dubrovniks

Ripley Hood stands in for Mick Blood in the Lime Spiders.       Steve Whelan photo

Ten bands. One bill. Despite being run (a.) in what is, these days, a notoriously taciturn live music town as Sydney and (b.) in direct competition with some obscure code of football’s grand final, it made sense.

Blood Bank was one of four benefit shows in as many cities to assist Lime Spiders vocalist Mick Blood, rendered unable to work after an altercation a few months ago in a pub in his newly adopted home town of Newcastle. Mick suffered a brain injury and is on the mend but it’s going to be slow progress on a long road.

_{James Baker and Joe Bludge: The Painkillers.} 

The name James Baker is synonomous with Australian garage rock. His musical exploits read like a who’s who of legendary Australian music – one third of legendary Perth proto-garage punk outfit The Victims, original drummer (and songwriter) with the garage pop incarnation of The Scientists, skinsman in the first (and best) line-up of Le Hoodoo Gurus, founding member of Australia’s best known rock supergroup, the Beasts of Bourbon and drummer with the sadly underappreciated Dubrovniks.

The Dubrovniks are playing a one-off Perth show before embarking on another European tour.

The band reformed for Australian and European shows this time last year and is off overseas again.Their only local appearance will be Thursday June 2 at the Rosemount Hotel, supported by The Volcanics. Tickets are on sale now from http://www.rosemounthotel.com.au/

After a 22 year hiatus, the Dubrovniks are temporarily back together and will be playing shows around the world, book-ended by gigs in Perth (June 6) and Melbourne (July 18).

“I’m Flipped Out Over You” is the theme for the Australian dates, the first leg of which is a show at Perth’s Rosemont Hotel with the original Scientists. It also happens to be the wedding reception for Dubrovniks and Scientists drummer James Baker and features the Television Addicts (two-thirds of the Victims, Spencer P Jones and  The Runaways (Spencer P Jones and Kim Salmon.)

The Melbourne version of “I’m Flipped Out Over You” becomes a two-stage garage punk extravaganza at the Corner Hotel with a gloriously loud bill that also includes the original line up of the Scientists (Kim Salmon, Baker, Boris Sudjovic and Rod Radalj), They’ll be joined by Rocket Science, Spencer P Jones & The Escape Committee, Hits, The Pink Tiles, The Electric Guitars and Girl Crazy.

Of the four albums by The Painkillers since 2006, this is the first to feature a full band. It also reprises five of its nine songs from earlier recordings. 

The Painkillers were formerly a duo - guitarist-singer Joe Bludge, a bluesman, and drummer James Baker, a man who surely needs no introduction. 

Coming from Perth (yeah, yeah, the most isolated capital city in the world) kept them a secret from the rest of Australia. I remember rushing across town one Saturday night, after an opening spot by Wrong Turn at The Empire (RIP), to catch a rare East Coast Painkillers show at Sydney’s Excelsior Hotel (RIP again), and finding the band barely outnumbered by punters. 

As far as dipping a toe back in the water, this EP is just short of complete immersion at the deep end for Peter Simpson. You can hear the Dubrovkniks guitarist-vocalist has put a lot of himself into these five songs and it mostly pays off.

It seems like a million years ago (it’s actually 37) since Simpson arrived in Sydney from Perth in a briefly successful but long-forgotten band called Teeny Weeny. He went on to play in the Dubrovniks (via The Spectre’s Revenge), experiencing fame if not fortune.

_{Boris Sujdovic, Tony Pola, Kim Salmon, Tex Perkins and Charlie Owen are The Beasts.}

The Beasts of Bourbon formed, somewhat by accident, in 1984. If you were 12 today, would you really be inclined to take the trouble to listen to something recorded by a bunch of blokes who started back then?

Well, the hell with your boring old 12-year-old self. The new album by the Beasts of Bourbon's direct descendants, The Beasts, is called "Still Here" and it rates seven (if not eight) bottles (out of five) in my books. It's really simple: "Still Here" is essential if, as you claim, you're a Beasts of Bourbon fan, or if you think of yourself as someone who loves rock'n'roll. 

Good Times Gone Bad – Peter Simpson (Verified Records)

It was in a review of ex-Dubrovniksmember Peter Simpson’s “Return of the Diletante” EP that we asked, ‘Where’s the full-length album?’, and “Good Times Gone Bad” is the answer. The good news is that it was worth the eight-year wait.

“Good Times Gone Bad” winds the sonic clock back to Australian underground rock’s halcyon days of the 1980s, when guitars were blaring out of pubs on every second inner-city corner and even permeating mainstream radio. A more simple time with simpler songs, and of course, most good times inevitably do go bad.

At times, “Good Times Gone Bad” sounds like The Dubrovniks with less of thefr latter-day gloss. Inevitable, really, with Simpson front and centre and old bandmates Chris Flynn and Boris Sudjovic along for the ride on backing vocals. That said, it’s a Peter Simpson record. He wrote all nine songs, plays guitars and sings.