The world adores matt hayward

If you’re like me you don’t like snow domes and kitschy spoons as souveneirs. You’d rather bring back something genuinely local from that place, like a CD, even if it’s never listened to. So what a surprise when it turns out to be pretty listenable.

Hladno Pivo is Croatian for ‘cold beer‘. Like a lot of punkers, they’ve come from rock bottom (paricularly in the post war years) to doing pretty well for themselves. This 2006 CD ‘Knjiga Zalbe’ looks like no expense was spared in its packaging or production. So resting on their laurels a bit, this is not hard core skater punk, it’s a lot more polished than that.

What Hladno Pivo are all about now is a more pop-punk tinged with blue collar acoustic ballads. Imagine Jimmy Barnes as a Croatian drunk and not a Scottish drunk. There’s a lot of pop punk riffage, and even the odd death metal departure. Bioloski sat even has some electric blues harp. Fortunately, it’s all cohesive and all sounds pretty good. If these guys weren’t so good, it would sound a lot worse. Although you can imagine a bunch of dissapointed Croat punkers longing for the old straight up punk stuff.

And no I can’t understand a single word of Croatian. But this is still bloody enjoyable! And let’s face it you can’t get more punk rock than calling your band cold beer.

On a completely separate note, the CD packaging itself mocks a Soviet complaint book. These are a communist artifact still mandatory in pubs and clubs in Croatia. Basically the owner of the place has his complaint book reviewed by the government at the end of the year and pays a fine according to the condition of his book. So despite looking very posh, this cover is the ultimate in punk rock, as each page is a complaint about a member of the band!

To be truly honest, this is almost the solo album that I didn’t buy. There was lots of talk of orchestral arrangements and the dreaded ‘conceptual’ album. It didn’t work for Kiss (Music from the Elder), the Ramones (End of the Century) and I didn’t want to see Timmy go down a similar path. Before you get delusions of Phil Spector moments , like getting Timmy being made to play the intro chord 500 times, don’t stop reading just yet. Well Timmy’s solo efforts take a while to grow on you. But thankfully I am here to say, The Luxury of Hysteria is an absolute corker.

Gone are the melancholy moments of Ghost Songs (an album to shoot yourself to) and the guitar sleaze of Dirty Ron and Spit Polish. The Temperance Union are still there but used sparingly. At the forefront are some brilliant orchestral arrangements. They add so much more texture and dynamism to a very familiar and rocking Rogers vibe.

I’d almost go out on a limb and say that the orchestral arrangements are far from classical, far from contemporary. They almost remind me of Brian Wilson from the Beach Boys went he started adding orchestras - yes to me at least this album is that good (I’m not a huge Beach Boys fan so please spare me the emails).

Most tracks feature Rogers’ trademark half flamenco, half steel string sounding guitar work. Definite highlights would be When Yer Sad and James the Second. But there’s no dead weight on this album. No flabby bits whatsoever.

5 out of 5 Mr Rogers. Perfect songwriting, perfect tunes. A truly stellar album. Just don’t scare us with a concept album ever again. Fingers crossed the next You Am I album is this good.

Rune Rebellion, the rhythm guitar backbone hero of Turbonegro, has amicably left the band to concentrate on the business side of the band (he’s involved in the record label side). He will not be replaced and Pal Pot will be the lead guitarist now.

It does make me wonder what sort of band Turbonegro will be now, and whether there will still be that monster wall of guitars they produce. While not well recognised, Rune’s downpicking style breakneck pace defined death punk and is not easily imitated. Hopefully, the band will maintain the fury as a five piece without him.

All the best Mr Rebellion. The band will go on but we’ll miss you.

Source  turbojugendusa.com

FINALLY! A dream come true! Ever since i’ve caught onto Nardwuar the Human Serviette, i’ve wanted to hear him interview Turbonegro. And just this week he has. Hank Von Helvete was interviewed on the road in Canadia.

Sadly, Nardwuar didn’t sound as well researched as he normally is. He only played tracks off of the latest album (Retox) and really only asked questions about the lyrics. Especially given even the most garagey of bands he usually has encyclopedic knowledge of. Ba Boom!

But Hank was in top form as always! Claiming he is Danish Royalty and is forbidden from public rest rooms, and hence has a weekly enema clinic visit! He also answered questions about his exercise routine from the Party Animals DVD, stressing the importance of ‘working out your neck muscles, so you can give head at your local gym’.

Having said all that i’ve probably spoilt it. Disappointing that maybe Turbonegro aren’t so big in Canada. But that’s never stopped Nardwuar before. This interview is a must for any Turbonegro fan. Although this Metal Hammer interview with Hank and Happy Tom is waaay better.

Turbonegro interview by Nardwuar

Man rock this! Just crank your speakers, watch this video and friggin’ break something. Originally this was a Tom Waits song (I Don’t Wanna Grow Old). So the story goes, when CJ Ramone replaced Dee Dee on bass, he suggested doing this song to revitalise the band. I think CJ was bang on the money. Although I need a hardened Ramones fan to tell me if that’s CJ on the bass in this vid. Because i’ve only ever seen him with short hair.

 

This week’s wacky moment is from a classic 1988 movie, The Decline of Western Civiliation part II: The Metal Years. Classic because it’s the most amazing expose of hair metal and all its tragedies - or tragics! And Chris Holmes of W.A.S.P. is the keynote speaker. if you’ve ever Googled ‘drunken fuckwit’, no doubt this guy would come straight up. Watch as he lives up the rock star life, with his mum (and presumably only friend) in tow after god knows how many bottles of Smirnoff. God metal was cool. I wish they would put this movie out on DVD in region 4.

 I used to love this movie as a 15 year old git. Watch this clip and you’ll probably understand why.

Heh, another week another wacky moment from Youtube. This week, still sticking with The Ramones, I found an episode of the Drew Carey show (circa 1998??) where Drew and the boys were starting a band. As part of the episode, they had cameos from all the cool guitarists of the day. Namely, Lisa Loeb, Rick Neilsen (Cheap Trick?), Slash, Matthew Sweet, Dave Mustaine (Megadeth) and especially Joey Ramone.

This one is funny, because Joey as far as I know can’t play guitar, and he especially can’t trash them either! But watch the 3 Drew Carey characters try not to piss themselves laughing when they get to the line "sorry, but we’ve already got a tall, skinnny guy!" (Joey was about 6′ 7"). Then as Joey storms away in disgust, the guitar chord gets caught on his boot, dragging the guitar along, making him look even more like a doofus. Champagne comedy.

Also available

• Slash auditions for Drew Carey
• Dave Mustaine auditions for Drew Carey

 

If you’re Australian you will know of the inimitable music guru Molly Meldrum. If you’ve ever drawn breath, you will know of equally inimitable Joey and Johnny Ramone from The Ramones. This has to be the biggest culture clash of the century. This one probably isn’t for those of you who like vivid colourful movement or lively conversation. In fact I don’t think i’ve ever seen anyone so sedintary as Johnny. But as always The Ramones rocked, and Molly, well he just keeps being Molly. This is worth watching just to see Johnny Ramone say ‘Briz-bayne’ and ‘Mell-bouuuurrrne’. Bloody priceless.

Everything i’ve read about this album says that it’s self distributed. So you can only assume it’s exactly what the band wanted to do. After all they didn’t have a label to answer to. Turns out Rune Rebellion is quite the business man.

There’s 3 absolute killer tracks: ‘Do you, Do you Dig Destruction?’, ‘We’re Going to Drop the Atom Bomb’ and ‘What is Rock?’. The first of which I still can’t stop listening to. The later is a 7 minute flawless history of rock, with inspirations from Ozzy Osborne’s Mr Crowley to Chuck Berry to Guns N Roses. It’s probably the only track that’s got the trademark old school Turbonegro humour right through it. And it’s bloody funny! The remaining tracks are tongue in cheek, mid 80s glam rock. We’re talking LA Guns, Faster Pussycat glam almost, it really is different.

According to the Wiki, Turbonegro are good at reusing riffs, which is kind of a good thing. Because the boys always do it justice and it’s interesting finding out what they’ve borrowed from! On this album, they’ve straight up taken a riff from ‘Danny Says’ from a Ramones album on ‘I Wanna Come’. ‘Boys From Nowhere’ also screams of some 80s song but it may well be original. Those few remaining tracks probably won’t ever make in their live set, but they’re really growing on me.

No doubt this album is going to dissapoint a lot of fans. At first it really did me. But there’s something to be said for a band that keeps challenging and changing each album, not doing the same 12 tracks every two years. And good albums do take a while to grow on you. Although lets face it, no one else is doing what Turbonegro are doing and sadly probably never will. And even at their worst, their 10 times better than any emo screamo band! Death punk forever.

3.5 out of 5 stars.

Well fuck me if the Convulsions just aren’t getting tighter and tighter. You’d need a micrometer just to measure the tightness between these guys now. They’re so tight musically you could throw a keg load of beer on stage and never see amber liquid hit the ground. OK, dodgey metaphors aside, the guys kicked Melbourne arse and took names tonight. I started watching the riff-tastic band on after them, but meh, i’d had my fill on the Convulsions.

Newest addition to the fray, Juzzie the drummer is fighting in really well. He makes me wonder how the band ever got by without him, blasting away on the double kick pedal. One thing’s for certain though, tonight I felt like I saw Johnny and Dee Dee Ramone incarnate. Not three dudes from Geelong. It was just one big blur of down picking wrists, tight guitar and trembling bass to the shriek of Wayne screaming his guts out, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. There’s a bit of Aussie underground rock in there too (especially the Lobby Loyde cover), plus a healthy dose of The Melvins bunged in for good measure too.

This was their second gig at the Espy, though the first in the new public bar. I dare say it wont be their last. I don’t wanna jinx the boys, but they’re getting to a level of professionalism that deserves a devout following, and hopefully more Melbourne (and interstate) gigs. All the best for the Adelaide gigs boys.