Collapsed Toilet Vietnam 2nd Show.

This weekend at Forepaw in Northcote!

(to be updated with some words soon)

Would you jump of a bridge if he said so?

So I met this guy at a metal karaoke night in Canberra maybe 5 or so years ago... maybe the most likely place to meet a dude with this tattoo in Australia I guess...

Flamin' Galah

I took this photo at Footscray train station a couple of years ago.

THE FUCKIN' KILL!

So this weekend sees one of the most anticipated grind shows in Melbourne's history with the return to the stage of The Kill. This return sees the band with new vocalist Nik, also of Super Fun Happy Slide.
It has been a few of years since I saw the unit of Jay (also of Fuck... I'm Dead, Identity Theft and Mid Youth Crisis, Open Wound etc.), Robbie (ex-Open Wound) and Neil (Undinism) play. Seeing this band with Neil as the vocalist was a terrifying experience, alway intense and often blood soaked. I have seen many a person flee a venue or vomit their dinner mid way through a set of The Kills blast ridden, riff-shredding, blood jetting performance.
After parting ways with Neil, Tony from Blood Duster gave vocal duties a bit of a whirl but that was a short lived line-up. The new line up is looking to be pretty killer Nik is a talented lad, though I think the blood-letting spectacle may be all in the past now so we will have to make do with the ultra-blasting and riff destruction of which no doubt there will be plenty.

There also looks to be a collection CD/LP coming out on No Escape/Torture Garden Picture Company and further releases to come.

The show line-up also features 3 more of Australia's best grind bands the legendary Captain Cleanoff, the raw styles of Roskopp and the young but terrifying bowel vocal extravaganza of Die Pigeon Die.

Here is a few of my old photos of The Kill with Neil in fine form:

Not to be missed!

Raw Duudes

Rahdunes: Aaron & Nate.

I spent some time today with Greg Wadley tweaking at the Rahdunes master for release on the Lung. I'm really digging this material. If you are a vinyl freak you should definitely check out the vinyl release of this Rahdunes stuff on Emperor Jones.

With any luck this will be ready to go by mid December, just have to finish tweaking the master and finalize the artwork.

Also this Monday sees the first flush of Collapsed Toilet Vietnam, featuring 4 of 6 Whitehorse members. Tapes will be available in the next few weeks. The debut show takes place at Pony with our schedule slot being 8:30 to 8:40. Here is some words about the show:
"To celebrate the release of the Absoluten Calfeutrail / Y35.3 split cassette on Max Kohane's Idget Child label, Pony is hosting a launch show featuring a substantial lineup of Melbourne's best. Opening the show is the debut performance of Collapsed Toilet Vietnam, a scum bucket quartet made up of Whitehorse members. Armyish follow with a rare performance from the trio of Marcus Griffin, Justin Fuller and Emile Zile. Antisocial rock trio Deep Where All Drown then offer a set of ugly art, followed by Embers with their relentless grindcore in the late ‘60s free jazz tradition. Rounding out the evening is Absoluten Calfeutrail (Mark Groves of Whitehorse/True Radical Miracle) making a terse racket, and Melbourne's finest power electronics exponents Y35.3." (see the flyer a couple of posts below)

More posts soon.

Party lifestyle choices.

Ok... So on my recent trip to the US my camera didn't come out as often as usual so there is not much totally awesome stuff going on here... but here is some photos I just dragged out.
This bummed me out as I almost always take my bird and snake to get burritos.

The Rahdude himself Aaron Coyes chillin with me and my mo.

Mayson and me long into the night sleeping on a piano in some big open space in the East Bay ... memories slightly hazy.

Bone Sheriff make an impromptu performance in Portland, OR opening for a Whitehorse show.

From what I understand this super dangerous fun thing in Philly has since been welded in place to stop people swinging themselves 3 stories in the air.

Pretty much the best karaoke night that ever did exist.

I believe this was during Sex Pistols "Anarchy in the UK"...

Sam made a bad food decision... (this was brunch for one).

Johnny my favorite bartender at Lucky 13 in Park Slope.

Javier hanging on Seldon's birthday at Lucky 13, when I get my shit together I will scan the photos of ME dancing on the bar and post them here...

Stefan my troubled friend... this is somewhere between annoying all our friends and moshing onto people we may or may not have known while they sat quietly on the couches upstairs at Tattooed Moms. Pretty much another awesome night.

After Chip and Lee kept telling me about their AK-47s this is about as close as I came...

Stefan and Justin chillin' after a mellow evening of Pink Razors and Drop Dead in a basement.

Me and the man Ryan chillin hard in Richmond.

The sign that made my day at the last day of Best Friends Day as I was about to start the long journey back to Melbourne... when I left the Drop Dead show the room had no roof left and the floor had sunk a whole bunch and DD couldn't play more than 3 seconds without the kit collapsing under a pile of people... total destruction.

Still Alive.

Well thing on the Blog have been pretty quite of recent times.. sorry about that I will attempt to get more active here. News on releases is slowly drifting in. Riververb stuff is in the works check out some sounds here. Myrtu recordings are in the pipeline as are Pig Heart Transplant works. I have also been discussing releases with Y35.3, Absoluten Calfeutrail and the mighty Rahdunes.

In other actions 731 is getting active interstate having just played shows in Adelaide and about to head to Sydney and Brisbane (fill in drummer Christoph of Roskopp in toe) with the great Schifosi. See dates and flyers below.





Collapsed Toilet Vietnam is a new project of free-punk-grind with formed by accident at Whitehorse rehearsals they will be playing their first show on the 5th of November at Pony (see flyer below) and have a tape release in the works.



Space Bong from Adelaide and Fattura Della Morte from Sydney are in Melbourne this week here is a flyer I put together for the shows. Attendance is recommended for Melbourne residents who like sludgy, heavy sounds and party atmospheres.

Sweat From The Lungs

Ok, so I am still in the USA post-Whitehorse tour which was a wild and crazy time. I have been meeting plenty of great people and seeing many a killer band.

So the great man that is Scott Slimm over at Archive CD now has stock of all the Sweat Lung releases as does Aquarius Records in San Francisco. You may also find copies of select releases via Misanthropic Agenda and Blossoming Noise.

Sweat Lung has a couple of releases in the early stages of planning check back for news over the next few months, with any luck the second half of the year will see releases by Pig Heart Transplant from Seattle and Riververb from San Diego and maybe even the Malakat CD!

Another couple of great things you should check out are Rahdunes who totally rule and 1/16th Headed which is the works of the lone sheriff Simon Taylor.

Aquarius Records threw up a review of Justice Yeldham "Cicatrix" this week and recently the Chris Smith Justin Fuller CD (see below) they also mistakenly labeled a review of the Blarke Bayer / Black Widow "Arctic Blast" CD as the Blarke Bayer / Bone Sheriff "Split" CD I recommend buying both. The Black Widow split was released by Heathen Skulls (McManus of Grey Daturas) and is a great release:

YELDHAM, JUSTICE (Sweatlung) cd
What initially sounds like a super distorted overblown recording ofHendrix playing his wild "Star Spangled Banner", or a super grinding fuzz drenched synth noise psych rock blow out, or some insane ultra processed Japanese psychedelic solo guitar freakout, is in fact, a 40 something man, covered in blood, holding a huge piece of contact mic'ed broken glass in his mouth. Huh?
Such is the musical world of Mr. Justice Yeldham. We weren't sure what to expect actually, conceptually we were definitely intrigued. A guy who records himself smashing his face against panes of glass, moaning and humming into the glass resulting in all sorts of bizarre alien sounds, and often ending up with the glass shattering and much blood being shed. He had us at glass and blood. The cd sleeve is even a patchwork of bloodied band-aids (euwww).
But when we finally got the disc, the sounds were just as amazing, maybe even more so than the process, which is definitely a rare occurrence. How many records have we gotten, where the story of the recording was way more fascinating that the resulting music? Way too many. The thing with this Yeldham disc, is it's actually quite listenable as well. Ostensibly a noise record, the sounds here are anything but run of the mill noise, they range from strange fuzzy drones, wailing streaks of coruscating feedback, crumbling synth like blasts (parts of this almost sound like samples from the Justice record!), grinding gnarled squalls of super distorted buzz and every strange fuzzy buzzy stop in between. And every once in a while you have to remind yourself that THIS IS A GUY WITH HIS FACE PRESSED UP AGAINST A PIECE OF GLASS! A piece of glass that just may shatter at any second. And the more feverish and frenzied the sounds become, the more strain is placed on the glass, and the more imminent shatter and bloodshed becomes. So weird, and so goddamn awesome.
Comes in a cool velour lined cd sleeve, adorned with images of band-aids and blood, inside a full color booklet with tons of photos of Yeldham performing live, amazing and intense, some weird, some strangely beautiful, some super disturbing, most of them really bloody!!

SMITH, CHRIS & JUSTIN FULLER (Sweat Lung) cd
We're huge fans of Australian guitarist Chris Smith, but until now had only ever been able to get a hold of the split 12" he shared with the Ivytree. There have been plenty of other releases, but the only proper stateside release has been out of print for ages. So finally, we managed to get a bunch of these, Smith and fellow countryman Justin Fuller's first full length collaboration, a full 7 years in the making, and it's quite nice.
Hard to discern exactly what the instrumentation is, there are most certainly guitars, and according to the liner notes there is also piano and accordion, but with records like this, it's not what you're playing, it's how you play them and what you do with the sounds once you've made them. These two wrangle the various sounds into long stretches of slow shifting ambience. Some tracks are delicate and dark, barely there shimmers of crumbling low end and distant glimmering high end, while others are massive walls of guitar, churning chaotically, but smoothed into warm thick whorls. The heavier tracks definitely remind us of Sunroof! or Vibracathedral Orchestra or even a less mangled Wolf Eyes or a way prettier SUNNO))). The prettier tracks have a bit of Tim Hecker going on, all blissy and fuzzy and beautifully blurred. The whole record is quite dreamy in fact, whether buzzing malevolently, or drifting languorously, a gorgeous chunk of blissed out guitardrone. The usual suspects will definitely need this...

Blarke Bayer / Bone Sheriff & Magnetics CDs now available.

This week sees the release of 2 new Sweat Lung titles:

Blarke Bayer / Bone Sheriff "split" CD

Blarke Bayer is the solo project of Ben Andrews who also plays guitar in Magnetics (see below), Agents Of Abhorrence and My Disco. This release finds him exploring a wall of drone subtle drifts and waves of noise.

Bone Sheriff is the drunken ramblings of Simon Taylor (Whitehorse / EOH / Malakat) and Rob Mayson (Grey Daturas / EOH / It's Is / Whitehorse etc). Fueled by a cocktail of ginger wine and sparkling ale BS shudder to life rattling bones and burning souls. An awesome follow up release to "Moonee Ponds" (Sabbatical)

Magnetics "We Are The Mountains, We Are The Fields" CD

Magnetics is the Melbourne duo of percussionist & vocalist Sarah Heyward (The Focus) and guitarist Ben Andrews (Blarke Bayer / Agents Of Abhorrence / My Disco). Layering guitars and percussion Magnetics drift from sparse soundscapes to melodic passages of melodic guitar and dreamy vocals. Jarrod Zlatic of Fabulous Diamonds makes a guest appearance wielding his sax on one of the tracks.

Both CDs are available post paid in Australia for $12 AUD for prices outside Australia or to find out who's stocking Sweat Lung titles near you please email getonthehorse[@]hotmail.com

Future releases from: Malakat (apparently by Xmas they tell me), Y35.3 and more.

Blarke Bayer / Bone Sheriff split CD launch

Check this out ... CD available on the night and then on from Sweat Lung, Missing Link and other awesome records stores. Also out soon Magnetics 'We Are The Mountains, We Are The Fields'.

Justice Yeldham "Cicatrix" CD

Fresh from the pressing plant I got the covers for the Justice Yeldham "Cicatrix" CD.

Cicatrix is the first full length outing from Justice Yeldham and is presented in four parts:

Part One: Studio - The first studio recordings of Lucas playing his pieces of glass.

Part Two: Digital Soundchecks - Recently recovered sound files from his one and only digital tour at the end of 2005, these tracks were recorded soundchecks that Lucas used to play back and eq.

Part Three: Live - Live recordings from Zurich, Sydney & Toronto.

Part Four: Video - The video that youtube rejected for inappropriate content filmed in Bologna, Italy.

These will be available to order in the next few days. Please email getonthehorse[@]hotmail.com (remove brackets) to order.

Also still available, Ian Wadley - three uneasy pieces, Chris Smith & Justin Fuller CD and Whitehorse - Live in Japan.

Coming Next: Magnetics - CD & Blarke Bayer / Bone Sheriff - split CD.

Label News.

Ok... here is a text heavy posting. It's been a while so I thought I would throw down a Sweat Lung Label update.

First of all Ian Wadley will be headed to the US for SXSW and a bundle of other shows, keep an eye out here for dates.

Both the Chris Smith Justin Fuller & Ian Wadley cds will be available soon at Aquarius Records in the US and are available now at Missing Link or email getonthehorse[@]hotmail.com to buy them direct.

The release scheduled as Sweat Lung 005 (Malakat) is traveling in the space plain of Simon & Edryan which Will at sometime in the future connect with the Sweat Lung time line but at this point visual confirmation has not been confirmed.

Next up on Sweat Lung will be the following release:
Sweat Lung 007: Justice Yeldham - CD
Bloody noise from the red spattered glass of Lucas Abela.

Sweat Lung 008: Magnetics - CD
Ben Andrews (Blarke Bayer / My Disco etc) & Sarah Heyward (The Focus) produce shimmering sounds from guitar & percussion with beautiful vocals. An amazing duo.

Sweat Lung 009: Blarke Bayer / Bone Sheriff - Split CD
Blarke Bayer is Ben Andrews exploring drone & harsh tones, with a previous 3" cd release on Numerical Thief BB on this outing finds himself accompanied but the primal alcohol fueled sonics of Bone Sheriff, Rob Mayson (Grey Daturas / EOH / Maggoted) & Simon Taylor (Whitehorse / Malakat).

All three of these release are not too distant from being completed, with any luck they will be available over the next couple of months.

More soon

SL /PH

731 - Are You Ready To Grind

Okay so a little self indulgence here. 731 is my new band, the music we play is on the punk end of the grind scale, you can check out a couple of tracks here. The band features current and ex-members of Odiusembowel, Sense Of Purpose, Terror Firma, Fallout and Whitehorse. The first four photos were taken by Duncan of awesome long running Melbourne death-grinders Shagnum on his phone camera. If you look carefully you can make out Extraordinary G, playing guitar and I Quit drumming away at the back.

It was a killer first show playing with Damage Digital (Japan), Agents Of Abhorrence, Dad They Broke Me and Aeroflot.

This picture show a clearer story and was taken by The Budge (who rules) when we played at the Greenroom (RIP) with Guantanamo Bay City Rollers, Dad They Broke Me and Pisschrist.

Limp Wristies

So, a good portion of my summer revolved around the Limp Wrist tour of Australia that with a bit of help from a bunch of friends and a amazing show of support from fans all over Australia was a ripping good time and more fun than you can poke a stick at.

I only have a couple of photos to put up.. so here goes.

DX "Distort" and Scott.

Martin ass up at the Manacle, Sydney.

Scott wrestling the guitar at the Manacle, Sydney.

3 'Sweet Melons' somewhere in northern New South Wales: Scott, Pete (me) and Paul.

'MEOW' Andrew gets catty at Maggotsville, Syndey.