RENT PARTY - The Waldos (Jungle Records)

I ain't owned that beautiful Nina Antonia book about Johnny Thunders for years-poor people can't have nice things - ya always have to sell it all to eat and smoke. "Everything is in the pawnshop", you dig? But all those swanky Heartbreakers photographs are etched forever in my mind.

This is bass-heavy punk rock from Sydney with an initial "we're-drinking-cans-at-the-football-on-the-hill-so-sing-along-with-us" flavour. This is five, short and sharp songs with names like "No Logo Is A Joke" and "You Want It" so you might suspect that it's all politically incorrect. Of course, first impressions are often wrong. It's punk rock with a left-of-centre social bent.

Super Best Friends (wasn't that a South Park episoide?) have already had the Triple Jay thumbs-up - but don't hold that against them. They knock around with Children Collide and Violent Soho so it's going to work as punk rock for the generation that can't remember last Friday night, let alone the Sex Pistols.

Guitarist Johnny Barrington sings in a broader-than-Sydney-Heads accent without sounding like he's bunging it on( like those worse than awful Australian hip hop acts.) Matt Roberts' bass sound hand playing s more pliable than the GDP of a small West African country and Adam Bridges' fluid drumming kicks things along nicely.

There's a lot of crunch in the guitars and a whole bunch of shouting. Blips of sythn run through "Karma Karma" so it's not just rote punk. The songs are catchy with choruses and drop-outs. All in all, perfect festival fodder. I can hear the kids at the next Splendour In The Grass singing away to "You Want It" or the scathingly anti-xenophobic "The Bleachers."

Fast, furious and fun - and a step above most of the latest wave of what passes for punk rock, Super Best Friends might lyrically fly over the heads of some the people who pick up on them but that's not going to stop anyone having a good time. - The Barman

1/2

Here's French garage rock from five guys who have soaked up a fair bit of the output of The Lyres, at a guess. I caught them in the flesh a couple of years ago, supporting a reformed Screaming Tribesmen in France's best rock and roll tavern, Mondo Bizzaro in Rennes, and this four-track 10-inch EP sounds like they do live.

_{The Saints '73-'78 take flight. Nazz Nassari photo.} 

The Saints ’73-‘78
+ The Double Agents
Hindley Street Music Hall, Adelaide
Thursday, November 14, 2024
WORDS: Robert Brokenmouth
IMAGES: Nazz Nassari

The media release says the tour coincides with the release of The Saints' “’(I’m) Stranded’ boxset, a deluxe four-disc set available on both LP and CD, which serves as “the final word on album that is one of the all-time great Australian records and as well as an all-time classic punk rock record."

This boxset is long, long overdue. It is essential. And I hope they release a record of these current shows. Put me down for two, thanks.

On stage: original members Ed Kuepper and Ivor Hay, with Peter Oxley (a former Sunnyboy who's been playing alongside Kuepper for seven years or more), Mick Harvey (former Birthday Party/Bad Seeds and expert musical arranger and accompanist) and Mark Arm (best known for Mudhoney, but similarly accomplished with a wide variety of bands).

Van Ruin
+ The Cants
Link and Pin Café, Woy Woy, NSW
Friday, September 21, 2024
Photos; Tony McNamara

 The Link and Pin has become a special venue that has created its own scene and mythology. It has own mix of outsiders, rock pigs’ mis-fits, eccentrics and those that you will not find at the local RSL club poker machine room.  

It’s located outside Sydney at Woy Woy on the New South Wales Central Coast. In its own unusual way, the venue has been celebrating Octoberfest in September and I say, why not?  Bavarian lederhosen and Ramones tee-shirts make for a great look.

_{Glenn Morris of The On and Ons.}

The On and Ons
(aka Clyde Bramley's 70th Birthday Bash)
+ The Hovering Spooks
Marrickville Bowling Club, NSW
Sunday, September 15, 2024

Sunday afternoons at the Bowlo have become a Sydney institution for live music goers of a certain vintage. This one had the added attraction of being a celebration of On and Ons bassist and all-round nice guy Clyde Bramley’s 70th birthday, so there was ample reason for the big crowd in evidence.

First up, The Hovering Spooks and the bands that their members haven’t played in can be accommodated on the big end of a pin. These Spooks bill themselves as psych but that label’s about as imprecise as they come these days. How about pre-proto-punk dressed-down glam?