New Stooges book

I'm just re-reading Paul Trynka's magnificent Ig tome "OPen Up And Bleed" right now with its often forensic examination of the terminal-stage Stooges' death throes tour laying it out in all its stark and harrowing glory, but you can never get too much Stooges.

Photographer Roberet Matheu has authored this newie and knows the principals well so you know it's going to be worthy.

Max Raabe. WTF?

It's possibly poor form for an ungrateful ezine to complain about promos but even poorer form for a publicist not to know their market. So, after a string of tenors of various group denominations, priests and faux swing band CDs and DVDs landing in the I-94 Bar post office box, should I "out" the PR person who sent this abomination?

Reggae version of "Trash"? Oh dear...

The new Two York Dolls album "Cause I Sez So" contains a cover of "Trash" with "gently strummed guitars and a reggae beat"? Too Much Information Too Soon for mine. The preview track I heard somewhere sounded very metal too. The signs are not good (echoes of "The Weirdness" by the Stooges) but the jury is still out. Portents of things to come here.

New(ish) I-94 Bar Podcast

Ah, we forgot. Episode 21 went up last week. Subscribe via links on the right or go here and this is the playlist:

Jesus Invented Beer -The Bible Beaters (Drink. Fight. Fuck. Volume III)

Lex In B - The Pink Fits (De Ja Blues)

Doin' Time - The Candy Snatchers (Drink. Fight. Fuck. Volume III)

Stickin' Around - The Soul Movers (unreleased 7")

Bruna - Simon Chainsaw (Alpha Negra)

Memory Layne - The Dolly Rocker Movement (Our Days Mind The Tyme)

Underdog - The Movements (The World The Flesh And The Devil)

Revolution Blues - Blood Group (Revolution Blues EP)

Strange Kind Of Love - Molten Universe (No Love Around EP)

Rock-N-Roll Victim - Death (For the Whole World to See EP)

Hold On Together - Dollhouse (Rock and Roll Revival)

Tell Me Why - Tony Worsley (Before Birdmen Flew)

Primitive Tales - The Kits (Primitive Tales)

I'm A Lover Not A Fighter - The Downliners Sect (International Stomp-O-Lation)

Know Your Product - The Saints (Pig City - Live In Brisbane 2007)

The Pink Fits: "I'm on the Red"

Filmed at Off the Hip Records in Melbourne. The Baty brothers as movie stars!

The Perils of Drugs

Props to Judy Jetson from Brisbane for this one:

Short, quick, busy.

The Drones open a national tour behind new album "Havilah" with shows at The Corner on Thursday and Friday, with both featuring supports from Kev Carmody and the Witch Hats. Now that's a bill that could either flop like a pancake or rise like a souffle. There's a lot of respect for Carmody in the Drones camp- they covered one of his most incisive songs, "River Of Tears" on a tribute album- here's hoping that translates across to the crowd.

While on Saturday, Crystal Thomas & the Flowers Of Evil play their first show for 2009 at Yah-Yah's in Collingwood. Their album was one of my faves from last year- it's good to see them back.

Kick Out the Podcast Jams, Chickenpluckers

A Podcast about chicken. C'mon, give some points for originality!

Get it in iTunes, download it from the link or listen to it by clicking on the player on the I-94 Bar. There should be a player on this here blog, if you look down the right-hand side.

Here's the playlist:

Super Chicken (Toon Tunes: 50 Favorite Classic Cartoon Songs)

Cockblocked - The Jack Saints (Rock and Roll Saved Our Lives...But Now It's Trying to Kill Us!)

Chicken Scratch - The Raunch Hands (Learn To Whap-A-Dang)

The Greasy Chicken - Andre Williams (Movin' On - Greasy And Explicit Soul Movers 1956-1970)

Run Chicken- The Milkshakes (Rockabilly Psychosis and the Garage Disease)

Flight Of The Shit Bird - Six Ft Hick (Canetrash)

Thunder Chicken -The Mighty Imperials (Thunder Chicken)

Chicken Of The Sea - The Raunch Hands (Learn To Whap-A-Dang)

Chicken Head- Whiskey Daredevils (The Essential Whiskey Daredevils)

Chicken - Spark Plugs (Born Bad - Volume 4)

Kicks & Chicks - The Zipps (single)

Finger Lickin_ Chicken - Radors (single)

Chicken Thighs - Andre Williams (Movin' On - Greasy And Explicit Soul Movers 1956-1970)

Chicken Hawk -The Pink Fits (Fuzzyard Gravebox)

Barnyard Blues - 13th Floor Elevators (Bull Of The Woods)

Secret Track

Sable Starr R.I.P.

News is in from The Next Big Thing blog that self-declared uber-groupie and onetime squeeze of Johnny Thunders, is dead at 51. She's pictured with JT and a wobbly-booted Iggy Pop.

UPDATE: Here's the post at The Houndblog that Lindsay Hutton of Next Big Thing mentions in comments.

Congratulations are due

...to Dave and Leisa Thomas, on the birth of their boy Charlie Asheton Thomas, on Sunday.
Here's a couple of lullabies for him, played at a recent show, as only Dave can play them:

Za/zo *

I can't believe I didn't post about this in advance. Oops.
Anyway, I celebrated by going to Missing Link on Saturday, seeing a bunch of friends as well as an excellent set by Wasted Truth. On Sunday I saw Spencer P. Jones and Mick Turner play sets at Greville Records, and saw more friends. And drank some beer. I did remember to buy a couple of CDs, too.

* it was this killer combo, put down by my opponent about four goes in on Saturday afternoon, that led me to concede this year's Scrabble tournament game, and save everyone some valuable drinking time.

Jet Shredded

Most will say this is well-deserved:

A tip of the to hat to Rodney Todd of Sydney for the heads-up.

Forking good review

Crawdaddy reckons Neil Young's newie "Fork In The Road" is his best since "Living With War". THe fact is that "War" was terribly over-bloated (I preferred the limited edition set of unadorned demo's) but this review makes it sound like he's back on the money.

The Woggles in Huffington Post

The Woggles from Atlanta, Georgia, are one of the premier garage/50s-influenced bands in the world. So what's the Huffington Post doing with an interview with vocalist The Professor Mighty Manfred?

I don't read the Huffington Post. Have I been missing something? Is this usual? More importantly, is that suntanned, stylistic whore Tom Jones really covering Johnny Thunders songs?

Seymour Stein's daughter has made a movie

“Burning Down the House: The Story of CBGB,” directed by 34-year-old Mandy Stein, follows of the history of the club that launched the careers of Blondie, The Ramones, Talking Heads, Television, and Patti Smith....

“I remember being there, and being really young, and Johnny Ramone was scolding my Mom and saying, ‘What the fuck did you bring your kid to?’” says Stein, recalling her early memories at the gritty venue. “There is so much flavor in the East Village; but when I was a younger, it was scary. There was a sense that you had to be aware and watch where you were going,” she says.

Yes, I have a CBGB obsession. So should you. More here.

An ache I can't shake.

Well, I'm still recovering from Boogie, almost a week later. Great weather, 30 or so bands, a 1000 or so beers. Highlights included ECSR, Puta Madre, and Dan Auerbach's surprise Sunday set. Box Wars and a bottomless margarita were just the icing on the cake. It sold me- I'll be back next year for sure.
Anyway, to business.
One of my favorite haunts, the Old Bar, is celebrating shit again on Friday:

That's pretty damn good value, actually.
I can't find out much about this "Afternoon In St. Kilda" thing, not even a decent .jpeg of the flier, but it looks interesting:

The line up includes GUT, Tim Rogers, the Crack Whores Dave Larkin and Smoke Machine- Dave Last's latest carcrash of an outfit. $50 gets you beers, drinks and BBQ from 3.00pm til it runs out, and it's all for a good cause.
This one's even harder to read, but I suspect that's deliberate:

The Gruntled, still Australia's best avant-medieval improvised drone noise psychedelic combo after five years of making music influenced by Syd Barrett, medieval songs about drinking, love and death, Can, Neu!, The Misunderstood and The Electric Prunes, are playing a few shows in Fitzroy, Melbourne next week.
If you've never heard them, you may want to check out the samples available at that link there before heading off to the Birmingham on Saturday. Just sayin'.

The New Order

No, not that New Order but the L.A. band Ron Asheton put together with Dennis Thompson and Jimmy Recca, post-Stooges and MC5. Machine Gun Thompson tells the whole story on his blog.

Preview of "Gloria" LP by the New Christs

Three tracks from the forthcoming long-player "Gloria" on Impedance are up at the band's MySpace. It's coming out on vynil and CD in Europe (May), Australia (June) and the USA (July).

Hydromatics on DVD

Sounds like the project is progressing well, according to Tony Slug's blog. It couldn't be in better hands than Joe Chonto, a NY cable TV music program host.

What I missed in Sydney last night

Marky Ramone wigging out with his cover band. To be brutal, I was ambivalent. His last spoken word tour (followed by a set with the Spazzys as backing band) was so-so.