live

Well, Boris in Adelaide on Sunday night were brilliant. Who are they?

Boris have been around since 1992, put out their first CD ‘single’ in ‘96, and have released 23 more LPs of their own songs (including three this year, and two last year) and 12 collaborative LPs, not including three collections of rarities and live material. They’re not huge in their home country of Japan, or indeed anywhere else, really. But those who know them cannot get enough and are total addicts. 

I first heard them in 1996, when a mate, Paul, came back from Japan with “Absolutego”, put the bastard on and left it playing. After 45 minutes, and my third “Paul, which track is this..?” I got the same answer: “Oh, still the first one.” I demanded to see the disc. The song went for over an hour, and was (and is) fabulous. Lots of changes, altered states, tempo alterations…the lot. It’s like a long LP which keeps returning to its central theme which, not speaking Japanese, I have no idea of whatsoever. But you keep returning to it.

Brisbane’s legendary RAZAR will reform for a one-off show on October 14, celebrating that city’s punk rock history.

The Triffid is the venue for “Return To White Chairs Vol 2”, the second instalment in reunion gigs for the punk and counterculture music loving crowd that met and drank at the infamous Elizabeth Street bar in Brisbane City between 1977-‘87. RAZAR will be joined by Ipswich darlings The Toy Watches as the main support.

A massive undercard that spans punk, new wave and rockabilly genres and includes old timers The Horny Toads, Scrap Metal, Public Execution, The 5 Hanks, Vacant Rooms and The Chrysalids. Contemporary Brisbane bands Dr Bombay, Dangerous Folk, The Bollocks and Cultured Few will fill out the bill, which is raising funds for the Growing Nepal Foundation.

Hailing from the sleepy Brisbane suburb of Mt Gravatt in the mid ‘70s, RAZAR began as a high school garage band, comprising 18-year-old Greg Wackley on drums, his 16-year-old brother Robert Wackley on bass, vocalist Marty Burke and Steven Mee (both 16) on guitar.

The Year Was 1975... Platform shoes, hot pants, flares and long hair were the height of fashion, HJ Holdens were selling like hotcakes, and a little community radio station by the name of 4ZZZ was born in Brisbane....

Seminal Brisbane radio station 4ZZZ FM turns 40 this December and to celebrate they're hosting a month-long party! One such shindig will be held at iconic Brisbane live music venue The Zoo on Saturday December 19th and will feature a revised version of ground-breaking Australian rock band, Buffalo.

Frontman Dave Tice has frequently been dubbed The Godfather of Australian Stoner Rock for his work with ultra-heavy ‘70s band Buffalo and he’s now re-visiting his revered outfit’s legacy with a series of select shows.

Tice has assembled a new line-up under the banner 'Buffalo Revisited' to focus on the earliest of the original band’s five albums. Tice will be joined by Vince Cuscuna (guitar), Steve Lorkin (bass) and Murray Shepherd (drums). All of them are veterans of a host of underground Sydney bands.

Buffalo formed in Sydney in 1971. Largely unrecognized by commercial radio, Buffalo was one of the country’s first exponents of the style heavy metal, pre-dating other pioneering Australian hard rock and heavy metal acts, such as Coloured Balls, AC/DC, The Angels, Taste and Rose Tattoo.

No-nonsense four-piece stoner-punk powerhouse BRUCE! have been flat out since releasing their 2012 full-length debut and are heading back out on the road with a series of extensive Australian dates.

The Wollongong locals have shared stages with the mightiest of all mighty rock lords, including Turbonegro, Supersuckers, Brant Bjork, Regurgitator, Beasts of Bourbon, Cosmic Psychos, Tumbleweed, and most recently supporting Violent Soho in Sydney on their sold-out Australian tour.

First up I must confess I’m a Buzzcocks tragic from way back. Been in Adelaide for 10 years now and this is the fourth time I’ve seen them, plus once in '92 in Melbourne. So the title Buzzcocks Tragic sounds good to me.

It's the night before Anzac Day and all through the house/Every bugger is rushing to get ready to go to a gig.

Adiso Amigo: Johnny Casino is moving with his wife to Spain and there are just three chances for Australian fans to say goodbye.

The longtime solo artist and former guitarist for Asteroid B612 is playing send-off shows with his interchangeable band, The Secrets, in Sydney and Melbourne.

April 8 finds him at Newtown Social Club with The Secrets (Mark Horne and Ben Fox) and sharing a stage with touring Spanish party band Los Chicos. 

On April 12 he’ll be in solo mode from 5-7pm followed by a Secrets bracket (Michael Evand and James Saunders) at The Labour In Vain in Melbourne. 

Johnny’s final stand is Sunday, May 10 and a solo show at The Midnight Special in Enmore, Newtown from 6pm.

Hey Sydney: you don't wanna miss rock royalty, Stewart 'Leadfinger' Cunningham in rare solo mode (playing both six and 12-string acoustic guitars) at the Midnight Special in Newtown on Sunday, October 18.

Leadfinger's history speaks for itself - The Proton Energy Pills, Brother Brick, Asteroid B612, Challenger 7, The Yes Men - and the opportunities to see him this stripped back and intimate are few and far between.

Joining him are acoustic alt-country punks, The Saloon Daddies. Entry is free and it's an early start at 6pm.

Their “On The Quiet” remains the best example of the “unplugged” concept we’ve ever heard so it’s a penny-dropping moment to hear Sydney’s iconic Celibate Rifles are heading north to Brisbane perform an acoustic set on April 23.

O'Malley's Irish Pub in Queens Street, Brisbane, hosts a fortnightly, mid-week live music club called ‘The Bunker’ and that’s where the Rifles will strip things back to showcase tunes spanning their impressive 35-year career.

The one-off show promises to be a rare treat and the Cellies wil be joined by local support acts, Weezal and Thirteen Seventy, also in rare acoustic mode.

A very limited number of pre-show tickets go on sale midday Wednesday 11th March for $20 +BF here  or from The Bunker 

Some tickets will be available at the door but numbers will be extremely limited to keep the event intimate. The Bunker is proudly presented by O'Malley's Irish Pub, and community radio 4ZZZ 102.1FM Brisbane.

STOP PRESS: Two more amplified Rifles shows announced

 _{Photo by Robert Dunstan of Bside magazine} 

When you shut your eyes and listen, support act Workhorse sound very good, kind of soothing but slightly disturbing.

Several of us did just that. Watching them was interesting - their violinist was exceptional (most violinists seem to think that furiously sawing away will earn them some sort of Scout or Brownie badge), the vocals haunting and rather beautiful, and a rather lovely Vox bass throbbed effectively.

 It may be early days for this outfit (I'm told that a couple, including the lead vocalist/ guitarist, were/ are in the Wireheads) and there's a certain amount of shyness - common to a large number of young bands these days - which I don't think suits the material. I'll make a point of seeing them again as I enjoy noticing how bands develop.

Growing up in Sydney in the ‘80s,  we were spoiled. The amorphous thing called Pub Rock spawned an explosion of live music and it was literally everywhere. The one thing all those bands had in common is still hard to put your finger on but you could term it The Pub Contract.

From the audience side, the Contract read like this: “Don’t give us any airs and graces. If you aren’t any good, we’re going to put shit on you. Due to us consuming social lubricants in prodigious proportions, you need to play hard to get our attention.”

Those days are gone and only a few people care anymore. The ones who might be keen are buried deep under mortgages, families and adulthood.

Maybe it was the lack of a crowd, skewed expectations or the fact that The Runaways were never mandated high rotation listening in my own world, but Friday night’s Cherie Currie show at the Manning Bar in Sydney fell flatter than a soufflé in a bricklayers’ pie oven.

It wasn’t entirely the fault of the headliner.

The Runaways’ place in history is notable if slightly perverse. On one hand, as an all-girl band in a man’s world, they provided inspiration for a later generation of Riot Grrrls and (Punk Rock) Sisters Doing It For Themselves. On the other hand, they were shamelessly objectified, used and abused and have become a cautionary object lesson in exploitation.

Chris Masuak’s musical history reads like a muscle car ride through the mean streets of Australia’s rock and roll underground, but appearances Down Under have been few and far between since he relocated to Spain. Masuak is about to right that wrong with a handful of select shows in NSW in March and April, his first in four years.

Riding the best reviews of this solo career with his album “Brujita”, recorded in Spain, the ex-Radio Birdman guitarist will play a handful of selected Aussie dates with a hand-picked Australian band, The Harbour City Wave Riders, featuring Tony Bambach (Lime Spiders) on bass and Stuart Wilson (New Christs, Loose Pills) on drums.

_{Blondie and her session men plus Clem Burke (obscured).   Dean Ertl photo}

I come at this review as a fan.  Since 1976 (earlier if you count the Dolls and the Velvets), I have been enamoured of that New York New Wave sound.  It's a broad church.  Suicide could thrash synthesizers and Television could probe the stratosphere with spiralling lead guitar lines.  The Ramones could make dumb look smart.

The Talking Heads sounded nothing like the Heartbreakers.  The Fast sounded nothing link Mink DeVille.  But the scene was still recognisable as a whole.

Blondie lived in the spotlight of eternal summer despite spending a lifetime dodging sun rays.   You could be walking through the Lower East Side, see a boy you liked and say hello.  Even if you found yourself charged with solicitation, everything would be all right because you are young, beautiful and in love.

It depends where you live but electrified Deniz Tek shows are more or less annual affairs these days, with the good Doctor spending half his time tending to A&E patients in Sydney, Australia, or Billings, Montana, with rock tours squeezed in during down-time.  Unplugged gigs, on the other hand, are fewer and further between.

Lady luck must have been looking out for me; I get sent on a last minute work trip to Oslo, and discover Deniz Tek will be in town for the opening night of his 2014 European Tour. The venue turns out to be a leisurely five-minute walk from my hotel. Easy Street.

Expat Aussie fuzz 'n' beats rocker Dez Dare is returning home from the UK for shows to celebrate the release of his fourth album, "A Billion Goats. A Billion Sparks. Fin."

The media release is worth reproducing verbatim:

On past records Dare has fought beasts and beats alike, waging a fuzz war and tackling the biggest topics the world has to face; Doom scrolling, capitalist demagogues, a passionate dislike of the beach in summer. On this record he leaves the sardonic frustration behind for sarcastic existentialism, zeroing in on the big philosophical questions, and the pedantic shards of nonsense that make up our existence.

Piling up the synths, noise boxes and guitar pedals, Dez set about building a soundscape of noise and ideas around the nature of reality, time, and how we interact with them. From the music you would play in your last moments, to the reverse Darwinism of modern society, to arguing with time itself, and very boring people talking at you, all is covered here for the aspiring existentialist. 

Dez Dare is self-produced Darren Smallman (ex-Low Transit Industries, Warped, The Sound Platform)and he's three decades producing music, releasing and touring bands, and doing live sound. A product of the coastal Victorian city of Geelong,  he was introduced to the DIY punk and rock scene at 15.

Died Pretty have added a Brisbane date to their run of select club sideshows to go with their A Day On The Green commitments:

Friday 4th March, 2016
The Factory, Sydney NSW
Tix: Ticketek and SABO

Friday 11th March 2016
The Triffid, Brisbane QLD
Tix: http://tickets.thetriffid.com.au/?Event=57714

Friday 18th March, 2016
Max Watts (formerly The Hifi), Melbourne VIC
Tix: Oztix.com.au and Ticketscout

Adelaide is off for now but Sydney and Melbourne are going ahead. That’s the news from Melbourne indie-rock legends Even. 

Fresh from two rapturously received Xmas shows in Melbourne and still celebrating their best-ever ARIA Album Chart debut (#18) for their double-LP, “Reverse Light Years”, Even has postponed their Adelaide album launch on January 8, due to COVID. Tickets remain valid with a new date to-be-advised.

Fortunately, the group has been able to confirm that their Friday, January 7 Sydney launch at Mary's Underground will proceed. A run of Melbourne album launches late in the month are also on. Full dates are below.

Radio Birdman is playing just two Australian shows this year - June 21 at The Factory Theatre in Sydney and June 22 at the Cambridge Hotel in Newcastle - and Mick Medew and The Mesmerisers are joining them for both.

East Coast Low complete the bill in Newcastle and The Dark Clouds join the Sydney line-up.

The support spots will be part of a busy year for Mick Medew and his band with their forthcoming album expected to be out in time for the shows.

Both gigs will sell out with tickets available from both venue websites.

Ed Kuepper returns with part 2 of his "Lost Cities" album Australian tour, performing solo and in duo mode across select dates in Darwin, Newcastle, Sydney, Katoomba and Melbourne.

The duo shows see Kuepper reunite with his old sparring partner Mark Dawson – a collaborator most notably on the celebrated “Today Wonder” and ARIA winning “Honey Steels Gold” albums – between them featuring two of Ed’s most recognisable tracks in “Everything I’ve Got” and “The Way I Made You Feel”. Mark will join Ed for shows in Sydney, Melbourne and Belgrave.