They’re hitting the road on their Minor War tour. Check the websites for deets, yo!

http://www.birdsoftokyo.com
http://www.myspace.com/birdsoftokyo

http://www.myspace.com/stevenchildsmusic

The Shake Up – ‘What Are You Worried About’

Cranking the garage rock aesthetic up to eleven, The Shake Up rock hard for a three-piece. It’s raw and brimming with punk energy, but stuffed with infectious choruses. And radio fave, ‘What Are You Worried About’, is a perfect example. Short and fast, a quick burst of energy that hits you and before you know it, it’s over. Joe Strummer would be proud.

It comes from their debut EP, Socio-Political – four tracks of which only one actually gets over 3 minutes in length. Usually we shuffle readers off to a band’s MySpace page, but their website is so nicely constructed that I reckon you should check that out first, before heading over the Murdoch land and listening to the rest of this band’s material.

http://www.theshakeup.com
http://www.myspace.com/theshakeuprock

Cassette Kids – ‘Acrobat’

Trendy kids from Sydney, this foursome play a lot of the Boom Boom Mega Boom  parties. Even before I read the bio I knew producer John Hardy was somehow involved, this features a lot of his distinct drum/guitar sound. Don’t really know much else about them except that I’ll be checking them out next week at the Sparkadia single launch.

www.myspace.com/cassettekids

The Laurels – ‘Turn On Your Mind’ (mp3)

Last week Sydney University held the grand final for their prestigous band comp, a competition which has kick-started the careers of some of Australia’s best known bands like The Whitlams, Frenzal Rhomb and Youth Group. Last year’s winners were cool kids Cloud Control, and this year the honour of champion band has been bestowed upon The Laurels.

Lately there has been a resurgence in psychedlica inspired music (sans the copious amounts of LSD) propogated by Richard In Your Mind, The Morning After Girls, the redsunband and Belles Will Ring. The music of The Laurels definitely harks back to the sounds of Lennon-led Beatles, Velvet Underground when they were bed buddies with Andy Warhol and more recently, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, the Pixies and Sonic Youth.

Ironically enough, I had their drummer Kate on my radio show the night before (along with a member of each band playing in the band comp final, bar The Jezebels) for a session of music trivia to find out who the brainiest band comp band was. Turns out Kate won. An omen, so it seems.

http://www.myspace.com/thelaurels

Devastations – ‘Mistakes’

Melbourne’s lost sons the Devastations have released two albums from their adopted home of Berlin, and built a solid following from their sombre recordings. Their third album promises a new direction for the band, with a silvery lining around their dark cloud. More pop, less mood, so they claim, but you wouldn’t pick it from their single. Mistakes, despite running at a very different pace, evokes the memory of Morphine, complete with the image of haunted men in haunted bars, playing out their demons.

www.myspace.com/devastations

Steven Childs – ‘Red 4 U’ (mp3)

Steven Childs is a man with some hidden talents. He’s better known as the frontman for Brisbane pop/punk outfit Repeat Offender (who we blogged about a little while back) but he also has some rather interesting solo material as well, which I found in a blind stumble through the whacky world of MySpace.

His profile – http://www.myspace.com/stevenchildsmusic – is filled with some home-made demos that definitely show potential if he ever wanted to ditch the distortion and chase the melody. The tunes have a blues and roots feel to them, more akin to acts like John Mayer and Lior, who utilise electric rather than acoustic guitars and drench their songs in vocal harmony. These harmonies Childs does exceptionally well, inflecting the song with a 90s R&B feel – come on, everyones liked at least one Babyface and/or Craig David song in their time!

There’s no word on whether an album or EP or cassingle will be released, so if you like the tunes you’ll have to be content with downloading it to your iPod.

http://www.myspace.com/stevenchildsmusic