Silver and Gold - Cub Callaway (East Dominion)

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By The Barman

The Barman

08 December 2017

Hits: 5897

Alternative title: "He Gets by With Some Help From His Friends".

Producer-guitarist Bruce "Cub" Callaway assembled a stellar cast for this, his 2013 return to recording after a lay-off, and it shows.

John Hoey (Died Pretty), Warwick Gilbert (Radio Birdman), Paul Larsen (Celibate Rifles), Clyde Bramley (Hoodoo Gurus) and Julie Mostyn Gilbert (Flaming Hands) all played roles. Lesser-knowns Ian Johnson, Louis Callaway and Harry Rothenfluh also contributed drums.

• ed kuepper
• died pretty
• radio birdman
• flaming hands
• warwick gilbert
• bruce callaway
• cub callway
• silver and gold
• east dominion
• john hoey
• triffids

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Mobile Homeland - John Sinclair (Funky D Records)

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By The Barman

The Barman

07 December 2017

Hits: 6091

No introduction needed for the onetime spiritual leader of the MC5 so here’s a personal note about meeting John Sinclair:

It was on a night off during a business trip that involved a flying visit to Ann Arbor, Michigan in the early 2000s. Sinclair was in town for that city’s annual Hash Bash and had just played a show at The Blind Pig. I’d been drinking at the Eight Bar Saloon with some locals, including Scott Morgan who did the introduction.

• mc5
• wayne kramer
• john sinclair
• ann arbor
• mobile homeland
• funky d records
• blues scholars
• tino g

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Overage Underachievers - The Smart Patrol (Off The Hip/Screaming Apple)

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By The Barman

The Barman

07 December 2017

Hits: 5196

Do you still believe in record labels? Back in the ‘80s, being released on an imprint that you knew and loved (Bomp, Citadel, Waterfront) was a surefire indication that a band possessed a “certain” sound, and was good.

Screaming Apple is the garage rock label in Germany that doesn’t release duds, so hearing about it collaborating with Australia's Off The Hip for an album by a band called The Smart Patrol was always going to be news falling on receptive ears. 

• powerpop
• mod
• smart patrol
• screaming apple
• overage underachievers

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Raw Art Act - Asphalt Tuaregs (Antitune Records)

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By The Barman

The Barman

06 December 2017

Hits: 6352

It’s a truism that many bands from Europe rock but don’t rock and roll. It’s not their fault, of course, it’s just a matter of cultural conditioning. Rock and roll is not their first musical language and the “high art” the place is steeped in suffocates that "low art", like any other form of musical expression, into submission.

So when you find a Continental band that “gets it”, you better latch on to them, tight. 

Some of us are (ahem) old enough to remember a French band called Fixed Uo, who were on Sydney’s Citadel label, and made it to Australia to play and record in the mid 1980s. Rob Younger and Jim Dickson produced an album for them. Soulful garage rock was their stock in trade. They “got it”. 

• garage
• french
• garage soul
• rob younger
• jim dickson
• fixed up
• asphalt tuaregs
• backsliders
• francois lebas

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Brown Spirits - Brown Spirits (Off The Hip/Clostridium Records)

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By The Barman

The Barman

04 December 2017

Hits: 5560

Pigeons don’t belong in holes.

In other words, just as soon as you peg Off The Hip as Australia’s home for “Thee Garage Rock Sound” exclusively, they throw another curve ball like this here Brown Spirits CD.

Brown Spirits are from Melbourne and are an instrumental trio made-up of Tim Wold, Agostino Soldati and Andre Fazio, whose collective curriculum vitae includes bands like Mod Vigil, Kids of Zoo, Deep Street Soul, Russian Roulettes, Go-Set and Legends of Motorsport.

To the best of my knowledge (and I’ve heard most of them), Brown Spirits sound nothing like any of the above.

• psychedelic
• clostridium records
• brown spiritis
• jam band

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Scenesters: Music, Mayhem & Melrose Ave (1985-90)

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By General Labor

General Labor

03 December 2017

Hits: 9125

By the time me and a flamehaired stripper with a sports car arrived in Hollywood, to look for the pot of gold at the end of the Rainbow Bar And Grill, it was mostly all over.

We were snorting up the last hours of sequins and vulgarity, mascara and laughter before the bad trip buzzkill of Cobain. We were squinting in the last blinding, big sprays of Aqua Net and final drunken caterwauls at Thursday night cattle calls, where a rogues' gallery of various whiskey sodden, speed freaky, Stars From Mars and Seaweed Eaters and Raw Flowers and Glamour Punks and Dawg Mafia and Queeny Blast Pop diehard, teased haired, Motley-Babies played their hopeless gutter-punk defiantly, even while Seattle was exploding into the mainstream.

It was the sad, last gasps of a cool and androgynous underground scene, as grunge and gangsta-rap and capitalist lifestyle unreality-tv programming were coming into vogue and all the faded  spandex stars of the strip had mostly got rich and sold-out, died, or gone straight.

• hollywood
• los angeles
• gun club
• melrose avenue
• desi benjamin
• Scenesters: Music, Mayhem & Melrose Ave (1985-90)
• DVD
• Bluray
• guns and roses
• izzy straddlin
• the joneses

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JD Hangover - JD Hangover (Annibale Records)

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By The Barman

The Barman

02 December 2017

Hits: 6671

Bleak, industrial blues. That’s what you’ll immerse yourself in on this six-track EP. It’s one part Suicide, one part Delta blues, and fuck any compact with the Devil - if that was a soul left behind at the negotiating table in return for a bus ticket to the crossroads, it sounds like it’s being picked over by vultures.  

Written on the road and recorded with minimal affectations, it’s a collaboration between Anglo-Italo blues rocker Stiv Cantarelli and studio collaborator Roberto Villa. And a drum machine.  

• stiv cantarelli
• Roberto villa
• jd hangover
• Annibale records

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Manitoba NYC (aka Dictators NYC) calls it a day

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By The Barman

The Barman

02 December 2017

Hits: 9777

_{Dictators NYC. From left: Ross The Boss, Dean Rispler, JP Thunderbolt Patterson, Handsome Dick Maniroba and Daniel Rey.}  

The band formerly known as Dictators NYC is no more. Singer Handsome Dick Manitoba has announced via social media that the band - recently re-branded Manitoba NYC - has gone its separate ways after its just-completed European tour.

Members Manitoba, guitarist Ross The Boss and drummer JP Thunderbolt Patterson were the “last men standing” from the long-running Dictators, following an at times acriminious falling-out with bassist-songwriter and foundation member, Andy Shernoff. 

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Tear Your Minds Wide Open - The Galileo 7 (Damaged Goods)

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By The Barman

The Barman

30 November 2017

Hits: 5566

We’re not claiming to be a “hip” or “cutting edge” forum at the I-94 Bar but here’s the conundrum: No-one other than the readership of similarly backward-looking but worthy publications like Mojo or Shindig is going to know about The Galileo 7.  And that’s shit.

At the risk of sounding like a haughty communications lecturer talking to a bunch of undergrads, the more media fragments, the more isolationist its bubbles become. Which means, dear Barflies, that YOU have to dig deeper to find stuff that’s not disposable, commodified or bland. 

The Galileo 7 is none of the above. 

• garage
• powerpop
• freakbeat
• galileo7
• damaged goods
• tear your minds wide open

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