beast records

Recently I saw Lilith Lane perform as part of the Murder Ballads evening in Melbourne; there were many performers, but Lane was one of a handful who impressed. She’s sharp, smart and has a terrific voice.

"Pilgrim" was Recorded live at Sónica, Madrid, Spain, in October 2012 and released in 2013, It is  a rather wonderful live recording, and shows off the great control and power of Lillith's voice; what I like about her is that she’s so natural and approachable with her gift.

The guitarist, (one "Pedro") is damn groovy. It’s a kind of oddly Spanish-flavoured blues '50s rock thing, but you don’t really pay that much attention once Lilith starts singing. You’ll be dancing in a graceful, bopping way.

Beast Records on the Web

Lillith Lane on Bandcamp

Swampy, rank sounds from the flood-prone back-blocks of some burned-out European town, this collaboration (cool aberration?) between Frenchman Dimi Dero and German Tex Napalm sounds like "Sour Mash" era Beasts of Bourbon.

Well, the 500 double LPs are gone already, I see from the Beast Records website. 

Which isn’t surprising, because if there’s a band who should stay on vinyl, it’s Movie Star Junkies.

This release has all of their singles “From Dolls Come In” to “Everything is Holy” - including the B-sides and split singles - in the one spot. You can always tell a boring band when their singles don’t do much for you. The single, for those who might have forgotten, is always intended to be a slice of music and song which rips at you, doesn’t give you any let-up.

Execution Days: The Life and Times of Spencer P. Jones
By Patrick Emery (Love Police)

Perhaps the most surprising thing about Melbourne writer Patrick Emery’s exhaustively researched and engrossing biography of the late Spencer P. Jones is that it found a publisher.

Thanks to the internet, book publishing is a low-margin crap shoot. But Aussie publishing houses were already renowned for their lack of imagination and reluctance to take risks on books about anyone who’s not mainstream, middle-of-the-road or, ahem, National Living Treasures. Even those imprints that are outgrowths of universities, our bastions of free thought.

If you haven’t received a formal rejection letter from a friendly Aussie publisher after shopping a musician’s autobiography, you haven’t lived. The stupidity of not keeping and framing a letter that read, in part, “there is no market for this because Radio Birdman fans can’t read” is regrettable in hindsight – it should have gone straight to the pool room - but, fuck you, anyway, self-important publisher twat. You deserve to be shot by a ball of your own shit.  

Patrick Emery suffered his share of similar fools while trying to place “Execution Days”.

KIm Volkman and the Whiskey Priests come from Melbourne. No shock there. Most of the best Australian rock and roll does. And this is a record - like most of them - with a beginning and an end. No shit again, Sherlock. The distinction is that the songs at each end book-end and define what's inbetween - and it's pretty fucking great.

The slightly frayed vocal of opening track "I'm Still Standing (Alive and Well)" and its swaggering, Oz Rock chug suits its survivor sentiment to a tee. And the cover of the Jagger/Richards classic "Silver Train" that closes the album is pulled off with consummate, ragged ease.

Stones and Oz Rock. They're children of the blues. Throw in the inevitable Ian Rilen and the Love Addicts comparison (more on that later) and you'll appreciate how "The Devil Won't Take Charity" nails its colours to the masts.

There’s a news story that’s been doing the rounds of mainstream media about a man with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder who was given a brain implant that turned him into a Johnny Cash fan.

If you want to delve further, the journal “Frontiers in Behavioural Neuroscience” (yeah, I read every issue) describes the case of “Mr B”, a 58-year-old Dutch man who had suffered severe OCD from the age of 13. The insertion of a brain pacemaker apparently turned him into a follower of The Man In Black.

Hipbone Slim (aka Sir Bald Diddley) is a musical slut, fathering nine records by four different labels in three countries in 10 years at last count. The parentage of each of his offspring js easy to pick - by rockabilly out of garage rock with dashes of ’50 instrumental and skiffle thrown in - and “The Out Of This World Sounds Of” throws up no surprises.

We were in a diner eating breakfast in downtown New Orleans about 25 years ago, labouring through the aptly-named "Hungry Man’s Special" (eggs, toast, links, bacon, and enough salt to saturate the Mississippi Delta), when a couple of locals at an adjacent table heard our accents and started up a conversation.

“Where y’all from?” they asked. Geo-cultural introductions completed, the discussion strayed onto the social, economic and political idiosyncrasies of New Orleans.

“Y’all know why the roads are all so bad ‘round here,” we were asked rhetorically. “It’s ‘cause Washington said we couldn’t have any money for roads until we raised the drinking age to 21! So we said ‘Fuck you! We’d rather have our beer than decent roads!”

Perennial I-94 Bar favourite Johnny Casino has a limited edition of seven-inch singles out under the apt name “5x7 - The Days of Wine and Cola”. 

The physical boxset is in a run of 200 copies only and is available on Bandcamp here or through European labels Folc (Spain) and Beast (France). The digital edition is out on all platforms through Golden Robot Records.

Now living in Spain, the man once known as John A Spittles is the founding member and songwriter of the great Australian rock 'n' roll band Asteroid B612, Philadelphia PA's Johnny Casino's Easy Action, the rotating line-up that is Johnny Casino and the Secrets (featuring the who's who of Australian rock 'n' roll), The Egos, The Lord Street Sound,and Carrie Phillis and the Downtown 3.

Casino is a musicila journeyman always looking for new challenges whether it’s a riff to plunder, a melody to celebrate or a moment to capture, so let's allow Johnny describe the concept of the release: