Melbourne’s reputation for throwing up more unique bands than Sydney could ever dream of goes from strength to strength on the back of The Pink Tiles. Their second LP is an unabashed mix of girl pop with garage rock and cheap, synth-y sass goodness.

It took the first spin of a promo burn on a road trip to show that The Pink Tiles stood out from the pack. Some proper listens since then have cemented “#1 Fan” as top-shelf pop. The soundtrack to sunny days in a beer garden or on the back porch.

The Pink Tiles kicked off as a bedroom project and grew into the Melbourne pub scene, adding members as they went. There are six members and Ex-Rocket Science guitarist Paul Maybury is one of them. He produced “#1 Fan” at his own studio and it’s drenched in reverb, with its sharp edges left intact.

There’s no hiding the mod influence on this six-track CD from a bunch of Sydney veterans. It’s beat pop with a bright disposition that sometimes sounds like Paul Weller on happy pills.

TSF began life as a duo, playing acoustic covers under the name The Mayday Dreamers. By accident, design or both, they grew two more members over the next three years and took on their new moniker. This is their first release.

Like the band's story, the songs are relatively uncomplicated but well constructed. Folk traits are evident and pop harmonies abound. Peter Kowal’s pleasant vocal carries most of the songs, with fellow guitarist Chris Newton singing earthier lead on a couple. Keith Claringbold (bass) and Pete Iacono (drums) are much better than workmanlike, down there in the engine room.

One of these CDs bored me pissless, but I’m going to give it four-and-a-half bottles. One of these is a seven bottle disc, the other is also four-and-a-half bottles and (I thought) a damn sight more enjoyable.

Nothing exists in isolation. We all develop differently, in different ways, from the same stimulus. One man is a banker, another, a thief.

Musicians are popularly both isolated and part of the crowd. Some might as well open their own bank ("Elton’s Bank’) while others we suspect nick the washing off clotheslines and have garage sales every Saturday and Sunday morning to make ends meet. (No, I won’t snitch).

Dirty-ass R&B twisted into their own nasty, digging thing. 

It's awarded five bottles of beer. Maybe more. I’m too busy listening and dancing and making the car dodge those gigantic Woollies trucks.

Fuck this is fun. There’s only two of the buggers, a drummer and a guitarist and yeah, I know. The White fucking Stripes. Boy they were over-rated, weren’t they? Yeah. They were. But The Bonnevilles are the genuine crumbly biscuit, all warm and fuzzy from the hearth. Hearth?

Never heard of ‘em. The call themselves ‘TRASH-COUNTRY-GARAGE & BLUES-PUNK’ which is … oh, for fuck’s sake, why can’t bands be a little more adventurous and just skip the fucking definitions?

Oh. Cos then audiences won’t know what they’re like, and instead of giving them a twist on Spotify, will skip on to Bachman Turner Overdrive or something equally vile. Also, of course, their name brings up a swag of completely irrelevant sites, so it’s almost impossible to find out anything about these buggers.

Omer was one of the founder members of The Dead Brothers (of whom I’ve extolled the virtues of elsewhere on I94bar). However, I listened to the disc before I learned that. If you’re one of these cats who don’t quite ‘get’ how jazz as well as blues morphed into rock (the big bands in the '30s and '40s prided themselves on how loud they were), then all I can say is… dig this, suckers.

"Swing Cremona" is that rare item, a disc you can bop, hop and jive to, as well as dance like you’re tanked on tequila. So, it ain’t quite jazz, ain’t quite folk, blues and on and on. They said that about Django Reinhardt, and they were right. They squealed about Monk being too wrong to be jazz, and being too jazz to be pop, but he was both, and ended up in the bop basket.