“Trashin’” is the latest video single from Dez Dare, the alter ego of expat Geelong boy Darren Smallman (ex-Warped among others), now living in the UK. It’s taken from the album “Ulysses Trash” and you can procure it here.
Iconic British punk and new wave rockers, The Stranglers, have announced they’ll be touring Australia, playing shows across five cities in April 2023.
First forming in 1974, the band's no bullshit attitude saw the band blaze an experimental trail, from Art Rock to Goth to New Wave Pop, inspiring a wave of prog rock guitar players and confrontational vocalists to find their roots in The Stranglers’ unabashed confidence.
Cadallac Man – Kevin K (Vicious Kitten Records)
Around these parts, Kevin K records are like a comfortable pair of slippers: You slide in and feel at home with his slashing or chugging guitar and mewling vocal drawl. This record is sized extra-large with 26 songs putting it in the realm of what used to be called a double album.
For the uninitiated (and shamefully there still are some), Kevin K is a Buffalo, New York State raised, New York City-tempered veteran of the Lower East Side-CBGB scene, who remains musically true to that long-gone playground. This is his 33rd album of gritty, street-level rock and roll, and it’s more of the same.
Sonics in the Soul - Buzzcocks (Cherry Red)
I'm gonna be as objective as I can. I loved the Buzzcocks. I mean, I'm not alone. Everyone loved them, didn't they?
Okay. I came in at the beginning, heard their journey, was delighted by their first two LPs, their singles, then ... that third LP which initially bewildered me, but I grew to love better than the other two. Except, of course, the compilation, “Singles Going Steady”.
Then, 42 years ago and five years after it all started (particularly with the “Spiral Scratch” EP, which unleashed the DIY independent music scene in the UK), came those three singles which sort of worked, but didn't quite. Something had changed. Because, you know, change happens.
Midnight Oil
Hordern Pavilion
Monday 3 October 2022
Photos by Jonathan Armstrong of www.bigjphotography.com
The 1982 Capitol Theatre run of shows in Sydney was a crossroads for Midnight Oil. They were broke and had already notched 500 gigs since September 1977, which was the date that they decided to go full-time after a Bondi Lifesaver show.
Midnight Oil was equally the largest drawcard on the Australian live circuit but it was not reflected in record sales. It had cost a lot to record their third album, “Place Without a Postcard’ overseas with legendary producer Glyn Johns (Rolling Stones and The Who). “Place” was a rocking, earthy and colloquial album. The production was warm - yet it was of the past and sounded like it had been recorded it in 1970.
Caveat Emptor - Slug (self released)
The northern New South Wales town of Lismore has been a magnet for people from Sydney’s ‘80s underground music scene and their Melbourne cousins. Or it was until successive floods wiped half of it off the map. Slug draws on this influx of tree changers for paret of its membership, and sounds like they brought some eroding bricks from the Hopetoun Hotel with them.
Slugs don’t move quickly so it should come as no surprise that the band’s debut long player is out decade or so into the band’s life cycle. “Caveat Emptor” is swampy, psychedelic-tinged rock and roll. Recorded live in a studio with minimal overdubs, It sounds more urgent than a bunch of old farts are entitled to be.
Frowning Clouds
+ Mug
+ Yep!
John Curtin Hotel, Carlton, VIC
Friday 23 September 2022
I’m pretty sure the first time I saw Frowning Clouds was around 2007, upstairs at the Tote supporting The Dolly Rocker Movement.
The story was that the Frowning Clouds, at the time stumbling toward the end of their high school tenure, had been banned from the Tote for drinking in contravention of a venue management edict.
Apparently they’d been given a reprieve to play that night, on the promise no such unlawful activity occurred. But judging by the pint glasses in the band members’ hands and general unruly behaviour, they’d screwed the memo up and drop kicked it out of mind and sight.
At a subsequent gig, this time at the Birmingham on Smith Street, again supporting Dolly Rocker, the Frowning Clouds had accidentally brought Dolly Rocker’s psychedelastic set to an end when they managed to spill beer on the fold back monitors on the front of the stage.
We Got A Right – The Golden Rat (Vicious Kitten Records)
What do you get when expat bi-coastal American underground star Mr Ratboy collides with Hiroshi The Golden Arm (aka Japan’s Johnny Thunders) in a Tokyo garage, each armed with the songs that pre-occupied their formative musical minds in the period spanning 1976-82? An absolutely killer album.
“We Got A Right” is a record that came about through necessity. Hiroshi The Golden Arm and Mr Ratboy first met in 1993 when the latter was a member of Jeff Dahl’s touring band. Fast forward a few years and Mr Ratboy is a resident of the Land of the Rising Sun and the pair strike up a musical partnership in the electro-trash outfit Ace Killers Union.
