Monks in Sexyland – The Owen Guns (Booker/Bastard Records)
Is it an EP, a mini-album or a long player from a bunch of minimalists? “Monks in Sexyland” clocks in at just eight songs over 13 minutes but who cares what tag you give it. It’s a burst of good old school punk rock Fun with a capital ‘F’.
If you’re wondering about the title, speculate no more. The I-94 Bar does the hard re3search so you don’t have to. An Australian monk by the name of Venerable Chhet went to court two years ago in a bid to stop A Current Affair airing a TV story about the alleged use of a church credit card at a chain of sex stores.
Whether the story had a happy ending (oh dear) is beyond our research powers but fuck me, doesn’t it make for a great album title and cover art? Props to Richard Higgins (The Dark Clouds) for the latter.
But back to Punk Rock Land and The Owen Guns are Wollongong-based professional agitators from the left of the political spectrum with axes to grind about lots of things. Unlike some of their peers, they do their grinding with big, fat smiles on their faces.
The title track is a pounding punk opener, a ball of faders-in-the-red distortion brightened by a theremin approximating the howl of a police siren. The faux "Romper Stomper" skinhead accent adopted by vocalist Sean The Bastard in “Unity” is probably intentional, it doesn’t detract from lyrics about “braindead thugs” and “racists bigots”.
The thrashy “Trans Rights Are Human Rights” is similarly pitched. “Stop Making Deadshits Famous” is a high-octane attack on the vacuous that most of should relate to:
I don’t wanna know what Elon’s tweeting
Or who was on some rich blokes yacht
i don’t care what Brad Pitt’s reading
Or the smell of Gwyneth Paltrow’s box
I’m not interested in Rebel Wilson’s diet
And how much weight that she has lost
Don’t give shit about Madonna’s kid|
Or the size of Tommy Lee’s cock
“The Algorithm” (a shot at the Internet) and “Naughty Instead” play the time-honored game of introductions that lull you into a false sense of respite before exploding into more aural fireworks. If you didn’t know by now, these guys can play. But the song that takes the cake (literally) for mine is “F.C.P.”:
Hands up who wants some pie
You call.me fat
Let me tell you son
It's cos I eat some cake
Every time I fuck your mum
Winner, winner, chicken pie dinner. Every cut is chockful of energy or anger. Usually both.
You can buy the CD or the download version but the vinyl is gone for now. Do the business here and if you’re procuring physical product, ask for it to be shipped discretely in a plain, brown paper envelope. And put it on Venerable Chhet’s card.
