Seminal Robots - Mad Macka and Panh Andler (Swashbuckling Hobo)

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By The Barman

The Barman

17 February 2019

Hits: 3758

Mad Macka's history should need no recounting but, fuck it, let's assume you're entirely clueless or you live outside his native Brisbane.

From the slamming punk of The Onyas to the fast and loose jams of The Egos and back to his recruitment into Cosmic Psychos, he's been a fixture on various levels of the Australian underground for years.

"Seminal Robots" finds him and his Brisbane band Panh Andler in gutter blues territory but don't slip it on and think you're going to hear "Fuckwit City". It's mostly music stripped back to its basic elements. The Big Fella is naked, more or less. 

But "Panh Andler"? Mad Macka's far from uneducated - the man's been a lawyer as well as a pizza deliverer - so you can assume the name is an ironic reference to bluesmen. One of those many online dictionaries describes a "panhandler" as "an urban beggar who typically stands on a street with an outstretched container in hand, begging for loose change". "Buddy can you spare me a recording session?"

• brisbane
• mad macka
• cosmic psychos
• swashbuckling hobo
• the onyas
• the egos
• seminal robots

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I Feel Alright - Space Boozzies (Outtaspace)

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By The Barman

The Barman

17 February 2019

Hits: 5080

With Sydney's long-running Dunhill Blues on hiatus, bassist Adam has opted to crank up the rumble with a new band, Space Boozies. "I Feel Alright" is their debut LP.

The Dunnies have been through several phases - garage big band, thrash country rock and battered blues rock - and but for a few superficial similiarities, Space Boozies sound a lot like none of them.

The Boozzies keep it short and sharp but there's a touch of bitter-sweet jangle in the guitars. Their music is still parked in the garage, but it's not as determinedly abrasive. Think of them as an Antipodean version of The Raunch Hands. Music to drink rather than to think by.

Where the Dunhill Blues wanted to tickle Nick Cave, Space Boozzies are keen to share some quality time with Australia's Queen of Decollage ("Tonia Todman's House") and swap egg recipes with Peter Russell-Clarke. The irreverence of the Dunnies hasn't gone away.

• garage
• dunhill blues
• mikey young
• space boozies

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Stand for Nothing - Hip Priests (Gods Candy Records/Ghost Highway Recordings/ Speedowax Records/Digital Warfare)

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By The Barman

The Barman

16 February 2019

Hits: 3627

The Hip Priests are angry as fuck and want you to know about it. The urgency and energy of past albums are intact but leery innuendos and odes to drinkis-and-drugs excess are toned down on their latest long-player, replaced by a seething fury.

There's no mistaking the target of the musical Exocet that's opening track "Welcome To Shit Island". It's an all-guitars-blazing assault on the pro-Brexit brigade wrapped up in a punk rock letter bomb. And there's more in store on the other nine tracks - with a focus on everyone from the forces that would wipe out rock and roll to the man down the road at number 19. .

Hip Priests hail from Nottingham in the UK and if you think Little John's longbow was the most dangerous thing to come out of Sherwood Forest, adjust your green tights. The Priests play it like Backyard Babies. TBNGR and the 'Copters - which means they sound like all those dirty arse Scandirock bands of the late '90s and early '00s. 

You could say "Stand For Nothing" is not for the faint-hearted or the hard of hearing. You would be right. You could also say Hip Priests are in that last-man-standing category of Real Rock and Roll Bands. Correct again. You win a cigar. 

• scandirock
• hip priests
• england
• stand for nothing
• nottingham
• united kingdom

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All the Young Droogs. 60 Juvenile Delinquent Wrecks, Rock’N’Glam (And A Flavour Of Bubblegum) From The 70’s - Various Artists (Cherry Red)

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By Robert Brokenmouth

Robert Brokenmouth

10 February 2019

Hits: 4838

What a fucking great title. Almost as good as The Clash's "All the Young Punks" - itself a take on that Bowie song "All the Young Dudes" - wonder how many 1977 punks got that? Even though it was right in their alley?

You know how, during summer, assorted neighbours will play loud music, usually horrible, and, when the hours wind down and the drink begins to blur the world, they get maudlin and soppy and play those lachrymose ballads...? Sure you do. Well, when this happens at 230 am, that is your cue to dash over, swap their copy of Kamahl's Greatest Hits with any one of these three discs, flick the switch and revel in their dismay.

Either that or, rather suddenly, the party's on again and the police want to know your personal details. Again.

Cherry Red describe this collection as "60 tracks of the finest slices of JSG in its various guises, as established by collectors around the world over the past decade. Including tracks from the USA, New Zealand, Netherlands, Sweden, Iceland, Australia as well as homegrown UK. Some previously unreleased, many first time on CD."

• stooges
• iggy & the stooges
• cherry red
• all the young droogs
• the brats
• stevie wright

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Hey Sydney: Make a date with The Golden Rail

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By The Barman

The Barman

10 February 2019

Hits: 3719

The Golden Rail are bringing their consumate Mellbourne via Perth guitar pop to Sydney for two shows this month to launch their new album “Sometimes When”.

As direct participants (or side players) in The Palisades, The Rainyard, Header, Summer Suns, DM3 and, more recently, The Jangle Band, The Golden Rail are eminently qualified to give Sydney a jangle pop lesson, and you can catch them at two shows.

Friday, February 16 finds them at a new venue, The Butcher’s Block, In Dulwich Hill where they’ll be supported by Inner Western Delta locals The Smart Folk. The next afternoon, The Golden Rail will play Gasoline Pony with John Kennedy’s 68 Comeback Special. You can hear and buy the album here.

• dm3
• pop
• the jangle band
• the golden rail
• summer suns

John Dowler brings the jangle that's hard to resist

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By David Laing

David Laing

04 February 2019

Hits: 5870

^{John Dowler with his band The Vanity Project. David Laing photo.} 

In his 1981 feature on Australian powerpop pioneer John Dowler in Roadrunner magazine, Melbourne rock writer Adrian Ryan commented on Dowler’s then-new band, the short lived Everybody’s So Glad. He said they played with a certain kind of soul, and a type of sound that hadn’t been heard in town since Paul Kelly & The Dots underwent a line-up change too many, and since the Saints were last here. It was the kind of sound that “had nothing to do with horn sections and screams, but rather with jangling guitars, a passionate beat, allusions to something half forgotten.”

I love that soul and those jangling guitars. Being Melbourne born, I heard a bit of at as I was getting into music. It’s not the jangle of some insipid jangle-pop band, it’s a hard jangle, which is where the Saints come in. Ryan was referring to the Saints that recorded such classic tracks as “Call It Mine”, “In The Mirror” and “Let’s Pretend”.

• saints
• paul kelly
• young modern
• john dowler
• don't go to sydney
• paul kelly and the dots

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Nuder than Nuder than Nude - The Nudists (Swashbuckling Hobo)

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By The Barman

The Barman

03 February 2019

Hits: 4036

Three things you need to know before we start: This is the sound of miscreants making mischief. Stylistically speaking, it's all over the shop like a mad woman's breakfast. And lyrically, "Nuder Than Nuder Than Nude" sounds like a public exhibition of schizophrenia.

The Nudists were reputedly around in Brisbane for a handful of shows in the mid-2000s and were lured into the studio by Swashbuckling Hobo Records over two days to lay down their first “proper” record. The immediate take after a few listens was that they sound like Lubricated Goat on bongs.

• brisbane
• punk rock
• swasbuckling hobo records
• Nuder than Nuder than Nude
• the nudists

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Still Here - The Beasts (Bang! Records/Rocket)

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By Patrick Emery

Patrick Emery

28 January 2019

Hits: 5570

In April 2007 I sat opposite Spencer Jones and Greg ‘Tex’ Perkins in a booth downstairs at the Prince of Wales Hotel in St Kilda. The occasion was an interview to promote the release of the Beasts of Bourbon’s first studio album in 10 years, "Little Animals". Having recently arrived back from a short tour of the United States, Spencer and Perkins were weary from the long-haul flight.

Perkins was in Beasts mode – cocky, enigmatic, and just prickly enough to remind you who was the tough guy here. Spencer was, as he always was, just Spencer – the cowboy hat, a faint smile, and a reassuring honesty that defied his decades of service in the duplicitous, ego-obsessed world of rock’n’roll.

A fraught fraternal atmosphere hung over the interview. Spencer and Perkins had been friends, band mates, fellow reprobates and occasional antagonists for the past 25 years. They were like brothers, Perkins once mused, and like brothers they loved and fought. And Spencer and Perkins were the only remaining links to the genesis of the Beasts of Bourbon, an irreverent make-shift band thrown together to fulfil Perkins’ gig commitments at the Southern Cross Hotel, way back in June 1983.

• beasts of bourbon
• kim salmon
• boris sudjovic
• spencer p jones
• charlie owen
• brian hooper
• the beasts
• tony pola
• still here

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Still here, The Beasts continue to challenge

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By Robert Brokenmouth

Robert Brokenmouth

28 January 2019

Hits: 6317

_{Boris Sujdovic, Tony Pola, Kim Salmon, Tex Perkins and Charlie Owen are The Beasts.}

The Beasts of Bourbon formed, somewhat by accident, in 1984. If you were 12 today, would you really be inclined to take the trouble to listen to something recorded by a bunch of blokes who started back then?

Well, the hell with your boring old 12-year-old self. The new album by the Beasts of Bourbon's direct descendants, The Beasts, is called "Still Here" and it rates seven (if not eight) bottles (out of five) in my books. It's really simple: "Still Here" is essential if, as you claim, you're a Beasts of Bourbon fan, or if you think of yourself as someone who loves rock'n'roll. 

• scientists
• dubrovniks
• tex perkins
• charlie owen
• brian hooper
• the beasts
• tony pola
• still here
• boris sujdovic

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