5/7/24.

Vaguess (Los Angeles, California) is the vehicle for the work of Vinny Earley. To be honest, I fully expected this band to be Australian rather than from Los Angeles. And this is really entirely my fault. I've come to associate Los Angeles with Uni Boys and Billy Tibbals - power pop/punk. Not that either band wouldn't like Vaguess, but this release sounds more post-punk than power pop. And as much as I've come to associate Los Angeles with power pop, this brand of angular post-punk makes me think of Australia (Ausmuteants).

Erste Theke Tontraeger (ETT) is releasing this LP - and this makes me think of a cross between Germ House and Wounded Lion (neither of which, oddly, are Australian).

The Bandcamp write-up brings to attention the title of the last song "Profit or Punk?". Great title, great song, and great attitude. The write up ends, "In summation: Save Vinny Earley, may his reign last a thousand years."

Ausmuteants, "They Wanna Get Caught"

The Uranium Club - Infants Under the Bulb

Né punk né post punk, mai pretenziosi ma neanche immediati, gli Uranium Club se ne fregano delle definizioni e giocano nel mezzo di queste, la poca immaginazione diventa un cifra stilistica (e ideologica). Era un po’ che aspettavo questo ritorno, ma devo dire che i quattro da Minneapolis sono riusciti a stupirmi di nuovo, più maturi ma non meno incazzati di cinque anni fa. Eccovi qualche link…

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Listening Post - December 2023

Words: Andy Hughes (Photo Credit: Louis Canadas) As snow settles throughout the land and the Christmas deccies go up in every other house on the street, we eschew the festivities of the month and crack on with our regular monthly playlist! For those not in the know – every month we focus on twenty tunes as part of our ‘Listening Post‘, compiling a list of the very tracks that have had us all…

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The Toads — In the Wilderness (Upset the Rhythm/Anti Fade)

Photo by Matt Shaw

In The Wilderness by The Toads

The Toads bop gleefully at the end of days, wielding knife edge guitars and bouncing bass lines with antic abandon. The clatter of drums push dystopian narratives onward, and the melodies, though agitated, have the lilt and longing of minor key laments. A product of an entangled, polycollaborating Melbourne garage punk scene, the Toads came into being when guitarist Billy Gardner (Ausmuteants, Cereal Killer) lost his house in the wildfires that raged in late 2019 and early 2020. He moved in with Stella Rennex, the bass player from Parsnip, and her friend Elsie Rettner (now the Toads’ drummer) often visited. They spotted Miles Jansen, the singer from the Shifters, at a local gig, and suddenly, in the smoky aftermath of disaster, a band was formed.

The origin story is important, because In the Wilderness isn’t your standard happy-go-lucky lo-fi rock disc. It’s fun, for sure, in a loopy, sardonic, high-energy way, and putting it on, you can easily imagine a live iteration that involves sweat and joy and hopping up and down. And yet, its brand of absurdity shades away from the playful and towards the darker Kafka-esque variety. The kick-i-est song on the disc tells a nightmarish narrative of trying to get a gig across town, only to find that the venue is on the other side of town and currently inaccessible. “Tale of a Town Split in Two” filters lockdown angst into magic realism. It pogoes violently on the caffeinated seam between manic abandon and despair.

“Nationalsville” is similarly bifurcated, on its surface hyped up, one-two punching guitar rip, underneath a ranting critique of late capitalism. The narrator has done something to dam up all the water, so that his neighbors have to pay him (“Sell it to my mates, sell it to my mates”). The song is so infectious, jittering and bumping and, once, bursting into flames with wailing guitar solo. It’s bliss to bang along with it, but also a form of buying into psychopathy.

You can hear bits of the other bands in these songs, the tactile bass and dreamy sing-alongs of Parsnip, the nattering sarcasm of the Shifters, the futuristic unease of Ausmuteants, but the Toads are their own package. Nervy, tight, cackling with laughter to mask crushing anxiety, they make music that you can equally dance or dread to — and maybe at the same time.

Jennifer Kelly

#ausmuteants on XRaydio ⭐💀🧡 https://www.instagram.com/p/ChjqZAjordI/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

LUMPY & THE DUMPERS - Noxious

Transistor Sister #170 June 17, 2023

Photo: Child’s Pose

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Freddy "Boom Boom" Cannon - Transistor Sister The Soul Searchers - Blow Your Whistle U-J3RK5 - Eisenhower and the Hippies Dragnet - Strike Lögnhalsmottagningen - Första dan på resten av ditt skitliv (feat. Stewart Anderson & Martin Cannert) The American Dream - Find a Reason for Being You Jack Acid - Lonely Scarecrow - Bootlicker Double Job - Eine Box mit Regein Dean Dirg - Do It Right

KNOWSO - Open Up the Book Alternative TV - Action Time Vision Body Maintenance - Ends Organized Chaos - Burning Die Letzen Ecken - Qualm

Generation X - Day by Day (Live Osaka 1979) Child's Pose - Eyes to the Right Sanctus Iuda - Zatancz Na Radiowozie AUSMUTEANTS - Fed Through a Tube

Chumbawamba - The Day the Nazi Died

Ausmuteants - Live 2015

yessss ausmuteants and randy travis record attained for cheap today. strangest combo ever purchased at one time

Alien Nose Job- Stained Glass (Total Punk Records)

I'm not sure how this one-man band, Ausmuteants/Damage School’s Jake Robertson got by me the past few years, but it did. The weird thing is the guy has been prolific as hell and he still managed to pass me by. The past few years the guy has released a boatload of records, all of it high-octane, shouty RAWK of the punk variety.

…and being an Aussie there is definitely an AC/DC influence , especially in the vocals and guitar heroics.

Opening cut "Beatles Vs Stones" is a good one, but I liked others more. Like the grunting "Coastal Living 2" as well as the chunka chunka chunka rock of "Sharp as a Needle." Let's not forget the boogie rock of "Shuffle Boogie" (like if Foghat got zonked in the head with two by fours and went all Dr Feelgood) and "RNR Rubbish Bin" is what you want to hear when driving your GTO on wet roads at night while blindfolded (good luck).

In other words, Stained Glass is a rollicking good time!

www.totalpunkrecords.bandcamp.com

3/6/24.

Goblin Daycare are based in Istanbul, Turkey. They peddle a type of punk that sounds like Devo played through sludge speakers. This is abrasive, short and quite melodic. It also reminds me of the Australian punk sounds of bands like Ausmuteants.

The band is currently preparing a full length for German label Dedstrange. Frankly, I would have thought this would have fit nicely on ETT (Erste Theke Tontraeger - who released The Coneheads). In fact, as I was listening to that label's newest LP - Busted Head Racket - I noticed that they mentioned the label "egg" or "weird" punk. Like them, I just like to think of this sound as punk. And while I have you, go back and listen to Rita Mosss (RITA MOΣΣΣ).

Back to Goblin Daycare. This is their debut EP released in the U.S. by Godless America Tapes.

Ausmuteants, "Killzone"

Mush - Down Tools

La devo-luzione dei Mush li allontana dalle velleità politiche del post punk e li avvicina a Ausmuteants e Blur, tre album in tre anni, chi sono questi squinternati da Leeds?

Etichetta: Memphis IndustriesPaese: UKAnno: 2022

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Zomernostalgie

28 juni 6 jaar geleden was ook een dinsdag. Ik was in Antwerpen in Het Bos. Ausmuteants uit Australië kijken. En The Homesick en Mind Rays. En mezelf, op een scherm. Een paar maanden eerder had een gastje dat ik vooral kende van te zien op shows maar waar ik nog nooit echt mee gepraat had me gevraagd of ik geïnterviewd wilde worden voor een korte documentaire die hij aan het maken was voor school. Over de garagerock scene in België. Ik had een “populair” radioprogramma in dat genre en interviewde en draaide veel van de bands die ook in zijn doc zaten. Ik wilde dat eigenlijk liever niet maar ik kon moeilijk nee zeggen tegen het tomeloos enthousiasme dat hij uitstraalde. En zo kwam hij op een dag de radiostudio binnengestormd met een cameraploeg in zijn zog. Letterlijk, want toen ik de deur opende kreeg ik direct een camera in mijn smoel. Ik had er al niet veel zin meer in. Maar dat enthousiasme! Ze filmden wat in de studio en daarna wilden ze mij interviewen. “En ik dan?”, sprak de kerel waar ik het programma mee maakte, “Mij interviewen ze niet of wat?”, meer dan licht teleurgesteld, “Heu, nee?”. Ik moest op een vensterbank gaan zitten en werd aangestaard door een hoop net geen teenagers meer met veel materiaal en een meisje met een boekje dat intens keek en soms het gastje dat de vragen stelde dingen influisterde. Ik was niet heel erg op mijn gemak. Zou ik me achterover laten vallen door het open raam? Ik gaf wat domme antwoorden en dat was het dan. Een paar maanden later was de film klaar. Hij zou vertoond worden in Het Bos voor de concerten. Ik herinner me van die avond eigenlijk alleen de vertoning van de film, dat het hard regende en dat ik de toen nieuwe lp van Lumpy & The Dumpers kocht van de Australiërs en dat die helemaal krom bleek toen ik er mee thuis kwam. Het gastje en het meisje en een hele hoop net geen teenagers meer hadden het concert van Ausmuteants gemist en waren kletsnat geworden maar dat kon ze geen fluit schelen want hun film was in première gegaan! Zij waren blij en ik ook.  

Alien Nose Job — Stained Glass (Total Punk)

Photo by Carolyn Hawkins

Stained Glass by Alien Nosejob

Jake Robertson shoehorns an encyclopedic knowledge of rock and roll history into blistering, shout-along songs that skewer all-time idols and punk wannabes in his Melbourne bray. The opening “Beatles Vs. Stones” is the best and funniest cut on this disc, its galloping beat and clanging power chords punctuating a rant that comes down to “frankly neither.” Or as Robertson puts it, near the end, “The argument has no meaning and the notion always stinks. Everybody knows the answer to the question is the Kinks.”

Robertson has been in and out of Aussie bands for at least a decade. His best-known project is probably the Devo-esque Ausmuteants, but he’s also played in Hierophants, School Damage, Snooze Fest and multiple other outfits. Alien Nose Job is his one-man, bedroom recording project, but if such a phrase puts you in mind of vulnerable, lo-fi crooning, think again. The latter half of Stained Glass sounds an awful lot like AC/DC. There are rupturing riffs, torrid guitar explosions and explosive pinch squalls in this particular bedroom, and possibly a stack of Marshalls to jump off. 

Robertson’s main theme is the fallen state of rock and roll, calcified by hero worship and beset by talentless follow-ons.  Taut, skeletal “RnR Rubbish Bin” gets it best in barked-out lines like “We’ve all made a point of recycling what’s been done/similar to the originals but sucking out all the fun,” and, even better, “They play without the swing/ they play without the soul, they concentrate on rock and forget about the roll.” And yet, though he bemoans the attack of the clones, he’s pretty good at homage. “Coastal Living 2” gives off a big whiff of “Back in Black” in its sharp, staccato riffs and crazily hoarse and trebly vocal mayhem. 

When Jon Shaw reviewed Alien Nose Job’s last album in 2020, he made the connection to Jay Reatard, noting the “impossibly quick riffing, compulsively barked vocals, a bug-eyed vibrancy that has a vaguely psychotic aura.” This time, Robertson is still fast, rough and bug-eyed, but he aims further back into a rock history that he evidently knows very well.  

Jennifer Kelly