Sex Hands Are There For You (And All Over You)

Manchester produce some funny folk, don't they? They produce some pretty stellar bands too. Sex Hands is one such group. Three friends from Wales with a Manchunian add-on, the awesome foursome write scuzzy, wonky garage rock about Friends. Not their friends, but everyone's Friends - Ross, Rachel, Monica, Chandler, Joey and Phoebe.


They even have an entire album glued to the obsession, called Season 1. Some of the instrumentation actually reminds me of Royal Headache at times, such a great thing.It's pretty rad, even moreso seeing as they have an amazing cover of The Clean's 'Sad Eyed Lady'. No cover of the Rembrandts' "AMAZING" title tune though, instead naming a song after the band. Small victories. Grab it here.

Sex Hands - Joey
Sex Hands - Sad Eyed Lady (The Clean cover)

But that isn't all, they have been on a couple of excellent splits this year. The first one, a 7" put out by Icecapades, with now-defunct band Daily Life. It's a little clearer in production, but just as awesomely (and gleefully) bent out of shape. He can still grab it here. Here are the four songs put to some film clips:









And in case that isn't enough, here is the other split they did, a cassette on Birthday Tapes with ____ band Golden Grrrls as part of their Zodiac collection. Called Taurus, we get more of the same, but different. But essentially the same. Woo! PLUS, their cover of Gorky's Zygotic Mynci's 'Merched Yn Neud Gwallt Eu Gilydd' is just as rad as their Clean cover. These guys cover goooood. you can buy this cassette for 2 squid here.



They also have this 12" 4-way split out through Song, By Toad Records with SM faves Paws, as well as Waiters and Dolfinz. Grab it here (the Sex Hands song is 'Jingle Bitch' off Season 1).

FINALLY! Here is ANOTHER few Friends' related track, including a newie called 'The One Where The Stripper Cries'. Ah, Danny Devito...Dr Romano...Susan...the memories! And why I'm at it, Ross and Rachel, WTF! Don't get me started (*starts humming 'I'll Be There For You'...)

Video Vacuum - Royal Headache, Death Grips, Kirin J Callinan, Laurence Pike (PVT)

Another Monday grind at the office. Short of planting a blow-up doll in your boss' bottom drawer, what else is there to do to get out of the doldrums? Watch some ace music videos, that's what! Va va VOOM!

Royal Headache are touring the US, and have brought out this "tour diary" style video to put alongside their 'Girls' track off their excellent eponymous debut.



Death Grips aren't wasting time after the blow-out success of Ex-Military, releasing The Money Store which you can get here (the cover art is rad). They are an incredibly formidable band, and if you get a chance to catch these guys in action, DO IT.



Kirin J Callinan has created an amazing video clip to coincide with new single 'W II W'. Seriously, this is one of my fave videos of the year, and it really helps to up the song's foreboding ante.



Finally, this is not for a particular show, but PVT drummer and all round nice guy Laurence Pike doin his thang in a beautiful location leading up to the 2012 Sydney Vivid festival. This guy's the best.



NOW GET BACK TO WORK!

Two Sydney Gigs That Will Rock The Casbah

So I have been in Sydney the past week, enjoying some sun, sand, tequila, food - and fucking gust winds! Jesus Bondi, ease up! Anyway, before I trek around Surrey Hills for another cheap hole in the wall, I thought Id throw up two gigs coming up in the next two nights that, if you are in the unofficial Australian capital, you should really get to.

First up is tonight, down at Bondi Beach Hotel, who have started hosting some pretty killer shows, like last week's Royal Headache Easter show - for free - which was something else... It must be said that tonight's bill is also free, and features not one but two of Brisbane's up and coming acts. Bleeding Knees Club are riding high on the release of their debut LP Nothing To Do. The slacker duo, who are still striving to be anything more than a couple of dudes throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks (it's some pretty fun shit though) will be accompanied by another band rich in laissez faire surf rock tunes, Dune Rats. The bill is rounded out by Sydney band March Of The Real Fly. This will be one hell of a fun show, and with no rubles being thrown down at the front door, more booze can fuel the night forward! Bring it on.


Then tomorrow night is another rad showcase, Neighbourhood Watch, this time highlighting some of the best Sydney acts that you are probably yet to hear about. I mentioned only last week the shoegaze wooziness that is Colours AKA Tom Crandles. His rich tapestries of noise are incredible especially coming from one man, and it will be a delight to see it in action. On top of this, we have the excellent Day Ravies offering their shoegaze pop and rapscallion punks Bachelor Pad. Add to that ping-pong, $5 beers, $5 vodkas, all for $5 on the door, and you get a bucketload of holy-shit-this-is-awesome! Ill be at both shows - come and say hey.

Lose Total Control On The Henge Beat

To complete today's triptych of incredible Aussie rock releases, we have Total Control with their Henge Beat. I mentioned seeing Dick Diver last week - well, seeing as Al is from Total Control, it's important for you to see on the strength of the Dick Diver album why Total Control is still his day job. The Henge Beat LP is dark, dank and oh so seductive, a driving synth-punk behemoth that wallows in the flooded basements of Berlin, hiding the remains of the Birthday Party, Ultravox and Wire. You can see a correlation with another white-hot album of this year, Iceage's New Brigade, yet this is a little less brutal. The musical nous of founding member Mikey Young (Eddy Current Suppression Ring, UV Race) may surprise some, but it is clear he not only understands what makes garage rock tick (rather than poseurs), he can also pat Ian Curtis on the nape of the neck before giving him a donkey punch. Henge Beat is rabid, a little perverted, but also another release that seems unaffected by affectedness. This is a sound that pervades the participating members because they believe in this. And that is what makes Total Control a dangerously beautiful (albeit combustible) commodity.

I implore you (like I have with Royal Headache and Witch Hats) - get this now!

Total Control - One More Tonight
Total Control - Carpet Rash

Love Me A Royal Headache

OK, so I kinda blew my wad over Witch Hats' Pleasure Syndrome. Well, I better change my pants AGAIN, because we have another absolute killer jumping out of the gates and totally destroying all preconceptions about what it means to create good music.

Royal Headache, in their debut self-titled longplayer, have done something that revels in its unaffectedness. In fact, it’s hard to imagine in this world today how such a band can exist. Devoutly and intrinsically DIY, these rabblerousers don’t pride themselves in living the music they play or the reputation they may garner; they just are. Now that Pitchfork et al (and to an extent, the glaring spotlight also turns on me, for better or worse) are espousing their brilliance, their progression can only go one of two ways - implosion, deliberate obscurity, or an evolution of sound. As it stands, then, 2011 will be a time capsule for the group, for this point forward their lives aren't likely to be the same unless they wilfully make it so. Therefore thank fuck for Royal Headache, an album chock full of influences, garage tendencies, fundamental mistakes and innate love of what they do that a better template of what it means to be rock and roll may not subsist.

OK, so that sounds like an outrageous declaration. However, after one listen to this album it becomes evident that this kind of lightning cannot be emulated. Each track on Royal Headache brims to overflowing with original wants, demands and expectations – this is fun, dammit. No pretensions, or aloofness, or affectations.

Maybe it comes from the juxtaposition between the frenetic musical interplay and the almost friendly, appeasing vocal stylings of vocalist Shogun (the comparisons to Ted Leo notwithstanding - and more than a little OTT) – his crooning on 'Back And Forth' when offset by the manic garage punk wailings becomes a beast unto itself. Shit, there is a song that sounds like fucking Rod Stewart! But 'Honey Joy', one of the strongest songs on offer, shows exactly who Royal Headache are. A song filled with heart-rending despair with a hint of loving redemption, played without a hint of irony, reference wink-nudges or aspirations.

Like I said, whether this kind of alchemy can be maintained under scrutiny is dubious at best. Let's hope that they find a way.

For the love of God, buy Royal Headache now! Its becoming very difficult to buy this on record, just so's you know...

Royal Headache - Girls
Royal Headache - Down The Lane
Royal Headache - Honey Joy

Royal Headache/Dick Diver Gig

just a quickie here. As previously mentioned, Harvest (featuring Portishead, Flaming Lips, Mogwai, The National, Holy Fuck and a host of others) hists Brisbane's Botanical Gardens tomorrow, followed by the amazing iPhone replaying of the Flaming Lips' epic Zaireeka album as orchestrated by Wayne Coyne himself. Also on that night will be Melbourne's great exponents of post rock atmospherics Laura, playing at Woodland. But if you want to start your music overdose early, get to Woodland tonight, as the bands responsible for two of the most exciting albums of 2011 are converging for a night of drunken passion.


Royal Headache (self-titled) and Dick Diver (Now Start Again - listen to the whole thing here) are going to blow everyone away, and this is a promise. Very exciting! Supported by local act Loose Grip, and at just a tenner, this promises to be a stellar show.

(As a side note, my mate (and now brother-in-law) can't get into RH because the vocalist sounds too much like Ted Leo. As I haven't seen them live yet, I cant pass on the definitive verdict - but that summation is fucking funny.)

Royal Headache - Down The Lane

Dick Diver - Through The D from Chapter Music on Vimeo.

Get Pleasured By Witch Hats

Today heralds in a few days' worth of posts devoted to some fantastic Aussie releases that I have been saving up, including ones by Royal Headache, Straight Arrows, Dead Farmers, and Total Control. Not all of them are this year's news, but are warranted another look in. This one though, is fresh off the presses, and is a veritable delight to boot.

Melbourne's Witch Hats have the guttural firepower and diseased charisma necessary to corrupt the minds of the masses. On their debut release Cellulite Soul the rawness and aggression inherent in their swagger suggested that style and substance weren't independent of each other, instead always wrestling for control. And in Pleasure Syndrome they really nail their MO to the wall. The beauty of this LP though is that the cohesion, the Araldite that grips a band into a fevered vortex of sonic elation and cosmic power, seems to have arrived. By the metric tonne.

Opening track 'The Bounty' is the perfect example of this. Frontman Kris Buscombe still sounds ready to double glass you at the drop of an ill-place syllable, yet there is a comfortable presence behind his lyrics now that suggests that such a glassing wouldn't be a violent outpouring so much as a graceful balletic manoeuvre that you would be in awed fascination by even as pints of blood pulses out of your split forehead. Such reigning in of the bountiful seams of sleazy abandon is what makes Pleasure Syndrome an infinitely better release, and possibly one of the best Aussie releases of the year (neck and neck with another that I will talk about very soon...) 'Mahoney' lends lyrics that sings to their previous incarnations, the S&M rife imagery as disturbing as it is titillating. 'Hear Martin' has taken references to serial shooter Martin Bryant, thrown together some Clash and Doors hubris and percolated it all with a sense of lackadaisical longing - something that shouldn't work, yet offers a slinky number that exudes originality and intensity. Closer Closing out with the suitably heavy 'Ashley', Witch Hats assert the notion that they are well-heeled rabblerousers with hearts of tainted pitch.

Pleasure Syndrome is out now through Longtime Listener.

Witch Hats - Hear Martin