australian

This is a mind-blowing album on several fronts.

Firstly, because Tamam Shud formed almost 50 years ago: and could be last Australian band still standing from the ‘60s (certainly from the alternative and underground.) I cannot think of anyone else. The album features two of the founding members, Lindsay Bjerre (vocals and guitar) and Peter Baron (bass) from 1967; and two more members who were there four years later, in Tim Gaze (guitar) and Nigel MaCara (drums) from the ”Morning of the Earth” soundtrack era.

Historically, Tamam Shud was the first Australian band to put out a an album full of original compositions when “Evolution” was released late in 1968: There is not one Australian band that I can think of with original members, from their heyday; that has come up with a new album nearly 50 years later so the release of this on vinyl is an historical event.

They might not be Japan’s most prolific rock and roll band but The Deadvikings’ two full-length albums each pack a considerable punch. This one dates from early in their 11-year history and delivers their Hellacopters style jams in spade-loads.

The Deadvikings toured last year’s “Libertatia” in Australia - well, in Sydney - and they're back in 2018, confusingly pushing their first CD from 10 years ago. Ours is not to reason why...

"Electric Demon" has some wayward moments (the ragged "The Ripper" and the low-key opening title track, which sounds underdone) but for the most part, it's surging high-energy rock songs. They're clearly in the thrall of the 'Copters and their Scandi Rock contemporaries, but this is hardly a bad thing when done right.

_{Mandy Tzaras photo.}

Glen Matlock's Adelaide show was such a fine, big smile-stretched-across-the-face, hugely enjoyable gig. Not because of the association to THAT band, but because Glen is who he is, likes the kind of music he likes, and brings it into you. 

If you’re hesitating about whether to see this man’s gigs - don’t. 

Just go. 

Founding member of The Sex Pistols and Rich Kids and writer of hits “Pretty Vacant” and “God Save The Queen”, Glen Matlock is a musical legend and raconteur extraordinaire.

You'll see for yourself when he and his band hit Australasian shores in November, celebrating the 40th anniversary of “Never Mind The Bollocks”.

Matlock will be conducting exclusive Q&A's and playing Pistols classics and choice cuts of his own.

Matlock departed the Pistols as they hit their peak, leaving the way open for Sid Vicious to join. His next band, the Rich Kids, put out an influential album of the late ‘70s, “Ghosts Of Princes In Towers”.

Europe might be getting a taste of a substantially reconfigured Radio Birdman this month but their former guitarist Chris Masuak isn’t standing still.

With a new album in the can (recorded with his band The Viveiro Wave Riders) the Spain-based Masuak is star attraction at a gig billed as “The Australian Rock Festival - The Legacy of Radio Birdman In Spain” on June 19.

Bar Flora Disco is the venue, in Masuak’s adopted home of Viveiro, and the gig will be shot for a forthcoming Birdman documentary by Australian filmmaker Jonathan Sequeira. Support will come from surf-punk outfit The Sonic Race.

Let me tell you, I'm excited. Expatriate Australian guitarist and singer-songwriter Michael Plater is making a welcome return to Adelaide since leaving to pursue twin careers in the UK in 2019. If I can see this guy live, I don't need to see Dark Mofo.

Now, I rate Michael Plater's songs and music so highly that I've seen him play in three states and if I were able to, I'd go see all his gigs while he's here. For the last three years he's been writing and recording like a demon, his new work eclipsing his brilliant, powerful debut, “Mythologies”..

So, Michael, you returned to the Mother Country. You didn't exactly head for the smoke and smother of London, I gather...

No, my partner, Fawnia, and I ended up living in Cornwall, way down west, right in pirate country. When we visited the Witchcraft Museum in Boscastle and, for someone like me, who’s drawn to folklore, occult history, and anything vaguely supernatural, Cornwall made perfect sense.

It’s a land of moors, standing stones, castles, and smugglers dens, with a healthy dose of mermaids, ghosts, and piskies. All the old girls in the shops call you either ‘my treasure’, ‘my lovely,’ or, even better, ‘my lover.’ The further west you go, the more impenetrable the accent gets. By the time you hit Penzance it’s like talking to some barnacled old sea dog from the 17thcentury.

It’s a place that is torn between tourism and poverty, like a lot of the U.K. Most of the beautiful old fishermen’s cottages are unfortunately second homes for ultra-rich Londoners who descend on the area en-masse in summer, which means that it’s getting harder and harder for locals to afford to live there. Or me, for that matter. But all these influences and atmospheres have definitely seeped into the music I’ve been writing and recording. I’ve also been working on a book and/or series of essays about the history of Cornish witchcraft, which I’m hoping to finish next year.

Michael is no stranger to writing books, either, with the EU Publishing website describing him thus:

Best known for her beautiful and classic mid-to-late ‘60s hits including “The First Cut Is The Deepest”, “(If You Think You’re) Groovy” and “Angel of the Morning”, as well as the power chorus of the Small Faces’ iconic hit “Tin Soldier”, PP Arnold is set to undertake her first ever concert tour of Australia.

And she’ll be backed by a super group of super fans in Tim Rogers, Rusty Hopkinson and Andy Kent of You Am I, Talei Wolfgramm and James Black.

The Los Angeles teenager, who became London’s First Lady of Soul after hitting town in 1966 with Ike & Tina Turner and coming to the attention of Mick Jagger, is still going strong. And she’s once again at the right place in the right time, as she has been so often in a career that’s lasted over 50 years.

PP’s tour down under follows the release last year of “The Turning Tide”, an album of unreleased recordings from the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, produced by both Barry Gibb and Eric Clapton. It cracked the UK Top 30 upon release, recently made the NZ iTunes Top 20, and has been the subject of many accolades and much airplay since its release.

Although this will be PP’s be first concert tour of these parts, she has previously performed here as a featured singer with Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters in 2002 and 2008. In recent times she has also recorded with Primal Scream, Oasis, Ocean Colour Scene and Paul Weller. She has a voice that other artists love to work with; her first duet was with Rod Stewart on a single produced by Mick Jagger, way back in ’67.

They call themselves “Australia’s foremost proponents of Post Adult Complaint Rock” and they’re touring their new album with an extensive run of national dates.

Sydney’s Front End Loader have been a constant on the Australian music scene since 1991 and “Neutral Evil” is their seventh album. It’s described by by the band as “terrible music by terrible people about terrible things” and if it’s half as entertaining as the blurb promoting their tour, it’ll be a winner:

Tickets for Dinosaur Jr’s looming return to Australia January go on sale today. They’re touring off the back of their new album “Give A Glimpse of What Yer Not”, their first since 2012 and their fourth since 2005’s unlikely reformation.

Four albums into their rebirth and Dinosaur Jr look to have no sign of slowing up. Album of the week slots on Double J, FBi, SER and glowing reviews across the planet stand testament to their staying power and the songs of J Mascis. Dates after the link:

The touring news just keeps coming. Atlanta’s Nashville Pussy is set to blaze a trail through Australia and New Zealand in May 2017.

Defying any fixed genre, Nashville Pussy are a cowpunk, hard rock and psychobilly monster smeared with whisky soaked sleaze. The band's lyrical themes mostly revolve around sex, drugs, drinking, fighting, and rock 'n' roll. 

Garage-punk pioneers and stand out performers at 2012’s inaugural Dig It Up! Invitational in Australia, The Sonics, return Down Under this September-October at the invite of Wollongong’s Yours & Owls Festival and for headline shows around the country.

The Sonics laid down the blueprint for garage-rock back in 1963 with the release of their first single The Witch. They followed that up with even up with even more grease and oil soaked nuggets in “Psycho”, “Boss Hoss”, “Cinderella”, “Strychnine”, “He’s Waitin’”, “Shot Down” and “Have Love Will Travel” before calling it quits in 1968. Reuniting briefly in 1972 and again in 1980, The Sonics then took permanent leave while the rest of the world caught up with them.

_{Leanne Cowie (nee Chock), Boris Sudjovic, Kim Salmon and Tony Thewlis. Collectively known as The Scientists.} 

Ever have an attack of the stupids?

No? Must be me then. 

See, The Barman asked me to do this interview with Kim Salmon to mark an Australian Scientists tour with the classic "experimental" line-up. A phoner. I wrote back saying, I couldn't, I'd be in Melbourne. 

No answer.

American Singer, poet, writer and actress, Lydia Lunch returns to Australia with her all-star cast of sonic brutarians in a no-holds-barred survey of her musical output from 1977 to the present.

Lunch will be including music from Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, 8 Eyed Spy, Queen of Siam, 1313 and Shotgun Wedding.

Lydia Lunch Retrovirus features members from Sonic Youth, Pussy Galore, Chrome Cranks, The Flying Luttenbachers, Child Abuse and more and marries No Wave, Skronk, Hard Rock and Psychedelic Out Jazz to create a dynamic live performance which is dangerous, infectious and aggressively sexy the way Rock music once was.

It might just be the ultimate baby boomer pop experience. The rumours are true. The Monkees are bringing their 50th anniversary tour to Australasia.

Assembled in Los Angeles in 1965 by Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider for the television series The Monkees, the quartet of Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith, Peter Tork, and the late Davy Jones brought a singular mix of pop, rock, psychedelica, Broadway, and country to their music.

The show itself paid tribute not only to The Beatles, but also to the comedy stylings of The Marx Brothers and Laurel and Hardy as well as the pop-art sensibilities of Warhol and the emerging San Francisco psychedelic scene.

The Monkees’ first single, “Last Train to Clarksville,” was released in August 1966, hitting #1 and serving as advance publicity for their series, which debuted on September 12. When the group’s self-titled debut album arrived in stores a month later, it quickly headed for the top spot of the Billboard charts, where it would ultimately sit for 13 of the 78 weeks it remained in the Top 200.

By the time the group’s TV series aired its final new episode on March 25, 1968, The Monkees had seen three further albums top the charts – “More of the Monkees”, “Headquarters”, and “Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones, Ltd.”, all released in 1967.

One of Australia’s few remaining dangerous rock and roll bands, Brisbane's wonderful HITS, is heading out on the road again in February…and it’s all in the name of Disaster Relief.

WTF? We’ll let the band explain in its own words:

“As many of you already know 2014 was a bittersweet year us little Hitsies, but behind the scenes things went quite a bit shit.

“Gregor broke his leg quite badly, Evil is currently sporting two broken ribs and ringworm, Tam almost had her finger amputated, Stace fell off her balcony and someone tried to cut Andy's rats tail off while he was asleep. But we aint dead yet!!!

“We are hitting the road again with some of our best friends and bringin' our bullshit with us to spread across your toast like Vegemite.”

Here’s the word on the dates they’ll play. More details about venues and supports as soon as they send ‘em:

FEB 26. NEWCASTLE with FRONT END LOADER
FEB 27. SYDNEY with FRONT END LOADER
FEB 28. WOLLONGONG with FRONT END LOADER
MAR 6. MELBOURNE with THE NEW CHRISTS
MAR 7. GOLDEN PLAINS FESTIVAL (SOLD OUT)
MAR 9. GEELONG with THE OBLIVIANS (USA), WARPED + More
MAR 13 BRISBANE WITH MICK MEDEW AND THE RUMOURS
MAR 20 ADELAIDE WITH THE MEATBEATERS
MAR 21 ADELAIDE WITH THE MEATBEATERS

_{The Runaways. That's Cherie on the left.}

It has taken some time but I have finally found my inner klutz. Fortunately, Cherie Currie is a wise and generous woman. So, if my tale lacks substance, the blame is on me.

On Saturday morning, lacking even the first sip of caffeine, I received an e-mail. Robert Brokenmouth couldn’t do the Cherrie Currie interview. Could I step into the breach? Grown up me was fine with this. I’ve done phone interviews before. I just ring the number and try to build a narrative that gets you, the reader, so excited that you’ll hand over your hard-earned dollars for tickets or discs or downloads or whatever. I know the job.

The trouble is, grown up me is suddenly no longer in charge. Fifteen-year-old me is essentially melting down and demanding attention. Fifteen-year-old me is terrified. Grown up me is trying to explain how things that terrify you can also be fun and exciting. Fifteen-year-old me remains unconvinced.

Hugh Cornwell & band
The Gov, Adelaide
Sunday May 5, 2019
Richard De Pizzol photos

It's a chilly sort of night and I really don't feel like going out at all.

However, I have made arrangements and shall honour them.

Bad Bob arrives, leans on his horn and I am dragged from my chamber to encounter my chum, all chirpy and smoky, in a dinky little white car and we zoom off, leaving dazed possums and alarmed cats behind us.

The I-94 Bar is definitely the place to see a reminder that '60s icon Arlo Guthrie a) still exists, and b) coming to Australia. Why? Who is Arlo Guthrie? Is he important? 

I think so, but then I was a slightly aware teenager (just) from the middle of the '70s, and I remember watching a late-night movie called "Alice's Restaurant" on TV. So hilarious, smart, fun, pithy that I realised that although a hell of a lot of hippies were total knobs, some had good points.  

He's played with Penny Ikinger and Deniz Tek. Now, after a sold-out solo tour in 2018, one of Japan's most exciting guitarists, Masami Kawaguchi, returns to Australia for a tri-state and regional tour with his band, New Rock Syndicate. 

New Rock Syndicate plays Sydney for the first time on Friday, July 5 at Marrickville Bowling Club, presented by Kasumen Records and the I-94 Bar.

The band will be performing material from the most recent New Rock Syndicate album "Now" ( as well as tracks from limited edition seven-inchers and the extensive NRS back catalogue. 

Supports in Sydney are The Holy Soul and Joeys Coop (featuring Died Pretty's Brett Myers).

Masami Kawaguchi presents New Rock Syndicate in Australia with a rhythm section made up of Dave Gray (Rocket Science and The Electric Guitars) and Don Drum (Paul Kidney Experience and Fraudband),

Masami has been a member of some of the greatest Japanese psych bands of the last two decades - Miminokoto (with Acid Mothers Temple Official), Los Doroncos (with Doronco of Les Rallizes Dénudés), Aihiyo (with Keiji Haino), LSD March/LSD Pond feat Bardo Pond. 

Most tickets are on sale here.
 
Ballarat – The Eastern - Friday June 28
Adelaide – Crown & Anchor – Saturday June 29
Warnambool – Dart & Martin - Sunday June 30
Canberra – Transit Bar - Thursday July 4
Sydney – Marrickville Bowlo - Friday July 5
Newcastle – Lass O’Gowrie - Saturday July 6
Port Kembla – the Servo - Sunday July 7
Melbourne – The Tote - Friday July 12
Castlemaine – The Taproom - Saturday July 13