Tales from 1986, when I was nineteen and just embarking on making my youth suitably dissolute.
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Category: Rock
Braddock Station Garrison: American Radio (2019).
It made friends with me within the first three chords of “Blockbuster.”
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Imaad Wasif: So Long Mr. Fear (2022).
Eventually indie folk rockers make it clear which Beatle they modeled their approach on.
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Sometimes I just want to listen to R.E.M.
I like to put an R.E.M. mix on while I’m baking. But only the ones that include Man on the Moon.
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Collected thoughts: The War on Drugs
I’m sulky mainly because of the band name, which causes me to think muffled cross thoughts about failed social policy. But the name harmonizes well with the band’s overall vibe, which is “skate park during the golden hour.”
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Late Night Listening: Status/Non-Status: Surely Travel (2022).
The blogging equivalent of sitting in the garage twiddling radio knobs just to see what might be out there.
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Mixtape: Songs for 2022
Some of these are old. Some of them are new(ish). They are all songs I listened to, with varying levels of obsessiveness, at various times during 2022.
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Ride, The Forum, Melbourne, November 30
In times past your author would have expressed a positive indifference to most of the bands of these broad British genres of the early 90s, and that opinion largely still holds.
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Deep thoughts about Snow Patrol.
I am forced to begin with the fact that I began my descent into a Snow Patrol-shaped spiral by confusing them with the Arctic Monkeys.
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Five slabs of listening from 2021.
Two are actually from this year!
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Records: Rhys Fulber, Poppy (2021).
Old industrial musician from way back makes a new album during lockdown; android pop star turns grunge rocker.
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B-Side #14, early 1986: Wet Taxis, Porcelain Bus, Feedtime, Ups & Downs, Mick Harvey/Bad Seeds, John Kennedy’s Love Gone Wrong.
This is the last of the B-Side for the moment. I have a few scraps of other stuff to put up …
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B-Side #13, December 1985: Deniz Tek, Ku Klux Frankenstein, Ed Kuepper/Laughing Clowns, Huxton Creepers, X, Happy Hate Me Nots, Beach Nuts, Louis Tillett, Itchy Rat
And a four-page cartoon in the middle.
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Robert Brokenmouth: Nick Cave: The Birthday Party and Other Epic Adventures (1996).
In fairness, as the big bloke with the long hair and the leather jacket, if I were the police I’d have stopped me.
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B-Side #12, late 1985: Scientists, The Eastern Dark, The Stems, Deniz Tek, Behind The Magnolia Curtain, Mark Ferrie, Reactor Records.
More procrastination on other things!
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B-Side #11, June 1985: Tex Perkins, The Shindiggers, Decline of the Reptiles, Eugene Chadbourne, 21 Faces, The Celibate Rifles, Harem Scarem.
I basically commend all of this coverage.
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B-Side #10, April 1985: James Baker Experience, Triffids, Lipstick Killers, Saints, Tactics, New York garage psych roundup.
Remember when you could get this sort of goodness for a dollar?
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B-Side 4½, June–July 1984: Celibate Rifles, True West, J.F.K. and the Cuban Crisis, Clinton Walker on The Next Thing
B-Side was the Australian indie rock fanzine of the time. Just slabs of text about good bands and records. I straight-up lifted its format for Party Fears.
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Records: Throat (2018, 2020); Microlaxx (2021).
Less Nirvana and more Fugazi, and no fashionability whatsoever. “The kind of rock that was 20 years past its expiration date.”
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Records: Statiqbloom, AC/DC (2020).
A good new thing and an old new thing.
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Jeffrey Lewis & The Voltage: “LPs.” I feel seen.
If the year was from the ’80s it was guaranteed to totally suck.
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Vale Damien Lovelock, 1954-2019 — the last Celibate Rifles show, 19 May 2018.
The Celibate Rifles’ official Facebook posted a link to what turned out to be their last gig — Corner Hotel, Melbourne, 19 May 2018. Here’s the complete video.
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Records: Nero Bellum, Am I Dead Yet?, O.R.k. (2019).
Mary Byker being precisely the right amount of too clever for his own good is a pleasing surprise when clearing down the review pile.
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Records: The Be Positives, Boy Harsher (2019).
Some new pre-punk pop-rock, and a remixed favourite.
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Records: Frog, Keen On Keys, Metal Disco (2018).
Metal Disco is today’s pleasant surprise winner.
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Records: Dew, Irk, Transmaniacon featuring Lydia Lunch and Maya Berlin (2018).
Dew and Irk are both remarkable finds and produce the correct horrible racket, though the loved one compared Irk to a sack of hammers falling down stairs.
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Records: The Rolling Stones, Deerful, Benjamin Shaw (2016, 2018).
A party that everyone’s been looking forward to for weeks. They seem to be having a wonderful time.
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Blacklab: Under The Strawberry Moon 2.0 (2018).
Hey, are you interested in letting a couple of women from Osaka just completely melt your fucking brain? If so I have found the album for you.
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Links: EBM is trendy, managing the Rolling Stones, Swiss modernist post punk, egregious YouTube content filtering.
Post-punk albums in the style of 1960s Penguin nonfiction paperbacks.
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Reviews: Aboleth, Zanias (2016, 2018).
Writing about music is the most ridiculous notion, and the review pile is only getting larger. So I’ll give just embedding players and mumbling something a go. This works for me, and that’s the important thing.
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