Chow down on this shit sandwich
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- By Ronald Brown
- Hits: 3540
You Can’t Polish A Turd - The Monaros (Tradie Records)
Yob Rock, you say? One man’s low brow culture is another’s tongue-in-cheek, high-energy punk rock and Victorian yokels The Monaros are a rough-as-guts adornment to this rich, Australian tradition.
You can trace the origins of yobism back to the likes of Billy Thorpe without trying too hard. Suck more piss, and all that. Maybe Yabba, the 1930s cricket spectator who’s immortalised in bronze at the Sydney Cricket Ground? The start sure pre-dates Cosmic Psychos, who are riding a fresh wave of popularity. Arguing the toss is pointless when it’s a race to the bottom.
EP caps X man's conversion to bluesman
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- By The Barman
- Hits: 2604
Baby, Let Your Hair Hang Down – Steve Lucas and the SLXpress (self released)
The follow-up to last year’s “Cross That Line” album, this concise collection of rootsy blues with country and soul undertones works a treat.
While Steve Lucas will (rightfully) always be known as one of the principal members of the incomparable X, he’s continuing to build a solo musical identity of his own. The SLExpress project suggests an irresistible - or convenient - parallel with David Johansen And The Harry Smiths, the trad blues vehicle for the former New York Dolls frontman.
Pop tyros The Lemon Twigs stun in Sydney
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- By The Celebrity Roadie
- Hits: 3843
Lemon Twig Brian D'Addario.
The Lemon Twigs
+ Jack Ladder
Manning Bar, Sydney
Saturday 28 October, 2023
Photos: Shona Ross
The Lemon Twigs are Long Island, NY, resident brothers Brian and Michael D'Addario and are on their second visit to Australia since 2017. They’ve been on the playlist in our house for four or five years at our youngest family member’s insistence and it was deemed compulsory we attend this show on their short tour.
The show at the Manning Bar was opened by Jack Ladder who had done a spot on the NSW Spencer P Jones Tribute bill a few years back. My recollection from then was that Ladder did a set of acoustic tunes solo and was well received. Tonight, he appeared in a duo with an Epiphone parlour guitar and an accompanist and started off in much the same vein.
Highway 61 revisit their past
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- By Ronald Brown
- Hits: 2407
Driving South – Highway 61 (Rum Bar Records)
The album only took 30 years, a pandemic and a bout of leukaemia to make. The reunification of these four friends three decades after they were a working band produced this very good collection of blues based rock ‘n’ roll. And thank fuck for that.
I love this album but, hey, I’m a bit biased, being a big fan of everything Frank Meyer, music-wise. Highway 61 is Frank Meyer (Streetwalkin’ Cheetahs) on guitar and vocals. Andy Medway on guitar, Mike Knuton on drums and Russell Loeffler on bass and vocals.
Quick backstory: Playing the LA circuit in the early ‘90s, these blokes basically burnt themselves out. As Mike Knuton says, they were playing as many gigs as they could get. They split up but remained close. Then Andy Medway was diagnosed with leukaemia.
Mutiny In Heaven a fitting and vivid celebration
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- By Robert Brokenmouth
- Hits: 6500
Munity in Heaven: The Birthday Party
Director: Ian White
Rating? Nine skulls and a pair of horns. Read on for an explanation.
Much to my Mum's surprise (yes, I have a mother. I was in fact born), the other day I apologised to her for all the skulls I brought home when I was a disaffected kid, aged nine or whatever, and placed these scabrous ornaments around my bedroom. There was a cat skull, a dog skull, a few lambs and calves, a pig, a snake and blue-tongue, and goat horns (but no goat skull).
The area we lived in was countryside only a decade ago so there was a lot of paddocks nearby. I'd hop the ancient barbed wire fence held taut by termite-eroded chunks of wood, and spend most of the day walking. Saw a lot of stuff I probably shouldn't have. Found out first-hand - long before dissection class at high school - what bodies smelt like when dead and when torn open. Some really unpleasant dirty magazines.
Sonic Garage takes it to a new level
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- By Edwin Garland
- Hits: 4124
Dark Country- Sonic Garage (self released)
Sonic Garage burst on the Sydney music scene about two years ago with "Asteroid", which what the best local single released in 2021. The album it came from, “Space Travels”, was raw, tough street level Northern Beaches rock that referenced the Stooges, Dictators, and Radio Birdman.
It was a record from the tradition of that area’s melodic, guitar driven, gritty and surf-tinged music, in the tradition of the early Midnight Oil, Celibate Rifles and The Hellmen.
Vale former Nitwitz and Hydromatics member Tony Slug
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- By The Barman
- Hits: 5266
Tony Slug (left) up front with Scott Morgan in The Hydromatics.
Tony Slug, an elder statesman of European punk rock and in part responsible for reviving the legacy of Sonic’s Rendezvous Band in the late '90s and ‘00s, has passed away in Holland after a long illness.
The imposingly tall and wildly humorous “Sluggo” (real name Tony Leeuwenburgh) played guitar with The Hydromatics and Dutch bands Nitwitz, BGK and Loveslug.
Sparks still fly in L7's reformation
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- By Patrick Emery
- Hits: 3044
Robert Fagan photo.
By tragic coincidence, a few hours before my interview with L7 guitarist and singer Donita Sparks, news broke of the passing of Irish musician and songwriter, Sinead O’Connor.
At first glance, the association between L7 and O’Connor is opaque: L7 was a hard-rocking, all female rock’n’roll band who emerged from Los Angeles; O’Connor was a talented singer and songwriter from Ireland, whose angelic voice belied her outspoken views on religious dogma and practice.
But on a cold evening in October 2009 at the Myer Music Bowl in Melbourne, O’Connor had taken to the stage as part of the Melbourne Music Festival’s “Seven Songs to Leave Behind” to belt out a mesmerising version of L7’s “Shitlist” – a track which O’Connor had chosen, per the structure of the evening for the various guest performers featured, as the song she’d wished she’d written.
Do your research and help Ollie Olsen
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- By Robert Brokenmouth
- Hits: 3778
Alright. Where I live, the formal lockdown measures ended in early 2022.
Personally, I think one reason the employment rate is so low right now is because a whole pile of people around retirement age, or quite a few reluctant to retire, realised that hanging about the house wasn't such a bad thing after all.
In fact, life itself wasn't meant to be spent piss-farting about in a drab office trying not to grimace at the forced jollities, the strict dweebness and the sheer bloody pointlessness of necessary screenwork. Sure, some things need to be done. But we seemed to get by without a hell of a lot of it during lockdown.
And don't get me started on the poor bastards who worked through the pandemic, the nurses and doctors who (as far as I'm concerned) all deserve a 10 percent wage rise (and, for those who actually worked with the Covid patients, an Order of Australia each).
- Pat Todd and Mad Macka team for intimate Oz dates
- That's Entrainment? I can't believe it's not metal
- Has Science Gone Too Far? Ask the Bahne Super-Flex
- Of unintended labels and everything being louder than everything else
- Make mine a Shandy with Harder Yakka
- DoGs re-issue on vinyl is just the medication you need
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