It’s been a long time since Garry Gray strode stages in Australia with a de-toothed chainsaw swinging at hip level as he fronted the psychodramatic Sacred Cowboys, so it’s reassuring to hear his menacing tones emanating from a studio again. This four-track EP is a taster to an album and measures up to expectations nicely.
Never underestimate rock and roll’s ability to look inwards, and backwards, to re-heat its own bones in an attempt to sound new. Cue Lonesome Shack, who hail, geographically if not spiritually, from the flanellete shirt and trucker cap American frontier of its North-West.
It seems a lifetime ago when the two great outposts of Sydney rock and roll were its northern and southern beaches. They were feeder tributaries to the inner-city and spawned bands like the Celibate Rifles and the Trilobites, to name just a couple.
The venues that were their spawning grounds have long closed down, the bands willing to play their own music thin on the ground. Only a hardy few are still willing to take a risk and make the swim up-stream.
In The Complete History of Rock and Roll Episode 6, Bob Short takes us through The Complete History of Louie Louie. The tracklist is below the player.
Sometime I-94 Bar scribe Ken Shimamoto has birthed a new band online. Brokegrove Lads is a psychedelic improv rock group with musicians from Fort Worth and Albuquerque and their first release is a single, composed in tribute to late Deviants vocalist, writer and Pink Fairies alumnus Mick Farren.
One of Australian underground music’s most special, enduring and well-travelled talents Penny Ikinger will play shows in Perth and Fremantle for the first time in May, en route to Japan to record with Deniz Tek.
There's not much more information than what's on the poster but onetime Stooge Jimmy Recca (now living in L.A.) is playing a show in Arlington, Virginia. If you want to know about Mr Recca and his Stooges history, you could do no better than reading this interview by Ken Shimamoto originally penned for Easy Action Records.
The New Christs have a long history running through possibly the most convoluted list of line-up changes any band has endured and still retained a moniker. This has meant new albums have held a certain fear factor. What will they sound like this time? Can anything they do compare to the towering peak of “Distemper”? Let’s face it. If that’s your five-star album, you have a lot to live up to.
No one really sounds quite like Suzie Stapleton. Being an original artist, that is a supreme compliment. Suzie also really takes risks with her music - and that is another compliment.
