Sonic Garage takes it to a new level

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By Edwin Garland

Edwin Garland

10 October 2023

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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

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 _{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

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_{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: 2995

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: 3712

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: 2823

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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Has Science Gone Too Far? Ask the Bahne Super-Flex

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By The Barman

The Barman

03 October 2023

Hits: 3395

DATELINE: Sydney, Australia - They were the product of a CIA experiment; rarely employed, driftless musicians from the 80’s, playing the independent scene, watching hours of American TV…

They were abducted with the promise of a headline gig, forced hallucinogenic substances in horrific experimentation (and then demanded the CIA did it again), and then cryogenically frozen for the next few decades. It was Night of the Many Deaths, that’s for sure.

But when a major condenser blew in the refrigeration evaporator, combined with a security guard’s mixed tape playing 70’s favourites through an old boombox, a course of events would be set in motion that not even the Central Intelligence Agency could understand, let alone control.

• celibate rifles
• mushroom planet
• trilobites
• old manly boatshed
• bahne super-flex
• southern preachers
• brass monkey

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Of unintended labels and everything being louder than everything else

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By Robert Brokenmouth

Robert Brokenmouth

02 October 2023

Hits: 3892

It was at band practice with Smallpox Confidential about four or so weeks ago that I discovered the car crash I had been in had walloped me so damn hard that apart from the soft tissue damage and concussion, I'd also lost a significant chunk of hearing. 

I'd not realised because it was a certain range of sound rather than everything, and I was so preoccupied with all the rest of the time-gobbling nonsense that until something is dead obvious, you tend not to really notice. 

Anyway, there we were in the same room in the same places with the knobs at the same volumes... and I couldn't hear Marduk's guitar. Naturally, I asked our bass player, Bob, to turn down, which he reluctantly did (do you know a bass player? do they EVER turn down?). Then I asked Marduk, to turn up, which somewhat puzzled, he did. Then I asked Bob and Marduk again, because I still couldn't hear the guitar. 

• robert brokenmouth
• smallpox confidential
• rock and roll prison
• catcher in the rye
• lolita
• american psycho
• dead city nights

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Make mine a Shandy with Harder Yakka

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By The Barman

The Barman

02 October 2023

Hits: 3443

Harder Yakka – Shandy (Bovver Boogie Records)

If there’s a higher energy rock and roll band in Greater Brisbane, weight-for-age, you know our email address. Only Dr Bombay comes close. So why wouldn’t you be onto this collection of pre and post-pandemic recordings faster than a Moreton Bay seagull on a chip? 

Remember sharpie rock? Shandy covers that base but with less overt boogie and more of the sort of rock rhythm that rolls. 

Recall Oi? The shout-out choruses are still here but the kicking is more to do with excising jams than taking off rival soccer fans’ heads. “Harder Yakka” has a larrikin charm that’s Australian-made, due in no small part to the distinctly Antipodean crunch in the guitars.

• brisbane
• shandy
• jj speedball
• harder yakka

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