Two more shows loom for The Beasts
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- By The Barman
- Hits: 3789
Homegrown supergroup The Beasts will play two special performances next month to celebrate their latest full-length studio release, “Ultimo” - with the prospect of more to come if drummer James Baker’s health holds up.
Melbourne (The Corner Hotel, February 21) and Sydney (Manning Bar, February 22) are the lucky cities and both gigs are expected to sell out. If you caught The Beasts last year on their national sold-out “Alive" tour you’ll know why.
The Beasts are surviving Beasts of Bourbon members James Baker, Tex Perkins, Kim Salmon, Boris Sujdovic and Charlie Owen.
The Beasts
Corner Hotel, VIC
- Feb 21
Tickets
Manning Bar, NSW
- Feb 22
Tickets
Little Murders deliver a powerpop masterwork
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- By The Barman
- Hits: 2913
Under Northern Lights – Little Murders (Off the Hip)
Nine studio albums in and Little Murders might have this rock-pop caper nailed. Again.
“Under Northern Lights” showcases what songwriter, band leader and sole constant member Rob Griffiths and his current, and most enduring, line-up do so well. So that’s a wrap for this review.
No, you don’t get off that easy. At least not until you’ve been thoroughly sold the virtues of “Under Northern Lights”. It should be an easy task if you set the tracks running in the background on Bandcamp. Let’s get stuck in.
Filmmaker Jason Axel Summers and the Stuart Gray documentary "I Should Have Been Dead Years Ago"
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- By Robert Brokenmouth
- Hits: 8776
Filmmaker Jason Axel Summers (right) with Stuart Gray. in Jason’s apartment. This “Stutue” was commissioned by Jason and depicts him with his Super 8 camera and light meter in either hand. The white of the lens and the sensor on the meter are made of glow in the dark epoxy. Stuart used his own hair as the hair on the Stutue
US filmmaker Jason Axel Summers' documentary about Australian-born musical anarchist and visual artist, Stuart Gray, “I Should Have Been Dead Years Ago”, is a prime example of what fantastic music there is out there to discover, and an excellent example of 'if you had expectations about this man, leave 'em at the door”.
Many I-94 Barflies will know of Stuart Gray (aka Stu Spasm), but not so much his music. If there's any justice, as a result of this documentary, Stuart will become a TV star and take his latest band, the New York City-based Art Gray Noizz Quartet, on an international stadium tour, complete with middle-aged ladies heaving their undies at him, while his oddly-insightful sculptures will sell for hundreds of thousands.
But hey, we live in a real world of struggle, pain, indifference, beauty, sin and downright foolishness, don't we.
So let's have a little yak with Jason Axel Summers, the somewhat determined man behind “I Should Have Been Dead Years Ago”.
One Jones worth acquiring
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- By The Barman
- Hits: 5274
Keepin’ Up With The Jones – The Ballbusters (Vicious Kitten)
You might question the validity of this four-song EP from the Worcester, Massachusetts, band that used to be Rick Blaze and The Ballbusters until their frontman’s demise in 2011 following protracted health issues. After all, it’s been 23 years since their second album and first for Vicious Kitten (the “Manhattan Babylon” CD) and one of the guitarists, Dave Cuneo, has also since shuffled off this mortal coil.
It was easy back then to write off Rick Blaze and The Ballbusters as yet another Thunders-besotted outfit from the backblocks whose fascination for JT's dubious lifestyle choices got in the way of them making it out of their own backyard. The cover art for this EP is all a bit too obvious but its arrival prompted re-visits of “Manhattan Babylon” and its 2001 follow-up “People’s Republic of Rock and Roll”, and they retrospectively hold up as righteous slices of swagger that owe as much to Mick and Keef as J. Genzales.
Third album finds Full Moon Flower Band in full bloom
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- By Edwin Garland
- Hits: 2681
Megaflower - Full Flower Moon Band (Silver Arrow)
Full Flower Moon band as a concept has been ongoing for almost a decade. It was a project created by songwriter, filmmaker and musician Kate Dillion. Early gigs in Brisbane were more of an experimental affair, playing at fringe music venues around Brisbane as a duo but sometimes supplemented by other musicians.
Dillion’s masterwork of a few years ago was her ambitious sci-fi film, “Chinatown”. She wrote the script, played the lead and wrote the soundtrack that became her debut album. A critically-acclaimed, intellectually-layered short film, it was an incredible achievement.
Teen Guerrillas launch a strike that hits home
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- By The Barman
- Hits: 4491
I Cyclops b/w Pride of the Savanna – Guerrilla Teens (Heavy Medication)
There’s a certain irony in three-fifths of a Long Beach, California, relocated to Portland, Oregon, putting out a single on a label run by an expat American based in Warsaw, Poland, when you realise that the first recording of the original group from which the trio sprang came out on a label in Yugoslavia back in the late 1990s. Confused, much? Let’s make it simple…
Guerrilla Teens feature ex-The Humpers singer Scott “Deluxe” Drake up front, aided and abetted by old bandmates Jeff Fieldhouse and Saul Koll on guitars. The Humpers were up with the best of a crop of Sympathy For The Record Industry labelmates like The Lazy Cowgirls, out of L.A. Bill Connolly (bass) and Anna Anderson (drums) make up the Teens’ line-up. Ex-Lazy Cowgirl Pat Todd hipped me to a copy of their album so the ears were receptive to hearing thie single.
A hint of the old days but Superchunk are very much in the here and now
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- By Edwin Garland
- Hits: 3814
Matt Allison photo
Superchunk
+ Smudge
The Sydney Crowbar, Leichhardt
Friday, December 13, 2024
1991 has gone down in folklore as “The Year That Punk Broke” and in many ways it’s true. A wave of underground music swept across music channels - in particular in the USA.
It’s also that there was a surge in guitars being bought and we can attribute this mostly to Nirvana. Scratch under the surface, and a crop of new bands had been springing up like green shoots across America for years. Releasing records on labels like Matador, SST and SubPop, they’d been criss-crossing America in broken vans, living on pills, booze, junk food and small shows
All the action was being documented in fanzines and the underground bible Alternative Press. For me, it was even cooler than the British wave of punk as it was more street-level and organic. Names like Afghan Wigs, Sonic Youth, Babes in Toyland, Laughing Hyenas, Mudhoney, TAD, Pixies and Lemonheads were the staple diet in the period prior to Nirvana releasing “Nevermind”.
The Beasts still breathe fire on their studio swansong
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- By The Barman
- Hits: 5520
Ultimo - The Beasts (Slick Productions)
"Ultimo" by The Beasts is the final nail in the Beasts of Bourbon's recording coffin. As Tex Perkins told bandmates in an email proposing its release, the title's definitions include -Finale, Conclusivo, Defenitivo, The Last.
As if you didn't know, The Beasts comprise former members of the Beasts of Bourbon and were conceived to record one more time with an ailing Spencer P Jones while honouring fallen bass player Brian Hooper. The "Still Here" album was spawned and toured before The Beasts lost drummer Tony Pola, also to cancer.
Re-convening with founding Beasts of Bourbon drummer James Baker, now also terminally ill, doing more shows was a way of connecting the historical dots and keeping him on the planet. Call it musical therapy. A couple of gigs led to an extensive national tour earlier this year.
John Kennedy announces Aussie dates to support his live album
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- By The Barman
- Hits: 3404
Urban and western troubadour John Kennedy kicks off his Australian run to promote “Live At The Marrickville Bowl” (I-94 Bar Records) this weekend.
Now living in Spain, Kennedy will play band gigs with his all-star The New Originals and solo/duo shows, hitting New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland.
First cab off the rank is an in-store thjis Saturday afternoon at Egg Records in Newtown - fittingly, just off King Street, which is a location Kennedy has immortalised in "The King of King Street". Most of The New Originals will join him. Full dates and ticket links after the fold.
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Gig Ads
The Living Eye
White Knuckle Fever
(Celia's birthday)
+ Beijing Bikini
Town Hall Hotel, Newtown, NSW
- Dec 20
Cosmic Psychos
"I Really Like Beer Tour"
JAN
1 — Edge Hill Tavern, Cairns, QLD
2 — Dalrymple Hotel, Townsville, QLD
3 — Magnums, Airlie Beach, QLD
4 — Metropolitan Hotel, Mackay, QLD
7 — Harvey Road Tavern, Gladstone, QLD
8 — Grand Hotel, Childers, QLD
9 — Mo’s Desert Clubhouse, Gold Coast, QLD
10 — Seaview Tavern, Woolgoolga, NSW
11 — Bellingen Brewery, Bellingen, NSW
14 — Moonshiners Honky Tonk Bar, Tamworth, NSW
15 — Finnian's Tavern, Port Macquarie, NSW
16 — Avalon RSL, Avalon, NSW
17 — The Marlin, Ulladulla, NSW
18 — Beer Deluxe, Albury NSW
22 — Tanswells Hotel, Beechworth, VIC
23 — Sooki Lounge, Belgrave, VIC
24 — Westonport Hotel, San Remo, VIC
25 — Social Club, Balnarring, VIC
26 — Volta, Ballarat, VIC
29 — Whalers Hotel, Warrnambool, VIC
30 — Torquay Hotel, Torquay, VIC
31 — Riverview Hotel, Tarwin Lower, VIC
FEB
12 — Royal Oak, Launceston, TAS
13 — Forth Pub, Devonport, TAS
14 — Altar, Hobart, TAS
Send us stuff to review
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2223 Australia
Get in touch: barman@i94bar.com
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