The Monaros proudly let their skid marks show

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By Ron Brown

Ron Brown

22 December 2020

Hits: 4249

Bogan Rd – The Monaros (self-released)

Hello I-94 Barflies. The Monaros’ “Bogan Rd” is the latest release from Warnambool’s hardest working band. Shit, this must be their seventh or eighth long-player and it’s chock-a-block full of humour and wit.

Just listen to “Parma”. It’s a classic tune about, well, a Chicken Parmigiana. “Ring A Root’,”Kick It Long” and “Dunlop Volleys” are all so bloody Australian. This is a CD to get drunk to, stoned to and maybe not get fucked to – although the track  “King Brown” is kind of sexy.

• cosmic psychos
• psychotic turnbuckles
• grindhouse
• bogan rd
• bogan road
• the monaros

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From Japan with love

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By Robert Brokenmouth

Robert Brokenmouth

22 December 2020

Hits: 3236

Rock'n'Roll Undead – Mad3 (Rock'n'Roll Kingdom)
Upon the Dentigire - 2yago: (Zygeltigit)]

These albums by Japanese bands Mad3 and 2yago were pressed into my hands by one, Paul Slater, who runs the 3D Radio show ”'It's Always Rock'n'Roll” out of Adelaide on Monday nights (and whose adverts occasionally send him to Facebook Jail.) Paul is one of those music nutters who often knows the people who make the music, and has travelled overseas (France, Japan, UK) just for the bands (rather than the touristy T-shirts, towels and gastro).

Mad3 is built around guitar hero Eddie Legend (I-94 Bar readers will know him from the 5.6.7.8s) and are simply incredible. They're one big, bad, really sharp and clever rock'n'roll rollercoaster road trip - you're dragged kicking and squealing into a comic-character world of underground surfer/phantom/doom guitar noir. Play very fucking loud. Eddie has an incredible guitar sound.

• radio 3D
• japanese
• 2yago
• paul slater
• it's always rock 'n' roll
• mad3
• Rock'n'Roll Undead
• Upon the Dentigire

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COVID-truncated trip births new Johnny Casino 45

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By The Barman

The Barman

21 December 2020

Hits: 3422

It's said great songwriters know to write about the things they know about. Johnny Casino has a new 45 imminent and it reflects the strange times in which we all live.

“Twenty Twenty” was written and recorded in the early days of COVID-19 as the expatriate Australian was stuck in Philadelphia, trying to work out a way to get back to his adopted home of Spain. The flip, “People Say”, is a Bored! cover recorded in Spain in stripped-back style as a tribute to that band’s late frontman Dave Thomas, who passed away in 2020.

The vinyl single is out on Spanish imprint Folc Records on January 15 and available for pre-order here.

“’Twenty Twenty’ explains how i was feeling during the months of March and April 2020,” Johnny says. “I had just touched down into Philadelphia International Airport and my brother-in-rock Billy was waiting to pick me up, and his first words were: ‘Brrother I´m surprised they let you in.¨

“I had no idea what he was talking about!”

Casino explains: “Me and my wonderful wife Mayra live in a smallish seaside town called Denia in Spain and we knew there was ¨something¨ happening but not exactly what! We ain’t much for watching news or current affairs programs.

• johnny casino
• bored!
• folc records
• people say
• twenty-twenty

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Looking back but not in anger

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By The Barman

The Barman

20 December 2020

Hits: 3812

Sound of Sydney Volume 4 - Various Artists (Method Records and Music)

What is “the sound of Sydney”? It’s a rhetorical question, if not an outright non sequitur.

If you asked 20 different people, you’d get as many different answers. Someone young might say it’s Triple J - which would be laughable but it’s, you know, it is somebody’s reality. You can fight media fragmentation but it’s like yelling at a cloud. Boomer.    

 “Sound of Sydney” was a series of compilation albums- appearing in 1983, ’84 and ’86 - and the work of Method Records’ Fabian Byrne, of mod-pop band Fast Cars. They were fine records - and very diverse and that in itself was reflective of what was going on in the underground.

• hoodoo gurus
• method records and music
• deniz tek
• fast cars
• fabian byrne
• sound of sydney

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Powerpop wears a blue collar

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By Radio Free JD & The Ball Tonights

Radio Free JD & The Ball Tonights

17 December 2020

Hits: 3104

Stuck in a Job b/w Living In The Borough – Joe Normal & The Anytown'rs (Big Stir Records)

I'm always late to the party, and in the wrong place, at the wrong time, so ya know it was no big surprise, by that year when I finally made it to Hollywood, seeking out competent shag-haired glam punks for my own set to self-destruct before our 15-minute flash metal suicide glitter gang. It was really all over but the pouting, and I hadda get a series of telemarketing and janitorial gigs, sweeping up the silly string and confetti of last year's hairbands!

All the bombshell temptress girlfriends with the come hither, tilted just so police hats, and over blackened hootchie kootchie eyes, had already moved on to gangsta rap or grunge, which was a total buzzkill that I never related to at all, 'just proved the power of corporate media to strongarm any fictitious, manufactured trend or phony narrative upon the masses by overplaying it all day, they did the exact same thing with even more awful boybands two years later, so anyways, in the Hollywood limelite's last gleamings, the purple haired Zeros were like the biggest buzz in town, seemingly poised to make it, at least, as far as Faster Pussycat or L.A. Guns or whoever. They had lines around the block of devoted fans who all formed kooky colored glam groups and copied them slavishly.

• joer normal
• anytownrs
• stuck in a job
• living in the borough

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Once more with feeling

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By The Barman

The Barman

12 December 2020

Hits: 5050

Extract From the Fungus - Celibate Rifles (self released)

Consider it a last will and testament. Eleven songs, cobbled together from restored quarter-inch tape or cassettes, all but one track previously unreleased. It’s music written by other people, which isn’t a detraction ‘cos the Rifles always had the best covers. These are remnants of recording sessions from 1984 right up until a few years ago, but they’re much more than throwaways. 

The Celibate Rifles have a special place in the hearts and minds of most who saw them. A bunch of suburban Sydney boys fronted by a worldly and older larrikin, they began more brazen than cool. Before long, they fitted in with the exploding Australian underground of the ‘80s and ‘90s better than many critics realised. 

• kent steedman
• celibate rifles
• damien lovelock
• extract from the fungus

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Young Nick stripped

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By Robert Brokenmouth

Robert Brokenmouth

12 December 2020

Hits: 4326

Boy on Fire. The Young Nick Cave
By Mark Mordue
(Harper Collins)

Lou Reed famously used the phrase "Growing Up in Public", but it's seriously arguable that he ever grew up at all. As represented in "Boy on Fire", Nick Cave grew up in public, and it's that Odyssean journey which we want to follow. 'Cause success, well, that's over-rated. It's nice that you're not poor anymore, but boy, if you had problems before, you could easily have a worse time dealing with them.

So author Mark Mordue begins with some of what he already knew, and of what we already know, before plunging down a rabbit-hole beset on all sides with imminent spiteful criticism, fact-checkers, poor-memory merchants and "it wasn't that way at all" keyboard numptys.

That he suspects what he's in for is quite clear from his early observation of the bond between Nick and his mum before Cave heads off to accept an ARIA Award in 2007. To his credit, although he was only nominated himself, Cave also inducted the other members of The Birthday Party and The Bad Seeds on the night. (Most annoyingly, he forgot to mention the band's original drummer, Phill Calvert).

Like I said, brave or damned foolish; it's hard to be a writer, not a hack, and make any money (Mordue has a day job, he's no fool). "Boy on Fire" deserves to be purchased for yourself, your friends and anyone you know interested in music. Period.

One reason is that, if you know enough about Cave, you'll also know that any decent book about him should always have a modicum of humour. I found myself chuckling out loud on the bus within minutes of beginning and, while it's not written with laughter in mind, you will find the several threads which Mark sets up quite early, vividly rewarding. Cave himself, an adventurous mischief-maker, possesses a savage and spontaneous wit, and his company can be addictive. Small wonder that so many who have encountered him either don't comprehend him, or find him boorish, or jaw-droppingly fascinating.

• bad seeds
• nick cave
• the birthday party
• mark mordue

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Ryders on the storm

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By Patrick Emery

Patrick Emery

09 December 2020

Hits: 4335

_{Making orange juice from oranges...Sid Griffin and The Long Ryders. Tom Gold photo.}   

“There wasn’t anything called Americana when we started, but we helped create it, so I’m happy to be associated with it,” Long Ryders singer and guitarist Sid Griffin laughs, when I ask him if he has any empathy with the loosely-defined genre. “I like the Americana thing. I’m not one of those guys who says their band aren’t this or that.”

But while The Long Ryders were at the vanguard of the movement – as well, from a different musico-cultural perspective, the so-called Paisley Underground scene of the early 1980s, Griffin reckons Americana existed long before The Long Ryders formed in LA in 1980.

“People say that Sun Records was Americana, because of the marriage of rhythm and blues with country and western. But the other one that people miss is The Lovin’ Spoonful. They’re definitely Americana. Americana has always been here. No-one said Americana or alt.country until the end of The Long Ryders’ days.”

• paisley underground
• los angeles
• long ryders
• sid griffin
• down to the well
• prim
• prima records

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Glorious stories from one of the quiet ones

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By Robert Brokenmouth

Robert Brokenmouth

05 December 2020

Hits: 4200

Small Moments of Glory By Jack Howard
(Brolga Publishing)

Another in the Best Books I've Bought All Year Category.

Jack Howard kept a journal from before he joined Hunters and Collectors, and through most of his career with them; his horn work with other musicians predates Hunnas, continued while he was with them, and continues now. Clearly it's a life sentence.

Jack Howard avoids innumerable pitfalls by presenting a book which is purely one thing: older musician looks back on his life with accuracy and smarts, confesses that his early years were riddled with angst and neuroses and, clearly recoiling from his diaries in horror, declines to share the cringeworthy evidence. Instead (and instead of making up some cool-sounding mythology) Jack just says that it happened. And he moves on. Something we could all do well to remember.

"Small Moments of Glory" does not tell Jack's story from the perspective of a (cue neon sign, huge throbbing cathedral organ and scantily-clad models) ROCK GOD, but of a bloke who plays an instrument and starts playing in a few bands and, after a lot of hard touring and yakka and angst, one of these becomes a significant part of our country's backdrop. 

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