solo

He’s best known as the voice and scorching guitar of the Hard-Ons and Nunchukka Superfly but there’s another string to Peter Black’s bow.

Just back from a seven-week tour of Europe where he played 44 shows in 46 days, Blackie is promoting solo album number-four, “Clearly You Didn't Like The Show”, in Australia.

Dates are as follows:

Saturday, 7th November 2015
Blackwire, Sydney NSW

Saturday 14th November 2015
Transit Bar Canberra ACT

Wednesday 25th November 2015
Hamilton Station Newcastle NSW

Thursday 26th November 2015
Black Bear Lodge Brisbane QLD (with Mark Zain)

Friday 27th November 2015
Old Bar Melbourne VIC 

Friday 4th December 2015
Ruby L'otel Rozelle, Sydney NSW

Sunday 6th December 2015
Rad Bar Wollongong NSW

Melvins frontman Buzz Osborne (aka King Buzzo) is headed to Australia for a 10-date solo acoustic tour of Australia in August. With a career spanning 31 years, 30 albums, and over 2,000 live performances, this tour marks the first time that the monarch of metal has performed acoustically in intimate settings.

Free Dirt – Looch Lewis (Nebraska/MGM)

With beginnings as a guitarist in the high energy scene for Zen Genies, and more recent  service as drummer for bush punks Handsome Young Strangers, indie band Wifey and country act Dave Favours and the Roadside Ashes,ubiquitous Mark “Looch” Lewis  has as much claim as anyone to being a Sydney musical fixture. 

Now fronting his own Looch Lewis and The Press Gangsters instead of playing in other people’s bands, dropping this a solo single seems a logical progression.

Yes, it is that “Free Dirt”, the Died Pretty song from which they took their debut album’s name and that ended up on their second LP, ”Lost”, and while it might initially seem a bold choice, it’s done so well that it raises the question why more people haven’t tackled the much-loved music of Ron, Brett and Co.

The forever prolific Ed Kuepper is celebrating 45 years as a recording artist with three retrospective releases spanning a large chunk of his post-Saints musical output.

“Ed Kuepper - Singles ’86 ‘ ’96” will compile every solo A side from that period on vinyl and CDs, the latter format featuring a bonus disc of B sides and obscurities. Surprisingly, it’s Kuepper’s first collection of 45s and CD singles.

“Golden Days // When Giants Walked the Earth” will be a vinyl collection of Kuepper’s immediate post-Saints band, Laughing Clowns, who pushed the boundaries not just of conventional music but of the post-punk world. The classic “Eternally Yours” is included, as are the equally worthy “Everything That Flies”, “Holy Joe” and more.  

“The Aints! Live at The Bowlo” will be a vinyl version of the 2018 show by Kuepper’s Saints-inspired The Aints!only previously available in digital format.

Four decades after the release of his first record, the iconic Australian classic ''(I'm) Stranded'' by The Saints, Ed Kuepper returns with an album that may well be considered a high point in his lengthy and uncompromising career.

Recorded over three days in August at Gasworks Studio, Brisbane ''Lost Cities'' is Kuepper's 50th release (excluding compilations) and is on his own Prince Melon Records label. It is Ed’s first entirely solo and electric release, a format Herr Kuepper likes to refer to as Solo Orchestral.

While his band The Mesmerisers are preparing for a run of Melbourne shows to promote their brand spankin' new album, Mick Medew is playing a rare solo electric show at Brisbane's Junk Bar on August 13.

Tickets are on sale via Oztix. Support is Defo Mofo and expect a run through the bulging Medew back cataolgue, with some surprise covers. 

Hard-Ons and Nunchukka Superfly co-founder, Peter Black, (aka Blackie) is launching his third full solo album with an Australian tour that includes a run of dates as special guest support to King Buzzo of The Melvins.

"The Paintings On The Wall Say Gambler! Gambler!" is said to be "a flaming solid ball of creative explosion, whereby storm-trooping guitars and rhythm" that abandons the storm-trooping sounds of Hard-Ons and Nunchukka for "beautiful, introspective and whimsical".

At this stage of his storied life he’s probably entitled to put out any damn thing he likes, but that doesn’t mean glued-on Stooges fans have to buy it. In fact why “Preliminaires” is billed as an Iggy record is beyond me. It should have come out under Jim Osterberg’s name.

You have to ask the question - at least rhetorically - about why ex-Deadboys guitarist Cheetah Chrome hasn’t been more prolific under his own name. If you want answers, go and read his gripping and nakedly revelatory autobiography, “A Dead Boy’s Tale”, but while you’re waiting for it to ship, grab this stunning mini-album.

It might be apt to drop in some Dylan to catch your attention from the get-go (“There’s something happening here and you don’t know what it is/ Do you, Mr Jones?”) but it’s not necessary. Cutting to the chase, Peter Black is using melodies and colouring here to make a solo album that’s his most captivating to date.

As if an inaugural US tour with the Scientists wasn’t memorable enough, Kim Salmon is packing a lot more into the back-end of 2019 and the kick-off of 2020. 

He’s launching his Douglas Galbraith-penned biography, “Nine Parts Water One Part Sand. Kim Salmon And The Formula For Grunge” in Melbourne on November 9, heading a bill that includes King Congo (backed by Harry Howard and the NDE) and Dave Graney and the MistLY.

Salmon is being inducted with the Scientists in the WA Music Hall of Fame on October 31 – along with former teen idol and Young Talent Time TV host, Johnny Young (!)