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Underground > Radio & Music >

Name an Australian band

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00:38 / 05.07.05

This one's for the non-Aussies. Just doing a little bit of curiosity-satisfying. Wondering if 'lithers could name a couple of Australian bands whose work they know and like.

Don't want to say too much or be too leading, just curious to see who makes it onto the list.

m.

01:59 / 05.07.05

My knowledge of ‘decent’ aussie music is limited to Radio Birdman, The Saints and Birthday Party/Nick Cave. Just moved to Melbourne, kinda expecting, or perhaps just hoping, that the city would be swamped with fans of the aforementioned acts, able to regale me with tales of antipodean punk debauchery; but no luck so far. Probably a good thing that; would be a bit sad if everyone was obsessed with past glories. And thinking about it, Birdman and The Saints weren’t even from Melbourne, were they?

A few people have made me CD’s of local music since I’ve been here, which have been exclusively shit. Although I suspect that’s more of a reflection of their own tastes than an accurate indication of the Australian music scene in general.

Oh, and they ain’t aussies, but I fucking love New Zealanders ‘The Brunettes’. Their the closest I’ve come to knowing about and liking any contemporary Australasian bands.

02:27 / 05.07.05

Not Drowning Waving are quite good, and I've still got a soft spot for The Church.

06:21 / 05.07.05

INXS - serious. I still think Kick is a great album, Devil Inside is one of the most simple and perfect songs ever.

08:30 / 05.07.05

My own particular favourite Aussie band are The Sleepy Jackson- a marvelous band who have been disapointingly quite for the last year or so (any ideas? cos i'm desperate for a new record...)

Like many other lithers I'm a huge Nick Cave/ Birthday Party fan. I've also got a couple of ACDC albums tucked away in my record collection.

I suddenly feel ridiculously ignorant at the current state of Australian music- obviously I'm aware of the vines although I'm not a huge fan - who is it worth my time listening too? (maybe you could add some Aussie recomends to the mixtape you're making me Matsya)

08:32 / 05.07.05

Augie March.

there's no faith in this article baby.

10:04 / 05.07.05

'Dirty Three' are one of my favourites. Amazing violin-led instrumental stuff.

11:34 / 05.07.05

The Birthday Party.

The Saints.

The Scientists.

The Eastern Dark.

The New Christs.

The Riptides.

The Lighthouse Keepers.

God.

Lipstick Killers.

The Passengers.

etc.

Australia produced easily as many fantastic bands during the punk era as the UK or USA.

And a modern day Australian band who really float my boat;

Soda Stream.

12:33 / 05.07.05

radio birdman, ac/dc, air supply (only partially, though), midnight oil, little river band (they're fun), j.g. thirwell (foetus), custard, jet, men at work, art of fighting, kylie (yeah, yeah, but i like her, sorta), mark of cain (but lastly have distanced myself a bit from them, because i've heard and read things about them that don't quite agree with me), the living end, you am i, blood duster (quite a romp...), grinspoon (are they australian? or south african??), the vines, shinjuku thief (believe him to be from melbourne...), severed heads. can't think of any more at the moment. and, yes, i am listening to all of these or have been listening to them at one point in time.

lotsa good bands from australia... but then again, peter andre is also an ozzie, isn't he?

oh, and what about kiwis? split enz or the datsuns?

12:53 / 05.07.05

omg. i forgot about undinism, warsore, berzerker and dividedbyzero! and there are probably a lot of bands that i listen to of which i don't know that they're from australia.

13:43 / 05.07.05

machine gun fellatio.

13:48 / 05.07.05

Stuck in the 80s: I still like Men At Work. "Overkill" is a great song. (Split Enz are kiwis, right? I only know they came up with their name during a ferry trip across the Tasman Sea, but I'm not sure how far from home they were. Trivia over facts, every time.)

On the basis of one song: Magic Dirt. "Dirty Jeans" should be mandatory listening on Saturday nights at clubs worldwide.

For sheer utter charm: Darren Hanlon. Solo. He's at his best being kind of funny (the song about the invention of the kick stand), but I can't stop humming "The Last Chance of Not Knowing You" at the most surprising moments.

I have an album by Something for Kate, but don't like it nearly as much as two songs that someone on another board put on a mix CD of Australian music for me. There's an acoustic song... "Pinstripe"? Melancholy & mysterious.

And my feelings about Custard's "Music is Crap" are a matter of public record. I really should dig up more by them.

15:03 / 05.07.05

Don't forget Hunters & Collectors!

15:09 / 05.07.05

I keep reading in Terrorizer about the strange and frightening underground world of "Australian war metal", and own a promo CD by one of the leading lights (or, I suppose, leading pits of darkness) in this scene, Revenge.

It's... absolutely horrible. Perhaps in a good way, I'm not sure, but the old adage about not wanting to meet them in a dark alley certainly comes to mind. Clearly it is not the work of healthy or right-minded people.

16:26 / 05.07.05

Forgot one: I like what I've heard by Architecture In Helsinki. Indie-dance octet from Fitzroy—that's round your way, isn't it, Matsya?

22:33 / 05.07.05

Architecture in Hellsinki are great
ACDC of course are classic... I've never heard much Nick Cave, but it's been recomended to me on numerous occasions. anyone want to suggest a starting point?

23:17 / 05.07.05

I would go for 'Let Love In' as a good one to start with...

23:19 / 05.07.05

(meant to add). Not that it's his best... but I think it's one of them, and it was the first I had heard of him, and got me hooked from then on...

23:24 / 05.07.05

Hey, this is good - some bands I ain't heard of in this list.

Jack: Yeah, AiH are kind of friends-of-friends and I'm a large fan too. Hanging out for next payday to go buy their latest album. Those of you who remember the days of the nexus might also remember me getting a bunch of blank badges made (holy fuck an invisibles reference!) and sending 'em out to people on the board...? Kelly, clarinet and backing vox from AiH, was the kind lady who made the badges. So there's that.

I'm woefully out of touch with what's happening in Aust. music at the moment. Melbourne's supposed to be the best town for live music in the country, and I can't remember the last time I went out to a pub to see a local band that wasn't five or ten years old. I still think of Augie March, Sodastream and Art of Fighting as 'new bands', but they're all grandpas in terms of the scene these days.

Copey: I do tend to pepper my mixes with Aussie stuff that I think needs a wider audience. I can put something purely Australian together if you'd like.

Maybe this topic could be widened to get the Aussielithers in on this too - who's out there at the moment that demands recognition? Bring grampa matsya up to date, kiddies.

m.

03:53 / 06.07.05

Cosmic Psychos, I still have a weak spot for their 'Go the Hack' album. Once described as for those who think that the Ramones are too complex. Far from original but I understood their ambition was no more than to play the pubs and get some free beer.

04:49 / 06.07.05

TeN- Re: Nick Cave, not that I'm a huge fan or anything, and true fans will be more able to point out good stuff for you, but Tender Prey (which is pretty late in his career, admittedly) is a mighty fine album in my mind. Standout tracks include The Mercy Seat, a ballad about the electric chair which might be familiar to people for Johnny Cash's cover of it, also a great sort of pop-song thing called Deanna (among its notably frightening lyrics are the words 'I come a death's-head in her frock') and a spooky old thing called Up Jumped the Devil that's got that amazing dark-carny evil-gypsy kind of feel to it. Plus a sweet ballad about watching a nun get dressed called Watching Alice.

Well worth a look.

m.

12:45 / 06.07.05

If Rothkoid ever wanders along this way he'll be able to fill you in on the current state of affairs matsya, as he is the guru of Australian music. Also check out the site he reviews for: fasterlouder.com.au

From all accounts there are a lot of great bands there at the moment. Highlights of the batch of stuff Rothkoid played me: Mikelangelo & The Black Sea Gentlemen (I started a thread that sank without a trace), Six Ft Hick, The Tremors, (both of these are rock acts from Brisvegas), last album by Magic Dirt is genius, also great new disc by Peter Fenton (front man from Crow, who are worth checking out also).

hanabius yamamura

22:21 / 06.07.05

... do The Wiggles count?

... my boy loves them and has me brainwashed into singing toot toot chugga chugga big red car and the like at all hours of the day ...

... and I'm not kidding either ... I hum the damn things all day ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

h x

22:34 / 06.07.05

Wow, Pete Fenton solo? I was a huge Crow fan back in the day. I thought Fenton had left his music days behind for an acting career. Good news.

I must have missed that Mikelangelo thread. They're good, good fun. As are Mikey's earlier band, P(rick) Harness. Kind of a bogan (read: white trash) rock parody band pisstake. Very funny indeed.

Loomis - cheers for the link.

m.

22:49 / 06.07.05

You know, as father of a three-year old, I was gonna write about the Wiggles...

The Wiggles are the richest Australian entertainers for 2004. Fact.

And for all their goofy bargain-basement vaudeville schtick, they're a damn sight more palatable than any other "children's musicians" I can think of, who usually tend to the cloying (see: Rosenshontz), the creepy (Rory—a fortysomething woman wearing oversized rompers), hyper (Canadian Wiggle-wanna-bes the Doodlebops), or simply insufferable (Raffi).

The Wiggles manage to pound out a steady stream of bouncy three-chord pop bombs that, musically, are actually quite solid: horns and violin give many of them a charming quasi-mariachi tinge, and they all sound utterly effortless, the way the best pop songs do.

And I respect their purity of intention: it's not that they were struggling musicians who thought they could make a few bucks playing for kids—three of the four were early-childhood education majors who started making music (IIRC) as part of a dissertation project. They don't talk down to the kids, they put tremendous energy into everything they do, they don't take themselves too seriously, and repeated exposure to their music & their TV show doesn't make me want to kill myself. God bless the good ship Wiggles and all who sail in her.

06:48 / 07.07.05

Actually, the Wiggles (or at least some of them) had a previous existence as a mid-80s shiteful "party" band called The Cockroaches - bad 80s reworkings of 50s rock'n'roll, IIRC. To their credit they had a bunch of hits, but they always shat me to tears.

Here's what I could dig up.

InterRumour claims that they did a reformation gig for a tsunami benefit recently.

m.

12:41 / 07.07.05

Ah, the cockroaches. God, that takes me back. Very Hey Hey it's Saturday.

19:15 / 07.07.05

Pretty much just the Lucksmiths and Architecture in Helsinki. Perhaps a bit of Nick Cave in small doses.

07:47 / 08.07.05

If i'm not mistaken, the celibate rifles were Aussy, right?
Marvellous band, though had a saints-like conversion to MOR rock towards the later half of their career.

08:05 / 08.07.05

The Necks, too.

Brigade du jour

19:48 / 08.07.05

AC/DC, although I can't see quite what their Australian-ness contributes to their music. I think they could have originated in any country with a prolonged submersion in post-60s blues-rock culture.

Is that all you want, then? Nomination? Or shall I tell a wonderful story about AC/DC that I once heard that pretty much sums up why I like them so much? Oh ok, you pulled my arm!

Guitarist Angus Young (schoolboy outfit dude) was once asked by an interviewer how he replied to criticisms that his band had made twelve albums that all sounded the same. He thought for a moment and said - "Nah mate. We've made thirteen albums and they're all the bloody same."

not-so-deadly netshade

01:55 / 09.07.05

Radio friggin' Birdman!!!!

15:37 / 13.07.05

Spdfgh!

A

11:16 / 14.07.05

Spdfgh! That takes me back...

Tania from Spdfgh now does stuff as Via Tania. I think it's downbeat electro-pop or something. She's married to Casey Rice, who is some cool indie producer dude, and I think she is based in th US now, maybe.

Locust No longer

22:17 / 14.07.05

The North Sea

The Lucksmiths

The Necks

Philip Samartzis (sound sculpter, not band)

Nailed Down

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