Oldest Friend - The Painkillers (Off The Hip)

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By The Barman

The Barman

02 May 2018

Hits: 5584

Of the four albums by The Painkillers since 2006, this is the first to feature a full band. It also reprises five of its nine songs from earlier recordings. 

The Painkillers were formerly a duo - guitarist-singer Joe Bludge, a bluesman, and drummer James Baker, a man who surely needs no introduction. 

Coming from Perth (yeah, yeah, the most isolated capital city in the world) kept them a secret from the rest of Australia. I remember rushing across town one Saturday night, after an opening spot by Wrong Turn at The Empire (RIP), to catch a rare East Coast Painkillers show at Sydney’s Excelsior Hotel (RIP again), and finding the band barely outnumbered by punters. 

• perth
• scientists
• painkillers
• dubrovniks
• james baker
• triffids
• joe bludge
• martin casey
• richard lane
• oldest friend

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Into The Sun - P76 (Off The Hip)

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By The Barman

The Barman

02 May 2018

Hits: 4267

Vocal melodies and rippling guitars never get old. “Into The Sun” originally came out in 2000, on the ubiquitous US-Australian label Zip Records and has been re-issued by Off The Hip, 18 years later.

It sounds fresher than a couple of teenagers in the back row of a movie theatre on a first date sponsored by Colgate and Listerine, and could have been recorded a week ago.

Some context: Danny McDonald is only a little bloke but he’s a towering talent of Aussie powerpop. After doing his best to crack the mainstream charts while leading P76 and the preceding Jericho, as well as 18 months as a hired hand for Oscarlima, he took a step back, to life in rural Victora, and raise a family. And record and release three excellent albums under his own name.

• dom mariani
• danny mcdonald
• p76
• zip records
• into the sun
• oscarlima

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Hindu Gods, Dave's calling you

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By The Barman

The Barman

01 May 2018

Hits: 4304

_{Lipstick Killers precursors The Psychosurgeons.}

That finder of lost treasures extraordinaire, David Laing, is on the hunt for archival photos, handbills and posters relating to Sydney band the Lipstick Killers.

Formerly head of the Grown Up Wrong and Dogmeat labels and longtime footsoldier for Shock Records and more recently Universal, Dave is branching out on his own and his first project is a double CD of definitive Lipstick Killers goodness.

Working with Lipstick Killers guitarist Mark Taylor, Laing has already unearthed some unheard gems and now wants to do the packaging justice by adding unseen images. Says "Dogmeat Dave": “I’m especially keen to find decent promo shots, including good quality versions of the ones regularly doing the rounds. In particular I’m after photos and a contact for one, Gary Lane, who did a shoot in ’79 – one photo was used in RAM magazine.”

Drop Dave a lineThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

• psychosurgeons
• lipstick killers
• mark taylor
• david laing

Langered - The Jenkinses (self released)

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By The Barman

The Barman

29 April 2018

Hits: 2889

If you could bottle the brashness on the five tracks from this EP by The Jenkinses you’d have a product to bring lasting peace to the Middle East, send a man to Mars and restore hair to Peter Garrett’s head. All considered impossible before now. 

The Jenkinses are a two-guitar four-piece from Brussels, full of grizzled veterans from Belgian bands like Contingent, Nervous Shakes, Vice Barons and Wild Ones. Only Nervous Shakes are familiar to me and they were great. The exception to the grizzled descriptor is guitarist Juliette Drumel, who’s the other guitarist-vocalist James Neligan’s better half.  Juliette gets her own picture on the inside of the digipak.  Happy wife, happy life, right James?

“Langered” - that's an Irish term for drunk - see, I like ‘em already - is the band’s second release, the first eponymous EP presumably being physical product when it came out four years ago, but now only available digitally. So how's it sound?

• garage
• langered
• jenkinses
• belgian
• nervous shakes
• wild ones

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Who Is Innocent? A Singles Collection 1983-87 - Fixed Up (Nineteen Something)

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By The Barman

The Barman

28 April 2018

Hits: 4803

Their legacy was just two LPs and a stack of singles but Fixed Up’s punky and soulful garage rock touched people in their native France and all the way around to the other side of the world in Australia.

A lot’s been made about the Sydney-Detroit connection, mainly through Radio Birdman and its now fading local musical legacy. The irrefutable fact was that Birdman and its associated influences ruled the Sydney roost in the early 1980s. As true as that was, you can make a strong case for the affinity between Australia and France being almost as important, once the Sydney underground scene started to diversify and expand. 

The Franco-Ausstralian link was made when John Needham, chief of seminal Sydney label Citadel Records, started dealing with the likes of Sonics Records in France. Suddenly, there was a pipeline for Australian bands to have their music heard on the Continent - meaning outside the UK where the perpetually jaded music press briefly adopted Aussie arty pop, junkie rock and the swamp sound for a time. 

• garage
• soul
• french
• new christs
• died pretty
• screaming tribesmen
• fixed up
• asphalt tuaregs
• francois lebas
• nineteen something
• sonics records
• mephisto
• sylvain picot

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Love Hypnotic - The Jim Mitchells (Off The Hip)

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By The Barman

The Barman

25 April 2018

Hits: 3705

Don’t judge a book by the cover, they said. They were right. The contents of ”Love Hypnotic” leave its quirky artwork for dead.

Descriptor? Somebody said “acid washed garage goodness” and that’ll do. Respect. That one can’t be topped. There’s an almost effortless drift to this Sydney band’s sound that makes it click. Wafting melodies and dreamy vocals jostle with rustic guitars to create an alluring soundscape. 

I know. You’re dying to know if there is an actual Jim Mitchell and the answer’s Yes. There’s the man - on vocals and guitar - who's evidently the creative multi-instrumentalist, and his band. And they are a band. They even play live and tour - a lot by contemporary standards. 

• sydney
• psychedlic
• the jim mitchells
• love hypnotic
• third eye stimuli

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Forty years after the not so great "Lethal Weapons" rock and roll swindle

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By Trevor Block

Trevor Block

25 April 2018

Hits: 7315

Corporate con or well-meaning act of benevolence? History tends to deliver a verdict of the former. for "Lethal Weapons", the 1978 compilaiton album of Australian "punk". 

"Lethal Weapons" was a product on an offshoot of major Australian label Mushroom (the same people who brought you Chain, Skyhooks and the Sunnyboys) and it was clearly a cynical attempt to commercialise underground music scenes then burgeoning in Melbourne and Sydney, especially.

Compiled by would-be A & R man Barry Earl, the album was notable for its eclectic cast which included The Boys Next Door (soon to become The Birthday Party), JAB, The Survivors,  whose members would go onto Sacred Cowboys, The Moodists, Radio Birdman, Teenage Radio Stars and the Bad Seeds. 

Trevor Block went in search of many of the original protagonists in bands that signed to Suicide. We're reprising his article to mark 40 years of "Lethal Weapons", and the decade since its CD re-issue. 

• nick cave
• skyhooks
• punk rock
• sacred cowboys
• garry gray
• the reals
• jim dickson
• mick harvey
• boys next door
• lethal weapons
• suicide records
• dolores san miguel
• survivors
• bruce anton
• barry earl
• james freud
• sean kelly
• jab
• teenage radio stars
• greg macainish
• trevor block
• mushroom records
• bohdan-x

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Doll Dreams and Heartbreak: Jerry Nolan biographer Curt Weiss and that wild ride

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By The Barman

The Barman

24 April 2018

Hits: 22433

Telling the tempestuous and tragically short life story of ex-New York Dolls and Heartbreakers drummer Jerry Nolan was always going to be a formidable challenge. American author Curt Weiss has succeeded with "Stranded in The Jungle. Jerry Nolan’s Wild Ride", the unvarnished biography of one of New York rock and roll's most mercurial figures. 

It's an account of a man whose flaws were seemingly as large as his talents. Nolan was the pre-eminent rock and roll drummer of his era but his life was scarred by drug addiction. His death at 45 - almost certainly AIDS-related, according to "Stranded In The Jungle" - came hard on the heels of that of his bandmate Johnny Thunders, and closed a time in NYC that we won't see again. The book's theme is that Nolan's playing skills and style were admirable; his addiciton and treatment of others much less so.  

Weiss' book takes us  through the underbelly of rock and roll on a trail littered by used syringes, stymied ambition and squandered opportunities. Importantly though, "Stranded in The Jungle" makes the place of the Dolls in punk rock's continuum crystal clear. And is impossible to put down.

Curt Weiss consented to talk about his book from his Seattle home. Here's the lowdown.  

• heartbreakers
• new york dolls
• jerry nolan
• johnny thunders
• curt weiss
• bette middler

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Cookie Trail - The Country Dark (Humu Records)

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By The Barman

The Barman

23 April 2018

Hits: 3527

Holy North Pole! These Finns know sure how to host a hoedown. It must be all that midnight sun.

The fourth album by The Country Dark is like a downhill luge ride on amphetamines with a bellyful of rye whisky. Previous exposure to 2016’s “Hypnic Jerk” serves as a great primer but “Cookie Trail” kicks the weirdness up by a considerable notch. This is where the early Beasts of Bourbon butt heads with Jeffrey Lee Pierce.

"Cookie Trail" is Americana with a severe genetic flaw. The perpetrator is toothless, last seen hanging around a murder scene and left driving a stolen muscle car. The Country Dark wear hob-nailed cowboy boots and a 10-gallon hat. The hills they occupy do have eyes. The Country Dark carry an axe and they aren't afraid to use it on all nine of these tunes.

• rockabilly
• the country dark
• humu records
• cookie trail
• finland

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