Fresh from last year’s sold-out 40th anniversary 2024 tour of Australia and Europe, and following on from single “Falling from the Sky”, The Stems have released a new sseven-inch.

“Deep Freeze” arrives in the lead up to their much-anticipated East Coast Tour and festival appearance at The Gum Ball festival in New South Wales.  It’s the second single from the band’s forthcoming album and is a classic freakbeat-R&B stomper. Yiou can hear it here. 

“Deep Freeze” is on Cheersquad Records and Tapes on all streaming platforms and on limited edition 7" vinyl in translucent blue (100 copies), translucent teal (100 copies), and black. Buy it here.

The Stems
East Coast Australian Tour
*with special guests
Rinehearts
APR
23 – Northcote Social Club, Melbourne, VIC*
24 – Crowbar Sydney, NSW*
25 – Gum Ball Festival, Hunter Valley, NSW
26 – Old Museum, Brisbane, QLD
Tickets

Reformed The Cruel Sea are heading out on the road on the back of their fabulously soulful summery long-player, "Straight Into The Sun", with an Australian winter tour.

The onetime inner-Sydney instrumental surf band turned spicily eclectic chart-busters are promising two-set shows in theatre venues, visiting five states and the Australian Capital Terrritory. 

Recent runs of selected headlining shows and a national tour supporting Cold Chisel attracted rave reviews. 

This itme out you can expect Tex Perkins and Co to deliver the new album in full and a bracket of classics.

The Cruel Sea
"Straight Into The Sun Tour"
MAY
1 - Dunstan Playhouse, Adelaide SA
2 - Athenaeum Theatre, Melbourne VIC
3 - Canberra Theatre, Canberra
16 - Anita’s Theatre, Wollongong NSW
18 - The Tivoli, Fortitude Valley QLD
31 - City Recital Hall, Sydney NSW
JUN
5 - The Regal Theatre, Perth WA
7 - Mandurah Performing Arts Centre, Mandurah WA.
Tickets
Tom Wilkinson photo

_{Flashback to Thrashville 2023.}

Heavy Hunter Valley music festival Thrashville is back on the New South Wales map at the town of Dashville in Lower Belford on Saturday, June 28. The news flies in the face of a wave of festival cancellations, and organisers are going with 25 bands over four stages. 

Heading the first line up announcement are Melbourne punks Private Function, hard core stalwarts King Parrot, raw and powerfully eclectic MUDRAT, hard mosh beasts Volatile Ways, blistering heavy-hitters Frankenbok, Simpsons themed Dr Colossus and rising folk-punk superstar Slim Krusty.

Ahead of the premiere Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney screenings of “20 YEARS IN THE CRYPT: EMBEDDED ON TOUR WITH DEAD MOON” I ask:

"WHY THE FUCK DIDN'T EVERYBODY WHO WAS PART OF SYDNEY'S '80S GARAGE SCENE GO HOG-WILD FOR DEAD MOON, THE BAND LED THROUGHOUT THE '90S BY FRED COLE OF THE LOLLIPOP SHOPPE???"

That's the question. It's been on my mind for 30+ years.. 

Does anyone have an answer?

More than any city in the world I reckon, Sydney's music scene from the end of the '70s through a good chunk of the '80s, was heavily into '60s American punk/garage rock, and the “Pebbles” series of compilations in particular.

The likes of the Lime Spiders and the Wet Taxis (and numerous others) tapped that material to the point that Kim Salmon in the Scientists' Sydney days used to complain about all the “Pebbles covers bands”. 

Maybe it's because by the end of the '80s that scene in Sydney was kinda dead. I dunno. But when Dead Moon appeared with their first album in 1989, they should have been a Sydney garage-rocker's wet dream.

Tokyo's rockin' all-girl retro riot The 5.6.7.8's have released a new 'Best of' LP on local label Cheersquad for their Australian tour starting this week, with Sydney and two Melbourne shows already solfd out.

The house fuill sign went uop on Sydney's Thursday show (with Psychotic Turnbuckles and Cheetah Beat) and it's the same story with Melbourne shows at The Tote (March 25) and The Last Chance (March 26).  Gigs in Brisbane, Beechworth and Hobart are selling fast.

It’s a pairing for the ages: Master guitarist Tim Gaze (Tamam Shud, Khavas Jute) and Mike Rudd (Ariel, Spectrum) are doing a special run of shows in south-east Queensland and northern New South Wales in May.

Rudd is best known for his work with Spectrum and that undeniably classic Australian song “I'll Be Gone”. He went on to front another metamorphosis of Spectrum in Indelible Murtceps and also Ariel, who found chart success with “Jamaican Farewell”.

These days, Mike plays as a duo with George Butrumlis and tackles songs that, for one reason or another, don't get played in the group setting. Outrageous songs like “Excuse Me Just One Moment” from Murtceps' “Warts Up your Nose” album and “Confessions of a Psychopathic Cowpoke” from Ariel's “A Strange Fantastic Dream” album, a song that was famously banned from airplay.

Opening the evening will be Tim Gaze who will take audiences on a trip re-visiting moments of his journey where he has regularly been referred to as one of Australia’s finest and inspiring guitarists.

These shows are proudly presented by SoundPressing.

Mike Rudd + Tim Gaze
MAY
2 - The Citadel, Murwillumbah, NSW
Tickets
3 - The Junk Bar, Brisbane, QLD
Tickets
4 - Banshees Bar, Ipswich, QLD
Tickets