2025 Top Tens: Bass-player-around-town, Steve Lorkin from Sydney

Time served with Minuteman, Spectres Revenge, Cool Charmers, Sheek The Shayk,  Dave Tice’s Buffalo Revisited, and others. Manager of The Psychedelic Unknown.

2025 HIT PARADE  (not in any order)

1. Neptune Power Federation: Live anywhere.
My fave Oz band ATM. New album coming in 2026, I believe,

2. Sex Pistols Featuring Frank Carter at Hordern Pavilion, Sydney
On paper this could have been a disaster, however, Cook, Jones and Matlock with young bloke Frank Carter on vocals were a true celebration of one of music’s most influential albums. The purists stayed at home during the night of the gig crying in their lemonade but the true fans were out in force. Great gig!

3. Ray Ahn’s Birthday
All-round good fellow, way out graphic artist and master basser celebrated his birthday with a cavalcade of luminaries gracing the stage at the tiny MoshPit Bar in Sydney. Jolly good fun.

• buzzcocks
• sex pistols
• rolling stones
• ray ahn
• asteroid b612
• cherie currie
• hoodoo gurus
• the church
• lipstick killers
• neptune power federation
• steve lorkin
• funkadelic
• frank carter
• steven danno
• fran carter

On Aderlaide Writers Weak (sic)

Have you ever been to Writers Week in Adelaide?

If it ever gets up again in the same fashion, don't. Just ... don't go. It's outdoors, the weather is usually frankly disgustingly hot and you're surrounded by wealthy wilting widows, wealthy wilting divorced men, wilting writers, wilting bookfloggers and far too many wanna-be-famous drunks and drabs to count. 

Worse, the place is infested with poets, whining children's authors, politicians earnestly 'mixing with the people', all of whom are either wilting, drunk, or both.

No, I know. I'm a writer and yet, I don't have a lot of time for writers. 

• writers week

It's applied Science with a serve of Surrealism

It’s called Surreal Science and is described “an off-the-rails salvage job, fashioned into a beautiful cinematic work of abstract sound and vision”. It features members and music of The Scientists and Kim Salmon and The Surrealists with three drummers, three guitarists, two bass players and two vocalists, drawing on a repertoire of 160 songs.

Kim Salmon is leading the ensemble and it tours Melbourne, Sydney and Perth in April, featuring two-hour-long sets with an intermission.  

Guitarist Tony Thewlis; bassists Boris Sujdovic and Stu Thomas; drummers Clare Moore, Greg Bainbridge and Phil Collings; along with production engineer Hepburn and vocalist/guitarist Kim Salmon.

They'll appear in tandem with a visual presentation of the passed, present and future of both of The Surrealists and The Scientists 

As Kim himself says: “Not a tribute but a recognition of their part in this ever-evolving story”.

The Scientists belligerently eschewed standard melody for minimalism, brutality and abstraction but remained staunchly Rock and Roll.

• the scientists
• kim salmn
• the surrealists
• surreal science

Japan indie rockers DYGL are landing on Ausralian shores

Japanese post-punk indie rockers DYGL (pronounced “Day-glo”),  kick off their first Australian tour this week and their new album “Who's In The House?” is  being locally released by Cheersquad Records & Tapes. It's on vinyl and in digital format and can be procured here.

Hailing from Tokyo, DYGL are one of Japan’s most internationally acclaimed indie rock bands. Formed in 2012, the four-piece has built a global following with their raw energy, heartfelt lyrics, and a sound that fuses indie rock and 2000s garage revival with a uniquely Japanese sensitivity.

• australian tour
• japan
• cheersquad
• dygl
• day-glo

Trapped In A World He Never Made! (part 305)

Men's bums. Do you like to look at them? I confess I'm not much of a fan. 

Now, I realise that there are many among us who delight in sitting behind a slog of male cyclists, sweaty bums waggling like a slowly-moving Volkswagen traffic jam viewed from above.

But these aren't Volksies, are they? No, these are the moist, lycra-clad arses of overly-obsessive sad thin men who are partaking of what I suspect is the twenty-fucking-seventh 'tour down under', held in the gormless, goofy town of Adelaide. 

Yes, I know there are women cycling enthusiasts, but they exist in nothing like the abominable plague proportions in and around the time of the “Grand Prix of Adelaide cyclists”, The Tour Down Under. 

So there I am. Engine running, parked in front of a bunch of damp-cracked men's bums in black lycra. Reminds me of the local river when it gets the blue-green algae and goes all sumpy. The more you see this horror before you, the bigger it seems to get. Posh champagne reflux, anyone?

• australian writers week
• fringe festival

Positive news for Died Pretty's Chris Welsh

Now for some good news from former Died Pretty drummer Chris Welsh who is recovering at the Melbourne home of longtime friends Tony Robertson (Hitmen, The 31^st) and and Tony’s wife Samantha after surgery to remove a cranial tumour.

“My headache is still pretty bad but gradually improving. The surgery took longer than originally expected. Five and a half hours instead of three,” Chris posted online yesterday.

“I got the results from the pathology biopsy yesterday. Fortunately the tumour was benign. Back for a couple of blood tests, CT scan and oncology appointment next week and back to the neurosurgeon in six weeks. Apart from that I just have to take it easy and rest up.”

Chris has been in a long fight against lung cancer that’s forced him to leave his family in Thailand. A GoFundMe has been raising money to support him since 2023 and you can help here:

• died pretty
• cancer
• gofundme
• the 31st
• chjris welsh

2025 Top Tens: Melbourne-based trans-Tasman punter Ewen Hill

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Hola all the way down the deep deep south from this Melbourne correspondent and avid punter, last seen DJ'ing at an Auckland bar off K Road. My Top 10 (+GST) is based on the chemistry and science of great venues, appreciative crowds and our musicians, all of us doing it hard to keep live music .. umm err.. live 

Don Mcglashan, Newmarket in Auckland, New Zealand
A wonderful evening sans live music but with Don doing a Q&A after the first screening of the film "Anchor Me: The Don Mcglashan story". Don was a member of NZ bands Blam Blam Blam, The Front Lawn, and The Mutton Birds. Do not be shy in trying to track down their music.

• ed kuepper
• penny ikinger
• new christs
• cosmic psychos
• eddy current suppression ring
• charlie owen
• ups and downs
• painters and dockers
• x
• Don Mcglashan
• SnarskiCircusLindyBand

2025 Top Tens: Ex-Radio Birdman, Screaming Tribesmen and Hitmen guitarist Chris Klondike Masuak of Dog Soldier and Los Revelators

2025 threatened to be a year of crushing existential foreboding … a year of vulgar democratic erosion, racism, and sensationally grotesque hyper-nationalism. Violent weirdness. But, we managed to thwart most of it. Here are some observations and some highlights: 

1. Australia seemed to have decided to skirt pesky issues like empathy and human decency, defer to genocide apologists, and chuck justice, accountability, and democratic freedom to buggery.
Trying to understand the “rules” in oZ has become more complex, confusing, and demoralizing than trying to find a parking space in Leichhardt!

2. The Decline and Fall of the US Empire.
“So what?”, some may say.  With the United Stazi no longer the de facto Boss Of Stuff, 2026 is bound to be a  clusterfuck as the status quo Rearranges Their Priorities.

 3. The Epstein Files. (Waits for laughter to subside.)
“How guilty is Donald?”

“Your world does not understand how dumb he really is.” (Epstein’s response.)

 How much popcorn can we eat?

 4. Los Revelators
This groove-tastic li’l Spanish garage power-punk ensemble continues to chug away, having blasted out a few choice concerts and mini tours over the year (notably, one show with Leon rock legends The Salamanders).. The debut album should be ready for release in early 2026.

• chris masuak
• los revelators
• chris masuak's dog solider
• spiritbox
• deep sea diver

2025 Top Tens: Robert Lastdrager, drummer for Melbourne band The Tommys

It’s been a busy year for the Tommys: plenty of shows pushing our new 45 "Born To Follow" b/s "Window Pane” including a live-to-air on 3CR’s fabulous "Burning Vinyl" radio show.

1. 1969 Ludwig Supraphonic snare drum
There’s a reason why this is the most recorded snare in history. Just killer.

2. Pork Pie Drum Throne.
To any drummer or bar stool hog out there. Pay the extra and never look back

3. Little Green Festival, St Kilda Bowling Club, March 2025

4. The T Bones celebrated their 40^th Anniversary with a cavalcade of lineups from over the years.
Helen "Hellcat" Cattanach of Moler and I were the rhythm section on the first 45 and album. Great fun to rock out again including a warmup show at Bar 303, Northcote.

5. Show with Kreep 500 Town Hall Hotel at North Melbourne
Played some fun shows this year with Mick and Otto's raucous rockin’ garage two-piece.

6. The Wraylettes with The Tommys - Bendigo Hotel, Collingwood

7. Pearly Shells with Robert Susz - Jazz Lab, Brunswick.
I lived in Darlinghurst in 1985 and used to catch Continental Robert and his bar band at the Piccadilly Hotel in the Cross every Sunday arvo for free. He still has the tone and chops, and the Pearly Shells Big Band nailed it.

8. Ocean Vuong – The Emperor of Gladness

9. Archie Moore, kith and kin – Queensland Art Gallery 
Immense.

10.  Perfect Days - Wim Wenders.  

• helen cattanach
• moler
• robert lastdrager
• t-bones
• continental robert susz
• the tommys
• kreep 500