After a long Saturday working on the venue, wandered over to Stalk & Kim’s to chill out over a few beers. Played a few songs on their house guitar & got into some long conversations about stuff I can’t quite remember this morning. Left feeling almost human again. Love hanging with the guys who reminded me this was the third Saturday in a row I’d dropped in & played for em. Kinda like a weekly gig. Always a bunch of friends gathered there – the unofficial Yak Bar (the bar Stalk used to own in Abbotsford where we first met). Thanks for another great night guys.

Pic from Stalk’s Facebook last night.

Fires out.

Another weekend about to start. Building crew arriving at 7am tomorrow morning. We’re all in working on the new venue. Max has already started – running the sander across door frames. We’re getting there. Some point over the next few days, we’ll put a time-frame & plan together for official opening. Venue name still alluding us…

Max & sander in the new venue.

Have a great weekend.
Fires out.

Some ‘never-before-seen’ video of a show we played in Kiev, Ukraine 2009. Our friend Dave, the guy announcing at the start, sent us this footage shortly after the tour. I filed it away & only re-discovered it yesterday. It’s rough & raw but the energy’s there. The show was at Club Bochka in the heart of Kiev, one of our favourite places to play in Ukraine. Sadly, I’m told the club is no longer there. The first time we played Bochka in 07 the crowd-reaction changed the band forever, a packed mass of crowd-surfing, wild-body-slamming humanity. We miss Ukraine. It’d be great to tour there again someday…

Fires out.

Here’s an excerpt from an article published by ToneDeaf.com.au on Monday reporting the Barley Corn’s demise. It’s been quiet over there, the doors barely open this year (just across the road from us on Johnston St, Collingwood). Not sure what happened but apparently we’ve lost another live venue –

So it goes, it is now Melbourne’s turn to face the music, or lack thereof, as the historic Collingwood Venue ‘The Barley Corn Hotel’ of Johnston St hangs its head as its doors close for a final time. Having operated for some 140 years, the Hotel is remembered by many as a “we played our first gig there” type venue, and its closure stings as a sentimental loss to Melbourne’s live music scene.

Despite earlier laid-out plans to cosmetically make-over the Collingwood venue, The Music reports The Barley Corn Hotel will be transformed into accommodation as the owners decided it was a more ‘sustainable financial option’.

In addition to this, co-owner Jesse Pascoe told Fairfax “due to a combination of problems with council … it was too hard to fight an uphill battle. I can’t put into words the love and plans we had for the place and it was all crushed.”  Read more here.

Fires out.

Max in full flight at Zebra Festival China 2011.

See a short documentary about that 2011 China tour here. Visit our YouTube Channel for live festival footage from around the world.

Fires out.

We toured Ukraine 3 years running from 07 to 09 with local punk legend Sasha Pipa. Had no idea how famous he was until we stepped on stage at a club in Kiev to open for his band Borshch.  Sasha rose to prominence in the 90’s for his part in seminal Ukraine punk band Vopli Vidopliassova who were dangerously anti-establishment & anti-soviet union. Band members regularly received death-threats and harassment for their courageous irreverence against authoritarian censorship and government. We were honoured to be touring with such brave people. Here’s a video from Vopli Vidopliassova – one of many that got them into trouble.

Fires out.

Channel 10’s Bondi Rescue will use our track ‘Skeleton’ this coming season. Skeleton was released on the Betrayer album (2010) – listen here (track 13).

Bondi Rescue, Channel 10 Melbourne.

Have a great weekend.
Fires out.

Apparently this episode of popular kid’s TV show Rainbow was banned. Can’t understand why…

Thanks to Craigie for sending us the link (from LiveLeak.com).

Fires out.

Atlanta drummer Kent Aberle sent us this link to The Futura Bold’s latest release. His buddy, the band’s front-man Bruce Butkovich, called us into an Atlanta studio to sing backing vocals on this release – for the song ‘Shallow Water’. We laid down said vocal tracks during a US tour in 2011. Check this out – it’s really impressive stuff. I love it. You can hear the songs on their Facebook page or at Bandcamp. My favourite song – ‘Christine’.

Fires out.

One from the vault – Zebra Festival, Chengdu China 2011. Coming Home.

Fires out.