celibate rifles

Damo The Musical – The Celibate Rifles (self released)

Sunday, September 22, in the year 2019 P.P. (Pre Plague) was the date when The Celibate Rifles took to The Enmore Theatre stage in Sydney to pay tribute to their late frontman Damien Lovelock.The show was originally scheduled for The Factory Theatre, but demand for tickets outgrew the room. And it sounded something like this…

This LP is a dozen songs from the night and a fitting tribute to the man widely known as Damo. With his place at the centre stage mic vacant, some friends had to fill it. More on them later, but first some observations.

The instrumental mix is as punchy as fuck; with an big bottom-end. The vocals are up and down - but put that down to the vagaries of varying mic technique. It was a round robin of singers without the luxury of extended rehearsals. The Rifles excelled in accommodating the rotating cast which gave its best in return.

There's some more news about that one-off show featuring Filth with the Celeibate Rifles at Oxford Art Factory in Sydney on September 11.

A limited edition vinyl EP will be issued on the night, featuring four songs originally played by Filth in a run of just 150 copies. Roll-over the image to check out the tracklist. They are not recording by the original line-up.  

"Do You Feel Lucky, Punk" is the name of the event and tickets are on sale here.

It's part of the broader Sedition 2019 Celebration of Public Art and Protest in Sydney during the 1970s, more of which we'll be bringing you soon. Check it out here if you can't wait. 

And don't delay if you want to see The Aints!, Flaming Hands, Shy Impostors and The Professors at Paddington RSL on August 31 as part of Sedition.

Those tickets won't last long and are selling here. 

There's new music from Celibate Rifles guitarist Kent Steedman out today. Radio KSG is the group and it also features Russell Baricevic from Bored! on bass and Stew Cunningham from Leadfinger on vocals and guitar. "Place of Care" is the song and is available online only and is a preview for an album to be released next year. Go listen in iTunes or on Spotify. 

_{Pete Bourke, Phil Van Rooyen and Pete Trifunovic from Sonic Garage.}

Sonic Garage
Pocketwatch
Bayley and the Liquid Squid
Marrickville Bowling Club, NSW
Friday, 11 March 2022

You can say “Boring Old Fart” but it’s good to stare rheumy-eyed into the middle distance, drool into a beer and recall much less complicated times in hushed tones. Times like the early 1980s, when the biggest challenge on a Friday night was to decide which two or three rock and roll shows you were going to attend, all of them within a short distance of each other.  

If they were local bands, the door charge was free or modest, and if the headliner was on the national touring treadmill, entry might set you back a ten spot. At least one of the supports was a band you’d never heard of, but paying your money and taking your chances was all part of the ritual. You got to conduct a post-mortem as soon as their set was over or over a hair of the dog at your local the next day. 

Extract From the Fungus - Celibate Rifles (self released)

Consider it a last will and testament. Eleven songs, cobbled together from restored quarter-inch tape or cassettes, all but one track previously unreleased. It’s music written by other people, which isn’t a detraction ‘cos the Rifles always had the best covers. These are remnants of recording sessions from 1984 right up until a few years ago, but they’re much more than throwaways. 

The Celibate Rifles have a special place in the hearts and minds of most who saw them. A bunch of suburban Sydney boys fronted by a worldly and older larrikin, they began more brazen than cool. Before long, they fitted in with the exploding Australian underground of the ‘80s and ‘90s better than many critics realised. 

_{Glenn Morris of The On and Ons.}

The On and Ons
(aka Clyde Bramley's 70th Birthday Bash)
+ The Hovering Spooks
Marrickville Bowling Club, NSW
Sunday, September 15, 2024

Sunday afternoons at the Bowlo have become a Sydney institution for live music goers of a certain vintage. This one had the added attraction of being a celebration of On and Ons bassist and all-round nice guy Clyde Bramley’s 70th birthday, so there was ample reason for the big crowd in evidence.

First up, The Hovering Spooks and the bands that their members haven’t played in can be accommodated on the big end of a pin. These Spooks bill themselves as psych but that label’s about as imprecise as they come these days. How about pre-proto-punk dressed-down glam?

_{Bob Short and Noel from Filth.} 

One of the trace elements of Sydney’s punk history will be exhumed on September 11 when Filth supports the Celibate Rifles at Oxford Art Factory, as part of the Sedition festival.

Filth sprouted from Radio Birdman’s fertile Oxford Funhouse scene and spawned the Psychosurgeons and the Lipstick Killers. Nihilistic and self-destructive, Filth presaged a richly diverse and extreme musical movement based in pubs like The Grand and The Civic.

Loud, fast and full of body fluids that were generously shared with audiences when the mood took them, Filth attracted fans who are even more deranged than them and were rarely invited back by venue operators. One show at Bondi with a nascent X remains infamous for both the repair bill and the number of fans sent to hospital.

Space Travels – Sonic Garage (self released)

It’s a a couple of years since Circus Chaplains from Sydney’s Northern Beaches fell by the wayside after the passing of Luke Lovelock,but his bandmates Phil Van Rooyen (Dr Fruitworld, Panadolls, Chickenstones) and Peter Bourke aren’t ones for standing still.

They’ve gone on to a new band with ex-Mushroom Planet bassist Pete Trifunovic, drummer Ronny Welsh and pianist Russell Parkhouse (ex-Riptides).

Sonic Garagerecorded their album at Zen Studios in Sydney in these odd COVID times and it’s a wonderful, ragged and righteous collection of songs that recalls familiar Harbour City high energy rock reference points.

A heads-up that the Sunnyboys' February 2018 Australian tour is selling like wildfire with one Sydney gig (February 10) at Marrickville's Factory Theatre sold out in 36 hours, and tickets for a just-added extra date (February 9) now 85 percent gone.

Is it a surprise? No.

The fact is that the second all-oringal member incarnation of the Sunnyboys has now lasted longer than the band did in its first life. 

The time around, without the pressure of recording schedules and the demand for chart hits and with a mutual love and respect for the music they made, Sunnyboys can just do what they do best; play live. 

Joining the fun will be Sydney surf-punks The Celibate Rifles, who have carved out their own indelible history in the Australian music scene over a 35+ year period. The Rifles will join Sunnyboys for their first show on the Sunshine Coast since 1982; the Sunnyboys' first Brisbane performance since 2015, and most other dates.

Melbourne fun-punks Painters & Dockers, will join the rejuvenated Sunnyboys for a massive Melbourne Zoo performance.

Vale Damien Lovelock, lead singer of the Celibate Rifles, raconteur and and sports commentator. The icon of The Australian underground music scene passed away this morning after a protracted health battle. A more fullsome tribute soon.

_{Van Ruin (the band) are bassist Pete Trifunovic (Mushroom Planet and Sonic Garage), Phil Van Rooyen, guitarist Al Creed and  drummer Stu Wilson preparing for their live debut this weekend past.}

Van Ruin is, I suppose, the Australian way of pronouncing Phil Van Rooyen's surname. Perhaps best known to I-94-Barflies as one of the guitarists and vocalists in Manly's finest, Chickenstones, Phil has also been a mainstay of Panadolls, the Circus Chaplains,and Sonic Garage. Van Ruin is also the name of his new solo band. 

Phil's influences have always been worn on his fretboard; phrasing seems not so much Detroit rock but more Radio Birdman, New Christs, Celibate Rifles or even Died Pretty... That said, he developed his own way of thinking and playing long ago; to my mind, he's a distinctive and, with other writing partner and Chickenstones bandmate,  Andy Doc Temple Ellard, a very under-rated musician and songwriter.

The debut EP by Van Ruin, "Jails, Death & Institutions”, is out now on Crankinhaus Records so I asked Phil a few questions.