Take a look at the photo. There they are. The original Saints, outside their Brisbane share house, Club 76. Now a posh real estate agent's rather scrappy-looking digs, the house still stands. 

Queensland does have a heritage register: the Saints' Petrie Terrace share house should surely be on the list, but it's not. Queenslanders, make it happen!

It's mid-winter in Adelaide, and I'm reflecting on the passage of time. As I get off the bus, I pass the new and improved Her Majesty's Theatre on the corner of Pitt Street and Grote, adjacent to the shop I worked in for a year nearly 30 years ago. A few doors up Grote, toward Victoria Square, was the one building I worked in periodically over 22 years, The Antique Market, run by Dean Donovan and his wife, Kathy.

Quite an awkwardly-designed building, after Dean sold all the stock in 2018, it was sold, remodelled and occupied for a few years, then finally emptied and demolished; today a huge hotel or somesuch is heading upwards with a great deal of clamour, gusto and grunt. 

_{Jon Schofield leading The Grooveyard through a set with (fron left to right) Ian Little,  Richard Lawson and Bob Wackley.} 

A little piece of Australian underground rock and roll history was rescued from relative obscurity in April when the modestly-proportioned back catalogue (one 45 and an EP) of 1980s Sydney band The Grooveyard was re-issued digitally.

Grooveyard played ‘60s-influenced power pop in and around Sydney in the 1980s. Their recorded legacy kicked off with their Chris Masuak-produced “Avalanche of Love” single in 1984 and ending with the posthumous 12-inch “Grooveyard" EP in 1989. 

The Grooveyard was something of a supergroup. At various times, its ranks included future Paul Kelly and Messengers, Chinless Elite and Hell To Pay member Jon Schofield, Lime Spiders drummer Richard Lawson, ex-Razar member and future Screaming Tribesmen Bob Wackley, Geoff Rhoe (ex-Minuteman), Ian Little (Bambalams) and Sean Maguire (ex-Minuteman).

^{Dennis Thompson (rear) with Fred Smith, Wayne Kramer, Rob Tyner and Mike Davis.}

We are marking the passing of Dennis Thompson, last man standing from the MC5, with this flashback interview. Ken Shimamoto conducted it in two parts, beginning on March 24 1998 and winding up on March 28, 1998.

Besides being the party who propelled the MC5 (and New Order, and New Race, and The Motor City Bad Boys, and...) into the stratosphere with his percussive power, Dennis "Machine Gun" Thompson is also undoubtedly the greatest living high-energy conversationalist on the planet. He talks the same way he plays the drums -- energetically, assertively, aggressively, thoughts spilling over each other two or three at a time, punctuated by explosions of laughter.

K: How'd you get started playing music back in Lincoln Park?

D: Well, what it was, was that I had a friend named Billy Vargo who played guitar, and I'm thinking, how old were we, we were like maybe 15-years-old, and he was the leader of the band. We had three guitars, no bass, and me on drums. And I was doing it, I was playing.

My brother is 10 years older than I am, and he's been a musician all his life. So when he was 16, I was six years old, and they had a rock and roll band, practicing music in my basement, the drummer would leave his drums, so four year old, five-year-old Dennis would run down there and bang on the drums and Mom would yell down there, "Dennis, get off those drums, they're not yours!" But she'd always give me at least 10 minutes, you know?

More than 45 years since they first formed during the froth and frenzy of punk in Scotland, the Skids are coming to Australia for the first time for a “greatest hits” tour.

I lived overseas and saw them quite a few times in the 2010s, and each gig was a triumph. The last time I saw The Skids, in December 2019 in Glasgow, was the best of the lot.

_{Kim Scott.}  

Formed in Adelaide in the early 1980s and based on the core membership of brothers John (guitar) and Kim Scott (bass), The Mark of Cain was always something of an enigma in the Adelaide, and Australian independent music scene. 

The Mark of Cain took its initial musical cues from English post-punk bands like Joy Division and Gang of Four; the band’s muscular sound was complimented by a existentialist lyrical bent, inspired by John Scott’s interest in the writing of Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus and Herman Hesse, spliced with figurative militaristic imagery. 

The fact that the Scott brothers, both qualified engineers, held down day jobs in the Department of Defence added to The Mark of Cain’s mystique. 

Much-travelled James McCann (ex-The Drones, Harpoon, James McCann And The New Vindictives, James McCann's Dirty Skirt Band, Nunchukka Superfly) is back with a new LP, a new band name - and even a different first name.

The Melbourne-based singer-guitarist’s latest recording, “Hit With Love” – under the moniker JJ McCann Transmission - is 12 cracking, original tracks that combine elements of ‘80s hard rock, pop and post-punk, and a few that are almost impossible to compare to any others.

Produced by Rob Younger, “Hit with Love” is another solid entry onto McCann’s already exceptional back catalogue. For me he’s one of the country’s great singer/songwriters of the last 20 years. We spoke with JJ via telephone.