Guitar Wolf are jetting back to Australia and New Zealand

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By The Barman

The Barman

29 March 2023

Hits: 2312

The irresistible kinetic energy of Jett Rock and Roll exponents Guitar Wolf is heading to Australia and New Zealand in April and May.  It will be the first visit by the Tokyo band since 2017. 

Guitar Wolf has released 13 studio albums plus a live album, numerous singles, and a retrospective compilation, "Golden Black".

Band members have also been featured in two B-grade science fiction horror films: "Wild Zero" and "Sore Losers".

Scorching guitar, piercing vocals and a relentless stage act have endeared  Guitar Wolf to audiences around the world.  

Frontman Seiji puts it this way:

• australian tour
• guitar wolf
• new zealand tour
• 2023

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The myth of being Normal

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By JD Stayfree

JD Stayfree

28 March 2023

Hits: 2337

I'm not certain who first coined the memorable phrase Glamericana to describe Joe Normal's songs that are part power-pop, part glam rock, and part blue collar romance and workin' man auto-mythology, ala early E Street Band, but it is indeed an apt description.

Joe Normal's visually stimulating, marketing-minded New Jersey glam gang, the Zeros, moved to L.A. in the 1980s and almost immediately made a big splash on the scene. They were recruited by Howard Stern to record his original radio show theme song and had an endorsement from a top name tennis shoe company. California kids were forming bands with multicolored hair in homage to their Zeros heroes.

The purple haired Zeros were kind of like the missing link between Poison and Green Day. Unless you lived in L.A. in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, it's hard to even remotely grasp how popular the Zeros really were with all the L.A. glam kids, back then, they used to pack 'em in at all the clubs, standing room only, lines around the block.

• joe normal
• the anytown'rs
• eddie van halen
• mick ronson
• hutchinsons
• the zeroes
• howard stern
• public works
• dramarama

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Klondike to convene a Maz-ster-class in Sydney

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By The Barman

The Barman

27 March 2023

Hits: 1907

• hitmen
• radio birdman
• screaming tribesmen
• chris masuak
• masterclass
• petersham bowling club

"A bottle of plonk and a Baddahadatta CD to go, please"

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By Robert Brokenmouth

Robert Brokenmouth

26 March 2023

Hits: 2569

BuddhaDevadatta - Buddhadatta (self releasd)

Picture it: Rundle Mall, Adelaide, the height of Festival and Fringe, and your scurrying obedient scribe is trying to hustle through the attention-getting non-event nonsense “street shows”, the magic acts, all treating us to the incredibly naff idea that “an event means LOUD IMPERATIVE music”, on my way to the bottleshop and thence to the bus to arrive at a nine-year-old’s netball final.

Out of nowhere appear three Japanese musicians, one with a basket on his head clutching a sort of semi-acoustic six-stringed thing, another bloke with a curly mohawk hunched over what looks to be a child’s drum kit, and a woman with long red dreads, wearing a beaming smile and holding a bright red, headless bass.

• japanese
• BuddhaDevadatta
• Buddhadatta

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Hooray for Hollywood

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By The Barman

The Barman

25 March 2023

Hits: 1974

Almost Dead In Hollywood b/w La Dolce Vita – The Fiction (Off The Hip)

The glam-punk “Almost Dead In Hollywood” has a momentum that belies a reality that The Fiction are superannuants who originally convened as a band in Meloburne way back in 1978. Rob Griffiths spits out a word salad about a huge and hazy night before leading us it into a gold-plated singalong chorus. High tension guitars from Rusty Teluk and Rob Wellington are barbs on the end of the hook. Bait taken.

The B side is an ode to a neighbourhood sexpot and if they remake the movie of the same name, it should be on the soundtrack. A nagging guitar line and a bubbling bass-line propel “La Dolce Vita” forward with a relentless but melodic punk urgency. The throaty guitar solo that punctuates the song towards the end of its two-minute lifespan is a cool touch.

Snap it up without hesitation here.

    3/4

• the fiction
• almost dead in hollywood
• la dolce vita

This tribute will be different

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By The Barman

The Barman

24 March 2023

Hits: 2177

Things Will Be Different: A Tribute To Little Murders – Various Artists (Twist Records)

Tribute records? They used to be all the rage but are they now just a bit naff? It depends on who they’re lauding.

Little Murders are Australian rock and roll’s – no! don’t say it! – Best Kept Secret. It’s a cliché, for sure, but don’t be afraid. It just means that cloth-eared and gormless cretins don’t know who they are. If you’re one of them, consider yourself admonished and start paying attention.

• dollsquad
• little murders
• the green circles
• things will be different
• the fadeaways
• the wimpy's
• barb waters
• kate stalker
• the kill-joys

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Died Pretty announce theatre dates

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By The Barman

The Barman

24 March 2023

Hits: 3645

• tour
• died pretty
• 2023

Live album a fitting look back on a classic Died Pretty performance

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By The Barman & Steve Lorkin

The Barman & Steve Lorkin

23 March 2023

Hits: 3155

Died Pretty Live – Died Pretty (Citadel)

Live albums were things a band pulled out of its collective arse when members were short on ideas and had “contractual obligations” to a label. These days, they’re a  quaint anachronism in a market that treats digital singles as a currency.

The only contractual obligation Died Pretty has these days is keeping their record label boss and manager, John Needham, in the lifestyle to which he is accustomed (that's a joke, John), so a live recording of a February 2008 performance of the cross-over album “Doughboy Hollow” at Melbourne’s Forum Theatre is probably of interest only to diehard fans.

Guilty as charged but thousands of others will take the same plea.

• died pretty
• ron peno
• brett myers
• john hoey
• steve clark
• died pretty live
• forum
• doughboy hollow

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Smash it up! The Damned get back down under

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By The Barman

The Barman

20 March 2023

Hits: 2117

Iconic punks The Damned are returning to Australia and New Zealand for a series of highly anticipated shows in June.

Forged in the hot fire of first wave, The Damned are the greatest surviving British punk band, still firing on all cylinders. They are often regarded alongside The Clash and Sex Pistols as a seminal force in driving the genre’s popularity.

• tour
• australian
• new zealand
• the damned
• 2023

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