Pic by Lorraine Parkin
Is it wrong that we revel in others' misfortune? Is it terrible that Australia's Funniest Home Video (on mute - an incredibly important factor) is great, especially when dads get kicked in the nuts and babies stack it? Is it deplorable that being in the gutter and kicked for our efforts is invariably the best creative thing that can happen to us? Gravel Samwidge would argue that everything is OK, even when it's not. The minutiae of grungy suburban life, one axe-handle to the kidneys at a time. Mark Spinks continues to find grim delight in the sweaty desperation of the have-nots - the destitute, the abandoned, the hopeless. And when tracks are this good, the smallest part of us is grateful for the bad things in the world. Without the gnashing of teeth, there is no Gravel Samwidge.
Gravel Samwidge has been sifting through the detritus of life for a couple decades, but the past few years in particular has seen a flurry of activity. The current upshot of this are two new releases - Trough, a mixture of demo recordings and fleshed out masters (well, as fleshed out as these guys get) out through garage denizens Long Gone Records (in cassette form - get it here), and Home Brand on Neumusak (get it in digital form here - features Matt Kennedy of Kitchen's Floor and Clag's Bek Moore on a few tracks). Keep the grime flowing...
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