Top Ten Sydney Tunnels and Bridges

What? Tunnels and bridges not rock'n'roll enough for ya? So, sue me. 

The Molly Fet Circuit were in Sydney for a couple of gigs recently and I could not believe how much the place has changed; I was here last only a year or so before covid - not sure how long it'd been for musician Shaun C. Duncan (Die Like a God, Council of Elders, Iron Phallus), but quite a bit longer I think.

Our friend Nathan Iowa (Shark Arm) was extremely helpful, driving us hither and yon - to the point where I realised that, without his help, we would've been either frequently lost or forking out hundreds in cab fares. Never mind anything else, we might not have even found the fucking gigs.

Top Ten Filthy Rock and Roll Songs

1. "Blitzkreig Bop" - Ramones

2. "Shake Appeal" - Iggy and the Stooges 

3. "Dirty Robber "- The Sonics

4. "New Rose" - The Damned

5. "Communication Breakdown" - Led Zeppelin 

6. "Oh Carol" - Rolling Stones

7. "Revolution" - The Beatles

8. "Lucille" - Little Richard

9. "Eruption" - Van Halen

10. "Let There Be Roc" - AC/DC

Find Richard Lawson here.

Third In Line For The Throne b/w Yeah Orright – The VeeBees (Evil Twin)

Twenty-five years of The VeeBees? Hard to believe but here’s the proof that they still excel at excess. The A side is a stringing sub two-minute trip of raging guitars and fun. The VeeBees’ engine room has never sounded more powerful.

And the lyrics? They’re about lining up when you really need to lay a cable and (thankfully) have nothing about the succession plans of entitled and terminally boring Royals.

At a tick over three minutes “Yeah Orright” is an odyssey in comparison. The band eases off the throttle and while Its lyrical journey doesn’t go much further than the chorus, the chugging guitars stick like shit to a blanket. That term could apply equally to "Third In Line".

The VeeBees don’t own Yob Rock but they’ve carved out their own little corner, spanning Canberra and Wollongong. More power to their (drinking) arm. As the boys themselves say: "Four blokes, 3 chords, 2 brain cells, 1 carton of beer." 

1/2

Buy the download

Buy the vinyl

We're in the home straight in ther run towards the I-94 Bar-promoted annual Xmas show by Pismo Beach's Psychotic Turnbuckles at Marrickville Bowling Club in Sydney this Saturday. Tickets are moving briskly for the Kings of The Combat Zones' match-up against heavyweight hard-rockers The Dark Clouds and fuzzily effervescent The Sugar Beats. 

Turnbuckles frontman Jesse The Intruder says he has some special moves in store for the challengers but the headliners seem to be in an unchracteristically magmanious mood, promising all advance ticket buyers a present. We'll believe that when we see it but you can secure your ringside spot right here.  

https://youtu.be/momSWBWCCVI?si=PDF53WJRoGWUttsq

_{Julian Wu photo}

The Barman has sent out the call for Top Tens. I have ditched my Imperial Wardrobe to deliver a stripped-down Metallic KO Top 10. Lean on words and mean on content – old, new, stolen, and blue – five live and five vinyl – here we go for the tip of the iceberg of my musical stuff of 2025. Time won’t permit my top 500.

This is seriously in no order - just random awesome things in a pretty bloody awesome year

1. Davey Lane - Finally, A Party Record
Excellent pop! Not scared to touch Yacht and Soft rock either

2. Rubber Necker - Bad Behavior album and one of their gigs at the Duke in Enmore
The show as wild "somehow held together" post rock. Whoooo!

3. Cammy Cautious and the Wrestlers
Only saw em once and CAN NOT FORGET IT!! Took me head clean off

4. Some awesome aussie books Radio Birdman - "Retaliate First" by Murray Englehart and "Orstralia A Punk History" by Tristan Clark. Loved 'em .. got John Foy's book next up.

_{"The stars, baby, the stars": Tex Perkins with Dave Graney at The Beasts' "Black Milk" show in Melbourne. Amber Schmidt photo}

Dave Graney Top 12 for 2025

1. Dave Graney and the Soft n Sexy Sound 30^th Anniversary Sound tour.
This was so enjoyable for me. So great to play the music and crack the codes to the album. Extremely challenging to perform it and to present it to people. Very tense to start it each time we did it on the 21 date tour. It had peaks and it flowed. It started from silence and ended on a long fadeout.

 A – FÄHM (Hiss and Crackle Records)

The Blues never goes out of style, it just gets bent out of shape. This quintet from Wallsend, a suburb of Australia steel city Newcastle, applies its own stylistic panel beating and the result is a satisfyingly swampy pastiche.

Assembling members from local bands Howlin’ Rats, The Not Nots, The Outliers and Paper Thin, FÄHM (pronounced “Fam”), mixes up the medicine in some weird and wonderful ways. The bio cites influences like feedtime, Scientists, X and Beasts of Bourbon. The latter is obvious but for mine it’s the “Safe As Milk” era Captain Beefheart whose shadow looms largest.

Fans of Real Rock Action rejoice: New York punk survivor Sonny Vincent is continuing his return to stages with a triple whammy of shows in Germany in February.

After a one-off gig in Europe and an art show in Los Angeles last month, the indefatigable Vincent will play Stuttgart (February 20), Cologne (February 21) and Hildesheim (February 22). The shows will be filmed by Danny Garcia ("Nightclubbing: The Birth of Punk Rock in NYC", "Sad Vacation: The Last Days of Sid and Nancy", "Looking for Johnny", "Stiv") for a full-length documentary.

Sonny Vincent is a veteran of the Max's and CBGB scenes whose band Testors were a cult item in the NYC underground in the late '70s.  His long and storied career has included collaborations with Scott and Ron Asheton, Wayne Kramer, Bob Stinson, Cheetah Chrome, Mo Tucker, Spencer P Jones, Sterling Morrison and Captain Sensible.