New Hard Fun: Mark Taylor and Peter Tillman are returning with a new Lipstick Killers album

_{Credit: ChatGPT}

You could have knocked down most fans of Australian ‘70s underground music with a feather in July when Lipstick Killers co-founders, guitarist Mark Taylor and singer Peter Tillman, stepped out of the shadows and released a rock opera.

To say the least, “The Shining Stone” - presaged by “The Lipstick Killers present” in the title - was a departure from the expected. Not glitter punk. Not acid punk, not garage rock. Instead, it was a massive sounding, full-blown orchestrated concept album, with full-blooded Three Tenor-style vocals and squalls of shiny, metallic guitars. All on CD and gorgeously packed with two glossy booklets of illustrtated narrative. 

If you haven’t read our review we’ll put a spoiler out there right now: A.I. was heavily and uashamedly utilised in the making of “The Shining Stone”. Way to go to polarise opinions in these charged times. But there's lots more to discuss  

Mark Taylor and Peter Tillman have a YouTube channel, The Bad Kynd, where they have been publishing images and garage punk songs - and a near-finished new Lipstick Killers album is in the wings.

The Barman invited The Lipstick Killers into the Bar and here’s the virtual e-mail exchange.

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• lipstick killers
• mark taylor
• grown up wrong
• peter tillman
• the bad kynd
• doctor stone
• pink flamingo records

Twenty years and a million beers later, The Dunhill Blues are back in the van

Twenty years, six albums, two European tours and almost an entire Australian continent later, Sydney's The Dunhill Blues are still getting in the van.

In 2006, Dan Dunhill was 29-years-old, writing songs on guitar while bouncing his baby boy to sleep in a little chair with his foot. He’d written 10 of them. He’d never played guitar in a band before. He’d never been the singer in a band before, either. But he reckoned he could probably handle it.

The ambitions were fairly modest: make a proper album, rather than another shitty four-song demo, and get out of Sydney to play somewhere else. Dan hadn’t even been to Melbourne at that point.

There was never a grand plan to get famous. There wasn’t much expectation of being popular, either. And perhaps that’s part of the reason The Dunhill Blues are still here.

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• dunhill blues
• 20 years

They Will Persuade You: Huxton Creepers Still Know How to Deliver

Huxton Creepers
The Johnnys
Marrickville Bowling Club. NSW
Saturday 15 August 2026

Does anyone other than a few snobby reviewers (hand raised here) and Aussie music publicist-cum-label-owner Dave Laing use the term “power pop” anymore? As unfashionable as the music it describes might be to algorithm-powered playlist curators, it doesn’t matter much what you call it, the visceral appeal of a guitar-fuelled hook married to a melody line to move anyone who bothers to listen is still intact.

Huxton Creepers are a case study. From a period overflowing with bands remembered as “the ones that got away” (the glorious mid ‘80s), Huxton Creepers have more claim than most to the descriptor “shoulda beens”.

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• the johnnys
• australian tour
• marrickville bowlo
• huxton creepers

Swervedriver and their wall-to-wall riffs return

For many I-94 Barflies, Swervedriver , soon to hit Austraia for a seventh tour, are still a relatively new band. And the 1990s were not that long ago. 

As you may know, Swervedriver is led by driving force, Adam Franklin (guitar and vocals); the band came to prominence from about 1990, after several previous bands had folded (including the very Stooges-heavy Shake Appeal). Swervedriver immediately got people's attention with a series of EPs featuring loud, feedback-y guitars courtesy Franklin and Jimmy Hartridge.

This approach to rock'n'roll usually creates what I think of as “chronic wet pants syndrome” with the movers and shakers in the record companies. In my limited experience, audiences, accustomed to lame, unadventurous slop, usually respond to feedback-soaked bands with hearty roars, too much alcohol and a blissful sense of being the top of their head being removed. In one previous interview, Franklin has described his glee at the sight of punters being "peeled off the back wall" in response to their live shows.

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• australian tour
• swervedriver
• adam franklin

The Saints 73-78 return for Australian tour with a live '76 Saints album

Five decades on from “(I’m) Stranded”, The Saints ’73-’78 have announced a summer Australian tour and the release of an unearthed live 1976 Saints recording.

The Saints ’73-’78 will hit the road in Australia in January and February 2027 after November-December UK shows with The Damned as part of the latter’s worldwide Final Damnation 50th anniversary tour. Tickets for the Aussie run go on sale on August 14 here. 

Those Australian shows will accompanied by the  release of "Live At Club 76", featuring the original Saints and  recorded in September 1976 at the band’s famed Petrie Terrace, Brisbane, rehearsal space and ad-hoc venue. 

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• australian tour
• thje damned
• uk tour
• live at club 76

We need to talk about Molly

The Molly Fet Circuit Live am Brutto Kaiserbeller, Koln, Mai 2026 – The Molly Fet Circuit (Tripe House)

Call it a wild theory, but the deinstitutionalisation of mental health care in Australia that transitioned psychiatric care out of large, isolated asylums and into community-based settings has been a shot-in-the-arm for live music in many places. Adelaide’s Molly Fet Circuit is a prime example.

This is not an official release. It’s a bootleg. So the band is at pains to state. Well, one of the members, Robert Brokenmouth. He’s the vocalist (term used loosely) so you’d expect him to say stuff.  He says he’s very annoyed. He writes for us so you better believe him. 

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• suicide
• the fall
• molly fet circuit

Swimming with the SharkArms

_{SharkArm. Rachel Cullen photo}

Sydney skuzz rockeers t SharkArm have been gigging for years with an album and two singles to their credit. The big news for locals is that they're bringing Queenslanders Gravel Samwidge, and Sotu Australians Molly Fet Circuit for gigs at MoshPit (August 15 from 2.30pm) and The Link and Pin in Woy Woy (August16.)

SharkArm haven’t fronted the Bar for an interview so this seemed like a good reason for Robert Brokenmouth (who plays in Molly Fet Circuit) to ask a bunch of questions. SharkArm are Damian Iowa (drums), Nathan Iowa (guitar and vocals) and Josh Shipton (bass.)

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• shark arm
• molly fet circuit
• sharkarm
• josh shipton
• nathan iowa
• damian iowa

Vale Jeff "Mono Man" Connolly of DMZ and Lyres

They never rose to household name status but Jeff “Mono Man” Conolly’s bands DMZ and Lyres left an indelible mark on (to use the term he hated) “garage rock”. Conolly died at his Massachusetts home last Friday after a struggle with bladder cancer, aged 69

Raised in Connecticut, Conolly moved to Boston in the mid 1970s and fronted DMZ from 1976, mixing British Invasion melody and punk rock’s urgency with obscure ‘60s garage music.

DMZ attracted the attention of Seymour Stein's legendary Sire Records, joining a roster that included the Ramones, Talking Heads and the Flamin' Groovies before releasing their sole album in 1978 and then breaking up.

With Lyres, the band he formed in 1979, Connolly built that obsession into a distinctive sound driven by Vox Continental organ, reverb-soaked guitars, pounding rhythms and impassioned vocals.

Despite being active for decades, Lyres released only four studio albums. Their reputation rests more on their electrifying live performances, influential singles and EPs, and the enduring impact of their classic debut “On Fyre”. They are all required listening, as is the box set seven-inch compilation on Munster Records, "Lucky 7", from where the obituary photo comes. 

• lyres
• dmz
• jeff connolly
• obituary
• mono-men

Live music? Lachlan's loving it. Make mine a MacGuffin

_{The MacGuffins. Alison Breen photo.}

Lachlan Colquhoun is a writer, editor, publisher, bass player and anarchistic ne'er-do-well. Adelaide expat cum Sydney-ite, currently with Sydney outfits The Flippin' Kick Outs and The MacGuffins.

You might not have heard of Lachlan Colquhoun. On the other hand, if you're an old fart sitting at home with the bowl of corn chips barely balanced on your belly while you suck a stubby through a straw, you might remember him from tumultuous, inebriated nights in the 1980s and ‘90s when Sydney was crowded with bands, possibility and sub-tropical steam, even more crowded with thirsty punters. 

If you know the music world, essentially everyone in this country is a minor player. Why? Because it's Australia, and while we may think we're something special, overseas, no other bastard does. So, like Iva Davies or Daniel Johns or even that bloke from Men at Work, while between jobs which pay a fuck of a lot better than being a musician.

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• lachlan colquhoun
• macguffins