Indie Sounds from Newy and The Hunter – Various Artists (Vi-Nil Records)

He’s never been seen in anything other than a T-shirt and one of his own label’s trucker caps, but it’s easy to picture Vi-Nil Records label boss Mark Fraser as the Pied Piper of the New South Wales Central Coast and Newcastle music scenes.

The analogy has to stick like baby shit to a blanket after the release of his second collection in the Indie Sounds series. Fraser is batting 2-0.

Picking a bunch of local bands and presenting two songs each on CD and vinyl is some brave/crazy idea in these days of diminishing economic returns.

Brut - Gentle Ben and his Shimmering Hands (Beast Records/Spooky Records)

You dug Six Foot Hick? Of course you did. Gentle Ben and his Sensitive Side? Sure. 

But it's 2024. And “Brut'” is here. 

The Shimmering Hands are Jhindu Pedro-Lawrie on drums, Dan Baebler on bass, and Tony Giacca on guitars. Ben Corbett handles the vocals... 

The Bandcamp blurb explains; “The themes of BRUT range from a fraught, taught exploration of the broken bodies, hearts and minds of our capitalist hellscape (‘Spices’) to wailing rock and roll eulogies (‘De Bliksem’, ‘No Encore’), a drifting death-country ode to colonialism (‘Five Stars’) to bloody kitchen sink drama (‘Tactical Empathy’).”

_{Photo by Emma Wand Photography.}

Sydney prodigies Pocketwatch will release their latest EP, “Break Out”, this Friday with a high-profile show at Marrickville Bowlo with supports Liquid Zoo and Overboard. Tickets are selling here.

“Break Out” is a four-track EP produced by multiple ARIA winner Wayne Connolly that continues to showcase the band’s established power pop sound while exploring new creative directions.

_{Photo by Emma Wand Photography.}

Sydney prodigies Pocketwatch will release their latest EP, “Break Out”, this Friday with a high-profile show at Marrickville Bowlo with supports Liquid Zoo and Overboard. Tickets are selling here.

“Break Out” is a four-track EP produced by multiple ARIA winner Wayne Connolly that continues to showcase the band’s established power pop sound while exploring new creative directions.

Grace Cummings and Band
Metro Social Club, Sydney
Saturday, August 3 2024
Photos: Sandra Kingston

Grace Cummings is a once-in-generation Australian artist.

It is two years since I first caught her at the Great Club in Marrickville in Sydney’s inner-west, with less than a hundred others on a cold Thursday night.

It was a show by a remarkable artist with swagger and brutally heart wrenching songs that left us in awe.

Accompanied by a band with attitude, she took her vocals from a whisper to paint-stripping level, leaving the hairs on your arms standing up.   

Her remarkable album “Storm Queen” has been on my turntable regularly since, but her records don’t fully capture the live experience.

 _{Onstage with the "Searching For Charlie Owen" show at Sydney's MoshPit Bar in 2023.}

Master guitarist Charlie Owen  - notably of Beasts of Bourbon, New Christs, Tendrils, Tex Don and Charlie, Divynils, Working Class Ringos and Louis Tillett among many others - is on the road along Australia's East Coast in August and September, touring his music and spoken word show "Searching for Charlie Owen", the dates for which are here.

It's an engrossing and emotional stroll through his own back pages. We decided to mark the occasion by pulling this nugget from our archives. It's was conducted in Melbourne in August 2022 by then I-94 Bar writer John McPharlin. 

* * * * *   

JM: Charlie, I guess the first thing that's going to knock most people out of their chairs when they start reading this interview is your interest in techno music. Can you tell us how you got into that and what you've been doing with it?

CO: I don't have an interest in techno music; I have an interest in all music. My reason for playing it recently is the same reason for any other music I've played. I hear it and hear what I'd like to do with it, not liking what I've heard... it's not because I like what I hear, it's what I'd like to do with the medium.

Japan’s Iconic blues punk band King Brothers are returning to Australia in September and local label Cheersquad has announced a limited edition 12-song tour LP to coincide.

Known as Japan's most dangerous live act and their unique blend of barbed-wire blues and toxic punk rock, King Brothers promise a tour that will leave crowds breathless. This will be the band's first Australian tour since 2016.

The tour LP, “Hell Oh! Oz”, will be limited to 300 copies - 150 in fluro-green and 150 in green/white marble - with a download card and will be released on August 23. It’s available for pre-order here.

Peter Simpson, former member of The Dubrovniks and The Spectre’s Revenge, has stepped back into the spotlight with a new single, “Letter to London”.

Described as “a piece of ragged rock/pop”, “Letter to London” ruminates on a long-distance relationship that has run its course.  Simpson plays guitar and sings, bass is by Marco Gal and Dom Simpson plays drums.

It’s been a long, stop-and-start journey for Simpson, who was a keyboardist in Perth pop band Teeny Weenys when he relocated to Sydney in 1980. The band broke up despite Double Jay airplay and Simpson performed in various groups before switching to guitar and fronting The Spectre’s Revenge.

Playing an eclectic style of rock that drew on everything from surf instrumentals to acoustic ballads to a kind of punk jazz. The band’s only official release, 1985’s “No Moon at Midnight “b/w “(I wanna be like) Maynard G Krebbs”, reached number one on the alternative charts in Sydney and Melbourne.

In the meantime, various other Perth expatriates had gathered in Sydney in bands such as The Scientists and Hoodoo Gurus. In 1987, Simpson got together with some ex-members of these bands to form The Dubrovniks.

A couple of hit indie singles and an ARIA-award-nominated debut album made The Dubrovniks bigger than anyone had anticipated, and they were soon touring Europe, recording a second album, and even breaking into the mainstream Top 40.

_{That's Gentle Ben on stage at Binic last month or The Bubble Boy from Seinfeld. You be the judge. Photo by @dujouraulendemain}

It’s a line in the media release that we just have to use: “Like the one-night stand you hoped to never see again, Gentle Ben & His Shimmering Hands are back to ruin your life, break your heart and make your loins quiver”.

The Brisbane “haute couture swamp rockers” (their words again, not ours)  left France a few days ago in a smouldering, postcoital ruin, after smashing out 13 shows over 15 days, playing at a former tobacco factory under a big-top, in a 14th century pub, and in front of 10,000 fanatical French fans at Binic.

Gentle Ben turn their sights to the East Coast of Australia this month to unleash their new album, “Brut” on French label Beast Records. It's available in Australia through Spooky Records and it's procurable here.