Plastic fantastic

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By The Barman

The Barman

22 November 2020

Hits: 4097

Twisted - Plastic Section (Outtaspace)

Two salient points need to be made:

If you're going to tap a source, go back to the original.

And there ain’t nothing plastic about this Melbourne trio's sound.

Think Flat Duo Jets, the early White Stripes, Link Wray & The Raymen and BBQ to name a few. While you're at it, you can throw in that catch-all descriptor "Crampsian". In a big way...

• cramps
• outtaspace
• loki lockwood
• paul maybury
• rocket science
• link wray
• plastic section
• twisted

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Thirty years late, Lovergrinder births an album

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By The Barman

The Barman

20 November 2020

Hits: 3922

Lovegrinder The Album – Lovegrinder (self released)

There’s a popular theory - perpetuated by a few fans of Junkie Rock from Australia’s southern state's capital city – that the so-called salad days of Sydney underground rock and roll were a farrago based on an overdose of second-rate Radio Birdman copyists. 

Call it a typically defensive Sydney response but while the "Detroit" handle became a tag of convenience, most of the Harbour City’s bands of the 1980s/early ‘90s had tenuous musical links to the Birdmen. There was a handful of short-lived clones, but for the vast majority it was the energy and undeniable fuck-you-we’ll-do-what-we-want attitude of the Radios that were the hand-me-downs, and not their unique, impossible to replicate mutated musical mix.

Which brings us to Lovegrinder, yet another in the long line of Sydney bands that never progressed higher than the lower support rungs of the very crowded local live scene ladder. Not that there’s any great shame in that. For many, headlining the Tivoli or Selina’s wasn’t the goal because they had no interest in being on the rosters of the omnipotent Dirty Pool, Nuclear or Harbour booking agencies. Playing music was more about knocking around with their mates, consuming beers (or something illicit) and having a good time.

• sydney
• hitmen
• new christs
• ron peno
• tony robertson
• the 31st
• lovegrinder
• naked lunch
• redfern brewewrs
• no man's land
• dave slade
• nick potts
• moffs
• slug

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A Sunnyboy will be alone with you on the final Monday Evening Gunk

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By The Barman

The Barman

19 November 2020

Hits: 3556

The season finale of Monday Evening Gunk is this Monday. Point your browser at the MoshPit Bar Facebook at 7.30pm Sydney time on November 23 to catch Richard Burgman of Sunnyboys, ther Saints, Weddings Parties Anything and many more talking to broadcaster-author Stuart Coupe and ex-Trilobites bassist Scott Leighton. A live set from Freaksd of Nature (a near Trilobites reunion) will take us out. You can catch-up for the replay here on Tuesday.  

• saints
• sunnyboys
• richard burgman
• stuart coupe
• monday evening gunk
• freaks of nature
• trilobites

Boomer conceits can't bury a good story

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By Patrick Emery

Patrick Emery

18 November 2020

Hits: 3756

I’ll Be Gone: Mike Rudd, Spectrum and How One Song Captured a Generation

By Craig Horne (
Melbourne Books)

Craig Horne’s biography of New Zealand-born musician Mike Rudd comes with a lofty sub-titular proposition: "How One Song Captured a Generation". That song is Spectrum’s chart-topping 1971 hit, "I’ll Be Gone".

Horne’s biography is a valuable contribution to Australasian musical history. While Rudd’s trajectory as a musician and songwriter is common to many musicians, Horne’s methodical research and oral history charts the highs and lows of Rudd’s career in impressive detail.

Save for a few cursory mentions in John Dix’s chaotic history of New Zealand music, “Stranded in Paradise”, Rudd’s Christchurch r’n’b band, Chants (or Chants R’n’B), the frenetic band whose parochial popularity provided the basis for Rudd’s move across the Tasman in the late 1960s, is largely absent from the pages of musical history.

Rudd’s tenure in Ross Wilson’s Party Machine, covered previously in Horne’s biography of Daddy Cool, is recounted from a more nuanced, Rudd-oriented perspective. Spectrum rises, plateaus, recalibrates and fades away. Ariel teeters on the edge of commercial success, only for the record company to lose interest.

• mike rudd
• spectrum
• I’ll Be Gone: Mike Rudd, Spectrum and How One Song Captured a Generation

• melbourne books
• craig horne
• daddy cool
• chants r 'n' b
• ross wilson

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MONDAY EVENING GUNK EPISODE 9: The Johnnys and The Cool Charmers

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By The Barman

The Barman

18 November 2020

Hits: 5155

The Six Strings That Drew Blood

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By Robert Brokenmouth

Robert Brokenmouth

15 November 2020

Hits: 5383

This Guitar Belongs to Rowland S. Howard
Edited by Harry Howard (Ledatape)

This is one of the best books I've bought all year.

Why do people buy books about musicians? For the sex, of course. And the glamour and excess. And to get the dirt. Or to try to understand a bit more about the tortured muse. Or because they're a completist. 

What makes a music book crap? If it's not about someone you're interested in, if it's badly written, if it's not factual, if it's (Cardinal Sin Alert) boring. 

Forget the words for the moment. "This Guitar Belongs To Rowland S. Howard" is one of the most beautiful books I've ever seen (and I've worked in an antiquarian bookshop for over 20 years).

• the birthday party
• harry howard

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These streets are paved with dirt

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By The Barman

The Barman

14 November 2020

Hits: 3086

Rough And Tumble - The Dirty Streets (Alive Naturalsound)

They might not realise it but Califonian label Alive Naturalsound have cornered the market in hirsute bands playing psych-laced, Southern fried boogie rock with a dash of soul. The Dirty Streets might be the label's archetypal flag-fliers.

They lack the massive guitar jam excesses of Radio Moscow, the rustic dryness of the early Black Keys or the home-grown stoner full-tilt boogie strut of Left Lane Cruiser (all of them label mates, past or present) but The Dirty Streets share the same zipcode.

• alive naturalsound
• boogie pimps
• humble pie
• the dirty streets
• rough and tumble
• black crowes
• creedence clearwater revival
• justin toland

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They got those Lockdown Blues

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By The Barman

The Barman

11 November 2020

Hits: 3621

“Lockdown Blues” is a new project for Sydney musician and I-94 Bar scribe Edwin Garland (Waxworks, Dwarfthrower) with his studio band Moonlight 5. It’s Edwin on vocals and guitar, John Cobbin on guitar and bass, Elizabeth Lim on bass clarinet, Jim O'Sullivan on drums and Digby Richards on organ and piano. 

• lockdown blues
• moonlight 5

MONDAY EVENING GUNK Episode 8: John Kennedy's 68 Comeback Special

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By The Barman

The Barman

10 November 2020

Hits: 4762