HARD-ONS: THE MOST AUSTRALIAN BAND EVER! FEATURE-LENGTH DOCUMENTARY

HARD-ONS: THE MOST AUSTRALIAN BAND EVER! FEATURE-LENGTH DOCUMENTARY

HARD-ONS: THE MOST AUSTRALIAN BAND EVER! FEATURE-LENGTH DOCUMENTARY NOW IN PRODUCTION AND ACCEPTING TAX-DEDUCTABLE DONATIONS.

DONATE NOW VIA DOCUMENTARY AUSTRALIA FOUNDATION AND FORCE THE ATO AND THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TO SUPPORT AUSTRALIA’S MOST INFLUENTIAL PUNK BAND OF THE ‘80’S AND BEYOND!

 

“I fucken love the Hard-Ons!”  – Eamon (The Chats)
“(The Hard-Ons) opened my eyes to a whole new world!” – Ian Haug (Powderfinger)
“They absolutely changed everything for me!” – Adalita (Magic Dirt)

 

 

Living Eyes films is pleased to announce that its forthcoming production Hard-Ons: The Most Australian Band Ever!, has been accepted by Documentary Australia Foundation for its fiscal support program, which provides filmmakers a portal through which they can solicit donations, at all stages of documentary development, production, post-production, outreach and impact campaigns. Fans are encouraged to visit the film’s page on DAF’s website; and while there no rewards for contributors (except a thanks in credits), all contributions are tax-deductible. The announcement follows Screen Australia’s decision to give the film seed funding.

 

“Hard-Ons are trailblazers!” – Jello Biafra (Dead Kennedys)

One of Australia’s most loved and influential bands from the mid-‘80s through to now, the Hard-Ons came out of the multi-cultural South-West Sydney suburb Punchbowl and quickly won a large following nationally with their irreverent attitude and catchy, noisy high energy sound. Appearing on the Radio Birdman-influenced Sydney scene of the early ‘80s and preceding the punk-pop boom of the ‘90s, the Hard-Ons were a musical bridge and became a punk and alternative music sensation, blowing open doors by incorporating disparate elements – like a range of metal styles, from glam to thrash – which were previously unheard in Australian punk.  All the while they were forced to push through other barriers; barriers that appeared because of their mixed ethnicity – Ray was born in Korea to Korean parents and Keish was born in Sri Lanka to Sri Lankan parents, while Peter Black was born here of Croatian parents – and their willfully transgressive and irreverent nature, which was typified by their name, and by Ray’s outrageous artwork.

“Hard-Ons are the nicest guys!” – Dave Grohl (Nirvana/Foo Fighters)

In their prime, the Hard-Ons shared bills with the likes of the Ramones and Nirvana and appeared on numerous Big Days Out. They scored a never-bettered 17 consecutive number 1s on the Australian independent charts and in 1989 were the only Australian band still based in Australia to hit the top 5 in the NME charts (the only Australian artist to have achieved that – Nick Cave and the Go-Betweens – had both been UK-based).  Still an ongoing proposition, despite break-ups and the formation of other bands (Ray & Blackie’s other ongoing band Nunchukka Superfly) and, in Blackie’s case, a solo career, the Hard-Ons undertook their 19th European tour in 2018, when they played the massive metal festival Hellfest, alongside Judas Priest, Iron Maiden and Joan Jett. Soon to celebrate 40 years together (yes they started very young), they are currently recording their 13th album.

“I love the Hard-Ons! It was an honour to tour with them!” – Flea (Red Hot Chili Peppers)

Hard-Ons: The Most Australian Band Ever! is being made with the group’s participation. Hard-Ons bassplayer and spokesperson Ray Ahn says: “The Hard-Ons are extremely pleased to be having a documentary made about us, by professionals that know our band musically, spiritually and ideologically, very well. We are honoured and flattered. We look forward to the finished film in great anticipation. We want our story told.”

Living Eyes principal and the film’s director Jonathan Sequeira adds:  “We’re thrilled to be making this film about one of the most important bands in Australia, and a terrific bunch of people. Hard-Ons are a band that everyone in Australia should know about and be proud of. It’s great to get some initial Screen Australia seed funding, but it’s not easy or cheap making movies and we need your support. DAF is a great organisation, and all contributions are tax-deductible plus you get your name on the big screen!”

Director and producer Sequeira’s first film – and Living Eyes’ first film – was the internationally acclaimed documentary Descent In The Maelstrom: The Radio Birdman Story, about the iconic punk-era Sydney band. He directed and co-produced another internationally acclaimed feature Waiting: The Van Duren Story (about the long-lost Memphis power popper) with producer Wade Jackson, and now the two have teamed up again, together with an additional co-producer Nalini Sequeira, as Living Eyes returns to Aussie punk and alternative music with Hard-Ons: The Most Australian Band Ever!

Over the years, the Hard-Ons have won the vocal support of artists like Dave Grohl, Henry Rollins and Jello Biafra. They’ve influenced subsequent generations of punk bands – from the Meanies to Frenzal Rhomb to Private Function – as well as a wide ranging groundswell of Australian alternative artists – from Spiderbait to You Am I to Silverchair to Regurgitator to Magic Dirt to Powderfinger to the Dirty Three to the Chats – each of whom has been inspired by the Hard-Ons’ energy, free spirit, and uncompromising dedication.

“Iconic. Totemic… The Hard-Ons are everything.” – Tim Rogers (You Am I)
“Hard-Ons were and still are amazing” – Warren Ellis (Dirty Three/Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds)
“(They) should be in the ARIA Hall of Fame!” – Dave Faulkner (Hoodoo Gurus)

Hard-Ons: the Most Australian Band Ever! | Documentary Australia Foundation

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Hard-Ons:  The Most Australian Band Ever! is expected to be released in 2022.

The Limit – ‘Caveman Logic’ (Svart Records)

The Limit – ‘Caveman Logic’ (Svart Records)

In more sane times perhaps the world at large wouldn’t be sat at home losing their shit on social media about which no hope celebrity it is singing autotuned bollocks whilst dressed up as some comic creature. No, maybe, just maybe they’d all be sat at home losing their shit over the fact that legendary punk rocker Sonny Vincent and doom metal pioneer Bobby Liebling have somehow managed to record perhaps one of the best albums of their careers in ‘Caveman Logic’, the soon to be released debut album from their supergroup The Limit.

 

Also along for the thrill in this perhaps most unlikely of unions are guitarist Hugo Conim and drummer João Pedro Ventura from Portuguese band Dawnrider plus on bass Jimmy Recca once of the Stooges and Ron Asheton’s New Order, and together, boy oh boy do these guys kick up one hell of a glorious racket.

 

Opening track ‘Over Rover’ perfectly sets the scene for what’s on offer here, somehow seamlessly blending doom laden Sabbath-y guitars with Liebling spitting out a soulful variation on his distinctive vocal style and in turn sounding not a million miles away from the singer’s singer, Scott Morgan. It’s exciting stuff that’s for sure, the band sounding very much like it’s on a mission to prove that great rock music really should have no boundaries, or in fact genres, and in ‘Black Sea’ the lead single from the record, they somehow also manage to add to a tinge of gothic attitude to the type of amazing music that should have made the likes of Radio Birdman (other great garage punk bands are available) superstars a hundred times over.

 

‘These Days’ and ‘Human Vs Nature’ continue with the frantic in your face born in a garage style that The Limit quickly adopts as their own before ‘Fleeting Thoughts’ slows things down to let Vincent shine on a guitar chug that Steve ‘Guitar Hero’ Jones would have been proud to have penned.

 

Elsewhere the album’s title track sees The Limit pushing the button marked Stooges on the control desk, whilst ‘Sir Lancelot’ sees Liebling deliver yet another fantastic soul charged vocal that wouldn’t seem out of place amongst The Hydromatics or The Sonics back catalogues.

 

At one minute thirty five seconds in length ‘Life’s Last Night’ is perhaps the band’s defining musical statement, a total middle finger to convention, and a joyous celebration of everything great about this band. Likewise ‘When Life Gets Scorched’ and ‘Kitty’s Gone’ are tunes set to take the eyebrows off anyone who might be sitting too close to their speakers at the time, and it’s only during the more pensive ‘Death Of My Soul’ and the swaggering album closer ‘Enough’s Enough’ where you finally get a chance to draw breath and reflect on what has gone before.

 

Album-wise 2021 has certainly got off to a fantastic start and with the thirty six minutes of music The Limit are about to gift us all with ‘Caveman Logic’ it’s definitely reached one of its most interesting and surprising points yet.  Make a date in your diary for 9th of April 2021, get your copy of ‘Caveman Logic’ via the links below, then on the date in question pour yourself a well-deserved libation, drop this bad boy on the stereo, and then prepare to fall in love with great rock ‘n’ roll music all over again.  Essential!!!!

Buy ‘Caveman Logic’ Here

Svart / Facebook

Author: Johnny Hayward

 

NOFX – ‘Single Album’ (Fat Wreck Chords)

NOFX – ‘Single Album’ (Fat Wreck Chords)

Nearly 40 years in, NOFX are still making records and surprising people with the quality of the music.  Behind all the goofin’ around and the white noise that goes on off stage and behind the scenes Fat Mike and his band after all said and done are a bloody good band with a shit load of great tunes. what else is there to say about NOFX? I’ll tell you what else there is to say and that is ‘Single Album’ is right up there with their best work and that’s no mean feat considering they’re fourteen albums in and during a pandemic ‘n’ all they should be able to do this in their sleep right? Right!.

 

There’s the six-minute post-hardcore opener (‘The Big Drag’).  To be fair a lot of the so-Cal scene bands tend to stick with the tried and tested and every couple of years regurgitate their last album which did the same for the previous one but lately, NOFX and Fat Mike, in particular, have really pushed the envelope and with the mightily impressive Cokie The Clown and the split they did with Frank turner and throw into the mix that this was originally planned as a double album with the band having tracked twenty-three songs but for one reason or another it became a single album hence the title.  The first single (‘Linewleum’) is a tribute to all the bands who covered ‘Linoleum’ badly. They knock out the reggae-inflected song about a mass shooting (‘Fish in a Gun Barrel’). there’s even time for a piano ballad (‘Your Last Resort’).

To be honest, I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with the band and gone through fazes where I’ve loved an album and then not played it for years then loved it again but lately, I’ve really enjoyed the albums and Cokie was fantastic, hell, they even made me listen to some Frank Turner I wouldn’t have gone near. From the heaving opener, this is NOFX at the top of their game.

 

‘Fish In A Barrel’ is a blinding song and I love the sax solo it reminds me of Jaya The Cat.  To be fair NOFX has written some great songs here and there is plenty of variety hell there’s even a piano ballad for fucks sake! did I mention that already?  ‘Doors And Fours’ is a big heaving metallic riff behind a bluesy guitar intro and a throbbing bass line.  Mike says that he got the idea from a Fatty Arbuckle Autobiography which isn’t as off the wall as it might seem hell, the guy likes to drink and do drugs so why not?  Drugs are still a great source of inspiration in the process of songwriting and besides it was a big drug in the 80s’ – Dark shit.  A theme that crops up throughout the album as ‘Birmingham’ was delivered whilst under the influence it would seem but if it helps deliver records as good as this one then so be it who am I to object?

 

Probably the oddest song on the record lyrically is ‘My Bro Cancervive Cancer’ which is a true story Fat Mike describes it as the least important song on the record but it’s a snappy piece of punk rock that NOFX can do in their sleep but boy they do it so well.  Pretty much the MO for the whole record and damn I wish it had been a twenty-three-track monster like it was originally intended I want to hear it all because NOFX have hit one hell of a rich vein of form hear ‘The Fake a Wish Foundation’ track. but that can wait for another day because I’m going to live in the now and enjoy the hell out of ‘Single Album’ first because it’s one hell of an album one you should at least give your undivided attention to.

 

Buy ‘Single Album’ Here

Author: Dom Daley

 

 

 

Rainy Days & Mondays

Rainy Days & Mondays

Greetings friends of twin-guitar, party rock n’ roll, Mick Ronson riffs, hooks and lyrics that’ll stick in your head long after you have hit the repeat button half a dozen times, visions of CREEM Magazine, torn jeans, rock n’ roll radio dials long before the term “classic” was put in front of it, sitting and waiting by your stereo cassette recorder with your finger firmly holding the record and pause buttons awaiting to record that brand new song you been waiting all hour for the station to premiere, have we got something for you!! New York City’s The Nuclears have returned with a brand new single “Siamese Connection” off their upcoming brand new full length “Seasides” due out this Spring. We are double shot psyched and ready to crank this one up as we drop the single on you today, go ahead, hit that play button…

Next is an epic performance from Killer Kin check this out!

HRH Ivor Beynon Lord of Steel – ‘Those Who Offend Beware’ (Self Released)

HRH Ivor Beynon Lord of Steel – ‘Those Who Offend Beware’ (Self Released)

You may have seen the BBC recently reporting on legendary rock originating from Wales. No, not that programme about Stonehenge; I’m referring to Tudur’s TV Flashback, the show where comedian Tudur Owen looks back through the BBC Wales archive in search of long-lost televisual gold. A recent half-hour spectacular devoted several wonderful minutes to a name not heard in a long time… Ivor Beynon, Lord of Steel.

 

For those not familiar with the name (have a long, hard look at yourselves, seriously) Ivor Beynon was the nearest Wales got to a superhero after SuperTed’s skirmishes with Texas Pete. Armed with just a CD player, DIY music releases (the best coming complete with a free Ivor mask), and a wizard stage prop, Ivor Beynon quickly strode from oft-kilter heavy metal curio to bona fide Welsh television star. The Biz, a partnership between BBC Wales and the Welsh Development Agency, found Ivor as one of six finalists on a televised quest for success, before an appearance on The X-Factor saw even Sharon Osbourne raise an eyebrow (the Lord of Steel could have saved her a fortune in plastic surgery bills). Also, I once gave the actor who played Mr. Muscle in the television commercials an Ivor Beynon album and he was thrilled. It seems apt, then, that the rebirth of this Welsh legend should come, at least partly, by way of a television show. But reborn it appears the Lord of Steel is.

 

‘Those Who Offend Beware’ is an epic comeback: a 32-track, double-disc album that is part reboot, part sequel; like that 2011 version of The Thing… but without the dodgy CGI. Split into two distinct halves, ‘Those Who Offend Beware’ will, from the first vocal spat out of the Lord of Steel’s warpaint-smeared mouth, caress the auditory canals like a long-lost friend. Fear not, though, those unfamiliar with the Ivor legend for the first half of the album is a rollicking history lesson.

 

That first half – ‘Born in Ebbw Vale (The Story of Ivor Beynon)’ – is a sprawling 17-track fever dream of a life story that revolves around a masterful reworking of Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Born in the USA’. With screaming metal mayhem (“we’re a runaway heavy metal freight train; we’ll give you a frigging heart attack!”) riding shoulder to shoulder with more thought-provoking hard rock (take my hand, together we’ll fly; not even death can stop us, we’re gonna carry on…”), this is a history lesson like no other, with Ivor’s inimitable vocals like siren song to those semi-retired members of Team Steel; their sleeveless shirts and copycat make-up kits itching to get dusted down and reintroduced to an unsuspecting new decade. Those who never fell under the Lord of Steel’s spell first time around –and, remarkably, there were a few – will find this heaving half o’ heaviness a crash course in all things Ivor and fall now they will. Spattered with a dash of timeless cover versions and audio from Ivor’s X-Factor audition amongst the rocking original tracks, ‘Born in Ebbw Vale’ is a real-life rock opera, closed out by the iconic theme tune par excellence, ‘Lord of Steel’. “You want rock? I rock.”

 

How could a local legend who even had his own comic strip in a local newspaper possibly follow that? By recreating those legendary Ivor Beynon live shows from the Noughties that saw gig goers openly weep such was the aural pleasure on offer, that’s how. From ‘Bark at the Moon’ to ‘Turbo Lover’, ‘We’re Not Gonna Take It’ to ‘Tainted Love’, ‘Ivor Party 2021’ is more than just the second half of a typically ambitious project from the Lord of Steel – it will quite possibly be the most entertaining thing that anyone will hear all year.

 

Wrapped in suitably grandiose artwork by Adam Llewellyn (the artist behind Valleys animated series, ‘The Vale’), with a fold-out inner sleeve capturing Ivor with all manner of miscreants from his chequered musical past – from Ben Shephard to Bob Catley to the Butcher of Bethcar Street – ‘Those Who Offend Beware’ might just be your first essential purchase of 2021.

 

“We’ve been apart, but this is our time,” Ivor wails on ‘Friendship Songs’ and, be honest, we could all do with a friend, a superhero, in these troubled times. Now we just have to find a phone box for him to get changed in…

 

Bandcamp

Author: Gaz Tidey