Get a ticket to this circus

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By Robert Brokenmouth

Robert Brokenmouth

04 March 2023

Hits: 1917

My Circus! My Shitshow!! - Ben Gel (Ben Gel)

You're gonna love this one. It’s kicking, rampaging, no-holds-barred, pounding rock'n'roll. 

I've written about Ben Gel before. He's a no-nonsense, hammer-down-the-line bass player (currently playing in Perdition and Cull-The Band) and guitarist ... in his own outfit. On “My Circus! My Shitshow!!' he plays lead and rhythm guitars, bass and handles lead and backing vocals. Chris Charlton also handles lead and rhythm guitars, and Nick Hadley is on the kit.

Geez, I'd love to see this lot live. It looks like the drums were recorded in Camden Town, UK, and the rest in Rosewater, South Australia. How the fuck this ended up sounding so damn tight I have no idea. Loads of talent and patience, I assume.

• perdition
• ben gel
• cull the band
• my circus! my shitshow!!

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Ex-Birdman Chris Masuak returns to Australia for three-week tour

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By The Barman

The Barman

01 March 2023

Hits: 3551

Six years after his last visit to Australia, former Radio Birdman guitarist Chris “Klondike” Masuak is returning with his hand-picked local band, Dog Soldier, for a select run of East Coast shows.

Masuak and Dog Soldier will play a three week tour with shows in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and the ACT.

Masuak’s musical history reads like a muscle car ride through the mean streets of Australia’s rock and roll underground.

The Canadian-born prodigy achieved notoriety as teenage guitarist for Australia’s legendary Radio Birdman, and then waged a War Against The Jive with the country’s hardest working rock and roll band, The Hitmen.

Next came a stint with the original live version of the New Christs, followed by international prominence with the chart-busting Screaming Tribesmen.

A member of the ARIA Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Masuak has an impressive back catalogue of rock, pop and blues releases under his own name and fronting the Viveiro Wave Riders. He is now based in Galicia in northern Spain.

Dog Soldier comprises bassist Tony Bambach (Aberration, Green Spiders, ex-Lime Spiders) and drummer Stu Wilson (Aberration, Leadfinger, ex-The Rivers, ex-New Christs, ex-Lime Spiders).

Their tour will re-trace Klondike’s storied career, drawing on material from his key bands - with a few surprises thrown in.  

I-94 Bar Records & Promotions presents
Chris Masuak & Dog Soldier 2023 Australian Tour
MAY
19 - House of Music & Booze, St Peters, NSW + Starcrazy + The Dark Clouds + Pocketwatch Tickets
21 - Link and Pin, Woy Woy + The Silver Dragons (1.30pm) Tickets
26 - Northcote Social Club + River of Snakes + Electric Purrs Tickets
27 - Barwon Club Hotel, Geelong + Baby 8 + Sacramento Sweaters Tickets
28 - Smiths Alternative, Canberra + Il Bruto (7pm) Tickets
JUN
2 -Stag and Hunter, Newcastle + Joeys Coop + East Coast Low Tickets
3 - Federal Hotel, Bellingen + Nikki Websters
4 - Vinnies, Gold Coast + The Square Tugs + Mick Medew & Ursula Tickets

• hitmen
• screaming tribesmen
• chris masuak
• australian tour
• 2023
• radio birman

Dunnies take their best laid plans to France and Spain

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By The Barman

The Barman

02 March 2023

Hits: 2084

Sydney's garage trash favourites The Dunhill Blues have got plans. They involve a new vinyl EP and what's shaping as a "no sleep till we're sober" French and Spanish tour. 

The band heads off next week and their new EP "I Got Plans" is available for pre-order here through local labels Outta Space and Evil Tone.

"It's a fairly wild recording; it should have been an album but we lost our nerve. Mkey Young pulled it together in the mastering," says The Dunnies' Adam Brozowski. 

"We are really happy with it and we're gonna re-record the other 20 or so songs when we get back."

The band is picking up the EPs while in Europe so if you want to hear it now, you'll have to stream it. 

For tour dates and the film clip, click MORE.

• france
• dunhill blues
• 2023
• i got plans
• european tour

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Datura4 heads east to play some Neanderthal jams

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By The Barman

The Barman

01 March 2023

Hits: 1913

Internationally acclaimed West Australian boogie masters Datura4 are set to tour the east coast of Australia for the first time in six years on the success of their fifth album, “Neanderthal Jam”.

Datura4 is fronted by Dom Mariani of legendary Oz garage rockers The Stems,  With plans to tour Europe in the latter part of 2023, the April tour will be their first time back since 2017.

The band will play four shows across New South Wales and Victoria, including an appearance at the prestigious Gum Ball Festival in the Hunter Valley and a Sydney show with returning platinum-selling Canadian act The Sheepdogs.

Datura4 finds Dom Mariani rediscovering the heavy and progressive blues sounds he loved as a teenager - bands like Led Zeppelin, Ten Years After andt he Groundhogs, Aus bands like Carson, Masters Apprentices, Chain, Billy Thorpe & The Aztecs and Perth locals Bakery.

Dom has even added an authentic ‘70s blues-rocker to his band – keyboard player Bob Patient is a one-time member of heavy prog rockers Fatty Lumpkin, a later day member of Matt Taylor's Chain and more recently a sideman of Perth’s internationally revered slide guitarist Dave Hole.

APRIL
Friday 21-  Great Club Sydney (w/ The Sheepdogs) - Tix
Saturday 22 -, Gumball Festival - Tix
Sunday 23-  Barwon Club Geelong - Tix 
Monday 24-  Cherry Melbourne (special guests - The Gas Babies) - Tix 

• tour
• datura4
• dom mariani
• the stems
• east coast

Second time around: The re-emergence of Simon Juliff

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By Patrick Emery

Patrick Emery

28 February 2023

Hits: 2326

_{Simon Juliff flanked by Jimm Sfeftos (left) and Joel Silbersher with Greg Bainbridge on drums.} 

Simon Juliff might be the best Australian songwriter you’ve never heard of.

Not that he’d ever be so egotistical as to suggest that. Or that it’d be easy to find evidence of Juliff’s songwriting. Indeed Juliff’s career is as sporadic as it is enigmatically impressive.

Juliff formed his first band, The Evil Dead, in his teenage years in hometown Melbourne, in the shadows of more prolific and now legendary Melbourne bands such as GOD, Powder Monkeys and Hoss, vehicles for Juliff’s high school friends Tim Hemensley and Joel Silbersher. Some years later Juliff joined with his younger brother Felix, bass player Dave Bryan and future Dan Sultan collaborator Scott Wilson in the three-guitar, country ’n’ rock band The Roys.  

Their ranks included Sultan for a while on drums and they released two criminally underappreciated records on Bruce Milne’s Infidelity Records before fading from view.

It would be more than a decade before Juliff’s songwriting rose to the surface again, this time via long-time fan and Dog Meat Records boss, Dave Laing. Indeed Laing was so impressed with Juliff’s unrecorded material that he decided to release his debut solo album, "Stars", on the rejuvenated Dog Meat label.

Patrick Emery spoke to Juliff about his origins as a musician and recent re-emergence.

• powder monkeys
• GOD
• tim hemensley
• joel silbersher
• dave laing
• simon juliff
• dog meat
• the roys

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Lock up your red cordial. The hyperactive Schizophonics are back

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By Matt Ryan

Matt Ryan

26 February 2023

Hits: 2287

_{Pat and Lety Beers.}

Combining elements of 60s garage, funk, soul and old time rock ‘n; roll showmanship, San Diego’s The Schizophonics are one of the "hardest working" bands you’ll see. And I mean "hard working"  in reference to when they hit the stage.

Singer/guitarist Pat Beers comes across like a mix between Jerry Lee Lewis and an eight-year-old kid on too much red cordial; the man never stops. While some singers take five to get a breath, Pat keeps the party going with some amazing onstage moves that would score high in any Olympic gymnastics competition.

While the bass often switches, Pat and drummer/wife Lety Beers are the core and soul of the group. The two of them, along with their beautiful dog Beanie, spoke to me via the zoom machine on the eve of their return to Oz.

• australian
• australian tour
• schizophonics
• pat beers
• lety beers
• 2023

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Brutal and transcendent, Osees live up to their reputation

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By Edwin Garland

Edwin Garland

18 February 2023

Hits: 3075

Osees
+ R.M.F.C.
The Metro Theatre, Sydney
15 February 2023
Photos - Vic Zubakin / Look Sharp Photography

Osees have been landing on Australian shores for more than a decade and consistently leaving an impression as a “must see” band.  Over the years, I have been in conversationswith people who have raved about the powerful live experience, the guitar sound and the energy.

When I heard claims they were “one of the best live rock bands in the world” I was always dubious. Let’s face it: rock roll can be about hype and creating a myth.  Finally, I had an opportunity to witness what all the talk has been about.  

Band leader John Dwyer is someone who anyone making independent original music should greatly admire.   Over 26 years, there are 33 albums he has produced, or played on. Dwyer is the last of a breed: the rock ‘n’ roll outlaw and fringe dweller completely living the music.

In the last decade, with intense work, he has made a real impact, supporting his music with shit jobs like stacking shelves, with one focus:  Running his own label, creating art, playing in a band and driving his part of a cottage industry.

• sydney
• metro theatre
• osees
• john dwyer
• r.f.m.c.
• a foul form

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So epic it should be a soundtrack

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By Robert Brokenmouth

Robert Brokenmouth

14 February 2023

Hits: 1888

I Won't Be Civilised - Velatine (Spooky Records)

Melbourne duo Velatine is now a constant in my life, in the  same way that (say) disco was a constant in some people's lives every Friday and Saturday night, or punk was, or AFL every season, or cricket... you know?

I'm not alone, it seems - this week my local independent radio station, 3D in Adelaide, made it LP of the week. And it's not out till Friday.

However, I must be frank here. Velatine ain't for everyone. It ain't yer commercial radio fodder for sparkies and housewives. The independent radio stations should love "I Won't Be Civilised", but of course, you know. They have zero taste after being told for so long what's hip and cool by ... paint salesmen. Sorry, I mean “record executives”.

• loki lockwood
• velatine

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What's in a name change? Osees break the laws of pigeonholing

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By Patrick Emery

Patrick Emery

14 February 2023

Hits: 2535

Osees
Croxton Hotel, Thornbuy, VIV
Saturday, February 11 2023

My employer received some correspondence recently from a "sovereign citizen". It was, as so often the case with such sincerely composed missives, a rambling diatribe replete with muddled pseudo-jurisprudence  and wilful indifference to the symbiotic relationship between individual autonomy and collective responsibility.

We searched in vain for some discipline of reason, even a vague hint of cogent argument but, alas, there was only nonsensical assertion. It was, someone remarked, the discursive equivalent of a sugar-laden teenager playing free-form jazz on a cheap recorder over a concerto piece played on a defective turntable and then labelling it a work of artistic genius.

Later that night we went to the cinema to see “Tar”. Before Cate Blanchett’s titular character falls from grace, she explains the often mysterious movements of the orchestral conductor. Crudely, one hand represents timing and tempo, the other conveys the desired shape of the music.

Which brings us to Osees.

• croxton park
• osees
• oh sees
• john dwyer
• metro

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