{"id":28238,"date":"2026-04-01T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/?p=28238"},"modified":"2026-03-31T14:49:35","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T13:49:35","slug":"fancy-weapon-release-the-squid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/?p=28238","title":{"rendered":"Fancy Weapon release the &#8216;Squid&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Poison City&nbsp;<\/strong>is thrilled to introduce you to<strong>&nbsp;Fancy Weapon<\/strong>, a new Melbourne-based group featuring musicians that have all spent decades in the rock n roll game &amp; continue to leave indelible marks across the underground music landscape.<strong>&nbsp;Fancy Weapon&nbsp;<\/strong>are&nbsp;<strong>Mick Turner, Claire Birchall, Joel Silbersher and Guy Maddison.&nbsp;<\/strong>Their first single&nbsp;<strong>\u2019Squid\u2019<\/strong>, with a lead vocal&nbsp;by&nbsp;<strong>Claire<\/strong>, who also produced the single&#8217;s video, is out today in the digital world with the debut album set for<strong>&nbsp;JUNE 19th.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>&nbsp;Fancy Weapon<\/strong>\u2019s debut album will be available on limited edition&nbsp;<strong>\u2018Deep Sea Blue\u2019&nbsp;<\/strong>colour vinyl (first 100 copies signed by the band!), CD and all digital stores world-wide.Preorders available now via<strong>&nbsp;Poison City E-Store&nbsp;<\/strong>and<strong>&nbsp;Bandcamp.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/facebook.us4.list-manage.com\/track\/click?u=7468cc72c4dbd0d828cf87a0a&amp;id=e322bbb79a&amp;e=348f99dea7\">PRE-ORDERS for the Fancy Weapon LP\/CD available from Poison City: https:\/\/poisoncityestore.com\/ and Bandcamp: https:\/\/poisoncityrecords.bandcamp.com<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"FANCY WEAPON - Squid (Official Music Video)\" width=\"1140\" height=\"641\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/hCP7lrB0aww?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>And ahead of the album&#8217;s release Melbourne audiences will have two opportunities to catch\u00a0<strong>Fancy<\/strong>\u00a0<strong>Weapon<\/strong>\u00a0live:<br><strong>Friday May 1st\u00a0<\/strong>at the\u00a0<strong>Thornbury Bowlo<\/strong>, with\u00a0<strong>Savak\u00a0<\/strong>(from Brooklyn)<br><strong>Saturday May 30th<\/strong>\u00a0at\u00a0<strong>The Corner<\/strong>, with\u00a0<strong>Tortoise<\/strong>\u00a0(from Chicago).\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Fancy Weapon<\/strong>.&nbsp;An unlikely band name and a most unlikely band. With a line up as unexpected as a ball of lightning, the band sees a cross-generational bunch of Melbourne music perennials &#8211;&nbsp;<strong>Mick Turner, Joel Silbersher<\/strong>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<strong>Claire Birchall<\/strong>&nbsp;&#8211; joined by recent transplant<strong>&nbsp;Guy Maddison<\/strong>, to make&nbsp;a singular brand of minimalist, incandescent guitar-heavy rock music in the manner that other singular, minimalist, incandescent guitar-heavy rock bands have been making for 50 years or so. &nbsp;<br><br>The &#8220;Melbourne music perennials&#8221; thing is key here, even if Guy is a latecomer to the local scene.&nbsp;In a city of dedicated musicians, the&nbsp;<strong>Fancy Weapon&nbsp;<\/strong>people are&nbsp;<em>dedicated<\/em>. They&#8217;re not kids, but they all still play in multiple bands. They all have&nbsp;<em>always&nbsp;<\/em>played in multiple bands. Music oozes from the pores of all four. Indeed, it pours from the ooze of&nbsp;<strong>Fancy Weapon<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/mail-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"577\" src=\"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/mail-1-1024x577.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-28239\" srcset=\"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/mail-1-1024x577.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/mail-1-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/mail-1-768x433.jpg 768w, https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/mail-1-1140x642.jpg 1140w, https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/mail-1.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<p><strong><u>Guy Maddison<\/u><\/strong>came out of the 80&#8217;s Perth Punk Rock scene in the band&nbsp;<strong>Greenhouse Effect<\/strong>. Relocating with the Effect to Sydney, he soon started throwing musical mudpies around with&nbsp;<strong>Lubricated Goat<\/strong>, whose&nbsp;<strong>&#8220;In The Raw&#8221; ABC TV<\/strong>&nbsp;escapades and a contract with Minneapolis based&nbsp;<strong>Amphetamine Reptile<\/strong>&nbsp;Records saw them touring the US in the late 80&#8217;s. In 1992 Maddison relocated, with Sydney based band&nbsp;<strong>Monroe&#8217;s Fur<\/strong>, to Seattle, where he joined the Seattle based incarnation of Adelaide band&nbsp;<strong>Bloodloss<\/strong>, working again alongside longtime collaborator&nbsp;<strong>Martin Bland<\/strong>&nbsp;(the two are still active in<strong>&nbsp;La Paire D&#8217;Or<\/strong>) and&nbsp;<strong>Mark Arm<\/strong>. Recordings on&nbsp;<strong>In The Red<\/strong>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<strong>Reprise<\/strong><strong>Records<\/strong>&nbsp;ensued. Guy joined&nbsp;<strong>Mudhoney<\/strong>&nbsp;in 2001, replacing original bassist&nbsp;<strong>Matt Lukin<\/strong>, and remains the 4-stringer for Seattle&#8217;s finest to this day. Returning to Australia in the post pandemic malaise of 2022, he hooked up with old friend&nbsp;<strong>MIck Turner<\/strong>, who invited him to join in on what would soon become&nbsp;<strong>Fancy Weapon<\/strong>.&nbsp; &nbsp;<br><br><strong><u>Claire Birchall<\/u><\/strong>&nbsp;has been making music for the last 30-odd years and is prolific as hell too. Coming out of the Geelong scene in the &#8217;90s, Claire avoided Geetroit expectations and made her mark as a somewhat experimental DIY solo artist before leading bands including&nbsp;<strong>Paper Planes&nbsp;<\/strong>and the&nbsp;<strong>Phantom Hitchhikers<\/strong>&nbsp;in Melbourne.&nbsp; In more recent years she has charted another new course as a solo synth-pop artist (on Melbourne\u2019s&nbsp;<strong>It Records<\/strong>) while at the same time constantly collaborating. Concurrent with&nbsp;<strong>Fancy Weapon<\/strong>, Claire is a mainstay of&nbsp;<strong>Kim Salmon&#8217;s Smoked Salmon<\/strong>&nbsp;project. Her most recent solo album is 2024&#8217;s&nbsp;<strong><em>The Haunting<\/em><\/strong>. Usually playing guitar or keyboards as well as singing, Claire came into&nbsp;<strong>Fancy Weapon<\/strong>&nbsp;as the drummer and co-wrote and sung a handful of songs on this first album. She&#8217;ll be doing more of that on the next one.<br><br><strong><u>Joel Silbersher<\/u><\/strong>, at the age of 15 in 1986, wrote and sung a song&nbsp;called&nbsp;<strong>&#8220;My Pal&#8221;<\/strong>, which he&#8217;s been trying to avoid ever since. A huge influence on the whole Melbourne\/Geelong scene that followed &#8211;&nbsp;<strong>Magic Dirt<\/strong>,&nbsp;<strong>Spiderbait<\/strong>, through to&nbsp;<strong>the Drones<\/strong>&nbsp;et al &#8211; Joel and his fellow botherers in&nbsp;<strong>GOD<\/strong>&nbsp;were too troublesome to cash in their indie chart-topping chips for Triple J success in the &#8217;90s. But Joel&#8217;s next group&nbsp;<strong>Hoss<\/strong>&nbsp;did become standard bearers of a certain type of Melbourne rock in the 90s, before expanding their horizons to create music that has is closely connected to what Joel is doing with&nbsp;<strong>Fancy Weapon<\/strong>. Having made a number of solo records (including one, in 2002, for&nbsp;<strong>Mick Turner&#8217;s King Crab<\/strong>&nbsp;label), Joel has also worked with&nbsp;<strong>The Sunset Strip<\/strong>,&nbsp;<strong>Charlie Owens<\/strong>&nbsp;(in the duo&nbsp;<strong>Tendrils<\/strong>), played occasional bass for the&nbsp;<strong>Dirty Three<\/strong>,&nbsp;<strong>Tex Perkins<\/strong>&nbsp;and the&nbsp;<strong>Simon Juliff Band<\/strong>, and has been sitting on a &#8216;new&#8217;&nbsp;<strong>Hoss<\/strong>&nbsp;album for at least ten years while he finishes the lyrics. Joel\u2019s long-held desire to form a band with&nbsp;<strong>Mick Turner<\/strong>&nbsp;has significantly shaped the band that&nbsp;<strong>Fancy Weapon<\/strong>&nbsp;has become.<br><br>And finally there&#8217;s&nbsp;<strong><u>Mick Turner<\/u><\/strong>&nbsp;himself. Seen now as something of a musical citizen of the world with the internationally revered&nbsp;<strong>Dirty Three<\/strong>, Mick is primarily a Melbourne musician, and has been since he deafened punk audiences with the&nbsp;<strong>Sick Things&nbsp;<\/strong>at the beginning of the &#8217;80s. Admittedly he did spend time in the UK in the \u201880s with the<strong>&nbsp;Moodists<\/strong>&nbsp;(alongside&nbsp;<strong>Dave Graney<\/strong>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<strong>Clare Moore<\/strong>) but his iconoclastic and noisy outfits&nbsp;<strong>Fungus Brains<\/strong>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<strong>Venom P Stinger<\/strong>&nbsp;both had&nbsp;strong local roots, and existed before Mick seemingly became the milder post-rock musician we hear in&nbsp;<strong>Dirty Three&nbsp;<\/strong>(and more recently&nbsp;<strong>Mess Esque<\/strong>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<strong>Bleak Squad<\/strong>). While&nbsp;<strong>Fancy Weapon&nbsp;<\/strong>don&#8217;t reach&nbsp;<strong>Sick Things&nbsp;<\/strong>levels of volume, distortion or belligerence, the band does show that Mick is still happy to sometimes help whip up some sonic disturbance with a clobbering rhythm section for support.&nbsp;&nbsp;<br><br>First playing out in early 2025,&nbsp;<strong>Fancy Weapon<\/strong>&nbsp;have a number of well-received local shows with the likes of&nbsp;<strong>The Double<\/strong>,&nbsp;<strong>The Beasts<\/strong>,&nbsp;<strong>Penny Ikinger<\/strong>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<strong>Toody Cole of Dead Moon&nbsp;<\/strong>behind them, and now, with their first album finished and ready for release, they are set to take on the world.<br><br><strong>&nbsp;Fancy Weapon<\/strong>\u2019s self-titled first album was recorded in a single session at&nbsp;<strong>Finn Keane\u2019s Head Gap<\/strong>&nbsp;studios in Preston in late 2024, about a week before the studio burned to the ground after a neighbouring&nbsp;business was criminally&nbsp;torched. Further mixing sessions were completed at another venue under the name Head Gap. The album was engineered by&nbsp;<strong>Finn Keane<\/strong>&nbsp;and produced by<strong>&nbsp;Finn<\/strong>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<strong>Fancy Weapon<\/strong>.<br><br>The album&nbsp;reflects a self-assured and creative outfit bursting at the seams with ideas.&nbsp;<strong>Joel and Claire share lead vocals<\/strong>&nbsp;&#8211; Joel on more than half the songs, Claire on three of them, and they share a duet. The vocal melodies are ragged but beautiful as are their occasional harmonies.&nbsp;<strong>Joel and Mick share the guitars<\/strong>, and, as a cursory listen reveals, it is very much a guitar record. They are two very distinctive players, and their singular styles mesh spectacularly.&nbsp;<strong>Guy on bass and Claire on drums&nbsp;<\/strong>lay solid, powerful and always gripping and striking foundations. It all gets back to that minimalist, incandescent guitar-heavy rock music that we mentioned earlier, and&nbsp;<strong>Fancy Weapon<\/strong>&nbsp;do it so well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Contact Fancy Weapon &#8211;<\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"mailto:fancyweaponmusic@gmail.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">fancyweaponmusic@gmail.com<\/a> \/\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/facebook.us4.list-manage.com\/track\/click?u=7468cc72c4dbd0d828cf87a0a&amp;id=9ff4e5d1e4&amp;e=348f99dea7\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">www.facebook.com\/fancyweapon \/ www.instagram.com\/fancyweapon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Poison City&nbsp;is thrilled to introduce you to&nbsp;Fancy Weapon, a new Melbourne-based group featuring musicians that have all spent decades in the rock n roll game &amp; continue to leave indelible marks across the underground music landscape.&nbsp;Fancy Weapon&nbsp;are&nbsp;Mick Turner, Claire Birchall, Joel Silbersher and Guy Maddison.&nbsp;Their first single&nbsp;\u2019Squid\u2019, with a lead vocal&nbsp;by&nbsp;Claire, who also produced the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28239,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9065],"class_list":["post-28238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-fancy-weapon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28238"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28240,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28238\/revisions\/28240"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/28239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}