punk

This pigeon pairing of albums by Switzerland's finest garage trash band The Monsters isn't so much chalk and cheese as the musical equivalents of festering offal and last week's maggot-ridden steak. They're offensive, distorted representations of rockabilly and its variants, chopped up and put through an industrial shredder. Which is exactly why you need them.

Whoever took the danger out of rock and roll forgot to tell The Monsters. Thank fuck for that. "Masks" is the "lost album" from 1989 andthe product of The Monsters going into a studio for the first time. Long-gone label Record Junkie Records (an off-shoot of the shop where Beat-Man worked) saw fit to issue it and it's been long out-of-print.

Monsters leader and Voodoo Rhythm label owner Beat-Man thinks "Masks" is embarrassing - although not to the point that he stopped short of re-issuing it. He need not recoil from the amateurish nature of parts of this record. It's raw, lyrically perplexing and a lot of fun, recorded to two-inch tape in the most basic of studios with needles bordering on the red.

Everybody into this sort off music raves about The Mummies and fair enough, but for mine The Monsters are better. I mean, there's nothing on "Masks" likely to surprise, but the guitar sounds grates in all the the right places and the drummer in this line-up had a bit of swing. Beat-Man's vocal swings from angry yelp to tonsil-shredding croak. Plus, they massacre "Wild Thing" in a way The Troggs could only dream of.

"The Hunch" (named after one of Hasil Adkins' nom de plumes) dates from 1992, is half-studio and half-live and much better recorded. There's a bunch of covers sprinkled throughout and one of the cuts ("The Creature Form The Black Lagoon") made it onto Dionysus Records. It's proof garage punk doesn't have to sound like abysmal shit to stay true to its roots.

Hands up who wasn't a Cramps fan in the late '80s and early '90s? This version of "Drug Train" is pretty great. "Day Of The Triffids" and "Drag Is Back" have their rockabilly roots on show and pulse with energy.

The live side picks up a couple of songs from the first record ("Teenage Werewold", Wild Thing") and prominent covers ("Be Bop A Lula" and "The Witch"), and is a little light on the bottom end but who's going to pick nits? My guess is they ran out of studio time or got bored. This stuff should never be too polished.

It’s said there’s nothing new in rock and roll but sometimes it doesn’t matter a damn. Welsh trash punkers The Sick Livers do Turbonegro better than Turbonegro on their newest album, “Mid Liver Crisis”.

The Welsh are famous for their coal mines and given appropriate volume, the 10 tracks here would kill a canary quicker than a mineshaft full of methane. The Sick Livers sing anthems about drinking, fucking and staring into the abyss with a large chaser of dark humour.

There are no massed male choirs on “Mid Liver Crisis”, only the odd “woo-ooh” chorus rising behind buzzbomb guitars and the nagging vocal of frontman Ginge. If the last album, “Motors, Women, Drugs, Booze & Killing”, was in your face then “Mid Liver…” ups the ante in terms of violation of personal space. The engine rooim kicks harder than a pint glass full of port the morning after a seriously pissy Saturday night. 

Adelaide has a history of swaggering, scrunching rock and roll bands who manage to spit out one single or EP and vanish into the backwater. Acid Drops and Die Dancing Bears, for example. Few are lucky enough to release an LP and get away with it like, say, The Primevils and the Exploding White Mice.

Kevin K's nailed what he does. And that's make monstrously good rock and roll records. If you agree and you're a fan, pride yourself in the knowledge that you've found out what the rest of the world has yet to.

It could have been called “Short Lives Of The Poor and Obscure”. 

Like Reals, Negatives, Young Charlatans and News/Babeez, The Fiction is but a footnote in Melbourne punk’s earliest days, briefly existing from 1978-79. They released a posthumous EP under the name Little Murders, kickstarting that enduring brand and the career of its leader, Rob Griffiths.  They also enjoyed the patronage of the rightly-lauded Melbourne punk mover and shaker Bruce Milne and Pulp, the zine he ran with Clinton Walker. 

The Fiction had a loose affiliation with those glam-sheep- in-punk-wolves clothing, La Femme, sharing a practice space and a manager. Musically, The Fiction seems to have been drawing more from bands like The Who and the Small Faces, although there’s undoubtedly a bit of Bowie in there, too.

This is a clever record. Meaning: just enough thought went into its recording and production to make it special. 

Two declarations up front. I know most the people involved with “Never To Be Released”, so there’s a slight degree of bias in their favour. Secondly, most music that passes for “punk rock” bores me shitless. 

It’s like the second wave of UK punk: Once the first rush of anger and spontaneity had subsided, it fell victim to fashion. Style over substance. Saying the same thing over and over got real old, real quick. Learning two chords and starting a band is fine but you need to educate yourself in what to do with them. The chords and the band, that is.

Another Kevin K album, this one a “Best of” out of France, and the obvious question remains: Why isn’t Mr K in the firmament as one of underground rawk’s best-known stars? The guy’s consistency over fuck-knows-how-many albums is staggering, and all of these tunes are ‘keepers’.

A Light In A Dark Place – The Media Whores (Twenty Stone Blatt)

Four studio albums into this punk rock caper and The Media Whoresaren’t mellowing with age. History records that there have been more battles in their home of Stirlingshire, Scotland, over the last 500 years than most old school Aussie pubs, so it’s only fitting that they keep fighting wars on multiple fronts.

Wanna talk about old punks?  The creative fulcrum of Craig (vocals and guitar) and Doogie Mackie (bass and backing vocals) lit their first fire together in 2008 and the band almost won a mainstream industry Mercury prize in 2017 for their caustic “Dangerous Minds” long player. Presumably, a win would have been the kiss of death so let’s give thanks for the judges’ lack of good taste.

Short Fuse 3 - Various Artists (Wreckless Enterprises) 

Fifteen songs from as many bands in 11 minutes. A punk rock barrage. Sounds like fun - and it is. 

As you can tell from the name, this is the third in the series of concise and imperfectly formed, all-Australian compilation EPs from Wollongong label Wreckless Enterprises and it doesn’t pretend to be anything it isn’t in its headlong rush to the finish line: It’s a punk rock speed dating party and you wouldn’t want to be left on the shelf, would you?

Putting on a new Cosmic Psychos album is like finding a pair of your flatmate's skid-marked undies in your washing basket - it's disturbing, you worry that they might have soiled your good going-out shirt, but it's something that you have to deal with, even if it means fetching lead-lined gloves and a pair of industrial tongs to minimise your exposure.

Just because it's a budget "fans only" issue doesn't account for this one disappearing into a pile of review albums after protracted plays. So it's been out for the last part of 2008 and most of '09.

Punk rock from Adelaide? No. This is a actually great little pop record.

Take the CD’s opener, "Nothing For You". If it weren’t for the times (of buzzsaw fuzz guitar) and the haircuts (ok) you’ve got yourself a tight, fast, witty and pointed powerpop outfit.

Simple.

Some 34 years after they formed, punk rock icons Poison Idea are finally making it to Australia.

Four dates have been announced for the influential band from Portland, Oregon. Catch them at The Enigma Bar in Adelaide (May 14), Crowbar in Brisbane (May 15), The Baldfaced Stag in Sydney (May 16) and The Bendigo in Collingwood, Melbourne (on May 17.) Ticketing details and supports are still to be revealed.

Poison Idea has been cited as an influence by bands and musicians like Nirvana, Zeke, Turbonegro, Eyehategod, Pantera, Napalm Death and Machine Head. They formed in 1980, broke up in ’93 and have been gigging only sporadically since '98.

Hey, this kicks ass, these guys are really stoopid and really good. There's a fuckin' excellent balance here; they have TONS of Australian attitude (a la Cosmic Psychos, Onyas), mainly in the lyrics. And, musically, they run right over Motorhead - but in their own car (they're not just copycats).

Here it is folks - this is the sound the “cool kids” make these days. “Cool kids” being what the wearers would dismissive as a totally pejorative term, but essentially being a title for whatever constitutes a “scene maker” in these musically fractured times. “Scene” being another pejorative word.

It’s hard to keep up with contemporary music once you pass a certain age - even when you’re consciously trying to cock an ear to what seeps out of cracks in the footpath and shuns daylight. Of course it’s a given that you shouldn’t pay attention to just about ANYTHING that makes it to commercial radio airwaves, but in this case "contemporary" means the underground shit, maaan. And Los Tones are under the commercial radar by any measure.

Why is it relevant to review a book initially released in 2005? Because (1.) the subject matter seems as relevant now as it ever did, and (2.) it’s still in print.

You can’t expect anything usual from the 33 1/3 series, that’s clear. All that matters is: Does it work? Does it help us, does it add to the LP in question..?

Given the huge influence that this first "Ramones" LP had on modern rock’n’roll music, it is with woeful heart that I report that Rombes is another academic. in 2005 he was Associate Professor of English at the University of Detroit Mercy. (No, me either).

It was a worried frown that I found I disagreed heartily with the first two sentences, which hung out Rombes’ slate above his wares; "Ramones is either the last great modern record, or the first great postmodern one. Fully aware of its status as pop culture, it nonetheless has unironic aspirations toward art." I winced.

Surely not another academic with no clues as to actual context ..?

It was pointed out recently by someone with good judgement that there wasn't a lot of love for The Fuzztones at the I-94 Bar. That's more a measure of what we've had time to review, not a reflection on the band. Here's a recap of a 2011 release on Italian label Go Down of demo tracks that presaged their 1989 "In Heat" album, the one that should have broken them worldwide on the Beggars Banquet label.

"Raw Heat" shows what legendary producer Shal Talmy never gave "In Heat": A Big Set of Balls. That's the short story. Back in the '80s, everything that was old was new again and the same went for producers. The physically ailing Talmy was all but retired, with credits like The Who and the Kinks well behind him. The band needed someone to referee its own creative differences (principally between Rudy Protudi and lead guitarist Jordan Tarlow). Beggars had signed the Fuzztones on the strength of their live show, a corker first LP, their demo's and a huge push from The Cult's Ian Astbury. Shalmy did the deal and came out of retirement. If only the label had asked the Kinks, first.

"Raw Heat" features most of the tracks that made "In Heat" but none of the thin production or covers ("I Can't Control Myself" and "You Must Be a Witch".) "In Heat" was mostly recorded with a new band after Protudi upped and moved from New York City to LA. It wasn't a patch on it heir debut, "Lysergic Emanations", and of course The 'Tones were dropped from their major label and sent fro the indie back-blocks. Not a bad place to be sometimes but you have to ask 'What If?'

It's hard to see what wasn't to like about this album in its original, unrefined form. "Cheyenne Rider" struts magnificently (and, if anything, could be given even fuller fuzz treatment to bring the lead guitar to the fire.) "One Girl Man" is a radio hit in this or any former world. "I'm Gonna Make You Mine" has the right mix of swelling organ and underlying fuzz with a killer chorus.

The story's all here (if you can read the fine print on the back of the record label (mine's a CD, not an LP) and the up side of "In Heat" is that its poor sales were no barrier to Europe embracing the band in a huge way. It was a breakthrough of another kind, making The Fuzztones the first of a rash of '60s revivalists to crack it for a major label deal. If the floodgates didn't exactly blow wide open the mindsets - and listening tastes - of many were altered by that very fact. Slip this into your player or onto your turntable and celebrate that fact. "In Heat" never sounded this good.

1/2

Go Down Records

Beware reformations. Nostalgia is huge so trying to recapture past glories looks tempting on paper, but the reality often falls well short. Not so this 2012 re-assembly of Chocolate Watchband with four pieces of their 1966-67 line-ups in place on a redoubtable Scottish label. The band does sound markedly different to its original recorded persona. Drop the preconceptions and prejudices, however, judge this on its merits, and it works just fine.

Mr Prolific is back - and for the last time with his French band The Real Kool Kats. It seems the demands of incessant touring and putting out four albums a year (without any diminution of quality) convinced everyone it was time to de-convene. While that’s a pity, this album is a fine postscript that stays true to their collective Kool Kats creed of dirty street punk rock delivered with the precision of a well-oiled switchblade.

Love Cans play minimalist garage punk and and come from Switzerland. No, that sentence isn’t an oxymoron. The Land of Bankers, Cuckoo Clocks and Chocolate is, in fact, a rich breeding ground for this sort of music and Love Cans nail it as well as any.

Being a bare bones trio (guitar-keys-drums) of psychos, they revel in the lower end of the aural spectrum. Parochially speaking, this is the precisely the sound Australian kids are devouring in an underground scene that most people don't see because it generally operates outside of established "rock" venues. I'm sure things aren't much different in Europe.

Organist Dany Digler’s drawled vocal is buried in the mix on “Scary Eyes” which is a vaguely rockabilly-tinged work-out that meanders a little. The sound’s more jagged and strident on “Grave Yard” with Bab Digler’s distorted guitar to the fore. Dany’s Lux Interior-styled vocal (wailing about “too many dead”) and hypnotic organ sound give “Grave Yard” a seamy feel and its corpse is kicked along by Meryl Love’s simple but forceful drumming.

The vinyl single doesn't come with a download code but you can solve that problem (if it is one) by checking Love Cans out on Bandcamp where this is available as a physical product and download. If you like what you hear, Burning Sound can hook you up with another five track digital release.

1/2

Love Cans on Bandcamp