- Details
- Written by: The Barman
- Hits: 7011
Adiso Amigo: Johnny Casino is moving with his wife to Spain and there are just three chances for Australian fans to say goodbye.
The longtime solo artist and former guitarist for Asteroid B612 is playing send-off shows with his interchangeable band, The Secrets, in Sydney and Melbourne.
April 8 finds him at Newtown Social Club with The Secrets (Mark Horne and Ben Fox) and sharing a stage with touring Spanish party band Los Chicos.
On April 12 he’ll be in solo mode from 5-7pm followed by a Secrets bracket (Michael Evand and James Saunders) at The Labour In Vain in Melbourne.
Johnny’s final stand is Sunday, May 10 and a solo show at The Midnight Special in Enmore, Newtown from 6pm.
- Details
- Written by: The Barman
- Hits: 7077
Don’t call it cabaret. Dave Graney makes reference to the tag on one of these tracks, pointing that he and his band, the mystLY, would be on a higher pay-scale, and no doubt playing in a different class of gin joints, if that’s what they were.
In longevity terms, Graney is an “elder statesman” of the Australian music scene. He was a punk. He existed as expatriate dirt amid critical acclaim in London. He came home, entered the major label lifestyle for a time, became our King of Pop and decided that he could get along just fine on his own terms, playing music that didn’t fit radio programing templates.
- Details
- Written by: The Barman
- Hits: 7240
Our new favourite New Zealand band Thee Rum Coves have released a video to go with their latest single from their debut self-titled album, which is reviewed here. This is “Baby Please”.
- Details
- Written by: The Barman
- Hits: 11829
And so the return, and rise, of the Sunnyboys continues. If you said they could top this one, you’d need to back it up.
They billed themselves as Kids in Dust when they stepped back onto a stage for the first time in 21 years at the Dig It Up festival in Sydney on April 24, 2012. The nom de plume was supposedly to avoid performance anxiety or to ramp down expectations, maybe both. It didn’t matter; any tentativeness was swamped by a roomful of love.
Nor were there any misgivings in evidence at the same packed venue, the Enmore Theatre, last Saturday night. Just an irresistible king-tide of energy and good spirit.
- Details
- Written by: The Barman
- Hits: 6949
A heads-up that the wonderful debut album from Brisbane’s HITS, “Living With You Is Killing Me”, is being re-issued in re-mixed and re-mastered vinyl format on both sides of the world.
Brisbane label Merenoise is doing the business in Australia with Beast Records unleashing this baby in France for Europe and the Rest of the World.
They won’t last long so avail of the links in the label names. We’ve heard a digitised version and even that sounds great, with greater dynamic range and new life in the bottom end.
- Details
- Written by: The Barman
- Hits: 5380
Snooze and you’ll lose: There are a handful of T-shirts left over from the recent hit-and-run Aussie tour by The Television Addicts, to celebrate the music of Perth punk pyros The Victims. These T-shirts mimicing the sleeve of The Victims’ "Television Addict" single were designed by mainman Dave Flick.
There are a few in various sizes and they can be obtained for the not so princely sum of $A38 (postage included) within Australia. Drop bassist Ray Ahn a line to arrange a bank transfer or Paypal him at
- Details
- Written by: The Barman
- Hits: 6589
If “Shambolic” needed a Facebook relationship status, it would use “It’s Complicated”.
It's a reconstructed Donovan’s Brain record, not intentionally written as a “concept album”, but becoming one along the way. It was recorded over the space of many sessions and three years, only to be left unfinished and abandoned for a decade-and-a-half.
The name’s a misnomer. It’s no shambles by any stretch, more a twisting and turning trip, set to words and music by principal band member Ron Sanchez.
- Details
- Written by: The Barman
- Hits: 6969
This single is great and odds are that the album from which this comes, "False Memory Lane", would be even better. Let’s get the antecedents out of the way first.
The Galileo7 is the latest vehicle for ex-Prisoners bassist Alan Crockford, whose band was at the vanguard of the Medway garage rock wave in the UK. The Prisoners bit the dust in 1986 but Rockford has been dutifully playing this garage rock-pop stuff since then and this is a new line-up of his current band.
- Details
- Written by: The Barman
- Hits: 5921
If this East Sussex, England, all-girl trio is aiming to parachute into the same territory as The Pandoras with their debut 45, it’s found the drop-zone. The engine room doesn’t stomp quite as hard but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
“Black Book” is a song about, well, a girl’s black book and it bristles with fuzz tone and bad grace. Bass tones and a touch of the toms signals the start and it quickly locks into a nice groove. Guitarist Laura Anderson has a strong voice and she's mixed right up front.
Flip it over and you’ll hear a dirtier, drum-led rocker that’s no slouch, either. Skuzzy guitar fights for a place up front at centre mic before handclaps signal we’re on our way out. Another reminder, if it was needed, that garage punk rock isn't entirely down and out in Mother England.
1/2