Even though they formed and released an album before most of the other well known punk rock bands, Australia’s The Saints get overlooked as one of the genre’s formative bands. They are still going (albeit through many line up changes) but the only alum that I would recommend is the 1977 debut (I’m) Stranded which features the excellent song on the same name.
I made the mistake of buying a three CD box set of some of their later stuff which has a smoother mid tempo pop-rock sound. I’ve only heard it a couple of times.
What I want to listen to is the early up-tempo raw buzz saw guitar type stuff that’s like the Australian Ramones.
“Amazing grace, how sweet the
smile upon the face I never thought I'd see you again...especially here in this Greyhound station...on Christmas Day...in 1998.”
Its that happy time off year, right? Yeah but what is the worst thing about Christmas? Well the shopping for presents is a bit of a headache. So are the Christmas songs. I don’t mean the Christmas carols I mean the same songs that get churned out every year. You know the ones. There’s no escape from them.
Shopping for presents in a crowded shopping centre that has the heating on fall blast and the same songs played over and over in every shop. That’s the worst part of Christmas.
But a seasonal song that I will be playing is the Jim White’s Christmas Day. Its not the most festive of songs festive songs and I certainly wouldn’t like to be stuck at a bus stop on Christmas day, but one of the great things about it is that there isn’t a sleigh bell to be heard anywhere.
“Now I'm out of prison, I got me a friend at last. He don't steal or cheat or drink or lie. His name's codeine, he's the nicest thing I've seen. Together we're gonna wait around and die."
Waiting ‘Round To Die is of course the classic Townes Van Vandt song about a man that goes from place to place to escape his troubles and finds some more on the way. It’s a stand out classic that many artists have covered. And the best cover of the song that I’ve heard has to be from The Be Good Tanyas which appeared on their second album Chinatown.
Okay so it may not come close to the version that Townes Van Vandt performs on the documentary Heartworn Highways [which is even better than the recorded version] but that could never happen.
Cam Butler is an Australian guitarist and composer who’s music I’ve just began getting into. From what I’ve heard of the guitar work it atmospheric, dark and melodic. Though I’ve not yet heard much of the string stuff yet (the next album that’s soon to be released has been recorded with a23 piece string orchestra) the song that I first heard from him and made me want to hear some more is a song called I Surrender that has a big band jazz feel to it. It sounds like a piece of John Barry music and really wouldn’t sound out of place alongside those big classic James Bond theme tunes.
Adam’s House Cat was the band that Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley played in before they went on to perform the Drive-By Truckers.
They recorded one album that never saw the light of day. This week I’ve managed to get hold of a download of the album Town Burned Down, its ragged and raw cow punk and the sound is a bit thin but its still a good listen.
They last song it an acoustic version of the song Nine Bullets that’s on the Drive-By Truckers second album Pizza Deliverance and is still a live favourite.
A great place to find some really good post-rock, experimental, ambient, drone, electronic, math-rock type stuff is from the Lost Children Net Label. And it’s a place where you can download the music for free as they care more about good music being heard than making a profit (and anyway do any record labels make much of a profit nowadays?).
There is over seventy albums available so if you don’t know where to start then I would suggest starting at The Silent Ballet compilations from which I’ve found many things to get further into such as French Teen Idol, Amberhaze, Orange Crush and Ben Frost to name a few.
