The Lounge is rockin' today

The Hedgehogs – Our Minds Dyed Yesterday

(Levitation Records /thehedgehogs.bandcamp.com)

Straight outta Aalborg, Denmark  The Hedgehogs offer up an LP of classy psych-pop late 60s styled garage that if you didn’t know better you would almost think was the real thing.   

No fancy updating, no jarring “modern” stylings, just a set of pure, brash and sweet pop music whose origins are only really obvious because of the clean quality of the digital recording/download.  On a beat up record player you would be double checking to make sure you hadn’t stumbled upon an unknown Ugly Things moment.   

It’s hard to pick a highlight since there really isn’t a bad song on this disc and from opener Stumblin’ Around with its sweet guitar pickin’ and cool vocals through to the Bo Diddley lite riff that holds down Servant Chant the boys don’t make a false move.  The Witch (all 1.49 of it) is the song you want to hear in any 60s b-grade juvenile delinquent movie as the kids rumble at the club, then there’s the gritty country twang of Dirty And Vile, the cool harp blowin’ on Elevator, the great jangle of guitar on songs like Peace In My Mind… 

hell it’s all good.  I hear Flamin’ Groovies, Sunnyboys, Lime Spiders, Troggs, every great Nugget moment, Byrds… but none of them overtly taking over, no one band you can say is the main influence, just moments of clarity, riffs that sound so familiar and yet aren’t.  A great job, not a revisionist album, not a revival album, just a band having a mighty fine time in their garage.  You will too. 

there's somethin' rockin in denmark 

The Jac - I'm a one man band and i take all the credit

The Jac – Faux Pas

There must be something about Western Australia, maybe it’s the isolation or maybe it’s just in the Swan Lager but over the years some great pop, power pop and punk pop has worked its way over the border –The Dugites, Loaded Dice, Hoodoo Gurus and The Stems just to name a few and Joe Algeri (Jack And The Beanstalks, The Britannicas, Green Beetles) and his one man band The Jac are definitely adding to that pedigree with his latest effort Faux Pas.   

Eleven tracks of impure pop that always drift a little left of centre, Faux Pas kicks off with I Play All The Instruments - “I can be a one man band / I can play everything with a single hand / There are no fights 'cause I always get it /And I can take all the credit” which should tell you straight away that Joe is having fun here and his mix of The Kinks, 70s British pop, new wave, Robyn Hitchcock and Todd Rundgren makes for one hell of a sweet album.  There’s backward masking, the odd tip of the hat to The Beatles, some great punk pop in Julie Got Angry and Persistent Man, the  pseudo silliness of I’m A Glass Of  Orange Juice  and then there’s Romano The Dog – “Romano the dog is humping Ginger the cat / What do I tell the kids / About life and the universe, it seems so perverse / I think I'll have a cup of tea” which, despite its strong English 70s pop feel,  reminded me of US band The Big Enjoyers who also coincidently owe more than a nod to the world of Rundgren and Utopia.  Title track Faux Pas finishes the album off in a swirl of keyboards while adding some crunch to the poptones, really digging in and maybe just hinting at a darker side to Joe.  For this album though The Jac is all snap, crackle and pop and a worthy addition to the Perth pantheon.  Whatever it is in the water there, it’s responsible for some great sounds. 

snap crackle and power pop 

UFO – The Best Of A Decade (SPV)

They might look fucking old but considering this band started in 1969 and you’ve got three, yes three of the original members still rolling it’s no wonder they look a little, shall we say, weathered. Surprisingly though, this compilation of studio and live tracks shows that the old bastards can still get it up!

With Phil Mogg still sounding great on vocals and Pete ‘wayward’ Way (Bass) and Andy Parker (Drums) still holding down the beat, guitarist Vinnie Moore steps up as the ‘new’ boy filling a role best remembered as belonging to Michael Schenker and doing a pretty good job of it too. In the late 70s when UFO released arguably one of the best live rock albums out there Strangers In The Night I was a serious fanatic but by the mid 80s the various line up shuffles had dimmed my love for the band so I really wasn’t expecting too much with this album. So it was a mighty fine surprise when opening track The Wild One still sounded like the band I remember, Mogg’s distinctive voice could belong to no one else, the sound unmistakably UFO, rollicking bluesy metal with a chorus that slips right into your psyche. This is followed by the equally fine Hard Being Me before the live version of Lights Out slows down the mood. I have to say it lacked the fierceness of earlier times but then so do I so what do I really expect? Still, I don’t see the need for yet another version of this song or Let It Roll or Shoot Shoot or Too Hot To Handle – we have those songs nailed damn near perfectly a coupla decades back why rehash? I can understand why they still play them live sure but I don’t think they need to be on this compilation, especially when the band serves up songs like Saving Me, The Wild One, Helldriver, Black And Blue (with its Who like riff ripped off to start the song) and Mr. Freeze. They still have some mighty fine moves going on, they can still write songs with more hooks than an emo kid has piercings and the live tracks really don’t add anything to the legacy or the future. I would have preferred to hear more of the newer songs, more of what they have to offer now than what they had to offer thirty years ago. But I’m nitpicking, it’s rare that a band of this vintage can still live up to its past, to its baggage. I won’t say they have because it would be damn near impossible to top Light’s Out or No Heavy Pettin’ but they haven’t disgraced themselves either and I’d put any of these songs up against their 80s material. This sits nicely alongside the better moments of No Place To Run or Making Contact or anything from the wilderness years. There’s plenty of life left in these old dogs that’s for sure, even though Pete Way’s liver apparently isn’t what it used to be. Let’s hope he and they can keep on rolling a few more years.

CASSETTE CULTURE PART III

Time to shake out the dust in my bones, dig through the drawers and on top of the cupboards and reload the K-Tel cassette selector with some more weaponry!

AEROSMITH – BEST OF one of them cheap series from the late 80s that all the majors seemed to be pumpin’ out at the time – only ten tracks but hell, it’s all the good early stuff – Dream On, Back In The Saddle, Walk This Way, Draw The Line… it does the job

DEEP PURPLE – BURN Fuck Machine Head!! This is the fucken album you should all have! With Coverdale singin;. Blackmore smokin’ the fret board, songs that nail you to the wall – this had the lot! Burn, Mistreated, Might Just Take Your Life… the fuggin’ real deal!

JIM CROCE – GREATEST HITS Complete with inserted lyric sheet, I picked this up for 20c somewhere and it doesn’t even have the song I wanted on it! But hell, it’s got plenty of other good shit. Croce’s trouble is that (A) he’s dead and (B) in Australia all he’s known for is Bad Bad Leroy Brown. Well lemme tell ya the son of a bitch nailed a lot more than just that pain in the ass song… Operator, Rapid Roy, Roller Derby Queen… just to name a few. And the damn song that wasn’t on here - Box No. 10… a great songwriter, a great voice… specially with a touch of bourbon in yr gut and the blues in yr throat.

V/A - FANTASTIC K-Tel compilation from very early 70s with the likes of Slade, Gazza, Free, Dingoes and a mess more. A strange mix as they always were but hell it brings back some memories – not always good ones but that’s my childhood right there…

COLD CHISEL – RADIO SONGS Everyone hates these guys cos of Barnesy! Well fuck you. When I was 12 or 13 this stuff was raw and loud and made perfect sense to an alienated kid in the mid 70s. The fact they made money and had hit singles seems to mean they can’t be ‘cool’… I don’t really care, I’d still rather get drunk as fuck and sing Goodbye Astrid Goodbye more often than not. This is bogan rock, nothing more, nothing less… and I’m embracing my roots cos I for one am damn proud of them.

WHITESNAKE – SLIP OF THE TONGUE/ SELF TITLED (1987) Maxell SLN90 tape I bought at a garage sale with two albums from the king of the long haired, botoxed rock and roll crowd of the 80s – David Coverdale. I mean really how can you not like a man that names his band after his dick, who has guitar slingers like Steve Vai on board and who got to bang Tawney back when she was still young and good lookin’. A role model for all of us. And more damn hooks that a Japanese Whaling Fleet.

ZODIAC MINDWARP – TATTOOED BEAT MESSIAH “Well I love TV and I love T.Rex, I can see thru your skirt, I got x-ray spex” what more do you need to know? Dirty, sleazy, glam rock bastards who understood what it was all about. And with a twisted sense of humour to boot. Couldn’t have existed any other time except the 80s but hell he made it fun for awhile.

CHARLEY PRIDE – GREATEST HITS One of many best of albums for the black country crooner – and sure there’s plenty of them sappy love songs but there’s also Miller’s Cave, The Snakes Crawl At Night, Kaw Liga and Crystal Chandelier so for 25 damn cents I ain’t complainin’. And on Sunday mornings, there’s not much better than Charley’s croon to slowly drag you back to yr senses.

JOHNNY CASH – GREATEST HITS VOL 1 ‘Cept of course for JC. This early comp has the good shit – Ring Of Fire, I Walk The Line, Ballad Of Ira Hayes… doesn’t get much better does it?

ANGELS – FACE TO FACE Another iconic Aussie pub band that cops flack for bein’ popular but hell, ain’t too many that done it better. And this early album o’ theirs is close to the best they did… Take A Long Line, Marseilles, After The Rain, Comin’ Down… fuck it’s all gold, it’s angry but it’s controlled and it hits the right spots. Beer drinking, front bar, fist pumping juke box rock and roll!

V/A – TRUCKSTAR MUSIC One of a bunch of cheap tapes I picked up from the scout hall, half of which didn’t even play but that’s the way it goes. Dave Dudley, Skeeter Davis, Red Simpson - lots of familiar country drivin’ tunes like Six Days On The Road and Give Me 40 Acres… sure as shit ain’t the best thing I ever picked up but far from the worst… if only it had Teddy Bear on it…

V/A – COUNTRY BALLADEERS Same batch but with the real deal goin’ off. Marty Robbins, Johnny Cash, Glen Campbell (Wichita Lineman – does it get any better?), Lefty Frizell – with this comp you get the feeling someone with some knowledge was around to put it all together… can’t go wrong and another Sunday morning ‘what the fuck is that mess on my shoes?” type o’ cassette.

MOTORHEAD/METAL CHURCH – BEST OF/ THE DARK One I put together myself way back in the day… and one I still crank up. The Dark was The Metal Church at their early peak – loud and aggressive and seminal… the Lemmy collection is one of many but this has a fair selection including the classics – Ace Of Spades, Jail Bait, I Got Mine, Over The Top, even Louie Louie… makes for a great way to wake the neighbour’s dogs!!

GLEN MILLER – CHATTANOOGA CHOO CHOO Not as good as listenin’ to Glenn on 78 but a dozen of his better known swing toons on tape and hell, I like the sweet simple style he had – the fucker could swing, what more do you want?

KEVIN BLOODY WILSON Another garage sale find Teac 60 minute tape of the bogan comedian who’s makin’ a fortune outta bein’ as blatantly rude, dumb and as funny as yr best mate on a Saturday night after the footy when all the wives have left and yr standing around the fire drinkin’ someone else’s bundy and cola cans cos they’re flaked on the front lawn. Love this bastard!

T.REX / ADAM ANT – VERY BEST OF A split tape compilation with ten Bolan tracks from Metal Guru thru to Laser Love plus 8 of Adam’s finer moments on the other side. Not sure why it was released or who decided to slap these two together but hell it saves having to look for the singles I guess. (I mean Ants – already got damn near all the T.Rex stuff but I couldn’t just leave the tape there lonely on the table could I?)

V/A – MUSIC FOR DEMENTED JELLYBEANS Back when I was 17/18 me and some mates, inspired by The Warriors and after seeing a pack of 12 year olds who called themselves The Cobras, formed a street gang, well – a car gang or something… we called ourselves Demented Jellybeans – named for our dress sense and our love of Monty Python… this tape was the soundtrack that I put together for our nights cruising the streets looking for girls, action, The Cobras or anything else to wash away the sawdust and blandness of our lives. Kiss, AC/DC, Thin Lizzy, Skyhooks, The Goons, Bowie, Ramones, Dead Kennedys, Slade and more besides… I still play this tape all the time though it loses something in translation now… we all got older, none of us wiser but the music still reminds me what it was like back then… a soundtrack for a nostalgic old drunk… hell of a way to be remembered.

Beer Drinking Rock and Roll

The Veebees – Get It In Ya + Fair Dinkum Rock’n’Roll CD
The Veebees – Crack Us Anotha! EP
The Veebees – Drive Thru Bottlo DVD (All thru Ocker Records)

Like their namesake beverage these bastards are light on taste, light on bubble but fuck they’ll do the job to ya!! In the tradition of such other ocker rock scum as the Cosmic Psychos and the Meatbeaters these bastards are even more bloody Aussie (if that’s possible) with songs about barbecues, drinkin’, goin’ to the bottlo, utes and my fave – drinkin’ problem (two cans, two hands, one mouth) . After listening to this I was so thirsty I had to tell the missus and kid to piss off to nanna’s, buy a slab of beer, stop off for some snags, get home and fire up the barby, dig out me vhs of the 2000 grandfinal between port and glenelg and relax for awhile in true ocker fashion. Fark, but it was nice. This is Aussie Ocker rock the way its supposed to be played – a sense of humour, a sense of place and no bloody keyboards or nu-metal shite or any of that fucking hiphop/r&b jism sucking, gold chain yank wank. Just loud and proud three chords (ok two) oi oi oi aussie aussie aussie get a dog up ya crack another can where’s the bloody remote go you liddle bewdy fuck I’m so drunk even y’re sister looks good rock and roll! And the bloody extras on the dvd are funny as fuck – worth yr money alone!
www.veebees.com.au

songs to get hammered to

STINKING DRINKING SINGALONG BOOZED UP SONGS.

I’ve noticed that whenever I overindulge in the amber fluids (be it beer or bourbon) I tend to play the same rekkids over and over… or at least until the neighbours bang on the walls … so here is my list of drunken, I really should go to bed now, I’m so fucked up I just dropped the cover on the floor, lets put that song on repeat I love it, teary eyed, smashed as fuck favourite pissed, maggotted, I really should no better songs.

Suicidal Tendencies – War Inside My Head (Join The Army)

Not only when I’m drunk, this song has come in handy on more than one occasion when my mental state has been, well let’s just say, unsound. I put this on as loud as the neighbours can stand (that’s the neighbours six houses up) and prowl around the garage punching my fist into the air until I’m exhausted.

Stan Kenton – Artistry In Rhythm (any good best of) The fucker invented rock and roll in 1945!– have a listen, the buildup, the chorus, the crescendo, the wind down… so far ahead of his time. If only I’d discovered this when my old man was still alive (I inherited his jazz collection), fuck we coulda got smashed together and punched the air instead of just me at home alone, punching the air while crying about it.

Bruce Springsteen – Badlands (Live Version) Hey, I’m a dumb shit country kid, working class, poorly educated, never made no bones about it… this song speaks to me, fuck… it shouts to me. And I shout back!

Kid Creole & The Coconuts – I’m A Wonderful Thing Baby (Tropical Gangsters)

Because I am.

Millionaires – Please Don’t Mention The Junta (45) Aussie 70s band who made the mistake of coming from Melbourne, wearing wacky costumes and signing to Mushroom right after Skyhooks. This song is white label one sided, don’t even know if it really came out. A catchy little political pop ditty with a South American beat well before womad would suck the life out of world music. Oh yeah, and highly fucking danceable/ stumbleable.

Body Count – Cop Killer (CopKiller) Come on, do I have to spell it out? Ice Mutha Fucking T bitch!! When he was still funny.

Motley Crue – Generation Of Swine (Generation Of Swine) The reunion album that died in the arse – too many cooks, not enough coke… but the title track kicked butt.

Flash Cooney & The Deans Of Discipline – Future Fox (Horror Glitter Transvesto Billy) With lyrics like “the only thing between us is a little pair of panties and almost twenty years” this is a staple singalong after a night at the pub looking at the nubiles.

BuckCherry - Whiskey In The Morning (Time Bomb) The song that will be played at my funeral. This band was first brought to my attention by Tony Grudge. He said they were great. For once he was right.

Boozoo Chavis – Zydeco HeeHaw (Self Titled) Boozoo claimed he invented zydeco and I ain’t arguin’ with him. This is the song I finish the night with, dancing badly around the room to the zydeco shuffle! Not a pretty sight.

Nickelback – Figured You Out (Long Road) Ok, ok so they’re crap but hell, when this came out it was the only song in the top ten that had a fucking guitar, a hook, real musicians and I can almost play it on air guitar! So fuck you and yr taste buds - this is what I play where’s yr list?