Sydney's Local Fathers, Sons, Legends

Mikey and Jack from Sydney band Beef Jerk started their own label recently. Called Local Legends Records (great name), the impetus was on getting out some of the weirder DIY recordings of local Sydney musicians that mightn’t otherwise reach your ears. It’s all pretty rough and ready, but therein lies the charm, and there are some real gems to unearth here. Essentially a cassette release label (in Jack’s words, “we are starting out on cassettes because I found hundreds for pretty much nothing in a shop in Lewisham”). This is true DIY too – the duo dub each cassette themselves before printing the jackets at Petersham Officeworks (probably some legends right there too) then finish off by writing the labels too. As would be expected, one of the first releases features none other than rumpled rascal Nathan Roche, under the moniker The Revisionists. Keeping with the proud Sydney geographic touchstones, the cassette is called Potts The Point, and is touted as the “shortest lived punk group”. It's got some corkers - 'I Don't Need Ya' should be my theme tune.



But it is all of extreme interest as a sort of stream-of-consciousness underbelly archive – a aural microfiche of cast-offs and lightning-in-a-bottle moments of epiphany, never to be repeated. There is the Bad Guys single which sees Randall Lee (of Ashtray Boy and Cannanes fame, and Jack’s uncle) writing music to accompany lyrics inspired by his three year old son, producing raucous inter-generational blasts; there’s Luke O’Farrell (The Laurels) with a bunch of demos highlighting the gestation of that band in his mind; there’s the wild detritus of Wild Cat Falling; there's the jangle-drown of Encrypted Hard Drive; and there's the supposed release of Lincoln Brown (Housewives) going solo and getting all debaucherous in the process, apparently reaching for the Jandek bottle of reclusive blues ennui wisdom followed by a chaser of Axemen untuned angst...I want this to come through guys.






Get it all here - there are some burnt classics here that need serious attention...Oh, and happy Father's Day!