sunnyboys

2023 Top Ten(ish)

Gigs

The Smart Folk/ The Golden Rail/ The Autumn Hearts, Marrickville Bowling Club, NSW. A bittersweet occasion for me as a member of The Smart Folk but it was a great night thanks to the stellar support of The Golden Rail and The Autumn Hearts.

The Apartments/Halfway - The Great Club, Marrickville, NSW.

Raising Ravens/DOWNGIRL/Gaia Rising: Marrickville Bowling Club, NSW.

The On and Ons/ Penny Ikinger Band: George Lane, St Kilda. Great venue, great bands, great company.

The Silversound - Brunswick Ballroom, VIC: Mind blown, album immediately purchased.

Snarski Circus Lindy Band - The  Great Club

Jo Meares’ Silver Bullets - The Gasoline Pony, Marrickville, NSW:  Jo brought his Melbourne combo with him and wow, did they deliver.

Dane Blacklock and the Preacher’s Daughter: The Duke Hotel, Enmore, NSW: Satanicabaret!

A  busy year for SoundPressing. A couple of 7" singles, a show here and there, an LP and a three-stop tour of SE Queensland with the one and only Mr Charlie Owen.

Here is a lil recap in no particular order. Thanks to everyone who came to a show or bought a record.

_{The Barman on tour in Japan at Mr Death's Crampstore with The Grand Wizard of the Psychotic Turnbuckles.}  

Top Ten Albums and Other Things In No Particular Order (with a qualifier that I never review gigs promted by the Bar but, fuck that, it’s my Top Ten.)

Ten Albums
1. Dark Country – Sonic Garage (self released)
This turned up on the eve of an overseas trip so a full review from yours truly isn’t among the glowing tributes already posted. A step up on the debut (which was pretty good in its own right) with lots of weaving guitars and classy keyboard textures. Sydney Old Man Rock and Roll. Just buy it.

2. Hackney Diamonds – The Rolling Stones (Rolling Stones Records)
You might have wanted to hate it. Lead “single” “Angry” was so-so but turned out to be one of the parts of a sum that’s much better than it could have been. There's a formula here but it's not a negative when it's in the hands of its inventors. Trust your own ears: It sounds contemporary but this is still The Stones being the Stones, even without Charlie.

This record is so smart it should have lifetime membership of Mensa, but its a cleverness that's never snobbish or intellectual. Mr Flabio sits back, tongue in cheek and pen at the ready, and takes aim at the directionless, the Interwebs generation and yes, you and me, with withering accuracy. This is melodic fuzz guitars played at stun volume and Mr Flabio’s sardonic barbs are meted out with sugar hits embedded in their pop hooks.

Let’s get this out of the way up front: “We Will Riot” is a grunge record. It’s just gone 2015 and someone is actually making a grunge record? What the fuck’s grunge anyway? You expected Silverchair with short hair? Nirvana wearing nursing home pyjamas?

Mudhoney says Kim Salmon invented it and who are we to argue? When you got down to it, grunge was really just a bunch of tuned-down metallised guitars and anguished punk rock vocals with shithouse dress sense. It got the major labels a little too excited and wiped the musical landscape clean for any other form of rock and roll – and not necessarily in a good way.

In days to come, when rock and roll has finally been relegated to the cultural nursing home to be read its last rites. It'll be a nice room with dappled sun, shared with other old cogders like Jazz and Rolling Stone magazine.

People will reflect that some of its best times were in Sydney in the late 1970s and early ‘80s. They’ll also realise how good things were, and how easily they slipped away.

This wasn’t going to be one of those high faultin’ essays on the fragility of cultural scenes and the futility of trying to recapture them (because, you know, things can never be like they were.) About how you can’t put your arms around a memory. Telling you: Don’t Look Back. But a story "angle" can just happen.

Sometimes we try to bury nostalgia or pretend it’s not a valid thing. It’s so easy to hope you die before you get old when you’re in the full flourish of indestructible youth…and then you want to take it all back when you realise that the future's not so much uncertain and the end is increasingly near.

So let’s make the observation that if nostalgia isn’t so much the elephant in the room at the Enmore Theatre tonight then it’s taking up much of the available space in the foyer. And that's fine. More than ever, with so many people who were influential in rock and roll dropping off the twig. We all crap on about how bad 2016 was for that sort of thing but of course it's only going to get worse. 

Right: Sluggo from Flaming Hands under the Enmore lights. Shona Ross photo