Don't Freak Out, But Be Prepared----Bloods---Golden Fang EP

You know what? I haven't even gotten my mitts on a copy of Sydney three-piece Bloods new EP (yet), but I can't wait to say something about the band. I've seen and heard some of their tunes, and I think I'm hooked. Their combination of pop crunch, punk drive, and Stoogelike attitude is a winner. In fact, their EP Golden Fang is not all that new, having been released about a year ago.

In that long gestation and migration period, from recording, to factory manufacturing of product, to my American eardrums, Dirk, MC & Sweetie have earned a lot of critical praise in Oz. And why not? To paraphrase enforcer Ross Rhea from the immortal movie Goon, they've got The Stuff. The Shit. The Grit. For a long time I have intended to do a bit on that stellar Do The Pop! anthology of Australian music, and I thought about using the old line that the 1978-88 period being the "Golden Age" of Australian rock music. With all the new bands out there I can't be sure that the Golden Age isn't now! And I'm still playing catchup to the great music made in-between. You can't stop the future, and if you don't grasp this, you simply have stopped listening.

Oh, yeah. Do the Pop!--absolutely great anthology. Don't hesitate. Seriously.

But 2 minutes + of punk-pop excitement are worth a thousand words. See if you are into this as much as me. You might think that I have Stooges on my mind merely because Bloods share a song title with Iggy & Co. You know, that hardwired human tendency to have to associate things for the sake of association. But Bloods don't really sound like the Stooges---it's just their vibe that I can't overlook, the confident swagger.

But of course, the hard rocking Detroit-Australia connection is no mere matter of conjecture, it's a scientific fact. Someday they will probably have a show on the History Channel stating that it could only have been aliens that brought the Detroit sound so many thousands of kilometers from home. You never know.




Here's another one just for kicks!

You can get a lot of their music at BandCamp, plus Bloods merch, like pizza-inspired clothing and totes. So far I only see Golden Fang available in vinyl or download. Supposedly they are working on their first full album as we speak. I think we'll be hearing a lot more from these guys. Soon.

Black road long & I drove and drove....Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds at Hammerstein Theater

Not too long ago I went to see a comedy show with friends around town, and one of my friends confessed that seeing this famous 80's comedian was sort of a "bucket list" event for him, though hopefully we all have some good years ahead of us.

I suppose that's how it is for me with Nick Cave. Probably ten years ago I purchased tickets to see him perform. The show was postponed due to illness, and eventually rescheduled. At the time, I was so preoccupied by work, that I finally remembered that I had a show to see, only three days after the concert. Lately, I've tried to get tickets, but usually by the time I realize he is doing a North American tour, every venue on the East coast from Atlanta to Toronto is sold out, and I really don't enjoy scalping tickets. The funny thing is, most people I know have no idea who he is--I would venture that an artist of his pedigree must be as famous as AC/DC or Men At Work in his homeland of Australia.

Well this time, Nick & the Seeds are touring without a new album & in New York between college semesters, so I hit paydirt & bought a standing room seat. I drove down to the venerable Hammerstein Ballroom in Manhattan and I was glad I did. Though I don't grouse about set lists, for me, him not having a new album to promote became a great opportunity for me because the show was a veritable greatest hits showcase. He played songs off of nearly every album, including his first two albums, From Her to Eternity, and The First Born is Dead. From concept to execution, I was always deeply impressed with "Tupelo", so seeing him perform it live was a treat. My only regret was that they did not do any Birthday Party songs. I saw this on YouTube & was hopeful.... but no real regrets. Though I would not have been disappointed if Chris Bailey came on stage and dueted with Nick on Bring It On, or Ed Kuepper hopped on stage as a guest axeman.




Nick Cave is a formidable live performer, still riveting after 30 years of touring. He paces the stage hyperactively, zooming in and out of focus, alternately interacting and at times stalking the audience. His guise is both theatrical and visceral, taking on different roles, from carny to confidence man to preacher to killer. And while he can croon like a jazz stylist, he still can yowl like a psychotic tomcat. While watching him perform, I was thinking how this sort of show could come off as a parody or as lame, but with his out-sized stage presence and gravitas he brings to each song/tale, he pulls it off. Nick and the audience are co-conspirators. It's fascinating to see how he contorts himself on stage, with his tall gangly physiognomy, twisting & twitching in the air, dancing, jiving, then lunging forward into the audience, laying hands upon them. Jingle, Jangle. Unlike everyone else in the audience, I found myself staring at his gyrating shadow on the black curtains on the right side of the theater. The Bad Seeds are one hell of a backing band, but with the exception of Warren Ellis (he of the Dirty 3), they really keep themselves in the background. At times I thought I was watching a Broadway musical. I would be surprised if they weren't cooking up a plan to put together a Nick Cave show ala Mamma Mia! I think it would have a lot of potential---all the tension in those Jim Thompsonesque murder songs, plus all the tender ballads he has amassed over the past 20 years or so.

Below is video from my concert experience. Shiny shirt, crazed like Evil Neil Diamond. Song Sung Red my friends....


From Her to Eternity!



People Ain't No Good!



Jubilee Street, from Lift High the Sky...




Other songs I got to see were God is in the House, The Ship Song, Mermaids, Stagger Lee & The Mercy Seat, to name a few.

Well I don't know if I am so obsessed with bucket lists, really. I just like seeing a good show from time to time. And this one was A-list.

Maybe grabbing a bunch of shows and mixing them all in a bucket is more appropriate to food, as the culinary bloggers on those commercials for KFC can attest. It feels a little like soul stealing, or idle fodder for the watercooler.

These last threes videos can attest to the power of a great live show, where the entertainer and the audience are working together. This was an amazing show, for the most part a band just performing without a bunch of silly props. Thanks to all the fans in the audience holding up their cell phones for 2 hours you can catch a glimpse of what I was seeing. But it still isn't the same. Visceral, theatrical, intellectual, psychotic at times--not many people are capable of bringing what he does. And its obvious he puts in tremendous effort to have become the songwriter and entertainer he is. If anyone out there has these sort of lists laying around, think long and hard about including a Nick Cave show in there somewhere.

Magic in Here....The Go-Betweens--Live in London!! and Goodbye Maxwells....

I'd like to say I saw Australia's songwriting laureates The Go-Betweens live once, but I can't....

I saw them 2 times. On consecutive nights. But let me digress a little.

I miss Maxwell's, the club/restaurant located in downtown Hoboken New Jersey. The restaurant remains open, but this summer they stopped booking bands. I hadn't been there in a while--I almost went to see Sloan play there in June. Yeah, that's right Canada. Sloan, your alternative-era version of the Beatles in a place where the fire code limited attendance to 175 people. Hard to believe. But it's why Maxwell's will always be regarded by me as a legendary venue.

Though I didn't make the trip there often, it was my favorite place to see a band. Tiny room with an amazing sound. And a restaurant/bar attached to the performance area. A great roster of bands have played there over the years. Ticket prices were cheap too. I've heard so much press and bemoaning about the closing of CBGB's, but really, Maxwell's really deserves more than it got. Give CBGB's credit for it's place in punk history, but for many years it was a shadow of the joint it once was. It was kind of a dump when I first went there, but eventually when I looked at the music ads in the Village Voice there would almost never be any interesting bands playing there anymore. But the club business seems to be a pretty hard way to make a living, and small venues have an even tougher time competing with larger places. Maybe its not a surprise, then, that places like Maxwell's have stopped booking bands, given the economic malaise and the sort of economics of scale we have in the US, where small fish ultimately get gobbled up by the bigger fish.



So, I saw the Go-Betweens for the first time at Maxwell's---It was the reunited band, probably their 2nd tour here after Forster and McLennan got back together. I have to say that the show was fantastic, probably perfect. The two guys and I think Adele Pickvance on bass. Nope, I'm wrong. It was in fact Carrie Brownstein, formerly of Sleater-Kinney. No drums. Though they both composed their own songs, it was remarkable seeing Grant and Robert's synchronous performance, how their two guitars meshed together while playing altogether different parts.

And it was pretty amazing seeing them perform from about 8 feet from the stage.

Something kind of weird happened early on at the show. No, not a riot---seeing the Go-Betweens is a lot like seeing Simon and Garfunkel--but apparently a tall lanky guy in front of me was up to something. He was right next to the front of the stage in front of Robert Forster. A security guy came up to him and told him to cut it out. I don't know what it was that he was doing. Honestly never really noticed anyone doing this sort of thing at Maxwell's before. About 5-10 minutes later the security guy came back and spoke to him again. The guy remonstrated with the bouncer a little and suddenly the guy wrapped his arms around the guys arms and torso, picked him up and carted him out of the concert while the Go-Betweens were in the middle of a song!! When the song ended, Forster had this incredulous look on his face, and said something like "I wonder what that was all about?"

When the show was over the band left the stage. If you know Maxwell's, you know that there is no rear exit from the stage. The band goes through room to get on stage, and departs through the crowd at the end. So that same bouncer was escorting the band through the mostly rapturous audience. Then they went past me. I was just standing there with my arms down looking at Forster when the bouncer guy gives me a big open handed shove to my chest. Kind of caught me by surprise and completely unnecessary. It wasn't like a mosh pit opened up during Cattle and Cane.....Maybe the other guy was out of line, but its funny how people behave when get an iota of power bestowed on them...

I was excited about the concert that I tried to see them the next night. They were playing at the Knitting Factory when they were still in Manhattan. Sold out. I actually called the place and discovered they had a few tickets still. It was also a good concert, but not the same as at Maxwell's. There were a few drunk overly rowdy people shouting stuff at the band way too much, which wasn't really appropriate. I mean are you there to watch a show, or be the show?



If you have never seen the Go-Betweens live, I have located an unsatisfactory substitute, for there really are no better options anymore. A great musical partnership was permanently sundered eons before its time. Recently, I noticed people selling a live CD of the Go-Betweens for pretty extortionary prices on-line. Well, I went on the Go-Betweens' offical website and discovered that Live in London, a 2 disc greatest hits live collection is available for only 10 Pounds. 28 songs in total, very well recorded, and the songs on the 2nd disc mostly have strings on them. You can't beat that.

The greatest hits album that was recently released entitled Quiet Heart also has a bonus live disc from 1987 from Germany, I think. But if you aren't familiar with one of Australia's greatest exports, the Live in London discs would not be a bad place to get acquainted! Just listening to the 2 disc reminded me that they made a ton of terrific songs. And there were still a lot of great songs that I wished were included.

And the disc brought back a lot of great memories.

Waiting for Eventuality....Ups and Downs--Out of the Darkness

I started listening to an anthology by an Australian Band I never ever heard of! Well at least until I saw it being advertised, probably on the Citadel Records mail order website. The band, Ups And Downs, existed in the 1980's through the early 90's and hailed from Brisbane originally. Generally the word on these guys was extremely positive. This anthology, Out of the Darkness: Sleepless, Singles, and Other Stories is a very very strong 20 song career (which includes the Sleepless mini-album in its entirety) overview which came out a few years ago on Feel Presents. Feel Presents appear to primarily be concert promoters, but they have put out some extremely nice reissues of important Aussie Bands.

But not lately. Maybe the recession has bit the hand that was feeding us. Let's hope they pick up where they left off!

Let me be clear; this is not some Aussie GBV, do it yourself band, or your requisite hard rocking Aussie garage punk group well schooled in the Detroit Arts of Iggy and the MC5. I love all that stuff of course, but Ups and Downs is a different sort of animal entirely.

The Names of the Band is......

This is big rock--tuneful, soaring harmonies well played and engineered. This could have been made by some band from America's heartland and recorded in a high priced studio in LA. I can't help but make comparison to some of their contemporaries like Died Pretty, Lime Spiders, The Church, HooDoo Gurus, Triffids, Go-Betweens, DM3, The Sunnyboys, NZs Straitjacket Fits, or Post-Kuepper Ghost Ships-era Saints. This band should be regarded in the same ranks as these bands, which I am quite familiar with. This is a pretty great collection of music which would make a great addition to anyones Antipodean music collection.



But by the time I listened to the first half of the Cd, I was wondering, What the Hell happened? This music is simply too accomplished!

How could these guys not have been globe trotting millionaire rock stars. This songs on this album are radio and video ready, the kind of stuff that sells millions. Even the critics liked them. An it was not like they were ahead of their time, or making cool music that was out of vogue like the Soft Boys.

The accompanying booklet is very well-done, filled with most of the information you need to know about the band, plus many photos. Sometimes artists are a little self-effacing about the music they have created--oh that single? It was okay, we did the best we could. But one of the sections of the booklet has the heading Where Did It All Go Wrong?



Thank goodness it wasn't something tragic like a premature death. Seems like it was a few bad choices, blame the band, blame their manager. But the notes by Lead Vocalist Darren Atkinson seem a little embarrassed about their posterity. Why?

Because they knew how good they were, and how great their songs really were. So he sort of shrugs having to explain why they may have missed the gold ring. You know, like in Westway to the World when Joe Strummer talks about the Clash splitting up. Because believe me, the music is peerless here. The notes say they charted a bit on US College radio, and they must have had some success in Australia, once they left Brisbane and moved to Sydney. Which is something most Brisbane bands did quickly. If you have read Andrew Stafford's book Pig City, you get an idea of what Brisbane was like in the day--not a place for non-conformists. I have a pretty good idea what the Saints were singing about in Brisbane (Security City). Wish Ups and Downs had made a trip to the States.

A week ago this band was a mystery to me, but it was definitely good to make up for lost time. My only regret is that this wasn't a 2-disc set. Believe me, this is music that would appeal to a broad range of rock music fans, and not just 80's music fetishists.

A very nice surprise, which made a nice weekend for me even better.

Cover Them Impressed! I'm in Love with that Song--Australian Replacements Tribute

Lampshade Optional....

 

 

It's hard to believe it but the Replacements are back! It seems like almost everybody comes back, if only for a limited time only. I was looking at Paul Westerberg's website and it looks like he and Tommy are really enjoying this. And if proceeds are going to help Slim Dunlap, who is very ill, it is a
 great cause.





But this post is about a tribute album from 1999. I haven't really done a lot with tribute album's but this is one I really like.

I don't have a lot of buying music stories recently. Unfortunately it involves the click of a mouse more often than not. But when I finally got around to buying I'm in Love with this Song, an all-Australian tribute album of Replacements tunes, it turned out the disc was long out of print and was pretty pricey.

One day after work I noticed someone was selling one for a reasonable price. It was late October a few years ago. The weather had started to go a little haywire here in New York. It was snowing, which is extremely unusual for us. Within a few moments, I noticed that the branches on the trees were hanging down; the snow was so heavy the branches were literally touching the ground within a matter of a half hour. Just as I went to purchase the disc, the power went down. Power came back about 5 days later, so I have mixed associations with this album. But I don't regret the purchase as much as the deferred gratification.

As far as The Replacements go, I probably identify with them more than any other band. They could be me, or people I know. Sometimes if you are in the Burbs, you kind of feel like you're from nowhere, as though you, Paul, Bob, Tim & Chris were all from the same home town. Of course I had the opportunity to see them in their prime at Mabel's in Champaign-Urbana and blew the gig off for schoolwork!

To some degree, I think every tribute is a mixed bag. They can be label showcases, sometimes they are bloated productions with a host of big stars paying tribute to another big star. Some of them seem to be slapped together a little too carelessly. It seems to me that this collection is more of a labor of love, of combination of Australian contemporaries who loved their music, and other bands who bought  their music as teenagers and were thus encouraged to pick up some guitars and raise some hell.



As far as tributes go, this is better than 90% of your typical covers collection. For the most part the songs don't stray too far from the originals--which is unfortunate. Maybe you might have wanted a few different songs represented. I probably know about half the acts on this, if only by name in some cases. Its nice that the roster of bands is not a stag party--there are some women belting out the tunes which I think is great. And I'm pretty certain that all the albums are represented. From the snotty to the sublime.

I knew from the very first song, Brad Shepherd's spirited take on Alex Chilton, that this tribute was a keeper. It's a little faster and punkier than the original--less sentimental but just as powerful. Brad of course is a member of the HooDoo Gurus, an Australian institution, so its no small wonder that he smacks this song out of the park. When I hear the song, it feels a little ironic, like we're celebrating the next generation of underappreciation, like Chilton passing the baton to Westerberg. The powers that be thought they would be America's Rolling Stones, but as it turned out they could only be themselves, brilliant, warts and all. And this tribute shows the reverence that musicians hold for this band (even halfway around the world), but also the unimpeachable quality of the songs, which rings truthfully through these interpretations.

The Celibate Rifles make an appearance here performing a sans-mandolin rough take on I Will Dare from Let it Be. Power poppers IceCream Hands do a nice version of Swinging Party. A band well worth seeking out, Brother Brick, represent well on Color Me Impressed.

Other bands that I recognize are Challenger 7 who smash through Left of the Dial with panache. The Pyramidiacs have their way with On the Bus. Pop aficionado Dom Mariani's DM3 do a nice twangy Rock n Roll Ghost. You Am I cover White & Lazy from the Replacements Stink, and its okay--I'm not sure how much you could do with this. The Finkers have fun Tommy gets his Tonsils out.




As far as groups I'm unfamiliar with go, Blood Sucking Freaks pounds out Taking a Ride with conviction. Really good take on one of the standouts from Sorry, Ma.....Half Miler's hard 90's sounding take on Here Come's a Regular is one of the few covers that strays from the songbook a bit.
And it works. Erbs & Pisces do a mashup of both sides of the Mats first single, I'm in Trouble/If only you were Lonely. Nick Barker, Michael Thomas & Jen Anderson do a nice jangly countrified version of Skyway with lovely three part harmony, a violin solo, and if I'm not hallucinating, a banjo.

I enjoyed The Scruffs doing Can't Hardly Wait--not as good as the original but much better than the movie with the same title. Eva Trout perform Androgynous--female vocals seem very appropriate here. Mandy Pearson and Love Me do a nice version of Sadly Beautiful--it's like listening to the song from an entirely new perspective. Achin' to Be is similar to the Alt-Country sounding original but with piano added to the mix.

If you haven't figured it out, I really liked this Tribute, but not nearly as much as I like the Replacements. Who knows, maybe they've another chapter to write in their songbook.


Here's another interpretation not from Australia, but from another American legend.

Light the Darkness, Light the Night...and Sing! Shane Howard--Clan

I've known about Shane Howard for a little while, thanks to a great Blog called That Striped Sunlight Sound, a website dedicated to Australian music. Always enlightening, well worth visiting! He's quite famous in Australia, but not so much here in America, unfortunately.

He was originally a member of Goanna, the first pop group to deal with the issue of Aboriginal rights in Australia. Their song Solid Rock is one of the great Australian protest songs, and was a huge hit at the time. The song was the first time a commercial group used the didgeridu on a song. As a solo artist Shane has recorded a number of albums, some of which are available through his own webstore. It has been 30 years since this landmark album was released, and he has just completed an Australian tour in celebration of this event.



But I want to speak a little bit about Clan, Shane's wonderful but long out print album released in 1996. I was fortunate enough to snag a copy on eBay. It's a special album, seemingly a bit of a concept album, beautifully executed, powerfully thematic, incredibly heartfelt and personal.

I wanted to say something about Clan about the time of Saint Patricks, to illustrate another aspect of the Irish diaspora than the Ellis Island experience. And here we are in mid-April. I recall reading about the history of Australia for the first time from Robert Hughes' book The Fatal Shore. But what really spun my head around was when I read True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey, which impressed on me mightily the treatment of the Irish in the early years of white settlement of Australia. Both books are highly recommended reading in my estimation. Carey's book is some of the finest literature, and was the winner of the Booker Man Prize, his second.

So when I saw great praise for Clan on Striped Sunlight Sound, I kept an eye peeled for a copy.
When I finally acquired the disc from halfway around the world, I was completely delighted.

Part of the album is about his heritage as the descendant of Irish immigrants who arrived in this new land (to them) in the wake of the Irish Famine of the mid-1800's.

As he states eloquently in the album liner notes,

"This is the story of my people, my ancestral clans. The story of dispossession of land by an overwhelming force; the story of famine, resistance and uprisings, of exile and survival-the struggle of the oppressed; the burning desire not for revenge but for equity and justice."

Telling this story involved the history of Ireland, the immigrant experience of the Irish people in Australia, and the state of Ireland today.

What makes this recording an album for the ages is the connection he makes with the Aboriginal experience in the wake of contact with Europe. He was struck by the continuities between the two sagas. In some ways a case of history repeating itself.  As he states,

"Here we are, as Australians, descended of migrants of many cultures, now living on Aboriginal country under a British colonial political system. How do any of us non-aboriginal people make sense of ourselves and who we are and what we are doing here?

So Clan is the story of two Clans, and how their stories intertwine in Australia.

This is heavy stuff. As Americans, you can't help but think of our unfortunate legacies here. These are things that are not easily or perhaps even possibly resolvable. Growing up, Howard lived near Aboriginal settlements, but did not really know much about the people. Ultimately, he learned a new narrative about Australia, not just about oppression, but also about people who have a history stretching well beyond our own meager one. Whenever I see exhibitions of Aboriginal art I find myself deeply moved. I don't pretend to have any expertise or understanding, but they reach at some level that I intrinsically know but can't explain. I even bought an artwork a few years ago from a dealer in New York. It was money that should have gone toward a new car, but I can be impulsive once in a blue moon. I am very glad I did it, in retrospect.

So Clan, begins after an introductory No Man's Land, has Silvermines, a fantastic historic tale about a young woman leaving her homeland for an unknown place, told in the first person, about lives turned upside-down, but the ancestral bonds remain.

Set upon the open seas to the corners of the world
Lambs to the slaughter into this hell we've hurled
My only dream was to survive I was just a girl
Hide your face and hide your fear in these dark and tangled curls.

Tarerer follows, a song about the Tarerer Gundidj Clan of the Dhauwurd Wurrong nation, a people Howard grew up nearby.

Rounded up like cattle
Herded unto mission land
Defending your own country
From this cruel and greedy hand...

Howard was inspired by his visit to Belfast in 1993 to write the plaintive ballad Free as Stone. As he states in the preface to the song, he walked through the city on a cold Sunday morning and "the city was absolutely deserted, except for armoured parol cars and footsoldiers in battle fatigues."

Rebel Song is about uprising in the gold fields of Ballarat in the 1850's. Howard's great-grandfather was arrested there in 1854, so the story is a personal one. The songs on the album are basically folk songs with a Celtic touch to them, with fiddle, mandolin, whistles and bodhran. Melding all these themes together in an album does not strike me as an easy task, but I really think he pulled it off.

Often sad, there is a also a lot of themes of empowerment on Clan. One of my favorite songs is Give A Little, a song that makes you want to keep going, even in the face of impossible odds. Don't Say Okay is another inspirational number, with great imagery, reminiscent of one of Alejandro Escovedo's ballads.

The ghosts are back again at the window
They're back again tonight
Looking in on us so we have to get it right....

Clan is a beautiful album, a work that Shane Howard should be extremely proud of. An album definitely in need of a reissue. For me this is an album that practically popped out of nowhere, so I knew at some point I would need to try to spread the word in my own small way. Sorry the videos are not that representative of the record.

Killer Clowns From Brisbane! Laughing Clowns Cruel But Fair!

You never know when Coulrophilia will strike. I think I just developed a case of it.

Meat and Drink to Me to hear the Clowns....

I'm listening to Ed Kuepper's post-Saints group right now, the Laughing Clowns. Cruel, But Fair, released in 2005 on Hot Records. It's taking me a while to navigate all three discs, basically the band's entire 5 year output. What a superb, one-of-a-kind band! The collection is a three disc circus of jazzy post-punk splendor.

Imagine a musician who as a member of the Saints, put out 3 of the best albums of the "punk era", and then put together a wildly innovative jazz-influenced post punk group dominated by horns and percussion! I mean, two amazing acts within a decade. Of course Kuepper has had a great run as a solo artist, and as the Aint's, his massively loud response to Chris Bailey's continued use of the Saints monicker. Listen to S.L.S.Q. (strictly limited sound quality!) and you'll see what I mean.

If you aren't familiar with the Saints, I would strongly recommend picking up the All Times Through Paradise box, or if you can find it the Raven Records release, Wild About You. Pretty essential music for music fans who like high-energy rock and roll. One of the greatest rock bands ever. Still have my fingers crossed, hoping they reunite again and do a few gigs in the American Northeast. They played some gigs in Australia fairly recently, but apparently they were one-offs.

But the Laughing Clowns, are quite a different animal altogether. The lineup must have raised the eyebrows of a few punters expecting music more in line with the old band. But this music is really just as brilliant and even more compromising than what he was doing before. The musicianship is first rate--and while Kuepper sings and writes the music, it is clearly a group creation, a great confluence of sonic ability.


I wouldn't call this Jazz-Rock, because there is a certain connotation to the term that would mislead you as to the nature of this music. If you view jazz music as a loose constructivist like me, yeah, you could call it that. If you view the genre narrowly, you can count it out. There are just too many sharp edges here. There are those fans that would inadvertently put jazz in mothballs, fill it with formaldehyde or stuff and mount it like a exercise in taxidermy. But everything evolves as long as people keep being creative. Probably the best way to look at it is, who cares? Maybe you could call it Jazziness, as defined like the new word coined by Steven Colbert, "truthiness.".

Certainly I think the songs are structured as rock/pop songs. There is not lot of lengthy improvisation; the instrumentation is different, dominated by drums and brass, the guitar downplayed a bit. Jeffery Wegener, the Laughing Clowns drummer is simply great, making everybody around him better. When all is said and done, these are Ed Kuepper songs. They could have been done with pedal steel and fiddles (well, sure there actually is banjo and violin in spots) in a a country western style and been good; instead the songs were infused with jazz rhythms, breaks and riffs, complex and evolving. Actually the Laughing Clowns remind me a little of the fake soundtrack work of John Zorn like Spillane and The Big Gundown, or his group Naked City, but with vocals. Or maybe John Lurie's Lounge Lizards.



The music is consistently exciting and challenging on all three discs in this collection. I was waiting for a bit of a let down or a drop in quality on this, but it never actually happened. And making music like this can't be easy at all. I can see how somebody could create a horrendous imitation of this. I've seen this selling for a lot of money used, but I just saw that the label Hot Records is still kicking, and they are selling it for 17 quid on their website. Well worth the expense. For a cheaper taste there is the History of Rock compilation that is also out there too.

Go-Betweens are Love Potion #10----Happy Valentine's

What more can you say. I can die happy knowing I saw these guys twice.

The Beatles have often been called British equivalent of the Go-Betweens. Maybe the greatest cultural export Australia has produced. Ignore this band at your peril.

Finding You---

More Rocking and Romance from Hunters and Collectors---Valentine's Day Part 6!

Throw your arms around me---from the Human Frailty album. Terrific stuff from Australia.

Could have seen Hunters and Collectors on the tour for that album....very easily. Today I feel a little ashamed. But I only feel delight when I hear this little number.

The Eastern Dark--Where Are All the Single Girls? Legendary Australian Band's Brief Flicker Brought the Thunder

One of the great groups from Australia careers ended not long after they began. Where Are All the Single Girls? is an outstanding compilation of The Eastern Dark, containing their small output of studio recordings supplemented by live tracks. Half a Cow records released this collection in 2000, and reissued the CD in 2010. Unfortunately, the band was involved in an automobile accident which killed lead singer/guitarist James Darroch, and injured the other band members, Bill Gibson (bass) and Geoff Milne (drums). What a great band these guys were--you can only speculate what levels they may have gone to had tragedy not struck. This collection is essential Australian rock and roll. Certainly some of their songs released as single can be found on Australian Punk rock compilations like Do The Pop, but you really need every scrap you can find of this band in my opinion.

Inflammable material this is! Fast and furious, but loaded with pop hooks and harmonies, with the added treat of Darroch's remarkable lead guitar work. I would agree with the argument made by many, that had these guys avoided disaster, they would probably spoken in the same breath as The Saints, Radio Birdman, and the Scientists. They weren't around long enough to release an LP. And I am equally blown away with the
live tracks. It's pretty clear they were a monstrous live act if these tracks are indicative. The intensity of these tracks make my heart race. There is not a duff track in this collection. And there is also an extremely informative 40+ page booklet that comes with the disc.



A lot of people refer to the bands love of The Ramones, as can obviously be seen by song titles like Julie is a Junkie and Johnny and Dee Dee. But I think they had their own thing going, even at this early stage. Certainly they combined pop smarts and punk energy as The Ramones did. I think the Husker Du comparisons are pretty spot on also. Just listen to I Don't Need The Reasons and you'll agree. Drums are fantastic on this one. The aforementioned songs are as good as it gets as far as pop/punk goes.

Actually a lot of the recordings sound to me like a more tuneful variation on The Scientists, like on songs like Mr Clean and Stay Alone. A song like Over Now sounds like Nirvana may have cribbed some ideas from these guys. Walking is classic hard rock riffing at its finest, like punked out AC/DC. No Pictures and Julie Loves Johnny are just more example of punk pop perfection--it's like finding another punk rock holy grail.



The live stuff shows another facet of this band; out of the studio they rock with the energy of early Replacements, but tight. I'm impressed by the spoken word bits by Darroch in the song Whore. You can't help but admire the chain saw boogie of a tune like C&W Metal. Remarkable tunes like The President is Dead, and Stay Sane Somehow never saw the inside of a recording studio, but thankfully we have these molten live versions.



I think as far as the US goes, Australian music is a bit of a mystery. People think of Men at Work, INXS, Kylie Minogue, Olivia Newton-John, but there is so much more going on Down Under. HooDoo Gurus, Go-Betweens, Triffids, Saints, DM3, Hummingbirds...the list is pretty impressive and goes on a lot further than this. Unfortunately, the US dollar is pretty weak these days, so some of these cool Australian reissues are prohibitively expensive for us, and sometimes just plain scarce. Where are the Single Girls is readily available directly from Half A Cow along with a host of other worthy recordings. While not cheap, I think this collection is well worth the cost. This is an unbelievable disc that belongs in any good music collection.

The Best Way to Spread Christmas Cheer!----Part 51--Died Pretty

The Best way to Spread Christmas Cheer is Singing Loud for All to Hear!

Died Pretty-Winterland

The Best Way to Spread Christmas Cheer!----Part 24--Celibate Rifles!

The Best Way to Spread Christmas Cheer is Singing Loud for All to Hear!

Celibate Rifles---Merry Xmas Blues

(death by Christmas continues)

The Best Way to Spread Christmas Cheer!----Part 18--Nick Cave & Shane MacGowan

The Best Way to Spread Christmas Cheer is Singing Loud For All to Hear!

Nick Cave and Shane MacGowan---What A Wonderful World

Hard Rocktober!! The Monarchs--What Brad Shepherd did on Hoodoo Hiatus

Brad Shepherd of Sydney legends Hoodoo Gurus released this stellar hard riff rocking album under the moniker The Monarchs, in that sad dark period when The Hoodoo Gurus were temporarily no more. Make Yer Own Fun is great heavy garage rock album made by a bunch of real pros. And I would not hesitate to assume that this album must have been a blast to make. Perhaps there is a bit of tongue and cheek aspect to the record, but when all is said and done, the music here was executed with white hot reverence.

If you heard this huge sounding aggressive record and imagined that Shepherd and company had hopped on the Seattle Grunge bandwagon, you would be mistaken. For whatever reason, there has been a longstanding love of hard rocking American bands in Australia, like The Stooges and The MC5. Bands like Radio Birdman, The Saints and The Scientists notably were onto this sound early in the game. Ignore these great bands at your peril. Or for a broader picture check out the amazing compilation Do The Pop!, which collects 50 nuggets of Antipodean goodness. A fantastic overview of a very special time.



The briefly lived band was comprised of Brad Shephard on guitar and vocals, Andy Kelly on Bass, Greg Hitchcock on guitar, and Brad's brother Murray on the drums. I'm thinking that I heard about this record from a review by Steve Gardner of NKVD Records/Noise for Heroes, who for a time reviewed records for BigTakeover magazine. He was one of the few people who touted great rock music from places like Scandanavia and Continental Europe, but also had a lot of admiration for the Australian golden era of the 80's and early 90's. And he was not wrong with his glowing review of this disc.

This just a really fun retro sounding record that is no way revolutionary or innovative. These guys just rock out, blow all the carbon out of the pipes. And the enthusiasm and energy is infectious, beginning with the hardrocking space garage of 2001. Equally exciting is '69 Monaro a neat 70's macho race car tune. One of my favorites is the more pop oriented yet still heavy Yer Movin On. That Reminds Me.... is in a similar vein and also pretty terrific. But most of the album is loaded with heavy riff hedonism,  with tunes like 1 Nite Only, Everyone's A Superstar, and Give It Up For the Band. Great album to listen to when driving. Grab it if you can find it.



As for the Hoodoos, one of the better Australian bands, who are also blessed with a great sense of humor, they are back again, with a new album, their first since 2004's Mach Shau! I was on to them early buying their 2nd album Mars Needs Guitars when it was first released, then grabbing Stoneage Romeos shortly afterward. Their new album, entitled Purity of Essence is supposed to be terrific, but unfortunately I have not picked it up yet. In 2009 Shepherd was diagnosed with cancer, but was expected to make a full recovery. Here's hoping all is well with him today and for long into the future.

Who are the Aussie Mystery Guys? Hub--Feel That Way

I recently picked up on EBay this 1995 7 song mini-album by Hub, a four piece Alterna-pop band from Australia. I'm having a lot of difficulty finding anything about these guys. The CD was put out by Shock Records, but I can't find the slightest reference to these guys. And this is quite a nice 90's styling alternative album!

Who is this mystery band?

Who are you? I really wanna know....

Right out of the box is 3rd Times a Charm, a very very nice pop song, coming on like an updated alternatized DM3. Nice harmonies on this one. The description made by E-bay vendor made some comparisons to The Replacements, but I hear a lot of latter period Dinosaur, Jr here also, in the interesting guitar work and song forms, and notably, one of the singers has some of Mascis' vocal mannerisms, quite evident on the second song here, Crush Luscious. Another touchstone here is the brilliant Australian band Glide, led by the much missed William Arthur, a band that any fan of alternative rock should get to know. Track down anything you can find that they did. (Not to be confused with the English Glide--a side product of Echo and the Bunnymen guitarist Will Seargeant.)

Hub was comprised of Peter Knight, Bass & Guitar, Tony Dennis, Acoustic Guitar, vocals, Steve Morrison, Drums, Bryan Karr, Electric Guitar, Vocals. This disc was produced by Laurence Maddy, who apparently has worked with a lot of Australian performers over the years. I was really surprised at the silence on the Internet about these guys. This is a pretty terrific record. The only song I'm not sold on is the slackerish Crush Luscious. I'll be Seeing You, the third song is one of the best songs here, an energetic Mascis-y exercise, with big guitar and even bigger pop hooks. Another winner is the jazz-inflected riffing of Golden Brown. The sludgy reflective eponymous ballad Feel That Way is also not bad at all.

Along with the first and third songs, the sixth tune Suitcase Mind is one of the great songs on this album. When they bash out loud catchy pop, these guys are at their very best. If you see this record selling someplace for a good price, it's definitely worth picking up. I wouldn't consider this a desert island disc by any means, perhaps just a Gilligan's Island disc. But if you like 90's alternative rock this would be a very nice addition to the collection. If this is a first recording, they certainly were off to an auspicious start. I wonder if these guys made any more records or went on to greater success. Don't know, but it would be interesting to learn some more about this mysterious band.

A Foetus by any other name....Steroid Maximus--Gondwanaland--Extreme Fake Soundtracks

Who doesn't love a little Foetus? If you are or were a devotee of Nine Inch Nails, maybe you scratched a little deeper below the surface and picked up some works by JG Thirlwell, aka Foetus, who has created an impressive, ground-breaking body of electronic/industrial recordings over the last couple decades. Not for the timid; there is a real vigor and aggression to his music. And despite the hugeness of the Foetus sound, for the most part he has been a one man army, which makes these recordings even more impressive. And despite the over the top nature of a lot of the music, Thirlwell manages to incorporate cartoon, soundtrack, jazz, big band, country, blues, even lounge music.

Foetus has been a shape shifting entity over the years, because all his releases had different band names, like Scraping Foetus off the Wheel, Foetus Interruptus, etc. like a succession of dead baby jokes, gross out humor. But I guess at some point Mr Thirlwell's varied musical interests strayed so far from Foetus that he had to come up with a new branding, just like Disney came up with their Touchstone imprimatur. Of course Disney had Touchstone to put out less family friendly adult oriented fare, while Steroid Maximus is quite the opposite. This music is more instrumental, and soundtracky sounding, compared to the aggressive violent electroscreed of his main output. While not as aggressive as the Foetus work, the music is just as challenging; more subtle perhaps, but the same Thirwell aesthetic is at work. I suppose if a Foetus album came out sounding like Gondwanaland, some of his fans would be disappointed or even a little confused.



I picked up Gondwanaland just recently and finally got around to listen to it yesterday. I am very impressed.
There should be a line forming of directors wanting to use him to produce their soundtracks. After all, Danny Elfman doesn't have time to do them all! It is true that he creates the music for The Venture Brothers on the Cartoon Network, but I would have to think that his music would put a distinctive and edgy stamp on my movie if I was the director.

Some of the music is heavy and ponderous, like an old east European Communist National anthem. Other music here is right out of a James Bond movie, with 60's Peter Gunn style horns. Other bits are reminiscent of Sergio Leone, and Martin Denny. Under the Steroid Maximus moniker Thirlwell can explore a variety of genres and place his own special imprint on them. Of course, on some of the music he is basically charting out new maps of Hell, with moans, screams, explosions, broken glass, buzzing flies.



On Gondwanaland Thirlwell even does a heavy blaring take on Raymond Scott's Cartoon Opus Powerhouse; if you've ever watched classic Looney Tunes from the 40's and 50's, you have heard this one.
On this album Foetus covers a  whole gamut of musical territory with consummate artistry. It's never boring, full of surprises and a lot of attention to detail. Of course, I would recommend most of his work as it is extremely challenging aggressive music. A good place to sample Foetus is the Sink anthology if you are at all interested. But I think that Steroid Maximus is music that fans of good soundtrack music would appreciate, in addition to the fans of Ministry, or Nine Inch Nails.

Sclerotic Narcotic!! Continuum Turns 200!! Viva Brisvegas!!! The Saints--Wild About You!!!

Yes, my friends, this venerable blog has reached another milestone. 200 posts!!

Thank you friends. Wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you...

Post 100 took us to the streets of Memphis and Big Star's mighty Third/Sister Lovers, and now we head across several ponds to the Antipodean other end of the musical world, Brisbane, Australia, to scale the top of the punk rock mountain for enlightenment from one of the very greatest bands ever, The Saints.

If you don't know what I am talking about, call a close friend and have them come over and smack you in the head.

The Saints are simply the best; as good as any punk band out there. If you love great rock and roll, this music needs to be a part of your musical world. The snottiest, hard rockingest, youthfully energetic, guitar thrashing, in your face punk rock there is. The easiest description is to say they are like an Australian Ramones, but that is far a too easy and not too apt statement. For one thing, before there were Ramones, before Sex Pistols and the only band that mattered, there was Edmund Kuepper, Chris Bailey, Ivor Hay, and
Kym Bradshaw, in the garage, doing what they wound up doing so well for three tremendous albums. Their music reminds me as much of super frenetic versions of 50's and 60's music. Their musical legacy has now influenced several generations of Australian bands.

Another great thing is their iconoclasm, their lack of tolerance for foolishness and clicquery. The same angry jaundiced worldview expressed in their songs was in turn directed at the insular and intolerance of punk rock. New club, different badges. A band unappreciated in their homeland until they made a splash in London. Getting criticized by punks in England for not fitting the mold, growing their hair long. It all seems pretty silly today, more popular delusions and the madness of crowds. A musical cultural movement that was under attack turning around and eating itself. I say listen to the music and let that be the final testament, if we need testaments at all. The Saints got shot by both sides, but sold out to noone. In the salad days of Green Day, Blink 182, etc. it seems kind of trite. But when I was in a band at College we couldn't get booked at the school pub because the student said "I hate the band and everything they stand for", whatever the hell that meant. So much for liberal arts.

Wild About You is a fantastic collection of all the studio recordings of the early Saints, when Ed Kuepper was still on guitar, released on Raven Records about 10 years ago. It contains their first three albums, (I'm Stranded, Eternally Yours, Prehistoric Sounds), cuts off of singles and eps, and a few unreleased numbers.
Outstanding from beginning to end. I know that many people draw a line in the sand between the second and third albums. I won't argue that on Prehistoric Sounds they took a different direction, slower, more like a traditional rock album, with great seamless use of a horn section. But only the most doctrinaire music fan can be dismissive of this album's merits. As I see it Prehistoric Sounds is still pretty terrific, but without the visceral thrill of the prior two albums. The same intelligence and attitude is there in an undiminished amount. It's a similar argument to Stiff Little Fingers Now Then... album. Very very good, but the fans don't go crazy when they hear "Big City Night" like they do "Suspect Device". It's difficult not to make such comparisons.

Of course, I haven't had the luxury of hearing the original Saints perform. I was hopeful that I would get a chance to see these guys. Despite all the enmity I had heard existed between Ed Kuepper and Chris Bailey they got together for a few festivals in Australia. But as far as I know, the reunion was a temporary one, and there are no plans to take on a World Tour. I don't think they played the state ever so it wouldn't really be that nostalgic. I sort of hope that if they came to the US that they wouldn't be playing the Mercury Lounge or some such small venue. Of course in a selfish way, to see such an amazing band in a venue like Maxwell's in Hoboken which hold less than 200 people would be a pleasure I would feel very unguilty about. I guess I'm saying that I would hope that these guys would get the popular credit they deserve, beyond the critical accolades they've received.

The collection begins with a flat-out howling punk rock classic, the one that show up on compilations. I'm Stranded flings a defiant gauntlet to the world, taking on the tribulations of conservative life in Australia and defiantly standing up to the view of Australia being a stereotypical backwater. The Saints have a huge chip on their shoulders, and their attitude punctures all the popular prejudices they had to contend with. They were from someplace outside the rest of world and they were outside the society they lived in. Pure rock n roll rebellion.



The insane thing is, this entire collection is crammed full of classic songs, both originals and amazing interpretations of other people's tunes. Ed Kuepper's buzzsaw guitar work still knocks me out, its something that I could never get tired of. And Chris Bailey is the perfect snotty punky frontman. Listen and be amazed at Demolition Girl and Wild About You! One of my favorites is the blistering Nights in Venice--I still can't believe that its nearly 6 minutes of bone rattling glory. It's over before I realize it. This Perfect Day is another A-list tune, a perfect frenetic buzz kill of a song. And of course there is the classic punk screed against crass commercialism,Know Your Product,delivered pre-Sex Pistols.

Don't talk to me about what you done
Ain't nothing has changed it all goes on
And they'll keep laughing till the end

I've seen them drive around in cars
All look the same get drunk in bars
And don't talk back we got no social rights

Oh perfect day
What more to say?
Don't need no one to tell me what I don't already know

We got no high times always flat
If you go out you don't come back
It's all so funny I can't laugh

Oh perfect day
What more to say?
Don't need no one to tell me what I don't already know

The Saints also do some unusual covers, which they execute in typically brilliant fashion. They do a revved up version of Connie Francis' Lipstick On Your Collar!! And it's both hilarious and pure rock n roll. Elvis's Kissin' Cousins is also roughly sent through the Bailey/Kuepper meatgrinder with equally entertaining results. When you hear these songs, you begin to get an idea of where their musical roots originate. Of course, if I didn't mention the absolutely over-the-top version of Ike and Tina Turner's River Deep Mountain High I ought to be horsewhipped. This is definitely one my favorite covers ever, ranking with Husker Du's apocalyptic take on Eight Miles High. On River Deep, The Saints show themselves to be masters of tempo and dynamics. Bailey howls like a transplanted southern preacher here and the excitement slowly builds to pure destruction. In their covers, they both mock and show reverance for the past. They even do a bit of social commentating and satire in their mock dance-craze song Do The Robot.



In between the noise they also manage to deliver some memorable ballads like the AllTheYoungDude-ish Messin' With The Kid and the darkly grandiose Memories Are Made of This. The band critiques the "no worries" Australian attitude in Orstralia, where you can sit back, bake in the sun, watch telly and leave your brain at home. Bailey pointedly compares day to day life as "living in a chain gang" in Memories. In Messin' With The Kid, "all your kid dreams have melted under the sun". A favorite is the ode to a dissolving relationship This Time, where a couple go through the motions and stick together for no compelling reason. And its a very well constructed classic pop song with a great horn arrangement.

I'm talking to you but you're in a trance...
You're talking to me but I ain't got a chance
Cause you'd rather sit with your radio

You're lying in the sun and you read magazines
You think that you know everything on the scene
But you're hanging around, only fooling yourself.

I listen to the tunes from Prehistoric Sounds and I can't help but think of The Commitments, with the soulful singing and the horn lines taking the place of the stinging guitar, at least on some of the songs. They do a nice uptempo version of Otis Redding's Security and also Aretha Franklin's Save Me. Bailey's Take This Heart of Mind is not out of place in this company, as is Everything's Fine.  But there are a variety of songs here, including the cowpunk of Swing for The Crime, which Prehistoric Sounds leads with. The ballad All Times Through Paradise sounds like a dark proto-Bad Seeds number. Crazy Googenheimer Blues is a strange blend of Motown bounce and rockabilly.



The original band held together for three records, except for the replacement of bassist Bradshaw with Algy Ward after (I'm) Stranded. But Kuepper and Bailey had creative differences over the band musical style. Bailey continued The Saints and had success on MTV in the 80's with stellar albums like A Little Madness To Be Free, All Fool's Day, and Prodigal Son. Some of his recent albums are a bit of a return to his punk roots. Kuepper formed the jazz punk group Laughing Clowns, the mockup hard rocking group The Aint's, and has had a distinguished solo career with numerous great albums. Wild About You ends with an interesting unreleased song Looking For The Sun, which does not sound like any song in their canon. It's sort of a jangle guitar Byrds meets Eric Burdon garage ballad. You wonder if this is where they were headed before the split. I think these guys were probably capable of anything, really.

But Wild About You is a perfect anthology of one the top punk bands ever, on the level of The Clash, Ramones, Buzzcocks, Pistols, etc. If they were from America or England they would be lionized. For the completist, there is the box set All Times Through Paradise, which includes a bunch of demos and great live tracks, which was recently reissued. But if you like what you hear you will probably want to hear the later Saints, Chris Bailey's solo work. The Laughing Clowns are pretty much a unique band that I think someday will get their due. I don't think there is anything out there quite like it, and Kuepper deserves high praise. His solo works like Electrical Storm and Honey Steel's Gold are also worthwhile. Or check out the compilation Butterfly Net. The Aint's are also worth a listen, especially the hard rocking live album SLSQ. Or there are the jillion recordings on Kuepper's Prince Melon Label.



So enough blah, blah, from me. Do yourself a favor and get acquainted with this exemplary band. You need this, believe me. I wish I knew about these guys when the music originally came out, but I was busy listening to Boston and "Green Grass and High Tides". You can avoid this fate. So wish CT a Happy 200th. Maybe we'll get in another 200 before I finally succumb to carpal tunnel. Or tinnitis.

Let's Make Some New Mistakes--Celibate Rifles' The Turgid Miasma of Existence!

The Turgid Miasma of Existence is probably my favorite album title ever. The fact that it was made by one of the best Australian band ever, Sydney's Celibate Rifles is even greater reason for jubilation. The Celibate Rifles are one of punk rocks finest ongoing institutions, starting up in the wake of The Saints and Radio Birdman, and continuing to the present. A shining example of why punk rock is great--visceral guitar work, politically charged intelligent lyrics, always passionate in their convictions. Fighting the good fight against hypocrisy and for a greater good.

Thunder From Down Under

But I was listening to this fine album again very recently and some of the lyrics in the liner notes struck me as being quite prescient, in the wake of the shooting tragedy in Tucson. From Sentinel:

I hear the beasts outside my window

They speak the dead man's alphabet

I fear the violence of their speech

Their thoughts that drift just out of reach

Like stars upon a midnight beach

They fail to reach their destination

Another day of cancelled expectations.

Those words really struck a chord with me. While naturally, you cannot definitively prove a causal relationship between hate speech from the conservative right politicians and pundits and the killings in Arizona, it raises the question why people are using violence in their speeches these days. What purpose is served by this? And don't kid yourself. One of the tactics of the conservatives is to try and make this issue universal--the left wing does the same thing, so everyone is guilty. Sure, you can find examples of this, but preponderantly this violent tone is coming from the Right.

I hear people on the TV endlessly lamenting how such a madman could get such a weapon, and how there should be a way to prevent a deranged person from obtaining automatic or semi-automatic weapons. Really the issue is why anyone should be able to obtain an weapon with such a mass killing potential at all! Some people have ventured the opinion that maybe if people had more guns, they could have taken the lunatic out in Tucson before he harmed so many people. Well..., there is a certain logical truth to that. But, the United States has more guns per capita and in sheer numbers more guns than any other country on this planet already, and we have an awful history of gun violence here. So how many guns will we need in order to end violence here? Even though we have more than everywhere else, it is apparently still not enough. When you look at the problem in this way, the logic is sheer lunacy.

I heard someone say that we need guns because of the bad people. Who are these bad people and why does America seemingly have more bad people than other places? I hope when people speak about American exceptionalism, that is not what they are referring to. When you hear an the argument in this manner, you can't help but detect an undercurrent of racism. I hope that in the near future a new version of the Brady Law banning assault weapons will become a Federal Law again. Under the Bush Administration that was allowed to expire. Ironic, because Mr Brady was shot in the head during an attempted assassination of conservative icon and American President, Ronald Reagan. On that note, let me return to the world of music.

On TTMOE, you have the indominatable Damien Lovelock on Lead Vocals. Kent Steedman is on Guitar(!), Mykle Couvret on Bass, Dave Morris also on Guitar, and Phillip Jacquet pounds the Drums. Bill Bonney Regrets opens this album, and the beginning instrumental is one of my favorite punk rock musical moments ever. With their energy and politically astute lyrics they remind me of an Australian version of  Canada's D.O.A. Then again with their name purportedly being the literal opposite of the Sex Pistols in a way makes them the Sex Pistols of the Southern Hemisphere. (You know, like the opposite swirl of the toilet)

"The News is what we want to hear, electric magic diarrhoea...."

This is a very solid album. Kent Steedman shreds giant guitar riffs throughout. Another bona fide classic tune is the awesome Sometimes, which is very much in the vein of Stranded by the legendary Saints. Those two songs I've mentioned make this album essential on their own. But there is also so much more. Eddie is another winning uptempo number as are JNS, Conflict of Instinct, Some Kind of Feeling, and New Mistakes. There are also very good quieter tunes like No Sign, Glasshouse, and the aforementioned Sentinel. The Cd also includes an acoustic version of Eddie and two live cuts, Ice Blue and Thank You America.

So if you are a fan of punk rock there is no way you can be disappointed with The Turgid Miasma of Existence. This is a killer album with a load of great songs. This album seems to be a little tough to get a hold of right now, but there are collections of their early music like Sofa that are readily available. So do yourself a favor and get familiarized with a great Australian band.



If Words Were Wine, You'd Be Intoxicated--54 Days At Sea with Chris Bailey



Unable To Drink The Water

 54 Days At Sea is a great album that I suspect might be difficult to get a hold of today, at least in physical form. I saw it on Amazon.com in mp3 form. Chris Bailey was lead singer of Australia's Saints, whose first two albums contain some of the best punk rock ever made. And they started out before The Ramones, Clash or Sex Pistols. Bailey still leads The Saints, but they became a different entity after the departure of guitarist Ed Kuepper after the third album, Prehistoric Sounds. After this they became more of a conventional rock band, which included some rotation on MTV. Good music, but not quite equal to its predecessors.

I heard about this album first from the pages of The Big Takeover Magazine. The 67th issue of this biannual magazine will published immanently. Anyone who has an interest in rock music should get a hold of a copy of this magazine. In my opinion, it is the best rock music magazine out there. I have a vested interest in this, as I've seen so many worthy music magazines bite the dust over the years and that distresses me. So I want publications like the Big T to continue to a ripe old age. Besides our current economic woes, magazines are also being driven out of business by free content on the Internet. So if you haven't heard of this magazine, check out their website and subscribe. The magazine is inexpensive and I guarantee that you will find out about a few great bands that will enrich your quality of life.

In terms of instrumentation, the sound of 54 Days At Sea is unique. It was recorded in Malmö Sweden with a group of Swedish musicians backing him. But that is not the twist. I'll put it this way. If there was a Grammy Award for Best Non-Traditional Pan Flute Performance in a Non New Age Idiom, this record would have run away with the prize. That's right. Pan Flutes. Oscar Salazar namely, with Victor Salazar on the charango, which apparently is a Bolivian stringed instrument similar to a lute. Chris met them while they were busking in the streets and obviously dug what they were doing. Ultimately he incorporated them into this album, and it worked out exceedingly well. Also represented here are Edward Nystrom on guitar, Magnus Borjeson on bass and keys, and Stellan Colt on drums/percussion.

Aside from the Bolivian musicians, this is a straightforward singer-songwriter sort of album. Chris Bailey waxes philosophical on life, and also comments as an observer about the big world he is wandering through.

The themes of wandering and questing, rebirth and redemption run throughout this album. He's trying to figure it all out, but it's simply baffling most of the time. It sounds like he is trying to purge the bitterness out of life and move forward. The album starts out with Fountain Of Life, where it seems like he is making an metaphor using Ponce De Leon and his quest for youth. It sounds like polite society and maybe his own baggage are the things he has to fight to live life. "Then faster than I can see, the waves are washing over me, and drowned me in my own confusion."



During the upbeat, passionate Unfamiliar Circles, he sings "whatever the reasons, I'm not the first to be crucified, and it's all right." On Everything I Need he makes an appeal to "Rise like a phoenix from the ashes, do not hide from the treasures." Lazarus has him asking to be saved from the mark of Cain and free me this mortal dust. In In The Desert he states "if I am alone in the desert, then why is the music so loud, screaming at me from across a crowded room"? He compares himself to a sacrificial lamb in the song Gone With The Wind. There's a lot of biblical references here yet it still doesn't seem like a religious album, probably more the converse.

Nothing seems clear to Bailey on 54 Days, and that certainly can strike a chord with most of us. On the aptly titled Nothing Is As It Seems, "I can't tell what is real and whats not-I can't tell anymore, just like a politician." In Drowned By The Sound, he is "walking on a tightrope and sinking in quicksand. I want too much." On a lot of the songs reality is unclear and his mental wheels are spinning, driving him crazy with doubt. Bailey was born in Kenya, spent part of his childhood in Belfast, and then wound up moving to Australia. From the tone of this album it seems like he feels that it is his fate to wander the earth without a true homeland.

I Should Be Happy In This Raincloud

But even in exile he battles on. In On The Avenue he "conquered enemies unseen, Don Quixote for an afternoon." In Vampyres he claims that "the Vamypres of my imagination have sucked my body dry, the Parasites in my life have left me high and dry." "I am an exile, no one to visit in my prison, oh well, that's the way it goes." Yet for all the bile and sadness, you will be tapping your feet and humming along to this album.
Every seems to indicate that this record may have come together in brief period of time for Bailey, but miraculously it all comes together in a sort of musical perfect storm. One of punk rock's all time greatest vocalists tearing his soul out and flogging himself along to catchy pop melodies and sweet sweet pan flute.
And as far as I can tell, this disc was never released in the US.

I think this is a terrific record that has a different kind of sound to it. Bailey is a soulful and very expressive singer. But it all boils down to personal taste in the final analysis. At the very least if you are a fan of punk rock, you need to hear the early Saints. The 2 disc Wild About You 1976-78 anthology contains their first three albums plus an Ep and some other miscellanea. This is essential snotty buzzsaw rock and roll, some of the most vital music ever to come from Down Under. The original Saints actually reunited briefly in 2009 and performed a few concerts in Australia. God, I wish I had been there to see it. There has been a lot of resentment over the years between  Kuepper and Bailey, so many people are surprised that it ever occurred. But who knows, maybe someday they could reunite again and come to America or Europe. Keep your fingers crossed. See below if you still aren't clear as to the importance of The Saints. Bask in the punk rock glory today. Learn to know and love this product. Don't wait until you hear their music used in an automobile ad.

Vegemite Bomb--What's Halloween in Australian? Scientists--Blood Red River 1982-1984

If You Want To Be Sad
Do It Somewhere Else

I've been putting up these posts for a little while now, and it just occurred to me that it has until now been a Scientists-free blog. That is about to change. I just found out that the reunited band performed at All Tomorrow's Parties in Monticello New York, their first New York gig ever only last month. I bet that they are still an awesome live band.
Originally the Scientists were a punk band from Perth, Australia that played a form of pop-punk. Some people are pretty dismissive of this lineup, possibly because of the contrast with their future musical directions. But I would disagree with the naysayers. That music of their first incarnation is compiled on the Pissed On Another Planet Cd, and I think the music is very good, in most cases great. In any event the band was not particularly well received and they split up in early 1981.

Later in the year things got interesting, as a new Scientists formed with a radically different sound. This was the celebrated classic lineup of Kim Salmon (vocals,guitar), Brett Rixon (drums), Boris Sujdovic (Bass),Tony Thewlis (guitar). This is an album more informed by bands like the Stooges and the Cramps. The music is sludgy swampy blues stomp, with Kim Salmon chanting like a demented preacher. There is a certain tendency I like about some of these great Australian Bands. I'm not sure if you call it having a chip on your shoulder, but it certainly may have been a response to swimming upstream, having to deal with people who had preconceived ideas about music. It's combative, like the Sex Pistols; don't like us? sod off. like us? ah, you, sod off too. We like what we do, and we don't care what anybody thinks. Punks have short hair? Well, then we'll grow our hair long and play punk. Like your music fast? Well we'll chug along at our own pace, thank you. Let's alienate everyone--maybe they'll get it someday. There is so many instances of pandering to tastes in the music industry; it's nice when you see people take risks, toss a few sacred cows in the blender. You can also witness this musical defiance with bands like The Saints and the Birthday Party. But these bands stuck to their guns and changed music forever.

Blood Red River is the first disc of a two disc Scientists anthology. For a long time this music was only available on vinyl. There was a greatest hits collection on long defunct Big Time Records called Weird Love, where they rerecorded their songs for the album. There was also a greatest hits collection, Absolute, which was released by Sub Pop in the US. But it was Sympathy For The Record Industry who did the job right, 29 songs all told. Because these guys are stylistically in the neighborhood of bands like the Detroit proto-punk bands, but musically and vocally, they are just to idiosyncratic to be anything but their own creature. For one thing, there is a tendency for bands to get more melodious as they mature, you play your instruments better and learn new tricks. But these guys got noisier and more abrasive, to the point where they made even the Stooges sound baroque in their later period. When I hear Kim Salmon croon and shout, I am reminded of Jim Thompson pulp novels, and 50's culture themes, dancing around a bonfire. And there is no kitsch factor here--it's all done with complete conviction, purposeful.

This collection start off with the electric anarchic Set It On Fire and proceeds off road from there into the remote wilderness. I feel like I'm driving down back roads when I hear this stuff--it's great music to drive around to. And in fact a lot of the songs have hot rod themes to them. They seem to have created their own Australian mythology here. Swampland is one of the monster tracks on this anthology. "In my heart, is a place called Swampland, nine parts water, one part sand..." Equally powerful is the bluesy testimony of When Fate Meets Its Mortal Blow. Nitro is like Bo Diddly meeting the Night Of The Living Dead.

We Had Love is another great Australian classic song, a truly manic love anthem with great riffs. A true antecedent to the Seattle grunge movement. Clear Spot is Scientist styled send up of a Captain Beefheart song. Revhead is an energetic high speed car chase of song, with a kinetic bassline. My personal favorite is This Is My Happy Hour, a grim Australian version of the Stooges No Fun. It always feels appropriate to listen to when I've had a less than pleasant day. The collection ends with the Crampsy Demolition Derby which is another exhilaratingly grinding lo-fi ranting mess.

You might get this album and think, what's so special about this? Well, this music came out 25 years ago and a lot of bands have followed in their footsteps. At the time, there was nothing to compare it to, really. If you are a fan of Grunge bands like Mudhoney or Green River, there is a whole lot to recommend here. Certainly comparisons can also be made with the Cramps and the mighty Gun Club. But this is music that has its own special style, its own singular lunacy, a mudslide trapped in a bottle. They seem to take that aesthetic to even greater extremes.One of my favorite Australian bands of all time. And I haven't even covered the second anthology The Human Jukebox 1984-1986 here, where things get even messier.