sydney

I often put forward the argument about his Bobness that if any new artist produced a run of albums with the depth and quality of "Time Out Of Mind" in 1997 until "The Tempest" in 2013, we would hail them as a lyrical genius, the likes of which we'd not heard since Leonard Cohen.

We would be in wonder of this songwriter who draws Americano from his depth of styles, whether it be through darkened Southern blues, Western swing, folk ballads, rockabilly or Irish balladering.

We'd note the remarkable gravel in the vocals akin to Tom Waits and Shane Mc Gowan, and the way they descend to a whisper, the aural equivalent of the oldest oak tree, all weathered and timbered.

But it's Dylan. No singer/songwriter compares, and there is no other career like his.

Osees
+ R.M.F.C.
The Metro Theatre, Sydney
15 February 2023
Photos- Vic Zubakin / Look Sharp Photography

Osees have been landing on Australian shores for more than a decade and consistently leaving an impression as a “must see” band.  Over the years, I have been in conversationswith people who have raved about the powerful live experience, the guitar sound and the energy.

When I heard claims they were “one of the best live rock bands in the world” I was always dubious. Let’s face it: rock roll can be about hype and creating a myth.  Finally, I had an opportunity to witness what all the talk has been about.  

Band leader John Dwyer is someone who anyone making independent original music should greatly admire.   Over 26 years, there are 33 albums he has produced, or played on. Dwyer is the last of a breed: the rock ‘n’ roll outlaw and fringe dweller completely living the music.

In the last decade, with intense work, he has made a real impact, supporting his music with shit jobs like stacking shelves, with one focus:  Running his own label, creating art, playing in a band and driving his part of a cottage industry.

After such a phenomenal fundraising performance by Team Leadfinger (Melbourne Branch) and everyone at the Tote Hotel in Melbourne recently, it’s time for Sydney/Wollongong Team Leadfinger to run with the momentum created.

A group of friends are organising “See You Tonight – A benefit gig for Stewy ‘Leadfinger’ Cunningham” at Marrickville Bowling Club on Friday, November 23.

Cunningham, singer-guyitarist for Leadfinger, Asteroid B612, Challenger 7, Proton Energy Pills and The Yes-Men, was diagnosed with lung cancer earlier this year 

This will be one memorable night with a host of Sydney and Wollongong artists coming together to celebrate the man and the music that is Mr Cunningham.  

Also on the bill are international tourists Señor No, direct from the Basque country in Spain. High-energy veterans Señor No are big fans of Australian underground music and played host to Leadfinger when they toured Spain in 2017. This will be their only Sydney show.

The line-up is: 

• SC5 (Sydney’s own amazing MC5 tribute featuring ex members of the New Christs and Lime Spiders)
• Señor No
• Adam Young and the Down Main (Adam and mates bring some Alt Country rock to the night)
• 300 St. Claire (Sydney Blundstone rock from guys you all know)
• Fangin Felines (a very new band with Carrie Phillis from Booby Traps and Morgana and Sarah from Nitocris)
• Dave Curley’s Ripped Genes (featuring members of Leadfinger along with special guests Kent Steedman (Celibate Rifles), Bill Gibson (The Eastern Dark) and others. 

Be sure to stuff your wallets with cash money for the night. With the awesome assistance of some great labels and record stores across Australia, organisers will be raffling off CDs, vinyl, tees and other goodies. Tickets here.

Some of Melbourne’s keenest worshippers of guitar pioneer Link Wray will share their adulation of the man with Sydney on Saturday, October 19 with a special gig at Enmore’s Hideaway Bar.

All-girl combo The Wraylettes (Melbourne) will be joined by sleazy ’60s psychedelia advocates Cheetah Beat, surf reverb fanatics Los Tremoleros (Melbourne) and Sydney’s own The Missing Link with DJ support from King O.P.P.

The Wraylettes are something of a supergroup, comprising lead guitarist Yolanda DeRose (DollSquad, Mass Cult and The Beat Taboo), drummer Susan Shaw (The Exotics, Girl Monstar, The Wet Ones and Andre Williams), bassist Nikki Scarlett (Asylum, Dusty Springclean & The Pops. The Jasmine Mahon Trio) and guitarist Sammy-Lou (The Shimmys The Vibrajets.)

Cheetah Beat are no slouches too with membership drawn from The Crusaders and The Booby Traps while The Missing Link were Link Wray’s Sydney pick-up band for his one and only Australian tour in the ‘90s. Leader Bones and Co play out rarely these days.

The Link Wray Tribute became a thing on the Melbourne live music calendar a couple of years ago. Hideaway Bar is at 156 Enmore Road - a short stroll form the Enmore Theatre. Admission is just $10.

_{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.

So it’s goodbye from them. After 12 years of playing gin places, late-night dives and boltholes all around Australia, a US tour, two EPs and two albums, with one final lap of honour, Sydney's Hell City Glamours will be no more. “Deux” is the farewell long-player and it’s a pretty good way to go out.

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.

Here's how to start 2017 with a bang: Three of Sydney’s best high-energy bands are kicking off 2017 at stun volume on Saturday, January 7 with a dual album launch at The Factory Floor in Marrickville.

Detroit-inspired rifferama melody kings The Prehistorics are launching their fourth long-player, “Storm The Gates”, on CD and vinyl with their first gig in 13 months. 

Main-man Brendan Sequeira has been dividing his time between Sydney and France and this will be their only home-town appearance before a lengthy European tour.

They took their time about it but The Stukas are finally unleashing their debut CD, “Ju-87”, after 30 years of live savagery. 

Reputed to be Sydney’s most hated band, The Stukas have played with everybody from the New Christs to XL Capris, the Celibate Rifles and New York City’s Dictators. It’s been a long and hard road but their latest line-up is as energetic and confronting as ever.

The Dunhill Blues recently notched 10 years of gigs all over Australia and Europe, playing their unique hybrid mix of rock, garage, country and punk blues. 

The Dunhill Blues play a pummelling, primitive and pulsing style of rock 'n' roll that's best viewed beer in hand. They don’t have a new album to launch (they’ve already released three) but they do have the firepower to shake you out of your post-Christmas stupour.

Tickets will be on sale at the door or save yourself some dollars by pre-booking online here.

What does a garage band do when it wants to shoot a film clip? Hold a garage sale and let the cameras roll, of course. The Dunhill Blues from Sydney shot this clip for their forthcoming single "Ronnie Wood". We like it. Production by Cheap Music Videos. 

You can catch the Dunnies in Queensland and Nothern New South Wales in September and Europe after that. 

If you hate hyperbole, stop reading now. The verbiage will pile up. This Sydney band draws from previous endeavours (notably, The Dolly Rocker Movement), inhales deeply from the musty vault of '60s bubblegum and psych and puts their own bent on things. They are The Shit That You Need To Hear Right Now. They're just what this city's flaccid music scene needs.The same probably applies to the postcode in which you reside.

"This album is dedicated to a small club: the squatters of Campbell Buildings in 1979/80. Every year our numbers get fewer but the story lives on," writes Bob Short on the LP cover.

Yeah. Just like the 100 Club and the Sex Pistols, occupants of the Campbell Buildings in London now number in their mythological thousands.

Yeah right. Some pasts attract wanna-be’s like flying bugs to apricot jam, others … well, let’s just say you’d give some pasts a wide berth.

One of Australian rock roll’s few truly dangerous frontmen, Garry Gray (ex-Sacred Cowboys), is making a rare Sydney appearance with his crack band The Sixth Circle on November 18, presented by the I-94 Bar.

Garry Gray and The Sixth Circle are playing The Factory Floor in Marrickville with soulful rock soldiers Leadinger and street-level Northern Beaches rockers Chickenstones.

Melbourne-based Gray is a true survivor and legend of the Australian underground music scene. As crazed, chainsaw-wielding frontman for the Sacred Cowboys, he and his bandmates left a legacy of five studio albums and trademark singles, “Nothing Grows In Texas” and “Hell Sucks”.

Blasted by Molly Meldrum on Countdown as the worst band he’d seen in five years, Sacred Cowboys wore the insult as a badge of honour. They disrupted and devastated Australian audiences in the ‘80s and late ’90s with line-ups that included members of Beasts of Bourbon, The Models, Wet Taxis , Paul Kelly and The Dots and JAB.

A committed underground music fan and member of acid rock cover band The Resurrection Men, Sydneysider Craig Norman is also the father of eight-year-old Jack, who is battling a non-operable brain tumour.   

Craig and wife Tanya are fulltime public servants who have burned up much of their annual leave and are battling to give their son a decent quality of life, while also caring for their young daughter.

I-94 Bar patrons who can give a donation can help out here.

Much-loved Sydney blues-punks feedtime are releasing their first new album in 20 years on March 24. "Gas" will be on In The Red and "Any Good Thing" is the preview track. Pre-orders are happening here.

Against the backdrop of the burgeoning inner city music scene, feedtime was formed in 1979. Taking notes from the incendiary live shows of X and Rose Tattoo, feedtime set about creating their own interpretation of the events unfolding before them, a blues-noise that was equal parts abstract minimalism and working class roots-rock. Post-punk, yet right in the thick of it; miles ahead of the pack and not many seemed to notice.

Tuesday night rock'n'roll at the Annandale? Not gonna be an eventful night, no sirree....goin to pay homage to some power-pop legends who have given me years of inspiration and pleasure, coupla beers and some great tunes and home to bed. It's Tuesday night for chrissakes, can't get carried away, what can possibly go wrong I thought...I often forget about the influence of rock'n'roll on my weak will.

Ever heard an album from a band you’d thought had all but put the cue in the rack only to be knocked out of your seat?  The Holy Soul has been slogging away around Sydney for a decade or more as one of those acts playing the all-too-familiar Game of Diminishing Returns.

You know that one. It’s where, through a combination of fickle fandom, demographic-driven media, venue turnover and diverging member interests, a band fades from view like the white dot on an analogue TV screen.

Appearances are deceptive. There’s been a bit happening in the background. In terms of getting onto the mainstream radar, however, The Holy Soul have been perpetual victims of their own nature. People like to grasp the familiar and The Holy Soul has traded in a strange mix of blues-rock that’s impossible to pigeonhole. So let’s all resist trying.

feedtime have come together to release their first album since 1996’s "Billy". A lot has happened in the last 21 years, so what can we expect from the original lineup of Rick, Al and Tom who have been playing sporadically since reforming in 2011?

It starts off well. “Any good thing” opens with a fantastic, sliding bass line before kicking off with pounding drums and a frenetically distorted guitar. My first thought when hearing Rick’s vocals was that of GG Allin’s voice towards the end of his life. The gravel has turned into a metallic growl.

And the pace continues well into “Thought”, before slowing down into "Box n Burn". Both strong tracks with a powerful sound. However, the issues start to arise with "Skilled Enuf". While the musicianship on the track is strong, the writing is quite simple and unengaging, “Skilled enough, to play one chord. Skilled enough to play one note” might be a true description of the band’s minimalist arrangements, but it is unengaging.