australian tour

_{Huxton Creepers 2026. Photo supplied}

We mentioned that Huxton Creepers are re-issuing their classic debut album “12 Days to Paris” 40 years after the fact on vinyl on Cheersquad on June 5 with pre-orders open now. And we said they'd support it live, in what will be their first full tour since 2011.

The dates are confirmed They'll be joined by old mates Icecream Hands in Melbourne and The Johnnys in NSW and QLD, with former Screaming Tribesmen frontman Mick Medew and his wife, Ursula, also joining the party in Brisbane.

_{Credit: @majortielve}

It's easy to forget just how good the Jesus and Mary Chain actually are; how many drop dead classic songs they have recorded. Then, on a Thursday night at the Sydney Opera House (no less), they ram a shit ton of their greatest hits down our throats and they still leave out a huge chunk of back catalogue just to spite you.

They make it look easy. But being this damn good is not easy.

Photo by @alltoz696 

Japanese madmen Guitar Wolf are bringing their brand of high energy rock ‘n’ roll to Australia for the umpteenth time. Inspired by ‘50s rock ‘n’ roll and ‘70s punk, Guitar Wolf always put on a balls-to-the-wall show, with energy and intensity that no-one can match MATT RYAN spoke with Guitar Wolf mastermind SEIJI via email on the eve of the tour.

I-94: I saw you guys at the Gaso in Collingwood back in 2023, and you’re coming back. I take it you must love coming here to come back so often and quickly?

Seiji: Of course! Australia is paradise for Japanese people, and I love the rock that was born from this country.

Urban and western troubadour John Kennedy kicks off his Australian run to promote “Live At The Marrickville Bowl” (I-94 Bar Records) this weekend.

Now living in Spain, Kennedy will play band gigs with his all-star The New Originals and solo/duo shows, hitting New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland.

First cab off the rank is an in-store thjis Saturday afternoon at Egg Records in Newtown - fittingly, just off King Street, which is a location Kennedy has immortalised in "The King of King Street". Most of The New Originals will join him. Full dates and ticket links after the fold. 

It’s been a massive year for both his bands, the Hard-Ons and Nunchukka Superfly, and before Hard-Ons kick off and their national co-headline tour with Redd Kross, Peter "Blackie" Black, guitarist and songwriter extraordinaire, has just released the new single and video .

A single, "Congo Line to the Rest Room", pre-empts the release of Blackie’s two new solo albums on February 6 and he'll play a run of solo shows up and down the Australian East Coast in February and March.

The new albums, “The Boss is Gone Gone Gone” and “A Bowl of Spiders”, were made simultaneously over a nine-month period at Pet Food Factory in Sydney’s Marrickville with Jason Whalley and Jemima Perry-Ewing engineering. They were  mixed at Parliament Studios by Lachlan Mitchelland mastered by John Ruberto.

Kid Congo & The Pink Monkey Birds are returning to Australia in April 2024.

Kid Congo has one of the most enviable rock n’ roll resumes in existence. He was a founding member of cowpunk blues outfit The Gun Club, guitarist for legendary psycho-billy purveyors The Cramps, and played with Australia’s own, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds.

Kim Salmon's new outfit Smoked Salmon have announced a national tour to promote the forthcoming self-titled debut album, which is out February 28 on Cheersquad Records and Tapes.

The tour in March and April will take in Perth, Fremantle, Margaret River, Castlemaine, Canberra, Wollongong, Sydney, Newcastle, Geelong, Brisbane, Gold coast, Bangalow and Adelaide before finishing back in Melbourne.

_{Anna White photo}

Two of the hardest working men in Australian show business, Ed Kuepper and Jim White, return for a short series of duo shows this summer.

Kuepper has just completed a run of residency shows with his new instrumental project Asteroid Ekosystem and drummer White is taking a brief pause from international touring with Bill Callahan, Xylouris White and Marisa Anderson.

The pair will continue their journey of exploration via Kuepper’s extensive catalogue and a studio release by the pair looms in 2023.  Acoustic troubadour Darren Cross will open all shows which are on sale now via feelpresents.com

ED KUEPPER & JIM WHITE
FEBRUARY 2023
Thu Feb 2 Murwillumbah, The Regent
Fri Feb 3 Coffs Harbour, The Jetty
Sat Feb 4 Brisbane, The Outpost
Wed Feb 8 Sydney, The Great Club
Thu Feb 9 Cronulla, Brass Monkey
Fri Feb 10 Melbourne, Brunswick Ballroom

_{Pat and Lety Beers.}

Combining elements of 60s garage, funk, soul and old time rock ‘n; roll showmanship, San Diego’s The Schizophonics are one of the "hardest working" bands you’ll see. And I mean "hard working"  in reference to when they hit the stage.

Singer/guitarist Pat Beers comes across like a mix between Jerry Lee Lewis and an eight-year-old kid on too much red cordial; the man never stops. While some singers take five to get a breath, Pat keeps the party going with some amazing onstage moves that would score high in any Olympic gymnastics competition.

While the bass often switches, Pat and drummer/wife Lety Beers are the core and soul of the group. The two of them, along with their beautiful dog Beanie, spoke to me via the zoom machine on the eve of their return to Oz.

Genre-hopping Spanish garage-punk/country/gospel/soul luminaries Los Chicos are set to tour their home away from home, Australia, for the seventh time this November, and will release their eighth album, “Never Is Too Much”, to coincide.

Produced by Mike Mariconda (guitarist of the legendary Raunch Hands and producer of classic albums by the Cosmic Psychos, Powder Monkeys and New Bomb Turks). “Never Too Much” is out on Cheersquad Records & Tapes on November 1.

_{Touring Czech violinist Pavel Cingl with Mark Steiner. Mona Cat photo.}

Norwegian-American troubadour Mark Steiner’s ongoing love affair with Australia continues in November and December when he undertakes his sixth tour Down Under.

Steiner has been coming to Australian since 2008 and became an Aussieophile when he first heard the music of Rowland S. Howard in in the 1980s when he was a teen growing up in New York City. Now living in Norway, he’ll be playing songs from his latest album, “Black Hole”, on a run through Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide.

Ex-Ramones and Voidoids drummer, author and sc-fi fan Marky Ramone starts his first Australian tour in almost a decade this week. Marky Ramone's Blitzkrieg reprises the back catalogue of the Ramones with Marky driving the backbeat behind a crew of hand-picked punk rock players.

Pete Howlett of Adelaide band The Pro-Tools was given the chance to pitch him 10 questions. Here's the result.  

Chris Masuak and Dog Soldier
The Silver Dragons
Link and Pin Café, Woy Woy
Sunday, 21 May 2023

We still want to cling to memories of our youth and for some it’s easier than others. Some say this music thing is an affliction. Others joke that it’s a curse and others consider it fun.

When we were teenagers or aged in our early 20s and seeing bands I don’t think we would have imagined that some of us would still would still be doing so 40 years later. In fact, I used see the musos on stage aged in their late 20s and think they were really old farts.

Well here I am on a Sunday afternoon, on the noisy express to Newcastle full of screaming kids and even louder adults bellowing, as the train weaves snake-like past the Hawkesbury River, on my way to another afternoon gig at the Link and Pin in Woy Woy. Heading to see Chris Masuak and one of his rare Australian tours these days.

The Link and Pin is venue of another time: an oasis that exudes an old-time vibe as you walk in. It’s like you stepped into a place not quite rural and certainly not inner-city despite its rock posters and wall full of underground records. The beer garden is rustic and packed as the drinks flow. I have never have not had a good time there.

_{The three-piece Pink Monkey Birds saving a place for Mick Harvey.}

Kid Congo Powers has announced former Birthday Partyand Bad Seedsmember Mick Harvey will be joining his Pink Monkey Birdson bass for this month’s Australian tour.

“Haven’t played (together) besides guest spots since Bad Seeds days,” a gleeful Kid Congo tweeted earlier today.

Kid Congo and his band are releasing their fifth long-player “ That Delicious Vice“ on In The Red Recordson 19 April to coincide with the tour. “Wicked World” is the video single and features Los Angeles punk icon Alice Bag.

_{Nashville Pussy.}

Trucker cap rock fans watch out:  It’s a larger-then-life double bill that the promoter promises will “tear Australia a new one” in a florid media release - and who are we to argue? The Supersuckers and Nashville Pussy are due in these parts in January.  And of course they had to call the tour "Superpussy".  

Nashville Pussy headlines Sydney (Manning Bar on January 23) and Adelaide (The Gov on January 26 ) with Supersuckers doing the honours in Melbourne (The Croxton on January 24) and Brisbane (The Zoo on January 25). Tickets go on sale on Wednesday here.

Brisbane's Swashbuckling Hobo Records is marking the looming Pat Todd and The Rankoutsiders Australian - well, Victorian - tour  by releasing a limited edition seven-inch single.

The instantly collectable "9 Lives, Tall Tales & False Alarms" b/w "Bullshit World/Bullshit Man" will follow recent album releases on Hound Dawg Records and Melbourne's Dog Meat labels.

The Victorian Tour will follow Pat's rapturously received solo East Coast Australian run of November 2023.

For the unitiated, Pat Todd fronted the undisputed roots-punk kings of LA, The Lazy Cowgirls after blowing in from Midwest outpost Vincennes, Indiana in the early 1980s.

The Cowgirls' live album “Radio Cowgirl” was the first release on scene prime mover Sympathy For The Record Industry and ultimately inspired a resurgence of classic 1976 Ramones/Saints/ Heartbreakers-style punk that stretched across the US into Europe, Japan and elsewhere, inspiring bands like The Muffs, New Bomb Turks, Oblivions, Teengenerate, Onyas and others.

Covid is a fun wrecker that’s for sure; it doesn’t like entertainment, travel or adventure… and with that in mind Sunnyboys have decided to move all dates on their current tour back to give affected members the chance to fully recover.

Revised dates: 

Thursday 28 July: Sydney, Factory Theatre (sold out)
(tickets from July 1 valid for this date)
Saturday 30 July: Sydney, Factory Theatre 
(tickets from July 2 valid for this date)
Friday 5 August: Byron Bay, The Northern
(tickets from July 15 valid for this date)
Saturday 6 August: Brisbane, Princess Theatre (limited tickets)
(tickets from July 16 valid for this date)
Saturday 13 August: Melbourne, Corner Hotel  (sold out)
(tickets from July 9 valid for this date)

Tickets via feelpresents.com Refunds are also available at the point of purchase for those who can't make the new dates.

In the middle of 1968 The Pretty Things were seated in a conference room with EMI executives and production engineer Norman Smith at EMI’s corporate headquarters in Manchester Square, London. The Pretty Things were presenting their new album, and their first with EMI, a concept album based around the story of a fictional character by the name of Sebastian F Sorrow: SF Sorrow.

Standing at a lectern in the conference room, Smith, in-house engineer at Abbey Road studios where the album was recorded, read snippets from the story before the corresponding song on the album was played. But it was apparently immediately that the corporate stiffs had no empathy for The Pretty Things’ ground-breaking album.

“They’re all sitting there in their suits, looking a bit bemused,” recalls singer Phil May. “We weren’t sure how well it went down, so the next morning I get a phone call. Because we were going to have both the story and the lyrics on the cover, they rang me and asked me I really thought the story was important enough to print on the cover. I was gobsmacked. Why did we read it to them? What was the point of that whole exercise, and now you’re asking me ‘Was it important?’ Imagine if it came out with the story – it would have been really confusing! What the bloody hell is going on?”

_{Photo by @thetinfoilbiter.jpg}

The Jesus Lizard are returning to Australia for the first time since 1994, playing three shows in October. The 2024 release of their seventh studio LP, “Rack” has marked a re-birth for band and the album has garnered great reviews.

Since their inception in Austin, Texas, in 1987, the Jesus Lizard has thrilled audiences all over the planet. The rocket-thrust rhythm section of bassist David Wm. Sims and drummer Mac McNeilly remains the perfect launchpad for guitarist Duane Denison’s jagged riffing and vocalist David Yow’s mercurial vocalisations.

The Jesus Lizard
Australian Tour
OCT
15 - The Croxton, Melbourne, VIC
+ The Nation Blue
Tickets
17 - Liberty Hall (ex Max Watts), Sydney, NSW
+ The Nation Blue
Tickets                        
19 -  Crow Bar, Brisbane, QLD
+ The Nation Blue
Tickets