November is already shaping up to be a busy ol' month starting with The Star Spangles opening for (I never dug 'em but what the heck) Janes Addiction. Not sure how our boys rock'n'roll will go down with that ensembles fans but they're doing it so hopefully said unfortunates will see the light. Then we've got Laura Cantrell and the mighty Paul Burch opening for the grand auld man of Bluegrass, Ralph Stanley and his Clinch Mountain Boys. Then, at the end of the month, a triple shot of Spit & Polish moonshine hits the road, Amy's Allison and Rigby along with Neil Cleary. All of 'em deserve to be famous and being that they're family and all, we divnae play favourites. Full date action when it becomes available but they'll be all over the UK and Ireland so make sure you catch 'em.
Hey, another one gone... poor ol' Robert Palmer. I never cared for a lot of his music but his version of Moon Martin's Bad Case Of Lovin' You was pretty decent. My friend, Kathy Kenyon, used to work for him too and by all accounts he was a nice geezer. It's seldom the one's that deserve it, innit?!

Shapin' up to be a wild weekend in "the London" with Voladoras at The Dirty Water Club and Stereo Total at Water Rats, Brighton, then somewhere else in town on Monday. Being stuck some hundreds o' miles away from such action though, you folks have to go and report back.
The Cramps are there also for their long-awaited two night stint so I know a lot of you will be daundering aboot the capital anyway. Support the next generation, dagnabbit!

Eric Goulden - A Dysfunctional Success (Do Not Press).
Picked this up in London last weekend, began reading it on the flight home and finished it within 24 hours. Yep, Wreckless Eric's auto-bio is a fine read; fast, funny and (at times) frightening. Just the fact that there is little to no self-pitying here makes a nice change from most other rock-bios. From his childhood days on Eric is able to create a picture of himself as someone who almost accidentally stumbled into success and found out he was completely unable to deal with it. Luckily for us he was still able to come up with a batch of amazin' tunes over the years that (at least) still get their just RPM's here at HQ on a regular basis. My only beef is that the book ends somewhere in the mid 80s, robbing us of almost two decades of the complete story. At that point Eric managed to battle his alcoholism and became a father, which is all fine 'n dandy, but certainly didn't finish his musical genius. Anybody familiar with the stellar 'Joe Meek' 45 he did for Sympathy will attest to this. But hey, maybe he saved some for a second book, which, on the strength of this one, I'd pay for in advance!.

The latest issue of the I-94 Bar e-zine is a Detroit music special.
"*We speak to Prime Movers singer Michael Erlewine who offers some insights into the early Iggy Pop. The Prime Movers were a seminal Michigan blues band who had a young Jim Osterberg on the drummer's stool. See outrageously rare photos of Iggy before he was a Stooge.
*Speaking of photos, Sue Rynski was there in the late '70s and early '80s when the likes of Destroy All Monsters, Sonic's Rendezvous Band, the Mutants, Motor City Bad Boys, the Ramrods and Johnny Thunders (among others) were leading lights on the Detroit underground scene. Sue's exhibiting photos in Paris which seemed as good an excuse as any to chat to her and have a peak through her album.
*The Stooges have been on the road and we have reports - and pictures - from shows in Spain and France.
*Radio Birdman's Euro tour has wound up but the missives from I-94 Bar reporters haven't with gig reviews from Italy and Germany (2) uploaded a few minutes ago.
*Also, we carry reviews of the Casanovas, Intercooler and the Specimens.
*Keep checking for more Birdman reports and in the next few days, as well as a backlog of disc reviews.
*Don't forget our ridiculously easy Sheek the Shayk contest".

The I-94 Bar: Sydney Rock Action via The Bowery and Motor City
www.i94bar.com.

If Steve won't post 'm, I will: More Fleshtones dates;

Fri Oct 17th Hoboken, NJ at Maxwell's w. Swinging Neckbreakers
Sat Oct 18th Baltimore, MD at Fell's Point Oyster Festival
Fri Oct 24th Baltimore, MD at Mojo/Tattoo Bar
Sat Oct 25th Chapel Hill, NC at Local 506
Sat Dec 6th New York, NY at CBGB's w/ Dictators- CBGB's 30th Anniversary Event.

Sites recently added to The Garage dedicated to 60s garage bands include the following: A resource dedicated to Kenny & The Kasuals that includes a biography, news of forthcoming dates, and even autographed merchandise. Why not email Kenny and ask him when that comprehensive “Best Of” is going to appear? Most readers of the NBT blog will probably have committed to memory the tracks on the first dozen volumes of Pebbles. In which case check out the Heard photo archive, sadly devoted to a recently deceased former member, and then move it on over to a site put together by the guitarist in the Satyrs. Said bloke conducted a Google search and found that, much to his amazement, “Yesterday’s Heroes” had been comped several times. Crikey! And while we're in the land of one-45rpm-wonders, don’t forget to read the story of the Rising Tydes rise to semi-obscurity. Finally, if your more of a Liam Watson than a Dr Watson, conduct a virtual rummage around the Fine Recording Studio archive. Get the low-down on the Rochester, NY studio that started in the 50s and captured a slew of 60s punkers, including “I Try” by the Young Tyrants, along the way.

"Some of you may be interested in reading my interview here with DK Smythe - the Rezillos first bass player. It's accompanied with some great photos from the second ever Rezillos gig in November 1976!". GO!
(c/o Martin Percival)

"Smog Veil has 2 very special gigs next week and if you are in the Los Angeles or San Francisco area, please attend: the first ever North American appearances of Rob Younger the vocalist for The New Christs and Radio Birdman:
Wednesday, September 24, Knitting Factory, Los Angeles:
Rob Younger and the Leaving Trains, Duane Peters and the Hunns, Hangmen.
Thursday, September 25, Bottom of the Hill, San Francisco:
Rob Younger and the Leaving Trains, Harold Ray Live In Concert, Hard Place.
Can't make it? Rob will doing a radio interview tonight between the hours of midnight and 3 a.m. on Stella Stray Pop's amazing radio show on KXLU, 88.9 on the FM dial in Los Angeles and simulcast at: www.kxlu.com".

Went to see the Cramps last night in Amsterdam and I'm sorry to report that it was absolutely dismal. Of course, the Paradiso is hardly the place to be on a hot (late-)summer night, esp when filled to the rafters the temperatures there quickly reach boiling level, couple that with a chain smokin' crowd and no ventilation to speak of, and we're off to a seriously bad start....
First up were the Riots, a band from my hometown so I would have given 'em the benefit of doubt in most other situations, but their brand of Motorhead/Zeke-styled "rawk", failed to impress. Maybe it was the crappy sound (all drums 'n vocals), but I couldn't find any tunes or riffs to latch onto. Oh well, maybe another time...
When the Cramps came on I was ready to get all excited, but alas, it was not to be. And even tho' the sound had improved somewhat, they sounded lumpy and seemed to be plodding along. Ivy still looks cool, but havin' seen 'em so many times over the years it was obvious Lux was just goin' thru' the motions, the other two guys could have been you, me or your mother, nobody would've noticed the difference. So I did what I hardly ever do, I just left after 20 minutes or so, no time to waste 'n all that. Or maybe it was just that after seeing Radio Birdman earlier in the week actually enjoying their time on stage (jeez, Deniz Tek was smiling at one point !), I couldn't be bothered to watch a pale copy of what once was the wildest show around, who knows.
(Social observation: the crowd of aging psychobillies and "rockers" gave a good indication of what to expect when the current hordes of pierced 'n tattooed idiots will get older and their flesh starts saggin' and their "tats" fadin'. Believe me, there are frightening times ahead of us....).

History Of Rock Written By The Losers "The social misfits who chronicle rock seek not only to log facts, but also to influence public opinion about obscure rock issues, something most people care little about". GO!.

So lets get the gripes outta the way first shall we? This Mean Fiddler practice of putting a band on in the matinee slot on a Saturday night is a fallacy. The howff that Radio Birdman played is a far cry from that great space in Harlesden that the MF use to reside in. So we arrive at the venue and the band are at least 3 songs into their set by 8.15pm. Obviously that set the ol' teeth on age from the get go but we made our way through the labyrinth to the body of the crowd. Next problem was the sound at that point, a tad lumpy and only inkling at what I know in my mind's eye that yon twin guitar attack will sound like. The sonic fog cleared though and it all started coming in loud and clear. I'm reliably informed that the sound in the DJ booth was bang on all the way through, causing Brother Joe to reassess his take on the band. He heard the light, what can I tell ya? So my understanding that the band would come on at 8.45pm musta been a dream or something. The place has gotta turn into a disco at 11pm. Thats disco, not club, don't try and make it sound like anything other than the sorry hole in the Tottenham Court Road that it is. Having travelled 400+ miles to miss such a large chunk of the show was a pisser. Not though drunkenness, not through a disagreement with a cheese sandwich on hte train, no - nowt like that. Through sheer goddamn rudeness. The UK doesn't know how to treat theat all too rare beastie, the R&R legend. Spain, France, anywhere else (even Scotland) can conjure up some decorum but not London. I have a feeling that when The Dictators make it here then that's where they'll play. I'll be there at bloody teatime the night before when that happens. So anyways, when the sound was sorted, the band really gained altitude. Most of the crowd seemed to get what they came for but their second encore didn't include Transmaniacon MC like the web reports suggested. No we got bloody Cold Turkey didn't we. That encore also included a swaggering Waitin' For My Man (a really cracking version) and a blood curdling You're Gonna Miss Me so like that big, stout feller Meatloaf might say, Two outta three and all that.... So yeah, it was all over very fast. Didn't get to say hi to the band or to John Needham. As it was, we only got to hang with Jeroen for maybe an hour and virtually a handshake with Steve. Guess that AGM will have to wait?
Stayed in Chiswick though, what a contrast to the centre of town dump. Our hosts, David and Penny did us proud and made it seem like we weren't in London at all. Even saw the guy who used to let The Small Faces rehearse in his basement ferchrissakes.
T'woulda been nice if Birdman had made a stop in Scotland as was originally intended. A rousing Aye Hup woulda cleared the tubes alright. The kids who were supposed to start this new race thing are a tardy bunch. Took 'em a full quarter century to get their tails in gear but let's salute the rock'n'roll soldiers anyway. Don't make me drag up those stories about the punk rock Wars again...

Straight off the plane from London, and even tho' I'm gonna leave the honours of a full review of the Birdman show to our chief Lindsay, let me just state that I've witnessed one of the finest guitar tag-teams ever!, and hearin' songs like 'I-94' and 'Dark Suprises' in a live settin' caused a serious amount o' goosebumps. If you can't wait, there's pretty acurate reiview here.

Sad news about The Man in Black. Johnny Cash left the theatre aged 71 today. Will provide links to good obits as we find 'em...

Sleep, work, sleep and then it's off to London for the Radio Birdman show, so excuse me if I don't sign in again before monday.

You'd think that Steve 'd forward any Fleshtones tour dates here, but noooo. Hey, I just noticed that the guys will be on a short west-coast trip early next month; 02 October :20.00 hrs Casbah, San Diego, CA (with Holly Golightly). 03 October :20.00 hrs Spaceland, Los Angeles, CA (with Holly Golightly). 04 October :20.00 hrs Parside lounge, San Francisco, CA (Budget Rock Garage Festival). And 05 October :20.00 hrs Parside lounge, San Francisco, CA (Budget Rock Garage Festival). Be there or be Steve.

LINK: Details on the launch party for 'It Makes You Want To Spit', a book that celebrates the 25th anniversary of punk in Northern Ireland. GO!.

LINK: Updated; The I-94 BaR.
"Sydney fuzzmeisters Sheek the Shayk are the featured act in this issue of the I-94 Bar e-zine. We speak to the Sheek himself and throw open a dead easy contest top win one of two Sheek the Shayk music packs.
The Radio Birdman machine continues to roll through Europe, laying waste to anything in its way, and our Eurostrike Zone now carries nine reviews of shows so far. There's also a pen picture of Birdman drummer Ron Keeley.
We have a live review of Sydney bent blues duo The Mess Hall, along with City Lights and The Tremors. Also up are our recent reviews of the Persian Rugs and Lou Reed's first 2003 Australian tour show (with a reminder that the final gigs for Lou in Sydney and Newcastle are on sale still.)
Disc reviews - we run the rule over releases form the Exploding Fuck Dolls, Rebecca's Empire, the Mess Hall, Simon Chainsaw & the Forgotten Boys, the Meek and the Persian Rugs.
In columns, Jeff Jarema points an ear in the diverse direction of the Count Five, Slade and the Grateful Dead while the Barman raises a glass to the Stooges and their reunion".
The I-94 Bar: Sydney Rock Action via The Bowery and Motor City. GO!.

LINK: "Welcome the the Happy Family website: We’re not really a family and we’re not totally happy but this is still the (kind of) official website of the Parisian Blood Brotherhood of the Rock & Roll Cosa Nostra". (a new site by the ever elusive Laurant Bigot).

LINK: Cool and very comprehensive site on The Gun Club and Jeffrey Lee Pierce. GO!.

Just caught my first blast of The Fondas' Coming Now on Sympathy and it's a wee belter. And what taste with covers of Mose Allison and Don Covay songs in the stew. I'm not sure how new this is but it's right up the ol' NBT street.