Check out the magnetism: Paul Berwick, Jiom Diockson, Matt Galvin and Nick Kennedy.
You could say they’re about to “step into the light” because that’s the name of the debut single for Sydney band Paul Berwick’s Magnetic Quartet. Bandleader Paul Berwick was the guitarist, singer and songwriter for Sydney’s late 1980s favourites Happy Hate Me Nots and has teamed with old friends Matt Galvin (guitar), Jim Dickson (bass) and Nick Kennedy (drums) to produce new original songs.
The individual band members have a wealth of experience (Happy Hate Me Nots, Radio Birdman, New Christs, Knievel, Big Heavy Stuff, Died Pretty, The Orange Humble Band and Settlement) but have played only a couple of shows together as Paul Berwick’s Magnetic Quartet. They’re a class outfit as evidenced by their I-94 Bar promoted support to Leadfinger earlier this year.
They’ll launch the single with good mates Joeys Coop (featuring Died Pretty guitarist Brett Myers) at Sydney’s MoshPit Bar on Friday, November 12. Limited numbers of in-person tickets (and unlimited streaming passes) are selling here. (We’ll post a link to the single on Bandcamp after the gig.)
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It’s being lauded as a definitive word on the this was geelong. Geelong rock and roll scene. It’s a 680-page book called “Bored! This Was Geelong” and one of the fertile breeding ground’s offspring is making sure they mark its release with a bang.
Warped is releasing a seven-track batch of compilation-only and live tracks called “Precocious Little Bastards”. You can see them both if you drag your mouse over the image at right.
But frst things first. The book is out now and the first 500 copies comes with two limited edition 45s featuring Bored!, White Noise and Seminal Rats. It’s selling here. It ain't cheap ($A225) but it looks incredible. For detailed information about the contents, hook up with the publishers on Facebook here.
Warped formed in 1990 as “three teenagers armed with three chords and no fear”, taking to the stage of the Eureka Hotel in Geelong to support The Dirty Lovers and Bored!. Beer cans flew, obscenities were flung and a beast was born.
Thirty years on and the band are still going strong, a force in the rock landscape of Australia.
The first line-up, featuring Lightning Watkins on guitar, Cris Crime on drums and Darren “Dez” Dare on bass, laid the groundwork for the decades to come, worshipping at the altar of cheap pedals, noisy rock and one-up-manship on stage.Partial to destroying gear and the occasional Humphrey B Bear chair, they stormed through supports with the likes of Hard-ons, Bored!, Celibate Rifles, 5678s, Dead Moon and Fugazi.
In 1992 Darren parted ways with the band and formed Toad with Dave and Buzz from Bored! and Thee Vinyl Creatures. Ben and Cris have continued on to tour extensively and release many records. “Precocious Little Bastards” is available in digital form here.
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One of Europe's top trash garage and go-go weekenders, The Wild Weekend, is coming to Australia for the first time. The three days of monstrous mayhem will run in Melbourne. From December 31 to January 2.
Presented by The Luwow & Zombie Zoo Productions, The Wild Weekend has been held in Europe since 1998. This insane weekender has blazed a trail for other trash festivals across the world and brings a wealth of entertainment experience and an insane level of production detail to a crazy event.
Zombie Zoo Productions’ Skipper Josh and Babz Collins present a weekend of retro fuzz, crazy Ccstume parties and vinyl throwbacks, set in various venues in the Melbourne CBD. The Wild Weekend features top retro trash bands, gruesome go-go goddesses, deviant decor, dastardly disc-jocks, crazy cabaret, mad movies, a boat cruise to nowhere and the Surf-fink Swap-meet.
Full details and tickets are here. Here’s the band line-up:
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David Roach (centre) and Junkyard.
Consider yourself lucky if you still have access to Vive Le Rock magazine from Merry Olde. They still write about real rock ‘n’ roll! That mag might write about the Cult, the Damned, Psychedelic Furs, or the Jesus & Mary Chain. They still put The Clash right there on the cover! Ya know?
I’m still livin’ in the’80s. I was mostly into like, Prince, Duran Duran, David Bowie, and Adam Ant, but I hung around with like the stoner heavy metal dudes who liked Ozzy and Dio and shit. Think “Beavis N Butthead”. That shit was real.
I miss newsstands and comic book and record stores, print media. I still don’t carry an iPhone. Where I live. Amazon killed all the book stores and the free press is dead in my country. Daniel Hale, Craig Murray, Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, John Kiriakou, Col. Ann Wright, Ray McGovern...all the real whistleblowers are slandered, hounded, tortured or kidnapped. Seymour Hersh is blacklisted. Max Blumenthal gets harassed. Amy Goodman sadly works for billionaires now and helps sell pro war narratives. Abby Martin, Ben Norton, Jeremy Scahill, John Pilger, and Glenn Greenwald get ignored. Color me depressed.
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Eddie Spaghetti (left) of The Supersuckers thinks it's all a bit loud but Frank Meyer begs to differ. Ed Culver photo.
Los Angeles musician, author and filmmaker Frank Meyer is a surprisingly talented singer songwriter and a highly skilled, captivating raconteur. He seems like a genuinely all around good guy, so I'm a little embarrassed I did not get that hip to his extensive discography much sooner.
I first became aware of both Frank Meyer and fellow feature article subject John 5 way back in the hazy distant past-maybe like, 23 years ago, in the pages of a glossy punk ‘n’ roll bible, “Pop Smear”, with both my boyhood idols, Evil Knievel and David Lee Roth on the cover. I was workin' at a news stand in the Midwest where long lines of unhappy barflies flooded in front of my cash register all day, incessantly wanting to buy the scratch off lotto tickets. "I'll take ten Lucky Pots Of Gold and five Leprechaun's Rainbows".
Frank seemed to have won the rock ‘n’ roll lotto when he got to hang out with John 5 and David Lee Roth, live, and in-person, on multiple occasions, and then, went on to write books and form his own bands that criss-crossed the country. He was playing bills with all the other bands I liked at the time and releasing a long and prolific stream of records I never really heard.
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Back For More – The On and Ons (Citadel)
Regular Barflies need no introduction to The On and Ons. They are Sydney’s finest power-pop exponents. Their catalogue of two prior albums and a mini-album since 2015 is as much a testament to the songwriting abilities of ex-Kings of the Sun and Screaming Tribesmen guitarist Glenn Morris as the grooves and harmonies provided by bandmates Brian Morris (drums) and Clyde Bramley.
You can judge the quality of a pop album by its earwig-ability and album opener “Vanishing Act” sticks in the brain like a dose of dopamine. Wrapped in a simple, uncluttered ‘60s sound with carefully arranged three-part harmonies, it’s punctuated by finger-clicks and Morris’s parrying guitar.
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Sensible Shoes b/w Laughter Lines - Manja and the Maytrons (Robotten Records)
It’s a trio from the UK that plays post-punk-meets-garage-rock on a super-chunky slice of 45rpm splattewred vinyl. “Laughter Lines” is uncompromising with just a glimmer of light in the vocals. Drummer and co-singer Manja and bassist Mark S lock into a hard groove for Neil G to weave a thick layer of distorted guitar over the top. Part sung in German with the balance in English. “Disconcerting” and “different” are good words. So is “unconventional” which is probably the point. “Sensible Shoes” is an odd beast, too, with the bottom-end missing in action and to-and-fro vocal parts. The voices are placed well back in the soundscape in true post-punk style, and it all skids to a sudden stop. Wire springs to mind.
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Pain! b/w Wheels on Fire - Smitty & B Goode (Evil Tone)
Been a long time since they rock and rolled in person. Sydney trio Smitty & B Goode isn’t the most prolific act in terms of releases, but they’ve put enforced time off to good use with this power-packed 45. “Pain!” inflicts more pleasure than its title suggests, flipping mild self-loathing on its head. Anger is an energy and Smitty’s assertive vocal and downstroke guitar is set against a fierce sonic brew, “turning gasoiine into a symphony of sound.” Tight as a fish’s, as they say. Flip it over for more of the same garage grit goodness. Carly’s sunny bass-tone suits the up-tempo mood. Succinct and catchy, it’s a short tun of 200 copies so grab yours here while you still can.
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Volume 2 – Foggy Notion (self released)
About 12 months ago, we made a bold resolution. “When things open up again, we’re going out as much as we can, just so we’ve enjoyed life before everything shuts down again.” (The immediate reaction amongst friends to our reference to the likelihood of further lockdowns was nervous incredulity.)
When venues opened up in late 2020, so we stayed true to our declaration, indulging as much live music as domestic logistics and financial realities would permit, preferably younger bands.
I’d seen Foggy Notion a few times before the world shut down, initially at the behest of James McCann back in early January 2018.
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- By Patrick Emery
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