#Radio Birdman

[undergroundrockpress]

Radio Birdman, Live at the Funhouse (Sydney), 1976.

[weirdlookindog]

Radio Birdman - Crying Sun

[rastronomicals]

4:36 AM EDT September 16, 2024:

Radio Birdman - "Time To Fall" From the album Essential Radio Birdman 1974-78 (July 17, 2001)

Last song scrobbled from iTunes at Last.fm

You can have your Saints. Radio Birdman were the best Southern Hemisphere band of the '70's.

[jareckiworld]

Tim Johnson — Radio Birdman, Funhouse (synthetic polymer paint on linen, 1978)

[bandcampsnoop]

8/24/24.

The Saints. I've heard about their place in music history. The Australian punk gods who are one of the most revered bands of all-time down under.

Sometimes, the problem is the entry point. Especially with music. If you enter a bands discography at the wrong spot, it can leave you with the wrong impression. My entry point for The Saints was "All Fools Day" - a fine album and absolutely a product of its time.

About four years ago I listened to "Eternally Yours", and my mind changed completely. But the LPs are so expensive. I guess that's not going to change with the news of In The Red's 4 LP reissue of "I'm Stranded". There promises to be a lot to chew through including a remastered version of the classic from 1977. This is the album that helped signal the arrival of punk - along with Sex Pistols, The Ramones, Radio Birdman, and The Damned.

A couple of months ago, I posted about Iggy and The Stooges "Raw Power". I continue to be amazed at how many bands must have been influenced by the buzz saw approach of that release. I'll go with an band I love that is maybe a bit lesser known - Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments.

By the way, this is an AMAZING live album. The Saints were in Brisbane...and this comes from 2007!! You can find copies on Discogs here. And here's the full album version of "I'm Stranded".

[dustedmagazine]

CIVIC — New Vietnam & Singles (ATO)

Where to start with CIVIC? The Melbourne fivesome made its inroads outside Australia early in 2023 with a second album, Taken by Force. Produced by Rob Younger of Radio Birdman and, not coincidentally, brought out the band’s hard proto-punk surf sound in a clean, clear way. Yet if you want to really understand the primitive force of this hard-knocking, straight-up rock ‘n roll band, maybe you go back to the beginning, round about 2018, when, fresh out of the woodshed, they produced New Vietnam, their earliest EP, and a string of singles.

This reissue from ATO is the first look for most of us at CIVIC’s undiluted Aussie punk fury. Rough throated Jim McCullough is a dead ringer for the Saints’ Chris Bailey in battering proto-punk assaults like “New Vietnam” and doomed romantic epics like “Street Machine Dream.” That original line-up had only one guitarist, but Lewis Hodgson takes up space for two or three, ratcheting up tension with tight, fast, disciplined strumming, then blowing it up with unhinged solos. Gutty bass cadences anchor the chaos—that’s Roland Hvlaka holding down the maelstrom in “Call the Doctor” and the drums bang hard, without frills, brutal but never boring.

This reissue splits right down the middle, the first seven tracks from the debut EP, the backside an assortment of roughly contemporary material, including four from the later-in-2018 EP Those Who Know, two from the Selling, Sucking, Blackmail, Bribes single and one live version of “New Vietnam” recorded for PBS in 2018. Thirteen of the tracks are originals; the lone cover is a faithful but wall-shaking take of Brian Eno’s “Needle in the Camel’s Eye.”

This earlier material is both heavy and fast. You don’t think of sludge going this hard, but here on cuts like “Nuclear Son” and, especially, “New Vietnam,” the band pursues punk speed through a hard rock murk, held together by relentless drumming and sheer force of will. These couple of tracks are, perhaps, the most Stooge-like of the bunch, but a Motor City diesel haze hangs over the whole endeavor.

Birdman is another clear influence, especially on “Satellites,” with its clear, flaring guitars and arena-sized, not-quite-sung rhythmic chants. “What a time to be alive,” indeed. And the palm-muted, wrecked lyricism of “Street Machine Dream” taps directly into the Saints at their most epic, “This Perfect Day,” for one.  

You can hear this band taking shape even within the limited time frame that this disc covers. “Flick the Station,” recorded about six months after “New Vietnam” operates on a larger scale than the debut EP, with gigantic power chords and serrated anthemic hooks. “Heat” wallops just as hard but with more melody than the earlier material. Signs of softness? Hardly. “Selling, Sucking, Blackmail, Bribes” howls and crashes and makes no compromises. And the live version of “New Vietnam,” again six months out from the debut, goes right up to off-the-rails but pulls it off, blur speed and unhinged.

No question that CIVIC’s latest album Taken by Force is cleaner and clearer, with a stronger dose of surf rock thrown into a volatile punk-and-hard-rock mix. But these early songs are rough-crusted gems, the fire glinting out of corrosive settings.

Jennifer Kelly

[amp-mod]

I-94 by Radio Birdman

[julio-viernes]

New Race, otra notable banda post MC5 en la que participó Dennis Thompson. Básicamente se componía en esta ocasión de miembros de Radio Birdman (Deniz Tek, Rob Younger, Warwick Gilbert), Ron Asheton y el propio Thompson. Sólo sacaron un gran LP en directo "The First and The Last" en 1982, grabado en Australia en abril y mayo de 1981 en el Selina, Sgt. Peppers, Manly Vale Hotel y Crystal Ballroom. El nombre del grupo salió de una canción de los Birdman.

[vinyl-connection]

FLIGHT OF THE BIRDMAN

When thinking of pivotal Australian punk bands, two shine brightly enough to burn your eye. Having some affinity with the vibrant UK scene, The Saints are perhaps better known internationally. Yet in terms of sheer power and energy Radio Birdman are certainly their equal.  Formed in Sydney by Rob Younger and US born Deniz Tek, Radio Birdman were dedicated and completely uncompromising. Their…

[punkrockmixtapes]

radio birdman - more fun

[rastronomicals]

1:00 PM EDT September 19, 2024:

Radio Birdman - "Man With Golden Helmet" From the album Radios Appear (Overseas Version)

Last song scrobbled from iTunes at Last.fm

[toffeethief]

[dixiefunk]

Radio Birdman - "The Untold Story of Radio Birdman: Descent Into The Malestrom"

オーストラリアの伝説のガレージ・ロック・バンド、レディオ・バードマンの活動の軌跡を描いた貴重なドキュメンタリー映画『レディオ・バードマン/ディセント・イントゥ・メールストロム』

バンド内の亀裂をそのまま反映した生々しさが見どころ！

「おしゃれ人間お断り」

ロックの本質がここにある！