2018

Neko Case "Hell-On" CD
Another top release, especially considering Neko's then home apparently was lost in a fire, during recording

Lindi Ortega "Liberty" CD
Still got the goods, despite Lindi thinking she was done with it.

Margo Price @ Factory Theatre, Sydney
Great voice, top songs, fine show

Bad Reputation - Joan Jett documentary
Joan tells her story/her side of The Runaways story

Baby 8 - "Painkiller" video clip
Great clip for a tune from an album with an interesting name

2018 was a shit year but with some amazing gigs intertwined.

We have a sub-culture, in which fragments of our past local music scene survive from a time that was exciting (as Damian Lovelock said) “as England in 1966 or NYC in 1975”.

The folk who peruse and read this website are either musicians, sound engineers writers or rock pigs mostly from a by-gone era. Generally, a generation that was made of weekly trips for vinyl hunts on Sydney's Pitt Street, in particular Ashwood’s and independent record shops like Phantom and The Record Plant. A generation that had subscriptions to RAM Magazine, or Rolling Stone and read fanzines.

Our world was pre-gaming, home computers, no Netflix, no Internet, no YouTube. What mattered was music, and it was our obsession. We were playing in bands, producing bands, writing about music, collecting vinyl records before the hipsters made it expensive.

Chris Masuak is embarking on his first French tour in three years in January 2018 with a new band, Chris Masuak’s Dog Soldier.

Masuak carries one of rock 'n’ roll’s proudest pedigrees, his musical history reading like a “Who’s Who” of the Australian underground, so he should need no introduction around here.

The Canadian born Masuak first achieved notoriety as the teenage guitarist for legendary Radio Birdman, the torch-bearers of punk rock in Australia.

He subsequently went on to form The Hitmen, played in the New Christs and the Screaming Tribesmen and now lives in Spain where he plays and tours regularly.

Dog Soldier celebrates and preserves that proud tradition, with members from Europe’s underground and cult elite.

Bruno Mondo, bass player from The TV Men, Gunners, Trotskids and The Outside, is a veteran of France’s punk rock scene. Juan Martinez El Karaq is the drummer, from Spain’s hardcore elite and Masuak's power-punk trio, Viveiro Wave Riders.

JANUARY
10 - Paris/Montreuil - Armony Live
11 - Le Havre - L’Escale
12 - Brest - Le Ptit Minou
13 - Rennes - Mondo Bizarro
14 - Vannes - Jam Session
15 - Rennes - Ty Anna Tavarn

Jello-less since 2001, the Dead Kennedys are bringing their brand of seminal punk back to Australian audiences, 25 years since they first hit our shores and th first time since 2014. 

The band - these days that's East Bay Ray, D.H. Peligro, Klaus Flouride and singer Skip McSkipster - is doing a quick hit-and-run of four shows in a week.  

The Dead Kennedys had a huge impact in Australia in the 1980s. Their albums - “Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables”, “In God We Trust, Inc”, “Plastic Surgery Disasters”, “Frankenchrist”  and “Bedtime for Democracy” – sold by the thousand at a time when punk had yet to break into the mainstream, and kept selling big numbers for decades.

Five years into their reformation and you could be forgiven for thinking the Sunnyboys revival was on the wane. Wrong. 

With two Sydney shows selling out in just four days, setting a sales record at Sunshine Coast venue The Shed by selling a third of capacity in the first eight hours and eclipsing their previous best first-week sales in Melbourne, Sunnyboys are the hottest alternative ticket of the Australian summer. 

Due to overwhelming demand Sunnyboys are pleased to announce three new shows.

The Scientists have announced an extensive European tour in May-June, covering seven countries and featuring the band's classic 1986 line-up of Kim Salmon, Tony Thewlis, Boris Sudjovic and Leanne Cowie.  

The run follows an Australian tour of mostly sold-out shows.  

MAY
UNITED KINGDOM
31 - London @ The Borderline
JUNE
01 - Glasgow @ Nice & Sleazy
2 - Newcastle @ The Cluny 
3 - Brighton @ The Albert
FR
6 - Rennes @ Mondo Bizarro
7- Paris @ Petit Bain
8 - Périgueux @ Le Sans Réserve 
GERMANY
13 - Freiburg @ Café Atlantik 
14 - Berlin @ The Roadrunner’s Paradise Club 
DENMARK
15 - Copenhagen @ Loppen
NORWAY 
16 - Oslo @ Krøsset
ITALY
29 - Salsomaggiore Terme @ Festival BEAT #26

Primal Scream is back in Australia for the first time in six years this month, on the back of recent albums "More Light" (2013) and "Chaosmosis" (2016) but focussing on their 30-year back catalogue.

Co-founding member and guitarist ANDREW INNES spoke to the I-94 Bar's EARL O'NEILL this week and expounded on a handful of topics that are close to his heart...

My First Records

My mum used to come home with a big pile of seven-inch singles that were a bit beaten up. I think they were ex-jukebox; all sorts of things, Beatles and Stones but strange country and western records, comedy records...so I was exposed to wide spectrum of music. Apparently before I could read I could tell which song it was by the colour of the label and the shape of the words.

God bless those wonderful creative people who say: "Screw this boring world, I'm gonna do what I want to do". Because, when all is said and done, we won't be here forever, and if what you fancy makes other people dance and leap about like they've got uncool illnesses, so much the better.

Yeah, yeah, I know. Everyone who claims to love rock'n'roll has their own idea of what rock'n'roll is.

And, it's a suspicion of mine that a hell of a lot of rock'n'roll bands exist because no-one is playing the kind of rock'n'roll they want to hear (this may have been one of Kim Salmon's reasons for re-emerging with another Scientists in 1982).

Last week we saw The Animals, sharp and bright as a new nail, rejoicing in the simple power and beauty of the r'n'b explosion, and the determination to stay stable in a troubled world. 

One of the UK's most important musical exports, The Stranglers, have announced their return to Australia and New Zealand in 2018 with their biggest tour in 30 years, "The Classic Collection".

Taking 20 of their most popular tracks from their revered album classics, chart successes and fan favourites from across their 40-year history, The Stranglers will prove their longevity and impact with a set made of of tracks including "Golden Brown", "Always the Sun", "Peaches", "Strange Little Girl", "5 Minutes", "No More Heroes" and many more.

_{Original and current Animals drummer John Steel.  Mandy Tzaras photo.}

Can't take her anywhere. This writer's photographer pissed and moaned about the walk from the car to the venue in the usual female preposterous high heels, wibbling and wobbling all over the shop. That'll larn me, in future I'll drop her off outside before parking the car.

Anyway, Jello-On-Springs tipped most of her first glass of white all over me while we were chatting with a friend (I'm sure I deserved it) in The Gov's rather lovely Front Bar (they always have a band on there, so the locals and regulars have some live music if they're not interested in, say, Tweefolkies, The Smythes or Iggy and the Squeezevomits).