Nothing Grows in Texas? Not so for Melbourne.

After selling out Thornbury venue Shotkickers three days before their comeback gig date, Sacred Cowboys have announced a second and final Melbourne show for this year.

It's on the back of the two CD anthology "Cowboy Logic" but we have wind of fresh recordings being in the works. 

They’ll play St Kilda Bowls Club on Fitzroy Street, St Kilda, on November 22. Tickets just $20+bf via Trybooking here. Don't snooze or you'll lose. 

_{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.

Psych-punk psychic warrior, ear worm-farmer, and possessor of many stamped passport pages, John Dwyer and his band Osees (aka Oh Sees, Thee Oh Sees, OCS, The Oh Sees, etc) return to Australia next March following a blistering sold-out national tour in 2023.

Already announced as a feature act at the 2025 Golden Plains Festival, Osees will also headline Brisbane, Sydney, Adelaide, Fremantle and Melbourne.

Edwin Garland's review of the 2023 Sydney show is here and the late Patrick Emery's Melbourne recap is here.

The 2025 visit comes off the back of the release of their 28th album “Sorcs 80”, an album that is unique to the band’s catalogue because it is guitar-less.

Melbourne's internationally acclaimed power poppers Lava Fangs have finally announced a launch for their new album, "Sub Auroram", which was recorded with Paul Maybury of Rocket Science and The Pink Tiles.

The launch at Mama Chen's in Footscray, Melboutne, at 2:30PM on Saturday November 2  will be a rare live outing for the band, and follows their rapturously received set last month at the Gem in Collingwood as guests of power pop all-star combo Benny J & the Psych Ward. That band features Benny J Ward (Rinehearts), Davey Lane (You Am I/Pictures/Todd Rundgren), Link Meanie (Meanies) and Matt Cotter (Even) so they keep good company.

_{Ian "Ollie" Olsen.}

Australian underground music has lost two important figures in Melbourne’s Ian “Ollie” Olsen and Andrew Picouleau.

Picouleau was best-known as a member of Dave Graney and the Coral Snakes, The Metronomes and Sacred Cowboys, while Olsen was in Whirlywirld, Orchestra of Skin and Bone, Noand Max Q, the short-lived but high-profile collaboration with Michael Hutchence.Both passed last week after protracted health issues. 

Multi-instrumentalist Olsen was a key driver of the Australian post-punk electronic movement of the late 1970s whose punk lineage went back to The Young Charlatans (home to Rowland S Howard) and The Reals. Her was musical director for “Dogs in Space”, Richard Lowenstein’s gritty 1986 depiction of Melbourne’s underground music scene, and went on to make a mark internationally in electronic music and soundtracks.

 
SLUG has been making a name for itself in the sub-tropical climes of the northern New South Wales city of Lismore for many years. Fronted by ex-No Man’s Land singer Dave Slade, SLUG’s heady mix of big riffs and powerful rhythms has made it the local must-see band. Despite being battered by floods in recent years, Lismore itself has become a magnet for tree-changing Sydney rock and roll types.

SLUG released a video this week, shot by Peter Frare, and it’s a cover of The Gun Club’s “House On Highland Avenue”. WSe reckon it captures the dramatic homicidal foreboding of the original.