First an apology: it’s taken me ages to find the time to write this down, but “Brokenhearted” is a constant in the car, revving us all up when we … er. Go to the shops. Go to the beach. Go visit me mum. You know.

Oh yeah. What a fabulous band the Systemaddicts are. One of Adelaide's best. Yeah, you’ll hear fragments of Birdman in them, you’ll hear the big brassy sound of The Saints (especially their third album) but most of all you’ll hear the urgency and freshness that you got from some of those early ‘60s British explosion outfits. Vim, verve, smarts and relevance.

You might not get it first listen. You almost certainly will if you see them.

Remember when you used to follow a local band? Thought the world of them, and they took you all over the city, into dark corners you’d never normally go? Pubs filled with sad, bitter old men?

Everywhere The Braves go around Melbourne, there’s a crew of their fans who follow them. So even out in the tedium of the bored burbs, when The Braves play, the dancefloor is filled with dancing shapes. And the locals get it, and join in. And when The Braves go back, there’s more people.

“The Winter Journey” has been such a difficult album to review. Why? Well, I can’t concentrate on typing, I keep falling into it and staying there, hypnotised. It’s just bloody wonderful. I’ve tried with pen and paper, same thing. Just dragged in. Fabulous, really.

Seven bottles, Barman. This is the second of Julitha’s solo albums, hopefully of many more. Her first LP, “The Lucky Girl” I responded immediately to and “The Winter Journey” does the same. Sure, if you’re expecting a wall of guitars, you might pause when you get a wall of … Julitha’s delicate voice. But then everything else kicks in: piano, organ, guitars, pedal steel, synthesizers, strings, brass section, and oh, yes, her all male choir (The Wall of Men) used to intensely powerful effect.

Hard to comprehend that this is Mark Porkchop Holder’s debut album. He’s a founding and former member of the blues-stomping raunch machine, Black Diamond Heavies, and that should tell you something straight away, even before you play a single track.

“Let It Slide” is roadhouse blues - no, not those “Roadhouse Blues” with the drunken clown out front singing about mute nostril agony. I mean the shit you might hear in little bars when you get off the interstate highways in Tennessee or Louisiana. Best served with a corn dog side dish, grits and catfish fried in possum sweat. As featured on "Man versus Food".

It’s just a theory so bear with it: As music’s once essential ingredients like passion and energy become even more diluted, those who still want to practice rock and roll as it used to be known will be forced right back into their past.

The ‘70s will become Rock’s Golden Age, even if the ‘60s were better, simply because that was the time when mass media first took a real grip and force-fed culture to the populace. Rock and roll will become more reactionary, tougher and more comfortable within its own leathery skin.

The meek will have already inherited the earth and occupied portable electronic devices and the digital channels. The only contestable ground will be bars and clubs where earthy, honest rock and roll will make a vinyl-like resurgence among a small but devoted following, and select newcomers (aka bored Milllennials.) Which is where someone like Heath Green comes in.

Another day, another great and surreal psych band from south of the NSW-Victoria border. The Baudelaires have a string of singles under their belt (via Colourtone Records) and this is their full-length debut (on Off The Hip, of course.)

Mr Everywhere, Mikey Young (Eddy Suppression Ring), recorded this with The Baudelaires in a three-day session at a house on the Mornington Peninsular in Victoria. The songs burn slowly, for the most part, with a magnificence all their own. They aren’t in any hurry but they arrive at their destination.