2025 Top Tens: Sean The Bastard from Wollongong's The Owen Guns

In no particular order heres my Top Ten highlights of 2025

Hard-Ons
There’s just no stopping the Hard-Ons.   I was fortunate enough to play three gigs in three days with them recently and they just don’t stop. A band who’s been around this long could be excused for dialing it in from time to time but they never do. They’re still putting out music of a consistently high standard (their collab with Jerry A recently being up with their best) and their live shows never disappoint.  And they still manage to be top blokes.

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• hard-ons
• top ten
• the owen guns
• drugs in sport
• zeke
• sean the bastard
• sean st leone
• the sugar beats

Chow down on "Service Station Chicken" and taste the Aussie pub difference

 Service Station Chicken - Dave Favours & The Roadside Ashes (Stanley Records)

Dave Favours & The Roadside Ashes make country music for people who don’t like country music. That’s a truism, not a slur.

The point is that the players’ background in underground Oz rock and roll, circa late 1980s rolling into the ‘90s, is apparent in their playing. You play enough sticky carpet dives where patrons demand to be impressed and you become a harder player. At least that's how it was before streaming. These Roadside Ashes have a work ethic honed over some years.

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• dave favours
• stanley records
• roadside ashes
• service station chicken

Chris Masuak talks about a 2026 return to Australia

Spain-based, Canadian-born, Australian-raised guitar legend Chris Masuak (Radio Birdman, The Hitmen, Screaming Tribesmen, New Christs) was going to be promoting his new album “Chris Masuak’s Dog Soldier” with a tour Down Under in November, but a recurring illness required an emergency operation.

What illness? It's referred to in Chris' book, “Faith and Practice in Bedlam” (High Voltage Publishing – edited by this writer). I'm not going to explain it: find the reference and read up. Fucking horrible, is all I'm gonna say. Makes me squirm to even think of having an operation there.

Anyway. I listened to the album, thought it was damn good, and fired off some questions to Chris. 

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• hitmen
• radio birdman
• screaming tribesmen
• chris klondike masuak
• chris masuak's dog solider

Sacred Cowboys announce new album "In The Manifesto"

• beast records
• sacred cowboys
• garry gray
• mark ferrie
• in the manifesto

Dom's new country-inflected gem has pop at its core

Apple of Life - Dom Mariani (Alive Naturalsound)

From the tumbling drums and Spector-lite touches of opener “Breakaway” to the keening country pop of single “Jangleland”, this album is classic Dom Mariani.

In a long career spanning The Stems, Majestic Kelp, the Someloves, Datura 4 and DM3, the man has never stumbled. “Apple of Life” adds another sparkling gem to the back catalogue.

Mariani’s travels have taken myriad twists and turns but strong songwriting has always been the axis on which his journey turns. So it is with “Apple of Life”, which mines the usual seams of powerpop and rock but this time adding strong country touches. Glimpses of ‘70s pop and New Wave peek through and gives the record its own distinctive edge.  

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• dm3
• datura4
• dom mariani
• the stems
• apple of life

Ex-Trash Brat Brian McCarty's soulful letter from the Motor City

Faith & Fumes – Brian McCarty (Electric Lab Recordings)

So there I was at some Indiana Sunday night punk rock juice bar, circa ‘87-ish, half blinded by strobe lights and taking liberal pulls from my handy flask. I was probably wearing some kinda gloomy trench coat, a NY Dolls T-shirt from High Street in Columbus (either from Mothra or Magnolia Thunderpussy), ripped jeans with band logos sharpied on them, combat boots, lots of hair spray and bad Cure kid makeup.

I'd just gotten outta juvie, where they'd stuck me in solitary for a month, for lippin' off to the kind of creep who thought that juvenile corrections seemed like a worthy calling, and that month alone made me even weirder and more stubbornly determined to escape the never ending abuse and behavior modification bootcamping of those plantation states.

The band on stage were doing some kinda crazy, confetti colored, frenzied clash between Hanoi Rocks and the NY Dolls with bubble gummy Ramones choruses and atomic energy. The songs I think I remember from back then were about defending free speech, freedom of the press, choosing one's own preferred lifestyle, and fighting the P.M.R.C. and Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority ("Smut") and struggling to find a redemptive romance while being stuck working low wage blue collar jobs ("Gasboy"). I think they were already playing "Downtown Nowhere" that night, too, which became a big favorite among our small group of peers. Always adored, "You Threw Me Away", as well. I could instantly relate to everything they were doing.

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• trash brats
• brian mccarty
• faith & fumes
• electric lab recordings

2025 Top Tens: Mark Roxburgh of Joeys Coop, The Decline of The Reptiles and ME-262

I missed the 2024 deadline for a Top 10 because I struggled to recall 10 things musically that gave me a lift. I came up with five and gave up. I saw a bunch of live stuff that really gave me the shits so that doesn’t count. Says more about me than the music scene.

Although I could put together a list of 10 excellent music things this year, I thought I’d take a different tack and go all academic on you because the thing that has been most on my mind this year is all the bands hating on Spotify and jumping off it. Partly because of its piss poor payment to, and chronic exploitation of, musicians.

Spotify isn’t alone in this. Although at the bottom end of pay per streams they are in stellar company with YouTube Music, Apple, Amazon and Deezer. But the main reasons artists are boycotting Spotify is because of Daniel Ek’s investment in Helsing, a German AI drone defence company. Purportedly established to boost the defence of European Democracies in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

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• top ten
• joeys coop
• mark roxburgh
• spotify
• 2025

2025 Top Tens: Ursula Collie Medew of The Mick Medew and Ursula 4 from Brisbane

-three 
_{The. moment "Punk Grandma" placed number in the 4ZZZ Hot 100}

1. “Punk Grandma” being voted number 3 in the 2024 4ZZZ Hot 100!

The countdown was held in The Triffid and our song was in the running. It was great fun for Mick and me to hang out with fellow local musicians and friends!!

2. Playing live
Mick Medew and Ursula will have played 16 times this year, 14 times as the four-piece and twice as the duo. Shows for the 4 were in Newcastle, Sydney, Gold Coast (supporting The Johnnys), The Triffid (supporting The Painters and Dockers where Jeremy Oxley got up and sang “Happy Man” with them), a 30^th birthday in Goodna, twice at Banshees in Ipswich, instore at Sonic Sherpa, at the Lovejoy reunion at The Junk Bar, two gigs with The Boondall Boys, and our single launch at The Cave Inn (where we had a pizza named after the band for November).

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• dr bombay
• lovejoy
• boondall boys
• screaming trbesmen
• mick medew and ursula
• 4zzz
• mick medew and ursula 4

Woolworths Flu Shot is just what the doctor ordered for you jaded Boomers

Give Me Another Hœur Please God - Woolworths Flu Shot (Self released)

There is nothing more pathetic than boomers who lament there are no decent bands anymore.

Sure, they’re not as bad as the ones who go on about shitty, awful tribute cover bands populated by burned-out has-beens, or those people who think |godawful vineyard gigs with heritage acts responsible for the worst Australian music of the 1980s are somehow relevant.

Don’t listen to any of them. Some of the edgiest, toughest and most inventive bands are Gen Z. OK, it’s sometimes like panning for gold to find the nuggets of wildness, but they are out there.

It was a Wednesday night a few weeks ago when I dropped into the legendary and edgy Nimbin Hotel in Far Northern New South Wales. I entered to the sound of blisteringly loud noise as the bar’s floorboards shook.

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• tasmania
• give me another hour please god
• Woolworths Flu Shot
• maddison wood