Details

By The Barman

The Barman

07 February 2026

Hits: 332

• chris bailey
• davey lane
• the saints
• Long March Through The Jazz Age
• fire records

Long March Through The Jazz Age – The Saints (Fire Records)

This deserves your attention and not because it’s posthumous.

The Saints’ 15th studio album, “Long March Through The Jazz Age”, snuck out before the 2025 Christmas-New Year break and, despite best endeavours, appeared to make only a slight dent in public consciousness.

It’s not hard to work out why.

The Saints had been away a long time – the last album, “King Of The Sun”, was released in 2012. Chris Bailey was a private person but the contemporary economics of fronting a band and ill-health probably had a lot to do with that.

Read more …

Details

By Edwin Garland

Edwin Garland

30 January 2026

Hits: 931

• beast records
• sacred cowboys
• garry gray
• mark ferrie
• in the manifesto
• damien fitzgerald
• timothy deane

In The Manifesto - Sacred Cowboys (Torn &Frayed/Beast Records)

It’s cause for a celebration whenever Sacred Cowboys release a new album. Principal member Garry Gray holds his freak flag high in a fight against mediocrity in music, and he’s now reunited with a fellow founding member in Mark Ferrie.

I have long argued that the Celibate Rifles captured the frantic and wild, surf-meets-Detroit Sydney Sound with their own laconic touch. Sacred Cowboys are a shining light of what the best of the Melbourne Sound. They play rootsy bar room blues, swampy while embracing post punk's excursions and maintaining a sense of punk's urgency.

Read more …

Details

By The Barman

The Barman

27 January 2026

Hits: 635

• vicious kitten
• anne mccue
• girl monstar
• sherry rich
• janene abbott
• susan shaw

Grrrr! – Girl Monstar (Vicious Kitten)

The groove is the thing on “Grrrr!!” - and so it should be on an album with a name approximating one of the many Best Of collections by the Stones. Drummer Susan Shaw (nee Sue Wold, of The Wraylettes, The Wet Ones, The Exotics and Plastic Section) and  Janene Abbott lay down smooth ‘n’ slinky rhythms, and the rest follows.

So to the review but first, the backstory: Girl Monstar existed in Australia a very different time. Home base Melbourne was artier than its rawer cousin Sydney but bands like Girl Monstar were spanning both. The Big Day Out festival juggernaut emerged at the tail end of their run and pushed the underground onto a different level.

Read more …

Details

By Edwin Garland

Edwin Garland

07 January 2026

Hits: 1703

• kent steedman
• celibate rifles
• paul larsen
• midnight oil
• jim moginie
• family dog
• thunk

Thunk - Jim Moginie and The Family Dog (Reverberama)

Former Midnight Oil guitarist Jim Moginie’s book “The Silver River” outlines how the earliest gigs for his solo band, The Family Dog, were a humbling experience.

Not unlike early shows by his teenage band FARM in the mid-1970s, they played obscure venues outside the city so he could re-learn his craft and build  confidence as frontman and singer. He was incredibly nervous,. Very few people showed up, and many only did so out of curiosity. 

That’s Jim Moginie all over. Normally, when a member of an international band of some standing appears in a relative backwater (Midnight Oil sold 25 million records and ranks as the third most successful band that Australia has produced) it would be massive news. Jim exudes a sweeping humility and it shines through on this album.

Read more …

Details

By The Barman

The Barman

06 January 2026

Hits: 898

• mc5
• wayne kramer
• mc50
• faith no more
• heavy lifting
• 10 more
• 10 x mc5
• zen guerilla
• soundgarden
• pearl jam

10 More – MC50 (earMUSIC) 

Well ain’t this the surprise packet, coming seven years after the run of shows it captures and more than a year after the release of the MC5-in-name-only record, “Heavy Lifting”. If you grabbed it, you might also have snavelled the live MC50 album “10 X MC5” that came as a bonus with some copies.

MC50 is the all-star band assembled by the late Wayne Kramer to mark the 50^th anniversary of “Kick Out The Jams”. It comprised Kramer and Kim Thayil (Soundgarden) on guitars, Brendan Canty (Fugazi) on drums, Billy Gould (Faith No More) on bass, and Marcus Durant (Zen Guerrilla) on vocals. Matt Cameron (Soundgarden/Pearl Jam) alternated on drums.

Read more …

Details

By The Barman

The Barman

20 December 2025

Hits: 2185

• dave favours
• stanley records
• roadside ashes
• service station chicken

 Service Station Chicken - Dave Favours & The Roadside Ashes (Stanley Records)

Dave Favours & The Roadside Ashes make country music for people who don’t like country music. That’s a truism, not a slur.

The point is that the players’ background in underground Oz rock and roll, circa late 1980s rolling into the ‘90s, is apparent in their playing. You play enough sticky carpet dives where patrons demand to be impressed and you become a harder player. At least that's how it was before streaming. These Roadside Ashes have a work ethic honed over some years.

Read more …