Chow down on "Service Station Chicken" and taste the Aussie pub difference
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- By The Barman
- Hits: 371
Service Station Chicken - Dave Favours & The Roadside Ashes (Stanley Records)
Dave Favours & The Roadside Ashes make country music for people who don’t like country music. That’s a truism, not a slur.
The point is that the players’ background in underground Oz rock and roll, circa late 1980s rolling into the ‘90s, is apparent in their playing. You play enough sticky carpet dives where patrons demand to be impressed and you become a harder player. At least that's how it was before streaming. These Roadside Ashes have a work ethic honed over some years.
Chris Masuak talks about a 2026 return to Australia
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- By Robert Brokenmouth
- Hits: 266
Spain-based, Canadian-born, Australian-raised guitar legend Chris Masuak (Radio Birdman, The Hitmen, Screaming Tribesmen, New Christs) was going to be promoting his new album “Chris Masuak’s Dog Soldier” with a tour Down Under in November, but a recurring illness required an emergency operation.
What illness? It's referred to in Chris' book, “Faith and Practice in Bedlam” (High Voltage Publishing – edited by this writer). I'm not going to explain it: find the reference and read up. Fucking horrible, is all I'm gonna say. Makes me squirm to even think of having an operation there.
Anyway. I listened to the album, thought it was damn good, and fired off some questions to Chris.
Sacred Cowboys announce new album "In The Manifesto"
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- By The Barman
- Hits: 298
Now comprising co-founders Garry Gray and Mark Ferrie with Timothy Deane, Anthony Paine and Damian Fitzgerald, they will launch the album at the Tote in Melbourne on February 14. Supports are Roller One and DJ Mike Mulholland. Dress code is Valentines Day" “funky but chic”.
Garry Gray says of the singte: "Our heroes are cosmic circus escapees shunted through time and space from the dead desert sands of 1980s Texas and dispatched into the gritty city scape of an alien world – or are they just returning home to a dystopian future?"
‘In the Manifesto’ was mastered by Mikey Young, who worked on the last six Mark Lanegan records and plays in Eddie Current Suppression Ring. All new songs are written by Garry and the band. "In the Manifesto" is said to be "a complex, atmospheric soundtrack with Gray’s uber cool delivery over sometimes sparse, sometimes weaving guitars and rich harmonies. Think a Sonic Youth ethos and grinding the gears in the engine room of the Cosmos Factory".
Dom's new country-inflected gem has pop at its core
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- By The Barman
- Hits: 464
Apple of Life - Dom Mariani (Alive Naturalsound)
From the tumbling drums and Spector-lite touches of opener “Breakaway” to the keening country pop of single “Jangleland”, this album is classic Dom Mariani.
In a long career spanning The Stems, Majestic Kelp, the Someloves, Datura 4 and DM3, the man has never stumbled. “Apple of Life” adds another sparkling gem to the back catalogue.
Mariani’s travels have taken myriad twists and turns but strong songwriting has always been the axis on which his journey turns. So it is with “Apple of Life”, which mines the usual seams of powerpop and rock but this time adding strong country touches. Glimpses of ‘70s pop and New Wave peek through and gives the record its own distinctive edge.
Ex-Trash Brat Brian McCarty's soulful letter from the Motor City
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- By JD Monroe
- Hits: 512
Faith & Fumes – Brian McCarty (Electric Lab Recordings)
So there I was at some Indiana Sunday night punk rock juice bar, circa ‘87-ish, half blinded by strobe lights and taking liberal pulls from my handy flask. I was probably wearing some kinda gloomy trench coat, a NY Dolls T-shirt from High Street in Columbus (either from Mothra or Magnolia Thunderpussy), ripped jeans with band logos sharpied on them, combat boots, lots of hair spray and bad Cure kid makeup.
I'd just gotten outta juvie, where they'd stuck me in solitary for a month, for lippin' off to the kind of creep who thought that juvenile corrections seemed like a worthy calling, and that month alone made me even weirder and more stubbornly determined to escape the never ending abuse and behavior modification bootcamping of those plantation states.
The band on stage were doing some kinda crazy, confetti colored, frenzied clash between Hanoi Rocks and the NY Dolls with bubble gummy Ramones choruses and atomic energy. The songs I think I remember from back then were about defending free speech, freedom of the press, choosing one's own preferred lifestyle, and fighting the P.M.R.C. and Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority ("Smut") and struggling to find a redemptive romance while being stuck working low wage blue collar jobs ("Gasboy"). I think they were already playing "Downtown Nowhere" that night, too, which became a big favorite among our small group of peers. Always adored, "You Threw Me Away", as well. I could instantly relate to everything they were doing.
2025 Top Tens: Mark Roxburgh of Joeys Coop, The Decline of The Reptiles and ME-262
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- By Mark Roxburgh
- Hits: 990
I missed the 2024 deadline for a Top 10 because I struggled to recall 10 things musically that gave me a lift. I came up with five and gave up. I saw a bunch of live stuff that really gave me the shits so that doesn’t count. Says more about me than the music scene.
Although I could put together a list of 10 excellent music things this year, I thought I’d take a different tack and go all academic on you because the thing that has been most on my mind this year is all the bands hating on Spotify and jumping off it. Partly because of its piss poor payment to, and chronic exploitation of, musicians.
Spotify isn’t alone in this. Although at the bottom end of pay per streams they are in stellar company with YouTube Music, Apple, Amazon and Deezer. But the main reasons artists are boycotting Spotify is because of Daniel Ek’s investment in Helsing, a German AI drone defence company. Purportedly established to boost the defence of European Democracies in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
2025 Top Tens: Ursula Collie Medew of The Mick Medew and Ursula 4 from Brisbane
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- By Ursula Collie Medew
- Hits: 1736
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The. moment "Punk Grandma" placed number in the 4ZZZ Hot 100
1. “Punk Grandma” being voted number 3 in the 2024 4ZZZ Hot 100!
The countdown was held in The Triffid and our song was in the running. It was great fun for Mick and me to hang out with fellow local musicians and friends!!
2. Playing live
Mick Medew and Ursula will have played 16 times this year, 14 times as the four-piece and twice as the duo. Shows for the 4 were in Newcastle, Sydney, Gold Coast (supporting The Johnnys), The Triffid (supporting The Painters and Dockers where Jeremy Oxley got up and sang “Happy Man” with them), a 30th birthday in Goodna, twice at Banshees in Ipswich, instore at Sonic Sherpa, at the Lovejoy reunion at The Junk Bar, two gigs with The Boondall Boys, and our single launch at The Cave Inn (where we had a pizza named after the band for November).
Woolworths Flu Shot is just what the doctor ordered for you jaded Boomers
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- By Ed Garland
- Hits: 913
Give Me Another Hœur Please God - Woolworths Flu Shot (Self released)
There is nothing more pathetic than boomers who lament there are no decent bands anymore.
Sure, they’re not as bad as the ones who go on about shitty, awful tribute cover bands populated by burned-out has-beens, or those people who think |godawful vineyard gigs with heritage acts responsible for the worst Australian music of the 1980s are somehow relevant.
Don’t listen to any of them. Some of the edgiest, toughest and most inventive bands are Gen Z. OK, it’s sometimes like panning for gold to find the nuggets of wildness, but they are out there.
It was a Wednesday night a few weeks ago when I dropped into the legendary and edgy Nimbin Hotel in Far Northern New South Wales. I entered to the sound of blisteringly loud noise as the bar’s floorboards shook.
The Beasts' "Black Milk" show is a Sydney triumph
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- By The Barman
- Hits: 1421
“Black Milk 35th Anniversary”
The Beasts
with guests Rob Younger, Hellen Rose, Richie Weed & John Schofield
+ The Johnnys
+ Richie Weed and The Strays
+ Unsound
The Factory Theatre, Marrickvile, NSW
Friday, December 12, 2025
Words & Pictures: THE BARMAN
When the definitive mainstream version of the history of Australian rock and roll finally is penned, the Beasts of Bourbon are unlikely to get their dues. History is written by the victors and its telling needs to be simplistic if it’s to have the desired effect of "moving units".
I once shopped a manuscript of a Radio Birdman member (no, not Chris) to a bunch of publishers to be told by one of the biggies that they saw no market for it because the band’s fans couldn’t read.
Despite dancing with a broad audience in the early ‘90s, the Beasts of Bourbon narrative is just too convoluted, edgy and unconventional to suit straight publishers. Not that this need be a deterrent to enlightened ones.
- 2025 Top Tens: Colin Gray of Vicious Kitten Records
- 2025 Top Tens: Simon Vines of The Strike-Outs
- First responders with a serve of old time Oz punk? Fuck The Neighbours finds its feet in The MoshPit
- Zeke's new 45 will truck you up
- 2025 Top Tens: Adam Vines of Wollongong band The Sugar Beats and Sydney band The Strike-Outs
- 2025 Top Tens: Author and Molly Fet Circuit and Smallpox Confidential frontman Robert Brokenmouth
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Gig Ads
The Living Eye
White Knuckle Fever
(Celia's birthday)
+ Beijing Bikini
Town Hall Hotel, Newtown, NSW
- Dec 20
Cosmic Psychos
"I Really Like Beer Tour"
JAN
1 — Edge Hill Tavern, Cairns, QLD
2 — Dalrymple Hotel, Townsville, QLD
3 — Magnums, Airlie Beach, QLD
4 — Metropolitan Hotel, Mackay, QLD
7 — Harvey Road Tavern, Gladstone, QLD
8 — Grand Hotel, Childers, QLD
9 — Mo’s Desert Clubhouse, Gold Coast, QLD
10 — Seaview Tavern, Woolgoolga, NSW
11 — Bellingen Brewery, Bellingen, NSW
14 — Moonshiners Honky Tonk Bar, Tamworth, NSW
15 — Finnian's Tavern, Port Macquarie, NSW
16 — Avalon RSL, Avalon, NSW
17 — The Marlin, Ulladulla, NSW
18 — Beer Deluxe, Albury NSW
22 — Tanswells Hotel, Beechworth, VIC
23 — Sooki Lounge, Belgrave, VIC
24 — Westonport Hotel, San Remo, VIC
25 — Social Club, Balnarring, VIC
26 — Volta, Ballarat, VIC
29 — Whalers Hotel, Warrnambool, VIC
30 — Torquay Hotel, Torquay, VIC
31 — Riverview Hotel, Tarwin Lower, VIC
FEB
12 — Royal Oak, Launceston, TAS
13 — Forth Pub, Devonport, TAS
14 — Altar, Hobart, TAS
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