Down the Unmarked Road - The Tall Grass (Come to the Dark Side)

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By Robert Brokenmouth

Robert Brokenmouth

04 February 2018

Hits: 4065

Lovely LP. Ugly, too. 

The Tall Grass is Jamie Hutchings (Bluebottle Kiss) and Peter Fenton (Crow). Never heard those two bands, but I gather "Down the Unmarked Road" is a notable departure for both of them. Like Rheyce O'Neill's "Ubermensch Blues", they've focused on the meaning of the songs to create a bittersweet landscape rich in Australiana.  

• jamie hutchings
• peter fenton
• the tall grass
• down the unmarked road

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Übermensch Blues - Rhyece O'Neill (Red On Brown)

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By Robert Brokenmouth

Robert Brokenmouth

04 February 2018

Hits: 4500

"Ubermensch Blues" is a damn fine LP. Big and moving, it's not a simple thing. Lots of space within the melodies and complex? You'll be returning for repeat listens. Remarkable given that almost the entire work was recorded and played by Sydneysider Rhyece; such LPs don't usually work in my opinion. And what's that title?

Overman Blues. The Nazis thought they were ubermensch; the Japanese and Chinese still know they are. Hell, ever try to talk one-on-one with an Indian of "high caste"? You're way beneath them - the British retain vestiges of their old caste system, but it started to be demolished just over a hundred years ago.

• ubermensch blues
• Rhyece O'Neill
• the weckery

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High Water - Junkyard (Acetate Records)

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By General Labor

General Labor

03 February 2018

Hits: 6445

"Seems like yesterday, but it was long ago...."

JUNKYARD STILL GOT IT IN SPADES!
 
Back when I still thought Axl Rose was a could do no wrong, a rebel hero who had courageously escaped a hellish small-town disreputable dishwasher fate, not unlike my own, the misunderstood, fucking innocent, ginger haired, rural Mike Monroe from the corn-fed Midwest, I recall him wearing an old school Junkyard t shirt in all those "Circus" and "Hit Parader" pinups I had taped all over the walls of my first shoebox bachelor apartment that the totally New Wave love of my young life had helped me paint purple.

I really thought I'd arrived! We had a promising basement-show punk band, in those days, but we still lived in a shitty, dumb, nothing to do, farm town straight out of the saddest Bob Seger songs. I never liked the bigoted, cross-eyed rednecks at the veterans halls, the musclebound, bullying suburban jocks in the Camaro's, the racist history teaching wrestling coaches, the sports-bar drunkards with the barbecue stains, the Izod shirted country-club conformists, nutty extremist church crazies, or dickhead fratboy cops. I never liked their bullshit hierarchy, kneejerk customs, hazing rituals, or boot camp drill sergeant, behavior modification tactics, not to mention, their senseless cruelty and complete lack of style.

• los angeles
• guns and roses

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They Fought The Law and The Law Wasn't On The Guest List

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By The Barman

The Barman

03 February 2018

Hits: 4045

One of our favourite new bands created a stir at their album launch in New York City this week.

Psych--glam-punks Beechwood played Berlin on Avenue A in Manhattan last Saturday to christen the "Songs From The Land of Nod" long-player...only find there were 14 undercover police in the audience.

According to their label Alive Natural Sound, they arrested drummer Isa Tineo: "What major felony had been committed to warrant such manpower? It was for jumping the subway turnstile in 2014 and not paying the $100 ticket."

The incident follows the arrest of two band members for playing a rowdy street party in Manhattan in 2016.  At least 14 extra payers through the door should off-set the fine. Word is the cops let him finish the gig - and liked it. But 14 to arrest one person? That's rock and roll in The Big Apple these days.

• alive natural sound
• new york city
• beechwood
• songs from the land of nod

L.F.F.L.- Teenage Excitement, Romance and Mystery! Working For The Man - The Nomads b/w Fireball - The Dahlmanns (Ghost Highway)

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By The Barman

The Barman

02 February 2018

Hits: 6077

That's a helluva title. It's also a limited edition split single featuring Sweden's Nomads and Norwegian power pop wonders The Dahlmanns, put together for the 60th birthday party in Spain of Next Big Thing zine creator and all-round top bloke, Scotsman Lindsay Hutton.

Just 500 were pressed up for the shindig in Madrid and only a handful remain available...

If you don't know, The Dahlmanns are the World's Best Power Pop Band. No arguments, thank you very much. "Fireball" is the theme song of a Gerry and Sylvia Anderson pre-Thunderbirds TV show ("Fireball XL5") and it was the first 45 that a pre-pubescent Lindsay ever bought in the early 1960s.

• lindsay hutton
• next big thing
• the nomads
• the dahlmans

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The 31st - The 31st (LCMR)

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By The Barman

The Barman

02 February 2018

Hits: 6648

Copies of these four songs have been circulating for years and two have surfaced on compilations. The balance were re-recorded by members’ subsequent bands. But don’t kid yourself that you don’t need this vinyl only 12-inch EP.

The 31st started when future members of Died Pretty (Ron Peno and Chris Welsh), the Screaming Tribesmen (MIck Medew) and the Hitmen/New Christs/Screaming Tribesmen (Tony Robertson) started playing shows in a strip club and anywhere else that would have them. Evidently, they played no one style of music - which must have been confusing for the Brisbane punks, boogie-heads and blues fans to pin a tail on.

The 31st were a future supergroup before those things were called that in Australia. They kicked around the undergrowth of Brisbane’s downtrodden music scene in the early 1980s, and fell to pieces before anyone outside of it saw or heard them.

Future Hoodoo Guru Brad Shepherd was to briefly become a member although he's not on these recordings. 

• brisbane
• hitmen
• died pretty
• ron peno
• screaming tribesmen
• tony robertson
• lcmr
• mick medew
• the 31st
• chris welsh
• the hellcats

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King Hit - Sons of Jaguar (Conquest of Noise)

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By Ronald Brown

Ronald Brown

01 February 2018

Hits: 5338

Woolgoolga is a town on the New South Wales North Coast, and Sons of Jaguar have been making quite a noise around the pubs of that wonderful part of Australia for the past year or so. "King Hit" is their debut album  recorded in two days and laden with some fine twin turbo guitar riffs, wonderful bass playing and drumming. 

This is one fine album.

So, I-94 Bar users and abusers, things kick off with a sonic fuzz blast in the guitar riff of "Park Beach" - and you just know things are about to get wild. "Dead Beat Dad" is a classic driving guitar song that is just awesome, and the break in the middle off this tune is just a groovy '60s sound. This song is worth the price of admission alone.

• conquest of noise
• pub rock
• king hit
• sons of jaguar
• king pest
• grinspoon
• woolgoolga

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Songs From The Land of Nod - Beechwood (Alive Natural Sound)

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By The Barman

The Barman

30 January 2018

Hits: 6103

They don’t have Real Rock and Roll bands in New York City any more, do they? Don’t kid yourself, kid. They might be hard to find but they’re still there, their beating hearts buried under 50 feet of radio-friendly dross and cultural fragmentation.

No, Virginia, there’s no CBGBs. They made a shitty telemovie about it and moved the awning to an airport bar, somewhere. It was a shadow of what it was, even when I got there in the mid-‘80s. There’s no Max’s, either. Times Square is more family friendly than a Disney dance party. Even The Continental is just a dive bar now, more famous for (literally) banning a figure of speech than the Joey Ramone parties it used to host in the ‘80s.

Gentrification has a lot of downsides and one is squeezing cultural outsiders to the extreme margins. Art mostly doesn’t pay the rent, pegged or non existent. The NY rock “scene” is in Brooklyn these days, by all accounts. It has been for quite some time but it’s mostly disposable pop. Thank fuck, then, for Beechwood.

• psychedelic
• alive natural sound
• new york city
• beechwood
• lower east side
• songs from the land of nod

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Thee Hypnotics return to Come Down Heavy on us

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By The Barman

The Barman

30 January 2018

Hits: 5670

Seminal English harbingers of the ‘90s garage rock revival, Thee Hypnotics, are reforming for album rte-issues and live dates. A heavyweight vinyl anthology, including rare and unreleased material, is due out via Beggars Arkive, with an accompanying tour of France and the UK ovwr March and April.

Taking their cues from the Detroit militancy of The MC5, the corrupting output of The Stooges and the gospel according to The Cramps, Thee Hypnotics’ devastating brand of rock’n’roll was propelled by near punishing decibel levels and a fervour bordering on the evangelical.

They recorded three studio records and one live album between 1987 and 1999 and were considered highly influential in Europe and the USA. Past members include original drummer Mark Thompson, the late Craig Pike and bassist Adam Sharam.

• jim jones revue
• tour
• jim jones and the righteous mind
• thee hypnotics
• jim jones
• ray hanson
• phil smith
• jeremy cottingham

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