Pop tyros The Lemon Twigs stun in Sydney

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By The Celebrity Roadie

The Celebrity Roadie

29 October 2023

Hits: 3309

_{Lemon Twig Brian D'Addario.}

The Lemon Twigs
+ Jack Ladder
Manning Bar, Sydney
Saturday 28 October, 2023

Photos: Shona Ross

The Lemon Twigs are Long Island, NY, resident brothers Brian and Michael D'Addario and are on their second visit to Australia since 2017. They’ve been on the playlist in our house for four or five years at our youngest family member’s insistence and it was deemed compulsory we attend this show on their short tour.

The show at the Manning Bar was opened by Jack Ladder who had done a spot on the NSW Spencer P Jones Tribute bill a few years back. My recollection from then was that Ladder did a set of acoustic tunes solo and was well received. Tonight, he appeared in a duo with an Epiphone parlour guitar and an accompanist and started off in much the same vein. 

• manning bar
• lemon twigs
• Brian D'Addario
• Michael D'Addario
• jack ladder

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Highway 61 revisit their past

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By Ronald Brown

Ronald Brown

27 October 2023

Hits: 1848

Driving South – Highway 61 (Rum Bar Records)

The album only took 30 years, a pandemic and a bout of leukaemia to make. The reunification of these four friends three decades after they were a working band produced this very good collection of blues based rock ‘n’ roll. And thank fuck for that.

I love this album but, hey, I’m a bit biased, being a big fan of everything Frank Meyer, music-wise. Highway 61 is Frank Meyer (Streetwalkin’ Cheetahs) on guitar and vocals. Andy Medway on guitar, Mike Knuton on drums and Russell Loeffler on bass and vocals. 

Quick backstory: Playing the LA circuit in the early ‘90s, these blokes basically burnt themselves out. As Mike Knuton says, they were playing as many gigs as they could get. They split up but remained close. Then Andy Medway was diagnosed with leukaemia.

• frank meyer
• streetwalkin' cheetahs
• highway 61
• driving south

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Mutiny In Heaven a fitting and vivid celebration

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By Robert Brokenmouth

Robert Brokenmouth

24 October 2023

Hits: 5490

Munity in Heaven: The Birthday Party
Director: Ian White

Rating? Nine skulls and a pair of horns. Read on for an explanation.

Much to my Mum's surprise (yes, I have a mother. I was in fact born), the other day I apologised to her for all the skulls I brought home when I was a disaffected kid, aged nine or whatever, and placed these scabrous ornaments around my bedroom. There was a cat skull, a dog skull, a few lambs and calves, a pig, a snake and blue-tongue, and goat horns (but no goat skull). 

The area we lived in was countryside only a decade ago so there was a lot of paddocks nearby. I'd hop the ancient barbed wire fence held taut by termite-eroded chunks of wood, and spend most of the day walking. Saw a lot of stuff I probably shouldn't have. Found out first-hand - long before dissection class at high school - what bodies smelt like when dead and when torn open. Some really unpleasant dirty magazines.

• nick cave
• the birthday party
• tracey pew
• mick harvey
• mutiny in heaven
• phill calvert
• ian white

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Sonic Garage takes it to a new level

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By Edwin Garland

Edwin Garland

10 October 2023

Hits: 3485

Dark Country- Sonic Garage (self released)

Sonic Garage burst on the Sydney music scene about two years ago with "Asteroid", which what the best local single released in 2021.  The album it came from, “Space Travels”, was raw, tough street level Northern Beaches rock that referenced the Stooges, Dictators, and Radio Birdman.

It was a record from the tradition of that area’s melodic, guitar driven, gritty and surf-tinged music, in the tradition of the early Midnight Oil, Celibate Rifles and The Hellmen.

• hellmen
• sonic garage
• space travels
• dark country
• phil van royen
• peter bourke
• Peter Tifunovic
• Russell Parkhouse.

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Vale former Nitwitz and Hydromatics member Tony Slug

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By The Barman

The Barman

09 October 2023

Hits: 4654

 _{Tony Slug (left) up front with Scott Morgan in The Hydromatics.} 

Tony Slug, an elder statesman of European punk rock and in part responsible for reviving the legacy of Sonic’s Rendezvous Band in the late '90s and ‘00s, has passed away in Holland after a long illness. 

The imposingly tall and wildly humorous “Sluggo” (real name Tony Leeuwenburgh) played guitar with The Hydromatics and Dutch bands Nitwitz, BGK and Loveslug.

• sonics rendezvous band
• hydromatics
• hellacopters
• tony slug
• scott morgan

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Sparks still fly in L7's reformation

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By Patrick Emery

Patrick Emery

07 October 2023

Hits: 2410

_{Robert Fagan photo.}

By tragic coincidence, a few hours before my interview with L7 guitarist and singer Donita Sparks, news broke of the passing of Irish musician and songwriter, Sinead O’Connor. 

At first glance, the association between L7 and O’Connor is opaque: L7 was a hard-rocking, all female rock’n’roll band who emerged from Los Angeles; O’Connor was a talented singer and songwriter from Ireland, whose angelic voice belied her outspoken views on religious dogma and practice. 

But on a cold evening in October 2009 at the Myer Music Bowl in Melbourne, O’Connor had taken to the stage as part of the Melbourne Music Festival’s “Seven Songs to Leave Behind” to belt out a mesmerising version of L7’s “Shitlist” – a track which O’Connor had chosen, per the structure of the evening for the various guest performers featured, as the song she’d wished she’d written.

• tour
• australian
• L7
• new zealand tour
• donita sparks
• bricks are heavy

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Do your research and help Ollie Olsen

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By Robert Brokenmouth

Robert Brokenmouth

02 October 2023

Hits: 3047

Alright. Where I live, the formal lockdown measures ended in early 2022.

Personally, I think one reason the employment rate is so low right now is because a whole pile of people around retirement age, or quite a few reluctant to retire, realised that hanging about the house wasn't such a bad thing after all. 

In fact, life itself wasn't meant to be spent piss-farting about in a drab office trying not to grimace at the forced jollities, the strict dweebness and the sheer bloody pointlessness of necessary screenwork. Sure, some things need to be done. But we seemed to get by without a hell of a lot of it during lockdown.

And don't get me started on the poor bastards who worked through the pandemic, the nurses and doctors who (as far as I'm concerned) all deserve a 10 percent wage rise (and, for those who actually worked with the Covid patients, an Order of Australia each).

• ollie olsen
• it records
• rock and roll prison
• taipan tiger girls
• live at the melbourne town hall

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Pat Todd and Mad Macka team for intimate Oz dates

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By The Barman

The Barman

05 October 2023

Hits: 3781

Cosmic Psychos guitarist Mad Macka has announced a run of shows with him double-billed with legendary Los Angeles figure Pat Todd.

Pat Todd is best known as front man for hugely influential rock'n'roll-punk band The Lazy Cowgirls from the early '80s to the early '00s, and more recently for his great high energy rock'n'roll band Pat Todd & The Rankoutsiders.

• cosmic psychos
• lazy cowgirls
• pat todd
• australian tour
• rankoutsiders
• 2023

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That's Entrainment? I can't believe it's not metal

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By Robert Brokenmouth

Robert Brokenmouth

02 October 2023

Hits: 2860

It seems to me that the main truth of human nature is that we'll always do what we like if we can get away with it. Which is why we have laws, I suppose.

Because if we can take it and keep it, we will. Like dogs snarling over a stinky old bone. You know that thin veneer of what we call civilisation? Got it in one, we're animals with a slightly more complex language.

Talking about animals and humans, that brings me to eugenics. The National Human Genome Research Institute explains: “Eugenics is an inaccurate theory linked to historical and present-day forms of discrimination, racism, ableism and colonialism. It has persisted in policies and beliefs around the world...”

Well, yeah. Francis Galton, wiggy concepts of the “noble savage”, misinterpreted Darwinism and Mendelism. (No, I'm not. Look it up.)

• stafford glover
• john hannon
• entrainment

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