Hard Skin

Hard Skin, Bendigo Hotel, 15th Dec 2013

"Gimme an oooh" -"OOOH!", "Gimme an Aye" -"AYEEEE!", "Gimme an Exclamation mark" -"(confused shouting)" , "Put it together and what have you got?" - "OI! OI! OI! Oi! Oi! oi! etc etc "

..and heres a taste of the sparkling repartee, boyish good looks and singalong pop hooks that make Hard Skin a by-word for top notch family entertainment across the globe...err or so it says here.

Razorcut

Razorcut, Bendigo Hotel Dec 15th 2013

Same band , same venue but a different lineup for the Razorcuts : this time Chelsea cut Guitarist is replaced by Stern skin Gibson Boy, the ungainly singer replaced by a really tall and slightly more gainly front man (and he sang a few numbers on the floor which is always the way to bump up those Geschlect brownie points).
Notwithstanding the significant personnel changes and a slightly heavier feel Razorcut remain a really really good band, the new guitarist was actually excellent , I'm a fender man but when an SG is done well its hard to beat : this guy did the gang-vox and some crystal clear riffage that conjured up the greats like Dag Nasty and even the Ramones, and Best of all: not a single solo all the way through.
Rumour has it Santa may give me their new 10" for Christmas , if I'm good.... until then here's "Battles" from the show:

Peter Murphy

Peter Murphy (Bauhaus), Corner Hotel , Dec 12 2013

{ This post has been edited to remove the negative, spiteful and unpleasant stuff I posted originally. My Apologies go out to both the Corporation of London and George Michael }

....
What no "Kick in the eye"? NO "KICK IN THE EYE"???? ........
,,,
... AND no "Kick in the Eye"!!......
.....
...
..

.... heres Passion of Lovers .....

.

Jonny Telafone

Jonny Telafone, Liberty Social Club. Nov 21st 2013

The liberty social is a very dark, very smelly Goth club ..all very distressed-dystopia I'm sure, but it has - I can state with no fear of contradiction, the most foul, putrid, rank and sickly decomposing sticky-carpet known to Christendom, it makes Yah Yahs look like Crown Casino. Yucko.
I'd never heard of this dude before tonight, but he was a very cool . His voice was treated to buggery and the backing track canned so the set had an almost surreal "Blade Runner-out-take Marc Almond/Simon le Bon space-station-karaoke crooning" quality, especially with the awesome rear projections which had his image rotating in a cube like some kind of New Romantic Zod in the phantom zone.
Here's my (as always) crappy clip of Jonny doing his stuff:



And here's the real thing:



So this was the showcase/wake for Nhilistic Orbs label, no playing times were announced because we were assured bands would be playing in chronological order with the Primitive Calculators taking Chromedomes' (NO003) spot. Hmmm maybe that was just a ploy to get people there early cos we left during Forces/Repairs  (NO006/4) (I can never tell them buggers apart) and there was no sign of the CalcuDomes. It was a free show and by that time it was getting very packed and very warm.
ASPS (NO002) were a different act tonight, literally and figuratively : the singer was joined by an extra boy/girl synth pair that beefed up the sound and she let rip with a vocal range and strength that was unexpected. The last number in particular was really intense, exhilarating and spine tingling stuff...

Silver Daggers

Silver Daggers, We Didn't Pay EP. (NotNotFun)

Id only discovered Missing Link/Collectors Corner place was open a week or so before, scary since I park my bike nearly opposite most days, its a couple of doors down (and a couple of flights up ) from where the old Missing Link shop used to be and is more collectors corner than new stuff, even though there's a few new releases there and really you only go into these places to get a copy of Vice and look at the flyers don't you , really?...oh and to go see bands play for free at lunchtime like.. "Four Door" today...

The guy who did what vocals there were commented that they were probably better appreciated a bit later in the day...it certainly was almost uncomfortable watching the largely static pair fiddling with their knobs and switches with the afternoon sun  coming through the windows . It all sounded a bit "electronica" to me and I made a mental note not to bother staying up too late to see them later that night.

But I got there a few minutes early and had a flick through the singles section while they got their shit together, finding this little gem tucked away in the "discount punk/hardcore/emo 7"" section. I've got no idea why I had this band name in my "look out for" list , but I did, I cant find any of their songs downloaded on my machines so it must just have been something I read.
Anyway I couldn't resist buying it: beautiful recycled card  sleeve, stitched and screen printed, with some cool graphics and lyrics on the insert pages. The liner notes say it was recorded at the Smell (some sort of anarcho/community venue/space in CA) and it sounds like it may have been live to an cassette player during a rehearsal but it still works .

The keyboards are not real strong in the anti-mix, you wouldnt call this synth-punk  but the vocals and spastic rhythms are up there with the Dog Faced Hermans, The Ex and all those English post-Big Flame bipolar/scatter/thrash bands from the same aesthetic/era that informed the sleeve art.