Sydney’s music scene is still feeling a little down and out these days, what with all of the venue closures gripping this vibrant city. That’s why this news is just so damn beautiful. A piece of the city’s musical heritage is back from the dead with The Lansdowne Hotel reopening its doors over the weekend. After a near 90 year run, the historic venue closed shop back in 2015 following the introduction of the lockout laws, as well as a number of other setbacks.
Jake Smyth and Kenny Graham of Mary’s/Unicorn Hotel fame have teamed up with The Annandale’s Matt Rule to breathe new life into one of Sydney’s lasting mid-sized venues, following the demise of the Newtown Social Club. They have moved the live music portion upstairs and kept downstairs free for daily trade i.e. punters who just want to play a game of pool and throw back a Mary’s Burger pizza (as you do).
To announce their resurrection, the guys decided to throw a four-day-long party featuring a bunch of absolutely stellar names, including The Preatures, Palms, The Pinheads, Skegss, and Sydney’s own supergroup A Band.
Comprised of Elliott Hammond and Michael Tramonte (The Delta Riggs), Thomas Champion (The Preatures), Paddy Cornwall, Seamus Coyle and Freddy Crabs (Sticky Fingers), they belted out a slew of covers along with some special guests, including Royal Headache’s Tim “Shogun” Hall, Gideon Bensen, Hayley Mary of The Jezabels and Johnny Took (DMA’s) on slide guitar duties.
We snapped up all of this and Skegss at the tail-end of a massive Sunday lineup, flawlessly closing out the four-day bender.
Needless to say, we’re stoked to have The Lansdowne back and are looking forward to a sweaty mess of new memories.
A Band
Skegss
Photos: Dani Hansen
When three of the rowdiest bands around get together for a national tour, you know it’s going to be one hell of a time. Brisbane boys Dune Rats released their sophomore studio album The Kids Will Know It’s Bullshit in February and to celebrate they played a run of shows around the country along with Byron Bay favs and label mates Skegss and Newcastle diehards The Gooch Palms.
This is the biggest triple-header we’ve seen in a while. Not even a minor fire evacuation could quench the thirst of the rambunctious crowd following Goochies set, with some banging on bin lids and chanting as they were led outside. In dramatic style, some firemen were seen exiting the venue and the crowd finally received the green light they were anxious for. Nothing like some disruptive combustion to add to the momentum of an evening.
The Gooch Palms
Skegss
Dune Rats
Photos: Dani Hansen/Howl & Echoes
This infectious, Popcorn-esque little slice of house comes from Martin King, latest signing of the always wonderful Good Manners label. Don’t let the genre fool you into thinking that Pepsi is a strictly a four to the floor club banger, though – its syncopation and playful repetitiveness make for a track that’ll delight whether you’re raving or brewing coffee on a Saturday morning (trust me, I tried). King has a rich musical background – he’s worked with Banoffee, supported Four Tet, Metrononmy & Caribou, and played festivals such as Sugar Mountain, Falls and Meredith. The dude is definitely One To Watch in 2017.
Thanks to some very fun quasi-retro vibes, this one will make you regress into “carefree teen at a house party” mode if you’re not careful. The Posse are a somewhat enigmatic new five-piece comprised of various music veterans, and this is their very first official release, out through Plastic World (who by this stage we can basically bank on churning out the goods). Happy Accidents contains absolutely no samples, and is a taster for The Posse’s upcoming debut EP Our Thing which will feature contributions from Andrew Elston (Physique/Toni Toni Lee/Catcall), Ross Ferraro & Jarrol Renaud (The Goods), Michael Di Francesco (Touch Sensitive/Van She) and NZ jazz keys prodigy Andrew Bruce.
Wailing vocals, rock-n-soul guitar, super warm 70s production – yeah, this is impossible not to like. And who doesn’t love a good call-and-response chorus hook? Sun Sap are relative newcomers, but they’re already kicking ass and taking names, with support slots for Guantanamo Baywatch, Australia (the band) and The Pretty Littles already under their belt and a show with Polish Club and Food Court still to come before the years’ out. Their debut LP is dropping in 2017, so get in on the ground floor now.
Green Buzzard are one of those bands that seem to have been on the cusp of something huge for AGES but for whatever reason that massive break hasn’t happened yet. This is entirely unfair because their music has always been top notch, but Do You Ever Glow is another step up again. Washed out and psych-spun, with some serious The Cure vibes, there’s a pop infectiousness to the track that we haven’t yet seen from GB – and it’s more than welcome.
Moving past the obvious weirdness of releasing a song called Spring Has Sprung on the literal last day of Spring, this is a #tune. Coupling the trademark Skegss down-to-earth ratbag lyricism with woozy, balmy guitars and a gratifying vocal hook, this is definitely one to blast as you sink tinnies with your housemates at the park. The dudes have also just announced a mammoth summer tour – grab your tickets here.
Alright, this one technically came out last Friday, so we’re kind of cheating but it’s worth it. Dune Rats are a god damned national treasure and their music is always a timely reminder to relax, stop stressing, have fun, unwind, and find out who’s Scott Green. Fun fact: I know someone who heard this song, didn’t get it after multiple listens, and thought Dunies had “changed, man”. Apparently the guys came up with the idea for the track (recorded in the US with FIDLAR’s Zac Carper) after literally spending all day asking strangers at Walmart if they knew Scott Green – because of course they did.
We caught Skegss live in Sydney on September 1, with support from Dumb Punts.
Dumb Punts
Skegss
All photos: Danielle Hansen for Howl & Echoes
Byron Bay shredders, hell-raisers and all-round legends Skegss had their breakout year in 2015, signing as the very first artists to Dune Rats’ Ratbag Records label, releasing their debut EP 50 Pushups For A Dollar and touring near ceaselessly both around the country and abroad, laying waste to many a stage in their wake. Today they look to push their career to further heights with the release of their sophomore EP, the upliftingly-titled Everyone Is Good At Something.
The record kicks off with a Ramones-esque intro in Slayer. It’s almost militant, three chords having the life chugged out of them while frontman Ben shouts furiously over the racket. Mustang dials the aggression back a little in favour of jangly summer weekend vibes over a thumping backbeat, a slow-burning breakdown leading into a big sing-along finish. Lead single My Face picks the pace back up immediately, the guitars turned up to 11 on the fuzz scale and Ben’s vocals set to a 90s grunge drone. It’s a wicked little slice of surf punk sure to set crowds alight as a live belter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgdUo-S-JpA
New York California sounds like a hangover, Ben’s vocals cracking with weariness as he transitions from warbling to shouting about heading to the fictional New York, California with Coca Cola and cigarettes. Van Halen owes little to the classic rock band it takes its name from, neglecting big synths and solos for distorted vocals and more of the same classic punk chord progression and relentless rhythms Skegss channel so very well while Stranger, like Heart Attack on Pushups, is another quasi-ballad, a positively breezy and low-key jam full of introspection and life-on-the-road insight.
By the time Wake The Fuck Up, an uproariously fun ode to getting absolutely buckled for no real reason, finishes the record you’ll probably be heading straight back to the start for another listen.
Sonically, Everyone Is Good At Something doesn’t venture too far from the surf punk foundations laid by 50 Pushups For A Dollar, but as the title says, everyone is good at something and Skegss happen to be fantastically talented at making punk rock: three honest chords on sun-bleached guitars, chugging rhythms and lyrics reflecting both the debauchery and uncertainty of themselves and the young crowds they manage to wow over on an almost nightly basis. It may seem simple, but Skegss run with that and inject as much fun and energy into that simplicity as they can and the results are palpable here. Everyone Is Good At Something is the kind of punk record that gives you hope for the future of the genre. They may be the purest and best punk rock band in the entire country right now and we’re looking forward to whatever Skegss have up their sleeves next.
You’ll be able to catch a heap of new tunes from it as Skegss head out on tour around the country with Dumb Punts and Verge Collection in August. Check the dates below and grab your tickets at Skegss’ website:
Skegss ‘Everyone Is Good At Something’ Tour:
Thu, Aug 11th: Rocket Bar, Adelaide
Fri, Aug 12th: Player’s Bar, Mandurah
Sat, Aug 13th: Amplifier, Perth
Sat, Aug 20th: Wrangler Studios, Melbourne (U-18)
Sat, Aug 20th: Northcote Social Club, Melbourne
Thu, Sep 1st: Newtown Social Club, Sydney
Fri, Sep 2nd: The Brightside, Brisbane
Sat, Sep 3rd: Foundry Records, Brisbane (U-18)
Sat, Sep 17th: Great Northern Hotel, Byron Bay
Check out our interview with Skegss from last year’s BIGSOUND festival.
Image: Supplied
It’s video roundup time! Once again, Howl And Echoes are coming in hot with the freshest, most eyeball-stimulating music videos to be dropped by the artists you love and some of the artists you don’t know you love yet this week. We do all the dirty work and herd them all into one convenient web-based location for you to enjoy every Friday so that you don’t have to. Have yourself a good old gander at the latest offerings from:
Clipping – Wriggle
First up is the California rappers Clipping and their frenetic new single and video for Wriggle. The title track from their recently released EP, the track has some distinct early Outkast vibes about it, a rapid-fire backbeat over almost industrial production, Daveed Diggs spitting in time.
The video is a whirlwind of pop culture gifs melded together with footage of Diggs, a frantic experience for both your eyes and your ears with plenty of gems from the world of film and television and viral sensations thrown in to the mix.
Wriggle is out now on Sub Pop.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5msWb1l2j6g&feature=youtu.be
Angel Olsen – Shut Up Kiss Me
From Cali to North Carolina (via way of St. Louis) next for songstress Angel Olsen and her new single Shut Up Kiss Me. It’s the second taste of her third studio album MY WOMAN due out later this year. Olsen warbles over a lone classic rock guitar riff before the band kicks in to the chorus. It’s a grunge-y and more energetic change of pace from the first synth-driven slow-burner Intern (which was still a ripper song in its own right).
The video sees Olsen donning the same silvery bob from the video for Intern, this time having an absolute whale of a night out and looking like an utter badass posting up out of the sunroof of her car and cutting shapes all over a roller rink among a whole lot of other fun looking activities.
MY WOMAN is out September 2nd on Jagjaguwar via Inertia Music.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nleRCBhLr3k
Torii Wolf & DJ Premier – 1st Remix (ft. Dilated Peoples)
Next up is the encouraging new collaboration between New York singer-songwriter Torii Wolf and hip-hop royalty DJ Premier, who has remixed Wolf’s debut single 1st, throwing his own little twist on it including a turn from Dilated Peoples. The result is stunning: a gorgeous piano melody, Wolf’s ethereal vocals and hard-hitting bars from Rakaa and Evidence over a methodical beat colliding as one here.
The video features a short introduction with the Wolf meeting the Dilated Peoples guys and discussing with DJ Premier his vision for the remix. From there we get scenic shots of Wolf driving a drop-top interspersed with intimate shots from inside the recording studio as each artists takes their turn creating the song.
There’s no official release date for Wolf’s forthcoming album Flow Riiot just yet, but the fact that it has been produced entirely by DJ Premier leaves us with great expectations for its eventual arrival.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbXxxHH6JNg
Boys Noize – Birthday (ft. Hudson Mohawke and Spank Rock)
To a huge meeting of minds here on the new single from Berlin producer Boys Noize. Featuring one of his contemporaries in Hudson Mohawke and Baltimore MC Spank Rock, Birthday is the title, the very last track from his recently released fourth studio LP Mayday.
The production positively shimmers here before kicking into overdrive and banging like a screen door in a cyclone, Spank Rock providing the hook of “every day I wake up feel like my fucking birthday”. The accompanying video is a cracker too, the basic concept being a wild birthday but shown in reverse, it’s almost calming watching its subjects go from absolutely ratters at the end of the night to open the video to calmly swinging in the park by its conclusion.
Mayday is out now on POD via Inertia Music.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-1EqDI8Lng
Vera Blue – Fingertips
Heading back home now with Sydney siren Vera Blue and her latest single Fingertips. It comes from her recently released EP of the same name and is utterly mesmerising, gentle acoustic guitar melding with pulsating synths and Vera’s breathtaking vocals. The chorus will drop the floor out from under you.
The video focuses heavily on the aforementioned fingertips, though the song itself is more about the terrible things social media can do to a relationship. Vera navigates her way through some kind of odd string-filled room before finding herself in a disorienting maze of sheets. It’s stellar stuff from production house Paper Moose here.
The Fingertips EP is out now on Mercury Records.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHgr1nCpt1A
Skegss – My Face
Byron Bay party animals Skegss aren’t slowing down in 2016, releasing their brand new single My Face a couple of weeks back and now giving it the video treatment. It’s the first taste of their forthcoming sophomore EP Everyone Is Good At Something. The tune is a sub-three minute lo-fi punk belter, the kind that gets you nostalgic for old Blink-182, all scuzzy guitars and droning vocals.
The video starts following a typical day in the life of frontman Ben, enjoying a sunny stroll before being accosted by a pair of wolf-men, who give chase (in between copping feels of each other) before settling their differences the only appropriate way (over a pint).
Skegss are heading out on a national tour to support their next EP with Dumb Punts and Verge Collection in August. If you’ve not seen them live you need to take a good look at yourself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgdUo-S-JpA
DMA’s – Timeless
Sydney’s DMA’s are presently taking over the world off the back of this year’s enormous debut album Hills End. Having just finished wrapping up a surprise turn at Glastonbury, the boys have released their latest single and video from that album for Timeless. The track is the same kind of rollicking Britpop number, it drives along relentlessly, full of fuzzed out guitars and sporting an absolute chest-beater of a chorus.
The video flat out rules too. Shot in black and white, it features the DMA’s boys enjoying what looks like a cracker of an evening with more than a few pints flowing down the local with a gang of senior citizens. Plenty of feel-good moments here.
Hills End is out now on I Oh You.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9lTxqpCNLc
The Strokes – Threat Of Joy
Having stormed back into the spotlight with the release of their Future Present Past EP a few weeks back along with a set for the ages at this year’s Governors Ball in their hometown New York City, The Strokes have been on a roll as they prepare for a world tour that includes a stop in Australia for Splendour In The Grass. Threat Of Joy was one of three new tracks on Future Present Past and The Strokes have given it a wildly imaginative video this week.
The song is vintage, jangly Strokes, pleasant and summery with frontman Julian Casablancas’ unmistakeable voice the anchor. The video follows a shifty government agency (who all wear pig masks) and their search for the stolen footage of the as-yet-unseen music video for lead single Oblivius. Just the latest from a band who have made some of the most iconic music videos of this generation.
Future Present Past is out now on Cult Records.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJNgvS-sA-s
Image: YouTube
Byron Bay surf punk beer drinkers and rabble-rousers Skegss had a whopper of a 2015, inking their very first record deal as the debut artists signed to Dune Rats’ Ratbag Records, winning the Triple J Unearthed Splendour In The Grass contest as well as playing a slew of other major festivals and headline tours and, on top of all of that, releasing a ferocious debut EP in 50 Pushups For A Dollar.
Fresh back from a tour of South America, the trio are today announcing their sophomore album along with a brand new single. The record is the positively-titled seven-tracker Everyone Is Good At Something and the lead single is an absolute cracker in My Face. The EP itself won’t be out for an agonising few weeks but you can have a listen to My Face below:
https://soundcloud.com/ratbag-records/skegss-my-face/
It’s sub-three minutes of blisteringly good and fast modern punk rock very much in the vein of Wavves and Fidlar, which is exactly what we’ve come to expect and love about Skegss so much. Frontman Ben’s droning slacker vocals narrate a day in the life tale of what sounds like an extremely rinsed out individual trying to claw their way back to feeling good, initially furious and full of scuzzy guitars, the beat slows down and the guitars jangle over a chorus absolutely everybody can relate and sing along to.
Having just been announced amongst an outstanding Yours And Owls festival lineup for October, we hope to see Skegss continue to shred it up around the country live in support of the new record, if you’ve not seen them yet you’re absolutely missing out on one of Australia’s best young rock bands going.
Everyone Is Good At Something is out July 15th on Ratbag Records.
Check out our interview with Skegss at last year’s BIGSOUND.
Image: Supplied
It’s video roundup time! Once again, Howl And Echoes are coming in hot with the freshest, most eyeball stimulating music videos to be dropped by the artists you love and some of the artists you don’t know you love yet, of this week. We do all the dirty work and herd them all into one convenient web-based location for you to enjoy every Friday so that you don’t have to. Have yourself a good old gander at the latest offerings from:
Phia – Do You Ever
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pf16XVY8qKA
Kicking this week’s edition off with a new video from Melbourne experimental duo Phia, who have put this one together in the lead up to their upcoming debut album The Ocean Of Everything. The track is pure pop at its absolute bubbliest, a nifty little kalimba melody and some pulsing synths and handclap beats anchored oh so sweetly by singer Sophia Exiner’s gentle vocals.
The video sees Phia indulging in a whole lot of arts and crafts, creating paper cutouts of some of the lyrics and throwing glitter and paint around like there’s no tomorrow. Keep an eye out for The Ocean Of Everything when it lands later this year.
Last Dinosaurs – Wurl
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiposuP7I3Y
Returning in a massive way last year with the release of their sophomore record Wellness, Brisbane indie rock royalty Last Dinosaurs are still riding the positive waves generated by that album in the New Year, this week releasing a video for Wurl from that album.
In typical Last Dinosaurs fashion, it’s a punchy little rock song with a chorus that absolutely soars. The video has been drenched in pastel colours, the clip meshing together a whole bunch of old stock footage with shots of the band playing and conducting a few different science-y projects.
If you’re in Melbourne next week you can catch the Last Dinosaurs guys at the Melbourne Zoo as part of their Twilight Series before they head out on a tour of Indonesia and Thailand.
Bleached – Wednesday Night Melody
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hFYgMBDPFE&feature=youtu.be
Does Howl And Echoes love us some Bleached or what. We were well and truly won over by their previous video for Keep On Keepin’ On, the lead single from their upcoming sophomore record Welcome The Worms.
The riffs are utterly gargantuan, and stomp along with the kind of raw power that would make Joan Jett grin from ear to ear. The accompanying video is a cracker too, two-thirds of Bleached in Jessie Clavin and Micayla Grace coming home to find singer Jennifer Clavin deader than disco. With a gig in Hollywood to honour, do Bleached cancel?
Fuck no they don’t, they rig Jennifer’s cadaver up with ropes and go full Weekend At Bernies with her and then tossing her to the wolves. Because of course. It’s videos like this that make writing these roundups every week an absolute pleasure.
Welcome The Worms is out April 1st via Inertia.
Little May – Remind Me
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-gB9R8FNec
Keeping with rocking all-girl groups is the new video from Little May. One of the heavier tracks on their stunning debut record For The Company that blew listeners everywhere away, Remind Me sees Little May diversifying their captivating sound and doing it well.
The video is a collaboration with renowned Sydney visual artist EARS. Matching the frenetic energy of the track, it’s awash with colour and wholly organic, a mixture of milk, water, oil and food dye apparently used in creating some of the hypnotic liquid sequences.
You can catch Little May as they support City And Colour on their Australian tour across March and April and then again on their largest ever headline tour of their own in May.
Third Floor – Thinking Of You
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-p53-A9ZfA&feature=youtu.be
Sticking around in Sydney for this next one, it’s the debut video from producer Aaron Bannie, also known as Third Floor. He has an upcoming EP Dream State that he’s putting a visual twist on, releasing its four tracks with accompanying videos as an episodic short film.
Thinking Of You marks the beginning of protagonist Charley Rose’s story, a dark romance narrative backed by a hypnotic synth-based soundtrack. Water seems to be a constant, lashings of late night rain, the waves on the beach and a dripping tap that sonically mirrors the steady click percussion grounding the track all featuring prominently.
Third Floor definitely has us hanging out for episode two.
Japanese Wallpaper – Arrival
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QLzap62rnU&feature=youtu.be
Having enjoyed 2015 and as big a breakout as a young artist could possibly hope for Melbourne multi-instrumentalist and freakish music prodigy still in his teens (!) Gab Strum, aka Japanese Wallpaper. Having just ended a huge Laneway tour, he’s this week dropped a brand new video for Arrival off of his explosive eponymous EP.
Dreamy and atmospheric, his collaboration with the extraordinary Dustin Tebbutt is given stunning visual justification here. Directed by Thomas Pollard, it features some stunning bushland shots, the video’s protagonist watching as the car that was her home spontaneously erupts in flames mesmerising and heartrending.
Japanese Wallpaper’s star looks set to skyrocket in 2016.
Skegss – Heart Attack
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSYsN8kKfpQ
Byron Bay legends Skegss are kicking off their 2016 with their latest music video. Heart Attack was the final track on their debut EP 50 Pushups For A Dollar and represented a much more mellow sound than we’re used to from Ratbag Records’ finest. It’s nonetheless become a live favourite in a very short time.
Shot in grainy black and white and evidently filmed on the road for their headling ‘A Chinese Feed And A Couple Of Beers’ tour just gone by (watch out for members of their outlandishly entertaining tour mates The Pinheads making cameos), it features the Skegss dudes and friends shredding up a skatepark and then a stage, Heart Attack providing a breezy, jangly soundtrack to a glimpse of life on the road.
Catch Skegss this weekend playing Mountain Sounds (don’t worry, they’re not clashing with Violent Soho)
DMA’s – Too Soon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GjEbrUHOl4
With their debut album Hills End just a week away, Sydney trio DMA’s have been extra busy in the lead-up, wrapping up a gargantuan Laneway tour last week and releasing the video for second single Too Soon.
It’s a straight up rocker from DMA’s, with a chorus that I heard bellowed straight back at the band when they played it to an unbelievably vast Laneway crowd in Brisbane. The video for it is in typical DMA’s lo-fi fashion, a mixture of shots of the band feeling the song in slow-motion on a rooftop, in a hazy pink living room, in a dark room in black and white. It captures the Britpop sound and vibe perfectly, something DMA’s have built a career on as one of Australia’s best and brightest exports.
Hills End is out next Friday, February 26th via I Oh You.
When I caught upstart Byron Bay lords Skegss in Brisbane last, the crowd was probably half the size as the one packing out the same Foundry that hosted them back then. That was the tail end of 2015, just days before they released their debut EP 50 Pushups For A Dollar, and it looks like the reception to that record has been nothing short of positive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtOM9wQmbr8
Having played an all-ages matinee earlier in the day, here tonight Skegss find themselves at the halfway mark of their headline ‘A Chinese Feed And A Couple Of Beers’ tour, which has already entered the record books as the best tour name ever conceived.
Opening act Wash are rough as guts rock and roll, but in the best kind of ‘throw back a beer and bang your head’ way. They’re shouty and scuzzy and just loud and the crowd already losing their shit up the front is impressively sizeable as far as opening acts go. I want to show you what they sound like with a clip but Google is coming up well short as far as anything on the band goes.
The Pinheads from Wollongong are up next and they’re quite simply revelatory human beings. Their lead guitarist is sporting a ripper Johnny Ramone haircut and wearing a dress, their keyboardist is using a cob of corn as a percussion instrument because reasons, their frontman is an absolutely delightful lunatic, looking like the second coming of Bon Scott and spending more time in the crowd than on the stage and their bassist just plays along stoically like there isn’t some shithat insanity going onstage right next to her. It’s fantastic, pure punk rock and they have the fast swelling crowd jumping off the walls as a result.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyRyLaBWlMc
The Skegss trio have spent most of the time leading up to their set hanging by their merch table and chatting with fans as well as taking in the first two acts intermittently from the side of the crowd. They take the stage to a big reception and plough straight in to a hell of a set. A loud as fuck Fun gets everyone bouncing early, New York jangles along at a slow burn mid-way before dropping in real heavy and drawing a raucous response.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYQAbeF25Bk
The dirty old school surf rocker Hell is a highlight too. There’s a cover of I’ll Be There For You by The Rembrandts (aka the Friends theme song) thrown in for very good measure and the frenetic pace of the punk rocking ode to international cuisine Eat It goes off like a frog in a sock. They give a brand new song I don’t quite catch the name of a red hot crack as well, faltering slightly but making up for it entirely with some excellent crowd banter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmZbXn2ydbc
It all goes to hell in a handcart for a set-closing LSD though, the band inviting previous member Noah onstage to help them out. One of the extra guitars isn’t tuned properly, to which bassist Toby opines ‘Typical Skegss gig. Shittest band in the world’.
The short delay proves well worth it though, the crowd going utterly apeshit. The Pinheads frontman runs onstage to help with vocals for a second, several patrons hit the stage as well for a spot of crowdsurfing with Toby and frontman Ben eventually joining them in the fray. Security, who had been vigilant in removing crowdsurfers prior to that, pretty much give up as The Foundry shakes and devolves into a wild and sweaty mess.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoDiRV4oHms
And with that we’re done for the night and Skegss wish us goodbye as they continue north on their tour. The next time they’re back this way they may have another EP under their belts, the band currently signed to the Dune Rats-run Ratbag Records. If it’s as good as the one they showcased tonight and they continue to put on live shows of this calibre and energy, their star as one of the best young bands in the country is going to stay on the up for sure.
Check out our interview and a couple of beers with the Skegss dudes when they tore Bigsound a new one last year.
Finally. Finally we get our mitts on the debut EP from Byron Bay legends, surf punk extraordinaires and one of my favourite (if not holding the top spot firmly) Australian bands to come out of 2015: Skegss.
Titled 50 Pushups For A Dollar, it’s out today via the freshly-minted Ratbag Records. It’s a pretty momentous occasion; the very first record by the very first band signed to Dune Rats‘ very own record label. It’s short and it’s sweet at a mere five tracks and a running time of just shy of 15 minutes, but by God is it as auspicious as fuck as a kickoff record is going to get. When I’ve been asked to describe Skegss to people I’ve usually gone with the simple phrase ‘Australia’s answer to FIDLAR’, a comparison that is meant in the best possible way, and this record is going a long way towards solidifying it, given the successes of that band.
Grab a beer and kick back in the Friday sunshine for this one.
Sophomore single Eat It launches 50 Pushups straight to 100. A headbanging, footstomping cracker of a track. The riffs are loud and chugging and pure Ramones, frontman Ben’s vocals rocking an extra layer of grime on them as he shout sings about their burning desire to trot the old globe and stop in for a meal in every country that will have them. The sight of sticksman Jon air drumming with a dart in his mouth in the accompanying music video is, to put it simply, just fantastic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmZbXn2ydbc
First single FUN follows it up, pumping the brakes with some scuzzy chord progression. There’s an equally as lighthearted message behind it, the title appropriately in all capitals because it’s the driving force behind just about everything Skegss does. It’s their unofficial theme song and it brings the house down live.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYQAbeF25Bk
New York marks the midpoint and it’s an interesting choice of title. The sound and feel is as if it was recorded on the corner of Bleecker and Broadway, it’s bluesy and it’s brilliant, almost a rattier version of some of the earlier work by Manhattanites The Strokes. Next up is Hell, a sub-two minute stabbing chunk of the punkiest surf rock, the chorus awash with sha la las that contrast some snottily disdainful lyrics. It’s still bleeding it’s that raw.
Wrapping it all up is the ballad Heart Attack, which finds drummer Jon stepping out (possibly for some beers and Chinese food) and Ben stripping back his vocals as they bounce over the cleanest riff on the whole record, one that tangles with bassist Toby’s riff excellently. It’s icing and a cherry on top of a no filler, all killer debut record from Skegss.
50 Pushups is the cap off to as fine a year for a young band as you’re likely to see. They’ve signed their first record deal, they’ve played to raucous crowds at festivals like BIGSOUND and Sounds Of The Suburbs as well as a massive set at this year’s Splendour In The Grass, they’ve had an Australian headline tour of their own that damn near took the venues they played in to within an inch of their lives and they’ve taken their surf punk sound to the West Coast of the United States. They’re due to take 50 Pushups For A Dollar on tour as well and we look forward to it, and whatever the New Year brings, for this band, so very thoroughly.
We’re banking on big things for Skegss, and this is just the beginning.
50 Pushups For A Dollar is out now via Ratbag Records