Power trio delivers more than a sugar hit on their debut album

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By Edwin Garland

Edwin Garland

28 July 2025

Hits: 936

The Sugar Beats – The Sugar Beats (Vinil Records)

It was a Saturday afternoon earlier this year when I stumbled on a Sugar Beats set. I was filming a documentary at MoshPit Bar in Sydney.  There were whispers on the grapevine that the band was awesome.  So, we raced down with a cameraman and a buddy in tow, in the hope that the band would deliver.

The word on the street was correct. Live, The Sugar Beats were overwhelmingly tight, blistering, gutsy and hooky, a  three-piece playing high-powered punk rock.

• nitrocris
• the strike-outs
• the sugar beats
• adam vines
• morgana ancone
• vinil records

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Sydney music community pitches in for Dan Dunhill

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By The Barman

The Barman

28 July 2025

Hits: 598

Sydney musician Dan “Dunhill” Batchelor has hit hard medical times and bandmates have opened a GoFundMe campaign.

A co-founder of The Dunhill Blues, the band described as “Sydney's best B-grade garage-punk rock party outfit” (plus a few others), Dan recently kicked both cancer and an auto-immune disease to make a full return to work, gigs and family life.

Last month, he was hit by meningitis on a trip to Greece for partner Ves's significant birthday. He was treated in an Athens hospital and deemed fit to fly home.

“After receiving further treatment back home, Dan was well enough to return to his job... until The Big Setback,” explains bandmate Adam Dunhill.

“Last week, Dan was at work when he noticed his vision was blurred. He called Ves to pick him up, which she did... and took him straight to hospital for emergency treatment.

“Turns out, a rare complication of meningitis is blindness due to brain or optic nerve damage. The medicos reckon Dan was three hours away from total blindness, so it's very lucky Ves called it the way she did.

“Dan now has permanent damage in one eye, and is still in hospital being treated to prevent total vision impairment. It's heavy. And yeah... while this gives Dan time to work on his new blues guitarist name (and rest and recover, of course), the reality is this: the latest medical episode has emptied Dan and Ves's emergency fund.”

You’ll find the GoFundMe launched by The Dunhill Blues. Link and Pin Café and record label Outtaspace Presents here.

• gofundme
• the dunhill blues
• dan dunhill

Tick Tick Boom! Swedish royalty puts the rock back into midweek Sydney

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By The Barman

The Barman

24 July 2025

Hits: 947

The Hives
+ Clamm
Enmore Theatre, Sydney
Wednesday, 23 July 2025

In these austere times, a full Enmore Theatre midweek sounds as unlikely as an affordable round of drinks in a Justin Hemmes-owned pub, but there you go: If the joint is full to the gills by 8pm on a Wednesday, it must be a Hives show.

Dunno about you but I’ve been following The Hives since they formed in Sweden in that eruption of Scandi Rock at the start of the ‘90s. The six albums are all top-shelf fun but the live experience had somehow evaded me. So, it’s off to the Enmore on a school night that I must go.

The urgings from people like The Celebrity Roadie not to miss this were still echoing in my tinnitus-scarred ears as I sipped my first beer. The Barmaid had even feigned interest by asking if the band would sing in English (not that she was going) but, really? It’s a self-evident truth that The Hives speak fluent Rock and Roll. Their dialect is universal.

• enmore theatre
• australian tour
• clamm
• 2025
• the hives

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A night with a legend and an emergent star

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By Ed Garland

Ed Garland

20 July 2025

Hits: 2141

John Cale
Xani
The Recital Hall, Sydney
July 10 2025

Do you remember that annoying kid in Year Nine at school? The one who used to badger you with his arrogance and who raved about obscure songs and artists to prove he was superior? He would rattle off their names like a machine gun, firing off the titles of B sides of obnoxious Rush singles and dropping the name of some obscure European prog band that had elves on the cover of their debut album. 

You, on the other hand, had discovered “Rock ‘n’ Roll Animal” by Lou Reed and had proudly made the connection that it had Dick Wagner on guitar who was now playing with Alice Cooper. And the ever-annoying wanker classmate would declare that the Reed record that I had just bought at Ashwood's was "shit" because it was “commercial” before name-dropping someone called John Cale.

• sydney
• john cale
• xani
• the recital hall

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Girl Monstar are back with a new album

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By The Barman

The Barman

18 July 2025

Hits: 1089

Trailblazing Melbourne garage-pop/hard rock band Girl Monstar are back with their first new music since 1992. 

The first all-female band to gain a national profile in Australia in the late '80s and early ‘90s. Girl Monstar played more than 200 shows and shared stages with Iggy Pop, the Ramones, Sonic Youth, the Hard-ons, GOD, the Hoodoo Gurus, The Divinyls, Poison and Skid Row.

You can hear and buy the new single “Blue Cat With Green Eyes" on Bandcamp and it will be followed by a new album, on Vicious Kitten Records, in October.

“Blue Cat With Green Eyes” is the impetus for the reunion and was written by singer-guitarist Sherry Rich as part of a Philosophy Unit while studying a Creative Arts Industries degree in 2017.

• vicious kitten
• Blue Cat With Green Eyes
• girl monstar

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Thirty years later, the sound is still Soft 'n' Sexy

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By The Barman

The Barman

18 July 2025

Hits: 951

Flashback to 1995: Dave Graney was crowned ARIA Best Male Artist and ”The Soft ‘n’ Sexy Sound” was certified gold (when it meant something) in the Australian charts.  As someone once said: “Those were different times”.

Flash forward to 2025 and Dave Graney and The Coral Snakes are undertaking an Australian tour in October and November, playing “The Soft ‘n’ Sexy Sound” from go to whoa.

In the words of Mr Graney: “Looking forward to getting back into this Shelby GT500 of an album for a celebratory tour.

• dave graney
• australian tour
• the coral snakes
• the soft 'n' sexy sound

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She's apples: Pop is at the core of Dom Mariani's new single

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By The Barman

The Barman

17 July 2025

Hits: 763

Australian pop and garage maestro Dom Mariani (The Stems DM3, Datura4, The Someloves) is previewing his new solo album with a killer single.

Picking up where the sun-drenched strumming of the acclaimed first single "Jangleland" left off, “Apple of Life” highlights Mariani’s knack for melody and the power-pop sensibilities that have defined his previous work.

"Apple of Life" is also the title of the album, due soon on US label Alive Naturalsound. Do we dare say the apple never falls far from the tree? Both singles are out now on digital and streaming platforms. 

• dm3
• dom mariani
• the stems
• jangleland
• apple of life

It's a Tour de Force: Lipstick KIllers 1979 show re-released on vinyl

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By The Barman

The Barman

17 July 2025

Hits: 1774

The first vinyl LP release of a wild 1979 show by Aussie icons Lipstick Killers is almost here - but it won’t last long.

“Tour De Force”, which was recorded for Adelaide radio station 5UV, captures the band as they were still emerging from the cocoon that was the Psycho Surgeons. The “Nuggets” influences are there, but its the Stooges hangover that dominates proceedings.

Definitive readings of both sides of the Psycho Surgeons' classic 45 "Wild Weekend" b/w "Horizontal Action" are included, alongside early Killers killers like "Teen Police" and "Sockman" and later faves like "Hindu Gods of Love', "Shakedown USA" and "Dying Boy's Crawl".

• lipstick killers
• grown up wrong
• 1979
• tour de force

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Prepare for turbulence: East Coast Low's "Badlanding" is on the way

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By The Barman

The Barman

13 July 2025

Hits: 1475

“Badlanding”, the Rob Younger-produced album for seriously powerful Newcastle band East Coast Low, is poised to touch down on August 4.

It’s the third long-player for the band and was recorded with the assistance of a rolled gold brass section, comprising Rudi Thomson on sax (Xray Spex, The Members, Lords of the New Church, The Jam), Rob Parkes (Mucho Sonar) on trombone and Peter Kelly (New Christs, Vanilla Chainsaws) on trumpet.

The 10-track LP was recorded at Rock the Nation Studios in Newcastle by guitarist Geoff Mullard and mastered by Rick O'Neill at Turtlerock Mastering. It will be available on vinyl, as a download or via streaming services.

Launch shows are listed below. Pre-orders are open here.

East Coast Low
Badlanding Launches
AUG
17 – Royal Oak, Tighes Hill, NSW
23 – In-store @ Hiss and Crackle, Wallsend, NSW
(2pm, free)
23 - Link & Pin, Woy Woy, NSW
+ The Strike-Outs + The Dark Clouds
24 – MoshPit, St Peters, NSW
+ The Dark Clouds + The Strike-Outs

• rob younger
• crankinhaus records
• east coast low
• badlanding