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heavy medication

  • jack saintFor an Australian, Jack Saint comes across as Warsaw's own version of Tex "The Everyman" Perkins crossed with Sir Nicholas Cave. If that means he's destined to star in a country and western stage show and become a conjoined twin to Warren Ellis, so be it, but it's a meeting of the musical minds that we're talking about.

    Jack Saint sure sounds like took advantage of the lifting of the Iron Curtain to sip deep at the well of St Nick and his Seeds and (more relevantly) the Beasts of Bourbon. "Girl What You Looking For?" sounds like it could have fallen off "Sour Mash", the 1988 Beasts record where Tex and the boys got all bent out of shape over Captain Beefheart. 

    "Girl...?" changes direction four times over its course with Wolf's repeated jagged guitar figure the familiar reference point. Jack Saint (the singer) intones/preaches like Jeffrey Lee Pierce. The band's cover of The Gun Club's "Stranger In Our Town" is a dead giveaway of another influence.

  • back on broadway epBack On Broadway EP – Handsome Dick Manitoba (Heavy Medication/Ghost Highway/Take The City)

    He’s back and as bombastic and brash as ever. Handsome Dick Manitobaand the band he made his name with, The Dictators, are irrevocably divorced, but The King of Men punches on with this four-song vinyl EP, comprising two new studio tracks and a brace recorded on the road.

    In case you didn’t know, Manitoba’s been doing a bit of touring in the USA and Europe with his own bands after the big split and something of a slow motion fall from grace away from the stage. If you’re not familiar with the story, the title track “Back On Broadway” spells it all out: