radio birdman

BORED! THIS WAS GEELONG (Loco Mosquito)

Sometimes there are insufficient words of adequare to do justice to something and this is one of those times. Let’s be clear: If you’re a fan of underground Australian rock and roll from the 1980s and ‘90s, make it your life’s immediate priority to get a hold of this book.

It’s not an exaggeration to say it’s a watershed in Australian music publishing. All 678 pages of it. Don’t be deterred by its singling out of Geelong as its geographical focus. The city on the western flank of Melbourne is its anchor - but its coverage and spirit extends far past its boundaries.

“Bored!” is many things but first and foremost it’s an outpouring of love for rock and roll by its creator, principal author and driving force Maree Robertson.

Maree – “Rock and Roll Maree” from the Brother Brick song – was a dear friend of the late Dave Thomas of key Geelong band Bored! Besides documenting the band’s rise and its creation of a scene from their mutual hometown of Geelong, Maree wanted to generate profits from book sales to help Dave’s family.

The production veers towards the threadbare in parts but there's a lug-headed charm about this CD from a blokey band from Perth. "Lager Than Life" is the debut release for Squeeze The Pig. 

At eight tracks long it's too short to be an album and too long to be an EP. Let's stick with the tried and tested label "Mini Album" for the time being.

As if you hadn't guessed from the cover art, "Lager Than Life" is all about fast cars, motorcyles, beer, smokes and rock and roll. It's meat and potatoes and doesn't try to be anything that it isn't.

Making an instrumental album is a brave step for someone best known for doom-laden tunes about living eyes, muscle cars and human reinvention under piles of ice and snow, but Deniz Tek's departure from the well-worn path really works.

From the scuzzy serrated intro of "Eddie Would Go" with its air of "Human Fly" Cramps crossing swords with Davie Allan to the clean and lean retake on Radio Birdman's "Zeno Beach", "Lost For Words" makes a voice-less statement about simpler times.

Back in the '60s, a pre-teen Tek cut his musical teeth on these sorts of songs. Surf music (and its variants) was a radio staple around the world. Tek told Perfect Sound Forever in 2001:

"The first rock and roll song I learned to play on the guitar in entirety was 'Walk Don’t Run.' I was 12-years-old. And their version of the Hawaii Five-0 theme was a great inspiration to me in the summer of 1969, the year I started driving fast cars. When it came on the radio, the ‘68 Charger went much faster!"

U – The Undermines (self released)

Bands that echo, without imitating, the sound of Radio Birdman and its precursors are always welcome around these parts. Canberra’s Underminesmade an impression with their “Tenzeroeight” album a few years ago and do so again with “U”.

“U” is a five-track CD EP recorded at Infidel Studios in Queanbeyan and positively drips guitars. Understandable, given the band’s lineage, which is drawn from local legends Hell Yes (home to future The Eastern Darkbassist Bill Gibson), Newcastle’s renowned high energy machine The Fools, and local contemporary British Invasion and garage enthusiasts, Il Bruto.

Revelation – Los Revelators (Los Revelators)

Kamloops? Sounds like what a car mechanic has for breakfast, right?

Nope. It is, in fact, a place. In Canadaaaa!

Placenamesa? Australia has a few beauties: Grong Grong, Iron Knob, Woy Woy, Sydney. 

But, I mean, Canada, right? They really know how to give a town a name, don't they?

It’s hard to imagine Deniz Tek fans being disappointed by his latest release. Radio Birdman fans, maybe not so much.

While Deniz’s last album, “Detroit”, was a brooding, introspective and dark reflection on urban and personal relationship decay, “Mean Old Twister” paints with a broader aural palette. Sax, harmonica and keys are woven into the sound at strategic points, to enhance Tek’s trademark guitar and guitar player’s vocal.

Catch Monday Evening Gunk on the MoshPit Faccebook at 7.30pm every Monday or catch up here every Tuesday. Next up on Gunk: Chris Masuak of Radio Birdman, the Scraming Tribesmen, the Hitmen and the New Christs who will be interviewed by Bob Short (Filth) and Tiffany Palmer (Sydney Rock and Roll Markets) and play a set with his band, The Viveiro Wave Riders. 

^{Ron Keeley has his say in "Descent Into The Maelstrom"}

We've labelled it the "best rockumentary ever" and you can judge for yourself as Jonathan Sequeira's Radio Birdman film "Descent Into The Maelstrom" makes it way into even more Austrralian cinemas. Check with local cinemas for times. 

There are no overseas screening or release plans finalised yet. Australian dates after the fold:

Pre-orders are open for "Brujita", the album for Chris Masuak and The Viveiro Wave Riders on our own I-94 Bar Records. It's CD and download only at this stage. Get in now and receive an early download of one track, "Birdbrain" (that's the tune you can hear via the button below).

Physical copies should be with us by early next week. It's a return to Chris' rock-pop roots with a good handful of anthems and (not unexpectedly) we reckon it's killer.  

The new album from Chris Masuak and the Viveiro Wave Riders is out in early August on I-94 Bar Records and we’ve opened pre-orders. The lead-off track "1776" is embedded above. Place an order here.

“Address to the Nation” is full of trademark Masuak melodies and power with harmonies, a wide-ranging record where powerpop gems rub shoulders with bristling, muscular rock and roll, and punk. It’s in a similar vein to its predecessor, “Brujita”, but a touch harder-edged and more pointed, with lyrical insights about life, love and the sorry state of geopolitics, all powered by Klondike's ace Spanish band There’s also a healthy dose of satire, lurking deep in its grooves.

If you pre-order, your copy of the CD will be sent the day the album arrives back from the pressing plant. You’ll also receive a full digital copy, with bonuses, shortly before. If you're in the market for vinyl, we'll keep yuou posted. 

 _{Emmy Etie photo.}

The New Christs are playing their last gigs for some time, with Rob Younger going back on active duty with Radio Birdman, and they’re going out with a flurry that includes two interstate gigs.

Friday, July 6 finds them fronting up for two sets at Beaches Hotel at Thirroul in New South Wales for free. On Saturday, July 7 they’ll return to the scene of their Marrickville Bowling Club triumph with James McCann and the New Vindictives almost a year ago with precisely the same bill.

On Saturday, July 14 they’ll play a rare Melbourne show at the Cherry Bar, again with James McCann and the New Vindictives plus Penny Ikinger. And Saturday, July 21 finds them headlining the Fly By Night Musos Club in Fremantle, Western Australia, with The Volcanics and The Shakeys supporting. This will be the New Christs' first-ever WA show.

Radio Birdman boss Deniz Tek's latest solo album, "Mean Old Twister", will be released by Citadel Records on September 30.

Stand-out tracks are said to include the straight-ahead, high-powered guitar rockers "Burned Black" and "Prison Mouse", "Comanche", a shimmering surf instrumental, the Stonesy ballad "Table For One" and "Free At Last", an all-acoustic diversion from the electric guitar attack.

"Mean Old Twister" was recorded with the same band which appeared on the last Tek album "Detroit". Drummer Ric Parnell is best known for his work in Spinal Tap and Atomic Rooster. Bassist Bob Brown has been working with Deniz since the 1992 Australian tour supporting Deniz's first solo album "Take It To The Vertical".

Lending a keen ear to the process, Radio Birdman bandmate and famed producer Rob Younger stepped in to supervise the mix.

Phantom Records founder and Radio Birdman roadie/manager Jules RB Normngton chats to old friends Julie Mostyn Gilbert of Flaming Hands and Warwick Gilbert, bassist and graphic artists for Radio Birdman, on on our "Monday Evening Gunk" Internet TV show at 7.30pm Sydney time on Monday, October 26. You'll "Break Down and Cry" if you miss it! You can stream if free from the MoshPit bar Facebook page or catch up here on the day after. If you're in Sydney, admission is free but numbers are limited, and doors open at 6pm.

Retaliate First: How one band smashed the rules of Australian rock and roll
By Murray Engleheart
(Allen and Unwin)

What becomes a legend most
When the musicians have come and then leave her
What becomes a legend most
Besides being a legendary star
What Becomes A Legend Most” - Lou Reed (1984)

It’s finally here and it’s great. For the first time, the Radio Birdman story has been thoroughly told from start to dotage (if not the end) in print, and with a sense of perspective that puts contestable versions of the story in plain view.

For the first time?  What about Vivien Johnston’s 1990 “Radio Birdman”? For many years it was the best (only) reference point. As invaluable as it was, it was ultimately a biography shoehorned into a university thesis, and the tenuous link it tried to make between the band and Australian indigenous culture was odd. 

And there's “Radio Birdman: The Illustrated History” from George Munoz,  an amazing visual record of the first life of the band but doesn’t try to be commentary. 

Murray Engleheart’s“Retaliate First” is an effort to re-tell the story as it should be told and it’s an invaluable companion to Jonathan Sequeira’s brutally honest “Descent Into The Maelstrom” documentary.

_{Pete Bourke, Phil Van Rooyen and Pete Trifunovic from Sonic Garage.}

Sonic Garage
Pocketwatch
Bayley and the Liquid Squid
Marrickville Bowling Club, NSW
Friday, 11 March 2022

You can say “Boring Old Fart” but it’s good to stare rheumy-eyed into the middle distance, drool into a beer and recall much less complicated times in hushed tones. Times like the early 1980s, when the biggest challenge on a Friday night was to decide which two or three rock and roll shows you were going to attend, all of them within a short distance of each other.  

If they were local bands, the door charge was free or modest, and if the headliner was on the national touring treadmill, entry might set you back a ten spot. At least one of the supports was a band you’d never heard of, but paying your money and taking your chances was all part of the ritual. You got to conduct a post-mortem as soon as their set was over or over a hair of the dog at your local the next day. 

Most serious musicians would have an aneurysm if someone wanted to release recordings from their callow youth. They’ll tell you they’ve been hidden in a sock drawer for 40 years for good reason, and that demo recordings are just that. 

Of course, people with OCD, completists and the truly curious and/or obsessed - and any or all of these descriptors could apply to most of us - vehemently disagree. This release from the amazing Buttercup Records label in Melbourne satisfies our shared jones. 

The long-awaited Radio Birdman biography from Australian writer Murray Engleheart is on the launch pad, ready for release.

“Radio Birdman: Retaliate First” is drawn from more than 150 interviews with band members, their closest associates, devotees and observers and will be published on July 2.

You can pre-order here.

A 448-page opus in paperback format being published by Allen & Unwin, it threatens to be the last word in text-rich Birdman books.

(The title of Best Visual History already belongs to the George Munoz-authored "Radio Birdman: When The Birdmen Flew".)

In the words of the publisher’s blurb: “Sydney's legendary Radio Birdman were a stake through the satin and scarfed hearts of the mid seventies' music scene, revolutionising the conservative Australian industry in the process.

“Regarded as one of the earliest punk bands, before the world had heard of the Sex Pistols, Birdman were feared and loathed by many, yet adored by fiercely loyal fans. But their story has never been told in depth—until now.

Faith and Practice in Bedlam
By Chris Masuak
(High Voltage)

The rock and roll biography, usually ghost written within an inch of near life, seldom rises above the squalor of tabloids in terms of literary merit. A chronological narrative structure occasionally framed as a flashback is as good as it gets.

Think of sports biographies with guitars.

Unsurprisingly, reviews of Chris Masuak's new book have been thin on the ground. Firstly, because the book will probably upset his old band mates and their wrath has become legendary.

Secondly, I suspect, because - like its author - this book is quite the odd duck.

When confronted by the unusual, most pundits wait for someone else's opinion before voicing their own. Especially when they don't want to miss out on the chance of potential support slots.