The Cruel Sea tells Mick Harvey: "This Is Not The Way Home"

If Ash Naylor is Australian rock and roll’s Mr Everywhere for holding down spots in The Stems, Paul Kelly’s band, The Church and his own outfit Ash Naylor’s Spaceship, elder statesman Mick Harvey can lay claim to being its Busiest Utility Player.  

Harvey has played with The Birthday Party, Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, Crime & the City Solution, his own bands and more recently with The Saints ’74-78 and now adds The Cruel Sea to his resume.

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• the birthday party
• mick harvey
• the cruel sea
• straight into the sun

Asteroid B612's single arrives

"Park Bench Gods", the first single from the forthcoming Astroid B612 album “Roads, Stars”, is here. John Morrison made the clip for what's described as" a raucous, full-throttle return to form that captures the essence of what made Asteroid B-612 an underground cult favourite". If streaming is your thing, play it here.

• asteroid b612
• park bench gods
• roads, stars

Frankly speaking, this solo debut is gold

Living Between The Lines - Frank Meyer (Kitten Robot) 

Hello Barflies! Have I got a ripper album for you...“Living Between The Lines” is the first Frank Meyer solo album and it is a wonderful record  

Frank, of course, is a founding member of The Streetwalkin Cheetahs, and guitarist for Handsome Dick Manitoba (ex-The Dictators), legendary LA punk band Fear, and vocalist for James Williamson (Iggy and the Stooges) in  James Williamson & The Pink Hearts.  

His other bands include Spaghetti & Frank, Trading Aces, Highway 61, Sweet Justice, and Thor. So he has lots of form.

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• bellrays
• james williamson
• cherie currie
• streetwalkin' cheetahs

Lest We Forget: Sydney salutes The Stems

 _{Dom Mariani and Jules Matthews.}

The Stems
The Rinehearts
Sydney Crowbar
Thursday, April 24, 2025

An annual run of shows by The Stems should be inscribed indelibly on the Australian musical calendar. Better still, make it bi-annual.

Last year, The Stems notched their 40th anniveresary and marked it with gigs all around Australia, and a tour of Europe. This show, on the eve of Anzac Day, the national day of remembrance, brought out a crop of (mostly)  rock and roll soldiers, keen to relive their 1980s youth. All looked comfortable in the knowledge that a public holiday the next morning meant most wouldn’t have to front up at a workplace. 

More than most of their peers, The Stems have a sound that’s timeless. Rooted in the ‘60s, riddled with hooks and melodies, the songs ride on the back of a powerful engine room of co-founders Jules Matthews and Dave Shaw, wrapped in Dom Mariani’s rich vocal and peppered by guitars.

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• sydney
• dom mariani
• the stems
• ash naylor
• crowbar
• dave shaw
• rinehearts
• jules matthews

Original Alice Cooper group premieres "Black Mamba" from forthcoming album

_{Jenny Risher photo.}

Just in case the news has evaded you so far, the original Alice Cooper group is reuniting to release a new studio album, "The Revenge of Alice Cooper," on July 25 via earMUSIC, the same people who have delivered a slew of studio and live Blue Oyster Cult releases.

There have been part reformations (without the late guitarist Glen Buxton), most notably for a scorching 2018 live release “Live From The Astroturf”, but this is the group’s first full album in 50 years.  Buxton will be present, via a guitar part tracked from a demo,

The first single from the album, "Black Mamba," is out now and features Robby Krieger of The Doors.  Click MORE to see the video.

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• bob ezrin
• alice cooper
• dennis dunaway
• neal smith
• michael bruce
• earMUSIC
• black mamba
• robby krieger

Post-punk revelation: The Institutionalist is Real (Ernie) O Mind

Adjustment Disorder – The Institutionalist (self released)

I must apologise for taking so long to get around to doing this review. By the way; this, and one more, will be my last for a bit. Amid the deaths of friends and the horrid scramble of Krimbo, those japesters at Meta have seen fit to hit me with the relatively new “you must provide a video to prove you're human”. Well, any quick glimpse of my messages to other folks would prove that, and since I simply cannot get the damn thing to work, I now accept that I've lost my Facebook page.

Amusingly, some bot or other set up a fake page of me, and while I pointed this out to the Metaberks, it's still up there. But you know how it is when you use a service, whether it be a cafe or park bench, if the thing is increasingly unfit for purpose, I'd was going to give the incompetents the boot early next year. Pity that pleasure has been denied me.

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• post-punk
• slug
• dwarfthrower
• mick medew and ursula
• The Institutionalist
• adjustment disorder
• vicious circle
• no mans land

A look back on the Wonderful Life of Damien Lovelock

_{Damien at one of the final Rifles gigs at Narrabeen RSL.}  

The loss of Damien Lovelock to cancer in 2019 left a yawning gap in more than just Australian rock and roll. The frontman for the cherished Celibate Rifles had by then become an cookbook author, a sporting commentator,  a father, a yoga teacher and a raconteur.

The records show that the Rifles formed in Sydney in 1979 and amassed nine studio and three live albums along the way, making inroads into Europe and the USA. The band did not achieve mainstream successs, but did forge a path for high-energy yet thoughtful rock and roll. They inspired countless others to follow and do things, as the Rifles had, on their own terms.

Damo’s dry wit, laconic vocal and powerful stage presence were uneniable. Away from the music, his ability to talk the (blind) ear off anyone who wanted to engage him in conversation made him similarly unforgettable.  

In October 2010, rusted-on Rifles fan Earl O’Neill sat down with Damien at a Narrabeen café. The interview that appears here was part of a planned book about the band (you can read a previous extract about the Rifles’ formative days here.) The book idea has long been shelved but the conversation stands up as a snapshot of the Rifles and the motivations of Damo himself. Peta Couvret transcribed the conversation.   

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• kent steedman
• celibate rifles
• damien lovelock
• dave morris
• paul larsen
• jim leone
• mikey couvret
• earl o'neill

Melbourne bill to say Happy Birthday to Link Wray

Missing Link, Australia’s only tribute to Link Wray, is back for its fifth year and will fall on what would have been the occasion of the guitar great’s 96^th birthday, May 3.  The venue is Shotkickers, in the hip Melbourne neighborhood of Thornbury, and it’s a high volume multi-band line-up.

Heading proceedings are The Bluebottles, laying claim to being Australia's #1 instrumental surf group. All female Link Wray devotees The Wraylettes are on the bill and will be launching a new seven-inch.

Honk are bringing the rhythm 'n' roots with a set blending country music with a side serve of Spaghetti Western drinking songs.  

Completing the bill is the country’s longest-running Link Wray combo, Sydney’s The Missing Link Band, headed by ex-Deadly Hume guitar high priest Stephen Bones Martin.

The evening starts at 8.15pm and it’s $20 at the door.

• the wraylettes
• shotkickers
• the bluebottles
• honk
• missing link

Killer collection does justice to the Motor City's heyday

Motor City Is Burning: A Michigan Anthology 1965-1975 – Various Artists (Grapefruit Records)

Proof positive, if it was actually needed, that a Golden Age of Rock ‘n’ Roll existed in one of the 50 states of the USA other than Califonria and that it encompassed much more than just the Stooges and the MC5.

In Australia, of course, we have a skewed view of the so-called “Detroit Scene” (a name that almost no Americans of my acquaintance use, by the way.) We learned from the teachings of Radio Birdman leader and expat Michiganite Deniz Tek who landed here to study medicine in 1974, spreading the word about those bands in evangelistic fashion.

Of course Birdman were always much more than those two trace elements - they were just the ones on the high-energy scale that caught the imagination of most. If you’ve ever engaged the Kona Coffee Farmer in conversation for more than five minutes you’ll know his passion for the Stones and his knowledge of local acts like the SRC and the first band he saw live, Ann Arbor heroes The Rationals.  

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• stooges
• mc5
• mitch ryder
• alice cooper
• cherry red
• bob seger
• Motor City Is Burning: A Michigan Anthology 1965-1975
• grapefruit records
• frigid pink