I’ve been meaning to write about this busted rock’n’roll release for ages – a Brisbane tour-de-force to be sure. Led by ex Standing 8 Counts madman Tom Beaumont and joined by Ben Buchanan (Chinese Burns), Rick and X (Eat Laser Scumbag!, Chinese Burns), Eyes Ninety's debut LP has all of these sounds rattling around its rustbucket offering like a soul trying to bust itself out of a sweltering outback prison – decrepit, fetid, disintegrated and a ramshackle mess that is mesmerising. The lung-flaying opener 'I Don’t Wanna Live (In Your World)’ pulls no punches, offering a rusted garage caterwaul. Other great tracks (they are all pretty great) includes the scourged 70s pub punk of ‘Canton II’, the Eddy Current static-tetchy growl and punch of ‘Ants’, the Stooges with no fidelity in a tin shed appeal of closer ‘New Key’. It makes sense that this bruiser is on Swashbuckling Hobo Records – this kind of skewed rock punk (as opposed to punk rock) is right at home in its dirty halls. Get into this here.
One of the earliest memories I have of immersing myself in the Brisbane music scene was heading along to The Orient Hotel to watch bands. It was 2004-2005. Before then I went to gigs every month, but very rarely to anything that wasn't being played on the radio. When I say the radio, I mean Triple J, and as any old curmudgeon will tell you, "it was much better back then". So gigs were Magic Dirt, Custard, Rocket Science, Not From There, Pollyanna, Youth Group, Bluebottle Kiss, Even, Gota Cola...and so on. Anyway between Rics, the Orient and the beginnings of 610 a little while later, I moved into a different realm.
The first clear memory I have of the Orient included bands like Turnpike, HO2, Shuriken - and Eat Laser Scumbag! They had me at the name straight off the bat; they had me with the colour coordination (think The Wiggles for dropkicks); they had me with their raw, raucous rock that dealt in speed as much as melody. Over the decade I have gotten to know Ash, Nathan, Adam and Xavier fairly well - the guys have spread to be in bands as diverse as Undead Apes, Nova Scotia, Chinese Burns, Eyes Ninety and more, as well as having kids and spreading across the Australasian lands - but the helter skelter, fever-pitched radness of the band has always remained. They always play when the four of them are in the country together, so they haven't really officially gone anywhere - and here is a 10" to remind us what their brand of spontaneous combustion was all about. Chakras Aligned is a bit more considered then their EP Eat Laser Scumbag 1 Earth 0, but it still packs a punch. 'Vampires' and 'Fandango' in particular show a different side to the band that intimate what might have been and could still be. I believe the 10" is sold out, but you can grab it digitally below. Let's petition to get them back in orbit and smashing pubs, thus reminding us all that you aren't ever too old to get loose.
Local Brisbane garage rock miscreant label Long Gone Records is promising some proper dirty releases this year, and to get a true understanding of what that means, we need to go back to their last release Meatboys, a split cassette between Cannon and Lovely Legs.
There arne’t many messier bands in Brisbane than Cannon. Their shambolism may infuriate some, but there is something inherently fun and slapstick about this five-piece’s rawer-than-a-dead-kitten take on playing. The recording, like much of their debut self-titled LP, is so low fidelity that it sounds like my old cassettes that I taped off VHS tapes – shit over shit. If you’ve heard it before, its because its verbatim their Blerndaddy EP. I still think that ‘Dogs In Space’ is one of their best songs, whilst ‘Poor Taste’ is the closest they come to being an actual band. Glad it doesn’t fire though – can you imagine? Cannon, a real band? The sky would definitely be falling in.
Country punk Lovely Legs don’t exactly up the ante – these four tracks sound like The Growlers listening to The Johnny’s after snorting a bottle of amyl nitrate, hijacking a low frequency community radio station near Blackall, and hitting the record button on their stream-of-consciousness with the mics encased in corrugated iron. Such debauched foot stompers that you can taste the whisky before the bottle is smashed over your head. Hoedowns for skinny clowns, the soundtrack to Bob Katter’s feverish wet nightmares.
Each tape is bright orange and feature volume drops, cracked cases and bad folding/cutting. The release is truly lo-fi in sound and quality – get it here.
You can catch them both, alongside a rare-as-hen’s-teeth support from Chinese Burns, propping the stage up for irascible air-humping garage jackalope Nobunny. That shit is real, and is going down at the Primitive Room this Saturday. That poster (by the ever excellent Sam McKenzie) is just TOO good.
Happy Australia Day! I'm incredibly hungover after another successful Sonic Masala show, bur raring to do it all again! Before I do, though, here are some Aussie bands doing good that you wont find on the Australian yoof channel's top 100 shitfest.
Blank Realm are a band that are incessant in their breakneck rise into the centre of the sun. Unlike Icarus, this Brisbane quartet want to feel the molecule-rending heat, to feel themselves morph with a might much greater than their own. Such a brazen exploratory outlook is evident in their ever-evolving live shows, which can swing from skronky pop to languid psych to rampant rock to slacker malaise, at times within the one instrumental interlude. Negative Guestlist is hoping to extend such an exciting reputation by releasing the band's latest 7", which you can buy in physical form here. Listen to the track below and tell me how these guys aren't huge already. They are bringing out their next album, the follow-up to the great Deja What, later this year through Siltbreeze, so you never know, their time may come before the Mayans bring it all to an end...
Gold Coast duo Bleeding Knees Club are more likely to get a run on Triple J, seeing as their MO consists of thrashy-yet-addictive straight-cap surf rock. The boys (BOYS! Just look at 'em!) have stuck as close to the Wavves musical aesthetic as they possibly can, and it really clicks. Next month sees the arrival of their debut LP Nothing To Do, which should see them explode into some sepia-tinged hipster frenzy, but when the music is as addictive as this, fair dues.
Chinese Burns may be flung across the state of Queensland, but when this trio get together the results are sweaty, salty and magic. They have just released their Calculator 7", and it is all kinds of awesome. Seeing them play live is a once in a blue moon event, and life-changing (maybe). Buy this record now, support these fuckers so that they give up their day jobs and treat us to more music - seriously good stuff.
Finally there is this album from Woollen Kits. The Melbourne act's debut is the first great Australian album of 2012. GET IT.
