Cross That Line – Steve Lucas and The Rising Tide (Aztec Music)
The global lockdowns were responsible for la deluge of music – good, bad and indifferent. There was something about being cooped up that frustrated anyone with an artistic bone in their body. It prompted Steve Lucas to do a long run of streamed shows from his Melbourne home, and it birthed the idea for “Cross That Line”, which was committed to hard drive in a studio as soon as restrictions lifted.
Lucas is best-known for his role as frontman for X, the punk rock and roll vehicle for him, the late Ian Rilen, Steve Cafeiro and Ian Krahe as well as a long line of subsequent bandmates. As sole surviving original member, Lucas still revels in the occasional X show. This solo album sounds nothing remotely like that.
"The Kids Are All Wrong, the documentary about 1990s Sydney punk fools the Crusaders that we told you about a week ago, has fallen foul of a copyright claim and has been taken off Vimeo for the time being. Efforts are underway to bring it back fron the grave, so keep your eyes on the Bar or sign up to the band's Facebook group for updates. The winner of our contest is Graham Walker of Coffee Camp, New South Wales. Graham wins a swag of Crusaders stuff for correctly deducing that the Australian Creedence Clearwater Revival Show was the band from which Sir Kendall was rescued.
JOBRIATH A.D. (2002) Written, produced and directed by Kieran Turner
Weird times we live in, to paraphrase John Waters. We've gone from people rebelling against rules, to becoming fanatical lil' rule-mongers, themselves. That's some crazy shit, and you gotta wonder what's up with all that.
Probably the most moving film I've seen since "Beautiful Darling", the also poignant Candy Darling story, is "Jobriath A.D." You might know he was one of the first openly gay, glam, wouldbe seventies rock stars, who was first discovered whilst singing in the Broadway play, "Hair". In the hippie dippy era, he made a baroque pop album with a band called Pidgeon. He was drafted by the army, went AWOL, and did time in a military psychiatric facility. He came from a tragically broken family and his mom never fully accepted him, because of his sexual identity which caused him acute pain. He was a really sweet, upbeat, positive force as a young person, a painter/singer/composer/piano playing prodigy but the cruel music industry weasels around him kinda turned him more cynical and sad, almost overnight.
He was living in an unfurnished squat in L.A. as a male hustler when it seemed he was rescued by a huckster manager famous for nightclubs in NY named Jerry Brandt-Brandt overhyped Jobriath as the next Elvis, Beatles, and Bowie all rolled into one. He appeared on oversized billboards in Times Square, in splashy magazine advertisements and on the sides of buses in major cities. He had a cool live band actually, called the Creatures, with some kooky costumes by Stephen Sprouse.
Dangerous Woman – Flowers For Jayne (self released)
Guitars are unfashionable, ergo Sydney’s Flowers For Jayne will never be musical flavour of the month with contemporary tastemakers or scenesters. And that’s fine. If you’re reading this, chances are you’re not one of those people anyway. You think R&B is Stax or Motown 45s and hip hop is nothing more than softcore aural wallpaper.
Drums, bass and guitar (turned up loud) with a voice somewhere in the middle is a timeless configuration. Flowers For Jayne is a classic “power trio” - both in the heavy sense of the term and for having a keen sense of dynamics.
The band is the vehicle for vocalist-guitarist Jayne Murphy, former Lime Spiders member and woman about Sydney town, and she’s joined by ace rhythm section Jess Ciampa (drums in Bernie Hayes Quartet, The Nature Strip, Dog Trumpet, Jeff Duff Band, Smelly Tongues and others) and Phil Hall(Sardine v, Dropbears, The 68 Comeback, Lime Spiders, Flaming Hands, Matt Finish, Roddy Ray'Da & The Surfin' Caesars).
It’s been a long time between shows but Sunnyboys are re-emerging for a three-state Australian winter tour.
When they last toured in 2020 Sunnyboys chose the salubrious surrounds of Taronga Zoo, Melbourne’s Forum and the like; this time though, the band will get down and sweaty playing intimate venues more akin to their breakout year of 1981.
Melbourne pop-rockers Even will join the fun in Sydney and Melbourne while former Screaming TribesmanMick Medew will bring his band The Mesmerisers to Brisbane and Byron Bay. All shows are on-sale tomorrow May 6 at feelpresents.com
Sunnyboys JULY 1 – Factory Theatre Sydney + Even 9 – The Corner, Melbourne + Even + Little Murders 15 – Great Northern, Byron Bay + Mick Medew & The Mesmerisers| 16 – Princess Theatre, Brisbane, + Mick Medew & The Mesmerisers Tix here
Raining Treasure 2: More Australian Indie Gold Covers – John Kennedy’s 68 Comeback Special (MGM/Foghorn)
Tribute bands are mostly a blot on the musical ecosystem, right?. OK, they provide a fertile spawning pond for young players and pay bills for the oldsters, but most cover acts faithfully mimic role models just to milk money from morons.
This isn’t about the odd cover thrown into a set of originals because the drummer and the rhythm guitarist like the song or the band jammed out a loose approximation of a chart hit at rehearsal two nights earlier and wants to be ironic.
No, this is a gripe about hacks making money by mindlessly sating the appetites of dim RSL club masses who don’t know what they like but sure do like what they know. These people dance when they should know better or clap hopelessly out of time in the way that only middle-aged white people can.
Which is not territory into which “Raining Treasure 2” ventures on this eclectic collection of songs by Aussie bands of the ‘70s and ‘80s .
There's a sorrowful joy I've known since I was a boy Joyful sorrow, I guess It's a maimed happiness...-David Johansen
I ain't had no fun since the Hammersmith Palais.."- Demolition 23
"Well so long, liberty-let's forget you never showed, not in my time."-Joe Strummer
"You built your refuge, turned you captive just the same..."- Duran Duran
While billionaire oligarchs Bezos and Musk race to Mars in duelling dick rockets, accuse each other of being compromised by foreign powers and demand bigger handouts for their space companies from Biden (which they will probably get) and TV watchers cheer for their preferred Super Scientific Space Savior, Wal-Mart has raised the prices of all their food by like, a lot.
What used to be a dollar fifty, is four bucks, basically. You are a captive audience of the Walton family, if you live somewhere where they killed off all the mom and pop shops of old downtown Main Street. Nine dollars for a GMO watermelon that is white on the inside, has no nutritional value anymore and is almost tasteless thanks to Gates and Monsanto. But your posh celebrity friends will tell you Vandanna Shiva is a conspiracy theorist. Or that Julian Assange works for..."RUSSIA!"
I bet your little town has some insufferable gentrification hipsters in it. Retro hair-do's and deep cocaine pockets, always on iPhones makin' deals, doing their hustles, with sunglasses, nice shoes, and no manners? Taking over your downtown? Indie-martyrs, are they any less evil then big biz, super titanium ultra villain, Monopoly despots? Yeah, probably, 'cause they don't usually have the power to hire positive PR stories in mainstream media or crush unions and shit, but they almost always treat their employees and own clientele like garbage, until they drive themselves outta business.
WICKED GAME – The True Story of Guitarist James Calvin Wilsey by Michael Goldberg (Hozac Books)
Spooky, soulful, nitro-twang genius, James Calvin Wilsey,Chris Isaak's beautiful guitarist, who conjured up all those memorable Ennio Morricone spaghetti western, eerie “Twin Peaks” vibes, was born in the Midwest but did not stay there long. His dad was one of those real old time, no nonsense, hard knocks, military aggressors.
I had a lot of close friends who played guitars in my middle school early garage bands, who had fathers like that. Ex-military, real macho, gonna make a manly man outta ya, big game hunter, type o guys. So yeah, being from smalltown Kentucky, my grandfolks family who raised me, were all old veterans and I was not like my cousins. I was never gonna be a 4-H show cattle, play sports, go to war for college money, type of person.
Then, we moved to a town whose only industry was building tanks in Ohio. man, that was a disaster for a little kid like me who could not catch a fucking football. My grandma had gotten me into Elvis from like, birth, almost. I used to wear a pink Presley concert ticket from the Rupp Areana show he never played because he died around in my middle school fedora during my "Pretty In Pink" years.
For me, it all started with Elvis. From there, I inherited an aunt's Monkees records and started seeing their show reruns on WXIX TV. My mother was a school teacher who tried to get me piano lessons, drums in the school band, a folk guitar that got stolen at Baptist reform school, but I sucked as a player. When I discovered Jim Morrison and Iggy Pop, I kinda decided I should be a loudmouthed frontman because I had all this feeling inside me, I wanted to express about the conflict I had with the sports and military culture I grew up in.
Cross That Line – Steve Lucas and The Rising Tide (Aztec Music)
JOBRIATH A.D. (2002)
Dangerous Woman – Flowers For Jayne (self released)
It’s been a long time between shows but Sunnyboys are re-emerging for a three-state Australian winter tour. 
Raining Treasure 2: More Australian Indie Gold Covers – John Kennedy’s 68 Comeback Special (MGM/Foghorn)
There's a sorrowful joy
WICKED GAME – The True Story of Guitarist James Calvin Wilsey 