The I-94 Bar - Real Rock Action from Sydney, Australia, via The Bowery and The Motor City

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All the Young Droogs. 60 Juvenile Delinquent Wrecks, Rock’N’Glam (And A Flavour Of Bubblegum) From The 70’s - Various Artists (Cherry Red)

Details: By Robert Brokenmouth; 10 February 2019; Hits: 6347

All the Young Droogs What a fucking great title. Almost as good as The Clash's "All the Young Punks" - itself a take on that Bowie song "All the Young Dudes" - wonder how many 1977 punks got that? Even though it was right in their alley?

You know how, during summer, assorted neighbours will play loud music, usually horrible, and, when the hours wind down and the drink begins to blur the world, they get maudlin and soppy and play those lachrymose ballads...? Sure you do. Well, when this happens at 230 am, that is your cue to dash over, swap their copy of Kamahl's Greatest Hits with any one of these three discs, flick the switch and revel in their dismay.

Either that or, rather suddenly, the party's on again and the police want to know your personal details. Again.

Cherry Red describe this collection as "60 tracks of the finest slices of JSG in its various guises, as established by collectors around the world over the past decade. Including tracks from the USA, New Zealand, Netherlands, Sweden, Iceland, Australia as well as homegrown UK. Some previously unreleased, many first time on CD."

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6.3k views

Hey Sydney: Make a date with The Golden Rail

Details: By The Barman; 10 February 2019; Hits: 5056

somtimes when lge The Golden Rail are bringing their consumate Mellbourne via Perth guitar pop to Sydney for two shows this month to launch their new album “Sometimes When”.

As direct participants (or side players) in The Palisades, The Rainyard, Header, Summer Suns, DM3 and, more recently, The Jangle Band, The Golden Rail are eminently qualified to give Sydney a jangle pop lesson, and you can catch them at two shows.

Friday, February 16 finds them at a new venue, The Butcher’s Block, In Dulwich Hill where they’ll be supported by Inner Western Delta locals The Smart Folk. The next afternoon, The Golden Rail will play Gasoline Pony with John Kennedy’s 68 Comeback Special. You can hear and buy the album here.

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5k views

John Dowler brings the jangle that's hard to resist

Details: By David Laing; 04 February 2019; Hits: 7497

john dowler live in melb ^{John Dowler with his band The Vanity Project. David Laing photo.}

In his 1981 feature on Australian powerpop pioneer John Dowler in Roadrunner magazine, Melbourne rock writer Adrian Ryan commented on Dowler’s then-new band, the short lived Everybody’s So Glad. He said they played with a certain kind of soul, and a type of sound that hadn’t been heard in town since Paul Kelly & The Dots underwent a line-up change too many, and since the Saints were last here. It was the kind of sound that “had nothing to do with horn sections and screams, but rather with jangling guitars, a passionate beat, allusions to something half forgotten.”

I love that soul and those jangling guitars. Being Melbourne born, I heard a bit of at as I was getting into music. It’s not the jangle of some insipid jangle-pop band, it’s a hard jangle, which is where the Saints come in. Ryan was referring to the Saints that recorded such classic tracks as “Call It Mine”, “In The Mirror” and “Let’s Pretend”.

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7.4k views

Nuder than Nuder than Nude - The Nudists (Swashbuckling Hobo)

Details: By The Barman; 03 February 2019; Hits: 4941

the nudists Three things you need to know before we start: This is the sound of miscreants making mischief. Stylistically speaking, it's all over the shop like a mad woman's breakfast. And lyrically, "Nuder Than Nuder Than Nude" sounds like a public exhibition of schizophrenia.

The Nudists were reputedly around in Brisbane for a handful of shows in the mid-2000s and were lured into the studio by Swashbuckling Hobo Records over two days to lay down their first “proper” record. The immediate take after a few listens was that they sound like Lubricated Goat on bongs.

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4.9k views

Still Here - The Beasts (Bang! Records/Rocket)

Details: By Patrick Emery; 28 January 2019; Hits: 9659

still here In April 2007 I sat opposite Spencer Jones and Greg ‘Tex’ Perkins in a booth downstairs at the Prince of Wales Hotel in St Kilda. The occasion was an interview to promote the release of the Beasts of Bourbon’s first studio album in 10 years, "Little Animals". Having recently arrived back from a short tour of the United States, Spencer and Perkins were weary from the long-haul flight.

Perkins was in Beasts mode – cocky, enigmatic, and just prickly enough to remind you who was the tough guy here. Spencer was, as he always was, just Spencer – the cowboy hat, a faint smile, and a reassuring honesty that defied his decades of service in the duplicitous, ego-obsessed world of rock’n’roll.

A fraught fraternal atmosphere hung over the interview. Spencer and Perkins had been friends, band mates, fellow reprobates and occasional antagonists for the past 25 years. They were like brothers, Perkins once mused, and like brothers they loved and fought. And Spencer and Perkins were the only remaining links to the genesis of the Beasts of Bourbon, an irreverent make-shift band thrown together to fulfil Perkins’ gig commitments at the Southern Cross Hotel, way back in June 1983.

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9.6k views

Still here, The Beasts continue to challenge

Details: By Robert Brokenmouth; 28 January 2019; Hits: 8920

beasts still here seated _{Boris Sujdovic, Tony Pola, Kim Salmon, Tex Perkins and Charlie Owen are The Beasts.}

The Beasts of Bourbon formed, somewhat by accident, in 1984. If you were 12 today, would you really be inclined to take the trouble to listen to something recorded by a bunch of blokes who started back then?

Well, the hell with your boring old 12-year-old self. The new album by the Beasts of Bourbon's direct descendants, The Beasts, is called "Still Here" and it rates seven (if not eight) bottles (out of five) in my books. It's really simple: "Still Here" is essential if, as you claim, you're a Beasts of Bourbon fan, or if you think of yourself as someone who loves rock'n'roll.

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8.9k views

The Other Band Sucks - The Denyals/Gun Addiction (Antitune Records)

Details: By The Barman; 27 January 2019; Hits: 4608

the other band sucks It’s a split album from two French bands on a label from Lille in the north of France, which is one of those old industrial cities that's cast off its blue collar for a suit and tie. Like many of those gentrified European cities, punk rock clings to life - an even thrives - in reduced circumstances.

The Denyals make crunchy punk rock and sound like a cross between the early Clash and Husker Du - slowed right down. They're a three-piece devoid of any trimmings and they use drop-outs to good effect. Errein's impassioned vocal and jagged guitar are splattered all over the six songs.

The savage "Disco Boy" and stuttering opener “Valentines (I Love Your Head)” are the real stand-outs. Errein's guitar sounds like the bluntest of surgical instruments on "My Sweet Swedish Things".

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4.6k views

No farts are sacred when these girls light up

Details: By Robert Brokenmouth; 27 January 2019; Hits: 6076

doremi vanessa elizabeth cole
_{Do Re Mi's Deborah Conway and Helen Carter. Vanessa Elizabeth-Colo photo}

At this point I suppose I'm expected to wax lyrical about the number of times I saw Do Re Mi in the 1990s, the number of sweaty situations I got into, and how I finally threw out my dancing shoes because they were attracting cuckoos.

As you have probably guessed, I cannot do that, because I never saw Do Re Mi; not once. In fact, when the band split up and simger Deborah Conway's face and name suddenly began appearing when she launched her solo career, I had no idea who she was, nor her past. In fact, I still haven't heard a single Deborah Conway song.

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6k views

Brothers-in-arms, Chickenstones put on a pearler of a show on their home turf

Details: By Robert Brokenmouth; 26 January 2019; Hits: 7664

chickenstones beah club When you realise we came up to Sydney from Adelaide solely to see The Chickenstones you may deduce from this that I am a tad biased towards the band. However, if I were able, I would simply be at every gig they do, because, to my mind, they really are that good.

However, one of the reasons I can't dash all over the country is the inevitable lack of money (donations are welcome), and another is that I work in a family-operated business, so I fit myself around what everyone else is doing. Mostly this means that there are things on interstate which I would love to see, but can't.

Opening band Dias - pronounced Dee-az - have good songs and the young folk love them. I think they may also be currently in a bit of transition, as some of the songs showed a similarity of purpose, while some of their others seemed to be coming from some other place.

Guitar and vox, bass and drums; it's amazing how varied people can make such a traditional set-up. While comparisons are effectively fairly useless, my photographer was reminded of The Whitlams, a musician in the audience was thinking about The Strokes, and I was reminded a little of early Go-Betweens. Truth is, I'd characterise them as a richly shiny, slow-burning surf waltz.

They went down well with the very mixed crowd (old unionist surfers and their wives, and folks who may as well be their university-aged grandkids ... hell of a mixture). I don't know if I'd liked Dias if they'd still had their other guitarist - what interested me was that, as I say, I think they're still trying things out - which is always an excellent reason to see a band.

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7.6k views

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