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By The Barman

The Barman

20 September 2026

Hits: 771

• ghost highway
• jim diamond
• the volcanics
• too late to run

Too Late To Run – The Volcanics (Ghost Highway)

Perth band The Volcanics are Australia’s Best Kept Real Rock and Roll Secret. This is their seventh album in 19 years, but if they walked down a city street on the country’s east coast they wouldn’t get arrested (although in Sydney, they’d run the risk of a local council fine for treading noisily without a permit.)

Seven albums. Most bands are lucky if they make one long player, let alone the difficult sophomore effort. Three of The Volcanics’ records were produced by Rob Younger. So was one by Civic and they got to tour with the Sex Pistols.. Yeah, but they don’t come from Perth. 

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By Robert Brokenmouth

Robert Brokenmouth

19 September 2026

Hits: 514

• sacred cowboys
• garry gray
• suburban urchins
• urban fringe compound
• ernie o
• The Institutionalist
• ed garland

All The Bridges Burned - The Institutionalist (Self-released)

The media photos of Australian underground multi-instrumentalist and producer The Institutionalist (aka Ernie O) resemble a bloke auditioning for the next season of "Underbelly". Either that or he's lining up a few of the lads to tidy you away.

His biography reveals an extraordinarily busy bloke:

His audio production skills – recording, mixing, mastering, remixing, songwriting and playing – have been heard on close to a thousand releases in the Australian scene since the early 1990’s, from punk, metal, pop, indie rock and folk metal to downbeat, electronica and dance, on labels such as Grown Up Wrong!, Off The Hip, Popboomerang, I-94 Bar Records, Savage Beat, Vicious Kitten and Sound As Ever.

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By The Barman

The Barman

19 September 2026

Hits: 385

• lazy cowgirls
• hound gawd records
• pat todd and the rankoutsiders
• i'll dream alone

I’ll Dream Alone – Pat Todd & The Rankoutsiders (Hound Gawd!)

A poster for the band’s current European tour bills Rankoutsiders frontman Pat Todd as “the most sincere man in rock and roll” and who are any of us to argue? He’s an unfailingly nice guy in person, too. The ninth album from the Los Angeles outfit fronted by the ex-Lazy Cowgirls singer finds him and his bandmates in compelling form as they deliver a dozen superbly crafted songs about life’s twists and turns.

Honesty is a much-used descriptor in music that’s hard to pin down. On the surface, it infers an absence of trickery. At its core, it means the ability to be relatable, connecting directly because a band is speaking the same language as its audience. Many try and most fail but Pat Todd & The Rankoutsiders do this consummately.

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By Ronald Brown

Ronald Brown

25 August 2026

Hits: 642

• frank meyer
• streetwalkin' cheetahs
• city kids
• jj watt
• dirt and Dust
• anti-fashion

Dirt and Dust - Anti-Fashion (Very Fried Artists/Noize In The Attic Records) 
Hello, I-94 Barflies. It’s been a while between drinks, but have I got one helluva album to tell yah all about.

"Dirt & Dust" is the second album by Anti-Fashion, the project established by UK rocker JJ Watt and Los Angeles-based punk journeyman Frank Meyer. The news is that it rocks.

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By The Barman

The Barman

09 August 2026

Hits: 1168

• suicide
• the fall
• molly fet circuit

The Molly Fet Circuit Live am Brutto Kaiserbeller, Koln, Mai 2026 – The Molly Fet Circuit (Tripe House)

Call it a wild theory, but the deinstitutionalisation of mental health care in Australia that transitioned psychiatric care out of large, isolated asylums and into community-based settings has been a shot-in-the-arm for live music in many places. Adelaide’s Molly Fet Circuit is a prime example.

This is not an official release. It’s a bootleg. So the band is at pains to state. Well, one of the members, Robert Brokenmouth. He’s the vocalist (term used loosely) so you’d expect him to say stuff.  He says he’s very annoyed. He writes for us so you better believe him. 

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By The Barman

The Barman

26 July 2026

Hits: 1277

• 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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