Beyond Respect

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By Earl O'Neill

Earl O'Neill

07 August 2019

Hits: 5842

_{Photo from a Brett Allen video.}

Damien Lovelock 1954-2019

I first caught the Celibate Rifles a few weeks after my 17th birthday in the upstairs room at the Paddo Green Hotel. They were loud, fast, made me grow long hair. I’d recently bought “But Jacques, the fish”, skipped the first few classes and went into the city; got back to school with that treasure. It was a passport to a different world.

There were a lot of Rifles gigs over the years. It’s remarkable now to think how damn LOUD they were in the ‘80s. Towering amps, double four-way PA, in an average pub or club. It was inspirational too.   If they could do it...

Of course, the average teenage punter didn’t know how much time and effort had already been ploughed into that band. Thirty-one years after that first gig I put this together. Read it, it’s the key.

• celibate rifles
• damien lovelock

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Those Beastly boys are back

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By The Barman

The Barman

06 August 2019

Hits: 3594

The Beasts are embarking on their second Australian tour this year, this time in tandem with Magic Dirt’s Adalita.

Still running hard off the back of their studio album “Still Here”, the band formerly known as the Beasts of Bourbon is planning a run up and down Australia’s East Coast before shows in Perth, Fremantle and Adelaide.

The Beasts are Tex Perkins, Kim Salmon, Charlie Owen, Tony Pola and Boris Sudjovic. Their shows earlier this year were sell-outs and showed the ex-Beasts had lost none of their power. even with the fallen Spencer P Jones and Brian Hooper gone. .

Tickets for The Beasts’ national tour go on sale on Friday, August 9 via Oztix.

The Beasts + Adalita
NOV
28 - Barwon Club, Geelong VIC
29 - York On Lilydale, Mt Evelyn VIC
30 - Croxton Bandroom, Melbourne VIC
DEC
4 - Cambridge Hotel, Newcastle NSW
6 - The Metro, Sydney NSW
7 - Wollongong Uni, Wollongong NSW
12 - The Triffid, Brisbane QLD
13 - Kingscliff Beach Hotel, Kingscliff NSW
14 - Sol Bar, Maroochydore QLD
20 - The Gov, Adelaide SA
21 - Rosemount Hotel, Perth WA
22 - Rock Rover, Fremantle WA

• adalita
• australian tour
• the beasts
• still here

Died Pretty's Ron Peno is on the mend

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By The Barman

The Barman

04 August 2019

Hits: 8157

There’s good news on the medical front for Died Pretty frontman Ron Peno, who has been fighting his own battle with cancer. The band posted a message on Facebook earlier today, indicating that the much-loved singer is on a long road to full recovery:

The program of radio and chemotherapy was successfully completed. Shortly afterwards Ron was operated on to remove the tumour in his oesophagus. The doctors have reported the procedure was completed successfully and they are confident that he will make a full recovery. The operation itself however was a major undertaking (lasting over six hours) and Ron will take an extended period to recover physically.

The good news is that the medical staff are confident that all the cancer has been removed from his body. Naturally there will be extended monitoring of the situation but this is the best possible outcome and we are very grateful for the wonderful job all the medical staff involved have done! We thank everyone for their amazing support and all of the messages of love and positivity.

• died pretty
• ron peno

More Medew for you

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By The Barman

The Barman

04 August 2019

Hits: 3363

While his band The Mesmerisers are preparing for a run of Melbourne shows to promote their brand spankin' new album, Mick Medew is playing a rare solo electric show at Brisbane's Junk Bar on August 13.

Tickets are on sale via Oztix. Support is Defo Mofo and expect a run through the bulging Medew back cataolgue, with some surprise covers. 

• brisbane
• solo
• mick medew
• junk bar

Damien Lovelock's wonderful life

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By The Barman

The Barman

04 August 2019

Hits: 7663

_{From the Celibate Rifles Facebook.}

I went to a Catholic boarding school, and that sort of team spirit thing and having the right attitude to what you do was drummed into you from day one. And I viewed any group enterprise the same way, life's too short for bickering and bullshit. If there's something you want to do, let's get to doing it. You can have fun on the way. but I used to watch most bands and it seemed that it was more a part of a look.

As soon as I met the Rifles I thought OK, there's something here. There's an energy and... there's something that sets them apart from a lot of the other bands. And that, nothing lasts forever. If you don't look after it it'll just dissipate and go. So yeah, I got into that. - Damien Lovelock in conversation with Earl O'Neill.

The magnitude of yesterday’s passing of Celibate Rifles frontman Damien Lovelock at the age of 65 is still sinking in. Lovelock died at his Sydney home after a protracted fight against cancer - a battle that was known to many but largely kept private out of respect for the man.

Damien Lovelock was one of the most articulate, witty and forthright figures to spring from the Australian underground music scene in the 1980s. His laconic drawl was a trademark element of the sound of the Rifles, perhaps Sydney’s ultimate anti-star complex band. As promoter and longtime Damo friend Tim Pittman remarked: "He was a unique human".

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• damien lovelock
• vale

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Vale Celibate Rifles frontman Damien Lovelock

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By The Barman

The Barman

03 August 2019

Hits: 4144

Vale Damien Lovelock, lead singer of the Celibate Rifles, raconteur and and sports commentator. The icon of The Australian underground music scene passed away this morning after a protracted health battle. A more fullsome tribute soon.

• celibate rifles
• damien lovelock

Dave Studdert's Tactical return

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By Edwin Garland

Edwin Garland

02 August 2019

Hits: 6611

_{Dave Studdert.}

When drawn to writing about Tactics, their new album and their forthcoming Australian tour, I had a youthful flashback to being a 17-year-old and moving down to Sydney from the bush. Armed with smudgy-ink copies of RAM magazine, I was aware of so many bands that I knew mostly in name only: Midnight Oil, Hitmen, The Saints…and some weird shit (at least in my mind) like The Tactics, Thought Criminals and Dead Travel Fast. I was like a sponge and I wanted to see every one of them.

I had a hunger for a tapestry of sounds and new, sharp sonic edges - stuff that was so far from the bland radio fodder like Cold Chisel and Dragon. I left a live music scene centred on a dilapidated pub by a river that often flooded…a place with peeling paint and populated by old tradies with battered faces, professional alcoholics and underage kids. We watched the odd cover band and the place was home to weekend rock-stars playing poorly -delivered Chuck Berry riffs. The alternative was the local blue light disco that usually ended in a bloodbath by the end of the night.

So, I moved. I headed to Sydney.

• australian
• canberra
• sydney trade union club
• underground
• australian tour
• tactics
• dave studdert
• my houdini
• Early Shift at Charles de Gaulle
• frenchs

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The Fantastic Sounds of Guitars…Unlimited! – The Hellmenn (Buttercup)

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By The Barman

The Barman

02 August 2019

Hits: 4347

The quick version? Fourteen tracks. The cover doesn’t lie. Wall-to-wall guitars. Rocks harder than a Manly ferry on a cross-Sydney Harbour run in a 40-knot gale. The long version? Read on…

“The Fantastic Sounds of” has the blessing of Dave “Spliff” Hopkins, their mercurial guitarist, and frontman Ben Brown, whose stellar “surfing dead” artwork has not only adorned their past and present releases but those of Massappeal, Red Kross and Bored! They were the core of the band. Hopkins now lives in WEstern Australia and plays in Purple Urchin, while Brown is still a stellar artist.  

The Hellmenn sprang from the loins of the Sydney musical underground in the halcyon late ‘80s, rolling out a long-player and numerous EPs and singles until grunge, random breath testing, poker machines and venue licensing red tape sucked the marrow out of the local live scene in the early ‘90s. The Hellmenn were proud products of the city’s Northern Beaches - the place that spawned Midnight Oil, Asteroid B612, the Celibate Rifles, to name some notables. There were many more.

• sydney
• hellmen
• the fantastic sounds of guitars...unlimited!
• ben brown
• dave spiffy hopkins

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After 37 years, ME-262 reform for one-off Sydney show with the Green Spiders

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By The Barman

The Barman

01 August 2019

Hits: 3808

It’s a bill to have fans of lysergic acid punk or Sydney-via-Detroit Funhouse jams reaching into the cupboard for their leather jackets and Cuban heeled boots, when the Green Spiders pair with the long, lost ME-262 for one gig only at Marrickville Bowling Club on September 28.

The Green Spiders come from the DNA of the Lime Spiders, Adolphus and The Most – all staples of the Strawberry Hills-Sydney Trade Union Club circuit in Sydney in the early ‘80s. They play the songs of the Lime Spiders that Green Spiders members penned.

Lime Spiders members Ged Corben (guitar), Tony Bambach (bass) and Tom Corben (drums) are joined by Ripley Hood (Mushroom Planet) on vocals to deliver a potent parade of hard rock and ‘60s punk gems.

Some 37 years after they last strode a Sydney stage, ME-262 are reforming to play this one show.

Comprising teenagers Mark Roxburgh, Andy Newman, Tony Gibson (one of the best guitarists of the era) and drummer Alan Marr, ME-262 (also known as Trans 262 and not to be confused with MEO-245) could be seen regularly around inner-city Sydney in the post-Radio Birdman years of 1979-82.

Heavily influenced by Birdman and The Visitors they played support spots to Sunnyboys, New Race and dozens of others. issuing an EP before fading away to form, or join, other bands like Decline of the Reptiles, Chris Masuak’s North 40, the Visitors and the Deniz Tek Group.

This show will draw from the band’s posthumous 2017 compilation "Original 7” Tracks/Demos" on boutique label Buttercup, which comprised their EP tracks and other songs drawn from a recording session with Rob Younger.

Th Green Spiders and ME-262 will be joined by a mystery band drawn form a range of bands from the Sydney underground of the late '80s and '90s. Tickets are on sale here at a special early bird price. 

• live
• lime spiders
• marrickville bowling club
• ME 262
• green spiders