Hard-Ons to share spotlight with TV Smith

They’re still pinching themselves, but evergreen fans The Hard-Ons have been announced as punk pioneer TV Smith’s backing band for his April Australian tour.

Yep, Ray, Blackie and Murray and TV Smith will be powering thru 21st century renditions of The Adverts’ seminal punk rock catalogue including the 1977 classic “Crossing The Red Sea” album. Here's what two of them have to say about it:

Blackie: "As a young little fart being blown away by the shock horror of punk rock it seemed like every record I brought/heard was better than the last! Of course years later you shift back and forth and some lose a little power..

BUT a few stay with you .. you know every nano second of an album.. not just a track but an entire album!! That’s what Crossing the Red Sea with the Adverts is to me!! This tour coming up with TV Smith is a constant “pinch myself” moment. Excited!!!"

Ray: "TV Smith's songs always made a great impression for me. Passionate and intelligent social and political critique and observations that made me dance and think at once.

"The Adverts were the perfect band from 1977. That their songs do not sound dated at all is a testimony to their unique greatness. Words can't express how honoured I am to be able to be TV SMITH's bass player for one crazy Australian tour."

Read our TV Smith interview here.

TV SMITH'S ADVERTS
LIVE IN AUSTRALIA APRIL 2026
APR
2 - Young St Tavern Frankston  
3 - The Tote Collingwood (w/Alien Nosejob)
4 - Barwon Club Geelong (w/ Handgrenade Hearts) 
5 - Last Chance Rock'n'Roll Bar, Melbourne (matinee) 
8 - Hamilton Station Newcastle 
9 - Link and Pin, Woy Woy 
10 - Lansdowne, Sydney 
11 - La Las Wollongong -
(w/ Cammy Cautious and the Wrestlers)
Tickets

• hard-ons
• australian tour
• tv smith
• adverts

Noir troubadour Michael Plater hits Sydney

Renowned Melbourne indie/noir/neofolk troubadour Michael Plater is doing a four-date tour of Sydney this week and you’ll find dates at the end of this article. 

He’ll be accompanied by Adam Geoffrey Cole (Trappist Afterland) on the Thursday and Matt Malone & the Holy Spirits on the Friday, Saturday and Sunday. His Saturday gig is the single launch for Dave Favours & The Roadside Ashes.

Plater has been compared to Berlin phase Crime & the City Solution, as well as “Burning World”-era Swans. In a world where there are far too many would-be Ed Sheerans, Michael Plater is a darkling glint of reality wrapped in a shivery, somewhat eerie cloak of familiarity.

While fans of the dark folk sub-genre have claimed him as one of their own, like Adam Geoffrey Cole, such claims are as foolhardy as they are confining.

I've lost count of the number of times I've seen Plater - in Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney - and I find his performances to be mesmerising if not outright addictive.

Read more …

• dave favours
• michael plater
• matt malone
• sydney tour

Sacred Cowboys announce Sydney and Canberra shows

_{Mauro Trentin photo.}

Molly Meldrum’s worst nightmare, Sacred Cowboys, are playing rare shows in Canberra and Sydney in April to launch their new album “In The Manifesto”, out on Torn & Frayed (Australia) and Beast Records (France). 

Sacred Cowboys play Smith’s Alternative in Canberra on Friday, April 17 with hard psych prog rockers ZZG, and Marrickville Bowling Club on Saturday, April 18 with Belle Phoneix and her band and Beast Records labelmates Pete Ross & The Sapphire.

Presented by I-94 Bar, tickets go on sale at 9am (AEDST) on Friday here for Sydney and here for Canberra. Read our album review here.

Read more …

• sydney
• sacred cowboys
• garry gray
• canberra
• marrickville bowling club
• smiths alternative

Marshall Lore

_{Louie and Charlie Marshall. Supplied.} 

The name Charlie Marshall should be familiar. He was the singer and guitarist in one of Melbourne's legendary outfits, Harem Scarem, beloved in the 1980s for their swamp blues 

Charlie's a sensible chap - knowing that rock'n'roll does't always pay the bills (never mind buy you a house), he has a job, just like most of us. He is a science teacher.

Unlike most of us, he established  The Body Electric, which ran (or, perhaps, may still run) from the early 1990s to about ten years ago, with a variety of fine Melbourne talent, which has released at least five albums. Along the way he's also released another six records with different line-ups. Seems his job doesn't keep him out of mischief.

The calibre of musicians that Charlie has arrayed around him is high: they include Jim White (Dirty Three), Warren Ellis (Fungus Brains, Dirty Three, Nick Cave), Brian Henry Hooper (Kim Salmon and the Surrealists, Beasts of Bourbon), Bryan Colechin (The Marching Girls, Hugo Race), Cam Butler, Matt Heydon (Cow Penalty, The Voyeurs), Clare Moore (The Moodists, Dave Graney) and Darren Richard Seltmann (The Avalanches).

And then I listened to, and was mightily impressed by, Charlie's latest album "Gaian Soul" by Family Affair, a duo with his son  And  I thought a few questions were in order.

Read more …

• charlie marshall
• harem scarem
• family affair
• gaian soul
• louie marshall
• the body electric

Young Charlatans' legacy laid bare in a stunning time capsule

1978 - Young  Charlatans (Eminent Vinyl)

If you go on YouTube you can see a remarkable clip of two 18-year-old kids, Rowland S Howard and Ollie Olsen, being interviewed by the ABC. As the teenagers walk down St Kilda Road in Melbourne, they are jeered at for looking like aliens with art school aesthetics.  

It was 1978 and a vastly different time in Australia. In the beige, conservative world ruled by the Tories and the Country Party. Every second house had porcelain ducks on its wall and a framed picture of Queen Elizabeth the 2nd. The Robert Menzies vision of Australia ruled and the fashion mindset embraced Dennis Lillee’s porn star moustache and safari suits.

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• ollie olsen
• rowland s. howard
• 1978
• jeffrey wegener
• young charlatans
• janine hall
• eminent vinyl

Harem Scarem founder Charlie Marshall (and Louie's) Family Affair

Family Affair - Gaian Soul (Charlie Marshall)

Because I've been in a tunnel several years long it's been a while since I reviewed a CD. I won't say I'm out of the tunnel because I'm not. As most music writers know, LP or CD reviews always take up a lot of time (the book I'm currently beavering away at doesn't get much of a chance when reviews come tapping at the door. Poor little thing).

However. I was asked if I would do a CD review to get The Barman out of a hole and I rashly said yes, so this will probably be the last for a while, so there.

Read more …

• charlie marshall
• harem scarem
• family affair
• gaian soul
• louie marshall

They're still Not Like Everybody Else

Not Like Everybody Else – The Damned (earMusic)

Growing up in Sydney in the ‘70s, betrothed to the rise of punk music, you and most of your fellow travellers understood that this music had roots.  It did not appear out of vacuum.  It was a folk art built upon a tradition.

While folk art maybe sneered upon by some, it creates a sense of community and shared history.  And punk rock is counter culture.  It celebrates the outsider by counter-intuitively placing the outsider within the shared myth of the outsider.

Humans love our smoke and mirrors.

Read more …

• the damned
• brian james
• captain sensible
• not like everyone body else

Asteroid Ekosystem incoming: Alister Spence talks about "Sounds Have Dreams"

 ^{Ed Kuepper (left) and Asteroid Ekosystem with Alister Spence (second from the rigtht). Photo supplied.} 

Back in the day, I never saw The Saints with Ed Kuepper. Partly, because they just never got down to Adelaide, and partly because I was in my early teens when they were burning up the world. 

I didn't even see the first Laughing Clowns tour of Adelaide but did catch the second tour. Completely hooked, after that I saw every Clowns show in Adelaide. 

Traditional bollocks says the Clowns were kinda a jazz outfit. I suppose there were obvious building blocks. But they weren't jazz – and nor were they rock'n'roll. Didn't matter to me, I just danced at every gig, all the way through.

Forty-some years on, I'm a fat wheezy old fart who couldn't dance for half a song without getting puffed and reaching for the Zimmer frame.

Read more …

• ed kuepper
• laughing clowns
• the saints
• alister spence
• sounds have dreams
• asteroid ekosystem

It's Alive! Canadian rocker Rich Hope and his red hot band hit the mark

Live At The ANZA Club - Rich Hope (Planned Obsolescence Recording & Novelty Inc)

There was a time when you could walk into a designated rock and roll club in most sizeable North American  cities and try your luck, knowing that you might just stumble on a band that would make it the best night of your month.

It may still be the case in musical hotbeds like Austin and Nashville. No idea because it’s been such a loooong time between long-haul trans-Pacific flights. But that's the scenario that Canadian rocker Rich Hope tried to replicate on “Live At The ANZA Club”.

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• rich hope
• Planned Obsolescence Recording & Novelty Inc
• kive at the anza club