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the factory floor

  • lydia andrew in redPainting the town red: Lydia Lunch and Andrew Coates Photo: The Barman.

    Lydia Lunch
    + Rebel Yell
    The Factory Floor, Marrickville, NSW
    Sunday 21 June 2026

    Lydia Lunch and Andrew Coates are not a Suicide tribute band. Not in the popular form of the term. Let’s call them “Suicide adjacent” by virtue of Coates’ Melbourne band, Black Cab, playing lots of their music in the past, and Lydia being the titular Queen of New York City’s No Wave scene, who saw and knew the seminal duo.

    A gig billed as Lydia Lunch playing the songs of Suicide and its late frontman, Alan Vega, might not sound like typical I-94 Barfly fare but man (or woman) does not live on Detroit rock alone. Much to the disdain of some around me, I have a deep and abiding love of the New York Lower East Side Sound in all its diverse forms. A sloppy Johnny Thunders lead break or a Johnny Ramone downstroke lands as well as a Tom Verlaine vibrato-fueled filigree or Marty Rev’s monloithic Motorik beats. 

  • gw lets go surfing 

    Guitar Wolf
    + Meow Meow and The Smack Outs
    + L.A.R.M. 
    The Factory Floor, Marickvile, NSW
    Saturday, March 21, 2026

    What was that? Twelve hours later after being swept out of The Factory Floor like post-gig detritus, it’s still sinking in. A couple of their albums grace the I-94 Bar’s shelves but accidents of timing somehow determined that this was my first in-the flesh Guitar Wolf experience.

    So what was it like? Speak up, I can’t hear you. And watch where you’re walking, that’s my dropped jaw you’re about to step on.