Fifty years after their formation in Sydney, the vastly influential punk band Radio Birdman are preparing to call it a day, with a final series of Australian shows over winter culminating with a farewell gig in their home town. But is this really goodbye? Songwriter and guitarist Deniz Tek isn’t making promises. “The rationale is […]
Radio Birdman: Reign in Blood Read More »
“Hey! Turn the lights on, I want to see everybody,” shouts Iggy Pop. And he grins that huge, irrepressible grin. Here he is, on the lip of the Concert Hall stage of a sold-out Sydney Opera House, with thousands of ecstatic fans cheering back at him. And he can’t get enough: he extends his hands, accepting
Iggy Pop: World’s forgotten boy just wants to be loved Read More »
The drama of the dysfunctional band has long been a staple of the rock documentary form. In a case of life imitating art imitating life, films from Some Kind Of Monster (which sat in on Metallica’s group therapy sessions) to End Of The Century (which chronicled the tragically bitter life and death of the Ramones)
Descent into the Maelstrom Read More »
My favourite quote about the Ramones comes from Richard Hell, the New York provocateur who, along with Tom Verlaine, formed the art-punk band Television in 1974 and – with the help of threadbare clothes held together with safety pins, on account of the fact they were too poor to buy any more – was already
Gimme gimme the Ramones, forever Read More »
In 1977, John Lydon – née Rotten – launched a vitriolic attack on the monarchy that brutally summed up the status of England’s youth in the year of the Queen’s Silver Jubilee: “When there’s no future, how can there be sin? / We are the flowers in the dustbin / We’re the poison in your
Flowers in the wheelie bin Read More »
La Méchanique Ondulatoire feels a bit like a railway tunnel: a curved brick room under a funky little bar, tucked away in the narrowest of side streets off Rue de la Roquette, in the Bastille. And the light at the end of the tunnel, ready to crush anyone stupid enough to get in the way, is
Big black car: Paris Read More »