The 31st - The 31st (LCMR)

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By The Barman

The Barman

02 February 2018

Hits: 7978

Copies of these four songs have been circulating for years and two have surfaced on compilations. The balance were re-recorded by members’ subsequent bands. But don’t kid yourself that you don’t need this vinyl only 12-inch EP.

The 31st started when future members of Died Pretty (Ron Peno and Chris Welsh), the Screaming Tribesmen (MIck Medew) and the Hitmen/New Christs/Screaming Tribesmen (Tony Robertson) started playing shows in a strip club and anywhere else that would have them. Evidently, they played no one style of music - which must have been confusing for the Brisbane punks, boogie-heads and blues fans to pin a tail on.

The 31st were a future supergroup before those things were called that in Australia. They kicked around the undergrowth of Brisbane’s downtrodden music scene in the early 1980s, and fell to pieces before anyone outside of it saw or heard them.

Future Hoodoo Guru Brad Shepherd was to briefly become a member although he's not on these recordings. 

• brisbane
• hitmen
• died pretty
• ron peno
• screaming tribesmen
• tony robertson
• lcmr
• mick medew
• the 31st
• chris welsh
• the hellcats

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King Hit - Sons of Jaguar (Conquest of Noise)

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By Ronald Brown

Ronald Brown

01 February 2018

Hits: 6773

Woolgoolga is a town on the New South Wales North Coast, and Sons of Jaguar have been making quite a noise around the pubs of that wonderful part of Australia for the past year or so. "King Hit" is their debut album  recorded in two days and laden with some fine twin turbo guitar riffs, wonderful bass playing and drumming. 

This is one fine album.

So, I-94 Bar users and abusers, things kick off with a sonic fuzz blast in the guitar riff of "Park Beach" - and you just know things are about to get wild. "Dead Beat Dad" is a classic driving guitar song that is just awesome, and the break in the middle off this tune is just a groovy '60s sound. This song is worth the price of admission alone.

• conquest of noise
• pub rock
• king hit
• sons of jaguar
• king pest
• grinspoon
• woolgoolga

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Songs From The Land of Nod - Beechwood (Alive Natural Sound)

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By The Barman

The Barman

30 January 2018

Hits: 7762

They don’t have Real Rock and Roll bands in New York City any more, do they? Don’t kid yourself, kid. They might be hard to find but they’re still there, their beating hearts buried under 50 feet of radio-friendly dross and cultural fragmentation.

No, Virginia, there’s no CBGBs. They made a shitty telemovie about it and moved the awning to an airport bar, somewhere. It was a shadow of what it was, even when I got there in the mid-‘80s. There’s no Max’s, either. Times Square is more family friendly than a Disney dance party. Even The Continental is just a dive bar now, more famous for (literally) banning a figure of speech than the Joey Ramone parties it used to host in the ‘80s.

Gentrification has a lot of downsides and one is squeezing cultural outsiders to the extreme margins. Art mostly doesn’t pay the rent, pegged or non existent. The NY rock “scene” is in Brooklyn these days, by all accounts. It has been for quite some time but it’s mostly disposable pop. Thank fuck, then, for Beechwood.

• psychedelic
• alive natural sound
• new york city
• beechwood
• lower east side
• songs from the land of nod

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Thee Hypnotics return to Come Down Heavy on us

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By The Barman

The Barman

30 January 2018

Hits: 6963

Seminal English harbingers of the ‘90s garage rock revival, Thee Hypnotics, are reforming for album rte-issues and live dates. A heavyweight vinyl anthology, including rare and unreleased material, is due out via Beggars Arkive, with an accompanying tour of France and the UK ovwr March and April.

Taking their cues from the Detroit militancy of The MC5, the corrupting output of The Stooges and the gospel according to The Cramps, Thee Hypnotics’ devastating brand of rock’n’roll was propelled by near punishing decibel levels and a fervour bordering on the evangelical.

They recorded three studio records and one live album between 1987 and 1999 and were considered highly influential in Europe and the USA. Past members include original drummer Mark Thompson, the late Craig Pike and bassist Adam Sharam.

• jim jones revue
• tour
• jim jones and the righteous mind
• thee hypnotics
• jim jones
• ray hanson
• phil smith
• jeremy cottingham

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FLASHBACK: Tomorrow Will Be Fine: Reflections on the Sunnyboys with Richard Burgman

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By The Barman

The Barman

28 January 2018

Hits: 9703

FLASHBACK: September 21, 2004 - Short-lived but incredibly influential, Sydney's Sunnyboys were one of the first 1980s Australian bands to bridge the commercial gap between inner-city hipness and a wider audience. Coalescing from the ranks of several inner-Sydney bands whose brief existences spanned the turn of the decade (more on that later), they bobbed their heads up on an exploding music scene with a debut EP on the Phantom label. 

Mixing gritty '60s-influenced rock songs with the "wise beyond his years" melancholic lyricism and exuberant pop hooks of songwriter-guitarist Jeremy Oxley, they almost immediately signed to a major label and hit national status with their self-titled debut album.

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FLASHBACK: When Lipstick Killers stalked the earth

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By The Barman

The Barman

28 January 2018

Hits: 10880

_{Down to Kill: Onetime Filth bassist Martin Joyce with future Lipstick Killers Peter Tillman. Mark Taylor and Dave Taylor.}

FLASHBACK: May 29, 2001 - Sydney music fans are in for a special treat. On May 11, one of the best bands of the late 1970s and early '80s Sydney "Detroit" scene, the Lipstick Killers, re-form for one show only. 

The occasion is a benefit for their original drummer David Taylor, who has been tragically injured in a car accident.

Taylor was also a member of the seminal punk group that spawned the Lipstick Killers, the Psychsurgeons, who were as raw and confrontational as bands come. As regular support to Radio Birdman at the latter's Oxford Funhouse (along with the Hellcats, fronted by Died Pretty singer Ron Peno), they grabbed what shows they could in a still resistant Sydney scene. That was until their singer Paul Gearside was set upon - mid gig - by a pack of Hell's Angels. He departed and the band picked up Peter Tillman, frontman for the even more extreme Filth. A change of band name later and the Lipstick Killers were born.

• psychosurgeons
• lipstick killers
• reformation
• flashback
• mark taylor
• peter tlllman
• dave taylor
• radio hirdman
• funhouse

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FLASHBACK: Wayne Kramer and the fight against mediocrity

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By Ken Shimamoto

Ken Shimamoto

27 January 2018

Hits: 10781

FLASHBACK: First posted October 16, 1999: It's been quite an odyssey for Wayne Kramer. From 1964 to 1972, he was point man and Fender guitar terrorist for the legendary MC5, the Ur-American garage band turned psychedelic radicals whose high-energy jams prefigured much of the next 30 years of rock and roll dementia.

Kramer sat out a couple of years at the end of the 70s in Federal penitentiary on a drug charge, but resumed his career when he landed back on the street in 1979, playing in Gang War with Johnny Thunders, recording with Was (Not Was) and others.

Then in 1995, when a lot of people had written him off, he roared back into action with an album on Epitaph entitled "The Hard Stuff". Since then there have been three more Epitaph albums and a plethora of side projects.

Brother Wayne joined me at the bar on three different occasions, twice from his home in Hollywood, California and once from the L.A. studio where he's currently producing an album for Damned founder member and former Iggy Pop sideman Brian James.

• mc5
• wayne kramer
• the hard stuff
• mick farren
• epitath
• dangerous madness
• citizen wayne
• don was
• was (not was)
• a true testimonial
• brian james

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Mick Medew returns to Sydney for first show in five years

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By The Barman

The Barman

25 January 2018

Hits: 7650

Long regarded as one of Queensland rock and roll's most venerable singer-songwriters, Mick Medew is returning to a Sydney stage after a five-year absence with his band The Mesmerisers.

With one album ("The Mesmerisers") under their belt and another underway, Mick Medew and The Mesmerisers will play Marrickville Bowling Club on Saturday, February 24, with support from Loose Pills and The Dark Clouds. Tickets are on sale here.

The Sydney show has been added to follow a support to The Sunnyboys in Thirroul on February 23.

Vocalist-guitarist Medew is co-founder of the Screaming Tribesmen and more recently leader of Mick Medew and The Rumours, and he's been making a mark on Brisbane (and Australian) music for more than 30 years.

Originally a member of seminal inner-city Brisbane band The 31st, whose ranks included future members of the Hoodoo Gurus, the Hitmen and Died Pretty, Medew went on to front the Screaming Tribesmen, a band schooled in tough guitar rock overlaid with alternately hooky and plaintive melodies.

The Tribesmen outgrew their home town and moved to Sydney in the 1980s, becoming Australian independent music chart toppers with the classic single "Igloo".

The band lasted 16 years, signed to a US label, released three albums and toured North America and Europe (twice) before Mick moved home to Queensland and put them on hiatus in 1993. Reunions for tours followed in 2011 (Australia) and 2012 (Europe).

• Medew
• mesmerisers
• Mick
• showdown
• sydney
• screaming tribesmen
• marrickville bowling club

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Catzilla - Catzilla (Off The Hip)

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By Ronald Brown

Ronald Brown

25 January 2018

Hits: 5150

Hello from the farmhouse, I-94 Bar users and abusers! I can tell you that this week the farm has been grooving to Catzilla, a band from Perth with a surf/horror, '60s inspired sound that is very contagious to one's ears.

Every track on this self-titled album is crafted with love. The guitar fuzz of Andy Jarvis is so locked in with Coo Jarvis (keyboards and vocals), it's kind of hard to believe this fine band has only been playing a little over two years. Throw in the thumping bass of Tracey Devery and the drums sound that Trevor Judd has going and it all adds up to a great album...14 Catzilla tracks of groovy goodness.

• perth
• coo jarvis
• andy jarvis
• toys went berzerk
• catzilla

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