On Barbiturates Like A Boss

I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sad that Barbiturates aren't based in Brisbane anymore. Roland Hlavka, guitarist of another great local band Cobwebbs, has manhandled his bedroom project from a warped space noodling odyssey into an even more warped benzo trip to the dark side of the adenoidal from the bottom of the ocean. With each release Barbiturates becomes a more fitting moniker. Case in point: Boss, his latest cassette through Long Gone Records. Hlavka hides his drawl under enough reverb and distortion to shred all words from his lips, and the insidious insistence that opener 'Weight To Touch' emanates makes it sound like disturbed black-clad synth mavens Multiple Man are strapping guitars. But Boss is decidedly weirder than that - take the warbling, plodding leviathan that is 'Oxygen Free', or the turbulent nightmare that is 'Beware'. Barbiturates takes an idea and seeps into the earth with it; a parallel universe beyond the snow of the dead television, happily trapped within lysergic coffins, a boss of his own domain.

You can get Boss here. If you live in Melbourne you can catch Barbiturates play with Spermaids at the Catfish in Fitzroy on Monday. I walked past there on Sunday. That's all I know about the place.

Hits From The Box #73 - The End Is Nigh

It has been a few weeks to try and digest the fact that this once great nation is doomed. Sure, I would be writing this Hits From The Box even if Labor had've been sworn in to run the country, as I hate Kevin Rudd sooooooo much, but Tony Abbott? REALLY? The Libs have some pretty awful ideas too - don't expect too much creative stimulation to happen over the next four years. But I don't want to get too political here. Instead, Ive chosen six bands that I think helps exemplify how I feel about the state of affairs. Hey, if music can't tell it like it is, what can?

The Wrong Man - well, this is a misnomer, really - the Kruddster was the lesser of two evils in many people's mind, yet I felt like he and Abbott proved that the Antichrist actually came in a pair. Nevertheless there had to be a better person to take the mantle? So let's leave it up to Brisbane's cantankerous one-man-garage-magnate (once sworn in as Fred Wood) and his six garrulous ditties he's released on Long Gone Records. 'Evil Mind' takes on a whole new meaning in this environment...

Tyranny Is Tyranny - again, it's all in the name. Doesn't matter what label you put on it, many policies here are blatant disregard for the welfare of the majority of the nation. The Wisconsin crew are ardent political subversives too, their raging tracks rife with baited vitriol. Let It Come From Whom It May (an apt title, and a mantra that might be a good one to take on...) is coming out on Phatry Records, you can pre-order it here.

Invisible Path - Who knows where the next four years will lead us, and whether we will make it out OK. At least Not Not Fun Records has us in a state of gauzy hypnosis in the form of Invisible Path's The Levitating Mirror. The project for Michael Bailey (ex-Barn Owl) is a lysergic sojourn into glossy midnight territory - the perfect soundtrack to slink in the shadows with your now hunted creatives. Seriously though, as tenuous as this link is, The Levitating Mirror is a bubbling masterclass in synth-entwined heart. I'm a big fan.

Huge Rat Attacks - OK, this is a bit of an erratic choice, but a friend of mine said only last week that she'd rather lie in a box filled with rats than be in the company of Abbott. That's a big call. But you do get a sense that there is a a sense of throwback urgency from this Minneapolis four-piece with a proclivity for dirge. They obviously like the subversive heaviness and absurdity that The Melvins bring to their craft, yet with a technicality more akin to Young Widows albeit with a more widespread stoner vibe - it's a pretty rad album, deserved of its own post if not for my friend's comment. Blame Illy.

Giga Herbs - and since we are staying tenuous, why not admit that it's going to take some alternate reality to get us through the upcoming battles? And what better thing to take us there than something of the herbal variety... The NY outcasts play almost straight-up indie pop, yet there is a simplistic Wayne Coyne/Nick Thorburn effect on much of these tracks that give it the tweak into the (mad) weird that we all want and need. Help us get away from here!

Overseas - so there is little we can do of course but rage against the machine, or find a way to work through it. Although another viable option is to simply get the fuck outta Dodge, something I am actually seriously contemplating. It also feels fitting that Overseas features one David Bazan - yes, the Pedro the Lion dude. If I have to flee the country like an inverse boat person that the Australian populace apparently hate so much, it may as well be with Bazan and his crew. So if the boat drowns, ill be blissfully unaware - and might get a five minute hate spot on Today Tonight. You can buy the self-titled album here.



Happy Wednesday everyone???

Hits From The Box #70 - Ekka Spew

This particular Hits From The Box was actually written last week, but extenuating circumstances has left it on the shelf until today. So it's a little outdated reference wise (oh how the world turns...), but I can't be bothered changing it. Enjoy.

Another year, another Brisbane Ekka show. The streets filled with family bumpkins, drunken wankers and a higher percentage of vomit; the air filled with shrieks of delight from the rides, shrieks of disgust from the spew, and clouds of disease. And then there is the spew. Seriously, I saw enough on Wickham Terrace this morning that could feed a 3rd world country. Yep, I love it. At least I get a holiday. So I sit at my desk, my stereo blaring, a beer popped, and I let the Hits keep on comin...

Elvis Christ isn't as obscure or unknown as some of the acts I tend to corral here in the Hits section - EC being the touring guitarist in fellow garage rock heathen Nobunny's touring band. And So It Shall Be, a five track cassette release, sits pretty on a local label that I champion too (that'd be Long Gone Records). Still, it's unlikely a lot of you are familiar with this loose cannon, and it's about time you acquainted yourself. This is ragged, rancid, reckless rock and roll that only the basest of beings could produce - or possibly the Second Coming. And so it shall be.

Melbourne act The Ancients are about to launch new LP Night Bus on esteemed label Chapter Music, and 'Molokai' is the first cut from it. Such a breezy, nondescript song is completely deceptive - it feels as if The Ancients are aimless and meek, yet the electronic lilts gives way to sonorous riffs and an understated elegance that implies that this release will be full of pleasant surprises. What is old is made new once more.

Sex Jams is a provocative name for a band in any world, but the fact that this five-piece walk the streets of Vienna, Austria (hallowed haunting ground of the likes of Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms and Strauss, along with the fragmented genius of Sigmund Freud) offers its own perverse pleasures. Their album Trouble, Honey flits from languid guitar pop sojourns to more raucous, nihilistic rants, all of which play coyly with you before playing you outright. A swindler's kiss, these tracks continually leave you wrong-footed, yet like the best con artists have you in the palm of their hand regardless of how you get burnt. You will come back for more, because for as long as you are in the presence of Sex Jams, you feel whole once more. Pop with a brutal edge - if you like to be used and abused, you'll love getting into Trouble, Honey.

Scandinavia is rife with artists who explore isolation and euphorics in their sonic aesthetic, and Swedish post-rock duo U137 is no exception. Named after the Soviet submarine which ran aground in Swedish waters during the Cold War, U137 uses sweeping aural generalisations in a minimalist thread, the ten tracks making up debut LP Dreamer On The Run (released yesterday on Deep Elm Records) feeling equally desolate and youthful; desperate yet hopeful. There is a constant sense of darkness inverted, as if rising from the floor of the ocean towards the sparkling surface, the sun meeting the face as quenching as the most pristine of waters.

It is fitting that Nature's Son hail from California - the debut LP reeks of 60s pysch-pop persuasions and permutations, a miasma of swirling dirges and deviations that belie a strong sense of steely determination. The organ tones and riffs on 60s rhythm & blues pervade this album, but what draws you back is the band's innate knowledge of their subject matter - they are able to spiral out into a seemingly unhinged instrumental bridge yet are never lost, easily sliding back into the strictures of their songs at a moment's notice. They sound like the perfect stoner band to watch - wig outs at right angles, aligning at the last inconceivable moment. Bring it on.

The Mantis Opera is an experimental collage project from the UK, and I have to say I've been enamoured with the resultant album Curtsie. It reminds me of the faux-sample noodlings of Melbourne band No-Way Sweden - cuts that play with the formula, offering surprisingly fey vocals despite the skewed instrumentation and composition. At first it feels piecemeal, but as you reach the end of second track 'Rant' you are held in sway in this carefully constructed world.

And as an added bonus, seeing as this came in two days late, I have Hamlovers, this split release between Manchester double act Fruit Tones and Pink Teens. These two Brit bands aren't chasing the Oasis at the end of the rainbow, instead understanding that pop lies all over the countryside if you are will to dredge it out of the moors. Fruit Tones' side is scuzzier, brattier, with more flippant behaviour (their instrumental elements are particularly beguiling), whilst Pink Teens are posing as a boy band du jour when in actuality they are planning world annihilation through innate friendliness and likability. Its catchy as all hell - like that first slap of ham to the lips after abstaining from the stuff for far too long. Feel the hunger rise...

HAPPY WEDNESDAY!

Hug Thee Drugs & Alcohol

I may as well talk about the Brisbane scene in relation to actual Brisbane bands, that'd make sense wouldn't it?

Thee Hugs are three stupid fucking idiots that occasionally step up and play something that resembles music, but isn't quite. That sounds like a terribly mean and rude way to speak, but seriously, it's why I like Thee Hugs. There is zero pressure, zero expectation other than you will drink a lot and laugh your arse off to these guys. It might come as a shock, but the trio have put out an album on Long Gone Records. Unsurprisingly, it's called Drug Use & Alcohol Abuse, and it's some of the trashiest, brazen, pissing into a fan style of garage rock you are likely to have invade your orifices. They sing about someone pooing in the pool - you know this is scraping the bottom of the tetanus-infested barrel with nail-less fingers. But, like licking rusty spoons, it's a perverse pleasure. As if you don't want these guys violating every fruit in your fridge, freebasing your salt sachets and flinging feces at your sleeping children. Hell, they'll have you doing it too soon enough. Come lose your mind with us...

Buy Drug Use & Alcohol Abuse here - it's only $15 for the 12"! See - they're crazy! That artwork from Occults' Sam McKenzie is goddamn killer too - the complete depraved package.

VIDEO VACUUM - Mark Of Cain, Thee Hugs, Bad Dreems, Ghost Wave

Everyone loves a good comeback story. If you are into your sport (and I'm sure most of you aren't), there have been some good ones (and in the case of the Ashes Test, an incredibly almost-ran...). Two weeks ago in the national AFL competition, the struggling Brisbane Lions faced the might of the Geelong Cats, and at one stage were down in excess of 50 points. Yet somehow in the final exchange they opened the floodgates to the point where they had the opportunity to steal victory after the siren. The task fell to Ash McGrath, who was playing his milestone 200th game. And he slotted it - miracle victory. And in some ways that's how I see today's Video Vacuum. One of the favourite segments of Sonic Masala, it's been away for a while, but here comes out of nowhere to nail it again, providing us all with respite from our dull and inane lives with a few minutes of AV ecstasy. (Can you smell the tenuousness???)

The Mark of Cain thundered back into our lives (and to be fair, the brutality and excellence of Ill At Ease shaped my teenhood so they never really left) last year with new record Songs Of The Third & Fifth. 'Milosevic' is one of the best cuts on there, and here it is as their new single. The video is pretty straight up and down, albeit with a sizable slick production, yet that has always been the way for this trio - no flamboyance, pretention or accoutrements - it's all about the slay.

 

One of the many diseased garage bands floating in the underbelly of Brisbane, Thee Hugs don't play as often as we'd all like. Then again, there is only so much corruption one can take before it becomes too much. The trio realise this, so they are going for a full frontal assault in the form of 12" LP Drug Use & Alcohol Abuse. 'Somebody Pooed In The Pool' is the perfect precursor - puerile, insidious, feverish - a downward spiral into the wormhole of no return. And its pretty fun too (Yuri Johnson's video is great - check out his other stuff, its all champagne). Long Gone Records, you've done it again.

 

Bad Dreems are embarking on a lengthy Australian tour. The four-piece's penchant for off-kilter slacker segues has slipped even further into uncharted, surreal territory on incumbent EP Badlands, playing like a laidback saunter through Dali's nightmares. If Batpiss and The Spinning Rooms are all abrasive counterpoints to Kenneth Cook's Wake In Fright nightmare, then Badlands is more the morning after, the sun filtering through the blinds, dust motes floating in the air, and you are struggling to work out where you are, why you are drenched with sweat with another person's blood on your hands, and yet are vaguely happy. C'est la vie from the Snowtown moors. Get this tapeworm of a track in your earhole, and guaranteed it will suck the life out of your insides all day, something you will be eternally grateful for even as your molars drop into your coffee and you lose the sight in one eye. Bad Dreems are becoming a reality. (The band are playing in Brisbane Thursday night as part of the Hand Games Zine launch - alongside SM alums Black Vacation and Peter Bibby, it's all happening at The End for free).

 

Finally we have Ghost Wave from across the Tasman, who have just launched their Ages LP on Arch Hill Records. It will also be released globally under the Flying Nun banner - a name that still rings soundly across the world (and through connecting with the excellent Captured Tracks in the US and Secretly Canadian in Canada, Ages will get a strong push). 'Here She Comes' is pretty emblematic of the rest of the record - awash with distortion, a shoegaze template tempered with a Morning After Girls-like penchant for psychedelic flourishes, its toes pushed firmly into the sand, sun-kissed minds and sugar-rush melodies. Their trick is to overload you with sweetness whilst undercut with blasts of aggression - a two-faced razorblade candy trip. Be blase with Ghost Wave at your peril.

 

NOW GET BACK TO WORK!

Thursday Cover Up - Black Lassie Keeps On Dancin

Not as much a review (and moving the cover post from its coveted Friday slot) as a promotion. Tonight there is a goddamn rad gig at the Black Bear Lodge, with the top three bands releasing new material. Gothic sorcerers Occults and Adelaide's punk brood Rule Of Thirds both release 7"s, whilst local maudlin minstrels Keep On Dancins finally give hard copy to follow up their excellent The End Of Everything LP with a pink cassette in the form of Black Lassie (out through Long Gone Records). Seven tracks of Spaghetti Whimsy, opening with an echo-drenched slowburn cover of seminal Brisbane guitar pop band Custard's 'Nervous Breakdance', the "EP" offers every facet of the KODs that makes them such an attractive prospect - the reined in wistful saunter, the occasional brash outburst, soaring vocals, the coyness, the shyness, and the ness-es in between. It's no stretch from familiar ground for the band, but that's not what anyone wants, now, is it?

Rounding out this delectable bill is new-ish phenomenon Screaming Match, who kick everything off at 8.  Ensure you get down there (and that awesome artwork again provided by Sam McKenzie.

Keep On Dancins - Nervous Breakdance (Custard cover)

Serving Up Home Brand Gravel Samwidge

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...

Boyd Well

It's sad when something of a gem falls at your feet, only to find out that you cannot bask in its glory. That was me and Nirvana - as a thirteen year old I was a little late to the party when ol Cobain dusted his cranium. And of course that speaks to a lot of past glories - the Beatles, the Kinks, the Who, Fugazi... And I've been lucky enough to see bands re surge to something that has equalled if not eclipsed those younger days of their musical heights (Swans, Dinosaur Jr and Godspeed You! Black Emperor being the latest and most prominent of these acts). 

But it is much more likely that you will blink and miss a local act. In Brisbane and other ephemeral melting pots like it in the world, there are so many side-projects, vanity features and one-offs that it is easy to have something slip through your fingers before you even knew it existed. One such band was almost James X Boyd & the Boydoids. Essentially a solo venture for James Boyd (Velociraptor, Running Gun Sound, The Majors), he has been doing the local circuit in sporadic bits and bursts over the past year, first back by the CEOs and now with the much more excellent Boydoids. And just as he releases his first album, Boyd announces that he is winging his way to Europe, thus the likelihood of catching these tracks on this excellent debut record has gone down to slim to none. Which is a downright shame, because this lil bruiser (put out in cassette form by Long Gone Records, with rumours rumbling a vinyl version is in the near future) is one of the best troubadour-esque albums to come out of Australia in a looooong time. Whilst I'd be wary to put it on the same pedestal as Gareth Liddiard's Strange Tourist or Ben Salter's The Cat, in my opinion James X Boyd & the Boydoids is at least on the same dais, even if it's taking out the bronze. It’s understated, it’s founded in a juxtaposition of posturing and frailty, it’s very funny, and it is incredibly measured, dry, well-rounded pop of the highest esteem.

The music itself is tempered, an engine to drive Boyd further into the spotlight. It comes back to Boyd’s drawled, distinctly Australian vocal delivery, and those laconic lyrics that are as steeped in abject romanticism as they are watching The Simpsons and Sunday morning blues. Ordering takeout “if you want to”, singing songs that you can’t get wrong, ditching jobs and travelling the world with painted shoes, being in the movies with friends and people you love – it’s all highlighted with wryness and effervescence, warmth and a twinkle in the eye. And it is indelibly entrenched in the Sunshine State – Blue Apia’s banana trees proving to be a beautiful sight to see, whilst Brunswick Street Junkies revels in seesawing love and revulsion of the tenacity of a Fortitude Valley addict. Boyd’s skewed lyricism is something to behold, and it deserves to be front and centre amongst the warmly buzzing guitars, the subtle piano, and the languid brushstrokes. 

Check the album out below, and buy it here. He does have one final show next Wednesday night, ANZAC eve, at Alhambra Lounge alongside Velociraptor, The Good Sports and Pool Room. It's the official album launch too - it would be sensible to make your way along, I think, don't you? Grab a ticket here. 

Video Vacuum - Foot Village, Liars, James X Boyd & the Boydoids, Darkstar

 

First Video Vacuum of the year, so some of these may not be “new” as such. Nevertheless I've chosen three tracks because their film clips are awesome (so are the tracks) – and one because I like the band/song (although the vid is deliciously lo-fi and nerdy…)


I'm kicking it all off with a loooong one. Those crazy bastards Foot Village have a new record coming out next month called Making Memories (on Northern Spy), so they have released this music video for ‘The End Of The World’. Luckily for us the Mayans were wrong and we are still kicking on – but if I was doing a death march into fiery oblivion, these manic tub-thumpers would be my little drummer demons. Foot Village must feel the same – it is far more sedate than anything they have thus far done, which is not a detractor – it is beautifully constructed. It reminds me a little of Deerhoof’s ‘Hallelujah Chorus’, whilst the video is all anarchist slow grind. And the last minute and a half? Well, as far as streaming the new album goes, it’s pretty ingenious – if you live in America that is.



James Boyd is one busy cat. He is a part of garage centipede Velociraptor, garage commies The Majors – but he is tapping into something really special as a pop troubadour. James X Boyd and the Boydoids (great band name) are promising something truly special with their debut 12” through Long Gone Records later this year, this “video” for single ‘Elissa Says’ is all about kids fooling around in Brisbane sharehouses – a simple, innocent time where dreams are had and intermittently reached for. They haven’t played heaps of shows, but I'm hoping that 2013 puts Boyd and his ‘oids up at the top of the Brisbane pops.



Those twisted Liars certainly aren’t strangers in this neck of the woods. Sisterworld was one of my favourite albums of 2010, whilst WIXIW, although it’s shift had many people shuffling their feet, is a dark, sinuous grower, with ‘No 1 Against The Rush’ being my pick as song of 2012 (with an ace video). The title track from that album has become the trio’s third single, with a slick video to boot. A longhaired stoner type continually trying to dunk a ball but failing? Lots of people standing around, either bemused or confused? And that pagan god? Doesn’t really make sense – although the band love basketball apparently. Fair dues. Its still pretty intoxicating.



Finally we have UK band Darkstar. Now I haven’t had the chance to hear their album News From Nowhere yet – its getting some favourable reviews – I have listened to and watched the clip to single ‘Amplified Ease’ a multitude of times. It’s got that mantra-esque lyrics and warped rhythms that Animal Collective have claimed as their own (although you can name a huge number of other acts that now incorporated such elements), but with the film clip of the boys jamming their faces up against a tank (at Pinewood Studios, no less!), it heightens the experience. The song itself has an undulating presence that buries into your brain – a hypnotic pan flute of a track, leading you children away from the village, never to be heard from again.

Definition Of Meatboy = A Cannon With Lovely Legs

 

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.

Cannon – Dogs In Space
Cannon – Get It On

 

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.

Lovely Legs – I Got It Made
Lovely Legs – Mr Death

 

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.

GET THERE.

Blacken Those Princely Lips

Two great shows on tonight kids. Firstly there is the Bonnie Prince Billy show at GoMA for the Matisse Up Late program. Expect some exceptional music coupled with heaps of dicks talking and "being seen". Its a pity that there will be that kind of crowd, but what can you do?

Bonnie Prince Billy - I See A Darkness


Go see Black Lips, that's what you can do! The garage behemoths are bringing their incendiary show to The Zoo, with great support from Tiny Migrants and Cannon (go the Long Gone collective!) This will be the raucous drunkfest that you always dreamed of. And to tie the two shows together in a tenuous fashion...

Black Lips - Modern Art