Well, there's a wet weekend on the horizon, which will probably see me staying at home. I have a stack of 11 new CDs to get through, including the Killer Birds ep and new albums from the Kamikaze Trio and The Super Insurgent Group of Intemperance Talent, with a few more on the way from Rich at Dropkick Records as well. There are a some things that might tempt me out, though. Tijuana Souvenirs for free at the Pint on Punt tonight is an option, or maybe the Apartments with Dave Graney & Clare Moore's Lurid Yellow Mist at the Northcote Social Club
Saturday there are a few things happening- not least of which are the almighty Dynamo at the Greyhound, maybe, or Nation Blue and others over at the Arthouse. Or try getting drunk and taking a ride in that big Ferris Wheel in Birrarung Marr, in the rain. In the dark. And the howling wind.
And I have long, slow, cold-brewed high hopped batch of beer to bottle...
Looks like this will have to wait until next week, then:
It has to be the eclectic and fine rockin' Vindicator Smooth at the Excelsior, Surry Hills this Friday. Here's a vid shot by Vanilla Smoothie at their recent support to Radio Birdman at Annandale with them rolling through Love's "My Flash On You":
That's Mark Sisto on vocals, Andy Newman (Me-262, Decline of the Reptiles)on bass, Ged Corben (you might know him from the Lime Spiders) on guitar at right, Jon Schofield (Paul Kelly, Hell to Pay et al) on guitar at left and Jeffrey Wegener (Laughing Clowns, Ed Kuepper, the Saints) on drums. Supports will be Astrid Munday (up from Melbourne) and Madeleine Chase. I just gotta find a way of getting there after the daughter's school concert gig.
I was intrigued to see Radio Birdman and the Hoodoo Gurus had both been scheduled for induction into the ARIA Hall of Fame this year. I'm a fan, the ceremony itself is being held in Melbourne, I've got a few spare dollars right now- it should be no drama to find out who's arranging it, get a ticket and then head along to the Plaza Ballroom in my best duds on 18th July for a big night out, right? Wrong. After three weeks of asking, I finally got sent a ticket order form-there are no press passes available apparently, but then I wasn't banking much on that, anyway. $475.00 to see a couple of songs and get a three course rubber chicken dinner? Err, no, thanks. I know that the Hall of Fame sponsors the work done by Support Act, and they will be recieving any profits, but really, $475.00 buys a lot of beers, even for an industry crowd, and especially when the TV rights have already been sold. So, congratulations to the bands & people who are getting this well-deserved recognition, but now will you please play somewhere I can come and see you?
As usual, click on that image to see an enlarged version.
Here's a piece of history for Stooges fans. We're publishing - for the first time anywhere - three sets of photos of the "Funhouse" and pre-"Raw Power" Stooges, from the six shows they played in the St Louis area in 1970 and '71.
CRAIG PETTY was lucky enough to be at all those shows, several of them with camera in hand. His photos were destined for publication in a Stooges book which, alas, appears to have stalled. So we're presenting them for the first time, in copy-protected form. (You may be able to reproduce these photos if you have a worthy project in mind - but please make sure you seek permission here first. OK?)
Craig takes up the story...
"The color photos of Iggy with longer hair, no dog collar and unripped jeans were from Kiel Stadium, St Louis, Missouri on March 7th, 1970.
"The next set of color shots with Iggy in ripped jeans , dog collar and shorter hair come from The Rainy Daze Club St.Louis MO in about July 1970 - a week or so before the famous Cincinnati Festival with the 'walking on the hands' film."
Close observers will note that Iggy is almost identically dressed in that TV footage:
"The black-and-white shots are from May 27th 1971 at the Factory, in St.Charles (a suburb of St Louis.) This show is the one that many bootlegs are from, and many of those are mistakenly labeled Kiel Stadium 1970," Craig says.
(There's a bootleg on the mysterious Starfighter label which purports to be this show - a better quality copy of that tape is circulating through traders.)
"The Factory show had Ron AND James Williamson on dual lead guitars for a very rare and short lived period. This was a makeup show for one canceled the night before at The Music Palace when the band's equipment truck didn't show.
"About 35 minutes into the show, Ig whacks Ron in the head with his mic by accident and the gig stops. They come back and try one more but it goes down. The show is over.
"People are pissed. Iggy comes out into the crowd afterward and hangs out and talks to everybody and is very apologetic. This is very cool.
"The promoter stiffs them. That's very uncool.
"A couple of weeks later they're dropped by Elektra and the band goes dormant.
"They came back to St Louis in '73 for two shows at the American Theatre."
Dates Craig recalls the dates the band played in St Louis over 1970-73 were:
3/7/70 Kiel Stadium 3/25/70 Rainy Daze ?/7/70 Rainy Daze 5/27/71 The Factory 8/18/73 American Theatre (two shows)
You can access the photos here. Wouldn't hurt to tell Craig how you feel (to quote Ig) by leaving a comment.
A little distraction to get you sacked at work. Turn the volume down if you want to stay in employment. I'm not sure what Buckle.com is all about but the rest of it smells of fashion shows and American Idol.
A few things on, but not too much. You could pretty much see all of these, if you wanted, and I think I'm going to try to. On Friday, the Double Agents play the front bar of the (still kinda open) Spanish Club for free, from 9.30pm.
On Saturday, Sydney's 3D TV do a single launch at the Town Hall Hotel in North Melbourne, with Pretty Green and the allegedly awesome Ooga Boogas. That's free as well.
Or you could hit the Tote, for Little Red, Mink Jaguar & the Spazzys I guess that may mean Ally & Kat Spazzy will be nursing hangovers on Sunday, when they turn out for the Sacred Heart Community Cup at the Junction Oval in St. Kilda. As usual, the Espy Rockdogs will take on the RRR/PBS Megahertz, and as usual, I'll be barracking for the 'Hertz. Pre match entertainment is from 11.00am- the Killer Birds, Double Agents, and the Rockwiz Orchestra, half-time sees Mach Pelican play one of their last gigs. Bob Log III will be singing the national anthem before the kickoff. Only a $5.00 donation to get in. This is always a great day out. Beer, kid & dog-friendly, bring your footy.
Not a rock and roll post but a nice photoblog. Click on the link and scroll down for a nice piece of Shockwave coupled with timelapse photography. The full photoblog "A Daily Dose of Imnagery" appears here.
Seems like a while since I had any new art up here. This will be well worth a look.
Outré Gallery is proud to be hosting a full-scale exhibition by one of our most popular advocates of the urban subculture and noir vision, a genre sometimes referred to as Pop Surrealism. Glenn Barr's work blends his own brand of gritty pop imagery from trash culture to a mid-century wasteland aesthetic. His brooding apocalyptic city scape vignettes of moral ruin still manages to embrace a visual satire of humour and pathos. All this and a stylistic nod from his underground comics and animation days thrown into the mix. Glenn Barr will be out from hometown Detroit to meet and greet at his exhibitions in both Melbourne and Sydney. Glenn will be signing his books “Lowlife Paradise” and “Haunted Paradise” on Saturday 23 June at Outré Melbourne, and Saturday 30 June at Outré Darlinghurst. Both publications are available for sale from Outré.
A bit of news which explains Pip Hoyle's absence from the U.S. tour just kicking off - read it here. Best wishes go out to the Sharpest Dressed Man in Rock and Roll and his family.
Here's a media release that lobbed into the I-94 Bar inbox this week. It seems unlikely that I'll ever find out what Guff sounds like so I'll resist further comment (but feel free to make one, if you feel so disposed):
Rock Legend Steve Perry works with Punk Band!!
So what could Steve Perry, the legendary lead singer of Journey possibly have to do with a punk band? Well, here it goes: While Guff was in the studio working on their upcoming new album, Steve walked in to visit a friend. He was so impressed with Guff that he showed up unannounced two days later and asked Guff to cover an unreleased Journey song. In the end, Steve not only produced the song “I Can See It In Your Eyes” but also sang on it! The song is featured on Guff’s brand new full-length “Symphony of Voices” which will be released on June 26th on Go-Kart Records.
Check out some of the songs of “Symphony of Voices” in our beautiful online stream at www.GokartRecords.com
Turning our attention to bad music, here's a website that's chockful of it. Think of ilike.com as an online version of Name That Tune for the truly gormless. WARNING: Britney Spears Zone.
That late and now great Dave Thomas-led Melbourne band Tiger By The Tail recently mentioned around these parts has called it a day. There's talk of a final, final gig (one of the guys was unavailable for the recent show due to illness.) We'll keep you posted.
Are you tone deaf or do you have bad taste in music? US medical student Jake Mandell has developed an online test to determine if it's the former. He takes up the story:
"While working at the music and neuroimaging lab at Beth Israel/Harvard Medical School in Boston, I developed a quick online way to screen for the tonedeafness. It actually turned out to be a pretty good test to check for overall pitch perception ability. The test is purposefully made very hard, so excellent musicians rarely score above 80% correct." Try it here.
(Postscript: I scored 78% but since I struggle to tune a guitar I'm not reading much into that.)
Working on the outer fringes of the music biz, as I do, I often feel very privileged to catch a glimpse of little bits of the day to day, back and forth stuff that makes things tick. One such is an email I was copied in on last week, from Sacred Cowboy Garry Gray, to the Barman, editor of my regular haunt, the I94 Bar. Garry had submitted a review of a record that I don't believe is available in Australia yet, and this is what he said:
Gentlemen, I have unearthed a classic album, finished this year by an unsung hero of rock, a friend of mine, and a fucking great human being-Mick Mashbir. Before you start saying "Ah, not another mate" (he is also a mate of Penny's), I promise you this is a great album by a great artist. I stand by everything I say in this review, and if you guys dug the original Alice Cooper Group as much as me, you won't feel any different to me. This man played lead guitar on nearly every song on 'Billion Dollar Babies' and 'Muscle of Love', AND toured extensively with the original ACG group. The guitar is fucking wild and the lyrics, great. The missing follow up to 'Muscle Of Love', a missing original ACG album? I'm lucky enough to have the disc...you can get a good preview on CD Baby. Be great if you could post this review of Mick's disc as soon as possible. I know it's not usual but I've given it 5.5 beers. Attached is a JPEG of the cover, the correct amount of beer, and the review. Listen to this one....you'll be blown away.
best regards
Garry
Of course it went up on the Bar. Go here to read it.
I mentioned this movie a while back. This is a just a note that it's now out on DVD, and is available as a limited edition 2 disc set which includes a CD of the (excellent) Mick Harvey soundtrack.
Triggered by a marketing email in my inbox the other day...
I used to quite like the Go Betweens. The distinctive "Australian-ness" they get lauded for these days wasn't so much a factor of their sound when they were resident in Melbourne around the time that Missing Link put out "Your Turn, My Turn", and the "Send Me A Lullaby" LP. Live, they could be strikingly spiky and intense, sometimes moving from petulant to fragile to near collapse, but always entertaining. A whole bunch of people have contributed to a new tribute album: My most memorable Go Betweens adventures probably don't bear writing down. One involves a party at the (rather swanky) home of the parents of VOX magazine editor Neil Bradbury. There was drinking, there was a pool, there were some hijinks. Late in the afternoon I was "resting" indoors when Lindy Morrison came in to get changed out of her swimming costume. She didn't bat an eyelid at my semi-conscious figure, blithely stripping nude, chatting all the time. Two things made an impression on me that afternoon- apart from the obvious, she called me an iconclast, the first and only time I've ever been labelled thus. The other took place at a house in Punt Rd. East Melbourne, in 1983, I think, on the day before they left on a return trip to England. I'd dropped in that afternoon to say goodbye. Grant was clearly over the whole thing, and just wanted to get there. Robert was charming but nervous. Lindy was packing and repacking her case- her suitcase, not her equipment flight cases- and caused minor panic when she came downstairs and loudly announced that her passport had been stolen, and so they wouldn't be able to go after all. Robert sighed, rolled his eyes, and found it for her in two minutes flat. So there you go
Full track listing for that album, by the way, goes like this: Disc One (studio recordings) Lee Remick Patience Hodgson (from The Grates) Bye Bye Pride Sarah Blasko Head Full Of Steam Dan Kelly Dusty In Here Youth Group The House That Jack Kerouac Built Glenn Richards (from Augie March) Streets Of Your Town Bob Evans Right Here Darren Hanlon Bachelor Kisses Josh Pyke Draining The Pool For You Andrew Cox (from The Fauves) Hold Your Horses Sarah Blasko and Darren Hanlon No Reason To Cry New Buffalo Finding You Adele Pickvance (from The Go-Betweens) Spring Rain David McCormack (from Custard) Dive For Your Memory Glenn Thompson (from The Go-Betweens)
Disc Two (live at the Tivoli Theatre,Brisbane) Head Full Of Steam David Mccormack Lee Remick Darren Hanlon Right Here Darren Hanlon No Reason To Cry Kevin Mitchell (Aka Bob Evans) Bye Bye Pride Sarah Blasko Dusty In Here Toby Martin & Cameron Emerson (Youth Group) This Girl, Black Girl Toby Martin and Cameron Emerson (Youth Group) Spring Rain Dan Kelly Draining The Pool For You Dan Kelly The House That Jack Kerouac Built Glenn Richards People Say Glenn Richards Hold Your Horses Sarah Blasko Streets Of Your Town Bob Evans Finding You Glenn Thompson and Adele Pickvance Dive For Your Memory Glenn Thompson and Adele Pickvance
I hate to whine here but really, this is getting ridiculous. I still don't have anywhere to live. My latest batch of beer (a highly hopped pale ale, brewed early for good summer drinking) stalled in the fermenter due to this cold weather. And my new project is eating time, patience and bandwidth in roughly equal proportions, and it's barely started yet. Here's a sneak preview, for those with eyes to see it:
And I missed both Penny Ikinger's gig at the Greyhound and the screening of the Rachel Lucas documentary, too. Oh well. There have been some positives, though.
Last Saturday's show at the Tote was excellent. A lot of old friends there, some good news (hi, Anna & Alexander) and some excellent music. Them Wrong Turns are well worth keeping an eye on. A guitar and drums duo who manage to sound different to any other guitar and drum duo you may have heard, they draw more on straight rock than anything else, and have a huge, full sound courtesy of some quick pedal work. Dynamo did their Dynamo thing as well as ever, though for some reason I couldn't get into it. Sadly Tiger By The Tail were playing their last show, and due to illness they played it as a three piece, too. Nothing precious here- the set list was a copy of each CD, turned face down on the stage, and they were happy enough to take requests for anything anyone wanted to yell from the floor. (Watch this space for details of Dave Thomas' new project, by the way.) HOSS were in fine form, and the Onyas were a great way to close.
Why is there an unflattering cartoon of Radio Birdman's Rob Younger in this blog? In case you missed the item at the I-94 Bar, ex-Radio Birdman/Hitmen/Raouls member and noted graphic artist Warwick Gilbert's latest art exhibition goes live at Gallery37 in Coffs Harbour (on the New South Wales North Coast) on Friday and will continue until July 11. That is, if y'all don't buy all the works online.
"Myth, Memory & Idolatry" includes original works on canvas (a few of which you might have seen a year or two at the R$adio Birdman Exhibition in Sydney), but also features a handful of drumheads from The Warlord's Radio Birdman and Hitmen days.
Thanks to Gallery37's industrious Program Manager, Rachael Slattery, you can view some of the works - and buy fixed price originals - here. If you want to buy direct, drop the Gallery a line after you have a look.
At the risk of being told we're living in the past here's a potentially great and growing resource called Not So Ugly Things that's worth checking out regularly. Based on the contents of a suitcase of old Australian rock and roll publicity photos retrieved form a rubbish pile a decade ago, it's a pictorial blog of Oz music originators in candid and posed form. Let the blogmaster know what you think, OK?
Undoubtedly there are going to be many more photos of bands like the Masters Apprentices (above) with haircuts they'd rather forget...
this blog is called Last Tram Home, and as a non-driver the tram is my usual mode of transport. But on Friday night my (new best) friend Thomas gave me a lift home in this: It's a prototype of the V8 Elfin Streamline , and it stunk of petrol, hot oil, and burnt rubber. Sounded like a Spitfire in full flight, backfired like a motherfucker, jumped like a rabbit with Tabasco on it's arse. Best ride I've had in a while.
I've been listening to "Little Animals" by the Beasts of Bourbon all week, and would love to go and see them at the Prince of Wales on Friday. Unfortunately, I have to go and look for somewhere to live on Saturday, and I can't see that an after-Beasts gig hangover will impress any real estate agents.
On Saturday there is a big line up at the Tote- a benefit for Heather Macdonald:
The Melbourne music scene has suffered a setback with the theft of Heather MacDonald's camera gear. These camera's have been used to capture some of the most memorable concerts of the last decade. Her images have graced the covers of many local releases, such as The Powder Monkeys, Hoss, Digger & The Pussycats, The Sailors, Mach Pelican and The Mystaken as well as a Dead Moon LP and the walls of the Tote Hotel's front bar. To get her over this hurdle a bunch of Heather's buddies are getting together do a bit of what they do best. So help pick up her spirits and kick up your heels.
Playing: The Onyas, Hoss, Dynamo, Tiger By The Tail, The Kickyourheadins, Wrong Turn, Chuck Jenkins. Starts at 7.oopm, for only $10.00 Sadly, this looks like it may well be the last Tiger By The Tail gig ever. Get there early. I mentioned recently that the Saints reformation made me want to go to Brisbane- well, the idea of seeing the Darling Downs and the Painkillers sharing a bill makes me want to go to Perth: James Baker, Ron Peno & Kim Salmon, all on one bill, all doing new material. A rare opportunity, I hope it packs out for them.
Yes, I know, there's been minimal ranting lately - for reasons I won't bore you with - so here's a quick line to indicate there are still signs of life. I stumbled over a myspace thingie for a San Francisco band called the Sex Presleys recently and if The King's tunes sung to the music of Rotten et al is your bag, you'll probably enjoy 'em. Gimicky, I know, but everybody's got to have their schtick.
Some Other Shit I've Been Liking:
"Old Shoes New Clothes" - the sweeping new album by Johnny Casino & The Secrets.
Demos by The Passengers - yes, an album is pending down the track.
"The Floating Life" - esoteric and moody debut record by Stewart "Leadfinger" Cunningham's new-ish band, on Spanish label Bang! Records.
"Stranded in the Nineties" - Brother Brick's posthumous double CD compilaiton on Off The Hip.
"Rejectionville" - Posthumous compile of tracks by the Kryptonics. One classic and a string of shouldabeen hits. On Memorandum.
The groovy youngsters about town who think that the 80s were all about the "angular" rock a la the Gang of Four, skinny ties and tight black jeans may be in for a rude awakening. The National Gallery of Victoria here in Melbourne is running an exhibition of fashion by Brisbane designer Katie Pye. I never wore this kind of thing- I escaped the worst excesses, with only one or two dodgy haircuts and a "Blue Monday" 12 inch- but I knew plenty of people who did. The cross-buttoned "Spinnaker" shirt in particular brought back some strong memories. There's also the added bonus of a video installation, which includes not one but two of Pseudo Echo's efforts. They were big customers of hers, apparently, but frankly, the Strokes they ain't. Which isn't saying much.
There's a link a bit further down the page to Perfect Sound Forever, a quality online magazine that appears bimonthly, and is always worth a read. The current June-July issue features Melbourne's own Dave Lang, of the Lexicon Devil blog, talking to former Black Flagger Chuck Dukowksi. It's an excellent read, and also links to Lang's exhaustive three part history of SST Records, written back in 1998. Best appreciated at a leisurely pace, with the appropriate sound track. Have a look at the Crime piece while you're there, too.
