This year I honour my dear friend and musical collaborator the late Louis Rohan Tillett (13 March 1959 – 6 August 2023), whose music most readers of this webzine will be familiar with. Louis was a singer, song writer and multi-instrumentalist, who was based in Sydney. Sadly, he passed away in August 2023.
If it wasn’t for Louis’ encouragement and support of my music, I most probably wouldn’t have embarked on the musical path that has consumed my life over the last four decades.
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- By Penny Ikinger
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First, I’ll get the rant out of the way. I’ve spent more time working with younger bands this year and there seem to be a few issues…
Firstly, there are so many new young bands that they can’t find gigs… especially appropriate ones. The King Street strip in Sydney’s Newtown and surrounds has about eight venues and on any given night there are only up to 50 people in each room.
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- By The Celebrity Roadie
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Is it really the last yeah hup? Radio Birdman has added a third and final hometown show to the June-July "Birdman 5-O" farewell tour after two dates at Sydney's Manning Bar sold out.
In a statement today, the band said:
"Due to overwhelming demand, there will be one extra Sydney concert on Sunday 7 July to accommodate those who were unable to get tickets to the previously scheduled Sydney concerts. The RB50 tour has been limited to just eight dates due to personal factors.
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- By The Barman
- Hits: 1962
So it’s February 2024 already and I’ve only now got around to compiling my lists of 2023 musical highlights. The Barman has given me a late pass.
I’ve got two lists here and I’ve stuck with the age-old format of Top Ten albums and Top Ten EPs/ singles. And of course, these lists come with a disclaimer that there’s still plenty of great 2023 records that I haven’t got around to hearing yet, so of course my lists only cover the stuff that’s found its way to my ears.
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- By Ross Nelson
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1. R.I.P Ron Peno and Louis Tillett
To start on a sad note we lost Two of our greatest vocalist/Front men within days of each other in August last year - Louis Tillett and Ron Peno.
I don't have any of Louis Tillett’s albums apart from The Wet Taxis’ “From The Archives” record, but had seen his live performances lots of times over the years. Of course, there were his legendary shows with Paris Green during their residency at The Sandringham Hotel in Newtown in the late '80's, and I recall seeing him solo on piano at Bar Broadway in the early '90s. The last performance I saw him was at The Factory Theatre which I think was one of his last gigs.
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- By Big Daddy K Kevin Cherry
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The Far Outs! – The Far Outs (Ripple Music/Rebel Waves Records)
There’s a readily-identifiable rock and roll lineage that goes back through the 1980s and ‘80s and it effortlessly connects to the ‘60s. Lenny Kaye’s “Nuggets” album and the tireless Greg Shaw from Bomp Records are owed a huge debt for provoking the so-called Garage Revival, and The Far Outs are living proof that it hasn’t died just yet.
The Far Outs are a duo of Brisbaneites, guitarist-vocalist Phil Usher and drummer Jonny Pickvance, and if you’ve never heard a song by The Sonics or The Kinks you need to track them down and ask for a look at their record collection. The Far Outs have raided the mid-‘60s sounds cupboard, padded out their own spin on it with organ, and have delivered an album that drips with swampy garage goodness.
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- By The Barman
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A 30-year veteran of the Australian rock’n’roll scene, James McCann knows something about the brutal reality of independent music. After cutting his teeth in Perth. McCann moved to Sydney in the early 1990s where he joined the Hard-Ons spin-off outfit Nunchukka Superfly and formed Harpoon.
He moved back to Perth and joined the first line up of The Drones and striking up an association with Kill Devil Hills, and shifted to Melbourne in the mid 2000s to pursue a variety of solo and collaborative projects.
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- By The Barman
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Charlie Georgees, one of the 1970s underground Australian rock and roll scene’s unsung guitar heroes, passed away on Saturday. Close friend Jim Dickson of Radio Birdman broke the news today on Facebook.
The pair first crossed paths at James Cook University in Townsville and joined a musical migration of like-minded Queenslanders to Sydney soon after.
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- By The Barman
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Wayne Kramer, one of contemporary hard rock’s most influential guitarists, passed away in hsiopital in Los Angeles on Friday, following a battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 75.
The former MC5, MC5-DKT, Gang War, solo band and soundtrack artist was on the verge of releasing a new album under the MC5 name.
The influence of Wayne Kramer and the MC5 on bands like The Damned, Radio Birdman, Rage Against the Machine, Ramones, New York Dolls and scores of others can’t be underestimated.
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- By The Barman
- Hits: 3035
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