The Garden - NQR (Kasumuen Records)

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By Robert Brokenmouth

Robert Brokenmouth

02 July 2018

Hits: 6105

The website says that NQR is the "new band for Kristian Brenchley (from New York City’s WOMAN and Degreaser, the latter with fellow ex-pat Tim Evans), Denis Leadbeater (S-Bahn) and Maureen Gearon (Baby 8) with the indomitable Ruth McIver (C**ting Daughters) very much out front and centre on vocals."

It comes as a six-track cassette or CD. 

The title track opens and it's a kick in the guts, just over two-and-a-half minutes of bitter pop stuffed into a woodchipper.

And the singer gets out:

No more conversation
Time spent
Digital
No more 
Conversation 
No more chaperones

• melbourne
• Kasumuen Records
• NQR
• WOMAN
• S-Bahn
• the garden

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Computer Girls b/w Renegade - Wolf 359 (Iceage Productions)

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By Robert Brokenmouth

Robert Brokenmouth

02 July 2018

Hits: 3710

I love Wolf 359. Excellent stuff. Determinedly analogue-y and old-school riffs and tendencies (if you describe that squelching-with-intent sound some synths make as a riff), it's like a musician visiting from 1978 and eyeing us all with amused disdain. 

And then, realising that this is their future too, snarling with all the repressed eloquence disgust can muster. Love the ’90s beat vibe, with the rippling, pounding synths... not quite yeah hup, but I'll stay here and throb instead.

It’s a digital single, available here.

• computer girls
• renegade
• wolf 365

Friends rally for floored former Waldos and Knots guitarist Joey Pinter

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By The Barman

The Barman

02 July 2018

Hits: 7042

_{Sole surviving Heartbreaker Walter Lure accompanied by Joey Pinter on guitar. Des Jardins photo.}

Expatriate New York City guitar legend Joey Pinter (ex-Waldos, Knots) needs your help after suffering side effects after four bouts of debilitating back surgery.

Complications have left the Los Angeles-based axeman being fed by tube for the moment, and his wife Angie needs assistance with mounting medical bills.

In Angie's words: "Joey had a 4 level cervical fusion revision because he was losing strength in his hand and the ability to play. Something went wrong .He has a hematoma that is preventing him from swallowing anything no water or food.

“They were going to open him up again but decided it was too risky and instead are hoping the inflammation will go down he is highly medicated and has a feeding tube, heart monitor. It's very serious and sad."

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"Bi-Coastal Blasphemy" – The Ringleaders (Hound Gawd Records)

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By The Barman

The Barman

28 June 2018

Hits: 6787

Once upon a time, in the relatively genteel state of Virginia, there was a self-destructive punk rock band called The Candy Snatchers. Named after a trashy crime flick, they spilt beer and bled all over American stages before their guitarist prematurely shuffled off this mortal coil a decade ago, and they promptly fell apart.

L.A.-based The Ringleaders have Larry May of The Candy Snatchers on vocals and for that reason, among others, you need to pay attention.

The rest of the band – Hans Molnar (the Hellbenders) on guitar with Tim Bender (Death by Stereo) on drums and Mark Ho (Hollywood Hate) on bass – are similarly well-credentialed. Fully cranked, they sound like they’re heading to Hell in a Honda while out of their heads on glue.

• kbd
• los angeles
• hound gawd records
• the candy snatchers
• the ringleaders
• larry may
• hellbenders
• death bv stereo
• bi-coastal blasphemy

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Chico Purito! - Hey Honcho and The Aftermaths (Hound Gawd Records)

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By The Barman

The Barman

27 June 2018

Hits: 4650

It’s fashionable to label Spain as rock and roll’s last remaining outpost, and if you live there or you’ve visited for more than 10 minutes you’ll know why.

The Spaniards didn’t throw off the yoke of Fascist cultural oppression until 1975, so they came late to rock and roll. Partying hard, however, is in their genes and they’ve been making up for lost time.

So say “Hi!” to Hey Honcho and The Aftermaths, a band from Oveido in the country’s north who their label says have a sound that’s typical of Spain’s garage punk scene.

The Aftermaths are ex-members of Los Ass-Draggers, Amon Ra and Electric Children – bands whose profile will be negligible outside of Spain (but don't let that stop you.) They had an EP out before singer Von Gustopher (aka Hey Honcho) joined.

• garage
• chico purito!
• hey honcho and the aftermaths
• hound gawd

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Are Friends Electric?

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By Robert Brokenmouth

Robert Brokenmouth

23 June 2018

Hits: 6830

Intrigued by their frequently-played, Paul (Rocket Science) Maybury-produced, new LP, "Sideways Changeling", and given that they're playing Adelaide this week (The Metro on Friday and the Crown and Anchor on Saturday), I thought it might be a good idea to ask Melbourne's psychedelic space rockers The Electric Guitrars a few questions.

After all, they're on a national your to launch this, their second album, and are, or have been, playing shows with luminaries like The Scientists and Tumbleweed.   

In typical high-energy "you can go your own way" style, they ignored every question put to them and, instead, wrote a track-by-track dissection of the record. Here's the result:

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I Brought Down The MC5 – Michael Davis (Cleopatra)

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By The Barman

The Barman

21 June 2018

Hits: 12576

“Brutal” was the first word that came to mind after finishing the posthumous autobiography of MC5 bass player Michael Davis and that adjective is still hanging in the air, 24 hours later.

Over 350 skilfully-written pages, Davis shines a spotlight onto the lives of family, friends, lovers, bandmates and associates over five decades, but it’s the glare cast on his own existence that’s the starkest.

By accident or design, “I Brought Down The MC5” only covers Davis’s life up until meeting his last wife, Angela, and moving to California in the late 1990s. It excludes the DKT-MC5 reunion with bandmates Wayne Kramer and Dennis Thompson, his fight with Hep C, charity work and near fatal 2006 bike crash. 

All of that, and Michael finding redemption, could have made a dynamite second book, but Davis sadly passed from liver cancer in 2012, aged 68.

• mc5
• wayne kramer
• john sinclair
• rob tyner
• dennis thompson
• michael davis
• fred sonic smith
• cleopatra records
• grande ballroom
• i brought down the mc5

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You'd be a Stooge to miss this

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By The Barman

The Barman

19 June 2018

Hits: 4838

Ron Asheton’s local, The Blind Pig in Ann Arbor, is the venue for a tribute show on July 17 to mark what would have been the late ex-Stooges guitarist’s 70^th birthday. Performers will include J Mascis, Don Fleming, Mark Arm, Kim Gordon, Mike Watt, Mario Rubalcaba and Jennifer Herrema. Tickets are available here and proceeds go towards The Ron Asheton Foundation..

• stooges
• ron asheton
• blind pig

Everything is Combustible: Television, CBGB's and Five Decades of Rock and Roll: The Memoirs of an Alchemical Guitarist by Richard Lloyd (Beech Hill)

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By The Barman

The Barman

19 June 2018

Hits: 7479

Orthodoxy is not the Richard Lloyd way, so this book was never going to be a straight-forward elucidation of the histories of his bands (“Just the facts”.) It’s a weirdly charged ride through the man’s life, using vivid snapshots and taking colourful detours, and it reverberates like his guitar playing.

Lloyd was the rocking yin to Tom Verlaine’s ethereal yang in seminal New York band Television. You could say he kept his guitar partner from lapsing into total six-stringed self-indulgence and flights of fancy, giving the band its rock and roll sensibility.

It’s an important point but his book is about much more than that. Lloyd is also a solo artist of note who has passed through the orbits of people like Jimi Hendrix, Anita Pallenberg, John Lee Hooker, Keith Moon, Buddy Guy and Keith Richards, to name a few.

What you need to know is that Lloyd has been in and out of mental asylums and rehab, used every drug known to Western civilisation (and probably a few that aren’t) and the scope and variety of his sex life would give the late Lou Reed cause for pause. He also has a unique philosophy on human existence.

Lloyd has always felt like an intruder in everybody else’s world, a fully-formed adult even as a child. He lived with bipolar disorder sitting on his shoulder, pulling him up and down. You get the feeling that his (at times impenetrable) brand of spirituality was either a product of that or his anchor, and it runs thematically right through his writing.

• new york punk
• cbgb
• television
• richard lloyd
• everything is combustible

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