Crush On You – Smalltown Tigers (Area Pirata)

You like guitars, all-girl bands and anthems? Smalltown Tigers are The Donnas without major hype or The Runaways with songs. That’s 99 percent of what you need to know, right there. What’s not to like about the debut album by this Italian rock trio?

Italian bands? I’ve heard some shitty ones. Likes lot of Europe, rock and roll struggles to retain a grip on audiences in Italy, and the cookie cutter approach abounds, not to mention some uninspired DIY production. Many Italian bands don’t and can’t rock.  

Trashcan Sunrise – Thee Windom Earles (Earlesworld)
The packet says: “Trash Garage. Sleaze Surf. Greasy Rockabilly” and sure ‘nuff it ain’t no lie. 

Two guitars, drums and bass and keys; it’s not a departure from the familiar for veteran garage freaks, but Thee Windom Earles do it so damn well and with a shitload of energy. This is a band that has obviously earned its “Thee” in a myriad of parties, pubs, dungeons and booze-soaked boltholes. 

The Far Outs! – The Far Outs (Ripple Music/Rebel Waves Records)
There’s a readily-identifiable rock and roll lineage that goes back through the 1980s and ‘80s and it effortlessly connects to the ‘60s. Lenny Kaye’s “Nuggets” album and the tireless Greg Shaw from Bomp Records are owed a huge debt for provoking the so-called Garage Revival, and The Far Outs are living proof that it hasn’t died just yet.

The Far Outs are a duo of Brisbaneites, guitarist-vocalist Phil Usher and drummer Jonny Pickvance, and if you’ve never heard a song by The Sonics or The Kinks you need to track them down and ask for a look at their record collection. The Far Outs have raided the mid-‘60s sounds cupboard, padded out their own spin on it with organ, and have delivered an album that drips with swampy garage goodness.

Viva La Revolution – Black Bombers (Easy Action)

Yeah, alright, it took a little while to get to me.

And yeah, by now you've heard they've broken up.

Which, if there were any justice in the world, would've been more worthy of a spot on the ABC than that meeting between two psychopath grifters in New York a couple of weeks back. 

(Sorry? well, one of them was on trial and spouting lies and misinformation every time he turned up, and the other is yet to be on trial but absolutely should be but hey. She'll be right, mate.)

Stories To Tell – The Hangmen (Acetate Records)

There’s a timeless quality about the music of The Hangmen that can’t be touched by many. Swagger meets roots rock on a seedy Los Angeles backstreet, they’re now up to Album Number Seven with no signs of the fire diminishing.

Formed in 1984 around singer-guitarist Bryan Small, signed by major labels (twice), they’re (yet another) American band chewed up and spat out by an industry that panders to the lowest common denominator. Always has, always will. Drugs got in the way, too. Raise a glass to little labels like L.A. imprint Acetate for giving them a home. 

Valley Songs – Little Girls (Playback Records)

If only all retrospective collections were half as fun - and done as well - as this look back on 1980s Los Angeles surfer girl power-poppers, Little Girls. There are 26 bouncy rave-ups on this CD, it’s accompanied by a booklet full of photos and liner notes, and it took an Australian label to put it out.

Little Girls were diminutive sisters Caron and Michele Maso, two Coloradoans transplanted to L.A. who turned heads as a duo at a 1980 party by singing alternative lyrics to “Anarchy in the UK”. Now, who hasn’t wanted to do that?

Things got serious after they met guitarist Kip Brown, freshly late of local punks SHOCK, while hanging out at The Troubadour club. A full band ensued.