NEW FROM OFF THE HIP RECORDS

good morning, or is it afternoon?? these last few days have been a bit hazy.

LOS CHICOS blazed thru town last week leaving bottles and bodies in
their wake, and will boogie festival ever be the same again after that
los chicos set?!?! cough, splutter, then i got the lurgie that was
past to me by those swingin' nutsacks.....hey did you see them live at
the old bar last friday?? "glorious trainwreck" is how i've heard it
described. but from where i was sitting it looked like a hell of a
good time....then i flew to sydney with the kids to celebrate my mum's
retirement party; maggie taught steve and chris and i the value of
work commitment!! thanks mumbles.....

just out on the off the hip record label we deliver:
CRYSTAL THOMAS AND THE FLOWERS OF EVIL "A CHANCE IN HELL" CD ALBUM
THE NO REAL NEED "NONLOCAL MOTIVES" CD ALBUM

plus in the record store has arrived a bunch of solid local & import vinyl:
CHOOK RACE, GAYTIME, UNITY FLOOR, SAINT JUDE, MONSTERS, MOONSTONES,
BRAT FARRAR, KING SALAMI UK (CD coming on off the hip in june, touring
august), GAYE BLADES, ESQUERITA, DEAD MOON, more.....

gigs for april:
tonight at the tote: MESA COSA and THE KREMLINGS (2 local bands i'm
keen on having a release on off the hip)

Friday 13th April - The Nearly Brothers@ Caravan music club w/ Crystal
Thomas & Ben Bunting (duo)

SATURDAY 14th APRIL - CARRIE PHILLIS AND THE DOWNTOWN 3 @ Wollongong
Diggers Club

SUN 15th April - The Dunhill Blues @ Botany View Hotel Newtown w/
Smitty and B Goode

Sunday 15th April Goddess @ The Lyrebird Lounge Ripponlea w/ Rosie
Hayden, Sideshow Brides & Noir

FRI 20th April - The Dunhill Blues @ Rics Bar Brisbane w/ Steve Smyth

SAT 21st April - The Dunhill Blues @ Southern Cross University Bar
Lismore w/ HITS

Saturday 21st April Crystal Thomas & full band ALBUM LAUNCH 'A Chance
In Hell' @ St Kilda Bowling Club w/ Harry Howard & the NDE & Penny
Ikinger & the Evolution

Sat 21 April - Thee Wylde Oscars (2 sets)! @ Great Britain Hotel

SAT 21ST APRIL- LITTLE MURDERS @ TOWN HALL HOTEL, NORTH MELBOURNE

Saturday 21st April - La Bastard @ the Retreat, w/Mesa Cosa - FREE ENTRY

SUN 22nd April - The Dunhill Blues @ Freemason Hotel Nimbin with The Antibodies

see a band, buy a record, support your community radio station, write
a fanzine, start a band, put on a show in your backyard, PARTICIPATE!!

thanks for all your continued support,
mickster

The No Real Need - Nonlocal Motives CD - OTH 7111

The No Real Need can be traced back to when a teenage Steve Hewitt first blasted Guided By Voices' 'Teenage FBI' from the downstairs bedroom of his parents house one morning in 2000. His younger brother Mark was appalled at what he heard. First it had been The Beatles, then R.E.M., and now this—another flimsy second-tier guitar-pop band whose frivolous melodies would follow him around day and night, burrowing into his consciousness permanently like bad television, polluting his puritanical version of Modern Rock—a military state in which Fugazi ruled with an iron fist and the only pop to be heard was the slip of a spinal disc in an all-male mosh pit where no-one was allowed to do the twist. But he couldn't shut out the fun forever. A decade later young Mark found himself—one part D.C. and nine parts Ringwood—in the woods in Ohio where the Pabst flowed like water, belting the drums in the name of his older brother's studio debut. When Leon Cranswick and other brother Adam Hewitt joined a little later, Steve's lo-fi bedroom recording project became a full band.

Nonlocal Motives is The No Real Need's second album, and is the first document of the band as a four-piece. Recorded by Robert Pollard's right-hand man Todd Tobias at Waterloo Sound in the USA, and by Brent Punshon at Melbourne's Head Gap, it has more of a live feel than 2009's Thistles Where We Slept; yet the addition of new voices has only broadened the canvas for Steve's idiosyncratic pop, which reaches a little further out into space this time. The songs project richly imagined, echo-laden nth dimensions, littered with metaphysical musings and Jungian freak-outs. There are more layers, more echo-tinged tangents than before, all coated in a sticky shared DNA damaged as much by grunge as by tape delay. But the essential sound of Steve's operation remains: an odd blend of stiff-armed Colin Newman-style experimentalism and buttery, harmonised pop. Probably closer to the latter, much to the drummer's chagrin. Cassette version available in April on Do Your Block.

CRYSTAL THOMAS AND THE FLOWERS OF EVIL CD - OTH 7110

"An heiress to a tradition of dramatic, confessional music that explores the dark side of life and love. She is backed by what really is an all-star Melbourne band. Her voice is smoky and sensual, wrapping itself around her lyrics. Her stage presence is arresting as her voice" - Tom Hawking, Editor Inpress

Through unhinged guitar lines and intense brooding vocals, Crystal Thomas is set to release 'A Chance In Hell' - Crystal's sophomore album, due out on 2nd April 2012, through iconic Melbourne label Off The Hip. The album; written, recorded, and co-produced with Spencer P Jones and Matt Walker, captures Crystal's 'Australian-gothic', confessional lyrics over a dark disco pulse and rock n roll swagger, raw against the lush production of the previous offering – 2008 Stovepipe records release: 'Crystal Thomas & the Flowers of Evil'.