Woodboot's Doing The Crime Time

Seriously, can Woodboot get any more diseased? Since the Brisbane band started out some years ago as a passing concern, the core duo of Dan and Julien cranking out scuzzed out garage punk, they have grown like an Akira homunculus, sucking in Sam McKenzie (Sulphur Lights/Occults) on second axe bludgeoner duties and Donnie Miller (No Anchor/Roku Music/Forevr) eschewing guitars and smashing the kit like the reprobate Troglodyte that he is. Crime Time is the fetid result. Each song is all about brevity with a mainline blast of fuck-you punk, tearing viscera through their serrated sawing and heckling howls. Songs like ‘Trash Dump’ is the kind of punk we hear a lot of around Brisbane parts, from the 70s punch of The Leftovers to the cartoonish chaos of Undead Apes and everything in between, but then you get to the killer slack-jawed, legs-splayed power punk of ‘Prison Planet’, all jagged edges and dripping Neanderthal fangs, that the transmogrified remnants of the likes of Hank Wood, Circle Jerks and the Spits are ripping through the entrails of the four-piece, a chest-burster showing the diseased intent within. ‘Gut You’ is fucking feral, all blood-vessel searing feedback and three-chord torture, throats being shredded almost out of psychopathic glee. ‘I’m Gonna Push You In Front Of The Bus’ is, despite of its name, a more “pop-oriented” punk blast, a Ramones template lynched and dragged along the bitumen behind a busted-up V8, some semblance of attractive melody showing beneath the blood and gashes. I can even hear ‘Return Of The Rat’ in Crime Time’s insistence that there should be rhythm underneath the sledgehammer-and-kerosene debris, if somewhat used and abused.

I’m proud to know Woodboot – I'll do time for them for sure.

Happy Damage In The Jacuzzi

Back in 2009, before I started Sonic Masala with Paul, he made me a mixtape (awww!) of all the bands that he thought I would be into. On that list was stuff from Thee Oh Sees, Meth Teeth, Vivian Girls and Monotonix - most of the others I can't remember (I lost the CD when I had to move back over to London from Australia last year...) One band I do remember was the deliriously scuzzy insanity of Miami garage rockers Jacuzzi Boys (the track - 'Island Avenue' - the type of track that Brisbane mates Tiny Migrants used to spit out). I have always been into their brand of scrappy, explosive sounds, and new EP Happy Damage is more of the same. The darker 'Sun' is more my cup of rock, but the explosive title track is heaps of fun too. Blast it out of the speakers to see out your Sunday.

Microsoft Police Force Meltdown

While I still liked the idea when they were originally going to be called Police Force 5 and would give each other five high-fives after each song (stupid, I know, but still pretty great), the mischievous madman otherwise known as Police Force continue to confound, perplex and amuse. Their set from a while ago (can't remember when or where) when they sampled banter for in between songs so they didn't have to actually talk on stage was another example of their loose genius. New slab of warbled weird is POWER POINT (out through those heathens at Tenth Court), eight tracks of burnt-barrel slink, drunk hip-shakes, woozy winks and bitten lower lips.

'Fantasy' is ridiculous in its buried sax, swirling vocal discombobulation and cavernous noise - and it's killer, storming onto a Ministry Of Sound CD outside your local laundromat soon. 'Space Drop' takes us into more familiar territory, a synapse-drained drawl on the asteroid belt of a fried freakout. 'Lowdown' is louche lounge, played from dust-coated blown speakers in the toilets of a ultraviolet-violating public toilet in the Surfers Paradise bus station of your mind. 'Love' is a torn romance, straight out of the pages of a waterlogged William Gibson novel, loose-limbed and crooked grin, drool spilling from lazily upturned lips. If you can imagine MC Ride taking horse tranks and letting his heartrate to drop below forty beats a minute, while Zach Hill abandons the kit and kicks over a Roland TR-505 drum machine and throws guitars into a cryogenic wasteland towards the end stages of Hotline Miami, you get 'Drug Zone Pt II'. 'Brakes' is Primal Scream eighty years in the future, still playing the "hits" in an abandoned nuclear reactor to piled up cadavers from past aural atrocities, and the aftershow reviews are promising. All bookended by elevator music leading us to our desired doom, dressed to the nines in our doomed desirables.

None of this makes sense.

Get POWER POINT at your peril.

Nothing Cult Of Death

Deafcult is a new band out of Brisbane who I hadn't even heard of before the other day - but considering it's a new project from Innez (Roku Music, Tiny Spiders, Feathers) and Matt Bach (The Quickening, El Motel, The Gifthorse), it shouldn't surprise me how bloody great it is. Taking the shoegaze shine of Roku and adhering it to the Nothing mould of post-hardcore ferocity, the tracks on the Deafcult EP (recorded at Incremental Studios) are incredible intense, sonorous, intricate and cathartic in their sonic expulsions. I'm blown away by how complete this six-piece already sounds - expect massive things from these guys this year.

Deafcult have a few good gigs coming up - they are supporting Pale Heads (alongside Deadshred and a rare show from the excellent Tiny Migrants!) June 20 at Trainspotters, as well as an earlier show at the Sewers fundraiser as that band prepares to assault the US with their excellent second album on the cusp of hitting the shelves (it's bloody killer) June 6 at The Underdog.

Get The Shovels Out And DIG

I have been a big fan of San Francisco native Michael Beach for some time. He came floating into my sonic peripherals with his solo fare; firstly his A Horse 7" through Twin Lakes Records back in 2011, but most prominently when he released Golden Theft, one of my favourite albums of 2013. I even had the privilege of putting him on a show at the Beetle Bar in Brisbane back in November (with a stellar line-up of Soda Eaves, Tiny Migrants and Tape/Off – but due to torrential rain it was a poorly attended show, despite it being one of my favourite of the year also). He was joined with a backing band, bassist Adam Camilleri and drummer Peter Warden. But they aren’t really just a backing band – the trio form Shovels, and their debut LP (out through Homeless Records) is one of apocryphal dirges and imploding delights.


There are moments throughout Shovels where I felt I was listening to one of Australia’s truly underrated rock bands, Turnpike. Whilst nowhere near as intricately frenetic, there is an incessant gnarled tension throughout these tracks, such as opener 'MB Jacket' or 'Multiple Farrow', from the deathmarch basslines and cathartic drums to Beach’s impassioned howls and sharp guitar stabs and swathes. The monolithic ‘Clyde’ stands stark here, just over five minutes of drowning militaristic rancour; as Beach shouts ‘the leader of the FBI’ there is a nascent aura pervading, as if the anger is on the cusp of being superseded by impotent exasperation. But the muscularity remains, and therein lies one of the secret ingredients that so many bands forget – you can strut and bluster all you want, you can turn things up as loud as they will go, but if you don’t wield your strengths at the right time, with tempered aggression, with knowledge of when to strike and when to recede into the shadows, you are nothing but a cardboard cutout. Even the sparse, foreboding languidity of ‘Expire’ holds more strength in its aural tendrils than most bombastic offerings. There is nothing impotent about Shovels – contrary, this album digs mass graves for us all to gratefully slumber in, led by Pied Pipers of angularity.

Grab Shovels here – it’s a necessity.

See You On The Beach Tonight

(poster by Matt Deasy)

Really looking forward to this one. Brave the wet to see something truly special at the Beetle Bar tonight as Melbourne-via-San Franciscan Michael Beach officially launches second LP Golden Theft in Brisbane. It's one of my favourite albums of the year hands down; he is a super rad guy; the supports (Tape/Off, Tiny Migrants, Soda Eaves) are all incrediballs; cheap sangria; $5 schooners (it's Carlton Draught, but there are better beers on offer like Coopers Pale Ale too). All for a tenner, and Soda Eaves kicks off at 8pm. Come!!!!!

Interview - Keep On Dancins

2013 has been an interesting year for Keep On Dancin’s. The four-piece came into the year having released a warmly received debut album The End Of Everything and with an extensive playing schedule under their belt. Supports for the likes of Velociraptor and Dan Kelly were becoming commonplace. But the band deliberately fell off the radar, a belated cassette release Black Lassie the only hint that the band were still in action.

“For a good year now we’ve really reined things in,” drummer Alex Dunlop explains. “Jacinta (Walker) and Tegan (Rickard) wanted to focus on Tiny Migrants, and Yuri (Johnson) had Teen Sensations, and we all just needed a rest from it all. We were playing so often – it never approached the level of burnout, but we overexposed ourselves a bit. Then after that time we got back in the saddle and started playing a couple shows, and it felt right to be moving forward again.”

The main focus for the band is the upcoming release of sophomore record Hunter, and the process has seen them approach the art of music in a more calculated manner.  

“We didn’t realise how many people liked (The End Of Everything) until after we had a break, and it changed the way we looked at things,” Dunlop stresses. “We didn’t really roll it out properly; we just played and played and sold bits at shows. We have tried to be cleverer with it, the whole experience. Before we played more like a lot of bands do, that is to play until we drop without thinking about what we were doing. This time we are weighing up what to do with film clips, we’ve planned the single (Grey Ghost), we’re doing interviews; we are picking and choosing what and when we play… Before we were playing every little dive because we said yes to everything, and it didn’t do anything for us.”

This new approach obviously bled into the writing and recording of Hunter also. “We recorded with Sean Cook, and we took things really slow; we spent a whole week on one song,” Dunlop emphasises. “We may have spent more money, but it also allowed us to take our time with it, adding bits here and there as they presented themselves to us. Because of that it feels really layered; there are drum loops involved, it’s quite metronomic, so it’s obviously very different to what has come before.”

Hunter won’t hit our ears until 2014, but the band are prepping us with the launch of two tracks from it, Grey Ghost and Baby, the second track of which has its own film clip which follows the four-piece as they wander around a day at the Ekka. The video was put together by Dunlop himself, something he admits was a great experience.

“We got a friend to bring his Handicam and follow us around the Ekka, just having some fun, feeding animals, playing games, going on rides and stuff. I got it together and chopped it all up into something. There was no song designed for it though, because there was no lip syncing or anything, so I just picked Baby because it had a dreamy quality to the whole experience. But we had decided that Grey Ghost should be the single a while ago, but wanted to show both off.”

Keep On Dancins launch the single/s tomorrow night at Black Bear Lodge, with Roku Music and Martyr Privates in able support.

Digging Shovels

I lied - here's ANOTHER post for the day. Melbourne ex-pat in San Fran Michael Beach has landed in the land of Oz for Sound Summit, and is playing a bunch of solo shows as well as a great number with his newish band Shovels. I feel it would be remiss of me, seeing as I'm hosting his solo show in Brisbane on Thursday November 14 (supported by Tape/Off, Tiny Migrants and Soda Eaves), to not list his other shows. And Shovels themselves? Have a listen below. Ill leave it at this - they played at Maggot Mess at Northcote Social Club today alongside Sewers, Gentlemen, Terrible Truths - and Cuntz. And you know by now how much we love Cuntz. If you're from Brisbane - this is like old Turnpike, if they were a little more in check with their flailing feelings, and a little more about deliberately bludgeoning you to death. So yeah - fucking awesome then.

NEWCASTLE – NOVEMBER 7 – WHITE’S RECORDS

SYDNEY – NOVEMBER 10 – SOUND SUMMIT 

BRISBANE – NOVEMBER 15 – GREENSLOPES BOWLS CLUB w/ TYVEK (USA) + BLANK REALM + THE REAL NUMBERS + HYDROMEDUSA + GERALD KEANEY & THE GERALD KEANEYS + EGGVEIN + DAG + THE ADULTS (put on by 4ZZZ A Guilt Retreat - this is going to be fucking amazing...)

HOBART – NOVEMBER 23 – GRAND POOBAH w/ NATIVE CATS + MESS O REDS

A Decade of Mere Migration Noise Celebration

Your tiny words don't mean a thing. But if you don't mind, then keep making whatever noise you want to make. Keep it up for ten years. Tiny Migrants launch their little slab of noise (some Mexican hat cum XXXX brewery, back and forth, jumpin', thrivin' and strivin' to survivin' tunes) at a very special show this weekend. Brisbane's own independant stalwarts Mere Noise records are celebrating 10 years on the trot with parties THIS WEEKEND at Black Bear in Bris and Off the Hip in Melbourne.



To do anything is hard. To run an independent record label for ten years in a town renown for siphoning culture southward through its ample storm drains and cultural backwaters... verges on biblical. You thought Job had it tough? He never had to work through an industry re-inventing itself whilst living off beans so he could put out shit-hot local bands on 7" records throughout the world.  The fact that Mere Noise exist is a fucking testament worth your admiration. Get down to one of the shows and party like it's 2003. It may be mere, but it's a lot louder than the silence that would be without them.

  

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.

See Thee Oh Floating Coffin

It feel perfunctory telling you how good SF garage leviathans Thee Oh Sees' latest record Floating Coffin is. But then again, I probably should tell you that out of all of Dwyer and co's albums, this has been by far and large the most addictive album from start to finish for me - it's been locked in my car stereo since before Easter, and isn't likely to budge anytime soon. Below is a paraphrased version of the review I wrote for theMusic.com.au - check that one out here.

Five seconds into opening track 'I Come From The Mountain'  and it’s clear that the band, rather than diluting their style from overexposure the quartet are at supernova levels of intensity, ferocity and excellence. Like kindred spirit Ty Segall, Dwyer is a magnetic force, a feverish maelstrom of energy with an endless supply of riffs, melodies and yelps at his disposal. And like Segall, who took his garage rock DNA and fused it with Seventies era hard rock on 2012’s Slaughterhouse, Floating Coffin (out through Freeform Patterns and Fuse in Australia, Castle Face elsewhere) is a ramped up affair, perfectly augmenting last year’s great Putrifiers II in almost every conceivable facet.

'No Spell' wafts along like a sonorous Californian pop number, Brigid Dawson’s vocals deliberately flirting with the saccharine before being cut in half by a killer riff and Dwyer’s ecstatic bark; the feverish growl of ingenuously-named 'Strawberries 1 + 2' is a face-melter in the purest sense, before entering a intense motorik swirl into psych country; 'Night Crawler' takes a left-turn into spaced-out phasers and languid turns, before 'Sweet Helicopter' lifts off, and back into the stratosphere we go. 'Toe Cutter/Thumb Buster' best exemplifies the two extremes in the band’s blueprint, and is one of their best tracks because of it.

Not that other sonic artillery was necessary, but Dwyer ropes in the likes of luminaries Kelley Stoltz and Lars Finberg (A-Frames, The Intelligence, whose presence is truly felt on penultimate killer 'Tunnel Time' - which I might also add, is the closest I've ever heard a TOS song actually sound like local acolytes Tiny Migrants - kudos guys!), and the overall final product is addictive, breath-taking brilliance. 

Grab Floating Coffin here - garage excellence par none.

Thee Oh Sees - I Come From The Mountain

Thee Oh Sees - Toe Cutter/Thumb Buster

Moore Heavy Light Moving From Chelsea

Much of the excitement over Chelsea Light Moving, Thurston Moore's new project (or at least one of many) has already died down some. Thurston played here late last year, the same time I was throwing a Sonic Masala night (Go Violets, Do The Robot, Tiny Migrants - great lineup) so I didn't see the confusion of many as Thurston, who was booked as a solo show, came on stage and proceeded to play predominantly new tracks off Chelsea Light Moving. Not that most people should have complained that hard - he is one of modern rock's geniuses, and the new record isn't all that far removed from latter Sonic Youth meanderings anyway. It cannot be avoided - the guitar, the dissonance, the laconic drawl. Shit, the man still looks the same he did in the late 80s! And it's a call to arms - a fuck you to the direction that most "edgy" rock acts take in the 21st century. And there are moments when it is clear that this quartet has the potential to become a fully formed band, such as when 'Empires Of Time' collapses heavily into a morass of chugging sludge - the sense of communal abandon feel real, and is something that has been missing in much of SY's latter releases, for better or worse...

That said, BECAUSE it's a Thurston Moore project, Chelsea Light Moving comes slightly as a letdown. The production values are a little too slick, taking away the punch from some of these tracks. That said, if it was another band you would find gravel deeply embedded in the skin underneath your jaw. Maybe it'd be the same last year, if the debut self-titled album from Metz actually had Ian Mackaye in it - sure it's good, but we've heard better from the original well-spring...

Nevertheless, Chelsea Light Moving has its moments, and it's great to see Thurston freaking out more. This band will get tighter, dirtier, louder - and then we could have an atonal masterpiece. Grab it here through Matador Records.

Chelsea Light Moving - Alighted
Chelsea Light Moving - Empires Of Time

And to prove how great this can be...

Running Guns At Tiny Migrants - They're All Friends Though!

I was going to write about these Brisbane bands separately, but seeing as they are interrelated, what with sharing band members and all, it made more sense to join them together, like re-attaching Siamese twins (?!).

 

First up is Tiny Migrants. I have spoken extensively about these crazy space-garage tweaks on many an occasion – they supported Mark Sultan in 2011 in what was the first gig Id been to in Brisbane for almost four years, when on returning from Europe I thought I might be doomed to a dire music scene, just to find it stronger than ever; and they also played Sonic Masala Presents… and The Waiting Room’s 1st Year Celebrations. Now, they haven’t been overflowing with releases, so it’s very exciting to see we are close to seeing their debut 7” EP come to life (thanks to Mere Noise Records). This band has improved exponentially over the past two years, so it stands that this first proper release is going to slay potato chips (I don’t know what that means either – I've just come back from my first day of work in two months and am currently on painkillers and beer). Apparently the record is “a collection of western movie tunes, spazzed out psych and reverb trenches”. They are currently mid-celebration – having supported Nobunny on his ad-hoc party annihilation, and will also support Day Ravies in March (the excellent Nite Fields round out that amazing bill). Who know when we will actually see the thing – Tiny Migrants are predictably slacker than a sack full of sloths – but in the meantime, here is this track. Control yourselves now…

Tiny Migrants – Uncontrollable

 

Wild leading beer monkey Julien James then jumps over to his “other” band Running Gun Sound – he is also in Thee Hugs, Woodboot, has a bit-part in the Shiva of garage gods Velociraptor, and other acts that take his fickle fancy. The rest of his band don’t sleep easy at night either – all in Velociraptor and in bands such as Tiger Beams, Lovely Legs, and The Majors, with some solo endeavours just for shits and giggles, RGS fleshes out with Jeremy Neale, James Boyd, Michael Fletcher and Lauren Jenkins. They have an album coming out, called Friends. Because they are friends, you know? Aren’t we all? Maybe. I haven’t made my mind up yet – are you looking at me with the evil eye, or you just need corrective surgery? Either way, this so-laconic-they-should-be-played-on-higher-speeds-and-on-a-slightly-warped-turntable just so that you are leaning in the right direction. Great, jangly, discordant pop that leaves the tracks because they sold them for scrap years ago. Listen if you like sitting next to an open window which is always open in your house because the rains warped the hinges, drinking from a tallie (or regular stubby – I wont push you into new frontiers if you aren’t ready), watching the neighbours’ weed garden bearing fruit, the sound of lawn mowers and verbal domestic abuse flicking your earlids, and faintly remembering that you owe your housemates money but bought this record instead. Everyone’s been there.

Running Gun Sound – Best Of It All

You can buy Friends (the record, not real friends – although I'm sure if you slip them an extra tenner, some flakes of weed and the pretension that there’s more where that came from, they’ll be friends forever!) here. They are touring next week too – Julien is busy when he gets his shit in rollerskates - Oxford Arts Factory in Sydney and Gasometer next weekend, then Brisbane’s Crow Bar on the 28th. UPDATE - After 5 years of recording, playing shows, and pal'ing about, Brisbane's RUNNING GUN SOUND are calling a hiatus. To celebrate singer Michael Fletcher's big move to Germany the band have recorded Friends for one last hurrah (well, until the next time - Fletcher is considering taking the moniker to Deutschland with him). That means this tour is crucial. Make these shows, or you're jerks! (Unless you have seriously legit reasons - you may still be a jerk, but not because you didn't make it).

Neighbours Are Your Best Friends At The Para Vista Social Club

 

Australia is rife with skronky grungy slacker rock, yet almost every single band that peddles the stuff have their own slant on it. Eddy Current Suppression Ring offer a feverish post-punk stiltedness to their garage cauldron, overseen by a manic and unpredictable wordsmith with countless neuroses. Twerps saunter down suburban streets in the afternoon, sitting on the verandah drinking beers whilst listening to the stereo. You have the silly (Tiny Migrants, Cannon, Gooch Palms), the psychedelically crazy (King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, Drunk Mums), the cocky retro kids (Velociraptor, Go Violets)…then you have Scott & Charlene’s Wedding.

The product of Craig Dermody, Para Vista Social Club (which actually came out in Australia last year) is raised up not just by the wonky yet addictive instrumentation and melodies, but his takes on working class malaise, heartache, and world-weary commentary on the ills of the slightly disenfranchised are fascinating ('Gammy Leg', although not found here, is one of the best songs of the past couple years PERIOD). Imagine The Go Betweens making their earlier albums in the 21st century in a scum-stained corner of the urban sprawl, playing good cop to Matt Kennedy-led Kitchens Floor’s bad cop, and you have Scott & Charlene’s Wedding down…or, if you were like me, you had me at “Scott & Charlene’s Wedding”.

 

Unfortunately Dermody has flown the coop to search out New York’s realist corners (a la Curtis Wakeling from another unheralded Aussie gem, Velcro). But thanks to Critical Heights Records, Para Vista Social Club is getting a UK release (grab it here!). When Dermody first put out the album, he created each vinyl sleeve from scratch, using covers from other albums and defacing them in some way (check them all out here). Those are all sold out now - I'm not sure if you Europhiles will get similar treatment, but trust me, you are in for a treat. You can grab the LP here – this is a goddamn great record, yet another testament to the goods that are coming out of this vast wasteland...

 

Scott & Charlene’s Wedding – Footscray Station
Scott & Charlene’s Wedding – Rejected
Scott & Charlene’s Wedding – Back In Town

1st Birthday of Live Celebrations



(poster by Matt Deasy)

Well here it is, the "Big" announcement. It's actually been floating around the traps and the social medias for a while, but it ain't official before it's launched here. This month marks one year since Sonic Masala started supporting the local bands of Brisbane, putting on DIY shows for friends and bands that I like and want to help out. We have had a single launch, an album launch, and even had a couple interstate and one NZ band join the fray. The future looks incredibly rosy for this arm of Planet Masala, with some bigger shows, niche shows and such planned for 2013, but let's forget about the future and party in the present! As part of local venue The Waiting Room (who are also celebrating its first year putting on amazing shows) we are putting on a three night extravaganza! Its mainly to thank everyone for supporting us over the past year, but also to see bands that we like and who like us. So its a big love in, basically!

THE LINEUP:

Thursday 25 October

Ghost Notes



Anonymeye



Feet Teeth




Friday 26 October

The Rational Academy



Tiny Spiders



Undead Apes



+ DJ Monster Monster

Saturday 27 October

Tiny Migrants



Go Violets



Do The Robot



+ DJs Don Candon & Pete Vegas

Three nights of awesome fun times, Im sure you'll agree! Tickets a $10 on the door, or for $20 you can go to all three nights! And of course its BYO, so you know it will be a cheap and easy night. Tiny Migrants promise to "blow y'all cocks off", so the bar has been set. See you there!

These Indians Find A Bad Path Home

Now this 7" The Path Home by Bad Indians came out aaaaaaaaaages ago - the Michigan collective sent it to me in the early throes of the year, and it had been floating about for a few months by then - yet it somehow escaped me until the title track popped up on my playlist on the weekend. It's three slices of trash can garage that is as infectious as it is sloppy, soaked in tonnes of sunshine and party juice. After the reckless swagger of 'The Path Home', we get female vocals to up the sweetener on what segues into a mini psych squall in 'All Over Now', then slopes to the bar with 'So Long Sam' for some delicious last drinks. Every track kills, evoking some of the whacked out garage rock that is thrumming through the veins of Brisbane at the moment, with the likes of Tiny Migrants and Woodboot doing serious serrated damage around these parts, and seeing as I love that shit, then I love this shit.


The Path Home is out through Gingko Records - you can grab it here. They are about to release another 7" next month - expect to hear more about that then (or in 2014, the way I get around to stuff...)

Bad Indians - The Path Home
Bad Indians - All Over Now

Sonic Masala Presents It's A Knockout - Round 2!

It's now time to dissect the last two acts on Friday's 6th Sonic Masala Presents... showcase. In this case we have two acts that are fledgling in terms of who their big brothers are, but are burgeoning talents in their own right


Star Lion is the relatively new project for Ben Thompson, he of the prolifically epic The Rational Academy. Whilst the band are percolating in preparation for their next tilt at global glory, Thompson has unearthed his inner electronic stargazer - and whilst it isn't that far removed from his day job (really, the spaces created in these suites of sound make sense), it has such a brooding intensity that it pervades the senses. That said, it will be interesting to see how his powers battle the sloppy erraticisms of the next act...




Closing out the evening in a waterfall of sawdust and beer suds, Woodboot are yet another arm of garage shambolism that branches from the Velociraptor/Tiny Migrants/Keep On Dancins tree. There are so many bands in this vein (The Quest For Glory is actually yet another one) that it is hard to keep track - and even harder to believe that each spawns its own personality and fanbase. Yet that they do, which is why Brisbane has such a spectacular scene right now. The simplicity of the duo adds to the allure (plus that the recording of their rendition of 'I'm A Genius' on YouTube has a Spaceshits song down the right hand side - THAT is grand!)



So the eclecticism is in full effect. But as they sang on the titular show...

THAT'S THE NAME OF THE GAME!

Come down on Friday to The Waiting Room in West End. $10, BYO and slapfights between grungy upstarts and elegant wasters to kickstart the weekend - there is no other reason to live.

Undead Apes' Mega Launch Of Death, This Friday!

Brisbane's finest purveyors snotty punk Undead Apes have had their second LP Killed By Deaf out for what seems like forever (it's only been a few months), but due to many reasons (chief amongst them, laziness) there has been no official launch. Sure, they killed January with four consecutive Thursdays at the Waiting Room, but that was for shits and giggles. The real deal comes on Friday night as they flood Fat Louie's (yes, they are still doing gigs! And dirty chicken wings!) with simian zombies. Also important are the supports, this time filled by SM faves Tiny Migrants, as well as Last Chaos and Shelby Cobra. And enough with the lame excuses (or flat out refusals, like the douches from last Friday's Sonic Masala show), cos this sucka be free, yo! Don't know why I'm speaking like this. Must be that this will be KILLER! So get there, for the love of your children (real, potential, illegitimate - just think of the children!)

Oh, and by Killed By Deaf here - it is loud and killer, so it speaks the truth. And all very quickly, so it's pretty painless death - quick and easy.

Undead Apes - Brain Drain
Undead Apes - Death Can Wait
Undead Apes - Stamp Out Thatcher

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

Video Vacuum - Tiny Spiders, Tiny Migrants, Velociraptor, The Fighting League

I thought that it had been a while since we had some videos to break up the tedium of real life, and what better way to do that than with three Brisbane garage snotrag bands and one from Canberra? Aussies unite!

First we have Tiny Spiders. I posted about this track earlier, but here is their video shot at the Waiting Room with various drunks playing indie gym junkies (ahem). Its a great tune, and some people actually look like they are exercising. What though is anyone's guess...



I'm pretty sure Tiny Migrants are from outer space, and whilst still ambiguous, 'Fishpond Goldmine' is the proof. Embracing their inner Ed Wood Jr, the sassy, sexy, sleazy and all other adjectives beginning with S quintet really rock it, although this is only scraping the surface of what these guys are capable of. I am pretty sure Julien can shoot laser beams out his eyes, when he can keep em open that is... Tiny Migrants' EP is imminent, so get excited!



The largest, most ramshackle garage monster ever created, Velociraptor eat stage space and preconceptions for breakfast. And with 'Cynthia', they have crafted one of the best videos of the year. There's pieces of Hey Dad! in there (Simon Ridley is a brilliant Nudge if there was to be a Hollywood remake - and there should be, minus the paedophilic dad), Benny Hill, YTT and Brisbane suburbia. It's bloody funny too. Well done guys!



And finally we have The Fighting League, who apparently killed when they visited Brisbane earlier this month (and as an aside, I couldn't make the show, but it was my birthday and Tiny Migrants sung Happy Birthday in my absence - so they say, anyway...). Their LP Tropical Paradise is an underappreciated gem, and this video is a perfect lark with slightly more strenuous workout techniques to accentuate the laconic fun of 'Calypso'. Even if they ARE from Canberra...(please don't hurt me).



NOW GET BACK TO WORK!