Canberra's Best and Worst Bands

> its in the same category as ’space is dead’, i cant really remember if i thought they had a good sound, it was more that they used to play the odd youth centre show, so I knew them and they were nice to us kidlets! wacky.

Wow! A fan!

You’ll be happy to know that we’re doing a re-union show soon (within the next few months). Keep an eye out for details.

oh and P harness’s song I wish I could be as big as Belconnen Mall was a classic – saw these guys support Lucksmiths at UC bar – was a great night..

Strider were good… after they were Inebriator… And Swim?.. or Swell? or something like that.

I believe their final incarnation was called “By All Means” – wearing one of their t-shirts right now.. Matter o-fact those in the know, know that the drummer of By All Means comes from a long line of talented muso’s – with 2 other brothers being drummers, one in 4Dead and the other now a singer in Using 3 Words. Not that I would know.

Three wins hands down. Those guys were freaks. Ben Green and Adrian McKerrel (sic). Utter, utter, utter legends.

P-harness were a bit variable, but I’d still love to get a hold of the album with “terry towelling shorts” on it. Anyone?!?!

Penguin were (are?) damn good. Dahahoo were fan-bloody-tastic, but alas no more. Recipe, retroflex, befuddle… all good fun.

George Washingmachine is still going – he played the southern cross club late last year I think.

Wivestale, Ska Trek, Sons Of Kyuss…

Strider were good… after they were Inebriator… And Swim?.. or Swell? or something like that.

i remember a band called Redmill too. they were good.

…and Hamble.

Paris Calling played some great shows at the Snake Pit at Erindale.

NSA! Thats right, they were good.

Also a rapper im pretty sure.

was a cartoon on the ABC in my youth if I recall

Dare I mention the mighty P-Harness?

NSA I think it was.. no strings attached or something like that.

Bam bam, we must have been at all the same shows. I remember seeing baby shakers at a punk in the park when they were all dressed in nun outfits, i was so impressed.

Nevyn were awesome too, what happened to them? Remember Pall bearers? they were cool. There was some other punk band… called NYA or something… damn cant remember the name…

I was going to hack out on Thumper, but couldn’t remember the name of his band…

so ugly they had to stop playing I heard!!!

Barrel of Monkeys were rubbish and their bassist is ugly ;p

lots have already been mentioned but catepillar 9 were pretty talented..

worst.. well there have been lots of crap bands but that is pretty subjective really.

For worst band… who remembers Saga?!

Barry Drive did plenty of originals – May Contain Traces of Peanuts is the only time I have ever made an album cover credits!

George Washingmachine and the Dead Ringers. What, they’re gone? Oh bugger. Must have been early 80s but what a great name.

Fuck!! Forgot Henry’s Anger too!

And yes, the Ashburys (commonly referred to as the Assberries) are truly god awful.

And a big thumbs up to anyone who thinks Inflatable Ingrid has a great live show… we do try. Our last shows are next month, come and see us rip it up!

i remember seeing a band called barry drive a long time ago at the old green room before it was the green room… that place in philip that was dodgy as… and as you can tell from my inability to remember the venue, my judgment of how good the band was may be sketchy at best…

but i did have a good time!

Smeg.. befuddle..

Three were awesome. Saw some very cool shows at the Asylum.

Henry’s Anger were way cool and they were the first Canberra act nominated for an ARIA. Blacklining and Personality Test were great disks.

Paris Calling way back in the day.

Mudeye were great as well.

There are tons of others.

What about Three? who consisted of a bass player and a drummer – and when they added the guitarist they became Primoose, the Primus cover band. I remember seeing them up at the Asylum a few times.

Liquid was another good one.

Penguin could put a pretty good show on. Awesome guitarist.
Bent Hen.
Dunno if they’re strictly a Canberra band anymore, but the VeeBees are a cack.
The Fuelers.

Retroflex (aka Mule) were great! as were the babyshaker, goons hired goon, smeg, nevyn, headvendormachine, load, ken, kilter, trematode and the list goes on. (i had to stretch my brain for that list… many hazy nights at finnigans/gypsy/termo/asylum/terrace/boardroom)

….ahhh the 90s…..

In no particular order and at the risk of sounding a little long past it.

Armoured Angel of the Luck Green Green era – astonishingly good
Alchemist have stayed great for nearly 20 years,
Barrel of Monkeys
Pod People
Variodrivers
Catweasel
Tonk
The Church
Falling Joys
78 Saab

Who remembers bad bands names.
There are heaps of great gigs that featured local bands but I can’t recall them at the moment.

has anyone checked out the new reggae/dub sounds night at hippo bar yet?
theres another one this thursday – but how was the first one this month?

DMD -agreed..

Yeah..to be quite honest I can’t remember much of recipe’s sound, only the drummer doing a 5 minute solo that actually sounded good. Beer is the best musician ever.

Retroflex were ten times radder and funkier than penguin and recipe combined! Don’t get me wrong, that is quite a lot.

Maybe my memories are a little hazy though…

yeah, was just talking about recipe the other night! its in the same category as ‘space is dead’, i cant really remember if i thought they had a good sound, it was more that they used to play the odd youth centre show, so I knew them and they were nice to us kidlets! wacky.

F-k I forgot about penguin, stray. Who remembers Recipe?

Armoured Angel were good, apparently one of the earliest bands to use the ‘death metal’ sound. I could be wrong though, I’m no metal nerd.

Armoured Angel ? They rocked.

If anyone mentions Soul Crusher and good in teh same sentence ill be dissapointed.

yeah thats the story on dahahoo eh..but apparently they’ll be back.

i liked penguin when they were funk as…
‘sexual confetti’….gold!

theres also that one guy who organises all the old canberra inn, yacht club sundays, some pub out in Bungendore, press club etcs, depends on your style Thumper….

Thumper get in touch with cardboard charlie if you are interested in gigs man: http://www.cardboardcharlie.com/ They organise a fair amount of stuff, mondays at pheonix, thursdays at transit. Im sure there is more…

Yeah Thumper, im not sure which category i fit into… but i definately don’t have the look thats for sure! I think a band needs to have one member who is such a genius that they forget to put on pants in the morning, and wont notice their mistake until around afternoon tea, on a semi daily basis. A couple who are close enought o be able to translate the genius ideas into arranged songs and at least one who is into the business side of things and can get things done. Perhaps they could be the manager.

Im a little disappointed that the canberra band that doing the most at the moment is Young and Restless… I personally don’t rate them that highly…

i remember kaputnik actually i found there ep the otherday in my collection, still sounds great.

I think dahahoo have broken up or gone on long hiatus the had there last gig a little after the folk festival. But yes still very good.

Also Andi and George Band, The Ashburys, The Guests and the henchmen, The Ellis Collective all rate highly in my book. Oh and casual project but are they still a canberra band?

Not really sold on the Variodivers or konrad though.

does anyone remember kaputnik?
best CIT formed band I reckon!
and a shame that little birdy beat them to the punch…

dahahoo are pretty fun, no complaints there – be cool to see what they do next…

ellis collective absolutely…

and there is an absolute plethora of awesome blues at the mo’…jonno from pete and the pelicans comes to mind…(and i totally agree with the backbeat drivers..kings!)

funny thing was, for ages I thought Cog were an ACT band becuase they always seemed to be here! whoops!

Best bands – Dubba Rukki, Pacman, Velvet jones.

So often a musician will have ambition, motivation, a good work ethic, the right look and the right idea, but be lacking seriously in the talent department. That or they have talent, but none of the other things.

I remember Retroflex. They were pretty awesome for dudes their age, and funky as all get-out.

I’ll usually show up for a gig with Pod People or Alchemist or Looking Glass, though Hancock Basement sounds interesting. Do they do electro-funk?

btw I’d say Konrad Lenz is EASILY the worst wannabe aging pseudo-poet-musician this town has ever or will ever possess.

he’s got the right attitude I suppose, but tragically, he doesn’t realise how completely shite he is!

Konrad Lenz the best? Are you serious?

Alchemist, Vorn Doolette (One Night Jam), Dahahoo, Hancock Basement, and some of Canberra’s trance/house DJs are pretty good, some pretty internationally recognised too, e.g. Vance Musgrove and Mikah Freeman.

Best Canberra bands… Barrel of Monkeys, Spoil, Blacklist, Tonk, Inflatable Ingrid, Variodivers.

haven’t really ranked the bands i don’t get into.

The best I’ve seen is Konrad Lenz and The Spirits of the Dead.

Worst I’ve seen is The Ashburys.

But I haven’t seen as much as I should.

“Alchemist for me stands heads and shoulders above everyone else IMHO.”

Oh fuck yeah, completely forgot about Alchemist.

Alchemist for me stands heads and shoulders above everyone else IMHO.

Looking Glass make some of the best recordings I’ve ever heard from a local band, but live, they can be a bit all over the place (when the guitarist/singer shows up, that is).

Dahahoo, Cas P and Los Caps own the party scene, although I’ve gotta say I sometimes get a bit bored of the whole joy, happy, bounce-around thing.

With interesting/weird/f-ked up sh-t, it’s a toss up between Super Best Friends and Inflatable Ingrid. Hip hop – I’ll give the trophy to Omar Bin Musa, but only because I haven’t heard much of the local hip-hop scene. Big Dave MC is also interesting.

Worst bands – ummm, where do I start? I tend not to remember names if they were noticeably awful. Some of the pop-punk-emo bands in this town are tight, but that’s just polishing a turd. Cool Weapon has a good bass-player, but the singer couldn’t rap his way out of a bag.

TONK is definately my fave Canbera band.

The Andi & George Band are great too.

suspect mushrooms…and…way hip antelopes

they both really sucked

Fluges said :

Um, when I think about it, what does rhyme with “orange”?

haha, nothing rhymes with orange. Purple is another one … I think.

Don’t get out enough to suggest any other bands, sorry folks.

Hrm.. the worst bands part could cause some contention… best bands I’ve ever seen strut a Canberra stage would be Dahahoo, Australian Kingswood Factory, The Ellis Collective, mightyfew, 4 Dead, Hard Luck, Brisk, Penguin, Super Best Friends, The Henchmen…

Worst bands… can’t say I see much point in pointing out bad local bands though… however Zero Degrees & Falling are really really bad… along with all these whiny teenage metalcore acts that all the kids love so much nowadays. It’s cool to hate.

Young & Restless gets my vote. They are a Canberra band and won the 2006 Triple-J unearthed compeitition. They are very much hardcore rock with an amazing amount of energy. The lead singer is a petite sexy asian chick who screams her lungs out and even crowd surfs while she’s singing.
They played at Trackside and while their music wasn’t my style, their live performance was very impressive.

Anyone remember the band retroflex? They kicked the arse.

Backbeat Drivers for those with a taste for the blues.

Best Aussie Folk band in Canberra – The Ellis Collective – Hardcore band 4Dead – a sweet weird funk/metal outfit from the mid 90’s were called aforafro (A for Afro) and another band called salio ku6io (kusixeo)

Bring back the gyp(sy) bar – that place rocked.

Worst band ever was my band – we never got out of my mates garage and he had to learn drums to be our drummer and he was still fairly ordinary. Bass player brought a bass to be in teh band, but he could not play it either.

We were called Pez and had one song we called sh*t

Was my idea because I always had a dream of getting on stage and saying Hi we’re pez and this song is sh*t

I kid you not… I was 16 at the time

Worst. Band. Ever.

Um, when I think about it, what does rhyme with “orange”?

Saw a band years ago called “Rhymes with Orange”. Changed their name to “The Hit Mechanics”, and now they’re back to their original name from what I’ve heard on radio.

Great covers band. We haven’t seen them for a while, but they sounded great. Oh, and I’ve been asked to say they look great too (that’s the wife’s input).