A punk guitar album? Well, in its purest form that is what The Good * The Bad * The Ugly is and why it is such an outstanding disc. Each track here is constructed around Vincent’s expert ability to craft old-school punk hooks – the ones that made his original band the Testors such a […]

In 1984 The Scientists exchanged a promising future as Australian ?pub rock? icons for relative obscurity in Britain, all on the strength of one glowing review of their Mini LP ?Blood Red River? from NME?s Barney Hoskins.

This is a brief outline of Sonny Vincent’s history, to some it may read like the perfect script for a movie about a Rock’n’Roll desperado on his way to becoming an icon. But this story is not from any movie folks or about any media hype, it’s about the real thing? A real rock’n’roll hero […]

by Tom Schulte Often very much akin to the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, especially in the vocal delivery, this group takes a more deconstructivist view toward their alt-soul material. That is, they go in for a less full sound with a more skeletal arrangement that allows space between one accentuating burst and another. Uptight is […]

It’s no wonder The Blackout sounds familiar. Not only does Speedball Baby revel in the basic elements of rockabilly and blues-punk much like Jon Spencer Blues Explosion does, but two Jon Spencer Blues Explosion members play on this album. Jon Spencer and Judah Bauer are credited for having written the best songs, too: “Wanna Scratch […]

Tav Falco first felt the twinges of musical inspiration growing up in rural Arkansas, where he was drawn to the rustic blues and jazz forms that abounded in the Mississippi Delta area. While working as a brakeman on the Missouri Pacific railroad, Falco would hop rides into Memphis- where ?music was just in the air,? […]

?ikica Simi? Razne subkulturalne skupine su plesale “horizontalni mambo” sa bluzom. Orgije su se uvek, kao ?to dolikuje, zavr?avale orgazmi?kim trijumfom. Pegavi, rahiti?ni engleski de?aci, gladni svega u posleratnoj bedi, ?ezdestih godina pro?log veka su, igraju?i skaredni ples sa bluzom izmislili muziku koju volimo. Se?ate se Rolingstounsa, Enimalsa, Jardberdsa, sastava Krim. Sli?ne posledice imao je […]

Q: Listening to your album, Bukka White’s Memphis Hot Shoes” comes to mind. Does he have any influence on you? A: I like Bukka. He plays fast & jumpy. Bukka got teeth. Q: How did you come up with the idea of wearing a helmet? A: It just feels right. Try it.

Recently a scientist (a real one) asked me what the deal was with the Scientists early stuff. He liked everything post “Swampland” but wasn’t sure about the lyrics in all those early songs with titles like “That Girl”, “Girl” and “Pretty Girl”. My answer was that I didn’t write those lyrics. The songs were written […]

To look at the career of the Scientists is, in essence, to look at the career of Kim Salmon, one of the most vibrant musical talents to emerge from Australia in the 1970s. Not that he was the only one. Nick Cave, for example, may have made more of a splash outside of the country, […]