Proto-punk is so yesterday: Garry Gray on St Kilda, Sacred Cowboys and making Sydney sit up and listen

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By Edwin Garland

Edwin Garland

26 October 2016

Hits: 9572

_{Sacred Cowboys on St Kilda Beach with the SS Minow.}

“Sydney audiences can expect to hear much of the ‘Diamond in the Forehead’ album and a number of songs that will comprise our second album. Expect rock and roll out of the early 1970s, expect high volume in the guitar department, expect Nobel Prize-winning freak flag songs”

Garry Gray wrote this to me, and I visualise him, pounding the keyboard with pride about his forthcoming shows in Sydney in mid-November.

Gray has been making music for 42 years. I imagine by now he knows when he has a killer album ("Diamond in the Forehead") and a killer live band (The Sixth Circle) locked in. As I wrote a few months ago who when I caught The Sixth Circle live at the Tote Hotel and was blown away by a great, pure rock, street-level band:

All that dark and shade in this set; theatrics and drama. The tempo pulls back with “Club Siren”. “Our God hangs #6” is wild rock beat and with the guitars blues-based. Gray’s menacing vocals howling: 'I got hung without a trial'. "Cadillacs” has that proto punk rawness and a blues progression. There are elements of deep soul with raw gritty urban blues, and a solid rock 4/4 backbeat. Live, it is a no-nonsense rock monster.

• live
• sydney
• st kilda
• nick cave
• sacred cowboys
• garry gray
• the sixth circle
• tracey pew
• the reals
• diamond in the forehead
• the negatives

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Road Series by Hugo Race (Transit Lounge)

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By Robert Brokenmouth

Robert Brokenmouth

26 October 2016

Hits: 6122

From the first sentence in "Road Series", you’re in Hugo’s world, his past, present and by implication, future.

“Road Series” is one of the main reasons that a poor bloke like me can’t ever get history quite right: we have the dates, the events, the chronology lodged and squared away. But people like Hugo carry the emotive rationale, the anti-rationale, and the … moving finger writes inevitability of their lives locked inside them.

I suppose we could all say we have that, but few, very very few of us could write it out and get it right, express it right, show us who warn’t there just how it wuz.

We instantly inhabit Hugo’s world because, first and foremost when you’re reading a memoir, the writer is telling their story. Second, “Road Series” possesses a vividness, a real-in-colour sensation to it which so many memoirs of the punk and musical new wave period completely miss in their hurry to put down their rivals, tell juicy anecdotes and, basically, gossip.

And I’ll just say this, for an autobiographical account of a significant St Kildan musician from this rather bitchy, backstabbing period, there is an astonishing absence of tittle-tattle, knife-wielding and general spite. Hugo is remarkably matter-of-fact about things, and (again, from page one) the maelstrom continues like that whirling Tasmanian devil from the Warner Brothers cartoons.

• bad seeds
• st kilda
• hugo race
• wreckery
• nick cave
• road series
• nick barker
• michael gudinski

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69BC - 69BC (I-94 Bar Records)

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By Edwin Garland

Edwin Garland

22 October 2016

Hits: 5982

Raw garage rock ’n’ roll in the Australian pub rock tradition, with an obvious nod to ‘70s hard rock and the “Pebbles” collection. A record made distinctive by the classic Aussie twin-guitar attack. Those were my first thoughts on this CD from a band made up of members of Psychotic Turnbuckles, Sheik the Shayk and Buffalo Revisited.

It was recorded in Zen Studios, the capital city of Sydney’s inner-western Garageland region, by Geoffrey Lee over seven years, and what hit me straight away is that none of the live intensity has been lost. It captures a raw and live garage/pub band warts, belching and all…I can see a bloke over there who once drunkenly spilt beer on me and that other idiot that pushed me over in the mosh pit. And then I’m lifted up by another and patted on the back…

• punk
• garage
• 69BC
• psychotic turnbuckles
• i-94 bar records
• sheek the shayk

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Strange Ways – Some Jerks (Pig City Records)

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By The Barman

The Barman

19 October 2016

Hits: 5705

It’s OK to like pop. Real pop, that is. You won’t hear it on mainstream radio. What they play is a watered-down variant that’s polished and homogenised within a centimetre of its life. So go straight to the source, go online or (gasp) experience it at a gig, cherry-pick what sounds good and forget the rest. That’s where a band like Some Jerks comes in.

Recommending music is such a personal thing that we behind the bar are often criticised for going over-the-top in some of our evangelistic rants. Well, fuck you: No, there won’t be an apology for that, because we (mostly) review the shit that we like. Speaking of evangelism…

• brisbane
• pop
• blondie
• some jerks
• pig city records

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Josh Lord: Art for work's sake

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By Robert Brokenmouth

Robert Brokenmouth

18 October 2016

Hits: 7114

Josh Lord is, despite the agit-prop-like art, a conservative. The morning after the opening of his Melbourne exhibition, Josh rose at 7am and started work on his next series of artworks. Then he went to town and did an interview. Then, finally realising he was still wrung out from the night before, he crashed.

Now, if most of us had worked all year and put everything into one night - granted the exhibition runs for a while yet, but the opening was “the event” - we’d be reeling around all wibbly-wobbly and a bit dazed for most of the following two days.

Josh is a working man, really. And art is his business. Whoever said that all capitalism is evil? Josh makes art which criticises both art and capitalism, but capitalism itself doesn’t have to be evil. There’s a lot of evil nasty sods out there. And it only takes a small percentage.

Michael Foxington photo

• st kilda
• josh lord
• ash wednesday
• ollie olsen
• kollaps

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Jeff Dahl re-emerges - and does he have a deal for you

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By The Barman

The Barman

18 October 2016

Hits: 6107

Punk rock icon Jeff Dahl is making his first album in eight years and has launched a spectacular crowd-funding campaign to float it.

Dahl’s long career as a solo artist (and collaborator with the likes of Poison Idea, Cheetah Chrome and half the LA punk scene) went on hold after he upped stakes and moved home from Arizona to his former home of the Hawaiian Islands.

Health issues precluded him from doing much, musically-speaking, but he’s now well and itching to record.

As well as baseline offers of an album download and physical copy of the CD (the latter only available to pledgers), Dahl has has opened his own treasure trove of personal memorabilia to sweeten the deal.

“Since I have no children and I am almost as old as dust I've decided to part with some of my precious, precious...," Dahl says.

"Like my Hoyer 5060, Les Paul-style guitar which was previously owned by Stooge Ron Asheton used during his New Order days, and Gregg Turner of the Angry Samoans (pictured).

“Want my wretched old leather touring jacket? It has enough of my DNA to clone an army of Jeff Dahl's!

“One of Stiv Bator’s old belt buckles and with some cool memorabilia? Ian Hunter's book with his and Mick Ronsons autograph? That would look good on your shelf.

“You say you want test pressings? I got 'em! 45 Graves' first release, various Jeff Dahl, MF 666, Vox Pop? Yep, I gots 'em and you can buy 'em! How 'bout some rare old vinyl with autographs by folks like Neil Young or the 'Classic" Motorhead line-up of Lemmy, Philthy and Fast Eddie? Nikki Sudden? I got him too! “

The campaign is here.

• gofundme
• punk rock
• jeff dahl
• powertrip
• crowdfunding

No winners: The Case of The Music Industry and Social Justice Warriors vs Ms Louise Dickinson

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By Edwin Garland

Edwin Garland

12 October 2016

Hits: 18048

Half a Cow in the inner-western suburb of Glebe was the coolest bookshop in Sydney; an advocate of the underground with shelves bulging with left-of-field fanzines, authors who had been banned and musical output from alternative voices.

It was a literary anti-establishment.  It all came crashing down, in my view, one afternoon in early 1993, during my fortnightly visit to the shop.

A phone call had been made earlier that day and I witnessed the removal of issues of “Lemon” magazine from the shelves.

I asked: “What has Lou done?” and was shown a review of indie-folk pop stars Club Hoy, buried in the back pages. 

It was just six words: “These girls deserve a good raping."

"Lemon" magazine was now officially banned. It started one of the most controversial weeks in the history of the modern Australian music industry.

Indeed, it was the flashpoint of the underground openly clashing with the mainstream.

• magazine
• zine
• velvet underground
• lemon magazine
• louise dickinson
• rolling stone
• on the street
• drum media
• club hoy
• adrian bull

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Shine & From 3 EPs - The Rosemary Beads (self released)

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By Edwin Garland

Edwin Garland

12 October 2016

Hits: 5475

The Rosemary Beads are a band that sound completely original yet wear their influences as a badge of honour. 

Emerging out of the West Australian indie rock music scene during the ‘90s, they released three exceptionally good EPs that ranked as some of the best pop from that side of the country. It was music that was highly ignored and startlingly brilliant

“From 3 EPs” is a compilation of their output ("Breath", "Dog" and "I'll Come When I'm Good And Ready" - two of them on Citadel) from the band’s original run that ended in 1995. “Shine” is their first full album and ther comeback recording (they disbanded after the death of their drummer, Cam Munachen) and arrives after 20 years of silence.

“The Diving Song” opens “Shine” with a huge splash of classic alternative rock. It is melodic and there was a time this would have been on high rotation all around the country with a good chance of crossing over to the mainstream. Of course that was back when there was a glimmer of hope for new and exciting bands to be given airplay.

• Citadel
• pop
• perth
• grunge
• shine
• from 3 EPs
• the rosemary beads

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Kim Salmon and Hugo Race: Separate shows, many parallels

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By Robert Brokenmouth

Robert Brokenmouth

11 October 2016

Hits: 5792

This was the weekend that Hugo Race and Kim Salmon played separate shows in Adelaide on successive nights. At first glance, there might seem little to compare the two. But there’s plenty.

Both guitarists, both swimming against the stream writing songs which are, essentially, written as much for the ages as us. Both Hugo and Kim are touring professionals who love playing live, giving to a crowd.

Arguably, both also make the kind of music which seems to endlessly slip between the cracks in a modern world so devoted to novelty (rather than a trend) and the appearance of substance or significance, as opposed to any depth or meaning.

Kim Salmon - Mandy Tzaras photo

• live
• adelaide
• kim salmon
• hugo race
• pete howlett
• michalangelo russo
• shakey mcgee

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