Osees
Croxton Hotel, Thornbuy, VIV
Saturday, February 11 2023
My employer received some correspondence recently from a "sovereign citizen". It was, as so often the case with such sincerely composed missives, a rambling diatribe replete with muddled pseudo-jurisprudence and wilful indifference to the symbiotic relationship between individual autonomy and collective responsibility.
We searched in vain for some discipline of reason, even a vague hint of cogent argument but, alas, there was only nonsensical assertion. It was, someone remarked, the discursive equivalent of a sugar-laden teenager playing free-form jazz on a cheap recorder over a concerto piece played on a defective turntable and then labelling it a work of artistic genius.
Later that night we went to the cinema to see “Tar”. Before Cate Blanchett’s titular character falls from grace, she explains the often mysterious movements of the orchestral conductor. Crudely, one hand represents timing and tempo, the other conveys the desired shape of the music.
Which brings us to Osees.
- Details
- By Patrick Emery
- Hits: 2699
Sunnyboys
+ Rocket Science
+ The Prize
Northcote Theatre, VIC
Saturday 28 January 2023
Michelle Bilson photos
A work colleague of mine told me once she’d had her wedding reception at the Northcote Theatre, back when it was known as Fani’s Receptions in the late 1980s, 70-odd years after its original opening as a picture theatre. The marriage didn’t last too long – about six months, I think – but the venue was still hosting sumptuously catered family celebrations up until it was taken over and reinvigorated as a live music venue.
The benefit of personal geographical proximity aside, I’m not sold on Northcote Theatre just yet. The combination of a high ceiling and a lack of absorbent surfaces renders the acoustic profile imperfect. Like the property prices in the local area, the drink prices are on the high side; frustratingly, it’s a cash-free venue and the distance between the stage and bar makes for a challenging journey for all concern.
- Details
- By Patrick Emery
- Hits: 2516
Keith Roth, Albert Bouchard and Ross The Boss.
The Dictators
Debonair Music Hall
Teaneck, NJ USA
November 2, 2022
By Geoff Ginsberg (with help from Frank "Geoff couldn't edit his way out of a wet paper bag" Friedman)
Dictators assemble! They're baaaack!!
And there was much rejoicing.
Andy Shernoff and Ross The Boss have reconstituted the band and they're doing gigs and recording again.
Before I get to the show itself, a bit of semi-recent history. I'm going to assume if you're bothering to read this, you already know the big picture history - punk forefathers, the NYC band between the Dolls and the Ramones, etc.
In 2006, CBGB was wrapping up their historic run on The Bowery. Many CB's legends came out of their apartments to perform on that stage one last time and give the venue the send-off it so richly deserved.
The penultimate night featured Walter Lure (RIP) and The Waldos, Debbie Harry and Chris Stein, and the first performance by the Dictators in several years. They had done some gigs in 2003 as a four piece since Scott "Top Ten" Kempner had moved out west, but this was the full complement: Handsome Dick Manitoba, Ross, Top Ten, Andy and JP Thunderbolt Patterson.
- Details
- By Geoff Ginsberg
- Hits: 3902
Screaming Loz Sutch. Credit: Neptune Power Federation website
Neptune Power Federation
Frankie’s Pizza, Sydney
October 9, 2022
It’s official! The Neptune Power Federation are my new favourite band.
Their last two LPs, “Memories Of a Rat Queen” and “Le Demon De L’amour” have been on high rotation at the home stereo system all year, but due to various life challenges I had never seen them live. So the gig at Frankie’s was a do or die mission to get there.
Heavy Rock is NPF’s bag..and heavy baggage they have in spades (Heavy Rock…not to be confused with its ugly bastard grandchild Heavy Metal). If you listen closely you can tell NPF (or The Feds as their fan club call them) have been sprinkled with the magic dust of the giants in that field. I’m talking first three albums of Queen, ditto for Blackmore’s Rainbow, Motorhead, AC/DC, Rose Tattoo, Led Zeppelin and Buffalo (whose first guitarist John Baxter could even tell).
- Details
- By Steve Lorkin
- Hits: 3222
These Immortal Souls
The Tote, Collingwood, VIC
Saturday, 12 November 2022
These Immortal Souls didn’t really have much of a physical presence in Australia, at least during the band’s creative peak. Rowland S Howard had first conceived the group in the immediate aftermath of The Birthday Party, though it took a false start with Barry Adamson, Chris Walsh and Jeff Wegener, and a brief tenure in the European incarnation of Crime and the City Solution, before
These Immortal Souls took permanent form with Howard, Genevieve McGuckin on keyboards, Howard’s brother Harry on bass and Kevin Godfrey (aka Epic Soundtracks) on drums.
For much of its time, These Immortal Souls lived a penurious, underground (literally and metaphorically) existence in the United Kingdom and Continental Europe. An Australia tour over the summer of 1988-89 would be the only time the band would grace these shores until the band’s repatriation in 1994.
By late 1998, These Immortal Souls had departed into the dustbin of history.
- Details
- By Patrick Emery
- Hits: 2805
Mick Medew and the Mesmerisers
+ The On and Ons
+ Pocketwatch
Marrickville Bowling Club, Sydney
Saturday, 5 November 2022
Photos by Vic Zubakin of Look Sharp Photography
The 1980s was in many ways a dire period in music: if you look at the charts or are forced to endure a few re-runs of “Countdown”, you’ll agree. Mainstream music was based on synth and a chorus pedal, gated snare and re=recordings of “Funky Town”. And there was fucking Phil Collins and his drums.
The padded shoulders and “eat the poor” mentality that saw the rise of the trickle down economics of Reagan and Thatcher. Whenever I see any sentimental recall of the ‘80s, I run the other way. The exceptions lie in pockets of underground music
Sydney particularly reacted against the culture of Ken Done tea towels and pastels and third rate sounds. We real street music with some of best bands in the world, many of whom you could see live for five bucks.
Just as then, we still have a Sydney underground music scene in 2022. We can still see shadows and glimpses of the past and talented young bands who have been handed the baton.
- Details
- By Edwin Garland
- Hits: 3063
Liz Pommer photo
The Johnnys
The Tote
Friday 14 October 2022
There’s some audio of The Johnnys live at Le Tote sometime in 1983, couple of years after the Doherty family had decided to host bands in the band room of The Ivanhoe Hotel in an attempt to address the pub’s precarious financial future.
The set is good ol’ sloppy cowpunk fun, replete with lyrical signposts to The Johnnys’ inebriated schitck and irreverent celebration of country music. “You know why we’re having fun?’, guitarist-singer Roddy Radalj calls out rhetorically. “Because we’re drunk!”
- Details
- By Patrick Emery
- Hits: 2895
Midnight Oil
Hordern Pavilion
Monday 3 October 2022
Photos by Jonathan Armstrong of www.bigjphotography.com
The 1982 Capitol Theatre run of shows in Sydney was a crossroads for Midnight Oil. They were broke and had already notched 500 gigs since September 1977, which was the date that they decided to go full-time after a Bondi Lifesaver show.
Midnight Oil was equally the largest drawcard on the Australian live circuit but it was not reflected in record sales. It had cost a lot to record their third album, “Place Without a Postcard’ overseas with legendary producer Glyn Johns (Rolling Stones and The Who). “Place” was a rocking, earthy and colloquial album. The production was warm - yet it was of the past and sounded like it had been recorded it in 1970.
- Details
- By Edwin Garland
- Hits: 4314
Frowning Clouds
+ Mug
+ Yep!
John Curtin Hotel, Carlton, VIC
Friday 23 September 2022
I’m pretty sure the first time I saw Frowning Clouds was around 2007, upstairs at the Tote supporting The Dolly Rocker Movement.
The story was that the Frowning Clouds, at the time stumbling toward the end of their high school tenure, had been banned from the Tote for drinking in contravention of a venue management edict.
Apparently they’d been given a reprieve to play that night, on the promise no such unlawful activity occurred. But judging by the pint glasses in the band members’ hands and general unruly behaviour, they’d screwed the memo up and drop kicked it out of mind and sight.
At a subsequent gig, this time at the Birmingham on Smith Street, again supporting Dolly Rocker, the Frowning Clouds had accidentally brought Dolly Rocker’s psychedelastic set to an end when they managed to spill beer on the fold back monitors on the front of the stage.
- Details
- By Patrick Emery
- Hits: 2203
More Articles …
- Magnificent show signals that it's Oil over
- A rising star graces Marrickville with her presence
- Forty years after "X-Aspirations", there's nothing like X at the Tote
- Weather lifts as Penny Ikinger and band storm Woy Woy
- Unrelenting feedtime and Examplehead satisfy a full-house
- Patti raises Cain while living on Tulsa time
Page 4 of 28