Gig of the Week: Sydney

It has to be the eclectic and fine rockin' Vindicator Smooth at the Excelsior, Surry Hills this Friday. Here's a vid shot by Vanilla Smoothie at their recent support to Radio Birdman at Annandale with them rolling through Love's "My Flash On You":

That's Mark Sisto on vocals, Andy Newman (Me-262, Decline of the Reptiles)on bass, Ged Corben (you might know him from the Lime Spiders) on guitar at right, Jon Schofield (Paul Kelly, Hell to Pay et al) on guitar at left and Jeffrey Wegener (Laughing Clowns, Ed Kuepper, the Saints) on drums. Supports will be Astrid Munday (up from Melbourne) and Madeleine Chase. I just gotta find a way of getting there after the daughter's school concert gig.

Historic Stooges photos published for the first time

Here's a piece of history for Stooges fans. We're publishing - for the first time anywhere - three sets of photos of the "Funhouse" and pre-"Raw Power" Stooges, from the six shows they played in the St Louis area in 1970 and '71.

CRAIG PETTY was lucky enough to be at all those shows, several of them with camera in hand. His photos were destined for publication in a Stooges book which, alas, appears to have stalled. So we're presenting them for the first time, in copy-protected form. (You may be able to reproduce these photos if you have a worthy project in mind - but please make sure you seek permission here first. OK?)

Craig takes up the story...

"The color photos of Iggy with longer hair, no dog collar and unripped jeans were from Kiel Stadium, St Louis, Missouri on March 7th, 1970.

"The next set of color shots with Iggy in ripped jeans , dog collar and shorter hair come from The Rainy Daze Club St.Louis MO in about July 1970 - a week or so before the famous Cincinnati Festival with the 'walking on the hands' film."

Close observers will note that Iggy is almost identically dressed in that TV footage:


"The black-and-white shots are from May 27th 1971 at the Factory, in St.Charles (a suburb of St Louis.) This show is the one that many bootlegs are from, and many of those are mistakenly labeled Kiel Stadium 1970,"
Craig says.

(There's a bootleg on the mysterious Starfighter label which purports to be this show - a better quality copy of that tape is circulating through traders.)

"The Factory show had Ron AND James Williamson on dual lead guitars for a very rare and short lived period. This was a makeup show for one canceled the night before at The Music Palace when the band's equipment truck didn't show.

"About 35 minutes into the show, Ig whacks Ron in the head with his mic by accident and the gig stops. They come back and try one more but it goes down. The show is over.

"People are pissed. Iggy comes out into the crowd afterward and hangs out and talks to everybody and is very apologetic. This is very cool.

"The promoter stiffs them. That's very uncool.

"A couple of weeks later they're dropped by Elektra and the band goes dormant.

"They came back to St Louis in '73 for two shows at the American Theatre."

Dates Craig recalls the dates the band played in St Louis over 1970-73 were:

3/7/70 Kiel Stadium
3/25/70 Rainy Daze
?/7/70 Rainy Daze
5/27/71 The Factory
8/18/73 American Theatre (two shows)

You can access the photos here. Wouldn't hurt to tell Craig how you feel (to quote Ig) by leaving a comment.

Frustrated drummers, mixers apply here

A little distraction to get you sacked at work. Turn the volume down if you want to stay in employment. I'm not sure what Buckle.com is all about but the rest of it smells of fashion shows and American Idol.

Visual, not aural

Not a rock and roll post but a nice photoblog. Click on the link and scroll down for a nice piece of Shockwave coupled with timelapse photography. The full photoblog "A Daily Dose of Imnagery" appears here.

Just in from the Radio Birdman camp

A bit of news which explains Pip Hoyle's absence from the U.S. tour just kicking off - read it here. Best wishes go out to the Sharpest Dressed Man in Rock and Roll and his family.

Punk's not dead, just festering around the edges

Here's a media release that lobbed into the I-94 Bar inbox this week. It seems unlikely that I'll ever find out what Guff sounds like so I'll resist further comment (but feel free to make one, if you feel so disposed):

Rock Legend Steve Perry works with Punk Band!!

So what could Steve Perry, the legendary lead singer of Journey possibly have to do with a punk band? Well, here it goes: While Guff was in the studio working on their upcoming new album, Steve walked in to visit a friend. He was so impressed with Guff that he showed up unannounced two days later and asked Guff to cover an unreleased Journey song. In the end, Steve not only produced the song “I Can See It In Your Eyes” but also sang on it! The song is featured on Guff’s brand new full-length “Symphony of Voices” which will be released on June 26th on Go-Kart Records.

Check out some of the songs of “Symphony of Voices” in our beautiful online stream at www.GokartRecords.com

Show your knowledge of shit music

Turning our attention to bad music, here's a website that's chockful of it. Think of ilike.com as an online version of Name That Tune for the truly gormless. WARNING: Britney Spears Zone.

Sad note on TBTT

That late and now great Dave Thomas-led Melbourne band Tiger By The Tail recently mentioned around these parts has called it a day. There's talk of a final, final gig (one of the guys was unavailable for the recent show due to illness.) We'll keep you posted.

Tone poem?

Are you tone deaf or do you have bad taste in music? US medical student Jake Mandell has developed an online test to determine if it's the former. He takes up the story:

"While working at the music and neuroimaging lab at Beth Israel/Harvard Medical School in Boston, I developed a quick online way to screen for the tonedeafness. It actually turned out to be a pretty good test to check for overall pitch perception ability. The test is purposefully made very hard, so excellent musicians rarely score above 80% correct." Try it here.

(Postscript: I scored 78% but since I struggle to tune a guitar I'm not reading much into that.)

This post could attract legal action (or at least a mild rebuke)

Why is there an unflattering cartoon of Radio Birdman's Rob Younger in this blog? In case you missed the item at the I-94 Bar, ex-Radio Birdman/Hitmen/Raouls member and noted graphic artist Warwick Gilbert's latest art exhibition goes live at Gallery37 in Coffs Harbour (on the New South Wales North Coast) on Friday and will continue until July 11. That is, if y'all don't buy all the works online.

"Myth, Memory & Idolatry" includes original works on canvas (a few of which you might have seen a year or two at the R$adio Birdman Exhibition in Sydney), but also features a handful of drumheads from The Warlord's Radio Birdman and Hitmen days.

Thanks to Gallery37's industrious Program Manager, Rachael Slattery, you can view some of the works - and buy fixed price originals - here. If you want to buy direct, drop the Gallery a line after you have a look.

Way back, when haircuts were expensive

At the risk of being told we're living in the past here's a potentially great and growing resource called Not So Ugly Things that's worth checking out regularly. Based on the contents of a suitcase of old Australian rock and roll publicity photos retrieved form a rubbish pile a decade ago, it's a pictorial blog of Oz music originators in candid and posed form. Let the blogmaster know what you think, OK?

Undoubtedly there are going to be many more photos of bands like the Masters Apprentices (above) with haircuts they'd rather forget...

Anarchy in Graceland

Yes, I know, there's been minimal ranting lately - for reasons I won't bore you with - so here's a quick line to indicate there are still signs of life. I stumbled over a myspace thingie for a San Francisco band called the Sex Presleys recently and if The King's tunes sung to the music of Rotten et al is your bag, you'll probably enjoy 'em. Gimicky, I know, but everybody's got to have their schtick.

Some Other Shit I've Been Liking:

"Old Shoes New Clothes" - the sweeping new album by Johnny Casino & The Secrets.

Demos by The Passengers - yes, an album is pending down the track.

"The Floating Life" - esoteric and moody debut record by Stewart "Leadfinger" Cunningham's new-ish band, on Spanish label Bang! Records.

"Stranded in the Nineties" - Brother Brick's posthumous double CD compilaiton on Off The Hip.

"Rejectionville" - Posthumous compile of tracks by the Kryptonics. One classic and a string of shouldabeen hits. On Memorandum.