. Or salad instead.

In Marshall’s case, it’s magic. If you recall Harem Scarem in the ‘80s, well alright. But this ain’t that, and now ain’t then. If you’re a Nick Cave or Kim Salmon completist, you’ll snaffle this anyway (the presence of Warren Ellis and Jim White of The Dirty Three should send warning bells, and surely Brian Henry Hooper needs no introduction.) Same applies if you’re investigating Hugo Race ditto (Bryan Colechin of The True Spirit) and Darren Seltmann of The Avalanches.

This is an album awash with snarling, fuzzy guitars that sting sweaty skin like summer dragonflies and leak their business all over the place. The vocals are shout-sung in Spanglish to a tattoo of primal tub thumping. It’s self-described as the Stooges convening in a tequila bar - and that’ll do me.

They came out of nowhere, got cold feet and went back there again but Eddy Current Supression Ring still casts a shadow over Melbourne’s bustling garage rock scene. Mesa Cosa mines the same rich vein of suburban humdrum for their lyrical themes, but it’s in the direction of Spanish madmen Wau Y Los Arrghs!!! that they most frequently nod their musical hat.  

"Yesterday’s Town" is huge. You think you know where she’s going, but she doesn’t take you there. The lyrics are like a stripped-back novella. Suzie really nails the slow/uptempo dynamic with her romantic guitar and sweet and smoky (by turns) voice.

Suzie’s been going about her career the right way (photos, film clips  bios and downloads