There are debut albums that arrive with intent, and there are debut albums that arrive like a pneumatic drill through drywall. GNAT, the first full-length from Manchester’s drummer-fronted psych-punk quartet Wax Head – recorded with long-term collaborator Borja Regueira at Manchester’s GLUE Studio and mastered by Melbourne’s Joe Carra – is emphatically the latter: sub-thirty minutes and zero patience for anything resembling restraint.
The title track opens as both decree and detonation: a blitzing, subterranean riff-storm whose fretboard acrobatics would make Dillinger Escape Plan’s Ben Weinman raise an eyebrow. At 90 seconds, it doesn’t so much announce the album as ambush it. ‘Bug Doctor’ follows with equal ferocity, the rhythmic convulsions and…
Category: garage
Jim Jones is, of course, the scraggly British rock’n’roll Jesus who out-Stooged Iggy in the 80s with delirium rockers Thee Hypnotics, and has chased that fuzzy psych-punk high ever since under various names, line-ups and conjurations.
Black Crowe Chris Robinson produced this album, and also provided some vocals, as did ‘Mrs’ Marc Bolan Gloria Jones. Green On Red mainman Chuck Prophet also wanders in for some guitar musings. Does this qualify the ‘All Stars’ nomenclature? Yes. Who were you expecting? Slash? C’mon, man, everybody cool is dead these days.
Much like fellow junk-punk-funker Jon Spencer, JJ’s sound these days is stripped-down and laid bare, free of the youthful 17-minutes-long-with-four-guitar-solos excesses his previous…
In 1974, Merle Haggard released Merle Haggard Presents His 30th Album. Having released thirty albums is in itself a remarkable accomplishment, but it was all the more impressive that Haggard cut those LPs in just nine years. It’s a shame Haggard never talked to Billy Childish about productivity; In 1991, Childish brought out a compilation, I Am the Billy Childish, that included one track each from the fifty long-players he’d put out between 1977 and 1991. Of course, Hag had the resources of Capitol Records behind him as he cranked out his recordings, while Childish cut his music for tiny indie labels, mostly on his own dime, and was also making lots of non-LP singles, publishing poetry, and creating various sorts of visual art at the same time.
After 33 years, Guitar Wolf returns to Goner Records, where they started! Way back in 1993, Wolf Rock was released by Goner and immediately, around the world, people enthralled with raw rock n roll and pure Japanese enthusiasm for over-the-top noise realized they had a new band to watch out for.
Many tours, many records, and many eardrums later, Guitar Wolf has returned for the latest, and greatest Guitar Wolf record yet – More Jet. More raw, crunching guitar noise, frantic rhythms, and unpredictable screaming! More head-scratchingly-great song topics! The perfect blend of Link Wray / Ramones / Joan Jett / Cramps sound and attitude mixed with industrial-strength noise.
Led by singer and guitarist Seiji the group’s…
The Masonics are the Kings Of Medway Beat, known for being ‘the best Rhythm and Beat combo since The Milkshakes’, and there’s a very good reason for that…
With Mickey Hampshire (The Milkshakes, Mickey And The Salty Seadogs, Mickey And Ludella, Mick Hampshire), Bruce Brand (The Pop Rivets, The Milkshakes, Auntie Vegetable, Thee Headcoats, The Kravin’ “A”s, The Clique, Dutronc, The Voo-Dooms and more) and John Gibbs (The Wildebeests, The Kaisers), this Medway-based trio fire rhythm ’n’ beat and rock ’n’ roll!
Since 1991, The Masonics have been raising roofs all across the land, and disturbing audio grooves on at least ten studio albums and more than ten singles. There’s no stopping them!
The Guy Hamper Trio was formed by Billy Childish, after a chat with his friend James Taylor (Hammond organ).
Billy and James had played respectively in The Milkshakes and The Prisoners, often sharing the same bill in the early 80’s, leading to Billy’s blues ensemble The Natural Born Lovers being the support act for the early shows of The James Taylor Quartet.
The Guy Hamper Trio is: Billy Childish on guitar, his wife Julie on bass and Wolf on drums – who as it happens was the drummer in the original incarnation of JTQ – and of course features James Taylor on Hammond organ.
The Guy Hamper Trio provide a bottom end, Blues-influenced instrumental mayhem for those…
Getting so obsessed with a band that you book a local show just to see them play — we need more freaks like that in the world, and that’s what Merge Records’ Mike Krol did this spring when he put together a bill featuring himself, Shannon Shaw’s new group Voilà!, and this not-so-known New Orleans duo Twisted Teens, Krol’s recent fixation, here in Los Angeles. “I blasted it in the car at night with the windows down, tracked down records, mailordered merch like I was 16, and all of a sudden I felt excited about THE CREATION OF MUSIC again,” he wrote on Instagram. “I couldn’t believe a band I didn’t even know existed at the beginning of this year made — quite possibly — my favorite record of the past 2 decades.” Amen, Mike. This shit tears.
Though little-known in America prior to 2000, Thee Michelle Gun Elephant formed in Japan back in 1991 and began playing raucous garage rock & roll inspired by the Stooges, Thee Headcoats, the Who, and MC5. Futoshi Abe’s thrashy guitar riffs propel the fast-paced, hard-hitting tunes over the driving rhythms of Kouji Ueno’s thick bass grooves and Kazuyuki Kuhara’s heavy backbeat. Yusuke Chiba’s mod, raspy vocals, alternately sung and screamed out mostly in Japanese, hold the whole thing together with a rough-as-rock-gets swagger.
Initially, Thee Michelle Gun Elephant’s sound was derived from British punk and blues. The band recorded their first EP, Wonder Style, in 1995. They soon followed up with their debut album, Cult Grass Stars, recorded in London with…
Ty Segall’s 2016 Emotional Mugger Tour was a blistering assault of psychedelic surrealism. The power derived from the multiple-guitar, six person set-up of Mikal Cronin, King Tuff (Kyle Thomas), Emmett Kelly, and Wand’s Cory Hanson and Evan Burrows. The surrealism came in when Segall donned a baby’s mask, filtering his rock star persona through a shroud of carnivalesque disguise. When the band turned up at Mark Riley’s BBC recording studio, they had already logged 50 shows. It was mayhem — how could it not be? — but finely tuned.
This five song EP revisits the glorious abandon of that mid-teens iteration of Segall’s art. It delivers four songs from Emotional Mugger, plus a rabid but abbreviated run-through of…
Rock ‘n’ roll needs two things to be successful: a biting riff, and a playful groove. It’s what distinguishes The Rolling Stones from The Animals, The Jam from AC/DC and The Stone Roses from Oasis. The responsibility is shared between the lead guitarist and those following in the rhythm section. It’s not enough to rock, you also have to roll. Luckily, Hot Face have got the mixture right on their biting debut Automated Response: a bracing, unabashed thrill ride with as much emphasis on the bass grooves as the power-charged electric guitars. Combine the giddy impishness of Ash’s 1977 and the savage, carnal energy from The Who’s A Quick One, While He’s Away, and this is probably the album you’ll get.
Emotionally coiled guitars cement “Liar”, aided…
If you had an uneasy feeling that 2025 would somehow be the year of Thee Headcoatees, then give yourself a hearty handshake – for surprisingly, ’tis true!
We can indirectly blame the passing of our dear departed Great Ribbon, Mr Don Craine, for instigating a regurgitation of Thee Headcoats back in 2022. Ostensibly booked to record a tribute EP as Thee Headcoats Sect – featuring Don’s fellow Downliner-in-Chief Keith Grant Evans – the chaps found they had a few extra hours to fill in the studio, so they figured they may as well record a new Headcoats album, too. And why not? This materialised, with minimum fuss, as Irregularis (The Great Hiatus) on Damaged Goods in 2023.
Come late 2024 and before you could…
London’s groundbreaking psychedelic pioneers, still led by founder Paul Rudolph along with former Hawkwind bassist and Lemmy protegé Alan Davey, return for a brand new album Covered In Pink cover songs. The Fairies tear into some of the classic rock’s biggest monuments from “American Woman” to “Mississippi Queen” to “Baby’s On Fire” and “Communication Breakdown” PLUS a brand new version of their proto-punk hit “Do It” and original tune. Includes special guest appearances by Nik Turner (Hawkwind co-founder), Michael Moorcock (Hawkwind) and Danny Faulkner (Pre-Med).
The excessive, drug-fueled Pink Fairies grew out of the Deviants, a loose-knit band formed in 1967 by members of the West London hippie commune Ladbroke Grove.
Osees have released their new live album, Live at the Broad Museum via Deathgod Records. Album captures a dynamic live performance at The Broad museum in Los Angeles. The record features extended tracks that highlight the band’s improvisational energy, including a standout 22-minute jam, “I Got a Lot.” Unlike their tightly structured studio recordings, this album explores krautrock-inspired grooves, hypnotic rhythms, and experimental soundscapes, showcasing the band’s versatility and adventurous live presence.
The album is mixed by frontman John Dwyer and mastered by JJ Golden, emphasizing the raw, immersive quality of the performance. Critics praise it as a document of Osees’ live power, capturing moments of spontaneous creativity…
Although they emerged from Melbourne bayside outer suburbs onto the local live scene with their fresh and spirited indie-rock update of the garage-beat sounds of The Easybeats, Kinks and early Beatles only a year or so ago, Gnome actually started out as a bedroom solo project for teenaged singer/songwriter/ guitarist Jay Millar a few years back. Jay, playing everything himself, started recording and releasing a steady succession of material – quite a few albums’ worth – on his own Goblin Records label via Bandcamp. Realizing he needed a band to start playing out, Jay approached some like minded players from Frankston’s rehearsal hub Singing Bird, and with Jay on lead vocals and lead guitar, Ned Capp on guitar, Olly Katsianis on bass, and Ethan Robins…
Fuzz, the California based trio of Ty Segall (vocals, drums), Charles Moothart (vocals, guitar), and Chad Ubovich (vocals, bass), present their latest release Fuzz’s Fourth Dream on In the Red Records. This is the band’s first release in four years and is a collection of singles, unreleased demos, and rarities.
“I lived in a four-bedroom house in San Francisco that housed anywhere from six to ten people at a time,” Moothart explains. “Friends were always crashing when they were between spots, on tour, or just couldn’t make it home. It was a chaotic space, but a space that was cherished by many. Chad frequently crashed on our couch when on tour—surrounded by ashtrays full of cigarettes and joint roaches; beer cans and spray paint cans.
Damaged Goods is proud to present re-issues of one of thee great collaborations of our times…
Thee Headcoats Sect is the inevitable intersection of two generations of mad-hatted Punk R & B misfits with musical and philosophical lineage that can be traced back over more than 30 years. The Downliners Sect were among the country’s foremost rhythm and blues groups, their most prolific period being the years from 1964 to 1966. As is often the case, they were denied the sort of success they deserved – they were outcasts, too young, too uncouth, and just a tad too eccentric to be accepted by their peers. As the Melody Maker said of their debut album in 1964: ‘forget this one if you want a Happy Christmas, and don’t want to drive all the guests away from your party’.
Instrumental album from 1983! Having endured no less than three long-players and a brace of singles featuring the caterwauling of Messrs Hampshire and Childish, the Milkshakes’ audience figured it might be time for an instrumental outing. In response the group gave them just that.
But this was to be no run-of-the-mill effort – no Dick Dale-esque surf marathons or Shadowsy twangers are apparent here. These tunes are more rhythm and mood based compositions; occasionally leaning more towards the Link Wray end of the spectrum – as you would probably expect. This IVth album (hence the name) was recorded in 1983 at Oakwood Studios – as were all previous releases – but this was the first in their new facilities in a converted church near Canterbury…
For the first time on vinyl, a lost gem of 90’s garage punk for the darkly inclined. Recorded in 1997 by Greg Talenfeld (Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Pavement, The Walkmen) and never released before, The Night Has Eyes is a hidden treasure unearthed from the fertile end-of-the-century NYC underground scene.
In Ally Pankiw’s recent documentary, Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery, we’re reminded that Sarah McLachlan’s all-women tour once found itself in the crosshairs of televangelist Jerry Falwell, who condemned Lilith’s proto-feminist folkloric inspiration-and, by extension, the festival’s pro-choice/queer-positive mandate-as a paragon of demonic depravity. If the charges seemed absurd at the time, they’re absolutely hilarious…
After more than a decade away from European stages, legendary Australian rock outfit The New Christs are finally returning. To celebrate this long-awaited comeback, Wild Honey Records and FOLC present The Burning of Rome: Selected Works, a career-spanning double vinyl compilation personally curated by frontman Rob Younger.
Rob Younger, best known as the voice of Radio Birdman and a defining figure of the Australian underground, formed The New Christs in the early 1980s as an outlet for his darker, more intense musical visions. Over the years, the band has become an essential part of the global rock’n’roll landscape, blending raw garage energy with post-punk menace, sophisticated songwriting and a ferocious live presence.
You have to be a pretty big Billy Childish fan to notice the subtle differences between his many musical projects (and there are plenty of them), but they really are there if you’re paying attention. His earlier groups, like the Pop Rivets and Thee Mighty Caesars, tended to be musically gritty but lyrically playful, while he was more willing to explore the darker side of his imagination in his blues-oriented solo recordings and latter-day acts such as the Musicians of the British Empire and CTMF. In 2022, Childish reunited one of his most prolific combos, Thee Headcoats (initially active from 1988 to 2000) to pay homage to one of his musical heroes, Don Craine of the Downliners Sect, and they cut an album, Irregularis (The Great Hiatus), that arrived in 2023.