RENT PARTY - The Waldos (Jungle Records)

I ain't owned that beautiful Nina Antonia book about Johnny Thunders for years-poor people can't have nice things - ya always have to sell it all to eat and smoke. "Everything is in the pawnshop", you dig? But all those swanky Heartbreakers photographs are etched forever in my mind.

This is bass-heavy punk rock from Sydney with an initial "we're-drinking-cans-at-the-football-on-the-hill-so-sing-along-with-us" flavour. This is five, short and sharp songs with names like "No Logo Is A Joke" and "You Want It" so you might suspect that it's all politically incorrect. Of course, first impressions are often wrong. It's punk rock with a left-of-centre social bent.

Super Best Friends (wasn't that a South Park episoide?) have already had the Triple Jay thumbs-up - but don't hold that against them. They knock around with Children Collide and Violent Soho so it's going to work as punk rock for the generation that can't remember last Friday night, let alone the Sex Pistols.

Guitarist Johnny Barrington sings in a broader-than-Sydney-Heads accent without sounding like he's bunging it on( like those worse than awful Australian hip hop acts.) Matt Roberts' bass sound hand playing s more pliable than the GDP of a small West African country and Adam Bridges' fluid drumming kicks things along nicely.

There's a lot of crunch in the guitars and a whole bunch of shouting. Blips of sythn run through "Karma Karma" so it's not just rote punk. The songs are catchy with choruses and drop-outs. All in all, perfect festival fodder. I can hear the kids at the next Splendour In The Grass singing away to "You Want It" or the scathingly anti-xenophobic "The Bleachers."

Fast, furious and fun - and a step above most of the latest wave of what passes for punk rock, Super Best Friends might lyrically fly over the heads of some the people who pick up on them but that's not going to stop anyone having a good time. - The Barman

1/2

Here's French garage rock from five guys who have soaked up a fair bit of the output of The Lyres, at a guess. I caught them in the flesh a couple of years ago, supporting a reformed Screaming Tribesmen in France's best rock and roll tavern, Mondo Bizzaro in Rennes, and this four-track 10-inch EP sounds like they do live.

Dave Graney and the Coral Snakes
The Gov, Adelaide
Friday, November 21, 2025

Words: ROBERT BROKENMOUTH
Pictures: MANDY TZARAS

It was one of those “where to begin “kind of gigs. Long story short, I've been in a rather horrible tunnel for the last three or so years. Looks like I'm slowly re-emerging, though; but I'm not the only one - and they've been in the shit far deeper and uglier.

Saw The Animals and Friends at The Gov on Wednesday night. Top show, vivid, crisp and filled with bittersweet pills, grim memories and the kind of songs which cry out for audience engagement. Which we got in spades. Norm Helm's jazz-flecked bass is a joy to watch, as is Barney Williams' piano and synth work. Danny Handley's vocals and sweet blues guitar drag me in every time. And, propping the lot up at the back, 84-year old John Steel, one of the original Animals. Just about everyone in the crowd had a smile on their face.

Belle Phoenix with Jeffery Wegener and Ken Gormly
+ Fabels
Thursday, 4 September 2025
Lazy Thinking, Dulwich Hill, NSW

WORDS: Ed Garland
PICTURES: Keith Claringbold

With her elfin appearance and cat’s eyes, Belle Phoenix, is part musical performer and part Factory girl, and surely would fitted into Andy Warhol’s Bohemian scene of 1966. Her sweet vocal has held her in good stead as a backing singer on other people’s albums, but she’s steadily built an impressive body of work with her own material.

Belle Phoenix’s music would work as a soundtracks to European movies (indeed, she did live in Europe for a time with Finland a home base.) It has hints of the spoken word spirit that pervaded the San Francisco of 1958 when alcohol-fuelled beat poetry nights were all the rage, long before anyone had an inkling of the Summer of Love that was lay ahead.  Yet, Belle can also sing like the angels and produce pure soprano bliss amidst her swamp darkness.

_{Happy Hour at The Gin Palace.}

The Gin Palace
+ Swaggerland
Factory Floor, Marrickville
Saturday 9 August 2025 

On a wet and miserable Sydney winter night, a cosy Factory Floor welcomed around 50 punters to  share an intimate musical experience. It was the long awaited gig to launch The Gin Palace’s online single “Petrichor” and album material from Bronwyn Eather’s latest project  Swaggerland 24.

First up The Gin Palace: A super group of players, with a pedigree drawn from, among others, Crow, Glide, and Copperline, they are a six-piece band and welcomed us with a short set of songs from upcoming album, “The Year of the Dog”. As it turns out, it was a set that was almost too big for this little stage, as The Gin Palace powered through an effortless and positive set of numbers with their unique, euphoric sound.