RICH KIDS - Leadfinger (Bang! Records)
If Stewart "Leadfinger" Cunningham's metamorphosis from razor-riffing Detroit-inspired rocker to introspective alt.balladeer threw fans of his previous bands, his shift to tough-talking bluesman with glam overtones might suit them better.
That Leadfinger's been soaking in some mid-70s Brit blues rock influences is self-evident, even if he and his band hadn't covered Taste's "Bad Penny" on this album, issued on Spanish label Bang! Records. Slide guitar has prominence throughout. These are mostly mid-tempo rockers, all devoid of big production or studio tricks. The result is an album that's immediately accessible and comfortable, without being cliched.
Cunningham thinks "Fade Your Brilliance" is the best song he's ever written. There's a bit of competition in those stakes but it's up there. Announced by backward masking, it's the opening track and starts low-key before cranking up a gear and staying there. With a poppy chorus and a stuttering bassline, it's a statement that you're in for something different to most of what's gone before.
"Devil's Holiday" is straight-forward boogie rocker with juicy slide guitar while "Thin Lizzy Is On My Mind" is a full-some tribute to Phil Lynott that Gary Moore might wished he'd written. It's got a swing and a mighty central riff that requires fist-pumping and singing along, given a sticky carpet and a dozen beers.
The "Rich Kids Can't Play Rock and Roll" could have come across as class warfare if it wasn't so true and it's entirely appropriate from a band that's never attracted anyone looking remotely like a major label A & R man.
This is being written 24 hours after seeing Neil Young and the buzz is still warm, but the majestic "Show You I Care" puts Leadfinger in a stadium setting with scorching guitar that could give ol' Shakey a run for his money. There's a cranking riff that kicks it up a gear that could have walked out of a Brother Brick recording session. Contrast that with the song that follows, the album mid-point blues instrumental "Andy Farrell Blues", for a handle on how well the band thought this record out.
"Keep On Searching" is reprised from "The Floating Life" and sits well in this less skeletal form while t he Saints cover, "Ghost Ships", gets a makeover and a faster tempo and sounds pretty fine in these hands.
As is the way in rock and roll, the album's somewhat historical with an entirely new, four-piece line-up now treading the boards (bassist Wayne Stokes having re-located postcode and multi-band drummer Steve O'Brien allegedly retiring.)
Let's call this a worthy addition to the Cunningham catalogue. - The Barman
3/4
THROUGH THE CRACKS - Leadfinger (Music Farmers)
Dunno if it's a spring clearance of some spare recordings or a pause before the next long-player, but this eight-song EP from Wollongong trio Leadfinger hits the spot. My only hope is the title isn't prophetic - and of course you can make sure it isn't. More on that after I tell you why it works.
In a word: songs. A few of these belong to bandleader Stew "Leadfinger" Cunningham and the balance to other people. Some if not most should be familiar but they all work to a degree. Good players being on board helps. The Leadfinger engine room of bassist Wayne Stokes and drummer Steve O'Brien unobtrusively but effectively do their work. If it sounds rustic, the recording was laid down in a farmhouse on the New South Wales South Coast and then finished in Stew's home studio. Uncluttered and not embellished.
Cunningham's chops are the prime attraction and he's in a bluesy frame of mind with slide guitar replacing the frantic attack of Brother Brick, Asteroid B612 and the Proton Energy Pills.
"That Rock 'n' Roll Sound" is a sterling opener, a stand-out from Challenger 7's one and only album of ragged, Replacements-style powerpop. The lyrics could be about you or me and they still ring true, a decade or so after they were originally recorded (with Cunningham a member.) Leadfinger do the Someloves' sublime "Melt" justice, and form there we're into more contemporary territory.
"A Beautiful Sound" is fruit from this band's tree (a Cunningham-O'Brien co-write) that bodes well for the future album; "Edge of Suburbia (Urban Dub)" is an update of a song from the bandleader's own sparse "The Floating Life" where the current band played more of a supporting role.
I was going to consign "Hip Shake" to the ranks of the redundant cover song (even the Stones didn't manage to make it stick on "Exile", arguably their greatest album) but the band imbues it with a hypnotic feel that works also because it's wedged hard up against an outright rocker ("Making Up For Lost Time".) Karl Webber (The Pink Fits) contribnutes some mean Jew's harp. "See You Tonight" has been done a couple of times before and suffers for the absence of Bill Gibson's backing vocal this time out but it's nonetheless a keeper.
The odd pup in the litter is the closer, "Bicycle Man", another reprised song from "The Floating Life" . Flugelhorn and trumpet mix it with a touch of tonal variation to cook up something quite surreal.
So where did aI come in? Oh yeah. Leadfinger are still living on the fringes. Where they like it. Go join them by clicking through and procuring a copy here.
- The Barman
3/4
THE FLOATING LIFE - Leadfinger (Bang! Records)
If you're at The Bar I'm sure you know who Stew "Leadfinger" Cunningham is. A real legend of the Australian underground leading or taking part in such fantastic bands as The Proton Energy Pills, Brother Brick, Asteroid B-612, Challenger 7, Yes Men.
After 20 years of giving us screeching riffs and extraordinary songs, Leadfinger has finally decided to make his first solo album. It's titled "The Floating Life" and it has just been released via Spain but available around the world through Bang! Records. Wrapped in a luxurious 'digipack' "The Floating Life" is an intimate, private and personal album.
Beginning with the beautiful cover photo, capturing the quiet after the storm of the endless Australian landscape, one senses the local ambiance of this album, recorded in perfect isolation in his home studio, located in the most southern suburbs of Sydney.
For those used to the bludgeoning riffs that were characteristic of Leadfinger (with Brother Brick & Asteroid B-612) or the solo fragments of power pop from Challenger 7 they may be surprised by this album - as I, myself, was pleasantly surprised.
"The Floating Life" is a sincerely inspired record and pulls back the veil revealing the intimate side of the best Australian songwriter of the past 10 years.
Many moods co-habit the threads of this album: as in the first song "I Went Looking" - an acoustic guitar solo - and the more personal, and the splendid "Edge of Suburbia" which is delicate and intimate, having an aroma of Blues. A celebration of solitude, as a place located in the soul: "I got lost in suburbia/Hanging out on the edge of the world/They can't find me in suburbia/I'm at the end of the world.." sings Leadfinger.
In "Thin Lizzy" Stew returns to the six-tring electric power chords to give us the gift of another fragment of his winning power-pop, this time dedicated to one of the idols of his youth: Phil Lynott.
With "The Sydney Way?", Leadfinger gives a bit of gas to a song tied up with a piece of quivering guitar. "Bicycle Man" is a very fun acoustic piece which prepares the ground for the title track "The Floating Life"- inspired by the work of the Australian poet John Forbes. Even this seems a potent declaration, deep from the soul: "I wanted to survive, I wanted to get high/I wanted to invite...".
"The Philadelphia Ruse" opens a skylight, with a splendid guitar phrase, but it is the last track "The Music Had the Last Say" which gives us one of the most inspirational moments on the album. An intense song, in its use of delicate electric-acoustic, dedicated to a friend (and adventure companion from The Yes-Men), Sean Greenway, who prematurely passed away in 2001.
Another precious thread on an intimate and splendid album. - Roberto Calabro'
They said we wouldn't like it - and they wuz wrong...
The trumpet might get blown the most about the louder and wilder stuff, but Kuepper, Dylan and Young (or Ed, Bob and Neil to me) have a special place on the shelves of the I-94 Bar. Leadfinger (aka Stew Cunningham, fearsomely talented and loud rock and roll guitarist in his other guises) draws inspiration from the same places - and a few more - to spin up a beguiling, often stunning debut solo album.
There's a raw and stark ambience to this album, a reflection of the place it was written and recorded. Helensburgh's a semi-rural town on Sydney's southern fringes and home to Leadfinger. It's a former coal-mining town on a coastal escarpment, charming in its own way and surorunded by sometimes stark outcrops. Walk out the back door of half the houses and you could be in the middle of some of archetypal Australian bushland, yet still within 20 minutes of civilisation.
Recovering from extended writer's block and (mostly) armed only with a steel-stringed guitar and his own voice, Leadfinger made the most of his surroundings and gradually worked this album from the ground up. Reflections on being on the fringes of the mainstream mortgage belt ("Fringe of Suburbia", "Back in the 'Burgh") blend with a paen to a teenage hero ("Thin Lizzy"). Not many albums talk about urban street poets (John Forbes) and characters from American literature ("Boo Radley") within a few breaths of each other.
Production is basic and homespun (the family dog features in one track and is rumoured to be lining up for a cut of royalties) and this suits the mood perfectly. Here's an album to spin on a winter's afternoon on a back vernandah to take the edge off a looming sunset or see in the night. The songs are great, sometimes quirky, but always with a presence and ambience that's of a place of its own making.
"The Floating Life" will demand close attention. It swerves off the beaten track in its moments of delicacy ("The Music Had The Last Say") and introspection. Never forced ("So In a Hurry") it sometimes veers into full-band raunch ("Thin Lizzy") but that isn't the character of the whole.
Open your ears and prepare for an interesting ride. - The Barman
1/3
