Ghost - Velvet Parade (Kasumuen Records)

In what promises to be a huge weekend, this Saturday (May 3) Velvet Parade will be in Adelaide ahead of their Japanese tour, supported by The Cold Field and Electric Badger. 

Velvet Parade is Cold Harbour's Vincent J. Kramer is on guitar, Fraudband's Don Drum is on drums, The Coves' Pete Azzopardi is on bass, Ashley Jones (from Matt Malone and The Holy Spirits) is on keys, and (former Adelaide boy) Ripley Hood on vox ...

Sorry, why is Rip a former Adelaide boy?

Well, he found the railway station, is what I heard...

Living Between The Lines - Frank Meyer (Kitten Robot) 

Hello Barflies! Have I got a ripper album for you...“Living Between The Lines” is the first Frank Meyer solo album and it is a wonderful record  

Frank, of course, is a founding member of The Streetwalkin Cheetahs, and guitarist for Handsome Dick Manitoba (ex-The Dictators), legendary LA punk band Fear, and vocalist for James Williamson (Iggy and the Stooges) in  James Williamson & The Pink Hearts.  

His other bands include Spaghetti & Frank, Trading Aces, Highway 61, Sweet Justice, and Thor. So he has lots of form.

Adjustment Disorder – The Institutionalist (self released)

The Institutionalist is a post-punk creation from the sonic laboratory of Ernie O, a gifted but unassuming producer, engineer and musician from the fringes of Melbourne.

 At this point we’ll declare that The O Man is the mastering wiz-of-choice for many discerning labels, I-94 Bar Records, among them. His  playing history includes Suburban Urchins, The Photon Belt, The Undecided By Default and Vocabularinist, none of which are household names. That’s what you get for misspending your youth in Tasmania. In a fair and just world, however, “Adjustment Disorder” would change that.

Motor City Is Burning: A Michigan Anthology 1965-1975 – Various Artists (Grapefruit Records)

Proof positive, if it was actually needed, that a Golden Age of Rock ‘n’ Roll existed in one of the 50 states of the USA other than Califonria and that it encompassed much more than just the Stooges and the MC5.

In Australia, of course, we have a skewed view of the so-called “Detroit Scene” (a name that almost no Americans of my acquaintance use, by the way.) We learned from the teachings of Radio Birdman leader and expat Michiganite Deniz Tek who landed here to study medicine in 1974, spreading the word about those bands in evangelistic fashion.

Of course Birdman were always much more than those two trace elements - they were just the ones on the high-energy scale that caught the imagination of most. If you’ve ever engaged the Kona Coffee Farmer in conversation for more than five minutes you’ll know his passion for the Stones and his knowledge of local acts like the SRC and the first band he saw live, Ann Arbor heroes The Rationals.  

Buckle Rash – Broham (Bad Apple/Dark Roasted)     

Country Music doesn’t rate much space around these parts but scratch the surface hard enough with a wooden nickel and you’ll find it, lurking like a grinning red-headed uncle in rock and roll’s family tree. The births of the modern versions of the blues and country appear on American timelines that run through the Appalachian backwoods and the mid-western dustbowls of the 1920s.

The Australian strain of Country Music, on the other hand, is much more bastardised. It rose to prominence in the post-World War II years. In the ‘70s, media maven John Laws hitched his wagon to it, telling a generation: “You’ve never been trucked like this before”.

Chinese Democracy Manifest: Greatest Hits Vol 2 – Mazinga (self released)

Born in the 1990s Basement Scene of Ann Arbor, Michigan, and honed in countless dive bars across the wide expanses of The Great Lakes State, cosmic punks Mazinga have re-emerged after a decade break with their second long-player. The title, “Chinese Democracy Manifest: Greatest Hits Vol 2”, is a mouthful but the record packs a big enough punch to make your teeth rattle.     

The band calls it "Maximum Cosmic Punk". Coffee farmer Deniz Tek labels it “tight as hell with great rhythm playing behind killer solos” and drums that remind him of the late Scott Asheton.