Review - Dinosaur Jr. - Farm

Much like the Meat Puppets, Dinosaur Jr. have returned with their 2nd comeback album. The first comeback album 2007's Beyond album, which was met with very positive reviews and I am certain that trend will continue with release of Farm on the Jagjaguwar label. With Murph and Lou Barlow (Sebadoh, Sentridoh, Folk Implosion etc) back in the fold you would think that the album might follow on from the 80s output of Dinosaur Jr. That is not exactly the case, it actually sounds more like the Dinosaur Jr. of the 90s, when J. Mascis had done most of those records himself. That said Mascis' wah wah guitar sound is unmistakable! "Over It", almost sounds like "Freak Scene" and "Little Fury Things" bastard child! All the tracks are strong, J sings most of the tracks but Lou chips in with a couple of contributions as well. I especially like "Your Weather". Other highlights are the album opener "Pieces" and "I Don't Wanna Go There"

The cover artwork makes you want to dig the bong out and start puffin' away again! Designed by Marq Spusta, is easily the best artwork I have seen on an album this year.

There is a limited edition available with a bonus disc but these tracks are in no way throwaway tracks. Well worth picking up as well.

Here is the video for "Over It"



All in all another great Dinosaur Jr. album, well worth your hard earned cash.

Review - Supersuckers - 20th Annniversary Show

Who'da thought out of all the bands outta the Seattle scene that the Supersuckers would be still going 20 years later. This is one of the latest in a long line of Supersuckers albums/eps of Live or Demos that they put out there to fund their "real" albums and tours. You would of thought that they would be scraping the bottom of the barrell by now, but they ain't! You have gotta respect this band because many years ago they quit the bullshit that goes with the music industry and decided to go it alone and do it all themselves. They set up Mid Fi records, beefed up the website, have set up a fan club called the P.I.T. (People of Impeccable Taste).

This here album is a testament to their hell bound trail, 20 years in the making. This was recorded at the Showbox in Seattle 29th of November 2008, the supports included Zeke and Green River! This album traces their career from the start in an almost chronological order through to today. 38 tracks over 2 CDs! All the hits are here and some interesting anecdotes on what the band was doing at the time or how the song came about. Tracks on the first CD include Mudhead, Coattail Rider, 17 Poles, Creepy Jackalope Eye then slow down to the time when they went country and the Must've Been High album. The 2nd CD continues the country part of the show with addictive Killer Weed. But soon they they crank the volume again with more recent hits such as the Evil Powers Of Rock N Roll. Dead Meat, Rock Your Ass, the patent pending Fake Encore then a few from the new album Get It Together and finish it up Born With A Tail.

The album is raw, but honest. You can bet your ass there are no overdubs, fake crowd noises, neither was it recorded over a year on the road and put together to sound like one concert. You could do a lot worse than to login to www.supersuckers.com and buy this album for $US10 bucks, as you won't find these in stores (well not near me anyway) and by doing that you cut the middleman and directly support "the greatest rock n roll band in the world" who can continue record great rock n roll albums and tour the globe.

Here is a video of Tasty Greens from the show

Review - Lobby Loyde & The Coloured Balls - Ball Power

This is an older review I have done that was never published so I thought I'd add it.

Although Ball Power was the Coloured Balls debut album in 1973 after signing to EMI it was actually their 2nd recorded album. First Supper Last was released posthumously in 1976. In some-ways as Australian band Bored! (who covered the Coloured Balls, Human Being) so eloquently put on the inner groove of their debut self titled 12-inch EP “Raw Power….Ball Power” They were just as influential as the Stooges album of the same year to many Australian bands at the time.

Ball Power has been unavailable for many years and Aztec Music has painstakingly reissued this cornerstone of Australian rock with 7 extra tracks, a 24 page booklet and in beautiful 6 panel digipak.

The album kicks of with the melodic and catchy “Flash”, then a rock n’ stomp “Mama Don’t You Get Me Wrong” which goes into “Won’t You Make Up Your Mind” which is quite clearly punk before it existed. The next track “Something New” is a slow song that shows off Lobby Loyde’s guitar prowess as does the Bluesy “B.P.R.” “Human Being” is nothing short of Aussie rock classic with biting, menacing riffs. After that is a raucous cover of the Jerry Lee Lewis “Whole Lotta Shakin’”, “Hey, What’s Your Name” then continues the hard rock blueprint and the original album closes with “That’s What Mama Said”, just shy of 11 minutes is heavy prog rock. Of the extra tracks we have three 7-inch singles that were released between 1972 and 1973 on the Havoc label and EMI. “Liberate Rock” is stand out, but they all have their charm and seem to get heavier with each single. The CD closes with a 16 minute live version of “G.O.D.” from the 1973 Sunbury festival. “G.O.D.” could be best described as freeform guitar exploration, recorded at the awful hour of about 4am on Monday 29th January and demonstrates one of the greatest guitar performances ever to inspire the legion of Aussie Rock bands to soon follow, like AC/DC, The Angels or Rose Tattoo.

Sadly Lobby Loyde passed away in April 2007 after a long battle with cancer, but we are left with a legacy of great guitar rock albums.

www.aztecmusic.net

Dirtbombs VS Jay Reatard

Again this is from an older journal, that I thought I would share.

Fri 7 March 2008 – The Dirtbombs, Jay Reatard, Ooga Boogas

Sorry I just missed the Ooga Boogas. I got in about 15 minutes B4 Jay Reatard played. While I was waiting there was DJ playing Soul Classics, now don't get me wrong that would be appropriate for the Dirtbombs, but before Jay Reatard? When Jay and the boys were ready Jay said "turn that shit off, this is Blood Visions" They seemed to play most of the songs off the album at double pace, plus a few off the 7-inches including the fantastic Hammer, I Miss You (which my 4 year old sings along to!) They were alotted an hour to play but I guess they might of played for 40 minutes, but I was totally satisfied, very little talk between songs except for songs titles and white noise. But they absolutely slaughtered that night. I was a Reatards fan from the debut "Teenage Hate" but when they sort of disappeared I didn't know what Jay was up to till Blood Visions came out last year. Now I have all these other bands to check out like Angry Angles, Bad Times etc from 2000-2006.

The Dirtbombs however I was very disappointed. I have been a fan of the Dirtbombs and Mick Collins for years (never thought much of the Gories though, but Blacktop, King Sound Quartet wow!) I had a listen to their new album a few times before the gig and I just can't get into it, there are some great songs on it but some filler too, such as the covers Sherlock Holmes and the Dead moon cover. The show had some old stuff but I felt they played too much from the new LP, I didn't get into it, and if I didn't run into my mate Ollie I probably would have went home early. I'm not saying they shouldn't play new songs but ditch the filler. Maybe they should of went on before Jay Reatard as how can anyone follow on from him? But look I'm not going to ditch the the Dirtbombs altogether, but maybe they were just off that night.

www.jayreatard.com
http://www.jayreatard.blogspot.com/

Lifelong Dream fufilled on 16th March 2008

This is from another journal I did on the 18th March 2008 and thought I'd share it.

Basically this was the culmination of a life long dream to see Kiss live, every since I could remember I always loved Kiss. I was not disappointed. The sound was great, the songs were great, had a great time. It was everything I expected it to be. Great show. I was just outside the Pole Position area on the left.

They played
Deuce
Shout It Out Loud
C'mon And Love Me
Lick It Up
I Love It Loud
Calling Dr. Love
Shock Me (Tommy on vocals)
Let Me Go, Rock 'N' Roll
Firehouse
100,000 Years
God Of Thunder
Black Diamond (Eric on vocals)
Love Gun
Detroit Rock City
Shandi
I Was Made For Lovin' You
Rock And Roll All Nite

But where was Lets Out The X In Sex?!!
Someone asked if I would see them play again and honestly I wouldn't. I can't see how they would be much different next time? I don't care what anyone says and a few of my mates will back me up, I still think Paul bats for the other side! He's a bit too flamboyant! Not that there is anything wrong with that but I don't buy the open arms open legs schtick! But Gene I totally believe he slept with 4000 women!

WTF was Vanessa Amerosi doing the support for? you should have heard the cheer when she said it was her last song! Her new rock direction doesn't convince me until she plays at the Tote or the Espy.

Grand Prix wasn't much to talk about as I was there to see Kiss, but quick Beer availability was severely lacking, no wonder the Grand Prix loses money, if it takes 1/2 an hour to buy a few beers, that sucks, rather than the Super Bars around the place I would stick 2 people in a small caravan or something in more locations and all they sold was beer, how hard can it be. Charging $5.60 a can I'm sure I could easily turn around the short fall in the Grand Prix budget.

How about Next year AC/DC or Van Halen? and perhaps fuck off the race cars!

Destroyer Records

Destroyer Records was a small independent record label started by Dave Thomas from the Geelong band Bored!

A quick google does not show up any info on this great Australian label. To me it was one of those record labels where you could quite confidently buy any record from the catalogue and not be disappointed with what you got.

Apart from a few of the early releases most were released on CD. The releases included two incredible compilation albums that mainly focused on the Geelong scene at the time. Check This Action and That Was Then included bands such as the Poppin Mommas, Warped, Spaghetti Westerns, Aunty Theo, Food, The Dirty Lovers, She Freak, Magic Dirt (and earlier incarnation The Jim Jims) the shortlived Gut Bucket and of course Bored!

Geelong was not the only focus, Destroyer also released the 1st two albums by Sydney rockers Asteroid B-612, all girl band Gravelrash and Big Bongin' Baby and the Onyas from Brisbane and Tasmanian band Mouth (whose lead singer / guitarist went onto form the Sea Scouts and then the Bird Blobs.)

Other notable releases were the almost thrash metal of Amba Fear, Seaweed Goorillas first album and two Forcefed CDs. As far as I'm aware there were only 14 releases in all, but am happy to be corrected on that.

I have been lucky enough to get most of the releases back when they were released but am still missing Mouth - Victim Chant, Asteroid B-612 - Forced Into A Corner. So if you want to part with them let me know. Funnily enough Mouth album was reissued in 2005 on Soloar Sonar Records and Astreroid B-612's first two were reased as Two fisted rock'n'roll on the Off The Hip label.

Anyway the purpose of this post was to spark interest and perhaps a discussion on the label before we all forget!

Review - Meat Puppets - Sewn Together

Firstly I'd like to say how great it is to see the Meat Puppets dust themselves off and get back on the horse. Being a fan of the Meat Puppets for many years, I wasn't exactly sure what the Kirkwood brothers would come up with. Admittedly I am yet to hear the comeback album from 2007 "Rise To Your Knees", however with this effort you instantly recognise that noodly guitar sound that Curt Kirkwood has made his own since the classic, "Meat Puppets II" LP in the mid 80s. This album could quite easily slot in next to "Too High To Die" or "Mirage". The album starts with the title track and meanders through familiar territory with tracks such as Blanket Of Weeds, I'm Not You, Rotten Shame and Clone. This is an album the Meat Puppets should be proud of because it showcases what made them great in the first place, an ability to mix psychedlic rock, country & punk and make an original sound all of their own. There is nobody that sounds like these guys and that people is a very good thing. 8/10.

http://www.myspace.com/themeatpuppets
http://www.megaforcerecords.com/
http://meatpuppets.com/puppets/

AC/DC VS AFL

Its no secret that the AFL and Etihad Stadium have been having stoushes over various issues. Firstly the AFL wants a better deal for the clubs that play their home games at Etihad, secondly they opposed the name change from Telstra Dome to Etihad Stadium and finally Etihad Stadium refused to allow the AFL to move the blockbuster Geelong and St Kilda game to the MCG. It comes as no surprise that the AFL are now pulling rank on scheduling say that they want to play at Etihad around the 11th to 15th of February. Now while I can see where the AFL is coming from, I don't like they way they are going about it. I am an AFL fan, but I am a bigger AC/DC fan. AC/DC have booked these shows some 9 months in advance, they have sold out 2 shows in less than an hour which is roughly 120,000 tickets and a 3rd is on the way. I don't believe there is anywhere else in Melbourne it could be staged. We can throw Flemington, or Sidney Myer Music Bowl into the mix perhaps, but then again, the premium tickets I purchased were based on the layout of Etihad Stadium*.

The AFL are being smart arses because they can be. They would never sell 50 000 tickets to a NAB cup game, they could easily move it to Princes Park or elsewhere or promote the game in another region. It is still cricket season in mid February.

I can say now and I know I am speaking for a lot of people, if the AFL pull this off, I will never go to an AFL game again, I will never buy AFL products and I will boycott products advertised by the AFL's Television partners during telecasts.

I am sure that the AFL will think this through and back down, but look out if they don't as there will be reprisals.

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