The Sonics work hard and put doubters in their place

_{The Sonics, 2016-style, owning the stage in Adelaide. Nick Spaulding photo}

Opening support Juliette Seizuere & The Tremor Dolls had a lot to contend with in Adelaide tonight. First up, not enough punters in early, crowded stage (The Sonics’ Dusty brought his own kit from the States), a line-up re-arrangement (only the two guitarists remain), and singer-guitarist Shannon recently had an operation.

This is the first time I've seen them - I have tried to catch them before but never managed it. I enjoyed them, they're kinda powerpop with surfin' girl-pop overtones. Yeah, you'll spot “influences” but as always, it's about the music and the delivery. I have feeling that in several gigs time and in a smaller venue, they will be a force to reckon with, so I'll have to see them again. I've heard the CD is good: it's on Off The Hip.

Speaking of Off the Hip’s Mick Baty, and indeed of Loki Lockwood of Spooky Records, Subtract-S are the premier support band of choice these days. They're unsigned. They're great fun, have a swirling, varied sound and swap vocals between Sam the Bam and Tomway Army. They're always worth seeing, and many of us have travelled inordinate distances and gone to some inconvenience to dance at their feet. Doesn't take long. Get to a record company, boys, and get something out, those download cards are useful but won't make you money at a gig. The world awaits.

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• garage
• subtract-s
• the sonics
• juliette seizure & the tremor-dolls

Dangerous Minds - The Media Whores (Who7represents Records/Twenty Stone Blatt Records)

They don’t half mind talking politics north of Hadrian’s Wall, but few Scots manage to mix it with scorching rock and roll like this crew. “Dangerous Minds” is the third Media Whores album since they formed in 2008 and sounds exactly like its title warns.

Pointed and to the point, The Media Whores don’t embrace lyrical subtlety. They attack subjects like fracking (“Frack Off”), cybersex (“Computer Love Affair”), materialism (“Zombies of Mayfair”), crooked cops (“Raking It In”) and all parts in-between with zealous glee. Musically, they run the gamut from hard-edged, new wave pop to punk rock.

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• the media whores
• scotland

Sunnyboys head return of Flaming Hands and Shy Impostors

Thirty-five years ago, Sydney's Sunnyboys released their eponymous debut LP. Containing the hit singles “Happy Man” and “Alone With You”, the album enraptured teenagers of the time (and generations to come) with an astute blend of hi-energy, pop hooks and brooding, longing wordplay.

In celebration of the album milestone and the premiere period from when it sprang, Sunnyboys will take to the stage in February 2017 for a handful of shows playing a set entirely derived from 1981; a set that will also include Sunnyboys, the album, performed in its entirety.

For Sydney fans there will be the added bonus of seeing Sunnyboys 1981 gigging partners Flaming Hands – featuring singer Julie Mostyn and songwriter Jeff Sullivan – performing their stripped back blend of ’60s style soul, R&B and psychedelia for first show since 1985!

Joining them on this momentous Sydney line-up will be legendary Sydney act Shy Impostors. Fronted by singer/songwriter Penny Ward and featuring the pre-Sunnyboys Peter Oxley and Richard Burgman alongside drummer Michael Charles, Shy Impostors existed for just nine months during 1979-80 and releasing one (great) record only; the posthumous “At The Barrier” single in 1981.

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• live
• sunnyboys
• flaming hands
• shy imposters

4220 - Tokyo Beef (self released)

This one’s by a bunch of blokes from Burleigh Heads, an idyllic spot in the most southern coastal reaches of sub-tropical Queensland where the weather’s warm, the beer’s cold and the attitude is either laid-back or laid-off and under-employed. 

If Tokyo Beef’s EP doesn’t quite reek of coconut oil on a frying Burleigh Heads sunbather’s back at the height of a summer afternoon, its sound would sit perfectly well in the beer garden of the town’s famous pub after the sun’s gone down. The band doesn't mind flying the flag for its home turf either - the title’s a reference to their postcode.

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• tokyo beef
• 4220

Storm The Gates – The Prehistorics (Sonic Artillery Records)

What a long way this Sydney band has come in a few years – and not just geographically speaking.

The Prehistorics have done the European touring thing a couple of times now, returning home to relative indifference. Main-man Brendan Sequiera was planning to relocate to France but red tape and lukewarm day job prospects have put that plan on the backburner.

What he and his band have delivered with their fourth long-player is an album of world-class, melodic but hard-hitting rock and roll. It will go down a storm offshore and - all things being equal - should make an audience closer to home sit up and listen as well.

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• garage
• sydney
• prehistorics
• storm the gates
• sonic artillery records

Sonics Rendezvous - Fred “Sonic” Smith (Orchide-Detroit)

The loudest sound you’ll hear on this is the bottom of the barrel being scraped.

The intentions were probably sound. Assembling a collection of previously unheard works-in-progress by the man who was a driving force in rock and roll’s most criminally under-recognised band makes perfect sense. 

Provided the raw material you have is bountiful and of premium grade. 

It wasn’t and it is not.

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• sonics rendezvous band
• mc5
• fred sonic smith

The Complete Steve & The Board - Steve & The Board (Playback Records)

They were around for only a year and were well short of being a household name in Australia by the time they played their final note in 1967, but Steve & The Board left a handy collection of recordings in the wake. Legacy label Playback has applied love and diligence to this historical release and more power to them for preserving Australia’s musical past.

Steve & The Board played beat pop, pure and simple. Some of it carries the aroma of a stab at the charts, other songs shows broader love for the hard-edged R&B of the times. Most Australian bands in the mid-‘60s were in the thrall of the British Invasion that had hit the USA and Steve & The Board were no exception. Their recordings aren’t world beaters but have vibrancy and some occasional grit.

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• garage
• pop
• australian
• playback records
• steve & the board

The Skeleton Tree - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds (Bad Seed Ltd) & Phantom - MJ Halloran (Off the Hip)

The reason these two sit together here is that there is a similarity.

Ever since Nick’s "Boatman’s Call" made it acceptable, musicians have been coming out of the woodwork with quiet, intense music. Some are, naturally, better than others. Some remain lost, lost without knowing why, but because they don’t share the same creative origin (or ‘muse’) which sparks Nick.

Still others are compared to Nick when they share only a few of his influences - but produce something which people think they recognise as being in Nick’s … carpark. Think Mark Steiner, Nikki Sudden, Henry Hugo, David Creese, Hugo Race, Michael Plater, … hell, think Louis Tillett, Mick Harvey even.

Yet, if you take the time to listen to these folk, you discover how completely different they are. And, more often than you’d know if you believed the critics… sometimes they’re a lot better.

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• nick cave
• mj halloran
• the skeleton tree
• the bad seeds
• the birthday party
• phantom

GOD HATES FAQs - Shrewms (Swashbuckling Hobo Records)

With a guitar sound dirtier than a mud wrestler’s crotch after a dozen championship belt rounds and 10 short, sharp songs delivered in no-nonsense and rapid succession, the debut full-length album from Brisbane punk trio Shrewms hits the Rock Action bullseye with grim accuracy.

These are high-tensile tunes delivered with lashings of gutter rock charm and despite the clever wordplay in the title, you won’t find any Westboro Baptist Church choir numbers among them. Unless the congregation has taken to gargling with paint stripper instead of fundamentalist Kool-Aid.

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• brisbane
• Hits
• swashbuckling
• hobo
• gregor mulvey
• shrewms