Sonny Vincent: Primitive 1969-76. Diamond Distance & Liquid Fury - Sonny Vincent (Hozac Archival)

Some would hide their earliest bands’ recordings in a dark place and hope nobody found them. Thankfully, not Sonny Vincent.

As one of the last New York punks still standing, Sonny Vincent criminally remains a well-kept secret. The music he’s made under his own name, and with a string of bands - most notably, Max’s Kansas City and CBGB graduates, Testors - is some of the best primal sound around. This collection of songs from his pre-punk bands, spanning 1969-72, does nothing to detract from that track record. 

The Third Degree - Mushroom Planet (Planet Records)
Anarchy in TwentyTwenty - Ben Gel (BadAss)
The Glue - Tom Redwood (self released)
Diarrhoea Part 2: The Shittening - Geezergosis (self released)
Saint John's Eve - Michael Plater (Hypostatic Union)

Nina Simone apparently once said, “I'll tell you what Freedom is to me. No fear.” She meant, of course, the everyday fear. That no matter what she's doing, or where, she could be attacked or killed just for being what she was.

We're a pretty intolerant, brittle lot, we people. We really are. One of the several reasons I refer to COVID-19 as "the stupidvirus" is that it seems to have brought out all the stupids in our assorted societies. Our cracks and inadequacies are there for all to see, and people die because of vanity, of an inbuilt reluctance to face up to ugly or inconvenient truths.

Existential Hangover - These Things (Dirtyflair Record Company)

Three albums in and These Things just made their own patch of swamp in Australia just a little deeper.

These Things have nailed it with “Existential Hangover”. Crawling king snake fuzz intersects with patches of clean guitar against a no-nonsense backbeat. If Mudhoney crept out of a recycling depot in a rural Victorian town and went on an absinthe bender with Reverend Beat-Man, they’d sound like this.

Drive You Mad - The Sunday Reeds (self released)

Well, The Farmhouse has been rocking, again. "Drive You Mad" is the new EP from the fabulous The Sunday Reeds from Adelaide. This six-track EP is a cracker.

Led by Romana Ashton (vocals and bass) this trio is rounded out by Drew Jones (guitar) and Sarah "Shakey" Portaro (drums.)  Let me say this: they are crazy-good live. I've seen them supporting some of Australia's finest bands - Exploding White Mice, Radio Birdman and Hitmen DTK just to name a few - and they hold their own with catchy songs, pounding bass and some great guitar. "Drive You Mad" captures their live sound so well.

Five Things - Smalltown Tigers (Area Pirata Records)

There’s nothing new in rock and roll. The same goes for punk rock. So get over it. Reinvention has always been a constant and the trick to being good at the caper is adding as your own unique ingredient.

“Five Things” is eight songs from three Italian girls calling themselves Smalltown Tigers. They come from Romagna in the country's north-east, cut their teeth playing Ramones songs at squats and beach parties and went into a studio in 2019, under the production hand of Stiv Cantarelli.

They're only been around a couple of years but you wouldn't know it. With a single in the racks before this, "Five Things" swaggers with confidence and loads of energy. It would be politically incorrect to say the girls have good looks on their side as well, so we won't. Image counts for much in rock and roll.

Home, James And Don’t Spare the Horse Power - Anytime James (self released)

The dictionary defines “raunch” as “energetic earthiness; vulgarity”, and the second album from Anytime James has it in bucketloads. 

Anytime Who? Read on.

Anytime James is an outfit of musicians from the Far North Coast of New South Wales, assembled and led by former Asteroid B612 guitarist Michael Gibbons. At the risk of (more) accusations of hype, let's toss caution to the metaphorical breeze and say Anytime James might be the best band you've never heard of. Here's why.