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By The Barman

The Barman

26 July 2026

Hits: 692

• psychosurgeons
• filth
• lipstick killers
• mark taylor
• peter tillman
• the shining star

The Lipstick Killers Present The Shining Stone: A Rock Opera By Mark Taylor and Peter Tillman – Mark Taylor and Peter Tillman (Appointment/Pink Flamingo)

The label on the packet does not lie. It says “Rock Opera” - so you can’t say you haven’t been warned.

If you have to ask who Mark Taylor and Peter Tillman are, you’re in the wrong place. Their old band, the Lipstick Killers, was a force of nature in a febrile Sydney underground music scene at the turn of the ‘70s. Arising from the ashes of Filth (Tillman) and Psychosurgeons (Taylor), they wedded sharp humour to high energy music, running aground amid an ill-fated re-location to Los Angeles.  

All-too-brief returns down the years did not nothing to erode their reputation as torchbearers for glam punk rock folded back into its ‘60s roots and sprinkled with bathos, pathos and a little glitter. The principal members’ materialisation in Sydney with Dr Stone in the early ‘90s just put a psychedelic acid punk cherry on top.

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By Robert Brokenmouth

Robert Brokenmouth

20 July 2026

Hits: 763

• michael plater
• The Taps of the Holy Trinity
• Arthur Karanikas
• Customs & Rituals Of.

Customs & Rituals Of... - The Taps of the Holy Trinity (Fenny Compton)

To me, the world is full of folks who think the letter of the law is more important than why the law was conceived, and why the letter of the law can and should be turfed if it's obvious, the reason for the law is being distorted. Same goes for guitar nerds and also those people who seem to think that dexterity and cleverness makes a great song. It fucking doesn't. Nor do all those sound alike bands on streaming networks. 

Just because I love The New York Dolls no, it does not mean I love Aerosmith. Or the local pub equivalent. Because I love a particular band does not mean I will love the cover version.

I recently paid for, and saw, 17 minutes of Lydia Lunch's Suicide tribute - and left because I really wasn't enjoying it. In fact, I found the whole thing trite, lite, and boring. The actual band, at any point in its lopsided trajectory, wasvsimply a force of nature but this was like watching The Wiggles do a Suicide matinee (and, to be completely honest, as I was walking out I realised I probably would have enjoyed a Wiggles concert).

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By Robert Brokenmouth

Robert Brokenmouth

08 July 2026

Hits: 1169

• punk rock
• vicious circle
• to the bone
• copulaters

To The Bone – Copulaters (self released)

If you gave it any thought at all, you might guess that I love music. For me, it's somewhere between everyday blessing and salvation, this vast, extraordinary tapestry which occurs all around us and will never end (whether we humans are here to appreciate it or not).

The flipside of this are supermarkets, shops and eateries, all of whom seem to think that what we really want is to be bludgeoned with their usually-shitty taste in music. 

“Oh, pooh” is often the response to my helpless wail. “What's your taste in music like?” Which ain't the point: if I was running a business which depended on foot-traffic I wouldn't be shovelling my musical taste at them, and certainly not at a volume which forces people to have their brain bludgeoned.

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By The Barman

The Barman

04 July 2026

Hits: 736

• died pretty
• joeys coop
• brett myers
• mark roxburgh
• decline of the reptiles
• lloyd gyi
• marc lynch
• sawdust memories

Sawdust Memories – Joeys Coop (self released)

Comes a time when bands of a certain vintage struggle to pull big numbers of people regardless of their pedigree. Sydney-via-the-Far-North-Coast quartet Joeys Coop are a prime example when they dive back into the patchy live music circuit. 

You’d think a musical unit comprising guitarist Brett Myers (The End, Died Pretty), Mark Roxburgh (ME-262, The Decline of The Reptiles) on vocals, bassist Mark Lynch (Glide) and Lloyd Gyi (more bands and sessions than you can poke a drum stick at) would pack punters in like canned pilchards, but the demographic has shifted. Distractions and complications abound today and, yes, those were different times.

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By The Barman

The Barman

28 June 2026

Hits: 1066

• evil tone records
• the strike-outs
• double negative

Double Negative – The Strike Outs (Evil Tone Records/Farmer and The Owl)

If you’ve seen Sydney duo The Strike-Outs in the flesh, you’ll know they do not fuck around. The way they open their second album, “Double Negative”, is proof positive.

“Johnny” is a Chuck Berry-inspired instrumental (one of two on the album) that steamrollers out of the speakers, driven by Adam Vines’ industrial-strength backbeat and brother Simon’s squawling, Thunders-without-the-slop, guitar attack.

It goes for the throat and does not let up – and that’s the story of the album in a nutshell. The band sneers and soars through another 10 songs (including a killer cover of “Motherfucking Motherfucker” by Bored!) that launch, one after each other, like Exocet missiles.

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By Robert Brokenmouth

Robert Brokenmouth

01 June 2026

Hits: 1612

• harry howard
• david mcclymont
• blistersticks

Blistersticks - Harry Howard and David McClymont (self released)

It’s an odd thing, creativity. You might recognise David McClymont’s name as the bass guitarist in Orange Juice, who had several bright, accessible pop hits in the late 1970s, initially with the Scottish label Postcard. Orange Juice played frequently with friends like Josef K and The Go-Betweens. The Scottish expats found common ground with the then-plentiful Australian ex-pats such as The Moodists and The Birthday Party. 

Orange Juice weren’t an easy fit with the skinheads of the day; theyd walk onstage to cries of “poofs” from the skins. Their retort? “Hare Krishna!”

Coming within a whisker of serious UK pop stardom (including two appearances on “Top of The Pops”,  David left in late 1983, and the recordings for his own outfit, the brilliantly-named Ape the Scientific, which recorded for Polydor. 

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