Sydney, Australia
If you haven’t seen ALTONA live yet, I’m assuming you’ve spent the last few months haunting the Ticketek office asking when Shannon Noll is touring again – because you can’t be a fan of great live music in this fine city and not have come across these four noisy boys on a stage somewhere during the last year. They’ve been supporting Faker, Expatriate and most recently the Cants, among others, and also found time to leg it down to Melbourne for a few dates before selling out the Hopetoun Hotel for the launch of their Lonely Neck Tie EP.

They specialise in a tightly wound, schizophrenic brand of rock’n’roll noise that glares up at you from underneath an artless fringe, and you're not sure if it wants to pick you up or pick a fight. Triple J favourite of last year “Mexican Friends” is a driving, claustrophobic, bitter fist of a song; the stomping twirl of the guitar riff in “Alligator” calls to mind a meatier, sweatier Franz Ferdinand, with the crunch of the chorus balanced out by an injection of Jeremy’s sparse wail. This is a compact yet full-blooded rock sound, moody and often with a dark wit, vaguely menacing but all the more intriguing for it – like a classic Hollywood villain in sprayed-on black jeans and Chucks.

Grab these mp3s, and then grab the EP, and then grab your best girl or boy and drag them to the nearest Altona gig so you can say you loved ’em before they were heeyorge. (Special super indie rock insider tip: Candy's on August 11th!)

Altona – Mexican Friends
Altona – Alligator
>mySpace

And, just a side note, I hope the glowing adoration evident in this post is enough to convince the boys that I do love them, despite not making it to their gig last Friday. I managed to wipe out both myself and my funds partying at Candy’s on Thursday night. Tic Toc Tokyo were especially impressive at their first gig in Sin City, and as always the Camels rocked out in a thoroughly righteous fashion. It was also a treat to meet the entire SClub face to face – they are absolute dudes and I was given the royal welcome we all know I deserve. If YOU did not make it – you know who you are – I fully expect to see you there next month. I've had a peek at the lineup and we are in for some serious treats. And after all, in the words of another highly respected music-related group of people: there ain't no party like an SClub party.


London, Engerland
As some may know I am the baby of the group. The boys are all excEEEEdingly ancient (ie. the side of twenty I'll be reluctantly stumbling onto in a few weeks). But whilst I enjoy being able to rock out without the assistance of a customised "moshing frame", I sometimes wish I had been born a few years earlier, so that I could have been around for the glory days of good old fashioned Britpop, back when NME actually knew what they were talking about - the smoky, bratty, quirky, loud, shiny haze of rockers who smoked Camels not crack (at least not in front of the journos) and Townshended out guitar riffs sharper than Ian Brown's cheekbones.
Anyway, GUILLEMOTS make me feel a little better about all that. Put on "Trains To Brazil" next time Sydney decides to rain on your roof, and pretend it's 1993 and Richey Edwards is still with us and Oasis's best is yet to come. Bake something, then dance in your underwear with a ciggie dangling from your sticky fingers. And this Streets cover is for after, when your calves are tired from bouncing up and down and you realise you've ashed on the icing...

Guillemots - Trains To Brazil (everybody has this song. Why don't you?)
Guillemots - Never Went To Church (The Streets cover)
>mySpace (you can stream the entire album From The Cliffs here, and get more info on their new record which is out in the UK on Monday)

Labels: Altona, The Camels, Tic Toc Tokyo